The night breeze is harsh tonight. A week into winter and a cold front is already upon us, but this is unsurprising to me; I was on the pegasus weather team afterall. The air was frigid, especially now as the sun has nearly set, but the breeze was kept at bay by the warmth of the candles resting nearby. I also still felt heated from flying practice today.
And because of her.
Even in the darkness I could make out her face, illuminated by the warm glow of the candle light. Her coat was a pale violet; however, even in the pitch dark, a rosy tint could be made out on her cheeks. Probably just a result of nipping winds. Her mane was made up of a lighter palette of purple and dark blue hues, with vibrant streaks of pink thrown in the mix. She had a long, flat mane with bangs aligned perfectly across her forehead, save the parting around her horn. It was kempt and tidy; a fitting look for the normally stringent and orderly mare. And her eyes. They were a deep purple hue; I frequently found myself getting lost in them. They were kind and thoughtful eyes, yet tonight they seemed unsure, darting about in a worried manner.
“I’m glad you came out here tonight,” Twilight said. Her voice was soft and gentle, yet seemed to carry with it a waver of doubt. An unnatural tone to the usual unwavering confidence the Alicorn usually possessed. “I know picnics are really not something you would normally find to be enjoyable” she continued hesitantly; more doubt creeping into her voice this time. Obviously something was troubling her, so I decided to try and do what I do best. Lighten the mood with some humor.
“Are you kidding Twi, how could I pass up an opportunity to hangout with some delicious pastries,” I jested, “and you of course”. Resisting facehoofing myself, I think to myself: “Oh Celestia what a weak joke. Was that really the best I could come on up with?”
Stuck in momentary shame, I was pleasantly surprised upon hearing an unexpected response of giggling. Is she laughing? She actually thought my lame tease was funny?
She thought I was funny?
Even with the smallest amount of light I could make out the slightest curve of her mouth. A smirk was painted on her face, and a blush dotted around it as she let out a small giggle. At this thought I felt my heart skip a beat; I love this side of her. She has such a lovely, playful laugh. Embarrassed, I pushed that thought from head.
“Rainbow you’re such a dork” she said; all the doubt in her voice was gone. This again made my heart skip another beat; I love when she calls me that.
Quickly I conceal a blush and try to move on; I don't want to let on my sentiments and make her anymore uncomfortable.
“Seriously though Twi; it’s no bother. I’m always willing to hang out with you; what kind of friend would I be if I didn’t? Besides, these pastries do smell really good.” As to confirm that, but mainly to move on from my wandering thoughts, I took a slight whiff of the food laid below. Oh Celestia they smelled good. There were many assortments of tiny pies and cakes. They emitted a sickly sweet aroma, and I would expect no less from their baker. Pinkie always loved to douse her deserts in buckets of sugar, and with her that might have more of a literal than metaphorical meaning.
“These are amazing,” I exclaim.
“I had them specially made for the picnic. Pinkie offered to come along, but I just wanted it to be the two of us. Just you and me.”
“Oh,” I offered weakly. Wow what a compelling remark.
“Well why don’t we try some of them.”
With that we dug into the deserts and an air of silence blanketed us, but those words hung heavily over my head.
Just the two of us? Twilight was never one to turn down an opportunity for all of us to hang out. I vaguely remember her saying she had something to tell me, but she hadn’t offered much more information than that. A thought surfaced to mind, but I quickly dismissed it. Just wishful thinking.
I quickly became aware of the growing silence between us.
“So,” I started weakly, trying to break the awkward silence that had quickly filled the night sky around us, “you mentioned earlier that there was something you wanted to talk about?”
“Oh, yeah” she said, her face now turning from a rosy shade of red to a deep crimson. Seeing her like that made me feel a bit of heat reach my face as well. I tried to hold back my blush, but I could feel the heat reach my cheeks; thank Celestia for the darkness.
She's adorable when she's flustered.
“I’ve been playing with this thought in my head for a while," she said, mindlessly playing with her wings. This time I gave up holding back my thoughts. It’s not like she could read my mind or anything.
Oh Celestia I love when she does that. Ever since she got her wings I became more infatuated with her. Not that I didn't before, but it’s given me a chance to get closer with her. It also sowed seeds of doubt into my mind. What if she has to leave Ponyville again? What if Celestia calls here back now to rule in Canterlot, or worse in a completely new kingdom?
At this thought I feel completely ashamed. It’s not right for me to feel this way. That would be a huge accomplishment and I should be happy if that happens. But I can’t bring myself to feel enthusiastic or even fake it. Deep down is one last thought I can not bring myself to surface; it would be too painful to imagine.
What if being a princess makes her too ashamed to love me?
Eventually I realize that Twilight has been talking this entire time. What a good friend I am.
“...and when we first met," she continued, “I don’t mean to sound rude when I say this, but I felt completely put off by your demeanor. That first meeting it seemed as if you were the opposite of any pony I would want to hang out with; not that I had really wanted to hang out with any pony at the time. You seemed brash, jokey, and a bit airheaded. But over time, as we got to know each other more, I realized that under that thick skin you were more than that."
For the third time my heart skipped a beat. Is she trying to say what I think she is? No Rainbow, you are getting way ahead of yourself. Twilight is not that type of pony.
"You are a caring pony who’s dedicated and loyal and always there for everypony; even willing to give up your health to keep others safe. You put up a façade of a strong, robust, dashing pegasi. Cracking jokes and pushing off others, but I know better now. Deep down you're a sweet, endearing…”
At those last few words I felt my heart leap into near my throat. Did Twilight just call me… dashing? And endearing? I’m no egghead, but I’m pretty sure those words aren't exactly words I’d describe a friend as. Unless…
As I was lost in thought, I had not even realized that she had finished talking. I felt something graze across my forehead and as I was brought back to reality I nearly took flight off into the night sky. At some point while I was over analyzing her word choice, she had inched closer to me. We were now shoulder to shoulder and she had raised a hoof to my forehead. I could feel her warm breath on my neck, and felt a shiver go up my spine. She was looking at me with those sharp, questioning purple eyes; her eyebrows furrowed in worry.
Mistaking my surprise as aversion, she flinched her hand back. “I’m sorry. I was talking to you, but I got distracted. You looked really hot, and your fur feels exceptionally warm. Are you feeling alright?”
“Yeah it’s fine Twi, I should be the sorry one here. I was just a little distracted.”
“I’m sorry if I was making you uncomfortable. I was rambling on a bit, and I know your attention span isn’t the best, so I was probably boring you with-”
I cut her off, “Twilight, really, it’s fine.”
But it wasn’t. I feel absolutely horrible. As hard as I was trying to not make her uncomfortable, I managed to mess it up anyway. She is never uncertain like this and it’s all my fault for being a stupid, fillyfooling-
But before I could get lost in thought again, Twilight said something that caught me completely off guard.
"Dashie," she implored, "can I tell you something?"
A simple, "Yeah", was all I could muster. My heart was racing harder and faster than ever; even harder than an especially difficult performance with the Bolts. There was no holding back my blush anymore.
Did she just call me… Dashie? I hated that name. I hated when anyone called me that. But when she said it…
“Dash?" Twilight questioned again, an edge of worry in her voice once again. I need to stop getting distracted.
“Uh, yeah.”
She inched closer to me; her muzzle was tantalisingly close to my own.
Oh my gosh. It suddenly feels like I'm in the Ponyville sauna; I can feel perspiration building up under my fur. My whole body is practically glowing with heat, and my head is spinning. After desperately trying to dispel my fantasized thoughts, it was now the only thing galloping through my mind.
Up closeher mane was not as perfect as it had seemed from a distance. It was perfectly laid across her head and evenly brushed, sure. But little untamed strands were noticeably fighting against her perfect mane. At this distance I could smell the wonderful aroma of her shampoo; it gave off the scent of lavender. A fitting complement to the hue of her coat. It was neatly brushed, but again had noticeable imperfections, giving it a fluffy look. It was a great contrast from her natural perfectionism.
Oh what I'd give to just cuddle up with her right now and feel her warm embrace. The soft touch of her fur on mine. Suddenly a shameful thought crosses my mind.
I could steal a kiss right now before she could do anything about it.
With all my will I had to resist the temptation. I felt horrible and dirty. She was a friend and I felt shameful for thinking of putting that thought on her. Of embarrassing myself, and her. She would surely tell the others if I told her the truth. And what would they think of me then? Rainbow Dash, the rough and tough Wonderbolt cadet and protector of Equestria. A silly fillyfooler.
"I love you Dashie."
At those words my heart nearly exploded from pure joy. Did she just say she loved me? She was a fillyfooler too! Everything about this was perfect.
Like a dream come true.
The freezing winds had started to pick up slightly, but I was completely unaware of it. My mind focused solely on the alluringly close mare in front of me, of whom I was completely lovestricken. Just as quickly as the thought of kissing her moments ago had embarrassed me, it seemed like the best idea right now. Might as well seize the moment. With that thought I leaned quickly towards her, but my lips were not met with hers. Instead she had placed her hoof upon my reaching lips, and once again the worry built up in me.
Oh no. Was she saying that in a friendly way? Did I just blow it? Was my mind this clouded with love that I was blind to that? I feel absolutely ashamed. Thoughts of everypony laughing at me fill my head.
Of the Wonderbolts cutting me off the team.
Forced to leave Ponyville and everypony I know behind. Most importantly, her.
I quickly turn my face. "I'm so sorry Twi I-"
"I want to hear you say it first," she teased. A playful grin on her face now.
Every thought in my mind was washed away in a wave of ecstasy. All the worry and guilt and embarrassment. Gone. I have never been one for displaying affection, but that thought momentarily vanished from my head as well.
"I- I love you too, Twi."
Again I closed my eyes and, this time, slowly moved in for a kiss. However my coveting lips were met with chill air, and on that air rode a high pitched cackle.
Was she laughing? "Uh Twi, what's so funny," I waverily ask.
"All of this," she leered. “I knew you were dumb, but I can’t believe how guillible you were. How easy it was to break the tough willed Rainbow Dash down to a little. Silly. Filly.” She stressed each word with a mocking tone. “Watching your face was priceless. Seeing your rollercoaster of emotion; I thought you might cry,” she mocked while feigning a sorrowful look.
I’m at a loss for words. She must be joking, I thought, but that thought did not satisfy as an answer to her reaction. Twilight was not the one to joke, especially not on serious matters such as this. All my enthusiasm which had built up throughout the night was leaving and all that filled my head was utter confusion. Trying to wrap my head around what Twilight had just said, my senses were finally brought back to clarity. The wind was roaring around us, making the candle flames dance, creating frightful shadows behind her. A light rain had begun; however, the candles stood strong against the natural elements erupting around them, presumably by some spell Twilight had put on them. I try to think of something, anything to say. My lips move but the words behind them are caught in my throat and all that exits them is a soft whinnying noise.
“Equestria to Rainbow Dash; are you there?”, she jeered. “Lost in thought again? I always knew you were stupid, but I thought you at least had some sense in that feather brain of yours”.
Her words cut into me harder than the icy rain pelting my fur. “Twilight… are you okay?”, I quavered. Tears were welling up in my eyes, hidden by the rain, but somehow she knew.
She let out an even louder cackle that resonated a sound higher than the thunder and seemed to shake the entire hill. “Crying are we?”, she leered, amused by my verge of a breakdown. “Quite funny showing I will admit. It would be wasteful for me to even give a few mere seconds of you to my thoughts, especially now that I am a princess. A face of equestria. Future ruler to the whole nation!” she thundered, bellowing a sound matching that of the loudest cracks of thunder. “Making a fool of myself in front of the entire kingdom? For a practically braindead pegasus is laughable.”
“A mare at that”, she added with a venomous pronunciation of mare.
Tears were now streaming down from my eyes and at this point I couldn't care less. It felt like my heart had been ripped clean out of my chest, like a pony who failed to answer a sphinx’s riddle correctly on the first try. My soul had evaporated, leaving nothing but a heavy emptiness in my chest. This wasn’t right, none of this was. However, I quickly lost that thought as rapidly whispers built up around us and suddenly we were no longer alone.
The first voice came from a figure shrouded in the darkness, but the southern accent was easily recognizable. “Ah always figured you for ah fillyfooler”, Applejack said, a hint of disappointment behind her words. “Wit’ your wandering looks, yer attitude, the way ya talked. Bein’ honest ere’, don’t think ah can stay friends wit’ a deceptive lass like you. Maight rub off.” With that Applejack wandered back into the mist.
The next voice made whatever shred of my heart was still beating, break into pieces. “I’m at a loss for words right now, Crash. At the tryouts you never said anything? All those academy records that you set and I had to write your name into every record book we had ever written. All those medals and trophies you won with us as we flew side by side at every event with your name written next to ours. Then the other times. When we hung out after practice, watching movies and eating popcorn late after long flights. The times you suggested we go out for lunch and dinners without the team, just “the two best flyers taking time away from the rest”. Were you just trying to use me?”
“Spits I didn’t-”
“Do not call me that,” she uttered coldly.
“I’m sorry Dash, but we have a standard here on the wonderbolts and we cannot have one pegasus mucking that reputation up.” Spitfires tone held more sympathy and sorrow than anger, yet somehow that was worse. I had presented her with a stunning prospect for her successor, yet I had let her down.
“Spits I’m sorr-”
“Rainbow Dash," she interjected with an unusual ferocity and tears gushing behind her eyes. “You are hereby discharged from your active duty and stripped of your title as a starting line wonderbolt. You will return your gear to my desk tomorrow.” With that she flew off into, back into the dark mist and with a flash of lightning she was gone. I heard Twilight still laughing in the distance, but suddenly I couldn’t hear anything. My heartbeat, the only sound. It felt like the storm and time itself had stopped.
“Honey, why didn’t you tell us?”
Tears still streaming down my face, I turn towards the next voice. “Dad?”, I called out.
Standing in front of me now was my dad, with mom by his side. “We could have gotten you help if only you’d told us,” my mom said.
Suddenly heat was building up in my face. Sadness was turning into anger and I dug my hooves into the wet sludge below my to steady myself.
“You know sweetie, your cousin had the same affliction, but we sent her to this great doctor! She was feeling better in no time. Happily married with a nice stallion and has a few cute fillies. You wouldn’t believe how cute they are, always wanted some grandfilies of our own,” she giggled, only adding to my rage. My mom continued rambling on about what she wanted, what my dad wanted, what her friends wanted. Not about what I wanted, because apparently that does not matter? I don’t matter? “Trust us,” she continued, “we’re still here for you even if you are a bit kerfuzzled in the bra-”
Her words were cut off as my brain was now overwhelmed in a tidal wave of sound and raging anger and misery and confusion. The rain was falling so hard that it sounded like the earth below was shattering from the impact. Around me the wind roared like a colossal vacuum. A hurricane of scattered objects circling the sky and the sounds of houses, trees, and more crashing into the hill side. Debris circulating the air was cutting through my skin and the cold was numbing my body. I couldn't move. The whispers had turned to deafening howls of insults and slanders all directed towards me, words barely discernible in a cascade of noise, but I wish I couldn’t hear them at all.
“Makes me sick that I loved you. Guess I was lucky you turned me down.”
“I was in the locker rooms with this perv?”
“Don’t worry, I’ll keep your wonderbolts spot safe Crash. Karma’s a b-”
“Can’t believe I looked up to you like a sister, why did yo-”
“Darling you can’t be serious? I knew your ego was big, but I thought you had enough attent-”
“My poor little filly-”
“Why don’t you just go on and lea-”
I burst into the night sky. The rain stung on my fur as I rocketed into the dark clouds. I closed my eyes as tears were streaming off my face and I flew to nowhere in particular. It did not matter; nothing did. I just needed to get away from everything, so I pushed myself hard. Gaining more ground, I keep going faster and faster, pushing harder and harder. In a matter of seconds I had lost everything, everyone, even myself. There was no more purpose to life, was there? My passion and dream throughout my entire fillyhood, that had taken years and years of practice and dedication was gone. The mare I looked up to my entire life and thought of me as an equal now saw me as a disgrace. I had ruined the Bolts reputation, broken their records just to have them shredded away. My family who had helped me get there thought I was a freak. They want to put me in a nuthouse to live my days through therapy. The friends I had made distrusted me, hated me. All of our adventures we had been on, solving friendship problems and fighting against the world together, yet they couldn’t accept me? And finally she was gone.
“It would be wasteful for me to even give a few mere seconds of you to my thoughts...”
Slowly my speed was decreasing and the air turned to ice crystals as I ascended higher and higher. Cuts built up across my body and my wings were wavering against the force of this frigid gale. The nerves in my wings were quickly starting to lose any sense of feeling, soon I would not be able to fly. Yet it didn’t matter.
My body has completely frozen up now and I am cascading from the heavens. The gusts of winds knocking my near lifeless body this way and that through the sky. My eyes were closed, but even if they were not there would be no telling where I am or what direction is up or down. All that is certain is that the place I am going is down. Down. Down. Like an angel kicked down the staircase to heaven on a long plummet down to depths of tartarus where the other mistakes belong.
My brain seemed to be the next and final function to go. Nothing makes sense anymore. Who am I? Where am I? My eyelids open one last time and the storm has steadily calmed down and I can see all of the land from here that I vaguely remember as Equestria. The ground is quietly racing towards me or am I racing towards it? I suppose that does not matter now. What is life? I suppose there is no answer to that question either. Life is whatever we want it to be and I would say I got pretty far. Whatever lies ahead is just a doldrum of boring normality anyway and even the anomalies are a common occurrence for me. I accept this.
I accept this.
And then everything went dark.
My eyes open and I lunge forward, drenched in sweat, tears in my eyes. I am in a void of nothingness. The cosmos laid out around me. I can make out some of the constellations Twilight taught me.
Twilight.
Suddenly I see a glowing ball of light glide towards me, slowly taking a form in front of me that, at the moment, is impossible to make out. I assume this is the afterlife though, my punishment of eternity in this endless void. Because I loved.
That form finally takes the shape of a tall, slim mare with a coat dark enough to rival the shadows left by the midnight moonlight.
“Dash”, Luna whispers softly. “We need to talk.”