Epilogue: Reunion
The hall past the stairwell looked the same as the others. A long, straight hallway stretched in either direction, punctuated by tight corners rounding off to more hallways, all with the rigid conformity of an engineer. They all looked the same, and Rainbow Dash suspected that every other hallway in every other apartment building in Fillydelphia probably looked just like this one. There shouldn’t have been anything frightening or intimidating about it. But still, she hesitated.
Pinkie Pie blindly bounced past her up the stairs and into the hall. Rainbow Dash, briefly forgetting her anxiety, hurried to follow her marefriend.
She walked past the smudged, off-white walls and brown doors as slowly as she could. She looked up at the numbers fastened by each door, 411, 413, 415. There was something funny about seeing the precise distance to her sentence marked on the walls. She could see just how far away her fate stood with a quick glance. She wondered if this was how those few ponies sentenced to death in ages long past felt on their walks to the gallows. The hallway was empty, and she felt alone.
A gentle warmth pressed against her side. Pinkie Pie had stopped bouncing, walking to match her slow pace. Pinkie looked over and smiled, and Rainbow Dash immediately swore she would do anything to keep that smile. She pressed closer to Pinkie Pie, finding some strength in her comfortable, almost careless, optimism. She walked on, feeling a little less alone.
She looked back up at the numbers, 423, 425, 427. She looked down and quickly trotted past the next door, not daring to look up. Abruptly, Pinkie’s warmth left her side. Dash stopped and reluctantly peered over her shoulder.
“This is it,” Pinkie said, pointing at the number.
Rainbow Dash looked up at 429. “Oh, uh, is it?”
“Yep, remember? 429, rhymes with peanut vine!” She giggled. “We almost walked right by it.”
“Yeah, that would’ve been a shame,” Dash mumbled, walking up to the door. She stopped. It looked like all the others, but so much more terrible.
Pinkie Pie nudged her in the side. “You have to knock if you want to go in. I’ve tried staring before, it never works. Except that one time, but Twilight said it was just a coincidence.”
Rainbow Dash nodded and frowned, but didn’t knock.
“You can keep trying for as long as you want though,” Pinkie said after a while. “Sometimes I think Twilight makes things up.”
Dash shook her head. She slowly raised her hoof up and held it still before the door. Finally, she rested her hoof flat against the door, an attempt at knocking so pitiful even Fluttershy would have been embarrassed.
Pinkie simply giggled beside her. “You have to do it harder than that or no pony’ll hear you.”
Dash looked down, letting her hoof slide down the front of the door. “Maybe we should—”
Suddenly, Pinkie Pie cupped Dash’s face in her hooves and kissed her, long and warm and deep. For a fleeting moment Dash forgot everything else. When Pinkie began to pull back, Rainbow pushed forward, fighting to keep that feeling. She held on as long as she could, but she knew they couldn’t stay that way forever.
Pinkie nuzzled her neck, brushing her soft, curly mane against Dash’s face. “We don’t have to do this right now, you know. We can wait till later,” she said, looking up. “Or you can keep on staring at the door, if you want.”
Rainbow Dash sighed, pushing her muzzle into Pinkie’s sugary smelling mane and breathing deep one last time. “No, you’re right. I have to do this.”
Pinkie nodded. “I’ll be right next to you the whole time.”
“No!” Dash said roughly, pulling back “I—I’m gonna do it myself.”
“It’s okay,” Pinkie said, backing away and looking puzzled. “I don’t mind—”
“No, Pinkie,” Dash said, working as much command into her voice as she could muster. “I have to do this alone.”
“But why?”
Dash’s wings twitched along her sides. “Just because.”
“I think I should go in, what if—”
“I don’t want you to see her, okay?!” Dash cried before she realized what she was saying. “…It doesn’t matter. Just stay out here.”
Pinkie Pie stood away, her smile wavering a little.
Dash sighed. “Pinkie Pie, please wait out here.”
“Yepperdoodles, ma’am,” Pinkie said, giving a salute, her smile returning to full force.
Dash scowled. “Pinkie, I’m serious. Wait out here.”
Pinkie smiled again, smaller than before. “Okay,” she said, quietly this time.
“Alright.” Rainbow Dash turned quickly and knocked on the door before she had time to think, or feel, or talk herself out of it.
They waited together in silence in the otherwise empty hallway. They waited just long enough for the realization of what she had just set in motion to come crashing down over Rainbow Dash’s head. She waited just long enough that she could have run away, taken to her wings and flown back down the stairs as fast as she could go.
But before she could even turn around the door swung open.
It wasn’t the mare she had expected, or even a mare at all, but a dark stallion pegasus who appeared in the doorway. He stood over Rainbow Dash, at least a head taller and much leaner, but not quite lanky. His mouth set in a frown. “Can I help you?” he asked.
Rainbow Dash couldn’t do anything but stare, shocked still. Luckily for her though, very little in this universe could hush Pinkie Pie’s tongue.
“You’re not Razor Wind!” Pinkie cried, pointing up at him, like an accusation.
The stallion blinked, his frown staying put. “No, I’m not.”
“Oh, do you know where she is?” Pinkie asked. “Isn’t this her apartment?”
The stallion paused, examining her carefully. “Yes, this is our apartment.”
Rainbow Dash took a deep breath and swallowed to steady her nerves, steeling her face. She stepped in front of Pinkie Pie. “Is she here?” she asked quickly. “I need to talk to her.”
The stallion turned his gaze onto Dash, his frown deepening. “Who are you?”
Dash hesitated. “I—I’m Rainbow Dash. I really need to see her.”
“That’s what I thought.” He stepped back, blocking the doorway. “Go away.”
For a fleeting moment, Dash almost did as he said. But she glanced at Pinkie Pie, and then raised herself up a little on straightened legs instead. “No. I need to talk to her. It’s really important.”
The stallion’s face remained unchanged. “She doesn’t want to talk to you.”
Dash leaned forward, flaring her wings as if to rush past him and into the apartment. “Listen, I—” Her mouth froze as she looked into his eyes, her wings falling.
She had seen that same look so many times, on the faces of former fans and disappointed friends. It was some part contempt and some part pity, and it was all unbearable to be at the receiving end of.
She looked down, lowering her voice before speaking again, “I—I’m sorry. I’m not here to mess anything up any more than I already have, I swear. I just need to talk to her, and I think she needs to talk to me too. She should get the chance to say whatever it is she wants to say to me, because I know she does.”
She looked up at him again. “She couldn’t—she never—she didn’t see me do it. I thought she should get to see me face to face this time. And she deserves an apology.”
The stallion stared down at her for a long while, his jaw rolling back and forth. He made to close the door again, but stopped when he turned to look at Pinkie Pie. She smiled back at him, smiling like only she could. Something in his face changed as he looked at her, it softened just a little.
He turned back to Dash and stepped out of the way. “Come in then. But if you do anything to upset her I’ll throw you back out myself, and then I’ll call the police.”
Rainbow Dash nodded, took another long, shaky breath, and stepped forward. Pinkie swiftly leaned towards her, giving her a quick nuzzle. Dash nodded back and stepped past the stallion, into the room.
“Aren’t you coming?” he asked, looking to Pinkie.
She shook her head. “Nope.”
After a short pause, he shrugged and closed the door, leaving Pinkie Pie alone in the hallway.
Pinkie Pie, still smiling, watched the door for a while, her ears perked, waiting for something to happen. The door stared back, but it didn’t smile. Eventually, she looked for some other diversion. She tried running up and down the hallway as fast as she could, but that got boring quick. Then she tried listening to a radio playing behind one of the doors, but all the voices sounded warbled, like they were singing underwater. Finally, she settled on naming each smudge on the hallway’s wall. She’d just finished christening Mr. McSmudge when the door opened again.
The stallion walked out, closing the door behind him.
“I think they want to be alone,” he explained with a shrug.
Pinkie shrugged backed and said, “Okie dokie.” She went back to staring at the wall.
“What are you doing?” the stallion asked after a few moments watching her.
Pinkie frowned and pointed at a particularly dirty smudge on the wall. “I can’t remember if this one is Fluttersmudge or Smudge Sparkle. And I’m pretty sure Ditzy Smudge is still looking at me funny even though I already told him I had a marefriend.”
“What?”
“Never mind,” she huffed, shooting a glare at the coquettish Ditzy Smudge.
“Uh, okay?” the stallion tried.
Pinkie turned her head around and pulled her emergency card deck out of her tail. “Wanna play Go Fish while we wait for them to get done?” she asked, holding it up to him.
The stallion blinked at her for a few more moments before replying, “Uh, sure. I guess.”
“Awesome! I’m Pinkie Pie,” Pinkie said, setting the cards on the floor and smiling her best ‘I’m Pinkie Pie’ smile.
The stallion moved across from her and sat down, settling his wings against his back. “Silver Lining,” he said.
Pinkie Pie giggled as she shuffled the cards and slid a hoof-full across the floor. “That’s pretty.”
Silver Lining shrugged, gathering up his cards. “I suppose. Would you like to go first?”
“Okay, hmm…” Pinkie looked very seriously down at her cards. “Uh, do you have any… threes?”
“Yep,” Silver Lining replied, dropping two cards on the floor.
“Yes!” Pinkie cried, pairing the two new cards with two others, and laying them together on the floor. She beamed up at Silver Lining. “Your turn.”
Silver Lining paused, looking curiously down at Pinkie, still taller than her even while sitting down. Pinkie stared back and wondered when they’d started a staring contest, not that she was complaining.
After a while, Silver Lining eyes widened and he looked about himself as if he had forgotten where he was. “Uh, any fives?
Pinkie shook her head. “Nope, sorry. Go fish.”
The stallion carefully picked another card up out of the pile before looking over at Pinkie again. “You know she almost killed her, right?”
Pinkie Pie froze. Most of the time it was easy to smile; there was so much worth smiling for. Like how pretty Rose’s flowers looked so pretty every morning, or how Sugarcube Corner always smelled like cake and frosting, or the way Gummy pretended not to laugh at her jokes. Sometimes it was hard not to smile even if she didn’t want to, not that she could ever want such a thing. Like when she got one of her friends to laugh, or when Rainbow Dash wrapped a wing around her shoulder and held her close. And then sometimes, times like right then, she had to fight with everything she had to keep on smiling.
She nodded.
Silver Lining’s face set itself into a horrible little frown. “So, you must think she’s something pretty special to be worth standing by now.”
Pinkie nodded again. “I do, and she is.”
“She is what?”
“She’s special,” Pinkie replied. “And worth it. Totally, totally worth it.”
After another pause, Silver Lining grunted and looked down at his cards. “I believe it is your turn.”
“Alrighty.” Pinkie shook her head to clear her wandering thoughts and looked down at her cards. “Got any sixes?”
“Yeah,” Silver Lining said, dropping another card onto the floor.
“What’s Razor Wind like?” Pinkie asked as she picked up her new card.
“She’s… she’s…” Silver Lining smiled for the first time, to Pinkie Pie’s delight. “She’s incredible. I guarantee you you’ve never seen a pony with more drive or with a stronger desire to better themselves, to make herself a better pony. She—well, she’s just beautiful.”
Pinkie Pie smiled back. “She sounds really nice.”
“No.” Silver Lining shook his head. “She’s more than nice. She’s everything.” He blushed, looking away and rustling his wings. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Pinkie replied, thinking that Razor Wind sounded very familiar. “It’s still your turn though...”
“Oh, right.” Silver Lining lifted his cards back up. “Uh, any fi—”
“I’m really, really super sorry,” Pinkie blurted out. The pegasus looked down at her in surprise. She sniffed and continued, “I’m sorry. I wish Rainbow Dash didn’t do it. I’ve wished on every shooting star I’ve seen, and it hasn’t worked yet. But maybe it isn’t something we can just wish away.”
She looked up, almost pleading. “But I don’t think being mad at her forever is any better, even if it was really bad. I mean, it’s okay to be mad at your friends for a little while, but what if you never stopped being mad and then you stopped being friends instead?” She shuddered at the thought. “I know she’s really sorry too, and she wants to make up for it somehow. And…” Pinkie Pie sighed, not feeling very much like Pinkie Pie. “And I don’t know what else, I guess.”
Silver Lining sighed and laid his cards on the floor. “Is that why she’s here? To make up for it?”
“Yeah, and to say sorry.”
“Do you really think you can make up for something like that?”
Pinkie Pie wanted to say yes, but instead she shrugged a pitiful little shrug. “I don’t know. But I think you should try your best, and Dashie is trying.”
Silver Lining tilted his head and stared at her for a long while. He didn’t say anything, but Pinkie thought he looked a little sad.
“Maybe,” he finally said. “A long time ago me and my dad went—well, I guess it doesn’t matter what it was. Something happened, and we got into an argument, a bad one. Afterwards, I never talked to him again. I knew for years that I should try to see him again, but I just never did.”
“That seems silly,” Pinkie said, her mouth crumpling. “If you knew you should do something, why didn’t you do it?”
Silver Lining nodded. “It was silly, but there are some things you can’t forgive.”
“Oh,” Pinkie said quietly. She poked at the deck of cards, pushing it over. When she looked back up Silver Lining was smiling again, just a little.
“But you are right,” he said. “We should try.”
Pinkie heard the door unlatch and looked over just in time to see it open. Rainbow Dash walked out, alone. It was obvious that she had been crying, or still was. She shut the door behind her, sniffling and wiping at her eyes. Pinkie Pie jumped up to her hooves and rushed over to grab her in a hug.
Rainbow Dash slumped against her, resting a wet muzzle deep in Pinkie’s mane. When Pinkie looked back up she saw Silver Lining standing over her on his thin legs, holding out her deck of cards.
“Don’t forget this.”
“Oh, thanks.” Pinkie looked at her forelegs, still wrapped around Dash’s withers, before holding out her head.
After a moment’s hesitation, he placed the deck on top of her forehead. He smiled. “It was very nice meeting you, Pinkie Pie.”
“You too,” she replied, doing her best to wave without shaking the pegasus between her legs or the cards on her head.
Rainbow Dash sniffed one final time and pulled back to look up at him.
After glancing at Pinkie again, Silver Lining offered her a curt nod. “Thank you for coming. I’m sure it will mean a lot to her.”
Rainbow Dash’s eyes widened. “Uh, I…” She looked at Pinkie Pie, who nodded to her. Suddenly, she darted forward and hugged him. It was so quick that it could barely even be called a hug, and Rainbow Dash jumped back almost immediately. “Sorry,” she said, rubbing the back of her neck.
Silver Lining looked just as surprised as her. He nodded again and opened the door to step inside.
“Wait!” Pinkie Pie cried. “Tell Razor Wind I said hi!”
“Of course,” Silver Lining replied before shutting the door.
Rainbow Dash wiped her face again and started walking away. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Okie dokie,” Pinkie replied, walking beside her. She looked over at Dash, but it seemed like one of those extraordinarily rare occasions when she shouldn’t talk. Instead, she moved close to her marefriend and offered what little warmth she could.
They walked down the hall, and Rainbow Dash kept quiet. They pushed open the door leading to the stairwell and slowly walked down. Finally, on the landing, Dash stopped and sighed. Pinkie Pie waited patiently for her to start.
Rainbow Dash spread her wings and folded them back against her side a few times before speaking. “She was surprised at first, I guess. And then she was pretty mad,” she explained, pawing at the floor.
“I’m sorry,” Pinkie said, moving in for another hug.
Rainbow stopped her with a hoof. “No, then she listened to me and we talked for a while. She was really nice, really cool. A lot better than she should—” She frowned and looked away from Pinkie. “They think she’ll be okay to fly in a week or so, and I’m gonna come back then.”
Rainbow Dash looked back at Pinkie again and smiled. “Thank you.”
Pinkie Pie closed her eyes and leaned forward, pressing their foreheads together. She sighed, feeling like a tired balloon letting out some air after an extra big party, losing a tightness in her stomach she hadn’t even noticed building up. She felt the soft down of Dash’s wings sweep over her back.
A little bit of her wanted to stay there forever. She and Dash could fall asleep together on the top of those stairs. They could sleep for days or weeks, happy and not have to think about Wonderbolts or mistakes. But a big bit of her was hungry too, especially her stomach.
“Hey,” she said, drawing back, “do you wanna go to that pizza place we saw now? I think they totally had a ball pit!”
Rainbow Dash chuckled tiredly. “No, I’m beat. I’m gonna go find the hotel and get some sleep.”
Pinkie Pie pursed lips in a pout, just like Rarity had shown her. Right when she and Dash had started dating, Rarity said that if she could make that face correctly Rainbow would do whatever she wanted.
Rainbow Dash laughed and rolled her eyes. “And we can go check out the ball pit first.”
Pinkie Pie lit out a little cheer and bounced down the stairs as Rainbow Dash fluttered close beside her, feeling, instead of just believing, for the first time in a long time that they would both be okay.
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Holy shit... Why am I only seeing this now?
~Skeeter The Lurker
sweet story brah, keep it up.
ending for me cute.
but I like it
Wha-? There is such a long gap between chapters!
What? I'm pretty sure I had favorited this.
Good thing it got featured then, would have missed it otherwise. =P
Great to see you still working on this! The story has been really good so far and I've really been enjoying your writing! I particularly enjoy the style and framing of the story. Keep up the great work
!
I really enjoyed reading this! The feeling of depression and gloom here were very well done, and to be honest, I wanted to slap Applejack in the face for being so blunt. She may be right about Dash making such a huge mistake, but there's a time and a place for that, something she apparently doesn't understand. That said, I also really like how Rainbow Dash is working to try and make up for what she did. Kudos to her!
2742581
That's pretty crazy.
Really?
2742844>>2742900>>2749432
Thank you!
2742989
Are you referring to the gap in time between when the chapters were published, or the time gap in the story between the end of the first chapter and the beginning of the second?
Either way, it's because this was originally written as a one shot, and the second chapter originally written as an epilogue long after the first was published.
2753672
Applejack was being a jerk, I'm not going to pretend she wasn't. But Rarity/Twilight's reactions, pretending nothing had happened, or Fluttershy's, not doing anything at all, were just as bad, really. It's a tough situation, and none of them knows how to deal with it in a healthy way. Applejack's might have be the most blunt, but she isn't anymore in the wrong than the others.
But I'm glad you enjoyed it, nonetheless.
2756088
I'm not sure Rainbow Dash would be entirely above hurting someone else. In the heat of the moment, just her and an opponent, and she sees her lifelong dream being taken away, what might she do? She's a rash pony, and she doesn't always think before she acts.
Thank you for the comment though.
2768593I didn't realize that. I was hesitant to follow this, as I wasn't sure when the next update would be, or if there would be one. Well, now that you've cleared things up, I do intend to read this story to the end.
2768648
I've never considered that I my writing might be introducing people to fan fiction before. It's a scary thought.
2769798
I'll be honest, I'm pretty tied up with other projects right now, and I'm not sure when this story will be updated again. It won't be nearly as long a gap as the first, but it'll be a while.
This is a really great story. Normally this would be where I would go into a further analysis of the things I did or did not like but I've been reading ponyfic for literally twelve hours at this point and I just don't have it in me.
Only thing I have to say is you usually shouldn't start a new paragraph if the same character is talking, it's kind of confusing to me (then again, that could be the aforementioned twelve hours talking). If you have to do it, you should at least leave the close-quotation mark off of the first paragraph.
Simply amazing. I loved the dialogue between Silver Lining and Pinkie. You really are gifted with writing, and I hope you see this fic through!
I'll be following you, amazing work so far.
Well, I was quite surprised to see this one updated. Happily surprised I might add. I am to assume that you shall be continuing this one?
2805845
Sooner or later, yeah. Sooner rather than later, probably.
2803943
Thank you!
2784206
Twelve hours? Jeez...
And fixed. Thanks for pointing that out.
2779695
Well, I'm really glad to know I've helped in some small way. And yeah, it's crazy hard to stay positive when things go wrong, but it's crazy how much staying optimistic can improve the situation too. Still, definitely one of those 'easier said than done' kind of things.
This is so good so far, and well-written. My heart just aches for Dash. I feel so bad for her, but I'm sure it'll all end up okay.
You are a very gifted writer. I do hope you continue this soon.
I just adore Pinkie in this story.
No more updates, I'm assuming?
3485948
Nope. Sorry.
This was a great read. Have a fav and like.
Though, I'm curious; "Silver Lining" is the name of a Wonderbolt. Coincidence?
3680753 Woah, really?
You write about really important things. Thank you.
I reviewed this story as part of Recommended Story Reviews #16.
My review can be found here.
Sad but thought provoking.