Was What I Should Have Said Back Then
I am the most pathetic piece of shit you have ever known. The one who watches her friends' back, but can't stick behind the first one you made when you were little. If I knew myself a bit much better, I would have punched myself in the face for the stupidity that was formed upon my dimwitted self. I had a friend I abandoned out of thinking it was the right thing to do, but in reality, it was the last thing I ever done.
She was a bitch, I know. She was rude, I know. She was always trying to be by my side and away from the others, I know. It was stupid and wrong of me to over think things so fast, but what was I supposed to do? How would you react when your best friend becomes a massive issue with the others and you being the Element of Loyalty would have to solve through it? It was horrible, I was horrible, but most of all, life was horrible too.
She died. That was the main thing looping in my head as I remained still, frozen in shock. The only thing that mattered to me when I was little, the best friend who pulled through with me, and the cherished friendship that lingered in my heart still overwhelmed me. When the day she died, I knew my world was no longer the same.
It was when Twilight received a letter and brought it up at first. I...lashed out. Yelled it was nonsense, some kind of joke her and Pinkie spurred up to mess with me. I didn't laugh and neither did they when they saw me yell and curse at them. It took Applejack to beat me down to shut up and realize the terror I sprung upon them all. Fluttershy was held by Rarity closely as she stared into my burning violet eyes and seen the pain. As Applejack kept me still, I cried. I cried too much and too hard, and even yelled for the others, all except AJ that kept me down for good reasons, due to me being unstable, to stay away. I lost her. But it was my fault after all...she lost me because of me!
Gilda...she didn't deserve it, she did not deserve to die in one of the saddest causes in life. It was not suicide, she was too strong than that, it was not drugs or alcohol, she actually got herself fixed after her father died in a flying accident under intoxication. No...Gilda died from the disease in her brain. Something I didn't knew existed until Twilight had time to further explain the case I snapped on.
The letter was sent by her father, the one who surely did not know or maybe did in how I barked at Gilda and made her run away from town. If he did, I was sure enough he wanted to punish me with guilt, shower me with pain, and remind me...his daughter died with a lonely heart...and the best I could do is pay my respects at her funeral. The others insisted I do so alone, while I pleaded and procrastinated not to, but Applejack crack me open as usual, though not physically this time. She knew I was lying to myself when I said I didn't care about her. I did or I would have never felt like this to begin with.
So I left and made my way South of Equestria where Gilda's home was near a busy city called Coltroit. My head rattle from the loud crowds of busy ponies, ringing bells from the shore sides of the ports where prairies would go by with tourists. The stench of choking gas fueled the air, making me nauseous from even stepping into the air zones. However, I had to put all that nonsense behind me in this depressing city where metal once was the foundation of this place, and head over to Gilda's home. I had to be ready for anything.
It was an hour fly, not much to get through if you knew your way to one of your best friend's home. When I landed down on the ground, I stood before a wooden door where its oak sleeks was connected well with a golden knob as the hinges were polished in silver. Connected to a large yellow house where the rooftop was sloped down on both sides, allowing a chance for rain, if it rain, to slide down onto the grass or side walks. I paid little mind for now, preparing to settled this and face whatever troubles that occurred on my end.
I knocked twice, hearing those two beats against the wood sending a cold shiver down my back. I was afraid and had every rights to be. When the door opened, I was introduced to a large gray stallion with a faded black mane with an aftershave that was an Pegasus of a broad built structure. His right eye was blind, but when he stared down at me with his only seeing green eye, I felt a shiver run down my back again, this time, from his empty cold gaze. It was scary, to stare into this stallion's empty hues, especially when he lost the most precious thing in his life. He blinked twice before leaning against the doorway, as if looking me up and down, recollecting my very image to remind him who I was.
It has been 14 long years.
"Cold Brisk," I spoke up, giving a nervous smile before I looked to the side and spotted a few glass bottles of alcohol, along with the traditional banquets of empty bottles of scotch. I figured...he would resort back to his old habits.
"Squirt," he responded when his nickname caused a struggle to occur in my system. I blushed in embarassment that he remembered that nickname.
"I read the letter," I stated calmly, rubbing my right leg nervously as I found trouble staring him in the eye. He knew why, and it made him no different than he was way back.
Cold sighed softly, moving aside and motioning me inside. I did not wait for a second gesture as I entered into the dirty home where he closed the door. Bottles everywhere, trash piled up in the corner, and some pills inside the bathroom, with the caps open while the door was only half-way open. It was the nature of a father like him, to fall so far into depression, that it was not funny. It hurt.
When he passed by me, I could only watch him limp, where I noticed the strange deformed right foreleg of his that made his walking difficult. Cold was a veteran, he didn't earn those permanent wounds from battle, he earned them after he came back from them. As a retired worker, Cold Breath worked in the Weather Factory up in Cloudsdale with my dad, while me and Gilda spent our time at the camp. Gilda had no parents, truthfully, she was an abandoned egg; gryphons that would abandoned their young when they know there is something wrong with them. When Gilda hatched, it was unclear how she survived on her own, though, even if she never explained it, her dad told me someone important, benevolent, and shined bright came to her aid. I didn't understood it, and still don't now, but he always felt thankful.
Gilda was adopted by this stallion who lost two precious ponies...his wife, and unborn foal. She could not give birth in time and her heart gave out like a light. Dad told me that working was the only way he could escape the world. It took the presence of Gilda and how they got along from sharing ice cream when he went with my dad at the camp to pick me up, a whole lot that he cater to her. Ponies called him nuts, mostly since he suffered two accidents at the factory, forcing his retirement early and Gilda to replace him the best she could, but nuts for the fact he managed to raise a carnivore who had no one but him...and me in her life.
Now Cold was alone...he had every rights to throw himself into this sort of mess.
I followed behind him, unsure in what to say about this. Surely enough we both knew how this house was so silent, that when we made it into the living room where only a couch and old antenna TV upon a black coffee table; this place was not so great. Sure there were counters and nicely placed flower plants to give in some feel in this lonely messy place. Emptiness became the calculated measure to our silence in this gloomy setting of sorrow. I was wondering when it would be the time this guy would snap and destroy this place...but it never came to that.
We sat down on the couch, aware that going upstairs was not really necessary. Only time I was up there was when I slept over Gilda's place when my Dad and mom got into several fights. For now, things were not so loud, no cracking jokes came back and forth (to which if I remember, Gilda and Cold always cursed at one another...it was the only way they could get along and understand one another). When he turned on the TV all we saw was static, reminding me that Cold didn't really had any of those channels the others did when TV and stations came around, he only gotten this TV for...Gilda. I looked at him to my right, remaining quiet as usual, but I could see the pain in his eyes still, those haunting orbs that gazed into the white static as if trying to search for something, but that something was not going to come to him...again.
I looked down, forcing my gaze away from the sullen stallion and gently looked up at the screen before trying to enlighten the topic.
"So," I began calmly, "do you think Princess Celestia could finish working on the roads near the South Port and at least help workers get a bigger paid at the Factory?" Surely enough it would spur some thought into him to figure out a solution or response to that question, but what I received back was a simple shrug, retrieving back silence. I frowned again and looked at the window where the dark drapes covered with their purple linings. I wonder why he never gotten some mare in his life to help him out around the house, but I don't think it was enough for him. Cold didn't really needed any partner in his life, or anypony in general, but when he met Gilda, it was different. He always called her when she was out too late with me, check her homework and made sure she was doing alright, and simply following the best parent routine he could muster up for it was the first time in his he was a father...and it was the first time in his life...that he lost something so precious to him.
Surely, which could be true that even if a mother's affection and dwindle and sever by the death of her own foal, it takes her further into depression than bearing one. However, when a father loses their foal too...they not only become depress...they not only become an victim to the world and hate whoever they see...no...it's more than that. The father...loses themselves. They lose a piece of them that they can never get back. Even if you have another foal, the one you lost is gone forever; whatever history you had with it, died with it. That part of you that could have been something now is nothing. Cold lost Gilda, so his pain was far greater than mine.
The silence continued to grow its heavy weight upon the room as the TV's screen remained on the same empty channel it was turned on to be. Minutes passed and I was slowly beginning to lose it, but I kept quiet still, I glanced at Cold time from time and still just saw him looking into the TV with his usual quiet gaze. I bit my lower lip, I knew this was going on for too long, but then it began to grow further where I had to do something. The longer he remained silent, the faster I was losing myself. So I opened my mouth and prepare to crack the silence.
"She talked a lot about you," Cold spoke first.
And then I was silenced.
"Everyday she came back from work, she always kept saying she wanted to go to Ponyville just to see you, but she never had the time. Work was always pulling her tail and it was simply growing frustrating with her. Gilda had tempers, most of the time I had to be the right father to soothe these tempers, but most of the time her tempers would end up with her crying. It took me over a year back then to get those fools in the factory to let my daughter have at least a vacation, even forcing me to use her medical problem. It worked, though, I kept it secret from Gilda, not wishing to have her think she was not independent of herself. It was sad really, I didn't think it would be the day I felt this house so quiet for the second time be so...calm. Usually, the first time was new where Gilda finally left for a week, before coming back with a smile. And that was the day she went to Ponyville," He stopped, looking at me for a response.
I was frozen in shock, where a hard layer of guilt slam into my stomach as tears began to water up in my eyes. But I couldn't cry now, I had to play it cool...but it wasn't playing cool I was aiming for, it was not to bring more grief into Cold than he already was.
"S-she came back alright, took me by surprise I'll tell you, heh," I rubbed the back of my head, avoiding eye contact, only to hear a disappointed sigh under his breath forcing me to look up at him, "She was awesome as usual. It was like we never even departed in the first place. I never knew though..." I became silent for a bit, frowning as I finished my sentence, "that she had medical problems. I usually thought she was like that because well...gryphons were supposed to display a culture of pride, toughness, and all that other stuff by their natural traits."
"I didn't either when I looked up her medical information even further when I was trying to get her a vacation," He added, causing me to become shock. We both were taken back by this, but why didn't he became so alerted by this to begin with? The answers were in his eyes. He did what he thought a father would do, make his daughter happy. They didn't have the money...they couldn't get the issue treated out.
"You think," He continued, turning his gaze back to the TV as I heard a change in his tone, "If I had done something...if I had not work my entire ass off to get her the vacation she deserved...to sell as much as I could in this house to find some solution to get her treated...that...that she might still be here?" No, I knew it would expected of this, but even now I was not ready to face him with such guilt as I saw those tears run down his eyes, "Do you believe...that if I begged at Celestia's hooves, the very mare I served, that she would do whatever magic she had or procedure to ensure Gilda was going to survive this hellish world? Or do you think...that maybe...it was me, that didn't act too sooner, that didn't pay too much attention to her adoption forms, and that was too weak to even run for two minutes that she died because I did not act?"
I started to tear up, staring down in shame as I could feel his sorrow, pain, and lost will to live.
"Who am I, Rainbow Dash," It was the second time in his life that he said my full name, "Who am I? Am I even a father, fit to be one? Why...why does Fate have so much animosity with me? What have I done so wrong to deserve this? I worked hard...I fought hard...I loved hard...and I did so much for the smallest form of life that two pathetic pieces of shit abandoned just because their egg did not look right. Have I done something wrong?" I could not answer that question, how could I? For when I struggled to look up at him, I could only see his body trembling, lips quivering, and eyes shaking from the warm slow tears of sorrow coursing down his cheeks.
"This life...life without her...the only thing in this world that mattered too me...is gone. Like my wife and foal, Gilda is gone. I am alone...forever...I will not be bury by my own...I will not tell stories to my own...I will not carry the burden of parenthood anymore...no...everything is gone. My life is empty...ALWAYS EMPTY!" He shouted in fury, throwing an empty bottle of whiskey into the TV screen, causing sparks to fly out and pieces of glass to scattered on the ground. I flinched from this action, now terrified at his state of mind.
"Do you know what it's like, to wake up now to an empty house, where the TV is always on and the laughter of the most precious thing to you on earth is laughing at some ridiculous cartoon, just to escape the mortal affairs of life? How about heading to the kitchen and making two bowls of oatmeal, only to remind yourself that you're all alone in this house? I have been going through this for so long...so long and when she was gone...I was gone too! This life that was given to me like some form of merit, where the strange mare of light placed before me...what the hell happened there? What could have be so wonderful and unimaginable, be ripped away from my very hooves!? Why? Why do I have to suffer when all I ask for is to die before the one I love. Gilda meant the world to me...and I can't get her back. She's gone...Dash...and I can't get her back. She's not here in this world anymore...and I can't get her back!"
The anger in his voice was replaced with sorrow as I struggle still to think about what I needed to do in order to stop this stallion from plunging himself further into the pits of despair. But one thing came to my mind, that struck me by surprise...even if it was only a small chance in succeeding. As he cried and continued to question himself in what he was doing and if it was even capable of being consider right, I moved forward, brash and intended to do whatever I could to soothe him, and hugged him.
I felt his body become tense, his voice paused, and shivering depleting into a state of stillness. I held him close, wishing I had gotten that letter sooner than now to be there for him. His warmth was powerful and even though he smell strong on alcohol, there was nothing that would break this hug until I was sure he was going to settle down. I kept still from there as minutes progressed and he rested his chin upon my shoulder where I could feel his warm breath going against my ear. From there, he spoke softly, weak upon his own figure as the strong stallion who did not care how the world viewed him, was stuck in a downward spiral and I had to do whatever I could to fish him out.
"I miss her still...I miss her so much, Dash," he muttered and I could only nod in agreement.
"I miss her too..." I muttered, "I always...did deep down when she left." Was it right that I lied? That I had simply just said those words when I knew truthfully that the way I acted towards Gilda, blindly without noticing her reasons...were they justified? Honestly, I could not feel such degree of good in them. How could I? Here I am, holding a destroyed father who lost everything to the world and telling him only small bits of the truth to which the rest remained as blind answers. If I had knew Gilda was always stressed out at work, doing whatever she could to take care of her father, and even praying to come visit me, I would've treated her differently. I would have explained to the others about her case, maybe even bring some sense into Pinkie Pie to cut off from trying to get to me when Gilda was becoming simply annoyed. I could have done so much to provide the best I could for her...but would it have been worth it? Would it at least provide some sense of joy to her? Now here I was...again...holding a destroyed father where I carried the biggest guilt of them all and I could not be forgiven for it, for the only one I had to be forgiven by for it...was dead.
So I held him tighter, not caring how long it would have been, but as we kept this close...silence returned...that sense of realizing one's fault...and the home...didn't feel so empty anymore. We...were alone no more.
~fin~