The Art Of Falling

by Fire-Dash

Concept Writing

Rainbow's Journal

May 3rd

I can't stop thinking about those black gaps in the sky. Like gaping holes, giant mouths trying to swallow me up. What could they have been? I've never seen anything like that before. I don't know of any kind of weather that would've caused it and it's not like the sky really was falling. I mean, that's not possible, right? It's just air up there. Nothing that could actually drop. What was it?

Twilight seems pretty worried about it too. She came by again today and stayed a little longer to go over what I wrote about that day. She had this really tired, really worried look on her face, and she didn't speak for a long time. Bags were starting to form under her eyes and her mane was sticking up all over the place. “Are you okay?” I asked, wincing as I tried to sit up. My ribs still hurt like heck and there's some pretty nasty-looking bruises all over my chest. My back was sore and my head was killing me. I felt awful.

Twilight sighed. “Yes, I'm alright.” She looked up from the page. “Are you?”

“Besides being bored out of my mind?” I attempted a laugh but quickly gave up. “Yeah, I'm fine.”

“Good.” She turned her attention back to the paper and didn't look up again. I was starting to feel a little awkward just sitting there so I shifted my position, glancing at Derpy in the other bed. She was asleep again, lying on her back with her mouth open. Celestia, can that mare ever snore.

I adjusted my sheets a couple times and looked around the room. We've only got one window in here and it's next to Derpy's bed. All I have is a lamp. I know it's only been two days, but I really miss the outside. I want to run. I want to fly. I hate being stuck in here.

But most of all, I want to find out what happened. Could it happen again? Was it an accident? Something more? I don't know. Celestia must want to know as well, seeing on how overworked Twilight looked. She seemed really concerned with what I wrote but I don't know why. She was being so secretive. It really bothered me. If she knows something, why couldn't she tell me? Doesn't she trust me? Maybe she just needs to be sure before she says anything. She must be pretty stressed out.

“Twilight?” I asked after a while. “Is everything okay? I mean, is Ponyville in any trouble?”

She bowed her head, sighing softly. “I don't know.” A pause. “I'm sorry, Rainbow, but I have to go. I'll be back tomorrow, I promise. I'm too busy to stay much longer. Celestia really wants me to figure this out.”

I nodded. “I know, Twilight. Good luck.”

She closed the book and gave it back to me. “Thanks. I'll need it.”

“Hey, wait,” I called, just as she was heading for the door. “Why haven't the others come to see me yet?”

“They're all busy doing repairs. The storm really tore things up. Applejack had to fix that barn again and clean up all the broken trees. Fluttershy has a lot of injured animals to deal with, Rarity lost half her outfits when a gust of wind blew down her door, and Pinkie's been trying hard to help the town cheer up.”

I sighed. “Right. Well, thanks for stopping by. I hope you find out what you need.”

Twilight managed a slight smile. “Get well soon, Rainbow. I know it really sucks being stuck here.”

“You don't know the half of it,” I replied, slouching down in the bed.

After she left, I opened up the Daring Do book and read a couple pages while I waited for Derpy to wake up. The book started off with Daring narrowly escaping an attack from a mysterious stallion who was after the artifact she had just discovered. She managed to hide out in a cave for a while as he searched for her, and that's about as far as I got before Derpy stole my attention.

“Good story?” she asked with a yawn.

I nodded. “So far, yeah. Haven't read that much, though.”

“Oh, okay.” She leaned forward and tilted her head, looking around my section of the room. “Hey, what's that other book?”

“Other book?” I asked, glancing up at her.

“The blue one. The one you write in.”

I bit my lip. I knew she was probably going to ask sometime but I still didn't want to answer. I sighed. Well, it wasn't like she'd care anyway. I'm pretty sure she thinks everything I do is awesome. At least, that's how she makes it seem. Still, I wasn't sure admitting I keep a personal journal would be good for my reputation. I'm not known for being very “in-touch” with my feelings and I'd like to keep it that way. Better for intimidation in competitions when your opponent thinks you're stone. “It's, um, well.... It's my journal,” I sighed, looking away. “I know that sounds lame but Twilight gave it to me and I didn't wanna hurt her feelings or anthi—”

“That's really cool!” Derpy exclaimed, cutting me off. “You read and write? Do you write stories?”

I blinked, studying her. “Uh, no, I really just write about my day. And, like, thoughts and stuff.” A really intelligent answer, I know. I think I deserve applause for that one.

“Oh. That's neat!” She glanced over at my journal again. “Can I see?”

“No!” I cried and grabbed the book, shoving it under my pillow. Derpy jumped, then shrunk down into her sheets. Okay, so I was being a little dramatic. “I mean, no. It's kinda... personal,” I corrected myself. I knew she probably wasn't going to go around telling ponies about my inner-most thoughts, and the request was completely innocent, but I really didn't want anypony knowing about this. Besides Twilight, of course. But she was different. She was the one who encouraged me to write in the first place.

Derpy paused, then sat up again. “Can you teach me?” she asked, eyes practically bulging out of her head.

“Teach you...?” Then I understood. “Oh, you mean teach you how to write in a journal.”

She nodded, a giant smile spreading across her face.

“Uh, well....” I really didn't want to go over journal writing with her. I know it's an easy concept but I felt like I'd be explaining it forever. I'm not really all that patient. But it was just so hard to say no to her. She leaned forward, good eye focused solely on me. She wasn't even blinking. I could practically feel the excitement, the anticipation radiating off of her. It was amazing how much this seemed to mean to her. I sighed. “Okay. Fine. I'll show you how.”

“Really?” she gasped, practically glowing with joy. “Thank you!”

When the nurse came by to check on us, I asked her if she could get us a pad of paper and a pencil. The best she could do was a black pen and a pad of mustard-yellow paper with the words “PONYVILLE HOSPITAL” printed in bold at the top. Derpy didn't care. She would have been happy with a sticky note and a chunk of charcoal.

I told her that all she had to do was write the date at the top, then write down whatever she felt like. Thoughts, dreams, feelings, anything at all. After a couple minutes of watching her write one big run-on sentence, I figured I should probably tell her about simple grammar before she got started.

It took two hours for her to get paragraphs down. Two hours. She didn't understand indenting and I was tired of explaining it, so I told her to just put a space between every new topic. At least that would make it look better. She managed to pick that up eventually and her writing looked a lot less jumbled for it. I wrote down the spelling for all the months in the year at the back so she'd have the dates right. I also wrote down my name because she wanted to make sure she got it right when she mentioned me.

By five PM, when dinner rolled in, she was writing up a storm. The nurse had to ask her three times to put it down and eat something. Derpy hadn't even noticed the cart, she was transfixed on the paper, tongue sticking out the corner of her mouth and forehead wrinkled in concentration. Well, at least she seemed happy.

When the nurse finally got her interested in the pancakes at the side of her bed, Derpy devoured them in seconds. I swirled my spoon around in my soup absently, watching her. I was fascinated with how happy she was just writing in a journal. Well, not just the writing. I think it was the fact that I showed her how. I guess I'm not the only one who'd lost patience with her before. From what she's told me, her boss is a real jerk. I know it's annoying when he has to keep repeating himself to her but he doesn't have to be mean about it. It's not her fault when she doesn't get something. She wants to learn. It just takes her a while.

I have to respect Derpy. Nopony's ever been able to change my opinion about something faster. Only took her two days to convince me she's more than she leads on. Pretty impressive.

I managed to stomach a bit of my dinner, something I'm pretty sure was meant to be a sort of vegetable soup but ended up being flavourless broth and floating chunks of plastic. Needless to say, I lost my appetite.

I watched Derpy scribble words in her makeshift journal for a while before I picked up my own. I never really thought of this thing as being important to me but I guess it kinda is. I'm writing a lot more now than I used to and I even helped another pony to write as well. Jeez, I'm becoming Twilight. I swear, by tomorrow I'll have a horn and purple mane to prove it.

Well, that's about all there was for today. I did have a weird dream, though, but I don't really remember it. Something about falling... something chasing me, I think. I don't know. It was strange. If I have another, I'll write it down. But it's probably nothing. Dream are just weird sometimes.

Anyway, that's all for now. Hopefully tomorrow will be more interesting.