Twilight comes up a few minutes later to tell me that the advocate pony is here from Canterlot. I don’t want to get up. I don’t want to talk to some pony I don’t know about the worst thing that’s ever happened to me and have them act like they can somehow make it all better. I don’t want to see them fight back pity because some book somewhere told them that looking at rape victims like that is a bad idea.

Still, it’s pretty damn funny to walk into the showroom and see somepony totally freaked out about sharing space with three princesses and three element bearers. She’s an average size, tan unicorn with a curly mane and some sort of sword thing for a cutie mark.

Even though it’s funny to see, it doesn’t fix anything. I catch Rarity’s eye and give her my best, “please don’t make me do this!” look. She sees me, but doesn’t give me the indulgent smile I was hoping for; her eyes are sympathetic and apologetic instead. I’m not getting out of this. She isn’t going to let me dodge this conversation, because she really thinks it will help me or something noble like that.

I try to not be obvious about looking around. As much as I don’t want to talk to this new pony, I really don’t want to talk to her in front of an audience. Rare nods at me. It only takes her a few seconds to rejoin the conversation and politely say the Rarity equivalent of, “everypony out!” She asks the princesses of they are done strategizing for now. They are.

There’s a little buzz in the room that I didn’t notice before. Luna and Celestia are smiling. They’re talking like they’ve worked out some sort of plan. Twilight looks like she’s about to barf, but I don’t really know why. Rare has her mask up hardcore. Or, she’s being Rarity... She’s smiling and polite, but it seems like she’s still got stress or something bubbling under the surface that she’s working really hard to keep secret. It’s hard to tell though because she makes it look effortless. Just like always.

As the princesses walk to the door, Rare and Celestia share a Marshmallow moment of talking about how hard it is to keep their coats clean that makes me and Luna laugh.

There’s a round of hugs. Then it’s just me, Rares, and the advocate pony- who looks like a herd of buffalo just stampeded through the shop. I can’t stop myself from rolling my eyes.

Sure, Celestia and Luna are the princesses. That’s a big deal. I totally respect that. But, it’s not like they’re the Wonderbolts or something. We’re friends. I could totally hang out and drink with those two. They both like a good prank or a good party. Celestia just wants everypony to treat her normal, and Luna just wants everypony to treat her like she isn’t going to turn into Nightmare Moon any second. They’re cool. I feel like it’d be fun to just hang out and fly with them for an afternoon or something. Maybe I just forget that not everypony knows them like that, so it’s funny when they act like hanging out with a princess is a big deal.

I missed hearing the new pony’s full name, but I did hear that she likes to be called Sharp. Rare offers to make some lunch while we talk. I honestly don’t want to be alone in a room with Sharp whateverhernameis, so I follow Rare into the kitchen. Sharp follows a few steps behind me, and we sit at the table while Rarity starts making a salad.

“So, what do you do exactly?” I ask after a few seconds when it seems like Sharp would rather wait in the awkward silence for Rarity to come play mediator than just say whatever it is she came to say.

“You don’t pull any punches do you?” she snaps back. Her tone has just as much bite as mine.

“Why waste time acting like you’re here for an autograph or to braid my mane?” I retort and Rarity gives me that look that says I could at least pretend to have some manners. I roll my eyes at her. Then take a deep breath and try to find all of the patience and stuff I have to use with Wonderbolt fans after a bad show- when I really just want to find my way to the locker room and hot shower, but the bosses say I have to shake hooves and smile for the cameras. It’s a pretty thin act, but it will get Rarity to stop looking at me like that.

“Look,” I say to Sharp. “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to be rude. I just really don’t get why you’re here.”

Rare puts our salads on the table. I notice that mine is the only one with strawberries. Then she holds up a few bottles of juice for us to pick from. I pick grape. She opens the bottle and puts in a straw. Once we’re all squared away, she sits down.

Sharp takes a bite of her salad, then starts talking. She talks to Rares as much as she talks to me, which makes me think that she thinks we’re a couple. It makes me kinda happy that Rarity doesn’t correct her about it.

“Basically, I’m here for whatever you need,” she says in a surprisingly casual way. “You’ve already been through the worst, which, apart from the actual assault, is usually the physical exam and the initial interview. From what I hear though, your interview got totally botched, so you’re probably going to have to go in again. Even if they do everything perfectly the first time, they usually interview the victim at least twice. My job is to make sure you don’t freak out in an interview, and to make sure that the guards asking the questions don’t do anything to cause you anymore trauma, and to make sure that you don’t get yourself into any trouble by not dealing with what happened to you.”

“Not to be rude Ms. Sharp, but it seems a bit late for much of that, doesn’t it?” Rares asks.

“Yes and no,” Sharp answers noncommittally. “I can’t help with what’s already happened, but I can help going forward. I can put you in touch with the right ponies to get through this as few screw ups and extra pain as possible.”

I can’t decide if I like her or not. She’s a straight shooter, but it’s like she can’t decide if she’s trying to be my friend or my teacher. She seems like she knows what she’s doing, but she also seems like a pony with a cause. That’s cool, except I’m not a cause.

Plus, even though getting interviewed sucked, I don’t really like that she just made it sound like the guard ponies can’t be trusted.

“This is a long way from over,” she continues. “The public defender assigned to your case is notorious for blaming the victim. He’ll do just about anything to get his clients acquitted, even stupid things.”

“Yeah, we know,” I say in my duh tone of voice. She isn’t telling me anything I don’t know, and it’s bugging me. I know I’m being a pain in the flank, but I don’t know this pony. I don’t trust her, and I don’t like that she already knows so much about what happened to me when it’s none of her damn business.

Sharp looks down at her food, and her mouth kind of twitches like she wants to say something but keeps fighting it back.

“Perhaps you could tell us what your role might be in Rainbow’s case,” Rarity suggests in her polite, businesslike tone.

“Sure,” Sharp says gratefully. Rare just threw her a life raft, and she knows it. Her dark brown eyes settle on me and she says, “Honestly, I’m not sure how much you’re going to need me. If the news from the past few years is any indication, then you’ve got good friends. You’ve obviously got somepony taking great care of you.

“If they get anywhere with this turning the tables nonsense then you may need an attorney, but that doesn’t seem likely. At this point, I think you should call me if you get called in for questioning again. I also think it’d be a good idea to have me there anytime you go to court. I think you should start seeing a trauma counselor, and I think you should spend as much time outside as you can.”

The last thing seems weird. “Why?” I ask.

“Because you’re a pegasus. You usually spend most of your time off the ground, right?”

“Yeah, so?”

“So, every day you can’t be in the sky it’s going to get worse. Every time your basic biology tells you to just get away from all this shit and you can’t, you’re going to feel like he took even more from you. Go outside. Sit on the top of a hill and let the wind blow across your feathers. It will suck, but it will help. You also need to spend time alone.” Her eyes dart to Rarity and then back to me. “Pegasi are natural loners. They don’t bond the same way other ponies do, but after trauma they are by far the group most likely to lose themselves in co-dependent behaviors. When you’re ready you need to make sure you spend time alone and do things for yourself.”

The idea of being alone makes me see red. I can feel every hair on my body and every feather in my wings bristling. I hate being alone. I hated it before, and I hate it even more now. I hate being told that spending time with the one pony I feel ok being broken around is a bad thing. Why is everypony’s first answer to tell me to get away from Rarity? Plus, I hate being talked to like a pegasus instead of like a pony with my own brain.

“I think it’s time for you to go now,” Rarity says. Her tone is polite, but it’s obvious she’s kicking Sharp out of the house.

The tan pony doesn’t get up though. She just looks at me. “You don’t like what I have to say? That’s fine. You’ve got plenty of ponies around that can tell you all the things you want to hear. That’s not my job.

“Some ponies, I hold their hooves and I give them the facts when they can handle it. Some ponies, I tell everything upfront so they can make their own choices. You,” she points at me for extra emphasis, “have got to make choices.

“I know you don’t want me here, and that’s ok. I’ll go, and I won’t come back unless you think you need me. But, I’m not going to screw things up for you even worse by telling you lies.

“You think it’s bad now? Wait a week or a month, when the bruises are gone and you’ve got no excuse to hide in this pretty little house with your pretty little marefriend. Wait until you’re standing in a crowd of ponies, and they all know, and you can’t hide, and you can’t remember your own name. Get to counseling, Rainbow Dash, or when all that shit really hits the fan you’re going to flap your wings and fly away and your friends might never see you again.”

Rarity makes her leave after that. I sit hating that Sharp was right. I hate that I can still feel Mac’s hooves all over me pretty much every second of the day. I hate knowing that Fluttershy has a good point about the fact that I could hurt Rarity and myself without meaning to if I’m not careful about just doing whatever makes me feel better.

I really don’t want to make things worse for me or for Rarity by not dealing with stuff the way I need to, and I know Sharp was right about that part too. Pegasi suck at facing things like this head on. Twilight probably has some big historical reason for why that’s true. All I know is that I’ve seen it. Put most Pegasi in a battle situation, and they will either try to attack the problem until it surrenders or they will fly away. Very few will actually try to work through the problem and solve it. That’s a unicorn thing, figuring stuff out like that. Or an earth pony thing, working at a problem either until it wears down or until it just isn’t a problem anymore because times have changed.

Rare sits across from me when she gets back from showing Sharp to the door. We are both right on the edge of cracking, and I don’t know what to do about it. Everything feels too small and cramped all of the sudden. All of the problems that I don’t have answers for are right there, in my face telling me that it’s time to get away, but I don’t know how.

I don’t exactly understand what’s going on with Rares. I don’t get why figuring out that she just has to put on a magic show is making her look like she’s worried her next fashion show is going to fail.

I don’t get why there are ponies going after her or after Twilight. Or, why anypony in Canterlot cares about how the Princesses treat any of us. That’s political stuff that I just don’t care about. I never have.

I know that there were some ponies that got bugged when I was promoted to the Wonderbolts and even more that griped when I got made a lieutenant. They thought I got the spot because I was a friend of the Princesses and that sucked. Clearly, they just needed a chance to witness my awesomeness, because once I stopped making a fool of myself and just did my thing then they all shut up.

Now I wonder if they really did though. Or, if somepony was just in charge of making sure I didn’t hear about that shit anymore.

Rare clears her throat. I think maybe she just said something to me but I didn’t hear it. “Sorry,” I say sheepishly.

“It’s quite alright, darling.” She smiles knowingly. “You are understandably distracted. I was just mentioning that a walk might be nice. I feel as though we have spent quite enough time in the house for the time being. What do you think?”

“A walk sounds awesome!”

We don’t talk after that. We just get up and go. Rare leads us down the side street toward the meadow, then onto a path toward Sweet Apple Acres. It looks like Sweetie might use it once in awhile, but other than that it doesn’t get much traffic. It’s nice and quiet, and being outside feels good.

We stop for a minute, and Rare unwraps my wings so I can feel the breeze across my feathers. We don’t have to talk about it to know that the stupid advocate pony said some things that were right.

I slowly stretch my wings and carry them out for a while. Everything feels really sore and tender at first, but after a few minutes, it’s not so bad. Plus, having my wings up like that means Rares can tuck under one of them and we can walk with our sides touching. When I get tired, I put the one wing away and just let the other rest on her back. If it bugs her, she doesn’t say anything. So, I leave it there.

We walk around Sweet Apple Acres for a while. We aren’t anywhere close to where they’re planting, so there’s really no chance of running into anypony. The section they’ve set aside this year for the vampire fruit bats runs along one side and a field they haven’t planted in a while along the other. It’s a nice day. Nothing fancy. The sun is warm, but not hot.

The pony in charge of the clouds probably just let them go without doing anything to them, which is fine. Cloud release is actually one of my favorite jobs. All it takes is an extra few minutes, and I can make formations that look cool for miles. Sometimes I’ll make shapes, then go to the park to listen to the kids with their moms to see if they can guess the shapes right. And of course, I always pick out the day’s best cloud and set it aside for my nap.

After a while, Rares pulls us over to a grassy spot and lays down. I follow her, always close enough to keep my wing on her back. She kinda snuggles into me like she did last night, and I put my head on her back again. Even though we lay like that for a long time, I know she isn’t asleep. I wish she was, but I get why she’s not. There’s too much going on. Too much happened this morning that needs to be thought through, and Rarity is the kind of pony that thinks through things by actually thinking instead of napping.

It’s weird that we aren’t talking. Rarity talks about everything. She talks so much sometimes that I want to puke. Not now. Now, whatever she’s got going on in her head she’s keeping to herself. Maybe that’s because she feels like I’ve already got enough to deal with and maybe it’s because I’ve never been one of the ponies she talks to about stuff like that. Even with everything that’s happened, maybe that’s one part of our dynamic that hasn’t changed, which actually makes me feel bad. It’s my fault she’s in this mess. I want to help her out if I can.

I wonder what she’s going to have to do for her test thing. Maybe it will be some kind of obstacle course or something. That would be cool. Maybe Luna has some old school magic trial they used to use for unicorn warriors or something.

With all the stuff that’s going on, and with the way Celestia made it sound like there are a lot of ponies in Canterlot that want to see one of us in trouble for something, I’m kind of surprised they haven’t come to arrest Rarity yet. I wonder if they’re going to put her under house arrest or something. Or, if that would just make things worse because it would seem like more preferential treatment.

I can’t decide if I think her career could really be over because of this, or if she’ll be able to turn it into a good thing. If anypony can flip it around like that, it’s Rarity. She’s a fucking hero, why does her career have to be over because of that?

Even though my eyes are already closed, I feel sleepiness start to settle like little weights on the ends of my eyelashes. I fall asleep because thinking about everything and not getting anywhere is overwhelming. I know she isn’t ok. I know I’m not ok. I know that Twilight and Fluttershy aren’t ok. Applejack isn’t alright either. And, if all of us are this messed up, then there’s no way Pinkie is ok. But, I don’t know how to help with any of that, so I let myself drift off and hope that I don’t get stuck in another freak out when I wake up.

I half expect to wake up in her bed, but I don’t. We’re still bedded down in the tall grass. She’s awake, tucked under my pathetic excuse for a wing, watching the clouds going by.

“You wanna talk about it?” I ask groggily.

“Hmm?” She looks down at me for a second then shakes her head. “There’s nothing to talk about, Rainbow, but thank you for asking.” The words are too controlled. Her voice is just a little too tight. I recognize the tone of voice. It’s the one she uses when she wants to talk, but it’s not the right time or not the right pony. I never noticed before how often she’s used that voice on me.

“Thanks for doing it,” I say, because I need her to know that even though I’m not worth what she’s going through I’m still grateful. “Thanks for saving me.”

“You don’t ever need to thank me, Rainbow,” she says.

I turn on my side and pull her into a hug. She buries her muzzle in my chest, and I’m not sure if she’s crying or not.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“I’m not,” she answers easily and confidently. She relaxes just a little, and I think she’s going to pull away, but she doesn’t. She just rolls a little bit so we’re both more comfortable while I hold her close. “I’d do it again in a heartbeat, Rainbow, without hesitation. Regardless of all the rest. I’m only sorry I couldn’t do more. I’m sorry I didn’t get there sooner.”

“Thanks,” I say, and just lay like that for a while. I catch a glimpse of her hooves, which are still all torn up from her rockhounding trip. “You should do something about those.” I reach over and almost tap one of her forehooves with my own.

She just shrugs a little and says in a totally unconvincing way, “Oh, they aren’t so bad.”

“Whatever. You look like you let a baby manticore gnaw on your hooves. Let’s take a trip to the spa.”

Her eyes go from cloudy to bright in an instant. “Would you mind?” she asks, barely able to hide how much she likes the idea.

“Nah.” I shrug. “It might be nice. If we can avoid seeing anypony. Know anypony that can talk the twins into setting us up in a private room or something?”

And just like that, we’re up and heading toward the spa. I started going on my own a long time ago. When I made the Wonderbolt reserves, one of the trainers told me to find a good massage therapist so that I could recover from workouts faster. Aloe is probably one of the best sports massage ponies in Equestria. I just didn’t need anypony to know that I was into being pampered. Though, if they really thought about it, it isn’t much of a stretch. What’s more pampered than sleeping on a cloud?

We stick to the same basic route back to Ponyville, but once we get close to town I remember that it’s the middle of the afternoon on a weekend and I look like I got raped. Rares does the touch up magic thing on both of us, so we look better than perfect except for the thin spots in my wings. She says it won’t last long, but I don’t know if I believe her anymore. From what Celestia, Luna, and Twilight were saying, Rarity might be on her way to being the next most magical unicorn in Equestria, now that Twi got herself promoted to alicorn.

We take a big breath and hit the street. It’s like walking from Town Hall to the hospital all over again. Main street is our red carpet and we are working it. We look awesome. We act awesome. We know that everypony is talking about us, but we don’t care. She giggles, and I do the Wonderbolt smile. We ignore the whispers and the sideways glances. I still have a wing resting on her back, but it’s the opposite side from our walk to Sweet Apple Acres. Rarity said that she didn’t want me to be unevenly stretched or something.

By the time we get to the spa, I think we’re both about to crack again. Putting on a show like that is exhausting, especially when everypony already knows something really bad happened. Maybe putting on the show is pointless, but this is one of those things that Rare and I actually agree on. It doesn’t matter what ponies think they know, it matters what it feels like they can know. And if we don’t let them see how messed up we are, then there’s no way they can actually know how bad it is, which is how we like it. We’re way too awesome for other ponies to know that we get messed up, just like them.

It’s like the twins knew we were coming. They have a room all ready for us. It isn’t huge, but it’s plenty. Rares asked me on the way here if I was ok with the twins knowing what happened. I’m pretty sure all of Ponyville already knows, but I said I don’t mind anyway. Aloe and Lotus are good ponies.

I see it in their eyes the second Rares drops the magic. They look at me, and I know that they already knew. They just know for sure now. They each ask to hug me and I let them. They’re quick about it, which I appreciate. They hug Rare too. They don’t ask about her bruises, but they notice them and try not to look at me.

“Night terrors suck,” I mumble with a shrug. There’s an awkward pause and an awkward laugh. We move on.

I thought coming here would help, but Rares is still on edge. I’m sure I’ve seen her like this before, but I can’t remember when. Probably because I wasn’t paying attention then. It’s weird to think about how little I’ve paid attention to her over the years. We’ve been friends for a long time. We’ve saved each other’s lives more than once. I know a lot about her, but I feel like I don’t really know her. I’m not the one that pays attention to stuff like that. Anypony else in our group might know what to do for her or understand what’s going on with her, but I don’t get it and I don’t feel like it’s a good idea to ask.

The other hard thing is that she’s still being so damn Rarity right now. She’s smiling and chatting about stupid stuff that doesn’t matter. She’s talking about how wonderful it feels to be here, and she means it, but everypony knows she’s hiding something.

Aloe and Lotus keep trading glances and then looking at me like I’m supposed to know what to do, but the truth is, listening to her ramble on about nothing is kinda comforting for me. It’s normal. It gives me permission to tune out. Even though it kind of bugs me that Rare is still putting on the show, I really don’t want to ask her to stop or to explain things to me right now. It’s probably the total wrong thing to do, but for now I want to just stick to the program and let her act like we’re here because we just got back from some Friendship thing.

It really is a bad idea. I’m sitting too still. It’s taking too long. I have too much space. Rarity is too far away to distract me. I can feel the memories creeping out of my muscles. I can always feel the weight on me, but it’s the difference between somepony resting there hoof on my flank and feeling a huge, hot, heavy brand slamming down around the cutie mark and ripping me apart just beneath the skin. It’s not like they ever really go away, but right now it feels like they are being drawn to the surface by the stillness and the awkward tension in the room. I want to escape the weirdness, but the only option my body is giving me for escape is a nightmare.

I try to focus on Rarity. The more treatments she does though, and the more she acts like there’s nothing really wrong, and the angrier I get. All the anger connected to my cuts and bruises and broken wings flows toward that stupid, beautiful unicorn for no other reason than because she’s acting like everything is normal when everything is not normal. She’s supposed to be relaxing, not putting on a show.

Part of me gets it. I do it too. I was right there with her on the way here. I put on my Wonderbolt smile, and I tell the world I’m awesome and hope nopony notices that I’m totally freaking out. She’s not supposed to do that- especially not right now. That fucking prissy smile is driving me bat-shit crazy right now, and I have to bite my tongue so I don’t yell at her that I need her to make me feel better and she’s doing a shitty job.

I don’t like being mad her though, so I force myself to really think about it. I’m mad at myself; not Rarity. I know she doesn’t deserve it. I get why she doesn’t want to talk about the real stuff with Aloe and Lotus. She’s probably trying to protect me or something. If I wasn’t here maybe she’d open up and let the twins help her think through all of the stuff, but she can’t because she doesn’t want me to hear how bad it is.

I’m mad that I can see it now. I can see her struggling. I can hear the things she isn’t saying because she won’t share any real pain with these ponies. And I know that if I’d paid even a little more attention, then I would have seen it before. The part of me that doesn’t want to yell at her wants to tell her that I’m sorry for being a shitty friend, and I love her, and I’ll do better now.

When we’re finished, I honestly don’t remember what all we had done. I definitely spent some time in a hot tub and got a hooficure (which was weird), because those were the things I could have done without causing problems. Aloe cried, because she was going to try to give me a massage but thought she might hurt me or make things worse. Then she was going to do something to my wings, but she said they already looked as good as they possibly could. So, she just sent us with some stuff to help the new feathers grow in and stop the itching. She said wrapping them was the best thing for them until I can fly again.

The walk back to The Boutique sucks. I’m still mad and guilty. It feels like something bad is going to happen the second we walk through the door of The Boutique, and when we do the place still feels too small. I’m not home. I don’t know what to do with myself. I need a minute, but Rarity is right there. I want to talk to her, but I don’t know what to say. I didn’t realize it, but I’m suddenly I’m hit over the head with the fact that I’ve been feeling helpless and useless a lot today.

I wander into the workroom and plop on my favorite fainting couch, just because I don’t know what else to do. There’s nowhere else to go.

“I’m sorry,” she says quietly leaning against the door frame. It doesn’t matter that her coat and mane and hooves look perfect, she still looks like crap. She looks tired and beat up, like she’s about to cry or start wailing on somepony.

“Huh?”

“I apologize for today.”

“Why?” I’m honestly confused. I mean, I’ve been grumpy and messed up, but she has no way of knowing that. I didn’t say anything.

“I feel as though I’ve been rather selfish today- toting you along and asking you to keep up appearances with me. Thank you for that by the way. I know it’s exhausting.”

It takes my brain a minute to catch up, but that’s all it takes to make my anger go away, and kill the feeling that something bad is going to happen. I didn’t think she’d notice that I was off. I thought I’d tried to keep it to myself, but she’s Rarity. She sees everything, and it makes me feel better. I don’t think she was always like that. She definitely didn’t see everything when Fluttershy was modeling, but Shy’s also a lot better at hiding shit than I am.

“What happened?” I ask.

It wasn’t supposed to be a hard question. I’m not mad anymore, and I’m not trying to blame her for anything. I know she’s tired. I just want to understand what’s been going on all day, but she’s struggling to answer. The second I ask, her face immediately looks like the Rarity I’ve always known. Then, it’s like she remembers that I asked her not to hide things from me anymore and she starts forcing the mask away. I never thought Rarity of all ponies would have a hard time talking about herself. It’s kinda sad to watch.

I start to get up. I want to go to her. I don’t know if I want to hug her or what, but the space between us feels wrong. She waves me off. “Don’t trouble yourself, Dashie. I’m alright,” she says. It sounds like she's trying not to cry.

“Shut up, Marshmallow,” I say ignoring the lame attempt. “I'm going to hug you. You're going to like it, and it's going to make us both feel better. Then you're going to make tea, and explain this day to me so I can understand it. When that's over you're going to work for a while and I'm going to make dinner. K?”

I'm standing in front of her when I finish. I don't know where that all came from, but I'm guessing from the look on her face that it was the right thing to say. There are tears in her eyes that she doesn’t try to blink away. She nods, and we meet in a hug.