Her head throbbing, the mare shook a tuft of her multi-colored mane out of her eye. She looks around briefly as her eyes adjust to the light. At least this time, she was waking up to the light. Rainbow Dash recalled the nightmare she just had. She had awoken in a dark room. Her friend was there, wearing a coat made from the cutie marks of other ponies. And that might be the “friendliest” bit of the entire scenario. Dash could still feel the excruciating pain that was inflicted on her, all while Pinkie Pie kept up her jolly demeanor.
Dash arose to figure out how she got where she was. Or she would have, if she wasn’t tied down. Panicked, she glanced around the room. Her eyesight was still blurry, but she could see a pink blob coming towards her. This only caused her to panic more. “That was only a dream,” she thought, “it couldn’t have been a premonition, could it?”
“Oh thank Celestia, you’re awake!” exclaimed the ever-excited voice of Pinkie Pie. “I was really worried about you, after I gave you that cupcake to taste test, you kinda fell to the floor and started twitching. I can only guess it was that special ingredient that I bought from some strange pony in the alley behind the grocery I think it was some kind of farmer’s market,, he told me that it would make everything really fun and it was kind of expensive but I figured that the more expensive it was, the more fun it must be so I bought a bunch of it and made that sample cupcake for you but after I saw what it did to you I tried to take the bowl of mix back to that guy but I couldn’t find him so I threw it all out!”
Dash tried to flee, but her bindings were tight. She couldn’t even move her wings. “Pinkie, what’s going on?” Her eyes were watering. She wasn’t even trying to hide her fear. Anypony would be scared after waking from a nightmare like that to find themselves tied down. “Why do you have me tied down?”
Her vision was still slowly coming back into focus, but she was looking right at Pinkie. The first thing that became clear was her pink mane, draped over the side of her face, straightened. Dash had seen this once before. No, twice. The Pinkie she saw in her dream had the same hairstyle.
“You were thrashing about, screaming. You broke a few things. I was worried that you were going to hurt yourself or someone or run around town so I tied you down while I went to find that pony to complain about his ingredient! But since you seem to be all better now, let me take those off of you!” As she turned to the table across the room, Dash let out a small sigh of relief. She shouldn’t have even considered that Pinkie Pie was some kind of homicidal mass-murderer. Nothing like that’s happened in all of Equestria for several millennia. She lays her head down, relaxing as she turns to see Pinkie standing over her, knife held tightly in her hoof.
Pinkie was wondering if the issues caused by the cupcake were still messing with her friend, as Dash just started screaming and thrashing about. “If you don’t hold still, you’re going to get cut!” Dash froze, tears welling up in her eyes. Pinkie placed the knife on the rope near Dash’s hindquarters, directly over her cutie mark. As she sliced through the rope, Dash’s flailing caused her to slip, making a small incision just above the rainbow bolt, the crimson blood dripping down the white cloud. “Oh no, we need to get that treated right away! I think the Cakes keep a first aid kit in the kitchen, I’ll be right back!” She found the kit easily, and grabbed it by the handle with her mouth. To her surprise, upon reentering the room, all that was in there were some torn ropes and a small bit of blood on the sheet. The curtains blew into the room, courtesy of the now-open window, where rain was starting to pour inwards. A sadness filled her heart, she wanted the day to be special, just her and Rainbow Dash. She didn’t expect something like this to happen. Maybe it just wasn’t meant to be...
Rainbow Dash knew she had to escape. She wasn’t going to die today. And especially not at the hands of her “friend.” She wondered how long Pinkie had been planning this. She wondered how many others had fallen at her hands. She didn’t know how far she’d have to run, but she would never be caught. Unfortunately, in her hurry to escape, she had forgotten about the gash in her leg. She must have aggravated the wound badly, because her body seized up, and she tumbled down to the ground. She felt a cracking as she crashed, one she was familiar with. She’s broken her wing before, but never during a time she was fleeing. The rainclouds were getting thicker, she had forgotten that there was a heavy rainfall scheduled for tonight. The sky was darker than usual, the mix of heavy rainclouds, mixed with the night. She didn’t land in one of the main roads either. She was entirely incapacitated. If no one was near, this might be the way her life truly ends.
Dash called out a few times, but she was getting weak. The Winter Wrap-Up had just been celebrated, but there was still a chill to the night wind. She was freezing, and she could tell her voice made Fluttershy sound like a rock star. As her eyes got heavier, she started to resign herself to her fate. She couldn’t stay awake. She wouldn’t live through the night.
She wouldn’t be able to warn her friends about Pinkie Pie.
She represented the element of Loyalty, and she started crying because she felt as if she had just betrayed her friends. No, all of Ponyville.
Rainbow Dash closed her eyes. She felt something bite on her tail. “Probably the first animal that will have a feast tonight. Taste the rainbow, little guy.” It was only after a few seconds that she realized that whatever was biting her had a very soft bite. She then heard a familiar voice, calling out her name, through heavy sobbing.
“Rainbow Dash!” cried the pink pony, her entire body soaked by the rainwater. She turned the corner that Gummy went down, and saw the gator attached to the rainbow-colored tail. She hurried to Dash’s side, and nudged her. She got no response. She knew she couldn’t carry Dash far by herself, and she also knew that her friend may not last much longer, not in the condition she was in. Pinkie knew she had to act fast. A squeaky hinge squealed through the alley, leading to an empty shed.
She managed to pull Dash into the shed. She opened the first aid kit, and was quite happy to find out that the Cakes tended to overprepare for anything. It had more than just medical needs in it. She lit one of the matches, and found an old oil lamp on a shelf. She set it down in front of Dash. She collected a small cup of rainwater, and heated it up, and helped Dash to drink it. A blanket from the kit would be just the thing she needed, and quickly placed it over her friend. She cleaned and bandaged the wound on Dash’s flank, and made a makeshift splint for her wing. By the time she finished, the cold was starting to cause Pinkie to weaken. Knowing she did everything in her power, she lay next to Dash and let herself slip into unconsciousness.
It would be a few hours before Rainbow Dash woke up, and even then, she was quite weak and in severe pain. She wasn’t cold though. She lifted her head, and heard a soft whimpering next to her. Dash was too weak to panic, so she just listened. Pinkie was talking in her sleep. It sounded like she was scared of something. Was she having a bad dream...?
“No Dash...please...don’t run...today was supposed to be the day...the day I tell you that ...I love you...what happened...?” A tear rolled down her cheek, leaving a trail from a dark blue arc under her eye. Dash was confused, the only blue that Pinkie had on her was in her cutie mark. She used her wing to brush the the tuft of hair that had been covering Pinkie’s eye since Dash woke up, and got her first glimpse of the heavy bruise, looking like it hadn’t even had a chance to be relieved at all.
She recalled what was said after she woke up: “You were thrashing about, screaming. You broke a few things. I was worried that you were going to hurt yourself or someone or run around town so I tied you down...”
“I was worried that you were going to hurt yourself or someone...”
“...worried that you were going to hurt...someone...”
Dash’s eyes widened. Why didn’t Pinkie say anything? She was trying so hard to hide it. But she remembered what was just said: “...I love you...”
Determination coursed through the pegasus’s body. “You ARE going to tell me that. I’m sorry I hurt you, and I WILL make up for this.” She weakly tried to push herself up, but the pain from her wing continued to course through her entire body, coupled with the chilling water that she was soaked in,, making the effort futile.
She tried a few more times, but the effort she put forth made her body feel worse than ever, and she finally fell to the ground a last time. Her breathing was becoming a chore. She lays her head down, close to her friend’s ear. She wasn’t sure that Pinkie would be able to hear her, her voice was so weak, but she knew she had to say something.
“I’m sorry, Pinkie Pie. I’ve failed you, I couldn’t even get us help. All you wanted to do today was say one thing to me, and I’ve probably managed to kill both of us. But...if you can hear me...I...I...lo...”
A tear fell from her eye. She had lost her voice. She couldn’t tell Pinkie how she felt. She slowly raised her head, and used the last of her energy to kiss her on the cheek, and let her head fall next to Pinkie’s. As her eyes would close for the final time, a gust of wind blew out the lantern.
A white light filled her vision. Dash had seen this many times before. She once heard that the first thing you’d see upon death’s embrace. She also heard that the Ponyville Hospital was going to name a wing after her. As her eyes adjusted to the sunshine coming through the window, she brushed a bit of her pink mane off her cheek. She thought to herself that she had just had another dream. She pushed the pink hair off of her face again. She never remembered her hair being this irritating before. She closed her eyes again. She was still exhausted. She never wanted to sleep so much.
But she’d been having such weird dreams lately. First the dream where she was killed, and then the dream where she heard Pinkie Pie say she loves her and they both near about die? What kind of dream would she have next? As she stretched, she took a big yawn, only to chomp down on the uncooperative pink hair.
“Stupid hair, can’t you act like the other seven colors and just stay where you are all the time!? Red, orange, yellow, blue, green, indigo, violet, all seven of those never move!”
It took a moment for Rainbow Dash to realize that pink wasn’t in her spectrum.
She followed the strand of hair to its owner, noticing the tear-filled eyes of Pinkie Pie look at her.
“I’m sorry, Dashie. I just wanted to have a special day, just the two of us. If I’d known all of this would’ve happened...” The tears started falling harder.
“Hey, don’t cry.” Dash put her arm around her friend. “I don’t like it when you’re sad.” Pinkie sniffled. “Why don’t we have another day for just the two of us? Preferably one that doesn’t involve baking. Since, you know, I’m terrible at it.”
A smile crossed the earth pony’s face. She nodded.
“Now, did you have something you wanted to tell me?”