40

oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god

Hooves shaking as I write this. ~~Fump~~fumbling around with lamp light and pens and

didn’t spill ink

gonna not gonna spill ink everywhere. Do that much at least.

@20

I can’t stop my hooves from shaking

I mean, I just did, I’m trying, I promise. It’s hard for me to calm down. It’s

god

@10

Okay.

I dreamed last night that I was floating in the sky. Exactly like I was telling you about yesterday. Blue, everywhere. Calm. Peace.

And then I realized I was being watched. Like, you know that sensation you get when somepony’s eyes are on the back of your neck? That. Except it was everywhere. EVERYWHERE. I was being stared at all over at once and ~~I don’t even have~~

~~like I said~~

There isn’t anything more to say. But it wasn’t like I was floating anymore – it was like I was pinned up there, like some kind of butterfly smeared between blue above and green below.

And then I started feeling happy, but not happy like actual happiness, but happy like deliberately-being-drugged-or-something-forced-to-be-happy. Like this massive surge of pleasure just started jolting through me, and I think I must have started twitching in my sleep because tank isn’t supposed to be awake this early and he looks really concerned and how early is it anyway

THREE THIRTY?

No idea why he nipped the blanket off of his cage. He’s usually better behaved than that. Unless he was worried about me?

I love that turtle so much. He’s loyal. He cares. He cares so much.

Right, Tank. Did I ever tell you his history? I got him when I was looking for a pet. Fluttershy helped with that. Long story short, I held a contest to see which pet was the best possible choice. Blah, blah, blah, he fit none of the categories but still won because he did something amazing, that something amazing being saving my life. Or at least, saving me from having to gnaw my own wing off.

~~I should tell that to A.K. Yearling, maybe she’ll have something to say about it or think about for her next novel~~

No, don’t cross that off, Rainbow Dash. Think about other things. Thinking about other things is good. Yes.

Tank.

Tank is so unendingly endearingly friendly to me that I can’t imagine not liking him. He’s patient to the point that I can’t imagine him ever getting tired of me, no matter how awesome or awful things are going for me right now. He’s humble, he knows the virtue of being quite at the right points of time, he’s completely cute, and he bounces back from everything. I swear that I can’t tell what his shell’s made of, because my best guess would probably be iron, and it’s certainly not wimpy-lame-whatever-reptiles-have.

Please be like him. Please be understanding enough to deal with all my weirdness. Please.

This dream. So I was up there, I was stuck up in the sky, being watched all over and I swear that I couldn’t see what was staring at me, but I thought it was this monster beneath me that I couldn’t see. You know, like one of those movies? The second you acknowledge that it’s behind you, it reaches up with its jaws and – snap? So you have to keep pretending, or you’re forced to keep pretending that it’s not there, knowing all the time it is and that your composure is going to break and -

And it was like that, my nerves screaming in unreasonable joy and my body rock stiff, and it should have been wonderful but it was too wonderful and there was no way it was my dream at all-

And then the sun cracked in half, spreading apart like an eye opening wide, and

and then I woke up.

Give me a bit.

@5

Okay, I know that doesn’t actually sound scary. Shouldn’t sound scary. It’s…

I was helpless. I was a toy, a thing at the mercy of my dream. I couldn’t do anything, couldn’t see anything behind me, blinded by what was ahead.

~~I have this thing about being helpless~~

okay, worse than that. Being snared up is awful, but I woke up and I was so scared and I was trying to figure out why and I get bad dreams sometimes and I usually get the heebie-jeebies out after a few minutes or so.

But.

This whole dream started because I talked about it. With you. Because I’ve been talking about it with you. Because I’ve been talking about things at all.

I don’t know if this is some kind of curse or if this is my subconscious trying to tell me things or if it’s just guilt or I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT but

but I’m not safe in my dreams anymore.

If I start dreaming like that, what happens if I keep dreaming about it?

Is there any way that I can make it stop?

I’m not going back to sleep. Not tonight. There ought to be a Donut Joe’s still open; I’m gonna get a donut and some joe. Then I’m gonna take a walk. As in, a walk-walk; I don’t feel like flying right now.

I’ll put down some more stuff here later.

@whenever

Think it’s about…noon? Can’t tell. Don’t want to look at a clock because I’ve got a headache. Clock is close to the sunlight. Sunlight gives me a headache. Sunny day. Clear skies. Perfect flight weather. Don’t care.

I’m eventually going to fall asleep, but I’m not giving up this easily.

Took tank on a walk. Got comments from just about everypony about the fact that I look tired. Told them I was feeling a bit under the weather. Technically true. Also got a slight stomachache. Think I went overboard on the caffeine. That, or it just wears off faster than I thought. Besides that one time a few weeks ago, don’t normally have coffee. Don’t normally need to.

At least nopony tried to prank or party or lecture me awake. Nice of them. Not taking risks; next time I go out, I’m gonna go somewhere more private. Hopefully just to the time capsule and back.

Am I overreacting? Possibly. Sure doesn’t feel like it.

I’m scared and I don’t want to be this kind of scared. This is a different kind of scared. I’m not sure whether losing all my friends would be better or worse than dying, but it’s certainly comparable. And more tangible. Possibly inevitable.

So.

Writing more. Trying to get mind off things. Probably futile. Don’t care.

Getting together with Gilda was obvious. I’m not sure it was amorous, and I’m pretty sure it was never about bona-fide love. It was expected that, hey, we’d get serious with somepony, so why not each other?

And all things considered, it worked out a lot better than normal. I’ve liked mares more than colts, anyway – have for the longest time. Not that I don’t like dick, because I do, but mares look better, smell – I don’t mean odor, I mean that soft, intimate scent – better, feel better, think better, act better, ARE better. There was never any risk of pregnancy, for obvious reasons: there was never any risk of popularity, because we were both so obviously alpha that the idea of having to do that popularity romance hop-step was utterly foreign; there was never any risk of incompatibility, because between flying and fighting and the whole marefriend thing, our interests were pretty much locked solid anyway.

And I liked that. It felt comfortable; natural. Even happy, I’ll give it that much. I liked having a special somepony, even if it was a casual thing. Gave me something to focus on outside of the academy. I’m not exactly mushy, but having somepony to take solace in is the sort of safety that makes life feel genuinely softer, easier.

And for the longest time, life felt like the most natural, euphoric slide into greatness that was possible. The Equestrian dream.

But you can’t stay in the academy forever. We got older, and time inevitably ruined everything.

My hoof really hurts. I don’t know how much I’ve written today, but it feels like an entire novel. I’m going to shower off again, try to wake up a little more, then I’ll drop off what I’ve written to you. And after that…I don’t know. I don’t think anypony has any plans. Maybe I’ll go and see if AJ needs any help.

But I’m not going back to sleep.

Red-eyed,

-Rainbow Dash

/////////////////////////////////////////////////

41

I think they’re starting to worry about me again. Or suspect me. My friends, I mean. Did you tell them?

Didn’t sleep again last night. Went through those Tell Your Own Tales books again. Snuck down to the library, or whatever you want to call Twilight’s book stash, to return them and pick up some more. She didn’t notice. Did that all night.

Sleeping peacefully. Guiltlessly. Twilight, I mean.

Guess that was kind of a weird thing to say, just…Okay, weirder than that? I got a little lamp, and I actually went around to bedrooms. Just wanted to watch them sleep, I guess. Maybe not a good idea because it make me more tired, but…

Okay, I can’t explain it, honestly. Maybe I was just being creepy, I don’t know. I guess that’s what creepiness is, does. Is a thing? I feel like I’ve been more at a loss of words recently. Lack-of-sleep thing. Probably.

But yeah, just…they had nothing to worry about. Innocent dreams. Twilight: Almost fetal, curled beneath the covers, bangs drifting in front of her eyes, barely moving. Applejack: Mane ruffled, half-twisted beneath misshapen covers, face smooth against a crooked pillow. Pinkie: Snoring loudly, spread like a starfish, comforter dotted with what might have been a couple of candy bar wrappers – I didn’t want to risk getting closer to check. Rarity: lying sarcophageal, mane fixed in rollers, blinders locked with elastic around her eyes.

Fluttershy and Discord, nestled together. Ying and yang, separated and reformed, pressed gently into each other. Discord’s paw around her in an unconscious half-hug, Fluttershy’s forehooves buckled gently against her chest. Still, quiet, unmoving. Intimately close.

Okay, that’s what bothers me, I think. That’s why I went about and did it, the sneaking and the watching. Every time I’ve slept, I’ve slept alone. Didn’t matter if it was in my house, hundreds of feet above the ground, or packed like sardines in fledgling’s hammocks. Fluttershy actually has somepony to sleep with; to drift off with not even inches separating them, and to wake the next day with the gentle ruffle of coat against her chest. Everypony else, they…they go to sleep with themselves, and when they wake in the morning it’s refreshing and calm and happy, full of the implicit knowledge that they’ll have someone to talk to the next day, that when they sleep it’s only a brief respite until they’re close to their friends again.

And up until yesterday or so, that was me. I mean, for the past four years, that was me. But everything else before that, I was alone. Even when I was with Gilda, I was alone. There’s a difference between friends, lowercase, and Friends, uppercase. If you don’t have the latter, I mean…I’m not going to say that you can’t go through with life, just that it feels much less…

…I don’t know. Maybe this is why marefriends and coltfriends are a thing. Needing to feel needed?

Is that why your started writing to me? Is this why Twilight thought it would be a good idea to encourage this for me?

Or, I mean, working on the other hypothesis, did she think that I needed to feel needed? Where would she have gotten that idea from?

And why are all these thoughts swirling around my head in a snarl of senseless and unverified hypothesis and leaving me wishing that everything was simpler, actually simpler, and that I wish I had never started this whole stupid idea in the first place

so.

I need to stop thinking about sleep. It’s making me tired. And if that whole dream was based on some sort of psychosomatic psyche trauma yadda yadda yadda, then I might as well just vomit out my memories.

Hey, you know sea cucumbers vomit out their stomachs as a defense mechanism, right? The more you know. You think I do that with memories? Is that normal? I mean I’m pretty sure it isn’t. Then again, I’ve sworn off sleep and no doubt I’m way crazier than I was when this whole thing started off, so.

…Last year at the academy. End of the year. Career opportunities and recruitment and blah blah blah. Wonderbolts trainee camp was there. Only thing that mattered. I was a shoe-in.

Mental and physical part of the examination. Physical was easy; standard flight exercises plus a little more. I was the ace; a shoe-in. Mental was memorization of facts, tests. Details undisclosed. Shouldn’t have been hard, right? Either memory or policy or something else insubstantial or Wonderbolts-centric. I wasn’t an academic, but acing it should have been easy.

Didn’t study. Massive mistake.

Mental portion was tactical simulations. Trigonometric functions. Distance and velocity calculations. Pattern formation. Mathematics.

Not sure why it was necessary. Maybe to weed out the mentally unwilling? The lazy, the non-studious, the undisciplined? Ponies like me?

Failed, of course. You need to pass both tests just to get into the drawing pool of cadets. I came close to the bottom of the mental testing pack. Didn’t apply to any other job opportunity seminar; didn’t think it was necessary. Went back, looking for stuff less cool but still somewhat cool, all of it was taken.

Only the weather factory was hiring, but it’s always hiring. Figured that was the best I could do.

Gilda disagreed.

Said she wanted me to come with her post-graduation. Say I could get work with her family, whatever that meant. Said that there wasn’t anything that dweeby ponies had to offer the griffon kingdoms, anyway, and now that it was safe for her to come back…

I didn’t ask why she was in trouble. I probably should have. I probably should have done anything but rankled at the idea that “dweeby ponies don’t have anything to offer.” I probably shouldn’t have been as hung up on the Wonderbolts as I was.

I probably shouldn’t have swung the desk lamp hard enough at her face that it broke on contact. It wasn’t going to work, honestly. I swear that I can’t tell what her face was made of, because my closest guess would have been iron and not flesh, beak and bone.

My stitches tend to heal pretty quickly; I’m “healthy” that way. I still got so much of my face messed up that it’s a minor miracle that I’m not hideously deformed. Okay, make that a major miracle.

But then I take that advantage and promptly screw it up. If I was a smarter pony, that would have been the last time I had ever talked to Gilda Griffon.

But, obviously, it wasn’t.

Eight in the morning. Gonna toss this in the bucket and send something else your way later this afternoon. I don’t want to sleep – I really don’t – but I’m starting to get the feeling that I’m not going to have a choice pretty soon. Don’t get me wrong, I feel great right now; wired, awake, powerful. Best I’ve felt in a while.

But it only lasts for so long, doesn’t it?

Waiting the inevitable fall,

-Rainbow Dash

///////////////////////////////////////

42

I’m still going to call this one #42 and not #41 because if I pass out, I’m probably going to be out for a whole day, because this is obviously not an optimal or normal amount of sleep for me.

I forced us to talk – Gilda, I mean, not you

forced us to talk in the hallways after our stitches healed. Stilted conversations that went nowhere. Half-hearted exchanged sentiments, vague pleasantries. We didn’t race each other or spar each other anymore, and that was basically that.

I didn’t exactly become unpopular, but I did just start getting ignored. Ponies far less talented then me went into the flight camp rotation, and everypony knew it. I kicked butt in flight practice, but it didn’t really matter anymore. Came across as vestigial.

I went from the best of the best to a has-been in the space of a freaking day.

Only pony that would actually talk to me was Fluttershy. Then, of all times. Sensed weakness? Wanted to try and return a favor? I didn’t know; didn’t care. Everypony still left her alone, even Gilda, so maybe she was thankful for that. Or maybe she thought that since she was a loser, and since I had just become a loser, that we were allowed to talk to each other.

I’m pretty sure she was trying to console me. In retrospect, I should have beaten her up. It would have gotten the message across, put distance between us, allowed me to let go of flight camp anyway.

Wait. In retrospect, I should have beaten up one of my friends? What the hay am I saying? What’s wrong with me? ~~Besides everything~~

I guess that means I shouldn’t have, because otherwise the elements of harmony would have never been founded because of distancing and friction and Equestria would have been doomed

~~so in some twisted way does that mean~~

What is WRONG WITH ME??????????????

~~This is your fault. Maybe if I hadn’t started talking about this, any of this, maybe if you hadn’t listened or encouraged me to listen, maybe maybe maybe maybe maybe~~

~~everything would have been fine~~

~~screw this. Screw you.~~

I can’t blame this on anypony but myself, can I? You never made me start talking about this. You never made me do the things that I wanted to talk about.

If you have the decency to listen to me, then you were never an awful pony.

But I am.

But I still hate you.

I hate us both.

I’m gonna set this in the bucket and think about what I’ve said for a while. I don’t think I’m calm enough to write anymore.

Not that I’m done.

I think.

But I can’t write to you angry. Not like this.

See you after a breather,

-Rainbow Dash