She was lost again. Lost in those deep, green eyes. It was liberating and invigorating to allow herself this luxury without fear of being found out. There were no walls any more, the lies and withholdings had been washed away, and somehow through all of this Applejack had remained with her. More than that, Applejack was giving her a chance to prove herself. She just had to not screw it up. She just had to approach this carefully. Be fearless, but thoughtful. She could be thoughtful, right? She was no Twilight, but she could think things through. Surely with Applejack she could be thoughtful.
Applejack’s eyes, however, looked less thoughtful than … panicked?
Thud.
Or maybe with Applejack she couldn’t be thoughtful. And maybe, mid-flight wasn’t the best of times for a prolonged gaze. Actually, it may have been the worst conceivable time. The pair were now tumbling through unforgiving tree branches, the flier thanking luck that it was a relatively soft fir she’d struck and not something altogether more bone-shattering. Twigs and needles caught in her coat and wings, but did little to slow down her descent. Flailing, she tried to salvage this obviously unsalvageable situation by grasping wildly for Applejack’s twisting form, but she was falling faster, and didn’t accomplish anything before breaking through the lowest canopy and hitting the ground with a resounding thump.
Rainbow lay on her back, some muscles vital for flight bruised painfully below her. She rubbed her head and found a small lump, but nothing severe. A quick attempt to unfurl her wings brought a wave of pain up her spine, causing them to snap back instinctively. She pushed for them to move against the pain, but now they wouldn’t budge. There was little time to consider the implications of this, however, before an orange body careening with the familiar force of gravity towards her landed, crushing the air out of her lungs. Every muscle in her body tensed with the blow, her eyes forcing themselves shut and her limbs, save for her wings, grabbing tightly around the intruder like a fly trap.
Applejack was heavier than she remembered.
After a moment to cough and bring oxygen back to her lungs, Dash relaxed again. She clung on to the form above her, forgetting that their situation was somewhat dire, and just enjoyed the moment. It was nice. Applejack was warm … perhaps Rainbow was just imagining things, but it seemed like the her body heat had shifted somewhat from when they first started flying, less focused on her chest than– no, definitely wishful thinking. The body above her shuffled and moved, ultimately wriggling free of her grasp. At least, she figured, she didn’t need to be immediately concerned with whether Applejack was hurt.
Now too embarrassed to open her eyes after such a pointless crash, she continued to lay, supine, eyes shut and wings close. She searched her mind for a fix for this mood-killing blunder, hoping that maybe her companion would find a way to break the awkward silence before she did.
“Y’all OK, Dash?”
Well, that worked. It broke the silence, anyway. “I think so,” she muttered, realizing as she said it how raspy her voice was from a combination of inhaling dust and having the wind knocked out of her. She coughed a few more times, trying to clear her throat and sound healthier, to allay any possible concern. Nothing felt broken, she was breathing just fine. The air brought with it some of her shattered confidence. “After all,” she mused, “it’s not like I’ve never crashed before.”
After another moment of breath, she opened her eyes and continued, “Yeah, I’m– blind! I’m blind!” Her legs thrashed in the air, as if she could somehow regain her unexpectedly missing sense by grabbing it from the sky. Disappointingly, none of her gesticulations caught the disembodied sense, or even found her friend. Hysteria overtook her as images flashed before her mind; not images of anything in particular, just images. Sights. Light and motion. It was a terrifying thought, to be robbed of sight, and it led her to jibber incomprehensibly in panic.
Applejack was less concerned. She laughed. There was no sensitivity to it, just a deep, throaty guffaw. Somehow she managed to make even that beautiful; it carried her unusual accent even without words, giving it a unique and intangible quality that sent pangs of longing through Rainbow’s psyche. But it hurt. It didn’t seem like Applejack to laugh at another’s misfortune, especially not something this severe and life-changing. Had she really offended her would-be love so much? Was this to be the rather abrupt terminus of her coveted romance, as well as the end of her flying career and hence life as she knew it? It seemed awfully harsh.
The truth became as clear as the orange mare’s bright green eyes as the stetson, which had landed perfectly atop Rainbow’s snout, its brim obscuring her vision, regained its rightful place on Applejack’s head. Her cheeks burned with the embarrassment, now doubled by her two rapid-fire failings. She was given a chance, she was supposed to be impressing her love, and instead she was flying into trees and being blinded by a hat. But even as such, she managed to collect herself enough to see and take her cue.
“Uh … do I at least get points for making you laugh?”
Although the guffaw had reduced to a warm, friendly chuckle, it was still present. “Ah know ye too well not to expect a run-in with an angry tree now ‘n again.” The earth pony winked cruelly while making this quip, but Rainbow was unoffended, just glad to see she hadn’t ruined everything. Yet.
Flipping deftly to her hooves, the pegasus hopped back and forth to assure that nothing was damaged but the flight muscles of her back, then, scolding herself for inattentiveness, asked the same of Applejack. “You didn’t hurt yourself, right, AJ?” She excused a few wayward glances down the mare’s flank as merely assuring that her friend was undamaged from the fall, the fact that doing so made her damaged muscles ache in tiny but jolting pinpricks notwithstanding.
Applejack waived a hoof in the air dismissively. “Ah’m right as rain. Just a bit o’ dirt under the hooves.”
Rainbow made no effort to hide her relief at this statement.
“But, uh, where are we? How do we get back t’ Ponyville?”
“Oh, that’s no problem, I know exactly how ow ow ow!” Her wings once again seized painfully, disobeying her commands as torrents of pain jutted through her body. She had obviously not been capable of suppressing the resulting wince and grimace, as Applejack was immediately at her side, forehooves atop her, examining the damage.
They were so close. Tantalizingly close. Even though they had been much closer only moments ago, feeling Applejack’s hooves on her back, gently prodding and caressing, was somehow more intimate. Realizing that the resulting thoughts were perhaps no longer taboo, Dash briefly flirted with the notion of allowing them to wash over her mind and take her away from this whole awkward predicament. But even though her plans for wooing her prize were coming unhinged, she still had plans, and intended to set them in motion, so she resolved to stay firmly planted in reality. She would get them back to Ponyville, then … say something. OK, she decided, maybe she needed a new plan. In fact, how would they get back to Ponyville?
This train of thought was cut short by another jolt of agony sailing through her, making her pull away by instinct.
“Ooh, sorry, Ah bet that hurt.” Applejack pulled away as well. “This looks pretty bad … Ah think we need t’ get ye to a hospital. Which way’s Ponyville?”
Although it only took a moment for the pegasus to get her bearings enough to answer, doing so caused the consequences of her situation to dawn on her with cruel haste. Her expression drooped as she pointed a hoof.
Applejack focused carefully in the indicated direction. Ponyville wouldn’t be visible from the ground, but there were other landmarks nearby. She strained to see in the dim dawn light, but managed to make out some important figures. Sure enough, there in the distance were Canterlot and Cloudsdale, so Ponyville would be somewhere in the middle.
There in the distance.
The great, great distance.
At least a day’s gallop.
Three or more at a reasonable trot.
And it was already nightfall.
Rainbow was realizing this as well, though with more optimistic estimations of the hoof-based distance, as she wasn’t accustomed to grounded travel. Even with her guesses, though, this was trouble. Being stuck with Applejack, in the forest, for days? It wasn’t without its benefits, but a dating decathlon was not what this fledgling relationship needed. Still, both the pain in her back and the increasingly concerned looks from Applejack told her that she wouldn’t be flying tonight. Her well-laid plans were all certainly moot. She scolded herself for flying so far, even though she was sure her destination would have been worth it. That plan too was a bust.
While Applejack surveyed their surroundings, Dash talked silently to herself, summarizing her situation. “First you fall stupidly in love. Then, because you’re an idiot, you stalk her and don’t say anything for years, until it’s giving you ulcers and making you hide from your friends. Then, with the ‘help’ of a friend, you basically molest her. Then somehow she forgives you, so what do you do? Almost kill her, and strand her in the woods. Great job, Rainbow Dash, greatest flier in this particular empty clearing in the middle of nowhere. You’re a real relationship dynamo. You’re definitely winning the heart of the mare you love this way.” Her lips tightened into a grimace as she fell to her haunches, now berating herself for her failings. “Love. What was it Rarity likes to say? ‘Love conquers all?’ Love isn’t going to conquer a bruised back and get us back to Ponyville.”
Applejack trotted back into view, doing a poor job of hiding the mix of concern and consternation in her expression behind the façade of a friendly smile. “Hoo-ee, you sure are one fast flier, Dash. It’ll be a bit of a walk, but we’ve got plenty o’ food,” she motioned to a scattered few plum trees nearby, “and Ah couldn’t ask for better company. So let’s go, sugarcube!”
Rainbow shrugged off the small compliment, figuring it was just a misguided attempt to lighten the mood. She stood up slowly, still minding the sore spot on her back, then began to walk. She didn’t look to her sides, she didn’t talk, she just set her mind to the task of walking towards Ponyville, and did so. It was dark, but light enough to see the intervening brush and tree branches, and to make out the still-intoxicating curves of Applejack, who had lithely took the lead after a minute of walking side by side. Rainbow certainly didn’t mind the view, but was entirely convinced that their fleeting relationship could not be rescued, and so tried not to let such dangerous thoughts invade her mind.
The pair continued their mindless plodding in excruciating silence but for the occasional call of a bird or crunch of a twig beneath their hooves. It was horribly boring for the impetuous pegasus, but much safer than actually saying anything. The terrain wasn’t suitable for running; although certainly not the Everfree Forest, this area of Equestria was seldom trodden upon by pony hooves, with only the seasonal flyby of weather ponies and animal caregivers assuring that everything was to plan. As such, the brush was overgrown, the trees were exasperatingly thick, and Rainbow’s legs were turning to jelly against the harsh surface. Athlete or not, this wasn’t her kind of athletics; she was a flier. After what felt like an eternity, but was really only about two hours of walking through the foliage, she allowed herself to collapse, breathing so heavily that she was almost wheezing.
“OK, so after you almost kill her and strand her in the woods, then you make a fool of yourself and slow her down. Even better, Rainbow Dash. Maybe if you’re really lucky she’ll visit you someday, after you become the laughing stock of Ponyville and are forced to live in exile. More likely she’ll just never want to talk to you again, though.”
Her mind took an abrupt turn, now screaming at her. “No. No! You’re Rainbow Dash! You can fix this. You will fix this! So long as she’s still with you, you’ve got a chance, you just have to take it!”
Author's note: I said most of this in a blog post, but it bears repeating. After getting a bit stuck in my original plan, I had an unexpected idea and wrote this chapter with a whole new plot, not in my original itinerary. So most of what was to be chapter 6 was scrapped, though some of it will live on in chapter 7. I wrote this in one day, but am reasonably happy with it, and don't want to delay posting any further (six weeks?! What the hay happened to April?!). But as a result, I'm totally off the rails; I have no more idea what's happening next than you do.
Also: Yup, another cliché thrown on the pile. I live dangerously.