Silence.
The only sound to grace my ears, even as I whipped towards the ground at near terminal velocity, despite myself and the wind blowing with a ferocity recognized only by my sense of touch, was complete and utter silence.
It was a scientific phenomenon in itself - here I was, plummeting at a substantial enough speed to incur loss of a sense.
Then again, I had tossed myself off the edge of the gorge in the first place, so anything that happened afterwards was rather unimportant in the scheme of things.
That's right. I jumped off a cliff, as some ponies might simplify it down to. I was not sky-diving, as I had no parachute, and it was not an instant decision either. After weeks of meditation, it seemed both the best and the only choice.
Whether or not it was the right one, I'd likely never know.
As my sense of touch continued to assert itself over hearing, the full force of wind began tearing at my eyes, instinctively making me wriggle around mid-air the best I could to face the sky. If I was truly going to take my life, the most sacred thing I possessed in all of eternity itself, it seemed a sort of paramount perseverance of every modicum of comfort I could get would be for the best.
My eyes tore away from the raging, rushing river below, and rested above on the biggest patch of cerulean I'd yet seen, dotted with cerulean, cerulean, and a spot of cerulean to top it off.
Only the last patch differed from any other, though - it moved with speed, a steadily increasing speed that closed mere inches upon me with each second. Strands and trails of rainbow flew behind it, and wings flapped furiously next to it, forming a desperately flying, and though she would never admit it, bitterly crying Rainbow Dash.
Even though my sense of hearing seemed shot, my perception of time slowed, and my sense of touch heightened, I could make out the lonely echoes of a single, desperate cry that her glistening rose eyes echoed with each second.
"Twilight! Don't do it!"
I stared blankly upwards, only half-registering the words that had been there, but were no longer. My focus was no longer held to the sky, or the imminent outcome of a pony falling at roughly terminal velocity. Instead, my gaze slowly drifted to her billowing rainbow mane, and back down to her features that were so often chiseled and unbreakable, strong and soft in the strangest ways.
No matter how much I loved her, I could not deny that I would be the one to break her heart in the end, as I already had. Maybe not how I thought it would be, but still a break nonetheless.
Yes, that was right. I, Twilight Sparkle, loved Rainbow Dash. Ordinarily, if anypony found out, I'd likely bite back with only the sardonicism necessary, 'Why don't you just kill me over it?'.
And yet, against my better fantasies and hopes, I'd done the exact thing of my own free will.
Not that it scared me at all, honestly - from the torment I'd managed to endure, this seemed the only logical option. Ponyville didn't want me, my friends didn't understand, and my crush didn't even notice me. Not often, at least. But the word, twisted in their cruel visages, and forever echoing in my head, drove me to it. It drove me to change myself, to doubt who I was, and for all of the right reasons - if I wasn't 'natural', at least I could go out in a natural way.
And so, even as she inched ever so closer, every single muscle on her athletic form taut and straining to get closer, I simply lay back, all four hooves extended as if to slow myself, when the reality was so much more different. 'Leave me alone,' I would have screamed if I'd had the energy or even the conviction to. 'You can save yourself! You don't need to be with a fillyfooler!'
After all, it was the truth. Nopony wanted me, much less her, and I was a freak of nature. I'd had means to an end, but never known how vile they actually were.
Speaking of 'end', the sound of water began to fill my ears. It was then that I reluctantly tore my sight away from her, and shut my eyes tight. Impact would be in 10 seconds, no more, no less. The ridicule, the stress, the impurity...it would all be over soon.
Release came in a rather strange manner. I felt a very, very strong tug that seemed to slow my descent, and my breathing instantly became hard to come by. I plunged into the water, seamlessly floating through the last few inches before finally hitting the riverbed.
The last thought I ever had would, sadly, be oddly 'Starswirl the Bearded era', but nopony could read my mind. They would never know. It was a fitting end to a disgrace like me:
Goodnight, sweet princess. It was a love never meant to be.
As it turned out, my last thought was not my last thought.
I first became aware of this by the very fact I was thinking, and not being a lifeless vessel slowly drifting down a river. My breath came, indeed, but it was mechanical, and labored. Every single gulp of life-essential air brought great amounts of pain, and as much as I wanted to stop, I knew I couldn't. It was the body's natural defense mechanism to prioritize breathing to keep itself alive, no matter how painful it was.
I appeared stuck for the time being, wherever I happened to be.
The first thing I reluctantly noticed, was the fact that the water I'd last heard was nowhere to be heard. Out of earshot, most likely gone. I still, however, felt strangely soaking wet. Maybe I'd floated to the shore, and the job was not finished. Such an assumption made no sense, though - the river would still be in earshot, if that were true. My calculations could have been flawed, considering I made absolutely none. The question remained: how did I still exist?
The next answer I came to receive did not answer that question, or any question - but it gave me a clue to my surroundings.
While I did feel wet, my head was propped up gently across something curved, slightly soft, and my general midsection was wrapped in a sort of feathery cocoon. Such a thing left my forehooves immobilized at my side - not free to swing, but also not restrained with force. It was a very warm way to lie injured, and I might have dared to say that I enjoyed it, had circumstances been different.
The sound of rushing water remained nowhere around, but I slowly became aware of a steady, rhythmic crunching: crunch, crunch, crunch, followed by a slight gap, and it would begin anew. With each crunch, I could feel the oddly soft surface beneath me shift slightly, and I was able to draw the conclusion that I was moving.
I struggled weakly, trying to dislodge the cocoon around me. My eyes felt just about as heavy as the weight of the world itself, and I couldn't even manage more than just a single flutter of my eyelids. The instant I moved, I set off flashes of pain that were both expected and unexpected, starting in both my midsection and my left foreleg. Had I been strong enough, I might have cried out, but the best I managed was a weak mumble of protest: "...mmmnnff..."
"Twilight?" The response was immediate, echoed by the sudden lack of movement that came to being. I was still more or less in a comfortable stasis position, despite the constant twinges of pain that followed the recent flash - I made a mental note not to move. "Twilight! Can you hear me? Just...say something, anything!"
My brain, still in a fairly muddled state of what I could assume was shock, decided the best course of action was to deduce even further instead of responding to the immediate problem.
I was in a soft sort of embrace, on something else that was both soft in firm. The voice I heard was one that I'd regrettably come to adore over the years, and it belonged to Rainbow Dash.
The conclusion came a full three seconds later, and it was already too late. My thoughts had already drifted to the fact that I happened to be on her back, as she quite literally carried me, and that it was her wings that held me in the embrace that I'd enjoyed so much. I could already feel my face coloring, from a sense of guilty pleasure that I tried my hardest to suppress, and yet it still escaped with another small sound. "Nnngh..."
It was lucky for me that ponies could not look directly behind them while facing forward, so that Rainbow couldn't see my expression at all, and so my response was taken appositively.
"Oh Celestia...just hang in there!" I could feel her start forward again, with that strange three-crunch gait again. "Ponyville's just in sight! You'll be fine! We'll get you to the hospital!"
Her words might have comforted me any time besides that time, but right then...they didn't work. 'Hang in there'? How could I do that, knowing that I was one of the worst plagues to ponykind, and worse, I'd thought nothing of it? I could live with it, but it was a terrible, burdening pain. To have to both bear the pain of loving one who would probably never love me, and to have to deal with what I was...that wasn't easy to grasp.
I was not in the mood to grasp anything, though. As much as I hated myself for enjoying it, being wrapped in pegasus wings was almost like the perfect blanket. It was that fact that made it incredibly easy to slowly let go of consciousness, and to fall back into the deep, black, thoughtless depths of unconsciousness. Where the pain couldn't reach me, and what little pleasure I had remaining permeated throughout. Even if my soul was shattered, emptiness didn't distinguish. It welcomed me with open arms, and it was there, on my oh-so-beautiful crush's back, in a cocoon of feathers, that I finally surrendered myself to it.
I could deal with the fact that I was a lesbian later.
The wind blew fiercely, causing a cold unlike any other to seep deep into my bones, even despite the precautions I'd taken to avoid such chill. The sweater, matching scarf and matching boots (topped by matching hat, no less) seemed to provide little actual warmth against the biting cold of winter. In fact, their sentiment was warmer than them themselves.
Still, I plodded onwards, crunching through the six-inch-deep snow with a slow tread, nearly oblivious to all but the cold. The air was nothing but a distant howl, doing nothing to rise my spirits or prickle my subconscious. I suppose I was used to it now, though.
It had become clockwork. Every day, I would drag myself to work, lounge about as much as I could without getting fired, clock out, and then just...walk, and think. I had a lot of time to walk, but even more things to think about. I almost never knew where to start, and ended up wandering aimlessly through the town. I was about as numb as my feathers or sense of direction were, which were not even close to the numbness of my soul, which grew slowly and silently with every single step.
Today seemed different, however. It was an anniversary, a set amount of time after an event.
Today marked the exact month after Twilight Sparkle's death.
I like to believe that maybe if I walk around, just...blank, that I can forget her. That none of it will ever have happened, and the town can go back to normal, how I once liked it.
But even as I stopped before a nearby window, my breath clouding in wisps before me like a dragon would snort smoke, I knew it wasn't possible. Not, especially, the way that my own face stares back at me, emotionless. Untouchable, unhappy...unfeeling. Almost like a mask, erected to hide myself from the world, from the guilt...from myself.
It's a mask that I'm well aware of, because I'd very well like to forget the doctor's words. I really, really would. But what's done...has been done. Erasing the memory would only serve as a disrespect worse than she'd suffered already. And yet, the impact was still jarring, even today...
"Rainbow Dash, I...don't know how to put this. Your friend could have made it, because of your speedy delivery, but...somewhere along the line, everything we tried failed. Stabilizing spells bounced off of her, healing spells were absorbed but to no effect whatsoever. We have only two theories as to why this happened: one, she was putting up a resistance. Seeing as she is the most gifted unicorn in Equestria, it wouldn't be unlikely for her to be able to dispel simple acts of magic.
"However, that made no sense for two reasons. One being that, in her condition, her magic should have been weakened enough for us to surpass her defensive barriers, and the second being that, typically, the sedative given to her normally aids spell absorption.
"I...I think, in my professional opinion...Twilight Sparkle didn't survive, because she didn't want to. She had no will to live whatsoever, so she rejected her last tethers to the world. All she said before she...finally passed away at midnight exactly, was... 'A hobnailed is your vow'...even though we can't make any sense of it, I still thought you'd like to know. And I...I'm very sorry for your loss."
The moment had seemed so emotionally jarring, so confusing, but now...the memory of it caused nothing more than a slight lurch to the chest.
I managed to tear my gaze away from the shop window, instinctively huddling further into my nearly useless winter-wear. I set forward once more, crunching silently and dully through the snow.
'A hobnailed is your vow'. A sentence that made no sense, and yet...I kept it close. It was my last memory of her, of a friend held so dear...who I'd not even said goodbye to.
I ruffled my feathers absently, biting my tongue to prevent a stream of curses from flying out of my mouth in a sudden wave of frigid cold, worse than the others passed by, chilling my very heart. She was gone, no doubt, and I'd just...let her. She wouldn't ever be back, not ever again. No cheerful smiles, no egg-headed approaches to problems, no...unique brand of awesomeness, just...a cold, lifeless husk that I didn't even want to imagine existed somewhere.
I stumbled suddenly, tripping over who-knew-what was buried in the snow, careening into the snow with a thorough and wet 'plop'. I didn't move, not even when the snow slowly turned to slush under what little body heat I retained. Instead, I just hoped to freeze, so it would all blow over. Or perhaps, against all worldly bonds, she would appear next to me, and just haul me up with a sly smile, before embracing me tightly and filling me with a warmth that I'd lacked for the long month mentally, physically, and emotionally. I even thought I heard her hoofsteps over the slight whistling of the wind.
"What are you doing down in the snow, silly?"
I picked my head up slowly from the mess of snow-slush, though it was largely unnecessary. While it wasn't Twilight - and my heart yearned so deeply for her all of a sudden - I would know that voice anywhere.
Before I was given the opportunity to focus, I was pulled up and dusted off in one quick motion, and met with a pair of cyan eyes, and a smile so slight, I hardly thought it even was one. But the pink curl was a dead giveaway, as was the pink coat, and I managed a half-hearted, defeated smile of my own.
"Hey, Pinkie." I said it with all the faux cheerfulness I could manage.
Pinkie, instead of smiling wider, let out a long, breathy sigh. Even through the fogged up air, I caught sight of her winter gear as well: pink boots, 'fuchsia' coat (the other kind of coat), earmuffs, and her trademark umbrella hat. While the ensemble still said 'Pinkie'...she herself didn't. There was an inherent air of sadness around her, almost as if she had something she wanted to say, but couldn't say it to herself, for fear of emotional reciprocation.
I knew exactly how she felt.
After a brief, awkward shuffling silence, I decided to take the initiative, shaking myself free of any snow before huddling up instinctively next to her side, draping a wing over her in the traditional pegasus gesture of 'here, huddle closer under a bunch of feathers before you freeze to death'.
She seemed a bit unfamiliar with it, because she stammered slightly at the contact, but she caught it soon enough, pressing back against me. I could easily feel the warmth of her next to me, almost as good as any fire. Maybe it wasn't a replacement for my empty heart, but being close to another one of my friends momentarily reminded me what I still had.
Even if I had driven her away, directly or not.
I shook my head, clearing it both of flecks of snow and, for the moment, my train of thought. "You wanna talk, don't you?" I asked, not even bothering to look to my side.
I could even feel her draw breath as she replied. "I...yeah, I do. I've been wanting to for a while."
I stepped forward, carefully over the body-shaped pile of slush I'd left, and she soon followed. We both crunched through the remains of snow, and I had to duck my head as a sudden gale burst into existence, carrying a whole new load of snow. It was nothing like a blizzard, but a snowstorm would be coming soon for sure.
We continued walking for a few seconds, and then she finally spoke again, in a hesitant manner she almost never used. It fit her mood of 'almost sad' quite well.
"I've been thinking lately..."
"Dangerous, isn't it?"
She look towards me, almost hurt, and I managed a half shrug. "Sorry. Go on."
She sighed, turning back to the ground and beginning again, though much more monotone. "I've been thinking lately, and...I don't like anything lately. Ponies are mean, and...and Twily's gone..." Her voice broke slightly as she said that line, along with my heart at her carefully concealed pain. I realized then how we were all suffering, and...it took all of my effort to keep moving forward, and not to just collapse in emotional empathy.
She continued without a faltering in pace, though her voice became increasingly unstable as she went on. "And you know, I...just feel lonely lately, and...vuln...vuhn..."
"Vulnerable?"
She nodded. "Yeah, that. I mean, if the meany ponies can take her away, then I think...what if they take my other friends? What if there are no more friends left? I...I just want to have fun, and then they just...take my fun away...and then they laugh, and think they're being good in the end. And all the good ponies...they either give up on everypony, or...or they stay hidden, when...they could help."
Pinkie stopped suddenly, turning to face me, and the look in her eyes screamed 'panic', and 'need'. I was looking at a completely different pony now, a pony crushed by the world as I had been. As she had been. But why? Why did these communities, and the world, press so fiercely against each other?
The questions only brought me a greater empty chill, and I bundled further into my half-meaningless gear, shivering against the slowly lowering temperature as the mournful voice of Pinkie Pie came along. "I...I'm scared, Dashie. I don't want them to take you away, not e-ever..."
If I hadn't been paying rapt attention, I may have missed it. I may have missed the point that she broke fully, in spirit and in hope, her voice devolving into strangled sobs that were barely comprehensible. And though they stopped in an instant, their mark was evident for infinitely longer an amount of time. "...a-and if they do, I...I don't know what I'll do...I mean..." She managed a shiver of her own, and I marveled at the fact. She...actually seemed cold. "...we've been t-together forever, pranking, and p-partying...and if our time as bestest friends ends...just like ours with Twi-"
Somewhere inside of me, a switch snapped, throwing off all emotions but one, a seething, defensive anger that burst from my lips with a ferocity I'd hardly imagine, especially as the first tears cascaded down the sides of my face in tiny, hot pinpricks.
"Don't talk about her."
Maybe it was just a lash from my own guilt, and yet, she seemed to sense the boundary, and stopped wholly; quiet, unspoken tears running down her own cheeks. Her breath as she began again was just as wavering as the rest of her. "...t-the point is, Dashie, I...I don't want to lose you...not to them, or...t-to yourself."
In an instant, it was like I'd gained tunnel vision. She...was 'losing me' to...myself? It didn't seem possible. It was all my fault in the first place, and here she went, trying to tell me otherwise. For a second, I was back on that fateful day, barreling towards a doomed figure. I wouldn't make it. And as the figure turned around, my world, and every perception I had of my method shattered.
Because this time, I was diving to save myself.
The image was too much, and my legs folded promptly under themselves as my chest began to heave in deep, strangled, animalistic sobs. My breath came short and choked, and the shooting pain in my heart only fueled my tears, which formed a veritable waterfall by this point. I'd never wanted any of this, the cruelty of the world, or the sorrow that came with loss. I didn't want to lose anything, I didn't want change or hatred. And yet it was there, tearing me this way and that, destroying my life and everything I knew. Aspirations, hopes, and joys all became lost in a rush of passionate sorrow.
And even lying there, swaddled in clothes barely providing any comfort anymore, before a friend I feared I'd lose one way or the other, I truly thought that was it.
I vaguely recognized Pinkie as she stepped forward, the tears running even more freely from her own eyes, her voice raising in volume as she spoke. "But I can't! I...I just c-can't, Dashie! I'm not going to lose you...because, b-because..."
And then, mere inches from my own face, we seemed to reach a mutual agreement. My sobbing did not die down, but it was then that my sight sharpened, and that her breathing steadied. And it was there, at the height of emotion that we stood, friend and friend in a turbulent windstorm of horrible evils.
The wind suddenly disappeared, and the cold seemed to be wiped from existence as, while I sat, and she stood, the universe faded to but two specks, on equal terms, even if one pink one had to stoop slightly. And maybe, just maybe, we felt the same sorrows for an instant.
And then, at the height of it, before I collapsed from sheer overwhelmed emotion-centers, she finally finished her statement, taking hold of my forehooves with her own, and finally...smiling, in spite of the tears freely spilling out of our respective selves.
"...because I care about you m-more than you could ever imagine..."
And then, as my heart finally lifted itself, everything shattered back into the chaotic voice that was life as she leaped forwards, an invisible aura of concern, happiness, and motherliness erupting from the pony least likely to hold it. Pinkie Pie leaned forward, heart set on what I would never guess, and met me with closed eyes and open heart in a full, tender, sugar-scented kiss.
For the first instant it happened, I refused to believe it. My sobbing instantly quelled itself, and I forgot almost everything I'd come to grieve disappeared into one energetic, passionate pink void, as I tried to make up my mind on how to react. Ineffective winter-wear, snowstorms, cruel societies, and lost friends all took a second seat to the incredibly soft lips presenting themselves to me.
My heart recovered first, skipping a beat and hoping desperately to fill the hole that it held, driving me forward to mirror her actions. I knew for one brief second what it was like to be under a care like no other, and though my actions were clumsy and inexperienced, they were enough to calm my emotional whirlwind.
My brain tried to furiously object, screaming this is your best friend!, and you don't deserve this! It took control, but only briefly - I managed to pull only slightly away, and let out a gasp of anger and protest, before being pulled back into emotional and psychological bliss by a booted hoof. I melted back, once more into the comfort offered.
And then the previously overpowering force of my conscious spoke again, in nothing but a whisper. And yet...what it said terrified me the most.
You don't deserve this.
Something came screaming up inside of me, and it filled my limbs with a new vigor, bringing back my sorrow, confusion, and heated anger back with a vengeance. Next thing I knew, the booted hoof was removed from the back of my head, and a stunned, thoroughly blushing and tear-stained Pinkie Pie gazed back at me, mouth gaping as she lay flat, surrounded by a puff of snow.
My own hooves, to my eyes, were as unstable as they ever had been, and even standing as I had somehow come to be, I couldn't stay for long. I was torn in two, as sure as sugar. One side wanted so desperately to apologize, to melt back into her affections, but the other screamed dissent twice as loudly. The first side wanted to accept her as a mother figure, as one who cared for me so much that it seemed to be 'love', while the other side screamed about boundaries, and how disrespect would only happen in the highest degree if I continued.
My throat rumbled, and next thing I knew, I shouted a mighty "NO!", before popping my wings out, and bolting at the speed of just-below-sound. Towards anywhere but the center of my thoroughly traumatized mind, and everything.
It was only when I reached my home and careened onto my bed at full speed, snapping a post on my way in (which didn't even hurt) that I finally collapsed back into primal, shaking, wailing sobs. My hooves sought for a pink pony who wasn't there, and withdrew just as quickly away from the pony who wasn't there. Half of me screamed 'no!', and a bit less than half screamed 'yes!'.
And still, in the midst of it all, the greatest source of my sadness was all too clear. The little voice spoke easily, as a mere 1% of myself.
'What about your other friend? What about her? Her last words? Is...this how she felt? Why can't it be as easy to...end the suffering?
Why can't life be easier...?'
My sobbing passed, and the shouting inside my head quelled in a full 30 minutes, upon which I collapsed face-first into my pillow, feeling my mask once more present itself. And though nopony could hear it, I whispered gently into my pillow.
"Damn it all."
And somewhere in my heart, I suspected that Pinkie Pie was saying the same thing.
