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// Chapter 1: An Unscheduled Overcast 
// Story: That Sunlit Glow 
// by Tiger|Pony 
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The Sun rose, just like always.

But on the edge of the Everfree Forest, on the low cotton-wool cumulus upon which fitfully slept a lean, young pegasus pony, sunrise had little effect. The sky above was an iron-grey overcast, and the air was gusting cold enough to make her shiver in her sleep. A low autumnal mist clung to the ground, disguising the countryside, and lending all the world the appearance of the inside of a cloud. Only the forbidding, tall trees of the Everfree stood out against a dim and colourless horizon.

Waking with a start, Rainbow Dash yawned and stretched and flapped her wings to clean the cloud-stuff from them, but even that simple motion set her head pounding again. Gritting her teeth to concentrate better, she shook the stray strands of her unwashed mane from her eyes and looked out over the edge of her cloud. She recognised nothing below. The thought didn't overly bother her, although she was dimly aware that it should have.

Today wasn't meant to be overcast, she thought slowly. Today was meant to be sunny with occasional cloud. Guess I'd better fix it.

She set off at a slow glide from the low-hanging cloud down towards the mist. Once she hit the ground, she could work out where she was, and then she'd know what direction to head in. But Rainbow Dash felt like the world looked, monochrome and slow-moving, and she drifted purposelessly over featureless mist, her mind moving faster than her wings. She was used to waking up in a bad mood, especially lately.

"What?!" she yelled at Scootaloo, who had found her with a crash helmet in her little mouth and another on her head, trying to get her to come rollerblading with her and her friends. The little filly dropped the helmet and bit her lip, and before Dash could compose herself to reply, she ran off as fast as her little legs would carry her. Her friends simply stared in wide-eyed shock for a second, before running away as if a storm were chasing them.

She hadn't cared as she'd sent Scootaloo packing, and she found it hard now to feel anything about the incident. What she felt was guilt, but she had to force herself to feel that. Nothing made it through the grey, and that felt right, because the grey was easy...

"Fine, then - I don't care about your stupid little parade anyway! I'm doing my best here, and if you're gonna be ungrateful, I'll leave you to your rainstorm!"

That one cut into her. Of course she hadn't been doing her best. She could clear the sky in ten seconds flat if she wanted to; she just hadn't wanted to. She had bigger things on her mind, better things to care about. She had brooding to do, and a secret to keep. And anyway, if these prancing fashionista ponies Rarity was so desperate to impress were going to hold a rainstorm against the good name of a fashion designer, why the hay did she want them for friends in the first place?

The memory of anger leant her energy, pushed her higher, towards the thick cloud-bank above her, but-

"Why's it always gotta be me who does your lying for you?"

Rainbow Dash's heart broke as the night before came flooding back to her. Her wings flopped as despair over-rode even instinct, and she was not a pegasus pony, but a hollow hide floating somewhere between one cloud and another. The wind on her face and her feathers grew stronger and stronger for the few seconds it took her to compose herself, and when she opened her eyes again the black-granite reality of Clydesley Crag was looming in her near future. Wrenching her wings out as wide as they would go, she caught enough of the updraft to land her atop the tall granite tor, but she landed hard, and rolled to a stop on her side.

She used to sit up here when she wanted to think. On a good day she could see to the edge of the Everfree Forest from up here: the forest, and the sweet little cottage on its edge, and the sweet little pegasus who lived there; a soft smile, and a slow nuzzle, and a silent surrender to that heart-felt devotion she'd first caught sight of at the Best Young Fliers' Competition.

"You're awesome in ways I... can't even say."

She'd sat here and watched the day the northern geese flew by the wrong way, their map lost in the last lake they'd landed in. She'd laughed at them heading north towards the winter, but she'd still flown down to tell Fluttershy, who had intercepted them. With a powerful will to do the right thing, she'd drawn them a new map and led them off to the south. She was so kind... to everypony else.

"You've got the warmest heart of any pony I've ever met."

She'd sat here and watched the sun rise any time she couldn't sleep, whether she was nervous about a race or resting up the wing she'd broken six months before. It was Fluttershy who made her promise to rest every few days, and of course she knew best. Of course.

"And it's all for me."

She'd sat here, recently, and watched with a dull ache as the pegasus she was supposed to love flitted to and fro. Everything that was adorable about her had taken on an air of spiteful resistance, as if the songs she sang to the animals were just the songs she didn't sing to her, as if the spring in her step when she wasn't around was a celebration of her solitude. Dash had always put the effort in to make sure the sky was clear around the cottage, so she could watch and think and work out what she felt from a distance. If she watched from far away, she didn't have to think so close up, where she might say something she regretted.

"So why are you ashamed of me? Me, of all ponies?"

Last night, she'd said a lot of things she might, one day, regret, someday when the sun was shining and she could feel anything at all.

But today was an unscheduled overcast, and Ponyville's best weatherpony was shirking her duties. She could barely see the Forest even from her high vantage, and the cottage and its soft-hearted owner were lost in the gloom. That was fine by her. Let the rain fall, then. Let the horizon close in and her wings cramp up with the cold. All the kindness was gone from the world, and Rainbow Dash was cold enough already.