Something Sweet

Rainbow Dash awoke peacefully, slowly rising from the plush cushion of her cloud-like bed. As she slipped out of bed and into the mostly blue room surrounding her, thoughts regarding the events of the previous evening began to re-assemble in her awakening mind. What possible conflicts awaited her today?

It very well could have been because she was tired and not quite yet thinking straight, but strangely enough she could only think of one thing.

After eating a quick breakfast, Rainbow Dash had stretched her wings and soon found herself making her way out of her room and embarking on a new flight on her way to Ponyville. Though she hadn’t taken note of the exact time it had been when she left the house, she could see that it was unusually early, as she observed from the dimly-lit, gray-tinted sky that had not yet been brightened by the sun. The flight was quick and effortless, or at least it seemed so in the moments she spent gliding by, her mind only occupied by a few small thoughts here and there. She honestly wasn’t sure how she had woken up so early in the first place, as there usually was nothing that compelled her to do so until the nonstop screeching and rattling of a particular alarm clock gave her no other choice. But since she had some spare time, she did what her own thoughts compelled her to do.

Soon she the un-crowded town square of Ponyville came into view below the pegasus mare, and she continued flying for a little while until the landscape cleared of trees and buildings a good deal. Looking quite regal standing alone in the vast field of grass was the ever so elegant Carousel Boutique. Rainbow Dash began to descend toward the soft ground beneath, then made a smooth landing as she reached her destination. The Carousel Boutique was not far before her, and she approached the building with haste. After last night, she had realized the importance of making things right to this unicorn she had wronged such a while ago. She was tired of feeling so lonesome and, as of recently, ignored. She needed things to be the way they had been back then, instead of having this awkward soft of silence enveloping them whenever the two ponies met. Once again, they needed to be… friends.

At the very least, she added quickly in her thoughts.

She swung the door open carefully this time, so as not to make too much of a noisy disturbance in Rarity’s diligent work. But when she saw the room that surrounded her, Rarity was not working like usual. At least, not the way Rainbow Dash had often seen her. Instead she sat, without her typical perfect posture, at a large wooden desk, staring down at a large piece of sketching paper that was spread out before her. Though her face held an expression that seemed to be one of concern, she didn’t seem to be focused on the paper at all. That could be part of why it was blank, despite the pencil she held at the ready with her horn’s magical blue aura. After taking a moment more to sit still and stare blankly despite the doorbell having rung seconds ago, she reluctantly raised her head to look toward the awaiting pegasus who stood in her doorway.

“Oh, hello there, Rainbow Dash,” she said, rising from her seat and beginning to trot forward with a fake-looking smile. “What might you be here for today?”

“Well, um…” Rainbow Dash began, glancing at the floor for a second and rubbing her foreleg. “I just wanted to say I’m sorry for just running out of your boutique a few weeks ago when I came to visit. That was really rude of me. Definitely not cool.”

Rarity blinked. She stared. Unknown to Rainbow Dash, her mind began to wander. That strange event had happened so many weeks ago. It was supposed to have been forgotten, yet evidently it wasn’t. Sure, it was certainly a strange happening from what she had heard from Sweetie Belle, so it could be expected that Rainbow Dash would want to apologize for something that caused such confusion to a hopefully good friend of hers. But it was done and over with, so they were supposed to move on, weren’t they? Why was it being mentioned now?

Though she had many questions buzzing around her head, Rarity realized she had to quickly give some sort of response to her friend. And though she would have loved to ask a question with the possibility of receiving a more meaningful explanation for all of this, there were just too many things she needed to ask about. The more she tried to think of something simple to ask, the more questions emerged from that one inquiry. So instead, with little thinking, she blurted out something too simple to possibly cause further confusion. “Oh, that’s okay, Rainbow Dash.” She tried to think of something to add on to that, reassuring her that it was understandable for her friend to suddenly leave the way she had, but then again no sensible explanation could be found for such actions.

“Is that all she had to say?” thought Rainbow Dash with much confusion. She had honestly expected more of a response from Rarity. Wasn’t she at all interested in why Rainbow Dash had run off with no explanation? Wasn’t she going to ask about it? Part of her was hoping that she would ask something, anything. Maybe expecting the fashion pony to be more talkative in this situation was a huge misjudgment. Perhaps she really didn’t know Rarity after all.

“Well, I guess that’s all I really had to say,” said the pegasus with the multicolored mane, who slowly began to turn toward the direction of the door once again. “Please, please, please, ask me something, anything. I need to talk to you about this. I need to feel that this has really been resolved.”

But despite Rainbow Dash’s desperate mental pleading, Rarity made no such response. Instead she stood, dumbfounded though not showing it, attempting to somehow decipher what might have been going on in the mind of the troubled mare before her, but to no result other than the further confusion of herself. As Rainbow Dash began to inch toward the door, the only sound that Rarity was able to utter was an unusually lackluster “bye”. Her friend gave a small smile, swung the door open and exited.

The door shut quietly behind her.

Rainbow Dash stood outside the Boutique a few moments longer, dwelling upon what had just happened (or rather, what had not just happened) before deciding to just move on and go home. Though not satisfied with the response she’d gotten from Rarity, she had better things to do than mope about it. At least she had done her best to apologize; there really wasn’t much else to do about it at the moment. She spread her wings out and was about to begin a new flight, when something in the distance caught her eye. But it wasn’t something, it was somepony. As she soon realized, there was a white unicorn with a wide smile bounding along in the direction of the building Rainbow Dash had just exited. And the expression on the unknown pony’s face almost made Rainbow Dash want to smile, too, because although she did not realize at first, she vaguely recognized this short-maned mare. After all, no matter how distant a friend may be, aren't they always a welcoming sight for those who are feeling lost?

Well, Rainbow Dash was at least experiencing a somewhat comforting sight. But the eager, lavender-maned filly named Sweetie Belle didn't focus her eyes toward the path before her to see the mare standing in the distance until she came so close to the brilliantly blue pegasus that she was scarcely a bound away from colliding with Rainbow Dash. Luckily, she stopped in her tracks just before that could happen.

"Woah! Rainbow Dash!" she exclaimed. "Sorry, I almost bumped into you! Why didn't you tell me you were standing there?"

Rainbow Dash couldn't help but giggle at the outburst of this suddenly startled mare. "I figured you'd notice me here sooner or later," she replied almost smugly. "I guess it turned out to be later."

"Well, I didn't really expect you to be hanging out outside Rarity's house. Can you blame me?"

"Yeah, you're right..." Rainbow Dash glanced sideways with a painful look, suddenly recalling those few days so long before that she had spent with her old "plan". Winning Rarity's heart had been such an unlikely feat for the talented flyer that it had proven to be almost impossible. She sighed as she absentmindedly continued. "Guess I don't give Rarity much attention, do I?"

Noting the discouraged tone in the pegasus's voice, Sweetie Belle immediately expressed concern. "Aw, I'm sure it's not your fault. You're a good pony. You do what you can. But Rarity doesn't always want to hang out with other ponies. You're just... different, that's all." She smiled, and Rainbow Dash couldn't help but admire her abundant sympathy.

"I guess it's different, though."

"...Different?"

"I..." Rainbow Dash's voice trailed off. She didn't know where to begin. Maybe the best place to begin was the start. But the question then was, would Sweetie Belle really understand all she was told if she was told everything?

Would it be worth it? She wondered. Rainbow knew she had to talk  to someone about what had been bothering her sooner or later. She couldn't just keep it bottled up inside, especially since she didn't know what to do about all of it. And there was no one else to talk to, or at least no one who would understand the way Sweetie Belle would.

Rainbow Dash could tell even after such a short time of knowing Sweetie Belle that there was something in her that made her just...different from the others, so different from her friends she had known so long. It had always been true that Twilight, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Applejack would listen to what you said, but Sweetie Belle would take every word you said and treat it as if it were a fragment of some work of art, showing her endless empathy by solving the problems so simply, and yet so flawlessly. There was just so much feeling in everything she did. She wasn't a super smart kind of pony like Twilight. But she knew that Rainbow Dash mattered as a pony, even being a pony Sweetie Belle hadn't known for very long, and that was what made Rainbow Dash feel so special. Sweetie Belle had something...something that Rainbow Dash couldn't define, that she might even say she admired.

"It's kind of a long story, but... if you wouldn't mind staying to listen... " Rainbow Dash looked up from briefly staring at the ground and noticed that Sweetie Belle still stood not far before her, looking straight into her eyes. There were no words spoken from the white-furred unicorn's mouth. She simply stared knowingly, as if to say "I'm here to listen--go on".

It was time for the truth to be spilled. Rainbow Dash began, bracing herself for the worst.. "I know it sounds stupid, but I've been visiting so much because... I wanted to be Rarity's marefriend. I... I've been alone for years ever since my old girlfriend left me... You see, she was a good friend of mine ever since we met way back in flight school." Rainbow Dash had broken her stare with Sweetie Belle to gaze up at the sky for a moment of pensive nostalgia. "And she was never bad to me, either. She was always there when I needed her, so when she asked to be my girlfriend, I couldn't help but accept. I don't know what happened, really, but one day, we just..."

Rainbow Dash's voice cracked, and she quickly turned her head away from Sweetie Belle to hide the tears that enveloped her eyes as she recalled the memory of the very moment she lost her dear Gilda. It had never occurred to her how long ago the painful event had actually happened, since she had hid it away in the back of her mind for all those years. To think that all of those years Gilda hadn't been replaced by Twilight Sparkle, or Pinkie Pie, or even Rarity! But of course, Gilda simply couldn't be replaced. After all, she was the one who had spent every day by her side, the one who laughed with her during good times and helped her through the bad, the one she could talk to about anything... but then Rainbow Dash had made that one mistake and thrown it all away.

“Rainbow Dash, I do love you. I think you’re rad, and geez, I gotta say I adore everything you do. But it’s not just that. I care for you with all my heart. I would do anything for you, and I don’t know if you know that. I want you to understand how I feel, but I don’t know if you ever will. Can you ever really understand, Rainbow Dash? Have you ever known how it feels to truly love someone?”

Those words were some of the last words that Gilda had said to Rainbow Dash before the fiercely loyal griffon finally left her side forever. They were also the few lonely words that had refused to leave Rainbow Dash’s mind for the past few days.

"One day, we started talking and... she asked me if I loved her. I said of course I did, but she didn't think I understood. She kept trying to tell me that what she felt was different from what I thought it was. It seemed like she was really worried about it. I told her it was fine, but from then on, it wasn't the same, and... we just started to drift apart... "

The two mares stood there in silence for a few moments afterwards, looking at the ground and glancing around occasionally, just taking in the conversation that had partially unfolded. Then Sweetie Belle looked up at Rainbow Dash once again. There was now a serious sort of look on her face, but a warm and understanding expression within her eyes, one that at the same time one seemed to plead for an answer to a question that was yet to reveal itself.

And then it did reveal itself. In a soft voice, she asked,

"Was it true?"

Rainbow Dash's opened her mouth, struggling to find the words to reply. She had to swallow before finally continuing, though her voice quivered slightly. "W-was what true?"

"Did you love Gilda?"

There it was again. It was something Sweetie Belle did that none of Rainbow Dash's ever seemed to be able to do, and she had just done it for the second time since Rainbow Dash had met her. Somehow, she could say one almost painfully simple sentence that made Rainbow Dash rethink everything that she thought she had been so sure about for the past few weeks. Sweetie Belle gave Rainbow Dash a new perspective on things, opening up her eyes to things she never had even considered before. It was as if she had some special vision that made unseen things suddenly visible, like a sort of magic that she didn't need her horn to use.

And suddenly, Rainbow Dash wanted to know how this magic worked.

She wanted to know how Sweetie Belle worked these wonders that changed her world. She wanted to take a look into Sweetie Belle's mind, to see how she thought these fascinating things. She needed to know how this unicorn could understand so many ponies without even really knowing them.

Rainbow Dash wanted answers.

But of course, she knew Sweetie Belle still awaited an answer for her own. So to let her work her magic, she told her what she needed to know.

And that was...

"I don't know."