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// By Your Side - Romance, Tragedy 
// Story: Krizak's Compendium of Concise Chronicles 
// by Krizak 
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I shouldn’t have aimed so high, Dashie.

All I ever wanted was to be by your side. I’ve wanted that before I even met you. The day colour entered my world, I knew I wanted to be with the pony who brought it to me. And when I learned that the mare I had been crushing on was that very same pony, I knew you were my destiny.

You resisted me at first. You thought a fillyfriend would keep you grounded, keep you from your high-flying dreams, but I persisted. How could I not? How could anypony, within hoof’s reach of their goal, turn away and give up? I was an irresistible force, and you were the immovable object… except that one day, your heart did move, shifting to the side to make room for me.

I thought the first rainbow I ever saw would always be my happiest moment, that nothing would ever be able to top that feeling, and in the end, nothing could. Nothing except the pony who made it all possible, who makes all things possible.

But I wasn’t alone in your heart. You still had your dreams, and they didn’t include me. They couldn’t include me. I was as prepared as one could ever be for having their heart ripped out on the day your letter came, but the inevitable didn’t happen. You looked over the letter at me, your eyes filled with hesitation rather than elation, and I knew that I had ruined everything for you, that your loyalty was going to destroy your dream… so I made you accept. I made you Pinkie Promise to accept.

And I started working.

Day and night, working my hooves to the frog, asking Twilight for her science, Applejack for her know-how. The first one was thrown together as quick as can be, but it was destroyed as quick as can be with a simple gesture. The second one had to be better, faster, stronger. It had to be able to keep up with you and withstand you. It had to be able to keep me near you.

But the day you were to leave arrived, and the day it would be finished was yet to come. But it was close enough that a song of hope had built in my heart, and so I jumped in and took off, determined to join you on your way.

I don’t know what went wrong. I never will. Something broke, that I’m certain of, but the crash broke so… so much that it’s impossible to tell what broke first. All I remember was one moment, soaring through the sky, feeling maybe a fraction of what you feel every day and savouring it, and the next moment, tumbling end over end towards the ground, my contraption falling beside me.

I saw the ground approaching, and I thought of my parents. My sisters. The Cakes. Our friends. And you. Mostly you, Dashie. I thought about you all the time while I was alive, and now I was going to die thinking of you.

And then there was a streak of blue and I was suddenly tumbling in a whole new direction along the ground. When I finally stopped moving, I saw you, and I began to thank you, but… you weren’t listening. You weren’t moving. You were barely breathing.

That’s why you need to wake up, Dashie. I need to thank you. I need to ask your forgiveness.

I need you.

Please wake up, Dashie.

That’s all I want now.

Please wake up.