“Rainbow Dash?”
I'm hovering between sleep and wakefulness when I hear Fluttershy's voice beside me, and it takes me a while to respond. I can still feel the sweat cooling on the insides of my thighs, the glow of peaceful exhaustion sinking into my limbs. Even though the room is cold, the bed is as warm as a cocoon.
We still haven't gotten used to living at my old place yet, although it's been almost a week. I guess that makes sense. We got up here to an empty house with empty cupboards, with only the few bits of furniture I'd bought back when I first lived here. The door frames and the arched windows and even bits of the walls had become fuzzy, indistinct slushy piles of cloud. That's the problem with sky-houses. They're not stable. They get pushed around and moulded by the wind, and they lose their form as time goes on and the clouds start reasserting their natural shapes. Sure, they're easy to fix, but they always need fixing. In Cloudsdale, there are teams of pegasi fixing things around the clock, pushing the streets back into place and making sure your cellar doesn't float over and merge with your neighbour's living room. The first thing I learned living there is that normal days don't happen – they're made, and somepony out there sweated to make them. You learn to value those days, whether it's by taking a peaceful nap or by working out.
Of course, we brought a bunch of furniture with us to make the place habitable. It's weird to see how sparsely I used to live when I was alone. I mean, I didn't even have chairs – I must have just sat on the bed whenever I needed to rest. We also threw away a ton of stuff I left that was no good – a bunch of tarnished cutlery, a few tattered posters, that kind of thing. I wanted to throw out my old Wonderbolts bedsheets, but 'Shy wouldn't let me. She said they were cute. They're a little too thin for this time of year, but there's other ways to get warm at night.
I finally roll over, and wrap my forelegs around Fluttershy. After a little nuzzling around in the dark, I find the spot I'm looking for: the very top of her spine, where her mane stops and her back begins. I dot it with gently with kisses, give her the softest of nips with tongue and teeth. “Yeah, I'm up,” I whisper.
“Ah...Hee. I noticed,” she says, and heaves a breathy sigh. She lets me carry on for a little while longer before carrying on with what she was saying. “Actually, Dash, can I… um… ask you to do something for me?”
“Like I'd ever say no,” I reply. “What did you have in mind?”
I'm kinda hoping she'll ask me to preen her feathers for her. She's real sensitive around the wingtips and the base of her primaries. Even the slightest touch can get her shivering. That's one of the reasons she still has trouble flying even though she's better with heights and her wings are strong; she feels the stress on her feathers a lot more than somepony like me. I either need a massage or a lot of gravity before mine start to ache.
For the longest time, though, 'Shy doesn't answer. When she does, it's not the one I'm expecting. “…No, no. I'm sorry. It was… silly. I was being silly.”
Alarm bells start to ring in my head, like when you've done something wrong and you don't know what it is. It's the same feeling as when somepony tells you that you need to talk, and you don't know what you need to talk about, but you know you're not going to enjoy it and that things will change after you're done.
“I don't care if it's silly, 'Shy. If you want me to walk into the centre of town tomorrow in a rubber nose and clown shoes, I'll do it. I can probably get Pinkie in on it too. So come on. If it's really that silly, you can tell me and then we'll both laugh about it, okay?”
“P-please, Dash. Don't… don't worry about it.”
“…Dummy. If you say something like that, of course I'm going to worry,” I say. Part of me – a very large part of me – wants to keep nagging until I've dragged it out of her, but even I know better than that. I decide, reluctantly, to drop the issue.
“I'm sorry… I'm not being fair. Let me sleep on it, and see if I want to tell you in the morning. Okay?” she asks, and leans into my body a little more.
“Okay,” I say, and kiss her once more at the base of her neck. “You can always ask me for anything, 'Shy. You know that.”
“Yes,” she says. “Um… Could you, um, do that a bit lower? I'm still a little… um… you know.”
I smile, and begin to draw a line of kisses all the way down her spine and towards her hind legs. We speak with actions for a while after that.
I can't remember the last time I did this – sat in the kitchen in the early hours of the morning, waiting for coffee to brew. 'Shy is fast asleep up in the bedroom. It's easy to tell when she nods off because she starts breathing slower and more deeply, like she's going to start snoring any second but never quite gets there. I know for a fact she can't fake it. I made sure to put an extra blanket over here before I went down, though. Big beds like that get cold with only one pony.
The only reason I'm down here is because, try as I might, I can't get to sleep. I keep… well, worrying. Worrying about what 'Shy was going to ask me. The worst thing is, I feel so dumb for doing it. A little part of my brain keeps saying, “what the hay happened to you, Dash? Since when do you let little things like this get to you so much? When did you change so badly?”
But another part of my brain is saying, “No, that ain't right. 'Shy has something on her mind. It's not just some 'little thing' that you can ignore. It's important. 'Shy's important.” But then, 'Shy told me herself not to worry about it. I just... ugh. It feels like I'm chasing my tail in circles around my head, and the bottom line is that here I am, sat alone in a freezing kitchen at three in the morning, all because I'm too bucking neurotic and frustrated to sleep next to the mare I love.
And when I say the kitchen's freezing, I mean it's freezing. I can feel the ice crystals forming in the cloud under my hooves. If I tripped, I'd be treating Ponyville to an unscheduled hail shower. I had to de-ice the kettle! All I want right now is a cup of coffee, a hot shower, and to crawl back in bed next to Fluttershy and forget she ever mentioned anything. If I could somehow not wake her up with the chattering of my teeth, that'd be a great bonus. Fat chance of that happening, though.
By the time the kettle's boiled and I take the first sip of my coffee, I'm feeling a little better. Not, like, Pinkie Pie peachy-keen levels of happy, but I've got a hot drink and that's a step up so far as I'm concerned. I actually like being in the kitchen, when it's not twenty degrees below. It and the bedroom used to be the only two rooms in this house that I'd use. What can I say? A mare's gotta eat. I remember how when I first moved in, ages ago, I went shopping for cutlery for the first time and ended up making a total hash of it. I pretty much took the approach that bigger was better, which meant all I bought were those giant prongs you use at barbecues and those huge, serrated knives you only use for cutting crusty bread. Every time I sliced an apple, it looked like I'd attacked it with a hacksaw. About a week later I went back out and bought some actual normal-pony cutlery, but I still had all that stuff hanging around the drawer for years. Good times.
Slowly, I put my hooves on the table and then my head on my hooves. If I'm going to be down here the whole night, I might as well try and figure out what it is that has Fluttershy concerned. I watch my own breath fogging up the glass of our temporary breakfast table, and settle down to think.
The first thing I'm aware of is the click of my old kettle boiling. The second thing I'm aware of is that the breakfast table apparently got real soft and fluffy all of a sudden. The third thing I'm aware of is that I'm a moron and that I'm wrapped in a blanket I distinctly don't remember bringing down with me.
“Good morning, Dash. You must have been very tired,” Fluttershy says gently as I lift my head from the pillow she put under it. She's already dressed, in her winter coat and the thick, long scarf she knitted back at her cottage. She picks up the kettle and carefully pours the water into two mugs.
I groan. “Oh, horseapples. I'm sorry, 'Shy. I couldn't sleep, so I came down for a cup of coffee and...”And dozed off on my kitchen table, like a complete idiot. Slow clap for that one, me. “Uh, thanks for the blanket.”
'Shy looks at me sadly from under those long eyelashes, and I feel my stomach squirm. “You should be more careful about doing that when it's so cold, Dash. You were shivering in your sleep when I came down. Here.”
She passes over one of the mugs, full of warm cocoa. I almost scald my mouth trying to drink it too fast, desperate to get some warmth in me. I suddenly realise that I'm hungry. Ravenous, even. Then, I realise why.
“Fluttershy,” I say slowly, hoping against hope that I'm just being crazy. “What time is it?”
“It's almost noon.”
Work. I need to go to work. In fact, I need to go back in time four hours, and then go to work. I've already had a load of time off lately, and I don't know what I'd do if I got fired. I stand up way too quickly, upending the chair and almost spilling cocoa all over the table. Before I can take a single step, Fluttershy is at my side.
“Shh… Don't worry. I already went over and spoke to work about it. I told them you were sick. Scootaloo agreed to help cover for you as well. It's okay. It's all okay,” she says, in the same comforting voice she uses to speak to birds and hedgehogs when they're scared. There isn't a single living creature that can resist that voice, me included. Or maybe even me especially.
“You're a lifesaver, 'Shy. I'm sorry. Tomorrow, I'll have my head back in the game,” I say, and breath a sigh of relief.
Fluttershy looks at me, one eye hidden under her mane. She hasn't done that in a while. A feeling of dread starts to sink down into the pit of my empty stomach as I figure out that whatever happens next, it's going to be one of those serious, make-or-break things. “U-um, actually, Dash, could you sit down? Please?”
For a second – a long, horrible, aching second – I think, this is it. This is the moment 'Shy breaks up with me. It's irrational, crazy. She's just asking me to take a chair, to have a chat. But I can't… I'm so scared. I don't want to lose Fluttershy. I don't know what it is I might have done, or didn't do, or even if I did anything wrong at all. I can't lose her. I can't.
“Rainbow Dash, please. It'll only take five minutes. It's nothing bad, I promise,” she says, so soft and gentle that I have no choice but to trust her. I take a deep breath, pause, pick up the chair, and finally sit down. She crosses to the chair opposite mine and follows suit.
“Um, do you remember what we talked about? Last night?”
I nod mutely. My heart is hammering in my chest, and my throat is dry as sand. Now that my head is full of worries about losing her, every flutter of her eyelashes and twitch of her wings seems magnified in my mind's eye. I have to stop being so jumpy. I have to focus. 'Shy wouldn't just up and leave me for no reason. I need to hold on to that. But the hissing 'what ifs' just keep chanting themselves in my ears.
“Um,” she says, and pauses, searching for the right words. Her mouth stays open as she looks for them. “Dash, d-did you know there's a flying contest going on in about a month?”
“A flying contest? Uh, no. I don't think I heard about it. Must not be paying attention, huh? Did you want to go and watch it?” I ask, but even to me it sounds silly, like I'm just looking for an out. What am I so scared of?
“A-actually… Last night, I, um… I wanted to ask you…”
“'Shy?” I prompt her, as gently as I know how.
“I, um. I wanted to ask if you would enter it for me.”
At long last, my heart begins to ease up. I was convinced it was going to burst out of my ribs. This is nothing to be worried about. I'm not in trouble, and I didn't screw up. She just wants me to enter a contest. Okay. I'm cool with that. Super cool.
“Is that all you wanted? Man, 'Shy. You had me really worried there. I mean, really worried. Sure, I'll enter the flying contest. No problem. Uh… Do you mind if I ask what brought this on, all of a sudden?” I reply, and I can't quite stop the relieved smile from spreading across my face.
“… Um. Please. Listen, Rainbow Dash,” Fluttershy says. She lifts a hoof to her eye and pushes her mane back, making sure I can see all her face and that she has nowhere to hide. To me, in that moment, she looks so sad, and so beautiful, that it takes my breath away.
“…You've, um, been differently lately. You've, you've been so quiet, all of a sudden, and you stare into space all the time. You don't… you don't smile as much as you used to, Dash,” she begins, and her voice – no, her, all of her – seems to tremble as she speaks. “And, and, I know that something's troubling you, and that you're probably keeping it a secret from me because you're scared I'll worry about it. But I can tell, Dash, even if you try to act like nothing's wrong. I can tell when you're bothered about something, because I love you. And I spoke to Applejack, and Scootaloo, and Twilight, and all the others, and even they can tell that there's something up.”
“Shy, I–”
She holds a hoof up for quiet, and I can't bring myself to carry on. She gulps, and carries on, taking deep breaths as she does. She stutters and pauses, as if every word is a battle she has to fight. “I'm, I'm worried. Rainbow Dash. Because there's something wrong, and I don't know what it is, or how to help you fix it. But I thought, maybe I could cheer you up. You, you always used to love flying, and entering contests, but you never seem to do it anymore. And, and, I know that sometimes, you, um, worry about whether you're too old, and that you can't do all the things you wanted to do, and that you can't chase your dreams anymore because of me. So I thought, m-maybe now's, now's the time, and...”
I get up and go to comfort her, because I know that any second now, Fluttershy is going to cry. Because of me. That's the worst thing, the very worst thing that I can imagine happening in my world right now. I hug her tightly, spread my wings around her like a shield, whispering tiny sounds of comfort where the words won't come.
“It's okay, 'Shy. I'm sorry. I don't know what's wrong, either. If I knew, I'd tell you, and we'd sort it out, and everything'd be fine. I'll enter the contest, just like you said. It'll be okay.”
“A-and if doesn't work, we'll just, just try something else. Oh… I'm such a silly pony, c-crying like this,” she whispers, and buries her head in my shoulder. She very quietly begins to sob.
“It'll be fine,” I tell her, over and over again, like I'm chanting a magic spell. “It'll be fine.” And even as I say it, I can feel my resolve hardening. Some way or another, I'm going to make sure I'm right. I'm going to find whatever it is that's screwing up my head lately, and I'm gonna fix it. Because, I can't do it. I just can't bear to see Fluttershy cry.