• Published 4th Dec 2013
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Appledashery - Just Essay



Rainbow Dash lives an exciting life and is swiftly becoming the most daring, awesome pegasus in all of Equestria. She would gladly give it all up, though, just to confess her love to Applejack.

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Polyph Screwed Polyph

"One of them thawed!" Polyph's voice growled. Rainbow heard the fumbling of limbs becoming disentangled from across the way. She fought the urge to spin around and look at the scene, for fear of turning to stone. "I knew I should have channeled extra frost!"

"Then how come she's not shivering--? Polyph!"

A pair of heavy steps thundered across the stone floor, an eerie sensation for the pegasus' ears.

"Hey! You! Damned ponysquito! Back in the bag with you!"

"Polyph, wait! She can fly, you idiot!"

It didn't take a college professor to know that the cyclops was the one charging violently up towards Rainbow Dash. So—like the flight school dropout that she was—Rainbow Dash undertook a mental calculation, flapped her wings, and backflipped away from the door right as the cyclops came barreling in, swiping at her with a massive fist.

"Whoah!" Polyph stumbled forward, tripped, and slammed skull-first into the door. Both frames rattled, and cracks formed along their wooden surfaces. Dusty air billowed around him as he struggled and strained with the sudden predicament he was in. "Graaaugh!" He yanked back at his shoulders and neck, but the horn in his head had stuck deep into the wooden surface of the doors. "Hmmmnnghh! Guh! My horn!"

"You piece of demon crap!" Durandal grumbled. "You know we have to keep those doors shut! What's the matter with you?!"

As Rainbow flew backwards, she caught a brief glint of the basilisk's direct eyesight. Her inner organs quivered, and she banked sharply to the left to break the gaze. When she evened out, she was blind in her right eye. The pegasus gasped, her entire face twitching. Hovering to a stop towards the roof of the ceiling, she fluttered her right eyelid, feeling a strain on her muscles.

Two or three of her eyelashes had turned to stone. She tried plucking them with the edge of her hoof, but her limbs were still too numb from withdrawal.

It was a few seconds into this breathless moment that she saw her dark silhouette forming against a spotlight on the ceiling. The air rushed beneath her with the unmistakable whistling noise of a reptilian snout careening her way.

Grunting, Rainbow Dash twirled, kicked at a stalactite, and dove down. Rows of teeth snapped just inches from her flailing tail. The resulting thunderclap of Durandal's jaws sent a shockwave of distorted air flying in every direction. The blast struck Rainbow in the flank, knocking her weight off balance. She stifled a shriek, shooting her left feathers straight out so that she could slow her plummet into a gradual spiral. In so doing, she found herself cycling around the outstretched body of the basilisk. Several legs swiped at her, with razor-sharp claws missing her by multiple hairs' width.

Squeaking from the straing on her muscles, Rainbow Dash twirled past his angry legs, dodged falling stalactites from the impacted ceiling, and then dove past his thick, slashing tail. She dove deep into the ruins of the collapsed pegasus city, finding a hiding space in the shadow of two collapsed temple and a veritable forest of marble columns.

"Dammit, where'd she go?!" Durandal shouted. "I had her! I know it! No pegasus could possibly be that fast!"

"Will you stop trying to munch on pony popcorn and h-help me, Durandal?!"

"Hey! Why should I help you?! You brought a live chesspiece into my lair!"

"It's not... nnngh... your lair forever!"

"Shut up! I need to find where this puny ingrate is hiding!"

"Use your... nnnngh... tongue, ya scaley ferret!"

"Idiot! I'm way ahead of you!" Durandal's voice shook the Cloudstone ruins with bass reverberations as his dozens of legs trampled over the cracked buildings.

In the meantime, Rainbow Dash had slid herself into a crack between to collapsed marble columns. Scrunched up in their combined shadow, she caught her breath, squinting with one eye as she struggled, fumbled, and finally pried the cap off to her pill container. Tossing a tablet down her throat, she licked up her own sweat, added it to the saliva, and gulped. She pressed her head back to the Cloudstone column and held her breath.

In slow, pinprick tingles, she felt the senses coming back to her limbs. The cavern felt suddenly cold and jarring. She tried not to shiver.

The ground above her shook.

She gritted her teeth, blinking. She remember she was still half-"blind." She tried forcing her right lid open, but the lashes were weighing her eye shut.

"Guhhh!"

Hissing to herself, she pouted, then gasped. Her hooves flew to her saddlebag. After a little bit of rummaging, she pulled out the looking-glass that Churning had given her hours ago. She aimed the thing at her face, spotting the gray spokes that her ill-fated lashes had become. Biting onto her lower lip, she squeezed the lashes under the flat of her left hoof and plucked with all her might.

"Yeowch!"

She dropped the things like pins to the floor. To her shock, they echoed like bullets.

Rainbow tensed immediately. Being able to see clearly out both eyes was of very little comfort to her. She held her breath, glancing left and right. The pegasus didn't dare glance completely around either edge of the Cloudstone columns behind her.

All the while, the scraping and scuffling of reptilian claws drew closer... distant... closer... and then distant again.

The pegasus fidgeted. She took a long look at her mirror. With a deep breath, the pegasus held the thing up in the crook of her hoof, then angled the reflective part around. This way, she was able to peer along the floor of the cavern immediately surrounding her hiding spot. She spotted shifting shadows, the hint of a sweeping light, and then nothing.

Her blue brow furrowed. Leaning to the right somewhat, she tilted the looking glass at a sharper angle.

She saw an uneven ceiling. Stalactites careening from their foundations. Scrape marks. A flash of light—

Just then, the mirror filled up completely with a single, pale, glowing eye, surrounded completely by scales.

Rainbow's voice cracked as her whole body tensed. "Luna's nipple!"

Shiiiiinccckt! A pair of claws slashed through the air on either side of her and the marble columns. The razor sharp appendages fished through the air, feeling, searching.

The pegasus' heart pumped and pumped. As the claws inched closer, scraping at the Cloudstone above and behind her, she scrunched her body up into a little blue statue and clenched her eyes shut. She hissed through clenched teeth, sweating up a storm. She searched the inner surfaces of her eyelids, thinking about brighter places, happier places.

A blonde mane. Tender freckles. A voice like cinammon.

Crkkk!

The Cloudstone started to buckle all around her...

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