Voices in hushed conversation drifted across the fuzzy edge between sleep and wakefulness, spilling into Dash’s dreams.
She was eighteen, and she had told her mother and father about her plans to move to Ponyville. It hadn’t gone down well. Talk had turned to argument, which had turned to tears, and now she was seething quietly in her room listening to the muffled conversation between her parents. Snippets of the discussion drifted up through the floorclouds: ‘...think she’s making a big mistake...’; ‘...allowed to make her own decisions...’; ‘...barely even look after herself...’. They had seen right through her excuses — her reason for leaving, or at least some part of it, was to find a low-pressure job away from the bustle of the city, a place and the free time to practice in peace and seclusion. The other part, which she hadn’t let on about, was that anchor of loyalty attached to her oldest, dearest friend who had moved to Ponyville the year before.
Eventually all fell quiet, then her parents appeared at her bedroom door. There was sadness in their bearing, but smiles of love and understanding on their faces. It struck her then how old they suddenly both seemed, her father with the first few grey hairs in his mane, her mother’s eyes bracketed by the beginnings of crow’s feet. She’d held those faces in her mind as changeless, but time bore everyone along and gently brought your perception with it, and when you stopped to look at how far it had carried you the shock could knock you for a loop.
And before she knew it she was leaving home amid hugs and kisses and promises to visit every month. Her father loaded the last of her bags into the waiting carriage and gave her a bracing hug. Her mother nuzzled tenderly at her neck, and Dash did the same in return, head pressed against that comforting warmth for the longest time. A new and exhilarating chapter of her life was beginning, but there was time enough to draw out the final lines of the old.
“Take care, my dear Rainbow Dash.”
“I will. I love you, mom.”
“Ah, you’re awake,” came a curt voice.
Dash’s eyes flickered open. “Mommy?” she said groggily.
It was still dark, the dormitory lit by a dim grey light that made the two figures in the room visible only as silhouettes. One was unmistakably Fluttershy, the other, Dash realised with a horrible chill, was Spitfire. The captain stepped forward, the slanted beam of moonlight cast through the window illuminating a face made drowsy and frazzled-looking by being woken far too early.
“Meet me outside in two minutes,” she said.
Dash’s head felt like it had been hollowed out. It was all over — Spitfire knew everything.
As the captain walked past her bed and out of the door, Dash felt the heat of a furious blush prickling on her cheeks. The shame at being found out and the thought of returning home in dishonour was given a final topping of embarrassment at the realisation she had just called her lifelong hero ‘Mommy’.
“Fluttershy,” she hissed, “why did you bring Spitfire here?”
“I couldn’t let you throw away your future over one little mistake," replied Fluttershy. “I had to help you somehow.”
“By telling her how badly I messed up? Of all the stupid—”
Fluttershy looked jittery and fragile, like she had been up all night, and she bristled at Dash’s outburst.
“It was Spitfire who brought me here, right after training yesterday,” she said hotly. “She didn’t know I was staying in Canterlot until Soarin mentioned I tried to come by on the day of the accident. You didn’t ask her if I could visit, like you promised you would.”
Dash was taken aback; it took a particularly hurtful kind of insult to make Fluttershy raise her voice. “I’ve just been—”
“She’s really worried about you,” Fluttershy continued, her voice softer now. “She came to me because you were acting so uptight. She thought I might be able to help you relax a little, maybe even open up about what was bothering you.” She grimaced at the memory of leading an hysterical and incoherent Rainbow Dash back to the dormitory earlier. “I don’t think this was what she had in mind.”
“How much did you tell her?” said Dash peevishly. “She didn’t have to hear about any of this! Oh, she’s gonna kick me off the team for sure...”
“Rainbow Dash, you know me better than that. And I think you know Spitfire better than that too. Now go on, she’s waiting for you.”
Dash slunk out of the dormitory, already playing out the inevitable humiliation in her head and certain that it would make all those unpleasant memories that had rushed back so clearly the previous evening (and which even now were sinking back into a comfortable haze) pale in comparison.
Outside Spitfire stood at the open edge of the aerodrome facing out over the plains below, stretching and flexing her wings as if warming up. Dash trotted hesitantly over. As she approached, she heard Spitfire draw a deep breath through her nose, hold it, and let it out in a brisk sigh.
“Lovely morning for a pre-dawn fight, isn’t it?” she said. She took off and circled above Dash’s head. It was a little odd to see her flying without her usual suit and goggles. “Well, are you going to join me or not?”
Perplexed, Dash flapped up alongside her and together they began to ascend.
The morning air was cool and still, the soft beating of their wings the only sounds. A full moon nestled on the western horizon, bathing the land in the last of its pallid light; in the east the warm colours of the gathering dawn were already soaking up into the deep blue sky. Below, the silvery shadows cast across the aerodrome threw its roughness into sharp relief, making visible the overgrown remnants of its former life: the paths and platforms which once thronged with airships and travellers, now just faint tracks under a flower-pocked meadow, scarred yet beautiful.
Faintly unnerved that Spitfire hadn’t said a word since they took off, Dash glanced over at her, expecting to see her barely holding back her anger and disappointment. Instead the captain was wearing a placid half-smile, gazing into the middle distance, breathing slowly and deeply. It was the same beatific expression Dash herself wore at her most carefree, when all that mattered was flight: just her alone with the sky.
At last, Spitfire spoke: “I guess you met Skydancer, then.”
“Y— What? How did you know?” said Dash.
Spitfire pursed her lips. “Not my finest hour, that one,” she said. “She was my pick at last year’s tryouts. Very skilled young pegasus, very graceful. At least she was until she lost herself to those damn cloudberries.”
Dash blushed. “Honestly, I didn’t know—”
“I know,” said Spitfire. “She was a lot like you, Dash; loving family, happy childhood, but — how do I put this delicately? — a little insecure. She wanted to cling onto those things, and I didn’t realise how badly until it was too late. Never even got to perform a show.” She shook her head.
“I’m not like her!” said Dash. “I wasn’t clinging to—” She stopped. She had been doing the same thing. Not just recently, but for a long time. Wasn’t that why she still lived in a cloud house high above Ponyville, just to be that little bit closer to home? Wasn’t that why she was reluctant to leave even that behind?
“I understand, Dash. It’s tempting to back down from a challenge and retreat into a comfortable life. To pursue your dreams you have to take risks, and there’s no guarantee you won’t get hurt. I know that all too well.”
She rolled over so she was flying upside-down. Across her belly ran a broad patch of coat where the grain of the hair was uneven and the colour paler, a legacy of the burns she suffered in her accident.
“Do you know what the hardest part of my recovery was?” she continued. “It wasn’t getting over the injuries, or finding the confidence to fly again. It was learning not to blame myself. I had no illusions about the accident — I knew it was my mistake that caused it — but you can dwell forever on what you could have done differently and it won’t change a thing. It comes down to a choice — you can let it break you...”
“...or you can let it make you bolder,” Dash finished. It was what Spitfire had told her after her first failed tryout. She had been too upset at the time to pay much attention, but it had sunk in nonetheless.
“Exactly,” said Spitfire, rolling upright again. “It’s hard to get past your own failures, the hardest thing in the world sometimes. Skydancer came as a real shock, I can tell you. I thought she was a safe pick — she was disciplined as well as skillful — but when I found her...” A hoarseness had crept into her voice, and she stifled a shudder. “When I found her in the dressing room one night after rehearsals, strung out on cloudberries, laughing so hard she could barely even breathe, well, I’d never felt so guilty in all my life. It’s one thing to come to terms with a mistake that harms no-one but yourself, but when you think you’ve allowed someone else to come to harm...”
Spitfire closed her eyes for a moment, and that peaceful expression returned to her face. Beads of dew had started to gather on her hair, the silvery sheen on her yellow coat making it appear she was bathing in the watery pre-dawn light. When she opened her eyes again, tiny droplets flicked from her eyelashes.
“I still wonder if I could have done more to help her, or spotted something was wrong sooner,” she continued, “but ultimately it was Skydancer’s mistake. She couldn’t get past that, and though I tried to convince her to stay with the team, I think it broke her. Damn near broke me, too. For a while I considered stepping down as captain, but I’d rather meet regret head-on than let regret find me.”
Dash nodded slowly. The picture of Spitfire she carried around in her head was shifting again. The invincible hero of her childhood had become the brave idol of her youth, who had turned into the respected role model of her adulthood; now she was seeing deeper into her and finding her scarred and flawed and fragile as anyone else, but stronger and wiser than she ever knew.
And she was right: no matter how cautious you were, you would still get hurt someday, whether by your own foolishness, by others, or by ill fortune. It was an unchangeable ingredient in life’s recipe — you could bake it with all the sweetness as you could muster, but it would still be sprinkled with bitter little berries, and you had to swallow them all the same.
“Do you know why I picked you this year?” Spitfire continued. “I could have backed down after my failure with Skydancer and gone with another safe pick, somepony who’d be easy to train, but I picked you. You’re a challenge, Rainbow Dash. You’ve got raw ability to spare, and the determination to do something with it — your progress since last year is proof of that — but you still need a firm hoof to guide you. I hope to be that hoof.”
Dash wrinkled her brow. She had set out on this flight expecting it to be her last as a Wonderbolt, and being told Skydancer had brought the same fate upon herself just seemed like a cruel preamble to her own dismissal. Yet Spitfire wasn’t angry or disappointed; if anything it seemed the idea of dropping Dash from the team hadn’t even crossed her mind. This was like listening to one of her pep-talks, only instead of simple encouragement there was sincere and disarming honesty, and perhaps just a hint of atonement.
“I’m... I’m not off the team then?” Dash said at last.
Spitfire gave a hearty laugh. “Don’t be silly! If I threw somepony out for making a little mistake we wouldn’t have a team left!” She caught Dash’s slightly hurt expression and cleared her throat. “Skydancer couldn’t live with the shame. To my knowledge she’s still losing herself in memories rather than facing up to herself. I know she duped you into trying cloudberries, but you have to ask yourself why you kept going back to them.”
Dash flew on in silence for a moment. Far below her the city of Canterlot was waking, tiny figures moving along the streets as mailponies, lamplighters, bakers and other early-risers began their day. A city full of lives, every one of them with their own struggles and self-doubts, sometimes falling before them, sometimes soaring above them, sometimes just pushing on regardless. She looked over at Spitfire, whom she now recognised was one of those who had soared, and felt the blossoming of a new trust and respect for her.
“It’s hard for me to admit this,” said Dash, “but... I was scared. I was scared I’d never be able to live up to expectations: mine, yours, my friends and family’s. I spent my whole life dreaming of this and not really taking it seriously, then suddenly I had to grow up. It seemed easier to go back. That way I’d never have to disappoint anyone.”
Dawn broke, the sun spilling over the horizon like golden syrup. Dash closed her eyes, letting those first rays of sunlight bathe her face.
“No, I won’t quit. I owe it to you, and to Fluttershy, to all my friends and family who’ve brought me this far. And I owe it to myself.”
The celebrations for the Spring Has Sprung festival in Ponyville were in full swing. The trees were festooned with delicate blossoms and strung with bright ribbons. On the village green groups of ponies had laid out blankets for the first picnics of the year, and foals raced among them playing, chasing one another, flying kites. There was an added spark of excitement in the air; this year the Wonderbolts were performing, and among them was a pegasus that Ponyville counted, in spirit at least, as one of their their own.
On a cloud above the festivities, the Wonderbolts were warming up for the show.
“Thirty seconds, everypony!” said Spitfire, walking among her team. She approached Rainbow Dash. “All set?”
Dash nodded stiffly.
“You’ll do fine,” said Fluttershy, straightening the hood of Dash’s flight suit. Guests weren’t usually allowed backstage before a show, but Spitfire had made a special exception.
“Thanks, Fluttershy,” said Dash, relaxing a little. She drew a deep breath, holding in her mind the serenity she found in little things: the rush of wind through her feathers; the sound of rain and the tingle of a thunderstorm; the scent of a parent’s embrace; the ache of muscles in joyous exertion; the company of a trusted friend; the taste of home.
Below, the mayor of Ponyville was wrapping up her speech. A ripple of polite applause drifted up on the breeze.
“Positions!” said Spitfire. The team lined up at the edge of the cloud, Dash standing shoulder-to-shoulder with her idols, proud and confident. She glanced backwards and gave Fluttershy a wink.
“Go!” came Spitfire’s call.
Dash sprang forward and swooped out of the blue sky to a great cheer from the crowd. Bold heart and nimble wings had brought her so very far.
END