When Words Are Not Enough
When Words Are Not Enough
Rainbow Dash lay on her bed with her face buried into her pillow. The tears had finally stopped, but the words still echoed through her skull.
The pegasus flipped onto her back with a grunt. Her eyes drifted upward, completely unfocused. The sun shone through her window, but even its brilliant rays could not penetrate the darkness within her soul.
Dash lifted her pillow up above her head and brought it down with a resounding slap. She. Would. Not. Cry.
Sighing, the mare got up off the bed. Maybe moving would help…
She opened her refrigerator, pulling out her jug of milk. Empty. Again. She’d have to stop off at the store on the way from work tomorrow. If she even left the house tomorrow…
She tossed the jug onto the floor. It landed on its side, flopping on top of her pet turtle. Tortoise. Whatever. It didn’t matter anymore.
Dash walked slowly over to her couch, but stopped to look at the mirror that hung on the wall in her hallway.
She didn’t even recognize the pegasus who stared back at her.
“AAAAAAAHHHHHH!”
She ripped the mirror off the wall, smashing it to the floor. A shard of glass cut her hoof open, but Dash ignored the blood.
Dash stormed over to the couch, throwing herself down and loosing herself in her memories…
The mare couldn’t hold back any longer. The tears flowed from her, and she allowed her head to fall onto her coffee table. The same table that held her letter opening knife.
Rainbow Dash grabbed the letter knife, looking at it. Studying it. Had he looked at his knife this way? Had he stared at it for days, just knowing that it would be the last thing he ever saw before—
WHAM, WHAM, WHAM!
The knocking from her door broke through the cloud of darkness that had been hanging around the mare’s head. She stood up and walked over to answer the door. She left the knife on the table.
As the door swung open, Rainbow Dash found herself starring into the face of her friend, Twilight Sparkle. Or rather, her ex-friend, Princess Twilight Sparkle.
“What do you want?” She croaked.
“Can I come in?” Princess Sparkle asked, smiling softly at the pegasus.
“Is that a question, or a demand?”
Dash met Princess Sparkle’s eyes. The alicorn could see the tearstains, no doubt, but Dash didn’t even care.
“A question. I just wanted to talk. Unless you’re doing something, of course, in which case I apologize for intruding.” She backed away a step before meeting Dash’s eyes once more. “Are you doing anything?”
Dash pushed the door fully open. “Nothing that can’t wait ‘til later…”
“Thank you.” Princess Sparkle walked inside the house. Her eyes glanced over the broken mirror, the milk jug on the floor, and the rumpled mattress. She didn’t seem to see the knife though. Good.
“What do you want this time? Here to take another stab at me?” Dash winced slightly at her own choice of words. “Wreck my self esteem even further?”
Princess Sparkle shook her head sadly. “Dash. You know that I didn’t mean anything offensive by what I wrote. I just wanted to—“
“HA!”
Sparkle stepped back. “Dash, I just wanted to apologize. I wrote some things that I shouldn’t have—“
“Damn right!”
“—and I’m sorry.”
Dash shook her mane back and forth. “Sorry? After all that, you just say sorry? That’s it? Sorry yourself, Princess Sparkle, but that’s not enough.”
The other mare took a step back. “’Princess Sparkle?’ What happened to ‘Twilight?’”
“Twilight was my friend. Twilight backed me up at my lowest. You aren’t Twilight.”
“Yes I am! Nothing has changed! You asked for help, and I gave it!” Sparkle stamped her hoof into the cloud, sending a puff flying into the air.
“Wait. You think what you gave me was HELP?” Dash threw her head back, shooting a glare at the alicorn. “Of all the stupid things that I’ve heard you say before, Princess, that is the dumbest. Here, let me show you.” Sparkle winced at the comment, but said nothing.
The pegasus strode over to her desk, pulling out a binder stuffed full of papers. “Let’s see what your ‘help’ actually was.”
Princess Sparkle walked into the room in order to look at the papers over Dash’s heaving shoulders.
“So, here’s your end note,” Dash said as she yanked a piece of notebook paper from the folder. “And what you said, word for word.” The pegasus cleared her throat as she began to read.
“Dear Rainbow Dash. Thank you for sending this manuscript to me. I am glad that you thought of me first after writing this.”
Dash glared at Sparkle. “Big. Mistake.” Before the other mare could respond, Rainbow read on.
“Before I begin, I think that you should know that I am going to give you my honest opinion. In circumstances like these, anything less that the full truth would cause more harm than good.”
Sparkle nodded. “Which is why I don’t see what you’re so upset about! You gave me what you’d written, and you wanted what I thought about it! So, why would you—“
“So, let’s begin. The concept itself is… trite. Overdone.”
Rainbow shot a death glare at the Princess.
“It’s true! That story has been done before, many times, and by authors with far more experience than you!” Sparkle protested.
“The dialogue feels fake. It doesn’t inspire emotion, and it barely even feels coherent.”
“The interaction between Daring and her mother was totally implausible. There is nothing to indicate that the two ever felt anything like that! And what two sane ponies would?”
Rainbow stopped for a moment, throwing down the paper. “Why, you…” She stopped herself, breathing in deeply. “No. You just keep digging yourself deeper.”
“What?” Sparkle asked. But Rainbow merely picked up her paper and continued reading.
“The characters… Rainbow. They’re not good. They’re two dimensional, weakly executed, and frankly, I just don’t feel attached to either one.”
Dash looked up. “Remember that. Let it SINK IN.”
“The plot falls apart from the beginning. It is riddled with holes, and none of it makes any sense!”
“Dash, what are saying? Are you trying to tell me something?”
“Rainbow, I’m going to put this as gently as possible. This is… really bad.”
The pegasus smirked. “I like how ‘gentle’ that was. Gentle as a stab to the gut.”
“Look, I hate to say it, but if you really want this to succeed, then you need to start over.”
“Dash, NONE OF THIS WAS PERSONAL!” Sparkle practically shouted. “It’s a review! To make you see the work through eyes other than the ones that wrote it!”
“And it’s just another story designed to evoke an emotional reaction.”
Dash met Sparkle’s eyes. “Well, you got one right. Somepony pin a medal on you.”
“You try to make ponies feel something, but it isn’t working.”
“I didn’t mean it in a hurtful way, Dash. I was just trying to tell you that—”
“Again, you don’t get it! It doesn’t matter what you meant! It matters what I felt!” Rainbow yelled before continuing.
“The grammar, spelling, and punctuation all need work. You need an editor before this will ever go anywhere.”
“Which. Is. Why. I. Came. To. You.”
“I was only trying to help…”
“Also, ‘Daring Do,’ in this story, is obviously just your personality and her body and name. That’s not a good way to write a story.”
Sparkles mouth dropped open as she gasped. “Wait…”
“You’re an athlete, Rainbow. A good one. Maybe writing isn’t for you. But hey! Maybe you can pass it off as a black comedy! A spoof!”
“Sweet Celestia…”
Dash gave a lopsided grin. “Oh, so are you seeing it now? You seeing why I reacted the way I did? Could you have possibly managed to finally understand?”
“I… I had no idea…”
“Obviously not,” Rainbow intoned. “But how does it feel, knowing that you said that one of your best friend’s personal account of her own dad committing suicide would be a good ‘black COMEDY?’”
Tears welled up in Sparkle’s eyes. “Dash, please…”
“OH! So are you SORRY now? Everything finally makes sense, and now you’re going to come begging for forgiveness? You saw that it was, as you put it, ‘obviously my personality.’ How did you not put two and two together? How the HELL did you manage to be Celestia’s ‘personal protégé’ when you can’t even see the obvious?”
Sparkle couldn’t even speak, so Dash continued on.
“And you called that just a ‘critique?’ You ripped it apart and destroyed what I had spent MONTHS working on without even batting an eyelash. I’d poured my heart and soul into it, and you just come along and act as if that all meant nothing!”
“Months?”
“YES! MONTHS!” Dash screamed at the royal. “I came to you for help to make it better! I didn’t need to be told that it was horrible! I already knew that! I needed help! I needed your support!”
“But I was trying to help! I thought that was what you wanted! I didn’t know what it meant to you!”
“REALLY? REALLY!?” Foam flew from Dash’s mouth as she stared at her former friend. “What in Celestia’s green Equestria gave you the impression that ANYONE would want to be spat upon? Have their life’s story called trite?’
“I didn’t know! You never told me!” Twilight’s tears streaked down unceasingly. “I thought it was a fanfic! I thought it was something that you’d thrown together on a whim! If I’d known, then I never would have said those things.”
Dash gazed at the other mare. The pony who had been through so much with her. The pony who had saved her, had helped her, had given her life purpose again. Dash saw her stand there, as broken as a little filly had stood seventeen years ago, blaming herself for something that she had no control over.
Twilight stepped forward. “Dash. Please… Can you forgive me?” She held out a hoof.
And then the dam broke.
The pegaus let out a strangled sob as she leapt into the other pony’s waiting hooves. “I’m s-sorry.” She sobbed. “It’s n-not your fault. I just…”
Twilight just stood there, holding Dash. “It’s okay… It’s okay…”
“I just… I needed to say something. To tell her…”
Twilight pulled away a little bit. “To tell who?”
Dash gave a sad smile. “You know how Daring Do barely talked to her mom after her dad… You know?” At Twilight’s nod, she continued. “Well, after dad left us, I never told my mom that I loved her when I was growing up. Never once. I guess I always blamed her for dad’s death. She was never around, and I felt abandoned. And when I moved out, I didn’t speak to her for years. But then, three months ago, I was looking at the calendar, and I realized something.” Dash wiped her face with her hooves.
“Tomorrow marks the seventeenth anniversary of dad’s… passing. It also would have been their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, if he’d still been around. And… I just wanted to tell her… S-since I never had earlier… T-that I l-l-love her…”
The tears fell through the cloud floor down to the ground far below them. Dash sniffed loudly before continuing.
“So I wanted to do something different. She’s been a writer. It’s how she paid the bills for so long. So, I wanted to…” Her eyes fell. “I wanted to write her a story. My story.”
Twilight pulled Rainbow close again. “Dash, I… I don’t even have the words. They just wouldn’t be enough…”
Words wouldn’t be enough…
All the pain. All the darkness. All her anger. Twilight’s words cut through all of them, like a ray of light through the darkest night. “Words… Not enough…”
Dash pulled away again. “Twilight. You were right about one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“I am a terrible writer.” Dash smirked slightly. “But you’re not.”
Dash walked back over to her couch. She picked the knife up with a smile. No. She wouldn’t let him ruin her life any longer.
Dash tossed the knife out her window. She then pulled out an old beaten up typewriter.
“I need you to help me say what I never could.”
Surprise lay in her bed. The early rays of sunrise shone through the window. The older mare groaned as she tried to lift her hooves out of bed. It was off to work with her, and then to the store, and then back home to another night alone.
She forcibly kept her eyes away from the calendar. She already knew what day it was. She did not need the reminder.
She stumbled out to her kitchen to make herself a grass shake. But as she pulled out her blender from the cupboard, a sheet of paper fell out. She frowned as she picked it up, but her mouth quickly turned to a gasp.
Dear Mom,
Seventeen years ago to this day, the stallion closest to us made the most selfish choice that anypony could ever make. He left us alone in a cruel world, alone with his failings, and alone with the knowledge that oblivion was a greater comfort to him than our presence.
I never forgave him. I missed him, and wanted him back terribly, but I never forgave him. I missed him, more than I would miss life itself, and I wanted him back more than I wanted to keep breathing, but I never forgave him. I became angry. Ashamed. I lashed out at the only pony I could. You.
I didn’t understand. Dad was gone, and you had to leave too. You were never home, since you always had to be at work. I thought that you hated me too, that you didn’t want me either. I took to sports to escape. And then we saw each other even less. I avoided you, just as I thought that you were avoiding me.
I was wrong.
Two months ago, I started writing a story about my life. I would bring it to you to read, but it was terrible. A friend told me so, and I agreed with her. After I stopped crying, that is.
I can’t write. Not like you can. And I know that I couldn’t have done what you did. I couldn’t have given up what you gave up for my sake.
You are my hero. I see that now.
And I have something to tell you. Something that words cannot express.
“Mom…”
Surprise turned to face her daughter, tears staining both their eyes.
“MOM!” Rainbow yelled as she ran over to her mom, throwing her hooves around in an enormous hug.
“I love you…” She whispered into Surprise’s ear.
But the words didn't even need to be said.
Author's Note
This is the new revised version of the story that I had posted earlier. The original is in a blog post on my account.
Big thanks to The Parasprite and Dark Avenger for their input. This would still be a whole lot worse if they hadn't told me just how badly it sucked.
For those that do not realize it after reading: this is, in fact, a meta fic. The first draft was the 'sad' story. This one has a totally different goal.
Peace guys!
Doc
