Rainbooms and Romance

by Kodeake

Clouds

Clouds

Rainbow sighed heavily and hung her head a little lower. She felt the tears streaming down her face even now. The rainbow bangs hiding her puffy red eyes from the world did little to hide her feelings from herself. She was Rainbow Dash, why was she hiding on top of a cloud far outside of Ponyville crying her eyes out? It happened yesterday; surly she should have gotten over it by now?

But no matter how brave she was or how cool she pretended to be, some things simply couldn’t be hidden by denial. Some things like grief. It was all Fluttershy’s fault, if Fluttershy had never convinced her to get that stupid pet tortoise she wouldn’t have to deal with this.

“No, it’s not Fluttershy’s fault…” Rainbow chided herself for even thinking that. If anypony was to blame it was her and her alone. It was her own fault, after all; she should have taken better care of him. A sudden light flashed from behind her. She groaned inwardly, she didn’t need this right now. She really didn’t need it from Twilight.

Twilight allowed herself a momentary smile of victory as she found the cyan pegasus she had been searching for in front of her. After taking a second to ensure her cloud-walking spell held, she approached slowly.

“How’d you find me?” Rainbow asked, barely keeping the waver out of her voice as she continued to stare forward at the rolling green hills just outside of Ponyville.

“I am your marefriend. I know where you like to go to be alone,” Twilight answered simply, halting her approach a few steps behind Rainbow. “Now are you gonna talk to me or keep running?”

Rainbow snorted, “I’m not running. I never run from anything.”

“Then what are you doing?” Twilight asked, sitting back on her haunches.

“I’m… I just…” Rainbow sighed, “I don’t know what I’m doing,” she admitted sadly, shaking her head in disbelief.

“You’re running,” Twilight insisted again.

“I’M NOT RUN-” Rainbow turned to yell at Twilight, but was cut off as Twilight wrapped her in a hug. She felt the urge to pull away, to insist again and again that she was fine, maybe until she believed it herself. But even if she believed it, Twilight wouldn’t, Twilight could always tell when something was wrong, even if Rainbow didn’t.

After a second of internal debate, she practically melted into the embrace, throwing her own forelegs around Twilight’s neck and burying her face in Twilight’s soft lavender coat. For her part, Twilight simply held her tighter, running a gentle and caring hoof through her messy yet beautiful rainbow mane.

The last remnants of a dam that Rainbow had crumbled in that instant, the tears coming faster and harder then anytime before. She held Twilight tight as her body quaked and shook, her sobs filling the air around them. Through it all Twilight held her close, whispering words of comfort in her ear, never once stopping or slowling her gently caressing hoof.

After what felt like hours, Rainbow’s sobs turned to quiet whimpers of sadness.

“Why?” Rainbow whispered sadly, rubbing her damp cheek into Twilight’s even damper coat.

“It was his time, Dashie, there’s nothing you could have done,” Twilight answered, silently cursing herself for not being able to think of anything better. For a time Rainbow was silent, before sniffling loudly and clearing her throat.

“Did I ever tell you why I never went home to nap?” Rainbow asked, relaxing her grip on Twilight as her tears slowly slowed to a stop. Twilight shook her head.

“It was because I didn’t want to go home. It’s silly, really, but until him… I didn’t like going home. I was always alone when I was at home. You had Spike, AJ and Rarity had their sisters, Fluttershy had her animals. Pinkie had the Cake’s. I had nopony. I went home, and there was nopony to greet me, nopony to make me feel better after a bad day, nopony to congratulate me when I did a trick I had been practicing for weeks.” As Rainbow spoke Twilight felt her gut ball up in her stomach. She never knew how lonely the seemingly invincible pegasus had been. None of them had.

“Then I got him, and it all went away. He was always there, smiling at me when I got home. He made sure I was never alone after a bad day, and he was always there to celebrate when I did a trick... now he’s gone,” Rainbow finished with a sigh as another lone tear trailed down her face.

“You’re one of the strongest ponies I know, Rainbow. You’ll get through this, and I’ll be there to help you. I’ll be there to congratulate you after a trick. I’ll be there to make sure you’re not alone after a bad day. I’ll always be there for you, Dashie, you know that,” Twilight comforted gently, choosing each word carefully. Rainbow squeezed her a bit tighter.

“I know. I just need some time to accept that he’s gone. I’ll be fine.” Rainbow sniffed loudly before pulling back from Twilight, looking up into her eyes.

“Thanks, Twi, I… don’t think I’d be able to do it without you. I love you.”

“I love you too Dashie. Never forget that,” Twilight assured with a small smile, drawing Rainbow back in for one last embrace, kissing her on the lips before pulling back.

“Now let’s go home,” She offered, standing on the cloud and offering a hoof to Rainbow, who graciously took it and stoop up.

“You were right Twi,” Rainbow said as she fluffed out her wings.

“About what?” Twilight asked curiously, raising an eyebrow.

“I was running, but not anymore.”

Author's Note:

Bit of a shorter chapter this time, but there's something I want to talk to you all about. This is focused around this story, but you can choose not to read this if you don't want to, it might be kinda long.

When I first posted this story, I didn't think it'd do very well. It was really just a dumping ground for some over flow creativity that I had, and I needed a way to use. However, my expectations were blown away when I made it to the popular stories list. It was by no stretch the featured box, but a huge achievement for me. After just three chapters this was the most successful story I had ever written, and it wasn't even a full story! It was on the second chapter, though, that something happened. A writer that I both admire and respect called me "The King of Fluff One-shots". To put it simply, that was the single, biggest compliment I have ever received in my entire life. It was huge to me, especially since I expected so little from this story. That compliment made me write more and more of these short chapters, and because of those chapters my skill improved more then I ever thought possible. Every now and then I would go back to that comment, I would read that over and over again, and read the chapters that had caused it. I felt thrilled that something I had written was met with such a positive response. However, the title that was given to me, is a title I feel I no longer deserve. I look at my most recent chapters, and I hate the quality of them. I feel my quality has fallen off a cliff. The single biggest compliment in my life, and I didn't deserve it. I wasn't very happy with myself when I realized that. Since then, I've been scared to write anything. Simply for fear of letting my readers down. It's why I haven't been updating recently. I've been scared of my own writing. I'm sick of it. I'm putting an end to it, right here, right now. With this chapter, a chapter I am proud to have written, and am proud to give to you, I will end the writing slump I've been in for almost a month. I hope to one day deserve the title again, and I hope that I can keep that kind of quality. This chapter is my promise to you, the reader, to keep my quality at a level you would like to read, and that I would be proud to write.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to read my story. Thank you to everyone who took the the time to like and/or favourite it. Thank you to every one who took the time to read this rant. I know I should put it in a blog post, but my last blog post got only 17 views, and I wanted everyone who reads this story to at least have a good chance of seeing this. I hope to have another good quality chapter up soon.

Comments

[Arzoo]

It was his time? Tortoises live way, way longer than ponies.

[Timaeus]

2780373
In all fairness we don't know the exact details of Tank's death here, or how old he was when Rainbow Dash got him for that matter. Any number of things could have happened, and it isn't the death itself that counts for this, but the follow-up, which I think was handled quite nicely.

And I wish you the best of luck Kodeake! Get back in the saddle and write some more adorable TwiDash for us!

[I love ponys]

You can do it kodeake

[Kodeake]

2852130
XD Thanks!

It's one of my personal favourite lines, actually. My friend really screwed me with this prompt, He was trying to find something I couldn't write.

[Sr Face Tear]

it hurts my brain when twi calls rainbow "dashie", I just can't see her doing that unless she was teasing

[Kodeake]

4111442
I see it as a thing she only uses in heavily emotional cases, such as the one depicted in this chapter. Outside of the moments when they're alone and going through some kind of emotional stress, it bugs me too. Especially if the author has Twi call her that before they're romantically involved.

[I AM CINNIMEN BUN]

Ive enjoyed these chapters. If it makes a difference.

[gaymr_girl]

Dude whoa. Sure there's been a small quality drop but honestly is fluff really supposed to be full of hard core awesome writing style worthy of an Oscar. Especially considering it's a one shot. They're still fun to read. And they still make me laugh. But I suppose it's better to end strong than to end weak so good luck in future endeavors.

[Kodeake]

4241617
End? No no no no no, this series is... well, was far from over when I posted this chapter. It has ended now, but there's a sequel up. There are still many more chapters in this for you to read.