“C’mon, Fluttershy, this isn’t that hard!”
The pegasus stood, shivering, on a cloud not ten feet above the one Rainbow Dash sat on, waiting. Her forehooves were raised, resting on a bar that had been shaped from the cloud. She hopped tentatively from hoof to hoof, unaccustomed to standing on two legs. The edge of the cloud cut off just inches from her calf, and as she looked back, the ten feet suddenly became a mile.
“E-easy for you to say, Rainbow Dash! This is going to hurt. I don’t want to get hurt.”
“Fluttershy, you’ve seen me plow into the ground going terminal velocity, and then walk away. This isn’t even the highest you’ve fallen from! You can do it, I know it!”
“I know I can fall, Dash. That’s not what scares me--eep!” She jumped, shuffling her hooves as far up the cloud as she could as an incredibly small wisp broke off and floated away.
“Then why don’t you just fall?”
“Because I’m scared you won’t catch me!”
Rainbow Dash faltered and stood up with a sigh. “C’mon down,” she said, patting the cloud next to her. “Let’s go over this again.”
An agonizing minute later, Fluttershy had managed to climb around the bar and safely glide down from the cloud, flapping her wings so gently to land that Rainbow Dash wasn’t sure if Fluttershy had even unfurled them. Dash walked forward silently, towards the edge of the cloud, taking in the horizon beyond.
From her perch on the outskirts of Cloudsdale, Rainbow Dash could capture the world. The vast rolling fields of Equestria stretched before her, flowing into her hometown of Ponyville, passing around the Everfree forest like a river past a rock, eroding away coast defined by the dead edges of the badlands. To Rainbow Dash, this land was both hers and her friends; that which was in the sight of Cloudsdale was said to be the right of Pegasi to fly over. That didn’t matter so much to Dash, of course. It was a formality, a minor thought, compared to the love and compassion she held for her fellow equines, Unicorn, Pegasus, or Earth Pony alike. The citizens of Equestria deserved these wondrous lands, and it was her job--along with the other elements--to protect that right.
“Which is precisely why,” Rainbow Dash spoke, “you need to work on your trust issues a bit.”
“Sorry?” Fluttershy leaned in closer, attempting to hear Rainbow Dash without standing on the hazardous edges of the city.
Dash turned, laying a wing over her friend. “Listen, Fluttershy, I hope you understand where I’m coming from. Whether it’s the Elements themselves, or the will of Celestia, or any of a million ways fate can chose a select group of ponies, it’s up to us to keep Equestria safe.”
“I thought I paid taxes so the Royal Guard would do that for me. I even paid extra this year! That way I’ll be sure they’ll help when things get dark again.”
Rainbow Dash slapped her forehead with a hoof, sighing. “You know that the treasury will just return the over- nevermind. Ignoring that. Remember Chrysalis? Remember how fast the Changelings overtook all the guards in Canterlot?”
“Remember how we failed too and Cadance ended up saving us all?”
“...”
“Sorry. Go on, Dash, that was rude.”
“No you’re... You’re right there, we did kinda...” Dash stopped, shaking her head wildly. “What am I saying? You listen here, Fluttershy! These trust issues are important for the sake of Equestria!”
“How? Why am I always the one that has to be fixed?”
“No no no, you don’t have to- ugh.”
Fluttershy lifted from next to Dash, settling onto a stray cloud. She looked down at her friend, her large sad eyes looking hurt. “I don’t think I’m broken,” she whispered.
Rainbow Dash opened her mouth to complain but then paused and, letting a moment pass for sake of thought, relaxed and flopped to the ground. Her she was, coolest pony in all of Equestria, steeled and rigid in her resolve no matter how deadly or dangerous the monster before her, ‘the one and only’, and she was completely unable to win against the fragile Pegasus before her. Shame seemed to drip out of her pores as she looking up, trying to catch Fluttershy’s eyes.
Several minutes of uncomfortable silence passed by, and Rainbow Dash settled down, laying in the cotton canopy. Even more time slipped around the two before she finally decided to bite the bullet.
“Fluttershy?”
The question met no response.
“Okay, well, whatever, because I know you’re going to listen anyways. There’s nothing wrong with you, okay? You’re perfect exactly how you are. We all are. It’s okay to be afraid, it’s okay to expect the worst, it really is. Remember me at the Best Young Flyer competition? I almost went crazy! Heh, heh...”
Even still the mare above was quiet. Rainbow Dash buried her muzzle into the cloud, her speech muffled yet still strong and audible.
“The problem is, and we’ve run into this a couple times when the entire planet depended on us to keep it from fertilizing Tartarus, is that you don’t trust us when we absolutely need it the most. It’s a safety thing, a prevention. We all have faults we need to improve on, and I figured that, you know, the whole loyal thing and everything, I’d be able to... help you. Help you see that you can believe in those who you love.”
There was a squeak, and Rainbow looked up to see a set of pupils, framed with bubblegum-pink hair, set on herself.
“I... I know I need to be better at that, even if it’s only when the stakes are so high as to affect the entire world... but I can’t get the thought out of my head that I’ll really be hurt! I was hurt by a lot of people for a long time, Dashie, I don’t want that any more.”
“What say we try it one more time, right where you’re at? No wings tied, no bar forcing you back, just the cloud, yourself and I. Sound okay?”
“I-I think so. Okay, let’s try...”
“It’s only seven feet or so, not as high as before. And look, the cloud here is really soft! Even if I do fail, which I won’t, because I’m Rainbow Dash, you’ll be perfectly fine. Trust me?”
“I... do.”
Fluttershy stood with her side to the open sky, catching Dash in her vision before shutting her eyelids tight. Her legs tremored, and she remained still for more than a minute. Rainbow said nothing, merely waited, prepared to keep waiting, no matter how long it would take.
With no warning, Fluttershy’s left legs buckled, toppling her over shrieking. She was not even at twenty degrees of an angle to the cloud when her wings burst open, instinctively beating powerfully to keep her afloat. It was a scene of irony Rainbow Dash fought not to laugh at; a show of force and primitive strength in the wings, attached to a pony which was curled up, murmuring panicked thoughts to herself, shaking in a ball in the sky.
“This is why I think we should go back to the rope,” Dash suggested lightly, hoping Fluttershy would laugh.
“I can’t even function with the rope! I can’t move my body at all, it’s awful! I’m so useless at even being useless! I can’t even be trusted to slip off a cliff, Rainbow Dash! How could I possibly trust somepony when I can’t be trusted?”
Rainbow stood back, her muzzle agape.
“That’s it!” she cried, shooting up into the air.
Fluttershy recoiled, looking at her friend with equal parts curiosity and apprehension. “What is? What’s what?”
“You don’t trust others because you don’t trust yourself. No- don’t- Fluttershy, stop hiding. I didn’t mean that to be rude. But you know it’s true, don’t you? The only knowledge we have of how others think is how we think ourselves, so if you honestly don’t trust yourself to help, then how could you possibly believe any of us could be trusted as well? It’s not a negative thing. You just physically can’t. Does that make any sense to you?”
“Well, I... I suppose it does, yeah. So what do we do?”
“You catch me.”
Fluttershy gasped and tapped her forehooves together, her eyes darting between the cloud, Rainbow Dash, and the ground. “But what if I miss? What if I’m not strong enough to catch you?”
“Then the point is, you tried.” Rainbow Dash spoke as she walked towards her saddle bag, rifling through the contents as Fluttershy shivered once again. “Seriously, I think all you need is to know that we really really do trust you! Once that thought is... I guess forced into your mind, we should be able to start the actual trust exercises. Here, tie me up, will you?” She flipped her head as she tossed the rope she had grabbed towards Fluttershy. Unable to resist the urge, she struck a pose as her mane whipped with her movement. Had there been trumpets, there would have been a fanfare.
“How do you know I can tie you up?” the timid pony asked, grabbing the rope in her mouth and dragging it towards the blue Pegasus.
“Freaky sewing knowledge,” Dash giggled, drawing her wings in so Fluttershy could tie them down, leaving Dash entirely helpless save for her yellow friend. In seconds, Dash was entirely unable to open her wings.
“So you have to catch me now, okay?”
“Oh-okay. Are you sure we have to do this? Maybe some other time? With pillows and mattresses and fluffy bunnies there to give me support?”
“No, Fluttershy, we’re doing this now!” Dash stomped away, shaking her head. “I’ve been resilient and I’ve been nice, and now I’m being adamant! Stop trying to squirm your way out of this, okay?”
“Rainbow I wouldn’t-”
“I know you wouldn’t, and that’s why we’re here. Because I believe in you, Fluttershy! I trust you.” She accented her words with more stomps, driving her point into the ground.
“Wait, Rainbow, you shouldn’t-”
“Well, I do trust you, no matter what you think. I, with absolute certainty, trust that you will catch m-AUGH!”
The word was cut out of her mouth as the edge of Cloudsdale fractured, tearing, under the stomps of her hooves. A large chunk of cloud ripped itself from its home and dissipated immediately, and Fluttershy watched her oldest friend drop from the sky.
“Rainbow Dash!” she cried, rushing as close to the edge as she could bear. She leaned her neck out and caught sight of the blue deadweight rocketing towards the unforgiving ground below.
“Okay, Fluttershy,” she spoke, reassuring herself. “It’s probably okay. Emergencies rarely happen in real life, and Dash has probably already slipped out of her bonds.”
She glanced over the edge again. Rainbow Dash was still falling, tumbling in the wind.
“...This is an actual problem oh no oh no oh no!” She spun around, hopping back and forth on her hooves. A million different ideas poured into her mind, reassurances that the situation would fix itself, denial that Dash was actually falling, and an overall inability to decide on a course of action in a proper time. Fluttershy was on the verge of tears when a very quiet, very controlled, and very much her own voice became audible amongst the din of panic; Catch her.
She was under the city before the cloud could even register her kicking off from it, keeping her wings tucked in tight in an effort to catch up to Dash. Whether it was due to her slimmer frame or accelerated dive she wasn’t sure, but somehow she was getting closer and closer to her friend. The closer she got to Rainbow Dash, however, the closer they got to the ground. Fluttershy knew it was a very long way down from Cloudsdale: far enough to catch Dash in time, however, she wasn’t sure.
Doubt knocked on the door of her mind and—hesitating for only a second—she locked the deadbolt. She was going to catch Rainbow Dash even if it was an inch before they hit ground.
Fluttershy figured five hundred feet were left while decreasing the distance between her and Dash. The air was thicker now, and with a stab of fear she realized that she was slowing down, no longer catching up to Rainbow, but matching her speed. She was close enough to see the blue muzzle, grimacing and understandably so, Dash’s eyes slammed shut in what might have been prayer from the unlikeliest of ponies.
No, Fluttershy realized. Not acceptance of death. Prepared to be caught. She trusts me. She thinks I’ll catch her. If I had just acted instead of thinking of what to do, instead of worrying about the consequences then I’d be closer, close enough, close enough to grab her, instead of close enough for her tail to-
Fluttershy stretched her neck out as far as she could, and then an inch more, and bit the very end of the rainbow tail fluttering before her. Two hundred feet now. She bit once more, taking more of the hair into her mouth, and clenched her teeth as tight as she had ever done in her life. She wrenched her head back, feeling a tearing sensation run from her shoulders down to the center of her back. Parallel to the merciless dirt and rock, she opened her wings into the wind and bit harder as the air friction punched her entire body. Every muscle, every tendon, every vessel and nerve in her wings seemed to stretch, threatening to tear, to give way, to give up. Fifty feet. Fluttershy closed her own eyes now, allowing fate to chose the outcome. Five-
They hit the ground with bone crushing force, on their sides, distributing the impact between the two of them. All the damage Fluttershy had done to herself became apparent then, an overload of pain enough to put her into shock. She look up, furiously blinking dirt and agony from her eyes, and caught sight of a small, curious squirrel.
“G... go get h-help...”
The squirrel scampered off and Fluttershy’s eyes fell, locking onto the now open pupils of Rainbow Dash.
“Do... you trust... me to catch... you now?” she asked, coughing.
Fluttershy ran the sentence through her head multiple times, trying to understand despite her mind slipping away. Very slowly, it all clicked- the stomping, the hyperbolic display of anger, and how a trained flyer had kept herself tucked in during a fall, instead of limbs out to slow herself-
“Did... did you fall... fall on... pur...” Fluttershy accused, finally passing out.
“Fluttershy,” Rainbow Dash replied, looking at the unconscious mare. “...Thank you.”
And then they were both asleep.