Newbie Dash (Alternative)

Three days pass.

Rainbow brings Tank with her to most meals — provided that he’s awake at the time. While Twilight wasn’t happy about critters in the kitchen at first, and assuming that Dash was just being a bit obsessive about spending time with her pet, the tortoise’s presence has an undeniable calming effect on the pegasus.

There is no dreading or fearful look in her eyes when presented with food, and she doesn’t withdraw as much afterwards. Where she would usually hide away in her room, refusing to talk to anyone besides listening to the taunts and threats in her head, she now remains in the ‘torture chamber’ aka the dining room, simply watching him eat or helping clean up the dishes.

If she’s being honest, before she’d borne witness to Rainbow practically falling apart at her first separation from the tortoise, Twilight never would have thought it possible to be so attached and have such a deep connection to a pet reptile. To her, all those scaly creatures were more or less the same, and since she’s absolutely not a fan of snakes, and Gummy quite frankly freaks her out, she never dreamed that she would one day entertain even just the thought of a pony caring so much about them. (With the obvious exception of Fluttershy, who loves all creatures, anyways, and whatever weird psychic connection Pinkie apparently has with Gummy.)

Sure, the pegasus is the Element of Loyalty, and sure, Tank is her first own pet, and yes, Tank has shown his own loyalty when he’d saved her from that avalanche. But to go to such lengths as to try to stop winter from happening, just so she wouldn’t have to be alone?

Twilight hadn’t been too open about the idea of forming such deep connections with a reptile. She had judged her, because she’d honestly thought that Dash was over-exaggerating when she finally broke down in seemingly never ending tears, and thus had just stayed back, letting the others try to comfort the obviously distraught pegasus. Or, well, cry with her, as it had turned out.

Her change of heart only happened afterwards, when she’d thought it through in peace, and realised that Rainbow’s connection to Tank was somewhat like her own was with Spike. She hadn’t let her dragon brother go to the Dragon Lands by himself a single time, and could never bear to entertain the thought of him one day leaving her, so really, who was she to judge?

When the time had finally come for Dash to say goodbye to Tank, Twilight was a lot more understanding. She didn’t judge her for the new, brief round of fresh tears.

The alicorn then saw her friend spending time at his hibernation spot every day, until a week later, the pegasus started asking her if she could hang out with the alicorn. Those daily visits then became sleepovers, until Twilight offered to just let Dash live with her and Spike until spring.

Twilight fears what his loss would do to her this time, as she watches the pegasus laughing and running from the flying tortoise and Spike, in what she assumes is a game of chase. The pegasus is oddly active and in good spirits, despite not being able to fly yet.

Her eyes narrow suspiciously. A bit too active and good-spirited, actually, especially compared to the last time her pegasus magic was low. She’s not going to question it right now, though. She decides to let them have fun, and go relax in a hot bath for a while. That’s what they all could use, after all the stress lately.

The situation in Ponyville is slowly dying down, with no new lies being produced or believed — they aren’t sure which it is, since Twilight still keeps the forcefield up, so along with no new angry mob, no mail ever reaches their doorstep.

This doesn’t mean that Rainbow is keen on leaving the safety of the castle anytime soon. If she didn’t know any better, she’d say that her lifelong friend is finally rubbing off on her, seemingly turning her into another Fluttershy.

Twilight has disappeared into her study, going through her calculations for the tenth time in the past hour, always adjusting measurements and formulas. It was proving more difficult than she’d anticipated, trying to figure out the correct adjustments for the perfect amount of total calories, percentages of protein, fibre, all the needed vitamins, and also splitting it into three meals and two snacks.

This, plus the unknown factors of unplanned snacks, like cupcakes, or cake, especially at parties, and the exercise she’s going to get from training as a Wonderbolt, is giving her a headache.

With Dash’s metabolic rate having been slowed down and close to her own, thanks to Celestia’s pills, everything had been a lot easier when it came to these calculations. But trying to figure out the right numbers for Rainbow’s normal, very fast pegasus-athlete metabolism, is proving to be close to impossible.

The reason for all of this? She’s planning on weaning Rainbow off the metabolic pills in the near future, and she knows that if she makes a mistake in her calculations, she could cause Rainbow to unknowingly starve herself again, accepting her needs not being met as the way it’s supposed to be, and cause a relapse.

On the other hand, if she raises the total calories too high, and Rainbow slowly gains weight for an extended period of time, until she doesn’t fit into her suit again, then….

Twilight shakes her head with a sigh and erases her last calculation from the blackboard. “Doomed if I do, doomed if I don’t. I have to get this right…” She scolds herself in frustration.

“Get what right?” A very familiar voice startles her half to death. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you, but you weren’t answering when I knocked on the door.” Rainbow explains apologetically, standing behind the alicorn. She steps closer to the blackboard, eyeing the many smudged and erased numbers and calculations on the board. The pegasus is once again sporting Rarity’s outfits, still preferring to be covered up, and honestly kind of getting used to it. “What are you doing, anyways?”

In response, Twilight stands upright in front of it, spreading her forelegs and wings to block it from view with a distressed noise.

Rainbow rolls her eyes. “Twilight, I’ve been standing here watching you mumbling to yourself for like ten minutes.”

“….oh.” Twilight goes back down on all fours, folding her wings.

“I know that I’m not exactly the brightest, when it comes to… school stuff. But I know a thing or two about nutrition, especially in athletes.” Rainbow tells her matter of factly, having been able to figure out that much, simply from what she’d seen written and Twilight’s reaction.

“How do you know I was- urgh, never mind.” Twilight grumbles. “I don’t want you to see this stuff.” She hisses.

Dash raises a confused eyebrow “Why not? I might be able to help.”

“It’s numbers.”

“No, really.” Dash deadpans, utterly unimpressed.

Twilight frowns. “They could be triggering.”

“Oh please! I know every number of grams and percentages of what’s in the meals and snacks you’re giving me. And that hasn’t made me worse, now has it.” Rainbow declares, then immediately regrets opening her mouth.

“You what?!” Twilight shrieks. “Don’t tell me you could calculate all of that? This whole time?”

Dash snorts. “No, I’m not that clever.”

“Then how-”

“Honestly, Twilight. If you don’t want me to find out about something, you should really learn to lock them away.” Rainbow says seriously, gesturing to the unlocked door and the blackboard for emphasis.

Twilight stares at her with her mouth hanging open for a moment. “You broke into my room?”

“It’s not breaking and entering if the door’s open.” Rainbow defends.

“That’s not- you- why would- how-” Twilight lets out a frustrated yell. “Never mind! Why did you even look for it, then?” She challenges.

Rainbow chuckles guiltily, realising at once that she’s been caught. She sighs. “Okay, fine... I was looking for them ages ago, because I wanted to see what you thought I would need.”

Twilight raises an eyebrow. “You do know that those first results I got were much lower compared to now, because we had to start with much smaller portions, to not overwhelm your body?”
Not to mention that Dash still hadn’t managed to finish most of those portions, anyways.

“Duh.” Rainbow waves her off. “It might come as a surprise to you, but I do know how to count calories. I can more or less estimate how many are in what edibles and even entire meals, and I have somewhat of an idea of how high I need to get each day to meet my caloric needs,… or when I have to stop, to prevent going over…” she mumbles. “Or at least I thought I knew that…” She looks away, glaring at the wall, still frustrated about her failure to make sure she stayed lean as always, which had made it so she hadn’t fit into the suit with the same exact measurements she once had.

Twilight is shocked to learn that Rainbow is way more aware than she’d thought, and had apparently more mental rules around her food intake than Twilight has learned about until now.
She looks at a red apple over on her desk, which she’d brought with her in case she got peckish, but hadn’t touched yet.

She has to test this.

She levitates the apple into her hoof, holding it up. It was a pretty large one, so it was definitely more than the averaging 70 calories that her books say, possibly higher than 100, even.

“What would you say how many calories this apple has?” The alicorn asks curiously.

Rainbow takes a calculating look, inspecting it from all sides, and even takes it from her to estimate its weight. “Could be up to 120, if you ate all of it. I’m guessing something like 100-110 without the core.”
She gives it back to the alicorn.

“Impressive.” Twilight remarks, truly impressed. “But also a bit worrying…”

“Why?” Dash asks. “I’m an athlete, I have to know what goes into my body. If I just ate aimlessly, without any plans in mind, how would I ever make any progress?”

“And knowing that this apple has over a hundred calories, would you still eat it?” Twilight asks curiously, holding the fruit a bit higher.

Rainbow grimaces at the thought. “No. At least not all of it. More like, half, at most.”

Wordlessly, Twilight splits the apple into two perfect halves with her magic, levitating one half to the pegasus.

“I didn’t say I want to eat it now-” Rainbow tries to reject it, but ends up accepting it with a sigh. However, she doesn’t take a bite until Twilight, herself, starts eating her own share. She’s still struggling with eating something, if whoever is with her isn’t eating as well.

“Maybe you really can help me with this.” Twilight suddenly says, turning back to the blackboard and grabbing a piece of chalk with her magic while she eats.

“Sure, in what way?” Rainbow asks, secretly debating on using the moment of Twilight being distracted as the perfect opportunity to hide the rest of her apple somewhere, just so she wouldn’t have to eat those extra calories and add them to her tally.

Come to think of it, she hasn’t strictly counted calories in weeks. She’d become used to the prepared meals being always the same, where it hadn’t been necessary to count the same numbers over and over again.

But they’ve made the portions slightly larger again, and now with the added ~~stressor~~- bonus of one unhealthy treat per day--

“What was your usual average of calories per day, before you became a Wonderbolt?” Twilight asks curiously, breaking her out of her thoughts. Hopefully, an insight like this could help her figure out the right amounts that Rainbow would need without the pills.

“Like… 2300 to 3000, depending on how much I was flying and training and stuff.” Rainbow replies, still knowing the numbers by heart.

Whenever she’d (unknowingly) restricted by just not bothering to eat her regular meals, she’d made sure to fill up on her needed protein and calories before the day was over. But she also didn’t mind it too much if she’d stayed below her average calorie intake, sometimes, she suddenly remembers with a cold realisation.

As she absentmindedly watches Twilight write the numbers on the blackboard, her brain does the calculations without being prompted to.

She’s been eating roughly around that same range for a good couple of weeks now. A heavy pit suddenly forms in her stomach when her brain reminds her that those numbers had been her average at her normal metabolic rate, with hours of exercise involved.

She still takes another bite from her apple on autopilot as the full realisation hits, and for some reason, it no longer tasted as sweet and juicy as before. In fact, it suddenly didn’t taste like something made for consumption at all, and the urge to spit it back out suddenly hits and overcomes her like flying at high speed into an invisible wall.

The sole reason for this sudden full-body rejection, was the fact that she was already at 2000 kcals for today, give or take, plus the half of a cookie that she’d managed to get down today, and she isn’t exercising at all.

Of course she isn’t exercising, she couldn’t even fly around!

And with a dinner of around 500-600 calories still to be had, plus her second snack before bed — which means that her daily allowance is going to be massively surpassed — means that every added calorie from that stupid apple is now causing an intense panic to overtake her.

That, and the stupid picture of herself is still practically burned into her mind, adding fuel to the fire of not deserving to eat this much if she’s already out of shape and looking the way she is.

She drops the rest of her apple on the floor in her rush to get to the closest bathroom, but she barely even gets out of the study before retching and coughing up everything in her stomach relentlessly for many long, painful minutes.

Twilight is with her right away, cleaning up the mess, and with Dash’s permission, she casts the spell she’s learned recently. They wait a few minutes in anticipation, to see if it worked.

Rainbow doesn’t throw up again.

“Did it work?” Twilight asks nervously when Rainbow dares to get back on her hooves.

“I think so…” Dash replies, wincing when her throat feels like it’s been torn to shreds, then doused in acid. But her stomach has stopped cramping, and the nausea is still slowly going away.

“What happened?” Twilight asks anxiously. “The last time this happened was because of that ‘carb bomb’, which was understandable. But it was just an apple this time.”

“It was too much.” Rainbow starts, then winces and uselessly massages her throat.

“Too much what?” Twilight presses on, not understanding.

“Calories.” Rainbow forces out before coughing, which definitely does not help with her throat.

Twilight sighs. “I knew it was too triggering.” She curses herself for being so foolish. The book repeatedly states that any numbers or comments regarding calories and weight are to be avoided at all cost, and now here they are, because Twilight allowed Dash to persuade her.

“Don’t blame yourself.” Rainbow rasps, trying to clear her throat. “You’re not to blame for the decisions I make.” She pulls something out from under the neckline of her outfit.
The necklace, which Twilight had definitely hidden away in her room.

Instead of going back to her accusations of breaking and entering, Twilight only stares at the accessory in surprise.

“Spike gave it to me. He told me that you’re blaming yourself for giving me the idiotic idea to pull off a Sonic Rainboom. That’s the reason I came to talk to you, earlier.” She sighs. “I planned the Sonic Rainboom long before you made this. In fact: if anything, you’re the reason I almost didn’t go through with it.” Rainbow explains urgently.

Twilight blinks, taken aback by this sudden change of direction. “I don’t- huh? What do you mean, I’m the reason you wouldn’t have done it?”

Rainbow sighs, dropping the hoof that’s held up the crystal. “You wanted me to stop pushing myself when I was at my limit... I felt off- really off, after the first part of the show, so I tried to take your advice. I would have only flown the second show normally and just be done with it.” She confesses. “To be honest, I might have even not done the second show at all, if you had told me to stop. I knew that something was wrong, but I did it anyways…”

Twilight is torn between being so insanely proud of her, and being utterly heartbroken at having let her down when Rainbow needed her most. “And I wasn’t there…” She says apologetically.

“Twilight.” Rainbow snaps. “I’m the only one to blame! I could have just used my brain instead of risking my life.”

“What about that argument you guys had while I was talking with Celestia?” Twilight asks curiously. She only knows what Applejack had told her, and that had only consisted of “I really messed up” and “I never meant for this to happen” and “I’m so sorry”. To this day, the alicorn has no idea what had transpired in the few minutes between the two shows. Apart from now learning that she could have stopped Rainbow, and prevented all of this from happening in the first place, of course.

All she knows are little bits, partly because she’d been so upset and terrified still after they got Dash safely to the ground and transported to the hospital. Her friends had been too busy trying to calm her down and comforting her, than to bring up how they had argued right before the (near-)disaster happened.

Ears folding back on their own accord, Rainbow looks away in shame. “Rarity was fussing over me, said something about me not looking so great, and Applejack said that that’s because…” she pauses, inhales, sighs. “She said it’s because I have to eat something, so she started offering me stuff from her stand.”

Twilight frowns. The girls all know that Rainbow isn’t ready to eat in public, yet. Heck, it’s enough of a struggle getting her to eat with just the friends all together on the weekends, still. And Rainbow was never going to eat before she was done performing. Twilight knows this firsthand, as does Fluttershy.

Dash takes her silence as a ‘please continue’. “I couldn’t- I mean-… I turned her down. Everything. She even tried to give me cider, and that’s when things… escalated.”

This is news to the alicorn. “She gave you cider?”

Rainbow won’t even drink carrot juice, or basically anything else apart from plain water (and now tea).
They still got some bottles of cider from back when Applejack had brought all sorts of treats, when this all first started.

Rainbow hasn’t touched any of them, because apparently the only thing worse than eating junkfood is to drink empty, useless, unnecessary calories.

Dash nods, still refusing to look at the alicorn. “I refused… which made her mad, I guess. She said that I’ve changed, and acting like I was ‘possessed’. ‘You just ain’t yourself anymore.’” She quotes in a mocking imitation. Then she finally looks at Twilight, who looks almost angry. “So… I ended up going through with it, after all, to prove to you guys that I’m still me.”

Oh, you’re still you, alright. Twilight thinks ruefully, regarding the pegasus’ confessions of breaking and not breaking and entering, earlier.

Then again, it’s a nice reminder that Rainbow Dash will be Rainbow Dash, even after everything they’ve gone through.
Or, at the very least she’s still the same pony, until there’s food involved.

Or numbers.

Twilight shudders.

Rainbow clears her throat again, more as to gain attention than because her throat is bothering her, this time. “Now that you know what really happened, will you tell me why you were calculating calories and all that for hours, as if your life depended on it? I thought we were past that by now? …Did I do something wrong..?”

“No!” Twilight almost shouts. “No, I mean, you didn’t do anything wrong. Quite the opposite, actually. You’ve been doing so well with your meals that I feel like we can consider weaning you off the pills.”

Rainbow is honestly taken aback by this. “You want me to stop taking the metabolic pills?”

Twilight nods. “Not just those. All of them.” She clarifies. “We still have to broaden your horizons when it comes to variety, but other than that,… I think you’re ready.”

Rainbow is delighted for all of ten seconds, until she remembers what the metabolic pills were designed for. If Twilight thinks that she’s ready, that means that she’s no longer underweight, which means that she is no longer skinny.

What she means by ‘ready’ is that you’re now fatter than ever. Congratulations on messing that up twice now.

“Rainbow?” Twilight starts, seeing the sudden shift in her friend’s demeanour. “What are you thinking?”

Tell her you’re more than ready for this! This is your chance to get back to losing weight! The voice prematurely celebrates in her head.

Dash shakes her head, glaring furiously at the wall. No. Forget it. I had to fight so much to get where I am now. If I lose weight again, I’ll have to go through all of that again. I’ll disappoint everyone and lose my feathers again. I don’t want that!

“Rainbow!” Twilight calls, but Rainbow isn’t listening to her right now.

You say that now. But what will happen when you see yourself in the mirror? Do you honestly think that the ponies of Ponyville will like you again, if you’re just an ugly, fat pig the next time they see you? Dream on. You’re disgusting.

“SHUT! UP!” Rainbow shouts, wings flaring in anger, wishing she could strangle this demon inside her head. Twilight makes to touch her, but quickly realises that the pegasus is not yelling at her. “I don’t need you, do you hear me?! All you do is ruin everything! I don’t need you- I never needed you- I’m stronger than you!” She yells herself hoarse, stomping her hoof for emphasis.

She’s gasping for air after the outburst, heart hammering away in her chest from the adrenaline, her extended wings slowly drooping.

There are no further insults. Her head is finally quiet. The same way the castle is so silent that one could hear a pin drop. The only sound is Rainbow’s ragged, but slowing, breathing.

Even though it was a short battle with only one physical opponent, it feels like a massive tornado has just been banished from existence, leaving an odd, empty calmness.

“Are you okay..?” Twilight asks softly, finally stepping up to her and pulling the pegasus into a hug, who practically melts into her embrace.

Rainbow makes a noise between a laugh and a sob, tightening the hug for a split second. Then, all the tension seems to just disappear. She feels like she’s been suffocating, drowning under water for months, and could finally take a full breath again. “It’s quiet.”

Twilight doesn’t have to ask what she means. “It’s gone?”

Unfortunately, she feels Rainbow shaking her head against her chest. “I’m sure that it’ll be back, but for now, I’m gonna enjoy the peace…”

The Princess of Friendship wraps her wings around the pegasus, as though trying to shield her from all evil.

“Are you guys okay?!” They hear Spike’s panicked shout as the dragon rounds the corner. “I heard shouting-” He freezes when he sees the two ponies practically merging into one body with how they’re wrapped around each other.

Rainbow separates the tiniest bit from the alicorn so she could look at the dragon with a genuine smile. “You know what? I think this is the first time in ages that I can say I’m okay, and actually mean it.” She admits, before cuddling into the alicorn’s soft fur once more.

Link if art doesn’t work