Unlike Herself

by DaBeejees

Rating: everyone
Tags: Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Rainbow Dash, Sad, Tragedy, Pinkie Pie
Length: 6250

After nearly causing the death of PP, RD cuts off communication with society. *Happy Ending*

After nearly causing the potential death of her closest friend - at least according to herself - Rainbow Dash cuts off communication with society in general, falling into depression. To make matters worse, she refuses to forgive herself, even though nopony else had blamed her in the first place! After most ponies had given up, can the 'friend' at the heart of the issue help the cyan pegasus come to her senses?
~~
Just a mini-story that I wrote due to insomnia, but fortunately I finished it after getting some sleep, so it does have a happy ending. By the way, notice the lack of a 'romance' tag: this is not a ship. Just wanted that to be out there to eliminate having to answer any potential questions about it.

Published 2012-03-18 20:34:02 UTC
Last updated 2012-04-26 18:35:21 UTC

The Story: Fourth Draft (Most Recent)

I'm not sure what else I can change...
EDIT: Scratch that, yes I do. Well, where I can change, just not... how...
~Brendan Kirk "Da Beejees" Julian

Unlike Herself,
by Brendan Kirk "Da Beejees" Julian

Prologue

She just never knows when to stop, does she?

Pinkie was begging me to take her flying, again. How many times would I have to tell her that she was too heavy for me‽ That, and I still hadn't been able to figure out why she kept pushing it so damn much! It was really starting to get to me, to be honest. Maybe it was because she had been keeping it up for so long... or maybe not, I don't really know. I'm not a pony who cares about that kind of stuff; go get Twilight if that's your kind of thing.

"Please, Dashie? I really, really, really want to go flying with you!" she said as she began to bounce in place on the doorstep of Sugarcube Corner with extreme giddiness.

I bit my bottom lip and let out a muffled sigh. All I wanted was to buy a snack, and now I had to deal with this, again. My frustration had already been getting to me, and I didn't know how much longer I would've been able to hold it, either; Pinkie really knew how to get to ponies, and we hadn't been talking for very long, too! I actually kind of pitied Rarity for that one time when we all had gone after Applejack: she had been stuck in the desert with Pinkie! That whole cherry-chimie-changy-or-whatever-it-was deal that Pinkie was rambling about for most of that trip... ugh... I needed to try not to think about that.

"Pinks! You know I can't carry you!" I emphasized, trying to think of a possible suggestion to make to her. "Besides, what happened to that heli-thing you had that one time?"

"I haven't been able to fix that ever since that meanie-pants Gilda broke it!" Pinkie emphatically replied. "And I want to go flying with you."

"You've already made that clear, Pinkie," I said with another, more audible sigh. I had been growing sick of all that repetition.

"I know!" she exclaimed, not really seeming to care.

She gave me one of her famous ear-to-ear grins, but her eyes showed the same hopefulness I once witnessed when Winona begged me for a treat. Why did she beg me for one anyway? I didn't have any. And did she really expect me to give her one if I did? Oh well. Thinking about Winona begging for treats won't change Pinkie's mindset on all of this, and it wasn't at all related, anyway. Actually, could anything change Pinkie? She's so random.

"What about your bunch-o-balloons contraption-thing?" I suggested to her again. "I've seen you fly with that plenty of times!"

I gave myself a little mental pat on the back - after all that is pretty much flying right? Well, not nearly like it is when you have wings as awesome as mine but enough for an earth pony, maybe?

"That's floating, Dashie!" she distinguished. "Not flying!"

Damn it, of course it is! I turned my eyes into a metaphorical searchlight to find something that could have helped me out. I need inspiration... ideas... something. Oh! There were two little fillies on a trampoline over there! Yes! That would work! She has a giant trampoline herself, doesn't she? Wait, why was I asking myself that? She'd said herself that she has random different things stashed all over town, so wouldn't that include a trampoline? Of course it would! I've seen her use one before! And besides, since this was Pinkie, I wouldn't doubt that she would have one anyway.

"What about your giant trampoline?" I proposed yet again, though this time more out of desperation. "Couldn't you use that?"

"That's bouncing!" she retorted. "Not flying, you silly filly!"

"Damn!" I exclaimed, hopefully making my disgust with the situation known to her.

I face-hoofed, but then I noticed that Pinkie had actually started hesitating. That was causing me to start worrying. I didn't want her going all schizy like she had when I had gone to go bring her to her surprise birthday party we all held for her last year. That still creeps me out, and I definitely didn't want her going that crazy again.

"You really don't want to take me flying, do you Dashie?" Pinkie asked, this time with a much more somber tone than before. I noticed her mane start to lose some of its 'poof', which is never a good sign!

Her big puppy-dog eyes started to pierce into my soul....Wait, no! Focus! Lets see, umm... what other reasons couldn’t she fly with me? Everything I had said so far hadn't gotten through to her, so I needed to think of other reasons.

"No, I don't, because I won't be able to carry you!" I reiterated. "You're the same size as me! At most I can only fly with Scootaloo!"

Wait a minute, wasn’t that just the same thing I said earlier? Oh well. Even if I had, it's still a valid point. And I don't think I mentioned Scootaloo earlier, and she is pretty much my carrying-limit, so... yeah! Close enough!

"Aw, please Dashie?" she started to beg.

"No, Pinkie." I told her again. "I've already told you that way too many times now!"

"Aw, why not?" she semi-whined.

Her eyes were really starting to freak me out. That could not be natural. Wait, is Pinkie even natural? I had never even thought of her like that before... I made a mental note to ask Twilight about that later.

"You're too heavy!" I told her once more. "I won't be able to carry you!"

Why wasn’t she getting it‽ It was as plain as day that I did not - I repeat - NOT want to go through with this! Was I stuttering or something? Or was she just...ignoring me? No, Pinkie wasn't like that, even if she is a bit pushy...okay, not 'a bit' at all. Well, she is overwhelmingly pushy. Or maybe it's closer to 'shovey', but that's not even a word...or is it? Pinkie makes up a bunch of words, so she might've made that one up before...ARRGH! EVERYTHING is going back to Pinkie!

"Aww, come on!" she begged. "Pleeeeaaaassee Dashie?"

For the love of Celestia! This was getting really old, really fast!

"Pinkie! What part of this do you not understand‽" I nearly shouted at her. "You're a full grown mare! I won't be able to carry yo..." I cut myself off, having realized that I was in a losing battle. "...you're not going to give up, are you?"

"Nopie dopie lopie!" she said, shaking her head side to side with each word... slowly...

The way she said that... it was just like when we were desperately trying to keep the surprise party we were planning for her a secret... again with the schizo-Pinkie memories! I couldn't take that abuse any longer; I knew I wasn't going to win, no matter how much I hated myself for admitting it.

"...fine then," I finally submitted. "I guess I don't have any choice. Damn you Pinkie..."

------

"Pinkie! Stop squirming!" I shouted to my 'passenger' after we had somehow made it into the air. "You're only making this harder on me!"

"Oh, I'm super duper sorry, Dashie!" she exclaimed. "I'm just SO excited! I just can't wait! This is going to be so much fun!"

She then 'obediently' flailed even more with that, which made it even more difficult. Why wouldn’t she just listen to me? I may not be an egghead like Twilight but I know enough about that kind of stuff. I am a pegasus after all! Hell, even my cutie mark is about my love for flying! I'm the expert on that stuff!

------

"Pinkie..." I managed to say, even if only barely, "you are... really... weighing me down..."

I was really struggling to keep in the air now; my lungs felt like they were on fire, my wings were burning - and not the good, Disco Inferno kind of burn, either, where you know that the burning means that your muscles are getting stronger. This burn was the opposite: that my wings were on the verge of giving out completely!

"C'mon Dashie!" she enthusiastically shouted, again not seeming to care about how much I was struggling with her weight. "Keep going! You're doing great! This is so much fun! I love having fun! Aren't you having fun, too, Dashie‽ This is so much fun!"

I swear, that squirming wasn’t making anything easier, well, for me at least.

"Pinkie..." I started to plead. "I don't know how much longer I can..."

I suddenly felt her grip on me start to loosen. That was not good! Not good! Not good! Not good! I needed to land somewhere ASAP!

"Stop being such a whiny-pants, Dashie!" she teased me, again not seeming to care. "You're doing--oh no oh no oh no... DASHIE!"

"Huh‽" I gasped, suddenly realizing that one of my worst fears had just become reality - she was falling. "PINKIE! I'M COMING!"

------

"She's going to be okay... she's going to be okay... she's going to be okay..." I was mechanically repeating to myself, rocking on my haunches in a far corner of the Ponyville Hospital's waiting room. All five of us were there, and we still didn't know anything about Pinkie's status. I wasn't necessarily sad, just more... guilty, I guess. Guilty because I had crashed into her after she had already hit the ground! But if anything, though, one thing's for certain: I blamed myself; it was my fault that fell! It was my fault that she's in the hospital! It's my fault that we didn't even know whether she would... live. She was going to be okay... right? Oh, sweet Celestia how could I have let that happen? Out of all ponies I’m the Element of Loyalty and I let that happen‽

"She's going to be fine, Rainbow!" Twilight called to me from her seat on the other side of the waiting room. She was definitely stressed, there wasn't any doubt about it; it's actually rather obvious to tell whenever she is: random strands of her mane start sticking up, she acts somewhat maniacal, and... she acts like I was acting at the time...

"NO!" I shouted back, catching all of the others off-guard. "I... I'm having trouble buying that," I continued, breaking the awkward silence that had immediately followed my lash-out. "I... I can't understand how she could be! I... I can't believe it..."

"Well, ya will haf’ta, sugarcube.” Applejack said, trying to make me see then what I do now. “An’ ya need ta stop bein’ so hard on ya’self; yer only makin’ it worse…”

I didn't say anything and only continued to rock back and forth. Several long minutes later, the doctor came into the waiting room... and told us exactly what we didn't want to hear: she was in a coma, and they weren't sure when she would wake up - if she did wake up that is.

And it was because of me!

I immediately bolted out the hospital doors before anypony could say anything. I just ran, and I didn’t even bother to fly: partly because I was reluctant to do so, and partly because I was too distraught to focus on the task. I was at the point where I didn’t even trust myself flying, and at the time that had also extended to anything I did. I didn’t trust myself; I couldn’t bear to think about anything bad happening to any of my other friends due to my actions, especially after what had happened with Pinkie. This ‘incident’ was way too close of a call for me just to ‘move on’ from, especially considering that I realized that I could easily become suicidal or something like that if something similar were to happen again as a result of my actions, and that was not something that I wanted to think about! Not then, not now, not ever! The only thing keeping me back was the hope that she would wake up. If she didn't... I didn't have any idea how I would react...

I didn't know where I was running to, but that didn't matter, as long as I was alone whereever I ended up. I wasn't even looking where I was running to - my eyes were clenched shut, trying to hold back tears. After a while - I had long lost track of time - I got tired and stopped. I slowly opened my eyes for the first time since I had closed them: I saw that night had fallen, and I had apparently ran to the outskirts of Ponyville... and there was nopony else in sight.

I now know that my thinking and decision-making at the time were obviously clouded by my storm of mixed emotions, but back then I had decided to isolate myself from not only my friends, but from everypony. I felt that I couldn’t trust myself around others; after all, I had known that Pinkie falling was a very real possibility, but I ‘let’ it happen anyway. What would she think of me when she woke up - if she woke up? If... that word was probably hurting me more than anything else. 'If' she didn't wake up, that would have meant that I... that I had killed her... that I had killed one of my best friends... and if I did kill her, how would our other friends think of me? No doubt they would hate me for it! That is, if they don't hate me already!

I couldn't go back. Not after that. Pinkie didn't deserve to have a friend like me! Not after I had let her fall! I shouldn't have submitted to her, and I was a bad friend - a terrible friend - for doing so. I could've just left before she had gotten so stubborn about it, but I didn't... and because of me... because of me she could have died! And we don't even know whether she is dead yet! Nopony deserves a friend like me! How could my friends forgive me‽ No, no... they weren't my friends anymore... not after I let them all down like that. How could... they... forgive me‽ They said they do, but I knew they were lying, all of them! They couldn't forgive me after something like that! I betrayed them! Element of Loyalty my flank!

------

As the days past, I eventually heard rumors that Pinkie had woken up. However, there was more to it than that: I had also heard that she was looking for me ever since the moment she was released from the hospital. That was the last thing I wanted, and it immediately started to drive me over the edge. There was no way I could bring myself to face her after what I did to her! I almost killed her! I felt like I was a fugitive, always on the run, and knowing Pinkie, she wouldn't give in until I did - and I knew that from first-pony experience. To this day, I’m not quite sure why I had taken all of this as harshly as I did, but what I am sure of is that my resulting actions took a toll on my relationships with my friends, especially Pinkie. In hindsight, the fact that I was running from her was probably one of the most notable things that was keeping me from moving on: she would keep wanting to find me to talk to me about it, and I would keep running from her so I wouldn't have to. As that continued, I also realized the same thing that I did before the ‘incident’: I was in a losing battle.

------

"Dashie‽"

I had decided to stop running from her, as I knew I couldn't do that forever. However, I didn't go up and find her myself: I stood my ground on an isolated hill outside of Ponyville and waited for her to find me, which she apparently just did one starry night.

"Dashie..." she began as she trotted up and laid down next to me, "where have you been? I've been looking all over for you..."

"I know you have," I told her directly, doing my best to not look at her. Even so, I saw through the corner of my eye that her mane was still poofy for some reason.

"You did?" she asked in a sad-ish tone. "Then why..." she paused as she redirected her follow-up question, "were you trying to avoid me?"

I didn't say a word, only moving to turn away from her more than I already had been. Apparently that was enough of an answer for her.

"Dashie, why?" she asked, before catching herself as she realized the answer. She must've known that I still felt guilty about what I did to her - which I was, and rightfully so - because she then brought that up. "I'm...I'm sorry, Dashie... it was my fault!" she lied, "I shouldn't have asked you..."

"NO!" I corrected her harshly, catching her off-guard. "And that's what I should have told you in the first place! I should have told you no! I knew that I wouldn't be able to carry you for long! I knew that something like that could happen! But I did it anyway! It's my fault!"

"But..." she tried to intervene.

"NO!" I cut her off. "You don't deserve a friend like me! Nopony does!"

She didn't say anything, her jaw slack in disbelief. After a short while, she managed to voice some words.

"Why...why would you say that?" she said, desperately trying to hold back her tears. At that point, I honestly didn't care if I made her cry if that was what it would take to realize what I had done to her.

"I'm saying that because it's true!" I shouted in response. I obviously must have struck a chord with her, because she didn't respond. I soon found out the reason for her silence: a pop - like air rapidly rushing out of a balloon. Her mane laid down flat along her coat, and I still didn't care: I didn't want to have to go to that point to make her realize, but I had to, so I did.

"I'm sorry Pinkie..." I said to her as I simply got up and readied myself to fly off.

"No! Dashie! Where are you going‽" she had tried to 'reason' with me before I had taken to the air. I forced myself to look over my shoulder to look at her. Her uncharacteristically-flat mane was very-slightly flickering in the wind, and her tears were glistening in the moonlight. I looked back forward, spread my wings, and took to the air. I heard her tone saddening even more as I was fading out of her view: "Come back Dashie! Come back..."

------

"Dashie... please come back..." Pinkie was saying to herself, hoping that her best friend would somehow hear her. Little did she know, I did: I didn't fly too far, and looped around to see what she was going to do next, using the darkness as my cover. I was certain that she would have already left before I would have been able to loop around. Surprisingly, she was still in the same spot that I had left her, not having at all moved since she had watched as I flew off into the darkness. Did she still not believe that I really felt the way I did about what had happened? Or was it something else? It wasn't much longer before I found out the answer, and it stung me to my core: "You're acting so unlike yourself... I want the old Dashie back..."

------

Mane Story

I had found myself staring up at the night sky. I wasn't been acting like my usual self as of late; not since the... incident. I had nearly cost the life of a certain pink earth pony, but no matter how many times my friends had told me that I couldn't have done anything differently, I still simply blew them off. Regardless, I still blamed myself for everything that had happened, with an intensity that put even the flames on Celestia's majestic sun to shame. What was I thinking‽ Sure, Pinkie had close to begged me to take her flying, but I still could have told her no! In hindsight, it was clear as the sky that night that Pinkie would end up falling, which she ultimately did. There's a reason why they're called earth ponies! And to make matters worse, not only was I - 'the fastest, most awesome flier in all of Equestria' - not able to catch her in time, but I had ended up crashing into her after she had already hit the ground. By some miracle, though, not only did Pinkie survive, but she actually made an abnormally fast recovery, being released from the hospital after only about a week and a half, even if she had spent that time in a coma - a serious coma, to be exact. As for myself, however, well... I was a much different story. I wasn't hurt at all physically - as Pinkie had broken my impact - but rather emotionally.

To be completely honest, I'm not sure myself why I had taken all of what happened that hard. I have to say, all of those nights that I had spent there on that hill looking at the sky had surprisingly helped me a bunch! I was able to just... think about everything that had happened, and... well, you could say that I had finally come to realize what my friends had been trying to tell me, but... even that didn't seem to help me move on from it. They helped me realize how badly I had responded in the immediate aftermath, which I had continued to do so for a while afterward, too. Looking back again, I still couldn't believe I had acted like that. But I knew there must be some reason why I did. Could that have been what was holding me back? Not knowing why I was so devastated by it, even though even Pinkie wasn't? Could it really not have been that big of a deal?

It had been almost a month at that point since the "incident," and all of my friends had long since given up on trying to push their reasoning through my thick skull... well, with one exception, whom I then heard approaching from behind, as she had done every night, in what had evolved into a nightly ritual of ours.

"How long are we going to be keeping this up for, Dashie?" a solemn voice coming from behind me said, the use of the pet name giving away the voice's owner to me, even though I already knew who it was.

I remained silent, as I did every night then, to the very same question that Pinkie had begun asking me nightly, always as she would be starting to sit down next to me. Pinkie's mane had gone flat back when I had yelled at her on this very hill several weeks ago - which had ended with me flying off and excluding myself from society completely. It was because of that, as well as my persistant refusal to let go of what Pinkie herself considered the entire time to be the past - nothing more - that her mane had refused to go back into its usual poofy state.

As per the nightly ritual, I still didn't say anything, and I just continued to look up at the constellations that Princess Luna had put together for that night. At this point in the ritual, Pinkie usually would have silently gotten up and left, only to return to repeat the same process the next night. But not on that night. Instead, she surprised me by wrapping her hooves tightly around me in a hug, but she still didn't say anything. For several minutes, which had seemed more like 'FOREEVEEEERR' - as Pinkie would usually have put it, but definitely not while in her current, saddened state - neither one of us said or did anything. Until, that is, I finally decided to return the hug, and allowed Pinkie to sob softly into my shoulder.

"I'm so sorry, Pinkie..." I apologized, which was the majority of anything I ever said during that time - if I would even speak at all, that is.

Pinkie lifted her head up and looked into my eyes, both my magenta eyes and her blue glistening with tears, showing our own reflections in our own color.

"If it's for what happened, you better not be." she lectured me. "You're the only one who hasn't moved on yet. Nopony blames you for anything that happened - nopony ever did! If anypony's to blame for anything, it's me - even at the time, I was able to see that you were reluctant... but you agreed anyway... and... and I had kept pushing you to keep going while you were flying, even though you had been telling me that you couldn't..."

She immediately went back to softly sobbing into my shoulder. For some reason, I had decided to ignore her statement.

"You don't deserve a friend like me..." I claimed. "I let you fall... I let you down..."

Pinkie Pie wouldn't have any of it. She sniffled a bit before lifting her head up to look at me, her sapphire eyes welling with tears.

"No! You're wrong!" she practically scolded me as she forced me to make eye contact with her. "And stop telling yourself that! You're lying to yourself!" I started to try to turn away from her, but to no avail, as she forced me to look at her again. "You need to listen to what we've all been trying to tell you this entire time! We love you, Dashie! We all do!" Her tears started to catch up to her words, but somehow she forced her way through them, and there wasn't anything I could do to stop her. "And... and you're foaling yourself if you don't believe that! You're kidding yourself if you don't believe that! How can you still be such a saddy-pants, when your future still looks quite bright to me‽" She was barely able to speak by this point, but somehow she managed to say one more thing. "You're only hurting yourself, Dashie... which is what's hurting us..."

Pinkie was finally unable to contain her flowing tear ducts, and dove her head, bawling, right back into my shoulder, which at that point was already soaked with her tears.

I decided to say something - something that for the first time since the incident wasn't been either to curse out my lonesome self, to blame myself for what had happened, or to apologize repetitively to Pinkie.

"No, you're right..." I confessed, "about that not-moving-on part, at least - no, about everything. I am the only pony who hasn't moved on yet... and as a result I'm getting left behind in the dust... and that's something I've never been used to, let alone liked..."

I was actually surprised at myself for my confession, wondering where it had come from. I watched as Pinkie looked back up into my eyes, and forced a chuckle at what had been my desperate attempt at a joke, which actually seemed to have worked a little, as her mane started to poof back up, albeit if it was only ever so slightly.

"I still feel so... sappy," I added, bringing the tone immedtiately back to the original, more melancholy one.

After another short silence - and a tighter hug - I decided to continue, but this time with a question.

"How..." I began, "how long did it take for the others to forgive me?"

She once again looked up into my eyes, before closing her own and shaking her head slowly.

"I already told you, Dashie..." she solemnly stated. "Nopony blamed you! Nopony ever did, and nopony ever will."

As Pinkie opened her eyes back up, she found me adverting mine, seemingly in unnecessary shame. She nuzzled herself into my shoulder again, her tears having long since dried. The only thing that remained was to dry the tears of the one who was unlike herself to cry - me - yet every time that she had seen me since the 'incident', that's all I ever would really do during our nightly rituals: look up at the night sky, cry silently, and - if I was feeling at least somewhat-social that night - apologize repetitively.

Not completely knowing whether I was still listening to her or not, Pinkie decided to continue nonetheless.

"...and..." she continued, "...since nopony blames you for anything that happened - I don't even think that anypony had even thought about blaming you in any way - nopony has any reason to forgive you, especially for something that wasn't at all your fault."

I was hesitant to respond right away. In fact, I didn't respond for a while. After not moving at all for several long minutes, I slowly turned my head back up to look back at the starry night sky. My thoughts wandered among many clichéd topics. I thought about what happens after death. I thought about how things would have been different if had caught Pinkie in time. I thought about life, love, and the lack of. But above all else, I thought about my friends. About how they must have been thinking about me at that point. About how I - the Element of Loyalty - was locking herself away, abandoning her friends out of shame and depression. About how I - the most determined pegasus in Ponyville - had lost my job on the weather team due to a total lack of attendance. About how I - the most self-confident bloat ever to come out of Cloudsdale - had become the exact opposite, locking myself in my cloud-house during the day, and only emerging at night so that I wouldn't have to be seen by many ponies. About how my friends would want me back - the old Rainbow Dash back.

I knew that I had to live back up to the Element of Harmony that I represented, even if I hadn't been acting like it for the two fortnights before then. Ironically, I realized then that I was loyal to my element. No matter how far I strayed from it, I was - am - the Element of Loyalty for a reason, and that reason is because loyalty is embedded in my very soul. Loyalty is the largest part of who I was, who I am, and who I will be.

I realized what I had to do. I had to get over what had happened, as my friends had been telling me all the while. I had to suck it up and move on, just as my friends already had. I needed to be a friend to my friends once again. But above all else, I needed to act like myself, not unlike myself.

I started to try to get up, which prompted Pinkie to release her hug, despite her reluctance to do so. Once I got up on my hooves, Pinkie had more than expected me to immediately fly away. But I didn't. In fact, my wings remained tightly folded against my body, and I just stood there. I was looking up at the night sky once more... looking at it as if I was expecting it to give me some answers. In hindsight, perhaps it did, as I suddenly realized where I had gone wrong. I still needed to prove it to Pinkie though, which I did when I spoke again, but this time not unlike the daring mare everypony knew and loved - not unlike myself. What surprised her the most, however, was that I spread my wings wide, facing away from her... but I looked over my shoulder, as if I was... waiting.

"C'mon, Pinks, climb on," I said, attempting to force a smile. "I - we - have a lot of socializing to catch up on, and I'm not going to wait any longer - not even until morning. I've waited more than long enough already!"

Pinkie's mane immediately regained its usual poofiness - complete with a cloud of confetti. Out of nowhere, her 'bestest best friend in the whole wide world' was acting brash. She was acting irrational. She was acting extremely self-confident. She was acting boisterous. And, as Pinkie climbed onto my back, she grinned jubilantly at what she must have been thinking:

She's finally acting like herself again...

Epilogue

Dear Princess Celestia,

The others weren't particularly keen about being woken up when your sister's moon was at its apex, but all was immediately forgiven when it became known that it was Pinkie and I who were disrupting their slumber. All of them knew that this resolution would come at one point or another - or at least they had hoped that to be the case, I guess. Besides, as Twilight had pointed out, there is a symbolic connection between the two of us: my eye color matches her coat color, and vice versa. Pinkie still doesn't really understand the significance, but I do - it shows that we're closer to each other than we originally thought, which was something that actually cheered me up a lot.

On another note, I have actually become so much of myself again that I was even back to joking with Applejack, too! I even remember one thing I told her: "I really like your apples, I wanna shake your tree." Haha, I don't think she got the Steve Miller Band reference there, though, since she looked rather disturbed by it. The funny thing is, the name of the song that that's from is The Joker! Well anyway, to use AJ's words, Pinkie and I have become the apples of each other's eye - but in a completely platonic manner. In fact, as time has progressed further, Pinkie and I have grown closer than we have ever been before, but not in the way you would expect.

Over time, my relationship with Pinkie has grown past 'platonic' into something more serious - more surreal. We have spent more and more time together, be it simply pranking others, planning pranks on others, or even going out clubbing. Twilight has even managed to somehow put together what is basically a cloud-walking spell in a can, so that Pinkie and I would have even less restrictions to hanging out with each other! Well, that, and to greatly lower the chances of another 'incident'.

A year has now passed since the 'incident'. Winter changedI know you have, into Spring. Spring changed into Summer. Summer changed back into Winter. And Winter gave Spring and Summer a miss and went straight on into Autumn. But even still our bond has continued to burn fiercely, and it refuses to fizzle out. We have become as close as sisters. Well, almost; that would imply the possibility of a variant of a sibling rivalry, which we lack. Are you and Princess Luna like that?

Anyway, as for our friends, they were more than relieved about our still-growing bond. Actually, the increasing closeness between us has acted as a catalyst for the same to occur for all six of us; we all have become inseparable from one another, if we weren't already beforehoof. Our friendship functions seamlessly - something that Rarity appreciates in particular - and our closeness to each other acts as a web, keeping us together, in harmony. It's extremely difficult for somepony to comprehend the bonds between us all, especially because of the well-known fact that such incredible bonds were formed as a result of a near-tragedy. I guess friendship really is magic, as there seems to be no other explanation for the fluency and balance of our friendship, let alone the harmony of it.

Long story short, I've learned that I need to listen to what others try to tell me - to be more open-minded. My friends knew from the start that it wasn't my fault, but I didn't listen to them. I refused to believe that it was only an accident, not something I was at fault for, or would be blamed for. As a result, I paid the price for my ignorance, in a sense: I nearly lost my friends due to how I had been locking myself away out of shame - shame that only I thought existed. If it wasn't for Pinkie, I bet I'd still be doing the same thing, and still wouldn't have moved on from what had happened. I'm glad I have, and I have my friends to thank for it, especially Pinkie.

Your loyal subject,
Rainbow Dash

END

A/N: I've ((mostly) unintentionally) hidden several allusions in the story - Easter eggs, if you will. See if you can find them! Just...don't let it take away from enjoying the story, though; maybe try to find them on a second read-through?