Dash's Dilemma

Dash's Dilemma

She had had that dream again. Only, she knew it wasn't a dream. It was a memory of just a few days past, torturing her with every agonizing detail, memorized and played out in her mind every time she attempted to rest. A memory, that forced her to spend every waking hour focused on work or flying, oftentimes both. A memory, that she was determined not to let interfere with her life.

Just like any other morning she'd woken from that particular dream, Dash didn't move a muscle, nor did she feel like it. Though, looking back, she didn't remember falling asleep... Not like she could ever remember such a thing, but she could usually recall when she'd stopped to rest. But no, her last waking memory was of her flying through the sky, off to the vet or whoever sells animal medicine..

Ignoring the gap in her memory, she instead focused on the land of the living, instantly noticing a regular beeping off to her side. Confused, she opened her eyes, immediately shutting them as a bright light temporarily blinded her. Dash reopened them, much more slowly than before, allowing them time to adjust to the brightness of the room.

Something was wrong. She wasn't in her cloud house, nor was she nestled on a branch of a tree. Instead of leaves or clouds, a white tiled roof was displayed prominently above her. Yes, something was definitely going on. Determined to get to the bottom of it, she shifted in her bed and tilted her head downwards to survey the area, only to be greeted by five faces, all watching her intently.

There was a yellow pegasus, one eye hidden by her long, flowing pink mane; a pink earth pony, half-grinning, with a particularly poofy pink mane; a white unicorn with smeared makeup dribbling down her face, strands of hair poking out at random places of her curled hair; an orange earth pony donning a worn, brown stetson hat, her golden locks falling freely down the sides of her face and neck; and a stallion, a rather serious-looking white unicorn, his messy blue hair making it look as though he'd just woken up.

Three of the ponies reminded her of ones she knew: the pegasus looked surprisingly similar to her friend Fluttershy, even striking the same demure pose; the pink mare bore a striking resemblance to Pinkie Pie, who Dash didn't know all too well, but could easily pick out in a crowd; and the orange pony could easily be mistaken for Applejack, who would oftentimes wake her up from an afternoon nap, spouting something along the lines off 'get outta that there tree 'afore ah buck ya outta there.' It's not like she owned the trees or anything. You can't just pick a tree and say, "Hurr durr, that's my tree, nopony gets to nap in it."

Dash stopped her rant, realizing those three ponies looked so similar to the three she knew that they could be related, or something. Maybe they were their older sisters or something, and had convinced Dash to drink some hard cider or whatever at one of Pinkie's parties. That would explain their similarities, as well as why she couldn't remember anything past fetching medicine for Fluttershy.

After a moment of contemplating the five faces, Rainbow finally spoke.

"Uhh, where am I?" Rainbow said, instantly smacking herself mentally in the jaw for sounding so clueless. She didn't even know these ponies, and they were probably already thinking she was stupid or uncool or whatever. Definitely not good for her image.

"You're in the hospital, silly!" came a somewhat loud reply from the pink one.

Hospital... Huh, Dash thought. Must've been some party. I wonder what happened, though. Probably tried flying home drunk or something. I'll have to tell Fluttershy to make sure I don't drink anymore. Can't let anything get between me and flying.

Since three of the ponies present were probably older sisters of her 'friends,' Dash decided to question the two unfamiliar white unicorns. She thought she'd seen the mare around somewhere, but had no idea who the stallion was.

"So, uh..." she started, waving one of her forehooves back and forth between the two. "Who're you two?"

That innocent little question cause quite the unexpected reaction: all of the ponies present, herself excluded, glanced nervously at one another. After a moment of silent communication, the orange pony cleared her throat and stepped slightly closer to the bed.

"We're your friends, Sugarcube," the pony said. She sounded exactly like Applejack for whatever reason, if only a bit deeper and more heavily accented. "Don'tcha remember?"

So they're my friends, huh? If they're my friends, wouldn't I at least recognize them? Sure, pink and orange there look familiar, but I know for a fact that Fluttershy is an only child. And since that obviously isn't Fluttershy, who is it?

"Well..." she drawled, her thoughts still focused on that last mental question. She turned her head and looked the other pegasus straight in the eyes, and, just like Fluttershy would, she cowered slightly and retreated into her mane.

"You sorta remind me of my friend, Fluttershy." With that, the pegasus in question just stared blankly, mouth in the shape of an o, and Dash turned her head to face the pink one. "And you kinda look like-"

"Umm, Sugarcube?"

Well, she's definitely as rude as Applejack. And why does she keep calling me 'Sugarcube?' What kind of nickname is 'Sugarcube?'

"Rainbow."

Maybe she heard Applejack calling me that once, I dunno. Does AJ even call me that, anyways? Maybe I should pay more attention when she wakes me up...

"Rainbow!"

Speaking of which... How long have I even been here? I mean, I don't remember any of Applejack's relatives coming to town, or Pinkie's, either. She'd have thrown a yay-sister's-here or something party, for sure. Maybe she did, and some hard cider knocked me out or somethi-

"RAINBOW!"

"Huh?"

She turned to where the voice came from: Ms. Orange. Next to her, was Pegasus, poking an eye through her pink mane. The whole situation was awkward at that point, so for the sake of breaking the silence, Dash spoke the first thing on her mind.

"So how long've I been out?"

It was Pegasus, of all ponies, who spoke up next, her voice firm and emotionless, eyes dull with apathy.

"Three days."

I know that look, Rainbow thought. Only Fluttershy can look like that. So if that's Fluttershy, why does she look so... big? I mean, three days isn't enough for a pony to grow that much. Unless... maybe her-

"Ahh, Rainbow Dash, you're awake," another stallion wearing a white coat, most likely a doctor, stated matter-of-factly, interrupting her thoughts.

With just a simple nod of his head, the five visitors exchanged quick glances and filed wordlessly out of the room, and into the hall outside. Unknown to both Rainbow and the doctor, the pink and white mares had pressed their ears against the door, listening intently to anything and everything said between the two.

"Hello again, Rainbow Dash. I'm Doctor Stable. How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine, doc, but-"

"Do you know why you're here?"

Dash grunted at being interrupted, but then thought back to her last memory, of her flying to Ponyville for medicine.

"Nope."

The sound of graphite against paper and an occasional beeping filled the room for a few seconds, before the doctor looked back up to his patient.

"What is the last thing you remember before waking up here?"

"I was getting medicine for one of Fluttershy's bunnies or something. Look, I don-"

The doctor turned his back to Dash as she trailed off, eying him both angrily and curiously. Without a word, he left her alone in the hospital bed.

He's ruder than Applejack, cutting me off and just walking out on me like that. Didn't his mom teach him some manners or something? If I weren't stuck in this bed, I'd teach him a-

The door swung open, and in came Doctor Stable once again, his clipboard floating lazily at his side.

"So, Rainbow Dash. What's the last thing you remember before helping your friend?"

"Hmmm..." Dash raised a hoof to her chin in thought, her mind working to go back to before helping Fluttershy. She was in a tree, and something pulled her down off of it, and there was Applejack, spitting a rope out of her mouth, yelling about who-knows-what.

"I was nappin' in a tree. Why does that-"

"Ahhh. So, tell me, do you know who owns those trees?"

"Huh? Somepony owns them? Look, I didn't know anypony owned them, and I wasn't trying to like, steal them or anything, I mean, how do you st-"

The doctor turned his back on her, midsentence, once again, this time muttering something as he walked off. Dash concentrated as hard as she possibly could, but wasn't able to make out a single thing he'd said.

The next day was filled with Rainbow's version of 'polite rudeness.' That being: ignore everything a pony says until they give up and leave her alone.

She ignored everything the white unicorn, who identified herself as 'Rarity' said, and she somehow managed to talk for an hour and a half about fashion and dresses and stupid junk like that.

Thankfully, Fluttershy (who she now definitely knew was Fluttershy, based on the photo album she brought in) came in with the pink pony and coerced her to leave. Dash spent the next two hours ignoring everything Pink said, hoping she would leave. Fluttershy kept calling her friend 'Pinkie,' which didn't make sense since Pinkie's hair was never straight, even when gallons of water were dumped onto it.

After Fluttershy finally got the hint, she convinced Pinkie to go and spent the rest of the day talking about whatever. Of course, talking about whatever wasn't exactly interesting, but the pegasus's voice never failed to soothe her. Rainbow didn't even object when she offered to spend the night.

The day afterwards saw Rainbow with a furious Applejack. At first, Rainbow apologized for trespassing on her trees, which caused the earth pony to just blink confusedly. Afterwards, her apologies out of the way, she ignored her visitor completely, the latter's patience gradually running low. Fluttershy eventually came in again and pulled Applejack out of the room and into the hall, returning a few minutes afterwards.

She offered to bring Dash some fresh veggies in place of the hospital food, but she didn't really feel like eating at all. Fluttershy left a while later to take care of her animals and go to the spa with Rarity, and came back at the same time every day for the remainder of her week-long hospital stay to fill her in on the goings-on of Ponyville.

Of course, the doctor insisted that Rainbow stay longer, maybe go through some rehabilitation and whatever other nonsense went on in hospitals. She wouldn't have any of it, though, and since doctors can't force patients to undergo treatments, he dropped the subject and signed her release papers.

It took Rainbow a while to get used to her significantly larger body. Fluttershy said it was because she refused the doctor's advice, but Dash knew it wouldn't take long for her to get back into the swing of things.

Apparently, she was the captain of the entire weather team. Of course, she knew it wouldn't take long for her to rise through the ranks, but to actually have that rank in her hooves was like a dream come true.

Her wings took her farther than ever before, and faster than ever, too. Her dream of being a Wonderbolt seemed closer than ever before, until she found a half-torn letter thrown on the ground of her house. Needless to say, that didn't end well, and it took Princess Luna and half the town of Ponyville an entire week to find her afterwards.

Also, during a visit from Princess Celestia herself, it was revealed to her that she had this thing called an 'Element of Harmony,' and, when used along with Fluttershy's, Rarity's, Applejack's, Pinkie Pie's, and Shining Armor's Elements, they could be used to do lots of crazy magical stuff to save the world whenever it was in danger.

Rainbow didn't nap as often anymore, preferring instead to spend her time in Ponyville's library, searching through records and history, picking up the pieces of the life she never knew she had.