Her hoof falls echo throughout the vast ornate hall of the castle. Her violet eyes transfixed on something nopony could see. She blinks harshly as the tears threaten to break through her strong-willed desire to keep a steady face.
She passes the royal guards standing at their usual posts. She says not a word as she continues her trek through the Canterlot castle. A letter, written on expensive stationary in horrible mouth writing is cradled under her wing. The words reverberate in her head.
“I don’t know who to turn to so I decided to send this letter to you. If you still talk to any of the girls, you can tell them what’s in this letter.”
She passes the throne room, her mentor and teacher currently preoccupied with another “pressing matter”. She didn’t know where to turn. With Celestia tied up, Luna being more or less nocturnal now, and Cadence and Shining Armor in the Crystal Kingdom she found herself alone.
Instead she continued the robotic pace leading to her bedchambers. There she locked herself in her expansive room. Spike was nowhere to be seen probably on another bureaucratic meeting with the dragon clan. She presses her back against the door, slowly sliding down; she takes the letter out from under her wing.
She cannot bear to look at the all-too-familiar mouth writing. It’s been so long. Her eyes start to gloss over as her mind roams elsewhere. With a heavy sigh she opens the letter in her hooves.
The stationary it’s on bore the insignia of the Wonderbolts. She knew there could only be one mare that would write to her. She lets her mind wonder, to a place that she can see out her balcony, tucked neatly into the hills of Equestria. Phrases from the letter still ring in her head.
“I guess it was a long time coming huh? All great things must fall.”
She remembers her face. The bright eyes filled with confidence and most importantly, loyalty, are forever etched into her memory. Running a gold-plated hoof down the side of the letter she could tell the paper was abused probably from sitting on a desk. Her librarian eyes can still pick up the traces of coffee stains and dried circlets of water staining the page.
It is not a very long letter, the author not being one for lengthy descriptions. A phrase stuck out to her as her eyes passed over the page.
“…If you still talk to any of the girls…”
She wished she did. She wished for it every day. There were days where she wished that she never ascended to her alicorn state. She wished that Rarity’s designs weren’t picked up by manufactures in Canterlot. She wished that Applejack would move off her stupid farm and see the world. She wished Pinkie Pie hadn’t moved to Las Pegasus for the parties. She wished Fluttershy would put her animals aside and actually talk to somepony. And now after reading this letter, she wished Rainbow Dash never joined the Wonderbolts.
But they did. Their lives drifted apart, the magic of friendship faded. She picks up the letter in a magical aura that needed no effort to cast. She got up from the floor and walked over to her writing desk. She wasn’t planning on writing back. She wouldn’t get an answer. She knew that much. She set it on the desk and simply stared at it.
It curved up at the creases from where it was folded to fit in the envelope she received only moments ago. Stepping away she couldn’t read the writing. But she knew what it said. Still recalling the words scrawled on it.
“I guess I should come clean to somepony. I have a drinking problem Twilight. A bad one. It started when I was recruited into the Wonderbolts. They would go drinking every night after a show. It became a regular thing…”
Why didn’t she see this happening? With her princess-status surely she could’ve known that this pony was suffering. Surely she could’ve done something to stop it. That’s what a princess does right? Protect her ponies?
No. A princess lets these things happen. Her job is to make sure war doesn’t break out between the Griffon Kingdom, the Changeling Nation, the Dragon clan, and Celestia-knows what else. Not a war inside a single pony. She can’t stop that. The words from the letter start to flow freely in her mind now.
“I tried rehab, but it didn’t last…”
She takes off her lavish and bulky gold decorations that adorned her frame.
“It only got worse from there. I was kicked off the team about 3 months ago…”
She magically places them in a luxuriant chest at the end of her bed. Glad to get them off she shakes her coat and extends her wings to stretch them before tucking them neatly back to her sides.
“But I promise this drink is my last one…”
She steps out of her room and onto the balcony. Most of Equestria is laid out in front of her. The inhabitants of the nation going about their daily lives as usual. Unaware of the crushing news sitting on her writing desk.
“I’ve just been so low from living high for so long I guess…”
Her violet eyes scan the horizon looking, hoping, for that familiar dot to come darting across the fiery sky and onto her balcony, that quirky smirk on her face and her words drawn out in a raspy tone: “Didja miss me?” and she would laugh and smile.
It’s been so long since she has smiled.
She ignited her horn with the purple aura that became her signature. She rises into the air on her unfurled wings. Summoning all her magic she guides the sun so it starts to slink behind the horizon. The sky igniting in colors of orange, pink, yellow and lavender but still holding on to the cyan of the daylight. Clutching to that color with its last tendrils of life as the sun looses its grip and lets go. Sinking away as does the colors, not to be seen again for hours.
She gently glides down to the balcony, her hooves touching the marble softly. Soon Luna will raise the moon and time will go on. As it will for everypony, except one.
Sighing she encases the letter in her magical aura and folds it neatly, and tucks it away. Hidden behind expansive files, research papers, books and personal notes. The final words of the letter coming to the forefront of her mind and sticking with her.
“I’m sorry and I love you,
Rainbow Dash”
