Rainbow Dash looked around as she walked into the dark silence of the Everfree forest. Smoking remains of what used to be trees dotted the dark ground. Barely a whisper could be heard other than the soft, rhythmic thuds of their hooves on the dirt and pine needles.
Rainbow sighed deeply.
"Today has not been a good day so far...I really hope Zecora is there. Maybe she can tell us what the heck happened here," she moaned.
As she walked, she glanced down sadly towards her cerulean hooves.
"Aw, please don't worry. I am completely sure that she's there. You and your," here he winced slightly, remembering Rainbow's losses, "friends have told me a lot of good things about her. She really seems like a very good pony, someone who'd never desert anypony else," Soarin said reassuringly, slinging a hoof around her cyan shoulders.
Rainbow looked at him with red-rimmed eyes, an angry look on her distraught face.
"She's not a pony, she's a zebra," Rainbow replied quickly, as she thought of her beloved, close friends. She was so worried about them. She knew absolutely nothing about where, or how, or even when they were, and she could barely keep herself from bursting into sobs every time she even thought of their names.
"Right..." Soarin corrected. He cursed himself for mentioning her friends. He loved Rainbow with all of his heart, yet he couldn't keep himself from mentioning the very thing that would make the mare he loved more sad.
Shining Armor looked at Rainbow Dash sadly as he walked. He saw how distraught she was about her friends' possible deaths, which he knew had been caused by his very mother. The mother who know expected him to betray her further. Even though he wanted with all his might to disobey his mother, and actually help Rainbow and Soarin find her friends, since he was the Changeling Prince, he had to obey the Queen. Disobedience just wasn't done in the Changeling Empire. He knew there was no way he could ever betray his mother.... Sure, every year there were a couple drones who betrayed the hive and left, but Chrysalis always, always just caught and killed them. She was a ruthless leader, and Shining would never get away with betrayal alive....