I like to think that I know my friends, my family members, and my spouse pretty well. But, the truth is, life is a lot more realistic if we take all of our loved ones and multiply them by two. That's how many ponies we truly know... or at least think we know.
What I mean by that is that there's never a single representation of another pony in our perspective. There is, in fact, two of every pony... the pony we know intimately, and the pony that we perceive... that we imagine... that we hold fantasy conversations with when we miss the real them.
Distance exists in many ways. There's emotional distance, psychological distance, and—of course—physical distance. All of these act as factors that separate the perceived pony from the real pony we ultimately reflect when associating in person.
The reason I bring this up is because—at this point in the story—I'm recalling something that Rainbow Dash once taught me during one of our many heart-to-hearts.
She said that "Love happens twice, and it divides your life in half. There is the time that you know nothing except for loving, and then there's the time when you know nothing except for being loved. Both are super different... but also super awesome—in their own way."
Sometimes I think she forgets that the same works with friendship. There comes a point of no return, a point of immutable bond and trust.
And nothing can break that bond, no matter how jagged... how deliberate...
Or even how sinister.
Honestly, I can't blame her for forgetting about it every now and then... or at least trying to.