Bittersweet Trails

Rated Teen for mild sensuality. Very brief, but it's there.

It was another one of those days.

Another one of those days where everything had already been said and done for, before you'd even woken up. One which promised nothing but relaxation.

It was to this day that I slowly awoke to. The ever familiar feeling of my purple sheets and the soft mattress below were comforting, warming.

"Good morning, my happy sappy smiley Twily..."

That whispering certainly wasn't unwelcome. I knew who it came from, but I didn't have to look, or even open my eyes. I smiled, whispering back. "And good morning to you, my pink prancing pony partner..."

There was no response from her, except a slight pressure as she slipped her hooves around me, gently pulling me closer. Even with my back to her, I took it upon myself to return the hug as much as possible, not able to hold in the flushing of my cheeks as she buried her face in my mane.

Pinkie stayed there for a while, and I was brought to reflect on what exactly had happened last night. I remembered falling asleep, and I remembered her waking me to get back to bed. It was a half-blur from there, and...well, almost nothing was clear. I could have made waffles while juggling five manticores at once, and not remembered a thing.

I was jolted out of my attempted recall by a gentle nibbling on my ear, which sent shivers down my spine. Evidently, she felt them. "Oooh, so you like it when I give your little ears a nip?"

As she continued gently sliding her teeth along the very edges of my-admittedly, extremely sensitive-ears, I made an attempt at speech. What I tried to say was 'Come on Pinkie, stop it!'. What came out, however, was an involuntary moan that sounded more like a mournful ghost of a dog begging for table scraps than a protest.

As Pinkie finally pulled away, I breathed a silent sigh of relief. That sigh seemed to be misinterpreted.

Perhaps not in an entirely bad way.

Instead I felt her shifting around, before I felt a gentle nuzzling across my neck. It felt well enough, and I began moving to return it.

Instead, Pinkie Pie pulled back from my attempted nuzzling and instead planted a gentle kiss in the crook of my neck, another slightly lower, and continuing like so. It was only when she passed the point of my shoulder that I realized her intentions.

Or rather, 'realized'. Pinkie did not, in fact, head further south at all. Instead, in a flash, she pulled herself free from the sheets, hopping around the bed before coming to my side, to which I finally opened my eyes at her coaxing. "Enough kissy-time!" she bubbled. "It's time to get going!"

Reluctantly, I began rising, but just as quickly, she shoved a hoof in my path, preventing me from sitting up. "Actually, on second thought, we might need to talk, Twily."

Talk? That was all she ever wanted to do anyways, but...her tone rather scared me at that moment. Either way, I half-nodded,and almost immediately, she plopped onto her haunches, so that we saw eye to eye before beginning.

"Twilight..." she began, hesitating. Hesitating. Something was definitely off. "Do you remember last night?"

The only response I could think of was a nod. Of course I did! I mean, first romantic kiss-check. First time ice skating with-I'll assume 'proper' help-check. First time meeting...well, regardless, check there.

"I don't think you really do, Twilight. Tell me the truth."

I was getting confused by now. "I'm pretty sure I'm being one hundred percent truthful. I remember each and every thing up until I fell asleep."

"Ohhhhh..." Pinkie's grin had faded half a minute ago, and now it deepened into what appeared to be a concerned frown. "Because, you kept tossing around, mumbling stuff. I felt you do it two nights ago, too, but that time you woke up screaming like somepony pulled your tail really hard."

So she did hear that?

"I thought you said your nightmares went away, Twilight," she half-stated, half-asked. "And now I'm worried."

"I-"

"Twilight, you need help."

I blinked, shaking my head. Was I hearing her correctly? Was she suggesting that I get psychiatric counseling for just a few bad dreams?

Pinkie noticed this, and shook her head smiling. "Not that kind of help, silly. The other kind."

"What other kind?" As usual, she was making no sense.

"The kind that only your friends can give you, duh!" With this, she quickly ducked out of sight. "And I've got just the thing!"

A fair amount of rustling was heard, and just as I leaned over to check if she was even doing anything, a small blur flew onto the bed with a quick "here it is!" following behind.

Why there was something of unknown origin under my bed was a mystery, but the object itself won over my curiosity, and I turned to examine it.

It was a small, slightly faded piece of colored felt; closer inspection revealing the shape of a small unicorn filly, horn and all. The white pelt coat was unusual compared to the strangely yarn-like blue hair. With a careful hoof prod, it felt fairly soft and yielding, and I finally came to a conclusion just as soon as Pinkie began to explain.

"It's a little itty bitty plushie pony that my granny knitted me when I was juuuuuuuussst about learning to walk!" She said, making a 'this big' sign by holding her hooves about 2 feet apart. "I was about that tall! Mrs. Sunshine always kept the bad dreams and monsters away, so maybe she can help you keep yours away!"

Right then and there, my heart began to swell-figuratively, of course-to probably twice its previous side. While in another pony's view 'Mrs. Sunshine' may have been just a worthless piece of plush, 'she' meant so much more to me.

The fact that Pinkie Pie was willing to give up one of her most cherished childhood objects, an object of such sentimental value...

I didn't know what to say. "Pinkie..."

Already, she was tugging me out of bed, and I was being dragged down the stairs. "Yeah, yeah, I know, thanks and all!" Her voice was unusually chipper to me as I struggled, trying to dig my hind legs into the wooden steps to slow my rapid descent. "But wait until you see this!"

As I managed to regain my orientation, recognizing the main foyer area, I had to-figuratively-stop, and blink. What I was seeing was just so unexpected, so strange, so...

Pink.

Yes, pink. Just...pink.

"I always heard you complaining about how boring the place was, so I painted it while you slept!"

Still stunned, I pressed a hoof to the now pastel-colored walls. It came back dry. Still in complete disbelief, I turned to Pinkie, who still bore a smile as wide as could be. How could she have misinterpreted me so badly? I meant to speak of the work itself, not the coloring of which the place was. And what would give a pony such motive to stay up all night for such a trivial job?

I tried to ask any of those, but questions of such complexity were yet beyond me. Instead, I just stammered out my feelings the best way I could: "You. Painted. A tree."

"Yep!" She apparently found nothing wrong with it.

Taking it as a hint to put my hoof down, to make her understand the severity of what she'd...apparently done, I took a step forward, my eyebrows reflexively lowering. "You do realize that the paint has most likely bound itself to the tree's own molecules, which are more organically separate and porous, thus likely staining the bark a permanent light pink?"

She shrugged now. "I guess. Is that bad?"

"Is that bad?!" My temper lashed out momentarily, as I failed to reign in my, quite honestly, misplaced frustration from the past few weeks. "Pinkie, now I'll not only have to strip off the top layer, not only will I have to literally carve out the parts that are now likely permanently pink, but I'll have to go through a huge chain of command just to see if I can even replace what you just did!"

Pinkie Pie was now wearing a most anomalous frown. "Sheesh, OK..." she muttered, kicking at the ground with her hooves. "I'm sorry, I just wanted to help..."

I sighed, closing my eyes. The amount of anger that I felt was so immense that I had to pause, taking deep breaths to keep from shouting. It was all I could do, really.

Eventually, I shook my head, opening my eyes. "I can stomach that," I said eventually, and I could. Maybe with a little effort. Or a lot. "Just...don't try to help like that ever again, OK?"

"Okey Dokey Lokey!" She was already back to bouncing around like her hyper self, as if trying to reach the ceiling to paint that, too.

Speaking of paint, the offending can sat nondescriptly in a corner, between two-surprisingly not pink-bookshelves. Sighing, I picked it up with a simple levitation spell. The first step would be to remove the offending-

Squoish!

Strange, squishing-thumping noises certainly weren't a usual thing, especially in a library. What in Celestia's name could have made that noise? It'd have to be significantly wet and heavy...

...my hooves felt wet...

Fearing the worst, I glanced down, expecting some sort of spontaneous marsh to have sprung up when I wasn't looking. Instead, there sat a vaguely bookish shaped object, surrounded by a lovely splatter of pink paint.

"Pinkie..." I grumbled, this time picking up the book. I ignored her response, figuring that she might realize that it was rather a grumble of frustration than a direct addressing. I managed to separate some of the paint from the cover, seeing if I could salvage even a little bit.

I couldn't have imagined the look on my own face if I tried. The cover was something all too familiar, something I'd used even all through fillyhood, in which I pretty much stuffed it full of memories. It was the one constant in my life besides reading.

"Pinkie." My own voice was terse, and my throat was taut as I called-strangely subdued-like-for her attention. She stopped, and looked at me expectantly. "Do you know how this happened? Do you know how this got completely submersed in paint?"

Her face fell immediately, the sign of a guilty conscience. However, she would not lie, either-she instead immediately set about apologizing. "Twilight, I'm like, really sorry that I ruined your book. I accidentally knocked it over, and it fell in, and I thought you wouldn't-"

"You thought I wouldn't notice?" By now, I was advancing on her against all of my better judgement. "Do you know what this is? Because this isn't just a book, it's a scrapbook. A house for all my precious foalhood memories. And now," I shook the book in her face. "It's ruined."

Pinkie was now slowly backing away from me, a slight quivering of her lips appearing before my eyes. I wanted to stop, but some sort of feeling pressed me forward. I...I just couldn't control it. "And on occasion, I like to relive those memories, as bitter-sweet as they may be. But now, I can't. My brother might as well be a memory, Spike might as well have simply appeared from nowhere, and I might as well not even have gone through FOAL-HOOD!"

The silence that followed was almost deafening, so much so that I could hear the very, very faint sounds of Pinkie trying not to cry; the gentle shuddering and shivering of a pony on the brink of sadness. I hardly saw such a thing, because my own eyes were obscured by burning hot tears. The need to defend something, anything, if only to do some justice to the paint incident...

...it had taken over me. I didn't want it.

But the words kept spilling from my mouth uncontrollably, ugly ones. Ones that I tried to catch, but miserably failed at. "And if you think that this is 'OK' to any degree...you're wrong, Pinkie."

She finally decided to speak up, though not how I hoped. Her voice warbled and creaked with barely restrained sadness. "Twilight, why are you being so mean?" Her tearful gaze was one so innocent, one so heartwarming that it almost pierced the veil of...malice that I seemed to possess.

Almost.

She reached out to hug me, but on complete impulse, one of my hooves shot out, pushing her back with a slight skidding sound. "Don't. Touch me."

It was the final straw for Pinkie Pie. The tears that had been welling up in her eyes finally came to fruition, slowly leaking out onto her cheeks, leaving the tiniest rivulets. Her shoulders began shaking in earnest, and a pitched, primal wail rose up in what could only be described in one word:

Crying.

If there'd been any time in which my heart could have broken, it would have been right then. Sitting there, watching my marefriend cry. Just...cry. Knowing that I'd done it myself, and out of pure hateful intent.

All of the fight went out of me in an instant. Seeing such a sight threw my aggression into reverse, and I tentatively reached out to her. "Pinkie, I...I'm sorry-"

The instant that my hoof met her shoulder, it was smacked away with surprising force. In an instant, she was surging forward, stopping just inches from my nose. She spoke loudly, though no less emotional. "You're perfectly clear, Twilight! You don't want me anymore! You...you don't have to apologize for your true feelings!"

"Pinkie, I acted irrationally, and-"

Quick as a flash, Pinkie shoved a hoof into-yes, into-my mouth, definitely intent on keeping me silent. In the brief second she had before I backed off, she continued. "I'm not gonna be with a pony who's gonna be such a meany-pants all the time! So I'm going. Maybe I'll consider it when you STOP BEING A JERKY-PONY!"

With the final few words leaving her lips in such a strangled cry, the pink mare was already sprinting for the door. In another brief moment, she was gone in a trail of tears.

She...was gone.

It was too much for me to process at once. The suddenness of it all, the repercussions, the emotions, the memories...and the possible loss of her.

I stared blankly at the book, which I still held with a magical grasp, and back to the door. And then I did what could only seem right at the moment.

I made my way to the nearest bookshelf, which was also free of blemishes as were the others, and gently rested my forehead against it. With a shuddering sigh, I finally allowed my tears to fall, slowly coursing down the length of my face. I hardly noticed the slight sound of footsteps as an all too familiar dragon entered the room.

"Twilight? Are you all right?" Spike's question did little to calm me, though in all honesty, it didn't seem as though it was meant to.

I rose my head, and gave the best unconvincing nod that I'd ever given. "I'm fine, Spike...j-just give me a little time, all right?"

"But, I heard yelling, and..." he trailed off, a hesitant claw raised in the air. "You sure? Sounded somethin' awful..."

"I'll be alright, Spike. I just need some time alone." I half-heartedly made a 'shoo' motion with a free hoof. "Key word 'alone'. Now go back to your nap."

I managed to tune out the sound of retreating footsteps as I leaned my head back up against the bookshelf, numb to all but myself.

Between the ache of my heart, the stress on my brain, and how I'd hardly even been awake for 5 whole minutes when this happened, and so suddenly...I did the one thing left to do.

My shoulders slipped down, my eyes shut tight, squeezing a few more tears out...

...and I finally cried in earnest.