//------------------------------//
// "What If This Is As Good As It Gets?" 
// Story: Appledashery 
// by Just Essay 
//------------------------------//

	Rainbow Dash lay in her sleeping mat.

Curled up.

Hugging herself.

She stared blankly ahead, navigating the fuzzy texture of darkness.

Hours passed.

At last, with an aching shift to her shoulders, the mare sat up.  She rubbed her eyes and looked towards the other side of the tent.

Applejack lay face-up, her lungs slowly expanding and contracting.  It could have been imagination playing tricks on Rainbow's eyes in the dim starlight, but she could have sworn she saw the mare's freckles curved in the shape of an undying smile.

Rainbow exhaled.  She slicked her bangs back and glanced at the zippered tent flap.





On softly padding hooves, the pegasus trotted out of the cave.  She left her friends sleeping behind in their various tents.

Before her, a circle of logs surrounded a pile of debris where a fire had been.

Rainbow stood above the vacant camp.  She stared at the mess until her ruby eyes became one with the ashes that they were reflecting.

She exhaled.  Her head tilted up.  With a flap of limp wings, Rainbow Dash lifted up into the air.





Cricket song serenaded Rainbow Dash as she drifted above the pine trees and rocky outcroppings.

Soon, the mouth of the cave—and the camp—were so far away that they barely registered as a blur.

Rainbow Dash perched on a dull cloud.  The mists around her glowed with a pale sheen.  A full moon illuminated her sighs as she perched upon the roof of the world.

There, in melancholic solitude, with nothing but the wind to echo her breaths...

She repeated six words to the heavens.  Over and over again.  Until the substance of those sacred syllables lost all cohesion... melting off the tip of her tongue like so many tears.

And it wasn't until an hour had passed... and Rainbow's quiet sobs had relaxed into a gentle hum...

...that she found the courage to smile.  It was a heavy thing, a weight that pulled her back down... so that she returned to her tent and slept soundly across from her best friend.

Like a silent sentry.