Red light filled Rainbow Dash’s mind, and when it cleared, Cloudsdale greeted her, bright and early, just as the sun began to rise.
It was the flight camp where her entire life had changed. The obstacles were all laid out, just as they had been on that fateful day. She remembered it with absolute clarity—the site of her first sonic rainboom. This was where she’d given it her all and shaped her destiny and those of five other very important ponies. She hovered above as the wind caught her mane and tail.
Wait, what? No… that’s right. I’d never actually done any of that. Well, or maybe I did, in a sense. I wasn’t even a she back then. I don’t know. Time doesn’t make sense anymore. Was I always Rainbow Dash or did I become Rainbow Dash? Did Rainbow Dash always exist?
Rainbow shook her head and groaned. All of this introspection was going to give her a headache, and it fit her poorly. For now.
There was a sudden flash of red and Dash felt the breath knocked clean out of her. Her back ached from some powerful blow from above, and she struggled to breathe. She flapped in a desperate attempt to right herself, but ended up plowing into a bank of clouds. Dazed and confused, she stared up at the sky.
There, lined against the sun, a blue mare hung.
“What… Rainbow Dash…?” she slurred as she recognized the profile and shook her head to clear her senses. Squirming, she popped out of the cloud and studied her assailant more closely. The mare’s mane and tail blew in the wind as fierce red banners. “Oh. Red Dash. Okay. I kind of wasn’t expecting the whole ‘ripping out my colors’ thing to be that literal.”
“You shut your damned mouth!” the red mare shouted as she landed on a cloud above her. She stamped her hoof in defiance. “I am Rainbow Dash! You are trying to hurt my friends, and I won’t let you!”
She moved, becoming a red blue that was faster than most ponies could react to. Rainbow Dash dived out of the way with a cry of panic. For the first time in her life—or, at least, in her life as Rainbow Dash—she felt sluggish. Surety of purpose and the passion to take action had been stripped from her, and all of her instincts on how to react to being attacked simply did not exist within her any longer.
“Stop, stop!” Rainbow Dash shouted. “I don’t want to hurt anypony! That’s the whole reason I’m doing this, for my friends!” She dove off the cloud and struggled to outfly her fiery copy.
“Liar!” Red Dash snarled. “You’re going to end everything! You’re going to kill everyone! I won’t allow it, I can’t allow it!” She put on a ferocious burst of speed and dove down at her. The two collided with incredible force, smashing Rainbow Dash out of the air. Almost nose-to-nose the two fought, wrestling and beating at one another, each searching for any advantage she could get. They tumbled through Cloudsdale, plowing through rivers of liquid rainbow and practice thunderclouds that crumbled under their combined force. Finally, their momentum sufficiently spent, they slammed into another cloud bank while lightning and rainbow drops cascaded around them.
“I’m not lying!” Rainbow Dash heaved through the grip on her throat. “It… it has to stop! I c-ca-can’t do it again. The wheel… I’m so tired…”
The pressure on her throat tightened, and Red Dash grit her teeth. “Some Element of Loyalty you turned out to be. I am loyal. I am Rainbow Dash. What you want doesn’t matter. I’m going to kick your pathetic flank up and down Cloudsdale, and then I’m going to free our—my friends.”
“You… can’t free them!” Rainbow Dash choked. With every bit of strength she could muster, she got a hoof under her angry simulacrum and shoved, freeing herself. “If we dream them back up, it’ll just be the same thing all over again! Again and again, just more pain!”
“You think I care? I’ve never had a problem with that, with having to work hard for what I get!” Red Dash spat. “Let me lay some truth on you, sister, the only thing causing all this misery is you! You and that… Hawa!” She flipped back to her hooves and advanced. “Just a couple of damned egg-heads who are so upset that they overthink things. You can’t get a free lunch, even in a universe where you create everything. You know what I think? I think you two are the ones who need fixing!”
Rainbow Dash didn’t have time to reply, racing off as her counterpart sprinted after her. She dove among the shops and corridors of the Cloudsdale district they’d plowed into, darting through columns and trying to shake her foe. Soon, she’d lost her in a sculpture garden, filled with shaped formations of ice and snow in the shapes of trees, houses, hills, and other things found on the ground.
“You can’t hide from me forever!” Red Dash’s voice echoed through the garden, seeming to come from every which way at once. She’d have been impossible to locate if it weren’t for the fact that she boldly flew down the center, her eyes alight with fury.
Who’s so upset she can’t think straight again? Maybe I can take advantage of this. Rainbow Dash weighed her options quietly. She took a deep breath, and from behind her cloud gave a yell. “Did you even pay attention? Didn’t you see what would happen? Even if things are better for a little bit it’ll always be the same! The wheel turns back on itself.”
The simulacrum’s head turned this way and that, struggling to locate Rainbow Dash. Then she called back. “You’re the one who doesn’t understand! This is all horsefeathers! It’s the kind of nonsense a unicorn would think up in some tower when he got bored! The world doesn’t work that way!” She charged a set of statues and kicked it with unrestrained might. The line of intricate buildings, and the cloud bank under them, immediately evaporated into freed vapors. “And if it does work that way, I don’t care. My friends are going to survive, even if I have to stomp that stupid wheel to pieces!”
Thus creating exactly the situation I hoped to avoid. My passion will destroy the world by locking it in place. Rainbow Dash shook her head and bit her lip, struggling to find an answer. Come on, Rainbow Dash. Think. Think! What would Twilight Sparkle do in a situation like this?
And, as if she’d always been there, Twilight Sparkle rose up. Not in person, but from within Rainbow Dash’s own heart, her soul. Hey, Rainbow Dash, Twilight’s voice bubbled up into her mind, what seems to be the problem? Did you make it up the mountain okay?
Uh, Rainbow Dash thought back, yeah, sure did, Twi. Listen, I’ve got a little problem—
An emanation of a concept which represents an aspect of your being is trying to destroy you and take your place? Twilight asked, in an academic tone that might as well have been discussing the best way to catalog a library.
Yeah. Pretty much that. Rainbow glanced out from her hiding place. Red Dash was busy destroying the rest of the garden with a sort of ravenous intensity, kicking up a terrible storm of razor-sharp ice and snow. It wouldn’t take long for her counterpart to reach her position.
Ooh, this is so fascinating! Twilight squealed. I’m learning all sorts of things about the deep inner workings of the soul. How did this happen, exactly?
Never mind that! What do I do to defeat her?
Twilight paused for a moment’s thought. Well, you’re obviously not going to beat her with main force. Indeed, if she’s just an emanation of your being, that wouldn’t be very meaningful anyway. Really, the only way you’re going to overcome this situation is by working through it.
I don’t think she’s in the mood for a heart-to-heart! Rainbow Dash protested.
No, but she’s a part of you, Twilight said. The only pony you need to convince is yourself. You can’t settle this because you haven’t really understood the reason why you’re doing this. Uhm. Whatever it is that you’re doing. She paused again, and asked uncertainly. What is it that you’re doing, anyway?
Sorry, Twi, Rainbow thought back, and then dismissed her. She stepped out into the open.
“You’re nothing without me!” Red Dash screamed at her, preparing to heave the tornado of ice spears at Rainbow Dash. “We’re supposed to be the hero! You couldn’t have fought your way through all those impossible odds without the passion to beat them!”
“Yes,” Rainbow said with quiet determination, “you’re right. The thing is, though, I don’t want to be the hero anymore, because I can’t win. I can’t beat this threat. I can’t save everypony because there is no saving to be had. Even if I win, I am a failure, because winning is an illusion, and so are you.”
Rainbow Dash lifted her chin, closing her eyes. “So I choose not to fight.”
Red Dash’s final scream of “Coward!” echoed in oblivion even as the icy shards struck.
* * *
Rainbow Dash whimpered in agony. Her legs kicked, the muscles in her abdomen locked up, released, then locked up again. Her eyes squeezed shut as something tore itself free of her. It was excruciating, and yet she wanted more than anything to grab onto it, hold it, and keep it close like a life-preserver.
The pain faded, and Rainbow Dash opened her eyes. There was nothing here, it was like the moon all over again, but somehow peaceful. There was still light present, countless specks of light in the distance. It made her wonder how many wheels there were. How many Books, how many trees? In the pool of water by the tree’s trunk she saw her own reflection.
It’s gone! That the red stripe was missing from her hair didn’t really surprise her, but actually seeing it like really drove the change home. The other colors in her mane were still present, but where red should have been, there was nothing. It was identical to the starry expanse waiting above her.
“Where do I go from here?” Rainbow Dash sighed, she turned about, taking in her surroundings. She wasn’t the only thing here. The tree had come with her, and the mound that she’d sprawled out on. If she concentrated she could still see her body. She could see Hawa biting her lip nervously. She had curled up beside Rainbow Dash, her tail wrapped around Rainbow’s side protectively. Her hoof toyed nervously with the mane on Rainbow Dash’s body, feeling at the missing stripe.
Rainbow Dash sighed. Concentrating on herself, she focused on the color orange, holding it in her mind as she had red. With a forceful tear, she ripped it from her soul.
A wave of sensation washed over her, something she felt she should remember, but couldn’t quite place. A tightness seized her stomach, a rush of blood went to her head, and then she fainted.
* * *
When she came to, the first thing she noticed wasn’t visual. There was the smell of lavender and lilacs. She was wrapped in the most comfortable sheets she had ever imagined. Candle light provided the room’s only illumination. The combined sensory assault brought a blush to her cheeks. The faint clatter of hooves on stone approached, and then the bed shifted as something climbed up and into it. Rainbow Dash’s hair stood on end as something nuzzled at the base of her mane.
“Wake up filly, there’s still so much you’ve yet to experience!” The voice was like water, halfway between a conspiratorial snicker and a delighted chuckle.
“I…” Rainbow Dash drunkenly replied as she struggled to turn about in the sheets. She finally managed it and found herself face to face with another copy of herself. This one’s mane was a vibrant orange, and it ran silky and smooth. Unlike her own tangled rat’s nest, Orange Dash’s mane was brushed out to its full length, long enough to reach her knees if she stood up straight. “What?”
The simulacrum’s tail flicked seductively. “Mhm.” She looked Rainbow Dash up and down as Rainbow wrestled her way free of the sheets, taking in every inch of her. “Only recently stripped of your virginity, and you’re already trying to escape pleasure? You could at least try somepony a little more experienced before giving up.”
“W-what?” Rainbow Dash stammered again. She stepped back without looking where she was going, and tumbled out of bed before slamming into the ground. The orange copy braced her head against her hooves and smiled down at her, flicking her tail every so often.
“Gosh, that really must have hurt. Somepony’s gonna have to nurse you back to health.” Even as the copy spoke, a row of stallions—and an occasional mare—filed in. All of them wore nurse uniforms. Rainbow Dash did a double take, graping as she spotted Big Macintosh among the others.
“Big Mac! What’re you doing here? And why are you in that—”
Her copy cut her off before she could continue. “Nurse’s outfit? Leftover baggage from before I would think. We weren’t always the hottest young flier in all of Equestria, after all. A shame we never really made use of that, either. Fluttershy would have been willing with a little persuading, I’d imagine, but I suppose we’re unlikely to find out now.”
“I don’t understand what I’m supposed to do.” Rainbow Dash reached around for her feelings, for that passion that had always informed her in the past, but realized there was a conspicuous void in its place. Just thinking about it carried the word “Coward!” back up to her, but the word no longer held any force for her. Cowardice is meaningless without bravery.
A hoof placed itself against her side and she stopped moving. She looked up at Big Macintosh, who no longer wore the embarrassing costume he had before. He smiled at her, and she felt that now familiar tightness seize every muscle in her body. She looked away as a huge blush blossomed across her cheeks. The stallion folded a leg around her and lifted her back to her hooves, and it took all of her effort to avoid tumbling right back down. Her simulacrum flipped through an old sports magazine nonchalantly; a stallion was on the cover with a liquid rainbow splashing down over him.
“Pull yourself together, Dashie,” Orange Dash said, “we’re so much cooler than this.”
Rainbow Dash shrugged off the comment and pushed away from Big Macintosh. “Are you going to attack me like the last one did?”
Orange Dash discarded the magazine, letting it tumble to the floor. She raised an eyebrow at her and laughed. “I’m not going to attack you; you’re already doing that to yourself. You’re the one attacking me.”
“What are you talking about?” Rainbow Dash groaned, shrugging off Big Macintosh’s comforting hoof. “I’m just trying to make things right.”
“No, you’re just trying to be a dedicated virgin. You’re trying to deny everypony ever born and who will ever be born the pursuit of passion. You’re trying to cut me out of you, just like you did with Red.” Her lips dropped into a frown, her eyes glared daggers into Rainbow Dash, but she did not move. “Red was my best friend, you know? Yellow is just so damned needy.”
Rainbow Dash winced and pushed Big Macintosh away entirely. She faced Orange and tried to find the words she needed, to understand what about this emanation she needed to reject.
“It’s not fair,” the copy growled out. “What you’re doing isn’t going to make anyone feel better but yourself. Your logic? It doesn’t follow. When did a quest to get your gender back turn into a quest to free your world from an abstraction? So you can’t win the way you wanted to; now everything needs to end?”
Rainbow Dash couldn’t muster the energy to be angry with her, her words were hollow, and a part of her couldn’t help but agree with some of what her copy was saying. This whole mess does seem a little… extreme. I’m denying so much to everyone… “Shut up.”
“Why? Am I starting to make too much sense?” Orange asked mockingly, then her voice turned rich with pleading. “Think of your friends! Think of Ponyville! You’re blind if you don’t realize that the world we live in is wonderful, that it’s full of endless sensations, ideas, and partners just waiting to be experienced! You don’t like the lost ponies? Fine, don’t be like Hawa. Stop trying to control everything; make those ponies reincarnate. You’re the Dreamer, everything would be just fine if you’d let ponies live.”
The simulacrum nudged her with a hoof. “The freedom you’re looking for is no better than a prison. It means not feeling anything, not caring about anything. The entire premise is just stupid.”
“You don’t understand. You literally cannot understand, and I don’t care. I’m not going through this again.” Rainbow Dash folded her hooves under herself. Even so, it was hard. Big Macintosh stared at her mournfully. Didn’t I promise we’d be together after the end? It’s getting so hard to remember.
“You’ve twisted this journey from being about everypony else, to being all about you. I guess that’s okay though, since you’ll be the only thing left when you’re done.” Orange glowered at her. “You care too much to let this all go.”
“I don’t care.” Rainbow Dash shot back bitterly as she started to drift, but that wasn’t true. Rainbow Dash did care, quite a bit. That, however, isn’t what this is all about. This isn’t how much I care about others, it’s how much I care about sensation and experiencing the world.
Clearing her head, Rainbow Dash spoke with quiet certainty. “There are beautiful things in the world. Our desires—yes, even our lusts—drive us to new and greater heights. We connect with the world around us through desire.” She shook her head. “And that, ultimately, is part of the problem. Our need to cling to the things we want and avoid the things we don’t want is one of the principal reasons we’re yoked to the Wheel in the first place. We can’t bear to let it go, and so it drags us up and down again and again. Desire is an illusion.”
Taking a deep breath, she exhaled. “I choose not to feel.”
Just like that, the butterflies in her stomach and the tightness in her abdomen faded. The blush fell from her cheeks even as the heat vanished from her body, and so too did the world with the bed, her orange copy, and Big Macintosh.
“You’ll always regret this,” Orange whispered into the black.
* * *
The pain was worse this time around. She had never really expected the process to be easy, but an agony that set her writing across the ground in tears seemed rather extreme to her. When the pain faded and the tremors ceased, her mane had lost another stripe, revealing more of the starry void.
Rainbow Dash sighed and let her hoof dangle into the pool. Although it created ripples, this did not obscure the reflection, merely distorted it. She couldn’t help but think about her own words. It seemed like no part of herself wanted to go through with this. So why the urgency? What gives me the strength to turn my back on how things are supposed to work? She buried her face into her hooves and waited for something to take her away again, but nothing did.
I hate it here. I’m so alone. How am I supposed to survive without Firefly or Hawa? What about Twilight and the girls? Tears welled up in her eyes again. I’m afraid. I don’t want to be alone again. I’ve only come this far because I was afraid of what would happen if I failed, cast out alone among the Lost.
And… that’s what comes next, isn’t it? She glared down at her reflection, where her tail flicked and revealed its yellow stripe. She closed her eyes and sought it out, hearing the faintest of bitter sobs. Like a surgeon wielding a knife, she sliced and cut it free. She then dove into the pond. Though it was freezing, she didn’t mind, a small benefit that came of carving the need for sensation, for warmth, out of her soul. She scrambled for something to help her register how deep she was, how wide the hole was, but it may as well have been an ocean. An ocean that contained knowledge of everything there was to know in the world she grew up in. She didn’t feel doubt, she felt vindicated from without. She sucked in a breath to cry out in triumph, and then the ocean flooded into her.
* * *
She opened her eyes in shock, but found herself on the floor of her cloud home in Ponyville. There was no ocean, and the knowledge of all things had faded along with her sense of vindication. Once again, she felt hollow and uncertain. Poking her head outside of the window, she saw only gray clouds for as far as the eye could see.
On every available surface stood pictures. They were displayed proudly in ornate frames of brass or gold or wood or pewter. Posters and flyers of Rainbow Dash at various events covered the walls. From down the hall, a soft sob echoed, emanating from her bedroom.
Grimly, she shambled through the hall towards the bedroom. She felt weak. The stripping of her passions and desires had left her devoid of much of the drive she’d had to begin with, but still she pressed on. Other needs drove her now.
Another sob echoed through the house, and she hurried on, the pictures surrounding her blurring. She stopped at the door and, in a surge of courtesy, knocked.
“What do you want?” a bitter, broken voice called from beyond the door.
“I want to talk,” Rainbow Dash replied. For many reasons, few of which she could articulate at the moment, her voice sounded flat and emotionless.
“Well.” A pause. “It’s your house.”
Rainbow Dash sighed and pushed the door open. A yellow-maned pegasus lay curled up in bed with a box of tissues. Around her photographs, pictures of ponies who loved and were loved by Rainbow Dash, surrounded her. The yellow emanation stared Dash down, and she couldn’t help but feel small in her gaze. For all that the tearful creature was pitiable, there was something intimidating about her at the same time that she couldn’t quite put a hoof on. Rainbow bit her lip and looked at the pictures instead.
“What now? You took them away from me,” Yellow said. “Red and Orange. You want me to be alone?”
“What’s wrong with being alone?” Rainbow Dash replied. “If everypony would have just left me alone, It never would have been necessary for me to be Rainbow Dash in the first place. I could just be me.”
“How could you say that?” Yellow cried out in disbelief. “I hate being alone…”
“When I get rid of you, you won’t be alone, you just won’t be,” Rainbow Dash replied matter-of-factly.
Yellow was wracked by another round of sobs. She dug for a tissue and rubbed at her nose. “Not very encouraging!”
Here I am, surrounded by all these photos of ponies I love, and yet… I don’t really feel lonely, or depressed, about them not being here. Her gaze fixed on Yellow Dash, whose tearful eyes lingered longingly on each one. All contained within her this time, it seems. I’m living vicariously through her. So, if I’m living through her… With some trepidation she bit down on one of the photos with her teeth, placed her hoof on it, and yanked. The image ripped with barely any effort, and the yellow emanation gasped.
“What are you doing?! Stop that! They’re all I have left!” The simulacrum dove off the bed, pinning Rainbow Dash against the floor.
“So, you don’t agree with what I’m doing either?” Rainbow Dash felt cold. She sighed. “Part of me hoped you’d feel differently than the others.”
“No!” Yellow seemed surprised by her own actions, and jumped back with a yelp. She cowered behind a nightstand. “I mean… I don’t really want to argue about it. I’m just afraid, that’s all.”
“I am not this much like Fluttershy.” Rainbow Dash groaned, her ears flicked. “Well I guess, technically I am, because I’m the Dreamer… Ahem! Anyway!” Dash gestured to the piles of photos and assorted pictures scattered around. “You don’t need these. We don’t need these. Those ponies still exist, they’re out there, living their… lives…”
Yellow grinned smugly despite herself. “Except they’re not going to. Maybe this would be okay if you really were doing this for yourself, but you’re dragging everyone else with you. They’ll never get the same chance you’ve got.”
Rainbow Dash’s eyes widened, her heart started to beat a little faster. Her eyes darted from picture to picture. She needed to know for sure they’d be okay. They would be, right? I’m a Dreamer, they’re a part of me, and if I’m all right they should be all right. Except, Hawa said…
Yellow approached and looked up at Dash with her legs bent into a timid crouch. “Except they won’t be, because you’re giving it all up. You won’t be the Dreamer anymore. The Dreamer has a rainbow mane.” She reached up and brushed at Rainbow Dash’s mane. “You’re not really Rainbow Dash anymore, and you certainly won’t be Rainbow Dash when you’re done.”
With a sudden, powerful surge, Rainbow Dash struck her wings and blew a whirlwind about the chamber, smashing the pictures and dislodging the posters. Yellow shrieked and covered her head, cowering at the foot of the bed.
Rainbow Dash sighed and stroked the other’s blond locks sadly. She knew now what she needed to say. “Fear isn’t a pretty emotion, but in life it’s necessary. Fear of losing my friends, fear of losing my identity, fear for Scootaloo’s and everypony’s fate convinced me to seek out the means of redressing their problems. I never wanted to be alone, because I love all of my friends… and I can’t bear the thought of losing them forever.”
Yellow Dash looked up hopefully.
“We all die in the end, however,” Rainbow Dash said quietly. “We’re reborn into new lives and continue on. The Wheel pulls us inexorably apart, so fear is meaningless. Fear is an illusion.”
She sighed and closed her eyes. “It would be better, I think, to cease to be, so that I never need fear being in a situation where I can’t be surrounded by others. So, I choose not to fear.”
Yellow’s only response was a wordless wail that followed Rainbow Dash even as she pulled herself up and out.
* * *
Rainbow Dash howled out into the void. Yellow being ripped from her was the worst pain yet, by a long shot. It started in her hooves, which felt as though they might crack into a million pieces, and reached all the way up to her head.
She was sobbing and breathing deeply when the experience was over. Taking deep shuddering breaths in that place where air could not exist, where she should have needed oxygen. The labor of breathing was a metaphor, she understood that now. Taking in the world to preserve the self, but there was no world now. Only me.
The need to avoid pain had left with Orange, and so too had fear of it with Yellow, and so when the initial blast faded she calmed almost at once.
She stopped breathing, and looked down into the star-filled water. With so few emotions remaining, the ones that did exist worked overtime. Her reflection shifted rapidly, changing from face to face. All of them were people she’d known, living normal lives. A life she could never have, now.
“You envy them,” a voice whispered up from the water, and bubbles accompanied it. “All the things you can never have.”
Green. Rainbow Dash sighed. Not much left of me, is there? At least one baser emotion left to go. Reaching gently to the soul of the color, she took a firm metaphorical grip and yanked. Another wave of vertigo enveloped her.
* * *
Dash found herself in a castle that was beautiful, perfect, without compare. She didn’t even know what stone had been worked into the walls and floor, and she could call upon the knowledge and wisdom of everypony in Equestria, even if it was getting harder to remember with every color pulled. She looked down at her own hooves and reflected that she just didn’t feel much like Rainbow Dash anymore.
“Do you want to be me?” A green-maned Rainbow Dash smirked as she floated by on her back, a small cloud bearing her aloft. “Being me is pretty cool, but I mean… there’s more to being me than what you see here.” she licked her lips and yawned.
“You’re the least like me. I can’t believe I’m even having these thoughts.” Dash groaned and rubbed her head with a hoof. A faint sadness, a longing for something else, filled her. “I don’t want…”
“If you mean that we’re different because I’m way more subtle? Yeah, you’re pretty much right.” Green Dash rolled onto her belly and turned to face Rainbow Dash. “But let’s face it, everything you do is because of me. You see the Wonderbolts, and you want to be like them. You read about Daring Do, and you enjoy it because you want to go on adventures like that. I had Red’s number like you wouldn’t believe.” Green grinned. “You totally envied how pretty Fluttershy was when you became a girl, too. Seeing you squirm and try to deny it was half the fun.”
She laughed and kicked her heels as she watched Rainbow Dash below. “And now you want to be free. Do you want what the Traveler’s got, now? They’re not bound to some crummy Wheel, they don’t need to watch their friends surpass them. They don’t need to die. They don’t need to worry about Fluttershy being taken away from them. Pretty appealing right? You’re making the right move.” Green’s smile turned into a frown. “Except you’re getting rid of me to get there? After everything I’ve done for you? Not cool.”
“That is not why I am doing this.” Rainbow Dash shook her head. How much longer am I going to be Rainbow Dash? Will I even be able to remember my name, or will it be like before?
“Jeez, you really suck at being Rainbow Dash. You should really just leave that to me.” Green floated closer, a wicked grin on her lips. “Maybe if I let go of you before you let go of me, I’ll be the one who breaks free of the wheel… Now that’s an interesting thought.”
Fear should be gone—no, fear is gone. I’ve already removed Yellow, and this definitely isn’t the same feeling as fear. So why am I on the verge of tears? Why can’t I face her? She turned abruptly and sprinted down the halls, away from the simulacrum.
“Oh, so it’s going to be like that? I warn ya, I’m better at this than Red!”
Rainbow Dash didn’t stop until her legs were on fire. It took far less time than usual; she was already wasted from her previous exertions, each of which still weighed heavily on her heart and mind. She fought to calm down, to lay down somewhere and let go.
I’ve been through Red, Orange, and Yellow, and only now do I find the part of myself that actually wants this whole thing to happen, that wants to abandon the Wheel, the world, and my friends. The worst thing about it? I can’t stand Green. Envy is an awful emotion. What does that say about my new quest? How am I supposed to move forward when I can barely agree with why I do anything anymore?
“I’m getting pretty close no-ow,” Green called out in a snide tone. “If you’re trying to hide, don’t sweat it! I know this castle like the back of my hoof!” The copy was like a slow moving, lazy homing missile—nothing Rainbow did could shake her.
“Gotcha!” A green blur struck from the shadows, barreling Dash head over hoof through the room she had escaped to. They tumbled past a massive four-poster bed decorated with the sun and moon, and onto a balcony overlooking the nothingness. Dash could barely make out a tree down below.
“You’re really being a good sport about this, you know? I hate overexerting myself!” Green delivered a vicious kick to Dash’s side. She cried out and tumbled toward the ledge, her body sliding under the railing. She scrambled, and barely managed to catch herself on the side. She could try flying, but she had a really bad feeling about that here.
Green seized Dash’s legs with her hooves. “I’m a little worried that eternal peace won’t be all it’s cracked up to be, but hey, better me than you.” She looked up thoughtfully. “So, how does that go? I make a pretty little speech about how you don’t matter.”
Rainbow Dash blinked, and then she smiled sadly. “You know what? You’re right. Go ahead.”
“Of course I am! Envy is what brought you here,” Green said, spreading her wings triumphantly. “Without me, you’re nothing. Envy for fame drove you to improve yourself. Envy for others’ affections drove you into their embrace. Envy for a better world took you to the far side of existence. So…” She narrowed her eyes. “I mean… I guess the point there, the whole reason you need to escape the wheel, is that your envy is about chasing me, the impossible dream. As much as you want a perfect world, you can’t have it, because it doesn’t exist. There isn’t a world without suffering, and… and you were a fool to pursue it.”
“And, so,” Rainbow Dash said, “I choose to no longer feel envious of perfection. I don’t need you anymore.”
The castle faded away, and with it Green. Her voice echoed up from the depths “Oh, crap.”
* * *
When green was ripped from her, she felt a tingling, like her entire body going to sleep. She expected it to hurt more than the others, but it was as though that part of herself couldn’t be bothered anymore. “Ah, well. Stop wanting things; see if I care. Good luck getting what you want when you don’t actually want it anymore.” I guess self-defeating principles are like that.
In many ways, however, this was worse than the prior examples. A pernicious ennui seized her, and she stared at the pool for what felt like hours and could have been centuries. With only blue and violet left in her tail she barely looked like somepony who should be called Rainbow Dash at all.
“What do I do now? Where do I begin, and what’s the point?” Dash stared at the blue, that would be gone next. “Because I want to help everyone? I need to get rid of that too?”
As if she’d heard her, Hawa spoke into the ear of Rainbow Dash’s body, still laying by the tree. “Stop, Rainbow, please. You can’t abandon us like this.”
“Can’t I?” she asked sadly, though she knew Hawa couldn’t really hear her anymore.
“You’re a part of us! We’ll be incomplete without you!” Hawa stroked Rainbow’s nearly colorless mane with tears in her eyes. “If you go, the world… it’ll be just a pale shadow. One in a thousand might not sound like a lot, but it’s a vacuum we can never recover from. What you take with you will always be lost. We’re worthless without the whole.”
Rainbow Dash sighed. “You’re right. I can’t do that. I can’t abandon you or anyone.”
Hawa held her more tightly. “I want to be held like that right now.” Rainbow Dash whimpered. “I wish I could feel that.” She curled up next to Hawa, on her opposite side. Maybe if she squeezed in close enough she could feel something. The rising and falling of the other mare’s chest, the soft tickle of hair mingling with hair, or maybe just a whispered sigh, one heard even through her trance.
“I’m sorry, Hawa,” she whispered. “What I do next, I do because I care.”
Then, feeling as though she were ripping her own child out of her, she reached in and tore out the color blue.
* * *
Rainbow Dash was curled up, not on a cloud, but in a clearing of grass, one still warm from the sun’s rays. It was twilight, and it had to be summer as well because the air was brisk, a delightful contrast with the grass beneath her.
“Okay squirt! Just like we practiced!” Rainbow Dash could hear her own voice echo out through the trees. “One… two… three!”
There was the sound of frantic flapping, a crash, and a pained moan. Rainbow Dash got up and stepped quietly toward the source of the commotion. What greeted her was far less painful than her earlier revelations. A blue-maned Rainbow Dash sat in another clearing with Scootaloo crouched beside her, who nursed a new injury.
“I just don’t get it; I did everything you said!” Tears streamed down Scootaloo’s face. “Ugh! I’m never going to fly!”
The simulacrum placed a hoof to the filly’s side and smiled down at her. “You’re a quick study, Scoots, but you’re still not picking up everything I’m putting down. Watch closely, one more time.” Blue took in a deep breath and smiled, then she extended her wings and gave two strong, slow flaps. Her hooves immediately left the ground, and, for the most part, she stayed off it. She released her breath serenely and slowly came back down.
“See? Flying isn’t just about beating your wings. It’s about keeping calm, maintaining presence of mind.” Blue nosed the filled forward. “Try again.”
Scootaloo bit her lip, her tongue lolling out to one side. She took a cautious step forward, extended her wings, took a breath, and mimicked her honorary sister. The little filly left the ground quite readily, but as soon as she did, she let out the breath with a gasp, she crashed to the ground and cried out with excitement.
“Rainbow! Rainbow oh my gosh I did it! I can’t believe it worked!” The filly leapt over the distance between her and the blue emanation, who she nuzzled without hesitation.
She must think it’s the real me…
“Way to go squirt! Now you’re getting it.” Blue nuzzled the filly back, and then looked up with worry. “Listen, why don’t you run back to the house? There’s somepony here I need to talk to.” The simulacrum bit her lip and looked around.
“Are they scary Dash?” Scootaloo puffed up her chest and gave her mentor a fierce look. “We can hold them off together! That’s what sisters do, right?”
“Actually, I think this pony is more afraid of me than I am of her.” Blue pushed Scootaloo with her nose. “I’ll be back soon, okay?”
Scootaloo nodded quietly. She walked off into the trees, and soon vanished.
“She’s a sweet filly, isn’t she?” Blue called out into the trees.
Dash stepped out and replied, tears welling up in her eyes. “Yeah, she really is.”
Blue trotted over to her and lowered herself, folding her hooves underneath her body. “You sure you want to leave this behind? She never even got to learn to fly, and Big Macintosh…”
“Are you going to try and persuade me not to, too?” Rainbow Dash groaned. “I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”
“Nah, nothing like that.” Blue reached out and touched the grass with a hoof, gesturing for Dash to take her place beside it. “I just need to know if you’re sure, that’s all. If you’re not, I’m going to convince you to turn aside.”
Rainbow Dash lifted a hoof uncertainly. “You could, couldn’t you?”
“Yes,” Blue patted the grass beside her again. “Come on. Don’t be afraid—you can’t be, after all, so that part should be easy.”
Rainbow Dash practically collapsed beside the emanation, and Blue Dash wrapped her up in a wing. “I don’t even know what’s happening to me, or why I’m doing this.” She sighed. “I just don’t know why this is happening to me.”
“We’re the Dreamer right?”
Rainbow Dash shook her head. “Not anymore. I’m not sure what I’ll be after this.”
Blue’s wing pulled her in close, and Dash felt that contact she was missing back at the tree. She felt like she could hear Hawa sniffling with her, and then her tears started flowing freely. She buried her face in Blue’s coat.
“I don’t want this. I wish this had never happened. I wish Firefly warned some other pony…”
“It was always going to be us, it had to be us.” Blue raised Rainbow’s chin with a hoof. “It’s how the Wheel works. I mean, I’d probably be content to go right back to dreaming. Watching over everypony, even in a dream…” She chuckled. “But that’s why it’s your decision, not mine. Some things are made to be broken. That’s not a decision I can make, because I have to fix things, no matter what the consequences are. It’s your job to view those consequences and make an appropriate choice.”
Rainbow Dash began to sob openly now. Her voice was nasally, childish. “But I don’t wanna! I hate this! I don’t want to be the one to break any cycles!”
“Hey… hey…” Blue looked at her and stroked her nearly black mane with a hoof. “I hate to say this, but I kinda think you have to, squirt.”
Odd, she’s looking down at me, as if I were a… Rainbow Dash looked down at herself and gasped. She’d managed to shrink down to a foal in their exchange, and it just made her feel more emotionally vulnerable. “But what if I’m not Rainbow Dash anymore? What am I going to do?!”
Blue cooed at her and smiled. “Something new, I guess? New things are pretty awesome, too, you know.”
Dash continued to sniffle, though her sobs were subdued. “I don’t want to let go of you. You’re the only part of myself I’ve met who hasn’t been absolutely terrible.”
“Hey now,” Blue’s voice was fast approaching stern. “I think maybe you met most of the others… out of context?”
Dash sniffled, but managed to raise a brow. “Out of context?”
“Yeah, like… I dunno. Believe me, Green is usually not that vicious. She just wants what she wants. There’s nothing wrong with knowing what you want… technically.” Blue Dash smiled. “Me? I understand why you’re doing what you’re doing better than they do, that’s all.”
The two lay sprawled out beside each other, like that, for some time.
“So what am I going to do now?” Dash felt she already knew the answer.
“There is only one left after me.” Blue smiled down at her. “I know you can do it. Just make sure whatever comes after is what you really wanted.”
“I don’t know if I can promise that.”
“Then just do your best.” Blue ruffled Rainbow Dash’s mane. “You’ll get the hang of it, I promise you that.”
Dash nodded, burrowed in against her counterpart, and every so often flicked her tail. She thought about the things the pair of them had discussed, the things she had seen, the conversations she had with the other colours. Her eyes widened as she started to piece things together.
“I think I’m ready to let go, now.”
The blue emanation laughed. She gave the tiny filly a gentle nudge. “Go on. Tell me what you need to hear.”
Rainbow Dash took a deep breath, and her voice deepened back into that of a mature mare.
“I have… empathy with those around me. A sincere desire, a need to help them brought me across dreams and voids to challenge the seat of power. In it—in you—is contained all of my love for my friends. Through you, I tried to be Scootaloo’s big sister. With you, I… I would have become Big Macintosh’s loving wife. Of all of my emotions and needs, love and empathy are the greatest part of my life, and the part most worth living for.”
Tears fell from her eyes as she went on. “When you get right down to it, love is the root cause of my entire purpose in this world. Friendship, romance, family, and the simple desire to help everyone overcome their problems are the reasons why I didn’t turn aside, no matter how hard the going went. Even They couldn’t stand against the power of love.”
Rainbow Dash took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Yet… if I follow the dictates of love, I will be compelled to start the dream over once more. I will be forced to participate willfully in the suffering of every soul in existence. Hawa is driven by love to do terrible things, because it is all she can do.”
She looked into Blue’s eyes and nuzzled at her cheek. “If my desire to be sympathetic blinds me to delusion, if it enslaves me to do wrong, then it, too, must go. If love is an illusion… then I choose not to love.”
The glen washed away. Blue, as the darkness swallowed her, whispered, “Try to remember, Rainbow Dash. Compassion for all things is why you choose now to let go. When the time comes, do not forget this lesson.” She ended with a silvery laugh. “Break a leg, why dontcha?”
* * *
Rising now above the canopy into the shaft of light that pierced the void, Rainbow Dash felt no pain, only a gentle emptiness. Without love, without fear, without anger, without desire, without envy, she had nothing left to tie her down. Only one thing remained, and she struggled with that last fragment of her identity. If anything, identity was her sole purpose now. Everyone desired on some level to exist, to know that they are and acknowledge themselves.
If I’m going to complete this journey, I need to find a way to overcome that last fact.
When she placed her metaphorical knife against the last remaining color, the violet strip of her hair, she felt its force matched. Anything she did against it would be rebounded back equivalently. Bracing, she set her will to the task and, ever so patiently, cut the color violet from her hair. The rush this time struck with a force that would erupt whole suns, and she was hurled into darkness.
* * *
The wind here was fierce, in fact, every point of the landscape oozed with a sense of opposition. These things must be weathered to be a leader, to stand at the top. There were no clouds to linger on here, the windstorm had blown them all away. There was no grass to lay in, or eat, it was all hard cracked stone. There were no paths to walk, only unforgiving crags erupting from the ground, some of them as tall as hills.
Standing on the highest of them was Dash’s final colour. It was all that was left of Rainbow Dash the Dreamer. She stood on the very pinnacle, her wings unfurled and unbowed by the winds. Her head was held high with pride, and her violet mane and tail whipped in the wind—they did not submit to it, indeed it seemed more as if they shaped it. A booming voice echoed down from the rocks, and concerned itself not at all with the storm.
“You have come this far, but no further!” the simulacrum bellowed, then dove down from the rocks to face Rainbow Dash.
Rainbow Dash, whose mane and tail were now absolutely black, barely looked like herself at all. She trembled, but did her best to weather the simulacrum’s overwhelming presence.
The emanation’s wings gave a harsh flap, and five other blurs of color stood behind her. It was every aspect of the rainbow that Dash had released from herself. They now stood behind Violet, not her.
“You have been tested, and found wanting. You are no longer the Dreamer, and I’m taking over in your stead.” Violet’s frown was more brutal than the winds whipping through everypony’s manes.
“Yeah… I don’t know about that.” Dash grumbled, them moved to walk around her counterpart.
“Hold your ground!” Violet’s voice was clipped at the end, as if she had to remind herself to not add ‘soldier.’ “I have a responsibility. We had a responsibility, and you’ve abandoned it. I cannot let you pass. Block her exit!” She roared at the other emanations and, one-by-one, they ran, flew, and jumped to place themselves in Rainbow Dash’s path. Red was practically gloating. Yellow put herself in the very back, her knees shaking. Blue went to Yellow, doing her best to comfort the other color. She smiled sadly at Rainbow Dash, but said nothing. She had nothing more to say.
“Alright.” Dash said, turning to face the final emanation. “What do you want me to do? Are we going to talk this through?”
“No.” Violet’s voice was like thunder. “You’re going to give up now. You can’t win; not against all of us.”
Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes, curled up on the hot stone, and closed her eyes. The emanations only watched her quietly. Minutes passed by before she opened a single eyelid.
“Nothing’s happening.”
“Nothing will happen until I let it happen.” Violet puffed up her chest, a display made more intimidating by her barding. “I am the responsibility of the dreamer, I am the leader, the sense of order that must feel the world. I am the one who makes the choice, and I choose not to abandon my duties.” The simulacrum trotted to Rainbow Dash and glared down at her. “You will be surrendering now.”
The wind whipped through Dash’s mane, obscuring her vision with cold, infinite blackness. Her ears lowered and she tilted her head and looked down at the ground. Her eyes narrowed as her mind raced with thought. She went through the situation again and again. She questioned Twilight, the Princesses, the Oracle, and even Applejack. Be they the wisest minds in history or the simplest, she tried them all, just in case she was overthinking things. She couldn’t understand what had to happen now.
Violet gestured in the direction the wind from which the wind howled with a hoof. That way led to an endless expanse, a place where she could never be at peace. “Well?”
“What sense is there in getting rid of you?” Rainbow Dash asked. “You’re identity. What will be left when you’re gone? How can someone even begin to think about how to be rid of the sense of who you are.”
“You cannot, and you will not,” Violet Dash said. “These are axiomatic principles, upon which there can be no compromise.”
“That’s infantile,” Rainbow countered. “It’s devoid of meaning if it isn’t contextualized by other precepts. That I exist means nothing if there’s nothing else to be, nothing else around me.”
“It is the very foundation of all things,” Violet insisted. “It is the root of existence, from which all other things spring forth.”
“So… it’s asking a basic question,” Rainbow said thoughtfully. “It’s the basic question. It asks who is doing the thinking. A being cannot desire anything unless there is a being to begin with.”
“I think,” Violet Dash said, “therefore I am.” Her eyes hardened further still, and she stood unbending, unyielding in the torrent. The other colors blended together, forming part of a rainbow behind her. “I am the unmovable object, the irresistible force.”
“I think, therefore I am,” Rainbow Dash repeated. She stood up and faced Violet. “It’s so beautifully simple… it contains the answer to its own question.”
Violet nodded firmly. “It does. You acknowledge it. Now, resume your post.”
“No. See… well, I guess you can’t. Definitionally, you are incapable of seeing the flaw until I point it out. You see, you are right… it is impossible for me to simply surpass you. I must transcend you.” She cleared her throat.
“Should I cease to think, I no longer am.”
Violet met Rainbow Dash’s eyes and faced sublime nothingness. Rainbow Dash reached out and covered Violet’s gaze.
Silence.
Mere moments after the sonic rainboom faded away, Firefly watched as cracks shot through the clouds above, then down through the mountain, exposing the gaping void. The wind howled as the world began to fall apart. “Rainbow?” Oh, no. Did she fail? Is that a success? “Everypony!” she called, watching as her allie vanished through the gaps in droves. She beat her wings through the powerful wind and clung to a scrap of formerly animated statue as it arced high into the air, tossed up by an upheaval.
Her eyes widened as a figure wreathed in light descended from the broken sky. In it, Hawa appeared, and caught Vinyl Scratch before the latter could slip off her cannon into the abyss. “I’m sorry. It’s not meant to be your turn yet, but… I’m sorry,” Hawa whispered, though her voice seemed to carry throughout all of creation. Hawa’s hoof touched Vinyl’s head, and the unicorn’s mane billowed out, taking on a kaleidoscope of color.
As Firefly struggled to maintain her position, she watched as Vinyl, too, lit from within, her eyes turning sad. “I… I see. It’s all… very clear now.”
“I’m sorry. You know what you must do?”
They looked up, and now that the clouds were gone Firefly perceived at the top of the falling mountain a tree, its branches filled with light. Vinyl nodded curtly. “Yes. Will it stand? Will… All of this stand without her?”
Without her? What?
“Not so well as it once did, not with this sort of damage.” Hawa wrapped Vinyl in her forelegs briefly. “Carry on, as long as you can, then pass it on. It’s all we can do.”
The superlunar world had nearly gone entirely, leaving Firefly onboard a crumbling rock as the void pressed in around her vision. The edges of her body faded, her tail losing definition. With a flash of rainbow magic, Vinyl teleported from Hawa’s embrace, a flash at the tree’s base signalling her arrival.
Firefly growled and concentrated. I’ve fallen apart before. I can hold on for just another few seconds! With supreme effort, she held dissolution at bay. Then, just as suddenly as it began, the collapse stopped. Below, points of light glimmered. The sun lit like a lightbulb, and a world glowed under its light. All around it, stars were falling. She felt a tug, a light forming within her chest. The urge to sleep was intense, to fall and be reborn on the earth below.
Hawa closed her eyes, falling back as well as the same light grew in her chest, her own limbs disappearing.
“Yeah, no. I’m getting some answers,” Firefly said tightly. With all the force left in her, she leapt from the disintegrating stone. Without any reference point, it seemed as if Hawa were approaching her rather than the other way around. It could have been exactly that, but Firefly didn’t care.
She’d fought her way this far by keeping her eye on the prize, by never surrendering one iota of consciousness that wasn’t taken from her by force.
“Hey, you!” she shouted. Hawa’s head jerked up and her dissolution slowed—just in time for them to collide and go careening off into nothingness.
No matter the consequences, I’m going to settle this. If Rainbow Dash failed, then too bad. I’ll just have to beat her senseless until she fixes it.
* * * * * * *