//------------------------------//
// -_Rain_- 
// Story: Come Back Dashie 
// by The Mechanical Artist 
//------------------------------//

Pinkie pulled the comforter closely around herself, drawing the warmth of the soft blanket tighter to her body and shivered as she listened to the soft patter of rain on the window. She felt guilty as she was, wrapped up safely in her own bed, in her own home. Thoughts of her friend tormented her as she struggled to keep her eyes closed. Sighing, she turned over and tried to relax, but still found herself far too tense to sleep. Her whole body felt like it had been beaten heavily and dragged off somewhere to lie, bleeding its insides out, waiting to die. This only made her feel worse about herself though. The scene kept repeating it's self over and over. And each time, she tried even harder to decide how it was even more her fault. She managed to come to a simple conclusion. It wasn't.  Yet even now she felt that somehow she had made the wrong decision. She sat up in bed pushing the dense fabric off herself, letting it fall resentfully to the floor. Flicking the bedside light on, she gazed, as though in a trance, at her hooves. Just a few weeks ago, she had used them to save her friend, now they had done just the opposite. She pulled back the sweater sleeve and stared at the ugly horizontal  jagged lines crisscrossing her skin in a sort of twisted plaid. 

"You really lost it Pinkie." She thought quietly to herself. "You let everybody down, especially Dash. You know she wouldn't have wanted you to do that you know." 

She glanced over at her nightstand at the broken shard of glass, still stained at the tip with a patchy red splatter. She was right. She wouldn't have. She would have wanted her to get it over with and move on with her life. But "It" had scarred her forever. Even deeper than the glass. She felt her stomach turn, and pulled the sweater back over the marks. She had better things to think about. 

Admittedly she hadn't wasted her entire time with Dash. She thought back to that one, particular night. That one, wondrous, beautiful night, when they had gone on a camping trip on the beach, just the two of them. It had been incredible fun and only got better when, running back from the sandy shore in the middle of an electrical storm, they had discovered that one of the tents had collapsed in the rain. After some quick addition, they realized that one tent to two ponies could only mean one thing. After zipping the themselves in safely and toweling off, they quickly discovered an interesting predicament. They only had  a single sleeping bag. Pinkie had managed to rescue her mat from the remains of her tent, but her bag had been completely soaked. Then ever resourceful Dash came up with an idea. She had suggested that they unzip the bag and use it as a blanket, covering both of them instead of just one. And after Pinkie pointed out the hilarious expressions they would get from their friends when they told them that they had SLEPT together, it was quickly settled. She remembered falling asleep next to that beautiful pegasus. It was funny though. That sleeping bag never did seem to dry for the rest of that two week vacation. Pinkie turned her attention to look at the other object on her desk. She slowly lifted the blue-cyan feather off the smooth wooden nightstand. She watched it glint softly in the low lamplight as though it was still living. It was too much to take. She closed her eyes tightly as a tear rolled down her cheek. She cried herself to sleep that night. Thinking of how she would never see another one of those perfect feathers again.