I became a brony around late July or early August of 2011, and I immediately kamikaze'd myself into word processor nirvana. The result was... this thing. For two solid weeks of mania, I slammed together a wall of text expressing my deep and unfiltered joy of magical talking equines.
Please understand me. This is not a good fanfic. Rainbow Dash is horribly out of character and I knew it. The pace crawls like a diabetic slug. There are comic book style fight scenes between horses. Grammar, punctuation, and common decency are all butchered. I have no spaces in between paragraphs. Scootaloo is as annoying as a bag full of dying cats.
All of this--in the glory of a technicolor yawn--was forced down the throat of Vimbert, an unimpressive gentlecolt who at the time was gracefully providing his services to random marsupials wanting to be great lemurs of poni poni writing. I slapped a bunch of documents together and shoved them his way,, and that's how I learned what a "Vindictive Review" is. Long story longer, the very fact that he still speaks to me these days--much less lends his talents to the improvement of The End of Ponies--is a testament to his integrity, patience, and overall awesomeness. That still doesn't change the fact that he produced several new rectums in my fleshy ego from the heated lacerations of his righteous fury.
That said, I look back at this shiet and I can't help but smile. Yes, it's atrocious. Yes, everypony is disastrously out of character. But goddayum did I have fun writing it, even if it turned out completely pointless and a waste of my time. I was so high off of ponies at the time that I wrote this, and I think it shows. If anything, it may be worth perusing for a chuckle or two.
I still think the fic as a whole would have been fantastic. It had a great idea, and I almost wouldn't mind attempting it again someday with some actual focus and commitment. But at the time, it was an utter bomb, and I was this close to hopping out of the MLP fanfiction world altogether, if it weren't for Vimbert's words of encouragement and a pathetic little backup plan I had in my head called "The Last Pony."
Act 0 – Chapter 1 – Prologue
(Sixteen years ago...)
Under the cover of blue hazy night, partially obscured by the flanking treetops of the Everfree Forest, a rickety dilapidated stable rested within a sea of overgrown grass, no more than a neglected mile from the outskirts of Ponyville. The ram-shackled wooden building was an insult to architecture, but it was also a relic of the past; leftovers from a time when pioneering Earth Ponies rushed to settle a colony in the Central Plain of Equestria under the impending threat of a vicious winter. That, of course, was an uncountable number of decades ago, and the colonizing farmers from Manehattan eventually concentrated their settlement on the river tributary located several trots to the east. And while some ponies felt that the abandoned hovels of the past necessitated razing, it was the overall decision of the subsequent generations to leave them standing—in spite of their disrepair. These random and lonely structures would serve as monuments—silent and ghostly monuments of the Earthen resolve to survive—even to this day.
But on that night, this 'monument' was anything but silent. As a full moon rose high in the purple sky, its blighted Mare-Stare spilling ivory beams over the rotting stable's crooked doors, a shrill scream emanated from within. It was a cry of pain, of desperation; and it shook the leaves loose from the borders of the Everfree Forest, sending even the darkest creatures of the night scurrying into deeper shadows. It was the cry of a mother giving birth.
Inside a lone stable in a corner of the wooden building, she laid on her side, twitching and writhing under the amber-red dance coming from a single oil lamp dangling off a crossbeam above her. The white of her coat turned into a porcelain sheen as her perspiration built into a cascade. Violet eyes twitched as another labor pain wracked through her, and the young mare's green mane tossed as she let out another cry against the rattling walls of the place.
The mother wasn't alone. A soft patter of hooves, and a young stallion Pegasus orbited to her frontside. Having laid down the last straws of a bed of fresh hay—carted in from the main village—the winged gentlecolt turned his snout to a pale of fresh water positioned by the stable. Soaking a washcloth, he gently dabbed the sweat out of the foaling mare's eyes before laying the cloth on a nearby beam, freeing his mouth to talk.
“That's it, Iris. H-Hang in there, honey.” The stammer in his soft voice betrayed his courage, as did the complexion of his frazzled white mane and azure coat. But nonetheless he narrowed his brown eyes and gazed at her with hardened sincerity. “I know it hurts. But we're going to make it through this! We've got everything we need and--”
“Th-That's not it, Blue!” She wheezed at him and clenched her eyes as another contraction ripped through her. Her front hooves curled up and her legs stretched out as a gentle hiss from deep within her bubbled to the surface in the form of an air-hurdling sob. A gasp, and her moist eyes reopened, reflecting his concerned face doubly. “It's b-been well beyond fifty m-minutes! Nnnngh—M-Most foalings only--” She hyperventilated, writhed, and caught her breath again. “--only l-last half an hour t-tops! You know this as well as I do! Nnnghh—Ugh!”
“I-I'm sure it's j-j-just because it's a m-month overdo! Uh—Uh....” Blue trotted back and forth, around her, bumping once or twice into the wooden stable—so that the lamp's penumbra wobbled over them like a sickly crimson spotlight. “Mmmm-Uh—R-R-R-Remember Mrs. Pie's second d-daughter? That foal t-t-took the better part of the night to deliver--”
“Blue! This is different!” Iris spat, fell back into another contraction—and moaned her head back up to gaze sweatily at him. As he once again dabbed her forehead, she panted, swallowed, and finally managed to utter: “I-I can feel it! Something's wrong! I...I-I'm scared, Blue. I don't want us to lose this foal....”
Blue gulped. His eyes were concave. “Iris, y-you mustn't lose hope--”
“Ugh!” She collapsed fully on her side once more. Blue steadied her as she gasped and groaned: “It w-wasn't hope that got us here!”
“But it's what can get us through this!” Blue seethed through his teeth, trying in vain to weather the convulsions coming out of his mate. His eyes narrowed as his gaze melted beyond the halo of amber lamplight. “Besides, it's all we have now.” He blinked. “Unless....”
“B-Blue...?” Iris struggled to look at him.
His jaw clenched tight. With a deep breath, he said “Let me fly to Ponyville Hospital. I'll wake Dr. Canterstitch.”
“No--”
“I'll bring him here, Iris.”
“No, Blue--”
“We need all the help we can get!”
She practically snarled at him this time: “I want our foal coming into this world alive—but it's just as important for it to be free!”
“Iris, we kept this secret long enough. But for the foal's sake--”
“For the foal's sake, we won't let her live a life of shame!” Iris shrieked. After a sharp wave of pain, she fluttered down on a wheezing breath and gazed gently at him. “Now go and take a close look. Tell me what you see.”
Blue stared at her, the tips of his mane telegraphing his deeply rooted trembling. A strong breath, and he bowed his snout briefly before trotting toward the opposite side of the stable. Iris laid down and took several deep breaths. She stretched her body out and tightened her jaw against the scratchy bed of hay as her mate examined her.
“This will only take a second.”
Iris hoarsely replied: “Looks like the months of teaching you a bedside manner paid off.” She tried to smile, but it came out as a grimace. The seconds ticked away, and she started to grow uneasy. Even in the absence of an agonizing contraction, she twitched and shivered as if she was being stabbed in the heart. “Bl-Blue?” She called out, gulping. “What do you see?”
“Iris...” He stood up and brushed aside her tightly-tied tail to gaze at her. His azure face was pale, like a ghost. Nevertheless, he bravely fought the creased shadows in his expression away as he said “I'm seeing its hindquarters. It's a breech, Iris. It's a breech foaling.”
She blinked at him once, and then her face melted as she gazed away towards the far end of the stable, a squeal ripping up to the surface of her lips to form a sob: “Oh no. Oh goddess no.”
“Hey!” Blue immediately trotted over to her frontside. “Hey-Hey—Honey.”
“No no no no—Goddess, no...” She half-wailed.
“Shhh...Darling, look at me...” He kissed and licked her face before pressing his snout against hers so that their eyes met. “Look at me and listen.”
She gazed back, sniffling.
He smiled in spite of the trembles. “All is not lost. Yes, it's a breech foaling—But we're going to get through this. All three of us. We're going to have a family—Alright?”
“Blue, do you have any idea how hard it is to--?”
“No. No I don't. That's why we're going to work through this together. You are strong, Iris—Look at me. You are strong, and I am never leaving your side. Ever. I love you, honey, and I'm going to see you through this.”
She gulped and shuddered as another wave of pain started to froth from within. “O-Okay....”
“Now.” He took a deep breath and narrowed his eyes. “Tell me, Iris. Tell me what I need to do.”
The white mare groaned and gazed back towards the dramatic half of the stable. “You....nnngh....fuuu....mmm—Y-You need to grasp its hind legs and---Nnngh--P-P-Pull them away from my tail.”
He nodded rapidly and dashed over towards her other end. “Okay....Okay...”
“G-Gently...” She hissed and rode a rising contraction. “Nnnngh—I....I—nnngh--w-will try to signal you when it is time to grasp its hooves--”
Suddenly, there was a tremendous pounding noise on the front side of the dilapidated stables. Three resounding thunders—anything but natural. Both ponies jolted with a conjoined gasped, their wide eyes twitching across the haze of the lamp that now wobbled above their manes. For the briefest moment, the dark night's silence permeated the scene, and then the three knocks repeated themselves, this time accompanied by a muffled shout: “Open these doors in the name of the Ponyville Police!”
“G-Goddess...” Iris murmured. “Blue, were we followed?”
“Impossible!” Stammered Blue. “Nobody lives within a stone's throw of the trail we took through Everfree! I wouldn't have picked it otherwise!”
“Mmm-nnngh-AHH!” Iris shrieked suddenly as the pain overtook her. Blue clutched to her, his head caught in a vicious juggling act between glancing at his mate's foaling and staring disbelievingly at the building's doors. The rusty air rumbled between the mare's screams and the angry shouts from outside. For the briefest moment, Blue's eyes fell onto a noticeably sharp farming tool resting against a wall within hoof's reach--
But then the doors finally burst open. The moonlight poured in and bled the silhouettes of at least half a dozen Earth Ponies, plus one Unicorn. Without delay, they marched determinedly into the center of the antique stables—their angry eyes pouring left and right across the obviously occupied interior. Blue wasted no moment in charging up on his hooves. Iris briefly cried out for him, but he was soon stomping up towards the sudden herd, his brown eyes burning in anger.
“What are you doing here, Sheriff Amble?”
The middle-aged stallion in question balked at the azure Pegasus. “I should be asking the same of you, Mr. Farrier. No sooner than an hour ago, I get a report of an unwarranted foaling within the limits of my jurisdiction! It goes beyond saying that to hear of such a thing at this hour of the night makes my blood boil! I expected more of you, Blue.”
“What's g-going on here is none of your concern, Sheriff!” Blue shouted.
“I should say it is, Mr. Farrier,” uttered a voice from the back of the herd. The Unicorn silhouette trotted into view. In the revealing moonlight, Blue was horrified to recognize the elderly face of a certain physician. “As a matter of fact, it's naturally the concern of all of Equestria!”
“Dr. Canterstitch!” Blue Farrier recoiled. “But....B-But how...?”
“You think a physician of my distinguished experience couldn't tell that Dr. Iris was close to foaling?” The pony in question waved his horn haughtily before Blue's snout. “I must say, she did a remarkable job hiding it for so long. In our day and age, that's hardly a crime. But to think—when Nurse Heart told me of the truly heinous nature of the fair doctor's conception--” He snorted viciously, his gray mane flaring in the starlight. “Nnnngh—Words can't describe how much my blood boiled.”
Blue's features visibly sagged. “Rose Heart....N-No....” He murmured his thoughts aloud. “Iris trusted you...”
“Bl-Blue...?” The white mare choked and wheezed from the far stable. “Wh-What is happening? What are they here for?”
Dr. Canterstitch resumed his monologue as if he never had the chance to finish it. “And so, I took it upon myself to do the just thing—And report to Sheriff Amble here the breach of law that has been illicitly hidden from public eye for so long! If you have any care for Dr. Iris' well being, or for your foal's future, you will step aside.” The elderly doctor glanced at the Sheriff. Amble nodded back and motioned with a hoof, signaling two strong-bodied officers to march forward.
“NO!” Blue was suddenly in front of him, both of his sapphire wings stretched outward so that their vision of the mare was utterly blocked. “You will not take any trot forward!”
“Blue, son....” Sheriff Amble groaned exasperatingly before summoning forth an authoritarian glare. “You know the law--”
“And I know that it is an absurd law!” Blue shouted. “A vicious, prejudiced, and heartless law! Please—Don't do this! There are enough complications with the foaling as it is! Please—I beg of you! Have mercy! Where's your equinanity?”
“Mercy?” Dr. Canterstitch practically guffawed. “Mr. Farrier, if you and Iris had done the right thing and put this into the hooves of her fellow practicians instead of eloping with her to this Celestia-forsaken den of ill-repute, then any and all complications would have been expertly dealt with—complications which, might I add, are solid proof that the two of you should not have embarked upon this gross molestation of the natural order to begin with!”
Blue Farrier practically snarled: “If Iris gave birth in a 'normal' hospital, savages like you would have just taken the foal away!”
Canterstitch's eyes were ice cold. “And who says that is still not going to happen?”
The azure Pegasus gasped sharply at that, his eyes twitching. In the space of that breath of comprehension, Sheriff Amble once more signaled to his officers. The two police ponies resumed their brisk march to the rear of the stable. Somewhere in the middle of that, Blue snapped out of it—only to snap in a different way. With a high volumed “Get AWAY from her!” he flapped his wings and barreled snout-first into one policepony's flank before swiveling about in mid hover and bucking his hooves violently into the other's backside. The stables were filled with the thunder of crashing wooden beams and tossed hay as the madness unfolded.
Iris fought the pain and craned her neck to make sense out of the ensuing bedlam. From her anguished position, she could only make out thrashing shadows of angry equine in the crossover of amber and ivory haze. The mare's vision blacked out briefly as a sudden coldness rose up from her soul, wafting over her pained body in icy fingers of dread. The cloud cleared just as briefly as it overcame her, and then her violet eyes twitched to register the stampede of three more officers from the outside. They converged on her blue Pegasus mate, and still two of them were knocked senselessly towards the walls by the brave thrashing of his wings.
But the fight was half as effective as it was noble, and in under the span of a minute, Blue was subdued. Sheriff Amble's officers pressed him hard to the ground as he snarled and grunted in a few last ditch efforts to buck them off. He stared—bruised and teary eyed—as his gaze once again fell on his beloved. “Nnngh—It's okay, Iris! Don't panic! The foal will be--” His desperate voice was cut short as the officers flung bits and a bridle over his mouth. “Mmmmff—Mmmmff!”
“Bl-Blue!” Iris shrieked, howled—her front hooves kneading the naked air. “Oh Goddess, no—Get off him! Please!”
With taut ropes shackling his snout and binding his wings, Sheriff Amble and four other ponies dragged the Pegasus off, thrashing and bucking—his shouts sounding like somepony's tortured screams from underwater, growing distant as he was yanked out of the stables and into the purple night of cold Equestria beyond. Dr. Canterstitch stared boredly at the forced exit. The old Unicorn shook his head and marched slowly over towards Iris' stable, his gaze suddenly mimicking that of a shamed father.
“Tsk-Tsk-Tsk. I knew it was strange for a Pegasus like Farrier to be so fixated on working at an Earth Pony hospital. But in spite of how things have turned out, I am not a pony without decency.” He knelt down beside her, his horn glowing as several pieces of the foaling equipment hovered magically around the two of them. “Let's keep our minds on the task at hand, Dr. Iris, for this foal's sake. You're in capable hooves; I may yet be able to salvage the abomination that you and Mr. Farrier so irresponsibly set forth on.” But as the 'good' doctor narrowed his gaze, his expression turned grim. “Oh dear—What have we here, a breech? My My....Looks like he wasn't exaggerating...”
Iris was barely registering the Unicorn's words. As soon as Blue had left her sight, all color began leaving as well. The pain in her womb was starting to subside—and yet she could still feel her hind legs twitching. Her body was going numb, and this far into the foaling, she didn't need her medical degree to know what was happening. By the time the lamplight faded into an obsidian obscurity, Iris lost all sense of gravity. In that cold penumbra between the stars and oblivion, the young maiden mare floated—and every heartbeat was like an enormous thunder, growing ghostly distant with each haunting repetition.
Something that felt like eyes rolled back in her sockets. The world spun and unraveled her body like yarn. Iris knew she only had two or three breaths left to her—and in the coldest nights of fear and faith, nights of cuddling under the stars with Blue and giggling over their future, nights of staring at his handsome mane as he slept warmly in her embrace, nights of lonely thoughts that divided all that was hopeful from all that was true—she planned what to use those breaths for, and she planned it well.
“I beseech you...” She murmured into the broadening void as she turned over to slumber. “....Goddess Gultophine...”
From the hilltop where they forced and yanked Blue Farrier townward, the building was a mere dot against the shadowed edge of the Everfree Forest. The blue Pegasus snapped his neck back to stare at it—but was forcibly yanked southward by the officers escorting him. In a final fit of desperation, he angrily reared his hooves and tried to throw their grip off him. But their teeth held firm to the ropes attached to his bridle, and he was forced into a submissive squat on the ground, where he saw his moon shadow kiss the earth, before a deflated sigh blew a river of sand sadly away.
The police ponies murmured to one another and trotted forward to drag Blue the rest of the way to downtown Ponyville, when all of the sudden--
B O O O O O O M
The night's sky lit up. In half a blink, all five ponies and their prisoner were thrown to the Earth. The sound was deafening, and the vibrations that rumbled through the Earth made it impossible to breathe right. Nevertheless, Blue took the opportunity to jump onto his hooves and toss his bridle off with inequine strength. The soonest the bits flew free from his mouth, he shouted his mate's name---but couldn't hear anything save for a constant dull ringing in his twitching ears. With a numb gaze, he looked around him to see all of the officers sprawled on the floor—writhing in pain from the throttling jolt. Then, out of the starry sky, several shattered bits of lumber fell across the scene in a rain of chaotic proportions.
Naturally, Blue Farrier's eyes darted up—and he was startled to see a prismatic band of colors burning brightly across the night's sky. Every shade of the spectrum from red to green to violet burned across the cosmos in every direction—from Cloudsdale to Canterlot and beyond—covering the entirety of Equestria in a ceiling of gorgeous catastrophe.
There was no spare second for Blue to cherish the absurd beauty of the moment. For the first thing that came to his mind was--
“Iris.” His voice broke through the dull ringing in his ears. He spun about and looked downhill, towards the epicenter of the cataclysm. What was once the stables building was now an inexplicably collapsed pile of lumber. “Iris!” He immediately bolted into a full gallop. His body shook and his spine stretched, so that the bindings that the officers hastily put on his wings fell loose. In a single bound, he took to the air, and glided the west of the way like a sapphire lighting bolt, until he practically crashed through the scant remains of the stables doorway.
“Iris!” Blue shouted the first moment he was inside the dilapidated interior. A steady stream of dust and hay fell from the shattered ceiling like snow in slow motion. “Iris—Oh, by Celestia's mane—IRIS!” He shouted, kicking apart piles of lumber with his hooves as he frantically rummaged through the place. His breaths grew shorter, shorter, shorter—then stopped in a gasp as he saw...
...Dr. Canterstitch, collapsed besides a wooden crossbeam, moaning as he drifted in and out of a fresh concussion. And then—half a trot away—there lay a small figure, twitching, its body curled up within the perfect halo of starlight beaming in from the exploded ceiling. Without a second thought, Blue galloped and slid over to the foal, biting his teeth into the rubbery sack that still clung over its neck and snout. With expert motions, he uncovered the infant pony, and allowed it to breathe fully for the first time. And it was within the space of those last few seconds of observation that Blue's eyes widened even more.
The foal was a pegasus. But it was like no other—The moistened coat was a sky blue, brighter than Farrier's—but the feathery soft scrap of its mane and tail was a natural phenomenon: a rainbow coat, every shade of every color ever, in perfect celestial transition. The gentle thing twitched as its hide rose and fell with its first breaths. A rainbow pegasus. A girl. And very much alive.
Blue exhaled sharply—a happy, half-sob. “Oh Iris....She's beautiful. She's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. Iris, do you see her?” Silence. “.....Iris?” For once, his eyes stopped fixating on the post-natal filly as the cold of the night sunk in. His gaze traveled up her umbilical cord, and onto a white mass that laid under the shadow of two crossbeams. “Iris....? Honey....?”
Blue got up and slowly trotted over towards the ivory form. He leaned over. His snout nudged it once, twice. He bowed closer, nuzzling its neck, contacting, registering.....nothing.
“Ohhhhhh Celestia, have mercy! No no no—please--not like this!” He knelt down, collapsing, beside the body as he rubbed his snout against its. “Oh Iris, I wanted the three of us....The three of us....Huhhh-hhhhh....”
As his body shuddered, his wailing sobs filling the void of the night, the sounds made their way over the twitching ears of the rainbow-streaked foal. In a shivering fit, her soft violet eyes opened up, and for some reason—a reason she didn't yet understand—they were brimming with tears.
(Eight years later, on the other side of Equestria...)
North of the Stampeding Mountains, along the banks of the Azure Sea, there lied the forested Territory of Whinniepeg. In the center of the miniature kingdom, bordered by serf farms and outlying townships, was a four-story bricklaid castle built upon the watery shores to the north. The structure was by no means as lush and majestic as the Royal Architecture found at distant Canterlot—but the gray stony features of the keep sang silent songs of its grand age and history and of the several dynasties preserved within.
One night, as the cold blue stars swam their gentle way over the sloping horizon, a lone figure could be seen in the field outside the castle, just beyond the viciously dancing penumbra of the tall structure's flickering torchlight. Lying on the soft grass beside an abandoned stone hut with a thatched roof was a pale blue unicorn—a filly—barely past the age of self-enchantment.
This petite moonlighting pony paid no heed to the heavy shadows of the waxing night. Instead, she focused all of her attention to a violet-skinned book propped open in front of her. A tiny campfire bristled and sputtered to her side, casting a dim glow that barely illuminated the immeasureably old runes etched across the pages of her literature. And yet, in spite of the scant light, the silver haired unicorn had no trouble whatsoever reading the archaic words spread before her.
“Hmmmm.... .... ...'Ethelithiulim kelliwiczit mesum'mar fala sulthasalum Epon'a selecestriaria'....” She murmured. Her purple eyes blinked as she gazed skyward in audible thought. “'Integrate cosmic breath by the gift of Epona's skydance'.....” She rubbed her tiny chin with a hoof for a few seconds of contemplation, then glanced up cross-eyed at the looming image of her alicorn protrusion. A sudden gasp: “Of course! The 'wind' is the 'will', by the grace of Epona's 'skydance'--or her spirit!”
The young filly got up on all fours and locked her legs. With sizable effort, she tilted her head forward, aiming her horn at a pile of rocks located two yards from the twinkling campfire. A deep squealing noise rose like a reverse waterfall from the inside of her fluttering gut, and the very tip of her horn glowed with a bright silver energy.
“Nnnngh....M-Must....Focus.....” A deep shuddering breath, and she calmed herself in time to chant forth: “Hr'numma, Trixie, ethelithiulu Terrestria fala Epon'a selecestriaria, hr'nummulu!” Her legs buckled as her horn emanated a brighter glow at the very end of her incantation. Sweat ran down the edges of her temples and her porcelain mane flowed in an unnatural wind.
This proceeded for what seemed like an intolerable eon, until the young unicorn opened her eyes and gasped—her violet eyes dilating—to realize that the wobbling pile of stones was levitating magically before her, by the sway of her focused will.
“It's working....It's working!” She all-but-giggled as her eyes lit up, following the slow ascent of the jagged pieces of earth into the starry sky before her. “Oh blessed Epona—I had no idea it was so easy--!” A twinkle of light in the distance caught her attention, forcing her to glance towards the horizon. Suddenly she gasped wide, her face grimacing in horror.
Th-Th-Thud! The rocks fell into a messy pile, sending a flurry of dried up grass fluttering about the scene as the filly fell on her rump and balked at the Eastern skyline. Dawn was approaching, the distant clouds bubbling in an unmistakable blue glow.
“Oh N-No!!” She panted. She glanced aside at her satchel of things and noticed that the topside of her hourglass was empty since she had placed it down countless hours ago. “No no no no no! I've lost track of time!” With clattering teeth, she glanced at the horizon, at the castle, at the horizon, then at the castle again. “I-I gotta get back inside! Ohhhhh---!”
In a frenzy, she clapped the dusty tome shut and flung it—along with the hourglass—into her satchel. She aimed her unicorn at the campfire and chanted a few ancient words; the flames magically put themselves out. She then dug her snout into her satchel and yanked out a purple cloak embroidered with a dazzling ensemble of stars and comets. This too she aimed her horn at, only now the murmured incantation was far more melodic and focused—a sign of a magic spell that she had spent every day of her young life practicing in earnest. As her words dripped out, her horn vibrated with a gentle hum, and a deep darkness gently cascaded over the cloak, so that the shadow that the cloth cast was twice as darkly as everything else's under the advent of dawn.
With a final breath, the unicorn flung the now-enchanted cloak over her flank—covering her pale blue body—and grabbed her satchel in her teeth. But just as she made to gallop towards the castle, and away from the distant sunrise--
THUD!
“Ummmf!” The filly fell back from impacting a white coated chest. Her cloak fell off her shoulders and her satchel spilled out on the grass besides the abandoned hut. Shaking the dizziness out of her skull, she hopped to her hooves and started: “Now just who in Equestria would be so rude to stand in a lady's way--?” She froze in mid growl, her eyes twitching. An even huger gasp escaped her lungs. “P-P-Prince Blueblood! Y-Your Highness!” She immediately petered back and fell into a full-bodied bow. “I am so, soooo s-sorry, my liege!”
“.... ... ....” A young unicorn colt with a sparkling blonde mane stood above her, blue eyes observing the subservient stance with a haughty boredom. He was only a few winters older than her, but obviously far bigger in stature and in standing—both physically and figuratively. He took a look down at his fine white coat—slightly fluffed from the sudden impact of her scampering body into his. He sighed long and hard; and the sigh turned into a drolling mutter: “Hmmmph—Seems like you do a far more exceptional job at seeing what's in front of you when you're bowing on your knees rather than when you're gallivanting about on all hooves.”
“A thousand pardons, my Prince! I did not expect to m-meet you in the middle of the field at night--!” She paused at her own words, eyes blinking confusedly towards the grass. She tilted her head up and squinted at him. “Erm....Just wh-wh-why are you out here.....Erm....Y-Your Highness?” Her coat blushed a darker blue as she realized the audacity of her question.
Then, from her peripheral, startling her: “Is this the brat you were talking about, cousin?”
“Ugh....For the penultimate time, yes!” Prince Blueblood of Whinniepeg tossed his mane as two more colts—also members of Regal Unicornia—trotted up to flank him on either side. “Was it not enough that I regailed you on the truly inane nature of her moonlighting sorcery that you had to force me out here in the bitter cold of early morning to bring clarity to your doubting eyes?” He suddenly smirked down at the filly, eyebrows waggling pridefully: “Surely you have met my blood relatives from Neighbraska, Baron Hardhoof and the young Duke Wintercolt of Trottingham!” He then tapped his richly horseshoe'd hoof to his chin. “Oh wait a second—You haven't! Because you're just a naïve servant! Mmm-hah-hah-hahhh!”
The other two likewise chuckled as the three formed a formidable circle around the young unicorn. She glanced at them nervously and gulped, struggling to maintain her bowed stance of reverence. “H-How is it that may help you, m-my lieges?”
“Wow. Listen to her. She's like a trained parrot!” One of the royals smirked Blueblood's way. “Hey, girl—you're a daughter of the Royal Whinniepeg Light Casters, right?”
“Y-Y-Yes, sir...” She shivered and eyed their leering trots uneasily. “The R-Royal Light Casters have been in the service of the Bluebloods for several centuries, headlining various festivities and royal events like the Northern Galloping Gala--”
“I didn't ask you for a history lesson, peasant!” The one royal spat. “You do realize you're talking to a third-to-the-throne, do you not?”
“Hah!” The other one pointed with a hoof and giggled. “She doesn't even have her cutie mark yet! Someone call the Royal Guard! We've got a wild horse on the loose who should be stabled! Ha ha ha--”
She trotted backwards and crossed her hooves, gazing away sheepishly as her eyes started to water—But then the Prince spoke:
“Don't be so hard on her, dear cousins. After all, she is surely out here on a mission of great study and importance—Are you not, young one?” He stared down at her, frowning. “Surely there must be a reason why I shouldn't just report your breach of curfew! After all, it is only because of the safe keeping that my family has provided you pathetically fragile herd of inbreds over the centuries that you can count herself as safe! And to insult me by frolicking outside the castle dates under the shade of night! Bah! How detestable!”
“Yeah—Just why is it that you Whinniepeg showponies are never seen around in the daytime anyways?” One of the royals brushed up against her in a half shove, scoffing. “I was disappointed when nobody performed a dancing light show at my arriving luncheon yesterday!”
“What's your name, showpony?” The other royal asked the timidly wilting unicorn.
“Erm....mmm—T-Trixie, your h-highness....” She squeaked out.
“Trixie! Hah! Oh that's a laugh!” One royal guffawed. “The youngest in a family of lightdancing unicorns! They should have named her 'One-Trixie'! Do you get it? 'One-Trixie the Pony'!”
“Hahahahaha!”
“Hah hah hah—Well put, cousin...”
Her eyes deflated at that, palpitations rising up from deep within--
“Well well well, what do we have here?”
She spun around and gasped.
Prince Blueblood was practicing a levitation spell with his horn—and floating in front of him, in front of all of them, was the violet-skinned tome that she had been practicing from earlier. He narrowed his confused eyes and read off the cover of the book. “Breaths of Epona: A Record of Arcane and Tradition in Cosmic Alchemy.” He tossed the book offensively to the side, elliciting a gasp from the trembling Trixie. “Cosmic Alchemy?! Bah! On top of moonlighting, she's been performing outdated paganism—And on the land of my royal inheritance!”
“Guess someone knows she's just a 'One-Trixie'!”
“I say! Hahahahah!”
“Heheheheh!”
Trixie suddenly growled as a shot of boiling anger rocketed up from her heart and barked out of her mouth: “It's not 'paganism'! It's a school of magic lost through the ages! My family used to be a proud herd of the Eponaistic Lineage! And just because most magic academies these days scoff at ancient history doesn't.... mean... .... ...that.... ....” She suddenly shrunk back dociley.
All three colts were bearing down at her, frowning. After an intimidating bout of silence, Blueblood cleared his throat and tossed his blonde mane into the brightening horizon. “Such insolence. Tell me, dear cousins, what would be a fitting form of punishment for a mere charlatan who doesn't know when to close her offensive snout?”
“A dozen floggings!” One royal smirked devilishly. “That would equal a hundred on that pathetically soft blue coat of hers.”
“A day in the dungeon!” The other one snickered. “Maybe she'd learn some new magic down there, like how to frighten rats!”
Trixie trembled as she gazed in uncertainty at these young nobles deciding her 'fate'. Her frightened eyes fell from one colt, then to another, and then to the third—but in between hovered forlornly on the blossoming sunrise behind them. Finally, with a desperate gulp, she raised a hoof and subsequently raised her jittery voice: “Y-You may punish me as you s-see fit, my lords. But I implore you—Have mercy on your wrongfully petulant servant, and allow her to go indoors. Please—I beg of you.”
“Hmmm... .... ...” Blueblood scratched his chin. “Indoors.... ...?” He glanced at both of his cousins. He smirked. He motioned with his head behind Trixie's back. In a chuckling swoop, both royals galloped into her—inducing a shriek from her frightened self. In a tumbling flight, grass kicking up on either side of her, she found herself flung into the center of a dank hovel. Stumbling up to her hooves, she gasped to realize that she had just been flung into the hollow of the abandoned hut besides her extinquished campfire. “Indoors it is, my humble servant!” Blueblood's smirking form disappeared as the wooden door to the tiny building was bucked shut from outside with a dramatic SLAM!
“No! Please!! Wait--!” She galloped and sped full force into the door. With a pathetic thud, she stumbled back. Squinting—she could see through the cracks in the frame that a large stone had been rolled up and laid against the single entrance of the hut. “M-My lieges! Don't do this!”
“Ordering us around now? Hahah—She deserves this confinement!”
“Prince Blueblood, just how do you put up with such worthless servants?”
“Mmmm—The Light Caster family surely are a bore from time to time. But unlike most pets, they do talk enough to amuse me.”
“Most assuredly! Heheh—My stars, I am famished! When is breakfast?”
“Follow me, cousins. Our morning entertainment is over for now.”
“Have a good time, 'One-Trixie'! Hahaha!”
“Nnnnngh--” The young magician in question struggled to shove her shoulders up against the door. She pushed and strained and ultimately collapsed onto the hard rocky floor of the hay-strewn hut. After a deflated sigh, she glanced up...up....and practically shrieked, her eyes as wide as saucers.
The thatched roof of the hut had worn away with the ages. A huge gaping hole showed the last twinkling specks of light as they were washed away by the brightening blue of early dawn. In honesty, there was no definitive roof to be had, and the interior of the hut was starting to get less and less dim--
“Goddess, no!” Trixie panted. Panicking, she scratched and hammered away at the door with desperate hooves. “Let me out! Let me out, please!” She shrieked louder and louder. “You don't understand, my lieges! I...I....I-I will die!” She could barely make out the laughter of the three royal unicorns, fading away into the distance as they trotted apathetically away.
In desperation, she squatted low and peered her purple eyes through the thin crack underneath the hut's door. Scanning the grassy gnoll outside, she took notice of the boulder in the foreground, the scant remains of the campfire, the arcane tome, her satchel--
“Oh thank heavens!”
She saw her cloak. The young Trixie glanced up at her horn, then back down at the crack. She knelt down and took several deep breaths, concentrating, and finally murmuring forth a frightened but focused incantation: “Hr'numma Tr-Trixie ethelithiulu T-Terrestria f-fala Epon'a s-selecestriaria hr'nummulu!”
Her horn glowed. The door wobbled slightly. The grass between her and the cloak fluttered in opposite directions. But it worked. The darkened cloak of 'stars' was slowly but surely lifting up from the earth.
“Come on....” Trixie shuddered and sweated with the effort. “Please....oh please....”
The cloak shifted its flimsy weight under the novice magician's control, but slowly began snaking its way towards the hut. Its enchanted shadow grew in prominence as it ran a desperate floating race against the waxing wave of dawnlight.
“Come onnnnnn--” But then, Trixie suddenly gasped. “....!!!”
The cloak had caught on a branch. Trixie concentrated harder, her horn vibrating with the sheer effort. The cloak tugged and tugged, but wouldn't budge. Suddenly the grass around it became three times as green. The unassuming light from the sunrise made its way towards the crack beneath the hut's door and viciously FLASHED into the violet eyes of the young Whinniepeg Light Caster.
“Uhhhhngh!” Trixie stumbled back into the far wall of the hut. Seeing stars, she scaled the walls with her burning vision. The stars were all gone now in the hole of the barely existent 'ceiling'. Stifling a sob, she leapt and clawed and clamored at the walls of the hut. Dust and straw fell on her twitching face, mute against the palpitating breaths of the young filly. “No...oh no—Mmmm--” Trixie shrunk against the door of the wall, clinging to the scant shadows left to the place. “Nnnngh--” She tilted her snout up high. “Help! Please! Somepony! Anypony! Please help me!”
Silence.
The shadows melted away.
Sunlight poured against the opposite wall and swam its way down like molten lava before the snow blue unicorn. It then boiled its way across the stone floor of the hut, inching menacingly towards the young Trixie as she stood up on her shivering hooves with her back planted against the furthest corner of the place. She squeaked and whimpered and tried to press herself further away from the bleeding light, and still it came. As soon as the first edge of the sunbeam inched its way over her white tail, steam hissed into the air.
“Nnnngh!” Trixie yelped and pressed her entire body flat against the wall. She gasped as the steam wafted up to her nostrils, and then she gasped even louder as the steam tripled.
North of the Stampeding Mountains, along the banks of the Azure Sea, there lied the forested Territory of Whinniepeg. And in the center of this miniature kingdom—as the morning Sun rose innocently in the soft blue sky—a tortured scream flew from a lone building several yards from a four-story castle. The sky rang with the howl, frightening birds out of several trees so that they flew southward....
....and a few shrill seconds later, faintly boiling over the edges of the mountain tops, a gorgeous band of rainbow light from the south shimmered, soared, then dissipated, unseen.
(Ponyville, Today....)
“It all happened during the race at Flight Camp, where I stood alone against all odds to defend Fluttershy's honor. I'd never flown like that before. The freedom was unlike anything I'd ever felt. The speed, the adrenaline, the wind in my mane; I liked it...a lot! Turns out the only thing I liked more than flying fast, was winning! Most people thought that the sonic rainboom was just an old mare's tale. But that day, the day I discovered racing, I proved that the legends were true. I made the impossible happen!”
A blue wing unfoils ever so briefly to display a permanent image emblazoned across an agile mare's right flank. A thunderous cloud is launching a daring zig-zag of prismatically charged lightning, a jagged dance of all the primary colors: golden yellow sandwiched between ocean blue and fire red. In a solitary blink, the wing folds back, and with a flick of a rainbow tail, the sky-colored pegasus smirks down at three mesmerized fillies gathered at the entrance to the Sugarcube Corner.
“And that, little ones...” Rainbow Dash gives a devil-may-care smirk and plants her front hoof down to punctuate the end of her story. “....is how you earn a cutie mark.”
Barely a second has passed, and the three little ponies articulate their awe in predictable fashion. “Whoaaaaaaaaaah.” Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle are grinning cheek to cheek. Scootaloo, the final piece of the Cutie Mark Crusader Trinity, is practically drooling.
Suddenly: “Wait a second!”
The three girls do a double take as Fluttershy suddenly trots into frame, gazing emphatically at Rainbow Dash's startled face.
“I heard that explosion,” she says. “And I saw the rainbow too! Rainbow Dash, if you hadn't scared the animals, I never would have learned I could communicate with them and gotten my cutie mark!
Before the confuzzled Pegasus can respond, a certain pink Earth Pony bounces ceilingward and loudly announces: “I heard that Boom! And right afterwards, there was this amazing rainbow that taught me to smile!”
“When Ah got mah cutie mark, Ah saw a rainbow that pointed meh home!” Apple Jack remarks. She rubs circles on her chin with a thoughtful hoof before the facts in her blonde head rotate her eyes excitedly towards Rainbow Dash, and with a grin she exclaims: “I bet it was your sonic rainboom!”
The Crusaders' bright eyes are bouncing back and forth across this developing exchange, just as Rarity steps up, beaming. “There was an explosion I could never explain when I got my cutie mark!” The elegant seamstress utters.
“This is uncanny!” A voice murmurs from the far side of Sugarcube Corner. Twilight Sparkle is burning a hole through the floor with her purple eyes as she unravels the truth out loud before everyone. “If that explosion didn't happened when it did, I would have blown my entrance exam!” She glances up across the room, teetering on the brink of joyfully exploding. “Rainbow Dash, I think you helped me earn my cutie mark too!”
There is an ice-splitting breath of silence, as the weight of this mesmerizing truth mathematically overcomes the endorphin-bubbling ecstasy of the moment. Then the quiet is all too prophetically shattered by Pinkie Pie who takes it upon herself to violently pounce her entire fiberglass colored weight on Rainbow Dash in a heroic lunge of joy.
“Whoahhh--!” Rainbow barely has a chance to gasp. (Thud[?]!)
Pinkie Pie grins religiously down at her friend. “We all owe our cutie marks to you!”
Fluttershy's gentle face leans its way into Rainbow Dash's violet gaze. “Do you realize what this means? All of us had a special connection before we even met!”
Rarity's complexion joins the trifold portrait. “We've been BFFs forever and we didn't even know it!”
The blue pegasus can only manage a sheepish grin as she's overwhelmed by this happy huddle. Then to add caramel-coated insult to injury, Applejack warmly marches over with Twilight in tow. “C'mere, y'all...”
What transpires now is the toastiest thing since Princess Celestia ushered in the first sunrise. All five fillies form a circular embrace, and in the epicenter is Rainbow Dash, an inexplicable victim of fate—as they all are—but neither she, nor they, can stammer forth a complaint. What comes out of them instead is a conjoined hum, a squeal of happiness—briefly serenaded by a random “I love you guys” coming out of the delightfully frank squeakiness of Pinkie Pie's girlish chirps.
The three Crusaders are drinking in the scene from afar, adding to the warmth. Rainbow Dash can barely hear them—something about zip-lining—and then everything drowns out as she discovers a deeper niche within the warm arms of her closest companions, her sudden soulmates, her elements of harmony. And in the darkest clamshell places of her heart, where elation was only ever before a disguise put on by flight or fight, the warmth finds its way, and it reminds her... ...reminds her of those words, words spoken in shadows of another shape, words given to her to repeat at the fall of every cold night ever, and now summoning the moisture to her eyelids once again...
“I beseech you, Goddess Gultophine.”
Act 1 – Chapter 2 – The Most Awesome Day that Ever Awesomed
Sunrise.
Celestial bands of gold waft over a misty bed of cloudtops. They swim their glowing trails through the billowing vapor until they cascade over folded blue hooves, a sapphire snout, twitching eyelids that open flutteringly to grace the first breath of wakefulness. Violet irises dilate and hide under squinting sockets, and then and only then does Rainbow Dash summon a smile. The blue pegasus squeaks inwardly as she sits up and stretches from the cloud bed upon which she has slumbered all night. She rears her front hooves infantly and then flexes her spine, firing several cracks into the air like lead-plated popcorn springing to life. Finally, her tail shoots out with an undainty CRIKKK—and she flails her multicolored strands of hair, red to orange to yellow to green to blue to violet—just like her mane, which is a tattered and cowlicked mess of rainbow chaos above her yawning, cheek-tonguing face.
The burning horizon of the great bowling world looms before her, lit with platinum fire as the Sun rises over the gray mountains of distant Canterlot, bringing glitter and glow to the dew-speckled emerald plains of Equestria below, sending rivulets of oceanic sparkles from the majestic floating spires of Cloudsdale looming to the North, bouncing gaily off the multicolored rooftops of Ponyville that hazily slumbers far below, waking slowly with the tiny red gasps of Sweet Apple Acres, and even highlighting the purplish mystique of the Everfree Treetops.
Rainbow Dash squats dizzily upon the precarious edge of her cloud bank, gazing bravely into the plethora of color and life rising to greet her—the wind warm and soothing, the air fresh and resurrecting, the light bright but buffering. A yawn of finality, a hoof driven lazily through her mane, and she blinks with a great sigh, then a rebounding inhalation as she prepares an instinctual sermon for the Start of Everything:
“Awwwwwwwww yeah.”
Rainbow Dash jumps off the cloud bed, does a backflip, and lands through a morning wisp of fine white mist. Twirling in free-fall—her mane and tail like twin kaleidoscopic flags—she twirls her body sharply to the side and folds her wings out. A surge of frictious air, and she's propelled sideways in a sharp turn, banking wide and long so that she's veritably soaring orbits around the separate rays of sunlight peaking over the moutain ridges in the distant East.
After several revolutions, she tilts the back of her wings downward and pulls up in a sharp climb, gaining altitude, until she reaches a patch of golden hue where several sunbeams converge. Hovering there in the spotlight made by the dawn, the blue pegasus takes a deep, warm breath. After about five wing-beats of silence, Rainbow's snout suddenly grimaces. She takes another sharp breath, then a couple of sniffs. Eyes open in this sudden break from grace; she raises a curious eyebrow, rubs her hoof through her messy mane, then unashamedly scratches her right armpit. Another sniff—and she no longer doubts it. “Ughhh...” She wreaks.
She looks left, she looks right, then finally looks down. There—She spots it: a cumulonimbus cloud, dark and foggy against the otherwise golden troposphere. “Hmmph...” A smirk. She curls her front hooves close to her body, rears her legs, and bolts downward in a sharp plunge. The air shrieks briefly around her, parting ways as the vapors surge past her insane, youthful dive. The gray cloud looms beneath her, soon encompassing her entire vision. Rainbow Dash takes a gasp and holds her breath with bulging blue chipmunk cheeks. In a wet splash, she plows through the top of the cloud and explodes out the bottom end with a shower of raindrops cascading after her fluttering tail. For the briefest of bulleting moments, she retracts her wings to her flanks and twirls-twirls-twirls in the rainfall that's been summoned alongside her. Finally, after a few dozen revolutions—now that her blue coat has collected a deep, moist sheen—she unfurls her wings and banks back upwards, tomahawking her wet body back to where the golden rays are.
Bursting through the bottom of a broad cloudbed, she rolls onto her back and hovers backwards, gliding over the white misty cloudtops that are toastily reflecting the glow of the sunrise. In a spectacle of momentary daintiness, Rainbow Dash dries herself with as much ease as she so speedily became soaked. She punctuates this with a smile and a swooping twist of her body as her wings pump her even higher heavenward, rotating her into a lasting loopty-loop that shakes the last excess droplets off her extremities. Hovering slowly once more in the crossbeams of light, she runs a hand back over her slick-straight mane. A knowing smirk, and she shakes her snout like a rattlesnake's tail; this inevitably summons a ritualistic POOMF(!) of her hair, so that they solidify into jagged sharp bangs of R.O.Y.G.B.I.V., matching her knife-sharp tail.
“Heheh. There we go.”
That uttered, she now hovers once again in place, watching as the heavenly vista of Cloudsdale glows clearer in the rising sun. Morning is beginning its sophomore climb. Soon, all of Equestria will be half as awake as Rainbow Dash is this very second. There is no time left to waste.
“So much to do today. Mmmmm....Better get started.”
And with that said, the blue pegasus 'kicks' at the air and falls back on spread wings, so that she flutters lazily like a lopsided feather down, down, down into the soft cloud bed below to engage in a pre-noon nap. She wraps a loop of white mist back over her blue coat like a blanket, turns over, and nearly has her eyes shut when out from the Zenith--
“Hiya, Rainbow Dash!”
“H-Huh? What?” The blue pegasus flutters her slothful eyes open and goes crosseyed as she finds her reclined body lifting magically from the cloudbed with no movement of her wings. A puttering noise, the sound of twisting gears and fluttering propellors—and Rainbow Dash flails and gasps to find herself rolling comically over the nose of a wheel-powered gyro-glider rising up through the white mist. “Whooaaaa-aaah—GAHH!” The speedster of Cloudsdale ragdolls gracelessly off the canvass wing and slams neck-first into the frothy white clouds below, her tail and hooves sticking obscenely upwards.
“Hey! Rainbow Dash!” A vibrant peach-coated filly with magenta hair and sporting a violet safety helmet is presently occupying the pilot's seat of the rickety contraption. With endless twirls of her lower hooves to bicycle pedals, she orchestrates the artful revolution of an elaborate array of propellors propped upon a brass chassis and flanked with lightweight wing apparatuses. “R-Rainbow Dash?” She blinks, curiously now, glancing her helmeted head every which way for a sign of the blue pegasus. “Rainbow Dash, where'd you go?”
“Tuu Hegg in uh Hmmbasgetttt.” A muffled voice grunts from below.
The filly pilot merely brightens from the sound of her stuffy voice. “Wh-What was that, Rainbow?”
“Nnnnngh---UGH!” (POP!) Rainbow Dash snaps her skull loose from the clouds, shakes the cobwebs loose, and squints razor sharp violets up at the hovering delinquet. “Scootaloo, what gives?”
“I came to see you, Rainbow Dash!”
“I can see that you came to see me, pipsqueak! But—What's with the airborn skeleton of a vending machine?” One blink. Two...three: “And just how'd you know that I'd be up here anyways?”
“Ugh, please, Rainbow Dash!” Scootaloo giggles between huffs and puffs as she pedals away in mid-air, her tiny wings flapping randomly to give balance and poise to her piloting skills. “Everyone knows you're the coolest, bravest, freest, most awesomest pegasus in all of Equestria! You fly where you like, sleep where you like and don't afraid of anything!”
“.... .... ....” Rainbow Dash stares boredly at the young filly. “Pinkie Pie told you, didn't she?”
“Mmmmmm—Gnnngh--” Scootaloo's face scrunches up briefly as if she is secretly slamming herself with mental hammers from the inside out. Turning a leaf, she abruptly brightens and motions with one free hoof to her contraption. “What do you think of my invention?”
“Huh? Oh, it's....Uh....I think it's--” Rainbow raises a hoof to finish her sentence, falters, blinks, and raises a nervous eyebrow. “Just what in the hay is it?”
Scootaloo felicitously chirps: “It's a S.P.A.F.A.V!”
“Gesundheit.”
“Get it?” Scootaloo grins wryly. “Ahem--Single Pony Artificial Flight Assistant Vehicle! Ain't it cool?”
“Er....Yeah, I-I guess.” Rainbow Dash slowly hovers around the gyro-thing-a-ma-jigg-a-tron, inspecting it closely—or at least pretending to be doing so. “It's pretty cool.”
“You think?” Scootaloo's smile carves an ivory crescent from ear to ear.
“Granted, it'd be a lot cooler to something like an Earth Pony or—yanno—a rock. Whatever; Just about anything without wings.”
The filly pegasus blushes slightly under her helmet. “Er....y-yeah, well...” She gestures dramatically towards the extremities of the puttering device. “WORK IN PROGRESSSSSS—That's 'progress' with three hundred percent extra S's.”
“Fancy.”
“Let's just say I'm testing it for the target demographic.”
“And who would that be?”
“Hnnnnghhh....” Scootaloo sighs with slumped shoulders. “I dunno. I confess—it's a total crapshoot. Just like figuring out what my cutie mark should be.”
Rainbow Dash raises an eyebrow. “Yeesh, Scootaloo. Who teaches you words like that?”
“What?” Scootaloo blinks up at the floating blue pegasus. “'Crapshoot'?”
“Well, I was going to say 'demographic', but whatever, I guess.” The hovering Cloudsdaler shrugs and folds her arms. “I really don't understand you fillies these days. Besides...” She squints down at the excited pilot. “Since when did you get a thrill from tinkering with stuff? Isn't that redhead you hang out the one who's gifted with nailing junk together and turning them into works of art?”
“Who, my BFF Apple Bloom?” Scootaloo parks the gyro-whatsit on a cloudbank and hops down in front of Rainbow Dash. “Nah, she's much better at dancing. You must be thinking of Sweetie Belle.”
“But--”
“And wait till you hear a sample of my latest singing track!” The pegasus filly joyfully bounces up and down, smiling wide.
Rainbow Dash stealthily rolls her eyes and facehoofs. “Ohright. This whole bit.”
“It's really cool! Not the normal rock I do, but a ballad!”
“Uhhh....” Rainbow blinks over the filly's helmet. “Scootaloo---”
“Okay, if you wanna know, it's this really sweet cover of Buck to December by Trotter Swiftly.”
“Scootaloo!”
“Er—Y-Yes, Rainbow Dash?”
“Did you put that machine together with parts made in Cloudsdale?”
“Uhhhh-No.” Scootaloo shakes her snout. “I made it last week behind Apple Bloom's farm, in Ponvyille. Why?”
Rainbow boredly points a hoof behind Scootaloo's flank. The young filly turns, glances past her markless form and gasps. The aircraft is sinking slowly through the cloud bed, like hot syrup through a thin sheet of ice. A brief lurching moment of precarious teetering, and the hulking thing plunges swift as a three ton stone towards the distant earth below, shattering bits of white vapor every which way.
“Oh hoarseapples!” Scootaloo shrieks and swan-dives off the cloudbank, soaring petitely after the huge dumb object as quickly as her tiny wings can allow her.
Left far behind—and above—Rainbow Dash sighs long and hard. But with an unrestrained smirk, she gives into the moment and dives herself. A roar of sliced air thunders behind her wide blue wings as she threads her way down through the atmosphere, pursuing the runaway victim of gravity. A stressed and teeth-gritting Scootaloo manages to register Rainbow Dash's dive at the last second. With pulsing pink eyes, she marvels as the older pegasus outshoots her in a blink, matching the falling velocity of the gyroclunker and slowing its fall with a double-hoofed grip as well as a mighty flap of her wings. By the time Scootaloo catches up, Rainbow is already raising the craft back up to its initial point of plunging—howbeit slowly.
“Wowwwww...Rainbow Dash, you're incredible!” The magenta mane'd filly beams as she makes an effort to lift her end of the aircraft, fluttering her wings with extra bravado as she matches the blue pony's movements. “Is there anything you can't do?”
“Take a nap, for one.”
“What was that?”
“AHEM--” Rainbow glances over the complex brass chassis of the aircraft as the two hover slowly up to the nearest cloudbank. “I still can't get over the fact that you're a tinkerer. You built this all by yourself?”
“Well—Apple Bloom's older sister helped a little--”
“HAH!” Rainbow Dash cackles. “AJ would only help if she kicked the propellers of this thing and it spat apples out!”
“Hey! She did too help out!”
“Yeah? How?”
“.... .... ...She lent me her toolbox?”
“So what you mean to say is Big Macintosh helped you.”
“Uh uh!”
“Apple Jack wouldn't know a toolbox if it galloped up and bit her.”
“Okay! Fine! I did it myself! Jeez--”
“Well, it's nothing to be ashamed of, Scootaloo.” Rainbow Dash raises the thing up to the cloudbank and waits for Scootaloo to hop back into the pilot seat before letting go. The filly pedals away at the thing once more as the blue pegasus looks on with hooves folded. “Heck—For all we know, this could be a one way ticket to getting your cutie mark!”
“What does building stuff have to do with singing?”
“Well, it—uhm...... nnghhh....Yeah....” Rainbow Dash groans and smiles sheepishly. “You got me there, pipsqueak.”
“This is just a hobby.”
“A hobby?”
“Yeah. Like me and the scooter.”
“You and a scooter? Surely you're pulling my tail!”
“Hush!” Scootaloo briefly hisses from the pilot's seat. “I'm awesome on a scooter! I bet I'm almost as awesome on a scooter as you are in the air!”
Rainbow Dash smirks slywly, eyebrows waggling. “Oh really?”
“The first time I got on a scooter—I felt free, yanno?” Scootaloo blushes slightly as her eyes gaze beyond the morning glow against the nearest cloudbed. “It was—like—the perfect thing to ride on while using my flapping wings to push me places. So I got to thinking—What else could I make for everypony to help them do normal things easily? And one project led to another, several welding tools went through a workout, a few chickens were hurt, and—Voila!--Here I am with this....er..... ...th-thing.”
“Well, it's a pretty awesome thing if I do say so myself.” Rainbow Dash winks, patting part of the exposed chassis.
“N-e-E-e-E!” Scootaloo squeals quietly to herself. “Thanks, Rainbow Dash. I'm glad you approve.”
“Hey, anytime, Scoots. Yanno, a wise sage once said: Only the young can say they're free to fly away.”
“Besides—It was the only way I could get the heck away from that scene of despicable mushiness yesterday.”
“Scene of....er....despicable mushiness...?”
“You knowwwww....” Scootaloo performs a 'wretching' pantomime with extraordinary use of her tongue and cheek muscles. “That whole thing last afternoon in Sugarcube Corner--”
“Oh, you mean that scene of despicable mushiness. Yeah—heheh--....” Rainbow Dash gazes heavenward and only halfway makes an effort to hide a deep sigh resonating from deep within her blue being. “I had to get the heck away from that too,”
“Did you finish your letter to Princess Celestia?”
“I—Der—idja--whoodja--Whuttt?” Rainbow's violet eyes cross as an invisible record player scratches violenty between her ears. “Huh?”
“Yanno—The thing Twilight Sparkle's got you working on?”
“Uhhhh--”
Scootaloo gasps as if the four corners of the world are being folded up by a giant starry dragon doing the laundry. “You mean you forgot about the letter?”
“Scoots, the day I commit to writing anything is the day I kiss a mule--”
“Oh Rainbow Dash...!”
“--and like it.”
“... ...you promised Twilight! Just yesterday! I saw you do it!”
“Oh did you now?”
“Can't you remember?”
Rainbow Dash takes a deep, frustrating breath. Tapping her hoof to her chin, she shoots her violet eyes towards the back of her skull and makes a ludicrously visible effort of thinking, thinking, thinking. A swift gust of morning wind kicks at her mane and the local clouds, so that the entire scene resembles what may be or may not be misconstrued as a watery crossfade.
“You want me to do WHAT?” Rainbow Dash flinched exaggeratedly from the violet haired Unicorn as if she were the Plague.
“I do believe you heard my proposal.” Twilight Sparkle proudly lifted her chin. The pony's tail flicked energetically with the scant remaining bits of girlish joy still flitting through her from a full afternoon of hugs and revelations. “I think you should write a letter to the Princess! I can't think of anyone better suited to fill her in on what we've just learned today!”
“Yeah—Uh—Listen, Twi. I love ya like a friend and all, so don't take this personally, but: Not on your nerdy papercutted nelly!”
“Oh come on, Dash! It'll be perfect!”
“Ughhh--” Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. The two ponies stood under the gentle cover of falling night before the yawning, lantern-lit doorway to Twilight's library in the center of Ponyville. After a long night of girl-talk and converging cutie mark tales of diabetes-inducing nostalgia, the rest of the ponies—Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, and that blonde one—had all trotted homeward, leaving this lonesome and totally mismatched pair to kerplunk upon the rocky shoals of the most awkward conversation ever. “--Seriously, Twilight. Why can't you just write the Princess like—uh--you normally do?”
“Oh, I intend to.”
“Then—Snkkkt--hckk--Wh-What's the—rrrg—What's the point?”
“Because you're so important to...to....-well-to what we've learned, Rainbow Dash! And I don't mean just what we've learned today, but—Quite frankly—everything I've ever learned up to this point is in some way or another a direct result of your influence! How could you deny that?”
“I'm not denying anything. Eheheh......” Rainbow Dash kicked at the earth between them with a lonesome hoof and heaved an embarassed sigh. “So, one day, years ago, I did the one hundred mile swan dive in a Pegasus Race and it went thermonuclear on the color spectrum, and it so happens that the explosion gave all of us our cutie marks in some sort of ode to all things sappy. So what? I call it dumb luck.”
“Awww—Rainbow....” Twilight smiled gently, her eyes sparkling as she leaned forward. “Have you learned nothing from all we talked about tonight?”
“All the more reason why I shouldn't be pretending to write a letter to Princess Celestia.”
“I beg to differ.”
“Oh do you now?”
“Absolutely.” Twilight Sparkle nodded. “In one single event, a pegasus pony—defending the honor of her friend and proving herself to the rest of her peers—dared to make the impossible happen. Those WERE your words, were they not?”
“Derrrrr....”
“And in that single act of tenacity, of guile, of courage—you were determined to make a difference in your young life. And you did! Your focus was spot on! And it manifested in you, not only in finding your cutie mark, but instilling hope in the rest of us—across improbable distances, from Manehattan to Canterlot. And that hope transformed into the building blocks of what would become the Elements of Harmony, the sole reason I was destined to come to Ponyville to begin with!”
“Is the reason you read so much is so you can talk so much?”
“Rainbow Dash, don't you see?” Twilight Sparkle sniffled. “It wasn't 'dumb luck'! It was fate!”
“Oh gosh...” The blue pegasus groaned. “You're getting mushy again.”
“Can you blame meeeee?” Twilight all but nuzzled the other's mane. “I still can't believe it—All of this—everything--It's all because of you--”
“Gah! The wings! D-Don't touch the wings!” Rainbow Dash grimaced. “Jeez, Twilight, I really think you need to take this whole 'Friendship' thing in moderation.”
“Oh?”
“Absolutely. It's—like—you can barely trot a straight line when you get like this. Ponies shouldn't let ponies friendship-and-drive.”
“Heeheehee—So, will you write the letterrrrr?”
“Twilight, I'm flattered—really. And...uh...I-I guess I can see where you're coming from with this whole 'fate', thing. But, as much as you and the other girls have gushed over this whole 'discovery', quite frankly I just don't get it.”
“Are you certain of that?”
“Right, and as a matter of fact I—.....I-I-I'm sorry...” Rainbow Dash shook her mane, sighed, and squinted at Twilight. “...can we pause for a quick second? I gotta take care of something.”
“Sure thing.”
Rainbow Dash spun about and howled up at the towering branches of Twilight's hollow abode. “Scootaloo! Climb out of that tree! I can see you spying on Twilight and me!”
“Nuh uh!” A high-pitched voice chirped from the rustling leaves. “I'm not spying on anyone!”
“Don't make me come up there and bridle you! It's probably past your bedtime or something! Now fly on home to your parents!”
“Awwwwwwww—shucks.” A petite figure moaned and saggedly fluttered off towards the North Horizon.
Rainbow Dash pointed an intimidating hoof in Scootaloo's directin. “And don't you be planning to make me revisit this very moment in a flashback tomorrow morning!” She turned back to her companion. “Ahem, sorry—where were we?”
“You know...” Twilight giggled. “She worships you.”
“Yeah, yeah. Who doesn't. Cut to the chase.”
“The bottom line is—This isn't like just any other lesson on Friendship. This is the veritable preface to if ever I was to write a 'Friendship Omnibus'.”
“I'm just going to pretend that I understood what you said and resist the urge to dunk your head in a trough.”
“It's not enough that I write about this to the Princess. You should as well—Because I'm convinced that you're the center of it all. And it doesn't matter if you don't understand it too well yourself, Rainbow Dash. After all, that's the point of expressing yourself—It helps you discover yourself.”
“Heh. And just what is there for me to discover about myself?”
“Mmmmmm—Perhaps how lucky you really are.”
“Pffft—Whatevs.”
“Hehehe—You are GOING to write that letter!”
“Or else what?” Rainbow Dash boredly glanced at Twilight. But soon that glance turned into a sweatdropping grimace as Twilight Sparkle marched closer, leering.
“Well, for starters, Fluttershy has been constantly asking for a helping hoof in cleaning Angel's litter tray....”
Rainbow Dash almost wretched. She leaned back from Twilight. “She wouldn't....!”
“And Rarity and Pinkie Pie have been needing someone special to model that new frilly ensemble for Sapphire Shores....”
Rainbow Dash leaned back even further. “They wouldn't....!”
“Aaaaaaaand I've been thinking of talking Apple Jack into taking that one extra ticket I have spared for the Annual Wonderbolts Airshow in Canterlot this year!”
“Y-Y-Y-You wouldn't! ACKIES!” Rainbow Dash leaned so far back she fell flat on her spine. Hooves and wings flailing like a big blue cockroach, the frazzled Pegasus flinched, twitched, and eventually deflated with a long groan. “Twilighttttt......it's out of character for you to be so cruel. I kinda hate it.”
Twilight giggled. “Hate it enough to write a simple letter?”
“Buffalo biscuits, YES.” Rainbow Dash kick-vaulted and agiley landed on her hooves. PLOP. “Anything to get you off my tail.” A grumbling beneath her voice: “I don't know the first thing about letter writing—much less to a Princess.”
“It's easy, really.” Twilight waved her horned head and smiled. “You just write from the heart.”
“.... ... ....” Rainbow's eyes were like parallel cinderblocks pointed at the Unicorn. “.... ...'from the heart', huh?”
“Yup. Just remember to be polite.”
“Got it.”
“An-And to be formal.”
“Uh huh. Right.”
“And-And-And to not go on any political tangents about the Ponyville Tariff or the Military Campaign in the Zebrahara, although they are both examples of valid diplomatic discourse, it would be completely out of place and inappropriate for a letter themed on the value of friendship--”
“Yeah. Okay, Twilight. I got it--”
“Oh—And be sure not to ask too many questions about Princess Luna, cuz that whole Mare in the Moon thing was a teeeeeensy bit too recent, and even though everything went reasonably well with the reforging of the Elements of Harmony, I can only imagine that Princess Celestia is still a bit sensitive about the reunion and--”
“Twilight—I have an idea. Why don't you write the letter for the both of us?”
Twilight blinked and blinked at that, then cast Rainbow a blank stare. “Why in Equestria would I want to do that?”
“Ugh—Forget it.” Rainbow facehoofed for the first of many innumerable times to come over the next few days. “Nnnnngh—I promise you, Twilight, that I won't write anything pathetic or rash or horrible that might in some unimaginable way hurt or damage your perfect and precious relationship with your Faithful Master in the arts of...uhm.........unicorning.”
“Heeee!” Twilight Sparkle literally jumped in place half a dozen times. “You're the best friend ever--” Her eyes suddenly turned to hot burning coals. “WAIT.”
Rainbow Dash gulped, her pupils dilating.
Twilight Sparkle leered once more, squinting. “Do the thing that Pinkie does.”
“Oh hoarse raddishes—You've gotta be kidding me! She infected you with that?”
“Do ittttt--”
“Unnnnngh...” Rainbow rolled her violet eyes, propped herself up on her hindquarters, and performed the necessary gestures with both hooves. Her voice lurched out in a deep monotone that reflected the cold glare of the blossoming starlight over the two ponies' manes. “Cross my heart. Hope to fly. Stick a cupcake in my eye.”
“Heeee!” Twilight began bouncing again. “You're the best friend everrrrr!”
Back in the present, Rainbow Dash hovers above the cloudtops, still tapping her hoof to her chin. “Hrmmmmmmmm-mmmmmm....” She blinks, blinks again, then shakes her head. “Nah. I don't remember anything about a letter.”
“Oh come on!” Scootaloo cackles back from the pilot seat of her contraption. “You're either lying or crazy!”
“You have the nerve to sit there in that newfangled Rhubarb Coltberg device you call a...der.... ...uhh...... S.P.I.T.F.A.T. and say that I'm crazy?”
“So you're a liar?” Scootaloo glares.
“Ughhh—FINE!” Rainbow Dash groans, yet, all the while tactfully hiding a smirk from Scootaloo's sight. “I'll write the stuuuuuuupid letter to Princess Celestia.”
“Really?” Scootaloo beams. “For me?”
“For TWILIGHT, apparently.” Rainbow raspberries in the magenta haired pilot's general direction. “Wutever—Meh. My day was boring until you showed up anyways.”
“What day?” Scootaloo giggles uncontrollably and points a free hoof from where she pedals the aircraft. “You were just waking up, weren't you?”
“Ha ha—Really clever, Equinestein. Now why don't you make like your name and scoot to the loo?”
“Your wish is my command, Rainbow Dash!” The filly angles the thing around, kicks it into gear with a lower hoof, and throttles it towards the looming majesty of Cloudsdale in the distance. “So long—I wanna see that letter when you're done writing it!”
“Yeah wutever, pipsqueak....” Rainbow Dash has her back to the pegasus hoofling. After a lonely minute or two, and she takes a deep breath. The warm rays of the rising Sun bring her back to the present, and she smiles—glancing over her shoulder to once more regard the distant speck that is Scootaloo. She runs a hoof through her hair, sighs at the thick nature of the sudden task at hand, and floats limply towards the spot in the cloudbed where she had spent the previous night's sleep.
Settling in the soft wisps of Cloudsdale runoff, she cracks her forelimbs, flexes her shoulders, and viciously stabs her hooves deep into the misty material, fumbling around through the makeshift storage space that she just recently established on an impulse---a few hours ago (or was it a few days ago?). She can't recall.
“Now where did I put that stationary and quill?” Rainbow murmurs. She yanks a hoof out, producing a scarf. “Mmmm-No.” She yanks out a gym whistle with the other hoof. “No.” Rummaging, rummaging, a sweatband. “No.” A horseshoe. “No.” A Genesis controller. “No.” Voter's registration. “No.” A toothless baby aligator wearing skydiving gear. “NoooooOOOAAAAUGH!”
Rainbow Dash flails, shakes her hoof in the naked air, and tosses the infernal reptile out into the cold depths of the Equestrian Atmosphere. She pants heavily, watching with twitching violet eyes as the dumb-eyed creature produces a parachute and floats lackadasically down towards the distant heart of Ponyville far below.
“.... .... ....” The blue pegasus blinks dazedly downwards at the faint image of the pet, then squats back in the recesses of her cloud. “Well, guess this means I'm officially awake.” She reaches one last time into the depths of the white mist, and naturally this time she acquires: “Ah. Here it is. Of course, I never told Twilight how much my hoofmanship stinks.” A deep, regretful sigh—but brave nonetheless, as she reclines upside down on the edge of the cloud bank and taps quill to paper. “Hrmmm....here goes...”
Rainbow Dash Writes:
'Princess Celestia. How's it hoofin'. My name is Rainbow Dash and--'
She stops. A nervous biting of her lip. Her violet eyes dart back and forth, tracing the ghostly image of a memory from beyond the rough texture of the brown parchment flutteringly windily in her grasp. “Ugh...no no no no...That won't do. Twilight's counting on me to be polite and all that jazz. Hmmmm.....” A brief bout of painful-looking thought, and Rainbow Dash's face unscrunches in just enough time to gasp: “Yes! That's it! Of course!”
She returns pen to paper.
'Princess Celstia. How's it hoofin', ma'am?”
“Heh. That's much more like it.” Rainbow Dash shrugs her shoulder and gets more comfortable in her lofty 'writing perch'. “This isn't so hard after all. Ahem....let's see here....”
She writes:
'My name is Rainbow Dash. You don't know about me without you have read a series of letters by Twilight Sparkle by the name of 'Friendship is Magic', but that ain't no matter....'
Act 1 – Chapter 3 – A Dash in the Life
Cloudsdale hovers angelically in the blue sky, refracting all rays of the rising Sun to form a mosaic of colors—against which Rainbow Dash mightily soars, approaching the thick of the airborn ponytropolis. She gazes left and right with subtle amusement as she observes the ritualistic hustle and bustle of the City from up high.
Squadrons of Pegasi line up for takeoff from several rows of white marble buildingtops. Weather flight teams surge westward to confront the brooding cloud currents. Delivery teams soar southward and split up, delivering innumerable parcels of importance throughout the great enormity of Equestria. Several engineers gather on the larger cloudbanks to chat and huddle before hustling into the nearby precipitation factories for their morning shifts.
Rainbow Dash takes a deep breath, banks against the Sun, and surges northward over the ivory spires of the place, angling her blue body towards the bright reflective circle that makes up the Downtown Square of Cloudsdale, just bordering the Junior Flight School and Aerial Academy. There, many fair-winged pegasi Dash's age have already gathered, forming various flocks of excited morning chatter in the glistening penumbra of dawn.
“According to Twilight Sparkle, the Royal Family has always lived in Canterlot. That's cool and stuff, I guess. But my only question is—Why? I mean, I'm sure it's a great town and all, and I've met a lot of nice unicorns who have come from there. But could you have picked a more boring place to make the Capital of Equestria? Seriously, Princess—Canterlot is soooo 'MEH'. If it wasn't for the Grand Galloping Gala and the Annual Wonderbolts Airshow and the regular Rising of the Sun you do and the frickin' huge mountain you've got those skyscrapers carved into....—
“Okay. Scratch that. Canterlot is—like—totally cool. But you know what's cooler? Cloudsdale. Why is Cloudsdale cooler? Well, I live there, for one. But besides that—You have all the best fliers of Equestria located in one place, and when they're not showing off their totally sweet air maneuvers and living the dream, they're doing what pegasi do best—And that's performing the most important work in all of the land, air, and seas. This includes performing deliveries to all of the furthest places of the world, engineering blizzards and rainbows, and even deciding what part of Equestria gets a heat wave and when. And if that all wasn't enough, might I remind you that Cloudsdale is a huge frickin' floating City? Like—frickin-floating-in-the-sky huge frickin'? Isn't that totally awesome? I mean, you know all of this already, right? I figured that you were Princess of Equestria for more than just having a totally righteous flowing mane, though I wouldn't mind if that was the only reason, but maybe that's just Rarity rubbing off on me. Yeesh.
“You know, I'm not entirely sure what I'm supposed to be writing about in this letter. Twilight was rather vague when she tried telling me what she wanted me to do. I sure could use an idea, because I'm on the third paragraph and normally I'd be bored enough by now to quit if I didn't know I was writing this to—yanno—the One and True Celestial Matriarch of Everything that Is. That is you, right? Just to make sure we got that covered.
“Oh! I know! I'll just—like—write about how a typical day in the life of Rainbow Dash goes. Hey, that almost sounds like a book title! Not that I would know; I was never too big on books. Plus, books always struck me as a 'unicorn' thing, what with their magical horns and whatnot. Pegasus and Earth Ponies kind of have to use their noses to turn pages, so you can imagine the amount of papercuts we get on our nostrils. Some ponies might say that the current manufacturing of books is racist, but then some ponies really need to get their heads dunked in a trough. Speaking of troughs, that reminds me of the one time that Rarity's little sister mistook a water fountain outside of the Carousel Boutique for a roofless outhouse.
“Oh Mule Muffins, there I go again. This is exactly why I never write anything, besides the fact that it's boring and I have much better things to do—Not that this isn't a good thing to do today: writing to you, that is, Princess. Let me read back up a paragraph or two—Oh right! A Day in the Life of Rainbow Dash. Or A Dash in the Life if you wanna get all artsy fartsy about it.
“Things start in Cloudsdale like they start anywhere. We Pegasi are hard workers—enough to give Earth Ponies a run for their money. But while the residents of Ponyville function individually—doing whatever the heck it is that they want to do at random—things here in Cloudsdale are pretty strictly organized. Making the rainbows bright, making the rain wet, making sure the mail gets to where it needs to go—Anything and everything clicks together like a well oiled machine, or better yet; a giant well oiled machine floating in the sky that the rest of Equestria mortally depends on. So, as the morning routine kicks in, it's important that pegasi get their 'how-do-you-do's' out of the way sooner than later. That way, we can all keep on the same wavelength and get our jobs done quickly enough to spend the late afternoon doing what we're born to do: flying awesomely around in the sky as if gravity was never invented.
“I like to consider myself a free spirit, but I'm still a Pegasus Pony, and even I know how important it is to maintain a good comero--....camraw--....cohmuhroderee--...a good friendship with those who are my peers. My dad used to live in other parts of Equestria before I was born. But when I was foaled into this world, he brought me back here to Cloudsdale. I'm thinking it's because he too understands how important it is that I maintain a good hoof with fellow pegasi. And so, everyday, I make sure that I'm always making a good impression and—even more importantly—engaging my fellow young citizens in a friendly exchange of ideas...”
WHAM!
“Ooof!” Rainbow Dash spits as her face flies sideways from a heavy brown hoof to the snout. She teeters back slightly and barely raises her right forearm to block the second punch from the advancing colt—who promptly takes advantage of her hasty flinch, headbutting her directly in the forehead.
A concussive noise, and Rainbow promptly ragdolls backwards against a marble pillar in the center of Cloudsdale's Town Square. A cadence of mixed cheers and boos fill the glistening atmosphere as a dark brown male pony stomps down a ring of spectating pegasi and rears his offending hooves over the pratfalled Dash. “Think you're so tough now, Rainbow Crash?” He smirks, a spotty mane of peach-blonde hair partially blocking his devilish eyes. “You come here insultin' the Wonderbolts while I'm around? I'm gonna send your face back into the trash bin where it belongs!”
“Nnnngh—All I remember saying, Dumb-Bell...” Rainbow Dash levels back on her legs and hisses across the way at the ruffian in question. “....is that there's no chance in heck that a pathetic boulder-for-brains oaf like you would ever get to join the Wonderbolts!” She smirks. “And in my book, that's the finest compliment I could ever give them!”
“Grrrr...” The pathetically named Dumb-Bell snarls, an artery pulsing along his neck.
In the thick of the howling crowd of bloodthirsty Pegasi, a rather tall orange-brown colt wearing a white hard hat shouts: “You gonna take that from her, Dumb-Bell? Let me get a hit in!”
“I've got this, Hoops!” The brown youth in question looks over his wings to snarl at him. When he turns back around he's greeted by a hurdling missile in the form of Dash's body screaming directly into his eyesight. He soars back from the impact and slams into the side of a Princess Celestia fountain, soaking his mane in water as he groans.
“What's the matter, Dumb-Bell?” Rainbow Dash smirks and strikes a pose with hooves suavely crossed. “Did I make you wet yourself again?” A ring of pegasi laughs and snickers enthusiastically behind her.
“Whyyyy you--!” Hoops charges in, followed swiftly by a smaller stone-blue colt stampeding behind him. (“I've got your back, brother!”)
Rainbow Dash holds her ground, squinting with a glint of ominously reflected sunlight as the two would-be-stallions converge on her. The surrounding cheers melt belatedly into a gasp as she rears her hooves high into the air and—with expert timing—slams them both down into the cloudy 'floor' beneath her. A misty rumbling, and rivulets of disturbed cloudbedding swarm forward and explode underneath the clamoring hooves of the two attackers.
“Whoah!”
“Auugh!” The younger Pegasus Brother falls snout-first over the disrupted cloud. Rainbow Dash vaults over him, spreads her wings, soars a dozen feet, catches the body of a marble pillar with her front legs, spins around it three times, and then propels her body back in time to catch Hoops—the elder—as he is dizzily trying to get up. The resulting collision sends the two of them barreling together—through a scampering group of onlookers—and straight into a cascade of collective rainwater bubbling from the unscaleable heights of Cloudsdale above. Rainbow, of course, is fast on her hooves and nips up immediately in a splashing stance. The watching ponies gather closer as Hoops lumbers to—snarling—and bucks his lower hooves twice at Rainbow. The colorful she-Pegasus merely smirks, dodges each of his kicks with a dancer's flair, twirls away from her opponent's next awkward lunge, and disappears directly behind the waterfall. A confused Hoops briefly blinks in cross-eyed panic—Just before Rainbow Dash wetly shoots her head straight through the rainwater with a mane-dripping silly face against his snout.
“BOOGIDY BOO!”
“DAH--” Hoops' breath is cut short when Rainbow yanks him forward through the deluge of water, rams him in the chest with the joint of her right leg, and promptly spin-bucks him like a soaked comet straight into the incoming flight of the gasping Dumb-Bell. The magical sound of colliding bowling pins lights the air, and both muscular upstarts fall gracelessly into a conjoined pile in the center of Town Square. “Ughhhh....”
“Heh....” Rainbow Dash slicks her wet mane back and sticks a rebellious tongue out. “Really smoothe, dudes. Looks like you two are doing all the 'crashing' for the three of us!” Right then and there, the small stone-blue colt comes up from behind Rainbow Dash and pins her upper arms back with a vice-like grip. “Eeep!” She breathlessly gasps. “Four of us! I-I forgot there were four of us--” She squeaks and struggles, bug-eyed.
“I-I've got her, brony! I've got her!” He shouts.
“Hold her still, Quarterback!” Hoops slips his hard hat back on and gallops up, followed swiftly behind by a mouth-foaming Dumb-Bell.
Restrained, Rainbow Dash braces herself, tries to duck her head—but she receives a savage hoof to the face, followed by a buck to the chest and three more kicks to the side. “Oof—Nnngh—AACHH!”
The roaring group of roused Pegasi reaches a fever pitch around the melee. Chants clash and collide, some in Rainbow Dash's favor, others in Dumb-Bell's. One pony in particular, a light gray filly with a mohawk'd mane shoves her way towards the edge of the crowd and howls between cupped hooves: “Don't give up, Rainbow Dash! Kick their tails from here to Doomsday!” The closest circle of ponies around this particular shouter joins in her enthusiastic cheer.
“Snkkkt--” Rainbow Dash bruisedly winces. She glares with burning violet eyes into the snouts of her oppressors. “Th-That all you got, b-bigshots?” She sputters.
“Hardly.” Dumb-Bell sneers. “We ain't finished until we make you crap your own teeth. Hoops—Care to do the honors?”
“With pleasure....” The tall one raises his brass horseshoe high, past the glistening sight of his hard hat's reflection in the morning Sun--
Rainbow Dash gasps. With a devilish smirk, she boldly flaps her wings straight forward. A gust of wind is summoned, and it promptly blows the hard hat directly off the startled Hoops' head. (“Huh—What?”) Dash snatches the brim of the hard white bowl in her teeth, stretches her neck back, and proceeds to smack Hoops' face from side to side with the suddenly offensive headpiece. Dumb-Bell merely watches with...well....dumbfoundedness, giving Dash the opportunity to spit the hard hat directly into the side of dark-brown colt's skull when he's not looking. While Dumb-Bell and Hoops smack stupidly into each other again, Rainbow Dash retracts her wings—takes a sharp breath—and stretches them back so that they slide under Quarterback's armpit, then stretching--
“Waah---!” The stone-blue colt finds himself inexplicably falling back.
Rainbow Dash lunges with a growl and reverse bucks him in mid-air. Not a blink later, and she twirls to catch the tail of the airborn youngster, pulling with all of her might and flinging him like a mace into his two older cohorts. Bodies go flying everywhere—all of them collapsing, all except for Rainbow Dash, that is, who is sliding to a stop with limbs heaving and twitching.
“Nnnghhh....” Rainbow Dash spits into the cloudbed and smiles as a tiny trickle of blood rivers down from her curved lips. “Grrr....I'm so alive it hurts.”
A resounding swarm of cheers fill the air. “Yeah—You go, girl!” The mohawk'd pegasus leans against her friends and pumps a hoof in midair. “Wooo--! Rainbow Dash! Yeah!”
“Ughhhh....” The three colts try vainly limping up from their embarassing pile of limbs.
“You guys ready to talk sensibly?” Rainbow Dash sneers, trotting like a predator around the three bigger, bulkier cretins. “Cuz my morning's just started! I'm here to kick butts and take names—But yours are the lamest ones in the book!”
“Nnngh....Why c-can't you just sing songs and pick flowers like any other filly...?” Dumb-Bell wheezed.
“And miss all the fun of turning your stupid mouths inside out? Come on! Get up!” Rainbow Dash makes a show of grinding her front hooves in the cloudbed beneath her. “I was born for this dance! Let's do this!”
“Grrr....All together, bronies--” Dumb-Bell spits a bloody loogey out and lines up beside Hoops and Quarterback as the three do their best to square off bravely against Dash's offensive stance. The audience's breath holds briefly as the fight prepares to enter a new round--
“What in heavens' name is going on around here?” Utters a voice that sounds three times as wrinkled as the face it must belong to.
“H-Huh?” The mohawk'd pony from the sideline glances up, and her red eyes immediately roll in their sockets. “Ohhhhhh great. Here comes Doctor Buzz Kill.”
“Pffft—Just what I need...” Rainbow Dash boredly groans.
An ancient looking mare with gray-streaked fuschia hair flutters down from the front steps of the nearby Cloudsdale Hospital. The sunlight bounces opaquely off her white medical duds as she comes to a wobbling stop besides the snickering group of youngsters. “What is the meaning of all this racket? Don't you know that I have patients trying to get well--?” She takes one look at Rainbow Dash, gasps—but then sags into a well-rehearsed sigh. “Ohhhhh, I should have known it was you again.”
“Awwww—So sorry, Nurse Rose Heart. Did we rattle your dentures again?” Rainbow Dash portrays a mock smile.
“Bah!” The aged mare's bifocals rattle on her snout as she gives an incredulous gasp. “That's Doctor Rose Heart to you, young lady—If I can even call you a lady! This is the third time this month I've had to interrupt your bloodlusting bouts of fisticuffs!”
“W-We're so sorry to have disturbed you, Doctor Heart!” Dumb-Bell exhales in an emotionlessly sincere monotone.
“Yeah—It won't ever happen again!” Hoops adds while his younger brother nods emphatically. “We promise!”
“Hmmph!” Dr. Heart tilts her nose upward with the faintest hint of a satisfied smirk. “Well—That's more like it! It's good to see someponies have a decent amount of politeness and respect around here!”
“H-Hey!” Rainbow Dash squeakily frowns. “They started it!”
“Pfft—A likely story.” Rose Heart glares her graying eyes in the colorful Pegasus' direction. “Time and time again, you're the instigator of this horrible violence. Why, if I had my way, I'd never have let you set hoof in Cloudsdale to begin with!”
Rainbow growls and coils the invisible springs in her wings, ready to pounce on somepony—anypony. Suddenly, in a gust of gentle wind, the mohawk'd pegasus and her circle of companions land on all sides of the blue filly and smirk mischievously in the Doctor's direction. “Well, that would be a tragedy! Cuz if you rewrote history, Cloudsdale would be only about eighty percent as cool as it is today!”
“Brrrrrr--” Rose Heart reacts with a cockeyed grimace that forces the young pegasi surrounding the scene to giggle and snicker. “Naturally a group of delinquets like you would defend this rapscallion! You're half the reason she ever got to be such a horrible citizen to begin with!”
“You're just jealous cuz you're too old to try being a horrible citizen yourself!” The one with the mohawk balks as they fly away with Rainbow Dash in tow.
“Yeah!” Rainbow Dash jeers down at the awestruck old doctor. “Why don't you do yourself a favor and chop off your head so you can count the rings in your neck and remind yourself just how friggin' ancient you are!” A cadence of giggles flanks her upwards flight.
“Why—I...I....” Dr. Heart skirts the edge of an impending heart attack and growls, her gray coat turning bright red. “Nnngh—Wait until I inform the Captain of the Weather Control Team about this outright reprehensible behavior! Why you girls can't be well-mannered like my grandaughter in Ponyville—I will never know!” She turns with an upright tail and trots back angrily towards the hospital steps, muttering: “No Pegasus with such ill-manners should be aloud to touch the rainclouds much less the Celestia-blessed soil of the earth!”
“If you like Earth so much, why don't you go back there?” Rainbow's mohawked friend cat-calls. She glances up, swiftly stretches a hoof, and snatches an envelope out of a randomly passing googly-eyed mailpony. “Here! Take a post-card!” She flings the thing downward like a shuriken.
The envelope bonks ineffectually—but loudly—off the back of Dr. Rose Heart's head. She gasps the entire globe's worth of atmosphere into her nostrils, spins about, and snarls: “Why youuuu--” She proceeds to clump up hoof-fulls of cloud and rear-kicks them up towards the hovering group of jeering pegasi with varying degrees of innaccuracy. “Take that—And that—And that, you oafish uncouth monstrosities!”
“Hah!” Rainbow Dash cackles. “Good aim there, Dr Rose Heartattack!”
“Hmmmph!” The old mare haughtily sticks her chin up. “Laugh all you want! I'll have you know I could buck more than mere clouds in my day!”
“Snkkkkt! Yeah, I bet you did!” (“Ohhhhhh!” “Oooooo-Hooo-Hooo!”)
Rose Heart's eyes dilate exaggeratedly. “Wha---! Why I—OHHHHH!” She glares daggers up at the whole lot, but more specifically at Rainbow Dash. “I would expect nothing less from a worthless half-wing like you!”
At the sound of the last flung insult, something in Rainbow's eyes catch ablaze. Juices boil under her blue coat as two decades of ire resurface with radioactive intensity. “Why that stuck up, dried out old has-been--” She snarls and makes to dive—But her companion holds her back.
“Shhh! Come on—She crossed the line. Not us.” The filly mutters in a betrayingly gentle voice.
“Hah! Doc Heart's right! I can't believe I keep forgetting!” Dumb-Bell snorts from below as he and his best-buds trot away in the opposite direction, adding to the overall dissipation of the fight-thirsty crowd. “Once a half-wing, always a half-wing! No wonder she crashes all the time, huh?”
“Hahah—You got that right!” Hoops chants merrily. “This ain't finished, Rainbow Dash! We'll settle this with your half-wing'd mouth another time! You'll see!”
“Oh yeah? How about now? You want more bruises?” Rainbow once more growls and jolts—Only to be held back.
“Come on. Let it go. You already showed them who's boss.” Her companion confidently smiles at her.
“Nnnnngh—Fine.” The colorful Pegasus grumpily folds her arms. The two of them float free from the hovering group. A minute and a half of drifting, and they settle down quietly on a loan cloud overlooking the downtown haze of Cloudsdale. It isn't until the last second of cloud-squatting that Rainbow Dash starts to take a closer look at the fresh bruises on her face and chest. She fluffs her mane back and shakes her snout while testing her eyesight. “Mmmff—Nothing like a good fight to the death before breakfast.”
“Nobody fights to the death better than you, Rainbow.” The mohawk'd pony settles beside her, smirking slyly. “Quite frankly, I'd rather skip breakfast if it means seeing you school those punks a little more.”
“Yeah, well....” Rainbow folds her hooves and glares over her shoulder at her with a brief display of indignation. “You certainly pulled me away rather quickly for a pony who'd like to see more teeth fly, Wyndi.”
“Heeheehee.” Wyndi giggles and rolls her ruby eyes. “Well, it's been a while since we hung out, Dash-Dash. Like, really hung out. And—as much as I hate to sound borderline mushy—it would be a shame if you ended up in such a bleeding shape that we'd never get a chance to hang out again.”
“Yeah, yeah.....Hrmmmph.....” The blue pegasus sighs. After a beat, she smirks faintly at her old acquaintance and murmurs: “For what it's worth: thanks, Wyndi. If you ask me, I was keeping my cool all well and fine until Doctor Heart-less showed her wrinkly face. Gawwwwwwd.”
“Yeah, she's a real buzzkill—Not to mention a trotting rendition of an old musty textbook.” Wyndi squints down at the distant speck of a hospital, then raises an eyebrow in Dash's direction. “If you don't mind me asking, what's with all the bad blood between you and that old plowhorse anyways?”
“Ughhhh—It's a long story. I really don't want to get into it.” Rainbow murmurs, her violet eyes suddenly and uncharacteristically distant as she gazes into the western horizon, the hazy purple of the Everfree forest looming far below. “She's just like any other old geezerette with no living friends left to pester.”
“And then for her to call you--”
“I know what she called me!” Rainbow Dash suddenly snaps with a biting frown.
Wyndi recoils slightly, the front rows of her mohawk sagging slightly. “Yeesh! I get it! Sensitive area—Like that's hard to guess! But seriously, Dash-Dash. You're above and beyond that. Showing a few punks who's boss is one thing, but getting in a tizzy fit over some old bag of oats?”
“You heard the guys when she started mouthing off. They just wisened up and copied her.” The blue pony sighs. “Old insults die hard, and they spread more than parasprites.”
“Para-what, now?”
“Parasprites. Adorably cute, indescribably dangerous little colored balls with insect wings that eat everything they see?” Rainbow Dash gestures for her. “A few months ago they swarmed Ponyville and it took the better part of three weeks to rebuild Main Street.”
“Uhhh.....Eh heh heh...” Wyndi chuckles nervously. “You lost me at 'adorably'.”
“Heh—Never mind.” Rainbow Dash tosses her hooves and flops back so that she lies lazily on the cloudbed, skygazing. “That's yet another 'long story'.” A few violet blinks, and she smirks Wyndi's way. “You ever thought of dipping below the clouds once in a while? There's a whole 'nother world waiting to be discovered, yanno.”
“Heehee—I was gonna ask the same of you. Err—Reversely.”
“Oh?”
“You're rarely ever around Cloudsdale these days, Rainbow Dash. At least not for long.” Wyndi cocks her head to the side, gazing curiously at her. “Just what's so special about Ponyville that you can no longer hang with the old gang?”
“Ehhh.....It's....Well....It's Ponyville! And....A-And there's so much stuff to do! Not just controlling the weather, but you've got all of these....uhm.....These things to do..... ...And....Uhm....” Rainbow rubs her scalp with a thinking-hoof, winces slightly as she scrapes a bruise, and blinks empty-headedly. “You know, that's a good question. Just why am I in Ponyville all the time?”
“Is it cuz you've got new friends there?”
“Hmmmmmm....... ....... .......... ..... ..... ...... ..... ..... ....Naaah.”
“Well, there's always plenty of empty skies up here for you.” Wyndi smiles. “The gang and I are practicing for the local Aerial Marathon next month. You should come join us, girl!”
“Heh—You sure you'd want me around?” Dash slyly smirks at her. “Cuz you know I'd just soak up all the awesome from the atmosphere.”
“You're welcome to try—” Wyndi glaringly begins, but is suddenly interrupted by a hailstone being thrown against her skull. “OW! What gives--” She rubs her cheek and frowns upward. “I'm catching up with Dash-Dash here!”
“Well catch up quicker!” A bright lavender pegasus waves from two cloudbeds above the duo. “The Breakfast Hour is nearly over at the Tornado Express! The rest of us girls wanna make it there before our stomachs implode! Are you plannin' on holding us up or what?”
“Keep your horeshoes on! I'll be there in a jiffy!” Wyndi cackles. “Just what's the hurry anyways?” She jolts, startled, as Rainbow Dash suddenly sits up in front of her, gazing upward with wide violet eyes towards the levitating group in question. High above are a swarm of pegasi—many of Rainbow Dash's former acquaintances—but above all of them, waiting on the fringes of the group atop her own lonesome cloud, is a brazen figure crowned with brown and white feathers that shimmer in the morning sunlight. She gazes back down at the distant lone figure of Rainbow, her amber eyes cold and expressionless. With icy precision, the griffon spreads her eagle wings and takes off towards the east end of Cloudsdale; the other girls follow her merrily, chatting and laughing in between randomly shared 'punches' to the shoulders.
Dash takes a deep breath, her blue coat looking bluer as she gazes dully at the cloudbed bowling listlessly beneath her. Her voice is sullen, like a pebble hidden at the bottom of a deep well. “Mmmm-You were saying something about how come we all never hang out together anymore?”
Wyndi gulps, but smiles hopefully. “Oh, she'll come around. Gilda's not one to hold a grudge.”
“Yeah.” Dash mutters. “She usually tears the gullet out of those whom she doesn't like when she first meets them. It cuts out the middle-pony.”
“What makes you say that?”
“She showed me. Yanno—When the two of us used to hang out all the time?”
“I'm sure she's just protecting her pride, Dash-Dash. You know how Gilda gets when she's miffed--”
“You're making it sound like it was Gilda who ended our friendship, not me.” Rainbow Dash drones.
Wyndi bites her lip, fidgeting slightly—as if about to fall off the edge of that tiny cloud bed.
“Go.” Rainbow suddenly utters. She turns and smiles gently at her old companion. “It's okay. You all have your 'thing'. I'm not about to get in the way of that.”
“You used to be part of our 'thing' too, Dash-Dash.” Wyndi murmurs sincerely. “It's what we always admired about you. You never wanted to be normal and dull like the rest of Cloudsdale. You were part of the awesome crowd. What...... ...Wh-What changed?”
“Nothing changed!” Rainbow folds her hooves and huffs. “I'm just....just......... .... ...awesome elsewhere.”
Wyndi nods. She flies off—but stops in mid hover. A lingering breath, and she leans over to quietly say to her old friend: “I don't care where you are, or with who, quite frankly. But....--Never change, Rainbow Dash. You hear me? Never change.” And with a gust of wind, the mohawk'd pegasus surges skyward, joining her companions—both feathered and not—leaving the blue one alone.
A groaning breath, punctuated by an ironic smirk, and Rainbow Dash takes off for the opposite direction in a prismatic bolt. “I don't intend to.” SWOOOSH!
“I'm a weather flier, which means that I—along with lesser talented skyponies that so happen to share the same airspace with me—am in charge of moving clouds around, making it rain where it needs to rain, making the wind blow where it needs to blow, getting the snow to collect in just the right bunches when Winter comes around, giving sleet and hail the brush-off, and all of that other boringly predictable stuff that you surely already know about..........ma'am.
“What would Equestria be like if it weren't for Pegasi like me to rely on for our meatyoro--.....meeteeohrawl--.....meteoyo--........ .... ...our weather controlling? I've often thought about it—And when I write that 'I've often thought about it', I mean to say how much it would stink for all of the unknowing Earth Ponies down below who would otherwise have to deal with cyclones, cold weather fronts, random downdrafts, hailstorms, murderous lightning, mudslides, droughts, zombie tornadoes, angry elephants rising up out of the ground....and....other horrible things. I don't know; whatever. I kick clouds.
“You should have seen the look on Twilight Sparkle's face when she first met me as I cleared the sky over Ponyville in ten seconds flat. That's her estimate, by the way. I'm pretty sure I did it in something like nine and three quarters seconds flat. That's like twenty-eight hours in zero gravity time, if you were wondering. Whatever the case, I at least impressed her magic assistant. Yanno, the little purple dragon. What's his name again? 'Spicket'? 'Spittoon'? I dunno; nobody cares.
“Still, as much as I brag—and rightfully so—about my cloud kicking skills, it still can't compare to something as totally friggin' awesome as raising the Sun. As if it wasn't enough that so many Earth Ponies take for granted what Pegasi do for the weather over their heads, I think that in the same way we're all kinda guilty for not realizing just how insanely cool it is what you do over our heads, Princess Celestia, and everyday! So—kudos to you and stuff. I almost wish I could control the Sun for a day. On second thought, scratch that. That's not such a good idea. Besides, I'd probably shove the Sun down Rarity's chimney. That would be a laugh. You see, it's funny cuz Rarity hates the Sun—or at least I think so. I mean, come on! She talks like a friggin' vampire.
“Did I mention that I'm the head Pegasus in charge of monitoring Ponyville's weather? Oh yeah! (Wait, let me write that in bigger letters.) AWWWWW YEAH! It wasn't just a ten-second thing; I regularly play cloud hockey over the rooftops of your good and faithful apprentice's home town. Everypony there can trust me for a sunny day or an afternoon shower, schedule permitting. I do all of it by myself, of course. Cuz—yanno—sharing the spotlight is totally lame. Thankfully, though, you won't ever see me in Ponyville while being weighted down by the heavy hooves of a bunch of losers.”
“Ugh—Come ONNN!” Rainbow Dash groans over her shoulder at a solid train of one dozen cloud-shoveling Pegasus Ponies presently lingering on her six. “Do you guys think this is a parade? Lift your wings, already!”
“Nnnngh—We're f-flying as fast as we c-can, Miss Dash! But these clouds are soaked to the brim with rainwater and we haven't taken a break since we took off from Cloudsdale!” The murmuring Pegasus in question is joined by an agreeable moan of collective disagreeableness.
“Breaks? I'll have you know that I've pushed twice as much as the total haul of all twelve of you combined without breaks and watered an entire valley on my lonesome! And that was on an empty stomach too!” Rainbow Dash flies angrily forward. A beat, and then she turns to sneer back once more: “And don't call me 'Miss Dash'.”
“Y-Yes, Miss Dash. Er....oops.”
“Ughhhhhhh--” Rainbow Dash covers her face, stretching her lower eyelids clownishly. “This trip is gonna take forever--” BONK! The blue winged pony's complaining wail is cut abruptly short when her face runs smack-dab into a bright red barn. Under a cadence of knee-jerk giggles, she hovers backwards and snaps her face to see where they are. “Ah. We're here. Wicked!.” The broad fruit-speckled vista of Sweet Apple Acres stretches beneath them for as far as the floating squadron of weather fliers can squint. “Finally! We can get started! Hmmm...But it still feels like we're missin' something...”
“There y'all are! Finally!” A young orange mare trots up from the nearby farmhouse, sporting a wide brimmed brown hat.
“Ahhhh right. The drawl,” Rainbow smirks and folds her arms from where she hovers above her. “How I do miss the drawl.”
“Don't be blowin' wind up mah tail!” Apple Jack frowns up at the swarm of wing'd youngsters as a red-coated workhorse trots up alongside her, chewing on a stalk of hay. “It ain't enough that Ah sent in the ticket for this rainfall order four dag blame'd weeks ago, but then you and yer school of fancy fliers have the gall to show up late?”
“What do you mean 'late'? Take a look at the sky, blondie!” Rainbow points eastward. “At the latest it's....it's......” She shrugs. “.....Sunrise-Thirty!”
“You obviously know very little about when the cock crows on a farm!”
“That's just the thing, AJ. Some of us aren't born lame!” The squadron of fliers giggle childishly until she silences them with a threatening fling of her multicolored tail. “But the fact is—We're here, the rainclouds are here, your apples are here—Let's 'get 'er done'. Ahem; Sprechen sie southernesie?”
“Take a look at 'em Apple Orchards, Rain'bo!”
“Ughhh—PuhLEEEEASE Apple Jack, I've got a busy schedule, rainbows to dash, tornadoes to piledrive--”
“Look at 'em!”
“Mmmmnnnghh....” Rainbow Dash folds her hooves and boredly swivels about on an invisible barber's stool to behold the hilly fields of crimson-and-emerald-kissed green trees as the blonde farmhorse trots beneath her and gestures dramatically in a visual accompaniment to her soapboxing:
“Over yonder is over five hundred acres of Equestria's finest apple pickin's! And each day that they suffer through this drought in mother nature's tears means another bushel of fruit goin' plum rotten! These are the same apples that fill the bowls of yer fancy schmancy restaurants in Cloudsdale, not to mention the very dinner trough of Princess Celestia yourself! Do you understand, now, how important it is to give these here orchards the royal spa treatment?”
“Snkkkt—Seriously?” Rainbow Dash struggles to contain herself. “'Mother nature's tears'?”
Apple Jack stomps her front hooves indignantly. “So blame meh for tryin' to be all theatrical-like! But this is important, gosh dern it! Ain't that right, Big Macintosh?”
The red workhorse opened his jaws to say something--
“Httt!” Apple Jack raises a hoof in front of her big brother's snout. “Ah know what yer gonna say!” She frowns at the hovering group and quotes him: “'Every minute we waste here jabberin' is another minute the crops could be rottenin'!”
“Yeah Yeah--” Rainbow Dash briefly double-takes at the farmfilly's forced rhyme, shrugs it off, then motions to her group, coordinating them to take their proper cloud kicking positions in the broad morning air above strategic parts of the farm. “Keep your hat on, AJ. Celestia knows that's the one thing you're perfectly good at.”
“Scoff all you want, Rain'bo!” The blonde Earth Pony harumphs. “We each have our own talents, ya braggart. Why, Ah could out-buck you from here to kingdom come if Ah wanted to!”
“Yeah, uh...” Rainbow Dash grimaces with a sweatdrop as she continues motioning the various breathless Pegasi into position. “Never ever say that sentence out loud again, Apple Jack. 'Kay? Thanks.”
Apple Jack squints at the rainbow Pegasus with a sudden wave of sympathetic curiosity. “How come yer such a dag blame'd crabapple this morning anyways, Rain'bo—If you do pardon mah pun.”
“I've had a crazy morning. So sue me!” Rainbow's Bluer-than-normal face scrunches up, as if fighting a sudden allergy.
The blonde pony notices this, and smirks ever so slightly. “Ah bet you were. Tell meh, did you get those bruises accidentally or did a boulder make out with you?”
“Oh, these?” Rainbow pauses in conducting the weather flier team and rubs her cheek nonchalantly. “I....uh...walked into a door....er....in the sky. A door in the sky. The sky has doors, yanno.”
“Riiiiight. Sure you did.”
“Yeah, well, who got crowned Sun Goddess and made you the expert of sky doors?”
Macintosh murmurs something, spitting the haystalk out of his red lips with countrified emphasis. Apple Jack nods back. “You're right, Macintosh.” She sighs and frowns once again the Pegasus' way. “Enough with the squawkin' and on with the cloud wringin'. Ah gotta pick half of these fields in a week's sneeze and they ain't good to meh dry!”
“Come onnnn, AJ! My team and I didn't come all this way from Cloudsdale unprepared.” Rainbow Dash leans against the barn and waves a nonchalant hoof. “Relaxxxxx!” She closes her eyes and takes a deep, proud breath. “We've got enough rain in these clouds to soak your apples three times over—in every sense of the term. Your BFF Dash-Dash has this all in the bag--”
A sudden burst of gasps and shrieks fill the air. Rainbow Dash's eyes burst open, twitching. She follows the breathless expression of Apple Jack and Macintosh, turning to gaze in horror at the now-floundering group of Pegasi behind her. The winged ponies are struggling in futility to keep ahold of the dark rainclouds as an inexplicable gust of wind mercilessly shoves the greater number of them away.
“Oh noooo!” An overtly girlish pink pegasus clutches her face as her rainclouds are swept away in the surprise gail. “It's a downdraft!”
“Must be a surprise cold front from over the Western Mountains!” Another Pegasus grunts, struggling to keep ahold of his cloud. “It's pushing all the frigid air down into the valley!”
“All the rainclouds are being blown away—Ohhhhhh!” A wimpy flier sags in mid-hover and groans. “This is the trots.”
“Oh Miss Dash! It's horrible! What'll we do? At this rate, we'll have to go back North and recollect some rainclouds to try a second time this afternoon!”
Rainbow Dash gasps widely—then growls through clenched teeth. “Screw that!” She bolts in a prismatic blur and grabs one of the three last rainclouds still in the squadron's grasp. “We're doing this now! I've got lots of things to do today!”
“Yeah?” Apple Jack scowls, irascibly set ablaze by the developing situation. “Like what?”
“Like not doing this!” Rainbow shouts and—cloud in tow—bolts so quickly towards the far side of the farm she practically sets the air on fire, sending her Pegasus lackeys flailing with shrieking fear. The blue wing'd pony zooms westward towards the stables and stops just at the rooftop. She bucks the weather-vane in mid-air (CLANK!) so that it tilts at a forty-five degree angle.
“Hey! Watch what yer dentin'' there!” Apple Jack cackles.
“Trust me! I've done this before!”
“When?”
“Ten seconds from now!” Rainbow Dash grabs the copper rooster and spins the weather-vane like a buzz saw. With a furious growl, she snaps her hooves onto either side of the raincloud and slaps it over the spinning wind meter, so that a deluge of water droplets are machine gun'd in every cardinal direction like a gigantic sprinkler: TCH-TCH-TCH-TCH-TCH! No sooner is this sight gag orchestrated; Rainbow is dashing back towards the crowd, snatching another raincloud from a shiveringly scared Pegasus' grasp before knocking him off his wings with the sonic concussion of her hurtling proximity.
Big Macintosh buckles to the Earth and Apple Jack struggles with a jittery hoof to keep her hat on. “Rain'boooooo!” She howls above the deaffening wind.
SWOOO-OOOO-OOOOSH! But Rainbow Dash is currently rocketing towards the East end of the farm, wielding the raincloud in both front hooves like a tomahawk missile. Her face ripples from the g-force as she burns a bombing run down the unsuspecting rows of delicious orchards. “Grrrrr—I'm gonna water the ever-living SNOT out of you!” A lasting grunt against the bulging pocket of air formed by her donward velocity, and she climaxes her dive by flinging the raincloud comet-hard straight into the bark of the nearest apple tree trunk. “Yeughhh!” The raincloud murderously pinballs against several dozen trees, spreading fountains of precipitation everywhere like liquid shrapnel. Dash pulls up, forms a comtrail from the sheer force of her vertical bank, barrel-rolls, and rockets back towards the barn—and the final rain cloud.
“Slow down, Rain'bo! You're. Going. Too. Faaaaast!” Apple Jack shouts—But her drawling cries are in vain, for no sooner can she gasp that Rainbow Jack is upon the scene, snatching the last cloud, glancing north, glancing south, then taking the logical course of bolting straight up into the blue sky. “Now just where in tarnation is she going?”
“Nnnnn-nnnn-nnnngh!” Rainbow Dash surges towards the stratosphere, the corners of her eyes frosting as she climbs an invisible altitude meter in her avarian skull. When the blue of the sky starts to exchange its hue for an otherworldly black—the anthill immensity of Equestria drawing distant and obscure beneath her—the raincloud subsequently solidifies in her grasp until it quite literally becomes a chunk of ice (cloud ice?). A misty exhale, and Rainbow flips in mid-air, aims the frozen object in her hand like a football, and launches it downward like the meteor she has haphazardly turned it into. Swiiiiish! Rainbow Dash doesn't immediately dive after this murderous bullet of her own craftsmanship. Rather, she waits two seconds, three, four, five—takes a massive breath—and begins the sky whistling hellborne plunge. FWOOOOSH!
Meanwhile, many miles below, where saner creatures live and die, Apple Jack and Macintosh and the Pegasus squadron wait in the shadow of impending curiosity. “Just where did she tear off to? Ah swear; Ah'm gonna wring the colors of that fancy tail of hers right out her nose!”
“Eeeyup.”
A deep, resonating whistle fills the air—making the windows of the nearby farmhouse rattle on their hinges and even start to crack. Rivulets of water dance in surrounding water troughs, and the rows upon rows of apples start to dangle pendulumously from their branches.
“What in all that is good and holy is that awful racket...?” Apple Jack murmurs allowed.
The Pegasi overhead suddenly jolt, all of them staring wide-eyed heavenward as they see what they're trained to see long before any Earth Pony could possibly conceive spotting. “Uh oh.”
“'Uh oh' what?” Apple Jack squints.
A nervous 'NeEeEe!' squeaks out from the group, and they all bolt in various frightful directions from ground zero.
“Hey! Where y'all runnin' off to—Oh land'o'goshen no....” Apple Jack's green eyes dilate in abstract horror as a huge glistening orb of white frost barrels down towards the farm, gathering moisture, tripling in size, throttlingly hot in its unnatural and frictious plunge into the great gasping breast of the Earth. This already Herculean sight is swiftly and theatrically overwhelmed by a certain dive-bombing blue pony, her tail practically catching fire from the sheer speed of her plummeting—as she zeroes in on the body of the frozen cloud with the precision of a cruise missile. With a victorious battle roar, Rainbow Dash overtakes the white frosted comet... ...by plowing straight through it.
P-POW!! The icy sphere explodes into a million-million tiny silver daggers of crystalline water, embedding into every tree, every branch, every square inch of soil, every stretch of wooden finish, and every visible speck of foliage across the north and south ends of the farm. The air is momentarily punctuated by the pincushion impact noises of every jagged shard puncturing every solid thing ever. Then, after an absurd length of three or four silent seconds—steam rises—a hissing, a crackling; and then every icy chunk explodes in sloshing vomits of rainwater that soaks every orchard in sight, and then some—to say the very underwhelming least.
“Whew!” Rainbow Dash flutters, flutters, flutters down in unassuming grace and perches her proud self atop a nearby gazebo while a flurry of rain drizzles down steadily on all sides of her. “How do you like them apples....watered?” She smirks, blinks up at her mane—which is frozen solid. Tonguing the corner of her lips, she flicks her hair with the edge of a hoof and shatters it into the trademark frazzled collection of bangs. “Heheheh. Was that worth your ticket, AJ?” Silence. She blinks and peers down from the rainsoaked gazebo roof. “Apple Jack--?” She freezes, bug-eyed.
Apple Jack and Macintosh are huddled, trembling under the gazebo. The mare in question's hat now sports over four dozen ice-shaped holes, and her blonde mane beneath is soaked as if it has just swept the ocean floor. To say that she's glaring right now at Rainbow Dash would be an understatement.
“Errr..... ...Eh heh heh heh...” Rainbow Dash rubs the back of her mane, wings drooping nervously. “So... ...Wh-What exactly are you thinkin', Apple Jack?”
“.... .... ...” Apple Jack gets up with a sigh and marches off, abandoning the shellshocked, shivering form of Macintosh behind in the gazebo. “Ah think Ah'm fixin' to order meh some more sky doors.”
“GULP,” Rainbow Dash gulps and darts skyward, opposite to the rain. “L-Later!”
“Apple Jack is a hoot. Seriously, she is. I'm not all that sure why I'm bothering to take this moment to write about her. Just thinking about her twangy voice makes me go sniffing myself to see if I just rolled in sawdust. And when I say 'sawdust', what I really mean is—Eh, scratch that. I don't think Twilight would want me putting that joke in a letter sent to the Princess of the Life Giving Sun and all.
“Okay, before anything else, I just wanna get this out there: You think a pony who lives every Equestria-forsaken moment of her life obsessing over apples would be colored anything but frickin' orange! I swear, sometimes when she walks up the road and I see her tiny red cutie marks, I feel like stopping in traffic to watch a bunch of schoolfoals board her through a door in her neck.
“But nah—I'm not meaning to sound cruel to Apple Jack. She's a really swell pony, and an amazing friend—even if I wanna kick her teeth out and grow roses in their place sometimes. She's the one with the Element of Honesty, yanno? Or was it 'hayseed'. Whatever—I'm not all that sure if we ever paid a second mind to our Elements, to be perfectly frank. I think I've still got mine somewhere—Or perhaps I emptied my sock drawer? Eh, whatever. Socks are for wusses.
“Apple Jack is a very dependable pony. Gosh knows she's had every reason to bury me with her brother's plow ten times over by now. I kind of like hanging out with her when she's not rambling on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on about the GREAT FAMILY FARM. Those days before the Fall Season when we did the whole Iron-Pony Competition thing; that was kinda fun. And, heck, even you remember all the fun we had during the Running of the Leaves. At least I hope you remember it as 'fun', not that I'm trying to insist that a Princess who's lived for several thousand years is susceptible to senility or anything. Okay, dang it, am I going to have scrap this whole paragraph? Let's just see how the rest of this page goes.
“Yes, if there's any one thing I could say about Apple Jack, to summarize all that she means to me as a friend and as a shoulder to lean on, to express every deep feeling of respect that I have for her and continue to dream for in the presence of her, it's that--.... .... ..... .... ... .... .... ... ... ... ... ...”
Rainbow Dash squints. She lies on a hilltop overlooking the river that wraps around Ponyville and all but plows her pen into the brown parchment, scribbling desperately to make a mark, but ultimately failing to produce anything else after her very last word.
She squints at the pen, taps it on the parchment, squints at it again, all-but-slams it a final time, then finally drops the thing across the half unfurled scroll of paper and blinks at it in momentary frustration. That frustration gives way to a mock sigh—underneath which is the not-so-subtlest of restrained smirks. “Huh—It's out of ink.” She waves a hoof dramatically overhead. “OH WELL.” Rainbow Dash's wings flex to pull her upwards, abandoning the pen and paper for the warming embrace of the sky--
“Hiya, Rainbow Dash!” Scootaloo dips down from out of nowhere, almost colliding with her.
“Nnnght---!” Rainbow Dash's mane shoots up like spectral lightning and sags back to her neck as she flutters back down to the hilltop, exhaling long and hard. “Yeesh—When did it start raining foals?”
“I'm not a foal!” Scootaloo gags visibly and folds her hooves. “I'm nearly eight!”
“If you wanna live to see nine, pipsqueak, you'd better say what's on your mind.”
“How's your letter to the Princess going?”
“What letter?”
“Grrrrr—Rainbow Dashhhhh--”
“Nnngh—Fine.” Rainbow Dash backtrots and jerks a pointing hoof towards the quasi-offending parchment. “Ta-daaaaaaaa. Don't go drooling over it yet. It's not finished.”
“It isn't?” Scootaloo blinks and plops down on the grass so that her snout is practically burying into the papery surface of the last page. Her wings flutter twitchingly with pre-pubescent excitement. “But—Wow, Rainbow—You've written so much!”
The Blue Pegasus blinks cross-eyed. “I h-have?”
“It's like four pages already! I was almost scared you'd get bored of it in the first penstroke!” Scootaloo peers up and grins, her pink eyes sparkling girlishly. “You must be enjoying yourself!”
“I—Snkkkt—Nnngh—Tchhh! No.” Rainbow Dash frowns. “I'm just... ....yanno... ....wingin' it. Nothing to it, really.”
“Nothing to four pages?”
“Absolutely—Er...” Dash bites her lip nervously. “Wh-Why? Is....Is four pages too long?”
“Ever thought of getting yourself an editor?”
“What the hay is that supposed to mean?”
“I dunno...” Scootaloo glances nervously aside. “It's what Sweetie Belle always says to me when I share her my latest song lyrics.”
“Ah, I see. And just which one is Sweetie Belle again? Is she the one--?”
“--that smells. Yeah.” Scootaloo shuffles the sheets in her grasp and flips to the fist page. “This is some really nice paper.”
“Yeah, Twilight Sparkle gave it to me. Beats me where she gets it from. Is there a paper mill in Equestria? If so, I bet that's where Sweaty Blossom's parents work.”
“Shhh—I'm trying to read this!” Scootaloo excitedly squirms.
“Oh—well(!)—by all means.” Rainbow Dash frowns and makes a nasty face behind Scootaloo's petite hindquarters. “Help yourself to my most personal and private spilling of the inner soul to the esteemed Royal Princess of Canterlot! Ptchh!” She leans against a tree. She flicks her wings about. She rubs a hoof against the wooden bark. She gazes at the grass. She blinks. She gulps, she nervously smiles, and she finally glances forlornly in the direction of Scootaloo's backside. “So....uh... .... ...Is it g-good stuff?”
“.... .... ..... .... ....”
“Yes? No? Maybe?”
“... .... .... .... .... ...”
“Uhhhh.... ...Pipsqueak?” Rainbow Dash's blue coat pales slightly as she sweatdrops. “....Scoots?”
Scootaloo turns the paper at a forty-five degree angle, squinting harder. “Is—er--Is this...? Did you write this thing in English?”
“No, I expressed myself in Galactic Basic—What do you think?” Rainbow Dash marches over to the squatting filly, grumbling. “I swear to Alicornia, what inane dribble is Mrs. Cherilee teaching you hare-brained foals these days—Gimme that!” She yanks the parchment from the young peach pegasus' grasp and holds it up to the Sun. “See there? At the beginning? It clearly reads: 'Dear Princess Celestia--'”
“Rainbow Dash....”
“Yeah, what?”
Scootaloo leans her chin on a hoof and stares up boredly at the blue Pegasus. “You've got it upside down.”
Dash blushes. “Oh.” She flips it rightside up and nearly vomits. “Whoah!—Yeeesh. Eh heh... ...Guess I wrote that part in the shadow of a cloud.” She flips to the second page. “And that part.” The third page. “And that part.” Flipping. “And that--”
Scootaloo hovers up in front of the letter and stares Rainbow Dash point-blanc in the face with puppy dog eyes. “Rainbowwwww—Aren't you gonna take this seriously?”
“Hey! I am taking this seriously!” Rainbow Dash frowns and blows the gasping Scootaloo away with a whip of her wings. “I only wish I could say the same about my hooves!” She sighs.
Scootaloo hovers upright and gestures with two emphatic arms. “Why didn't you just tell me you had bad hoofwriting to begin with?”
“I like to call it 'coltligraphy impairedness'.”
“Well I call it 'silly'!” Scootaloo folds her arms and frowns. “Especially if you knew from the get-go that you were writing to a Princess!”
“What are you going on about? Doesn't the Castle of Canterlot have—like—servants to proofread these things before it reaches Celestia's eyes?”
“Not last time Twilight Sparkle explained it to me and the girls!”
“Well—Celestia should know better! Goddess forbid the day that Twilight's dragon slave burps a letter to the Immortal Lady of the Sun and it has white powder in it or some crud.”
“Rainbowwwww--”
“What? Stop looking at me like I just spiked your cupcakes.”
“Why don't you let me solve your penponyship problem?”
“You?” Rainbow Dash blinks narrowly. “You—Purveyor of skateboards and ziplines—Help me with my chicken scratches?”
Scootaloo grins glisteningly. “I'll have you know I'm an expert at perfecting chicken scratches.”
Dash smirks. “Boy, wouldn't that make a legendary cutie mark...”
“Hush. Just trust your loyal and speedy assistant, Scootaloo!”
“My loyal and speedy what-now?”
“I've got just the thing, something I've been tinkering on. It'll give you an added advantage. Guaranteed!”
“Ooooookay. See this? This is me nodding and humoring you.”
“Nod all you want.” Scootaloo makes to take off for the far edge of Ponyville. “But, by all means—Don't stop writing your most awesome letter on account of me, Rainbow Dash!”
“I....er....I-I kinda have to stop...” Dash shamefully digs the tip of her hoof into the ground.
“Uhhh-H-Huh?” Scootaloo pauses in mid-air to blink back at her. “What for?”
“I'm out of ink.”
“You're kidding me! You're out of ink?”
“Do hilltops have echoes?”
“Then get some ink!”
“Fine! Anything to get your 'loyal and speedy assitance' out of my mane!” Rainbow angles herself towards the distant center of downtown Ponyville. “And I know just the place! Quills and Sofas here I come--”
Scootaloo interrupts the revved up Pegasus in mid-rocketing. “Don't be silly, Rainbow Dash! You know as well as I do that that store's always out of quills!”
“Ughhh-Gawwwwd. Still?” Rainbow sags in midair. “You think for all of the Majestic and Nature-defiant Sun-Rising that Princess Celestia does, she'd stop for a brief moment to boost the Recession.”
“For real, Rainbow Dash.” Scootaloo smiles gently. “Every Pegasus knows that there is only one place in all of Equestria where one can find endless supplies of ink at any time of the day or month or year!”
“.... .... ...” Rainbow Dash blinks. She turns and scans the horizon until her violet eyes settle on the distant looming image of hazy Cloudsdale above. Suddenly, a dull sheen of memories pulls at her sulking blue features, inducing from the cold depths of her hollow being a cold and malnourished sigh. “Unnnnnnnghhhhhh.....”
The front door to the Central Cloudsdale Post Office opens. A rattling bell above the swinging hinges sounds forth across the grand front atrium of the public delivery area. Several trots away, a middle-aged stallion balances precariously on top of a tall ladder as he slides various letters and little cardboard packages into an array of hollow shelves. A gust of tropospheric wind filters in coldly from the outside world and kicks at his green-and-gray mane hairs. Blinking brown eyes, the sky blue Pegasus glances over from a pile of parcels balanced precariously in his jittering hooves and focuses on the front door. He spits a pair of scrolls out from his mouth and—gasping for breath—dutifully recites:
“Good Morning and Welcome to the Cloudsdale Post Office! My name is Blue Farrier, how can I help you toda-a-a-a-AAAH-WHOAH!” He teeters back, blue wings flailing for futile balance as gravity slams him hard on his hindquarters, a cornacopia of flung packages spilling all around his dizzied form. “Nnnngh....” Wincing, he glances up and brightens rather quickly. “Oh! Heh-Heh—Hey th-there, my little Rainbeam! What a s-surprise!”
“Mmmmmmnngh....” Rainbow Dash determinedly avoids his gaze, choosing instead to boredly glare in the direction of the Post Office's walls, one after another, her tail swishing absent-mindedly in time with her mumbling voice. “Heya, Dad.”
Act 1 – Chapter 4 – Of Daughters and Diamonds
“'A pony is going right into a grass region'. Awwwww yeah. Please disregard this paragraph, Princess. I'm just testing to make sure this ink works.
“Princess Celestia, do you have a father? I mean—is there a 'King Celestia' somewhere in the cosmos whom we barely know about? If it's none of my business, you don't have to respond to that question. Then again, it hasn't occurred to me until now that you'd actually be interested in responding to any of this drivel. I'm only writing this because your apprentice thinks it's important. Please, don't take that the wrong way and stuff. Doing the pen-pal thing must be really thrilling for someone like Twilight Sparkle. But unlike her, I don't get excited at watching paint dry.
“Come to think of it, I haven't written anything important on this page that's worth keeping anyways—I think I'll just trash the whole thi--”
Scrunnch!
Rainbow Dash moodily squashes the sheet of parchment on the counter before her and tosses it against a calendar hanging on the Post Office Wall. The pathetically immaculate face of Sapphire Shores smiles jubilantly as the paper wad bounces off her printed snout and bounces neatly into a half-filled waistbasket lying strategically beneath it.
“H-Heh! Nice shot there, kiddo!” Blue Farrier chuckles jitteringly as he packhorses his way from the counter to a canvass cart with a pile of packages balanced precariously on his flank. Turning around to half-buck the materials clutteringly into the container-on-wheels, he smirks the young wing'd filly's way. “Whatcha writin' there, Rainbeam?”
Dash briefly grumbles under her breath before throating to the surface: “It's nothing, dad.” She taps the fresh new pen in her hooved grasp. “Just testing this ink you gave me.” She shudders with a delayed jolt and frowns over her shoulder across the post office. “And stop calling me that!”
“Wh-What? Heheh—'Rainbeam'?”
“Yeah, that! I'm not a foal anymore, yanno.”
“But y-you'll always be my little foal, d-darling!” Blue says with a pale smile. After four or five seconds of dead silence, he gulps, and trots back towards the work counter to gather more things. “So...uhm... ... ...uh.... .....Y-You're still doing weather f-flying for Ponyville?”
“Yes, Dad. Been doing it for the last two and a half years.” Rainbow Dash mutters while re-scrolling her completed and uncompleted sheets and sheathing the pen in with them. “It's simple, it's routine, and it's boring. But—whatever—I haven't missed a day of cloud kicking yet.”
“Er... .... ...W-Well that's the spirit! I-I-I mean...eheheh...” He shakes his mane so that a few sparse gray hairs fall into the obscurity of its emerald rhythm. “It's g-good to know that all those years of t-teaching you diligence and hard work has paid off!”
“Cloud kicking is lame; I'm just doing it to get by, Dad.” She boredly glances at him, tucks the scroll-and-pen under her left wing, and begins trotting her way towards the door. “You of all people should know what that kind of a life is like. Anyways, thanks for the ink. I need to get going--”
“Oh, b-b-b-but...er...” He hobbles briefly, pinned by a few parcels that he's accidentally piled too high on his head. In a serpentine path, he limps towards the cart and nearly body-slams the careening tower of cartons into it, all the while his brown eyes remain nervously pinned on the image of his daughter. “A-A-Aren't you gonna stay and chat? I-I mean...eheh....” He gulps and smiles bravely. “It's like we hardly ever see each other these days, Rainbea—Uhhh—R-Rainbow Dash!.... ....H-Honey!”
“Nnnngh....” Rainbow Dash exhales through thin nostrils. “Chat about what? You've got stuff to do. And I--”
“But I-I'm never too busy for you! I-I've never been too busy for—Wh-Wh-Whoah!” Blue Farrier trips over a package, teeters, but steadies himself with two agile wings at the last second. A deep breath, and he nuzzles the thing up and over the side of the cart with his snout while flashing a gentle smirk at the filly. “I-I may be a bit clumsy—Eh heh—But busy? Pfft. Please...What's on your mind, darling?”
“Nothing's on my mind. I don't need to talk, dad. Thank you for the ink. I just need to--”
“I overheard the fourth customer in a row this week chatting about y-your performance at the Best Young Flier Competition.” Rainbow Dash moans into a facehoof as Blue Flier hovers before a workstation behind her, rummaging through packaging materials and carrying on: “It just tickles me pink that my own little filly amazed so many Pegasi at once! And they're still...nnngh--” He wrestles briefly with some packing tape and finishes wrapping a delivery. “Snkkkt—whew--Th-They're still t-talking about it! And to think that you conjured up that fantastic upside down tornado all by the sheer velocity of your wings!”
To this last bit, Rainbow Dash's eyes twitch. Yet another groan. “Dad, that wasn't me. You're thinking about the Summer Sky Run. It was Spitfire of the Wonderbolts who did the totally wicked Inverse Cyclone Roll before all of Cloudsdale! I was there—In the stands.”
“Oh....Oh d-dear....” Blue taps a weathered hoof to his chin and gulps Rainbow's way. “Wh-When was the Best Young Flier Competition?”
Her eyes are like twin violet mudholes. “..... .... .... ...Four months ago.”
“Ah.... ...Eh heh heh.....Well, uh—I know for a fact th-that you did something spectacular and people were talking about it--”
“The Sonic Rainboom?” Dash raises an eyebrow.
“Is that similar to a—er--'Inverse Cyclops R-Roll'?”
“Ugh—It's nothing at all like—Mmmmmmm....” Rainbow Dash takes a few deep breaths, her wings drooping and almost dropping her scroll. “Ahem. Thanks for the 'talk', Dad. But I really need to be going--” She turns to the office door just in time to come face to face with a googly-eye'd monstrosity ramming full-force into the other side of the glass. WHAM! “AAA-AAACKIES!”
“It says 'pull', not 'push', Ditzy!” Blue cheerfully sing-songs from where he stacks up another series of boxes. He glances briefly over his shoulder with a pleasant smirk. “Just use your memory, sweetie!”
“What was that, Mr. Farrier?” The invasive body calls out muffledly from beyond the door, repeating the futile motions. WHAM! WHAM! “Someone's 'accusing mammaries'?”
“Ughhh....” Rainbow rolls her eyes and gently pushes the still-vibrating door outward. “Allow me.”
A gray, blonde-mane'd pegasus with lopside vision half-flies, half-spirals into the post office and hovers before the sapphire haze of Blue Farrier's body with a mail satchel hung upside down to emphatically show its emptiness. “Second Route's done, Mr. Farrier! Say—Did you know that something's wrong with your door?”
“Heheheh...” He smirks and is already nuzzling the next clump of deliveries into her bag. “You remind me of that everyday, Miss Doo. Let's see here...” He trots up and squints at a chart on the wall. “Ah! According to the schedule, you're making good time. Why not break for fifteen minutes, Ditzy? Help yourself to those--erm--whatever those little things are that you like to eat so much.”
“Oh boy!” Ditzy Doo cheers, both hooves clasped together in midair. “Crackers! Thank you, Mr. Farrier!” She side-flies towards a breakroom adjacent to the post office. Along the way, she smiles in Rainbow Dash's direction, neither of her wayward eyes quite specifically looking at her. “Good morning to you, Mr. Squirrel!”
Rainbow Dash blinks, glances at herself in the reflective surface of a glass jar, flaps her multi-colored tail about for a few seconds, but ultimately just rolls her eyes. “Yanno... ...Ditzy Doo nearly bungled Winter Wrap Up in Ponyville.” She glares. “Three years in a row.”
“Not all Pegasi are as sp-spectacular at flying as you, k-kiddo.”
“Yeah, Dad. But there's unspectacular—And then there's downright lame.”
“There you go using that word again. I'm really not all that fond of it.”
“What? I just--”
“Unless it's used in the literal sense, I'd rather not hear it at all.” He says in a decidedly solid voice for once, pushing the cart towards the back end of the office. “I've seen many Earth Ponies in my day lamed by circumstances they couldn't control. It makes life very tough for them—In ways neither you nor I could imagine. It pains me to hear people making levity of the word, including my own daughter.”
“But even you gotta admit that there's some....” Rainbow Dash briefly squints towards the off-side workroom, then bows to utter her next few words in a lower voice: “.. ....there's s-some chance of a royal screwup with letting someone like Ditzy Doo work in the frickin' postal service.”
“I bet you'd be surprised to know she outshines all the others in her work!” Farrier smirks her way as he trots to another wall and pulls a rolling ladder out. He awkwardly climbs it to reach a few more packages destined to the cart. “She may not be so graceful, but she's punctual. And in this field—eheheh--that's all that matters, really! I know I've taught you many things when you were young, Rainbow. But if there's anything I've hoped you'd latch onto—It's that everyone d-deserves a second chance to prove themselves. Especially when th-they're surrounded by those who don't—well—who don't understand.”
“Have you ever thought of... ....Yanno....” Rainbow Dash clears her throat and bears a uniquely emphatic expression as she murmurs up to him: “...--thought of taking a look at her 'condition', dad?”
“How d-d-do you mean, darling?”
“You know exactly what I mean. You can... ....” A deep breath. “You could fix her.”
“Wh-What's to be fixed? I t-told you that sh-she's good at what she does, didn't I? Let's j-just leave things the way th-they're m-meant to be....”
“Yeah. The way they're meant to be.... .... ...” Rainbow Dash mutters. In a dull melancholy, her violet eyes fall down to the image on his weathered blue flank. A 'horseshoe' entertwines with a 'medical cross', forming a very real but obviously faded cutie mark. “Yanno, dad. You could be so much more.”
“Mmmmm--” He pulls his snout from a shelf and spits a few envelopes ungracefully into the cart beneath him. “What was that?”
“You know as well as I do that you're not cut out for this.”
“F-For what, Rainbeam?”
“For this.” She immediately frowns, pointing towards the walls of the post office with a stiff hoof. “All of this! Don't you ever get tired of this? And don't pretend I'm not the only one who sees it! I walk in and the first thing I see is you tripping over yourself!”
“I'll have y-y-you know that I'm excellent at th-this job!” He says with a sheepish smile, all the while rattlingly dismounting from the ladder and trying to make up for it by trotting majestically towards the cart with the next stack of packages atop his teetering head. “And m-maybe if—eheheh—if you v-v-visited me more often, you'd see that--”
“Ughhh—Don't turn the issue around, dad. You can fool yourself, but you can't fool me.”
“Now Rainbow Dash, precious....” He sighs and marches over, nuzzling her as she frowns away from him. “Life's a f-funny thing. And, well—Maybe you'll figure this out when you're older, but... ...S-Sometimes when you need to do what's best for yourself, and for your family—or just when you need to put all of your letters into one basket, heh heh—You gotta put things into perspective, and settle for a normal life.”
“Pffft--!” She immediately recoils from him. “Dad, everyone knows what you settled for! And--” She once again jerks to look over her shoulder and leans in to add in a harsh whisper: “--you think I managed any better knowing that when I was younger? You think the other ponies treated me any better when they knew what I was, and that you just--?!”
“Whatever they may have thought or said about you, Rainbow Dash, they were wrong--”
“And a fat lot of good you did to show them, Dad! It was up to me to be the tough one!” She hisses back and folds her arms, glaring aside as her breaths rise and fall through her disturbed blue coat. “It's always been up to me....”
Blue Farrier gazes at her, his mouth agape in the desperate attempt to find a retaliation. As the seconds slither by, he becomes aware of the silence, and his eyes droop over the back of her neck aimed at him, the coldness in her shoulder, and the residual hint of fresh morning bruises on her cheek. He gulps, gazes towards the floor and digs a hoof into the tile as he then summons a courageous smile from the depths of his weathered being, murmuring:
“Yanno....I... ....erhm.....I-I was going through th-the house the other day. And...Uhm—I do hope you can forgive me, but—I made your bed again....”
“... ... ....” Rainbow Dash hangs her head with a muted sigh. The shadows beneath her go through the same motions as they have for the past few years, or so her thin eyes tell her.
“N-Not that it wasn't m-made poorly the first time. Just... ... ...Well, I r-realized that it's been a very, very long time since your room was redecorated. And....eh-heh.... ...I-I have no problem doing it all by m-my lonesome. But.....Yanno... ... ...It is your room, Rainbeam. And I figure now's a g-good time to ask for your input.”
“Why does it matter?”
“Shouldn't it matter? I-I mean, it's your b-bed, darling. Heheh...” Blue gulps and smiles nervously. He doesn't make too great of an effort to hide the shakiness in his voice: “Y-You're bound to use it again sometime.”
“Maybe if I feel like it.” Rainbow mutters.
“Just.... .... ...It's b-been so long since the....” He gazes away from her. “....s-since the last time you did--”
She squints at him. “Is there a point to this guilt trip, dad?”
“Oh! No no no no—No guilt trip—As a matter of f-fact....Uh...I.... ...Er....” He grins lopsidedly. “I-I'm glad that you're always out and about, honey! It sh-shows how much you've... ...er...g-grown! Yes, that's it....”
“I'm a Pegasus, dad. Pegasi tend to sleep on clouds. What good are clouds if they aren't for sleeping on?”
“So that's what you do?” He squints suddenly. “You wander the skies, night after night? Sleeping on random clouds?”
“Nnnnnnngh—Dad, please--”
“Cuz I was kind of beginning to imagine things! H-H-Hoping for the b-best, that is.”
“The best?”
“Oh—Yanno—I dunno--” Blue shrugs. “That you've started a new life, or maybe got that—uh—Wonderbolts invitation that you've always sought for. Or—heheh—maybe you've met a handsome young colt who treats you r-right!”
“Ughh...” Rainbow Dash tosses her hooves and trots straight for the door. “Seriously, dad, have you paid attention to anything ever?”
“B-B-B-But maybe if....if y-you were willing to chat more--”
“What, like this?” Rainbow Dash frowns in the open doorway and motions with a wayward hoof. “With you a nervous wreck and me about to explode?—Snkkt—Look, just forget it. I got what I came for, and you—well—you already have all you need here, right? Nnnngh—Good bye, dad.” She takes one step out of the post office and immediately soars skyward with unfurling sapphire wings.
Blue Farrier stands in the center of the work area. And as the rattling bell slows to a stop, he rides a current of gentle sighs, and stumbles back to the next task at hand.
“Sorry about the sudden break in the writing, Princess Celestia. I briefly suffered a 'bout of Inkus interuptus. But I've refilled my pen three times over now, and—for what it's worth—it looks like I'm going to complete this catastrophe that Twilight Sparkle has elected me to do. Just what was I writing about last? Let me check the last page—Oh right, my feelings on Apple Jack.
“Apple Jack smells like hay. There you have it.
“Princess Celestia, I gotta ask; do you ever get sick of Canterlot? I mean, it's a pretty nifty place—I've been over all that already. But still, it is only just one place. Being the ruler of Equestria kind of means that you've got very few choices in vacation spots, huh? I know you probably have some really wise thing to say that would prove me wrong here—but it's really gotta stink to be stuck in one spot your entire life. And I know you've lived a very long time; Twilight's told me. Just old are you again? Sixty-two?
“I could never live in one place. It would be far too boring, far too average, far too predictable. I thank my lucky stars everyday that I'm not an Earth Pony. I know that sounds really horrible—probably because it is—but what I mean to say is: to not be able to fly must be the trots, literally. Still, I've met many an Earth Pony since I became head weather flier of Ponyville, and they all seem to be pretty dang happy with the jobs that they do and with the roofs that they have over their heads and whatnot. That's all well and good for them—but I'm willing to bet most if not all of them have never flown before. And once an Earth Pony has tasted flight, or a Unicorn for that matter—and the places that wings can take them—there's no way one would willingly go back to being anchored to the ground. I kind of know this first hoof, cuz it happened to Rarity when she briefly got wings for an afternoon. But that's a long story and I've long since forgiven the silly sap over all the kerflufficon that happened between us that one day, even if she is a vampire.
“I know I keep going on tangents, Princess, but Twilight told me to 'write from the heart', so please frickin' bear with me on this: I like to say the word 'lame' a lot. And I know that, in some circles, ponies are known to get a bit offended by the word. I usually don't think much of it. But now that I put my mind to it—I don't know what I would do if suddenly one of my wings refused to work. There are a few Pegasi I know whom have had that happen to them. It's very lam—er....'sad', to say the least. I've always felt bad for them, but I haven't really thought about what it if could actually happen to me too. It's kind of scary; makes life look like a different color.
“Come to think of it, you don't have to have a broken leg or a bad wing for you to be 'lame'. I kind of think that some ponies' lives are 'lame', so to speak. Sometimes they're lame and they don't even know it. Some are even born that way. Perhaps I'm thinking too hard on it, but it really makes me HEYRAINBOWDASH WHATAREYOUDOING HUHHUHHUHHUH--?”
A flurry of wispy white. Rainbow Dash blinks up from her parchment of paper. She glances around the cloud that she is lying on over the western outskirts of Ponyville. A blue sky hangs overhead, warmed majestically by the noonday Sun. She taps her pen against the paper and squints at the subtle mist acting as a bedding beneath her folded hooves. Everything is silent; everything is still.
“Okay... ... ...Where the heck did that come from--?”
Pinkie Pie's head resurfaces once more from beneath the cloud bank:
“Aren'tyougonnaanswerme? HuhHuhHuh? Whatchadoing?”
“Whoa—AAAAAH-Aaack!” Rainbow Dash nearly pratfalls off the cloud. Her chest rises and falls in palpitations as she watches with pixelated eyes, observing the careening image of Pinkie Pie's head plowing through the top surface of the cloud like a shark's dorsal fin. “Pinkie Pie—What... ...It.... ...Where.... ...How... ....” She frowns. “No.”
“Heeheeheehee—Hiyaaaaa Rainbow Dash! How are you doing, bestest most besteriffickest friend in the whole wide of Equestriaaaaa-aaaaA-Ee-Ee-eE-eE” She suddenly teeters to the right, then teeters to the left, bugeyed. “Uuuh—uuh—uuh--uuh!” Then finally uprights herself so her shoulders and chin are leveled above the clouds. “Whew.....” A bounce, blue eyes bulging brightly. “So how's the most awesomest friend ever?”
“Pinkie Pie.....”
“You know why you're the most awesomest friend? Well, I'll tell you why you're the most awesomesterifical friend!” She bobs back and forth as if levitating magically beneath the cloud. “Cuz you did this really super crazy fantastical sonic rainboom when you were only eight and it got me my cutie mark and all our friends too which gave us a magical connection and also amazes me cuz if you did that at age eight then that must make you older than me even though I always thought I was older than you but I don't mean anything bad by that—I would love to be your young baby sister and go shopping and cheer for you at the Best Flier Competitions and--*GASSSSP*--do you think they sell hoofgliders in Canterlot?--cuz I could so use one to watch you the next time you soar high and perform the most amazing awesome friend-making Sonic Rainboom AGAIN—and as much as I loved the spell that Twilight once put on the whole bunch of us including Rarity—though she gave Rarity wings that were very icky insect wings but still kind of pretty—I'd much rather not be sitting in one place as I watch you do your amazing super crazy spectacular stunts in mid air: Zoom! Zooooom! Zweeeeee! Hee hee hee ha ha ha!”
“Pinke Pie... ... ....”
“Say Rainbow Dash, do you do other awesome spectacular pony-bonding threads of fate stuff OTHER than the Sonic Rainboom? How about a Sonic Caramel Cloud Burst that brings long lost twins together across impossible distances so that we can have double birthday parties or—SQUE-E-E-E--double surprise birthday parties?--cuz I always felt that surprise birthday parties were one hundred times more superdeliciously fantastic than regular birthday parties except for that one time that you and the rest of the girls were so tremendously nice to have thrown me a surprise birthday party but I was all 'RAAAUGH' and you were all 'LOOK AND SEE' and I was all 'NO UUUUU' and then I realized that I was being a Grumpy McGrumpy Side Saddle for no reason and you all forgave me and we did the pony train trot and Gummy swallowed a balloon and I had to take him with Fluttershy to the vet the next day and they asked me why all his teeth were missing and I told the doctor 'because he's a baby, silly billy' and the doctor said 'he's fifty-two in alligator years, where's his dang teeth' and I giggled and said 'silly doctors, alligators don't keep calendars' and then the vet got angry and threw us both out and Fluttershy cried and I felt bad so I threw her a SURPRISE TRIPLE BIRTHDAY PARTY even if it was two hundred and twenty-five days in advance or six hundred and seventy-five days if you triple it....”
“Pinkie Pie!”
“Aaaannnnnd--” The fuschia haired Earth Pony's skull pauses in mid teeter. She snaps her jaw shut, inhales, and grins wide. “Yes, Rainbow Dash?”
“One word.” She blinks down at her from the cloud. “How.”
“How now brown cow? Heeheehee--”
“No. Just how.” Rainbow glares squinting daggers.
“Wellllllllllll---” Pinkie Pash teeters, teeters, teeters back and leans out from the edge of the cloud. “Stilts is how! Ta-daaaa!” Rainbow Dash's eyes bulge to observe two pairs of red colored wooden poles of indescribably tall height fastened to each of Pinkie's four horseshoes. “I made these last summer when I was thinking of walking across the Ocean but then I remembered that I was afraid of jellyfish—Hey!” Pinkie randomly grins even wider. “Do you think that sea sponges can talk?”
“Goddess, I hope not.” Rainbow Dash squints down at the sheer altitude climb of the precarious footwear. She scratches her scalp and glances Pinkie's way. “Just how did you put them on?”
“Well, I was gonna stick them standing up in the center of Ponyville and ask you to give me a lift on top of them but you were nowhere to be found so I figured you were busy and instead I went to Sugarcube corner and had myself a really talllllll glass of orange sherbert! Mmmm-mmmm!”
“But...” Rainbow blinks. “How did eating orange sherbert help you get the stilts on?”
“Heeheehee—Silly Rainbow.” Pinkie Pie taps a disgruntled Pegasus on the noggin. “Sherbert can't wear stilts!”
“.... ... ... ...Right.” Rainbow clears her throat. “Must be hard to get out of.”
“Get out of--” Pinkie Pie blinks. “Oh. I didn't really think about that part.”
“Well, when you have to go to the bathroom, do you shout 'Geronimo' on a bullhorn?” Rainbow covers her mouth with a hoof. “Snkkkkt—heheheh.”
“Heheheheheheheheheh--” Pinkie Pie blinks. “I don't get it.”
“Ahem. So.... ...Uh... ...Y-You sure that's safe and stuff?”
“No problemo!” Pinkie Pie turns her snout up proudly and trots forward bobblingly. “Your Auntie Pinkie is resourceful! I've got this completely under control—OHCELESTIA HELPME I'MFALLING I'MGONNADIE—Oh, there we go! See? Balanced like a foal's crib!”
Rainbow Dash sweatdrops. “Uhhhh huh....” She finally relents to folding her scroll of parchment up and muttering: “So, here's another question—Why?”
Pinkie daredevilishly bucks her rear quarters up, two of the stilts mercilessly knifing the tops of several leafy trees. “See this saddlebag I'm carrying around?”
“I do now. Honestly, I was kinda distracted for a moment there.”
“Well I'm making a super speedy delivery for the Sugarcube corner! A very special super speedy delivery!” Thud! The earth shakes as Pinkie's rear hooves touch back down. “It's a bag of cinnamon sticks destined for Zecora's place?”
Dash does a double take. “Zecora ordered cinnamon sticks from the Sugarcube Corner?”
“Inorite?” Pinkie Pie giggles and bounce-bounce-bounces on the stilts around Rainbow's cloud. Thud! Thud! Thud! “And as many times as I've been deep inside the Everfree Forest, I always seem to get lost in there! So I thought to myself 'well, if I could see all of the forest from REALLY HIGH then I would be able to find my way in and back out'! So I had some orange sherbert and here I am! Heeheehee!” She bounced to a peetering stance. Th-Thud! “Neat, huh?”
“Nice to know you think with your head as much as with your tongue these days.”
“But I gotta make time!” Pinkie tilts towards Rainbow Dash with blue eyes sparkling. “Cuz not only do I have to be timely with this delivery for Zecora's sake but I also have to be back in Ponyville in time for a SUPER DUPER SECRET meeting that we are having tonight and when I say 'we' I mean me, Gummy, and the stilts!” With each prolonged clause in her running dialogue, she leans and leans and leans and leans more forward. “And if I don't make it back in time for the SUPER DUPER SECRET meeting, then I'll be SUPER DUPER not so SECRETLY ashamed of myself—though I think I would do a decent job of hiding it so long as I sing a song though I think my voice is gonna get hoarse from all this high altitude breathing--”
Rainbow Dash cooly plants a hoof on Pinkie's skull and slowly tilts her back into balance. “Well, how about this—Pinkie Pie...?” She smiles calmly at her friend. “Ditch the stilts, and let someone with real altitude advantage help you in and out of Everfree to make the delivery to Zecora.”
“Ohhhhhhhhh—Rainbow Dash, that is so incredibly sweet.” A deep breath. “ButIhatetobeimposing andyouseemawfullybusywith whateveritisthatyou'rewriting andIhatetobea rudeyrudeynogoodygoody!”
The blue Pegasus blinked. “What?”
“You WILL go with me to Everfree? Yaaay!--WhoahWhoahWhoah--” Pinkie Pie teeters back.
Rainbow Dash easily catches her, wings flapping. “Easy there, ace. No need for Equestria's legendary Pinkie Pie to go Splat.”
“I would never do that in public!” Pinkie suddenly frowns, hooves crossed. “I was raised a proper filly!”
Rainbow rolls her eyes as she kicks the stilts out from under the bubbly pony and lowers herself and Pinkie down to the ground beside the edge of the Everfree forest. “Pinkie Pie, I like to think that Mother Nature secretly foaled you as a Pegasus, only she hid the wings in your mouth.”
“Ooooooh! Does that mean my tongue can join the Wonderbolts?”
“If it has a snowflake's chance in heck of beating mine—Then sure!” Rainbow Dash smiles, then grimaces as the stilts finish their twenty second plummet and crash across the plains of Equestria behind her. (THUDDD! CRASSSSH! CRKKKK! “Meowwww!”) “......eh heh heh.”
“Dear Princess Celestia, have you ever wanted to kill somepony?
“Okay, let me put that into context. Have you ever met somepony who was so annoying, so in-your-face-excitable, so bubbly and jumpy, so non-stop talkative and sugar-coatedly enthusiastic about everything; that to silence the pulsing blood in your brain arteries you kind of just want to shove that pony down the deepest well imaginable? And yet you don't do that because you realize that the very same most annoying thing in the world is at the same time the most joyful thing in the world and you're both blessed and cursed but altogether alive to be within the presence of it.... ...or in this case her.... ... ...or in this very special case, Pinkie Pie.
“I met Pinkie Pie before any other Earth Pony in Ponyville. She's always been rather hard to avoid. She's got a built-in twitching radar and a friendly spirit so neighborly that she could hit your skull with a greeting card from six dozen yards. If so much as a flea hops across the boundary of Ponyville city limits, Pinkie Pie will be there with balloons and party favors, singing it the Welcome Song. And she rewrites the song every year. Last year it was in Acapella. It was the first time I ever truly considered drowning myself.
“But I do hope I'm not painting too terribly bad of a picture of Pinkie Pie. I guess you could say that she's the heart of the kind of a letter Twilight wants me to be writing, cuz it's only by the 'cosmic power of friendship' or whatever that I've gotten used to her at all. What I mean is, at first I couldn't stand Pinkie. I even tried to fly away from her—at top flight speed, mind you. And still she always managed to be a hop, skip, and jump ahead of me at every blink, smiling and wanting to hang out. But yeah, I've since come to like being around her. And it's not just cuz the other girls 'liked her first' or something, cuz then that'd be pathetic....like Neightzschean herd instinct or something. Gawwwwd, Twilight's infecting me.
“As it turns out, when you actually try and get to know someone, even if you don't want to at first, you'll likely find out that you wouldn't want to be anywhere else but with that certain someone. Taking such a bold step like that takes—well—it takes guts, or at least a different kind of guts than I'm typically proud of. Years ago, I would never have bothered so much as looking twice at someone like Pinkie Pie and seeing her as a friend. But lately—I dunno—it's gotten easier to float down to the Earth and shake a hoof and make new friends. I'm not entirely sure why that is the case in my life these days. Maybe that's what Twilight is hoping I could find out for you. Who knows; maybe after I've written about all of these crazy ponies I've fallen into the laps of, I'll be able to explain it to myself as well as to you.
“Or maybe I'll get writer's cramp in the hoof. Yeah. Definitely that. Ugh.”
“Rainbow Dash?”
“Yes, Pinkie?”
“How do porcupines make babies?”
“I—dghht—Hctt—Huh??” Rainbow Dash shakes her head and gives her friend a crooked glance. “Pinkie, are you even trying anymore?”
“Trying to deliver cinammon sticks to Zecora? Of course!” Pinkie Pie winks, wriggling her flank to show the saddle bag slung over her. “That's why you're along to begin with, silly-filly! To help me find my way! Hee hee hee!”
“No—I was talking about---Ughhhh....” Rainbow rolls her eyes and smirks helplessly. “I'm pretty sure you can walk the Everfree Forest alone just fine, Pinkie Pie. The first monster that hops out and eats you would burst its sweet tooth and burp you back out.”
“Speaking of—Ohhhhh....!” Pinkie pouts, glancing around at the dense and cobweb'd green foliage hanging around them on either side of the meager 'path'. “I'm lost already! I feel like a needle in a haystack!” She pauses momentarily to scratch her chin in thought. “Just why are needles always finding their way into haystacks anyways?”
“Because the haystacks struggle with a busy road schedule?”
“Huh?”
“Nothing—Lemme climb again and get another look!” Rainbow Dash takes off.
“Okie dokie lokie!” Pinkie Pie trots gaily with a smile.
The blue Pegasus hovers high over the tree canopy and slowly spins around, scanning the local horizon with her thin violet eyes. “What I wouldn't kill to have my old goggles right about now.....”
“What was that, Dashie?”
“Hey, paint me stupid—But just what does Zecora's house look like again?”
“She lives in a tree!”
Rainbow Dash blinks blankly at the endless leafy rooftop surrounding her. “..... ....Yeah.”
“A big scary tree!”
“Right, Pinkie, thanks--”
“A big scary tree with SCARY LEAVES on it--!”
“THANK YOU, Pinkie Pie!” Rainbow sighs and hovers high above her fuchsia friend as she continues her high altitude scan. “Zecora's a funky kind of a gal. Maybe if I clapped my hooves, her home would light up—Hello!” The Pegasus' vision narrows in on a twisted, gnarled thing at least two clicks to the north. “Uhhh—Hey Pinkie?”
“Hey Dashie!”
“She's got a mask on her front door, right?”
“Why, is the front door ugly?”
“Tchh—Just answer the question!”
“Yes! I do believe I remember a mask and a door!... ... ....and a walrus!”
“Uh huh—Whatever...” Rainbow cries down: “Hang a right and then follow the cleft in the forest as it bends to the left!”
“Roger Wilbur!”
The blue Pegasus shakes her head with a smirk. She makes to dive down when her eyes spot something. She blinks steadily, and a cold breath slowly escapes from her nostrils in the form of a deep and hollow sigh. Half a kilometer to the south—beyond normal pony eyesight, but exactly where she and only she can spot it—is a hilltop, and beneath it a clearing, and in that clearing rests the dilapidated remains of wooden stables, smashed apart as if from the inside out. Rainbow Dash's violet eyes dim slightly, but the edges of her lip form into an undaunted frown, ushering in a barely noticeable but very real growl rising up from the inner depths of her being.
“Dashiiiiie? You gonna come with?”
Rainbow Dash snaps out of it. “Er—Y-Yeah, Pinkie!” She clears a frog in her throat and zooms downward with majestic wings so that she rejoins the Earth Pony's side in a graceful touch down. “Hope you didn't grow old while I was gone.”
“Heeheehee.....” Pinkie suddenly and uninvitingly nuzzles the side of Dash's mane. “Mmmmmm.”
Rainbow Dash blinks crookedly and looks at her with a sideways smirk. “Now what's gotten into you?”
“I just can't stop thinking about how super awesome a friend you are!”
“Oh puhleeeease, Pinkie...” Dash rolls her eyes and smiles forward as they trot along. “You know how much ponies with blue coats hate being forced to blush.”
“I mean it! Everything we learned about yesterday! About you with the sonic rainboom and how it gave me my cutie mark! Oh, and then it gave Fluttershy her cutie mark! OH! Th-Then it gave Twilight her cutie mark! Oh, and there was Rarity and Apple Jack—And you can never guess what!”
“They got their cutie marks....?” Rainbow drones.
Pinkie Pie goes cross-eyed briefly. “Actually, I was gonna say 'a rock and a bunch of apples'--” She brightens, hopping. “But yes! They got their cutie mark! And it's all thanks to you!”
“Pfft. Ain't no big deal.” Rainbow Dash mutters—but then widens her eyes as Pinkie Pie is suddenly in her face, bouncing backwards.
“Ain't no big deal? Didn't you hear what Rarity said yesterday in the Sugarcube Corner when it all hit us? We've been BFFs forever and we didn't even know it! And it was all the doing of your Sonic Rainboom--” She twists her nose towards the shadowy heights of the forest canopy. “No, wait--” She gasps brightly. “Sonic Friendboom! Cuz you totally reached out to all of us and made us go 'BOOM'! With Friendship!”
“So it was a fortunate side effect of me being awesome!” Rainbow Dash shrugs. “Nothing to write a song about--”
“Ohhhh-weeee-ohhhh—I look just like Rainbow Dashiiiiie!” Pinkie cartwheels around her friend.
“Ughhhh—Gawd.”
“Uhhhh-Ohhhh—And you're Mare-y Tyler BOOM!” Pie's carthweeling is frozen in place by a blue hoof'd speed spike.
“I wasn't reaching out to anyone!” Rainbow Dash wags an eyebrow for emphasis. “I was just doing my thing! But suddenly you and Twilight all the other girls think that some cosmic event folded us together like a big pink ribbon—” She goes cross-eyed at her own words and makes a vomity grimace. “Bleahhh—You see, this is why I'm never poetic.”
Pinkie Pie back flips off Dash's hoof and skips alongside her. “You mean to say you think what happened cuz of your Sonic Rainboom isn't special?”
“NO! I—tchh.....nnngh...” Rainbow Dash briefly bows her head before taking a deep breath and smiling exasperatingly at her friend. “Look—It's an awesome thing that happened. But just because it happened doesn't mean it's any more special than the fact that the finding of the Elements of Harmony happened—Or that of you adopting Gummy happened—Or that of....uh...uhh ... ...Big Macintosh being caught cross-hoofing happened--”
Pinkie Pie does a double-take. “Wh-What?”
“Er, sorry,” Rainbow blushes. “Last 'scenario' was random on my part. What do you think?”
Pinkamena Eyes: “You stink at random.”
“Th-thanks for the honesty.” The Pegasus sweatdrops.
“No big dealio, girlio!” Pinkie hops around her. “But I really think you should take a second look at things, Dashie! See it all from the bright side and realize that we're all connected by a fancy fantastic phantasmagorical bondity-boo!”
“And I think you should stop hopping around or else those cinnamon sticks are gonna become cinnamon crunch.”
“But just what if it was all meant to happen the way it did? I don't know if I ever told you—But before I saw what I now know is the Sonic Rainboom, I was a completely different filly altogether!” Her eyes sparkled in brief melancholic earnest. “A sad filly!”
“Really....?” Rainbow Dash smirks and rolls her eyes. “I had no idea.”
“No really! We weren't allowed to laugh or to sing or to dance or to make miniature airplanes with our food or to even paint--” (GASSSSP) “Why, before your Sonic Rainboom came into my life, the most color I'd ever seen was in the family outhouse!”
“Jee....” Dash grimaces. “You're...uh....welcome?”
“Seriously! It was like an entirely different world! Gray dirt and black skies as far as one could see! Can you even imagine that, Rainbow? NothatI'mtryingtomakeyoupitymeorsomethingcuzthatwouldbedownrightcruel—But just imagine!”
“A wise sage once said: 'Shadows fall after the hurt is gone. Through it all we love and we lose'.”
“Wow. I didn't realize you were so deep, Dash!”
“I'd rather be deep than wide,” Rainbow says, then squints Pinkie's way. “So—Was it true that you actually lived on a rock farm?”
“Uh huh!”
“And just what did you make with the rocks?”
“Ermmmmm---B-Bigger rocks?” Pinkie smiled wide.
“Hmmph....” Rainbow shrugs. “Guess I fell right into that one.”
“Heeheehee! Saaaaaaaay—After helping me make this delivery to Zecora, what did you plan to do tonight, Dashie? Huh? Huh?”
“The same thing we do every night, Pinkie---” Rainbow Dash pauses in mid speech, glances at us, then shakes her head. “Ahem—Maybe hang at the Sugarcube corner, show Fluttershy my latest air stunt moves, sleep on a cloud—Preferrably the last one. I haven't done that since this morning and I like to fill my quota.”
“Well, I would love it ever so much if I could hang with you buttttttttttttt--” She twirls in mid trot and winks Dash's way. “--I'm gonna be busy as a two tailed beaver with the SUPER DUPER SECRET meeting I'm in charge of arranging and I won't have time to fling my hooves in any more than sixteen directions—Wait....” She searches the edges of her skull with fishbowling eyes. “Four hooves by four hooves—Yup! Sixteenaroonie!”
“Well....d'ummm....” Rainbow Dash runs a hoof through her mane. “Did you—like, I dunno—need help setting up this meetin--?”
“NOOOO!” Pinkie's head dhalsims around and stares down Rainbow's skull. “For it is SUPER DUPER SECRET and only those allowed into the SUPER DUPER SECRET TRUTH CIRCLE must know its SUPER DUPER nature FOREVERRR---..... .... ....Super Duperly.” She blinks skyward as Rainbow Dash nervously sweatdrops, and suddenly smiles again: “But perhaps Auntie Pinkie Pie could help you with that letter you're writing?”
“No, I—Snkkkkt--” Dash frowns at her. “And just how do you know about the letter?”
“What letter?” Pinkie blinks.
“.... ... ... ....” The blue pegasus boredly looks ahead. She drones: “Oh look. We're here.”
“Ah! The mask!” Pinkie Pie bounces into place before the gnarled tree that is Zecora's residence. Indeed, there is a scary tribal mask hanging over the top of the door, just above a hollow window pane. “And see? There's the walrus!” Pinkie points to the right. An invisible camera pans to the right to reveal a fat wicker 'figure' with a pair of tusks protruding from its cranium.
“Wow....” Dash boredly trots up in front of it. “So.......lifelike...”
A beat. Thud! The wicker effigy spontaneously falls over.
“Must be a drunk walrus!” Pinkie beams.
“Ughh...let's just knock on the door,” Dash marches up and does the honors.
Not too long after the rhythm of the pegasus' hoof to the wood, and a thickly accented voice throats from deep within the residence: “Come, ponies, come in swiftly. And allow me to inspect your delivery.”
“You know, just a simple 'come in' would do!” Rainbow balks as she opens the door to reveal Zecora standing over a bubbling cauldron.
The earpierced, mohawked Zebra merely smiles as they enter: “But what better way to smile and greet you!”
“UGH!” Dash nearly pratfalls, clasping a hoof over her heart. “She totally got me!”
“Oh, she's gooooood!” Pinkie Pie giggles.
“Not good.” Dash folds her hooves and closes the door behind them with a rear hoof. “Just predictable....”
“Hmmm-Hmmm-Hmmm...” Zecora tosses a few herbs into her indiscernible quaff and stirs briefly before opening her mouth to speak: “Rainbow Dash, ever so sardonic; What a surprise to you see assist with my tonic!”
“With your what-now?” Dash raises an eyebrow.
Pinkie hops over to her. “Ooooh! I get it! The cinammon sticks—You need it for this stuff you're stirring, huh?!”
“If you refer to my brew, then you'd be correct. But allow a customer her chance to collect.”
“Collect?” Pinkie Pie blinks. “Collect what?”
Rainbow Dash points boredly at her saddle. “The bag.”
“Ohh! I'm such a silly billy filly!” Pinkie yanks her snout back, opens the satchel, and holds the bundle of flavored sticks towards Zecora's eyes with her teeth. “Ferrff arf tehff Thinamonnff fthitckf ouf ohduffed!”
Zecora leans in and squints at the 'product'. She grins wide and mutters something happily in her native language before winking in Rainbow's direction. “At last, I can see before my eyes! My people's key to dead weeds and blue skies!”
Dash looks confused. “Okay, Zecora—Now you're, like, totally throwing us for a loop.”
“Miffe mouff eff begiffen doof waduff!”
“Yeah, that too.”
“Surely you two remember the poison joke of great terror!”
“Pffft—And how. One whiff of that blue stuff and I thought I was about to fly straight into the Sun. Which would be pretty cool, mind you, but I'm sure Princess Celestia would object.”
“Well in my home land of Zebrahara, there is a plant of a similar aura. For countless winters it has brought strife to every Zebra who only wanted to live his or her life!” Zecora trots around to the far end of the tree hollow laden with masks and ritualistic artefacts. Grabbing a book from a shelf, she lays it out on a podium before Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie, displaying a series of blue vines spilling out from a majestic, trapezoidal pyramid structure erected in the middle of a sandy desert. “Behold, the most sacred building of my kin: The Temple of Shadows, where all shades begin. In years of late it has met a wicked fate. For a poison joke of a different vein has driven several worshipping tribes insane.”
“And.... ....uh.... ...” Rainbow Dash blinks from the book to Zecora and back to the book. “... ...you've found a way to kill off the poison desert vines with---er--cinammon sticks?”
“Enddff enff fbeakunff eghff thinamouff thiffgff, Eff gouff ouffh thogg thelfft!”
“It's the very reason to Ponyville I came.” Zecora slaps the book shut and carries it back to its original place. “To experiment on weeds of a different name!”
“H-Hey!” Rainbow momentarily brightens, wings fluttering. “So—I-I guess the other ponies and I sort of helped you in a way! Er...” She blushes a bit and scratches her left hoof with her right, shamefully. “In that we were totally your guinea pigs for a day or two, r-right?”
“Hmm-Hmm-Hmmm....” Zecora makes a chuckling noise and nods. “Though the joke was ever so briefly on you, it has greatly helped me come up with this stew.” She blinks, takes a fateful look at the cinammon-teething Pinkie Pie, smiles nervously, and removes the sticks from her mouth.
Pinkie Pie gasps dramatically, then glances down at her bespeckled tongue. “Mmmm—Hey! My mouth is happy!”
“Yeah, who would have imagined--” Rainbow Dash begins but suddenly jumps as her companions jolts uncontrollably.
“Nnngh—Oooh! Twitcha-Twitch!”
“Great galloping sand clout!” Zecora nervously rears her hooves. “What is she going on about?”
“'Pinkie Pie Sense'....” Rainbow drones as she points a hoof at her vibrating friend. “Let's see you make a brew for that.” Meanwhile, Pinkie Pie gasps, sputters, and exhales sharply as her body shudders through her ears, then through bulging eyes, then a shaking pair of front hooves. “Huhhh...” Rainbow scratches her chin. “Just which one was that again--?”
THUD! The door to the hut suddenly reopens, taking Rainbow with it on a one-way-ticket into a nearby wall. A darkly robed figure clops in and yanks his hood loose. “Zecora! Hail from the Shadows, girl!”
“Tetramun!” Zecora brightens and gallops towards this sudden stranger. The two brace their hooves together and nuzzle each other's manes before exchanging a chatterific diatribe of foreign tongue. The front door rolls back on its hinges, and a twitching and slightly squished Rainbow Dash limps back into the main breadth of the room.
“Dashie—You okay?” Pinkie licks the last of the cinammon dust from her lips and frolics over. “That looked like a doozie!”
“I'm suddenly regretting the 'sky doors' joke.”
“Huh?”
“Never mind, wrong chapter...” Rainbow Dash shakes the googly eyes out of her skull, blinks, and jumps. “Whoah! Zecora! There're two of you!”
Two zebras stare in her direction. One, a not so familiar male. The other, a slightly more familiar female who trots up: “Eh! Double, you think you see! But I assure you; only family!”
“Yeah, no kidding?”
“Oooh! Oooh! Omigosh!” Pinkie bounds and bounces in place. “Lemme guess—Your husband? Mr. Zecora??”
The male Zebra squints curiously at Zecora. She leans in and whispers into his twitching ears. After hearing her translation, he raises his snout to the roof and laughs merrily. Catching his breath, he strolls up and bows slightly. “I am....ehhh—as you say 'humored', but also humbled. My name is Tetramun. And if you must—ehh—know, I am Zecora's 'cousin'. Yes, cousin.”
Pinkie Pie blinks steadily. “Zecora's married to her cousin--?” Plop! Rainbow Dash's hoof finds its way into Pinkie's mouth.
“Eh heh heh—I'm Rainbow Dash, the coolest Pegasus in all of Ponyville and Cloudsdale and Equestria blah blah blah—And THIS talkative ball of fuzz is my good but giddy friend, Pinkie Pie.”
“Deffh tathhf geoff wike duh thennamonf!”
Tetramun nods his head and smiles. “Pleased to meet you....uhh....two fine squirrels.”
Zecora hisses and leans her head into his. “Non! Non! Ponieeeees!”
Tetramun's stripes buckle under a deep red blush. “Oh. Ehh—M-My sincere apologies. You are both fine and---err--d-distinguished 'ponies'. Please do forgive me; I am not from around here.”
POP! “You're from the Zebrahara, aren't you?” Pinkie Pie grins wide.
Dash wipes the pony drool off her hoof and smirks. “We could tell from how you use the left lane when you walk around the room.”
“Heheheh—Such strange yet pleasant fillies!” Tetramun turns to face his fairer cousin and smiles. “And I would very gladly like to know more about all of your—ehh—acquaintances here in the Ville of Ponies, dearest cousin. But I came with great haste from quite a distance because of your letter. By the Shadows—Tell me!” He leans forward with blazing eyes of earnest. “Is it true that you've made the brew?”
Zecora claps her hooves with a briefly uncharacteristic enthusiasm. “Oh, I bring you good tidings, Tetramun!” She eagerly grabs and displays the stalks in question. “The cure to the Blue Joke is cinnamon!”
“Ohhhh ho ho ho ho....” Rainbow Dash eyes the walls, ceiling, walls, and floor in that order. “Shoulda seen that from a mile away.” She smirks.
“Cinnamon...” The he-Zebra stares at the item in Zecora's grasp. “So this is the answer we've all sought......”
“And to think that all our fears were for naught!”
“Zechy!” He hisses at her, sighing embarrassingly.
Rainbow Dash trots up. “That kinda brings up a good point.” She squints suspiciously at the newcomer. “How come you don't speak in rhyme like Zechy—Er—Zecora here?”
Tetramun smiles as his cousin proceeds to add some of the Sugarcube delivery into the cauldron. “Zecora is a---how do you say it(?)--'most learned scholar' from our lands. She is most gifted in incantations. She has to be! She is heir to the throne of Head Shamanista in our tribe!”
“H-Hey....” Rainbow smirks. “Way to go Zechy!”
“Unnngh...” Zecora briefly rolls her eyes but blushes slightly as she continues administering to the brew.
Tetramun continues: “To prepare for the one day that she does her shamanistic duties among my people, Zecora speaks in a dancing tongue to help her....ehhh.....concentrate better. You see, where we come from, it is a sin to waste words when aiding the health of the tribe!”
“You don't say....?” Rainbow Dash smirks the female Zebra's way. “Hey! Zecora, Mistress of Rhymes, finish this phrase for me!” She clears her throat: “'There once was was a dashing blue pegasus, who pulled up her saddle and flashed her--”
“Alas! I forgot I had one last thing in store!” Zecora gasps and gallops across the interior and rummages through a table of miscellaneous ingredients. “A symbol of my gratitude and more!”
“I'm.... ...A little confused....” Rainbow blinks. Pinkie Pie bumps into her. She turns and frowns at the fuchsia pony. “Hey! Pssst! Pinkie!” She whispers hoarsely. “Put those down!”
The curly-haired filly is teetering left and right on her hind quarters, balancing a scary mask on the tip of her nose. “I-I cannot help it! It fell on me and I'm scared that if it touches the floor, zombies will sprout up!”
“You're gonna break something--” Rainbow Dash turns back and blinks to see Zecora's snout in her face, and balanced between her eyes is a huge sparkling diamond. “Whoah! Hello there!”
“As it was your unicorn friend from the Carousel Boutique that so purchased the cinnamon that I seek, I felt it best to pay her back with a fortune she might lack!” She flips the diamond the blue Pegasus' way.
“Wow...” Rainbow Dash catches it on a balancing wing. “So it was Rarity who paid for the Surgarcube corner delivery? That's pretty nifty. Though—heheh....” Rainbow smirks at Zecora as she bounces the diamond from wing to wing. “...I can't say that diamonds are as valuable to us here in Ponyville as cinnamon is to the Shadow Temple Bingo Night back in Zebrahara. I mean, you can't swing a dead cat around here without running into a ruby or an emerald. Otherwise, Twilight's pet lizard would starve to death.”
“Rainbow Dasssssshhh--” Pinkie Pie whimpers from where she teeters, suddenly balancing half a dozen masks spinning on top of her nose and left and right hooves. “--Just be a niiiice ponyyyy and t-take the diamond for Rarityyyy—whoahwhoahwhoah--”
“Pinkie! I told you about the masks, girl!”
“It keeps happening!” She goes bug-eyed, trips, plunges, and falls in a heap of clattering masks in the corner of the building. “Whoahhh!” Th-Thud! “Don't hurt me, zombies! No brains! No brains!”
Rainbow Dash rolls her eyes and wing-bounces the diamond one last time before catching it securely in her multi-colored tail. “Thanks for being so nice and all, Zecora. I'm sure Rarity will love the diamond. She'll 'ooh' and 'aah' all over it before stitching together a handkerchief that could cut glass or something. Still, I'm sure she'd send you twenty whole forklifts of cinnamon if she knew how much it meant to your tribe. She's a generous sap like that; just don't let her suck your blood.”
Tetramun blinks frightfully at the Pegasus before giving Zecora a confused glance. The would-be-shamanista merely smirks, rolls her eyes, and chuckles Dash's way. “Then would you be so kind to deliver this unto Rarity so that she may be handsomely rewarded for her charity?”
“I may be a weather flier sometimes! But a dependable go-to-girl for friends?” Rainbow Dash winks. “Anytime! Consider this precious token of appreciation delivered!”
SWOOSH!
Rainbow Dash hovers to a stop above a pale unicorn hard at work and drops the diamond beside her on the sewing table. Thunk! “Hey Rarity, here's your rock. See ya.” The blue Pegasus yawns and zooms away.
“Yes, thank you, Rainbow Dash, that is very nice of you---Waa-haa-Haa-HAA?!?!” Rarity's blue eyes bulge as her spectacles fall thunderously from her snout. She gapes at the glittering diamond rolling to a stop in front of her, all the while ignoring the seams being sewn jaggedly into her experimental sheet of blue silk. “Good heavenssss!” Her voice hisses into an animalistic growl. “A Zebraharan Heart Diamond! Rainbow Dash, cease and desist your flight this instance!”
The magical screeching of invisible tires alights the air as Rainbow Dash stops barely half a yard from flying out the door to the Carousel Boutique. She slumps in mid-hover, groaning, but puts on a brave smiling face as she flutters back over by Rarity's side. “Ahem. Is there something wrong, Rare?”
“Wrong? How could anything possibly be more right?” Rarity beams, her eyes sapphirically mirroring the glittering gemstone in her hoof'd possession. “Why, with this—I could make a sparkling tiara befitting Princess Celestia herself! Or a scepter for the visiting dignitaries from Whinniepeg! Or...or....”
“A handkerchief that could cut glass.....?” Rainbow boredly drolls.
“Why, y-yes! Even—Wait...Huh?” Rarity snaps her eyes off of the treasured jewel and blushes Dash's way. “Rainbow Dash, just where ever did you get this priceless drop in the great well of supernatural beauty?”
“Sugarcube Corner. Pinkie Pie. Cinnamon sticks. Everfree Forest. Zecora?”
Rarity's eyes bounce across the ceiling as she connects the dots in her well-groomed skull. An aristocratic laugh, and she dramatically plants a hoof over her breast. “Ho ho ho—Oh but of course! The delivery that Zecora needed; something very poetically nobile about 'curing some evil plant harassing her—Mmmm—Temple of Shadows' or some other hocus pocus. It was simply a passing thought on my behalf that the dreadfully plebeian spice might help alleviate the problem of her tribe's dreaded weed problem. Two months ago I mailed the infamous Flash Focus some cinnamon to add flare to her coffee sessions. The upstart photographer had horrible indigestion for a week! Hah—If the bothersome spice could throw the untouchable Flash Focus' stomach for a loop, 'imagine what it could do to the blue vegetable nemesis of the Zebrahara', I thought. Heheheh--” Rarity's eyes briefly turn into burning coals. “May she boil in her own stomach juices---!!” She blinks, her eyes shrinking back to normal as they once again register the existence of the sparkling diamond in her hooves. “Hmmm-hmm—heeheeheeheeeeee---Erm...” She blinks over her shoulder. “Do be a good girl and remind me exactly what we were talking about?”
“Something about weeds, sticks, and photographer diarrhea.” Rainbow Dash points a hoof over her shoulder. “Can I go now?”
“Go? Heavens no!” Rarity plants the diamond atop a 'throne' of thimbles on her desk and trots over to the hovering wing'd filly. “This is the first time I've been blessed to see you after yesterday's dramatic unfolding and I would simply hate myself for not spending some quality time with the most important pony in my life!--Not to mention my friends' lives!”
“Ughhh---” Rainbow Dash runs a hoof over her face. “Not you too.”
“Oh don't be a spoil sport!” Rarity makes a sad face. “You of all ponies!--to not give yourself enough credit, Rainbow Dash! Why, if it weren't for the timely explosion that your noble aerial antics caused so many years ago, I would have been deprived of discovering the talent that my magical horn was so earnestly wishing to teach me about my passion and skill in fashioning gemstones into the very fabric of my best work!”
“Yeah yeah--” Rainbow Dash sighs, eyes rolling from where she hovers. “Sonic Rainboom leads to exploding rock leads to important self discovery leads to pastel picture on your rump. I got it. But seriously, Rarity—get over it! It was just a crazy-lucky circumstance! Nothing else! Okay--?” She glances down, then squints. “Wait....are you--??”
Rarity's eyes are watering as she smiles numbly up at her friend. “To think....This Boutique, this strategic juncture between Cloudsdale and Canterlot, this delectable gold piercing upon the lush navel of the Fashion World—I owe it all to you!”
“You're—You're not going to cry, are you?” Rainbow Dash grimaces. “Oh cow cookies, don't you—Don't you cry! I mean it! Don't you—”
Rarity sniffles and half-giggles, cupping a hoof to the side of her cheek. “Oh dear friend, fateful benefactor extraordinaire, will you do me the grace of spending some time with m-me just for just a little while longer?” She sniffles melodramatically.
“Nnnnnn-unnnnnnnngh—FINE! Anything to put a cork in that fountain behind your eyes, dang!”
Rarity gasps happily. “How about some tea?”
Rainbow blinks. “Yeah, I'm outta here.” She turns around toward the door.
“Rainbow Dasssssssh!”
“OKAY! Okay.” Rainbow Dash folds her arm—Yank! “WHOAH!” She grimaces as she's squished into a nuzzling hug by the porcelain filly with a blue mane.
“Oh what divine BFFs we arrrrre!” Rarity coos with her eyes wide shut.
“Mmnnughhhhhwutever...”
“What would you like with your tea?”
“How about some garlic?”
“I always thought that the one special thing about Rarity is that she's the one pony in my circle friends whose name isn't a combination of two proper nouns. Now that I've gotten to know her better, modeled for her, shopped with her, watched her make a dress for me, saved her from certain plunging death with my second Sonic Rainboom, I realize that I was absolutely right the first time. Just who names their kid 'Rarity' anyways? I wonder if her parents saw her one day in the crib and went: 'Wow, a foal! I've never seen something like that before! Let's feed it oats and see if fruit blossoms off that little horn of hers!'
“At least I can understand Pinkie Pie. She's such an individual—doing her own thing to make people laugh or enjoy themselves. Pinkie Pie employs a creativity—howbeit an insane creativity—and even though it may rub ponies the wrong way from time to time, it still works in the end.
“But Rarity? As long as I have ever known her—or pretended to know her—she's made it her goal to be part of the herd, not so much because she enjoys conforming so much, but she's all bent out of shape about impressing others. Everything has to be perfect with Rarity, and I do mean everything. From tying a bow on a dress sleeve to handling tea sugarcubes with dainty forceps to walking with some prissy gait befitting high society—she's a big velvet bag of 'LOVE ME PLEASE'.
“I guess that kinda sorta makes sense with all that she has to put up with in her line of work, though. Trying to impress someone with a frilly vest is a heck of a lot stupider than doing a triple barreled cloud busting corkscrew over ponies' gasping heads—at least in my book. So I should give her some credit for just how effing crazy the industry is within which she gallops, but she makes it her day-by-day obsession, so that I do not know exactly where 'Rarity the clothes designer' ends and 'Rarity the friends-hanger-outer' begins. Come to think of it, Rarity with fashion is like Twilight with books. Just what is it with unicorns being obsessed with things? I think some of their brains gets mushed out of their skull and into their horns, so that they're always aiming themselves forward with a one track mind. It's scary.
“But there's another side to Rarity, and—as much as I conk myself on the mane to admit it—it's what makes me tolerate her in spite of all the signs that would otherwise paint her as a mere showhorse. The unicorn does a very nifty job of living up to her Element of Harmony. In case Twilight didn't diligently describe it to you, Rarity is the element of Generosity. I sometimes think she's the Element of Potpourri, but only Apple Jack would get that joke. Anyways, the best example I can think of is a few months ago when there was this silly fashion show in Ponyville that meant a lot to her. Me and the other girls were gonna be the models for her as she showed off her best works of—of--....uhm....clothing stuff. Only—we were too self-absorbed to appreciate the dresses she had made for us. But instead of hammering our narrow minds into shape, she went on and altered the outfits to our liking—and in so doing made herself the laughing stock of local fashion for a few bitter weeks. I don't pretend to understand it too well. I mean, I thought my outfit was pretty cool, but whatever; the fashion show was supposed to be all about floating Rarity's boat, not ours.
“It all ended okay in the end, of course. I mean, Rarity isn't exactly hanging from the nearest tree (and even if she did, I'm sure she'd make a french braid out of the noose; sorry, I thought it was funny). Turns out we all got the bright idea to model another fashion show for her, only this time wearing the dresses she meant for us in the first place—and it saved her hide from burning into flames in the world of fashion. I'm not sure how; Whatever. She inspired us... ....She inspired us to be as generous to her as she was to us. Cuz when you look back at the way things are, you gotta admit to yourself that Rarity could have it so much better than what she's got now. I mean, she's got the taste and the class to hang out with much more popular and far wealthier ponies. And yet here she is in Ponyville, treating us like five queens of our own. It's kinda nice to be treated 'special' by someone who's gifted in the art of being so. As long as she doesn't drench us in affection, which she only does—like--every other flippin' week. Yeesh. Wutever, it's manageable, I guess.
“She's a high class pony with humility and grace. And in the ever harsh artistic world of Equestria, that's a rarity... ... .... ...Horseapples, did I actually just write that? Ugh...”
Rainbow Dash scribbles and chicken scratches on her sixth sheet of parchment while on the other side of the table—across a sea of teacups, saucers, doilies, and one particularly large sparkling diamond—the owner of the Carousel Boutique reclines daintily in her seat and preaches verbosely over a gently steaming cup of herbal quaff.
“And so Hoity Toity wrote me a letter saying that he was in desperate need for a ruby studded jacket for the main singer performing at the local fair up in Neigh York—Something about a 'hometown gathering of musical tastes and rural ponycana'. Oh, I know it sounds positively dreadful, and I do feel oh so sorry for the elegant stallion of style. You should have read his snarky sarcasm when he described to me the plebeian excuse for an executive designer crew that he's scheduled to work with for this underwhelming 'gala'—it positively bled through the envelope as I opened it. He's a charming fashion aficionado, that Hoity—but he does need to work on his sense of humor. It's all in the timing, even if it's just ink on parchment. Heh heh ho ho ho!”
“Uh huh....” Rainbow Dash drones, writing.
“And of course I rose to the challenge. He attached the design of this jacket to me in the letter and I nearly fainted from the rush of blood to my bitter taste buds! The tassels—dear stars and garters—The tassels! I had sincerely hoped that leather had died in the fashion industry ever since... ...ever since... .... ....well, ever since the beginning of time, if I may be so boldly hyperbolic! But, that's the life of a seamstress—Sometimes you have to just grin and bear it, especially if it's a specific commission! Besides, I feel oh so terribly bad for Hoity Toity, and I figure that if I join him on this potentially comical expenditure when it's all for Neigh York charity and there's no chance in legitimate public scorn, then the both of us can have a mutually beneficial laugh as we watch the locals prance and frolic around this—pffft—delightfully trite 'rock and roll' festival that the two of us worked mutually across the vast distances of Equestria to help dress!”
“Uh huh.”
“Besides, any chance I have to placate the trivial frustrations of Mr. Toity is a potentially beneficial page in my grand chronicles of fashionable ascension! Ooooh—To think that the two of us in the span of a few ecstatic months are inexplicably becoming fast ponies-in-arms across the great battlefield of chic and style! Why—What if he becomes so enamored that he actually deigns to take me under his professional wing and make me his very own apprentice as he prepares new outfits for Sapphire Shores, Whinnie Houston, and maybe even—Mmmmmmm!--Drew Barrymare! Ohhhh—I'm so overwhelmed with enthusiasm I could positively die!”
“Uh huh...”
“I—Er....Hmmm?” Rarity leans forward and blinks at the distant Pegasus. A rising eyebrow. “You would w-want me to perish from excitement, Rainbow Dash?”
“Yes—NO.” Rainbow glances up, her pen clattering to the parchment. “I dunno. Maybe?” She blinks. “What was the question again?”
Rarity squints. “You haven't heard a single word I've said, have you?”
“Oh! Uhhhhm...t-t-totally! You and Hoity!.............. 'chic happens'!”
“Ohhhhhh Rainbow Dash, ever in a world of your own...” Rarity exhaustedly plops her teacup down onto the tabletop and leans over it, stirring absentmindedly. There is nevertheless a wry smirk on her lips as she tilts her horn in the wing'd pony's direction and says “Only this time, it appears you're suspended in a rather different world of another's contrivance. Could that, perhaps, be the letter that Twilight has asked you to write?”
“Okay.” Rainbow slaps her hooves onto the table and glares through the walls of the Boutique. “Who else knows about this letter and who do I have to pay to decapitate them?”
“Heeheehee—Darling, there's nothing to be ashamed of. You are obviously very much engrossed in the task that Twilight has set before you. I find it rather charming---Erm...” Rarity winces slightly with an awkward smile. “N-N-Not that I find it unbecoming of your intellectual tenacity to so diligently cling to such an undertaking, but I think it betrays the otherwise obscured sincerity you feel for those closest to you.”
“I'd bend your horn down into your eye if I could understand a single word you said.”
“You of all my closest companions are the most reticent to share her deepest feelings, and your objections to my natural inclination to gush over yesterday afternoon's revelations is a very prime example of such.” Rarity scoots back as a white persian cat suddenly leaps atop the table; the white unicorn proceeds to gently pet and stroke the bored looking feline as she murmurs on: “But seeing you so ardently pursuing the letter to Princess Celestia is like a shining beacon of hope.”
“Meaning... ....”
“You really care for us, girlfriendddddddd—Heheheheheeee....” A deep gasp and she leans forward, blindly pushing her weight atop the eye-bulging pet. “Tell me!” Wide crescent moon of teeth, glimmering. “Did you write anything about meeeeeee yet? Hmmmm?” Sparkling eyes. (“Mrowwww.......”)
“Uhhhhhhhhh....” Rainbow Dash glances down at her parchment. Below her last paragraph is a crudely drawn sketch of four Wonderbolts fending off thunderclouds with ghost-powered flame throwers. She looks up, grinning. “You bet!”
“Mmmmm—I knew it! I knew it! I knew it! You do care!” Rainbow Dash flings her hooves up, clapping them as an unlucky cat flies behind her head and flies into something. (Thud!) “Oh, maybe this will get Princess Celestia to come visit us again! I imagine all of Twilight Sparkle's dutiful letters shine in a whole new light after one has taken yours into account!”
“Ugh—Really, Rarity?” Rainbow's mane pops a few loose hairs of frazzled disbelief. “You're gonna compare my writings to Twilight's?”
“Well, if perhaps you would let me readdddd some of ittttttt-Hmmmmmmm?” Rarity's eyes mimic a glistening pair of moonwells.
“Uhhhh—Eheheh--” Dash sweatdrops. “I-I-I'm not sure that's such a good idea.”
Rarity immediately turns her chin up. “You're exactly right! They are meant for the Princess' sacred eyes! Nobody else's!”
The blue pegasus glances once more down at her parchment. One of the ghosts bursting out of a flame thrower is wearing a fedora. “Oh yeah. Princess Celestia. She'll totally dig this.”
“OOH!” Rarity jumps suddenly in her seat, rattling the local saucerware. “I-I just remembered! Rainbow Dash, I terribly hate to make a dire request this late into the afternoon—not to mention interrupt our most darling tea party--”
“TellMeWhatYouNeedMeToDo!” Rainbow Dash breathlessly wheezes over the table.
“But you remember my mentioning that Hoity Toity needs me to make him a ruby jacket for a Neigh York folk singer?”
“Sure, why not?”
“Well, I want to send him the rubies in advance before I work on the design. It's very important that he sees all of them, so that he'll get a proper idea of the exact quantity of gems that I'll be bestowing him for his upcoming presentation!”
“Hey, any excuse to fly is good for m-me!” Rainbow Dash smiled nervously. “Er—Not that tea partying isn't a....mmmm....s-super radical thrill all on its own..............f'naaa.”
“Oh, you are such a darling friend! Give me a second to acquire the saddle bag! I promise that it won't be too heavy!” Rarity exits from the room, sighing happily to herself: “With your exceptional speed and punctuality, I can't even begin to imagine the surprise on Hoity Toity's face when you drop these off at his gated palace!”
Alone at the table, Rainbow Dash takes a deep breath and rolls the parchment halfway. “Whew....I swear, sometimes Friendship is Moronic.”
“HIYA, Rainbow Dash!” A grinning Scootaloo spontaneously rises up from beneath the table with a teapot on her head.
“DAH!” Dash falls back, chair and all. THUD! She sits up and shakes her head, frowning. “Jeez—Why doesn't everypony just call you 'Stalkaloo'?”
“I told you I had just the thing for your horrible penponyship—Er, sorry—Your 'coltligraphy impairedness'...”
“Er...yeah...” Rainbow gets up on all fours. “About th-that....” She nervously smiles--
“--so I went back to my little workplace behind Apple Jack's farm and I put the finishing touches on this!” She reaches into a bag on the floor and flings a cylindrical metal brace onto the table. Clank! “Ta daaaa!”
“... .... ...Okay...” Rainbow steps up, blinking. A raised eyebrow, and she squints curiously at Scootaloo. “So what end does my mouth bite and what end makes music?”
“Noooo, silly! Here—stay still.”
“Scootaloo, I—Whoah!” Rainbow gasps as the young pink-haired filly yanks her to the table, grabs the cylinder in her snout, and all but slaps the thing around Rainbow Dash's left hoof.
“Okay—Now slip the pen into this little sheathe here!”
The blue Pegasus stares at the mark-less minipony warily, but ultimately humors her. With her teeth, she snaps the pen into place and holds it in front of her like a switchblade. The metal wireframe of the cylinder wraps around Dash's hoof like a coiled brass ring and presents the pen at just the right angle to--
“Well? What are you waiting for?” Scootaloo bounces excitedly in place, stars twinkling in her purple eyes as she grins up at Rainbow Dash. “Try it out!”
“......hrmmm....” Dash dubiously approaches the table, stretches taut a flank of white table-cloth, and scribbles across it: 'A pony is going right into a grass region'. She blinks her eyes wide at the fairly immaculate words produced before her. “Saaaaay—Whaddya know? Feels slightly less like flinging horseshoes with an octopus camping on the end of my arm!”
“Do you like it?”
“I'm pretty sure it'll make this gosh dang letter easier. It definitely beats writing it with...with.... ...” Rainbow stares point blanc at her hoof and briefly goes cross-eyed. “Just how was I writing all this time?”
“Beats me. I hardly ever write. All I know is that my name has three U's.”
“Well, thankfully you ain't half bad at tinkering. Hey--” Rainbow looks at the little filly. “How'd you know I was left hoof'd?”
“Because only the cool Pegasi are left hoof'd. Everpony knows that.”
“Heyyyy, yanno what, Pipsqueak? You're absolutely right. Heh heh heh...”
“Heeee....I-I'm glad you like it, Rainbow Dash.” Scootaloo exhales happily, then switches to a fairly deadpan expression in a blink. “I....uhm....I-I had to go to Cloudsdale for some of the materials I needed to finish that thing...”
“Yeah... ...And?”
“Aaaaand.... ...erm....” Scootaloo fidgets slightly. “I-I heard ponies talking....”
“Who doesn't, kiddo? Sometimes Pinkie Pie hears them in her sleep.”
“Were you... ... ...Were you in a f-fight this morning?”
“Hmmm....Oh....Oh THAT.” Rainbow Dash sheepishly smirks and taps the now-braced pen against her other hoof. “Mmmm—No.”
“No?”
“I wasn't fighting.”
“Ah....”
“............I was taking out the trash!” Rainbow Dash winks.
“Haha! I knew it!” Scootaloo's wings flutter and she glares wickedly. “Who was it? Dumb-Bell and his punk friends? I bet you whooped their butts, didn't you!”
“Heheheheh, awwwwww yeah—Er—Uhhhmm-No--NO!” Rainbow Dash suddenly coughs and frowns down at her. “Fighting is bad! It's....uhm....Y-You shouldn't do it! Especially at your impressionable age and....er....stuff.”
“Awwww—But they're so mean and stupid-headed!” Scootaloo frowns. “They only care about how they feel and make fun of everyone younger than them!”
“I'm not younger than them.”
“Yeah—But they're afraid of you! Cuz you're awesome and they're not! So—Like—They say bad things about you! Like cowards! But you—You go right for the gold, don't ya Dash?” Scootaloo proceeds to jump, kick, and perform various violent motions with her limbs in mid-air. “Haah! Raaugh! Yaaaugh—Whoahhhh--” Her wings flail as she teeters back--
--into Rainbow's side. Dash steadies her and binds her in place with a stretched wing. “Now now, pipsqueak, the only reason I fight is cuz I know I can come out of it without getting too hurt!”
“I thought you fought because you like to defend what you believe in?”
“Er.....well, that too--”
“And you want to show Cloudsdalians that nopony should stand for bullies and jerks!”
“Euhhhhhuhhhh--”
“And they're big lame meanie heads!”
“Hey! They ain't lame!” Rainbow Dash suddenly barks—Then blinks widely at hearing herself. Before she can say anything else, she spots the look of hurt confusion on Scootaloo's face, and swiftly leans down to whisper into her ear: “Cuz I had to kick those rude Duncebags in the kneecaps before they could be!”
“Heeheehee—'Duncebags', I love that! Rainbow Dash, you're so awesome.”
“Yeahhh-Yeah, I know. But promise me you won't be getting into any fights.”
“Until I'm old enough—Like you, right?”
“Mmmmm—Until you're left handed. How about that?”
“Deal!”
Rarity marches back into frame with a bulging saddlebag in tow. “What's this about a fight?”
“Oh—Derhmmm--” Rainbow Dash suddenly jolts at the blemished sight of the table-cloth. She rushes over, smudges the lettering off, and leans over it with a cool blue elbow. “Fightiiiiing—f-f-f-for our right to party! Y-Yeah! I was....erm....re-regailing Scootaloo here on all the gowns you made us for the Grand Galloping Gala!”
“Oh, that is going to be the best night ever! I certainly can't wait!”
“Ughhh—Who would want to go to such a boring prissy sissy mush-fest like that?” Scootaloo makes a wretching face.
Rainbow Dash flashes her a glance: “Thewonderboltsaregonnabethere.”
“OOOH! Ooooh—Make me a dress too!”
“Oh, Rainbow Dash, the things you fill these young fillies heads w—Uhhhh!” Rarity suddenly recoils at the offensively jagged image of the brace-and-pen over the end of the Pegasus' left limb. “Darling, just what is that garrish rusting atrocity of geometryyyyyyy--” Her eyes dart between Rainbow's hissing expression and Scootaloo's blinking face “--yyyyy that is so gorgeously complimenting your hoof with its delicate neatness and inventiveness!” She beams, eyes fluttering.
“I made it!” Scootaloo hops. “You want one too?”
Rarity wincingly stares at the utensil up close. “Oh....Absolutely! It's so...eloquent and......erm....” Her blue eyes thin into placid ovals. “What exactly is it?”
“Something that's mightier than the sword, Rarity-dear.” Rainbow Dash pantomimes tea-sipping, and—when the unicorn isn't looking—vomitous gagging. Scootaloo giggles breathily.
“Oh, it's for writing!” Rarity leans back from the close inspection. “Remarkable, if I must say so myself. I never quite thought that much about it; Unicorns employ the gift of close ranged magic that makes writing about as easy as breathing. Oh my, I would be ever so lost without the basic talents I learned since I was a little foal!”
“Well, maybe someponies aren't as lucky, Duncebag!” Scootaloo rears her hooves in a fighting stance aimed at Rarity. “URP!--” She goes crosseyed as a shrilly whispering Rainbow Dash sticks the pen in the filly's mouth.
“I'm sorry; what was that?”
“Errrr....Uh....” Rainbow Dash sweatdrops, gulps, and smiles—her violet eyes dancing towards the bag in Rarity's grasp. “Are those the rubies you want me to deliver?”
“Mmmhmmm. It's quite imperative that you bring these to Hoity Toity's mansion in Upper Clydesdallington before sundown! He would be terribly offended if anyone rang his gate after the stars are out! Even stallions need their beauty sleep, darling.”
“Clydesdallington?” Rainbow Dash thinks aloud, making a face. “Isn't that well beyond Cloven Canyon?”
“A three day trip by hoof—But undoubtedly a blink under the swish of your wings, dearest.” Rarity strolls over to her side with the saddlebag. “I know that a carefree lover of flight like you wouldn't mind.”
“Heh, you got that right. Load 'er up—EEEESH!” Rainbow Dash's eyes cross as her belly suddenly sags to the floor. PLOMPP!
Rarity finishes nonchalantly fastening the saddlebag to Rainbow's backside. “There—That isn't too terribly heavy, is it, darling?”
“Nnnnghttkk.... ...N-No.....N-Not at all....” Rainbow trembles, smirking crookedly through sweat-stained eyesight. “Feels like a feather.”
“Ohhh my, I don't think I put it on right.”
“Oh, it's okay--”
“Here, Rainbow! I'll tighten it!” Scootaloo hops atop the bag.
“It's okay It's okay It's OKA—SNKKKT---grkkk!” Rainbow Dash wheezes against the floor as Scootaloo mounts her, yanking the saddlebag's straps through their buckles with two swift jerks of her teeth. “Huhhhh—Mmmm.....j-j-just like a glove...”
“You're welcome!” Scootaloo bounces back to the floor. “Jee, I wish I could go with you, Rainbow Dash!”
“What.....to the ch-chiropractor?” Rainbow Dash's breaths slowly pant to a normal pace as she wobbles up into a standing position. “I almost think I could use a wingpony.”
“Perish the thought!” Rarity gasps. “Cloven Canyon is no place for a young filly to be flying! Why, the wind sheer alone is enough to suck any young Pegasus to her doom!”
“And just what do you know about the air, Miss Rarity?”
“It's cuz her head's high up in it all the time--” Rainbow Dash suddenly pauses, her nose scrunching as she tilts her snout offensively ceilingward. “... ...Say, do you guys smell something?”
Just then, the bell to the Carousel Boutique rings.
“Sweetie Bell!” Rarity beams. “You're back from school! And... .... ....Apple Bloom, how quaint.”
“Heya, Sis—Oh hi Rainbow Dash—Oh hi, Scootaloo!” The pastel colored young unicorn gasps happily. “I didn't know Cloudsdale Elementary had today off!”
“Oh....uh.... ... ...Y-Yeah! Totally!” Scootaloo smiles, sweats at all the pairs of eyes on her, and nudges Rainbow Dash in the leg.
The Blue Pegasus nearly collapses from the tiniest tap to her weighted body. “What?” She blinks. “Oh. Uhm.” She blinks dilatedly at the rest of the Boutique crowd. “Today is... ... ... ... Bellerophon day!”
“Yeah! It's when all of us Pegasi stay at home and toot our Bellerophons!”
“Snkkt—Scoots!”
“What?”
“That's—NNngh--Never mind.”
“Well, it's heapin' happy surprise to see you here in Ponyville so soon, Scootaloo!” Apple Bloom nods her pink-bow'd cranium and hops ecstatically in place. “Sweetie Bell and Ah have this new idea we drummed up when Miss Cherilee was ramblin' on and on about some borin' old war between the Lunar Republic and--”
“Yeah Yeah—Does it involve us getting our cutie marks?”
“We should try our hooves at archeology!” Sweetie Bell exclaims gleefully.
“Ark of Ollie Gee?” Scootaloo's expression deflates.
“It's not as boring as it sounds!” Apple Bloom adds. “We dig up old belongin's, make them look sparklin' brand new again, then put 'em up somewhere for everypony to take a gander at and remember how important yesterday was!”
“In that case, you can just dig up my old fireworks from last Neigh Year's.” Scootaloo groans.
“Awwww! Come onnn, Scootaloo!” Apple Bloom leans in and nuzzles her close friend. “Where's yer spirit? This is for our cutie marks!”
“Mmmm—Oh alright....” The pink-haired Pegasus smiles bashfully. “Maybe I can tinker us up some shovels.”
“Yeah, whatever, Scootaloo--” Sweetie Bell takes up position. “Ready for it?”
“Ah was born ready!” Apple Bloom takes up hers--
“Oh no...” Rainbow Dash snaps and points a hoof. “Don't you—D-D-D-Don't you do th--”
“We are the Cutie Mark Crusaders on the quest to find out who we arrrrre--!”
“Nnnngghhh—Celestia gag me!”
“And we will never stop the journey; not until we have our cutie marrrrrks!”
Rainbow Dash clamps two hooves over her ears and squints across the Boutique. “Rarity, where's that little furball of yours? I want to choke on something.”
“Hmmm?” Rarity blinks back, sporting earmuffs. “Did you say something?”
“Heh. Cute.”
The three young fillies remain frozen in their stance. “So, are we headin' to your sister's place?” Scootaloo asks Apple Bloom.
“Nuh uh. AJ says that Sweet Apple Acres is off limits until she gets 'A Royal Monsoon of unwanted rainwater squeegee'd out from her soil'!”
“Okay! Time for me to go!” Rainbow Dash sing-songs and trots for the door.
“Leaving so soon, Rainbow Dash?” Rarity telekinetically removes the earmuffs and sulks after her. “We still have yet to chat about the Grand Galloping Gala coming up!”
“Heeeey—Delivery of rubies to Hot Topic, remember?”
“Hoity Toity.”
“Him too.” The blue Pegasus turns to the door, only for it to slam into her face—THUD!--punctuatedly flaccidly by the belated ringing of the bell.
“Oh....Oh g-good heavens!” A yellow pony with silk pink hair deflates immediately and taps a gentle hoof to Dash's pulsing skull. “I am so, so terribly sorry, Rainbow Dash. I didn't mean to bump into you—Er—actually, I did mean to bump into you...b-but just not like that....”
“Mmmmf—It's okay, Fl-Fluttershy...” Rainbow Dash blinks through the stars brimming in front of her and shakes out of it with a dazed smile. “You could hit me with an anvil and somehow it'd be okay.”
“Wh-Why would I do that?!” She gasps.
“Fluttershy! What a pleasant surprise!” Rarity trots over and gasps girlishly at the sight of the basket saddled on either side of the graceful Pegasus. “Ohhh—What darling flowers! Lilies from the Eastern fields, yes?”
“Mmmhmmm....” The fair pony nods with a gentle smile. “I picked them myself. They're for a special occasion.” She turns to look at her colorful mane'd friend. “Isn't that right, R-Rainbow Dash?”
“Hmm? Huh? What?” Rainbow Dash gazes boredly at Fluttershy, but at the sight of the flowers—and at the gentle smile on her longtime companion's face—her expression changes to something akin to melting shock. “Oh...Oh....It's th-that day, isn't it?”
Fluttershy sweetly nods. “Yes.” It comes out as a reverse sigh.
“Oh jeez—Oh jeez, Fluttershy, I-I-I'm sorry! I was just—Yesterday and this letter—I'm writing a letter by the way, though you probably already know—And then Dumb-Bell and Hoops were all idiots and—NNNNNGHHHH!” Rainbow Dash covers her face with a grinding hoof. “Stupid stupid stupid! I can't believe I forgot!”
“Oh, it's okay, Rainbow Dash...” Fluttershy daintily waves a hoof. “Y-You're a busy Pegasus, and you can't be expected to remember e-everything...”
“But I would hate to forget to see her.” Rainbow Dash takes a deep breath. She twirls and looks with imploring eyes at Rarity. “Rarity—I hate to ask this after already agreeing to do the delivery for you, and I can so totally still do it super speedy quick even if I do take a detour—but Fluttershy and I kind of had plans to....erm... ...t-to go and visit--”
“It's quite fine, Rainbow Dash.” Rarity softly smiles, speaking in a gentle, knowing voice. “You and Fluttershy go on ahead. It'd be a terrible waste of flowers if you didn't. You can make the delivery afterwards.”
“Th-Thanks, Rarity...” Rainbow Dash blushes slightly as she does a half-practiced curtsey and trots backwards through the front door with a silent Fluttershy in tow. “I-I won't let you down, I promise!”
“Hehe—Go, darlings. She's waiting....”
“Who's waiting....?” Sweetie Bell makes a strange face.
“Come, girls! Let me treat you to Sugarcube Corner before you go on your next Crusade! It's the least I can do for my favorite divas in the whole wide world!”
“Yaaaay!”
“Sugarcube Corner? Golly, I'm starved!”
As the others wander off, Scootaloo is left lingering behind, gazing at the front entrance of the Carousel Boutique where Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy last took off. For a reason she doesn't quite understand, there's a lump in her throat. She slowly turns around with drooping wings and paces after the others into the waning afternoon.
“Dear Princess Celestia, Regarding Fluttershy... ... ... ... ... ... ...I'm gonna have to get back to you on this one, Your Highness.”
Act 1 – Chapter 5 – The Creation of Something
Halfway between Sweet Apple Acres and the Eastern Edge of the Everfree Forest, there rests a rolling green pasture of low swaying trees and soft emerald shrubbery. In the center of this plain, under a late Afternoon golden glow, several marked slabs of stone shine brilliantly in quietly arranged rows. One stone in particular, carved out of a Ponyvillean marble, bears the emblem of olive branches bordering a singular name carved boldly:
'Doctor Iris Farrier – Caretaker, Peacekeeper, Mother'.
“It's in such good condition, even better than last time...” Rainbow Dash's voice murmurs as two shadows saunter up to the lonely grave. “Tell me, Fluttershy—Do you look after the grounds yourself?”
The yellow mare smiles gently at her Pegasus companion as they stand before the resting place of the latter's mother. “Mmmm-Sometimes. The groundskeeper Silver Shoe is a very graceful and talented pony, but also quite feeble in his old age. I sometimes volunteer to assist him in keeping the place tidy. Of c-course I never skip over this spot.”
“I wouldn't think any less of you...” Rainbow Murmurs. She's silent for a blank space in thought. The shadows of clouds waft over the two briefly as a cool evening wind kicks at their manes. A blinking spell, and Rainbow Dash tilts her head sideways. “Uhhhhhhh......-Oh. S-Sorry. I don't mean to just keep you standing there--”
“There's no rush.” Fluttershy quietly nods. “I'm in no hurry to go anyplace.”
The blue Pegasus smiles nervously. She glances at Fluttershy's backside—at the twin baskets of lilies paralleling her flanks. “Urmm.....M-May I...?”
“By all means, do the honor, Rainbow Dash...”
Fluttershy trots a step or two sideways towards her companion. Rainbow Dash reaches into the baskets with her snouts and clasps onto the stalks of the flowers. With an awkward but emphatic grace, the ice-still speedster slowly plants the bouquets of lilies down before the stone, propped up just beneath Iris' name. A sweet fragrance wafts up towards the two of them, causing Dash to shudder briefly as she loses control of her breath. She trots a few apologetic steps back and stares evenly down at the stone, a part of her slightly bewildered by a rainbow colored reflection caught in the Sun's sheen off the marble.
“I have always found this to be such a lovely place.” Fluttershy murmurs into the air, her face melted into a gentle smile as the wind licks at her pink threads with a softness that mimics her voice: “Days after I first fell down to Earth from Cloudsdale, I came here and instantly fell in love with the trees and the wide green grass—the birds nesting just within earshot of their serenading music. It took me a few years to grow up from a young filly and understand the significance of these grounds; but it hasn't changed my opinion whatsoever.” She looks over her friend's shoulder. “Rainbow Dash, I couldn't think of a better place for her to be at peace.”
“I'm glad you think so, Fluttershy...” Rainbow Dash quietly nods. “You've always been the best expert on.......on beautiful things.”
“Not half the expert your mother was.” Fluttershy trots forward a bit and gazes peacefully at the grave. “After all, it was her that brought you into this world.”
Rainbow Dash blinks at Fluttershy. A long sigh, followed by a sweet smile; she clears a sore throat and squints harder at the stone. “It always secretly wyrded me out that she was allowed dad's name on the stone. I mean—well you know...”
“Isn't it enough that the lovers' hearts decide who is married and who isn't?”
“Still, so close to Ponyville! It's very... ... ....” Rainbow Dash sighs, briefly rubbing a hoof over her face. “Sorry. Sorry—I promise myself everytime I won't go into that.”
“It's okay, Rainbow Dash.”
The colorful pony inhales long and hard, lowering the hoof from her face. She gulps and glances aside at her friend with an awkward smile. “Hey, uhm.... ...Fl-Fluttershy, do you mind if I... ...er....if w-we--”
“You don't need to ask, Rainbow Dash.” Fluttershy bows out and gently trots away. “I'll let you two be alone for a while.”
“Th-Thanks....” Rainbow glances briefly back at her.
The wind grows triply mute as the cold breathlessness of the moment suddenly weighs on her. She turns back and gazes, alone, at the stone. The emotionless marble stares back, the engraved olive branches darkening and brightening as another cloud or two swims past the golden rays of the Sun above. The petals of the lilies flutter slightly against the green blades of grass, providing the only scant whispering hint of noise against the dead somberness of the familial reunion.
“Uhm.....eheh....H-Hey, Mom...” Rainbow Dash cheekishly smirks. Her violet eyes dash towards the sky, the bordering treetops, and then back to the carved name. “It's....It's me, Rainbow Dash. Sorry it's been a while. Life has been....uh—well--busier than normal.” A gulp, a slightly easier breath. “But it's also been a bit more fun as well.” She pads forward in the soft grass and finally squats down, face to granite face. “You see---Uhh--Remember those new friends I told you about last time? The ones with whom I went on this totally cool adventure and got myself some really sweet bling to hang around my neck called the 'Element of Loyalty'? Well, turns out they're all pretty kewl ponies; kewl enough that I don't feel like wringing their necks all the time, at least not as much as some of my older friends. But they were all punks anyways—R-Right? Eheheheh...heh...but no, these friends are—well--they're here to stay. Yeah, I--uh--I really think so this time.
“We've had some crazy adventures together, and yet we're still tighter than steel. We've shoo'd away a big scary dragon from the top of mountain, we've battle these annoying little winged turds called parasprites, we've journeyed into the scary depths of the Everfree Forest far too many times than I can even count; we've even worked out a way to do Winter Wrap Up on time this year! On top of all that, one our friends, Twilight Sparkle—she's the really boring one with a book fetish—got us all free tickets to this year's Grand Galloping Gala! It's gonna be the best night ever!
“And then this one time—and you're not gonna believe this, Mom—I finally finally got to meet the Wonderbolts. Yup! My idols: Spitfire, Soarin, Swiftcloud, Shattersky; I got to sit down and chew the fat with each and every one of them for a day. And you wanna know how I did it, Mom? Only by performing the most awesome and death-defying feat of all Pegasusdom in front of the whole population of Cloudsdale at the Young Flier Competition: the Sonic Rainboom! Everyone on this side of Equestria had to have seen it. I mean, it wasn't nearly as big as when I first did the legendary move, but boy was it spectacular! It only goes to show that I still got it! The sky's not even the limit from here on out—My name is on the map for future Wonderbolts tryouts, for sure!”
Rainbow Dash is smiling wide at this point, but the smile fades slowly—melting into a cold neutrality that matches the wayward breath of the afternoon breeze against her face. She glances off to the side and spots from a distance the frail image of Fluttershy, strolling past a cluster of colorful gardens and nuzzling a few passing wing'd insects.
“And then I found out something about me and my new friends—Just yesterday, as a matter of fact. And the whole thing with the Sonic Rainboom kind of leads to this. But—It turns out that when I first did the impossible at age eight, it wasn't just a bunch of young Pegasi that I impressed with the aerial explosion, but the huge burst had an impact on ponies of all walks of life—As far as Manehattan. And—would you know it? At the same time the explosion happened, all five of my friends—including Fluttershy—got their cutie marks, all on the same day and at the precise same time. If they hadn't figured out so early on just what they were meant to do with their lives, they would never have made the decisions they did that ultimately led them here to Ponyville, where we would all meet—where we would all become such close friends to begin with.
“But---pfft---The girls are all gushing over me, and quite frankly it's sickening. They insist that it was fate or something that arranged for the six of us to get together. And while I guess that's a charming thought—in some fluffy, poetic sense—it just seems far too good to be true. You were a doctor before you had me, right, Mom? Then you'd probably agree with someone like Twilight Sparkle and say that things need to be proven scientifically before they can be taken seriously—Ugh; But Twilight is one of the biggest believers in this whole thing being 'fate' and now she's got me writing this BORING letter to Princess Celestia—OH!--UHM--Yeah, eheheh. I'm writing to Princess Celestia for the first time. Ahem. Guess you might want to know that.”
Rainbow Dash sighs heavily and hangs her head, her mane fluttering above the white lilies resting against the grave. After a gentle silence, she reopens her eyes and glances forlornly at the stone.
“But a part of me wonders---Just slightly wonders—What if there's truth in all that mush? What if I really am the reason that all of us got together in the first place—or found out the purpose in ourselves so that we got our cutie marks? I don't know if I could really deal with that sort of a reality. I've always thought that life is too boring to waste so much time trying to make one thing or another happen; it's so much better to live in the moment and not be so stiff and anxious about the meanings of things. So, you can probably see, I've n-never planned to be tasked with.....with the creation of something. And now that I know what I know about my friends, I look back on all the things that have ever gone wrong or r-right in my life.. ... ...especially in th-those really tough times I had—you remember--when I was younger; and I wonder, Mom, if you had thought hard about being the creation of something when... ....yanno...wh-when you h-had me.”
The multicolored shade reflects back from the shiny granite, only to be blanketed over by a final looming shadow, a large cloud that brings back the opaqueness of the stone, and the odd letters scratched unnaturally thereupon.
Rainbow Dash's eyes turn slightly concave. A hint of moisture in their extremities, and: “Ahem.” She looks skyward, clearing her throat. “But I-I....uhm....” A nervous smile cast once more to the rock. “I-I don't need to burden you with all of that....th-that thinking. I'm happy, Mom. I really am. I have amazing friends, I have amazing things to do, and I'm still the most kickbuttingest Pegasus in all of Cloudsdale. When the title goes for all of Equestria...” She smirks and stands up quickly on all four hooves. “I'll let you know.” A wink, a drying of the lids, and she swiftly—almost too swiftly—trots away from the stone, the grave, the flowers, and the quiet.
“You didn't need to walk me home, Rainbow Dash.” Fluttershy nonetheless smiles sweetly as she trots up to the front steps of her petite, leaf-laden cottage on the edge of Ponyville. “There's no point in making you delay that delivery you're making for Rarity.”
“Pfft—You mean this bag of stones?” The blue pony wiggles the bulging saddlebag attached to her spine. “You know me, Fluttershy! I can have this thing dropped off beyond Cloven Canyon in ten seconds fla---Wait....” Her eyes roll back in her head as she pauses in mid-trot and mutters aloud: “Ten seconds times one twentieth of a mile at maximum acceleration times twenty times eighty miles plus friction and sheer wind resistance... ... ... ...” She goes cross-eyed, shakes her head, and smirks: “--in just a handful of minutes, flat!”
Fluttershy giggles. She sidesteps toward a tiny crop of carrots sprouting up out of the soil in her front yard. “Well, I can never turn down your company...” She snaps a carrot loose and tosses it into the empty flower baskets on her back. “Especially if you've got everything so calpably in hoof.”
“When do I not? This is Rainbow Dash you're talking to! The one who came to your rescue a few years back when you needed to be carried to Ponyville Hospital for that nasty cut on your nose!”
The pink-mane'd pony blushes furiously under her yellow coat. “Y-You promised never to mention that again.” She whisperingly protests.
“But you learned your lesson, didn't you?” Rainbow Dash rolls her eyes with a smirk. “Silly girl, not all furry animals can be mouth fed.”
Fluttershy sighs wiltingly at the door. “I've never talked to a badger since....”
“Maybe you should practice on Gummy some--”
“Rainbow...”
“Just saying!”
“Hmm-hmm-hmm.” The yellow pony chuckles sweetly, marches up to her house, and opens the door with a sing-songy: “Hello, all my pretties!” On cue, a cavalcade of several dozens of cuddly creatures stop whatever it is they're doing and eagerly rush down a lattice of various intricate stepladders and inclined planks built into the dainty interior architecture of the cottage. They frolic around the pink-hair'd Pegasus as she takes turns nuzzling and petting each of them. “Ohhhh—Have you all been lonely? Don't worry. Nana Fluttershy was doing important errands—And spending time with her good friend Rainbow Dash. You all remember Rainbow Dash, don't you? Be nice and say hello to our guest, hmmm?”
A rising chorus of chirps, squawks, quacks, and ribbits float through the air.
“Hey Hey Hey—Back at ya, fuzzballs!”
They all scurry away in a heartbeat.
“Rainbow Dash....” Fluttershy briefly frowns.
“What???” Rainbow Dash shrinks slightly with a nervous chuckle. “Fluttershy, you know that I'm the last pony on Earth to bother trying. Like—You remember me and the manticore that one time, right?”
“Yes.” Fluttershy upturns her chin at her friend. “But the manticore is at least twenty percent less cute than my most special friends here!”
“Ooooh—Oooooh!” Rainbow hobbles back on two hooves and mocks a heart attack with an arm over her chest. “You know exactly where to wound me, girl!”
“C-Careful, Rainbow. Rarity's rubies--”
“Nnngh!” Rainbow Dash lands awkwardly on all fours, blinks, and smiles nervously: (“Squ-E-e-E-e”) “Don't fret, Fluttershy. I ain't no duncebag.”
“A what-bag?”
“Never mind.” Rainbow grunts breathily and pries the bulging saddlebag off her back. “Do you mind if I--?”
“Not at all. Put it right over there.” Fluttershy points while removing the flower baskets off herself. While Rainbow Dash temporarily sits the rubies down, the other Pegasus marches gaily across the cottage, flanked by critters as she hums a merry tune and reaches over several shelves for jars and containers full of animal feed. As she allows each creature to nibble one by one, she breaks her tune to glance over her shoulder at Rainbow. “Would you care for anything to snack on? You'll need to be energized for your delivery.”
“Seriously, I'm fine--” Rainbow Dash waves a hoof and trots a circle around the place. “Yanno, Fluttershy—and I hope you don't take this the wrong way—but this place smells amazingly good for being filled to the brim with so many varmints. I just realized.”
“Erm....uh....th-thank you...”
“How do you do it?”
“The key is to teach them the meaning of space and territory, and to swiftly divide up proper functions and etiquette amongst the locations. Ermm....” She bites her lip. “D-Does that make any sense?”
“If anything, it explains how the Foggy Bottom Bog came into being.”
“Hmmm?”
“N-Never mind...” Rainbow Dash eases down into a chair—FWUMP!--but only ends up at an awkward angle. Eyes bulging, she struggles and strains and fights to get comfortable, only to fail. “Nnnngh—Gawwwd, how does Lyra do it?” Finally giving up, she plops down on the carpet in the center of the place, exhales comfortably, and folds her legs up underneath her. “So, did you hear about Zecora's cousin coming to visit?”
“Zecora has a cousin?” Fluttershy glances over a squirrel devouring a peanut on the end of her hoof. As it bounces and climbs up over her mane to get to the rafters, she turns to fetch the carrot from out of her basket. “I had no earthly idea.”
“Turns out he was checking up on Zecora's progress with some stew to fix a Poison Joke outbreak in their homeland—Or something ridiculous like that. Whatever the case, turns out the secret ingredient to killing Poison Joke for good is cinnamon. Who'd a thunk it?”
“I usually use cinammon to sprinkle onto Angel's food and make it more appealing for her.” She waltzes up to the bunny in question, curled up on a pet pillow. She nudges the carrot towards it. The furry little ball of white opens one sleepy eye, frowns, and KNOCKS the carrot back into Fluttershy's face with one raptor-swift hind leg. Fluttershy briefly winces, then blushes. “It....h-hasn't worked all too well.”
“Ever thought of just feeding the rabbit to the cinnamon instead?” Rainbow makes a face. “I bet you'd get better results.” She turns to look over at the bunny. Upon eye contact, the rabbit wakes once more, frowns, and lifts its front hand offensively. “Yanno, long-ears, that would work better if your paw had five pads instead of four.”
“Don't mind her, she's going through a phase.”
“How old is she again?”
“Two and a half.”
“So, a two and a half year phase?”
“Ohhhh—Don't tease her....” Fluttershy frowns as Angel yawns, grumbles beneath her whiskers, and hops randomly away. “It doesn't help. One day, she'll come around.”
“Yanno, Fluttershy, sometimes I think you're a little too loving and caring with your loving and caring of the wildlife.”
“Hehe—The same could be said for the extreme degrees to which you like to perform stunts in midair.” Fluttershy smiles and settles down next to Rainbow Dash on the rug.
“Touche.” Rainbow Dash smirks. “But still, Fluttershy—You spend all the time with these scampering little things. Don't you—Yanno--ever get lonely?”
“L-Lonely....?” Fluttershy blinks, not expecting that. “Why... ...I-I hang out with you and the girls often, do I not?”
“Pfft—Of course you do! But seriously—You live in a cottage out in the middle of flippin' nowhere, surrounded by five and a half square miles of pasture. It takes you at least an hour and a half to gallop into town—and both you and I know very well that you only gallop. You never fly.”
“I....erm....” Fluttershy deflates bashfully. “Wh-Where are you going with this, Dashie...?”
The blue Pegasus jolts: “Oh! N-Not trying to poke fun or anything! It's just.... ...Erm... ...H-How do I say this...?” She digs a tiny circle in the carpet with her hoof, scrunches her face, brightens, then smiles Fluttershy's way. “It almost seems like you're afraid of other ponies in general.”
“Me? Afraid of p-ponies?”
“You're afraid of shadows, aren't you?”
“Isn't every baby Pegasus afraid of shadows before they're introduced to the Earth?”
“That's not the point—Fluttershy, I sometimes think that maybe if you tried a little less to be with nature and a little more to be with your fellow hoofed kind, then perhaps you wouldn't live life like a fraidy cat so much and you'd instantly be more assertive!”
“Hmmm—Those are some valid points, though a bit oddly worded.”
“You do know who you're talking to, right?”
“Hehehe—And in truth, Rainbow Dash, I have thought of all that before. If you want to know what I think; I believe that when I found my cutie mark, it was a sign that Ponyville needed someone with my expertise to be there for the animals when nopony else would. We all are much like the creatures of the forest; we all have our own niches to fill. Some, like you, Rainbow, have many niches to fill—some that you're overqualified for, some that you're underqualified for—and yet you still rise to the challenge in any higher or lesser degree. But some of us do even better at the simple things. It's all a matter of Harmony, really. Just like what Twilight Sparkle revealed to us, and to me especially. I like to think that 'Kindness' is the simplest Element of Harmony, for it is so integral to life—The Golden Rule and such. Erm....Ehem...” The yellow pony brushes a strand of pink hair aside, blushing. “D-D-Does that answer do the trick, or did I-I carry on far t-too extravagantly?”
Rainbow Dash blinks stupidly. “I kind of forgot the question, to be honest—But everything I just heard sounded swell.”
“Oh. G-Good, then.” Fluttershy's wings unfold and re-fold as she chuckles breathily with relief. She smiles sweetly in the colorful pony's direction. “Still, I'm a bit pleased. That was rather sentimental of you just now.”
“Pffft—I thought I was being Socratic, but whatever.”
“Oh, but I mean it.” Fluttershy leans her head cutely to the side. “I think what we all found out yesterday is rubbing off on you!”
“Nnnngh—Ughhh.” Rainbow Dash's face divebombs exasperatingly into the carpet. Thud!
Fluttershy gasps. “What's the matter?”
“Mmmmff—Nothing...” Dash mutters into the floor. “Carry on. Everypony else has—Except for maybe Apple Jack, but she smells like hay anyways.”
“To be honest, I always suspected that you were the cause of me getting my cutie mark.”
Rainbow raises an eyebrow. She lifts her head back up. “R-Really...?”
“Oh yes. The fact that it happened at the same time as the Pegasus Race—that the burst came from just below Cloudsdale—that Dumb-Bell and Hoops afterwards didn't talk about having lost for nearly a year afterwards...”
“Pfft—And they still don't!” Rainbow proudly lifts her chin.
“But most of all—I knew that if anyone performed the Sonic Rainboom that day, it had to have been you and no one else.”
Dash blinks at that. “How'd you know that? You were so far away from when it happened!”
“I'm sorry. I-I-I guess I'm not using the right word. It's not so much that I 'knew' it was you—Or, yes, I did know it. But I suppose in context it's better said that I believed it was you.”
“Oh really....?”
“Mmmhmmm—You came so quickly to my defense when those bullies were picking on me; I couldn't imagine another Pegasus with any greater courage or sincerity... ... ...or any more capable of making the impossible happen, especially f-for someone as awkward and unassuming as m-me...” Her eyes are briefly cast aside.
“Fluttershy.... ....” Rainbow Dash chuckles. “You're right that the race started because I was defending your honor. But you heard me talking to Scootaloo, Apple Bloom, and that smelly one at Sugarcube Corner yesterday! When I made the Sonic Rainboom happened, all I was really caring about wasssssssss--” She lingers on the last tonguelash of a word.
Fluttershy is gazing vulnerably at her, pearl blue eyes sparkling.
“-sssssssssss-Was all about you, girl!” Rainbow Dash nervously smiles. “Eh heh heh—Yepperoony! They don't call me the 'most epicest Pegasus' cuz I let my friends down!”
“Who calls you the 'most epicest Pegasus'?”
“Just wait for it.”
“....... ......... ........ ........ .............. ........... .........” Fluttershy twiddles her hooves.
“Wait for it longer.”
“Oh. O-Okay....” Fluttershy blushes. “I will say this: last night is the dreamiest night I've had in ages.”
“Uhh.....Er....Okay.” Rainbow Dash's face squints. “What does that have to do with--?”
“Everything we and the rest of the girls learned about yesterday—It just filled me with so much joyous, toasty goodness—Could you imagine how differently things would be if we all knew about our connection all along?”
“Yeah.” Rainbow Dash boredly props her chin onto her hoof. “You'd all be saving me the sugar-coated cavities I'm suffering today.” She turns and looks suddenly nose-to-nose with a glaring white bunny. “.... ... ....you wanna start? Cuz we can go right now!” Angel hisses, wiggles its cotton tail in Rainbow's nose, and bounds away. “Uh—Uh—ACHOO!” Rainbow exhales, her colorful mane flopping over her eyes.
“Goddess bless you.”
“You ever thought of putting an electrical shock retainer on that thing's bucked teeth?” Rainbow Dash tosses her mane back and sits comfortably again. “It'll make the carrots go down easier, at least... ... ... ...among other things.”
“The fact that we all found out yesterday about the Sonic Rainboom is almost as amazing as the legacy of the Rainboom itself.” Fluttershy smiles. “Isn't it funny how so many ponies can be around each other all the time and yet not know the reality of one, simple, life-changing fact?”
“Yanno, while we're all analyzing this whole fiasco into the ground—Maybe I can hop on board the train and take advantage of our 'new-found knowledge'.” Rainbow Dash smirks devilishly. “I could finally talk Rarity into sewing me a Wonderbolts cosplay outfit. There's that free double-fudge sundae that Pinkie Pie owes me at Sugarcube Corner. I'm still trying to talk Apple Jack into going cow tipping at least once. Heck, I could even get Twilight Sparkle to pay back all of my late library fees for me!”
Fluttershy makes a strange face. “What, pray tell, did you of all ponies check out from the library?”
“Eh—I don't remember...” Rainbow Dash waves a hoof. “I just needed a few really thick encyclopedias so I could sit tall and see over the Pegasi heads at the last Wonderbolts Show.”
“Those ideas are all interesting, but don't you be doing anything to ruin the mood, Rainbow...”
“Fine—FINE! You and your dang conscience.” Rainbow rolls her eyes. “Meh—If nothing else, I'll get Apple Jack and Rarity to cut me some slack for all the practical jokes Pinkie and I did on them last month.”
“Heeheehee....” Fluttershy giggles.
“What's so amusing?”
“You wanna know something?” Fluttershy smiles blushingly, and leans in as if confessing a sin: “I k-kinda always liked it when you and Pinkie pulled those pranks.”
“Oh....Oh really?” Rainbow Dash grins wide. “Why, you secretive little devil in Fluttershy's clothing!”
“I only l-liked it a little.” Fluttershy deflates slightly. “Ohhh—Don't tell anyone. I only meant it to be in good fun.”
“And all this time—Pinkie thought you were too sensitive to get the joke! Hah!” Rainbow looks to the far right. “No wonder they call you angel!” WHAP! A carrot is thrown against her nose. “OW! Sonuva--”
“Uh uh uh--”
“My bad—Daughteruva--”
“Ahem.”
“Meh. Wutever. Frickin' fur golem.”
“I especially liked that one time that you painted Apple Jack's apples all of those ridiculous colors. I-I mean, they came off in a simple rinse and it was a g-good thing because if you and Pinkie Pie actually had sabotaged Sweet Apple Acres, that would have been horrible--”
“But it was funny, wasn't it?” Rainbow Dash smiles brightly, pointing a hoof.
“Just the fact that you went through so much effort—You painted every apple. It must have taken several nights to accomplish for just a split-second reveal....”
“I credit Pinkie Pie with that. She's the insomniac, not me.”
“I could never do any of that sort of stuff, of course, but—It's all so funny in hindsight...” Fluttershy's wings twitch with her words. “But then again, everything in our pasts looks rosy now with all that we've just learned...”
“Yeah, well...” Rainbow Dash's eyes scan the ceiling with sudden boredom. “I try not to get all mushy about the past. We only live for the future, yanno?”
“Mmm-Y-Yes.” Fluttershy nods bashfully. “I s-suppose.”
“Take...uhm....” Rainbow Dash almost thinks twice about the next part, but impulsively spurts it out anyways: “My mom's grave, for example. She coulda been—yanno—laid in Pegasus Sanction, the Cloudsdale Mausoleum. Cuz that's where Dad is all these days. In Cloudsdale... ....” Her violet eyes linger onto some unseen space in the distance of the cottage interior. Her mouth stumbles briefly to find the words: “He... ....He hasn't been to her grave for as long as I remember.” A gulp, and her eyes narrow into something best accompanying a frown. “He hasn't come down to Earth for as long as I remember.”
A cloud of silence falls over the room—at least until it is shattered by a series of offensively noisy chewing sounds. The two Pegasi look over to see Angel finally nibbling crunchily into her carrot. She pauses momentarily to glare back at them, and continues with her tooth-scraping consumption.
“I...I-I think he just needs time, Rainbow Dash. Who are we at our age to guess what it means for an older stallion to--?”
Rainbow Dash suddenly gets up. “Ehhhh... ...Just cuz older people hold so much faith in giving time to things only goes to show just how much time they've actually wasted. That's why it's important for ponies like you and me to lead a braver example for younger Pegasi and all that jazz—By living in the now.” She bravely winks in a jagged attempt to break the iciness of the conversation. “And on that note, I'd better get Rarity's rubies to—Uh—That guy she's constantly clopping on about.”
“Hoity Toity?”
“Gawd—You ever wonder if that poor schmuck will have a kid? 'Hi, my name is Francine Toity! I have a Question Mark on my flank because your guess is as good as mine'!”
“Oh Rainbow Dash....” Fluttershy giggles. “Don't you ever change.”
“If I had a bottle of wine, I'd take a hit.” Rainbow says, saddling up the bag of rubies once more.
“Why is that?”
“Cuz that's the second time I've heard that today!” Rainbow opens the door and steps out to mount the air. “See ya--!”
“Er—W-Wait. Rainbow, just one second...” Fluttershy trots up and glances up at her. “You are.... ....erm....r-returning to Ponyville....uhm...t-tonight, after your delivery, are you not?”
“Uhhhhhhh.......Maaaaaaaaaybe.....” Rainbow squints down at her from mid-hover. “Why do you ask?”
“Oh....no reason....”
“Is something happening?”
“Nope. Nothing happening.”
“Something's happening, isn't there?”
“Nothing at all.”
“Pfft....Fine, Fluttershy.” Rainbow Dash rolls her eyes and smiles down at her. “But remember—You're no good at keeping secrets.”
The yellow pony smiles sweetly back, the sunlight through the door cascading off her silk pink mane. “Is anypony?”
“.... .... .....” Rainbow coughs briefly, turning to face the Sun so that its warming sensation matches that of her skin, suddenly. “Right—Well—Off, off, and away!” She bolts for the great wide Blue. “Stay frosty!”
Fluttershy waves a hoof from her lonely cottage entrance. “Safe travels....”
“Dear Princess Celestia, how's it hoofin'? Thanks for waiting—Though I guess you really didn't have to wait for anything. All you had to do is flip to the next page while it was I who had to wait to write this next part to you. By the way, don't you hate it when you get papercuts on your hooves? It wouldn't be half so bad except you have to walk on the dang limbs to boot. Well, I'm sure you never get papercuts—Being a graceful Princess and all. Cuz if you did, considering all of the mounds of frickin' scrolls you wade through, I bet there'd be a ton of offensive paper banished to the moon. Wouldn't they freeze up there? Twilight Sparkle says that space exists in a vacuum where temperatures reach this really bone-chilling low called absolute zero that can turn things into brittle frozen fascimiles of themselves and I wonder if that would make the paper shatter like glassdfjakldjfalkfjalkjfakljfklajflkj jdlkaflkjafkajkldafja fdfja;kfjlkafjklafjdkl;f--
“Dear Princess Celelstia, how's it hoofin'? Pay no attention to the paragraph I just scratched out above this one. I swear, I've never written so much in my life—at least since the time I signed my flier's license. Even to this day, when I get pulled over by the Ponyville Police, they actually believe my real name is 'Mia Ballzakes'. That one used to make Gilda laugh all the time. But I'm not here to write about Gilda; I'm writing about Fluttershy.
“There's a reason why friendship is magic, yanno. Sometimes it's because you need that very special someone to listen to you as you ramble on angrily about what some stupid duncebag has done to you in the morning. Sometimes it's to have someone to laugh with and make fun of the absurd things in life. Sometimes it's just to share a moment of thought with, so that you know you're not the only one going crazy at any given point of the day. But more often than nought—the thing that makes friendship magical is knowing that there is always a certain someone who, from any way you look at her, is guaranteed to always be there, to always be dependable, to always be the same pleasant smiling face that you remember since you first ever ran into her.
“Fluttershy is very much that kind of a friend, and there is everything magical to be had about her. Yes, she can be a frickin' scaredy cat at times—okay, make that all of the time. And, yes, she could stand to be more outgoing and outspoken and out..... out... ........outhoused? Whatever—The 'shy' in her name is there for a reason, and screw the universe for scoffing at it.
“A lot of the other girls think that I'm always giving Fluttershy a hard time. And—well—they're kind of sort of right. But they haven't known her for nearly as long as I have. They're awfully scared of saying the wrong word at the wrong time and suddenly shattering the Pegasus like some wilting porcelain flower. There's some truth to be had in that, but Fluttershy wouldn't be in the place of happiness where she is now if she wasn't so harshly kicked out of Cloudsdale......literally. And she has yours truly to blame for that. Eight years ago, when I raced a couple of bozos who were picking on her, the sheer speed of our flight caused her to fall to the Earth, where a bunch of hovering butterflies saved her fall in what had to have been a really wicked sight gag.
“Just like I'm always being my cool butt-kicking self, Fluttershy is always being her gentle animal-loving ponysona. Just like she would say; it's the niches that we fill. She can always expect me to be the kind of pony I am, and I can always expect her to be the kind of pony she is. As long as we've got all that covered, our friendship remains golden. So, if anything, when I'm giving Fluttershy the boot every now and then to get her to cheer harder or be more assertive, I'm just maintaining what makes Friendship so self-sufficient and self-magicient....or wutever. You get it. Let's see Twilight put that into a letter! Hah!
“And it's not always me helping out Fluttershy—though gawd knows she could use all the help she can get. But she's infinitely supportive of me too. The kind of things she does for me, for my reputation in Cloudsdale, for the....for the memories of my mother—it goes beyond anything I can bother to explain to the other girls without coming across like a total sap. And that's another 'magical' thing about friendship, I guess. No matter what way you look at it, one of your many friends and one alone is going to be your 'best friend'. I really don't think there's anything wrong with that. That's just natural....and stuff. And you know it's right cuz when you see that one friend, your heart throws off all the weight that a miserable day has piled up on it and you remember what it means to be happy just to be.
“So, yeah. There you have it. Fluttershy is my best friend. No doubt about it. There is only one problem I have with confessing that onto paper, and it's that I'm not entirely sure if she kno--” (FWOMMMMP!)
A mound of dust flies obscenely across the parchment that Rainbow is writing on. Frowning, she pierces her gaze up from the mountain cliff atop which she is roosted, saddle-bag and all. “H-Hey! What gives--?” A glaring, a blinking, and then a rolling of both violet eyes. “Nnnnngh—Gawwwwd. Just what do you duncebags want now?”
A bruised, scuffed up, but thoroughly battle embroiled Dumb-Bell leers down at her. “Ooooh! New words! I'm scared! Where'd you think up 'duncebags', Rainbow Crash?”
“Halfway between kicking your sorry butt and being bored with it.” The blue Pegasus nonchalantly brushes the dirt off her scroll of paper sheets and rolls it all up. “Seriously, Dumb-Bell. I could spend all afternoon reminding you how ugly you are by beating your face back to jelly, but now's not a good time, okay?”
“Why? You stink so much at weatherflying that you've resorted to being a sky mule?” Dumb-Bell spits. “Whatcha writing anyways, Crash? Better be your last will and testament, cuz we're fixing to bury you!”
“And who's this dark and foreboding 'we' in case I can't already pretend to know?” Rainbow boredly smirks at him as she sheathes the scroll into her saddle bag.
Two predictable shadows hover down in the amber glow of the setting Sun, followed at a great distance by a much less predictable fourth shadow. “Hey, Dumb-Bell! You found her!” Hoops lands his hooves on the ground and retracts his bruised wings. “The heck is that on your back, girl? I knew someday we'd all send you packing from Cloudsdale, but this is ridiculous!” Quarterback lands next to him, chuckling in a dull monotone. “Shut up, brony.” (“Ahem. Y-Yes, Hoops.”)
“It's none of your business.” Rainbow Dash upturns her nose with a smirk. “Unlike a bunch of cement-skulled Pegasi I know, some of us actually have friends that we do favors for! You, of course, wouldn't understand that; because to you a 'friend' is some random object that's too big to eat and too small to make love to.”
The three wing'd colts glance at each other quizzocally. Dumb-Bell raises an eyebrow and does the honors of grunting out: “Wh-What?”
“I rest my case.”
“You've been writing too much. It's making you mouthy.”
“Better to have a mouth full of words than a mouth full of welts—Or are you three really that intent on reliving our little dance this morning?” Rainbow smirks.
“Girl—We could clean your clock anyday of the week! And especially without crotchety old Doctor Rose Heart coming to your rescue at the last second!”
“Pfft—She so did not! The only thing she nearly came to was a heart attack after seeing me beat the ever living spit out of you glue sniffing cloug rats!”
“Whatever--” Hoops shakes his snout and hisses: “We didn't come here to trade boring insults, Rainbow Crash! We came here to settle the score....!”
Rainbow's eyes narrow into a hardened glare. “Just what did you have in mind, buckaroos...?” She starts to grind her front hoof into the stone and dirt of the cliffside beneath her.
“Pfft—Please....” Dumb-Bell waves a lackadaisical limb. “Anypony can beat up a lonesome half-wing.”
At that last insult, Rainbow Dash sneers hoarsely, her violet eyes burning like bloodthirsty embers: “You're welcome to try--”
“But you said it yourself—You've got stuff to do for some lousy excuse of a friend. So, in the interest speed—We thought we'd outrace your sorry butt into the ground!”
“Pfft—Snkkkkkt---WAHHHH-Hahahahahahaha...” Rainbow Dash bowls to the ground, the prior menace completely taking off from the runway of her mouth as she gasps for breath, nearly praftalls, and laughs some more—pounding the dusty Earth with a blue hoof. The three male Pegasi stir and shuffle uncomfortably from where they stand as Rainbow Dash laughs, laughs, wheeeeeeeeeeeezes, and laughs again. “Ahem....eh...eh heh heh....Ohhhhhh yeah. Ohhhhh yeah that's rich—Wait Wait Wait Wait—I forgot to do something!”
“What....?” Dumb-Bell burts.
“LAUGH AT YOUR SORRY BUTTS SOME MORE! AHHHHHHHH-hahahahahaha—Outrace me?! Miss Sonic Rainboom?! Haaaahaaahaaaaa.....” Rainbow Dash almost rolls over, her saddlebag full of rubies rattling and wrustling with the jostled movements. Another wheeze, and she rubs the tears out from her eyes. “Whewwwwwww......”
“Not just race us, you donkey-faced loser!” Hoops grunts. “We brought a secret weapon that's gonna put your boasting face to shame!” He points a light-brown hoof skyward for emphasis. “Say hello to our not-so-little friend!”
“S-Secret weapon, huh?” Rainbow Dash fights off a lasting wave of giggles as she wobbles back onto all fours, glancing skyward. “Better be a tomahawk missile, cuz I don't see what else would come close to—Hello!”
The fourth shadow finally touches down—A wave of dirt skittering from two majestically flapping green wings as a young stallion with dark hair lands among the other three. He's a very athletic colt—far less muscular than the bulky likes of Dumb-Bell, Hoops, and Quarterback—but very obviously lithe and well fit. His limbs coil and uncoil like tightly bending springs, the tell-tale signs of a well trained speedster. The ends of his hooves are shiny, and his wings are immaculate. In spite of his unwitting gravitose, his face is anything but menacing. A gentle smile alights the air as he blinks chestnut eyes across the scene, his black tail flicking to show a straight yellow-and-green streak drawn down the centermost hairs.
“Hi there! You must be Rainbow Crash! I'm--”
“Dash!” Rainbow immediately bites. “And I don't care who you are! If you're with these bone-headed morons, you can go suck on the wrong end of a pineapple!”
The agile stallion sweatdrops. “I-I'm sorry. Eheheh—I didn't mean to strike a bad chord.” He turns towards the other Pegasi, blinking. “But I thought you dudes said her name was--”
“Stop being lame, Stu!” Hoops facehooves briefly, works on his smug smirk and trots between him and Rainbow Dash. “Crash—Meet Stu Leaves, the fastest and most dazzling flier out of Torontrot!”
“Oh come on, brony...” The aforementioned 'Stu' chuckles, blushing. “Th-That's just a gross exag--”
“SHHH!” Dumb-Bell snarls and steps ahead, adding to Hoops' stance. “He's won twelve straight tourneys in a row between here and Fillydelphia! Torontrot University spent a fortune to keep him on their aerial race team until he finally transferred here to study at Cloudsdale.”
“Well—Yes yes—Those things about the tournaments are true.” Stu Leaves shrugs. “But in all honesty, all I'm really here for on this side of Equestria is because I've just been inducted into the--”
“So you think all of that is supposed to impress me?” Rainbow Dash glares down Stu—causing him to shrink back, twitchingly. “I dunno who the heck you are and I don't care—But if these flying buckets of screws brought you here to intimidate me, then you can just turn tail and hover on back to Ontarioats!”
“Uhm...Erm—Torontrot--”
“Whatever!” Rainbow Dash marches haughtily towards the cliff's edge and boredly examines the creases in her left hoof. “I'm Rainbow Dash—Weather flier of Ponyville and winner of this year's Young Flier's Competition--”
“Ohhhh—The Cloudsdale Young Flier's Competition!” Stu nods, grinning. “Heh heh heh—I heard about that! It sounded sooooo cool! Plus, I heard that Princess Celestia was there, and I've always wanted to meet--” He suddenly jolts, his chestnut eyes dilating. “Wait.” He squints her way, trembling slightly. “You're the winner of the Cloudsdale Young Flier's Competition?”
“Yup.”
“You're....(GULP)....the amazing Pegasus pony who did the sp-spectacular Sonic Rainboom?”
“Yuppppp...” She smirks proudly over her shoulder. “And.....uh....lemme see.....uh......Yup.”
“Whoah.....” Stu blinks, his wings suddenly sprouting up. “That's so cool--”
“That's so nothing!” Dumb-Bell growls in the newcomer's face. “Look at her! She's a stuck-up angry headed half-wing! We brought you here so we can all teach her her place!”
“Yeah!” Hoops rears his hooves and smirks evilly. “Man, I can't wait to see the look on her face when you smoke her--!”
“Wait...Uhm....” Stu squints, making a slightly confused face. “Where did 'half-wing' come from? Isn't that a little rude to be callin--?”
“Look...” Rainbow Dash sighs and glares across the way at the newbie. “'Stinky Litter', was it?”
“Stu Leaves.”
“Whatever—You're obviously not from around here, so I can't rightfully blame you for not knowing didley squat about these soulless dweebs that you're hanging around with. So I'll just cut you a break and let you leave peacefully before I do to you what I did to them!”
“So that's where all those bruises on your guys' faces came from!” Stu chuckles, waggling an eyebrow. “And you dudes said it was cuz you fell into a snowflake machine!”
“Yeah yeah—So we bent the truth just a tad--”
“--cuz I was saying to myself: 'A snowflake machine is too small for three young adult colts to all fall into at once! That's horesh--'!”
“Right—WE MADE THAT UP!” Dumb-Bell groans once more. “Look, Stu. We promised you that you'd have a good time. So now that you're here and she's here and we're here—Let's just do this race and get this over with!”
“You guys are seriously so pathetic that you need a tournament flier with the brains of a watermelon to come and race me for you?” Rainbow Dash rolls her eyes at them. “Really smoothe, you guys. Why don't you do evolution a favor and crawl back into a cave where you'll be in good company with all the other dumb rocks?”
“I-I don't think I have the brains of a watermelon--”
“Who said you were just gonna race him?” Hoops smirks.
“Oh, this sounds rich,” Rainbow sneers back, smiling. “Hit me, why don't you?”
“We challenge you to race all four of us....through Cloven Canyon!”
Hoops points off the cliffside towards a grand vista resting majestically beneath the Western setting Sun. A curved crescent of a ravine bends from the South to the North to the South again. The canyon breaks into a cave at the Northernmost spot, before once again reforming into the amazingly deep trench filled to the brim with briars, rock formations, and jagged granite structures. The rocky plateau within which the ravine is chiseled is pot-marked with miniature craters and pony-shaped impressions, the tell-tale signs of the unbelievably natural structure being a racing hotspot for Pegasi over countless generations.
“Whew....” Stu Leaves whistles shrilly. He smirks: “Cloven Canyon—I've read up so much on it before, but seeing it up close—It's positively breathtaking!”
“It's also potentially life-taking if you don't know what you're in for!” Dumb-Bell mischievously grins, trotting around as he further monologues: “First, it's a deep plunge into a shallow ravine full of jagged spikes! Then it's a sidewinding squeeze of narrow trenches sunk into the earth! Then it's a huge briar patch full of ancient, petrified thorny roots! Then there's Cloven Cave—a dark and scary tunnel carved through crumbling, unstable rock! Finally there's the last stretch—a grand winding curve through a countless obstacle course of rocks, buttes, and stala-....stalag-....st---even sharper rocks!”
“Sounds fun.”
“So let me get this straight... ....” Rainbow Dash balks at the three brash ponies and their friend, before nodding her multi-colored mane towards the curved, gaping canyon of doom. “You want me—To race all of four of you—Through Cloven Canyon—And my only chance of proving myself up to the challenge is if I come out in first place?”
“And the loser gets to realize what a stupid half-wing she was for ever talking smack to us to begin with!”
“Seriously—What's all this flak about a 'half-wing'---?”
“Sounds like a lovely way to waste an afternoon.” Rainbow Dash says—but feels the weight of the rubies on her back once more and clears her throat. “But—Another time, perhaps.”
The three bulky colts gape at her simultaneously. “You're turning us down?”
“Pfft--Don't look so shocked. Would a hydra bother to meet a cockroach's challenge at a biting competition? Meh—You three aren't worth my time, with or without your prettyboi excuse for a 'secret weapon' over there.” She turns tail and makes to fly off the cliffside. “Like I said before, I've got stuff to do. Why don't you guys try getting some real friends and maybe you'll understand a thing or two about how impossible it is for your worthless selves to do so!”
“And just which of your friends makes it worth you turning into a cowardly filly on us?” Dumb-Bell barks before Hoops or Quarterback can bother to stop him. “Is it that lame Klutzershy?”
Rainbow Dash freezes in place on the edge of the cliff. She icily turns around, icily glares, icily marches back towards the group. Her frowning snout stares down Dumb-Bell, her voice thickly cold, like a cauldron drop of liquid metal. “What did you just call her....?”
“Klutzershy.” Dumb-Bell bravely hisses into the blue Pegasus' face. “And she really is a total klutz for thinking she's of any worth for clinging onto your sorry wings!”
“Wh-Who's this 'Klutzershy'?” Stu blinks oddly.
“Her name is Fluttershy!” Rainbow Dash barks. “And if the three of you brainless punks had any ounce of good sense in you, you'd remember how badly you bit it the last time I made you pay for poking fun at her!”
“Oh yeah?” Dumb-Bell grins. “Why don't you remind us, half-wing! If it means so much to you--”
“Fine!” Rainbow Dash grins back. “I will! I'll beat you--” She points a hoof. “And you!” Another hoof. “And most especially you!” A jagged hoof at the blinking Stu. “All on my lonesome—Be it here, be it in Cloven Canyon, be it on the surface of the Celestia-forsaken moon—Anywhere!”
“Snkkt—hahaha--” Hoops chuckled. “But what about your precious delivery--”
“And even with this pathetic bag of crud on my back!” Rainbow Dash hops, saddle jostling. “And when I win against all four of you—The losers will have to march up to Fluttershy's door and apologize in pony!”
“Pfft—As if--”
“Swear it!” Rainbow snarls. “Or the race is off!”
“All right then, Rainbow Crash! We swear—Right, bronies?”
“Right!”
“R-Right!”
“...... ..... ....” Stu blinks. “Oh....erm...” He blushes. “Eh heh—Right!”
Rainbow Dash takes a page out of Apple Jack's book, spits on her hoof, rubs it against her chest, and extends it forward for Dumb-Bell to shake.
Dumb-Bell reaches forward--
But then Rainbow Dash takes a page out of her own book and slaps her hoof viciously against Dumb-Bell's unguarded chest. WHAP!
“OOOF!” The colt bowls over as his two companions chuckle madly. He snaps at them and flaps his wings as he takes off after Rainbow Dash towards the Cloven Canyon beyond.
Stu watches the four fly off. His chestnut eyes twitch, and he once more flicks his yellow-and-green streaked tail of black. “Heh-Heh! This will be fun!”
“Shut up, Stu! And come bring your wings with you!”
“Er, s-sure thing....” He effortlessly soars after the bunch. “Yeesh, the things I insert myself into...”
“There's a reason why I shouldn't really be the one writing about friendship, and Twilight should be, Princess. I mean, I'm pretty sure I did my job here in this letter—which is already a lot longer than I had ever planned on hoofing into words. I've told you about Apple Jack's dependability, about what it takes to get used to someone like Pinkie Pie, about Rarity's generosity and vampirism, and also about Fluttershy being my best friend and all...
“But in the end, as awesome as Friendship is, I feel a little bit evil to say that it's not the most important thing in my life. More than all of that, I like flying. More than flying, I like showing off as the best Pegasus in the world—like I am. And more than showing off, I—Rainbow Dash—love winning.
“What does it to mean to win? Quite frankly, I've always felt that it means showing the rest of the world how much it stinks and just how awesome you are in comparison. We can pillow-fluff together all of the poetry we want to about the Elements of Harmony this or Sharing and Kindness that—But in the end we're all still living in a crazy mean world with crazy mean ponies and only so few plunderiffic spoils to be had between them. Life is really just one big mad race to see who gets what and how much of it. I think that's why sports were invented—cuz if we couldn't act out all of our aggressive selfishness in some sort of traditional artform, then we'd all be bucking each other's skulls off for realziez.
“Now, granted, there are times when I've put winning to the side for the sake of preserving friendship. Take the Autumn Running of the Leaves, for example; I made a total mule out of myself by scuffling and scraping and clawing with Apple Jack during the whole competition. But when I realized I had lost the race—And AJ too for that matter—I decided just to let the whole thing rest, cuz if I beat the fact that I lost into the ground, I could have severely ticked off Apple Jack beyond the point of forgiveness. And as much as she smells like hay, I really don't think I would want something that terrible to happen between me and her at this point in my life. After all, I have all the time in the world to be winning at what I do—but friendship, as it turns out, is quite a fragile thing. And losing friendship is a lot worse than losing anything else. Trust me on that crap.
“But then there's the other side of me—the part of me who needs to win, no matter what. And that shade of Rainbow Dash takes a sideways glance at—say—Twilight Sparkle and how happy she was to get the Fifth Place Medal for finishing the Running of the Leaves. I acted all happy for her and jazz at the time—but, seriously—fifth place? The only reason a medal like that exists is to make ponies think of putting something else around their neck that isn't a noose once they've trotted back home in humiliating shame. I mean—Kudos to Twilight Sparkle for wanting to live in the moment and enjoy the race. I too like to live in the moment, but only if that moment is meant for living in its fullest. And anything but first place—in my book—is not worth living for.
“Twilight's a flippin' nerd, by the way. I dunno if you know that about your star pupil.”
“Okay. Here are the rules...”
Hoops speaks, all the while flexing his wings and shaking his hooves loose from the southwestern edge of the cascading canyon cleft. Beneath him and the other stretching Pegasi, Cloven Canyon dips deep into a violent smattering of rock outcroppings, before bending gradually towards the right into a series of several haircomb thin trenches that further carry the ravine eastward beyond sight.
“After the starting signal, we descend upon the canyon. This will be no holds barred; every pony for himself—Rainbow Crash too. No flying above the trenches! If so much as one tip of your wing rises above the walls of the canyon, you're disqualified! The entire race must be flown through the ravine—and that includes both the briar patch and Cloven Cave located towards the center--”
“I know what the rules are!” Rainbow Dash grunts while doing push-ups with the bulging saddlebag on her back. Her sweat glistens in the yellowing Rays of the Sunset. “Don't act like it's not my millionth time flying Cloven Canyon!”
“It's my first time!” Stu Leaves pleasantly chuckles. “I-I'd like to hear the rules, if you don't mind!”
“Well why don't you grab some audio tapes on your way out?” Rainbow Dash sneers. “They're in the Cloven Canyon gift shop!”
“R-Really?”
“Nnnngh—Gawd.”
“Ahem—Like I was saying...” Hoops briefly glares and resumes: “The first to make it down the Southeastern curve and land on the top of the slope is the winner! If it's any of us colts—We win. If it's Rainbow Crash—which it won't be—then the half-wing won't have to swallow her own horseshoes!”
“Horseshoes?” Rainbow Dash wheezes in mid ruby-weighted push-up. “That w-wasn't part of the agreement!”
“It became so the moment you told us we'd have to go and apologize to Klutzershy if you won! Yeachkk!”
“For the last time, don't call her--”
“Hey, I've got a question!” Stu stretches a wing up high.
“What?” “What?!?” Both male and female Pegasi glare at him.
He shrinks back slightly, colored black tail flicking nervously. “Uhm...Wh-What do I get for winning?”
“A place to sleep for the week! Cuz we'll make sure nobody's lending you a room in Clousdale University's dorms if you fail us!”
“Why's everyone so flippin' hardcore over a single map anyways?” Stu Leaves nervously laughs. “Eheheh—It's just a race, right? Why all the madness?”
“Madness?” Rainbow Dash snarls, does one final push up, and hisses: “This. Is. Cloudsdale! Nnnngh-YEAH!” She hops up tall to her hooves and shakes the sweatdrops loose. “Ready to race your sorry snouts into the ground, you pathetic wastes of thoroughbreds!”
“Not without us, you aren't!” A feminine voice calls out from above.
“H-Huh?” Dumb-Bell glances up from doing sweaty curl-ups. He groans. “Oh great—The Estrogen Squadron has arrived...”
A certain mohawk'd Pegasus with glittering red eyes touches down along with the usual circle of her closest companions. “Rainbow Dash! There you are....!”
“Hiya, Wyndi...” Rainbow Dash softly smirks.
“Wyndi Breeze, as I live and gag...” Hoops rolls his eyes under a mat of stiff bangs. “Come to take the half-wing's side, as usual?”
Wyndi stares down Hoops with a vicious glare. “Honestly! Still using that insult as a crutch?”
“Pfft—Rainbow Crash is the one needing a crutch! Not me!” Hoops smirks back at the filly. “What's the matter, brush-head? Your day-job of sticking your skull in a toilet rubbing you the wrong way?”
Quarterback and Dumb-Bell both laugh. Stu Leaves merely blinks.
“Some of us have better things to do than poke fun at each other like immature foals!” Wyndi upturns her nose.
“Yeah? Like what?”
“Like cheering for the best flier in all of Equestria!” Wyndi smirks and marches over to Rainbow Dash's side. “Heya, Dash-Dash. At first, I thought it was just another wing'd rumor. But as soon as we heard you were racing these four beef'd up crash test dummies, well—How could the girls and I resist coming to watch?”
“And how exactly did you know that we were gonna---?” Rainbow Dash stops in mid-sentence, her eyes thinning pathetically towards Stu Leaves. “Wait. Lemme guess....”
“I hear that he's the fastest flier out of Torontrot!”
“Is he, now? I only had that shoved through my ears with a forklift the first moment I saw him.”
“No joke! This is gonna be so awesome watching you show this schmuck that Cloudsdale's got the best wings in all of Equestria!” Wyndi aimed her snout upwards, gesturing towards several conjoining flocks of Pegasi—over three dozen in count—suddenly descending onto the scene, forming quite an audience at the edge of Cloven Canyon. “I wasn't the only one who heard about this! Everyone's chomping at the bit—literally--to see you do your stuff! Maaaaaybe I kind of sort of talked most of them into coming here, but—ahem—Who knows?! Maybe we'll get to see you do your awesome Sonic Rainboom again to boot!”
“Ehh—I dunno....” Rainbow Dash blushes slightly and scratches her right leg with a proud hoof. “The Sonic Rainboom is kind of a 'you only live to do twice' sort of a thing. Besides, I'm branching out. I've always hated the thought of being a One Trick Pegasus.”
“Uhmmm.....” Wyndi suddenly sweatdrops, glancing at the Rainbow Dash's backside. “Rainbow—Just what in Equestria is all that?”
“All what?”
“That.”
“Oh—A bunch of junk I'm delivering for a friend.”
“But—Erm...” She leans in, whispering while glancing nervously at the gathered crowd over their shoulders. “Isn't that kind of weighing you down?”
“Pfft—Weighing me down?” Rainbow Dash smirks. “Do you forget whom you're talking to?”
“N-No, it's not that. Just--”
“I'm Rainbow Dash. I put the 'G' in gravity, then take it right back out to laugh at 'Avity'.... ... ...Okay, I didn't really think that last bit out too well.”
“They talked you into it, didn't they?”
“Nobody ever talks me into anything.” Rainbow frowns. “I made it as part of the challenge. Besides....” She grumbles. “They called her 'Klutzershy' again...”
“Who's Klutzers--?”
“But don't worry—I've got this all in the bag! Erm—Including the bag. I'll outrace these morons lickety split, and then finish my delivery for Rarity afterwards.”
“That's a delivery for a friend?” Wyndi Breeze gulps. “Dash-Dash, are you sure you don't want me to hold onto it while you--?”
“HEY!” Dumb-Bell barks from the sidelines. “Are you two done making out? We got a race to do before sundown, yanno!”
“Yeah—You ready to lose, Rainbow Crash?” Hoops joins in.
Rainbow Dash menacingly trots around Wyndi's side and grins at them. “A wise sage once said: 'Some will win, some will lose; some were born to sing the blues'.” A snorting of her nostrils, and she smiles an evil crescent moon. “After tonight, you'd better buy yourself a birdcage, cuz I'll teach you to sing like there's no tomorrow!”
Dumb-Bell: “That was so stupid, I forgot to laugh!”
Rainbow Dash: “If I was as ugly as you, I'd take one look in the mirror and forget how to laugh too!”
“Ohhhhhh!” “Haaahaahaa!” “Woooo!” The surrounding audience cries and chuckles and cheers. Dumb-Bell glances at all of them, snarls, and roars:
“All right! Hoops! Quarterback! Stu—Let's get this action started!”
“I know you're gonna show them who's boss, Rainbow...” Wyndi glances nervously from the blue Pegasus' saddlebag, the canyon spikes, the audience, and her again. “B-But remember, Dash-Dash....be careful.”
“Wyndi, if there's anything you remember from when we used to hang out all the time—I may be many awesome things. But when I came into this world, I was most certainly not introduced carefully.” She licks the sweat off her lips and gallops towards the edge of the Canyon slope. “Care to do the honors for me...?”
“Huh—OH! Sure thing, Dash-Dash!” Wyndi spins and whistles to her gaggle of friends. One of the fillies tosses her a checkered flag on the end of a wooden stick. She catches it in her snout and flutters over to a loan rock spire positioned about twenty yards in front of the starting line.
Rainbow Dash touches down between Hoops and Stu Leaves, grinding her hooves until she is right at the edge of the invisible starting line that the four racers have formed behind. She cracks the joints in her neck and knees before hunching over to focus--
“You're going down, Rainbow Cra—” Hoops begins.
“Ssssssh—No, dude! She has a comeback for that one!” Dumb-Bell pathetically reminds his friend.
“Uhhh....Uhhh....” Hoops blinks, blinks more stupidly, then growls: “Now you just threw off my rhythm!”
“Yeah!” Rainbow smirks. “Assuming you were dancing to a funeral dirge!”
Quarterback laughs snortingly at that.
Hoops spits: “Shuddup, brony!”
“Y-Yes, Hoops....”
Stu Leaves stretches, takes a deep breath, and smiles. “Mmmm—Great air over this canyon, isn't it?” He glances over at Rainbow Dash, grinning. “Good luck! Hope you have fun!”
“The only thing I'm gonna have is the last laugh at your failure!” The Blue Pegasus glares back. “So why don't you keep your shallow words to yourself you...you...” She squints quizzocally over him, finally focusing on the green-and-yellow stripe highlighted across his black mane and tail. “--you Streakie!”
“H-Hey! 'Streakie'!” Stu blinks, tapping his chin in thought. “I kinda like that! I think maybe I should make that my wing-name the first day I fly with--”
“Save your breath for losing, buddy!” Rainbow Dash squats low, her legs coiling into a muscular spring as she glares fearlessly into the mouth of the canyon sloping beneath them.
The gathered Pegasi whoop and cheer—Leaning forward on the edge of their hooves as Wyndi positions herself on the rock spire with the checkered flag. All eyes are on her as the five racers tighten their limbs. The wind grows cold and breathless between their heartbeats as sweatbulbs dribble off of outstretching wings as one by one they prepare for the inevitable jolt of the race's start. A magical sound like burning jet engines converge upon the scene, accompanying their shadows that stretch tensely Eastward in the wide golden glaze of the setting Sun.
Wyndi glances at them all, at the audience, at the Canyon below. A curve of her lips, and she whispers out the side of her mouth. “Go for the Boom, Dash-Dash.” And with a swing of her neck, she waves the checkered flag down in a majestic arch--
SWOOOOOOOOOSH!
The mohawk'd girl briefly shrieks as five blazing bodies roar past her and plunge like comets into the yawning ravine below. She grins and yells at the top of her lungs as the Pegasi flutter over and make a swift straight line for the other end of the canyon, their eyes locked on the distant fliers below.
The wind howls madly around Rainbow Dash's slicked-back ears as she aims her snout like a cruise missile, her body angled to slice forward through the condensed air between the canyon walls surrounding her. The roaring cacophony of the deep earthen trench run is quadrupled by the proximity of so many other pairs of wings around her. The four colts are rumbling the air all around, ramping up the turbulence as the young female Pegasus bolts along the first leg of the race. She veers left and right, gracefully dodging various jagged towers of rock and granite shooting up out of the mercilessly pointed floor of the ravine.
A wild shout—And she looks behind her to see Quarterback barely lunging out of grasp of a jagged spike of rock. He exhales with relief while his brother and close friend surge past him, snarling and grunting with the effort of acceleration. Stu Leaves is nowhere to be seen.
“Heh.... ...Stupid newbie--” Rainbow Dash speaks aloud, only hearing herself below the tumultuous thunder of canyon flight. “--the moron's so far behind, I can't even see him--” She glances ahead. She gasps. “Horseapples!”
Stu Leaves is about five breaths ahead, his majestic wings outstretched like a giant green eagle. He throttles effortlessly past the buttes and other rock formations, gently tilting on the z-axis with trained professionalism as he barrels towards the distant haircomb trenches ahead.
“Grrrrghh!” Rainbow snarls and tightens her outstretched hooves as her wings kick into a faster 'gear'. “Not on my watch, showoff!” She slowly inches her way forward, past her previous velocity—Just as a great dark shadow looms in from behind.
“Nnnngh—YAH!” Dumb-Bell viciously elbows into the blue Pegasus, sending her veering straight into the path of a hurdling column of rock.
Rainbow Dash gasps, clenches her teeth, and twirls to the left. She barely rounds the bulging stalk of the rock pillar, zoops around it, and comes back parallel to Dumb-Bell's flank. “So that's how it's gonna be?”
“You're gonna live up to your name, Rainbow Crash!”
“Good thing your parents didn't waste time when coming up with yours!” Rainbow Dash banks to the left suddenly, rotates her wings into a right angle with each other, and flings herself via the wind into a corkscrew, shooting towards Dumb-Bell.
“Wh-Whoah!” He flinches and dives low to dodge her--
Swooosh! The sheer wind resistance from Rainbow Dash's proximity sends him flailing backwards. She once more focuses on the distant image of Stu Leaves far ahead and shoots her wings back behind her to catch up with First Place--
“HAAAUGH!” Hoops roars up in Dumb-Bell's stead, headbutting Rainbow Dash viciously in the flank.
“Whoah-Whoah-Whoah-Whoah!” Rainbow Dash suddenly goes bug-eyed as she spins several three-sixties, falling back to Third Place. A growl, and she kicks her hooves square into the side of the canyon wall. A crunching noise—and a vertical crater forms as she savagely kicks off—POW!--and bullets herself into Hoops' side. “Unnngh!”
Wham! “Augh!” Hoops snarls and butts into her again. Rainbow Dash recoils easily, twirls around him, and bats his face repeatedly with her front hooves at full speed. He spits and coughs and sputters dizzily from her blows—snarls--then clamps onto a strap of her saddle bag with clenched teeth.
“H-Hey! Don't touch the leather!” She snarls as their conjoined flight takes them barreling madly back and forth in a weaving pattern across the canyon—bumping into several rock pillars, spilling dust and pebbles everywhere and forcing the other two races behind them to duck and dodge. Thud! Thud! Thud! “Nnnnnn-nnnngh!” Rainbow Dash hisses, struggling to disentangle herself from the light brown bully. She looks up and gasps to see the thin trenches looming within a breath's reach, and Stu Leaves disappearing within the far right gap.
A deep snarl, and Rainbow Dash suddenly retracts her wings. Hanging on by Hoops' weight alone, she causes the two to spin-spin-spin-spin uncontrollably until the shouting colt finally lets go of her strap, flinging the two of them blindly towards the trenched wall. Rainbow Dash gasps for breath, angles herself sideways, and stretches her wings flat out in time to squeeze her way through the leftmost trench, Dumb-Bell fast on her tail. SH-SHOOOP!
Speeding sideways, Rainbow Dash hugs all four legs to her belly—barely threading her blue way through the sandwich-thin trench. The tight squeeze gets tighter as this part of the canyon starts to bend northeasterly, forcing her to curve blindly into the walls blurring dustily beyond the extremity of her clouded vision. The seriousness of this claustrophobic part of the race makes itself clear in the grinding noise of the saddlebag's bulging body as it scrapes the north face of the trench she's currently throttling through.
“Nnnngh—Stupid....Rubies... ....Hoity.... ...Toity....Can... ...Make Love.... ...To My....R-Right Hoof!” Rainbow Dash spits and drools into the merciless g-forces. Suddenly, she's yanked hard from behind. “Ackies!”
“Hnnnngh!” Dumb-Bell clasps ahold of her tail, kicks off the wall, and grabs her soaring body in a vicious double-arm hold from behind. “T-Time to kiss granite, Half-Wing! Haah!” He yanks her neck into a stiff hoof-bar.
“Hckkk--” Dash sputters and gasps for breath. “Snkkt—H-Hey! Quit it, you suicidal pile of parasprites--” She gasps as her skull is viciously shoved into the blurring trenchwall beside her.
“Heh heh heh heh--” Dumb-Bell's eyes bloodily throb as he grinds her dustily into the roaring earth.
Scrkkkkkkk! Rainbow Dash's eyes roll back into the frictious mayhem rubbing her cheek raw. A spot of golden sunset glints into her eyes. She she shuts her lids, takes a focused breath, and yanks her tail back. The multi-colored 'limb' agilely wraps around Dumb-Bell's left rear hoof and pulls harshly.
“Nnngh—Ah—WHOAH!” Dumb-Bell shrieks girlishly as his own weight is dragged out from under him. He lets go of Rainbow Dash in a horribly unrehearsed full-hoof'd toss.
Rainbow Dash grunts and gasps as she pinballs violently between the thin walls of the trench. Whud-Whud-Whud-Whud! A bold shout—she retracts and unfurls her wings in a well-timed flap, pushing her upwards and sending a gust of wind down into Dumb-Bell's now cannonballing ragdoll of a body just as--
SWOOOOSH!
--they emerge from the thin line of trenches, with Rainbow Dash twirling upside down so as not to gain disqualifying altitude. As for Dumb-Bell: “Aaaaa--” He bowling balls his way over the ground, bounces several times--”Oof! Ugh! Augh! Whoah!”--and collides brick-hard into a rock column positioned in the center of the widely opening canyon. THUDD! Rainbow Dash soars mightily overhead, followed shortly by Quarterback and Hoops, emerging from their own separate trenches and zooming hot on the blue Pegasus' tail.
Rainbow Dash spits and coughs up dust, rubbing her reddened cheek. She squints ahead and snarls to see Stu Leaves looming even farther ahead than before. “Darn it! Darn it darn it darn it—Must burn atmosphere!” A roaring jet sound, and she bursts ahead in a vaporous cloud of billowing oxygen molecules. The jagged canyon congeals into a great brown blur around her as she aims herself towards a wide black blur: the ancient briar patch that thornily resides ahead of the race. A shadow suddenly looms over her. She glances up to see Hoops struggling to catch up.
“Y-You're gonna pay for clobbering Dumb-Bell like that--!” The light brown colt pantingly growls.
“Yeah? With a pocketful of your broken dreams, maybe!” Rainbow Dash smirks and flies upside down with her hooves lazily hooked behind her head in a reclining position. “Tell me, Hoops—Are you really flying, or are you just farting with style?”
“Why you--!” He snarls and angles his wings so that he's soaring down at her in a maddening drop-kick.
“Heeheeheehee--” Rainbow Dash sticks her tongue out and effortlessly banks sideways to avoid his drop.
POW! Hoops' hooves form a crater in the earth. Bouncing up, he dizzily blinks and realizes he's lost speed. Frowning at Rainbow Dash as she soars after Stu towards the thick of the briar patch, he then glances sideways and smirks at a pile of loose rocks. “H-Huppp!” He dashes down, expertly arches his body up, and kicks a flurry of razor-sharp rocks forward so that they slice their way viciously towards the Second Place filly. “Here's for trying to be a real cut above the rest, Rainbow Crash! Hah hah hah--”
“Now just what is he hee-hawing about--?” She glances back. Her violet eyes widen. “Cow Cookies!” She shrieks and twirls her body with limbs branched out at awkard angles, forming an appropriate silhouette that dodges all five or six rocks hurtling towards and past her. SW-SW-SWIISH! One grazes her left leg, spilling a tiny spray of blood. Wincing, she yanks her head upside down and glances ahead of her.
As Stu Leaves dives through a hole in the briar patch, the thrown rocks surge forward and slam into a cluster of brown-twigged nests. In a flurry of caw-cawing noises, a murder of crows spills out and flap every which way across the already clustered entrance to the black sea of thorns.
“Hoboy!” Rainbow Dash holds her breath, retracts her left wing, and spins-spins-spins-spins like a corkscrew through the rampaging flock of black feathers and beaks. Fw-Fw-Fw-Fw-Fw-Fwoosh! The Blue Pegasus knifes her way twirlingly through a thick ocean of shrill cawing noises. “Nnnnn-Nnnnnnghhh!” Finally bursting through, she reopens her eyes and gasps to see a jagged web of thorned branches screaming towards her eyesight.
The filly stretches her left wing back out, angles both Earth-ward, and soars up at the last second. She roars over a cluster of thorns, only to hurtle her way straight into another set of brambles. Stifling a shriek, the brave Pegasus proceeds to dip and dodge and wind and thread her way through the obsidian-black web of cluttered wood and spikes that make up the Cloven Canyon briar patch. All visible light blinks in a kaleidoscope as the gnarled black forest of the middle-canyon shutter-snaps the glow of the beaming Sunset above.
Several cluttered limbs below, Hoops' younger brother Quarterback is having even worse luck than the she-Pegasus. “Nnngh—B-Brony! Why'd you have to do that?! I c-can't handle these stupid birds--” He whimpers and helplessly bats the cawing creatures off his face. Squinting forward, his face pales and his eyes dilate. “Ohhhhhhh Luna Lumps.” THUDDD! He slams straight into a thorny vine, bouncing off several more down below as he rattles his grunting and gasping way towards the Canyon Bed. Above him, Hoops soars undaunted, squinting and glaring upwards until he catches sight of a blur blue. Snarling, he kicks off a random branch blurring beneath him and shoots violently upwards.
Just as Rainbow Dash can finally register a green shape flying ahead of her, she catches wind of a hurdling missile from down below. “H-Huh? Oh, of course--”
“Haaaugh!” Hoops slams mercilessly into her.
“Ooof!” Rainbow Dash careens upwards, flattens her body, slides thinly through a crease in two criss-crossing branches, then sails down with a spinning buck to his flank. “Back at ya, brainless!” Th-Thap!
“Ooof!” Hoops swoops down, ducks under a thorny branch, growls, and jerks back up with another viscious swing of his hooves.
Rainbow Dash braces herself—but gasps in mid-flight, for Hoops has kicked the base of a huge cluster of briars instead, strategically causing it to rattle, shake, and rain twigs all over Rainbow's half of the canyon.
“See if you come out of this with any wings, Half-Wing!” He chuckles over the rising thunder of the collapsing branches and surges out of sight.
Rainbow Dash pants and pants, twirling and dodging and barreling past a virtual blizzard of thorns and obsidian wood chips. She glances ahead—eyes twitching to see an entire hulking trunk of vines crashing down from the snowball effect started by Hoops' kick. With the entire upper part of the briar ahead completely obscured, she suicidally dives downward. “Nnnnnngh—Ahhhhhhh!” She screams for effort, slicing her way down against the rocky earth, spinning upside down as she panickedly sees the huge trunk slamming down onto her--
THUDDD! She slides underneath the crashing stalk with only inches behind her tail to spare. A sudden wall of thorns, and she pulls viciously up—roaring through a thin tunnel of vibrating vines and brambles. The briar's canal grows tighter and tighter around her. A hint of sunlight, and Rainbow briefly smiles—but then gasps to see a solid wall of twigs and thorns thoroughly blocking her way. Rocketing forward at breakneck speed and with nowhere else to turn, she holds her breath, tucks both wings in, and curls up into a fetal position.
“.... ..... ...... .... ..... ....!”
SMASSSSSH!
Rainbow Dash's body explodes out of the Eastern edge of the great black briar patch, her body plummeting like a cannonball into the great yawning breath of the open canyon beyond. Startled to see she's cleared the briar, much less done so alive, she flips her wings out and pulls her body up just two and a half feet before slamming into the jagged ground. Twirling, twirling, twirling—she finally rotates herself upright in time to see the gently gliding body of Hoops half-a-breath ahead. Bearing a new smirk, she spits into the air, growls, and bolts toward him.
“Hmmmm.... ....” Hoops enjoys the solitary victory all too briefly. The sound of jet engine thunder, and he squints back behind his shoulder. “Huh? Oh no way--”
“YES WAY!” Rainbow Dash zips up, plants her hooves into the square of his back, and applies all of her weight. “Way to be my trampoline, duncebag!” And she springs off him with a re-energized takeoff, leaving Hoops floundering and coughing in a wave of briarthorn'd sawdust.
“Nnngh—Kaff! Kaff! Rrrrrgh—No you don't!” Hoops' wings surge violently to pull his hulking self up after her.
Meanwhile, Rainbow Dash is making up for lost time, slicing through the air towards a solid wall of rock ahead that can only be Cloven Cave. She breathes steadier and steadier, marveling as the wing'd green form of Stu Leaves appears closer than ever before. “Come on....Come on, girl....” She hisses into the skin-biting canyon air. “Only halfway done. Don't give up now. Don't let some namby-pamby chump from Torontrot put you to shame--”
“Half Winggggg!”
Rainbow Dash groans and looks behind. “What now?—WHOAH!” WHUMP! She gasps as Hoops sacrifices forward acceleration just to shove her up, up, up skyward with all his weight. She struggles with all of her energy to break free—But can only gasp as she finds the two of them approaching the canyon ceiling, and inevitable disqualification--
“No holds barred...” Hoops snickeringly hisses, throttling the two of them skyward. “One way or another, y-you're gonna lose! Even if it takes Stu to beat you--”
“I....Will N-Not....hnnngh...B-Be beaten by a sissy, prissy, mare-y Stu!” Rainbow Dash takes a deep breath, reaches down, and unlatches the belt keeping her saddlebag in place. The bulging bag flies free from her spine.
“Whoah!” Hoops gasps, suddenly realizing that the weight he's shoving skyward is splitting in two and he's not sure what to do about it. “Wh-What—Where--?!”
“Hnnngh!--HERE!” Rainbow Dash clasps the strap of the saddlebag in her teeth, yanks hard to the side, and slams the satchel full of hard, jagged rubies mercilessly across Hoops' flank. WH-WHAP! Then a vicious uppercut of the mace-like bag against his skull. WHAM! As he teeters back dizzily in mid-flight, she grasps the bag in two front hooves and flies backwards, snickering at him. “Come back when you've got the stones to mess with me, punk! Haa haa haa---” She glances forward, upside down. “---Haaaa-AAAAAAAUGH!”
The mouth to Cloven Cave looms in front of her.
“Nnngh!” She drops down—losing grip of the saddlebag. In a desperate gasp, she flutters her limbs up and juggles the satchel once or twice before finally catching it. As she barrels into the dark yawning entrance of the cave, she spins, spins, spins—all the while struggling to tie Rarity's flapping delivery back to her hide. Finally, after floundering with the last beltstraps—tightening them in place—she pulls up in time to avoid a sea of razor sharp rocks glistening blow her. She pulls up effortlessly, her panting breath echoing across the dark cavern.
The least can be said about Hoops—Who barely snaps out of the sleeping spell caused by Rainbow's bag-pummeling in time to see his body careening screamily into a rocky platform on the floor of the cave. THUD! The vibration of the colt's groaning impact reverberates across the cave, and naturally there's a large boulder positioned right on the crest of the platform that he slams into—So that it's ushered into a growingly violent roll directly after Rainbow Dash's multicolored flag of a tail. CRKKK-KKKKK!
“Crud!” Rainbow gasps and flaps her wings harder, surging forward to outfly the rampaging boulder. “Crud crud crud crud crud crud in a crud trough!”
The cave roars with explosion after explosion as the runaway boulder smashes through pillars, colemns, clefts of rock, and various other geological absurdities. As it barrels in on the blue Pegasus' hind quarters, the thunder becomes deaffening.
With the cave growing thinner, Rainbow Dash runs out of options for dodging left or right. “Nnnngh—OhgoshOhgoshOhgoshhhh--” She clenches her eyes shut, twirls upside down, and bravely surges ceilingwards, allowing the boulder to outroll her from a sneeze's distance below. Something whips past her nose. She reopens her eyes and gasps to see several stalactites zipping barely half an inch from her skull and chest. Sandwiched between the rumbling boulder below and the slicing spikes above, she can only fly in place and hold her lungs—tucking her belly in. At one point, a glistening sharp stalactite nips at her mane, slicing off a tiny prismatic lock of hair. A second one sings serratedly past her ear and rips through one of the belt straps of the saddlebag. SNIPP! Rainbow Dash grasps and swiftly swings her hooves down to catch the bag of jewels before it can fall down into the crunching boulder below. She desperately ties the dangling loose straps into a knot just as the thunder inside the cave increases tenfold. She glances ahead, and in her upside vision she sees the forked mouth of the cave—forked, because there is a thick pillar of rock stretching from floor-to-ceiling at the edge of the cavern, decidedly resting in the runaway boulder's path.
“Uhhh-Uhhhhhh--” She glances up, down, left, right--”ULP.” She gulps and flinches as everything that is everything comes to a crashing end. At the last second, she flips backwards--
SMASSSH! The rocky boulder hits the pillar, exploding into two shattered halves—And through the dust in between the ruptured rock chunks... .... ...a blue Pegasus victoriously emerges, spinning the debris off as she banks a right and roars down the last stretch of Cloven Canyon, and the gracefully soaring figure of Stu Leaves beyond.
“Aaaaah! AAAAAH!” Rainbow Dash lets out a war cry and tightens the hastily tied saddlestraps on her chest before beating her own breast with both hooves. “Who wants some, Equestria?!” She snorts out her nostrils. “Plenty more where that came from, you silly stupid land of magical horse friends! Bring it! Rgghhhh!” With a crazed look on her face, the rainbow colored pony angles her wings back like a steel arrowhead and shoots forth with the power of several invisible exploding stars.
In the meantime, Stu Leaves is pacing himself, maintaining an expert velocity as he eyes the distant upwards slope at the Southeast far edge of the canyon: the end of the race. As he comes around from briefly dodging a rock pillar, he double-glances sideways to see a blue figure roaring up to match his speed. “Wh-Whoah! Hey there!” He smiles breathily, the yellow and green streaks in his black mane billowing wildly behind him. “Finally! I was starting to get lonely!”
“Second Place is as lonely as it gets, pistachio-eyes!” Rainbow Dash pants and grins devilishly at him. “You wanna fit in at Cloudsdale? Go make yourself a crater in the Earth! HAH!” She blurs past him.
He blinks—Then grins and accelerates to match her.
Soon, both green and blue Pegasi are surging neck and neck, weaving in and around buttes and boulders and rock pillars. The setting Sun turns amber then crimson against the aged levels of rock whirring past their billowing manes as both ponies twist and spin and roar towards the finishing line together. Stu Leaves sweats and licks his lips in concentration. Rainbow Dash grimaces and hisses into the wind beating against her face. As the distant cheers of Wyndi and the other spectating Pegasi alight their ears, it's Rainbow Dash who starts to pull ahead—slowly—inch by inch.
Stu marvels at her, his breathless mouth agape. He chuckles into the crashing wind and exclaims: “H-Hey! You're good!”
She sneers back. “No—I'm the best! Hnnnnnghh--” Rainbow Dash strains and struggles, seeing the sloping earth ahead, the line of equine silhouettes laced above the canyon wall with stretching wings. She glances back—eyes tearing—as she revels in the distance she's gaining between Stu and herself. But that's not all. “H-Hey! Stu Leaves! Champion of Torontrot!!”
“Nnngh--!” He pants and barely manages to look ahead at her. “Wh-What...?”
Her eyes narrow. “Eat. My. Dust.” A shout, and Rainbow Dash stretches her wings straight out to either side. For the briefest of seconds, she stalls in-midair, only for her to flap her wings one more time, waving a concussion of sheer wind resistance back towards him in a bubble of distorted air. THOOOMMM!
“Whoah-Whoah-Whoahwhoahwhoah—AAAGH!” Stu Leaves howls helplessly as he flails in the air from the thunderous knockback. His twirling body screams down Earthward, ricochets off the canyon wall, bounces hard against a rock pillar, and slams meteor-hard into the ground. WHUD! “Ughhh--”
“Send my regards to gravity, you hay-brained melon fudge!” Rainbow Dash triumphantly roars as she curves upwards into an ascent, navigates the rising slope at the end of the canyon, and rockets over the finishing line in a prismatic blur of happy madness. SWOOOOOOSH!
Wyndi and the other Pegasi cheer insanely, their whoops and whistles filling the air as a bruised, dusty, breathless, but altogether relieved Rainbow Dash coasts southeasterly, gazing down at them with a smirk.
“Heh....Yeah.....Awwwwwww yeah....” Rainbow Dash accepts their praises with a waving hoof. “I swear to Alicornia!—This is the Most Awesome Day that Ever Awes--” THUD! She flies smack-dab into a random mountain side. Googly eyed, she slumps down the rocky face. “Unnngh---D-Dang it! Stupid mountain! You r-ruined moneyshot! Unff!”
Plop!
Now that the race has finished, now that Wyndi Breeze and her friends have given Rainbow a flurry of hugs and pats on the back, now that the three burly Pegasi bullies have limped on home under a dark cloud of grumbles and muted cusses, now that the burning red Sun is easing its melting way down over the horizon to her backside—Rainbow Dash waves goodbye to her parting 'admirers' and trots dazedly towards the edge of a mountain cliff, overlooking the distant haze of suburban Upper Clydesdallington far below.
“See ya guys later! Bye! Take care now!” She yawns, winces, and shakes the last remaining specks of dust from her main. “Nnnngh—Yeesh. Lousy bunch of nutrasweetened suck-ups.” She loudly cracks a few joints in her upper body. “Oh—OH yeah. Yeah, that hits the spot—Unnngh....Whew. 'Cloven Canyon'? More like 'Concussion Canyon'. Princess Luna on a Pogostick, what a rush!”
She fumbles a hoof over her chest and once more feels the haphazard knot made with the dangling ends of the shredded saddlebelt.
“Whew! That was a close one. I know Rarity isn't much for leather—But Celestia have mercy if she gets pee'd off at me for a little snip to her duds.” She plops her flank down in the red glow of the Sun and unties the saddlebag, holding it in front of her for closer inspection. “Yeesh—Dang spikes tore clear through the thing!” She turns the bag upside down. “Maybe I could get Fluttershy to help me stitch up some velcroooo--”
FWOOOOMP! A pile of red dust pours out of the flap of the saddlebag as the thing expels its now-powdery contents.
“--ooooooHHH-AYE-DEE-DEE-DEE-DEE-GHH!” Rainbow Dash's eyes bug-out as she slaps the hollow bag over the offending mass of crimson bits. “..... .... .. .... ...” She glances every which way like a startled meerkat with dilated eyes. Slowly—wincingly—she lifts the open bag up, once more staring at the petrified remains of the crushed-to-bits rubies. “Uhhhh....... ..... ...Uhmmmm... ... ....” She blinks. “... ... ... ... .. ........Uhhhhhh....”
A gust of high mountain wind. A quarter of the red dust scampers off gaily into the atmosphere.
“MEEP!” Rainbow Dash once more slaps the bag safely over the unsafe debris. She bites her lip with a hissing noise: “FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF—” Sweatdropping, she glances west towards Ponyville.....then east towards Cloudsallington. Then east again. Then west again. Then....
A large, iron-wrought, black gate marks the entrance to the luxurious three-story mansion that is Hoity Toity's estate. As the last rays of the sun glitter off the immaculate sidewalk, the bubbling fountains of the fashion overlord's front yard, the brass alicorn statues flanking his outer wall...
A loud scraping noise can be heard. A large, porcelain urn is being pushed into frame—and behind it is Rainbow Dash, nuzzling with her forehead, limbs buckling with all her might.
“Nnnnn-nnnnngh!” She finally pushes the heavy urn all the way until it taps into Hoity Toity's black gate. She slumps and pants, pants, pants—before shaking her mane, hovering up, and tapping a hoof onto a big black button.
DINNNNNG-DONNNNNG!
A deep breath, and she zips across the street—hiding in a bush besides the opposite sidewalk. Peering out from the shrubbery, she inhales sharply, taking in one last drink of the grand mansion, not bothering to wait for its celebrity occupant to trot out and acquire the 'delivery'.
“......Mmm......Eh......Who knows, he probably won't know the difference.” The blue Pegasus lazily shrugs and flutters off towards the western horizon. “Judging from the palace he lives in, the rich flake will probably just snort it.”
Act 1 – Chapter 6 – Why Do the Eyes in Twilight Sparkle?
A violet-hot Sun melts over the Western Horizon, casting a violet glow over the last glistening inches of rooftops in downtown Ponyville. One by one—as the wandering hoovesfolk dwindle thinner and thinner in the streets—the lanterns dotting the streets are lit, so that a warm gold haze fills the space between buildingfaces. The gentle roar of the great spinning world deflates to a soft hum as the first of many crickets wakes for a nocturnal symphony.
The air cools and the ground hushes, the blades of grass wilting under the condensing moisture of an atmosphere pent up with a day's worth of energy, imploding breathlessly as scant traces of the afternoon blink into nothing, giving way to the indigo kiss of full blanketed evening.
A few young fillies giggle and murmur about one rumor or another as they trot their ways home. A patrolling policepony helps an elderly mare across town square towards her destination. On the far side of the town, a few late-working weather fliers swoop down, gather the last batch of midday clouds, and surge darkly towards the dwindling North like black comets. The Sugarcube Corner's door grows dark as the owners pull the blinds over the windows, closing for the night. Off in the distance, the Carousel Boutique's lights switch off from the inside—and several buildings flanking it cascade into the shadows, like a row of candles going out.
Ponyville is not asleep, but its invisible eyelids are growing heavy. To the East, the distant speck of Canterlot glows like a torch. To the West, the mountains swallow the last inch of the sun like the edge of a giant aperture. And here—where life is simple and life is peaceful—everything is as serene as the Beginning of Time itself... ....as well as perhaps its End.
Rainbow Dash feels this. She has just fluttered down to a perch atop a hilltop overlooking the now cold blue roofs of Ponyville. The advent of night blows against her in a gentle cold wind, fluttering at her rainbow colored mane—bangs of brightness that challenge the oozing shadows of the world. She takes a few heaving breaths, the bone shattering blood rush of the day—in all of its bully bashing and cloud kicking and Everfree Foresting and canyon racing—coming to a vein-pulsing cascade in her gut, melting finally into a cool exhale as her heart slows down to dance with the gentle sway of the sleepily mellow town that gazes back up at her with icy rooftop eyes.
Something floats out of the blue Pegasus' parting lips—perhaps a ghost, a surrender—and the colorful speedster of Cloudsdale—who knows no concept of stillness and no grasp of hesitation—finally relents to the bending of the globe, as she kneels down and folds her hooves underneath. Her wings coil tightly to her side as she gently plops her snout down into the soft grass—breathing out long and hard through a pair of bruised, slightly scuffed nostrils. The aches and pains of a spastic day—just like any other Rainbow Dash day—briefly surge through her, only to drift off like flower petals on a great black stream, dissolving away with a warm gasp in the Pegasus' throat:
“Meh...this is okay.”
Another breath; anvils hang from her left and right lungs. She gazes her violet eyes skyward. She blinks, and something blinks back. Bright and distant—real and rich, but all too easily gone in a squint: the first star of the evening.
Rainbow Dash's eyes curve. A slight twitch, as things are pulled back, danced back, and yanked back all the same... ... ....
(Several Months Ago....)
“There it is, girls! There it is!” Twilight Sparkle excitably chirped as she leaned forward on the spacious balcony of her brand new home. She grinned wide, her rear hooves clopping up and down as she leaned her upper limbs on the wooden railing overlooking the edge of evening-drenched Ponyville. “Come on! The first star's already out! You're gonna miss it!”
“We thought yer wanted—nnngh---this h-here contraption before you wanted us takin' a gander at the sky!” Apple Jack strained as she and Rainbow Dash shoved a deceptively heavy telescope through the open doors and onto the middle of the balcony, scraping dust and wood chips in the hurculean effort. “Hnnngh!”
“I do! I do—Oh! Girls, you've done so much already. Here, allow me--” Twilight half glanced backwards, her horn glowing brightly. A stream of bright violet energy—and the telescope magically floated out of the suddenly lunging ponies' grasp.
“Ghhh—Wh-Whoah!” Apple Jack and Rainbow Dash fell over each other. They huddled in an awkward pile, gathering their bearings as Pinkie Pie giggled from the sidelines. “Whew.... ...Ah reckon ah'm seeing stars already!” Apple Jack shook the cobwebs out, picked up her hat with her teeth, dusted it off, and flung it directly upwards—ducking her head so that the cowfilly attire would plop securely over her skull. “Yanno, Twilight—Next time you could warn a girl, don'tcha think?”
“Erm....” Twilight blushed rosily. “S-Sorry. G-Guess I'm just a bit too excited.” She planted the telescope down at the edge of the balcony with gentle telekinesis and tilted it eastward. “I didn't expect nightfall to happen so soon.”
Rainbow Dash got up and dusted off her wings with a grumble. “Nnnngh...Yeah, well, time flies when you're moving a load of junk--” She froze in mid sentence under the glare of a certain blonde filly. “....er.....N-Not that I'm an expert on flying....er...time flying. Or j-junk for that matter.” She rolled her eyes.
“Hmmph....” Apple Jack turned around and put on a polite smile as she trotted over to Twilight's side. “We've been more than happy to help you move into Ponyville, Twilight. Though why Princess Celestia figured you'd be at home in the loft of a lonely old tree library—Ah'll never guess.” Apple Jack glanced quizzically at the astronomical device before turning her gaze once more towards the Unicorn newcomer. “Reckon Ah should stick to apples and not real estate.”
“Are you k-kidding?” Twilight smiled gently. “This place is perfect!” She motioned with her horn towards the lit interior of the toasty warm tree behind them. “I've always wanted to work at a small town library. Granted, I had way more books to read back in Canterlot—But here there are a whole slew of books I've never laid my eyes on before! I can't even begin to imagine the kind of historical and scientific research I'll be able to do now that I live in Ponyville!”
“Y-Yeah.. .... ...” Apple Jack gulped and put on a brave grin. “Sounds like a good 'ol time to be had!”
“Yeah, if you were born under a rock!” Rainbow Dash began to pantomime 'wretching'—WHAP!--a brown hat flew into her snout. “D'oh!” She glared at a frowning Earth Pony and ultimately sighed, wings drooping.
“I don't think I've ever seen one of these things before!” A certain pink-hair'd filly bounced over to the side of the balcony and proceeded to squint up close to the telescope from over a dozen dramatic angles. “Where's the 'On' button?”
Twilight giggled. “There is no 'On' button, Pinkie. It's simply a series of refracting mirrors constructed at appopriate distances and angles from each other within a cylindrical tube so as to provide a magnified look at--”
“BOOGERS!” Pinkie Pie balanced precariously on the edge of the balcony, her tail flapping as she grinned and glared down the large end of the telescope aimed at the inside of Twilight's new house.
Twilight went cross-eyed, then shook her head and made a face: “I-I beg your pardon?”
“I can see your boogers! Heeheehe--”
“Pinkie Pie, you're looking down the wrong end--”
“Ohhhhh--” Pinkie blinked over the stalk of the device then stared down the large end again. “Ohhhh! I see—those aren't boogers! They're just Rarity and Fluttershy!” She waved a hoof overhead. “Heya guys! Come out of Twilight's nose, will you...?—Whoah-Whoah-Whoah--!” She suddenly teetered back towards a three story drop off the balcony--
Snatch! Apple Jack grabbed the pink filly and effortlessly dragged her onto even planking, all the while shouting over her flank. “Rarity! Fluttershy! Get yer tails out here! Twilight says that the good stuff's about to start!”
“We're cominnnnng!” An elegant voice sing-song'd from inside the wooden dwelling. “Just as soon as Fluttershy and I eliminate the last vestiges of this awful dust!”
“Pleeeeease, girls!” Twilight's ears drooped, accompanied by a sad frown. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime moment! Maybe even once-in-an-existence--!”
“But not all of Twilight's boxes are unpacked and I do so wish to see how her drapes of Canterlotlian Silk look around the windows!”
“M-Miss Rarity? I r-rolled these rugs out onto the main fl-floor like you asked me to--”
“Please, darling—No need to call me 'Miss' anymore. We're friends now! And---OHH!--no, dear, not that carpet!”
“B-But you said--”
“Those rugs won't do against this Ponyvillean wood! And they clash with the drapes! Oh heavens!--We've got to start over....”
“Like Granny Smith's bed pan y'all will start over!” Apple Jack shouted once more as Pinkie bounced all around. “All that fru-fru nonsense can wait! You heard Twi! This here's special! So hoof to it!”
“Mmmm—Yes! Fine! No need to be positively oafish about it.” The white Unicorn marches onto the balcony with a drooping yellow Pegasus in tow. “Seriously, Twilight—if you want to get your new abode furnished appropriately—Invite us earlier in the day!”
“I-I'm sorry...” Twilight bit her lip. “I figured if I asked for everyone to show up earlier, I'd be wasting your time--”
“Nothin' to it, gal!” Apple Jack smiled. “This is the most fun Ah've had in a heapin' long time. Glad to have you setting up roof—er—branches in the center of Town! Ponyville could use an ounce of Canterlot to give 'er some flavor!”
“Heheh—I guess.” Twilight blinked at the shuffling Pegasus. “You okay, Fluttershy?”
“I'm....uhm....” She dug a hoof into the balcony and avoided the Unicorn's gaze. “I-I'm sorry Miss Sparkle that your carpet didn't match the drapes--”
“Oh heavens, precious!” Rarity briefly rolled her blue eyes. “I was only teasing! You truly do need to lighten up!” She playfully nudged Fluttershy with the tiniest of featherlight taps.
“UNF!” Fluttershy practically pratfalled, blushing wide as her wings twitched and she wobbled back up to an overtly feminine gait.
Rarity sweatdropped, gulped, and smiled awkwardly in Twilight's direction as she trotted forward. “So—When do the majestic festivities begin?”
“I-I can't really say.. ....Except th-that it will be very, very soon.” Twilight breathily exclaimed. “For the past nine hundred and ninety-nine years, it has been Princess Celestia who's raised the Moon. Now that Princess Luna is back...” She bit her lip and glanced nervously eastward beyond the distant speck of Canterlot. “I frankly don't know how it's going to go. F-For all we know, she may not even be doing it tonight. You have to imagine that after so many years of imprisonment, she must be out of practice!”
“Well, she certainly does have quite a huge audience to impress!” Rarity brushed a hoof against her neck and sticked her snout heavenward. “Over half of Ponyville's residents have taken an exodus to Canterlot to witness the Lunar Rising up close!”
“I bet you wish you were with 'em, don'tcha?” Apple Jack remarked with narrow, suspicious eyes.
“Oh—Don't be silly! I mean.....” Rarity fought it ever so briefly; but she ultimately lost to a deep sigh barreling up through her system. “....sure, all of Equestria's finest will be there! There will be Hoity Toity, Sapphire Shores, Trotter Swiftly—not to mention the finest in retro attire, reintroducing arcane Lunar Republican Gowns and Suits back into the fashion world for the first time in nearly a millenium!” She took a deep, deep, deep breath—bottled up momentarily—and exhaled in a glistening smile summoned out of nowhere. “But I say thee neigh! I wouldn't want to be anywhere but here with my new BFFs!” She scrunched down and gave Twilight and Apple Jack a hug with opposite arms. “After all...” She winked Twilight's way, her horn waving in the air. “If Twilight Sparkle—the most gifted Unicorn apprentice of all Canterlotlian Magic—decided to stay here, then I would be an utter fool to want to be elsewhere!”
“Eheheh.....You're w-welcome, I think?” Twilight gulped.
“SO!” Pinkie Pie shot up randomly from beneath Rarity, consuming the center of the group. “Is Princess Luna really going to moon us? Huh? Huh?”
“Pinkie Pie!” Rarity barked.
“What? Twi-Twi just said she would, didn't she?”
“I swear—Does anyone remember how to be a truly refined lady these days? You do need to mind your manners!”
“I don't mind my manners! They certainly don't get in the way of things! What about yours? Heeheehee--!”
“Rrrrghhh—And don't bump into Twilight so much! This is her house and she needs her space--”
“Actually, I-I'm quite fine--”
“HEY! I just got the most super-kewlest idea! When we're done watching Princess Luna strut her stuff across the stars, why don't we light a fire and have us some Sugarcube Corner Marshmallows?!”
“Hey! Marshmallows sound great--!”
“Light a fire?! Inside a library?! Darling, are you as mad as your hair is curled?”
“Uhm—Guys...?”
“Momma Pie says that my hair is like this because of the Devil's Hoofiwork! But I've never understood that—Because who in Equestria curls hair with hooves—Much less the Devil? Say, do you think the Devil has cloven hooves? That might explain how he does it, only why anyone would go to a salon run by the Devil I'll never know. Maybe cuz the music's upbeat?”
“Oh my stars and garters—I positively give up!”
“Heeheehee—You know, the Canterlotlian Encyclopedia of the Equestrian Third Age suggests that the word 'devil' came from a root word in Diamond Dog tongue meaning 'bone'. But that may be a tad bit redundant, considering that the Diamond Dog language has over forty-two words for 'bones'...”
“Ewwww—Bones? I prefer my cupcakes boneless. How about you?”
As the gaggle of young fillies continued to chat and murmur under the increasingly starry sky, a bored-looking Rainbow Dash hovered in the background, her arms folded. A dim glaze washed over her eyes, and she yawned—her brightly colored mane drooping over a groaning face.
“Yeah... .... ...This is lame. Screw this.” With a stealthy smirk, she twirled about in mid-air, spread her wings, and made for the sky--
---only to be yanked to a stop in mid-air, her eyes bulging. Scrkkkk!
“Where d'ya think yer sky-scamperin' off to, Missy?”
Rainbow Dash sighed long and hard, sagging in mid-hover. “Who's that mysteriously drawling voice biting onto my tail—Like I really have to flippin' ask?” She glared back over her shoulder.
Apple Jack's teeth were clamped over the Pegasus' prismatic tail. She spat out the hairs and trotted over so that her frowning face and hoarse voice could be tossed at Rainbow Dash beyond the range of the other ponies' hearing. “What in tarnation is yer deal? Are you fixin' to be a stick in the mud for a reason?”
“I could ask the same about you, buckarette!” Rainbow Dash hissed back. “You've been doing nothing all night but wrangling us all around Twilight Sparkle's side! Why're you treating us like cattle?”
“Ah ain't treatin' you like no livestock! If anything, Ah'm tryin' to stay in the spirit of friendship, which is the least Ah can say about you with your mopin' and your gripin' in the corner over here!”
“I'm not moping!” Rainbow Dash squeaks back.
“Watcha doin', then?”
“I'm being fashionably silent!”
“You were fixin' to fly away!”
“Lots of other places in Equestria are fashionable! Just listen to Miss Vampire over there--”
“Don't ya have a single guldarn'd inch of respect in that scrawny blue skeleton of yers?”
“Nope.”
Apple Jack growled under a whispery voice. “Look—Twilight's been through a lot and it would really mean the world to her if we could all hang by the filly's side—Even if for a little bit!”
“And we haven't been through a lot?” Rainbow Dash shrugged. “I can't count the number of times I nearly lost my neck looking for those Harmonies of Element rocks!”
“Ah thought you fancied yerself a little adventure every now and then!”
“Yeah—when I'm in the spotlight!”
“Unngh—Land'o'Goshen—You are stubborn as a dried up stump!” Apple Jack groaned. She looked briefly sad as she then said: “Don't you reckon it means something that you're supposed to represent Loyalty?”
“Yeah....” Rainbow Dash nodded. “It means I did my part--” She pointed a hoof to herself. “--and when it comes time that something else really big, bad, and ugly!sparkly comes to attack Equestria, then you guys can summon me again! Cuz then it'll be exciting around here once more!” She rolled her eyes boredly towards the other end of the balcony. “Not like this....this....Filly Scout Campfire Foalsitter Club Mush-Mush!”
“Don't you see, Rain'bo?” Apple Jack shook her head. “Tonight is about more than just a bunch of gabbin' nonsense! If you only paid a treasured moment like this some mind, then maybe you'd come to your senses about what we're all here for!”
“What?” The Blue Pegasus folded her arms and snorted. “Fate? Obligation?”
“Bein' happy, girl...” Apple Jack murmured. “Flyin' crazily around at the drop of a hat may get you places, Rain'bo. But Ah'd plum hate for you to miss out on something that's waitin' for you right here, below the clouds—If only ya stayed put for just once in yer life and gave it a look-see.” She sighed and gazed aside. “That's the funny thing about 'Loyalty'—Ah reckon—you gotta stay anchored in one place before you can learn to appreciate what it means to others... ...and maybe, just maybe...” She glanced up with glistening eyes. “--what it means to you.” A punctuated smile, or at least an attempt at one; and Apple Jack slowly turned about, trotting back to join the others murmuing and giggling on the edge of the balcony.
“... ... .... ... ...” Rainbow took a deep breath. She glanced skyward—towards the distant star-kissed clouds hovering invitingly overhead, like gray shades of the past. A breath—a breath that turned into a groan, and finally a sigh; and the Blue Pegasus touched her hooves down to the balcony and trotted over until she was side by side with the girls... .... ...or at least side by side with Fluttershy.
“H-Hey, Rainbow Dash... ...” She gently smiled.
“Hey yourself.” The multi-colored filly droned back. “So what are we doing; just sitting here and waiting for the moon?”
“Mmmmhmmm....”
“Nnngh...” Rainbow plopped down on folded hooves. “Great. Really thrilling.”
“I know, isn't it?” Fluttershy smiled, her snout tilting upwards.
Rainbow sweatdropped, glaring obviously at the yellow Pegasus. But—just then:
“Omigosh! There it is!” Twilight Sparkle jumped up to her hooves and bounced in place in the style of the Pink Pony flanking her. “It's rising! It's rising! Oh yes yes yes yes yes!”
“It is? This soon?” Rarity gasped.
“Where?” Apple Jack squinted, raising a hoof over her forehead. “Ah'm a Day Pony by trade—Where is the gosh darn'd thing?”
“Up there—Due East!” Twilight practically galloped sideways to the telescope and viciously swung it—nearly lopping off Pinkie's skull. (“Yowsers!”) “S-Sorry Pinkie Pie! Ohhhhh come on come on come on---” Twilight squinted through the telescope, gasped even harder, and nearly exploded as she pointed straight off the balcony's edge, her jaw gaping wide. “There!”
All five pairs of eyes followed her limb—And sure enough a silver flame rose liquidly over the mountains of the Eastern Horizon. For a brief second, the shadowy skeleton of Canterlot's spires were silhouetted by a bright white circle—And then the celestial object rose its virginal track upwards, casting a sheen of dim ivory over every crook and corner and niche of Ponyvillean architecture. The world was briefly transformed into the copper bottom of a glass jar, lit alive by a tight swarm of snow white lantern bugs looming high in the zenith.
Rarity's eyes were sapphire saucers, her horn flickering briefly with an absent-minded surge of magical enchantment. “Why....Wh-Why it's the brightest moonrise I've ever s-seen!”
“Oooooh....” Fluttershy's eyes sparkled.
“Hey! H-Hey!” Pinkie Pie pointed with a sharp gasp that betrayed her normally fearless self. “The shadow's gone! The shadow's gone!”
“Yes! Y-Yes it is!” Twilight nearly hyperventilated, rapidly switching her gaze from telescope to naked horizon to her new friends. “The Mare in the Moon has been vanquished! As soon as Luna was freed from the grips of Bitterness and Discord by the Elements of Harmony—the clouds of anguish left her! Look! L-Look at it! A true Full Moon—The Mare Shadow is gone!”
“Well Ah'll be....”
“Oooooooh....”
“My stars—It's far more beautiful than I could have imagined! Is this—Is this what the moon is going to look like from now on? So crystal clear and... and....r-radiant?”
“D-Don't you see?” Twilight beamed in a joy that nearly outshone the lunar object gracing the sky overhead. “Right now—Before our eyes—Is a New Moon! A New Moon for a New Age—The Fourth Age of Equestria! And we—all of us—w-w-we're all alive! All alive to witness th-this....” Twilight suddenly clamped her hooves over her mouth. Tears welled in the corner of her moon-lit eyes.
“Twi?” Apple Jack glanced over. “Are you okay, sugarcube?”
Twilight's breath choked, rattling its way towards a teeth gritting smile as the tears rolled down her cheeks. “Y-You have no idea how m-many times I've read about this....How often I dreamed th-that things would be this way—That Nightmare Moon w-would be vanquished, Harmony would prevail, and the New Age of the R-Reunited Sisters would....would....” She rubbed her eyes and gulped hard, shuddering. “I-I swear....it's positively too magical to be real.”
“Awwwww—How's this for realzies?” Pinkie Pie explosively hugged the violet-haired Unicorn.
“Mmmm-Darling, we're all so glad that you're happy.” Rarity trotted over and nuzzled her in addition.
Finally Apple Jack drifted in and rested a hoof on the shuddering Twilight's shoulder. “We all did good, didn't we? We harmonized the hayseed out of the Third Age!”
“With a Bang! Rmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm-kerpisshhhhh!” Pinkie glutteringly added.
“Heeheehee....” Twilight sniffled, took a shaking breath, and gazed emotionally towards her nuzzling companions. “Y-You wanna know th-the real reason I didn't stay in Canterlot j-just to see Luna raise the moon up close?”
“Why's that, Twilight?”
“Because....” She breathed deeply, gulped, and calmed herself in time to smoothely murmur: “I-I could have been with Princess Celestia, I could have been with the Royal Guard, I could have been in the same audience as all of Equestria's finest—But I wouldn't nearly have been happy as I am right now—right here in Ponyville—to be sharing this with all of you... ....With all of m-my friends...”
“Awwwwww...Heeheehee!”
“Darn tootin'!”
“Oh darling, you're going to make me fall apart into tiny little pieces!”
“We're very glad to have you with us, Twilight....” Fluttershy smiled. She glanced softly aside at Rainbow Dash.
“.... .... ...” Rainbow was gazing at Twilight in the center of the crowd. Her violet eyes were curved inward, as if navigating a murky minefield of confused sensations. She stared hard at Twilight Sparkle—how her tears ran down a smiling face, how they glittered in the New Moonlight, how they reflected the warmth of hugging friends so close to her. The blue Pegasus didn't know it yet, but these very things were about to be burned into the deepest and most secret walls of her mind, brushing elbows with memories that she had long cast by the wayside, memories that were always so easy to fly away from, but suddenly seemed so small and yet so huge at the same time.
She barely felt Fluttershy's nudging until the fourth time the yellow Pegasus' soft nose brushed against her. “Hmmm-What-What?” Rainbow Dash blinked her way.
“Are you okay, Rainbow Dash?”
“Pfft. Yeah. I don't get what all the fuss is about.”
“Heehee—Don't you?”
“Nnnnngh...... .... ...” She took a deep breath, clearing her throat and muttering towards the dimly lit heavens: “I give it about a week.”
“Give what a week?”
“This.” She motioned to Twilight. “That.” She motioned to the moon. “All of it.” She bowed her head towards herself.
“Do you really feel like that?” Fluttershy blinked.
“Sometimes....” Rainbow's voice was a dry river. “A lot of times, I just don't feel, Fluttershy.”
“Mmmm...” Fluttershy nodded. “Sometimes you don't have to feel, Rainbow Dash. You only have to be.”
Rainbow's head raised to glance at her, eyebrow raised. A strangely beating heart. Slowly, icily, a devil-care-smirk formed. “That easy, huh?”
“Mmmmm.......N-No....” Fluttershy blushed aside.
“Heeheehee....” Rainbow exhaled smilingly. “Tell you what...” Rainbow scooted over and stretched a wing out to rest on Fluttershy's shoulder. “You continue doing the 'Kindness' thing, and I'll work on the whole 'Loyalty' crud. How's that sound?”
“Deal.” Fluttershy smiled bashfully with a nod.
Rainbow Dash took a deep, therapeutic breath. As she felt Fluttershy's soft weight lean into her, she calmly observed as the other three fillies crowded around the telescope aimed at the great glowing moon, and Twilight Sparkle in turn.
“Aaaaaand—There! If you look closely, you can see the Valley of Ice—Where water is believed to have liquified near to the moon's poles.”
“Wow—OOOH! Kewlies! Kewlies! I can sooooo see it!”
“You reckon there's really water on the moon?”
“Well—I suppose Princess Luna could tell us all now! Ohhhh—I can't wait until she comes up with a memoir or something!”
“Ungh—Please, Twilight! How positively garrish that would be! Who would want to read a book about a thousand year imprisonment under the posession of an inharmonious spirit?”
“It's all about the history and science of the matter—Oooh! Pinkie, lemme move it again—Ahhh—There! That—yes, yes, yes—Omigosh! That has to be the gates to Ponymodium! Luna's Castle built out of Moondust! With the Mare in the Moon blanketing it all these years, it was always virtually unseen via telescope--(SQU-e-E-e-E-e-E!)--This is so exciting!”
“Hey, you think there're cupcakes on the moon?”
“Now why in the hay would there be cupcakes on the moon? Luna was imprisoned, not doin' take-out!”
“Oooh! I know! We should totally bake a bunch of cupcakes for Princess Luna!”
“Mmmm—The Breakfast of Queens.”
“Hahahaha!”
“Heh heh heh...”
“Heeheehee!”
The clear moon looms overhead, shimmering silver rays down onto the nightscape of Ponyville as Rainbow Dash rests there, gazing, staying in one place...
A deep breath, and she thins her eyes—She weathers another breeze that kicks against her mane of colors. Shuddering slightly, her violet optics flutter earthward, as many lonely quiet nights battle with fewer laughter-filled nights in the shadowed vestiges of her wilting head; she starts instinctively to murmur something, something she hasn't said since she was a young filly. Something like a prayer, a plead. But before it can so much as squeak forth into the chilly air--
“It's still so beautiful.”
Rainbow Dash gasps. Jumping undaintily up to her feet, she flashes a look over her shoulder—and immediately calms.
Twilight Sparkle stands on the hilltop behind Rainbow, smiling—gazing up towards the source of the silver shimmer that's reflecting off her violet eyes. A purple felt scarf flutters in the wind, fashioned snugly to her craning neck. She tosses her mane briefly before sitting down aside the blinking Pegasus and monologuing forth:
“Every night after night—Without fail—Luna has successfully and gracefully done her half of the Royal Duty. Every evening—since the week after we finally freed her with the Elements of Harmony—she's pulled this miracle off. And still, after all of these months—So many sleeps taken for granted, so many fresh mornings spent alive—It never ceases to amaze me. The Fourth Age is here; the Fourth Age is now. And we stand on the threshhold of a new era—Not knowing what tomorrow may bring, but always invigorated by a gorgeous moonrise.”
Rainbow Dash feels an impulse to groan or yawn—but for some reason feels utterly compelled to do neither; she merely stands there, waiting for Twilight to get her words out.
And she does—turning around to smirk up at Rainbow.
“How's it feel, Rainbow?”
“Er.....” The Pegasus shifts nervously. “H-How's what feel?”
Twilight smiles sweetly. A slight giggle. “To have been a part of bringing in a New Moon to this world?”
“Hmmm....” Rainbow Dash shrugs. “Don't look at me. That was all you, girl. Well—All Luna, but because of you—I guess. 'Magic Spark' and all. Then the bling around our necks. Then the flashing lights. Da da da daaaaa. Power Ponies. Mare-a-Zord. Bingo!”
“Heeheehee....” Twilight Sparkle folds her limbs under her and gazes down the hillside towards the tranquil rooftops of Ponyville. “You may not be Pinkie Pie, Rainbow. But you have your own brand of random.”
“Boy, would that be a sideshow in the making!” She pads over and squats down besides Twilight, both ponies resting on the crest of the moonlit hilltop. “I'd have to open up an 'Awesomecube Corner'. All-you-can-eat-kicks-in-the-head from nine to five. Free Sonic Rainboom refills. You pay for your melting eyes in Wonderbills. Last one who survives gets a special autograph from yours truly and then a free key to the underground vault so as to escape the fiery catapults from all other living things who want to grab my signature from her.”
“Okay—You can stop proving me wrong.” Twilight drones.
“That's why you don't write checks that your flank can't catch.” Rainbow nods, then adds with a nonchalant: “How's it hoofin', Twi?”
“Mmmm—I was out here looking for you, actually.”
Rainbow winces. “Yeesh—Don't say that. You'll creep the moment away.”
“Oh—Are w-we having a moment?”
“Sure, why not?” Rainbow yawns and plops down, exhaling a flurry of loose grass blades into the starry night. “Nnnnngh....”
Twilight raises a humored eyebrow. “Long day?”
“Yeah. About eighty-five pages worth.”
“R-Really?” Twilight's neck cranes back as her face distorts into a wretch of disbelief. “Your letter to the Princess is that long?”
“No, not that—I was talking about the ponyf—Ugh....” Rainbow Dash shakes her head so that we can skip that line. “But on that topic, yeah—I've written a lot; darn you to heck.”
“Awwww—Was it really that much of a chore?”
“Errr....Dghh—Well, at first it was kind of crazy boring. But then—I dunno...” Rainbow Dash gazes down at her hooves kneading the earth. “You told me to write from the heart. But that didn't work so well for me—So I settled for halfway and wrote from the gut. I hope that makes you happy.”
Twilight giggles again. “I'm not the one you should be concerned with making happy.”
“Why not? You're the one who talked me into doing this hoof-cramping thing to begin with.”
“Well...” Twilight gazes aside, blushing slightly. “I was kinda sorta wanting to find you so that I could ask you about your progress--”
“--if you would call it that.”
“What, you're close to being done?”
“I....uhm....” Rainbow blinks. She glances back and fiddles with the weight of the scroll tucked under her left wing. “.....I....I-I dunno. I've certainly written a lot of nonsense. I guess you can only go on for so long before you need to trim stuff down and make it all presentable--”
“It's a personal letter, Rainbow. Not a novel.”
“Heh, if you say so.” The Pegasus chuckles and gazes down at Ponyville. “Knowing you, Twilight, Of Mice and Mares by John Steinbuck is nothing more than a hurricane pamphlet.”
“Well, I have full faith that you put together something that'll be integral to Princess Celestia's understanding of our most recent discovery.”
“I....eheheh...” Rainbow Dash nervously sweatdrops and stirs from where she squts. “I-I'm not too sure that the Princess is exactly gonna get any of this. I'm not sure even if I get any of this.”
“Oh you're just being hard on yourself.”
“Twilight—Don't you think that a Princess is the last person you'd want to expose to one's personal dribble on other ponies and their personalities and their feelings and their--” She stops midway, wilting under the cold gaze of a not-so-humored Twilight.
“Jee—I dunno. Does anypony else you know inundate the Royal Matriarch of Sun-rising with Friendship anecdotes—like—everyday?”
Rainbow Dash gulps and smiles nervously. “Guess I'm not the only who's coming form the gut today.”
“Hmmm...” Twilight cocks her head to the side with a gentle grin. She flings the loose end of the breeze-blown scarf back around her neck. “So, you're close to finished?”
“Meh. Call me done.” Rainbow Dash flaps her wing, rolls the scroll over her neck, juggles it with her skull and snout—then clasps it in her hoof. “It's a far-far better thing than I've ever chicken-scratched before. And I mean that in every possibly literal expression you could ever want to vomit onto paper.”
“Whew! I can tell what a day of writing has done for you!” Twilight chuckles. “I'm not sure if I should be scared or not.”
“Will you just take the dang scroll?”
“Okay, okay, Rainbow...” The violet haired Unicorn reaches her hoof for the scroll. Her reach stops about halfway as her eyes fall upon a wayward thought drifting through the darkness between her and her Pegasus friend.
Rainbow Dash merely raises a curious eyebrow, watching with unnerving patience as a gentle breeze kicks against them both, stretching the moment. Twilight gazes up, her eyes deep pools of violet sincerity.
“You do realize—That if you never had flown that one fateful day, so many years ago, to defend Fluttershy's honor—We wouldn't be here tonight, having this conversation, working together to bring a letter to the Princess that reveals so much about....about....” A deep breath, a gentle smiling rising up from within. “.... ...about how tiny things in a huge world can bring complete strangers together and make their lives complete—and not just their lives, but the lives of countless others...”
“Countless others... ... ...?” Rainbow Dash squints. “The heck are you getting on?”
“Have you ever thought about it—I mean really thought about it, Rainbow?” Twilight Sparkle takes a shuddering breath. “I mean, I know it's been less than twenty-four hours since we all found out about how we got our cutie marks... ... ...But I've lost sleep over it. Because it occurred to me—Without our pasts, we'd never have become friends. Without our friendships, we'd never have found the Elements of Harmony. And without the Elements of Harmony... ... ...” She gazes solemnly up into the silver glow of the night. “... ....would we really be enjoying this beautiful clear moon we have above us now?”
“... ... ... ...” Rainbow Dash gazes at her, up at the sky, at her, then at the sky again. “Beats me—Can I take the Physical Challenge?”
“Rainbow!!!”
“Seriously--”
“I too am serious!” Twilight sighs, shakes her head, and smiles helplessly. “Oh well. I guess it's just silly me. You know I always get so sentimental over... ....over stuff like this.”
“Twilight...” Rainbow briefly groans. “You know me as well. I don't hold too much weight in....in....well—in everything like you do! I'm sure if the past was different, fate would have—er—arranged the Elements of Harmony to do what they needed to do, even without us.”
“But what we have—This world we live in—The friendship that we share... ... ...it's about more than fate. And this isn't just about the Elements of Harmony—but about your Sonic Rainboom as well.” She smiles, eyes moistening like a stone skipping across the puddle of yesterday. “It's magic. Always has been, always will be. I....I-I hope, Rainbow, that you understand exactly how much this... ...erm.......h-how much you mean to me.”
“.... ... .... ...” Rainbow Dash stares blankly back. She does all she can to ignore a growing lump in her throat.
“Mmmm—Ahem. But I could go on and on and on and on and on and on--” Twilight laughs nervously to herself, sniffles herself dry, clears her throat, and reaches all the way for the scroll. “Here, lemme relieve you already--”
“No.” Rainbow pulls the scroll back.
Twilight blinks at her.
“Erm....that is....Eheh...” The Blue Pegasus coughs, bites her lip, then bravely smiles. “I-I-I think I've got....g-got one last thing to write about. If th-that's kewl with you.”
“.... ... ...” Twilight Sparkles smiles warmly back at her. “And I know just where you can do it.”
“Spike!” Twilight Sparkle calls forth as she trots in through the front door to her library/tree/house/playset interior. “We've got company!”
“Twilight! Finally--!” The stumpy little draconian scampers over breathlessly. “Where in Equestria have you been? Pinkie Pie says that everyone's in place and all you need to do is fetch--” The violet-scaled whelp freezes in place at the sight of Rainbow Dash, his eyes bulging. He slumps back on his heels and fiddles his claws behind his back. “Err—I mean. Ahem. Twilight?” He cackles in overexuberant gravitas. “Company?! Th-This late?! What's the world coming to?!”
“Spike... ...” Twilight Sparkle smiles cooly, whipping her scarf off and hanging it from a nearby rack. “It's barely seven-thirty.” She clears her throat, her betrayingly razor sharp eyes darting back and forth between him and the general area of the multi-colored visitor.
“Yeah, but...” He leans forward and whispers not-so-subtley in the Unicorn's flickering ear. “When the little hand is on eight... ... ..” He blinks once more up at Rainbow Dash and sweats sulfuric bulbs. “... ....sarsaparilla hits the fan.”
“Will you just relax?” Twilight hisses back, breathily.
Rainbow Dash throats: “Hey, you two—Doesn't Pictionary require a marker board?”
“Ahem—We were just... ...Uhm....” Spike gulps, glancing between Twilight and Rainbow Dash. “... ...discussing....the next meteor shower?”
“I thought Twilight had said that there wasn't going to be a meteor shower for another month...”
“Did I say meteor shower?” Spike toys nervously with his tail. “Wh-What I meant was partial-lunar-eclipse! Twilight Sparkle and I know these things. Why? Because books!”
“Be a good dragon and fetch me something from—I dunno—the furthest part of the library.”
“To the Fitness Section I go!” Spike trots past the Blue Pegasus. “Hiya, Dashie.”
“Hey yourself, Sprocket. Looking good.”
He glares at her. “Yanno, ponies tend to call me 'Spike'.”
“Yeah, good luck with that. Twilight?--Got a writing spot somewhere in this place that actually isn't pot-marked by the impression of your hooves?”
“Heeheehee—Maybe. Here, follow me--” Twilight trots up the steps with Rainbow hovering in tow. After a winding ascent, she nudges a door open to a third story room with a double paneled window looking out onto the Town Square of central Ponyville. “This is my new favorite writing place—And I promise you that it doesn't smell like bookmarks yet.”
“I bet it smells like bookmar--” Rainbow Dash does a double-take. “Well aren't you quick at the draw?”
“Hee-hee-hee—It helps to be prepared.”
“The day you learn to predict me, Twilight, is the day I eat Apple Jack's hat.”
“I'll be sure to tell her that.”
“Yeah, just don't tell her hat.” Rainbow Dash trots up to a podium propped up against the window as Twilight magically lights a pair of lanterns on either side. Laying the parchment of the letter onto the podium, Rainbow produces Scootaloo's metal writing utensil and slides it firmly over her left hoof.
“Ooooh....” Twilight smiles, glancing at the object as she finishes lighting the last lantern. “An Earth Pony writing brace!”
“You mean you've seen one of these things before?”
“Well—In books.”
“What don't you see in books, Twilight? I swear—one day you'll get married, but the honeymoon will get canceled cuz the groom will have to go back into the drop box by 6pm.”
“Heeheehee—Several philosopher ponies of the Third Age used devices like this to write some of the most important ethical dissertations of our culture. Aristrotle, Descolte, Neightzsche, Camule—None of them could slow down too much or else their brilliant thoughts would fly straight off the pages and into oblivion. But—I must say—this is the most elegant looking type I've seen...”
“Let's just say that history has a nifty way of repeating itself. Especially in the hooves of petite, pink-haired pipsqueaks.” Rainbow Dash takes a deep breath. “Okay, Twi—I'm good here....I guess. Thanks for the light and all.”
“Anytime! But just one last thing--” Twilight trots over and nudges the windows open with two hooves. A gentle cool breeze wafts into the tiny room, infecting the lofty study with the purplish haze of tranquil night. “I find that the fresh evening air is not only relaxing, but a great service to one's muse.”
“But what if I don't muse so much as I misuse?”
“The key is that you relax, Rainbow Dash. And write from the heart—or the gut—whatever pleases you most.” Twilight bows out, smiling. “I'll be downstairs if you need anything.”
“How about a bottle of tap dancing explosions?”
“What?”
“Nothing. I'm good!”
“Heheh—Okai....” Twilight Sparkle makes to trot out of the room. Her quadrapedal form lingers briefly, and she glances back—her horn a humble silhouette in the dozy lantern light. “And Rainbow....?”
“Yeah, Twi? What is it?”
“Thank you....Thank you so very much for this...”
Rainbow Dash raises an eyebrow. She looks curiously back from where she squats before the podium.
Twilight's smile is like the edge of a New Moon, brightening: “What you're writing, what you've done, and who you are—it's all very important to me, and to the rest of us girls. For....For a while there, I sometimes feared that you were tempted to leave our little circle of friends. But then—I dunno—something changed, and you're still here. I don't mean to say that I ever once doubted your loyalty, Rainbow Dash. But I feel like I've sometimes underestimated—well—just how happy you really have been. And for that, I-I am sorry....”
“It's........ ..... ...” Rainbow Dash shifts nervously, smiling with no less awkwardness. “It's quite alright, Twilight. D-Don't be such a nerd about....er....the sweet stuff...”
“Eheh....of c-course...” Twilight blushes slightly. Smiling, she backs out of the room and nods. “I'll let you write now, Rainbow Dash. Good luck.”
The blue Pegasus nods. Twilight exits, and the pen-equipped speedster is alone. But the seconds tick into minutes, and she finds herself simply sitting there, gazing blankly out the open window of the loft study. The sudden abyss of unassuming downtown Ponyville stares back, and Rainbow Dash becomes suddenly aware of how thick her pulse is underneath her skin. The parchment lies out on the podium before her, but she does not write.
She stands up and turns around, trotting out the study and descending slowly down the winding stairway. Halfway to the first floor, she pauses, and gazes quietly at the scene. From above, Rainbow Dash sees Twilight Sparkle, sees her nonchalantly rearranging old photos on the shelf of her family in Canterlot, hears her humming a pleasant tune to herself, spots a distant smile on the Unicorn's lips—when the violet pony doesn't expect anyone to be noticing. After the space of half a minute, Rainbow Dash quietly trots back up. She returns to the study, approaches the podium, and raises her metal-braced pen with a slow and meditative breath:
“Princess Celestia, I would like to finish this letter by telling you about somepony whom you don't know—Somepony named Twilight Sparkle.
“You may know a certain star pupil of yours who is an expert at Canterlotlian magical arts. You may be familiar with Ponyville's newest denizen and lead librarian. You've undoubtedly read many of the letters that a certain purple colored unicorn has written to you about many of her friends and all of the complicated-yet-simple things she learns about being a good, healthy member of Equestrian society. But I have to ask—and do forgive me for my boldness or rudeness or Pegasus grit or whatever—Do you truly, truly know Twilight Sparkle?
“Well, I do. She's a nerd. She's a bookworm. She's a stiff neck at a rock concert, a tangled-hoof at a dance party. She needs a manual to have sleepovers, she needs a written tutorial to speak out loud to a handsome colt passing by. There are none who are more boring, more absent-minded, more ridiculously wordy, or more obsessive compulsive than her.
“But in spite of all that crazy fluff—Twilight Sparkle is still my friend. And she's not my friend because she's some freakjob of fate and circumstance. She's not my friend because the Elements of Harmony said so. She's not even my friend because some crazy lucky Sonic Rainboom performed by yours truly made her get her act together at age seven.
“Twilight Sparkle is my friend because she gives me hope. She proves to me that I'm cooler than most ponies, and yet she reminds me that there are many ponies to whom I owe my apologies. She makes me realize that I can do awesome things, and yet I'm very capable of doing really cruddy things. She's like an emotionally sensitive litmus test of all the good things and bad things I am, reflected back at me in her curious and almost foal-like eyes. But why does all of this give me hope? It's because in spite of all of her shortcomings and all of my shortcomings, when I'm in the presence of Twilight Sparkle, I can somehow expect that life in Equestria will only get better. There's something infectious about being a friend to somepony who is just now discovering what friendship is. You realize that you are a part of something important, just as you are an important part in her life—As you see her smile when you enter the room or you see her cringe when you do something stupid or you see her flare up when you do something even stupider.
“Twilight Sparkle reminds me that things can begin anew. Here's a girl who rose from zero-to-hero in terms of popularity; a total shut-in at Canterlot became a galloping social hub in Ponyville. And did she do it by being a jerk? Did she get so many friends by being a total flake and buying all of our attention? Did she waltz in, demand the spotlight, and make us all feel like pawns in her magical crusade of enchanted Unicorning? Heck no—on all counts. But rather—Twilight was honest, she was kind, she was generous and laughable and loyal—all of the things that define the rest of us, she embodies just by being herself. And as she needed friends to remind her what it meant to be alive, we needed just one life to teach us what it meant to be friends.
“Just a few pathetic months ago, I would not even think of saying any of this out loud—much less in a written letter to the Princess of Equestria. Call this what you want—a moment of clarity, a sappy tug of the heartstrings, a bad case of equine indigestion; but I think I get it all now. Loyalty means more than just being around someone; it means giving them the grace to be around you. I could have flown away from Twilight's fresh little 'circle' here in Ponyville flippin' eons ago; could have bucked her off my back like a blood sucking tick. But, for whatever reason, I haven't. And it's not like I planned it all out from the start—But I think Twilight is actually a happier pony today because I stuck around for longer than it took us to gather some boring rocks to fight back Nightmare Moon. She didn't just need a friend for a day—she needed a friend to get used to, to squeeze into the cubbyhole beside and wriggle her hooves with, so to speak.
“Being around Twilight Sparkle is very inspiring, because everything is a new discovery for her. And everything she writes to you is tasty and amazing because it really is all so 'fresh'. But, as much as I hate to say it, the day you find out for yourself who Twilight Sparkle is—the day you learn what lies beneath the violet coat of your apt pupil—is not when she learns something new about a friend, but shen she loses that friend herself. But, because I know who Twilight Sparkle is, because I've seen her laugh and I've seen her cry, because for some silly reason I see her in my head whenever I'm doing something nice or doing something stupid—I feel almost a supernatural tug to do all that is in my power to keep her from losing that friend, to keep her from losing me, as I have failed so many times in the past—with all faults solely my own—to keep myself from splitting with those who used to be my 'friends'. I don't want Twilight to experience that—not yet. She's best if she stays Twilight, not so much if she becomes Rainbow Dash.
“Maybe this is the real reason why I've been forced at hoof-point to make this letter to you, Princess Celestia. It's not to get you to know more about me—the most awesome Pegasus in all of Cloudsdale. It's not to explain to you how important that first Sonic Rainboom was. It's all about Twilight Sparkle—somehow everything comes full circle to her. I suppose it's fitting; she was the one who asked me to write this drivel to begin with. And, for better or for worse, it's hopefully done something that I didn't originally intend, but is kinda kewl anyways. This letter has told you about somepony named Twilight Sparkle—a pony who admires you far too much than she could ever stammer forth in your presence, a pony who wants what's best for everyone around her, a pony whom I can't quit—who's put this dang annoying thing in my gut called a conscience.
“She's a pony who, if I have anything to do about it, won't learn the bitter truth about friendship—that it can end, like all things end. I don't think Twilight can live securely in the beat of the moment like I can—it's still not too late for her, don't you see?
“And so I end this letter, feeling like my hoof is gonna frickin' fall off, but even more so feeling like I've said way too much than I really wanted to and it was all thrushed upon my flank like a branding iron. But hey—anything for Twi. That's what we call her around Ponyville, by the way: 'Twi'. When you live down here among the peasants of Ponyville, Princess, and your name is really just a souped up jumbilation of a common noun or two—You do wyrd things to get creative. Twi doesn't like being called 'Twi' so much, but Twi can handle what we dish out to Twi—because Twi likes it so much. Ew, that sounded kinky.
“I don't know if I'm going to have to edit this thing or hoofread it or what. I tried going back a few pages and reading it myself but it put me to sleep. And I really can't expect you to respond or whatnot—You being busy with, oh I dunno, the mother flippin' Sun and all. I suppose I might bump into you—er—prance up gracefully and bow before you at the Grand Galloping Gala next month. Or—heck—even better! The A.W.A.—The Annual Wonderbolts Airshow is in Canterlot the week after next! Speaking of Twi being all swell and 'TWI'—She bought two tickets to the Airshow. Assuming she's pleased with this letter, she's likely to give yours truly a front row seat alongside her! Yeah, I know, that may seem like a bizarre example of exploitation on behalf of your star pupil—But what's it matter? Any chance I get to see the Wonderbolts perform in pony is worth dying for! If nothing else, then just to see Soarin do his triple-barrel-roll over spewing fireworks, or Swiftwing do his quadruple sonic aircanterblast, or Spitfire do her spine twirling gravity death plunge, or Shattersky's smoke trailing cloud hop, or Shredfeather and Slamstar the Cloudsdalian twins performing their double zig-zagging pyrotechnic cloudswe—CRACKKKKKK!
Rainbow Dash blinks, her eyes wide. Before her—at the end of viciously chickenscratching the last exciting paragraph, the metal brace of Scootaloo's design has snapped into brittle brass shards. The pen has fallen down and rolled onto the floor; the letter, in all of its dramatic length and sincerity, remains unfinished.
“...... .... .... ...well, shoot.” Rainbow Dash's violet eyes twitch. She picks up the shattered bits of the metal brace and raises them to a squinting inspection. “Hmmmm... .... ...nnnnghh—Freakin' pipsqueak. Last time you buy parts from Mexicolt, I swear to Alicornia.”
A sigh. Rainbow Dash scoots back and bends down under the table, searching with hooves and wingtips for the runaway pen.
“Where in the heck did you go? When I find you, I'm gonna hunt down your entire family and fill their inkwells with graphite.” Thud! “Owie! Dang podium—Twilight's cozy study is gonna coze my blood to a boil. Where are we--?”
Suddenly, a swift gust of wind barrels through the window of the room.
“--ahHA! There you are, ya little ceiling tile piercing! Finally, now to--” Rainbow Dash sits back up in front of the podium with the pen. She freezes. “... .... ...”
Every sheet of paper is gone.
“.... ... ....” Rainbow Dash blinks. She gulps. She stands up, tilting her head and shakily glancing out the window....
Below, in the night-drenched shadows of the Ponyville road, eight sheets of parchment can be seen fluttering in a gaggle of paper chaos. Before the Pegasus' horrified eyes, they roll directly into a thick puddle of brown mud. After two and a half seconds of bitter soiling, an old workhorse clops absent-mindedly across the street, thundering his elderly hooves savagely over the soiled sheets, followed by two of his splintery sharp wagon wheels. Another burst of wind, and four of the wet sheets shred themselves into a hundred soggy pieces—ambling on into the night. Half a spastic eye twitch later, a shadowed creature patters out from the nearby bushes, gathers three soiled sheets in its racoon claws, nibbles a sizeable chunk of them into mush, and hurriedly carries the remaining bits off into the wilderness beyond Ponyville. The very last page lingers for a few absurd seconds...before spontaneously bursting into flames—Well, not quite. But why not?
“Y-Yeah, why not...?” Rainbow Dash dryly gulps, her hair a sudden sweaty mat of color palettes drooping defeatedly around her ghostly pale face. “Uhhhhh.....?”
“How's the letter coming, Rainbow Dash?” Twilight sing-songs from downstairs. “It's almost eight o'clock. I'm sorry I forgot to mention it earlier, but I-I kind of need to make a last minute delivery someplace soon....”
“Uhmmmmmm....” Rainbow Dash bites her lip, sweating bullets. “Fuuuuuu--”
“Rainbow Dash? Is everything alright up there?”
“Uhhhh—No—YES! Um--” She flashes her head towards the doorway to the study. “Everything is---er---Fine and dandy! Easy breezey! I—Uh....”
“Need me to come up there and help you with something?” Cloppity-clop-clop noises, approaching...
“No! Er—I mean yes—But you don't need to come in here! Your voice sounds really killer awesome from the acoustics of the hallway—outside the room. Not inside. Outside. Er—Tell me, Twilight—Uh....H-How do you spell Deeyuss Exmakeena?”
“'Deus Ex Machina'? Why, that's simple! 'D-E-U---'”
Rainbow Dash mounts the podium, bites her lip, flashes one look over her shoulder, two, three—flexes her wings—and zooms straight out the window in a blue blur.
Swoosh! Rainbow Dash lands in front of the mud puddle in the middle of the street. Wincing, she plops a hoof into the soggy body of water and digs for the last remaining shred of written parchment. “Come on come on come on—Please at least be a page where I didn't write upside down or use ellipses like a transmitted disease!” She hisses, fishes around, and finally yanks the soiled clump of dangling tissue out. “Ah-HA!” Half a breath, and the things dissolves in her grasp like hourglass dust into the Ponyvillean night air. “Nnngh--!” She pounds her hooves into the splashing puddle. “Hraaaaaaughhh! Equianu Reeves on a bench! I swear to gawd—they named me 'Dash' cuz that's what happens to all my friggin' luck!”
She takes a deep breath, glances behind her at the lights glowing from Twilight Sparkle's house. A sore-throated gulp, and she starts glancing and trotting and flapping and prancing around the center courtyard of Ponyville, murmuring and gasping to her frazzled self.
“Okay. Okay. Okayokayokay. Just stay calm. All I need to do is...is f-find some paper and rewrite all twelve hours of work in twenty seconds and I won't have to see Twilight Sparkle's disappointed face for the umpteenth time since it's first ever been burned into my Celestia-forsaken retinae!” She glances under a rock. “Paper?” She fumbles through a trash bin. “Yoohoo, paper?” She fingers and bats at a bush full of leaves. “Hey, are you paper?” She nibbles on a few dry leaves, makes a face, and vomits them out. “Bleachk—Okay....maybe if I just....uhhh......settled for leather instead.” A shuddering, eye-twitching glance across the lengths and breadths of the lantern-lit townscape. “Now—Just who can I skin alive that nopony's gonna miss?”
A sideways beating of wings from above. “Good evening to you, Mister Squirrel!”
Rainbow Dash glances up—her violet eyes widen. “D-Ditzy!”
“That's my name!” The gray-coated Pegasus smiles, fluttering down to the Earth and walking up to a house while fumbling for keys from the mail satchel hanging over her shoulder. “Though I much rather prefer my birth title, 'Anastasia'....”
“You're—Uh—You're....d-delivering mail this late?” Rainbow Dash sneaks up behind her, sweatily burning a hole through her skin with two psychotic eyes. They briefly blink to normal as she mutters aside to herself: “Nah. No way in heck that gray flesh would absorb the ink...”
“What was that, Mister Squirrel?”
“N-Nothing! Wh-What brings you to Ponyville?”
“Heheh—This is where I live, silly!” Ditzy grins Rainbow's way, or at least she tries to. Her eyes have minds of their own and their minds take them in opposite directions from the Blue Pegasus. “After a long day of delivering postage, there's nothing I love more than returning home to my baby girl—Except maybe returning home with a check from the Ex.”
“You have a d-daughter?”
“Yupperooni!” Ditzy blinks and taps her chin. “Sometimes, when I tilt my head forty-five degrees, I have two of 'em! Thankfully, they only have one hungry mouth between them. Well, nice talking to you! Wherever you are.”
“Uhhhhh--” Rainbow Dash glances back over her shoulder at Twilight's house, cringes, nearly pops an artery in her skull, and finally spins back—pointing a hoof straight skyward. “Omigosh—Look! A red herring!”
“Where?!” Ditzy turns to look up, gasping.
Rainbow holds her breath, stretches, leans, and snakes a hoof into Ditzy's satchel. She yanks out the first paper scroll she can find. “Frickin' score...!”
“Mister Squirrel, I'm looking and I'm looking but I don't see any red herring!”
“That's okay, Ditzy! It's been my experience that most ponies never do!” Rainbow Dash takes off with a mighty swish of her wings. “You'vebeenalotofhelpKaythanksbye!” SWOOSH!
Ditzy scratches her skull. “That squirrel gets sillier and sillier. Oh well.” She opens the door to her house and trots in, smiling. “Darling, Mommy's home! H-Hey, arlight! I've got twins again!”
Zoop! Rainbow Dash leaps in through the double windows, closes them, and slumps down—panting--before the podium. As the lanterns rock and shake above her, she clamors through the wavering light to grasp her barely ink-filled pen.
Twilight is still going on in the hallway: “--but 'Deus Ex Machina' was also a term that referred to a common setpiece in Third Age Flankspearean plays when they needed to suspend a 'ghostly supernatural' character from beneath the stage to above the crowd in an old fashioned simulation of levitation. You see, Pegasi were never known for their prowess on stage and it was up to artistic Earth Ponies to come up with their own effects--”
“Yeah! Sounds really awesome Twi! Thanks! You can shut up now—Uhm—BFF, sweetie! Thankiessss.” Rainbow Dash sweatily grins. “Eheheheh--” She all but slams her upper body down point blanc against the pilfered parchment that she's now unfurling across the podium. Her violet eyes briefly register a colorful advertisement of several edible foodstuffs—all of which disappear in a blink as she slaps the unrolled scroll to its other side and shakily sticks a pen to the top of it in a panicked attempt at starting a paragraph. “OhgoshOhgoshOhgosh—What the heck do I write? Think—Dang it! Think like you've never thought before--” She goes crosseyed. “Crud, but then that would be a first!”
“Rainbow Dash--?”
“Just one last secondddd!” Rainbow Dash all but hyperventilates, wrestling with the pen and paper. “Uhh......uhm....let's see....uhh....” She chicken-scratches:
“Dear Celestia the Princess how's it hoofin'? Sonic Boomrain and friendship is the Awesome and Apple Jack smells like hay - I kick clouds while Rarity is a generous vampire who likes Pinkie Pie and I like Pinkie Pie but we all like Twilight Sparkle the most including me except I like winning even moresoest and friendship is totally awesome and those who don't agree should probably just kill themselves unless you accidentally drop the Sun into the Earth and then we'd all have nothing to worry about and I forgot the purple dragon's stupid name and what else what else Oh Yes Fluttershy is my best fri--”
Twilight Sparkle walks in. “Everything cool?”
CLAP! Rainbow Dash leans a suave elbow on a haphazardly rolled up, slightly bent-out-of-shape scroll on the podium. She grins at the violet Unicorn, her multi-colored hair settling as if suddenly recovering from a forty-five mile plunge through the stratosphere. “When have I ever—ever been coolor than I am right this very dang second? Huh? Huh?”
“... .... ...” Twilight blinks. “O-Kaaaaaaaaaaay....” A nervous side-giggle. “I-I-I didn't mean to interrupt your letter to the princess. I just--”
“Letter to the PRINCESS!!” Rainbow Dash slaps her knee with a hoof. “HA-HA-HA—Owwww--” She rubs her knee, wincing, then clears her throat. “Ahem—Oh yeah we totally baked that cake and ate it! Totally finished! Everything you ever asked of me totally completed as to your heart's desire—And--Uhm--The Princess' desire too, totally—Cuz she also has a heart, and hopefully a pair of eyes to read with and then tell what the letter is saying to that heart.....from my gut... ... ...my gut to the Princess' heart. Yup. Ahem.” Rainbow Dash stares, stares, stares, and smiles wide, eyebrow twitching.
“.... ...... ...Well...at least you...erm....Enjoyed y-yourself?” Twilight nervously scrapes at the floor with a random hoof in front of her.
“Pffft—Do you wear a pink diaper?”
Twilight giggles. “Well, if you're sure that you're done—I could do you the favor of relieving the letter from your hooves, Rainbow Dash. I know you're a girl who likes her freedom in the sky, and I'm sorry for having bogged you down so much with the last second request to write to Princess Celestia.”
“Oh....Oh ho ho ho ho ho....Eheheh...” Rainbow Dash chuckles nervously, motioning a hoof boredly into the air while still leaning against the scroll. “Bog me down? Me? Rainbow Dash--?”
“So you'll let me deliver the letter, then?” Twilight Dash reaches a hoof forward.
“NO!--” Rainbow blurts, gasps, cringes, clears her throat, then stammers: “Er, what I mean is—Are you sure? Maybe I could just.....ehhh... .... ....H-Hang onto it a little bit. Maybe....Uhm....P-Perfume it?”
Twilight raises an eyebrow. “Perfume it? You?”
“Do you have any idea how much the sky smells? For real! I-I-I can't blame a Unicorn for being ignorant of the clouds' fragrance and all, but—seriously—You ever ever wonder where all the farts in Equestria go? It ain't a pretty scene. And it'd be a shame for....for....” Rainbow Dash lingers, biting her lip.
For Twilight Sparkle is trying her best to smile in understanding, but the corner of her mouth is twitching. A sadness deeply shimmers from behind her strong pair of eyes, attempting to hold firm a dam of confidence against a great deluge of anxiety and confusion. She kneads the ground with the front hoof, her tail flicking in an identically absent-minded telegram of her potentially shot down dreams.
“.... ... .... ...” Rainbow Dash takes a deep breath—a great muted groan that flounders through the hollow depths of her being—and she relents with a grunting voice: “Eh, yanno--? The Princess probably has guards who spritz all her letters with Cloven Clein before it gets to her.” And before she knows it, Rainbow Dash is handing the hastily bound scroll over to--
“Heeeee—Thank you, Rainbow Dash!” Twilight beams, telekinetically floating the 'letter' towards herself. “You have no idea what this means to me!”
Rainbow Dash blinks at her own empty hoof, then at Twilight. A vicious sweatdrop creeps a snail's path down her left temple as she crookedly grins: “Right. What's the worst that could happen?”
Twilight Sparkle trots gaily out the study and down the winding steps. “I'll be sure to send this to Princess Celestia right away!”
“Uhmm—Tw-Tw-Twi! Are you...er....” Rainbow Dash hovers after her towards the first floor of the library. “Are y-you really sure that you wanna send that thing in the morning?”
“In the morning?” Twilight giggles. “Don't be so silly! I'd never do that....!”
“Whew....” Rainbow Dash exhales and murmurs to herself. “I may still have time--”
“The morning is when Princess Celestia raises the Sun!” Twilight steps into the main room of the library, smiling. “I'm sending this to her now! Spiiiike!”
“Nnghkkkt--!” Rainbow Dash pops a blood vessel. “N-N-N-Now?”
“I don't have a purple baby dragon for nothing, you know.” Twilight slyly winks.
ZIIIP! “You called, Twilight?” The drake-lite in question salutes.
“OhhorseapplesOhhorseapples...” Rainbow Dash nibbles on the ends of her hooves.
“Rainbow Dash is done with her letter.” Twilight Sparkle regails him with an elegant upturn of the chin. She drops the scroll telekinetically into his grasp. “Send this to Princess Celestia—At once.”
“Unnngh—Twilight....!” The whelp slumps, slothily shrugging his shoulders. “You know I can't teleport letters this late at night....!”
“Whew....” Rainbow Dash breathes.
“....not without eating a few gems first!”
“Hckkk--!” Rainbow twitches again.
“Fine, whatever, Spike! Just get 'er done. And...Uhm...” Twilight briefly blushes. “Is it--”
“Eight o'clock?” He frowns up at his 'boss' and points at an invisible watch on his scaled wrist. “Ten minutesssss ago! Did I tell you, or did I--?” He glances Rainbow Dash's way. He chuckles nervously. “Eheheh—-Sendingtheletternow.” He dashes off to the side. Rainbow Dash blinks, looking at him as he saunters over to a basket full of gyms and starts hungrily scarfing a few of the multicolored rocks down his tiny razor-sharp maw.
All the while, Twilight Sparkle paces back over to the Pegasus' side, murmuring about one thing or another: “Like I said earlier, Rainbow Dash, I gotta make a last second delivery to Town Hall. I know that you've done so much for me today with writing that letter, and I hate to be a bother—But I was wondering if you could be so kind as to help me with the delivery? It's just a brisk trot across town, and barely a trip's worth of books—But you being here would make it so much easier, and the Mayor would be indebted as well to have these research materials. So, whaddya say?... ....Rainbow Dash?”
“.... .. ...” The Pegasus stares, gradually pailing with each icy second as she watches the purple whelp down one gem, two, three—then finally lurch as a belch rises up from his system. The baby dragon opens his mouth wide, and with a resounding buuuuuuuuurrrrrp—He lets loose a plume of esophagus-kindled flames that envelopes the battered scrolled and magically teleports it to Canterlot. (“Ah. Yeah—There we go.”)
“Rainbow...?” Twilight's face leans close up in frame. “You there?”
“GAH!--Uh....Uh....” Rainbow Dash blinks, blinks, smiles. “Books? You want me to carry your books? Sure thing! Anything for y-you, Twilight—You totally awesome friend whom I would never want to disappoint in any way ever!”
“Hmm-Hmmm-Hmmm....” Twilight chuckles breathily. “Very well, then! Let's go, shall we?” She trots to the other side of the room, gathering a few things. “Spike! We're (cough cough) heading to the (cough cough) Town Hall!”
“Right-o-Roonie, Twilight!” (Buuurp!)
“Spike! One gem per letter! We talked about this!”
“I must have been measuring that in the Mexicolt exchange rate!”
“Hey, those gems look delicious.” Rainbow Dash drones. “Mind if I have one?”
“Heeheehee—Dashie, you silly Pegasus! Only dragons like me can eat them! You would only choke to death!”
“Y-Yeah....” Rainbow Dash gulps. “So—Are you gonna pass me one, or....?”
Rainbow Dash steps out of the library and into the night-laden street of Ponyville. She takes a deep breath, her wings flexing in and out, as Twilight trots up alongside her.
“Mmmm—What a beautiful evening. I almost wish I had known about Ponyville much sooner. If so, I would have moved out of Canterlot years ago.”
“Right. Just watch out for the puddles.”
“Shall we....?”
“Shall we what?”
“Make the delivery to Town Hall, silly--”
“Aren't we missing something?”
Twilight blinks. “H-Huh?”
Rainbow Dash smirks slyly at her. “The books, Twi.” She gestures her snout towards the barren backsides of both fillies. “If I understood things right, you and I (cough cough) were heading to the (cough cough) Town Hall to deliver (cough cough) books.”
“Oh....Oh y-yeah....but of course...” Twilight blushes a deeper shade of violet. “S-Silly me....” She backtrots slowly into the building that happens to be her house. “Here I go....g-getting the books! Eh heh heh...”
“Try not to marry one while you're at it!” Rainbow Dash says. She stands by herself in the cold tranquility of cricket-cadence. A moth buzzes around a lantern hung overhead. A deep breath; she tilts her colorful mane starward, and exhales long and hard—Followed suddenly by a cryptic: “Five... ...Four.... ...Three... ....Two... ...One--”
“Hiya, Rainbow Dash!” A pink haired Pegasus-diet pops out from behind a park bench.
“Wow. Scootaloo.” Rainbow Dash stonily smirks down at her, droning: “What a surprise.”
“Jee, Rainbow Dash...” Scootaloo hunches under a streetlamp, frowning slightly. “Does anything get past your radar?”
“I'll have you know that my Eighth Sense allows me to know where all wayward young Pegasi are at anyday, anytime.” Rainbow says. A blink. “Actually, I take that back—That's my Sixth Sense. My Eighth Sense is Kickbuttery.”
“Really?” Scootaloo blinks widely. “What's your Seventh?”
“... ... ... ... ... ...Popcorn.”
“Heeheehee! Anywho--” Scootaloo beams, rummaging through a satchel being unshouldered from her tiny self. “--I've been looking for you all afternoon since you left the Carousel Boutique--”
“Now there's a shocker.”
“Hush!” Scootaloo half raspberries up at her, still fiddling with the contents of the satchel. “I just finished working on something that I thought I could wear myself—but I realized I made them too big. So I figured they'd be perfect for an awesome grown Pegasus like you!”
“I smell a really funny joke coming, but somehow I don't think the HUB would allow it...”
“I know it's here somewhere....” Scootaloo angrily hisses at herself as she all but dives into the bag.
Rainbow Dash suddenly squints at her. “Hey, Pipsqueak. Did you know that you're—uh—like totally covered in greease and crud?”
Surely enough, in the glow of the lantern light overhead, several smudges can be seen dotting random specks of flesh across Scootaloo's face, neck, and flank; the tell-tale sign of many an hour invested at a workbench. “I toldja—Didn't I? I just finished working on--”
“--your puberty?” Rainbow Dash gasps. “And all it took was some tweezers and duct tape?”
“Taa-daaa!” Scootaloo raises a dried-up apple core. Her eyes bulge. “Whoops—That ain't it.”
“If I had patience, kid, it'd be worn anorexic by now.”
“Found 'em!” Scootaloo grins up at the Blue Pegasus, grinning devilishly. “Close your eyesssssss.”
“Ugh—Must we have all this pageantry?”
“Pretty pleeeeeease?” Scootaloo does a puppy dog face. “And hold your arms out! I promise you're gonna love them!”
“Fine—FINE!” Rainbow Dash sighs, rolls her eyes back into their sockets, and closes them with her head tilted up. She stretches her arms forward like an equine zombie. “I swear, though—If you dip my hooves into a bowl of slugs or some-crap, I'm gonna give you a thermonuclear wedgie the likes of which will be told in legend throughout Equestria for the next Three Ages to come.”
“Hehehe—But I'm not wearing any pants!”
“Who said I wouldn't be using your skin?”
“Ahem--” Scootaloo's voice scrapes from beyond the opaque veil of Rainbow's eyelids. “Okaaaaay....and....” A light, leathery article is draped across the blue Pegasus' hooves. “....open 'em!”
“Hrmmm...” Rainbow makes a curious face even before she complies. When her violets open, they blink and narrow as her face falls halfway between curious and quizzical. In her grasp there lies a pair of leather-reinforced flight goggles. Brass cylinders with finely drilled rivets frame a pair of crystal-clear lenses that frame either side of a snout-piece. On the sides of either lens-cylinder are tiny adjustable knobs at varying degrees of depth between the furthestmost lens glass and the position of the invisible wearer's skull. “Hey, whaddya know? Super-peepers!”
“Inorite!” Scootaloo beams, hopping in place with twitching wings. “Like I said—I originally wanted to make them for myself, but they only slide off my face.”
“When did you get the bright idea of making flight goggles? I thought most bugs had the better sense of flying out of the path of your rampaging scooter.”
“I.....Er.....” Scootaloo bites her lip and blushes slightly. “I-I kinda sorta got the idea shortly after the Parasprites attacked our town--”
“--and you saw me wearing my goggles.” Rainbow Dash nods. “How cute.”
“Whatever happened to those glasses anyway?”
“They aren't glasses.” Rainbow half-hisses, sticking her nose up. “They're for eye protection—Not for eye sight. I was flying through a tornado of tiny village-devouring insects. It's a miracle they lasted for more than ten seconds, or my flesh for that matter!”
“So you do need a replacement!” Scootaloo eagerly suggests.
“Well—I don't exactly plan to run into parasprites again anytime soon.” She adds with a mutter: “Not without a flame thrower, at least--”
“But Rainbow! They can be used for so much more than just bug wrangling! Check it!” Scootaloo grunts, struggles, and flaps her tiny wings so she hovers in place in front of the Blue Pegasus. From there, she reaches in and taps various buttons and sliders on the side of the goggles' lens-cylinders, revealing a series of intricate glasses-within-glasses that swivel in and out of place at command. “If you're doing an early morning weather flight and need to find a wayward cloud—This can let you magnify your vision and see from a far distance! And this will dim the skies for when there's a bright reflection from the Sun! And this--”
“I get it—I get it, Scoots. They're Super Goggles—A definite improvement from my not-so-super bug goggles.” She chuckles with a smirk. “I like.”
“You like? Or you like-like?”
“Please, don't make me choose. Monogamy is a lie imposed upon us by the patriarchy—Wait, this is Equestria. What the heck am I saying? Snkkt—heheheh—Ohhhhh I'm exhausted....”
“Th-They're yours if you want 'em!” Scootaloo chirps cheerfully, touching back down to the ground. “Pleeeeease! At least use them once when you're cloud kicking! That's all I ask!”
“Yeah, yeah—We'll see....They are pretty snazzy, though....” Rainbow Dash turns them over a few more times in her hooves. “I totally dig the multiple lenses thang. And the rivets; totally steampony.” She makes a slight face. “But.....hmmm....I dunno...”
“Wh-What?” Scootaloo blinks.
“Eh—They certainly are very useful looking—But I guess they could stand to look....mmm...a little cooler?”
“Oh...Ohh.....” Scootaloo sheepishly bows her head and picks at the ground with a wayward hoof. “L-Like how much cooler?”
“Well, I'd say about--” Rainbow Dash opens her mouth, but stops to gaze down at the partially-wilted image of the pink-haired filly. She clears her throat. “Scratch that. They're A-okay in my Encyclopedia of Cool!”
“R-Really? Yaaaay!” Scootaloo bubbles from inside.
“Yuppers, definitely coolest of the cool.” Rainbow Dash stretches the straps out, slaps it over her skull, and fixes the goggles onto her face. Slightly bug-eyed, she smirks dashingly down at Scootaloo and holds her hoof straight out. “..........”
“.... .... ...?” Scootaloo stares quizzocally at the outstretched hoof.
“.... ... ....” Rainbow's lensed violet eyes blink down at her. “Just pretend I'm Twilight Sparkle's dragon sidekick giving a thumb's up.”
“Oh. Heheh—Gotcha. Awesome.” Scootaloo grins a crescent moon. A giggle is shared between the two, and she blinks curiously towards the front of the library. “S-Say....In speaking of Twilight—wasn't she here, just now, talking to you?”
“Yeah, she went back to grab some books for us to take to the Town Hall.”
“Yeah? How long is that gonna take?”
“You're asking me? I'd say just about long enough for us to finish this conversation--”
“I'm back!”
“Speak of the nerd! Welcome back, Twi.”
The violet unicorn comes back with two dozen books, half on her back and half floating in the air via a purple glow. “Sorry I took so long—Whoah!” She takes a step back and blinks at the goggle'd expression on Rainbow Dash's face. “There a hurricane I don't know about?”
“Tropical Storm Scootaloo.” Rainbow Dash nods and raises her goggles. “With pre-pubescent tantrums clocked at a constant thirty miles per hour. Eighty percent chance of idol worship.”
“I'd kick your shins if I understood a single bit of that.” Scootaloo briefly gripes.
“Please, pipsqueak. You cannot injure a god.” Rainbow Dash smirks. She spreads her wings and straightens her back out for Twilight Sparkle to telekinetically lower the floating mound of books onto her flank. “Yeesh, Twilight. Did you save the Mayor's life from a rampaging committee meeting or something? Since when did she lend you an entire rainforest of paper?”
“Actually....I'm.....erm....l-lending these to her!” Twilight Sparkle nervously clears her throat. “Y-Yeah, that's it! She's been under the weather lately and---Erm....Needs to catch up on her ancient history.”
“Wutever. That's boring enough; I'll buy it.”
“Need some help with those books?” Scootaloo asks, flanking the goggle'd Pegasus. “They look awfully heavy.”
“I may be many things, kiddo. But child slave laborer ain't one of them.” Rainbow Dash winks. “Why don't you soar on home, it's getting late--”
“You're welcome to join us, my little pony!” Twilight smirks the filly's way. “The more company the better!”
“Yaaay! I promise I won't get in the way!”
“... .... ....” Rainbow Dash blinks. “Well then, I stand corrected. Bow-legged, but corrected. Let's get this over with, Twilight.”
“I can't thank you enough, Rainbow Dash.” Twilight stifles a giggle to herself and trots at a brisk pace across Ponyville. “Let's hurry.”
“Hurry? Hurry for what?” Scootaloo blinks.
A whispering sound. Scootaloo glances at Rainbow. Rainbow darts her eyes over Twilight's shoulder and winks knowingly at Scootaloo. The young filly is twice as confused as she is unamused. Nevertheless, she follows the two as they move across town, the stars in the sky failing to outrun them.
Several flickering lamplights later, Twilight is in the middle of rambling on about some astronomical dissertation or another—with Rainbow Dash trying to keep her eyes open. The blue Pegasus glances aside and sees Scootaloo fidgeting in mid-gait, her face hung slightly towards the night-eaten earth. Raising an eyebrow, Rainbow clears her throat and murmurs Twilight's way.
“Hey, uhm—Twilight?”
“--but if you take into account the sheer number of stars in our galaxy, much less the ones that are experiencing a severe massive implosion, the odds that a Gamma Ray burst would send an energy blast our way is statistically unlikely—at least in any given Age, and especially in anypony's lifetime--”
“Hey stars-for-brains!”
“Hmmm?” Twilight glances back over her shoulder. The Town Hall building is in view. “Did you say something about stars?”
“Sure, why not. Look—could you go ahead of us? We'll catch up in a sec...”
Twilight fidgets, her eyes wrestling not to look at the Town Hall building just a few gallops away. “But...T-Town Hall is.......right there--”
Rainbow Dash's violet eyes harden as she motions her snout emphatically towards Scootaloo.
Twilight mutely exhales 'oh', smiles, and trots on. “Don't take too long!”
“Would I delay the great exodus of books to the Promised Land?” The Blue Pegasus slows to a casual stroll, clears her throat, and smirks down at the peach filly beside her. “What's on your mind, pipsqueak?”
“Hmm? Oh, me? Nothing--”
“Come on. You're not the airhead that the smelly one is.”
“Why does everyone keep saying that Sweetie Bell is--?”
“Seriously. Let's have it out. You're down in the saddle about something. Why else would you spend an entire afternoon hammering together such an awesome pair of goggles for me when you've already given me such a dashing gift earlier in the afternoon.”
“Eheh—You really liked that writing brace, didn't you?” Scootaloo manages a smile.
“Oh. Totally.” Rainbow Dash briefly sweatdrops. “I....put that thing through the rounds! Yup. Sure did!”
“I'm okay, Rainbow Dash. Just—when you left the Carousel Boutique earlier, you seemed.....I dunno......Y-You seemed kind of sad.”
Rainbow Dash takes a deep breath, her eyes glancing towards the distant purple haze of the EverFree Forest beyond the curtain of night. “Meh—I probably had something in my eye.”
“I didn't think you were capable of being sad, Rainbow Dash...”
“Seriously, kid?” Rainbow Dash can't help but let loose a chuckle. “I mean—That's sweet and all. But I'm a Pegasus just like you—So I can afford to be anything and everything that other Pegasi are—Except for unawesome. I could never be that.”
“Heeheehee...” Scootaloo takes a deep breath. “I-I admit, I could have waited until later in the week to give you those goggles...”
“And they are sweet goggles--”
“I mean it, Rainbow Dash. Just—Today, after you got into a fight with those bullies... ...well... ...I-I heard more than I let on about...”
“Oh, this should be nifty.” Rainbow Dash drones. She glances down. “Wanna fill me in?”
“They... ...They called you names.”
“So does everyone whom I butt heads with.” Rainbow Dash briefly goes cross-eyed. “And come to think of it—That's a lot of ponies. Heh.”
“Th-They called you 'half-wing', Rainbow Dash.”
The Blue Pegasus stops in her hooves. Dead still.
Scootaloo immediately winces regretfully. She clears her throat: “I-I've never heard that before. And I-I can't pretend to understand it, but it sounds really.....really mean. 'I can't believe the nerve of that half-wing'--That's what I heard Hoops saying to his younger brother, just before they fixed a plan to challenge you to a race out at Cloven Canyon.”
“Scootaloo, don't you ever think that your cutie mark might end up being a hidden camera and a microphone?”
“How did that race at the Canyon go, Rainbow? Huh? Huh?” She suddenly jumps, giddy. “Didja whoop their butts?”
“One thing at a time, kiddo.” Rainbow Dash turns around, faces Scootaloo, and squats down in front of her—balancing the books precariously on her flank. “I want you to be straight with me. After you heard that phrase, did you use it on anyone?”
“What?” Scootaloo blinks. “'Half-wing'?”
“Did you use it?” Rainbow's violet eyes narrow like daggers. “Tell me.”
Scootaloo shrinks back from the sudden seriousness in her beloved idol's voice. “N-No! I didn't! P-Pinkie Pie swear...!” She prepares to do the motions--
“No, don't—It's okay...” Rainbow nudges her with a snout. Her goggles slide down over her eyes; she lifts them with a hoof and a smirk. “You're a silly, annoying pipsqueak at times, Scootaloo. But you ain't a bad kid. And I'm glad to hear you haven't ever used that term. Now...” She leans forward, eye-to-eye with the petite Pegasus. “I want you to promise me that you're never ever gonna call someone 'half-wing', ever. Even when you're really really REALLY angry—Which is a hard thing to do, cuz—trust me—I've been known to call people mean things when I get steamed, but never 'half-wing'. Can you promise me that?”
“Absolutely, Rainbow Dash!” Scootaloo nods, still slightly wide-eyed. “I-I promise! Though, I think it would help if I knew what it meant!”
Rainbow Dash slowly, sadly shakes her head. “No. It wouldn't.” She stands up and resumes trotting towards Twilight Sparkle and the distant Town Hall. “Even the ponies who use that phrase don't know what it means. They think they do, but they really don't. It just comes out of their chompers in a random spurt of anger and stupidity.” She gazes depressingly into the distance. “They don't have to live with it; having to live it down, having to prove themselves to everypony that they're not the ones who are missing something important—like decency, or respect, or all that other fluffy jazz. Meh—It's not worth talking about.”
“Sure..... ...s-sure it is, Rainbow Dash.” Scootaloo bravely gulps. “I-I swear I've never seen you so serious about anything before! You're beginning to sound almost like Twilight Sparkle!”
Rainbow Dash chuckles dryly, confident that her voice isn't heard from the Unicorn waiting from afar. “Oh, believe me. This is one serious thing that I have a full grasp of over Twilight. All the better for her.”
“Have ponies always....erm....c-called you that mean phrase, Rainbow Dash?”
The blue Pegasus takes a deep breath. She flicks her multicolored tail and grins calmly down at Scootaloo. “I try not to keep count much, kiddo.”
“Why not? It's important, isn't it?”
She leans her head down. “When you're my age, you'll realize that some things aren't worth counting, no matter how many times a day you're made to face it.”
“Pfft—Not one of these speeches!” Scootaloo half groans. “You almost sound like my dad.”
Rainbow Dash pales at that, her violet eyes twitching.
“What's the matter, Rainbow?”
“Erm.....Nothing. Everything is....” She takes a deep breath, but smiles bravely at the end. “Everything is awesome. Wyrdly awesome—But still....” She snaps out of the brief cloud as she and Scootaloo approach the edge of the Town Hall where Twilight's waiting. “Tell you what? How about tomorrow afternoon you and I go flying so we can test out these sweet goggles you made for me? You can show me allllll the ways I can use them.”
“Really?” Scootaloo gasps.
“Absolutely, pipsqueak.”
“Why not in the morning?”
“Cuz you're gonna wanna sleep in after tonight.”
“What's happening tonight?” Scootaloo makes the face.
“There's the million dollar question.” Rainbow Dash looks Twilight's way. “Twi? Care to do the honors?”
Twilight Sparkle immediately shuts the Town Hall door, through which she has been—until now—hushedly hissing something through the cracks. She plants her left rear hoof against it and chuckles innocently. “Wh-What are you going on about, Dash?”
“Jee. Equestria will never know.” Rainbow Dash once more motions towards the door. “We're not getting any younger here. Well, Scootaloo is—But I'm sure we can housebreak her again.”
“H-Hey!”
Twilight Sparkle groans, her cheeks rosy. Regardless, a belated and exhausted smile: “Nothing gets past you, does it, Rainbow?” She proceeds to open the door.
“I don't get it...” Scootaloo blinks up at Rainbow Dash. “What's she hiding?”
“Scoots, if you ever grow up to write my biography....” Rainbow Dash leans in and whispers as a suddenly bright light spreads across the three of them. “....be sure to mention that I'm the only surprise that Equestria ever got—ever.”
Creeeeeak!
“SURPRIIIIIIISE!” The interior of Town Hall is presently beset with a two-story candle-lit and streamers-swarmed gala event, populated thickly by over four dozen ponies randomly gathered from both Ponyville and Cloudsdale. Fillies and colts of every color of the spectrum are halo'd around the entrance, cheering wildly the arrival of a certain Sonic Rainboomsterette. Above a series of tables—replete with almost every delicious baked item in the Sugarcube Corner's catalogue—a grand white banner stretches from balcony to balcony, embroidered with: 'Hooray For Rainbow Dash!' As the cheering turns into clapping and hoof-stomping, a certain pink Earth Pony cartwheels giddily into view and practically backflips before tossing her arms up with a whooping howl:
“Weeee---Welcome, Rainbow Dash to the SUPER DUPER SECRET MEETING! And guess what!” (GASSSSSP) “We decided to invite you at the last second! Who'd a thunk et? So let's hear it for the Saint of Sonic Rainbooms, the Filly of Friendship, the Queen of Cloudsdale—and our bestest of best companions---Raiiiiiiiinbow Dassssssssh!”
Another wave of applause and cheers.
Rainbow Dash blushes slightly, but nevertheless maintains a calm and proud gait as she slowly trots in, the obviously useless books sliding off her back. Scootaloo gapes beside her, her eyes sparkling.
“A p-party....in honor of y-you, Rainbow....?” A blink, and her wings suddenly spring ceiling-ward.
Rainbow Dash cooly shoves her wings back to the filly's side. “Hey—Between Popcorn and Kickbuttery, remember?” She winks. “Ahem—How's it Hoofin', everypony?”
“H-Hello, Rainbow Dash....” Fluttershy suddenly drifts in from the side, her cheeks red. “I-I almost g-gave it away earlier. But..... ...I-I had to keep mum....”
“And I was positively dying inside during our whole tea party!” Rarity waltzes in, dressed for the occasion with an elegant silk blue scarf and matching hoofpieces. “But this was all Pinkie Pie's idea, and I wasn't about to dash it against the rocks like some scheming ursurper!”
“Well, whaddya think, Dashie?” Pinkie Pie somehow pokes her head in Rainbow's face from upside down. “Did we get ya or did we get ya?”
“Oh yeah, you got me...” Rainbow Dash drones with a sly smirk. “From the window of a horseshoe repository, even.” Chuckles alight the air from the gathered crowd of random Ponyvilleans.
“Ohhhh look at her!” Rarity mocks a faint. “She knew it—She knew it!” A playful glare is cast across the room. “Twilight—In all our months of BFFing—You still don't know how to keep a secret, do you?”
“I tried! I really d-did....” Twilight bites her lip and kicks at the floor with a hoof. “I'm so sorry, guys--”
“Awwww—You did your best best bestest and it was so sweet of you!” Pinkie Pie bounces in place.
Fluttershy gently nudges the violet Unicorn. “It's okay, Twilight. Rainbow Dash isn't easy to fool. I should know.”
“My right flank, you know!” Rainbow Dash chuckles at Fluttershy. “Remember that time I thought you were making faces with me for several minutes? One of the gerbils you had fed scampered down your throat and you nearly choked to death!”
The crowd chuckles merrily. Fluttershy hides a slightly frowning face under her pink locks of hair. “Why do you keep mentioning things you said you never would?”
“Well let's not stand around here wallflowering like a bunch of boring little food spoiling germ carrying house flies!” Pinkie Pie shimmies around, shouting everyone's ears off. “We're here tonight to celebrate the glue that binds all of my friends together—and Ponyville as well!”
“Pssst!” Spike suddenly appears, popping up from behind a bowl of punch. “Pinkie, this is Ponyville! Ex-nay on the glue-nay jokes-nay!”
“Wutever—Let's PARRRRR-TEHHHHH! WOOO! WOO! Go Dashie! It's your Rainboom Day! Go Dashie! It's your Rainboom Day!”
People cheer and clamor all over Rainbow Dash, giving her side hugs and nuzzles, inadvertently bumping her around in a sudden crowd surf. “Ughhh....” Rainbow barely holds onto her goggles. “If I live through this to live this day down, I'm so gonna send her toothless lizard pet off to war.”
“Hey!” A pink-scaled whelp shakes a fist. “I heard that!”
“I was talking about Pinkie Pie and Gummy, Speck!”
“My name is Sp—Snkkt—Do you even SEE ME next to the PUNCH bowl? Get a clue!”
“Do promise you'll at least enjoy yourself tonight, Rainbow...” Twilight leans over to her, smiling warmly. “Pinkie Pie went through a real effort this time—She rarely ever caters at the Town Hall.”
“Yeah, yeah....Just for you guys...” Rainbow Dash blinks. “But OH! What-ever will I do with all this attention!”
“Keep working on the dramatizing, darling.” Rarity trots by. “But so far, that's three stars at best.”
“Words of wisdom from the expert—Say, why doesn't it smell like hay?”
“Apple J-Jack apologizes in advance.” Fluttershy plays messenger. A white bunny hops up out of nowhere and positions her cookie-nibbling self on the yellow Pegasus' mane. “That's your last one, Angel--” She looks at Rainbow Dash. “Something about a last second 'issue' she has to work on at the farm. She should be here shortly.”
“Then that only gives us so much time to have some real fun!” Rainbow Dash claps and rubs her hooves together. “Alright all you hoofters! Who's for Pin-the-Tail-on-the-Scootaloo?”
“H-Hey!”
“Hahahaha!”
“Heeheehee!”
“Hooooooboyo.”
[SCRKKKK!]
[Static.]
[SCRKKKK!]
[More static, snow.]
[SCRKKKK!]
[Pink curly hair, close up.]
“-is thing worki-?”
[SCRKKKK!]
[A pair of blinking eyes.]
“Oooh! The red light is on! That means it's--”
[SCRKKKK!]
[A cockeyed, shaky view of the Town Hall interior.]
[Party streamers and confetti.]
“Heeheehee—This makes my head's so heavy! I wonder if this is what Twilight feels like--”
[SCRKKKK!]
[A bobbing, weaving perspective that limps through a sea of chatting, partying ponies.]
[Tilting up—spotting a white banner that reads 'Hooray For Rainbow Dash'.]
[Dipping back down—only to BUMP into a brown colt's hourglass'd flank.]
“Owch! Watch where you point that thing!”
“Ooops! Sorry Doc! Hee hee! Hey, you're on time for a change--”
[SCRKKKK!]
[A light yellow filly with blue-and-pink hair blinks awkwardly.]
“Uhmmm—Pinkie Pie? What the heck is that on your head?”
“It's a helmet cam, Bon Bon! And I'm wearing it!”
“Okay---Er....Why?”
“To record everyone at the party giving their best wishes to Rainbow Dash, you silly filly!”
“Oh, well that makes—Wait. Why is it a wide angle lens--?”
[SCRKKKK!]
[Creeping up on a purple dragon standing on a stack of books to reach the top of a catering table.]
“Snkkkt-hahaha! Have enough punch—Spike?”
“Huh? What? Pinkiiiiie! Get that thing away!”
“What's the matter? Will I catch you doing something bad?”
“I mean it! You're gonna drop the thing in the bowl and get it all wet!”
“Better not go water behind a tree later! Ponyville can't handle another forest fire! Hehe--!”
“PINKIE P--”
[SCRKKKK!]
[A lopsided view of the various shadowed partygoers clopping about the floor of the Town Hall.]
[SCRKKKK!]
[Pounding music with a deaffening bass beat.]
[Zooming in on a white Unicorn bobbing her blue mane'd head over a turntable.]
“Wooohooo! Yeah! Deejay! Kick it! Kick it like a stubborn cat!”
[SCRKKKK!]
[A close-up, side-scrolling macrolens of several piles of cakes, candies, and pies.]
“Ooooooooooooh! Be slow my beating insulin....”
[SCRKKKK!]
[A white bunny hoardes a cookie, glances over its shoulder, and nibbles mischievously on the sweet edible.]
[The camera creeps in slowly.]
“Now Angel Bunny—what did your Auntie Fluttershy tell you--?”
[The bunny looks at the camera, hisses, and launches a stack of paper plates—BAP!]
“ACKIES! When bunnies attack! Yowsers--”
[SCRKKKK!]
[Two colorful fillies stand side by side, blinking, their backs to the DJ Table.]
“What did you say, Pinkie Pie? We can hardly hear you--”
“Do you have any words to say to the coolest Pegasus ever?”
“Hahah—You're serious?”
“As serious as I'll ever be!”
“That's a tall order, Pinkie Pie.”
“Come on! Won't you do it for Dashieeeee?”
“Ughhh—FINE. So what, we just--?”
“I know! Why don't you introduce yourselves first?”
“Oh, you're going to edit this thi--?”
[SCRKKKK!]
[The same two colorful fillies, smiling picture-perfectly.]
“Heeeeeeeey Rainbow Dasssssh! It's me, Lyra!”
“And Colgate!”
“And we just wanna say this party rocks—And we can't think of a better reason to be here than for the most dazzling flier in all of Ponyville!”
“The stuff you do to keep our weather in check is totally cool! We can look forward to sunny skies, thanks to you.”
“So—Uh--Here's the future, and many more awesome moments to come, Rainbow.”
“Yeah—Uh—Cheers. Ahem. H-How was that, Pinkie Pie?”
“You forgot to mention how cute Gummy's new hat it!”
“I uh---er....What?”
“Who's Gummy--?”
[SCRKKKK!]
[A doubly pink Earth Pony grins from behind a table, blushing and doing her best to shamefully hide a half-eaten slice of cake atop a paper plate.]
“Ahem—Hello, Ms. Dash. This is Cherilee, local teacher at Ponyville Elementary. And I've certainly heard a lot about you. I can't think of a place I'd rather be than at a celebration of the only recorded pony to perform the Sonic Rainboom—not once, but twice apparently! Hehhehheh. If you're up for it, I think you would make a marvelous visiting speaker to tell the young Earth Ponies in my class all about Cloudsdalian life. Give me a call!--Er--And, uhm—Congratulations on being so....uhh....p-popular? Heeheehee...”
[SCRKKKK!]
[Rarity walks up from sprucing up a few disorderly banners along the side wall of the Town Hall.]
“Oh, hello Pinkie. Would you terribly mind if you—Gaaah-Haah-Haaah! Oh dear—Do get that dreadful thing away from me!”
“Rarity? What's the matter? If you're allergic to latex, you should have said something before I ordered all of these balloons, silly filly!”
“No—Not that! The CAMERA! This place is so crowded and I am an absolute mess!”
“But you look fine--”
“Not NOW! Pinkie! Ohhhh-Must find a mirror! Must find a--”
“Don't go in the bathroom! It's slippery! I think Sweetie Bell ate too much cake--”
[SCRKKKK!]
[A light azure Pegasus with a lightning bolt for a cutie mark sips from some punch and raises an eyebrow at the camera.]
“How would you survive without Rainbow Dash, Pinkie? She's like your main filly?”
“Jee, I dunno—“
[Tilting over to reveal the rainbow colored life of the party walking by.]
“--Hey Dashie! How would I survive without you?”
“I dunno, I'm like your 'main filly'.”
[SCRKKKK!]
[The white unicorn behind the turntable lifts her blue goggles to reveal a pair of sly red peepers.]
“Hey there, Rainbow Dash. DJPON3 here, rockin' the tunes like you're rockin' the skies over Equestria daily. Keep the thunderclouds away and the Sonic Rainbooms coming, girl. YOU.....Are the True Rhythm of the Night, Pegasistahhh. PEACE!”
[SCRKKKK!]
[A middle aged mare and stallion lean against each other near the back of the Town Hall, where several caterers are restocking a row of tables.]
“Hello, Miss Dash. I'm Mrs. Cake.”
“And I'm Mr. Cake.”
“And we think you're a swell girl for all the joy you bring to Sugarcube Corner—as well as to the otherwise lonely days of our beloved Pinkamena here.”
“And I.........I th-think I had too much punch. *HIC*.”
“Confound it, Lemon! What have I told you about takin' a sip while on the job?”
“I only had one glass, Marble--!”
[SCRKKKK!]
[Apple Bloom smiles wide while Sweetie Bell leans against her flank.]
“Ah always figure'd that the Sonic Rainboom was just a legend! But then mah big sister tells me that she saw the Sonic Rainboom before her very own green peepers in Cloudsdale! Then, on top of that, I hear that she secretly saw yet ANOTHER Sonic Rainboom when she was just a young filly—and it was because of Rain'bo Dash's cool explosion that my sister found her cutie mark! Ah mean, how is that even fair? AJ wasn't even supposed to be in Cloudsdale during the second Rainboom! Not that Ah'm secretly wantin' her to fall through a cloud and bust a leg or something—But Ah just wish that the Cutie Mark Crusaders could see a Rainboom, if only once—Then maybe we'd all finally find our callin'! Ain't that right, Sweetie Bell?”
“Unnnnnngh......So....Much.... .... ...Caaaaaake....”
“Er—What she means to say is—We're both happy for Rain'bo Dash! And we'd think it would be really, really, really awesome if she'd let us take a gander at her super dazzlin' Rainboom! Then who knows what would happen! We all know Scootaloo agrees with meh! Say—Just where is she anyways? Ah thought she'd be here at the party--”
“Hckkk-BLEEWACKCJKCKKK!”
“Ewwww! Sweetie Belle! For Land's Sake! Not on the floor--”
[SCRKKKK!]
[Rarity cradles a twitching Sweetie Belle, holding the young filly's hair as she sticks her head into a bucket and wretches.]
[The young adult Unicorn glances up, then all but collapses—covering her face with a hoof.]
“Good heavens, Pinkie Pie! Now's even worse timing--!”
[SCRKKKK!]
[Twilight Sparkle side-trots in and out of frame, eyeing the camera and squinting.]
[A pair of potted plants are almost perfectly lined up behind the shot.]
“Is.... ...Is...Is everything lined up--?”
“Why do you want some boring plants to be in the background?”
“It's all about symmetry, Pinkie Pie. I want this to look professional.”
“Why not just have a wide angle of the party behind you? Then it'll look fun!”
“Pinkieeee.... ...This is from the heart—From me to Rainbow Dash. You have plenty of other shots of the party by now, I'm sure.”
“It's from the heart from you to Rainbow Dash, then why all the notecards?”
“Hey! I'm facilitating! Now be sure my horn isn't dipping out of frame----And you're not recoring right now, are you?”
“Uhhhh---”
“Pinkie Piiiiieee?”
“Okie Dokie Lok--”
[SCRKKKK!]
[Twilight Sparkle smiles between two phallic plants mimicking her alicorn extension.]
“Rainbow Dash. My friend. My colleague. My source of--”
(“HEADS UPPPP!”)
[A flock of streamers fly waywardly into the violet Unicorn's face.]
“Aaaugh! What—ppff—pffft--pleh--PLEH--CUT!”
[SCRKKKK!]
[Twilight Sparkle, sitting identically as before, only with a few stray hairs loose and one eybrow twitching.]
“Rainbow Dash. My friend. My colleague. My source of inspiration and loyalty. If it weren't for you in my life—an explosion of courage and gritty Clousdalian guile—I would not be where I am, I would not be so close to Princess Celestia, and I would not be enjoying such a heavenly life here in Ponyville. So, from me to you, I just want to say in all sincerity that I really feel--”
[SCRKKKK!]
[Heavy static and white streams of snow whip past the image of a pink bathroom.]
[A tiny, googly-eyed alligator blinks in frame from the edge of a frothing bathtub.]
“Oh fiddlesticks! Gummmmmmy! Stop playing with the camera! Auntie Pinkie Pie needs that for Rainbow Dash's SUPER DUPER SECRET SURPRISE PARTY tonight! Gimme back--”
[SCRKKKK!]
[Twilight Sparkle, smiling and breathing confidently.]
“--and I think you can understand that I mean these words from the very depths of my being, and that you will benefit from hearing them as you grow into the beautiful, self-respecting Pegasus you've always been destined to be. Always your special and loving friend, Twilight Sparkle. Pinkie Pie—did you get that--?”
[SCRKKKK!]
[A lampshade blurs in and out of focus.]
“Mmmf-Mmmmmff-Hrmmmff!”
[The lampshade rises to reveal a purple baby dragon peering out from beneath.]
“Ahem—You want me to say a few words to Rainbow Dash?”
“Abso-Tap-Dancing-Lutely, Spikey old buddie old pal!”
“Did Rainbow Dash really ask for this—Or was this all your idea?”
“Oh come on! Play along! She's gonna love this!”
“Hmmmmm—All right. But get my good side!”
“Hey, I've got just the thing to help you out—!”
[SCRKKKK!]
[Spike poses besides an ice sculpture of a flying Pegasus.]
[He 'handsomely' strokes a pathetically fake mustache sported beneath his nose.]
“And so it was on a cloudy afternoon that Twilight and I stumbled upon the coolest pony ever to grace the skies! And in ten seconds flat, that afternoon was no longer cloudy—Because the most dependable Pegasus in the history of Ponyville was there to do her job, and do it so well that it left Twilight speechless! And believe—you—me, that is not an easy task!”
“You can say that again! Heeheehee--”
“Pinkie Pie! I thought this was MY turn to speak!”
“Oh, I'm sorry for interrupting you and your mustache! Please, you may both continue.”
“Ahem. And when Nightmare Moon first showed her frightening visage upon the balconies of this very building, did Rainbow Dash run away from her? No! She chased her out of the building like a burning comet tail, ready to smoke down any and all evil that would threaten Equestria---”
[The camera pans over Spike's head to show a mountain of yellowish dessert.]
“Mmmmmm---Cheesecaaaaaaaake. So.... ...Gorgeous---”
“Pinkie Pie?”
“Are you even filming me anymore--”
“Say, do you think Princess Luna is an expert on baking cheesecake? I mean, she did spend nearly a thousand years on the--”
“That's it! I'm done--”
[SCRKKKK!]
[Several ponies are dancing and swaying happily in the foreground as a deep bass beat throbs throughout the Town Hall building.]
[The camera zooms in and tilts from the DJ, to Scootaloo and Apple Bloom excitedly chatting, to several socializing ponies at the catering table, and finally on the image of Rainbow Dash and a little white dot.]
[On an even closer zoom, the little white dot turns out to be a white bunny rabbit. With a sly look, it pantomimes in front of Rainbow Dash. After several motions and gestures, the conniving she-bunny smiles and blinks curiously up at the Blue Pegasus.]
[Zooming in on Rainbow Dash; the Sonic Rainboomer grins wickedly, glances over her shoulder, and leans her snout down to whisper something conspiratorially into Angel's ear--]
[Suddenly there is a peach-and-pink blur encompassing the entirety of the camera.]
“HIYA PINKIE PIE! Whatcha filmin'--?”
“AACKIES! PINK BATS! PINK BATS ATTACKING MEEEE!”
“N-N-No! Pinkie Pie--”
“AAAAH!”
“Pinkie Pie—It's just me! Scootaloo! Don't--”
[The entire party flips on its side and rolls back with four fuchsia hooves rising up into view, floundering.]
[SCRKKKK!]
[Scootaloo grins wide, flexing her wings as the party rocks on in the background.]
“Words to give to Rainbow Dash? Ohhhhh—Where do I begin? I almost believe that the same Sonic Rainboom that got her and her friends together also affected me! I-I mean.....I-I know I wasn't foaled yet by the first time she performed it. But—yanno--circle of life and everything! I was destined to be here tonight—celebrating the coolest wing'd pony ever! I just know it! Yanno—Come to think of it—the first Sonic Rainboom was eight years ago, right? Well, my parents married a little over eight years ago. So that means they must have been having their honeymoon right when--”
“Whoops! Would you look at that?! Just ran out of tape!”
“Huh?”
“Gotta go switch! Nice words there, Scootaloo! Catch ya later!”
“You're lying! I see the red light and it's still on—”
[SCRKKKKK!]
[Fluttershy hides her face behind her mane and digs at the tile bashfully with a wayward hoof.]
“Come onnnnn, Fluttershy! Just a few words! For Dashieeee!”
“Mmmm........ ....hrmmm....”
“Pretty please? With sugarcubes on top?”
“P-Pinkie.....mrmm.....y-you know how much I hate cameras....”
“Awww—Fluttershy, it's okay! This is all between friends! It's not like it's going up on Canterlot Broadcasting or what hoof you!”
“I-I'm just n-not a fan of......of b-being exposed like this....”
“Pfft! You call this exposure, girl? Aren't you the one who volunteered to go up on stage later to deliver the most super sweet poem to the crowd in honor of Rainbow Dash?”
“Eeep!....D-Don't remind me. I'm still scared about that--”
“Auntie Pinkie Pie won't let you look silly! Come on! Live a little!”
“Mmmm.....mmmm-All right.......Ermm....Wh-Where do I look?”
“At the red light above my helmet. Seeeeee?
[SCRKKKK!]
[Fluttershy gently tosses her pink mane back and squirms slightly as she half-faces the camera, her flank to a corner of the Town Hall.]
“H-Hello, Rainbow Dash. It's m-me....Your friend. Fl-Fluttershy. Uhm....I-I'm sorry that I'm so nervous in front of cameras. B-But it's worth it if it means being able to g-give you this message. And the message is...uhm... .... ...th-that I'm v-very glad that you are a part of my life. I-I always have been glad—Ever since the day that you helped me discover my love for animals—My love for everything, actually. Up in Cloudsdale, I should have felt like I was at h-home. But I wasn't. I was too scared to admit it, too sc-scared to show anyone how I really felt. So I t-tried to fit in. I tried to be normal—and it didn't work. And then I saw you—I saw you challenge two mean colts to defend m-me and my feelings. And I realized that....th-that's okay if you can't be normal. You can b-be something better than normal. For you, I guess that's what it means to be 'cool'. But I don't see myself as cool—Much rather, I think that I'm.....I-I'm unique—er—in my own way. And I think that makes the t-two of us similar. It always has....D-Don't you think? As l-long as we are alive....I-I think we will have that connection—Just like you have a connection with all of the rest of the girls—Twilight, Rarity, Apple Jack, P-Pinkie Pie—And it's so wonderful, Rainbow Dash. It really is... .... .... ....Whew... ...Mmm....Mmm-Pinkie Pie? Was th-that fine?”
“Heeeee—It was more than fine, Fluttershy! I can barely hold this camera up! I think I want to hug you foreverrrrrrr.”
“Hey. Uhm. Uh—H-Have you seen wh-where Angel Bunny went--?”
[The camera suddenly lurches straight into Fluttershy's face as two pink hooves wrap around her neck in a fierce embrace.]
“FOREVAHHHH!”
“Eeeep! TurnitoffTurnitoffTurnitoffTurnitoff--!”
[SCRKKKK!]
[Rarity stumbles into frame, focusing the camera from the raging party to her panting self.]
[The image of the white Unicorn draws closer as the camerapony gallops towards her.]
“Rarity! Where'd you go?”
“Nnnnghh—Whew! Had to carry Sweetie Bell home. She's an absolute mess! But she is doing reasonably better than earlier; and that's good, at least. I daresay, if my parents knew how lactose intolerant she was ahead of time, they would have named her something a little less innocuous. Pinkie Pie—tell me—did I miss anything?”
“Only your chance of a lifetime to leave a super awesome message on camera for our most bodacious Pegasus friend!”
“Oh darling, are you still going on with that charade? ... ... ... ... ...And did I just hear you utter 'bodacious'? That is soooooo 'Cherilee'.”
“Come on, Queen Filly of the Frillies! Don't be a party pooper like your little si--”
“FINE! I suppose my mane is as orderly as it's going to get after all that's happened tonight. Ahem. Alright then. Let's do this and do this right.”
“Ready when you are--”
[SCRKKKK!]
[Rarity straightens her blue bangs and stands straight and proud. Her blue eyes sparkle as she smiles dashingly into the camera and dramatically murmurs.]
“Rainbow Dash—darling--brave source of support and the sparkling prism of my life—On the evening that we celebrate the impact you've made on all our lives, I would very jubilantly wish to say--”
(“CAN I HAVE EVERYONE'S ATTENTION!”)
[Twilight Sparkle looms in the partying background, raising a pair of ringing bells telekinetically into the air and filling the air with a shrill chime.]
(“I've just cornered this bizarred Pegasus with the most dazzling mane of colors—And I think it's only fitting that we get her to say a few choice words to us before she has a chance to run away!”)
[The camera rocks and shakes as the entire room explodes in cheers and hooves-stomping.]
[An annoyed Rarity tosses her arms, groans, and stomps out of frame as the camera zooms in on a table.]
[A yelping blue Pegasus is fiercely hoisted onto the top of the table as the music dies down and a thick crowd of whistling and whooping ponies close in around her and a victoriously grinning Twilight.]
[The camera zooms in as the whole place throbs with a gathered chant, joined in by the bearer of the helmeted lens.]
“SPEECH! SPEECH! SPEECH! SPEECH! SPEECH!”
[Rainbow Dash blurs in and out of focus—finally appearing as a blushing, eye rolling pony. She motions to Twilight Sparkle, murmurs something, and is handed a magically floating glass of punch.]
[The camera pans out slightly as the Pegasus stands up on the table—balancing her bipedal position with two outstretched wings.]
“Dear Ponies of all shapes and colors and horns and feathers! Welcome to what has to be the most awesome day of my life. Why is it the most awesome day of my life? Even more awesome than the day I mesmerized ALL of Cloudsdale with—not my first—but my second ever Sonic Rainboom of cloud kicking glory....?”
“It's because this also so happens to be the most pathetic day of my life!” Rainbow Dash gives a devil-may-care-grin as she leers above all of the Ponyvilleans gathered below her. “Because where else can a pony stand unladylike on top of a catering table before all of her admirers and not be the first one drunk at the party!”
A series of chuckles and giggles fill the room. Twilight Sparkle smiles—strung somewhere between humored and proud. Pinkie Pie bounces up and down through the crowded sea, the red-blinking camera lurching on her helmet'd skull. Rarity sashays up from the side, sipping from a dainty glass and smirking gently up at her multi-colored friend. Fluttershy trots up besides the white Unicorn and grins bashfully.
“So—Let me be the first—and last—pony to declare that this night is not even halfway over! Because the only person to even bother out-partying me under the table is Pinkie Pie! And she's on camera duty over there! Heeeeey—Hey-Hey-Hey let's give her a hoof, everypony! After all—I may be the dashing and super rad life of the party—but Pinkie Pie is the obvious mastermind of this whole debacle. So let's hear it for the stupid fuzzhead, yes? Yes??”
Several fillies and colts clap and pound the floor. A cyclone of cheers and whoops narrow in on the twice-blushing Earth Pony.
“Heeheehee!” She hakes her camera-mounted skull. “After this, I'm gonna take up guerilla journalism in the Zebrahara!”
“Yeah, whatever, ya cotton candy ball of dreams.” Rainbow Dash drones. Laughter and chuckles as she raises her glass of punch even higher. “Yanno, when I did the second Sonic Rainboom—Some say it was to win the Young Flier's Contest at Cloudsdale. The fact of the matter was—I did it all to save Ponyville's most elegant and eligible bachlorette fashionista! You know the one I'm talking about—She's the pretty one right over there who looks like a diamond store collided with a box of Blueberry Pop Tarts. How 'bout a hoof for Rarity—the one responsible for making Town Hall tonight look like anything but the usual boring stale box of dust that it normally is! Give it up for her, everypony!”
Cheers and cauterwauling. Rarity merely rolls her eyes, takes another sip of the delicious pink quaff and smiles rosily. As the applause and enthralled murmurs die down, Rainbow Dash cranes her neck and smirkingly utters:
“Am I embarassing you too hard, Countess Dramacula?”
Rarity gulps and shakes her elegant head. “I'm about four glasses beyond—urp—that, darling.” The ring of ponies around her laugh and turn back up to face Rainbow Dash as the Unicorn herself snorts a laugh of her own. Twilight shakes her head and grins helplessly—until the spotlight suddenly falls on her blinking face.
“And—of course—This night would not be what it is today without everyone's favorite bookmongering neer-do-best of merry sorcery--” Rainbow Dash goes cross-eyed at her own words. “The one person responsible for making me dredge up this upside down vocabulary by pen-point-to-the-jugular over the last twenty-four insane hours.” More chuckles. “She's the real reason we're all here—Not me. Fillies and gentlecolts, I give you the wilting violet of elemental harmony, that sparkity spark of...uhm....sparkles--”
“Just say my name and get it over with.” The Unicorn drones.
“Twilight Sparkle, everypony! Give her a round of applause before she kills me in front of a Town Hall full of witnesses! Thanks all around...”
Twilight waves a hoof dismissively, blushing as the crowd roars, cheers, and settles in time for her to playfully frown up at the blue Pegasus. “You know—If you wanted this to be a roast, it should really be going in the opposite direction.”
“That's an awfully bold statement coming from the main character.”
“The main what now?” Twilight makes a frazzled face.
“AND!” Rainbow Dash grins towards the gazing crowd, waving her punch glass high. “To every pony whom my Sonic Friendboom has impressed, to every Ponyvillean whose skies I clear, to every filly who thinks my hair is unkempt, to every one of those same fillies who goes to the nearest salon the next day and buys six different hair dyes...” Chuckles and snickers. Rainbow Dash gazes across the crowd until her violet eyes fall on the image of Fluttershy. “....to every sweet soul too humble and kind to bother being exposed to the spotlight....” Fluttershy smiles sweetly. Rainbow Dash briefly smirks back—a wink, and then she gazes beyond. “....and to every living soul in this crazy-headed place who was pyschotic enough to come waltzing into this party and celebrating some port-a-potty colored Pegasus whom they hardly know but were pulled here all the same by the smell of Mr. and Mrs. Cake's irresistibly scrumptious baking...” A few louder laughs from the crowd there. “.....I thank you all, from the bottom of what Twilight Sparkle says is my heart, but on a long work day without morning oats—I know better what to call it.” She smirks. A deep breath. “As for the rest of you—Eat. My. Dust.”
A cackling noise, and then a round of hooves-pounding-to-tile. Rarity suddenly howls above the raising noise. “Are you just going to stand there—Drying up the room like some Celestia-forsaken dumb rock?”
“QUIET YOU!” Rainbow Dash tilts her head straight back and tips her glass ceiling-ward, swiftly and maddeningly emptying the entire contents of the punch chalace down her gullet. Rarity laughs and claps madly. The crowd whistles and cheers her on as she tips, tips, tips back—and finally flutters her wings at the end of the massive gulp. A huge belch, and she raises the empty glass as she flies down from the table, smirking devilishly and pumping a hoof in the re-confetti'd air. “And THAT—fillies and gentlecolts—is the OFFICIAL start of the PARTY! BRAAAP! Unngh—Bring it on, kidneys! Rghh!”
“YEAHH! WOOO!” Pinkie Pie cartwheels, nearly flinging the helmet-cam off her fluffy head with a climactic forward flip. “You heard her! DJ—Hit it! Dance till you can prance no more!”
The following are notes I took for the chapter as whole. The fic was never written beyond this. Vimbert snapped this self-absorbed lemur back to reality, and End of Ponies was born "from the ashes" as t'were.
Notes
*Series of videotaped interviews*
Pony: How would you survive without Rainbow Dash? She's like your main filly!
Pinkie Pie: Jee, I dunno. Hey Dashie—How would I survive without you?
Rainbow Dash: I dunno, I'm like your main filly.
Fluttershy – Angel cameo / is almost too shy to speak before camera / is reminded about the poem she's going to give on stage and is goaded to speak
*Angel and Rainbow Dash seen chatting, scheming*
-Apple Jack is late, 'tending to some last minute business'
-Angel the bunny communicates something (psst psst psst) with Rainbow, snickering
-Spike gets return letter from Celestia; Rainbow fidgets
-Apple Jack shows up, grumpy, confronts Rainbow about oversaturated crops
-Twilight confronts Rainbow on nature of sent letter / Twilight: Muffins? You had me mail Princess Celestia a paid advertisement about muffins? / Twilight: What gives—I thought she liked crackers. / Twilight: Who? / Rainbow: Ditzyyyyy—errrr--ehheheh / Twilight: You realize what this means? / Rainbow: So what? Muffins are.....uh.....good. Gotta be better than what the Princess already eats. Just what does she eat, anyways? Solar hay?
-Captain of Flight Team shows up, looking for Rainbow Dash per Rose Heart's request
-Hoity Toity storms in, outraged over gemstone delivery / Rainbow shoves Ditzy Doo his way / “Great party, Mr. Squirrel!” “Ditzy! What are you doing here?” “Oh I put my little filly to bed, all two of her.” / “Pretend he's a flock of Winter birds and guide him WEST”
-Twilight and Apple Jack put on heat, Pinkie is perplexed
-Ditzy Doo delivers message to Rarity; Rarity has nervous breakdown
-At fever pitch, Fluttershy prepares to give a poem in Rainbow Dash's honor / Rainbow waits in giggling anticipation; Pinkie is confused
-Fake Angel loses her head; Fluttershy is shocked—Rainbow Dash and the real Angel snicker / Fluttershy realizes the fake Angel is a stuffed dummy, but is nonetheless moved to tears by the shock of the prank / Angel points guiltily at Rainbow Dash
-Entire party is glaring at Rainbow Dash / Pinkie Pie rushes to shoulder Fluttershy's sobbing (perhaps Rarity's too) / Rainbow Dash: Come onnnn, Fluttershy! Didn't you say you loved it when I did pranks?
-Rainbow Dash: How could this get any worse?
-Stu Leaves is wheeled in—lamed from the race from earlier / “Hey! I know you!”
-Apple Jack LETS LOOSE on Rainbow Dash
-Zecora and Tetramun cameo(?)
-Rainbow Dash leaves in a huff; Scootaloo follows / Rainbow Dash makes to leave on her own, puts on Scootaloo's goggles backwards, and slams into a tree / Rainbow relents to letting Scootaloo tag along
-Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo on a cloud at night / cuddling under the stars / Rainbow Dash monologues as Scootaloo falls asleep
Rainbow Dash: My mother died—and when I was born, it was only because she gave everything she could to make sure that I could live. And I have lived—as well as I could live, as well as anypony could ever hope to live. Idiots might call me 'half-wing' or wutcrap, but that doesn't bother me like it used to. I'm the coolest, most awesome, most butt-kickingest Pegasus in all of Equestria. I'm right as rain in my life, so long as I remember that. So long as I remember her.
(return to theme)
Princess Celestia: Even without your friends, isn't it enough that you'll remember all the things that you are proud of?
Rainbow Dash: No it's not! (emotionally) No....It's not.
When I first submitted End of Ponies to Vimbert's review thread, he reacted positively to most of it--but he expressed open disapproval of Chapter five. If I recall, candle-stick-head's exact words were "SO VERY BORED."
Well, here's why. The original version was about eleven pages longer, and most of it consists of Spike monologuing like Treebeard.
I went back through and essentially rewrote the whole dayum thing. It's better how I changed it, but in this version you can see me layering the exposition like Victorian lingerie.
There are good ways to do exposition. And then there are bad ways. The bad ways aren't so... bad, but that's assuming your audience is drugged up on dopamine.
Chapter 5 – Immutable
“I was a mere dragon whelp—wingless and crest-less; I was no older than you, Scootaloo, when the world of Equestria met its end. It is not a day that I recall with any fondness, as you can well guess. Everypony that I was ever close to perished horrifically. Every friend I ever had, every acquaintance and loved one—they all vanished in a blink. I was on my own, a baby dragon clamoring for resources in the mountains beneath the ruins of Canterlot, attempting to make sense of the end of all things sensible. But as the Sun-less days bled into perpetual twilight, I began to realize that my fate was not something to be paraphrased by the horrible blight that befell this land. Much rather, I was to undergo an evolution, a blossoming metamorphosis that transformed me into something greater than my physical self. If time was satisfied to freeze the world into a miasma of gray limbo, then it would become my life task to transcend time—and with the art of several arcane dragon spells, I was able to do just that. The mystical arts are an amazing thing—yes?—as they serve their purposes best when the civilization that depends on them no longer exists to judge them in the first place. I imagine you too, Scootaloo, understand the truth behind this...”
The last pony's ears heard the elder dragon's words, but her eyes were still exploring the mesmerizing sights of the cavernous hovel. Under the gnarled roots of the late Twilight Sparkle's treehouse library, the basement had been expanded enormously into a subterranean dragon's roost. Above a sparkling array of multi-colored gemstones was an elaborate assortment of alchemy tables, shelves upon shelves of magical ingredients in glass jars, sparkling crystal balls, electrified tesla coils, elaborate brass-constructed rotating models of the Equestrian solar system, and then a rhythmic howbeit cacophonous assortment of dozens upon dozens of clocks—clocks of all shapes and sizes, of various copper instruments clicking and clanking and spinning with infinitely complex precision across the wide sparkling lengths of the cave. A deep purple haze twinkled throughout the earthen interior within the heart of Ponyville, giving the place a spiritual glow that breathed a resurrected spirit of Equestrian sorcery into the air, making the wide-eyed pegasus' heart leap for the millionth time that eventful afternoon.
“Scootaloo?” An elderly voice deeply vibrated through the laboratory, forcing her to glance up at the warm sight of a purple dragon's face lowering to meet her eyes. He was applying the last of a series of bandages across her left side with large but gentle clawed hands. The spot underneath her wing where the bloodthirsty trolls had stabbed her was completely and miraculously healed, but a tight soreness persisted still as her old draconian friend finished his ministrations. “I can understand quite perfectly the extent to which you must be distracted this very moment, but I do hope my words haven't been too utterly wasted.” His iron lips curved in a toothed smile; a violet pendant glittered in mana light from where it hung around his neck.
“I-I'm sorry, Spike,” the filly said, trembling slightly from where she sat on a lab table with her legs folded underneath her. Her leather armor and equipment was deposited neatly on the floor besides the mounds of multicolored gems so that the dragon could properly bandage her. For the first time in as many years as she could pretend to count, the mare felt naked—exposed—and yet ... not vulnerable. “It's still so hard for me to ... to believe that this is happening. I was nearly killed by those horrible monsters, and then not only do I find out that you're alive—but you actually sent me back through time?”
“Hmmm,” he nodded and gently tightened the bandage against her wincing side. “Your shock is hardly something to apologize for. If there's anyone who should be apologizing—alas, it must be myself. Though I dispensed with your attackers, I was anything but graceful immediately afterwards. Still, you proved to be a much sturdier pony than I had anticipated.” He chuckled hoarsely and winked an emerald eyeslit at her. “If I had instead relied on a bow and a 'how-do-you-do', I wouldn't question a rigid survivor like you narrowing the sights of one of your guns on my hapless snout.”
Scootaloo bit her lip, her gaze falling towards the floor. “I guess that's true. Funny—yesterday, I would never have thought twice about aiming a weapon at something to survive. But here and now—in the company of a friend—it all seems so... so...”
“Poetic?”
She made a face at him. “Barbaric!”
“Ah yes, 'barbarism',” Spike smirked. On heavy haunches, he slithered massively across the cramped cavern and re-shelved his medicinal ingredients inside an assortment of marble-carved cabinets. “Now there's a word that had resonance before the Death of Equestria. I've always believed that when the first dragon who ever lived took a bite out of the delectable flesh of the planet, what separated her from the horrid beasts of this world is that she was the first to pause and ponder over what tiny but undeniable piece of nature she had verily sent to ruin.”
“I'm sorry ...?” Scootaloo blinked helplessly.
Spike smiled at her over his purple shoulder. “True barbarism, my little pony, belongs to a creature that devours indescriminately without bothering to digest its sustenance via the invisible organ of the conscience. Much like those mindless herding trolls that so merciessly assaulted you up above.”
“Heh... Guess you're right,” the filly smirked at him with a calming breath. “All of this can be 'poetic', can it?”
“With Equestria reduced to a veritable blank slate, I know it's been incalculably hard for you to find a standard against which to judge the nature of your actions—both loathsome and noble. But if it is of any consolation, Scootaloo...” He strolled towards her and gently tilted her chin up with the base of his claw, smiling. “...I have long waited for this moment, when I would be blessed by the presence of the last living thing that carries the same breath of purity that Equestria was founded on—and I have not been disappointed. I could not ask for finer company.”
She swallowed a lump down her throat, gazing up at him. A suddenly painful breath, and her scarlet eyes curved as she sympathetically murmured: “You've changed, Spike. I know that I have been through a lot. B-But you...?”
He solemnly nodded. “We both have been transformed by our own respectful trials. You, as I can very well see, have been righteously hardened by a long life of ingenious adaptation and survivalism. My experience is analogous in many respects, but it's not quite that simple.”
“How so?”
“Well—For example: as you have lived one hardened life, I suppose it's safe to say that I have lived several.”
“I...I-I don't understand,” she muttered, her brow furrowing.
“You did hear me when I said that I took it upon myself to transcend time, yes?”
“Well, that much is obvious, Spike—Though it's still a big pill to swallow,” she gulped as she said this, gazing at her bandages. “That spell that you did on me—in the ruins of Sugarcube Corner, when you breathed your dragon fumes on my wound--”
“I doused your flesh with an Accelerated Chrono Spell,” he nodded matter-of-factly. “It tricked your body ever so briefly to assume that several seconds were actually several weeks. That's why the wound closed up so quickly.”
“And...” She bit her lip, hesitating slightly before finally coming out with it: “Your age, Spike...?”
He chuckled, “What of it, girl?”
Scootaloo nervously blushed. “I-I remember you being a dragon whelp and all when I first saw you in Ponyville—I think even Twilight Sparkle explained to me that you were barely older than I was. But... B-But I've done a lot of reading over these desolate years--”
“Heheh—I can tell...”
“--and dragons' lifespans dwarf that of ponies by over tenfold. As a result, the draconian growth period should be way longer than equines'.” Her eyes narrowed on his grand purple frame. “You should be a lot younger than how you appear to be right now.”
“Merely the consequence of Intro-Chronomanic Incantation.”
She blinked. “Intro-Chronic-Wh-What, now?”
Spike's nostrils briefly fumed with passive smoke. With the violet pendant dangling, he paced over to his bed of gemstones and reclined with a weathered sigh; but then he bore a courageous smile as he nodded and began: “When I was alone in my half of the same wasteland that was thrust upon you, all I had to go by was the spirit instilled in me by my one and only mentor...”
Scootaloo exhaled in a somber breath, “Twilight.”
He nodded. “She was the most magnificent unicorn that ever lived,” Spike spoke in a distant voice as his emerald eyes retraced his long and scaled history. “I do not think it is a simple bias for me to state that fact. If things had not gone the way they had—and if Equestria had at least one century left to live out its Fourth Age in daylight—I have no doubt that Twilight Sparkle would have become not only the most powerful magician in all of the land, but she would have dwarfed all of the sorceresses that proceeded her—save for those of the Royal Family, of course.” A slight chuckle, and he continued: “To be able to work with her, to assist her, and to be counted as her very close friend is an honor that I have never forgotten ... and never will. When she was suddenly ripped savagely from my life, it was a tragedy almost worse than the destruction of all Equestria—to me, naturally. Living those first few anguished years alone in the Canterlotlian Heights was a purgatory I shudder to relive, but must—at least in my heart—because those bleak days would form the building blocks of a grand magical experiment to put all previous projects in the realm of mysticism to utter shame.
“In my young heart, I felt the only way to bring sense to the apocalyptic world was to see it through my late mentor's eyes. 'What would Twilight do?' I would ask myself. The world had been stripped of its Sun and Moon. There were no more days and no more nights. It was as if the one reason that death came to the world of ponydom was because time itself had abandoned all living things. I started to see time as an organism—a selfish and slothful creature that suddenly needed to be spurred back into responsibility. And it was out of that relatively hyperbolic perception that I imagined something too amazing to disregard.
“I remembered immediately a series of experiments that Twilight Sparkle had engaged me in just weeks before the Disaster. But before I get to that, dear Scootaloo, you must understand the one useful quality I had in the gifted unicorn's employment. Ever since the first day I began working as the lab assistant to Princess Celestia's star pupil, I was always chiefly used as a messenger boy. With a basic translocation spell that thrived off the magical aura of purple draconian green flame, I could transport objects across leylines with a simple act of teleportation. This, of course, we used on a regular basis to send Twilight's priceless letters on friendship to the Goddess of the Sun. As I grew older and my mastery of green flame improved, we began dabbling in my potential to send different kinds of objects to new and unheard of locations with the simple exhale of a jade breath.
“This led to Twilight's experiments, which were noble in their imaginative scope—howbeit almost too imaginative. My mentor had been pouring through several tomes regarding cosmology, quantum physics, and the spacial transience of leylines. She drafted a hypothesis based on the possiblity that—as I had until then transported objects through space—I could also potentially transport objects through time. Using my physical body and elemental essence as a base, it was theoretically possible to employ my soul as a vessel through which to communicate into the past and future, and my green flame would be the river upon which such chronological messages would drift.
“What followed were several intriguing yet failed attempts to accomplish such a remarkable feat. I remember staying up all hours of the night, waiting on an adorably disheveled unicorn to finish scribbling the last of several overly-complicated mathematical theorems before sending my green flame through the rinse. I belched so many infernal letters to ashes that I thought I was going to burn a hole in my nubile fire glands. But I didn't mind—I was excited about the entire prospect, but not nearly as excited as my mentor. No, Twilight was positively electrified with anticipation—I don't think I had seen her so focused on a spell since the days she obsessed over the return of Nightmare Moon. In the end, though, every letter that I sent appeared at the target coordinates at the precise same time that they dissolved in flames at my side of the laboratory. All except one—in Twilight's slightly delusional observation, at least. We all chalked it up to her exhaustion at the time, but she swore afterwards that one of the letters we sent made its appearance two milliseconds later than what would be considered 'natural'. Only now do I look back and realize that—yes—perhaps we were actually making history...
“Well, we gave up on the experiments. Twilight resumed her normal magical curriculum, her letters on friendship, and her happy days of being the young pony she had every right to be. And then ... And then when everything was consumed in flames, and I stood alone in the absence of her—what seemed for a brief lapse in logic to be an utter travesty of scientific research suddenly transformed into a golden mean before my mind's desperate eye. I had to find out if there was truth to the experiment beyond a few failed attempts at meager mathematical propositions. Twilight was far more gifted than I had ever hoped to be, but the unicorn's resources were limited. After the Cataclysm, the Equestrian Wasteland opened up to me a grand cornucopia of opportunity, of endless tools to my disposal, of a voluminous backlog of written archives left miraculously in tact at my claw-tips. Salvaging the Canterlotlian libraries of all that I could find on cosmology, leylines, and magical exploits—I burrowed my way deep into the Eastern Mountains and imprisoned myself within a perpetual state of research and self-introspection. For countless years I beat my scaled head against the surface of one single confounding quandary—Could I turn back time? Could I send a message back to myself? Could I possibly undo the horrible holocaust that had rendered all of my friends to dust and myself to an orphan of desolation?
“You must understand that I thought I was the only living thing—much less only living dragon—in all of Equestria. I was in Canterlot when the End came—And I still hadn't grown my wings, so there was nowhere else to go. In the heart of the mountains, I fashioned my own home into a time capsule. Life between the opaque walls of rock was twice the limbo as the lingering twilight above the Wastes could ever hoped to have been. It was just what I needed; because the only way I planned to scale my mastery of time was if I felt the chronological currents bending before my will. It wasn't enough to observe the results of my experiments. Magic is a science second, but an experience first. I told myself that I would not leave those mountains—that rocky cage I had forced upon myself—until I could exit them not just through space, but time itself. I wasn't about to commit suicide, mind you—I had all the rubies and gems I could eat, and all the insulation that a dragon would require. Hours crept into decades, as I went against the grindstone of the cosmos—And somewhere deep in the mind numbing thick of it all, I succeeded. I came upon an epiphany. I found what I was looking for.
“What I discovered was 'Reverse-Time'. If chronological energy is like waves on the beach, then 'Reverse-Time' is the effect that one sees upon the advent of a huge tsunami when the shoreline briefly and hauntingly recedes back into the body of the ocean, prophecying the huge tidal wave to come. On that same note, time is also a lot like the ocean; it may appear enormous and infinite, but time—much like space—has its limits. The key is understanding just how many daunting drops fill that 'ocean', and how cohesive they are with one another. It wasn't enough for me to discover 'Reverse-Time', but I had to control it somehow. The solution, I found, was to energize the current of time forward—as if I was instigating the massive tsunami in the first place, and the undercurrents of time would naturally flow back in a variable relationship to the forward surge that was sparked.
“Though I cannot expect you in so short yet verbose a dissertation to understand the intricacies of what I'm trying to convey here, Scootaloo, I think you can very well empathize with the overwhelming euphoria I felt with my discovery. In the end, all it took was for me to conjure up a burst of green flame strong enough to set off this metaphorical 'tsunami', so that I could kick-start 'Reverse-Time' and hopefully ride it back to a moment that took place before the disaster--”
For the first time in minutes, Scootaloo finally reached a bursting point. “And did you--?!” She all but leaped off the table, her eyes wide. But just as soon as she exclaimed such, her features began deflating. She didn't even need to hear Spike's next words; his grave face gave the obvious answer.
“No, old friend,” he inevitably said. “Though I was successful—and I became the first dragon ever to travel back in time—I hit a blockade. When I came to, I felt the mountains around me crumbling in the tremors of a horrificaly familiar Cataclysm. The chaos ended, and I broke the surface of the rock for the first time in years. What I discovered on the outside was the same perpetual twilight and mist that still blankets our world today. I had indeed traveled back in time—But the furthest I could go was the very moment of Equestria's death. I could go no further back, no matter how many times I tried. And I did try, on multiple occasions. In different niches of the same mountains, I carved myself a new home and laboratory, slaved away over the ensuing years, and sent myself back on Reverse-Time just like I did every moment previously. And each time, I traveled back to the past only to stop at the horrific punctuation of the one and all-encompassing apocalypse.
“You see, my green flame requires a full circuit upon which I can travel chronologically backwards. That 'circuit' is none other than my soul, my life essence, that which defines me as an entity beyond all conventional means of physical science. If we had no souls, Scootaloo, there'd be no reason for magic to exist in the first place. I know that sounds a bit poetic—but it really is that simple. As I would discover—there would forever be a schism in my soul, a break in the 'circuit' at the precise point when the Cataclysm happened. It took me a while to digest this truth; the Cataclysm was as much a magical catastrophe as it was an elemental one. Whatever destroyed our Sun and Moon—whatever consumed the souls of Princess Celestia and Princess Luna—it also brought death and destruction to all things ... to all souls enchanted, even on the most basic level, with magic. That is what brought the end to ponies, Scootaloo: a magical blight. It's what petrified all equine flesh and reduced them to the ashes that forever haunt this world. And, sadly, there is no way I can travel back in time to precede it.”
Scootaloo leaned her head to the side. “If that's true, then why are you still around? You're magical, aren't you?” She blinked, and her face paled. “Why am I still around?”
Spike's green crests flickered. Scootaloo noticed an odd twitch to his eyelids' scales as he nonetheless gravely uttered: “Dragons are naturally infused with magic—Yes—but they are also very much immune to countless types of mystical energies that might assault the scales. But that is hardly an ample excuse for why I am still around. The only real hypothesis that I have is that whatever caused the disaster was fundamentally devastating to the essence of ponies—and not dragons, or any other creatures for that matter. It would explain why so many things not touched by the Sun or Moon are still alive today—While all of ponydom is deceased.”
“All but me...,” Scootaloo said deflatedly, her eyes wandering in aimless circles across the hundreds of clockfaces ticking unemotionally at her. “I always thought it was just dumb luck that I survived. But now--” She gulped as a wounded expression billowed up to the surface of her face. “It's so absurd.”
“Is it?” Spike cocked his head to the side with a curious smirk. “Where were you when the Cataclysm hit?”
She looked at him. She knew the answer to this. She had gone over it so many times in her head—dreaming of a moment, a moment like this, when she might finally tell her tale to someone, when there might finally be a shoulder for her to lean on and share all of her anguish and pain, when there'd be another voice besides her own to judge if she had truly taken advantage of the second life granted her, if she had actually made herself out to be something more than the last Equestrian statistic ever. But now that the moment had come, and Spike—the tiny annoying boyish whelp—was suddenly a majestic and wise dragon awaiting her testimony, she couldn't manage a single breath. She felt her limbs buckling, because she had never expected this moment to be so ... so bitter. She felt guilty, and she wasn't entirely sure why.
It was to Scootaloo's infantile relief that Spike saw straight through her and instantly resumed his monologue as if it had never ended: “I had, in my manic and desperate experimentation, made a total of eight whole trips in Reverse-Time to the moment of disaster. Each time, I was occupying a different part of the mountain so as not to run into my past self. And each time, I was coming closer and closer to understanding the true nature of time—as I was also coming closer to grasping the truth that I could not entirely master it, at least not well enough to achieve my dream of going to a moment in time prior to the Cataclysm. Settling on the fate dealt to me, I experimented in a different form of chronological manipulation—Intro Chronomanic Incantation. I was able to persistently slow time down within me, allowing myself to accomplish more in a single year than any other practicing sorceror could in an entire decade. This became a priceless tool at my disposal, as I could extend my research and perfect my mathematical formulas without having to simply hurl myself back into the past like a badly thrown stone across the lake of reality.”
“So you're telling me that—in one lifetime—you've jumped back in time on over eight separate occasions, and you've even found a way to slow time around you?” Scootaloo squinted.
“I slowed time within me,” the purple dragon smiled. “It's about as ridiculous as it sounds, but most assuredly true.”
She stammered, “Spike—Just how old are you?”
He took a weathered breath. “Taking into account my rate of growth, cross-analyzed by a relativistic calendar that I manufactured for myself long ago—I would say that I am something close to three hundred and forty-two.”
“Spike!” Her face grimaced. “That's a long time...”
“To ponder the fate of the only world I've ever loved...,” he gazed deeply at her, “...It's not been long enough.” His woe-some face aged one reflection at a time across a panorama of ticking clockfaces that flanked his reclining figure. “Funny—My life as a whelp, frolicking side by side with close friends in the living green of Equestria was a scant nine years. And I've spent the better part of three centuries constructing a desperate appendix to what's ultimately been a very trite chapter in my life. But it's the only chapter that holds any merit, that still makes my heart leap to remember the sound of Twilight's voice when she called for quill and ink from across the library, when she patted me on the back for an assistant's job well done, when she tucked me in at night as I gave into nubile draconian slumber, dreaming of the magical morning to follow...” He sighed thoughtfully, green fumes kicking into the air and brushing past a rotating array of brass planetoids. A beat, and he turned to smile archaically in the last pony's direction. “I think that's the real reason why I locked myself inside the sarcophagus of the Eastern Mountains to do my experiments. I refused to stare at the gray sky until I could somehow bring myself to see the Sun once more. It's been over three hundred years, and yet I still hear her voice ... and dream of the golden dawn.”
Scootaloo gulped. “Spike?” She gazed forlornly. “Do you know how old I am?”
He squinted at her, rearing his crested neck back in thought. “If my memory still serves me right, you had to have been eight years old at the time of the Cataclysm. And at your chronological level, it has been twenty-five and a half Equestrian revolutions since the end of ponies. So that makes you--”
“Thirty-Three,” Scootaloo exhaled. She blinked as the words left her in a misty sigh. “I am thirty-three years of age.” Her voice wilted as she avoided the gaze of the clockfaces. “I-I remember when I was a little foal, and Apple Bloom's teacher—Ms. Cheerilee—told us how old she was: 'Thirty-Three'. And I thought to myself how... how strange it must be—to be over three times as old as I was, to be three decades old, to be an adult.” She glanced at the many chips and dents in her hooves. “And here I am—and those years have vanished in an utter bl-blink...” She gulped, blushed, and gazed apologetically at the purple dragon looming before her. “I-I'm sorry, Spike. I know th-that can't possibly compare to three hundred years.”
“You would be surprised, child,” he nodded at her. “Centuries all blink the same.”
A dizziness slowly wafted up to the center of Scootaloo's adult head. Between Spike's monologues and the spinning hands on the clockfaces, she suddenly found herself encumbered with an awkward nasuea. She murmured something unintelligibly and got up onto her wobbling legs—still wincing from the bandaged wound on her left side. “Gotta t-touch the ground... Feel like I'm in a cyclone--”
“Allow me, old friend,” Spike said and lifted the very tip of his massive tail over to give her something to lean on. She graciously accepted his help and hobbled down onto the ground like a shivering, newborn foal. Gathering her senses, she breathed a bit steadier and shuffled across the underground laboratory full of jars, spinning globes, and crystal balls.
“Fuuu... Hrmmm...” She swallowed her nervousness away and forced herself into taking a severe interest in the sights of the place. “Well—At least your long life explains the décor. I've never seen things built so intricately...”
“I said that I imprisoned myself inside a mountain and banged my head against time travel formulas,” Spike smiled. “I never said I gave up on hobbies.”
“And you obviously never gave up your craving for gemstones,” she briefly smiled at him.
“Guilty as charged, Scootaloo,” he placed a clawed hand over his chest and smirked through a brief curtain of fumes. “You've done rather well for yourself, if I may say so. I take it that your appreciation for my equipment comes from an engineer's standpoint?”
“Heh,” she chuckled briefly at him while gazing at an elaborate set of sparkling tesla coils. “What gave it away? My gear?”
“Weren't you always something of a tinkerer?”
She raised an eyebrow at him. “I was?”
“Don't attempt to trick draconian memory, child. I remember you being quite the inventive sort—What with your scooter and ziplining and other random bits of improvisational transporation.”
“Mmm—I dabbled when I was a little filly,” she stated, bravely unphased at the implications of her own words. “But honestly, Spike—What I've become since then has merely been a result of trying to stay alive in all the madness.”
“Which your talents aided you in, no doubt.”
“Yeah, well...,” she grunted and took a weathered look at her ever-blank flank. “My talents have a funny way of being facetious.”
“A curiosity that—even until this day...,” Spike murmured while scratching his green chin crest with a pair of claws. “...—you never got your imprint.”
“You said it yourself, Spike,” she muttered as she ducked under a revolving brass planet with twin clack-a-clacking moons in orbit of it. “There was a blight on the magical essence of ponies everywhere when the Cataclysm hit. Whatever mystical force gave us cutie marks was very likely cut off at the head.” She sighed, “What's the point in getting a cutie mark when all this is as good as it gets?”
“Perhaps it's because I was born a dragon, but I always felt that ponies allowed their sense of self-importance to hinge far too predominantly on the possession of a cutie mark.”
“Yeah, well,” she chuckled. “Gilda would say the same.”
Spike raised a scaled eyecrest at that. “That irascible griffon is still alive?”
“Yup,” she muttered and gazed at her reflection in a crystal ball. “As alive as she will ever be. Why?—Does that news thrill you?”
“To be perfectly frank, not entirely.”
“Snkkkkt-Hahahahaha...” Scootaloo broke out in a fit of giggles.
Spike smirked. “Now there's a pure sign of magic in the bloodline of ponydom if ever there was one.”
“Eheheh—Ahem. Wh-What was that?”
“You laughed.”
“Why not? Life is absurd.”
“Keep up that attitude, old friend, and you'll never get your cutie mark.”
“A worry of the past, Spike,” Scootaloo droned as she passed a chemistry set and several jars of ingredients. “Unless you wanna reverse-time us to the past and brand me with an iron in the shape of a broken heart.”
“The least of my concerns at the moment, I assure you.”
“That makes me feel much better,” she added in a monotone voice, as her mesmerized gaze was caught within the sight of something. She drifted towards what turned out to be a meter-high hourglass suspended in the center of the laboratory. Inside the top and bottom glass cases of the thing a bizarre phenomenon was transpiring. At one moment, there was a brilliant plume of violet-blue flowers in the bottom glass. Then, in a blink, the flowers withered and faded to ash—while an identical pile of ashes in the top glass coalesced oppositely into another bouquet of violet flowers. Another beat, and the top bouquet would wither into dead matter as the ashes in the bottom half of the hourglass grew back at fast-forward. This revolution would proceed infinitely, with opposite jars of the hourglass possessing interchangeably dying and growing flowers in a timely crafted cycle.
“Do you like what you see?” Spike was suddenly standing above and behind her on his haunches.
She jumped slightly, locking a trembling gaze on the hourglass'd cycle. “I'd pay a hundred thousand bits to understand it before I even contemplated freaking out.”
He smiled. “I melted the glass out of Green Flame—the two halves at alternating frequencies. The result is that both are balanced in a flux of time and reverse-time, acting off each other like opposite swings of a pendulum.” The dragon pointed astutely with a glistening claw. “The flowers in each jar are experiencing quantum shifts in time—forward and reverse—kept in flux by the equal energy of its sibling. I could never have possibly conceived of manufacturing this thing when I first set upon my experimentations. But by the sixth occasion that I rode reverse-time back to the Cataclysm, I felt it was appropriate to artistically express just how far I had come along in my research. I frankly never expected to show it to anyone.” A warm smile. “But then you came along.”
She briefly smiled back—her eyes still locked on the immortal back-and-forth of the flowers and ashes before her. “They're... Th-They're beautiful, Spike. Uhm...” She bit her lip ashamedly. “What are they? The flowers, that is...”
“Lavenders,” Spike said. “Very fragrant—As sweet smelling as they are for gazing at.”
“How on Earth did you stumble upon them?”
“At the end of one of my trips back, I ventured out into the wastelands and found a single patch of ground that hadn't been burned to a crisp. I salvaged the flowers before they could be consumed by the inevitable blight that would blanket the landscape.”
“Guess it helps to be a time traveler...”
“Mmm. To an extent.”
“Why lavenders?”
“Oh...,” The immense dragon's jaws curved into a gentle, iron smile. “They were the favorite of one delightful pony I knew—She was the most resplendent and elegant unicorn in all of Equestria—a filly who set this young whelp's heart a'flutter, long-long ago.” His aged eyeslits narrowed on the dying-and-sprouting twin bouquets as they cast a faded blue hue across his scales. “Having them here, in limbo like this, means that I can appreciate them forever, as I still will appreciate her forever. And, one day, when I am long gone—my ashes will dissolve, but these flowers will outlast me, and perhaps her memory will in turn.”
Something long neglected inside the mare's iron-wrought heart fractured briefly, and she let forth a bursting sigh. Making up for it, she smiled bravely up at him and murmured in a wavering voice: “I am most certain she would appreciate that, Spike.”
“Hmmm—She was always an avid appraiser of all things beautiful.” A long breath, and he smirked down towards her. “And she would thrash you within an inch of your life for so savagely curtailing your own gifts, child!”
“What?—OH,” she half-giggled and brought a hoof up, rubbing it over the harsh violet stubble that made up her shaved mane. “You mean this. A very long time ago, I learned that having a beautiful mane was pointless in the Wastes. To be honest, I was always something of a tomcolt—I didn't care much for doing my hair up like Sweetie Bell or Silver Spoon or the other girls my age. But I learned quickly that monsters smelled me easily by the scent on my hair—And my mane did a much better job being woven into insulating materials and rags and—well—anything you can imagine, I-I guess. There h-haven't been many frickin' beauty pageants since the Cataclysm, and besides—I don't really have..h-have much use in mirrors.” She took a deep breath, gulped, and smiled up at Spike—but her smile was buckling, and her eyes were turning into moist concave pools as she tried in vain to outstare him. The mare ultimately failed, allowing her face to fall in a convulsing sob.
The dragon lovingly drifted in and scooped her gently in a strong arm, weathering her helpless cries as she leaned her weight against his thigh. She covered her face with a hoof and gnashed her teeth, twitching involuntarily as the waves of misery buckled savagely through her. After several minutes of shuddering, she finally rediscovered the strength to speak:
“I-I'm so sorry, Sp-Spike. You've done so much for m-me, and I-I st-still can't believe that y-you're even here...”
“It's quite alright, Scootaloo--”
“No, it's not alright!” She hiccuped and hyperventilated. “I've been s-so alone for so long, and wh-what have I-I got to show for it? I'm a p-pathetic crybaby. I'm b-better than this! I know I am...!”
“It isn't easy being strong when there isn't anyone else left to be stronger than, child,” he said as he gently stroked her violet-stubbled neck. “Trust me, I know. You have to invent your own scale of courage and tenacity. We're both sides of a horrible coin that fate flipped, Scootaloo. But we're also a miracle—if you could extend that metaphor to confirm that the coin hasn't landed on either face, but impossibly ended up on its side.” He winked and smiled. “If survivors are crybabies, then so be it. It means they still have a heart to give merit to the miracle of their continued existence.”
“It's j-just so unfair...” She murmured, sniffling. “Why'd this have to happen to us? Why were so many destroyed—But the two of us remained? Certainly you with all of your reverse-time wackiness can at least make an educated guess ...?”
“And then it would only be a guess,” he said. “Believe me, Scootaloo—What troubles you is a mystery that I too wish to resolve. And I belive that the time for that is at hand.”
She shuddered as a painful wave of thought flowed through her and manifested out her mouth: “Just answer me one q-question, Spike...”
“Ask away.”
“In all of your multiple jumps back in time to the moment after the Cataclysm—In all of those years spent living and re-living in the heart of the mountains beneath Canterlot—You had to have been aware of my existence in Equestria.”
“It eventually dawned on me, yes,” he nodded. “I knew that you were fated to arrive at Ponyville today. By the end of my eighth revolution, I planned to be here in time for our paths to meet.” He took a deep breath, expecting what was to come next.
She did too: “Why d-did you wait until now to meet with me?” She asked, her eyes suddenly like twin scarlet daggers that surged heatedly through her brimming tears. “Why did you leave me alone all of those years?”
“Aside from knowing that you wouldn't die during the interim?”
“Yes.”
“Because I knew that if I brought this upon the last pony twenty-five years ago—Whoever she may have been—She would not have been ready for what lies ahead.”
“I-I don't understand,” she sniffled and stared at him with a quivering mouth. “Bring what upon me?”
He stared steadily at her. “Have you yet wondered how it is that I cannot myself travel further than the one point in the past when the Cataclysm happened...” His eyeslits narrowed. “...and yet I just sent you to Cheerilee's schoolhouse on a beautiful crisp morning in Equestria, twenty-five years ago?”
She gazed breathlessly at him. In the midst of her numbed heart and mind, she hadn't taken the briefest of seconds to contemplate that. “Spike, are you meaning to say--?”
“I found a way, Scootaloo,” he smiled. “I found a solution to breaching the wall brought upon by the magical schism of the Cataclysm. But where I fail to be the pilot of such a time jump—Somepony like you can succeed. If you were any younger, your soul wouldn't have survived the trip. And even if it did—That would not have been a pony equipped with the means to potentially pursue what comes next.”
“...and that is?”
“A chance—the one chance in history—to make a tragedy into a triumph, Scootaloo.” He took a deep breath and gazed proudly down at her. “Don't you see? All this time I had myself locked away in mountains, trying to figure out the universe—and the answer all along has been you. You're the solution Equestria needs. And now—with my three centuries of planning and your quarter-century of growing, we can both come to the center of the hourglass and make poetry out of this limbo. But only if you're willing.”
“I... I don't even know what you're asking me to do.”
“I will tell you, but on one condition,” Spike leaned his head to the side. “If you would do me the honor of sharing with me just what happened in those twenty-five years.”
She blinked confusedly, wiping the tears away. “And j-just what would that accomplish?”
“What else?” He grinned warmly. “It would let me catch up with an old friend.”
Hours later, Scootaloo perched on the one remaining balcony precariously hanging atop an outstretched branch of Twilight Sparkle's former treehouse. Her front hooves dangled with a youthful playfulness as she motioned with her snout towards the hovering sight of the Harmony, which she had tethered to the top of the tree thirty minutes ago for the purple dragon to see with his naked green eyeslits. The mist of Ponyville hung gently around them like fog off of a morning snowbank before an upcoming Winter Wrap-up. The air was briefly bereft of the usual morose gloom brought upon by the gray twilight above. Two friends gathered, warmed by each other's voices, as the grave village bowed to their gentle shadows.
“She's powered by steam—With a boiler lit with gold flame. Every twenty storm fronts or so, I have to restock on the burning energy source, but for the most part the vessel's pretty self-sustaining. There's an auxiliary compartment built into the upper hollows of the dirigible that can levitate the ship on hot-air alone, if the need presents itself. The propellers are—duh—for propulsion, and they're built out of Cloudsdalian bronze just like the rest of the bulkheads. The lateral rudders control the climbing or descending. The exterior shell is insulated and non-conductive, which is nice for when I might end up navigating a lightning storm. I have four built-in generators for housing electrical power—mostly for interior lighting, a loudspeaker system, and generating energy for when I'm runecrafting.”
“So you are dabbling in runecrafting!” Spike beamed. “When I first sensed your magical aura from across Equestria, I almost thought that you were a unicorn.”
“Oh, half of the frickin' ship runs off of runecrafting! I have several devices keyed in by runestones that respond only to my voice--”
“Spoken in the ancient Lunar Tongue, no doubt.”
“Y-Yeah. Moonwhinny. How did you know?”
“I researched more than just time in my days, girl.”
“Well, I've done a lot of research myself,” she nodded. “It's amazing what you can find from the most hidden libraries in Equestria. I used to think that since Ponyville rested in the shadow of Canterlot, that this side of the kingdom would be the only place with anything remotely worth reading. But I was wrong—I've found useful ancient tomes in places as far away as Stalliongrad and Chicacolt. Half of my knowledge of runescaping comes from the Grand Torontrot Library.”
“I'm rather flabbergasted, girl. The Scootaloo I remembered was more fond of doing somersaults and bungie jumping than becoming a bookworm—or employing what she's learned from it to boot!”
“Yeah, well—I may not have had three hundred years to get to where I am now, but a filly's gotta make do,” she shrugged, gazing down past her dangling hooves as the shadow of the Harmony hung over her. “Imagine my 'surprise' when the Wasteland had a lot less ramps to jump a scooter over and a lot more trolls to fly away from.” She snickered briefly to herself. “It wasn't enough that I had to teach myself how to fly—But when I finally built my aircraft and really took to the air, I had no idea that so many other creatures of this world were doing the same—From griffons to goblins to frickin' Diamond Dogs. Can you believe it?—They call themselves 'Dirigible Dogs' and try to keep a straight face. Heh...they could kiss my butt. My only alternative was to build my zeppelin better. I added to it—enchanted it with runestones, added a hangar level so that I could have a portable laboratory with me, began crafting rifles and weapons and leather reinforced armor—The works. For a while there, it felt like the only reason I lived was to arm myself even further to the teeth. Then, one day, I realized nobody was outright threatening to me anymore—because I had gone too insanely far. The Harmony had pretty much become a battleship, and an intimidating one at that. It was around that time that I realized I was here to stay; I had become the very same scary cloudskipper that I first worked so hard to defend myself against.”
“It still intrigues me—That name.”
“What--'Harmony'?”
“Yes, girl. Any specific gravity to the title that you haven't told me about?”
Scootaloo paused; she stared at the black branches of the late Twilight's treehouse, the snow falling on them, the creaking chain that tethered the wholesomely named airship to them. She blinked—and for a brief moment saw Rainbow Dash's smiling face from behind black bars, heard her voice murmuring something, three syllables.
“Nothing special,” she muttered. “J-Just something that... that I didn't quite yet understand when I was a filly. I was trying to hammer things together and turn them into tools in a land without grownups, much less a solid prospect for 'tomorrow'. I needed food, light, fire, and weapons. But more than anything, I needed hope. I guess that's where the name fit in—I dunno.”
“I think I do,” Spike smiled. “Do you realize what the word 'Harmony' meant before the Cataclysm--?”
“Does it matter?” Scootaloo suddenly snapped, frowning at him.
Spike squinted at her. He was silent.
She sighed, rubbing a hoof over her shaved mane. “Nnngh—S-Sorry, Spike. I'm just remembering things that I thought were long forgotten.” She paused briefly, then blinked at him. “Rainbow Dash was the last pony I saw alive before everything went to heck...”
“You don't say?”
“She saved my life. If it wasn't for her, I would have perished along with all of Clousdale,” she murmured into the falling ash around them. “For all I know—she's the sole reason I'm still around today. She's the reason that I...” Her voice trailed off. She bit her lip, swallowed hard, and looked at her reunited dragon companion. “It is true, isn't it, Spike?”
“What's true, child?”
“Just so that we're clear—I mean, you obviously know a lot with all of your years stacked up on one another—And I want to sound like a stupid idiot for as briefly as possible.” She breathed deeply and let it out: “But I am the last of my kind, right? You've never... n-never come upon another pony in all of your days--?” She didn't need to finish the last sentence.
Spike was already shaking his head, his violet pendant swaying. “You rightly knew what you were before I ever did, Scootaloo. If that was not the case, and there was a multitude of survivors on the ravaged face of Equestria—I would have done everything in my power to bring you all together as soon as possible. No lonely fate is worth spending separately--”
“--unless those fates were separated permanently to begin with,” she nodded with a bitter, knowing smile. “Separated by extinction. I'm beginning to understand why I had to be alone for so long. Any other lifestyle, and I wouldn't have been strong enough to face this awful truth.”
Spike's green crests deflated with his ensuing sigh. “I am sorry, Scootaloo. I wish things had been different; that you weren't the last specimen of such a noble race.”
“Don't I know the half of it?” She chuckled and flicked a few flakes of snow off the rickety surface of the crumbling balcony. “You wouldn't believe what I've been doing all this time—All the hours and days I spent working to scrape bits out of the wallets of nefarious sky creatures, just to put together the funds I needed to fire up this silly little beacon of mine—It was absurd then and it's doubly so in hindsight. Amazing how much a single blinking day in the twilight can change your whole outlook on life.”
“Beacon...?” Spike squinted curiously.
“Yeah—Uh, powered by glass lenses, multicolored gems, and a really rare thing called a 'flamestone'—probably a spicy treat for you. Every few stormfronts, I would fly to the east and regularly shine a--”
“The rainbow beacon?” Spike smiled broadly. “The one that shines from the Eastern Heights every fifty stormfronts?”
Scootaloo gazed at him, cockeyed. “That's a noble description coming from a frickin' time-lizard stuck in the heart of a mountain!”
“But you forget—I only traveled through reverse-time on eight occasions. Since then, I've been living in the surface world—Waiting for today.” The dragon pointed with a smile. “I always thought that beacon may have been yours. It warms my heart to realize I was right about my assumption.”
“Heh...,” Scootaloo rolled over and rested with her upper hooves behind her neck and her lower legs propped up playfully. “I made the dang thing to attract 'surviving ponies'. All I ever got was a few raccoons, a bunch of trolls, and an empty wallet every so often. I never thought I'd attract dragons.”
“And if I did suddenly descend from the snowy clouds to greet you at the signal...?”
“Right, I'd probably go 'Oh hey, a motherfluffin' dragon' and hop straight to the Harmony's harpoon gun.”
“You have a harpoon gun?”
“No—But I would have the first second after realizing that I'd have to do horse-tango with the likes of you,” she chuckled briefly to herself, sighed, then murmured: “It was for the best that I met you here, Spike. Even as crazily as I reacted, you wouldn't have had a hope of reaching through to me anywhere else.” Her face tensed up into an iron frown as she gazed across the gray skies. “It's frightening how heartless this world has made me. I never expected for a second that I might have friends left.”
“But you thought that you might have kin,” Spike pointed out. “I think there could be no stronger gesture from the heart than to build that symbol. Especially since...”
She raised an eyebrow and peaked up at him. “Since what?”
“A rainbow symbol, Scootaloo??” He smiled. “Unless you truly grasp the ironic significance of 'Harmony', I can only think of one reason why you chose that.”
“Care to enlighten me?”
“A source of inspiration, perhaps?”
“Yeah, whatever,” the surviving pegasus waved a hoof and gazed back at the gray sky. “None of that matters anymore.”
“Doesn't it?”
“Why should it? Our paths have crossed, you've got your reverse-time green flame thingy, and you've got a flesh-and-blood pony. So...it's just a matter of moments before you enlist me in your little escapade.”
“And what 'escapade' is that, Scootaloo?”
“You think I'm a dunce?” She cackled and grinned wildly at him. “Is that why you keep calling me 'child'? Cuz I'm three hundred and twenty-something years younger than you?” She half-raspberried. “You're gonna tell me that you wish to send me back in time to where you can't go so that we can stop all of this horrible Cataclysm stuff from happening and then all live happily ever after! And as ridiculously crazy as that idea is, I can't believe how—I dunno—bubbly it's making me feel! I can just about forgive you for never hunting me down earlier than today, Spike. Especially when it's all so simple!” She chuckled drunkenly into the air on a brief cloud of mania.
But Spike was gravely silent...
Scootaloo's ears pricked in the coldly mute air. “Spike?” Quiet. “Spike—It...It is that simple, isn't it?” Ash and snow. “Sp-Spike...?” She sat up and squatted on all fours, blinking her violet eyes deflatedly his way.
He stared at her with dim green eyeslits. His snout shook from side to side. “No,” he breathed. “No, Scootaloo—It is not that simple.”
“But...” Her chest palpitated with a visible pulse from deep within. She struggled up into a standing position, trembling. “Y-You said...You said you found a solution! You can't send yourself back in time past the Cataclysm—but you can send a pony! You can send me! Y-You said that earlier in the laboratory, right?”
“I know what I said, Scootaloo--”
“Then do you awfully mind repeating it so that I'll have a friggin' clue whether to bite your scales off or not?!” She snarled, her brown coat writhing in the cold mist.
“I think we should go for a walk--”
“I'm fine standing right here!” She barked.
“Scootaloo,” his smile gently returned. “If there's anything you will learn from what I'm about to tell you, it's that the only thing we have available to us in abundance is time. I suggest we use it well.” That uttered, he spread his wings and offered his backside to the edge of the wooden plank she was on.
She took a few fuming breaths, calmed herself briefly, and dropped down until her bandaged form balanced itself onto the square of his back. She held on gently as his large body sauntered across the ruined hovels of Ponyville, drowning the two in a panorama of ghostly memories as he walked and talked with her:
“I told you before that time is like an ocean. It flows and surges as the sum of its polynumerous droplet parts; it has cohesion. But, as mind-numbingly vast as that ocean is, it too has its limits. When part of that ocean is evaporated—it does not vanish, but rather it transforms into a different form of energy, much like the energy that I utilize when I propel myself backwards through reverse-time. There is a reason for this necessary conservation--”
“Is it to make my head spin?” Scootaloo droned from his backside.
Spike chuckled. “No, old friend. What I am attempting to convey is that time is immutable. We may be able to surf its currents, but we cannot rightly expect to redirect the imprints that time's hands have divinely carved.”
“You speak as if time is a living thing that refuses us to dabble in its job.”
“And could that be far from the truth? Hmm?” Spike bobbed his head up in a gesture as he traversed the rows of hollowed-out houses. “Tell me, Scootaloo, with the knowledge from your years of reading—Who are the Six Holy Sisters?”
“Seriously? You want me to recite that kindergarten lesson?”
“Humor me, if you would.”
The brown-coated mare sighed long and hard before moaning dully into the ashen air, “The Six Holy Sisters—as everypony knows—are the divine alicorn daughters of the Goddess Epona, who ascended to the stars in the Cosmic Exodus which brought about the end of the First Age.”
“And who were these alicorns specifically...?”
Scootaloo groaned. She laid herself down atop Spike's bobbing shoulders and monotonously went on: “The Goddesses of Revolution: Princess Celestia and Princess Luna—stayed on earth to oversee the rising of the Sun and Moon over the land of Equestria. The other Four Sisters would leave halfway through the Second Age much like their Cosmic Mother Queen Epona, though their essences remained in the physical world. The first two were the Goddesses of Elements: Princess Elektra, the Goddess of the Land, and Princess Nebula, the Goddess of the Firmaments. The other two were the Goddesses of Law: Princess Gultophine, the Goddess of Life...”
“And who else...?”
The last pony made a face, but surrendered with a muttering voice: “Princess Entropa, the Goddess of Time.”
“So not only is time an immutable law—But it's a governed law! And if I may boldly state the obvious, old friend—You and I are but mere mortals living upon the currents of energy that have been architecturally produced by divine beings far grander than us, long ago, before cataclysms even existed to give birth to or even take away life.”
“That doesn't mean we should resort to a cop-out!” Scootaloo frowned, almost pounding his draconian skull with a shaking hoof. “So maybe time was something looked after by Princess Entropa much like the Sun was the responsibility of Princess Celestia! Since when has that made things set in stone? Princess Luna was in charge of raising the Moon—and she went on a jealous rampage so that her sister had to take the reins herself over a thousand years! And don't get me started on Princess Entropa! She and her three sisters split for the cosmos much like their mother did--”
“--and later aided in Princess Luna's release, bringing things full circle,” Spike smiled back at her as he traversed a ring of demolished apartment buildings. “You can take the Goddess from her element, but you cannot take the element from the hooves of its Goddess. The only way to separate the two would be to end the two—in death.”
Scootaloo exhaled gloomily. “Like how Princess Celestia and Princess Luna died...”
“...and the Sun and Moon perished with them,” Spike nodded. A somber, fuming breath: “Alas, we live in a world of endless twilight, the bitter result of the shadows of two dead Goddesses blanketing this landscape forever. But Entropa—no, she is alive. She may be in exodus like Queen Epona, but she is very much a presence in this universe. Could you imagine a reality where time didn't exist?”
“N-Not really, no.”
“Well, thankfully, you and I do not have to,” he smirked. “For Entropa's essence prevails, and we have her to thank for the persistence of time. But we also must deign to respect her lawful reign over time—in all of its cohesion.”
“Why couldn't Entropa see what happened to her two sisters...?” Scootaloo depressingly thought aloud, gesturing towards the dead twilight above with a random hoof. “Why couldn't she make an exception this one time and undo what time has done to the whole of Equestria—to its legacy?”
“A good question—But you make it sound almost as if time itself is to blame,” Spike said, stopping suddenly in his tracks. His wings folded on either side of him as he motioned with his snout. “Look, Scootaloo. Do you see where we are...?”
Scootaloo crawled up to her hooves and trotted a few meters along his neck. As soon as her vision rounded the green crests of his skull, she froze. The mare saw before the two of them an array of dull white stones splotched across a thick black mound of earth in the center of Ponyville. For all of the cataclysmic horrors that shook the terrain of her home, she was almost as amazed as she was heart-broken to be presently staring at a remarkably well-preserved cemetery, a place that she rarely ventured to in her foalish years.
“There's always been death in Equestria,” she murmured educatedly into the misty air. “I think I see where you're going with this, Spike. Why didn't Entropa intervene on their behalf?”
“Perhaps because it was Gultophine's job to monitor the passing of souls into the great beyond,” Spike somberly nodded. “Or perhaps because Entropa—as a Goddess of Law—necessitated being a princess of neutrality. Whatever the case, our mutual need to question her reasoning only highlights our mortal nature. Earth ponies gifted in the knowledge of medicine and unicorns employing various talents in mysticism have struggled for millennia to construct countermeasures for death, but they could never in any fashion prevent it. Otherwise, all of these stones here would have been replaced with immortals to this very day.” He turned and gazed over his shoulder at Scootaloo with dim green eyeslits. “Similarly have I—in three hundred years of optimistic searching—attempted to find a way to change the sway of time. And like so many other Equestrian physicians before me, I have failed.”
Scootaloo's eyes glazed over the sea of ivory stones. “Because time is immutable...”
“Like an ocean that you can penetrate, but never replace.”
She squinted at him. “But would it ever hurt to try, Spike? What's the harm in experimenting with altering the timeline?”
He chuckled suddenly, breaking the somber air above the nearby graveyard. “You say that under the presumption that I haven't tried, child!”
She blinked confusedly at him.
He motioned with his head, lumbered around, and strolled liquidly away from the sacred stones. “Long ago, I was in the same mindset as you. I very strongly desired to change the past. As you well know, it was the sole basis of my chronological experimentations that led me to discover Reverse-Time to begin with. But by the sixth time that I traveled back to the day after the Cataclysm, my mathematical formulas were teaching me a truth that I suddenly refused to accept: The past would always stay the past, even if I was able to breach the wall separating me from going back to before the day when Equestria died. I was furious—almost driven insane in despondence—I had to have proof that all of my experimentations was for nothing! I was a scientist, after all. I could never completely separate myself from the young faithful lab assistant that Twilight Sparkle had once trained me to be.”
“Wh-What did you do...?” Scootaloo asked, blinking inquisitively.
“I decided to break a sacred oath that I had made to myself—an oath that I thought maintained the safety and untainted nature of my time jumps.” He turned to glance at her as he passed under a few petrified trees. “You remember how I told you that I moved to a different part of the Eastern Mountains after each jump in order to avoid my 'past' self?” After witnessing her nod, he faced forward and continued: “Well, I decided after my sixth ride on reverse-time that I would go and infiltrate the location of where I was to be after my second trip back. But instead of going to face my past self directly, I embarked upon a sightly subtler form of interaction—If you could call sabotage 'subtle'. I always kept notes of what I did and when I did them, and looking at my journals I discovered a date when my past self scavenged for a large supply of Canterlotlian gemstones within the lower spire of the Eastern Mountains.
“I had my lonely self locked away in those mountain caves for ages, Scootaloo. I needed something to eat. According to my journal, I had stumbled upon a rather large deposit of gemstones that provided me sustenance for nearly a decade to follow. So my later self decided to be a trouble-maker; and on the day prior to the excavation, I went in there and ripped out the entire gemstone desposit in a matter of hours, leaving the entire site a virtual hollow hole in the mountain, devoid of any dragon food whatsoever. I took the gemstones that I stole from my past self to my new niche in the mountains and recorded any information that I could find as evidence that my very own history had been tampered with.
“But nothing happened. I was still my healthy self. There was no indication that anything about my life and state of being had changed. Looking back at the whole 'experiment', I must admit it's all so terribly silly. Just what did I expect to happen? Would my wings suddenly droop because my past self had been magically robbed of nourishment a relative century prior to that moment? Would the journals in my possession that led me to the 'sabotage' suddenly vanish because I would never have had a reason to chronicle the finding of the gemstones in the past? Or—even more preposterous—would I suddenly blink into nothingness because of the inherent paradox that I had placed myself into?
“Being a scientist, I realized that I was exercising an absurd practice. Even if there was a result to study, there would be no point in waiting for it to transpire, because all of the experimentation had been in the past. Anything observational would have to be in the here and now. So, enraged with an undying curiosity, I bravely revisited the hollow cave where I had gone a week previous to 'sabotage' my past self's food supply. And would you believe what I found? The cavern had been refilled with gemstones. I kid you not—There were twice as many edible rocks this time, as if some divine hand had magically replaced all of the gemstones that I robbed from my past self and then doubled them just to toy with me. Everything was just as my past self observed it to be, written it to be, and—of course—deliciously benefited from. I even briefly observed my past self from afar—and indeed, my experiences had been unaltered. On top of that, I had no memories of anything having gone awry with the food I collected way back when.
“So, what was the answer? Was this all some form of divine intervention on behalf of Princess Entropa—punishing me for attempting to manipulate the immutability of her essence? In some fashion, you could potentially interpret that to be the case—But the truth was far subtler and more poetic. Upon closer observation, I realized that the gemstones I had excavated from the hollow in the mountain were all acting as one massive support strut for an even larger deposit of rubies in a cavern located directly above it. When I went back in time and robbed all of the scrumptious gemstones from my past self, the structural integrity of the upper cavern failed—and three times as many gemstones fell to take the place of what I had pilfered. It turns out that that was the immense supply of rocks that I discovered and wrote in my journal about after my second ride on Reverse-Time. So, in spite of all my work, time itself maintained that the same order of events happened, and in some bizarre way—my future self actually helped my past self in the process, rather than harmed him.”
“That's remarkable, Spike,” Scootaloo nodded, slightly mesmerized, but a trademark frown blemished her features, suspiciously. “But it was only one experiment. You could just chalk it up to freak circumstances--”
“Which is why, like a good scientist, I attempted on more occasions to 'sabotage' my past self,” he nodded his scaled head. “Here and there—weaving my way around my various past selves—I tried many things to interfere with my previous experiments, my previous constructions, and my previous means of self-preservation. And every time—every single of the many dozens of times—the ritualistic throes of cause and effect undermined every task I did, while at the same time miraculously possessing them—so as to maintain the flow of my past into my present, with my self and memories completely unaltered.”
“Then did you ever—I dunno...,” she hissed in frustration, “...try to actually meet up and talk with your past self?”
“Yes,” he smirked at her. “As a matter of fact, I did.”
She blinked, her eyes twitching as if something broke in her brain. “And...erhm...how did that go???”
“Exactly as I expected.”
“What do you mean 'as you expected'?”
He chuckled. “Meaning, old friend, that after my seventh Reverse-Time trip, I went back to visit my past self from after the sixth. And it was a very boring conversation.” He winked. “Because I remembered everything that was said and responded to, verbatim. I kid you not.” He smiled and fumed into the snowy air. “Trust me, you've never lived until you've played a game of hide-and-seek with yourself.”
“That...,” she blinked, hissed, and rubbed her skull painfully. “...that is so hard to imagine. Wh-What if—like—you poked the eye out of your past self?”
“Oh, I could never do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because I never did that,” Spike remarked. “Not for lack of trying, mind you. My past self had already conceived of any such notion, quite frankly—And my present self was more than aware of that and his own misgivings. That's the funny thing about time-travel; a paradox is a paradox, even when it's staring you straight in the snout—in that it's not staring you straight in the snout, because for it to happen—It could never happen, thus the paradox.”
“Unnnnghhh...,” Scootaloo dug her face into Spike's scales and lightly banged her head with her hooves.
“What I calculated, what I tested, and what I experienced, Scootaloo, is something that can be explained, but never shared. Not directly, at least. But, suffice it to say, it laid in concrete a truth that I could no longer deny. The past can be visited, it can be witnessed, and it can even be supported—But no, child, it cannot be changed. What dies must remain dead. What lives must remain living. It has been that way since the twilight years before the First Age, in the blossoming days of creation, when all that was One split into the forces of Harmony and Discord, and everything has remained necessarily dichotomous since.”
“It's just so... so unfair,” the brown-haired mare murmured. Spike brought the two of them into the skeletal hovel of an old garden behind a hollowed-out restaurant. He let her down as she trotted forlornly past a cluster of large mushrooms and gazed into a statue of merry foals frozen in mid-gallop. “Why would you be granted the ability to move back and forth in time when you can't even make a difference from it?”
“Why do things live to dream and desire—But only to have death as their ultimate fate?” Spike socratically replied. “These are the tests of mortals—We can only question them as we live them.”
“Like I said,” she sighed and squatted down onto a marble bench partially overrun with vines. “It's unfair...”
“An apt description. But if I know you, Scootaloo—You're the last pony on Earth to let an unfair life bog you down.”
“I... I suppose that is true,” she exhaled with a gentle, bitter smile. “It wasn't just the Cataclysm that taught me how to fend for myself. I was always alone...in some degree or another.” She slumped her chin down on her folded hooves and sighed. “What I wouldn't give to have a taste of what you did, Spike—To talk with my past self, to tell her that the next twenty-odd years in the wasteland would lead to this moment, this numbing blink in the center of this crumbling garden. I think my past self would still fight to survive—But she would be a lot less anxious about it. Now there's a peace that you can't buy, no matter how many bits you scrounge from the Wastelands.”
“You may still yet have that chance, Scootaloo,” Spike spoke gently, squatting his hulking purple self besides her with no less grace. “Howbeit, I promise you—it would have far less grim results.”
“Nnngh...Just what is the point, Spike?” She gazed up at him. “Even if you can send me further in the past than you can send yourself—What would it accomplish? I can't change the past, I can't prevent the Cataclysm—So what's the flippin' use?”
“The use, as you so aptly put it, my little pony, is to observe a world that is long forgotten to you,” he said. “So that you may discover that which is a mystery to you—That is a mystery even to me, in all of my centuries of study and Chronological Speculation.”
“And that is...?”
“You may be able to find out what caused the Cataclysm. And furthermore...you may even be able to bring light back to the Wasteland.”
Her ears and eyebrows perked up at that. She stared up at him in quivering disbelief. “Bring light back?”
“And kiss the perpetual ash and twilight goodbye.”
“Spike, you're pulling my tail,” she frowned. “How in the heck would something like that be feasible?”
“If you go back and open your eyes—You may find out.”
“Even for a scientist, that's a stretch.”
“Is it?” He raised an eyecrest and glanced at her sideways. “We already know that Princess Celestia and Princess Luna are dead. And with their deaths—the Sun and Moon also vanished. What brought about their end had to have been a magical catastrophe of such enormous potential that it slayed the Goddesses at the stems of their very souls. If this wasn't a divine event—something that would have been prophecied in the arcane books available to ponydom, then that means--”
“--It was a spell,” Scootaloo murmured knowingly. Her violet eyes narrowed in thought. “In the tomes that taught me runecrafting, I found that the Lunar Republic had briefly worked on channeling a spell that would bring about the end of Princess Celestia—by cursing her very soul to death. Before Nightmare Moon's army could discover an incantation, the Elements of Harmony imprisoned their leader into the Mare in the Moon. If history hadn't gone that way...”
“--Something akin to the Cataclysm could have happened much sooner,” Spike nodded. “It would have been an entirely different Third Age indeed.” He pointed at the brown mare with his clawed finger. “If you utilized your practiced skills in reading into observation, you could return to the days before the death of Equestria and deduce what it was that jump-started this holocaust. And assuming it was a curse, you and I—here in the present—could feasibly undergo a ritual that would undo the damage that it has done to the Revolution of the Sun and Moon.”
“But...,” Scootaloo gulped and murmured “...even if that did work, Spike—What kind of a world would result? What would become of the Goddesses? What would...” She took a shuddering breath. “...would there even be a ponydom?”
He slowly, gravely shook his head. “No, child. But in such a scenario, we would have painted a gorgeous future for this world, restoring the celestial objects in the sky, bringing back night and day, and doing away with this perpetual nightmare of twilight once and for all.”
“And you and I will die, the last of friends,” Scootaloo breathed numbly. “Unheralded saviors, buried in a beautiful world, with no ponies around to ever know what we've done.”
He gazed deeply at her. “Could you think of any greater epithet—for the magical legacy of Equestria?”
“Could I think of anything greater? Heck yeah, I could,” Scootaloo sighed. “But could I afford it? No. Obviously not,” she ran a hoof over her face, wincing. “Spike, I really don't know what to say—I mean, how would all of this be accomplished? How is it that your green flame can send me back into the past beyond a certain point, but not yourself?”
“In truth, I wasn't entirely certain that it would work until I was suddenly able to transport you back to Cheerilee's schoolyard,” he smiled in a mixture of pride and nervousness. “The Cataclysm severed the magical essence of ponydom when it ripped our world asunder, did it not?”
“So I'm starting to believe, sure.”
“And magic exists because the essences of our souls exist—I know that's a rather plebeian correlation, but do bear with me—My soul has always been the sole conduit of traversing reverse-time, and my green flame has been the fuel for such a trip. But there's a juncture that I cannot pass beyond—and it's the blockade formed from when my soul was jarred by whatever spell or phenomenon ended the lives of Celestia and Luna. I soon realized that if there was anything that I could send back beyond that singular juncture, it would have to be something that resonated with the essences of the ponies' souls that were alive beforehand. I couldn't send myself, I couldn't send physical objects, I couldn't send transcribed messages, but I could possibly be able to send--”
“--a pony,” Scootaloo nodded. “You could send a pony back.”
“Not so much the pony herself—But her soul essence,” he grinned wide. “And to do that, I would have to bind her to the essence of another soul.”
“Like wh-whose soul?” The mare's face contorted nervously.
“The soul of someone who existed only within the limits of my own lifespan,” Spike explained. “The soul of someone whom I was close to, whom I came into contact with, and—most especially—whom I had formed emotional bonds with. As a matter of fact, it is no single soul—But quite a few.”
“Your friends,” Scootaloo's eyes brightened slightly. “You can send me back in the past to the presence of your friends, Spike...?”
“And once your soul-essence has been bound to such a past acquaintance of mine, you would make yourself manifest in the physical, and be restrained to the proximity of that one pony and that one pony alone. You could interact with her, talk to her, make contact with her—But if you so much as left her side, your link to her soul essence would dissolve, and you would return along the current of green flame to the present—You would return back to me.”
“And back to all of this...,” she pointed flippantly towards the gray decay of the Ponyvillean ruins. “...back to reality.”
“The past is no less real than the present, Scootaloo,” he smirked. “As I'm sure you may yet discover.”
“I...,” she shivered with sudden chills and curled deeper into the seat of the marble bench. “I-I don't know, Spike. I mean...it makes sense, in a way. I n-now know what you meant when you said I was the 'solution', but...but...”
“Be as honest as you need to be, child.”
“It's asking a lot, Spike,” she gulped a lump down her throat. “It's asking a lot of me. I mean—So what if I go back to visit Cheerilee? Or Twilight Sparkle? Or Rarity? Or any of the other people you obviously knew? It's just...It's just so much. I don't know if I can handle it—”
“And you do not have to, Scootaloo.”
She frowned at him. “Spike, you've obviously mastered reverse-time. Don't try to pull reverse-psychology on me as well.”
He chuckled. “But I mean it—In all sincerity,” he gestured a clawed hand over his chest. “I have reached the limits of my potential, child. After countless years of repeatedly leaping into the past, of scouring my burning insides for the green flame to make all of this experimentation possible, I have done all I could ever possibly do for Equestria. What I ask of you—What I propose of you is merely humility on my part. You have already done your duty for Equestria, Scootaloo. You have lived. And you have lived mightily.”
“That's an exaggeration if I ever heard one,” she muttered.
“Is it?” He leaned his snout to the side and gazed at her sharply. “You are an intelligent, crafty, responsible, and tender-hearted individual, Scootaloo—Even underneath that rough, shaved exterior, you are everything your race has ever endeared itself through the Ages to be. Do not let two and a half decades of tragedy and pain disguise the legend that you have become. You are not only the end of ponies, but the epitome of them.” A gentle exhale, and his face turned melancholic. “Do I honestly, truly think that sending you back will absolutely grant us the ability to undo the curse that has robbed night-and-day from the wastes of Equestria?” He slowly shook his snout. “No, Scootaloo. I do not. But I do know this—You are the last pony. And before you die—And you will someday die, like all of your friends and kin have done before you—Would any other soul deserve no less a chance to revisit that which gave her breath, that which gave her purpose, that which gave her the memories of hope to become this amazing creature which you so mightily are right now?”
“I can't say, Spike,” her voice choked as she struggled for an answer. “What you're asking of me is to attend a funeral, for which there will never be a eulogy read—Even if I was the one to write it. Because no matter what I do, it all ends with me.”
“Which is why I advise this of you instead--” He stood up on his haunches and paced across the garden. “Leave Ponyville.”
She blinked wildly. “Wh-What?”
“Leave,” he said, gazing softly back at her. “Take off in your splendid airship, spend time inside the womb of Harmony, do what you normally do in the clouds above the wastes—live out your life like you've always lived it out these last two decades. But most of all—Do not return until the end of the next coming stormfront. And then...you may come back to me, and—if you wish and only if you wish—I will send you back to the days before dying, and we can write that eulogy together, Scootaloo.” He grinned warmly. “What do you say...?”
The last pony stared back up at her old friend—at the purple shades of the past standing like a surreal ghost before her. And for the briefest of moments, the snow cleared, and in his emerald eyeslits she saw the reflection of a tiny filly, its violet eyes bright and its pink mane fluttering in a draconian twinkle. Something akin to a foalish smile, and Scootaloo breathed: “I'm liking this idea.”
Several hours later, somewhere in the bubbling gray clouds of the Central Heights, the Harmony vibrated with the wilting chords of Octavia's melancholic strings. The last pony sat at her work bench with her back to the crackling record player. With her hooves entwined in cylindrical tool braces, she proceeded to fix and tinker the battered copper rifle that she had retrieved from the depths of Ponyville's Town Hall. As one cello suite bled beautifully into another, she briefly looked up from her diligent engineering and spotted a blurred mirror hanging from a nob below the shelves where she kept her multicolored gems.
Only the barest upper-left hoof'd corner of the mirror provided a decent reflection. From beyond a rusted fog, a thirty-three year old mare with a brown coat and tired scarlet eyes shyly came out from hiding. She blinked at her weathered self—noticing the lines beneath her eyes, the knicked and bruised skin that flanked her ears. Finally, she tilted her snout to the side and studied her neck, squinting at a thin forest of violet stubble that came out coarsely to kiss the lantern-lit air of the airship's cabin. She ran a tool-braced hoof over the mane, feeling the tiny stalks, briefly imagining them giving birth to a long dead curtain of pink threads wavering gracefully out from her slender form.
But in a final blink, the shadow of Scootaloo disappeared, replaced once more with the last pony, her fine orange coat having bristled into brown ruggedness, her violet eyes having paled to a bitter scarlet—and the rusted air encompassed her like a specimen jar. She sighed, and as Octavia's record began skipping at the end of its instrumental, she hung her head towards her half built weapon and lingered on the images fluttering across her mind.
Journal Entry # 2,352
Today...something happened.
I have been given a chance to do something so fantastical, so mesmerizingly surreal, that to actually think of it risks all of this being some bizarre dream that I'm not entirely sure I want to wake up from yet. What is the last pony to do when she's offered the opportunity to go back and visit an Equestria that existed before all of this desolation? What do I say when I'm propositioned into walking alongside ghosts of the past in a desperate bid to bring light back to this world?
Well, all of these things have been asked of me. I met Spike—I hugged him, I sobbed against him, I held his hand and he held my hoof. Spike—Twilight Sparkle's faithful dragon apprentice—is alive. And what's more, he's three hundred times as old, three hundred times as wise, and three hundred times as big as I ever remembered him. And after regailing me with mystical discoveries too astonishing to comprehend in this Age—much less any of the living epochs previous—I have been gracefully given time to think of what Spike is willing to provide me with a single exhale of green flame. He can send me to the past—I can go back into the past, into the days when the two of us were young creatures who knew nothing of misery—and I could find out how all of this holocaust happened to begin with, so that here—in the gray and dismal present—we might ascertain a way to fix the world, even if we can't breathe life back into it.
So, yes, something happened today.
Scootaloo grunted and swung the axe in her teeth's grip one last time. With a mighty crunching noise, the two-meter tall mushroom fell down into a flurry of powdery ash. She dropped to her knees to scrape the edible material out of the hollow of the gigantic fungus, when a flurry of tiny insects swarmed over her in a skittering black blanket. Yelping, she fell back and swung her hooves wildly—fighting a legion of shadowy trolls in her mind. A gasp; her eyes opened wide to see once more a harmless forest of gigantic mushrooms waiting to be cut down. The insects had all scattered, and she was once more alone ... forever alone. Sighing, she gazed into the hollow of the fungus, disdainfully observing the colony of paper husks that had long filled the spoiled stalk. With a woeful groan, the pony dragged her axe towards the next fungus, and in the shadow of the tethered Harmony she proceeded to hack away at the next structure.
All of this, of course, I discovered after nearly dying. Trolls—hundreds of them sprung an ambush on me the soonest I stepped hoof into the Town Hall of Ponyville, adding a gruesome punctuation to my long belated return to my place of foaling. I never asked Spike if he was the one responsible for the sightings of the green flame that brought me there in the first place. I had a lot a questions for him which—though he answered—still fester in my mind. Like: did he really need to wait all this time before making contact with me? Did he truly suspect from the start that I was the key to sending an observing eye back into the past beyond the Cataclysm? Did he ever give up hope, when the rest of the wasteland—the monsters that survived the disaster—all hated his guts?
Okay, so I didn't ask him that last question. I know I want to now, but that's not what's important. What's important is whether or not I want to take him up on his offer. The best it could do is end the twilight that hangs above the lengths and widths of Equestria. The worst it can do—is probably the only thing it can do—and that's reopen so many festering wounds hiding deep underneath my coat that I shudder to even contemplate them.
What would it be like to see Twilight Sparkle again? Or Apple Jack? Or Sweetie Belle or Apple Bloom or ... Rainbow Dash ...
In the days after ponies died, I've had my life saved twice Once by Rainbow, and a second time just now by Spike—as he royally trashed the trolls that had ambushed me in Ponyville. In many ways, my whole life—twenty-five years in the Wastes, so I've discovered—has been one gigantic service to the one blue pegasus who saved me, the one pony I have always believed in, and in some ways still do. Does this mean that I owe Spike all the same? I know he obviously doesn't mean to obligate me in such a manner—But how far is he willing to go compared to how far I am able to go? Assuming, of course, I am going anywhere at all.
One day, Scootaloo tore her way through a splintering door. She pierced the center of an abandoned apartment complex along the downtown stretch of Whinniepeg. As gray filtered light seeped in through the mildew'd windows, she spotted several equine corpses lying in a tight circle in the center of a living room. Trotting over to them, she nudged a few bones with her hoof until she finally found what she needed—a unicorn skull.
Squatting down besides the skeleton, she extended a blade from her horseshoe and planted it at the base of the body's horn. It wasn't until half a minute later that Scootaloo realized she hadn't yet begun carving the dead stub off. A deep pale glow washed over her, and she swallowed a lump down her throat.
With a shuddering sigh, she lifted her goggles off her head and ran a hoof over her moistening eyes. She stared miserably past the bodies and at a heap of belongings that had fallen out of a trunk and were spilled over the floor. She saw scattered utensils, toys, royal stationary, and—finally—a pile of faded photographs, with several smiling and living faces poised eternally, staring back at her as she lingered over the same family's discarded husks a few meters away.
The legacy of ponydom has given me so much that I have used over the decades. It is only right that I find a way to give back to it. But how does that stack up when all that could possibly change is the bright face of Equestria itself—an Equestrian future with no ponies in it?
I only wished to be a survivor, and perhaps to reunite with some other stray members of my own kind. Now that I know—thanks to Spike—that I am indeed the last pony that will ever breathe; what point is there in trying to bring light to a world with no pure eyes remaining to judge it? It's like a tree that falls alone in the forest—But how selfish of a presumption is that on my part? What right do I have—or Spike for that matter—to determine how we memorialize this world, when we've done so much to pilfer from it? Does the fact that we're the last living things to care about it all excuse us being the last souls to make something of it all?—Even if for the sake of making something?
Scootaloo yanked on the lever and her signal fired its prismatic beams into the air above the stony plateau. The multicolored spectrum pierced the cloudy overcast in a burning swath, but the lingering twilight above remained unphased. The snow and ash was still falling, the mist covering the circle of metal barricades in an infinite rust. Under the shadow of the Harmony, a disenchanted Scootaloo marched up towards the signal, propped herself onto two hooves with her shoulder leaning against her rifle—and stuck her left limb into the burning beams of light.
The sky briefly strobed as her hoof floated lazily from red to green to indigo and softly back. She watched with momentary fascination as the lights bumped and wavered with each other, but ultimately remained rigidly divided into the seven artificial hues, as directed by Scootaloo's flamestone that shot illuminescence into the strategically placed gems.
The last pony tilted her snout up and watched with a sudden boredom, observing the glistening heights of her once-treasured beacon. It was exactly what it always had been, a message to dead ponies. Being the only one to read what the signal had to say made Scootaloo feel dead as well; because she knew where this rainbow began, and could spot with her naked eyes the lingering twilight above where it ultimately ended.
I was sent back in time. Ever so briefly, I tasted of the past. I saw a rainbow—And it was real. I could not see where it began, and I could not see where it ended. I didn't care. It gave me hope—like I always knew it would. But only now do I really understand where that hope stems from.
Hope is a disease—an affliction to all living things. The only thing sentient creatures such as ponies could ever accomplish is die, and yet we have always clung onto hope. This perhaps made sense in an Age when Goddesses walked the fields of Equestria—but now? Princess Celestia's eternal life ran out. When she and Luna vanished, all that was left was the decaying wasteland of mortality, forever festering in the unburied penumbra of her shadow.
Perhaps that's the way it's always been, and what brought about the explosive end to the Goddesses of Revolution was not an unknown curse—like Spike believes—but a self-destructing realization that the Goddesses themselves discovered when it was too late; that life is absurd, that it's always been absurd, even for them.
And as much as I rationalize to myself the pointlessness of it all—Painting a far bleaker world than I had ever assumed in all of my most bitter of dark-lit scavengings—Why is that I cannot shake the rainbow out of my head, the real rainbow, the real rainbow that I saw with my own eyes? If hope is a disease, and all it will ever lead me to is misery and self-annihilation, when why do I cling to it so? Why does it make me excited, like I am starved, and plants me steadily upon the knifing precipice of—dare I say it—joy?
“Why so emoquine, Harmony?”
Scootaloo stared listlessly through a green haze of smoke, her violet eyes unwavering. There was a shuffling movement besides her, and a furred paw waved obligatarily before her face.
“Hello?? Customer of most esteemed appreciation?? Is old Equestrian joke, da? Vhy so glum, pony friend?”
She snapped out of it. She pivoted to glance across the merchant vessel and threw a faded smile the flying squirrel's way. “S-Sorry, Bruce. I've just got a lot on my mind, that's all. What were you offering again?”
“Is more than pony's mind. Brucie thinks it is stomach—Or another organ close to it. Hopefully not part of pony sensitive to cancer stick, nyet?” He chuckled, flicked his cigar some, and continued showing off a pair of leather strips as their dual ships bobbed in the air, docked to one another. “Forty bits each—Dual reinforced dragonskin! Finest from vhat remains of Zebraharan mountains--”
“No—No!” The mare briefly snarled, shook a shuddering breath off her, and paced across the racks of wares. “Thanks, Bruce. I know that I need new armor, but—Anything but dragon leather, if you don't mind.”
“Pray tell Brucie why? Date with sky serpent, pony plans? Bah!” He tossed the thick strips into a pile of collapsing metal knick-knacks while snapping his tiny fingers. “Brucie can do something better!” He kicked off a bulkhead, glided over to a coat of armor, and gruntingly lifted a breastplate in his quivering limbs. “Nnnghh—Best in ramcraft! Fashioned out of tempered titanium! Brucie promises—hckk—no fire breathing snakes harmed in process of metallurgy—Ach! Nyet, you overgrowned rust heap—Ugh! Only takes getting used to hauling around! Like you sporting pretty mane made out of iron, da?”
“I know you're doing your best to help me out, Bruce. But—seriously—all I need to do is browse for a bit, and I'm sure I'll find the... armor I need,” she murmured, her eyes once again gazing into a grand nothingness beyond the shelves of rattling miscellany.
The copper-goggled squirrel saw it. Scratching his forehead, he scampered up a metal shelf and perched above her. “Kind of armor pony needs is something no bits could buy, Brucie thinks.
She did not reply.
He scratched his chin, then brightened. “Perhaps you are nervous about stormfront?” He smirked and gestured nonchalantly out a nearby porthole. The gray clouds were darkening as several deep strobing flashes of lightning started to bubble from within the wispy clusters herding punctually their way. “Vell, pony should only fear for money bag, for Brucie has greatest lightning rod from homeland—Guaranteed to protect against any storm, but sure is not cheap!”
“It's not that, Bruce—It's...” She bit her lip, shifted uncomfortably, and finally looked at him—naked eyes to fogged goggles. “Bruce, let me ask you something—Pilot to pilot.”
“To pony's question Brucie has answer, possibly, maybe—If Harmony needs it.”
She ignored the address and squinted, murmuring: “Do you enjoy what you do?”
“Selling to favorite customer? Absolutely! Brucie is always--”
“No no no—I mean what you do,” Scootaloo emphasized. “Your life, Bruce. Do you...—Is this life all you are willing to accept? Would you be willing to... to change it, into something happier, something brighter—If you had the ability to do so?”
“Hrmm...,” the overgrown rodent merchant rubbed his chin, puffing on his cigar. “Philosophy is not one of Brucie's strengths; does not earn bits, only headaches, da?” He smirked wryly and flicked his cigar with emphasis. “If life vas so terrible, perhaps is reason Brucie smokes it away? HaHA!”
She sighed heavily. “But if you could change this—All of this. Would you be willing to do so?”
“Life is life—Sometimes life is too much life, sometimes too little,” he uttered as he squatted in his pilot's seat and propped a leg up, leaning back casually in the green haze of his cramped vessel. “But rather than think of things dat need changing, Brucie likes to focus on things he is glad for—And be thankful for them.” A warm smile under his reflective amber lenses. “Like pony friend! If dis life vas changed, vould not have you to look forward to, da?”
She stared sadly at him. “That's just it, Brucie. The only thing you're guaranteed to run out of in life—is friends.” She swallowed sorely. “The reason I know this is because there's so much magic lost from this world. And eventually—that too will be gone.”
“Hmm...,” he leaned further back and puffed. “All better reason pony has to spend time vith friends...” He smirked. “Or make new ones...”
“...or old ones,” she added in a low breath.
“Vhat vas that, Harmony?” No sooner had he asked, but a loud rumble filled the roof of the world, forcing the two ships to rock and weave from the thunderous vibrations. “Mother Rushnut! Is getting vorse, the storm!” He kicked out of the seat and rushed up to a porthole, gazing out with a frown. “Brucie is afraid that he and pony friend must cut transaction short! You cannot outrun storm anymore than time itself!”
“Perhaps somepony can,” she once again murmured, then nodded her snout towards a series of brown leather strips along the far end of the gondola. “I'll take five of those over there.”
“Twenty bits each.”
“That works for me.”
“Then done is deal, Harmony!”
After the exchange of gold for goods, the mare trotted towards the metal bridge between his ship and hers. She lingered in his windblown doorway. “Again, Brucie—My name is not Harmony.”
“Da, da! Ve have been over dis! Pony is anonymous! Hilarious irony ensues--!”
“'Scootaloo'.”
He spun around and squinted at her through cockeyed goggles. “Vhat vas dat?”
“My name is Scootaloo,” she said, fidgeting. “And...I am glad to have you as a friend too, Brucie.”
The squirrel stared at her. After a spell, he smirked—and grinded his cigar to death against a bulkhead. “Another day vorth living, da?” He waved her off. “Off vith you, Scootaloo! Storms of twilight have no friends!”
She took a deep breath as the warmness left her cheeks and she marched outward to her hangar on the other side of the bridge. “Don't I know it...?”
It has been several invisible gray days since I last saw Spike, and I am no closer to an answer for his proposition than I was the first minute I flew myself away from the strangely inviting sights of Ponyville's ruins. That place is once more a potential home to me—and yet it pains me to see it the way it is. I'm reminded of something Bruce said—without quite meaning to put much effort into it: that life is sometimes 'too much life', sometimes 'too little life'. But when I look out the portholes of my airship, and when I see the desolation all around, I realize that any creature that attempts to neutrally philosophize like that is only attempting to protect my feelings. There is no life out here—only ashes.
The fact is—when Equestria exploded, it had to have been ponydom's fault, in some fashion or another. What Gilda hinted of and what most of the patrons who frequent the Monkey O'Dozen Den believe is at least partially true. The Sun and Moon would still be here today if something horrible hadn't happened to Princess Celestia and Princess Luna. Equestria was never a land that belonged to only ponies—and the fact that I'm the last living pegasus means that I, in some fashion, owe it to the world to get a second chance at seeing light once more, so that these perpetual shadows will no longer force otherwise harmless creatures into believing that 'life' is simply quantifiable.
A month before now, the same pony who's writing this would never give this blighted world a second thought. But as of a few days ago, I now know that I can potentially leave a mark—a very warm, golden, and glowing mark upon what would otherwise remain a world as grave if not even graver than what I now see before me. For years, I gave my all to maintain a rainbow symbol to spark hope into the souls of ponies who I always hoped were alive—but secretly knew really weren't. Now that I know what I can do and whom I can do it for—creatures like Bruce, Gilda, and even Pitt—could that change Equestria for the better? Could it give hope—however absurd—to a new society that might transform it into something beautiful, as opposed to its present ugliness? Can existence transcend essence, even when the likes of Spike and myself are long gone from this potential future kingdom?
It's always been tough being the end of ponies. And it's even tougher now. If this stormfront I'm flying in doesn't kill me, I think my confusion will. If there should be another entry, it will be by another pony—One who has transcended doubt, as Spike has transcended time. This I promise—this I hope.
-End of entryyyyyyy---
Scootaloo's last penstroke smudged across the page of her journal as the Harmony experienced another jolt. The boiler at the back of the room flickered as it tried to maintain autopilot in the surmounting turbulence surging all around the craft. A warning signal bellowed as a couple of sparks flew from a tesla coil on the port side of the cabin.
Cursing mutely, Scootaloo slapped the journal shut, swiveled away from her workbench, and all but pratfalled across the careening gondola, landing awkwardly in the cockpit's seat. As she harnessed herself into place, a wide panorama of bubbling clouds and random bits of lightning surged from beyond the stretched array of windshields. The world had become an obsidian mesh of inky fog as a fresh stormfront rumbled across the rooftop of Equestria on the latest of its regular intervals.
Yanking at a few levers to re-orient the bobbing vessel, Scootaloo flashed an angry glare towards her instrument panel. A red light was flickering as a tiny brass pipe of steam blew through an alarm whistle. Her elaborate warning system was attempting to convey that part of the zeppelin's lateral support struts had loosened dangerously.
“Frickin' figures—Can't ride a storm these days without it turning into a drunken Wonderbolts performance,” she snarled—then silenced herself by clamping her teeth over a hanging chainlinked handle. She pulled hard and the boiler towards the rear billowed, pumping steam into the balloons over the gondola. Slowly, the Harmony lifted above the crashing black promontory of the advancing stormfront, aimed towards the highest point it could go above the dark, lightning-ruptured overcast. A wayward cloudfront thundered angrily at her. She snarled back: “Yeah, well, you look fat and ugly too!”
An hour later, safely above the rumbling overcast of stormclouds, the grunting and griping pegasus struggled with a loose set of rivets that she was presently attempting to tighten back into place along the starboard side of the Harmony's zeppelin chassis. The black roof to the Equestrian Wastes groaned and roared beneath her, briefly flickering phantom illuminations of silver lightning hues across her blank flanks as she struggled to finish her task. At one point, the wrench she was twisting flew loose—and she inadvertently struck herself in the small of her left forearm. A loud groan—something that mutated into a furious snarl—and she banged the rivets with an opposite hoof, half-shocked to hear them rattling back into stubborn looseness.
With a huge deflating sigh, Scootaloo leaned her snout against the copper body of the zeppelin and hung there, brown wings fluttering in the brief winds, as the thunderous world gargled beneath her. She clung to the bosom of the Harmony in a gentle and lonesome sway, for what had to have been the better part of an hour, until she finally opened her scarlet eyes to the ever-lingering twilight overhead. Distant gloomy stars half-blinked down at her, never living and never dying. There was no real light in this world—only the half hearted imitation of brightness. Scootaloo was tired of staring into it—and yet a strange peace was wafting through her with as much electricity as the stormfronts boiled with far below.
Hooking her wrench and other tools along the lateral struts of the airship, Scootaloo took wing, hovered down a few naked decameters below her hovering vessel, and did something that she hadn't done since she was a little foal; She touched down with pegasus hooves onto the wispy surface of the overcast cloudbanks. Her legs made contact—She was standing upon the dark beds of cloud cover. What had been nothing more than a permeable mist of disgust for two-and-a-half decades was suddenly a grand wafting plain of opaque fog, like a phantom shadow of the Ponyvillean valley, and the twilight above impersonated a childhood sky.
Peacefully—in a meditative poise—Scootaloo slowly trotted forward across the blackened clouds. With each shuffling hoof, a patch of dark mist brightened strobingly from the deep lightning below—illuminating Scootaloo randomly during her 'walk'. She didn't notice, for she had her eyes shut and her snout tilted skyward. With her brown wings meditatively outstretched, the last pony took several deep breaths, and opened an invisible third eye.
She saw Ms. Cheerilee's schoolhouse—or at least an effluent crimson shade of it. And beyond the schoolhouse was a misty lake of crystal blue water flanked by ivory mountains. The world blossomed with green beauty, like hair that had been shaved for years but was suddenly given the chance to grow again—and it bloomed all around her, kissing her with soft blades that swayed in a deep earthen wind. There were living things in this shady dreamscape—things that fluttered and danced in the breeze instead of slicing mercenary paths through the air. And the children—the foals flocked to her, smiling, inviting Scootaloo across the playground into a game of Red Rover. Sweetie Bell's horn glistened in the morning mist, and Apple Bloom's drawling laughter filled the schoolyard with an undercurrent of static excitement, like being at the edge of a waterfall, or prancing along the fringes of the Everfree Forest, or gazing through the window of Sugarcube Corner with the sound of streetside musicians reverberating off the freshly varnished wood of the surrounding storefronts--
--and the thunder swallowed it all once more, with misty black teeth that lurched and hummed dreadfully beneath the twilight expanse. Scootaloo's scarlet eyes opened—and when they did, they were not brimming with tears—but instead boiling with a steam of a different sort—a frothing burst of burning air that no amount of pressure forced upon the Harmony's boiler could ever hope to produce—a hissing outburst of blood-throttling menace that two and a half decades of levitating imprisonment had forged ever so demoniacally in the iron-wrought heart of the last hoofed creature doomed to aimlessly skim the gray leprous skin of the planet.
And she screamed—all of her hate and all of her pain and all of her regret—she screamed into the gray-on-gray horizons lingering before her, until her wailing voice outroared the great thunder booming from below and scared the strobes of lightning into hiding, until all of the Equestrian Wasteland finally knew what it had taken from her, and that she was the only living thing in the history of time that was capable of giving anything back.
And when the scream was done, and her wings were still heaving as she stood shakily on the womb of the buckling cloudbeds, it was not a sob that graced her face, it was not even a sneer; it was a smirk.
Spike was busying himself with a series of chemical vials in the center of his laboratory when the trap door to Twilight's former treehouse slammed wide open above him. He turned calmly to see a breathless brown pegasus soaring down and hovering wide-eyed in front of him.
“Send me back, Spike!” Scootaloo panted. “Send me back in time!”
“Now Scootaloo--” the sagely dragon pointed with a clawed finger. “Have you adequately thought about what you're--?”
“There is no thinking,” she glared at him. “There is only now. And I am sick to death of now.”
He raised an eyecrest at that.
She frowned and growlingly reiterated: “I'm ready, Spike. I'm ready to do this. Send me to the past.”
Gradually, he smiled. A gentle nodding of his headcrests. “As you wish, old friend.”
I've been on the Internet for a long time. I've played Starcraft, DoTA, TF2, and other games. I always wondered if it was possible to reach through the Internet and piss someone off so hard that the earth's poles shift.
I think that's what happened when I forced Vimbert to read this atrocity. Whenever I explain to marsupials how important it is that I use pre-readers, I cite this chapter as an example. The horrible thing is that I didn't see a single thing wrong with it. Vimbert outright *saved* End of Ponies when he tore this thing a new rectum.
Remember that badass fight scene that Harmony has with all of the trolls outside of the Apple Family farm? Replace that with a marshmallow campfire scene. Remove all of the danger, all of the threat, and all of the conflict from the last pony's life. That's the abomination that this "climactic chapter" was.
I took Vimbert's words to heart. I went back through the entire Applejack arc. I tossed in new threads, new themes, new motifs, and new motivations. What came out of the whole procedure was an entire arc that was transformed into something godly. Vimbert even gave the chapter his seal of approval, and I've felt fantastic about EoP ever since.
See? Revisions are a good thing.
Chapter Nine – A Place That Isn't Empty
Scootaloo immediately regretted every sin she had ever committed the very moment the pitcher of ice cold water came cascading over her backside. An imploding shriek—her face contorting like she was giving birth to an iceberg—and she clutched her shivering self in the sloshing waves of the ivory bathtub surrounding her. Applejack paced across the second story bathroom of her house and placed the empty pitcher besides a gently flickering lantern.
“Now don't go makin' faces like a frog left out in a snowstorm!” Applejack chuckled under her breath. “You ain't gonna suffer none. Just relax, and let the cold waters drag the heat of the day clear off ya! Nothin' finishes a long sore day of apple buckin' like a traditional Apple Family dip in the tub! Cleans your pores right out! Bet you were wonderin' how come I've worked in the Sun all these here years and yet I don't look like a raisin-coated mule!”
“A-A-Actually I-I-I was wondering if bl-bl-blood freezes at the s-s-same temperature as w-w-water,” Scootaloo hissed through clattering teeth.
“Pfft—Go soak yer head—” Applejack blinked at her own words. “Uh... Eh, y'all know what I mean.” She winked and motioned with an orange hoof. “Soap's over yonder. And I got some of the finest shampoo from Aloe and Lotus' Day Spa in downtown ponyville. Normally I don't subscribe to none of them froo-froo mane conditioners, but it was donated by Lady Rarity—now there's a pony who knows how to come out of a day's work lookin' as sparkly as Princess Celestia's lookin' glass!”
“Th-Th-Thanks, Miss Applejack,” Scootaloo shivered to produce a smile. “S-Sincerely... Y-Y-You are t-t-too kind.”
“Call me 'AJ',” the farmfilly smirked and backtrotted out of the bathroom door. “Just be sure to dry yer hooves after yer done. And if you smell somethin' a wee bit spicy, that's just Granny Smith makin' her one-of-a-kind daffodil alfredo! She only fixes it up once in a blue moon—on account of havin' a special guest and all.” She smiled.
“That... uhm...” Scootaloo blushed to the core of her projected self's being. “That's r-really sweet.”
“No it ain't!” Applejack blinked. “It's spicy—” She caught herself. “Oh, heeheehee—Right. Enjoy!” She closed the door behind her, the mare's hoofsteps creaking straight through the wooden foundations of the old farmhouse.
The copper-coated pegasus sloshed back in the tub, her shivers waning to a stillness under the gentle lull of the amber lanternlight. She brushed a few slick black strands from her forehead and gazed at her own hoof up close. Scootaloo knew that she was merely occupying the projection of her soul self. Those were not her limbs dripping with moisture and those were not her senses shivering under the frantic thrill of the cold liquid. And yet, she couldn't remember feeling more at ease, more royally pampered, more in tune with herself than she did at that moment—and it was nothing more than a humble bath.
Scootaloo knew that in her lonely days before her lonelier days, she would have reveled in experiencing something half as wholesome as this. In all the twilight eons of navigating the Wastelands, she would never have foreseen a moment when she would feel this... clean. It only took her a twenty-five-year ride on the back of reverse-time to experience it. The surreality of the moment should have been suffocating, but with each centimeter that she allowed her soaking self to descend into the waters, she suddenly didn't care.
The last pony closed her eyes, her body floating suddenly in a weightless pool of lucid cold. Like always when her eyelids were shut, she saw the gray ash and snow stretching on into the horizon of her bitter consciousness. But as her Entropan body settled warmly into the waters, the freezing mists faded away, and there bubbled to her mind's surface the wispy vistas of Cloudsdale, its blue beds and ivory buildings glistening under the gold bands of a lively Sun. Hundreds upon hundreds of pegasi floated gaily in the electric air, their eyes as bright as their souls, and they all parted ways as Scootaloo floated through them, gently hovering to a stop before a wide bed of fog. There was laughter, a deep chant of daily joy, and out from the blue-on-blue there soared a figure into crisp clarity, her mane and tail shimmering with every shade of the rainbow as she gazed down at the young foal and gave a devil-may-care grin. But just as Rainbow Dash turned to fly away—a spicy smell filled the air, like a great valley of trees burning far below. Thick iron bars suddenly obscured the flight of the prismatic pegasus, and then the great ashen explosion roared through the sky on burning moonrocks that slammed into Scootaloo's face with the force of millions of screaming ponies.
A loud splash. The filly was clasping hard to the side of the tub, hyperventilating. The flickering light around her wasn't Equestria in flames—but the gentle dance of a lantern in the corner. The spicy smell in the air wasn't ash, but a delicious meal waiting for her and the Apple Family downstairs. She was in the past, and the past was the here and now—but it all seemed so fake to her once again. In the fading trails of a reborn epiphany, Scootaloo reminded herself that the only real things in this world were those that left fossils behind.
It didn't mean that she couldn't enjoy the moment—like the fleeting phantom that she was—soaked from head to tail in an exiled Goddess' skin. A mute curse floated towards the ceiling, seeking the forehead of a three hundred year old Spike. Then there was the softest of smiles. With a gentleness and grace that she only knew from reading books, Scootaloo reached for the soap and conditioner and bathed like a princess.
Scootaloo couldn't take her eyes off the portraits. There were dozens of them—black silhouettes of rural ponies, framed in dark ovals that swarmed gently past her one generation at a time as she sauntered slowly, pensively down the creaking stairs of the Apple Family residence. She emerged upon a warm toasty world. A fireplace crackled lazily at the far end of a den furnished with plush love seats and afghans. As a blurred Apple Bloom scampered across the living room—giggling in a fit over one thing or another—Scootaloo glanced around the corner to see a brightly lit dining room, flanked by a kitchen where Granny Smith was currently growling at Apple Bloom to settle down. The old mare wobblingly navigated her lime-wrinkled self around an eating table before placing down a steamy plate full of straw and daffodils, sprinkled deliciously with peppery oats.
A barking nose. The last pony briefly jolted, but relaxed as she saw Winona scampering up and running circles around her, a gleeful Apple Bloom hot on the collie's fluffy tail. The two went cantering off towards another section of the house as Scootaloo's attention was drawn towards a wide portrait lining a distant hearth. Within the wooden frame the happy image of six ponies stood in a familial pose. Granny Smith was seated in the center, flanked by a red coated stallion with sharp green eyes and a mare of silken orange complexion. The mare was cradling an infant foal with a light bush of red hair, while two adorable ponies—one crimson and the other orange—hugged her legs and faced the invisible portraitist.
The pegasus was so engrossed with the calm faces hovering in the shadows across from her that she barely registered a porch door opening and slamming shut. A hulking red form clopped on tired limbs as a sisterly shadow called in from the adjacent hallway:
“Macky, didja finish barricadin' the barn? That's where they're likely to go bangin' them bony heads of theirs first!”
“Eeeyup,” Macintosh strolled past Scootaloo. He politely nodded his head—then jolted with a double-take at her mane. A blink, and he suppressed a snickering smirk as he swaggered his way into the dining room.
Scootaloo blushed slightly, her face awash in copper confusion. Just in time, Applejack pattered up, tossing her hat onto a nearby wrack.
“Whew-Wee! I swear, sometimes I feel like Epona invented 'work' first and 'ponies' second to make an excuse for the former—” She took one glance at Scootaloo. “Oh, you're done, Copper-Bottom—” She too jolted. “Whoah Nelly! Eheheh—Ya do know, sugarcube, that we've got a mirror in the bathroom, don'tcha?”
“I-I don't read you, Miss Appleja—er—AJ,” Scootaloo's eyes narrowed. “I almost passed out in the tub. Did the trolls beat me with an ugly stick before I came down here or something?”
“Nothin' of the sort,” Applejack pointed with an amused hoof. “Didn't yer Momma ever teach ya how to brush yer mane proper?”
“H-Huh?” Scootaloo stupidly blinked and ran a hoof over her neck, only to feel a certifiable mountain of fuzzy tangles spreading upwards towards the ceiling. “Holy cow! Eheh—Oh yeah, th-that's right...”
“There's a brush over yonder on the table. Be my guest.”
“Hmmm?” Scootaloo only barely registered Applejack's offering. “Oh—Uhm—To be perfectly frank, I've never... uh... Eheh.... How do I put this...?” She bit her lip. The only time the last pony had ever toyed with her hair after the Cataclysm was when she weaved the shaved pink strands into various rags, bindings, and insulators for use on board the Harmony. There was a time, in her Ponyvillean childhood, when she once experimented with a rainbow assortment of dye... which ended with relatively hilarious results, not that she had anypony to share it with.
“Pfft!” Applejack rolled her eyes. “What's this world comin' to? I bet yer Canterlotlian citizens would just die without one of them servants waitin' on yer manes night and day! C'mere—” She gently tugged on the pegasus' shoulder and planted her down on a plush stool in the center of the den. Seating herself on the edge of a couch, the earth pony snatched the brush from the table and proceeded diving into Scootaloo's forest of amber-streaked black threads. “Now sit tight. With the way y'all left it, this might smart a bit.”
“This might what?—Ackies!” Scootaloo winced, one eye tightly shut as several tangles were yanked clear, tugging at her roots. She felt like a hundred thousand nooses were pulling at every inch of her neck. “Snkkt—Y-You mistaking my skull for a tree you forgot to buck, AJ?”
“Quit yer whinin', Harmony,” the farmfilly murmured, squinting at her work as she straightened the curls out into long onyx threads. “I'm only doin' this cuz you got some really fine hair, if I do say so myself. It's an utter shame to see it all in shambles like this. The only other pegasus pony I've seen with a 'do this long is my good friend Fluttershy. It perplexes me why she never flies. She practically trips on her bangs everytime she so much as breaks into a canter—Tilt yer head down.”
Scootaloo obeyed, her bobbing vision scanning the plush rugs of the den under the flickering fireplace. “You seem to have a close knit group of friends,” the pegasus spoke through the lips of 'Harmony'. “So far I've heard about Twilight Sparkle, Lady Rarity, and now Fluttershy?”
“Oh, we're a tight bunch—Us gals,” Harmony smirked as she threaded the amber streaks together and then shifted her concentration on Scootaloo's ends. “Anypony who knows a thang or two about our brush-in with Nightmare Moon will say it's all on account of the Elements of Harmony—heh, now there's a smatterin' of irony for ya. But I always liked to think that it was a great deal more heartfelt than that. I was always well acquainted with Pinkie Pie and the Cake families over at Sugarcube Corner before fate flung the whole lot of us together. And everypony in Ponyville knew about Fluttershy—well, relatively speakin'. The pegasus has always lived in a lonely cottage outside of town. She never really showed her face much until she became part of our little circle of friends—the 'Mane Six' as some gabberin' townsfolk like to call our little pow-wow.”
“'Mane Six',” Scootaloo chuckled—wincing a bit as another tangle bit the dust. “That's original.”
“Nah. Not really,” Applejack briefly droned. “But still, there's something about my friends and I that is just so...” She paused for a moment and chuckled. “Oh shucks, I do sound like a braggin' fool, don't I?”
“No, it's alright,” Scootaloo gulped, suddenly feeling her heartbeat. “Do go on.”
“Well,” Applejack spoke and resumed brushing from behind. “We all found out one day that we had a special connection. As a matter of fact, we were destined to all find each other at some point or another—On account that when we were all little foals, one single event echoed across the whole of Equestria. In some manner or another, it was responsible for all of us gettin' our cutie marks at precisely the same time. Now what are the odds of that happenin'?”
Scootaloo tried to steady her breath. A warm sensation was blossoming deep inside her gut as she sat upon the precipice of a legendary story that the pegasus knew all too well. Over several lonesome years spent in an ashen sky, the last pony often did all she could to bury the bitterly ironic implications of the memory. But she wasn't sitting there in the past and having her hair brushed for her own benefit. She tilted hear ears back towards Applejack as she dutifully asked: “What was it? What caused all your cutie marks?”
“You ever heard of a Sonic Rainboom?”
“Educate me.”
“Yer a pegasus and you don't know about the--?”
“What's in a name?” Scootaloo retorted. She tried not to sound short; she was slightly successful. “It's all in the experience, isn't it?”
“Darn tootin'. This Sonic Rainboom was what resulted in all of us getting' our cutie marks. And on top of that, we learned that it was caused by none other than one of us gals in the first place!”
“Who?” Scootaloo secretly smiled. “Fluttershy?”
“Snkkkt—Hahaha—Heavens, no! But a certain blue pegasus by the name of Rainbow Dash. You better memorize that name, cuz I swear it's gonna be a legend someday.”
“Yes,” Scootaloo murmured, her hooves kneading the rug beneath her. “I-I'm sure it will be...”
“Y'know, in a lot of ways—You kind of remind me of her.”
Scootaloo's eyes dilated. She hadn't expected to hear that. Ever. She bit her lip and nearly whimpered, “R-Really...?”
“In less than two days, I've considered you to be both a pest and a blessing. No two words better describe Rainbow Dash in a heartbeat.” A slight drawlish chuckle, and she playfully nudged the copper pony's shoulder. “I'm joshin', of course. Yer as sweet as candy rain in my book, Harmony, which is the least I can say about Rainbow Dash. That tomcolt can be a regular thorn in the hoof from time to time, but I love her all the same.”
“I...” Scootaloo exhaled, smiled warmly into the shadows, and said, “I'm sure she loves us too.” A blink, and she winced slightly at how that came out.
“Heh—If you say so, copper-bottom. Maybe once we get this Apple Harvest taken care of, I could introduce you to the gals. I like celebratin' with my friends after a long week of apple buckin'. Yer free to come with!”
“I-I'll think about it,” Scootaloo said. Gazing forward, she fidgeted slightly—fought to scale the opportunity of the moment—and eventually seized it. “Hey, AJ?”
“Yes, Harmony?”
“What...” she cleared her throat. “Wh-What would it take, d-do you think, for a pony to seek audience with Princess Celestia?”
“You mean the Princess Celestia?” Scootaloo could positively feel the weight of Applejack's dumb blink from behind. “Yer a Servant of the Court of Canterlot and yer askin' me about meetin' up with the Princess?”
Scootaloo winced at that—all of that. She should have seen it coming from twenty-five years of reverse-time away. Still, she painted her tongue silver and persisted, “I know how much you dislike bureaucracy, Miss Applejack. It's only natural to hate the process of red tape. Even a pony of my stature and service has to go through several layers of offices before I can so much as submit a letter to Her Highness.”
“Like when you plan on reportin' on this Sweet Apple Acres?”
“Yes—NO,” Scootaloo tugged briefly on the end of her hairs and sat up straight. “Ahem—This isn't about my inspection of the farm. Not this.”
“Then what is it about, Harmony?”
“It's... It's...” Scootaloo bit her lip. A thousand dying faces flicked in and out of a blink. She calmed herself and managed, “It's a personal matter. That's all. I-I know it's rather foolhardy for a pony—anypony—to think that she can easily make contact with the Princess, somehow circumnavigating the waiting list of so many other concerned citizens who write to her on a daily basis. But... B-But in my service to Her Highness—in all of my travels—I have... how can I say this... I've uncovered some findings about the lands of Equestria that I think need a close review, and there're no offices in my Court that can properly filter—uhm—what I have to report on.”
“I see. And you call that a personal matter?”
“I... Er...” Scootaloo inhaled. Then a brief smile. “What's more personal than the safety and future of Equestria? You may hold a great deal of faith in this land, Miss Applejack. And that's all well and fine for you. You're an earth pony. You live here. But me? I don't live entirely in Canterlot—Not like you think.”
“Just where do you live, Harmony?”
Scootaloo lingered. She closed her eyes, returning briefly to the ashes. “I live in the skies, AJ. It's not just a part of my pegasus nature—It's all about what I do, what I believe in, and who I am.” She reopened her amber orbs, and the rich warm flicker of the den seemed muted suddenly. It brought a chill up her spine. “Someday—maybe eons from now—the skies will be all that's left of Equestria. Those who have spent so much time traveling—those like me—can see things that other ponies can't, all ponies except Her Highness. Princess Celestia sees all.” A gulp, then a murmur: “Or at least I certainly hope she does...”
“I can't pretend to know the texture of yer words as much as yer tryin' to paint them to me. But you've been awfully polite to my words. With the way the days have unfolded, I see every reason to respect yers all the same.” There was a gentle clapping sound of the brush being placed onto a table top. Two hooves rested on Scootaloo's shoulders. “There ya go. It ain't no prima donna hogwash—but I reckon you look mighty elegant.”
Scootaloo shuffled, standing up from her stool. She trotted across the room and glanced into the reflective surface of a grandfather clock. The reflection sported a gorgeous black mane blossoming from her scalp, and the one amber streak swam steadily down the centerpiece of the thickly forested threads.
“It looks... pretty,” the pegasus blushed slightly.
An orange reflection sauntered up next to her, smirking. “Yes, you do,” Applejack patted her shoulder as the two's complexion hovered numbly against the rotating hands of time. “Don't sell yerself short, girl. All them wisecracks I made yesterday about you bein' dainty and all; they're true in a way. But it's a darlin' truth. I'm sure you'd drive the colts back at Canterlot into a faintin' spell if you ever took the moment to come down from them skies you love.”
Scootaloo exhaled, her breath incidentally fogging the clockface briefly as her eyes fell past the sloping length of the hour hand. “I'm not sure if I can ever afford to come down...”
“Good thang we stumbled into each other,” Applejack winked. “I reckon it gave you a chance to get better acquainted with the Earth. I'm sure the Earth was missin' you mighty fierce too.”
“Y-Yeah. Maybe so...”
Applejack rubbed her own chin with a hoof. “Y'know, it ain't that much of a stretch to get in contact with the Princess—Now that I think of it.”
Scootaloo flashed a hyper glance Applejack's way. “It 'ain't'?” She blinked.
“Well, on account of my friend Twilight,” the orange mare mused. “She's always writin' letters on friendship and Ponyvillean life to Celestia. She's her magical apprentice, you see.”
Scootaloo shifted where she stood. “You don't say...?”
“At first I was a bit miffed that every little thang I did or said around Twilight could very well have made it onto the pages of a letter that her lil dragon friend sent to Her Highness. But then I came to trust Twilight Sparkle for whom she really is—a gentle, endearing, and good-mannered pony. And—heck!—I'm all about tellin' the truth, most of the time at least. So I figured—'What the hay's the big deal'? And it's never bothered me since.” She smiled proudly. “I have no doubt that what's happenin' right here on this here farm could come to the Princess' attention, thanks to Twilight—in some way or 'nother.”
“And th-then the Princess would want to sp-speak with me?” Scootaloo stammered, her wings briefly fluttering.
“Pfft—One hoof at a time, sugarcube. But it's certainly a start, isn't it?”
“Where in tarnation is everyone—AJ! Miss Harmony!” Granny Smith wobbled out from the brightly lit kitchen and gawked at the two ponies. “There you are—Elektra Alive, ladies! Food's-a-gettin' cold! Bring yer flanks in here and take a bite before them nasty critters stop hidin' in the forest!” She hobbled back under the gathering shadows of Macintosh and Apple Bloom at the table.
Scootaloo winced slightly. “Where are my m-manners? I'm not used to a regular eating schedule. I didn't mean to hold up supper, honest.”
“Don't worry yer sweet head about it,” Applejack winked and motioned with her snout as she trotted over to join her family. “How about you put that mouth of yers into munchin' instead of mopin'?” she said with a chuckle.
The copper pegasus nervously trotted after her, dipping her head humbly into the warm aura wafting off of the dinner table. Granny Smith was already serving heaps of the steamy daffodil alfredo onto each of the five plates while Macintosh, Apple Bloom, and Applejack were shuffling padded stools into place and taking their seats. Scootaloo was so mesmerized by the scents of the well-cooked meal that she took little notice of the seat she was shuffling up towards. She heard someone's throat clearing. Glancing up, she saw Macintosh gazing deadpan at her, shaking his head, and waving a hoof negatively. With a blink, Scootaloo took a second look at the spot that she was about to sit in. Its place at the table was dusty, plain, with the only thing adorning it being a vase full of well preserved orange blossoms. The spot directly next to the seat had a pair of antique colt's horseshoes criss-crossing in memory. She blushed deeply and winced apologetically Macintosh's way, watching as the crimson stallion gladly motioned her towards a guest stool on the other side of the table, which she quickly took—shuffling up until she was suddenly at chest level within the conjoined breath of the family and with no means of escape.
She had felt this cramped and caged before. The Harmony's cabin left little room for anypony to shuffle around. Inside her airship Scootaloo was either piloting, runecrafting, reading journals, or lying in the hammock. There was nothing necessarily uncomfortable about the claustrophobic lifestyle; she was the only living thing who would ever need to use the cabin. But this—this dinner table full of breaths and smells—this was like being cornered by vicious harpies from all sides, only they wanted to bless her rather than eviscerate her. The last pony was not accustomed to being the recipient of anything other than her own cold shoulder throughout the years. It was positively suffocating.
She also wasn't accustomed to traditional eating habits. With forlorn eyes, Scootaloo watched as the family exchanged smiles and polite phrases of gratitude before offensively dipping the entire weight of their snouts directly into the spiced plates of straw and flowers. Scrumptious oats and delicious white petals dribbled off their delighted maws as they treated their table like one large trough. If Scootaloo had lost all of her faint memories from foalhood, she might even have been disgusted. She realized that she was the source of her own confusion. For decades, her diet consisted entirely of mushroom stew and meat broth, and very early into her zeppelin lifestyle the pegasus had crafted for herself metal braces attached with eating utensils so that she could fish her meals out of a collapsible container that could be discarded in a heartbeat for if she needed to jump into her cockpit and steer clear of a sudden obstacle or air pirate attack. Scootaloo had been alone for so long, she had forgotten what it meant to eat like a pony. Strangely enough, it was the first incongruity that didn't make her feel shameful.
She cleared her throat, wrenched her eyes off of the ungainly eating habits of her hosts, and gazed at the food on the plate before her. She knew the daffodil alfredo had to be delicious; her senses told her that it smelled delicious, but there was no convincing the supposed 'gut' of her projected soul self that she needed to be hungry for it. Her need to eat was the same as her need to sleep, and it was all related to the unnatural stamina that aided 'Harmony' so well in her endless apple bucking that day. In fact, the only reason she took a bath was because Applejack insisted.
She didn't want to wait until the four blessed ponies in front of her insisted that she join in the meal. So, leaning her snout down awkwardly, she opened her lips like a giant copper crane and snapped a rattling bite of the heap of flowers and straw.
The soonest that the oats entered her mouth—they melted around the crunching contours of the flower stalks until a grand cornucopia of home-brewed tastes gathered into a frothing ball against her tongue and exploded endorphins directly into her brain. Her eyes almost rolled back in her head. This wasn't quite like the apple she had bitten into the day before; there were no bitter sweet emotions attached to this. This was quite simply an onslaught of pleasure, something she hadn't gotten from food in a while. She remembered suddenly what it meant to consume something simply for the sake of the experience and not for the sake of survival. It was a joyously awkward shimmer that danced up and down her spine, like having waltzed in on a muffin buffet at Sugarcube Corner. She pondered a little too heavily on this, so that she was blind to her avid devouring until she blinked her eyes up with a mouthful to see four amused faces staring at her.
“My my, they certainly starve you in the Royal Court of Canterlot, don't they?” the lime coated mare snickered.
“Don't go pickin' on her, Granny,” Applejack winked between munches. “She done deserved a good scarfin'. Besides—Who can resist yer wonderful alfredo?”
“Yeah! Can Miss Harmony visit us some more?” Apple Bloom stifled a belch and beamed. “I wouldn't mind chowin' down on this every week!”
“Oh Sugarcube. What would make this a special occasion if we did that, then?”
“We should let ponies visit us more often, AJ! When's all yer Apple Buckin' gonna be finished, huh? I feel like we've been a bunch of lonely rock farmers, what with all this work and no play!”
“The soonest we get this here harvest done, I reckon we're in for a heapin' load of celebration. I mean it; this year's been a real doozy.”
“You can say that again, child.”
“Eeeyup.”
“Why—If I had a bit for every basket of apples I've filled this year alone, I'd fancy myself being nearly as rich as Rarity.”
“That reminds me, AJ. Where has that most resplendent pony been lately? It seems like Lady Rarity is a no-show everytime I go to visit the Ponyvillean Market.”
“Oh, she's just bein' her normal fabric fussin' self, Granny. No doubt she's workin' on the latest task for that fabulous fashion critic from Canterlot, Hoity Toity.”
“Now AJ—If yer don't know a pony's name, it ain't polite to go on fillin' the blank, now is it?”
“No, Granny. I mean that is his name. He's 'Hoity Toity'.”
“A name like that in the Canterlotlian elite? Preposterous! Next thing y'know, Princess Celestia's School for Gifted Ponies will be passin' out doctorates to colts named 'Mister Whooves'!”
“Er... Ahem... So, Harmony,” Applejack took another bite of alfredo and smiled down the family table. “Tell us a little bit about the sorts of things that a Royal Servant of Canterlot gets to see in her travels, why don't ya?”
“Oh, uhm...” Scootaloo fidgeted, swallowing down another scrumptious lump of oats and smiling nervously. “It's not necessarily good dinner conversation.”
“Are you kiddin'?” Apple Bloom nearly bounced out of her stool, her hairbow twitching atop a grinning head. “I've never met a pegasus working for the Princess before! I bet you see all kinds of cool and amazin' things in your work!”
“Where I go isn't nearly as important as what I do,” Scootaloo said. A clearing of the throat and she half-murmured aside: “Or whom I do it for.”
“Do you ever see any sea serpents?”
“Uhh,” Scootaloo blinked. “I beg your pardon, kid?”
“Sweetie Bell says that there are tons of sea serpents out beyond the mountains bordering the Equestrian Valley! She says they're called 'leviathans', on account that they're so big that they can't fit their big 'ol selves into normal lakes and rivers!”
Scootaloo didn't bother stifling a knowing smirk. “This 'Sweetie Bell' sounds like a walking dictionary.”
“Nah, she just tries really hard to impress other ponies. I think it's because she's tryin' to look as classy as her sister, Lady Rarity. She's not nearly as confident about thangs as my other friend—”
Scootaloo's heart briefly dropped when Applejack interrupted her little sister: “That's quite enough jabberin' about yer Crusaders, Apple Bloom. Y'all can talk about that another day.”
“Awww—But Sis! The whole point of being a Cutie Mark Crusader is wantin' to go out into the world and do everythang to get a cutie mark! I bet Miss Harmony here has done just that!”
Before Applejack could interject again, the copper pegasus spoke, “It's true. I've been to many places. And it sounds like you've got a noble thing going with these 'crusader' friends of your, Apple Bloom. But I don't think you should be so obsessed with the outside world, kid. Especially when you've got so much that's awesome right here.”
“What do ya mean, Miss Harmony?” Apple Bloom blinked widely at her. Applejack raised an eyebrow. A mute Macintosh and Granny Smith gazed over half-munched alfredo.
Under the spotlight of so many warm pairs of eyes, Scootaloo crossed her hooves atop the table and breathed soundly. “I've seen many things in my flight,” she said, plucking the words from the gray fields of her mind with caution. “I've seen deep granite chasms etched into the earth from millennia ago, when things that were done to this world were performed by the whim of a Goddess with absolute permanence in mind. I've flown under the shadows of mountains too high for any Canterlotlian chronicler to measure; they are natural monstrosities so large that to simply comprehend them reminds a pony of just how tiny a speck she is in the mere twinkle of Epona's eyes. I have seen... I have seen wastelands, Apple Bloom—Wastelands that stretch on for hundreds upon hundreds of kilometers, where the only sign of life that could possibly exist is the indestructible spirit of ponydom. The world is a huge place, and when it's stripped bare of all of the pretty things that make it recognizable, it becomes clear really quick that the only hoofprint you can ever hope to make is the sort of mark you can etch upon the souls of each other, of the ones that you love, and the ones that you would forever... forever miss if they were to fly off along the wild winds of what lies beyond the mountains and never ever return. The world is huge, and it is amazing—But, personally, I have found so much of it to be...to be empty.”
Scootaloo's lips lingered. She gazed up with a brief fear. The warmth in the eyes of the living ponies had faded slightly. As they regarded her, their faces seemed a little... paler. She knew exactly how to change that.
With a smile, the pegasus finished, “But here—No, there is no emptiness here. You can dream and wonder about the outside world all you want, Apple Bloom. But let me save you the trouble when I say that there's nothing better than a home. You can go on a thousand exoduses and cover a million miles—by land or by air—but having a home is all that matters. And this home, Apple Bloom, this gorgeous and beautiful home where your family lives; it is a good home. And I am willing to bet that if you too were to see the many sights of Equestria and beyond, only here would you feel complete. Anywhere else would just be empty.” She glanced up at a sisterly orange mare. “Where else would the Earth so generously give back for you simply being you?”
Applejack smiled sweetly.
“Well, I hope I get to see some leviathans someday!”
“Apple Bloom! Heavens to Betsy!” Granny Smith rolled her eyes and then smiled at the guest. “Would you like seconds, dear?”
“I would love some, Ms. Smith.”
“I rightly share Apple Bloom's melancholy over the vittles,” Applejack mused while the elder scooped Scootaloo another heap of straw and daffodils. “Tomorrow night, we're likely back to me cookin' the same old boring meals like I do every week. It's nothin' for you to fancy, Harmony. I don't quite have Granny's gift of spicin' here. But I reckon my meals are decently healthy!”
“And borin'!” Apple Bloom made a wretching face.
“Mmm... Eeeyup.”
“Oh hush, you two!” Applejack briefly frowned, folding her hooves in a pout. “So what's wrong with a little bit of spinach and celery here and there?”
Scootaloo suddenly snorted. She cleared her throat and did her best to hide a smile.
Applejack blinked curiously across the table at her. “What? You have something against spinach and celery?”
Again, Scootaloo jerked. Avoiding Applejack's gaze, she blushed slightly and shrugged. “No. No ma'am. That sounds absolutely delicious—”
“What's so cotton-pickin' funny, then?” Applejack confusedly raised an eyebrow. “You look like yer about to spill yer liver all over the table!”
“Ugh—AJ, darlin', please!” Granny Smith groaned.
“It's nothing—Just...” Scootaloo gestured with a hoof, hesitated, then let loose another busting smirk. “Hmm... Your voice—”
“What about it? Huh?!?”
“The way it sounds when you say the word... ahem... 'celery'. Just—I dunno—makes me feel all g-giddy inside,” Scootaloo let loose a flock of giggles and coughed it down before taking a ladylike bite out of fresh alfredo.
Macintosh blinked. Apple Bloom's cheeks exploded as she tried to hide a snicker.
Applejack's frown was only overwhelmed by an ever thick curtain of perplexity. “I don't get it! What's so fancy about the way I say 'celery'?”
Apple Bloom broke into uncontrollable foalish giggles. A distinguished pegasus gently joined her. Even Big Mac's lips started curving.
“Say it again, sis! Heeheehee!” Apple Bloom was red-faced.
“Nuh uh! My supposedly 'humble guest' has outright turned the whole family table against me!” Applejack turned her snout up. “I don't get what the big deal is! I swear, her Canterlotlian sophistication is pollutin' the whole household!”
“Come on! Say it again! Say it again!”
“You say it, blast yer yellow hide! This ain't the sort of dinner I washed my hooves for!”
“Awwww!”
Silence, save for the random clattering of plates. Granny Smith chewed long and hard on a few strips of straw. Macintosh dabbed himself with a napkin. Apple Bloom hovered on the edge of her seat. Scootaloo's eyes were locked onto a suddenly interesting spot on the ceiling.
Applejack frowned, frowned, snarled, then let loose spastically, “'Celery'?!?” She shrugged.
Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, and Macintosh immediately curled over in laughing fits. Applejack facehoofed and sighed while Granny Smith smirked quietly to herself.
An hour later, most of the lights in the house had been put out—save for the blaze in the fireplace, which was still crackling and sparking with a heated sigh over the soft shapes of embroidered furniture. Nestled in the sofa upon Granny Smith's lap, washed up and socked-up and ready for bed, Apple Bloom blinked smilingly as the lime-coated elder embraced her with a book in her hooves, rattling off a bedtime story to the dancing shadows of the room.
“'But the baby yellow birdie didn't mind none when the other songbirds tried to make fun of him. 'I'll get my own tree!' he said. 'Then I can sing big and strong just like the others!' So he flew and he flew and he flew and he flew, but all of the large trees were all filled with birdies already. He knew it was impolite to hop into another family's nest, besides it wouldn't help his singing none to share the branches with other birdies. He needed to practice on his own! Finally—one cool and crisp mornin'—the baby yellow birdie found a tinnnnnnny sprout of an apple tree just over the hill yonder where the rising Sun first appeared. She was such a teeny tiny thing that none of the other songbirds wanted to nest in her—but for the little yellow birdie, she was just right. 'Finally, I have a tree and she's just the size that I can learn to sing in!' So he made his nest and practiced every mornin', but his singin' wasn't gettin' any prettier. He wanted nothin' else but to sing big and strong—But it wasn't comin' out right! Finally, one mornin', he left the tiny sprout of a tree, but not without saying, 'Don't fret, Miss Apple Tree! I know just the thing that will make you grow. All of the other birdies live in big trees because they have families! Maybe if I had a family of my own, then you would become big too'!”
From the bottom of the farmhouse's stairs, Scootaloo listened in on the tale. She sat on the bottom step, covered in shadows, as her ears pricked foalishly to take in Granny Smith's recital. From the toasty look across Apple Bloom's firelit features, the pegasus could tell that she was well familiar with this bedtime story. It was Scootaloo's first.
As Granny Smith continued her gentle tale, the copper time traveler glanced aside to see Big Macintosh propped up on a stool before the screened porch door. With hard green eyes, he stared out into the darkness shrouding the orchards, watching for any sign of the nightmarish creatures that were lurking beyond. He had a spade balanced across his forelegs, and if he was teetering on the brink of exhaustion, he heroically didn't show any sign of such.
A shuffling of hooves, and Applejack sauntered down from the top of the stairs and sat down next to Scootaloo with a groaning sigh. “Any sign of them varmints?”
Scootaloo slowly shook her head. “No. By the way, I thought it was Macintosh's turn to keep watch first. Shouldn't you be asleep?” Her voice was stealthily hushed beyond the ranges of Apple Bloom's hearing.
Applejack's was too: “I would say the same about you, but looks like I'm not the only restless one.” Nevertheless she yawned and leaned against the nearby wall with bloodshot green eyes. “Here's my family, havin' a gentle moment, and yet there are such horribly nasty creatures just beyond the fences.”
“And what a nice moment it is,” Applejack murmured towards the cozy fireplace and the old and young bodies curled before it. Something Spike had said about the past brushed the surface of her mind. She suddenly felt like a foreign virus, infecting a pure Equestria with eyes that had seen ash and misery. “What I wouldn't give for a whole lifetime of moments like this...”
Applejack turned towards her, and a soft voice came out of her that soothed the pegasus ears. “All of those thangs that yer were goin' on about at the dinner table, about you seein' so many sights in the world and it all bein' so incredibly empty...” She leaned her head to the side. “Is that how you feel about life in general, Harmony?”
Scootaloo tried to reassure her with a smile. The result was akin to handling balloons with rusted gauntlets. “Life is never empty, AJ. It's the stuff that life tries to fill.”
“I reckon yer one of them trough-is-half-empty kind of ponies.”
“Not really. I like to drink out of a cantene.”
“Pfft—Cop out!”
“Heheheh,” Scootaloo giggled lightly. Then, with a returning sigh, she hugged her forelegs to herself and lowered her head, gazing at the firelight and the unraveling bedtime story beyond.
“The years went by, but the yellow birdie didn't notice,” Granny Smith went on as Apple Bloom yawned and curled tighter against her. “Because he was so enamored with the family he made. He had no idea that he would be so happy to have a wife and two little chickies. He found he practiced his singin' simply by treatin' his kids to some lullabies. He forgot all about little Miss Apple tree back home, because his whole life had become one big beautiful song, and his family had become the chorus. And without even knowing it, he had become big and strong, just the kind of daddy that his chickies needed. It was a total surprise to him when one day they moved back to the west side of the orchards, and there the yellow birdie found himself stumbling on an enormous apple tree that was just the right size for his family! But he was scared at first, because every other bird who tried to live inside her branches was thrown out—as if the tree had come alive and refused to be nested in! 'That tree! She ain't no good!' the other songbirds said. 'She doesn't like no birds no-how!' But the yellow birdie wasn't scared. He needed a tree for his family, and she was just the right size. 'Please let me build a nest in you, Miss Apple Tree!' He begged with folded wings. 'I swear that I'm big and strong and my family needs the room!'.”
Scootaloo's wings absent-mindedly flexed and unflexed. A pit formed in her stomach as she thought about all of the skies she had flown in during her life; and none of them were golden. A dismal hum broke the tranquility of the room, so that she finally forced herself to glance aside and murmur Applejack's way:
“Hey, AJ...”
“Mmm—Yes, Harmony?” Applejack leaned away from the precipice of drowsiness.
“Have you—That is...” the pegasus fidgeted, fumbled, then proceeded, “as an earth pony, have you noticed anything strange about the land?”
“You mean other than nasty little trolls poppin' out of it and wantin' to kill all of us?”
“Ahem. Yes, besides that,” Scootaloo bit her lip, but continued uttering, “Have you felt... I don't know... any tremors or strange earthquakes or... or just about anything that would seem really out of place in the land of Equestria?”
“Can't reckon I have. This here is pretty sound land. Only tremors we get is when cattle stampede from time to time. I had to save Ponyville all by myself from such a mess one time. Well, heheh, Winona helped, but that's besides the point.”
“You haven't noticed any bizarre things in the sky? Any... er... eclipses or other strange phenomena happening for no reason?”
Applejack squinted sideways at the pegasus. “Does this have anythang to do with that report you've been dyin' to share with the Princess?”
Scootaloo instantly blushed, glancing away. “Guess nothing gets past you, AJ.”
“Guilty,” she smirked. “Sugarcube, my family and I are very grateful for all the things you've done for us over the last day and a half. It was because of your foresight that Mac and I didn't get chomped to bits by trolls. And it was because of your smarts that we've gotten so much apple buckin' done at a record rate. But I'm beginning to think that you're awful worrisome about a lot of things.”
“I-I guess it is in my nature,” Scootaloo smiled nervously. A gulp. “But—There are strange things ahoof in Equestria. I really, really must get in contact with the Princess somehow.”
“Like what kind of strange things?”
“I-I really don't want to cloud your head with it, Applejack,” Scootaloo smiled plastically. “Let's just say that there are... th-there are worse things in this world than trolls.”
“Whew—If you say so,” Applejack ran a hoof through some night-tosseled threads and shrugged. “Cuz I can't imagine anything worse than creatures who just wanna hate on a humble family of farm ponies. It's almost as if they want to bring out the worst in us. Those traps that Macky and I made?—Plus them farm tools we were fixin' to smack against them varmints' heads...?” A chill ran down the mare's spine as she shamefully glanced into the shadows. “I shudder to think how downright dirty we were plannin' on gettin'. You were right with what you said at sundown, Miss Harmony. Ponies are creatures of life. We should know nothin' about bouncin' back the misery of monsters.”
“Bouncing back misery...” Scootaloo nodded in suddenly deep thought. “Right...” She listened intently as Granny Smith finished her story.
“And the moment he built a nest inside her branches, the leaves started shakin' something fierce. At first the yellow birdie thought he was gonna be thrown out like all the others. But then he realized that there was somethin' musical to the way them leaves were rustling. And sure enough, he started singin' to the beat, and what came out of him was the most beautiful song that there ever was sung in all of the orchards. To his joy, he realized that she was the same apple tree he tried to build a nest in so many years ago, before he flew away to find himself such a happy family. She had waited for him all that time, so that she was big enough for the whole family and all of their happy songs. And that's when the yellow birdie thought to himself, 'Hmm, my favorite little tree isn't such a little tree anymore'. So she sang her song, big and strong, and they all lived in that great big tree happily ever after. The end.”
Granny Smith very, very quietly folded the book shut, for the little foal nestled in her lap had fallen into a soft slumber, her tiny form rising and falling with gentle breaths. The lime coated elder smiled and lovingly nuzzled the child's crimson mane as the firelight dwindled into shadows across their warm embrace.
The gentleness spread lightly across the room and lit something brightly in Scootaloo's center. Her breath left her, and when it did—it was like the echo of a manabullet ricocheting dead off a target. With suddenly bright eyes, she bounded up to her feet with a grin.
“That's it!” she hoarsely whispered.
“Wh-What's it?” Applejack blinked up at her with tired eyes. “Harmony, did you just suffer an aneurysm or somethin'?”
“Almost as good as that!” she beamed down at the orange mare. “I got an idea! I know how we can get rid of the trolls!”
“What?!” Applejack stumbled up to her feet. “H-How?”
“Got any marshmallows?”
“Uhhh...What the hay?”
“Well do you or don't you, girl? This is frickin' important!”
“I reckon I still do from the last time one of Apple Bloom's friends visited--”
“Good! Get them, get Macintosh, and follow me!” Scootaloo brushed past a startled stallion, making him fall out of his stool as she darted out the front porch, all the while staying within anchorage. “But most of all—Bring a smile!”
It was late into the morning hours when a wave of leathery bodies finally pierced the dark wall of the forest bordering Sweet Apple Acres' southeast border. There was a reason for why they didn't begin their march until then. In the glinting moonlight, many recently hewn bludgeons of sharp rock and gnarled branches manifested in the creatures' grips. They hissed and drooled with a bloodthirst that tugged them—clamoring—over the rickety wooden fence and through row after row of night-shrouded apple trees.
Flashes of loud teeth marked many drooling snouts as the trolls regarded the fruitless trees with disgust. Obviously put off by the extent to which the harvest had been gathered in their absence, they pressed themselves forward in a bounding canter, their mangy limbs kicking up clumps of dirt and grass as they began a nocturnal charge towards the center of the farm—towards the household of the equine who resided on the landscape.
A mutual hunger growled through their acidic stomachs as they pierced the last rows of orchards, closing in like one massive snake of leathery torsos onto the apex of the Acres. They expected to see a lone farmhouse sleeping under the curtain of darkness, unprotected on all sides by flimsy windows that their fresh weapons could mash through in a single hissing heartbeat.
What they found instead was a billowing pulse of hot orange light. Growling in disdain, the leathery line of trolls flinched at the edge of a dirt clearing, shading their squinting eyes and wretching maws with a forest of pointy bludgeons. In one hateful glare, they refocused their vision on what turned out to be a brilliant bonfire, and seated in a soft circle around the blaze were three ponies. Something was roasting in between them on a trio of sharp sticks... and they were laughing and smiling...
“Hahahaha!” Applejack beamed with curved green eyes as she waved a toasted marshmallow over a lick of flames. “Did I ever tell y'all about the one time that Twilight Sparkle squared off against a hydra at Froggy Bottom Bog?”
“No!” Scootaloo munched on the end of a puffy white treat, gulped, and smiled. “Do tell us, AJ.”
“My pleasure, Harmony!” Applejack smirked slyly at the copper pegasus and a certain red stallion. “It was me, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Twilight Sparkle, and Twilight's dragon apprentice Spike—and we was all flounderin' with this whole row over Pinkie Sense that brought us there to begin with. When all of the sudden, this huge hulkin' thang with four heads came surgin' up out of the swampwater! It had the lower body and tail of a dragon, but the quadrupled head of a snake! And it was comin' straight for us!”
“Why, Applejack...!” Scootaloo gasped widely and stabbed another marshmallow onto her stick. “What ever did you do?!?”
“Sit tight, listen—And I'll tell y'all!”
The trolls blinked their beady white eyes. A rubbing of their scalps and several exchanged glances; the monsters frowned and marched thuddingly across the dirt clearing, closing in on the three helpless victims in their marshmallow reverie.
The orange farmfilly continued, undaunted by the peripheral sight of the leather forms shuffling out of the treeline towards them. “So we immediately broke into a panicked gallop up the hill all quick-like. But there was this cliff we had run our stupid selves into, and the only way to safety was to jump across a bunch of dangerous rock pillars to get to a mountain on the other side of a gargantuan canyon!” Applejack grinned mischievously as she related this harrowing tale with extreme guile. “The hydra was closin' in fast! And we could only hop across the dang pillars one at a time! So Twilight Sparkle took it upon herself to distract the four-headed monster, even if it meant sacrificin' her own precious life!”
The trolls' strench filled the flickering air as they shuffled their way up towards the flanks of the three ponies. Applejack continued storytelling like they weren't there. Scootaloo was gazing only at her, nodding her head with childish interest. The only noticeable sign of nervousness was from the large red stallion. Macintosh shifted with brief discomfort atop the log where he was seated, but soon he too was thoroughly engrossed in the story, insomuch that he completely and utterly ignored the trolls and the violent looking weapons hanging in their gnarled hands.
“First, she got it in her head to try and outsmart them—by 'them', I mean the one huge hydra. But she figured she didn't have the courage. So—and I even heard her from afar—she goes 'What would a brave pony like Rainbow Dash do'? And in seconds flat, she's runnin' plum towards the hydra at full gallop, screamin' her head off like her horn had sunk into her brain overnight!”
“Wow, that was either extremely noble or extremely stupid!”
“A little of both, I reckon. But wouldn't you know it?! It worked!! The hydra was so dumbstruck by the unicorn's movement that it just about tangled its heads together while trying to take a bite at her!” Applejack chomped onto a mushroom and stuck a few more onto her stick while mumbling with a full mouth. “The morale of the story is that sometimes bein' a complete moron in the heat of panic can save yer skin a lot longer than it takes to second guess bein' a moron to begin with!”
“Hahahah,” Scootaloo grinned, seemingly oblivious to a trio of trolls that stood in a pyramid behind her, leering and waving their spiked clubs to impale her from above. “Well, y'know, there's a reason why hydras are so territorial! It's a common habit across Equestria for poachers to hunt bogs for hydra claws. You see, hydra blood is tempered at an extremely high temperature on account of a thermal-powered circulatory system.”
Applejack briefly winced as her eyes darted frightfully, motioning behind Scootaloo's shoulders.
Scootaloo merely winked at her and continued on with her rambling, “If you slice the toenails off of hydras, you can expose some of their bloodstream while it's still raw and harness a special energy known as orange flame—which has many useful properties, such as operating steam-powered machines and attracting various forms of metal with a highly charged magnetism.” The trolls behind Scootaloo, confounded by her utterly still and unafraid stance, stopped waving the weapons over her skull. They glanced at each other in mute confusion, their beady eyes losing all menace with each blink.
“I wouldn't rightly know much about hydras—But I know a brave unicorn when I see one,” Applejack mused. A pair of trolls dustily ran up to her, hissed, and barred their claws directly in her face. She slyly reached a hoof past them and snatched another marshmallow from a bag before flippantly stabbing it with her roasting stick. “I knew from then on never to underestimate Twilight's courage in the line of danger. Not that you'd think much of danger on such a pretty night as this.”
“I know, right?” Scootaloo leaned back, inhaled long and hard, and breathed out in a drunken grin. A troll leered over her, roared with several serrated teeth looming quite obviously in her eyesight. She made no note of it. “It's like Epona blanketed the night with her own hooves. What I wouldn't give for every night to be as delightful as this one—Especially when spent in the company of friends.”
“You would call us friends? Awwwww shucks,” Applejack blushed and smiled Macintosh's way. “And here I thought we was just sharin' scary stories!”
“Scary stories? Perish the thought!” Scootaloo raspberried and yawned as another pair of trolls waved their splintery weapons before her. “These are merely tales of Equestrian intrigue and silly unicorn bravery!”
“Well, it was a recount of somethin' I myself experienced.”
“And you wove the recollection so well, AJ.”
“I bet I could be bested!” She winked and glanced over at her brother, ignoring a pair of fist-shaking trolls in between them. “Macky? I bet you've got a doozy of a story to share with Harmony and me!”
Macintosh shrugged. He opened his mouth to talk—
“I've got one!” Scootaloo interjected, gulping down another marshmallow as she leaned forward with wagging eyebrows. “There was once this ugly talking baboon named 'Pitt', who had a bunch of monkey brothers who he treated like crap. One day he got the bright idea to build a rest stop at the top of really tall mountain.”
“On the top of a mountain??” Applejack campily slapped her knee with a hoof and guffawed, “That's so cooky!”
“So he and his twelve brothers build this giant wooden shack on the top of the frickin' thing. But they built it too close to the edge, you see,” Scootaloo grinned as several trolls sat on their haunches, banging their heads and re-blinking as if it could somehow rearrange the scene into something with more carnage. It didn't work. “Next thing Pitt knew, he and his brothers' building was starting to fall one meter at a time over the mountain's cliff. So they built all of these vertical support beams nailed into the mountain's side to keep the thing from plunging into the abyss beneath the clouds. But it was still a horrible location. Everyone who came by the 'Thirteen's Den' drank themselves silly and fell to their deaths in a drunken stupor. Pitt was losing customers faster than he could earn them!”
“What a pity,” Applejack grabbed another marshmallow as a troll strolled straight past her, frowning at Macintosh. “What happened next?”
The one troll marched straight towards the red stallion and bravely snapped the pony's marshmallow stick in half with barred teeth. When the stallion didn't flinch, the troll whooped, howled, then jumped mightily onto a nearby wooden cart, tossing the thing onto its side before snapping one of its wheels loose and smashing it to splintery bits just a few centimeters before the colt's hooves. Macintosh was beginning to shake as his brow creased angrily. His glaring eyes almost wandered the troll's way, almost—when he heard a whistling sound.
Glancing over, Macintosh saw Scootaloo glancing at him, her campy smile briefly faded as she shook her head gently at him. He calmed down as the pegasus' grin swiftly returned and she continued with the tale, “Well, turns out it was all the fault of Pitt's oldest brother. The orangutan was color blind, you see—And he thought that in Pitt's sketch of the 'Thirteen's Den' the baboon wanted the thing built on the edge of a lake. So, all that time, he had designed the rest stop to have a pier on its side—Hence why it was built too close to the edge of the mountain.”
“Oh, what a heapin' pile of absurd!” Applejack smirked. “Did the brother learn his lesson?”
“I guess you could say that,” Scootaloo swallowed a marshmallow in one gulp and smirked. “Pitt kicked him off the mountain and renamed the place to 'Monkey O'Dozen Den', which was a heck of a lot more marketable and increased the living patrons over the dying ones just enough to stay in business.”
“Is there a morale to this here story that involves brave unicorns?” Applejack blinked dumbly as a pair of bored trolls drooled behind her.
“When it comes to brass tactics, monkeys never spank each other. They go straight for the gullet.”
“That has nothing to do with unicorns.”
“Did I mention that the orangutan's skull was impaled by a stalagmite on the way down?”
“HA! Heheh—Well, sounds like monkeys could sure use a hug where you come from!”
“And how!” Scootaloo giggled. “If only all creatures in Equestria could be as happy as ponies.”
“Tis a shame! Because once yer a pony, there ain't no goin' back to doom and gloom, y'all reckon?”
“Yeah, I reckon!”
“Heeheehee—!”
Finally, the largest and ugliest of the trolls stomped directly over to Scootaloo, hissed from deep within his throat, and spit straight into her face. Macintosh and Applejack only slightly winced, attempting to maintain their airs. The circle of leathery creatures craned their necks in bloodthirsty anticipation of Scootaloo's reaction.
With the slimy saliva still cascading down her snout, the last pony grinned angelically and cooed the two farm ponies' way. “Have I ever mentioned I absolutely love pony music?”
“Oh yeah? What flavor caters to y'all?”
“Strings. Sometimes violins—But mostly the cello,” Scootaloo smirked. With a toss of her mane, she flippantly flung the foreign moisture off her face and stared into the fire. “It's so beautiful. It's a little mournful, and yet jubilant in its own rights.”
“Yer don't say? I'm a fan of the dulcimer myself.”
“Imagine that!”
“And Big Macintosh here fancies himself a lyre when he pays the village a visit from time to time, ain't that right, Macky?”
“Heh heh heh,” the stallion blushed deeply. “Eeeyup.”
The two fillies giggled at him as the trolls slumped in an air of boredom and defeat. With each liquid second that bled into minutes that bled into an hour, the monsters positively wilted under the happy chorus of the equines' stories, jokes, anecdotes, and even a campfire song or two. The invading force of clawed creatures paced about in slumped duldrums, resorting to smacking each other unenthusiastically every now and then with their suddenly useless weapons. This could very easily have carried on for a purgatorial eon, when suddenly one of the trolls lurched where he stood.
All of the trolls glanced at him—then gasped. From the top of his head, pouring down towards the bottom of his pointed toes, the creature was glazing over with white granite. He was turning into stone. With several gurgling gasps, the trolls spun eastward in horror—only to instantly freeze as the rays of the rising sun caught them stupidly unaware of the passage of time. The anticlimax of that night's raid had ensnared them, and soon they would all be as useless as they were before they were dug up.
A great panic filled the ranks of the leathery monstrosities. Many of them bolted towards the shadowy cover of orchard trees—only to have the reflection of sunlight off the dewy leaves catch their skin and transform them to rock in mid-dive. Others ran towards the overturned body of the wooden cart, ultimately slamming into the wooden finish with stony thuds. As every leathery body turned into a concrete effigy, the last and largest of the trolls shrieked like a terrified infant, leaped over the bonfire, and scampered in desperation towards the shadowed interior of the barn.
Applejack very swiftly stood up, hoisting a length of rope in her teeth. “Whoah there, partner!” She flung a lasso across the morning-kissed farm and wrapped a coil of yellow fiber around the scampering cretin's waist. With a mighty tug, she dragged him back over towards her side and unceremoniously hugged the twitching troll like a teddy bear. “No need to be rude! It's just a simple campfire and roastin' of sweets among friends! Take a seat! Let us love and tolerate the stuffing outta y'all!”
The troll kicked, screamed, and fought to get out of her grasp. The burning line of golden sunlight swam over him—And soon he too was just as still and solid as the rest of his granite companions.
“Hmmph,” Applejack mocked a frown and dropped him like an ivory paperweight before dusting off her hooves. “No reason to go all stiff on me!”
Macintosh whistled, standing up before the dwindling campfire as he proudly observed the three dozen stone bodies blanketing the edges of the dirt clearing in the center of the farm. Every troll was now a pale white facsimile of its former self. Their weapons lay in tattered piles between them. Glancing over at his sibling, Macintosh smirked and saluted with a hoof.
“Well, I gotsta admit,” Applejack tilted the brim of her hat and smiled Scootaloo's way. “That was a sightlier better result than I was expectin'. Harmony, just how did you know they wouldn't rip us straight down the mane on the spot?”
“There's an old saying from Canterlot,” Scootaloo leisurely nibbled on a marshmallow and smirked up at the two ponies standing before her in the halo of frozen trolls. “'Don't feed the parasprites'. It means that there's no point in humoring creatures who only serve the purpose of spreading misery and multiplying it. Trolls are just that, Miss Applejack. It isn't enough that they exist to inflict pain, but they must feed off of the hate and malice of others or else their very instinctual nature would yield no effect to begin with!”
“And I reckon that being the opposite of mean and angry around 'em only quadruples the 'poison' to their system,” the orange mare smirked. “Well, I'll be. Sometimes the best way to deal with monsters is simply to be a pony.”
Scootaloo nodded. “History has taken advantage of trolls' weakness in the past too. Several millennia ago, the entity Discord had hired them as the chief grunts of his army. For centuries, trolls ruthlessly sacked and pillaged ponydom, until the Alicorn Sisters... simply ignored them. That's how the Chaos Wars ended.”
“And our war too, it would seem,” Applejack rubbed her scalp underneath her hat and glanced forlornly at the many, many statues. “Thanks to the Sun, at least. But I reckon this victory won't last that long. What do we do with them??”
“Heh! Are you kidding?” Scootaloo finished a marshmallow, dusted her hooves off, and stood up on all fours. “The way I see it, the Earth gave these to you, even if you didn't ask for them. There's only one thing to give the Earth back.”
Macintosh and Applejack blinked the pegasus' way. The siblings shared a glance, a thought... and then a smile.
“This is the last one, Macky! Give it all yer got!”
Macintosh grunted, growled, and finished shoving the last of the three dozen white troll statues into the deep well dug into the north end of the orchards. The stony creature gave way to gravity. Macintosh slumped over the edge of the hole, panting, and waited until he heard the loud thud of the last statue landing atop the pile of all its companions that had collected at the bottom of the hole. The red stallion exhaled, wiped the sweat from his brow, and winked at the two fillies behind him.
They nodded back, and together shoved a huge wooden cart filled to the brim with topsoil. On the count of 'three', the two heaved the wagon on the hinge of its back wheels and dumped a thick clump of dirt so that it filled the bottom end of the hole, opaquely sealing it from the shimmering morning light overhead.
Together, all three ponies shoveled dirt into the rest of the well until there was no chance of light filtering in or out of the obscured 'tomb'. After half-an-hour or so, Macintosh punctuated the task with a large wooden marker stamped into the soft earth that was piled above the abominable seal.
“Once Apple Buck Season is over, we'll place somethin' more permanent over it,” Applejack said under a curtain of early morning sweat. “We'll make sure them varmints are never dug up again.”
“Very good,” Scootaloo nodded, shaking flakes of topsoil off her hooves. “This way, they'll never be exposed to twilight. All this time they were sitting under the bowels of your family's very land. And in such beautiful irony,” the pegasus smirked the farmfilly's way, “the Earth is doing you the favor of covering them up again.”
“As they should have been all along,” Applejack gulped. “Well, I for one am glad they're back.” She bit her lip momentarily and glanced forlornly Scootaloo's way. “You do reckon that is all of them?”
“I'm pretty sure,” Scootaloo nodded. “Trolls are either all out or all in. Your night terrors are over, Miss Applejack.” She patted her shoulder with a smile.
“So, Harmony, expert on trolls,” Applejack smirked. “Think you have enough of that there gumption in you to be an expert on apple buckin' once more?”
Scootaloo grinned wide. “So long as I have my galloping marker on the ground.”
“Yer sure do!” Applejack motioned with her snout. “Macky! Wake up Granny and Apple Bloom! We're gonna need the whole family on this one!”
The morning was electric.
Under buzzing cicadas and melodic birdsong, five ponies threaded the apple orchards with agile precision akin to a steam engine. Big Macintosh pulled a large wooden cart full of empty baskets. On a pattering of hooves, Apple Bloom moved the light containers off the wagon and onto the grass where she and Granny Smith gently laid them underneath the branches of multiple fruit trees. Then, once all of the baskets were lined up, Applejack spotted them and gave 'Harmony' a whistle. The copper pegasus extended her wings, galloped, and took to the air. With a sharp inhale, she twisted sideways and bounced from tree trunk to tree trunk as Applejack ran beneath her, calling out whenever she missed a few apples in one or two of the targets. Even when Scootaloo did have to make a return flight, the entire process was lightning quick. Before the noonday Sun rose, a good half of the western orchards had already been shaken free of fruit.
The whole procedure was a rapid exercise—but no single pony bore an unnatural brunt of legwork. Applejack, of course, sweated a great deal from having to guide the pegasus in mid gallop, but she had plenty of time to rest in between apple bucking. The process of loading and unloading baskets between rows of trees consumed enough moments for breathing, and when it was time for another row of fruit to be shaken, Applejack was clearly as energized and unstoppable as her helpful pegasus companion.
Scootaloo reveled in the process. The victory of the previous night's 'campfire session' had lifted an indescribable weight off of her projected wings. A foalish sensation fluttered in her heart, and she felt for a brief moment as if she had just launched the Harmony on its maiden voyage all over again. With every blink and every gasp of her twisted flight against the rows upon rows of trees, it was easy to forget that there was a horrible future awaiting everything that was. It was easy to forget that she was a citizen of twilight, and not of the glorious rays of the Sun glinting off her copper feathers. And yet, at the same time, the last pony realized that as much as she could not salvage the future, she could very easily salvage this... and savor it.
This day, this moment, this heated breath amongst ponies in the gentle green sway of leaves and grass; it wasn't just a memory that festered in an unsavory corner of Scootaloo's lonesome mind. It wasn't some fabrication, a dream that the last pony had concocted for herself in an effort to lend credence to the lighting of a rainbow signal after every other stormfront. This moment was dynamic; this moment was new. This was a moment filled with sweat and hope and joy, and for once the pegasus could find an excuse to live in it—as the earth ponies did so naturally. For the first and only episode in the history of time, the fossils of the past and a ghost of the future were sharing an event, and there was no need for shame, not even a whiff of it.
As the farming family got more and more acquainted with the unorthodox apple bucking process, they decided to try something more ambitious. With Scootaloo's approval, they doubled the number of baskets and fashioned a runway of apple tree rows three times as long as what the pegasus had been ricocheting her hooves against previously. Applejack took a deep breath and got an extra running start. When Scootaloo took off this time, she mentally counted an entire three minutes before landing back on the ground—upon which her projected self teetered in monumental dizziness. Applejack was quick to catch her, and in a shared glance both fillies giggled ridiculously. Gazing back at Scootaloo's handiwork, she was mesmerized to find a previous half-an-hour's work done in a single stride. After they gathered the apple baskets, they returned with an even greater vigor, and soon Scootaloo would be sky-bucking longer and longer distances, spilling the air with the cascade of glistening apples.
The noonday Sun burned like a hot rock skipping across a green lake. For a brief respite, Granny Smith wheeled out a cart covered in glasses filled with apple juice. Applejack and Macintosh were relieved to have something to quench their thirsts. Apple Bloom sipped happily in between childish ramblings about one crusade or another. Scootaloo... was positively intoxicated with her first sampling of fruit drink in a quarter of a century. It took several chuckling sets of hooves to wrench her away from the table so as to start the next row of apple bucking.
The five ponies' harvest stampeded clockwise into the hilly northern section of the Acres. Scootaloo bounced so hard against the wobbling apple trees that she almost feared hurdling herself into a tunnel of green flames without warning. She kept her ears and eyes on Applejack. The orange mare was her center, the fulcrum upon which her entire day of winged bucking hinged. And every time she looked at her—even in a passing blurred glance from branch level—the orange pony was always smiling, always supportive, always faithful... and strong.
Scootaloo started to understand why the Apple Family never crumbled immediately after the tragic loss of Apple Shine and Orange Blossom. The freckle-faced farmfilly—the one outstanding middle child that could—was the very epitome of earth ponydom. She lived in complete service to the world, and to those who lived on the face of Elektra's hoofcarving. It no longer bothered Scootaloo that Applejack had been so viciously spiteful to her when she first landed upside down in one of the apple trees two days prior. A self-righteous pony could easily be forgiven, so long as her heart had been hardened by pure sincerity rather than bitter pride.
When the hundreds of rows of orchards whittled down to dozens of rows of orchards, Applejack insisted that Scootaloo 'take a breather'. The three divided the work as they proceeded to buck the trees in a more conventional style. As an afternoon Sun began its melting slide towards the western horizon, Granny Smith wheeled something else out. But instead of glasses of apple juice, the lime-coated elder provided a record player. With a liberal cranking, the sounds of Stallionivarius warbled through the air, lathering a cushion of melodic softness on an already cooling day. Scootaloo beamed, feeling her projected self become more energized—if that was even possible. Applejack for once found herself humming to her grandmother's 'old-fashioned' tunes, using it as a cadence for every tree she shot her rear hooves into. Macintosh shoved aside the large baskets being filled by the minute, smirking amusedly as a giggling Apple Bloom stood on his backside and attempted an awkward dance to the darting strings coming from the record.
The Sun drifted further West, and the five roaming ponies dwindled to three. The blue sky turned into a copper haze, matching the dirt-flecked coat of the pegasus as she soared her way down one last row of trees, kicking them methodically and watching as the last of several apples fell. By then, even her projection's 'invulnerable' lungs were panting. The joys and jolts of the long hard working day had pulled at all the corners of her mind, so that everytime she closed her eyes she was seeing blurring orchards instead of blinding ash. For what it was worth, she counted that as her greatest blessing yet.
“Nnngh!” Scootaloo breathlessly rammed her rear hooves up into the millionth green apple tree. Several familiar thuds kissed the air as the baskets beneath her were filled. She took a long, meditative breath, and backtrotted to take a look at her work. Her flank bumped into a large wooden object. Without thinking, the pegasus instinctually spun and kicked the bark behind her. A dull, hollow noise rang into the air, and Scootaloo blinked to see a dead husk of a tree wobbling torturously behind her.
“Watch it, copper-bottom!” Applejack chirped as she and Macintosh were suddenly trotting up over a hill in the crimson sunset. They balanced a large basket full of bright apples between them. “No sense in yer kickin' Old Betsy like that! She ain't done nothing to you!”
Scootaloo flashed cock-eyed glances between Applejack and the aptly titled tree. “'Old Betsy'? AJ, are you for real?”
“She's the oldest tree on the farm!” Applejack motioned towards the precariously leaning black trunk. “I reckon most outsiders think it should have been felled long ago. And they might be a touch right about that—But Old Betsy's been around for a lot longer than the whole lot of us combined. And it'd be a blasted shame to let something so ancient go collapsin' like it was a condemned building in the way of viewin' a lake, ya savvy?”
“Do all earth ponies hold value in old things?” Scootaloo smirked.
“So long as they have character, darn tootin'!” Applejack winked. She nudged her brother, and the two of them coordinatedly lowered the large basket of red fruit. “Say, Harmony, why don't you have a look-see beyond that hill over yonder?”
“What? Do we finally get to buck the last of the orchards?”
“Did I or did I not tell ya to take a gander?”
Scootaloo gulped. She pattered lightly up the hill and glanced over the huge expanse of Sweet Apple Acres stretching beyond the crest of the northernmost rise. Her amber eyes twitched to see an entire field full of green leaves, brown bark... and not a single red flash of fruity skin to be had. A hot breath filled her lungs, and she exhaled all her doubt into the scarlet bands of the bowing Sun.
“Well, I guess that means I can stop being a living pinball.”
“It means you can stop, period! We all can stop!” Applejack leaned against the basket of apples, smirking. “We did it, Harmony. Another crazy year, another crazy harvest, and another crazy last-second miracle. I swear by all that is holy, I am not going to let next year's Apple Buck Season go to the dogs again!”
“Miss Applejack,” Scootaloo looked at her, smiling. But after a few blinks, something cold and deathly pulled the edges of her lips down. “I-I'm sure you won't have to... to w-worry about Apple Buck Season next year...”
“No reason to be lookin' all glum, girl!” Applejack smirked. “If you wanna show up for the next harvest—I seriously doubt that any of us would turn down your assistance.” She cleared her throat. “And that is by no means a proposal, ya hear?”
“R-Right...” Scootaloo gulped. Chasing away the melancholy breath, she glanced at the baskets. Her eyes narrowed. “Say—What's going on with the fruit you've got there?”
Applejack and Macintosh exchanged amused glances. “Oh, this? We done finished the harvest in time for the delivery, didn't we? We here Apple Family ponies have a tradition which we save the last basket of bucked apples for.”
“And that is—” Scootaloo shrieked girlishly as two hooves-fulls of fruit were suddenly bulleted her way like a swarm of sweet tasting comets.
“Apple fight!” Applejack laughed and giggled mischievously as she and her brother flung a cornacupia of apples, filling the air with a red blur that surged in Scootaloo's direction. The pegasus gasped, shielding herself with copper wings while chuckling profusely. With a daring glint in her eyes, the pony survivor pivoted her body and reverse kicked a few of the collapsed apples back, forcing Macintosh and the orange mare to duck low and hide behind the basket from the expertly aimed bucks. After two long minutes of flung apples, the air sang with a fruity sweetness, corraled by the panting breaths of laughing ponies.
“Pfftt!” Scootaloo raspberried through a face splashed with applebits. “So much for the 'test of preservation'!”
“Oh, that hogwash?” Applejack rolled through a lasting wave of red-faced chuckles and finally rose up from hiding behind the basket. “Darlin', I only conjured that so-called 'preservation rule' just to see if I could rid my farm of one persistent bureaucrat—” An apple slammed the orange mare directly in the face, splattering fruit mesh and seedlings all across her snout.
“HAH!” Scootaloo shouted at the end of her throw. “Who's 'chicken' now, sassafras?!?”
Macintosh laughed heartily at his messied sister and trotted away to catch his breath. Shaking her face to fling off the top layer of apple bits, the farmfilly smirked sloppily at the pegasus and sighed in gentle defeat.
“Yes, yes. I reckon you got me. Ya happy now?”
“Heeheehee—Oh, Miss Applejack,” Scootaloo wandered over and extended a wing of bristled feathers. “Here, allow me.” She gently scraped the mush clean from the orange mare's freckled face.
“I done told you—Call me 'AJ',” the hatted pony replied, gazing at her companion with sudden clarity. “Yer a blessin' from heaven above, y'know that, right?”
“Hmmmmm,” Scootaloo smirked lightly as she then brushed her wing clean on the grass. “Depends on how you define 'heaven'. I'm just doing my job—for the Court n'all.”
“Now who's shovelin' around hogwash??”
Scootaloo blinked awkwardly at Applejack. “H-Huh?”
The farm pony was staring at the pegasus with gentle yet firm eyes, eyes that dragged Scootaloo's soul in like a haunting black hollow from a gray future. “There's no more need in pretendin', sugarcube. I know why yer really here. I know why y'all have been stickin' to my stubborn hide like a frog to a lilly pad.”
“Uhm...” Scootaloo bit her lip nervously, feeling a rise in trembles. “Y-You do?”
“Mmmhmmm,” Applejack gently nodded. Her gaze was piercing, but a loving glint cascaded across her emerald pupils. “This was never about doin' some investigation for the Princess, was it? Nopony ever does as much as you have—with such inspirin' selflessness—out of duty. Yer kind of generosity can only come from the heart, especially when there's so much more important things yer kind can be doin', I reckon.”
Scootaloo gulped and glanced towards the floor. “You're r-right about one thing, AJ. There... is so much more stuff I can be doing. There's always a bigger picture—and it's not necessarily a bright one. But when I-I came here, and I saw you and your brother about to crumble to bits over your stressed selves, and I envisioned this beautiful farm stumbling into one gigantic hole or another—be it with trolls or with a missed harvest date—I just couldn't let all of that awful stuff happen. Even if I flew off somewhere far far away where there's nothing colorful or lively to match the warmth of this place, I know that I could never rip the gorgeous green land you've got here from my eyelids. I was compelled, AJ. But I don't think that's something that comes from the heart.”
“Sure it is, Sugarcube,” Applejack trotted over and nudged her face to look into hers. She smiled sweetly. “You're obviously a very brave pegasus. I know it may not be my place, but I reckon you have seen none too many pretty things in yer life. A lot of ponies pass by Sweet Apple Acres, and I'm quick to take a decent survey of them. Some of them ponies—their coats are laced with happy memories, others with a lifetime of trials, and even others with a dark shade of ignorance. You, darlin'? I see a lot of sadness cloudin' you. Ain't nothin' to be ashamed of. We all take to our own kinds of moods—like blankets that you switch with the season. I only hope that you take a deep look at the world around you and realize that maybe it's high time yer season changed as well, into somethin' brighter mayhaps? Because yer heart is most certainly one of the brightest I've seen in years.”
“That's just it, AJ,” Scootaloo murmured, gulping a lump down her throat and gazing past her. “Where I come from... the season never changes. It's a lot easier to say that there are no seasons at all. There's only... me.”
“You say that as if it's an empty prison, Harmony. I only wish you would take a gander at yerself and realize that you have so much to be proud for... and happy, even,” Applejack grinned. “Yer bright, yer resourceful, you don't take horse hockey from no-pony, and you can buck trees like there's no tomorrow.” A chuckling breath, then a wink. “Why, if I had all of yer qualities—even if the only season I had to look forward to was colored with the shades of myself—well, I reckon I'd feel right at home.”
Scootaloo sharply inhaled. As her eyes cascaded over the horizon, she cursed herself a thousand times over. She cursed herself because she had every impulse right then and there to tell Applejack that Equestria was ending and there was nothing anypony could do about it. She cursed herself because with one simple breath, she could very easily explain that the only season left to the world would be one covered in endless ash and twilight. She cursed herself... because suddenly all of those horrible things didn't scale in importance to what she was about to say. She cursed Spike too, fought the tears, and smiled Applejack's way, saying, “Thank you. From the bottom of my heart—For it's taken you to show me that it's still there.”
“My pleasure, sugarcube,” Applejack nodded with a smile. She then read further into Scootaloo's moist eyes and added, “And I promise—on my family's honor—that I'll do what I can to get Princess Celestia's attention for you. Perhaps Twilight Sparkle can make herself useful for more than just loudly chargin' at hydras.”
“Oh, Applejack, that is most appreciated--” Scootaloo began, but her ears pricked at the sound of a happily giggling voice cresting up the southside of the hill.
“AJ! Miss Harmony!” Apple Bloom pattered up into view, her crimson sprout of hair matching the burning horizon as she trucked a saddlebag full of records and beamed. “Look at what Granny Smith found in the attic! It's a bunch of songs that Lady Rarity lent us months ago! Somethin' about a cello player that Miss Harmony fancies!”
“Octavia???” Scootaloo grinned wide. “This day just keeps getting better and better already!”
“Apple Bloom, darlin', watch where yer trottin'—” Applejack called out.
“Watch where I what-now?” Apple Bloom balked too late, for her hoof had caught in an unearthed root of the ancient tree aptly named 'Old Betsy'. The little foal fell flat on her chest with a grunt, and the tiny vibrations from her collapse was just enough to add insult to Harmony's bucking injury earlier. With a groan of somber fate, the heavy gnarled tree wobbled, teetered, and fell directly on top of Apple Bloom. “Aaahh—!”
“Apple Bloom!” Applejack shouted, her eyes wide as emerald saucers.
Something scarlet billowed underneath Scootaloo's projected amber eyes. Not even the coldest winds of the dying world could snuff out her snarling voice. “NO.” In a copper blur, she soared on bright wings and rocketed towards the falling tree. Blades of grass and flakes of apple skin lifted into the air as she converged on the hapless foal.
A thunderous crash vapored outward from the scene. Applejack flinched against the blast wave, blinking in horror to discern the outcome of the debacle. As the dust and earthen bits settled, an equine form was lying on its side next to the tree. After half-a-second of stirring... Apple Bloom rose up to her tiny legs, dizzily reeling. “Nnnngh... Wh-What happened?”
In a galloping roar, the older sister skidded over to the tiny filly's side. “Darlin'! Are you okay? Oh thank goodness! Let me hold you!” Applejack squatted down and nuzzled the foal dear to her. “Apple Bloom, sugarcube—Watch where yer canterin' next time! I almost lost you, girl!”
“My saddlebag!” Apple Bloom dazedly glanced at the fallen baggage that was still rolling down the hillside. “All of Lady Rarity's records are probably shattered now! I don't get it! What happened? Where's—” The foal glanced aside, and her amber eyes exploded. “—Miss Harmony!”
Applejack blurredly looked down. She gasped. The heavy weight of fallen Old Betsy had formed a veritable crater in the soft earth. Where a brave pegasus had flown herself to shove Apple Bloom heroically out of the way... there was now only gnarled bark and mulch.
“Oh Dear Celestia alive!” Applejack cried and shoved, shoved, shoved at the hulking body of the collapsed tree. As her every muscle strained and heaved, the wooden monstrosity refused to budge. “No no no no!” She tilted her snout towards the rows of orchards and shouted: “Macky! Macky, for the love of Elektra, get yer flank over here and help me!”
The red stallion was already galloping towards them, spurred on by the desperate shouts of his distressed sister. With wide eyes, he regarded the visiting pegasus' horrific fate.
“We can't waste any time! We gotta get this off of her! Grab some rope! Hurry!”
Apple Bloom was a sobbing mess, the reality of the situation cascading from her eyes in silver tears. “Oh sis—I'm so sorry! I'm so, so very sorry! This is all my fault—”
“None of that, y'hear?!?” Applejack snarled, forcefully shoving against the trunk from all angles while Macintosh galloped towards the barn. “You did nothin' wrong, Apple Bloom! But t'ain't the issue right now! Run yer hooves into town and fetch Nurse Red Heart! Tell her it's an emergency, and while yer at it we could use all the extra ponies we can get!”
“R-Right away, sis!” Apple Bloom scampered off on pale yellow hooves, panting breathlessly.
“Oh dear Epona, give me strength!” Applejack hissed as she put her entire back into pushing the length of the gnarled tree. It barely budged. There was nothing but dead silence from beneath its gigantic weight. She bit her lips in the strain until blood flowed.
Then Macintosh returned. With mute coordination, the two siblings fixed the rope around the largest branch sticking out the top of the collapsed tree and harnessed it to the wooden yoke on Macintosh's back. With a combined effort, they pulled and tugged and hoisted with all of their combined might. Finally, under the bleeding red kiss of the sunset, they rolled Old Betsy over and kicked it down the hillside where it joined Octavia's records with a somber series of muffled thuds. Macintosh tossed his yoke off before he could be dragged to a pitiful death and galloped back up the hill alongside Applejack.
Both ponies gasped—frozen in mid lurch.
There was nopony in the crater, not even the outline of one...
“Wh-What in tarnation...?” Applejack breathlessly murmured. She gulped as the first tear in years rolled down the strong pony's cheek. “M-Miss Harmony...? Macky, wh-where did she go...?”
A mane of short violet stubble wilted under purple manalight. Muscles stirred liquidly under a brown coat as a pair of scarlet eyes fluttered moistly open. Her snout resting on the stone floor, Scootaloo gazed shakily upwards, blinking.
Spike was lying on his mountain of gemstones, gazing calmly down at her. A fuming breath, and his emerald eyeslits twinkled at the sight of her. “Welcome back to the future, child. The green flame has ended.”
The last pony gulped, shuddered: “It's so cold...”
“I know, old friend,” he reached a scaled hand out and stroked the back of her shaved mane. “I know.”
Her limbs achily shuffled against the stone floor of the cavernous laboratory. She wobbled and struggled to sit up, her face wretching at the gray staleness around her. “I was th-there for over two days. We bucked apples. I ate daffodil alfredo. There were trolls.”
Spike raised an eyecrest curiously. “Trolls?”
“G-Granny Smith—She loves Stallionivarius. She tells a beautiful bedtime story. And Apple Bloom—” Scootaloo's scarlet eyes widened. With a gasp, she jumped up onto all fours and nearly collapsed into a table. “Apple Bloom! She's... She's...”
“Calm down, Scootaloo—You've just been through your first lengthy trip. Take a deep breath.”
Scootaloo conceded, but not on Spike's behalf. She gazed shakily into the bright green effigy of the past that was dissipating before her once-violet eyes. Her ears flickered and she said in a stronger tone, “She's alive. I-I saved her. Apple Bloom's alive. And then the tree... This large tree fell on me, Spike. But... I-I don't get it.” She looked at her ordinary brown self with her ordinary hooves and the worn metal shoes nailed into them. “I could do so many amazing things in my Entropan body. I could kick trees off their roots. I could fly loops around the orchards without breaking a sweat!” She spun and gazed confusedly up at Spike. “I-I thought I was invulnerable! Why am I here?”
“Nopony is invulnerable, Scootaloo. Especially one who is so bravely projected into the past by the mere sails of her soul essence. With enough calamity and duress, your Entropan body will surely buckle—And the result is identical to leaving the range of your anchorage. You're inevitably drawn back to the present.”
“Then that's what happened...” Scootaloo gulped. “The tree slammed into me, and I was sent back here.” She gritted her teeth, hissed, and jolted. “Spike! You gotta send me back! I-I had about two or three days left to that green flame, didn't I? There's still so much to do! I only barely scratched the surface of accomplishing our task! Applejack was only starting to suggest we get Twilight to contact Princess Celestia for me and—... Spike?”
The dragon was slowly shaking his head. “No, Scootaloo. I cannot send you back. Not right now. Not after I've concentrated so much of the green flame on Applejack—”
“—you've lost your magical cohesion, and you must bind me to another pony instead,” Scootaloo finished somberly for him. She gazed forlornly into the floor and sighed. “Will I ever be able to go back to Applejack again?”
“On another occasion?” Spike nodded his scaled head. “Absolutely—if it permits.”
“You mean if there's hope for me coming closer to finding an answer to the Cataclysm, which there isn't,” Scootaloo trotted lonesomely towards the rows upon rows of clockfaces. “Not with Applejack, there isn't.”
“You are certain of that?”
“I did nothing, Spike!” The last pony spun and frowned bitterly. “I didn't see a single eclipse, didn't smell one burning cinder, didn't feel any tremors—I found nothing to point me in any direction that might paint a picture of what killed Celestia and Luna and all of the ponies in turn! Two days of bucking apples, mooching off the Apple Family's bathtub and kitchen and I didn't learn diddly squat! Don't you see? I've wasted your green flame! And for what?! Nnngh... I swear... You should have just left me to the danged trolls in Ponyville's town square.”
“I see,” Spike nodded regally. A slight cough, and the violet pendant around his neck spun as the dragon slowly marched on iron haunches around the pony. “So, you mean to suggest that in all of that time spent in the past on Applejack's humble farm, you accomplished nothing whatsoever?”
“Well, I—!” Scootaloo started, blinked, and then sank down onto folded hooves. Her nostrils flared one last time as she gave up the fight, then softly murmured, “I saved them from suffering a tragic Apple Buck Season. I discovered a way to help them get rid of ancient trolls that had been resurrected on their land. I got Granny Smith to share her music, so that she began happily trotting around without her walker in a renewed spirit. I... saved Apple Bloom from 'Old Betsy'. I got licked by a dog. Heh—I think I even got Big Macintosh to laugh a few times.” The brown pegasus blushed slightly at the last recollection.
“That certainly doesn't seem like nothing,” Spike's scaled jaw curved.
“Spike, in less than three months—The whole Apple Family will be dead,” she suddenly spat.
“And those are three months that, thanks to you, they shall now experience alive—And if I may dare say so—They shall do it happily.” Spike stood up on his lower legs and gestured his sharp arms wide. “Death surrounds us for endless fathoms, Scootaloo. That can never be changed about the Wasteland, even if you and I succeed in bringing the Sun and Moon back. But in a time of life—in an era of peace that only you, the last pony, can visit—you have gone out of your element and maintained equilibrium. I remember seeing Applejack in the last days of Equestria. I remember how stressed she was, keeping to herself during an Apple Buck Season during which her friends rarely saw her. But then I also remember—in the blink of a single weekend—her returning to Ponyville with a smile. And now, thanks to you, Scootaloo, I know why that is the case. I can't tell you how immensely happy it makes me to know that she and her family were capable of smiling—Up until the end of all smiles.”
“She...” Scootaloo stammered, her eyes growing concave. “A-After I was done helping her with the apple bucking, Applejack told me she knew I wasn't working for the Royal Court of Canterlot. She told me I did everything from the heart.”
Spike reached down and gently tilted the pegasus' chin up. “When you're projected into the past, Scootaloo, you are merely an extension of your soul self. All things considered, you are all heart.”
Scootaloo bit her lip. She choked to say: “That's hardly s-something invulnerable, Sp-Spike.”
“But it's something special,” he smiled back down at her. “And I'm glad Applejack was capable of showing you that.”
“B-But I'm not going back into the past for myself,” Scootaloo murmured, then planted her hooves emphatically around Spike's clawed hand. “Am I, Spike?”
He stood back up, nostrils fuming in emerald thought. “You may have given Applejack and her family smiles, Scootaloo. But we have the one thing in our quest for the Cataclysmic truth that none of our pony friends will ever receive more of—And that's time. I suspect that soon, in your journeys, you will find the answers we both seek. That is...if you are willing to continue your journeys?”
Scootaloo exhaled long and hard, gazing at the far end of the laboratory. “Your green flame isn't the only thing that needs to maintain cohesion, Spike.”
“Perfectly understood. I will only send you when you're ready, child,” he smiled with an emerald wink.
Scootaloo barely registered it. She was sauntering over towards a lab table, atop which a very familiar skull rested. The scarlet in her eyes grayed a little further as she navigated the hollow in the bony center—no longer afraid of the vacuum within. “Spike, tell me something.”
“Anything, old friend,” he stood behind her.
She raised a hand towards the dusty skull, eyeing several scars where the three hundred year old dragon had flaked off necessary samples. “Have you collected enough of Applejack's ashes for any future occasions of binding me to her?”
“Absolutely. More than enough, as a matter of fact. We no longer have any use for her brittle remains—I suspect. Why, Scootaloo? What are you thinking of?”
“A gift, Spike,” she smiled gently, brushing her hoof across where Applejack's soft freckles would have been. “I'm thinking of a g-gift.”
Below the shadow of the moored Harmony, a barren plot of Sweet Apple Acres miraculously remained unswallowed by the Cataclysmic sinkhole that lingered just beyond the ash-laden trees. A bent rusted arch flanked a plateau of gray soil that was bespeckled with white stones, stained by acid rain and soot over the past twenty-five years. Towards the front of this arrangement of rocks, just beyond a glistening pair that marked the previous generation, the last pony finished piling the last bit of dirt atop four fresh graves, atop of which she had erected brilliant obelisks of moonrock—the type of stone that could never stain.
With a sagging breath, Scootaloo stabbed a self-crafted spade into the ground and slumped down to her curled legs; she was a sweaty and dirty mess, and she reveled in it. She hoisted a hoof up and peeled a pair of amber goggles off her forehead, so that she stared naked down at the four mounds of earth covering the skeletal remains she had gracefully carried—one after another from the ruins of the storm cellar—into their respectful resting places.
A few flakes of ash fell to her fluttering ears. She ignored them, engrossing herself in the reflective sheen of her scarlet eyes against the four moonrocks—like four equine spirits staring up at her from the earth. A gentle smile, and then she shut her eyes and lowered her snout until she was a few centimeters away from kissing the ground.
She spoke into the shattered bosom of the world, “I know it has been forever since anypony returned to you. But, I suppose it's better late than never—Because I've never met anyponies that deserved to be put to rest anymore than these four right here. And though I don't expect you to give me anything, I hope that you give them peace. For they have given so generously and lovingly to you, up until the end of time—All of them.” She shuddered as she tilted her face up and gazed at the stones upon stones upon stones. And though she almost forced herself to, she couldn't cry. She was too intensely serene, too strong. “And it is a good thing, a beautiful thing—This land. Because now it is anything but empty. A home forevermore. Perfect h-harmony.”
Scootaloo's brown face forged a painful smile, reminding herself—like a ghostly pair of green eyes once did—that she had a heart to produce it with. Shutting her lids, she raised her hoof to her lips, kissed it, and pressed it to Applejack's moonrock tombstone before getting up, flexing her wings, and returning to her airship.
Hours later, in the growling mists of the snowy Wasteland skies, Scootaloo sat calmly at her workbench along the Harmony's port side. A flickering lantern illuminated a disc spinning on the record player, but it was not Octavia's name that twirled around the spindle, but rather a lone sample that Scootaloo was able to scrounge from the den room of the Apple Family's dilapidated farmhouse. And like so many other miracles that graced the pegasus' soul in so many projected days, Stallionivarius still played perfectly.
Several metal instruments graced the cramped cabin's air, instruments which Scootaloo hadn't used since she was a little foal. Before getting to work on her latest tinkering, she squinted through goggled eyes at the waves of ash billowing outside the cockpit windows. The last pony was a shivering waif of a body, with a shaved mane and gangly brown limbs that resembled a pathetic insect rattling inside a rusted iron jar. But as cramped and claustrophobic as the womb of the Harmony always was—it suddenly seemed different to her, a little less cold, and a little less... empty.
“Maybe I can't fix all of dead Equestria overnight,” she murmured to an orange farmfilly who wasn't there, and yet was. She breathed gently to herself amidst the rocking of the cabin. “But small things... I've always been able to tinker small things. One at a time, I guess.”
That said, she delightfully returned her attention to a tiny banged-up scooter resting on the workbench before her. She replaced parts, polished parts, and restored parts—anything and everything that was directly in front of her, all the while relishing in the warm moment. She maybe even smiled.
I did not want to write the Dredgemane arc of End of Ponies. As a matter of fact, I don't remember ever wanting to do so in the first place. It was Pinkie Pie's story, and Pinkie Pie is worst pony. She is. She totally is. Look at yourself in the mirror tonight, long after sunfall, when all of the shadows of your life fall lonesomely around you, and try and tell yourself--just try--that life lasts forever and Pinkie Pie is worth saying anything good about without suffering a nervous twitch to your brain muscles.
For those of you who are still subscribed to me after that, keep in mind that I enjoy a good challenge in writing crap. And with Pinkie Pie being the crappiest cream of the crap, I knew I had to deliver in spite of myself. So, I decided that I would write an arc that would do two things:
1. Present a decidedly "un-Pinky" scenario
2. Make the story analyze Harmony instead of Pinkie.
As part of that analysis, I thought of approaching all sorts of pretentious subject matter, such as Nietzschean ideas, existentialism, fatalism, and a whole bunch of other boring shiznet. Since Pinkie wasn't a good character to spout out humanistic psuedo-philosophy, I felt the need to have Harmony be the source of the story's thematic thought processes. To do that, I had her writing to the personification of death in her journal entries. But, like all attempts at quasi-awesome fiction, I needed to mix and mingle a bunch more themes in order to add to the orgy sponge of literature. One of those motifs was the idea of "falling," which was spouted a lot by the character of Brevis. The simplistic message was that to embrace death in pure lucidity and come out affirmative, a philosopher had to be mad, and that madness could be represented through "falling." I suppose you could say the piece of the lunatic moon shard carrying Ponymonium to earth was the first symbol of that... blah blah blah... but I knew--MONTHS in advance of even embarking upon the dreaded Pinkie Pie arc--I knew what I wanted to have as the blasted arc's last few lines.
And towards the end of that year, after I had gathered attention, pre-readers, and a modicum of fans.... nobody got it.
Nobody thought the ending was poignant. If anything, they found it confusing, redundant, and unnecessary. The one single reason I wrote 200,000+ words of Pinkie Pie annoying the utter crap out of the protagonist had fallen flat on its face.
Needless to say, I was less than enthused. However, history had proven that listening to my editors had saved the integrity of the fic. So, in good faith, I removed most of the "falling" motif references. I then re-did the ending and forced a "bookends" structure with Scootaloo burying Fluttershy at the beginning of the arc and Fluttershy ripping off an Alan Moore joke before Pinkie Pie's grave to cap off the ending.
I've had many people tell me since that the Dredgemane arc is the sparkling diamond of awesome in the rough boredom that is the entirety of End of Ponies. I wish I could share their appreciation for the arc, but the whole thing kind of leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. I almost wish I could rewrite the ending back, but, y'know... marsupials are righteous for a reason.
The lemur bows.
The sunrise was indeed like a song, though Harmony was powerless to hear it. She sat at the dining table of the Pie Family household, clutching her head in two pained hooves, fighting yet another cloud of green flame like a fountain of acid surging through her Entropan frame. If she just stopped fighting, if she just gave in to the currents of reverse-time, she wouldn't be experiencing this agony. Still, she clung tightly to that blistering moment, hugging cohesion with as much fervor as she wished to be embracing a tiny golden filly etched forever into her bleeding memory.
A bouncing of hooves awoke her to that wincing moment in time. She opened her eyes to a veritable sea of Blinkaphine's bright and colorful landscapes. A wall-eyed alligator was lying in the center of the table, curling into the crook of its stubby little tail. A bright pink shade was coming to a stop in front of Harmony, lying a tray full of sweets onto the table.
“How would you like a cupcake, Har-Har?” Her anchor produced a bright, white smile. In just one blink, the time traveler could sum up the entire legacy of Pinkamena Diane Pie. “You must have built quite an appetite overnight! What, with all of that healing and speech-giving and tossing Alex into a burning pile of bits, but I totally forgive you for that last part! I think I'll get the rams to help me build a new Alex! Alex 2.0! This time, he’ll be backwards-compatible to yellow flame, that way I can roast marshmallows over him while healing ponies in the field! Heeheehee!”
“Miss Pie...” Harmony glanced away from the cupcakes. Her copper ears twitched to hear a distant roar. The exultant night of Dredgemane had, as a matter of fact, never ended. Even with the advent of the bright morning, the citizens could still be heard celebrating the burning horizon of tomorrow, regardless of whether or not they knew what it was. They only knew what it wasn't. “Miss Pie, why do you always live in the present? Even now, you act as if... you act as if last night was just like any other night.”
“Heeheehee! Isn't that the way it always is, Har-Har?” Pinkie smiled and smiled in jubilant intoxication. “Every day and every night is a blessed thing. All I've ever wanted to do, all Brevis has ever wanted, all the Bivs or Inkie or Blinkie or Mommy or Daddy or Gummy have ever wanted to do is wake up to just how happy and super another day spent alive is.”
“Miss Pie...” Harmony fought the flames away to produce a somber face before her anchor. “You cried last night.”
“And I laughed and I giggled and I danced—”
“You...” The last pony softly reached a hoof across the table of bright drawings and rested it on her companion's limb. She gazed earnestly into her blue eyes. “You cried, Miss Pie. You cried like... like I've never seen anypony cry before, not even myself.”
Pinkie Pie stared calmly at Harmony's hoof on hers. Something in the contact ushered a grave silence over her. Deep beneath it all, her smile never ended, though it certainly had become a soft, satin thing.
“I...” Harmony bit her lip, tongued the inside of her copper cheek, and said, “I-I'm not going to give you some really depressing speech or something. I'm not saying that you should or shouldn't show sad emotions or what-crap. But... I-I was wondering if you could tell me...” She gulped and gazed painfully at the candy-colored filly. “C-Could you tell me what it felt like?”
“Hmmm?” Pinkie's blue eyes blinked curiously.
“Could you tell me what it felt like to cry?”
“Heeheehee...” Pinkie Pie brought her other hoof up and patted the top of Harmony's limb. “Silly filly, of course you would know what it feels like.”
“No.” Harmony shook her head. Her voice was a brief whimper in the blessed morning light that pierced the once-tomb of the Pie Family household. “No, I don't. I've done it so much for so long that I don't know what it feels like anymore. You and Brevis are always preaching about what it means to fall.” She shuddered. “I'm still waiting for my turn, Miss Pie, to transcend by descending, to madly open up the precious pieces of myself and let the doves fly out. It is something that I've yet to experience... and probably never will. But you? You have. So please, tell me. What was it like for you to cry?” She smiled painfully. “Because it must be just like laughing for me.”
Pinkie's blue eyes fell back to the furthest recesses of her sockets. She gulped hard and murmured, “Well, Har-Har, I wish I could explain it. What's the reverse of a hiccup? What does it mean to sneeze with your eyes open? What's the sound of one hoof clapping...?” She paused after that last sentence, snorted, and broke into fresh giggles. “Snkkkt-hahaha.” She waved a pink hoof. “I'm... I-I'm sorry. I can't help myself.”
Harmony exhaled long and hard. “No...” She smiled gently. “I suppose that you can't, Miss Pie.”
“Could I... Uhm...” Pinkie Pie suddenly bit her lip and fidgeted where she stood in front of the table. “Could I ask you something, Har-Har? Though, I guess it really isn't a question. It's... Well...”
“What is it?” Harmony leaned back, enjoying a brief spell from the mind-bending emerald flames. “I'm all ears.”
“Well...” Pinkie gulped and gazed at her with glistening blue eyes. Her voice was suddenly a placid pond in the middle of the Grave of Consus. “Last night, when you were healing Suntrot...” She winced slightly. “Erm... when you almost lost her.” Another fidgeting, but then she bravely leaned forward. “You said something. You talked to someone.”
Harmony stared back. She was silent as stone.
“You said 'I friggin' hate you so much'. It... it kind of came out of nowhere, Har-Har. Even now, I can't get it out of my fluffy head...”
The last pony looked away. Even if she wanted to clarify the previous night's outburst, she wasn't sure if her suddenly pounding heart would allow her.
“You know... Uhm... I-I used to hate him too.”
Harmony glanced up at that, her lips pursing.
Pinkie Pie looked off into the far corners of the house and smiled bitter-sweetly, as if she was consoling a little foal immediately after chastising him. “But... But th-then I figured that he's... well, that's he's really lonely. He always has been. Lonely: that's all.” She looked up at Harmony, and when she did her eyes were piercing sapphires. “Death is the biggest invitation of all. Every pony receives the telegram, and we all have no choice but to RSVP.” She gently stroked the edges of the time traveler's hoof like a mother rubbing a bruise away. “I... I don't really know what is waiting for each and everyone of us when it is our time to die, where it is that we go, or if we'll ever see the ones we love and make promises to again.” She took a brave breath as she glanced lovingly at the space where Clyde used to sit. In a bold move, she brushed her limb across it and wiped a swath of dust away forever. “But wherever it is that death takes us, whenever he decides to do it...” She tilted her head aside with the softest of smiles. “...I intend to go there partying.”
The last pony stared back, exhaling sharply. Scootaloo briefly wondered how she could make a eulogy for a funeral consisting entirely of dancing.
“Now...” Pinkie smirked and slid the tray of frosted treats across the table to the copper pegasus. “How about putting some sugar in you, Harmony?” Her teeth glistened at the trail end of that address. “It might not make you laugh, but I promise it'll keep you from frowning.”
Harmony's voice squeaked beneath a feather-soft grin. “Yes, Pinkie Pie. I would very much like to have one of your cupcakes.”
I write to you not just because you're all I've ever had for a friend all these years. I write to you with faith—no—a hope, that you aren't nearly as cruel as I've envisioned you to be. Somewhere beyond the veil of your obsidian girth are all of my loved ones of the past. Though I've pierced the curtains of time to briefly visit them, it will be after piercing you that I finally join them. Maybe then they will tell me what happened after the fall of Dredgemane. Maybe then, in the warmth of all who've come and gone before me, my spirit will know of the legacy of smiles that filled the grave of that somber town where before there was nothing but shadow and darkness.
Days after Harmony vanished from Dredgemane, the naked and bright townsponies were wasting no time. With buckets full of paint and mouths brimming with cheerful conversation, they scaled the glass panes behind the pulpit inside the Cathedral of Gultophine. One plate at a time, they re-stained the wings of the Alicorn Sister of life, returning the rainbow to her majesty.
Far away, in the center of Town Square, Nurse Angel Cake smiled brightly and directed a gaggle of young foals as they climbed the wings of an alicorn statue and painted the granite lengths of it with no less an energetic ambition. They splotched their tiny faces and limbs with errant brushstrokes—sometimes by accident, at other times on purpose, accompanied by mischievous giggles, as hour by hour they returned a kaleidoscope of joy and warmth to the lengths of the town.
The streets hustled and bustled not with cold clopping sounds, but instead with bright discussion, chortling gossip, and bright afternoon plans of levity and joy. Teenagers scampered down tight alleyways, the former guards having converted anet gun into a ball launcher as they played an outlandish rendition of “keepaway” through the many serpentine trenches and hiding places of the town.
At streetsides and bricklaid corners, old bearded ponies communed with youthful equines as the elders taught the next generation how to play beautiful violin music—one string at a time—with an energetic tempo that chased away the melancholic ballads of yesteryear.
At the far reaches of town, where the cobblestone met the granite stretches of the plateau, random citizens knelt down low with chisels and proceeded with removing the bricks, piece by piece, along with the names etched on them.
One such brick was placed gently on the hearth of the Pie Family household. The name that was on it read “Clyde Sesame Pie”. Stepping back from lowering the scant memorial into place, Quarrington took a deep breath. The brick had a perceivable mahogany richness to it that complemented the cornucopia of colors that filled the light-drenched lengths of that room.
Pearl Fleece Pie trotted up and nuzzled Quarrington. With a painful but toasty smile, Quarrington stroked her in return. After sharing a kiss, both parents stared lovingly at the name that had rejoined their home, basking in the warmth of the soul's memory and not in the bitter cold gap of its absence.
What Dredgemane gave me was more than just a glimpse at the stars, more than just a way to close the chapter on my memories of Pinkie Pie. Dredgemane showed me what my existence means, for it brims with the essence of all of those ponies, including all of their imperfections, singing and screaming all their hopes and fears. There was no way that the legacy of ponydom could have been solely encompassed by my fitful and subjective little hammock-swaying dreams of the past. For several mesmerizing days, I trotted with them, frowned with them, smiled with them, suffered with them, and ultimately healed with them. Dredgemane has given me so much, and I can only hope—after I'm gone, in both the past and the future—that I have given them back as much as I could, for I will not be able to give all of Equestria the same extent of my blessings, no matter how much I try.
Surrounded by a circle of deadpan rams in the center of a stone hut, Mister Irontail waved a complex blueprint. Gesturing toward his own tools, he began describing a magnificent obelisk made out of arcanium and affixed with a glistening jar of orange flame. He grinned long and hard, entreating the inner engineers within each and every one of them.
The rams shared glances as they shared a unified voice. They murmured and ambivalently spun chanting circles of discourse upon the nature of Irontail's inquisition.
Shuffling up in an obese wobble, Marble Cake suddenly stood at Irontail's bushy-tailed side. With a fluttering of her eyelashes, she not-so-shyly raised a gigantic white box full of bright pink taffy.
In one fluid motion, the rams immediately snatched a chuckling Irontail's blueprint and set themselves to work.
Deep in the mines of the Dredgemane quarry, a remarkable device had been embedded in the rocky flesh of a lantern-lit tunnel. It was a black obelisk fashioned out of arcanium. Two thunderpearls sparked at the top of its structure, and in the center was a grand fishbowl-shaped container of orange flame. Several miners worked and labored steadily around the device, piercing the earth deeper and deeper for valuable resources.
Suddenly, the orange flame burned with a brighter strobe than normal. This triggered the two thunderpearls which immediately sparked life into a pair of rattling bells. At the sound of the shrill alarm, the ponies immediately stopped what they were doing. Infernite was nearby.
Under the cries of a monitoring overseer, the workers filed off in an orderly fashion. Every single one of them made it to the elevator long before the deadly dust even breached the walls of the abandoned shaft.
Above the quarry, there were no longer shuffling lines of lifeless, soot-stained workers. Where solid trains of ponies once slaved under heavy loads of dredged rock like swarming ants, off-duty laborers chatted and waited for their turn to enter the mines. The air above the wounded land coalesced into an atmosphere of levity, punctuated by random laughs and riveting stories while young teenagers hired by Marble Cake's bakery navigated the steep landscape, offering refreshments to the Dredgemaners in-between their breaks.
Atop the scaffold overlooking the continuous industry, several overseers—instead of just one—unanimously directed the current leg of mining operations. As they flipped through the latest spreadsheets of profit earnings, their progress was dwarfed by the legacy of Sladeburn before them, but the casualties had reached an all-time low, in that there was nothing joyously lower than “zero”.
Several lanterns were lit brightly, filling the Council chamber with an illumination the likes of which the place had never witnessed in years. A former guard and his little brother shuffled from lantern to lantern, brightening the place even further as a nodding Quarrington mouthed his approval.
Turning, bearing a grin, Pinkie's father sauntered over towards the table of fellow Council members. Taking his seat, Quarrington proceeded to carry the topic of the meeting into the latest of the town's many necessities. As the city’s representatives deliberated, they paused and swiveled to face the rest of the building's interior where a large audience of Dredgemaners from all walks of life had gathered. The townsponies asked to share their input, as well as their smiles.
It is so daring, so brash, so fitfully frightening to be alive. It means smiling in the face of oblivion. It means galloping at full force when you know that a cliff is waiting for you at the end of of the next bend in the road. It takes a mad euphoria—an insane whimsy to be so courageous when all of the darkness around us begs that we accept defeat. To do anything but roll over is to be absurd, like chasing the rainbow, or performing the “running of the leaves” in July... in a town that has no living trees..
“On your mark, get set, go!” Vedic Dawnhoof shouted, his horn telekinetically firing a confetti cannon at his side.
Under an explosive wave of squealing giggles, dozens upon dozens of brightly-coated foals stampeded down the longest trench in Dredgemane, skirting past Town Square, curving around to brush past Marble End. On all sides of them, lining the curbs and street corners of town, happy parents and shouting teenagers cheered and whistled and urged the racing little children on.
“Remember!” Dawnhoof chuckled and waved a hoof towards the stampeding herd of healed youth. “It's only a race! 'Competition is the spice of life, so long as it remains a spice'. So it is written in Gultophine's holy Chronicles!”
A low, squeaking noise rolled up to the young cleric-in-training's mark-less flank. “G-Good Vedic...?”
Dawnhoof spun about. He blinked his chestnut eyes and smiled while murmuring under the roar of cheering citizens. “I wouldn't exactly call myself a 'good vedic', Mayor, sir. But, like everyone, I intend to improve myself.”
Haymane smiled gently, gazing in a soft exhale towards the many bright and scampering youngsters filling the streets beyond. “Such is the aim of progress... of true progress. It's remarkable how easily one can forget what's important to him after every piece of his heart has convinced him that it's worth discarding like the ashes of yesterday.” His nostrils flared. “I am tired of living in yesterday...”
“Mayor Haymane...?” Vedic Dawnhoof narrowed his eyes curiously.
“I was wondering...” Haymane gulped hard and humbly murmured, “If you can help me learn to embrace tomorrow.” He stared up with glistening eyes. “If you could teach me something about... the joy of Gultophine's Spirit, dear Counselor...” The elder's lips curved with something resembling hope.
The young unicorn smiled gently. “I would be honored, sir, to learn about joy with you.”
Several hoots and whistles lit the air of the saloon as Pepper Plots emerged from behind the stage's velvet curtains, one saucy leg at a time. When she finally came out onto the naked lengths of the platform, she was covered in a burlap recreation of a pale unicorn's priestly robes. She wagged her eyebrows goofily.
The room broke into roaring laughter, then into a playful meteor shower of boos and hisses. A mustached bartender briefly worked a piano at the edge of the establishment and rattled a series of high notes to punctuate the sight gag.
“Did you handsome boys really think that this was Ravishing Pepper Plot's new summer fashion choice?” She bucked a gartered hoof backwards from under the burlap sack and winked. “Puhhhh-lease! I've been a Biv! I know a thing or two about flair!”
She sashayed up to the edge of the stage in a dancing canter as the piano music accompanied her playful hoofsteps before the locked gazes of everypony in the crowd.
“An adorable hunk of a stallion who may or may not be called Nicky-Wicky once asked me if I was going to leave for the City of Equestrian Love.” She giggled like a schoolfilly. “You wanna know what I told him? I said, 'Well, sugah, it may be sunny in Fillydelphia...'”
With one shrug of her shoulders, the burlap bag unfurled, and she struck a saucy pose in a flamboyant gown laced from top to bottom with all the colors of the spectrum, accentuating enough curves to send several inebriated patrons fainting to the floor with smiles plastered across their drunken faces.
In answer to many whistles and cat-calls, Pepper winked a painted eyelash as she stuck a hoof into her scarlet mane. “'...but Dredgemane is the one happening town where the rainbow both begins and ends.'”
“That's right, young ones,” a strong voice echoed across the sun-kissed lengths of a concrete schoolyard. Several dozen teenage Dredgemaners sat out in the open with pen and parchment as an orange unicorn paced in front of them. Wearing three prismatic ribbons across the breast pocket of his black jacket—where an alcohol canteen had once rested—Vimbert shuffled to a stop and smirked sharply at them. “Today, we're going to learn about the Siege of Whinniepeg, one of my most favorite topics of the Celestial Civil War.”
One filly raised her hand.
“Yes, you in the fancy see-through dress.”
Giggles lit the air. The filly blushed, her naked coat just as gloriously exposed as all the other young ponies around her. “Ahem, Mister Vimbert, sir—”
“That's Professor Vimbert, young lady,” he said, pointing a hoof. His orange face brightened under a shattered horn as he smirked at her. “Don't worry, when you yourself finally go through eight years of doctorate courses, you can try to be as pretentiously awesome and handsome as me. I wish you luck with one of those more than the other.”
More chuckles. The filly smiled and nodded. “Very well, Professor Vimbert. Ahem. But could we talk a bit about what just happened here a few weeks ago? I mean, Dredgemane is gonna make history too, right?” Several more teens around her murmured and nodded in enthusiastic agreement.
“Mmm... But that's just the thing. The Siege of Whinniepeg was very similar to what happened in this very town. It was a night that tried the souls of ponies—both those swearing allegiance to Luna as well as those fighting for Celestia. Nopony was the same the day after the siege as they were the night before. It's amazing how swiftly a single event can transform an entire city—if not an entire nation, practically overnight.”
“B-But didn't most if not all the Lunar Republicans die during the Siege of Whinniepeg?” a teenage colt exclaimed out of turn.
“Yeesh, am I or am I not the teacher here?!” Vimbert shrugged. Under a cadence of chuckles, he paced, pointed, and spoke, “And it's 'Lunar Imperialists' from here on out, got it? Ahem. Yes, most of the defenders of Whinniepeg perished. But tell me, oh young and infinitely invincible youths... what pony soul doesn't perish in the end?” He paused and smiled warmly. “Who among them is lucky enough to be present, if even for a burning second, at an infinitesimally righteous and soul-cleansing moment in time, the likes of which history may reenact but can never exactly reproduce the beauty of? Written records exist to remind us of the glories of the past, but they also exist to remind us that...” A happy breath escaped the former janitor's lips. “...That even more glorious nights are to come and surprise us, like the Fall of Dredgemane, a song fit for the ages.”
The teenagers murmured and smiled excitedly amongst one another. They leaned forward with sudden anticipation of the lecture about to transpire.
“Yes... The Siege of Whinniepeg...” Vimbert leaned back and folded his forelimbs. “It all started with the execution of Starswirl the Bearded, Sorceror of Equestrian Legend, who spouted the famous words...” He stared off into the colorful lengths of Dredgemane, like the prismatic refraction of tomorrow's horizon, and it was a beautiful thing. “'So it is the world began, and so it is the world shall end.'”
“Why?! Goodly Brevis will tell you why!”
The naked blue mule limped and half-danced his way across a cobblestone expanse at the edge of town. This time, Brevis' rambling words weren't falling on deaf ears. A thick crowd of citizens had gathered before him—even in the middle of their wagon-pulling business—to grace him with curiosity and wonder.
He reveled in the faces of the living and breathing audience.
“She would not let it end! She smiled and smiled on forever! It was what she only ever tried to do! It was what she was born to do!”
He jumped with his one good leg, grabbed a lamppost, spun around the length of it, and hung an upside-down grin full of yellow teeth and silver fillings.
“And soon Dredgemane would be born again under the cadence of her giggles, rowing oars of blind and daring faith across the churning rapids of a frothy, frightening tomorrow! It was hope that brought us to such chaotic tributaries, hope that we too might transcend as she had! For she found the rainbow when it was but a speck in a power hungry miscreant's frown! She gave birth to the Royal Grand Biv when the militia planted armor on so many children like funeral veils! She was a mother to all smiles, a harbinger of all happiness, and I am not even fit to wear her horseshoes! Why?! The truth is simple, my good Equestrians!”
He dismounted from the lamppost, backflipped, and landed with a slide before tossing a mad grin over his smelly shoulder.
“She saw the bright shinies!”
I was not the messiah of Dredgemane. Far from it. I was an observer, a chronicler. It is not Gultophine's scripture that I write, but the record of a pony who's too busy bouncing, too busy laughing, too busy enjoying life to slow it down by putting hoof to pen. I might be able to bring the Sun and Moon back to the Wasteland. I will never be lucky enough to bring back Pinkie Pie, like she had brought herself back to Dredgemane so many times on her lonesome, like she had raptured them all faithfully with the mere curve of her lips, rendering them numb and impressionable before an eternity of bright opportunity... and sugar...
It was halfway through biting into a cupcake when a shadow stretched over Harmony. She and her anchor glanced up from the dining room table of the farmhouse.
Quarrington and Pearl Pie stood side by side, bathed in the light of morning. Their voices were laced with humble breaths as they spoke to the Canterlotlian in Entropan skin.
“Miss Harmony, you have... you have been a dear blessing to this household, in ways that we can't even pretend to describe.”
“We hardly know where you come from, or what brought you here to begin with. After all that's happened in Dredgemane, there's just as much confusion as there is joy.”
“All we know, Miss Harmony, is that we owe you... This entire family owes you so much, and we forever offer our grace and love to you, if it can somehow properly thank you for entering our lives...”
The time traveler took a deep breath. She fought a frothing wave of green flame to give the two parents the smile they deserved. “I don't think I can explain myself any more than you can guess...” She winced at her own words, shrugged, and murmured on, “But I'm glad that I somehow did something that helped you smile...” She glanced at her anchor. “Though I think you would have had no problem finding that smile on your own.”
“Miss Harmony, I mean this with supreme conviction.” Quarrington shuffled over and rested a hoof on her copper shoulder. “I am dearly sorry for the words I said to you in my anger and blindness. If there is something—anything I can do, as a favor to you or the Court of Canterlot—I wish to do whatever it takes.”
“That's quite nice of you, Mister Pie. But I wouldn't worry about it. Seriously—”
A pink hoof suddenly kicked Harmony viciously from under the table.
“Ow.” The avatar of Princess Entropa hissed through clenched teeth. “What the frig?” She frowned across the table.
Pinkie Pie hissed, made a face, and charaded a “telescope” with two hooves stretched above one squinting eye.
Harmony blinked. Her amber eyes fell to a series of crayon-dotted constellations lying on a pile of sheets in the corner of the table. A smile slowly crept across her features. “Ahem... Come to think of it...” She glanced up at the two adults. “There is a favor you can do for me. But... be warned, it's a tad bit kaizo.”
“'Kaizo?'”
Harmony fluttered in mid-air. Squinting through one eye, she held a “frame” before her vision with a pair of perpendicular hooves. “Hmmm... Alright!” She grinned wickedly and lowered herself to the rocky earth. “I think that's about perfect.”
“Do you think we've gone too far?” Zecora asked, lowering a pair of dusty chisels in her grasp. “Or does it deserve at least one more star?”
“It's the night's sky, Miss Zecora.” Harmony smirked in response. “Let the heavens decide what needs or doesn't need to be added.”
She stood before a wide stretch of mountainous stone that rose above the northwestern reaches of the Pie Family's rock fields. With the utilization of a plethora of metal tools and several wooden lattices, Zecora, Pinkie, Inkessa, Blinkaphine, and Quarrington finished chiseling a basic layer of constellation designs across the smooth rock face, using the pegasus' many crayon star charts as one grand blueprint.
“Whew...” Inkessa brushed the dust out of her mane as she stood back from the sculpted masterpiece. “Now I know why I really chose a nursing career. I'm not built with traditional Dredgemane mining blood.”
“Where will you go now that Stonehaven is being mothballed?”
“It isn't being mothballed.” Inkessa slyly smirked. “This town is always going to need a hospital. Besides, Nurse Angel Cake is still going to need my assistance with helping the foals you healed find new homes—the orphans, at least.”
“I'm already writing a letter to Rarity back home in Ponyville! Heehee!” Pinkie Pie bounced cheerfully before the fresh granite mural of cosmic proportion. “She's good at all of that awesome foster home stuff!”
“Y-Yeah...” Harmony briefly shuddered. “'Awesome...'”
“I too intend to stay as long as I'm needed to assist in blooming what Harmony has seeded,” Zecora murmured with a bright smile. “Never before in my life has the laughter of foals endeared me to so many precious souls. Inkessa, with your permission, I wish to help Angel Cake's plan reach fruition.”
“We would love to have your wisdom and tenacity at our side, Miss Zecora.” Inkessa smiled. “Hocus pocus or not.”
The zebra chuckled, eliciting a giggle from the other fillies surrounding the site. Quarrington suddenly cleared his throat and motioned with a nervous hoof. “Uhm... About the big rock...”
“Yes! The question of the Fourth Age!” Harmony spun and gestured at the grand array of dots, swirls, and cosmic bands etched with shallow ease before the wall. “'What to do with the big dumb rock.' Well, the fact of the matter is, it needs a finishing touch... Or in this case, Gultophine's blessing.” Clearing her throat, the copper pegasus turned about. “Dear Vedic...?”
Dawnhoof sauntered into the group. “I was beginning to wonder when I would be needed.” He aimed his horn at the illustrations across the great wall. “You simply need me to make it all deeper?”
“Yes, handsome,” Pinkie Pie whispered hoarsely as she leaned in. “Har-Har wants you to go deeper—” A copper hoof slapped across the back of her mane. “Owie! Heeheehee! Watch where you swing that hydra hammer of yours!”
“The sooner the better, Vedic,” the scavenger from the future muttered through a brief migraine of green flame.
“Stole the words right out of my mouth, Miss Harmony.” Dawnhoof tensed his features, concentrated, and channeled a stream of energy straight out his horn. A bright glow filled the many swirling lines and dots of the wall as the unicorn's metallurgical talent bore the shallow lines deeper, etching a permanent star map into the bosom of the granite plateau, forever blemishing the Grave of Consus.
Quarrington whistled at the end of the shimmering job. “Well, I find it highly perplexing, but rather striking in its own right.” He smirked towards the young ponies around him. “It'll give us something interesting to look at as we harvest the west fields, at least. Somehow, I doubt that this is the last work of fancy art to dot the walls of Dredgemane these days.”
“Do forgive me if I-I forsake such creative endeavors for a day of scriptural study,” a sweating, exhausted unicorn managed to say. He took a deep breath and spoke with a weathered smile. “If only writing a sermon was as strenuous as carving into a mountain, I might never run out of exercise.”
“I guess in your case, dear Vedic...” Harmony winked. “...It's the thought that counts.”
“I think it looks very pretty,” a voice said, aimed at the cosmic mural.
“Why, thank you very much, Blinkaphine,” Harmony said. “Though, I was focusing more on scientific accuracy than aesthetic quality—” She went Ditzy-eyed in mid-sentence. She flashed a look over her shoulder.
The quiet filly with a white-white mane was walking away with Inkessa and Zecora in tow. Quarrington smirked, shrugged, and trotted after them.
“Hmmm...” Harmony exhaled through gently flaring nostrils. “Naturally a pony with a rocket on her butt would appreciate stars.”
“That's something I'm going to have to get used to...”
Harmony glanced over at the young unicorn. “What's that?”
The Vedic blushed slightly and smirked. “As long as I've been in the order, it's been under the stern gaze of Breathstar. Living in a town that no longer enforces a dress code is going to be a brave new world, not to mention a slightly embarassing one.” He fidgeted slightly, but bravely uttered, “All this time, I've relied on the Spirit of Gultophine to make intuitive judgments about ponies' souls. Now, with everypony's cutie mark exposed... I stand to be distracted. Erm... Wh-What I m-mean to say is, it's so very easy to hold weight in what is or what is not emblazoned across the coats that Gultophine gave us. I never wanted to be clouded by such superficiality.”
“Trust me, I know a thing or two about obsessing over cutie marks, and you couldn't be any further from the truth.” She paused, glanced at him for a brief span of seconds, then softly smiled. “If I may be so bold, dear Vedic, I think you have the most spectacular cutie mark in all of Dredgemane.”
“I do?” He gave her a crooked glance. He looked briefly at the seared skin of his flank and smirked pathetically back towards her. “Miss Harmony, is Pinkamena aware of your blatant sarcasm?”
“No sarcasm at all!” Harmony grinned gently. “What it means to me is that you've lived through flames—self-imposed or not—and you made your destiny for yourself. You are talented beyond compare, Vedic Dawnhoof, because it is a talent that you discovered for yourself, all the while pursuing boundless altruism. That's an inspiration that... that I will certainly take with me wherever I happen to go...”
Dawnhoof smiled. He gulped and glanced nervously aside as a part of him came out through his lips in an off-key murmur. “I am... enraptured that you would want to hold a piece of my spirit dear to you, M-Miss Harmony.”
The copper pegasus sighed dreamily. Just then, her wings shot up. With an exasperated groan, she rolled her eyes. “Dang it, Miss Pie!” She spun around, snarling. “How many times have I told you to stop—?!” She froze, blinking.
Pinkie Pie was twenty meters away, chatting with Zecora and Inkessa. She saw Harmony from afar and waved excitedly before pumping a victorious hoof through the air.
Harmony very hideously, very deeply blushed before the priest-in-training. “Uhmmm...” She gnawed on her lip and slowly, stiffly coiled her wings back by her side. “Eh heh... I don't suppose you're ordained enough to hear confessionals, huh?”
“In a decade or so...” Dawnhoof very sweetly smiled and nodded. “I'll be here, where Gultophine’s Spirit needs me.”
“Yeah... Well... I only know so much about Gultophine's Spirit.” Harmony kicked limply at the earth, bathing it with the ashes of her mind. “I will... I-I will have you in my thoughts, good Vedic,” she murmured in a sullen, cold tone. “Where I will be going.”
“As you will be in mine.” He reached over and patted her copper shoulder, leading her away from the mural and towards the Pie family house. “Would you like to join me for a snack and philosophical discussion? Pinkamena spoke something of sampling her 'Supernova Sarsaparilla'.”
“Awww Celestia dang it.”
“Miss Harmony...”
“Ahem. Hail Gultophine.”
I am more than the end of ponies. I am more than that which can be determined by beginning and endings, or even by you. I am an amazing, miraculous, and tragically precious phenomenon, like so many other phenomena that pranced across the world on wings and hooves before me. The Cataclysm may have taken lives, but it couldn't touch Life itself. Even if all the written and spoken history of ponydom perishes along with me, the Wastelands cannot undo the fact that there ever once was a ponydom, that there ever once was a reason to smile and bask in the warmth of existence, that there was ever once a need to do something as delightfully mad as this experiment that I began.
And it is an experiment that I shall end, if not by Gultophine's Grace, than by my own. The most of what I can afford is the best that I can afford, because I am more than the last pony.
I am alive.
-End of entry.
“For what it's worth...”
Pinkie Pie flung a paper airplane and glanced aside. “What was that, Har-Har?”
The pegasus sighed, battling the worst of green flaming headaches yet as she sat on the wooden patio of the Pie Family house, looking out over the dead granite plateau.
“I just can't stop thinking...”
“Pfft... Flippin' duh! Heeheehee!”
“Seriously... Everything I've done... Everything we've done...” Harmony winced, gulped, and murmured. “Even after we healed all of those foals, what is the point? They will only die another day. It might come weeks from now. It might come...” The time traveler lisped halfway through the sentence, winced, and daringly uttered, “It might come weeks from now. Every pony must someday die. What does it matter if their life is extended by minutes, months, or millennia?”
“Hmmm...” Pinkie Pie reached a hoof over and petted the green scales of a belly-rolling alligator beside her before folding another paper airplane. “Life is a party, and a very short one at that. If we don't enjoy it for what it's worth, Har-Har, then the joke is on us!” She flung the white craft up into the air and followed it with a bright grin. “ I only ever wanted to laugh with life, not at it. Heeheehee...”
The time traveler blinked. “It's that simple, huh?”
“Hmmm... Who ever said anything about 'simple'?”
Harmony stared into the horizon of nothingness. Slowly, she stood up. With her bright anchor watching, the copper pegasus walked away from the house in the center of the field of rocks. Her eyes flickered the brightest emerald yet as she spread her wings, took a few bounding trots, and broke into a sharp flight, climbing high into the misty air over the Grave of Consus.
Pinkamena Diane Pie sat alone on the threshhold of her home, watching the departure of her close friend. As she stared, a gasp flew through her candy-colored frame. She glanced down to witness that her tail was twitching, twitching like it had never twitched before. She blinked at the sight, then a slow and warm smile crossed her lips as she gazed up once more at the distant copper speck.
“Way to go, Har-Har. Thatta girl.”
Harmony flew and flew, ascending through the cloudy Equestrian past, using a brave and immutable frown as her piercing bow. The sparkling green flame in her amber eyes spread across her face in emerald tears, until her vision fused with a sparkling cone of reverse-time forming around the tip of her arrowhead body. She gritted her teeth and flew harder into the timestream, fighting against the laws of Princess Entropa.
When she broke through, it was with a chronotonic boom of strobing fury. The burning green flames shot across the lengths of Twilight Sparkle's basement, startling a giant purple dragon so that he nearly dropped the Lunar book in his scaled grasp.
“Good grief! Scootaloo, you're finally back, child! How did it go—?”
The last pony ignored him. She didn't even decelerate for an instant. In a brilliant brown blur, she soared straight up the length of the cavernous laboratory and veritably smashed through the door leading to the hollow treehouse above.
“Scootaloo?!” Spike stammered. The violet pendant around his neck shimmered from the pegasus’ green smoke trail as he stumbled across the laboratory and gazed after her. “Where are you going?!” The aged dragon blinked his slitted eyes, then produced a proud, iron-wrought smile as a deep, fuming chuckle thundered through his bass throat. “Heheheh... so random.”
Scootaloo flew. She flew up and out the body of the late Twilight Sparkle's library. She flew high above the branches and the balconies of the structure. She flew high above the rooftops and spires and crumbling buildingtops of Ponyville's ruins.
Brown wings flapping in earnest, the last pony flew up through the falling snow of the Wasteland. She pierced the cold mist and the lifeless ash of the deathly gray sky, her scarlet eyes tearing from the frigidly mad climb. She flew and flew until her frail body broke through the clouds, penetrating the heights of the dead planet-sphere faster than any conventional zeppelin or battlecruiser or hovercraft ever could.
She soared and she soared and she challenged gravity, angrily and fitfully, until she broke free of the roof of the world. There, in the coldest of cold reaches, bathed in dismal dead twilight, Scootaloo hovered, the lone skeletal pegasus of the Fourth Age. She stared out into an endless world devoid of life, where a froth of stone-gray overcast danced limply beneath a reflective haze of veiled stars. All was nothing but nothing, an infinite expanse of obscurity, mayhem, and abysmal chaos, and yet Scootaloo was a single burning speck floating amidst the frozen cauldron of this unholy universe. She was tinkled pink to realize that it all revolved around her, and yet it didn't.
“Heh.” It came out of her at first like a sneeze, but the repetition was venomously deliberate. “Heh heh... Heheheheheh...” Scootaloo's laughter was as endless as her smile, a vaporous and mad exhalation. “It's all so friggin' hilarious.” And her eyes rolled back as her body rolled back.
And she fell.
Here's something interesting. This is a story concept that I think would still be cool to do someday, but if I ever tackle it at this point, it'd have to be way shorter and lose a lot of unnecessarily convoluted elements that I have written in here.
The idea of this fanfic should be obvious from the title itself. That's how I was hoping the story would sell. Also, this was manufactured back in spring of 2012, when I was having a full-on obsession with Lyra. But more on that later.
Here, we see some scant elements that make it into Background Pony, but then things take on an insanely different turn. The personality behind Lyra here is almost insulting, but in my head I was speculating that she was... the embodiment of a 45+ year old hippy female who was into classic rock and psychodelic experimentation. Er... yeah.
This is an example of a nifty concept with a screwed up execution. Going into it, I realized I sugar-coated some of the diction with prevailing themes of Twilestia, perhaps in hopes that it would sway Vimbert's editorial opinions in my favor.
It did not work, and praise Nietzshe for that.
by short skirts and explosions
Dear Princess Celestia,
I just recently finished reading your Treatise on the Dangers of Telekinetic Mine Sweeping, and I must say that I was thoroughly thrilled. It's invigorating to know that Equestrian Civilization has come so far from the warmongering species of seriously ticked-off horses that we used to be, and it saddens me that there are still parts of the world with more bomb fragments in the backyard than silver spoons in foals' mouths. I shall make it my goal to study further into this subject, in the event that I might lose a leg and need to marry a popular music star in order to raise funds for anti-landmine charities.
However, I would like to take this moment to bring up a rather bizarre observation of mine. I believe there may have been some cross-dimensional interference the last time you used the transportation spell to send your letters to my dragon assistant, Spike. Don't be too concerned, Princess; the letters arrived in one piece. Still, upon closer examination they had a strange smell to them. I'm wondering if perhaps the parchments accidentally crossed over into a gaseous, parallel universe full of random, pungent dust particles. If so, it would explain why my nose tickled upon opening your most personal letters to me. I mean, why else would mail from Princess Celestia of Equestria smell like they had been perfumed—
Twilight Sparkle stopped in the middle of writing. Her rosy cheeks matched the purple haze of magic that was encompassing the floating quill and parchment in front of her. She had paused her penwork upon hearing the awkward sound of a pony's voice singing in the distance. Twilight glanced up—confused and blinking—from where she squatted on the edge of a bench along the outskirts of Ponyville in the glistening afternoon. She wasn't alone; Rarity sat on a pillow in a nearby patch of grass, sketching here newest dress design across a sheet of white canvas.
“My my, what is that grating cauterwauling?” the fashionista exclaimed, battling a crooked grimace.
“Uhm...” Twilight Sparkle blinked. She glanced down at her latest letter to Celestia, at the word “Princess” that had tumorously acquired a heart symbol over the letter “i”. She let loose an errant cough, telekinetically crumbled the sheet of paper, and tossed it into a nearby garbage can. “I don't know. Who besides Fluttershy sings at this time of the day?”
“And out in the open, no less?” Rarity's eyes were thin, jaded sapphires, or some other optical metaphor of crystalline nature. “I swear, everypony in town wants to be a diva these days.”
“Shhh... Whoever it is, I think she's coming around the bend.”
Both unicorns craned their necks and waited for the mysterious singer to appear, a singular act that alone was a testament to how confoundedly bored the two of them were. They were awarded with a neon green hoodie and a gray pair of pants and were both mutually disgusted to realize that a living, breathing pony was squeezed into them. It was a turquoise pony, a unicorn at that, with a shiny horn and an even shinier smile that followed her humming figure as she sauntered down the hill, tossing her hood back to reveal a mane of glossy gray threads.
“Nobody knows where you are, how near or how far. Shine on you crazy diamond,” she sang, or pretended to sing. “Pile on many more layers and I'll be joining you there—Oh! Hiya!” A pair of golden eyes glimmered brightly. Grinding her hooves to a stop, the unicorn raised her front limbs and stretched her spine perpendicular to the earth. “Allow me to introduce myself, my name is—aw crap!” Her exclamation came to the same bitter end that her skull did, slamming full force into the dirt road behind her. The unicorn briefly flailed in the dust after falling from the bizarre posture she had attempted to assume.
Twilight Sparkle and Rarity stared in mutual silence, still as stone. They could very well have been posing for a double-portrait.
“Just a minute,” the unicorn grunted while struggling to get a hoof-hold of the situation. “Gosh darn this quantum jet lag! If I had a dollar for every time I fell over myself, I'd be Sabu from ECW—Ah! There we go.” She stood back up on all fours, her grin as immaculate and shiny as before the pull of gravity took her. “I apologize. Getting here took a lot more out of me than I thought it would.”
“Uhm, it's okay,” Twilight Sparkle said with a nervous smile.
Rarity squinted. “Darling, are you feeling alright?”
“Alright?! This is Ponyville! Home to the Elements of Harmony! Land of magical, prancing equine and other assorted subjects of exploitable macros! How could I be anything but ecstatic?!” The unicorn's smile was briefly interrupted by a frustrated glance thrown at her hooves as she backtrotted towards a lamppost. “Let me just get my bearings here. I swear, I'm dizzier than a Bangkok reporter at the hands of Bjork.”
“Bang... Cock...?” Twilight's violet eyes briefly crossed.
“Uhm...” Rarity folded her sketch and held it protectively away from this sudden, perplexing creature. “I do believe you are spouting a whole lot of nothing, dear.”
“Shhh! Hold on. I gotta do this right. Heeheehee—Ahem.” The unicorn backed completely into the lamppost, stood up on her hind legs, and braced her spine against the thing so that she could stretch her forward body into a ghastly, vertical position. Once her head was so forcibly elevated, the stranger adjusted the hem of her sweaterjacket, cleared her voice, and spoke with such booming presence that it forced the heads of many distant, picnicking ponies to turn and blink her way. “Greetings, my little ponies!” She paused briefly to let loose another excited giggle, then jubilantly continued, “Do not be alarmed by my appearance! Though I may be tall and somewhat ugly by your standards, I assure you that I mean you pretty horsies no harm! I come from a faraway land on the other side of the rainbow! I bring you tidings of joy, good cheer and self-indulgent monologues. Heeheehee... oh god, I'm so excited right now!”
Several ponies quietly clustered around Twilight and Rarity, staring in numb unison at the rambling equine against the lamppost. Slowly, Twilight Sparkle stepped down from the bench and bravely walked forward with an even braver smile. “Well, uhm, that's most certainly interesting. I'm not quite sure if I understand it all, but I appreciate a friendly pony when I see one. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is—”
“Twilight Sparkle!” the unicorn grinned wide. “And what a pretty, lavender unicorn you are! Especially in this sunlight! Heehee heee!” She paused to lean forward and add in a hoarse whisper, “I really like your mane. It's like a Pepto Bismol angel vomited across a sea of violet silk.” She stretched a turquoise hoof up at a forty-five degree angle. “There! Gimme five, Sparkles!”
“Uhm? Five what?” the mare remarked with a crooked blink, followed up by a double-take. “And how do you know my name?”
“Pffft! Like, who doesn't know Twilight Sparkle, Element of Magic, most faithful student to Princess Celestia, demon daughter of Trigon's seed—whoops, okay, that last one was a stretch. Ahem.” She smiled and emphatically wriggled her outstretched hoof. “Don't leave me hanging, girl!”
Twilight Sparkle bit her lip and glanced Rarity's way, shrugging.
Rarirty returned the gesture. “I think somepony is lost in more ways than one.”
“Says you, Rarity!” the unicorn in the center of the gathering crowd of ponies exclaimed with a smile. “You know, I wish that everytime a truck full of blueberry Pop-Tarts slammed into a marshmallow factory, we got a hundred more of you, because the world could always stand to become that much more fabulous—oh fudge!” She shrieked as she lost her balance against the lamppost and fell back onto the ground once again. “It's okay! I'm protected! All State and all that crap!”
Twilight nevertheless reached over and helped the unicorn up. “You know, you're just making it harder on yourself.” Overhead, a curiously blinking Rainbow Dash had hovered down, staring at the scene. “It'd be a lot easier if you just stood on the four hooves that nature gave you.”
“Pfft, yeah right,” the unicorn grunted while rolling her golden eyes. An unbreakable smirk once again donned her face as she brushed off her green jacket and gray pants. “I'm only doing this because of the disorientation.”
“Disorientation?” Twilight raised an eyebrow.
“Yeah, on account of the teleportation spell and all. It's thrown me off balance. So long as I don't move around too much while I'm like this,” she uttered while waving her front hooves around at eye-level, “Then I shouldn't worry about getting blisters on my fingers.”
“Uhhhh...” Rainbow Dash murmured while Rarity and the other ponies exchanged stupified glances. “What are 'fingers?'”
“I...” Twilight thought aloud, “I-I think they're the names of the five digits located at the end of a small primate's limb.”
“Oh.” Rainbow Dash hovered, blinking. “What's a 'primate?'”
“What is anything anymore?” Rarity exclaimed, the edge of her voice carrying a hissing tone. “I'm quite vexed with confusion right now.”
“What is there to be confused about?!” The unicorn grinned and wrapped a forelimb around a skittish Twilight's neck as she leaned in and winked. “Just because I'm human doesn't mean we can't pursue friendship and harmony and all those other bitchin' qualities of awesomeness together!”
“'Human'?” Rarity made a face.
“'Bitchin'?'” Rainbow Dash made one of her own.
“I came at just the right time too, Rainbow Dash!” the silver-haired stranger continued, a few inches away from nuzzling Twilight. “Because this magical land of Equestria is under the impending shadow of the wicked witch, Hydia, and her infernal Smooze! And the only thing that can defeat such an insufferable blight is my rainbow locket, the power of friendship, and also the flutter ponies—or else some other goofy deus ex machina. But hey! Whatever works, amiright? Amiright?!”
“Well, uhm...” Twilight smiled bashfully and gently disentangled herself from the excited unicorn. “That all sounds... really exciting! But perhaps there's another time and place to talk about such... uh... adventures when there aren't so many ponies staring at us?”
“No, I wanna hear this,” Rainbow Dash hovered even lower. “This 'Witch Hydia' is relevant to my interests.”
“Witch Who now?” Applejack remarked, trotting up with a basket full of apples lying predictably on her flank. “Just who in the hay is this fru-fru'd silo of squabble? I've been listenin' to her gabbin' from my apple stand, clear across Ponyville!”
“Oh snap. Applejack's right,” the unicorn said with an embarassed wince. “I guess not everybody can be George Foreman's son; far be it for me to assume you ponies know my name like I know all of yours.” She cleared her throat, sat on her haunches, and planted a hoof over her chest. “I'm a human. You can call me Lyra. Lyra Heartstrings.” She blushed with a grin, rolling her golden eyes. “Yeah yeah, I know. My parents were hippies, you see. It's not what you think, though. Sure, they went to Woodstock, but what better a way to have been conceived than in the broad daylight while they listened to Carlos Santana's Soul Sacrifice? Decades later, my boyfriend and I tried preserving the tradition to a VH1 televised performance of Smooth. Eh... it didn't work out too well. Besides, who wants their kid growing up to look like Rob Thomas?”
“Err...” Applejack took a few cautious steps back, a loose apple or two falling out of her basket. “Y'all mind tellin' me why nopony's called the cops on this yahoo yet?”
“Oh! Please do!” Lyra leaned forward with a grin. More apples spilled as she trotted around in the freshly formed circle of curious, gazing ponies surrounding her. “Call the cops! Call the farmers and the musicians! Call the artists and the scientists and all of the scholars in between! Preach it to the streets and sing it to the mountains! A human is in Equestria! This is a monumental event! We've slayed Plato's shadowy god of yesteryear to erect this new idol of fantastic crossover, comingingling, coexistence and.. and... dang it, I've run out of abstract nouns. Alliteration will do that, you know.”
“Yes, well—” Twilight began.
“Hey!” Lyra hopped in place, only to land on her chest as her hooves gave way once more. “Nnngh—Ahem.” She stood back up on wobbly knees “You guys want to see something crazy?”
“Good heavens, no!” Rarity was already recoiling.
“Sure!” Rainbow Dash excitedly leaned forward.
“Most equines have shoulders! But not you cute, colorful, little quadrupeds!” Lyra reached over and grasped Applejack's upper body, wiggling her back and forth and knocking more apples loose from the basket. “See how these legs of yours just shoot out from underneath your chest cavities like the hydraulic support struts of AT-AT walkers? Ever noticed that before? Heheheh—Paging Darwiiiiin!”
The only part of Applejack that wasn't rocking back and forth was her burning frown as she glared in the direction of her three friends. “Okay, just who is this pony and are there any of her folks nearby who will regret seeing what Kicks McGee is about to do to her face?”
“Ha! Kicks McGee...” Lyra poked her hoof into Applejack's mane. “Who's a silly pony?”
“I beg yer pardon?!” Applejack sneered, her blood boiling.
Rainbow Dash hugged herself in mid-air. “Hahahaha! I like this unicorn! Hey!” She grinned and wiped a tear. “Shake Applejack some more!”
“Okie dokie!”
“Now wait just a cotton-pickin' minute—!”
“I've got an idea!” Twilight suddenly stood in between the enraged farmfilly and the turquoise stranger. “Now that we've gotten to know each other, perhaps it's time we got to... er... know ourselves!”
“What, is this a zen thing?” Lyra hobbled backwards, raising an eyebrow. “Japan's a long way from Equestria. Plus, they got less ponies and slightly more old people.”
“What I mean to say is... erm...” Twilight looked Lyra up and down.
“Have you looked in a mirror lately, darling?” Rarity added nervously from behind Twilight.
“Why, am I having a Stevie Nicks day?” Lyra blinked, and then her golden eyes widened brightly as she ran two hooves through her frazzled mane. “Oh god. I'm having a Stevie Nicks day, aren't I?”
“Heeeeey!” Lyra trotted about the library interior of Twilight's abode. “This place looks so much cooler when you're actually standing inside it! Nice pad, Twilight. I like what you've done with the... wood!”
“I don't recall ever inviting you to my place before,” Twilight said while Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and Rarity stood behind her.
“And you never had to! You see... erm... how can I put this?” Lyra squatted on her haunches, surrounded by bookcases, as she gestured dramatically with her hooves. “In the land I'm from, humans like me have access to this magical portal call 'Youtube,' through which we can see you ponies in their natural habitat, ponies having conversation, and fat Australian kids suplexing scrawny bullies.”
“Ughh...” Applejack moaned and cast her green eyes across the room. “Please tell me we brought her here for a reason, Twilight.”
“Shhh!” Rainbow Dash hovered and leaned towards Lyra. “I wanna hear more about Lyra's magical tube! Can it cause explosions?”
Before Lyra could respond, Twilight trotted into the center of the group. “As a matter of fact, I do have a purpose for bringing our... uhm... new friend here. Ahem. Rarity, if you would do the honors?”
“Gladly,” Rarity strolled in from an adjacent room with an elegant canter. Her horn glowed, telekinetically dragging a tall dressing mirror into the center of the library so that it stretched before Lyra. “I must say, Twilight, you should learn to clean this thing more often. Perhaps it would explain why you've walked out the door these past few weeks with your coat so garishly spotted—”
“That's nice, Rarity. Now let's take a look into this mirror, shall we?” Twilight trotted up and stood beside Lyra so that their dual reflections stood tightly within the mirror's frame before them. “Okay, Ms. Hardsteves.”
“Heartstrings.”
“Er... Right. Tell me...” Twilight briefly nudged Lyra and pointed at the two equine images. “What do you see?”
“Hmmmm... What else?” Lyra smiled and gestured her hoof over the reflected dimensions of Twilight. “Small, round face. Slender body. Conical tail. Simple color schemes. You're Faust's Generation Four at its best, hardly the gigantic hippopotamus sight of Generation One or Two. And—dear Jehovah—don't get me started on Generation Three-Point-Five. Frickin' Popeye-legged abominations, I swear to God!”
Applejack glanced at Rainbow Dash. “We sure her last name ain't 'Hooeystrings?'”
“Snkkkt—hahaha! 'Popeye...'” Rainbow Dash chuckled with a slack-jawed grin.
Twilight Sparkle was in the middle of her tenth second of awkward blinking before she finally shook her head and exclaimed, “No! That's not... I don't even know what any of that means! Don't you see two ponies, Lyra? You know? Like you and me? Fellow unicorns?”
“If that's your way of saying we've become fast friends, then sign me up!” Lyra stifled a giggle, her orange eyes flaring brightly over her grin. “Once you've become a pegasister, you never go back! Am I right?”
“I... It... unngh...” Twilight ran a hoof over her face, took a deep breath, then calmed herself with a smile. “Here. Let's try something else, Lyra.”
“Okay.”
“Look at yourself and tell me what you see.”
“What, are you suddenly blind, Twilight?”
“She's an egghead,” Rainbow Dash said. “Unless you're a walking pile of letters, she'll never catch you fixing a bucket of water to the top of her front door.”
“You're not helping, Rainbow—” Twilight briefly did a double-take. “Wait, that was you who soaked me last week?”
Both Rainbow Dash and Applejack snickered at the same time.
Rarity shuffled up and nudged Lyra's shoulder. “Well go on, dear. She asked you something simple, didn't she?”
“Hey, whatever floats your boat, Ms. Hepburn.” Lyra cleared her throat and squatted on her haunches, her spine erect. “I see a strawberry blonde with a godawful widow's peak. The almond eyes are making me thirsty for a cappuccino. That stupid mole is still lying in the square of my neck like a damn tracheotomy scar.” She ran her hooves down to her sweaterjacketed waist. “I'm still carrying three Christmas parties' worth of fudge-dipped guilt from months ago. Heh... And—gawd—you can't guess how many people think these hips have squeezed out at least three kids, though I am quite blissfully inexperienced in the torturous affairs of childbirth. Heeheehee. Still, it's not so bad; I'm just waiting for pop culture to accept Rubenesque women as 'beautiful' again.”
Twilight Sparkle was squinting, squinting hard. “You... You see all of that?”
“Unfortunately, yeah. Why shouldn't I?”
A blue hoof poked Lyra in the skull as Rainbow Dash flew low, her brow furrowed. “This horn! You mean to tell us that you can't see this freakin' horn on your forehead?”
Lyra blinked, cross-eyed, as if noticing the shiny promontory on her cranium for the first time. The four ponies briefly leaned forward on their hooves, waiting for it...
“Oh please, Rainbow Dash,” Lyra ultimately said with a sly smirk. “You may not know me as much as I know you, but good friends are reticent to point out one another's acne problems, and they're even less likely to wax hyperbolic when they do.”
“Listen, sugarcube,” Applejack trotted up to the mirror with a persuasive smile. “I've seen a heap o'wild pranks in my day, but t'ain't a good thing to run a single joke into the ground. Now I'll be the first to admit it: you've got us all perplexed something fierce. But I reckon it's time you rein it in just a tad.”
“No joke!” Lyra briefly frowned while rubbing a hoof over her face and nose. “I've got rosacea pretty bad! Well, maybe not President Clinton bad, but we only ever get older, right?” She giggled and blushed slightly as she added, “My shoulders are even worse off at this point. It's getting in the way of my tattoo. I blame it on my addiction to fried fishsticks.”
“Tattoo?” Rarity made a face.
“Yeah—Here, see?” Lyra pulled the left sleeve of her neon green jacket all the way up to the base of her limb. A thoroughly unblemished, turquoise coat shone in the library lanternlight. Lyra nevertheless pointed at it. “Granted, it's hardly as awesome as it looked when I first got it at Burning Man five summers ago, and—Snkkkt-Hehehehehe!” She almost fell entirely on the floor while snickering.
“Now what's so dag-blamed hilarious?” Applejack exclaimed.
“Oh... Just... Eheheh...” Lyra gulped, snorted, and giggled again. “How can I go about explaining to cute, colorful ponies what it means to walk down a giant paper mache uterus in the center of an arid valley? Hahaha—Whew. Anyways, you see, there's this place called Black Rock Desert in the middle of Nevada, and every year, before Labor Day, the Department of Mutant Vehicles is assembled to—”
“Pssst...” Rarity leaned into Twilight while Lyra absent-mindedly went on. “She is rambling again! This is our opportunity!”
“Agreed,” Twilight said with a nod. “Everypony—Group huddle!” Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Applejack gathered in a tight circle—hoof-in-hoof—while Lyra's monologue dominated the volume of the opposite end of the room. “I think there is something terribly wrong with this pony,” Twilight said.
“Yeah?” Rainbow Dash briefly frowned, murmuring face-to-face with the others. “What was your first clue?”
“It doesn't take an Einstallion to know that the mare's one haystack short of a barn!” Applejack added to the tight group.
“And where does she get off wearing such bright pastels in mid-April?” Rarity grimaced. “It's one thing to be deranged, but must she look like a fashion crime on the way to the asylum?”
“Don't call her 'deranged', Rarity!” Twilight frowned. “That isn't very nice!”
“I'm not sure there's any better way to describe her, Twi,” Applejack said with a somber expression. “I've seen Granny Smith lapse in and out of having all her marbles collected. T'ain't a pretty sight.”
“I dunno; I think she's pretty funny. Heeheehee...” Rainbow Dash smirked slyly. “Say, you think she does cute-ceañeras?”
“I'm serious, guys! I think this pony's in a bad place and doesn't know it!” Twilight said with a sad expression. “I-I think she needs our help.”
“Ugh...” Rainbow Dash sighed, her eyes rolling. “Do you really...?”
“Yes, really.” Twilight Sparkle frowned. “You all heard how she keeps going on and on with such crazy nonsense. She's pulling so many bizarre, random ideas from the depths of her mind that it couldn't possibly be healthy!”
“My mother always said that eccentricity was a side-effect of genius,” Rarity remarked.
“Yeah. Besides, I'm pretty sure it's all just an act!” Applejack exclaimed. “I mean, just look at her!”
The huddle of four ponies glanced across the room.
“Hey! I think the feeling in my hands is coming back!” Lyra exclaimed with a grin. She leaned her weight so that she briefly stood on her rear hooves while balancing a stapler, a bowling ball, and a wooden horse carving in her forward limbs. “Check this out! I used to juggle on the corner of Church Street Station in Downtown Orlando for tips! I totally outshone that stupid cartoon mouse whose name I can't mention due to copyright infringement! Ready? One, two, three—” She tossed all three items ceiling-ward, only to have them crash violently down over her skull. “Augh—Dammit!” Lyra was sent sprawling to the floor, clutching her throbbing nostrils. “Unngh... Duh nothe. Why iz id alwayth duh nothe?!”
“Alright, so paint me stupid,” Applejack muttered as she and the other four returned to their tight huddle. “What y'all reckon we do for her?”
“Let's get her to talk about the magical tube again!” Rainbow Dash smiled.
“Anypony but Rainbow got an idea?” Applejack frowned.
“Hey! I think she's harmless! Stupid, but mostly harmless!”
“Yeah!” Pinkie Pie nodded, cheek-to-cheek with the other four. “And 'stupid' sells! You can't afford to turn away a good act when you see it!”
Twilight did a double take. “Pinkie?! Since when did you get here?”
“What?! It's a free huddle, isn't it?”
“If you want my advice,” Rarity spoke, “I'd say a good visit to Miss Red Heart would do her some good.”
“But of course!” Twilight brightened at that. “A doctor's appointment! Maybe all of this is because Ms. Heartstrings banged her head really hard or something!”
“Ungh... Twilight, you're smart,” Applejack remarked. “Can't you just figure it all out on your own?”
“No, I think we should take up Rarity's suggestion. I'm good at magic and sciences, but I can't pretend to be a competent physician. This confused unicorn trotted straight into our village and I feel like it's my duty to get her the help she needs.”
“Oooh!” Pinkie Pie nearly bounced out of the huddle in her excitement. “On the way to getting her help, could we get her some peanut butter wafers too? Nurse Red Heart's station is just on the other side of Sugarcube Corner!”
“I vote for Pinkie Pie's idea,” Rainbow Dash said with a grin.
“No no no!” Twilight Sparkle frowned. “We're getting her to the doctor as soon as we can! Who knows?! She could possibly be a seizure victim waiting to happen!”
“All the better reason to fill her mouth with peanut butter!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed. “That way she won't bite her own tongue!”
“I vote for that idea too,” Rainbow Dash exclaimed.
“Ugh... This is the most dreadful huddle I've ever been in,” Rarity moaned. She blinked. “By the way, has anypony seen—?”
“Twilight?” Fluttershy stuck her pink mane through the door to the library. She trotted pensively inside, gazing at the strangely gathered circle of friends. “I was hoping you would let me borrow an issue of Lepus Weekly... erm... if that was alright. Oh dear!” she gasped, gazing straight down. “Who left this bowling ball lying on the floor? Somepony could trip and hurt herself—”
“Fluttershy!” Lyra gasped, hopping excitedly with bright eyes. “Omigosh! Omigosh! Omigosh!” The unicorn scampered over and came to a sliding stop with a jubilant “Squee!” She proceeded to wrap her upper arms fiercely around the yellow pegasus' body. “Ohhhh you are as sweet and adoring and squishably huggable as I ever fitfully dreamed you to be!”
“Uhhhhhhh... uhhhh...” Fluttershy quivered in Lyra's embrace, her blue eyes twitching to the point of bursting. “St-St-St-Stranger h-h-h-hugging meeeeee...” She looked ready to either faint or turn into a yellow and pink mushroom cloud.
“Heeeee! I'm actually hugging Fluttershy!” Lyra euphorically cooed. “Sing to me a lullaby while we go out shopping for lace socks—!”
“Shimmer down, sugarcube.” Applejack calmly drotted over and pulled Lyra off of Fluttershy with a toothed grip to the unicorn's mane. The visitor fell awkwardly to the floor while Applejack stared down at her. “'Human' or not, you should know better than to go around touchin' other ponies without asking.”
“But... But you're all so bouncy and bright!” Lyra dizzily sat up. “Not to mention marketable!”
Rainbow Dash trotted over to Fluttershy's side. “Sorry about that, Fluttershy. Let's introduce you to our new friend—Whoah!” She collapsed under Fluttershy's heavy embrace.
“Spooky! Stranger! Hugging me! Without permission! Horrible sweatjacket!” Fluttershy clung to Rainbow Dash and murmured into her mane, on the verge of tears.
Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes and patted Fluttershy's back before tossing a glare Twilight's way. “So, about that visit to the doctor's office...”
“Right,” Twilight nodded, wrenchin her worried eyes away from Fluttershy's trembling form. “Lyra, I'd like for you to meet a good friend of mine. She's named Nurse Red Heart. Uhm... considering all the times you've fallen down and banged your head since we met, I think it'd only be right that I help you get a thorough physical.”
“Hey, I'm game!” Lyra shrugged. “Granted, if I knew I'd be coming here to 'play doctor' with ponies, I'd have hung out on Furaffinity a lot more.”
“Fur-a-whatnow?” Applejack raised an eyebrow.
“Hahaha—Oh god. Forget I said anything,” Lyra said with a snicker. “I teleported here to bump ideas, not uglies. Besides, that'd be too dangerously close to clop, and when I get back home and write about this experience, I want to be able to submit it to Equestria Daily.”
“There'll be plenty of newspaper stands along the way, darling,” Rarity said.
“Hah! Still, not what I meant, but you get a gold star nonetheless.” Lyra pivoted her smirk to aim at Twilight once again. “Before we go, though, aren't you forgetting something?”
“I am?” Twilight blinked.
“Uh... Yeah. Hello?!” Lyra gestured to herself. “I'm certainly not a pleasant sight to behold.”
“What?” Rainbow Dash squinted, still consoling a shivering Fluttershy. “You mean your clothes? Just take them off!”
“Heck no!” Lyra flung her green hoodie back over her horn. “I'd only strip if you paid me with the tears of Mel Gibson!” she exclaimed. “I mean—I'm only going to frighten all of your friends as soon as they see a freakishly tall human strolling down the streets of Ponyville!”
“Lyra, you look fine,” Twilight Sparkle said with a smile. “I seriously doubt you're going to frighten anypony.” There was a timid squeak from Fluttershy behind her. Twilight blushed. “Well, most everypony.”
“I'm sure you've got a solution somewhere in your bank of knowledge and plot contrivances!” Lyra grinned brightly. “Why don't you give me the zap!”
“I'm sorry?”
“Use a spell that'll turn me into a pony!” Lyra beamed. “Just for a little while, of course. That way, all the ponies will be fooled.”
“Oh, heavens to Betsy.” Applejack face-hoofed.
“Uhhh... Let me get this straight,” Twilight squinted. “You want me to cast a spell that will turn you into a pony?”
“Egads, what do I have to use—a Moonspeak translator?! Somepony give me something to write with—”
“Oh no no no no!” Twilight waved a hoof. “No need for that! It just so happens that... Uhm...” She scratched her chin with a hoof, thought, then brightened. “I've been working on such a spell! Spike's been wanting to join the nearby hockey team but they don't allow dragons to play!”
“Hey, I'll believe that. Where I come from, they only accept white people.”
“So... Uhm... Yeah! Let me just—uhh—fire up the 'ol horn here!”
“Wait!” Lyra raised two hooves.
“Wh-What?” Twilight blinked.
“This has gotta be some powerful spell!” Lyra squinted. “Shouldn't it require the Elements of Harmony or something?”
“You...” Twilight sighed, her head and tail drooping on either ends of her. “You really think so...?”
“We don't want to take any chances, fillyfriend!” Lyra's teeth glistened under her grin. “I'm sure if a talking pony walked into my house back home, I'd have to change underwear for a week!”
“Fine.” Twilight glanced behind her. “Girls? Gather around in a circle.”
“What for?” Rainbow Dash frowned.
“You heard her. We... uh... need the Elements of Harmony to pull this spell off.”
“Are you certain this requires such pretense?” Rarity exclaimed as she and the others shuffled into a circular formation. “This is getting melodramatic, even for me.”
“Just stand here next to me, girls, as I... uhm... focus this 'beam.' It's very quick spell, that's why there's no magical aura in the visual spectrum.”
“Oh golly.” Applejack was doing her best not to snicker.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaand....” Twilight tensed her face, grounded her hooves, and yanked her skull forward. “Voila!” She smiled. “There! You've been zapped, Lyra. You're a pony now.”
“My left nipple, I am!” Lyra frowned, staring at her hooves. “Your spell's a dud!”
“Ugh—Seriously?” Twilight made a face.
“Does it look like I'm a pony?” Lyra raised her hooves out in front of her. “These are the same pianist hands I was born with. Why I became a telemarketer for a living and not the next Alicia Keys is beyond me.”
“Hey guys, when we're done here,” Pinkie Pie happily chirped, “Can we all turn me into a frisbee? I'm in the mood to visit the beach!”
“Shhh!” Twilight frowned.
“I don't think you all channeled the Elements of Harmony just right!” Lyra exclaimed.
Twilight Sparkle's eyes widened. “Oh! Right! Of course, that's it!” She cleared her throat and flashed a glare at her friends that only they could see. “You heard her, girls. Help me... uhm... channel the spell.”
Rarity and Applejack exchanged nervous glances. Shrugging, they proceeded to make various murmuring incantations and hoof gestures. Pinkie Pie giggled and added to the babel with a series of twisted, cartoony expressions. As the room filled with nonsensical, murmuring voices, Rainbow Dash joined the mix.
“Ohhhmmmmmm... Ohmmmm...” She squinted Fluttershy's way. “Pssst... Why aren't you channeling n'stuff?”
“This is all so confusing. What's even going on here?! Who is this scary pony?”
“Dang it, Fluttershy!” Rainbow Dash growled. “Frickin' chant already or I'll tie Angel's ears to a windmill!”
“Eeep!” Fluttershy trotted closer to the circle and started waving her upper hooves. “Humina-Humina-Humina!”
In the center of the wildly chanting group of friends, Twilight Sparkle shook, shivered, and murmured. “Harmony... Harmony... Harmony!” She flung her body forward with outstretched limbs. “Aaaaaaaand—Pew Pew!” She slumped down, panting dramatically. “There, Lyra. How about now?”
Lyra was biting her lip, staring at her hooves up close. “Uhm... I hate to break it to you, Twilight, but... eheheh...”
Applejack, Rarity, and Rainbow Dash were already groaning. Just then, Twilight brightened and sat up. “Oh! Did I mention it has a secondary effect of turning you invisible?”
“Sweet!” Lyra grinned. “Well, in that case, let's begin our perilous journey to the magical doctor's office of detiny—Augh!” She tripped and slammed awkwardly into the library's front entrance. “Ughhh... It's dangerous business walking into doors.”
“Here, allow me.” Twilight sighed and telekinetically opened the entrance.
“Heh!” Lyra sat up, shook the cobwebs loose, and marched happily into the outside world. “It's a good thing I'm invisible or else everypony would have seen that!”
Rarity shuffled up and murmured into Twilight's ear. “Any chance you have a real spell to make a pony mute?”
“If I did, Rarity, you'd be the first to know.”
Here are some notes I made for the next couple of unwritten chapters
Lyra arrives in Ponyville, singing a song
Lyra hugs Fluttershy; Fluttershy panics
Lyra asks to be transformed temporarily into a pony
Lyra makes “Bi-winning” joke – then rambles on about Francis Ford Coppola
-Mane 6 converse about Lyra's craziness, decide to seek medical help
-Nurse Red Heart
-Zecora
-Princess Celestia
-Princess Luna
Lyra gets Spike to write journal for him
-observing ponies in their natural habitat
-shipping Applejack and Rainbow Dash
Lyra attempts riding bicycle
Lyra and Pinkie Pie (Lyra always wins at rocks, paper, scissors)
Lyra and Bon Bon (“I dIdN't PuT tHoSe In My BaG!”)
Lyra and Ditzy (“Who's this moron and why would I want her muffin?”)
Lyra and Dr. Whooves
Lyra and Scootaloo (“Yeah, whatever, kid.”)
Lyra forces Mane 6 to help her acquire the Rainbow Locket to fight back the Smooze from Dream Castle
- “Shut up, Rarity!”
- Twilight rebukes Rainbow Dash
- “Shut up, Rarity!”
Lyra decides to set up stage play to explain human-kind to ponies
-becomes a laughing stock
-good idea but poor execution
-feels it's time to “be whisked back to Earth” (“Anytime now.”)
-Attempts to fly away, hurts herself
-Twilight exhaustedly goes to her aid
Lyra and Twilight have a moment
Hoo boy. This one. I quite easily consider this one fic to be the best story I never wrote. And yet, the first chapter of it exists.
There's a crazy history to this one.
Around January of 2012, I abandoned End of Ponies. There's no better way to say it; I ditched the fanfic in frustration of how lame my attempt at a new arc had turned out. The suspended nature of End of Ponies has since continued to be an ongoing thorn in my side. As awesome a success as Background Pony has been, I still can't call 2012 as good a year as 2011, because I feel with each passing month an aching stab of guilt in my gut over what I've left to marinate within the forsaken vacuoles of the Internet.
However, back in early 2012, I didn't know EoP would be suspended for so long. I figured it was just a momentary lapse in writing, and so I chilled for a month and wrote next to nothing. And when I say "next to nothing," I really mean I wrote Spelling It Out and then floundered between botched writing ideas until I realized I was no better than a one-trick-pony. I would eventually return to EoP, fail AGAIN, and produce an accident called "Background Pony" during one night of intense frustration. The rest is history. F'naaa.
But I didn't fall in love with Lyra overnight. It was a gradual thing, a mint-green venom that seeped into my veins.
It all started when someone on Steam was like, "Hey, man, this really talented art guy totally digs your stuff and livestreams audio reads of your fanfic." And me, always adoring any excuse to masturbatorily relieve my ego, got hooked up with this dude, who turned out to be the massively talented and sexily voiced Spotlight, also known as the artist behind Background Pony's cover art and the genius behind some Appledash shenanigans. Spotty had himself a tight network of marsupials, among which was none other than Jake Heritagu, author of the immensely popular Silent Ponyville fanfic series.
At some point, Spotty played an audio read of Jake's first fanfic in livestream, and me--being the usual egotistical bastard--could only contemplate how I might be able to show off my digital phallus across the Internet to rustle the jimmies of this finely talented young lemur who somehow had way more goddam fanart than me. So, my brain immediately went into steampunk mode, riveting together possible side-fic ideas that might blend well with the universe Jake had created. I happen to have had joyous romps in the Silent Hill experience in the past, and I severely uphold Silent Hill 2 as the pinnacle of survivor horror. With that in mind, I tried to imagine a ponified Silent Hill scenario that could emulate the James Sunderland story. Clearly, this needed a romantic pair to mimic the James/Mary dynamic. And just who in Ponyville could possibly match that?
It must be understood, I had never ever given Lyra a second glance in all of my poni poni poni obsessing prior to this. I simply knew that the fanon had this thing for her and Bon Bon, and that they were often paired together in tons of fics. Suddenly, though, my mind was concocting this idea for Lyra--the unicorn of the couple--to be caught in a Sillent Hill situation where her gift of magic is not only a tool of survivor but some gimmicky means of narration.
It took a few weeks, but I finally got the courage to try writing an initial chapter. I went for a long walk, jacked myself up on Dr. Pepper, came home, sat down at the computer, started writing, and didn't stop until about eight hours later. The result is what takes up the rest of this document. I tossed myself online, hunted down Jake Heritagu, and spammed him with a Gdocs link going "Wut do j00 think of d1s, lulz." I think his reaction was conveyed in multiple four letter words. He was quite evidently impressed, perhaps even flattered. I asked him if there was a way that I could not only be allowed to upload the story set within his fanfictional universe, but if there was any possibility of doing it with his blessing of "canonization." He was game for it, but a lot of details had to be hammered out. It so happened that we had an opportunity to do just that the next day, because we were both heading to Megacon.
So it was that I arranged myself to meet a relatively random brony in real life for the first time. I met Jake Heritagu in person. He was pleasant, creative, full of ideas; I tried to ignore the kid-sized pink pony backpack hanging off his shoulders while giant robots, samurai soldiers, and female Deadpools sashayed all around us. We must have spent two hours standing there, engulfed in sweatified pop culture, bro-fisting random passerbies in Fluttershy shirts while rambling to each other the convoluted plans of our fanfics in extreme, testosteronical detail. He told me secrets about Silent Ponyville that I keep mum about to this day. I mentioned random EoP things and gawked at obese Zelda cosplayers. Eventually, we talked our lungs out, saluted, and walked our separate ways into the huge convention of extreme body odor. It was a nifty experience, and chatting with him helped me lay the mental groundwork for how my idea, "Doorwalker," was to shape itself to his future plans for the Silent Ponyville series.
There ended up being a problem, though. He never finished the series. Even today, it would seem, the fic is experiencing a Crisis of Infinite Apathies as he seeks to find an author willing to assist him in completing the vision. In the meanwhile, from a combination of literary delay and personal laziness, I never wrote beyond the first initial chapter that I layed across his table like a porn star at a job interview.
Still, the impact it had on my fanfictional... career thingy was undeniable. The ego-rush I got from apparently impressing him made me exalt the character of Lyra. In a time when EoP was entering into its long drought, Lyra symbolized for me a ponified muse. I fell in love with her character, the goofy fanon take on her, how joyful and ecstatic she appeared all the time. Though I could never follow through with "Doorwalker," I felt desperate to write a story regarding the subject of my obsession--any story. This led to a few failed writing attempts until I got into a conversation one day with Spotlight, in which he bluntly claimed that there was nothing special to the character of Lyra aside from her relationship with Bon Bon or the fanon ideas of her human/hands obsession. Wanting to defend the new best poni poni, I wracked my brain and recalled some ancient story idea I heard about an obscure X-Men character whose power was that everybody forgot her within minutes of striking up a conversation. I took that, amplified it, and centered it upon a mint-green unicorn who needed to evolve beyond Internet stereotypes, and another train wreck of a fanfic was born.
As for Doorwalkers, it's no walk in the park. If I ever wrote it in its entirety, not only would it be rated M, but it would feature a lot of foul language, intense exploration of sociopathic concepts, a brutal characterization/mutilization of Lyra, and a highly experimental writing style that no self-respecting editor would ever give a green light. The essential concept is that the story is being told through a broadcast, like a "found footage" film such as Cloverfield or Blair Witch Project. Lyra was suffering from some sort of magical ailment and required a prosthetic be placed over her horn that suppressed her mana-conjuring as well as simultaneously monitored everything she said or did. As a result, everything is in present tense and is more focused on capturing thoughts and sensations as opposed to being grammatically accurate. It would have been a miracle if it ever made it to Equestria Daily.
The fact that the story never made it off the ground is of very little concern to me now. Jake's story fell into obscurity, and what exists of Doorwalker does not take into account what Jake had planned for his latest installment--which is important because Doorwalker is supposed to take place after SP3. However, some of the most basic elements of the fic spiritually influenced the overall plot structure of Background Pony. So, in a way, it can be said that the fics are conjoined twins, only one of them had to be euthanized to save the other.
Whew. And on that note, have some rusted shiet and locked doors.
Chapter One
by shortskirtsandexplosions
based on the fanfiction series by Jake Heritagu
From the Records Office of the Foalsom Prison for Deranged Ponies
To the Royal Canterlotlian Supernatural Investigation Agency
Enclosed in this requested shipment is the arcanium alicornia once attached to the subject of Cell 3A who, as of August 12, 1002 of the Third Age, inexplicably vanished from Foalsom Prison along with the occupant of Cell 3D. The material contained within has been thoroughly reviewed by the higher unicorn members of Foalsom staff, and it is our firm belief that this information may shed some light on the recent deaths of Octavia and the other members of the Royal Canterlotlian Orchestra. Furthermore, the subject’s mental records provide details that elaborate even more on Her Majesty’s description of the “Dead Alicorn Dream”.
It is imperative that you supply Princess Celestia with this information at once. We can only regret that it has taken us this long to unlock the magical data that was previously obscured. Hopefully, if this information can help us at all, it can prevent even more deaths related to the Elements of Harmony than what has already been sustained. If the wave of suffering that’s struck Ponyville over the last three and a half months is of any indication, then all of Equestria--if not the Alicorns’ sacred lineage--is at stake.
Please handle these recordings with care. The information decays upon each subsequent perusal, and we cannot afford to lose such valid evidence as what we have in our hooves. Also, for those of you assisting the wise Princess with her documentation, guard your leylines with great caution. We’ve already lost two of our finest physicians to the slings of madness.
Sincerely,
Doctor Iron Farrier of the Canterlotlian Unicorn Health Commission
Light. Bright, flickering light. Fading in and out. Uneven. Black.
Wooden walls. Bookcases and more walls. Teetering. A glossy window. Sunlight. A unicorn says something. I pivot towards her. The light fades. Dizzy.
A lavender coat. Twilight's face evens out. She's smiling at me. It hurts.
“That's it. Just relax. Try to get your bearings and—”
“Everything's fuzzy.”
“You're doing fine. It takes a while to adjust to the magical channels filtering through the suppression field. Just breathe evenly and close your eyes for a bit.”
“Okay.”
I do what she suggests. Everything is dark. Everything should be dark.
“Okay, and... open your eyes now.”
The light returns. Bright. Still fuzzy. Twilight Sparkle is a purple blur in the middle of a sickly miasma. I don't remember the world being this heavy on my eyes. I hate this whole process already.
“I hate this already.”
“Just give it a chance, Lyra. We've come this far. This can only be good for you in the end. I promise.”
She's said that many times before.
“You've said that before.”
“Hehehe—Well, it's good to know that the suppression field hasn't affected your memory at all, now is it?” She smiles. It's a very easy thing for her to do. She shuffles up to me and tilts her head forward. “I don't think it'll hurt our little experiment any if I help your balance with a simple grounding spell. Here, don't move.”
Her horn starts glowing. My peripheral vision is encompassed in a violet glow as she seems to be concentrating on me with all her might. Several seconds pass. I'm gazing at the windows as she does this. Blue skies and white clouds. I feel exhausted. Sleepy.
Twilight finishes. “There we go. Feel any better?”
“Sure, I guess.”
“Try and lift something with your magic.”
“Haven't we done that part already?”
“Yes, but now that I've got the recording channels affixed to your cranial alicornia, I want to be sure that they're not interfering at all with the suppression field.”
“Whatever. Just tell me what I need to do.”
She points to my left. “Try and lift the horse carving off the table.”
I look over towards the wooden effigy in question. It's a jagged, splintery affair. Twilight Sparkle's library is a beautiful interior, but the wooden horse carving is an insult. It's the ugliest thing in the room, and yet everytime I arrive for our regularly scheduled visits, I can't stop looking at it. I should be looking at her, listening to her. But it's hard. Harder than I think.
Wait, is she going to be “hearing” all of this later now that we've prepared this “recording” spell? Whatever. I'm exhausted. I think of my bed, but the ugly horse carving is in the way. I tilt my head towards it. My skull feels heavier, on account of what's attached to my horn. I concentrate very hard. Gnashing teeth and twitching neck muscles. My tongue curls, and usually something would be happening by now. The wooden horse carving doesn't budge a single inch.
“I can't move it. I think it's still working.”
“Splendid!” Twilight Sparkle beams. “At least we won't have a repeat of last session. Hehehe... I really can't afford to replace the windows twice in one month.” I can't understand why she's so excited. Perhaps she's pretending to be. She trots once more into sight and smiles in my face. Bright eyes. Happy, lavender dimples. I really wish she'd keep some distance. “As for the channeling spell, we won't know if it's recording anything until three months from now when we take the cap off of you.”
“Then all of this work could be a waste of time?”
“Now Lyra, what did we discuss about having a positive attitude?”
“Uhm... You said that it was the easy way to do things?”
“Er... No. Eheheh—If you remember from two sessions ago, we agreed that being positive was the first step in confronting our personal obstacles. Once we've rediscovered our confidence, then things become easy.”
“Oh. Yeah. I-I guess you're right.”
“But right now, let's test the channeling spell.”
“Isn't that what we're already doing?”
“Kind of. Remember, it'll record not only what your senses catch, but what your memory recalls. Whenever you think about something with invested emotion, the channeling spell will store the information within the replicated alicornia of the horn-cap. So why don't you give it a try and we'll later find out if it worked or not.”
“Uhm... How?”
“Hehehe... It's simple, Lyra. Just think about the first important memory that comes to mind. The channeling spell will do all the rest.”
“Okay...”
“Don't stress it. It should come naturally to you.”
Your eyes opened. Pearlescent blue sapphires. I was the first thing you saw that morning, and I knew it.
Your lips moved. You were trying to say something, but between the weight of sleep and the stretch of your smile, it came out as gibberish.
And I loved gibberish. I loved you. I leaned down and I met those lips with mine.
I wished I had never let go. I wished our kiss would have lasted forever. I wished that I could inhale your words everyday, from then on, and live off of nothing else.
You were my breath. My everything.
“Lyra? Did you think of something?”
“Y-Yeah...” Twilight's violet shadow is fuzzy again. My heard hurts. I could tell her this, but I don't. “I thought of something.”
“Good. Once you get used to the channeling spell, it should be easy to tell when you're using it and when you're not. I wouldn't be surprised if the recorded thoughts and sensations from the first few days is a bit disjointed, but I'm sure once you get acquainted with the whole process, we'll have proper feedback to examine later.”
“And you're sure this is going to help with the... therapy?”
“Lyra, think of this from an architectural point of view. Your old life is behind you, and now we're examining the blueprints of your current existence in order to help you establish a secure future. Unicorns have been doing this sort of experiment for years, and it almost always turns out beneficial for them. I have every bit of confidence that we'll get your magical abilities back, and you'll be returning to the concert hall where you're supposed to be, or—who knows? Perhaps you're destined for better things?”
She won't stop smiling. The fuzziness and the dizziness goes away. I can see dust particles scattered in the windowlight. I hear wood creaking in the foundations of the library. Everything in the world is slowly settling, slowly crumbling, slowly falling. To become better means to become nothing.
“Perhaps you're right.” Twilight Sparkle wants to help me so much. It would make her happy for me to feel better. It would make her even happier to impress her royal mentor with a successful experiment. “Thank you for all your effort.”
“Hey, it's our effort. We're in this together, Lyra.” I feel her hoof on my shoulder. It's so warm. Everything around me is so warm. “You're not alone. You have ponies here in Ponyville who care for you and want to be there for you. Even when it's not time for one of our sessions, don't hesitate to pay me a visit, drop by for tea, for chat—hehehe—whatever you feel like!”
“Thank you, Twilight.” I really just want to sleep. “I'll keep that in mind.” The stupid horse carving is staring at me. I hate it.
“Remember—with the new channeling spell and all—the key thing is to relax!” Twilight's Voice rings in my ears. I'm walking away from her. The bright red door looms. “The rest will come naturally.”
“Naturally, right.”
I open the door.
Glaring sunlight. Golden rays and chattering voices. Hooves and hooves and hooves. The ground is broken, muddy, brown. Ponyville can never be perfectly green. So many hoofprints. So many wandering bodies. Ponies move like boulders, though their voices are dipped in vanilla. I feel sick. So much mud and dirt. I wonder how many of them are looking at me. Do I look different now that the new spell's in effect? A gust of cold wind. Spring is too fickle: stale one minute and damnably fragrant the next. You always loved spring. I feel sick again. Two minutes until I'm home. Hoofprints and voices. Has it always been this bright? Two minutes. Two minutes. Two minutes.
The first thing I see is my lyre. Glistening, golded frame. Tiny, immaculate strings. It hangs from a nail beside the cupboard. I should move it.
I shut the door behind me. I'm cut off from spring and wind and voices. It's so gray in my house. The glint of light off the lyre is an insult. I really should move it, but I don't.
I walk across the house. For some reason, the echoes of my hooves startle me. I thought I was used to this emptiness. I blame Twilight Sparkle. She told me to think, and I thought of you. She should have known. They all should know. I'm a walking sideshow attraction by now. Even if I played the lyre again, everypony would only laugh at me.
Wait, should I be recording all of this? I know she's going to be reviewing these thoughts. Maybe not just her. How many other unicorns are bridging the gap between her and the Princess? How many more damnable ponies are going to be picking apart my brain, piece by piece, like it's a box of matches?
Have to relax. Have to concentrate. I've been eating a lot more lately. I hate myself for it. Mustn't do that. Just... water. Water is good. Water will work.
I trot into the bathroom. It's so cramped in here. I can't believe we ever shared it. I grab a glass and pour water from the faucet. I look up while I drink and wish I hadn't. The unicorn's turquoise cheeks are hollow. Her mane is short; I shaved it about a month ago. I was pretty bad off then. Just what am I now? Bloodshot eyes. Paling coat. Dry lips. And that cap—that cone. It's like a bulging anvil of black arcanium on the tip of my horn. They should have just put a noose around my neck.
No. Must relax. Must be calm. Twilight is a silly pony, but a smart pony. Besides, she's got it together. What have I got?
I drink the water. It's cool and refreshing. It works for a minute, and my reflection and I are once again drowning in a sea of sighs.
My eyes close.
Ow.
Ow.
Too cold. Shower water is too cold. Luna almighty. Am I late on the heating bill too?
Huh... I wonder if that will get recorded. Better turn this channeling off or else Twilight will see me bathing.
Warming... Warming up. Thank Celestia, I paid it on time.
Close my eyes and pretend to be nothing but the vapors.
Is it self-indulgent of me to sit by a warm fireplace after I've had a warm shower? I don't know if I'm asking myself this or asking Twilight or whoever-pony-else will be reviewing this.
The burning wood crackles beyond the hearth. I sit on the couch, my legs curled up beneath me, like you always used to do. The radio sits across from me in the living room. There's an issue of Equestria Daily lying on the floor. I used to love occupying my time with those things. Now, I can't stop staring at the fire. Flickering embers and gasping sparks. Why are the beautiful things always the dying things?
It's a warm fire, but this sofa is cold. Maybe that's why I turned the channeling on again. It's just like the shower, only it lasts forever. I think it's because I know this that I can't stop staring at the fire, that I can't stop trying to fool myself.
Come to think of it, I shouldn't be recording this at all. I'll be sleeping soon. I've got to be at the hospital early in the morning. Then groceries. Then bills. Then... this.
It's always this.
Close my eyes. I can handle the darkness.
Rising. Gasping. Pale moonlight.
I'm sweating. It's too cold to be sweating. My heart. My heart. Will I die?
It's not dark enough to sleep. But that's not it. I had turned over in my slumbers, and the bed felt so empty. I thought I'd be rolling down a silken mudslide for eternity, with nopony to catch me. Somewhere an owl is shrieking beyond my bedroom windows. I wonder if he knows the truth that I'm slowly sinking into. If I had as much wits as him, I'd be screaming too.
It's this house. This damnable house. It doesn't deserve my screams. It doesn't.
I roll over into my bedsheets. I nuzzle my neck past the sweat, past the folds, past the hours of tossing and turning and the perpetual ringing in my ears. I can never scream, not until everything is gone, because all of this still smells like you. I'm too afraid to shatter that, it'd feel like the earth giving way beneath me. I'd be rolling downhill forever. Perhaps that's what I have been doing. Perhaps that's what woke me.
I look at the clock. I hate it, but only because it hates me. Four hours until I officially wake up. I throw the sheets over my head to hide the moonlight, to hide the owl. I can't hide from you. Four hours. Four hours. Four hours.
Breakfast is a stiff, boring ritual. A bowl of oats and Equestria Daily. Each time I bite, I feel like a giant albatross is vomiting down my throat. I think I'd rather eat the newspaper.
That was almost funny. I think I'll record that.
Thirty minutes, and I'm out the door.
Muddy ground. Dew and mist. I must be crazy to be getting up this early. All the other ponies are crazier. I'm barely downtown, and already I hear over a dozen colorful equines greeting me. I think they go out of their way to greet me. I don't hear them talking to each other nearly as much. Then again, I hardly care. This damn arcanium cap weighs so much. There's no hiding it. I tilt my head towards the dirt as I count the trots it takes to get to the hospital. I think I like it more inside those cold, sterile halls than out in the open. Nopony talks to me in the hospital. They're too serious to pretend to be cheerful. It's a sobering sensation. I intend to record a lot of it.
Why is Nurse Red Heart smiling? Oh dear Celestia, not her too.
“Good morning, Lyra! I see you're doing rather well! Did Twilight already switch the cap out?”
“Yes. She did.”
There's a blissful bout of silence as I walk across the nurse's station and open the utility closet with my assigned key. Heart monitors are beeping in the background. The checkerboarded hallways beyond are flooded with hushed sounds. Gurneys and orderlies. Wheelchairs and clipboard sheets. Everypony is too afraid to talk above the sound of a falling bedpan. I rather like it here.
“You sure? It looks the same to me. Then again—heheh—I'm hardly the magic expert. It's a good thing we've got Princess Celestia's star pupil in the center of Ponyville to look after the magically-afflicted.”
“I guess...” I grab a toolbox, a bucket, and a hoofsaw. I balance them carefully on my flank and make for the distant edge of the hospital. “I'm sorry I wasn't here yesterday on account of my session and all. I'd better catch up while I can.”
“Oh, it's quite alright. You've done so much good work with the expansion, Lyra. We couldn't have received your help at a better time.”
“It's helping me as much as it's helping you, Nurse Red Heart. When I finally get this thing off my head, I'll be able to do the work three times as fast.”
“Oh? But I thought you'd be going back to the music hall once you're...” Her voice stops. She's probably realizing by now that she shouldn't have said anything out loud to begin with. She's really sweet, but she should stick to her patients.
“I really just... want to work on the bathrooms, Nurse Red Heart. I think I should have majored in interior design instead of minored when I graduated from Canterlot College. I can't get the same relaxation that I used to from music.”
“Very well, just don't overdo it. You're the only pony working in that wing of the hospital, after all.”
“And I kind of prefer it that way.” I trot down the cold, sterile hallways. The light grows dimmer and dimmer. The plastered walls are replaced with dry panels and plywood. I march over the yellow tape, and into organized chaos, smelling of sawdust and copper plumbing. Strange how this place feels more like home than home.
I place my toolbox onto the floor, grab the hoof-saw, and go to work.
This one stall is a real bitch.
No matter how many times I try to measure it, there's no finding a perfect way to rig it to the wall. I know that I've gotten the partitions right, but whoever laid the foundation of this expanded wing of Ponyville Hospital was drinking something extra special in his or her sarsaparilla.
It's funny how the unexpected labor falls on the shoulders of those who volunteer instead of those who get paid. Whatever. I don't care. Not even all the golden bits in Equestria could make me do something else right now.
Sliding across the cold, shiny tile, I get underneath the spot where the bathroom stall is going to be erected. I measure the space one more damn time. I should have it right by now. I can come up with a solution to this mess. I can.
I stand back up and reach for a marking tool. As I do so, I glance up above the bathroom sink. I see a mirror covered with tarp. Part of the dangling plastic has fallen away, and the exposed surface of the glass shows me, shows my baggy eyes, shows the pale coat that had shivered under a curtain of sweat in the dead thick of night. And that's what does it.
I think of you.
It's suddenly colder in here, just as cold as it was in the concert hall months ago when I made an entire room full of instruments collapse in on me. I should have died then. I should have died.
Whatever. I'm here. I'm alive. And this damn bathroom stall is screaming to be born. I slide back across the tile, away from the mirror, and mark the wall.
I shouldn't be grocery shopping. I'm hungry. It's never a good idea to shop for food while you're hungry. I can't afford to buy too much fruit. These disability checks won't last forever. After all, I'm going to be cured someday, right? Right?
“Oh Lyra, how marvelous it is to see you.”
Dear Celestia. Rarity. I see a pair of spiky pineapples on a vendor's shelf beneath me. I think they belong in my eyesockets right about now.
“Done with another day's worth of volunteering at the hospital?” She bats her painted eyelashes. The only other time I've seen a face like that was in the less savory streets of Manehattan. “I think it's quite exceptional what you're doing for Ponyville's refuge for the ill and weak. Tell me—what is it that you're working on there? An intensive care unit? A new operating room, perhaps, hmmm?”
“I'm installing the toilet stalls to a new bathroom.”
“Oh... Uhm... Well then...” She smiles nervously, backtrotting half a step as if I just announced I had the plague. “Any useful facility is a good facility, yes?” It's then that I realize she's not alone. Another pale shadow is standing beside here, about a third her size. The little filly is staring at something above my eyes. I can see where this is going.
“I didn't mean to interrupt anything.” Why is my bag so empty? I should have finished shopping by now. The sun is setting. There are too many ponies around. There are always too many ponies. “I'm just getting the fixings for a weekend's worth of meals...”
“Oh, on the contrary! It was I who interrupted you!” Rarity smiles. “Though, I assure you it was for a good reason. Ahem.” She leans forward with a charming smile, as if it's supposed to have an effect on me. “Have you heard about Pinkie Pie's party tomorrow night at Sugarcube Corner?”
“I'm afraid that you're going to have to be more specific, Miss Rarity.”
“Heeheehee—She's celebrating the return of Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash from their most recent trip to Fillydelphia. Word is that Ponyville's latest, happy couple is about to make a big announcement!”
“You don't say...” The little filly is still staring. Judging from her silken, curled mane-style, her family must be pretty rich. She should know better. So many ponies should know better. I realize Rarity is staring at me too right now, but in a different way. “I... really don't think I will be attending the party.”
“Oh? But we would love to have you, darling. You were always such a pleasure to be around, and with all that extended labor you've been doing at the hospital, surely you could afford yourself a little respite!”
“It looks like she's got a dry eraser on her head!” the little filly finally says what she's thinking.
“Sweetie Belle! Honestly! What did we discuss before we trotted over here—?!” Rarity pauses in the middle of chiding her young companion in order to chide herself with a heavy grimace. “Erm... Anyways, do think about it, Miss Lyra. We would be ever so blessed by your presence.”
“Yeah. I'll think about it.” I won't.
“Very well then! A pleasant evening to you!” Rarity smiles at me, and all but bites the filly's ear off her skull as she escorts her away in a fierce canter. “We need to have a talk!”
“But sis! It's so funny looking—”
“Not another word! I swear, mother and father knew better than to raise a blabbermouth!”
They fade away into the bleeding sunset. It's the first time I've felt calm all day. I forget how hungry I am. Perhaps that's a good thing. I finish my purchase and trot the dull, crimson way home.
Twenty bits spent on meals, and I don't make myself a single bite to eat. The warm shower and fireplace isn't helping either. I don't even know why I'm recording this. If anything, I can at least prove that Twilight was right. It is getting easier to switch the channel on and off. I just wish I could predict when I really need it.
Perhaps now is such a time. My lyre isn't hanging from the hook. It's in my hooves. Cold and smooth. Curved and shiny. It fits perfectly into the crook of my hooves, but it never used to be like this.
It used to float. It used to dance in the sunlight. The cool drizzle of afternoon rain used to bathe it, used to bathe us, when I played it for you with the natural ease of my telekinesis. You would giggle and laugh. You would tell me that I was being lazy. I told you that all artists are lazy, for true genius is like lying in the womb and being fed your muse. Now, with this stupid cap on my horn, I struggle to hold this thing in my hooves and all I can think of is lying in your embrace instead.
The sofa is a poor substitute. The crackling fireplace is nothing like your humming voice. I reach a shaky hoof into the forest of strings stretched before me and all that comes out is dissonant nonsense. Where is my audience? Where is the pair of pearlescent blue eyes that shimmered in the aura of my magical instrumentation?
The moonlight wafting through my living room windows is pale. There is nothing for it to bounce off of. Nothing but me and the vibrating strings as I pluck my numb hooves through the cold bands like a foal trying to walk for the first time. These hooves are worthless. I should have practiced playing this way long ago. I could have practiced playing like this, but not any longer.
You're not here to listen to me. I cannot make music without you. I can only make sobs.
It always begins like this. Cold as knives, hot as lava. The tears pierce my eyelids like an infant bird clawing its way out of the shell. So many nights. So much cold sweat. I know it's only been half a year, but the baptism hasn't stopped. The only true sign of progress is that it happens three times a week instead of seven times. You wouldn't know this unicorn. You would hardly even recognize her.
I can only wonder, can only hope, that you would have loved her.
And now I'm at the point of no return. I curl into myself. The fuzzy gray living room is expanding. The fireplace is a million miles away, racing off and trying to find you in the darkness. I wish I was running along with it. Instead, I am stuck here, drowning in the echoes of my own sobs, wishing your voice was suffocating me instead.
I wake up and my hooves aren't mine. I can never explain it. I hate myself sometimes.
Daylight is too bright. I think Princess Celestia is a masochist. I may be miserable, but I'd never drown myself in infinite sunlight.
Damn, my hooves ache. I need a bath before I do anything today.
My muscles ache, but this time it is a good ache. I stretch and I heave and I finally slap the first of several toilet stalls into place. The cold sarcophagus of the partially-constructed hospital wing engulfs me as I engulf myself in my job. I take a step back and watch—under a victorious sheen of sweat—as a freshly erected partition stands before me. I think I may have made the doorframe a little too low, but I always preferred that anyways. There's nothing I hate more when I'm in a toilet stall than seeing the hooves of users on either side of me.
I should get to work on the next few stalls. I realize I'm taking a long time to set things up. It hardly matters. That's the great thing about volunteering; I get to create perfection in my own time.
And then I remember my regularly scheduled session with Twilight is in an hour, and I sigh again.
“But are they all sad thoughts?” Twilight asks. Her face is long. Her violet eyes are soft and warm and inviting. The library is like a bright torch around her. Lanterns glimmer and wood varnish shines. Her little dragon is nowhere to be found. I'm fine with that. His voice annoys me. “That is to say, do they only serve to make you feel lonesome?”
“They make me feel like a lot of things, Twilight. They are what they are. Lone strolls through the park. Picnics by the lake. Our favorite spot on the bridge where we stopped to chat and stare at the babbling brook. In the evening time, in summer, just before sunset, we'd sit out in the grass outside our house and watch ponies walk by on their way home. I think we did it not just because we were happy, but because we were proud. We wanted everypony to see us... to see us so blissful, and it delighted us to see smiles on their faces as they passed by. Do you suppose that's arrogant?”
Twilight shakes her head, her lavender lips curved. “I was one of those ponies who would walk by, Lyra. Seeing you two made me happy. I had long dreamed—and still do—that I too could be so happy sometime with a special somepony, studies permitting, of course. Heeheehee...”
“I've always thought that happiness is something you get not by searching for it. If you spend so much time looking, you get caught up in the pretense, and then the cheerfulness you finally do achieve is nothing but a pretensive facade.”
“Very eloquently put, Lyra. But is true happiness something that can be so logically compartmentalized? Never mind what you thought or still think. What about how you feel?”
“What's the difference?”
“Well, the difference—if I may be so bold to suggest—is that you were once a unicorn who wasn't afraid to feel, and ever since that one day in the concert hall when your telekinetic powers went haywire, you've relied on cold logic and unemotional thoughts to govern yourself. Never mind the suppression cap on your horn, Lyra. I think this new 'you' is what's keeping you from truly expressing yourself.”
I sigh. There's not enough oxygen in the world to weather these sessions. I feel fine. I have been feeling fine. The long nights and tears are just a side effect of existence. I know that now. I wonder if Twilight ever will.
“Just what do you want from me?”
“What I want is not important, Lyra. I'm just your magical therapist.” She smiles and leans on the edge of her pillow seat. The wooden room is like a cold box, trapping me with her grin. “And I think you've gone on for long enough thinking. Just how do you feel, Lyra?”
I gaze at her. If only my eyes could tell her everything. This might have shattered her less.
“I feel like she's never really left me...”
I feel like you're still there. You're around the corner in the hallway. You're just behind the bedroom door. You're standing at the far side of the kitchen and on the other side of the sofa. Every time I try to get to you, you trot away and giggle in silence. You think this is a game, and I do not blame you for it. There is as much innocence in death as there is before birth. Life makes infants and corpses of us all.
When I'm in the marketplace, you're right there beside me, laughing at the types of vegetables I pour into my bag. You try to outpace my hooftrots on the way to the hospital. I've always had a larger gait than you, and it amused us both to no ends every time you've tried to deny it.
In the hospital, as I work alone on the latest, lone construction project, it is then that I feel the contours of your sad frown matching the grayness of those desolate walls. You know what I know: that I should be performing music. It cannot be helped. If I take this cap off, I'll send another ceiling flying off its foundation. I could even hurt ponies, and neither of us would want that.
I know that it's for your sake that I leave the lyre hanging on the wall, so that it's there in open sight every time I walk in through the door, just like you would be. It is also a broken and dead thing, like my hooves are—or should be, for they're all I have now. All the magic is gone, as well as all the joy. I know this. I can conclude this and accept this in an instant, but it wouldn't make a difference. So long as you're around me, in some effluent shadow of the past or another, I know that the truth is not just for me to realize, but for you to realize as well.
I can only hope that someday...
“Someday she will learn, as I have learned, that life is far too short to afford precious things.” I shrug. This is as real as anything I've ever sweated or sobbed to in bed. The Ponyville library is merely a vessel for the unbreakable epitaphs of time. “Until then, I can feel whatever I want to feel. But, to think of anything else but her, is but a dream... until the very fragments of that dream can be swept away, along with her. I know more than anypony that this will take time. A nightmare is only a nightmare as soon as you wake up from it, and I'm trying very hard—Twilight—but I'm afraid that my eyes are still closed. I'm living this world asleep. I don't know what it will take to wake me up, but I'm glad that you're willing to help.”
I haven't realized how long I've been talking until I see the last of several tears streaking halfway down Twilight's face. She sniffles, her face contorting. I can see how professional she's trying to be. I realize that this is as much a journey for her as it is for me. If I had any self-respect, I would have hired a psychiatric expert from Canterlot months ago instead of her, but that's assuming I ever really wanted to be cured.
She reaches forward and plants a lavender hoof gently on my shoulder, smiling at me. The gesture is as artificial as her tears; she's just too naïve to know it. I play silent as she delivers her earnest words to me across the library, “Your love is a beautiful thing, Lyra. I have no doubt that she loved you just as much, and if she was still alive... and saw you like this... she would let you go, Lyra. She would do the same thing for you as you would do for her, so that you can live on. What greater love is that?”
I look deep into Twilight's eyes, and suddenly I see your eyes instead, pearlescent blue oceans that once twitched and brimmed beneath me, that clung onto every visual piece of my sobbing face as the light went out in your soul and the warmth was drained from your limbs. I held your porcelain shell for what must have been centuries, and no matter how loud my wails were, they could not drown out the sacred serenade of your final, fainting breath.
Yes. There is greater love.
I barely notice Twilight has gotten up until I see her wandering back from a table beset with tissues. She smiles at me, attempting to dredge me up from the black mire of our session. If only things were that simple. “I have an idea, Lyra. There's going to be a party this afternoon...”
I can already feel my ears drooping on either side of the horn-cap's weight. “You don't say...”
“Pinkie Pie's inviting everypony to attend. There's going to be lots of treats, lots of chatter, maybe even some games.” She squats down on folded limbs beside me. “And... I really think you should attend.”
She knows my answer even before I do. “I really don't think that's a good idea, Twilight.”
“Lyra, there's more in life worth absorbing your thoughts than volunteer work at the hospital. How many months have you been in therapy, and in all of that time have you bothered to mingle with other ponies? You know, like you used to?”
I sigh. The room is full of books and still there aren't enough words to formulate an excuse. “I used to do a lot of things, Twilight. None of them are all that easy to do now.”
“Which is why you should try, Lyra. Perhaps you'll discover that it's not so hard to...” She briefly giggled and smiled wider. “...to be cheerful, just for the sake of the feeling.” She winked. “We are trying to get you to feel again, right?”
I hate it. I hate it when she speaks in plural-first-person. If only she knew how grating it was. But she doesn't, and I can't fault her for ignorance. When all the life is drained from a pony by a single, traumatic experience, the gritty parts left over are the most fertile, and they rarely grow fruit trees. For the longest time, I realized that I knew more than she did about all this, in that I didn't bother to try to know much at all. This really is her journey. The unicorn's entire legacy in Ponyville is her journey. I should be annoyed by this, and yet I can't help but pity her... in much the same way she thinks she's pitying me. Ponies who are the most lost are the ones who don't even know it. That's something that can't be helped, but it can be humored.
“Alright, Twilight,” I say with a groan. “I'll attend, for what it's worth.”
“That's good, Lyra. That's very good,” she says with a bright smile, then points her horn towards mine like an extra appendage. “And be sure to switch the channeling spell on while you're there. If this experiment of ours is to be of any success, then you should record the good moments as much as the random or unpleasant ones.”
Pink balloons. Pastel streamers. Confetti and horns and bright lights. Now everything isn't just random and unpleasant, it's random and unpleasant and annoying. Pinkie Pie is at the center of it all, and that explains everything. I try to ignore her like I ignore the rotation of the Earth. I sit in the corner, the quintessential wallflower. I've tried to be fashionably late, but it hasn't been late enough. Time is ticking, beating against my eardrums like the fast-tempo music warbling off the record player. I want out of here like a newborn. These hooves of mine can't crush my skull, but they keep rubbing my temple in the humble attempt. Why in Celestia's name am I recording this again?
Ponies. Lots of ponies.
Dear Luna, how can there be so many? I don't think even the streets of Ponyville had this many equines at any given time. I'm starting to think they're all trying too hard. Even the pegasi are floating just beneath the ceiling of Sugarcube corner to make room for the bulging crowd. What could possibly garner this much attention?
I look at the banner one more time with as much disbelief as I have the last dozen times. It's a congratulatory message to Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash. I'm not even sure what the “congratulations” is for. Did I miss it? I somehow don't doubt it.
Rarity's at least two dozen manes across the eatery from me. For the umpteenth time, she makes eye contact and attempts to sashay over. Then, for the umpteenth time squared, she's interrupted by some pony acquaintance or another who distracts her long enough for the mechanical absurdity to rinse and repeat. It's the most tense situation I've ever been in my life. At least it distracts me from Pinkie Pie.
I sigh. I'd rather be drowned in sweat and tears than this. At least there is punch to look forward to. Tears and punch—they seldom ever cross paths, but I am thankful for them both nonetheless. I glance at the clock. It's two hours until midnight. There's a shrill scream from across Sugarcube Corner that breaks the rhythmically predictable music of Vinyl Scratch, and I glance up in time to see Rainbow Dash attempting to disentangle a tiny green alligator from Fluttershy's tail while frowning at an embarrassed Pinkie Pie. The room vibrates. Giggles and confetti. Two more hours. Two more hours. Two more hours.
“Fillies and gentlecolts!” Rainbow Dash's voice booms over the neverending cacophony of pastel-colored jubilee. She hovers in the center of the room with the demure, wilted shape of Fluttershy at her side. “If we could have your attention, please!”
Am I still awake? Unfortunately, I think the answer is “yes.” Midnight is an arrogant mistress, and I'm already plotting her murder. The room becomes briefly, blissfully quiet as several ponies turn to face the two guests of honor in the center of the sugary place.
“As you all well know, Pinkie threw us this wild and crazy shindig to let us get something epic off our chests!” Rainbow Dash smiles proudly and throws a grin Fluttershy's way while shaking the yellow pegasus' shoulders. “Go on, Fluttershy. Tell 'em the good news!”
“Mmmm...” The mare's platinum cheeks morph into a rosy hue. I think something is about to explode from deep inside her, and she's too scared to prevent it.
Rainbow Dash rolls her eyes and promptly rescues the situation. “Ahem... Fine... I have a special announcement to make!” She hugs Fluttershy even tighter and grins victoriously towards the crowd. “Fluttershy and I spent a week in Fillydelphia visiting a foster home. We've decided to adopt our first child by the end of the month! We're starting a family!”
Roaring cheers. Whistles and giggles and gleeful chants. My ears hurt. I hear Applejack's twangy caterwauling for the first time. I didn't even know she was here. From across the room, Twilight smiles at me, as if this was somehow supposed to be “our moment” as much as it was Rainbow's and Fluttershy's. I don't get it.
No. That's a lie. I do get it. You would smack me for denying so.
I really don't want to be here right now. I thought I'd be gone by midnight, but that awesome declaration has undeniably thrown an extra hour of euphoria into the wild party. I'm starting to feel too exhausted to bother being polite. The cap on my horn weighs heavier and heavier. When was the last time I ate? I'm so full of punch at the moment; I might build a toilet stall right where I'm sitting just to give myself an excuse.
“We... uhm... We've already selected the little filly,” Fluttershy's voice finally breaks through her iron-tight lips. “The infant's name is 'Rosy Skies', and her late parents were Clousdalian. It... It seemed only fitting...”
“Well, I for one, am happy for you!” Twilight Sparkle walks up, speaks up, and telekinetically raises a glass of punch. “If I could propose a toast to the new and proud foster parents of Ponyville...”
Yeah. Now's a good time to stop recording.
Ow. What did I just bump into? I was on my way out the door, finally, when—Oh, Pinkie Pie.
“Aren't you excited, Lyra?!” She jumps and jumps. She's in my face. Celestia alive, what's wrong with ponies these days? Do we really need to breathe on each other? “Sure beats banging tools around a dusty, half-built bathroom, huh?! Come on and say 'hello' to the newly adoptive parents!”
“Pinkie Pie, I'm happy for them. But I think I really need to go—”
“Well, here's your opportunity to tell them just how happy you are!” Pinkie is practically dragging the two confused pegasi over to me. “Fluttershy! Dashie! Look who showed up just for you!”
The same euphoria that dribbles off of Pinkie Pie's face is hardly showing in Fluttershy's and Rainbow Dash's. As soon as they glance at me, their eyes tilt up, twitch, then force themselves back down to look me square in the face. They're immune to the hysterical cloud engulfing their pink friend, and I respect them for that. I truly do.
“Oh... H-Hey, Lyra!” Rainbow Dash's smile cracks almost as much as her voice does half the time.
“It is oh so special to have you here,” Fluttershy says in a lulling voice. Golden silk to my ears. For a brief moment, I'm almost calm enough to be the kind of party guest they deserve to be graced with. “After all you've been through, it's encouraging to see you spending time with other ponies again. I do hope you've managed to have some fun.”
“Twilight made you come, didn't she?” Rainbow's eyebrows raise interrogatively.
“Shhh!” Fluttershy nudges her partner with a surprising show of strength, then smiles my way again. “I'm sure you heard the big announcement. At first, I really didn't want to make a big show out of it, but—”
“But how could you not party over something as awesome and amazing and super sweet as Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy adopting a new, baby foal?!” Pinkie Pie's head shook, and her explosive hair with it. How can anypony stand to let her mane get so tangled and unkempt? Even in my darkest days as of late, my mane has remained straight. Shorter than normal, perhaps, but straight. “As soon as they told me, I knew that every other pony in Ponyville had to hear it with surprise fanfare! Because any tiny soul lucky enough to be blessed by Dashie's and Fluttershy's parenting deserves no less of a celebration! I'm already planning Rosy Skies' first birthday party, second, third—Oh! Don't forget the cutsie-nera! Of course, that's—what?—nine or ten years down the line, but it doesn't hurt to be prepared! Just like my grandma said! 'The best celebration is the one met with great anticipation!' And, yes, I know that totally makes her sound like a zebra shaman, but I'm pretty sure if she had stripes under that pink coat, I would have known by the time Octavia and I were old enough to ride a bike—”
“I think she gets the picture, Pinkie,” Rainbow Dash says, planting a blue hoof over the party host's muzzle. She smirks my way, her eyes surprisingly soft for the notoriously brash weather flier of Ponyville. “On your way home, Lyra? We won't stop you.”
It's the first blessing I've had all day. “I'm glad for you two.” I really mean it. Or, at least, I would have really meant it. It is the right thing to say, after all. My horn is so heavy. There's a warm shower waiting for me somewhere. I'm surprised to actually be looking forward to it again. “I... uhm... I'm sorry that I wasn't there for your wedding reception six months ago. Things were... well...”
“We know, Lyra,” Fluttershy nods. There's a sudden desperation to be seen in how close she's hugging her partner from the side. She knows she can't hide it from me, from my eyes. “And if ever you need somepony to talk to, Rainbow and I are here.”
“Oh! You guys should really get together and talk sometime!” Pinkie Pie is again everywhere, everywhere in my face, yanking her glance back and forth between me and the two pegasi. “What happier place is there to be than in a conversation with a loving couple on the eve of their next best day ever!”
“Right...” I shudder. The weight of the horn-cap carries my glance down. The floor tile of Sugarcube Corner is suddenly and unexpectedly interesting to me. “Well, if you don't mind, I'd best be off—”
“It's an even better day than when they got married!” Pinkie Pie beams. “Cuz they're starting a family now! Against all odds, they're spreading their love into uncharted... erm... waters of joy and stuff!”
“Pinkie Pie...” Fluttershy's voice spins through the air. It's a trembling thing. “Uhm... I-I think that's enough...”
“And I can't wait to see the little scamp grow up! To think of her being a combined bubble of awesome and gentleness because of you two! It's like heaven's gift to Ponyville! Don't you think so, Lyra?”
I can't see the floor anymore. The bright tiles are merging. Blue and pink. Your mane hair used to glow in the toasty light of the fireplace. You turned and gazed at me. You asked me what I thought. For a moment, you actually assumed I hadn't been listening to you. But I heard every single word that you said. And I told you that I would only go through with it if it was a colt, because I've always wanted to play catch with a kid and this world is too damned cruel to fillies who want to telekinetically pitch softballs. You smiled at me, tears in your eyes, as if what I said was the sweetest reply you could ever hear. You would have kissed me, but then you started coughing. You started coughing and you never stopped. You never stopped. You never...
“Lyra? Pfft! Hellooooo? Don't be a rudey-rudey-tomfooler-dudey at the newlyweds' biggest celebration ever!”
“I... I need to go...”
“Heehee! Come on! Don't be shy—” She reaches over. Her hooves could just as well be red hot pokers.
So I bat them away like the claws that they are. Somepony is yelling and she sounds like me. “Will you buzz off, you stupid, overgrown child?! I said I was happy for them, wasn't that enough?!” A record scratches to silence somewhere. Every breath in the crowded place is like a falling pile of dull pebbles. Somehow, I don't think that avalanche has quite ended. “I'm happy that they're so lucky! I'm happy that they're both alive and healthy! And I'm happy they've got a little bundle of joy to add to the colorful mess!” Pinkie Pie is lying on her back, her legs curled, her blue eyes blinking wide. This is what clues me into the fact that I'm leering over her. The horn's shadow above her has a bulbous end, like somepony's waving a hammer over her flinching features. “What more do you want from me?! I only came to this party because I was asked to! Some ponies just aren't in the mood to celebrate! Some ponies have lost enough that they know better than to party over things that haven't happened yet! So will you get a frickin' clue and lay off?!”
Pinkie Pie stares up at me, her eyes wide. For the briefest moment—obscured by my heaving, hyperventilating vision—she looks like the shadow of the annoying creature I'm familiar with. Perhaps it's the weight of this horn-cap straining at my eyesight, but I can almost swear her hair is straighter than normal, a precious and porcelain thing that looks as though it’s been shattered before.
“Lyra...?” she murmurs, her voice like a lanternlight suddenly about to be snuffed out. “I... I know a thing or two about losing what I love.” She gulps, and her next breath is a far stronger thing than I could ever muster. “But I've chosen to laugh at all the darkness in my life. After so many months of Twilight helping you, what have you chosen?”
“Pinkie!” a lavender unicorn's voice barks from across the room.
Everyone flinches, as if expecting me to explode. But I haven't. After all, you wouldn't have let me, and suddenly I realize that. It hurts more than anything I've pretended to be sorrowful about over the last half-a-year. I gaze up at the room, and everypony makes up a blank mosaic of hollow shells, and yet they're so full of life. I'm afraid I'll be too numb to the fires in their eyes to ever be sentient enough to envy what they have.
Anger is a good enough shroud to escape under. “You know what, screw all of you. I'm doing rather fine for myself, thank you very much.” I choose to make my escape swiftly, darting out of the depths of Sugarcube Corner with a swish of my gray tail. But upon the exit, I trudge into the fields of failure, and I spin about in time to catch their eyes aimed at what I know they're too selfish to pry themselves away from. “And stop staring at my friggin' horn! It's not going to hop out and choke you to death!” I shout, pointing at the offending promontory on my skull, along with its arcanium cap. “As a matter of fact, this stupid plug is the one thing keeping me from going all Discord on your flanks! So would it kill you to be friggin' grateful?!”
Every face suddenly turns from me, all except for one. It's a genuine sadness instead of superficial disappointment that blemishes Twilight Sparkle's expression. I really, really don't look forward to our next appointment. I turn and leave the party in a huff. Life is a masquerade ball from the get-go. Maybe someday, one of those ponies will understand that, and realize they're just as guilty as I am of not being able to hold in all the pretense.
I arrive home under the cover of darkness and the first thing I see is my lyre. That's what sets me off. I slam the door shut. I pace loudly across the living room on clopping hooves. No amount of walls, no number of kitchen cabinets, no dazzling array of doors—bedroom doors, closet doors, or basement doors—can hold in my seething breaths. Suddenly, it's not Twilight's fault. It's not Fluttershy's or Rainbow Dash's fault. It's not even Pinkie Pie's fault. It's all that damnable lyre, and since I can't in very good sanity rip off two patches of skin from my flanks, I do the next best thing.
When the musical instrument slams into the hearth, it actually bounces off like it was made of rubber. I'm almost too surprised to be angry. It's with a hazy disposition that I find myself jumping up and down on top of the musical instrument, mangling it beyond recognition, bending the strings at odd angles, squeezing every drop of syphonous melody out of the platinum corpse that I used to hold value in, that I used to mark the days of joy with, that I used to think could paraphrase my past and future into a single ballad of hope and cohesion.
Forty seconds into my dastardly deed, I am screaming. It is a long and violent thing, far lengthier than it needs to be, and I realize that the reason for this is because I am trying to drown out the inevitable, but I can't. I don't have the breath to do it. I don't have the sheer mortal willpower or awesome strength. I fall to my knees, and as soon as my lungs are empty, my hope is gone, for you have caught up with me. You cannot be masked by screams. You cannot be washed away by tears. You are behind every door that I open, and it only ever leads into an empty room christened by all of your shadows and none of your smiles.
With my sobs, I beg for you to hold me. With my tears, I plead and I entreat you. You answer with nothing, for you are nothing, and I will only ever be half of nothing... so long as I am alive here without you.
So I live in this house, before a dead fireplace, collapsed in a heap of my own crying breaths, trying to piece together the parts of me you once thought was precious, that you were once so passionately willing to marry, that you would even have raised a brand new life with. Instead, there is what there always has been, with or without you, with or without us. There is death, nothing but it. I cry myself to sleep, not even bothering to crawl myself into the bedroom, and I practice for that which I've learned to expect nothing less of.
Golden light. Morning mist and painful hunger. Did I sleep in? Why am I on the floor? My face is drier than it should be. I was crying over something last night. I should take a shower and make myself breakfast before I remember what it is that I was upset about.
Wait. My lyre?
Oh Celestia dang it. Celestia dang it to Hell.
Maybe I'll choke on a bowl of oats.
I didn't choke. Orderlies and nurses flurry past me as I march down the sterile hallway of Ponyville Hospital, past the emergency room, past distant and murmuring visitors clustered around loved ones in the throes of panic an agony.
Nurse Red Heart is up ahead. I briefly wonder if she caught wind of my little speech at Sugarcube Corner. She takes one glance at me and from the look in her face, I know that she has.
“Lyra! You're... here today!”
“The bathroom won't finish itself.” I've already got the utility closet open. I grab my tools. My hoofsaw. My bucket... Just what do I use the bucket for anyways? I dunno. “I'm taking long enough as it is. There's no point in delaying any longer.”
“Oh Lyra, both you and I know this isn't about that wing of the hospital being finished.” She smiles. Her teeth are whiter than white. I really wish she'd stop aiming them at me. “You should be taking your time. I... I really think you deserve a day off.”
“These are my days off, Nurse Red Heart. They all are. Now if you'll excuse me—”
“But you look like a mess! Did you even get any sleep last night—?”
“I slept as I always slept! Cold, dead and stupid!” I snarl, forcing even the patients to glance my way. “Now let me do my work and save the bedside manner for those in bed!” I'm gone long before anypony can call the cops. If only the day could get that exciting.
I hate this bathroom stall with a passion. I've sliced the fiberglass into what I thought was an appropriate length, but somehow it's even longer than when I first measured it. I don't know what's actually bending: my eyesight or the laws of time and space. Maybe parasprites are to blame. Whatever. You would have liked that joke.
No. No more sighing. No more tears. You're not here. I'm here. The toilets are here. The sawdust is here, and I'm about to make more.
I slap the fiberglass wall onto two overturned blocks and brace them in place. I grasp the hoofsaw in one limb and lean over the plank, my tail facing the line of tarped windows behind me. Life is as simple as you build it or destroy it. I have a straight line marked out for me. All I need to do is cut along the meridian and I'll have this damnable partition fixed just right.
As soon as I begin slicing, the rhythmic grinding noise fills my ears like the hushed murmur of a dying party. I groan inwardly. It's still too early to feel guilty about last night. The anger is still fresh, still righteous. I should lean on the crutches of my passion more. Maybe that's what Twilight means when she tells me that I should “feel” more. But if that's true, then she wouldn't like what I feel. She wouldn't like this sullen spirit boiling underneath it all, waiting to sprout its explosive ambush.
I have chosen, Pinkie Pie. I have chosen what to do with my life. What has that cotton-candy-maned abomination of pink ever done to earn the right to choose? She lives in Mr. and Mrs. Cake's attic like a discarded piece of furniture, and I'm willing to bet her tears are worth just as much dust. I don't care what she thinks she's lost. If she goes around shoving her grin into other ponies' faces like that, she certainly hasn't learned anything from it.
I grit my teeth. The plank is refusing me. Everything is refusing me. I saw harder and harder, slicing the fiberglass apart like I would wish to slice apart this blasted day long before it's even started. Things can never be simple, and yet they are. Why is it that I'm the only living thing in Ponyville to see it? The lights are either on or off. What we call “precious” are really just illusions, attributes we assign to things that we are too afraid to lose. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy think as though they're adopting something precious. It hasn't occurred to them yet that they could lose it even before they have it. How could they? What has Fluttershy lost? She's the daughter of a famous, rich Equestrian physician. And what about Rainbow Dash? She still thinks she can join the Wonderbolts. She isn't even remotely prepared to face the undeniable loss in front of her.
Precious things are only precious because they stand to no longer exist as soon as we comprehend them. I almost want to teach this to everypony, but what's the use? They live off the fumes of blissful, childish dreams, whether it’s becoming a famous fashion icon or a Wonderbolt or... or... Princess Celestia's third ovary. It doesn't matter.
I saw harder and harder. Flakes of fiberglass are bathing my rear hooves. I've been bathed in worse things before. Judging by how long I'll be living in this stupid, clueless town, I'm bound to be bathed in even more. How dare they all stare at me like some sort of freak? And how dare Pinkie Pie call me rude?
I don't feel rude. I feel cold—sharp, jagged knives of icy cold. It's gnawing its way into my left hoof, and suddenly it blossoms into something far deeper and far redder beneath the frigid exterior. This is not cold. This is pain. Lots and lots of pain.
I've just sliced my left arm open.
“Nnnngh—Aaaugh!”
I jerk back, and a red fountain jerks with me. Bathes me. Trips me as I sprawl onto my haunches and squirm into the recesses of my suddenly soaked self. I clutch my left limb with my right hoof. The gash is deep. I look into it and white bone looks back. A shrill cry, foalish and floundering. I never knew my voice could reach such a high pitch. My body is stinging with this jarring pain. My entire skeleton vibrates. I feel like the arcanium cap is going to fly off my horn. In some way, I wish it had.
“Mmmmmnngh—Damn it! Damn it to hell!”
I stumble up to my hooves and kick the bucket. I finally know what that thing's for. It clatters beneath the indifferent line of mirrors as I stumble through a throbbing bathroom of anguish, leaking red beneath me. Dear Luna, it's an absolute fountain. I feel it spurting out of me with each wrenching pulse. I'm emptying myself everywhere. How important was the part of me I just lacerated? At least I'm in a hospital. Somepony somewhere must be hearing my screams. I don't care how deep into the expanded wing I am.
Still, eveypony is so immeasurably far away. I'd give anything to be blinded by Nurse Red Heart's bright white teeth right about now, if only it would mean the end to this slick, crimson suffering. I hobble forward on three limbs, screeching at myself like an albatross pierced by an arrow, and just as unbalanced as a clipped bird would be flightless.
I look ahead. The world's fogging through tears I'm too ashamed to acknowledge. All I see is a black obelisk, the empty nothing encompassing a door. I fall towards it, collapsing, and brace myself with the last thing I can—my injured limb. I let out a shriek as my weight crushes the fresh wound, plastering the doorframe with my inside's juices. It's all too much... too much blood. This isn't good. I'm scared. I'm so scared. I shut my eyes and lean against the bloodied doorframe. You... You...
You used to hold me at times like this. I was a grown mare, and still I was scared of ridiculous things like thunderstorms or shrieking cats in the middle of the night. I always hated cats. When you asked me why, I pretended like I hadn't said anything, and simply surrendered myself into the hug I had forced you to give me under the covers.
I smiled victoriously to myself, and judging from how long you held me into the whimpering recesses of the night, I think you felt like it was a victory worth celebrating too. It's been nearly half a year, and still it surprises me how well I can remember the feel of your breath against my mane, and how much it warmed me.
The pain is gone. The surprise of this is what opens my eyes, and I am even further shocked to see that every light in the hospital is out. I know that this is the extended wing, and things are still undergoing construction, but I don't see why the rest of the hospital's staff would have switched all the lights off at this time of the day. Surely they know that I'd be working here. Maybe I actually ticked off Nurse Red Heart earlier. Even so, I doubt she'd do something as petty as ruin my volunteer work by playing with the circuit breakers.
Wait, my pain is gone.
I glance at my hoof. In all those panicked seconds of bleeding a moment ago, I didn't feel like vomiting as much as I do now. My limb has stopped bleeding, but the wound is still there. It's almost as if the blood has patched itself up, performing a week's worth of scabbing up in a single blink. That can't be right. Did I pass out and wake up? If so, could I have done all of it in a standing position?
I glance at myself. I'm still leaning against the doorframe, but somehow that is different too. The wood looks older, splintery, decrepit. Wasn't the foundation for this laid less than two months ago?
I turn around and glance at the bathroom. Now I know something's screwy. The two bathroom stalls that I erected just yesterday are in the same place as I left them, but they look old. I mean really old. There're mildew strains on them and flakes of shattered fibreglass spilled all over the toilets. It's as though the bathroom had been left unattended for weeks... months... no, screw that, years.
My body swivels about once more, and a faded image stares back at me. I blink. The tarps have cleanly fallen off the mirrors of the bathroom. The sinks are hanging off the walls of shattered tile. Rust and sediment is pouring out of every faucet. I stroll up to the mirror and glance curiously at the figure beneath all the grime. I raise a hoof, wipe a stretch of glass clean, and gasp so hard at what I see that I nearly trip over myself.
The arcanium cap is gone. My horn is barren. Oh Dear Celestia, this is bad! I can't control my magic! I'll tear this wing of the hospital to shreds!
I fall into a shivering heap on the ground and clutch my skull, whimpering. It's a pathetic sight, I imagine, but a necessary one, for as long as it lasts. And it doesn't last long, for none of my fears are coming true. Everything is still. Everything is desolate. Slowly, pensively, I stand back up, blinking curiously at the reflection once more.
The cap is gone, and yet the suppression fields are still active. Either that, or I don't need the suppression spell anymore. But that can't be right! My head still feels heavy. Everything about this room is twice as sterile as normal.
Wait, can I even be recording anymore? If the cap was on, I know I sure as heck would be at this point. My heart won't stop beating. I look around and around at the tattered lengths of the room... and reali
