It's day after that crazy race, and I mostly just want to sleep in, but oh no, Ponyville's most overqualified weather technician has a shcedule to keep. Get out of bed, shake the wisps off, and just keep trying to open those eyes or they'll take forever to adjust.
I looked out my bedroom window, and casually propped myself up against the cloudy frame as I rubbed my eyes with a fretlock. A slow yawn helped, and I felt the brisk air wake me from already forgotten dreams. "Okay, start your preflight checklist." I said to the empty air as I stared out, my mind already aloft, charting courses long before my body could follow.
Perfect summer sky. A few clouds blew in overnight, just enough to build a simple course with later. The sun is already high in the eastern sky, perfect for flying straight downwind. Humidity? A little, but not enough yet to worry about overheating. The updrafts are weak, but they'll be helpful, and get better as the temperature rises.
I stretched once, then stepped away from the window, heading down to the lower levels, even though I used to launch myself out the window in the morning and glide back in that night, I now had RESPONSIBILITIES. ME. A few years ago, this house was halfway to turning feral again and could have dropped everything I had collected all across the countryside. I probably wouldn't have noticed for days if it had happened.
Flight mantras ticked through my head as I fought to keep jumping out each window I passed. That was a luxury a rainbow filly had to give up. Check yourself just as much as you check the weather. Eyes both adjusted to daylight, and no joints feel stiff or loose. Every muscle limber and strong, but a few tiny twinges that could be a sign my diet is lacking, that I overexerted them yesterday and they only just noticed, or they're just as restless as me. Be sure to make a note, better safe than sorry. I jumped the last few steps, wings spreading to glide a short distance. I promptly veered off course and bounced off the wall, wobbling as I landed heavily.
"Oh yeah, that feather." I muttered to myself as I reached the simple kitchen. I grabbed an apple from the basket where I stuffed the coldest clouds I could find, and supplimented the quick and easy breakfast with a large cup of water, poured right from the house's condenser unit. That bit of magic made up a large percentage of the house's value, especially considering how far it lay from any of the major flight paths. I'd probably make more bits if I just bundled that up, sold it in cloudsdale, and let the rest of the place go feral. It looked absurd when I got the place, and it still does, but the place had grown on me over the years, even if most of the time it was just a place to rest and recouperate between training flights.
I sat down on one of the pair of pony seats to examine the errant feather, an uncooperating member of Team Rainbow Dash. I took a large bite of the apple, considering my options. Crushed under a boulder just a day ago, I should be glad I got away with the rest of myself in one piece. I had recovered yesterday to return home yesterday evening, even if Fluttershy had helped bring Tank to his home in the cloud. I was able to fly yesterday, maybe it had just weakened, and I outright broke it by letting it fold over in my sleep. Not cool.
"It's going to take ages for you to grow back. I just can't leave you in, that crushed shaft will disrupt my airstream. But if you're taken out I'll be so unbalanced there's no way I could fly straight!" I heard a small grunt, and turned to see Tank at the doorway, small wrinkled head tilted to one side.
"Um, Morning! I wasn't talking to you!" I tried to explain, which clearly made things worse as he looked down at the ground. Oh crud. "No, I didn't mean it like that!" I squeaked, my voice breaking for a moment as I explained. "I... was talking to my feather." I finally admitted.
Tank lumbered in, walked around me, and looked down at my wing. A quiet mumble, as if the large tur-- tortoise actually understood my problem, and then wandered out of the kitchen, presumably to do tortoise things.
Finishing the apple, I stood up, grabbed one of the training notebooks scattered around the house, and a short pencil, perfect for my poor penmaresship. Turning to the daily page, I saw it was marked as a day a few years ago, but didn't pay it any mind. One side had a top-down view of an adrogynous pegasus, legs and wings stretched uncomfortably outward to show all the major muscle groups and feathers. It looked slightly rediculous, a pose a real pony would adopt only if they had stalled and were minimizing vertical airspeed.
Of course, I never stalled.
A small circle on rear right calf, another on rear left thigh, and a one-word note "twinge". I gave a sigh, and put an ugly asterisk over my right wing's outermost feather. I didn't want to write what that meant, but a single word note would be better than nothing. Beside the diagram, I wrote "cracked".
Shoving the notebook across the table, I buried my head in the table. Yes, I pushed at the cloudy surface until I felt it surround my head, blocking out the events of the last few days. Stupid Dash for racing through the gorge. Careless Dash for not looking where she was going. And worst of all, I just knew what would happen if I went crawling to Twilight or one of the nurse unicorns to get it mended, I'd be told off for being such a showoff, for begging for help on what they'd see as a tiny injury compared to how much worse it could have been.
But flying was, no, is who I am, I can't just become an old kite for months while I wait for the feather to regrow, if I pulled out the feather now, ouch, I'd be completely unbalanced. I could pull out the feather on my other wing, DOUBLE OUCH, but I'd lose so much lift I'd be nowhere near my fastest for months, even that pegasus filly could outfly me without breaking a sweat.
With a resigned sigh, I pulled my head out of the table, hooves smoothing the indentation out of the surface. I extended my right wing, eyes already clenched shut as I anticipated the pain of tearing the feather from the pinion.
And my wing, rather than extending fully, collided with a hard object that hadn't been there last time I looked. "Huh? Tank? You're back already?" I looked at him in confusion. "Did I forget something you needed?" I asked before seeing what he held in his mouth. A toothbrush. I was not going to be using that one again. "What's that for?" I asked, willing to wait him out, mainly to put off the self-mutilation.
He simply waved the brush around, rubbing the bristles across the feather's shaft. "Yes, brushie brushie, I appriciate the gesture, but it won't fix... Oh! You're a genius!" I jumped up in excitement. The solution wasn't perfect, I'd still have a tiny imbalance, but no more than a less than perfectly balanced sidebag set, and best of all, no stupid lecture before it's fixed!
I galloped down the hall to the bedroom, and snatched up the floss in my teeth, and returned just as fast, eager to put the plan to action. I stood up by the table, laid out my wing on the table, and over the course of several minutes, false starts, and yelps of pain, we righted the damaged shaft, aligned the brush to it, and slowly bound it in place, breaking the fine blue barbs in as few places as possible.
Once the Rainbow Tank team had tied it as firmly as I dared, I gave an experimental flap. Near perfect balance. "Woohoo! Yeah! I'm a-- We're a regular Machoover!" I lightly rattled my forehooves on Tank's shell while I cheered, relaxing into a smile as I saw his wide eyes, and a small smile he'd been building since I started my cheer. "I've GOT to try this out!" I said, getting to the front door as quickly as I dared, and then waited for Tank. And then waited some more. YEARS later, we stepped outside, and I was surprised to see it was still daylight.
"Well, here goes nothing!" I exclaimed as I headed toward the edge of the cloud bank, reached a gallop, spread my wings and ran off the edge. Once airborne, I stretched myself into the optimal airstream position, rear legs out behind me, forelegs foreward. That first moment where the wind starts to hold your body, when wind and wings both keep you aloft, is absolute bliss. Make your body the same shape as your path, and you don't need to fight the wind, flight wasn't just pointing where you wanted to go and flapping. Each beat of your wings has purpose, the angle of the beat changes your lift and your velocity. Tiny, measured inequalities between how your wings ar all that keep you from a slow turn or a full barrel roll, or an uncontrolled spin ending in a small crater. The way the air touches you can slow you down or speed you up, perhaps in a direction you weren't expecting.
Unicorns say they're the only ones with magic. Earth ponies say they're the strongest. Pegasi let them say that so they don't get jealous. My flight leaves a complete spectrum as a contrail! I can go faster than sound itself! I live in a castle in the sky! I. AM. AWESOME. I. AM. RAINBOW! DASH!
Somewhere wasn't right though. My warmup routine, which helped get me to the point of perfection required for my most advanced stunts, was failing me. Each time I went through the motions, there was imbalance. Focusing on pushing my right wing harder helped for a few beats, and then the imbalance was noticable again. I let up on my left, increased the force on my right, and began a shallow dive, building up airspeed for a slow large loop.
When the wind blowing past me felt strong enough, I began the flight path change, only a fraction of my strength of my good wing in use, all the applied force used in lifting me out of the dive, and as I arched myself up. I gradually dedicated more and more of my speed into the rise, slowing as I reached vertical, slowing father as my wings reached their limits, unable to angle farther back to offer more lift, they stretched to the limit, holding as much air as they could, but in vain. The rushing wind faded. The pressure on my wings was gone. In that single second of silence, I screamed. Then the stall's peak was over, and I started to fall.
A toothbrush and floss! Are you absolutely insane?! My mind raced as I began to fall, and worse, tumble through the air. I curled up, trying to ignore the spinning world around me, staring at the machoovered fix. The floss had come loose, of course. What I hadn't expected was what the floss had done next, which was wrap around the next feather, and with each beat and stretch, shred more barbs from what had once been a perfectly intact feather. I desperately bit at it, only managing to shred more barbs. That way lay madness and worse. Stay calm, remember flight school, you were trained for this even though it never happened to you. Turning my head, I tried to keep facing at least my head in one direction.
The result was a wobbly view of the sky, and my slowly fading contrail, vanishing as I reached the peak of that fatal manouver. That wasn't all though, my contrail reformed into a twisting, chaotic swirl of colors as I plummeted. Maybe actually going out in a rainbow crash would be less humiliating than the alternative. Below me lay the outskirts of Ponyville, but I couldn't tell where I would land, it wouldn't be fair to them to suffer for my idiocy, and someday they'll look past my mistakes and pay attention to my awesomeness.
I gave a sigh, and being glad I didn't have much to eat this morning, I began yet another humiliating sequence. I definitely didn't feel awesome at the moment. My good wing spread out, slowly so as to find my rotation and slow it by feel alone, finally reducing the chaotic spin to a slow rotation head over hooves, my half useless wing came out to help until I was the right way up. Unable to glide straight without risking even more damage, I began a game I remembered from fillyhood. my glide curved, the arc would have grown if I had let it, but I wanted some control over where I landed, so with each rotation I pulled in tighter, the spinning increasing as I decended, shedding most of my vertical momentum as spin. The world was whirling blur but for a single focused point, where I stared and intended to land.
When I hit ground, I only managed a few drunken steps, the world still reeling as I looked up, then fell over. "How can fillies do that for fun?!" I yelled at the air, failing to get my legs back under myself. My stomach tried to rebel, but I managed to keep my small meal down through sheer will. My forelegs wrapped around my head, and they futily tried to stop it and the world spinning in opposite directions.
***
As I felt every internal organ from my brain to my stomach spin, I heard voices. Near, far, near again, I couldn't tell without looking, which I wasn't going to do any time soon.
"Did she fall?" Of course I did, you can probably see the twisted contrail like smoke from my burning dignity.
"Is she okay?" Only a bruised everything, I can get a new one.
"Call a doctor!" I'll be able to walk again once the world stops acting like a carousel, don't bother.
"Twilight! Rainbow Dash just crashed outside!" Oh horseapples, that voice I recognized, heck, I didn't need that to know who would be racing to help.
"Crashed, or crashed crashed?!" Yelled Twilight, and I heard a distant slam as the library door opened hard a hundred ponylengths away.
"I. DO. NOT. CRASH!" I yelled at the unseen Twilight as loud as I could, obviously straining my vocals in the process, which wouldn't help my case if I had any hope of getting away before I triggered one of her lectures.
"Spike, get the crash cart, oh Celestia, she's still concious, traquilizers, we don't want her to hurt herself more!" Twilight yelled as unicorn hooves galloped on the town's packed dirt road. Oh no. A lecture was something I could bear. Being knocked out for spectacularly managing to land without a scratch after ruining more than a quarter of a wing would be just perfect.
The world managed to settle back down, my internal compass finally righting myself. I lifted my head, bobbling around to face the incoming Unicorn of all trades. "I'm fine Twi... Just... practicing emergency landings." I said, getting up one hoof at a time dispite the loud objections that were coming my way, with powerful magic to back up her good intentions.
"No! Stop! You'll hurt yourself more!" Twilight whimpered as she approached, slowing her pace as she got closer, eventually stopping put when she planted her hooves in the dirt, and began to draw all her will up from her body, into casting some kind of spell. I doubted it was a feather fixer upper.
"Ididnotcrashokaythanksbye!" I dropped my head foreward, woah, that nearly toppled me over, and tried to race off, I just needed to get some distance and she'd see I was fine.
I heard another gallopping rhythm overlap my own. She was chasing me? Twilight, The bookmare of Equestria was chasing me, undisputed fastest flier and disputed fastest runner? And I heard her getting closer? She was actually gaining on me? I had to get away now or never, wings don't fail me now!
My right wing didn't get the memo. As it spread to nearly full, I actually felt through my pinions that a third feather had managed to get tangled in the mess. New rule, no string, twine, floss, rope, or any other tanglable line anywhere near my wings. While we're at it, no glue, clay, mud, honey, cream, or any other substance Pinkie Pie has at her disposal, no matter how fun it might sound.
To feel what I felt next, if you're not a pegasus, is probably impossible. The closest analogy I can think of is imagine your forehoof cracking in half, then each side being pulled and twisted in crazy directions. I simply couldn't muffle my scream as my abused wing helped lift me off, veer wildly off course to the right, and out of Twilight's view.
***
"DASH! WHERE ARE YOU?" The yell echoed around me minutes later, after I had landed on the carousel boutique's upper balcony, the perfect place to hide while dealing with this triple ruined wing. Twilight's voice again, but with a reverberation and distance that had to mean a magically amplified voice.
"I'm okay! Stop acting like it's a big deal!" I yelled out, before turning to my huddled wing, it was just a matter of finding one end and unwinding the ugly mess from there before more of my wing was shredded, right?
"IF IT IS NOT, WHY ARE YOU HIDING?" The voice was louder now, closer. It also had a good point. I'd go mute if I tried to explain everything at the top of my lungs, so keep it short.
"Because!" She'll need more than that. "I don't have time to get dragged through a hospital! I don't need another lecture on how many ways that race could have gone worse! I'm fine, really!" Was I making the tangles better or worse? I managed to fumble around and pull a long strand free, but at the same time the tangle had tightened. Second and third feathers were pulled painfully close together, and a dozen of my precious barbs had been littered across the balcony floor.
"YOUR HEALTH IS IMPORTANT, I JUST WANT TO HELP! I WON'T TALK ABOUT THE RACE!" You promise while making sure even deaf ponies will hear about it. She was getting closer. Of course she was getting closer you birdbrain, she's hearing you yell back at her! Maybe I can get Rarity to help stop this chaos and cut this tangle free before Twilight pulls her into her "Save Rainbow Dash from imagined dangers" delusion.
Rather than responding to her goading, I got up and knocked on the balcony's door, hoping Rarity was currently upstairs, hoping she had been muffled enough to not hear my exchange with Twilight. Knock knock knock. Click. The door opened with the slightest touch of the handle. That was odd. Did Rarity forget to close it properly? Is she so sure of that cat's power to maim any bird burgulars? Ooh, does she have a secret pegasus trist planned?
I let myself in, sure I could explain if Rarity was there, otherwise I'd just borrow something to cut myself free, and she'd never know I was here. It definitely felt wrong though, sneaking into Rarity's house was one thing, but sneaking in through her bedroom's door? I pushed at the curtain, a mix of dread and excitement eating at my lungs. I hoped Rarity was there, so I could explain right away and get out. I also saw a small hope that she'd suggest I use the same door again later, even if such an invitation was as likely as me growing a horn.
For better or worse, the room was empty of life. The bed looked like it had never been slept in, and not even that horrid cat was up here. "Okay, operation seagull is go." I whispered, looking around the amazingly large room for my primary goal. The ceiling was so high a three-high pony pryamid could stand inside it with ease. The bed was absolutely enormous, a pony could stretch out in each quadrant and not touch. That conjured even more taudry actions to mind. No! No time for such primitive distractions, you've got feathers to save!
Stacks of drawers, Several closets, more clothing packed away up here than actually for sale in the totality of the town! Not what I need. Scissors? A knife? A file to sharpen a point on my hoof?! If they were in here, I was unlikely to find them without leaving obvious signs of my presence, or worse, finding some secret neither of us deserved exposed. if I was likely to locate something sharp, I'd have to go into the attached bathroom, I'd be sure to find some kind of blade among her silly collection of primping tools. At worst, I could use the tiny cutter on her box of floss.
I stepped over to the smaller of the doors, silently begging gravity to be on my side. Without a single creak of the floor, I reached it, and touched just my ear to the surface, holding my breath and straining to hear any sign of life on the opposite side of the door.
"Rarity! Rarity!" A filly's reathless exclaimations. My head slammed away from the door, mind racing, filling in rather embarressing gaps. Looks like the bathroom was out of bounds. I really should get out of here, and forget these last few minutes ever happened.
A muffled voice took over moments later, presumably the white unicorn's, and I was about to turn and run and forget about being unheard, I didn't want to hear Rarity doing that. What prevented me from announcing my presense with a tromp of hooves was the realization that this voice was far more muffled than a simple door would, and more obviously, was coming from below me. So obviously I leaned down, and rested my head on the floor, which made hearing what the ponies below were saying.
"...a breath Twilight, you look awfully pale!" Just as I thought, she's tracked me down and is going to lasso my other unicorn friend into "helping" me.
"Dash is in trouble!" I haven't done anything wrong! "She just crashed outside the library, but before I could get to her she actually got up again!" What's so bad about that? If you can walk away, it was what we call a Good Landing. "I nearly stopped her, but she took off, and her wing, her wing looked like it had been torn apart, it hurt her but she still managed to take off!"
"Oh Twilight, what could have happened to her?" Oh sure, speculation and rumours. It's flight school all over again.
"She hurt her wing, but wouldn't let me examine it." I told her it was fine, why didn't she just listen to me? "I heard her near here, but I can't find her with my spells! This spell only works if she wanted me to find her..." That's good to know. I still don't want to be found. "I think something, maybe somepony attacked her, or she got into an aerial fight, she has to be hiding from whatever did that to her wing." What? An aerial fight?! Even I'm not that crazy to do something like that! Again. And if I was, I wouldn't have been the one to fall to ponyville, oh no.
Well, now that I was sure I wouldn't be intruding, I stood up, and entered Rarity's... well, it looked more like a fully stocked private salon than a bathroom. The scents that poured out were intense! Not bad exactly, any one or two of the smells would have been pleasant. This was the nasal equivilant of a thousand ponies all trying to tell me something awesome, way too much of a good thing.
Scrunched up nose, I dared enter, only to feel like my eyes and tongue had suddenly learned to smell. Bottles, bottles, and more bottles, any surface that wasn't actually floor had bottles of shampoo, conditioner, perfumery, oils, soaps, and that was only the ones I could identify through my squint. I even saw a line of jars claiming to be salts, I could do with a few licks, but not a single one of the jars contained the kind of salt I knew about, not one of the jar's contents were even white!
But hey, those "salt" jars were arrainged in awesome rainbow sequence. I wonder what that could mean, I'd have to remember to ask Rarity about them, she's the one who's so focused on what her body looks like that what she can actually do with... I've gotta get out of here quickly, just being here is making me think about her wrong.
Blade, cutcutcut freedom, keep your mind focused on your goal, rather than what Rarity does when she's aloooonope! Ah ha, that mirror is really far out, it's a cabinet as well! Light hooftap, and it swings wide. Well, this is where she stores the rest of her stuff, vials of make up of all kinds. I won't even bother trying to figure out those names, Rainbow Dash has so much natural coolness, putting any of that on would reduce her coolness by approximately sixteen and two thirds percent.
I found among them a rediculously small set of scissors, which when I tried to actually comprehend, made my head hurt. Why put handles on a tool so small that nopony could even fit her tongue in? If they were made for unicorns, why did they even have handles in the first place? Why even need the tool at all if you could magic apart whatever needed cutting?! Trying to understand unicorns, or even earth ponies sometimes was a recipe for insanity, and that was was even after excluding Pinkie Pie from that set.
A small floss dispenser, just what I needed. A small blade on the corner, fixed in place for easy pony use, ready to slice through this awful tangle. After I retreated to the doorway to be able to breath air that wasn't completely unbreathable, I curled up to spend the strangest preening I had ever done. I couldn't even get a break with this, my poor feathers were even now taking damage as the strings each pulled barbs off before I could apply enough pressure for the floss to snap, and just as by design, one of the new ends was stuck under the blade which took even more tugging.
I managed to get the tangle off the most recently caught plume with little damage, but the second's tangles were worse. I had to run the tiny blade up the feather shaft blindly to get under several of the tighter knots, and some of the slips began catching barbs until I saw the damage, pulled back, and adjusted my aim. At least my improvised splint served one last purpose, it took the least time to run the blade along it, the perfect guide to aborting this ridiculous idea once and for all. Once I gather up all these threads and grab that brush I can--
Realize I missed one wrapping of the brush, and just pulled off the largest undamaged amount of lift surface my wing had. Excuse me while I go dent the doorframe. Aim your head at the corner, you deserve it! Wait, let's not be so hasty, I clearly already have enough brain damage as it is, and the lighting's changed just a little, what could that be?
I looked around carefully as I stepped over to Rarity's trash bin under the sink, and spat out the floss and brush into the trash, let her wonder if she ever sees them. As the mass dropped into the shadow of the container's interior, I could still see the half feather. Not glowing, but not in darkness either, like an unseen light was revealing just... I guess that's Twilight's doing. I didn't want to explain to her why I'd just flown into Rarity's bathroom uninvited. I wouldn't want to explain even if I had been invited!
Okay Dash, think as fast as you can fly! Somehow the spell locked on to the part of me that was still relatively intact, but no longer actually part of me. It's lit up, she probably can see it through walls, or maybe just has a vague idea where it is. If it's the first kind, maybe she just hasn't looked straight up yet. If it's the second, she's on her way up here right now. I have to get this feather out of here, preferably to a place that wouldn't seem like I had just raided Rarity's private... Okay stop thinking so fast, and act.
I grabbed the feather in my teeth, in the process getting an even stronger perfumed scent from the bin, and bolted for the balcony. Even her trash smelled good?! That was just not natural. After the door shut behind me, I looked up and the perfect idea hit me. Get the feather onto the roof, and even if she had seen it, and found it, it wouldn't get me in trouble with Rarity! Unless she shampooed her house, which I wouldn't put past her.
Perfect idea Rainbow Dash, put it somewhere you need to fly to get to! Of course, that part of my plan only came into focus when the ground rose up to meet me.
I simply lay there on the ground beneath Rarity's balcony, like a suitor who had been rejected with a heavy object to the head. Only in my case, the heavy object was the ground. How heavy was the ground anyway, or was that question meaningless? Lucky for me I don't have to find out.
"She's this way, moving fast!" I heard Twilight yell, and that woke me from my momentary pity party. I was about to start running while letting a tiny pinkie pie try and figure out what kind of cake to serve at such a sad party, when Twi's words actually hit me. I wasn't moving fast. But I hadn't kept hold of that feather bit, and must have been taken by the wind. I got up, walked around to the front of the Carousel Boutique, and saw Twilight and Rarity both running downwind. I guess I do get lucky breaks after all.
***
After I had gallopped the long way around town, I headed towards Fluttershy's house. Pinkie Pie would probably bake a wing shaped cake or something else rediculous, and I was rather sure Applejack would be a good diplomat to explain to Twilight there was nothing to worry about, she would never let me forget this day, even after a million runnings of the leaves. So that left Fluttershy, my oldest, calmest, kindest friend.
It was high noon by the time I reached her cabin style house, and after several knocks punctuated by looks over my shoulder, on the eye out for a pair of unicorn hunters, I finally accepted she wasn't inside. Maybe she was nearby, and after nearly trying to take off to fly over her house, I started my way around it. Thinking in terms of flat space was going to be difficult. As soon as I got within sight of her back yard reserve, I saw her.
She was so peaceful in her work, and I just paused a minute, watching how effortlessly she communicated with the animals in her care. They were more than just pets to her, I could see that from back here, a side of herself she never shared with anypony, like she was queen of the hive, and with nopony around to be seen as an encroacher on her domain, she thrived.
"Oh my, noon already? How the time flies!" I heard as she broke from her quiet peaceful song. "Did we have a lunch date? I'm so sorry if I forgot. I didn't mean to keep you waiting Rarityeep!" Her last word turned into a startled squeak as she finally turned to see me, her glistening wings flaring in alarm, pulling her off the ground. After she landed, she gave a small huff, catching her breath, and the closest she'd come to showing her displeasure. "Um, hello Rainbow Dash, I'm glad to see you again so soon. Is... Tank being any problem for you?" she asked, walking over to the edge of the large enclosure, her perfect buttery wings folding up again, each covering a single pink butt... Anyway, she held out a forehoof over the fence, and I wasn't too distracted to touch it with my own.
"No, not at all, he's already, uhm, helped me a lot! It's really nice not having an empty house, and a lot of chores are easier than they would be done alone, you should come and see how nice my place looks now!" I stumbled about verbally, and then gulped, did I just ask her back to my place, even though it was still a hundred times messier than my worst and best dream put together?! "Well, of course you don't have to any time soon, with your work and all." I finally managed to hedge. "And why did you think I was Rarity?"
She looked at the ground, one hoof scuffing at a spot on the grass, her long bangs rolling over most of her blushing face. "Um, well, you two usually smell different, she's always something sweet or flowery, and you're... well..." she said, clearly struggling to tell me an unpleasant truth.
"A pony who's still using the same plain bottle soap that they put in the flight school showers?" I asked with an awkward laugh. She only nodded, her blush spreading. I wondered for just a moment what memories I had brought up, but quickly formed an explanation so we could move on, rather than drift into meta-fantasies. "I, um, needed some bathroom supplies in a hurry, so I borrowed a bit from her." Technically true, the best kind of true. "She and Twilight might have gone a little bit crazy."
That explanation cheered her up in a moment, and with a confidant nod, she tamped the scuffed spot down, and was able to meet my eyes again. "Oh, so she's not taking you to the spa... Is she?" I shook my head quickly, my mane shaking around. I just chopped any hair that got in my eyes while flying, and gnawed at any rough spots on my hoofs, I'd probably give those sisters a complete mental breakdown if I got anywhere near their establishment. "So, if the tortoise is enjoying his new home, and you're not here about anything involving Rarity, what do you need? I really suggest only having one pet, at least for a new caretaker..."
Ah, down to buisness. I took a deep breath, and explained as fast as I could "It's a funny story, remember how I flew into a wall and caused that rockslide and got trapped and all those pets who could fly flew better than me but weren't chosen because Tank was the only one to see me?" Fluttershy kept intently looking at me, deliberately nodding every few words, after all, she was the first to know about that, and it had only happened yesterday. "And then you helped me get Tank to my house, left him on the doorstep, and hurried back home, and then this morning..."
A screech from somewhere overhead startled me. When pegasi are startled, they get ready to fly. Knees wound up for launch, eyes look up, mind finds the best flight plan. It also meant that my wings flared, ready and willing, even if they weren't able. The lightness and ease with which the wing swept through the air brought me back to my senses, and I lowered my gaze from the sky giving an awkward "I'm alright" smile. Fluttershy had frozen, her normally calm features frozen in appalled anger.
"Who. Did. That. To. You?" she said in a whisper so firm I was sure I could name anypony up to Celestia herself, and nopony would ever see her again. One of those tiny voices of crazy ideas offered up the suggestion to make an opening in the wonderbolts. I was impulsive, but even I could see that was a path I wasn't going to go down.
"Um, As I was explaining, it's my fault. Nopony did this, I shouldn't have done that rediculous race, and this never would have happened." I tried to explain, and while Equestria was saved from the wrath of the quiet one, she was still emotionally unbalanced. I had to get her on track quickly. "I need help finding--"
"Nopony did that? Oh... oh dear oh dear. I'm so sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry he didn't mean it I should have watched him closer I knew he was upset please don't hurt Andy I'll ground him for a week, a month, a year, just don't hurt him!" I found her forelegs wrapped around my neck in a desperate pleading, and wow they were strong.
I might be able to outfly anypony on a clear day, but that was more talent than strength, I've spent years ekeing out every bit of strength I can, and applying it with absolutely perfect precicion. Fluttershy was the other side of the pegasus spectrum, she was pure strength, I bet she could carry a bear in flight if she had to. Only now with her legs wrapped around my neck was it clear to me just how much of that bottled strength wasn't in her wings. "Urk! I think I'm turning blue!"
Fluttershy stopped her stream of pleading, and thankfully let up on the pressure. "But you already are... Oh, that was a joke?" she asked, looking up at me bashfully. I looked down, and gave a lopsided smile. Oh if the context were different my heart would be at the edge of the atmosphere. "You're making jokes with your wing like that? You're not angry at Andy?"
I sighed with relief. Mental note, jokes bring Fluttershy back to sanity. "No, whoever Andy is, as I said, this is all my own doing." I gritted my teeth briefly, I couldn't bear to ask for help when this mess had just started. I thought I could have fixed it myself, maybe I could have back then, but this had spiraled way past what I could fix with bubble gum and duct tape. "I... need your help."