Of a Feather

Complication

--

"How much longer do we have to stay here?" Rainbow Dash moaned impatiently, sprawled out bonelessly over a couch. Her sprawling wasn't so much out of relaxation as opposed to mind-numbing boredom. Her wings shifted uncomfortably beneath the fluffy bathrobe that she wore, unused to anything even remotely resembling the fluffy garment covering her wings. She didn't know how Fluttershy could stand it.

Lotus had persuaded Dash into daubing a couple of patches of green...stuff onto her cheeks, and now Rainbow was staring at the wall, trying to count how many different tricks she could be practicing right now instead of sitting here, doing nothing.

Her trademark mane had been mercifully left alone, albeit crammed into a towel and bound up atop her head, but Rainbow figured the ultimate damage wouldn't be anything she couldn't fix with a dunk of her head into a particularly damp cloud and a good shake of her crest.

"Oh, it's not that bad, surely," Fluttershy smiled from beneath her mane, left loose with conditioner and oils brushed through it. In contrast to Dash's discomfort, the fluffy bathrobe Fluttershy had ensconced herself in made her feel warm and safe, pillows propping up her newly hooficured forelegs, almost dry. "Didn't the sauna feel nice?"

"It just made me all sweaty!" Rainbow Dash cried indignantly, and while Fluttershy blushed, Rainbow continued. "If I wanted that, I'd have just flown around some more!"

"Well, we haven't gotten to the best parts yet," Fluttershy replied, trying to sound reassuring. "If it's not too much trouble, just try it for a little longer, Rainbow, I promise that it'll be worth it. Aloe and Lotus are so good at what they do." Fluttershy tried for another smile, though it came out with a nervous curl at the corners of her mouth. "Don't you trust me?"

Rainbow's muzzle worked in an odd way, looking over at her. "Of course I trust you, Fluttershy, it's just..." She looked around, and seeing that they were alone for the moment, she let out a long sigh. "I dunno about this stuff, it's not exactly my thing."

Dash tugged at the hem of the bathrobe with one hoof, still shifting uncomfortably with her wings beneath. "And it's kinda uncomfortable, with these strange ponies." She blushed and lowered her voice, in case they were listening. "I mean, no offense, they're nothing but nice and stuff but it's just weird."

Fluttershy grinned a little, obliviously. "You're just not used to other people looking after you, Rainbow, you're always so busy taking care of yourself, or everypony else. You need to let us take care of you sometimes."

Rainbow groaned and lowered her head back onto the pillow at her forelegs, letting out a soft, undignified snort. "I'm supposed to be the Element of Loyalty, that's what I'm supposed to do, isn't it? Help everypony?"

"That doesn't mean you have to do it all by yourself." Fluttershy sighed quietly, thinking back to the last time that Rainbow had tried to help absolutely everypony in Ponyville by herself, and the fuss that resulted from it. "Or be by yourself all the time. I mean, we all care about you a lot. We want to see you win Best Young Flyer just as much as you do, but there's a lot more to it than that."

Rainbow Dash's raised an eyebrow, pushing the mound of towel on her head back from where it was threatening to cover her brilliant ruby eyes. "Fluttershy, are you turning into Twilight or something? Usually she's the one giving the lectures."

Fluttershy shook her head and her hindbrain leapt forward again, reminding her to maintain a healthy cower. "N-no, I mean, it's just...oh my goodness." Fluttershy faltered, and retreated in her comfortable, warm bathrobe. "I just mean, if you don't think it's too much, that it's okay to ask the others for help too, I mean, you trust me, but you can trust them too. I know it wasn't easy for you to come here after Twilight suggested it."

Rainbow Dash furrowed her brow and shook her head a little. "Twilight's suggestion, maybe, but you talked me into it. 'Shy, I've known you since forever, since we were fillies. You...well, you get me, even though I put you through all kinds of crazy stuff. The others...well, they're cool too, but they don't quite get the Dash, y'know what I mean?"

Fluttershy peered out a little, biting her lip. She didn't often hear these sorts of things from Dash.

"You're always around to cheer for me, even if I'm sometimes a little...y'know." Dash's voice cracked a little at the end as a forehoof made a weak pinwheeling gesture in front of her, but she kept an encouraging smile on for her fellow pegasus.

Fluttershy nearly disappeared beneath her pink locks when she tipped her head, returning Rainbow's enthusiastic grin with a more demure smile of her own. "Oh, it's okay, Rainbow. Really. I know it's not easy for you, but ... thanks. That's really nice of you to say." Fluttershy blushed, rubbing at the couch fabric with her hooves gently.

Rainbow Dash's mouth opened to say more, but she was interrupted by the return of the cheerful blue and pink earth ponies that ran the spa.

"If you are ready, missus Dash and Fluttershy, ve haf the massage tables vaiting," Lotus spoke up, both of them smiling cheerfully.

Rainbow Dash's pupils shrank distressingly, her muzzle drooping. "Massage?" she said warily, instantly back to her previous, bravado-layered self.

Fluttershy's knew that tone. She jumped up from her couch, coming to rescue the afternoon before Rainbow Dash could scuttle the affair altogether.

"J-just wait a moment, Rainbow," she said, trotting over to a slightly confused Lotus. There was some discussion in hushed tones, which made Rainbow all the more uncomfortable, until finally Lotus and Aloe bowed and departed.

Fluttershy turned back to Rainbow and grinned. "I told them you were quite sure that your wingfeathers were in just the right places for your aerodynamics, and you didn't want them disturbed, even by well-meaning spa ponies." Fluttershy blushed, tapping the floor with the edge of a hoof. "I said that I'd see to the rest of your afternoon."

Rainbow Dash's jaw dropped. "Seriously?" She uncurled and hopped to the floor, squinting. "Who are you and what have you done with Fluttershy? Since when did you get so...so..."

"I'm trying to be more assertive, remember?" Fluttershy puffed up with a hint of a giggle in her voice, managing to look proud for a fleeting moment before ducking her head back down, smiling out from beneath her wavy pink mane. "Besides, Aloe and Lotus are my friends, I see them every week. They understand, even if they are a little disappointed. They said, maybe next time."

Rainbow Dash shook her head in disbelief. "So, when you said you'd see to 'the rest of my afternoon', what exactly did you mean by that?" Dash's eyes narrowed, skeptically.

"Well, there's no other customers, and you said you were uncomfortable with strange ponies poking and prodding, so I thought, if it's okay with you, I would help you instead."

"You?" Rainbow Dash tried to keep the surprise out of her voice, and failed miserably. "You're going to...do that stuff? I thought we'd just, y'know." Dash nodded outside, hopefully.

Fluttershy's eyes widened. "But we haven't even gotten to the best parts yet! A massage will help your muscles so much, you always get so tense when you're flying around." Abruptly, Fluttershy realized she was lecturing again, and her head ducked down instantly between her forehooves, with a tiny squeak. "I mean, if you want to, if not, that's okay too, I mean, I just thought that..."

"No, 'Shy, it's fine...it's just..." Dash trailed off as she looked at how hopeful and eager her friend was. She couldn't disappoint Fluttershy, the well-meaning Element of Kindness in front of her, beaming despite her cower.

Rainbow Dash mustered a deep breath to steel herself, and nodded with a helpless shrug of her wings beneath her robe. "Okay," Dash said, resignedly. "We'll...try it your way, I guess?"

Fluttershy perked up and clapped her hooves together a couple of times gleefully, then trotted on through a curtained doorway, leaving Rainbow Dash standing there for a moment, shaking her head, following the oblivious Fluttershy through.

--

On the other side of the curtains were a pair of massage tables, festooned with pillows. Of course, where Fluttershy would normally occupy one, she was standing beside it, fussing and fidgeting with the pillows.

"So, you're really gonna do...this?" Rainbow Dash began, hesitantly, as she trotted over and carefully stepped up onto the bed-slash-table, stretching out lengthwise on it. It was comfortable enough. "What do you know about, y'know, this?" she said, unable to bring herself to actually talk about this silly mushy stuff like she had become familiar with any of it.

Fluttershy actually managed a reproachful glare for an instant before it faded into apologetic sympathy. "Oh, Rainbow, I take care of so many critters, and sometimes they get so tense and a good, vigorous massage is the only way to get them feeling like their old selves."

She thumped the bed with a forehoof lightly, looking so pleased with herself. "Here, keep your robe on, I know you're not used to this. Hooves can be kind of hard for a first-timer, they were for me, but you get used to them fast." Fluttershy giggled, trying to be reassuring. "I promise I'll be super careful, though."

As Rainbow Dash hopped up and stretched out on the table, she laid her head on a pillow between her forelegs, her movements wooden and hesitant. Fluttershy hopped up on a stool beside her and started to rub at Dash's back just below her wings using the broad pads of her hooves, carefully angling back the sharper, though expertly-manicured edges to use the softer frog in the middle.

Dash jumped a little at the initial contact, but quickly calmed down, still shifting and fidgeting awkwardly as the cloth slid back and forth over her bundled up wingfeathers. "I hate to burst your bubble, 'Shy, but I'm kinda different from your forest friends." Dash arched an eyebrow and looked back over her shoulder at her friend, still unsure.

Fluttershy gently reached forward without breaking her stride, and pushed Dash's head straight and onto the pillow, hushing her with a soft 'shussh'. "Trust me, Rainbow. I've been coming here with Rarity for a long time now, I think I know just as much about ponies as I do about bears and other critters, especially pegasi."

Rainbow's eyes first blinked at the insistent treatment of her snout, and then went wide at Fluttershy's words. "Bears?"

"Shh!" Fluttershy urged, somehow coming across as both stern and distressingly adorable. Dash's head got pushed into the pillow again and this time Rainbow relented, on account of the feeling of 'Shy's hooves on either side of her spine and around her wingbases actually being pretty good, and it was getting better by the moment. As long as she's careful, Dash thought, her resistance fading under the expert attention of her fellow pegasus.

There were ripples of tension across Rainbow's back and down her flanks as the other pegasus' hooves pressed through the cloth bathrobe, but they were lessening in favour of a peculiar tenderness that made Dash want to clench her jaw and sag into the pillows, and before she knew it she was groaning and fidgeting faintly on the cushions, gnawing at the corner of a pillow in front of her.

Fluttershy kept on working the muscles diligently, brow furrowed a little in concentration. "Ohmygoodness, Rainbow, your muscles are nothing but knots!" she muttered, shaking her head. Less intimidated by the quiet, prone pegasus now, Fluttershy had unwittingly shifted her tone to that which she used on her little patients at home, determined and concerned despite her outward timidness. "Goodness, oh, knots here...and knots here!"

Rainbow Dash practically drooled into the pillows, pawing at them weakly with her forehooves, unable to summon the will to crawl away from the simultaneously aching and yet delicious sensation of hooves pressing into her back, rubbing firmly on either side of her barrel, working out the knots of tension that had resided for goodness knows how long.

Dash felt the hooves working down to her flanks, and even when they brushed over her sensitive cutie mark, Dash couldn't work up the energy or coherence to complain much. A few times, she fidgeted when Fluttershy's hooves, despite being carefully manicured, caught and nudged a little through the robe.

Fluttershy wasn't quite the expert masseuse that Aloe or Lotus were, though she was doing an admirable job. Despite her relative inexperience with ponies, it turned out that Fluttershy was right about the whole robe versus hooves thing; Dash felt much better when her hooves were cushioned by the thick terrycloth, though she could see the appeal of the hooves' firmness on her muscles if she was more used to it.

The hooves in question slid up either side of her crest and neck, and Fluttershy pushed down the collar of the bathrobe a little to let her hooves work directly on the soft blue coat. Rubbing in slow circles, Fluttershy worked meticulously, careful not to press on the vertebrae themselves and ending up rubbing right behind Dash's head. The brand new hooficure made Fluttershy's flexible hooves as smooth as glass, all but obviating the need for oil in the short term.

"Even though we fly all the time, we're not meant to stay all squashed up like you for speed, Rainbow," Fluttershy lectured gently while she worked. "You need to take better care of yourself or you're going to strain something important."

Rainbow Dash managed a delirious "Mmnh" in reply, eyes squeezed shut as the tension gradually melted away. The hooves began to descend down her spine again, this time a little further out on her sides, joining together and pressing around her right wing. Dash was slowly getting used to the feeling of the bare hooves on her coat now and then, and actually missed them when they left the nape of her neck; it felt like Fluttershy was finding her stride.

Unfortunately for Rainbow, she grew aware of another sensation as the pinions and feathers on her wings were nudged and pushed and ground into the cloth as well, trapped between the hooves on one side and the muscles beneath on the other. Even though Fluttershy was doing her best to work around them, the feathers were getting tugged and pulled, making them prickle in sensitive ways.

Abruptly, Dash's eyes snapped open, pupils the size of pinpricks again, and she tried desperately to rekindle what semblance of order she had left in her massage-addled mind. "Oh, uh, 'Shy, do you think you could stop for a second?" she said squeakily, voice cracking. "The robe's kinda...catching a bit."

"Oh, well, we can take it off, I've got to get at the muscles beneath at some point. You think you're used to the hooves now? The robe helped for me, the first few times..." Fluttershy rambled easily, not looking up from her work, not seeing the frantic shaking of Rainbow's head.

"Nononono, that's okay, really, just...skip over the wings, they're just..."

"But Rainbow, your wings are the most important part, especially after all the flying you did today!" Fluttershy gasped, shaking her head. "We can't possibly leave those out." Fluttershy kept rubbing on her sides, which made Rainbow's eyes water, and the muscles at the base of her wings get tense and sore again, bundled up inside the robe, fighting to get free.

Of course, now the robe was the only thing keeping her decent.

Rainbow squeezed her eyes shut and tried to think of something, of anything else than her friend at her back, doing those things. That time she plunged into the dam's reservoir, and it was freezing cold. The time she flew through that cloud full of snow last winter. That time...

"Fluttershy, I r-really need you to s-stop for a minute," Rainbow said, voice falling apart.

"What's wrong?" The hooves paused, mercifully, Fluttershy's voice full of genuine concern. "Omigosh, am I hurting you?"

"N-no, it's just..."

"Omigosh, I did hurt you, I'm soooo sorry Rainbow Dash, did I hurt your wings? I bet I pinched a feather, oh, I'm so sorry, I did that one time by accident when I was preening and I couldn't reach it and I had to get Angel to put it back and..."

Fluttershy was tugging at the collar of her robe. Never having been much for it to begin with, Rainbow Dash hadn't ever tied it properly beneath her stomach. Distracted by Fluttershy's litany, she didn't feel it slithering off her shoulders until it was too late.

"Wait!" Rainbow Dash cried at the top of her lungs.

Foomph.

--

Silence reigned for a precious few moments, Rainbow Dash's desperate cry echoing through Fluttershy's mind, if no longer the room.

Dash's wings stuck out from under the robe's pulled-back collar, jutting up on either side in an unmistakable fashion, the pinions and primaries spread and straining in broad fans above her back. Some of the feathers were, in fact, out of alignment, but the quivering tension in them belied something much more fundamental and desperate.

Dash's muzzle closed, along with her eyes, screwing shut tightly. With agonizing care, she lowered her head back to the pillows, and then equally slowly, she dragged over another pillow to join them.

Rainbow Dash methodically pulled it over her head and buried herself in velvet, unable to bear the thought of looking at her friend like this. She spent a moment trying to hunch the robe up around her shoulders where it was pinned beneath the base of her unfurled wings, but soon gave up with a defeated sigh, mortally embarrassed by every heartbeat she could feel in her worked-up wings.

Fluttershy stared at the display in front of her, and blushed ferociously. "Ohmygoodness," She managed, in the squeakiest, tiniest voice yet.

Rainbow Dash's grip on the pillow over her head tightened subtly, with a protesting rustle from the velvet of the pillow. A subtle movement of it showed she was shaking her head from side to side beneath it. Stubbornly, her wings refused to retreat, staying fanned out at her sides, aching with their rigid tension.

"Rainbow, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to...I should have...ohmygoodness." Fluttershy sputtered, folding her hooves up beneath her chin anxiously.

"Just...go," Rainbow's voice filtered out. It was strained and on the verge of tears, muffled beneath the pillow pinned over her head.

Fluttershy stepped back from the table a step or two, turning for the door. Her normal run and hide instinct pushed her halfway to the threshold before something else made her stop in her tracks, her ears flicking back and forth as she thought about her friend.

Her friend, who was embarrassed and in pain.

Fluttershy frowned, looked back at Dash, shaking slightly beneath her meager pillow cover, and shook her head. "I'm not leaving, Rainbow Dash."

Rainbow's hooves pulled the pillow down just far enough for one crimson eye to peek out the side at her, brimming. "What?" she said, tone laden with something between indignation and anger.

Fluttershy put her forehoof down, dramatically. "I'm not leaving, Rainbow Dash," she repeated, with only the slightest quiver in her voice, trying not to lose her newfound nerve under the stare of her friend.

Her nerve promptly vanished without a trace when Rainbow pulled the pillow back and confronted her with a baleful expression, shaking her head slowly. Her eyes were curled at the corners, quivering and fighting tears, and the red of her irises dominated her gaze. "I told you to go, Fluttershy," she said, her voice breaking. "It's bad enough as it is. J-just leave me alone."

Fluttershy cowered, looking at her hooves. "It's not the first time I've seen...that, Rainbow." Fluttershy glanced fleetingly up at the straining wings on Rainbow's back, and then hurriedly returned her attention to her hooves, studying the carpet.

"Wh-.." Rainbow began in confusion, and then shook her head violently, remembering to be hurt. She was hurt. "That's not the point!" she cried, rapidly working up to a sob, her brow furrowed angrily. "I'm not supposed to...this isn't right! It's all messed up!"

"Rainbow, it's okay, really," Fluttershy began, only to get angrily cut off by her friend.

"No, it's not okay. Nothing's okay now. I should have said something earlier. It was okay before, but now it's not." Rainbow Dash shook her head, standing up on the massage table and then hopping off of it gingerly, trying to hide her wings behind her angry glower. "It's all messed up now. So, if you're not gonna go, then I am."

Fluttershy closed her eyes and summoned every fiber of her being, every last ounce of strength that she had, and rose to all fours from her timid crouch. Somepony's feelings were hurt, and worse yet, she was the one to hurt them.

She had to make it right.

"No, you're not, Rainbow Dash," Fluttershy replied sternly. Her brow was knitted and her face wore an expression that Rainbow Dash had scarcely seen before. Only before when dragons were involved if she'd been in a position to see it, and when the prospect of Discord ruling Equestria forever reared its ugly head. It made Dash stop in her tracks, wings tightening almost imperceptibly behind her, eyes wide and bewildered at her friend's change in demeanour. Rainbow Dash actually felt ashamed for a moment, as she looked deeply into Fluttershy's deep blue eyes.

"We're going to sit here, and we're going to talk about this," Fluttershy finished, stubbornly. Then Fluttershy's eyes shifted. "Um. If you don't mind. Too much," she added, in quieter tones.

Dash shook her head, regaining her senses now that the Stare was broken. She reached up and pulled her gradually unknotting towel off of her head to let her rainbow-hued mane down, somewhat the worse for wear but still as brilliant as ever.

Angrily, Rainbow balled the towel up in her hooves and threw it aside, a shake of her head making the frizzy, messed up mane wave around atop her head. "What's there to talk about?" she croaked, looking back at Fluttershy with eyes rimmed in red in more ways than one, now.

"I've seen your wings do that before, Rainbow, but never like...like this. I mean, I know that...well, was...was it because of me?" Fluttershy began, hesitantly. After she said it, Fluttershy cringed and mentally bucked herself. She meant it one way, but of course it meant something else. She didn't want to go there. Of course she'd said it wrong.

Rainbow Dash chuckled bitterly and lowered her head. "You don't want me to answer that, 'Shy."

A chill dousing some hopeful little spark in the back of Fluttershy's mind, a spark she barely even remembered existed until it was gone.

"See?" Rainbow blubbered helplessly into the silence, a tear running down her cheek. "See? I don't want to hurt you, Fluttershy, you're my best friend. My best friend ever. One of my only friends. And now I'm gonna...it's just..." Rainbow Dash shrugged, not knowing where to put herself.

Wearily, heavily, Rainbow sat slowly down on the enchanted, permanently warmed tile, just as her wings finally started to furl behind her, instinct giving way to emotion. Dash shook her head slowly, head sagging downward. "It's just...what you were doing with my wings, it made me..."

"Gilda," Fluttershy said, suddenly, in a burst of understanding.

Rainbow Dash was silent.

"Gilda did that, didn't she? Oh, Rainbow," Fluttershy shook her head, fretting her forehooves around and around each other desperately. "That's what you meant when you said it was weird, having strange ponies poke and prod. I remember now, you said one time, about her, her hands, and and oh Rainbow, I'm so sorry, I should have known, I should have remembered!"

Rainbow let her head hang. "It was...a long time ago, 'Shy. When she came back to Ponyville last year, I was hoping that maybe she was, y'know, still cool." Rainbow Dash took a deep, shuddering breath, trying to steady herself. "But she'd been gone home in the meantime, overseas. I thought we could still be friends, but...she'd changed. Gotten jealous and...and angry. You remember her, how she yelled at Pinkie. Yelled at everypony."

Fluttershy remembered all too well now, though she hadn't ever had the heart to tell Rainbow Dash about the ducks in the market. Pinkie had wisely avoided the topic too, in an uncharacteristic display of good judgement.

Rainbow Dash shook her head slowly, making tears fall from the end of her muzzle. "I wanted to remember the old Gilda. But now," Rainbow sniffed, wiping her nose with the back of a hoof crudely. "We haven't written each other since. And I just...what you were doing, it made me think..." she trailed off lamely, shrugging.

Fluttershy had managed to close the distance between herself and the distraught Rainbow Dash, working her way to within a few inches. "I'm so sorry, Rainbow Dash. I didn't want to hurt you, or remind you of something you didn't want to remember, I just wanted to help."

Rainbow bit her lip, unable to bring herself to say anything for a long moment. "I know, Shy, I know you were trying to help and I-I just...I don't know," she trailed off, silent for a long moment, while Fluttershy leaned in and brushed Dash's foreleg with a hoof.

Rainbow just looked up at her with eyes full of tears and a muzzle full of apologies to be greeted, not by jealousy or anger or disappointment as Rainbow feared, but by understanding and a gentle, patient smile spread across Fluttershy's pale yellow muzzle.

"It's okay, Rainbow Dash," Fluttershy said, quietly.

"R-really?" Rainbow said, unable to hide the doubt in her voice. Her brain seized on the opportunity for a quick fix, to make it all better, but the smaller, wiser part of her didn't think it'd be that easy. Didn't want it to be that easy.

"I mean, I understand." Fluttershy said, leaning in to give Rainbow a gentle nuzzle on the withers. Her voice was like silk, and something resembling calm found Rainbow Dash for the first time in what felt like an eternity. "You're my best friend, Rainbow Dash, you've always helped me, ever since we were little fillies. I'd like to think that maybe I've been able to help you too, even if only a teensy little bit. And I'm sorry if I've...if I've done something I shouldn't have."

Fluttershy moved to sit beside her friend, side to side, reaching up and laying a hoof over her withers to squeeze fondly, which made Rainbow Dash puff out a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding, chuckling weakly.

"Aw, Fluttershy, you're...you're so...oh, man." She rubbed the bridge of her muzzle with a forehoof, trying to find herself. "I know this isn't all just about me, 'Shy," she said thickly, snuffling back more tears. "I appreciate that. I mean, I know I don't say it much, but you're a...a good friend, Fluttershy."

Fluttershy paused, at Dash's hesitation. The skittish pony recognized that tone.

She'd heard it often enough in her own voice. She'd heard it so many times, when she was searching for something to say and ended up stammering out something diplomatic instead of what she really wanted to say.

Fluttershy bit her lip, and fretted her hooves. That spark was back in her hindbrain again.

Assertive.

"Rainbow Dash?"

Dash's muzzle turned, her mane still a frizzy, puffy mess on top of her head. Her brilliant red eyes were heavy, wearied. Fluttershy almost lost her nerve when she saw them.

"Yeah?"

Fluttershy's muzzle worked soundlessly, for a moment. "You were going to say something else," she whispered, in a tiny voice.

Rainbow fidgeted. "Uh. No, I wasn't."

Fluttershy waited patiently. That spark reignited, and glowed ever so faintly.

"Are you telling me I'm wrong?" Rainbow Dash accused, frowning.

Wrong way. "No, Rainbow Dash, I mean..." Fluttershy squeezed her eyes tightly, shaking her head. "You said earlier, what I was doing, it made you think. Made you think...what?"

Rainbow Dash squirmed in place beside her, feeling the back of her neck. But said nothing. No off the cuff remark. No casual dismissal. It wasn't just because Dash didn't want to say something hurtful.

The spark flickered into a tiny flame. "Do I remind you of Gilda just because she was just the last one to give you a massage?"

Silence.

Fluttershy reached out and grabbed Rainbow Dash by the shoulders, turning the rainbow-maned pony towards her gently, but insistently. The sudden movement made Rainbow Dash straighten and blink in surprise at the normally timid pony in front of her, drawing a forehoof up defensively.

"Please," Fluttershy insisted, not backing down.

Rainbow Dash's expression fairly melted at the near-whisper of Fluttershy's gentle voice. She glanced down and away, her brow furrowing, her eyes quivering at the corners like she was going to tear up again.

Trying to say the right thing, just the same way she was. Afraid to be vulnerable.

Fluttershy realized they were dancing around each other fruitlessly, and that words weren't going to cut it anymore.

Unerringly, Fluttershy darted forward, and planted a kiss on Rainbow Dash's cheek. A fleeting contact, just a brush of her lips on her cyan coat. But it was enough to make Rainbow Dash stop stock-still and her eyes go wide. Slowly, they refocused on the offending pegasus, who flushed furiously.

A long silence persisted, in which Fluttershy quailed, slowly letting her forehooves drop. She glanced towards the floor, sheepishly, and was a hair's breadth from turning away, before Rainbow Dash broke the silence.

"You made me think of Gilda," she croaked, her voice cracking, "Because you're...you're somepony that I care about."

Fluttershy's muzzle rose again, peering up through her pink mane. "Really?"

Rainbow Dash nodded, looking away after but a fleeting moment of eye contact, clearing her throat. She pretended to study ceiling tiles, the columns, anything but 'Shy's face. "Y-yeah." she stammered out, hesitantly.

Something thrilled in Fluttershy's throat. It was butterflies and mice and Angel doing backflips all at the same time. She stood up slowly, and leaned over to stroke Rainbow Dash's side. Dash flinched, but didn't shy away.

"I care about you too, Rainbow Dash." Fluttershy felt the words leaving her mouth, but they felt weird. Not because she didn't mean it, but it didn't feel like her saying them. This was somepony else.

She wasn't having this dream, was she?

Rainbow Dash cleared her throat and stood up suddenly, shrugging off her bathrobe, shifting her wings restlessly. "I, uh..."

Fluttershy knew what Rainbow was going to say. "You need to think," she finished for her, gently.

Rainbow Dash blinked. "Uh...y-yeah."

"I know," Fluttershy said, with a sidelong smile. You're not good with this mushy stuff, Rainbow Dash. "You think better when you fly."

Rainbow Dash's expression softened a little, and she even managed a tiny smile. "Yeah."

"I'll be waiting for you. Pinkie Promise."

Rainbow Dash's muzzle opened to say something, then closed again, her smile getting a little wider. Then she nodded. "Thanks," she said finally, her voice cracking again.

Then she was gone.

Fluttershy barely stirred when Aloe and Lotus stepped back in, looking concerned. "Iz everythink allright?" Lotus began, frowning. "Miz Rainbow Dash seemed upzet about zomething."

"Oh, it's allright, we were just having a bit of...um, girl talk. She'll be fine," Fluttershy covered with surprising ease, pawing at the tile with a hoof timidly. "Um, could we put this on my tab, um, I don't have my bits with me."

"Of course, miz Fluttershy. It iz no problem. Oh, let miz Rarity know that we have her new mineral zalts in for her bath, if you zee her!"

Fluttershy nodded, mustering up a cheerful smile for the twin earth ponies as she trotted out past them.

She heading first for her cottage. Angel needed food, so did the other animals. For all his faults, and his attitude, Angel could still be counted on to do the right thing when it really mattered. She needed him to take care of things for the night.

When Rainbow was ready, she would be there.