//------------------------------// // Bad Evening // Story: Day By Day // by Magicolt808 //------------------------------// Chapter 3 Rainbow Dash woke to see Celestia’s sun just setting over the rolling hill just outside of Ponyville. She stretched her wings and let them fall to her sides as she sat up in bed. As the grogginess and disorientation left her, she remembered that she had left her friend sleeping on the couch. Quickly, she sprang from her bed to meet her fellow pegasus to apologize for what a bad host she was for falling asleep while having a guest over. As Rainbow Dash entered the living room, she noticed that a note had been placed next to the cup of tea that she had made for Fluttershy. The absence of her friend brought relief and disappointment to the cyan pegasus, but she read the note with a smirk at seeing the trouble that Fluttershy went through when it should have been her busting her flank to comfort the disheveled guest. Dear Rainbow, I need you to come to my cottage because there is some important news I want to share with you. I also want to apologize for barging into your home without explaining what I was doing there in the first place. I’ve just been taking your parents death the same way you have. I’m scared Dash. I need to talk to you. Your friend, Fluttershy . Dash put the letter down, contemplating whether she should go now or wait until tomorrow. She really wanted to share her dream with Fluttershy. But she also didn’t want to catch her at the wrong time. She had decided she would go now there is no telling what Fluttershy had to tell her and it might be dangerous to hold out until later. Without another thought, she got ready to leave for Fluttershy’s cottage. ----+---- Dash arrived at Fluttershy’s cottage but was stopped at the entrance before she could knock. She remembered the dream and all those thoughts of Fluttershy’s figure came back. Was she really a fillyfooler? She shook her head with forced rage. “I am not a fillyfooler! My parents were wrong and I was right for leaving home,” she thought. Even though she kept telling herself this, she was being ripped apart by these two conflicting ideas of her actually being a fillyfooler. Either she was or she wasn’t. There is no in-between. This idea put her in a fit of rage. She was confused of where she stands on the situation. That’s when she decided that she knew where she stands; she was not a fillyfooler! At least that’s what she told herself. With her newfound confidence, and persistence to prove her parents wrong, she brought her hoof up and knocked on the cottage door. As if Fluttershy had been standing right behind the door, it swung open with a sense of urgency and expectance. She beckoned her friend to enter without saying a word. She looked at the floor and whimpered as she thought of how she was going to tell Dash. The air seemed thin and she was struggling to take in sufficient breaths, reducing her own breathing to ragged wheezing. “What do you need to talk to me about ‘Shy?” Dash was concerned at the condition of her friend. The way she was hyperventilating at the mere sight of Dash was making her fell like she should leave. “I could come back later if you wa-“ “NO!” The sudden outburst from the quiet Fluttershy made Dash step back in fear and surprise. Seeing her friend’s reaction, she backed away in shame. “I’m so sorry Dash. I didn’t mean to-“ Dash raised a hoof to quiet her friend. “Don’t worry about it. I know how you feel. I miss them too.” Without warning, Fluttershy rushed towards Dash and began to cry. Tears streamed down her cheeks and rolled off of Dash’s wing as they hugged. “I LET THEM DOWN,” Fluttershy sobbed. Not caring how loud she was getting. “What do you mean?” Dash was genuinely confused. Fluttershy was like a sister and her parents were always proud of her accomplishments like any other parent would be at their own child. Fluttershy pulled away from her friend and tried to recompose herself. She took in deep, plentiful breaths as she tried to regain her ability to speak. Seeing this was a losing battle, she sat on the couch and gestured for Dash to sit next to her. Dash did so and stared into her friend’s beautiful turquoise eyes; again, she was not admitting of this. “I’ve been keeping something from you for many years and I feel awful for not telling you earlier.” Beads of sweat formed underneath her mane and she trembled at the inevitable. “Your parents wanted me to tell you but I was too shy to bring it up. You just looked so contempt with your life, I didn’t want to mess it up.” She began to sob again but had no more tears to shed. “Well? What did you need to tell me? I promise you won’t screw anything up.” “I…love you,” she said under her breath. “What was that?” “I love you.” ‘One more time.” “I LOVE YOU!” Fluttershy screamed in forced persistence. This made Dash’s eyes bulge out and memories of her fillyhood came back to her in a rush as they flashed in front of her eyes. Images of her parents, bullies and her sweet friend came before her and she was paralyzed with the worst days of her life. ----+---- “What’s the matter ‘Rainbow Crash’? Where’s your friend ‘Cluttershy’?” Hoops wasn’t inventive with calling others names but the hate was still obvious in the tone in which he said them. “Why don’t you go kiss her you freak? Maybe I should call you ‘Rainbow Fag’.” Tears were brought to Dash’s eyes and she ran home, never looking back at the sneering faces and the laughing crowd. Fluttershy couldn’t believe what Dash had written to her. Fluttershy had left flight school a week before and had been staying in Sugarcube Corner when Pinkie offered her a place to stay. The only communication Dash had with Fluttershy was writing letters to her on the events that occurred in the past few days. Dash wrote to Fluttershy, telling her how mean all the others were to her after Fluttershy left. She wrote that she missed her and that she wanted to see her again. That is when the biggest decision in Dash’s life was made. She was going to run away and live in Ponyville. ----+---- “RAINBOW!” Fluttershy screamed in agony and fear. Dash had been staring at her for about twenty minutes without saying a word. Dark circles had formed around her eyes and it seemed as if all the life had been sucked out of her. Her eyes were red after not blinking at all and her small shallow breaths failed to make her chest rise and fall. Fluttershy tried everything. She even contacted the rest of the girls to help her with situation. “What happened here sugarcube?” Applejack was shocked to see her workout partner looking as fragile as a porcelain doll. “I told her that I love her.” Fluttershy wasn’t confident of the circumstances in which this news was broken, but it was necessary to keep the girls informed. “YOU WHAT?!” The others were astonished and confused. They always thought that a mare with her personality would be into colts. The way that she was always quiet and kind seemed fitting that she would want a strong male to take care of her. “Somebody lay her down now!” Twilight remembered what she had read about psychology and believed she had the answer. “Her psyche has snapped and is stuck in what is known as, ‘the Mental Plane’. She is stuck there until she can put her mind back together.” “Like a puzzle? Oooh, I like puzzles. This one time I-“ “PINKIE,” everyone screamed. Now was no time to reminisce. There friend was in grave danger. “Pinkie,” Twilight explained, “If Rainbow can’t put it all together, her mind will snap in half and never come back to us.” She looked at the floor at the unfortunate news she needed to deliver to her friends but it was the best she could do. “We will lose her forever.”