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// You Hate It 
// Story: Breaking The Norm 
// by The Wizard of Words 
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You’re trotting, a lot. You hate to trot. You’d rather be flying, flapping your wings at high speeds, or even pushing them to move a cloud you're sitting on. The ground isn’t a close friend of yours, never has been.

But you’re finding it difficult to leave it now.

It’s not a feeling you’re familiar with, being grounded. It isn’t a broken wing, a fractured radius or ulna. That would be something physical stopping you. That you could get around. This is different. This is you telling yourself not to fly.

The sky is right above you, clear and free of any kind of blemish. No clouds to block the sun, no trees to get in your way, not even another pegasus in your possible airspace. You could fly your fastest straight up right now, rip through the sound barrier with as little difficulty as you had just hours prior.

But you don’t. Or more specifically, you can’t.

You can’t leave Twilight like this.

It’s a ball at the bottom of your gut, weighing down inside of you. Your memory had searched for something that felt as bad as this, but the closest you get is any other time you hurt your friends. Fluttershy with the pegasus tornado, Pinkie Pie and Gilda, but those were easy to fix.

You’ve known Fluttershy all your life, from foalhood to adulthood. You know how to help her. Pinkie is easy to please. Give her enough reasons to crack a grin and she’ll throw you a party in thanks. She’s just that kind of pony.

But you don’t know how to help Twilight.

You know she likes books. Everypony knows she likes books. You know she’s from Canterlot. Everypony knows she’s from Canterlot. Your eyes clench and relax as bouts of anger come and go through you.

You’ve known her for years, yet still, you can’t claim to know a single thing about her.

What kind of friend is that?

The dirt underneath your hooves has started to mat under your constant presence, a near perfect circle dug into the ground around the library. You’ve lost track of the number of passes you’ve made, not that you were keeping track in the first place.

Your eyes aren’t on the tree home itself, but on the ground around it. You’re thinking. You don’t like to think, at least not to plan, but you have to this time, and you know that.

The ideas of how to apologize to Twilight come and go like beats of your wings in the midst of a race. You snort at your own analogy. But it is true.

One moment, you’re thinking about buying her a new book for her collection, then the next, you’re thinking of places she might enjoy you taking her to. Cloudsdale is the perfect place to watch a sunset, or so you’ve been told. You were never a fan, but somehow, you know Twilight would appreciate it, though not as much as some of your other friends.

But there are a lot of books she might not have. You’ve been to the Crystal Empire, seen the library there. Twilight’s home isn’t even a comparison to the amount of books there. Yet, despite the idea, you realize that your luck today isn’t at your greatest.

You might get a book that she’s already read, doing nothing to help her mood, or you might take her somewhere she doesn’t want to be. For all you know, she might be afraid of heights, though that does strike you as unlikely.

Your lip is between your teeth, being gnawed back and forth as your brain begins to heat.

“Are you still out there Rainbow?”

That voice stops you dead.

Your mane whips as your head turns to look at the open door, cracked just enough to reveal the lavender unicorn inside. She doesn’t look pleased, not with her brow knit and mouth downturned into a frown.

But you’re smiling like an idiot and you’re not sure why. It’s not like you have a plan yet.

“Y-Yeah!” You reply, maybe a bit too eager, but you don’t want to sound passive. You immediately approach the door, walking up to it with a beaming smile.

“Stop.” The coldness of her voice catches you, stuns you. But you follow the unicorn’s demand. You’re already on thin ice for what you said earlier, and you can’t blame anypony but yourself.

Twilight takes a breath of air, slowly. You watch her chest expand outwards before slowly caving inwards. You hear the breath leave her with your perked ears, focusing on every little thing she says. Any word, any sound, could be important right now.

“Why are you still here?” She asks the question with the same ice as the past few times, and you’re left biting your lip again. You didn’t expect her to be friendly like Fluttershy, but you also didn’t think she’d be this… angry.

“Because…” You begin, venturing for an answer in any corner of your mind you can find. “Because I want to take you somewhere!” It was an option you had thought of, but not one you were sure of.

The annoyed glare Twilight gave you didn’t soften, but you watched one of her brows raise in curiosity. Curiosity was a good thing; that meant she was considering what you were saying. That’s really good.

“Take me where?” Her voice wasn’t any warmer, but you didn’t seem to mind.

“Anywhere you want!” You cheer happily, letting your smile chisel itself onto your face. “I know you’ve only been to Cloudsdale a hoofful of times and I know all the best spots! I’m sure we could even find a library for you to look through. It’ll be fun!”

Your smile does nothing to lift her frown. The sight of the curved lips make your own feel heavy, too heavy to keep pulled up in joy.

“I’ve got too much work to do now to be making a spontaneous trip to Cloudsdale.” The finality of her speech is absolutely impossible to miss. “And I looked over the library when I last went there. There’s nothing there I haven’t already read.”

You’re eyes glance furtively around you, thinking of any other ideas you may have. It doesn’t take long to remember one of them.

“Well, how about if I get you a new book?” You offer with a forced smile now, your lips pushing against themselves to be a straight line of neutrality. “I-I can get across Equestria in no time at all. Seriously. Give me a day and I’ll be to and back from Dodge Junction!” You sweep a forehoof in front of you as you speak, laying out the easiness of such a trip to you. There and back, no time at all, no effort at all. Just the way you like it.

Not the way Twilight likes it, apparently.

“I have no books on hold, or that I’m looking for.” The unicorn speaks harshly to you again. The blow it delivers is a two-fer. One to your pride. One to your hope.

“W-Well…” Your hoof digs at the ground, unable to think of a single comment to help you fix this. But there has to be something. There’s always something. Maybe not a way out, but definitely a way to fix this.

You’ve seen the impossible be done on a daily basis. You refuse to believe that there is no way to fix this, not when you battle demons and monsters on a monthly basis. There had to be something, anything that Twilight would jump at.

But nothing comes to mind.

“I-It’s a good day outside,” you begin down a path you’re unsure of. “We could have a picnic, o-or maybe having a reading day outside. I could even get a couple of clouds laid out and… and-“

“Rainbow, just… stop.”

Your nervous grin falls into a worried frown. You can feel the change in your features like water dripping from your coat.

Twilight has her face against one of her hooves, pulling on the thin layer of skin and fur between her eyes, rubbing it as she takes a calming breath. You find yourself repeating the gesture. You need to calm down too, but you never were an expert at that.

“Look, I understand you’re sorry.” She begins saying to you, letting her hoof fall back to the ground she stands on. “What you said… that’s definitely not something you would ever want to say to me, I know that.” Despite the words she’s saying, you know you shouldn’t be giving yourself any kind of hope. Things are never simple with Twilight.

“But I’ve always believed that what ponies say without thinking is what they actually believe.”

You feel your chest tighten, making your breaths shallow. Your hooves are shifting on the ground, your wings itching to fly away. But you don’t. You stop yourself. You have to hear this.

“W-What do ya mean?” The question sounds stupid to yourself, but you ask it anyway. You had to know, or at least be sure.

“If you have to think about how you feel, you’re just trying to justify why you feel that way. When you talk without thinking, there’s nothing to filter what you say. It’s… straight from the heart.” That strikes you as wrong in a hundred different ways.

“N-No way Twilight.” It was the difficulty of breathing that made you stutter, but you keep on regardless. You always did prefer to face your problems head on. “There’s no way I actually think that. You’re too awesome to be blamed for half the stuff that happens around this town.”

“Really?” You want that word to sound hopefully, like she normally sounds. Like she had just heard an interesting fact, not like you had accused her of being a source of chaos. Unfortunately, that’s not what you hear.

Instead you hear the same tired tone of a mare you had hurt, even if unintentionally. But you had hurt her, and it was your job to make it right.

“Then why would you say something like that?”

“I… I just didn’t want you to be mad at me. You know, for wrecking your morning… with the Rainboom.”

It’s pathetic, and you know it. You know as the words roll off your tongue just how pathetic you sound. You’re not just begging for something so little, you’re doing so because of a mistake so obvious.

You feel like a filly getting ready to be scolded by her parents. What’s worse, you know you deserve it, because you regret it.

“So… you’d rather… lie to me to avoid admitting a mistake then… to just tell me you’re sorry?”

You’re eyes couldn’t be wider at the words she says.

“Of course not!” You yell, and you regret it, again. Your throat bites back against you, forcing you head look down as chest refuses to rise. Your muscles aren’t just itching to move, they demand it, shaking like a caged pony. Slowly, so agonizingly slowly, you take in a breath of air, calming your nerves the little you can.

Looking back up, you see Twilight still watching you through the partially cracked door. But her brow isn’t knit in anger, or her lips frowning in disappointment. No, with the face she’s giving you now, you’d wish for that instead.

Twilight is looking at you with a face that looks ready to cry.

“Twilight-” She raises her hoof, cutting off anything else you had hoped to say.

“I… I just need some time away from you. Please, go away.” Twilight concludes, her eyes twisting away from yours. You don’t know which is worse. Losing contact with her, or her telling you to leave.

“No.” You say with all the strength you have. To yourself, you sound like Fluttershy addressing a crowd.

“Please Rainbow.” Her voice sounds nothing short of begging to you, and you hate yourself even more for it. You preferred anger; at least you deserved her being angry with you. This… you didn’t know a word to describe it.

You describe how you felt. You describe how Twilight must feel. But you have no idea how to describe what she feels for you, or what you feel for her.

You have no idea what is going on. You just know that you hate it.

“F… F-Fine.” You let out, slipping through grit teeth and clenched lips. Your wings are begging to fly anyway. Twilight wants you to leave, and you agreed. It’s all the excuse they need to extend.

Your eyes focus on Twilight one more time, looking at her with a look you hope is pathetic. Some part of your brain tells you that she might take pity on the side of you, offering you the chance to make it up to her.

But she won’t look at you, even as she hangs in the cracked doorway, eyes looking away from you, focusing on nothing. You feel invisible without her focus. You feel like nothing.

You hate feeling like that.

You beat your wings has hard as you can, sending you high into the brisk morning sky.

The library vanishes beneath you, becoming another speck among dozens of others littering the area around that now small patch of land called Ponyville.

You’re in the air again. You love the air. You love the openness. You can’t name a time you’ve been flying and regretted it. You’ve always flown, for everything. It’s helped you solve so many problems, help bring smiles to so many ponies.

It even brought together all your friends. They are your friends because you fly.

You should feel excited, elated, free!

But instead, you feel so tired, depressed, and trapped.

You hate it.