I Miss You Dashie

Three months. Three whole months. It takes me three months to finally stop crying. When I finally decide to show up to work, I was drawn back and reserved. I ended up losing my job, and found another. I won’t go into the details, but it was not pleasant.

After work one Wednesday, I felt like walking again. I took the usual route and ended up going to the old park where Dashie used to fly around. I just barely can say her name anymore. Just thinking about her evokes too much emotion. I saw the old tree on the way home, the one where we reunited the first time. I realized then that what happened there could never be repeated,and I began to sob. Big, heaving, uncontrollable sobs. I tried to control myself, and I managed to stagger home. I sat down on the couch and stared. What I was staring at, I was unsure. Her recliner, her old room that now functioned as an office, the television. The television has been playing Nascar for three days straight. I can’t even bear changing the channel, like she wouldn't want me to.

My house is a mess. The wide open space around the house feels empty and isolated now, like I truly am alone in the world once again. During my three month dormancy, my mother’s painting was eaten by moths. I tried to save it, but it was much too late. I even lost my mother. I began to sink back into my good old routine depression. Once, in a fit of rage, I smashed the potted plant that Celestia put in the office that was Dashie’s room. In the soil was a small, red, lightning bolt-shaped jewel, like the one in the Element of Loyalty from the show, and I placed it on the nightstand in my room.

I started walking twice, three times a day. I didn’t really care who saw me. As I walked by, I kept staring at that tree. The tree was wilting, just in time for fall. The thick leaves have fallen off of the old tree, and as I sat under its bare branches, it could no longer could protect me from the cold, stinging rain like it used to all those years ago.

‘Heh,’ I think to myself, ‘I wonder what she is doing right now...’ That one thought was all it took. I ended up crying on the sidewalk. “WHY? I can’t even focus anymore! My daughter! My little Dashie! Oh God, or Celestia, or whoever is out there, why!?!”

‘Oh, God, my head hurts.’

Rainbow Dash woke up six hours after Celestia and the Mane Six brought her to Equestria. Fluttershy was sleeping on the floor next to her. Fluttershy woke up, stretched her wings, and smiled at Rainbow. Rainbow Dash didn’t know why, but she smiled back. Pinkiepie came bounding in, her face screaming love and tolerance.

“Dashie!” said Pinkiepie, her smile stretching wide, “I was worried for a minute! Do you still recogn-”

Pinkiepie quickly shut up and looked around quickly, a look of concern on her face. She seemed worried, like she said something she shouldn't have.

‘Ow,’ thought Rainbow Dash, wincing in pain. She had a brief flashback, a hazy picture of something above her. It had something like a face on a head-like structure. It looked like she was in a cardboard box. A word she did not recognize popped in her head. ‘Human’. Is that what that thing was?

Coming back to reality, she asked how long she was asleep.

Fluttershy said, “About six hours. Why?”

“I just felt like it was a lot longer, that’s all.”

Two Months Later

Rainbow Dash had felt weird lately, but she had to go manage the clouds.As her daily duties continued, she kept having constant headaches, but her bullheadedness kept her from going to the hospital. She also kept having flashes of something, another world, different from Equestria.

A human holding her in his arms.

A room with a television showing race cars.

Rainbow sitting in a large recliner.

A beautiful painting on the wall.

A bed and a nightstand.

A room filled with Nascar posters.

The man calling her “Dashie”.

And, the strongest feeling of all,  an overwhelming joy when she called him “daddy”. Rainbow Dash was confused by all the good feelings she had in her flashbacks, and an unrelenting feeling  that the Mane Six, especially Pinkiepie, tore it away from her. So she kept her memories to herself, and tried to act like the original Rainbow Dash. She first became overly kind. She tried to enjoy herself as much as possible, maybe to simply forget the feelings swirling in her brain. But it never went away. Then, after the memories haunted her for the fourth day in a row, she withdrew, becoming shy and less brash. Her sense of bravery and courage quickly  drew back inside herself, and she became cowardly, jumpy and paranoid, like she was about to be killed at every corner. Her overwhelming fear kept her glued to her friends, who tried to comfort her as much as possible. She kept this up for two weeks.  But the wanting and the needing for her adopted father built until she burst. On a walk with the others of the Mane Six, Rainbow Dash told them everything that was happening in her head. Instead of being comforting as Rainbow thought they would be, Fluttershy screamed and flew away.Twilight began to mutter to Rarity and Applejack, and Pinkiepie just stood there, and suddenly stopped smiling. Pinkie’s reaction seemed strangest of all, and it frightened Rainbow.

Twilight spoke up:”So you got it all back, huh, Rainbow? I really thought the memory spell would have worked. Oh wall, I guess I should try again.”

Twilight approached with her horn glowing. Rainbow quickly backpedaled, screaming at the top of her lungs.

“No! No! Get away! Please! I won’t let you destroy my life again!”

And with that, she flew off into the night sky. She sat on a storm cloud in the middle of the sky and slept.

Pinkie was insane. Every night, for two weeks, Pinkie was insane. The same leather straps, the same operating table, the same insane, straight-haired Pinkiepie. The same constant, enduring torturous pain as Pinkie tortured, dissected, and tore Rainbow apart to make her famous “cupcakes”. The same death, over, and over, and over again. The same feelings of betrayal. But every time, no matter how long she stayed awake, the dream returned. Rainbow Dash finally snapped.

Rainbow began feeling withdrawn and hostile, especially to Pinkiepie. She began avoiding Pinkie as much as possible. All the stress and her clouded memory taken into account, she became paranoid and distrusting to everyone. She kept her distance and began to hide herself away.

“What is wrong with Rainbow Dash lately?”

Mutters of her odd behavior began spreading through the town. Eventually, Rainbow dash was all alone. She felt betrayed. Abandoned. And with no one to stand at her side, the lightning jewel that she kept with her shattered.

And thus, the element of loyalty began to deteriorate from the land of Equestria.

It’s nice to have friends. I finally got around my trauma. It has been a year, after all.

My life is as normal as an orphan that has lost his “daughter” can be. I’ve been going to a lot of parties lately. It helps me keep my mind off things. I don’t like having to think about Dashie. I’m just glad I've basically returned to normal.