Newbie Dash (Alternative)

A couple of long, heated conversations later, it had turned out that Sky Scraper had developed feelings for Buttercream, and when he’d seen her laughing happily with another guy two weeks ago, he’d thought that she doesn’t have feelings for him. His own insecurities and doubts made it unbearable for him to be around her, resulting in him pushing her away.

To everyone’s relief, Buttercream actually felt the same way for him, and their friendship had turned into a loving relationship. All in all a great way to end the day. Twilight and Rainbow were glad when their cutie marks flashed again, to signal that their job here was done.

But for some reason, Dash still looked unsure and wouldn’t look at Twilight when the Alicorn put the saddle bags onto her back and started looking for a spare cloud they could use.

Finally they found one, and Rainbow curls up on it right away.

“You can sleep until we’re back in Ponyville if you’re tired.” Twilight tells her, and starts to push the cloud in the correct direction.

“I’m just a bit chilly, is all.” Dash replies, but closes her eyes anyways.

At that, Twilight levitates a cloak that Rarity had made for Rainbow, out from one of the saddle bags and around her.

To her surprise, Dash seems to startle from that, and throws a panicked look at Twilight.

“What’s wrong?” Twilight asks, now completely confused.

Rainbow sighs and lays back down again, with her back to Twilight. “Nothing.”

Twilight frowns, but doesn’t question it. Rainbow has pushed herself a lot today, and all in all, everything had gone well.

She’s probably just tired. I know I am. She thinks to herself and continues to bring Rainbow back to the castle.

The sun is setting by the time they’re back. Twilight sighs dramatically and wipes the sweat from her forehead. The motion makes Rainbow feel guilty, but for the wrong reasons again.

Her mind is telling her that she’s become so horribly heavy. If only she wasn’t eating the way she is, poor Twilight wouldn’t have had to exert herself so much.

“Okay. Since you did so well with eating today, I will let you decide what snack you want before bed.” Twilight tells her cheerily, and Rainbow feels her heart stop when the alicorn opens the saddle bags. She all but falls off the cloud in her hurry to get to Twilight.

“Twilight wait-!”

“What-”

The warning came too late. Twilight levitates a packaged hay burger out of the left bag, and her eyes widen. She turns back around to Rainbow, who looks guilty again- that’s what it was, earlier. Not insecurity. She’s been feeling guilty this whole time!

And since she didn’t eat it earlier, it has now been almost seven hours since Rainbow last ate anything. No wonder she’s feeling cold again.

“You didn’t eat it?” She asks the obvious. “You’re hiding food?” She accuses.

“It’s not what it looks like! Honest!” Rainbow exclaims. “I just couldn’t eat it in public. So I packed it for later. Because I didn’t want to disappoint you!”

Twilight hates that the only reason she believes her, is the fact that Rainbow is still holding direct eye contact, her eyes begging her to believe her. She briefly looks at the untouched burger, then regards her friend again.

“You weren’t trying to fool me into thinking that you ate something, so I would leave you alone?”

“No! Ugh. Twilight, I swear, I’m trying to get better. I just… I guess I’m not fully ready to face the outside world, yet…” she admits.

The alicorn smiles and levitates it over to her.

“Hey guys.” Spike greets them. “Did you get your problem solved already? That has to be a new record.”

Twilight nods. “We did. I would tell you about it, but I know you don’t like romantic feelings being involved, and that was pretty much the problem we had to solve.”

Spike tilts his head. “So, you’re basically saying that you’re a couple’s therapist now, too.”

The girls laugh at that.

“Not exactly.” Twilight says with a grin.

Then, Spike notices Rainbow Dash eating a hay burger. “You guys brought fast food? Awesome!”

Twilight throws him a guilty look. “Not exactly… Rainbow just wasn’t comfortable eating it in public, so she brought it here.”

After all, it was the truth.

Rainbow throws her a grateful smile, then takes another bite.

“Oh.. bummer.” Spike says and shrugs. “Oh well. I wasn’t sure when you guys would be back, so I already had dinner earlier, anyways.” He stretches and yawns. “I think I’ll turn in early. Goodnight every pony.”

“Good night, Spike.”

“Sleep well.”

Twilight is distracted for a few minutes unpacking, and when she looks back to Rainbow, she almost drops everything that’s in her magical hold. She places the items down, then rushes to her, hurriedly offering her a glass of water and a napkin to spit into, because it was blatantly obvious that she couldn’t swallow the food.

Dash throws her an apologetic look before spitting and coughing into the napkin.

“What’s wrong..?” Twilight asks her sadly. It’s been weeks since Dash couldn’t swallow food. Twilight had thought that that phase was now behind them.

Dash sighs. “I…” She shakes her head, hanging her head in shame.

Twilight lays a supportive hoof on her shoulder. “Rainbow, please tell me. You need to tell others about what’s bothering you. Keeping secrets and bottling up your feelings will only make things worse. We just resolved a friendship problem that was created by not talking about their feelings and concerns.”

“Please don’t think that I’m insane.” Rainbow pleas, only briefly looking at Twilight. “I have this voice in my head, and it won’t shut up.”

“A voice?” Twilight asks, surprised and worried.

Dash nods, still averting her eyes. “It keeps telling me how fat I am, that no pony could ever like me if I looked like this, that I will never be able to achieve anything, and that the real reason I still can’t fly is that I’m just too heavy…”

When she dares to look at her friend again, she’s met with the most heartbroken look she has ever seen.

“Oh Rainbow… none of that is true, I swear. You’re still a bit too thin, me and all our friends love you, you’ve achieved so much and just today you helped solve a friendship problem, and.. well,” Twilight sighs, “we will just have to wait and see when your magic is strong enough for you to fly again.”

Rainbow keeps looking anywhere but at her friend.

“…your voice is telling you that I’m lying, isn’t it.” Twilight deduces, unhappily.

Dash nods. “It’s not your fault.” She reassures, then looks down at her half eaten burger. “But I can’t finish this.”

That causes alarm bells to ring for Twilight. This is only Dash’s second meal of the day, not counting the protein shake.

“Will you drink another shake?” She asks hopefully.

Of course Rainbow is not happy to be asked this.

“Honestly, I don’t know…”

Part of Twilight needs to follow her daily lists of Dash eating. But something inside her chooses a different path.

“Okay.”

Rainbow looks up in confusion. “Okay.. what?”

“Okay. I won’t force anything on you anymore today.” Twilight clarifies. “I know that today has been hard on you, both physically and mentally. And to be quite frank, I’m exhausted, too.” As though to prove a point, she fails to stifle a yawn. “We’ll go back on your meal plans tomorrow.”

As she watches the alicorn leave, Rainbow feels even more disappointed in herself. It was like it didn’t even matter how hard she tries, she’ll always fail, anyways.