Chapter 14: Gravity

"Falling's easy, but there's only one way up..."

“Where is he?!” Bon Bon bit her lip, glancing about the room. “Does anyone know?”

Before Lyra could reply, the apartment’s door flew open, and Soarin entered, panting and exhausted. “I tried his house, he wasn’t there. I… I don’t know where he is.” The three stared at the door on the far side of the apartment.

On the other side of the door, Daring Do sat. She was slumped against the wall, her head in her hooves. A tear stained letter sat by her side, the boring font not fit for the message it conveyed. Her locket lay open on the ground, revealing a picture of a filly in her mother’s hooves. Pictures and letters surrounded her.

“I wanted you to be the last thing I dreamt about. I wanted you to be the reason I could finally breathe again. But… I can’t dream about us anymore. I can’t even sleep.” She took a shaky breath. “I wanted us to fly high…. But I just feel low.” She looked to her left and read the letter again.

“We regret to inform you that…” She looked away and cried again.

xXx

Spitfire ignored the wails of the bar’s drunken ponies, her eyes scanning the room. They locked onto a pony seated at a booth in the corner. She frowned and walked towards him. Braeburn sat alone, surrounded by several empty bottles. “I thought you were better than this,” she remarked as she slid into the booth. “Hey! Are you even listening to me?”

Braeburn squinted at her. His vision was blurred and he could barely make out who was sitting in front of him. “What?”

Spitfire sighed. “You don’t learn, do you? Drinking never leads to anything but downfalls. Braeburn… what happened between you two? I thought you were doing fine.”

He was quiet. “We were. Ah don’t know what happened, but she got a letter. Now she won’t talk to me anymore.” He took another drink. “And you’re not the only one who thinks Ah drink too much.”

“What did she say?”

“That she had to go and save herself. Ah know she lied.” He thought back to last week. Daring had received a letter in the mail, and though she wouldn’t divulge its contents, he had an idea as to what it said. “Brae… I need time to figure this out,” she said. “It’s not that I don’t want to tell you, it’s just… everyone's telling me everything I don’t want to hear.”

“Darin’, it’s fine. Ponies say a lot of things, you just can’t let it get to you. You can’t second-guess yourself, there’s only one good thing that comes out of it.” Even then, he could see the doubt in her eyes. The conflict she was facing was something that Braeburn was vaguely familiar with. The only way he could help her was to be the worst friend possible. “You can leave if you really want to.”

Daring looked up. “What?”

“Family always comes first, Darin’. No one knows that better than me. You can run away from this if it keeps hurting you. If whatever we have is makin’ you doubt yourself… it ain’t worth it.”
She snapped at him after that. “I would never leave you! You know that!”

“Ah’ll be fine, Darin’. You can ask it any way you want, Ah’ll be alright. Ah know this is hard, no one ever said it’d be easy.”

“So what? You’re telling me I should just keep falling?!”

“No. Falling’s easy, Darin’. Just… Just remember, it doesn’t matter how many times or how hard you fall. There’s only one way up.”

Back in the present, Spitfire frowned at him. “That’s really what you said?”

“Ah didn’t want to be the reason she did somethin’ she’d regret.” He lay the now empty bottle to the side. “Ah dunno… Lately, Ah’ve been thinkin’ that Ah think too much.”

“A lot of ponies do,” Spitfire answered.

“Hm.” He rubbed his eyes. “Ah do think that you don’t need to sleep to dream. Still, what Ah’ve been seein’ sure don’t feel like dreams. Feels like life’s burnin’ down around me. And from my experience, there’s only one way to drown it out.” He gestured to the empty bottles scattered around the table.

“How can I let this go? How am I supposed to move on after I threw it all away?”

“Please, Darin’. It’ll be better when you wake up and let this go.”

“I can’t, I never leave anyone behind. It’s who I am…. isn't it? Tell me I’m not going crazy, Brae.”

“You’re not.”

“It’s just… You’re telling me to go, to jump. If I go first…. How do I know you’ll follow? How do I know you’ll be there, falling with me?”

“Ah will, just have faith.”

“That’s it, though. Falling’s always been my downfall. Yours is… I don’t know, drinking, or talking even. I can’t take this anymore. This… doubt, this insincerity. I need to… save myself.”

“You’ll figure it out… don’t worry about it. Every pony talks a lot, and it doesn’t mean a thing until you let it.”

“You keep saying that… I wish I could believe you.”

“Brae?”

Braeburn looked up to realize he had been lost in thought. “Yeah?”
Spitfire rolled her eyes and grabbed him by the hoof. “Come on, cowpony. Daring needs you now, and from the look of things, you need her too.”

xXx

The apartment door opened again, and Braeburn was greeted by a hail of voices.

“Brae, did you hear-”

“Got a letter, not good news-”

“She won’t talk to any of us-”

Braeburn raised a hoof. The others fell silent, and he turned to Spitfire. She nodded, and with a heavy sigh, he trotted over to the door.

Daring was facing her bed when the door opened. “I thought I asked you not to come in here,” she growled.

“Ah thought Ah said all Ah had to say. Spitfire thought otherwise.”

Daring relaxed a little and turned to face her friend. “I… I don’t know what I have left to say.” She slumped over on her bed. “It’s not like I can go back now, even if I wanted to.”

“Come on, Darin’. You’re an adventurer, fearless and brave. If you really wanted to, you’d find a way. And don’t let me hold you back. Ah said it before, Ah’ll say it again. You can leave if you really want to. You can run if you have to, do whatever you need to. Go. Ah’ll be fine.”

Daring looked up at him. “Are you sure? I mean… look at you.”

He laughed. “Ah can drink if Ah feel Ah have to, Darin’. And it’ll take me a few drinks, but yeah. Ah’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me.”

“It’s… I don’t know. Hard. I’ve been trying, but I can’t feel like I used to. I can’t relive those days anymore.” She stared out the window. “I can fly, but it doesn’t feel the same. It’s like… Like gravity’s still keeping me grounded, even though I’m up in the air.”

As she said this, she left the room. The others were gone. She kept going, out the door and into the hall. Braeburn followed her. A pair of drunken ponies passed them by, giggling to themselves.

“Ah think Ah know how you feel. Goodbyes only drag us down, after all.”

Daring glanced up and down the hall to find it empty. She could hear a faint sound of static from one of the rooms. “Then spare me the fall.”

She sighed and kept moving forward. Braeburn keeping pace with her. “Heh… You’re in a hurry. Any reason why?” She asked, noticing his pace.

“Well… you’d be in a hurry too, if you could see what Ah see,” he answered.

“And what exactly do you see?”

“Ah dunno. Somethin’ beautiful.”

She rolled her eyes. “You ever hear that saying…. Seize the moment? I don’t know, sometimes it almost feels like…. Like the moment seizes us, you know?”

The two descended the staircase, entering the lobby.

“Yeah, Ah know exactly what you mean.” As they exited the building, the moon glowed bright, surrounded by a blanket of black. The stars pierced through the darkness, shining and gleaming.

“Huh.... It is beautiful,” She remarked. “Brae… ’m trying… but I just can’t. I’m trying to fight it, but I keep falling.”

“Fallin’s easy, Darin’.”

“Yeah… but it only brings me down.”

“True,” he answered. “Ah’ll spare you a goodbye then. Good luck.” He turned and trotted back towards the farm.

As she watched him trot away, Daring exhaled. “I’m not worried about him,” she thought, though she knew she was.