//------------------------------//
// 4: Above It All 
// Story: Seeing Sanguine 
// by Winged Cat 
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Height.  Some ponies were afraid of it, for good reason.  A long fall, unbuffered by wings or magic or anything, could be painful or fatal - or both, if you wound up bleeding out where none would find you in time.  Even some young pegasi were afraid, before they gained enough confidence in their flight to know they were safe.

But Twilight knew it was just the opposite for Rainbow Dash.  Ever since their first meeting, she would always see the master of the sky swooping about here and there.  And since she got wings of her own - and flying lessons from Rainbow Dash - she had quickly come to appreciate why.  Far from the ground, few things could bother a pony.  Earthquakes, floods, stampedes, most traveling salesponies - those were all confined to the realm of dirt and stone and grass.  Up where the only thing to stand on was clouds, there was safety.

So it was that Twilight found Rainbow Dash curled up on the only cloud in the sky, just big enough to accommodate the weatherpony.  From far up here, the ponies on the ground started to look like ants, and even the sizable tree that housed her library and home could have been mistaken for a dollhouse.  She hovered up behind her target and greeted, "Hey."

"'Sup, Twi?"  Rainbow Dash made a show of looking for something.

Twilight had been waiting days for an excuse to use this line.  "Us."

"..."  Rainbow Dash may have been facing away, but Twilight thought she could hear the pegasus's eyes roll.

Twilight smiled.  "Well I thought it was funny."

"Heh," Rainbow Dash chuckled.  "Yeah, I guess that wasn't too lame."

Twilight rested her forehooves on the cloud.  "Sooo, could you come back to Fluttershy's with me?"

"Can't."  Rainbow Dash kept looking away.  "It's supposed to be sunny this afternoon.  Somepony's got to keep an eye out."

"You had the morning shift."  Twilight tried looking over Rainbow Dash's shoulder.  Something seemed off.

Possibly sensing it, Rainbow Dash rolled away a little bit, keeping her face out of Twilight's view.  "Yeah, well, a certain Ms. Hooves has the afternoon.  You know what she gets up to."

"Rainbow Dash.  The sky is clear.  I doubt she is capable of breaking it."  Twilight put a hoof on her friend's shoulder.  "Now come-"

Rainbow Dash convulsed at the touch, shrinking away from contact.

"...along?"  Twilight blinked.

Rainbow Dash took two rapid breaths and shivered.  "I..."  Two deep breaths.  "I can't, Twilight.  I just can't."

"Err..."  Twilight tried to figure out what the pegasus could be scared of - oh.  Of course.  "Sanguine's not there any more.  She went to Rarity's.  It's safe."

"Noitisn't."  Twilight had never heard Rainbow Dash squeak before.

The alicorn dropped down silently, then hovered up on the far side.  She caught a glimpse of Rainbow Dash's pupils dilated to tiny specks inside wide eyes, hooves curled up in a fetal position, before the pegasus flopped over, turning her back on Twilight.

"P-please...just, go," Rainbow Dash begged.

Twilight had no intention of abandoning her friend.  "What are you so afraid of?"

"Me?  I-i-i'm n-not af-f-fra-a-ai," Rainbow Dash stammered.  "Okayit'sFluttershy!"

Twilight blinked.

"Those...eyes...the stare...sh-she w-wa-as..."  Rainbow Dash put her forehooves over her head and trembled.

Twilight nodded.  "Yes.  She wants to apologize to you for that."

No response.

"...I guess it really was too much."  Twilight began considering ways to comfort.

Rainbow Dash curled up.  "Just go.  Please, just go."

An idea occurred to Twilight.  "Not gonna happen!  Do you trust me?"

"Huh?"  Rainbow Dash almost seemed to be starting to cower from Twilight.

Which Twilight would have none of.  "I said, do you trust me?"

"W-well, yeah?"  Rainbow Dash had not quite lost every speck of hope in her heart, but even the blank, open sky was beginning to look terrifying.

"Good."  Twilight pulled and tugged at the cloud, stretching it until there was room for two, then set herself beside her friend and extended one wing over her.

Only the lack of any particular direction to flee in stopped Rainbow Dash from attempting to fly away.  "I-if anypony saw us..."

"Nopony will, Rainbow Dash," Twilight assured.  "We're up too high, and nopony else is flying up here.  I'll keep a watch.  Just let me protect you, for once."

Rainbow Dash thought about it, then backed further into Twilight's embrace, still shaking just enough that the alicorn could feel it.

"Good, that's a good start."  Twilight winghugged just a touch tighter, keeping her voice gentle.  "I've got you, and I won't let anypony hurt you."

A minute passed, then the pegasus spoke up.  "S-so, uh, can we talk about something else?  Like, what's with Sanguine?  I kinda, err, well..."

"Wasn't conscious for that?"  Twilight remembered hearing some noble in Celestia's court use that line to excuse his absence from an event.

"Yeah, let's go with that."  Rainbow Dash, on the contrary, thought Twilight had come up with those words just for her.

Glad to have a reason to keep Rainbow Dash talking, Twilight explained, "Her cutie mark is one of the worst possible.  It's about killing."

Rainbow Dash waited for the rest.  When no more came, she prompted, "And?"

"What do you mean, 'and'?  She's a murderer.  That's her destiny."  As her voice reiterated her previous statement, Twilight's mind caught up to what Rainbow Dash might not be seeing.  "She killed a couple dozen bandits to earn her mark.  That's what Celestia's punishing her for."

Unfortunately the explanation bounced off Rainbow Dash.  "Those bandits were up to no good?"

Twilight decided to reel the line of conversation out, to see where it went.  "They'd taken her and her friends hostage and were threatening them."

"W-well there you go," Rainbow Dash concluded.  "Self-defense.  That's not so bad."

The line having snapped, Twilight switched to another.  "The point IS, she's only good at killing."  She sighed.  "Sometimes when I read about other cultures, I'm surprised Celestia's dedication to nonviolence when possible works so well, but then I just have to look out my window to see it really does."

"I lived in the griffon lands for a few years.  I've seen violence, Twilight.  It..."  Rainbow Dash caught herself before she wound up giving a blanket endorsement.  "...can work.  It can even be awesome, if you do it for the right reasons."  Memories of the wrong reasons played themselves out for the pegasus, but she dismissed them as irrelevant.

"Yeah, well.  It is not the pony way.  'To buck a neighbor is to buck your neighborhood.  The flank you hit becomes your own,'" Twilight quoted.

"I went to school, Twilight.  I even paid attention, sometimes."  Rainbow Dash knew the book Twilight was quoting, but refrained from admitting it lest she appear too academic.  She had an image to maintain.

"She never lived in the griffon lands," Twilight explained.  "Our way is the only way she's ever known.  Every moral teaching we have says that what she is and does is just wrong.  And that's what everypony around her feels too."

"...okay, that's fair.  I can get why she's so down on herself."  Rainbow Dash had stopped shivering by now, Twilight noted to herself with satisfaction.  "And I guess that explains why she was so evasive when I first saw her.  You say she went to Rarity's?  Did Rarity offer one of those 'makeovers of the soul'?"

"You say that like she's offered you one."  Twilight had witnessed more than one such offer, but she was pretty sure Rainbow Dash did not know she knew.

"She has.  Sometimes..."  Rainbow Dash sighed, carefully picking her words.  "Sometimes when I get myself in trouble, when I'm being maaaybe just a bit too awesome for my own good, she wants to help.  I've...thought about it, but I've turned her down.  So far."

Twilight blinked.  "I've never heard you speak this way."

"Heh.  I guess this is what they call being drunk on fear?"  Or just being honest, Rainbow Dash said to herself.  Some days she was tired of having to keep up appearances just as much as Rarity.

Twilight seized on the segue.  "Speaking of, how're you feeling?  Think you can go see Flut-"

Rainbow Dash tensed up.

"...okay, not yet."  Twilight pouted.

The pegasus relaxed.  "Not...yet.  Eventually."  One breath in, one breath out.  "You think...maybe I should apologize to her?"

"For what?"

"For being this scared of her.  I'm not afraid of anything...but..."  Actually there were a lot of things that scared Rainbow Dash.  Losing her friends through her own poor judgment topped the list.  But she could not - dared not - speak of such fears.  Fluttershy's Stare, though, she could admit to.

"I'm sure it'll be fine," Twilight reassured.

"I hope so.  She's been my friend since forever.  Like, what'd you call him..."  Rainbow Dash hunted for the words.  "...your BBBFF?"

"That's my older brother.  I've known him literally all my life."  Twilight blinked.  "You've known her that long?"

"Close enough."  Rainbow Dash sometimes had trouble remembering their first meeting, it had been so long ago and they had been so young.  She had read something once that memory wired itself as foals grew up, and that was why no pony could remember being born - despite a few claims to the contrary.  "You can't imagine possibly losing a friend like that."  The times she had almost lost Fluttershy, on the other hand, were quite clear, and they now played themselves for the cyan pegasus unbidden.

Painful images of changeling-induced misery, that had caused her brother to renounce her temporarily, lanced through Twilight's own awareness.  She was grateful her friend could not see her face just then.  "I can, Rainbow Dash.  I really can."

Neither pony felt like speaking again for a while.