“Well, that went great. Not only did we not get a smile from her, but she was reduced to tears.” Lyra said angrily as she paced back and forth in Bon-Bons room.
Bon-Bon sat on her bed, stroking her pet cat that had decided to sleep on her legs. “... I still can’t believe you wrote Cuntshit Shitter on her locker.”
Lyra groaned and stopped pacing. “Can we please discuss that another time? That’s all you’ve been talking about since we left Sugarcube Corner.”
“I’m sorry, but I still can’t get over that my girlfriend would write something so vulgar and insulting. No wonder Sunset’s mad at you.” Bon-Bon stopped petting her cat and looked to Lyra. “You’re the nicest person I know and you wrote that, I can only imagine how much worse everyone else treated her.”
“Nicest person?” Lyra said in a confused tone. “What about Derpy?”
Bon-Bon sat quietly for a few seconds. “Ok, second nicest person I know.”
Lyra gave an amused smile then went back to pacing. “Ok, so, how are we both going to make Sunset feel better and earn her forgiveness?”
“I imagine not mentioning we want her forgiveness would be a good start, it didn’t exactly end well when I brought it up.” Bon-Bon suggested as she watched Lyra pace back and forth.
“Probably. She seems to associate that with us just wanting to get rid of our guilt… but she doesn’t trust us either, so she’ll think any attempt to make it up to her is inherently selfish.” Lyra placed her right hand under her chin. “Before we left Principal Celestia's office, she told me to think about what Sunset did to earn my forgiveness.”
“Saving the world?” Bon-Bon tilted a head, wondering how exactly they were gonna pull that off.
“Not unless you have magic powers I don’t know about.” Lyra said with a small chuckle. “Plus, you can still be angry and resent someone who saved the world. The school demonstrated that perfectly.”
“Well, for me personally it was when Sunset made that pretend Fall Formal for us. I think I truly forgave her when she crowned you the rightful Fall Formal Princess and replaced her picture with yours.” Bon-Bon couldn’t help but smile at the memory.
“Yeah, that probably took a lot of effort to pull off.” Lyra paced for a few more seconds before stopping again, her face lighting up.
Bon-Bon looked perplexed. “Lyra? Sweetie, is everything alright?”
“I think I have it.” Lyra said with a bright smile. “Do you know the five love languages?”
“What? Yes, Lyra, we took the quiz together.” Bon-Bon lifted her hand up, not sure what Lyra was implying.
“Well, there’s something similar called the five apology languages.” Lyra began listing them off on her fingers. “Genuinely repent, request forgiveness, make restitution, accept responsibility, and express regret.”
“So? What’s your point?” Bon-Bon asked, growing tired of Lyra not giving her a straight answer.
Lyra frowned at her girlfriend. “Think about it. What was the thing Sunset did to get you to forgive her?”
Bon-Bon looked away in thought. “Uh… make restitution. She indirectly fixed the night she ruined and gave you what was yours.”
“I’m willing to bet that her apology language is making restitution. Words mean nothing if you don’t back them up, that was part of why she was an effective bully and manipulator.” Lyras smile grew as realization crossed Bon-Bons face.
“That… makes sense. I do remember hearing about her bending over backwards to make it up to people she hurt after the Formal.” Bon-Bon looked back to Lyra. “You might be onto something.”
“We can ask around to confirm, but I really think this’ll work.” Lyra sat next to Bon-Bon.
“One problem, she’ll get tired of everyone doing something for her everyday, and if we start the trend she’ll blame us.” Bon-Bon pointed out. “Plus, what exactly is our restitution gonna be?”
Lyra hummed in thought, quiet for a full minute before responding. “Well, what about the entire school doing something for her?”
“Like?”
“She wants us to prove we’re sorry and that she can trust us right? Well, what better way to do that than voting her princess of the Spring Fling?”
“What If she associates it with her past victories? She could just see it as us pitying her at best, fearing her at worst.”
“Not unless she has real competition. We could have ten, maybe twenty, of the most popular girls in school run against her.” Lyra grabbed Bon-Bons shoulders. “And then we’ll have most, if not the entire, school vote for her.”
“That sounds nice Lyra, but that’s an awful lot of unity between the students to pull off, and after Anon there’s not a lot of that.” Bon-Bon grabbed Lyras hands and squeezed them lightly. “Plus, it probably won’t work if Sunset finds out.”
“Twilight showed us that if we work towards a common goal, the school will unite no matter what it’s facing.” Lyra squeezed Bon-Bons hands back. “We united to take Sunset down, now we’ll unite to bring her up. We’ll kill two birds with one stone, just in time for the Friendship games.”
“That’s… optimistic, but I suppose crazier things have happened.” Bon-Bon gave an amused snort at the memory of a demon being taken down by a rainbow. Couldn’t get crazier than that. “But what if Sunset finds out?”
“She’s not going to find out. She doesn’t interact with anyone and is always talking to the princess, so it’s unlikely she’ll overhear anyone discussing the plan.” Lyra explained. “And we’ll put a social media blackout, we’ll stress the importance of keeping this a secret.”
“Hm, seems you have this all planned out. I’m proud of you sweetie.” Bon-Bon said with a smile on her lips as she tucked Lyra's hair behind her left ear. Her smile however disappeared, replaced with a frown. “There’s just one snafu with your plan.”
“Yeah? What’s that?” Lyra didn’t seem too concerned, she had just beaten every one of Bon-Bons arguments, surely she’d do it again.
“Sunset is banned from the Spring Fling, remember?”
Lyras face immediately dropped, her smug look disappearing in a second. “Oh…”
‘Stupid!’ The punching bag was sent flying backwards. ‘Stupid!’ It didn’t even get a chance to swing all the way back before Rainbow Dash delivered a left hook.
Yes, Rainbow Dash had found herself spending hours punishing her Punching bag without remorse ever since the truth came out about Anon-A-Miss. She just had so much anger inside her.
‘Scootaloo used you!’ Towards Scootaloo. ‘How could everyone fall for such an obvious lie!’ Towards her fellow students. ‘We were supposed to be her friends!’ Towards her friends.
‘And you!’ But ultimately. ‘You’re the element of loyalty! But when Sunset needed you most, you abandoned her!’ Toward herself.
The chains holding the bag in place snapped clean off after Dashes final punch, sending the bag into the wall, sand leaking out.
“Shit!” She yelled angrily. “That’s the third one this week, dads gonna stop buying these if I keep breaking them.” She huffed and marched over to her dresser. She removed the bandages wound around her fist, looking at her bruised and bloody knuckles.
There was a knock at her door. “Dash? Is everything alright in there? I thought I heard something crash into the wall.”
“Yeah mom, just broke another punching bag.” She sheepishly explained.
“Another one?” Her mother said exasperated. “Dash, you can’t keep breaking those, they’re expensive.”
“I know, I’m sorry mom. I’ll be more careful next time.” That was a lie. She’d probably have to chip in for when she broke the next one, which seemed fair.
“Alright honey.” Windy Whistles didn’t sound like she believed it either. There was a distinct lack of her mothers footsteps walking away, which could only mean one thing. “Dash, Scootaloo is here to see y-”
“Tell her to go away.” Rainbow snapped angrily. “I don’t want to see her.”
“Dash, I know you’re angry, but if you just-”
“No!” Dash scolded herself for yelling at her mom. “Not right now, I don’t want to see her. Just… just tell her to go back home.”
“Dash, honey, she really wants to see you. She’s practically crying.” Her mother pleaded.
Rainbows hands clenched against her dresser, blood oozing from her knuckles. She didn’t want her sister to cry, especially because of her, but after everything she did... “Give her a candy bar or something, I don’t want to see her.”
Windy Whistles sighed. “Alright Dash.”
Rainbow stood there for a moment, waiting till her mother’s footsteps faded away. When she was sure her mother was gone, her face scrunched up and she collapsed onto her bed, her body convulsing as she hid her face in her hands and sobbed quietly.
‘Stupid... stupid.’ She kept repeating in her head as she thought about the events of the last month and a half. What she wouldn’t give to go back and fix everything. Or at the very least, not harass Sunset the way she did. There was no way Sunset was getting over that, it was always going to be a rift between them. “And it’s all my fault.” She whispered, causing her to break down even more.
She didn’t know how long she remained like that, only pulling away when her phone began ringing. Dash picked it up and saw it was from Applejack, quickly cleaning her face with her sleeve and taking a moment to compose herself before answering. “Hello?”
“RD!” Applejack said excitedly, her mood brought down by Rainbow's tone. “Dash, have yah been crying?”
“No!” Rainbow said defensively, getting up. “I-I wasn’t crying, you’re crying!”
Applejack merely rolled her eyes, she should’ve known she wasn’t going to get a straight answer from her friend. “Listen, Ah have some news” She was quiet for a moment. “About Sunset.”
Dash perked up at this. “News?” She leaned against her phone. “Uh, w-what kinda news?”
“Apple Bloom told me earlier that Sunset offered to help at the farm this weekend.”
Rainbow's eyes widened. “She did? What brought this on?”
“Ah don’t know, but Apple Bloom said Sunset was hoping we would eventually get to talking while we worked.”
“Did she... Uh, say anything about the others?” Rainbow asked with a hint of hope in her voice.
“‘Fraid not, but the fact she came of her own volition is a good sign.” Applejack could practically feel Rainbows smile from the other end. “If this goes well, which it will, this could open the door for Sunset rejoining us and making it up to her.”
“I just… wonder how I’m gonna make it up to her. She’s angriest with me.” Applejack wanted to argue with her, but she couldn’t help but agree. Dash had not only betrayed her element, but had also been the most hostile and vengeful of their group. It made sense Sunset would hold the biggest grudge with Rainbow.
“We’ll work on that together, RD. We won’t give up until she’s friends with all of us again. Especially you.” Applejack had no idea how they were going to do that, but she knew it was what Rainbow needed to hear.
“Well, hope it goes well.” Rainbow smiled. “Tell me everything that happens when you’re done, k?”
“Will do. You have a nice night now RD.”
“You too AJ.” Rainbow pulled her phone away and disconnected from the call. She laid back down on her bed, resting her head against her hands.
And for the first time in a long time, Rainbow Dash wasn’t angry.