Blade

Dashclad hadn’t visited the two in around a week. The guilt was too strong. Though, strangely it was the guilt that brought her back to them in the end. It was, to her surprise, alleviated briefly when she looked into the room and saw them.

Cherry was smiling as he watched his wife trot around the room cautiously. When she noticed their visitor however, she gasped with excitement.

“D-dd-dash!” She joyfully called.

She tried to sprint to her friend but nearly slipped, which apparently almost gave Cherry a heart attack. So, she limped the rest of the way. Dashclad couldn’t help but smile either.

“Hey, Derpy.” She finally answered.

When the happy gray pegasus reached her friend, she wrapped her into a hug so tight, Dashclad could hardly breathe.

“It’s good to see you too, Derpy.” She responded, patting her on the back.

“It’s b-be-en a while. H-h-how’ve you been?”

Awful. Her wrongdoings were unspeakable. She’d further crippled her already struggling friend for life. The damage was undoable.

“Fine.” She lied.

“The d-octorssss said that I s-shhould be walking in just another month or s-sss-“

She became noticeably frustrated.

“S-sss-ss-“ she ached to finish.

Dashclad thought about the word. It was so simple. “so”. That was it. Her friend couldn’t say it because of something she couldn’t control. But she didn’t stop. She always persisted until she ended up with what she wanted. Dashclad didn’t know many other ponies but she hoped that there were a lot of them like Cherry and Derpy; determined and optimistic. She didn’t know anyone quite like that until she met them.

“s-sss-… or s-soooo.” She ended pridefully.

There was no beating her. She was shot in the leg and she had been treating it like a minor inconvenience.

It was driving her mad. Dashclad just couldn’t understand how someone could be so strong. What was the harm anyway? Like there was anything that could offend the two of them. Dashclad asked the itching question.

“How can you be happy?”

Derpy’s eyebrows wrinkled strangely. She craned her head toward her husband for a moment to find that he was just as confused.

“What do you mean, Dash?”

Dashclad didn’t tiptoe around it this time. She needed to know.

“You got shot in the fucking leg, Derpy!”

“W-ha?” She grunted.

Dash pointed behind her. “Same with you, Cherry! The two of you are just smiling like everything’s all right! It’s pretty damn clear that nothing is okay right now!”

The room was full of nothing but Dashclad’s huffing for a moment. Then the two looked at each other. Cherry’s smile was gone, but he wasn’t frowning. His wife mirrored the expression.

“Because we have each other.” Cherry explained.

“Y-yea. As ll-long as there’s some-w-one who loves you, there’s no rea-asson to be sad.”

After that, they stopped talking. They didn’t take any extra time to explain why those things were, they just said it like it was the simplest thing in the world.

Dash thought for a moment about this. At first there was an aching confusion. Then her mind flooded with vivid images of her life. She had friends, but none of them were really very good ones. Nobody had ever really told her they loved her, but she hadn’t told anyone either. Had her entire life just been a build up to this question? If Cherry and Dara could be so happy with a life so simple, why hadn’t she?

It was complete silence in the room for that time. Dashclad looked at her two friends. They looked back. She hadn’t ever been treated so kindly and generously by anyone else in the world. Since, she had felt special about them. Perhaps it was love, but she had no way of knowing that. But for now, she could at least consider it a possibility.

Dashclad took another moment, and then leaned in toward her friends. When she was far enough in, she wrapped herself around Derpy’s neck and hugged her back.

The two were right to have not said anything more. Nothing else needed to be. There was an understanding. Dashclad hugged her friend because she loved her.

And suddenly, the guilt was lifted.

Rarity was drowning.

“Oh nonononononononooooooo…..” She moaned. “I didn’t do that.”

The doctor didn’t take the pictures away. “Yes you did, Miss Germane. This is you and this is what you did.” He said very insistently. “You need to understand that to let it go, Miss Germane.”

There was a feeling of overwhelming dread in her but she felt like if she knew why, she’d fall into something and hurt something.

These somethings were also vague, so she decided it was best to ignore them.

“No, no, no, no, no.” She repeated, plugging her ears with her hooves childishly.

The doctor twisted the big plastic knob, making the image larger. “Look at it Rarity. You did this.”

“I really didn’t, Melvin dear.” She said through her teeth.

“I’m not Melvin, Miss Germane. I am Doctor Remus, your mental coach.”

He looked at her directly again. This only made her fake a laugh and turn her eyes away.

“That’s not funny, Lyra. Please don’t joke like that. Those pictures are filthy.”

“I’m not Lyra either, Rarity Germane.” The doctor said with increasing insistence. “I am Doctor Remus Wilde, and I am your mental coach. Your friends are not here, and I am showing you what you have done, Miss Germane.”

He adjusted the photo again.

“I mean it, Melvin. A joke is a joke, but this has gone far enough.” She said sternly without turning back.

“Miss Germane.”

“Rarity.”

“…Rarity, look at these photos. You are the cause of these events and they are the root of your pain. Please. I only want to help you.”

“I didn’t do those dirty things, it’s not funny. I’m not a dirty person.” She whined.

Doctor Remus pointed to the focus of the shot. Mizmahl’s brains and were fresh on the pavement and his skull was wide open like a windowsill into his head.

“You killed this hound, Rarity. You shot him to death and then bludgeoned his corpse. You did this and you have to know that you did it.”

“I didn’t do it, Melvin.” She growled.

“I am not Melvin.”

With this statement came a strange kind of confirmation. Something blinked in her head and it was magically clear. She knew everything now, but that was nowhere near a good thing. She fell into her mind and broke. She broke.

“SHUT UP!” She screamed violently.

She slammed her hooves to her ears and began to dig them in. She shook her head back and forth until she couldn’t see or hear anything. She was startled when she felt somebody grab her arms to pull them away, but she kept the silence by screaming as loud as she could until they gave her arms back. That of course, didn’t help either and very quickly she felt a sharp pinch in her neck. That made her shriek extra loud. Where she would go next was up to god. Rarity drifted away from reality once again to seek refuge in the embrace of her dreamless sleep.