//------------------------------//
// The Last Crusade 
// Story: Timed Ramblings 
// by Midnight herald 
//------------------------------//

	I’m really, really sorry,” Sweetie wheezes as she collapses in the doorway. She can feel little splinters digging into her clean white coat as she pants and tries to raise herself up on tingling, shaky, weakened legs. The clubhouse looks about the same as the last time she was inside, although there’s an new shelf packed tight with even more of Scootaloo’s trophies and medals and ribbons. Scootaloo and Apple Bloom are looking at her now, with the same tired disappointment she’s getting altogether too used to seeing on their faces. Scootaloo sighs and puffs away a strand of her wild mane and arches a brow with slow-motion disdain.

“You’re three hours late,” Scootaloo says, casual, indifferent. As if she were commenting on the weather or Mayor Mare’s latest speech or something else entirely commonplace. The sad part is that this sort of thing is getting to be that way. One thing leads to another leads to another in a tired little cuckoo-clock dance, and then Sweetie shows up to the semiannual Crusader meeting, the one they set up to help her stay in contact with the others, and she feels lower than dirt.

“Sorry,” Sweetie repeats, as if the second time will make it any better, any easier on the ears. “Sapphire sent the tracks back with revision notes and I had to turn them around by today. I was in the mixing booth and I sorta ... lost track of time.” Her cheeks are flushed with annoyance and shame as she scrambles to her feet, and she can’t quite make herself meet her two best friends’ eyes.

“We get it, Sweets,” Apple Bloom soothes. “You’ve got your career to look towards, and things crop up. And you’ve gotta take all the opportunities they throw atch’ya until you’re big enough to stand for yerself.”

Scootaloo opens her mouth to add something to the conversation, and from the set of her jaw and the fiery glint to her eyes it won’t be anything helpful or nice. Bloom shoots her a glare and she backs down, still tense and strung tight with roiling emotions.

“Look, I know it’s not an excuse, but I went into the studio yesterday morning. I’ve been recording and splicing and mastering nonstop, and there was some stupid bureaucracy stuff at the post office. I ran the whole way, as fast as I could, and I’m really, really sorry,” Sweetie wheedles, taking another shaky step towards the two other ex-Crusaders.

“You should be,” Scootaloo shouts. “You should be sorry for a lot more than that,” she continues, snapping out her wings angrily and stomping her foot towards Sweetie, who stands stock still, her eyes wide and terrified. “We get that your career is important to you, Sweetie. You’re doing some cool stuff in the music business, and you’re best pals with Sapphire Shores and all the big names, and you’re ‘paying your dues’ or whatever until they think you’ve done enough and they give you a headlining act.

“But we remember when we were important, too,” Scoots continues, and her bravado cracks along with her voice. Her ears droop down and she stares at the floor with a singular focus. “We remember back when you’d ask for an extension on your background vocals instead of pulling an all-nighter and missing time with us anyways. We remember back when we got letters that had more to them than who you met at what record signing or whose tour you’d be opening for.” She trails off and scuffs at the already stained and damaged floorboards, hiding behind her devil-may-care manecut.

“We’ve been thinking ‘bout this for a while now, Sweetie,” Apple Bloom cuts in smoothly. “You’re a busy pony, and you’re doing what you love, and Scoots and I are real proud of you fer that. But ... we’re not entirely sure how we fit into that busy life of yours anymore. So we’ve been thinking, and we figured it’s best for all of us if --”

Sweetie can’t take another word of it. She knows what they’re saying, what they’re implying. She’s felt it coming for the past year or so, in the little pauses in conversations, in the looks the other two share at their meetups, in the many smudged eraser-marks left all over their letters to her.
TIME LIMIT----------
But Sweetie doesn’t want to hear their voices telling her that they’re not her best friends anymore. She doesn’t want to hear Apple Bloom’s lovely, warm voice letting her know that she’s moved past them. So she turns and gallops down the gangplank, her hooves clattering against the weathered wood, and she leaves the last part of that sentence to her own imagination. And as she sprints back towards town, she can pretend that, since she didn’t hear those words, since the sentence hands unfinished in the confinces of her mind, that it doesn’t hurt as much as it would otherwise. She can pretend that since she didn’t hear Apple Bloom finish that sentence, when she turned and ran it was her making that choice, not the two ponies still inside the old clubhouse.

But she knows, sure as the prickling, stinging tears in her eyes, that her friends have pushed her out of the nest. The days she spent with the two of them are now officially over and dead, gone forever. She swallows a sob before it truly begins as she pelts through the market square. She can’t cry here; famous ponies don’t cry where others can see them. And Sweetie might not be famous yet, but she still can’t let them see her tears. Someday soon she’ll be a big-name, and she’s practicing the skills it takes to get there. I can cry when I get home, she promises herself. Just get to the Boutique, close my door, and I can cry. Two blocks have never seemed so long, in this tiny little town.