Limits

by TheVulpineHero1

Chapter 6

I gasp, pulling thin air into my lungs as I scream downwards through a pink-and-orange sky. I'm flying, really flying, spiralling and soaring and slicing through the air, and every second I stay aloft is a second my body aches for relief. I can't think straight at all. My whole mind seems to be in my wingtips, making constant tiny adjustments so I don't plummet to my death. My ribs and my throat feel like they're about to collapse, and for a second I can't decide what I need more – adrenaline or oxygen, the thrill or the fall. How did I ever stop doing this, wean myself off the buzz? It's better than anything I've ever felt, an old friend and a passionate romance all at the same time.

With a flicker of my wings I pull out of the dive just before I hit the ground, and the earth is so close I can almost taste it as it speeds by. My brain is still slow but my body remembers, and before I even know what's happening I'm curving back into the air again. I suddenly realise that I've been whooping and hollering all this time, but I couldn't even hear myself over the wind rushing past my ears. I keep climbing, almost totally vertical, and my eyes are watering so badly that the sky is just a smudged watercolour painting.

Then, with a strange and mechanical inevitability, things go wrong.

My gut realises it before I do. It feels like I'm being squeezed and all the air is rushing out of me. A primal part of me wants to stop right now, get back on the ground and come back later, but my brain still thinks it's last year and I'm in much better shape than I actually am. I know with an iron certainty that I can't do this but somehow I can't stop either; I keep climbing, fighting physics and my own body, wings beating furiously all the while. The world starts to darken, and I wonder stupidly if I'm so high that I'm in space. Then my mind finally brushes away the adrenaline haze and I realise, in a startling moment of clarity, that I'm blacking out and I can't breathe. Slowly, I bank and topple in that lonely place where the stars meet the sky, and then I'm falling back towards the ground once more.

I can't describe the feeling of calm I experience then. I realise, very quietly and soberly, that there is a good chance I'm going to die if I hit the ground at the end of this fall. I also realise that there isn't much I can do to stop it. My head is still light, and blackness still clouds the edges of my vision; I can feel my wings, but there just isn't any strength left in them. I focus on breathing, sucking in lungfuls of air and willing my blood to move faster so I can get out of this mess. The ground closes in, so fast that it's like an abstract painting to me. There is a crack of thunder, and I am gone.

---

I wake up, gasping, my teeth chattering and my eyes streaming. My first instinct is to thrash around and jump straight to my hooves, but my whole body feels heavy and numb. I've been covered by a thin violet duvet, which at least means I'm in bed and not in a morgue.

“How do you feel, Rainbow Dash?”

The voice is Twilight's, and I feel safe to relax a little bit. If the whole world were on fire, you could count on Twi to bring a bucket. Unless she started the fire in the first place, of course.

“What happened?” I ask. It's the stupidest, most cliché question ever, but I ask it. Now that I'm calmer, I start to recognise the features of Twilight's library – huge bookshelves with half the contents out on loan, rough-cut oak ceiling beams with dark knots here and there in the wood. The smell of paper should have been a giveaway too.

“You tell me. I was watching you fly, and then you just… fell. I ended up teleporting you to ground to break the momentum,” she says. The tone of her voice is weird. Not panicked, but kind of wry and annoyed and a bit worried all at the same time. It reminds me a little of how she talks to Spike sometimes.

Suspicion prickles my hide. Not the kind of suspicion you feel when you think someone's scammed you or anything, but the old, weary suspicion you get when you think you've been an idiot. “Uh, Twi? You didn't know this was going to happen before it did, did you? I mean, that's not the reason you insisted on watching my first practice, right?” I ask.

“Well,” she says, after thinking about what words she wants to use to avoid making me look like an idiot, “I thought you'd bite off a little more than you could chew, yes, but I wasn't expecting you to go quite as far as you did. It wouldn't be you if you didn't overdo it, I suppose. Would you care to walk me through what happened?”

Truth be told, I wouldn't. If you can't be embarrassed about almost falling to your death, what can you be embarrassed about? But Twi's got her responsible face on so chances of getting out of it are slim. I've tried to wriggle out of trouble with her enough times to know when the effort is wasted.

“I guess what was wrong is that my mind thought I could do it, and my body thought I didn't, and as it turns out my body won the discussion. I didn't realise my breathing had gotten so bad since the last time I really went for it, you know?”

If Twilight had eyebrows she'd probably have raised one of them. Maybe even gone the whole hog and raised both. She found out the hard way a couple years back that a new pair of fluffy wings and the body of a pudgy librarian does not a champion flyer make. Princess or no princess, the air's thinner up there and it takes time for the lungs to get used to it, especially if you've been leading a ground-bound lifestyle up to that point. She's better nowadays, but for a while she flew like a concussed mallard.

After a moment of lull, a cup of coffee so thick you could stick a flag in it floats over to the bed, and I realise that my brief post-accident respite is over and that the conversation is now going to turn to more serious matters. It says a lot that a narrow escape from death is considered light conversation in our bunch. Of course, drinking Twi's coffee is about as sure a way to get yourself to death's door as any, so I guess it loses some drama after a while.

“So, Dash. I heard – from Fluttershy, of course – why you suddenly got interested in stunt flying again,” she says, slowly and carefully, as if writing out a problem on the blackboard for a struggling student. “I also heard, from Applejack, that you've been having worries about your relationship with her.”

“Yeah?”

“What I would like to hear is the reason why you didn't come and talk to me about this. Or to Pinkie, or Rarity. Or to Applejack, sooner than you did.”

How in the hay do I answer that? There's about a trillion valid reasons I could give, and now I've got to condense them down into one tiny little ball of information for Twilight to mull over. Whenever she asks a question, it's always hard. Celestia help you if she asks what you want for lunch.

“A whole bunch of reasons, Twi. I mean, first off, I'm not even sure there's anything wrong. Maybe I'm just having a bad month or something? I don't wanna go around worrying everypony about something that might not even exist,” I begin. It's the first time I've actually vocalised my doubts about the whole thing, and it feels… false, somehow. A bad month? Really? Everypony I know is worrying about this, I just fell out of the sky, and three nights ago I had 'Shy sobbing in the kitchen because I couldn't even hold it together enough to get to work.

“Dash, it doesn't matter if there's something wrong or not. What matters is that you think there is, and that's affecting your feelings. From the top, please. Why didn't you tell anypony sooner?”

I sigh, and try to rearrange my thoughts. You just can't argue with Twilight these days. She was always one of those ponies who could be great at anything, so long as she put her mind to it, and in the end I guess she put her mind to us. Sometimes it's difficult to remember that under all that royal gravitas and acquired wisdom, there's a paranoid librarian who loves stuffed toys.

“I don't know, Twi. Maybe because I didn't want to admit there was something wrong in my head. Maybe because I didn't want 'Shy to feel worried. Maybe because I've got something against other ponies poking their noses into my relationship,” I say, and throw up my hooves. “I don't always have good reasons for the stuff I do.”

Twilight looks at me for a long moment, before deciding that it's a good enough explanation for now. I take a sip of coffee, and instantly regret it; the inside of my mouth tastes like charcoal, and I can't stop a shiver from running down my spine. How does she drink this stuff? Is she one of those ponies who willingly poisons themselves to build up immunity or something?

The silence goes on a few seconds too long, and the conversation begins to lull. All of a sudden, I don't want to let that happen. Call it instinct or craziness or whatever you like, but I get the feeling that if I let things drop now, I'll be losing something I might need later. “...Hey, Twi. Can I ask you an important question?” I start, and then instantly backtrack. “I mean, I don't know if it's, like, super important or anything, but it's been bugging me a little lately.”

Twilight pauses in between drinking a whole half of her coffee. “Mm?”

“Have I… I mean, did I really change that much? Since the old days?”

She moves to the table, and sits down; deliberately slow steps mean she's buying time to think. Almost by habit, she opens one of the books sitting on the table. She still hasn't bought new chairs, I notice. She got some wickerback ones a while ago as a gift from one of the villagers, but they're bad to sit in when you've got wings – the curved back means they get trapped behind you, and the little gaps in between the weave of the chair are really painful if you get a feather snagged in them. They're not too fun if you get your tail caught in them, either. “It depends what you mean by 'the old days'. Honestly, Dash, you could be talking about the last two months or the last two years.”

“I don't know. Just in general, I guess.”

“How helpful.” Ah, sarcasm. Twilight's default answer to anything not solvable by magic.

“I aim to please,” I reply. Honestly, I'm glad she's breaking out the wisecracks. It shows she's not treating me with kid gloves. You gotta be able to trust a pony to know you're messing with them before you mess with them.

“Well, it doesn't matter too much, I suppose.” She pauses for a second. “Why do you ask?”

Hoo, boy. There she goes again with her crazy armour-piercing questions. I remember a joke AJ used to tell me, back when we were closer: 'Twilight Sparkle goes to a shipyard and buys a boat. Before she leaves, she asks the shipbuilder, “What's the name of this ship?” The boat sinks.' Hey, it's not the dumbest in-joke me and AJ had together. What's Rarity's ideal birthday present? Two clownfish and a bottle of glitter glue. Classic.

Still, Twilight probably expects an answer, and my brain seriously isn't coming up with anything – maybe as revenge for almost cracking my head open and spilling it all over the pavement. At times like this, I tend to just let my mouth do stuff and then sort through the wreckage later. Not always what I'd call a safe social strategy, but what can you do? If you never say anything, nothing ever happens. I'm sick of nothing happening, and I'm sick of ruts and being stuck in them.

“I dunno, Twi,” I hear myself say, as though the words are coming from somepony else's mouth. “It's just that when I was flying up there, for the first time in ages, I felt like my old self again. The me before I started dating Fluttershy, I mean.”

Twi says nothing. She just listens. Come to think of it, there's the big thing she's learned in the last two years or so – forget the wings and the tiara and all that stuff. Before, she'd have been racking her brains for generic advice and yapping my ear off. Now she sits there, expecting you to go on and tell her the whole story, and expecting it so hard you don't really have a choice in the matter.

“I don't know, Twi. I mean… I don't like the pony I was back then. But I liked being that pony. It was fun to get buzzed on adrenaline and do reckless stuff every day of the week. It was fun to get away with it. Aw, hay. I'm not making any sense at all here.”

“You're making plenty of sense, Dash. Keep going,” Twi says. Wish she'd tell me how any of this makes sense. I'm pretty much saying whatever comes into my head next here, total free association stuff. I'm barely making any more sense than Pinkie does half the time, and Pinkie's got the laws of physics themselves to contend with.

“I feel like… I dunno. That if I keep flying like I did today, I might go back to being the way I was back then. Or something like that, anyway. I don't know if I like it or not.”

“Rainbow Dash?”

Hoo, boy. When somepony says your name and just leaves it hanging like that, it's never a good sign. They're just waiting for you to say 'yeah?', and then bam! It's like they've got your permission to say whatever crazy, emotionally draining thing they're gonna say next. But then if you don't say yeah, they just stop talking. Clam up. And you always wonder, huh, what were they gonna say? You know you wouldn't have liked it, but better the draconeus you know, right? Right.

So, like an idiot, I say yeah.

“Which you do you think Fluttershy likes best?”she says, and turns to me with an expression she could have stolen straight from Celestia's face. Her eyes are bright and clear and terrifying, as though she's something more than the pony, something so big and so wise that my problems are nothing before her gaze. “The you she fell in love with two years ago? Or the you she's still in love with now?”

The words fill the air for almost a full minute. There isn't much I can say, and even if there was I wouldn't want to; I'm a little scared of breaking the spell. I guess it's true what they say: if you go to a wise mare looking for an answer, what you actually get is a question. But it's a real good one.

“Horseapples, Twi. When'd you get so scary?” I ask, when the silence has finally stretched on longer than we're comfortable. I'm kidding, but not entirely. If she pulls that look on me again, I'm heading for the nearest window and nuts to her teleportation.

She takes a second to scowl at me, but cracks a joke all the same. “When I started hanging around with you, of course.” I guess that's actually half true, huh? Me, and 'Shy, and all the others… In the end, we were just as much a part of how Twi turned out as her parents, or even the Princess. You make friends, then your friends make you. Kinda hard to see where Twilight's influence on me went, though. Besides the book thing.

Which me would Fluttershy like best? To be honest, I never really thought about it. I've changed a lot, and I always thought I was changing to suit her better, but I wonder if that's really the case. Sure, I've gotten quieter, and it's easier to live together now, but what if that wasn't actually what she wanted? What if I've just been going off on my own, thinking she'd like it?

I roll over and mutter something under my breath about Twi and her stupid quizzes, but I'm just distracting myself from the actual point of the question. Between the me she fell in love with, and the me she's still in love with, huh? In that case, the answer's obvious.

“The happiest one,” I announce to Twi, who blinks like she forgot her own question. Humour me a little harder, why don't you? “That's the me that Fluttershy would like best.”

Twilight gets up, closes her book with a snap (I don't think she even turned a single page) and walks back over to the bed. “Good. If you've realised that,” she says, “then put a little more effort into being that pony, and a little less effort into worrying about it. And for goodness' sake, come and speak to somepony the next time you're having problems. Don't just sit at home in that cottage and sink into your own head. Remember the reason you moved in with Fluttershy in the first place.”

Why I moved in with 'Shy, huh? That's a big one, and I don't want to think about it right now – not after the day I've had. For right now, I've gotten a little bit of the solution to the problem, and that's enough. But I also don't want to spend all day lying in Twi's spare bed, trying to not catch my death from her coffee.

“Hey, Twi?” I ask.

“Yeah?”

Wait, I got her into one of those hanging name things! Quick, gotta think of something really disturbing to say. What would ruffle Twilight, though?

“I'm getting awful sick of your ceiling.”

Really? That's what I said? Such a waste. That could have been the best prank ever. Pinkie would be disappointed with me if she knew. There's gotta be some way to salvage this, though.

“Really, now. You are just a bundle of charm, you know that?” Twi retorts.

“In fact,” I continue,” “I think I'm gonna go outside and get some more flying done.”

Now that has the desired effect. You can tell when you've really zinged Twi, because she stops for a second and her eyes twitch, like she doesn't quite believe it's happened and she's expecting to wake up any second.

“No. No, Dash. That isn't going to be happening. Not after the stuff you pulled,” she says, after the shock has passed through her system.

“Hey, it's logic, Twi. If I'm gonna be reckless anyway, I figure I should get all the stupid out of my system while I've still got your crazy teleportation thing as a safety net.” I stop and think for a second. “Besides, you can't stop me anyway. I can fly faster than you.”

“I can teleport!” she objects, hotly.

“Yeah, but I can just fly–“

“No, Dash. I. Can. Teleport. There is no way I'm going to let you go outside and do dangerous stunts that I know you aren't ready for. I'm sorry to have to do this, but I'm pulling rank.”

“What? You can't pull rank on me,” I scoff.

“Last I checked, 'Princess' trumps 'weather pony'. You're staying in bed,” Twi replies finally. Not quite finally enough for my tastes.

“Yeah, well, I'm pulling rank too. I'm a wielder of the Element of Harmony, saviour of Equestria. How am I supposed to do my hero thing when the royal family's being obstructive?” I retort. I haven't actually been doing the hero thing that much recently, but that's besides the point.

“So am I!”

“So's Fluttershy. I'm pulling her rank as well. She'll back me up. It's a democratic majority, Twi.”

“You... You can't pull Fluttershy's rank to make me let you go out there and break your neck! She'd never agree to it.”

I flash her a cheerful smirk. “Well in that case, I'm pulling AJ's instead. And Pinkie's, come to think of it.”

“Then I'm pulling Fluttershy's, and Rarity's, and Spike's. So it's three elements of harmony versus three elements of harmony, one member of royalty and a dragon. You lose, Dash.”

“Yeah, well, all the ponies on my weather team–”

“All the employees in Canterlot Castle!”

“All the ponies in Cloudsdale!”

“Ditto Canterlot!”

“And Ponyville, and Apploosa, and wherever Pinkie came from–”

“All the subjects of the royal family in Equestria! Including you!”

For a moment, I'm stumped. It's fun to see Twi get all riled up, though. She's so composed nowadays that I can't help messing with her. I mean, sure, it's great that we have this crazy guru, but sometimes I want our socially awkward bookworm back.

“You're pulling my own rank against me? Wow, Twi. I think you've gone mad with power,” I retort, and add in some tutting to really sell it. I'm beat, and we both know it–I was beat from the moment the argument started, really–but that doesn't mean I can't have some fun.

She frowns, obviously nowhere near as amused as I am with the conversation. “As if you gave me a choice. Really, Rainbow Dash, I'd be a lot more comfortable if you'd just rest for the remainder of today. Until Spike comes how, at the very least. I sent him off to get some medical supplies in case you'd injured yourself, and he'll only worry if you're not here when I get back.”

“And playing off my sympathy for poor baby dragon? You really are ruthless. I guess I can stay in bed until he gets back,” I say, with a theatrical sigh I cribbed from Rarity. “But after that, I'm going flying again, and you have to watch. I wasn't kidding about getting all the stupid outta my system.”

For a moment, Twi makes a face like she wants to argue further, but it softens into the expression she makes when she knows I have to do a dumb thing to know why it's dumb. “Agreed,” she says, glances to the side; shortly, a copy of the nearest Daring Do book floats over and deposits itself onto my head. I guess I did annoy her after all.

“You can read that while we're waiting. Oh, and Rainbow Dash?” she continues, with a smile so sickly it could scare off a minotaur. “Drink. Your. Coffee.”

Oh, horseapples. This is gonna suck.

Author's Note:

This was the first thing I did for a while after vanishing from the fandom, and it kinda shows. However, this story always was more of a personal thing than anything else I wrote; so long as I'm eventually satisfied by its confusion, the journey is all gravy.

Comments

[Kuki-Shift]

Yessssss. Loves me some sarcasm and banter.

[Seven Seas]

You seem to be long gone. And that's the fandom's loss, because your writing is beautifully crafted and conveys marvelously this story's theme of troubled contentment, of knowing something's missing though there's nothing to miss. So many penetrating character moments, so many perfect details.You had me from the first few words, but this was my favorite passage of all:

…Even though it sounds dumb, I feel really proud of 'Shy at times like this. I still remember when she used to go super quiet whenever anypony spoke to us, and how she used to move around in a way that put me between her and them, like some kind of shield. Her being able to just stop and chat with whoever speaks to her on the street, without getting all worried and anxious like she used to, is like this huge achievement. They say she's not as talkative when I'm not around, but it doesn't matter. It just makes me realise how far she's come since we started living together.

I've changed too since I moved in. There was just something about living with 'Shy in that little cottage that made me quieter, I guess. AJ I always used to shout at, and Pinkie I always used to shout with, but there's never any need to shout when I'm with her. It's not like I need to compete with her, and I don't need to try and get her attention because I've already got it. When I stopped talking so loud, I started to learn how to listen – I mean, really listen. Listen like Pinkie listens, sometimes, how to listen to the pony and not just the words they're saying. And after a while, 'Shy learned how to talk a little louder. We changed each other, basically. We didn't quite meet in the middle, but we moved so close that it got hard to be apart.

I don't know how I hadn't found you before, but everything you wrote is now on my list. I do hope you pop in again someday.