Gravity

Gossamer, gossamer. Shroud and salve. Mason jar, contained and just. Sealed and shattered. Come, don’t go. Don’t go, and come.

Gossamer, gossamer. If you have wings, take hold my branches. If you have a voice, let me hear you sing. Have a heart, and I will make it scream.

Gossamer, gossamer. The same mistakes. Ichor streams. Rapids to whitewater. Rocks to oceans. Brine beatific. Beat against currents in your veins, in vain.

Gossamer, gossamer. Auxiliary and anxious. Restless, not weary. Broken, battered, beaten. Shell of what I was.

Gossamer, gossamer. Cerulean celerity, and the downfall therein. Come, fast and last. Melodious over the syncopation. Tamed, but unpredictable.

Gossamer, gossamer. Still, after the starting gun. Impetus for the impatient. Kismet comes, but rarely.

Gossamer, gossamer. Part my lips; lissom. Feathers offered and flesh received. Gentle breeze, blow swift. Break my guard. Break me down.

Gossamer, gossamer. And gossamer still. Wear it down, and out among you, with that lochetic stare. Zitella, amongst friends. Zitella, even in repose and boudoir.

Gossamer, gossamer. Marmoreal dust. Little to share your opusculum tales. Tails entwined, and lost.

***

“Choose!” beckoned the voice around her, belonging to many familiar entitites that changed with each echo in the resounding darkness. Vocal attacks came from every direction as Rainbow stood alone to answer for herself.

“I—” She swallowed the lump in her throat, and yet it only grew larger, catching on each lie she told herself before it could pass her quivering lips. Lies of friends turned lovers; all the mistakes she made without fear of consequences. Spotlights blinded her with their accusatory stare, gazing at and through her, as transparent as the falsehoods that echoed through her gut.

“Choose!” called the voice again, calling forth in a formal chant. The shadows around the edge of the circle of light pulled closer, one emerging into the light itself from beyond the dark recesses of the empty space. Wisps of dark smoke pulled back from the approaching shade, revealing the form of Rainbow’s first paramour and confidant. Her horn shone brilliantly in the light, and Rainbow averted her gaze in fear and shame. “Choose!” the shadow called to her in Rarity’s voice, as the marching shadows around the edge of Rainbow’s superfluous cage of illumination echoed the call.

“I can’t!” Rainbow offered in response. “I… I don’t know how!” she screamed more lies to hide her doubt, knowing full well that she was only producing excuses. Tears fell through her fur, turning dry and crusty as the salt dried into her face with the heat of the spotlight.

She wasn’t scared of the visage that shot offensive glares at her as it circled about. No, she was scared because she knew none of this was real. She knew this was a dream, and that scared her most of all. She could stop this any time she wanted. She could kick herself awake and escape this imprisonment.

Yet she did nothing of the sort. This was a dream that would come back only stronger if she didn't face it here and now. She could offer no answer or solution that would satisfy the guilt and urges that her subconscious was now placing her body on trial for. She could only hear it out and hope she came out on top, the victor that she imagined herself to be.

She kept telling herself it was just a dream, slowly realizing she was muttering such aloud now. It did little to comfort her, only reminding her that she was not in control of her surroundings. As lucid as her dreams would get, they followed a pattern, and she knew where this one would lead, but had not the slightest clue where it would end.

She was alone. Even separated from herself now. Prey to her mind’s predatory instincts as it stared through her with Rarity’s eyes. “Tell me what you want!” Rainbow begged her captor for mercy.

“Tell us what you want!” her ego responded, booming low echoes as a choir of voices rang from a single muzzle. “Do you truly want me?” it asked through Rarity’s voice. A flash of dark smoke wrapped around its head and carried off, revealing Pinkie’s face. “Or maybe me, me, ME!” it called through the earth pony’s high trill.

“I c-can’t…” the pegasus stuttered as her hooves backed away from the impostor.

Another flash of smoke came from the ground, enveloping her judge. It crept behind Rainbow, rising up just as quickly as it disappeared. Each time it rattled off questions and accusations through the voices of her friends as it drew tighter and tighter circles around her.

“Perhaps me?” Twilight inquired.

“Ah reckon she wants me,” argued Applejack.

“No she’s mine!” cut in Fluttershy, quickly drooping her head towards the ground in shame. “I mean, if that’s what you wa—”

“Mine!”

“Me!”

“Her heart is mine!”

“Mine.”

“Mine!”

“MINE!”
“…mine.”

“Mine!”

“No…” Rainbow whispered. She turned about, trying to back away before each exit path was suddenly occupied by another mirage popping up to claim her.

“Hmmmm…?” the voices moaned gleefully together.

Rainbow stomped her hoof down, and yet her accusers barely flinched. “No! I don’t belong to any of you! I don’t need any of you!”

“Yes,” the voices responded in unison. “You need none of us, yet you want all of us. Do you think it’s that easy? You think we belong to you? That you can have it all without consequence?”

“No. I’m… I’m not like that. I’m loyal to my friends.”

The visage cackled back at her. “But love is not loyal, Rainbow Dash. It is vicious. You can be loyal to your friends, or you can love one. You cannot have both.”

“You– You’re right.” Rainbow’s head hung low, her mane sweeping across her shadow as it grew longer in the bright light shining down from the vastness above. “I can only love one, but…” Rainbow choked back tears that fought hard to break through her struggling. “But I can’t choose.”

“That’s because,” the spirits chided her as they gathered back into one, the dark miasma rising around it as they converged, “the only pony you love is…”

“Tell me! Tell me so this can end! Who must I love before I can be free?” Her wings cried for freedom and yet felt chained to her body. Her heart broke into smaller shards with each gasping cry as she realized she was screaming at herself for an answer that she couldn't find. There were no answers to be found in this space or dimension, only what she already knew to be true.

“You already know,” the mist answered, addressing her in a familiar and gruff feminine tone. “Don’t you, Dash? You’re too cool, too fast, too loyal to only one pony.” The dark webs of smoke rose from the form, revealing the slender, blue hooves that right now were barely holding herself up. Toned and resolute, she looked upon herself as she collapsed to the ground, her ego staring her down with fire in the reflection of her own crimson eyes. “The only pony you love is yourself.”

“No…” The tears streamed harder, her lips cracking as the salt sucked them dry, splitting open as she called out in denial. “No! I won’t hurt my friends like that!”

“You already have,” replied the doppelganger. “It is only a matter of time before they all find out. I wonder how many of the ponies you call your friends you’ll have willingly spread your hooves for before that day comes.” The voice amplified with maniacal laughter that echoed off of non-existent walls. “You know nothing of love. Your dreams are proof of that, as is your reality. You couldn’t see past a kiss, and then when thrust into it in the world above, you succumbed to primordial instincts in a flash once life presented an opportunity. You are weak because you are fast and foolish. Love is for the strong, both of will and heart. You always have one while lacking the other.”

“Why are you doing this to me?” Rainbow pleaded at her reflection. “Shouldn’t you protect me? Aren’t you loyal to me?”

“Don’t you see? You don’t want protection,” the all-familiar smirk cut across the visage’s maw. “You crave pain, masochism, degradation, loss; the same as you crave love, attention, desire. But you will not find redemption here. It is too late for anything else.”

“Then what? What do I do? How do I end this?”

“Exactly as I said from the beginning. You must choose the love of yourself or the loyalty of your friends.”

“You know I’ll choose my friends any day.”

“Yes, but which one?” The spirit split back into the forms of all her closest friends. “CHOOSE!” they echoed together as they closed in on their prey for the kill.

“I… don’t—”

***

“—WANT TO CHOOSE!!!”

Rainbow found herself in bed, hyperventilating. The bed felt foreign and cold. It was not the cloud she was so used to being wrapped in, and instead reminded her of the hospital bed she once found herself confined to. She craved the freedom of a cloud to the cage of a bed. Each spring in the mattress coiled into a bar in the prison that confined her, blankets simply being straitjackets that hid her away from the calm breeze of the night sky. She would always choose a cloud over a mattress.

But what truly kept her from moving was the quivering warmth she felt still wrapped around her abdomen. Short of breath, she panted as she held a hoof to her stomach to quell the butterflies making a hurricane therein. Yet instead, what she felt was unusually stiff and shivered further at her touch, and she soon realized it wasn’t her shaking, but Pinkie.

Rainbow pulled down the sheets and found the earth pony wrapped tightly around her abdomen, trying to calm her down as best she could. Ashamed of herself, the pegasus gently brushed her hoof against the base of Pinkie’s mane, and she responded by slowly opening her eyes. Heavy lids hanging low, she peered up at Rainbow, asking, “How long have these dreams been going on?”

The pegasus hid the shame in her eyes behind the bright colors of her mane that fell disheveled in front of her face. “A couple months, but that… did I—?”

Pinkie nodded slowly. “You talked in your sleep. At first I found it funny. I wanted to know what you saw in your dreams.” She pulled the covers closer, shielding her words behind the fabric. “But it wasn’t funny at all. You weren’t smiling… your mumbling got louder and you started bucking around the bed.”

Rainbow’s face flooded with embarrassment and color. “I’m sorry, Pinkie. I didn’t mean to scare you. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

Pinkie thrust her hooves around Rainbow in a vice grip hug. “There is nothing wrong with you, Dashie. You’re you, and I wouldn’t change a thing about you. We’ll get through this. Together. You, me, and all our friends.”

Tears in her eyes, the pegasus gently pulled Pinkie’s hooves off of her. “I’m afraid that once I get through this, I’ll have no friends left. You’re going to end up hurt, Pinkie, and it’s going to be my fault.” Voices from her dream still echoed in her head, and she shook her head to shoo them away. “The dream I just had, it made it clear to me that I can either suffer alone, or hurt my friends with my selfishness…”

“These dreams… am I in them too?”

“… Yes,” Rainbow slowly responded. “Sometimes.”

“And how do I react in your dreams?”

“You all act the same.”

“All? You mean…?”

“Our friends. All of them. You reject me. I hurt you, and you reject me.” Rainbow’s face fell on her hooves she sobbed into them. It hurt more to say it aloud than she expected. It was an open wound now, and she wondered if it would kill her, or become a scar that marked her for the rest of her days. Rainbow felt the cotton candy-colored hoof running through her mane, trying to massage away the sorrow and regret she felt at that moment. It reached under her head, pulling her up by the chin, and Rainbow wondered why Pinkie was smiling.

“That wouldn’t be very harmonious, would it? We need loyalty, and right now, you need laughter. There is nothing you could say or do that would make me throw you out like a bad pastry. You could never hurt me, Dashie.” The smile on Pinkie’s face grew ever wider. “Even if you did, it just means we’d have to throw an awesome party to make up for it!”

“But—”

Pinkie’s hoof quickly silenced Rainbow’s objection. “No buts. Buts just make things messy." Pinkie giggled at what seemed like a joke only she had heard. She pulled her hoof from Rainbow's mouth and gently prodded her in the chest with it. "You’re suffering right now, Dashie. What do you need that will get you through this?" Your friends are here for you, always…" Pinkie inhaled deeply and let out an unusually distinctive growl, "and for-ev-ERRRR!!!”

Rainbow’s mind flashed through all the dreams she had up until that moment. All her friends and what they had each done for her, and how much she had shocked and hurt all of them in the saga of her subconscious. Her friends of old and her pals anew. She ran her hoof through her mane, pausing on each color briefly, but her eyes transfixed on yellow. Her oldest friend, and the one who knew her better than anything else. Somepony who could see through Rainbow's shame and guide her back to a sense of normalcy with her kindness.

With a somber tone, she apologized to Pinkie, never taking her eyes off her mane. “I… I have to go Pinkie. There’s somewhere I need to be right now, and I can’t take you with me. Because, well…” Her wings spread from her body, no longer bonded by her fear and repression. “I’m sorry, but I’ll come back here when this is over… and we’ll make that cake. I Pinkie Promise.”

When Rainbow finally looked up, Pinkie was gone from the bed, and Rainbow wondered if she had just apologized to nopony but herself. The party pony was bouncing towards the doorway humming and singing along to a song that played on a phonograph that occupied the space where her brain and attention span should have been. “I got hot, sticky moves! From my head to my hooves!”

“… Bye, Pinkie. I wish this was as easy as you make it seem.” Rainbow’s wings extended their full span as she pushed open a nearby window. She leapt from the top floor of the bakery, and her wings ignored the freedom and expanse of the open air, carrying her in one direction, leashed onto the forest off in the distance. As her wings pulled her along the invisible zipline, Pinkie’s boisterous singing faded off with her reprise.

“Pour some SYRUP ON MEEEEE!!!”

***

It never took long for Rainbow to get where she was going, but she did have some trouble finding what she was looking for. She landed on a cloud circling the edge of the city and wondered to herself what in the hay Fluttershy would be doing here. Maybe that damn rabbit was lying to her to get her to go away. He did seem pretty annoyed that she had woken him up from his nap. When she asked why Fluttershy wasn’t home he just pointed upwards as he yawned through a sleepy glare.

Cloudsdale was a large place, and not one Fluttershy returned to often, and Rainbow was quite aware of that fact. From her perch, she reminisced of the foalhood the two had spent here, and how eager Fluttershy had been to leave. This wasn’t a place with anything left for Fluttershy to come back for, nor would she want to. Fluttershy had been so eager to leave the metropolis at the first opportunity, and it hadn’t been long before Rainbow realized how lonely she felt in the bustling city until her closest friend was gone, and she soon made the trek to Ponyville as well.

It soon was clear to Rainbow just how long ago that had been, and how much had happened since then. She longed even more to speak with Fluttershy at length about all this, but had to find her first. She could oversee a large part of the city from where she was, but soon realized she was looking in the wrong direction. In a city full of pegasi, there would only be a select few that walked instead of flying, and Fluttershy was neither foal nor elderly. Rainbow leapt from her observation deck and dove towards the base clouds that the locals instinctively referred to as ‘ground’. She pulled back her wings as the updraft sent her speeding along the puffy white streaks, in search of the pink and yellow spectrum hidden among them.

As she took a corner she collided into the only thing around softer than the clouds beneath her, and said object took to the air with a high-pitched yelp. Rainbow realized she had found what she was looking for, right under her nose, literally. Fluttershy hovered several feet above them, shielding her flank with her hooves lest anything else assault it as she searched for the culprit.

“Hey Fluttershy,” Rainbow called from beneath her.

Fluttershy quickly fell back to the cloudwalk and wrapped her hooves tightly around Rainbows neck. “Oh, thank goodness it’s you, Rainbow!” She exclaimed as she shuddered. “I forgot how big and… scary Cloudsdale can be. I think somepony just groped me!”

Rainbow’s eyes widened as she thanked her lucky stars that Fluttershy couldn’t see the guilty expression on her face. She forced a chuckle as she pulled Fluttershy’s hooves off. “What are you doing wandering about Cloudsdale then, especially by yourself?”

Fluttershy fell to her haunches and fumbled her hooves about in concentric circles. “I– sort of...” she stumbled about from sentence to sentence, never completing a thought, and eventually trailing off. “What I mean is… I’m trying to say…”

“Oh geez,” Rainbow remarked as she pounded her face against her hoof. She found herself lacking the patience to wait for Fluttershy to finish beating around the bush. She placed her forehooves on the stuttering mare’s shoulders and shook just vigorously enough to gain her attention without rattling her brain. “While we’re young, Fluttershy!”

Fluttershy gathered herself once the shaking stopped and held her hooves together in front of her face, whispering into them, “I’m lost.”

“You’re… lost?” Rainbow cocked her head as she stared back at Fluttershy.

“Mmmhmmm…” Fluttershy squeaked as she pulled her hooves closer to her mouth.

“In Cloudsdale?”

Fluttershy nodded slowly, her eyes begging Rainbow for help.

“But, I – we – grew up here.”

“Was it,” Fluttershy whispered as her face reappeared from behind her hooves, “always so big… and scary?”

“Big, yes. Scary…” Rainbow chuckled as she pressed a hoof against Fluttershy’s forehead. “That’s all in here.”

“I guess…” Fluttershy admitted. She seemed to collect herself as her voice calmed. “I’m not so scared now that you’re here, Rainbow.” She stared at the fluffy white ‘ground’ beneath them as she meekly asked, “Will you help?”

“Sure,” Rainbow accepted without a second’s thought, rearing back with pride and confidence. “I know Cloudsdale with the back of my hoof. So what’cha looking for?” Rainbow started listing off all the awesome stops in Cloudsdale, from the racetrack to the Wonderbolts Hall of Fame, all the while not thinking about those are places she would probably enjoy far more than Fluttershy would.

“Um…” Fluttershy interrupted, or at least tried to. Even with her oldest friend, it was difficult for the quiet mare to get a word in edgewise. As comfortable as she could be with Rainbow, she still stumbled with words and every other word came out more whispered than the last. “I really need to go to the hospital…”

“The… hospital?” Rainbow asked, both surprised and a tiny bit irked. She did not get along well with hospitals. She found them incredibly boring. Well, except maybe the emergency room. She was certain some cool, exciting stuff happened there on occasion, but it’s not like she wanted something like that to happen to anypony. The rest of it was clean floors, medicine cups, routine, schedules…

It was a moment before Rainbow realized she had started to doze off just thinking about how dull that idea sounded, but then she noticed that might be insensitive. “Are you okay, Fluttershy?”

Fluttershy nodded, which only confused Rainbow further.

“Is someone we know there?”

Fluttershy shook her head, then paused briefly. “At least, I don’t think so– I hope not– I mean… That would be just awful,” she insisted, unaware that it wasn't the point of Rainbow’s line of questioning.

“Then… why? The hospital?”

“Because I have to go get a—” Fluttershy’s eyes widened as she overcame with fear. Rainbow leaned closer, trying to hear the little bit of Fluttershy’s voice that escaped her lips. “—an inoculation,” whispered Fluttershy.

Rainbow felt her hooves slip out from under her as the words caught her off guard, her center of gravity sending her face first into the soft cloud, yet still making a firm thud. With a few quick flaps of her wings, Rainbow rose back up and was suddenly face to face with Fluttershy. “That’s it? A… a…” Rainbow suddenly realized she hadn’t the slightest clue what that word meant, nor could she reproduce the pronunciation.

“A shot,” Fluttershy said, cowering further behind her hooves as Rainbow stared her down. “So I don’t get sick.”

Lowering herself back down to the cloud, Rainbow seemed a little calmer, but no less annoyed by the thought. “Oh. That’s all? A shot? Like—” Rainbow made a popping sound with her lips as she mimicked her hoof pushing the plunger down a syringe, “—and done, have a lolly?” Shy nodded back at her, and Rainbow sighed exasperatingly. “Don’t you, like, ya know, do that all the time? To critters and what not?”

“B-b-but…” Fluttershy insistently stammered. She cowered against the cloud below her, hooves wrapped around the top her head as she started to cry. “I don’t like needles!”

Rainbow sighed again, realizing she was perhaps a bit quick to react, like always. She patted Fluttershy’s head and stroked her mane gently to coax her back out of her shell. “It’s okay,” she told Fluttershy. “Nopony likes it, but it’s kinda like you always say.” Rainbow batted her eyes and tried her best to mimic Fluttershy’s sweet, innocent voice, which still came out a bit of her own rough and graveled accent, “There. All better. That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

Even though Rainbow knew that teasing, or outright mocking, Fluttershy wasn’t usually the best course of action, given the mare’s penchant for taking it personally, Fluttershy still peeked up with her face against the cloud. “I guess. It wouldn’t be fair if I gave out all those shots and couldn’t get one myself.”

“There you go,” Rainbow said encouragingly. Still, it seemed to her that Fluttershy was still quite nervous about the whole ordeal, as well as the predicament of being lost. Rainbow swallowed the lump forming in her throat, knowing that she’d probably regret agreeing to this, but still, it was for her friend, and one that she really needed some time with at the moment. “I… I’ll go with you,” she conceded, “if it’ll help.”

Fluttershy’s hooves gave way and she finally looked Rainbow in the eye. “You… you will? For me?”

“Yeah,” Rainbow forced a confident agreement as she felt another lump forming in her throat. “What are friends for?”

Fluttershy quickly rose from the cloud and wrapped her hooves back around Rainbow, squeezing tighter than Rainbow thought she was capable of. “Oh thank you, thank you, thank you!”

“It’s– it’s nothing,” Rainbow insisted. She felt a bit embarrassed at herself for noticing just how soft Fluttershy felt even as she squeezed her even harder. She dashed the thought from her head. “You ready then?”

Fluttershy nodded appreciatively, her lips finally revealed from hiding with a pleasant, yet nervous smile across them as she let go of Rainbow.

“Then follow me!” Rainbow took off past the crowd towards the taller buildings across the city, a faint voice trailing behind her as she sped away.

“Waaaaaaiiiiit!!!”

***

A bit frightened, Rainbow stood staring at the entrance to the hospital. She wasn’t afraid of the hospital itself, but what was coming out of the building instead.

A line.

Rainbow hated lines, especially lines where you’re waiting for something boring like a medical procedure. She smacked her face with a hoof and wondered why in the hay she agreed to something like this. She casually tapped the pony at the end of the queue in on the back of the shoulder. “Excuse me,” she asked. “This the line for the eye-knock-you…” she trailed off, still unclear about the terminology Fluttershy had used.

“The Feather Flu Shot?” replied the stranger, nodding as he spoke.

“Yeah. Uh… I think,” Rainbow scratched at her chin with her hoof as she realized she didn’t know which disease the shot was for. “Hey Fluttershy,” she turned to ask her companion, quickly realizing she was nowhere to be seen. “Fluttershy? Oh, horsefeathers.”

“I’m—” a wheezy voice called beneath her. “I’m here.” Rainbow looked down and found a short of breath pegasus lying in a heap outside the entrance. She gasped between words as she struggled to replenish the oxygen in her blood. “You… flew… too… fasssssst…”

“Oh… Sorry.” Rainbow apologized as she rubbed a hoof against the back of her mane in embarrassment. She helped Fluttershy to her hooves, “I forget how slow yo– I mean how fast I am.”

“It’s… fine…” Fluttershy insisted, her knees buckling as she fell back into a heap of feathers and fluff. “Just… gimme… a minute…”

“She ok?” the stranger perked up. “She doesn’t look so good.”

“Nah, she’ll be fi—” Rainbow stopped mid-sentence as a devious thought ran through her mind. She contained the smirk that begged to cross her lips as she cried dramatically, “Oh no! She’s really sick! I don’t think she’ll make it!”

Still gasping for breath, Fluttershy insisted all was fine. “I told you… just give me a mi– hmmmpffmmm!!” she mumbled into the hoof Rainbow stuffed in her mouth to silence her objections.

“Won’t somepony help?” Rainbow called out to the crowd. She wrapped her hooves around Fluttershy’s shoulders, attempting to struggle as she dragged the lightweight towards the entrance. She realized she could use a few lessons in acting (or overacting) from Rarity, but a few nearby pegasi offered aid.

Fluttershy continued to struggle a bit, and Rainbow could easily tell how uncomfortable she was with all the unwanted attention. She leaned close to Fluttershy’s ear and they carried her and whispered, “Sorry, but just play along! On the count of three I want you to go limp, okay? One… two…”

Before the count had finished, Fluttershy suddenly felt a bit heavier and fell silent. “Oh no! She’s passed out!” Rainbow exclaimed. “Hurry! Get her inside!” She struggled to keep her laughter inside as her prank went perfectly according to plan. She leaned back to Fluttershy’s ear to thank her for her performance. “That was perfect! Just keep it up!”

Fluttershy’s head fell limp again as Rainbow let it go, and she realized the timid pegasus was not simply playing along. “Fluttershy?” Rainbow asked her, nudging Fluttershy with a prod from her nose.

“Uh-oh…”

***

The doctor placed the scope back in his coat pocket and tossed the tongue depressor into a nearby waste bin. “You said she has what now?”

“Pretty sure it’s the Feather Flu, doc.”

The doctor scowled at Rainbow for her lack of respect in her cheeky nickname. He lifted one of Fluttershy’s wings and preened a few feathers away as he examined it. “No spots. She looks fine to me.” He dropped the wing and it fell flaccid against the patient’s table. “A bit frail, but nothing serious. She’ll be fine, Miss…”

“Rainbow Dash,” she answered, her concern over Fluttershy’s unconscious state keeping her from answering with her usual introduction suave and gusto about status and accomplishments.

Picking up a nearby clipboard in his teeth, the doctor flipped through a couple pages on the attached chart. “Doesn’t look like she’s had her inoculation yet though. Can’t hurt to get it done now.” He made a few scratches on the chart as he made his way to the door. “And a vitamin booster as well. I’m surprised those wings got her up here.”

The door closed shut and Rainbow immediately began nudging Fluttershy as she hovered above the unconscious mare. “Hey, Fluttershy! Wake up!” Rainbow frantically searched the room for some way to wake the sleeping beauty on the table. Cold water. Smelling salts. Anything. Despite the clean bill of health the doctor had delivered, Rainbow had made her own diagnosis that Fluttershy needed to wake up. Now.

Once the room was a mess and supplies littered the floor, she realized the only surefire way to raise Fluttershy from her slumber. She peered out the gap in the wall that served as a window in Cloudsdale architecture and forced an overdramatic tone. “Oh no! That poor little bird looks hurt!”

“Where!” Fluttershy startled Rainbow as she appeared next to her, fully conscious and searching for the helpless animal in need of her love and care.

“Uh…” Rainbow groaned while she searched for a change of topic. “My mistake. You ok?”

Fluttershy rested back down on the examining table and wondered aloud, “Is it over?” She blushed as she laid her head on the edge of the pad, crinkling the paper wrapped around it. “I didn’t pass out, did I?”

“Um… yes and no…” Rainbow answered slowly as she rolled her eyes.

Before she could properly explain, there was a knock at the door and the doctor promptly let himself back in. He stared at the chart as he began to mumble, “Okay, here’s th—” He suddenly froze as he took his eyes off the stack of papers and saw the mess Rainbow had made. “What in the name of modern medicine happened here?”

“Uhhh…” was all Rainbow could manage as she searched for an excuse.

Fluttershy looked at the mess and asked, “Did I do this?”

“Um… yeah,” Rainbow insisted, figuring it was a better excuse than she could muster. “You were shaking like mad and started knocking things over left and right!”

“Oh dear,” Fluttershy hid behind her mane ashamed. She slowly turned to the doctor, “I’m so sorry.”

“That’s… quite alright,” he insisted as he carefully treaded through the mess. He pulled three syringes filled with clear fluid and placed them on the table. “Are you feeling alright, dear?” he asked Fluttershy.

“I’m… a little scared.”

“Quite natural,” the doctor responded professionally. “Never fun to be in a hospital, is it?”

“You can say that again, doc,” chimed Rainbow.

The doctor glared at Rainbow, then cleared his throat and continued. “This won’t` hurt a bit, just do as I say and it’ll all be over soon, okay?”

“Um… okay,” Fluttershy whispered slowly. The doctor turned away for a moment to grab the first syringe, and Fluttershy turned her gaze to Rainbow. Without a word, Rainbow hovered next to her and held out a hoof, which Fluttershy gratefully took
in both her hooves and squeezed it tight.

“Now, take a deep breath in…” instructed the doctor. Rainbow felt Fluttershy’s grip around her hoof clamp harder. Fluttershy shivered, and Rainbow took her free hoof and wrapped it around her, silently promising to protect her. “And out.”

Fluttershy dug her face into Rainbows neck as she exhaled slowly. The doctor turned back to the table, and still the patient sat shaking on the table in fear. “Now for the inoculation,” he said.

“Wait, that was it?” Fluttershy perked up a bit. She looked at Rainbow who nodded that the first shot was indeed over. “Wait…” she came to a sudden realization. “Then what was that?”

“Oh, just a cocktail of vittles and such,” the doctor nonchalantly expressed. He glared menacingly at Rainbow, and a small, cocky smile grew across his face as the stare mellowed. “Your friend insisted on it,” he knowingly said as his prankster’s smile grew wider.

Fluttershy looked up at Rainbow, her eyes filled to bursting with tears. “Rainbow!” she cried, “How could you?”

“I-uh… It’s for your own good,” Rainbow insisted, internally slamming her head against a wall that she couldn’t think of a better response.

“She’s right,” the doctor reassured Fluttershy as he winked in Rainbow’s direction. “She’s just looking out for you. You’re a lucky mare to have a friend as loyal as her. Deep breath.”

Fluttershy squeezed Rainbow’s hoof again, and yelped this time as the doctor pulled the syringe out. “Owww…” she moaned. “Why’d it hurt that time?”

“My apologies,” the doctor said in his professional tone. “Works best if I poke you in the same spot.” He gently applied a bandage with his wings and turned to make some notes on the chart.

Rainbow gave Fluttershy a strong hug, carefully avoiding the sore spot on her forehoof as she congratulated her. “You were real brave, Fluttershy.”

“Was I?” Fluttershy responded as a reluctant smile broke through her tears.

“Yeah, I’m proud of you,” Rainbow said, returning the smile with her own. Rainbow heard the doctors pen stop scratching against the pad and asked, “Hey doc, if you already bandaged her, what was the third syringe fo—YAHHH!!!”

The doctor replaced the cap on the syringe and tossed it in the medical waste disposal. “You were overdue for your inoculation yourself, Miss Rainbow Dash.”

Rainbow rubbed the sore spot on her leg and glared at the doctor, “So not cool, doc.”

***

“Ow… ow… ow… ow…” Rainbow muttered painfully with each step out of the hospital. “I thought – ow – you’re supposed to – ow – leave the hospital – ow – feeling better than – ow – when you came in.”

Fluttershy was soothing away her own pain as she rubbed at the sore spot with her hoof, hovering next to Rainbow. “Um… If you don’t mind me asking… Why don’t you fly if it hurts that bad?”

Rainbow froze mid-step and smacked herself again, not realizing she was doing so with her sore hoof. “OWWWW!!!” she wailed, wishing she had smacked her face harder to distract herself from the pain in her forehoof.

Fluttershy couldn’t help but giggle a bit, but quickly moved to console her friend. “You okay, Rainbow? That looked painful.”

Rainbow winced as she tried to shrug off the pain. “Yeah, yeah. I’m fine. Can we please get out of here?”

“Um, sure. Did you have somewhere in mind?”

“Anywhere but here.”

***

“Oh dear. That does sound like quite a nightmare,” Fluttershy consoled her friend as she poured them each a cup of tea.

“You don’t know the half of it.” She really didn’t. Rainbow had carefully left out the ‘who’ and ‘how far’ of her dreams. Rainbow stared into the dark brew in her mug, not intending to drink it. She hated the stuff, but she continued to sit and calm herself in the steam rising up from the cup.

“Have these… dreams,” Fluttershy asked, drawing out the word, a bit too long and nervously, “been going on for long?”

Rainbow sighed, rippling the tea in her mug with the heated rush of air. “Too long. Different ponies, different places, different… actions. But it’s all generally the same gist.”

“Well,” Fluttershy deftly took a sip of the boiling liquid to calm her nerves, but still her voice barely escaped her lips. “You’re not the only one.”

Rainbow fumbled the mug in her hooves, spilling most of the contents on herself and the floor in the process before steadying it. “Wait. What? Who?”

“Well most mares our age, I think. I mean…” Fluttershy flustered herself nervously as she searched for the words to rationalize Rainbow’s feelings. “I’ve known you longer than anypony, Rainbow, and yet, in all these years, I can’t remember you going on a date, or showing romantic interest in anypony for that matter.”

“N-neither have you!” Rainbow argued, misinterpreting Fluttershy’s explanation as an attack on her relative asexuality.

“Oh no, I couldn’t. That kind of attention just makes me…” Fluttershy rustled her feathers a bit as she shuddered, and then shook her head. “That’s not exactly what I meant Rainbow Dash.”

“Then why would you tease me for not dating?”

“I’m not teasing you, just calling attention to the fact that most mares our age have. I think what you’re feeling is natural, and I think I know a thing or two about nature.”

“B-b-but,” Rainbow stammered, eager to reject Fluttershy’s logic, but struggling to find the words. Perhaps she was right, but Rainbow sure didn’t feel normal. And even if the dreams were normal for a pony to have, knowing that wasn’t going to make them stop. Besides, Fluttershy didn’t exactly understand why the dreams were so disturbing, and Rainbow was less than willing to share specific details, instead painting a broad picture of her imagination. “I’m not so sure…”

“What aren’t you sure about?”

“I’m not sure I feel anything,” Rainbow found herself admitting before she stopped to think about how real that statement felt to her now. “I… I wake up from these dreams, and yet the thought doesn’t ever cross my mind that I could possibly be attracted to my friends.”

“Your… friends?” Fluttershy suddenly found herself troubled to steady her mug as she rose it to her lips.

Rainbow sat frozen, her silence doing nothing other than incriminating herself further. “Uhhh,” she offered as a lackluster explanation.

The mug in Fluttershy’s hoof rattled against the saucer in the other, the sound of ceramic on ceramic becoming a tinny grating on Rainbow’s ears. Yet Fluttershy’s timid words cut into her eardrums even deeper. “Am… Am I ever in these dreams?”

Rainbow’s mouth betrayed her confidence and continued to lock itself shut. She wanted to both deny and admit everything, and yet her silence did that for her.

“Oh… dear.”

“Fluttershy!” Rainbow pleaded at last. “It’s not what you think, I swear it!”

Fluttershy calmed herself with a high-pitched sigh and set her mug back down on the table. “Rainbow, it’s fine. You don’t have to deny it. Like I said, I think all mares our age have these kinds of dreams now and again.”

Rainbow stared down into the cup of tea, still refusing to drink it despite feeling a bit dehydrated from all the sweat she felt escaping through her brow. “You don’t mean…?”

“Mmmhmmm,” Fluttershy reassuringly hummed, then quickly blushed and hid her face. “Although, considering your reaction I doubt my dreams are quite as vivid as yours have been, but that’s not the point. You said yourself that these are just dreams, and you don’t think they match how you truly feel, right?”

“Well, yeah. I don’t feel that strongly for my friends, or anypony for that matter.”

“Then, what do you feel?” Fluttershy insisted.

Rainbow finally looked up from the tea and towards Fluttershy, perplexed. She hadn’t considered that at all. “I-I’m not sure. I’ve been thinking so much about how I wanted to deny those feelings that I hadn’t thought about what I really feel.”

“Well, um… You can feel whatever you want, right?” Rainbow nodded in response to the question. “Then tell me, we’re friends right?” Another nod. “And we’re just friends?”

“Uh, yeah,” Rainbow faltered through her words. “We’ve always been friends.”

Fluttershy began to fiddle around with her hooves a bit, searching for ways to continue the conversation without blurting out answers to Rainbow’s problem. “We’re going to be friends no matter what, right? I mean… I can't imagine you not being there for me, or any of us, Rainbow. It's just a part of who you are."

“Yeah…” Rainbow mumbled. A smile began to form on her face as the words sunk in, and she reassured herself with a firm thump to the chest. “Yeah! We’ll always be friends, ‘Shy.”

Fluttershy’s eyes grew wide at Rainbow’s display of confidence, and then quickly moved back down to her hooves as a streak of blush ran across her face. “So… why not?” she whispered.

“Why not what?” Rainbow looked back confused.

“I mean, if you want… if it’ll help…” Fluttershy continued to fluster her speech, breaking sentences and starting over again and again. “If we’ll be friends no matter what… I don’t mind… if it’s you.”

Rainbow tried to piece together her friend’s broken speech, and shook her head voraciously for a moment. She wondered if she was once again simply hearing what the Rainbow in her dreams wanted to hear. “I… You don’t have to do that, Fluttershy. I really appreciate the offer, really. You have no ide—”

“—But I want to!” Fluttershy blurted out as she pounded her hooves on the table and leaned insistently towards Rainbow. The color in her face bled into her mane and she fell back to the floor and hid her expression behind her hooves. “I mean…” she fumbled delicately. “I’ve always been kind of curious. It sounds… nice," she said before hiding her face behind her mane as they both began to match in their hue.

“That’s not what Rarity says,” Rainbow blurted as she rolled her eyes without thinking.

“She… she told you?”

Rainbow suddenly realized she had said that aloud and corrected herself. “Er… not exactly.” She searched for a way to justify what she had said without hurting her sensitive friend’s feelings. “She just said the spa kinda makes everypony act all out-of-sorts… and for you, that would mean…”

Fluttershy’s hooves rose even further up her face, blocking even her eyes now before she timidly peeked back from them and whispered through her hooves, “Yes… It’s true, but I never acted on it. I wouldn’t know how.”

“Honestly,” Rainbow lied as she rubbed her hoof through the back of her mane, “neither would I.” She figured it best to leave out how Rarity had brought up that topic in the first place. Fluttershy was already an unpredictable creature. She would either go into hiding forever or start a rampage that would never end, and neither scenario sounded appealing to Rainbow at the moment.

“But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to,” Fluttershy quietly insisted through her hidden expression. “I mean, we’d still be friends, right? And I’d much rather it be someone I know than some strange stallion,” Fluttershy’s blush peeked out from behind her hooves and she quickly corrected herself, “—or mare!”

“’Shy, I—” Rainbow turned her head away, unwilling and too nervous to respond. This was not what she had come here for. She didn’t seek out her friends, and she knew she had been too brash with both Rarity and Pinkie Pie. Thrusting herself on her friends had been… fun, but it had only made things worse for her in the long run.

Yet here was Fluttershy, practically throwing herself at her, as best as a timid pegasus like her could, and Rainbow found herself unable to react. She couldn’t look upon her dreams and fantasies for answers. They were never this simple. Still, she found it just as difficult to tell her friend no, as she looked at Fluttershy and saw the little pegasus from her foalhood, as innocent as ever, just needing a nudge and a guide. But now her mane was longer, silkier, it probably felt just like—

—NO! This was Fluttershy! The little pegasus from her foalhood! Rainbow couldn’t deny how adorable she was, but she didn’t want to view her as anything but! It felt like it would betray the years they grew up together for a short night of passion. Still, here Fluttershy was insisting on it and—

“Rainbow? Are you alright?” Fluttershy asked as Rainbow came back to her senses. She hadn’t realized how long she had been thinking silently to herself and the concerned pegasus was now standing just inches from her, holding a hoof to her forehead. “You’re burning up.”

“I-I’m sorry, ‘Shy.” Rainbow brushed away her friend’s hoof gently, subconsciously taking note of how plush and soft it felt before regaining her composure. “I’m fine, really. I’ve been doing that a lot lately,” she said before realizing she needed to clarify. “I mean… trailing off.”

“Soooo…” Fluttershy disappointingly hummed as she stared at the floor. “That’s a no, then.”

“No, Fluttershy!” Rainbow insisted, not knowing how to reassure her friend and still avoid yet another escapade she was sure she’d regret. “I’d love to, believe me. If it could be anypony, I’d love it to be you. I just—”

“—Then…” Fluttershy interrupted by putting her tender hoof to Rainbow’s lips, her voice equal parts fear and confidence. “Kiss me. That’s all I ask. Then we can go back to being friends, okay?”

Rainbow sat silently for a moment, taken aback by her friend’s bold request as the hoof fell from her lips to let her speak. She heaved a deep sigh, and she responded shamefully, “When did we start acting like this, ‘Shy?”

“Like… like what?”

“Like… each other?”

Fluttershy couldn’t help but calm a bit and giggle. “We’ve known each other a really long time, Rainbow. You’ve taught me a thing or two about confidence and… being yourself. I think that’s what you’re struggling with right now.”

“Yeah, I think you’re right.”

“So? Be yourself,” Fluttershy insisted. “What would Rainbow Dash do in this situation?”

“She’d—” Rainbow started responding before realizing she was Rainbow Dash. She looked back at the inviting smile on Fluttershy’s face and realized what that answer was. She closed her eyes and steadied her breathing, trying to ready herself. It seemed so much more difficult now than when she had acted on pure impulse. Her face slowly inched forward, hoping her kiss could find the right spot to land upon through the darkness in her tightly clenched eyes. She wondered why she suddenly wanted to be so slow about things. This wasn’t like her, it sounded more like–

Rainbow felt her head meet resistance and almost fell backwards as Fluttershy pushed into her with her lips. Her eyes opened and she saw Fluttershy, neck craned forward, thrust out in her direction until the two had connected in a simple peck. The kiss broke quickly as Fluttershy found no more space for her neck to lean into Rainbow as the cobalt pegasus instinctively pulled back.

Rainbow regained her footing, and looked back at Fluttershy. She tried to meet her gaze, but it was made difficult as the timid mare fell back on her flank and hid most of her face back behind her hooves. “I’m sorry,” Fluttershy pleaded as loud as her voice would allow through her embarrassment. “I– I just couldn’t wait any longer.”

Shocked and still a bit confused, Rainbow’s eyes cast downward, as though she were trying to see past her nose and look into the still-soft imprint of Fluttershy’s lips against her own. “No,” Rainbow said as she let out a sigh, “I’m sorry, Fluttershy. I think I just ruined our first kiss.” She smacked her hoof against the side of her head as she berated herself. “I don’t know why I’m just overcome with this thought that you need to be treated…” Rainbow searched her lexicon for one of Twilight’s fancy-ish words for… “delicate.”

Fluttershy giggled a bit, her face emerging from its hiding spot as her nerves subsided. “I understand. After all, I guess I’m asking for a lot.” She tapped her hooves together a bit while she figured how to continue. “I guess I am… delicate, but I don’t want you to be afraid of me, Rainbow. I-I’ll try and tell you if I don’t like it.” Her eyes took a sudden interest in the grain of the floorboards as she hid the nature of what she was asking. “I mean, that is, if you want to keep going.”

The bright bangs of Rainbow’s mane fell in front of her face, blending into the rush of color gracing her cheeks. She couldn’t bring an outright answer past the urge to treat Fluttershy as gently as possible. “Um, do you want to keep going?”

For once, Fluttershy reacted as Rainbow would have expected, offering no words and only a short pause followed by a simple nod. Her face turned brighter shades of pink with each movement of approval in her head.

“Then… a simple request?”

“Anything!” Fluttershy responded, suddenly back to all fours and unable to contain her excitement at what she assumed was Rainbow Dash’s approval.

Rainbow giggled at her friend’s eager attitude, which put her a bit more at ease for the situation she found herself in. Pushing her mane back out of her face and at last looking a bit cooler, she tapped her hoof on the floor a bit as she boldly answered, “Can we move to a bed?”

***

“Uhhh…”

“—OUCH!”

“Oh, Sorry.”

“Maybe I shou– WOOOAH!!!”

A distinct thud echoed through the bed frame as Rainbow fell off the edge to the floor. She looked back at her wings through the haze of tweeting birds and double vision, and couldn’t tell if her wings were twisted together, or if that was just her imagination.

Fluttershy slowly eased her head past the sheets and over the mattress, wincing at the sight of the sprawled bundle of pegasus writhing on the floor. “I’m sorry,” she hushed through the sheets tugged over her mouth. “Are you okay?”

“The potential for a magical field to induce an electromagnetic field is not linear, but indeed can an electromagnetic field be catalyst to the concurrent induction of a magical field!”

Fluttershy hopped back behind the covers in fear of Rainbow’s seemingly random ramblings. Rainbow rattled her head a bit and recovered slightly as she remained lying uncomfortably on the floor. “Uhhh… What did I just say?”

The tawny mare peeked back out and whispered “I think it was something… egghead… about magic or magnets or something.”

“Aw, horsefeathers. Bucking magic, how does that work?” Rainbow stood back up and climbed onto the mattress again. She laid down next to Fluttershy with her hooves tucked up into her, and Fluttershy soon mimicked the position close to her. “I don’t think that was going so well,” Rainbow remarked.

“I’m sorry,” Fluttershy shamefully apologized, her head falling down to lay with the rest of her body.

“It’s not your fault,” Rainbow corrected herself. “We’re both a bit awkward, and these,” Rainbow spread her wing that wasn’t pressed against Fluttershy outward, “tend to get in the way when we’re… excited.”

“I, uh… I can’t really control it.” Fluttershy eased her head back up and turned to look at her wings. Rainbow could feel the one firmly up against her side fluctuating between supple, limp and rigid as Fluttershy ran her gamut of emotions.

“Me either. It’s ok.” Rainbow offered a smile to ease her friend and soon-to-be lover’s jostled nerves. “I know this sounds a bit strange coming out of me, but…” Rainbow’s mind flowed with recollections and memories of her recent trysts and trials into the sexual foray, and she knew her experience in those fields would only harm her relationship with Fluttershy. “We don’t have to rush anything.”

“But I,” Fluttershy perked up, quickly easing back to her quiet demeanor, “I know that fast is more your style, and I just don’t want to disappoint you.”

“Fluttershy…” Rainbow cocked her head slowly and gave her a quick peck. “This is your first time,” a long pause hung in the air before she added, “too.” Her eyes darted about as she tried to cover her slip of the tongue, but she soon regained her bold and daring composure, and reassured Fluttershy. “How do you think it should be?”

“I… I don’t know,” she admitted. “I just want it to be... nice.”

Rainbow wrapped a wing around Fluttershy’s shoulder, gently nudging her face towards her own. She looked at her friend and finally began to feel something aside from nervous fear for what she was about to do. She felt mature, different than the instincts she had let control her actions with her previous lovers. She wanted Fluttershy to be happy, and most of all, to come out of this unharmed, and she knew that she was the pegasus that could do that for her. “Nice comes naturally for you,” she whispered sweetly before leaning in for another kiss.

Fluttershy tensed up a bit, her wings trying to expand, but only one doing so, as even at the full strength of her excitement, her other wing lack the power to offer any resistance against the brute, toned strength of Rainbow’s form. She soon melted into a viscous mess as she succumbed to the kiss.

Rainbow felt the objection to her actions secede, and proceeded to push the envelope a tiny bit further, treating each barrier to Fluttershy’s emotions gently. Much like her patented Sonic Rainboom, she knew that at any moment, if not timed perfectly and precisely, she could be flung backwards and have to start all over again, possibly with a few scrapes and bruises. Rainbow eased her tongue past Fluttershy’s lips, and the kiss opened a bit wider as they both gasped for air through their only available passage, taking in each other’s scent and adoration.

The more timid of the lovers offered no surprise or resistance to the soft strength of the muscle protruding into her mouth, only pressing harder against Rainbow’s lips in response. Still, Rainbow found some bit of her friend’s shy nature, as her tongue hid in her mouth, pressed up against the back of her throat, too frightened to challenge the intruder. Rainbow simply pushed her tongue against the other, not coaxing or pulling it out, just letting their warmth pass through to each other.

Her strategy worked, as she could both see and feel Fluttershy’s wings squirming their way to freedom, then wrapping themselves around her, and Rainbow responded in kind. Together, they held that embrace, raising each other’s temperatures as their tongues melted together into a wet pool of passion, sparks dancing across their taste buds as they shared each other in every sense they could at that moment.

Rainbow began to pull back to break the elongated kiss, and could feel Fluttershy finally pushing against her, not wanting to let go so soon. The mixed sensations of hot breath and cold air ran across their lips as they parted. Rainbow laid her head down against the nape of Fluttershy’s frail neck, and the lemony mare nuzzled back affectionately.

Rainbow held a tear within the corner of her eye, careful not to let it press into Fluttershy’s fur for fear she would know of her crying. Her happiness in that moment was overwhelming, as she realized there was just as much intimacy in this moment, holding and being held, as she could have if their actions continued down more carnal paths. She thought to herself that perhaps it could stay like this. Maybe this was as far as they needed to go, but she soon felt that would be selfish. She knew that while she had only recently seen and felt the joys and chaos of sex, it wouldn’t be fair to deny Fluttershy her chance simply because she had found what she was searching herself for.

Rainbow felt a cool breeze against her shoulder, as Fluttershy took in a deep breath through her nostrils as the peeked past her fur. Fluttershy let out the smallest whinny as she exhaled a tingly warmth back against Rainbow’s neck, and Rainbow couldn’t help but giggle a bit at the curious, adorable sound. The tear receded back against her eye as she blinked and laughed. “You okay, Fluttershy?”

Fluttershy took in another sniff before she responded, too drunk on the smell and comforted in her lover’s embrace to care about blushing or embarrassment any further. “I just never noticed…” she mumbled into Rainbow’s neck, the vibrations in Fluttershy’s voice tingling down the individual links in her spine. “You smell really… nice.”

Rainbow giggled a bit at Fluttershy’s lack of vocal expression. “Is that all you got?”

“I-I can’t help it,” Fluttershy reasoned. “I just like it. A lot…”

“I’m not exactly the cleanest of mares, you know,” Rainbow remarked as she pulled a hoof out from under herself and wrapped it in a thick lock of pink mane, pulling it closer and enjoying a soft whiff of it, rich with the over usage of artificial floral scents from various shampoos and conditioners. “Not like you.”

“No, but it’s still a nice smell. You don’t smell dirty,” Fluttershy tried to explain. “It’s… like your mane,” she reasoned, running her own hoof through it as Rainbow had done to her. “Each part of it is different. It runs different ends of the spectrum. First it’s bright and easy, then bold and daring. Equally soft and harsh. Like…” Fluttershy took in another breath of the peculiar aroma, “storm clouds. Like heavy thunder and sheets of rain.”

Rainbow pulled away slightly and looked silently into Fluttershy’s eyes. Fluttershy finally felt a bit of her usual embarrassment return as the silence grew longer and asked, “Did I say something funny?”

“N-no,” Rainbow stumbled. “Not at all. That was… beautiful. I—” Rainbow was cut off by Fluttershy’s kiss as the two melted together again. The fire burning inside Fluttershy grew too hot to contain any further, and Rainbow could feel the steam emanating off her tongue as they pushed together, twisting and turning, yet fitting like random pieces to a much bigger jigsaw puzzle.

A trail of lover’s spit hung in the air between the two even after they lips had parted, coming together at the center in a drop that glistened before the thread connecting them snapped and hung as the sheets beneath them grew damp. The two released the bond they held against each other with their wings just enough to move about, each of them lancing towards various parts of each other with ripe lips and tender caresses of the tongue while they squirmed about. Sheets became disheveled and unnecessary, and Rainbow quickly cast them away as they crawled around each other.

Various limbs ran across random parts of her body as Rainbow felt the firmness of hooves, the tenderness of wings, and the wet circles drawn by Fluttershy’s tongue as they all roamed about her in unison. She turned herself about as she worked her body free of the appendages that tried to keep her from escaping, and held herself up above Fluttershy, opposite her direction.

Rainbow wrapped a wing around her au pair’s lower hoof, pulling it closer to her face as she pressed her lips against the back of the knee. At the same she felt a forehoof rubbing against the cloud in her cutie mark while a wing preened through her tail, separating the colors therein and then brushing them back together. She moaned deep into the back of the leg pressed against her face and the tip of her wing ran across the edges of Fluttershy’s hoof.

Fluttershy giggled a bit and the hoof began to twitch uncontrollably in Rainbow’s grasp. “That’s sensitive,” Fluttershy gasped between fits of laughter. Rainbow smiled deviously, unseen by the mare lying beneath her, and continued to tease the ends of Fluttershy’s lower hoofs with soft brushes from her feathers.

“Stop! STOP!” Fluttershy pleaded sternly, her voice still soft and muffled as she pressed against Rainbow’s thigh. Rainbow felt what she assumed should be a sharp pain as Fluttershy smacked a hoof as hard as she could against the thunderbolt adorning the flank above her.

The slap was as audible as Fluttershy’s voice, and equally as weak, but Rainbow played along like her friend didn’t know the limits of her strength. “Ouch. Okay, okay, you win.” Rainbow’s sly smile grew ever wider as she pressed further. “How about here then?” She ran the feathers along the end of her wing across the yellow cleft below the smooth fuzz of Fluttershy’s belly.

The sunny mare moaned affectionately in response to the light touch, shivering in between the graceful span between each of the feathers that ran across the thick layers of skin protecting her most guarded of areas. Rainbow stared longingly into the thick silky strands of ambrosia running from the ripened petals between her lover’s thighs as they pulsed, achingly calling for the caress to move closer. She began to lean her head in closer, and Fluttershy instinctively called out a small “Eep!” in response before she had even touched the lips that begged to be parted.

Rainbow felt her knees growing heavier as the hot breath melted them like butter, slowly moving up her thigh until the warm air was running across her own pouting lips, damp with her eager urge for the breath to turn into the soft pierce of a tongue to part them. She moaned again, her voice against her lover’s carpel turning it into a microphone that amplified the sound as it traveled up through Fluttershy’s lungs and became a scream.

Wrapped in the moment, Rainbow craved more. More screaming, more volume, more of what she found impossible to express. “Fluttershy,” she gasped, groaning seductively as she let her knees give way a bit and lowered her flank. “Please. Please, touch me.” Without seeing it, Rainbow could feel the gaze upon her private areas as Fluttershy’s eyes grew wide at the invitation. Rainbow gasped further as she felt a wing on each side of her flank, pulling them apart as a soft wetness came into contact with her own, running along the full length of her from top to bottom and back up.

The trail the lick took only lasted a second, and Rainbow felt exceedingly disappointed when it wasn’t followed up immediately by a hundred more just like it. “No,” Rainbow whinnied, her flank moving on it’s own to call Fluttershy back. “More.” The pause continued and Rainbow turned her head about, back to her unusually (even for her) quiet lover. “Is everything okay?”

“You…” Fluttershy ran her tongue across her lips as she looked downward, unaware of just how sensual she appeared to Rainbow while doing so. “You taste even better than you smell,” she responded, diving back towards the juices calling out to her before she could say another word.

A loud gasp passed through Rainbow, unable to find the proper voice to express the sensational rush as her lover’s tongue devoured her with such vigor and fervor. She muffled her moan into Fluttershy’s own cavity, granting appreciation for the pleasure by providing some of her own. It amazed Rainbow how even down at the depths of Fluttershy’s body, where she should find some trace of depravity or unseemly aroma, she was still fresh and sweet.

Rainbow suckled on the ripe honey now flowing from within Fluttershy. She felt gentle vibrations against her flank, as muted moans escaped the nose pressed firmly against it. That tingling feeling was only amplified by Rainbow as she responded similarly to the touch. The circle flowed between them, growing stronger, louder, and pushing them closer to each other as they struggled through their own pleasure to keep giving to the other.

Their tongues soon grew tired, despite the fuel they generously devoured from each other. Rainbow felt one of the wings wrapped around her flank squeeze down, while the other crept towards the crevasse at the center. It ran along the opening while Fluttershy’s lips wrestled with the hood around Rainbow’s swollen center. Rainbow pulled herself from betwixt her lover’s moistened lips and groaned nervously at the teasing touch. “B-be gentle,” she pleaded, not focused enough to remember exactly who it was she was telling this to.

Rainbow could feel the lips pressed against the nub in her cleft smiling at the remark. The tip of the wing eased around the hole a little slower, gathering as much of the lubrication around the base, waving it about as a dipstick in a pot of honey. Resisting slightly, Rainbow felt a great pressure pushing against her, the tip of the wing easing itself in, wrapped in the hot folds of skin and viscous syrup.

Mentally, Rainbow felt herself clamoring for more, but her body seemed to reject these strange sensations. She felt herself squeeze against the invader trying to open her up, to let itself in. She wanted to let her body accept it, but acted instinctively against this new feeling. Her body sent mixed signals, flowing with juices to ease its entry, but still clamping tight around her opening, resisting easily against the weak force Fluttershy contained.

Fluttershy felt this resistance and pulled back slightly, easing Rainbow into it more as she massaged around her swollen lips. Rainbow cooed approvingly as she felt a slippery tongue work across the fur on her thighs and back towards her twitching marehood. Her hooves fully gave way and she gently collapsed on top of Fluttershy, her head on her belly. She heard Fluttershy’s nervous heart beat in syncopation with the pace her own raced at, and it gradually calmed and relaxed her. “Fluttershy,” she pleaded, knowing she was now ready, “put it back in.”

The wing against her shivering folds gathered one last thick dollop of the juice before it fell away, wasted. It pressed against her again, gentle but firm, and Rainbow heard a soft giggle from Fluttershy as the tip of the wing slipped past the inner lips and eased against the walls. “You feel so much different than when I touch myself,” Fluttershy admitted whispering hot breath against Rainbow’s flank. “It feels nice.”

Rainbow didn’t seem to care at this moment for her lover’s lack of adjectives in her lexicon, and her full concentration went towards keeping her breath as she felt a pulse flowing inside her. Each moan left her more oxygen deprived, simply gasping harder as her muscles contracted around the wing tip inside her, unmoving while Rainbow got used to the sensation. It squeezed down upon the wing tip again, but this time it squeezed inward, begging for more of the pressure filling her.

Rainbow began to notice a bit of pain alongside the ecstasy consuming her, and her gasps grew shorter and hushed. “Are you ok?” she heard Fluttershy ask before noticing the appendage inside her was no longer moving.

Nervous, Rainbow slowly lifted her head off of Fluttershy’s belly, and braced her forehooves against the sheets. The usual confidence in her voice was hardly noticeable between her gasps, as her penetrator broke her both physically and emotionally. “I’ll… I’ll be ok,” she asked, readying herself for what she assumed would come as pain. “Keep going.”

Clutching the sheets firmly in her hooves, she felt the cotton fabric begin to tear along with her own silk. She held her eyes closed as tight as every muscle in her body at that moment, biting down on her lip. She soon realized that all the pain she felt was herself tensing up, afraid. Not being herself. She knew that with Fluttershy against her, she had to reason to fear, and began to taste blood as she let her lip go, salt and rust on her tongue as the tip slipped past her final guard, entering her palace.

Her grip on the sheets tightened as the rip grew along with her own. Rainbow pressed her face into them, screaming as Fluttershy’s tip acted as a dial on her volume, growing with each iota it slipped further inside her. She felt it hold still inside her for seconds that each lasted longer than the ones before it. “There, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” Fluttershy asked, her voice comforting her like one of her critter patients, pulling Rainbow’s virginity down to the simplicity of a inoculation, a dose of reality to keep her dreams from making her sick.

“I-is it over?” Rainbow gathered herself to ask.

Fluttershy planted a tender kiss against Rainbow’s flank, the warmth of her lips calming her mood as it raised her temperature. “Yes, Rainbow. You did fine,” she calmly massaged Rainbow’s ego with her words. “Do you want to keep going?”

“… Yes,” Rainbow slowly responded, embarrassed and eager to begin enjoying this strange new feeling. Rainbow lowered her head back to Fluttershy’s own nethers, a bit guilty for feeling she neglected it during the last couple minutes while she endured a beautiful pain wrapped in ribbons of sugar and ecstasy. Her wings wrapped around Fluttershy’s thighs, pulling them apart so she could easily find her way to the exposed center she searched for. She gasped against Fluttershy’s point of arousal as the wing tip began to slowly ease its way back towards the entrance, the pressure inside her subsiding until it was but a dull soreness inside her.

Rainbow quickly realized that the soreness was her wanting the pressure back, and pleaded for it back, her words muffled into gibberish between her fierce licks against Fluttershy’s slit. A high-pitched moan melted into a dull roar as Fluttershy approved of the graceful laps Rainbow’s tongue made around her, and pressed her wing back towards the depths of Rainbow’s creases.

It felt considerably different this time. There was still pain, but no resistance. Her body accepted what was happening, and slowly tried to translate the pain away. Her reactions were no longer her control or conscious effort, but a sea of endorphins that dulled pain and begged for the pleasing pressure against her walls. Between her licks, Rainbow began to form broken sentences as she came up for air. “H– how can… you be… so good… at thisssSSSS~~!!” she screamed as the wing tip delved further with each slow, massaging thrust.

Fluttershy offered her own broken response between gasps and gentle kisses against Rainbow’s flank and down her thighs as her wing gained momentum against the slippery folds inside Rainbow. Her voice began to regain its usual embarrassment, which melted away again with each tender stroke of Rainbow’s tongue. “I… just learned… doing iiiiit– to myself.”

“Wait, so you’re not aaaaaaahhh~~!!” Rainbow found herself unable to respond as her body told her to shut up and enjoy the moment.

Fluttershy could still sense the question Rainbow was trying to ask. “I-I am. Just not the same way you are. It’s actually quite cute, the way you wriggled around reminded me a lot of how I felt back then. I hope it wasn’t as painful for you…”

“No! Yes! I mean…” Rainbow moaned seductively, unable to clarify which of her startled calls were genuine answers and which were screams of passion. She felt her confidence returning as the last of pain melted away, and stomped her hoof down on the mattress assertively, eliciting a slight yelp from Fluttershy. “Shut up and buck me,” she said before returning to an aroused puddle of nonsensical groans and shudders, her tongue diving back towards Fluttershy’s own pleasure.

She heard no complaints from Fluttershy, and quickly felt her compliance with her carnal demands. Her body had had enough of the teasing, the mood, the romance, and wanted to be used, and while Fluttershy was probably not the partner her body would have naturally chosen for such a feat due to her lack in strength, her poise and tenderness more than made up for it. Rainbow was stuck in a back and forth between wanting more followed by the pulsing waves of pleasure she craved.

Dropping her tongue lower, Rainbow ran along Fluttershy’s entrance. She drooled between gasps, her saliva replacing the sweetness she lapped up around rich, swollen folds of skin. Her wings moved up the frail mare’s thighs, pulling them even wider as she wrapped further around to reach in and replace her tongue with the rigid appendage. She was surprised to find no resistance as she eased in, Fluttershy’s moan of approval quickly being muffled as she pressed her lips against the top of Rainbows nethers, suckling longingly on the nub as she continued to thrust the wing tip inside of her, becoming a swirling palette of yellow on pink accented by the thin trail of blood now subsiding from Rainbow’s shattered guard.

The two began to wrestle against each other, each targeting the other’s weaknesses and exploiting them between their series of licks, screaming while their wings twisted and thrashed about. They shuddered against each other as they fell into blissful peaks of emotion and tender memories, their years of friendship culminating into a moment of carnal desire and passion ignited by their longing to share their growth together and make it last as long as they each held out.

Rainbow began to rocket back and forth as her body shivered on the edge of orgasm, her violent shakes in turn vibrating the licks of her tongue against Fluttershy as she passed her own brink. Fluttershy’s scream was only quelled by her instinct to press her face further into Rainbow’s orgasmic release, taking in as many of the sweet juices she could one last time, taking in the electricity it contained. It amplified her own as their orgasms ran a complete circuit through one another, empowering each until their fuses blew and they collapsed, drained of all but the smiles on their faces.

They tightly held their grip on each other, their wings clinging for a longer embrace as the rest of their bodies turned supple and frail. Static rang through the air, shaking the two at random intervals as their hearts slowed down to beat as one again, done with the race, and only looking to share in the glow of victory.

Rainbow felt the rushing warmth of Fluttershy’s pulse quicken again after a few moments, and wondered what was the matter. “You okay, Fluttershy?” She received only silence in response and eased her hold on her lover to turn about and lay next to her. She found Fluttershy’s head turned to the side, silently staring off towards the end of the room, her eyes wide and dilated. “Uh…” Rainbow groaned, looking off in the same direction and seeing nothing of interest. “Hey! You okay?” she asked again.

Fluttershy continued to stare in silence for a moment, her hoof shaking as she raised it in the direction she was looking. “W-w-was the door closed when we came up?” she stuttered.

“Um…” Rainbow gazed at the door, unsure of the problem. “Yeah, probably. My short term memory isn’t exactly tops after… well, that,” she motioned a hoof back and forth between the two of them in reference to their ending escapade. Rainbow didn’t worry in the slightest about the door. It was Fluttershy’s cottage in the middle of the night. They could be as loud as they wanted and nopony would hear them for miles, much less interru—

That’s when she saw it. Not a pony, just two long, ivory ears and a jaw hanging slack from them against the floor. “Uh, Fluttershy.” She poked Fluttershy’s side and pointed downwards with her hoof.

With a gasp, Fluttershy’s wings took to instinct and she was suddenly hovering above the bed, looking for a place to hide. “Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness,” She rattled repetitively.

“What’s the big deal?” Rainbow asked. She leaned over the bed and waved a hoof in front of the bunny’s face, and it remained steadfast and frozen in its stance. “He’s just a bunny.”

Fluttershy peeked from her hiding spot on the opposite side of the mattress and said, “But he’s a very smart bunny. And,” she paused as she blushed, “possessive.”

“Po-wha?” Rainbow looked back at Fluttershy dumbfounded. She heard a loud thumping and turned back around to find the rabbit’s jaw now off the ground and staring at her menacingly as he tapped a paw on the floorboards and crossed his arms.

Fluttershy sighed and climbed back across the bed slowly. “I hate doing this, but I don’t think there’s any other way.” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Suddenly, her eyes shot open and the rabbit froze again in mid-leap, falling back to the floor, entranced by the stare and returning an equally wide look back at Fluttershy. “You. Saw. Nothing. Go to bed,” Fluttershy said sternly, over enunciating each word as it carried through the air with the tad echo of the Royal Canterlot voice.

When she finally blinked again and her demeanor returned to normal, the bunny began moving again, looking a bit dizzy. He shook his head a bit and looked around the room, appearing to be a bit lost as to how he got there. Then he let out a heavy yawn and hopped back out of the room, closing the door behind him as he left. “Sorry,” Fluttershy quietly apologized, her voice high and soothing again. “Mommy just needs some alone time, Angel Bunny.”

***

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay?” Fluttershy pleaded, fiddling her hooves as she spoke.

Rainbow smiled and gave her a small peck on the cheek. “I… I just can’t. If I keep having these dreams… you don’t want to see it. Trust me.”

“I don’t mind!” Fluttershy blurted out. She stared at the floor, still embarrassed despite what they’d been through that night. “I mean… I want you to stay, Rainbow,” she whispered. “I don’t care if y– eep!”

Rainbow wrapped her hooves around Fluttershy, squeezing her too hard for Fluttershy to attempt to hug back. “Thank you, Fluttershy. For everything. But I just can’t. Not yet.”

“But, but, but,” Fluttershy stammered as Rainbow felt tears flowing down onto her shoulder.

“Don’t cry. We’re still friends, and tonight meant a lot to me. I’m just not ready to go any further yet. Not until I know these dreams have stopped, and I’m not sure yet how to do that.”

“Promise me.”

“Promise what?”

“Promise me… you’ll come back. When this is over. I…” Fluttershy blushed as she struggled to make the words come out. “I really enjoyed tonight.”

Rainbow eased off the hug and gave Fluttershy another gentle kiss. “So did I, Fluttershy. So did I, and I hope we can have many more nights like it.”

“So… you promise?”

“I– I promise.”

“You know… if you ever need anything, I’ll be here for you.”

“Hey,” Rainbow laughed a bit as she opened the window and spread her wings across the dark canvas, noticing a few random yellow feathers entrapped in her own as she readied herself to depart.

“Hmm?”

“That’s supposed to be my line.”