//------------------------------// // Heartlessstrings // Story: Appledashery // by Just Essay //------------------------------// Lyra guzzled her drink down, lowered the glass, and belched. "Have you considered hanging yourself?" "Lyra!" Bon Bon gasped while Caramel spat out half his pina colada. "What?!" Lyra wiped her muzzle dry. "It's a viable option!" She pointed at Rainbow dash. "Her misery would end. Her mood swings would end. And she'd stop building the mother of all bar tabs!" "But... it... that..." Bon Bon gnashed her teeth. "No! Ponies don't hang themselves!" "Some of them should." Lyra pointed with a smirk. "You met a couple." Her teeth showed. "Don't lie and say you haven't." "I don't care! And it's not even funny!" Bon Bon folded her forelimbs with a heavy pout. "Doesn't matter how dark a world we live in! Suicide is... is... mmm... not magic!" "Pffft... whatever." Lyra rolled her eyes. "Her funeral." She licked the rim of the glass. "Or not. Eh... you get my meaning." She waved her hoof at the bar tender across the way. "Another shot of rum, Barabbas!" "Sure thing, Miss Heartstrings. H-hey! I rather like that one!" Vinyl muttered, "I knew a pony once who came to one of my raves and the song I was playing stopped him from drinking arsenic at the bar." "Oh! That sounds so touching!" Caramel smiled, his eyes sparkling. "Did he ever tell you just what it was that changed his decision?" "Nope." "Why not?" "'Cuz he jumped off a bridge last spring." "Oh..." Caramel looked down into his drink, swiveling it. "Uhm... can we talk about Rainbow's depression again?" "Mmmmm..." Rainbow lifted her bleary head. "I'm not depressed, you guys." "Bull hockey," Lyra spat. "Seriously..." Rainbow rubbed her face. "Only pathetic losers get depressed." "You, ma'am, are depressed with a capital D," Lyra grunted. "And I don't mean the good kind of D, like Princess Caramel here should be getting." "Yeah, I—" Caramel did a double-take. "Wait, what?" "But I mean the kind where you're stuck where you're at doing crap-all and the world appears to be moving on at a thousand miles per hour without you," Lyra muttered. "And if you're not planning on ending it, then you gotta stop moping around in the trenches and come out to charge across no-mare's-land." "I'm not moping around. I'm not depressed! Life just... sucks, is all!" Rainbow frowned. "If I was depressed, don't you think I'd be at least crying?" "I've got news for ya, speedy." Lyra pointed. "Depression is about lying on your butt. Plain and simple. You don't laugh. You don't cry. You don't want to do anything except sit in place and wait for death to take its course." "Pffft... since when you were such a big expert, music-maker." "Cuz I've been there, champ." Lyra shrugged. "Hell, we all have." "I've not!" Bon Bon said with a grin. Lyra glared at her. "Honey, were you foaled?" "Uhm... yes?" "Then you were born there. Face it. Depression's a natural state. It's the highs that are mutant freaks of emotional happenstance, not the lows." A fresh drink was placed before her. "Thanks, Spartacus." She took a meager sip, exhaled, then gestured before the pegasus. "Why do you think I take liquid depressants on a regular basis? I'm seeking clarity. And at the end of that, a buzz. It's like a chemical roller coaster where you hug your liver and pray to keep your skull intact. For what it's worth." "Mrmmmfff... please..." Rainbow Dash rubbed her head. "I don't need any of your psuedo-philosophical mumbo jumbo." "Heh... don't knock it until you tried it, babe." Lyra winked, took another sip, and belched. "But..." She squinted as she waved the funk out of her face. "...if you wanna really get depressed, then try being an artist for a damn week. Heh... bet no flight through Ghastly Gorge—no matter how death-defying—is nearly that scary." "Sometimes, I wonder..." Rainbow glanced aside. "...what if my friends go through this kind of garbage." "I-I think we're pretty well-to-do, Rainbow Dash," Caramel said with a smile. Lyra nudged him. "Lower your skirt, girl. She means her real friends." Caramel hung his head, ears drooping. "Oh..." "Like Rarity, for example. When is she ever going to get a clean break in life?" Rainbow hiccuped, then shrugged. "Poor mare breaks her back sewing this and that. And even after showcasing her stuff at the Gala and with Sapphire Shores and with Hoity Toity she still is a virtual unknown between here and Canterlot!" Rainbow frowned. "How's that even fair?" "See, Rainbow?" Bon Bon raised her eyebrows. "Even your fellow peers have issues that drag them down to the depths. And yet—with the strength of each other to lean on—they persevere!" "Pfft... yeah..." Rainbow rolled her eyes. "Except one of my friends I have this horrible crush on. Another I used to crush super-hard on." She stifled a burp. "And the others are totally friggin' clueless!" "Then clue them in," Vinyl droned. "Stop trotting about in the dark." "And how's that going to make them understand me any better?!" Rainbow shrugged. "Take Rarity for example! Even with all of her failures, she still has this... this crazy dream that she holds onto!" "Like what?" Caramel blinked. "Pfft... I dunno. She expects Prince Charming to come and whisk her off her hooves. Even when no dude has ever so much as batted an eye at her, she still thinks that stallions are someday gonna be clambering about to marry her or some crud!" "So what's the problem with having something to look forward to?" Bon Bon shrugged. "Even if it is a silly dream?" "Cuz it's stupid, that's why!" Rainbow's nostrils flared. "I learned pretty early on that hoping for something was pointless... like wishing my Mom back or... dreaming away dad's illness." "And yet you've spent the better part of an entire year daydreaming about Applejack," Vinyl Scratch said, raising an eyebrow over her shades. "Is it just me, or do you enjoy sabotaging yourself, Rainbow?" Bon Bon and Caramel winced. Lyra drank from her glass. Rainbow... sighed, and leaned against the tabletop again. "Ouch." "You want my advice?" Vinyl muttered. Rainbow buried her muzzle in her forelimbs. "After that? Mrmmmff... no." "Try daydreaming something else for a change." Vinyl scribbled across her music sheets. "Something realistic. Something corporeal. Something you can touch, taste, and pursue with vigor... so that you can drag your life out of the muck and back to a new, waking reality." "Mrmmmfff... like what?" Lyra slapped her empty glass down. "We need to get you laid, ya moron!" "Eughhh..." Bon Bon face-hoofed. "...Lyra." "Uhm..." Caramel fidgeted. "Would it count if I batted an eye at Rarity?" "Wasn't her. It was her dresses." Lyra licked her glass again. "Admit it." "Yeah. Okay." Caramel sighed. "Let's get Rainbow laid."