The Only
“Hey, kiddo. I’ve got somethin’ for you.”
Even as a filly, Rainbow Dash could look up and snag the twirling apple out of midair with her teeth with barely a second’s warning. Accurate to the finest degree, she even clasped the fruit by its stem, so as not to damage the shiny green skin.
“Thanks, Dad.”
Rainbow Dash’s father sauntered into his daughter’s room, casting his eyes about the familiar space. He’d seen these walls—decked to the last inch with Wonderbolts paraphernalia—hundreds of times, but it had always been a joy to him to witness Dashie’s undying devotion to the elite team of daredevils in her choice of décor. “Whatcha working on, sport?”
Rainbow, seated at her filly-sized desk, was hunched over a sheet of yellow paper bearing what appeared to be a complex diagram of a pegasus’s wing. Her well-chewed pencil had fallen point-down and stuck into the cloud when she had released it to catch the apple. She dropped the fruit, where it sank partially into the insubstantial desk, and bent over to grip the writing utensil between her teeth once again. “Homework,” she spat around the wooden cylinder in her mouth.
Rainbow’s dad leaned over to check his daughter’s work. His brow contracted like it always did when he was concentrating on something, and it caused the prismatic filly to giggle. Her mirth inspired the stallion to contort his face into an even more bizarre shape; he stuck his lip out as far as it would go and puffed up his cheeks. Rainbow promptly burst into a fit of snickers. Encouraged by his success, he poked his hoof into a spot directly under Rainbow’s ribcage—a spot where she had always been particularly ticklish. The filly’s giggles escalated quickly into desperate shrieks of laughter.
“Daddy!” she panted. “Stop . . . stop it!”
“What was that, Dashie? You want me to keep going?”
“No! No!” Rainbow was cut off as her dad dove back in, tickling her mercilessly. Her inhalation came in short gasps in between breathless spurts of silent mirth. “D-dad! C-come on!”
“I think you like it, though!”
“Dad! Serious! I’m gonna pee!”
That was motivation enough to back down. Rainbow’s dad flopped backward, laughing happily, his wings carrying him the extra few meters to Rainbow’s Wonderbolt-patterned bedspread. He reclined widely, his hooves locked behind his head. One of the advantages to being a pegasus is the ability to sleep on clouds themselves; earth ponies could only dream of how soft and cottony the beds of their winged cousins were. Across the room, Rainbow shot the stallion a dangerous glare, which only came across as cutely annoyed on the filly’s face. “So, what’s the assignment? Is Coach Cumulous working you too hard again?”
Rainbow turned back to her homework, her annoyance at her father dissipated as soon as it had been invoked. “No. She’s nice. She thinks I’m a really good flier. We’re learning the an-a-tom-y and correct tech-niques for proper wing main-ten-ance.” She sounded out the longer words in their separate syllables, not yet having mastered the advanced vocabulary that the Flight School instructors expected the students to have memorized.
“Is that so?” Rainbow’s dad sprung up from his daughter’s bed and glided back over to the desk, his wings barely twitching to keep him aloft. He settled to the ground next to the filly. “Looks mighty complicated to me, Dash.”
“I’m fine.”
“You need any help? You know that your dad is the fastest flier in all of Equestria. I know a thing or two about wings.” He flashed the filly a winning smile, his lips curling over perfectly straight, pearly white teeth.
“No . . . thanks.” Rainbow’s eyes dropped back down to the paper. She wouldn’t meet her dad’s eyes, an unusual thing for the dauntless filly.
“Is there anything wrong?” asked Rainbow’s dad, immediately picking up on the disturbance in his daughter’s demeanor.
“No, Dad.” Rainbow answered immediately. Too quickly.
“Are you sure?” That was the phrase that the stallion broke out when he wanted to incite complete honesty from his little lady. It had long since become the stallion’s trademark, and not only to be used against his daughter. Many a grown stallion had quaked beneath his stare. So far, it had a one-hundred-percent success rate.
“No,” Rainbow insisted, but her eyes said completely otherwise. Behind those huge magenta orbs, she possessed a nervous uncertainty that her dad had never seen before. Her eyes darted from side to side anxiously, and her entire body was tensed, stretched taut over her filly-sized muscles. Her sudden evasiveness scared her father, even more than her sudden ability to resist his interdictive voice.
“Rainbow Dash. Are you sure?”
The filly fell silent. Her jaw clenched, her eyes fixed irresolutely on the mass of numbers and characters on the paper, as if willing the squiggles to rearrange themselves into the correct answers. The stiffness across her entire form was unusual; Rainbow had always been relaxed and energetic, even when nopony else around her was. To see her uncomfortable like this was heart-wrenching for her father.
“Dashie?” her dad ventured cautiously.
The filly bit her lip, then burst into tears. Another first. A terrifying one, at that.
“Dash, what’s wrong?” Rainbow’s dad asked. His heart twitched painfully at the sight of the weeping filly.
Rainbow flung herself across the room, staying in the air for an impossibly long time before collapsing onto her bed, facedown with her hooves over her eyes. Her diminutive form quaked violently from suppressed sobs. Her father could hear the muffled moaning coming from his daughter, and it was as though a heavy metal ball had been dropped into his stomach.
“Rainbow. Please tell me . . .”
Not exposing her face, Rainbow shook her head in a pair of short jerks.
“Did I do something?” her dad asked. The filly hesitated a moment before answering with another shaken head.
“Was it your mother?” Another head shake. The filly seemed determined to keep him guessing. But fortunately, Rainbow Dash had inherited her impossibly stubborn attitude from her father. So two could play that game. Rainbow’s dad continued his assailment, unwavering in his efforts to get to the bottom of this. “Grades?” Negative. “The Wonderbolts again?” No. “Colt trouble?” This suggestion was met with an indignant squeak and a furious shake of the head.
After a list of rejected ideas, Rainbow’s dad threw out a last-ditch inkling of a suggestion, surprised at himself that he hadn’t thought of it earlier: “School?”
Rainbow neither confirmed or denied the suggestion, but the sudden stiffness in her body language suggested to her father that he had hit the source of her unhappiness right on the nose. Pleased that he had finally made some progress into the complicated labyrinth that was Rainbow’s mind, the stallion pressed his advantage.
“Is it your teachers?”
Rainbow once again shook her head. The wracking sobs had since subsided, but she was still trembling vulnerably, making her dad long to fly over and hold her in his fatherly embrace. But no, physical contact with the kaleidoscopic filly at this stage in the proceedings would be potentially suicidal. Rainbow was as dangerous as a firecracker, and twice as touchy when upset.
“Your friends?”
Rainbow’s face popped off of her bedspread, her magenta eyes rimmed thickly in red. She left behind a visible damp patch on her sapphire Wonderbolts-patterned blanket where her tears had pooled. Her chin shuddered as a fresh pool of moisture gathers in her eyes, threatening to tumble down her face at any moment. “Y-yes,” Rainbow stammered softly, her voice more tender and pained than her father had ever heard before.
“What did they do?”
Rainbow’s lip quivered angrily before she could pull herself together enough to respond. “Th-they don’t like me.” Rainbow took a deep, shuddering breath through her mouth. “They’re . . . always mean to me. Nopony there likes me!” The tears reappeared in full, and the filly threw her head back down onto the bedclothes. Her body shook the bed once again as her anguish resurfaced in the form of her sobs. “They make fun of my wings! They say that they’re tiny! They say that I’ll never be a good flier!” The filly’s woes came out muffled to the point of incomprehensibility, but Rainbow’s father is well-accustomed with trying to interpret his daughter’s speech.
“Rainbow . . .” her father murmured soothingly. He took a chance and hovered a meter or two nearer to Rainbow’s bed, dangerously close. “I’m sure that your friends are just jealous of you . . . I mean, they can’t do the Buccaneer Blitz with two hooves tied behind their backs, can they?” The sentiment had good intent, but felt forced.
“No,” admits Rainbow’s muffled voice. “But they don’t like me,” she repeated for emphasis. “They always call me that . . . stupid . . . nickname. ‘Rainbow Crash’.” The filly looked up to her father with innocently pleading eyes. “I only crashed twice! And that was on the first week of camp! I never crash anymore!”
“Then that’s not fair.” The statement sounded awkward, and not in the least bit uplifting, a trait that was important to keep present in the stallion’s attempts at comforting the filly.
“They all hate me! I’m even worse than ‘Cluttershy’!”
“Rainbow, don’t talk about Fluttershy like that. She’s a very nice young filly. I happen to know her father quite well. She comes from a wonderful family.”
“I don’t care! At least they aren’t accusing her of . . .” Rainbow cut herself off.
“What?”
“Nothing,” Rainbow pouted. The defensiveness in her demeanor was suddenly ratcheted up several notches. Rainbow’s dad’s eyes narrowed and he frowned. Back to the guessing game.
“Is it . . .” the stallion started, but was instantly interrupted by the filly in front of him.
“They’re saying that I’m a fillyfooler!” Rainbow cut in at a shriek. Her father blinked slowly, staring at the diminutive pony in front of him. The prismatic filly stared wild-eyed back at him, daring him to respond, to contradict the rumors that had been flying around like wildfire. Spawned seemingly out of nowhere.
“Rainbow . . .” her dad said cautiously. “Do you . . . know what that means?”
“Of course I do!” Rainbow wailed. “I mean . . .” she paused to wipe her nose. “At first I didn’t, and they made fun of me for that. But then I asked Coach Cumulous, and she told me . . .” Rainbow’s father made a mental note to have some strong words with that flight coach. That “talk” would be held between family, and family alone. “And now it’s even w-worse!” Rainbow couldn’t help keeping the stutter out of her voice for the last word. Distraught, and thrown out of her flow, Rainbow plunged her face back down into the fabric again and began to sob.
Rainbow’s father took a deep breath, racking his consciousness for an adequate response to this revelation. Something to make Rainbow feel less alienated and discriminated against. Something to lift her spirits. “Rainbow . . .” he started, then cleared his throat, an unexpected buildup of phlegm surfacing and causing the stallion to pause. Once certain that he was fully prepared to speak, he continued. “It doesn’t matter what they think of you.”
“What?”
“What I mean is that whatever they say, it won’t change who you are. And believe me, I know a little bit about you, sport.” Rainbow was poked in the chest by a cobalt hoof. “It doesn’t matter if they think you’re . . . not quite like them.” The insinuation was delicate, as not to suggest that Rainbow was somehow inferior to her classmates.
“But I am!” Rainbow protested.
“Sure, I believe it. What I’m saying is that that being different isn’t so bad.”
“I know . . .” Rainbow pouted. She’d already heard the speech before, years before. “Being different is what makes you special. If we were all normal, the world would be dull and grey.” She quoted her father, surprisingly having held on to the words he had spoken for all these years of her life, all three of them. Not that he would ever say it to his daughter’s face, but Rainbow’s dad had observed that the filly’s memory worked in spurts. Her mental facilities would only grasp on to what interested her, and the stallion was honored, and more than a bit touched, that Rainbow has felt his words worthy of being remembered.
“That’s right, Dash.” The large stallion chucked the filly’s chin gently, smiling gently. His hoof was almost as large as the the young pegasus’s entire head. Rainbow’s annoyed glare softened slightly as the reassurances made their way through the ironclad defenses around her soul. “You’re special. Don’t let anyone get you down.”
Rainbow’s gaze fogged over, her mind having just been transported into her own world, where hopefully she would find armistice with herself. Her lower lip still stuck out, completing the adorable image of a pouting, rainbow-striped filly. Her expression wasn’t of despondency--her eyes no longer held any of their sadness, she had merely forgotten to take the scowl off her face.
“What do you think, Dash?”
A small smile curled the filly’s still-quivering lips. Her vision slid back into focus, and her eyes found her father’s face. Open adoration adorned her facial features, and the tears that sparkled behind those wide, magenta orbs were not of sadness this time. “I’m good.” Rainbow threw herself onto her father, her tiny hooves wrapping tightly around his neck. Surprised, it took the stallion a moment to respond, but when he did, it was with enthusiasm. He swept the filly into his embrace, squeezing her tightly, to which Rainbow responded with an increase in her own vehemence. The stallion nuzzled his daughter’s neck with his nose. “I love you, my little Dashie.”
“I love you too, Dad.”
Then suddenly, the discussion ended. In fact, it never even existed. No questions were asked, no queries made. It was as though the past ten minutes were permanently erased from both participants’ memories. Both still retained the knowledge that it had occurred, but kept it buried deep so far that there was no chance that it would ever surface again. Rainbow extricated herself from the enthusiastic hug and drifted back over to her desk, her filly-sized wings fluttering vigorously. She alighted in front of her homework and bent down to grasp her pencil.
Not waiting for an invitation, Rainbow’s father joined his daughter, reading over her shoulder the complex manifold of diagrams and equations. Rainbow giggled as the stallion’s breath tickled her neck. “Dad! Stop it!”
“Sorry, Dash. How’s it going?”
“Fine. And Dad . . . um . . .” Rainbow bit her lip, not meeting the stallion’s eyes. She had evasiveness in her demeanor, as if instantly regretting what she had just said. The look behind her eyes wasn’t of sadness, but embarrassment. Sheepishness.
“Yeah?”
“When you asked if there was . . . colt trouble,” Rainbow spat the last two words out, relieved to be rid of them. “I wasn’t . . . completely truthful.”
Rainbow’s dad’s eyes widened and a surprised grin spread across his face. Offered a rare insight into the mental workings of his daughter, his excitement understandably grew exponentially. And an admission of her love life, no less! “Is that so?”
“Yeah . . .”
“Well, who’s the lucky colt?”
Rainbow clenched her teeth. Her chin vibrated slightly. Her father could see the inner battle that she was waging. Her eyes darted from side to side, taking in information on nothing that she was viewing. A reflex movement as her mind raced, psyching herself up.
“C’mon, Dash. Don’t leave me hanging here.”
Rainbow screwed her eyes shut. “It’s Thunderlane!” she blurted. As soon as she had said it, her eyes opened. It appeared as though her inner torment had been erased by getting the name off her chest.
“Thunderlane, huh?” The stallion grinned at his daughter. “Good choice, Dash. If you two ever get together, I expect beautiful grandfoals. And lots of them.”
“Dad!” Rainbow whined.
“I’m just saying!” Rainbow’s Dad held up his hooves defensively. Rainbow pouted, her pencil hanging out the side of her mouth. Encouraged by his daughter’s jokingly offended look, the stallion pulled the filly into another tight hug, ignoring the shrill protests from the other participant. “Love ya, Dash.”
“Let go!”
“I’ll take that as an ‘I love you too, Daddy’.”
“Dad!”
“Magic word?”
“. . . Please?”
“Your wish is my command.”
The impermeable grip around the diminutive kaleidoscopic pony loosened, allowing her to wriggle free. Before turning back to her academics, Rainbow landed a sharp punch on her captor’s shoulder. “Meanie,” she vocalized. She took up her pencil once again, for it had fallen out of her mouth when she had been grabbed.
The father laughed mirthfully, standing up to stretch widely. He grunted as several joints popped satisfyingly. His left hoof went up to his unkempt mane--a trait that Rainbow had also inherited from him--and ruffled it impressively. His eyes drifted over to Rainbow’s wide window, which was perpetually open for landings and takeoffs. Outside, the evening light painted a warm pictorialization across Cloudsdale, puddles of oranges and yellows pooling on top of amphitheaters and homes. Above the skyline, the last sliver of Celestia’s eternal mass of light could barely be seen, and even that was disappearing fast. “It’s getting pretty late, Dash.”
“Five more minutes,” Rainbow bargained, not looking up from her homework. “I’m almost done.”
“Fine, but I’m going to bed.”
“Okay.”
“Good night, Dashie.”
“Night, Dad.”
Approaching stealthily, the stallion positioned himself above the filly, and planted a kiss on the top of her head. To his surprise, Rainbow gave no exclamation of protest, as was to be expected from the loose cannon. She gave no indication that she had even noticed the movement.
Rainbow’s father reached over and switched on her desk light, then hovered over to the light switch at the door to turn off the overhead lamp. The room was darkened, with the faint glow of the desk lamp throwing wild shadows against the opposite wall. Only the front half of the filly sitting at the desk was illuminated; the rest of her body was spectrally cut off, quickly fading into murkiness.
“Goodnight, Rainbow Dash,” the stallion repeated.
Rainbow sighed exasperatedly. “Goodnight, Dad.”
As the door began to close, the prismatic filly’s gaze was raised to the retreating stallion framed in the doorway. A warm, genuine smile spread across her face. Her lips parted slightly, silently thanking her father, for understanding. For helping. For comforting.
After returning the smile, Rainbow’s father closed the door with a soft snap. He made his way through the silent house, walking at first, but inevitably reverting to flight. Up several floors, he nosed open his bedroom door and glided over to the bed, warm and inviting.
The stallion settled under the covers, Rainbow’s smile still plastered on his lips.
The daughter that every stallion wished he had, even if they didn’t quite realize it yet. A dangerous firecracker, and yet the best filly that anypony could ask for.
Rainbow Dash.
~ Fin