Lost in Her Eyes

by Clavier

Chapter 3

She was lost again. Lost in those deep, green eyes. They held such honest compassion, such simple, warm friendliness. They made Rainbow Dash feel as if she were capable of anything. They emboldened and invigorated her even as they anchored her. She didn’t remember building up the courage, but she knew what she had to do, and she knew how to do it.

“So, y’all had somethin’ ye wanted to talk to me about, Sugarcube?”

“Applejack …”

She took a deep breath of the green-tinted air. It gave her strength. It gave her composure. It allowed her to say what she’d dreamed of saying for so long.

“Applejack, I love you.”

Part of her screamed to look away, but she maintained her stance and gaze. The seconds passed slowly as she frantically tried to read the earth pony and object of her yearning’s expression. Confusion? Fear? Anger? Amusement? Whatever it was, it was not what she wanted to see. Her own composure was faltering; she trembled like a filly lost in the Everfree Forest, and had to fight herself to maintain eye contact.

Applejack laughed. A small chuckle at first, quickly transforming into a full, boisterous guffaw. Finally breaking her gaze, Rainbow looked at the grass at her hooves, trying in desperation not to show her anguish.

“Ah thought after Lightie left there weren’t none left in Ponyville, but Ah guess we’ve got one more!”

She was still laughing even as she spun, bucking Rainbow in the chest.

It didn’t hurt. Actually, Rainbow hadn’t even felt it, though it did knock her off her footing, causing her to stumble backwards. She considered fleetingly what could have compelled her to have this conversation on the edge of a cliff, before instinctively spreading her wings to halt her freefall.

Or she would have, anyway. “Ugh,” she muttered to herself, “stupid day not to bring my wings.”

Applejack swooped down from above, her own unusual, bat-like wings silhouetted against the sun, making her appear as a dark, ominous shadow, contrary to her light-hearted, though cruel, laughter.

She really did have a beautiful laugh.

Rainbow Dash woke with a start, dripping cold sweat and tears into the dirt below. The bright blue eyes immediately in front of her startled her again, causing her to jump to her hooves, panting and trembling.

“Hi Dashie! Have a nice nap?”

“Pinkie! You sc– you surprised me! Just what do you think you’re doing?!”

“I was watching you sleep!”

It took Rainbow a moment to absorb that statement, her expression twisting into one of shock, and another moment to form a response.

“Don’t you think that’s kind of weird, Pinkie?”

The voyeur pony tilted her head slightly, furrowing her brow and replying in earnest confusion. “No?”

The other couldn’t think of an answer, so simply responded with a glare.

Pinkie never had any qualm with changing the subject of a discussion freely. “You look terrible, Dashie, you should really talk to somepony.”

The angry, though now befuddled, glare continued.

“I’ve got a present for you, but you can only have it when you’re less grouchy. See you later!”

She hopped away merrily, entirely unaffected by the debacle. Rainbow just stared, nonplussed, until she was out of view. Then she stared for some time at the quiet trees, making sense of this moment in her life.

Finally regaining her composure, the pegasus realized that her strange friend had been right in one regard: She should talk to somepony. And she resolved to.

As only two ponies in Ponyville knew about her sexuality, and one of them was Pinkie Pie, the choice of a talking companion seemed clear. Taking to her natural habitat in the sky, she set off for Fluttershy’s cottage.

Not feeling up to flying over Sweet Apple Acres nor for flying over the Everfree Forest proper, she took a roundabout path that brought her over the heart of Ponyville. She had always loved seeing the town’s activity from this perspective; most other pegasi living there opted for a more grounded lifestyle befitting Ponyville’s substantial earth pony population, and that left the skies in the nearly sole domain of Rainbow Dash. In her dominion she was nobility, and the serfs below respected and admired her. It felt good.

But this was no time for her silly fantasies, she concluded. She wanted to shake the tangled thoughts from her addled mind, and knew that Fluttershy’s gentle kindness could aid. Zooming over the thinning few houses at the fringe of the small town, she landed near Fluttershy’s door.

The sheer liveliness of this cottage never ceased to amaze Rainbow Dash. The chattering and chirping of animals was an ever-present companion of the quiet pony, and even the slight rustling of animals of the six-legged exoskeletal kind was a frequent undertone, a testament to the animal lover’s nonjudgmental approach to life. This noise came to an abrupt halt as Rainbow knocked roughly on the door.

The door opened slightly, a timid teal eye peering inquisitively through the seam. Concluding that the unexpected visitor was a welcome one, Fluttershy opened the door wide, revealing her smiling face behind it.

“Hello Rainbow,” she spoke in her usual soft tone, “what a nice surprise. Won’t you come in?”

“Hi, Fluttershy. Can we talk?”

“Of course. Is anything wrong?” Her typically keen eye for others’ welfare had as always not led her astray. She closed the door softly behind them before asking, “Would you like some tea?”

“No, nothing’s wrong … I mean, I guess nothing’s really wrong … I just wanted to talk.”

Fluttershy looked on gently, waiting for a response to her other inquiry.

“Oh. Sure, tea would be, uh, nice. Thanks.”

The light yellow mare trotted off to her kitchen, her long mane bobbing in front of her eyes as it usually did. It made Rainbow wonder how she managed not to run into walls; yes, short manes, Dash was sure, were best for pegasi. She found a somewhat-comfortable seat in a small but plush orange sofa and waited impatiently for her friend’s return.

Her eyes darted from corner to corner of the room, noticing the assorted array of birdhouses, dens and burrows for animals she mostly didn’t recognize. And in each of these small homes was a pair of eyes, peering right back at her. In fact, it was as if the entire cottage was watching her, and even though she knew that most of them couldn’t understand her language, it was an uncomfortable feeling to be sure. Just as she was beginning to regret her decision of a talking companion, Fluttershy reappeared from the kitchen, a tray with two teacups balanced precariously between her teeth.

Rainbow retrieved a teacup and took a small sip. It was a pleasant, airy brew with a flavor she couldn’t identify. But it relaxed her somewhat, at least for a moment.

“So, what did you want to talk about?”

“Oh yeah,” she thought to herself, suddenly frantic, “something to talk about.” She searched her mind for anything she thought would help, but was drawing blanks. Applejack? No, Fluttershy didn’t know about her feelings and that would just make things awkward. Pinkie Pie? She wasn’t really the problem, just a catalyst. Lightning Star?

She pondered for a moment, trying to determine what had brought that name to the top of her mind. But the moment was fleeting, as her companion was still staring intently at her, waiting for a response.

“Did I ever tell you how I became the head weatherpony of Ponyville?”

“Well, I thought after Lightning Star left–”

“No, I mean why Lightie left.” Fluttershy’s soft tones yielded readily to Rainbow’s interruption.

Fluttershy waited for a moment to respond, lest she be interrupted again. “Sorry, I never really knew Lightning.” Her voice carried an entirely undue guilt, not atypical of the ever-shy pony.

Rainbow Dash launched into a tale of her past.

“When I first left flight school, it was really tough for me to find a job. Nopony wanted a flyer without official Cloudsdale certification, no matter how awesome I was. They wouldn’t take me in Manehattan, Fillydelphia, of course not in Canterlot. So I was stuck with little ol’ Ponyville.

“I thought they’d reject me here, too, but that’s when I met Lightning Star.” Her voice started to carry a more excited tone as she remembered her old friend. “She was fast, she was cool, and she could tell that I’m awesome, even though I didn’t have some la-dee-da degree. She hired me, and soon we were good friends.

“Even though you were living in Ponyville too,” she referred directly to her oldest friend, “we didn’t hang out much back then, so Lightie was basically the only friend I had. She was always super-cool and always thought I’d be in the Wonderbolts some day, and she trusted me to get the job done even if she caught me napping.”

Fluttershy, listening silently, smiled at this last comment. Some things truly never changed.

“Anyway, one day I told her … y’know, about me. About me … and mares. And she told me the same thing about her! After that, we were closer than ever.”

Lifting her silence momentarily, the other pony couldn’t help but inquire. “Oh? You were … close?”

“N–no! Not like that! I mean … no, no, we were just best friends. Um, anyway, where was I?”

She paused her monologue to take a sip of the now-cooling tea. Nutmeg? Cinnamon? The flavor still eluded her.

“Well, the trouble started with the mayor. Did you know the last mayor?”

Fluttershy’s response carried her typical timidity. “Oh, yes. He wasn’t very nice …”

Dash just laughed. “Yeah, he was kind of a jerk. But he was a good mayor. He was organized, he knew exactly what everypony should do, even Winter Wrap Up usually went OK with him. He was sort of like a grumpy Twilight.”

She balked at her own comment, realizing how insulting that had been to one of her good friends. But as she was still in the middle of her story, she threw off the feeling and pressed on.

“He did daily status reports with the weather team, and me and Lightie would go to talk to him. They were usually short, he’d just tell us if Applejack had asked for more rain or your animals needed more sun or something. Then he’d tell us what he wanted us to do and we’d do it. Not like the new mayor, she pretty much lets me run the weather team myself.

“Anyway, sometimes he liked to have little get-togethers with all the ponies who worked for him in all the teams. They would have been parties except he was the grumpiest pony in history. And at one of these parties, Lightie introduced everyone to her marefriend. She was a unicorn, green, with … never mind, it’s not important.

“The mayor noticed them.”

Rainbow’s tone began to sour, and her voice began to sink.

“After that, he never treated her quite the same. He’d say things like, ‘hey fillyfooler, we gotta bring in some rain,’ or ‘why don’t you use those stallion legs to kick over some clouds.’ It was stupid, but I could tell it got to her. I told her to ignore it, but she didn’t. She kept doing her job, but she was never happy at work any more, and always hated talking to him. It just got worse and worse.

Rainbow’s voice was now beginning to crack and sputter under the weight of her own memories.

“We talked less and less, actually she didn’t talk to anypony any more. She was always sad or angry, and eventually she was just barking orders like the mayor.

“Then one day, a couple months later, she was gone. She just … left. Her marefriend too. I never saw them again.”

Fluttershy finally chimed in. “Rainbow, you can’t blame yourself for that. The mayor was awful to her!”

The pegasus both literally and figuratively blue just shook her head plaintively.

“It’s not that, Fluttershy. Nopony said anything. Nopony ever told the mayor to stop. Everypony could see that she was hurting, but nopony said anything.”

Rainbow couldn’t stand to look directly into her friend’s eyes, so she confessed instead into the simple wooden planks of the other’s floor.

“Fluttershy … I never said anything. I could see that she was hurting, but I never said anything. I just kept doing my job, I let her get worse, and I … I just couldn’t say anything.”

She began to speak more quickly, racing against the welling lump in her throat, trying to say for the first time what needed to be said, in spite of her breaking voice.

“I would tell myself anything so I didn’t have to say anything. I told myself it was normal to hate f–... to hate us. I told myself I was just going through some phase. I told myself that some day I’d meet the stallion of my dreams and the rest didn’t matter. I told myself Lightie could be strong without me, I told myself that I didn’t need to say anything.”

Tears were now welling in her eyes, but she spoke slowly again.

“And I lost her. I lost her because I never said anything. I should have stood up for her, I should have been brave. I lost her because … I lost her because I’m a coward.

“I’m a coward, Fluttershy. When it really, really mattered, I was too afraid to say anything. And I lost my best friend, my only friend … all because I’m a coward.”

She stared at the ground, breathing heavily and trying to shake the bitter taste of that word from her mind. After a few seconds to regain her calm, she finally looked back up at Fluttershy.

And immediately was wracked with guilt. Fluttershy’s cheeks were wet, and she was breathing short, abortive breaths as she tried not to sob openly. Seeing the sadness in Rainbow’s eyes broke her control, and she embraced her friend in a tight, sad hug, as she cried into the rainbow mane. In the process she knocked over both of their teacups, spilling tea onto the table and floor below. Fluttershy, Rainbow concluded, was perhaps too sensitive for this story.

“I’m sorry, Fluttershy, I didn’t mean …”

But her voice trailed off, and she instead simply returned the embrace, trying to comfort the friend that was supposed to be comforting her. Eyes stared angrily at her from everywhere in the cottage, so she buried her head in the long pink mane before her to avoid their gaze. She muttered useless apologies as Fluttershy’s tears continued to stream down her neck; she felt worse than ever, and even worse for feeling bad about herself after what she’d just done to her oldest friend. This had definitely not gone to plan.

They held the embrace for a few minutes, until the sensitive yellow pegasus wasn’t weeping any more, and breathed softly into Rainbow’s damp neck. She broke the hug and held Rainbow’s head between her hoofs, staring with sadness and determination into the other’s eyes.

“Rainbow, promise me you’ll be brave with Applejack. I … I need you to be brave.”

Dash was so glad the emotional moment was over, she didn’t even stop to consider how Fluttershy knew about her feelings for Applejack. She just wanted to escape.

“I promise,” she lied.

Fluttershy released her with a gentle smile, and she made her way out of the cottage. She closed the door and prepared to take off for home.

“Hi again, Dashie!”

“Pinkie Pie?! How the hay do you always find me?!”

In her exuberance, Pinkie simply ignored the question. “I’ve got a PRESENT for you, Dashie!”

With that she materialized apparently from nowhere a small wooden bowl, full of an unappealing, unidentifiable brown goo.

“Um … thanks? What is it?”

“I told Zecora I needed a love potion for a friend,” she winked conspicuously, “but she said, ‘a potion would make a love untrue, what your friend needs is a brew for confidence.’ … no, wait, that doesn’t rhyme! ‘A confidence potion?’”

“Pinkie …”

“‘A confidence incantation?’”

“Pinkie!”

“Oh, anyway, she made you a confidence brew, it’ll help you … be confident!”

Quite happy with her gift, she skipped away, leaving Rainbow Dash as befuddled as ever.

“Confidence, huh?” Rainbow thought. “I did promise Fluttershy …”

Comments

[ArcaneTrex]

:)
yes...
THIS IS BRILLIANT!!!

[Twilicorn]

MOAR!!!

[Brony2]

I just knew Pinkie would ask Zecora for something to help RD
but what I didn't expect is the addition of Fluttershy as a character