“What's wrong?!” Sunset asked, bursting through the door and rushing into the room. The smell of sweaty dirty gym clothes immediately punched her in the nose making her freeze in place. But the sound of whimpering quickly helped the girl regain her senses. Looking over she saw her friend on the ground, sobbing on the ground as she held a weird scaly-looking ball in her lap.
After receiving a text saying there was a Code Red emergency she needed everyone to come over ASAP. And if Rainbow Dash was texting in the group chat then whatever was happening. So Sunset rushed over to her friend's house as fast as she could, not even bothering with fixing her hair before she rushed over. However, it didn’t look like the Rainbow Colored haired girl did her the favor of getting herself or the room ready for guests. The sporty one of their group was in a pink tank top, a pair of matching colored running shorts, and a pair of turtle-themed slippers that covered the girl's piggies with a turtle shell with a turtle head with black eyes and a smile at the end of them. Sunset had no idea how the girl managed to be dressed like that with the snowy weather outside and the girl's bedroom wasn’t exactly super warm.
“Is everything OK? Did you break something?” Sunset asked as she slid beside the girl, her red and yellow hair a total mess and looking like she was trying to cosplay as Medusa, her hair sticking out in every direction. “I knew that when you fell yesterday you landed on your leg weird!” The girl huffed as she started to press her hand on Rainbow's leg, trying to feel if something felt off. “I’m calling an ambulance right now!” She said pulling her phone out,
“N-No,” Rainbow said, managing to squeak a word out, huffing and puffing as she tried to control herself. “I-it… It’s…. It’s T-t-t-Tank!” She blubbered out, lifting the weird ball in her lap up, revealing her pet Tortoise Tank. The tortoise sleepily raised his head and looked over at Sunset, smiling at the yellow-skinned teen as he slowly blinked at her. And seeing this Sunset looked at Rainbow and then back at the scaly pet, frowning in confusion.
“Yeah… I see him,” She said, reaching over and using her index finger to pet Tank on the head. “What's wrong with him?” She asked after taking a few seconds to examine the tortoise she didn’t see anything wrong with him. The turtle was moving slowly, breathing slowly, and looked as if it was ready to fall asleep in Rainbow’s arms. So just like he normally did whenever Sunset saw him.
“What do you mean ‘what's wrong’?!” Rainbow snapped, holding Tank closer and tighter as if Sunset had just insulted the reptile. “It’s written all over his face Sunset, he’s moving slower and he’s just not as energetic as he normally is!” She said, leaving her friend speechless and staring at Tank.
“How can you tell?” She asked, an eyebrow raised. As far as Sunset could tell the tortoise was as alive, for lack of a better term, as he always did.
“It’s so obvious Sunset!” The girl said, her head resting on Tank’s shell, her blue skin glittering from the tears streaming down her face. So it was clear that this wasn’t some sort of weird prank. Maybe it was just Rainbow Dash freaking out and exaggerating over nothing, which Sunset wouldn’t find hard to believe. But this was something very serious to the blue speedster. “I called F-Fluttershy. S-she she gah-! She said she’d- She’d be over A-ASAP.” The girl said, somehow wrapping her arms tighter around the tortoise.
Sunset wrapped her arm around Rainbow’s shoulder, pulling the girl in close and letting her cry. Trying to be the emotionally supportive one definitely wasn’t in Sunset's wheelhouse, heck to be fair she wasn’t exactly sure what she had to offer as a friend, especially in this situation. She had only been a friend in the group for a year at that point, and there was still so much she was trying to learn. But she figured that right then a hug was appropriate. Even though she was sure Tank wasn’t dying, she needed to be there for her friend and not tell Rainbow that she was just being crazy. So she let the girl sob on her shoulder until a soft knock came from the doorway.
“Knock knock.” A soft voice said, pulling Sunset's attention away from the sobbing teen. At the door, a teen with light pink hair and pale yellow skin stood. She was bundled up in a thick green winter jacket, a light green skirt with black sweatpants under them, and pink snow boots. She also had a green scarf with a white rabbit on it, and a pair of pink fuzzy earmuffs hugging her hand. The girl had a pink backpack that was stuffed as it bulged and things tried to poke through the bag. “Oh, Rainbow,” Fluttershy said, rushing over and squeezing in between her and Sunset, making the red-haired girl scoot over and giving Fluttershy room. If there was something wrong with Rainbow's tortoise then their friend Fluttershy would be able to tell what it was. The teen could literally talk to animals, how could she not know what was wrong with the tortoise? “It’s never easy saying goodbye to a friend.” She whimpered, hugging Rainbow tightly as tears shimmered in her eyes and threatened to fall as if Tank had already passed away. “But just to be sure, I figured I should look him over.” She said, sniffling like she had already known that the only thing that she would find was bad news.
But Rainbow nodded her head, taking her arm and using it to clear her face and her nose. But when Fluttershy gently placed her hands on Tank’s shell their blue-skinned friend didn’t let go of him. She stared down at her reptilian friend like he was already at Death’s door.
“Um… Rainbow. You gotta let go.” Fluttershy said, gently moving her hands on top of Rainbows.
“I know!” She snapped but immediately shook her head. “I’m sorry Fluttershy, I-I’m just…” She said, looking away from everyone and at the big blue plastic pool that was off to the side of her room.
“Scared?” Fluttershy offered as she gently pulled the other girl's hands off Tank’s shell. “Well, don’t be, he might be ok.” She said trying to give an assuring smile, acting a lot more optimistic than she had thirty seconds ago. She gently took Tank from her friend and sat the tortoise on her lap before digging in her backpack for some sort of tool.
But while the fair-skinned girl took care of Tank Rainbow got up to her feet, hugging herself as she started to pace around the pool, her feet making a pat pat pat sound as she paced. Sunset got up on her feet and walked up to her friend, gently putting her hand on Rainbow's shoulder and trying to give the girl a reassuring smile. But Rainbow only looked down at the tub. It was set up for Tank as a heat lamp was pointed right at the pool, lighting it up. It was filled up with clean water and sand, in the middle of the pool there was a makeshift island made of rocks and sand that stuck up out of the water. There was a plastic cave that gave the tortoise shade to sleep and some plants that were probably for the reptile to snack on. On Rainbow Dash’s nightstand, there was a plastic jar with a picture of a turtle on it with TURTLE FOOD above the picture.
“Wow, this is all for Tank?” Sunset asked, looking at the tortoise's home. She assumed that the girl would have just bought an aquarium for the reptile-like most people would have done. Heck, Sunset had a normal aquarium for her little lizard Ray. So seeing that Rainbow had given up almost half of her room for her scaley friend was impressive.
“Yeah, it didn’t seem fair that I had all this room and he was supposed to settle with a small glass box.” She muttered, absentmindedly going over to a small yellow and green soccer ball that had been sitting on the ground, kicking it lightly. Sunset wasn’t surprised that there was at least one sports ball in the room, the girl was obsessed with sports, especially soccer. But she had a small plastic white and red basketball hoop hanging on the wall, with an overflowing basket of dirty clothes under it. Then the rest of the girls' walls were covered with posters of her favorite soccer team the “Wonderbolts”. A lady in a dark blue jersey and shorts stood with her arms crossed, her bright orange hair gelled up and back as if it were blown that way by the wind. She had a confident smile on her face and teeth so bleach white Sunset was sure you could go blind from looking at them for too long. “I was gonna add in a water slide for him, it was going to go around the tub to give him a real sense of speed.” She said, her voice breaking in the end and she shot her hand up and covered her mouth, a new wave of tears starting to fall from her eyes and down her face. “But I guess w-we won’t have to w-w-worry about it.” She said, sniffling.
“Come on Rainbow,” Sunset said softly, wrapping an arm around her friend again, “Tortoises and turtles live for a long time, longer than we do in some cases. I don’t think Tanks dying.” She said, trying to give her an assuring smile.
“Then t-that means,” Rainbow said, trying to hold back tears, and Sunset thought her friend was finally coming to her senses making the redhead nod her head a smile when Rainbow let out, “I killed him! I’m the worst pet owner ever and I’ve done something to Tank!”
The rainbow-haired girl wrapped her arms tightly around Sunset in a hug, burying her face into Sunset as a new wave of tears. Which made Sunset growl a tiny bit as she knew that if there was something wrong with Tank it wasn’t because Rainbow was a bad pet owner. Outside of the Rainbooms and sports, the tortoise was practically the girl's entire life. She took Tank everywhere she could, to the park, and the roller rink, she even snuck the old reptile on the bus when they had to go play somewhere. The girl was the most committed tortoise owner Sunset had ever seen… but to be fair, Rainbow was also the only tortoise owner Sunset really knew.
“Ok,” Fluttershy said, her soft voice almost lost in Rainbow's sobbing and stood up holding Tank. A stethoscope, reflex mallet, and other medical equipment littered the ground where she was sitting. But she had a smile on her face, which gave Sunset hope that the animal lover had good news. “I have good news… and I have bad news.” She said, making Sunset raise an eyebrow. “The good news is-.” She started, but Rainbow cut her off.
“That he’s not going to suffer anymore! And the bad news is I am the one who murdered him!” She said, unburying her face, her eyes all puffy, her face shimmering with tears, and a line of snot going down her pale blue face.
“No, not even close. So please listen to me.” She said, handing Tank to his owner. “Tank is perfectly healthy. If he were put in a race with other tortoises he would beat them by a minute! Which may not sound like a lot, but they would be tortoises racing so it wouldn’t be a fast race.” She mused and giggled, probably imagining a group of tortoises racing if Sunset had to guess. But of course, Rainbow Dash would somehow have the fastest tortoise in the world.
“A-and the bad news?” Rainbow asked, hugging Tank. She was quickly calming down hearing her friend was ok. Her breathing was steadying and her tears had practically completely stopped.
“He is getting ready to hibernate for the winter.” She said, starting to clean up the mess she made while examining Tank.
“WHAT?! Rainbow asked, turning Tank away as if to hide him from the news. “He needs to hibernate, like, all winter?!”
“Yes, that is usually how hibernation works.” Fluttershy said with another giggle, “So he’ll be reenergized for springtime and sleep through the nasty cold weather.”
“B-b-b-b-but what about all the cool winter stuff I’ve planned for us?!” Rainbow asked Fluttershy, leaning towards the girl, her pupils now tiny and the sadness replaced with intensity. “We-we-we were supposed to go sledding and build an igloo!” She explained to Fluttershy, “How is he supposed to do all that stuff asleep?!”
“Oh, that's an easy answer,” Fluttershy said, gently grabbing hold of Tank and gently taking him from Rainbow. She then bent over and sat the tortoise on the little island in the middle of the pool. “He won’t be able to. He’ll be right here sleeping.” She said, patting the top of Tank’s green shell. The old reptile slowly made his way into his little cave, giving off another yawn.
“H-he can’t though!” Rainbow whined, reminding Sunset of a five-year-old not getting their way at a grocery store after their mom told them no to a candy bar. “He can’t leave me all winter!” She huffed, crossed her arms, and puffed a strand of hair out of her face.
Though Sunset had a feeling Rainbow didn’t exactly have a say in that. The girls may have magical abilities, but she didn’t remember any of them having the ability to stop animals from hibernating. The only thing they could do was say goodbye and wait for springtime to come around to hang out with their scaly friends. Though now that she thought about it she should check to see if her little lizard would be also taking a long snooze.
“But… But…” Rainbow pouted and sighed, dropping her arms in defeat as she dropped to her knees. “I learn you’re not dying but you’re going to be leaving me anyways.” She sighed, reaching out and petted the tortoise under his chin which made Tank turn his head as he smiled at the girl. “Well, I guess it makes sense that you’re gonna take a long nap. You did learn from the best after all.” She sighed watching her pet slowly blink.
“I’ll help you make sure that he has everything he needs,” Fluttershy said, leaning over and smiling at Rainbow, even putting her hand on the other girl's shoulder.
“Thanks, Flutters,” Rainbow said, giving a small smile as Tank started his journey back to his cave. “Also, maybe not mention all the crying to everyone else?” She asked, her cheeks tinted red as she sheepishly rubbed the back of her head.
“It’ll be our secret!” Fluttershy promised before they turned to Sunset.
“Oh um… Yeah, what crying?” Sunset sarcastically asked with a smirk and an eye-roll.
