III
“I gotta tell ya, F…Flt…” Rainbow’s eyes crossed as she forced her tongue to work properly. “Fluttershy…you were awesome today.” Rainbow tipped back her glass and drained the rest of the beer, teetering on the barstool.
Fluttershy smiled and took a sip of her water. “Thanks, Rainbow.”
“No, no, really.” Rainbow shook her head emphatically. “Ev…everythin’ I said to Spitfire, I meant. We never would’a gotten ‘nough wing power without you.” She tapped on the bar, and the bartender brought her another glass. She gulped down half and swayed, leaning into Fluttershy’s shoulder. She dropped her voice to a mumbling whisper. “I knew you could do it, y’just needed me to en…encour…help ya get there.”
A ghost of a frown crossed Fluttershy’s lips as Rainbow pulled away and downed another mouthful of beer. She took a sip of water and said, “I’m just glad we could get the reservoir up to Cloudsdale at all.”
“Yeah, it wasn’t lookin’ too good.” Rainbow kicked off from the bar to send her stool spinning, giggling as she went. “You totally saved th’ day.” She lost balance and almost tumbled to the floor, landing against Fluttershy roughly. She nuzzled into her girlfriend’s shoulder and growled, “An’ you were so damn hot up there.”
Fluttershy grimaced as Rainbow nibbled her neck, shooting a glance all around the room. “C-can we go home, Rainbow?”
“But I’m not done drinkin’!” She lunged to the bar and drained the rest of her beer. “S’a party!”
“I have some beer at home. Please can we go?”
“Spoilsport,” Rainbow giggled. She swung a hoof back to her saddlebag fast enough to spin the chair, and she slid off onto the floor. Fluttershy helped her to her hooves and she fumbled around to pull a pouch of bits out, a stream of helpless chuckles escaping her mouth the whole time. Fluttershy’s gaze drifted around the darkened room from pony to pony as her girlfriend counted out the tab, and when they turned to leave she dropped her line of sight to the floor.
Rainbow stumbled into her side and leaned against her for support as they trotted out of the bar. The cool night air hit their faces and a shiver ran up Rainbow’s spine. She nuzzled Fluttershy strong enough to make her girlfriend stumble. “Why such a hurry? You wanna get home right away?” Fluttershy felt Rainbow kiss the base of her jaw and she grimaced again; her eyes darting around the assorted ponies milling about the streets. “You wanna cele…sss…cel’brate in style?”
Fluttershy felt a hoof drift up her flank and she stepped away from Rainbow. Her drunken girlfriend teetered without her support and fell back into her, nearly driving them both to the ground. As Rainbow giggled, she straightened up and increased her pace, her mouth set in a thin line.
“What’sa…what’sa matter?” Rainbow asked, wavering as they sped up.
“Nothing.”
Rainbow’s laughter dropped off as they hurried out of town and down the path to Fluttershy’s home. They made their way inside quietly to avoid waking up any of the animals, and Rainbow collapsed onto a chair at the kitchen table. Fluttershy sighed and grabbed a beer out of the fridge. Rainbow stared at the open bottle in front of her for a moment before leveling her gaze on Fluttershy.
The canter through cool air coupled with her fast metabolism had lifted most of the fog of booze from her mind. She didn’t slur her words when she said, “What’s with you?”
Fluttershy pulled back the blinds to let the light of the moon in, casting a white glow around the kitchen, and sat down at the table. She slumped in her chair and rubbed her temples. “Nothing. Everything’s fine.”
“Stop it,” Rainbow grumbled, taking a drink. “You always do this. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong.”
Rainbow slammed her hoof on the table, making her beer rattle. “Tell me what’s wrong!”
Fluttershy jumped in her seat and sat up straight. She looked away and crossed her forelegs over her chest as if huddling for warmth. “You’re drunk, Rainbow. If you still want to know in the morning, we can talk about it then.”
“Just tell me, I’m not that drunk.”
Fluttershy’s frown deepened and she hugged herself tighter.
“Celestia dammit, Fluttershy!” Rainbow slammed her hooves down again. “You always, always do this! I just wanna talk and you shut down! You did it all this week, too!”
Fluttershy’s hooves dropped to the table in challenge and she leaned forward, glaring at Rainbow. “You want to know? Fine. You spent all week pushing me and pushing me to fly for the water transfer, because it was important to you. And I tried, and fought, and I did it, and you said all those nice things to Spitfire, and I felt so great, and…” She blinked and glittering wet rolled down her cheeks. “And you still made it all about you, anyway!”
“What are you talking about?” Rainbow’s brow furrowed as she took a swig, her words coming out harsher than she meant.
“‘All you needed was me encouraging you.’ Some encouragement.” She looked at the table as sour tears ran down her face. “You knew what it was like in flight school. You knew. And all week you’ve been telling me it ‘wasn’t a big deal.’ Because it got in the way of what you wanted me to do, even if it scared me.”
“But you did do it, and you did awesome!” Rainbow grunted with barely restrained anger. “You just needed a push to get through it, so I gave you a reason to do it!”
“I did it for me!” Fluttershy yelled. She gasped and clapped her hooves over her mouth, shocked at her own volume. She sat back and closed her eyes. “Not for you, or for Cloudsdale, I did it because I needed to. And I thought you got it.”
“I said you did it, didn’t I? I knew that was hard for you, which is why I kept pushing; I knew it’d be good for you!”
“You still don’t get it, and then afterwards, in front of all those ponies…” She touched her neck where Rainbow had nipped her. “What if somepony saw you kissing me and said something? I can’t deal with that, you know I can’t, why can’t you ever remember?”
Rainbow rolled her eyes and took a long drink. “If anypony ever says anything, I’ll buck their face off.”
“I don’t want you to get in fights, I just want to be left alone.” She shook her head slowly. “All I ever want is to be left alone, but you don’t understand because all you want is to be the center of attention. Just like when we were fillies and you broke up with me so you never had to leave Cloudsdale, where everypony wanted your autograph.”
“That’s not why!” Rainbow shouted at the top of her lungs. In the flare of anger, she grabbed the beer bottle off the table and swung her leg. As soon as the bottle left her hoof she regretted it, and she watched helplessly as it shot through the air.
The bottle smashed on the wall with a tinkling splash. Beer fizz splattered in a rough circle, dotted with the shards of glass that stuck in place instead of raining to the ground. Fluttershy shrieked and leapt off the chair, scooting across the floor to the opposite wall.
Rainbow heaved ragged breaths, staring at the wall with disbelieving eyes. “I…I’m sor—”
“Just go away!” Fluttershy cried.
Rainbow sat rooted on the spot, watching thick foam dribble down the wall. The sound of chickens scrabbling through the yard came in through the closed window; the noise from breaking glass and yelling had roused them from their sleep. Rainbow turned her head.
Fluttershy was cowering from her. She had taken the love of her life out to celebrate after seeing Fluttershy break through all her barriers. Rainbow had been so proud of Fluttershy and just wanted to do something nice.
And the old pain, the old fear, the old broken promise shone on Fluttershy’s face.
Rainbow Dash fled the house, flying dangerously fast and crooked from the alcohol still in her system.
Rainbow stood from the table and carried the full beer to the sink. She poured it out and watched the fluffy head spatter against the drain. After that night, she never drank more than two beers around Fluttershy, but as she rinsed the empty bottle, she knew it was just treating a symptom. She turned and trotted back towards the table.
Her eyes scanned the wall, expecting to see the thrown drink shine in the moonlight, but it had been washed away and left with a stretch of whitewash, bright in the midday sun streaming through the window. The ghost of the image was still there. She sat down on the floor and stared at the wall.
Rainbow’s ear flicked as Fluttershy’s voice, muffled by the window, filtered in from the back yard. “Not now, Angel.”
Rainbow sighed and drooped where she sat.
“I mean it; Rainbow’s inside and I don’t have time for this. You like carrots, I know you do, I’ll make you something fancier later.”
A small and helpless smirk lifted Rainbow’s lips.
“Listen, buster, I really don’t have the energy for this right now, so eat your carrot and like it.”
A wave of desire raced up Rainbow’s spine. Stronger than before, stronger than she’d remembered in months, she wanted to rush to Fluttershy’s side and hold her. It was almost dizzying how powerfully it struck her as she sat in the kitchen and imagined beer dripping down the wall.
Rainbow frowned and her thoughts turned inward. She circled the question again, puzzling, forcing herself to think, trying to break through the stubborn loop.
She didn’t want to break up with Fluttershy. The why on that was easy. She didn’t want to break up, because she loved Fluttershy. She loved the way she felt around her beautiful, quiet little pony when things were good. Her brow creased as she contemplated.
“…How do I feel around her?”
Rainbow traced the feelings into her past and found herself remembering how they had first become friends back in flight school. Some bully whose name had drifted away with the sands of time had called her a runt, and her anger got the better of her. Instead of a race, and despite the colt being twice her size, she had settled with him immediately with a hoof to the jaw.
The colt hadn’t gone down. Any old notions he might have had about not hitting girls fled his mind as soon as she split his lip. Rainbow Dash was many things over the course of her life, but weak, a pushover, mild-tempered, or completely in control of herself were not on the list. She didn’t remember the fight very well, but that wasn’t caused by the fifteen years of time passing; she blanked a large portion of it from her memory as it happened.
One moment the colt had lunged at her. The next thing she knew, she was standing over him, her snout bleeding, her hooves aching, her breaths heavy.
He wasn’t moving anymore. He hadn’t been moving for a lot of the hits, she was told later. She did remember the aftermath, crystallized in her memory in stark detail: the way all the other foals looked at her. Their widened eyes skittering away as she turned, the way they shied back from her presence.
They looked at her like she was a wild animal that had broken free of a cage. Some sort of rampaging beast instead of a pony. Rainbow remembered feeling her stomach shrivel as she turned in place, remembered feeling like a dangerous creature.
Until she locked eyes with Fluttershy.
Rainbow’s spine straightened in recognition. That look, years old and on the face of a filly instead of a mare, rocked her where she sat. She suddenly knew exactly when she had started thinking about ‘them’ again: it was at the top of a mountain in front of a dragon. Her mouth opened and she laughed.
Fluttershy came back inside and paused in the doorway. Rainbow sat on the floor by the wall, tears running down her face and laughing. Fluttershy frowned and stepped forward. “Rainbow?”
In a shot, Rainbow was around her neck, pinning her to the ground and rubbing tears into her cheek. “I’m so stupid,” Rainbow giggled.
“Rainbow, what—?” Fluttershy closed her eyes as Rainbow kissed her, small giggles vibrating her lips.
Holding her close, feeling her body tremble and her jittery pulse, Rainbow broke the kiss and nuzzled her again. “I love you because I’m a wild animal.”
“What?”
“I’m a wild animal, Fluttershy. I always have been, and you’ve always seen it, but you don’t care. You don’t care and you love me anyway—maybe because that’s who I am. When I’m with you, I don’t have to fight all the time, because you understand me and you’re not afraid of me.” She sat up. “At least when I’m being myself.”
Fluttershy stroked Rainbow’s mane, letting herself be pulled up to her haunches. For a while she just basked in being held. Eventually she broke the silence. “…Where does this leave us? It doesn’t really fix anything.”
Rainbow chuckled again and leaned back from the embrace, studying Fluttershy’s face. “It fixes a lot. When one of your animals is messing up, what do you do?”
Fluttershy frowned. “Well, I tell it what’s going on and—”
“Exactly. Everything gets to be this big deal because we never tell each other what’s going on until it is a big deal.”
Fluttershy sat back and looked around the room, lost in thought. “…I never want to start fights.”
“And I don’t either; I’m too busy trying to be this safe place for you, when you don’t need me to do that. Me being quiet isn’t what makes you feel safe. Me being me makes you feel safe. And you not talking to me doesn’t keep us from fighting; it makes you hold onto stuff, and then it explodes. And it’s the same for me. Imagine if I just said, ‘Ugh, those knitting needles are driving me nuts,’ on the first day you started knitting?”
Fluttershy smiled. “I would’ve stopped knitting when you were around.”
Rainbow grabbed her and kissed her again. “We just gotta talk more. I know you have it in you; I see it all the time when you’re with the animals. It’s why I started thinking of us again, even if I didn’t know it. I know I’m sorta thick sometimes, you just need to make sure I’m listening, and I’ll try to really listen. I promise I’ll try. And I’ll stop trying to protect you from me all the time, because when I do, it always explodes, and I hurt you anyway.”
Fluttershy nodded and pressed into Rainbow’s neck. “I’ll try, Rainbow. I hate fighting all the time.”
“So talk to me instead. We can make this work.”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too, Fluttershy.” She hugged her girlfriend close, feeling that hummingbird heartbeat thrum against her chest. “I promise you that I’ll listen.”
Fluttershy nodded against her neck and they sat together in the kitchen, listening to each other breathe. It was a long time before they moved, lost in the embrace, wrapped in each other’s hooves and wings, like tree limbs entwined, stretching up to reach the sunlight.