//------------------------------// // I Have A Problem (Rainbow Dash Part 2) // Story: Aftermath of a Fallen Star // by Rated Ponystar //------------------------------// Aftermath of A Fallen Star By Rated Ponystar Edited by The Unnamed Pawn and CommanderX5 I Have A Problem Part 2 (Rainbow Dash's POV) *** Here Lies Rainbow Dash Beloved Daughter, Loyal Friend, True Hero Rest in Peace That’s what it said on my tombstone. All lies. What kind of a daughter was I to just get myself killed like that and leave my family in unimaginable grief? How loyal was I to get drunk and lash out against my friends who only wanted to help me? How many times did I make them cry and worry that I’ll get myself hurt or worse? Well, they were right to worry. And a hero? Please. I didn’t die defending Ponyville or doing some trick or rescuing somepony. I died like a loser. I wanted to smack that corpse of mine in my casket, hanging just over my open grave, but what was the point? I was a ghost or something, a small fact that had been bothering me. If I was dead, why wasn’t I in Heaven or Elysium or the Summer Lands or whatever the name was for the afterlife. It was the final part of the funeral now as I had followed my best friends carrying my coffin from the funeral home to the cemetery. It was nice to see everypony who was on the street bow their heads in respect, but it didn’t make me feel any better. How was I going to feel better? I was dead, and such a young age. I didn’t make it into the Wonderbolts, I never got married, and I was going to remembered for getting myself killed because I was an idiot. Being dead? Yeah, it sucks. I wonder if this is how Twilight fel—I then ordered my brain to stop thinking about her. About that day. I know I shouldn’t have cared, since I’m dead too and all, but still.... I watched as everypony came up to my coffin one by one to say their final goodbyes. Rarity was in tears, and whispered loud enough for me to hear that I was a good friend and to say "hello" to Twilight for them. Applejack just stood there for a few minutes, her hat against her heart, before leaving. Pinkie actually surprised everypony by touching my mouth and making my frown look like a smile. She said, tearfully, I looked better smiling. I had to admit I did, and I looked even better when Fluttershy put a flower in my hair and kissed me on the forehead. Spitfire saluted me stoically, but I managed to see a tear drip down her face. Imagine that. Me making the great hardflank Spitfire cry. If this was any other day I would have laughed. I had hoped that Scootaloo would be there, but after her break down in the funeral home, her parents took her away. I wished I could have just said something to the little squirt, even a letter with some comforting words. I knew how much she looked up to me and only now, in my death, did I regret my drunken yelling at her. Even when I insulted her, yelled at her to leave me alone, she still held such faith in me. And now I was gone. My parents were the last to see me, admitting how much they loved me before personally closing the front of my casket, sealing me forever in my wooden bed. After that, I was lowered and buried and one by one they all left. Except me. I stood there, staring at my grave with tears in my eyes. I rubbed them, trying to clear the tears away, but then I saw something on my grave that made me gasp. Drunk I blinked to make sure I wasn’t imagining things, but it was still there. I slowly turned away, but froze in place when I saw the next grave nearby. Drunk It was everywhere. Every gravestone said the same thing. Drunk. I ran through the graveyard, closing my eyes in an effort to avoid seeing the word. Opening my eyes, I gasped as I found myself heading face first into a dark, open grave. I tried to move my wings, but nothing happened. They were shut. I screamed as I fell into the dark abyss. Further and further I fell; my screams of terror heard by only the darkness around me. Then I just stopped. I wasn’t flying, I felt nothing keeping me in the air. I was just stuck, frozen in this endless pit of nothing. Fear entered my heart as I began to wonder if this was my eternal fate now that I was dead and buried. Was I to be trapped in this darkness forever? Before I could wallow in my own despair for very long, my ears picked up something. It sounded soft at first, but then I felt my heart jump when I heard sompony cry out in the dark, echoing in my ears. “What do you mean you told Spitfire to not make me a Wonderbolt?!” I realized who it was immediately. Kind of hard not to know when the voice is your own. But the next voice was what made me nearly have a heart attack—despite being already dead—because it was a voice I hadn’t heard in months. A voice I would have sacrificed anything to hear just one more time. “Rainbow, I never said not to make you a Wonderbolt forever. I said to give you another few months before you’re ready.” “Twilight...” I whispered to myself as tears of both joy and sorrow cascaded down my face. “Are you kidding me?! I have the best records in the academy! I’ve aced every test I’ve had to take! I’m ready to be a Wonderbolt!” “No, Rainbow Dash. You’re not yet ready. Because while you are a great flyer and you are the best in your class, you still have problems controlling your emotions! Spitfire’s told me about the number of fights you’ve been in and how you’re always ignoring the logical side of the practices you go through. My crying stopped as I gasped. I knew what this conversation was. The very same conversation I fought every day to forget. Twilight continued, “You always rush during the military training exercises, often causing your side high casualties in the simulations because you didn't plan ahead. Too often acting like a one pony army rather than a team. Wonderbolts are as much our military force as they are our entertainment. Until you're ready to learn to follow orders and think before you act, I’m afraid I had to—” “So that’s it, huh?! I’ve worked hard on getting into the Wonderbolts for years with you supporting me all the way, and now you're stabbing me in the back?! I thought you were my friend!” I started to scream and yell at myself. Telling her to stop so she didn’t regret saying what she was going to say at the end of all this. What I was going to say at the end of all this. “I am being your friend! I’m trying help you not get yourself or your comrades killed during a dangerous mission. Equestria, even if at peace, is still a dangerous place, and I hoped you learned what being part of the team means when facing them." “Yeah, well I don’t see it that way! All I see is a backstabber whose crown is so tight that’s it's blocking her sense of loyalty!” “Dash, you know it is not the case, so please, stop being so stubborn about this! All I ask is for seven more months so you can work one-on-one with Spitfire to know what it means to make the right choices as a leader. Once you show some improvements, I am sure Spitfire will..." Seven months. Just seven months. How could I have been so stubborn. So stupid. I knew it was coming, but I didn’t want to hear it. I shut my ears with my hooves but I could still hear it. “Stop! Stop! Just make it stop! I don’t want to hear it! I don’t want to hear it!” “You know what?! I’m done listening to this! I’m done listening to a pony with wings who's still having trouble flying despite having them for a year! I’m good enough to be a Wonderbolt, but apparently one of my best friends doesn’t think so and is grounding me!” “No! Stop! Don’t say it!” I screamed, louder than I ever heard. “Please!” You know what? Screw you, Twilight Sparkle! With friends like you, who needs enemies? I hate you!” I lost it. There are no other words for me to say. I screamed. I cried. I hit myself. I cursed myself. Because that... was the last conversation I ever had with her. The last thing I told my best friend, before she died, was that I hate her. I would never get the chance to tell her how sorry I was. I would never be able to take it all back. I was so stupid. I was so... so... stupid. Everyday, since I heard she had died, I had to live with that memory. And no matter how much I tried, no matter how much I drank, it never bucking left me. I don’t know how long I cried. Does time even matter when you’re dead? I let myself continue to weep until I finally opened my eyes again... ... Only to find myself back at the funeral home. This quickly woke me up from my stupor as I slowly looked around. It was still made up for my funeral, but there was nopony there. Nopony but myself in my coffin. I slowly walked forward, feeling more and more nervous until I was looking at my still face. That was, until its eyes opened up and it stared at me. I yipped and fell backwards, landing hard on my rump as I watched myself slowly rise from my coffin and land on the floor, looking as alive as ever. She, it, or whatever it was. Looked at me with a small smirk. “Surprised?” “I... I... what are you?” I asked. I didn’t understand what was going on anymore. I had seen my funeral, fell into a dark pit, had to hear the worst mistake I ever made in my life, and now I was talking to myself, literally. “Am I crazy? Dead? Dead crazy?” “None of those, except, well, you are kind of in the middle of dying,” my copy said, shrugging. “Wait... then who are you?” “Me?” she said pointing to herself. “I could be your subconscious. Your guilt. Your will to live. A lot of things really. But one way or another, I am you.” “Then... I’m not dead? I’m dying?” I asked, with hope in my voice, wondering if this was one of those near death experiences you hear ponies having. “Yeah, but how this ends is up to you.” my copy said, pointing at me. I could feel her accusing eyes upon me like a judge before a criminal. Only this time, I had no backbone. “You know what you just did right now? You didn’t crash while drunk, you got alcohol poisoning.” “I... I tried drinking myself to death?” I whispered in fear. I began to wonder if I did it on purpose or by accident. I didn’t know which thought was worse. “S-so why am I here and not kicking the bucket then?!” I, or rather she, sighed. “Because despite being inches from death, your friends are trying to save you and you’re one stubborn pegasus to kill.” I did chuckle at that. “Either way,” she said, “Are you ready to admit it?” “Admit what?” I asked, but I already knew what it was. And by the look she was giving me, she knew it too. I growled and turned away. “Fine! I... I... I’m an alcoholic! Okay, happy?! Happy that I get to see what a loser I am?! Happy to see how I made everypony cry at my imaginary funeral?!” I got up and shoved my face into hers, my saliva spitting on her but she didn’t flinch. “Are you happy that I had to be reminded that the last thing I told Twilight the day before she died was that I hated her?!” I turned away, crying. “I know it was stupid! But it helped okay?! It just made... everything easier...” “And was it worth it?” she asked. “... No... but how can I... how can I live with that guilt?” I asked. “Every day she’s dead and I’m alive, all I can see or hear is that stupid fight. Not the great times we had from saving the world or reading together or just even flying. I just... I just see myself saying how much I hate her for something she was right about. I mean, just look at me! She was right!” I fell to my haunches, remembering the pony who I loved like a sister, who I went through so much with and cared for so much, only to just spit at her at the very end. “I just want... to say I’m sorry... that’s all...” To my surprise, my doppelganger walked up to me and nuzzled my cheeks. I didn’t even resist or find it creepy. I really... really needed somepony right then and there. Even if it was just myself. “I’m so messed up...” I muttered. “... Do you want it to go away?” my double asked. I looked up and she pointed at the coffin. “That right there... can end your pain. If you really don’t want to live with that guilt, that pain for the rest of your days. Enter it, and know peace.” I stared at the coffin, gulping as I got up and slowly moved forward. This was a way to end it. A way to forget. No more drinking. No more guilt. No more... I froze and slowly turned around. “This... this is that moment right? Where I decide to die or not?” She nodded. “If you really are ready, if you feel there is no other way. Get in that coffin and I will seal you shut. You will know only peace. And see Twilight again.” “Twilight...” I whispered as I walked closer. I could see her again. I could apologize to her. I stopped inches away from it. It looked really comfortable with a pillow and everything. After all this, all this sorrow and pain, a good long nap seemed welcoming. “This could end it all...” But then I turned to the door that lead out of this place. Out there was the real world. The world of pain and suffering. The world where Twilight was still dead... but also the world where everypony was waiting for me. My friends, my family, Scootaloo, Spitfire. All of them and everypony who I pushed away was waiting for me, praying that I would wake up. I didn’t deserve them. They could have done better than a washed up drunken idiot like me. But they didn’t. I thought about that funeral I saw, the tears and pain that they had to go through with my passing. It was sure to happen if I let myself give up here and now and ended it all. Could they go through another tragedy? So soon after we lost Twilight? What kind of friend would I be if I did that? What kind of Element of Loyalty would I be if I did that? I closed my eyes... and kicked the bucking thing to the ground. Turning around I stomped my way from my so called casket and made my way for the door. I wasn’t going to die. Not yet. Not like this. I wanted to see Twilight again, apologize for all this. But if what I saw today was any indication of what I was leaving behind, then death can kiss the bluest part of my butt. I saw myself smile proudly while I walked past her. “Are you sure? If you go back, you’ll live with that pain still.” I stopped. “Are my friends waiting for me?” “They’re all right beside you, waiting for you to wake up,” she answered. I sighed. “Then I won’t at least feel that pain alone.” Without any hesitation, I opened that door and let the warm light engulf me. *** The first thing I heard was the sound of a heart monitor beeping. Then I felt like my stomach had just been jackhammered and lit on fire at the same time. Still, this was a relief for me. Because I was alive. I was still alive. “Look! She’s coming to!” I slowly opened my eyes and there they were. Waiting for me. My friends, my parents, Scootaloo and her friends. They looked at me with such teary eyes that I soon felt my own water up and I was not ashamed to admit it this time. With a weak voice, I said, “Girls... I have a problem... and I need help.” *** And thus the Loyal Flyer started her redemption. It took many years, many trials, and many tears. But she rose again and flew towards her dreams at last. Wearing the proud uniform she sought all her life. And she never touched another drink again.