Cloudsdale was usually a deceptively calm and quiet place. Sounds often seemed to just disappear into the void of the sky as there was no ground to reflect it and the buildings were spread out on the clouds.
Usually, but this was not one of those time as the passion of two ponies made their argument loud enough to be heard in good quality at a hundred meters.
Rainbow Dash raised a finger as she reached the edge of the cloud and pointed at Swift Sketch "Oh come on! Just admit that you're wrong already! There's no way you'd be right! Did you even read it?"
Swift shook her head, her emotions just as strong as those of her friend "I'm not! You're just upset that The Fifth Crystal wasn't as good as you thought it'd be, so you are trying to pretend that it is!"
To emphasis her point Swift poked Dash in the chest with a finger "So just admit that The Impenetrable Shield had much better story and characters"
Dash returned the poke in the chest, just below the throat, on the hard bone beneath the skin and thin shirt "It is not! Tell me one thing, ONE THING, that's better in the Impenetrable Shield than the Fifth Crystal!"
Swift grinned at the question "The shield actually existed!"
Seeing the face of the blue one, Swift continued with the verbal slaughter she'd planned ever since they got in on the topic "The Sisterhood was way more dangerous AND Daring Doo was the one that fixed it and not some random griffon AND Ahuizotl showed up"
Swift gave Dash a firm poke in the chest for each of her point, stopping only long enough for Dash to catch her bearings before the artist delivered the killing blow "And the Crystal had the Batlings!"
Another moment of silence passed as Dash reeled from the shock, grasping for an argument to beat back Swift's words. None came to her, so she went for the next best that came to her mind "W-well... YOU'RE A NERD!"
She gave Swift a shove at those words. The artist didn't mind, for she saw her victory as Dash could not find anything to say back besides the good-natured insults the two often threw at each other.
Swift moved one foot back to regain her balance - but found nothing to put it on. The grin on her face froze as her foot passed where she had expected the cloud to be. A decimeter further down her toes scrapped against a hint of cloud but it was too little, too late. She fell.
But even before her toes scratched the cloud her grin was gone and a sudden look of fear on her features. She was suddenly too young to fly, the other foals pushing her off the cloud without caring.
She fell backwards with no chance of saving herself, not that a foal her age could fly.
Dash caught a glimpse of Swift's face as she fell backwards, caught a glimpse of the fear. But for a second she thought nothing of it. She hadn't meant to push Swift over the edge, but what did it matter? She was a pegasus, she'd be back up and complain how that wasn't fair in moments.
As a third second passed without the artist showing up Dash stepped the two steps needed and looked over the edge. Below she could see Swift falling straight down. It wasn't a dive, it wasn't controlled, and something of Swift's body language, even at the distance, told Dash that it wasn't a trick either. Swift was falling helplessly.
Dash jumped without another moment's thought. She looked as if she was diving into a pool of water as her hands moved in front of her head, her wings flat against her back as she tried to minimize her drag for the first few meters.
Then she beat her wings in small movements as she tried to get even more speed.
Swift was tumbling, the city falling away above her. Beneath her the ground came racing up for her.
She tried to beat her wings but it did nothing. She was too young to fly, too small. She didn't have the wings, didn't have the training, didn't have a chance.
The thought that she was older than that flashed past her mind. She could fly, she just needed her wings to stretch out. She just needed...
She saw the city shrink above her and any thoughts but fear disappeared from her mind as the memories returned in force.. She was five, and she was going to die.
There wasn't even enough air in her lungs to scream for help.
To catch up to Swift was not a hard task for Rainbow Dash. The artist was tumbling and spinning helplessly while Dash was in perfect control. She could have caught up without ever using her wings.
Even before she reached the athlete could see that Swift was in complete panic and, by the looks of it, stiff as the dead.
Her first instinct was just to catch Swift in her arms and stop her fall, but she knew better than that. Swift might grab on her over her wings by mistake - a common result by panic. Despite what Twilight might believe Dash -had- listened to the flight safety courses. She just usually didn't care about it.
When she caught up Dash spread her wings slightly to slow down as she waited for the right moment, a wait that lasted a whole second.
Then she pushed forward and caught Swift from behind. She wrapped her arms tightly around the terrified pegasus' midriff and then spreads her wings as wide as she dared.
It was a good distance left when Dash made them both stop in the middle of the air. Far enough down that she could have dropped and caught Swift again with ease.
She cast a brief glance up towards the sky city and then towards the ground to see which would be quickest to reach. Finding the ground both closer and easier to reach she slows the beat of her wings as the two descended to solid ground.
Swift touched it first, but gave no reaction to it. It was as if she wasn't even aware that it was there - and perhaps she wasn't.
When Dash put her feet on the ground she didn't let go of the woman in her arms, for she could still hear the shallow, terrified breath and shaking body. That and she had dealt with Fluttershy enough times to know this was not enough to make things okay.
Instead Rainbow carefully sat down on the ground and pulled Swift into her lap. As she spoke her voice was surprisingly soft and gentle "Take a deep breath. You're safe, alright?"
Dash reached up and ran a gentle set of fingers down Swift's cheek in a hopefully comforting gesture as she begun to wait for her loved one to regain her senses, whispering words of comfort all the while.
Slowly Swift calmed down with the ground beneath her and the gentle attention from the other pegasus.
Despite what many might have expected, particularly after seeing a few of her reactions to Fluttershy, Dash did not let go of Swift while she calmed down.
Dash knew how hard it could be to get back to your senses after a panic-attack. She had seen Fluttershy before... and maybe had one or two herself. Not that anyone would get to know of those. Ever.
And her patience was rewarded as the quick breath of Swift returned to normal. The violently shaking body calming down to a shiver and then to nothing.
Once Dash thought that it sounded like Swift would at least know her own name the athlete said something besides the quiet comforting. "You okay there?"
A few moments of silence followed, moments which made Dash think that perhaps she had spoken too soon. Then Swift opened her mouth "I'm fine... yeah I'm fine"
The artist seemed to draw strength from her own words, becoming even more steady as her lips moved.
Dash smiled and reached up, starting to brush her fingers through Swift's hair - and trying not to pull anything out as she inadvertently got stuck in one of the many tangles.
For a moment she struggled with this supposedly gentle gesture before she managed to free her fingers, from there just gently patting the mane of hair rather than combing through it with her fingers.
With the other arm she gave Swift a comforting squeeze, to let her know she was not alone "So what happened there? You just kinda... dropped"
She almost said 'panicked' but something inside her with a voice suspiciously like Rarity's told her not to. Something about being sensitive.
Swift took a moment to answer, still trying to wave the last mists of dread and panic from her mind. Once more a Wonderbolt had saved her life - and Dash was a wonderbolt, dammit, whether or not she wore the uniform yet.
Finally she answered with a lie and a grin as real as Rarity's eyelashes "Just checking if you're as fast as you think"
She gave her savior a playful jab with her elbow, though she could tell that Dash wasn't buying it at all.
Dash confirmed that suspicion as she spoke "Yeah, right, and I always dress in style"
She gave Swift another squeeze with her arm, her voice urging the artist to tell her secret "What happened?"
For a brief moment Swift was close to telling, but then the embarrassment of it set in and she shook her head "Like I said, just checked if you're fast enough"
When the rainbow woman opened her mouth to protest Swift shook her head "I don't want to talk about it, alright?"
For a second it seemed as if Dash was going to insist. Then, perhaps recognizing something in Swift's behavior, she nodded. Even so her voice and body told that she was still ever so curious "Right, just testing me"
The two looked at each other. Then Swift leaned in and gave a small kiss "Look, maybe I'll tell later, but not here and now, okay? Just be there for me?"
Dash shifted as if impatient. It was easy to tell that she wanted to know but was holding herself back from asking. Instead she moved her hand from the artist's messy hair and gave her a large hug. "Yeah. I'm here for you. Loyalty and all that"
Swift almost commented on if that was all, but then Dash continued with a bit of a grin "Besides, without me you'd just like the poor Daring-books"
It took Swift a moment to realize what Dash was talking about, the earlier conversation had been flushed from her mind by the fall.
Then, when she remembered, she chuckles and gives the victory to Rainbow "Yeah, you're right"
She made herself more comfortable, sliding down just enough to let her place her cheek against the top of Dash's chest and her ear just beneath the shoulder. It was a bit hard from muscles and bones, but she could hear Dash's breathing and heartbeat.
Just how long they stayed like that she wasn't sure of.
That evening, in the comfort of Dash's house and with her stomach filled with takeout pizza, Swift relented to the aura of curiosity. She told of what had happened so many years ago.
Dash listened but seemed to be completely stumped for how to give a good response. So instead she challenged Swift to a gaming-session to change the topic.
And that was the end of the topic, at least for the time being.
Five weeks later, at one of the Wonderbolt's performances.
Dash's right foot landed on the lowest step of the marble-white stairs. The left landed two steps higher up as she had come in high speed. So high was the speed that she was forced to take two steps up the stairs before she could properly stop, not that she seemed to mind.
Instead she turned out and cupped her hands around her mouth to shout back at Swift - more for show than any need as Swift landed just three seconds later "Come on slowpoke! We're gonna miss it if you don't hurry up!"
Swift landed more gracefully, or at least with less speed, and came to a stop on the third step from the bottom.
Exactly why the Wonderbolt Stadium had a set of stairs before the doors rather than, say, a flat landing platform was a mystery to the artist. The stairs ended at empty air, leading into the void.
She had heard the idea was to force people to fly more slow so they could land - a futile effort if the two of them was anything to go by.
Swift moved to begin to walk up the stairs, knowing there was going to be a most wonderful sight to behold as she did - Dash was going first.
But before she had time to do more than put her foot on the next step two young pegasi ran the other way to dive of the edge. The closest one, a woman of maybe fifteen, bumped into Swift with enough force to push her backwards.
For a horrific second she fell as there was no steps she could catch in time.
But she had barely had time to register that she was falling then she stopped. A hand pressed itself against her upper back, just above where wing met body.
It was Rainbow Dash. Somehow she had managed to react even faster than Swift had, moving from above her on the stairs to flying behind her in the blink of an eye.
With a firm shove Dash got her back on the stairs and away from the fall. Behind her she heard the blue-winged pegasus shout down towards the diving younglings "WATCH WHERE YOU'RE GOING NEXT TIME FOR BUCK'S SAKE!"
She stumbled a step forward before she once more caught her balance. She turned around, just in time for the colorful one to put her feet on the lowest step once more.
With a grin the athlete patted Swift on the shoulder before continuing up the steps "Come on, let's get going! You can admire me for being awesome later"
Swift blinked and swallowed back the taste of fear that had come to the back of her mouth just moments later. Then she smiled and followed Dash. "I didn't need your help, you know"
Dash glanced back over her shoulder, knowing the truth but playing along "I know"