You've (not) got to move on
Between courage and madness
“Sometimes, you’ve got to dare and try. And if you fail, just move on to something else.”
There is wisdom in those words. At least Rainbow Dash thought so. It was kind of one of her principles. It didn’t apply to every situation though, as she preferred the “try again and harder” way for most of the tasks she was putting any effort into.
But what she was about to do was asking for some different rules. All she could do was asking and if it blew, then there was nothing she could do about it.
“Sometimes, you’ve got to dare and try. And if you fail, just move on to something else.”
She was repeating the sentence in her head. Over and over again, to give her some courage. It would be an error to think Rainbow Dash was a fearless mare. In fact, she was very easily afraid, but had that potential to always gather enough courage to face whatever fear she was feeling. The fright to be alone, the fright of height, you name it.
An easily afraid filly who had grown up to be the bravest mare alive.
“Sometimes, you’ve got to dare and try. And if you fail, just move on to something else.”
She didn’t want to do it. Because the consequences were great for her. She wouldn’t “hurt” anypony, but she was afraid of rejection and afraid to lose a friend. However, she also couldn’t accept to just keep on living like there was nothing, like she wasn’t feeling anything at all.
Because it wouldn’t have been being loyal to her friend.
Because the one she had to confess to wouldn’t tolerate her to lie, even if it was just by not saying anything.
And above everything else she didn’t want to disappoint her. Being honest? Working hard? Always help the ponies in need? Rainbow Dash had made those her rules too, or at least had tried to as it was sometimes pretty hard for her, given how her natural behavior was.
“Sometimes you’ve got to dare and try…”
She repeated once again. Seriously? She would have been pretty happy with a status quo. She knew she had almost no chance to succeed. In a way, she already knew the answer to her question. So why not just enjoy the situation as long as she could while it lasted? This was really tempting, but again, would have been spiting on the value of the one she had chosen, or the one who had been chosen for her, depending on the way one would look at it.
And there was that tiny chance to hear a “I love you too”. And just the idea of those words was making the cyan pegasus’s world sunnier and colorful by themselves.
One can dream.
“Sometimes you’ve got to…”
“What are you mumbling about?” asked Applejack’s voice.
Rainbow Dash blushed. She hadn’t noticed she had arrived. But she couldn’t let her cool go off just like that and she answered:
“Nothing, I was, hum… I was thinking of some awesome moves I’m preparing. ‘Cause that’s what I do!”
Well, there went the “don’t tell lies” principle. Those new rules were really hard to follow.
“You wanted to see me and tell me something?” asked Applejack, with the tone of a friend willing to listen and, if necessary, help.
“Yes.” answered Rainbow Dash. “I… how is it going on the farm? Everypony doing well?”
Rainbow Dash was fighting on the inside. She had taken her decision, she wanted to come clean. She just had to find the right way. Or just go for it…
“You made me come here to talk about Sweetappleacres?” asked Applejack, surprised, “You could have just directly come there. Or is there something about it I should know?”
But Rainbow Dash corrected herself and confessed she hadn’t asked her to come there to speak about the farm. It was a way more serious matter, something that she had to tell, because she was her friend and didn’t want to keep any secret from her and, maybe, just maybe, share something new.
The pegasus took upon herself to tell the whole thing clearly, straight to the point, but with all the detailed emotions and all the sincerity of her feelings. The words hurt as she said them, but also felt like a relief.
And she told the whole story, everything she had to say, to the very last words, those words she would have liked to hear in return, but already knew, at this point, judging by Applejack’s surprised, confused and embarrassed face that she wouldn’t get.
She said them anyway, because she was Rainbow Dash, and once she had decided something, she wouldn’t back down, even if it was already lost.
She listened to the response, but didn’t hear it all. She could only pick and remember one or two things, like “I’m sorry” and “I really like you, but…” or “I’ve never known”. It hurt. Rejection in such circumstances always does. And even if the words are kind, and Applejack tried her best to be as kind and understanding as possible, they are nothing more than words meant to convey only one simple message:
“No”.
Rainbow Dash didn’t let her emotions take control. She smiled.
“I’m sorry too, I didn’t want to bother you with that. I know it’s weird, it’s weird for me too, I just had to come clean, and I wanted you to know.”
She wanted to add “I wanted to be honest”, but those words would have been too painful to say and she wasn’t sure she would have been able to keep her smiling mask on.
An awkward silence followed, as neither of the two mares knew exactly what would have been best to do. And as Rainbow Dash didn’t want Applejack to feel sorry for her, and actually also wanted to be alone for a moment, she said:
“Well, now you know, that’s all what counts. We don’t need to speak about it again. Situation clarified everything’s alright. I’ll let you go back to whatever you’ve got to do.”
“You sure you’re feeling okay?” asked Applejack, relieved that her friend had broken the silence, but still concerned.
“Yeah, it’s going to be alright. After all, I still am the one and only Rainbow Dash, you know me, I’m tough.”
And she took off after those words, did a little looping to prove her friend everything was back to normal, and flew away.
Choose the right path
Rainbow Dash quickly landed on the ground. Not on a cloud, as she wanted to feel some earth under her hooves. Just to remind herself. Of what? She didn’t want to think about it.
“Okay, it failed, so you’ve just got to move on to something else.” the pegasus told herself.
She began to think of everything she had to do, in order to ignore what had just happened and eventually have to face her emotions. That wasn’t “her style” to take time to feel bad or even, Celestia forbid it, cry. She had to be brave, to always fly higher and faster, whatever the wind would be.
That was the Rainbow Dash’s way, and also her biggest mistake and downfall.
But for now, she thought she should go and see Scootaloo. The little filly would probably finish school pretty soon and was always willing to go and fly for a moment with her “big sister”. Rainbow Dash had nothing else planned for the afternoon, so that sounded like a good idea.
Suddenly, a cloud covered the sun and put the pegasus in its shadow.
“Oh no you don’t!” said, laughingly, Rainbow Dash.
And she took off in a dash, flew to the cloud and kicked it hard enough to make it disappear out of the sky.
“There: all clear.” she said, very satisfied.
She flew back to the ground and landed while thinking that it might also be a good idea to go with tank to see Fluttershy and spend some time together. The tortoise clearly wouldn’t be against seeing the shy pony again. And it would bring back some memories.
Another shadow indicated to Rainbow Dash that another cloud had taken the place of the first one. She looked above and saw several white clouds in the sky, almost taunting her.
“Oh, so you want to play it like that…” said to herself, smiling, the pegasus.
She took off once again, enjoying the wind and the speed, performed some of her moves around the clouds before gathering them all into one big cloud that she burst into, making it disappear.
“There, all done.” she congratulated herself.
Back on the ground, Rainbow dash asked herself what else she could do to forget about Applejack and her feeling for her.
She stopped right there. She wasn’t trying to forget anything. She had already moved on, it was ancient history already. She couldn’t let some feelings control her. She wouldn’t accept to live in the past: she was planning the future.
Maybe go see Twilight and fly together? Or just try to paint. She had always wondered about painting. She had always created rainbows in the sky, but she would have liked to paint one. Just simply paint one. Just silently paint a rainbow.
Another shadow covered her. She sighed.
“Again?” she thought.
As she raised her look to the sky, she saw that almost all the blue had disappeared behind a curtain of white clouds. And it was beginning to feel strange that so many clouds would appear so suddenly. Still, they were only clouds. Nothing the mare couldn’t handle.
After all, it was her job to keep the sky clear, and she had decided to become a hard working pony. Because that’s what she wanted to become, and for no other reason whatsoever.
She did think of letting the clouds in the sky and just go do what she had thought to do. But she just couldn’t go see Scootaloo or Fluttershy or even Twilight like that. There was no sun to make it beautiful.
All those clouds in her sky were taking the colors of the world away. It just wasn’t the same without the sun. The flowers looked just dull, the trees looked lifeless and the whole scenery, well, looked almost, and it was hard to admit, but dead.
That wasn’t the world Rainbow Dash wanted to live into. She wanted her world to be full of colorful flowers spreading joy and trees covered with green leafs and red or whatever color fruits. She wanted to live in a world full of happiness and where everything would just tell her how awesome it was to be alive and how great it was to be her.
And for that, she needed the sun. So she took off again and, this time, kicked each and every cloud out of the sky very methodically to make sure no shadow would be bothering her when she would land back on the ground.
It took time, several hours, as each time she took care of one cloud, two others seemed to take its place, but in the end she could enjoy a bright clear sky.
“Hey, Rainbow dash!” shouted the voice of Pinkie Pie.
The pegasus saw her pink friend below and flew right to her to see what she wanted.
“Hi Pinkie Pie. How are you doing?”
“Oh I’m doing great.” answered the pink pony. “I just come from Sweetappleacres, I wanted to see them raise a new barn for Carrot Top, but Applejack didn’t seem to be fine at all. I tried to talk with her, but she wouldn’t answer me. I think something is bothering her.”
“Oh, right…” replied Rainbow Dash, not really wanting to think about Applejack at the moment, as it was still hurting a lot.
“But how are you doing yourself?” asked Pinkie Pie, “I’ve seen you fly up there kicking in the air like you were doing some sort of karate moves. Is that part of your new awesome incredible figures that you’re training?”
“I was just clearing the sky.” answered Rainbow Dash. “Took me long enough, but I did it, see, no clouds anymore.”
But as she had just said that, a drop of rain, followed by several others, just fell on her face and she saw the whole sky covered with heavy grey cloud as a gentle wind had woken up.
“Oh come on!” shouted the pegasus, “That ain’t fair.”
“What isn’t fair?” asked Pinkie Pie.
“Don’t you see?” replied Rainbow Dash, “Now I’ve got to go up there and clear the sky once again. And it’s raining just to make it better…”
But Pinkie Pie couldn’t see any cloud and certainly no rain either.
“You’re sure you’re feeling alright?” she asked the pegasus.
“Of course I am.” answered Rainbow Dash, “At least I was until now. Excuse me, but I’ve got to make those clouds learn who they are dealing with.”
The pegasus took off and left Pinkie Pie alone, wondering if it was all a big prank or if something more serious was to be concerned about.
Up in the air, Rainbow Dash kicked clouds like crazy. She wanted her sun, she wanted her happy world and nothing would stand between her and her wish. She was soaking wet due to the rain, but didn’t care about it the least bit. In fact, she began to enjoy beating up the clouds. It was allowing her to express all of her frustration, all of her anger without anypony to judge her. If the clouds had had a consciousness, they would have feared Rainbow Dash’s wrath, as it was quite the sight.
Never before had she given so much energy into cloud busting. And when she figured out it would take her too much time with her current technique, she went high in the sky, took a brief break before suddenly plunging into the clouds creating a whirlwind behind her that took all of the clouds with her. Then, she headed for a mountain and let them collapse against it. Finally, she went for the remaining clouds and kicked them with all her strength.
Tired but satisfied, she looked around as there were still some clouds hanging here and there, but few enough that she could consider her job done.
“I know a mare that would be proud of me if she could have seen me do that.” thought Rainbow Dash.
But she immediately blamed herself for such a thought. It was history. She wasn’t trying to impress anypony, she was only doing what she had to do. For herself and nopony else.
She landed on the ground and lay down to catch her breath again. It had been some hard work. No, not hard work, those weren’t the good terms. It had been some awesome work: that was more like it. In all honesty, she had been quite awesome up there.
Rainbow Dash sighed. Moving on was really, really hard.
Still, at least, she could enjoy the warmth of the sun and her colorful world full of joy and life.
She looked around and said to herself that it was really a beautiful world. Only the sound wasn’t right. Because she heard something that she shouldn’t be able to hear due to her previous work.
Somewhere in the sky, she heard the thunder.
She got afraid to look up, but found the courage to do so and saw the sky covered with grey to black clouds. A strong wind was pushing them and they began to pour water like a waterfall. There was very little natural light left, but lightning appearing almost every five seconds, making the whole look very frightening.
Rainbow Dash hesitated.
Those weren’t just simple clouds: it was a real storm. Going up there could prove to be dangerous. And for a moment, she really considered just standing down and give up. Then, she remembered who she was or, more precisely, who she had decided she would be. There was no way she wouldn’t fight, whatever the challenge would be.
She stretched her wings under the violent rain, took the final decision to go in and took off.
Immediately, the wind knocked her over, but she came back right after and accustomed her to the flying conditions. She saw one black cloud in front of her, flew straight to it and pierced through, blowing it up.
One was done, many others were left to be taken care of. So her long fight began.
Angels fall first
Oh what a fight it was. Rainbow Dash was fiercely attacking every cloud she could see, ignoring the rain, ignoring the thunder and lightning, not even noticing how many times she was thrown back by a more violent gust of wind. Her whole attention was focused on winning her sun back and nothing else.
She would be able to enjoy Scootaloo’s company and that would take place in a sunny world.
She would be able to go see Fluttershy in Tank’s company, and that would take place in a sunny world.
She would be able to be happy and for that she needed her sunny world.
One cloud crashed into her, leading her to fall down, but she quickly regained control of her flight and came back up. She collapsed in another cloud and was once again thrown away, but still wouldn’t give up.
There were clouds everywhere and she almost couldn’t tell where the ground was anymore, until she would find herself falling after some crash. And even then, the violence of the wind was making it incredibly difficult to find out.
It had become pure madness. She created a tornado to try to suck up the clouds, but the storm only took it as its own and created several others, one of which caught Rainbow Dash off guard and almost knocked her out.
And still, the pegasus wouldn’t give up. She was in pain, her whole body was asking her to stand down and find some shelter, but she wouldn’t listen. It was a fight she couldn’t allow herself to lose. She wasn’t even taking care of the clouds anymore, but only trying to survive in the middle of the storm. She clenched her teeth and kept on flying.
Another gust of wind threw her further back than all the others before and she had to use all of her strength to come back.
But the pain was becoming too big for her to handle. She looked around and saw only a nightmare of a sky. There was no way she could win, no way she was going to find her sun again and no way she was going to stay up much longer.
The fear took control for a moment and she implored for help with one name:
“Applejack”.
But her friend wasn’t there to help her. She was alone, lost in the storm with no hope whatsoever. So, as she was the only one who could judge her and in a moment of weakness, too tired to fight any longer, she let go and began to fall down, controlling only her speed and making sure she wouldn’t crash.
And even if she did hurt the ground pretty violently, her effort had paid off as she was still in one piece.
As she was trying to catch her breath once again, she saw a snowflake in front of her, descending from the sky, and many, many other following it. It had stopped raining, but the whole ground was already covered in snow and Rainbow Dash herself found out that she was slowly being buried under the white and peaceful matter.
She closed her eyes for a moment. Because of the pain, water poured from her eyes, but she didn’t allow herself to cry. Even if she couldn’t stop the water to pour, she had still a will strong enough to not abandon herself to any form of despair, at least not in such a pathetic way.
She was Rainbow Dash, she couldn’t allow herself to cry.
But when she tried to stand up once again and fly back in the sky to fight the storm, she discovered that her wings weren’t responding. In fact, her whole body wasn’t responding to her will, or only very slowly and painfully.
She had been fighting so long and so hard that she had exhausted all of her strength and wasn’t able to do anything anymore, but prevent herself to cry.
“Applejack…” she implored once again, in vain, or so she thought.
“I’m here.” answered the voice of the orange earth pony.
Surprised, startled even, Rainbow Dash opened her eyes and saw the mare in front of her, looking at her with that gentle and concerned face the pegasus had learned to like so much.
“What has happened to you?” asked Applejack, “You look awful.”
Rainbow Dash smiled. She wasn’t sure why, maybe only because she was happy to see Applejack and even more that the mare was taking care of her.
“I’ve only been fooling around a little too much.” she answered.
“You know, you should really stop lying, it doesn’t suits you.” replied Applejack.
A silence ensued. Applejack wanted to help, but didn’t understand what was going on and what she could do. Rainbow Dash knew what she wanted her friend to say and do, but knew she couldn’t ask her that.
“I’m sorry.” said the pegasus.
“For what?” replied Applejack, surprised.
“I’ve messed up things, you didn’t need me to do that. And now, look at me, I can’t even move on to something else without making myself look pathetic. So much for the great and awesome Rainbow Dash…” answered the pegasus.
“I’m sorry too. I wish I could give you another answer. I would really want it to be possible you know.” said Applejack.
“You’ve always been too sensitive, that’s your problem.” told her, laughingly, Rainbow Dash.
“Look who is talking!” replied Applejack, smiling back.
“Yeah, you’re right…”
And Rainbow Dash decided that it was way more than right. She couldn’t just lie down right there, in the middle of the snow, waiting for some miracle that wouldn’t come. She knew she had to fight to build her future, or it would never come.
“Applejack?” she suddenly said, with strength in her voice.
“Yes?” replied the other mare.
“Don’t worry about me, I’m going to move on, whatever the cost. Just watch me fly.”
And Rainbow Dash stood up, chasing the snow away. She smiled one last time to her friend and took off faster than ever before, straight into the sky and the whole barrier of clouds that was covering it.
She wasn’t feeling any pain anymore. In fact, she wasn’t feeling anything anymore, but her body flooded by a massive burst of energy. She felt like having more power at her disposition than at any moment in her whole life. At that very instant, she was feeling powerful enough to bend destiny itself to her will.
Little did she know she was using the last reserve of energy the nature had given her and everypony else, for the emergencies. Just those last few seconds of moving capabilities to give you a chance to accomplish what wouldn’t be possible otherwise and potentially save yourself from some danger.
But Rainbow Dash wasn’t fleeing any danger, she was flying straight to it and the storm was once again gathering all of its strength to try and block the pegasus’s path.
The mare accelerated and stopped breathing for one second, as she pierced through the barrier of clouds and emerged on the other side, high in the blue and clear sky, bathed by the beautiful sun.
The pegasus opened her wings to catch all of the warm radiance of the celestial body and smiled.
At last she had won her sun.
She didn’t notice her losing control of her body. She didn’t notice her falling down to the ground like an inanimate corpse. Totally exhausted, the body had ceased to function and the mind, exhausted just as much, decided to follow the same path, taking only the memory of the glorious sun with it.
The hope that never dies
Rainbow Dash woke up. Well, not quite, as she wasn’t able to figure out where she was or what was going on. She couldn’t open her eyes, or move her body. She couldn’t even feel her body, as if she was just trapped inside a pitch black room.
But she could hear something, not very clearly, but still hear it. Those were two stallion’s voices in the distance, speaking, she was sure of it, about her.
“Is she going to be okay doctor?”
“She is in a coma. To be honest, it’s a miracle she is still alive. She owes it to you, you know.”
“I did what every pegasus would have down when I saw her fall. But what happened to her?”
“I don’t know.”
“Will you be able to heal her?”
“Only time will tell. But we will do our best… By the way, it would help if you could come and spend some time with her. We think the patient in coma can sometimes hear their surroundings.”
“I’m sorry doctor, but I can’t, I’ve got way too much work. I guess it will be up to her friends to take care of her. Still, I hope she gets better, I know her from Cloudsdale, we need some mares like her.”
Rainbow Dash didn’t need to hear more, and in fact, was already tired after having been hearing so long. She didn’t understand it all, because she was still too exhausted and not ready to clearly process information, but one thing was sure for her.
There was no reason getting worried, she wasn’t ready to give up any time soon.
And she was going to wake up, live her life and be happy.
Everything was going to be fine.
THE END
Author's Note
The source of the picture is the web page where I took it, but the artist who drew it is "http://bamboodog.deviantart.com/".
I just didn't find the picture in his account, so I couldn't give the proper source.
