In The Late Summer Sun

by Papillon Rose

Facing Your Fears

For once Rainbow Dash plodded along in perfect silence.

While not nearly as chatty as Pinkie Pie, she wasn't the kind of pony that went for too long without striking up some form of conversation, even if it were merely bragging about her accomplishments or bemoaning a lack of action. This wasn't odd for Fluttershy, as she'd discovered through years of one-sided conversations, but somehow even Dash herself felt too nervous for small talk.

It was a feeling that had been building in the pit of her stomach for awhile, and despite her efforts to quell it the anxiety had grown in scale to the point where it was all she could do not to grab Fluttershy and fly, tearing through the canopy above and hightailing it back to Ponyville. Her heart did battle with her head though, and no matter how uneasy she was the lunawort was their main priority. The thought of watching Fluttershy cry over Angel was much worse than what she felt now.

It occurred to Rainbow Dash that if she was feeling this freaked out Fluttershy must be close to passing out. She glanced over at the pale yellow pegasus. Fluttershy was several shades paler than usual and she was biting her lip, wings folded in tightly against her sides.

"Hey Fluttershy, you okay?" The sound of her voice rang out throughout the silent forest, even in the lowest whisper she could muster. Fluttershy merely whimpered, never taking her eyes off the ground she beneath her hooves.

"It's okay," Dash reassured her, in a tone that she hoped didn't betray her own fear. "We've only got a little ways to go to reach the lake. And if anything shows up..." She prepared to make one of her infamous bravado-laced speeches, but somehow couldn't bring herself to do it, given their circumstances. "I'll protect you."

Fluttershy briefly looked up from the forest floor, meeting her gaze. There was such a deep expression of gratitude in her eyes that Dash felt infinitely better herself, the knot in her stomach loosening somewhat. She couldn't afford to be scared of what lay beyond if Fluttershy was counting on her to keep them both safe. It was always easier to push herself past her limitations when it was for someone she cared about. Performing her signature move had become second nature to her, but Rainbow Dash knew she never would've been able to overcome her ability to pull off the second sonic rainboom of her life if she hadn't been striving to keep Rarity from becoming a stylish splat on the ground.

They reached their next landmark: a clump of large bushes covered in berries of all colors; deep yellow, vibrant green, vivid red. She was reminded of her own mane and tail. The leaves were such a bright green that it was hard to believe the entire bush wasn't fake. Even Fluttershy seemed intrigued by them, speaking up for the first time in a good half hour's worth of travel. "I've never seen anything like these before."

Rainbow Dash, who was in the process of leaning forward to take an experimental bite out of the strange bush realized that this was probably a poor choice. "Probably shouldn't eat them if even you don't know what they are."

"Usually around this time of the year there aren't a lot of berries at the top of bushes around Ponyville," Fluttershy said thoughtfully.

"Why not?"

"The birds eat all the berries at the top." Fluttershy suddenly resumed her anxious stance, her voice trembling. "But... I don't think there are any birds around here."

Rainbow Dash let this sink in, pointedly ignoring the faint stirrings of discomfort rising within her once again. "Maybe they like the rest of the forest better," she offered lamely. "It is pretty stuffy in here with the canopy being so thick."

Fluttershy's trembling intensified. "There aren't any animals around here, either," she whispered, taking a step backwards. "Nothing lives here, Rainbow Dash."

"How do you know that?" Rainbow Dash hadn't realized how oppresive the silence surrounding them had become until that moment. All natural noise had ceased, save for their voices and the soft swish of Fluttershy's quivering mane. She could smell the stagnation in the air. There was no air flow in this area, no movement. That was unnatural.

Rainbow Dash hadn't been this frightened in a long time, and it took great effort not to show it. The tremor in her voice was hard to swallow as she spoke, cringing at how loud her voice sounded against the complete silence of the forest. "Maybe they're just hiding. You shouldn't worry so much, Fluttershy. Nothing's happened-"

A low grunt from behind them caused both pegasi to whirl around, turning their backs on the odd bushes. A large bear stood about 20 feet away from them, staring at them intently with curious brown eyes.

"Yet." Rainbow Dash growled, hair rising along her neck as she prepared to recklessly launch herself at the threat. Fluttershy, on the other hand, brightened at the sight of something familiar.

"Oh! A bear! I didn't know any lived this deep in Everfree." Fear forgotten in the face of meeting a new potential friend, she began to approach the bear, practically glowing. "Hello there, Mr. Bear!" she called out, amiably.

Rainbow Dash didn't follow her. There was something about that bear that bothered her. Granted, she hadn't seen many bears, unlike Fluttershy, but this bear... it was much bigger than any other bear she'd seen, aside from the Ursa Minor they'd encountered. Its fur was shaggier and much more unkempt, although that could've been from living unaided in Everfree. Animals did take care of themselves here.

The eyes. It was the eyes, and almost instantly her wings unfolded as the cyan pegasus stiffened in recognition. Those eyes were not the kind, beady eyes of the few bears she'd seen in her lifetime. They were cold, and clearly malevolent.

The bear's eyes were also deep red, instead of brown as she'd initially thought.

"Fluttershy!" she yelled; her friend was about ten feet away from the bear. All of a sudden Fluttershy stopped short, sitting down hard on the ground and folding herself into a compact, trembling ball. Her ears slicked back against her scalp, and Rainbow Dash could hear the faint sound of whimpering. It made her angry.

"Fluttershy, get away from that thing!" Rainbow Dash yelled again, galloping towards her immobilized friend. At that moment the bear let out a chilling roar and attacked, clods of dirt flying through the air behind it as it launched itself at Fluttershy. For an animal with such stubby, short legs it moved surprisingly fast.

Fluttershy still didn't move; instead, she wrapped her tail around herself and lowered her head in resignation. Rainbow Dash gave up running and took to the air, silently begging Celestia for the speed to reach the terrified pegasus in time.

Her wish was granted. With a split second to spare before the bear was upon Fluttershy, huge paw raised to strike her down, Rainbow Dash soared past, seizing the thankfully lighter pegasus and shooting into the trees as swiftly as her wings could carry her with Fluttershy in tow. The bear roared again, this time in frustration, and took off after the fleeing pegasi.

Rainbow Dash crashed through the branches and vines hanging in her way, forelegs wrapped tightly around Fluttershy. She was lighter than any of her other friends she'd found herself having to carry at various points in their adventures, but the extra weight still slowed her down a bit, and it was harder to navigate the obstacle course Everfree had laid out for her with an extra body to look out for.

"Fluttershy, I can't carry you forever!" she hissed, barely missing slamming the yellow pegasus into a low-hanging branch too thick to break through. "You're gonna have to snap out of it and fly on your own."

"I can't!" Fluttershy squeaked, her panic-ridden voice barely audible over the sound of the wind whistling past Dash's ears. "I'm not as fast as you!"

Rainbow Dash groaned. "This is why you should've stayed in flight school longer!"

"I'm sorry!"

"Whatever-" Rainbow Dash managed to get a glimpse behind her; the bear was hot on their trail, only a few feet behind them. "What the hay! What kind of bear is that? How is it keeping up with me?"

"It's not a bear." Fluttershy glanced over her shoulder at the beast for confirmation. "It's not a bear at all."

"What?" Dash looked back at the creature pursuing them. "What do you mean it's not a bear? It looks like a bear!"

"It's not a bear!" Fluttershy snapped.

Dash was surprised by the vehemence in her soft-spoken friend's voice, but she decided to deal with it later. The bear was gaining on them, and she wildly scanned the forest surrounding her for an escape. The canopy was much thicker than it had been, only allowing the slightest amount of sunlight to trickle through, and she couldn't risk bashing through it without hurting Fluttershy. The pale yellow pegasus in her arms was shivering so hard it was a wonder she hadn't shaken herself loose, and Dash bit into her lip hard enough to break the skin. Ignoring the coppery taste of blood on her tongue she narrowed her eyes and gave it an extra kick of speed. No one was faster than her, no one and nothing, not even a creepy not-bear in the Everfree Forest. She could outrun or outfly anything.

This course of action was shattered as she burst through the forest into a small clearing. The trees surrounding it were also too thick to fly through at top speed. The canopy remained dense overhead, and she realized she'd been flying deeper into Everfree instead of out of it. There was no escape; the clearing felt like a cage.

Rainbow Dash's heart sank; she knew what she had to do, and she had only a few seconds to do it. "I'm sorry, Fluttershy," she said sadly, veering to the right and unceremoniously tossing her into a stand of bushes. Fluttershy yelped, flying through the air and landing somewhere inside the clump of foliage, hidden from the naked eye. "Get out of here, okay? Go get help or something while I hold it off!"

The bear crashed through the trees into the clearing behind her, knocking one aside with a single blow, and paused, its red eyes fixed on the cyan pegasus before it. Rainbow Dash gulped. Somehow the bear looked enraged, although there was no way to tell from its nonexpressive face. She landed lightly on the ground, her own deep growl rumbling in her throat. Her powerful wings spread out to their full length, and she stamped at the ground with her hooves threateningly. She'd had her share of fights before, but very few with stakes as high as this.

"Hey!" She shouted, glaring at the bear as if daring it to even consider approaching her. "You want a piece of me?"

The bear stared dead at her, not moving, although it opened its giant maw just enough to display its jagged rows of ugly-looking teeth. "I asked you a question, you stupid bear!" Rainbow Dash snarled. "Do you want a piece of me?"

The bear did. With another resounding roar it charged at her, claws digging into the earth and leaving deep gashes in the forest floor. Adrenaline raced through Rainbow Dash's veins, and with an equally loud war cry she charged at the bear, hooves kicking up just as much soil in her wake. Her fear melted away, and the weatherpony felt a trill of excitement. This bear was scary, but it had nothing on her, and she was going to show it exactly what happened when something picked a fight with her and her friends.

Meeting the bear head on at the center of the clearing, Rainbow Dash ducked between its legs, using the moment of surprise to land a powerful blow against its backside with her hindlegs. The bear roared in anguish, twisting around to swipe at her with one of its paws. Dash jerked out of the way a split second before the long, wicked claws raked through her side. This was a real battle, unlike the ones she'd been in at any point in her life, and she found herself hard-pressed to keep up. Wrangling storms was one thing; fighting an angry bear was something else entirely.

Taking advantage of her ability to fly and the extra speed it gave her, Rainbow Dash darted from side to side, landing blows on the bear wherever she could and avoiding its flailing paws. At one point she grimaced as a claw slashed her flank just above her cutie mark; she repaid the blow by slamming into the bear's head with her own, knocking it off-balance. The bear wasn't going down, but it wasn't gaining on her, either.

Something had been needling at her the entire time, and now it finally wormed its way into her head. If they were now deeper in Everfree, how exactly was Fluttershy supposed to make it back to get help from the others? Rainbow Dash gasped, hovering above and just out of reach of the bear. 'Who knows what else is out in that forest?' The odds of Fluttershy running into another monster were fairly high, as was the chance that she'd be immobilized by fear once more. A chill ran down her spine; there was the distinct possibility that her efforts to save Fluttershy would be in vain regardless of how the fight with the bear turned out.

At that moment, the tide of the battle shifted drastically, and not in her favor, either. Rainbow Dash's wings stopped, mid-flutter, and without warning she plummeted towards the ground with a shriek. She hit the forest floor hard. Not hard enough to break anything, but it did hurt, knocking the wind from her lungs. "What the..."

She gritted her teeth, attempting to spread out her wings experimentally. Nothing happened. She tried once more, to no avail. They were there, she could feel them folded against her back. Try as she might, her wings remained unresponsive; she could still feel them, but her continued attempts to move them yielded no results. She began to panic, struggling to rise to her hooves. She managed to take a single step before falling over, her legs giving out as well. Lying there limply, Rainbow Dash scowled, willing her body to obey her. 'What's happening to me? Why can't I fly?'

'Weakling.'

The thought came out of nowhere.

'Weaaakling.' It taunted her, in a mockery of her own voice. 'The great Rainbowcrash has fallen once again.' The voice in her head giggled, cruelly, and Rainbow Dash shook her head in an attempt to clear it. 'Just when your little friend needed you the most.'

"Shut up," Rainbow Dash hissed.

'She trusted you to protect her, and you let her down.' The voice giggled once more. 'Rainbowcrash lets her friends down.'

"I do not! Shut up! Get out of my head!"

'I can't,' the voice said, sorrowfully. 'I would if I could. I don't want to be you.'

"Then you suck!" Dash yelled; it didn't occur to her that the bear was no longer roaring, nor was it attacking her. It stood in front of her, quietly watching her struggle to move even an inch. "I'm awesome!"

'...because if I didn't say I'm awesome, no one else would.'

The thought wrapped around her heart, constricting, and Rainbow Dash fell silent. That couldn't be true, could it? Her friends...

'Tell me I'm awesome, because they feel sorry for me.'

"No. That's not true." It was becoming a little harder to protest against the seed of doubt blooming within her. "They like me. They'd never hurt me or anything."

'And that's why they lie to me. Because they know I couldn't handle it if they told me the truth.' The voice was now starting to sound more like hers; identical, to be exact. Rainbow Dash was beginning to have trouble differentiating between the two. 'That I'm weak. Weak, and delusional. A second rate pegasus with a few fancy tricks. You could never be a Wonderbolt, you know. You'll never be good enough.'

"Stop it." Dash moaned, wishing she could clamp her hooves over her ears. "Stop it. Buck off."

'Why? Why lie to myself? Why not be honest?'

"Because...it's...not..."

'Because it's true. You couldn't protect Fluttershy, could you? You let her down. You let your friends down. Some element of loyalty you are. You couldn't even outfly a bear. She's going to die, and it's all your fault.'

"I..." Tears began to stream down Rainbow Dash's face unbidden, dampening her cyan coat.

'I'm too weak to protect my friends.'

"I'm..." She couldn't finish the sentence, knowing it was true. She was too weak to protect Fluttershy, or any of her friends. She wasn't fast enough. She wasn't strong enough.

'Yes. The truth hurts, doesn't it?' The voice crooned, maliciously. 'Don't fight it.'

Rainbow Dash didn't answer. She'd regained control of her limbs, but she didn't have the will to use them. She curled into a ball, wings limp, neither noticing nor caring that the bear had begun to walk towards her, slowly, with its fangs bared. Saliva flowed over its chin; had she possessed the presence of mind to get a good look at it she'd have noticed how triumphant the creature looked.

'It hurts.'

Rainbow Dash closed her eyes, and the bear loomed over her, raising its paw to slash her open...

"NO!"

A yellow blur slammed into her, knocking Rainbow Dash halfway across the clearing and jolting her out of the trance. She felt dizzy, nauseated, and lay there moaning as she tried to make sense of what was happening around her.

"You stop it right now!"

Although her vision was blurry from the pounding in her head, she could dimly see Fluttershy, standing before the bear with her wings raised high. She neither cowered nor trembled. This was the Fluttershy that had stared down a fully grown dragon, approached a manticore without batting an eye, and taken on a cockatrice even as her limbs solidified. She stared up at the thing that she'd insisted wasn't really a bear, unflinchingly... and surprisingly it did not move.

The two stared at each other and the world fell silent, as if holding its breath. Fluttershy's voice rang out again, harshly. "You can scare me, Mr. Whatever You Are, and you don't have to be my friend if you don't want to. But you do not hurt my friends! Ever! Do you understand me?"

Rainbow Dash couldn't believe what she was seeing. 'Fluttershy is fighting a bear. Fluttershy. Is fighting. A bear.' Nothing about this made sense, but she felt far too sick to intervene.

The bear growled, opening its mouth to roar at the pale yellow pegasus before it. Fluttershy stamped her hoof on the ground. "Don't you dare growl at me when I'm talking to you!"

The bear's mouth snaped shut. It took a cautious step, clearly unprepared for something like this.

"Go away!" Fluttershy snapped, stamping her hoof again. "You've been really mean, and you should go back where you came from! Maybe when you've learned to be a little nicer we can be friends, but not now!"

The bear took another step back, and Fluttershy stepped forward, eyes locked on the bear intently. "I said GO AWAY!"

In a moment of utter insanity, the bear turned on its heels and fled back into the forest, crashing through the trees haphazardly. Fluttershy ran after it for a few paces, then halted, staring after it.

A few moments passed, with Rainbow Dash staring open mouthed at Fluttershy, and Fluttershy's sides heaving as she watched the bear retreat. Then Rainbow Dash rolled over on her side and began to laugh.

Tears streamed from her eyes once more, but not from guilt. She'd never seen something as ridiculous as what she'd just witnessed, and despite her entire body aching she couldn't stop howling. "Oh Celestia!" she managed to gasp, holding her sides. "That was awesome! That was so awesome!"

Once more her quiet, sometimes downright wimpy friend had sent something more than twice her size heading for the hills by just telling it to get lost, and Rainbow Dash vowed never to doubt Fluttershy again. Or at least to try not to.

Her laughter began to die down, and Rainbow Dash sat up, shaking her mane out. She remembered that she'd heard a voice, before Fluttershy'd knocked her out of the way, but she couldn't remember what it had said, though she remembered feeling awful for awhile. No matter. She grimaced again as she rose to her hooves; save for the slash on her flank she appeared to be fine. She tested her wings, extending them to their full span and flapping them experimentally. Thank Celestia they seemed to be fine too.

"Hey Fluttershy!" She called, trotting over to where the pale yellow pegasus still stood, staring into the forest. "That was so cool! Where'd you learn to do that? You should do that all the time when a monster shows up!"

Fluttershy didn't answer.

"Fluttershy?" Rainbow Dash stopped beside her, nudging her. "You alright?"

Fluttershy turned to her; her eyes were downcast, and she was sobbing. "I'm sorry," she said, hanging her head.

Rainbow Dash tilted her head, confused. "Why? You just saved my life! I've never seen anything that cool before!"

"I made you come with me," Fluttershy cried. "And you got hurt trying to help me."

Rainbow Dash sighed, smiling. She pressed her forehead against Fluttershy's, looking into her deep blue eyes. "You really are too nice, you know?"

Fluttershy leapt forward, wrapping her forelegs around Dash's neck as she cried. "I'm sorry."

"You don't have to be." Rainbow Dash nuzzled her friend affectionately; it wasn't something she was used to, but at a moment like this it didn't bother her at all. "I came with you because I wanted to help you. You don't have to be sorry for anything. Everything's okay now."

Fluttershy continued to sob into her mane, but it eventually started to subside. Tossing awkwardness to the wind, Rainbow Dash allowed her to stay there, hugging her while the birdsong that had been absent during their journey resumed in the trees surrounding them.

-----------------------------

After a few minutes Fluttershy calmed down, still sniffling. She let go of Rainbow Dash, backing away from her while a deep blush spread over her cheeks.

"Are you okay now?" Rainbow Dash asked, trying to keep the impatience from creeping into her voice. Now that they were safe, and the forest around them was flowing with life once more, she wanted to get moving. She could tell from the color of the sunlight streaming through the canopy that it was late afternoon, and she wanted to find the lake before nightfall. Although she had no idea where they were now. She shifted uncomfortably; the gash she'd sustained in the fight with the bear had grown terribly sore in the aftermath.

Fluttershy noticed this, and wordlessly trotted over to take a good look at the wound. "It's not too deep, but we probably need to clean it so it doesn't get infected."

Her saddlebags laid on the ground near the bushes Dash had tossed her into; one had come open during their mad dash through the forest and was completely empty. Thankfully the one with the now crumpled map and the Supernaturals book was still tightly shut. "The first aid kit was in the side that came open, but I can probably find something around here to bind it with."

"It's fine." Dash flicked her tail carelessly. "Battle scars. We can take care of it when we get to the lake."

She retrieved the map, spreading it out on the ground. "I don't know where we are now. The bushes were the last landmark we passed, but I'm not sure what direction we went in."

She scoured the map, then gasped with recognition. "Oh my gosh."

Rainbow Dash suddenly leapt to her hooves, rolling the map up and shoving it back into Fluttershy's bag. "I can't believe this." She rose into the air and took off into the forest, with Fluttershy trailing behind.

"What is it?" Fluttershy called out from behind her, but Dash ignored her, plunging through the forest with only a single goal in mind. Her hind leg still throbbed, but it wasn't as bad as it would've been had she been running. After a few minutes of seemingly arbitrary winding her way through Everfree she ground to a halt in mid-air. Fluttershy clumsily stopped beneath her, out of breath. "What happened?"

Rainbow Dash met her gaze, grinning. "Maybe that bear did us a favor." She landed on the forest floor and stepped forward through a wall of leaves into a much larger clearing, leaving the dense stand of trees behind her. Fluttershy followed, stunned into silence. Here the canopy thinned out, golden sunlight reflecting off the still surface of a small lake on the other side of the clearing and warming a field of brilliant blue flowers waving gently in the light breeze.

'We're here.'

Comments

[ScyStorm]

This is shaping up to be one of the best FlutterDash stories! Awaiting more!

[Jealousypants McCloppington]

This story is awesome! I haven't read any good action/suspense scenes in ages! Also, I love those little lines about Rarity. Especially the one in the last chapter about Dash's slurping being enough to make Rarity faint.

sums up my reactions ^^

[lillytheomegawolf]

This is toatly awesome! I can't see any shipping here (yet) but the actions scene in this chpater was riviting
Keep up the awesomeness!