Chapter 1: An Unexpected Guardian Angel
The young Earth Pony foal ran for his life, struggling to ignore the ache in his side that was attempting to make him slow down. Any hint of doing so would allow a quartet of very angry foals who were roughly a year older than him to catch up to him and likely leave him covered in scrapes, bruises, and at least one black eye. Self-preservation was the biggest priority right now, and he barely stopped to catch his breath in between dodging past adult mares and stallions in his way. As he continued to run he could feel his eyes water while his mouth started quivering. He wanted to fall to the ground and let it all out, but he shook his head and forced himself to keep moving through town. As upset as he was, he could cry all he wanted when he safely got home. Right now making sure he’d last long was more urgent.
As much as he wanted to keep moving he could feel himself breathing heavier. His hooves were beginning to feel like they weighed an additional twenty pounds each, and he could feel sweat starting to seep through his light grey coat. And his home was still another 20 blocks away. Like it or not, he was going to have to risk taking a quick breather, because by this point he’d be passing out anyway, allowing the foals to catch him.
Looking back to make sure that his pursuers weren’t anywhere close behind him, the foal looked around for something to lean up against. Spotting a small water fountain in the distance, he forced himself to move up ahead a few more feet, and then eased up against it, taking a hoof in and splashing some water to his face. At least now he had a respite, however brief it was. Not that it made him feel any better right now.
As he looked up at the sky, he could feel his eyes watering up again, and despite his previous mantra this time he was less inclined to snap himself out of it.
Why did this have to happen? He’d never hurt anypony in his life! Yet fate, or destiny, or something seemed to want to pay him back by pairing him up with a quartet interested in literally kicking him to the curb. As the little colt sniffled and tried to wipe his tears away, his mind raced back, recalling the incident that had kick started his current predicament…
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Hours earlier in school that day, Dreamer was currently sitting on a bench in the playground. It was lunch break and free play for the foals right now, and several colts and fillies were having fun with each other, playing on the playground, trying to play games like hoofball or horseshoes, or just having a good friendly talk. He found it to be the one part of the school day that he wasn’t all too thrilled about - mainly because he never had any other foal to play or hang out with.
It’s not like he didn’t want to make friends. He would often spend his time like this longingly watching the other foals play together, and it looked like they were always having fun. His own parents were supportive and encouraged him to reach out. But whenever he tried to get another’s attention, something inside him always managed to get him all flustered and screw up. As he was contemplating his social troubles, he noticed that a trio of foals, one Pegasus colt, one Earth Pony filly, and a unicorn filly, all happily prancing towards where he was sitting, the three working together to try and fly a kite. As the three ran by him, he quickly turned away as his face began to blush. He waited a few minutes before glancing out of the corner of his eye to see that the other three ponies had now passed.
As he went back to watching all around him, he noticed to his right that there were two fillies standing only a yard or two from where he was sitting, happily talking with each other without a care in the world. One had a sunny coat and a grey mane and tail. Her friend was a filly with a cherry pink coat, curly, golden-brown mane and tail and a bright red cherry for a cutie mark. As he watched the two foals, he found himself wishing he could join in on their conversation. After thinking about it, he decided he would give it a shot. This would be it. After all this time, he would finally introduce himself to another pony!
Getting up and gradually moving over to the two fillies, he stopped when he was close to two feet away from them. As they didn’t seem to notice him standing there, he’d have to say something so they would notice him. After clearing his throat and taking a deep breath, he finally forced a greeting out of his mouth, managing to get out a successful whisper of “Hi… there?,” which was so quiet even he had barely even heard himself, made evident by the fact that the two fillies were still oblivious to him. He smacked himself with his right hoof. That wasn’t going to do. He’d need to be louder, so after taking another breath he shouted “I said hi” before covering his mouth in embarrassment. That had been louder than he’d intended. It had definitely caught their attention, leading the two girls to look back in his direction in confusion. Dreamer was feeling ridiculous by now, so he had already started scooting away back to the bench, while the fillies merely shrugged and resumed their conversation.
The Earth Pony dejectedly sat back down, sighing to himself. “I blew it again. Way to go, me.” Now those two foals would think he was some sort of weirdo if they remembered him. If he wanted to look on the bright side of things, at least he’d actually attempted to try greeting them more than once. Maybe after another few dozen attempts he’d finally get it right, and then he’d finally introduce himself to another filly or colt without making himself look like a total idiot. Yeah, and maybe he could swim all the way to Cloudsdale while he was at it.
Deciding that was enough for today when it came to trying to make a friend, he chose to spend the rest of free time reading. That was thankfully one activity you didn’t need an immediate friend for. Naturally, he found himself reading a lot because of that – which did sound a little depressing when one thought about it. Fortunately, he didn’t mind it too much, as he liked reading. He had quite a few books back home, and he’d recently picked up a new one last week that he was really getting interested in. Said book was currently resting in his bag, so he reached down to pick it up. He didn’t expect to find something else in there.
“What’s this?” Dreamer looked down to see that there was a juice box in his bag. Correction: Make that an open juice box. All the contents from it had been poured out over everything in his bag, including the new book. Somepony must have thrown it in his bag during the time he’d taken to try and say hello to the two fillies. Reaching in and picking up the soaked book, he confirmed that it was now ruined, with several pages now stuck together and impossible to take apart without ripping them all up. Who would do something like this? Within seconds he heard some snickering coming from behind him, which quickly answered his question. “I should’ve known...”
He turned to the direction of the laughter, and his worst fears were confirmed when he saw four all-too familiar Earth Ponies. From left to right they were Rock n’ Roll, a medium sized foal with a blue coat and a black mane; Jammer, a somewhat lanky foal with a grey coat not unlike his own, though noticeably darker, and a messy blonde mane and tail; and his sister Saddle Sear with a standard filly build and a perfect snow white-coat with an aqua colored mane and tail, the mane notably braided into pigtails. Rounding out the quartet was their leader: Drillbit, an orange colt about a foot taller than Dreamer, with a shaggy, wheat-colored mane and tail. Ever since the school year had started the four had taken a lot of pride in repeatedly taking advantage of some invisible “kick me” sign glued to his back just for fun. Wouldn’t you know it; it would have to be these four to be the only foals to regularly acknowledge his existence. He genuinely wished that they had paid as little attention to him as the other foals in school did. If it came down to being completely ignored or having only the local bully population notice him, he would gladly choose the former.
By now the quartet had stopped laughing. Drill motioned for his friends to follow him, and they menacingly began to advance on the shy colt. Dreamer wanted to run away, but his hooves suddenly felt like they’d been turned into bricks. He was helpless as the four made their way directly up to him. Drill was the first to speak, pretending to act all buddy-buddy by putting a hoof on Dreamer’s shoulder.
“Oh, Dream-dream, I’m sorry! My friends and I were sharing a nice drink, and it just so happened to slip right out of my hooves! Can you forgive me?”
“And you’d better answer him,” Jammer chimed in. “Drill doesn’t like it if you leave him waiting for a reply. It’s very rude.”
Dreamer looked at the four and frantically nodded, although it wasn’t like he had a choice. “Wh-what do you want?” They’d already messed up nearly everything in his bag. Couldn’t that be it for the day?
“What was that?” You’ll need to speak up,” said Saddle.
“I-I said… wh-what do you want?”
Drill gave a mock pat on the back to his prey. “You see, my friends and I are still thirsty. And we know you always bring a water bottle with you to school, don’t you?” He pointed to the juice covered bag. “In fact, that’s one of the few things that probably isn’t ruined. So why don’t you let us have some?”
Dreamer didn’t even have time to protest. Rock ‘n Roll had managed to sneak up behind him and grabbed the bag out of Dreamer’ hooves. “Thanks, runt!” He pulled the water bottle out of the bag with his mouth, then twisted the cap right off, taking a drink.
“Hey, give that back!” Dreamer tried to jump up to reclaim what was his, but Rock just pushed him away with his hoof. He tossed the bottle to over to the others, who each took a swig from the bottle themselves.
Drill was the one to finish it off. He made sure that it was empty, then tossed it to Dreamer’s hooves. “Looks like it’s all gone. Mind taking care of it for us Dream-Dream? It is your bottle after all!” The bullies’ leader rejoined his henchponies, as the four started bursting into laughter. “Can you actually believe that twerp?! He really thought he could stand up to Rock like that!”
“It just proves that we need to remind him that he’s right at the bottom of the social ladder!” He and Drill knocked their hooves together as all four bullies resumed their laughter.
Dreamer dejectedly picked up the empty bottle and tossed it back into his ruined bag. It seemed like they’d had their fill screwing with him. He wanted to cry right now, but doing so with those four foals anywhere nearby would only give them that much more ammo to harass him with. He merely started trotting slowly back to his classroom, hoping he could just sit at his desk and sulk for the rest of the
day until school was over. But he wouldn’t even get that much dignity, as the moment he walked by the field, a stray ball smacked him right in the head, courtesy of some of the foals nearby playing hoofball. “Ow!” The blow caused him to lose his balance and fall to the ground. As Dreamer rubbed his now sore head, he glanced in the direction that the ball had come from, noticing the ponies that had been playing. At least one of them had the courtesy to say “Oh, sorry!” before they started looking for another ball to play with, but that hardly did much to make him feel better.
The little colt bitterly stared down at the ball that was responsible for his latest mishap. As he did, first his mouth and the entire body began to tremble, and soon after he started to uncharacteristically scream at the top of his lungs. After his failure to say “hello” to those two fillies, the daily dose of humiliation from Drill and his flunkies, and now being struck in the head, something inside him snapped, though briefly, as he kicked the ball as hard as he could with his hind legs, trying to get it away from him.
That proved to be a mistake. If Dreamer had been thinking more clearly at the moment, he would have noticed that he’d kicked the ball right in the direction of where Drillbit and his pals were standing; their location almost directly behind him. The ball had gone flying as if it were some sort of rocket… and landed right in Drill’s face, knocking him senseless. Rock, Jammer, and Saddle all stared at their downed boss, before gazing over at the foal who had unexpectedly knocked him off his hooves. Whatever anger Dream had left over from moments ago quickly faded away as it was replaced by an overwhelming feeling of dread as it began to hit him what he had just done. The little pony’s face fell into a horrified frown, his ears flopped, and his tail started to shake.
It wasn’t long before Drill had recovered from his beaning. “Ugh… who was the pony stupid enough to blindside me like that?” His voice still sounded groggy, but at the same time there was some noticeable irritation in it.
All three of Drill’s pals pointed over to the scared, gray colt. “You aren’t going to believe this Drill, but… Dream-Dream managed to sucker punch you by kicking a ball straight at your head,” Jammer explained. The other two foals nodded to support what Jammer was saying.
Drill looked at Dreamer in shock. “You guys aren’t serious, are you? That runt actually managed to pull off a sneak attack? On me?” The other bullies nodded once again. Drillbit glared at his usual punching bag and slowly walked up him. His face wasn’t giving off the usual faux-smile of his this time. “You know, I never thought you had it in you. Did you really think you could ambush me like that and not have to pay the price?”
By now, Dreamer was crouching on all fours. Drill was only close to a foot taller than him, but right now he seemed much taller. Dreamer’s own head felt funny, as if this… lightheaded, buzzing feeling was going off in it. “No! It wasn’t like that, Drill ! I didn’t know you were behind me! Honest! I’d never try to hurt any pony like that!” Even if it was a jerk like him, although Dreamer merely thought the last part. He was in enough trouble with Drill as it was. “It was…it was an accident!”
Drill blinked. Otherwise, his facial expression hadn’t changed. “This is all an accident, huh?” He reached a hoof out and pointed it directly at Dreamer; the edge of the hoof was only centimeters away from the smaller colt’ muzzle. “So what you’re saying is, you only managed to hit me due to some big mistake?”
Dreamer responded with a very weak nod. “Uh-huh.”
“You know what? I actually believe you. “ For the first time since approaching Dreamer, Drillbit started to smile. But Dreamer was still worried. Something about this smile was different. Instead of his usual smug smirk, Drill was giving off a calmer grin. He took his hoof away from Dreamer’s face and instead used it to pat the smaller colt on top of his soft, brown mane. “But I’m still going to have to teach you a lesson so you’ll make sure to be a little more considerate of everypony around you.“
Dreamer gulped as he heard those words leave Drill’s mouth. He knew enough to realize that bully lingo for “teaching a lesson” meant giving the victim a royal flank-kicking. “Don’t worry: I won’t do anything to you right now. I don’t want to leave you all beat up on a sacred ground like the schoolyard.” More like he didn’t want to hurt Dreamer at the moment because he didn’t want to risk the school teacher catching him. “But the second school ends? You’re mine.” He flashed a menacing grin full of teeth at Dreamer before turning away and walking back to rejoin his partners in crime, motioning for them to leave. Before they got too far, Drillbit took one more look at the nervous colt, giving him another smirk. “See you after school, Dream-Dream.”
The increasingly terrified Dreamer watched as the four bullies trotted off. His entire body was shaking at the thought of what Drill and the others would do to him in the coming hours. Soon he buried his face into the ground, wishing that the entire day could just be over already. He was feeling even more alone than he had been minutes before.
That was then. Back to now.
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Finishing his recollection of the afternoon, Dreamer sadly leaned back up against the fountain, still gazing up at the air. He’d stopped crying by now, but emotionally he was pretty drained. Even though his body had recovered by now, he still found it hard to get back to moving despite knowing there were four certain foals still out for his blood. At least he hadn’t heard anything from them in awhile. Maybe he’d managed to successfully ditch the quartet in town earlier, while he was safe for the moment right near the square.
He silently watched a few Pegasus ponies pass by him up above. Most were adult mares and stallions, but a few were fillies and colts. As he gazed up in the air, he started hearing a “wooshing” noise off in the distance. As he looked towards the direction of the sound, he was able to make out a figure in the air, with it obviously being that of a Pegasus pony. As it finally got close for him to properly make out, Dreamer couldn’t help but look at the figure in amazement, transfixing his eyes on a pony in the sky. He rubbed his eyes a bit to make sure he was not imagining things.
The Pegasus flying several meters above in the sky was a filly who couldn’t have been a year older than him at most. On her flanks was a cutie mark consisting of a white cloud with a red, yellow, and blue lightning bolt shooting out of it. But the things that really stood out and got his attention were her mane and tail: Each was like a prism of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple colors, forming together to create an eye-catching rainbow. In all his life he’d never seen any pony, be it a female or male; a Unicorn, Pegasus, or Earth pony; that had an amazingly colored mane like that.
He watched the filly soar by. She seemed to look pretty happy, wearing a confident, cheerful smile on her face. “I wish I could be all happy and carefree like her,” he muttered to himself. A pony like that probably had zero trouble making friends, and probably had no problems with bullies either.
As the filly flew onward, Dreamer sighed to himself and finally forced himself to get up. As much as he wanted to just stay there and continue to sulk, he couldn’t stay there forever. He still needed to return home, especially since the quartet was likely still after him. On the bright side, even with the extra time he’d taken to catch his breath he still hadn’t heard anything from them. Maybe this meant he had lost them earlier in town during the chase. Maybe he could return to his house without worry.
That’s when he heard the four’s voices in the opposite direction, proving that there was no such luck.
“Where is he!? The runt couldn’t have gotten that much further,” Drillbit’s voice stated.
“Don’t worry. This the last area of town left. Rock and my sis should be done exploring the other side, so then we’ll meet back up and look for him around here.” That was obviously Jammer.
So much for the notion that Drill had lost track of him being a reality. He had to keep going at full running speed, and possibly beyond it. Any less and they had their hooves on him. That would mean the end. Taking a deep breath, Dreamer charged away from the fountain and his pursuers. A stunt like this would help him get away faster, but at the cost of him easily making himself more noticeable to the others. And sure enough, seconds later he heard the two’s voices speaking up again.
“Hey Drill! Look at that grey pony running away up ahead!”
“I see him!”
It was all or nothing now. Still, if this allowed him to get away then it would be worth it. Dreamer continued to run, ignoring everything else around him.
That ended up being his biggest mistake. Since he wasn’t properly looking on the ground, he failed to notice a fairly large root on the ground. When he passed by, one of his hind legs caught on it, tripping him and making him stumble and crash to the ground. Dreamer was only stunned for a few seconds, but it dawned on him that he may have just thrown any remaining lead he had away. “No… I need to get up!” Maybe he still had a chance. Dreamer got back on his hooves and started to get up into a standing position. When he was nearly all the way up however, another hoof quickly pushed him back to the ground. Dreamer’s hopes quickly dashed away as he saw Jammer walk in front of him.
“Hey, Dream-Dream. You weren’t going anywhere, where you?”
As his terror began to return, Dreamer watched as Drillbit joined him. Rock n’ Roll and Saddle Sear arrived in the following moments. Drill looked at the frightened Earth Pony on the ground, his usual smug grin coming back to him. “I have to admit, for a little runt I’m impressed. I never thought you’d be able to stay away from us nearly the entire time. Maybe you actually have a little spunk after all.” He helped get Dreamer up before looking at him directly in the eye. “It’s almost a shame we’re going to have to stomp it all out of you.”
Rock and Jammer surrounded Dreamer, making sure he wouldn’t try to make another break for it. Saddle pointed over to a nearby alleyway. “Let’s take him over there before we start anything. That way nopony will notice or try to stop us.” Drill nodded, and the quartet drug their hostage into the alley, which only had one way in and out. When they were near the end, Drill pushed Dreamer into the wall, trapping him.
Dreamer turned around to see his personal tormentors smiling wickedly at him. They were definitely enjoying making him feel as helpless as possible before they started the actual beating. Eventually, Drill glanced at his friends. “Alright, guys: It’s play time! Anypony else want a go at him, or should I soften him up first?” Drill’s friends stood aside, obviously intending to let him have the honor of hitting Dreamer first.
As he started slowly walking up to the colt, Dreamer closed his eyes and prepared for the inevitable. All he could do now was hope that whatever happened next would be over with as quickly as possible. He silently waited for the first blow to hit him.
Only it never came.
Moments after he shut his eyes, a sudden gust of air kicked up, hitting so hard that it caused him to nearly lose his balance and fall back. When he opened his eyes again, his jaw dropped as he saw what had caused it. Hovering in between him and the four terrors was a blue Pegasus filly with a rainbow mane and tail staring at his four would-be attackers. Dreamer heard himself gasp as he realized that this was the exact same filly he’d seen fly overhead a few minutes ago. And she looked mighty ticked. If the phrase, “If Looks Could Kill” had any truth to it, she would have slaughtered all four bullies in seconds with the stare she was giving them.
Jammer burst out into laughter. “Hey guys, look at this! A little baby blue Pegasus has come to the little runt’s rescue! Isn’t she the cutest thing ever?”
Saddle snickered. “Yeah! What’s the matter?,” she asked, looking over at Dreamer, who shivered. “Couldn’t get a little puddy cat to fight your battles for you instead?”
Drillbit gazed back at his flunkies. “Okay guys, that’s enough. The jokes are fun, but we need to get to business with the runt here.” He looked up at the flying filly. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing trying to play hero, but that little foal over there is ours, got it?” He pointed over to Dreamer. “He assaulted me personally, and that’s something I’m going to have to pay him back for. I don’t have any issues with you, though. So how about you fly off, leave him to his fate, and we’ll pretend you never tried to get in between us and him. Deal?”
Silence lasted for several seconds. Then the filly spoke up.
“You have 10 seconds to clear out of here and leave this guy alone before I really get angry. After that, I’m going to have to teach your sorry flanks a lesson you’re going to regret. How’s that for a deal?”
The four stared at the filly in shock, amazed that she had the nerve to have spoken and threatened them the way she did. It didn’t last long though, as they quickly went back to amusement.
“Did I hear that right?,” Rock asked. “That little Pegasus thinks that she can take us on?”
“Maybe the air up there’s a little too thin and keeping it from getting to her brain. It’s a fact that pegasi are physically weaker than Earth ponies. She may be able to fly, but we’re physically stronger than her in every way.”
“Exactly,” Drill responded to his lackeys. “Plus there’s four of us and one of her. She wouldn’t stand a chance.” He looked back upward at the filly with the rainbow hair and tail. “Listen girl, enough’s enough. Either you move out of the way, or you join your new ‘friend’ in getting beat up. So what’s it going to be?”
The filly looked unimpressed, and narrowed her gaze further at the four foals. “Now you only have five.”
By now the Terrible Four were out of amusement, and were looking more annoyed than humored. Drillbit spoke up again. “Fine. If you really have that much of a death wish, then do your worst.”
A sly smile suddenly came to the Pegasus pony’s face as she started going into an evil chuckle. “My worst, huh? Okay... You asked for it!” The four bullies barely knew what hit them.
First the filly flew down, spinning around and around the quartet to create several strong gusts of wind not unlike the one that had been created from her entrance earlier. Much like what she’d unintentionally done with Dreamer moments before, the force created from her speedy flybys ended up knocking the four to the ground.
She wasn’t finished though. She quickly started spinning around the quartet again, but this time moving much faster, so much that she was moving at the speed of a tornado. As she did, the filly flew close to the ground and started kicking up dirt at them, causing it to fly at her opponents and smack all four of them in the face. “Stand your ground! I don’t care if this filly throws a mountain at us! She’s still just one pony!” The ultra-fast flier stopped and floated over in between where Drillbit and Jammer were, poking on the former’s shoulder. “Huh? What is it?” Drill turned around to look directly into the face of the filly, who was now making faces at him by sticking her tongue out at him and pressing her hooves up to her cheeks, puffing her face up at him. He gritted his teeth and jumped at her in a rage, but she was too fast for him and simply dashed out of the way, causing him to collide with Jammer.
“Yes!” The filly pumped her hoof into the air. “That’s me 2, you losers, 0!” She put her other hoof to her mouth and giggled, putting something in it as she did. Her victory laughs didn’t last long as she heard something scuttling on the ground to her right. Turning, she saw that Rock n’ Roll had recovered, and was ready to strike. He started to run right at her, and the filly didn’t even bother flying out of the way – instead she just waited for him to get closer. Once he was only a foot away, she started laughing at the top of her lungs, leaving her mouth wide open… and revealing a set of sharpened teeth protruding from it. Rock ‘n Roll stopped dead in his tracks and gazed at the Pegasus in terror, before turning around and running away, screaming as loud as he could in a high-pitched shrill.
The Pegasus filly watched him scamper off in amusement, and then glanced back at the other three bullies. “Now for the big finish!” She quickly took off toward the air, flying as fast as she could into the sky and grabbing the nearest raincloud she could, then zoomed it back down to just a couple of feet above from where the bullies were, and all in the span of twelve seconds. As the trio started to regain their senses, they all looked up at where the Pegasus was, who smiled wickedly at them, again baring her sharpened fangs. She raised her forehooves up in the air as high as she could, then proceeded to slam them down on the cloud as hard as possible, putting her utmost strength into it.
BOOM.
A loud, powerful bolt of thunder crackled as it burst from the cloud and struck the ground below, hitting the dirt merely a single foot away from the three foal bullies and leaving a charred marking on the surface. They looked up at the rainbow headed one in fear; all three foals where trembling and Jammer was starting to emit a whimper. She was still looking back down at them sinisterly, readying her hooves to strike the cloud again. “So… ready for round 2?” All three members of the trio stared at each other for a moment before dashing off and running away screaming as fast as their legs could carry them.
“Get her away from us!”
“She’s a monster!”
“That filly is insane!”
The filly watched the three run off, pleased with her handiwork. “And just remember: that colt down there is under my protection! You ever mess with him again, and you’ll have to answer to me… and I will find you! WHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!” She started laughing maniacally, pressing on the cloud a few more times to create some more bolts of thunder. Once she was certain that the four were out of sight and earshot however, she stopped laughing for a moment. When she knew they were long gone, she resumed her laughter, but this was different. While before she’d sounded like some insane, twisted madmare, this laugh was much more of an easygoing, gentle giggle, as if she’d just heard the best joke in the world. She fell down on her back on top of the cloud, kicking her hind legs up in the air. In the process, she spat out the cheap pair of plastic fangs that she’d placed inside her mouth earlier on.
She glanced down over the other side of the cloud back to where Dreamer had been standing. “Hey! Did you see the looks on their faces?! They really thought I was some sort of demon by the end! They even believed that these fake teeth were real!“ She picked up the pair of phony fangs. “A newborn foal wouldn’t have fallen for that! What a bunch of suckers! Don’t you think so? Do you… hey, wait a minute…”
The filly suddenly stopped laughing as she realized that her little attempted rescuee had moved from his previous location and wasn’t in the alley any longer. “Uh oh… did I overdo it?” Moments later, her worry was reassured when she heard a weak whimper coming away from the alleyway. “Yeah… I overdid it.” That sound was definitely coming from the little colt. The rainbow-maned filly’s act had worked a little too well. Flying off the cloud and looking at the town grounds below, she finally noticed that Dreamer was now hiding behind a bench and gazing at her in wide-eyed terror, before shutting his eyes and repeating the phrase “please don’t hurt me” over and over.
The filly frowned as she saw Dreamer hide away. That wasn’t the reaction she was hoping for at all! She’d been hoping he’d be amazed at how swiftly she’d handled those jerks, or call her the coolest ever for her incredible flying. Instead, it looked like he thought she wanted a piece of him too. “Hey… listen. I’m not really like that, okay? That bit you saw up there was all just an act. Well, okay, not the whole me being cool and showing off how awesome I am to those bullies: that part was all real! But I’m not going to be mean to you. I just wanted them to think I was so they’d back off you for good, alright?“ Dreamer wasn’t listening, instead still repeating his “don’t hurt me” phrase. The Pegasus rolled her eyes, now growing irritated, and gently floated down to where he was, looking at him directly in the eye… at least she would be if his eyelids were open. She tapped him on the hoof, which seemed to do the trick. He opened his eyes and found that she was right in front of him; their faces only an inch apart. “Hi!”
“Gah!”
Dreamer jumped back a bit, causing her to groan. “Hey, will you quit that already?! I already have enough trouble like that with one pony back in Cloudsdale! I just wanted to ask you if you’re alright. It didn’t look like you were hurt by those other ponies, but I didn’t see everything. You can answer that, can’t you?” She flashed him a very friendly smile, which practically seemed to say, “See? I’m not going to bite you!”
Dreamer stared at his rescuer, her behavior starting to break through to him and allow him to start paying attention to her. She did have a point. At least it didn’t seem like she was going to turn her wrath on him like she had the bullies. He nodded. “I’m… I’m good.” He looked at the blue winged filly again. It was amazing just how different she was behaving now compared to when’d she’d been scaring those bullies off. Now she was behaving very nice and being friendly. It’s almost like she’d literally transformed into a completely different pony from earlier.
“So, what’s your name, anyway? You do have one, right?”
Dreamer looked down at the ground. He almost didn’t want to tell her. Most ponies who had learned it thought it sounded pretty stupid or silly for a colt. In fact, that’s one of the primary reasons that Drill and his cronies had used to target him even more than the other foals in class they picked on; that teasing had resulted in them giving him that blasted “Dream-Dream” nickname. “It’s… Dream… er…” he answered, barely above his breath.
“What was that? Dray-something?”
Dreamer bit his lip. “Uh….” What if she thought it was silly too? Would she start making fun of him for it?
The Pegasus raised an eye at him. “Geez, you aren’t some distant relative of Fluttershy’s, are you?”
“Flutter…who?”
The filly shook her head. “Oh, nothing. From the way you’re acting I was kind of curious if that name meant something to you. I guess not. Now are you finally going to answer me?”
“Sorry. It’s just… is it okay if you could you come down to the ground? I don’t like raising my voice too much.” Which was true, although he was mainly using that as an excuse to avoid a response. Maybe she’d get fed up asking and changed the subject.
The filly glanced at him in surprise, muttering “Yeah. I’m really surprised you two aren’t related” under her breath. After a few moments of thinking, she nodded. “Okay. You win.” She lowered herself to the ground, meeting him at eye level and standing firmly on the ground with all fours. “Is that better? Or….” A mischievous grin crept across her face, and she started waving her front hooves at him. “…Am I going to have to tickle the information outta ya?”
Dreamer looked at her and shook his head. “N-n-no… you don’t have to do that.” Looks like he wasn’t getting out of this one. For some reason this filly was insistent on knowing what to call him. “It’s Dreamer. D-R-E-A-M-E-R.” He awkwardly held out his hoof to her. Ponies were supposed to do that when they introduced themselves, right? This was his first time properly introducing himself, so it was all new for him.
“Dreamer, huh? Doesn’t sound half bad… Okay then! It’s nice to meet you, Dreamer!” She looked at him holding his hoof out. “Oh, you want to do a hoofbump? No problem!” She gently knocked her own hoof up against his. “You don’t mind if I call you Dree sometimes, do you?”
Dreamer was looking down at his hoof, surprised that the Pegasus had gently smacked it like she had. He snapped out of his thought to answer her. “Oh… no, I don’t mind. You… don’t think it’s a stupid name, do you?”
The filly looked at him, then smiled and shook her head. “Nah. In fact, that’s a pretty cool-sounding name. A dream means you have some sort of big goal in life, right? How could that not be awesome? In fact, there’s something I plan on doing when I’m older no matter how many years it takes me.”
“Really? You like it?” This girl was surprising him more and more by the minute. For that matter, he was surprised at himself for how much he’d been managing to talk with her. This was the most he’d ever spoken with another foal around his age. Speaking of said filly, after all this time he didn’t even know what she was called. He couldn’t just think of her as “the Pegasus filly with the Rainbow mane,” all the time. “Hey, what about you? What’s your name?”
“Me?” the filly asked, suddenly giving Dreamer an evil glare. “Are you sure you want to know?!,” she playfully asked in an ominous voice . Despite his earlier worry, he could tell she was joking this time, and was surprised to find himself chuckling a little. “I’m Rainbow Dash: the most incredible, amazing, awesome, spectacular, extraordinary, radical, dynamic, astonishing, and just plain cool filly in the world!” With each new claim Rainbow Dash began hovering higher into the air, doing a new mini-trick each time, from summersaulting in the air to spinning around and creating a brief afterimage, making it look like there were two of them. Dreamer watched in amazement, staring up at Dash, and glancing upward so high that he ended up falling back on his rear, looking at the Pegasus in utter awe the entire time.
“Wow….”
Now, Dreamer had obviously seen Pegasi before. Some even went to his class. But there was something… different about Rainbow Dash compared to other Pegasus ponies. He couldn’t quite put his hoof on it, but she had this feeling about her, that made her seem… larger than life. She was like some angel who had come down to Equestria. Her being so excellent at her weather manipulation and the way her mane and tail contrasted against the bright afternoon sun only made her stand out more.
Rainbow noticed Dreamer looking up at air. She seemed to take him being awestruck pretty well. ”I really am that amazing, ain’t I? Nice to know you have some good taste when it comes to awesome ponies like me.” She crossed her hooves and gave him a friendly smirk. She then started to look off into the distance. “Anyway, I should probably get going. Nice meeting you, Dreamer!“ The filly did a quick wave and started flying off.
Dreamer watched as his hero started moving further away. He didn’t want her to leave though. He was starting to like being with this filly, and something in his gut was telling him that if she left now, he’d never see this amazing Pegasus again. He called out to try and catch her attention, and to his surprise what came out wasn’t one of his quiet stutters. “Wait!”
Rainbow stopped flying and looked back at the colt on the ground. She seemed a little annoyed, though she was doing her best to not make it too obvious. “Now what?”
Dreamer felt initially taken aback that he was going as far as he was in this conversation. A buzzing feeling, similar to what he’d felt when he’d ticked off Drill earlier, was ringing in his head once more, but this time it was a little different. While before, it had come out of fear of incurring the local neighborhood bully’s eternal wrath, this time it was from all the pressure of talking with this pony up in the sky up above him. He almost wanted to take it back and just scoot off like he had with those two fillies earlier in the day. Despite his shyness, something inside refused to make him run off and back down again. “I… wanted to know if it was okay if I could ask you something.”
Rainbow Dash stared down at Dreamer, then began looking upward, apparently thinking on whether to leave or not, and eventually she shrugged. “Eh, I guess so. I don’t really have to go anywhere anyway…” Apparently making her mind up, she floated back to the vicinity of where Dreamer was. “Sure, go ahead. Shoot.”
“Why’d you help me?”
Rainbow looked at him oddly. “Why not? I saw those jerks making a scene, so I followed them while I was flying up above. Then I saw they were going to beat you up, so I dove in to the rescue!”
Dreamer lowered his head to the ground. “No… I mean why did you help me? We’ve never even met before, and you just… saved me from those jerks. You went out of your way to save a total stranger even though you had nothing to gain from it.” He stared at the ground, nervously kicking at a pebble. “Nopony’s ever done anything like that for me before.”
Rainbow’s expression changed as she realized what he meant. Her look of irritation, or puzzlement, or possibly both, was gone, instead replaced with sympathetic one. “Does it matter if I know you or not? I don’t care if we’ve never met; I couldn’t just hang around and let them beat you up!” She then crossed her forelegs, frowning bitterly as she did. “Besides, I… I really, really don’t like bullies.” For several seconds she stared down at the ground. Something about that expression made Dreamer wonder if she was speaking from experience. The way she was behaving, it sounded like she had been picked on too. Although given how well she’d handled herself just a few moments ago, who’d be dumb enough to try to pick on her?
Rainbow looked like she was musing hard about something, and it didn’t look like it brought any happy memories for her, as she again floated to the ground. Dreamer was now growing concerned for this odd filly who’d saved his life. “Rainbow Dash? Are you okay?”
The filly seemed to notice his potential worry, as when she glanced back at Dreamer, her demeanor switching back from bitter to calm. “Uh… yeah, I’m good. Sorry for zoning out there for a second. That’s a topic I just feel really strong about.” She put one of her hooves on her side, and looked at him with a look that seemed to say he had nothing to worry about. “Anything else you want to ask?”
He had remembered her mentioning something about Cloudsdale. He knew that was the Pegasus pony capital of Equestria and where a good chunk of the land’s Pegasi population lived. “You said you were from Cloudsdale? Did you move here to Ponyville recently? Or are you just visiting?”
“Me? Yeah, I’m just visiting with my folks. My mom and dad were visiting Ponyville today because they were shopping for some supplies, and wouldn’t you know it? The Cloudsdale general store was closed due to an accident with the weather factory flooding it! So they decided they’d check out the shops in Ponyville instead. Of course, they can’t leave me home alone, even though I keep telling them I’m already 10 years old and capable of making my own decisions. But do they listen to me? Of course not!” Rainbow explained, rolling her eyes at the end. “So I have to come along. Fortunately, this is a pretty safe place, so they say it’s okay for me to explore on my own for a little bit. And that’s when I met you and saved you from those jerks in my incredibly awesome fashion.” She flew back down to where Dreamer was. “Get all that?’’
“I think so.” Dreamer looked away, a little disappointed that Rainbow Dash was an out of towner. He kind of hoped she had been permanently staying.
Rainbow looked at the shy little colt, as a grin started to spread across her face. “Say… you do live here, right?” Dreamer nodded. “Well, why don’t you show me around? I was checking out the place by myself, but it probably wouldn’t hurt to have a pony who knows this place better than me help. So why don’t you be my tour guide and help get me used to what Ponyville’s like?”
Dreamer pointed to himself. “You really want me to show you around town?”
Rainbow gave Dreamer a friendly pat on the back. “Yeah! You look like you know your way around here. And it’s pretty obvious you want to continue to hang out with the coolest filly ever, so how could I disappoint you?” Rainbow smiled as she put one of her forehoofs over his. “And tell you what: you get to lead me around everywhere and I’ll go wherever you want. Is that a deal?”
Dreamer looked down at Rainbow’s hoof as it held on to his own. He couldn’t believe this was happening. Just an hour ago he thought that he was living the worst day of his life, but now it was pulling a complete 180 on him. He looked back toward Dash, not even thinking twice about his answer. ”Deal! Okay Rainbow Dash, just follow me!” Dreamer then attempted to run into the town, taking Rainbow with him. Shame he didn’t get far… primarily because Rainbow Dash wasn’t budging. The confused colt looked back at her. “Rainbow Dash? I thought you said you wanted to explore Ponyville? ”
Rainbow Dash chuckled. “Oh, I did. But I wasn’t trying to have you drag me by the hoof. When I put it out I was just trying to give you a hoofshake.” She let go of her new friend’s hoof, then moved around to his side, as another sly smirk came to her face. “I had a different idea of how we’d be traveling. It’s a lot faster, too!” Rainbow put both her front legs around Dreamer, holding him as tightly as possible. “Ready to fly the Rainbow Dash express?”
Dreamer’s eyes went wide as he realized what she was going to do. Rainbow started to flap her wings. “I’ll be holding onto you with all my strength, but you should probably hold back on to me just in case!”
Dreamer gulped once again as he looked at the ground underneath them. They were already starting to lift off of the ground. Small little twinges of panic started to hit him and he worriedly looked toward Rainbow as best he could. “Um… Rainbow Dash? There… there’s something you should probably know about me…”
Rainbow Dash wasn’t really paying too much attention. She was focusing everything on getting the two of them into the air, compensating the loss of speed she would have carrying her friend. After putting enough strength into it, she finally succeeded in getting them up into the air as she would were she flying solo, and they bolted into the sky like a rocket. All of which just made Dreamer come that much closer to having a first ever panic attack.
“I don’t really like heiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiights…”
- - -
The next hour seemed to flow by pretty quickly. Dreamer had only gotten to see a taste of Rainbow Dash’s speed when she managed to show up Drill and the others earlier. Now he was getting a first-hoof experience of her wingpower, and despite his added weight she was soaring in the sky with no trouble. Thankfully, her grip was almost as good as her aerial maneuvering, and not once did her grip on Dreamer ever weaken while carrying the colt through the air. Not that it helped to reassure him much, since with each twist and turn Rainbow made Dreamer was that much closer to screaming. Fortunately, he had at least managed to convince Rainbow Dash to fly lower to the ground and hover whenever he was introducing a new locale in the town to her, since at the very least it’d be easier for him to speak without trying to yell over the wind Rainbow was kicking up as a by-product of her speed.
“So what’s this place? It looks like it has a… giant… cupcake…?”
“That’s called Sugarcube Corner – it’s a bakery that just opened a few weeks ago. A married couple called the Cakes moved there not long before that. My mom and dad took me there once…” Naturally, they’d had to order for him since he hadn’t even been able to speak up and had preferred to hid behind his parents instead. Wouldn’t they be surprised to see him now with this filly. “They have a lot of sweets and stuff there. I got –well, my parents got me- a cake pop once – it’s kind of like a lollipop, but it’s made with cake instead. It was really good, too!”
“Really?” Rainbow looked up, presumably to imagine what kind of desserts she’d be able to get, before switching to an expression of disappointment. “I don’t have any bits on me though. I guess I’ll have to check it out sometime when I’m here again!” After a moment, Rainbow started to fly off to her right. Dreamer stopped her.
“Not this way! We’ll just end up going back down to where the town square is.” He pointed to their left. “Go down here, right across Stirrup Street.”
“Are you sure?”
“You did say I’d be leading you, right?”
“Fair enough.” Rainbow nodded as she flew her and her traveling companion down the path he’d pointed. She looked down to notice several tents and stands being manned by ponies. “What’s with all the shops?”
“This is Ponyville’s local marketplace. You said that Cloudsdale has a grocery store, right?” Dreamer looked up to see Rainbow nod in reply, or least give what looked like a nod. “We don’t have that here. Instead we have all of these stands where you can buy various supplies – food, tools, utilities- all of it.”
“Then that’s where Mom and Dad should be right now.” Rainbow stopped to look at all the shops down below, then took a glance at the sun up above. “I guess it seems like as good a place as any to stop for today. They’re probably almost done.’’ She started flying closer to the ground, much to Dreamer’s relief, but stopped while she was still a few feet in the air. “Wait a second… this is further away from where I picked you up. Do you want me to drop you off back where I picked you up earlier?”
“I’m good, thanks! I could use the extra walk anyway.” Besides that, he also just wanted to officially be on the ground again and not just slightly raised above it before Rainbow jetted him back into the air. Eventually Rainbow Dash did what he asked and returned to the ground. Dreamer happily started hugging the ground below the two of them. “I never knew how wonderful it was to feel something solid beneath my hooves.”
Rainbow Dash walked up behind her new compatriot, looking a little irritated. “Hey! In spite of all the moaning you were making the whole time, I did a pretty good job keeping you up in the sky. Did I start losing my grip on you even once the whole time? No! I kept a tight hold on you every second we were in the air. You didn’t even come close to falling once. ”
Dreamer sat back up, getting defensive. “Well sorry for the moaning! I’m an Earth Pony, remember? I’m not used to being jetted around like I’m on a rocket!” His ears began to droop as he looked away from Rainbow. “You’re right though. As… freaked out as I was about being up in the sky like that, you really did make sure to use all your strength to keep me up with you.” She hadn’t even tried to kid about pretending to drop him. Not that he still wanted to go back up in the air again, but it was nice that she’d done nothing less than make sure he was safe up there with her.
Rainbow smirked, playfully hitting Dreamer in the side. “See? I don’t leave anypony hanging.“ Her smirk eased up as she switched back to the softer smile she’d had earlier. She sat down on her hind legs right next to him. “You know, you were pretty good acting as a guide. You showed me all the way around Ponyville, and I didn’t get lost or turn a wrong way. You have a really good memory, you know that?”
Dreamer blinked. Had she just given him a compliment? Another foal around his age was actually naming off something about him that was good? The little Earth pony’s face started to redden. “Thanks.”
Rainbow cocked her head to the side as she realized that he was starting to stare at her. “What’s with the look?”
“Umm… nothing.” He turned his back to Rainbow, feeling embarrassed for looking the way he had. He really didn’t want to screw this up. The last thing he ever wanted to do was let her think he was some sort of weirdo, especially since any foal he’d tried talking to in the past likely had that impression due to his screw-ups. He took a breath to calm himself before looking back at her. “Hey, I’ve been wondering something for a while. Why’d you have those fangs with you?”
“Fangs? Oh, you mean these?” Rainbow pulled out the fake fangs she’d earlier used to scare the bullies into thinking she was some sort of demon filly.
“Yeah." Dreamer glanced at the fangs. "I don’t think Pegasus ponies normally carry those around all the time.”
“You do know Nightmare Night’s coming in a few weeks, right?” Dreamer nodded. “I’m going to go as a vampire pony! I just picked them up earlier today and I’ve been trying to see how scary they look! I forgot to leave them at home before we took off for Ponyville.” She put them back in her mouth for a moment and flashed an evil-looking grin at Dreamer. “So what do you think? Do I look like the scariest vampire pony ever?”
Dreamer looked at her with a flat expression. “Not really.” Without the added effects of her lightning from earlier, she failed to appear all that menacing this time. It also didn’t hurt that she was being pretty nice to him now. She was a little rough, but she was definitely friendlier than he’d initially imagined.
Rainbow spat the fangs back out and pouted, obviously disappointed she hadn’t managed to look as intimidating as she’d hoped. The filly crossed her legs in a huff. “Well it would obviously look cooler if I had a cape on me right now!”
Seeing as how Rainbow was getting irritated again, Dreamer attempted to change the subject. “Earlier you told me that you had a goal in life. If you don’t mind me asking… what is it?”
Instantly Rainbow Dash’s annoyance vanished, replaced by excitement. “When I grow up, I’m going to become a full-fledged member of the Wonderbolts, the top flyers in all of Equestria!" She eagerly pointed to herself. “You’re looking at a future member of the team!” She got up close to the little Earth Pony. “You have heard of them, right?!”
Dreamer thought about it for a second. The name was vaguely familiar to him. While he hadn’t paid explicit attention himself, he recalled some of the other students at his school bringing them up. “I think so… they’re a bunch of Pegasus ponies who’re really good at flying, right?”
Evidently that wasn’t the answer Rainbow Dash was looking for. She looked borderline offended about his answer. “Please tell me that you didn’t just say that! You didn’t really call the Wonderbolts ‘a bunch of ponies who can fly good,’ right?!” She jumped back into the air, flapping her wings harder than before. ” The Wonderbolts are the most amazing, most spectacular group of Pegasi in the world! They’re a team who performs death-defying, electrifying stunts, and they even operate as a rescue team to help ponies in trouble! I can’t believe you called them ‘a bunch of Pegasus ponies’! What do you have to say about that?!” She glared at Dreamer.
Dreamer just stared at Dashie with an uncertain look on his face. “I’m…. sorry?” The two foals looked at each other for a few more moments, before they both began to smile. Soon the pair had burst into fits of laughter.
“Okay… I guess I can forgive you for that one,” she stated as she landed back on the ground. “I’m just going to have to teach you all about them so you don’t make a screw up like that again.” She held her hoof up to him. “Deal?”
“Deal.” Dreamer grinned as he brought his own hoof up to hers, bumping it. “You know, contrary to what this morning was like, today has actually been pretty nice. I don’t think I’ve felt this good since… since…” Actually, strike that. He’d never felt this good before in his life. “
Rainbow Dash smirked. “Duh. That’s because you’ve never hung out with a pony as cool as me before.” She put one hoof up to Dreamer and softly patted him on the shoulder. As she looked back up into the sky, she took a glance at the sun, and her expression softened. “It’s getting pretty late though. I’m probably going to have to head back home soon.”
Dreamer’s smile immediately vanished. He knew that Rainbow was going to have to leave sooner or later, but inevitable as it was, he still hated being reminded that she’d be leaving Ponyville to head back to her hometown. It was nice to actually be a normal pony for once. He had finally been able to talk to another foal his age and hang out with her like they were lifelong friends after all this time. He didn’t want it to end.
“Rainbow Dash!”
Speak of the devil. Dreamer and Rainbow looked up to see two adult Pegasi, one stallion and one mare, both flying over to them. The stallion was noticeably one of the bigger types with a heavier build; his coat was somewhere between blue and purple, but what made it a dead giveaway that he was Rainbow Dash’s father was his mane and tail: they were rainbow-colored exactly like Dash’s own mane and tail were, and even styled similarly, but shorter. His cutie mark consisted of a rainbow with a horseshoe appearing over it, while around his waist was a set of saddle bags, obviously containing whatever they'd purchased at Ponyville Market.
The mare, who clearly had to be Rainbow’s mother, had a similar coat color as her daughter, but she uniquely had freckles on her cheeks. Her mane and tail were two different shades of what looked like a peach-orange color. The bangs on the front of her mane were a short, straight style while the back was noticeably much longer and bushy. She also had a fairly short tail. Rounding out her physical appearance was her own cutie mark, with the image on her flank appearing to be a cloud whistling right through the winds. In addition to that was a noticeable pair of large, neon-pink earrings on each of her ears. A set of similar neon green and pink bracelets were around her left hoof.
The couple stopped in front of the two foals and looked down at their daughter. Rainbow’s dad smiled warmly at her. “Windy and I didn’t expect you to be right near the marketplace. We thought you’d be halfway across town trying to exploring it all!”
Rainbow Dash shook her head side-to-side. “I just finished looking through all of Ponyville a few minutes ago. I was waiting for the two of you to finish.”
Dash’s parents blinked in surprise as they looked toward each other, then back to their daughter. The look of astonishment on both their faces clearly indicated that neither parent had expected their little filly to have checked the entire town out in just a little over 30 minutes. “You mean you managed to explore this entire place that quickly?” Rainbow’s father began to laugh and proceeded to start rubbing Rainbow Dash on top of her head; a frown forming on Rainbow's face as he did. “That’s our little Dashie! First time she’s ever visited this town and she already knows the whole place inside and out!”
Rainbow tried to clean her mane after her father got it ruffled it up, but she never had the chance, as the next thing she knew her mother who’d previously been identified as Windy picked her daughter up, snuggling the little filly. “And out exploring on your own too! You’re always nothing short of amazing!“ Windy began to tear up as she started rubbing her cheeks up to her daughters, much to Rainbow’s irritation. “First you get your cutie mark and now this! You’re growing up so fast!”
“I know!” Dash’s father chimed in, now starting to become teary-eyed himself. “Pretty soon you won’t be our little filly anymore!” Before Rainbow could protest, he was now joining Windy in on hugging her.
“Hey! Could you cut that out?!” As her parents hugged her for a few more moments, Rainbow Dash fought to get out of their grip, eventually succeeding in pulling herself away from the two older ponies. She hovered in the air at their eye level, pouting at the two of them. “Dad! Mom! You know I hate it when you do that! I don’t want you to mess my mane up!” She patted the very top of her hair, hoping to smooth it out after her mother and father had messed it up a little. Rainbow’s parents both giggled with pride as they watched their daughter fix her mane up before finally noticing that that there was a little Earth Pony next to their little girl all this time. The couple now turned their attention to Dreamer as he sat nearby, who was beginning to realize that both parents’ eyes were now on him.
“So, who’s your friend?” her father asked.
Rainbow finished getting her hair back to the way it had previous been before looking at her fellow foal. “This is Dreamer! You can just call him Dree, though,” she answered, landing next to the little colt. “He’s the one who was showing me all around town.” Rainbow leaned up to the little colt and subtly tapped on Dreamer on his side with her wing. “Well? Say something!,” she whispered to him.
Dreamer couldn’t help but start feeling nervous again, and not just because the stallion in front of him was much bigger than he was. “H-hi sir... ma’am…” At least he’d managed to say it clearly, and not mumble it so it was barely above a whisper.
Rainbow’s father took a second to look Dreamer all over. For just a moment it he seemed to be looking fairly intense, but soon after that the stallion began to ease up and relax, smiling at the little Earth pony. “So, you’ve been looking out for our daughter, huh?”
Dreamer did his best to nod, as a weak whimper escaped his throat. “It-it wasn’t anything that big. Really! I was just showing her around like your daught--, er, like Rainbow Dash said.”
Before Dreamer could even register what was happening, Rainbow’s mother began shaking him by one of his hooves. “That is so nice you! I’m Windy Whistles and this is my husband, Bow Hothoof! Any friend of our Dashie’s is a friend of ours!“
“Nice to meet ya, Dreamer!” Bow exclaimed. The Pegasus stallion gave a wide-eyed grin before proceeding to pat Dreamer on the head. “You’re a really good kid! Thanks for making sure she was okay the whole time while we were at the market.”
Dreamer stood still in stunned silence before finally responding with a “You’re welcome?”
Bow turned to face his daughter. “Okay, Rainbow Dash; I know you’ve been having fun looking around, but it’s time to head back home.”
Rainbow Dash started to hover back into the air, but stopped herself as she turned to look back at where Dreamer was sitting. By now he’d started to turn away from the three Pegasi. “Can I say goodbye first?”
Bow looked at Dreamer than back to Rainbow. He nodded as he lightly nuzzled his daughter. “Of course you can, Dashie! Just be quick though.”
Rainbow flew over to Dreamer’s location. She continued to hover only a few inches off the ground; her little blue wings fluttering rapidly the whole time. “Guess that’s it for today, huh?”
“Yeah…” Dreamer dejectedly muttered. He was doing his best to keep a brave face up, but inside he felt like somepony had just hit him right in the gut. Once Rainbow Dash left to Cloudsdale, he knew he’d never see her again. That would mean not having another foal to play with, or Rainbow not being able to fill him in on the Wonderbolts like she said she would, or just having another foal to talk to without turning into a stammering wreck, or any of that stuff he’d want to do. Her saying goodbye was only dragging that aching knowledge out.
Since he was still looking away, Rainbow flew directly in front of Dreamer, doing her best to get his attention. “Look, I know you’re upset. I wish we could have hung out more today too. I could have shown you how cool I am! I mean even more than I already have!” She cocked her head to the side while placing one hoof next to her waist; forming an easygoing grin at Dreamer as she did. “That just means we’re going to have to do more next time. When I’m in town again the first thing I’m going to do is look you up.”
Dreamer blinked several times, wondering if everything he’d just heard had been in his imagination. Despite his worry that this was just some wishful thinking, Rainbow Dash was still floating in the air in front of him and giving that warm expression the entire time. “You mean… you want to meet up again? Are you serious?!”
“Well, duh! We’re pals now! And that’s what we’re supposed to do! First time I get some time off from flight school, I’m heading back to Ponyville to meet up with you!” Rainbow moved back down to Dreamer, and after looking back and forth, hugged him, with both legs firmly around his grey coated little body. Dreamer stood there a moment in complete silence as he started to blush again. He’d never been hugged by another foal either. He closed his eyes and smiled, hugging the little Pegasus right back. Nearby, Bow and Windy were watching the scene between the two foals, each pony wiping a few tears away.
When Rainbow was done, she let go and gave a wave to her newfound friend, then started taking off far into the air. Bow and Windy joined her, smiling at their daughter the whole time. “I am so proud of you Dashie," Windy said. "That was a very sweet thing to do for him.”
“I know!" Bow replied, wiping another tear from his eye with one of his wings. "Nopony can make friends like our Rainbow Dash can!“
Rainbow’s face began turning red as her parents complimented her on her little act of compassion. “What?! N-No, it’s not like that! You two are taking it the wrong way!” She flew a few inches away from Windy and Bow as she looked away in embarrassment, holding herself still in the air. “I’m just looking out for my new fan, that’s all! You don’t need to make a big deal of it, okay?” She made a quick aside glance to Dreamer, who was still sitting on the ground and watching her fly away. Noticing that she was looking back, he waved at her. After a moment’s hesitation, Rainbow waved back, flashing him her usual confident grin. “See ya!”
Dreamer stared into the sky as Rainbow and her parents flew off; continuing to do so even as the three soon shrunk to tiny little dots in the sky. Once the family had completely vanished, Dreamer dropped to the ground, laying on his back. His mind drifted through the events of the day, amazed at how much of a 180 it had pulled on him. It had started off horribly in the beginning with Drillbit and company trying to make him as miserable as possible, and only gotten worse when he’d accidentally made them angry. But by the end, it had somehow managed to turn out to be okay. He stood up, stretched all fours, and started walking towards home.
“Drill and the others hopefully won’t mess with me for a while. And I guess I have a friend now. That’s really cool…” he mused to himself, before stopping and realizing what he’d just said. “I have a friend…” While Rainbow Dash had earlier declared that they were now friends, it was only now that the full implication of what this meant finally hit him. For the very first time in his life, he finally had an actual, honest-to-goodness foal who wanted to hang out around town, and do things with him, and talk with him, and just be there for him. Tears started to form in his eyes again. “I HAVE A FRIEND! WOO-HOOOOOO!!!!” He shouted from the top of his lungs while kicking his front hooves up, before stopping himself, glancing around to make sure that nopony had seen his outburst. “Wow. I didn’t know I had that in me.” He laughed and wiped the tears in his eyes away. After doing so he resumed his trek back for home, happily running the rest of the way.