***

"Under the Twinkle of a Fading Star"

The incessant chatter was almost enough to make the meek girl raise her voice, but luckily she had some semblance of self control to speak of. Still, what seemed like thousands of unremarkable words (separated far too often by linguistic fillers and disfluencies) burrowed through Fluttershy’s long dangling hair and into her sensitive ears. Her only defense was the thoughtless shaking of her head over and over accompanying a hum or two of blind protest, as if the speaker cared whether or not she heard anything.

“Oh, but you wouldn't believe the look on her face! It was like, oh, really, well then—not that she said a thing at all, but you just knew what she was thinking!” Rarity’s voice grew tiresome to listen to, but Fluttershy continued to eavesdrop. It was all she had left of their friendship.

“That's just insane! I can't even! Like, oh my god, what a total loser,” some other indistinct yet annoyingly shrill voice spoke to the girl who once shared her terribly superficial tales with Fluttershy.

“But darling, it's not at all surprising, the poor dear hardly speaks at all! She's got little to say, so it's all in those droll little expressions. Très amusant!” Rarity forced a loud laugh as she slammed her locker closed and flipped her perfectly styled hair and let the smell of expensive shampoo waft through the hall in her wake.

Fluttershy watched quietly as her previously dear friend strode off with a couple of strangers. It bothered her, that Rarity would recount their latest interchange with such little veracity, or that she would speak like that without checking if she was in earshot. It was as though she were fabricating some huge dramatic quarrel between the pair, while in fact it was more like distance and lack of understanding.

Not that Fluttershy was angry with Rarity, or vice versa. They had just been growing apart for the last few weeks after the funeral, and things had become uncomfortable between them. In fact, it was the same for all of their friends, and it nearly tore Fluttershy apart. It was a mockery of Pinkie Pie’s name for them to have lost touch with each other, as she was always the glue that kept them together.

With a gentle sigh, Fluttershy pushed her own locker door closed and leaned the tip of her forehead slightly against it. Shifting to one side, she noticed that the locker next to hers remained vacant, as evident by the fact that it still bore no lock to keep it protected. She could still see the pink stain on the ground and bottom of the door from the time Pinkie had shattered a bottle of nail polish in front of it. There was also the scratch marks in the metal around the lock from when she had forgotten her code and Rainbow tried to pick the backup key lock with a Swiss army knife. Rainbow Dash had then offered to carve the code into the pink haired girl's forehead, but opted instead to etch it into the back of the lock that now resided in a box of old, useless things.

She was startled by someone accidentally walking into her, to which she whispered an unneeded apology. As she stood back up to her full height, she realized that the halls were hurriedly clearing out as the final bell had long since rung to dismiss them. Fluttershy placed a soft hand to her head as a migraine seemed imminent, but she did not complain out loud. Instead, she took two narrow steps back before turning towards the rear exit of the school.

It was the back door that Fluttershy preferred to leave through, as it gave her a direct path to walk in front of the neighboring houses that she had grown accustomed to. Even though she no longer met her friends every other afternoon, it was nice to have some consistency. Besides, she had to see the neighborhood dog, Angel.

The sun was low in the sky, as the nights were waning longer and eating up the daylight. Yet it was still bright out, without a cloud to be seen. Despite the beautiful weather, it was otherwise below freezing in temperature. That prompted Fluttershy to wear one more layer than normal, a thick puffy jacket which she tucked her warm gloves into. Her heavily insulated boots brushed against each other and made a shuffling sound as she made her way to the usual yard.

As she approached the fence, she noticed that it looked different. The dead bushes that usually hung around the corners of the lot had been removed, though it was a strange time of year to do so. Perhaps they had gathered the dried sticks and branches along with the last rake of fallen leaves, Fluttershy couldn't be sure. In addition, it looked as though some rowdy hooligans had taken a go at sneaking through the fence, as a usually small gap in the chain link had been pried farther open.

“This can’t be safe,” she murmured to herself as she ran her gloved finger along the sharp edge of the fencing, which would have given her a nasty cut had she been less careful. “Angel? Are you there?”

There was no immediate response, and it had her worried. The gap in the fencing seemed plenty large enough to accommodate the lithe body of a small dog, and it had Fluttershy worried. Taking another quick look around the yard for any clues as to where the dog might have been, Fluttershy leaned up against the cold metal of the chain link despite the icy jolt it gave her.

“Angel? Here boy, are you out?” Her breath rolled like steam out of her mouth as she called for her friend, and she briefly stifled a cough caused by the sharp intake of freezing air.

As if the temperature wasn’t low enough, Fluttershy was chilled to the bone by a distant, excited barking. Her head whirled around in the direction of the sound. It took her a few seconds to fully comprehend that Angel was no longer in the safe confines of his yard, and another instant or two until she recognized the long strip of concrete that ran between them.

The barking echoed once more, and the animal’s muddy paws clashed with the bright white fur that seemed to glow in the halo of sunshine over its back. Slowly rising to her feet, Fluttershy raised her hand and extended it palm outwards to the small dog as if silently asking it to stay. Her voice was robbed away by the breath hiding in her throat, and she slowly shook her head back and forth. Another high-pitched squeak hardly qualified for a bark, but Angel continued to chirp at his familiar human friend, even from their distance.

“Angel,” it was a nearly inaudible whisper, but it seemed to elicit a response from the pooch. As the dog cheerily pranced over to Fluttershy, her wide eyes mirrored her gaping mouth. “Angel, no! Stay there!”

Terrified shouts were nothing but galvanizing to the animal, who’s eagerly wagging tail chased him as he jumped down off of the sidewalk and touched paw to pavement. Her numb legs wobbled as they carried her across the crisp, dying grass and towards the road just a mere house or two away from her. With brisk wind and worry drawing tears from her eyes, she frantically continued to scream at the lost dog.

“Please stop, please, go back, Angel go back! You have to stop, Angel please, don’t!” her high pitched squealing was hard to understand, as if the pup could understand her language at all.

Her quick stepping feet sounded off the sidewalk as she reached it. Just one lane away, Angel jumped and barked at the girl, as a car raced right behind his hind legs towards the hill just beside the neighbourhood. A squeak breached Fluttershy’s throat as she feared for how close the car had come, but with the small animal already half way across the street she could do little but guide him the last few feet. Her horrified panting broke up her crying words, but she spoke again with a few steps closer.

“Angel, hurry, hurry up! P-Please Angel,” she wheezed and waved her hands around as if directing the wind to find her, and the little dog trotted along the path she pleaded. “That’s right, right, right here Angel. I’ve got you, I’ve got—?”

Her whole body went still as the metal frame soared past her, and her breathless form remained static even as the gust from such speed blew past her. Hair flicked about around her pale expression, and the sound of screeching tires erupted over the street. With tears rolling over every dip in her thin face, Fluttershy absently glanced around the area as though she wasn’t sure what she was looking for.

“Angel?” sounded very gentle despite her tight chest and shaking hands.

Between her tear-laced lashes and the blur of her vision, she found the small form she had been watching up until the last second. Fluttershy bobbed back and forth with uneven and uncertain steps as she made her way to the end of the sickly red trail. The painted lines of lanes along the road seemed to draw on forever, as did the black streaks of tires and the many other stains she cared not to name.

Her body was statuesque against the juxtaposed rising of muffler fumes and the continuing racing by of the careless traffic around her. But there, just behind the back of a large minivan, was something else entirely still. She fell to her knees in front of it, heedless of the sharp pain she felt as she must have scraped the skin off one of them and bruised the other. Trembling hands were hesitant to reach out, but somehow they made their way to the stained ball of fur she used to recognize.

Touching the strange object felt eerily familiar to her, the same uncertain sensation she had when she went to shake the friend she had once thought to have been merely sleeping. She picked up the bundle of knotted and matted hair and clutched it at the extent of her arms before curling it nearer to herself. It felt wet, even through her thickest jacket, and she was certain that it would stain more than just the fabric, but perhaps the skin underneath.

There was some loud noise around her that she could not comprehend or recognize, and for just a moment longer she was deaf to it. It was just a distant ringing, like the memory of the sound of Angel barking at her from across the street. But finally, her heavy head tipped back and she looked into the worried and angry expression of some stranger who was calling to her. Suddenly, words were clearer, and she understood the shouting.

“—in the street like that?! Are you alright? You could have gotten yourself killed!” were some of the words that Fluttershy made out.

“I’m sorry,” she was uncertain why she was apologizing, but she did it anyway. Her tears leaked from her cheeks and chin and buried themselves into the soft fur in her arms.

“I have my kids in my car, they’re both screaming and crying! They could have been injured, or worse!” The man was flailing his arms around wildly as he exclaimed, “What were you thinking? Get out of the road!”

“Angel,” she whimpered in a sob, wavering side to side.

“Please, get up,” the man reached down and looped a hand under Fluttershy’s weak arm, pulling her carelessly to her feet despite her weeping growing louder and louder. “You’re okay, you’re okay. You have to get out of the road, it’s dangerous.”

“H-Help me,” Fluttershy repeated the words she had on her lips when she had first found Pinkie Pie, and her mind reeled as it all felt too similar and like too much to bear.

“Help you? With what?” The man looked down at her tightly wrapped arms, clutching her burdens so dearly to her chest. “I have to get back to my kids, wait here.”

“They’re gone,” her voice was empty and unsteady, her whole body shaking with each small syllable. “They’re both gone…”

“What?” His face became serious and bothered, and before saying another word he darted back to his minivan. “What’s wrong with you? They’re still here! Why would you say that?!”

“I’m so sorry,” Fluttershy whispered into her arms through the gaps in her chattering teeth. “I have to go.”

Fluttershy slumped out of the road with heavy steps, letting her hair stick to her face with the salty dampness of her tears. Her drooping shoulders hung low over the clump in her arms, and she dug her gloved fingers into the slightly curly fur as if searching for signs of life. Whatever direction she was going in, it was a mystery to her as well.

“Where are you going? You better not jump out into the road again!” he called after her sternly, though he remained next to the car.

“You killed him!” a scream escaped her mourning mouth. “I got you, Angel, I got you,” she muttered again and again, wandering down the street without destination.

“What are you talking about? Killed who?” The man shouted, but had no motivation to chase the girl down. He took a look around his vehicle, but the only signs of any accident were the few tire marks from slamming on his breaks. He didn’t know why she wrapped her arms around herself in such a manner, but didn’t question it any further.

He was entirely lost as to why the girl would have walked out into the road, or why she was acting so strange. But he had more important things to deal with, like trying to calm down his worried young children he had just picked up from the elementary school a few blocks away. With a groan, he shook his head. As if nearly hitting a young girl wasn’t bad enough, the constant sound from a few doors down was driving him mad.

“Damn noisy dog,” he muttered as he made his way back to the driver’s side of the van, pausing to take a look at the small white dog that was barking from beyond a chain link fence.

From yap to bark to growl, the canines across nearby neighbourhoods carried the sounds across great distances. The loud howls from the behemoth mutt next door interrupted Twilight’s work, and she growled lowly back at is as she approached her window. Aggressively shoving the old wooden frame shut (which she struggled with due to her frantic irritation and the age of the window itself), Twilight closed the invasion of the world away from herself. At last, there was silence; there was peace.

She set herself back down at her desk, where patiently awaited a small book she had made a habit of carrying around lately. It was bound in black leather, fastened by a long strap that hitched around the entire length twofold, though presently it lay open to the perusal of her attentive gaze. With a scoff, she bent over to retrieve the pen that had fled her demanding hand and rolled across the table onto the floor. Her composure returned, and she straightened herself once more before falling around her scribbles.

“Where was I?” she absently hummed to herself, and she read over the last several denotations of time scrawled in chronological order.

Raising her writing implement and touching the tip against the fresh page, Twilight held her breath to permit the perfect penmanship she praised. She jumped suddenly though, scratching a line across the otherwise pristine order of events. A loud groan poured from her core, and she nearly threw the utensil across the room as she realized what had alarmed her: the buzzing of her cellular phone she had forgotten to turn onto silent mode. Grabbing and strangling the device, Twilight roughly tossed it over her shoulder towards her twin sized mattress with a defiant refusal to acknowledge what it might have been.

She violently grabbed at the sleeve of her cardigan and underlying pressed dress shirt, peeling them both mercilessly off of her forearm. A stare that could nearly rip the digits from her wrist fell upon the markings she studied, tracing the font and numerical value that she could hardly describe even to herself. Her attention to detail was often unrivaled, but she realized with every passing attempt to replicate what she saw upon herself, it came to look less and less like what she perceived. The only thing that seemed to hold true value was the notations of the time stamp from her Stopwatch, which, she quickly realized, changed each time she copied it; and not in the way that might happen if it was continually counting down. Sometimes it would change by hours, by moments, or by years; though she could not decipher the correlates well enough to speculate.

As she paired the time on her wrist to the time of the day, she was stalled by an irritating sensation she could only attest to be itching, or tingling. It was a nagging desire, and she habitually turned back to look at the cellular phone she had put to bed. If there was one thing about Twilight Sparkle that bothered her, it was curiosity. After another failed attempt (or three) to continue on with her task to put herself through clinical trials, she surrendered to her detestable urges.

Jumping out of her chair and storming across the room, the young student swiped the small black device off of its rest on the plush comforter. The corner of her mouth twitched as she failed to input her password the first time, but her dull expression returned as she scrolled through the prompts and came upon the text message she had received. It was a great block of words, so before she commenced reading it, she looked up at the name that told of the sender: Fluttershy. From the beginning of the message, it was clear that it had been sent to a number of people, but Twilight read on.

“Hi girls, I know this is kinda short notice, and I mean you dont have to say yes or even reply or anything... but I was wondering if maybe anyone would be interested in coming by for a slumber party this weekend @ my house? I no that we havent seen eachother or talked lately, but we also havent had a slumber party since… well since Pinkie Pie was around to throw them when we were kids. Please RSVP soon. Bye.”

Twilight frowned as she read along, and cringed when she came upon the solemn end and the abrupt closing. Now that she had read it, she almost wished that she hadn’t, or that she had any idea of how to respond to or deal with the proposition. Sitting down on the edge of her firm mattress (which was so tightly tucked with sheets it hardly sagged at the impression of her rear), Twilight carefully concocted her response, and must have rewritten it in her head a half dozen times before committing it to text.

“That’s very sweet of you to ask Fluttershy, but are you sure that’s a good idea? Everyone’s a little on edge lately, and I don’t want to upset anyone. Are you sure you can handle throwing a party like that so short notice and having that many people at your house, either? No offence, I just don’t want you to get in over your head. Hugs.”

She felt satisfied with her mostly diplomatic approach to it, though she anticipated it might hurt the girl’s feelings a bit. It was for the best to be a little tough sometimes, Twilight knew that. Things had been tense between the lot of them over the last few weeks, and something like this could sever their friendships altogether if it didn’t go well. Twilight couldn’t let that happen, and she knew Fluttershy was too fragile herself to adequately host so many people.

She was not, however, too fragile to respond with a forcefully passive aggressive message of her own.

“I appreciate ur concern Twilight, but please dont patronize me. If u don’t want to come u dont have to, but please respect my decision to do what I want with my time. Pinkie wouldnt want us to drift apart and we havent been treating her memory with respect. Right now I just need my friends around for support and I think u do to. So just come k?”

Twilight’s eyebrows rose steadily as she came to terms with the text, and she wondered for a moment if someone else had written it. She didn’t feel like questioning such a thing though, as that could spur more snappy remarks. Instead, she relented and came up with a more reasonable and steady reply. As she did, she wondered just what the others had said to her request.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you. Of course I’ll be there. Text me when you have an idea of time with the other girls. Should be fun :)”

Twilight let out a sigh of relief having quelled the stirred waters. Placing her phone back down on the bed, she got to her feet and preemptively began finding items to take with her for the visit. Her overnight bag slouched lazily at the door to her closet, and she easily heaved it over to her bed and unfurled its creased corners. The lining whined and squeaked as she reached her hand inside and expanded the room to its limits.

Selecting two thinner novels (by her standards, anyway) and the set of pyjamas she kept folded in the drawer beside her casual attire, she returned to the pack and placed them gently inside. Considering she was not a heavy packer, it took her another few moments to think up anything else to pack, besides her feminine and hygiene products, which she would pack the day of as to not forget a round of teeth brushing. As she placed a few hair accessories and items of conversation, she heard the phone on her bed vibrate once more.

Turning it to face her and unlocking it once more, she pondered the question that the tiny screen inquired. She did not have an answer for it, but perhaps someone else did.

“One more thing… has anyone heard from Spike lately?”

A short hiss squeezed out from between her thin lips, and Rainbow Dash closed up her own cell phone from her position on the other side of the park, at a less than crowded downtown location. Slipping her thin silver device into the narrow rear pocket of her skinny cut jeans, she jumped skilfully over the broken concrete meridian at the edge of the parking lot. She adjusted the collar of her leather jacket to cover most of her neck, as it was a good deal colder out than she had anticipated when she adorned her wrinkled dress shirt and old hoodie beneath the outerwear.

Carefully sidestepping the black ice that covered the dark cracks splitting the pavement, Rainbow Dash raised each eyebrow with the directions she perused. The old parking lot was otherwise empty, besides her own rusted up MGB and its tire trails, which was parked crooked and no where near a marked spot (as if the lines could be seen after the fade of time and neglect, or the gentle snowfall that had buried them). Beyond that, there were crumbling brick buildings, which stood more like walls and canvases than structures in their own rights, which were covered in tags and murals from street artists.

A cigarette met fire in her mouth, and the smoke plumed like the brushing of fresh snow off of a sidewalk. With each step, the few flakes of white precipitation fled from her feet, swirling around like snakes on the bleak concrete. On either side of her: old tire rims, broken liquor bottles, scuttling grocery bags, heaps of picked-clean cigarette butts, bent and jagged pipes, smashed pallets, and deflated cans of spray paint littered the scene. Stepping gracefully over a pile of dry mortar and brick, she came around the far edge of a damaged structure.

“Ahh,” she grunted between her teeth as she pinched the edge of the cigarette nearest to her lips and removed it enough to speak more clearly. “There you are. You can’t shake me that easy, not while you’re keeping up that pink noggin. What’s up, Che?”

“What are you doing here?” the boy responded in a way that didn’t sound much like a question, and it was posed from the bottom of his tone.

After a low whistle that portrayed a feigned fear, Rainbow Dash addressed him again, “I’m wonderful, thanks for asking, you really are too considerate. Also, your stream of posts on social media was an easy string to follow through the labyrinth of the city.”

Spike remained silent as he shook up a can in his hand while taking a hard toke from the end of a rolled up joint (which looked a good deal more skillfully done than his first few attempts, he would brag to himself). A loud hissing sound erupted from the can as a mist of coloured paint dust came pouring from the little nozzle he placed his multicoloured thumb upon. In fact, he was covered in lots of paint, even his raggedy dark clothes and a bit of his freshly dyed hair.

Rainbow slowly stomped over to where he stood, shrugging her shoulders as her hands fell into her pockets and stray smoke leaked from her nostrils. Standing a ways behind him, she narrowed her eyes critically at his various attempts to come up with a tag of his own. Most of them looked ridiculously common, or poorly conceived. The colours mixed in all the wrong places, and dripped down onto his shoes as he carried on. One side of her teeth peeked out next to the bit filter of her dart, and she made a repulsed expression with the shake of her head.

“What’s with the tagging shit? You always said that stuff was stupid. Who’re you trying to impress?” Rainbow Dash plainly asked, ashing the tip of her smoke next to her hip.

“It’s art Rainbow, art isn’t stupid,” he defensively snapped, and the girl behind him made a scrunched up face and raised her eyebrow at his attitude. “I’m not trying to impress anyone. I’m just working through some things.”

“Is that so,” she seemed disinterested in his lies.

Her eyes traced the various patches that he haphazardly ironed onto his jacket, and she was silently impressed he owned an iron, or that he knew how to use one. It was stained already from the paint, but it didn’t do much to obscure the generic metal or rock music icons that riddled his attire, which she knew he didn’t listen to. It was clear to her that it was all an act, one that he didn’t seem very good at putting on.

“What are you even doing here with a piece of shit like me?” His voice cracked at the statement, and Rainbow waited for him to finish. “Go back to your girlfriend and carry on with your joyous life. Have fun, like you want to.”

“Are you angry with me for trying to be happy?” she kept her voice calm as she questioned him, but he did not seem to appreciate it.

“You don’t have to rub it in my face!” he barked, and finally turned around to look at her with his red and dulled eyes. “It’s like you don’t even care about me anymore! As if you ever did, as if anyone ever did! I’m literally screaming for attention here—”

“Clearly,” Rainbow muttered between his rants.

“And you don’t even notice.” He pulled back a sob that crowned beneath his near shouting. He hurriedly finished the joint and butted it on the wall nearest to him. “It’s like, none of you guys even realize how much being alone makes me just want to torture myself, or worse. I ask so little, just that you guys take some time for me, too. I need you, but you’re not here. You all just carry on, don’t you?—like robots! And you all just have better things to do.”

“Than what? Than try to talk to you while you’re insulting us, scolding us for living our own lives? No one wants that, we have our own issues too, we can’t subject ourselves to your selfish scrutiny too. We don’t do our own things in spite of you. You know, this whole world doesn’t revolve around you, Che,” her voice grew serious as she tried to warn him what he was doing.

“And stop calling me that, stop talking to me like I’m some little kid you’re babysitting,” he growled back at her, though from the way he puffed out his lip, it was hard to take him seriously.

“I’m terrible at babysitting anyway,” Rainbow absently responded, trying to take the edge off the grim subject.

“And you’re terrible at making me feel better, too!” Spike still had much to say, and he tossed the spray paint can at the ground as he turned around and pointed his coloured thumb at himself. “No one likes me, Rainbow, no one listens to me! Especially not you! Can’t you just be supportive, and talk to me, and hang out with me more, and, and—”

“And what, feed you validity and attention? Make you even more reliant upon other people for your self identity? You’re pushing us away, and then blaming us for leaving.” She felt herself getting riled up, but she stopped herself for a beat before continuing in a delicate whisper she knew he could hear, “But look around, kid, I’m still standing right here, despite you acting like a total ass. I keep coming to find you.”

“You won’t be here for long,” He murmured and lost his numbing fingers inside his pants pockets, causing his oversized jacket to bunch up at the sleeves and shoulders.

Without a motion with her body, Rainbow breathed in the last essence of the smouldering tobacco in my lips and expelled it. As she concocted some reasonable response, she plucked the butt of her dart and flicked it to the dirt to burn itself out in the cold autumn air. She licked her lips slowly to make certain Spike was not about to interrupt her with another obnoxious accusation against her.

“All right, I’m going to get real with you for a second.” Rainbow Dash’s voice was steady, and it made Spike uneasy to hear. For once, she was not about to poke fun or squirm out of the conversation. She was done with all that. “Think you can shut up and listen long enough for me to finish?”

“I guess,” he seemed reluctant, his nostrils twitching for something to smell.

“We’ve been playing this game for years, Spike,” she started slowly, but there was frustration and exhaustion in her words, especially as she actually cared to call him by his given name. “The game where you put yourself down, and I deny it and try and make you feel better, and I try to help you change those things you seem to hate yourself for, the things that drag you down. But you don’t take any advice, no matter how many times I say it and how many times you agree with it. You like being miserable because it gets you the attention that you want. The most serious, focused kind that’s all on you. And if I ever make a joke, you say that I’m attacking you, but you get to say whatever you want about me. You get to make me feel bad about anything I do that doesn’t even involve you. About carrying on, or about Applejack, or anything else you want. You really don’t care about anyone else’s happiness but your own. I am still standing here with you, I put up with all your drama and crying and bullshit, but you can’t even let me have my own life without you tagging along and scrutinizing the hell out of it.”

“That’s not true. I care about you so much,” he defensively retorted, gawking at her in a pathetically begging manner, but she would not stop to reply. “If you’re just putting up with me, then leave already. Don’t throw everything away for a wretch like me. You deserve so much better.”

“That’s not what I said, stop making yourself a victim in all this like—like we’re all so much better than you and we’re all going to leave you; you’re doing everything you can to make that a reality by acting like it’s already true. I’m just being honest with you, like I always am. And don’t think that I don’t see the way you look at me. Like I’m so perfect or some shit, despite the way you treat me. You idealize me and conjure up some fantasy you have that I might… I might choose you or fuck you or something, and then when I don’t, you use it as another thing to be upset about. You know that I’m gay, and sure, I’m a flirt and a tease, but I never lied about what our friendship was.” Rainbow ground one foot into the slowly gathering snow that fell so gently in contrast with their conversation.

“Of course I want you, I always have,” Spike’s eyes pleaded like he wanted to be seen as some sorry puppy dog to have mercy upon. He adjusted his hands in his pockets so his pants fell better, and lied, “I love you.”

“Come off it, no you don’t. You’re too focused on yourself and your flaws to see anyone else for who they really are, and you can’t love anyone until you can really see them. You say stupid things to try and make them sound magnanimous, but I know you. You don’t love me, you love wanting me—wanting anyone, especially the people you know full well you can’t be with—and torturing yourself because you can’t have them.” The girl across from him raised her chin into the frigid air to stare that silly infatuation away. “It’s a weird, backwards kind of displeasure you force upon yourself so that the few moments that you get close to someone feel like ecstasy, and then when inevitably you don’t get to keep them, you have something else to cry about.”

“I knew you wouldn’t get it, you’ve got good things in your life and I’m not one of them,” he despondently looked away, a frown creasing his features that had not grown those wrinkles yet.

“And there you go, like you’re blaming me for your shortcomings, like my life is anywhere close to perfect. Well what I see right now? Is that you just want something else to complain about, another reason to pine for sympathy from everyone. You act like you hate yourself so that someone will notice you, you rebel and whine and act like your life is so terrible, so that someone will see you. But I always saw you. You tell people the worst things about yourself so you can gauge their responses, let them try and build you up to boost your inflatable ego, so for a moment you can imagine they have any more investment in your life than something selfish, so you can harvest their filthy, symbiotic affections for you and feel for a moment like you matter based on values that other people may or may not equate to you. You criticize yourself and scold yourself, but you are all you ever talk about. You. You are all you care about.” Rainbow Dash’s stern statements felt like they penetrated Spike’s exterior, but he would never admit that to anyone, least of all her. “You are a child, you really are. You want to be the centre of attention to give your mediocre and common existence some sort of meaning. But you can't get that from someone else, that's something you discover and cultivate for yourself. Until you accept who you are and quit cutting yourself down for some backwards form of egotistical narcissism, you're going to continue to paint a big red target on your chest and wonder why people get frustrated with you. I've enabled you because we're close friends, kid, and for some reason I thought you'd come to this conclusion on your own, and somehow you'd come to understand how much I've been trying to do for you by giving you nothing but the honest and brutal truth. But to you, I'm just another problem to whine about, another reason to rationalize your conceived unhappiness. I can't bequeath any self worth upon you, I can't tell you that you're perfect or adequate and wait around for you to fall for it. You have to do that yourself. It’s all up to you.”

“What, so it’s all my fault? As usual, right? All my fucking fault. You think that’s the best thing to tell someone teetering on the edge?” His whimpering tone faltered as he came up with some delusion of her words.

“I didn’t say that,” she growled at how irritating his defensiveness could grow. “But what, do you think that your unhappiness should be everyone else’s fault? It’s on you. And it’s not a fault of anyone’s, Spike, it’s a responsibility. We all have that responsibility to ourselves. You’re not as hard done by as you think you are, you just wish you were so that you could make sense of all these feelings you’re going through, or so that you could get more pity for the life you’ve built for yourself.”

“You don’t get to talk to me like that, you’re just as fucked up as I am and you know it.” Spike fought back, striding up towards the girl and staring her right in the eyes. “We all want attention, Dash, I just know that I don’t deserve it. And maybe neither do you. Applejack doesn’t know you the way that I do, she doesn’t know all those flaws you hate about yourself.”

“How dare you. As if you would know anything about Applejack,” Rainbow suddenly felt a furious fire ignite in her stomach as he mentioned her name, and she stabbed him in the chest with a hard poke of her finger.

“But I know everything about you,” his declaration made Rainbow cringe and pull away, but that only served to spur him on in that same delusional way that surely only led to devastation.

Spike grabbed his dearest and more upfront of friends, and slammed his loud mouth against her own. His chapped lips caught clumsily upon her thinner, smoother set, and she recoiled immediately. Their embrace was fast and forgotten, with nicotine stained flesh grasping onto ice cold leather that writhed in protest. Rainbow Dash’s violent hands shoved the boy away from her in a flurry of strikes, causing him to nearly stumble over the various lost treasures at his feet.

“Fuck, get off!” Rainbow Dash scraped her sleeve over her face and cleaned off any trace of that exchange she had detested. “You don’t know me at all!”

“Chill, Dash, we’ve almost done it a hundred times before.” Spike licked his lips to get a better flavour, and Rainbow’s jaw dropped disgustedly open.

“Uh, no?” she bitterly denied with an incredulous musing.

“We’re alone out here—in this city, and this whole damn world—we can do what we want! No one has to know!” Spike’s arms flew out and his voice raised to prove his point.

“What the hell is wrong with you?! I will know! That’s not what I want!” Rainbow hacked a mouth full of saliva in some random direction and shivered in the wake of what had just happened between them. “Dude, could you, like, suck twenty percent less dick? You know that I have a girlfriend! You’re such an ass!”

“Who cares? You’ve never seemed like the monogamous type anyway,” Spike carelessly tossed around terms, and Rainbow Dash backed away from him as he seemed to be searching for something in his various pockets.

“Who are you? What are you on right now?” she wondered suddenly, realizing the ticks that were not normally present in his behaviour.

“What? Why would you say that? What’s it to you anyway?” his words all strung together as he tried to appear innocent. Rainbow Dash did not believe a word of it. “I can do whatever I want, you’re not the boss of me.”

“I know that, but I don’t want you getting yourself in trouble or overdosing or anything, sheesh, we’ve had enough of that shit,” Rainbow Dash turned away and ran her hand through her thin hair until it fell right.

“Whatever,” Spike snarled, fishing through his clothes until he found something he was craving, though he found it in his best interest to hide it from sight until Rainbow Dash left. Something which he expedited, “Can you go already, then? You don’t want to be here or anything anyway.”

“Look dude,” she sighed the words dully, shaking her head and gathering herself to take off. She turned off and raised a hand over her receding shoulder, strolling off from whence she came while leaving but a few statements in her lieu, “I came here to invite you to a party, but I don’t think that it’s a good idea anymore. I don’t know what’s crawled up your tiny little butthole, but I’m losing my patience with you kid. You can just keep blowing yourself out here if that’s what you want.”

“Fine, I will!” Spike’s voice squeaked as he yelled after her, but he was dissatisfied with the response and tried again, “I mean, fuck you too! Leave me out, like you jerks always do!”

Sucking on her teeth disappointedly, Rainbow Dash followed her loose but still fresh footprints back to the parking lot. She stormed around the concrete blocks and rushed back towards her car, nearly yanking the door right off its hinges as she threw it open and tumbled inside. Silence slammed around her with the door falling back into its place, and Rainbow listened painfully to the sound of her sharp breath.

Hammering her hands against her steering wheel in frustration, she scream loudly, “Fuck!” Before slapping the transmission into reverse and speeding away from that terrible place.

The snow flurried behind her skidding tires, providing a warning for the blizzard that would fall that weekend. And indeed, a mere two days later, while Rainbow Dash was still distracted by her exchange with Spike, she would continue along the narrowing roads just as carelessly. A gentle hand fell upon hers in the haze of the storm (which blew into the city the same night as Fluttershy’s slumber party) as she gripped the leather wrapped steering wheel, and a calmer voice called to her.

“Please drive a mite safer, Dash, roads ‘re slippery ‘round this time,” Applejack kindly reminded her, a warm thumb tracing Rainbow’s whitening knuckles with the casual speed of her spoken words.

“Huh? Oh, sorry babe. I was just,” her voice ran into a growl, and she shook it off. “Just stuck in my head.”

“I know,” she hummed sweetly before scooting over and leaning her head on Rainbow Dash’s shoulder, though it took a small stretch to do so while in the car. “Take a break from punishin’ yourself s’ hard. The rest o’ the world sure ain’t gonna.”

Rainbow cracked a genuine smile, adoring the way that such a small interaction between them could quell her raging heart. After placing a small kiss on the girl’s blonde hair, she nuzzled nearer in return to the touch. Rainbow Dash’s hands shifted as she took the final turn, and Applejack’s touch fell onto her lap instead, where she comforted her by drawing circles across her thigh.

Fluttershy’s house appeared in the headlights and over the dashboard, obscured by the clumps of gentle ice scattering before them. The dark bricks stood out amongst the sea of foam and clouds snuggling up against it, even though the driveway lamp wasn’t shining yet. Twilight’s vehicle was already parked on the parking pad, though there was space left for Rainbow Dash’s MGB under the carport (as if there hadn’t been, surely Rainbow would have broken into the obstructing car and hot-wired it long enough to park it crooked in the street, or so she would threaten). Rainbow pulled into the spot carefully, as it was a little tight beside the garbage cans that had been pulled under the shelter to keep dry and clear. The side door was right close beside them as she parked, and the light hanging next to it flicked on from the motion.

As she jammed the transmission into park and yanked the parking brake into place, Rainbow Dash let out a slow exhale and leaned back against her titled seat. Her head slipped a bit to the side so that she was fondly staring at Applejack, who made a face about the unfounded attention. Nervously shuffling and running her hand along the silky braid she had weaved on the drive, she worriedly stammered some question.

“What’s that look for? Do I look all silly ‘r somethin’?” Applejack meekly queried, her eyebrows creasing her forehead with a worried line.

“No, never,” her affectionate tone twirled between them like a swing dance, and the condensated breath illustrated it. “You look beautiful, as always. And I love you so much.”

“Shucks, you want me to look all flushed when we walk in?” the blonde girl bashfully grinned and buried her chin behind a plush scarf that hugged her shoulders.

Closing the slim distance, Rainbow Dash murmured in an enchanted hush, “Blame it on the cold.”

A brush of lips connected them efficaciously, and they blindly succumbed to the tantalizing effect. A content sigh passed between then, though neither were sure from whom it originated. With a kiss as magnetic as their souls (or several), the two threatened to summon steam to the windows of the MGB, as if to conceal them from any prying eyes. Such a thing would have been welcomed, considering what happened.

“Are you two about finished in there?” Rarity’s voice barely breached the weatherproofed window treatments, and the girls inside pulled away reluctantly to acknowledge her.

“Not even close,” Rainbow Dash whined grouchily, but the moment had been successfully ruined anyway, so she kicked her door open and nearly knocked Rarity into the wall with the abruptness of it. “Do you enjoy cock-blocking? You’re awfully good at it. Awful...ly.”

“Darling, I keep you modest,” she haughtily chortled, waving her thin, satin-clad hand between them.

Rainbow Dash frowned and made a rude face consisting of an exposed tongue and a wrinkled nose. By then Applejack had made her way around the Roadster and chuckled at the expression Rainbow tried on before slipping her small hand in the crook of Rainbow’s elbow and leading her up to the side door. Applejack’s usual firm three knocks were replaced by the simple pressing of an illuminated button beside the door, one which signaled with a bell to the residents. As Rarity fixed her hair in the reflection of the glass on the screen door, the inside door was pulled open.

“Applejack, um, pleasure to see you.” Fluttershy tucked her long hair behind her ear sheepishly before peeking behind the smiling girl she addressed. With a strange contortion to her cheek like she nibbled it, she added, “And you brought Rainbow Dash.”

“Unfortunately so,” Rarity teased as she pushed her way inside in front of the other two.

“Boo, you’ll live,” Rainbow blew a raspberry playfully before escorting Applejack inside along with her. “Sweet jams, kiddo.”

Rainbow gestured at the outfit that Fluttershy was wearing, which was her usual old pyjamas in a pale yellow and pink pattern. Again the young girl ignored the nickname, but she did scowl a bit at her friend, which was quite unlike her. As Rarity and Applejack set to undoing their tightly fitted shoes, Rainbow nearly jumped right out of hers and left them hunched by the door.

With a curious expression, Applejack noticed the sediments that were left along the mat from where she stepped, As she turned over one boot, she noticed some grey debris caught in the grooves, and ran her thumb along it. Her narrowed expression caught the attention of the other girls.

“What’s up?” Rainbow asked plainly, prying her scarf off of her neck so roughly she could have choked herself on it.

“Hmm? What’s on ma boots? What’s all this dust from?” Her question slowly escaped her, before she looked up to her partner. “You spill something in y’car, Dash?”

Rainbow propped one eyebrow up and leaned closer to observe the damage, before merely squeezing some careless air out from her lips and shrugging it off, leaving the explanation as, “Oh, that’s probably just ashes or grave dirt, they’re everywhere from transporting the urn.”

Such a statement stalled the advance of the conversation for a few seconds, though Rainbow seemed slightly oblivious to it. A handful of uncertain glances darted around the room and hid in the shadows of each present girl. Successful at leaving things unaddressed, Rarity was the first to dare speak, and she carried on like she knew nothing of the matter.

“Your car sure could use a hot date with a vacuum,” Rarity playfulled hummed, laughing a bit too loudly at her own joke.

“Eww, please don’t suck off the Roadster,” the owner of the car looked disgusted by the prospect. “I know you’re in a dry spell, but come on.”

“I’ll pretend I heard none of that.” Her conversation partner turned her nose away.

“Pretend away,” Rainbow sung cheerily as Applejack stepped away from the doorway and carefully observed Fluttershy’s uncomfortable shifting. “So, where’s Twilight? I saw her whip outside.”

“Her whip?” Rarity silently mouthed towards Fluttershy, who shrugged expressively like she had no idea what the word meant either.

“Um, Twilight is in my room, I came to grab snacks when you rang,” Fluttershy explained uneasily, gathering the items she had prepared and laid out over the counter and preparing them in bowls and cups. “Feel free to go on ahead, I’ll be right in.”

As most her friends continued along the way that they knew led to her room, Applejack stayed behind to ask a question that pertained to a custom she practised, “Is your mother around? I’d like t’ thank her for havin’ us.”

“She’s out for the weekend, I haven’t seen much of her lately,” was the ambiguous reply she received, and Applejack knew not to ask for more, but did help the girl with bringing the snacks to her bedroom.

As they joined the rest of their party, they found Rarity checking her nails for imperfections while lounging on Fluttershy’s bed, as Twilight recounted the most recent English class to Rainbow Dash, who had skipped it. Applejack put the snacks down on Fluttershy’s dresser, beside the beauty products Rarity had immediately unleashed from her overpacked luggage. Fluttershy did a quick headcount before deciding to bring it to the others’ attention.

“Will Spike be joining us too?” she asked gingerly, her soft voice almost going unheard.

“Unlikely,” Rainbow Dash was the only one with a response, and she snorted to think of the probability of it. “He probably psyched himself out about it and resolved to mope for his lost adolescence instead. Besides, who wants boys around anyway?”

“Not all of us are off the market, or lesbians. Or both.” Rarity superciliously stated, pursing her lips to her fingertips.

“Lucky, you mean,” Twilight added, which was a surprising joke coming from her.

“Oh, you guys are the lucky ones,” Rainbow swung her saggy knapsack from over her shoulder and started to rifle through it. “Lucky you invited me.”

Pulling out a comically-too-large bottle of clear liquid, Rainbow Dash cutely posed beside it. Twilight covered her mouth to trap in a gasp, and Applejack shook her head with a chuckle. With a quick flick of the wrist, Rainbow Dash removed the lid and shook it about temptingly. The light refracting through the curves of the glass sparkled between the group, illuminating each reaching corner.

“Is that what I think it is?” Rarity leaned forward for a better look.

“Who wants to pop the cherry? Flutters has floods of chase for you bitches,” she lowly spoke as if trying to seduce her company.

“Rainbow, not all of us need liquor to have a good time,” Twilight responsibly intervened, holding a finger up as if scolding her.

“I’m in,” Rarity swiped the bottle from Rainbow’s hands and began engorging a provided cup with the substance, fingering the few choices of beverages for her personal favourite, a pink coloured cream soda.

“Damn, that’s the spirit.” Seemingly impressed, Rainbow Dash clapped for the girl.

With a half and half mix, Rarity finished downing the whole concoction before putting the bottle of liquor down. Making herself a second highball, Rarity hummed some popular pop tune and swayed with it. Rainbow Dash went up beside her and snatched it from her hands, making an annoyed expression before making some drinks for the other girls, though Twilight politely attempted to refuse.

“Do you really think this is a good idea?” she protested weakly, taking the glass that Rainbow Dash handed her and pushing it to the far end of the table where she couldn’t reach it.

“Uh, duh, we’ve all been so stressed out and at each other’s throats lately. We need to chill out and get back to being the ballin’, bitchin’ crew we once knew,” Rainbow Dash struck a pose before nearly slapping another mixed drink into Fluttershy’s trembling hands. “One day when you’re twenty-something, you’ll be hanging with grown-ass intellectuals twice your age, who will all be sipping their scotch and wondering why you can’t hold your Sauvignon Blanc. Live a little, Twi. You’ve only got so long.”

Twilight glanced down at the numbers that played across her wrist, and noticed that they had steadily increased from the last time she had taken account. A curious line formed between her eyebrows, and she experimented with pinching the rim of her glass and dragging it back across the desk. As she did, the numbers continued to climb. She retrieved her little black book and proceeded to add another annotation, before taking her first sip.

“Gross,” she murmured into the liquid, and Rainbow Dash laughed.

“Hey, um,” Fluttershy started to speak, but hid behind her glass as the attention was actually given. Pooling a sip of the tainted liquid over her tongue, she felt the courage to finish, “Thanks, for, um, coming over. I was worried that you wouldn’t want to show up.”

“You made it seem so very important,” Twilight noted, raising a reluctant glass in the girl’s direction and stringing a smile up the way she pinned a dozen hairpins into her stiff bun.

“It is,” she urged with a certain tone. “I know we’ve all had a pretty tough time after everything… but we can’t keep drifting apart like this. I need you girls… don’t tell me that you don’t need this either. And we owe it to Pinkie to stick together. She never let us lose our friendship, not even when we all found different interests or made new friends.”

“Darling, is this about the other day at school?” Rarity intervened between dainty sips, speaking as straight as her pinky protruded from her grip on the cocktail. With a scoff, she fabricated some more innocent story. “Did I hurt your feelings? When I was recounting current events with some of the girls from my textiles class?”

“Gossiping, you mean,” Rainbow chimed in as she found a seat nearly right in Applejack’s lap, while the smaller girl was barely holding her own seat on the trunk beyond the foot of Fluttershy’s bed.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Rainbow Dash,” Rarity denied adamantly, flipping some hair out of her face.

“Just keeping you modest,” she murmured the quote playfully, and Rarity did not enjoy the mimicry.

“No, this isn’t about that, I understand, and you didn’t mean anything by it,” Fluttershy earnestly attested, biting her pinkish lips as she grew worried about impending confrontation. “I just wanted us all to… well, I don’t know. I just didn’t want things to change.”

There was a grim silence that snuck in from under the door, and it carried around like the breeze of a winter’s gust. Her pathetic demurs were hardly debated, but neither were they assured. Fluttershy’s bedroom twisted around them with the pull of the Earth, and the stars watched them drift about so aimlessly it merited no twinkle or twang. A symphonious ring of slurps and sips connected them and their poisons, but they waited for the liquids to reach their stomachs before the next audible expression from their mouths was summoned.

“Is it time for makeovers yet?” Rarity proposed obliviously, as if she had not noticed the lull in conversation at all. She smiled pleasantly before getting to her feet and finding the tools she had brought along and left across Fluttershy’s dresser. “You naysayers can spin a bottle or something juvenile, but I am was overdue for a good peel.”

“Uh, yeah, you guys can go ahead and… peel each other, all you want,” Rainbow cringed at the prospect, contorting a disgusted presentation of her lips and nose. “I’m going to pry my jeans off and slip into something more comfortable.”

“Your birthday suit doesn’t count,” Twilight hurriedly interjected, and Rainbow laughed at how funny it might have been to come out in nothing at all, besides the probable scolding that would be apparent in Applejack’s eyes.

“Keep dreaming,” she warbled in a high tune as she left to seek the bathroom with the remaining contents of her bag slumping on her arm.

With her obnoxious and boisterous lover out of the room, Applejack casually set to mending the harm that might have been done. “Fluttershy, we’re all real glad you invited us over. It was real considerate o’ you. And Twilight, don’t let Rainbow push you t’ drink, she does that enough of herself. I’m just glad we’re makin’ it through, the best way we know how. Let’s just try to have some fun; we’re all still s’ young, ain’t we?”

“Some of us,” is was a remark from Twilight, who shared a knowing smile with Applejack, regarding her strange mature intuitiveness more highly than most interactions with her group of friends.

With a carefree grin, Applejack raised the tip of her cup and placed it upon the plush of her lower lip. She never squirmed or coughed at any ratio of drink that Rainbow had concocted for her, for nothing of that sort bothered her. Neither was she bothered by the way that Rarity, Twilight and Fluttershy went off on incomprehensible tangents of vanity, gossip, rumours, or otherwise. She simply enjoyed the company, the noise, and the silence in between it all.

The bottle split between them was drained greedily, the refracting liquid swirling like a whirlpool with each replacement of it into its place in the middle of the masses. The clear substance, which by then had been named rum, jubilantly cherished the moments passing between such individualistic young women. For it first it seemed they had such little in common, but perhaps that was why the topics carried themselves so far, and perhaps why it seemed so necessary to argue them at all.

Her eyes crept over the top of her slender black notebook, and Twilight examined the girls in her company attentatively. While usually such a thing might have been done while secretly recording an embarrassing video, Twilight was much more studious in such matters. The sips from her given drink were abstemious, though she paid close attention to its effect upon her Stopwatch. As though the winter’s frost upon the window thawing permitted a toxic gas to seep into the bedroom, a comfortable haze hovered over heads for once less anxious and troubled.

“Well maybe, it wouldn’t be my first—first instinct, but I mean, if I was desperate,” Rarity prattled on as her finger tangled between tight curls and tugged them until they sprung just right. A thoughtful expression produced her definite answer, “Maybe I’d let him kiss me or feel me up or something, who’s to say?”

“Desperate? Wow, that’s pretty harsh,” Applejack held back a laugh behind her hand, although her eyebrows looked concerned about the topic.

“I didn’t mean it like that! Just that, just, well, he’s not the kind of guy I like. He’s fine, and kind, and all that boring such thing,” she continued more diplomatically, nodding to herself as it sounded somewhat more polite.

“Good qualities are boring?” Twilight peeped up, her eyebrow perking to the prospect.

“In this sense, yes! If I was going to do something so raunchy with someone who I had no feelings for, I’d want some romance, some draw, some heat, some… something! Not just that awkward, bumbling flopping about that he does!” She took a great gulp from her drink before she made an exuberant gesture with her free hand. “Oh, it’s so unbecoming!”

“I will relay the message,” Rainbow murmured into her own beverage, hiding a smirk behind the cup.

“Oh, please don’t! I’d hate to hurt his feelings… Spike is so sensitive, like a little boy, or a,” she squished a snigger between her tightly closed lips, but the idea fought its way out. “Or a girl!”

“Offensive!” Rainbow pointed across the room at the dramatic girl who watched herself talking in the mirror. With a snort, she posed another question and leaned further against the blonde girl who nearly propper her up at this point. “And what... are you coming out as a dyke, then?”

“Of course not! Dash, you are so… so, stark. So blunt!” Rarity roared with laughter though, placing a hand on her somewhat revealed bosom as if to contain her excitement.

“Mhmm,” Rainbow hummed skeptically as more liquid slipped through her throat and splashed into her stomach.

“No, he’s just… he’s very moody, and very predictable, and very… young.” Rarity told that to the mixed liquids that swirled into her cup with another try at indulgence. “That’s not to say that… that it couldn’t change, of course, of course it could. Oh, heavens, why are we always focusing on me?!”

“We weren’t, but you sure were,” Twilight Sparkle confirmed with a giggle of her own.

“Why must you call me out in such a manner?” Rarity squealed through laughter, fanning the blush in her cheeks like it might fade away.

“She’s right,” Fluttershy beamed as eyes tumbled upon her. “You brought up the subject, and kept it going.”

“You are all so cruel!” Rarity feigned some fluster and discomposure, before her eyes set on one individual who very carefully sipped at her own substance, and sat very cosily in her thick and modest one-piece pyjama set. “Except for you, Applejack dear, I don’t think you have a cruel bone in your body!”

“I kind of hope she does,” Rainbow debated, rolling her head against Applejack’s shoulder to show her a crooked smile she doodled over her features. “But any bone she’s got I’ll gladly take.”

“Ew, what?” Rarity winced at the innuendo.

“You wanna find out?” Applejack struck back with an equally provocative suggestion, and a mirror of Rainbow’s coquettish smile.

“That is overtly sexual,” Twilight cried with a recoiled expression as if she wished to sink into her own skin and hide away.

“Wait,” Rarity raised her hand like she was asking a question, and strode over to the middle of the room. “You two have, like, totally… you know, had… had a, like, like a ladies encounter, yes?”

Rainbow jumped up and nearly spat her mouthful of liquor onto Rarity’s satin nightgown, but managed to swallow it before she aggressively questioned her, “What the fuck does that mean?”

“I think she’s meanin’ sex,” Applejack calmly supposed, sitting up better herself without the impression of Rainbow Dash pushing into her body.

“Is that even a real expression? Because it sounds super classy, and I hate it,” Rainbow hurriedly responded, scraping her tongue against her teeth and crossing her arms defiantly.

“That’s not an answer,” Twilight astutely observed, which drove the conversation more curiously.

“Who do you think you’re talking to?” the scrutinized girl attempted to vindicate herself, pointing a certain thumb at herself like it was proof enough.

“Neither is that,” Twilight attested once more, her voice climbing in octaves.

To put an end to the squabbling and to ease the clear embarrassment Rainbow was trying to bury, Applejack was the one who honestly answered the question. It was unperturbed, and slipped out in a sure but delicate voice, “No, we ain’t made love yet.”

“Aww, that’s sweet of you to call it that,” Rarity gushed and jumped up and down and spun around in spot. With another statement, her tweeting became unbearably ecstatic, “You must be a virgin!”

“Or in love, dude!” Rainbow argued immediately, though her cheeks were reddening, and perhaps not just from the alcohol. She faced her partner eagerly, and nearly melted into her arms as she whispered right up against her mouth, “Damn, let her be romantic and shit, it’s really hot.”

Applejack chuckled in a girlish voice, which was somewhat unlike her. The two shared a consensual kiss, which was always a little odd when in mixed company. No one protested it, even though it was something not often seen. Applejack hummed in response, her own longing hands running down Rainbow’s spine. She was excited by the physical attention, and wished to carry it further, until she realized that the bedroom was silent beyond their mingling. Rarity seemed to notice, too.

“Oh, get a room,” she sighed loudly and successfully interrupted their union. With a huff of a laugh, she added, “And not this one. I don’t want to hear any… noises tonight.”

“No guarantees,” Rainbow sneakily refused, but not everyone was amused by such a remark.

“Don’t.” Fluttershy shifted in her seat, a dark bitterness to her normally kind tone.

After glancing around the room uneasily, Rainbow Dash thought that she would make herself more clear, “Uh, it was a joke, kiddo, relax.”

“Don’t ‘kiddo’ me, either,” Fluttershy snapped again, and the other girls fell fearfully silent. “I’m older than all of you.”

It suddenly felt like someone had let the window wide open and chilled the communion. While Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy squared off with a tense stare, the others hoped that there would be a joyous jest somewhere hiding in the drama. It would not arise, though. Instead, Rainbow Dash sat up straight and posed one hand on her knee before she spoke again.

“Uh, am I missing something? Or did it just get a whole lot more trepidatious in here?” It was an attempt at humour, which was her go to move when trying to quell the rising stress or pressure.

“Good word,” Twilight tossed in a statement of her own, but Fluttershy was not keen on accepting outside commentary.

“Don’t encourage her,” Fluttershy barked at the studious young girl, who adjusted her glasses to make certain of the girl to whom she was speaking.

“To what, expand her vocabulary?” Twilight defended her motives inquisitively.

“To be such a… such a snarky jerk!” the normally meek girl nearly shouted.

“Solid burn,” Rainbow tried once more to smother the flames with a show of good sport.

“Don’t patronize me!” She squealed, and Twilight recognized the same sentiment that she had read from Fluttershy’s texting, when she herself had merely been looking out for the girl’s best interest. Something had Fluttershy on edge, and she was cautious to observe what it might have been. “You just think you’re so much better than us, than all of this, don’t you? You think you’re so much cooler, right?”

“It sounds more like you think that,” Rainbow perceptively gauged, looking the girl up and down very carefully.

“See? Why do you have to say things like that? Like you don’t take me seriously?” Fluttershy expelled her frustrations, squeezing her hands and shaking a finger at the girl she criticized. “You know, you weren’t always so obnoxious.”

“And you weren’t always so offended by it,” she countered easily, tilting her head.

“Stop changing the subject!” she cried out and stomped a firm foot against the carpet, which made nothing of an intimidatory sound, but seemed to suit her mood. “Why are you even here? Why are you spoiling all of this with, with your booze, and your jokes, and your attitude?!”

“Fluttershy, you invited her,” Applejack reminded her, as she noticed Rainbow growing increasingly temperamental when faced with such accusations.

“Of course you would stand up for her, you’re always on her side, just like everyone else!” The prosecution called Applejack to the stand, but she would not get much time to argue her case.

“Her side?” was Applejack’s soft question.

“Hey, don’t raise your voice to her, your beef is with me.” That finally brought Rainbow Dash storming to her feet, and her body language flared in such a way that would have warded off most opposition. “So, what’d I do to piss you off so much? Because apparently, I do a pretty damn good job of that lately. So tell me what I did, so I can write a goddamn dissertation on it and teach a fucking class, so we can turn the whole next generation into big, giant assholes like me!”

Fluttershy was not stalled, not even as such ridiculous words fell out of her mouth as these, “You’re not funny! You’re just a mean, mean punk, and you won’t be happy until you kill all of us!”

“Wait, what?” Cooling herself off enough to be confused rather than confrontational, Rainbow Dash waved her hands in front of her like trying to ask for a time out or a pause in the fighting. “What are you talking about?”

“Pinkie Pie—it’s all your stupid fault!” she screamed and buried her guilty hands into her unwashed hair, trembling with the massive weight of her words pulling the corners of her lips down. “You just keep pushing everyone around until they can’t take it anymore, and I’m almost there myself!”

“I didn’t...” her fragile tone was nearly a whimper, and her eyes darted back and forth as she considered the potential in such a statement. She shook her head though, trying to keep herself together long enough. “Why is it suddenly my fault? It was all on her, dude. She made the choice Fluttershy, she left us, no one told her to do it! I didn’t make her do it!”

“You might as well have, you were always so rude, and so proud, and, and you were always calling her Bigfoot!” Fluttershy’s argument seemed to grow more flimsy, and her quarreler took notice.

“Yeah, so she killed herself because of her feet,” Rainbow sarcastically advocated, slapping her hands onto her hips.

“What other explanation is there?!” Fluttershy desperately squabbled.

It was apparent that something was eating away at the weak young girl, whose body appeared so very lithe and concave in the fall of her massive clothes. Even though she was perhaps the tallest of the girls, she had never looked so very tiny. Her eyes bulged like they were grasping for an answer, truly asking Rainbow Dash if she knew what had become of their lost Pinkie Pie. After an uncertain swallow, Rainbow continued to defend herself.

“Um, like a million,” she proposed slowly, taking a step back and really assessing the situation. Rainbow’s gaze narrowed, and she concernedly asked, “Where is this coming from?”

“Fluttershy, you’re goin’ too far, listen t’ what you’re suggestin’ here.” Applejack’s kind and considerate tone was like a lullaby, and the tension between the two girls didn’t seem important anymore. She walked past Rainbow Dash, and her strong hand landed on the glass shoulder of the shattered girl. “I know we’re all wound up and hurtin’, but I think we just need t’ be around each other for a spell. Get some perspective. You just wanted to have a nice party, get th’ girls all together an’ have a good time, didn’t ya? Can’t we just… just do our nails, make faces out o’ potato chips, an’ roll our eyes th’ way Rarity rolls her hair before bed?”

“... I’m sorry,” Fluttershy finally surrendered, her soft voice falling as quiet as her shaky breath. “You’re right Applejack. I didn’t mean to get so worked up. I’m just… really having a hard time. That’s all.”

“I know, sugar, we all know.” A simple embrace brought them together, and settled all troubles.

“Um, what does my hair have to do with anything?” Rarity asked abruptly, tucking a loose strand behind her ear before glancing at herself in the dresser mirror once more.

“Not a thing,” Twilight was the first to respond, and it accompanied a relieved laugh.

“I’m, um,” Fluttershy pulled away from Applejack and wrapped up in herself nervously. “I’m pretty tired though, maybe we can go bed, um, soon.”

“Sure,” Applejack agreed, a genuine smile replacing the hideous aggression in the air.

With a final flick of her pen, Twilight finished an observation noted along the margin of her otherwise perfectly aligned account. Her critical eyes sharpened on Fluttershy, even as the book between her fingers closed up. She was murderously curious as to what had provoked the girl, and she wondered just how many numbers were left upon the arms of her company.

Rarity took the longest to ready herself for bed, spending a good (or torturous) half hour in the only bathroom, doing who-knows-what. Fluttershy had already buried herself into the puffy plush rounds of her blanket, and had scooted over to the far side of the bed away from the linen-lined bunks that scattered the room. When Pinkie Pie used to join them, she would often coax her way into Fluttershy’s bed, so as habit commanded, she kept the space vacant. Rarity always slept nearest to the bed besides that, with Twilight flipped backwards next to her. Past the final foot of the bed, Rainbow Dash and Applejack shared a blanket to themselves. Spike normally would have been pushed to the spot next to the door (where sometimes he had been stepped on throughout the night), but he was absent more frequently since he grew of age.

As Rarity tried to step over Applejack and Rainbow Dash clumsily, Rainbow kicked her leg up and tripped the intoxicated young dame, causing her to nearly tumble right on her face, had she not caught the side of the dresser with her hand at the last second. Grumbling beneath the sound of Rainbow’s snickers, Rarity made her way past Twilight and over to her laid out bed of pillows and folded quilts. She slumped against the set happily, nestling into the warm bundles and almost immediately falling asleep, before she could even pull her eye mask down from her forehead.

“Goodnight, girls,” Twilight spoke through a yawn, and the gentle rumbling of Rarity’s unusual snoring echoed beneath the sentiment. “Sleep well.”

“Yeah, you too,” Fluttershy replied through the fabric of her pillowcase, her eyes wide open and staring at the door as it became clearer with the adjustment of her eyes to the midnight sky and the soft fall of starlight through her translucent curtains.

Beneath the diagonal cascade of what little light pirouetted into the bedroom laid a perturbed Rainbow Dash, the clean lines of light tracing the dimensions of her features and illuminating her pale ivory skin. Applejack watched her considerately, her soft eyes caressing the sharp and somewhat masculine features of the girl whose back she pressed tenderly against. Her chartreuse eyes faded to a dim grey beneath the heavenly dimness, but they jumped over the restless body of her dearest friend just as lively as ever.

A sweet kiss replaced the gaze, and Rainbow hummed welcomingly into it, leaning her head a way as to permit further advances. Applejack’s small hands ran along the strong lines in her partner’s stomach, and though they were a bit too cold, Rainbow had no complaints. Their legs tangled like lace beneath the covers, bodies forming to one another perfectly.

“Don’t think t’ hard on all that hooey Fluttershy was spewin’,” Applejack murmured into Rainbow’s earlobe before nibbling it and consoling it with another smooch. “She was jus’ rufflin’ your feathers, honey.”

“Hmm.” Rainbow wasn’t so certain, but it was becoming hard to concentrate on being angry or solemn with all the attention she was being fed.

“Y’know I love you,” she hushed the words into Rainbow’s neck, begging her with a few prods to turn over and face her. “You’re rough, but it’s you, an’ y’don’t compromise that f’ no one. Nothin’s more attractive than someone who’s true and honest t’ the person they really are.”

“What’s got you all riled up?” Rainbow mused enjoyably, accepting the unspoken request and turning the other direction to get a good look of the heat in Applejack’s stare.

“Just thinkin’ about you,” a kiss separated the last word from the last of her statement. “Lots.”

“Hahh, yeah, I, I guess so,” Rainbow Dash cooed as her mind started to drift deviously. Something held her back though, and badgered her incessantly. “Are you trying to seduce me?”

“It doesn’t take much, does it?” Applejack sniggered under the hum of the furnace.

“Not from you,” Rainbow agreed in a pleading kind of voice. From the way that Applejack set to exploring her under the veil of darkness and quilts, Rainbow was bemused to think of her motives. “Be careful, you really don’t want to get me going.”

“Really? I thought that was exactly what I wanted,” the blonde girl curled into Rainbow’s embrace, leaving a trail of kisses along her collarbone and up to her chin. With tantalizing fingers twirling under shirt tails, she tested how far her luck could take her. “You’ve been holdin’ me off for so long I’d almost think y’all were afraid.”

“I’m not afraid of anything!” Rainbow snapped back louder than she intended, but Applejack hurriedly covered her mouth with a ready hand.

“Shh, keep quiet you silly thing,” she shushed her calmly. Finally releasing the pressure between her legs that Rainbow had been so very focused on, Applejack let out a slow exhale. “I’m just teasin’. You’re funny when y’get all flustered.”

“Yeah, yeah, bite me,” Rainbow Dash pouted and grouchily, and moaned into the cup of Applejack’s hand as the girl did just what she had suggested. With a breathy voice, she murmured into her palm, “Not… literally!”

Stifling a groan of her own (albeit the annoyed sort rather than the enticed kind), Fluttershy curled tighter in her bed and dug the edges of her pillow into the cavities of her ears. Though she couldn’t really make out any of the words passed between the lovers at her feet, and not like she wanted to anyway, she was bothered by the hiss of whispers and the shuffling of blankets and lips. Her forehead wrinkled tightly as she tried to focus on the silence, but that only brought more attention to the small sounds.

With a violent twist, she flipped onto her other side, landing on the side of the bed that was vacant. Immediately she felt the troublesome sensation of disturbed sheets and crumbs in her bed. Her fingers moved over the debris and she ran it between her fingers and thumb as if trying to imagine what it could be. As it crumbled into smaller fragments and dried her skin, she came to the sick realization of what it was.

Scooting back abruptly and shaking the blanket from her body, Fluttershy nearly fell out of bed. Luckily most of the girls were asleep by then (besides the two pretending at the foot of her bed), so no one questioned her sudden moves. As she pulled back the covers and caught a very blurry and dark glimpse at what hid in plain sight, her eyes began to water and her mouth fell open.

“P-Pinkie?” she so weakly whimpered, recognizing it as the dust that once bore that name.

She got to her feet at once, choking back a sob as she hurried to the door and quietly pried it open. One last glare at the bundled pair of girls on her floor spurred her to storm out faster, and she barely resisted the urge to slam the door. After everything that had happened between them that evening, she just had to get away from Rainbow Dash.

The light from the streetlamp outside shone into the living room, though only dimly, as Fluttershy crossed the hall and made her way away from the bedroom. As she flicked on a light distant enough to have not disturbed the room at the end of the hall, she came face to face with the side door of her house. There she could see all her friends shoes, some lined up more nicely than others.

Her tired eyes set straight at the dirtied doormat, and she nearly chewed right through her lip as she glared pugnaciously at it. She was trapped between the bed and the door, and at both ends, haunting dusty memories. She hesitated moving at first, but she didn’t know what else to do. With a harsh huff, she stomped over to the door and stepped right over the ashes like she could possibly pretend that they weren’t there. The harsh wind from the midnight air stung her eyes and ears, but she wrapped herself up in a large blanket scarf she left hanging on the coatrack to try and keep warm enough.

Sitting down on the stoop in a miserable heap, Fluttershy tucked her legs up under her arms. Before she had a chance to run her hand through her tangled hair and get a better hold of herself, she was stalled once more. Squeezing the roots of her hair so hard it threatened to pull them right out of her head, Fluttershy growled through her chattering teeth. As if everything else wasn’t already too much for her, in her moment of solitude, Rainbow Dash’s junky old car stared her right in the eyes. Gently rocking back and forth on her toes and tush, her breath quickened to a pace that defied her sleeplessness.

For the first moment in her life, she felt like she might understand what Pinkie Pie went through: considering what it might feel like to have the numbers on her wrist count down to nothing.

Author's Note

At last, another slice of PFTOG. Be sure to check out my blog for art pieces inspired by this story. More is to come, I assure you, though not sure how long it will take... Anyway, what do we think so far?
The part between Spike and RD is quite personal for me, as myself and a good friend of mine have had very similar fights. Tell me how you felt about it!