“Can’t you do anything?”
It was a reasonable question to ask a god.
Hell, it wasn’t even one of those ‘are you there God? Because if you’re there, you’ll help me’ kinds of things. I knew she was there. She was sitting on my couch, or at least a reasonable copy of it that existed inside my head.
Well, it was more like a shared consciousness of the changeling race. But, it was still my couch. Celestia was still there, and we were talking.
“You know I would if I could,” Celestia replied, which made me slump down in an actual chair half a room away from my usual spot next to her. Not as good for television watching but, arguing while sitting next to Celestia was usually a bad idea. Mostly because she was naked, and arguing with impossibly hot women sporting giant breasts that loved to hug you made it really, really hard to keep up an argument. “Does not competing in the Games really bother you that much?”
I groaned and half-turned my head away from Tia. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t at least looking forward to it,” I replied. “But...well, I just don’t have what you’d call a competitive nature. So I’m kind of disappointed, but…” I tried to put my thoughts into words. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy it, at least the training. The part of it where I didn’t crash, I mean. Or when Rainbow was yelling instructions at me, or how stupid I must have looked after plowing into the ground and…
You know what?
Forget my previous statement, the training sucked. On top of which, there was no payoff. I don’t mean not being able to go to the competition either. Pressure to perform didn’t make me freeze up like Fluttershy, but I wasn’t completely unaffected by it. The payoff was...well…
“I wanted Rainbow to...well…” I managed while trying to find the right words.
Celestia gave me one of those bright smiles of hers that could probably have literally lit up the room if she had been her normal sun goddess self. “So you joined for the sole purpose of helping your friend.”
“Thank you for making it sound incredibly lame,” I grumbled before crossing my arms in this thing that wasn't a pout. Then came the goddess’s musical laugh that sounded way too good for a human voice to produce, and I just slunk down more.
“I think it is one of the most admirable things imaginable, giving your own time and effort, all for the sake of a friend,” she replied with a smile.
I sighed and looked away. “That’s the problem.”
Celestia raised an eyebrow at me. “What do you mean?”
For a moment I just turned and looked at her while debating whether to continue the conversation, then I sighed. “Look, Rainbow Dash isn’t stupid. There’s a big difference between qualifying for the Equestria Games, and actually winning anything. And I think she’s kind of figured out when she saw we were up against the Wonderbolts and the damn griffons. With Fluttershy and Derpy on her team...oh hell, she’ll be lucky to get to the Games, much less walk away with anything.”
“I thought you said the only reason she joined the Games was for Fluttershy,” Tia replied.
I ran a hand through my hair and...paused for a moment at the feeling of fingers in my hair. I missed hands. Oh God, I’m turning into Lyra, I told myself before shaking it off and putting my mind back on task as I looked over to Tia. “No that’s not… Look, Rainbow always wanted to go to the Games, and then Fluttershy was probably all ‘me too’ and then...well...I had to cancel and... She’s probably just now getting how screwed she is and…”
Celestia crossed her arms. “The Equestria Games are not about competition Fairy. They’re a celebration of our unity. A symbol of how each tribe can come together and-”
“Oh come on Tia,” I cut in with as much sourness as I could. “They’re a lot sweeter than any human competition, but they’re still a competition. That kind of stuff is important to Rainbow. Really important. Fluttershy just wants to play around, and say she was there. Rainbow needs to win. Really needs it. And I’m not talking about some ego trip either.”
For a moment the goddess just looked at me blankly, and then the expression on Celestia’s face became pensive. “What do you mean?”
I took a deep breath of the non-air that always threatened to bring me into a Matrix moment of ‘is that really air you're breathing right now?’ and let it out to help clear by head before I focused on answering that rather complicated question. “Okay...this is kind of private but…” Well if I couldn’t talk about this with Celestia, then who could I told to it about?
“A few weeks after I got here, I was on this train with Rainbow and...she had some leftover fears from when her cutie mark got swapped around,” I told Tia, which got a bit of a guilty feeling from the goddess. “I know you never meant to hurt them but…
“Look, Rainbow...her cutie mark says two things. One of them tells her she’s going to be a success at her dream, and the other...well...the other thing her cutie mark is telling her is that her dreams aren't for her. It says that she’s going to be stuck in a job that she can do better than anyone in town but...she sees that as a failure and...it terrifies her!
“I think she sees on some level that the Equestia Games as a way to put those fears to rest. It’s more than just a gathering of friends to go and have fun. For Rainbow, this is her chance to really prove to herself that she really is capable of doing what she wants to do with her life.”
“And if she can’t compete, she’ll never know,” Celestia said, finishing my sentence before her eyes got all kind and messiah-like. “But that’s why she has friends Fae. They’ll support her-”
I glared at Celestia. “If she loses her dreams?” I asked. “Yeah, we’ll be there for her, sure. But at the same time, all we’re really going to be saying is, I’m sorry you’re such a loser and you’re dreams have crumbled to dust while we have everything and rub it in your face every day!
“I mean...Twilight has you and me, and...Spike,” I grumbled a bit before moving on. “AJ’s got her farm and her family, Rarity’s got her business and her parents. Fluttershy is just fine and happy with her animals. Pinkie and the Cakes are practically family and she’s got two jobs going for her. They’ve each got their own little success story and people close to them that can constantly with the support they need. Rainbow has a dead end job that she doesn’t want to do for the rest of her life, and lives alone while everyone else she spends all her time with is is happy and successful, and surrounded by loved ones at the end of the day!” All Dash had was a fucking tortoise that she treated more like a best friend than a pet.
I sighed and leaned back in my chair a little. “I know Rainbow is amazing, and I don’t just mean her physical abilities. She has the ability to encourage and inspire other ponies like no one else. She can pick other ponies up when they’re down, and make them do amazing things, but…that doesn’t mean she finds any value in it! Or that she even wants to!
“Time and time again, I’ve seen her just collapse because...she draws so much of her self-worth from the eyes of others for the amazing things she can do,” I said before letting out a long sigh. “And now that I’m actually here and can pick up on her emotions. I just...there’s always this tiny little thing in the back of her mind just...radiating self-doubt, and sadness and a dozen other things that are just constantly threatening to tear her down while she has to keep being perfect just to satisfy everyone.
“She hides it from the others but...I’m a freaking empath that can’t turn it off Tia. I can feel it in her every moment were together, but if I confront her about it, she’s just going be...Rainbow! So I-I try and help her as best I can. I wait around to catch her when she falls and-and figure out a way to finally give her what she wants and needs, but she can only get through success and the cheers of a crowd. Her friends are just going to be seen as...nice ponies that don’t really get her.”
“You love her.”
Those three words made my body clinch. But, there was no way in hell I was going to deny it either. Not inside the Dream House. I sighed, and hung my head as I rested my arms on my knees. “Yeah...yeah. I do.”
It was a love from afar, not-well, if I could have made it romantic if Twilight wasn’t around. I would have been going after Rainbow in an instant if not for that. But there was no way in hell I was doing something like dumping Twilight. And it wasn’t out of obligation either.
The past two days of going to sleep with her. Just two mornings of waking up with her. Just spending time with her again like we used to before she even knew I was a changeling reminded me of just how amazing it was to be in Twilight’s presence, to hear her laugh and see her smile. To be honest, I think I may have actually forgotten about the fact that just being around her made me blissfully happy during my little self-imposed exile. Not to mention the time we spent apart because of Tia’s stupid population project, while I was dealing with Sunset’s transformation solution on top of our separate sleeping arrangements.
So...yeah, I had a thing for Rainbow. But it was just a thing, and I wasn’t about to let it become anything more than that.
I sat up and put my hands in my lap. “I’m not much of a passionate man Tia. To be honest, I can just about turn it on and off,” I told her. Hell, I think I had actually gotten used to Celestia appearing as she did night after night. If that wasn’t proof I could also gain full mastery over my pony libido, I didn’t know what was.
“But there’s always that part of me that keeps telling me Twilight needs this, or Rainbow deserves that. I feel protective of all the girls, and I really can’t say no when they ask me for favors and stuff. The thought of any of them being hurt or let down in any way just makes me want to hit something. And when I see it with Rainbow time and time again and...it just infuriates me.”
My fists clenched in anger, and I let out a sighing groan to try and clear my thoughts. This time, there was no simple solution that came into my brain though. Other than the one that was already there. But that one was far from simple. Rainbow had her team and...well...they hadn’t been signed up for anything yet, but we all knew what was going to happen in the long run. All the rest of the first day, I had Smelled Rainbow’s conflicting emotions of boredom, worry, and even a little bit of fear as we watched the girls practice.
Rainbow could only take so many failed handoffs, and I had let her slink away to cool her head more than once to have some private flight time, or whatever she was doing to cheer herself up. She had come back and left twice but since she was a lot happier when she came around and not a stumbling drunk, I sure as hell wasn’t about to question a good thing.
“Selflessness.”
Tia’s words drew me away from my thoughts, and I looked up at her. “Huh?”
“Your love, it’s a selfless one, you shouldn’t feel so guilty about it,” Celestia went on.
Calling what I had selfless...kind of...didn't fit in my mind. I frowned back at her. “I’m not feeling guilty.”
Celestia raised an eyebrow in response before speaking. “You’re angry...and about things I’m not even sure you should be angry about. Sad, maybe. But angry?” she asked before talking again so quickly I became somewhat certain her question had been rhetorical.
“But I can understand it and...I’ll see what I can do,” Tia told me.
That got me a little curious, not to mention hopeful, although it was a cautious hope. “Like...try and get me in on the games what you can do? Or…”
Celestia held up her palms. “I’m afraid getting you to compete in the games is still not an option,” she replied. “But your concerns… I’ll see what I can do.”
We sat around in silence for ten more minutes, and then Tia woke up.
The second day of preparations had me wishing I had faked a cold.
Okay, the whole waking up part was nice. I mean, snuggling with Twilight was beyond contentment and had me making plans for either getting rid of Spike in the burial kind of way...or just kind of talking to him about me and Twilight to figure something out about the whole living situation. But it also lowered my awareness of things because I was daydreaming about all the stuff we were going to do when we got back to Ponyville. Non-sexual stuff too.
Plus, with Rainbow constantly going off to get a pick-me up that didn’t leave her drunk, I kind of needed to supervise Derpy and Fluttershy’s training. Thankfully, they learned how to pass things correctly, even if they needed to come to a complete stop in order to do it. Derpy just stopped, held out her hoof to single she was sure that she was one hundred-percent absolutely ready, and Fluttershy grabbed it in a firm grip before going as fast as she could. It was far from perfect, but at least Fluttershy learned how to get a good grip on the things, and Derpy’s poor aim problem was negated.
Getting through the rings was never a problem for either of them, so we didn’t have a Soarin mishap like Team Cloudsdale. Which was good, because we also didn’t have an emergency stand-in to take either Fluttershy or Derpy’s place.
Although, after I saw Rarity’s team uniforms...I was pretty sure all the lights from the waterfall, or maybe some kind of rainbow fumes coming from the river made ponies who spent too much time at the falls crazy.
The things were...bad. Just...freakishly bad.
In sooooooo many ways.
Imagine if you can, that is if your imagination is disturbed enough, a pony nightgown with a tailhole and space for the wings. Now add a crown of flowers, and the pony equivalent of wristbands that also had posies on them, and that was what the team...u...ni….forms looked like.
Hell, I couldn’t even really call them uniforms!
They were more like...like...athletic...death shrouds!
If Dash and the others went out in the flowery nightgowns of...blech! Not only would they lose badly, they would be laughed at to the point of Fluttershy never leaving her house again, and Derpy wouldn’t be able to show her bubbly butt in Ponyville at all! Dash...she would have to hang herself to escape the shame.
Rarity must have apparently noticed something amidst all my internal threats to puke, eye twitches, and shaking knees as I held myself back from nearly murdering the seamstress at the demands of the pony fashion sense she managed to beat into me thanks to day after day at her shop. She looked over at me with an innocent expression she had to be faking, and asked, “Too much?”
My whole body shivered as I fought down the urge to shout ‘YES’ and add ‘YOU IMBECILE!’. Instead, I forced my breath out through my teeth and tried to come up with a reason that we couldn't use the uniforms without hurting Rarity’s feelings.
Or kill her. Because the things she put the girls into warranted a death sentence.
Okay...okay man, calm down, you got this, I thought before looking around for help. Where in the hell was Sunset now that I really needed her? She would have been able to tell Rarity how insanely sucky her stuff was! But, Sunset had gone to help Pinkie get some cheering supplies, and I hadn’t seen her since breakfast. So I was alone, abandoned to the horrors of the fashion nightmare that Rarity had created in her hour of madness.
“Um…” I managed while trying not to shout that her outfit looked like something that needed to have a bit more fire added to it, as in real flames. Then the ashes needed to be buried in a deep hole, out in the middle of whatever ponies called their version of Death Valley.
I summoned up all my strength as my body clenched with effort. “I don’t think we can use them,” I told her finally. It felt like passing a kidney stone out my mouth.
Rarity looked back at the outfits for a second, and then over to me in confusion. “Why not?”
“They um…” Suck...majorly suck. They suck so much that I’m having trouble breathing. Not to mention they’re completely-“Not aerodynamic!” I exclaimed, grabbing onto a hard fact that Rarity couldn’t discount and might not really hurt her feelings. After all, this wasn’t insulting her fashion sense, just her...lack of a practical design.
It actually worked, because she looked back at them and blinked. “Not what?”
My way out discovered, I grasped onto it and rode the idea to freedom. Oh thank you Twilight for teaching me how to come up with scientific arguments on my feet. “Look, Rarity...you’re a good seamstress and all, but...what the team needs is a suit that isn’t got to catch the wind and slow them down, or…”
I winced as Derpy flew around a bit to test hers out...and winced when she descended, getting a face full of nightgown for her trouble. “...that,” I finished.
With my argument picking up steam, I pointed over to Fluttershy. “Plus, they don’t have the Ponyville symbol. What kind of team outfit doesn’t have their symbol?”
Rarity hmmed as she grabbed the absent Rainbow’s in her magical grip and hauled it over to examine the uniform closer. Of course, Rainbow had taken one look at the thing while Rarity put the finishing touches on Derpy’s, and that was the last I saw of her. “I suppose you have a point there,” she admitted. “And the clothes should allow for a pegasus to change altitude if they needed to.”
“Plus, they don’t exactly seem wind resistant,” I went on. Being on the roll I was, it was like a rockslide down a mountain. No stopping me now! “Or durable for that matter. So Fluttershy and Derpy would just get slowed down, and Rainbow would be lucky not to have hers fly off in mid-flight. And what if it ended up getting tangled in her wings, and she crashed or something? They could crash and get hurt! Plus-”
A hoof to the mouth stopped me from continuing to point of the insanity of Rarity’s uniforms. “Very well, I concede, I concede!” she told me before looking away from her Frankenstein monster level creations. “So what do you suggest for uniforms? I still have some fabric and enough time to make some more.”
That made me think a minute.
And the solution was perfect.
The solution?
Well, with Applejack trying to rip off the Wonderbolts, and Pinkie buying more cheerleader junk to compete with their cheering section, I figured Rarity might have been able to use her skills to make reasonable facsimiles of their uniforms.
But for that, she needed a design to copy.
And being a changeling, all I had to do to get one was wait around until Spitfire or Fleetfoot, the silver-haired pony girl I had seen for the first time in person just yesterday, or their replacement flier got done with practice and make myself a double of them. Then I could just walk into their tent, snag their stuff walk out. Hell, even if one of them caught me, I could just go on my merry way. Nothing wrong with Spitfire taking her clothes to be cleaned for the actual race, right?
It was a simple plan in which nothing could go wrong.
That is until I found Twilight standing next to one of the few pure water lakes in the area, and my curiosity got the best of me. I mean, she had been distracted all morning too. Not run off distracted like Dash, but still pretty unfocused. So in order to keep my good boyfriend status and not let me conscience kick me in the balls...I kind of had to ask her what was going on.
The Smell I was getting from the girl said things weren’t good, worse than when I had last seen her when she was playing with some pompoms. So I walked up behind her while staying a distance that kept me out of kicking and wing flap in my face range. “Hey Twilight, what’s going on?”
She gave a little jump, and then looked back at me. The annoyed anger Smell quickly dissipated as she calmed down. “Oh Fae, it’s you,” she mumbled while using the nickname that she called me when not angry. “I was...looking for Rainbow Dash.”
“Um...okay,” I replied, a bit confused. “Well, she’ll be back with the others soon enough, so-”
“And I found her,” Twilight said as she pointed a hoof over to a nearby tree.
Underneath it, I saw Rainbow Dash...taking off a Wonderbolts uniform?
Oh, and it wasn’t some costume like I had made for her using dark magic. Rainbow had a skintight suit underneath a silvery getup, complete with goggles that protected her eyes. It was the flight suit that matched the kind the Wonderbolts were using for their practice runs.
I blinked at the sight and looked over to Twilight. “Okay um...what’s going on?”
“Let’s ask her,” the lavender alicorn grumbled.
I followed the rather disgruntled princess as we made our way to where Dash was crouching near the like. She opened with the usual level of tact Twilight had when ticked off. “Not easy practicing with two teams, is it?”
Her sense of timing was also perfect, as Rainbow was in the middle of getting a drink of water. Thankfully, she just spit it out instead of letting it go down the wrong pipe, but the terrified look on her face Rainbow and way her voice just got all panicky told me plenty. “W-What? You guys know?” she quietly shrieked before huddling down. “Does anypony else?”
I held up a hoof. “Um...actually, I just got here. Rainbow what’s going on?”
Twilight frowned at Rainbow, and the pegasus let let out a moan. “Well um...you see...with Soarin hurt and all, the Cloudsdale team needed a third pony to practice with. So they asked me and-”
“Wait,” I spoke, holding up a hoof to stop her. “What about that third one I saw with them yesterday? The one with the white coat and bright yellow mane?”
Rainbow raised an eyebrow. “You mean Surprise?” she asked, kind of leaving me dumbfounded. “She had to go back to Cloudsdale on Wonderbolts business.”
My back legs went out from under me, and the glasses I was wearing nearly fell from my face. “T-That was Surprise?”
Twilight turned around to look back at me with one of her caring frowns. Not the kind she had just shot at Rainbow Dash, the kind when she was thinking hard while looking at a friend. “Is there something wrong Fae?”
“I’m just...disappointed,” I said with a sigh before looking down at the ground. She didn’t have a poofy mane, or Pinkie powers, or...anything! She might as well of been a normal...background pony.
“Okay-okay I know!” Rainbow cried out like she was confessing to murder for some reason. “I know I shouldn’t be sneaking off and practicing with the other team but...it’s just so much more fun!”
I looked up at Rainbow Dash, and tried to get my mind back on track to figure out just what the hell she was talking about.
“Ponyville will still qualify,” Rainbow went on. “I can get us to the Games, no problem!”
But it’s what happens when you end up in last place once you get there that concerns me, I thought to myself.
“Hey Rainbow Dash, you got a minute?”
Whatever argument we were fixing to have, and which I knew was coming by everyone’s Scent, kind of just died when we heard the new voices. I turned and looked, and there was Spitfire and Fleetfoot, in all their glory.
We shared a look with her, and then Rainbow trotted off to talk to the other pegasi. A few seconds later, I heard something that made my fake coat hair stand on in.
“It looks like Soarin won’t be able fly in time for the competition. We want you to fly with us,” Spitfire began.
“Of course, this means you won’t be able to fly for Ponyville,” Fleetfoot added before she looked over to our tent where Derpy and Fluttershy were passing the baton back and forth like we had practiced. “But um...let’s face it, even with you on their team, they’re not going anywhere.”
Oh crap, I told myself as the rather horrible weight of the situation made itself known. It wasn’t just Rainbow being asked to join a Wonderbolts team for non-military maneuvers, the whole reason she wanted to be in the Wonderbolts in the first place. It was them asking Dash to be the big hero and save them. After all, no Soarin, no flight team.
Not only that, but...the loss her team would experience really wouldn’t matter if they had no chance to even get to the Games. I...didn’t really know what to think about that one. I mean, Dash was usually overly-optimistic for her assurances to mean much, and Fleetfoot may have had a rather douchey way with words, but she was a professional athlete and had probably been to dozens of races. If she didn't think they could win...they probably couldn't.
A little voice in my head murmured that they might be lying but...I doubted it. Ponies didn't do stuff like that. Not good ponies like the Wonderbolts anyway.
While Rainbow Dash started her predictable fangasm of a reaction, I groaned and leaned over to Twilight. “Can you grab her and get us back to our room when she gets over here? We’ve got some things to discuss and...I really don't want the others overhearing."
Travel was fast when you had a purple pony princess popping you around. The moment Dash landed next to us and talked about how coll it was Cloudsdale wanted her, Twilight had snagged her up in a lavender glow. Within the next second, we were all in the room me and Twilight shared. It was what you’d expect from a princess’s room…when she wanted to live like the commoner that is. We had a single bed of average worth, some curtains for the windows to keep out the light, and a writing desk. Aside from the lack of technology, it almost looked like I had gone into a normal, human hotel room.
“What the?” Rainbow cried out as she struggled in the purple pony's magical grip a second before she was released. “Hey! What’s going on Twilight?”
“I just wanted some privacy while we talked,” I said before Twilight spoke up.
“Listen Rainbow, if you fly for Cloudsdale, Pinkie Pie won’t have anypony to cheer for, Rarity’s uniforms will never be seen, and Applejack will have slaved over those apple brown betty’s for nothing.”
As I watched Rainbow Dash get more and more depressed at Twilight’s words, my inner favorite pony fan shoved my best pony fan to the side and whispered in my ear. “Oh come on Twilight, you’re guilt tripping her?” I asked before a frown crossed my face and my voice started gaining steam. “Pinkie would support Dash no matter who she flew for, it would be a blessing for Rarity’s uniforms to never be seen, and I’m pretty sure we can find plenty of hungry ponies that’ll get a lot more use out of that not so nutritious cooking Applejack is force feeding our athletes!”
I wasn’t kidding about the last part either. I don’t think Derpy had been able to get a muffin the whole time we had been at the try-outs. It was all Applejack’s overly done apple-themed food. Constantly. The same thing, over and over again. I was surprised the mare with the bubble butt hadn't gone epic rage time on the farmer.
The alicorn stepped away from me with wide eyes, and winced a little when I noticed that I had been shouting in Twilight’s face. Then it got all concerned, and maybe even a little hurt. “W-What?”
“Uh…you okay Fae?” Rainbow asked.
I spun my head over and looked at Rainbow. “Am I okay?” I nearly demanded. “Dash, what about you?”
She just stood there for a second and blinked. “I’m…okay,” she said a little too hesitantly for my liking. “I mean…I just got to…um…tell the um...” Then Rainbow paused, and looked to the alicorn, and then back to me with one of the most pitiable expressions I had ever seen on her. “I…guys…what do you think I should do?”
I paused with my mouth half open, unsure of what to say.
Then when Twilight started to open her mouth, I turned to her and started talking before she could do more than say ‘I’. “Twilight, I swear, if you’re going to just tell her to fly for Ponyville…” I paused unsure of just where to take that little threat. “Well…I don’t know, but…it’s not going to be good.”
“W-What?” Twilight stammered. “Fairy! I wasn’t going to-”
“Tell her to choose her friends over her dreams and happiness, again?” I exclaimed as I threw up my hooves.
Dash looked over to me. “Say what now?”
I looked over to the pegasus with a groan. “Oh come on Dash, we both know you don’t have a…snowflake’s chance in Summer of actually winning anything at the Games, even if you do carry Fluttershy and Derpy across the finish line at the qualifying round.”
“You don’t know that!” Twilight exclaimed as she stomped her hoof on the ground. “And so what if she doesn’t win! That’s-”
I rolled my eyes. “Oh come on Twilight, we’re talking about the best fliers in Equestria! Do you honestly think Fluttershy with her…hay, let’s round it up and give her a wing power of three! Do you actually think that she has any business being in a contest for athletes?”
“HEY!” Rainbow shouted at me, making me turn and back away from a glare glare I got from her. “Don’t talk about Fluttershy like that!”
The look Dash was giving me kind of just made me wilt. It wasn’t the stare…if I could even be affected by such things since they were a form of mind control. Still, I raised my hoof to keep some distance between us. “Dash, I don’t mean anything by it and…Tornado Day or not, you know it’s true. Fluttershy…she… I’m pretty sure that no other team in Ponyville would take her, and...look, I know you’re going to hate me for saying this, but...it’s almost like she’s using you so she can just... play around in the Equestria Games when you’re here to seriously compete in them! Rarity, Applejack...all of them, they're treating something that's as important to you as their farm and fashion are to them like it's a game!”
Rainbow glared at me for a few more seconds, and then broke eye contact when Twilight spoke. “Well, I don't exactly agree with Fairy’s delivery, but…she has a point about Fluttershy’s lack of athleticism,” the purple pony said before she looked over to me to say something without talking.
I sighed and looked back to Rainbow. “Sorry,” I apologized. “This whole thing is kind of making me...you know. I get angry when you girls...have problems."
“It’s okay...I know Fluttershy isn’t the most...athletic of ponies either.”
Rainbow’s words hung in the air for a minute, and after a moment of thinking, I decided to press the issue. “So um...why is she here anyway?”
After a few flaps to get some height, Rainbow levitated over to the bed and laid down. “Well, she...wanted to be in the Games,” she replied, which kind of set off my inner anger demon on a Fluttershy punching bag before Dash spoke again. “She...I think after Twilight got her wings, and then you showed up, Fluttershy...started to feel kind of...left out.”
I raised an eyebrow. Twilight was the one with the words. “The three of us have been doing a lot together.”
“Um...okay but...why the Games?” I asked. There were plenty of other things that the two of them could have done that wouldn’t have ruined Rainbow’s chances of getting the boost to the self-confidence I had been feeling she needed. Then, before Rainbow could take it the wrong way, I put in some elaboration. “Look, I may have missed a few things here and there, but you girls can’t tell me she doesn’t still have her stage fright?”
Rainbow nodded. “Why do you think I agreed to be on a team with her?” she asked.
The counter-question made me wince. “But you know...she isn’t...um…”
“I know she’s a terrible flier,” Rainbow replied softly. “Still...I had been hoping...with you, we might have be able to win something. And maybe Fluttershy would have been able to...fix her problem.”
Twilight trotted up to her. “Winning isn’t everything Rainbow.”
“Says the alicorn princess,” I grumbled to myself, which got a confused...and kind of surprised look from Twilight. “What?”
I frowned a bit, more at myself than her, and let out a sigh. “Oh come on Twilight. Winning is just as important to you as it is to her,” I replied before pointing a hoof at Rainbow. “You just express it differently.”
Twilight frowned back at me. “No I-wait...what?” she asked, obviously becoming even more confused. “What are you even talking about?”
For a moment I looked at her, then threw off the transformation magic that had me look like a hot mare with a charcoal coat, and took the purple pony princess’s form before drawing on my considerable acting talents. Which were mainly there because of my ability to perfectly mimic Twilight’s voice. “Princess Celestia expects a letter from me every week Spike. Not every other week. Not every third week or something! Every! Single! Week!”
To kind of help drive the point home, I reared on my imitation-Twilight rear legs and danced around. “Oh no, I’m tardy! I’ve failed! I’m a complete and total failure! I didn’t win! I didn’t turn my letter in to Celestia in time! I lost against time! Like in a race! Now I feel absolutely and completely useless!” I went on before I dropped back onto all four hooves and cleared my throat. I felt a major change in my voicebox, and felt it go back to normal. “Or something like that.”
Twilight and Rainbow just stared at me for a moment. I blinked, and looked back and forth between the two. “What?”
Rainbow snickered. “Oh mare, that’s just…”
“Creepy,” Twilight continued for her. “Hearing your male voice from my mouth.”
“Hilarious!” Rainbow giggled for a bit longer until I turned back into my natural form and gave Rainbow a half-lidded look.
After letting her have a much-needed laugh, Twilight studied me for a moment so hard I could practically see the gears turning in her head. Then she turned to face Rainbow. “Is that really how you feel? About winning, I mean?”
The laughs stopped, and Rainbow froze. “Well...I’m not going to go all...you, but…” she sighed and nodded her head. “Flying in the games...getting a medal. Come on Twilight, with the way things work for us...this could be my only chance to win one.”
“Oh,” Twilight mumbled. She looked away from the other mare for a moment, and then took a deep breath before focusing her attention back on Rainbow. “I’m sorry for putting the extra pressure on you Rainbow. I know all of this must be pretty hard for you.”
Not to be outdone by Twilight, I cleared my throat. “Sorry about the Derpy thing too. I...probably shouldn’t have forced her on you like that. She just kind of...showed up, and…”
Rainbow waved her hoof around at me and Twilight. “It’s cool. I know you guys were just wanting to help out.”
“Help out,” Twilight said in a low voice before she hung her head to sigh. After another second of silence, she looked back up at the pegasus and smiled. “Rainbow...before we got here, I promised myself that I would help you get what you wanted. I know I haven’t done that a lot lately. So...let’s do it!”
Dash frowned back at her. “What the hay are you talking about Twilight? You help me all the time!”
The alicorn let out a little snort and rolled her eyes. “Dash-”
“Hey, I do plenty of stupid things too Twilight. Don’t think just because your a princess now you get to be the only one who messes up,” the cyan pegasus told her with an accusing hoof shoved in the alicorn’s face.
I couldn’t help it, I snickered. The sound drew the attention of the girls, and I held up a hoof to stop them before a question was asked. “Okay...okay…” I said before looking over to Twilight. “So, how do you think we should help her Twilight?”
Good God, was that question a bad idea.
Apparently, Twilight’s ‘help’ consisted of deciding to help Dash’s inability to think ahead by creating a double pros and cons list that put joining the Cloudsdale team question up against the Team Ponyville option. By the time she was done, night had fallen, two pony stomachs were growling, and I could swear Dash’s eyes were spinning around in circles for a few seconds before the pegasus fell back on the bed. Even Twilight seemed a little tired with the way the sheets of notebook paper wobbled in her grip.
“So, you can fly for Ponyville, and have a thirteen-percent chance of winning a bronze medal with the Wonderbolts out of the running,” Twilight told her before she looked over to the other list. “Or join Team Cloudsdale, where the Wonderbolts have a one-hundred-percent chance of winning gold...barring any unforeseen slipups, like with what happened to Soarin.”
I was a little surprised by her estimations that Ponyville had a chance to even do anything at all, but...according to Twilight, my views on the average pegasus flight speed had been a bit jaded by living in Ponyville and hanging out with Rainbow Dash so much. Apparently, the normal pegasus wasn’t even half as fast as her.
Rainbow Dash groaned. “And no matter which team I pick, the other team is going to automatically lose. So no matter what I do, I’ll let somepony down,” she said before looking over to Twilight. “Can’t you just...fix Soarin’s wing or something with your magic Twilight?”
The alicorn shook her head. “While healing spells are within my purview now, Celestia hasn’t really taught me anything about using the higher level magics like that.”
I kept my mouth shut of an option I could provide. “So...if Soarin was okay, you’d pick Ponyville?”
“If Soarin was fine, I wouldn’t even have a decision to make, would I?” Rainbow deadpanned.
I gulped, uncertain whether I could just reminded them that I was a shapeshifter that could just take Soarin's place for the tryouts. Long as nopony knew, there wasn't really a problem. But then that would be cheating, and I wasn't sure how they'd react to the option.
Twilight put down her notes on the corner desk and sat down on the floor. “Well, that’s everything. Population, expected turnout at the Games, emotional investment of bringing home a medal, history with the Games, chances of winning a medal. I hate to say it but...everything I look at says that the citizens of Cloudsdale has more to lose if their team doesn’t compete.”
From her place on the bed, Rainbow rolled over onto her stomach and looked at Twilight, then turned her head towards me for a few seconds before she went back to Twilight. “And you’re not going to be mad if I go with Cloudsdale?”
After looking at her papers on the table for a moment, Twilight looked back up at Rainbow, and shook her head. “To be honest, it’s the logical choice, in both for population, and...for you. I mean...flying with the Wonderbolts? It’s like a practice audition!” Twilight exclaimed while I could Smell she was choking down the worry in her heart and...a great deal of simmering anger. Although why she was feeling guilty...I couldn’t figure.
“And…” she went on slowly while Rainbow just looked at her with an odd expression. “Fae’s right. Rainbow, I’m your friend. But not because you...do things for me. Something like that...doing things out of...obligation,” she cursed. “I can’t...no. You’re my friend, and I want you to be happy. I just...don't want you feeling regrets later, is all. But if this is really what you want...go for it."
Then the other five ponies in the room that had been there since they came back from having dinner before the sun went down and Twilight managed to get about a forth of the way through her information, along with the human leaning against the wall chimed in.
“Well darling, it’s not as if my designs were going to be used even if you did fly for Ponyville,” Rarity said before lowering her head in shame and shaking it. “Can’t believe I didn’t see the aerodynamics flaw back in the planning stages.”
Applejack shrugged. “Not like we were going to eat all my ABBs anyway. Bucking cart full of the things and...they’re startin’ to sour.”
“Ohhh! Does this mean I get cool pompoms like the Cloudsdale cheerleaders have?”
After poking the ‘imitation muffin’ with her hooves a few times, Derpy shrugged and took a bite. “Well...you kind of just dragged me into this anyway. So if you don’t want to go...its okay with me.”
“Oh Rainbow Dash, you don’t have to chose us,” Fluttershy told her.
“Yes I do.”
Everyone in the room gave a start, even Sunset, and she hadn’t even given the little pegasus her signoff on ditching Ponyville for a brighter future.
I recovered first, and cleared my throat. “Rainbow...this is about what you want.”
“I know,” she said before looking back to the girls. “And I want to fly for Ponyville.”
As the ponies gave each other little smiles of happiness in some shared moment of harmony or something, I moved closer to Dash and whispered in her ear. “Dash, you don’t have to do this. I know you. I know-”
She turned around and smiled at me. It wasn’t her usual cocky grin, or something overly excited. It was calm, and gentle. Something I didn’t see on Rainbow all that often. “Yeah well, maybe you don’t know me as well as you think,” she said back at the girls for a second as they were trading their goodnights. “When they said they would support me, even if I didn’t do what they wanted… It was like something just hit me.
“You know, for the longest time, the only reason I thought anypony wanted me around was because I could do stuff for them. Cloudsdale wants me to win a race,” she said before motioning to the others with her head. “They want me to be happy. I’d rather be a loser and surrounded by ponies that care about me, than a winner who only has a bunch of ponies trying to use her so they can get ahead in life.”
I raised an eyebrow at her. “What do you call the fact that you’re carrying the team then?”
Dash chuckled. “I call it being awesome.”
Not too long after that, the whole thing broke up. Most of the ponies headed off to bed, but with Twilight's rather comprehensive comparative analysis of Dash’s choices, neither Rainbow nor her had gotten anything to eat. I may not have fed off solid food, but with me and Twilight only really spending time together during meals for the days leading up to the qualifying rounds, making mealtime into our conversation highlight of the day was a big deal. Thankfully, with Rainbow Falls being a tourist trap, most of the restaurants were open all night, and we exchanged the usual apologies after the meals.
There was the ‘sorry for putting pressure on you’ followed by the ‘sorry for ditching you’ and I threw in a ‘sorry for putting words in your mouth’ and a ‘sorry for yelling at you’ and...well, I think I topped the number of apologies Rainbow and Twilight threw around by a good twenty percent margin with promises to try harder with Fluttershy and some other junk.
By the time we got back to our rooms, Twilight was too full and tired for sex, and...to be honest...I wasn't in for the mood for it either. I wanted the other thing you could get from sleeping with a pony.
I just pressed up against her back, and held her close before resting my head on her neck. “You know...I missed this.”
Twilight shifted around a bit from where I was spooning her, but she didn’t really change position as she turned her head to look back at me. “Missed what?”
“This. Going to sleep with you, waking up with you,” I told her. “Just being with you all night, in my forelegs, or me in yours. I forgot how nice it was.” We really needed to work something out so that the two of us could go back to sleeping together. As in actually sleeping together, not just the cheap sex stuff we’d been doing.
I took in a whiff of her, and frowned when I still Smelled something wrong beneath her naturally intoxicating scent and lavender shampoo. “Twilight, what’s wrong?”
The goddess sighed. “It’s just...earlier tonight...something occurred to me.”
“What?”
“Rainbow...she’s going to leave us one day,” Twilight mumbled.
I frowned at the back of Twilight’s head. “Huh?”
Twilight gulped deep enough for me to pick it up, and shuffled around until she was out of my grip and looking back at me after she rolled around. “When we were comparing everything, it just hit me. The Wonderbolts,” Twilight began. “She’s going to join the Wonderbolts one day, and...she’s going to go away. I don’t want her to but...every time I hear myself even think that...it makes me feel so terrible.”
So that’s what all that guilt she’s been holding onto, I thought to myself.
“It’s her dream and...I...I don’t want her to have her dream!” Twilight went on in a depressed panic. “How horrible is that Fae? I don’t want one of my best friends to be happy! How...I can’t even…”
I pulled Twilight back in close to me and held her before she let out a sob. “And every time I think about it, I...all I can think of is how I became a princess, but I’m still in Ponyville, and why can’t she be like that, but then I just want to kick myself because that means she won’t be able to join the Wonderbolts, and you saw how much being a weathermare for the rest of her life scares her, and-”
Before she could hit the panicky rock bottom, I clamped her mouth shut with magic. “Twilight, you’re starting to spiral,” I told her. Then she blinked at me a few times, and I watched as she breathed in and out slowly to help lower her heart rate.
She finished her breathing exercises with one long sigh, and I backed off from her a little bit. “Better?”
“A little, but...I can’t…” Another long breath. “It’s still there. Rainbow’s going to join the Wonderbolts, and...if she doesn’t...it’ll crush her. But if she does...I don’t want her to leave. If she does...if we become separated...then...what if we stop being friends? We didn’t get any letters when she was training with the Wonderbolts. It’s out of sight, out of mind Fae!”
Looking at the depressed pony, I wracked my brain to try and figure out a way to reassure her everything would be fine, but most of it just felt fake. I needed something else to convince her. Something with empirical evidence, what with this being Twilight and all.
She needed reassurance that a pony she didn’t see in a long time...was still her...friend.
And then it hit me. The perfect way to reassure Twilight that everything was going to be alright. It came with a flash of horror, dread, and realization that I would have to cross paths with the most terrifying being in Equestria, but...for her… “Well, isn’t Cadence still your friend?”
“Huh?” Twilight asked.
“Cadence. We haven’t seen her in months,” I told her while pushing down my fear of the pretty pink pony princess and the last time we met. “Just like if Dash were to join the Wonderbolts and go on tour. If the two of you are still friends, then it’ll be proof you can stay friends with some pony, even when they’re not around all the time.”
Twilight blinked at me a few times. “That’s...brilliant!” she exclaimed. “We-we can even get the records from the Crystal Empire, and the mirror since Shining didn’t bring it down last week. Oh, and we can take Spike! Cadence was asking why he wasn’t around when the Games inspector came to check out the Empire! It’ll be perfect!”
Well, I suppose it will give me time to talk to the dragon, I told myself. It wasn’t that I avoided Spike or anything, it was just...he was kind of all over the place, and I didn’t know how to connect with him.
The little guy was a forteen-year old kid crushing on a twenty-something woman while he held onto some abandonment issues with Twilight because she was branching out for the first time in his life and despite how nice the girls were, there was that age and species wall, not to mention the gender barrier to separate their interests.
I think he spent a lot of his time with Big Mac and the CMC when he wasn’t taking care of chores for Twilight. I just had my stuff to do, and he had his. It was as simple as that. Plus...what me and Twilight did together, it really wasn’t something you bring a kid along for. It was our time together, full of plenty of sexual innuendo and things that Sunset could pick up on and make herself scarce when me and Twilight started the more risque stuff.
A kiss put an end to my thoughts, and Twilight smiled at me. “Ready for dinner?”
“I thought you weren’t in the mood,” I replied.
Twilight rolled her eyes. “Doesn’t mean I don’t love you,” she said before kissing me again. “Now eat up.”
I did as told, and a few seconds later, Twilight really was in the mood. But, that was how feeding worked. Having all that love energy flow through her stimulated the alicorn’s body and memories, and the next thing I knew, she was rubbing up against me in desire.
So, we did it, and went to sleep.
The following nightly meet up with Tia came and went, and I was kind of surprised to find what she had planned when it came to what a goddess that ruled a country could do in regards to our Rainbow Dash confidence problem. That was followed by another great start to the day with Twilight, and then the qualifying rounds came and went. By the time were on our way home, the events of the qualifying races had lit a fire under Rainbow…
“Gah! Can you believe those ponies!” Rainbow exclaimed as she looked at the Wonderbolt pin in her hooves while the train sped back towards Ponyville and we all sat around our private car.
Derpy was having a long needed muffin. Dinky was being paralyzed by Sunset’s touch while Fluttershy watched on in attention. Sparkler was trying to read her book, but kept glancing back at the human’s interaction with her little sister as Sunset scratched Dinky’s belly.
The rest of us were just listening to Rainbow rant on.
“They were just going to turn their backs on their teammate! Hay! I bet Surprise wasn’t even called away! They just told her to get lost too! What a bunch of bucking jerks! Just thinking about it, and the way they got all ‘Oh Rainbow Dash we’re so cool have a pin’ afterwards is just...GAH!”
“Rainbow, you gotta admit, you were thinkin’ the same thing with our-”
“Hey!” Dash shouted as she spun around and pointed a hoof, cutting Applejack off. “I had to choose between letting Cloudsdale not being able to field a team at all, or going with Ponyville! There’s a big difference between that, and kicking your teammates to the curb just to win!”
Twilight raised an eyebrow when Rainbow stopped. “And losing, you forgot the and losing while on Ponyville part.”
The pegasus spun and faced Twilight with a frown, her qualifying ribbon hanging from her neck. “Oh no!” she replied. “We are not losing anything! When it’s time for the Games, we are getting gold! And then I am going to take that gold medal, and rub it in Spitfire’s face!
“Derpy! Fluttershy! As soon as we get back to Ponyville, we’re going to start the most intense, extreme, bone breaking training regimen that anypony has ever done!”
Derpy looked over to the raging pegasus. “Um...but I have work.”
In response to the question, Dash threw a hoof out towards me. “That’s what changeling doubles are for!”
I looked down at the hoof, and moved closer to Twilight. “I...I think we’ve created a monster.”
“Think you should tell her about Princess Celestia’s idea for the Wonderbolts reserves?” Twilight asked.
The mention of what I told Twilight after my meeting with Tia made me chuckle nervously. I guess after hearing me go on and on about Rainbow’s fears that first night, Tia had done something about them. To be more specific, she was having plans drawn up for a whole new branch of the military that would train pegasi who were talented enough to be in the Wonderbolts all their moves, and even put them on a roster to do a show every now and then, completely at the volunteers discretion.
So basically, Princess Celestia was going to create an entirely new branch of the military to keep a single pegasus and alicorn happy. And I thought I abused my power by keeping my little town the way it was.
“Down with the Wonderbolts!”
I looked back as Rainbow cried out with a hoof raised into the air, which was then followed by Derpy and Fluttershy.
“Down with the Wonderbolts.”
“Um...down with the...Wonderbolts!”
“DOWN WITH THE WONDERBOLTS!” Rainbow yelled louder.
Upon seeing Twilight’s look of worry, I shrugged. “Eh, just go with it. It’ll probably be out of her system by morning,” I said before joining in the chant. “Down with the Wonderbolts!”
Twilight looked back at the pegasus, and smirked. “Down with the Wonderbolts!”
“Down with the Wonderbolts.”
“DOWN WITH THE WONDERBOLTS!”
“DOWN WITH THE WONDERBOLTS!”
As the final cheer went up, the tension finally broke, and we all had a little laugh before Twilight reached into her bag to pull out our qualifying picture photo that had to two of us surrounding Rainbow Dash. “And I think it was nice you wore the cheerleader outfit after all Fae.”
I groaned, and wished I was sitting Lyra-style so I could have just slumped in my seat instead of everypony bench style. “Can you please never mention that again? Like...ever?”
Twilight giggled. “I dunno, you looked so hot in your wig, and skirt, and pompoms. I may have to put this picture next to my bed.”
I covered my head with my hooves and whined again. “Just...no more cheerleading...ever again, please?”
Then I looked over at the pony who had given up a possible in with the Wonderbolts and a gold medal in order to keep her morals intact and do a favor for the rest of the girls at the cost of the reassurance she so desperately needed to validate her self-worth and give her hope for the future. Th sight made me sigh. “The things we do for friends.”