They found Fluttershy behind the farm’s iconic red barn, tending to a small patch of sunflowers growing alongside a rabbit hutch that Rainbow Dash didn’t remember from years before. It had the look of new construction – wood beams still sharp and straight, paint red as a summer rose. Faint rustling sounds drifted from its dark interior, and she thought she saw a dozen little eyes peek out the tiny windows at her.
“Oh! Rainbow!” Fluttershy trotted – well, waddled, really – over to them for a nuzzle against each of their cheeks. The bulge in her abdomen hadn’t yet reached whale-like proportions, but she certainly wasn’t the lithe, leggy thing Dash recalled from their childhood. Still graceful, though, and more beautiful than any mare Dash had seen during her stay in Ponyville.
Except for one, perhaps. She shook her head sharply to banish the memory of a purple mane and lilac perfume.
“Morning’, sis,” Applejack said. She gave the sunflowers behind Fluttershy a measuring look. They had started to wilt with the advent of autumn, and their glorious blossoms bowed from the stalks like old ponies unable to raise their heads. “Those look about ready for harvesting.”
Fluttershy gave a small nod. “Tomorrow, I think. Even the immature seeds should be ripe by then.” She turned to set her watering can on a small wagon alongside other gardening tools. “So, Dash, what brings you out here this early? Not that I’m unhappy to see you, of course.”
“Uh, just, you know, visiting.” Dash felt Applejack’s gaze on the back of her head. “And, uh, maybe talking, too.”
Fluttershy’s eyes flicked to the side, back to where Applejack stood. Just as quickly her eyes met Dash’s again, and the gentle smile returned to her face.
“I’m glad to hear that,” she said. “Applejack, I think I left my shears in the barn somewhere. Do you suppose you could find them for me?”
“‘Course,” Applejack drawled. Rainbow turned her head to see a small smile on Applejack’s lips. “Big barn, might take a bit to find ‘em. Heck, Mac might’ve grabbed them for some prunin’ of his own. I’ll have to chase him down, maybe.” Her tail flicked out to brush against Rainbow’s shoulder, and then she trotted away toward the barn and the shadows spilling out its wide door.
Fluttershy waited for a few moments, until Applejack was out of sight and the hollow sound of her hooves on the barn’s wood floor faded away. She turned to face the sunflower patch again, lifted her left wing just a few inches from her body, and gave it a little shake.
Dash took the hint and stepped up beside her. A faint breeze drifted in from the orchards around them, carrying with it the scent of apples and freshly turned earth. It tousled both their manes, and Dash saw Fluttershy take a deep breath and smile.
“You were born in Cloudsdale, weren’t you?” Fluttershy’s question caught Dash by surprise. She turned to see Fluttershy’s muzzle just inches from her own. They were close enough that Dash had to look up to meet the taller mare’s gaze.
“Uh, yeah?” She paused, resisting the urge to back away. “You were, too, right?”
Fluttershy nodded minutely. She raised a hoof to brush a few stray strands of her long mane away from her face – within moments the wind tossed them askew again. She blew a huff of breath at them, then smiled and looked back to the flowers.
“I think where you were born matters,” she said softly. “It shapes who you are and what you become. I’ve been thinking about that a lot, lately.”
“Were you thinking of going back there to, uh, you know?”
“To foal?” Fluttershy smiled. “No. We don’t even know if she’ll be a pegasus, and besides, I can’t imagine bringing a daughter into the world anywhere but here. Ponyville has always been my home, even before I fell off the clouds all those years ago. It was my home before I knew it existed. I just had to find it.”
“Yeah, well…” Dash kicked at the loose soil at their feet. Enough stuck to the wall of her hoof to leave a dirty smear. Nothing like the clouds. “It’s pretty cool, I guess.”
Fluttershy chuckled. It was a melodic sound, a few notes shy of laughter. “Pretty cool, yes. But it’s where I found happiness, Dash. I think that’s the most important thing.”
No, it wasn’t. Happiness was nothing more than the scent of apples in the wind – pleasant, but gone in an instant. She had learned that lesson enough times.
Some of that bitterness must have shown on her face. Fluttershy frowned and leaned closer. “What did you want to talk about, Dash?”
Right, talk. Dash settled down onto her haunches and took a breath. “Rarity.”
“Ah.” Fluttershy looked around, perhaps searching for Applejack, then settled down at Rainbow’s side. “You’ve been spending a lot of time with her, lately.”
Yeah. Time and… Other things. Fragments of last night’s dream pressed at her thoughts, and she shoved them back into the corners of her mind. “It was her idea to come back to Ponyville, you know. She said it would be like old times again. When it was the six of us. Before we… before we left.”
Fluttershy was silent for a while. In the distance, sparrows chirped from the orchard branches, and quiet sounds emerged from the rabbit hutch beside them. The wind tossed her mane around, though she didn’t seem to mind the errant strands.
“We didn’t blame you for leaving,” she said.
Dash snorted. “You should have.”
“Maybe, but we didn’t. You both left to do such wonderful things. Did you know Twilight kept a scrap album filled with pictures from your shows and clippings from Rarity’s catalogues?”
Dash blinked. Twilight had never expressed any interest in fashion, and aside from the basic flight lessons Dash had provided in the days after Twilight sprouted wings, they'd never discussed advanced techniques like the ones used in air shows. “She did?”
“Mhm. She’s not the only one, either. What the two of you did wasn’t magic, like the Elements of Harmony. It was hard work and dedication. You did so much more than us.”
“Don’t… ugh.” Dash grimaced. “Don’t say that, Shy.”
“It’s not a bad thing to want to be a great pony, Dash. You have the Wonder Bolts. Rarity has all of Fillydelphia. I have this.” She wave a hoof at the little garden and the rabbit hutch and the towering barn behind them.
An empty apartment, unused half the year. Half her belongings still in boxes. An endless succession of hotel rooms, so similar they blurred and became a single room in her mind. Dash closed her eyes against the images.
“It’s… it’s not as great as it sounds, Shy. When I had Soarin, it was enough, but…” But what? Her tongue tangled before it could finish the traitorous thought.
Fluttershy was silent for a while. Her hoof drifted down to rest on her gently swollen abdomen – she did not even seem aware of the gesture.
“Have you thought about coming back here, Dash? Staying, I mean.”
Of course. The thought had teased at the back of her mind since the train pulled into the station days ago. Ponyville exerted an almost magnetic pull on her, drawing her in with promises of homes filled with life and friendships that transcended time. The everyday treasures that flowed from the Apple family home could be hers. All she had to do was give up her dreams.
She shook her head. Impossible.
“You can’t go home again. Rarity said that the other day.”
“And you think she’s right?” Fluttershy lowered her head, trying to meet Dash’s downcast gaze.
“Well, she would know, wouldn’t she? She’s got her perfect life in Fillydelphia, just waiting for her to return.”
“Maybe.” Something in Fluttershy’s tone tugged at Dash’s ears, and she glanced over to see Fluttershy’s head turned away. “But you’re not Rarity, are you? What’s keeping you away?”
Dash blinked. “What? Just up and leave the team?”
Fluttershy nodded.
“I… no. I can’t do that. What would the team say? What would Soarin say?”
“Soarin is gone, Dash. He would want you to be happy.”
“He would want—” Dash stopped, realizing she was standing, her wings raised at her sides. Fluttershy’s eyes were wide, and she leaned away almost imperceptibly.
Deep breaths. Slow in, hold. Slow out.
“He would want me to stay on the team,” she finished. Her wings settled back down, and she ran a hoof over her ruffled coat. “And that’s what I’m going to do.”
Fluttershy hesitated only a moment before offering a tiny nod. “Okay. And what about Rarity?”
“Rarity will be fine. Her life is perfect. It was perfect before I came back, and it will be perfect after I leave.”
“No one’s life is perfect, Dash. If we were perfect, there would be no room to grow. We would be like the statues in Celestia’s garden. Unchanging and flawless, and unable to feel a thing.”
“Yeah, well…” Her thoughts drifted back to Rarity and her perfect white coat, her mane with never a hair out of place. The way her graceful legs arched just so, to make a sculptor weep. “That’s what she wants. It’s what she deserves.” She practically spit the last word.
Fluttershy winced. For a moment, Dash saw the frightened filly from years past, hiding beneath her pink mane as though it would shield her from the world. Just as quickly it was gone, replaced by a mature mare with a stern frown on her face.
Dash bit her lip. “Sorry, Shy. She just… I had a rough night.”
The frown deepened. “Did she hurt you?”
“No.” Silence, broken only by the wind. “Okay, maybe. It’s complicated.”
“Did you talk to her?”
Dash snorted. “Yeah. That didn’t help.”
“Maybe you’re not talking about the right things.”
Dash turned her head to the sky. It was a cloudless day, perfect for flying. She stretched her wings and crouched low to the ground.
“There’s not much left for us to talk about, Shy.” She jumped, and the earth became a memory beneath her.
* * *
For the first time in months, Dash flew completely free. The anchors that had weighed down her heart were gone now. It bled where she had torn them away, and ached in her chest, but at last she was unbound. She felt lighter than a feather.
Up here, Ponyville was a smear on the ground. The ponies were no larger than ants crawling through its streets. In the distance, half-concealed by the morning mists, Canterlot spread out from the mountains. To the south, a dark blot in the sky betrayed Cloudsdale’s presence. She could fly to either in less than an hour and leave Ponyville forever.
She banked her wings gently, catching the air with her primaries to swing her around in a large loop that circumscribed the town below her. The air was dense with water, and the trails her wingtips carved through it turned to streamers of mist, extending behind her for hundreds of feet. She spun lazily, creating corkscrew patterns in the sky.
Still putting on a show? No one can see you. She tilted her head toward the ground. None of the ponies far below were watching – none seemed even aware of her.
No matter. She spied her target and stooped toward it, her wings folding against her body in a tight dive. The air screamed past her, and the ground rushed toward her like a runaway train. In less than ten seconds she fell several thousand feet.
Her wings snapped open a bare hundred feet above the ground. Tendons and muscles shrieked in protest, threatening to snap at the sudden and unaccustomed strain. She held them anyway; years with the Bolts had given her an uncanny sense of just how far she could push her body before it broke, and a simple crash stop like this was well within her personal comfort zone. Her pinions stretched out like fans for a last greedy grasp at the air, and her hooves touched the cobblestones with only a whisper of sound.
Around her, ponies started and jerked away from the pegasus who suddenly appeared in their midst. She ignored them and trotted up to the Castle of Friendship's crystal doors. They were normally locked at this time of morning, but at the touch of her hoof something inside them clicked, and they swung open before her. The elements of harmony were always permitted entrance.
The castle was eerily quiet, a reminder that despite its size only one pony actually lived within its halls. Dash’s steps slowed for a moment, and she lost herself in the memory of lounging on cushions on the old library floor, curled up with a Daring Do novel and turning the pages in silence for hours at a time, moving only to stay in the warm pool of sunlight streaming through the windows. The library had been like a second home then, more beloved to her than the palatial-yet-empty cloud house she spent her nights in.
The new castle was... different. She couldn't imagine sleeping on these hard floors, or curling up in a windowsill with a good book. She frowned and shoved the old memories aside.
The scratch of claws on crystal snapped her out of her reverie, and she looked up to see Spike walking down the in from the library room, a stack of books balanced in his arms. Standing upright, he easily dwarfed her and probably would have seen eye-to-eye with either of the princesses. She watched him move to one of the bookcases before clearing her throat.
He turned, the spines on his head up and alert at the sudden sound. They relaxed when he saw who was there, and a grin broke out on his face.
“Hey Dash.” He set the rest of the books down and ambled over to her. “Sorry, didn’t see you there. Looking for Twilight?”
“Yeah.” She flapped her wings and rose to hover a few feet above the floor, where she could meet Spike’s gaze without having to crane her head back. After a moment’s delay, she reached out a hoof, which he bumped with one of his curled claws. “I thought you didn’t live here anymore?”
“Twilight likes me to open the library for her. That way she gets to sleep in.” He smirked and glanced up the stairs leading to the living quarters, then turned to walk toward the kitchen. “You eat yet? I was just about to start breakfast.”
“I’m fine,” Dash said. She floated over to the stairs. “So, she’s not up yet?”
“Nah, probably won’t be for a while, either.” Spike stopped at the threshold, having to duck his head in the process to avoid the lintel. “You sure you don’t want anything? I could make pancakes.”
“I’m fine,” she said again. Why was everypony trying to stuff her, lately? The huge portions ladled out to her ever since arriving in Ponyville suddenly stuck in her mind’s eye, more food than she’d had in a single sitting in months. Since before… she grimaced and turned her head to the side, suddenly eager to be rid of the thought.
“You, uh, you okay, Dash?” Spike had taken a step back toward her, the spines on his crest standing upright again. “It doesn’t have to be pancakes, I can make something—”
“I’m not hungry. Is Twilight up there?”
“Huh? Yeah, but she’s still asleep. Is it—hey!” Spike’s voice faded as she shot up stairs. The door wasn’t locked, and she barged through it without a thought, slamming it behind her.
The curtains were drawn across Twilight’s windows, but enough of the early morning sunlight peeked around their edges to fill the room. It was stuffed with books, nearly as many as in the actual library below, all lining the walls around the large four-poster bed. The blue covers were rumpled, and they stirred as Twilight’s head popped up, a sleepy, confused expression on her face.
Dash crossed the space in less than a second, her hooves landing on the mattress on either side of Twilight’s prone form. Her heart hammered in her chest, and her body shook hard enough to make the bed’s springs creak in sympathy. Every detail in the room – the sharp shadows cast along the walls, the stars-and-moon pattern on Twilight’s covers, the highlights in Twilight’s wide, startled eyes – stood out in sharp relief.
“We need to talk,” Dash said. Her voice barely trembled.
Silence. Twilight stared at her, mouth agape. Rainbow was about to speak again when the covers beside them shifted, and Twilight’s bedmate rose to his hooves.
The stallion – she couldn’t remember his name – was not exceptionally large, but he was an earth pony, and he probably weighed more than Twilight and Dash put together. His ears were plastered back against his skull, and she could practically feel the tension in his muscles. For a long moment the three of them stared at each other, waiting for somepony to make the first move.
It was Twilight. “It’s okay,” she said, and she set a hoof against the stallion’s leg. “Dash and I just need to chat a bit. Why don’t you go, uh, get breakfast started?”
He didn’t move until Rainbow hopped off the bed, and then he only lowered his head to whisper something in Twilight’s ear. Her mouth moved silently, and after a long, fraught pause, he nodded and stepped down onto the floor. His eyes never left Dash as he moved to the door, and it wasn’t until it closed behind him that the tension in the air seemed to vanish. Dash let out a slow breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.
A faint lavender glow caught Rainbow’s eyes, and the curtains blocking the morning sun parted with a faint rustle, flooding the room with light. Dash squinted at the window before turning back to Twilight.
The alicorn sat atop the covers, an unreadable expression on her face. Her mane was mussed, squashed flat on one side of her head, wild and spiked on the other. Her eyes, though, were sharp, and they stared at Dash as though she were a wounded animal, to be pitied but not trusted. The silence stretched out again, broken only by Dash’s uneven breath and the rush of blood in her ears.
“Are you alright, Dash?” Twilight shifted her right hoof forward a few inches. It closed the distance between them by an infinitesimal amount.
Breathe in, hold, release. Dash let the air seep slowly out her nose. “Do you love him?” she asked, her eyes darting to the closed door and then back meet Twilight’s stare.
“Do I…” Twilight’s eyes shifted to the door. Her hoof twisted in the covers, and she bit her lip.
“You heard me. Do you love him?”
Twilight’s throat bobbled. “I think I might,” she said after a pause. Her voice was as quiet as the cirrus clouds, so high above the earth. “Dash, did Rarity hurt—”
“How would you feel if he betrayed you? If you trusted him enough to show your scars, and when you weren’t looking he tore them off, just to see if they would bleed?”
Twilight closed her eyes. “Dash…”
“Do you think that would hurt, Twilight?” Rainbow stood and paced across the room, her tail lashing like a tiger’s. The words, full of malice, poured from some unknown font deep within her chest. They demanded to be spoken. “Do you think that would be helpful?”
“No, no.” The tip of Twilight’s tongue stuck out between her lips for a moment, wetting them. “Dash, where is Rarity?”
“I don’t know. Wherever.” Dash waved a hoof at the window and the rest of Ponyville beyond.
“Is she hurt—”
“I don’t care!” Dash shouted. She rounded on Twilight with a snarl, sending her flinching away. “Fuck. Rarity. Fuck her stupid, idiotic plans. And fuck you for helping her!”
Twilight stared at her, eyes wide, mouth hanging open like a fool. The color drained from her face, leaving her lips pale and her coat an ashen mockery of its usual splendor. Her ears hung limp, and the hoof she had raised to reach toward Dash began to tremble.
For a moment, Dash wondered if she had gone too far. Then she remembered the last moments of the dream, the ache in her heart for Soarin’s loss and the corrosive, retching, sickening heat of Rarity’s betrayal. She fanned the flames, letting them burn away her indecision, and she stared at Twilight with an emotion she hadn’t felt in years.
It was something like hate.
“You helped her,” she hissed. “You knew what she was planning, and you didn’t know or just didn’t care how much it might hurt.”
Her words struck Twilight like hammer blows. The unicorn flinched at each one, and her eyes began to water. “I’m sorry, Dash. This is my fault as much as hers. I should have made it clearer to her that it might not work, so when the two of you discussed it, you could make a more informed—”
“Discussed it?” Rainbow barked a harsh, humorless laugh. “Twilight, this is Rarity. When has she ever stopped to ask for permission? I didn’t know about the damn spell until she explained it to me in the dream!”
Twilight closed her eyes and let out a slow breath. A full minute passed before she replied. “Dash, please understand. Whatever happened last night was supposed to help. Everything I’ve read said that—”
“You read?! Twilight, your damn books can’t—”
Twilight kept going, as though Rainbow had not interrupted. “—sharing the experiences that underlay the trauma can be cathartic—”
“They can’t solve every problem! They’re not some magic mirror—”
“—distribute the negative emotions associated with—”
“Don’t try to justify this! You had no right!”
“We wanted to help!” Twilight’s voice cracked. She straightened from her beleaguered crouch and stepped down from the bed. “Dash, you don’t know how much seeing you like this hurts. For six months we’ve watched our friend falling apart. Oh, yes, we have! Don’t shake your head! You think we haven’t noticed that you stopped flying, or visiting, or writing? Do you think anypony could miss the fact that you’re wasting away? When you showed up on that train you looked like a mare who was dying, Dash, and of us all Rarity was the only pony who had a plan. She had a plan and it was helping. It was… it was helping…” Twilight trailed off weakly, her energy spent, and she sagged as it left her, hunching in a miserable ball, her muzzle just inches from the floor.
Only the sounds of their breath broke the silence, Dash’s ragged and hot, Twilight’s in hiccuping sobs.
“Yeah,” Dash whispered. She stared at Twilight’s shivering form. “Yeah, it was.”
Twilight said nothing as Dash left. Down below, at the foot of the stairs, Spike and Twilight’s stallion stared up with wide eyes. Dash didn’t spare them a second glance as she passed them by and left the castle behind.
* * *
Sugarcube Corner was already in full swing when Rainbow Dash arrived. She stepped through the front door and around the line of ponies waiting to make their morning purchases, the danishes and doughnuts that powered Ponyville from sunrise til noon. The ponies nearest to her smiled, and despite her mood she found herself smiling back, the old instincts born from a hundred airshows taking control while her eyes searched for her pink-maned quarry.
A snippet of unmistakable laughter drifted from the kitchen. She made her excuses and stepped around the line, giving Mr. Cake, holding court behind the counter, a quick nod as she passed him by.
“Oh! Hello dearie,” Mrs. Cake nearly ran her over with a tray of scones still steaming from the oven. “Sorry about that. Pinkie! Your friend is here!” She gave Dash a bump with her ample hip, and then she was gone. Dash didn’t even have time to greet her.
“Dashie!” The world suddenly became a mess of pink hair and the smell of cotton candy. A pair of iron legs crushed the breath from her lungs, and she felt herself lifted briefly from the floors. Her hooves scrabbled for purchase in the air, and she squeaked out a strangled sound, halfway between a greeting and a plea for mercy.
Pinkie seemed to take the hint and set her down. “What brings you around so early? Breakfast?” She spun, and in a single motion somehow opened the oven, plucked out a metal tray brimming with oat and cinnamon muffins, and thrust it beneath Dash’s chin. The heat from it nearly singed her whiskers, and she reared away.
“Er, no, I—”
“Oh, getting something for Rarity, perhaps?” She waggled her eyebrows and produced a brown paper bag seemingly from nowhere, promptly stuffing it with half the cinnamon muffins, a hooffull of eclairs, iced doughnuts drizzled with chocolate and caramel, and a ramekin filled with assorted shelled nuts. “She has a bit of a sweet tooth, you know. Give her something tasty with a sugar glaze and she’ll just melt in your hooves.” She finished with a salacious wink that left no room for misinterpretation.
“Uh, no thanks.” Dash pushed the bag back at Pinkie. “I just wanted to—”
“Do some baking?” Pinkie snatched a tall chef’s hat from the air and plopped it atop Dash’s head. “I was just about to start the lunchtime red velvet cupcakes! We make four dozen every day!”
“No, Pinkie, I—”
“Oh, you wanted to play with the twins? Have a sleepover? Visit the Mirror Pool and use it to conquer the world? Start practicing for the Hearth’s Warming—”
Dash stopped Pinkie the only way she knew how, by stuffing her hoof in her mouth. It was like plugging a drain, and the flood of words stopped instantly. They stared at each other in silence for a few moments, and Rainbow slowly pulled her hoof back.
“I just want to talk,” she said.
Pinkie grinned. “Well, why didn’t you say so, silly?” She turned and hopped onto a high stool set against the counter. “Have a seat and chat with your aunt Pinkie.”
Dash let out a quiet sigh. Spending any time at all around Pinkie Pie was a recipe for psychological whiplash, and she did her best to dredge up the embers of the anger she had felt when confronting Twilight. They glowered in her breast, but their heat was smothered by the flush of guilt she felt from the memory of Twilight’s crying, hunched form. That was not a proud moment – necessary, perhaps, but not proud. She gathered her thoughts around her, mulled them over, and joined Pinkie at the counter, using her wings to float up and settle down on the hard linoleum surface.
Where to start, where to start. She opened her mouth, closed it, opened it, and closed it again.
Pinkie raised an eyebrow.
“We, ah…” Not the best start. Dash let out a quiet breath and brushed her hoof across the counter, leaving a faint trail in the dusting of flour. “Rarity. I mean, I wanted to talk about Rarity.”
“You two have been spending a lot of time together,” Pinkie said. Her voice was neutral, as though she were commenting on the weather or someone else’s foals.
“Yeah, about that.” Dash cleared her throat. “She’s a good pony, you know? She’s pretty, and smart, and beautiful, and generous, and she smells good, and…” And she was babbling, Dash realized. She took a breath and started over. “So, yeah, we’ve been spending time together. Hanging out.”
“Enjoying yourselves?”
“Yeah.” A pause for thought. “Yeah, I think so.”
“So what’s there to talk about?”
Dash licked her lips. “Well, you know, she’s really smart, but sometimes she’s dumb. You know what I mean?”
A little smile twisted the corner of Pinkie’s mouth. “I think I do. What happened, Dashie?”
“We, ah… She, she did something she shouldn’t have.” Dash stumbled through a recount of the last night with Rarity, pausing at times to force the memories back to the surface. It was slow going, and difficult, and when she finished her voice was hoarse, and she could not lift her eyes from the abstract patterns her nervous hoof had drawn on the flour-covered countertop.
Pinkie was silent for a while. She had not spoken during Dash’s monologue except to mutter an encouraging “Mm” or “Ah” or “Go on,” whenever Dash’s account stalled. When Dash dared to glance up, she saw Pinkie’s hoof rubbing her chin, a distant expression on her face.
“...well?” Dash finally asked.
“Hm?” Pinkie blinked, and then gave her head a light shake. “Sorry. That’s a lot to think about. Have you spoken with anypony about those things?”
“About what Rarity did? Yeah, I just came from Twilight’s, and she… ah, she said she was sorry.”
“That’s good, but it’s not what I meant,” Pinkie said. “Have you spoken with anypony about those dreams?”
Dash looked away. “They’re just dreams, Pinkie. Just...” She let out a long breath. “Just ghosts.”
“Ghosts can’t hurt you,” Pinkie said. Her voice was softer than Dash had ever heard, barely audible above the clamor coming from the main room. “Does that mean dreams can’t hurt you?”
“Twilight said dreams can’t hurt anypony.” Rarity’s assurance stabbed through her mind like an icicle, and for a moment Dash couldn’t breathe. The memories of last night’s dreams were sharp and persistent, as though she had just lived them, not at all like the misty and ephemeral images that normally haunted her sleep. And permeating them all, drifting through them, tainting them, was the wrenching pain in her chest, like a copper wire drawn around her heart, cutting with every beat. Her leg ached at the point of the old break.
Inhale, hold, release. Dash repeated the breathing exercise until her hooves stopped shaking, and she swallowed the lump that had appeared in her throat.
“Okay, well… maybe some dreams can hurt you.”
“Maybe, maybe.” Pinkie leaned forward to nuzzle Dash’s cheek with her nose. “Do you want to take a break?”
Inhale, hold, release. “No,” Dash said. She pushed the memories away, focusing instead on the scent of baking muffins and the warm sunlight streaming through the window. “I’m fine.”
“Mhm. You know, Dashie, not all ponies respond to pain the same way. They aren’t all as strong as you.”
A snort. “I’m not strong.”
“But you are! Even if you’re hurting, you push through it, because other ponies need you. It’s just how you are.” She poked her hoof into Dash’s chest, right where the Element of Loyalty would have rested if she were wearing it.
When Dash didn’t respond, she continued. “Me? I laugh whenever I get an ouchie! I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but laughter is kind of my thing.”
That earned a weak chuckle. “Yeah, Pinkie. I noticed.”
“I must be doing something right, then.” Pinkie gave her a little smile. “Now, what about Rarity?”
The muscles in Dash’s chest tightened at her name. “What about her?”
“She’s silly, sometimes, but she’s still the most generous pony I know. So what does she do when she’s hurting? Not being a drama queen,” Pinkie paused to roll her eyes, “but when she’s really in pain?”
“She, uh…” Dash wracked her memories for such an instance. The hoofball game from the other day, but that didn’t really count. The many embarrassing moments they’d shared together, but there was nothing painful about them. “I… don’t know? She’s generous. How can you be generous with pain? You can’t give it away.”
“That’s right, you can’t.” Pinkie turned away, her gaze drifting to the kitchen door. “And even if you could, it wouldn’t be very generous of you.”
Generosity. It was an odd element for a pony like Rarity. So full of pride and vanity, so judgemental, so quick and sharp with her wit. Shallow. Capricious. Insensitive. Deceitful. If she were any other pony, Dash wouldn’t have hesitated to despise her.
But she was Rarity. Beneath all those flaws was that one great virtue, her limitless generosity. It was enough to redeem her, to make her into not just a good pony, but one of the best ponies and best friends Dash knew. It was as magical as anything Dash had ever experienced.
So how would a generous mare – the most generous mare – deal with pain? Dash frowned at the question, her ears folding back against her mane as she turned the problem over in her head.
She wouldn’t flaunt it, though normally Rarity flaunted every aspect of her character. She couldn’t help it.
She wouldn’t laugh it away. Laughing was undignified, and Rarity was obsessed with her image.
She wouldn’t push through it or ignore it. Rarity wasn’t, if Dash was being honest, a strong pony.
“What would she do?” Dash mumbled. A few inches away, Pinkie raised an eyebrow.
“You already said she’s generous,” Pinkie said.
“Yeah, but…” You couldn’t share pain. Or, maybe you could, but that wouldn’t be very generous. No, the generous thing to do… Dash jerked upright as the answer suddenly popped into her head.
“She would keep it. She would… She would hoard it.” Dash’s mind spun at the thought. “She wouldn’t share it, because that would hurt us. She wouldn’t let us know she’s hurting. She would just keep acting like she is, like everything is perfect.”
“So how would we know?”
“We wouldn’t. We…” Dash let out a long breath, and then jumped down from the counter. “I… Sorry, I have to go.”
“Wait!” Pinkie’s shout stopped her at the threshold, and she turned back to see Pinkie climbing down from the stool. “What about last night?”
“Eh…” Dash looked away for a moment. “I don’t know, Pinks. We’ll… we’ll deal with it. Figure something out.”
Pinkie smiled. “Sounds like a plan!” She snagged the bag of sweets from the counter in her teeth, and flung it in Dash’s direction. “Tell her and Sweetie I said ‘hi’!”
Such friends. Dash snagged the bag from the air. It was heavier than it looked, and the scents drifting from the opening heavenly. She tucked it against her chest and turned back to the open door. “I will. Thanks, Pinkie. A lot.”
“Oh Dashie, they’re just doughnuts! Two bits a dozen on weekdays!”
“No…” Dash chuckled and blinked away the tears that threatened her visions. “Thanks for everything.”
And then she was out the door and into the Ponyville morning.
* * *
Twilight was hunched over the circular table in the center of the library when Dash returned. Her eyes were red-rimmed, and the fur around them matted. When she saw Dash enter, she jerked upright and wiped at her face with her forelegs.
“Dash! I, uh, that is—”
“Don’t worry about it. We all make mistakes.” Dash set the bag of doughnuts on the table and pulled one out. Splitting it in half, she took a bite, and pushed the other piece in Twilight’s direction.
“Now, that spell you cast, the dream-sharing one,” she continued. “Could you do it again?”