The Next Day
7:55 pm. You stand outside the mares' dormitory, waiting early for Rainbow Dash.
Wow, I'm nervous.
I mean, we hang out all the time now, but this is different. Is this a date? It feels like a date. I'll just have to play it cool and go with it.
While tangled in thought, you notice Rosewing approaching from a distant academy building. The remainder of the Heart's Desire is still clipped to her mane. As she gets closer, she hangs her head low, avoiding your gaze. Is she afraid of me?
You toss a greeting when she passes by. “Hello, Rosewing.”
“H-Hi,” she meekly says, stopping before you.
After an awkward moment of silence, she looks away, toward the other end of campus. “The rumors say you and Rainbow Dash are going out tonight.”
You stiffly nod. “Who told you that?”
She slowly cranes her neck toward you, a hint of a smile across her face. Through slit-like eyes, she calmly whispers to you. “I hope you two have a good time together.”
You don't respond as Rosewing canters into the dormitory. Never mind her. Just Rosewing being Rosewing. You shake your head, purging her from your mind.
Ten minutes pass with no sign of Rainbow Dash. You begin to pace in the air, your wings flapping incessantly. As you move back and forth, your eyes wander to the dorm windows. Rainbow Dash's room is dark. You fly up to her window but sense no activity. Where could she be? She didn't forget, did she?
You look across the building wall and see Rosewing's lit window. Curtains block your view, but muffled voices can be heard. You realize there are two mares talking to each other, but despite moving closer, you can't make out any words. As you carefully listen, you hear crying, followed by more muffled sounds.
What the hay is going on in there? The room falls silent after a minute. Boredom renewed, you fly back to the dorm entrance. Only a few seconds later, Rainbow Dash emerges from the building.
“Hey, Rainbow Dash!”
“Sorry I'm late. You, uh, ready to go?”
“Sure. Where are we going, anyway?”
Rainbow Dash jumps into the air, performing a quick aerial loop. “We're going to see the Wonderbolts!”
“Whoa, really? You got tickets to their night show?”
She scratches her neck. “Well, not exactly. I'll explain when we get there. Now, are we gonna talk or fly?”
You chuckle. “Let's fly, then!”
You follow her through the air as she surges into the heart of Cloudsdale. As you travel, she slows her pace for just a moment, bringing herself in line with you. “So, you like the Wonderbolts too?” she asks.
“What pegasus doesn't? Based on your locker, though, I think you've got everypony else beat.”
“Hah, yeah! You should see my room.”
It doesn't take long for the two of you to approach the grand stadium at the center of the city. Suddenly, Rainbow Dash calls out to you. “Hey, hey, not so low!” She hooks a foreleg around you and drags you skyward, far above the stadium. “We don't have tickets, remember?”
She lands on a small, distant cloud. There's not much room—barely enough for two pegasi. You take a seat next to her. “Now I see what you had in mind,” you say.
“Yeah, sorry,” she says with a sheepish grin. “At least we won't get caught watching from up here.”
“Don't worry about it. I think it's pretty cool. Our own special seats.” You give her a playful poke.
She giggles as she scans the crowd below her. “Wow, the stands are nearly full down there.” She strains her eyes for a moment. “I hope the Wonderbolts don't fly this high for any of their tricks. They might spot us.”
“What are they gonna do, stop the show and make us perform?”
“Whoa, yeah!” Rainbow Dash's eyes light up. “Maybe we should call out and have them pull us into the act!”
“No, no, I was just kidding!”
Several minutes pass filled with cheery banter. During a lull in the conversation, you notice Rainbow Dash staring off into the distance.
“You all right?” you ask.
“Wha—yeah. Sorry. I was just thinking about Rosewing.”
“Oh. Don't worry about her. She's not worth thinking about.”
Rainbow Dash doesn't say anything.
“You're such a great pony. How did you even get involved with a loser like Rosewing?”
She continues to look silently toward the horizon. After a moment, she sighs softly.
“Look, you don't have to tell me,” you continue. “I shouldn't have asked—”
“No, it's okay.” She pauses. “This will be a long story. Are you sure you want to hear it?”
“Yeah,” you softly reply. “I do.”
“It's . . . it's really hard to talk about. I haven't told anypony about this.” She touches your cheek lightly. “But I trust you.”
A sharp night wind streaks by, tossing her white mane; she shivers. You slide closer and extend your wing, wrapping it around her. “I trust you too. I'm ready.”
She smiles, but it fades quickly. “Will you still like me? Even after what I tell you?”
“Rainbow Dash, I know you. No matter what, you are you. I promise.”
“Okay.” She takes a deep breath, then looks directly into your eyes as she tells her story. “Last year, I used to be best friends with Fluttershy. We hung out a lot. Halfway through the year, other ponies started picking on her. Rosewing was the one who caused most of the trouble.”
“I remember.”
“Well, I noticed that the worst always happened when I was with her. They made Fluttershy cry all the time, and no matter what I did, they wouldn't stop. They even started picking on me. Eventually, I got fed up with it. I went over to Rosewing's room and told her I wasn't going to put up with it any more.”
“What did you do?”
“We were alone, and I really let her have it. I yelled at her. I told her she can't treat Fluttershy like that. I must've gone on for a couple minutes straight. In the end, she broke down crying.”
“Rosewing did?”
“Yeah. She just gave in and told me everything. It was jealousy. She was jealous! She wanted to be my friend instead of Fluttershy. I didn't believe it at first, but she kept talking about my wings.”
“Your wings.”
Rainbow Dash slightly frowns. “She loved my wings. She told me that she loved to see me fly around campus. That I was the coolest, fastest pegasus around. That's why she liked me. I didn't get it until she showed me her wings. On the outside, they looked fine, but when she spread them out for me, there was something wrong. They just . . .” she chokes on her words, swallowing hard. “They just didn't look right.”
You withdraw your wing. “What do you mean?”
A tear forms under her eye. “Sh-She told me she was born with some kind of defect. I can't remember the word for it. Her wing muscles are very weak. She can fly slowly, but even then, not for too long. When she told me all this, the first thing I wanted to do was push it back into her face. Tell everypony else. Make her the target instead of Fluttershy, for all the mean things she did to us.”
“But you didn't.”
“I couldn't tell anypony. The way she told me about her wings, the way she told me how she felt about me, I just couldn't. She had never told anypony else about them. In a way, I was sorry for her.”
“I guess that's why you joined her and . . . did what you did.”
Rainbow Dash closes her eyes. “I'm sorry. Even when I knew we were hurting other ponies . . . even when I knew I was hurting Fluttershy . . . I just swallowed all my feelings because of Rosewing's secret. Because she liked me. I can't forgive myself.”
You softly place your foreleg around her, pulling her closer. As she looks into your eyes, you give her a warm smile.
Sniffling, she smiles back.
A loud voice echoes from the stadium below. “Mares and gentlecolts, are you ready for some action?”
“Hey,” says Rainbow Dash, “they're about to start.”
You both lean forward to get a better look. She wraps a foreleg around your shoulder as the Wonderbolts burst onto the field.
----------
“. . . and the way they lit up the sky. So awesome!” Rainbow Dash can barely contain herself as you arrive back at her dorm. “They even did that Mistring thing. All of 'em at once!”
“Mistwright!”
“Yeah, yeah!” She waves a hoof. “Can you believe it?”
“It really was cool. I don't think they did it as well as you did, though.”
Rainbow Dash laughs. “You're just saying that 'cause you couldn't get a good look from where we were sitting.”
“You mean outer space?”
“Aw, come on!” She gives you a lighthearted shove. “Wow, this night went by pretty quickly.”
“Yeah, it did. I'm really glad we went out tonight.”
Rainbow Dash slowly hovers closer. “Me too.” She places her forelegs on your shoulder, leaning on you. She stares at you for a few seconds. You reach forward and meet her in a kiss, her eyes closing as you touch lips.
As she pulls back, she opens her eyes with a smile. “Good night,” she whispers, as she slowly flies into her dorm.
I couldn't have asked for a better night.
In the distance, you hear a window snap shut.
----------
Later That Night
A tapping at your window rouses you from sleep. You cover your head with your pillow, but the noise continues. “No night flying tonight!” you groggily yell. “I can't even think straight.”
A voice from outside. “It's Fluttershy.”
Fluttershy? What is she doing here?
And why do I keep getting visitors past midnight?
You slide your window open, and Fluttershy promptly enters. “Is everything okay?” you say. “I figured you'd never want to speak to me again.”
She looks around your room silently.
“I'm glad your wings are healed,” you continue. “I was worried.”
She takes a step toward you, still quiet.
“What's wrong? Did something—”
Fluttershy lunges forward, knocking you down to the ground. She straddles your body, pinning your wings down with her hooves. Unsure of how to react, you lay stunned underneath her.
With a fierce grin, she leans down and begins kissing your body from bottom to top. She whispers to you between kisses. “You're the only . . . pony that . . . I want . . . don't you understand . . . I want you . . . to be all mine.” She finishes with a deep kiss to the mouth, moaning as she releases you.
Her mouth has a strangely sweet taste.
“F-Fluttershy!”
She holds her head high, her wings flared out to their length. “I'm not a doormat anymore. If there's something I want, I take it.” She places a hoof on your chest, an odd gleam in her eye. “And I want you.”
You stare up at her, mouth agape.
“This is what you like, right? You like mares kissing you, right?”
I can't believe this is Fluttershy. The way her eyes look at me . . . something is wrong. Seriously wrong.
You gently shake your head. “Rosewing. What did Rosewing do?”
“She told me all about you. What you want. And I'm giving it to you.”
“No. I mean, what did she do to you?”
She leans back down, her hoof painfully digging into your chest. “She gave me what I've always wanted. My greatest desire. Raw, unbridled confidence.”
Desire.
You slither out from underneath her. “You're not Fluttershy. I don't believe it.”
She laughs. “Of course I am! But enough about me. I want you.”
You back up against the wall as she approaches you. “S-Stop . . .”
As she closes in, her voice takes on a slow, dulcet tone. “You know, I figured it all out. It was my fault I lost you to those other mares. I didn't try hard enough.”
“It's not like that,” you say, a lump forming in your throat.
“Now I know exactly how I'm going to get you.” She looks at your bare flank, licking her lips. “Let's get a mark on that blank flank tonight.”
You grab hold of her shoulders and shake her. “Snap out of it, Fluttershy! Pull yourself together!”
For a moment, her eyes glaze over, but she shakes her head and develops a fanged grin. “Tough love. I'm in,” she growls.
For Pete's sake.
You lean right into her face, your eyes locked with hers. “Fluttershy!” you say sternly. “What do I have to do to get through to you? What do I have to do to get my Fluttershy back?”
Her smile fades. She blinks a few times. “Your Fluttershy?”
“Please! I've missed you so much. I just want things to go back to normal. I just want my gentle, kind Fluttershy back.”
The wild expression on her face slowly fades. She rolls her tongue around in her mouth, smacking her lips. “How did . . . where . . .”
Has it worn off? You close your eyes for a moment, sighing. “Are you all right?”
“Where is Rosewing?” She looks around. “Where am I?”
“You don't remember?”
Wide-eyed, she begins to tremble. “Please tell me wh-what I've been doing.”