//------------------------------// // Twilight Therapy // Story: Junior Flight Camp: The Crusader and the Bullhead // by Wise Cracker //------------------------------// Twilight grunted at the challenge. “Okay. You lied about how you got your cutie mark, as well as how you made friends with Fluttershy.” Rainbow Dash shook her head. “Nope. It happened just like I said it did. Why would I lie? Why would Fluttershy lie?” That thought hadn’t occurred to the unicorn yet. Fluttershy had told the same story, more or less. The bullying, the racing, it was mostly identical. “You didn’t tell the whole truth, though.  Something’s missing from your side of the story.” “What makes you say that?” Rainbow Dash indulged her inquisitive friend with a raised eyebrow. “Fluttershy was, well, shy, and got scared a lot as a foal. You were a jock, popular or not. She’d be scared of you too, even if you stood up for her. When I first met her, she barely spoke to me, and I was trying to be nice. To you? She’d freeze up as soon as you started talking, not to mention when you did your tricks. She should have been terrified of you. And nopony would bully you on Camp. Trying tricks the way you did would get you respect, not mockery, even if you failed. The only way that your story would make any sense is if...” The mare trailed off at that.  ”Oh.” Rainbow Dash looked her blankly in the eye. “It makes sense if?” “It makes sense if you already looked harmless when you came to Flight Camp. If Fluttershy took pity on you before you could scare her. And the same thing was the reason other ponies mocked you. You’re not clumsy, you never were, yet they called you ‘Rainbow Crash’. That would only happen if you looked like you’d crashed before you came here.” Rainbow Dash sighed. Twilight gave her a sad look, sympathy bordering on pity. Random memories flashed in front of her eyes as the pieces of the puzzle fell into place. “You fooled everyone when we were discussing Whimper. Everyone thought you meant you’d teach him to fly the way you fly, but what you meant, what you heard Derpy say, was ‘learn to fly the way you learned to fly’. You were weighed down a while before Flight Camp.” Rainbow Dash bit her lip. “Yup.” “But you were a featherweight, you weren't strong enough to train with that.”   “Who said I was training?” Twilight’s eyes went wide. “Oh. You got wrapped in bandages, with heavy compresses in between. They put little bags of aromatic seeds in between the bandages to let the medicine seep into your fur, didn’t they? But that kind of treatment is only for…” Rainbow Dash didn’t break her glare, even if she was suppressing a tear. “Go on. You know you wanna know.” Twilight gulped. “You either got burns all over your body, or you were covered in cuts and scratches. If you were burned, no doctor would have allowed you to go up high in the bright sun right after treatment, so it was cuts. You looked like a flying tortoise for a while, that’s why you didn’t like Tank at first. It reminded you of that time, that explains it. And it explains how you were able to run with your wings strapped tight during the Running of the Leaves. That wouldn’t be possible if you weren’t somehow used to it, I’ve asked around. That just leaves how you got injured to begin with.” Rainbow Dash let Twilight think with a heavy silence between them. Twilight perked up. “Wait a second, you said you’d flown Ghastly Gorge a million times. How old were you when you first did it?” “Nine.” There was a quiver in Dash’s voice that the unicorn had never heard before. ”And I got as far as the brambles and cactuses. My hair got stuck, I kept getting grazed, and like an idiot I kept going straight into the sharp stuff. By the time I cleared that bit, I nearly passed out just from the pain. Nothing went too deep, but a lot of cuts add up, you know. Not to mention the pieces I lost from my mane and tail.” “Wow. How did you...” The pegasus shrugged. “Oh, I woke up in the hospital, I still don’t know how I got there. The doctors said some fillies brought me in, but they ran off before anyone could ask any questions. I don’t know who they were, how they got down there, or how they even knew I was there. All I know is they picked me up and carried me up through the Gorge and into Ponyville Hospital. I’m just glad they saw me. That far down it’d be impossible to catch.” Maybe one of them had a twitching tail. Twilight’s mind reeled at the implications. “Anyway, the doctors said that most of the cuts were infected, and to stop me from getting them even more infected they put me in one of those heavy casts, with little bags in between. They smelled good, at least.” Rainbow was smiling widely as she said it. ”Then they told me I wouldn’t fly for a while. My wings had to be taped in, strapped to my belly, and they’d be too weak to do anything for weeks. That meant no Flight Camp for me. That was what really made me upset. Not the cuts, not looking ugly, just not going to Flight Camp when I wanted. But trust me, the cuts were pretty bad, too. Twilight winced in sympathy. “Um, how bad are we talking here?” “Bad enough to keep me up at night. My mom had to do this silly story thing to put me to sleep every night, and my dad?” She shook her head laughing, or crying, it was hard to tell. ”My dad didn’t even get angry at me for doing something that stupid. He was just happy I was all right, didn’t even bother trying to talk me out of Camp. He just took me to practise flying every day, same time, after my wings were free again. My belly was still wrapped up and I was still weighed down, to keep the softer stuff from hurting, but he promised me I’d get to get fly when I wanted to. So I practised with him, weighed down, and with wings that hadn’t moved for a week and a half. I got pretty strong that way, and the cast came off two days before Flight Camp started. Finally, when it rolled around --” “The cuts hadn’t fully cleared up yet. They use willow exudates in that kind of bandages. They’re painkillers, but also blood-thinners. You looked injured when you got there, and since no one had seen how you got that way, they just assumed you were a ditz, and the tricks you could do only made that image worse. So they started calling you ‘Rainbow Crash’.” Rainbow shrugged. “It wasn’t so bad. I didn’t get any permanent scars. I got really strong, really fast. I learned to fly right pretty early on, and that made me faster than anypony. Even the instructors had a hard time keeping up. And the name-calling? I just stopped caring. After a while I was doing things I knew I couldn’t do, but I learned to stay safe, my dad made sure of that. Even if I knew I couldn’t do it, it wouldn’t hurt too much to try. I earned my nickname long after they gave it to me.” She wore a huge grin as she explained it.   “So Fluttershy wasn’t scared of you because you looked hurt. She felt sympathy for you. And your first Sonic Rainboom?” “Nopony believed I did it. And why would they? I still had painkillers in my system, all anyone really saw was an explosion and a rainbow. There’s lots of magic that could do that by accident. And then there was a silly filly who went so fast she didn’t even notice her muscles were tearing. If I hadn’t had the Rainboom pushing me forward, I wouldn’t have made it back up to the clouds at all.” Twilight winced. “You… tore your muscles?” Rainbow Dash gulped and chuckled sadly. “Yup, I don’t usually admit that when I tell that story. I err… I was bleeding again when I crossed the finish line. My wings hurt for months after that and the instructors never let me out of their sight for the rest of Flight Camp. Totally worth it, by the way. I only started telling that story when I moved to Ponyville. They didn’t know about the whole ‘Rainbow Crash’ thing, and when they saw what else I could do, ponies believed me. Even Fluttershy never connected the dots. She didn't know what a Rainboom looks like, nopony did. And since my first one only happened with painkillers, it took a while before I could push myself like that again. Soo… that’s it, the secret origins of Rainbow Crash. Now you know.” Twilight let her head hang low. “Who else knows about this?” “Just the ones who were there. So aside from Fluttershy, you’re the only one who knows the whole story.” “I guess I owe you an apology, then. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to drag this up. I just wanted to understand.” “It’s okay, Twilight.” Dash put a hoof on her friend’s shoulder. ”You always try to figure things out to help, it’s in your nature. Sure, it hurts to bring it up, but that’s just what you do. You always get to the bottom of things. I wouldn’t be much of a friend if I couldn’t put up with that.” “That’s not what I meant, Rainbow. I’m sorry for everything. Every time I’ve yanked your tail or seen someone else do it, every time I didn’t see you were down or just didn’t think to help, and I’m really sorry for all the times I hurt you. And don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about, I know it hurt.” Twilight narrowed her gaze at that. “You’re being silly, Twilight. There’s a lot worse that you could apologise for than just that stupid costume thing.” Rainbow chuckled to herself. It had hurt, but it was in the past, and it was a learning experience.   Twilight raised herself up. The familiarity with Whimper came back to her, at least in one aspect. “I never apologise for mistakes I can’t avoid, there’s no point. But you? I’ve seen you cry more often than any of our friends, except maybe Rarity. Yet you act like nothing can touch you, and that makes everypony else think that nothing really can touch you. Except you only act like that because you’ve been in pain before, it’s a vicious cycle. The fact that you’ve learned to take pain doesn’t give anyone an excuse to just hurt you. There’s no point in getting tough if all it accomplishes is ponies hurting you even more, and I should have realised that sooner. I’ve done things to you that I’d never have done with Applejack or Fluttershy or anypony else. Well, except maybe that one time I slammed a door in Fluttershy’s face, but that was different.” She shook her head to get back on topic.   "Twilight, what are you getting at? I do not cry," Rainbow lied. “My point is, I know I’m insensitive, but I’ve seen others do the same thing, and you being strong enough to take it isn’t an excuse. It’s not fair that you should be treated worse just because you act like it doesn’t hurt. So will you please accept my apologies? Please forgive me?” She pleaded with a smile that would give a dragon pause for thought. The speedster looked weird, then. Twilight hadn’t seen that look on Rainbow Dash before, she couldn’t place it immediately. It was gratitude, and maybe a sense of relief at finding understanding at long last. “I bear the Element of Loyalty, remember? I always forgive my friends.” Dash turned back. ”We should head to the camp fire, by the way. They’ll be waiting for us.” “Yeah.” Twilight shook her head to clear it. ”I should probably apologise to Whimper, too.” “No, you shouldn’t. You did help, just not in the way you think. You don’t know the whole story.” “But you do, right?” Twilight dropped the hammer. ”You knew he’d get into that fight, you knew he’d freak out when I talked to him, you even knew he was getting a sibling.” “Huh? No, I didn’t know that last one. But you might say I know what he’s going through.” Dash avoided the topic. ”Physically, I mean. I don’t know all of it, but a little. And that fight was going to happen anyway. Being weighed down when you fly does that. Once the weight is removed your body tries to stay up all the time. Your magic gets jumpstarted and overcompensates to keep you up, and your wings get all hyper. If you fly like that too much, you wind up getting edgy when you need to stand still, and you snap easily too. But I’m timing Whimper so that doesn’t get too bad. He just needs to go through some stuff, even if it’s painful.” Twilight frowned. “What kind of stuff? What aren’t you telling me?” “You have to trust me on this. It’s way more complicated than you think, but I know what I’m doing. Part of his problem is him reacting to stress, and I need to stress him out a little to teach him how to deal with it. That’s why I’m keeping on such a short leash, I can’t help him if I don’t.” “Well, he’s all yours. Whatever it is that you know about him, I can’t figure it out. I just can’t tell what’s bothering him. I kept asking him if he knew why his friends liked having him around and I don’t even know why you put up with me, actually.” Rainbow Dash stopped, just out of earshot from the camp fire. She lowered her voice just in case. “It’s the other way around, Twilight. You put up with me. First thing you did when you met me was challenge me, nopony ever did that first time they met me. Either they call me a blowhard and walk away, or they just take me for granted. You don’t take nonsense from anypony, even me. And you know what it’s like to push yourself to be better. We just understand each other, is all.” The familiarity of what Whimper had said about his friendships came back. Even when they’d just met, the two had had a silent acknowledgement of how far they really were in their respective skill levels. Twilight had very quickly accepted Dash’s boasting, simply because she acknowledged the fact that Dash had something worth boasting about. Likewise, Dash had quickly accepted that Twilight simply knew a lot more than she did, because she spent time and effort learning these things and how to explain them properly. It had taken both of them a lot of effort to get to where they were, and the mere acknowledgement of that effort was enough to understand each other.   Dash resumed their approach. “Besides, you do know what his problem is. What’s on his mind, anyway. I’m pretty sure you’re the only one up here who’s actually had the same thing on their mind, maybe more than once.” “I don’t follow.” “Yeah, you do. You just don’t realise it, Miss Smartypants.” The final click in that mental clockwork came, and the bells were sounding as Twilight’s eyes went wide. “Oh.” Whimper lay down with the rest of the group.  He was still shaking, but at least Zephyr and Skyron were sitting by another fire. Scootaloo was sidled nice and close to him, just close enough to make sure he’d feel comfy. Flitter and Cloudchaser were looking at the pair weirdly, but no one spoke up. Some of the older pegasus foals gave them a few glances, but the colt was too preoccupied to care and the filly didn’t seem to realise what the fuss was about.   It looked out of place, but only to the ones looking at them. Their whispering to each other probably didn’t help much, either. “You sure you don’t want your marshmallow?” “No, you can have it. I’m just not that hungry.” He smiled at her. Scootaloo munched on that extra marshmallow, looking worried. “First time Twilight lectured you, huh?” He shook his head. “She didn’t lecture me. She tried to give me therapy.” “Ouch.” Scootaloo sympathised. ”No wonder you’re not eating. How bad was it?” “Ever have your deepest, darkest secrets come out to a perfect stranger who’s just guessing?” She grimaced at that. “I’m sorry, I think I might’ve clued her off about it.” “About what?” “Well, you getting a baby brother or sister.” She leaned in as close as she could so one would hear it.   “Is it that obvious?” He groaned to himself. “Well, it’s kinda written all over your face, it’s not that hard to figure out. And I guess it was written all over mine, too.” “That’s okay. I don’t mind you knowing all about me.” He smiled weakly.   “Hey, lovebirds,” Flitter called out, ”what are you two whispering for? Feel like sharing anything with the group?” Derpy got out some popcorn. “Aww, don’t be mean, Flitter. They’re not lovebirds, they’re friends, and probably tired. You’d want to keep your muscles nice and warm too if you pushed yourself like that. They’re probably just whispering about what they’ll do tomorrow to top their tornado-making.” Scootaloo blinked twice in amazement. As far as she knew, when Derpy started sounding like the voice of reason, that was when you should be worried. Flitter groaned just as Rainbow Dash came in with Twilight and Lyra. “Sorry I asked.”   The mint green unicorn had her lyre with her. Scootaloo realised they’d stuck around longer than usual, and the main reason she went to bed early up here was about to come up once more. Lyra threw her hooves in the air with great gusto. “Who’s up for some songs?” Whimper looked over to Rainbow Dash, who was now flanking him and Scootaloo with Twilight. Rainbow shook her head.   “Do I really have to sit through this?” Whimper whimpered. “Yes, you do. I know it’s painful, but it’ll be good for ya. Scootaloo, you can go if it’s too mushy for you.” “Nah. If he can take it, so can I.” The filly gulped as she realised she’d just dug a massive hole for herself. She hated those mushy camp songs, even if there were a few rock exceptions.   Then again, it was just singing. How bad could it be? Scootaloo’s left eye twitched. Actually, it had started twitching somewhere around ‘Holding out for a Hero’, and ‘Moonlight Shadow’. Then there was the very inappropriate (to her, at least) ‘One Day I’ll Fly Away’, a song about a pegasus foal trying to… well, the title said it all, really. Then, just to sing a song the colts might like, there was her new personal peeve: "I'm into Folk."   In any event, while Scootaloo was repressing the urge to vomit at the sappy love songs and nonsensical attempts at pop, Whimper seemed to genuinely be suffering. He held his head in his hooves, but he didn’t sound like he was crying. More like he couldn’t stand the noise, or the fact that everpony was getting excited with the singing. Maybe he just couldn’t handle being in crowds.   Then again, when you hear a song like ‘Moonlight Shadow’, which is about a filly who nearly sees her friend get devoured by a Timberwolf? In Whimper’s case, that might have been a bit of a sore spot.   Rainbow Dash looked at Whimper and Scootaloo. The older foals were getting into it, though the colts were feeling visibly silly at the choice of songs as well. One couldn’t really blame them. There were bound to be more ‘girly’ songs at a campfire with more girls than boys, and this one happened to fit the bill. But then, Scootaloo was also a girl, who hated girly songs.   And that was because Scootaloo, growing up with her aunt Vinyl Scratch, had developed a slightly different taste in music.   As in, she actually had taste.   Rainbow Dash turned to the musician. “Hey, Lyra, how about something a little faster this time?” The unicorn raised an eyebrow. “Like what?” “You know the one.” “You mean it?” Lyra squeed and displayed that unsettling smile once more.   “Yep. You can play it, sing it, shout it for all I care. I’m officially not caring about it.” Rainbow Dash held up a hoof to wave away her former concerns. Twilight raised an eyebrow, but figured it didn’t make much of a difference now. Dash had come clean about her awkward past, she might as well acknowledge some of the infamy it had gotten her.   “Are you sure?” Rainbow Dash turned to Twilight Sparkle for an exchange of glances. “When you can’t hide in shame, take refuge in audacity. I’m sure.” To that, Lyra turned her lyre into a guitar and got some brass blowers out for full effect. Where she had been playing her instrument through mere magic before, this sort of occasion demanded a hands-on approach. But since she lacked hands, she simply animated a pair of gryphon gloves, which is what every unicorn with half her wits about her would do when she is in need of opposable thumbs. “Okay, everypony! Who knows ‘The Ballad of Rainbow Crash’?” Rainbow nudged Whimper as Lyra started singing about the legendary filly who was declared ‘Queen of the Infirmary’ in one verse. Twilight blocked her ears. She didn’t mind singing, but it was pretty clear from the start that the song was meant as little more than a joke at Rainbow’s expense. Looking to the side, she realised Dash seemed to be tuning out most of the song, too. It hurt, but other ponies had fun with it. One fact did nothing about the other. Rainbow Dash tolerated it, she didn’t have to like it. She nudged Whimper again to get him out of the daze he was in. “Come on, let’s get you to bed.“ Scootaloo breathed a sigh of relief and tagged along. Rainbow Dash led the pair away from the camp fire, before turning back and pointing to lavender mare with a blonde mane sitting near a different fire. “See that mare over there? Her name’s Cloud Kicker, she’s on my Weather Patrol. She teaches cloud sculpting. Try talking to her tomorrow.” Whimper’s ears perked. Dash noticed it, too. He was feeling bad from being in a crowd, but he was still awake and alert.   “Why would we want to learn to sculpt clouds?” Scootaloo was a little confused. Is Rainbow Dash mistaking me for Sweetie Belle? “It sounds good to me.” Whimper smiled, the pain from being in a crowd already subsiding. “Oh, no real reason.” She kept on walking with the foals in tow. ”I just thought... Apple Bloom always helps Applejack on the farm, Sweetie Belle tries to help Rarity out. Maybe if you learned how to handle clouds, I’d let you tag along on the job with me sometime?” Scootaloo’s eyes widened in sheer glee, a smile fixed on her face. A squee escaped her lips. “You mean it?” Scootaloo turned to Whimper, who just returned the smile. Scootaloo had been talking about Rainbow Dash during class quite a bit, he knew how she felt. There was no reason why she couldn’t, and even less reason for him not to tag along. After all, sculpting clouds was something slow that they could both enjoy without having to take a break. “Sooo… Cloud Kicker, huh?” Scootaloo flashed understanding smile.   Rainbow Dash nodded as they got to the cabin. She poked her head in to check the new walls. Zephyr and Skyron would be separated from the rest, not completely but enough. Rainbow Dash and Twilight had to be able to hear them if anything happened in the night, still. Rumble’s bed was in the same section as Scootaloo’s and Whimper’s, but the colt wouldn’t be a problem. He was on half-decent terms with them, he wouldn’t bother either of them. “Okay, looks like Twilight made some adjustments. Good night. And Whimper, if your head still hurts, try scratching around your shoulders. That’ll get the blood flowing, relieve some pressure.” “Good night, Rainbow Dash,” the two foals called as they headed in.   Dash pondered to herself about the wisdom of leaving two foals of different genders alone in a bedroom. But then she remembered that this was Flight Camp. Even if they were a couple (which they weren’t, thank Celestia for that), they weren’t dumb enough to do anything that would interfere with their flying. Even the older foals knew better than to let lack of sleep become an issue, especially when the coaches were perfectly capable of spotting and exhausting both sides of the pairing during the daytime.   It just wasn’t worth it, one way or the other. That was why fillies and colts weren’t separated based on gender, but on the probability of them trying to kill one another. It was also a good introduction to common courtesy for the other gender, something foals didn’t usually get in their normal surroundings. Besides which, there was always the option of adding walls to the buildings if things got out of hoof.   And really, Scootaloo had been trusted with things a lot more dangerous than boys.   Scootaloo and a shaking Whimper made their way to bed, still shoved nice and close so the colt could use the filly’s tail as a comforter. Scootaloo squinted at him. “So you get headaches in crowds, huh?” He nodded. “It’s not so bad, really. I just don’t like noise.” “Huh. Do you feel better now, then?” She tilted her head a little worriedly.   He lay down in his bed with a sigh. “I get it all the time.  It’s no big deal, just this throbbing in my head.” Scootaloo leaned in to him. “And that started after the fight, too?” “Uh huh,” he admitted with a shiver. ”I know I promised, but I haven’t talked to Rainbow Dash yet. And after that thing with Twilight, I’m really not feeling so good right now.” The filly looked at his face. He looked awkward, out of place. She didn’t blame him. Everypony who talked to him always dragged up the same painful topic, and nothing anypony ever did made things easier for him to deal with. “That’s okay. You should rest up.” She nuzzled him slightly, yielding an embarrassed blush.  He turned in his bed to avoid the filly seeing him like that.   The colt groaned a little to himself, and his stomach replied in kind.   Then he giggled.   He rolled around, laughing uncontrollably. He noticed Scootaloo standing over him, wiggling the tip of her tail right into his sides. “Stop! What are you doing?” “Just checking something.” She kept up a gleeful grin as he squirmed under her feather-pattern tail.   He was doomed. She knew exactly where the soft spots were around his ribs. He rolled back and forth in his bed. All the while, he couldn’t stop laughing. “I give! I give! What do you want from me?” She didn’t answer him. She’d much rather keep on tormenting him a little. As he feebly tried to roll away, legs kicking and flailing, his hind legs got tangled up in the offending limb and he wound up yanking her off her hooves. They gave off an “Oof!” in stereo. She collapsed right on top of him.   The two froze. Scootaloo’s face was inches from his, close enough to feel each other’s breath. Their chests were pressed against each other, and the filly noticed Whimper’s body felt cool to the touch. He wasn’t out of breath, and the cold wasn’t just on his back. That was weird. Slowly, gingerly, Scootaloo stood up, with her hooves on the edges of the colt’s bed. Whimper caught his breath and stared up at her lithe body. “What was that for?” “Like I said, just checking.” “Checking what?” “To see if you could still laugh. I’d say you can.” She got off with a hop. “And don’t worry about the fight thing. You’ll tell me tomorrow,” “What makes you so sure?” “You’ve been telling me everything there is to know about you. And I’m pretty sure that’s because you want to treat all your friends the same way. It doesn’t matter how badly it hurts to talk about it. If Peachy knows about it, deep down, you want me to know about it. You’re strong and all, but you’re still kind of a pushover. In a good way.” She hopped into bed at that last bit, curling her tail for the colt to grasp.   Reluctantly, he gave that tail a tight grip. It was looser than before, though, but only a little, she could tell by the bend at the tip. “Am I really that weak to you?” She turned around and looked him in the eyes, smiling. “You’re not weak, Whimper. If I really tried hurting you, if I decided to bully you, you wouldn’t have even talked to me. I mean, I didn’t hurt you with the cloudwrestling thing, did I?” “Not really, no.” He rubbed his head into his pillow as his eyes fell shut. ”My head hurt a little, and you scared me, but I never thought you were mean. And you did show Zephyr a thing or two.” “Exactly.” She stifled a yawn. ”I didn’t want you to get hurt, and if you had, I’d have made it up to you somehow. If you did the same for a mean girl who hurts you, that’d be weak. But you wouldn’t let a girl tell you what to do if you didn’t want to. So you’re not weak, okay?” “Hmm…” He softly moaned as sleep took over.   Scootaloo looked him over again. Oddly, he went out like a light once he relaxed. How much tension is this guy holding on to? “Sleep tight, Whimper. Hope you dream well.” His ear perked. She knew he’d heard. Whatever had been bothering him all this time, she knew he’d tell her tomorrow.   She just hoped she wouldn’t wind up upsetting him with her response. But really, she already knew him as well as the Crusaders. How bad could it be?