Chapter Forty-five
Dash’s House
Rainbow Dash
It’s truly amazing how quickly time can fly when you keep busy. I suppose a month isn’t really much time to kill to begin with, but it still only felt like a few days to me. After what was conversely one of the longest days of my life at Xekora’s place, we all dragged ourselves back to town, Phil included. Xekora decided he’d rested up enough and was needed out on the front lines with the rest of us, so he essentially gave the Phoenix some supplies from his hut and kicked him out.
Having no-where else to go, I ended up lending him the spare bedroom at my house for a few days. Of all the things I could say about him, I couldn’t say he wasn’t a good roommate. He, much like Twilight, had the annoying habit of keeping everything super-organized, and the house was in better shape when he left three days later than when he had come in.
But despite the similarities he had to Twilight, he had just as many with myself, which made for an interesting time. We competed often, even after he had moved out into a hotel, in both combat and flight. As good as his professional training in Eclipse may have been, it didn’t hold a candle to the skills passed straight down to me from Ultraviolet, and I didn’t loose a single duel with him. Racing was another matter altogether. With his transformative abilities, he was able to become much more aerodynamic, giving him a speed boost I couldn’t match easily. Still, natural skill was on my side as much as his, and wins always hovered around the fifty-fifty point.
As entertaining as matching wits with Phil was, I was only able to do so in my off-time. Mercenary work had finally started to pick up again, as well as having crops to harvest over at the acres, so actual work kept me busy during the day, much to my distaste. The afternoons I found to be much more enjoyable, as Applejack, Mac and I had decided it was finally time to do something drastic and awesome.
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I had been lazing around my house one evening, trying to hammer out a dent left in the buckler I had worn into battle with some kind of huge cat from the forest. I had taken on this job by myself this time around, and quite nearly paid for it. As it was, I was able to escape with little more than a few scratches, a sore leg, and a mangled buckler while it was killed, but I felt I got lucky.
I set the tiny shield down and stretched out on the worn sofa, closing my eyes for just a moment. Just before drifting off to sleep, a knock at my door woke me out of it. Shaking myself awake, I moved over to the door and swung it open abruptly, only to have to look down slightly. Applebloom stood at the door, meeting my tired yet curious gaze with a determined yet almost conflicted looking one.
“Hey, kid.” I greeted her in my usual manner. “Need something?”
“Hiya Dash. Ah...” She said in return, then paused. “Yeah, there was somethin’ I wanted to ask...” Sensing the tension in her voice, I moved aside and motioned for her to come inside. She plopped down on the beat-up sofa in one move, then scrambled into a sitting position. I took a seat on the chair opposite her, fingers interlocked in front of my mouth, and watched her with some concern. Something was obviously weighing heavily on her mind, and her normal happy-go-lucky attitude had been eclipsed by it.
“I... Can I ask you somethin’, Dash?”
“You just did.” I poked at her. It was comments like this that I just loved to slip in any time I got the chance. She chuckled slightly, shaking her head for falling for it, then continued: “Do you think I’m... weak?”
“Who told you that?” I responded. She shrugged, no longer making eye contact, so I sighed and forged ahead myself. “No, I don’t. You’re as dependable as anyone, and you’ve got the same strong-hearted spirit as your sister, and brother. Plus, literally speaking, helping with the fields as much as you do makes you objectively stronger than most kids your age.”
She shook her head again, having seemingly found something to latch onto. “No, that’s just it: You said I got the same spirit as AJ, and workin’ the fields like her and... Thing is, I don’t want my best to be just like her. Bein’ just like her in other people’s eyes is like saying I’m not strong enough to make my own path, and I’m only safe in any kinda’ danger because of her. I don’t want that...”
“I see...” I muttered, but loud enough for her to hear. “You’re saying you want to set yourself apart from the crowd, and start being your own person. Yes, I can understand that. I of all people would get the need to stand out from the crowd. But... What made you want to do something now? Did something happen?”
“Nah...” She sighed, worming deeper into the couch. “I... I kinda always had that in the back of my mind. Just... Just all hit me at once.”
“Well...” I hesitated, then decided to cross the room and sit next to her. “Alright. Um...” I guessed I should have said something like ‘don’t try to be someone you’re not to stand out’ or something smart, but it didn’t occur to me at the time. All I said was: “So... what did you have in mind?”
She perked up slightly, glad that I was listening. “Well... I was thinkin’...”
“A dangerous pastime.”
“If I’m gonna do this, I should start by not needin’ anyone to protect me when things get dangerous, or even be able to protect others. So... I want you to teach me to fight!”
I gave her a thoughtful look, before sighing and folding my hands behind my head. This was the second time, and not far from the first, that someone had come to me looking for training. But Applebloom approaching me was different than Fluttershy doing it, if only because I had been expecting it before long. I had more than once seen her brandishing a toy sword and trying to emulate some of my moves, mostly just whacking at trees. I knew she looked up to both Applejack and I for our battle ability, and knew it was only a matter of time before she asked to be trained.
“Have you talked to anyone else about this?” I pressed. “Does Applejack know?”
“No...” She replied quietly. “I... I couldn’t. She woulda’ never let me... I came to you first ‘cause I knew you’d at least give me a chance.”
“Well... I can’t just up and start training you without the O.K. from your sister. She’d find out pretty quick, and I’d rather not have her try and kill me. But-” I interrupted her before she could start begging. “I’ll tell you what I can do: I’ll give you a trial match, against me. If it looks like you’ve got what it takes to shape up and become a great fighter, I’ll talk to Applejack on your behalf. If not, well... you can talk to her yourself then.” I made the snap decision to leave out the last part I was thinking: If not, you may as well not go for fighting at all. There are other things than combat in this world. She wouldn’t have liked to hear that, and if I had to, I could tell her later.
She let out a grateful breath, almost a happy cry, and threw herself across the sofa at me. Wrapping her small arms around me gently and burying her face in my chest, I heard her mumble her thanks. Realizing just how desperately Applebloom had wanted this, and how relieved she was that I had agreed, I sat up straighter and draped my arms around her in return. Having grown up with her since I was young and she was born, but not being related to her or around her quite enough to get on her nerves like her sister did, there was some pretty unique affection between us. I guess she was like a little sister to me for the most part, but I didn’t really try and describe her relation to me. With things like these, it just was what it was, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Patting her on the back before separating, I said simply: “C’mon, kid. Let’s get this rolling.”
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To put it simply, she did better than I could have hoped. It still took a lot of convincing on my part to get her brother and sister to budge on it, but at last we agreed that we weren’t sure what was going to happen in the near future, and it couldn’t hurt to make sure she was prepared to defend herself. So, digging up both equipment and memories from my time training under Ultraviolet, I set up a training area in the field outside town. I would teach Applebloom to fight. In addition, the other two kids had continued to hang out with her after the meeting, and upon hearing the news from Applebloom, Scootaloo immediately found me and asked to be trained alongside her.
I wasn’t sure at first whether or not it was a good idea to do so; not that I didn’t want to. I had seen firsthand that this kid had potential and natural skill to spare, and I would have loved nothing more than to perfect his fighting, but I felt obligated to obtain permission for both of us first. After he begrudgingly took me to his house one evening, I had all the answer I needed. I wasn’t sure what had happened leading up to this point, but now he only lived with his stepdad, and this guy probably couldn’t have cared less. I won’t go into great detail about the meeting, but he wasn’t a terribly likable person.
Halfway because his stepdad didn’t seem to care, and halfway just to spite him, I went ahead and took Scootaloo under my wing as well. Soon the three of us were meeting at the field almost every afternoon of the week to train. I had expected to teach Scootaloo all my fully-arial techniques on top of everything else, but I quickly found a small wrinkle in that plan. His wings- to put it in its simplest terms- didn’t fully work right. They weren’t useless: he could still glide just as well after jumping from a high point, but unless he caught an updraft, he couldn’t rise. Basically, he was capable of bringing them to full bear (if he did it slowly), but couldn’t move them fast enough to flap and actually fly with them. I wasn’t sure if he had hurt them too badly for them to recover when he was younger or if they just grew in wrong, but they were good and crippled, and didn’t show any signs of getting better.
I felt pretty bad for the poor kid, having wings but not being able to use them, and I think he knew. But he impressed even me with his determination: every time he felt like he was being looked upon with pity for his disability, he just pushed himself that much harder to prove everyone wrong and become great. It also seemed like that whatever wind energy would have been given to his wings was instead transferred into raw wind magic, as he had control over it like I had never imagined.
I quickly grew quite fond of the boy, partly I’m sure simply because he reminded me so much of myself, hold five hair colors. Since he didn’t hold much allegiance to his own home to begin with, he soon started practically living at my place. I let him use my brother’s old room after moving some furniture back in (I had brought in a mattress for Phil earlier, but since Scootaloo was getting more use out of it, I brought in some other second-hand stuff) and I quickly found myself filling Ultraviolet’s shoes in hanging out with him.
One night, around a month after meeting Xekora, I lay sprawled across the sofa in the den, Scootaloo asleep in the other room. I wasn’t tired myself, but lay with my eyes closed, foot moving to a song stuck in my head. I clutched a mug of coffee between my palms, letting it warm me in the chilly weather. I was just contemplating trying to sleep when a knock, not particularly rapid, sounded from my door.
Shrugging off the sleep surrounding my head, I got to my feet and opened the door. On the threshold stood Trixie, looking dressed for travel. I saw that she was heavily equipped as well. “Dash, I need to talk to you.” was all she said before entering.