In all her life, Rainbow Dash never knew how much guilt could be thrown with just a look. Sure, she had be punished by parents numerous amounts of times in the past, she opened her mouth without thinking to only get the look from her friends or the glare from Fluttershy when she really went over the line, she got yelled at for her brashness by her superiors at the Wonderbolts from time to time. Nothing could prepare her to the hurt and guilty glares she was receiving from the two princesses in the room right now when she said,
“I don’t know.” Dash sighed heavily, rubbing her leg ashamed that she couldn’t do more. Her eyes were fixed to the floor of Twilight’s library, the temporary headquarters of this investigation operations. Already the Wonderbolts had taken over the scene, looking for clues that Dash and Soarin missed with their quick fly over. The official reason for this whole matter was that they were scouting the area out for a new show and didn’t wished to be disturbed. Pinkie Pie managed to distract the whole town with a big party outside, with Applejack, Rarity and a large number of Fluttershy’s animal friends keeping ponies away. “All I know is that this is something we’re told to keep an eye out for.” She muttered, not knowing more as it was Soarin’s job to teach her more of the secret operations of the Wonderbolts at long last! They had been going over it last night when Gallop interrupted them and they had put it off for later today. She looked up, to see if this had changed the mood of the princesses in front of her.
It didn’t. Celestia still looked very hurt and disappointed in her, shaking her head the same way her mother did when she was thrown out of the academy, making her feel even more guilty. Luna, on the other hoof, was changing between muttering several threatening things that she wasn’t sure that anatomically possible, although the Princess of the Night looked like she was more than willing to try, to requiring somepony to hold onto while she held back her tears poorly, usually Flash as Celestia was sitting in front of her trying to get anymore information out. Twilight was still trying to do some magic spell around the area to find anything else out that the Wonderbolt might miss and Spike wisely ran to join the party.
“And who gave you this order Rainbow Dash?” Celestia asked, ignoring the wince. Dash had got close to the Princesses over the years, becoming friends with them along with the rest of her main best friends. Celestia and Dash got along very well due to their prankster nature, pulling a few off on Luna that were pretty epic. It got to the point were Dash actually called her Tia and Celestia referred to her by Dashie! Now that it was back to formal titles and she knew how much the Princess was upset at her.
“I did.” Spitfire flew in, with Soarin walking behind her, smiling at Dash before freezing at seeing Princess Celestia and Princess Luna in the room as well. “Your highnesses, as I said before, this is a matter we have under control and your presence will only complicate matters. Please, return to –”
“RETURN?!” Luna bellowed, scaring Dash, Soarin and Flash. Celestia and Spirefire just stared at her with the experience of dealing with loud, irrational ponies helping them withstand her shouts. “OUR SON IS MISSING AND THOU WISHES US TO RETURN?!” If it wasn’t for the soundproof spell, all of Ponyville would have been alerted, but at the same time Celestia needed to take action. Placing a hoof on her sister’s shoulder and pulling her into a tight hug, she glared at the captain of the Wonderbolts.
“How long has this investigation been going Spitfire.” It was not the motherly, pleasant, welcoming tone that everypony in the capital and in the rest of the country knew. It was the tone of barely controlled anger, frustration and disappointment.
It seemed that it was all that Spitfire needed to crack. “Um, you see…”
“How long.”
“Your highness, um, you must understand-”
“HOW! LONG!” She spoke, leaning her face right into Spitfire’s, causing the captain to sweat in fear. Luna found herself dropped on the floor with a surprised look on her face.
“Years, ok!” She snapped, looking to the floor in shame. “We’ve had missing reports for years now and it’s-
“YEARS!?” Celestia roared, slamming red hot hooves into the floor, causing everypony to jump back in surprise.
“Let me explain!” Spitfire had backed up in fear, her legs shaking. “We’ve had missing reports for years now, yes, but only recently have we put it together as something else!” She looked to the side window, as if to see if it was worth throwing herself out of. “When I took over, I had backlogs of reports to go through. Only recently did we notice a pattern in a number of these reports and these two were supposed to keep an eye out for suspicious ponies!” She glared at Soarin, who had managed to move himself next to Dash, and the blue pegasus mare, who was folding inwards from the looks. “The last thing we wanted or needed was to have a big stink like this, letting this group we know of them! They have been at this for over a thousand year and I am damn sure they can easily go into hiding if they think they’ve been discovered!” She stamped her hooves against the floor hard, glaring up at the Sun Princes with steady eyes.
“H-how long,” Celestia almost hissed back, seething in rage now, fire starting to spread out from under her. “Did you just say?”
Spitfire’s eyes went wide in shock and fear, covering her mouth with her wings and hooves.
Rainbow Dash just sighed inwards. This was not going to be pretty.
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Galloping Waves was very used to lucid dreaming. He almost always had complete control over his dreams, and since it was his mother’s duty to protect the dreams of the ponies of the land, he knew from a very young age to know what kind of sleep he was going through.
This was not a lucid dream, or there would be a lot more light so he could see. Nor was it a normal dream as something would be happening. It was almost like being knocked out, but it didn’t have the same rough feel. Instead it felt when something or somepony put him to sleep, but not by the normal unicorn magic manner for an important medical surgery. This way had left an unsavoury taste on his lips, along with something causing him to feel very uncomfortable and woozy. He reached out for his magic to send feelers to find out what was going on, only to reach nothing. Opening his teal eyes quickly, saw a huge black object towering over his face, a small temporary camp to his right with two of the Earth ponies that-
Oh bucking hell, it all came back.
Trying to move elicited a moan of pain from himself and drew their attention. They glared at him, grinning truly maliciously at him. The one on the right got to his hooves first, walking over to him.
WHAM
Wincing in pain, Galloping Waves folded inwards from the hard kick to his stomach. Looking downwards, he saw that his hooves had been tied properly with a –
WHAM
Another kick brought his attention back to the stallion in front of him, wincing louder, closing his eyes tight in pain. He felt himself loosing his hold onto the conscious world, with the strange thing he felt before making him very drowsy in the wrong way. A way that was beginning to feel oddly familiar…
“Aw, does the wittle coltly want to slweep?” The stallion spat at him, laughing in a mocking tone. Nodding his head to his partner, Galloping Waves saw through a cracked-open eyelid that the other pony had a bucket of what he hoped was water in his hooves. He had to withhold a grin, as these two idiots were about to give him some much need power-
“What the buck are you two thinking?!” The unicorn stormed into the room, grabbing the bucket away from the pony and punching him across the face with his hoof, knocking him to the sandy floor.
WAIT, WHAT!?
Sand? Oh no.
“Bu-but sir!” The pony on the floor whined, pushing himself upwards, clearly in pain. “It was only –”
Grumbling loudly, the unicorn smacked the earth pony down again, using the bucket still in his magical aura this time. “I know that it was only piss-water you fool!” He snapped, rearing on his hind legs before slamming down on the ground. “What you forget is who our new slave is!” He yelled, grabbing the earth pony with his magic and forcing him to stare him in the face. “Even though he is the son of one the false goddesses, I will not take the chance that his water abilities are actually true!” The light brown unicorn with a red mane dropped the pony to the floor hard. Blinking Gallop saw that he had a cutie mark of light bulb over a book that was on a head of a pony. Gallop knew what those cutie marks meant; he was a thinking pony and a very good one by the sounds-
WHAM
Whimpering in pain from the sudden kick from the clearly physically strong unicorn, Gallop was then forced upwards in the magic aura of said pony. He then thrust a canteen towards Gallop. “You will drink all of this slave. No more water will be given to you until we know for sure about your talents so if you spill any you will have to simply deal without. Am I understood!” He snapped, spiting in his face.
Gallop tried to open his mouth, tried to form words, but he was still groggy from the kicks and from what he was fearing was true if he was where he thought he was. He took too long for the unicorn as he punched him hard in the gut, causing the alicorn to fold inwards. “Do you understand me!” He yelled, leaning closer to Gallop’s face. He pulled back his hoof to punch again, but Gallop was able to spit out enough syllables to form a word.
“Yes!” He muttered as loudly as he could, panting and wheezing. Looking upwards, he saw that black object was a rock, acting as shade for them. Looking down at the unicorn, he was able to see past him and see that it was what he feared the most.
Desert.
Oh nononononoNO! Galloping Waves went into panic mode. While he might not know much about his own abilities or what his cutie mark meant, he did know that he didn’t deal with heat well at all.
Rainstorms were a blast, he always felt so good after being in one. He was able to spend an entire winter outside in just his natural coat and be absolutely fine, just needed to avoid tracking in snow or slush when he went inside for the little colt room. Heck, he never had to shower or wash up in his life, as he could just dunk himself in his bath and hop out without any dirt on himself. Water, wetness, coldness, he took all those wet weathers on with the biggest grin on his face as it always recharged him, making him feel he could do anything.
Bright sunny days, on the other hoof, he couldn’t stand them at all. They made him feel woozy if he didn’t wear a long hat, stay in the shade or keep properly hydrated. He disliked summer to how hot it was, feeling the sun bake away at his body like a fish on land. He remembered one time that he spent the whole morning with aunt Applejack in the sun helping her on the farm. He was determined to help her out, despite it being a semi sunny day. He did wear a hat as she was a bit worried about him getting sick, but they put it out of mind as they went along bucking tree. He made it to late morning before he started to throw up, collapsing in pain on the ground. He was told later that he got some pretty bad heatstroke, despite all the cautions that Applejack took beforehand .
Long story short, heat was bad for him. And he was in the desert. As a slave.
Oh bucking hell.
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