Snow Covered Sidewalks
Sane Marbles
Rainbow Dash trudged through the snow covered sidewalks. Her heart was heavy, filled with conflicted emotions. She hated that it had come to this, but it had. It had taken several days for her to come to terms with it and to admit that she was not strong enough on her own.
Her first thoughts were to go to Fluttershy, but that hadn't felt right. She had felt a pulling, deep down in her heart that there was really only one person that would be able to help her out with this.
Thus, she found herself out in the snow following the bright, lavender colored, holiday lights that were decorating the street light poles as she headed east to where Sunset lived.
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"Thanks for letting me come over, Sunset.”
"You're always welcome here, Rainbow. I will admit I was a bit surprised. I figured everyone would be spending time with their families today since we were all together at Applejacks yesterday."
"Yeah, well…" Rainbow trailed off rubbing her head. A blush lit upon her checks as she desperately searched for the right words. All of the different sentences and words that she had come up with on the walk over had jumped ship as soon as Sunset had opened her door.
Rainbow snatched up the cup of water taking refuge in the drink of water as it bought her a few more precious seconds to think.
"You said you wanted to talk when you called"
"Yeah, I-"
A shout. A hard shove. A cry of pain.
The slipping of the glass in her slackening hands broke her free from the memories haunting her.
She hastily returned the glass to the table.
Rainbow let out a sigh.
"Err, well, I, …"
Another sigh escaped Rainbow.
"It's okay, Rainbow, if you don't want to talk about, well whatever it is, we can just hang out."
Rainbow shook her head.
"No, it's … it's important." She tried again to broach the reason that she had wanted to talk to Sunset about.
"I uh …"
The slam resonated through the hall consuming all sounds and becoming all encompassing The cry of pain that followed cut through it as if the slam had never existed.
The second recollection gave steel to her fading resolve.
"I wanted to talk about what happened – the Anon-a-Miss uh, thing."
"Oh, there's no real need. I told all of you that is okay. I understand-"
"No!" Rainbow interjected. Her shout startled Sunset. She flinched at the look in Sunset's eyes. It was too similar … much too similar to it.
Unfortunately her flinch, as miniscule as it was, did not escape Sunset.
Sunset got up and sat down next to Rainbow on the couch. She put her arm around Rainbow's shoulders, Rainbow stiffening as contact was made. The arm's movement paused when she stiffened, the pause didn't last as long as a single beat of her fluttering heart, before continuing to wrap around her shoulders. The arm tightened and pulled her against Sunset's side as her other arm came up and connected with the first, trapping Rainbow in the now completed embrace.
Let out a shuddering sigh just barely holding back the sobbing and tears-
An accusation was thrown. Followed by more. Tears flowed. Muscles tensed as she pushed harder against the flesh that pressed against the cold unforgiving steel lockers. The cry of pain preceding a soft gasp as air was forced out of lungs sent her mentally tumbling to her knees. The strength earned through so much hard work from all of those sports that she was so proud of, now betraying her as she hurt … her.
Sunset was saying something, but she was unable to make out exactly what it was. The exact words weren't relevant, just that it was Sunset speaking them. It was the last blow. The one that was finally able to break through Rainbow's once indomitable will.
Rainbow was – tired. She was tired of holding it. She was tired of pretending. Of pretending everything was okay – that she was okay. She was tired of memories, both of what had been and the nightmares of what could have been. She had felt so alone. She was sick of it. She was sick of it all.
And now, in Sunset's blissfully warm embrace, the walls crumbled into dust.
Whatever had been holding her back – reducing her into a hesitant stutter – was now gone. Nothing left to prevent her from telling Sunset. So she did.
She told her how guilty she felt for not believing Sunset. That she felt like she abandoned her new friend. How she regretted how poorly they treated Sunset. And last of all, how those bottled up emotions had turned into fuel for the nightmares she was having. Stored up anger from the betrayal was turned into physical violence on the silver screen that was her dreamscape. Where she went too far and now those images, those sounds, were seared into her brain and haunted her ever waking moment.
"Rainbow, I," Sunset trailed off, before starting again a moment later. "I had no idea that the Anon-a-Miss was hitting you so hard."
"Heh," she felt some of her signature bravado returning now that she had let it all out. "Listen to me being all weepy to you. It wasn't like I had become a whole better version of myself only to be accused of lying to everyone and exposing their secrets. What I was going through is nothing compared to that."
"I'm not so sure about that, Rainbow. From what you said, I got the impression that you have never really dealt with anything like that. Not to make light of what I had to deal with, but I already went through it before."
Rainbow perked up at that. "Wait, what are you ta-"
A quick squeeze from the arm's encircling Rainbow silenced her.
"It is really not that different from what led up to me going through the mirror and ending up here. Only this time I still had someone that I could still talk to, Princess Twilight Sparkle. It still wasn't easy, but I knew that it would end and somehow things would work out."
"At least I hoped it would," she quietly added.
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At some point snow had started falling outside as the two girls sat on the couch reflecting and talking about the past and sometimes even the future. Rainbow did end up spending the day with family as, after all, friends are the family that you choose.
Come late into the night, not even such a clatter that arose from a visit of a jolly old man clad in a festive red suit was able to disturb the now peaceful sleep of the two on the couch. Presents were left and stockings were filled and not a peep was heard, not even from the cat.
