"Make it quick, rocky," Rainbow Dash spat.
"Yeesh, is that all you got?" The shard stood back up, brushing himself off with granite limbs. "'Quickness?' 'Speed?' 'Adrenaline?' Feh. I'm surprised they don't call you 'Dash Earnhay.' Eh? Ehhh?"
Rainbow glared.
The statue crossed his arms. "Okay, I know that was reaching, but give me some credit." He took a talon and flicked it across one of his statues. Pl-plink! "My act has been rather... stiff lately..."
"How did you know that the barn was going to collapse on Granny Smith?"
"Pffft! Oh please, who wouldn't know?! Raising a barn on a farm that makes that much cider?! I'm surprised they didn't accidentally glue the planks of wood together with cats!"
"Grrrrrr..."
"Alright... alright! I see you're a mare who takes her cider-sipping seriously. Ahem." He planted a paw over his stone chest. "If you must know, I happen to be a lightning rod for catastrophic circumstances."
"Jee, I wonder why."
"AND... it so happens that when something disastorous is about to take place, yours truly can know when and where." He gave a fanged smirk. "Call it a 'despairy sense,' and boy-oh-boy does it tingle like a mother—"
"And just how did you get there so fast?!" Rainbow Dash leaned forward. "One moment, I was collapsing into bed. The next moment, you were all the way in Sweet Apple Acres! How?!"
"Because, as it so happens, I seem to be tethered to two different and unique things at the moment." He counted one finger. "One: these very same moments of catastrophic circumstances, as I've just told you. They work like freeways through harmonic space—like bridges across a tranquil sea, so to speak. It just so happens the islands have ponies and other living things meeting unsavory ends instead of palm trees and coconuts. Eheh..."
"So what you're saying is that because you knew when and where Granny Smith was about to be flattened by a barn, that's how you were able to be there so suddenly?"
"Yes. Though, now that I hear you say it out loud, I'm certain it would sound like the fishiest of stories to tell the stallions in blue. Eh heh heh..." He folded his paw and talon together while staring at her with doe eyes. "I don't suppose you can be a good law enforcer and read me the Mareanda Rights?"
Rainbow sighed heavily out her nostrils. At last, she muttered, "And what's the other thing?"
"What? The Fifth Amanement?
"No. You said you were tethered to two things. One, bad stuff. And the second—"
"But of course!" He spread his arms wide, grinning. "That's you, Speedy! Congratulations, we're perennial pals! Joined at the hip of harmony!" He lunged forward. "Gimme a big ol' hug—!"
Rainbow Dash stepped backwards, causing him to collapse on the floor. "What... in the buck are you even going on about...?"
"Mmmmfffnnngh..." He groaned into the floor of her bedroom. "Very well." He casually leaned his chin up on two wrists as he girlishly flopped his legs up and down. "You know how two giant cosmic bodies in the universe bend the fabric of time and space, causing them to gravitate towards one another after a meeting of happenstance?"
"Uhhh... no."
He rolled his eyes and sat up. "Fine. Imagine two jelly doughnuts sitting in the same box. Rattle the container long enough, and they eventually bump, sticking to each other 'cuz of the glaze?"
"Sure... I guess...?"
"Well, that's how we met, Sparky! We're the jelly doughnuts of harmony!"
"... ... ... I don't get it."
"Well of course you wouldn't." He stuck a stone tongue out and folded his arms again. "You're drunk."
"Huh?"
"Well..." His eyes rotated towards the ceiling. "At least you were, at the time, I mean."
Rainbow merely squinted.
"I mean, what else could explain it?" He chuckled to himself, while pacing in a lazy circle. "Flying so boldly through Canterlot airspace, biding her time, rambling about some blonde mare or another. It's not like she could have seen where she was going. Pffft... what reason was there to try? She was neither happy or miserable... glad or sad... just... drunk."
Rainbow gazed out the window, her jaw hanging open wide.
The stars hung overhead.
Hedges weaved back and forth below.
A stifled giggle... something resembling a sob.
The world tilted; she tilted.
Air billowed through drooping wings.
There was a royal lawn.
A series of pedestals.
Finally an obelisk—a pale effigy—with jagged stone limbs.
The shadow of a pegasus grazed over it, plunging.
CRACK!
Rainbow Dash winced. She ran a hoof through her mane while a shudder encompassed her being.
"What was I doing that weekend?" She gulped. "The rest of the girls came home before me. Except for Applejack. She... she and I... I mean..."
"It's a very queer thing..." The statue "ice-skated" into view beneath her, smirking. "Sobering up, I mean. You feel like you've slept for thousands of years, your body locked stiff in a single position, and the first thing you wanna do when you wake up is vomit, pee, or both at the same time." He rubbed his talons against his stone chest and pretended to examine the claws. "And then all that's left to do is... pick up the pieces of yourself that have scattered everywhere."
"Uhhh..."
"But, well, for some of us that's an easier thing to do than for others." He squinted up at her with a bitter smirk. "But it's good to have a friend to lean on, isn't it?"
Snapping out of her dazed expression, Rainbow frowned at him. "I'm many things, bucko, but the last thing I'd ever be is your friend."
"Oh!" He teetered backwards, clutching his throat as if skewered with a bullet. "Oh, Speedy! You're breaking me apart!" He froze in place. "Wait..." He glared. "You already did."
"What are you even getting at?"
"Ungh!" The statue face-pawed. "What does it take to get through to you?! Don't you get it?" He scurried up the nearby bedpost until he was even with Rainbow's head. "The moment you crossed my paths—with the grace and eloquence of a bulldozer, I might add—we became inseparable!" He reached forward and rapped his knuckles across her wincing forehead. "Your melon and my melon! And being that I'm somewhat of a fragment of my past self, I've got no choice but to cling to you like a koala hungry for milk!"
"But... but why?"
"Oh, jee, I dunno..." He dangled off the bedpost from his tail and gestured upside down. "I don't suppose it has anything to do with a certain random pony being miraculously imbued with a literal piece of harmonic power!"
"The... the Element of Loyalty?" Rainbow squinted at him. "Is that what all this crud is about?"
"My little... er... big pony, this crud is about a lot of things, many of which are above and beyond your simple ostrich brain."
"Hey, watch it."
"How can I not?" His stone eyes swirled as he "framed" her with a talon and a paw. "You're like a technicolor yawn with features." He kicked off the bedpost and landed on the floor. "Don't take it personally, Sparkster. Even I can't pretend to explain it all to myself without nibbling a bit on the ol' migraine stick. The fact of the matter is, we're stuck with each other. And until you help me get in touch with my better selves... heh... then I'm afraid that this is how things are going to forever remain. Though I don't mind it so much myself. I could sleep on your duvet forever."
Rainbow raised an eyebrow. "What makes you think I'm going to even remotely help you with anything?"
"Hmmmm..." He tapped his chin with a wicked smirk. "Maybe because I've just helped you?"
Rainbow Dash stared.
He leaned forward with bored eyes. "Or, more specifically, I've just helped a certain pony's grandmother."
"You expect me to believe that you're the one responsible for saving Granny Smith from that falling barn wall?"
"Yes. Yes I do."
"That's it." Rainbow picked him up in the crook of her hoof. "I'm taking you to Noir. He should have a solution for what to do with you."
"Uh uh uh... I just know you're dying to ask another question!"
"Oh yeah?"
He curled about, staring at her from where he was held. "How many more times can I bring good luck to a certain farm. Hmmmm?"
Rainbow Dash froze in place, fidgeting.
"Ah..." He smirked and cracked his knuckles. "Shot the arrow right through the apple, didn't I?"