2. Acrophobia
Rainbow Dash took to the sky. Each beat of her wings brought her up, up, and away from her guilt and frustration - and away from Fluttershy. She turned and eased herself into a hover, looking down at the cumulus cloud below.
It was a wild one, lumpy and irregular. Normally she or her crew would bust them up, but a big storm front was going to come through just before dusk and so the order of the day said to leave them alone.
Fluttershy was lying on top of it, head buried in her hooves, completely still. She didn't even have the energy to hold herself together: her wings and hind legs sagged off either side of her body, their wrists and pasterns poking out. Her butterflies lay toeither side of her tail, six pairs of fallen leaves.
Dash reached a forehoof to the bridge of her nose. “Oh, Fluttershy... Why?” She looked around and spotted a cirrus whisp, just enough for a little bit of weathercraft. She flew a tight spiral around it, condensing it into a string of basic humblies - cumuli humilies to eggheads - and grabbed one in her forehooves. She hugged it tight, darkening the cloud, and carefully positioned it over her friend.
Dash zipped back and forth, adding another and another until Fluttershy was sitting in the middle of a shaded patch. Her heartache looked painful enough. No way to Tartarus was Dash about to let her get heat exhaustion too.
She twisted off two lumps of cloud and landed next to Fluttershy. “Here.” She held one out. “You gotta stay hydrated.”
Fluttershy sat up, took it, and dully followed as Dash squeezed the cloud between her forehooves and drank. It smelled like lightning and summer rain. It was piss-warm and tasted flat, but at least it was water.
Dash kept a respectful distance, eyes closed, and alternately sipped long misty draughts and drew deep breaths. When finished, she let her wispy husk of a cloud drift away, blew out a long sigh, and opened her eyes to stare down into the gap between either pony. “I'm sorry, Fluttershy.”
They sat in silence atop the softly churning cloud. Guilt in turn sat on Dash's shoulders. They just wanted to compliment and encourage me. I called her “freaky and eww.”
Dash tried again. “I mean, I've been feeling kinda sick since I realized exactly what I said - or shouted, really. I can't imagine what it feels like for you.”
“I'm sorry that I...” Fluttershy's voice faltered. “That I l- lusted over you. For months. And never said anything...”
Dash looked up. Fluttershy looked away.
Lust, huh? thought Dash, mostly amused. Well check me out.
“Well, yeah,” she said aloud. “That makes sense. Apparently I'm pretty hot.”
Fluttershy flinched and squeezed her eyes shut.
“Hey, lighten up, okay? You know, you're the one who could be a model.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I can see it now.” Dash swept her hooves as she spoke. “It's a dark room and the lights swing down to center stage. There's Fluttershy. They can't believe how pretty she is. They can't take their eyes away: mares, stallions, little colts and fillies, it doesn't matter. They all adore her - and Fluttershy, she's loving every single second.”
Please laugh, thought Dash.
Fluttershy blinked her blue-green eyes and stared for a long, long moment. She bit her lower lip and ever so slowly, as if asking permission, she smiled.
Dash couldn't hold her own laughter back any longer. It burbled up from her belly, tickled at her shoulders, echoed back from all corners of the sky. She toppled over and rolled to her back, legs and wings twitching.
Fluttershy giggled softly, trying to hide her grin behind a forehoof. Now that, thought Dash, is more like it.
Fluttershy wiped a tear from her eye. “That is something that will never, ever happen. Me? A model?”
“Yeah, can you imagine? I think you should stick to conquering dragons, okay?”
“Oh, I wouldn't exactly count on that,” said Fluttershy. “Listen. I know this is awkward and disturbing now that you know what a lascivious pony I am, but I really do want to stay friends somehow, so-”
“Woah, hold on.” Dash sat up. “What's this about us not being friends?”
“Well, you see...” Fluttershy drew circles in the cloud, pulling up spirals of mist and letting them fall in a pile. “I hated when those colts started gossiping about you. They were angry and frustrated and heart-broken, but that didn't make them right.”
Dash had pretty much forgotten about that. Basically, she turned down a couple of guys and they started calling her names. It got to the point where she couldn't even give a pony a friendly hug without somepony whistling and shouting “fillyfooler” or “get a room.” The worst part was when Fluttershy and Ice Drop started to avoid her. So, Dash went and adjusted a few attitudes and that was pretty much the end of it. It was a while ago.
Fluttershy sighed and blew down her cloud-pile. She stared at the wreck silently.
Dash's heart sank. “Fluttershy, it's okay. It's strange and I'm still not sure what to think, but I promise we're gonna be okay. You do look like you need a hug, though.”
She took a step towards Fluttershy and held out a forehoof. Their eyes met. “Tell me if this feels bad?”
Fluttershy nodded with a frown. Dash eased herself close and reached around Fluttershy's neck. Her mane was soft and warm from the sunlight. Dash squeezed tight and said, “Everything's gonna be alright.”
“Mmm-hmm,” answered Fluttershy. She leaned her head into Dash's neck.
Dash held Fluttershy and after a while let her go. “Hey, mind if I get comfortable? There's something I want to talk about.”
She stretched herself out on her back and folded her forehooves under her head with a comfortable sigh. At least, she tried to look comfortable - her heart beat excited in her chest and maybe Fluttershy would get the wrong idea but Dash had to say it.
She asked, “So what's it like?”
“What is what like?”
“Falling for somepony?”
“Oh... It's complicated. Mostly it's nice.” As Dash watched, Fluttershy picked up a forehoof and examined the keratin. “You get a little nervous anytime you're around her or whenever you think of her, which is a lot. You realize she's a lot more beautiful than ponies usually give her credit for. It's like there's some special ray of sunlight - or in your case a particularly tough wild storm - that shows off the absolute best in her...”
Dash shifted her attention to the underside of the shade-cloud she had built overhead. “That all?”
“Well there's other stuff...” Dash rolled her hoof and Fluttershy continued, “You have very nice quarters, lean and strong and...”
“And?”
Fluttershy's words tumbled out in an embarrassed heap. “and maybe you'd make a good pillow - or something. I'm sorry.”
Yeah, thought Dash. Or something. Why did it always have to be “or something?” You grow up and suddenly you can't just snuggle.
Fluttershy, silent and sitting on her haunches, blushed.
Dash laughed. “Well, sorry, but that's a little too much... much. Thanks for being honest at least. Listen.” The laughter went out of her voice. “Have you ever thought that maybe I'm different, Fluttershy?”
“How so?”
“About things like that. 'Cuz I've never felt particularly special toward any pony, and I'm only a year younger than you are, so...”
“You just haven't met the right pony, that's all.”
Dash rolled back to her hooves, got up, and paced along the edge. “Maybe it goes deeper, though. Sometimes I feel like I'm some completely different species, like I'm some kind of diplomat, and I just think I'm a pony, you know? I live with them. I think I understand them. I can pretend to be one. But in the end I'm not.”
She stopped, and turning away from Fluttershy, looked out into the landscape. The clouds cast checkered shadows on the ground. “Maybe I'm just in love with the sky or something.”
Fluttershy didn't respond. There was silence, broken only by a hawk's call.
“Well, when you meet your special somepony,” said Fluttershy. “I promise I'll cheer for you.”
“Or maybe...” Dash resumed her pacing. “Look, Fluttershy, you know how I learned to fly. Maybe I'm just standing on that rooftop too scared to jump.”
“What do you mean?” said Fluttershy.
Dash was just guessing, throwing out ideas and seeing what ones she liked. “Don't take this the wrong way, okay? It's just maybe that I need some practice... You know, find somepony, try a few dates, see if I can figure out what the hay I'm supposed to do.”
Fluttershy looked down. “ ‘Somepony.’ I see.”
“No! Listen, Fluttershy. I know I'm gonna crash once or twice and you're too... I'm not going to risk hurting you while I'm still trying to get my bearings.”
Dash stepped close and lay a forehoof on Fluttershy's shoulder. “So, it's a good idea, right? Fluttershy? Right?”
“You,” said Fluttershy, looking up. Her brow had clouded over. “You have a lot of nerve, Rainbow Dash, telling me what will and will not break my heart.”
Rainbow took a step back.
Fluttershy stood. “Everypony, look. It's fragile Fluttershy. You'd better watch out. Be nice to her or she might cry or something and that would be just awful.”
“Sorry,” mumbled Rainbow Dash. She stumbled backwards.
“Oh, what was that?”
“I'm so sorry. I- I don't know how to make this not hurt. I'm just trying to figure things out, okay? But it's not coming out okay, so... sorry.”
“Well,” said Fluttershy. She took a long breath. “Go ahead and say it, then. ‘No, Fluttershy. I'm flattered, but you're not my type.’ Something. Anything. Say it so that I can get over it.”
Dash ruffled her wings nervously. By the time she could finally look at Fluttershy's face again, it was with tears at the corners of her eyes. “I... I respect you. You're a pushover scaredy-pony, sure, but you... you do things I can't imagine ever doing. Not like flight tricks or anything like that. You're kind.”
Fluttershy pressed her lips together and shook her head.
Dash soldiered on. “You take the time to really get to know everypony - every creature - and find some little bit of goodness in all of them. You never hurt anything if you can help it. And I... I want to be a little bit more like you. Look. Maybe a little while later, you and I could talk about this again, but right now I'm not even in the same league. I know you can be patient.”
Fluttershy didn't look patient. She crouched and her ears flattened and for the briefest moment Dash found herself calculating her odds. She was more athletic, of course, but Fluttershy was a touch taller and certainly heavier. Her low-altitude lifestyle gave her a solidity not common in pegasi and she probably had a lot of strength in her legs from walking around so much.
But that was crazy, what did she think Fluttershy was going to do?
A low growl burst from Fluttershy. “Good enough. I don't mind.” She sprang forward.
Dash's eyes grew wide. She acted strictly on instinct honed by years of practicing Neiponese self-defense. Dash set her hindquarters rooted and flexible, like a willow in a tai-fuu.
When Fluttershy tackled her, Dash shifted and added her own momentum to hers. Ki erupted from her rooted hoof, arced through a radically toned flank, and grounded itself into Fluttershy's belly.
It was a perfect throw, empty of thought. Dash helped Fluttershy over the edge gently, almost tenderly. She disappeared.
“No! Sleet!”
Half a second later, Dash was over the edge herself, still feeling it strike against all four hooves. Her wings grabbed air and thrust her toward at the ground. The side of the cloud was her horizon, lumpy with soft white hills and dells that rushed past her.
Fluttershy was tumbling far in the green distance below. C'mon, thought Dash. It's just a simple spin. You've got this, Fluttershy.
Fluttershy didn't seem to have it. She tried to recover, but her wings were wrenched by the wind in a way that made Dash's hurt just to watch. Dash pushed herself faster and faster.
The most dangerous part of falling is panic. A panicked pony is almost as much a danger to her rescuer as to herself, and Dash looked for a good opening that wouldn't earn her a smack to the head. If she was knocked out, they'd both end up bloodied and beaten in the bottom of a crater - if they were lucky.
Dash worked through her approach with even more coolness than when she attempted a new, super-tricky flying trick. Of course she had this. How could she not have this? That would be impossible. There was only enough time to do it right.
Seen from the side, Dash's catch would look like a quarter-circle L, beginning parallel to Fluttershy's fall and intersecting it. Actually executed, it felt a lot like the beginning of a round loop. Dash angled herself upwards from her straight dive - sideways to an observer - and let her wings slam her withers into Fluttershy's body.
It had to hurt. It did hurt, Dash remembered from getting bailed out herself. Fluttershy was unbelievably solid. She fell across Dash's back like a bag of wet sand.
Dash had her. They were still screaming toward the ground, which was starting to get bigger, and Dash pulled up as hard as she dared. Her wings could take it, even at two-hundred twenty percent loading or whatever it was, but vortices of air boiled and shed from her flight feathers. Dash didn't dare pull harder. She was nearly stalled.
Slowly, more slowly than Dash would like, the ground and her trajectory diverged. Lift jammed the pegasi together, no doubt winding Fluttershy if she hadn't blacked out already. Either way, she didn't move. Dash scanned for a cloud-outcropping or somewhere to recover on, and by the sun's blessed light she spied one not to far away.
They skidded and splashed to a stop. It was wild convective-bubble cumulus, very soupy and unstable but buoyant and deep enough to hold them aloft. Dash let Fluttershy slip from her back.
Fluttershy recovered quickly, drawing a huge, shuddering breath and pulling her hooves close to her chest. She shook and looked like she was about to cry, or maybe throw up.
Relief almost knocked Dash to her knees.
Fluttershy took several huge breaths and steadied herself and finally looked at Dash, who took it as her cue. “Fluttershy, that was not even close to acceptable.”
“No. No it wasn't. I'm so sorry; I don't know what came over-”
“You really need to work on your falling-”
“I promise it won't-”
“So I hope you weren't planning on doing anything today-”
“I mean, we're ponies, not wild animals.”
Dash took a deep breath and said, “Yeah... about that.” Dash thought about it. Maybe she should be offended, but to be honest, she wasn't.
Fluttershy twiddled her hooves. “Like I said, I don't know what happened.”
Dash rolled her eyes, but she took a seat next to Fluttershy. “I think I've got a decent idea. Let's see.” She gestured to each bit of evidence. “You're a mare. It's a beautiful summer day. I'm somepony you like. And you've gone a little loopy. It's not exactly mesoscale dynamics to figure out what kind of day it is.”
“Oh,” said Fluttershy, her voice small and eyes wide. “Oh. Yes, I guess today is, but... this is so very...” Her ears wilted under embarrassment.
“Natural?” Dash prompted. “It's only mareheat. Just don't make me kick you and tell your mother.”
She hoped that last line would get a laugh. It was cliché, the kind of thing they'd been taught to say when they were much younger mares.
“I'm sorry.” Fluttershy blushed.
“And I forgive you,” said Dash. Sometimes it was the best way to get Fluttershy to stop apologizing for everything. “But, look, we gotta talk. About fallproofing.”
Dash felt a sick knot in her stomach. Fluttershy wasn't the little yellow filly sitting on the sidelines anymore, still as a tree except for her tears. Fallproofing class hadn't been easy for her, and the harrassment in hallways and the lunchroom afterwards were worse. But even now, grown-up and tons happier with her life, she needed to practice baby pre-flight stuff and Dash wouldn't be a good friend if she let it slide.
She still felt like a jerk.
“I almost caught myself,” said Fluttershy darkly.
Dash took a deep breath and looked around. They were above a nice field and the sky was partially-sunny at this altitude. They weren't far from a plum orchard whose owner was more than a little picky about rain consistency. Fluttershy pouted next to her.
Dash set a forehoof on her back. “Hey, it's okay. You wouldn't believe some of the newbies they send me. Listen, I know this isn't the kind of date you were hoping for, but-”
Fluttershy turned her head toward Dash and frowned but kept silent.
“I'm not going away until I'm sure you're safe. And it's not about love or even friendship. It's about me trying to be a decent pony. Let me help you.”
Fluttershy sat up. “Okay. You're right. I...” She closed her eyes. “I know you forgive me for what I did. Listen. I'm okay. I just need to cry for a bit.”
And she did, silently, and Dash didn't know what to say. But after a minute she stepped close and embraced Fluttershy, and nopony needed to say anything.
Rainbow Dash insisted they needed altitude, for safety at least. This brought them both nearly to the top of their cumulus tower. It was only an hour past noon, and the sunlight was hot. The only relief were breezes of generally-cooler air drifting across the growing convective tower.
Equestria was hazy. Shade was a blessing - or just another fringe benefit of knowing a thing or two about weathercraft. Dash dug a classroom for them near the peak, complete with a makeshift whiteboard and a roof.
“Let's start with basics. Like, you do know what a stall is, right?”
“Well,” said Fluttershy. “Stalling is when a creature flies too slow so she can't make enough lift and she falls out of the sky.”
Dash groaned. “Those dumb asses. You actually believe that, don't you?”
“I'm... I'm not really sure. I'm sorry.”
“Hey. Look at me.” Dash met Fluttershy with a smile. With a wave of a hoof she cleared the board, then she took a clump of cloud, squeezed it so it grew dark and stormy, and began to sketch with it. She drew a diagram of a pony with four arrows representing thrust, drag, lift, and weight. “This look familiar?”
“Yes.”
“Well, the problem is that drawing's complete horseapples. We're not talking about passing some quiz, here. This is real flying.”
Fluttershy furrowed her brow. “Okay. Real flying.”
“And it's not your fault if they taught you a bunch of nonsense. Flying is simple. If you want to stand, you just push on the ground with your hooves. If you want to hover, you just push on the air with your wings. Like this.”
Dash demonstrated, pulling herself into the air with a single powerful beat and dropping back to the floor. A ring of mist rolled away from her. “The only reason you'd stall when you fly slowly is because you can't glide without headwind, but that's super-obvious and misses the point: stalling feels like stalling. Period.”
“Okay,” said Fluttershy.
“Stalling is really about slipping through the air instead of skimming along it. Like if you throw a big rock into a pond it just goes ‘plunk,’ but if it's a little flat one and you throw it at the right angle it bounces along the surface. Angles are the key. Am I losing you, Fluttershy?”
“Oh, no,” said Fluttershy. Dash cocked an eyebrow. “I mean, yes. Sorry.”
“Well, it's kinda hard to explain. It's a little like walking on ice. Push to hard and you'll slip. Or...” Dash shook her head. She wasn't ever supposed to be a teacher; it was just something that had come with the weather job.
It was not her talent - Dash didn't think about what she was doing while doing it. Dash did things, end of story, no explanation. “Ugh. You know what? Wing.” She held out her hoof.
“What?” said Fluttershy.
“Give me your wing,” said Dash. “Please. I can't make the words work. I need to show you.”
“O- okay.” Fluttershy unfolded her left wing. Dash took it, gently, and guided it to full extension.
“Like that, just like you're gliding. Hovering's different so we'll get to it later. So the air's gonna hit like this:” Dash demonstrated with her free hoof, pointing and pushing gently. “First the leading edge where it splits in two. The air on the bottom presses up on your liner feathers and the flight feathers. And the air on top sucks your wing upward, normally. That's gonna lift your flights, too.”
Fluttershy's flight feathers, the long, stiff ones growing from the meat of her wing, flexed easily. “That's about as much pressure as you'd feel in a tight barrel-roll.”
She looked at Fluttershy's eyes. She seemed attentive looking at her own wing, so Dash continued.
“Now all a stall is is when you pitch too much, so the air's hitting your wing broadside from the bottom. It pushes up on your liners just fine, but something funny happens on the top. It spills around your flights too and you get this bubble of turbulence. You can feel it. It's something like this.”
Dash stroked her hoof along the top of Fluttershy's wing from leading edge to the last covert feathers, which protected the quills of her flights. “That's normal flow. A stall is...” She reversed direction, stroking against their grain and lifting a dozen or so of them.
Fluttershy startled, and half a second later the rest of her covert feathers started to lift. They waved like fluffy yellow scales, like those on a pinecone but softer, a feathered blush.
“Oh, sorry,” said Dash, taking her hooves off Fluttershy's wing and looking back to her face. Maybe she looked offended, but Dash couldn't be sure. Fluttershy closed her wing and its feathers fell flat again.
“That's okay,” said Fluttershy. “And that was very clear. Thank you.”
“Anyway,” said Rainbow Dash. “Enough talk. You have to actually feel it and get totally comfortable with stall recovery before we can move on to spins. Don't take it personally, but were gonna do basic stall-ups for a bit.”
After only a few stall-ups, Fluttershy was beginning to show discouragement. Dash reminded herself that stall-ups were anaerobic exercise, like wing-sprints, and if Fluttershy didn't get the next one, they should probably take a break.
She wanted Fluttershy to get the next one so bad. For her sake.
“I'm sorry. I really don't think I can do this,” Fluttershy said.
“One more, please. I think I can see what you're doing wrong.”
Fluttershy nodded and flapped hard for speed. As Dash kept pace alongside, Fluttershy locked her wings to glide and pitched up, up, up. She glided higher and slower and Dash transitioned to a hover watching her wings carefully for the critical moment. Dash couldn't feel the eddies herself, but she saw them ripple across Fluttershy's feathers.
All Fluttershy had to do was pitch forward - exactly the opposite of her instincts.
Just like the last time and the time before that, she beat her wings.
“Woah! Down,” cautioned Dash. This time she was close enough to reach out with a hoof and shove Fluttershy's neck towards the ground.
Fluttershy squeaked, but she locked her wings open and - it had to be terrifying for the poor filly - tipped headfirst back into a descending glide. Dash grinned. She loved the feeling when the sky caught her like that. It was like going down a really long, smooth slide.
“Just like that,” said Dash. “Just like that. Pretty good. Now do it without flapping at all.”
From stall-ups, Dash moved Fluttershy through wing rolls to sharp dives, an abbreviated but intensive version of the Cloudsdale fallproofing program. She was feeling pretty good about herself - either Fluttershy was stronger and more comfortable with her grown-up wings than she'd ever been as a filly, or Dash was a pretty awesome teacher.
Most likely the latter.
“Hey, Fluttershy,” she called. “Let's take a breather.”
By now their scoop in the cloud was a familiar base of operations. Dash would hate to see it go before taking a proper nap, but she had a duties both to Fluttershy and to the Weather Service.
“How are your wings?” asked Dash. “I mean, we've been at this a while.”
Fluttershy rubbed at her left flight pectoral with a forehoof. “I'm getting a little tired,” she admitted. “How are you?”
“Oh.” Dash crossed her forehooves, lay down her head on them, and closed her eyes. One second was better than none. “Not bad. I wanted to say you're doing really well today. A lot better than I expected, to be honest. Good job.”
Far away she heard a hawk cry.
After a few minutes of silence, pleasant breezes, and the soft whisper of the ponies' breaths, Dash spoke. “So anyway, I was thinking that maybe we do one more thing and call it a day. Have you ever heard of a Stoop-and-Swoop?”
“No,” said Fluttershy.
“That's okay. I invented it, so not everypony knows about it yet. It's pretty awesome. You get to go really fast at the end and it's as easy as falling out of bed. Check it out.”
She nudged Fluttershy's shoulder and sketched out the flight path with a hoof. “So you start out good and high. Speed doesn't matter; you can start it fast or slow. You glide up a bit, then just as you're beginning to stall, you do a wing roll. That puts you more or less in a spin, but you just ride it out with that dart-wing trick I showed you and dive straight down as far as you dare. Then you just zoom back into level flight.” Dash's gesture traced a rough J shape with a swash at the top.
“You...” said Fluttershy, “you're not telling me to do this, are you?”
“C'mon, it's perfect!” said Dash. “You've already practiced everything. All you have to do is put it together.”
“But I don't... I don't do aerobatics, Rainbow. You know that.”
“Well, think of it as a final test or review or whatever. And don't worry. I'll be right along to catch you if you need it again.” Dash laughed. “Actually, I'm beginning to think the third and fourth times were because you like it.”
“Well...”
“C'mover here. See that tuft of cloud way down there? Let's make that our target for the dive phase. Skim under it, then continue to the big tower over there. Simple enough?”
Fluttershy climbed shakily too her hooves. Dash could hear her swallow hard. “I'm scared. It's like you said earlier, it's reckless to fall too much, like what if I go too far or sprain a wing pulling out of the dive or something? I'm sorry, but I don't do aerobatics and that's why.”
“Fluttershy,” said Dash. “Go ahead and sit at the edge.” Fluttershy sat on her rump, facing the open sky beyond their scoop. It looked pretty much awesome to Dash: disorganized thunderheads the size of mountains floated in a huge herd extending all the way to the horizon. Canterlot clung to the side of Mt. Corona far, far away. And when that front rolled into Ponyville airspace, Rainbow Dash was going to be in charge of it.
She too sat up and put her forehooves on Fluttershy's shoulders. “Hey. I know it's hard to believe, but I'm scared too. Only a little bit because I've practiced so much, but sometimes it hits me just how crazy it is for a pony to fly or just how much I have to be scared for. But you've been doing aerobatics all day now and I wouldn't ask you to do this if I didn't think you can handle it. You understand that, right?”
Fluttershy nodded.
“The hardest part is right before you begin. So what I do is I count, and when I get to the number I pick, I just do it. No thinking. Just go.”
Dash smiled, let her hooves slide from Fluttershy's shoulders, and faced the sky. She spread her wings. “So let's go.”
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I found Flutters jumping Dash to be a bit odd all around, but as a whole the story is still great.
I read this like a year ago, basically, and I recall disliking it. I'll give the re-issue another chance for sure-- soon.~
so far so good, but I always find it amusing when someone tries to write pony flight in a realistic manner.
1891416
Just because something is magic doesn't mean it can't be explained. Or that it can. Wasn't "Feeling Pinkie Keen" all about both those points colliding? Unicorn magic is rational, engineered, scientific (mostly). Earth magic just happens (mostly), and when it does have rules, they don't make sense. Pegasus magic, you just do it and maybe try to understand it if you need to (mostly).
I figure Dash is culturally skilled-blue-collar. She knows an awful lot about the practice and vocabulary of weather-making, but she's doesn't consider herself a brainy or bookish pony for it. I'm sure her everyday speech includes gems like, "Whose feathered butthole did this meso-plan [Mesoscale Plan of the Day] drop out of? If those eggheads understood what it's like keeping a ridge like that from turning into a soup of altostratus haze... I'd like to seem them haul their fat desk-flying flanks up to altitude for once."
Anyway, physicality is a big part of what I want to do with this story. T-rating means no detailed sex scenes, but that's no reason I can't be sensual with other topics.
1891461
Don't misunderstand there's nothing wrong with it. I just find it amusing when people start writing technical details about pony flight that's all.
Actually I get the same amusement when they go on about unicorn magic having all of these strange rules and restrictions. I don't know why I just find the effort people put into explaining these things to be funny.
Makes sense, it's a pretty common thing for skilled people to do.
....
I don't know you're talking to with that last sentence.
1891689
If you liked the wing-handling, there's more of that sort of thing in the works. That's all
I do like this new version, but it misses a lot of the... impact? that the old one had.
Well, I guess I have to retract my comment about Rainbow leaving since she turns right around and comes back, but I have to agree that the bit where Fluttershy jumps Dash is a bit... weird.
This story was good in its first version, and this one has a clear tendency of being even better.
Please continue!
I like how there is more detail and backstory now, with fics of this quality more is always better.
Will it be explained what exactly (why?) set Rainbow of like this in Rarity´s boutique?
And since I´d like stories that center on Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash, I kind of hope that Ice Drop doesn´t have to do too much with it... the missing OC tag is a good sign I think.
But I trust you could make it work either way.
As to Shy jumping Dash: As long as she doesn´t make a habit out of it, I don´t see the problem. We have seen that Fluttershy does stuff like that when frustrated and emotional on edge, and the given explanation is ok for me, too.
2019391
Well, Dash figured it out - to Fluttershy's embarrassment. Will this be a major plot point? No. Doesn't have to be. It's a normal part of their biology and they're both used to dealing with it after all.
2020223
I thought about putting the OC tag on, and I will when the one OC rises to major-character status*.
(*oh, you are going to hate her)
But I promise, this is about Fluttershy, Dash, their relationship, and how it touches their past and friendships and such. So, nopony appears except to shine the spotlight on them. Ice Drop hasn't invited herself back into the story at the moment. Fluttershy's friend, the one who told her that her choices matter, she's named Shadow Archetype and I've learned a surprising lot about her - I don't think she'll appear so I didn't name her directly. I need to write chapter 4 next (3 is almost ready) and Rarity plays a big role opposite Dash, as does a background pony... Chapter 5 scares me. It features (at this point) Fluttershy and AJ and a pig and depends very much on long-term planning to get it write. I suck at long-term planning.
There's another OC of mine who folks really liked. She wants a way into the story, at least as a cameo.
So, expect a big cast but FlutterDash will star.
Anyhoo, thanks to everypony who commented, especially recently. I've been indisposed (had to move and make some major changes in my life) but my schedule is opening up again. You are the encouragement I need right now.
DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUDE! when do plan on updating?!
I'm confused with where this story is going and I won't know until you update!
first dash hurts Fluttershy, then they're talking through it(which still kind of confuses me, from what has been said Fluttershy is in heat, Rainbow is sorry for pretty much calling Fluttershy 'gross and ewww', then the thing with Fluttershy trying to tackle Rainbow... still throws me for a loop, and now it has turned into a flying lesson?) what's going on man, maybe I just need to re-read it again. but this story is great and I want to see where it goes because, the direction it's going looks interesting.