//------------------------------//
// 26 Earth Drinker, Part Six 
// Story: Continuity Disrupted 
// by Doug Graves 
//------------------------------//

Doug loudly sighs as he holds Rainbow's quivering form, his hands leaving her head to start tracing the lines of sore, exhausted muscles along her back. He maneuvers her limp body to a more comfortable spot, the pegasus barely putting forth the effort to help him rest her in his lap. His fingers draw weak moans from her, the normal writhing as he hits sensitive muscles completely absent. He mentally grimaces, though he tries to keep the positive outlook going as he leans in close.

"Are you just looking for me to help with your exhausted muscles?" Doug waits for the nod, smiling when it never comes. "Because this massage will help with that, certainly. But I don't think it will be enough." Doug shakes his head, "You had several days of resting - well, besides your normal flying duties - and you've burned through your reserves. It'll take days to recover enough to get that back, and until then I'm not sure what exactly to say besides make sure to get good sleep, stay hydrated, and eat up. Speaking of, have you had enough to drink today?"

Rainbow slightly shakes her head to the side.

"Well, we should definitely fix that, but maybe not just yet. I think it's a bigger issue. After all, while you need some help making sure you take care of yourself, physically, I don't think your biggest issue is going to be recovering physically. After all, you've been forcing yourself through tough routines for years. Maybe not so much on your earth pony muscles, but physically pushing your wings and agility. Right?"

Rainbow barely nods.

"You're going to have to tell them your struggles, and hopefully they will have a solution, or better tips, or something that you can do that will help you get through this. Maybe it's as simple as taking longer breaks, and not straining yourself for so long a stretch. Maybe it's not so easy." Doug runs his hand through the sweaty, if free of dirt, warm colors of Rainbow's mane after he works up her neck. "But you're going to have to tell them if you want it to get better."

Rainbow shakes her head, a feeble, "Can't."

"Rainbow," Doug quietly says as he focuses on her withers and upper legs, "you know nopony will think less of you for struggling with this, right?" He digs in a little deeper at the lack of response, eliciting a barely palpable shake of the head. "They'll even love and support you more for it. They'll see in you the same struggles that they go through. Maybe it's a relational issue they face instead of a physical obstacle, but it's a difficult struggle nonetheless. And they want to be there for you, to help you like they know you would help them."

Rainbow lays on the ground, just letting him speak at her.

Doug sighs as he says, "Or it's an emotional problem, having difficulty overcoming something that happened to them. But the important thing is that it doesn't matter the topic you are struggling with, it matters that you open up to your friends, your family, and they in turn will accept you, faults and all. Just like I know you would do for them."

"Oh, yeah?" Rainbow Dash snaps, turning her head just enough to glare at Doug with one eye. "And how do you know that?" She rears up just a little, "Nopony ever expects anything from you! You just play it safe, only doing things that you know you can do."

Rainbow sighs as her strength gives out, resting back on Doug. She continues with every bit as much force in her voice, "You never push yourself, discovering what you thought were your limits and then busting past them. Fly faster than you ever thought possible. You probably don't even know how far you can go. Do you think I performed a Sonic Rainboom by only doing what I knew was possible?"

"Rainbow," Doug trails off, his frown growing larger as his ministrations languish. He eventually stops moving entirely, merely resting his hands on her sides while his head hangs in resignation. "You're-"

"You don't even," Rainbow Dash scowls as a coughing fit interrupts her. She slowly recovers, still unable to physically push against Doug like she feels the situation calls for, to build a little space between her and the antithesis of her ideals, "You don't even try to defend yourself. You just accept it like you always do, and don't even try to fight back. You're just so resigned to it."

Rainbow Dash sniffs as her heads turns away from him, "You don't wrestle with me or Applejack once you're in a losing spot, because you 'know' what the inevitable outcome is. Well, guess what? Sometimes, that one in twenty, or one in a million chance happens, and you turn it around. But for you to just tap out because the odds are against you?" Rainbow shakes her head as she flops back down, "I think that's even more pathetic than how I am right now."

Doug sighs, his head dropping down as his hands mechanically push against Rainbow's leg. His eyes close, his breathing deepens, long breaths indicative of the thoughts he is trying to reorder and place together. Sounds come from the barn next to them, the repetitive thump of basket upon basket getting unloaded alongside the light clop of hooves against the dirt. The thunk of apples, the briefest glance of Applejack as she drags another wagon load into and then out of the barn.

"Do you know how many apples I got compared to Big Mac?" Rainbow asks softly, her anger spent. She watches Lemon approach as Applejack briskly walks away. She sighs as her head - unsupported when Doug shifts to massaging her hind leg - flops onto the dirt and lays uncomfortably bent. Doug slides her to a less strained spot as she continues, "Barely a third. It's going to take me working the rest of the day, with you and Apple Bloom and Applebaum helping just to equal what he does." Rainbow sighs, "And do you know what will happen if I don't get it done?"

"You fail," comes the soft reply, barely audible.

"I fail." Rainbow Dash nods, sniffling against the tears and snot that would scarcely turn the dirt caked on her nose to mud. "Everypony will know that I, Rainbow Dash, failed. Again. I failed to make the Wonderbolts, I failed to help Scootaloo with her flying, and now I'm failing at taking care of something I said I would do. That's me, Rainbow Dash the failure."

"I don't think you're a failure," Doug says, cupping Rainbow's mane and tilting her head to stare into her eyes. She tries to avoid his gaze at first; Doug shakes her head, smiling at her annoyed look up at him. He says, finally with a bit of spirit, "What makes a person, or pony, successful or not isn't whether or not they succeed at any one thing." He pauses for a few seconds, trying to recall the words as he says, "As a great inventor once said, when asked about his repeated attempts to find a solution, 'I have not failed. I have just found ten thousand ways that won't work.' "

Rainbow makes a slight harumph sound, "Who tries that many things?"

Doug continues, barely acknowledging the snide remark, "Because it's a matter of perspective. Because I know you aren't a quitter, Dash. I know that you can succeed at anything you put your mind to. And if you want to succeed at this - and I know you want to, and along with that you have the ability and drive to do so - then you're going to have to open up to the ponies around you. And not just open up, but listen to them and their thoughts, their ideas. At the rate you're going, not only are you not going to finish out on harvesting the orchard, you're also going to destroy your body. And all that hard work you've put into becoming such an amazing flier."

Rainbow merely grunts in reply.

"And you know what, Rainbow?" Doug's massage returns with a vengeance, the pegasus moaning in pain and pleasure as his hands force toxins from her muscles, "If that's what you want to do? I'll support you. I'll protect your precious ego, that tiny voice that doesn't want anypony to see you fail. That doesn't want to open up, to let other ponies know the vulnerable and fragile core. I'm the same way. I hate revealing myself like that, which is why you were so right earlier. I don't push myself, not to the extremes. I do what I know I can do, what is safe, because I'm so afraid of the consequences of failure."

Rainbow can only grunt as her head is driven into the ground, Doug turning her to attack both flanks with long strokes of hand on firm, pained tissue. 

"Some days I wish I had your drive, Rainbow. That desire to prove myself to everypony around me, to be so afraid of failure and devastated at disappointment that it drives me to work as hard as you do. But you're right, I let myself get pushed around. I don't stand up for myself, because I'm afraid of silly things that I sometimes know aren't true, like that others won't like me if I stand up to them. Or that I will lose their respect, or friendship, or trust, because I dared to disagree with them. And I want to change that, to get past these fears and hang ups and deep seated insecurities."

Rainbow Dash pushes herself up just long enough to say, "Prove it."

Doug nods firmly, his gaze going to the sky, "Alright, Rainbow. I accept your challenge." He glances down at her disbelieving expression, her muzzle caked with dirt managing to curl to a wry smile regardless. "You let the others help you with your difficulties and frustrations trying to get this insurmountable task done. And I'll open up, and tell the others about what it felt like: the powerlessness, the grief, the anguish I felt. And they're going to pile up against us, a mound of many hues, and show us how much they love and care about us."

Rainbow snorts, "That does sound like them."

"And in the future, I won't quit. Not on you, not on a sparring match, not when there's a chance." Doug traces a single finger down Rainbow's dirt covered barrel. They both glance up at a stomping of hooves, seeing Lemon standing there beaming at them.

"That was soo cool!" Lemon exclaims, bounding over to the two. "I was worried about you two, after you disappeared and didn't come back immediately. And then we heard you two talking, and not so much massaging or, as Granny Smith said, 'canoodling'. So I came to see how you are doing!" Lemon pauses for a split second, not nearly long enough for anypony to say anything else. "So, are you 'canoodling'? And what's canoodling? I think she also said foaling around, but that doesn't make nearly as much sense, since you aren't foals and I'm pretty sure that you haven't been foals in a long time." 

Lemon glances over at Doug, tapping a hoof on her chin. Doug and Rainbow exchange tired looks that, even as they get  more weary as the filly continues, manage to stay upbeat, "You know, I don't know if Doug was ever a filly. That's right, right? I mean, I guess he was a colt, right?" Lemon smiles at the two, happily asking, "So, what happens now? You need my help with anything? I'd be glad to help out!"

"Your sire and I are going to wrestle," Rainbow Dash says to Lemon while still looking up at Doug. She smirks, "If he beats me, well, you might want to make yourself scarce."

"Really? Aww." Lemon says, a slight cock of the head as she moves up and inspects Rainbow's limp form. "But you did such a beautiful job talking before, I want to see how you reconcile with each other!"

"Rainbow seems to think she still has a chance," Doug says, returning Rainbow's smirk, "So when I beat her-"

"If you beat me," Rainbow winks at Doug, "Then he's going to pound my flank into the ground until you never knew there was any blue on this coat. So, if Pinkie Pie says it's okay, you can stick around for that."

"Okay, I'll go ask her!" Lemon says resolutely with a nod of her head, dashing away. She calls out, "Scootaloo, I need you to help me with your scooter!"

Rainbow glances down her dirt stained coat as the filly disappears, "I'm pretty dirty. Don't you kind of want me to wash off first?"

"I don't know Rainbow, "Doug says with a smirk, "I don't think I've ever been more attracted to you."

"You keep using that line, and one of these days it isn't going to work," Rainbow replies, her eyes twinkling. 

"But not today."

"Oh, no," Rainbow says as she pushes to her hooves, ready to start wrestling. "Not today."