//------------------------------// // Chapter 13 // Story: May the Best Friends Win // by Trinary //------------------------------// & & & Trixie barreled her way into the hospital, stopping only to ask what room Dinky Doo was in. She could still salvage this. This wasn’t a complete and total disaster until— “MUFFIN! Where’s my muffin!” The doors slammed open with thundering boom. Ditzy Doo panted, having clearly just flown all the way across town to get here. “Where. Is. My. DINKY?!” She demanded, looking around at anypony and everypony. A frightened hospital staff member pointed down the hall. “Baby! Mommy’s co-omiiiing!” Ditzy wailed as she took off, sending a flurry of papers and small items flying about in her wake. Trixie closed her jaw, which she just realized had been hanging open, with a click and adjusted her hat. Well, horseapples. Moving at a more sedate pace, Trixie followed Ditzy to the room where Dinky was resting. She passed a large window pane that peered into the room. Dinky was pressed up against her mother in a massive hug. There was a circle of white bandages tied around her forehead. She didn’t appear to be seriously injured…unless the nurses failed to pry Ditzy off of her before she suffocated her daughter. Looking ahead, Trixie saw that the door to the room was opened…and Rainbow Dash was standing at the entrance, looking in. She sighed in faint relief. Twilight hadn’t beaten her here. She could still explain everything, make it all right. “Rainbow Dash, I came as soon as I heard!” Trixie began as Rainbow slowly turned to Trixie, her head lowered. “I’m so sorry.” Trixie bit her lip. “Listen, I ran into Twilight on the way here. I think she might have been trying to teach Dinky some magic on the side and—” “Save it.” Rainbow Dash said in a harsh whisper, gently closing the door to Dinky’s room. Trixie blinked. “B-but…” She gasped as Rainbow Dash raised her head to glare at her. Trixie reared up, bringing a hoof up to her mouth as she shakily pointed her other at Dash. “What happened to your eyes?!” She blurted as she looked into Rainbow’s furiously narrowed and angry eyes: one its typical magenta or reddish-pink color, the other a deep purple. The same color as…Trixie realized it just as soon as Twilight Sparkle stepped out from behind the door. Her previously messy mane had been fixed, revealing that one of her eyes was now magenta. The same one that was purple in Dash’s face. “The spell of Shared Sight.” Twilight said quietly, feeling a need to fill the sudden silence. “A temporary spell that allows the spell’s caster to exchange one of their eyes with another pony’s; this permits both ponies to see what the other experiences. Another spell can allow you to hear as well.” Trixie felt the blood draining from her face, growing pale as she shivered all over; suddenly cold. The only sound she could hear was her own strained breathing and her heart pounding in her chest. “I—I—Rainbow Dash…” The cyan pegasus’ eyes were filmed over with moisture, both her original and her borrowed one. “J-just shut up! Don’t say anything!” She walked over to the wall and pressed her head against it. Hard. “I—grah! I can’t even look at you right now!” “Y-you have to let me explain!” Trixie pleaded. “I did it for you!” “You did it for yourself!” Rainbow Dash all-but roared at her, spinning around to face her. “What makes you think that I wanted you to torment and humiliate my best friends, try to provoke them, fill little fillies heads with nonsense that could get them hurt—all the while hiding under my wings and making me your accomplice? I recommended you to Ditzy! I trusted you. Now Dinky’s in the hospital, my friends are furious with me, my co-workers want me fired, and Ditzy’ll blame me for this and probably throw me out and it’s ALL. YOUR. FAULT!” Trixie whinnied in distress and ran out, sobbing all the way. Twilight walked over and gently placed her hoof on Rainbow’s withers. “I’m sorry, Rainbow Dash.” “Why should you be?” Rainbow’s voice quavered as she fought to remain angry. Being angry was better than being all…wimpy and sad. “You were right. Trixie’s a lying, cheating…jerk! I’m better off without her…I hope I never see her again!” Twilight shook her head. “Oh Rainbow…this isn’t what I wanted to happen.” She gave her friend a quick nuzzle. “We both saw how upset she was when she spoke to me…how afraid she was of losing you. I don’t think she has any other friends and was terrified at the prospect of being alone.” “S’er own fault.” Rainbow mumbled, blinking rapidly to hold back any tears that might try to slip past. Twilight sighed. “Rainbow Dash…I think you need to go talk things out with Trixie. You can’t let it end like this.” “Why not? She was…just awful to you guys.” She looked up at Twilight. “Especially you. A-and I just let her…” “That wasn’t your fault. Dash, after learning how wonderful it is to have friends I don’t want to be responsible for breaking up a friendship. Please, if not for Trixie, then for me?” “Twilight…” the pegasus sighed, trying to find the right way to say no. Twilight shook her head. “I’m serious about this Rainbow. Look, you said you feel responsible for all the horrible things Trixie said and did to me? Fine. Then consider this your way of making it up to me. You owe me.” “Hrrrrnnng.” Rainbow groaned. She looked back through the window. “…what about Dinky? And Ditzy? I-I can’t just bail on them. Not now…” “I’ll stay with them.” Twilight promised. “They won’t be going anywhere for a bit.” She smiled as she tilted her head to the warm scene before them. “Dinky is fine; just tired from all the excitement. They’ll still be here when you get back. Trixie won’t be. Please, do this for me?” “…okay.” Rainbow said softly. “Thanks Twilight. For…for everything.” “It’s okay.” Twilight smiled back. “What are friends for?” & & & Trixie galloped back to her carriage, hastily using her magic to push the stage back in. She was frantic. Everything had gone wrong! She had to get out of here, had to get away— “Where do you think you’re going?” A familiar raspy voice demanded. Trixie gasped and looked up. Rainbow Dash hovered over her, hooves crossed. “Did you really think you could outrun me in that rickety-old cart?” Sweating bullets, Trixie quickly summoned her magic to push Rainbow Dash away as she galloped fast in another direction, any direction! “Oh come on!” Rainbow landed right in front of her. “You don’t think you can outrun me by cart so you try to do it on hoof? Are you serious?” Trixie turned and ran down an alley between two houses. Rainbow Dash was already waiting for her, stretching her hooves and yawning. “Oh, what kept you?” Growing increasingly panicked, Trixie fled down streets, between houses and through lawns as she tried to get away. She stopped to catch her breath under the fountain in the town square, panting heavily. Trixie looked around. No sign of Rainbow Dash coming from any direction. Trixie wiped her face clean of any perspiration and sighed. “Thirsty?” She looked up to see Rainbow perched on top of the fountain, a glass of water balanced on her hoof. “Want a drink?” Trixie let out a wail of despair as she tried to flee again. Her pegasus pursuer just sighed. “Okay, this is getting old.” She flapped her wings and zoomed off after Trixie, tackling her to the ground. “Gotcha!” The blue unicorn squirmed beneath her, trying to get free. “Gerroff!” She said, her face pressed against the ground. “Lemme go!” “Not until you talk to me!” Rainbow Dash grunted. “So start talking or I start getting comfy!” “Fine!” Trixie gasped. “I—I won’t run. I promise.” “…Don’t know how much a promise from you comes from anymore.” Rainbow did let Trixie up though. “The second I see you eyeing for a place to bolt to, I will grab you and finish the conversation in the air. Got it?” Seeing a nod, Rainbow stood back to let Trixie talk. “T-trixie, I mean I…” Trixie deflated. “I don’t know.” “You don’t know?” Dash’s tone was clearly incredulous. “Well isn’t that just convenient? You come into town, immediately start disparaging everything about it, do your best to make my friends miserable and teach Dinky unsafe magic and you don’t even know why?” She glared. “You know exactly why you did it; and I wanna hear you say it. Straight from the pony’s mouth.” Trixie looked balefully at her, her eyes moist. “Fine!” She choked out. “You were the only pony that understood Trixie! The only one who knew what it meant to work and struggle for a dream that other ponies laughed at! A-and I knew we were destined for greatness—together! But then you abandoned Trixie…” “I abandoned you?! Get over yourself!” Dash snapped. “As I recall, you left Canterlot because you wanted to take your show on the road to build up more of a name for yourself!” “You didn’t come with me!” Trixie sniffled. “Y-you stayed behind…I thought we agreed…” Rainbow Dash shook her head. “No, you agreed! This is the way it’s always been! You make these plans involving me but never bother to ask if it’s what I want and just assume I’ll go along with it—then when I don’t you try to beg, bribe, or pressure me into going along!” “But…we were going to be famous…” Trixie mumbled in disbelief. “Who wouldn’t want that? I know you do…” “Yeah but I—I don’t want it like that! Not it if costs me everything else!” Rainbow Dash walked around her in a circle. “I want to join the Wonderbolts and it would be totally awesome if we could combine your magic with my flying. You’re right about that. But I’m my own pony. That means I make my own choices without you going behind my back to make them for me or trying to drive my friends away! You don’t have a monopoly on me Trixie!” “You owe Trixie!” Trixie blurted without thinking. “You have everything that Trixie wanted and you never even had to try! I worked so hard and…and…it’s not fair!” Rainbow Dash flared her wings angrily at the slander that she never had to work to get where she was but instead pressed Trixie on something else. “So what, that’s your excuse for thinking that I somehow owe you? For somepony who’s always bragging about how you managed to make it big without any help, you sure seem to feel entitled to get whatever you want! You can’t have it both ways!” Trixie furtively flinched and started to slink down. Rainbow rubbed her temples, trying to ward off a headache she knew was coming. “Look….that stuff you did to Twilight? That was cruel. I don’t mean ‘stuff dumb little foals say to each other on the playground because they don’t know any better.’ I mean, vile. I don’t care if you were jealous of Twilight or afraid that she was ‘stealing me,’ nothing gives you an excuse to talk that way to her. Nothing.” She snarled, then stomped her hoof as she tried to control her anger. “That she still wants to see if we can somehow salvage our friendship makes her, like, a hundred times cooler than you.” “S-she does?” Trixie asked nervously. Dash nodded. “Yeah…Twilight says she doesn’t want our friendship to be over because of what happened. She feels guilty because she thinks her friendship with me ruined the one you and I had.” She narrowed her eyes. “She’s smart, but that’s a load of horseapples. You did that yourself Trixie. Nopony else.” Trixie flinched and looked down. “I…I didn’t want to be alone…” She mewled softly. “Well, look where you’ve ended up.” Rainbow put her hooves on her hips. “You brought yourself here Trixie. Even before I got a hunk of rock around my neck calling me an Element of Harmony, you knew how important being loyal to my friends was to me. And you tried to make me choose between you and them, knowing how much it would hurt me. You acted horribly and hid behind me, trying to break up me and my friends. I’m not gonna forget that Trixie.” “I—I—” Trixie swallowed, her jaw wobbling as she said the two words she practically never said, at least not with any sincerity: “I’m…sorry…” “Yeah, you are.” Rainbow Dash snapped angrily. Then she deflated. “I’m sorry.” Of all the things Trixie expected to hear from Rainbow Dash, this wasn’t by far the least likely. “Y-you are?” She felt a faint glimmer of hope. “Yeah…I’m sorry that you have this…this just completely wrong way of looking at things.” Rainbow said, once again shattering Trixie’s expectations. “I’m going to be a Wonderbolt…but I’m gonna do it without trampling on ponies along the way, or abandoning my friends. If you’re intent on making it big, try it my way. Maybe we can talk; I’ll even try to help. But if you keep going the way you’ve been…then this is where we part ways for good.” Trixie was silent. After a moment Rainbow Dash realized that she was trying to speak, but could only move her mouth. No sound seemed to be coming out. Trixie had to try several times before she could get out a single word: “Why?” Rainbow deflated further. “Because as stupid and bitter and nasty as you’ve been…you’re still a friend. We used to have a lot of fun together before you completely lost it. And I guess I just hate the idea of giving up on that. I’m a lot of things, but not a quitter.” She paused. “Right now, the only thing you’ve got going for you is my word to Twilight that we’d try to work this out and the fact that you actually gave a flying feather about what happened to Dinky…not that I don’t want to kick your rump about that, by the way.” Trixie flinched. “But what happens now is up to you. You can either leave town now and never come back. I won’t go chasing you…but that’ll be the end of it.” Dash took a breath. “Or…you can come back to town. Apologize, and I mean really apologize, take your lumps…and then we’ll see how things go from there. What do you want to do? Do you want to have a shot at being friends or not?” Once again, Trixie had trouble speaking. Her mouth would form shapes but it was if she couldn’t command her lungs to speak them. Finally, after what seemed like forever, Trixie managed to choke out the hardest word she had ever had to say. “Yes.” & & &