"Come on, Tank! Let's get outta here!"
And just like that, both Rainbow Dash and Tank departed in a huff, leaving five very confused ponies behind, looking at one another for answers.
"Does anypony wanna speculate on wha' jus' happened?" Applejack asked, being the first to break the resulting silence.
"I must say, I know Rainbow Dash can be a bit... abrasive at times, but I can't ever recall seeing her as this much of a ruffian before," Rarity replied, still disturbed by the amount of fury she'd witnessed their friend display. It was downright chilling to be on the receiving end of; even more so than the coming winter breeze that was blowing against her back.
"I know," Twilight agreed and nodded her head. Quickly she turned to face Fluttershy. "Fluttershy, you're Rainbow Dash's oldest friend. Do you have any idea what's got her so upset about Tank hibernating for the winter?"
"Yeah. Because unless Ah'm rememberin' wrong, RD got 'im before last year's winter. She wasn' flippin' out then, so wha' set 'er off this time around?" Applejack asked as she reached up to scratch her head. Something about this was seriously wrong.
"Um... well to be honest... I don't really know. When I told her that tortoises hibernate in winter, she didn't believe me; not even when I pointed it out in my animal care book. She said that the section on tortoises was a joke, and that the book was wrong. She was... really hostile even then, too..." Fluttershy explained, mumbling the last part, as she really didn't want to be badmouthing her friend.
"Hmm...." Twilight mumbled as she reached up to rub her chin with her hoof.
"Hmm, what? What's on your mind, Twilight? Do you know what's got Rainbow Dash so upset?" Pinkie asked, hoping she could make sense of everything, and explain what had gotten Rainbow Dash angry and scary at the same time.
"Not yet, Pinkie, I think we need more information to go on, before coming to any conclusions," Twilight explained as she set her hoof back down on the ground. "And to do that, we need to find Rainbow Dash."
"But what about helpin' get ready fer winter? There ain' exactly that much time left before the first snow starts fallin'," Applejack pointed out. Not that she wasn't worried about Rainbow Dash, but she really didn't want to be derelict in her duties to Ponyville.
"I think right now, darling, our friendship with Rainbow Dash is more important than tending to the last minute details of the seasonal shift. Something is obviously upsetting her very deeply, and we would be positively remiss if we didn't try and help her out," Rarity pointed out.
"I think Rarity's right on this one, Applejack. Winter's important to Ponyville, but Rainbow Dash is important to us," Twilight pointed out as she turned around to face the others better.
"Ah never said otherwise," Applejack replied defensively. "Ah'm just sayin' we can't always drop what we're doin' an' go runnin', friend er no friend," she explained. And after a brief pause, she continued. "That said, if we get a couple o' ponies ta trade shifts with us, Ah'll be on RD's tail like parasprites on food."
Twilight didn't exactly know what to say. But she'd worry about that later on. For the time being she'd simply nod, and go along with it, in the name of expediting things.
"Pinkie, do you think that you could-"
"Volunteers on the way!" Pinkie quickly yelled and disappeared in a flash and a puff of smoke, never giving Twilight the chance to finish her sentence.
"Earth pony sense of responsibility, darling?" Rarity asked as she looked at Applejack.
"Eyup," Applejack replied and nodded.
"Commendable, darling. Poorly timed, but commendable nonetheless," Rarity replied.
Finding a few ponies willing to take over their shift of getting ready for winter was easy. But as it turned out, tracking down Rainbow Dash was an entirely different endeavor.
The most logical place she could've gone was her cloud house high above. But with only Twilight and Fluttershy being able to reach her, short of Pinkie going through all the trouble of inflating her hot air balloon for all of them, there was really no way for them all to go and see her, and learn more about what was going on.
Such facts necessitated waiting for Rainbow Dash to make herself public once again, and observing her from a distance to gather more information.
It was a matter that was far easier said than done, as they quickly learned.
The next thing to be quickly learned, was that none of them -not even Pinkie- had enough stamina to keep up with the frantic pegasus as she flew about, carrying out what looked like a single-pony attempt to halt the progression of the seasons. And all the while dragging Tank along with her.
Busting snow clouds, hiding snow clouds, diverting birds, trying to put leaves back on trees... whatever was going on, and the motivation behind it, it was definitely a mystery in need of investigating.
"Mah legs are killin' me," Applejack mumbled, doing her best to massage one of her hind legs as she sat on the ground. They'd been chasing after Rainbow Dash all over Ponyville, watching her engage in evermore increasing featherbrained ideas, listening whenever she'd mumble to herself, or address Tank directly, working to gather intelligence, and form a theory about what was going on. And now that they had a quiet moment to actually sit down, and catch their breath, she was feeling the burn of the exertion.
"Please tell me we've got enough information ta be goin' on," she said as she looked at the others, who didn't appear to be any better off than she did. It'd been some time since they'd all gone on an adventure that involved this much running around; maybe that lack of activity was to blame for them being in their current condition.
"I think so," Twilight replied from where she sat. She paused to stretch until a satisfying pop sounded from her back, earning a sigh of contentment, before she turned back to the notebook held aloft in her magic, going over the notes they'd taken. "The only problem is... what information we have doesn't really make that much sense," she explained as she shook her head. This couldn't be right, could it?
Pinkie groaned in response. "You mean we went running around watching Rainbow Dash for nothing!?" she asked.
"No, nothing like that, Pinkie, it's just that... well this would only make sense if Rainbow Dash got Tank this year, and this was the first winter she had with him," Twilight explained. Or at least she tried to explain, as she was having trouble making proper sense of it all. "Tank has already gone through hibernation once with Rainbow Dash. She should know all about it by now. But... she's acting like this has never happened before..."
"Seriously?" Applejack asked, surprised by that. She'd known that Rainbow Dash wasn't the brightest of ponies. But to forget something like that was just too much to be believable. "Ya think all that flyin' an' crashin' head first mighta given er amnesia er somethin'?"
"It doesn't work that way, Applejack," Twilight replied and shook her head. It was a common misconception that a bump on the head could cause retrograde amnesia, concocted purely for convenient storylines. And even if it wasn't, it wouldn't have erased Rainbow Dash's knowledge of only Tank hibernating; it just didn't work like that. "If Rainbow Dash had amnesia, she would've forgotten large swaths of information. But we haven't seen anything to indicate that. It has to be something else..."
"Um..." Fluttershy spoke up slowly, bringing everypony's attention to her so quickly that she nearly shrunk back in surprise. "I didn't think too much of it before at first, but... Rainbow Dash did come to me last year when Tank was getting ready to hibernate, just as confused then as she was this time around. At first I thought she just forgot, because..." she paused, again, not wanting to bad mouth her friend. "But this time around, she acted like she didn't want to believe it was true. It was like she's... she's..." she stopped, uncertain of how to continue. What she wanted to say, it felt like it was on the very tip of her tongue, but she just couldn't think of what it was.
"Aha!" Twilight exclaimed as she sat up, causing Fluttershy to squeak in surprise.
"What is it, darling?" Rarity asked from where she sat. Usually Twilight only made an exclamation like that when she'd figured something out.
"Well at the moment it's just a theory, but it's a theory that makes a lot of sense," Twilight explained as she faced them and flipped her notebook around for them to see. "We've all heard Rainbow Dash, going on about not being alone, not having to say goodbye, right?" she asked. Each of them nodded, so she continued. "Remember last year how we didn't see much of Rainbow Dash during the winter?" she asked.
"That's not really surprising, darling, considering just how bad the winter was last year," Rarity pointed out.
"Yeah! It was, like, the coldest winter we've had in years," Pinkie added, remembering what a dampener it had been on all the winter fun they tended to have; nopony wanted to get out and throw snowballs, or build snowponies, or even go sledding when the wind could cut through their coats like a hot knife through butter.
"If Ah remember right, she spent most of the winter tucked away in 'er cloud house," Applejack stated.
"Right. And who did she spend it with?" Twilight asked them.
"Uh... come again?" Applejack asked, confused by the question.
"I don't believe she spent it with..." Rarity started, but paused before she finished her sentence, the realization hitting her like a ton of bricks. "Oh dear..."
"What? What'm I missing?" Pinkie asked.
"Rainbow Dash spent winter alone, darling," Rarity pointed out, making it simple enough for anypony to understand. "With Tank hibernating, and her only coming out a few times when the sun was up, she was left alone for those three months!"
"Oh my," Fluttershy mumbled at the revelation.
Twilight nodded. "I know it's just a theory, and I have no way of proving it, but what if her experience was so bad, she unconsciously suppressed all recollection of being stranded by herself, and forced herself to forget that Tank was hibernating?" she asked them.
"... Ah guess that'd make sense," Applejack replied slowly as she let it sink in. Psychology wasn't her field, but the way Twilight explained it, it did strike her as being possible.
"But wait a minute. Rainbow Dash has gone winters without having Tank before. What made last winter different?" Pinkie asked.
"What makes it different, was that it was the first winter she spent after knowing what it was like to have a pet. She had the chance to become accustomed to constant companionship, and suddenly had to do without it for one quarter of the year. It was probably a traumatic shock to the system," Twilight explained. It was the only thing that really made sense, based on what they knew so far.
"That poor dear..." Rarity sighed and shook her head. It made far too much sense for it to not be a possibility, even though it pained her to consider such.
"We never stopped to think about how she might be affected," Fluttershy pointed out, even though it was quite apparent; but still, she had to say something, as being silent just felt so uncomfortable.
"We've all got pets who don't have to hibernate. We never thought about how Rainbow Dash might take to Tank having to sleep for three months. I just... thought she'd take it like she does everything else; in stride," Twilight admitted.
There was no denying the fact that Rainbow Dash portrayed the image of a strong, independent mare who didn't let things bog her down. Somewhere along that line, for one reason or another, they had simply come to assume that loneliness had been one of those things she didn't worry herself about. And at one point or another, that might've been the case. But not now. Now they had to confront the idea that Rainbow Dash was just as prone to loneliness as they were, but too unwilling to admit it to any of them, for whatever reason. And they'd been too ignorant to pick up on whatever subtle hints she might've dropped to suggest otherwise.
"Looks like we thought wrong," Applejack stated, "now the question is, what're we gonna do about it?"
None of them spoke up, not having any answers to offer up. Once again, all they could do was look at each other in confusion, as they wrestled with the unspoken thought that they'd all managed to be terrible friends.
"Um... well..."
Out of all of them, it had been Fluttershy to speak up, and break the uncomfortable silence, bringing everyone's attention to her.
"I... might have an idea, that is, if everypony doesn't mind..." she said slowly.
"What do you have in mind, darling?" Rarity asked. At this point she'd readily try anything.
Winter had come ahead of schedule. And winter had come hard.
Being caught in the wintery blast had been painful for each of them. But apparently not as painful as it had been for Rainbow Dash, whose pain wasn't limited to strictly physical. Her pain was emotional from the realization that her efforts at keeping winter away for Tank's sake had been futile; a failure on her part. And considering her outlook on failing, her emotional pain was easily twofold; she hadn't simply lost, but she'd lost the battle for her pet and friend.
That was the situation they found themselves facing, as they approached a highly despondent Rainbow Dash in her cloud house, lounging defeated on her bed with Tank.
As uncomfortable as it was to see their friend in such a position, it was even worse when she'd broken down crying at Fluttershy's statement about how her winter was going to be spent petless. None of them could recall ever seeing Rainbow Dash crying before; not even a little. So when that dam finally broke, and she was all-out wailing in despair, it was enough to make some of them want to turn and flee.
Fleeing, however, wasn't what they'd come all this way to do. They'd come to help their friend through a difficulty she didn't even want to admit to facing. And the fact that she was bawling so freely, as painful as it was for them to witness, was enough to motivate them to stay present for her. She needed them, perhaps more than ever.
The rest of them just hoped that this idea of Fluttershy's would pan out. Otherwise... well they'd cross that bridge when they came to it.
"You do realize that hibernation doesn't mean he's dying, right?" Twilight asked. Unfortunately her question didn't seem to register over all the crying. Trying to point out how she'd already gone through this once before wasn't going to work either in her state. This was obviously going to take a while. And really, maybe it was a conversation that should be reserved for later on.
Eventually, however, Rainbow Dash finally managed to calm herself down, and realize that they were all there for her, even if Tank wouldn't be for a while.
"Jus' so ya know, sugarcube, jus' because yer winter's gonna be spent petless, that doesn' mean it's gonna be spent friendless," Applejack pointed out as she approached, resting her hoof on the cyan pegasi's wither in a gesture of comfort as she said goodbye to Tank. Right now that was a point that needed to be clarified. "We're all here for ya."
"I-I know..." Rainbow Dash mumbled as she wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her robe.
"Nor does it have to be spent up here all alone, darling," Rarity added.
Rainbow Dash sniffled as she lifted her head up, and turned to look over at Rarity in confusion at what she was talking about.
Twilight was about to speak, and elaborate on what had been discussed prior to their arrival here, and what Fluttershy had proposed. But before she could get the first word out, Rarity was already speaking again.
"I want you to come and spend the winter at the Carousel Boutique with me, Rainbow Dash," she stated firmly.
"W... what now?" Rainbow Dash asked, confused by it all.
"We've been talking, Rainbow Dash, all of us, and we've reached a unanimous conclusion," Twilight stated as she stepped forward again, a confident grin on her face as she spoke. Now that Rarity had broken the ice, the rest of them could proceed. "While Tank is hibernating the winter away, we'd each like to offer you a place to stay, so you don't have to be alone. Nopony should ever have to be alone," she explained. After a brief -and thankfully uninterrupted- pause, she continued. "And while we're on the subject, you're welcome at the palace as well. It's way too big for just me."
"Sweet Apple Acres is always open to a pony in need. An' not the barn either," Applejack added.
"I've got tons of stuff for sleepovers at Sugarcube Corner!" Pinkie stated enthusiastically as she bounced.
"You know you're always welcome at my cottage. With so many of the critters hibernating as well, I'd actually appreciate the company..." Fluttershy added.
"You," Rainbow Dash paused to wipe her eyes again, "you guys are serious about wanting me to stay with you?" she asked.
"But of course, darling. Ma maison est votre maison!" Rarity stated proudly. Although said pride faltered when she received nothing but blank, confused stares. "Er... I mean, my home is your home. And you're quite welcome, should you accept the invitation," she clarified.
"You don't even have to choose between us. You can stay with each of us if you'd like to; just alternating between homes at you please," Twilight explained, wanting to make it clear that they weren't trying to put her in the difficult -and unfair- position of having to choose one of them over the other; that wasn't friendship, and it just wouldn't do to put her though all that.
For Rainbow Dash there were no words to offer in response. She'd been torn up about Tank not being with her anymore for what would feel like so long, and without the slightest hint as to what was up, she'd been besieged by five invitations from her friends, offering her a place to stay with them for the winter, so she wouldn't have to be alone. If she had any tears left to offer up, she would've been crying right now in response to how things developed. But she was painfully dry at this point, and all she could do was grab Applejack who was closest, and hug her for dear life.
Applejack simply returned the hug, holding Rainbow Dash close to her, to give her friend a sense of stability right now. Although she quickly found herself set upon by four other ponies, each intent of hugging the stuffing out of Rainbow Dash, either in turn, or all together.
Just because winter could be a lonely time of year, didn't mean that it had to be a lonely time of year. Nor did it mean that it was going to be lonely. Rainbow Dash was slowly realizing that fact quite well, as she found herself in the middle of a firm group hug. She was going to miss Tank like nopony's business, but at least she wouldn't have to wither the burden all by herself now.