A dull night hung dark and dismal over the rooftops of Ponyville.
Rainbow Dash didn't make it her way home. The shadows there were impermeable. Instead, she rested on a cloud about halfway towards her destination. There, she lay slumped on her chest, staring out at the Equestrian expanse. She couldn't face Sweet Apple Acres, nor did she dare face in the direction of the Everfree Forest. Even then, at that very moment, she found it very hard to look at Sugarcube Corner without wincing.
Her existence so far had been a very short one, and already she was running out of things to look at or think about with regret.
She winced... and the wincing made her sigh... and the sighing lifted her up like a limp balloon, so that she drifted through the shadows, making her gradual way to the loneliest corner of town.
Lyra, Bon Bon, Caramel, and Vinyl Scratch stared blankly across the table. The air at their end of the room was so dead silent that an ordinary cough or a wheeze would have monumentally shattered the moment.
Rainbow Dash's blue hoof wandered past six whole empty glasses. At last, her limb grasped a container where a line of apple cider danced about halfway. Her nostrils flared, and she raised the glass to her muzzle. She sipped, and drank, and guzzled. At last, once all of the contents had rolled down her throat, she wiped her muzzle clean without so much as an exhale. A pair of dull ruby eyes gazed past her sullen reflection in the table's adjacent window. The bar's neon sign flickered backwards, but there was no reaction in the pegasus—not even an ear twitch.
Bon Bon fidgeted. She glanced aside at Lyra, then at the other two.
Vinyl Scratch gulped, pretending to be interested in the perpetually unfinished music sheet lying on her end of the table.
Lyra Heartstrings arched an eyebrow, teeth clenched.
Rainbow Dash sighed for the space of ten seconds, slumping back in her seat as she turned and twirled a glass around in her hoof. At last—the cup slipped free, clinking sideways across the table. She attempted picking it up, but the container kept slipping free. She winced slightly, bending the crook of her hoof as she felt numb tingles creeping up her limb.
"Hmmmf..." She muttered in the deadest of tones. "...guess I'm gonna have to get used to that again."
Silence.
Caramel was continuously chewing on his bottom lip. Finally, he murmured, "Did... did you lose your job, Rainbow?"
"Shhhh!" Bon Bon hissed.
"What?!" Caramel stammered.
"Girl, don't even start," Lyra said. "The mare wants to drink? Hmmmf. Let 'er."
"But that's all she's done since she got here! She hasn't said a word to us!" Caramel faced Rainbow, his eyes glossy. "You haven't said a word to us, Rainbow."
"This is a bar, isn't it?" Rainbow grumbled.
"When the horseshoe fits," Vinyl droned, lowering her shades just long enough for a pair of magenta eyes to peer through. "Sometimes, Rainbow, it's a safe haven for warm-hearted friends to congregate and share their feelings."
Bon Bon winced. Lyra merely rolled her eyes.
Rainbow sighed again, staring at the empting glasses. "...mmfff... it's not... it's not my job." She sniffed, her face deadpan. "It's never my job, really."
"Oh, well that's a relief," Caramel exhaled with a soft smile. A few blinks later, he winced again. "Unless... it's something worse."
"It's her love life," Lyra rasped. "Or lack of it."
"Lyra!" Bon Bon frowned at her. "Honestly!"
"Well, what else could it friggin' be?" Lyra waved at pegasus. "It's just damn circles and circles with her!"
"The least we can be is supportive—" Bon Bon said.
"Of what?! Of this?!" Lyra gestured at all the empty glasses. "Doesn't look too damn healthy to me!" She scooted forward, leaning over the table. "Rainbow, what you need is to break the cycle."
"Mrmmmff..." Rainbow leaned her face against the tabletop. "I am the cycle."
"No, you're a bullet." Lyra smirked. "A Celestia-Damned straight line! Pt-owww! Pinggg! Y'know?" She raised her own glass, grinning. "You know what you want in life and you go and grab it! Or you go and do it! Or you become it!"
"Except when it came to Listing Breeze," Vinyl Scratch muttered.
"Erm..." Lyra winced slightly. "Yes, well..."
"Or Gilda," Vinyl added.
"Well, jee, when did death go on vacation and make you her friggin' substitute?!" Lyra frowned in the deejay's direction. "I had no idea they were using turntables at funeral processions, ya genocidal murderer of buzzes!"
"Just saying," Vinyl remarked with a shrug. "If you're a straight shot, odds are you're gonna ricochet off of stuff and you're gonna bounce hard."
"Yup. Well." Lyra drank from her glass and slumped back. "I'm all out of snazzier metaphors. Who's for getting wasted?"
"Everypony, please," Bon Bon gently chided. "I know that misery loves company, but this his ridiculous!" She cleared her throat, then smiled Rainbow's way. "You really shouldn't give up hope, Rainbow."
"Meh."
"No, really!" Bon Bon leaned her chin forward on her hoof as her cheeks went rosy. "I heard that your best friend—Fluttershy—made a statement today."
"Oh?" Caramel glanced over.
"Yes!" Bon Bon's eyelashes fluttered. "She and Big Macintosh did the Lover's Nuzzle in front of everypony in Sugarcube Corner!"
"Awwwwww!" Caramel cooed, eyes sparkly.
"The whole town's talking about it."
"Mmmff... oh yeah?" Lyra muttered, trying to lick the remaining cider from her empty glass. "Who was on top of who? And did it break anypony's bones?" Bon Bon's hoof slapped her shoulder. "Owie!"
"Point is, Rainbow..." Bon Bon resumed smiling in the pegasus' shoulder. "We remember you telling us about how shy and soft-spoken Fluttershy used to be. 'That pony's afraid of her own shadow,' you used to say. And... lo and behold!" She spread her forelimbs, grinning. "She's found her very special somepony! What's more, they've both expressed their mutual love for each other in front of their friends and loved ones! Can you imagine that?! Two adorable souls—once socially awkward but now empowered through their very own love! What was once impossible has become reality and—"
By now, Rainbow Dash was frowning so hard that her chin could cut diamonds.
Bon Bon's ears instantly folded. "Oh no." She drew back into her seat cushions, grimacing. "I-I think I just triggered something."
"Way to go, fuzzball," Lyra grumbled.
Rainbow clenched her eyes shut, sighed, and shook her head. "Mmmff... no... no, don't... don't be hard on yourself, guys. I..." She gazed ahead with dull eyes, looking through the table and its empty glasses. "I'm... happy for Fluttershy. I truly am. That's not the problem. She found what she always wanted and needed... and... and yet..." She ran a hoof through her mane. "I-I think... she always had it... or the gest of how to get it."
"How to get what?" Caramel asked, blinking.
Rainbow lingered in silence for a bit. "Such a stupid word," she blurted. "'Love.' And it's stupid 'cuz some ponies get it better than others. Maybe it's the ponies descended from the first morons who invented the word. I dunno. I think I'd be better off without it."
"You'd be better off..." Vinyl cocked her head curiously to the side. "...without a word?"
"Without the weight of it," Rainbow muttered. "I mean... what's the big deal?" She shrugged, glancing at the others with a gaping muzzle. "Why's it gotta be so important?"
"The sales of Hearts and Hooves cards," Lyra said with a smirk.
Bon Bon grumbled.
Lyra cleared her throat and stared into her empty glass. "Or... y'know... social connectivity... a sense of emotional worth... psychological security in dealing with one's finite mortality." She licked the glass again and shrugged. "Need I go on?"
"No, cuz everypony already goes on... and on and on and on and on... and... and maybe we're just all polluted, y'know?" Rainbow gulped. "Me. I. Maybe I'm just dirtied by it. It's harshed my flow. Gotten me... all clogged up on the insides. I mean..." She looked up, biting her lip. "I... I used to be awesome... didn't I?"
"What... do you mean used to be?" Caramel remarked.
"All I ever cared about was winning. Racing. Competing." Rainbow twirled another glass. "Flight Camp. The Wonderbolts. Even with Gilda... and..." She winced slightly. "...Listing." She exhaled. "I just wanted to be the best... not be with the best. Cuz I was the best... and... and the best would always be there for other ponies." She sniffled, frowning again. "The best doesn't let down her friends." She gulped hard, her eyes darting up. "I used to be awesome. But now?" She shook her head. "I don't know what I am anymore."
Caramel smiled. "I don't think you ever stopped being awesome, Rainbow."
"But... Rainbow," Bon Bon spoke, looking up. "Before you were awesome... you were also precious."
Rainbow blinked at that. Her ears folded back.
Bon Bon smiled. "I think part of you knows that, but it shares part of the same real estate as the part of you that likes to boast and be all she can be. It's just that... the precious part has been floating around the surface a lot more lately."
"Yeah, what she said," Lyra droned.
"And... y'know... that's okay," Bon Bon said. "It's okay to need... and to feel needed." She sniffled, her eyes moistening slightly. "I know I do." She bit her lip.
Caramel rubbed his eyes and stared into dead space.
Silence.
"I can't keep track anymore," Rainbow eventually muttered.
"Can't keep track of what?" Vinyl asked.
Rainbow fought to keep her eyes dry. "Of what I want and what I deserve." She held a hoof over her brow, shuddering. "Sometimes... I-I think I give myself impossible goals because I know that if I won them, then I would have everything... and... and I wouldn't have the need anymore. And... and I don't think I could live like that... or with that."
"As opposed to what?" Vinyl asked. "A world where you knew you could win her, but she couldn't win you?" Her brow furrowed beneath her horn. "Because you know she'd not have you as a goal to begin with?"
Rainbow looked up, eyes twitching. The others shifted uncomfortably.
Vinyl adjusted her shades. "We are talking about a mare, aren't we?"
Rainbow Dash looked down into her empty glass.
"Rainbow, you're a cool kid," Vinyl said. "The coolest of the kids. But Lyra is right. Cycle or a straight line, if you wanna stop experiencing this sort of crud, then something's gotta change. And that could be a good change as well as a bad one."
"How is giving up on the one soul I love more than life itself a good change?"
"Who said anything about giving up?" Vinyl said.
"Huh?"
"Maybe it's not about winning, Rainbow." Vinyl's eyes remained trained on her as she calmly sipped from her first and only glass of cider. "Maybe it's just about crossing the damn finishing line."