• Published 19th Aug 2020
  • 1,899 Views, 46 Comments

Grounded - KorenCZ11



Rainbow Dash dreams of a foal in the sky, one she can never quite seem to make out. She always recognizes his eyes though as they're just like hers. Just who is he? And why does Rainbow feel like she knows him?

  • ...
2
 46
 1,899

I just want you to know who I am

When I was a kid, my parents were super overprotective. I never really understood why. I was not allowed to do stunts, race particularly fast, and do sports. As little danger as possible, and that was it.

It wasn’t until I showed a talent for racing did they finally give in and let me go all out. They participated in every meet, they cheered the loudest in the stands, they even made my face the banner they raised at events. That last one put me off, but the other parts weren’t so bad. They were my parents; they loved me more than anything else.

One day, I asked them a question.

‘If you guys love me so much, why don’t I have any siblings?’ I was maybe six or seven, and this was… the first time I’d made my parent’s smiles drop on the spot.

‘You don’t need to worry about that, sweetie. All we need is you. Because we have you, that’s all that matters.’

It bothered me. For a very, very long time. I couldn’t understand why they’d say that. Don’t worry? You’re all we need? Who says that? A step further; who says that to a kid? There had to be more to the story, but they never did tell me.

Years after that as a teen, I was kicked out of flight school. Ashamed of myself and unwilling to stomach their constant admiration of me, I moved to Ponyville. I made a house for myself and picked up a job with the weather team there. I grew up a lot on my own, more than I ever thought I would.

From meeting some nerdy kid from Canterlot with her head up her ass to reconnecting with an old friend, my life got turned around. I took my chance back at the dream from my childhood, and finally, I made it. The fame, the fortune, the career, the status, the glory: I had it all.

And yet it felt so empty.

So... alone.

There’d always been this stallion who I had my eye on, but once I met him, I found out he was a total dork. Just a nice guy: easy on the eyes, softly spoken. Not my type at all. Or, so I thought. He liked me, made that clearer than ice in a glass of water. But me? It took me time to warm up to the idea of ‘us.’

He’d talk about having kids and a big family, raising his own little superstar that could come from behind and beat all those records he never could. We also had a lot of other things in common including a book series I was an obsessive fan of, and we were good friends, but I just couldn’t see it. Not with him, anyways.

Time went on. I got older, got slower, and I realized that maybe everything I’ve always wanted… might not actually be all that awesome. Well, I say that; it helps that I almost died tearing a wing muscle during a race and fell out of the sky.

Of course, who else but the guy with his eyes on me would come to my rescue? Seeing your life flash before your eyes makes ya think, so I gave in, let him take me out. I was just doing this as thanks at first, but… maybe I liked Soarin more than I thought I did. A lot more, actually. He was far more charming outside work, he was more fun outside work, and damn it!

He was a cheesy romantic, and I loved it and I would never admit that to anypony so long as I live! I’ve got a reputation to protect, fuck you. Fight me.

Anyway: he proposed, I said yes, we got down to business, and I got pregnant within the month. Now, I don’t care how many times Applejack, Fluttershy, and Pinkie had already done this; that shit messes you up. I used to carbo-load before races, but when I was pregnant, I ate like that every day! Food expenses went through the roof, my moods swung all over the place minute to minute and I. Never. Stopped. Eating.

And I ate things I didn’t like, too! Spicy food is okay; it was never my favorite thing in the world, but damn it, I needed a pepper with every meal or I was gonna die. Including when I wanted ice cream. Gotta give the guy props; Soarin always ran and got whatever we didn’t have. Even at odd hours of the day like needing jalapeños at three in the morning. It was a mess.

Eleven months of the sweats and colicky pain and peppers—Goddess damn it was a lot of peppers—the kid finally popped out. Good Goddess did I do a good job. He had my mane, got Soarin’s coat and eyes, and had big teeny-little wings that’d just be huge one day. Plus, he matched his dad’s baby pictures, so he’d be lean and muscular when he grew up too.

He was perfect. He was mine. He was Prism.

There’s a lot they don’t tell you about having kids. There’s a lot ponies should keep to themselves about having kids because it’s simultaneously the best and worst thing that will ever happen to you. But the thing they don’t tell you about—the one that meant the most to me—is the one that broke my heart.

Nopony tells you what it feels like to lose.


“Go, go, go! Come on buddy, just around the corner and you’ve got it!”

The foal flew, less than gracefully, around the tiny living room track I’d built out of a cloud from outside.

“Last lap! Come on, come on, come on!”

It wasn’t very complicated, but he was just thirteen months old. The fact that he could fly at all was astonishing enough. Learning how to go around a track though? That was amazing. He sees the next ring, the final ring, and I stand just in front of it, cheering him on. His big-little wings flapped as hard as they could, and…

“Yes! You did it!”

He kept flying and crashed straight into me. My little boy flew right into my forelegs, and I wrapped him up in my wings. I kissed his head and held him tight, nuzzled his belly, made him laugh with delight.

You are gonna be awesome one day.” I paused. “Scratch that. You’re already awesome. You’re gonna be a star one day, Prism, and it won’t just be me or your dad saying that.”

Prism happily kicked his little hooves at me, and he was just. So. Cute! It wasn’t fair to other kids, really. Sure, Applejack had a couple of her own kids, and those were cute, and… Fluttershy calls her kids cute, but I’m not sure that’s, like, real or not with chaos noodle-pony hybrids, and Pinkie has her kids, and Rarity has Pearl, but none compared to Prism.

I mean, they don’t even have rainbow manes. They’re not future-fastest-fliers, or… pegasi at all, save Pinkie’s Cotton, and they don’t have big green eyes like Prism does. Which is kinda weird, now that I think about it. Both Applejack and her brother have green eyes, just like their dad did, but all three of her kids have orange eyes like their father. Is it still three, or are there more of them now? There always seems to be more foals around the farm every time I visit. It was one, then the identical twins, and… I think she’s due for another one soon? Definitely way more pregnant last time I saw her. Nothing like when the twins were cooking, but easy to tell.

Prism yawning in my wings reminded me: it was about nap time. I moved to the couch and just lay there with him on my chest. It’d been slow, these last few years, at least compared to my teens when all the crazy crap was happening. Luna comes back and we friendship laser her, Discord gets free and we friendship laser him not once but twice, only for him to later end up with Shy… somehow—I still don’t quite understand them almost a decade later, but whatever. Then there’s that thing with Sombra, Twilight figuring out that spell, the mirror world, all this new technology. Three years isn’t a lot in the grand scheme of things, but a hell of a lot happened back then.

Speaking of, I turned on the TV in my little cloud house then found something to watch until I fell asleep. It happened often, these days. Soarin works and I spend my days with Prism till my Wonderbolt gets home. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I didn’t exactly get the whole ‘mom’ thing when I was younger. Foals are gross. They’re always sticky, they eat and shit and sleep and eat and shit, and that’s, like, all they do. And the teeth! Good Goddess, the teeth. Some days, I wonder if he’s trying to rip my teats off. Why would anypony subject themselves to this, especially more than once? No idea.

But he’s just so damn cute! He can fly too, and he looks like some… weird little fusion monster of his dad and me, and I can’t exactly describe it, but when I look at him, it just makes me wanna… never let go while also wanting to see him soar higher and higher and higher. It’s too much. I love him. I wouldn’t want a life without him. I can’t imagine life without my little Prism.

It’s like foals were specifically engineered to remove the memory of physical pain after they come out. See, I’m not a full-figured mare. Far from it actually: I’m way too small for twenty-five. The number of times I’ve been mistaken for a child or a teenager in my life is far too high, and the teenager thing still happens, even when I’m flying around with what is clearly my foal on my back. Rainbow manes aren’t common, after all.

Point is; my hips ain’t wide. If I could remember much of it, I probably wouldn’t want to have another kid. I broke Soarin’s wrist the day I delivered, apparently. I’m honestly not that strong, and on any other occasion, I don’t think I could’ve done it by brute force.

Of course, Prism isn’t very big either. I don’t think anypony has had a foal as big as Applejack’s first one, but that shit hurts… probably. I was drugged to hell and back on top of everything else, so who knows? Guess if they numb the crap out of me for it, there’s gotta be a good reason. His wrist was definitely broken though, so even through all the numbing, I still felt it, which has to mean something.

Did I want another one?

No.

Well, maybe.

Yes.

It’s all I could think about lately. Prism had been born last year in June; it was now July again, and he could already fly. I hadn’t started flying till I was eighteen months old. He’s a prodigy; we knew he was gonna be awesome. Soarin and I were both professional fliers up until I took my maternity leave, but Prism shot beyond expectations. He’s great. We got exactly what we wanted on the first try. We didn’t need to have more kids.

And yet…

Save Rarity, who was never exactly married, all my other able friends have more than one kid. Applejack’s had four as of her little Gin back in May, with a pair of twins just two years ago. Oddly enough, Pinkie popped out a pair of twins back in March. Save for their little gender bits, you wouldn’t be able to tell them apart. Twins aren’t specific to any one race of pony or another, but it seems more common in earth ponies than anything else.

Pinkie’s parents both come from families of four, she comes from a family of four, and she’s all for that tradition stuff so she’d planned on having four from the start. You’d think Pies come in threes, but it’s fours, always has been. She probably won’t have another.

Applejack is an Apple, so she might just stop when she literally can’t make them anymore: all those families are typically massive. Twins are also common in the Apple family too. They say there’s at least a few pairs a generation; Flim and Flam are distant cousins of hers, though she’d never admit that in public.

Fluttershy’s been saying she wants another, so that could happen soon. Maybe. How does it work? No idea. How does she deal with the horns? Again, no idea. Pretty sure the first one’s horns poked through the sack as she came out, but that didn’t affect anything, I think. Shy is a good friend, but I can’t even begin to understand how she thinks or what goes on beyond closed doors at her place.

Why do they keep doing it?

It’s not like you know who your kid’s gonna be. You don’t have an idea of who they are ‘till much later in life, so why not leave it at that? Is it because of the fun part? I could see that as a motivator easily, but I really doubt Applejack or Pinkie keep having kids for that reason. Low-key, Fluttershy’s kind of a freak though, so it wouldn’t surprise me there. But because she’s with Discord, if they didn’t want another one, couldn’t he just make it not happen? You know what? I don’t question them for a reason.

Still, is it because you don’t want them to get lonely like I did when my parents weren’t around all the time? Scratch that, I was never lonely. Uh, definitely. Didn’t ask for a brother when I was little, didn’t get a weird, weird answer that haunts me to this day. Then again, what if Prism comes to me like when I went to my parents? If I have another foal, if just for Prism’s sake, then am I doing this just to please somepony instead of intentionally bringing another kid into the world? I mean, Mom and Dad definitely wanted to see me have kids, but them pressuring me into it isn’t why I wanted to have Prism. I wanted him because I wanted him. Soarin had some input there, literally, but I was the ultimate decision maker.

I wonder if I’m telling myself all these things just to find a reason for it.

It’s not as if I think it’d be too much or we’re not in a good place for it or the world isn’t safe or anything like that. The opposite is the truth: Mom and Dad are down the street if I need them, Soarin moving up to trainer from performer is easier on him and brings a raise with it, so I don’t have to work at all, and I get to see this little wonder do his thing all day.

Do I want more kids?

I don’t know.

I didn’t know.

I stroked the little rainbow tuft on my boy’s head and wondered more as I ignored the TV. The afternoon sun filtered in gently through the shade on the window; it hit me just so that it warmed me up a little. Just enough to make me sleepy. Just enough to get me to yawn.

Just enough… to make me drift away…


The sky was overcast below. Above, however, lay a white cotton candy field stretching across the horizon: clear blue above slowly turning dark and faded into stars, the bright sun in the center of the cyan ring around me in all directions. I knew this place. I’d been here before.

When I turned around, I found him there, waiting for me. I could never see his face. Every time I got a clear picture of him, something shifted and I couldn’t make him out anymore. Five or six years old, a little colt with my eyes: the only things I could recognize about him.

Like always, he greeted me with, “Welcome back! Did you come to play with me again?”

A big, bright smile on his face like nothing in the world could make his day better than seeing me again. That’s what I was there to do because this is what we always did. The colt never liked to fly, but he loved to run, and here, he could run as long and hard as he liked.

Dash left, roll right, juke me out of a tag; he knew how to move his body. Always made me work to catch him, but once I did, there would be no end to the punishment for it. Brats could only grab my tail so many times before they got tickled!

On the rare day I couldn’t catch him, I cheated and flew after him. Not many ponies could beat me in the sky. Working my wings so hard for so long was an easy way to make rapid decay happen. Just because I hurt myself once didn’t mean I couldn't do it anymore though!

Finally caught in my forelegs, I refused to let him go. He had the best laugh. An awesome laugh. I loved to hear it. But, just like always, I’d never get to hold him for long. The sun would dip, the sky would change colors, the dark ring above us with the stars inside got bigger, and the clouds weren’t so endless.

“Promise you’ll come see me again, won’t you?” he asked.

I nuzzled his forehead and told him I will.

He wormed his way out of my grasp. I tried to keep him still, tried not to let go, but every time I tried to reach him, it was like reaching through fog. The wispy unclarity to him got stronger; even the eyes I could always see start to blur.

He waved as I try to catch him. I could never reach him in time.

“I’ll see you soon. Bye, ___!"

A word was missing. What did he call me? I tried to ask, tried to reach for him again, but he sank below the white field. I made it to the bottom, but he was already gone. I pulled the clouds aside to see where he went, but beneath them lay only the green earth under a field of gray.

“Who are you?”


I woke up shaking.

“Hey. You alright? You’re crying again.”

Soarin had taken Prism off me and had him in his forelegs, but the phantom feeling of somepony else lingered in my memory. He was just here. If I just reached him, if I just grabbed him before he fell away, I would know…

I wiped at my eyes and sat up. “I think so. You know that dream—”

“About the colt?”

“Yeah. It happened again.”

Soarin stroked Prism’s mane. “What do you think it means?”

I huffed. “I don’t know. You know me better than to ask a question like that.”

Soarin shrugged, but his face betrayed the motion. “Well, you know what I think it means?” He leaned over and, with a stupid grin, whispered in my ear, “I think you want something.”

I almost flat-out punched him in the snout, but remembered he had my baby. I pulled back and pushed Soarin away instead. “Bah! You don’t know that.”

“True. If I had you figured out, Prism would probably be a few years older than he is right now.”

Soarin stretched out the unconscious foal’s wing and studied it. Ponies had the strangest genetics when it comes to colors on their bodies. Prism, for all I can tell, ended in rainbows everywhere. Not just the mane, not just the tail, but even his little fetlocks and the tips of his feathers: they all faded from white into another solid color, starting from red, going through the color wheel to purple, and repeating the cycle. I didn’t know if a lot of ponies were named after the way they look, but Prism definitely was.

“You know, he flew all the way around that little track today,” I mentioned.

Soarin tilted his head to see the rings I’d made earlier. He turned back to me with a skeptical look on his face. “No way.”

“Yes, way. I would’ve recorded it, but somepony is a cheapskate and won’t buy me a phone. It was pretty awesome too. Just flew straight into my forelegs.”

Soarin rolled his eyes. “Come on. You know how much those things cost to have cloud proofed.”

I frowned at him then readjusted myself so I laid my head on his lap. “Yeah, but the princess that invented the tech just so happens to be one of my best friends.”

Soarin nodded. “Right. One of your best friends that you’ve seen… twice since Prism was born. Once at Hearth’s Warming, and on the day of his birth, in which somepony was pretty whacked out if I remember correctly. I know you don’t, so there’s that.”

I grunted, blew the mane out of my eyes. “Whatever. She would make time for me if I asked her to.”

“I don’t doubt that, but that’s also kind of a shitty thing to do, isn’t it?”

I scratched at my ear. “Well, kinda. I guess.”

“And, on top of that, cloud-proofing is still kinda new, isn’t it? Cloud-proofing spells fail all the time: the news you keep flipping through says it every week. Ponies on the surface almost, and sometimes do, get hit by falling TVs every now and again. Remember the media shitstorm that happened when a TV fell out of the sky and broke somepony’s back? They were lucky to still be alive.”

“Uh-huh.” Raised my brow and pointed a hoof at our TV. “And what about that?”

He quickly looked the other way. “I mean, well, it was a gift from the Princess! You don’t turn down something from somepony like that, do you?”

I rolled over, put my chin on my hooves, and tilted my head. “A gift. A gift that you specifically asked for. A gift that you put on the registry. A gift that you personally talked to Twilight about trying to figure out a way to get up here!”

Soarin frowned at me. He also pushed me off the couch.

“Hey!”

I was about to lunge at him, but just as I moved, he raised Prism a little higher. “Ah-ah ah! Somepony said no screwing around with the baby, right?”

Animus ran up my spine. This exact situation had played out before but in reverse. I let out a deep breath and stood up straight. “Fine then. I’m making us dinner, and you can go fend for yourself!”

I started off toward the kitchen, and the desired effect had been achieved.

“Hey, don’t do this to me! I was at work all day! Come on, Dash!”

He put Prism in the crib and spent the rest of the evening trying to get my attention. I can’t say that I don’t enjoy these little games we play. That’s mostly what it’s been like this whole time. He loves to chase; I love to make him chase. When he finally catches me, he’s rewarded for his efforts.

Maybe I’d always wanted to make him chase me, wanted him to catch me, but it just took so long to get in front of him, I’d almost forgotten about the game by the time I’d made it. I didn’t think he’d never figured me out; he just hadn’t met my standards yet. I didn’t think he ever could. I was the fastest the world over. I beat everypony. Nopony could outpace me.

Then, all at once, that wasn’t true. Too far, too fast, too high, too long. I fell out of the sky, and it wasn’t just anypony that caught me: it was him. My Wonderbolt. Two years later, and I still wasn’t back where I used to be. Even now, I may never be. But if anything were a sign to change course, it would certainly be tearing a wing muscle.

Later that night, after I’d made him help me make dinner before feeding, changing, and putting Prism to sleep, we laid down for bed.


The colt popped up in my head again.

Absently, I asked, “Who are you?”

Soarin’s ear twitched and he sat up on his side of the bed. “Hmm?”

“Oh, go back to sleep.”

He rubbed at his eyes and I threw his part of the blanket at his face. “Well, I’m definitely not going to now. What’s wrong?”

I groaned and rolled the other way, pulling the blanket over my face. “Nothing.”

He scooted up next to me, put a hoof on my shoulder. “If I’ve learned anything in the past couple years, it’s that nothing means something when you say it. Come on, Dash. It’s me.”

Letting a breath go, I rolled halfway over and stared at the ceiling. It’s way too close. I should take a few hours later and make it taller.

Soarin cleared his throat. Guess I’m not getting out of this. Finally, I said, “When you were little, did you ever ask your parents why you were an only child?”

He moved a hoof to his thin goatee. “... not really. My parents weren’t exactly together when I was little.”

I blinked. “What? We see them all the time!”

“I’m pretty sure I’ve told you more than once that my dad remarried when I was like, eight or so.”

“Wait, wait, wait… really?”

“Really.”

“But… she looks—”

“Just like me, I know. Dad’s got a specific taste. My biological mom isn’t a pegasus.”

Did I know that? “Hold on. I don’t remember hearing anything about this.”

“No, no, I told you. You remember a few years back when you saw me in Ponyville?”

“I saw you in Ponyville a lot, Soarin.”

He rolled his eyes and put two hooves behind his head. “No, no, the first time you saw me in Ponyville. You asked me why I was visiting that flower shop?”

A sigh escaped me. “Oh. Right. I was given a ton of shit for forgetting it was Mother’s Day.” A pause. “Wait, does she live—”

“In Ponyville, yes.”

The memory rushed back to me. Years ago as he was leaving, I asked him why and he said, “Yeah, I’m getting flowers for my mom. ‘Cause it’s Mother’s Day, after all.”

I clapped my hooves. “Right. And then I flew as fast as I could to get to Cloudsdale before it got too late and still didn’t make it before sundown, which is why… yeah. So, I haven’t met her because…?”

Soarin sighed; not a thing he does very often. “Oh, you know. She’s not very… friendly.” He brushed a hoof against his bed-mane. “Honestly, I’d prefer if you never meet her at all. She knows about you, but she doesn’t know about us, and she definitely doesn’t know about Prism. We should… probably keep it that way too.”

I couldn’t decide how to react to that. I didn’t think Soarin kept secrets from me, but apparently he’s keeping ponies from me. “You’re gonna have to explain. She’s my baby’s grandma, isn’t she? I should at least know who she is. I mean, he should get to know who she is too, but whatever. Why don’t I know her? And, like, for real, and not ‘because she’s not nice.’ That don’t fly here, chief.”

Soarin turned his head and raised a brow. So the game began. “If you tell me what’s really up, then I’ll tell you about my mom, deal?”

I refuse. I don’t care how dark it was in here, he wasn’t allowed to see my face. I turned away. “W-well, that’s not exactly fair…”

“What?” He tracked me with suspicious eyes, moving his head above mine. “How could that possibly be unfair?”

“Because it’s not fair, alright? Geez, get off my back! Literally!”

I attempted to shake him off, but instead, he clamped down and got further on top of me. “No, no, it’s completely fair,” he went on. “You’re not telling me because… because you’re embarrassed, right?”

The pillow was my refuge. I planted my face under it, hoping he’d stop. “Shut up!”

He shoved his big head under the pillow with me. “Figured as much. Will you tell me if I guess right?”

“No!”

Soarin rolled off, then put his stupid head on top of my pillow. If there was anything this dumb hunk of stallion meat had going for him, it was his tenacity. Never gave up, never let go once he got on, and never stopped. Earned himself the nickname ‘Always’ Soarin because endurance was one of his best qualities.

“So, let’s pretend for a second that I’m your friend’s husband, the detective.” He shifted his head onto his hoof. “First, you keep having that dream. Maybe it means something, maybe it doesn’t. What is certain is that I always find you crying and you always say it’s about a colt. Clearly, it’s not nothing. Am I on the right track?”

“… I guess… Your Fin impression sucks, by the way.”

“His west coast accent aside—second, you just asked me about being an only child. You didn’t exactly explain anything, but this isn’t the first time you’ve talked about wanting a little brother when you were younger. Still accurate, right?”

“Maybe.”

I peeked from under the pillow, and I caught his eye for just a second. He wiggled a brow at me and I pulled the pillow back as quickly as possible. Damn it, you’re not allowed to look at me like that when I feel like this! Stupid pretty-faced stallion!

“Finally, and if this one isn’t a red flag, I don’t know what is: you added jalapeños to the shopping list you sent me to work with.”

Shit.

He ran the tip of his hoof up my spine and took my breath away. Leaned in close to my ear and whispered, “Now then, Mrs. Rainbow Dash. Is there… something you’d like to tell me?”

This idiot already knew what I wanted, but he’s gonna make me say it anyway! Screw him! I won’t give him the satisfaction!

“No!” I threw the covers aside, jumped up from under my pillow and tackled him. “Haven’t figured me out, my ass! You’re a piece of shit! I love you!”

He laughed and smiled. Brought me in for a long, deep kiss. “I love you too.”

So much for a good night’s sleep.