Near and Far

by TheMareWhoSaysNi

Simply Not

Once again, Pinkie Pie had got a little bit carried away. When the lesson was over, Rainbow Dash sneaked away without a word. She hadn't come back during the next hour. She noticed that it wasn't the first time she disappeared for a class and the teachers never said anything about her behavior. Where was she going?

One day, at lunch break, she was summoned to Principal Celestia's office. The teacher never told her why and she was a little scared of what the interview would be about.

With trembling hands, she knocked two times on the door. When she stepped inside, she saw her Principal leaned over a pile of papers, grading them with an air of concentration that made her frown and let appear very small lines between her eyebrows.

Celestia looked up, took off her glasses and asked Pinkie Pie to close the door behind her and sit.

"You wanted to see me..."

"Yes. I don't have much time but... I wanted you to ask me how well things are going lately in class. Sometimes, I feel you haven't really acclimatized to CHS."

So, the teachers started to notice. Yet Pinkie Pie thought she had done her best for no one to read through her and see her distress. Naturally, she didn't dare confessing that Starlight Glimmer had asked the whole class to ignore her and that she liked to wreck her belongings. After her textbooks, she crushed her sandwiches many times and even torn up the skirt of her uniform. Shame was holding her hostage.

"Oh no, everything's good, I swear. I'm feeling fine at CHS."

"Well, that's a relief, I really hoped I was imagining things. Please don't hesitate to tell me if there's the slightest problem, now can you?"

"Yes. Thank you," she said, leaning over.

And she left the room, as fast and as far as her legs could bring her. Celestia looked at her vanishing away, doubts strangling her throat. It seemed to her that the young girl first befriended with Starlight Glimmer but it had been some time now that she was all alone all the time. She feared Pinkie Pie to be the victim of violent bullying but as long as she didn't want to talk about it, there unfortunately was nothing much she could do.

It was a complicate realization, when you got aware that your work wasn't able to do what it was supposed to do in the first place. She was supposed to be a helping hand, a shoulder to cry on and she felt as if she were only a thoughtful presence, luring in the back, but of no other use than sheer ornament.

She resumed her papers grading. Under her eyes, lain the name of Rainbow Dash. Celestia wished she could help this student as well. But how? What was hiding behind this name implying speed, boldness and a joyful quality? Even her friend, Doctor Horse, who happened to be the young woman's psychiatrist, used to desperate cases, wasn't able to get her to speak at all and it had been two years now since they first started those sessions. She knew yet that neither was it laziness nor total apathy which was guiding her behavior.

Grade A+, comment excellent. A gifted girl... How could she, Celestia, get through the heart of such a girl? She started to have doubts about her own abilities. She was the Principal but not the teacher of the Guiding Class and she probably wasn't dependable enough to teach anything to such a student.

But it was life that had decided that she would be in her class. There had to be a reason for this all.

Someone knocked on the door, interrupting her train of thoughts. Dr. Horse (Horse Heart by his full name) was standing on her threshold.

"It's lunch break and you don't even take one minute to eat a little something? Come on, you'll finish that later. You're Principal of this school, after all. I'm abducting you."

She smiled at him and put down her pencil. He was right. After all, she could do whatever she wanted to do. She and her sister built this place and they worked hard enough to give it its excellent reputation. Now she could finally stop and breath out a little.

And yet, no one here knew what was the exact nature of her relationship with Dr. Horse. PTA would never tolerate such a thing in a school as moral as CHS, Canterlot's high school for educated young girls. Even for adults, honor was a burden too heavy to carry, sometimes.

***

The weather was still merciful on these first days of fall. In order to flee the indifference of the students from her class and Starlight Glimmer's bullying, Pinkie Pie decided she would go and eat her sandwich outside. There was plenty of room here, she had the possibilty to breath in some fresh air and to feel peaceful, even if for a short while, in connection with a relative imitation of nature. She sat under the shade of a huge sequoia, near the sports field.

Girls from another class were competing in a friendly game of soccer, a European sport that was new to women but that some of them really seemed to appreciate. But it wasn't the game which had Pinkie Pie's attention. These girls were apparently getting along very well. Often, when she passed by their classroom, she envied the harmony which came out of their presence. In her own class, nobody meddled. In theirs, all the girls were talking with each other. There was no one set apart, there was no one unhappy in the background. She regretted they had not decided to send her in this class instead.

Behind the girls playing soccer, on an isolated bench, she noticed that Rainbow Dash sat there to eat, on her own, as always. Wasn't loneliness a burden for her too, sometimes? While Pinkie Pie could barely accept hers, this girl seemed to be proudly carrying her loneliness over her shoulders, not as a weight but as a protective armor, an unbreakable shield.

Skirting the modest sports field, Pinkie Pie stepped closer to the bench. She expected she would crash into a wall again but she just couldn't help it, she had to try. She couldn't have tell why but Rainbow Dash exerted some power of attraction on her. Something, like an unknown force, constantly pushed her to come to her, to try and get her friendship. Or even a bit of her sympathy.

"Hi!" she said, sitting on the bench by her side. "What a beautiful day!"

Rainbow Dash glared at her. Once again, she came and stuck her! This girl reminded her of a puppy who would be thrown rocks at but would keep on following you anyway.

"What the hell do you want from me? Leave me alone!"

"I only want to chat a little..."

"Listen to me. Just because you're new here and I've been new here once, it doesn't mean we have things to say to each other. So please, buy yourself a personality and get off my back!"

She threw her sandwich in the nearby garbage and hurriedly started to put her things away. Her apetite was now ruined and she had only one thing on her mind, that was to get rid of this cumberstone companion as quickly as she could. She was no psychiatrist and no social assistant.

Once again, she was going to flee her and to leave her on her own. With sad eyes, Pinkie Pie looked down, the curls of her hair losing a bit of their puff, like some weird expression of nature. What a sluggard, thought Rainbow Dash. It was exasperated, she had no idea of how much.

"Look up, for goodness' sake! What are you... Some battered spaniels?"

"Do you really think... I am like Starlight Glimmer? Last time, you said I was like her. Am I really that cruel and mean?"

She couldn't help it. Without deeper thinking, Rainbow Dash lifted her hand and slapped her face. Touching her cheek in shock, Pinkie Pie finally looked up, with tears in her eyes, as if trying to figure out whether or not such a thing had just happened to her.

"Why you..."

"Aren't you able to understand who you are? If you always rely on what the others could be saying about you, you'll never get anywhere in life. Stop acting like a faithful puppy or a poor abandonned kitty and try to interrogate yourself. Are you living your life on behalf of the others?"

Pinkie Pie didn't dare to reply and looked down again. She knew a lot of different persons in the course of her still young existence, but it was the first time someone was pointing fingers on her own weakness and pressed it. This, of course, wasn't to make Rainbow Dash want to speak with her a bit more.

Herself didn't understand why she bothered giving advice to that girl. She was the happy fluffy but quickly defeated kind that had always irritated her, even more than simple silly and sappy girls daydreaming of a lifetime as housewives/servants of the Masters. To be so influenced by what the others thought or said, to let fear dominating over aggressiveness, this wasn't tolerable. Especially the last point which reminded her too much of her own weakness back in the days when she dread Him more than anything else.

"Oh, won't you please look up now! Don't be surprised that others are bullying you if you're showing them they're entitled to do so. Do you think that's going to make them want to befriend you? Grow up a little, kid."

Softly, Pinkie Pie looked up, as said. But not because it sounded more like an order than like a wise piece of advice. It was this girl... She truly was amazing! Her intelligence and her strength looked extraordinary to her. She swore she would never be weak again, just to show her she deserved to be her friend.

Without another word, Rainbow Dash grabbed her bag and got away. The girls of the other class, who had stopped playing soccer when they saw the slap, resumed their game.

So, this was it? After all this, she was going to leave anyway? Was that that hard be breathing the same air as she? Pinkie Pie hesitated for only a couple of seconds, then called out to her.

"I know I'm not very smart. I probably don't deserve that a girl as gifted and sharpsighted as you could be interested in me. But I'd like to try anyway. You know, I can see you and sometimes, you look so sad. It makes me feel sad as well. It's as if something terrible has happened to you. As if you were... broken."

Rainbow Dash was stopped in her race. The saying "still water runs deep" came back to her mind. Pinkie Pie indeed was naive, and rather silly, but she could see things with her heart. This realization moved the depth of her soul.

"So, I'd like to..."

But she didn't know what to do about it. There were so many other things on her mind and no space for anything else. If she let her in, she was going to have to put up with emotions she wasn't sure she was ready to front. So, not even letting her time to complete her sentence, she resumed walking forward, and didn't look back. In this world of appearances, those that were deceiving sometimes were breaking the wheel in the right way.

***

"I really don't know what to do..."

Dr. Horse lit up a cigarette, before gazing at Celestia's preoccupied face. She was a teacher of the most precious kind, what any student could possibly dream of - those who were really concerned about her students' well-being and good development into good adults.

Their love affair had started last summer and they somehow had been able to keep that secret. Back then, already, Rainbow Dash was under the responsibility of his council. Refusing to come to class seriously, she often left school before due time and went to take refugee in the music room. Her case was problematic but no one wanted to exclude her because of the prestige her excellent grade brought to the school. As no one was expecting her to take part in it, she won a mathematics contest on the behalf of CHS which reward was a trip to Cloudsdale. Ever since, she had the head of PTA's favor and no one ever picked holes in her behavior. It was Celestia who had decided, though, that it was in her interests and that of the school that she saw Dr. Horse.

In the past, Dr. Horse had been a psychiatrist in one of those "free school"s that welcomed teenagers who had been rejected by society. He had to front with cases that were extremely difficult but none had ever locked themselves up in mutism like Rainbow Dash.

Her file, accepted by PTA after the payment of a large donation to CHS, presented a turbulent past. Life never did her any favor and her defensiveness was understandable. Yet he knew, deep down, there were some unhealed wounds that she wanted to scream out loud, to spit in the face of the world. Of this, he was sure. But she kept it all buried inside, as if her pain had to stay enclosed within her and never weakened.

As if soothing that pain would mean her own death.

"Don't worry," he said, softly taking his companion's hand across the table. "I'm sure you're going to find a solution. I won't stop thinking about it, I swear. Trust me on it."

Trust... This was the fuel that made people go forward, to cope with the downfalls of life. To have someone to trust was an essential condition to well-being. Maybe this was where the key of her problems laid.

Author's Note:

In case you might be wondering, the structure of the story is special... But don't run away, I swear everything's going to be clearer soon

Comments

[Midday Giggle]

"Aren't you able to understand who you are? If you always rely on what the others could be saying about you, you'll never get anywhere in life. Stop acting like a faithful puppy or a poor abandonned kitty and try to interrogate yourself. Are you living your life on behalf of the others?"

So true. This is some hell of a useful advice for teenagers. Really knocks a lot of sense into the head.

"I know I'm not very smart. I probably don't deserve that a girl as gifted and sharpsighted as you could be interested in me. But I'd like to try anyway. You know, I can see you and sometimes, you look so sad. It makes me feel sad as well. It's as if something terrible has happened to you. As if you were... broken."

Rainbow Dash was stopped in her race. The saying "still water runs deep" came back to her mind. Pinkie Pie indeed was naive, and rather silly, but she could see things with her heart. This realization moved the depth of her soul.

Does the word "broken" rings a bell, Dashie? What are you hidding?