Gilda was comforted by the sight of her own room again. Everything in its place as she left it. She tried to stay busy, but her mind was decidedly elsewhere.
Less than a week after her return the first letter came. In it Dash spoke of returning to Ponyville and how they had welcomed her and the others back with a goofy party. She regarded the whole thing as tedious and was much more excited in detailing her personal training regiment and gave Gilda tips on what she should work on.
Gilda immediately set about writing a response, putting everything she could think of on paper. So it went for months and years, it wasn't quite as good as being able to see each other face to face, but it was okay. The rest of her life kind of became what she did between the letters and her own training.
Some weeks she got multiple letter from Rainbow Dash, so she wasn't surprised when a letter showed up the day after she had sent out one of her own. She prepared to tear it open when she caught sight of the name on the envelope, Firefly.
She stared at for a long time, her mind blank. She then just sat the letter down and left her room to attend to some chores she had put off. But it was still there when she came back.
Gilda grabbed up the letter and prepared to open it, but found she was shaking too bad. After composing herself, Gilda resolved to destroy the letter but only managed a tiny rip before she shoved it into a drawer.
Gilda stayed out of her room as much as possible after that. Whenever she was there, she felt like she was being watched.
When Dash's next letter arrived, Gilda had a hard time responding and it was a couple of weeks before she finally sent off a reply. Rainbow had sent several letter in the mean time the last of which asking Gilda if anything was wrong. Gilda had no idea how to respond.
Gilda busied herself with anything at all to take her mind off that stupid letter and her growing guilt for not responding to Rainbow Dash. Without response Dash's letter became shorter and more infrequent before finally stopping all together.
Gilda tried to bury herself in work and it almost worked. Some days there were whole hours when she didn't find herself thinking back to those days at camp and that blue pegasus who had been the best friend she'd ever had before or sense.
One day a letter from Rainbow Dash arrived again. It was only two lines:

Gilda,
I miss you. Please write back.
-Rainbow Dash

Gilda pulled out the drawer she'd had avoided and balled the letter from Firefly in her fist. She hated Firefly right then, she hadn't seen her in years and yet she still found a way to keep Rainbow Dash from her. A thought struck Gilda and set the letter down and started smoothing it out. She had to deal with this letter and she couldn't do it alone. She wrote a response letter to Dash, one line:

"Can I come see you?"

Less than a week later the fattest envelope she'd ever seen came to her door. In the letter Rainbow gave detailed instructions on how to get from Gilda's home all the way to Ponyville. The rest of the letter was dedicated to describing every thing they'd in various tiers of importance depending on the length of her stay.
Gilda immediately began packing and finished by tucking the tormenting letter into a pouch that hid under the feathers of her neck. Gilda felt, for the first time in a long while, an eagerness for the future.