After a couple hours talking, reliving and laughing about our lives, Rarity collected her things and made her leave, saying how if she did not get home and start her hair treatment, it would become more frizzy than Pinkie Pie’s. Walking out the door, she quickly turned around, gave me a quick peck and asked if one of these days, we could go on a proper date. I laughed and nodded yes. Smiling, she walked down to the street and left, seeming much happier than before.
“Someone might be in a bit over his head.” Dash calmly stated from her perch on the couch back. Her eyes had gone from ones of slight joy to a dark and bitter feel, and her body was rigid. Even her wings were tucked in behind her back.
“What do you mean by that?”
“What I mean is, that you don’t know what you are getting yourself into. She’s going to be a lot to handle. I wasn’t kidding before when I said that she was a mess. A lot of things have happened to that girl,” Dash growled behind clenched teeth and fists, “really bad things. Believe me, I will not let it happen again if I can help it. If I even get a hint of you being like Ridger, I will break your wings, and drop you off the top of the school’s weather machinery.”
Dash was putting on a mighty strong front, but her eyes told a different story. They went from their cold distance to a fiery anger and tears had started to form in her eyes. I jumped over to the shaking girl I lived with and put my arm around her shoulders. A few seconds later, Dash fluttered her wings incredibly fast and made her way out to the patio.
“Who is Ridger?” I asked, quickly following the distraught peg. I planted myself in front of her face, but as I did, she turned away from me.
“Look, for your sake, it’s best you not know. Forget, I even mentioned him, and never mention his name in front of Rarity. I like the idea of you and Rarity together, but from what happened last week when your wings were exposed....”
“Yea, I was a bit upset, but I overreacted to something so trivial. Look, I’m sorry, but a lot has happened to these wings and I am just not keen on anything worse happening to them.”
“Well, that’s how I feel about Rarity.” Dash looked me dead in the eyes, tears streaming down her face, staining her cheeks. “I mean, haven’t you wondered why Rarity insists on wearing stockings or long pants all the time?”
“I have met her three times, it’s not like the question of a girl that likes to be fashionable to wear stockings in October and November.”
“Point taken. But there is a reason.”
“Care to inform me on what that is?”
“It’s not my place to tell you why she does what she does.”
“Then why mention it in the first place?”
“Because if you turn out as bad as him, I will kill you.” Her eyes pierced straight through me with such force that I dared not anger her further.
“Ok, ok. I won’t push this further, but eventually you are going to tell me what happened and who this Ridger character is. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go make sure all my recording equipment didn’t break when I had my mini freakout earlier.” I stated, leaving the patio and making my way to my room.
“Wait, just wait. I’ll tell you pretty much what I know. But if you tell her that I told you this...”
“Yea yea you will shear my wings, drop me off a building and then just kill me.”
“Don’t you be smart with me, I will do anything for my friends, and it kills me that I wasn’t able to help her out when she needed someone.”
“Sorry.” I apologized, knowing I had infuriated the small peg even further. Opening the door into my room, she zipped in and landed on the bed, sitting cross legged. She folded up her wings and tucked them into her back. I knew this was going to be a long conversation, and hard on the both of us.
“Huh, did not know you two drank that much. What exactly happened after you played that song?” Dash asked, looking for any sign of...you know.
“Nothing really, she said she loved the song, I had really nice eyes, and then she kissed me.”
“And that’s it.”
“Well, I did reciprocate, but other than that, pretty vanilla night.”
“So, nothing else happened?”
“No, we did not do anything else, ok? Rarity and I passed out on the same bed, we didn’t sleep together.”
Dash looked me over, trying to tell if I was hiding anything from her.
“Well, looks like I won’t be an aunt anytime soon. Before I start, would you mind playing that song again?”
Confused at both statement and request, I hesitantly nodded and set up my keyboard. Sitting down in the chair, I felt the rush of excitement that washes over me as my fingers touch the keys. The song danced in the room and into the apartment. I felt alive once again, feeling my soul bounce around, dancing lost in the music. But it felt even more exhilarating than last night, my wings beat in time with the song as it sped and slowed. I was lost in my world, but soon I fell into a dark room once again, like the dream. I felt my pulse quicken and my mind worsen, but as soon as it came, the darkness left, but left a lingering buzzing noise in my ear, like a really big mosquito.
“You know when I first heard that song?” Dash quietly said, bringing me back into reality. That’s right, I was playing the first song I learned for her, the buzzing must have been from a speaker or some wire that wasn’t grounded properly. Turning around in the chair, I glanced over at Dash, who has slid off the bed and was hugging her knees on the floor.
“Rarity loves that song, because her dad used to sing it to her every night when she was a kid. My dad and I love football, so finding out a professional player was living in our town, we were like little kids in a candy store. I think I was 4, my dad ran the weather factory for our county, so he decided to invite one of the rising stars on his favorite team to dinner. Just him and his family and my family. Now I am an only child, so I was used to not having anyone to talk to at these things, so when I found out that he had a daughter my age, that was also being forced to be here, I was more excited than finding out he lived in town.”
“They came over in the early afternoon, and I was jumping up and down. I couldn’t contain myself, a friend that had a famous dad? Was going to be awesome, and how could she not like the game, her dad played professionally. But how wrong I was. I remember the first thing I said to her. She came in wearing this incredibly girly dress, and a tiara. Who has a freakin’ tiara at 4. I called her the Queen of the Prissy Pants Brigade, which got me a swift pinch to the wing from my father, and she called me the Brute of Brutestonia, which in turn was punished.”
“Our fathers forced us outside to play with my babysitter, so that Rarity’s mom could relax, what with her being like six months pregnant. You might get to meet Firefly at some point, we both still talk to her. Well, things didn’t go over so well at first, I got her dress dirty when she tried to style my hair. Which caused her to go hysterical, and we fought a little. I will say that pissing off a prim princess didn’t scare me, but getting tossed all over the yard was. After that, our dads separated us and then after dinner we were made to apologize. We have been best friends ever since.”
“That’s kind of funny, Rarity beating you up.” I said, stifling a small snicker.
“You know, it was. Every time she is goofy, or playing or not putting up that front, she becomes the life of the party, but after Ridger, I didn’t think she would take it down for any guy ever again.”
“So was Ridger her boyfriend or something?”
“Yea, they dated, but he was a bad guy from the start. Oh he looked good in front of the parents but I knew better than to trust it. Rarity had hid her mining from us for 5 years before she started dating Ridger, but it was AJ that didn’t trust him. And when AJ doesn’t trust someone, they aren’t someone you want around.”
“Well, thats all well and good, but what happened that makes this guy the bane of everyone’s existence, and what does he have to do with my song?”
“I’m getting to that. Anyway, Ridger came to this school before we did, and Rarity wanted to follow him, so she convinced us to come here so we could all be together. But way before that, AJ and I convinced her not to do anything....sexual with him, lest she regret it later. Made her think it was her idea. Oh yea, Rarity is pretty damn stubborn so have fun with that.”
A loud knock on the door stopped Dash right in her tracks. Both of us quickly got up and went to the door, only to find a half drunk Vinyl standing there.
“Oh hey guys.” She hiccuped, clearly plastered out of her mind.
“Vinyl, when did you start drinking?” Dash questioned, concerned.
“Who said I stopped?” She laughed as she pushed her way in and flopped on the couch. “Now, I have a bone to pick with you, my feathered friend. Why was I not the first to find out?”
“Find out about what?”
“You and Rarity, I mean she has been on my ass all week, trying to get information out of me. I thought she was super pissed about you almost destroying her fitting room.”
“It was not that bad, just some things knocked around.”
“Yea, Rarity to name one of them. I thought she was going to do something to get you back, and you know how much I like to prank you. So what the hell man, I had to hear it from Twilight? DO you...understand how much... that irks me” She almost shouted, slurring and looking incredibly dreary eyed.
“I thought one of my best friends would tell me if they shacked up with another one of my friends but nooooo Had to hear it from the oblivious Miss Twilight Sparkle, who heard it from Spike, who heard it from Pinkie Pie, who heard it from Rarity. Now, why wasn’t I included in the loop?”
As soon as I started to reply, Vinyl flopped over on the couch and started snoring loudly. I just looked extremely confused while Dash just laughed silently, well as silently as she could. Pointing to the patio, I nodded and after covering Vinyl with a small blanket, followed Dash outside.
“She seems pissed.”
“It’s the booze talking, you could tell she is happy. I mean, she’s just mad she didn’t hear it from me. Now anyway, get back to what you were saying.”
“Are you sure she won’t wake up? I don’t want others to know about this.”
“Believe me, Vinyl can’t hold her drink for shit, she’ll be out for the next couple of hours.”
“Good, well anyway, Rarity followed Ridger to school, and we followed suit. But AJ and I kept tabs on him. Now he was the usual sleazebag, sleeping around on her, and then we find out he deals meth. That went over well. Anyway, she told me and AJ that she would confront him herself and be done with him.” Dash’s eyes had quickly started tearing as she continued on.
“Later that night, I was flying over the park over on Boulder, and I happened to glance down below. And I am really glad I did, because there I saw a red streak on the cement, so I flew down and looked around. After a couple of minutes following the trail, I found her. And she was in bad shape. Busted lips, bleeding from cuts all over, black eye and broken arm, possibly ribs too. I panicked and called 911. Stayed with her until they took her into the ER.” Dash had started to sob at this point and gripped the railing until her knuckles turned white.
“She was touch and go for a while, but eventually I was allowed to see her. Magnum, Pearl and Sweetie Belle showed up shortly after I was allowed in. The detective was questioning me on what I had seen and who possibly could have been responsible for this. When I mentioned Ridger, Magnum became a raging bull, and as fast as he could walk, booked it from the hospital. He came back the next day, after he spent the night in prison for almost beating Ridger to death. After the DNA came back, Ridger was arrested and prosecuted. He got 10 years. Too good for him.”
I walked over and grabbed Dash in my arms, holding her close and rubbing her head. She just let go. Sobbing for a couple of minutes, in which my shirt became soaking, she managed to get her head back.
“Anyway, when I came back a couple days later, I found her still in her mini coma. But that’s not all I found, her dad had not left her side since he came back from the police station. He was brushing her hair and cleaning her up. And all the while, humming that song you play. A couple days later, when she woke up, her father just held her for an hour. All she said was thank you daddy. And when he asked her why, she said ‘I knew you were here, I could hear the song, the one you used to sing when I was little. That’s when I knew I was safe.’
Sitting down on the patio chair, I tried to take in all of what I had heard over the last twenty minutes. Rarity almost died because some asshole decided that he could do that. Her father sung her the song I played her to let her know that she was safe. Does that mean she feels safe with me? Do I make her feel safe?
“I’m going to go lay down for a bit.” Dash said, her face still streaming tears. “Remembering that takes a lot out of me. Also, Rarity said something about being drawn to you. Like something about you made her feel.... I don’t really know how to explain it. My guess is the song helped a lot on her decision. She said she was going to talk to you about what was troubling you, but turns out you somehow broke down the wall.”
Dash left the balcony. My mind was racing, Rarity had been through hell. I had been through hell too, but this was a different level. I had never come close to dying. Why is she with me then though, was it because I made her feel safe, do I genuinely interest her, or is it something else?
But that was a question for another time.
Getting up, I felt the exhaustion hit me like a lead pipe. Dash was right, something like that takes a lot out of you. So walking back into my room, I walked over to the closet and picked up the scarf Rarity had given me last week. I just held it in my arms and fell back onto the bed, thinking of Rarity, and what she had been through. After a few minutes in the back of my mind, my eyelids drooped heavily down and brought me back into the black. Before I fell into a deeper sleep, I said to myself, “She has her demons, but this is where my demons hide.”