A Pegasus Too Far

A difficult to describe air of tranquility hung over Fluttershy's house. The way the last light of the setting sun hit the thatched roof, the manner in which the faint wind sort of slowed down near the walls – as if trying to eavesdrop – and, lastly, the evanescent music that caught you right at the edge of hearing over the riverstream. An air of tranquility. Nothing so becalming had ever stressed Rainbow Dash to such a degree.

The cool autumn air steamed as she snorted. She walked in.

”Hi Shy” she called out at the door. A turn of breath passed before she added, only a tad sharper, ”For you too, Hugs.”

As an answer of sorts, traces of moaning cascaded through the curtains covering the entrance to the living room. If sounds could have been described by tastes, this one would've been nothing sort of mountain salt for Dash.

”Don't mind me,” she yelled, way louder than was necessary for them to hear. The same thing could be said about the kick she gave to the door to shut it. ”Just passing through. Practically on my way home already. Just keep on doing... whatever you're doing...”

She marched into the kitchen while the humming moaning continued uninterrupted. Even there Dash could hear it clear as rain. The picture drawing itself on her mind was just as vivid. A floor flooded with pillows. Colored smoke everywhere. An aged gramophone playing a song like a dying... something. The whole shebang. And in the middle of it all, two bodies floating like clouds, mingling like clouds, breathing like flowers...

Dash blinked. The sandwich she had been making was but a ruin of mayonnaise and salad, for the force she had used to make it. Bleak yellow stains stared at her from the carpet. She made no effort to clean them.

”GoshdarnitwhaddadayIhad,” she exclaimed while striding through the curtains and crashing on a couch. Half of the sandwich disappeared at her first bite. A spray of crumbs spread on the room as she continued to speak and chew simultaneously. ”The batch of rain clouds arrived from 'Dale this morning, like planned. Except that some egghead had botched again and we got forty clouds instead of twenty. Figures.” She ceased chewing. ”Right? Am I right?”

”Yes,” gasped Fluttershy, eyes closed.

”Right,” said Dash, starting to chew again. ”So, you'd think we just send the extras back the boomerang way, yeah? The reasonable thing to do. But, I figured, why not –”

”Yes!” yelped Fluttershy again. Her back arched as her wings unfolded against the pillows, lifting her trembling, sweaty body like a gale. ”Yes, yes, yes, yes yes yes yes yesyesyesyessss...” She panted, squeezed her eyes tighter shut and tensed like a bow, only to unwind after a lengthy, highly girlish squeal which tenderly faded into a reverberating moan.

”Good...” said Tree Hugger, raising her head from between Fluttershy's thighs. ”That was goood, Shy... The vibes, like, soared there... Yeah, soared...” She licked her lips clean, then relaxed back against the foot of an armchair. Only then did her dreamy eyes turn slowly to Dash. ”Oh, hello D. How's the vibes been?”

Dash forced her mouth shut. ”You... you just noticed me?”

The pools of high lavendel didn't so much as stir. ”No, D, I didn't. What, have you been there for long...?”

Long enough, Dash almost replied. Instead, she looked at Fluttershy, who kept quivering like a pound of jelly. ”You heard me coming in, right?”

”Yes,” whispered Fluttershy after a moment. Little by little, her eyes cracked open. The characteristic, mountain lake-like clarity of them shimmered, as if cloaked by fine mist. ”At least I think I did... It might've been a dream I saw you in...”

Tree Hugger relaxed her front leg on the seat. ”Oh, that makes me so jelly... Drifting off like that, it's so rare, Shy... Congrats.”

Dash choked on her bread. ”You're... you're calling falling asleep during sex an achievement?!”

The look Tree gave her might've been called baffled, but the thing was that, at least for Dash, that was what she always looked like. ”What, you've never...? But I thought you two had been together for ages...”

”Just forget it,” spat Dash. She finished the sandwich in a few messy gulps, all the while eyeballing the light green mare like she had been one of Fluttershy's more extraordinary pets. ”So... You arrived today?”

Tree Hugger, with no care in the world, reached for a cup of greenish liquid, sipped it, and then relaxed her head back so that all that Dash could see of her face was a pair of nostrils. ”To town, yesterday,” she said.

A silence ensued. In Dash's mind, it demanded to be filled. ”And you're staying for how long exactly, this time?”

Tree's shoulder's vibrated. It took Dash a moment to realize she had shrugged.

”Fine,” Dash said, standing up. ”I expect you're sleeping here. Yeah, why wouldn't you. I'd tell you to make yourself at home, but you've done it already. And this ain't even my home. Come to think of it, can't see why I'm welcoming you anywhere then. Or why I'm still here, this not being my home. Got to go home. Bye.” The last words were uttered from the doorstep. Shortly, a swoosh came from the outside. And after that, nothing.

”What's her deal, anyway?” said Tree Hugger at some point of the evening.

”Hmm?” said Fluttershy. ”Oh, with Dash? Why?”

”It might just be me... but she did seem kind of tense...”

Fluttershy stared at the roof. The shadows had covered it and were gradually sliding along the walls like liquid. The deepest autumn had arrived. Enough to kill the light of day completely, but not so to replace it with fresh snow. Just like last year.

”I don't think she means anything by it,” Fluttershy said. ”She has these cranky days. Everypony does.”

Tree Hugger straightened her head, cracked her neck. ”Funny how she has them every time I'm around.”

”You've kept count?”

”You haven't?”

Fluttershy sighed. The prospect of standing up tickled at the back of her mind. There was still work to do, and soon it would be dark. She hated working in the dark, even with glowworms around. On the other hoof, never before had the pillows felt this soft. And her eyes were closing on their own already...

”I can talk about it with her,” said Fluttershy. ”Tomorrow, if that's okay.”

”However you want to handle it, Shy,” said Tree's voice from the kitchen. It always amazed Fluttershy how unnoticeably the pony could move. ”It's all between you and her.”

A waft of cinnamon, mixed with a spice she could not quite name, told Fluttershy her friend had returned with a fresh cup of the special tea. In a sense it shared essence with its maker. Fluttershy had once seen both calm down a tiger with a stick stuck to a paw.

”I know,” Fluttershy said. ”But I don't think she sees it that way.”

She felt Tree Hugger sit down next to her. The scent of her fur matched perfectly that of the tea. Fluttershy let her hoof climb over her friend's back, then come down to close her into a half-embrace. Lazy as that seemed, it was still the fullest touch Fluttershy had ever known. Presence filled to the brim.

”You want more?” asked the voice like a string-instrument.

Fluttershy couldn't help but giggle. ”You mean tea or... the other thing...”

”Everything.”

Fluttershy squeezed her tighter. ”I couldn't possibly ask for more. Not one bit.”

A hoof like the finest brush caressed her mane. ”You never asked for anything. I never offered nothing. It just happens.”

The hoof travelled down Fluttershy’s neck and side, spreading warmth. A hairline crack appeared between her moist lips. ”That's what you always say...”

”Never before, Shy,” came the answer. ”Never before, and never again. Presence shuns all evers. You should, too.”

The hoof dived between her thighs the same moment their lips met. By then it was dark already. By then Fluttershy didn't care.

Presence held its sway now.

***

Thunderlane stood unblinking as his focus drained through the grid of black needlepoints ordained in geometric harmony. There was a picture there. The deep-orange veins of rust snaked across and between the tiny holes, forming a network of scars on the chromed surface. An occasional drop of water broke through the grid like something alive.

“Oh, for sky’s sake…” said the familiar, raspy voice behind him. “Come on, Lane – there’s others waiting, and it’ll be even colder for them if you don’t get a move on.”

Thunderlane blinked. A moment later the few drops exploded into a flood which hit him straight to the face. As always in the autumn, the water was freezing.

He turned to look behind, but Dash had already moved into her own shower, where she was furiously washing away the sweat of the day. Many a pony would have missed it, but for Thunderlane it was clear that she was in a hurry. Well, that wasn’t to say a lot. Dash was always in a hurry. But more so today than usual.

He turned the water up so that the icy downpour covered most of his body. At least it gave him something else to think about.

“You guys, I’m going now!” called Dash by the door. “Last pony to leave, remember to tidy up. I thought bloody Tirek had cracked in the morning, the mess the showers were. Sharpen up, people! Like it or not, winter is coming. See ya!”

“See ya,” said Thunderlane, joining the chore of unsorted goodbyes that flew after her as she jolted away. Only, his farewell was more aimed at the shower wall. In the grand scheme of things, it made little practical difference. He resumed washing himself until he could barely hold the soap anymore for the shaking.

It was Thunderlane’s turn to be the last pony. The team moved the title in shifts so as not to encourage competition where peace was needed. Not that he terribly minded the job. Actually he preferred it, nowadays. Cleaning the soapy walls and floors, drying up the locker rooms, locking the doors – one could easily go through all that with not so much as a thought crossing their mind. Not as effective as a cold shower, but certainly more productive. And more healthy, in the long term.

Still, once or twice he caught himself drawing a soapy pattern very much like a rainbow with the mop…

....only to clean it up with a single careful stroke.

By the time he locked the door behind him, the sun was well on its way to greeting the horizon. The glow behind the treetops of Everfree lit every leaf – which were already dipped in all the shades between red and yellow – aflame. The sight obliged one to feel warm despite the chill.

“Hi,” said a voice. Thunderlane turned to it, the hopeful spark already shining in his eye –

“Oh,” he said. “Hi for you too. Forgot something in the locker? No problem, I’ll open it –”

“I forgot nothing,” said Helia. She leaned casually against a wall, casually brushed the azure scarf wrapped around her neck. All around she seemed like a pony who had thought very carefully about the true meaning of casualness. “I just, you know, happened to stick around… got nothing to do for the evening, really… sooo maybe you’d like, you know… go get a drink or something?”

“Sure,” said Thunderlane. “Who else’s coming?”

“Well… I am.”

Something in the way she said that poked a wall in Thunderlane’s mind. But it was a much-poked wall in the first place, so he let it slide. Especially when the road to the closest bar went smoothly and definitely without poking of any kind.

“You okay with Strutting Deer?” she asked as they walked down the main road.

“Not really,” he answered. “The deco is all too foreign for me.”

She gave him a sly smile. “I never thought you’d care about such things.”

“Why, because I’m a stud?”

“Because I’ve seen your room…”

“That proves nothing!” he exclaimed. “It’s just… Well, it’s my first own room. I like keeping it in the original condition as much as possible.”

She nodded knowingly. “Nostalgia does explain the soccer-and-dragon tapestry like nothing else.”

In counter Thunderlane first thought of making a biting remark about her room, but realized he had never been there. Which lead him to wonder when exactly had she been in his room. Try as he did, he couldn’t recall any such time.

“You ever thought of moving on your own?” she said. “I mean, my mother gifted me a stack of apartment notices when I turned 20.”

Thunderlane chuckled at that. “At this point, we’re so deep in each other’s manes, my mother and I, that separation would turn out more painful than coping with it. But every cleaning day I start looking for those shears…”

“How about the Blueberry Inn?” she suggested. “Haven’t been there for ages. Doesn’t Cheery still keep it going?”

“I wouldn't know,” Thunderlane said much too quickly. He coughed at Helia’s raised eyebrow and continued, “Uh, the Inn and I don’t agree very well. A long story. Not interesting. Deer will do fine, too.”

“How about my place?”

Thunderlane opened his mouth and only then conceived he had no follow up. The intense casualness radiating from her gaze definitely demanded one.

“Okay,” he blurted. “Uh. Yeah, why not. Let’s just, uh, drop in a shop first? I got no drinks on me.”

Helia waved a dismissive hoof. “It’s okay, I got plenty left over from team’s last party. I’ll never be able to finish them alone.”

“Always glad to be of help,” said Thunderlane, and immediately regretted the cheesy choice. But she only smiled at him. She often did, now that he thought about it.

Helia’s house was near the town centre; a literal stone's throw away from the town hall, if you packed enough punch. It was a two-storey flat, the upper part of which belonged all to her, she told. The view from the living room’s large window encompassed a handsome part of the town, all the way to the Apple Acres.

“Impressive,” said Thunderlane, admiring the sight. Behind him, a sharp hiss signaled an opened cider.

“Thanks,” she said. Via the reflection in the window, he watched her lap up the liquid foaming over. “It’s probably the nicest thing about this place. The rent’s killing me, and at winter the floor turns into an ice skate course. Thin insulation, see.”

Thunderlane started strolling around the apartment. “So, you just skate around the house then? Must be nice.”

“Sure, if you’re a penguin. Thick socks will have to do for me. Luckily, my grandmother quit smoking recently, so she has nothing better left to do for her hooves than knitting.”

The picture of Helia in kneesocks unfolded in Thunderlane’s eyes. He felt a lot warmer already.

“The fridge is packed full so help yourself,” called Helia into the kitchen where he had wandered.” There’s some leftover salad too, if you’re hungry.”

“Noted,” said Thunderlane, opening the fridge door. Alcohol certainly wasn’t lacking there, and the lettuce tomato salad practically begged to be tasted. But on the bottom shelf, something else drew his attention.

“Why do you have small metal balls in the fridge?” he asked while returning to the living room with a bottle under his wing. “In a chain?”

“I do?” said Helia. “Uhm… right, I do. Uh. For nothing, really. Just some… experiment I’m working on.” She flashed him a smile while chewing the end of her mane, probably to hide the traces of blush on her cheeks. A summer spent with Fluttershy had awarded Thunderlane with a knack for spotting fine signs of modesty. The pony contained enough material for a book on that front.

“Okay,” he said, and left it at that. He sat down on the opposite end of the couch.

For a while, neither said anything.

“This is a nice couch,” tried Thunderlane.

“It’s from my parents,” said Helia quickly. “Glad you like it. I love it. You wouldn’t believe the fun we’ve had, my sister and me, with it – I mean, it’s a miracle it’s still in one piece. This one time –”

And on she went. Thunderlane listened dutifully, with the occasional nod and smirk, although he couldn’t avoid the notion that she was grasping at straws insofar as topics were concerned. Who could honestly tell a tale so excitedly about an old couch? Clearly she craved to talk… either in general, or with me in particular, he deduced.

“– don’t you think?” finished Helia.

“Yes,” said Thunderlane after a brief moment of distracted panic. “Yeah, just like you said.” He shifted the pillows under him, and inched a little closer to the other end of the furniture. “You live here alone, you said?”

“Well, it kind of goes without saying,” said Helia. “I know it’s a lot of room for a single person, but the space wears out quicker than you’d think. Besides, I like living roomy.”

“This room seems empty enough,” said Thunderlane, waving around with a hoof. As he stopped, he had discreetly moved another inch on the couch. “Got a bedroom like a jungle, yeah?”

“In the good days,” she conceded. “In the bad ones, you wanna steer clear away from there. The socks alone would overcome you easily.”

“I don’t mind the occasional challenge,” he mused and added, “In bedroom or otherwise.”

The couch wasn’t that long, and Thunderlane had already covered over half its length. It seemed Helia realized this only now. She blinked, watched him up and down, and coughed into a hoof. “Oh. Good for you.” All of a sudden, the view from the window consumed all of her attention.

Thunderlane felt how something was slipping through his hooves. A sense of falling arose from nothing. For a pegasus, that’s one nasty feeling.

He slipped a hoof over her shoulder, leaned closer until her breath washed over his, closed his eyes…

“What are you doing?”

Thunderlane opened his eyes. Across the gap of infinity, Helia was staring back at him.

“I…” he began. He got no farther when Helia had already stood up.

“It’s getting late,” she said, walking over to the kitchen with not a glance dedicated for him. “Got work tomorrow. Bye.”

The door closed behind her quieter than a butterfly sneezes. For Thunderlane it was a gunshot next to his ear.

He got so far as to the next block before realizing what had happened, another three crossroads until he got what had really happened. He landed in front of the Sugarcube Corner, sat down on a bench there. The moon was not up yet, but the sun was long gone. Late night birds were busy opening their voices. Some passersby greeted him from a distance.

She’ll probably play it cool tomorrow, he thought. Oh, Celestia. She’s so going to play it cool on me tomorrow...

Why did I do it? What was I thinking? Did I read her all wrong? Did I read at all?

He felt ashamed. He felt ashamed of feeling ashamed. Shame was all his world, all the weight there was. The thought of breaking something had a dark, sweet ring to it. Broken things crave for company of kin the same as everything else.

Helia the script was not, on the whole, completely novel reading for Thunderlane. Of course she wasn’t. They had known for, what, since he had joined the team? Or before that? He had a vague sense that they had been on the same class in school, but that couldn’t be true – she was supposed to be older than him. Or was it the other way around?

I really don’t know anything about her, do I…? Not anything I wouldn't have thought of knowing, at least…

And still I tried to –

He slammed a hoof against the planks under him. If nothing else, that left a dent on the paintwork.

“Jeez, I wonder where that came from?” said a voice above him.

“Well?” continued Dash as Thunderlane’s stare stretched over ten seconds. “Got a stroke, or are you just glad to see me?”

“How long have you been there?” Thunderlane asked slowly.

Dash rolled her eyes. “Why does everypony have so hard time noticing me tonight ? Am I turning invisible or what?”

“What?” said Thunderlane.

“Never mind. Are you finally gonna make me some room down there?”

Without a word, Thunderlane moved over on the bench. Dash sat squarely next to him, stretched her limbs and wings before settling down. He could not help but notice how their hooves almost touched on the smooth wood.

“How’ve you been holding?” she asked.

“Fine,” answered Thunderlane immediately. “Fine.”

“Glad to hear,” said Dash. She leaned forward, exposing the wings folded over her back. Even in the dim, the sheer power and grace they emanated drew his attention like an explosion in the far horizon. “Me, not so much. Tree Hugger came to Fluttershy’s place today. Again. What, just last month she spent a week there! You’d think she had a house of her own to take care of. In a tree or somewhere.”

“Tree Hugger?” asked Thunderlane distantly, still mesmerized by the cyan feathery wonders. The insides of his hoof itched to touch them, if only on the shadow of an accidental brush. “Do I know her?”

“Suppose not,” sighed Dash. “No wonder. She’s not one to stick around. Comes and goes as she pleases. Like the wind. You can’t come to know a pony like that. Every time I see her, it’s like the first time.”

The question why exactly was she telling him all this crossed Thunderlane’s mind, but not noticeably enough to interfere with distraction that were her wings. Of all her magnificent features, those had always struck him as the most awesome. A metaphor of speed condensed into reality they were. Maybe just a little, tiny skim…

“What’s her deal with Fluttershy, anyway?” burst Dash, suddenly straightening herself against the bench right as Thunderlane managed to withdraw his hoof. “She tells me they met in a plant expo or something. An expo! That’s, like, meeting in a museum!”

“I’m not sure what’s wrong with–”

“Whatever,” snorted Dash. She paved the ground with a leg while staring into the autumn abyss. “What does she see in her, even?”

“Maybe you should ask?”

“Blah,” said Dash. She turned a sour look to him. “Should’ve known you’d say that.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s the buckin stand-up thing to say,” said Dash, sinking on the bench until her head was on level with Thunderlane’s hips. From the horizontal position, the magenta eyes stared at him mercilessly. “You’re the most stand-up pony I ever met. Straight as a plank. So why’d you lie to me just there?”

Thunderlane blinked. “Where?”

Nimble as a cat, Dash bounced up on all fours. “The whole punching of benches at night kind of goes against the definition of ‘fine’, don’t you think? And the thing in the showers earlier…”

Thunderlane’s ears drooped. “You noticed that, too?”

“Sure I did. I’m your coach, dummy. Among other things. So tell me: what’s up? For reals?”

He gave her a ghost of a smile. “You tell me. Coach.”

She looked at him in silence. She was better at that than many knew, he reflected.

“Well, I didn’t push you in the showers, and I’m not gonna push you now,” she said eventually. “Just know that you can always come talking to me, whatever it’s about. We got enough history for that much, yeah?”

“What if it’s that history I want to talk about?”

The words came out before Thunderlane could even hope to stop them. Now they occupied an eon’s worth of space between them, splattered for all the world to see in their naked muteness. He wanted to shovel the mess back up so bad the incremental ounce or two of dirt wouldn’t have made any difference. But first and foremost he only wished to throw up more.

“So why don’t you?” said Dash simply.

“Because… Because that’s something I can’t tell to a coach,” struggled Thunderlane. “And if that’s all you are for me anymore…”

Dash looked confused. “You’re saying that’s not enough? Being a couch?”

“I don’t know,” burst Thunderlane. Never before had he wished to be somewhere else and right here at the same time. There were things his soul craved to say but which his tongue couldn’t formulate, and things which his brain had spent weeks jamming to the deepest confines of his heart. “I don’t know what’s enough anymore… I know things are as they should be, like they used to be; but I feel there’s something missing… displaced… I see you practically every day, train with you, shower with you, and it's good, it’s all good. We’re friends. Good friends. And then I try to reach out a bit more, a bit further, and I feel… I feel you shut me down. And then I get this feeling you’re just a coach; just a friend. But for me, you’re something more. Always will be.”

He tried to smile softly at the end, but for the trembling couldn’t manage better than a silly smirk.

Dash on the other hoof had no trouble looking directly awkward. “Uh… Yeah, about that… Gosh. Not lying, you kind of got me speechless there…” She laughed shortly, rubbing the back of her head with a hoof. “Maybe… maybe we should figure this out later, yeah? It’s getting late. Got work tomorrow – for the whole week actually. Yeah. So… See ya?”

She was starting to leave. Something was slipping away. The déja vu made Thunderlane’s head spin. Her wings opened in rhythm with his half-hearted goodbyes; he wanted to reach out, grab her, hold her, make her see…

…But she was already always gone.

In the dim quiet of Ponyville center, a sound very much like a plank splitting in two echoed.