In the warm colours of Fluttershy’s house, the two pegasi were talking of a strange matter. Rainbow Dash was telling Fluttershy of the strange happenings inside the forest. “This mysterious unicorn, she claimed that the forest belonged to her and I was intruding.”
Fluttershy was intrigued, “A mysterious unicorn that lives in Everfree Forest?” she questioned.
Dash replied with a nod, “A strange pony she was, she spoke some weird language which I certainly didn’t understand.” Gesturing with her hooves indicating she was crazy. “But her magic was evil, some strange incantation was casted on me.”
The other pegasus was shocked, she then started questioning her “Are you alright, did she hurt you, do you feel strange?”
Dash just looked at her, “I feel fine” She replied, “I think she was just trying to slow me down, but I was too fast for her.”
Fluttershy then settled down knowing there should be nothing to worry about. She sort of felt responsible for Dash's dilemma though, “I’m so sorry Dash, if only I knew that Angel was in Everfree Forest, you wouldn’t have to go through all this.”
The blue Pegasus just smiled and tapped her on the shoulder, “It alright Fluttershy, no one could of known.” She got up from her chair and started to walk towards the door. “I’m alright now and that is good enough for me, just enjoy the rest of your day Fluttershy.”
The yellow pegasus replied with a smile. “Good bye Dash.”
When Dash was away, Fluttershy was telling herself “She is alright, nothing wrong with her, everything is alright.”
But she had this strange feeling that it wasn’t the end of this mysterious caper.
***
When Rainbow finally made it back to her home just as Princess Luna began to raise the moon, she was quite tired and could collapse at any moment. “I could really use the sleep, what a strange day this has been.”
She laid down on one of her clouds and began to wonder, she was always thinking about the strange unicorn all the way here. Who was she, what did she even do to Dash? She thought of it as nothing and decided maybe it was time for some shuteye, it really has been a strange day.
***
The blue pony tossed and turned on her cloud as she experienced strange dreams. There were quick flashes of destruction, ponies fleeing, and her friends calling her name. “RAINBOW, COME BACK!”
Dash thrashed around, there were creatures roaming Ponyville terrorizing the village, “NO, IT CAN’T BE!” She was saying to herself. “HELP ME!!”
There were strange symbols, she could see them, what were they? “THIS CAN’T BE REAL, STOP!”
By the time night started to end, Dash was still wrestling with herself, convinced that the nightmare was real. “HELP ME!”
***
The sound of the birds brought Dash out of her slumber. She opened her tired eyes, “My head.” She said slowly, she must of had a rough night. She slowly made it to a mirror and looked into it. She laughed when she saw her hair was messed up more than usual “Wow, my hair looks terrible.”
She ran her hooves through her hair trying to keep her style. “There, all better.”
She walked a few steps when her mind started to remember the nightmare she had. What horrors she saw, the pain she felt was almost real, the words she heard still were in her mind “RAINBOW, STOP!”
Shaking her head seemed to stop her thinking about it. “Well at least that nightmare is over, it was only a dream.”
She was still a bit sleepy when she was pacing on the clouds. she shook her head constantly to keep her awake, “Maybe a quick fly will wake me up.” She thought to herself.
The blue pegasus walked to the edge of the cloud, looking down onto the ground below. “It just going to be another day of flying.” she said with a wild smirk.
Dash closed her eyes and dived off her cloud and tried to spread her wings. But she couldn’t move them, they were incredibly weak. Her eyes opened in shock “WHAT!?” she yelled.
She was now freefalling towards the ground, in panic she tried to move her wings. She struggled to open them, her heart was racing. She was scared for the first time in a long time. eventually the wings lifted and she began to slow down. She was flapping furiously to slow herself until the force of the wings started to decelerate her. Surprisingly she landed with all four hooves on the ground. When she landed, her wings quickly retracted onto herself from exhaustion.
Rainbow was shocked beyond imagining, “My wings, why is it so hard to move them!”
She glanced backwards to look at them and saw something that wasn’t normal at all. Her cutie mark was some sort of black patch. It resembled the shape of a wolf’s head. “What is this, WHAT HAPPENED TO MY CUTIE MARK?” Dash started to panic, frantically trying to wipe away the mark.
The symbol had some sort of familiarity to it, like she had seen it before. But that didn’t distract her from the fact that her cutie mark is gone. She tried to wash it off the mark but it didn’t work. It was there and hers was gone. She had a sudden realisation that this must of been the dark magic from the forest. “It was her, she has...CURSED ME!”
Rainbow couldn’t believe it, a curse. She was denying it, “No it can’t be, as twilight says, there must be a logical explanation.” She kept telling herself that.
She then thought of a way to fix it “I know, I’ll go and see Twilight; she must have a book on it or something.”
The pony then sprang into action, running towards the borders of Ponyville with tremendous speeds.
***
Life was as per normal in the quiet hamlet, ponies were shopping, having friendly chats, Pinkie-Pie riding a unicycle, all was normal. But the tranquillity of the place would break suddenly when Dash came storming through the streets towards the library. “What’s her hurry then?” Bon Bon mentions to Lyra.
“Its Rainbow Dash, she is always in a hurry to someplace.” She replied continuing to walk along the road.
Dash’s objective was in sight, “TWILIGHT!” she yells continuing her charge.
Spike leaned out the window to see who it was, it was Dash running towards him. “Uh, Twilight...”
“Spike, I’m busy.” She replied stacking some books on a shelf.
“But Twilight, Rainbo-“
“Spike, I’m concentrating.”
Just as she started to place the book onto the shelf, the door busted open. The force shook the building, which made some book fall out. “What in Celestia?” Twilight turned around and saw the tired blue pegasus.
“Rainbow Dash, what are you doing?” she said looking quite puzzled.
Dash was taking deep breaths “It- I don’t under-?”
“You’re not speaking sense Dash, collect your thoughts, why are you here.” Twilight tries to calm the pony down.
She took a deep breath and talked a bit slower. “Well, it started- when I was doing something for- Fluttershy.”
The purple unicorn sat down and Dash followed suit. “Ok, you were doing something for Fluttershy, then what?”
Dash was trying to remember, yesterday was becoming a blur. “I went into Everfree Forest to find- um, ANGEL.” She blurted out “After I found him I encountered a strange unicorn in the forest.”
Twilight gave her a serious look, “A mysterious unicorn inside the Everfree Forest?” She was thinking in her head if she read something about it.
She grabbed a notebook from her table and a pen with her telekinesis, planning on writing some notes. Dash was rubbing her eyes, showing her restlessness. “The pony placed a spell on me, A CURSE.”
Twilight gave her a weird look. “There is no such thing as a curse, I thought we proved that when we met Zecora.”
“So a curse doesn’t change your cutie mark, prevent you from flying and give you horrific nightmares!” Dash responded aggressively.
The unicorn raised an eyebrow, “So your cutie mark changing isn’t the only problem??”
“Well, I couldn’t sleep last night, I had strange dreams about of all of you and Ponyville.”
Twilight was intrigued “So you had dreams of our group, what was happening?”
Dash was cringing when she remembered the horrific images. “There were creatures attacking Ponyville, they looked sort of like ponies but were furry, like a dog and were more vicious, and they seemed to... eat the other ponies.”
“That sounds like a terrible dream, why do you think you would dream this?” Twilight replied in horror.
“It was the curse, that unicorn CURSED me, she is trying to scare me or something and make my life suck.”
The unicorn knew it must be more than that, she got up from her chair to find a book, “There has to be a book in this library on what is happening, maybe even on this mysterious pony.”
Dash just sighed, she got up from her seat and started to walk towards the door, “Well, I’m off to Sugarcube Corner to get something to eat, I’m peckish for something sweet.”
“Dash, maybe you should stay, just in case anything else happens.” She said looking quite worried.
Dash looked at Twilight, a glint of anger was in her eyes, “I’m grounded and my cutie mark has changed, I need to eat something or I’m going to scream.”
Twilight was shocked, “What’s with Dash’s sudden mood change?”
She began to really worry about her friend; she tried to convince her to stay. “I’m really worried about this dream, I’ve heard of magic that can trigger visions of possible futures.”
The Pegasus rolled her eyes in annoyance, “Ill to be back OK, you don’t need to be there for me!” Dash then stormed out of the building with such anger.
Twilight could see her eye colour had changed from the strong rose to a bright yellow colour, a strange change in her behaviour, “What is with her eyes and the aggression when she went to leave, what is happening to my friend?”
And that was it, the Pegasus was gone and the silence filled the library once again. The unicorn knew that she may have to act fast in finding an answer, Dash just suddenly got very interesting.