Author's Note: This story is directly inspired by the story Tiny Wings by DeadParrot222, who consented to his characters and situations being used in this work. An understanding of that story is helpful, but not necessary, for enjoying this one. It is most certainly worth a read, though!
Dedication: This story is dedicated to anyone who ever mentored a child who was not their own… anyone who wonders if that child ever captured the light they saw in them and who, perhaps years or even decades later, prays that they are happy.
Shine
Written by The Descendant
Inspired by characters and situations found in Tiny Wings by DeadParrot222.
You don't stray over the flight line. That's the first rule.
Of course, I've always looked at rules as more or less just being guidelines.
The reality of the situation? I have no idea why they made me the captain of the Wonderbolts in the first place.
Their mistake was never more obvious than during that one show in Ponyville… the day I strayed over the flight line.
We pulled up and begun our wheel, getting ready to descend into the grand finale of the show. I felt myself chuckle as I drifted slightly to the right, the others in the formation rolling their eyes at me, each knowing that I was going to cross right over the line and give the ponies in the bleachers more than just their money's worth.
I began my series of rolls, the twisting corkscrew of the Thunder Clap Toss, my signature move. As I came out of the hardest part, the part where my eyes had to quickly find the ground, the wind suddenly moved around me.
Yep, there was a gust of wind.
As you know, that type of thing doesn't happen by accident. Weather ponies are supposed to keep that type of thing under control.
The fact that I had been chatting it up pretty heavily with a couple of the more beautiful mares on their weather team probably made one of the stallions more than just a touch jealous. I don't blame them, whoever it was. I'd probably be jealous if some pony as handsome as me was turning on the charm and talking to a mare I had a crush on.
Still, kinda a dick move to hit me with the wind just at the hardest part…
Anywho, the end result of this was that I was tossed a lot farther over the flight line than I'd planned. Namely, I saw myself being thrown deep into the bleachers.
"Oh, Celestia," I thought to myself as I saw my surprised face reflecting in a porcelain advertisement for Mairzy Doats, "this is gonna hurt…"
Thirty seconds later I was picking splinters out of my teeth, shards of porcelain out of my mane, and wincing in pain every time I tried to lift my forelegs.
I was actually pretty proud of how far I'd been tossed into the bleachers. I had hit the wall so hard that I'd flipped over it and had skidded right through the good seats. I was right up into the nosebleed section… that was pretty ironic considering that I pretty quickly found myself with quite a gusher of my own.
Ponies gathered around me, each calling for medics and trying to help me as I fought to my hooves, my forelegs screaming in pain and causing me to swear under my breath each time I moved them.
I shot them all back my trademark Thunder Clap smirk even as the blood ran down my face and pain rocked through my body. Give the ponies a show… that's what I was there for.
More and more ponies were coming to where I sat, trying to determine how badly I was beat up. The medics began trying to reach me, calling for me to lay still.
I ignored that crap. I sat up and smirked wider over the ponies in the bleachers. Soon they began to chant.
"Thunder Clap! Thunder Clap!" came my name, rolling across the stands, ponies pounding their hooves in time so that it made an impromptu melody.
As I rose I saw something that terrified me.
About three rows back from where I'd stopped plowing through bleachers sat a mother and father pegasus, their faces as white as freshly made clouds. Their expressions fell down, their eyes draped over a foal who sat between them. The foal was trembling so hard that it shook their seats.
The poor thing was huddled between them, trembling as the color drained out of the kid. The foal was looking at me as though it thought I'd died, as though fear was biting at the kid.
No. Oh no, no, no, no, no. I wasn't gonna have any of my fans thinking that, thank you very much.
I pumped my wings hard, climbed above the din of the voices and the chants. The crowd erupted into cheers as I rose up. I tried to throw my forelegs wide but just lifting them shot massive arcs of pain through me. As my weight settled into my frame I realized that even moving my head brought new flashes of white agony.
So, I did the only reasonable thing…
… I rejoined my flight team and finished the finale.
It hurt. It hurt bad. Really bad.
I realized that my collarbone must be broken as I drove down once more into the Thunder Clap Toss, this time arcing through it nearly perfectly as pain raced through me from all over my body. I fought against it, raging with a bellow as I pulled out and the thunderclaps roared out over the crowd.
As I passed the finishing point I winked at the pretty mares in the assembled weather team of Ponyville. You know, just to piss off whatever stallion had hit me with the wind the first time through.
As we finished we landed just short of the exhibition hall. I landed on all four hooves, not entirely unlike an idiot would do, and at once fell to the ground and cried out in pain as my body reminded me that I probably had broken both of my forelegs. I guess I'd snapped my collarbone too, just for good measure.
My teammates berated me as I lay there, smirking to no pony in particular. Soon my superiors were there too, each calling me an idiot and a showoff and an irresponsible jerk that didn't deserve to be captain of the Wonderbolts…
… and I didn't disagree in the least.
As everyone stood over me the medical ponies arrived, the unicorns and earth ponies. As they pointed out the obvious fact that my limbs were broken they promised to fetch an ambulance and pressed bandages to my nose, mouth, and neck.
The group went quiet as they realized that I was in bad shape. Each looked at me and saw that I was in a very real amount of pain that my trademark smirk couldn't completely hide.
So, I did the only reasonable thing…
… I stood up and went to sign autographs.
The medical ponies looked on aghast as I started the session, even my own team members shaking their heads and sighing as I winced through the pain.
All four of us in the team sat at the table, I hunched over so that I didn't have to move much as I signed each poster. One doctor pleaded with me the whole time, but I ignored him. My legs weren't gonna get any less broken as I sat there.
I repeated the same conversation over and over. "Hey! You're so cool!" they would begin. Soon I'd be at "Thanks for coming out!" and another gushing admirer would be standing before me, pressing the poster forward and dumping compliments all over me.
I loved my job…
I reached for the next poster with my muzzle and looked up. I did a double take as a pair of pinkish, reddish eyes peeked over the top of the table at me, hidden beneath a rainbow mane.
It was the pegasus foal, the one who had looked at me in horror as I'd sat spitting out chunks of grandstand seats.
I waited as the foal lifted higher, revealing herself as a filly who was perhaps eleven or twelve years old.
"Why?" she breathed.
I looked up to her parents and then back down to her. As I realized what she was asking I began to laugh. As I laughed I shook, the pain racing through me again. She wanted to know why I'd gotten up, why I'd taken on the pain and kept going.
Same reason I do anything, kid.
"For the fans," I answered, trying to reach forward and rustle her mane as my body berated me for doing so, "All these ponies paid for a flying show and, by Celestia, I'm not going to be the one to ruin it for them."
I waited for a few seconds, and as I watched her expression fell from a sort of terrified wonder and back to the only thing I ever wanted to see on the face of one of my fans.
A smile. A great big buckin' smile.
"Who am I makin' this out to, kid?" I asked as my forelegs screamed in pain.
"Rainbow Dash!" she answered, her expression beginning to glow as I put the marker in my mouth and did my best to sign the poster.
Inside ten minutes I had finished signing autographs and found myself being lifted bodily into an ambulance.
The next two months sucked.
Someone at headquarters had bucked up, as per usual, but this time it came down in my favor. I was suspended for crossing the flight line, my right to fly with the group I was supposed to be commanding revoked for six weeks.
Which, somepony forgot to note, was a week earlier than the doctors told me I'd be down for.
Heh…
Off of my hooves for a bit… it should have been like a vacation. Instead it was more like being in prison.
The casts itched. I literally broke one of the long stick things they gave me for scratching myself because I was using it so hard. The damn thing sat down in my cast for half of the morning. Eventually I had to admit it to Firefly and she fished it out of there rather sympathetically…
Firefly. Thank Celestia for Firefly! My long-suffering marefriend took a few weeks off to help me around the house as I healed. Having her around was one of the two things that kept me from going mad in those weeks!
The other thing was the fan mail.
I'd always liked getting the mail, and I tried my best to answer it all. Usually most just got a signed photo and the usual press letter.
Laid up as I was though I actually had the time to read most of it. Firefly would take the dictation, usually just a couple of sentences, but I always signed my own name. The marker became a familiar feeling in my lips and I actually saw my writing improve.
The letters were more personal now, ponies wondering if I was healing up well… some even worried that I might not come back.
Ha! No.
One day as we sat on my porch I read through the letters, Firefly carefully opening each one and laying it before me.
I scanned them, did my best to catch the highlights, and then had Firefly pen a few sentences. Then I'd sign it… back to zero, next letter!
As I began another letter I once more scanned the paragraphs. The message itself was pretty typical, but as I hit the signature something leapt at me.
My head moved back and forth, and my eyebrows arched as I pondered it. I had heard this name before, but where?
Suddenly the reddish, pinkish eyes of a filly peeking over the top of a table jumped at me. Suddenly I remembered the name that matched the signature on the letter.
Rainbow Dash.
I chuckled to myself as I re-read the letter word for word, Firefly laying herself out across the chaises lounge and lifting her eyes to me as she sipped at her drink and wondered aloud what I found so funny.
"It's this kid," I said as I read the letter over once more "I remember this one, she was in the stands when I decided to go for some snacks…"
"Go for some snacks" had become my euphemism for "crash violently through several rows of seats". Firefly lifted herself from the lounge, nuzzled beneath my chin as I told her about the kid, how she'd been so afraid, how seeing me work through the pain had lifted her up a little bit.
That had stuck with me. Her expression giving way to that big buckin' smile… that had really stayed with me, ya' know?
"Sounds like you had quite the effect on the little filly," Firefly said as she rested her head across my withers, "You might want to write her a special letter… let her know that you remember her…"
"Ya' know what, Fly, that's not a bad idea," I said, resting my head against hers, "That's not a bad idea at all…"
So, I did the only reasonable thing…
… I ignored the entire stack of letters and spent a good half of an hour replying to this one kid.
I gave Firefly a kiss, and with that she went off to fetch us some drinks and I penned a letter to the kid. Nothing special, just answering her questions, but replying in my own mouthwriting. I just dropped in a single line about remembering her from the Ponyville show, just enough to show that I really did know her.
As I dropped it into an envelope I had no way of knowing that it was the first of many to follow.
Throughout my recovery it seemed that my letter would go out, and that within a few days one would come back from the kid. I'd laugh whenever I saw the familiar blue note card envelopes with the Ponyville return address.
I'd lay it aside; make sure it was the last one I read. I'd save it for the special time after dinner when Firefly would lay with me on the lounge, her head across my chest as I fought to read with the casts clattering around.
It was in that most comfy of positions that the mare who lay with me noted something.
"She's scared," Firefly said as the sunset lit my porch.
"Whoa. Really?" I answered, lifting my body to look down over her as I dropped the letter, trying to catch it with my casts, not entirely unlike an idiot would do.
Firefly leaned down, brushing back her blue mane even as she reached her neck forward and gathered the letter into her teeth.
Firefly lay over me, her forelegs across my chest as her purple eyes looked down into mine, sending all sorts of pleasant ideas through my head.
She opened the envelope and laid it upon my chest. Firefly re-read the letter to me, placing emphasis on the words like "you", "me"… "can".
"She's scared, Clap," my marefriend said, raising her head and staring down over me again, "She's calling out for help… for something to latch onto. I-I don't even think she realizes she's doing it… like it's almost a subconscious act."
I gave a long sigh and settled backwards onto the lounge chair. I stared at the roof of my porch as the sight of the kid as I first saw her, trembling there on the bleachers, once more settled through my mind.
"Damn," I breathed.
"You… are you going to write her back?" Firefly asked after a moment, "You need to, need to help her get started talking about…"
"I can't start writing letters to a twelve year old filly I barely know about her personal life!" I interrupted, trying my best to emphasize what a terrible idea that sounded like, "The press would jump on that in a second. A lot worse things than being suspended from the 'bolts would happen if that ever got out, Fly!"
Silence hung around the porch for a long moment.
"It's one thing to answer some fan mail," I said, relaxing my voice, "it's another thing entirely to pry into the life of a kid I don't even know."
Firefly adjusted herself, and I felt her lift off of me. As she did I saw her turn her beautiful body and look out across the fields of clouds to the city beyond, Cloudsdale sitting in the evening sun, the pale pink of a sunset that matched the tones of her coat.
After awhile she brushed back her blue mane once more. Without looking at me she began to speak in a hushed tone.
"Ponies said it wasn't right for you to hover around me at my job at the coffee shop, either… said that it wasn't professional," she said, her soft voice catching at the remembrance, "but that didn't stop you. You convinced me to try so much harder… convinced me that I deserved more."
She turned her head slightly, letting me catch just the faintest view of the purple of her eyes as the memory sat behind them.
"If it weren't for you, I'd never have become a part of the Wonderbolt's staff… never would have taken the chance at the job. You helped me earn that, Clap, you lifted me up…"
She turned; let her expression fall over me as her eyes sparkled in the sunset.
"Clap, one of your fans is scared," she said, hitting me right in my weakest spot… my vanity.
"As your biggest fan," she said with a chuckle, "let me tell you, that I don't think it sits right with you, the idea that this filly, this Rainbow Dash has something that's scaring her."
The look in the kid's pinkish, reddish eyes as she had peeked over the table hit me again.
A gave a single sigh, a huff of emotion. No… no it didn't sit right with me.
I looked up to meet Firefly's eyes once again. She once more laid her forelegs across my chest, staring down into me as her expression became soft.
"Let… damn, let me talk to Public Affairs in the morning," I said, trying to adjust my casts once more, "maybe, maybe we can work something out with her parents so that they know and…"
A set of lips touched tenderly to mine.
Firefly lifted herself, laid herself across me deeper and nuzzled herself across my chest until she was caressing herself against my chin and neck. With that she lifted her head and stared down over me again.
"I'm proud of you, Clap," she said, then once more lowering her mouth to my lips.
So, I did the only reasonable thing…
… I'll let you ponder what it was.
Getting to know the kid was neat.
Her parents had contacted Public Affairs right away. They had already spent money on psychologists and doctors, on treatments for something that they explained in the most basic of terms.
Rainbow Dash, the kid, had been in an accident. She had refused to fly since.
They were anxious for me to get started, hoping that somehow I could help her break through what was bothering her.
I gulped hard and then began to write my first letter in which we changed the subject from me to her…
She had done reports about me for her class, so I started off asking about school.
Turns out she hated it. I smirked… I hadn't been a big fan myself. She liked school better now that she was living in Ponyville though, especially since because no one was calling her by a nickname she hated… "Rainbow Crash".
I smirked at the name, glad that my laugher didn't carry on the post.
"Why are you living in Ponyville?" I wrote.
"Because we had to sell our house in Cloudsdale," she answered.
I danced around the topic, moved the conversation a little bit, you know, didn't want it to seem to obvious that I was trying to dig something out of her.
I never pictured myself as a "dad" kinda guy. Oh, I like kids, but only on a professional level.
Still, learning about her world… neat.
Especially neat when I discovered that, to put it bluntly, she'd accomplished something that I had thought an impossibility my entire life.
"A frickin' Sonic Rainboom!" I said, laughing out loud as I showed Firefly the newest letter.
"Oh," Firefly spoke with a roll of her eyes, "she's just telling stories, trying to impress you. That's just an old mare's tale…"
"Nah uh!" I retorted with my trademark wit and a shake of my head, "Not this kid! She's something special I tell ya', she wouldn't tell me a lie."
Firefly giggled and trotted towards the kitchen. I followed her, speaking of the virtues of this young fan of mine whom I obviously had known from the start was some sort of exceptionally gifted flyer and whom I'd been nurturing all along with my focused letter writing campaign.
As Firefly continued to chuckle she planted my next great idea in my head.
"You should send her a ticket to the Wonderbolts special summer session," Fly said as she nuzzled alongside me.
"Yea! Yeah, I should do that! That's a great idea! That'll break her out of her funk!" I said, nuzzling back beside her, "Glad I thought of it!"
Firefly scrunched up her nose and gave me a look that was supposed to be intimidating. Instead all it really did was make me kiss that nose and wheel the pretty mare who stood behind it around my kitchen as we laughed.
It was a great idea. It was a really, really, really good idea.
So, after the third time that the kid rejected the offer I pretty much just sat at my kitchen table, fuming over her newest letter.
My casts had come off earlier in the day, and it really kinda ticked me off that the itching hadn't stopped.
"I don't get it!" I called out, pounding the table so that some of the cloudy vapor wafted away, "Why would she turn it down? I mean, why is she wasting her Celestia-given gifts? Why won't she fly?"
I laid my head on the table; kept scratching at my forelegs as the wrinkles that sat beneath my coat began to fill with life again. I could feel them itch even more as they returned to being the strong muscles that I channeled my magic through as I flew.
Firefly came trotting in, fluffing her wings gently as she saw me laying there grumbling loudly and scratching at myself.
"I don't get this kid, Fly!" I said as she rested her head over me, "She's turned down the offer to come to our special training events three times now… I don't get it, ya' know?"
Firefly looked the letter over, humming a small song even as she lay her head to mine. When she spoke it was with certainty and clarity, one that made me slap my own forehead with how obvious it was.
"It's because you're close," Fly said, planting a small kiss on my cheek, "It's because you're close to finding out what is bothering her…"
"Wow," I said, returning to rubbing the life back into my forelegs, "Do… damn, do you really think so, Fly? Am I that close?"
"Yup," she answered as she trotted back to the kitchen, "You wore her down with your penmanship and literacy…"
"Heh, that's funny," I added as the trademark smirk once more went across my face, "I thought that's how I got you to love me…"
Firefly stopped, turned and looked at me over her shoulder with a look of small surprise. With that she caught my smirk and answered with one of her own.
"That," she answered with a small shift of her haunches, a quick back and forth, "was one part of the benefits package you presented."
She stuck her tongue, giggled, and trotted away.
I loved that mare.
The kid wasn't going to get any better if she didn't tell me.
So, I did the only reasonable thing…
… I made her part of my exercise program.
My body was coming awake again around me. As I pushed the physical strength back into my limbs writing became a part of the regimen, and sending off letters to the kid became as important to it as my crunches and push-ups.
I was probably annoying the kid by that point but what in the Well did I care? Racing through the streets on both hoof and wing to meet the morning and nightly mailing schedules were now part of my efforts… rebuilding my body and getting this out of her were one effort and the same.
I can only wonder what Firefly thought as she returned the day Rainbow Dash's letter arrived, the one where she finally told me the truth.
I heard Fly drop the groceries, that much I know.
I can only imagine that the way I was circling the letter, literally trotting back to where it sat on the table, reading the next line of text before pelting off again like a wild horse, kicking and buckin'.
The poor kid! The poor kid!
"… just wanted to make another Rainboom…"
"… I was practicing so hard…"
"… didn't pull up in time…"
"… hit the ground so hard it left a crater the size of a railroad car…"
I stood up, dashed about the room, the vision of that little filly impacting the earth sitting behind my eyes… oh, Celestia! How I fought to get it out!
"… concussion…"
"… broke my thighs, my left hip, ribs…"
"… nearly tore my wings off…"
I couldn't read the letter in one go, I had to keep coming back to it. I would read one line and then I had to pelt around my living room as Fly looked on in confusion.
My mind wouldn't leave me alone, kept showing me the filly going through these awful scenes. Damn! Damn it all! I had asked for this, I had demanded it of her.
As it went on her pain moved from physical to mental, and my frustration and worry only grew as the letter began to reveal the great secret of the little filly who had peeked at me with those reddish, pinkish eyes.
"… became so afraid…"
"I didn't eat much. I'd get hungry but I was too scared to leave my room."
"In the end we had to sell the house because I was terrified to be on clouds…"
"… and I couldn't even climb stairs. I would start to cry if I did."
"I promised never to fly again."
"I'm just so afraid…"
Never fly again. So afraid.
The phrases flew around in my head. No. No, no, no!
"Kid!" I cried out loud, somehow thinking that it could actually reach her in the little city far below and far away, "What in the Well, kid? What in the Well are you…"
Her parents hadn't come close to telling us what had happened. This kid hadn't "had an accident"… this kid, damn, this kid had been bucking broken... she'd been broken…
I jumped up and down, made a cry of frustration and pain… of sadness.
I was sad, sad for her.
I was sad for the filly who had been so thoroughly beaten, who was so terrified. I found myself thinking about things from her letters… her school projects, her friends, her favorite songs that I pretended to like in my replies even though they were in fact nothing but pop trash.
All of these thoughts circled me, showed me the world of a child who's great gift was going to waste… going to waste because she was afraid, because she was covered in the darkness of fear.
"Dammit, kid! Dammit!" I cried aloud once more, braying the word in a long hoarse tone as I jumped up and down in place, not unlike an idiot would do when he forgets his house is made out of clouds.
They gave way beneath me rather than deal with further abuse, sending me cart wheeling through the sky.
By the time I had flown back to my own front door I was already flowing with tears… and I don't cry.
Firefly read the letter while I was gone, I guess, and as I entered my home she gathered me into her forelegs. There I lay as she stroked me and I wept aloud for a child I'd seen once for a grand frickin' total of about two minutes, horrified by how the world must look through her eyes.
Her eyes, I realized, only saw the broken world of a child lost in the blackness of her fears.
Damn everything.
I was cleared for service before that week ended.
We were going north and I had a tight schedule, places that I had to be at certain times and press events that I had to attend.
So, I did the only reasonable thing…
… I flew miles out of my way to Ponyville and stopped at a house I'd never been to and rang the doorbell.
The Ponyville weather team had assembled a pretty good thunderstorm. I was actually impressed by how well they did, what with Ponyville just being a small city and all.
I waited for them to finish up before I headed to the house. As they did a thought ran through my head, and I swooped down among them and introduced myself. To my smirking pleasure some of the mares seemed to remember me from the show months before…
… as did a few of the stallions. Jerks.
Anywho, I asked them to leave the storm clouds up… that I wanted to borrow them for a project. They agreed and with that I went off across the muddy ground, pulling the envelope from the kid's most recent letter out of my shirt and then comparing it to the number on the door.
I rang the bell and waited.
Two pegasi answered the door together, and in an instant I knew that I must have been dealing with Dash's parents. There was a concern laying on them that must be for parents alone… it was a real deep fear, one that only ponies with kids they're worried about can carry, you know?
Anyway, I introduced myself and at once they went easy, as though they had been expecting me for weeks. They asked me to come inside, but I showed them my muddy hooves and that was that.
I wasn't here on a social call. In fact, believe it or not, I felt myself growing sterner. I was here to work… to accomplish something.
As I whispered my plan I noticed some movement in the house behind them. I lifted my head to catch a glimpse of a rainbow mane hiding behind the doorway to their kitchen.
As I chatted with the parents I lifted my head again just in time to have those pinkish, reddish eyes meet mine and dive behind the couch in the living room.
Her mother lifted her voice, called out the name that I'd seen written across the bottom of so many letters.
"Rainbow Dash!" called her mother, "You have a visitor!"
Inside an instant a streak of color had bolted across the living room and was standing at the door staring up to me with wide eyes and a dopey smile! Damn, if the kid was that quick at running she must be a quick flier…
… if she ever flew again.
I looked down over her, saw how her mane was still all jostled and how she appeared just a touch taller than the last time I'd seen her.
She caught my expression, the absence of my trademark smirk and the presence of a deeper emotion. She kinda shrunk back, and I winced as she did.
I turned my body, lowered my haunches.
"Hop up, kid," I said, tossing my head, motioning for her to climb up onto my back.
She looked at her parents with confusion, realizing that a stallion who was really still a stranger was asking her to come with him.
It felt odd for me too, but… but, damn it, I knew what I had to do.
With that her parents nodded, and she made her way up across my back and lay down upon my withers.
So, I did the only reasonable thing…
… I took this filly who I barely knew with me out into the mid-day, trotting along, splashing through the mud puddles and making small talk as we went.
We talked about things that had been in our letters: my healing and schedule, her music and school reports… you know, little crap like that.
She started to thank me for the ride, the slowing of my hooves perhaps making her think we were done.
No, kid, no. We weren't done…
I slowly stood on my rearlegs, hearing her give a gasp and start to slide off my back as I did.
She clung to my neck as I gently reached around myself and lifted her up so that she rested in my forelegs, her forelegs around my neck and her rearlegs wrapped to my side.
I looked down into her, saw her surprise.
It's okay, kid, it's okay. I took a deep breath, tried my best to sound like a responsible adult as I went through the thoughts that I had… well, thunk, as I had circled the weather team earlier.
I thought of her smile, knew that there was a great flier in this kid… one that was buried under the darkness of her fear.
Wakey, wakey kid… here comes the sun.
"Kid," I said, motioning to the grey skies above us, the rain clouds that the weather team had left behind, "How bright is the sun?"
"But, there isn't any sun…" she said, looking above us to the dark clouds. Rainbow Dash looked back to me caught the serious look on my face.
"No sun, huh? So Princess Celestia's gone on vacation… she's sittin' on a beach in Port au Prance sippin' on fizzy drinks and playin' volleyball?" I said, letting my smirk return.
"No! It's just too cloudy to see it! Duh!" answered Rainbow Dash with a first-class smirk of her own.
"But that's not what you said," I answered, letting some of the seriousness settle back into my face.
"But… hey," she said, settling back down into my forelegs, catching me in an expression of confusion, "What… what I meant to say, I guess, is that the sun is still shining, even if there's clouds in the way and stuff…"
"But how do you know that the sun is bright if you can't see it?" I asked, arching my eyebrows one at a time and pondering the skies above. I gave my wings a few flaps, aiding my rearlegs in supporting us both.
"Because, well… because I know it's there, and that it's bright, I guess…" she answered, looking up to me and to the sky in turn.
"Just like you," I answered.
"What?" she said, looking once more into my eyes.
I took a deep breath, tried to force myself to sound like an adult instead of the flirtatious, arrogant, smirking bastard that I knew so well that I was.
"You're hiding yourself from the world, kid. You're so buried under your own fear that we can't see you… but I know you, Dash. It's been pretty awesome getting to know you, through the letters and all. But I'm standing here with you and, well kid, I'm still waiting to meet you," I said, lifting her a little as my forelegs began to get tired.
"I'm here right now, standing under these clouds and wondering where the sun is… How bright is the sun, kid? Can you show me?"
I slowly unfolded my wings, letting the broad reach of them fall out behind me as each feather fell into its own place. The sweep of my wings reached out behind us.
At once Dash realized what I was doing. At once she began to scream, to cry, the foal begging to be put down.
"Shhhhh, kid, shhhhh… hey, hey, Dash, it's okay, it's okay…" I said over and over, holding her closer.
As she wailed I thought about all of the ponies who had probably tried what I was doing at that moment.
I wondered to myself what in the Well made me think I had the right to do this… to be the one to try to lift her up out of her fear.
"You lifted me up…"
Firefly's words fell through me, snapped through my consciousness. None of the other ponies, not her parents with their own fear behind their eyes or the doctors and psychologists with their harsh diagnostic stares, none of them had gotten the crying filly that I held to open up so much.
None of them had simply waited without expectation for her to tell them her fears. I was the one she had chosen…
… I was her hero. I was going to save her.
"Dash," I whispered, "Dash, we aren't going to fly, not if you don't want to."
Her cries ceased. After a moment she looked up to me again.
"Kid," I asked, "do I ever let my fans down?"
"Nope!" she answered with certainty, her eyes clearing of tears as she perhaps remembered the show where we'd first met.
"How about you?" I asked, arching an eyebrow.
"Who… hey, what do ya' mean?" asked the filly, "I… I don't have any fans!"
I sucked in a great volume of air, as though in shock.
"Omigosh!" I cried as I danced my hooves around, bouncing her as though I were one of my own fans, the excitable type that usually made me suddenly remember prior commitments when I saw them coming, "It's Rainbow Dash!"
She laughed, realizing that I was acting like her biggest fan.
At once I stopped, let my expression fall down into something somber. "Oh," I said, looking defeated, "It's not her… too bad."
"Wait, what?" she said, arching her own eyebrow, copying my look of earlier. Quick learner, that's what this one was.
"Maybe it's her… I dunno," I said, tilting my head back and forth, pondering the filly, "The Rainbow Dash who's been sending me letters is a brave filly, one who took on anything… one who stood up to bullies and never, ever gave up…"
Her breathing got shallow again, as though she knew what I was going to say next.
"I came all this way to meet that filly, and I'm wondering, are you her? Are you the Rainbow Dash I've read so much about… one it's been super amazing to learn about? Are you like the sun, kid, are you shining on the inside… just waiting to shine through the scary stuff?"
Once again I slowly unfolded my wings, felt her tense up as she started to tremble.
"Can you be that Dash, the one who I know is so cool it hurts? Can we go up just one flap… can you shine?"
I waited, waited for what seemed like forever as she pressed against my barrel and shook.
"We'll come right back down super quick. I promise kid, I promise…"
There was the tiniest of motions, almost imperceptible, only slightly larger than the trembles of fear that were coursing through her…
…yet, it was real. I had felt it.
It was a nod.
I had never wafted air under my wings so friggin' gently in my life. I had never been more dainty and frilly with the flaps of my wings since that horrible week that my grandmother had accidentally signed me up for ballet lessons as a foal.
Yet, as tiny a motion as it was, we lifted.
Her scream was loud, piercing, but as I quickly settled back down onto my rearhooves it stopped completely… the foal in my forelegs looking around in a kind of terrified wonder.
"Hey, I think this kid might be Rainbow Dash," I said, smirking to her as I lifted some of her mane from her eyes, "I mean, she was up in the air and everything… kinda…"
She laughed.
Oh, thank Celestia, she had laughed!
"Three flaps?" I asked.
"Okay…" she whimpered, settling back against me.
First it was three, then seven, then nine… twenty-one. How long can we stay up? Squeeze my neck when you can't stand being up her anymore, okay? That was our longest yet! Great job kid!
She was so close, close to becoming the foal I really, really, really hoped she was.
So, I did the only reasonable thing…
… I rocketed up into the sky.
Up farther we went, up higher and higher until the cool mist of the storm clouds began to swirl around us, until the dark of the clouds seemed to surround us.
At once we were through… and something fell across us, reached for us.
"Hey, kid," I asked, "What's that?"
The kid opened her eyes farther, gave a small leap as she realized how high we were above the ground. At once she began breathing hard again and began to give a shrill sound that began to rise as she looked around us.
"Kid," I repeated, "What's that?"
Dash stopped, regained herself. She stopped looking to the tumbling blackness of the clouds below and instead lifted her head to the sun… lifted it as though she were lifting herself out of her fears.
"It's the sun…yeah, it's the sun," she said, blinking it the radiance.
"Huh!" I said, looking side to side and then back to her with my trademark smirk, "I thought you said that there was no sun?"
"Naw! I said that it was just hidden by…" she began, eyeing me incredulously.
"Yeh huh!" I said, making a face of the falsest and most transparent disagreement I could, "You said that Princes Celestia was off surfing and…"
Rainbow Dash began to laugh, her gruff little voice sounding out into the clear blue of our space there above the clouds. Her happy sounds wafting about the place beneath the sun as it fell over her… filling her…
"Now you can see it clearly, little filly. Celestia's sun is burning brightly just like it always has," I said, motioning out the sea of light around us, "No matter how big or how dark the clouds may get, don't let them convince you that the sun has gone forever. It is always there, just waiting for the opportunity to shine over the whole world."
I looked back at her; saw her smiling still… saw her ready. Her wings came open; two beautiful little blue ones that reached out beside her as I slowly drew her in front of me.
My back had already begun to hurt from standing upright all this time, my forelegs ached from carrying her.
Yet I forced them to steady as she tested her wings, as the scars that sat beneath them from her accident tensed and fell, as she prepared to use the gift given to the pegasi for the first time in months.
She gathered a few tense breaths, her nervousness settling around and falling away as something more useful.
With that she began beating her wings, a slow rhythm that soon increased.
"Time to shine, kid!" I called out as a great smile lifted from my face, "You can do it, kid… shine!"
The wind flowing from her wings became greater, the magic of the pegasi filling her as the sun fell across her.
I felt her getting stronger, felt her begin to lift.
"C'mon, kid… shine."
The feeling of her frame taking her weight, the feel of her hoof leaving mine, these both sat with me as a cry of triumph sounded out through the sky.
I don't know if it was hers or mine, the jubilant cheer…
… but it rolled through the sky, and with that she flew.
I never saw her again.
You don't cross the flight line. That's the first rule.
It applies to those on the ground just as much as it does to those of us in the air.
I had resumed my role as the captain of my flight of Wonderbolts, the blue team.
I assure you that I did my usual crappy job.
I had never understood before why they had ever even given me the captaincy. Damn, I'd always just thought that it was a bureaucratic error. Still, as I sat there in our pre-flight sessions I felt my mind wandering.
My last letter from the kid had been months before. They had just stopped. I had written her back but, hey… you know. She was doing great, and I seemed to be becoming a part of her life that was already in the past.
I wondered about her from time to time.
I wondered if somepony knew what I had done, if that was why I was still captain.
Could it be that somepony had seen something in me? Could one of my higher-ups have seen that I wasn't just the egotistical, irresponsible jerk with no sense of self-preservation… that I was also the kinda guy who'd go out of his way to help a kid who he'd never met?
Because I was an egotistical, irresponsible jerk… and I'd really like to buy the pony who had seen past that a drink.
As we trotted down the tunnel leading into the aerodrome of Trottingham I felt a familiar frame beside me.
So, I did the only reasonable thing...
… I pulled back my hood and caught Firefly in a long, lingering "good luck" kiss and then pelted down the entryway.
You don't stray past the flight line… that's the first rule, and it applies to those on the ground as much as it does to those in the air.
As the finale rolled around I wheeled over into the Thunder Clap Toss, I let my eyes rest easy for a second as the sound and fury of my act echoed across the crowd.
I opened them just in time to see that someone had forgotten to tell the driver of the big steel water wagon about the flight line thing…
I don't know what he was thinking, the driver. Maybe he thought we'd appreciate getting our drinks faster? I certainly was about to get mine in a hurry.
I threw out my wings, not unlike an idiot would do, a stupid act that is one of the first things foals learn to never, ever, ever do in flight school.
Instantly every muscle that connected my wings to my body tore away and I lost all control over my descent.
Damn everything.
As I saw my surprised reflection staring back at me in the shining steel of the water wagon I knew… I knew that…
The first face to go through my mind was that of Firefly. Her gentle curves sat in my eyes, and those wonderful purple eyes reached for me.
I hoped that it wouldn't hurt her too much… her "good luck" kiss had been as perfect as always. I hoped she'd find some stallion who would treat her right, who would lay with her tenderly on warm spring nights.
As those instants flashed through me another face leapt up, and I knew it was the grown-up face of the kid…
… a portrait of Rainbow Dash as a young mare.
I could see her clearly somehow, see her as somepony with her own trademark smirk and brash smile, somepony doing amazing things that I could only ever dream of accomplishing.
I knew as I hit the side of the steel framed wagon, my neck snapping backwards so that it hit my withers with an audible crack, that I had helped that happen… that I had I somehow helped her become a mare who would do incredible things.
As my own flank crashed through my skull everything shut off, and my last realization was that I knew that I had given her what she needed to recapture her light. It had been the purpose of my life, to save that child…
… that I had let her shine.
I was cool with that.
End.
