Fragile Rainbow

by Synli

Just A Nightmare?

Thwack! With a frantic jolt at the sudden explosion of sound the cyan Pegasus tumbled from her fluffy cloud bed to the almost equally soft floor below. The prismatic maned mare panted and kicked out with all four hooves as she fought off the last vestiges of restless slumber. Even as she clambered to unsteady hooves that were firmly planted in the waking world, she felt a profound sense of wrongness that she couldn’t place. The sound of a sickening crunch was still at the forefront of her mind and it reared its ugly head as she tried to focus on the dream she had been having. As she attempted to connect the dots between the sound and sense of dread she felt, she was reminded of a few of the especially bad crashes she had taken in her years as a daring flyer.

It wasn’t a flying dream, though. Even the ones that end badly don’t make me feel like this.
Ugh, what was it…?

Judging by the stubborn tears that fought to escape from the corners of her eyes and dampen her light-blue coat, it had been bad. Nothing made Rainbow Dash cry, that was just a silly idea that she refused to give any merit. Sure there had been Tank’s hibernation, but that was different. She was losing the best pet ever for the winter.

As she focused on the dread that still felt heavy in her chest, she thought of losing. The Pegasus hated losing, it was just so uncool. What had she lost, though? Tank? Her chance at the Wonderbolts? Her friends?

The strange phantom-loss sensation continued to swell up in Rainbow’s chest as she climbed back onto four unsteady hooves and began moving towards the door. If she couldn’t remember it right now, she could just go for a fly, maybe then she would remember?

As she passed by the only pictures that adorned her home aside from her Wonderbolt memorabilia, a sudden flash of a familiar yellow mare suddenly struck her. The sight of the mare huddled in a darkened room with sorrowful eyes stole away Rainbow’s breath. A pang of dread wrenched an uncharacteristic yelp from her as her heart began to pound in her chest. Rainbow suddenly felt as if her throat was caught in a vice as she attempted to swallow.

Thwack! Cyan wings shot out to her sides as an icy blast of adrenaline coursed through her body and filled her with a situation akin to being submerged in ice water. She still couldn’t place the sound or what the flashes of memory meant but she knew one thing for absolute certainty. She had to go.

Rainbow didn’t even bother to find the door to her cloud home as she burst through the wall and scattered several small puffs of cloud into the open sky. Her mane whipped about behind her as she careened through the sky at a breakneck pace. On any other day the speed that she had reached in such a short amount of time would have her cheering and amazed at her own awesomeness, but today it wasn’t fast enough. No matter how quickly she reached her target, it would still be too late.

Being in the open sky had always made her feel light and free but as she sped towards the home of her oldest friend, Rainbow wanted nothing more than to be back on the ground. At the thought of the timid mare another crunch reverberated through her head. A mixture of panic and nausea buffeted the soaring mare’s stomach as images she had been trying to conjure up struck her and left her in a cold sweat.

S-shy…? Did… Did I?

The small cabin at the edge of the Everfree couldn’t have sprouted up in Rainbow’s view at a better time as she dropped from the air onto shaking hooves. A small thought struck the mare as she sat at the front door of her friend’s house. She knew she shouldn’t entertain such a silly possibility, but she couldn’t banish it from her mind.

What if it wasn’t a dream?

Deep down she knew that she couldn’t even entertain the possibility, but the slightest hint that she could knock on the door and not find Fluttershy inside prompted her to deliver a quick series of knocks to the wooden door. Without the feeling of the wind whipping around her, Rainbow’s mind began to wander and the beads of tears began to make themselves known again.

“C’mon Shy… Tell me I didn’t… I couldn’t, not you…” Rainbow’s hindquarters dropped to the wooden deck beneath her as she sat there in front of the yellow mare’s door. As her front hooves lowered themselves to the porch so she could lose herself in her growing despair, the front door cracked open slowly and a silken pink mane brushed over the sullen mare’s prismatic one.

“Rainbow? Cider season doesn’t start till next-” The canary yellow mare stifled a yawn with one of her hooves as she spoke, though her voice froze mid way through her words as she caught sight of her friend’s disheveled appearance. Rainbow Dash flinched beneath the gentle gaze of her concerned friend as she was given a onceover, but she didn’t care how she looked.

As soon as she heard the other mare speak her name, Rainbow had raised her head. It took her a few seconds of silence to really see the other mare before her, and a few more to ascertain her well-being. With a forced exhale the cyan Pegasus mustered up a grin as she ran a hoof through her multi-colored mane. “Hey Shy. My bad, I guess I jumped the gun again. Sorry for waking ya.”

Good. She’s fine. You overreacted and were completely uncool. Of course it was a dream. Happy now?
As Rainbow Dash turned to move down off of her friend’s front porch she was suddenly pulled into an embrace as her shy friend extended her wings and wrapped them around her. Despite having flinched at the physical contact something made her unable to pull away so she stood in silence. As Fluttershy hugged her close, Rainbow could feel her ignored tears as they tried to struggle for their freedom once again.

“Rainbow. Come inside, please?” Fluttershy’s soft voice reached her ears as she allowed her to slip from the embrace. The thought of lifting off had just occurred to the talented flyer, but the image of her friend sad and alone hit her more deeply than she would care to admit. With a sigh of defeat, the cyan Pegasus turned toward her friend and stepped through the open door into the comforting warmth of the other mare’s cabin.

Author's Note:

Thank you for reading the first chapter! I hope that you're enjoying the story so far.