Spike is woken up from sleep by giggling and the sound of water splashing. Confused, he tries to rub the sleep from his eyes, and is annoyed to find that it’s barely after 2 in the morning. He hates leaving his warm, cozy bed, but after today, he better go and make sure the two ~~idiots~~ are okay.
He throws the blanket off him and trudges off to investigate. “What are those two up to now…” He grumbles sleepily to himself.

He finds the girls in the bathroom, Dash in the bathtub, her wings splashing water at Twilight, who is standing behind her, outside of the tub, trying and failing to shampoo the colourful mane.

“Hold still!” Twilight says, still laughing.

“I can’t! It tickles!” Dash calls out between her own laughter, and her wings splash and flick more water. She’s obviously not doing it on purpose, and in actuality trying to keep her wings from twitching like this.

“What is going on in here?!” Spike demands, causing both girls to freeze. The dim lights are still too bright for his sleepy eyes, so he can barely keep them open to glare at the girls.

“Sorry, Spike.” Twilight apologises.

“Yeah, sorry. We didn’t mean to wake you up.” Dash adds.

He sighs tiredly. “Why are you even up at this hour?”

“Bad dream…” Twilight confesses, looking away.

“You too?” Rainbow asks in surprise. She hadn’t even considered until now, why Twilight had been awake and checked up on her.

“And why are you having a bath, at two in the morning?” Spike asks next.

“Rainbow had some… problems, earlier, and it made her sweat a lot.” Twilight explains casually.

That softens up the dragon. “Are you okay?” He asks the pegasus in concern.

“Yeah… I’m okay now.” She replies wholeheartedly.

“Alright… in that case,” he yawns and stretches, “I’m going back to bed. And you two should too.”

“Will do.” Dash promises.

“Good night, Spike.”

“Good night, you two.” He says in goodbye, before leaving the two to themselves and going back to his bed.
Twilight gets started on rinsing off the mane, and helps Dash out and get dried off.

“…what did you dream about?” Rainbow hesitantly asks as she’s rubbed down with a towel. It pauses for a moment.

“Nothing.” Twilight says, continuing to dry off the pegasus.

Rainbow grabs it with her hoof, stopping her. “Twi.”

She sighs. “It was… you.” She starts. “Well, not really you. Just…” she swallows painfully. “What could have been, if… if you didn’t recover…”

All at once, Rainbow realises why Twilight had been so upset about her minor weight loss, and her saying that she doesn’t mind it too much. That must have been like rubbing salt into a wound she hadn’t known got re-opened.

“Urgh, I’m sorry.” She apologises, and lets go of the towel again. She once again wonders how much pain and suffering her friends would have been spared, had she never gotten this stupid disease.

Twilight continues drying her coat. “Don’t be… it’s not your fault my brain thought it had to catastrophise so much today.” She pauses before correcting herself, “or, well, yesterday.” She shakes her head at herself and finishes up with her towel work.

Rainbow decides against saying that it is her own fault. When she watches Twilight hang up the towel, her brain takes note of the mirror above the sink in her peripheral, and like a moth drawn to light, she steps in front of it on autopilot.

Her eyes trail down her own reflection, the first thing catching her eye is still the fur around her chest, still the slightest bit curly from being a bit damp.
Twilight wordlessly joins her side, and the comparison helps Rainbow see a noticeable difference.

“I’m not.. too thin, am I?” She carefully asks the alicorn after a bit of just taking in the details and differences in their builds.

“I’m not sure if I should answer that.” Twilight says. In her eyes, every dip in the skin, and bump of bone showing through without being hidden by the fur, is screaming ‘too thin’.
Where Rainbow is seemingly blind to the little tells and hints of her approaching under-weight, Twilight almost hallucinates the pegasus as emaciated, despite knowing full well that she couldn’t have lost that much weight already.

Rainbow sighs and turns on the spot so she could see herself from the side. Compared to Twilight, thanks to their height and weight differences, Dash looks almost like a scrawny school filly next to her, rather than a full fledged Wonderbolt. “I don’t plan on losing any more weight, if that helps.” She tells her honestly.

Twilight carefully assumes that Dash is seeing herself without distortion right now, and hopes that this decision is not going to be drawn back the next time her brain tries to destroy all their progress. “Thanks…”

“In fact, I think I’d better put on some until the Gala. I don’t want Spitfire to get suspicious.” Rainbow adds, lifting up her wing and frowning at the visible outlines of her last couple of ribs — even the longer, but too thin, fur can only do so much to cover them up.

The sight becomes too much for the lavender alicorn. “We should go to bed.” Twilight decides coldly, doing some last cleaning up in the bathroom. She doesn’t make any comment or remark to what Dash has said, and her silence says enough.

Rainbow accepts that this is obviously still a raw topic for the alicorn and drops it. “Yeah, we really should.” She agrees, and the two walk back to their bedrooms, where Rainbow takes one look at her own, pet-less, empty bed, and freezes. “Uhm…”

“What is it?” Twilight asks, turning back to look at her. “Do you need anything?”

“It’s just…” Rainbow trails off awkwardly. She sighs. “I-I don’t want to sleep alone…” She admits shyly. “…I hate being all alone…” She adds in a near silent murmur.

Oh.. of course. Twilight thinks. Why didn’t I think of that?
It’s not a surprise, knowing what loneliness usually entails for the pegasus, when the only company she has is that terrible voice in her head, and since she doesn’t have Tank anymore to keep her actual company, of course she’s going to have trouble falling asleep.

“Come on, then.” She beckons her to follow her into her own, larger bedroom.

“You’re sure you don’t mind…?” Rainbow asks.

“Not at all.” Twilight promises. “And.. honestly, I’d feel better if I’m close by. You know, in case something like earlier happens again.”

I sure hope it doesn’t happen again. That was terrifying. Rainbow muses unhappily to herself, subconsciously rubbing at her chest for a moment. Her heart is still beating normally ever since she took that remedy, and the symptoms of her body crashing are pretty much gone again after the midnight snack.
The only thing telling her that something is wrong, is her disordered brain urging her to go exercise or do 'something' to rectify her mistake of daring to consume calories during the night.

She joins the alicorn, the girls easily getting into the same positions in the bed as the last couple of nights — close, but not overbearingly so. Rainbow still chooses to lay with her back against Twilight’s chest, to make it easier to get out of bed in case she has to get up.

Sleep is still far from her mind, though. Apart from the urges to get the hell out of bed and work out, Rainbow is left once again wondering if she’d been the right choice as Tank’s owner.

He’s her first pet, and he definitely hadn’t been the obvious choice. She’s made many mistakes at first, having barely known anything about reptile care, and reptiles in general.

She hasn’t been able to care for him for months, and even if Fluttershy didn’t mind, and he’d been in the best of care, Rainbow still hates the fact that she truly wouldn’t have had the focus and energy to take the best care of him during her recovery.

A pet is a big responsibility and commitment. And now that she’s a Wonderbolt, she will probably have to leave him in Fluttershy’s care again for weeks or even months on end, when they go on tour. She couldn’t exactly bring a tortoise across Equestria with her.
It’s something that she hadn’t even thought about before, and it’s not fair to him.

“What are you thinking about?” Twilight asks suddenly, startling her.

“How’d you know I’m still awake?” Rainbow asks, startled.

“Really? Rainbow, I’ve been monitoring your vitals for the past two nights. I know when you’re asleep.”

“Oh… right…”

“So, what’s on your mind? I can practically hear you thinking.”

Dash sighs softly. “Am I a terrible pet owner?” She asks straight out.

“What? No. What makes you think that?” Twilight asks, puzzled how she got to that conclusion.

“I just feel bad that I had to let Fluttershy take over for me for so long. And now…” she has to hold her breath for a moment to not tear up again. “I won’t see him again for months.”

“Would you think that I’m a bad pet owner if had to give Owlowiscious to Fluttershy for weeks or months, if I’m dealing with something that demands my whole attention and it’s vital that I get through it?” Twilight asks hypothetically.

“But.. isn’t he a wild animal, anyways?” Rainbow asks. The owl just comes and goes whenever he wants, usually only staying indoors during particularly cold or stormy weather.

“Yes, but if he wasn’t, would you think less of me for putting myself first?”

“Well.. no.”

“See? And we both know that Fluttershy will do everything in her power to make sure that every creature is getting the same love and attention. Tank was in the most capable hooves, just waiting until he could be with you again. He still loves you all the same, Rainbow.” Twilight says knowingly, having witnessed the strong bond between the two.
“And just the fact that you are questioning if you’re a good pet owner, is already proof enough that you are. Otherwise you wouldn’t be thinking and worrying about it.”

“I miss him so much already.” The pegasus admits croakily. “Maybe I was just too stuck in my own head, or I just knew that he’d be fine with Fluttershy. I… I didn’t worry about him much, when he was in her care. Because I knew where he was, and that Fluttershy knows everything about him; his likes and dislikes, his favourite food, how he likes to lay in the sun first thing in the morning, that sort of thing.
But now, he’s buried into the ground, alone, and I never know if I’ll ever see him again. Do you know how many reptiles never wake up from hibernation?” She asks, and Twilight finds herself shaking her head, brushing up against the messy rainbow mane.
“I’m just afraid that… this will have been the last time we saw each other. That this was his last year alive, and he had to spend most of it without me, and maybe thinking that I didn’t want him anymore.” Her voice cracks at all edges as she finally blinks a tear from her eye, trailing down until it dampens the pillow beneath her head.

“Rainbow…” Twilight whispers, shocked and just completely taken aback by this sudden turn of conversation. She tries to clear her throat against the sudden tightness she feels there. “You know… before I woke up, earlier, Princess Luna showed me Tank’s dream. He’s alive and happily dreaming about you two just flying in the air together.”

A small sniffle. “You mean it? You’re not just saying that to make me feel better?”

“Mhmm. I wouldn’t lie to you about this.”

Even though she couldn’t see it, Twilight feels like a weight has been lifted off of Rainbow, an aura of heartfelt positivity now spreading freely.

“Maybe I could join him for real.” The pegasus says half jokingly.

“Maybe.” Twilight agrees. Luna can create shared dreams, so this should be easily possible for her to do, if she’s got a free minute.

For now, she’ll just have to dream about them being together, by herself. One could only hope that her brain won’t create another horrific nightmare, instead.

Twilight cuddles ever so slightly closer to the pegasus, closing her own eyes, allowing the solid fact that Rainbow is right here, alive and well, to ease her mind into relaxing.

They both fall asleep within minutes, and there were no more nightmares plaguing them for the rest of the night.

Rainbow is, surprisingly, the first one to wake up the next morning. Despite the very emotionally taxing, and much too short night, she feels like she needs to finally get up and do something worthwhile.

She carefully extracts herself from the still sleeping pony next to her. Seeing the peacefully sleeping alicorn, her face free from any worry-lines, brings a rare, genuine smile to her face. Maybe she could do something nice for her?

What does Twilight like? She wonders, then rolls her eyes at herself. Books and lists and magic spells. Duh.
But besides that…
Okay, different plan. What do normal ponies like?
She thinks for a moment, and figures that she might as well do some housework. She silently sneaks away and checks out the castle, but finds it dust free, the windows clean, and the whole interior practically sparkling.

A new idea pops into her mind. Now that she’s become used to eating at regular times (more or less), perhaps she could surprise her friends with breakfast in bed. After all, Twilight has done so many times for her, although the pressure of having to eat something before even getting out of bed had made her very unappreciative of the gesture.
Without further ado, she ventures into the kitchen.

“Okay. What to do.. what to do…” She whispers to herself. She’s not a great cook, or even a remotely good one, to be honest. But surely she could make something simple. “I helped Spike make those high protein pancakes. That could work.” She figures, remembering where the flour is kept. She takes it out, places the pack on top of the counter and opens it.

Right. I’ll need a pan, and a bowl to mix it. What else… Eggs, duh. She recalls the egg carton on the top shelve in the fridge. She opens said fridge, and is dismayed to find that she’s not tall enough to reach them. Urgh. How does Spike-

She sees the small step stool over in the corner. Right… Unfortunately, it’s too small for her to use. Then she gets frustrated at herself. I’m a pegasus, for Pete’s sake! The sky is the limit.

Still, she’s reluctant to actually use her wings. She’s only recently starting to fly inside the castle again, low enough so she could easily land on her hooves if she were to fall, and only with Twilight when they’re flying outside. She’s absolutely itching to fly, but the fear in the back of her head still keeps her firmly on the ground more often than not.

It’s taking a toll on her sensitive hooves. She’s normally almost always flying, only landing and walking if it’s necessary or the only appropriate way of transportation and socially accepted. This aversion is partially due to her pegasus anatomy, which comes with the different bone structure and softer hooves than an earth pony for example.
Rainbow is particularly sensitive, hence why she hates others touching her hooves, and especially hoof files. She couldn’t stand the feel of certain textures, something that she’s never told anyone about, for fear that she’d no longer be seen as the cool, unstoppable, daring daredevil, if they knew that most door mats send shivers up her spine.

It’s a major struggle for her, whenever she really couldn’t go any longer without at least doing the bare minimum. Whereas Rarity would probably spend every day at the spa to get her hooves done, Rainbow barely manages to do basic maintenance maybe once a month.
She just really, really couldn’t handle the sensations, the scraping noises, any of it. And until now, her efforts had been enough, most of the time.

When she was first grounded from starvation, she hadn’t been very active, barely even walking around the castle a bit. Now she’s a lot more active, and the floors and hard ground outside are obviously not the soft clouds she’s used to from growing up in Cloudsdale.

In short: her hooves are starting to get sore, as though she’d spent an hour bucking apples from trees. But there’s no way she is going to admit that to anyone. They would probably just laugh at something so silly.
'The pegasus who practically never walks, getting sore hooves from not flying everywhere for a while. That’s just what she gets from always hovering above everyone else.'

Rainbow shakes away the thoughts and starts to flap her wings, until she’s finally high enough to reach the eggs.
Unbeknownst to her, the gusts of wind are causing the flour to slowly puff in the air and spread out in the room.
“Now, where was that book…” she mutters to herself, setting down the eggs carton on the counter, checking the overhead cupboards to look for the cook book with the recipe she needs. If she can follow a step by step guide, surely nothing could go wrong, even with her being the cook.

“Where is that book…?” She wonders in slowly growing frustration, still hovering in the air and slowly but surely caking the surfaces with flour. “Argh! I’ll just check in the library.” And with that, she zooms out and flies to the library in five seconds, the kitchen now looking like a shaken snow globe as the whirled up flour slowly settles again. A bit of said flour is sticking to her coat as well, leaving a slight trail in her wake.

In the library, she searches for a section about cooking. “Cook book… cook book… ‘The Best Delicacies of Prance’ — Nope. What is that, ‘Cooking For Dummies’? Excuse me?” She shakes her head. “Maybe it’s in the health section..?” She looks for that next, but finds no such section anywhere near her. “Oh come on! In what way does that pony sort these books?! Nothing here makes any sense!” She complains. “Who puts Algebra next to Geography? And… ‘The History of Fillydelphia’? Urgh!”

She takes a breath to calm herself down. “Never mind. I’m just gonna wing it. What’s the worst that could happen?” She asks and flies back into the flour-covered kitchen.
“Oh boy… how did that happen?” Right as she asks it, her flapping wings cause some of it to swirl in the air again, and she has to cough. “Right… that’s how.” She carefully lands and folds her wings to her sides again. “I’ll clean that up later.” She decides. Breakfast is her current priority. (Never in a million years would she have thought that possible.)

If I don’t have the recipe for those protein ones, I’ll just make regular pancakes instead. Can’t be that difficult. Her brain is sending out alarms at choosing to make something that would be considered a ‘fear food’, and is already trying to estimate the calories of such pancakes. I don’t have to eat them, though. They’re for Twilight, and maybe Spike if we got some left by the time he’s up.

She mixes a good amount of flour, eggs and water in a bowl. Once the batter is done, she brings the pan onto the stove.
I feel like I’m forgetting something… something important…
She tries to think of what that could be, but has to suddenly sneeze from all the flour still around, which in turn causes more of it to briefly float in the air again.
“I can’t think in this mess.” She remarks, as though it’s the room’s own fault for being so messy. “Oh well. Here goes nothing.”

She fills the pan with what she hopes is enough to make a normal sized pancake (fighting the instinct to make it as small as possible and reminding herself that these are not for herself), and watches it bubbling for a moment.

Barely ten seconds of watching it, she’s already too bored to just stand there. “Ah, I can probably go and get a broom while this… does its thing.” She figures, throwing the sizzling pan and pale, still liquid-y batter a glance, being mindful to walk and not fly out, almost slipping on the flour on the floor. “Oof, sheesh, I really better clean this up now.” She throws the pan a last glance from the distance. “It’ll be fine. I’m fast, I’ll be right back.”

Once she’s out in the hall, though, she falters. “Where was that broom closet…” she asks the empty hallway, which only features way too many doors than they have a right to exist.

Dash quickly zipps to, and checks, each and every door until she finally finds the broom closet. “Oh, finally.” She grabs a broom and turns back around, only to find dark smoke coming from the kitchen door.
“Oh no…” She nervously mutters to herself with her ears folded back.

Holding on to the broom stem with her wing against her body, she runs back into the kitchen, only to slip and slide on the still slippery floor and, crash right into Spike’s step stool by the wall. To add insult to injury, the broom’s end had hit the pan’s handle with enough force to send it dropping on the floor with the loudest crash in pony history.

“Oooh, ponyfeathers…” Rainbow curses with a wince, trying to massage her ringing ears while squeezing her eyes shut against the flour that’s been whirled up again.

Of course she is soon joined by two very panicked friends, who startle at the state of the kitchen and the, currently more white than blue, pegasus in the corner.

“What in Equestria happened in here?!”

“I-I can expl-ACHOO!”

Twilight rolls her eyes. With one big, purple flash the mess is cleaned up, leaving the kitchen looking pristine and the pegasus free of flour and back to her normal colours.

Thoroughly embarrassed, she gets back up on her hooves, letting out a nervous chuckle at the expectant stares. “I was trying to surprise you…”

“Well, I’d say you definitely managed to do that.” Spike deadpans.

Rainbow throws him a brief glare. “With breakfast in bed.” She finishes pointedly. “But… it didn’t really go according to plan…” She adds, hanging her head with her ears back in shame. “Sorry…”

Twilight takes some deep breaths to calm down before speaking. “I appreciate the gesture, and I’m glad that nothing worse happened.”

“The next time you want to do something like that, just come get me, if it will save us from finding the kitchen on fire first thing in the morning.” Spike chides.

“Spike, there was no fire.” Twilight corrects. “But what happened to cause the smoke?” She asks curiously.

“I have no idea.” Rainbow replies.

Spike inspects the ingredients and utensils, now in a neat row on the counter, and quickly realises that something is missing. “Where’s the oil? Or butter? For the pan.”

Dash’s eyes widen in realisation. Oh, THAT’S what it was! “Whoops..?”

The dragon rolls his eyes. “I’m taking over.” He declares, test-tasting the batter.

Much to Rainbow’s dismay, she did end up having to eat those normal pancakes with the others, after all.

It shouldn’t matter if they have a high or low protein content. It’s one breakfast, it won’t make a big difference. Yes, it’s more calories than she’d prefer, but the day has only just begun, and even with her trying not to count them, it’s not like she’s already over her limit.

And yet, just the knowledge of this small detail is all she could think about, afterwards. The desire to get sick is keeping her strictly unmoving from where she’s curled up in the study, not daring to so much as get up.

She’s tempted to take a look at the nutrition book, get a more accurate estimate of how many unnecessary extra calories she’s consumed, compared to what she would have had with the protein version.
Just the thought makes her want to get them back out of her system even more urgently.

She never wants to eat anything ever again.

It makes her mad, that she still has to deal with these urges and thoughts. She’s trying to recover, so why is she still tempted to ruin her progress?

Twilight has to go through some princess stuff that the pegasus couldn’t give a flying feather about right now, so they’re both just sharing space in the same room, neither of them saying a word.

Once the alicorn is finally done with her paperwork, she takes note of her very displeased friend. “You know that you can do something to pass the time, right? You don’t have to simply stay in one position the whole time.”

Rainbow moans at that and covers her face with her wings for a moment. “Trust me, if I could think of anything else, I would gladly do something.”

Tilting her head in momentary confusion, Twilight comes to her side and takes a seat. “What’s going through your head?”

“You do not want to know.” Dash declares seriously. She remains in her curled up position, as though she’s trying to make herself as small as possible.

“Maybe it’ll help if you tell someone.” Twilight offers softly. “As strange as it sounds, it might help you deal with whatever the voice is telling you, if you say it out loud.”
After all, she’s been through this with Spike many times before, when she was convinced that the world was going to end if she didn’t do a certain thing.

“How is that supposed to help anything?” Dash asks, throwing her a questioning look. “It’ll just prove even more how insane I am.”

“You are not any more insane than I am.” Twilight says seriously. “Just give it a try.”

Dash sighs, annoyed. “Fine.” She takes a moment to gather her thoughts, before taking in a large breath. She doesn’t dare look anywhere near Twilight as she recites the thoughts rapid-fire, that have been going through her mind for the past Celestia-knows-how-many minutes.

“Why did you eat that? What have you done? What makes you think that you could have something so unhealthy? Are you trying to become obese? I thought you wanted to get into shape, so why do you eat like you’re just a fat idiot?
Why can’t you follow the simplest rules? You’re such an idiot. Keep eating like this and you’ll never fly again, you’re not a Wonderbolt and you never will be.”

She sighs, regarding Twilight again. “Want me to continue? Because it gets worse.” She warns.

The alicorn stares at her with her jaw dropped. She gulps, but nods at her to go on.

Rainbow awkwardly shifts for a moment, still not daring to get up. “The reason I’m not doing anything else here, to 'pass the time', is that I’m too tempted to… to uh… 'be sick'.” She admits quietly. She squeezes her eyes together in her frustration. “I shouldn’t even be thinking about this!” She exclaims, before covering her head with her fore-hooves. “Why does recovery have to be so hard…?”

“Things that are being killed, scream the loudest.” Twilight quotes. “You are essentially trying to kill off something that’s been part of you for the majority of your life — of course it’ll try to keep itself alive by getting ‘louder’.”

Rainbow peeks up at her with one eye. “You’re making it sound like this thing is an actual entity.”

“In a way, it is.” Twilight says. “Or would you say that those thoughts are your own?”

“…no.”

“No, because then you wouldn’t have to fight those thoughts in the first place. I think what you need right now is a distraction.” Twilight suggests. “Eating disorders are a lot like addictions. And when it comes to recovering from addictions, we got four D’s:
Delay, Distract, De-Stress, and Decide.
You’ve managed to delay a relapse, and now we’re going to do the rest.”

“How?” Rainbow asks.

Twilight smiles. “We’re going for a fly.” She opens her wings for emphasis.

The pegasus still looks unsure. She might be forced to work it all off if she tries flying right now.

There’s a knock on the door, before Spike looks inside. “You two are still in here?”

“Not for much longer.” Twilight says matter of factly. “We’re just about to take to the sky. Right, Rainbow?”

“Urgh, fine…” Rainbow grumbles and gets up.

That’s when Twilight gets an even better idea, to help Rainbow even further. “Actually, how about you join us, Spike? You haven’t seen a sunset from above the clouds yet, have you?”

A bit taken aback by the sudden change, he only shakes his head. “No, I haven’t. You two want me to come with you?” He asks, seeing the glint in his sister’s eyes that tells him that she’s got an idea.

“Yes.” Twilight replies, motioning for Rainbow to come with her.

“Sure, why not.” Only, when Spike makes to get up on her back, as he’s used to, Twilight halts him.

“You’ll be flying with Rainbow.” She explains, which surprises the others.

“What?!” They both exclaim.

“It will give you something to focus on: not having him fall off your back. And you’ll see that a little bit of added weight won’t affect your flying at all.” Twilight explains calmly. “Unless you don’t want to, of course. I know you’re not used to having him on your back.”

Spike looks nervously back and forth between the two. “Uh, do I get a say in this at all? What if something goes wrong, like, she has another episode or something?” He asks, gesturing to the pegasus.

“I’ll be right there with you and can catch you if something happens.” Twilight reassures. “Besides, you might enjoy getting to fly with somepony a lot more skilled than me.”

Rainbow shrugs. “It’s fine with me, but he can’t hold on to my mane.” She says, referring to the fact that she’s already losing enough hair as it is. “Let me put something on, then we can go.”

A bit later, the three friends are up in the sky. Rainbow is wearing one of Rarity’s outfits so Spike has something to hold on to, while also protecting her from the cold air.

Like Twilight said, she’s mostly busy focusing on the new weight on her back, which has the added bonus of keeping away her worries about both falling and the food she’s consumed.

Spike is a bit wary about being so high up, since the last time he’d flown on Twilight’s back hadn’t ended too well for him. But he quickly grows confident in the pegasus’ much more skilled flying abilities, and gets to enjoy the colourful spectacle of the early setting autumn/winter sun.

“Whoa.” He remarks in awe, and even playfully stretches out a hand to touch a nearby cloud as they fly past. The movement catches Rainbow by surprise, but she’s quick to adjust so he doesn’t fall off.

“Hold on.” Rainbow warns before pulling up a bit so she could land on the next, higher cloud. She lands a bit more roughly than intended, but Spike easily stays on her back.

“You okay?” He asks, worried that something is wrong.

Twilight lands next to them, thanks to the clouds being so large. “What’s wrong?”

“That’s the thing: nothing.” Rainbow says, a smile on her face. “I think I’m ready to fly for real.”

“Just… don’t do anything dangerous with Spike on your back.” Twilight pleads.

“I can get on you? Let Dash do whatever she wants.” Spike offers.

“Nah. I’ll be careful, promise. But I have a feeling that you’ll enjoy this, Spike.” Rainbow says. When she feels him grabbing hold of the collar of her shirt again, she spreads her wings wide, and with a bit of a running start, takes off.

Until now, she’s played it safe, only flying as fast (or rather: slow) as Twilight could, so she was always within close distance if she were to fall. In all the flying sessions they’ve done, Rainbow has never once actually fallen, which definitely helps her with overcoming the fear of it happening again.

True to her word, she doesn’t fly loopings, or spins in corkscrews, or anything else that could endanger Spike, but she does fly higher and faster than she has in a while.

She gives her wings a rest by just gliding for a while, simply enjoying the wind brushing through her hair and feathers. It gives Twilight a chance to catch up with her again, the alicorn just glad to see her friend so at ease again.

Rainbow looks over to her as they fly and glide next to each other.
True friends aren’t the ones who make your problems disappear.
They’re the ones who don’t disappear when you’re facing problems.

Grinning to herself, she starts to sing:

“A true, true friend helps a friend in need~”

Twilight quickly catches on and sings the next line.

“A friend will be there to help you see~”

Together, they harmonise.

“A true, true friend helps a friend in need,
to see the liiiight~
That shines from a true, truuueee friend~”

They both laugh and fly down to land on another large cloud to take a break. The ponies lie down next to each other, just enjoying the view, as they have gotten used to simply cherishing these moments of peace and being free of their worries, and allowing Spike to do the same this time.

Author's Note

ADHD - 1, Dash - 0 🥞🍳

A last, slightly humorous chapter before the year is over.
Thank you guys for all the love and well-wishes 🫶🏻 I seriously appreciate you all so much!
May the next year bring much joy to us all