36

I went back to drop off yesterday’s letter, and I heard Fluttershy crying.

Sound travels easily outside of ponyville. I wanted to be a good friend, so I flew over to her cottage. She still basically lives there, but she’s got a better reason than I did: her pets live there, too. Not to mention Discord’s still allowed in the castle, technically speaking, but I can’t imagine that he feels welcome there at all. So they all live there, together, and Fluttershy pops by the castle only from time to time. That’s part of the reason why I haven’t really been talking to her that much at all.

One of her pet mice had died.

She doesn’t have a really good idea of how it happened. It must have been while she was out picking up Angel Bunny’s food. There wasn’t any violence or sickness or anything like that. It wasn’t even that old; its little heart just stopped. I don’t know how medicine works that well; it could have been something wrong with its heart, with its brain, I don’t know. And I didn’t want to ask Fluttershy, because she was crying and cradling her mouse like it was a stillborn foal.

Instead, I gave her a box of tissues and a hug. She stayed in the hug for quite some time, leaning into me and taking sniffling breaths and crying as quietly as she could. I think she was trying to be strong for my sake. Or maybe she didn’t want to embarrass herself. Again – I’m not really good at this sort of empathy thing. But I stayed with her until she felt a lot calmer, and then I asked if she wanted to give it a burial, and she said okay.

We took it outside to over by the river, and we dug a little hole, and we put it inside. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to say a few words, but Fluttershy didn’t. She just wiped her eyes, and she stared at the hole for the longest time. And then she turned to me.

“It hurts”, she mumbled. “Every single time.” And I knew exactly what she meant.

I don’t know where Discord was in any of this. I hope he’s able to do a better job of making her feel better than I did. Or maybe the rest of her friends will. I didn’t know if I should have said anything.

I can’t imagine that must have been easy to deal with, though.

I went over to Tank when I came back, and I hugged him. And then I flew for the rest of the day, high in the sky, above everything else. I think it helped.

Talk to you later.

-Rainbow Dash

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37

We had a meeting today. Which is to say, a meeting about Fluttershy and her mouse. It was my idea: I went over to her cottage this morning, knocked on her door, eventually got to talk to her, asked if she wanted to talk about it with the rest of her friends, see if we couldn’t help comfort her through this. It’s the sort of thing we’re supposed to do, I think; if somepony’s having a hard time, it’s the job of their friends to help bring them back up.

I said “eventually” because I had to deal with that pompous butthole at the door before I finally got to talk to Fluttershy. It’s amazing how much sarcastic deflection it’s possible to pack into one oversized mishmash of body parts, but needless to say I spent at least ten minutes trying to talk my way inside before I was forced to be as blunt about it as possible. When, of course, he pointed out that she was helping set up butterfly feeders out back.

Can’t believe he basically forced me to say exactly what happened to her and what I wanted to talk with her about and encourage her to do before I got past. I thought I was tactless two days ago, but given that I guess he’s trying to make tact deader than discotheques, then whatever. Next time I see him, I’m going to have to remind myself to tell him that he looks awful ~~and that I bet he probably had to wear a paper bag over his head when they~~ yeah, remember that whole two days ago thing? I’m not finishing that sentence. I’ll think of some more creative insult, something really cutting and painful.

~~How’s about “you betrayed your best friend and you don’t deserve the trust placed in you”?~~

No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no
no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no
no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no

I’m awful. Screw this, I’m out. Bye.

-Rainbow Dash

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38

I will never do that ever again. You don’t need to know what that actually is. And given that I’ll never do it again, you won’t be able to find out. But I’ll never do it again.

See? Didn’t I hint at this earlier? Damaged goods. You really should write to me again; say that you just want to talk to me like normal ponies, don’t want any of this mystery-dancing-potential-crush stuff. Or tell it through twilight or somepony, I don’t care. Because I think you’re trying to do that thing where your silence is an affirmation ~~which is a TERRIBLE philosophy~~ and you really shouldn’t be pursuing that.

But you’re making a mistake. Crush on someone else. If I haven’t made it clear, Love and me are not going to work out. And either that’s going to hurt you when you finally figure it out, or I’m going to hurt myself over this whole debacle. ~~Not like what you’re thinking, though~~ I don’t know what you’re thinking but ~~not like that~~ whatever.

Anyways – I got off track yesterday. Long story short, Fluttershy got up and said it in front of everypony. Didn’t try to downplay what had happened, or offer an explanation; just said it, then stood there as if awaiting judgment.

Pinkie Pie was the first to give her a hug. Didn’t bother to say anything; just trotted right up and threw her forelegs over her. And then it was Rarity, then AJ, then Twilight. Discord and I stood off to the side, not saying anything, not making eye contact with each other. I think there was this unspoken recognition of the situation, a clandestine agreement to not say anything. But I can’t know for sure, because – remember? – not saying anything. I’m running on inference here, or maybe wishful thinking. But it’s the sort of inference I want to have, the sort of conclusion I’d like to bring this to, because I want to believe in tact and meaning and a recognition of solace that matters.

I gave her my hug already. He had, too. But I don’t know anything about his hug, about his comfort. I never said anything. Did he speak volumes? Was that the right thing to have done?

Funny; I’m only tongue-tied when I’m trying to say write something, looking in retrospect. Back when I was thinking clearly and when my silence would have been justified – I didn’t have any reason or explanation. It just was.

Is this what thinking does to me? Is it unhealthy to dwell too long on my thoughts? Does this thing happen to everypony?

I’m starting to worry if this funk I’ve been in isn’t just a “now” sort of thing, but something I’ve had all along. It’s like that dude with the butterfly – was I happy all along and slipping into sadness when I thought too much about things, or have I been sad all along, and distracting myself to try and be happy?

If that was me, in front of everypony else, would I get a hug? I doubt it. Celestia only knows I don’t deserve it. But I guess that’s okay. Same as it’s ever been. Maybe I just need to get my mind off of things. Fly a bit. Get back to the way things were. It couldn’t hurt, anyway.

Buzzing off,

-Rainbow Dash

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39

Didn’t really fly so much today as just climb up to a really high point in the sky and just hang there for a few hours.

When the sky is the color of me, I like to pretend I can dissolve into it. Just fade into blue – one with the sky, over the earth, everypony and nopony at all. There’s something liberating about a daydream where you don’t have to close your eyes to believe in it, you can just look up and see. I didn’t slow down all that much when I was squirt’s age, but back when I was at the weather factory, I used to do it off of my shifts – just part of the endless blue, warm and floaty and free.

Maybe it’s the freedom that made me fall in love with it. Y’know, because when there’s nothing to do but push this and tilt that and measure such and such, you tend to want to find something good outside of what you’re doing. Oh, sure, I could fly, but flying didn’t buy food. So when I had to be doing what I could to get food, I’d kind of drift off into that little daydream – make it better.

Oh, and naps. Hey, I got the job done in the requested time, there’s no reason I *wouldn’t* be allowed to take them. But that’s literal dreaming, isn’t it?

Still – I don’t do it much anymore. Not a whole lot of point: I’m free, now. Being an element of harmony means that, besides the things that I have to do, that I can do anything.

Kind of a paradox, isn’t it?

But things have definitely been better for me over the past few years. That pretending thing, I haven’t done it so much – at least, I had to jog my memory to remember it. Not like it’s the sort of thing that comes to my mind every time when I’m trying to describe myself to others: “oh, hey, I space out when I stare at the sky, isn’t that funny, ha ha ha ha ha?” eeeeeeeyahno.

Plus, between the autographs and the fan clubs and the royal business and – aw, heck, for the most part the just-plain-hanging-out-with-my-friends – I haven’t really been idle all that much. At least, when idleness was tangible like that.

Just another thing that came up, I guess. Sort of like spending time inside – didn’t used to do that so often, either. But here’s the letter, here I am, here you are.

If you make me fat and lazy, I’m gonna hate you for it.

But yeah. Gonna see if I can kind of… well, I was gonna help Scootaloo practice some of those switch-method-indy-trick things that she wanted help with, so between that and dinner with everypony else I probably won’t be out of stuff to do until it’s dark. And I think Pinkie Pie wanted us to read off ghost stories to each other, or something? So that’ll be some of the night, too, since I’m guessing that either snacks or some kind of epic Applejack-Rarity bickering is going to happen.

But maybe I’ll think about it before I go to bed. Literal dreaming isn’t actually daydreaming, I know, but it should be nice. Especially given how writing to you is starting to make me feel kind of sad.

But hey – you should give it a try too, okay? The staring-at-the-sky thing. Imagine that you can see me out there. Watching you. Happy- y’know? Just super comforting and all of that. I checked with Applejack – the Midnight Sun flowers are almost ready to be plucked, and it can’t be much more than a week before the nice weather we’ve had is going to come to an end and we’ll probably get a bunch of rain.

I’ll be waiting, somewhere close to the sun.

Warm Thoughts,

-Rainbow Dash.