Nightmare Do Well
“I don’t understand. Don’t you want me to be a hero?”
Rainbow stared at the assembled ponies in front of her as they removed their costumes one by one and smiled at her.
“It’s important to act with and humility,” Twilight said first.
“Like when you rubbed my face in it! That magic she-opps, I mean I used was so amazing!” Rainbow Dash shouted as she flew up into Twilight’s face. “Big and important Twilight! I’m Celestia’s student, I’m Celestia’s student look at me! I’m Celestia’s student! Everypony do what I say! No friendship problems today? Guess I better MAKE ONE!”
Twilight shattered like glass, and Applejack stepped in to replace her. “A real hero doesn’t brag.”
“You mean like you?” Dash yelled before her voice took on a mocking tone with Applejack. “Aw shucks yall, I just saved the whole town and all I got was this trophy! Best dang Apples in Equestria, I tell ya what! Ain‘t no pony better than me at blah blah blah!”
Dash struck the smiling Applejack, breaking her into a million pieces before she whiled around to point at the others. “And you! ALL OF YOU! What? You couldn’t stand to see me be popular? Didn’t like me hanging out with other ponies? Didn’t like other ponies smiling when they saw me? WHERE WAS YOUR KINDNESS, GENEROSITY, AND LAUGHTER THEN, HUH?”
The rest of her friends shattered, followed by the town, the grass, the sky, and Rainbow Dash was left standing alone in the darkness. “What the?”
“My, such anger, such rage. It’s no wonder I could hear you from the depths of the forest.”
Rainbow Dash gulped and looked around wildly for the voice before something she’d heard Twilight talking about before came to mind. “Wait…is that you, Princess Luna?”
She had remembered Twilight telling her once about how Princess Luna was supposed to go into the mind of sleeping ponies and help with their nightmares. If having to relive this moment from a few days ago wasn’t a nightmare, Rainbow Dash didn’t know what was.
“Luna? Oh no my little pony. Luna was merely the skin I wore for a time. I am not she who summons the moon and stars. I am darkness beyond blackest pitch, deeper than the deepest night. I am the Lord of Terror, I am what brings fear into the minds of all those who exist.”
A shudder passed through Rainbow’s body as it downed on her just what she was speaking to. “Wait a minute… Y-You’re that thing we beat in the Everfree Forest when Luna first came back! You’re the Nightmare! But that‘s impossible! We beat you!”
“And here I thought you’d be slower on the uptake," the golden voice told her before the darkness seemed to take a form. It still surrounded Rainbow, but she could just barely make out what looked like an outline of a pony. “And yes, I am what the sisters referred to as, the Nightmare. And you cannot beat me Rainbow Dash, like Chaos and Harmony, I am one of the forces that drives creation. To remove me from existence would be like removing a part of the soul of every pony. I have always been, and so I shall always be.”
Rainbow Dash found herself slowly backing away from the creature, but no matter how she moved, the pony of darkness was always in front of her. “W-What’re you doing here?”
“Why, answering your call of course,” it replied.
“What?” Rainbow whispered.
“Your dream. It’s loneness and despair, it called out to me. So here I am.”
“Hey! I’m not lonely!” Rainbow Dash shouted. “I got plenty of friends!”
“You mean all those ponies who turned away from you when Twilight and the others out staged you? Even the little orange one turned away from you from what I can see. Oh, you mean Twilight and her friends! The friends that mocked you, the ones that embarrassed you, the ponies that told you not to brag while…well, do you need to be reminded of all the times they shouted their own praises? Awards? Fashion shows? And let’s not forget the super party pony Pinkie Pie. Why do they get to sing their praises, and not you?”
“I…” Rainbow grit her teeth and shook her head. “Fine! They made a mistake! And yeah I’m angry about it! But you know what? FRIENDS FORGIVE EACHOTHER!”
For a moment it seemed as if he darkness recoiled at Dash’s voice, but it was back a moment later with a voice that Dash could almost hear smiling. “Forgiveness? They crush your pride, ruin your image, drive you to despair and you just forgive them and trot right back to them while hoping to forget the whol thing. Is that really forgiving them?”
“Yes!”
“And what happens the next time they decide to step on you?”
The question gave Rainbow Dash pause. “What?”
“Look at them,” the voice told her before the image of her friends appeared. They were smiling and laughing like they had been earlier that day when Dash walked into Sugar Cube Corner. Twilight invited her over, and Dash went and sat. “No regret, no remorse. Did they even care they hurt you?”
“Well-”
“Did they even know?”
Rainbow shook her head quickly, trying to clear away the doubts starting to cloud her mind. “I… That’s cause I just didn’t tell them!”
She frowned and shook her head. “And it’s not like I’m that hurt anyway!” she lied.
“But shouldn’t they have known without that?” the voice accused. “Isn’t that what friends are supposed to do? Understand each other? Feel pain for one another? They just laugh and go on, not even a glance for your pain, nor an apology, or a single word.”
Rainbow gulped. She tried to deny it but… How many times had she seen Fluttershy in trouble over the years and needed to coax what was wrong out of her? If she could do that to Fluttershy, why hadn’t any of the others even bother to try it out on herself?
Rainbow Dash looked back to the image of her friends laughing and talking, and Rarity going on about her upcoming trip to Canterlot for some fashion thing. A newspaper on the table caught the projected Dash’s attention, and she read the small article about Mare Do Well before becoming depressed while everyone else just went on smiling.
Unable to take it anymore, Rainbow turned away from the image before it could continue. “Why’re you here?”
“To grant the thing you desire of course.”
“…You’re going to make me a Wonderbolt?” Dash asked with a skeptical eyebrow raised.
“Oh come Rainbow Dash, we both know that’s impossible now. Look at what they’ve done to you. Look at the image. The Wonderbolts are heroes with spotless records. They’ll never let a pony like you join their ranks. Not after the fool Twilight and the others turned you into.”
“THAT’S NOT-” Rainbow Dash clenched her teeth and cut herself off, unable to finish the sentence.
“Yes?” it asked.
Rainbow found herself shaking as she looked at the ground. Who was she kidding? The Ponyville Gazette had already run a piece on Mare Do Well and how she was the greatest hero ever, ending it with a question about Rainbow Dash and what had happened afterwards. It didn’t make any accusations, but Rainbow Dash could tell the unasked question of ‘what did Rainbow Dash do to Mare Do Well?’ was what the whole piece was about.
She had asked Twilight and the others to clear things up but, what was the point of a modest, masked super hero if they showed up to take the glory?
“Just like they did with that parade.”
Rainbow frowned. The thing had a point there. Bragging in her face was one thing, but who the hay teaches humility AFTER attending an awards ceremony. Buck! They even cheated to get that award! Rainbow Dash had performed multiple feats of heroism by herself, ALL FIVE of them working together had barely managed to snag three!
The thoughts made her grit her teeth in anger.
She had never asked for all the fans! What was she supposed to do? Turn them down? Tell them to get lost? “Hey Scootaloo I know you want to follow me around and think I’m cool and all but you can’t, so get lost!” she said in her mind to an imaginary filly.
“I don’t think you need to worry about that anymore, she’s into Mare Do Well now. And the rest of your friends…well, can you even call them that? Were you ever friends in the first place?”
Rainbow shrunk in on herself. “I…”
“Did they ever really care about you?”
“Fluttershy,” Dash whispered to the darkness. “She…they probably just made her go along with it.”
“The pony who stands up to dragons and manticores? All her life, you’ve defended her. So where was she when you needed her to rush to your defense? Just another pony using you.”
Tears formed in Rainbow Dash’s eyes as he tried to remember. Just when WAS there a time that Fluttershy rushed to her defense? As hard as she tried, Dash couldn’t remember a single time.
“…why are you doing this?” she whined as the truth hit her like a hammer.
“Because you called to me. Because you were alone, and asked for my help.”
“What help?” the blue pegasus asked.
“To get your friends back, of course. To make them your real friends. True friends.”
A small spark of hope ignited in Rainbow Dash’s mind. “How?”
“Power and Empathy.
“To them you mean nothing. They can kick you around all they want, because even if you do fly off the handle…well, they restrained you easily enough when the agent of Chaos was free. Even if you were to talk to them now, nothing would really happen, they’ll simply ignore you. But I can change that. I can make it so they can’t simply write you off. They can just write off your pain as foolish whining and toss you out the door with Twilight’s magic. I can change things so not even Princess Celestia will be able to abuse you like they have.”
The thought struck a cord with the blue pegasus. “I…” Being as powerful as Celestia? The thought was more than just a little appealing. “That’d be pretty cool.
“And what’s the other thing?”
“Empathy,” the voice told her as it continued in its sympathetic voice. “Your friends don’t understand you because they can’t understand you. They haven’t faced the pain and sorrow you have. They don’t know the loneness, the feeling of despair and loss. We’re going to give that to them.”
Images flashed through Rainbow Dash’s mind: Applejack loosing her farm, Rarity’s boutique in flames, all of Twilight’s books being shredded. She saw them all being depressed and crying like she had almost been just two days ago.
“I…no…I can’t hurt my friends like that!” Rainbow shouted.
“But they aren’t really your friends, are they?”
“I…”
The voice sighed. “Very well. If that is your wish, you can remain a nopony, constantly being used and abused as she pushes clouds around for the rest of her life while pathetically begging for attention and pity in the guise of friendship.”
Rainbow Dash felt the presence begin to withdraw from the dream as she looked down at herself.
Pathetic? Was that what she was? She had always tried to be cool and awesome, a pony other ponies cold look up to: a hero. For awhile, she had been that. For a long while. Ponyville had been her town, and she had always done amazing stuff. Then her…Twilight and the others came along, they got the Elements of Harmony.
Then, she was regulated to second behind Twilight, the hero. Then Twilight decides that Dash is too close to her on the popularity scale, and knocked her down to being a laughing stock; and everypony else just goes along with her.
“I…”
Twilight, the unicorn who saved her from drowning.
“Hey look…”
Twilight, the mare who just stood there smiling while Rainbow Dash felt as if her heart had been ripped out from the three mares in costume, and the two that weren’t.
Rainbow Dash looked up at the images of her friends in the darkness, all of them. She looked at the image of Sugar Cube Corner where she sat in depression while they laughed and smiled, she looked at the images of her friends that showed them in various states of distress, and then she turned her attention to a new image that was simply her five former friends looking at her; looking down at her. Just like they always did…and always would.
“Yes?” the darkness asked.
Before Rainbow Dash could respond, there was a bright flash of light behind her that went do far as to tickle the edge of her vision as it pushed the Nightmare back. She found herself standing on the streets of Ponyville like when the dream started, only…a few feet away the darkness still filled the world.
“I think that is quite enough out of you.”
Rainbow Dash turned and watched a dark blue alicorn with a mane like the night sky walk up and stand beside her. “P-Princess Luna?”
The alicorn looked down on the smaller pony and gave a tiny smile. “My apologies for taking so long in coming to you Rainbow Dash,” she said before turning to the darkness and frowning. “Something was in the way.”
“Ignore her Rainbow Dash. Complete our bargain and I shall grant you your desire.”
Luna’s eyes widened as she looked down to the rainbow pony. “Rainbow Dash, please do not tell me you have been listening to this thing’s poisonous words!”
The fact that the goddess of the moon was giving her a sympathetic look instead of an accusing one made Rainbow all the more distraught. “I…it…my friends. It said they…”
“What did you say to her monster?” Luna demanded as she turned her attention to the Nightmare.
“The same that I told you all those years ago Luna. I showed her the truth of the world, and spoke no lies.”
Rainbow felt tears forming in her eyes again, and she tried to look away when the alicorn shifted her gaze back to the pegasus, but Luna turned Rainbow’s head back and lowered herself to look into Rainbow Dash eye to eye. “Tell me, what troubles you so child?” she asked in a whisper.
And so, Rainbow Dash told the goddess everything, not leaving a bit out. She told Luna about how she became Ponyville’s hero, about the accident prone couple of weeks that led to the mess, everything about Mare Do Well, and all of the feelings surrounding the incident. By the end, she was crying in the forelegs of the goddess.
“And, and it’s like they don’t even care!” Rainbow sobbed. “And it just…it just makes me so angry and hurts so much!”
“It’s alright my little pony,” Luna comforted her. “I understand your pain.”
A growl came from the Nightmare, but it was Luna’s words that made Rainbow Dash look up and into the goddess’s eyes before she tried to put on her mask. “Princess, I…it’s not…”
“And your right to be hurt,” the Luna continued. “Twilight Sparkle and the others… Friends are supposed to support you, celebrate your accomplishments and share in the good times while picking you up and helping you through the bad. They should show trust and expect the best from you.”
A weight Rainbow wasn’t aware she was carrying felt as if it had been lifted from her chest. “Then it’s…okay to feel this way? But…I don’t like being angry with my friends.”
“Then come with me Rainbow Dash, and you will not hold such thoughts. This is your mind, Luna will not be able to interfere.”
Rainbow turned to look at the Nightmare, and gulped. “You can make it all stop?”
“He’s right about one thing, I cannot stop you,” Luna told the pegasus as she stepped away. “However, just because the pain will be muted by rage and whatever other dark emotion you wish to bring to the surface, it will not simply disappear.”
She looked up to the images of the other five ponies with their livelihoods destroyed and frowned. “But this will be the result. Is this what you truly wish for your friends?”
“It’s the same as what they did to you,” the darkness whispered.
“Do you truly wish to inflict such suffering upon those that wronged you?”
“It’s what they deserve.”
Rainbow Dash hesitated as she looked back and forth between Luna and the Nightmare. “I…”
“Make them pay!” the nightmare commanded her.
However, Luna was silent on the matter, she had said her peace.
“Come with me and we shall make the name Rainbow Dash remembered for the rest of time! We shall take away their dreams as they have done to you! Unlike the others, I shall be with you always and never abandon you. Never hurt you.”
Rainbow looked up at the images of her friends that showed what would come about if she were to join with the Nightmare. Applejack’s farm would die, Rarity’s dress designs would burn, Twilight would loose her library of knowledge, Fluttershy would have the animals of Ponyville turn against her, and Pinkie Pie would be placed somewhere away from any other pony to live out her life in solitude and toil.
After staring at the images for what seemed like forever, Rainbow Dash looked over to the darkness. “No.”
“What?”
Rainbow Dash shook her head. “They may think I’m pathetic, or a joke, or just someone to kick around and apply rules to that nopony else wants to follow…but I can’t do this to them. Even if they did to it to me.”
“THEY BETRAYED YOU!” the Nightmare roared as the dream realm shook.
A second later, Luna was standing in front of Rainbow Dash, her horn glowing with its blue light. “She has made her choice monster. Now BEGONE!”
And world vanished in a flash of light.
Rainbow Dash blinked as she found herself standing in Ponyville again. An empty Ponyville. She looked around for a minute, then sighed. “Am I still dreaming?”
“Yes,” Luna told her as she appeared alongside the smaller mare. “As much fun as putting the darkness in its place was, I thought it best to settle your underlying problems before I depart.”
The pegasus looked away from the goddess and cleared her throat. “It’s okay. I’m fine.”
“No you’re not,” Luna told her.
…
…
“Okay, yeah…I’m not,” Rainbow Dash admitted.
Luna cocked an eyebrow. “What you said to the nightmare…do you truly think that is how the others see you?”
The question put a grimace on Dash’s face. “It’s how Ponyville treats me. And them… Hay, I’m the Element of Loyalty! Doesn’t matter how bad you treat me, I’ll always come back for more.”
“Then perhaps you should air your grievances with your former comrades,” Luna suggested elegantly.
“…huh?”
“Tell them you’re pissed and demand an apology,” Luna corrected with a deadpan expression.
Rainbow Dash frowned at the idea. “That’s just whining! I’m not like that! I’m tough and…” she stopped talking when she saw an image of herself crying in Luna’s forearms appear. “That’s playing dirty.”
“Rainbow,” Luna told her with sympathetic eyes. “The trust you so desire from your friends is a two way street. They should trust you enough to think you’ll listen to them, and you need to trust them enough to show them your pain.”
An image of when they were all at Sugar Cube Corner flashed through her mind. “But…what if they laugh at me…I…I hate it when other ponies laugh at me.”
Luna stepped up to the blue pegasus to put a hoof on her shoulder. “If they mock your pain, then they truly are not worth being called friends by you, or anypony for that matter,” she told the mare.
“And I suppose Equestria is doomed if that be the case,” she muttered under her breath.
Rainbow Dash blinked. “Huh?”
Luna gave her a small smile. “It is nothing. Now, the sun is due to rise soon, and I think you have somewhere to be.”
An hour after dawn, Rainbow Dash fond herself outside the Carousel Boutique. Everyone else had gathered inside to wish Rarity farewell because of her upcoming trip to Canterlot. She took in a deep breath, and let it out before going inside.
The place was still as frilly and offbeat as ever. Being a pegasus meant she had a natural resistance to even the most freezing of temperatures, so nothing in the place appealed to her that much. A Mare Do Well costume that Rarity had made in a colt’s size stood in the corner with a price tag that made Rainbow sneer.
Just how much money had Rarity made off that whole thing anyway?
As she expected, everyone had already gathered and Pinkie even had a ‘Farewell for Now’ banner hanging in the shop.
“Hey, I got to talk to you guys about something,” she said before nearly slamming the door behind her.