The light of the setting sun shone through the window-like arches of Rainbow Dash’s cloud home. The orange light caused the white fluffy clouds brighten into beautiful orange plumes. It was a sight Applejack couldn’t imagine, or wouldn’t have been able to had she been awake. Their time together had lasted well into the day, and now both had slept soundly through the afternoon hours.
Rainbow Dash was the first to stir, slowly opening her eyes and adjusting to the waning light. All around her was the orange light of Celestia’s setting sun. It almost reminded her of…
“Fire!” she screeched and jump from her cloud bed in a panic.
Her eyes wide, her heart pounding, she look all around, ready to escape. Then she turned to applejack in bed, who she half expected to have some horrible deformity like her dreams had shown her recently. Pulling back the clouds revealed her friend, her lover, sleeping very peacefully despite Dash’s outburst. Dash calmed down, and realized just what was going on around her. For the moment she plopped down on the floor and waited for her heart rate to drop.
“Whew,” she sighed, “It must be getting late already. Did we really stay up that long?”
Dash thought back on the past night and smirked. No matter what her friends knew about the two, she was sure neither of them would ever tell them about that night, nor the ones Dash thought were sure to follow. But she knew she hated how she had been feeling. Something was causing her to dream these awful things, and she had suddenly begun to develop very irrational fears. The voice in her head once again began to make itself known.
Are you really that stupid to think you don’t know where this is all coming from? It asked her.
Dash managed to stop herself from answering it out loud. Besides the fact she was becoming very afraid of scaring Applejack, she realized just how crazy it was to be to keep answering herself. She tried to ignore it.
Do you think she’ll still love you when she knows the truth?
She continued to feign ignorance, pacing back and forth across the darkening clouds of her home. It seemed night was already fast approaching.
“You’ve said this before,” Dash snapped through her teeth. “Do you really think you’re so cool, trying to make me feel so bad, so guilty?”
I don’t feel anything at all. After all, I’m just a voice…I’m just …you.
Rainbow Dash gritted her teeth. She didn’t want to hear this now, or ever. She glanced back and Applejack who was still sleeping soundly. Without any thought to what she was doing or where she was going, Rainbow Dash stretched her wings and rose into the air. With a quick burst she bolted through the clouds and into the cool air of the early night. And when she was far enough away from her home and from the listening ears of Ponyville, she screamed. Every fiber of her body cried out into the night, every bit of pent up hate for herself, every bit of sadness poured out into this outburst.
She brought herself down from the sky and landed on the cool grass near the edge of the Everfree Forest. She dropped onto her stomach and covered her face with her hooves. Tears streaming down her cheeks, she sobbed hard into the ground.
“What is wrong with me?!” she sobbed, “I feel like I’m going crazy!”
She pounded the ground with one of her hooves, trying to get some hold on herself. She did not want to have to keep feeling this way. However, she was now way too afraid of losing the mare she loved to admit her wrong doings.
“It wasn’t even really my fault,” she sobbed, “Why are you…why am I punishing myself so hard?”
Suddenly she heard hoof-steps from somewhere behind her. Dash quickly sat up, trying to quickly clear her face. She could feel her cheeks were hot as the tears made dark spots on her cyan fur, however it was not easily noticeable in the moonlight. She turned towards the sound.
“If anyone is out there, come out now! I’m not in the mood to play right now!” she tried to sound brave, but her voice noticeably cracked over a few words; she’d made herself very hoarse.
More hoof-steps and a momentary rustle of the bushes put Rainbow Dash even more on edge. She was in no mood to have to fight anything or anypony. Suddenly Twilight Sparkle emerged from the forest.
“Oh Twilight, it’s just you,” Dash said with the briefest sigh of relief.
“Well nice to see you too,” Twilight gave with some fake snark in her voice.
“Oh no, I just was hoping it wasn’t something horrible coming out of there. Do you always go to Zecora’s so late?”
“I try not to since I got turned to stone by that Cockatrice that time, but Zecora sent me a message that she urgently needed a book from my library. Seems a relative from her home is very sick and she didn’t have the recipe she needed.”
Dash couldn’t hide looking a little depressed, but tried her best to keep up her appearance for Twilight.
“I was on my way back,” Twilight began to tell her, “And I heard horrible noises. I thought somepony screamed. I hurried back as fast as I could. Was that you, Rainbow Dash?” Twilight began to look concerned.
“Geeze Twilight, you know me. I was just out enjoying the moon rising. A little night air on my wings always feels nice.” She was able to cover for herself.
“And you didn’t hear anything?” Twilight asked, perplexed.
“Nope, not a thing. Maybe you should get your ears checked Twilight. With all that reading, I thought sure your eyesight would go first,” Dash gave fake teasing laugh at her remark.
Twilight ignored the comment and said, “Where’s Applejack? I haven’t seen you two apart in weeks.”
“Still sleeping at my place,” Rainbow blushed a little, her mind drifting back to hours previous.
Twilight’s eyes drifted upwards for a moment as she began to imagine things for herself. She too blushed and quickly got her head back into reality.
“Heh, I hope your time was..enjoyable,” Twilight tried to say without sounding embarrassed.
Rainbow was glad Twilight was trying to learn a little about relationships from them it seemed. Twilight may have been learning about friendship, but she was still completely naïve to anything dealing with love.
“Well, make sure you wake her up soon. That spell I casted won’t last forever,” Twilight reminded.
Suddenly a new image crept into Dash’s head. She imagined Applejack, still sleeping in the comfy cloud bed, slowly sinking through the layers, through the floor, and then plummeting to the ground below. Dash didn’t want to imagine what would happen when she hit the bottom.
“Well, uh, it was nice talking with ya Twilight. I’d better be getting back,” Dash said quickly.
Before Twilight could even manage a goodbye, Rainbow Dash had taken to the skies and disappeared into the night.
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She wasn’t sure why, but Rainbow Dash had suddenly become very fearful of heading back inside the house. Twilight’s comment on her magic had not sat well with her, and now she was afraid if she went inside Applejack wouldn’t be there. After a few minutes she decided the thoughts of her best friend falling to her doom somewhere in Ponyville weren’t helping her already fractured mental state, and went inside. She called out for Applejack, but got no answer. Dash moved quickly to the bedroom, peeking her head through the doorway. The room was empty.
“Ohmygosh, no!” she cried out.
She tore through the clouds that made up her floor, and began searching frantically for signs of a body, or an impact. The moonlight of Luna’s moon made the search easier, but Dash still turned up nothing. She circled the surrounding area several times. Finally, she decided to head back up to her home. She hadn’t given it a thorough check after all.
Sure enough when Dash came back, Applejack was sitting on a chair in the bedroom, a tuft of her mane clutched in her mouth as she tried to fix her braids. Dash tackled her quickly to the floor.
“Woah sugarcube!” Applejack was quick to say, “What’s all this?”
“Oh thank Celestia, your alive!” Dash was quick to cry out, tears swelling in her eyes.
“Well o’course ah am,” Applejack gave a bewildered smile. “I didn’t think anything we did was that bad.”
Dash couldn’t help but laugh at Applejack’s statement. She pulled Applejack close and gave her a quick kiss. Afterwards, she let Applejack go and proceeded to explain why she’d reacted as such.
“I just wanted to go for a quick fly around Ponyville, “she said, skirting around her real reasons for leaving, “and ran into Twilight. We talked for a few minutes, until she reminded me of the spell, and so I came back. You’d gotten out of bed, so my mind went a little nuts.”
“Well, Ah can’t be mad ay ya fer caring,” Applejack put a hoof on her shoulder, “But don’t be overreactin’ so much. Ah can still take care o’ myself.”
Applejack snuggled up to Dash, trying to comfort her. Dash felt more peaceful than she had since she’d
awoken. She nudged Applejack, and before the orange earth pony knew it, she was back on Rainbow’s back and soaring down towards Ponyville. They swooped over Sugarcube Corner, and passed Rarity’s Boutique. They landed in front of Twilight’s library.
“Ya know, after all that, Ah’ve been asleep way too long ta be tired,” she told Dash. “What say we give Princess Luna’s beautiful night a little more respect.”
Dash couldn’t pass up a second with Applejack, so there they sat, amdist the waning lights of the Ponyville ponies, under one of the biggest moons they’d been able to see. Soon Twilight noticed the couple and came outside.
“Sorry to interrupt,” she said shyly, “But a message came for you today Applejack.”
Applejack opened the scroll, which the writer had obviously had some help writing. Suddenly, Applejack gasped…