Sunrises and Fresh Rain

A yellow filly walked on her own, dragging her feet through the cloud layer beneath her as her head hung low, pink hair swinging around her pretty face like a pathetic curtain. She paid the least attention to her surroundings, every step feeling like another step to the edge as she walked, watching her hooves with sad eyes that didn't dare look up.

Her saddlebag dug into her shoulder as she went, providing a dismal reminder of what was to come when the filly reached her destination. Fluttershy's wings lay clipped to her sides, her muscles curling up into a tight clench, a reflection of the position she herself wanted to be in right then. She stared holes through the cloud floor, catching herself wondering what it would be like to turn around and not come back, or hurl herself over the edge, fall forever as the rush of the wind and the nearing ground took away the poisonous feeling of black dread that was swelling in the filly's chest.

Finally, the source of horror loomed into view. Fluttershy's house, where she had been raised, was where right now her parents awaited her, expecting her to turn in the very thing that sealed her doom. The slip of paper may well have been written with the fetid sludge of the pits of hell, wrapped in the lifeless souls of the damned, carrying the empty cries of the ages shrieking in eternal anguish as they charred in the infernos of Tartarus.

Oh, how easy it would be to just drop the unholy piece of paper over the edge. Oops.

"Hello, Fluttershy dear, have something for us?" Her mother greeted as the yellow filly entered, whose tone, despite the endearing words, was cold as steel.

Fluttershy froze, certain the panicked thumping of her heart was audible by her parents, whose gazes pierced her like rapiers. With a funeral march playing in her head, the filly withdrew a neatly-sealed envelop from her bag. She handed it over in what may have been an exchange for her soul rather than an exchange of a slip of paper, blasphemous as it was.

Her mother opened the letter, father peering over her shoulder, while Fluttershy felt herself grow smaller and smaller until she threatened to disappear into the floor.

"...You failed your flying exam, dear." Those words, those words may as well have spoken of her terminal cancer; the feeling was indistinguishable. Although she had known it, hearing the words from her mother's icy lips sent a crushing, hardening blackness suffocating Fluttershy's heart.

Her mother sighed as she replaced the envelope and, with a look to her husband, sent her daughter away. "Go to your room, Fluttershy, I'd like to have a word with your father."

The yellow pegasus left, walking through the halls that felt as though they were guiding her funeral procession, to the room where her bed became her casket. Her casket where she would lie down, bolt it shut, and never fly again. Not that she was apparently able to anyway, at least not good enough to pass an exam.

Rainbow Dash, Rainbow Dash had given her lessons. Rainbow was the scaffolding upon which Fluttershy was able to first leave the ground, allow her wings the first taste of pegasus freedom. Without Rainbow's coaching in class, she had been unable to even unfold her wings, locked shut as though they had a mind of their own, one that prided in seeing the filly's downfall.

Voices drifted from the main floor. "...I'm telling you, dear, she can't fly!" A shrill female voice said.

"Well, don't look at me like that, you could have taught her!"

"Me? After spending all day at the weather factory, I'm expected to come here and teach our hopeless daughter how to fly? For Celestia's sake, she should already know!"

"Must be YOUR side of the family."

Fluttershy buried her head in her pillow. She didn't want to hear any more, she couldn't; every word was like another drop of a slow-acting venom, each one painfully bringing about the truth she already knew.

She was a failure, a disappointment to her parents, and would always be.

A tear escaped from a tightly-clenched eye, leaving a trail of wetness down her cheek as it rolled. One salty tear was followed by another, dripping onto the linens below as Fluttershy allowed herself to cry silently. The voices from her parents faded away as her tears fell like raindrops, unquenchable, untouchable, unstoppable.

As the river of sorrow continued to flow, Fluttershy was alerted by a soft pat as something fell through her open window, rolling halfway under her bed. Daring to peek, the filly held the footboard as she peered over the side, a couple of rogue tears staining the floor as they fell from red, watery eyes.

A corner of paper was visible peeping at the despaired yellow pegasus, bound tightly in a pristine little scroll. Dare she look?

As the voices from the main room grew in volume and agitation, probably arguing about the incurable incompetence of their daughter, Fluttershy made up her mind. After the sun set, she had nothing to lose.

She picked up the scroll as delicately as though it were a rose petal, cradling it as she lifted the fateful note. Using her teeth, she worked with dexterity to untie the ribbon neatly binding it, rolling the paper open with trembling hooves.

With eyes that were unsure of whether they really wanted to scan its contents, Fluttershy read the page, the simplicity and comfort of its contents bringing forth another swell of tears.

'I think you're an amazing flyer.

                    -Your secret admirer'

*~*~*

   "Come on, Fluttershy, you can do it, it's easy!"

   Rainbow Dash spun a loop as she said it, landing on a white cloud which vaporized into oblivion under her hooves. She swept her hair aside under a signature cocky grin, addressing her timid friend who hovered an inch above another tuft of white.

    "Oh... I don't know, Rainbow Dash, it seems a little out of my league..." Fluttershy replied, drawing her front hooves to her chest in an outward display of vulnerability.

     Rainbow's hooves touched cloud again as she landed next to her friend. "Don't worry, anypony can clear the clouds!" She declared, before adding with a flutter of her wings, "All you need are these!"

    The yellow mare gave her own wings a feeble flit. "I just... Are you sure I can?" Rainbow nodded, confidence in her friend positively swelling over the surface.

    "Okay..." With delicate motions, Fluttershy leveled herself with a cloud, before feebly thrusting out a hoof into the white vapor. "Mmf!" She grunted adorably as she punched the cloud. A poof of vapor rose up, the tiniest piece of the cloud disappearing, but altogether it was a pitiful result.

    Rainbow hovered, watching with an expression that demonstrated no less than stifled amusement. "A good effort," She offered, smiling with both amusement and the sheer adorableness with which her friend looked at her. "I know you can do it, let's try another."

   Fluttershy drifted ever so meekly to the next cloud, looking from Rainbow to the tuft in front of her with wide, uncertain orbs. Dash nodded in silent encouragement.

   Closing her eyes, Fluttershy braced herself as though she were posing for a marathon, rather than clearing one measly little cloud.  A nervous, fluttery inhale and exhale later, the yellow mare flexed her wings, arching back like a cobra, ready to split the cloud under a blitz of assault.

     Grunting in strain as she did so, Fluttershy whipped the cloud, thrashing her wings like a great white's fin slicing the water. She squeezed her eyes shut to vice-like extremes, biting her lip as she mercilessly sent the cloud into annihilation, each beat of her wings complimented by a high-pitched grunt and a squeak.

    A pair of hooves firmly grasped the furious pegasus, bringing her to an abrupt stop. Fluttershy looked up from under her lashes at Rainbow Dash, who wore a surprised smile under raised eyebrows. Fluttershy peeked meekly upwards from under long lashes, sparkling turquoise eyes tinged with mixed worry and cautious surprise in her own ability.

    "Woah, Flutters, don't wanna pull a muscle." Rainbow coached, before looking left and right over the void where the cloud should have been just a moment ago. "You really handed it to that cloud!"

    The yellow mare smiled softly before breaking into a gasping pant, tongue lolling in exhaustion. "Thank you, Rainbow Dash, but c-can we take a break now?" She wheezed, her wings threatening to cramp up and introduce her quickly and less-than-courteously to the ground.

    Rainbow offered a jovial laugh and a playful whap on her friend's back, causing her to bob unsteadily in the air like an exhausted yellow cork in a blue libation. "Sure kiddo, let's take five."

    With that, the cyan pegasus threw herself into a kind of midair backstroke, sailing to a nearby patch of fluffy, inviting white. Beckoning to Fluttershy to follow, Rainbow landed unceremoniously on her back, sinking into the fluff. Fluttershy joined, nestling herself next to the blue mare, resting her pink-crowned head on a cyan shoulder.

    "Mmmmh..." Dash sighed as she bathed in the sunlight, reveling in the feeling of the mare she so loved against her, allowing the light to play over her eyelids like little golden sprites.

    Settled on the cloud, they were high enough over the ground to catch the warm summer breeze, yet low enough to drift lazily under more fluffy clouds above.

    However, as the summer breeze caressed them, height stopped mattering as two ponies reached the heavens on their own.

*~*~*

"Failed? Failed?!" A little cyan filly repeated, her voice cracking in agitation. "What do they mean, failed? Lemme tell you something, Fluttershy, that's a load of bullsh-" What was sure to be a vibrant string of curses was cut short by a yellow hoof silencing a pair of cyan lips.

"Shh, or my parents will hear us." Fluttershy whispered seriously, though her curtain of hair was not thick enough to hide a smile. She retracted her hoof, tucking it into her lap to rejoin the other as she sat back onto her pillow.

The sun had begun to slowly slide down the horizon, casting a pool of liquid gold over the two fillies who sat facing each other, cradled in Fluttershy's hoof-stitched quilt and pillows. The yellow filly's parents were just in the other room, and though the sun was beginning to dim, they had no objections to their daughter inviting over Rainbow Dash, her only friend, and not to mention the single most promising patron of the skies in her class. Perhaps, they had hoped, their borderline incapable daughter would accept a leaf or two from the cyan filly's most skilled book.

Rainbow sat back, nodding, outrage still etched and gleaming in her deep rose eyes. "But you're a great flyer!" She exclaimed in a strained near-whisper, as quietly as she could muster before losing the impact behind her words.

Fluttershy gave a little cough as looked down, seemingly immersed in counting the membranes in her hair, her blush reddening to an intense puce shade. "A-Apparently you're not the only pony who thinks that..." She let on, peeking at her friend out of the corner of her eye, a tiny smile beginning to grow across her features.

Rainbow raised her eyebrows, her trademark cocky grin expanding as she leaned foreward on her front hooves like the eager schoolfilly she was. "Ooooh...What do you mean, Fluttershy?"

The yellow filly, an embarrassed smile still accompanying stained cheeks, reached under her pillow and unfurled a slip of paper, offering it timidly to her friend who snatched it without a moment's hesitation.

Rainbow's eyes moved across the page as she read, before blushing inexplicably and smiling. "W-well it's true! You are really an amazing flyer!"

Fluttershy turned to pull another note from her letter cove. "And this one too!" She said as she handed over another note, written in the same scrawly script as the first.

Rainbow took the second note, with a slight pause that slipped under her friend's radar. She flicked an unruly strand of hair away as she read. "You fly beautifully, just like a butterfly." The cyan filly read, her slightly deepening blush also going unnoticed by her friend.

The yellow filly leaned foreward, brushing a lock of pink from her visage and surveying the cyan pegasus with eager eyes. "And see how they are signed? 'Your secret admirer', on both of them!" She exclaimed, her flustered tone being replaced with the flattered giggles of a schoolfilly.

Rainbow grinned as she handed back the notes, shaking her head back and forth slowly as she retained her blush. "Well, Fluttershy, I... I guess whoever wrote these must really like you."

At that, the yellow filly looked up with disbelieving, curious eyes and a delighted pink blush. "You think?" She asked, the sparkle in her expression conveying just how much she hoped for what her friend had just said to be the truth.

Rainbow became still, meeting Fluttershy's wide turquoise eyes with her own rose orbs, losing herself in them, allowing silence to spread between them as she smiled slightly. "Yeah, I really do."

The two ponies simply sat, neither saying a word, as Fluttershy reddened a little more and smiled a little wider at Rainbow's response, unable to classify the unfamiliar warmth that began spreading through her heart like morning sunlight. Her mind lost control as she wanted nothing more than to lean in, to feel the filly against her own form, as the yellow pegasus felt she had already connected with the cyan in a way that transcended the physical.

Rainbow pulled herself together, sitting back with a jolt that made Fluttershy jump a little in surprise, not to mention the tiniest bit of hurt. "So, um, i-it's getting kinda late, I should probably head home..." The prismatic filly spoke, stumbling over her own words for reasons Fluttershy could not fathom.

Rainbow hopped to her hooves, mumbling mixed goodbyes as Fluttershy followed in a trail of confusion to see her friend out. At least, she was unsure of whether the cyan filly was still her friend. "Oh, um, yes... Yes, it is getting sort of dark, I suppose..." The yellow filly trailed away; she could feel herself falling through the verbal ice.

As Rainbow left, disappearing over the faintly-lighted horizon, Fluttershy watched, leaning against the pane of her window. She felt a sinking, stiffening feeling suffocating her heart as she fell into the internal quicksand left by Rainbow's sudden, unexplained departure. The yellow filly hung her head, numb coldness taking over her extremities as she sat back on the bed.

Somehow, the quilt beneath her had become much less comfortable.

*~*~*

    Rainbow tucked her hooves behind her head, lying on her back while Fluttershy curled against her shoulder. She smiled blissfully, lifting her heavy eyelids to watch piles of white cloud that drifted above their own.

    The breeze wisped over them, ruffling blue and yellow fur and entwining pink and prismatic tails as the two ponies rested, sailing through a crystalline ocean of indigo.

    Fluttershy lifted her head slightly, looking up to a specific cloud as it floated over them. "Look, Dashie, that one looks like a kitty cat." She playfully remarked, lazily lifting a hoof to outline the vague feline shape. Rainbow heavily reared her head, appraising a cloud that distantly resembled a tufty Opalescence, save for the menacing yellow eyes and the mischievious, Cheshire-esque smirk.

    "Huh, yeah, I can see it," Rainbow agreed, before nodding in the direction of another tuft, a messy arrangement significantly less distinguishable than the first. "And that one looks sorta like a giraffe in a suit wrestling Princess Celestia." She remarked, without the slightest hint of sarcasm.

    Fluttershy wrinkled her nose and squinted her eyes cutely, screwing up her face in the way Twilight would while interpreting the runes of an ancient text. She stared at the piled cloud, tilting her head this way and that, before looking up to Rainbow in apologetic seriousness. "Oh, I'm terribly sorry, Rainbow Dash... I can't really see it..."

    Rainbow broke into a grin and a giggle, pacifying her confused friend by running a cyan hoof through her lengthy pink mane. "Haha, I'm just messing with you, Flutters."

    The yellow mare blinked once, twice, before cracking a small smile, which grew into a larger one in a fit of gentle laughter. "Oh, hahaha, I get it now... I thought it looked more like a family of butterflies, really..." She observed, nestling herself back on Rainbow's cyan shoulder, who tenderly rested her cheek on the top of the yellow mare's pink-crested head.

    Completely peaceful silence spread between the two, before Fluttershy stirred once more, motioning toward another distant cumulus. "That one looks a little like a butterfly too," She turned her head, gasping slightly, "Oh my, and that one over there!"

    Rainbow let out a quiet, playful laugh in response to her friend's enthusiasm. "Flutters, you think that every cloud looks like a butterfly!"

    Fluttershy smiled to herself, reaching her head up to level with Rainbow's. The breeze drifted between them once more, creating an almost magnetic connection between the two as roses fell into swirling pools of turquoise. Rainbow felt affection squeeze her heart as she finished the job, closing the distance between them and meeting Fluttershy in a soft kiss. Their lips connected with electricity and blossoming passion that warmed cyan and yellow from the inside, their very cores, while gilded light from the afternoon sun warmed them from the outside.

    Fluttershy pulled away, touching her forehead to Rainbow's, wearing the gentlest smile, speaking in hardly more than a whisper.

    "You know how much I love butterflies."

*~*~*

A cyan filly sat by herself at her desk, the darkness of her midnight bedroom illuminated solely by the desklamp she had on here she sat. Throwing a glance over her shoulder, Rainbow Dash made absolutely sure her door was shut with almost waterproof tightness.

She picked up her quill in her mouth as carefully as she would an icicle, determined not to make the slightest noise as the filly straightened the paper in front of her. The moonlight that streamed in from the ajar window provided a softly-glowing reminder of just how much Rainbow was supposed to be in bed.

Holding her quill in her mouth, the cyan pegasus slumped in her chair, sighing as though her very soul were leaving her. Rainbow reveled in the familiarity of this position; hunched over her desk, quill gripped between her teeth in the dead of night, scribbling down in hopeless pursuit of a childish dream that may well never fall into her hooves. She wanted to throw away every note scrawled over the past few weeks, each a pitiless reminder of how badly she'd probably messed things up with her best friend.

Rainbow chewed on the end of her quill as she was swallowed up in the swirls of her own grim thoughts. She had felt the unfamiliar bubble of affection growing for her yellow friend since their first meeting, but who in Equestria had given her this idea? Fluttershy was probably so caught up in putting a handsome face at the end of an anonymous signature, she would never dare think it could be anypony else.

'You are more beautiful than a butterfly.

                                     -Your secret admirer'

'Even if it looks like no one does, I believe in you.

                    -Your secret admirer'

'I love to see you smile.

                    -Your secret admirer'

Rainbow sighed once more, a bittersweet rush engulfing her senses as she thought of the way Fluttershy lit up reading the notes, then of the way she likely visualized the cute colt writing such sweet things to her.

How could she have expected any different? How was Fluttershy to know it was her closest friend who had fallen head over heels for her?

Rainbow inhaled deeply, blinking away the cruel tears that had begun to wet her lashes. She knew what needed to happen, the one way, the one thing that could lose her a friend or gain her something even more valuable.

She clenched the quill and bent over the paper before her to write a note, the final note that Rainbow would wrap a drop or two of tears and hopes in and tie with a ribbon of her heartstring. She touched the tip of the quill to the slip, her thoughts and feelings dripping onto the page through the connection that may as well have bound the heavens and the earth.

'I love you.

                       -Your secret admirer, Rainbow Dash'