//------------------------------// // 2: Trying To Find A Solution // Story: When A Door Closes, Another Opens // by Intet22 //------------------------------// "The solution often turns out more beautiful than the puzzle." ~ Richard Dawkins “Are you sure that you are ready to tell me?” Twilight asked with a reassuring look on her face. “Yeah, I am…” Rainbow said, playing with her mane with a hoof. “Oh! Just a second!” In a flash Twilight was gone and reappeared just as quick with a small doll in her mouth. The doll was a simple shade of grey, with black hair draping down its face. One of the two button eyes was hanging on by a thread. It looked like any slight pull would rip the doll’s eye clean from its face. Stretched over the doll's bottom was a dark blue pair of white-polka dot underwear. With a simple toss, Twilight threw the doll over to Rainbow, landing in front of the confused mare. “Smarty Pants?” Rainbow asked poking the doll’s loose eye with a hoof. “Why did you go get her?” “Well… She has helped me through some tough times. So I thought that you might like to have her for a little bit. I know it’s a little silly, but you'll find it reassuring to have her around when you can’t talk to anypony else” Twilight explained. The doll was oddly reassuring, and Rainbow could feel her nerves starting to calm down, while staring into the mismatched button eyes. You know, she is right… I do feel a little better just having it here. “Thanks, Twi” Rainbow said while pulling the doll towards her with a wing. Letting out a large sigh, Rainbow sat down on her haunches and tried to get muster the courage to tell Twilight about Applejack. She had kept the fact that she was a fillyfooler from most of her friends. Fluttershy and Applejack were the only ones that knew she was into mares, Fluttershy was her closest friend in flight school, and Rainbow went to her when she had problems in school. She got into fights frequently and really didn’t have any friends except for Fluttershy. Even her parents didn’t know about it, in fact they had been apart ever since Rainbow had dropped out of flight school. Rainbow didn’t want them to know, and they never tried to find where she went after she left. They weren’t really the closest family, but they still looked after each other. “I guess we should start at the beginning of the story. It all started when I was a little filly in flight school” Rainbow started to explain. She ran her hoof through her mane once more, letting out a large sigh as the appendage left her mane. “I was always proud of my mane, the only rainbow coloured mane I had ever seen, besides my parents of course, and it helped set me apart from all the others. Sadly even though I was proud of it, my mane and my attitude caused the other kids at school to bully me constantly. They called me names like Rainbow Crash, and the names got worse as the years went on. I could deal with the name calling and all of the practical jokes but during my last year at flight school, a rumour started to go around that I was a fillyfooler” Twilight reached over a hoof over her distraught friend, a new surge of confidence began to roll through Rainbow. Here someone was, fully listening to her story and making sure that she was okay the whole entire time. Having someone there for her felt incredible, and she wished that the feeling would never go away. “I never really gave it much thought” Rainbow continued. “I was so busy with trying to be the fastest flyer at school that I didn’t really have time for relationships. But as time went on, and the teasing continued I started to realize that they may be right. Fillyfoolery was something that flight school was strongly against. They were a traditional school through and through. Sticking to all the old teaching methods, and views no matter the cost. So you can see why I was a little bit wary about accepting it. All my life at the school and even at home, I was told that it was wrong for a mare to be attracted to other mares like that. Despite all of that though, I began to notice that I really wasn’t attracted to any of the stallions in class and that I was starting to have some thoughts about another friend in class. It was so strange to have all those thoughts, that were directly conflicting with what we were being taught.” Rainbow let out a sniffle. "It made me feel out of place, like there was something wrong with me Twi. You know?" "Rainbow... I couldn't even imagine what it must have been like to feel like that." Twilight said. “Thankfully Fluttershy noticed that something was off, and asked me about it. I had never seen her so serious in my life Twi” Rainbow said letting out a small chuckle. “It was so unlike her, and it tripped me up a little bit. Eventually I told her about it, and she was the first one that I told about my feelings.” “That must have been hard for you. Opening up to someone like that is always hard no matter what the situation” Twilight said, tracing her hoof through Rainbow's mane. “Na not really” Rainbow said, poking Smarty Pant's good eye with a hoof. “I mean it was little difficult because I really wasn’t sure myself, so it felt a little weird talking to Fluttershy about it. After I had explained it to Fluttershy, she said that we would still be friends no matter what, even if I was a fillyfooler. It felt nice to have that support you know…" Rainbow gave a small nudge with her wing on Twilight's side. "Someone to lean on if things went south.” “Over a couple of weeks I tried to find out who I really was, trying to find what made me… well me. At first I tried to deny it but as the school year continued to go on, it just started to make more and more sense as time passed. It was funny. I didn’t give it any thought until someone started spreading that rumour, and then it was the only thing I could think about.” “Sometimes that happens, you don’t put much thought into it, but once someone brings it up you finally start to put thought into it, and that is all you think about.” Twilight said while magically packing up the telescope on the balcony, keeping her gaze on Rainbow. With a simple magical pull of a small hinge of the telescope’s side, the giant black tube telescoped on itself, compressing the rather large object into something much more manageable. “So you had finally decided?” “Yeah it took a month or so, I tried to deny it but all signed pointed to it. I even got the courage to ask one of the mares in class if they wanted to go out someday, but that was a really bad idea. Of course I was rejected, and then the rumour had been confirmed to be true, as she told the entire school that I had asked her out. After that I was shunned by all the other kids, the teachers started to ignore me. One by one they started to ignore me, treating me like I didn’t even exist. Other kids would throw things at me when I walked around the school, telling me to get the hell out their school. They made feel like I didn’t belong Twi…” Rainbow’s sobbing made it hard to get the words out. “I felt so out of place… And I didn’t want to tell my parents, because I thought they would push me away just like everyone else.” “S-S-So…” Rainbow said wiping fresh tears from her eyes with the tip of one her of wings. “Eventually a group of kids had gotten together, and cornered me outside of the school…” Rainbow was now in full breakdown mode. Tears were following from her face and her body was uncontrollably shaking underneath Twilight’s hoof. “They beat me up Twi… They beat me pretty bad… After they stopped all I could see and taste was my own blood dripping down my face. One of them had cut me open right above my eye, and I couldn’t see out of it for a week. My parents had thought that I had gotten into another fight, so they really didn’t ask too many questions. “After I had finally gotten better from the beating, I ran away from home, and stayed with Fluttershy until I could find my own place” Rainbow said sobbing softly, the tears began to mat on her pristine cyan fur. “She had already graduated from school, and it was the only safe place that I could think off. The first couple of months were a little rough. I couldn’t find any way to find a job, and I was losing bits paying Fluttershy for rent. She didn’t want me to pay anything, but it didn’t feel right just staying in her house with giving her something in return” “Eventually it did get better” Dash said with a sniffle. “It took a couple of years, but I was finally able to get enough money saved up to make my cloud house. It took a couple of months, but I was able to finally have somewhere to live that I had made with my own two hoofs.” Rainbow lifted her front hoofs into the air, and stared at them with a smile on her face. “It’s funny… It felt so good to finally have something, but it felt even better that I had made it all by myself. After it was finally built I got a job with the weather team. Ever since flight school, I kept my preferences to myself… Didn’t want the same thing to happen again you know…” “That was when I meant AJ and everything started to fly back up to the surface. There was just something about her that had me mesmerized me. I don’t know what it was… Maybe her hard working attitude that she had towards her farm or maybe the deep connection that she shares with her family. I don’t really know, but something just seemed to draw me to her. Over the next couple of months we had introduced ourselves, but we weren’t really friends, until you came to Ponyville…” “Until I came here?” Twilight asked confused, her head slightly tilted to the side. “What does that have to do with anything?” “Well you see… We weren’t all close friends before you showed up. I was friends with Fluttershy, who was friends with Rarity, who was friends with Pinkie, and finally Pinkie was friends with Applejack. So we all kind of knew each other but we weren’t really that close. It was when you got here that we actually came together as friends.” “Oh I didn’t know. Well I guess it is good that I came here. I know that meeting you girls was one of, if not the best thing to happen in my life. So it would be nice to think that I helped a little bit in bringing everyone together.” “You did more than that Twilight. You helped me find a solid footing… Even though I had my cloud house, and a job with the weather team, I still felt like something was…” Rainbow waved a hoof in the air, while looking around the balcony. “Missing… You know what I mean?” her gaze stopping on Twilight. “Yeah I do…” Twilight said with a simile, her head gazing up to the beautiful stars above. “When I was in Canterlot studying under Celestia I thought I had everything. I had all the books that I could ever want, and I was studying under the most powerful unicorn in existence.” Twilight looked over and gazed into Rainbow’s eyes. They were filled with anger, sadness, but she could see a glimmer of happiness behind them. It was shrouded behind all the other emotions that coursed through her head, but she could see it behind everything as clear as the night star in this perfect night sky. This has been really eating Rainbow up… And she is finally telling someone about what happened. “When I came here, I thought Celestia was punishing me” Twilight continued, her eyes gazing over to a small blanket that was magically floating over towards the two mares. It was a simple blanket, with her cutie mark etched across the front of the fabric. The purple glow dissipated, and the blanket fell perfectly over them, covering the mare in it's warmth. “I thought friends were just a waste of time, and something that ponies didn’t really need, but you all showed me otherwise. Like you said Rainbow, it felt like something was missing, and you girls helped fill that hole in my life” “Awww… Thanks Twi” Rainbow said giving a playful hit to Twilight’s ribs underneath the blanket. Twilight slightly jumped underneath the sheet, letting out a small shriek from the sudden contact. After Rainbow’s hoof made contact she began to realize that she wasn’t really sad anymore about the memories. Sure it hurt to bring up old memories of the past, but something about having Twilight sitting her beside her just made her feel… Safe… Like nothing would be able to hurt her. “Although back to my story… After your coronation I had finally worked up the courage to ask Applejack out on a date with me. I didn’t tell her about the flight school thing, she didn’t need to know about it. Just like the others, she shot me down as well… I couldn’t really blame her, but I had to try at least. My father always said that if you don’t ask the question, then the answer is always no. Although… A couple of days later after she said no, I got a call from her saying that she wanted to try going out with me” “That is a little weird. First she goes from rejecting you, to actually asking you out” Twilight asked confused. The pieces just didn’t fit in her head. Why would she simply just flip like that? “Now that I think about it I should have realized it earlier, but I was so excited that she agreed to go out with me. I think that I even jumped around my room like a little filly, when she had said yes.” Rainbow cheeks blushed with embarrassment. “So we went out without telling any of our friends, and it was really good at first. We have a lot in common, and we are both competitive which was nice. But now that I think about these past couple of weeks, she was a little detached from me, not acting like she usually did when we went to Joe’s or when we out to see a movie at the theatre in Canterlot… Over the last week I have only seen her once and that was just when I stopped by when I was working over one of the Sweet Apple Acres fields” “What happened?” “Well…” the tears were starting their way back down Rainbow’s face. A hoof presses against her face, and Twilight wipes the tears away. “Applejack broke up with me today, but it turns out that the situation was a lot worse then what I thought. It turns out that she didn’t even care for me in the slightest. No feelings once so ever” “What!” Twilight was outraged. Her eyes began to shine with a white omniscient glow. Rainbow could feel the powerful magic surging from her friend, the sheer power of Twilight’s magic felt like it was going to tear her apart. “How dare she!” “Twi…” Rainbow shouted. The power continued to grow, and the library began to shake with a powerful force. Leaves began to fall from above, as the branches shook with the omniscient force that radiated from Twilight’s body. Rainbow looked up to the sky, and the stars above had begun to change in colour, each randomly changing colours at different intervals in the sky. In the library the books began to magically spin around in their own magical orbit. Powerful shockwaves started to emanate from the purple unicorn, shaking all the houses nearby to their very foundation. “Twi! You got to snap out of it!” Rainbow shouted once again, her head snapped towards the mare. Rainbow began shaking her friend to try to get her to snap out of the rage induced magical surge. “Come on egghead… Come back to me.” Twilight’s eyes flash once more, and her normal violent eyes reappeared through the glow. Leaves no longer fell as the library finally settled, and the magic in the air began to seep back into Twilight’s horn. With a slam the books fell to the floor, and the magic that changed the stars dissipated from the night sky. “Sorry about that Rainbow” Twilight said rubbing her temple with a hoof. “I still haven’t really gotten control of the magic that comes with you know” she said while rustling a wing underneath the blanket. Rainbow couldn’t help but let out a small chuckle as the feathery appendage tickled her ribs as it brushed across. “I still get have trouble with controlling my magic when I get angry, and it just seems to… Well you saw what happens.” “Oh don’t worry about it egghead. Your coolness just jumped a couple points. That was awesome” Rainbow said shooting a hoof into the air. “Anyway it turned out that Applejack didn’t have any feelings towards me, and she was just trying to make feel better. She didn’t even have the nerve to tell me about it first, and she tried to get me to break up with her by bringing up the Mare-Do-Well incident.” “Why would she do that?” “Well” Rainbow rolled her eyes as the words left her mouth. “I guess she thought that I would be mad at her for a little while compared to how angry I am now. It makes some sense but still I don’t know why she just didn’t tell me that we couldn’t work out. It would have been better if she just rejected me and left it at that.” Rainbow let a loud yawn, covering her mouth with a hoof, her wings mimicking her mouth as they slowly open, and then closed in tandem. “I guess we should get to bed. It is four at night after all” Twilight said mimicking the yawn. “Did you want to spend the night here?” “Are you sure?” Rainbow asked. She didn't know why the offer to stay caused a surge of happiness to course through her body. Maybe it was because deep down she didn't want to spend the night alone. Going back home would have just brought up all the pain once more, and she truly felt safe here. The peace and quiet of the library did have a certain charm to it, and having someone close by gave Rainbow a much needed surge of assurance. “Don’t worry I still have a spare room, and I hardly use it. You will probably have to move some books off of the bed, but that should be it.” “Thanks Twi. I really didn't want to spend the night alone, and it really means a lot” With a simple levitation spell from Twilight the blanket that covered the two mares lifted up into the air, and causally floated above their heads. “It is the first door on your right. Feel free to take the blanket with you.” “Mmpph thanks” Rainbow said her voice muffled by the blanket in her mouth, along with Smarty Pants firmly tucked underneath a wing. With that Rainbow trotted down the hall, and walked into the spare room. All Twilight could hear was the springs of the old bed moaning under the weight of the mare. It took a lot of courage for her to tell me that. To tell me that she is both a fillyfooler, and that she had gone out with Applejack. Although… Twilight thought to herself while walking into her bedroom. Up on the top shelf of her personal collection she saw the book that she needed to help out her friend. A simple spell levitated down to Twilight, and the pages of the old book rapidly began to flip, eventually stopping on the section that Twilight needed. Ah good… Basics of Analytic Psychology Part Three. This should have what I need to help Rainbow out. She sounds like she will need a lot of help to get over Applejack, and maybe I can actually keep their friendship together. I better check on her to see if she needs anything. As Twilight peered into the room, the sight filled her with happiness. Lying all wrapped up in a bundle, lay the drooling cyan mare. The yellow section of her mane comically fell in her open mouth as she snored. Clutched tight in her hoofs lay Smarty Pants, his stuffing starting to leak out of one the open stiches of the doll’s leg. A large smile was blazoned across Rainbow’s face. At least she is having a good dream. Twilight turned and walked out of the room. With a plop on her bed, she magically pulled over the blankets, and was asleep before the sheet touched her fur.