Appledashery

by Just Essay


Down to Down Feathers

"I mean... pfft... I've done some pretty awesome things on my own, dweeb. So don't kiss your own tail in pride or nothin'. It's just that... when you and I used to hang out... like really hang out, it was like I was living two kinds of awesome. Okay, no, make that three kinds of awesome. The griffon kind of awesome... the pony kind of awesome... and... and s-something I'd never experienced before. I mean, never with any griffon chick, at least. Pffft. Back home, I could get all the tail-feather I wanted and at anytime. But in Equestria? With you by my side... under my wing...?"

Rainbow watched and listened. Her ears twitched.

Gilda shuddered, staring into the goblet as her talons swam circles around its glittery edges. "I felt... special... like I had earned something... earned somepony. Like... like you were the best kind of trophy there was." She winced, beak rattling. "N-not that I'm saying you're just as valuable as some stupid pewter trinket doohickey or nothin—"

"Go on..."

Gilda took a long breath. "And the thing is, I... I didn't win you over by being gruff or mean or demanding. It... it was something else. You and your... mmmfff... lame soft-hoof ways got on my good side... a good side that I didn't even know I had. And then, when you got comfortable, I realized you were as tough and rough as I was... at least when you wanted to be. And then when we got real close, you became soft again... only because you knew—as I knew—that it was all an act. An act that you needed to play out... or whatever. I dunno. Point is, I... I felt sp-special, Dash..."

Rainbow blinked. She glanced aside, biting on her lip.

"I felt special... no... privileged," Gilda said. "I... never felt so strong... so needed before. And, lemme tell you... heh... I've never felt it since." She exhaled with a shudder. "And then... and then I lost you. Mrmmff..." She smoothed her headfeathers back, staring back into the goblet. "I'd never lost anything before. But you had. Part of me wondered that maybe... just maybe... you wanted me to feel as miserable as you did."

"No no no Gilda..." Rainbow sighed, slumping back on her haunches. "What happened back in Ponyville—..." She winced. "I mean, back when things blew up between you, me, and my new friends—..." She winced again. "Gilda, I'd just become the friggin' Element of Loyalty, okay?! And stuff that may have been okay for you and me just... c-couldn't cut it with the kind of ponies I was suddenly responsible for. I... I really really hoped that you would have had the gumption to realize that they were all different from you and me, but—nooooo—instead you had to griffon it up to eleven and make a big friggin' scene. And, y'know what? Part of me thought you did it on purpose just to spite me! And so... so I-I struck back. Hard. Maybe... a little too hard. And... and if that really shattered your heart or whatever, then... then I'm sorry, girl. I really am."

"Are you shitting me...?" Gilda's eyes narrowed. Her beak hung open. "Rainbow, do you really think that all of... all of..." She flung her arms out with a frown. "That all of this between us is just because of one lame pony party gone to Tartarus?! Are you really that dense?!"

"I... I..." Rainbow blinked in confusion.

"No, Dash." Gilda frowned. "You didn't hurt me back in Ponyville. You hurt me in Cloudsdale. Because after all we went through, after all you did to open up to me, after all the stinkin' layers of myself I peeled off to make you feel happy and loved... you tore off and left me for a no-good scum bucket like Listing!"

Rainbow recoiled at that, wincing hard.

Gilda sniffled, but drew back with a frown. "Listing Breeze... of all the ponies..." She gulped hard. "Y'know, before I blew off that party thrown by Prancie Pie—or whoever—I dropped in on the old gang. Y'know... Lyra? Bon Bon? Vinyl? That sissy stallion that thinks he's a chick? They told me things were over between you and Listing. Well... how come I never heard about it?! That's right... I had to find out through our old friends, Dash. You left me without a word... and you ditched that psycho bitch without a word too. Just... what—what in the blue Hell is wrong with you?!"

"I made some bad choices, Gilda—"

"Yeah! No shit!" Gilda seethed. "But it doesn't change the fact that some lame-ass part of me worried about you, ya little t-turd!" Her voice cracked on the last utterance, and she suddenly didn't have the breath to continue. She hugged the Chalice to her feathery chest and stared fixedly at the stone floor.

"... ... ..." Slowly, Rainbow Dash stood up. She trotted over on numb hooves, wincing slightly. "You said that... that when you and I split up, you didn't know loss... and yet I did." She squatted down besides the mare. "Well, that's... only partially true."

"You don't need to go into it, ya dweeb," Gilda muttered in a low, sniffly voice, avoiding the mare's eyes. "I already know that your mother—"

"—died when I was super, super young. And... y'know... if I ever used that as an emotional bargaining chip against you, then, I'm super sorry, Gilda," Rainbow said. "Fact is... I don't really remember. I was young and stupid... but things were about to get a whole lot stupider. You say you didn't know what loss felt like? I learned a whole lot about it when..." She hesitated, then squeaked, "When my dad kicked the bucket."

Gilda looked up.

"After... fighting so much for himself... and fighting even more for me..." Rainbow frowned off into the horizon. "...a universe that had robbed so much from him finally came in for the kill. It just... didn't make any sense. Not the fact that he was gone... or the fact that... I-I was still alive and kicking. I felt... I-I felt..."

Gilda exhaled. "Guilty..."

"I didn't think I deserved anything as awesome... as sweet as you," Rainbow murmured. "We had so much fun together, and you made me feel like..." She sighed. "...a much bigger mare than I imagined I was meant to be. And Listing, well... she made me feel like crap, yeah. But there are places low in life... so low and dark and dismal that you kinda... you kinda want that, y'know?"

Gilda slowly shook her head. "No... I don't know..."

"I was lower than low, Gilda," Rainbow said calmly. "I may have looked awesome on the outside, but on the inside? I was all shattered eggshells and manure. And I loved it. I... I kind of feel sick thinking about it." She shuddered. "Oh, don't misunderstand... tons of ponies kept telling me to ditch her. Lyra? Bon Bon? She and the others nearly butted heads with Listing on a regular basis. But, in the end, it wasn't even Listing's fault. It was my own. I... I've told bits and pieces of details to my friends... about how bad it was. Well... I've told Fluttershy... kinda sorta. But even as close as the two of us are, she doesn't know everything... and I doubt she ever will. When it was time for me to climb out, I had isolated everypony I knew. So... I flocked on over to Ponyville to make a new life in the same little place that Flutters and Lyra and the rest called home. That's when fate dropped Twilight and these other crazy ponies into my lap. I... I couldn't think of a better time when I needed to start friendships up anew. That's why I've been so fiercely loyal to them all, I guess. And... and that's why I even sent the invite for you way back when to visit us. I guess... I-I guess I was kinda secretly hoping we could start anew as well."

Gilda swallowed a lump down her throat. A tear fell loose. "You should have told me," she breathed.

Rainbow nodded. "I know."

Silence, save for the howling winds above.

"I'm... I'm sorry I ended things so pathetically between us, Gilda," Rainbow murmured. "No matter where my heart may have been... or what I was going through... just because I was trash didn't mean you deserved to be treated like trash too, and I'm sorry."

"Yes... well..." Gilda rubbed her eyes again, then leaned back. "I suppose, if I eviscerated you like a gutted weasel, you wouldn't be around for me to beat up in the future, huh?"

"Sure... thing...?"

"So, you're forgiven, ya dweeb," Gilda said.

Rainbow blinked, shrugged, and smiled. "Sure thing!"

"Don't get me wrong, though." Gilda's hawkeyes took on a sharp glint. "You did mess things up pretty badly. You and me?" She shook her head. "It could never be the same between us again."

"I... uh... I wasn't expecting otherwise, Gilda," Rainbow murmured. She gulped. "Or desiring."

Gilda's tail flicked. "Oh." She glanced aside. "Well... I-I wasn't desiring it either."

"Right."

"R-right."

More silence.

"But... y'know... just tell me one thing, Dash," Gilda said. "For all the time we do have under our belt, if for nothing else."

"What's that, G?"

"This... this new love of your life... this new mare." Gilda squinted. "Does she treat you well?"

Rainbow leaned back. She sighed through a helpless smile. "As a matter of fact, she treats me as lovingly as one could ask for."

"Is that so?"

"In that she doesn't treat me lovingly at all," Rainbow droned.

Gilda cocked her feathery head aside. "You mean... she doesn't know how you feel for her?"

"Nope." Rainbow slowly shook her head. "Not even in the slightest."

"And... this mare..." Gilda glanced up, up, up at the wind-blown barrier above them. "...it's her sister you're risking your neck for...?"

"Yup."

"Even going so far as to fly out all this way and get entangled in an ex griffon lover who—for all you knew—could have pecked your eyes out upon first glance?"

"Eeeyup."

Gilda tilted her head back down to stare at Rainbow. "... ... ...and you're sure you're not punishing yourself anymore?"

Rainbow merely bit her lip.

Gilda looked at her, then nodded. She juggled the Chalice in her grasp. "Whelp..." She stood up with a breath. "The least this universe can do is make the pain a bit more bearable on ya, soft hooves."

"Uhm... in what way?"

"Come on." Gilda winked, flapping her wings as she scaled the solid wall. "Let ol' Giddy show you the way."

Rainbow shuddered. "Please... don't say 'Giddy.'" She flew after the mare. "I'm not used to hearing that pet name without scented candles and old records of Portishay playing in the background."

"Egads! I thought were done shoveling old creepy memories around!"