Fight for Love

by Wyvern1246

The Power of Love

Chapter 2-The Power of Love

Rainbow Dash was up ridiculously early, at least by her standards. The sun wasn’t even at its highest point yet, and it was usually past that point when she woke up. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes then got out of bed and trotted the bathroom. The cold water against her coat felt refreshing, finally allowing her to wake up fully. She moved her gaze from the water up to her mirror reflection. Her mane had its usual untidiness, and water droplets dripped from her face and down into the sink. Her eyes were bloodshot and her lids drooped lazily, as she struggled to fully wake up. Today, she was on a mission. Feelings that were dormant for the longest time suddenly came bursting forth. It gave her a vigor that made her feel invincible. She glanced at herself one more time in the mirror with a determined smirk before walking down the stairs and out door. She flew toward Sweet Apple Acres with the utmost speed. As the farm came into view, Rainbow Dash spotted the pony she was searching for near the barn carrying a basket filled with apples. “Hey Applejack,” she yelled as she flew up next to the orange Earth Pony and landed.

“Hey Rainbow! What can Ah do ya fer?”

“Well, you see,” Rainbow stumbled over the words, her gaze fixed on the emerald irises that remained fixated upon her. She was lost in those beautiful green eyes for some time.

“Do Ah have something on mah face, sugarcube?” the workhorse asked, rubbing her cheek with a hoof.

Rainbow shook her head, “Um. No…” She knew what she wanted to say, but it was so much harder to do it in person then she originally thought. “I was wondering if you had some free time today.” A smile formed on AJ’s muzzle.

‘Ah was hopin’ she’d come round today, Ah’d really like to spend some time with her later,’ she thought, not wanting to seem too overeager about hanging out with the mare she had special feelings for.

“Well, Ah do have a lot of work to do, but it shouldn’t take all day. Why don’t you come back round 4 o’clock?”

Rainbow didn’t like the idea of waiting even longer, but concluded that maybe she needed the time to calm her nerves. “Okay, I’ll do that.” And with that, she flew off.

As she flew, the fact that she had trouble expressing her true feelings to Applejack weighed heavily on her. She felt a small clump in her throat and a feeling like she had a weight in her chest. “Oh for Celestia’s sake, Rainbow Dash, get a hold of yourself,” she said to herself, “why is it so hard to tell her how I feel?” She knew the answer, but didn’t want to admit it. Applejack had a sleek, sexy and athletic body that made Rainbow’s legs feel like jelly. Her eyes were like shining emeralds that could look into your very soul, framed by the cutest freckles Rainbow had ever seen. The reason Rainbow had such a hard time talking to AJ was that she was too busy staring into her eyes or at her flank. Not to mention the fact that if Applejack didn’t feel the same way, it could ruin the friendship she cherished more than anything.

She needed to talk to somepony. She thought about it for a long while. Pinkie came to mind first, but after some more thought decided that was impossible. After all, it was Pinkie. Rarity couldn’t hold her mouth shut about such a thing. She would probably be gossiping it all around Ponyville in matter of seconds. Fluttershy was kind, almost to a fault, but did she really know anything about love? Her mind then shifted to Twilight. Of all the ponies, Twilight was the best choice. Rainbow reasoned that love and friendship, while different in magnitude, were essentially the same thing. And as Twilight was studying friendship, she was the most likely to understand. She flew post haste to the Ponyville Library.

It was a rare occurrence for Rainbow Dash to actually use the door of the library rather than crashing into it in one way or another. So when she knocked on the door, Twilight was a little surprised to see her standing there.

“Oh, Rainbow Dash. Uh, hi.”

“Hi Twilight, I got something I want to talk to you about, can I come in?”

She tilted her head a little and looked like she was in deep though. “Of course Rainbow, come on in.”

Twilight moved to the side to let her in, then closed the door behind her. Luckily it seemed that Spike wasn’t around, so she would be able to speak to Twilight in private. “So Rainbow, what did you want to talk about?” She sent her friend a puzzled look, as she almost never got a visit from Rainbow to the library. Well, except when she came to retrieve the next Daring Do book.

Rainbow hesitated a bit and hopped from hoof to hoof several times before she began, “Twilight, have you ever been in love?”

Twilight’s eyes lit up, “Oh Rainbow, did you find a special somepony? Please, tell me who the lucky stallion is!” Twilight was almost bouncing in anticipation.

“Well that’s kind of the problem, it’s not a stallion, it’s Applejack.” She cringed as she said the line. She didn’t say anything, but looked at Twilight, waiting for her response.

Twilight’s expression didn’t change at all. If anything, she got even more excited. “That’s wonderful, Rainbow!”

“Wait, what?” Rainbow looked dumbfounded for a second. She knew that Twilight would understand, but this went far beyond anything she ever imagined. “You’re really okay with this; we are both, umm … you know, mares.”

“Rainbow, you’re my friend. I wouldn’t care if you fell for a tree! So what did Applejack say when you told her?”

Rainbow Dash looked at the floor, “I haven’t told her yet. More precisely, I couldn’t.” Rainbow paused, choking back some tears. “I was right in front of her this morning and couldn’t tell her,” she said in a saddened voice.

Twilight walked over to her friend and used a hoof to lift Rainbow’s head to eye level. “That’s not the confident Rainbow Dash I know. Why couldn’t you tell her?”

Rainbow looked away. “Well, what if she doesn’t like me back? What if she doesn’t want me as a friend anymore when I tell her?” the cyan mare asked as her voice cracked even more frequently than usual.

“Rainbow, I’m surprised at you. You’ve been friends with Applejack longer than any of us. You should know that Applejack would never destroy that friendship. I can’t say for certain what her reaction will be, but I do know that you have nothing to fear. Applejack would be your friend no matter what your feelings are.”

Rainbow felt like a fool. She knew everything that Twilight was telling her, it just took Twilight saying it for her to realize it.

“You are absolutely right, Twi,” she said, puffing out her chest and building up her confidence again, “This afternoon, when Applejack is finished with her work, I am going to tell her.”

Twilight chuckled a bit before looking at her friend with a smile. “That’s the spirit. Hey, why don’t we go have lunch, and you can tell me how these feelings manifested?”

“Okay, I suppose I can do that.” And with that, they walked out of the door and towards their favorite restaurant in Ponyville.

____________________________________________________________________________

Rainbow Dash showed up in front of the barn at five minutes to four. Applejack wasn’t there yet, so she found the nearest hay pile and lay down on it. ‘Not as good as a cloud, of course, but this hay pile isn’t that bad,’ she thought to herself. It wasn’t much later that Rainbow Dash could see a brown Stetson appear over the hill in front of her, and before long Applejack appeared under it. By Rainbow’s estimate it must have been exactly 4 o'clock. “That’s just like her to be right on time,” she mumbled to herself.

“Hey there AJ, get all your work done?” She got up from the hay pile and walked over to her approaching friend and crush.

“Yep, sure as sugar did. So what did ya want to do?” Applejack asked, still with a smile.

“Well, you see-”

She was cut off as AJ suddenly said, “Can you just wait a second? Ah need to get this here basket into the barn.”

Dash looked at her for a moment before she nodded, “Sure AJ.” They continued to talk as they entered the barn. Applejack put down the basket from her back, and stretched as the weight was relieved. Beads of sweat started to trickle down Rainbow’s face as she watched Applejack’s sleek, well-toned body stretch. Rainbow began shifting her weight from side to side, and Applejack noticed how nervous the rainbow-maned pegasus was.

“Everything alright there, sugarcube? You look kind of nervous.”

“E-everything’s fine!” Dash said a little louder than she wanted. She could feel her cheeks getting warm, as what felt like all the blood in her body rushed to her face.

Applejack let out a small laugh that caught Rainbow off guard. “Ah didn’t mean nothing by it, but seriously, Rainbow,” she said with a smile, “what did you want to do?”

Rainbow looked into her eyes and remembered just how much she loved hearing Applejack laugh. “Well it’s not so much what I wanted to do, but a little more what I wanted to say.”

“Oh, okay. Go ahead, sugarcube.”

Rainbow Dash opened her mouth to start speaking, but was immediately cut off by familiar sounds of yelling coming from the road leading to the Everfree Forest. Rainbow looked over to see the source of the noise and saw Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom running toward them.

“What’s wrong, Apple Bloom?” said Applejack, clearly worried.

“It’s Scootaloo,” yelled Apple Bloom, “We were doin’ some cutie mark crusadin’ in the Everfree Forest and-”

“Apple Bloom! You know darn well you’re not supposed to go into the Everfree Forest alone.”

“Ah know, Ah know, but Scootaloo convinced us that it was the best place to get our cutie marks,” she said with tears in her eyes.

Rainbow Dash shook her head, “That filly is always getting into trouble,” she said, “So what happened, where is Scootaloo?”

“That’s just the thing,” Sweetie Belle jumped into the conversation, “We were trying to get our cutie marks in the forest and we ran into some timberwolves. Me and Apple Bloom got away, but Scootaloo was cornered! You gotta help her!” Sweetie Belle yelled.

Rainbow Dash didn’t hesitate at all at the mention of Scootaloo’s name. She never told anypony this, but she always felt a kind of bond with her filly admirer. Although she acted as though Scootaloo annoyed her, she felt almost like a big sister, if not a mother. Scootaloo was, after all, an orphan. Her parents died when she was very young, and Rainbow Dash took it upon herself to look after the filly. If it weren’t for Scootaloo’s lack of ability to fly, she would have adopted her by now. She just needed to learn how to fly so that she could make it to Rainbow Dash’s cloud home.

So with that in mind she quickly exclaimed, “Come on, Applejack.” Rainbow Dash jumped to the sky and flew off toward the Everfree Forest. Applejack watched her friend for a second before sprinting after her.

________________________________________________________________________

It was dusk as they reached the edge of the forest. Rainbow quickly looked at Applejack, who wasn’t far behind. “Okay, I’m going to fly over the forest to see if I can find Scootaloo, and you just follow me.”

“Sounds good to me partner, let’s do this.”

So Rainbow Dash took off and Applejack ran into the forest after her.

The sky was getting darker and darker as they scoured the forest for Scootaloo. The night became darker and darker and Rainbow Dash was becoming more and more frantic in her search. Finally, screams for help could be heard of the night air, and the two mares followed them directly to Scootaloo. She had managed to climb into a tree and cling to a branch away from the timberwolves, but three of them were still circling the tree every once in a while jumping and snapping at her, missing by mere inches. Rainbow Dash was the first rescuer to get there. She looked up at the shivering filly and felt a sudden need to protect her. There was no time to think, she had to act. She rammed one of the timberwolves on the side and sent it rolling across the ground. The other two saw this and immediately pounced at her. But at that moment Applejack came galloping into the fray, turned 180 degrees and bucked them both in the jaws. The two wolves dropped to the ground, stunned by the powerful and swift kick.

“Scootaloo,” yelled Rainbow Dash, “run!” Scootaloo jumped down from the tree and ran towards the forest entrance. By this time the first timberwolf was getting back to its feet. It growled seeing Scootaloo run away, and began to give chase. “On no you don’t,” snarled Rainbow Dash as she flew towards it trying to ram it again. The timberwolf was ready for her this time, and dodged the attack. However, this did delay the creature long enough that by the time it turned to chase Scootaloo again, she was out of sight. The timberwolf turned its attention to Rainbow Dash, furious that its meal had gotten away. It lunged towards Rainbow Dash. She dodged, but it still managed to scratch her right side with a claw, making a small slice and causing her to lose balance and fall. She felt sharp pain in her right side, and something warm slide down her coat. Rainbow Dash grimaced at the pain, and she involuntarily slammed her eyes shut. She heard a loud growling, her eyes shot open and she looked directly up at the timberwolf, which was now on top of her.

“Rainbow!” yelled Applejack, as she failed to notice the other two timberwolves coming to their senses behind her. Before she could react, one of them hit her from behind and sent her flying into a nearby cliff face. She hit the side of the rock wall with a loud thud and a visceral crack. She fell to the ground, motionless.

Rainbow Dash saw the whole altercation happen. She needed to get to Applejack. She removed the timberwolf on top of her with a swift kick to its belly, it whined and was thrown across the ground. Rainbow flew in front of Applejack’s body to block the remaining two timberwolves from reaching the fallen pony. Tears swelled in her eyes, not only because she felt the pain in her side stronger than ever, but also because she didn’t know the condition of Applejack. What she did know was that her friend needed her protection. She would never leave Applejack. Not even if it meant an early death. The three timberwolves slowly approached the pegasus and her unconscious friend. As they got closer, Rainbow could see the saliva drip from their jaws. One of them snarled at her.

Then something happened that, afterward, Rainbow couldn’t explain. As she stood between the timberwolves and her friend, all she could think was, “No. I refuse to let her die without telling her how I feel.” Suddenly, her fatigue seemed to drain away. She could feel her muscles return to full strength. Reinvigorated, she dove at the timberwolves with blinding speed. Before any of them knew what had happened, two had been knocked back. The third one whirled around to reestablish sight of its target. It saw her coming and opened its jaw in preparation for an attack. Rainbow got closer and the timberwolf closed its jaw around one of her hooves. Rainbow Dash didn’t make a sound. She looked up with so much hate in her eyes that the timberwolf flinched in fear before reasserting its grip. In a matter of seconds, a second hoof hit it in the face. It let go and got a swift kick to the chest once her hoof was free. The timberwolf crumpled to the ground, but Rainbow didn’t stop there. She put a wing underneath the dazed timberwolf and catapulted it several feet, landing it near the other two. The timberwolves quickly came to their senses and got to their feet, but turned and ran back into the forest, figuring that this meal wasn’t worth the effort.

Now that the timberwolves had been dealt with, Rainbow was able to turn her attention to the pony that really needed it, Applejack. She limped over to her friend, expecting the worst. Applejack was still breathing when Rainbow Dash arrived at her side, but she was unconscious, and her right front leg was bent at an odd angle. Rainbow Dash cringed at the sight of it. “I need to get you out of here,” she whispered to her unconscious friend. But the strength she used to fight off the timberwolves had faded away, and she was now even more exhausted than before. It didn’t matter to Rainbow Dash; Applejack needed her help, and one way or another she’d get her friend out of the forest. Rainbow gently nudged her way beneath Applejack’s chest and lifted her onto her back. She winced at the pain in her left front hoof as the effect of the timberwolf’s bite took hold. She lifted it, walking on three legs instead of four. She unfurled her wings to try to stabilize the form on her back, but it was still difficult to do so. Rainbow turned around and began walking toward the edge of the forest. Her wounds felt like they were burning. She could still feel the warmth of her blood down her right side, together with her dripping front hoof. Even so, she couldn’t help but smile a little. She was willing to sacrifice everything for the unconscious mare on her back. And Rainbow Dash didn’t even know if Applejack liked her back yet. She let out a small giggle before it was cut short by another bolt of pain shooting through her side.

Eventually they reached a clearing. Rainbow’s legs were shaking at this point, and she couldn’t go any further. She gently set Applejack on the ground. Applejack stirred slightly as she hit the cold forest floor. “Applejack?” asked Rainbow, but there was no response.

“Applejack, I don’t know if you can hear me or not, but I need to say what I wanted to say before we were interrupted by Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom.” She took a deep breath before continuing, “Applejack, I love you.”

At this, an emerald eye opened slightly. Rainbow stared at Applejack as she weakly said, “Ah...Ah love you too.” With that she passed out again. Tears in her eyes, Rainbow walked over to Applejack’s side. She nuzzled her friend lightly before lying next to her. Feeling comfortable, Rainbow Dash placed her head on Applejack’s beautiful straw-colored mane. She breathed deeply as the scent of apples enveloped her. Then, her strength completely sapped, she closed her eyes and fell asleep. The pain from the walk and every trauma she had faced was forgotten as Rainbow Dash lay next to Applejack.

“I love you,” Rainbow muttered in her sleep.

Comments

[Shikkhin]

keep it up, I am enjoying the read.

[NeonEclipse]

i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/225/400/sweetie%20belle%20that%20is%20beautiful.jpg

[The Writer of Fate]

*singing* Exposition, exposition, rush it out A! S! AP!

Other than that...it was an ok chapter.

[Jackie]

continueeee ;w;

[Clavier]

Hmmmm hm hm hm hm. Ever incapable of making generic, positive comments, I'm forced to fall upon my usual tactic of (hopefully!) constructive criticism. Please take this in that spirit.

I'm enjoying the story, but the presentation and characterization could use some work. Honestly, the biggest issue w.r.t. presentation is the paragraph breaks ... either indent or use two line breaks, using a single line break with no indentation is somewhat difficult to read. That's a simple fix.

You seem to opt to use the minimum allowable number of commas, and sometimes fewer than that, which makes the clause boundaries occasionally confusing. If you can't find a good editor, just try to give it a very critical reading for where pauses belong. And there's definitely some awkwardness in the prose due to what I like to call "pronoun hell," i.e. a repetition of names or other identifiers due to a lack of pronouns to fit all the characters in a scene. There are a few places where words are repeated enough that they seem like hiccups in the reading. Swap out repeated names or other identifiers (e.g. "timberwolves" in this chapter) for snippets of descriptive text, it makes everything flow better and can help a lot with pacing too, as well as giving a good excuse to flesh out the scene a bit more.

As per characterization, everything was mostly believable (I seem to recall seeing somewhere where the vocabulary seemed out of character, but I can't find it again), there were just a few bits where I felt some of the less characteristic behaviors weren't explained. e.g., how is it that Rainbow is having so much trouble expressing her feelings for Applejack, but telling the same to a third party seems almost trivial? The relevant lines just went by too fast, they could use a bit more explanation of the emotion to make things clearer. I hope you don't think it too brash of me to rewrite the relevant lines to show you what I mean:

---

Twilight’s eyes lit up. “Oh Rainbow, did you find a special somepony?" There was a friendly deviousness in her manner, as she lightly prodded Rainbow's shoulder. "Who's the lucky stallion?”

“Well, uh, that’s kind of the problem, it’s not exactly a stallion." She cringed, a part of her fearing the repercussions of her next words. Gathering up her courage, she pushed that feeling aside and continued. "It's Applejack."

Her gaze fell to the floor momentarily. She didn’t say anything more, but looked up at Twilight, waiting for the unicorn's response.

---

Almost exactly the same same dialog, but by just moving some of the emotive behaviors about, Rainbow's earlier fears are acknowledged without getting in the way.

I sincerely hope you don't consider this negatively, I just hate to see a good story suffer from the little things.

[Wyvern1246]

>>Clavier

I think that you apologize way too quickly. At no point in time while reading your critique did I feel offended or put down. Most of what you said I completely agree with, and I know the problem. I do need an editor that can take what I wrote and see the things that you saw. For now I will look back at the points that you brought up, but what I really need is another person to critically look at it. And thank you again for the fair and honest review!

[Clavier]

604337

Fairly certain I never apologized per se

[Wyvern1246]

>>Clavier

Thank you either way! Hey, you aren't by chance available for editing are you?

[344forever]

So epic keep it up please

[TheOriginalDash]

i'm liking this.
and i may not be available all the time, but i can edit.