Unbecoming

by RepentInReprise

"Praise The Sun!"

“‘Praise the Sun!”’ some ponies say. The sun gives us light and life. It allows organisms to flourish and grow, like a plant or a pony. Without the Sun, we could not sustain any life in Equestria… Without the Sun, we could not see…

“But neither can I!” I shouted to myself, becoming angry and upset, almost wanting to knock those ponies upside their heads for saying such things!

“‘Neither can I’ what, Rainbow?” Twilight echoed what I had just said out loud… oops

“Oh! I uh… heh heh. Did I say that?” I rubbed my foreleg along the back of my neck…

After some silence, to which I assumed was Twilight’s answer of encouraging me to continue, I spoke:

“Well, I… I was just reflecting back on how ponies used to say the phrase ‘Praise the Sun!’ and it just happened to be an awfully convenient ironic statement… with, you know…”

I heard Twilight Sparkle chuckle.

“Oh Dash, yes, I can see why that would upset you… Although that phrase is very true… even despite situations like this happening… without the Sun, we wouldn’t be able to sustain life here in Equestria! We wouldn’t be able to grow, ponies and plants alike!”

“That is indeed true, my Faithful Student…”

I had just gasped, I was totally caught off guard! I hadn’t even heard Princess Celestia enter, or, had she been just standing there!? I… I had to show my respects! I… oh no… what does she think of me for being so stupid!? I scrambled to get off my bed, the only place so far that I had known as a point of stability.

“Rainbow Dash, it is okay… you do not have to bow…”

I heard the pain, sensitivity, and ache in her words from her heart… she… she didn’t seem upset or angry at me…If I still had eyesight… I could imagine she was probably looking at me with a broken heart…

“Princess Celestia!” Twilight Sparkle was as startled as much as she was pleasantly surprised. I heard her move towards Princess Celestia, then stop, and presumably took a bow, as I heard the shifting movements of two ponies; I heard more sounds as though of two ponies hugging.

“It is indeed good to see you here as well, Twilight. I am happy to see you have kept to your word of being vigil over Rainbow Dash…”

“Thank you, Princess. It has not been easy… in fact; this has been one of the most difficult tasks I have ever undertaken…” I heard Twilight’s resignation and sinking voice, though, through it all, I heard, knew, and felt her powerful resolve to stay by my side, through all things.

“Indeed Twilight, your resolve and endurance to fight your way through even the most trying of trials shows through. Emotional toil as much as physical toil, such as your trek with Tirek, is just as exhausting.”

“I…” I couldn’t hold it in anymore!

“I’m sorry, Princess! I’m sorry for being arrogant, for being too prideful! For… being so stupid! I… I didn’t mean to cause everypony so much pain! I… I don’t even know how many ponies I’ve hurt, ponies who may be worrying about me! I didn’t mean to think that I could actually touch the Sun…”

I broke. In tears, I lay, forlorn. There, upon the bed, I wailed, feeling myself exposed, the hurt I am feeling revealed in full.

“Rainbow Dash…” I heard Twilight Sparkle say in helplessness and in heartbreak.

At the same time, I had also felt a hoof touch my chest… but it wasn’t Twilight’s, no… I would’ve recognized her touch… it was Celestia’s… had she… had she also said my name as Twilight Sparkle did? I didn’t hear her… Oh Celestia forgive me…

“I don’t think any less of you, Rainbow Dash. Quite the contrary, I admire and even commend you for your willingness and desire to feel shameful, and to feel guilty, to feel responsible, for, in times of sheer arrogance, ponies have fallen from their reign of terror, and have not rebounded from their downfall…”

I felt her hoof touch my muzzle, as she stroked it gently, soothing me. It sweet, gentle, and caring, and forgiving… It’s as though she had seen me already becoming guilty as I thought I had not heard her earlier… Oh Celestia, thank you...

“Rainbow, you do not need to think that you owe any absolute deification or absolution towards me… I am not without my imperfections either, Rainbow.”

“R-really?” I felt both reassured, ameliorated, and yet helplessly incited…

“Yes… It was centuries ago; before Nightmare Moon; before Tirek; before Chrysalis; before the Crystal Empire: I had… fallen for a stallion from another world – it was our world, except it wasn’t –, and, as silly as it may sound, because of our relationship, I had, on my part, risked the entire realm of Equestria to destruction. At the time, I had known Starswirl the Bearded. He had become knowledgeable of my relationship and my attempts to see this Stallion. He had told me again and again to avoid seeing this Stallion, as it would risk our very worlds being shattered. But I didn’t listen. No, instead I kept seeing him; I loved him, and didn’t want to let him go. I had continued to see him, and, because of that, I had cost the Stallion his very way of being… He is no longer the stallion I knew… I turned him from friend to foe. Evil corrupted his heart as he sacrificed himself to use the Elements of Harmony to… to save his Kingdom, and mine…”

“W-wow…” I was awestruck. Utterly awestruck! While I was trying to be wise not to pry, despite my curiosity, I was stricken by now knowing our Princess, to whom we thought was above all other ponies, in nobility, and in character, actually wasn’t… she was prone to vulnerability, to being corrupted, just like… just like… I was…still am, and could be…

“T-thank you, Princess Celestia… for sharing that with me… that… does help to come to terms with what I’ve done.

“You’re welcome, Rainbow Dash.”

“Heh… you know, Princess, I’m reminded of my own experience, now that I think about it, being similar to yours. There’s more to how I became blind… in fact, I could’ve prevented it had I listened to somepony who cared for me dearly, who had watched over me, who had given me someone to model after, and who had trained me fiercely; I owe him what I know about flying today…

I had to take a second, almost choking on my own emotions as I sought to remember him...

“My Father.”

It only took a few seconds for me to remember everything about him, and about my foalhood, and it in those few, seconds, it felt like many years had passed by.

“My Father had been denied entrance to the Wonderbolts simply because at the time, they had all positions as taken. He had spent his entire life training to become the greatest flyer in all Equestria, greater than myself… There’s just something that I can’t do that he was able to do… something only he could pull off, probably because he had the character and personality to do it. I created the Sonic Rainboom… my Dad, though… he created something far greater, something spectacular, something you wouldn’t have believed unless you saw it before your very eyes; you’ve seen it yourself, Princess.”

I gave a bittersweet smile, thinking about both the awesomeness that my own Father was better than me, who gave me inspiration, and who gave me my wings; and the disappointment, of my Father within himself, of having his dreams crushed and not being able to join.

“He trained me rigorously, taking me out each day to train to fly. He had reigned supreme champion of winning multiple hoofball tournaments consecutively, placing himself as Legendary in the world of hoofball. He also won multiple Equestria Games tournaments on his own. He was really… he was a real Hero. If there was really anything you could have ever learned, it would have been from my Father. When it came time for me to begin learning how to fly, however, he was brutal, absolutely hellish. Each morning we would awake, he would take me out to the cloud fields to fly. On some days he would push me off the clouds, keeping it irregular just to keep the element of surprise, and, before I would fall too far down, he would catch me. He called it, ironically enough, 'Flying Without Wings':

“’A technique where, given dire circumstances, you will be your own greatest savior. When there is no-pony else to save you, your survival instincts will kick in, and you will fight for your life or die trying.’”

I had closed my eyes, or at least I thought I did, and I thought back to those times with my Father. While at the time I was absolutely terrified of what he was doing, and how harshly he was training me, I now understand why he put me through what he put me through… he truly wanted the best for me, and he cared for me in his own unique way. His own anger and disappointment in himself for not being able to join the Wonderbolts – although it wasn’t his fault – drove him to want to make me to become a Wonderbolt. I had already wanted to join the Wonderbolts, what that I had a Father who basically was a Wonderbolt without actually being a Wonderbolt! He was someone I looked up to during that time, and I still do today…

“For all those days I spent training with my Father, it was another day with another reason to hate him. But for all that hate, and for all those days, that only helped drive me to become great like my Father, an inner instinct within me wanting to become greater than he ever was. All those days he spent pushing me off the clouds, each day expecting “today is the day”, he had caught me, embraced me in his hold, and I could’ve swore I felt such a love and care from him that I couldn’t feel from him otherwise. I cherished those moments; for all those times he spent pushing me off the clouds, and I hated him for it, I had loved him too for catching me from falling.”

“You know, Twilight, that’s why I really appreciate, cherish, and love how you hold me… you really know me, Twilight; each time you hold me in your hooves I feel like you are catching me from falling… from falling in this abyss that only I can see.”

There were tears beginning to surface, but I held them back. I fought against them! I wouldn’t let another part of me fall again…

“I miss him. I really do. But there was one day… one day where he pushed me off the clouds, and didn’t catch me from falling… I was horrified. I was kicking my legs, screaming, calling out for my Father to catch me. But no-pony came. No, I was now alone in the skies. He didn’t catch me.”

I shut my eyes for a moment – as if that would really make a difference – and remembered myself falling, thinking that “’This is it! He really wasn’t going to save me this time…’”

“I caught myself. I had found myself flapping my wings vigorously, where I was gaining height quickly, and I had flown back up to my Father. I had looked at my Father, and I swore he had a look of genuine happiness upon his face, filled with pride and glory. ‘That’s it, my dear Rainbow Dash… Today is the day you flew.’”

I sighed, taking a breath, basking in silence for a second… you know, sometimes, for some inexplicable reason, even in darkness and even though I hate being in silence being in this total blackness, I instead welcomed silence.

“And this is where I didn’t listen to my Father. He looked at me and told me, while I was flapping my wings, with a look upon my face of eagerness batted against his stern look, ‘But Dashie, you listen here, and you listen well: ‘Fly neither too high nor too low, only soar with the winds, for the winds may carry you.’

Sigh.

“It sounds to me, Rainbow Dash, that what he said was important to you, for you to remember his advice to this day.” Celestia said.

“Yeah, I do. He is also important to me too. He is who made me who I am today; I of course helped myself along, but he did most of the molding. Huh. I guess in a sense, I am him, but then… that would mean I wouldn’t have followed my own advice…”

I facehoofed.

“Oh, why does irony have to be everywhere!?”

I heard both Twilight and Celestia laughed… I just had to laugh with them.

Passing from the moment of laughable irony, there was a question that gnawing at me more and more as I was here with Princess Celestia during the passage of time.

“Celestia… Why can’t you restore my vision?”

I heard Celestia give a sigh, seemingly full of pain and remorse:

“While Twilight, Luna, Cadence, and I are indeed powerful, and while Luna and I can manipulate such forces of nature as the Sun and the Moon, we can only manipulate them because they exist independently from each other, as mediums of manipulation. Nor can we destroy that very origin of manipulation; neither can we create another source of manipulation, as it will cause disruption between ‘what’ governs ‘why’. In the most simplistic sense: that source of manipulation which can be manipulated to manipulate other things is possible by means of the source of manipulation being a medium.”

I nodded softly, and perked my ears, intent to give her indication that I was listening. You know, all this time with Twilight wasn’t all that bad; I have gotten to learn much more on an educational learning level. I had actually understood what Princess Celestia was saying, without having to resort to a dictionary or Thesaurus when there was a word I didn’t understand…

Twilight conveniently always had one or the other on her!

“We cannot manipulate the things that exist by those that do not exist. Your eyes remain in existence, but your eyesight, does not…” Celestia continued.

So… that was it, then. The explanation as to why even Celestia and Luna couldn’t restore my vision… -- or Snowdrop’s for that matter – but… but did that imply that they could manipulate a ponies’ vision if their vision was still extant?

Damnit Twilight… your egghead talk and thinking has really gotten to me… no doubt helpful, though… thank you, Twilight… I love you… I’m thankful for more things from you than you know – no wait, of course you know!

“I see what you are thinking, Rainbow Dash. The answer is: no; for in, in the converse instance that a pony has both their eyes and their vision, we cannot manipulate them to become blind for the lack of vision does not exist. Therefore, if you had received less extreme damage to your eyes, that which is permanent, we may very well have improved your vision, but not fully restored it, as the confines of our powers go within the confines of spectrums.”

I sighed again, having shed enough tears and incited enough anger; it was time to be strong. I’ve shown my weakness. Now it’s time to take that weakness to become strong again. In this moment, I felt thankful, and even relieved, for optimism, while it may beneficial to ponies to rise above against all aggravations, is destructive when the supposed solution is seemingly unending, when lies belie the truth.

“T-thank you, Celestia…” I spoke under my breath.

“Of course, Rainbow Dash.” Celestia replied.

“Huh… you know, Twilight, Celestia, speaking of how I was too blinded to see my own arrogance – and because of that I couldn’t see the sun – the sun made me see my arrogance… I was already blinded in how I saw myself, thinking that I was above all, even above you, Princess, somehow. The sun may have taken my sight, but it has given me vision; I could now see what I couldn’t see before: that I was blind already.”

“How very insightful of you, Rainbow Dash.” I heard Celestia say to me thoughtfully, and sounding pleased.

I chuckled. “Well, I have Twilight Egghead Sparkle (TES) to thank for knowing what I know now, literary-wise… which means I’ve been learning from you too, Princess… second-hoof learning, anyway.”

I chuckled again, thinking about the ironic comment I had said before this whole conversation, pretty much starting alight the conversation that I now saw the phrase in a new light, which I spoke softly, in a sense at Princess Celestia, to thank her for her Sun, and what it has given me…

“Praise the Sun…”