//------------------------------// // Last Night of the Festival // Story: Rainbow Dash Around the World // by MagicS //------------------------------// “So the adults already explained the rules of the game to you, right?” Salvatore asked Wish. “More or less,” Wish shrugged. Wish had no chance of remembering the names of everyone, even just the ones on her team. She was happy to note at the very least that she wasn’t the youngest or smallest kid out here. Her eyes though kept darting over to Rainbow Dash on the sidelines. A few times she saw her and Rosalie waving at her. That was embarrassing. “Okay—well you see the rag lying down in the boxes on both sides of the field?” Salvatore asked. Wish looked past him and saw that there did seem to be a white rag and towel in the box on that side. “Yeah.” “Those are the flags. And the boxes opposite them are the jail. If you get tagged out you have to go to jail until someone else comes and tags you free. And you can’t run out of the field or nothing either, kay?” Wish nodded. “Yeah, got it.” “I think she’s got enough sense to know how to play the game, Salvatore,” the older filly (who Wish did remember now as Beauticia) said from beyond the halfway line of the field. “Come on, let’s hurry up and have some fun.” “Yeah!” The ponies on her side of the field cheered. “Alright, alright, hold your horses!” Salvatore said. He smiled at Wish and had her and the rest of the team come over with him to their side of the field. “We can start in a second.” After that, both teams walked back to the far sides of their fields and stood there, watching the others and getting ready to run out and try to capture the enemy flag. Wish wasn’t too interested in actually playing, but she would try. As she looked to her right and left, she saw how many of the other kids were smiling. How happy and excited they were to play this game. Salvatore and Beauticia’s eyes met from across the field and the two kids smiled and nodded at each other. “CHARGE!” Salvatore yelled. “CAPTURE THE FLAG!” Beauticia yelled from the other side. Altogether the two masses of kids from Arondel ran to enter enemy territory and retrieve the opposing flag before theirs was taken. Wish half-heartedly ran along at first, maybe thinking she could just be on defense instead for most of the game. That way she probably wouldn’t have to do as much. But a glance at the sidelines showed a delighted Rainbow Dash smiling and cheering for her. Wish rolled her eyes and picked up the pace, running out to the center of the field and preparing to go and try grab the enemy flag. There were a lot of kids out running around too and it was actually fairly difficult for Wish to maneuver between them or even remember which ones were on her team and which weren’t. And it was very noisy. Very, very, noisy. The kids were as energetic and carefree as the kids living in a place like this should be. So unlike her. Anxiety was eating away at her once more and it only grew worse every time she saw a smiling face or heard a happy shout. But she couldn’t let those negative feelings show. She didn’t want to upset or disappoint Rainbow Dash. Or Rosalie for that matter. So a familiar forced smile wormed its way onto Wish’s face and she found herself playing a role she had a lot of experience with. It was easy to at least act like she was having fun playing with everyone else. Wish crossed the mid-line of the field and went for the box that contained the flag. Her small size and swift agility helped her dart between ponies on her team and also avoid the hooves of ponies on the other team. Unfortunately her red mane and outsider status made her very noticeable to the Arondel ponies so she never had a chance of doing anything sneaky. Like the other kids here she was just going to have to be part of a wild mass charging the other side. There wasn’t much of a strategy or game plan at all from what she could see, both sides were basically just trying to outrun each other. Not unexpected since it was just a wild bunch of kids having fun during their festival. Did they really do this every month? “I see you, Wish!” Another filly on the enemy team said, probably around Wish’s age. She had a bright smile on her face as she ran towards Wish in an attempt to tag her out. Wish thought her name might’ve started with an A. Wish only grinned and swiftly started running away from her. “So what? You think you can catch me?” She shot to the side of the field, avoiding her teammates and other enemies as the filly chased her. Already she could hear so many ponies being tagged out and shouts of indignation, hooves trampled over the grass of the field, and parents and other friends cheered and laughed while they watched. Wish jumped behind another bigger teammate of hers to avoid her pursuer, but then just as quickly had to run from others on the enemy team. She was starting to get cornered the further she pressed into enemy territory. Others running by though caught some of the attention of the ponies on the opposing team, and Wish gained a little bit of freedom. A loud whistle then suddenly rang out over the whole field. Wish looked back to see that a colt on the other team had managed to grab their flag and was now running for the middle. She turned around immediately, forgetting about offense and avoiding the group of other ponies trying to close around her. There was way more room to turn around and go to try and play defense than there was trying to push on on offense. Wish kept the smile on her face as she joined with her teammates to stop their flag from being carried over the middle line. No matter what, she was going to keep that smile on her face. Rainbow Dash was watching her intently from the sidelines, flapping her wings and hovering above the other ponies to always keep her eyes on Wish. She had a wide grin on her face at the start of the game, but that had slowly faded over time. Now she was only staring blankly at Wish and in particular the smile the filly wore. She drifted back down to the ground and stood beside Rosalie, Angie and Jolene, who were still all cheering loudly. Rosalie caught her blank look out of the corner of her and she raised an eyebrow at Rainbow Dash. “Something wrong? Aren’t you having fun watching Wish?” “Hm...” Rainbow Dash mumbled. “Rainbow Dash?” Rainbow’s eyes drifted over to Rosalie. “Can I ask you for a favor tonight? I’m going to need to talk to Wish alone.” “That was really fun to watch! You look like you had a great time too,” Angie said to Wish as all five of them walked back to Rosalie’s cottage later that night. “It was great when you stopped that colt from bringing your flag to his side at the last second,” Jolene said. “You got a lot of cheers for that one.” “Yep! It really was pretty fun,” Wish said with an easygoing grin on her face. “See? You should’ve tried to make friends earlier,” Angie said. Wish shrugged. “Yeah, I guess so.” “Wasn’t it a lot of fun watching her?” Jolene asked to Rainbow Dash. “Mhm. It was,” Rainbow Dash said, walking in front of the others. “Oh!” Rosalie suddenly said, gasping in surprise. “I just remembered something!” Wish, Angie, and Jolene turned to look at her. “What is it?” Angie asked. Rosalie grabbed both her and Jolene and pulled them away. “I wanted to get some more candles, can you girls come with me and help me decide what ones to get? Rainbow Dash, Wish—you can both head to the cottage, I’ll be in later.” “Okay, see you later,” Wish was a little confused by Rosalie’s sudden announcement but still waved her and the others goodbye as Rosalie pulled them back towards the middle of town. “Guess it’s just us for now then. Come on,” Rainbow said and resumed walking to the cottage. Wish thought Rainbow Dash sounded a little… subdued… but she just shrugged and followed along with her. In a second they were back to the cottage and the two of them walked inside, the door drifting closed behind them. It was late enough for them to go to bed already but Rainbow Dash stopped in the sitting room. Something about this seemed familiar to Wish. She didn’t let any troublesome thoughts in though, and instead just kept the small smile on her face. Rainbow Dash turned around to look at her. “So you had fun today?” “Yep!” Wish answered, nodding. “Made some new friends?” “Uh-huh. Met a lot of kids, can’t remember all their names but I still made friends with some of them.” Rainbow Dash blinked. “Umm… what’s wrong?” Wish asked her. “Why are you lying? You know I can tell already. So why even bother? That smile on your face… the one you had on during the game. It’s the same fake smile I recognize from when I first met you, kid. You’re asking me what’s wrong? Tell me what’s wrong with you,” Rainbow Dash strongly said. “I… that’s not...” Wish shook her head, the smile fading from her face. “Just tell me, Wish. What’s been bothering you?” “Nothing,” she squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head harder while fighting back tears. “It’s nothing. Just let me lie.” “Kid, I can’t do that.” “Please… just let me keep smiling like this,” Wish kept shaking her head. “Wish...” A near silent moment hung in the darkening cottage, the only sound being the heavily-labored breath of the young filly. “… it isn’t fair.” “What’s not fair?” “They’re so happy… everyone here is so happy. The kids don’t have anything to worry about, every adult is so friendly, all they do is farm and have festivals every month. W-What were they doing while I and the rest of Hoofica were… was it the same thing? How many festivals did they have? Were they all just smiling and playing games everyday? Why… why did they get to do that? It isn’t right, it’s not fair!” Wish shouted. Rainbow Dash sighed deeply, the root of the problem now finally revealing itself. “So how does it really make you feel seeing these ponies? What do you really think about all those other kids you just played with?” “I… It’s wrong...” “You need to let it out, Wish.” Wish grit her teeth and tightly hugged her hooves around her body. “I hate them! I hate them, I hate them, I hate them!” She screamed loudly and cried out, her voice echoing through the small cottage. “I don’t care if it’s wrong! I know it’s wrong, I don’t need anyone to tell me! But I can’t… I can’t help it. Why do they get to live so happily… and so carefree… and have parents that love and take care of them when I—when I… just why?” She felt herself suddenly embraced by the hooves of Rainbow Dash and hugged close to the mare’s chest. “No one should have gone through what you did. You’re right, it’s not fair. None of it is,” Rainbow told her. “I didn’t know I’d feel like this until we came here and met all these ponies… I didn’t know it would make it hurt so much,” Wish sniffled against her. “I’m sorry for forcing a lot of this on you too...” “I should’ve just told you from the start. You’ve always… you’ve always been trying to help me.” “And I don’t know if I can tell you to just “feel better” or “stop being unhappy”. I know it probably doesn’t work that way. But I still need to help you. And I’ll be here for you as long as you need me, until that hate and sadness is totally gone.” Rainbow Dash gently rubbed her mane and held Wish close, letting the filly cry against her as much as she needed to. “What I will say-” Rainbow Dash continued. “Is stop hating these ponies. You have to, Wish. Even though it’s unfair, nothing good is going to come of you holding on to feelings like that. And it’s not fair to them either. As much as it might hurt to see them smile, that’s something you need to get over, or you’ll never stop feeling miserable. Don’t let another pony’s happiness make you sad.” She felt Wish’s head nod against her. “I know...” Rainbow Dash smiled. “Let’s go to bed, you’ve had another big day. Tomorrow… we can see what we wanna do.” “Okay...” Rainbow Dash picked the filly up and put her on her back, flying lightly to their room. Wish nuzzled up against her, eyes closed, exhausted and seeking rest once more. Rainbow opened the door to the den and gently floated right onto the bed, curling up and simply letting Wish use her as a big pillow. With a smile on her face, she quietly waited until Wish had nodded off before she fell asleep as well.