//------------------------------// // Below - RoboRed // Story: Operation Westhorse // by PropMaster //------------------------------// Rainbow Dash flew...somewhere. She couldn’t rightly tell at the moment. She’d made the mistake of underestimating that cloud formation from earlier, and now the violent air around her was intent on tossing her in every which direction. Darkness was everywhere and her wings were heavy with the weight from sheets of cold rain and the effort of sustained flight. She needed to find shelter, now. Desperately, she scanned the ground while fighting the angry storm, but all she could find for minutes on end was open, wet rocky ground. Everything seemed too exposed to keep her safe from the rainstorm. She was about ready to pick anywhere to land just for the sake of making sure she wasn’t knocked dead out of the sky, when her eyes suddenly caught something illuminated by a bright flash of lightning. It appeared to be some rocky overhang with darkness in the middle - possibly some sort of cave. It would have to do for now. Putting in all the effort she could, Rainbow Dash dove hard towards her target, determined to outfly the storm’s wrath. As luck would have it, it indeed was the mouth of a cave. Seconds seemed to stretch into minutes until she finally arrived, rocketing her way in. A back part of her mind was surprised that there were lights placed randomly in the cave, illuminating it enough to where she could see, but the front part was more focused on just landing. Awkwardly accomplishing just that, Rainbow Dash tossed aside her saddlebags in some random direction and flopped against the cave wall, short of breath. Panting, she took a brief look around at her surroundings, observing the strange fluorescent glow that painted the cave’s features before closing her eyes. The cave’s lights went out shortly after her’s did. Rainbow Dash slowly stirred awake. Blearily, she slowly opened her eyes, momentarily confused as to why her surroundings were still rather dark. As her eyes adjusted and the rest of her senses caught up with her, she saw the slick wall her face was nearly up against, heard irregular sounds of dripping water and squeaking noises and lastly, felt the cold, hard ground she had been lying on. Cave floors don’t exactly make the most comfortable sleeping spaces, after all. The furry, leather-winged masses covering the stalactite-studded ceiling didn’t make the situation any better, either. Groaning, Rainbow slowly got up, joints popping and feathers ruffling as she attempted to stretch and relieve the previous night’s stiffness from her body. She turned and searched in the dim light for her saddlebags to find them lying alone against a large stalagmite, the belongings still packed tightly inside. She could barely remember what happened, but she must’ve been so exhausted that she’d tossed them aside and passed out that night without a second thought. That rainstorm had come down so hard and turbulently and so late in the evening that there was just no point in fighting her way through it. And this was supposed to be a desert for pony’s sake! With a yawn, Rainbow Dash donned her saddlebags and began trotting out towards the mouth of the cave. A metal trail of posts and railings had been laid out sometime previously alongside a relatively smooth pathway ground down into the cave floor. Both of these together marked an uneven, ascending path out towards the entrance, making navigation to the outside thankfully easy. Most of the walk was rather uneventful, save for Rainbow catching a couple unpleasantly cold drops of cave water on her head. Though as she made her way closer to the outermost entrance, the pathway began to change. The surface itself transitioned from a natural rough rocky surface to pavement, with the railings turning into neat and organized stone rows and walls that snaked tightly up alongside a extremely steep and layered rocky incline like a twisted stairway. The cave entrance arched high above the path like a vaulted ceiling. Rainbow took in the sight of the long winding path, semi-consciously ruffling her wings. Noting a feeling of stiffness still lingering from her night on the cave floor, she decided to continue following the long pathway up on hoof. Ambient noises from all around began to slip Rainbow Dash’s mind into an almost meditative state as she ascended the winding pathway. Sounds from the waking desert life outside filtered into the cave, echoing and reverberating off the walls with the monotonous clopping sound of her hooves on the still-damp path that all combined into an almost rhythmic trance that surrounded her, yet was still partially lost in the vast cavern behind her. The paved path widened out to an open area filled with row after ascending row of what looked like long stone benches. Small puddles of water leftover from the deluge of last night’s storm adorned the several of the uneven surfaces of the benches, bejeweling them with reflected colors from the early morning sky. The ambient noise from earlier had grown from a dull hum to more discernable noises from nature. A droning buzz from multitudes of insects filled the ever-so-slightly-damp air, punctuated by the occasional chirping of some species of bird. The gap in the noise once created by the void of the cave was now filled as the sound echoed back towards Rainbow’s twitching ears off of the top of the vaulted cave entrance behind her. Rainbow Dash stood for a moment in the stone amphitheater, taking in more of the sights around her. Half of the area was still covered in shadow from the rocky cave wall’s obstruction of the light of the morning sun. Clusters of desert grasses and shrubs grew among the rugged rock and dirt and sand of the terrain, invigorated by the moisture delivered from the sky and altogether making the landscape appear a little greener than before. Groups of prickly pear cacti clustered together with some sprouting arrays of different brightly colored flowers, but all of them displaying sharp protective spines, daring anyone to get too close. To the left, a pair of information plaques stood vigilantly together; one listing various facts about bats and the other showing some kind of squiggling, odd map of some “Carlsbad Caverns”. As Rainbow looked higher, she could see the barest tips of higher parts of the terrain highlighted by the sun’s rays, kissed by its red-orange glow. Rainbow turned her gaze fully towards the sky. Large, grey clouds were floating lazily above, contrasted on their fringes with the morning sunlight. The masses of water vapor were spread out in layered, almost patchwork groups that covered an otherwise deep blue sky mixed with a gradient of dawn. A light breeze occasionally blew over the area, lightly tossing wisps of Rainbow’s namesake mane around. Inhaling deeply of the morning air, Rainbow Dash looked at her wings, giving them another stretch and a few experimental flaps. Satisfied that the stiffness from earlier now seemed to be somewhat worked out, she took to the sky to get a better look at the area. Air rushed past Rainbow as she climbed higher in the sky. The slight dampness was now unnoticeable as she dove through the currents, as if in the span of a moment it had decided to return to its arid state from before the storm. The wind was more pronounced as Rainbow hovered at a higher point above the surface, surveying the land. The light bending over the far horizon from the rising sun crept over almost every surface of the desert, bathing its normally beige, rocky surface in hues of red and gold that were contrasted in darker, almost blue-grey shadows from the many undulating surfaces of the terrain. The golden canvas was mottled with green and gray from many clumps of desert vegetation and changing rock formations. The cave had apparently been located in mountain range, high above the more-travelled valley. A latticework of smaller, less-travelled roads covered the landscape, wandering unevenly in every which direction save for a few areas, with small buildings appearing alongside some of the roads. In the far-off distance, Rainbow noticed a larger pair of parallel roads from the East that were winding in a mostly Southwestern direction through the valley below. Rainbow observed the still looming clouds travelling in the direction she wanted to go ahead and behind her. In the event of another storm, it would be possible to fly above them ahead of time, but she would then be exposed to the direct sunlight as the day dragged on. Though it was not directly westward, Rainbow decided the road would be a safer landmark to follow in case of another storm, and that there might even be a safer (and possibly more comfortable) shelter along its path. And so, Rainbow decided to fly above the road, following it to wherever off-westward direction it went, keeping the jagged mountain range to her right.