//------------------------------// // Bold - BronyNeumo // Story: AppleDash Group Collab // by DbzOrDie //------------------------------// Even so early on in her short career performing with the Wonderbolts, Rainbow Dash had already earned herself a reputation as being one willing to try the boldest of moves. Fans loved her. The tabloids couldn’t get enough of her antics. Yet, as the prismatic mare streaked her way through the starlit sky high above the rolling hills of Equestria, the chill of night air whipping at her face and blowing her mane into a frenzy, she couldn’t help but think that this was her boldest move yet. Spitfire looked up across her desk from the neatly folded flight suit and tiny golden wings sitting at her hooves. “I don’t understand. You told me being a Wonderbolt was all you ever wanted out of life.” Rainbow shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess that’s what I’ve been telling myself, too.” It was late by the time she touched down at Sweet Apple Acres—probably too late, but the rash pegasus had never been much for common courtesy before and she sure didn’t see much reason to start now. Without a second thought, she was at Applejack’s window, releasing a whole flight from Cloudsdale’s worth of nerves into a flurry of little taps against the glass. The farm mare was there almost immediately—just like Rainbow knew she would be—as if she were waiting by the window, which she very well might have been. “Well look who’s back. Come to break my heart again?” Rainbow Dash grimaced. It was a low blow, but a fair one, and she knew it. “Hi, AJ. Can I… can I come in?” “I don’t see why not. You’ll probably just be gone again in the mornin’ like last time.” Applejack stepped aside from the open window, her eyes as cold as the air outside. “Look, it’s not like that.” Rainbow Dash fluttered in through the opening, folding her wings against her sides. “Oh, sure it isn’t! Just like last time! And the time before that! I know you. You just wanna squeeze in another night with me before flying back off to your Wonderbolts. Well it’s not gonna be this time, Dash. I’m done. I’m movin’ on, and so should you.” “I know, AJ. I read your letter already.” Applejack blinked. “Good. Then I guess we’re at an understandin’. You get to keep your fame and your stardom and I get to keep my dignity.” “I quit the Wonderbolts.” “You… what?” “I quit the Wonderbolts.” “But, but it’s your dream.” Applejack stammered, her eyes wide in the pale darkness of the bedroom. “No, it isn’t.” Rainbow Dash stared at the silent mare before her. “Or, at least, it isn’t anymore. Look, I think I finally figured it out, that after all these years of training and practicing and tryouts and hoping that finally joining the Wonderbolts would finally make me happy, that I really wasn’t happy. I wasn’t at all. And everything, the uniform and the fame and the stardom and everything, none of it is worth it if I can’t have that one thing—the only thing that ever made me happy before… if I can’t have you.” Applejack just blinked. Rainbow Dash frowned. “I’m not asking for much. I’d just like you to not hate me. And, if there’s any part of you that thinks your stupid marefriend still deserves anything in this world, I’d like a second chance. I mean it this time.” The other mare was quite suddenly very close to Rainbow Dash, advancing with a power in her step that made the pegasus flinch, expecting at any moment to feel a hoof strike across her face. But it never came. Instead, she felt a very familiar pair of lips brush against her cheek. Applejack was climbing into her bed by the time Dash opened her eyes. “Let me think about it. You get the floor tonight.” Rainbow Dash grinned, extending her own hoof up to her cheek. Somehow, she could feel the spot tingling. Somehow, she knew things were going to be alright. It’s usually the boldest moves that pay off the most.