444: UNFORGIVEN
It’s worse than the last time you tried to visit. The once-magnificent house had been unkempt before, but now it's grey and grubby, its clouds half-feral and unraveling, its rainbowfall reduced to a runny trickle. It’s lost altitude, too, sinking lower and lower like a leaking balloon until now it’s drifting mere hooflengths above the ground. The whole place reeks of unwashed pony and misery.
She looks worse, too. She’s curled up on what’s left of her floor, a ball of matted blue coat and tangled mane and tail and rumpled feathers that haven’t been preened in weeks. Her face is filthy with tears and snot and sweat. She’s cradling something in her forehooves, and suddenly your stomach clenches: it’s a horn, cracked and scorched black at the tip, but still a familiar shade of lavender.
You swallow the lump in your throat. You don’t want to do this, but she's your friend, and you owe her this.
“Rainbow Dash?” you say quietly.
Her ears twitch, and she lifts her head. You cringe: her eyes are raw and puffy, and they narrow when they find you. “Get out, Fluttershy,” she growls, then lowers her head and nuzzles the horn.
You take a hesitant step forward. “Please, Rainbow Dash. We need to talk.”
She doesn’t respond. She just lies there, holding the one thing she has left of the pony she loved with her whole heart.
You force yourself to take a deep breath and try again. “Rainbow Dash? I—I need to talk to you.”
Nothing.
“Rainbow Dash, you can’t keep doing this. You can’t shut yourself away in here for the rest of your life.”
Nothing.
“What about your dreams? The Wonderbolts? She wouldn’t want you to throw that away—”
“Shut up.”
She snaps it out, her voice strained and cracked, like she has broken glass in her throat.
“Rainbow—”
“Shut up, shut up, shut up! You don’t get to talk about her, you . . . you coward! You stupid, useless, worthless coward!”
You were expecting that, but it still makes you fall back onto your haunches, trembling.
“It’s your fault, Fluttershy!”
“Rainbow Dash, please, I’m so sorry—”
“It’s your fault! It’s your fault she’s dead!”
“I’m sorry!”
“Sorry won’t bring her back, Fluttershy! She died because of you! She died saving you because you were too stupid to save yourself! It should’ve been you! She should still be here!”
It hurts. It hurts to hear Rainbow Dash say it. You shudder and squirm, but you can’t escape her furious, anguished words or the memories that burn in your head. “I’m sorry,” you whisper, even though you know that your sorrow will never be enough.
“I HATE YOU!” she screams. Her eyes are wide and wild, her dirty rainbow mane in disarray, and then her hooves are crashing into your face. You don’t try to back away. You let her hit you and hit you and hit you because she’s right: it’s your fault. You’re pathetic. You deserve to be hit for what you did. You deserve the pain, so you don’t protest as the vision in your right eye goes red and blurry, or as your nose cracks, or as teeth pop out of your gums. You just sit there and weep silently for Twilight and for the broken pony she left behind.
Apostrophe, I think.
If I'm not mistaken, dialogue comma.
Really, who speaks correctly when they're angry?
And the sadness is gettin' up there; I could really go for some light fluff myself. Off the top of my head, though, I think is one of the only second-person prompts you've submitted. Pretty sure there was one that involved Daring, and I'll be re-reading anyway to know for certain, but you don't seem to mess with second-person that often. Any particular reason why?
3069214
Cripes, that's just embarrassing. Fixed.
Yeah, lots of sad in these parts as of late. I tend to feel like my writing gets shallow when I write sweet smoochy stuff, and then I overcompensate by switching to ridiculously gloomy angst instead. At any rate, I'm aiming for some lighter fare for the next couple of submissions.
And yes, this is one of two second-person submissions I've done. The other was indeed that very brief Daring Do scene from late last year. I generally avoid second-person because it feels sort of . . . well, cheap. More often than not, it's quick and dirty and unsophisticated, and it cuts narrative corners, especially when used in artsy-fartsy stream of consciousness pieces. Simply put, it requires comparatively little effort on the part of the writer. (It's not coincidence that so many godawful clopfics are written in second-person. Classy erotica is an under-appreciated art. But I digress.) Even the other "cheat mode"—i.e., first-person—is more demanding, as it requires the creation of an actual character with a convincing voice. Second-person basically just eliminates all of that by plunking the reader into the story and telling him/her what to think.
. . . and yes, I wrote this Fluttershy thing in second-person very simply because I don't know how to write "real" Fluttershy. Pinning down an in-character narrative voice for Fluttershy is hard (though I take comfort from the fact that the show writers themselves admit to having the same problem with her).
Now that you mention it, I can kind of see that bi-polarish trend. Huh. It is more useful to have a clear focus at snippets of this length, though it only makes me curious to see how that kind of emotional definition would translate into longer pieces. But until then, warm, fuzzy fluff. And rough stuff.
That's fair enough. It definitely doesn't have a good reputation overall. Although, if the situations are somewhat realistically tailored without being mind-numbingly predictable, and excessive opinion is managed, then readers are usually more successful with projecting themselves into the camerahead that is second-person. Or, there's the other route, which is essentially sensory overload by creating fantastic environments that the reader is not apt to have experience with, thus forcing them into discovery with the flow of the story. That could just be an overused hook, but some people say good writing is a vested interest itself, so meh. Don't even get me started on erotica; I won't stop crying until tomorrow. Half of it will be laughter, half of it will be legitimate tears.
And Fluttershy's kinda difficult! She's supposed to be quiet and demure, doesn't really inject opinion unless she can find relevance/concern for herself or her interests, and she's often kind of dragged into these hi-jinks in the show. Writing into that without breaking the mold takes caution to avoid making her painfully dull or oblivious. She's already shown to have a pretty slow routine, which makes the interesting situations that she can be naturally applied to next to none. That calls for a lot of creative license, and thus a lot of room for error.
I just have to wonder why this is 2P. It could have worked just fine in either first or third person. c.c
That was super sad…just wow
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
THIS IS TOO EMOTIONAL
Hi there.
I hope you don't mind, but I loved this fic so much, I've adapted it into audio format.
6967466 It's a sad story, but it's kind of you Scrib! :')