Necessary Love

by Zurock

Chapter 27: Encourage

Whereas the pathway dirt of the Gardens was packed hard, her wandering clops were soft and mild. And that was when she wasn't instead floating gingerly over the ground to be even more silent and harmless. Her unrelenting search took her to the gentlest places of each garden: where grass was a brushy carpet fluffing the ground, where flowers bloomed so full and bright they challenged the dreams of imagination, and where every tree crown or full bush was more warm and welcoming than the glowing windows of home in a winter night.

Such was how Fluttershy roamed in her usual meek fashion, poking her nose carefully into each garden she passed as she moved down the thin halls. She tried particularly hard to map it all correctly in her head so that she wouldn't waste time accidentally searching any one location twice. Only a few rare times did the turvy maze get to her and send her backtracking, but she resisted letting those errors spark an urgency in her and always got herself back on course and back to her delicate task.

"Hello?"

Everywhere she went she was alone, but obviously she didn't want to be. Yet by intentional choice she had left the entryway garden without taking along any of her friends for company.

"Is anypony there? I promise I won't hurt you."

Everywhere she came she called out similar words, exploring and hoping for a response from other voices.

Much smaller voices.

"I'm really very nice. I just want to be your friend. Hello?"

The longer her search went on without success the more a melancholy fog clouded her, and her invitations grew seeped in an ever more weary sadness. Though she never gave up. Simply the whole exercise became more and more depressing: there she was wandering beautiful gardens and not one adorable and lovely soul was there to greet her. It was the same distraught feeling which would've overcome anypony who had stumbled upon a marvelous and well-maintained city only to have discovered it completely abandoned.

At one point she did encounter Rarity and her entourage, though they had seemed so incredibly busy that the quiet pegasus had decided not to have bothered them. The very handsome stallion with the dark coat had been quite vocal about something or another, and though his words had been charming Fluttershy couldn't have helped but to have detected some kind of rude frustration buried underneath them all. Probably it had just been her own shy mind projecting upon him and nothing more. After all, Spike and the big orange pegasus had only responded politely, though perhaps somewhat loudly and insistently.

The whole disagreement had been something about how crowded it was, or wasn't?

Fluttershy had moved on without even having announced herself to them. Her accidental eavesdropping on even a small part of their conversation had given her a twinge of shame, and she hadn't wanted to have discretely caught any more. More significantly, she had doubted very much that any animals would have been willing to answer her entreaties while so much noisy chatter had been going on.

In time she came upon yet another garden like so many of those that she had drifted through before: all the same elements but rearranged in an identically different way. Again she pattered around and called out invitations in her tame and subdued voice, saturated as it was with tired sorrow. And again no cheeps answered her and no chitterings replied to her; not even buzzes or chirps from the tiniest of insects came back. It was another garden of depressing silence.

But just before she would have given up and moved on she saw a fat bush in the corner which shuffled, if ever so slightly. Its leaves shivered like they were cold, and faintly bobbing with them were some pretty flowers with cotton-wrapped stems, entirely pink from stalk to petal. The small wiggle was exceedingly brief, but after a halting moment the bush jiggled again, this time with the obvious sound of leaves swishing and stiff branches creaking; something far too conspicuous to be some trick of wind. After that the agitation died down, turning completely into watchful patience.

The pegasus became a staring statue, trying so hard to balance her excitement and trepidation. Overblown eagerness was natural after such a long and fruitless search, but easily it could have spoiled this new chance, and so she adopted an almost excessive amount of caution to compensate. Unmoving, unwavering; she stood and peered motionlessly into the tight cracks between the leaves, and she felt certain that something was staring back.

"Hello? It's okay," she eventually tried, of course giving herself the voice of the tiniest angel. She nudged her way closer to the bush with invisibly small steps. "You don't have to hide."

The bush gave no answer until it again very subtly rustled for another time.

"I would never do anything to hurt you. Don't be afraid."

One sliver at a time she inched her way nearer. And in response the cheerful flowers with the pink fuzz bobbed and waved just scarcely, disturbed by some movement underneath.

"My name is Fluttershy. I only want to say hello and see what kind of adorable little animal you are."

It took a gnat's lifetime but eventually her tender steps finally brought her within striking distance, and she reached her hoof out to the shuddering leaves like she was trying to touch a sacred star. With the lightest poke her hoof went in and she began to peel back the outermost layer of leaves.

"It's okay... you can come out..."

"AHHHHH, YOU FOUND ME!"

Pinkie Pie sprung from the bush like a jack-in-the-box, sporting a fitting carnival grin and flailing her floppy legs high. Leaves, twigs, and petals all flitted out of her mane (the cottony fuzz, it turned out, had belonged to her and not the flowers) while a fit of giggles tickled her wildly and her body bounced in place like a rubber ball.

Fluttershy, after her stalled heart had a chance to restart, drifted back down to the ground from the frightful leap she had taken. Quickly her spooked jitters worked their way out and then she smiled.

"Oh, Pinkie, hello. You surprised me." She squinted at her debris-covered friend still springing up and down in the bush. "Um, what are you doing in there?"

"It's my hiding spot!"

The pink pony climbed out, whereafter she pulled in a massive breath and then blew into her hoof. All the leaves, petals, and sticks still caught in her mane and tail were promptly ejected as her hair poofed out before settling back into proper shape.

"Hiding spot?" Fluttershy asked. The shadow of her mane fell over her eyes as she carefully looked about the garden. "Were you... hiding from your pony?"

"From Rainbow Dash, yeah!" Pinkie Pie beamed. "Are you playing too?"

"R-Rainbow Dash? Um, I'm sorry. I don't think I quite understand." The pegasus raised her head back up and shook Humble Herd from her mind.

"We're playing hide-and-seek!"

"You are?"

Pinkie Pie pogoed about, her mouth cracking with happy lightning, "Ya-huh! We were walking around these gardens and I was talking to Rainbow Dash – actually more kind of like talking AT Rainbow Dash because she wasn't saying anything – and we were talking and talking and talking and talking – and by that I mean I was talking and talking and talking and talking – and then suddenly Rainbow Dash was like, 'Hey, Pinkie. Do you want to play hide-and-seek?'"

Her voice had dropped into the tone of her friend for the quote, but in her absolutely perfect mimicry she had also unwittingly copied some kind of distant distraction, mumbling the words with a stone face and eyes cast far away.

"So of course I said, 'Does a ten-pound chocolate fudge bonanza cake have five layers?' And then she said, 'Uh, okay, whatever. Just like... hide here or something. I'll be back to look for you later. Don't go anywhere.' But then I told her what a forgetful filly she was being; she needed to turn around and count to ten before seeking! Then she flew off, so I guess she was going away to count while I hid."

Finally her crazy speed found its brakes, and she scrunched her face together as she looked up at the long-empty sky.

"She must be a REAL lazy daisy if it takes her THIS LONG to count to ten. Hehe, fastest pony my pink patootie!"

Fluttershy gave a helpless shrug.

"I guess you found me first!" the unbothered pink pony exclaimed. "So congratulations, you won!"

There were some cheers, a rain of confetti, and the victory blast of a party horn which burst so loud that Fluttershy was left scratching her inner ear. But with the short tale over and the celebrations through Pinkie Pie finally parked herself in place.

"Oh, I see. I wasn't really looking for YOU, though," the pegasus explained her side. "I was looking for any of the island's animals."

"Oooooohhhhhh," Pinkie Pie affirmatively rolled her head through an arc tuned to her pitch. "Yeah, I haven't seen ANY!"

"I know. Me neither," moaned Fluttershy. "I've been looking all over these gardens, too."

"Well you're not going to find'em here!"

Even for such a capricious pony, Pinkie was beyond certain. Fluttershy felt it and, not to question her friend's dependably random wisdom, responded with only a wondering face.

"My Pinkie Sense hasn't given me one tickle or twinkle or twickle or winkle or wickle or warble or sneeze," Pinkie Pie said, "so I'm preeeetttty sure there isn't anypony hiding around whose smaller than a party balloon. And maaaayyyybe also not any who are bigger than a gigantic, city-smashing Sharkosaurus Rex. Also proooobbbbably nothing in between, either. Not in these gardens anyway."

Again the pegasus moaned, more dismally than before. She trusted the brutal revelation.

"That really makes me worried," she said.

The pink pony put the greater portion of her impulsive performance on pause, asking seriously, "Why?"

It took Fluttershy a lengthy minute to gather her pensive feelings together.

"Mmm... do you remember Hamestown, and the Dryponies, and Dryearth Forest?" she asked.

"Of course!" Pinkie Pie pranced in place.

"Well, in that forest all the animals stayed away from everypony," the pegasus recalled. She shook gently too, nipped by some worry as if she had been transported back to that past just by thinking about. "There had used to be harmony between the forest and the animals and the Dryponies, but when Hamestown had come along that harmony had broken down and nasty things had started happening. The terrible behavior of the Dryponies had scared and upset the animals of the forest, so they had stayed hidden when they could have, or even had fought with the Dryponies when they had too."

Her mind returned to the present and she continued, "Now on this island, I'm worried something similar is going on to scare the animals and that's why they're all hidden. H-H-Humb-b-ble H-H-H—," she swallowed the troublesome name up and then restarted, "—somepony told me that it was okay to talk to the animals here and that they're all very nice, but also that they're really very reclusive and are uncomfortable with most ponies." Into a little filly she transformed, beset on every side by the worst monsters of frightful imagination. "I really hope the ponies here aren't doing anything to upset the harmony of the island..."

The pink pony rattled the thoughts around in her head for a moment before she quickly decided that she had the perfect solution. Wrapping a fun yet still sympathetic leg around her friend she advised, "Well, what Pinkie's thinkin' is that if you can't learn the story by making friends with any animals then you'll just have to learn it from the other side, by making friends with the ponies!"

Fluttershy was squeezed between the pink leg and the enormous, sparkling smile which was engulfing Pinkie's face. She showed the suggestion her appreciation with a sheepish grin, but she disliked the less-than-perfect plan.

"Um, Pinkie, I think I'd really prefer to, um, just find some animals to make friends with instead. Ah, if that's alright."

"Aw, don't you sigh, Shy-Fly!" she cranked her hug into a chokehold and channeled her cheery words into the other pony through their touching cheeks. Then, leaving her friend free to breath, she bounced back a step and declared, "I know just the friendliest friend of a pony you should meet: Double-H!"

"Double-H?" Fluttershy whispered with dread. All of her smallest feelings creaked out from her every dark corner to haunt her, climbing their icy claws up her legs. She squeaked, "H-H-Humb-b-ble H-?"

"That's right! HULAHOOF!"

Pinkie Pie's explosion of a name flung away the other pony's frightened guess without having given it the chance to be heard. And certainly Fluttershy didn't mind that she had been wrong or shouted over; she didn't put one ounce of effort into trying to speak her guess again.

Just thinking about the other party pony had Pinkie Pie up in the air whirring her happy hoofs, kicking so fast that they kept her afloat. But even in such mirth her pinball-machine of a brain managed to score an incongruous thought, and she plopped back down on the ground. She let the thought out without a filter.

"Or maybe he's just 'Single-H?' I think he spells his name fast, like 'Hulahoof' and not 'Hula Hoof.' OH! Or maybe the H's are silent and he's 'No-H?' Does it count as no H's if they're THERE but you don't actually say them? Hrm... Oula-oof! ... You-laoof?"

"Um... Pinkie?"

"Ul-la Oouf!"

"Pinkie!" Fluttershy softly squealed.

"Yeah, Flutters-y?"

"Ah, thank you very much for the kind offer," the pegasus said sincerely. But even if the suggested pony wasn't whom she had feared, she still shook her head in decline. "But I really think it'd be better if I just found an animal somewhere to talk with. At least, to start. If they're not in the Gardens then they must be somewhere else."

"Aw, come on!" Pinkie Pie encouraged undeterred. Again she couldn't be contained and whirled about in a dance that was more of a firecracker popping than a swan's ballet. "Huly's an ammmmaazzzzing friend! You'll definitely like him!"

"I appreciate it, Pinkie," Fluttershy again only showed her sincerest side, "but... maybe another time?"

"Teehehe, why be friends ANOTHER TIME when you can be friends NOW?"

"Oooh, it's hard to explain. I've been a little-... oh, nevermind. Anyway, if something IS happening here and the ponies are causing it, then they might not know they're the problem anyway, so-"

"He likes parties, and balloons, and being friends, and cakes, and confetti, and being friends, and surprises, and shouting, and being friends, and-!"

"Pinkie-"

"Honestly, he's the ONLY FRIEND a pony could ever need!"

"Pinkie, that sounds very nice, but-" Suddenly the pegasus stopped and blinked. Maybe the blare of the party horn was still caught in her ear and had distorted her hearing? "... 'only friend?'"

"Pfft, yeah!" the obviously-content-and-in-no-way-bothered pony chuckled back, tossing a hoof away. "Who needs to make ANOTHER friend when you got a pony like Hulahoof who totally WANTS to be your friend AND is the BEST friend of ALL friends who ever friended a friend? I certainly don't! Nope! Not a friend more needed here, no ma'am!"

Fluttershy stared.

"Pinkie... are you-?"

"I'll introduce you to him, and then you'll make friends with him too, and then you'll tell me:," Pinkie Pie grabbed her friend's mouth and moved it for her, "'Oh gosh, Pinkie, you were so right! Now that Hulahoof is my friend I'll never need to make another friend again, and I'll definitely be safe and okay forever!'"

"... Um... alright, Pinkie," Fluttershy quietly freed herself. She reconsidered the offer, if only for the sake of her agitated friend, but just a feather of a thought was enough to quickly bring the pegasus back around to defeat.

"I'm sorry," she said and sunk her head, "but I don't think I could make friends with anypony new just yet. One of them already tried to make friends with me, but... h-he gave up. I t-think. M-Maybe I'll feel differently later but, um, not right now."

The pink pony stayed excessively bright, but she did grind to a complete halt.

"... He gave up?" she asked.

"Oh my yes, very quickly." In her mind Fluttershy recounted the upsetting scenario, sending a tremble through herself. But she felt the privacy of the moment, and warmed by the presence of her good friend she timidly admitted, "Ah, m-maybe I should talk to somepony about it. After all, you're much more outgoing than I am, Pinkie."

"Uh huh," the other pony nodded. Her ears were open, clearly listening. Almost intently even. But something rattled behind her eyes, like a bent bottle cap trapped in a twisted tin can.

The pegasus turned aside, becoming tiny and tender as she ever was. She stitched together all the scraps of her courage which she could find, whispering to herself, "Okay, Fluttershy. It's just Pinkie Pie. She understands. You can do this."

At last she cleared her throat, coughing up squeaks as mighty as a mouse's. But she still couldn't bring herself to meet her friend's eyes.

"Um, okay, alright... so... when we arrived here we all had our bags taken by different ponies, and Humb-b-b-ble H-H-H-H-" No matter how much she tried to forcefully wheeze her way through the name it wouldn't come out. Giving up, she hung her head with shame and continued. "... and my pony-" HER pony? Her head fell further and her voice crumbled. "... and the pony who carried my things, he-... he TRIED to be nice to me, and I – oh, I don't know why it was so hard; he was just taking my bags and saying hello – I got so nervous, and I guess I wasn't so very polite back to him, and then he just walked away..."

"Uh huh."

The pegasus, still with lowered head, only heard her pink friend's hearty acknowledgment; attentive, cheerful, yet with something foreign peeking through. But Fluttershy was so fearfully invested in her own story that she didn't notice anything unusual.

"... So... by the time we got to my room he was already so disappointed with me that he just dropped my saddlebags and left right away. I guess after all he had read about me he had gotten his hopes up; Twilight was probably way too nice with what she wrote about me. I-... I don't think I can really blame him for being so disappointed with meeting the REAL me..."

"Uh huh." There was a mild, mild drop in Pinkie Pie's voice. Nigh undetectable.

"And I don't really even understand why I'm having such a problem!" Fluttershy lamented. "It's not like I haven't gotten along with plenty of very nice ponies before, and he does seem like such a sweet and quiet little pony. In fact, he must be VERY nice if he can make friends with all the animals of the island, especially if they're frightened of ponies. But for some reason when he comes around-... oh, it's just so different than with other ponies!"

"Uh huh." A little bit more air flitted out of the pink pony; a tiny deflation.

"When he just tries to talk to me I feel so-... so-... so squeamish! And my legs feel like jelly and there are frightened little butterflies floating around in my stomach. I mean, I do feel like that most of the time ANYWAY, but-... Oh, when he looks at me it's like... there's something else he wants from me. Something... a little... M-MORE. And-... and-... and I just think that-... Ah, something must be so very wrong with me..."

"Uh huh." Slowly the great curl of her floppy mane folded lifelessly down.

"I SHOULDN'T mind at all just talking to him, and when we talked a little at lunch he was being very nice and trying very hard to be open and generous with me... I thought then, maybe it was all in my head... But he still seemed so upset with how quiet I am, and he left again. Oh, I know it's something about me that he doesn't like but I just can't help the way I am!"

"Uh huh..." Without any accompanying sound, a line of shimmering tears built up upon the pink pony's eyelids.

"And I know I shouldn't feel this way, too. I have so many wonderful friends, with you all and all of the animals. It's supposed to be alright if not everypony likes me... But if somepony-... I-... I mean, if somepony like that is so easily disappointed with me, I get so worried that maybe-... m-maybe nopony will ever like me enough to-... ah, mmm..."

"Uh h-huh..." The wobble in her voice came out quite distinct, almost overtaking her every last natural sound.

"Oh, Pinkie, I'm so sorry for being a grouchy, loudmouth sourpuss. I didn't mean to get so worked up and rant at you about all my worthless problems. I guess it must be pretty hard for such a likable, sociable pony like you to understand what it feels like to have somepony to want nothing to do with you..."

"U-Uh h-huh..." The pink pony's teeth chattered, resounding like the eternal echo of weathered stones crumbling off a cliff face into an empty canyon long abandoned by its river.

The sound was at last enough to grasp Fluttershy's faltered attention. She looked up and was horrified by what she saw: oh, the tears! Ah, the heartache! Oh no, the thousand weights of sadness sagging the other pony down!

Immediately her own problems vanished and she swooped over to her friend, throwing her legs around the other pony. She pulled the silently sobbing Pinkie in, resting the pony's squishy pink head against her bosom.

"Oh, there, there, there," she patted and stroked her friend's limp mane, pouring out the same perfect love and affection which she gave to each and every one of her beloved friends, from biggest pony to smallest insect. "You just let it all out and tell mother Fluttershy every little thing that's wrong, okay?"

---

"Soooooo...," Rainbow Dash stretched her opening with such an unusual slowness. The longer it droned on, the further away her head pulled back into uncertainty, and the more her fixed gaze waded through a soup of messy discomfort. Her sound faded into a thick silence, still going, and somewhere too low to hear it rolled over the finish line.

A delay. A delay orbiting an unusual dread, and one that needed uncommon courage to break free of; not anything as simple as common bravado.

When her time was at last up she suddenly blasted out her next thought.

"... about Pinkie Pie-"

"Oh no!" James smashed the back of his hand over his eyes, squeezing it up into a fist. "No no no, come on!"

"Hey! This is serious!"

What sizzled her frustration the most was that she had so sincerely humbled herself and he had still given her such obstinance! It was a hard thing to swallow: that SHE (the amazing Rainbow Dash!) just MIGHT have been sorta maybe kinda possibly a little wrong about the whole situation when she had earlier hashed things out with Twilight and Pinkie. Still, her fire didn't quite rise above her general reluctance to face said wrongness down head on.

"Well, I'm serious too," the man harshly replied. "Not interested! No thank you!"

The pony's position hardened.

"I can't let it go that easy."

"God, I ALREADY got all this from Twilight TWICE and I DON'T need it from you, alright?" He was going to strike his own face again but the back of his hand was throbbing from the first blow; instead he bashed his palm upon the bench, evening the swelling. Quietly he grumbled, "... It ruins how nice it is to have somepony I can just CHILL with."

"Look, there's a lot of ways that I really don't like this all that much either," Rainbow Dash had mercy. "Zipping through these hoops isn't always my thing, and I'd MUCH rather prefer things just work themselves out awesomely like they're supposed to. But... this is for Pinkie Pie's sake. At this point I definitely wouldn't be her friend if I didn't bring it up."

"And what about being my friend?" James grumbled and scowled. "Or it's first come, first serve, huh?"

But he only fed the fire more, finally giving it enough juice to really burn past her hesitations.

"Hey!" she snarled, her objection as stern as it was sharp. "You know, when I talked about this with Twilight yesterday I actually DEFENDED YOU!"

"Oh, then how quick you are to stab me in the back," the man rattled his head in bitter sarcasm.

And that was really when the line had truly been crossed, erased, redrawn on a cloud a hundred yards down the way, crossed AGAIN, and then bucked into puffy shreds. Any last little niggles of nervous doubt in the pegasus: obliterated. All the weak glances she sometimes shot into the back of her head: demolished. Any softy-hooves sensitivity at confronting something that couldn't be bested solely with a cocky grin and some awesome flying: exterminated to the extremest of smithereens.

For the angriest frown the man had on him, hers burned as the more genuine article by a three-mile sky dive of a long shot. 'INSULTED' wasn't nearly the politest word for it.

"Wow," she told him, burying in that single word all the necessary sourness she would ever need to give him for the rest of their natural lives.

And at first he didn't budge. Yet every time he brought his eyes back to clash with hers he felt himself coming up short and he flinched. Eventually, even in his continued and stubborn disagreement, he understood what a truly pathetic thing he had said. His shoulders dropped, his stout chest caved in with a sigh, and he spoke in a wilted breath, "... Sorry."

"Hmph." It was a grunt of forgiveness. Not that forgiveness kept Rainbow Dash from muttering lowly, "You should be."

She let her irritation fade, waiting it out over the course of a few steamy exhales, all the while hoping that MAYBE James was taking the time to screw his head on straighter also. Once she was ready enough she trotted immediately up to him. Yet she approached with some measured caution; some of her own safe fears had been allowed back in alongside her calmness, but really her deliberate care was because she doubted that she had heard the last of his resistance.

Before his bench, standing slightly aside, she tested him, "So... about Pinkie Pie...?"

The man's glare shot up so high it struck his brow and bent it in crabby unhappiness. But he didn't object.

"Alright then," the pegasus murmured.

She cleared her throat, readying herself like a general before her fleet of flyers lined up for inspection. Yet it wasn't at all obvious if she had a battle plan prepared, and once she started talking there was no doubt that she was trying to wing it.

"Pinkie Pie's a real party pony," she began, already with an aimless glide sinking in. "She's the pony who always has that one extra surprise in her to keep the night going. Who always has that one extra jam to keep the party rocking. Who always has that one extra song she just HAS to sing. And you? You're not really a party ANYTHING."

"Hey!"

A divot of disbelief drilled its way between Rainbow Dash's eyes.

"Oh, come on! You're really going to deny it? Yeah, yeah, you can get up and get active when you want to, but not ANYTHING like her. Heck, not anything like even a run-of-the-mill party-going pony. You're just as quick to blab with Twilight about some dumb smartbutt nonsense as you are to try and take me in a match of wall ball. And even when we DO play, you're sweating and everything but you're just kind of... like... enjoying it? And not, like... trying to kick butt and be awesome?"

"... So?"

"So... you don't... get out and DO things. I mean, okay, with me I kind of let you get away with being lazy a lot, but even that's cause it's seemed like you NEEDED it. But do you expect me to think you're any different with Rarity? Or Fluttershy? You probably just sit quietly sewing frilly things, right? Or playing with rabbits instead of wrestling with her bear? And I KNOW on your days off you don't go out and do anything! You just drift, James! You don't soar!"

The man held only a dead stare.

"Yeah! See! Like that!" the pegasus emphasized. But his continued lack of any real reaction made her feel like her point wasn't coming across. Greased by a fumbling stutter which started to slip into her frustrated voice she stammered, "Um, well, okay... what word would TWILIGHT use to describe it?"

James lingered his icy gaze on her before he assumed that she must have actually been asking him, so he guessed indifferently, "'Ungregarious?'"

His gobbledygook might as well have been a vile medicine. Out came her tongue as she stepped a pace back. But his answer did sound a whole lot like a Twilight-ism, so... points for him.

"Okay, so you DO understand what I'm saying then," she concluded.

The man heaved a sigh, then reluctantly shrugged.

"Yeah, so I don't spend every night out on the town," he admitted. However he still he fought back, "But I never did, even back home. 'Quiet parties,' remember? What's your point?"

"The point," she quickly stormed on, "is that it KINDA makes sense to me why you and Pinkie don't get along so hot. Like, you two don't play the same game AT ALL. I mean of course there's been 'ungregarglous'—" she paused to doubt the word's actual existence, "—ponies before, but she still won'em over IN TIME. But I don't think there's ever been a pony in your kind of situation before. You know... NOT being a pony, and needing some serious R and R after such a big change in your life. I don't think her brand of party-cannon-happiness really goes well with that."

She eased, greatly calming her voice.

"At least, that's pretty much how I defended you in my argument with Twilight. Pinkie's really just trying too hard. She does High-Altitude Low-Recovery Ultra Power Dives to make the crowd go nuts when all she REALLY needs to do are a few Lazy Lollipop Loops. So... I encouraged Pinkie to back it up a bit and slow down for you."

James snorted in an unfriendly manner. A mellower Pinkie Pie? Pah!

Rainbow Dash was not amused, but she restrained herself and carried on, "Anyway, I felt pretty good that would do it. Obviously it'd be hard on Pinkie, but there REALLY IS nopony she can't make friends with if she tried hard enough IN THE RIGHT WAY. And she's awesome enough to do that."

Suddenly she squinted at the man.

"And you? Despite your dumb hissy fits about it right now..." Her hard scrutinization untwisted and softened until it turned into a flash of unexpectedly unguarded honesty, "... You're not really a bad guy."

He cocked an eyebrow.

"So it SHOULD have all worked out. Eventually, at least," she said.

But it hadn't been working out.

It hadn't. Hopeful warmth slipped away from the pegasus.

It hadn't. Slowly she sunk into a tragic silence.

It hadn't. She became a dimming sunset, leaving behind an chilly night beach.

Somberly she reflected, "But... then I saw what Pinkie Pie was like after our volleyball game."

The look she gave the man was genuinely distraught, and she said, "She's really hurting over this. Like really, REALLY hurting. Way worse than I thought. So that's-... that's why I was WRONG, okay? That's why it's ACTUALLY up to you to do something to help her."

So that was it?

For all that long trail of words uttered; for all those heartfelt sentiments outraged or meek; for all that drama; it had come back around to the same place as always.

James felt deceived.

"She-...," his groan rocked him, like an earthquake of frustration rumbling its way to the surface, "... she's just a psychopath. You can't read anything into ANYTHING she does."

Again Rainbow Dash had no trouble hurling her patience away, so insulted not just by his disrespect towards Pinkie Pie but by his refusal to take her own sincere feelings seriously. Angrily she berated him, "Shut up! She is not! Now, are you going to help me solve this or what?!"

"Solve?! Christ!" Forget deceived. He felt persecuted. "Haven't I already done my fair share?! I've been more than polite to her! More than patient with her! Months of getting along with her just fine even IF we didn't become chums! So-! So-! So if SHE can't handle getting along with somepony WHO ISN'T HER FRIEND then SHE'S the one who needs to get over herself!"

Away he turned in a huff, ready to slam the bench again, armed with aggravation enough to break it; wood, metal, and all. But rather than another unhelpful display of violence he instead launched a hostile and suspicious leer back at the pegasus.

"You only want me to arbitrarily be friends with her, just like Twilight does. Get some checkbox marked off for your happy circle of friendship. As if that's the way it works," he restlessly accused her.

The months of wonderful, casual friendship with Rainbow Dash – ripe with quiet and restful moments, loud with laughter, and fun with flights of frivolity – had mostly erased his memory of her aggressive loyalty. So he was entirely unprepared to find her floating inches from his nose, fuming directly into his face.

"No, MORON! I just have A FRIEND who's in bad shape—" One hoof she threw out there, towards whatever unseen garden the pink pony was at. Then the man she jabbed with her other hoof. "—and I'm asking MY FRIEND to do something to HELP HER! And if that's not one of the things you can COUNT ON YOUR FRIEND FOR, then I don't know what is!"

The moment ran long, and then stretched out more, and continued to extend on and on as the pegasus bobbed there with her furious, bitter, hurt, hopeful stare piercing him deeper than her hoof thrust into his chest ever could. And for once, at last, James didn't deflect her with a hot remark or shield himself behind some self-perceived injustice. He pulled himself out of that infinite moment by breaking from her eyes and turning his head slowly down, no resistance put up in its place. He was twisted and tangled inside still, but for the moment at least he was defeated.

And Rainbow Dash accepted it, pulling herself from him and touching down to the ground with some relief. But her alleviation was only of a worried variety. That was one step of progress made, yet the problem still wasn't solved. For Pinkie Pie OR for him.

"... You're doing better now. Than before, I mean," she said. She gave the dirt an uncomfortable and idle scratch, improvising her words more through wanting hope than through thoughtful strategy. "Like, I saw you with Poppy and everything. You... are doing BETTER... right? So, are you good enough to, like... TRY HARDER or something with Pinkie? Like when you're behind in a race, and you're giving it everything you got but you need more anyway, and so you just dig deep and pull out MORE. If you're... at least a little better... can't you do that for her?"

James sat silently, giving the pegasus bothered glances.

Daunted herself, she assured him, "Not... try harder to be her friend, I mean. If you don't want to be. (I don't get that, but... whatever.) Just... can't you try harder to get along with her in a GENUINE way?"

He squirmed. And it was something far different than any unhappy rustle or some indignant clenching. Rainbow Dash in fact had to pull herself closer again; it was like he was shrinking before her. His eyes retreated, leaving a wet trail behind them; something not ready enough to be tears by far within the suffocating crush of buried distress.

And when he finally came back to her it was the absolute and honest fear with which he shook that shocked her.

"I have NEVER in my ENTIRE LIFE met a pony with A HUNDREDTH as much energy as she has."

His voice quivered. He held his trembling hands up as if there were something he could show her; some gesture to explain it all. But the only thing he really managed to do was face out his palms like he was protecting himself.

"And she NEVER—FREAKING—STOPS! Never, ever! You can't turn her off! You can barely get out of the way! Sometimes it really feels like I'm DROWNING in a flood of pink! I can't even deal with-"

No language had a verb capable of describing the incomprehensible way that pink pony behaved.

"... I just can't," he drifted into a whisper. "You don't get me and her, but I don't get you and her. She's-..."

All of him froze.

"... she's so... FRIGTHENING..."

Rainbow Dash's hindquarters lost its support and plopped against the dirt, her back legs numbed by disbelief. She didn't doubt that she had extracted a truth out of him; never would she have admitted it to another pony but she recognized very well the look of shaken confidence he bore, and she sympathized with those feelings of tiny cowardice that he didn't want showing but were. In the past she had seen them before in a mirror, several times.

But how annoyingly, astoundingly unbelievable was it that THIS is what he had been burying all along?

"I can't BELIEVE you're the same guy who kept bravely standing up to the Dryponies no matter how bad things got," she said.

The man found her comment to be a sad gem of amusement amid a despicable occasion, and with a hurt shiver of a breath he chuckled, "That-... that was different. There were other ponies' lives at stake. I HAD to do something. But this-... this is only MY LIFE."

"Well... not only," the pegasus answered. Caring, merciful, but resolute, she affirmed, "It's Pinkie Pie's too."

The quiet man leaned a little forward in thought.

Then, in a single moment of shameful despair, his head dropped. It plunked down as far as his weak neck would allow, as if it had been lopped off with a razor-sharp guillotine of betrayed honor plunged with a thousand pounds of force.

The gentle touch of Rainbow Dash's hoof against his knee brought him back up.

"I guess I wasn't so off the mark about this...," she mentioned, thankful for the revealed truth but lamenting it all the same. "It's just a bit worse than I thought it was, though. But... if you'll trust me on this...?"

He hesitated, from self-doubt. But he nodded.

"I really think," she concluded, "that, no matter how scared you are of her... she's scared MORE. That's why I can't ask her to give up anything else. That's why I need your help. I wish I knew the exact thing to do but-... She needs to get SOMETHING from you, even if it's not friendship..."

James lowered his head and shook it, also lost for an answer.

The pegasus gave his knee another soft rub.

"You're not a bad guy," she reminded him.

"I-... I don't know what I could do," he shook his head again. "I guess-... I guess I could try and be a little more open to her, or talk to her another time, or something. But... you shouldn't hope for it to just turn out differently somehow, you know?"

"I know. But hey, it's not like I'm just going to be sitting on the sidelines and leaving it all to you. It's just: whatever the answer is, you NEED to be a part of it."

Pulling himself together the man sat up. He tightened his fists, pushing them down on his legs hard, and he breathed. He breathed loud, concentrated, slow breaths. In and out, one and at time, while wriggling the tension away through rubbing his thighs. It was basically the same technique Twilight had been teaching him in order to help him tame his sometimes unwieldy anger, only here he repurposed it to lift his trepid mind up into a calm.

"... Alright," he accepted, managing no amount of pleasure in his promise. "I'll... try something. Somehow."

Rainbow Dash donned a sneaky grin and in a show of support slapped the same knee she had just been comforting.

"Hey," she confidently teased, "if you can get your butt whooped at volleyball with grace then you definitely can handle this, Janky Jumpman.

"You can kiss my butt after you whoop it, Rainbow Trout."

Their small snickers, between each other, together added up to about one normal bout of warm, easy laughter.

A minute passed where they said nothing, unhappy with the exact circumstances things had come to but happy that they were friends. Rainbow Dash stood up.

"So... I guess I'm going to go back to Pinkie now," she said. She sounded less than optimistic but far more certain and hopeful than when she had first landed in the man's garden. "Thanks and everything. And, if you need like help or anything, I'm around. You know?"

"Yeah," James nodded delicately.

The pegasus bounced her head in agreement and turned towards the sky, more or less intuitively feeling out the direction she had originally come from. Out spread her wings, a mighty eagle ready to soar, when she stopped and twisted her head back like an owl.

"Uh, you're not going to tell Twilight about me changing my mind and everything, right?" she asked, looking a little grouchy and glum.

His nose wriggled in playful thought.

"I'll neglect to mention your involvement."

"Alright thanks. Later!"

One tremendous beat of her wings took her up, easily clearing the garden walls, and then she glided away.

Creaking and trembling like he was many times his own age James reseated himself on the bench, not quite finding any comfort. A dismal sigh leaked from him, and when it wasn't satisfying enough he shook his head and did it again. Then he turned in his seat and brought up his legs before he rested his back against the lifted end of the bench, laying upon it with one of his hands clasped against his chest and feeling the slow pulse of his breathing.

Leaned back, he had a good view of the branches just above him, and how their sprawling leaves let through a warm drip of steady, sleepy sunlight. The little spell that light cast made him perfectly drowsy; enough to make his burdens feel less heavy, floated by dreamy thoughts. That tranquil alcove, tucked in the corner of a lovely garden, certainly was a wonderful spot to retreat to. Somewhere where the worried world could be drowned away for a bit, and a pleasurable nap could be embraced.

...

Now he definitely preferred that Prism had simply stayed there. His hand slipped down off of his chest and landed softly by his side on the bench.

On the very spot she could have been laying.

Comments

[Zurock]

Woah, what's this? A recent chapter finally came out as less than 10,000 words?

I think I'm breaking out the ale tonight!

[Coranth]

Damn it... if he doesn't want to be friends with Pinkie - and, truthfully, I don't think I could stand her full-on all the time either - then leave him alone about it!

[Jack Kellar]

Jesus H. Christ. I agree with Jim, they really should leave him the hell alone about this. And Pinkie has to have a moment of reflection to develop her maturity too. There IS no problem if two people just don't get along well enough, Maud Pie's introduction taught that already and it's not like it's a difficult thing to learn.

Sure, he could stand to not be outright hostile to her as a concept, but still, it goes both ways in that she could stand to not be obsessed about being his friend, because this is getting to be a pathological disorder.

This whole thing is straining bonds to their stress limit and nobody's the wiser about the incoming snap. Next thing that'll happen is Jim abandoning Ponyville and heading back to Canterlot Castle so he can have a peaceful time for once, at least long enough for everyone to chill the frick out.

7295929 A-bloody-greed.

[Danger Noodle]

Pinkie's friends should help her by getting her to understand the importance of communication and actually TALKING to the person/pony who you are wanting to be friends with. Not this bullshit of trying to act like nothing is wrong and out right lying about it when asked. Seriously, Jim TRIED to communicate with her. The ball is very much in Pinkie's court right now, and she's being too busy acting like a spoiled child to make an appropriate move to solve things.

7296417 He might not even go to Canterlot, since he has the option of going back to the Dry-ponies and hanging out with his unofficially adopted sister/daughter/cousin.

[Jack Kellar]

7297540 I say Canterlot because in What Separates, Celestia told him to stay with Twilight so she herself wouldn't have to keep watch over him. If he went to the Dryponies to stay, there might be a non-violent but inconvenient manhunt for him.

By going to the Princesses directly, he keeps his plate clean of annoyances.

[Zurock]

7297724
Of course, there are other, more immediate options.

Pinkie Pie, in her distress, has been retreating to Hulahoof (in her own impulsive, excessive way).

James, if distressed, could retreat to...?

[Jack Kellar]

7298149 Exactly what I thought at a point. And both are terrible influences for the situation.

[Danger Noodle]

7297724 Hmm... okay, I agree.

[DreamKitsune]

"... FRIGTHENING..."

Frightening.

[Zurock]

7303811
Good catch. Will be corrected.

Spellcheck ignores all-caps words, but if I'm going to continue using it for emphasis I should really investigate whether the option can be disabled.