Newbie Dash (Alternative)

“This is such a nightmare situation!” Celestia exclaims as she paces. Floating, open books are following her every step. “I had foolishly assumed that bearers of the Elements Of Harmony would be immune to such an affliction.”

Luna watches her sister trotting back and forth in some weird Twilight Sparkle imitation. “Sister.”

“Not now, Luna. I have to find a way to break this… curse that has befallen Rainbow Dash.”

Luna sighs. “Tia, you said it yourself: it’s not a curse. It’s a disorder.”

“Well, it might as well be.” The older sister mutters bitterly.

Luna steps forwards. “You told me that Silver Spell only got worse because she didn’t have any friends to support her. Twilight wrote in her last letter that Rainbow Dash was improving and wants to recover. Why are you so worried?”

Celestia sighs, closing the books surrounding her and stacking them on her desk. “Because Silver Spell had initially improved as well, so I eventually stopped worrying about it, and then she relapsed without me noticing, and her heart gave out in the middle of the night.” She explains, her voice so full of grief. “This disease is so insidious, so difficult to get under control, because the pony suffering from it will do everything in their power to prevent others from knowing about its existence. It was bad enough that one of my pupils had to die this way. But an Element Of Harmony? I don’t want to imagine what will become of this world…”

Princess Luna closes her eyes. The full moon shines a dim light in the sky, her glowing horn seeming to absorb it.

Normally she would check every pony’s dreams, but tonight she’s on a mission.

The very specific nightmares that she has witnessed Rainbow Dash having, are an indicator of how strong her disease is.

She hopes against hope that with Dash physically recovering so well, the dreams will cease as well.

To her dismay, when she reaches the dream, Rainbow is once again dreaming about being awfully obese, struggling to fly, and actually falling from the sky this time, unable to catch herself as she seems to fall endlessly.

Luna comes to her rescue, levitating the screaming, terrified pegasus and gently placing her on the ground, before joining her. They’re on a wide open grass field with only a few trees in the background.

“P-Princess Luna?” Rainbow asks, chest still heaving with her panicked breaths. Then she looks around, and realises that this is just another nightmare. She is getting so tired of having the same dream haunting her every single night. She groans tiredly. “Not again…”

“Rainbow Dash, it has come to my attention that you are unable to have any… normal, positive dreams, as of late.” Luna starts.

“I guess it’s hard to dream of anything good when your life has become a living nightmare…” Dash grumbles, barely managing to sit up with all her excess weight. She looks down at herself, the sight of her big belly making her whine and look anywhere but at herself again.

Luna gently places a hoof below Dash’s jaw and guides her head to make Rainbow look at her. “You are stronger than this disease, Rainbow Dash. You have friends who will support you and help you get through this. I may not be able to cure you, but I can help you get back control over your dreams.”

Dash sighs. “How?” She asks pleadingly.

Luna smiles, moving her hoof from Dash’s jaw down to her shoulder. “For now, how about you look the way you actually do.”

Rainbow looks unsure, but closes her eyes to try and do as she’s told. After a few moments, she opens them again, looking sad and defeated. “I can’t… my brain is telling me that this is what I look like. I-.. mmh, I don’t know what you guys see, but this is what I see.”

Luna looks grim, not liking this one bit. “Allow me, then.” She casts a spell, and Rainbow gasps when she’s suddenly only half as big, if even that.

Luna then creates a large mirror for Dash to look into.

The pegasus’ eyes widen when she doesn’t see the fat that was usually all that she could see on herself. She was… thin. Too thin. If she saw a pony who looked like this out on the streets, she’d be worried for them.

She can’t help herself. A tear escapes, and then another.

She squeezes her eyes shut. “Why can’t I see this in the real world?” She asks nobody in particular. Then she looks back to Luna. “Is this really me? Or did you-”

“The spell can only show a pony’s true self. It is normally used to break through disguises, originally designed to uncover Changelings.” Luna explains.

Rainbow accepts this, though she still has a hard time connecting the bony creature looking back at her, to the distorted mental image that has corrupted her mind. She touches the mirror with a hoof, as though disbelieving that the object is real. She looks into the tired eyes looking back at her, then drops her hoof and turns back to Luna.

“Do you think that there’s a spell that can do this in the real world?” She asks hopefully.

Luna unfortunately shakes her head. “This only worked here because you are not awake. Your brain cannot falsely process your reflection when it is not active. Normally, this would lead to some strange things happening in dreams that make no logical sense. In your case, we can do the opposite: bring logic to chaos.”

Rainbow looks surprised at that. “Wow, that’s.. strangely deep.”

She gets to her feet, positioning herself in front of the mirror to get a full sideview of herself, hoping to memorise the sight for when she’d have to be awake again.

Then she remembers that she catalogues everything when she’s flying. “I have an idea!” She exclaims, and starts to flap her wings, and to her surprise, she was finally airborne again.

She closes her eyes for a moment, and a lake appears near their grass field. She flies over it, her eyes mesmerised by the reflection below.

Luna watches her with confusion, but doesn’t ask.

Rainbow continues to fly, laughing joyfully, loving this feeling of freedom. She even does a Sonic Rainboom, but instead of the thundering sound echoing in the air as the rainbow circle explodes, it sounds strangely like a voice.

“Rainbow, wake up!”

She startles awake to a certain purple alicorn shaking her shoulder.

“Nooo!” Dash whines, wanting nothing more than to get back to her dream. She wanted to fly for a bit longer, she didn’t want to face the day just yet.

“It’s okay, it was just a dream.” Twilight tells her gently.

Dash groans. “It wasn’t a nightmare. Or at least not anymore… Princess Luna was helping me, and I could fly again, it was sooo awesome!”

Now Twilight looks guilty. “Sorry, but it’s already past ten a.m., and you didn’t eat much yesterday, remember?”

Her words make Rainbow remember the humiliating day, needing to be pushed to Cloudsdale on a cloud, and being unable to eat a simple meal.

She closes her eyes in defeat for a moment. Never mind. This IS a nightmare.