Listen and Learn

by nodamnbrakes

Rating: teen
Tags: Alternate Universe, Sad, Main 6, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie
Length: 10591

Rainbow Dash comes out to her friends. It does not go as well as she had hoped. Not an über-OOC or lynch mob fic.

Rainbow Dash comes out to her friends in a desperate attempt to find support as she flounders under the guilt of her sexual identity... but are the bonds of her friendship with the others really as strong as she hopes they are? Not an über-OOC or lynch mob fic.

Published 2012-12-12 23:50:01 UTC
Last updated 2012-12-12 23:50:01 UTC

FFF

Proofreading props go to Garbo802, Scrocket, and anongladje.

Listen and Learn

Click here for music

Most of the time, Rainbow Dash’s cloud house was a staggeringly anarchic mess. Empty soda bottles lay strewn all over the place, used towels hung draped over the ceiling fan’s arms, flight magazines were propped open on the floor next to the cloud sofa, and the light in the bathroom kept flickering...

But tonight, it was neat and clean; unnaturally so, in fact. Rainbow had picked up all the soda bottles and thrown them in the trash, and then in the recycling container when she ran out of room in there. The towels had been washed and were back on the proper racks in the bathroom, probably for the first time since Rainbow had used them. A collection of magazines occupied space in her otherwise sparsely-populated bookshelf. The only thing she hadn’t been able to do was get the light in the bathroom to stop flickering, but it wasn’t like anypony but her ever went in there.

A faint shadow of a satisfied grin crossed her face as she finished closing all the windows again, having aired the rather fruity smell that had been hanging around the kitchen for the last week or so out into the cold evening air. Her house was tidy for once, and if she was honest with herself, it actually felt kind of good not to be living in a garbage dump. But the pleasant feeling faded quickly, and she returned to feeling as anxious and restless as before. Rainbow couldn’t remember being so nervous since the Best Young Flyer Competition.

She knew how her friends saw her: an immovable, unshakable rock to cling to in troubled times, with the comforting knowledge that Rainbow Dash would be the last pony ever to abandon anypony. They often seemed to forget that Rainbow had feelings and fears, too, though. Beneath all the arrogant posturing and boasting, she got frightened just like they did. She was weak sometimes, just like the others. But, unlike the others, she had a reputation to maintain, and that meant she often had to deal with her troubles by herself, as best she could.

Asking for help was something she wasn't very good at, even when she wanted it. This night had been a long time coming, but it had taken an eternity for Rainbow to find the courage to actually go through with it; to go to her friends and ask them to come to her house and let her tell them 'something important'. It was a risk, doing what she was going to do, but she told herself that that risk would be worth it if just one of her friends could offer her some real understanding, or even a shoulder to lean on once in a while. They were her friends; she could always count on them to catch her when she was falling—or, rather, when she was falling and couldn’t fly, and those times were few and far between.

She was Rainbow Dash, and Rainbow Dash could do anything on her own; it was just a lot easier and a lot less painful to do some things when she wasn’t on her own. Sometimes she felt so overwhelmed by life that she needed to fall back on other means besides her willpower and precariously sustained ego. This was the first time, however, that one of her problems had gotten so bad she needed to drag her friends into the situation; the first time that even the little white tablets in her medicine cabinet couldn't do enough to make the anxiety go away completely.

Rainbow exhaled a shaky breath as she heard her Wonderbolts clock strike, announcing that it was fifteen minutes of the hour. Knowing Twilight, the unicorn would insist that everypony wait until exactly eight o’clock before coming in, simply because Rainbow had specified that they come at eight. That knowledge really wasn’t much help, though, because the length of time between now and eight o’clock was rapidly growing smaller. She could feel the dread growing within her stomach and chest—that familiar sensation like something was winding tighter and tighter inside her body; forcing her to breathe ever-faster as it restricted her lungs and sped up her pulse.

The blue pegasus swallowed thickly, then got up from the cloud sofa she had been trying to relax on and went to the bathroom, where she clicked on the light switch and tapped the bulb with her hoof a few times to make it stop flickering. She opened the little cabinet above the sink and took out a bottle full of pills labeled diazepam 5mg prescribed to Rainbow Miriam Dash with instructions to take one (1) tablet as needed for severe anxiety; max. daily dose three (3) tablets. Rainbow swallowed one of the little white pills, and then filled a glass with water to wash it down.

None of Rainbow’s friends knew about her struggle with nerves, of course. The humiliation of admitting she had to rely on prescription drugs to be the pony they all knew was something she wasn’t ready to deal with yet. Nor was she ready to do what she was about to do, but even Rainbow Dash could only take so much emotional turmoil before she broke down. The Best Young Flyer Competition was her most recent failure in that regard since she couldn’t use any drugs before the competition without being disqualified. Rarity’s fall had almost been a blessing in that it allowed Rainbow to momentarily forget herself and fall back on something she knew she could do: saving a friend.

After years of hiding every little wound she suffered, she was quite accustomed to flailing in the dark. But this time, Rainbow had reached a point where she absolutely could not deal with her problem unless she had help. In spite of her anxiety, she was no Fluttershy; she was a very social pegasus, and the mere idea that she could go to her friends for help if she felt overwhelmed had always comforted her. Now, putting it in practice, it was absolutely terrifying. Rainbow didn’t think she could even do it five times over, so she compromised with herself and decided to talk to all her friends at once.

When she came back from the bathroom, she sat down on the sofa to wait. The eerie, deafening silence was broken only by the distant ticking of her Wonderbolts wall clock elsewhere in the house. Rainbow tried reading one of her flight magazines to pass the time, but she ended up discarding it onto the floor after reading the opening sentence of an article about Spitfire several dozen times.

The clock’s first chime—which came after what felt like an eternity of waiting that still didn’t seem long enough—made her sit bolt-upright, breathing very rapidly. She felt like she had been drenched in cold water. Upon hearing the second and third chimes, her mind finished its descent into panic mode.

Please be wrong. Please let me have set it wrong and forgotten. Please don’t—

A hoof knocked on her front door between the seventh and eighth chimes. The sound boomed in Rainbow’s ears like an explosion, each knock making her jump and twitch where she sat on the sofa. She almost didn’t get up to answer it. Even with the valium now fully in her system, she couldn’t stop the terror spreading through her body.

“Rainbow Dash?,” said a voice from outside that she recognized as belonging to Twilight Sparkle. “Are you there, Rainbow?”

“C-coming,” Rainbow finally managed to say.

She got up and wobbled over to the door on legs that felt like they were made of jelly. Her trembling hooves were barely able to undo the lock and turn the handle after several tries.

“Hi...” she managed to say to the five mares waiting out on her front porch as she half-hid behind the open door. “Come on in, girls...”

Rainbow couldn’t actually remember ever having one of her friends in her house before. Even Pinkie always waited out on the front porch when she came up for their pranking days. In fact, as far as she knew, no other pony in Ponyville had ever been inside her house, aside from Derpy, who sometimes hauled packages in without waiting for permission.

It wasn’t that Rainbow was ashamed of her home; she simply didn’t like having company and wasn’t used to being on-guard in her own castle, so to speak. Her floating house was the one place in Equestria where she really felt safe dropping the mask of Rainbow Dash the Larger-Than-Life Sonic Rainbooming Champion of Coolness and Awesome and Perfection and Badassery, and just being Rainbow Dash the Ordinary Life-Sized Pegasus for a while. Allowing Twilight, Pinkie, Rarity, Applejack, and Fluttershy look upon her without her often painfully heavy emotional armor made her feel very naked and vulnerable; a hardcore violation of her personal sanctity. Perhaps she could have handled it better under different circumstances; taken it with her usual grace; but not tonight.

Oblivious to Rainbow’s relatively well-concealed inner turmoil, her friends looked around the spacious house with increasingly impressed expressions clearly visible on their faces. Even Rarity seemed to approve of the decor.

“Nice place ya got here, sugercube,” said Applejack. “Don’t get why ya ain’t never invited any’a us up here before.”

Rainbow scuffed up some cloud from the floor with her hoof, not meeting Applejack’s eyes. “You, uh, can’t walk on clouds...”

“Oh, I’d be happy to cast the cloud-walking spell if you want to have a sleepover,” Twilight told her excitedly. “I’ve made some improvements to that spell so I can cast it without getting tired.”

“Yeah, okay. I guess. That’s cool.” Rainbow grinned nervously and made a few wild gestures at the living room. “You guys can sit, uh, sit down if you want. Do you want something to drink? I got drinks and stuff.”

All five of the other mares were now staring at Rainbow, most of them with varying degrees of concern. Even Twilight, who was generally oblivious to that sort of thing, seemed to have noticed that she was acting oddly.

“Rainbow, darling,” said Rarity as she dusted some unseen particles from one of the cloud chairs and sat in it. “Are you—Oh, my, this is comfortable—Are you feeling all right?”

“Rarity’s right. You’re not usually this jittery,” added Twilight.

Nodding mindlessly, Rainbow said, “Yeah, I’m cool. Let me go get stuff to drink. What did you guys want again? I don’t remember.”

“That’s because we haven’t told you what we want yet, dear,” Rarity informed the trembling pegasus with no small amount of concern in her voice. “Are you certain you’re all right? You’re shaking like a leaf.”

“I’m totally fine! Let me just go g—argh! Look, what do you guys want to drink?”

In the end, Pinkie asked for a cream soda and Fluttershy requested a glass of water, the latter probably more because she didn’t want to say no than because she was thirsty. The other three politely declined Rainbow’s offer.

“I don’t have any cream soda,” said Rainbow apologetically to Pinkie as she came back from the kitchen with a glass balanced on one wing and a bottle on the other. “Is cherry cola okay? It might be, uh, a little bit past the expiration date... I can’t remember when I bought it...”

“Finey-whiney by me!” Pinkie snatched the cola off Rainbow’s wing and opened it. “Thanks Dashie!”

After giving Fluttershy her glass of water, Rainbow went and got another chair for herself; a normal wooden one enchanted not to fall through the clouds. The other seats were all occupied by her friends: Rarity and Fluttershy had taken the two cloud armchairs, and Twilight and Applejack were on the sofa. Pinkie was balanced on the back of the sofa, drinking her cherry cola.

“So...” Rainbow started. She had planned in her head exactly how she would carry this out before she even asked her friends to come up to her house, but now that it was happening she couldn’t remember a word of what she had intended to say. Having done most things on impulse for most of her life, she wasn’t used to following a script under pressure. The silence stretched on as Rainbow tried to think of something to say that wasn’t a bunch of panicked gibberish.

“So,” echoed Twilight after a while. “You told me you had something you wanted to talk to us about. Have you been working on a new stunt?"

"Nuh." Rainbow shook her head.

"Oh. Uhm... is Cloudsdale holding another Flight Fair?”

“No, they only have them bi-yearly,” the pegasus murmured absentmindedly. “There’s not another one until December.”

“If Ah remember correctly,” Applejack spoke up after another long, awkward pause, “and Ah think Ah do, y’all’ve said on a couple occasions there’s three of ‘em every year.”

Rainbow blinked a few times, looking at the floor. “Yeah. Tri-yearly. Sorry.”

“Rainbow, you’re not acting like yourself,” said Fluttershy suddenly and firmly. “You haven’t been for a while. Please tell us what’s the matter—um, if you don’t mind, that is. We’ve all been very worried about you since you... um... what happened last week.”

The week before, Rainbow had attended a birthday party for Scootaloo, which had been thrown by Pinkie and the other two Cutie Mark Crusaders. She’d already had quite a bit on her mind that day, and Scootaloo’s normally endearing adoration had quickly worn down her temper until she exploded, called the filly a lot of very unkind things, and stormed out of sugarcube corner. Scootaloo had spent the rest of the day hiding under a bridge, crying, and Rainbow had spent it bucking clouds and flying circles around the town limits to vent her frustration. Though Scootaloo had accepted her apology without hesitation, it still didn’t make the older pegasus feel any better.

“I don’t know where to start...” Rainbow mumbled to the other mares. “I’m not good at talking about... uh... personal stuff, y’know...?”

A long, frustrated silence followed these words as Rainbow tried to find a way to voice what was bothering her so much without humiliating herself completely. The only sounds in the room for a while were those of Pinkie slurping down the last of the expired cherry cola and the distant ticking of Rainbow’s Wonderbolts clock.

“...You guys could never hate me, right?” said Rainbow suddenly, looking at the floor.

All five of the others talked over each other, even Pinkie, who still had cola in her mouth and so was completely incomprehensible:

‘I would never! Even if you can be rather uncouth at times...’

‘Ungghhuh, Daghseh!’

‘Ah can’t believe ya’d even think that!’

‘Of course not, Rainbow Dash!’

‘I don’t hate anything, really... but even if I did, which I don’t, I don’t think I could hate you...’

“There’s... nothing I could ever do that would make you hate me?” she pressed.

The answer was a resounding yes. It put a bit of a dent in Rainbow’s terror, but in the end it wasn’t really enough to make much of a difference.

“Where’s this coming from?” Twilight asked. “Did something happen to you?”

Rainbow spun her hooves together nervously. “Let's say I did something bad...”

“We all do bad things sometimes, silly,” said Pinkie reassuringly.

“Like, real bad,” Rainbow clarified. “Suppose I did some real bad stuff... no... suppose I’m just a real bad pony...”

“You’re a good pony, darling. It can’t be that terrible.”

“But what if it is!” Rainbow burst out, throwing her hooves up in mingled agitation and exasperation.

“Have you done something you feel guilty for, Rainbow?” asked Fluttershy softly.

“Maybe. I think so. Yeah.” The pegasus put her face in her hooves to hide her distressed expression. She should have taken more of the valium, because her insides were still churning like there were snakes in them... “I did something kinda bad.”

“Well, you can tell us,” Pinkie declared, grinning like nothing out of the ordinary was going on. “‘Cause I’m gonna Pinkie Promise nothing you say to us leaves this room unless you want it to. Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye! And all our other friends are going to Pinkie Promise that too... right, girls?”

“Uh... That depends on whether what Rainbow did is against th—” Twilight began.

“Right?” repeated the pink pony in a somewhat more hostile tone. “‘Cause Dashie’s our friend, and friends should be able to trust each other... right?”

“R-right,” said Twilight quickly. “I won’t, uh, say anything... Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eyeOW!”

While Twilight rubbed her eye, the other three Pinkie Promised not to tell anypony as well. Rainbow felt something well up in her throat, rather like she did when she was alone and she was about to start doing that most uncool of things—crying.

“You guys are the best,” she said, in a voice that wavered slightly in spite of her successfully suppressing her urge to throw herself at them and hug them.

“Ah wouldn’t be able to call myself yer friend if Ah wasn’t there when ya needed me,” Applejack told her. “Now, what’s on yer mind, sugarcube?”

“Uh... well... look... y-you know... I think...”

She just had to do it, or she would never be able to get it out in the open. Rainbow paused and took a couple of deep breaths, and then finally said it.

“I’m gay, okay?”

It was exactly how she had imagined it would be: all five of her friends were staring at her in silence, looking like they didn’t know what to say. What could you say to something like that?

“...oh,” said Twilight awkwardly after a while.

“What makes you think that, darling?” Rarity asked. She doing a better job of hiding it than the others, but she looked vaguely uncomfortable with the turn the conversation had taken as well. “You haven’t been... well... as much as I dislike being so crude... you haven’t been... fantasizing... about any of us.... have you?”

Rainbow frantically waved her hooves around. “No, no, no, no, no! No! Never! I swear! Cross my heart and hope to fly—and all that other stuff! I’ve never, ever thought about you guys that way! I swear!”

After searching her face for what seemed like forever, Rarity seemed to unwind a little. She leaned back in her chair, looking much less tense. “I believe you, Rainbow Dash. But you never answered my first question—although I’ll admit that’s mostly my fault, however, as I asked such a loaded one immediately afterward. What in particular makes you believe you’re gay?”

“I dunno... it’s just like...” Rainbow let out a shaky breath. “When I was a filly... I never really, you know, got why all the other fillies were so obsessed with colts and stallions—I mean yeah, some of ‘em were pretty cool, but they would talk about, you know, dating them, and I just thought it was gross, and stuff, and then I kinda noticed, uh, y’know, the way they stared at colts in the hallways at flight school was kinda the same way I looked at, uh... mares... sometimes...”

She hung her head, ashamed of herself. It had been a long time since she had felt so guilty; it was like ripping a scab off an unhealed, stinging mental wound that had been there for years.

“...and then I asked my mom, you know, I asked her, what if, uh, what if it was possible for a mare to, y’know, be into another mare, and she told me: yeah, there are these ponies who are, like, k-kinda sick in the head, y-you know? and they’re c-called f-fillyfoolers... and I didn’t tell her... you know... I thought... maybe... it was just a... a thing... that you could g-get better from...”

Rainbow shuddered. The next memory was among the most humiliating of her entire life, and yet she couldn’t help but blurt it out now when she was revealing her all darkest secrets. She put her face in her hooves again so her friends wouldn’t see her wipe her eyes and nose. Whatever happened; whatever shameful things she said, Rainbow was determined to walk away from this exchange with a little bit of her dignity intact.

“...so... I asked the school nurse if she had a...” She choked on the words. “...if she had a cure for being a fillyfooler... and she said no... and she kinda... looked at me funny...”

“The Equestrian Pony Diagnostic Manual of Mental Disorders states that there’s less than an eight percent recovery rate for homosexuality when ordinary psychiatric practices are applied,” Twilight put in distantly. “Self-reported surveys have claimed up to ninety-five percent, but those claims are... extremely dubious... given the nature... of... the data...”

She trailed off, shrinking down into the cloud sofa and looking everywhere except at Rainbow’s magenta eyes.

“Um... Rainbow Dash?” said Fluttershy, who had been silently hiding behind her mane ever since Rainbow revealed her secret.

“Yeah, Fluttershy?”

“I... I’m so very s-sorry...” She went silent, then stammered out a couple of incoherent attempts at speech before finishing, “...b-b-but I don’t think I’m comfortable being a part of this conversation anymore...”

“I—wait, what?” Rainbow’s jaw dropped and her heart broke, and even with all her skill when it came to concealing distress, she couldn’t hide how scared she was all of a sudden. “But—No, Fluttershy, you... you... Is it because... you don’t wanna b-be my friend anym—”

“No!” she squeaked. “I would never reject you as a friend, even over something like this. But... I’m uncomfortable, Rainbow Dash. All those times at flight camp when I got hurt... and you came and... and slept next to me... was that—”

“Noooo...” Rainbow moaned, hiding her face yet again. This time, she did it not only to conceal the tears forming in her eyes, but also because she couldn’t bring herself to face the consequences of her stupidity. “I didn’t do it because of... You’re like my sister, or so-something... I swear... I never thought about you that way! I just wanted you to stop crying... I-I-I just... w-wanted... I just...”

Fluttershy retreated even further behind her pink mane, looking as guilt-ridden as if she’d just trodden on a mouse and snapped its neck. “I’m sorry... I believe you... I do...”

“Then why...?”

“I’m so sorry!” the yellow mare repeated. She was in tears now herself. “This ju-just isn’t s-something I want to think about... th-that my only f-friend in flight school is a... a... a... you-know-what... I just want y-you to be... Rainbow Dash... not... Rainbow Dash the f-f-f-fillyfooler... the fil... fillyfooler who... s-slept in my bed... I’m sorry...”

“But—” Rainbow tried to defend herself, but Fluttershy, for once, talked right over her, too upset to even notice that somepony else was speaking.

“I don’t even know what to... I’m sorry... I don’t even know what I can do to help... I’ll be completely useless anyway...”

“Fluttershy, I—”

“I’m just... not... comfortable... here... Rainbow...” said Fluttershy desperately. “Please let me go home... I-I need to think a-about this...”

“Listen, RD, Ah reckon it’d be for the best if ya let her go,” Applejack spoke up quietly. Like everypony else but Pinkie, she still looked rather taken off-guard by Rainbow’s earlier admission. “Ain’t gonna do much good to have a pony here that don’t want ta be here.”

Rainbow opened her mouth, prepared to argue again, but deflated a bit instead and let out a frustrated sigh.

“Fine...” she relented.

“I’m sorry,” said Fluttershy yet again. “I’m sorry, Rainbow...”

“It’s okay,” said Rainbow in a dull voice. Her face had, in the last thirty seconds or so, transitioned from a stunned look of hurt and betrayal to one of detached indifference. “It’s cool, Fluttershy. Go home and rest, or something. I’ll see you tomorrow when you co... if you come to watch my s-stunt practice...”

She managed a weak smile at Fluttershy, who tried to return it, but the yellow pegasus eventually just mumbled another apology before getting up and moving toward the door, an air of dejection very prominent in her body language. There was silence as the front door opened and closed; a silence which continued unabated for quite a while afterward.

“Anypony else need to leave?” Rainbow finally asked, very quietly.

“I don’t think there’s anything you could say that I couldn’t handle, darling,” said Rarity. Looking at the other three mares, she added, “I should hope that goes for the rest of us as well...”

It was surprising; of all Rainbow’s friends, Rarity was the one she tended to argue with the most. That she was the one choosing to openly support the pegasus when the others didn’t was both heartwarming and heartbreaking.

“Thanks, Rarity...” Rainbow looked at the other three, then at the floor. “ Look, the rest of you must think I’m some kinda—I-I don’t know... I totally understand if you don’t—if you hate—”

“Aw, sugarcube... we could never hate ya,” Applejack cut in.

“You’re our friend, silly,” added Pinkie. “That’s not gonna change just ‘cause you like mares.”

Rainbow managed a halfhearted smile at the sofa. “Thanks, guys. I don’t know. I just expected one of you to be mad at me ‘cause... you know... it’s not right.”

“Rainbow, Ah can’t say Ah approve’a yer... fillyfoolin’... but Ah ain’t gonna hold it against ya as a pony. None’a us are perfect, an’ there’re worse things y’all could be doin’. As long as ya’all keep yer fillyfoolin’ stuff away from Applebloom an’ her friends, an’ the rest of the foals in Equestria, for that matter, Ah got absolutely no reason to like ya any less for bein’... the way ya...”

She trailed off, the silence revealing Rainbow’s horrified reaction. Applejack’s concerned green eyes met with Rainbow’s magenta ones, which were wide and dazed all of a sudden.

“...Rainbow Dash? What’s the matter? Did Ah say somethin’ wrong?”

Another silence passed as Rainbow tried to speak. She made several non-Equestrian noises in the back of her throat and then stopped.

If Fluttershy’s inability to cope with her revelation had hurt Rainbow before, Applejack’s inadvertent accusation was like a knife straight through the heart; a foreleg around her neck, strangling her words before they finished taking form.

It took a long time for her to finally say what was on her mind without choking on the words, and when she did it was in a near-whisper:

“AJ... you... think I’d... do that... to a... a... to a f-f-f-foal...?”

Applejack’s eyes widened a little as she replayed her own words in her mind. “Oh, Rainbow Dash—Ah didn’t mean to imply—that ya would ever... ever...”

She left the sofa and put her forelegs around Rainbow’s shoulders, hugging her tightly. The pegasus was still too stunned by what she’d heard to react to the contact.

“Ah know ya wouldn’t—do something like—but she’s mah sister—mah only sister—an’ Ah gotta worry about her... Ah worry about her so much... Ah’m sorry... Ah just can’t—let her alone around a—a—a fillyfooler, RD. Ah’d be worried sick, even if it was y'all... Ah know ya wouldn’t... but... Ah can’t help... worryin’...”

Swallowing thickly, Rainbow nodded against Applejack’s coat. The movement caused some of her tears to smear against the earth pony as well.

“A-Actually,” Twilight blurted out, almost as though she were being compelled to do so, “according the most recent studies, the rate of exclusive foalophilia among homosexuals is at least... twenty times that of the normal population... so it’s not unreasonable of her to be susp...icious...”

Twilight trailed off, her ears flattening back under the glares of Rarity and Applejack and the empty, hurt look Rainbow was giving her. She began to stammer nervously, looking increasingly guilty by the second.

“I-I’m sorry... I’m sorry, Rainbow—It was just something I—guh! I didn’t mean it like that! I was just pointing out—I-I just wanted—to explain why—that A-Applejack wasn’t wasn’t doing it because she thinks you’re a-a-a f-foalophile—just that she’s b-being careful...? I’m sorry! I shouldn’t have said it like that! Like I thought... that you...”

“It’s cool,” Rainbow interrupted her babbling in a toneless voice, barely even paying any attention to the unicorn’s words at all. Her disconnected apathy had returned full-force, even as her tears ran dry, and this time it wasn’t even hard to do.

Pinkie said something, first to Rainbow, and then to Twilight, and then to Rainbow again—but Rainbow tuned all of it out entirely. Behind her mask, her mind was buzzing furiously.

What if she was a foal-fiddler and just hadn’t realized it yet? What if she suddenly felt an overpowering urge to... do things... to a foal—for instance, Scootaloo, who would have done literally anything Rainbow told her to do—one day? Would she ever be able to stand being anywhere near the filly again?

Oh, Celestia... why am I this way?

Why can’t I just be Rainbow Dash?

She was Rainbow Dash, though, wasn’t she...? Rainbow Dash the Friendless Fillyfooler.

“Rainbow?” said Rarity suddenly.

“Yeah?” Rainbow replied, still just as listless as before. She was beginning to feel kind of sick and wished she could slip away to the bathroom to take more of her pills. But a part of her wouldn’t allow her to excuse herself; that part was preoccupied with the thought of coming back and finding her house empty because none of her friends wanted to be near her anymore.

“Twilight wants to help you,” the alabaster unicorn told her. “So does Applejack. We all do. But, I’m afraid... I, for one, don’t really know how I can. It’s not that I care one way or the other what gender you’re attracted to, but... this just isn’t something I’ve had to deal with before. It’s all new to me.”

I wish you did care, Rarity. It would mean the world to me if I could tell you everything else I feel about this... if I could tell any of you... if I could really trust any of you...

...not to hurt me even more...

“There are programs run by the Cult of Celestia* that you could go to for help, Rainbow,” said Twilight suddenly. “I’ve heard of at least one in Canterlot that’s been very successful. They won’t, uh—I mean, they rarely manage to eliminate all the urges entirely, but, uh, I’ve read some—I mean... Well... theoretically speaking, it could be possible for you to live a normal life—”**

“Yeah, good idea,” Rainbow mumbled. “I’ll just tell everypony I’m going off to Wonderbolt Training Camp or something and disappear for a few months. And then Scootaloo would hide in my bag to come with me, or Derpy would come after me with a letter and refuse to stop looking until she finds me, or there would be a pony I know there, or something would go wrong and all of Equestria would find out I’m... gay... Then what, Twilight? Huh? What do I do then?”

“I could write the Princess and see—”

“No!” exclaimed the pegasus, almost jumping out of her chair. “Don’t you get it? You can’t tell anypony! Especially not her! What if she... Oh Faust, what if says I can’t be the E-Element of Loyalty anymore b-because... of... I’m... you know...”

She shuddered.

“Please,” she begged after a moment. “Please don’t tell her. Don’t tell anypony. If the rest of the town found out I’m...” This time, Rainbow substituted a choking sound in the back of her throat for the adjective. “...I don’t know what to do, okay? I j-just... I need... I want somep-pony to listen to me... I don’t know what to do... I don’t know...”

So much for dignity...

“Ah’m here if ya need somepony t’talk to, sugarcube,” Applejack said softly. “Y'all’ve never left me hangin’, like ya say, and Ah figure Ah should return the favor. If ya ever get those... urges... jus’ come to me and we’ll talk it out.”

She managed to smile at Rainbow, who still looked dejected. “Jus’, ah-heh, don’t be gettin’ any ideas now, ya understand...”

Though her statement seemed to have been an attempt to lighten the dark, miserable atmosphere just a little, it did nothing but sting an already tender wound. Rainbow sank into her chair again and put her face in her hooves.

“Th-th-thanks, A-AJ,” she whispered between her well-concealed sniffles. “M-means a lo-lot...”

Yet another awkward silence passed, broken only by an occasional muffled sniff from Rainbow, who had given up trying to maintain her image by that point. Twilight finally spoke up, running her hooves anxiously over the hair of her tail as she did.

“The, um, library’s always open to you,” she told the distraught pegasus. “I want to help you, Rainbow. I want to make you... I want you to the way you were meant to be. I want you to be the Rainbow Dash who crashed into me the day before the Summer Sun Celebration and started trying to impress me. Not... not... this mess... Oh, Rainbow... I’m so sorry this happened to you...”

“Twilight... you don’t get it... I was a fillyfooler then, and I’m a fillyfooler now, and I’ll always—” Rainbow groaned and sank deeper into her chair, belatedly realizing she’d just implied she was hitting on Twilight that day. “I-I didn’t mean... Oh, Faust... this is the worst day of my life...”

Good job.

You’re driving all your friends away because you’re so disgusting, RD.

Great going.

You fucking failure.

“Shut up...” she mumbled. All she wanted now was to get so high she couldn’t even remember her own name. Nothing else really seemed to matter anymore. “Th-thanks anyway, Twilight.”

Twilight—who had clearly seen the same accidental implication Rainbow had, as she looked somewhat disturbed now but was trying to hide it—nodded stiffly.

The pegasus felt as if she were being deflated bit by bit; being slowly robbed of everything that made her life worth living. The worst part was that she knew she should have expected this to happen when she told her friends about her abnormality.

But, somehow, Rainbow had still managed to hold out hope that they might understand how she felt—how afraid she was. That they might be comfortable sitting with her long into the night and letting her unload all the years of bottled-up frustration over being unable to change herself; that maybe they wouldn’t be completely repulsed by how fucked-up she was. And as much as she knew she shouldn’t have hoped, she couldn’t help being hurt by the wall of tension that had suddenly grown between herself and the others since her confession.

Then again...

She really didn’t blame them.

Nopony said anything for several minutes. Rainbow listened to the ticking of her Wonderbolts clock somewhere else in the house while Twilight fidgeted and Applejack adjusted her hat repeatedly. Pinkie was staring off into space with a look of deep concentration on her face, the way she did when she was planning an especially huge party, and Rarity was still trying to remain polite and not act bored despite the stagnation of the conversation.

“So...” said Twilight at last.

“...so,” Rainbow echoed. She sighed heavily. “That’s... that’s why I brought you guys here today. So I could tell you... you know. It felt wrong keeping it a secret for so long. I feel a lot better now that I... now that it’s not like I’m... lying to you, you know...? So... thanks for listening.”

She didn’t feel better, of course. Rainbow Dash had never felt worse in her life. But she didn’t feel much of an objection to the thought of being by herself anymore. It was better than continuing to systematically destroy everything that ever mattered to her .

How much damage had her confession done to her friendship with the other four mares in the room; never mind Fluttershy? She had managed to ensure that they would never look at her the same way again. Would probably never want her to hug them again. They would worry at night, thinking she was getting herself off to the thought of having sex with one of them.

It hurt too much now. She couldn’t keep going with this—there wasn’t even any reason to keep going with it. Her friends couldn’t help her. Not when they were afraid of her.

“...glad ‘ya told us the truth,” Applejack was saying. “Takes a real strong mare to own up to somethin’ like that.”

“Yeah... strong...” agreed Rainbow quietly.

With her facade of invulnerability now completely stripped away, she didn't feel strong at all. She felt weak, and helpless, and pathetic, and to have the eyes of her friends upon her at such a time only added to the humiliation and shame. Rainbow desperately wanted them to go away; she wanted to go into her bathroom, drug herself until she had diazepam coming out her pinfeathers, and then cry herself to sleep in her bed.

“Thanks for listening, girls,” she said in a passable imitation of her normal tone of voice. “Thanks for being here. It means a lot to me, you know? I... I won’t hold it against you if you want to go now... I mean, if you’re uncomfortable, or whatever... and it’s late... If you wanna go... it’s cool.”

She listened to the Wonderbolts clock ticking through the silence, and just waited.

“Are you sure, Rainbow?” asked Twilight half-heartedly.

“Yeah. I’m not gonna keep you here if you don’t wanna be here—Like, if you’re uncomfortable, or whatever...”

“Well... um... It’s not that I’m uncomfortable—or that I don’t want to help you—” Twilight said, floundering slightly and leaving a long pause between that and her next words. “I’ve just got a funny feeling Spike’s doing something he shouldn’t be doing, and I really ought to check on, and I mean, you’re right, it’s late, and—”

Rainbow waved a hoof, not looking at her. “Go. You can all go if you want... Actually, I kind of want to be alone right now.”

“Ah suppose Ah got’ta head home, too,” said Applejack after a moment. “Gotta, uh... put... dishes... Applebloom... foal... stuff... chores.”

“‘It’s cool.”

“Nice tal... Ah’m glad we could talk tonight, RD... Yer still... welcome ta, uh, come by tomorrow with that raincloud. Ah’ll even pay ya this time...”

“‘Kay,” Rainbow repeated with the same forced calm. “Bye, AJ.”

Rarity stood, brushing herself off. “It seems I have no choice but to leave with them,” she said, sounding truly apologetic. “Without Twilight’s balloon, I have no way of getting back to the ground, after all.”

The pegasus didn’t bother reminding Rarity that she had wings and could just carry her down. Carrying her friends in her hooves wasn’t an option anymore, and would never be again.

“Bye, Rarity,” she said instead. “Thanks for listening.”

“You’re absolutely welcome to come by my boutique any time. I’ll hear whatever you feel have to say,” Rarity assured her with a tight smile.

Something like hope bloomed in Rainbow’s chest, but it withered quickly after all that had happened. She couldn’t do it again—couldn’t open up like this ever again. Showing other ponies the real Rainbow Dash hurt too much and led to bad things. It wasn’t worth the pain.

“I... don’t really have anything to say.” Her wings opened and wrapped up around her body like a blanket, the way they were positioned when a pegasus was still in the womb. “There’s nothing to say, is there? I’m gay. Nothing to do about it, right?”

An equally tight, and far more bleak, smile crossed Rainbow’s face.

“Look, don’t worry about me. I’m Rainbow Dash... I can handle anything by myself. Go home. I’ll be okay.”

No, she wouldn’t be okay, but Rainbow wasn’t about to tell anypony that. She would pretend, as always, that things were just fine-and-fucking-dandy. Maybe take a few valiums... zone out on her bed... forget everything... It sounded a nicer prospect than that of her reality at the moment.

“Are you coming, Pinkie?” asked Twilight. Pinkie blinked distractedly, then shook her head.

“Nopey-dopey! I gotta cheer Dashie up first,” she said. “Otherwise she’ll go to bed all saddy-waddy, and that would be awful! Just awful!”

Rainbow groaned. “Pinkie, you won’t be able to get down without the balloon.”

“Of course I will, silly. I have my own balloons! How do you think I get up to your house every weekend for pranking time?”

“Right,” the pegasus grunted through clenched teeth. “How could I ever forget...”

Moments later, the door clicked shut behind the other three and Rainbow was alone with Pinkie, who had her usual manic grin plastered across her face. The party pony stared intently at her, a look of supreme concentration on her face, as she played with the bottle cap from the cola she’d gotten earlier. Eventually, Rainbow started getting restless and uncomfortable with the staring—as well as a bit irritated at how Pinkie could keep smiling like nothing had changed.

“Just say it,” she muttered bitterly after a while.

“Say what, Dashie?”

“Whatever you’re gonna say. Just say it and leave. I want to be alone.”

“Can’t do that! Sorry!” Pinkie chirped. “I hafta cheer you up first!”

Rainbow looked at her hooves. “I’m fine, Pinkie. I don’t need cheering up.”

“That’s just silly! Even I need cheering up sometimes, and I’m the cheeriest pony I know! Well, except Cheerilee, but that’s 'cause she has ‘cheer’ in her name. Anyway, just let me help you. Please? ‘Cause, you know, I’m not gonna leave you alone until you feel better again. Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.”

“No thanks. I’m okay.”

“Please, Dashie? Please let me make you smile?”

An aggravated, somewhat contemptuous expression not far off from a sneer crossed Rainbow’s face for just a second before her expression reverted back to apathy again. “Good luck trying.”

“Aww. Don’t be all saddy-waddy!” There were a couple of poofy hoofsteps across the cloud floor, and then a pair of bright pink forelegs encircled Rainbow in a comforting hug. She tensed at the contact, but didn’t push Pinkie away. “I don’t like it when my friends are sad. Whaddya wanna do? Pranks? Parties? Wonderbolts? Wanna go somewhere? Want cupcakes?”

She produced absurdly large cardboard cutouts of Soarin and Spitfire from her mane and put them on either side of herself. “Wanna have a Wonderbolts party?”

Rainbow felt her patience rapidly running out. Though she and Pinkie got along well a lot of the time, the party pony could grate on her nerves even on a good day. This was not a good day, and she simply did not have the willpower to deal with Pinkie’s insane naivete for much longer.

“I just wanna be alone,” she repeated, pushing Pinkie away from her.

“But you can’t have a Feel-Better-Cause-It’s-Okay-To-Be-Gay party by yourself!” cried Pinkie.

A sudden jolt of rage shot through Rainbow’s body and mind alike.

“A party isn’t gonna help!” the pegasus snapped. “Did you understand any of what I said in the last half hour, Pinkie? Did you? Do you understand what just happened? Two of my best friends think I’m a foal-fiddler, one thinks I daydream about her when I clop, and I’m ‘Rainbow Dash the creepy fillyfooler’ to another one now!”

She shoved Pinkie even further back. “How in the fuck do you think a party is gonna help me?”

“It doesn’t have to be a par—”

“Then what the hell does it have to be?” snarled Rainbow. She mimicked Pinkie’s jovial tone, making obnoxious faces as she spoke: “Cupcakes? Party? Hugs? I know, let’s go smoke some crystal meth! Is that your secret? Is that why you’re so fucking weird all the time, Pinkie? Is that how you got it into your stupid head that I—that—that I’m so shallow you could just have a party with me and everything would be smiles and cupcakes? Is that it? Tell me!”

“I j-just want to m-make you f-feel better,” Pinkie stammered, cowering a little before Rainbow’s still-growing fury. “Because I always feel better when I h-have a party—”

“I’m not you, Pinkie!”

Her smile regained some of its previous brilliance as she giggled just a little. “Of course you’re not, silly! If we were the same pony, we wouldn’t be—”

“This is not a fucking joke!” Rainbow exploded at her. “This is my life! My life is not a joke! Not to me! Do you think the Wonderbolts would want me to join if they thought I wanted to—to—to g-g-go down on Spitfire, or something? No! I have no friggin’ future and it’s all because I’m a friggin’ fillyfooler! Don’t you dare laugh at me!”

“I’m not laughing at you, Dashie! I pr—”

“You—laugh—at—everything! ‘Giggle at the ghostly’, don’t you remember that stupid song? Well, guess what! I can’t laugh this away! It’s not gonna go away just because I want it to! Life doesn’t work like that! But I guess that’s beyond your ability to understand, isn’t it!

“I don’t want a fucking party, Pinkie! I want—I need to be alone! Does that penetrate your meter-thick skull, you stupid idiot?”

Pinkie tried to speak, but Rainbow cut her off before she even began.

“I’m still talking, don’t fucking interrupt me! You can’t make me feel better with a party and some cupcakes after I just lost four of my best friends in about half an hour! How the fuck do you not understand how bad this is? How are you such a—such a—a stupid, arrogant, ignorant.. mindless... lazy, stupid, disgusting... annoying, worthless—”

—rainbow-maned fillyfooler who can’t do anything right.

“—poofy, stupid pink cunt! You can’t fix this! It’s broken beyond repair! Ruined! Fucked! Feathered! Rainbow-factory fodder! You can’t fix it! Your parties won’t help, do you understand that? None of your shit will help! Shut up and—and—and—”

She took a long, deep, shuddering breath, trying to calm herself. Pinkie had been reduced to a blubbering mess on the floor, cowering in front of her and looking at her with eyes full of hurt and tears. Rainbow stared back for a moment, before fixing her gaze on the empty soda bottle, which was less painful to look at.

“...and go home,” she finished, her voice suddenly soft and devoid of emotion. Pinkie shook her head tearfully.

“Nope! I gotta make you feel better first!” the party pony choked.

“No, Pinkie. Go home,” Rainbow repeated, almost pleadingly. “Please go...”

But Pinkie shook her head again. “I Pinkie Promised I’d make you feel better, Dashie! And you can’t break a Pinkie Promise. So I’m gonna stay with you ‘till you’re—”

“Get the fuck out of my house!” Rainbow seized the nearest object, which happened to be Fluttershy’s glass, in her hoof and threw it at Pinkie as hard as she could. The sound of it shattering against the tougher foundation cloud between the inner and outer walls made Pinkie jump and hiccup loudly. Rainbow advanced toward her, wings fully open and flared out in a show of aggression.

“Get out! Get out!” the pegasus screamed. “You’re this close, Pinkie! This close! Do you have any idea how—how—Just get out!”

“B-but—”

“But nothing! Go home! Use your stupid balloons—or whatever! Just leave me alone, you dumb marefoal! I’ll throw you right out the door if I have to!”

Pinkie continued to babble again even as she backed up. “B-but I have to make you feel better! I promised! I Pinkie Promised! It’s okay if you let me help because s-sometimes f-friends need each other and that’s okay and I Pinkie Prom—”

“I don’t give a flying feather what you promised and I don’t need you to help me feel better! I... I...” Rainbow laughed bitterly. It was practically a sob. “...I don’t need anypony. I’m Rainbow Fucking Dash! I can do anything by myself! So fuck off!”

“Dashie...” Pinkie sniffled. “Please...”

“Please what?”

“I just wanna help my friend,” said the pink pony in a small voice.

The pegasus’s features slowly settled back into her mask of indifference, and then descended into numb apathy. Rainbow sat down heavily on the floor in the middle of her living room and stared blankly at a space on the wall that was nowhere near Pinkie.

“Who needs friends?” she said distantly. “I don’t.”

Pinkie gasped and opened her mouth to refute Rainbow’s claim, but Rainbow spoke again before she could say anything at all.

“Even if I did, I wouldn’t want to be your friend.” She fixed Pinkie with a dead, empty stare. “I hate you and I hate your fucking parties. Go away so I can be alone.”

There was silence for a short time as Pinkie’s lip trembled. Then she sat down, and, with a noise very similar to that of a balloon deflating, her mane and tail lost all their poofiness. A previously unnoticeable glow about her coat, which was bright and shiny even in the low lighting of Rainbow’s living room, disappeared, leaving her dull and lifeless-looking. Her blue eyes, one of them now partially hidden by her impossibly straight mane, told volumes about how much that last insult had hurt her.

The result was a dejected mare who looked as if she’d just been stomped on by life and then lain under a rainstorm for hours. She looked mired in despair, although this was joined by a foal-like affectation of anger when her eyes turned to Rainbow again.

“F-fine!” she shouted as tears rolled down her cheeks. “If you’re gonna be all mean like that, you can just sulk all by yourself! You’re right—you don’t need any friends, ‘cause nopony should ever have a friend like you, Rainbow Crash!”

“Fuck you,” said Rainbow in a particularly scratchy voice. She shut her eyes and turned her face away from Pinkie to hide how she was also crying “Just go away...”

The pink pony stomped over to the front door, knocking over everything within reach. When she finally got to it, she threw it open and turned back to Rainbow with a contemptuous look on her face that soon morphed into a sad, crushed expression of grief, as though she were looking at a casket instead of a living pony.

“...I still won’t tell anypony you’re gay,” she added quietly. “Unlike you, I’ll always have some respect for the ponies I used to be friends with, no matter what they do to me. No matter how awful they turn out to be on the inside.”

And then she was gone, slamming the door behind her.

Rainbow was alone.

All alone.

Somewhere else in the house, the pegasus could hear the hypnotic ticking of her Wonderbolts clock as she sat on the floor in her living room, staring blankly at the door. Part of her inaction was shock: Rainbow was still trying to accept that she’d just lost every one of her friends. Another part was apathy: she simply lacked the energy to do anything at all.

She half-wanted to run out the door so she could apologize to Pinkie and beg for forgiveness, while the other half of her hoped Pinkie’s balloons all popped while she was floating around above Ponyville.

Rainbow spent an immeasurable length of time thinking about all her former friends dying horrible deaths before an eerie blankness took over her mind. She felt empty and cold, as though something vital and beautiful had just been stripped from inside her. That emptiness had driven so deeply into her she couldn’t even cry anymore.

She didn’t even realize she had gotten to her hooves until she bumped into one of the poofy cloud chairs. Rainbow absent-mindedly pushed it aside instead of going around it, too dazed to think properly about what she was doing. The walls were spinning around her, and she swore they were giggling at her misfortune. A feeling of claustrophobia took hold, but going outside and flying didn’t even cross her mind as it should have. Flying was something she enjoyed. It made her happy. Now everything suddenly felt so... empty. All she wanted was to stop existing for a while.

The claustrophobic feeling was soon joined by vertigo as Rainbow tried to make her way down the hall toward the bathroom. Her shaking legs kept taking her in the wrong directions, making her bump into more of her things, but she didn’t care. It was very much like being in a trance, or a dream. The whole day felt like a dream; like it couldn’t possibly have actually happened.

The bathroom light started flickering again as soon as it clicked on. Rainbow slowly raised her hoof and tapped it a few times to make it stop, then lurched toward the sink like some sort of zombie. There, she came face-to-face with her reflection in the mirror on the back of the medicine cabinet’s door.

A haunted, tired face looked back at her with the same defeated magenta eyes. Her feathers had somehow become so misaligned it was as if she’d never even preened them in her life, and her coat had dulled significantly, her face streaked with tear tracks. Under the light on the ceiling—which seemed terribly inadequate for the room it was meant to light all of a sudden—her face and body became gaunt and shadowed, like the face of a dead pony.

Though Rainbow shrank back in horror when she first saw herself, she had little further reaction to the change. It seemed natural and right for her to look that way, since she felt just as disgusting inside as she looked outside; another symptom of the nightmare she was living at that moment.

Rainbow opened the medicine cabinet and reached out with a shaking hoof for the bottle with her valium in it. The shock had affected her coordination so badly that she knocked it into the sink instead, along with some of the other contents of the cabinet. Ignoring everything else, she picked up the bottle and struggled to get the cap off, practically hyperventilating as she did. The cap came off with a small pop after what felt like hours and hours of trying to twist it the right way—and in doing so, she spilled the pills everywhere. They scattered all over the bathroom; some on the floor, some in the sink, some on the toilet seat, and even some in Rainbow’s shower.

“No, no!” she cried. “Shit!”

The pegasus got down on her belly and started picking up her spilled medication one pill at a time. Not all of the white tablets went back into the bottle; a fair number found their way into her mouth as well. After collecting all the ones around her, she placed the bottle on the edge of the sink and went about gathering the rest of the stray pills from all around the bathroom.

Finally, she stood up, still breathing a little too quickly and a little too shallowly, and put the things in the sink back in the cabinet. When she closed the door, she locked eyes with mirror-Dash again. Rainbow still felt uncomfortable holding that empty gaze, so she turned away almost immediately.

She started looking around for the top to the valium bottle as she waited for the drug to begin working. Not finding it anywhere on the sink, she wondered if, perhaps, she had dropped it when she lay down to gather up the pills, and turned around to look at that spot. Her tail bumped against the side of the sink, and then a clattering sound made her freeze mid-turn, eyes widening in horror.

The open-topped bottle had fallen into the sink and spilled its contents all over again. Though she closed the drain as quickly as she could and gathered the valium pills back into the bottle, Rainbow heard several rattling against the drainpipe as they fell through anyway. Rage boiled up inside her like she had never known before, even when she was shouting at Pinkie—today she had lost her friends; she had lost her dignity; she had lost everything that mattered to her; and now—now, she was losing her pills!

Rainbow took a step backward and put her hooves, and then her wings, up on top of her head like she was trying to shield herself from something, though she couldn’t even truly identify what it was she was hiding from. A very strange, high-pitched whine came out of the pegasus’s mouth. She felt like she was drowning in an invisible, oily bubble that clung tightly to her form like a disgusting film, leaving her no room for movement at all. Her eyes darted wildly around the room—and stopped dead when they locked with another pair of magenta ones.

This was the pony responsible for everything that had happened to her. The pony who had made her friends reject her; made Pinkie Pie hate her; taken away her future, her self-esteem, and her Element; destroyed her life, all in one day. This was the pony who always fucked everything up and ruined everything good Rainbow had. This... stupid, arrogant, self-absorbed, useless, bone-headed, lazy, unkempt, feather-brained fillyfooler.

“Why can’t you do anything right?” she spat at her grotesquely mutated reflection. Her wings sprang out aggressively as she advanced toward the mirror, moving right into an attack position. “What the hell is the matter with you, huh? You fuck everything up! Everything!”

The glass cracked a little across Rainbow’s right eye as her hoof struck the mirror. She hit it again, damaging the magically-reinforced glass even more, and then she let out a scream and began beating her reflection with as much violence as she could put into her blows. A stream of vulgar words poured out of her mouth at the same time, her wavering voice quickly progressing from a low growl, to a snarl, to a throat-tearing screech.

“Why couldn’t you just keep your mouth shut, you dumb freak? Every time something starts to go right, you have to mess it all up ‘cause you can’t shut the fuck up! Why the hell are you so stupid? What the fuck did you accomplish, huh? You screwed everything up! I hate you! I wish you were dead! Then you’d stop fucking everything up!”

Red spattered the partially destroyed mirror and the smashed door it was attached to, but Rainbow kept throwing her hooves against it, unable to calm herself down enough to think with any semblance of rationality. She was so out-of-control she wasn’t even hitting her target half the time now. The sink and the floor around her was littered with pieces of broken glass, even as more rained down everywhere, mixing with shards of plastic and the smaller contents of Rainbow’s medicine cabinet.

“You’re the problem! You! It’s all you! Why can’t you do anything right? Why are you such  failure? Why are you—why are you—Aaagh! Pinkie was right! Who the hell’s gonna want a worthless, creepy fillyfooling fuckup for a friend?”

Rainbow slammed both her hooves against what was left of the mirror, and then bashed her head against it. The whole

cabinet fell off the wall and crashed onto the floor, spilling the rest of its contents everywhere. Even then, the psychotic pegasus continued to stomp on the few little pieces of glass still stuck to the door by magic. When those had been bucked free and stomped on, Rainbow finally paused for a moment, and turned away from the destroyed cabinet, breathing heavily.

“You're a fucking mistake, that's what you are... 'Cause who the fuck would ever make some dumb dyke the Element of Loyalty...? 'Cept as some... big... tasteless joke...” she half-mumbled as she yanked open one of the drawers under the sink and started throwing things out of it. “Celestia hates dykes anyway. Well, you know—you know what? I fucking hate dykes, too! And, and, you know what else I hate?”

She held up a small, very intricately decorated hoof-mirror—a birthday present from Rarity which she had never actually had any reason to use and had just put in the back of the drawer. Her smouldering magenta eyes looked back at her in it, framed by her angry, tear-stained face—the visage of the pony she despised more than any other at that moment. Rainbow snarled at her reflection.

“I hate you, Rainbow Dash!” she spat. “That’s what I hate! I hate you! I hate you so much it hurts!”

The pegasus held up the little mirror and smashed it against the side of the sink as hard as she could. It shattered, sending even more glass everywhere and cutting open several new wounds in her hooves and forelegs. Everything after that was drowned in an utterly incoherent torrent of gibberish as Rainbow threw herself against the soft cloud walls and the much less soft fixtures sticking out of them, screaming as loudly as she possibly could and destroying everything she could get her hooves on.

When the valium finally took effect enough to overcome her psychotic burst of energy and exhaust her, she just slumped down against the wall and rolled over onto her belly, not caring, or really even noticing, that the floor was covered with shards of broken glass—and even if she had begun to care, she was rapidly becoming too tired to move.

At that point, Rainbow finally began to regain the ability to cry, although now there was very little sobbing and a lot of quiet weeping. She turned over onto her side and curled up with her wings in the foetal position again, trembling so badly she could have been shivering.

“I’m okay...” she whispered, not believing it at all. It was a pitiful, stupid thing to say, but she desperately needed to pretend. Pretending was the best and the only defense she had left against the looming shadow of reality. So she chanted it to herself very quietly, in a voice often broken by hiccups: “I’m okay... I’m okay... I’m okay... I’m okay... I’m okay...”

She didn’t pay much attention to the rippling feeling that passed through her body, or the heaviness in her limbs. Having put herself to sleep with valium a few times before—though never after such a severe episode—she was used to it. Soon, her eyes were closing, although she was still too worked up to fall asleep.

A pleasant numbness spread over her; not in the way of physical feeling, but of emotion. She no longer had to feel, or think, or remember, or experience. Gradually, Rainbow began to relax, now that she was at last safe in the cocoon of her drugged stupor. She lay there on her floor, in the glass, bleeding from a hundred tiny cuts and soaked with her own tears, and smiled.

What did it really matter?

So her friends had rejected her. They were stupid for it, then. All of Equestria was so stupid; not like Rainbow’s sepia dream world, where everything was perfect. There was no need for pain, as she didn’t have to hurt anymore. Rainbow Dash was happy, and safe, and she wanted to hide there forever.

Nothing more needed.

All those ponies could stay outside.

She would never need any of them to struggle through her problems ever again.

Never...

“...’cause I’m... Rainbow Dash... and I can... I can... handle... anything... by myself...”

[Click here for music]