“You Okay up There!?”
“Fluttershy! Are you asleep up there? Yer supper is ready!”
A thin wall of blurry pinkness was the first thing to greet the fluttering eyes, while the pink strands that composed the said wall were also being sucked on by the maw below. A light moan escaped the mare at hearing her name being called, as Fluttershy’s mind began to start up.
Fluttershy glanced downward at the hair currently being licked by her tongue, prompting her to gasp and recoiled backward into the wall; a loud thump resounding throughout the walls of the house.
“You okay up there!?” a voice called from the floor below. “Did Smithy the Snake try waking you up by hugging your neck tightly again?”
“Ah, oh no.” The hyperventilating abusing the mare’s lungs was cut short when she started taking long, deep breaths, that worked to calm down her heart as well. “I mean…I’m fine Applejack! I’ll be down for supper in just a second.”
“Well, okay!”
Fluttershy huffed a breath of relief that washed across her chest from her propped up state. She caught a reflection of herself staring back at her, with a pink waterfall mane frizzled up as much as physics would allow, along with black bags underneath her eyes that expanded each and every sleepless night.
The mare sighed in face of her reflection, not bearing the will at the moment to fix up her appearance, as she instead limped off the bed and went straight to the door. A few minutes later, past a wooden halfway where many photographed faces watched, Fluttershy found herself before the family table.
“Goodness gracious girl!” Applejack had just finished washing the family's plates when Fluttershy walked in, turning off the tap water to go and greet her friend. “I know it’s hard for you to fall asleep during the night, but I had no clue that you couldn't sleep through the day either."
Fluttershy retreated an eye behind her mane and looked at her friend through the waterfall effect of hair. “Is it that obvious?”
“It looks like you dipped in Rarity mascara and went to town around your eyes...are you sure we don’t need to be bookin you an appointment with the doctor?”
The drowsiness still lingering in Fluttershy’s system drove away the butterflies brought on like situations like these, where the consequence one’s actions were to blurry to see or be cared about. The pegasus walked past her friend with a tired smile, and took a seat at the table, staring into the brown texture of the stew that had long since stopped steaming.
“You have nothing to worry about, Applejack.” Fluttershy picked up the spoon and dove it into the stew, retrieving some of its contents to deposit into her mouth, which then smiled with goodness at the country mare. “All that’s wrong is that my sleep schedule is a little messy, and that I’m not eating enough of your family delicious cooking to give me the energy I need.”
Applejack sighed, before taking a seat at the table as well. “Are you sure about that’s all that’s been going on with you? Because your lack of appetite and sleep started after you moved in here, and I hate to think that this new environment is hurting you, Fluttershy.”
Fluttershy’s wings flared upward as her metal spoon fell into the bowl of stew. “Not at all, Applejack! After all, I was the one that asked you if I could stay a little while, and have been so rude as to our welcome my stay.”
Applejack’s head fell left. “Stop that, Fluttershy. You and I both know that you’re anything but unloved around here, with how well you look after Apple Bloom and the animals on the farm. You’re welcomed to stay as long you like because the family here loves you, but I know for sure just our lovin you ain’t gonna help you.”
“I'm all right, Applejack.” The butterscotch wings began to relax and retreat inward. “I don’t want you worrying about me.”
“Sorry hun.” Applejack rose from her chair and came across the table, taking the seat next to her friend. “Worrin about my friends isn’t something I can stop with the click of a button, especially when it’s a close friend like you. Why don’t you open up, like when I used to when I came for tea, and see if we can get you any help.”
Fluttershy leaned away from her friend, not at all liking the confrontation that sat next to her. She could see the flare of the orange nostrils, the breath tickling the furs on her shoulder, as she retreated further away. Applejack couldn’t seem to take the hint as she leaned closer to her friend, prompting for the first time in Fluttershy's head of pushing someone away.
‘Why can’t she just…go away!’ Fluttershy thought to herself as impending doom filled the air between them. ‘I don’t wanna talk about it, so why is she trying so hard to get me to open up. I-I don’t want her care right now – I just want to be left alone!’
“Please, Fluttershy.” Applejack leaned back into her chair, preparing to get off it in a moment. “The family loves you too much to just stand by and watch you suffer like this, not when we feel like we can do something about it. Our home is your home for as long as you want, but please know you can talk to me at anytime.”
Applejack tensed her body to leap off the chair, but her muscles relaxed as soft hoof touched her own.
“Please don’t go.”
The country pony smile, turning her head to look at Fluttershy, but pausing halfway. Guessing what she had done wrong, in the beginning, Applejack slid her hat over her eyes and kept her ears open. “I’m not going anywhere, Fluttershy. What’s goin on?”
It too a few moments for the empty air to be filled with something. Words they came, sad to the heart, yet understood to the mind.
“I’ve been having nightmares about Spike.”
Applejack never interrupted a single sentence.
“Yo, Twilight! Book crush your head? Dinner's getting cold!”
The shouting from downstairs worked to awaken the lavender mare laid a rest on her plush bed. Her mind began to start up, eyelids starting to split, as the hazy interior of the compact room greeted the amethyst eyes.
A chime rang from the clock hanging on one of the walls, signaling to the mare climbing out of her bed that she had slept well into the evening. Despite this, however, Twilight wanted nothing more than to ignore the voice below and head back to bed.
Though her host was someone not to be left hanging, who would march up the stairs to come and claim their answer. So Twilight made no waste in hopping onto her numb hooves, a silent yawn slipping past her soft lips, as she stretched forward akin to a cat to pop any of the kinks still lingering in her back.
Relishing in the bliss of having her pent-up tension being washed away, Twilight crossed the bedroom to its door, hovering her hoof just above the handle. She had caught a glimpse of a bed-maned mare staring back at her in the vanity mirror, where every strand of hair was closer to reaching the ceiling than it was her forehead.
A brush laid on the dresser, with only a few threads of hair clinging to its fibers. It was getting to the point that the joint beauty cares were being used more so by her host than Twilight herself.
At the moment, she did not mind that fact, as she threw back the door and descended downward to the kitchen of the estate.
“Whoa, whoa whoa! You let that thing grow any longer, and we’re all gonna start thinking you’re a time traveler again.” Rainbow had just taken out a bowl of ramen out from the microwave, which would have a been sacrilege act in the first place, had it not gone cold and been made with the stove.
“Yeah.” Twilight was shameless about her appearance as of late as she took a seat at the alabaster table, where a bowl of ramen carefully slid across to reach her awaiting hoof. “A few missed showers and extra time spent against a pillow will do this to me. But I don’t mind it too much, as it makes me feel like Albert Einstein when I’m studying late.”
Rainbow blinked at the reply, each flash trying to comprehend if this was the usual ‘nerdy Twilight’, or the Twilight who seemed to care less every day she spent in her home. “Riiight. Anyway, were you sleeping through the whole day again, or did I just get home when you were taking a nap?”
“Hmmm.” The fork slipped back into the watery textures inside the bowl as a few strands of noodles hung from the plush purple lips. “I’m actually not sure. It feels like I had a nap, but my naps sometimes go on for hours, though its not like I’m keeping track of how much I’m sleeping nowadays...unless that fact bothers you, making you debate about tossing me out because I long outstayed my welcome?”
“What?” Rainbow let out a gasp as he joined her friend at the table. “No, Twilight. You can stay here for as long you like – Celestia knows you take better take of this place while I’m gone.”
Rainbow squinted her face upon realizing that now as the moment to confront her roommate , momentarily revealing her teeth as she scooted closer. “But I’m worried about you; you are my friend after all. Everytime I get home from work, I find my laundry in baskets and the dishes are already washed. But then I go to check on you in your room, sometimes not being able to get past the door with how much filth is pressing against it, only to find you still sleeping from the night before.”
Twilight listened to the words, deciphering their every meaning to piece together what it was her host wanted from her. “So...you want me to start putting full effort into cleaning my room as well, because technically its still one of your rooms, so it’s not fair to you? Not a worry at all, Rainbow Dash, I already spent yesterday cleaning every inch of space in that room.”
Rainbow threw her head back for a moment, before it came crashing down on the recently cleaned table. “That’s...not the issue here, Twilight. Well, it’s part of it. Look, you clean all of my stuff as a token for me allowing you to stay here, which I have already reminded you of something you don’t have to do. You keep doing it, and that’s fine, but you never do the same treatment to any of your things.
“You’re doing more for me than I’m doing for you. So tell me, Twilight, why are you going to such lengths to make my life a little easier, while leaving the entirety of yours in a mess?”
Tension filled the air after the pegasus had asked her question, not even the breeze outside daring to knock on the windows.
Twilight’s eyes climbed the bowl of ramen to the friend that sat opposite of her, sucking in a massive gust of wind to help her speak her next sentence. “So...you want me to start cleaning up after myself?”
If the cyan face wasn’t already pressed against the surface of the table, then surely it would’ve came crashing down with twice the force. It rose, but only to face its friend. “No, Twilight. I want to know what’s going on with you. Why are you sleeping for days on end? Not eating even half of the groceries you buy? While have you not left the house for months to go and check on your library, or any of your friends for that matter? Why do you hole yourself away in your room, letting it grow messier by the second, only to do a total cleansing in some manic burst?”
Rainbow bit her tongue, averting her eyes from her friend’s, as she asked a question that was simple, but would answer all of the aforementioned questions. “Twilight Sparkle, what is going on in your mind–” she pointed a hoof at her head “–and what is troubling your heart?” She placed the said hoof on her chest in a dramatic fashion, leaning over the table as if to stir a greater reaction out of her friend.
Twilight stared simply back, as if she were trying to formulate the perfect response to the question that would answer none of the cyan mare’s questions. The said cyan mare giving up in her attempts for tonight, as she rose up from her seat and gave a weak wave of the hoof. “I’m going to bed.”
She began her trek across the living room and to the stairs, lifting her forehooves onto the first steps.
“Wait!”
A lazy smile took control of the blue lips, as they stretched in the direction to the voice that had called their owner. Rainbow turned around without saying another word, and took a seat across the table from her friend once more.
“I’ve been sleeping a lot. Every time I have a dream, there he is, joining me on whatever whacky adventure my subconscious is capable of creating. I think my imagination is so hard at work in my sleep, that it leaves me restless when I wake up. But I wouldn’t trade it for the world, because in my dreams, Spike and I are joined together once again.”
Rainbow tried to keep the lazy smile, but it began to slowly wane as she heard the fictional accounts of the alicorn and the dragon.
Applejack and Rainbow knew not what to say to comfort their freinds on their dreams and nightmares.