“C’mon, slowpoke. We’re almost there!” called Rainbow Dash from over the hill.

Ryan let out a wheeze, then continued upwards, forcing his aching legs and feet to obey his commands.

After what felt like a small eternity he arrived at the top of the hill, where Rainbow Dash was sitting, having not broken a sweat despite the fact that she hadn’t used her wings at all. Ryan wanted to rebuke her for leaving him in the dust, but the soft smile on her face stopped him.

I guess that I’ll just have to get more exercise. he thought, taking a seat beside the prismatic pegasus, God only knows how badly my muscles have atrophied, I bet it’ll take a long time for me to recover….if I make it that long.

He heaved a sigh and tore his thoughts away from his condition, vowing to let some light into the darkness of his mind and ignore his sadness, if only for a little while.

And when he saw the sky above him, he realized that his vow wouldn’t be as hard to put in motion as he had thought.

“Pretty, ain’t it?” said Dash, lying back and placing her hooves behind her head; Ryan could only nod.

Luna’s night sprawled before him, the bright tapestry of stars glittered in the dark, cloudless sky, looking like they could give off heat. The moon hung, fat and healthy-looking, at the center of it all, framed perfectly by her smaller companions.

Why haven’t I looked up more? Ryan wondered, feeling tears well up in his eyes.

“Somethin’ wrong?” asked Rainbow Dash, the worry in her tone pulling the human away from the beauty that lay before him.

He shook his head, “No….it’s just so….so beautiful. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a night sky that was that perfect before. I guess I just didn’t look enough.”

“Well you can look as much as ya want here.” asid Dash, the smile clear in her voice.

“Yeah.” said Ryan, watching the stars twinkle and imagining that the way that they did so held some kind of meaning, like Morse Code. He smiled as the thought of Luna setting the stars to wink out some kind of saying, like “Drink your ovaltine” or “Kiss her, you fool!”, came to his mind.

They lapsed into a comfortable silence for a while. But, as the minutes stretched on, Ryan got the feeling that his pony chaperone was growing nervous. He turned and saw her fidgeting with her hooves and looking down at the grass.

“Is something wrong?” he asked, startling the prismatic pegasus.

“Well…” started Dash, still refusing to look at him, “I was just wondering….will you ever forgive me?”

Ryan started, having not expected the question to be asked at this time.

“I mean, I’d understand if you didn’t want to forgive me ever, I really hurt you….didn’t I?”

Ryan sighed and nodded, “Yeah….you hurt me. But you’re trying to make up for it, which is….kind of surprising. As for forgiving you, I think that I’m pretty close, I just…..need a little time, okay?”

There was a pause, then Dash let out a relieved sigh and said, “Okay, thanks, Ryan.”

Overhead a comet streaked across the sky, leaving a glowing contrail behind it that stayed alight for far longer than the human thought possible.

“Wow, Luna’s really outdone herself this time.” said Dash, the awe in her voice matching the awe in her companion’s eyes.

Ryan was silent for a moment, then he turned, looked Dash in the eyes and said, with utmost sincerity, “I want to look at the night as much as I can...before-”

He realized his mistake too late. The contented peace that had wrapped itself over the two disappeared as quickly as a flame snuffed out in a storm. He heard Dash shift in her spot, felt her gaze on the back of his neck.

“Before?” asked Rainbow Dash, “Before what?”

He looked down, clenching his fists in anger as the happiness suddenly faded away at his slip-up.

“Before what, Ryan?” repeated Dash.

He couldn’t see her, but he heard the worry and the intensity in her voice, and he was ashamed of how weak his response sounded.

“I don’t know...i-it’s just so hard…..and I’m sick, Dash, I know I am. And….and I can’t leave, or I don’t want to, and I just don’t know what I’ll do once my community service is up. Maybe Celestia will imprison me. ‘S not like I don’t deserve it.”

“But you don’t.” exclaimed Dash, “You did some bad things, but you aren’t a bad person.”

“Aren’t I?!” he snarled, turning to face her and causing her to flinch. “I killed some ponies, Rainbow Dash. I hurt people and, even though I got what I deserved, I think that the other ponies still want-”

“What do you mean ‘got what I deserved’?” asked Dash, cutting him off, “Are you telling me that you think that you deserved what….what happened to you?”

The horror and shock on her face made Ryan’s cheeks burn with shame, and he looked away again.

“Yes.” he whispered, suddenly feeling like his skin had been overtaken by a thick frost that worked its way past his muscles and tainted his blood. He shivered and hugged himself with his thin, miserably frail arms and wished that he could disappear, that his confession could have lightened his burden.

But neither of those things happened, and Ryan wished that he had never opened his mouth in the first place.

He heard Dash get to her hooves and move towards him, a moment later her hoof fell upon his shoulder.

“Hey, look at me.” she said calmly.

Ryan kept his gaze trained on the ground, but Dash was persistent. She placed a hoof under his chin and gently turned his face towards her own.

Ryan found himself gazing into her large, magenta eyes, eyes which held their usual confidence, but had traded brash energy for soft kindness and more patience than he had thought possible for someone like her.

“Listen, please,” she said, and he found himself complying.

“You didn’t deserve what happened to you. No one deserves that: Not Discord, not King Sombra, not even Queen Chrysalis. What happened to you was wrong, it was nasty and horrible, but it was not your fault, okay?”

“But-” began Ryan, feeling his eyes begin to sting, “but I...I’m a monster….I h-hu-hurt-”

“It doesn’t matter.” said Dash with a shake of her head, “You….you made some mistakes, but we all do. I had a friend named Gilda, we had known each other since flight academy and we were so….so alike, we were both daredevils, we were both pretty tough and we both liked teasing ponies.”

She sighed and looked away for a second, trying to keep her cool, before turning back and continuing.

“But I’m not the same mare that I was at flight school, I was….pretty mean back then, I guess I just cared more about going faster and doing awesome stunts than making friends and I just sort of fell in with Gilda. But she was way meaner than I was, but I didn’t care, I just thought that we were so alike.”

She snorted and heaved a sigh, “Turns out that I couldn’t have been more wrong. Gilda was just a bully in the end. She made Fluttershy cry, threatened Pinkie Pie and nearly gave poor Granny Smith a heart attack!”

She looked down and Ryan got the sense that, if she had possessed fingers, she would be clenching the into fists of anger.

“I was so….so angry. One of my best friends was nothing but a big jerk and I was too stupid to notice!”

She brushed a hoof across her eyes and gave a trembling laugh, “I’m such an idiot. I can’t believe I told you that, I know that it isn’t nearly as horrible as what happened to you, but-”

“Actually, something like that happened to me.” said Ryan, allowing himself to keep looking into Dash’s eyes as he continued.

“When I was about 12 or so, I ran with a group of so-called ‘Cool Kids’. They drank a lot of beer, smoked, called teachers ‘bitches’ and stole stuff from the shops. I thought that they were the best people in the world. Then, one day, I came home and my dad told me that I wasn’t allowed to see my friends any more.”

Dash cocked her head, “Why?”

“That’s what I asked him.” said Ryan, “I asked him over and over and threw a fit. He got angry and told me that those kids had robbed a pharmacy and….and they killed a little girl by accident.”

Dash gasped and Ryan felt tears well up in his eyes.

“And you know what the funny thing was? They were the first and…..and last freinds that I had in my world. They killed a toddler and they weren’t even out of their teens!”

His lungs produced a chuckle, which got mangled into a high, keening sob by the lump in his throat.

He clutched his eyes and tried his best to rub the tears away. He felt Dash’s hooves wrap themselves around him a minute later.

He shuddered slightly at the contact, but stayed still and let her hug him until the wave of discomfort faded, and when that happened he returned her hug as best he could.

They stayed like that for a few seconds before breaking apart. After that they spent a good portion of Luna’s gorgeous night talking about past mistakes, present desires and fond memories, of which Dash had far more.

Ryan listened to her stories and felt his mind calm, felt a bit of the weight disappear from his limbs; It was almost pleasant.

Then, just as the sky began to brighten as Celestia’s sun rose, Dash asked a question which had been plaguing his mind.

“Are you gonna be okay until we can get you a therapist?”

Ryan looked at his feet, sighed, then looked back up and nodded, “I think so.”

“You’re not gonna try and...y’know…”

“No.” said the human, watching the first of the sun’s golden rays brighten the mountain tops, “I won’t try to...to kill myself.”

“You Pinkie Pie Promise?”

“Yes.”

“Cross your heart and hope to gly, stick a cupcake in your eye?”

“Uh….I suppose.”

“Ryan.”

“Yes, cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye. I won’t hurt myself.”

“Thank you.”

Dash rose to her hooves and stretched, “I think we should be getting back. Twilight’s probably havin’ a fit.”

Ryan smiled and got his his feet, “Yeah….I think that I can sleep now.”

Dash smiled at him and fluttered into the air, “Good, let’s go then.”

The two made their way down the hill as the sun overtook the night. All around them the comforting melodies of birdsong reached their ears as the sounds of night life dwindled into nothing.

As he stepped into the orchards, feeling the soft earth give beneath his toes, Ryan thought, I wonder if I can get better. I know that I have a long way to go, but maybe it’ll be worth it. Maybe I can earn forgiveness, heck, maybe I can forgive myself. Maybe I can even get past what….what happened to me.

Maybe the nightmares will even stop.

The sun rose, the animals went about their waking activities, and the human and the pony made their way into town as the first ponies were setting out for their jobs. Ryan knew that they were looking at him, but his gaze remained on Rainbow Dash the whole trip.

As he watched her scowl at a glaring unicorn, a strange thought occurred to him.

Maybe she’s saving me.

The thought brought a closed-lipped smile to his skeletal face, and he felt his spirits rise a little bit higher.

Maybe it’s not too late for me. he thought as he stepped into Twilight’s castle.

Maybe.

Just maybe.

Author's Note

And so ends Crippled, Beaten and Broken.

I hoped you guys liked it. It's been a blast writing this tale of woe and, who knows, maybe it'll get a sequel in the future. Probably. Most definitely probably.

I hope that you enjoyed this story and that it can be remembered as "Pretty Good".

And the soundtrack for this story is below: