Morning came. The sun rose.
Normally, Rainbow Dash would have embraced the dawn with an elaborate, cat-like stretch. This occasion was very, very different. As soon as she awoke, she felt strong forelimbs wrapped around her from behind. Her eyelashes fluttered open, and after ten seconds of cognizance, she smiled... then smiled some more.
Roarke was still asleep, her naked eyes clenched shut as her body expanded and contracted form directly behind Rainbow. The petite pegasus could feel every subtle twitch of the metal mare's coat hairs as she drifted along in her slumber.
With a quiet trilling sound, Rainbow tugged one of Roarke's hooves up towards her chin and gave it a soft, feather-light nuzzle. She closed her eyes once more, willing to let sleep quietly engulf her once more.
As soon as she attempted relaxing, something caused her eyelids to flutter. The mare stirred, then stirred again.
"Hrmm..."
Her muzzle scrunched.
"Hrmmmmmfff..."
She rubbed her eyelids, blinked several times, then squinted through the forest. Her lips pursed. She clenched and unclenched her eyes several times.
"... .... ...what?"
There was a second light on the horizon. A light that wasn't the Sun.
Rainbow's brow furrowed. When she blinked, the light was still there. Even when she clenched her eyes shut tight, the illumination lingered in the distance, like a tiny shimmer against infinite haze and darkness.
By this time, Rainbow was wide awake with confusion. She felt Roarke stirring behind her. Nervously—yet quietly—she pulled Roarke's forelimb out from around her. In her sleep, the Searonese pony tried curling up to Rainbow tighter, but the pegasus managed to slip away in time. She lay Roarke's hoof by her side, brushing her braids back before standing up and quietly trotting past the bed of leaves and pine needles where they had retired overnight.
The fresh dew on the ground gave a squishing sound to Rainbow's hooftrots. Nevertheless, she sauntered east, approaching a cluster of rocks grown over with moss and grass. Once she stood on top of a dull boulder, she was able to see past a fork in the nearby trees. Once more, she could spot the sunrise... and could furthermore spot the difference between the dawnlight and the tiny glow flickering towards her like a distant beacon.
"... ... ...what in Luna's name?"
Rainbow bit her lip. She glanced back at Roarke, then back at the beacon. She exhaled with a shuddering sigh, hugging herself.
Ebon Mane finished pouring a mug of coffee. He then slid the steaming cup over in front of where Josho sat in the Noble Jury's mess hall.
"There you have it," Ebon said. He then shuffled over and sat besides an exhausted looking Eagle Eye in front of a plate of scrambled eggs. "The closest thing you're gonna get around here to a Ledomaritan Capuccino." Ebon gulped and smiled nervously. "That's over one week old..." He fidgeted. "...and made by turtles."
"Hrmmmmm..." Josho leaned his fat chins against his forelimb. "Swell..." He telekinetically raised the cup, squinting at it in the hazy dawnlight wafting through the windows. "Now all we need is some month-old doughnuts baked by horned toads and it's a regular Bed'n'Breakfast."
"Heheh..." Ebon stifled a yawn. "Either I'm dead-tired or that was actually funny."
"Mrmmf... lay off of him, old stallion," Eagle Eye muttered, digging at his food. "He did what you asked for."
"And I'm glad for that. Honest." Josho took a meager sip and shuddered. "Don't get so overprotective of your new marefriend."
"Hey! Come on!" Eagle frowned.
"Heeheehee..." Ebon quivered, giggling.
Eagle blinked aside. "Huh?"
"'Marefriend.' That's so stupid and silly." Ebon nevertheless leaned against Eagle's shoulder. "I liiiiiiiiiiiike it."
"Hrmmm..." Eagle's cheeks reddened slightly. "I don't."
"Look, as long as you two have at least one horn between you—" Josho began.
"Can we not?" Eagle sighed. "Please?"
"Wow, I must have put too much pepper on those eggs," Ebon stammered, blinking.
"It's not that. I'm just... worried... you know?"
"About what?"
"What else?" Eagle dug at his plate, fidgeting. "Neither have returned."
"Let's just pretend it's their honeymoon and be done with it," Josho said, taking another sip. "And, honestly, the less I try to think about it, the better."
"I thought you of all ponies were the one in a hurry to get us to Val Roa."
Eagle squinted. "I mean—can you imagine trying to peel a mare out of a rusted corset only to find out it's her skin?!"
"Josho!"
"Hey!" Josho shrugged. "I know we all need to get to Val Roa!" A beat. "But... dayum... that mare needed to get laid way the hell more."
Eagle raised his hoof to retort, fumbled, and shrugged. "You know what, I'll give you that one."
Josho nodded into his mug. "Thatta girl."
Ebon giggled again, and Eagle rolled his eyes with a smirk.
"Duaaaaaaaah..." An exhausted zebra with a tangled mane shuffled limply into the mess hall. He fought an endless yawn before muttering, "Morning, Jury."
"Morning, Pilate."
"Morning, Pilate.
"Hey there, bright eyes."
"The place is sure quiet today."
"Heh... if you say so."
"And I do." Pilate muttered, wandering over to the table.
"Would you like some eggs and coffee, Pilate?" Ebon asked.
"That sounds splendid, Ebon. Much thanks."
"Have a seat."
"Don't mind if I do." Pilate slumped down in a stool. "Mmmmm... these mornings are far colder than the ones in Central Ledomare. Reminds me of winter dawns in Mountainfall. Nothing better than saddling up to a warm meal as the day outside begins to bloom." He exhaled through a calm smile. Silence. His metal brow furrowed. "I'm facing away from the table, aren't I?"
"I'm afraid so, Pilate," Eagle said with a nod.
"Nnnngh..." Pilate spun one hundred and eighty degrees and scooted the stool closer. "I don't suppose it would be selfish of me to ask Props to construct an iron bar that leads from my cabin to the dining table?"
"Not unless you want to find the Tree of Life," Josho said.
"Ugh... please..." Pilate waved a hoof and slumped his chin against the tabletop. "It's too early for somthing that obscure."
"Suit yourself, Stripes."
"Mmmm..."
Silence.
"She isn't back, is she?" Pilate remarked.
Josho slowly shook his head. "Nope. Neither is Roarke."
"Indeed." Pilate's lips slowly curved. "Honestly, I don't think I could be happier."
For the first time that morning, Eagle managed a chuckle. "Here here..."
Roarke stirred. Her face tensed. Her hooves moved, then swam tiny circles in the air—feeling around for something that was now gone. In a flash, her eyes opened, and she instantly regretted it.
"Guhhhh... Searo's ovaries!" She slapped a hoof over her tearing sockets. Feeling around with her other leg, she found where the lenses were resting in the surrounding bed of pine needles. Brushing them clean against her coat, she raised them to her head and snapped them in place. Each lens pistoned in and out in opposite directions until she regained her focus.
Standing up, she looked around. The forest bed was empty. There was a tiny impression right beside her, but no pegasus.
"Rainbow...?" Even Roarke was surprised at how swiftly and fitfully she had spat the name out. Her breaths quickened, and her ears twitched alternatingly. "R-Rainbow...?!" A heavy gulp. "Where did—?"
"Over here, Roarke."
The metal mare spun about, jaw clenched. She trotted swiftly over a patch of grass and looked behind a boulder. There, Rainbow sat, squatting over a bed of exposed white dirt and gray soil. She had a stick gripped between two hooves and was drawing figures in the earth.
"Nnnnghhh..." Roarke's whole body deflated with an exhale of relief. "Rainbow, don't run off like that."
"I didn't run off," Rainbow muttered, continuing to drag the stick through the sand. "I only trotted—like—ten feet. I didn't want to wake you."
"But still, you..." Roarke winced. She cleared her throat and stammered, "I mean... th-that's fine, of course. I just... uh..."
"I'm flattered that you missed me." Rainbow dropped the stick, brushed her hooves clean, and stood up. "But it was only a few friggin' minutes. Don't have a cow."
"Why would I want to possess a bovine?"
"It's a figure of speech, ya gorgeous frying pan, you."
"But—..." Roarke grunted in frustration. "Rainbow?! What are you—?"
"Shhhhh..." Rainbow backtrotted and rested a hoof on Roarke's shoulder. With her other hoof, she pointed at the diagram in the dirt. "Look at this."
"Hmmm?"
"Do you recognize it?"
Roarke's lenses pistoned out as far as they could go. Carefully, she studied the symbol:
What the metal mare saw was a pair of curved lines, vertical parabolas or half-ellipses that faced one another. In the center of the diagram and between the curves were two small circles, one positioned above the other. Adding to the overall symmetry of the diagram were four more circles, two on each outer side, positioned at the beginning and ending points of the curved lines.
"It... is certifiably random," Roarke droned.
"Do you recognize it?" Rainbow asked.
Roarke gave Rainbow a double-glance. "No," she said. Her brow furrowed. "Don't you?"
"No."
"Then why did you draw it?"
"Because I woke up seeing it," Rainbow said. She swallowed a lump down her throat. "Just now..." She gazed towards the east horizon. "...and it won't go away. Even when I close my eyes."
Roarke gazed through the trees. Her lenses twirled and clicked within their frames.
"You don't see it, do you?" Rainbow muttered.
Roarke took a deep breath. She rested a hoof gently on Rainbow's neck. "I think we should get you back to the Jury..."
Rainbow slowly, slowly nodded, gazing east in a hypnotic way. "I think you should get me back there too..."
It's baaaaaaaaaaack!
Oh dear more symbols! Time to learn the name of the next book I guess. I wonder why its a vision only to Rainbow though? That is an interesting twist.
4910459
Trying to remember what it is.
YVONNE HAS APPEARED.
4910468
The purple light that leads to a flame? Although Dash hasn't specified a color, so it might be different. But there might be a machine world flame somewhere soon. Which Dash is in dire need of.
4910480
Well, it was purple before. I wonder why it isn't now. I'm sure if it was purple or familiar, she wouldn't be confused about it.
Im guessing it's something from the machine world. Hopefully a flame. so roarke can't see without the lenses? Things are to bright? Kinda like riddicks eyes. That sucks now that we know she gorgeous.
It's the inner curve of the ring. You can see it if you squint.
Yay, more mystery things about the machine world. Feels a little like a halo ring only much much larger.
This world still makes far more sense then Halo ever did.
And now Rainbow has a ):( (aka Imploding Colon) burned in her retinas.
4910475
4910724 Well what do you think it's called?
I'm going with Yvonne until someone says something indicating otherwise.
Yvonne.
Either that or Yvildhignbosinamunhafren. I like that one. It rolls off the tongue well.
Twin dawns.
The 6th rune approaceth.
Will it begin with the anomaly letter Y?
Perhaps we'll see the first consonant rune.
Who knows....only IC does.
4910480
Alternatively, since color is unspecified and it appears to be on the horizon, a different form of energy has suddenly amassed. Perhaps this energy, if touched, would also be absorbed by Rainbow. Perhaps, sine this energy is almost totally undefined, it could totally alter the situation she finds herself in.
Since it appeared suddenly in the sky, perhaps a ball of chaos energy simply fell from the sky and engulfed the town they have been heading to, turning the citizens into insane beasts.
Maybe someone was trying to use the flame to control the sun and, instead, they just sent a bunch of flame-energy into the sky-light sphere of the equestrian atmosphere(since Equestra's sky work's nothing like ours), where it stuck and formed it's own celestial body.
Maybe rainbow has activated some dormant magical UI granted to chosen Pegasi who interact with the machine world.
Maybe when she touches it, she will be permanently slightly dizzy but she will stop dying.
Maybe she will take on her chaos-form permanently, but it will be weak and taking off her BETRAYAL AMULET tm will cause her to become some sort of crazy, brightly glowing, white eyed version of Rainbow Dash which, with near infinite speed, will forcibly harmonize all beings within a certain distance of the amulet, since she can't get to far from it and touching it turns her back. The forceful harmonizing results in robotic obedience and a lot of hugs.
Maybe it's a hole where a meteor ripped open the machine world and the circuits are sparking with flame energy. Maybe when rainbow jumps through the hole to get to the dark side, she will inadvertently drain most of the power from the world, causing the amount of time the world has left to plummet while also turbo-charging her book-powers.
I find this extremely offensive to my religion the way you mentioned it.
4910737
Nope. Yvonne's not nearly made-up or Norsehorsese enough. Yggdrasil is better, but still insufficiently made-up. I can dig Yvildhignbosinamunhafrenm, though.
In the meantime, it seems Rainbow can now perceive the beast that waits for her at the end of her journey. She can see the mark of the one who must cause pain to her and all her companions. Behold, the sign of the eldritch creature who waits to pen the ending to this world and all the pitiful souls that exist within!
Title Obtained: "The Colonoscope"
It looks like an apple tree with two apples that fell out.
Anybody else see it?
4910622
I was going to say cross section of ITER,
But.. I have Ringworlds, And Jerry Pournells books on Space exploration.
That, is a representation of a Stanford Torus, Orbital, Halo or other Ringwolrd structure, if wantting to keep in line with teh multisectors.
The dots are Sentinals?
thank goodness, at first I thought, good thing they dallied, Val Roa is now a glass lined hole in the ground. 8(
I'm betting the new symbol has appeared because Rainbow finally got laid.
Hmmm, most interesting. I wish Rainbow had specified any colors, because this seems like something that would be a little lavender. I can only assume that, a.) This is the symbol for the next installment's title, and b.) That it has some connection to the Machine World, and therefore, hopefully, a respite from Rainbow's illness. Furthermore, I can't help but notice that she didn't see this until the morning after her night with Roarke. Dunno if significant, but it seems like it could be. Perhaps Rainbow needed to let herself love again before she could move to the next stage of her journey, for example.
Also, I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed a similarity between this new symbol and Jake's symbol for our dear author: ):( Though damned if I know what significance that might have, if any. Once again, the presence of six dots ties into all kinds of numerological symbolism within the MLP universe. Or maybe it has to do with the Grand Choke. It's anyone's guess at this point.
, she get's laid and then gets a symbol leading forward! bonus!
also, :):(: totally looks like a reference to ):(
4910768 ah, rampant speculation with no real evidence, how i've missed you......
So Rainbow Dash dies because of an imploding colon?
Didn't we know this was coming like, 300 chapters ago?
I think it looks like a tree...
4910716 Ha ha ha, what were she and Roarke doing!?
Rainbow's colon will be imploded by machine ... parts.
4910622
uglyheroes.com/page23/blog/files/halo1.6web.jpg
Relevant.
Also:
Wasn't the only one.
4910800
Yggdrasil you say? As in, the
Well, too early to speculate, apparently.
First time I noticed the vowel trend. I'm upset.
AKA a hyperbola.
MATH!
4910912 4911004 4912176 Speculation Time! Well, really only two speculations, but then the proof of one and the asssumption of the other.
The name of the next book is Yggdrasil.
It's been talked about often in the comments, but that's mostly because it's the only Norse word that starts with a Y we know. Reason one it fits: it's Norse and would keep up the pattern, especially if it leads to what I suspect may happen (later).
Yggdrasil is the Tree of Life. Josho mentioned the Tree of Life when literally no other mention of it has been made anywhere in the series. For that record, even the only Norse related thing that appears in this series is the Valkyrie, and that we just left. IC doesn't make comments like that for no reason. And thus, reason #2.
Rainbow sees this symbol after having sex with Roarke (pretty awesome by itself). Sex creates life. Tree of Life again. Not to mention Zaid and Props going at it, or Ebon and Eagle, or the whole freaking sex culture of Durandana. Reason three for Yggdrasil: Sex.
The next reason is the symbol itself. Look at it. It looks like a tree. Don't see it? The lines are the trunk, and the circles its fruit. Tree of Life again.
Again with the symbol. It's a tree. But more specifically, an apple tree. A freaking apple tree. Applejack represents the life Rainbow could have had and the life she wanted. Hence also the circles lying on the ground, as she'd given up hope. Now she has life again with Roarke, symbolized by the fruit still in the tree. And the circles in the middle probably represent her going to grow or some funky mystical thing.Tree of freaking Life.
Got enough reasons yet? Good, because now it's time for speculation 2 and it's founded almost solely on comments and something I really want to happen.
Rainbow has a baby.
Seriously, how awesome would that be? Pretty sweet. And ridiculously adorable. Now we know she isn't one for stallions, but the chaos magic could still do some funky thing, including just having her give birth without having sex with a male. And all it took was sex with Roarke to start the little timer ticking.
And of course, Props is probably going to have a child as well, as it's highly improbably that she didn't get pregnant with all the unprotected sex she and Zaid had. Which means we'll probably loose them in Val Roa (another reason for losing Zaid in Val Roa is because both names came from one commentor ;) ).
And having kids makes sense, because TREE OF FREAKING LIFE.
GOODNIGHT NOBLE JURISTS!
4912414
Uh, not the only word.
I've got a couple pages of them over here.
There's a whole sandbox of good prefixes and word parts in there to kludge up a Y-title with.
Symbol is the edge of the world. Lines are sides, circles are firmaments/skystone. The larger distance between them towards the north/south ends represent a greater difficulty in crossing. I have no idea what I'm saying.
Like when you stare at the sun too long, and it leaves an impression in your eyesight made of "trails" where the sun was located.
Is this a thing now?
I knew there was something suspicious about the repeat greeting.
EDIT: So apparently Josho and his chins are a thing now.
4910737 I'll go with Yugoslavia
4912245 What vowel trend?
Clearly this means Tweak is the new Austraeoh.
4910716 I never thought IC would go for a self-insert.
So this is the sixth rune. I wonder what it's called...
Everybody keeps going on about what it's named, what it is or what it stands for. I'm much rather curious about its function, its purpose.
4912414 There's actually a species of lizard in the American Southwest that is composed entirely of females. They reproduce by laying clone eggs. However, and this is important, they can't become pregnant without mating. They require the hormone boost provided by mating (with another female, as there are no males) in order to kick-start the egg production process.
Also, Roarke would be incredibly adorable in her "wat" moment when Rainbow announces that she's pregnant.
By the by, there's another argument to be made (before reading the next chapter - doh!) for Yggdrasil. The tree of life whose roots penetrate to the other side of the world, and the roots are dying, being eaten by a monster. In the symbol, the tree sprouts from the fruits in the middle, and grows to both sides of the world, where it bears fruit on both sides. (I still like that imagery).
Damnit IC, after all this time you make it a self insert? Well, at least we got som Rainboarke in before you came and ruined their cuddling.
4912176
I'm fairly certain that Josho's quip there (especially since it's in response to Pilate asking for an iron bar to guide him) is an allusion to the story of the Iron Rod from the Book of Mormon. Whether or not this is foreshadowing of a Tree of Life or something similar to come is up in the air, but I think it's a neat reference either way.
4910778
I don't see how this is offensive to Mormons or non-Mormons, whatever you may be. It's merely a reference--one used in jest, granted, but not in an insulting way. As a former Mormon myself, I was actually pretty delighted to notice and understand what the author was alluding to.
Ooo new symbol? Much mysterious. Roarke you are so adorable now.
come up with a name for the symbol, and that is the name for the next story
A new symbol! I already know the name of it because late, but still. Suspense!
-Spirit
The imploding colon. It's a constant reminder to Dash that she just had sex because Skirts willed it to be so.
not obscure for me! haha
More LDS references? This seems to becoming a habit.
Besides the fact that it means Imploding Colon, I think it symbolizes the Grand Choke.
5919411 Kay like second or third time I've seen you make a comment like this so now I have to ask. The heck is LDS?