Newbie Dash (Alternative)

“Let me talk to Spitfire.” Twilight suggests. “I’m sure she’ll understand that they’ll have to fly without you-”
“NO!”
“-tomorrow… Rainbow, you can’t-”
“I can! I will!” Rainbow argues. “I have to do this!”

Twilight throws her a stern look. “No, you don’t. I’ve told you before: you have nothing to prove. Everyone here knows how skilled you are.”

“What about everyone who’s coming to watch the show? They’ll be so disappointed…”

Twilight is admittedly dumbfounded. “We’re your friends, we understand. None of us would be disappointed in you for putting yourself first. Besides, there’s always the next show.”

Dash sighs, shaking her head. “No. I can do this.” She insists, the same way she once proclaimed that ‘if she’s going down, she’s going down flying’.

Unfortunately, Twilight knows this stubborn side of her friend all too well. The chances of changing her mind are minus a hundred. “Fine, on one condition.” She relents, levitating the pill container out of one of her saddle bags, and takes out two of the pills. “Take these, with water.”

Rainbow immediately backtracks. “Two?!”

“Need I remind you that your metabolism is dangerously fast? If you want to fly tomorrow, then we cannot risk your Pegasus Magic to run out again.” Twilight lectures.

Dash’s eyes widen, she hadn’t even considered that that could happen again. “But- haven’t I eaten more than enough lately, so that doesn’t happen?”

“I don’t know. That’s just it, we can’t know anything for certain, so if you really believe that you have to do this, then we need to at least minimise the risks.”

Rainbow seems to think it over for a moment, then swallows the pills, forcing herself to drink quite a bit of water.

Right as Twilight makes to speak again, the door opens and Spitfire looks inside. “There you are. Rainbow Dash, we’ve decided to end the training early today. We all need to be well rested for tomorrow morning.”

Rainbow chokes on the water in her shock. “W-what?!”
The other ‘Bolts come inside and start to get changed, paying them no mind.

Spitfire sighs at her renewed panic. “Dash, you could fly the show in your sleep, blindfolded. Go home, and rest. You’ll do fine.” She tells her in a no-nonsense manner, then joins the others in undressing.

Rainbow still seems unhappy with the sudden change of plans, and unsure about her own skills. When she finally looks back to the lavender alicorn, she finds a sad smile directed at herself. “Guess I better get ready.” With a sigh, she gets to her hooves, keeping her legs far apart to help keep her balance as her vision goes black once again. When she could see again, she informs Twilight, “I’ll meet you outside,” before opening her locker.

Twilight waits nervously in front of the building. Most of the other Wonderbolts have already left, manes and tails still wet from the shower.

She’s beginning to worry that Rainbow might have passed out, but figures that someone would have come outside to get help if that were the case.

When Spitfire exits the building, she couldn’t help herself. “Is she okay?”

The leader looks confused for a moment, before chuckling. “Yeah, she just can’t get enough of her reflection again. Maybe I ought to take down that mirror.” She says jokingly, before walking off.

Twilight sighs, relieved to know that at least nothing worse is going on. She decides to go back in and talk to Dash again. If she’s stuck in front of a mirror again, it usually means that she’s not happy by what she’s seeing — or rather, what her brain concocts.

She finds that all the other members have gone, leaving Rainbow to herself. As expected she finds the pegasus, still dripping wet, watching her own reflection with a dissatisfied frown on her face.

She doesn’t react when Twilight appears next to her in the mirror. The alicorn seeks out a dry towel and levitates one over.
“Maybe dry off, first.” She suggests, figuring that the wet fur will only make the distortion worse.

“It’s weird.” Dash remarks, still not looking away from the mirror.

“What is?” Twilight asks when she doesn’t elaborate.

“When I was in my suit, I was thin. Without it, I’m not.” She changes her pose to stand sideways, so she could see her full side.

Twilight is momentarily confused by what she means, until she realises… “You mean… you could see yourself right, when you were covered up?”

Rainbow nods, folding her wings to her sides. The feathers are glistening even more than her coat in the light. “But I’m not covered now, and I think I see it right.”

“Well, you’re covered in water.” Twilight deadpans when Dash continues to drip water. “Maybe it’s the minor change in your appearance that’s making it so your brain can’t distort it. After all, you don’t see other ponies distorted, right? It’s quite fascinating.”

“And annoying.” Dash groans. She reflexively flaps her wings when the water between her feathers tickles her skin, resisting the urge to shake herself off. And for the first time in a long while, she could see glimpses of her ribs again. “How could I have lost weight? I’ve been eating more than.. Pinkie Pie, probably.”

Twilight can’t help but giggle despite herself. “Maybe not that much. Like I said, your body has entered a stage called hyper metabolism, it’s using everything you eat to repair itself and regain the strength you lost.”

Rainbow seems momentarily relieved, until a new worry forms in her head. “That ‘stage’ is only temporary though, right? It’s going to stop, and then what?” She’s beginning to shiver, so Twilight decides to just dry her off with the towel, using her magic.

“It’ll probably just get back to baseline?” Twilight guesses.

That’s not good enough. “What if it slows down so much that I’ll just gain weight for the rest of my life, and I’ll never be able to eat anything ever again without- Ouch-!”

Twilight had accidentally rubbed the towel against the base of her wing, rough-handling the lowest feathers, when she’d lost her focus for a moment. “Sorry!” She lays the towel around Dash’s neck, releasing it from her magical hold. “But I promise you that that won’t happen.”

“But what if it does?” Rainbow asks, not convinced. It seems like her body is doing its own thing, and since her mind and body aren’t exactly in agreement, she’s afraid that it will do even more things to ruin her.

“Rainbow, you need to learn to trust your body again.” Twilight tells her softly.

“Kinda hard to do, after it decided to ground me and moult for no reason.” The pegasus complains, throwing her reflection a glare. Then her eyes widen with a gasp when she sees herself growing impossibly wider again. She turns her back on the mirror with a deeply frustrated groan.

At this point, Twilight doesn’t have to ask her what’s wrong. Instead, she takes out one of the snacks she brought with her, as well as fetching the water bottle with her magic again.

Rainbow grimaces when she sees the items, knowing full well that they won’t be leaving until she ate something.

“I’m not letting you fly back to the castle unless you eat this.” The alicorn says firmly.

Dash sighs but relents, trying hard to block out the voice in her head, telling her that if she eats this now, she will perform pathetically tomorrow and become the laughingstock of Ponyville.

Twilight takes notice of her internal struggle, and keeps talking to her, giving her something else to listen to, and reminding her of what’s at stake. “Remember: if you lose your magic, you won’t be able to fly at all tomorrow. I understand that it’s difficult for you, but you are not alone in this. We are all here for you, no matter how much you try to push us away.”

They had to take an emergency break during the flight back, when Rainbow needed to lay down on a cloud for a few minutes. Twilight had offered to just push her the rest of the way with the cloud, but the pegasus was having none of that.

When they were finally in the castle again, Dash more or less fell asleep immediately, the extreme exhaustion finally winning.

While the pegasus is resting, Twilight told Spike to get the girls together. While she waits for the others to arrive, she finds herself looking at the memory crystals hanging from the roots of the Golden Oak Library, wondering how long there’d been signs that none of them had registered.

Many moments of witnessing Rainbow’s fragile confidence collapsing fill her head. Memories of her getting nervous before important events and declining all offerings of food. Little moments that none of them had paid any mind before.

She gets so lost in the past that she doesn’t register the girls coming inside until they greet her.

She flies down and they all take their respective seats.

“What’s going on, Twilight?”
“Everything okay, sugarcube?”
“You look worried… is something wrong?”
They all ask over each other.

“How is she?” Applejack asks the final question, the others nodding in agreement.

“Resting, finally.” Twilight sighs. She looks at her friends. “There’s been a relapse.”

Gasps and saddened exclamations fill the room.

“What happened?” Rarity asks.

“I think it’s my fault.” Twilight admits. “I’ve been so caught up with making sure she recovers physically, that I never made any plans to help her recover psychologically as well. And since we know that her brain processes things differently, I’m gonna need all the coping strategies to try.”

The others share a worried look.

“But… didn’t we figure out how her brain works because our own strategies didn’t work on her?” Applejack asks. “Why don’t we just use Dash’s own way?”

“Because the eating disorder is her coping strategy. And we need to replace it with something else.” Twilight clarifies. “It’s going to be a long and difficult process, but I’m sure we can find a way to help her.”

Rarity clears her throat. “Of course we’ll all help in any way we can, Twilight. But.. you said that she relapsed…. How bad is it?” She asks carefully.

Twilight grimaces. “She was refusing to take her pills and eat or drink.” The others gasp in shock. “I finally got through to her, earlier, but it definitely wasn’t easy for her.” She sighs. “I have no idea how she plans on getting through the show tomorrow. She almost passed out on our flight back here from the Wonderbolt Compound.”

Shocked and horrified expressions stare at her.

“She wants to perform?! And you’re going to let her?!” Rarity exclaims.

“That’s it. She’s lost her mind.” Applejack remarks, earning herself a glare from the others.

“She feels like a failure.” Twilight offers. “Nothing I said made any difference. She wants to do this show, and all we can do is show our support and make sure that she gets through it without hurting herself.”

“How can an awesome pony like Rainbow Dash feel like a failure? She’s worked soo hard and finally got what she always wanted!” Pinkie exclaims.

Twilight looks back up to the crystals hanging over their heads. “And sometimes, getting what we want isn’t what we need.”

The others share concerned looks.

“Are you suggesting that.. she shouldn’t have become a Wonderbolt?” Rarity asks hesitantly.

“What? No! But maybe, if some things had gone differently, we wouldn’t be sitting here, with Rainbow fighting for her life.”

The others look downwards, understanding what she means.

“They shouldn’t have put so much pressure on her, to learn the routine in only two days.” Fluttershy remarks.

The girls hum in agreement.

“And using her old measurements to save time is unprofessional and just plain rude.” Rarity tuts. She looks up at the crystals, smiling. “And I’m so glad we did this, instead of hanging up that portrait.”

Twilight frowns. “What portrait?”

“Oh, remember, the one we did after your coronation?” The fashionista asks.

Twilight blinks, drawing a blank for a moment. Then she remembers what Rarity meant. “Oh, that one. I found it in the closet room a while back.”

Rarity frowns. “So that’s where she put it. I wanted to at least have it displayed in your bedroom, so you’d have all of us with you, in a way, but I couldn’t find it anymore after Rainbow Dash took it away.”

A sudden realisation hits them all — except for Twilight, who obviously hadn’t been present while the others decorated her castle.

“She did what now?” The alicorn asks, watching her friend’s suddenly shocked and subdued faces.

Fluttershy gestures around the throne room. “We first messed up when we were tasked to decorate the castle, and Rainbow and Rarity were arguing about taking down their things, and in the end, Rainbow took away that portrait, saying…”

“We already know what we look like.” The girls say in unison, then share another concerned look.

“Do you girls think that.. she was already unhappy with how she looked? Back then?” The shy pegasus asks what they’re all wondering.

“And we didn’t notice.” Rarity says, disappointed in herself.

“Well, you’re not the only one missing the signs.” Twilight mutters, mostly to herself.

The others give her sad and sympathetic glances.

“All the more reason to brainstorm some coping strategies.” Applejack offers cheerfully.

By evening, Twilight has a long list of strategies that she can go through with Rainbow Dash.

“Okay, let’s start with something simple. What’s something you’re worried about right now, that doesn’t involve food or the show tomorrow?”

“I’m afraid of how my parents would react if they knew that I’m… sick.” Rainbow starts. The way she hadn’t needed to even think about it, tells Twilight that she’s been thinking about this a lot.

“I’m sure they would be supportive and want you to get better.” Twilight replies without thinking, and the word ‘supportive’ makes Dash’s eye twitch.

“That’s exactly the problem, Twilight. They are proud of everything I do, whether it’s good or bad.” She sighs when she remembers her parents giving her positive feedback on yelling at them. “The last thing I need is for them to say something.. like… I don’t know.. ‘good job on getting sick with the dumbest illness ever on the day you finally became a Wonderbolt’.” She says in a mockingly high pitched voice, but she’s so hoarse that it was difficult to keep her voice audible.

“Do you honestly expect them to-”

“Yes.” Rainbow throws her a dead serious stare. “Yes, I do. And what’s worse: every time when I think they couldn’t possibly come up with something dumber or worse to be proud of me for, they always manage to prove me wrong!” She barks a humourless laugh. “Best last place, best flight school dropout, best crasher, best bone breaker, best hospital staff terroriser.” She lists off, then adds sheepishly, “that last one never really changed.”

Twilight doesn’t know if she should laugh or cringe at the way Rainbow was raised. She knows that her own parents would never celebrate her failures like that. They would console her and maybe do something to cheer her up, tell her that there are other options or that it could have been worse, not celebrate something like dropping out of school and definitely not if she’s hurt herself. “So what you’re saying is.. your parents were praising you regardless of whether you did well, and even did something you shouldn’t?”

“Uh, yeah, basically.”

“So, completely hypothetically speaking here,.. if you got kicked out by the Wonderbolts, your parents would react the same way as they did when they learned that you’re a Wonderbolt?”

Rainbow cringes at the very idea of losing her spot, but she nods. “And if they knew that I’m sick, they would celebrate whether I got better or.. worse.”

And since this has been going on since pretty much Rainbow’s birth, how was she ever to learn when she’s doing something right? Something worth being praised for? When she can do everything right, and it’s never treated any differently to if she had done everything wrong.

“So, basically you end up always feeling like nothing you do is good enough, because all the praise you got growing up was like static, never anything special, and I’m guessing that it probably didn’t feel like it was meant for real, either. That it was all just faked smiles and empty words.” Twilight concludes, starting to pace in the room. “Eventually, you start to only care about your own sense of worth, but by that point, you have such high expectations of yourself that nothing is good enough- that you aren’t good enough, if you aren’t giving it everything and you think that you could have done better.”

Rainbow stares at her for a long moment. “Yeah,.. exactly. How did you know?”

No wonder she is always afraid of failing if she isn’t doing everything 100% perfect — according to her own, practically impossible standard of expectation.

Twilight ignores the question in favour of wondering how in Equestria she’s supposed to solve this problem.