"Hiya, Rainbow Dash!"
Rainbow Dash glanced down from her place in the tree. She smiled devillishly and swung her body upside, fallling airborne for a moment before her legs swiftly caught onto a thick branch and dangled her a distance away from the ground facing the pink pony. "Hey, Pinkie." Smirked the upside-down pegasus. "How's it hanging?
Pinkie giggled. "Heehee, just fine, Dashie. What are you doing sitting here looking all philosophical-like?"
Rainbow Dash swept her shoulder as if there were specks of dirt on them. "Oh, nothing much, just contemplating the sheer volume of my awesomeness."
"Hehe...oh, Dashie, you can even be confident all the time, even when you’re obviously feeling insecure; it's amazing."
"I am so not!" Rainbow Dash allowed her legs to break off from the branch, freefalling dangerously close to the ground before spiralling up in an audacious loop and then skidding back down onto the dirt in a spectacular finish. She shot an accusatory look at the pink pony. "If there’s anyone here that’s feeling insecure, it’s you!”
“Me? What would I be insecure about?”
“About someone finding out that you broke your ‘5 Cupcakes A Day’ diet. “
“Ah! Howdja find out about that?”
“Just call it skill.” Rainbow Dash gave a satisfied smirk. “I have my sources all over town.”
“Gah!” Pinkie jumped and reached her hooves out, as if she was a filly trying to grab a ball. “IneedtoknowIneedtoknow!”
“No can do, Pinkie.” Dash stuck her tongue out. “It’s a secret.”
Pinkie fumed. "No way! You’re not getting away with this, Dashie Stashie!”
Rainbow raised an eyebrow. “Dashie Stashie?”
“Yup!” Pinkie immediately giggled. “If you don’t tell me who told you, I’ll shave off Mr Cake’s moustache and stick it onto your face with the Cakes’ Superfragillistic Sticky Surprise! You won’t be able to get it off for a week!
Dash went cockeyed for a moment. “Uh, I don’t remeber the Cakes are selling anything like that….And besides, Mr. Cake dosen’t have a moustache; it’s more like a stubble.”
“Then I’ll take that stubble, and train it up hard until it shapes up into a moustache.” Said Pinkie, making wildly irrelevant gestures and fighting moves to the matter at hand. “After a few weeks, you won’t even recognize it to be a stubble anymore; it’ll be a stubblestache.”
“Heheh, ah…that was terrible.” She shot Pinkie a thoughtful look. “Hey, you know, I forgot how fun it is to have you around. Do you wanna, I dunno, hang out or something?”
"Hang out? Sure!” Pinkie gave a hop in excitement. “Like, play a prank or game kind of hangout?"
“Uh…” Dash rubbed her hooves together a little nervously, before changing it to a bold grin. “Actually, I was thinking more of just chilling out and catching up with one another, y’know what I mean? Friendly stuff?”
Pinkie’s eyes widened in unison. “Did I just hear right? Does Daring Dashie want to sit down somewhere quietly and talk?”
“Yes, I mean, uh, no, I mean, uh, er…”Dash caught sight of Pinkie’s amused expression. “This is so not funny!”
“Uh, yes it is!” Pinkie hopped around a few more times in bemusement, then stopped. “Dashie, you know, if you really wanna talk, Pinkie would be happy to assist the fastest pegasuses in all of Equestria.”
“What? Really?” Dash coughed and tried looking away uncaringly. “I mean, yeah, yeah, that’s cool. So, we gonna talk or what?”
"Hmm...heehee, alright then, Dashie, if you say so! Where to?”
“Well, there’s this awesome little tree here…” Dash smirked. “But you probably don’t want me to fly you up there; you earth ponies are always afraid of going above the ground.
“Nope!” A sprint and a bounce, and Pinkiewas suddenly sitting atop of one of the thicker branches of the tree. She waved enthusiastically down at Dash. "Hurry, come on up!"
Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow. "Heh. Always the same, Pinkie." With a flutter of wings, she flew to join the pink earth pony on the branch.
__________________________________________________________________________________
"So..." Pinkie leaned in close to Dash, blinking her eyes innocently. "Whatcha want to talk about?"
Rainbow Dash rocked her head back and forth, as if she was listening in on a song that only she could hear. "I dunno, racing, parties, the docking dates of the Manehatten shipping, anything really."
"Heehee, is this going to be another talk about the meaning of life? Cause I already had one of those with Fluttershy a week before she died!"
Dash was seemingly unpertrubed at the mention of her dead companion. "Ew, no. That’s like, so boring and overdone it might even put an egghead like Twilight to sleep. Besides, I need to know what’s the quickest date we'll finally be able to sneak you off a ship to Nothern Saddlehai."
"Hehe, egghead like Twi...whuh?"
"Ahem, so yeah, I'm cool to talk about anything, just fire away and I'll follow along."
Pinkie Pie put her hoof thoughtfully on her chin. "Hmm, how about loneliness? That seems like an appropiate subject for you."
The corners of Dash's mouth curved slightly. "Heh, know me like a book inside-out, dontcha? Alright then, anything else besides that, though I have a feeling it's gonna come back up soon."
"How about parties?" Pinkie exclaimed excitedly. "Everyone loves parties!"
Rainbow Dash made a face. "Parties? Yeah, your parties are pretty awesome, what's wrong?"
"No, not that, silly filly, I'm talking about the Big Party, the one we had five years ago!"
Rainbow Dash blinked, and blinked again. For a moment, Pinkie could swear she saw the slightest hint of a troubled look in Dash’s eye, but this quickly dissapeared as Dash proclaimed loudly, "Yeah, that was a great party, what about it?"
"Yeah, I know it was a great party, or at least I think I do, although the more socially acceptable thing to say is that I wasn't so sure it was good, since saying it was good would be showing off, but what I'm trying to ask is what you felt about it?"
Dash regarded this, and then smirked. "Heh, now that was a great party. That night, with you and all the other girls there, it was like the friggin’ best time I had in years. I was flying and dancing like a crazy pony, and for that night, y'know, I just felt free.” Rainbow Dash stopped, her expression suspended in the confident smile. When she realized Pinkie hadn’t responded, and was instead watching with intent blue eyes, she faltered, but continued. “Er, um, yeah, I felt free, like I could do anything I wanted, feel anything I wanted, j-just like when I was a little filly. I-it was an awesome feeling, it really was, and it kept following me for the next few days, w-wherever I went, everywhere I went, a-and somehow, it reminded me…” She gulped. “I-it reminded me…”
"Mmmmm? Reminded you of whaat?"
"Reminded me how fun it is to trick you!" Grinning evilly, Dash snapped Pinkie by the ear and dashed out into the sky. The pink pony looked around confusedly for a moment, before having her entire body flung off the tree by a blue blur, achieving a good few metres of airtime in the sky.
Pinkie briefly screamed in terror…and stopped when she realised that the blue blur had already zipped by again and landed her safely on the ground. Blushing, she dusted off her hooves.
"Catch up if you can!" Dash smirked, and zipped across the sky at lightspeed, her rainbow trail finally ending at a large pine tree in the distance. Pinkie stared amusedly at her eccentric friend, shrugged, and raced in pursuit of the agile pegasus.
__________________________________________________________________________________
When she arrived, Rainbow Dash was already half-asleep on a shrub. It wasn’t like Pinkie hadn't tried to run fast as well; that was a Pinkie Turbo Speed 8 at the very least, but Rainbow Dash made it look like she had been there for ages.
"Well, there you are!" Rainbow Dash looked down from her place in the shrub. She yawned as if she had just woken up from a nap. "I've been here for ages, where were you?"
"Heehee, not everyone can fly as fast as you, Dashie." Pinkie looked back at her tracks, realising her mistake. "Oh, or run!"
"Eh, well, you're pretty okay. The last time I tried that with Twilight, it took a whole day for her to find me."
"Hee, was that why she developed a case of the pony rash?"
Rainbow scratched her head. “Oh yeah, so that’s why it happened. No wonder she looked mad at me for the next few days. Oh well.” Dash shrugged, then motioned towards the pine branch she was currently sitting on. "Well? Come on up, it can’t be very comfortable sitting down there.
'Aw, thank you Dashie, always being so thoughtful." Pinkie leaped up twice and arrived at the branch that Dash was lying on. She leaned in close onto Dash's face.
"Sooo, what did my awesome party remind you of?"
Rainbow Dash frowned. "Gah, you just never forget a thing, don't you? Wait, hold on." Dash got up and stretched thoroughly. "Uhhh…Do you seriously want to know? It's gonna be all boring and stuff."
“Sure do!” Pinkie exclaimed joyfully. “I always need to know everything about my very best friends.”
“Isn’t that like, privacy invasion, or something?”
“Heeheehee Dashie, don’t try to change the subject. Just talk to me.” The pink pony sing-songed. “I’ll always be there for you. ♫”
“Ah! Pinkie, I don’t want to talk…”
“Aw, come on Dashie, it’s never good to keep secrets from your friends! Just talk to me…”
“Pinkie!” Groaned Dash, pushing her away. “I said, enough!”
“Dashie!”
“Pinkie!”
“Dashiee!” Pinkie pounced upon the pegasus’ lithe body, knocking her down onto the rough surface of the bark. “Tell me!”
“Pinkie, I’m not going to…” Dash started struggling horendously, then stopped.
Pinkie’s face was lying only a short breath away, and for the first time since they met, Rainbow Dash could see her properly. There was nothing much different at first, or at least, not much that Rainbow Dash would not have predicted on her own. The sparkling eyes, that giant smile that stretched all the way to her cheeks and puffed them up; they were all there, clear as day. But behind that…there was something more, something that tugged at strings long lost to Dash’s soul ages ago. Behind all the smiles and sugar, it was nothing but sincere, and that was enough for Dash, enough to make her fumble over her words, enough to make her clam up entirely, staring, transfixed, for a second, at the bright face of pink pony. And it was enough to make her speak up; at first a mumble, then a stutter, then the rainbow pegasus found herself compulsively pouring out words, each one brimming with the clarity of a new day.
"I-It...It reminded me of...happiness..." Dash immediately grimaced, but tried covering it up with a confident smirk. "Yeah, happiness! I was so gosh darn happy those few days I almost forgot how to breathe altogether. I totally went on a giant sugar high, bouncing off the wallls and talking with everyone about how great it was to be alive, and have friends, and all sorts of mushy stuff. A-and, you guys were really cool about it t-too, like comforting me and telling me that we would always be friends, and that we were always going to stay together no matter what happens, and a-at first I didn't want to get into it all, but it just made me, y'know, really happy." Dash's exhaled in sparodic breaths, but her smile remained. "Really friggin' happy..."
"Aw, Dashie, that's great that you're happy, and that..." Pinkie stopped as soon as she saw the Rainbow Dash's trembling figure. "Dashie?"
"So very happy..." The words came out in a mutter, and Pinkie could hear Dash's breaths becoming more erratic.
"Uh..." Pinkie's irises rolled loosely in their sockets for a moment before quickly snapping into place. "Okie-dokie-azolokie, I guess." Her pink face scrunched in confusement. "Wait, if all the party reminded you of was being so happy, then why were you looking so weird while saying it...?"
"Lies." Dash's smile vanished. There were only the short breaths left. "All just lies. A disguise that can never be revealed. A wall that will not be broken down." She suddenly spun to Pinkie with a panicked look. "A life that I must lead, alone."
"Wait Dashie, wha-"
Rainbow dash blasted off the branch, the impact almost causing Pinkie to lose her balance. The rainbow maned pegasus, spoke, as if in a trance. "I...I need to go now. Have fun, Pinkie." With that, the rainbow maned pegasus sped off into the distance.
"Ngh, Dashie wait--oof!" Pinkie slipped on the branch and fell sprawled onto its bark. Hurriedly, the pink earth pony picked herself up and hopped down the pine, gaving chase to the blue pegasus as she flew into the horizon.
"Dashie!"
_______________________________________________________________________________
When Pinkie finally found Rainbow Dash, the sun was beginning to set.
The party pony had more than a bit of trouble locating Dash; that pegasus could fly fast. Still, she had a rough idea where Rainbow Dash could be, since she flew straight into a marshy forest, and Pinkie just followed the path from there. Not that it was easy; she still had to get past the poisonous yoke plants (not to be confused with posion joke, the former being actually lethal) and pony-eating crocodiles, but she managed. Eventually, she spotted the largest marsh tree in the area, and that's where she found Dashie. Well, she didn't actually find Dashie first, she was a bit distracted by the size of the tree itself.
As of then, she was standing at the foot of a huge moss-covered, marsh tree, gaping her mouth and marvelling at how it cast a colossal shadow over everything below it. It wasn't really the shadow that shocked her, of course, Pinkie had seen plenty of other shadows before, though such a big one did spook her out a little, but what made her stop was how the fresh undergrowth under her feet, that appeared all over the marsh and had been accentuated by how long she had spent walking through it, abruptly dissapeared as soon as it so much as touched the shadow. Beyond that, there remained only a small pool of mud surrounding the trunk that contained nothing but a few of the tree's protruding breathing roots. Pinkie knew that it was caused by the tree blocking out the sunlight and not letting the plants grow, but the way it just snuffed out all other life just like that, so effortlessly; gave it a sense of immense power among the forested marsh. She stared directly upwards. The multi-coloured tail of Rainbow Dash was hanging at the very top, naturally.
Pinkie scrunched her face, trying to think what to do. If Dashie wanted to be all mysterious-like, she sure wasn't making it easy. Then, she spotted a vine hanging from a branch of the tree, and then another, and then another. Smiling, the pink pony hurried over and grabbed a green rope, tugging to the rhythm of the cold evening wind.
________________________________________________________________________________
Rainbow Dash sat on top of a branch, looking like it was the last place she wanted to be. It wasn't that she seemed queasy or scared or even bored. No, what sat etched across the small ridges on her face; the tiny portion of emotion that could be seen through her mostly impassive expression, read a burning, putrid diisgust. She glanced down at the torn-up bark her hooves were standing on, giving it a menacing stare, as if trying to intimidate it with her fearsome looks. When, it did not react, her leer faltered, and she exhaled. Quietly, she turned her gaze to the west, watching as the tip of the sun dipped slowly into the faraway mountains, causing the sky to alight in a magnificent display of red.
"Whew, a little...huff...melodramatic for you...don’t you…think...Dashie?" 'Rainbow Dash turned swiftly. She was met with the sight of a bright-eyed pink pony approaching her. It seemed to be wearing an amused expression, though this was somewhat obscured by the tired pants it was heaving through its inflating and deflating mouth. Taking on a look that resembled satisfaction, the pony wiped the sweat off her forehead, took a deep breath of air, then broke out into a full out grin that stretched from ear to ear. "How's it going up here?"
"Hm, hello Pinkie." Dash found her voice growing unusually deep. "Yes, it is doing...fine here."
"Aw, really? Because you don't seem very good." Pinkie giggled. "I mean, who runs away from their friend twice, halfway during a conversation? It makes it really hard to get very far into a topic, y'know, especially when you have to keep thinking of new start-up lines. “
“Hm, I guess.”
Yup! Anyway, where's the fun when you're just sulking alone? You just sit there looking all gloomy and depressed, and it's so boring! Like, I tried sulking alone once, when Gummi accidentally broke my favourite party cannon and no one else wanted to sulk with me, and in the end I was so bored it took three pegasi and a donkey to pull me out of the cloud machine I got stuck in."
"Hm, sounds like you had a lot of fun."
"Yeah, it was a really 'stratus'fying experience, heeheehee!"
"Well, in any case..." Rainbow Dash turned away. "I think I would like to be alone now, Pinkie, so if you would kindly get off the tree..."
"Aw, don't be like that, Dashie, you're acting all weird."
"Maybe this is what I'm really like." Rainbow Dash retorted instantly. "Maybe the old Rainbow Dash you knew was just a complete phoney act. You ever think of that?"
Dash might have detected a slight wince in Pinkie's expression, but this was all too quickly replaced by her trademark happy expression. "Aw, Dashie, there's no way I'm believing that. We've all seen you, and you've probably seen yourself too, and somewhere deep down inside, you know that you're still that same assertive, happy-go-lucky pegasus with a tad bit too much fetish for winning trophies."
Dash shrugged. "Maybe I am. Who knows. It's not going to end well anyway." She breathed deeply, as if ready to cry at any moment, then suddenly broke into a devillish smirk. "Hey, why don't you sit together with me and talk? I could use a little company."
Pinkie raised an eyebrow. "Uh...is that the amnesia or symbolism talking, cause' I'm pretty sure we've already done that..."
"Just leave me alone." Came the muttered reply, and Pinkie was surprised to hear how vehemous Rainbow Dash sounded. The pegasus in question was grimacing painfully, and her teeth were gnashed together in a bout of force. She seethed as she spoke, each word bringing a new downpouring of anger. "Leave me be, here. It dosen’t matter, it’s still going to stay the bucking same, isn’t it?"
“Uh…” Pinkie cleared her throat. “Dashie…”
She growled, the deep rumbling almost seeming to come from some ferocious beast. "Oh, Celestia, why does it never change? Why won't it stop? Not like I haven't done anything for you; why do you keep hiding away from me?"
"Dashie..." Pinkie instinctively took a step forwards, sounding genuinely worried. "If there's something you need to talk about, you know you can just talk about it, right? I mean, I am your friend."
Dash growled again, but this time fiercer, as if the beast from before was readying itself to pounce. She might have chuckled too, but Dash was breathing so hard and sullenly that one could hardly tell. "Huh...friends. That's just it, isn't it? I don't have any, or at least, not any for real." The rainbow maned pegasus opened her eyes at last, but they were different somehow, colder, yet somehow emanating with a strange sense of warmness, as if they were burning with some otherworldly fire. "But then again, it's never for real, isn't it? It's been a long time since things were real."
"Uh, that's nice and all, Dashie, but..." Pinkie stared worriedly down at Dash's front hoof, which was perched dangerously close to the edge. "Don't you think it would be better if you—Woahnellycupcakes!" Pinkie latched onto Dash's hoof, now dangling on above a near hundred metre drop. Pinkie begged panickedly. "Pleasedontjumppleasedontjumppleasedontjump, ohpleasedontjump!"
Rainbow Dash blinked. Rainbow Dash looked down. Rainbow Dash was sad. Then, she burst out in violent screams, throttling her head back and forth, as if shaking off the memories of a brighter time. Pinkie immediately let go, gaping fearfully at the convulsing pegasus; and suddenly the blue pony was no longer there, simply a demon remained, yelling throat-hoarse into the great heavens. The whole world seemed to spin and shake as it hollered, burning with the heat of a thousand suns, and it felt like only seconds before it would all fall apart to a turmountous collapse...
And then, she stopped. The blue pony sat there quietly, taking steady, solid breaths like the normal Rainbow Dash that everyone knew.
Pinkie looked up with her mouth still hanging dryly at the cyanic maned pegasus. She tried shutting it once, then twice, then finally settled with a gulp, feeling the excess saliva slide down her throat. She stuttered, almost incoherently. "D-dashie? Are you al...alright now?"
Dash swallowed, her body still as stone. The blue pegasus nodded bravely, voice crackling like crushed pebbles as she replied. "Yes, Pinkie, I'm fine."
Pinkie gazed unsurely from he her spot on the branch. She shuffled forwards, back, bit her lip, before finally stepping forward and putting a cautious hoof on her friend. "Are you sure?"
Rainbow Dash stared down at her hooves, looking even more incredibly depressed than before. "I'm okay, really. It's just that, I've never had that happen before."
Pinkie gulped. “Have wh-what happen?”
“All that. That wasn’t supposed to happen. It’s supposed to be something that must never be given away. Never broken down…”
"Well that's alright!" The pink pony cried, trying her best for a smile. It turned out kind of weak, but Pinkie pressed on. "It's never good to have all those icky-wicky feelings bottled up inside you, you just gotta let it loose once in a while, you know what I mean?" A bead of sweat rolled uphelpfully down the side of her head. "Who knows, maybe you sitting in that tree this morning was like, a great big toaster of fate, and meeting me was like giving you the bread to pop in, and all you had to do was to butter and eat it, heehee..."
"Hmm." Rainbow Dash looked just as dejected as before. She muttered unhappily, "Well, maybe I wanted you to see me."
"Huh?"
Rainbow Dash shrugged. "I've been here for so long, and never been true for a moment of it. I don't know, maybe I just wanted to have someone to talk to for a while."
“Dashie…” Pinkie put a slightly trembling hoof around the pegasus. When, she did not snap, Pinkie spoke a little easier. “There’ll always be someone there for you. If not us, then, well, I’m sure there’s some loving pony out there who’ll make you happy again.”
“Thanks, Pinkie, but no thanks.” The pegasus fluttered on two wings, hovering above the mossy branch. She flew out into the open sky, her gaze fixed tiredly into the skyline. Just as she had made it a few feet away, though, she turned around, casting Pinkie a strange, nervous glance. “If you ever w-wanna, y’know, talk to me again, y-ya know… ….you know where to find me.” Just like that, Rainbow Dash took off, and in a few minutes she was but a small dot in the horizon, too tiny to even be seen.
Pinkie sat alone atop the highest branch of a swamp tree, surrounded by a sea of thick foliage. Her eyes were fixed at the sun, now nothing but a red orb which barely peeked over the skyline, looking out for the blue figure as it disappeared into it’s solemn grasp. When Dash had completely dissapeared from sight, her pink face scrunched; and she looked around her jungle-bound surroundings, as if contemplating what to do from there on out. Her eyes darted to the swamped forest, back to the branch she stood on, and then back to the forest again. Her gaze moved between the two areas for the good part of a minute, wearing an expression of great concentration; until she broke it off with a shrug. With a curve in her lips, the party pony grappled both hooves onto the nearest vines and started swinging, making her graceful descent from the slime-coated heights of the great marsh giant.
When she reached the bottom, it was already dark.
__________________________________________________________________________________
The pink pony hummed as she climbed, following the little illumination provided by the twinkling stars above.
Pinkie worked steadily to scale the impending levels ahead of her; with a jump here, a hop there, and occasionally a large leap, she was able to land on the appropriate branches to ascend the thousand-year tree. Already, she had spent the good part of half an hour moving up the Elder Oak at more or less the same pace; leaving behind the warm night air for the chilly breezes that swept across the layer of clouds that she had made it to. She had to be somewhere close to the top by now, Pinkie thought; even the goliath imposing branches had begun to thinnen, something they hadn’t seemed to be able to do before whenever she looked up its colossal figure, and when she took time to breathe, the air that escaped her mouth literally came out as vapour. Of course, there was no telling with the Elder Oak, some ponies had said that its trunk stretched on to infinity, but for the sake of her tiring body, and her sanity, she had to believe that she had made at least some considerable progress up this monstrosity. For then, of course, there would still be more climbing to do, as she jumped and leapt past the wooden staircase, her petite body inching upwards through the barely lit nightfall encircling her.
Then, finally, she halted. Up another long ascent of branches, Rainbow Dash was sitting at the very top, her tail hanging messily off the small shoot she was perched on.
Pinkie felt her breaths growing more rapid and excited, so much that the mist was beginning to cloud her vision. Subconsciously, she smiled, and made the final dash upwards the substantially thinning staircase, her newly invigorated body taking her leaps and bounds across the once-intimidating oak.
Her breath left in a big cloud of mist as she yelled, “Rainbow Dash! I’m here!”
Rainbow Dash turned. The expression on her face wasn’t one of surprise, per se, but perhaps more of shock, as she watched, amazed, as the pink pony made the final climb up to the top of the Elder Oak. As it was, Pinkie had made great progress from the spot she had first seen Dash from, and was now down to her last few branches.
“Hiya, Dashie!” Pinkie arrived at her destination, and sat her rump down on the small branch directly below Rainbow Dash’s even tinier one. She poked the blue pegasus mischievously. “How’s it sittin?”
An awestruck breath escaped Dash’s mouth. “You came…here?”
“Well of course, I did, silly filly; I wouldn’t be a very good party pony if I couldn’t climb a few branches for my friends, now would I?” She wiped a dollop of moisture off her head and legs. “Whew, okay, maybe a lot of branches.”
“You came.” Dash repeated, as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. She bit her lip, looking down regretfully. “I’m sorry, I won’t be able to get you down, the atmosphere up here seriously messes up my flying. Reaching up here on my own was hard enough, carrying another pony would be suicide.”
“That’s okay!” Pinkie exclaimed cheerfully. “I could use a little exercise anyway!”
Dash took a deep breath. “No really, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for leading you everywhere, when I knew that you would follow me, and still give you nothing but lies. I’ve been nothing but selfish to you, through and through, and that’s the truth. I’m really sorry for that, but I don’t know if there’s anything I can do to make it up to you. I’ve been like this for far too long, having this self-centrered life, that I’m not even sure if there is anything I can do.”
“Brr…” Pinkie shivered. “Well, you could start with fetching me a jacket and a hoodie, it’s freezing up here!”
Rainbow Dash’s expression gravitated upwards, an usually sincere thing. “It can be like that up at this height, there isn’t a lot of pressure to keep the heat in the air.”
“Heehee, somepony would think that it would be a lot hotter here, closer to the sun.” Pinkie hummed a tune. “So, whatcha gonna do now?”
“Hm? Me? I don’t know. Wait until the sun rises, then fly down and practice a few stunts. After that, who knows? Meet some ponies, have a chat, fly around a bit more, heck, maybe even get my job done for once. The world is a free place when you’re young.”
“Hee, that sounds like the good ol’ Rainbow Dash we know.” Pinkie said cheerily.. “A giant lazy bum, but always up and ready to go.” A moment of quiet; and there was a noticeable change in Pinkie’s smile; in the way that it almost seemed to melt away completely. Her voice came out softly. “I just can’t believe that you’ve been faking it all this time.”
Dash exhaled, her smile vanishing. “Sometimes I can’t believe it as well.”
There was an awkward silence between the two ponies. Quickly, Pinkie’s voice came from left field, tone crisp and nervous, “Hehehe, never mind bout’ that, Dashie, let’s talk about something else!” Her face brightened. “Oh, like what’ve you’re going to be doing this Hearts and Hooves Day, cause I’m gonna be shipping—”
“No. Don’t.” Dash spoke up clearly and loudly. A little too loudly. She felt her voice lowering. “No, I’ll talk about it, really, I will. There’s no need to cover for me anymore; I-I’ll come clean, I promise; it’s the least I can do... for a friend.”
Pinkie scrutinised Rainbow Dash. She squinted and squandered at Dash’s face, as if trying to read some form of emotion in it. When she apparently got nothing, her eyes softened, and her next words came sympathetically, “Y’know, Dashie, you don’t need to talk about things you’re not ready to talk about. It’s alright, I’ll understand.”
Dash sighed. “I dunno. I wanna talk about it, but at the same time it feels really hard to talk about. It kind of just…sucks…if you know what I mean. ”
“Hm, well, you could just say something really vague and metaphorical! It’s not like you haven’t already done it a gazillion times today!”
“Well, if that’s how you want it…” Dash started tapping her hoof subconsciously on her branch, the expression on her face unfathomable. “Have you ever had something taken away from you?”
“Hm?” Pinkie’s face bloated in surprise. Her face scrunched in thought. “Well, I guess there was that one time Gummi was taken away in customs because he was suspected of smuggling illegal goods, but that was only for a short while…”Pinkie giggled suddenly. “And they never did find the explosive pistachios.”
“Hm, well, it dosen’t really feel good, trust me on that.” Dash stopped, then growled slightly, but the anger seemingly directed at herself. “Everyday I feel like I’m having something taken away from me, and it just burns to have to face each day like that.”
“Hmm? What do you mean?”
“I don’t really know, but it sure as hell hurts.” Dash sighed. “ Before, I thought that it was just the world’s fault, that it was their problem for treating me like crud and that I was the oh-so-noble hero standing up to them.” She chewed on her lip, biting down on the bottom one hard. “But then I grew selfish, like I’ve always been, just that I never showed it until then. I shut myself out, and everything started to fall apart. Friends, family, everyone drifted apart, disappeared from sight as I continued to sink in my little hole of self-pity. Even after that, I still went on blaming the world for all my misfortune, believing that it was a result of them wanting to harm me as much as possible.”
Pinkie raised an eyebrow. “So what changed?”
Dash winced. “I slammed into a brick wall. Only then did I realise that I had been the one causing all the pain, that I was the one taking away everything from myself. Really, the world could have exploded on itself for all I cared, I would have still been wallowing around in my little hole of self-pity either way if I didn’t learn my lesson early.”
“Nowadays, the feeling’s mostly gone, but there’s still a small part remaining, like a little wisp or something, just lingering there, not knowing what to do. It’s funny, but the funnier thing is that I’m not sure if it’s just more friggin’ self-inflicted trauma or something real. I don’t really know what I want it to be.” She shut her eyes, letting her cyanic mane fall over her face.. “I just keep flying, keep laughing, keep trying at being awesome; all to distract myself from having to answer the stupid question. I’ve been shutting out the other part of me out again, maybe not as badly as last time; I still let it show once in a while, but it still feels like everyone else is moving on around me while I’m not.” She lay on her back, wearing a sickly look on her face. “I don’t even know if there’s anyone else left to trust, especially not myself, and in the end I just lock it all in until the angst passes over. It’s just a neverending cycle, one that I’ve bucking locked myself into.”
Pinkie breathed. “Woah.” She instinctively started scratching her hoof back and forth on the branch she was on. “Heheh, that’s a lot to take in. N-no wonder you were all evasive and stuff about it before!”
“Hm, I guess so. “ Dash replied, not bothering to open her tired eyes. “It dosen’t really matter anyway, nothing’s going to change, whether I tell you or not. It’s the end of a wall I’m going to be slamming my head on until forever, either way.”
“Hmm…but do you think there might be a way out?”
“Hmm?” Dash’s eyelids fluttered open. Her irises moved curiously to Pinkie’s direction.
Pinkie stammered. “I-I mean, what if there was a way, you could just end it all one day, just not need to worry about your troubles, about anything?”
“What do you mean?”
Pinkie giggled nervously. “Hehe, like, I dunno, a super-duper numbing machine, something that can make everything just go away.”
“Well, if there was anyway out of this I would sure-as-Luna take it!” She snapped angrily. “It would make a big difference not to wake up everyday feeling like the lowest crud in the world! Being able to just forget about everything, fix everyone in my life back, and basically pretend that I’m not going to be going through all this—“
“—Alone?”
Rainbow Dash halted. "I guess." There was a moment of silence as both ponies digested the situation.
“Well…”Pinkie approached the subject cautiously. “Would you want to take it?”
Dash was quiet for a while, then replied. "Maybe, I guess. I don’t know.” She leaned down, barely exhaling. “At this point, I don’t know what to think.”
“Well, you come back!” Pinkie suggested tenacitily. “We could get off this silly tree, and you can get out of your hole of self-pity, and we can just go back to Ponyville and live the rest of our lives happy! Whaddaya say?”
Dash considered this, then sighed.. “I want to do that, I really do. It’s just that…I can’t. I can’t bring myself to do it, to live a life of always telling the truth, always being honest to ponies. As much as I hate to admit it, a part of me actually likes my life the way it is now, the constant hiding, the fear; it makes me feel alive, and that’s something I can’t afford to lose.” Dash groaned. “I’m just selfish, one way or another, and all I do is end up hurting those close to me. A pony like me deserves to have no one beside them, because it’s all just going to end in pain, and no one’s wants to be around when that happens. Anyway, let’s face it, nobody’s bothered about my feelings before, and with good reason too; I’m always giving leaving them cold. A pony like me deserves to be alo—“ Rainbow Dash stopped, because her mouth was currently occupied by Pinkie, who was kissing her full on the lips.
It lasted a few seconds, maybe more, Dash wasn’t really sure, but she only remembered her eyes widened in suprise, and the smile on the party pony’s face when she finally removed her lips from Dash’s.
"Heehee, silly filly, you’ll never be alone. We’ll make sure of it."
Rainbow Dash's eyes worked in overdrive, like they were tearing apart and analyzing what had just occurred in front of them at a million miles per second. Finally, they sparked with understanding, and some sadness, as Dash stared into Pinkie’s bright eyes, wondering how to respond to the offer they had just presented. Then, evidently, they had decided, for they immediately shut in, staring steelily into down the path of promise that the pink pony had just created. And closed it away.
"I don't know, Pinkie." She looked out far into the east, eyes narrowed in extreme focus, as if expecting a sun to rise through the thinly coated mist around them. None did. Suddenly bowing, the blue pegasus abruptly blasted herself off from the top branch of the tree…but her did not leave its vicinity. Instead, she hovered about a metre’s distance away from the shining pink pony, exchanging a glance between them that said everything and nothing.
Pinkie met this with an empathic expression. She reached out, stuck out her hoof into the open air, as if inviting the blue pegasus to take it and stay with her. Suddenly, Rainbow Dash found that she could stand it no longer. Eyes clamped shut, she shot and spiraled unstably off into the atmosphere, where there would be nothing awaiting her besides the grey mist and the cold, cold winds whistling thinly into her ears.
"I really don't know..."
