There are many nice ways to spend a morning. You could have brunch with your friends; you could sleep in; you could celebrate your survival of an assassination attempt; or you could wake up early and watch the sunrise over a nice mug of cocoa.
Unfortunately, there are many not-so-nice ways to spend your morning, and Apple Bloom was experiencing one of the most terrible ways of all. She was laying down next to one of her friends, Sweetie Belle, in a small field not too far away from Ponyville, going over the tragic event that had just occurred in both of their lives.
Yesterday, their friend Scootaloo had attempted to hang herself.
It is unimaginably horrible when a friend decides that their life is not worth living anymore. However, it is even more horrible when you are left with the feeling that you could have done something to stop the event from unfolding.
Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle had known of the problem that lead to Scootaloo’s eventual attempt. What they didn’t know was just how poor of a state she was in. They had even been on their way to get her help, but it was too late when they arrived at her home.
It is a terrible feeling, knowing you have failed. It is even a worse a feeling knowing you have failed a friend, especially on such a level. Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle had gone home that day, excused from the rest of school by Cheerilee due to the nature of the event, and had spent the rest of the daylight hours sinking deeper into a despair that had been brewing for ten months prior to their indoctrination into said despair.
They did not fare very well the next morning either. They were still allowed a leave of absence from the school, so the two had met earlier that morning to talk over what had just transpired. At least, that is what they set out to do. Neither did much talking.
Eventually, they had wandered to a field outside of Ponyville, close to Sweet Apple Acres but far enough away to be left alone. They laid down in the tall grass, patches of wild flowers scattered about here and there, and watched the sky in silence.
Time passed. The silence grew between the two, until it was shattered abruptly by Apple Bloom, as if somepony had thrown a stone into a still pond.
“Do you think we could have stopped it?” she asked, her voice quiet.
Sweetie Belle didn’t answer her. It is very hard to answer questions that ask a lot of you, such as when somepony asks you to donate them an organ, or to make them a type of soup which you don’t know how to cook. Both of these fillies were still far too young to have to got through what they were dealing with, so it is very reasonable that Sweetie Belle decided to postpone her answer.
The two stared up at the sky for some time, before Apple Bloom spoke once more.
“Ah just want to forget about it.”
Sweetie Belle cast a glance over at her friend. “Me too.”
When you were very small, assuming your parents were decent beings and were not eaten by bears, you were taught that you can’t always get what you want. You couldn’t always have the extra cookie, sleep over at your friend’s house, or get the transplant that could have improved your living standard significantly. However, this saying also carries on into a more figurative statement. It has generally come to mean that you can’t have the impossible thing that you want. Indeed, this is true in most cases. In fact, it is true in nearly every case. Once in a million times, however, through an extraordinary connection of events, you can get what you want, even if it is impossible.
“I know we could have done something,” Sweetie Belle told Apple Bloom. “If we had more time. We didn’t have more time though, so...” She trailed off. Apple Bloom nodded her head as if she understood, but her heart wasn’t in it. Not to mention, she wasn’t completely sold on the idea that the only factor missing here was the time between events.
Sweetie Belle rolled off the grass, and got to her hooves. Looking down at Apple Bloom, whose expression of quiet sadness had not changed, she asked another question.
“Is there anything you think we could have done to stop it?”
“Ah don’t know,” answered Apple Bloom. “That’s why Ah asked you, Ah guess. But...”
“But?”
Apple Bloom took a deep breath. “Well, we had ten months, and we didn’t see anything bad happening to Scootaloo until the very end when we accidentally learned about it! Are we bad friends for not figuring it out sooner?”
When you are in times of trouble, your emotions do very odd things. These odd things are known as the five stages of grief: Denial, anger, bargaining, sadness, and acceptance. I believe that this is wrong. There are more than just five. There are thousands of different emotions, and combinations of several emotions, and overlapping emotions. For the sake of simplicity, I shall only tack on one more emotion; confusion. When something bad happens, immediately afterwards you are left in a somewhat dazed state, confused as to what is going on. From there, you jump into denial, then anger, and so forth with all of the other confusing emotions that are not listed. Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom were both just about finished with their overlapping of the confusion and denial stage, and were ready to move on to the next one.
"There wasn’t anything we could have done,” Sweetie Belle finally decided. “I mean, we couldn’t have known anything. It was Scootaloo’s fault for not telling us!”
“Yeah,” Apple Bloom agreed, her brow furrowing. “Yeah, she’s the one who just kept quiet about it! Why didn’t she tell anypony she needed help? Why didn’t she wait for us to come and get her, why did she just have to ha... han... h...” the poor filly couldn’t bear to finish the word as the realization of what she was saying and what had happened truly dawned on her. Judging by the look on Sweetie Belle’s face, it had dawned on her too.
“It wasn’t her fault,” Apple bloom whispered. “Not after what happened to her.”
Sweetie Belle nodded. Screwing up her eyes and stomping her hoof, tears began to force their way down her face. Sparks of faint magic danced over her horn as she did this, further emphasizing her frustration. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how unicorns’ magic reacts when they are experiencing strong emotion; however, Apple Bloom didn’t know that this was a common thing for emotionally distressed unicorns to go through, and like a certain now-deceased feline, let the curiosity get the better of her.
“What’s goin’ on with your horn, Sweetie Belle?” she asked the sorrowful filly.
“It always does this when I’m really upset or really excited,” Sweetie explained. “But that’s not the point! The point is that our friend just went through something absolutely horrible, and we blamed her for what we did wrong!” She grit her teeth, the magic glowing a bit brighter.
“I wish we could just forget it all!”
“Ah still do too,” Apple Bloom agreed solemnly. No matter how mature Apple Bloom could often act, she still has a filly-like fascination with strange thing, as was appropriate due to her being a filly, and she slowly reached for her friend’s flickering horn.
“Sometimes I wish that it’d all just disappear!” Sweetie Belle continued, her tears flowing freely now. Apple Bloom, who was nodding in agreement, suddenly darted her hoof forward to place it on her friend’s horn.
There was a magnificent flash of light, and Apple Bloom was blown back so hard that her hair bow actually came undone, letting her mane flop out everywhere. Tumbling in the grass, she grasped her hoof, expecting it to hurt. She was surprised when it didn’t although she didn’t know why she was grasping it in the first place.
She looked around. “How’d my hair bow get undone?” she wondered aloud, picking it back up in her mouth.
Apple Bloom sat back on her haunches wondering why she had decided to wander out into this meadow all by herself on a school day.