I don’t know why I shouted her name. Maybe it was all the longing to see her again combined with the fact the joy of knowing that my friends supported my decision –Or at least Applejack did- Discord be damned! I was going to go see Rainbow and that was final! Fluttershy and Pinkie pie were the only friends left I hadn’t spoken to, but surely Rarity, Spike, Applejack, or even Twilight would tell them the news that I was back. But Dash, she’d find out from no one but me, as I held her close to me and told her I loved her!
The sun was still setting, I could guess the was only a good ten minutes of light that remained before Celestia allowed her sister to take on her duties of the night. I knew the way, I’d made it a hundred times while I was living and the library and going out to work on building my home with the apple siblings. A right, the second road on the left, straight ahead and follow it round the corner, and there it was. The house was exactly how I remembered it, the lights behind the windows made it look slightly like a face against the fast darkening horizon.
I stared for a moment, with slight surprise. The door was open! Why? “Rainbow?!” I called as I ran into my old house. The same old pictures hung across the walls, the floor was still as untidy as ever. The house was warm, a fire roared in the fireplace, and yet no response came to me. “RAINBOW?!” I shouted, tearing into the bedroom. Still there was no beautiful Pegasus laying there sleeping or waiting to great me.
Where was she, I turned back towards the door and felt my foot slip on something. I regained my balance, and then looked down to the wad of material my foot was entangled in. My shirt! My favourite shirt from the five my friends had all given me. It was the blue shirt that signified Rainbow Dash. I brought it closer to myself; there was a strange scent about the wrinkled shirt.
I inhaled slowly, taking a lung full of the smell into myself. Rainbow, it was the smell of rainbow. I couldn’t ever decide what it consisted of, maybe it was the smell of something found only in the skies. But it was a scent of Rainbow, my Rainbow. If it smelt like her, then it meant she had kept it close and if that was so... “She still misses me!” I whispered to myself.
It was probably my imagination, but for a moment I swore I could hear that snide little voice in my head -the dark human side of me- screaming as it burnt out under the light of this discovery. She still missed me! So did that mean she still loved me? I threw the shirt onto the untidy and unkempt bed. Before it even touched the covers, I was outside again. I searched the skies for any sight of her. There were none.
The wind was still pretty strong, I regretted my hopeless romantic gesture of finding her only wearing this thin tight shirt! I wouldn’t be her own personal Wonderbolt, soon I’d be her own personal slab of ice! Where to go? Where could she have gone when the night was closing in so quickly? Maybe to Fluttershy’s place? I turned and headed for the little cottage in the distance.
No sooner had I taken one step, my heart told me to stop. I obeyed. I stood there thinking, something was telling me Fluttershy’s house wouldn’t have Rainbow inside. So I turned, and began to head for Sugar Cube Corner. But yet again, the same feeling of reassurance spread over me. Reassurance that Rainbow wasn’t there! What was this thing telling me where not to go, was it Instinct? Love? Destiny?
I stood in the chilling wind, and almost as though across an ocean I heard it. “Your grave...” What the hell was that?! Was the voice inside my head not completely gone yet? Was it giving me one last goose to chase? Or was it trying to help me? I stood there and listened, it came again, following the curves and currents of the wind itself. It wasn’t in my head! “Your grave, she’s there...” It sounded like a warm loving creature, neither male nor female. Or at least I couldn’t tell which it was!
My grave? I didn’t even know where that was! It could be anywhere! On the picnic hill, on the cliff the ‘accident’ took place on, it could even be near the hospital I had died in! I had no idea where to go!
Another voice came across the wind, this one was definitely female, definitely familiar! “Weeeeeeheheheheeeeee!” It squealed with joy, I peered through the diminishing light searching for the happy pony I knew I would find. There! She was running after a kite held in her teeth, every time a strong gust of wind took the kite higher, it also took the mare off of the ground and into the sky for a moment. It was in these passing seconds the creature squealed with joy!
“Pinkie!” I yelled, running straight for the pink party pony. She looked over to me and smiled for a moment. I took hold of her shoulders before she could speak. I could explain later, but yet she didn’t seem confused at all, just happy as always. “Pinkie! Where was I buried?! Please tell me where I was buried!” The pink mare giggled, and looked into my eyes with her big blue ones.
“Why, at the graveyard at the church silly!” She chirruped, “How could you forget that you silly goose! After all you were there too and”- I dropped her forelegs and ran straight for the church, as I left I heard her gasp with sudden realisation. “Hey wait! Tom?! You’re alive?! That’s great! I’ll go find some friends and we can have a party!” Jeez! That pony was so strange, and...Random! As I ran I couldn’t help but laugh at how easily the mare had taken my return! I only hoped Rainbow –If she was at my grave- would find it just as easy.
The sun had finally disappeared by the time I got to the church’s graveyard entrance, It wasn’t creepy, just serene and calm, just the way a resting place should be. I moved as quickly as I could through the gravestones without disturbing them. Which was mine?! I had no idea where I was supposed to be resting, which slab of stone showed where I should lie.
The wind had died completely, and I could hear every movement of a branch, leaf, or twig in this quiet world. I was about halfway across the yard when I saw movement ahead. A tree lay just in reach, so I bolted under it to hide. I don’t know why, maybe it was a security guard, stupid I know, but maybe I wasn’t allowed in here after a certain time. So I hid in the shade from the moonlight and waited.
The trunk blocked my view up ahead, I couldn’t see what was happening. As I prepared to leave the cover of the tree and find a better vantage point, I froze. I froze because I heard something, something more beautiful than I’d ever heard before. Dash, was speaking, to what she thought was my resting place. She really cared for me that much, that when a year had passed, she still wanted to speak to me and feel close.
I wanted to run out and hug her, but that would terrify the poor mare. I didn’t want to scare her, I didn’t want to hurt her. Why had I rushed into this?! I needed a plan! What if she attacked me on sight thinking I was Discord? What if she DID know I was Tom but hated me for taking so long to get back?
“I’ll come back tomorrow; hopefully it’ll be happier than tonight! I’m sorry... I love you...always!” I heard her say. ‘I love you too!’ That’s all I wanted to say! But my stupid mouth wouldn’t form the words out of fear! I heard her hooves approaching my hiding spot, had she seen me? If she found me skulking instead of me showing myself then she’d REALLY think I was Discord!
The mare passed within inches from me, the gentle breeze brought her scent into my lungs, she looked so beautiful. The moon shone and made her hair glisten in the silver light, her blue coat set against the darkness surrounding her as though she was an angel repelling the night! How beautiful she looked!
She passed me without noticing the human hiding in the shadow’s. The smell of her, combined with the sight of her leaving filled me with newfound strength! I stood tall, took a deep breath and said the first thing that came to my head. “So...Where you headed now?” though surprising, it was an honest question, I wanted to know she would be safe.
“I dunno...nowhere I guess.” She sounded lonely, I was so close to her and yet I couldn’t make her feel happy yet! Her response ignited a sense of déjà-vu, and my heart knew what would make her look at me. Through my cracking voice, I laughed slightly as I stated.
“F-funny time to be going nowhere...”
She turned immediately! I emerged from the shadow’s and looked at the only mare I had thought about since the moment I had awoken back on earth, the reason I trusted a demonic god of chaos, the reason I came back, the reason I lived! She stuttered for a second in fear, I understood, but it still made my heart twinge with sadness. “T-Tom?” her voice was barely more than a whisper, and yet it carried across the few feet between us with ease.
I smiled at her, my emotions where beginning to take over for the first time since I’d woken up in that damned field outside the city! My voice quivered and shook as I spoke, but I tried to keep it strong. “Yeah baby, it’s me...” As I looked, I saw tears, beginning to fall down her face.
I took a tentative step forward and reached out to her, but she took a step backwards at my movement. It wasn’t like Twilight, this hurt a thousand times more! She never broke eye contact with me, those huge pink orbs just stared at me as wide as they could go. The tears and the look of sheer horror on her face made me feel as though my heart was slowly being pulled out of my chest! One little strand at a time. Plunk, plunk.
“Rainbow...I”-
“No.” She interrupted, though she still looked miserable, she stuck out her lower lip, just as she did whenever she was ready to say what needed to be said. Plunk, there goes another strand! She didn’t say anything else. So I tried to speak again.
“Rainbow...baby please I”-
“Stop it!” She sobbed before I could finish. This was worse than anything I could have imagined, no anger, no yelling. Only this quite rejection of every word I said. How could I convince her if she didn’t let me talk without it causing her pain? “Just...stop it...” She said again, her voice began to crack but her eyes never left mine.
“You can’t do this to me anymore... You can’t...I-I won’t be able to take it. Stop showing me his face! Don’t let me see him! I-it hurts way too much!” The tears were rolling down her cheeks now. She looked broken, and the site tugged hard at my chest. Plunk, plunk! Two more strands gone! Tears began to flow freely from my eyes, the ones of joy from seeing her again were quickly replaced by those of dismay.
“B-Baby...please!”