Rarity helps me get a drink and opens the bag of chips. She gives me one then pops one in her mouth. I raise an eyebrow at her, because it’s still really weird to try and imagine Rarity eating chips, even though I just saw her do it. She just rolls her eyes at me and gives me another one. We split the whole bag one chip at a time, so no crumbs get on her bed.

There’s really no need to talk, which is nice. It’s dark outside, but not super late. I don’t want to go to sleep. I feel restless. We’ve been in this house all day, which isn’t bad. I definitely didn’t want to be out dealing with everypony staring at me. I’m just not used to being inside so much.

I have an idea. It kinda freaks me out, but if Rare comes with me, then I think I’ll be ok.

“Hey Rare?”

“Hmmm?”

“Wanna go for a walk?”

Her eyes get HUGE, like Pinkie Pie huge. It’s so funny to see her have an unfiltered reaction that I automatically laugh, which sucks some of the chip in my mouth up into my nose, which hurts but makes me laugh even harder. It takes me a full minute to get the laughing under control, and she just gives me a look that’s half worried stare/half glare the whole time. My ribs ache when I finally stop laughing, but in a good way.

“Are you quite finished?” she asks as she helps me get another drink.

I almost snort again, just because it would be funny to keep right on laughing, but it wouldn’t be worth the pain in my chest this time. So, instead, I say with only a little smirk, “Yeah, Marshmallow. I’m all good now.”

“Wonderful,” she chirps. Then she looks anxiously out the window. “It’s getting rather late.” She sounds nervous. “Are you certain you’re feeling well enough for an outing?”

“That’s kinda the point,” I start to fidget with my forehooves a little. “I’m hoping nopony will be out. I really don’t want to deal with being seen or having to talk to anypony.”

“Are you sure you’ll be alright?” she asks again. She’s being careful not to say what she actually means, which is that she’s worried I’m going to freak out because I don’t feel safe or something. All of the humor from just as second ago is gone now. She’s asking a serious question that deserves a serious answer.

“If I’m not, you’ll bring me home, right?” I say a little sheepishly. It’s really not a Rainbow Dash kind of thing to say. It sounds way too wimpy and soft coming out of my mouth, but it also feels honest and right. I’m not my usual, awesome self right now. I need her to come with me if I go outside, because she’s right that I might freak out. I might get out there in the dark and feel like Mac is attacking me all over again, and if that happens then I’m going to need my unicorn to snap me out of it and make sure nopony sees me.

“Naturally,” she says easily. She sounds half like she’s trying to be my knight in shining armor and half like it’s no big deal to her. It’s funny and awesome.

“Then, yeah. I’m good.”

She takes a second to think, then sighs a little. “I’ll need a few minutes to get ready. Is that alright?”

“Sure. Take your time.”

“Would you like to read in the meantime?”

“Yeah, that sounds good.” I get the tingles all over, and she gently flips me onto my stomach, then floats the book over. I almost ask her to do it again, because it was kind of fun, but I don’t. I just say, “Thanks.”

“Of course, darling.” She puts the plate with the cookies by me, then goes into the bathroom. She hums while she does whatever she’s doing. I just listen to the humming instead of reading, because it helps my brain go quiet. If Rare is humming, then that means she really isn’t mad at me anymore and that is awesome.

I close my eyes and feel the last little tingles of magic leave my wings. She did some sort of time release on them. I give a little flap. I haven’t really tried anything like that since it happened. It sucks and it hurts, but it also feels good and normal to actually move my wings a little. They’re healing. If I could get in the air, they’d probably be mostly better in a week, at least the bones would.

Regrowing feathers takes forever, and I wasn’t kidding when I told Rares that it itches like crazy. One of the hardest parts of growing new feathers is not preening them out because they itch so bad. Sometimes, it’s better to just wrap the wing for a few weeks, let the feathers grow, and then go from there. Maybe I’ll talk to Rarity about helping me wrap my wings for the next few days.

“Ready?” She asks, and it startles me a little. Her mane looks like normal. She probably magicked it again.

“Huh? Oh. Yeah.” I want to hop off the bed, but even having my muscles start to tense for a move like that hurts. So, I just move slow and careful. Now that I think about it, I’m kinda surprised I haven’t hurt myself more forgetting that I can’t move at my normal speed. I hate doing things slowly. Slow is stupid- except for when everything hurts, then slow is safe and less painful.

When we get to the kitchen, Rare tosses a blanket over her back. “Do you want anything?” she asks.

“Naw.” It’s a cool night, but not bad. Plus, because being a pegasus is awesome, I don’t feel the cold the same way other ponies do because pegasi are designed for high altitudes. Earth ponies are usually the warmest. They have the thickest coats and just generally run a little hotter. Pegasi feel cold to other ponies, and unicorns are somewhere in the middle. It’s cool, because when I touch or hug other ponies they always feel warm. I like that.

It’s probably the thought of touching other ponies that starts it. One second I’m fine, walking across the kitchen to the door, but now I’m frozen. My legs start to buckle, because of his weight pressing down on my back. It’s like I’m trapped in an oven set to broil. The burning heat of his body is pressing down on me from everywhere, burning me and paralyzing me with fear and pain all at the same time. The hot branding irons of his hooves sear and sizzle around my cutie marks, and I clearly remember that even his hooves felt weirdly hot when they slammed down on me and then lifted me up only to bring me back down on the worst heat of all. The one he shoved inside me.

All of this is happening, but not happening at the same time. I can’t see where I am, but I know I’m not in the street. I can feel the slamming, and pulling, and burning everywhere; but the only part of me that’s moving is my ear, which twitches a little trying to beat away his hot breath. I can hear him. The grunts and low whinnies he made as he rut me. The venom in his voice as he hissed at me. But at the same time, there’s a loud ringing kind of white noise in my ears too. The kind that comes from the sudden absence of sound.

Then there’s a spot on my head that somehow manages to feel cool and warm at the same time. It isn’t burning and painful like all the places he touched me, but it doesn’t make me feel ashamed and wish I was dead either. It feels safe, like home. I focus on that spot. I focus on the hope I feel knowing that spot exists and that there’s somepony on the other side of that spot waiting for me. I want my whole body to feel just like that one spot.

It starts with her smell. The stench of the bar, and the empty street, and stale stallion musk fades and is replaced with the clean, flowery scent of Rarity. The sounds of the attack lower into the background and her voice fills my ears instead. “Come back to me, Rainbow. It’s alright, darling. You are safe. Come back to me. Oh, please come back.”

I open my eyes, and I realize that I don’t remember closing them. Rarity is so close. Her eyes are closed, and she keeps muttering all of those gentle coaxings to try and get me to snap out of whatever it was that just took me over.

I’ve always thought Rare was pretty, because she is. It’s kinda like saying the Wonderbolts are awesome. It’s just fact. This second though, she’s gorgeous. She looks like home, and I know I’m going to be ok. So, I lean into that place where our heads touch a little harder. That’s all it takes to let her know that I’m back.

“Are you alright?” she asks.

“Yeah. Flashback.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

“You already did it.” I pull back and quickly kiss her forehead. “Thanks.”

She smiles and nuzzles me a little before taking a step back. I miss her closeness the second she pulls away, but I don’t try and close the distance. That would be weird, and I don’t think I could explain why I want her close if she asked me.

“Does a little venture outside still sound appealing?” she asks after giving me another minute to get myself together. Her tone is cautious and carefully bright. She isn’t trying to hide the fact that she’s worried, but she’s also giving me a chance to at least pretend to be normal, even though everything is messed up.

Going outside actually sounds even better than it did before. The breeze coming in from the open door is calling to me. I want to be outside in the open air the same way I wanted to be in a scalding hot shower right after it happened. It’s like the wind and the sky can blow away some the mark Mac left on me, so I don’t have to keep feeling like I’m covered in his grime all the time. “Yeah.” I nod. “Let’s go.”

We step outside, and she locks the door. I think she’s going to lead me on a walk through town since it’s late enough that there probably won’t be very many ponies out and about, but she turns the other way toward a little path into the woods that I’ve seen from the air but never walked on.

“Where we going?” I ask. I can’t decide if I’m relieved that we won’t be walking around town, or weirded out that I’d rather be walking through the woods in the dark than around ponies right now.

“There’s a lovely little meadow this way that very few ponies seem to know about,” she answers easily. “It isn’t quite as large as the one near Fluttershy’s cottage, but it is perfectly pleasant.”

We walk with our sides pressed together, just like when we walked to Town Hall or when we walked home from the hospital. We don’t talk, which is good because I’m busy thinking.

Ponyville is my turf. I know every inch of it, but I can’t remember the meadow she’s talking about, and it drives me nuts. I don’t even notice the flowers or whatever else we walk by, because I’m trying to fill in the blank space on the map in my head. It’s actually really good for me, because it takes all of my concentration, which means there isn’t space in my head to freak out about my freak out in the kitchen or to dwell on all of the memories that came with it.

We’ve been walking for about ten minutes, when I finally figure out my mental map. The meadow has really old trees all around it, and it kinda dips in the middle so when it rains there’s a giant puddle. Ducks and stuff use it for a bath sometimes. It should be about a fifteen minute walk from Rarity’s.

“Here we are,” Rare says right on cue.

She’s right. It’s nice. It isn’t huge, but the trees open up and I can see the sky. There are a few clouds drifting lazily around. They are some of my favorites, the listless ones that really don’t have a purpose except giving ponies something to look at. Luna’s stars twinkle and colors in the sky kind of ripple. It’s not her best work, but it’s not bad. Looking up at it, the sky feels huge and empty, but it makes me feel a little claustrophobic at the same time. The sky that was never more than a flap away, but that might as well be a different planet right now. Instead of being my place to escape, it’s a lid shut tightly on top of me, keeping me on the ground whether I like it or not.

I should look away, but I can’t. Part of me wants to scream at the sky for holding me down the same way Mac did, and part of me wants to collapse into the dirt and cry because I just want to go home. Every part of me is singing, screaming, pleading to be up there where I belong. I just can’t make it happen.

“How are your wings feeling?” she asks.

I’m so distracted that I almost miss the fact that she sounds way too casual. It’s a loaded question, but I can’t figure out what she could really be getting at. I fluff my feathers a little. It hurts but doesn’t make me want to bawl my eyes out.

“Not bad. Why?” I manage to keep my voice neutral, so she doesn’t pick up on all the anger and stuff swirling around inside me.

“I’ve had an idea if you’d like to try it.” Again, her tone is too careful, too casual. It’s the same voice she uses when she’s designed something ridiculous for me that I’ll never actually wear, but she’s sly getting me to try on so I can see that there’s no denying how awesome it is.

“What is it?” I ask suspiciously. I really don’t trust that glint in her eye, even though I know that it usually means she’s about to be really pleased with herself, which usually means she’s done something awesome that I’m totally not going to admit that I think is awesome. There’s just a huge disconnect between the time and place when she usually uses that tone of voice and where we are right now.

“What do you think of trying to go for a little flight?” She glances up at the sky then looks back at me.

She's one hundred percent serious, but that doesn’t make me feel any better. She probably has no way of knowing that I really can’t fly right now. I know she isn’t trying to hurt my feelings, but I feel like she just backhoofed me across the face.

I try to force the words out despite feeling like there’s a pit in my stomach the size of Cloudsdale. “I- I- can’t, Rare,” I stammer. It’s only one tear that rolls down my face, but that’s all it takes. She sees it and instantly closes the gap between us to wipe it away.

“Oh my darling, that was unforgivable,” she says, her voice heavy with an apology. Then she leans our heads together again. “That was a horribly inappropriate time to try and be coy. I’m so sorry. Please, may I try again?”

I really don’t want to have that slapped feeling again, but Rare isn’t an idiot. I trust that she won’t make the same mistake twice. Plus, I really want to know what she’s talking about. “K,” I sniff.

She takes a deep breath, pulls back, and stares at the ground. “I meant to offer to assist you,” she says quietly. “You seem to enjoy being held in the air so much. I thought you might like to try it again on a broader scale. I’m afraid I’ve ruined the idea altogether, however. I’m sorry, darling.”

“Can you do that?” I ask trying not sound to doubtful. Maybe I should have more faith in her magical awesomeness, after everything that’s happened, but it’s still not natural to think of her that way. She looks up into my eyes and nods confidently.

“I wouldn’t dare take you up very high, particularly on our first outing, but at the very least I can get you off the ground for some extended period of time.” She sounds likes she’s working through the idea like a dress design. Like she’s trying to decide exactly how she’s going to make her idea work.

I feel the smile on my face before I realize that I’ve made up my mind. “Ok, Marshmallow. Let’s do it.”

She literally lights up in front of me. It’s like somepony turned up the dimmer switch inside her coat. I follow her to the middle of the meadow. She spreads out the blanket and straightens it until it’s perfectly flat. Then she lays down in the middle and wraps herself in it.

“Would you like your wings out?” she asks cheerily.

I hesitate. Being in the air with my wings out sounds absolutely awesome, but the idea also makes me kinda nervous. If there’s wind or something I don’t know if I’ll be able to adjust and keep things from getting worse. Or, if my wings can even handle anything like that without something else breaking worse than it already is.

I toss my mane a little. No wind. She said she’d keep me close to the ground and these tall trees make for a good break.

“What day is it?” I ask.

“Friday,” she replies.

There isn’t supposed to be any major weather until Sunday unless they changed the schedule. There are a few clouds, but they’re just the randoms- nothing organized or intentional.

“Yeah.” I decide. “Wings out.” Slowly I start to stretch them. I feel the familiar tingle of the numbing thing, and shake my head at Rare. “I got this,” I say with a little strain in my voice. “You just keep me off the ground.”

It doesn’t take as long to stretch my wings out as I thought it would. Rares has been taking really good care of them. The main joints feel almost normal, but they weren’t really damaged, so that isn’t that weird. The weird thing is how heavy they feel. I’m missing a little more than a third of my feathers, but my wings feel like they got dipped in concrete. Still, it feels good to have them open in the air, and to be totally in control of them.

Rares watches while I do a few pre-flight checks. The feathers I have are well preened, and in perfect shape for flying. Even in the places where they’re angled to cover holes, Rarity kept them in a perfect plane. I wonder how she knew to do that. I won’t be able to adjust any of the individual layers without hurting a fractured bone, but I will be able to adjust the overall angle. So, as long as I’m not too far up, I should be able to to turn a fall into a gliding landing without causing any damage.

Rares is giving me a weird look. “What?” I ask.

She shakes her head and answers innocently, “Nothing. Nothing at all.”

“Bullshit! What is it?” She looks happy like she’s teasing me about something and I don’t get it. It bugs me, and I stomp my hoof at her. “Don’t try and play innocent with me, Marshmallow. What is it?”

She laughs. It’s not the big laugh Applejack would laugh at me if she were here to see me stomping my hoof like a toddler, but it might as well be. “Oh darling,” she coos. “You’re just adorable. That’s all.”

I give her a look.

“Oh, don’t pout.” She waves a hoof at me. “It’s most unbecoming.”

I don’t change my expression.

She rolls her eyes and sighs. “I was simply enjoying watching you. Is that a crime?”

“If it was would you care?”

“Not in the least.” She turn up her nose at me. “As you know, I’ve recently turned to a life of crime and am finding it rather pleasant. So, I am naturally inclined to expand my repertoire. In crime or in fashion, one must be able to diversify.”

“Alright.” It takes me a full second to decide that it’s ok to laugh at her because the joke feels way too close to reality. “You ready, Miss Criminal Mastermind?”

It’s funny, because if Rarity actually decided to be a criminal mastermind, then Equestria would be in big trouble. She’d be one of those classy mob-boss types that everypony knows is up to no good, but that never actually gets caught doing something wrong. But, that’s just not something Rarity would ever do. It is so insane that Mac’s lawyer is so bent on trying to paint her like that. It will never work, because she’s just Rarity. Her reputation is everything.

She nods to my question. Her eyes close and horn lights. Everything is slow. She’s being very careful with me. The tingles creep up my body starting at my hooves. There’s a flexing and relaxing thing happening, like she’s testing her grip, trying to figure out how tightly to hold me. It feels a little bit like I’m wrapped in a rippling silk blanket or something, but it also feels like maybe the blanket is made of padded steel that’s been perfectly molded for me to fit. But, it also doesn’t feel like either of those things, because magic kind of feels like nothing. So, there’s this weird sensation of non-feeling, but at the same time, I can definitely recognize all of the tingly loops and swirls of her aura especially when it gets to my wings.

I’m trying to be patient, but the longer I have to wait the more anxious and the more excited I get. Without meaning to, I start shifting my weight back and forth on my hooves. Rare makes a little face, and I stop. Her face relaxes again, but once she’s up past my wings, she moves along a lot faster. She still doesn’t lift me up right away though. When the bubble of magic first completely closed around me, I felt claustrophobic, but only for a second because then it was like somepony opened a window. Suddenly, there was air moving around me. Not in a natural kind of way, but in a controlled way. Like a vent in a house angling the breeze in a specific direction.

Finally, Rare takes a deep breath and opens her eyes. “Thank you for your patience, Rainbow. Are we ready?”

I cock my head at her. “Duh.”

That earns me an eye roll and some mumbled response about how I’m brash and impossible. It breaks all the tension. If Rarity is relaxed and calm enough to be whining, then things are going to be just fine.

I start moving in a really weird way- rising straight up off the ground like a hot air balloon. It’s nothing like how take offs are supposed to feel, but this isn’t really a take off anyway, so it doesn’t freak me out too bad.

When I’m about ten feet up, she stops. There’s the tiniest breeze blowing the wrong way across my wings. Without thinking I turn to adjust. The turn is too smooth and too slow, but it works.

I look down at Rare to tell her how awesome that was, but she has her eyes closed. She doesn’t look like she’s having trouble keeping me up or anything, just focusing. I lean forward a little bit and feel myself dip six inches. I lean back and go back to where I was. Everything has just the tiniest delay, but I’m totally in control of where I go.

“This is awesome!” I say loud enough that she can hear but soft enough that probably thinks I’m just talking to myself.

As awesome as it is to be in the air, and it’s more awesome than doing a sonic rainboom while drinking cider, it’s also just freaking weird. The air itself doesn’t feel quite right. There’s movement, but I can’t call it a breeze. It’s still that weird vented feeling, but it’s better than nothing. Across my feathers, it’s like light and information spilling across my nerves. There’s a tingle that I know. It’s as familiar as breathing, but that has nothing to do with Rarity. It tells me I’m a pegasus, and I’m in the air where I’m supposed to be. I'm home. I close my eyes and enjoy the feeling.

I have to resist the urge to flap. Flapping would be a very bad idea.

I try leaning to the left. Slowly, I turn in a circle, probably about twenty feet wide with Rarity in the center. I’m never more than ten feet up or ten feet away from her. I lean a little more and circle closer to her. Then I lean the other way and try to circle back out to the right. I feel the magic fighting me though, it’s not a tight maneuver and we don’t have the space for it- not with the ten by ten rule. So, I ease up and level out. When I’m not giving her directions with my movements, she just holds me still. I am in total control.

For ten minutes, I circle and slowly dive then climb. We manage a tight enough turn for me to change directions so that I can circle the other way.

When I look down, Rarity’s eyes are still closed. She looks peaceful. There’s just the faintest little smile on her lips. She doesn’t look tired, but I’m guessing she needs a break. So, I lean forward again and slowly circle down to land. She doesn’t let me go until all of my hooves are safely down.

When she opens her eyes, she looks tired but not in a bad way. She looks like I feel after a good workout. “How was that, darling?” she asks hopefully.

It takes a second for my brain to catch up to being on the ground. I was so focused on my technique, and figuring out what I could actually do, and how things felt that I didn’t really get to feel all of the awesomeness, but now it comes in one big rush. I want to tackle her, or do Twilight's stupid Yes! Yes! Yes! jumping up and down thing. But, I can’t do either of those. So, I just smile so big my face might break and say, “That was the most awesome thing ever!”

“Wonderful,” she squeals. “Would you like to try it again?”

After five more minutes, she taps out, because she’s getting tired and worried about dropping me, which is fine by me. I can already feel the difference in every part of me, especially my wings. I feel more like me than I have in days.

When I hit the ground, I barely even notice any of my aches and pains as I move to settle in the grass next to her. She lifts the blanket for me and I snuggle into the warmth.

“That was soooo cool, Rare!” I start rambling, and I can’t make myself stop. “It was just so awesome! How did you even do that? Was it like the apple and orange thing? Is that how you knew which way I wanted to go?”

I ask questions that I don’t really want answers to and tell her things about flying that she doesn’t care about. She doesn’t even try to say anything. She just listens to me go on and on about every single second.

At some point, she lays her head on top of my forelegs, and I rest mine on her neck. I keep talking though because I’m charged with adrenaline. It doesn’t matter that I was only ten feet up or that I didn’t do any of my best moves. I was in the sky. I was home. I tell her about my first memory of flying, and how awesome clouds are. Then I hear something. I look around but don’t see anything. Then I hear it again. It’s the daintiest little snore I’ve ever heard in my whole life. I look down and sure enough, she’s asleep.

After being awake for three full days and two full nights, she’s finally asleep- here in a meadow on the ground. Who is this pony? She’s yelled at me on trains in the middle of the night for messing with her beauty sleep. She told Applejack that she couldn’t help get a tree out of the library, because she’d get all icky.

But, she’s also the pony that hid in a mud puddle so that she could run a race for her sister. She took on a pony three times her size and saved my life. I’m a pegasus that can’t fly, and she just gave me the sky back. She’s a prissy pain in the flank of a pony, and I love her.

The realization hits me like a tsunami, crashing down on me for way too long and making it almost impossible for me to catch my breath. I don’t mean I love her as a friend. The squishy places of my heart are in love with her.

But... she’s… Rarity!

Rarity isn’t like me or Applejack. AJ and I have both always known that we might end up alone. I haven’t ever been in love before. I kinda thought it would never happen for me. I loved the Wonderbolts. I loved the sky. What pony could ever keep up with that, right?

AJ is married to that farm, and she’s straight as an arrow. It’ll be some stallion that turns her head enough to get her attention. She likes a good roll in the hay, but a relationship just isn’t something she wants to be bothered with.

Pinkie hangs out with lots of ponies. I think she’d like to settle down with one or two someday, but for now, she just hangs out with anypony or any couple of ponies that dig her. She won’t end up alone either, but she might be a part of a herd or something.

But Rarity, it’s just always been obvious that she’d do the marriage thing. The idea that Rarity might end up alone just doesn’t make any sense. Sure, she hasn’t had a lot of luck with dating or whatever, but she’s always out there looking- except for when she’s to busy working or saving Equestria. The point is that she's always wanted to have a special somepony. She wants the big day with the big dress and everypony crying in the audience about how beautiful everything looks and how bad the food is.

I only figured out that I don’t want to be alone forever a few months ago. Actually, I’ve always known I didn’t want to be alone. I hate being alone. What I figured out was that I wanted a special somepony. It was after a show, and I saw all the other Bolts checking in with their families in the crowd. My friends come to as many shows as they can, but it isn’t the same. The closest I ever got to that feeling was having Scoots at that first Ponyville show, and that was a fucking disaster.

I want a family. I want somepony waiting for me to get home at the end of the day.

Rares would be an awesome fanpony. She’d make weird dresses and hats that would bug other ponies in the stands because they’d be so big nopony could see around them. She’d cheer louder than anypony else, and then look around like she couldn’t figure out which of the ponies next to her made all the noise.

It’d be like when Sweetie Belle sings. Rares is always there, always the first one to start stomping her hooves and the last one to stop. It’s cool that even though their parents are never around Sweetie always has somepony to take care of her. Rarity didn’t have to do that; she’s like a single mom a lot of the time, and it actually looks really good on her. It’s like knowing that she helped Scootaloo when she busted up her wing, that’s just fucking awesome. Scoots doesn’t trust many ponies, so letting Rarity take care of her was a big deal.

When I first met her, Rares wouldn’t shut up about the one, but that first Gala changed that. It changed her. It was like that night hit her harder than the rest of us. She’d still go off like that sometimes about wanting to find her one perfect somepony, but it was different. The dream was kind of shattered or something. Instead, she started talking about respect and finding a partner she could share her life with, and stuff like that. I think some of it got to me, and that’s why I changed too.

I never thought it would be her though. She’s irritating. She’s prissy and almost always right. Even when she’s wrong, she finds a way to be right. It’s annoying. Plus, she’s so damn dramatic all the time. She’s so careful and controlled and all caught up in how things look.

Then again, she’ll dress me up in the weirdest stuff sometimes just to see if she can. Like that time before the parasprite invasion. How did she even get me in that wig thing? Now I know her well enough to see the little smirk in my memory and to recognize the rise in her voice. That day was a competition and she kicked my ass.

The more I think about it, the more it sucks. What the hell do my feelings think they are doing? I’m a fucking rape victim. My wounds aren’t even healed. She’s been awesome and done everything I’ve asked. How do I repay her? By making shit fucking weird. She deserves better than me, even better than the me I was before Mac ruined me. But, now I’m just no good for anypony and I don’t know if I ever will be again.

It won’t always be like this. She won’t be holding me up forever. What’s going to happen in a week when I go back to work? Or in a month when I take my first flight on my own? What’s going to happen when some handsome stallion or some cute mare asks her if she has a marefriend, and she says no but she is completely dedicated to helping a dear friend recover from a horrible trauma, so she doesn’t have time to date?

I won’t get in her way. I know it will never be me. I want her to be happy. I want her to find that partner and be a mom. Element of Loyalty, right? I totally got this. I’m gonna love the shit out of that prissy pony, and she’s never gonna even know; because making her carry that around would be a really shitty thing to do.

My buzz from getting off the ground is gone. The crickets are chirping. The breeze picked up just a little and is moving through my mane. The only part of me that really hurts right now is my rump, and even that isn’t too bad. I got to soar ten feet off the ground today. Rarity is finally asleep, and I’m snuggled up next to her. She doesn’t know that things have gone all weird inside me, and I’m not going to tell her. For now, I can just snuggle her back and enjoy the good stuff. She never needs to know that all the good stuff is about her.

“Goodnight, Marshmallow,” I whisper. Then I rest my head on her back and fall asleep to the rhythm of her breathing beneath me.

Sometime in the night, she wakes me up and whispers that she’s taking me home. I tell her to shut up and go back to sleep. I fall back to sleep wrapped in a blanket wrapped in Rarity’s aura.

I have a dream about her.

We’re at a Wonderbolts team thing. Everypony is there with their families. I’m standing by the snack table, and I hear her before I see her. She's telling somepony to stop running. I turn and see a little pair of tiny wings buzzing toward me attached to a foal that’s hovering just a couple inches off the clouds. It’s the proudest moment of my whole damn life.

“Mom! Look!”

“Good job, squirt!”

My kid has an awesome rainbow mane; it’s a few shades darker than mine though. It looks crazy cool next to her bright blue-white coat. She’s clean, and she smells good, and she’s so happy to see me. I toss her up on my back when she gets to me, and she wraps her tiny little forelegs around my neck.

“Mama said I could show you when we got here,” she practically sings in my ear.

“Where is your mama?”

“Right here. Oh, I’ll never get used to this cloud walking business!” Rarity is wearing a huge sun hat, and saddlebags that say Team Dash, and have a really cool design of both our cutie marks. Behind Rarity are Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle. They’re shoving each other and joking about which one of them would hit the ground first if they fell.

“Hey Crash!” Soarin’ yells from somewhere. “Your crew all here?”

“Yeah!”

“Finally! Let’s eat!”

Then, we’re in bed and my head is on her chest. She’s reading by horn light. I snuggle in closer. “You’re supposed to be asleep,” I tell her and take a swipe at her book.

“And you are supposed to be working on finding some manners,” she retorts. I wrap a foreleg around her and pull her down, so she isn’t sitting up anymore. Then I nuzzle her shoulder ‘til she turns her back to me, and I slide her back, so there’s no space between us. I hear her giggle at me. “Really, Rainbow Dash?”

“Shut up, Marshmallow,” I say into her ear. “And turn out the light.”

I wake up because one of my legs is going numb for some reason. I realize that I’m not totally sure if that last part of my dream was really a dream. Rare doesn’t seem bugged though. I think she might actually be sleeping, so I’m calling it cool for now.