Days pass.

On some, it seems like nothing was ever the matter with the Element of Loyalty.

The good days were then quickly followed by bad days. Days where Rainbow dreads every new morning, and the very passing of time, because every day was filled with seemingly constant meals and snacks.

They were still working their way up to a normal, healthy intake for the athlete, due to her still not being able to finish all her portions without major discomfort and an all consuming panic setting in.

And then, everything changes.

One morning, Dash finds herself still hungry when her breakfast is eaten up. Albeit confused, she ignores it for a while, but interrupts Twilight in the library barely half an hour later, asking if she could have her snack.

Twilight looks up from her books, her magic having levitated them all around herself, and checks the time, assuming that she must have gotten so lost in her study-hyperfocus that she was neglecting Dash’s meal plan.

“Already?” She asks dumbfounded when she sees that barely any time has passed since breakfast. This has never happened before.

Normally it was a bit of a fight to get Dash to eat her snacks, the pegasus claiming that she was still nauseatingly and uncomfortably full.

“I’m hungry..” Dash admits shamefully in a subdued voice. She couldn’t understand it, but she was almost desperate for food. That has never happened to her before.

This makes Twilight shut the books and lay them on the table. “Hungry as in you need a meal?” She asks to make sure.

A look of horror crosses her face. “No! Just… augh, I just need something.”

Sensing that words would get them nowhere, Twilight decides that she would just go to the kitchen with her. “Come on.”

She gives the pegasus her requested snack, going through her checklists to see if maybe it was time to adjust the meal sizes again already, and to her utter surprise, Dash hesitantly asks if she could have another.

“Are you sure you took the metabolic pill this morning?” Twilight asks, now completely confused at what is going on. She had seen Dash swallow it — along with more food than she has ever eaten so far, and willingly at that.

Of course the alicorn is only trying to understand what is going on, but the questions are only making the pegasus more and more insecure and ashamed of herself. Now more than ever does she feel weak-minded, thinking that she should have more self-control, but she was just so goddamn hungry, and no matter what she eats, she never feels satisfied..!

She may as well have swallowed air for all the good that eating the high protein foods is doing for her.

“Yes! I took it, of course I did, you saw me take it.” Dash defends in a snappy tone.

“I’m sorry. I just don’t understand…” Twilight pauses, shakes her head at herself. “Never mind. I’m glad you’re listening to what your body is telling you, and if you’re still hungry then we’ll just adjust your plan accordingly.”

“And while you do that, I can have some more?” Dash asks hopefully.

Twilight, already busy with her lists again, simply levitates another pre-packed snack over to the pegasus.

Dash just finishes her second snack — still ravenously hungry and feeling like she’s on the brink of starving to death — when one of the Wonderbolt members comes inside through the window.

“Newbie! We’ve been looking all over for you. We only got four days until our final show before winter break, need you at the Compound.”

Dash and Twilight instantly look at each other, silently asking one another if she’s allowed and if she feels well enough to do this.
“This is my dream.” Rainbow reminds her in a low whisper, and the alicorn knows when she has lost.

“Please, don’t push yourself too hard.” Twilight pleads desperately as Dash passes her and starts to flap her wings to get airborne.

“Promise.” Rainbow says, making full eye contact with Twilight, and then the pegasi are off.

Despite feeling so hungry, like she would never be able to feel full again, Dash finds that this hunger is different.

Of course it’s different; she’s never experienced hunger like this.

But she doesn’t get dizzy and her vision doesn’t go spotty or fully black. She’s just.. hungry. All she can think about is food and how hungry she is, which is definitely not a good thing to deal with when she’s supposed to fly as a Wonderbolt.

“Crash!” Spitfire yells in greeting. “Long time no see!”

Dash lands in front of her, slightly out of breath. “Uh, y-yeah..” she frowns, “why are you calling me 'Crash'?”

“Cause it’s your nickname. Can’t be calling you Newbie forever, can we?” Spitfire jokes. Then she takes off her sunglasses and takes a closer look at the cyan pegasus. “What happened to you?”

Dash blinks, her brain short circuiting. Is she asking because I gained so much weight..?

“We may have to get the tailors to adjust your suit…” Spitfire continues thoughtfully, and Rainbow is trying very, very hard not to cry.

The leader then lifts one of Dash’s wings with her hoof, then steps back and gives her a pointed look. “Have you been sick or something? You lost a lot of weight, and I know fresh, new feathers when I see them.”

“F-Feather flu.” Dash chokes out before she even thought of a reply, her brain replaying the phrase ‘you lost a lot of weight’ over and over.

She is still thin. She isn’t overweight.

“Are you even fit to fly?” Spitfire asks, deep concern in her voice.

“Yes, ma’am.” Dash says with a salute. She hopes that Spitfire doesn’t notice how her voice is shaking at the rising panic of some pony else finding out about her ‘problem'.

“Hmm. Well, alright. Go get dressed, we got two routines this time, cause Princess Celestia is having her celebration thing here in Ponyville.”

At the mention of Celestia, Dash feels a cold shudder trail down her spine. She might have made up with Luna over the past nights, and she knows that Celestia only lied to give them hope, but it still hurts nonetheless.
She isn’t sure how to feel about performing a show for the ruler, and possibly having to talk to her.

After getting dressed in her uniform, Dash could now understand Spitfire’s concern. The same suit that she once couldn’t even zip closed, now hung loosely around her frame. Not loose enough as to cause problems like making her trip, but it’s a heavy reality check that causes time to briefly stand still.

In the mirror reflection, she sees herself, the way she can normally only see in her dreams thanks to Princess Luna. Her uniform seems to have the same effect as that one spell, and yet it feels different, because this is real.

Part of her is shocked at how thin she still is. Another part — or rather, the disorder that’s residing in her brain — relishes in the knowledge that she is now the slimmest Wonderbolt, and it really wants for her to stay that way.

And just for a moment, the insatiable hunger that’s been plaguing her is forgotten as she exits the building and joins the rest of the team.

“Ooh, this is bad..” Twilight mumbles to herself after reading (possibly) the only book in Equestrian History that has been written about Anorexia Nervosa and its recovery process.

“What’s ‘bad’?” Spike asks.

“I was trying to figure out what’s going on with Rainbow Dash today, and it says here that some ponies who are recovering from this disease, enter a stage called “extreme hunger” or “insatiable hunger”. It’s the body’s way to repair the damage that’s been done during starvation and restricting food intake, and it can happen at any point during the recovery process.”

“That sounds like she’s on the right track. So… where’s the problem?”

Twilight sighs, irritated at her own self. “This is the worst possible time for her to be training with the Wonderbolts. She’s going to fight the hunger and start restricting all over again.
Plus, it says here that this stage can be caused by a 'hyper metabolism', due to the body trying to get whatever it can to repair itself. I don’t know if one of the metabolic pills will be enough if that’s the case; what if she passes out in the middle of training?!”

Dash lasts almost an hour before she just couldn’t take the tormenting hunger anymore. They’re all taking one of their five minute breaks, and Dash decides to leave the group and tread into the cafeteria instead.

She would only grab a quick snack, and then she would hopefully get the routine down. As soon as she could focus on anything other than the feeling of her stomach eating itself and turning itself inside out.

Of course the small snack wouldn’t so much as put a dent in it, no matter how high the protein content was, and she resigns herself to just try to get through training as her stomach continues to gnaw at itself.

Author's Note

Crazy that this already has 20 chapters. I hate time skips like this, but this would just get too repetitive, so it was high time for the next part in this story — Dash getting back to the Wonderbolts.

Sorry about the long breaks between updates. It’s irritatingly difficult to write a recovery fic when you’re struggling more and more…