Gummy didn’t understand. His Pinkie had left him. She had brought him out to the swamp to play in the water as she so often did, allowing him an hour or two to indulge the animal within - blissful time he usually spent meditating in silence, on the beauty and wonder of his life, or the delicious taste of swamp flies.
But this time there had been no games. No laughter. No kisses, tasting of chocolate and filling his kind and generous heart with delight. There had been only silence. And when he had tried to inquire, to ask what was wrong with his Pinkie so he could make it better he had only made things worse.
He had tried to latch onto her mane, and whisper comforts in her ears as he so often did - but she had cried out, and scolded him. Pushed him away. As she had removed the hair from between his teeth - those strange, pointy abominations he had never been allowed to have before - he had tasted her tears, sweet and delicious like Sarsaparilla, but oh so heart breaking.
And he had realised. Had known, right then - she didn’t love him anymore. He had done something, or said something, or eaten something that he shouldn’t have, and now his world, as bright and pink and fuzzy as she remained, was breaking apart before him. And as he stroked her mane, with the yellow one - he normally would have been saddened, at not remembering her name, but today he didn’t care - looked on, afraid and saddened, she hugged him. Just once. It was warm and cuddly and soft and safe, as it always had been, but it was also goodbye.
Because then she was gone. Without a word, and without a warning. And he was still there, wondering. Hadn’t he been a good Gummy? A clever Gummy? A kind Gummy? He had been a handsome Gummy, he knew, and a caring Gummy. But… it hadn’t been enough.
As surges of emotion - pain, and fear, sorrow and regret - flowed through him, filling him with an agony no lesser gator could comprehend, Gummy blinked back tears. Dimly, he was aware that he hadn’t moved from that spot in four days. For one such as him - so brimming with life and energy, never still - that was almost unthinkable.
Gummy did not care, for he was broken. Broken like a candy wrapper, sailing through the wind and filling it with the delicious scent of eclair, dancing on the breeze, twirling before his eyes, enticing him. Tempting him. Calling him. He darted forward, lunged for it, and found it to be real. And then, from atop her head - a reversal Gummy would never have believed possible a few short years ago - she stroked him.
“Heya, Gummy. I missed you, so I came to visit! I know Fluttershy said I probably shouldn’t, but…you missed me too, right?”
And suddenly, Gummy was whole again.