This is my first attempt at a romantic story, so please be kind!
Each chapter will have slightly different tones to it, but overall it's meant to be a bit of light comedy, and it's rated teen because chapter 2 will include something a bit more 'emotional' (This fic has no clop, though). The primary focus of this fic is on motivations and how they tie into a whole, so if certain things feel 'off', it will be explained by the end of the series or chapter.
If you like what you read, please don't forget to give me a thumbs up - it will help me greatly to get this fic a bit more exposure and I appreciate your help.
If you want, kindly leave a comment! I love getting feedback and I'd like to hear what you think I could do better.
Thank you for reading.
Prologue :: Something Wrong
It's often said that pets resemble their owners - in temperament and looks. Perhaps a cloud wasn't technically a pet, but that didn't make this idea any less applicable.
Rainbow Dash lay on a small, grey nimbus, the dawn rising above it, casting the first rays of light and life down upon its wispy frame. The cloud was thick with greys and strained whites, and threatened to burst at any time, releasing all that it had bottled up inside. And much like Rainbow Dash, it wafted on the breeze, neither going nor coming, lost in a breezeless sky and on the verge of breaking.
All her emotions and thoughts were welled up behind one thing and one thing only – her mind had been tormented over these past few days over a realization, but one she was ill equipped to handle by herself. The thought of asking for help, however, made each beat of her heart a clenching that caused her discomfort and pain. But no amount of her own thinking could quell that feeling of bricks in the pit of her stomach, and she knew that she was just about to overflow.
A drop fell.
And soon, one after the other, streaks of water rained to the ground in a tiny, controlled shower, delighting the plants that lay beneath. But this, it did alone, for Rainbow Dash had already kicked off, zooming with a disquieted heart toward Ponyville.
She landed, roughly, in front of the large ornate doorway that marked the entrance to Ponyville's very own library. A tentative step was taken, a frown crossing her worried face, but a violent shake of her head drove all foreign expressions away as her look returned to one of neutrality.
She raised a hoof, unsteadily, taking a moment to clear her throat before knocking sharply, and she did not stop until the sound of a pony shuffling around could be heard on the other side, clumsily unlocking the door with the day's first burst of magic.
"Dash!" Twilight exclaimed, as she pulled the door open, stifling a yawn. "You're here earlier than I expected…"
"I… uh… what? Expected?" stammered Rainbow, slightly distracted by the charged greeting.
It was Twilight's turn to shake her head violently; albeit this time to remove some haze left over in her brain from the night's slumber. "Early. You're here early, I mean. Sorry, I just woke up."
"Oh, sorry about that. Yeah. I guess it's kinda early," Rainbow said off to the side, taking note of the sun that was only just now rising above the buildings. "Um… well…"
"What can I help you with, Rainbow?" Twilight asked, with a tone of concern.
The pony in front of her looked slightly off. A little bit troubled. Her eyebrows slanted outward, as if in guilt, but her roaming eyes suggested she was more on the side of 'bothered'. Twilight thought she recognized the look.
"Say... is it hot? Yeah, it's hot. It's kinda hot. Can I come in?" rattled off Rainbow Dash, ducking around Twilight and pushing past her without an invitation.
"Ah... sure. Come in, Rainbow Dash," replied Twilight, turning around and shutting the door. "Not that I'm only just out of bed or anything."
Twilight's suspicions crept heavily into her tone. "Is... everything alright?" She checked, regarding Dash with a curious gaze.
"Alright? Of course everything's alright. What's wrong? Nothing's wrong. Does it look like anything's wrong?" Dash fired off line after line. She tended to get wordy when she was nervous, and there wasn't any denying her state of mind at this very moment.
She circled around the main room of the library distractedly, before dumping herself onto a pile of books in one corner that was left out for sorting by Twilight the previous night. It looked vaguely chair-shaped, to Dash. Might as well use it as one.
Twilight kept her eyes on the edgy Pegasus the whole way through, and didn't even react to her books being squashed in such an inappropriate manner.
"...What?" Rainbow Dash shrugged, trying to dismiss her own behaviour.
"Nothing," was the reply. "You... sure are acting strange, Rainbow."
"Am I? Maybe it's you who's acting strange, and I'm just being normal!"
"Sure, Dash," Twilight said, trotting over to the base of the set of stairs that led to the dark and private upper floors of the library. "Spike! Wake up!"
"Whoa, hey! What are you doing?" Dash yelled at Twilight's actions.
"Waking... up... my assistant?"
"Don't... don't do that!"
"Why not?" Twilight frowned. "Rainbow Dash, what's going on?"
"Nnnnnggg," groaned the panicky Pegasus, rubbing her temples with her hooves. A few bricks in the chair of books tumbled to the floor as she flew herself out of it and gave her wings a little stretch.
"You know what, it's nothing. Don't worry about it! See ya, Twilight!" She smiled suddenly, heading for the door.
And there was a bright flash of light and the jingling of bells flying through the air, and suddenly within Rainbow Dash's sights was a very bemused Twilight Sparkle blocking the path to freedom.
"Nuh, uh. You came here for a reason, and I want to know what that is," said the wall.
"It's... ah..." Rainbow caught sight of a book out of the corner of her eye, which actually wasn't very hard, considering that they were in a library. "Oh! I was just here to get a Daring-Do book from you!"
"You've read them all, Rainbow." Twilight's eyebrow quirked as she took a step toward the agitated Pegasus, who in turn took her own step back.
"Yeah, I know! I mean... I just wanted to get the first one again! You know! To read... again?" She threw out an excuse, her eyebrows dropping yet again, and a half-baked smile extending from cheek to cheek.
"You've already read that one 32 times, Dash. I think you know it by heart." Twilight stepped forward yet again. She'd seen that expression before. Rainbow didn't tend to hide things very well.
"Uh... um... hey, isn't Spike supposed to be awake by now? You ought to go check on him!" Rainbow's mind raced, calling up any distraction she could by this point.
"Did somepony call me?" came a low draconic voice from the top of the stairs. It sounded sleepy, and cranky – but mostly sleepy.
"Ugh!" cried Rainbow.
The little dragon, in his cute night-time sleepy clothes – the one with the candles and teddy bears on it – teetered down the stairs one by one and dragged himself into the main room.
"Morning, Twilight. And, oh, hi, Rainbow Dash." He rubbed his face, driving the sleep away. "You sure are here early. What time is it, Twi?"
"Oh, I'd say it's time for some answers." Twilight grinned, with a sparkle in her eye. "Spike, would you mind getting breakfast for three? I think we're going to have to entertain a guest today."
---
There really weren't any real tables or chairs or anything like that in the library, simply because Twilight had never found the necessity to buy any before, which was strange considering how the place did have three beds.
But the library also had, strangely enough, approximately four dozen pillows – the result of Twilight's foray into the world of sleepovers and a bit of overzealous preparation.
Pillows which actually made for a relatively good stand-in for furniture.
Well, alright. It was a pit. It was a bowl of fluffy feathers and freshly pressed slipcovers, stacked up in a vague foxhole shape in the middle of the room, which neatly held one rather deflated Pegasus, who lay slumped in the middle of it like an ice cube floating in the middle of a cupful of down.
But the pillows provided no comfort to Rainbow Dash, who draped herself over the side of one of the fluffy white walls and buried her face in the plush.
An empty plate, licked clean of fresh potato hash and a side of wheatmeal, sat just below Dash's right foreleg, upon which she dropped a soiled napkin which Twilight had insisted she use.
And now.
"And now," said Twilight, as the stained piece of cotton paper hit the porcelain dish.
It collapsed upon itself, folding down, without a leg to stand upon, blotches of tomato sauce and powdery traces of wheat flour speckling the otherwise untouched square of fabric.
Rainbow Dash watched as it imploded.
She felt much like doing the same.
"Alright, Dash, out with it," urged Twilight.
The pegasus heaved one final sigh, gathering her wits about her for the inevitable. This was the part that was difficult. This was the part that was going to be hardest to break through. At least Spike was in the other room packing up or doing whatever it was that dragons did.
Her chest tightened, a pain shooting through it as if sparks of electricity were tickling her heart. Every time she thought about her… and every time she even went near considering approaching what she knew was the truth… the lightning rained down.
A thousand thoughts flew through her mind like stars in the empty void of her head. Each star twinkled with something she wanted to say, but starlight alone was never enough to clarify the path ahead. And in the end, words came streaming out of her mouth as she struggled to get the point across.
"I think... I don't know, Twilight!" She gave up. "I mean, I'm not dumb, OK? Even though Applejack says I am, I'm not dumb!"
"No one... said you were, Dash. Besides Applejack, that is. But you're getting a bit ahead of yourself, don't you think?"
"I... I know what it's supposed to mean, Twilight! Ugh! But it's not supposed to happen!"
"I'm not sure I follow, Dash." Twilight shook her head, unable to trace the nonsense to a source.
"Don't you think I've already tried to explain it some other way? Don't you think I've considered the alternatives?"
"Alternatives of... what?"
"I have..."
"You have...?"
"... feelings!" Dash blurted out.
"Feelings of… what?"
"You know! Feelings!" Dash waved her front hooves around to elaborate.
Twilight blinked. Slowly, her eyelids tilted down, slanting toward the back, and the beginnings of a grin narrowed itself to the edges of her mouth.
"Is... that all?" she asked, trying not to laugh.
"Is... is that all?" echoed Dash, incredulously. "Don't you see what this means?"
"It means... you like somepony?"
"I'm ruined! My entire image!" Rainbow Dash threw her legs up and motioned to herself. "How could I, Rainbow Dash, have feelings?"
"How... indeed," said Twilight. "Didn't we just go through this with the whole reading thing?"
"It's not the same! This is like... ten times worse! Fifty! A million!"
"Now, there's a slight exaggeration."
"Twilight! You can't let anypony know about this! Not a single other pony, OK? You have to promise me!"
"Okay just… calm down, Dash. Don't you think you're overreacting slightly? Like you tend to do with... everything?"
"This is different, Twilight! This is mushy and... icky stuff! You know? I can't be seen being mushy and icky!"
"So... why'd you come to me, then? I mean, you could have just not told anypony and be done with it." Twilight observed.
"Because," said Dash, through clenched teeth, "I need you to fix me!"
"…fix?" Twilight stared straight at Dash, her tone of voice the only thing changing.
"Fix! You know! Like... fix!"
"Fix," Twilight repeated yet again, the essence of it not becoming any clearer.
"Yeah! You know, with magic and stuff! I'm sure one of these books you've got has some kind of spell to reverse this thing!"
"Rainbow... let's just think about this for a while, alright?"
"Come on! Use your horn!" Rainbow insisted, pushing herself up and making a mad swipe toward Twilight's forehead.
"Hey, don't touch it! It's not a toy, Dash!"
Twilight pulled away from Dash's advances, as the frantic blue pony propelled herself forward over the edge of the pillow boundary in a desperate grab.
This had the unfortunate result of Rainbow sprawled out over the floor, legs caught up on a raised platform of softness but her face connected on something much, much less forgiving.
"Dash? Are you... alright?" asked Twilight, approaching the Rainbow Rug.
"P... pweefe," came the muffled response.
"I'm sorry… I couldn't hear that…"
"Please..." the voice said again; but it didn't sound like Rainbow's. It had a tone that Twilight had never heard from her before. It sounded soft, weak, and almost even... dare she consider? Vulnerable.
Behind the voice came a grating burbling, like the gentleness of a river as it stretches itself beyond the horizon of a forest landscape, but the sound coming from Dash's throat wasn't as peaceful.
It was choked. It was strained. The river was no longer pristine and beautiful. It was dour and ignored. It was a perfect river never before seen by mare or stallion, and there was something a little bit sad about that.
"Oh my gosh, Rainbow!" exclaimed Twilight, looking down at her. "Did you injure yourself? Are you okay?"
And Twilight looked into her eyes. Her big... bright eyes, always injected with energy, always able to see any problem through, always reflecting the power of will and strength of passion that Rainbow Dash herself had inside. Those crimson eyes, and the fire they held, were much larger and much deeper than Twilight had ever noticed before.
And at the bottom, gathering in small, but significant amounts, were the beginnings of a tear.
All voice was gone now. Gone from the one pony who was nothing if not vocal.
The one pony who always had something to say about everything fell silent.
Twilight nudged her up gently with a helping push, lifting her with the side of her own body to a fairly workable sitting position; Rainbow's legs falling off the pillows lifelessly and her head tilted to the side like a rag doll.
"Rainbow... did you hit your head?" asked Twilight, gently, resting Rainbow's unresisting body against the pile. "Where does it hurt?"
And through shuddering breaths those crimson eyes turned, moving upward to look at Twilight, and a shaking but forceful leg raised up slowly, curling... curling inwards...
"Here..." murmured Rainbow Dash, tapping herself on the chest.
"It hurts here."
Prologue :: End