If Rainbow Dash can't sleep...

by Estee

Rating: everyone
Tags: Twilight Sparkle, Main 6, Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Spike, Rainbow Dash, Comedy
Length: 5218

...ain't nopony gonna sleep. Not while she's trying to manage the usually-automatic feat while within her first-ever bout of insomnia... and given that it's Rainbow trying to work this out, probably not even after.

...ain't nopony gonna sleep. Not while she's trying to manage the usually-automatic feat while within her first-ever bout of insomnia...

...and given that it's Rainbow trying to work this out, probably not even after.

(Part of the Triptych Continuum, which has its own TVTropes page and FIMFiction group. New members and trope edits welcome.)

Now with author Patreon, SubscribeStar, and Ko-Fi pages.

Published 2014-04-02 21:00:04 UTC
Last updated 2014-04-02 21:00:04 UTC

And that means nopony

10:32 p.m. Canterlot Standard Time

Rainbow wondered if her pillow had betrayed her.

It was her favorite pillow, and that was no small status when considered against the roughly four hundred she owned, most of which were non-secretly and poorly hidden around Ponyville in case of Nap Emergency. As such, it was the one with the place of honor: up against the headrest, centered nicely on the mattress. It was not only fluffed, it was made from fluff. It was, courtesy of an advanced pegasus technique she couldn't quite manage yet, self-fluffing. It was soft and comfortable and exactly as cool as she needed it to be, in more ways than just the temperature -- and for that aspect, it never heated up to the point where she needed to flip it over, because who wanted to wake up in the middle of the night for that kind of pointless adjustment? Nopony of sanity, that was for sure. Night was for sleep, along with late mornings, mid-afternoons, a fifteen-minute nap during break time for a strenuous shift and if that ran over fifteen minutes, she could always make it up later --

-- the point was that Rainbow knew a lot about sleep, to a degree where some of the crueler (and more accurate) ponies in her first flight camp had proposed she was working on getting a mark for it. She could pull off the feat just about anywhere (with the exception of a -- floor), in nearly all conditions, and driving hailstorms created over her junior bunk needed to get the ice up to at least chestnut size before she would do more than shift a little. She settled in, she arranged her body against whatever support was offered, let her head hit the pillow, and sleep occurred. There was nothing simpler.

Except that... it wasn't working. And it clearly couldn't have been Rainbow's fault in any way, because she knew sleep inside and out. If there was anything Rainbow could do outside the realms of purely incidental or completely deliberate awesomeness, it was sleep. So therefore, it had to be something about her pillow, especially since the blankets were so obviously blameless. And after thirty-two minutes of wriggling against the thing, trying to find just the right micro-adjustment to her usual position which would make things happen as they always did and somehow hadn't, she had decided on betrayal as the primary cause.

Then again, she was probably being unfair. It was just a pillow, and so it really wasn't in a position (was its own position off?) to betray anypony. It was probably just tired. After all, it did the same job over and over and sleepovers plus the longer missions excepted, never really got any vacation time. Rainbow could certainly understand the need for a night off. Except that it hadn't given her any warning, she hadn't had any time to schedule interviews which would let her pick a temporary replacement, much less design the no-hooves-barred Sleep Competition which would decide the ultimate winner, who would never take over the place of honor from her favorite pillow on a permanent basis because the poor thing just needed a little time off and as soon as it had gotten some proper rest, it would be welcomed back with fanfare and tears and a distinctive thump of prismatic mane hitting vapor.

All of those thoughts made perfect sense to Rainbow after thirty-two minutes of trying to sleep instead of the previously-automatic achievement of it. And they had equally logical company.

So I can't really do anything about sorting out the first round right now, forget about flying around picking up all the applicants and having them fill out the contest admission forms. So maybe... it's... because I'm...

Which would normally be coming a little too close to self-blame to get through at all, but... tired.

...in a bad position! Sure, I always sleep in this same one when I'm in my bed because it works for me. And you know what? That's boring! The same position every night! How is that me, always doing the same thing the same way? My body's fed up with me! It just wants something new!

This made even more perfect sense than the earlier theory. Rainbow was proud of herself, and with so many more good reasons than usual.

New positions...

10:47 p.m.

Belly and barrel flat against the mattress: nothing.

Face deep in the pillow, back legs partially up, hindquarters in the air: less than helpful.

On her right side: ineffective and possibly the stupidest thing she'd ever tried, because the wing wasn't used to it and immediately protested. A lot. So naturally, she followed it up by seeing if the left felt the same way about things. Conclusive evidence was eventually drawn up and filed in a cabinet designed to be opened every night so she could check the notes as a reminder to never do it again.

A position she'd only seen once because an exhausted Lyra, who had only participated in the Running on a dare, had collapsed fifteen seconds after crossing the finish line into a snoozing heap no other pony had ever tried out before -- well, Rainbow finally gave her company. And for the three seconds she was able to hold it before her hind legs spasmed, her spine attempted to collapse on itself, her neck developed a series of traveling twitches, and her compressed tail made a very sincere attempt to whip her in the face, it was perfectly comfortable.

New positions: no.

There were foods which were supposed to make you sleepy, right? Rainbow knew a few of their names, although she'd never taken any of those stories seriously because she'd had lots of those items plenty of times, whenever she felt like it, and all that ever happened was that her nap took place perfectly on schedule. Still, she was willing to experiment -- except that her kitchen was as near-empty as it almost always was and at this hour, all the food shops below in Ponyville were very unfairly closed. There were still places open which could render one unconscious in a hurry, but payday was tomorrow and getting a certain somepony to treat that as 'It's after midnight now, isn't it?' didn't have much of a chance. And if she went for the route of getting somepony to buy her a drink... well, based on previous experience, it was going to take more than one. A lot more. And trying to reach any pillow before it all kicked in wasn't the best idea.

Rainbow considered her options.

One immediately rushed to the front of the pack.

11:05 p.m.

It was funny, really. No matter how much Twilight groomed her mane, no matter how carefully the field-surrounded brush worked through the bangs, there was something about sleep which rendered the librarian's chosen style into a total mess, and Rainbow snickered as she rapped on the porch door glass a second time.

The unicorn yawned, flumphed over onto her other side.

"Twilight! Pssssst!" Of course, in order to get through the intervening barrier and distance, she'd made the 'Pssssst!' into a full-scale shout. "Come on, Twilight! Wake up! I need to talk to you!"

"...don' wanna get up, Mommy..."

"Twilight! This is an emergency!" Rainbow tried to think of things which even a sleeping Twilight would instinctively respond to. "Torn-up checklists! Ignored late fees! Books misshelved on purpose!"

"...I don't even have school today..."

"The Princess said it's all your fault!"

Sheets exploded. Pillows vaporized. The bed itself went into the air and stayed there, which meant a frantic Twilight, trying to reach full gallop from a sleeping start, ran off it and found no immediate floor waiting to receive her. She still made a fantastic show of sprinting on atmosphere for the two body lengths she got in before the drop.

All things considered, Rainbow was also impressed by the speed with which Twilight picked herself off the loft's floor and raced to the porch doors, not to mention managing to fling them open with her field while still maintaining her hold on the hovering bed.

"...what? What happened?" Twilight gasped. Her pupils were dilated. Breaths were coming in short, frantic heaves. Her tail seemed to be making a point of twisting by the individual strand. "I... I didn't even... Rainbow, what...?"

Rainbow grinned at her. "And look at that: you're awake! I'll remember that one in case we ever need it again. Relax, Twilight: I just needed to get you up and nothing else was doing it! There's no crisis! -- well, there's sort of a crisis, but it doesn't have anything to do with the Princess, nopony's mad at you or blaming you for anything, I just said that because it was the only way to get your attention..."

Twilight blinked. The bed took it as a cue and crashed to the floor -- along with Spike's basket, which Rainbow had previously missed behind the obscuring side hang of bedsheets. And naturally, the basket included Spike.

There was a shout of surprise, followed by an instinctive burst of flame. More things vaporized, but they were probably replaceable.

The librarian slowly focused on Rainbow.

"I'm going to kill you." As plain statements of fact went, it would have seemed rather definitive to any other pony.

"Come on, Twilight!" Rainbow maintained the grin. "It was the only thing that worked! You're up, that's what matters! And -- I've kind of -- got a problem. I need your help, Twilight, you know I wouldn't have woken you up if this wasn't just about the most important thing ever!"

Several slow breaths made Twilight's narrow rib cage expand, contract. A foreleg came up and, with deliberate slowness, flung imaginary issues to the side. Most of them stuck to the hoof.

"Okay," Twilight said. "A problem. Which has to be really important or you wouldn't be here at whatever this hour is and saying -- that -- to get me up. But a problem which isn't a crisis for anypony other than you."

"Yeah."

Twilight sighed. "Tell me what it is and I'll see what I can do."

Rainbow was proud of her friend. And now that they'd gotten to the important part, she knew the solution would take mere seconds. "I can't sleep."

"You."

Maybe Twilight wasn't completely awake yet. "Yeah, I said that."

"Can't sleep."

"Right... that too..."

The librarian visibly considered the fundamental overturn of every known law of their universe.

"So basically, you're saying Discord's back."

"No! I just can't sleep, Twilight! That's never happened before! I tried stuff and nothing worked! So I came to you for help... because I knew you could help." Rainbow nodded to the somewhat less crashed guest bed, passing over a little dragon who was frantically trying to put out some of the larger bedding fragments along the way. "Just let me crawl in there, and then you cast a sleep spell on me!"

More blinks. Some of the vibration shifted into Twilight's mane, where it made things that much worse.

"A sleep spell."

"You're repeating stuff a lot."

"Why did you think I would know a sleep spell?"

"Because it's so obviously basic! Come in, Twilight -- wouldn't that be, like, the first, most simple spell ever anypony with a brain would want to learn if they were ever going to be in any fights? You just turn on the horn glow and everypony drops! It's got to be one of the oldest, easiest, most common spells out there! And if you don't know it already for some stupid reason based on wanting fights to go on too long, I just bet it's somewhere downstairs, maybe in a scroll you just haven't gotten to yet, and you'll learn it in five minutes because that's just what my friend does, or if no unicorn before her was smart enough to invent anything for some extra-dumb reason, she'll fill the gap in three minutes --"

"-- you want me -- to reach into a pony body -- creating an overload of fatigue poisons in every single cell from a starting point of absolutely nothing -- while simultaneously not just overriding the brain's natural cycle, replacing it -- and you think that's going to be easy?"

"Well, when you put it that way..." Rainbow frowned with careful thought. "...yeah."

"Rainbow."

"And since you only have to cast it on me and I'm tired already, you don't even have to crank things up too high or do anything with whatever that cycle stuff is about... Twilight?"

"I'm going to kill you. In the morning. Good night, Rainbow."

"Twilight? Come on, Twilight, don't close the door -- I need your help..."

Several curls of smoke from what had already been extinguished passed through what remained of the opening. Heat from what hadn't followed.

"Rainbow," Twilight slowly worked through, "contrary to what some ponies want to believe, I can't create new workings just by wishing for them. I need to do research. Study. Testing, and that's hard with something which would need a pony volunteer, especially when I don't want to take a chance on hurting anypony, ever. And I have to do it all when I'm awake or things could go really wrong. I want to help you, but... it can't be magic. So unless there's something else I can do, I'm going back to bed."

Which seemed to be the pegasus' cue, and Rainbow sighed, wondered why everypony else seemed to be so very allergic to taking chances. This was sleep: wasn't that worth just about any degree of risk, or so her tired mind would insist over absolutely anything Twilight might manage to say? "Actually, yeah... I just thought of something else."

"What?"

"You still live in a library."

"And?"

"What have you got that's really boring? I mean, besides just about all of it?"

11:27 p.m.

Twilight's field slammed forty pounds of book onto the reading table.

"Day Court transcripts," she said. "Two days' worth. From the filibuster which tried to deny the Empire any bid for the Games at all until somepony reminded the resident geniuses that the government has absolutely nothing to do with running, officiating, regulating, or pretty much anything else about the Games, which I'm pretty sure took up seven hundred extra pages before half the representatives tried to ignore it anyway. Enjoy."

11:52 p.m.

"Twilight?"

"...I didn't boost Spike into the roses..."

"What's this word mean?"

12:03 a.m.

"And this? Is called a dictionary. Good night, Rainbow."

12:48 a.m.

"Um... yeah. So about this part right here. Where the really stupid pony starts ranting about the Great Hurdle Shortage Of '16. He never gets around to saying anything about what that was. And I'm never gonna sleep if I have to wonder about that all night. So I thought, you know, Twilight's the egghead, she probably knows all about this stuff and so much that she can even tell somepony about it without even having to completely wake up. Because you're just that awesome. In a totally nerdy egghead way. So... hurdles. How does somepony run out of those, anyway? Nopony back then knew what wood and nails were for? Or did nopony invent those yet?"

1:45 a.m.

"Rainbow?"

"What?"

"Have you ever tried asking Luna to help you pick up a dream exactly where it broke off after you were so rudely interrupted? Six times?"

"She can do that? Cool! Because there was this one I had when I was a filly, I was totally about to win the Best Young Fliers competition for like the fourth time in a row when some stupid pony started a hailstorm right over my bed..."

2:11 a.m.

"Choose your next words carefully, Rainbow. There's a very good chance they're going to be your last."

"Twilight, I never thought I'd say this of all things, I'm sorry, but... the book just isn't boring enough. I need boringer. At least twenty percent more boring. Maybe even boringest. What else have you got?"

The pinkish field stole a rather subDash-standard pillow from the guest bed, floated it across the gap, and pressed it against Twilight's face.

"Twilight?"

"It's not working. I can still breathe through this. Rainbow, you have insomnia. I don't know why or how or what triggered it and Luna's shoes, I can feel you looking at me through the stupid pillow and the dictionary is still downstairs."

"You're sure you haven't just written down one of your Star Swirl lectures somewhere?"

"Rainbow, why do you keep waking me up? Spike's right over there!"

"He's younger. He needs more sleep."

"And... that's the reason."

"Plus he kind of exhales real hard if you hoof-poke him the wrong way. Oh, and don't worry, I'll replace --"

"-- go home, Rainbow. No, wait. Dictionary. Then home."

"But I need sleep! What am I going to do at work tomorrow if I haven't gotten any rest?"

"The same thing you do every day, Rainbow: try to sneak in a nap! Just grab one of your emergency pillows and --“

"-- what pillows?"

"Rainbow. I need you to listen to me. Again: Listen. To. Me."

"Okay..."

"Reading isn't doing it. Keeping your mind busy when you're trying to sleep is backfiring because it's giving you something to think about which isn't sleep. Are you with me so far?"

"Yeah. Unless you want to just write all of it down and then I can try again with --"

"-- so maybe you're just not tired enough. Physically. Go outside. Fly around for a while. Really fast. Exert yourself. Burn calories. Get an early start on the morning weather setup so that when you finally crash, everything will be done already. Just -- move around. Somewhere else. And it'll make you tired."

"You know something, Twilight?"

"I know a lot of things. Right now, if you don't get out of here, I know exactly how long you have left to --"

"-- that makes a lot of sense! That's a great idea! Except for the part about starting work off the clock, because that just might be the dumbest thing you've ever said. But for you of all ponies to come up with the other part... it's brilliant!"

"Thank you."

"So why didn't you just tell me that in the first place?"

2:16 a.m.

"Twilight? Come on, Twilight, let me back in! Just for a minute! You didn't tell me what 'defenestration' meant before you threw me out the window! I need to use the dictionary!"

2:25 a.m.

Some ponies were just touchy. Rainbow was glad she wasn't like that, at least not in any way she was currently capable of remembering.

So. Exercise. Twilight really did come up with truly brilliant stuff sometimes, mostly in spite of herself and largely because Rainbow had been such an influence on and model of awesomeness for the unicorn's life. Sure, a little workout might just do the trick, as long as it didn't include any concept of work which she wasn't getting paid for, a half-waking nightmare which only proved Rainbow needed to hang out with Twilight some more until the librarian's recognition of such horror became instinctive. But all Rainbow needed to do was pick a physical activity and keep doing it until she was ready to fall asleep.

Except that... she'd been tired when she'd originally tried going to bed. She'd had a full day with no more than two -- maybe three -- actually, she'd lost track -- hours, maybe? -- of it being spent in naps. And she was even more tired now, and it still wasn't enough. Casual exercise might take until the Sun was raised before the accumulation added up to something her body was willing to recognize. Even flying fast might not drain her at the right rate, especially given the raids she'd made on Twilight's breakfast nook during her reading survey and that reminded her: she'd forgotten to look up 'filibuster'.

So I need something which will make me really tired, really fast.

What's made me the most tired ever? What would knock me out right now?

Her mind tried to work through vapor which no technique would ever shift.

Okay, but when Twilight starts talking about that dumb Star Swirl, we all only pretend to fall asleep and she threw me out already for some stupid reason. And that shield spell was so totally unnecessary. Maybe I'll just get my own dictionary. Except that it was really heavy. Maybe I'll just get the nary part. When the bookstore opens. In the morning. Which I'm going to see after a few more hours because I can't sleep and now it's at least a little bit Twilight's fault except that she gave me this totally awesome idea which I would have come up with all by myself after a little longer and that means she's my friend and I know how much she cares about me, unlike Spike, who wouldn't even let me try his basket.

Umm...

...exercise. Yeah. Tired. So tired. But I need to be more tired. So what's wiped me out more than anything?

The inner fog parted just enough to let her see a memory while simultaneously hiding every consequence which she likely would have ignored anyway.

"Yeah," Rainbow muttered to herself, smiling and no longer aware of which words were meant to be internal. "That'll do it..."

3:12 a.m.

It had taken longer to set up than usual. There was a certain altitude she had to start from to give her the best possible starting push while not being so high up as to be working with a thinner atmosphere and denying her body the resources it was going to need. Normally, reaching that height wasn't exactly a problem, but Rainbow's instinctive sense of just how far above the ground she was at any given moment seemed to have fallen asleep without her. She'd cursed the dumb thing for five minutes and all it had done was roll over and snore, inspiring jealousy. The loss had meant measuring against buildings and mountains and any other feature of the landscape she could find under waning Moon, and she wasn't entirely certain just how tall any of those were either.

Eventually, she'd gotten to the proper starting point. But staying there was proving to be another problem. She kept dropping down a little, or rising without meaning to, or blinking and finding herself six body lengths off to the left. None of which were problems she would have when she finally slept and asked Luna to finish up that old dream, oh, and the medal needed to be modified into something with a full array of diamonds in it. She could fly down and ask Rarity to sketch out something appropriate. It wasn't as if the designer was doing anything important at this hour.

Maybe after she bled off the last of the momentum.

All right. The next part was easy. Except for the part where it took all her concentration, every fraction of focus, and probably every bit of energy she had left, which was pretty much the whole reason for doing it in the first place.

Rainbow oriented, pointed her forelegs straight out towards the ground. Stretched out her body.

Power at a point.

As opposed to the distance projection of unicorns, the magic inherent in a pegasus field generally stayed within and immediately around the body: that was the general rule, although levels of exception existed. However, for Rainbow to simply push any major portion of her own field away from her form -- no. That didn't happen and if it could, arguably shouldn't, especially while in the air. What if it was possible and doing so didn't leave enough behind for her to fly? She'd never tried it, and doubted she ever would.

But she had tried other things during long years of practice, trying to recapture what had originally been done on instinct through the typically-pointless exercise of thought. And in the end, she'd gotten there on instinct a second time, only with more attention immediately paid to the event in the aftermath -- and she'd learned.

This was the secret.

The field could not be truly projected... but it could be shifted. Molded. The degree of aura that naturally existed around her body... she could focus that, make some areas more intense than others. Not moving all of it, never all, such was begging for disaster... but every spare thaum she personally possessed could be relocated until it was all right in front of her.

Rainbow had learned how to shape her field into an arrow meant to pierce the heart of the impossible.

It wasn't as easy as she tried to make it look. It was, in fact, a horrific strain on every resource she possessed. She'd stayed on her hooves long enough to check on the others, collect her prize, and then had found a quiet corner for the three-hour nap, waking up just in time for the winner's party. Of course, that had been after a full day of preparation and her previous competition stunts and what hadn't exactly been energy burnoff from sheer trembling nerves, not that she cared to remember or even could just now. If she did it when she was entirely fresh, she could often get away with just a lower level of activity for a while, added to a good meal and lots of wake-up juice. In her current state...

She was so totally capable of accurately judging her current state. Who else could ever qualify for that job?

Rainbow concentrated to the best of her ability, felt the first portions of her field starting to shift. Turned the focus into something completely singular, removing pretty much all capacity for thinking about anything else.

She dove.

And the thing about a Sonic Rainboom, something Rainbow was no longer capable of considering within the single-minded, instinctive, reason-banishing state which allowed it to happen at all... was that BOOM was very much a part of the name.

3:14 a.m.

Ponies had different ways of responding to explosions.

Rarity tried to do six things at once: to wit, getting her sleep mask off, scrambling out of bed, a dramatic scream because that was just part of the style, galloping downstairs, figuring out where all the other Bearers would be and, not the least of it, remembering where her cat was. She found a reminder of the sixth first, and the extended trip, stumble, near-fall, repeat, and oh dear Celestia staircase took out the first five.

By contrast, Applejack merely sighed, reached for her hat, and mistakenly trotted down the hall to Apple Bloom's bedroom. She had a live-in Primary Suspect.

Pinkie found herself upside-down, clinging to a ceiling fixture with all four hooves. Or at least, with all four hooves pressed tightly around the borders, because an earth pony body possessed nothing capable of clinging, much less getting a grip which was more solid than that exerted from four-point pressure. The realization had made her press inwards all the harder -- and at that point, earth pony strength had taken care of everything, especially since Pinkie had never really liked that fixture anyway. The plummet back to mattress level, however...

Fluttershy, who was up anyway tending to nocturnals, traded fainting couch for improvised fortress couch. Three dozen small bodies crowded around her to form a first line of defense.

Twilight, feeling she was out of casual favors with Luna for the evening and possibly forever, final dream-wrought formula lost within her nightscape, blinked three times and wearily considered that in the end, the Princess just might decide it had all been her fault.

Across Ponyville, residents threw themselves out of bed. Some abandoned their mattress simply so they could properly faint on the floor. Those who had adjusted somewhat more to life in a post-Bearer town scrambled for defensive positions, moved for their basements, gathered children and elders and waited for an All Clear to be sounded. The bravest dashed forth to give what help they could. The exceptionally foolhardy got away from their parents so they could do the same, and it would take hours for Snips and Snails to be rounded up after it spontaneously turned into a bug-hunting expedition three mutual hoofsteps in. The mayor wearily reached for the inkwell and quill as she shifted her head off the stack of disaster relief forms she now used for her pillow.

Once the initial shock wore off, after Apple Bloom had proven herself (for a rare once) truly innocent and Rarity picked herself out of the cushion she'd finally had installed at the bottom of the landing, the Bearers assembled and went forth to see what had happened to the cause.

They eventually found her at the end of the long momentum bleed-off run, which had terminated just in front of the western bridge. On the ground, with front hooves tucked under her chin, the smile reaching nearly all the way back to her mane. Fast asleep.

4:01 a.m.

Most of the muttering citizens had finally been shunted off to their homes, and the few nightscapes which managed to resume operation quickly descended into a shared theme.

"So... what are we gonna do with her?" Applejack asked as the group walked along. Twilight had Rainbow levitated within a bubble of pinkish field, trailing a little behind. She hadn't stirred when Twilight had lifted her. She wasn't responding to anything, really. Twilight didn't think any of the barely-audible muttered half-formed plans of the townsponies had registered on a subconscious level. If they had, Rainbow would already be in the Griffon Republic asking to see the asylum application.

"Just let her sleep," Twilight sighed. "The mayor will see her tomorrow -- sometime. Everypony will. And I'm sure the first thing she'll decide to remember and talk about when she wakes up is how it was all my idea..."

Applejack gave her a sympathetic look, followed by a trotting shrug. "Well... since there ain't nothin' real goin' on, Ah'm gonna head back t' the Acres. Ah woulda been up in another hour anyways. Might as well get an early start in."

Fluttershy nodded. "...I still have feedings to finish."

Pinkie sighed. "And I have to clean the debris out of my bedroom, and then I've got to get downstairs and start helping the Cakes with the first mixes for the morning rush..."

Which made Twilight softly groan. "It sounds like none of us are getting back to bed."

"Oh, I have every intention of returning to my nightscape," Rarity crossly insisted. "I very nearly had that one design finished and perhaps Luna will not mind if I request the smallest of favors... Still, I admit, it will be rather difficult to drop off again after this. And I already know I am out of stock on the teas which would aid in a smooth transition."

The designer carefully, visibly considered her options.

"Twilight... would you happen to have a book...?"