To Rainbow Dash, who had never held down a relationship for longer than a few weeks at a time (her on-and-off arrangement with Gilda for the months after flight school did not, could not qualify as a relationship), five months of being with just one pony was an incredibly terrifying thought. It wasn’t that she was afraid of the commitment or anything like that—she was Rainbow Dash, the Element of Loyalty! She didn’t get scared. No, it was more that she was a teensy, tiny bit worried that she had no idea what she was getting into.
Normally, Rainbow would have relished the novelty, the challenge, but lately Rainbow hadn’t felt like striving for challenges. She hadn’t really felt like striving towards very much at all lately. Work, practice, and sleep; her life had gone from chaotic wonder to boring predictability within a week, and Rainbow couldn’t bring herself to care.
Perhaps that was why today was so frightening to her. Maybe it was being faced with something that she actually had to do that warred with her recent emptiness. Or, better still, the very idea of a day being “special” in some way when nothing, nothing at all could feel special… maybe it was her own apathy that frightened her.
Shuddering and wincing from the blinding pain in her head, Rainbow slowly pushed her way out of the cocoon of her quilt and fell to the floor, landing on the oak slats with a dull thud. There was a muted pain in her wing—it almost seemed as if she’d landed on it, not that Rainbow could really feel anything behind this Celestia-damned headache—and she couldn’t quite feel her hind legs. At least, that is, she couldn’t feel them less than she couldn’t really seem to feel anything at all these days.
Another night on the guest bed. She wondered, for a moment, how she always ended up there.
Stumbling her way to the kitchen, Rainbow almost collapsed against the work surface, glass in hoof, as she tried to pour herself a drink. They’d run out of cider the night before and Rainbow could remember how worried Twilight had looked, how worried she felt now; there had been a frightened glint in her eye, Rainbow thought.
Thinking through the headache was tough, and Rainbow wasn’t entirely sure it was worth the effort. The cider had kept it at bay, for a while.
Eventually, fumbling, she held the glass to her lips, the water cool and fresh. It almost stung to feel the dry skin moisten. She lapped at the water as she poured it, acting purely on instinct; the headache was fading and water was splashing across her face.
It took her a moment to realise when the glass was empty.
Swearing, Rainbow put the glass down and turned to face the small kitchen table. The moonlight shone in a beam through the window, just missing the table and casting eerie, half-there shadows across the wooden surface. Rainbow walked over to it, careful to make sure she had control of her limbs, before she sat down.
There was something important, and she’d forgotten it.
It was on the tip of her tongue. In fact, she was certain she’d already thought of it that morning. Was it something she needed to do today? She had to go to work, she knew, because she went to work every day and that was important because if she didn’t go to work then her work wouldn’t get done and if her work didn’t get done than all the nasty, horrible weather from the Everfree would get out and that could cause her friends some serious harm so she couldn’t possibly not go to work because she couldn’t let her friends get hurt, or even the friends of her friends, she guessed, because all of Ponyville would be in danger like if a whole thunderstorm were to come out of the forest, with its mad, angry clouds and loud, boomy thunder and then it could cause untold damage she remembered when that had last happened and it had been huge and scary and frightening and please daddy make the thunderstorm stop because it’s frightening me
Her head crashed against the table, thunder echoing out through the kitchen in a bust of sound and pain. She could feel her head still shaking from the collision, her headache beyond what she could imagine. Her left eye, though both were squeezed so tightly shut that they were hurting, seemed to be under some kind of searchlight. She opened it a fraction, squinting at the bright moon through the window, shining and just happening to catch her eye. She turned her head so that her left cheek lay against the table, her soft fur pressed firmly against the smooth wood.
She thought she had been sitting like that for about five minutes when she first noticed the patter of rain outside the window, though once she did she was certain it had been there all along. She was pretty sure there had been no rain scheduled that morning; once she got to work she’d be having words with Cloudkicker about that.
Five months. It seemed like such a long time ago, but then everything seemed like such a long time ago lately. Even getting out of bed this morning seemed to have been days ago, the mundane task of work and practice stretching on so long that she could barely even remember them. They were the same as yesterday, she figured. It was always the same. Blinking her eyes slowly, tiredly, Rainbow rose and pushed her way to the window, resting her chin on the sill and staring out at the evening sky. The moon was gone—it had gone hours ago, of course—and dark rainclouds covered the sky, a writhing mass of darkness that boiled in the heavens. The constant patter of rain had not gone away, but now she could hear the whistling wind and the groaning of the old tree as it swayed in the gusts.
“Rainbow?” Twilight’s voice was quiet, behind her, but definitely surprised. Rainbow frowned but otherwise didn’t move. Why would Twilight be surprised to find her here? She always came back to the library after work these days—she’d practically moved in by now, if it weren’t for the hoofful of her most precious possessions.
Outside, the rain continued to pour. It drummed against the walls of the library, against the pavements and the streets. Its sound was muted but constant, a never-ending patter of white noise, of raindrops on her ears that battered down upon the headache and kept it at bay.
She was pretty sure that, somewhere in the sound of the storm, Twilight had spoken, but the mare’s voice was drowned out. She heard the sound, but not the words. They weren’t words, really, just noises in the dark and the rain and the emptiness.
“Rainbow!” Jolting awake, her eyes opening, Rainbow turned to see Twilight standing before her. Her marefriend looked concerned, and frightened, much like she had when the cider ran out, though the swelling, deep purple blotch by her eye was an ungainly addition that kept her whole face out of proportion. It pushed her eyelid upwards, making her squint through one eye in what looked like a very painful wink.
“Oh, hey Twi,” Rainbow said, her gaze drifting back towards the storm. “I’ve just been watching the clouds. They’re really pretty, y’know? It’s nice to just sit back after a day’s cloud-pushing and admire the handiwork of the team.”
“Yeah,” Twilight said, quiet and unsure. Her voice was bristling with a nervous kind of tension. Rainbow was sure her marefriend wanted to say something else, so she just stayed quiet and still by the window, giving Twilight the time and space she needed. After a few moments, however, she could hear the disgruntled sigh and retreating hoofsteps on the wooden floor, and the tension vanished in the breath.
Rainbow Dash had the strangest feeling that she was forgetting something.
“Rainbow?” The call was a question. It was asking for a lot of things: Rainbow’s attention was one of them, but Twilight’s tone made it sound as if she was frightened of the response, almost as if she thought that Rainbow wouldn’t give it to her. It was that thought, if anything, that made Rainbow Dash sit up and turn and really look at her marefriend, make sure her glance never faltered, never wavered. She needed to communicate her attention to Twilight because Twilight needed her.
Twilight had been crying. No, not had been—was. It was barely noticeable but there, right there in the corner of her eye Rainbow could see the tears welling up, overflowing every now and then and trickling their way down lavender fur. One streak made a darker line across Twilight’s bruised upper cheek, bringing the damage around it all the more clearly into focus.
She was shaking, too. Rainbow did her best not to react in her confusion, well aware that Twilight would probably need her to be strong. It was her duty, after all—her duty to Equestria, to her friends, to Twilight.
“Rainbow, I’m getting worried about you,” Twilight said, her voice barely above a whisper, “and I don’t know how to help you anymore. I’ve been trying so. hard. to help you through this but nothing I do s-seems to be doing anything.” Twilight was staring at the ground now, her carefully punctuated voice trembling. She was tense, ready to turn and run at a second’s notice if the angling of her legs was anything to go by…
Why was Twilight frightened?
Rainbow took a tentative step towards Twilight; the mare took a cautious step backwards, a fraction of the size of Rainbow’s stride but still a step back nonetheless. Tired and confused and more than a little worried herself, Rainbow fell back on her tried and the tested methods: the direct approach.
“Why are you scared?”
Twilight looked up, her expression a flat stare that Rainbow had only ever seen Princess Celestia pull off, the kind of stare that looks deep into the darkest parts of your soul and makes you recall every shame. Her head throbbed all the more violently, and Rainbow tried not to wince.
“You really don’t know?” It was the softest of whispers, but it carried the weight of a hundred worlds. Rainbow was confused and her head hurt and why should she know that what had happened her head was hurting and why how when why hurt how why pain why
No. No, she didn’t, even though the cold, demanding stare of her marefriend said otherwise. She couldn’t remember, at least, because now she was sure she should have known. Why didn’t she?
Twilight’s eyes were widening with comprehension, while Rainbow’s brow furrowed in confusion. They mirrored each other. It was almost comforting.
“There’s nothing to say about it until you’ve remembered,” Twilight said, her tone dismissive. “Just… forget I said anything.”
Twilight turned to the counter, her horn glowing as she pulled bowls out of the cupboards, chopping salad ingredients with a sharp knife. Rainbow knew she didn’t need to face the counter to know what she was doing.
“Do you want something to eat?” Twilight asked. Something was off about her voice but Rainbow couldn’t quite recognise it for what it was. “I figured we should eat together tonight, i-if you want to?”
“Yeah, Twi,” Rainbow said, turning to look out the window once more. The rain had slowed to a quiet drizzle, less an all-encompassing noise than a distracting hiss in the background. “I’d like that. I feel like I’ve been spending the last few weeks in here, yet I never spend time with you. Have we just kept missing each other for half a month?”
“I guess so.” The chopping of the knife sped up, louder now and more regular. The soft sound of ripping vegetables, crisp yet still fleshy, was punctuated by dull thuds of metal on wood, the bell-like tinkling of magic a harmony. “I guess so,” Twilight repeated, and Rainbow could hear the scraping sound of the knife blade on the wood and the gentle drop of salad into bowls; it sounded wrong.
Rainbow turned and took a seat at the table as Twilight, smiling with dead eyes, sat opposite, laying a bowl in front of each of them. Rainbow raised a fork in her hoof, stabbing a leaf of lettuce, swirling it around the bowl. She looked up to see Twilight watching her closely, spoon untouched.
“Twi?” Rainbow asked. Not waiting for a response (though the slow blink and gentle tilt of her head were more than response enough), Rainbow carried on. “What can’t I remember?”
Twilight laughed bitterly.
“You really don’t want to know,” she said, shaking her head. “Trust me, Rainbow. You haven’t been yourself lately, not since Scoo—”
“—Rainbow?”
Rainbow Dash blinked and turned her head slowly to one side, her neck stiff and uncomfortable. Twilight was standing next to her, her bruised cheek right next to Rainbow’s eye. “Huh?”
“Oh thank Celestia.” Twilight’s legs were wrapped around her neck, her muzzle pressed against her jaw. She could feel Twilight’s lips moving against her coat, kissing her over and over. A string tugged at her heart, like a thread of cotton tied to a boulder.
She twisted her neck and kissed Twilight’s cheek, just below the bruise in case it still pained her. “What’s the matter, gorgeous?” she whispered, feeling Twilight chuckle against her, shaking.
“Nothing,” Twilight said eventually, pulling back and looking Rainbow square in the eyes. “Nothing is going to be the matter.”
She kissed Rainbow then, their muzzles pressed together in fierce desire, cotton on a boulder. Images flooded Rainbow’s mind, memories of a time long past yet not so long ago, of lazy afternoons spent lying on Twilight’s bed, holding her close. Memories of nights in, reading Daring Do together by the fireside, and of lunches out—the picnic they’d had that first night, all those months ago, on the hill outside Ponyville with the view of the mountain in the distance, the trees on the slopes making way for a clearing on the top. Each memory was another thread, each tugging twice as hard as the last.
The kiss changed. As thread after thread worked their way around Rainbow’s heart, slowly but surely the boulder, that had remained so unmoved for weeks, weighing her heart down, began to jostle, tilting and rocking. It wasn’t much movement, little more than swaying back and forth on the spot, but after a fortnight of stillness any emotion felt more powerful than Rainbow could remember.
Rainbow needed Twilight, because she was remembering. All those afternoons at work that seemed to just fade into nothingness when she had tried to remember the details, all those mornings she woke before dawn yet could never quite remember the sun rising when she went to bed so very late at night, all those evenings she had spent in the library’s kitchen, drinking cider from a mug and hoping the headaches would simply pass… All that time, Twilight had been there. Every night, Twilight tried to keep her sane, to keep her sober, to keep her going. Twilight was the one pony who had tried to help her and she needed Twilight.
Twilight had been the one who tried to calm her down when she started sobbing uncontrollably at night, afraid and embarrassed and hurting. Twilight had been the one who would hide the cider when she wasn’t looking, stopping her from drinking herself into a stupour. Twilight had been the one who stood between her and the cupboard when she realised what had happened, who had stood her ground, never used force or magic against her, even when she’d raised her hoof in the air…
Rainbow pulled back, her lip trembling as she stared in horror at the swelling bruise beneath Twilight’s eye. Her breath caught in her throat, her eyes brimming with tears. Twilight’s face morphed from shocked through confused until finally landing at understanding all in a matter of seconds, and she smiled reassuringly.
She could remember. Each second of the blow played through her mind: the exact feel of her hoof striking against fur and bone, catching at an angle; the sound of the hit, a sickening cracking sound that she heard over and over again, echoing like thunder in her mind; the exact look on Twilight’s face, frightened but bold, scared but brave, surprised but resolute.
Tentatively, Rainbow lifted a hoof and held it, shaking, an inch away from Twilight’s face, right above the bruise. Twilight, still smiling, her wide, knowing eyes disappointed, took hold of Rainbow’s hoof in her own and gently guided it forwards, touching it gently against her cheek.
A sob worked its way up Rainbow’s throat, and she shook.
“Rainbow.” Twilight spoke her name softly, with care and kindness. She didn’t deserve her name to be spoken like that. She’d hurt them both, she didn’t deserve anything. She lowered her hoof from Twilight’s cheek.
“Twi, I—” She stopped and shook her head. “I… I hit you.”
Twilight nodded: judge, jury and executioner.
“A-and y-ou… kissed me?”
Twilight raised a hoof and held Rainbow’s jaw steady. She leaned forward and pressed her lips against Rainbow’s, before lifting her head and kissing Rainbow briefly on the nose. She smiled softly ran a hoof through Rainbow’s mane.
“I realised something,” she explained softly. “You’d been frozen still for what must have been about ten minutes there, Rainbow, and nothing I was doing was snapping you out of it. When you finally moved I was so… so relieved.
“And maybe I shouldn’t have been so worried about you. Maybe I shouldn’t care. Maybe, just maybe, I should want you gone and out of my life forever.” Twilight smiled, kissing Rainbow again. “But the simple fact is, I don’t.”
“Still,” Rainbow said, her head reeling, “I hit you. I’m not supposed to hit you. Hay, I’m supposed to stop other ponies from doing that.”
Twilight chuckled and rested her good cheek against Rainbow’s.
“I don’t know if I’ve forgiven you yet,” she said, her tone a little more serious. “But I do know that I will, in time. Because I know you didn’t mean it, and I know you, Rainbow Dash. I know how much you’re going to beat yourself up over this and I would be a terrible marefriend if I didn’t do everything I could to make you see that you’re not a horrible pony.”
Rainbow raised her eyebrows.
“I never said I thought I was a horrible pony,” she said, just letting the sentence trail.
“You’re thinking it, though,” Twilight added. After a pause, Rainbow inclined her head in affirmation. “You’re not, Rainbow. You’re one of the most loving, caring, loyal, good ponies I know. I lo—I love being with you.” Twilight’s cheeks turned dark, the edges of the bruise blending in with her fur. Rainbow smirked despite herself and gave Twilight her best ‘are you sure that’s what you meant to say?’ look; Twilight blushed deeper, her eyes turning to the floor. "I know we've had our bad days, but these last five months have been—"
Rainbow reached forward and lifted Twilight’s jaw with her hoof, catching her lips with her own. Twilight let out a high-pitched squeak of surprise before melting into the kiss, her throat vibrating with short, uncontrolled moans. Rainbow reached out her wings, tracing the tips of her feathers along Twilight’s sides, making her shiver in delight. Within moments, Rainbow felt the comfortable push of magic on her shoulders and she stepped backwards with it as they rose onto their hind legs, Twilight pinning her to the wooden wall, tracing her hooves down Rainbow’s sides. Their coats rubbing against each other with each small movement, now it was Rainbow who was moaning against Twilight’s lips, her whole self, body, mind and soul, tangled up and pressed against Twilight, headache long forgotten.
The door swung open, creaking a little on its hinges. Two heads turned to look at the sound, their bodies not quite reacting fast enough to pull themselves apart or away from the wall. Spike stood in the doorframe, staring at them with wide eyes.
He blinked.
Rainbow and Twilight held each other, frozen in mutual awkwardness.
“I’ll just… uh… leave you two to it,” Spike said, bolting out of the door as fast as his little legs could carry him. The door swung shut with a squeak and a dull thud.
Slowly, sadly, the two mares disentangled themselves. “Dinner?” Twilight suggested, grimacing nervously. Rainbow sighed and smiled, nodding, before images of her hoof on Twilight’s cheek came crashing into her head. She glanced at the cupboard in question.
“Let me just take care of something first,” she said, trying not to notice how Twilight’s worried eyes followed her across the room. Steeling herself, she reached down and opened the cupboard—the barrel of cider, two-thirds empty, sat in the dark. She tried to lift it, wrapping her hooves around the sides to get a better grip, and was glad (if somewhat disappointed) when the wood in front of her face began to glow pink and lift into the air. Rainbow guided the barrel over to the sink, hanging over just a fraction.
Rainbow lifted her hoof up to the barrel’s tap, pausing a moment. Something didn’t feel right.
“May I?” she asked, turning to Twilight. The unicorn sighed.
“It’s a shame,” she said. “It’ll be months until the next batch, and that’s my last barrel.” Twilight walked over to Rainbow Dash’s side and leant her head gently on the pegasus’ neck, kissing her coat lightly, just the once. “Do what you need to.”
Rainbow twisted her hoof, turning the tap until it was wide open. She watched the amber liquid pour from the barrel, a swirling vortex that drained down the sink. As the liquid flowed out a part of her felt almost lighter, as if she were draining the cider from her heart.
Eventually the last drop fell from the edge of the tap, splashing in the thin, static puddle below. Rainbow ran the water for a second, watching as it drained with it the very last of the cider, and she smiled. She tilted her muzzle down and kissed the very top of Twilight’s head, her lips lingering in the strands of violet mane.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her voice almost lost in the weaving fibers.
“I know,” Twilight replied. And for that one moment, as she stood and held Twilight close, her headache gone and her apology given, Rainbow felt the boulder rise.