Scared of Heights

by Mihail Frost

Rating: everyone
Tags: Twilight Sparkle, Sad, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Spike, Rainbow Dash, Romance
Length: 3297

Twilight Sparkle learns a harsh lesson about herself and the Mysteries of Love.

Twilight Sparkle has a big day coming up, and a dragon around to remind her of it in no uncertain terms. But her heart doesn't seem to be entirely in the swing of things, and she can't understand why. Sometimes, it might not be such a good idea to listen to your heart.

Published 2012-10-16 23:30:01 UTC
Last updated 2012-10-16 23:30:01 UTC

Letting go

Author's Note: This fic is inspired by and makes use of the already existing lyrics to a song, slightly ponified. So it's technically a songfic. Please don't click back yet, I know your suffering: it's my suffering too, from the days of old. All I ask is that you give it a chance. If songfics make you prone to demon possession or something similar, however, you have hereby been warned. /AN

"Twilight! Are you about done up there?!"

Standing up from her lectern with a long suffering sigh, the eponymous purple unicorn trotted the short distance over to the edge of the platform that separated her private quarters from the public area of the Ponyville library, giving the nagging dragonet below an exasperated look.

"Yes, Spike! I'm just about ready, just like I was when you asked me half an hour ago. Do you really think I'd lose track of time on a day like this?"

"Well then, why aren't we heading out already? We've got to be there in forty-five minutes, tops." Spike said, clearly at least a little offended that Twilight would admonish him for trying to keep her on track.

"I've got some last-minute business to attend to, Spike. Part of my responsibilities for the occasion, you know?"

Spike sighed: "Fine, fine. You're the boss. Just don't come crying to me if we get there half an hour late or something."

"Oh, I won't. In fact, why don't you go ahead of me and see if there's anything you can help Pinkie or Rarity out with? I'm sure they'd be delighted to have a big, strong dragon like you assisting them."

For all the times she'd seen it before, Twilight couldn't help but chuckle inwardly at the mixture of emotions that played over Spike's face. Even though she was fairly certain that he knew how Rarity affected his behavior by now, it didn't seem that her fashionista friend would ever stop being a trump card in getting the adolescent dragon to do what she wanted.

"Well…" Spike said, his eyes glancing over at the door, and toward the full-length mirror on the opposite side of the room: "Are you sure you'll be alright by yourself, Twilight? I mean, really?" he said, clearly torn between making sure she made it alright, and the chance of proving his worth even further to Rarity.

"Entirely and absolutely." She said, smiling as she could almost see the decision to go clicking into place in her youthful charge's head. Really, if he were any more like a puppy when it came to Rarity, he'd be a dog.

"Okay then, if you're that desperate to get rid of me." The dragonet said, feigning a huff and sulk. "But!" he said, pointing a finger at the pony who might as well have been his birth mother: "I'll come back here in half an hour, and if you're not ready to go by then I'll drag you out of here, by force if necessary. You're not missing a single second of this for any reason!".

"Fine. Now get going." Twilight said, staying right where she was to make sure that he did. Turning around as she saw him grab the door handle, she'd just taken a step when he called out to her.

"Oh, what now?" she thought irritably to herself, turning her head around and looking at him impatiently: "What?"

"You look beautiful today, Twi."

She could feel her heart melt a little at the warm smile on the face of her number one assistant, and the wonderful sentiment behind it. For all her small annoyances about how he was increasingly interfering with her work and trying to make her socialize more, and her impatience with him from time to time, she couldn't be more proud of him if he were her actual son.

"Thank you so much, Spike. That makes me happy to hear. You're looking pretty handsome yourself. Rarity really outdid herself with your outfit, and your scales have hardly ever looked sharper."

Desperate to be a grown-up though he might be, Twilight smiled at his obvious happiness and his cute little blush at being complimented, before he opened the door and left with a last little look at his mentor, which told her that she'd better be ready when he came back to pick her up.

Shaking her head in amusement as she walked back to her lectern, she wondered vaguely, as everypony surely does now and then, where time kept disappearing to. It seemed like only yesterday that Spike had been an adorable little baby dragon. Now he was an eminently responsible, if still a little unwarrantedly precocious in his outlook, young dragon.

"Just like yesterday…" Twilight mumbled to nopony in particular as she settled down on her haunches in front of her lectern. The piece of heavy-duty parchment, the kind she used for all her personal correspondence and record keeping of various sorts, lay almost entirely blank in front of her, as if mocking her.

Twilight always tried to be an example to everypony around her, as well as she was able. So, it had felt natural to take her inspiration from the latest friendship lesson to arrive at Princess Celestia's hooves, which had been all about daring to go outside your comfort zone for the benefit of your friends and loved ones.

So, she'd decided to write a song.

It was a fair enough whim to follow. She'd written, or more accurately largely improvised, something to that effect for her brother's wedding. Also, she felt confident she had read the vast majority of all extant classical texts dealing with poetics and lyricism and prosody. She was intelligent, creative and eloquent nearly to a fault, she knew as much.

Sighing, she picked up her quill with her mouth, electing to do so rather than use her magic as she usually did. It might seem wasteful to any other unicorn, but Twilight had read her Neightzsche and taken it to heart: "Write with blood and you will find that blood is spirit."

Letters held a magic all of their own, the effects of which were usually seen in preliterate societies where only the learned knew how to read and write. When dealing with matters of grave importance and great personal meaning, it paid in the long run to feel every letter, to put some effort into shaping every word, giving one's spirit time to write along with your intellect.

Dipping her quill into her inkpot and touching it to the pad stationed next to it so as not to get ink drops onto the page, she let the sharp tip trace out words onto the page, adding to the lines already there.

I have always been the type to think before I speak
I have always been the type to look before I leap
And like a bolt out of the blue
I was struck and there was you
And for a moment I believed that I could let go.

Satisfied, she put the quill down. This was good, wasn't it? It was better than she'd expected: it encapsulated meaning, it conformed to an acceptable if not prosodically rigid metre, and it was just…okay, overall. The more she looked the short verse over, though, she more she felt as if something was off.

As Spike had been so insistent in telling her, there was a matter of time to keep an eye on. She had become well aware of her tendency to overthink things. This was probably just another instance of that, overthinking everything until everything turned out wrong. So, she decided to just press on.

I didn't think I'd meet somepony who'd make me change my ways
Never thought I'd find somepony who'd brighten up my days
Somepony who made me forget
My hooves were tied, my wings were clipped
Somepony who made me believe that I could let go

As she put aside her quill again, she feeling of something being wrong, something she wasn't seeing or wasn't being allowed to see had increased. Her mind seemed to go into some sort of trance when she was writing this, a useful tactic for allowing herself to find and puzzle together the words and drawing on her knowledge and learning at the same time.

Twilight hated editing herself, much preferring to get it right the first time around.

"…hold on…" she said to herself distractedly, her mind returning from wherever it had gone to compose this. Apparently, she'd written more. She was all but certain she hadn't written it with her mouth. Suddenly growing wary of the whole thing, she edged a little bit away, remembering how her tutor in magical theory had told her to tread very lightly indeed if her magic suddenly started acting independently of her.

Her curiosity getting the better of her in spite of the memory, she peered back at the text that she could not remember writing.

You lift me up into the sky
Felt like I could fly,
never gonna die
And I almost made it but not quite
Now you're flying out of sight
and I know I can't come with you
I'll always be scared of heights

"…oh." Twilight said softly, feeling tears pressing against the back of her eyes, the rest of her body feeling empty and hollow. Of course. How could she have been so stupid? She'd hardly thought of anything else for months. Just because she'd decided to put it out of her mind entirely and utterly, just for today, didn't mean her overactive mind necessarily had to agree with that.

Unable to stop it, her mind returned to the time-worn memory.

Manehattan, the city that never sleeps. It was even less sleepy than usual this night, the night of the newly reinstated Autumn Equinox festival. Unable to sleep, Twilight had been sitting in the bar of the Hotel Bitz, drinking rock salt and tonics to soothe her aching soul. It was a much too ostentatious place for her, but Princess Luna had insisted that she and her friends stay there during the festival, as her personal guests.

"Whoah! Umm…Twi? What are you doing?"

It was a good question. En excellent question, even. How had she ended up with her head resting on Rainbow Dash's shoulder, her breath ruffling that gorgeous multicolored mane with every exhalation? It was mostly a rhetorical question, however, as she knew the answer perfectly well. It was where she had wanted to be for the better part of two years, and now the salt had ensured she was uninhibited enough to let herself go. For once.

She had wanted to tell her right then and there. Tell her of her all-consuming obsession that left her nights slumberless, and her days spent in something like a waking dream. How the other mare made her heart sing, how she gave her soul wings by her very presence. How much she loved her very best friend, Rainbow Dash, and wanted nothing more than to spend the rest of her life with her.

"C'mon, Twilight. What's wrong with you? You're…" she'd said, her voice trailing off for a few seconds of silence before it returned, filled to the brim with incredulous mischief: "Twilight…are you drunk?"

She'd smiled as she felt the pegasus shaking in stifled laughter. Even though she didn't understand what exactly was so funny about her being drunk and clumsy and feeling a bit small, she did know she loved to make Rainbow laugh, no matter the reason.

"I think I am…" she'd murmured against her friend's rainbow mane, making the pegasus laugh in earnest. At that moment, Twilight had become aware of something like a door opening in her mind. This was it: this was the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to tell Rainbow how she felt about her. She could do it, she knew she could.

Then, as so many times before, her mind had betrayed her.

Certainly, she could tell Rainbow. But, did she have the right?

Twilight pulled herself back in a moment of defiance to her hyperactive cognition, looking the pegasus straight in her beautiful rose-colored eyes, those mirrors into her soul that took a moment to learn to read, and seemingly a lifetime to master. Oh, how she craved that lifetime!

"Rainbow, I…"

Dash's look of confusion and question seemed to reflect her own prodding and questioning mind. The feeling of social awkwardness and the fear of rejection were hardly new to Twilight Sparkle, but the stakes had never been so high. And not just because of whatever heartache might come if her feelings were not returned.

They were both Elements of Harmony. A bond of unfathomable power that sustained itself by the friendships of the bearers. They were both keepers of a power that had saved their homeland and everypony in it several times before, and would likely be called upon to do so again some day. A power that had failed when their bonds of friendship had been compromised.

And she was the linchpin of it all: the element of Magic, the binding hub of all the others. Who in the world was she, private student of the princess and her most trusted protégée, to gamble the safety of everypony else for her own private, selfish desires?

The pause that followed her initial words felt everlong, frozen in her memories in a cacophony of shattered dreams that came crashing down around her. The decision, the only decision she could possibly make, had already been made. Now, she had to let go.

"Are you okay, Twi?"

Feeling tears welling up in her eyes at the nickname spilling from her lost love's wonderful, alluring lips, she hung her head and let them flow freely.

"I just wanted to say…I'm glad you're here. You're my b-best…friend, you know…"

She felt hollowed out and bereft of spirit as she saw her friend's face soften, and the warm, affectionate smile that only showed itself once in a blue moon break forth, like Celestia's sun. As Rainbow leaned forward and pulled the unicorn into a hug, she felt as though her heart was made out of broken glass.

"I feel you, Twi." Rainbow had said, and Twilight sincerely hoped she didn't really, since being her right now was turning into her own personal version of Tartarus.

Discipline, Twilight. Discipline and focus. Compartmentalize. Lock it down. You can cry later.

With a gargantuan effort of will, she'd collected herself and let herself relax into Rainbow's arms, as she should have.

"I love you, Rainbow Dash." she'd whispered into the pegasus' ear, and felt hard pressed indeed to keep up her façade as she felt the self-same ear perking up, possibly at the puff of warm breath or the words or something else.

Presumably because she knew Twilight already knew several embarrassing things about her and because she felt she could be trusted, the pegasus nuzzled the unicorn's cheek affectionately.

"I never had you pegged as such a sappy drunk, Twi." she'd said, clearly smiling even though Twilight couldn't see her mouth. Somewhere in her mind, she felt the window of opportunity slamming shut with a resounding bang.

Returning to the present she felt as though she should cry. Then again, that was the way she always felt when she relived that memory, but the tears hadn't actually come in several years now. Looking back at the lyrics she'd written, it all made perfect sense. It seemed like her mind had finally forced her to be honest with herself.

About a year and a half previous, Rainbow Dash had made the fairly rare decision to gather the gang to her. After they had all been well and truly gathered, the pegasus had made an announcement that had taken them all by surprise. Well, all of them except the other pegasus in their tight-knit circle of friends.

Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy had gotten together. Romantically. As marefriends.

For a few minutes, Twilight had not had the faintest idea how to react to the extraordinary news. She'd almost gotten Rainbow angry with her because she'd failed to respond in any way at all.

Rainbow Dash was into mares. Rainbow Dash didn't mind dating a friend. She didn't think twice about engaging romantically with another Element of Harmony. She…

The unicorn had felt confused by how little she really minded the news, even with all the implications it carried of lost love and bygone opportunities. Even more so by the slight sliver of relief she'd felt when it turned out her hopes and dreams were now firmly and likely irrevocably out of reach.

About a year after that, they'd announced they were getting married. All their friends, now quite used to two of their number being a little closer and cuddlier than the rest of them, had rejoiced. Pinkie Pie and Rarity had sworn right then that they would stage a wedding that would surpass even Shining Armor and Cadance's royal wedding.

Then Fluttershy had asked Twilight if she'd be their best mare. The carrier of the rings, the one to ritually seal the bond between them. Since she was the Element of Magic, the one that had brought the rest of them together and rekindled the friendship between Rainbow Dash and herself and led to this whole happy occasion. If she didn't have any other plans and didn't mind, of course.

What was she supposed to say? What could she say? Of course she'd said yes, feeling as though the jealousy had to be burning in her eyes for anyone to see as Fluttershy hugged her in thanks.

She had been jealous, certainly. But now, of all the inopportune times, she had come to know the full extent of her feelings. She wasn't angry with Fluttershy, or Rainbow Dash. She was angry with herself. And powerless before herself, utterly unable to change the one thing that had stood in her way all the while:

She was afraid of heights.

While not usually one to deal in metaphors, she had to credit her mind with that one. How succinct, how elegant…how utterly damning. She'd never feared that Rainbow might have said no. Not really.

On the surface she had, like anypony would. But the deeper fear, the fear that went anonymous and unacknowledged, dealing in excuses and cowardice, was the fear that Rainbow might, against all odds, have said yes.

"Twilight!!"

Staring morosely at the paper and the words, lost in the opposite and complementary mysteries of Love and her Self, she took a few seconds to realize that Spike was calling for her. Looking up at the time, she saw that he had kept true to his word and given her the half hour he had promised, but no longer.

Lifting the paper in her magic, surrounding it with a field of swirling purple, she made to fold it and tuck it away with the rest of the things pertaining to her research into Love and all her musings and less savory writings on the manifold virtues of Rainbow Dash.

However, looking up at the piece of paper, with the unconscious words that had most likely just damned her to a life of loneliness and sacrifice, she stayed her hoof. Glaring at it, she crumpled it together and tossed it unceremoniously in her already overflowing trash bin.

"Coming, Spike!"

Her number one assistant was right: she couldn't be late today, of all days.

-

Wish I never knew how great it feels up in the air
Wish I never got to feel the wind blow through my hair
Well, in my dreams you'll always be flying high along with me
and in my dreams I'll always feel like I can let go

-END-