Rebirth

I make my way to Twilight and Fluttershy near the seats. Due to my height, we need to sit in the back row. Despite this, Twilight and Fluttershy remain by my side. "T-These are good seats." Fluttershy says softly. I'm surprised I can even hear her over the crowd.

I shrug. "Yeah, for seeing the action." I gesture towards the track. "Bad thing is, I'm getting a nosebleed up here." The two look at me with a confused look. "It's a phrase. Something to do with the altitude. Humans aren't built for high altitudes, unlike pegasi or alicorns." I gesture to their wings.

The two nod in understanding. The three of us look back to the race track. All of the racers are already in their starting positions. Before they go, there's a quick blaring of a strange looking trumpet. It doesn't look like it has any piston valves.

The race begins shortly after the playing of the trumpet. "And they're off..." Twilight says just as the race starts. I remember hearing one of my girlfriends back on Earth saying that. The memory of her makes me smile. She's one of the few girlfriends that I didn't end up hating.

I feel a hoof touch my hand. I turn to my side. "Twilight." I say. She looks at me. I look down at my hand. She pulls her hoof away and blushes.

"Your nose is bleeding." She says. I blink and touch my face. She's right.

"It's the altitude." I reply. The two of us look back to the race track. I can't get the thought of Twilight touching my hand out of my head. It's going to bother me for a bit. I don't know if it was an accident or not.

I focus on Rainbow Dash's face. She's definitely determined to win. That smile on her face tells me that.

Her face suddenly shifts to panic. She falls to the ground. All the ponies that were behind her don't have any chance to slow down. They all turn to avoid tripping on her. Rainbow gets up and sprints towards the rest of the pack.

Sometime during this, the race ends. Rainbow looks up at us. Her face tells me she's devastated about this loss. Damn. I might need to talk to her later.

On the other side of the coin, Applejack made it in third place, just behind Rolling Thunder and another pony. I already forgot his name. I look back to the racing card.

"Watermelon won?" Twilight answers my unasked question. "That's surprising..." She mumbles. She looks up at me. "Did you see what place Rainbow Dash got?" Twilight asks. I shake my head.

Fluttershy leans in. "Tenth, just behind Danger Zone and before Dust Devil." She informs us. "If she hadn't t-tripped, she would've won."

I nod. "Yeah. Definitely." I sigh. I stand up. "I'm going to talk to her. Tell Applejack I said congratulations. Same thing to Rolling Thunder and Watermelon if you see them."

I make my way to Rainbow Dash's room. I stand in front of the door and mentally practice my lines in silence.

"I LOST TO A PONY CALLED WATERMELON!" Rainbow Dash's voice brutally destroys the silence. If I wasn't behind the door, I'd probably be deaf. "THE WORST ODDS! FUCK!"

I hesitate to open the door. If she feels this bad, I should probably leave her alone.

No. That's a bad idea. I've got to comfort her. If she's feeling this bad, somepony needs to help. Nopony's around and it doesn't sound like anypony is in the room with her.

I knock on the door. All the tension surrounding the room seems to melt. After a second, I hear a faint 'shit' coming from inside. The door opens, exposing Rainbow Dash, still in her racing uniform, to the outside world. "...How much did you hear?" She asks faintly, rubbing a foreleg with the other. The loss has reduced her to this? It was a good idea talking to her.

"Enough for me to want to comfort you, Rainbow." I reply. "Can I come inside?"

She nods without any hesitation. "Yeah. Please. Thanks for stopping by." She sighs and walks towards the bed. I can't help but notice that she has a bad limp. It's definitely from that bad fall she had during the race. "I just really need somepony to talk to."

"You've got someone now." I say. She jumps into the bed. I sit next to her and rub her head. "If you don't want me to tell anypony about whatever you say, just tell me."

She wraps her hooves around my waist. "I can't believe I lost to the pony with the worst odds." Her voice both cracks and gets louder. "If that piece of shit didn't trip me, I would have fucking won!" I didn't know she was tripped. I never noticed that. This was definitely more than just a loss to her. It's a matter of pride. Checking up on her was definitely a good idea.

I keep rubbing her head. "Just let it out, Rainbow. We can let the race officials know about that." I say in a soothing voice. I hope it's soothing, at least.

Her grip around my waist tightens enough to actually hurt. Rainbow Dash nods. "Make sure he's there."

"Who?"

"The piece of shit that tripped me. What's his name? Light Speed or something stupid like that." Rainbow sighs into my leg. "No, wait. Keep him away from me. I don't want to be arrested for murder." Her voice is calm. I feel a chill run down my spine. Instead of the average person or pony saying that, I think she's serious. She wants Light Speed dead and would do it herself. The way she said it tells me she's more concerned about getting caught than actual murder. I need to tell a therapist about this.

"I'll keep Light Speed away from us, Rainbow." I say. Since I'm desperate to loosen Rainbow's grip, I shift my weight.

Her grip on me tightens even more. "Don't leave me alone, Mark." She says softly. I can feel her tears coming through my shirt. I've never seen anybody, let alone anypony, be like this. It's easily the most depressing sight I've ever seen. I want to end this as soon as possible.

I hug her. "I won't, Rainbow. I'll stay here with you."

"Thanks. I love you, Mark."

I smile. That's easily the best thing I've ever heard. Rainbow Dash actually means that, unlike most other girlfriends I've had. It brings me to tears. "I love you too, Rainbow." I reply. I try to put as much emotion into my words as Rainbow did with hers, but it's not nearly as successful.

The two of us stay like that for a few more minutes. I don't know when she fell asleep, but I follow her shortly after I notice.

After a couple of hours of sleep, I wake up to see Rainbow asleep in my bed. It would be better and slightly more romantic if her snoring wasn’t as loud as a Metallica concert. I’ve read somewhere that waking up a snoring person wasn’t safe. Or was that about sleepwalking? Ah, whatever. It was about people, not ponies. I guess waking up this pegasus would be safe.

I tap her shoulder a few times. Rainbow lets out a sleepy and very cute groan. A smile grows on my face. I keep tapping her and she turns to me. “Morn’, Mark.” She says.

“Good morning, Rainbow.” I say. “You’re really cute when you sleep.

She punches me in the shoulder. “Don’ call me cute.” She says in her still tired voice. She even gives me a death glare. If anything, it makes her even cuter.

I wrap my arms around her and pull her closer to me. Something resembling a combination of a groan and a giggle escape her lips. “We’re gonna have to get up soon, Rainbow. The others are going to be weird around us if we take too long.”

She has the chance to kiss my cheek, which she takes. “Yeah. They might think we…” She trails off. After a second, she snores again. I tap her on the shoulder and she wakes up. “Wha’?”

“You’re so damn cute when you’re tired.” I say with a laugh.

She yawns. Rainbow rests her head on my knee. She’s struggling to keep her eyes open. She jumps off the bed and almost topples over before getting her balance. “You gonna come out? The others are gonna be weird around us if we take too long.”

“Yeah, I’ll be out. You don’t have to wait for me.” She doesn’t leave. “I need to get dressed, Rainbow.”

A deep blush turns her face from that cute shade of cyan to an equally cute shade of red. "Well... Okay."

"Oh, you should also probably change out of your racing uniform." I say, gesturing to the suit she slept in. "I mean, not that I'm complaining about you wearing it. You look good in that." I say.

Rainbow stretches her legs. "Bad thing this gets so uncomfortable after a while." She replies. "I wish I could keep it, since you like it so much."

The trip back to Equestria is better than the trip to Prance. I didn't throw up at all, surprisingly. I did, however, get a few strange looks. That's not a surprise to me anymore. I'm getting used to it. Something that did surprise me? A dozen ponies asked for autographs from me, like that one unicorn a while ago. I don't understand why ponies like me enough to ask for an autograph.

I guess a human in Equestria would be the equivalent of a dragon on Earth. Some would be terrified of it, some would love it, and some would try to kill it. Fortunately, nopony's tried to kill me yet.

"Hey, Rainbow?" I say shortly after we return to solid ground. She turns to me, but doesn't say anything. "Do you want to stop by my place tomorrow?"

She gives me a half smile. "Sure. What time?"

I shrug. "Is 8 PM good?"

"I don't have any plans for then. It's good for me." She yawns. "See you then." She says and spreads her wings. I give her a wave goodbye as she flies off to her home in the clouds.

Under different circumstances, I would have tried to get her to stay with me longer. The fact that it's night and we're both tired was the only thing preventing me from doing that. Maybe tomorrow. It would have to be after the thing at the schoolhouse, though.

The next morning, I walk towards the schoolhouse. If Cheerilee told me what I was going to do there, I completely forgot about it. Something about talking to the foals, I think. The school comes into my view. I never had a chance to look at it before. It reminds me of one of those old school buildings from two centuries ago. The ones that only had one room and all the classes were in there.

From the looks of the school itself and judging by the time of day, school's already in session. I knock on the door. It opens a few seconds after. "And here he is now!" Cheerilee says to the class. I see the Cutie Mark Crusaders here. The three of them give me a wave of the hoof. I return the wave. Cheerilee leans in towards me. "Nice timing. I just told them you would be coming to answer any questions they had about you." She says.

"So that's what I'm doing." I whisper out loud. She smiles. I ask how long I'm to be doing this. Her reply is basically 'however long it takes.' I walk up to the front of the class and rub my hands together. "So, class... I guess you all have questions for me. I'll answer them for you." In less than a second, nearly ninety percent of the class' hooves shoot into the air. The rest of them shoot up the next second. Cheerilee included. I'm going to be here for a while.

It turns out that 'a while' means at least four hours. I answered questions for everypony in the class, including Cheerilee, at least three times each. I'm impressed that none of the questions were repeated.

"Is that all the questions you had?" I ask after answering another question about my hands. Nopony raises their hoof. "Alright. I guess that's all for me."

A bell rings and nearly makes me jump. I haven't had to hear a bell like that since high school, and that was four years ago. The foals get out of their seats and nearly flood to a wall where all their saddlebags are at. They all get out of the building with a speed that would have made Ayrton Senna impressed.

"Everyday..." I hear Cheerilee mutter. She clears her throat and I look at her. "Could I talk to you?" She asks.

I rub my chin. I don't know why she didn't ask this earlier. "Go ahead." I say.

"Are you... okay?" She asks.

I blink. "What do you mean by that?"

She keeps her eyes locked on me while she digs her hoof into the floor. "I know about your fight with the gryphon. Almost all of Ponyville does. I don't think the foals do." She says. That also explains why she didn't bring that up while the foals were here.

"Oh. Yeah. That." I reply. I rub the back of my neck. I feel some of my still healing injuries burn slightly. "Yeah, I'm okay. I got better."

She looks at me with a skeptical expression. “Are you sure?”

I suppress a groan. She sounds like my mother. I nod. “Yeah, I’m okay. I’ve been okay for a while.”

"If you're not, I know somepony that could help you." She adds in.

Is she trying to hit on me or something? It feels like she is. I hold up my hands in a sort of defensive position. "No thanks, Cheerilee. Thanks for the offer, though. I'll let you know If I want to."