Darkstar took a deep breath. Eyes closed, she could smell the fresh slightly damp grass under her hooves, she could smell the fragrance of the wild flowers that grew all around her. The midday sun beat down, though as it was late spring, it wasn’t too hot. Then again, nor was it too cold.

In spite of herself, and her outwardly calm demeanour, Darkstar shivered. She hated the cold. The pure white unicorn hated everything about the cold. The cool breeze blew through her grey mane and made her shiver for a second time. It wasn’t the wind’s fault. She just hated the cold.

“We never used to,” she said out loud, talking to the empty air, for there was nopony else there but her. She however knew differently. She was never truly alone, Darkie lived in her head, her alter ego, always there, always taunting her, always hurting her.

“We’ve hated the cold ever since we were attacked, idiot!” Darkie spat back at her meeker self, her voice changing, her closed yellow eyes scrunching up tight as her other persona came to the fore. “You know why we hate the cold!”

“Of course we know.” Darkstar whimpered, her voice changing yet again, the brash cocky tone disappearing like morning mist into the fresh crisp sky. “I want to forget, but you won’t let me, will you? You make me relive it every day…” She trailed off to silence, standing where she was, her eyes closed. Breathing in through her nose she could feel the panic rising in her body, the familiar fear, the terror that had been her assault.

Again, she relived it, every waking second of it. How the three stallions had drugged her four years ago, how they had followed her until she had collapsed on the sidewalk in Canterlot. Darkstar could see in her mind’s eye their leader as she had been forcefully thrown into the back of his van. She had been sick, she was sure, from the nauseating effects of the drugs in her system.

She had tried to fight back, of course, but debilitated as she was it was a token gesture, not that she was the most capable of battle Mage at the best of times. She had tried to escape, she had cast her invisibility spell. It had all been for naught. He had cast his own spell.

“Uugh…” Darkstar shivered ever more violently now, and it was nothing to do with the breeze. If she concentrated really hard, she could feel the enchanted cold seeping into her body, the magical cold front permeating to her very core. He had overpowered her as easily as if she had been a new-born filly. Once the inhibitor ring had been wedged on her horn, she had known, even in her drugged state, there was no hope left.

“I hate the cold.” She said to the empty sky. “We hate the cold!”

Presently though, after what was just a few minutes, Darkstar opened her yellow eyes. The vista that stretched before her really was beautiful. Wild, unkempt grass grew almost the whole way up her legs, except at the very edge, where she was stood. Behind her, there were trees. Bare trees just starting to regrow their leaves after winter. She breathed in again, deeper this time. The woods – and all of Equestria, for that matter – was in a state of rebirth and renewal.

“All except us…” Darkstar muttered sadly. “We don’t renew. We don’t regrow. Everything moves on, except us.”

“Because we can’t!” Darkie screamed, stamping her left forehoof into the grass, crushing the sharp blades beneath the sole of her hoof.

“You won’t let us, Darkie.” Darkstar whispered.

“That’s why we’re here.” Darkie replied, her temper rising at her perceived weaker self. Here, incidentally, was Ghastly Gorge. Specifically, the edge of Ghastly Gorge.

Darkstar looked down, over the edge into the four hundred metre deep yawning chasm before her. She couldn’t see the bottom, thanks to a low lying mist that obscured it. She knew however, from past school trips, that the bottom was littered with very sharp, very pointy, very lethal, boulders and rocks. “Why did you bring us here, Darkie?” She added tentatively, though of course she already knew the answer.

“You know why.” She answered sharply, as pointedly as the boulders that were certainly below her. “It’s time, Darkstar. It’s time to end it. Even you can’t mess this up. All you have to do is walk forwards two steps.” Then, the white unicorn’s voice took on a taunting, mocking tone. “You don’t even have to jump this time…”

"Why though?” Darkstar asked herself simply, her voice as soft as the gentle breeze that blew through her grey mane. Had anypony been stood next to her, they wouldn’t have heard her question, her voice was so soft. She heard it though.

Darkie heard it. She took a step closer to the edge of the gorge. The toes of her forehooves were over the edge. All it would take was a step forwards. Little tiny specks of rocks fell from the edge of the cliff due to her movement. All she had to do was take one more step.

“Why can’t I move?”

Darkstar actually laughed at the foalish question that her inner persona asked. “You know why, Darkie.”

“I want to jump!”

“No, you don’t.” Darkstar took a step backwards from the edge of the gorge, though she was still stood perilously close. If the wind was any stronger, it would blow her over the edge, taking the decision out of her hooves.

“I want to die!”

“No, you don’t.” Darkstar reiterated. “You don’t want to die any more than I want to live…”

“What in Tartarus do you know?” she spat back at herself, scuffing her white hoof into the dirt until the rocky ground began to hurt her toe and the whitewall. Not that she cared about that in the least.

“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” asked Darkstar with a thin, humourless smile.

“What is?”

“You don’t really want to kill us, do you, Darkie?”

“Shut up!” Darkie snarled, taking a sudden step forward towards the edge of Ghastly Gorge, this time a whole load of loose rocks and stones were sent cascading over the edge, to be lost in the misty depths below. “I’ll jump! I’ll kill us!”

“No, you won’t.”

“Oh?” Darkie scoffed derisively, “And what makes you so sure of that, Darkstar?”

“Because there’s nopony here to stop us…”

“Wh-What…what d-do you mean?” Now, for once, there was a hint of fear in Darkie’s cocky, self-assured tone. Almost like a young filly who had been caught out in stealing cookies from the jar.

For a long time – it might not have actually been a long time, but that’s how it felt to her – Darkstar didn’t answer herself. Her yellow eyes were focussed on the swirling mists in the gorge. Far away, she could hear the sounds of snapping jaws and screeching hisses. She assumed, rightly, that the quarray eels were fighting over some hapless prey that had either wandered in, flown in or fell into the gorge’s depths.

Briefly, she imagined jumping, falling to her death. Idly she wondered which would come first. Death from the fall, death from impact with the ground or maybe, they would be snapped up by a hungry eel. She wondered if it would hurt, hitting the ground. “Surely it won’t hurt more than being eaten by a quarray eel…” she wondered to herself. That earned another shiver. She recalled biology from school. “A jaw big enough that four ponies can stand up right inside, razor sharp teeth bigger than our head…no, I don’t suppose it would take an eel long to eat us…”

“Stop stalling!” Darkie snarled, “Tell me what you meant, ‘because there’s nopony here to stop us’, tell me!”

“Because…” and she paused, taking a deep breath before she continued, “Don’t you see?” she smiled then, the pure white mare seeing everything quite clearly, for once, thanks in no small part to Ruby Tuesday’s therapy sessions. “You say you want to die, that you want to hurt us, that you want to kill us, but…every suicide attempt you’ve ever done has been half-hearted, hasn’t it?”

“Half-hearted?” Darkie was wary now, not sure where Darkstar was going with this. Still, she didn’t step back from the edge. Surely, all she had to do was step forwards. Lean forwards even. They were so close their weight would do it. Still, she stood quite still.

“Yes. Half-hearted.” Darkstar’s soft voice grew in confidence as she spoke, recalling for once, her long time therapist’s lessons in Ponyville. “Every time you’ve you’ve tried to kill yourself, to kill us, it’s always been where there are ponies who can stop you. You’ve always made sure there’s a safety net. Every time.”

“That’s not true!”

“Yes it is.”

“That’s…That’s not…it’s not…” Darkie tried to protest, to argue against what Darkstar was saying to her, but, ultimately she couldn’t. Deep down, she knew her meeker persona was right in what she said. “Shut up!”

Darkstar took another deep breath to steady herself. She had been expecting this response from herself to her own argument. Doctor Ruby had told her over the four years to be strong in the face of Darkie’s outbursts. She had to stand up to herself, to not be so much of a doormat. “It’s true! Darkie it’s true! You have to see!”

“It’s not…it’s not…”

“Yes! Yes it is!”

“Okay.” Darkie’s voice went quiet. She stopped shouting at the chasm before her and, panting hard, she at last stepped back. “If that’s the case, prove it. Give me an example.”

Darkstar smiled. In their sessions, Doctor Ruby had said Darkie would do this. She was ready. For the first time since she had arrived at Ghastly Gorge, the pure white mare sat down on the long wild grass. Still, that said, she saw no reason not to tease herself, just a little bit. “Okay, example number one. We ate all that cabbage one night and they you locked us in the bathroom and farted. But! You had left the window open so we didn't die.”

Darkie couldn’t help it. She laughed out loud, even in spite of her previous outburst of temper. Poised at the very edge of the gorge, she laughed. “In my defence, Air Raid cooked that night. I thought it would kill us!”

Darkstar nodded thoughtfully as, for once, she lifted her head up and actually looked at the clear blue sky, only dotted here and there with the odd cloud. “That was perhaps your most serious attempt at suicide, Darkie, willingly eating Air Raid’s cooking.” She laughed then, joining in with her other self in her mirth. “There aren’t even words to describe how bad we smelled after that night. Air Raid even invented ‘stinkerific’, just for us.”

“Hmhmm…” Darkie agreed, “We did smell like a Yak’s butt, didn’t we?” Presently, after a few minutes, Darkie stopped laughing though and turned her yellow eyes back to the deep gorge in front of her. “What about that time with the book?” she asked. As a counter argument it was admittedly weak, but Darkstar’s joke had caught her unawares.

“The book?” Darkstar replied, suddenly unsure.

“The one we borrowed. From the Princess. The one we kept,” Darkie answered smugly.

“Oh, yeah, I don’t know how you convinced me that Princess Twilight kills ponies with overdue library books. She just teleports them back to the library.” Darkstar shook her head, “Pitiful.”

“I was sure that would have worked,” mumbled Darkie in her head.

“Maybe if you had burnt the book,” Darkstar countered, again, she thought back to the four years of therapy with Ruby Tuesday. “Maybe if you broke into the Canterlot Royal Library and burned every single book, then danced in the ashes, then maybe Princess Twilight would’ve banished us to the depths of Tartarus.”

All the humour left Darkie’s voice when she replied, “I’m already there…”

Darkstar stamped on this immediately. She knew from her sessions that if she allowed Darkie to wallow too much down this route, she’d be back in her special padded room in Air Raid’s house faster than she could sneeze. “Alright,” she said in a serious, determined tone that got Darkie’s attention, “The very first time we cut our fetlocks.”

“Good times…that almost worked…”

“Horseapples!” Darkstar snapped harshly, well, harsh for her at any rate. “You did it in Air Raid’s kitchen, with Air Raid and my brother in the very next room, for Luna’s sake!”

“He’s my brother too,” Darkie replied petulantly, pointedly avoiding the very good point that her other self had made. Because she was right, wasn’t she? “Well, alright then, oh! Wait! What about all the other times, huh? Answer me that.” She stomped her hoof into the wild crushed grass, as if she had made an unbeatable point.

To Darkie’s surprise, Darkstar just laughed. “You actually sleep during our sessions with Doctor Ruby, don’t you?”

“I…I don’t care what that mud-pusher has to say, as long as she lets me play with my knife.”

“You shouldn’t call her that…”

“Why not?” Darkie snickered harshly, “It worked on those earth ponies in Trixie’s Place, didn’t it?”

“You know full well it did,” Darkstar replied. She easily recalled the events of that fateful night, oh…three and a half years ago now. Not long after she had been released from the hospital following her first suicide attempt, Ruby Tuesday had recommended to Air Raid that she take Darkstar out, have some fun, do what they’d normally do. Be normal.

‘Look where that got us,’ she thought sadly. Where it had got them, was Air Raid bringing along her marefriend at the time, an overweight mare called Appleglow who worked as a receptionist at the Crystal Castle of Friendship. As a result, Air Raid’s attention hadn’t been on her. Unsupervised, Darkie, firmly in control, had spotted a group of eight earth ponies. Four stallions out on a date with four mares. She had spent the evening flirting outrageously with the stallions. While she had been ignored at first, when she had lifted her grey tail and presented herself, that was when the four mares finally took exception.

“Aww…c’mon Darkstar,” Darkie taunted, “That had been fun, showing off like that.”

“Was it fun afterwards?” Darkstar asked acidly. “Was it fun when four large, heavily built and very strong – not to mention pissed off – earth pony mares beat the living tar out of us?”

“So? My plan was to get beaten to death. It almost worked…” it had, too. As a result of her actions, she had suffered several broken ribs, a broken nose, fractured collar bone and a broken leg. Earth ponies could hit. Really hard.

“No!” Darkstar exclaimed, stomping her hoof into the crushed grass. “No, it wouldn’t! Maybe if the fight was outside in an alley, or the street, maybe. You started it in a place where you knew full well there was security and first aid facilities. Like I said, it was a half-hearted attempt.”

“But…but…well…” Darkie wanted to argue, but again, it was hard when her other self was right. “Shut up!” she snarled, “What about the train lines, huh? That attempt was rock solid!”

“Oh please, really?” Darkstar snorted derisively. “Don’t make me laugh! You laid on the train tracks hoping the Friendship Express would run over us!”

“It-It…it was a good plan,” Darkie stammered defensively, knowing what was coming.

“Oh yes, it was a good plan, alright. Right up to the point where the enchanted cow catcher on the front of the train pushed us safely off the line until we were twenty feet away.” Darkstar smiled, though there was no victory in her voice.

“I…forgot, about that, okay‽” Darkie retorted. And she had, in truth. Had she been thinking straight, she would have remembered that since there had been a few well-publicised, and fatal, derailments due to fallen tree branches and other obstacles, all the Friendship Express engines bore enchanted cow catchers now, and had done for over ten years.

“And, your follow up idea was just as bad, admit it!”

“What? I tried jumping in front of the train!”

“Uh huh.” Darkstar’s sarcastic tone said it all. “What you mean is, you galloped onto Canterlot Train station, at midday, surrounded by several trained unicorn guards and jumped in front of the arriving Express.”

“Yes!”

“And what happened?”

“Sh-Shut up!”

“What happened?”

“Two guards and a conductor who was on his break caught us in their magic and held us safe and sound until Air Raid could come and get us.”

“Exactly my point.” Darkstar said in a tone that said ‘that was that’. “Half hearted, again. Again and again, you try and you try, but every time, you stop just short, didn’t you? You come so close, you could go all the way, but you don’t. Every time. I could go on, you know; there was the med overdose, starting Raid’s car in the garage, the gas oven, the hanging-”

“I hate you.” Darkie interrupted herself, cutting Darkstar off before she could mention the utter disasters that had been the attempts to kill herself by jumping off of Air Raid’s roof. Even she had to admit those had been weak. Being just a one storey villa, Air Raid’s house wasn’t really high enough to do more than break a bone or two.

Not that she hadn’t tried. One attempt had her landing in a rose bush underneath her window that Air Raid had planted the day before to cheer her up, and the other, well, the window had closed on her way out, trapping her tail and leaving her hanging on the outside of the house for an hour.

“I know.” Sat on the grass, Darkstar hugged her forelegs around her barrel, hugging herself as tightly as she could. Not too tightly though, a couple of her ribs were still a little tender. “Darkie, I love you.” She couldn’t believe she had said that. Not out loud, anyway.

“What? Why?” Darkie asked cautiously, she couldn’t believe she had heard that, either.

“You hate me for being weak, you hate me because you know you need me. You can't live without me.”

Darkie didn’t know what to think. They hadn’t spoken honestly like this since she had been created four years ago. She took a very deep breath, very, very grateful that Darkstar was hugging her like she was. Or was she hugging her? She didn’t really know. Did it matter? “I...I don't want to die, Darkstar.”

“I know, Darkie. That's why you won't let me, us, die.”

“What?”

“I know the truth of you.” Smiling, the pure white unicorn thrust herself up from her seated position to stand upright on her hind legs. She took one fluid step forwards, the dancer in her allowing her to move as easily and naturally on two legs as most ponies moved on four. Smiling a wide smile as the gentle breeze lifted her grey mane, she began to dance a ballet along the very edge of the gorge.

“Careful...you'll fall!” Darkie squeaked before she could stop herself.

“You won't let me fall. You won't let us fall.” Darkstar replied to herself, unable to keep the sheer smugness out of her voice. Silently she offered up a ‘thank you’ to Doctor Ruby, and, as she leapt and twirled along the edge of Ghastly Gorge, she made a mental note to buy her a bunch of lilies for their next session.

“Shut up!”

“You know the truth, Darkie.”

“Sh-Shut up!” she screamed as she danced. Darkstar had closed her eyes, and Darkie didn’t open them. They danced together in that moment in time. For once, they moved together as if they were one being. They moved together, danced together and lived, in that one perfect moment, together. They danced like they were on a stage and the whole world was watching. Even though their eyes were closed, there was no danger at all that they would fall.

Pirouetting now, so close to the edge that her trailing hind leg was actually over the four hundred foot drop, Darkstar fired her broadside into H.M.S Darkie. “You don't want to die any more than I want to live, do you, my love?”

“Yes! You’re right! Okay‽” Darkie squealed, real fear in her voice now she had been forced to admit it, to confess and to open up to herself. Now the cat was out of all the bags, she wanted to be as far from the edge of the cliff, as far away from Ghastly Gorge and its quarray eels as equinely possible. “Please! Stop it! Stop dancing! Stop it!”

“See?” Darkstar asked herself rhetorically as she stopped her dance and sat down, several large paces away from the edge.

“But...” Darkie cocked her head to one side, confusion rife in her mind now she was sat down. Honestly? She was still processing what she had told herself. “Y-You don't love me!” she cried, tears welling up in her yellow eyes now the dam of truth had been burst open. “You shut me up with those drugs!” she lifted her hoof and ran her frog along the enchanted silver ring that was sealed around what was left of her horn. She could feel the arcane runes inscribed on its surface. “You hem me in with this damned inhibitor...”

Darkstar smiled, once more she hugged herself tightly with her forelegs. “Of course I love you, Darkie. You're me. You’ve always been a part of me, even before you were you. I need you, Darkie.”

Darkie cried. She never, ever cried, but she cried. Hot wet salty tears flooded from her eyes and dripped down her cheeks. She cried like she had never cried before. She cried like she’d never cry again. Which was stupid, because she never cried. Ever. “I need you!”

Darkstar tightened her hug upon herself, not even wincing at her ribs. She knew she needed a cuddle, and who better to give it than herself? “I…Darkie I love you, even though you hurt me.”

“You ignore me!” Darkie cried like a wounded foal. She hated being ignored more than anything. Ponies kept saying that Darkstar had to get better, that she had to heal, but all these ponies wanted was for her to go away. “I don’t want to go away!” she screamed, tears dripping onto the grass. “I want to live! I’m here too! I hurt you just to hear you screaming my name!”

Darkstar realised then the injustice she had committed with herself. All Darkie wanted was to live. To be noticed. That was why all the suicide attempts had been failures. They were cries for attention, for acknowledgement. She just wanted to live. Was that so wrong? “Da-Darkie…I-I'm...sorry.”

The simple gesture wasn’t much, as she wiped her eyes dry on the back of her hoof, but it was a gesture nonetheless.

“I know,” Darkie replied a few long minutes later. She appreciated Darkstar drying her eyes. It was a gesture, and it was a start. That was all she wanted, to be loved. With a smile on her face, Darkie got up and turned her back on the gorge. She set off back towards Ponyville, walking at a steady pace through the trees. “I'm you, remember?”

As she trotted along, the sun seemed warmer, the birds in the trees sang louder and more melodious. Even the grass seemed greener and the sky bluer. All told, it was a nice day.

It was a day to live, and to love.