Echoes In the Well of Silence
Rainbow Dash was trotting before she had even woken up. Her bleary eyes rolled back, and she winced from the stiffness in her limbs.
The mare looked down. Dull gray stone rolled under her at an even pace. She must have descended from the mountain sometime during the night. She simply didn't remember when it was that she embarked... or if she was even cognizant of doing so.
She tried tilting her head up only once, but regretted it. The sunlight was too painful on her tired eyes. She considered sitting down, but something told her that her limbs might ache even more if she stopped.
So, with a brief groan, she fought the urge to retire... and simply kept trotting...
At some point, she couldn't see the stone in front of her.
Rainbow Dash didn't understand why, until she realized that night had fallen again.
She tilted her head up, instantly cracking the stiff joints in her neck.
Stars and more stars.
A quarter moon lingered along the western horizon, splitting the black canvas of the night.
Rainbow felt thirsty. Her ears itched.
She trotted on.
Rainbow sat on a cliff, overlooking a sea of mountains.
She held a piece of Heaven's Slice in her scuffed, bruised hoof... but she didn't eat it.
The mare couldn't remember how long she had fasted at this point. Her exhaustion had risen to such a level that she almost didn't register the pain of hunger anymore.
There was no telling how long she might last without eating, but there was even less knowing how many mountains lingered between her and Yaerfaerda.
She rubbed her pendant, gave the remaining slices a burst of Harmonic energy, and slid them back in her pack.
She laid back on her flank, shuddering, eyes darting between wispy clouds.
By the time her stomach felt hot, she rolled over, picked up her things, and lurched eastward.
Fine fissures ran through the stone earth. Rainbow Dash followed one. She made a game out of keeping her left hooves on one side of the crack and her right limbs on the other.
Every now and then, she'd feel a gust of cold wind and she'd look up with a startled gasp.
Yaerfaerda lingered towards the right of her vision. The fissures had carried her slightly north.
Sighing, Rainbow gave up on the lines and stumbled towards a series of jagged mountains.
Rainbow lay on her side, curled up besides the jutting edge of a plateau's cliff.
Her pack lay beside her, nestled against her limp tail.
She had rolled a blanket out, but hadn't bothered to cover herself with it.
Perhaps it was night, or perhaps it wasn't.
Rainbow Dash was too worn out to feel hot or cold.
She hugged her limbs to her chest, staring into the plains of desolation. Her eyes sloped over the rising peaks beyond.
She said nothing... dreamt nothing...
There was no more sleep. Only lingering.
Time passed, and dust followed along with it.
Rainbow Dash turned the nozzle on a cylinder of Nebulum.
Nothing happened.
She stared dully at it for several minutes, trying to register the significance of its dormancy.
She turned the container's nozzle again.
It had nothing to release.
Rainbow gave the glass jar a firm shake. She put her ear to it. Then, sighing, she tossed the item ineffectually behind her and reached into her bag for the remaining tube.
....clank!
Rainbow gasped, spinning around with wide eyes. She hadn't expected to hear the impact of the container at such a distance. She found herself staring west into a gigantic canyon stretching north and south behind her. Had she just scaled it?
As she continued contemplating this, Rainbow heard the impact again, this time reverberating off of every stone crag and chiseled cliff face in the entire ravine. The canyon was so steep and immense that its echoes magnified the smallest thing by tenfold.
Rainbow sat in place for a full minute, holding her breath as she listened to the Nebulum container's continued echo. It rose like thunder, sounding off louder... then growing faint once more.
At last, she was left with just her quivering pulse.
Biting her lip, Rainbow Dash reached out, grabbed a rock, and heaved it off the cliff. The stone fell out of view. After a moment of silence, it struck something. The canyon sang with a gunshot, growing faint, loud again, then dissipating like an invisible banshee.
Rainbow Dash stared. She hyperventilated. Then, teeth gnashing, she snarled like a canine and stood up, facing the west with a hideous frown.
She screamed.
She screamed loud and long.
The entire landscape vibrated with the resulting echoes. Pebbles rolled off their ancient perches and fell for the first time in centuries. Dust blew, twirled, then settled again.
The reverberations lasted for a blissfully agonizing two minutes.
As soon as they were done, Rainbow Dash took a deep breath and howled again, this time high-pitched and haunting.
A flock of banshees flew unseen circles through the depths of the canyon. They rose up into the wispy yellow sky before Rainbow Dash had any opportunity to see them.
Her ears folded back. She cracked a grin, chuckling, laughing. Then—as her muzzle went tight—she pulled at her facial features, then collapsed on her side as her body let out another scream, wailing this time. She was halfway through the exhale when her lungs caved in, and the shout turned into a sob. Rainbow curled up into a little ball, wheezing as the echoes returned, surrounding her, filling her ears like a busy room full of ponies.
She clenched her tearing eyes shut, drowning in the beautiful noise. Beneath her lids, she saw brief bursts of color:warm, lively, and loving. She hugged herself tighter, teeth gritting as she endured the all-too-fleeting moment. Then, with terrible swiftness, the noise ended. All was silent and cold as ash, and Rainbow Dash could hear her weeping breaths again.
Exhaustion took her before she could be an audience for long.
Stats
Page generated in 0.039 seconds
Total duration
622 users online
828,854 hits today, 2,244,100 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
...She's cracking. Or the chaos is slipping through.
The narrative definitely fits well with the monotony of Dash's journey on the ground, and her ever-bleak point of view as she trudges on through the desolation.
So that still may or may not have been figurative with that "flying into the void" thing.
I'm...going to guess this is figurative, though. A metaphor for Rainbow's wails scattering across the canyon.
5710362
Amazing.
You don't just become crazy, it happens gradually, then all at once. Several weeks trotting out into nothing will do that do you, I suppose. I can't imagine it's fun not knowing what is real and what isn't, anymore.
I wonder if RD is going to start talking to inanimate objects.
Thirty squats, ):(. Knock 'em out!
5714360
She too, will start having conversations with "Rocky".
Only this time, it won't be as funny.
derpicdn.net/img/view/2013/10/6/443022__safe_solo_rainbow+dash_screencap_balloon_party+of+one_rocky.jpg
It's almost scary how well these chapters have communicated not just the facts, but the experience, of Rainbow's journey across the Choke--the exhaustion, the hopelessness, the disorientation. Maybe it's just me, but I almost feel like it's me going through this ordeal. A lesser story would simply be a shopping list of "Rainbow did X. Then Rainbow did Y." But here, the external events are basically secondary, and the writing is so... sure-footed. It would be so easy for this sort of thing to be uninteresting, but it's not.
Never mind me. It just struck me as I was reading it.
Soon the hallucinations will begin.
I'm interested to see what IC comes up with.
WHY ARE WE YELLING
Well... Dash done goofed, now she has a tube of nebulum and nothing to inhale it with and her half full canteen.
She really is starting to lose it, maybe the echo effect is able to trick her mind into thinking she's got company.
-Treachery and deceit, kingdom of conceit Yaerfaerda.
Figuratively? or hallucination? Who knows?
This entire trip is really quite painful. . . . .
5714583
Yeah it's almost as if it wasn't a good idea to conserve your resources so long that they stop being useful, huh?
5714594
She still had one tube left, so the inhaler part wasn't useless. She just made a bad decision.
Dashs progressin is decaying, but is teh distance needed decaying similarly?
I forgot, with being tired etc, didnt some goblins mention about burning coal for power, instead of skystone? Just thinking about wat Rourke can do given three partial battleships, and making a ship big enough to carry enough coal to carry the distance.
Like the Rourke version of Isambard Kingdom Brunels SS Great Eastern.
Weird. Theres something familiar about that name.
5714340 I knew I recognized that song lyric from somewhere!
5714360
"Wilson, you wouldn't happen to have a match, would you? No? Stupid rock. You're as useless as a bag of rocks..........shut up."
Damn, poor Rainbow.
5714360 5714394 5714824
Heck, she might even take a rock that looks like an antler, give it a sassy personality, and call it 'Lancie.'
5714995
somegif.com/gifs/13924742111596534766.GIF
And now she begins to go crazy, or perhaps crazier in this case.
you have no one to blame
you did this
you had happiness
but spurned it for an idea
enjoy the silence, sweet rainbow
5714553
I DON'T KNOW
I'm sad now
New prediction: When Rainbow Dash nears her end, through starvation and dehydration and whatever, the Cosmic Voices will speak to her once more—and say and do something useful. NO ONE will be prepared for that!
5715472
I'll add that to my list of insane theories.
1) At the end of Yiffy, Austraeoh and Appledashery will converge into a single timeline.
2) At the end of Ch. 199, Rainbow Dash will reach the edge of the plane and promptly fall into the Aether. Ch. 2000 will have her groaning in frustration for several paragraphs.
3) Cadence and Shining will catch up with Rainbow Dash, because they've been travelling in a straight line and stopping only for supplies, which is why they're able to catch up with her.
4) 202
put flappy bird back in the store quick!
static.fjcdn.com/pictures/Insanity+that+is+crazy+the+first+time+somebody+told+me_8e26f0_4330095.jpg
hopesully she's not expecting things to get easier anytime soon.
Hrm.
I'm betting Axan will reappear before this stint in the desert is done.
5715664
I'm thinking its going to be something where she collapses right as she reaches the end of the choke and somehow by happenstance a 'ghost', hallucination, or chance encounter with other living things saves her.
5715738, only for her to be brought before Verlax(ion) who then will attempt to end her existence before Axan steps in and smacks her sister sane.
...Wow. The last few chapters were pretty depressing already, but this one got to me.
We have 1218 chapters to go... This would make for a piss poor ending.
5714360
No. Too much effort.
5715497
Yiffy?
5716183
That many chapters were only alluded. Never confirmed. Maybe Celestia and Luna sent her onward because of NIMBY.
Calling it now, it's Tia. Alicorn Ex Machina. The flashes of colour are her mane. Warm=a sun goddess is never cold, lively=immortal alicorn magic that makes her immune to the choke, loving= it's celestia, she loves all her little ponies.
5716309
There are no words for how badly I want to believe that theory.
5716226
—Urohringr, chapter 180
5716620
Oh. Had a brain fart, but I had forgotten that was this book's nickname.
And this is how Rainbow Dash dies... And wakes up in Cloudsdale after spending over a decade in a coma resulting from the accident she had as a filly during a race, when she lost her wings.
5716791 That would be horrible.
5716864 Worse than trying to cross the Grand Choke?
5716871
Yes.
Think of the psychological implications.
Too many for me to be bothered to list.
But still.
One month.... it took a whole month of reading near every day to catch up from the beginning of the series. Now I think I'll start doing Jake's PT.
You're a monster, ):(. A wonderful, engaging, and talented monster.
Seems like Rainbow's lack of wings is starting to get to her. That and the utter desolation of the Grand Choke.
I know Dash could be scaling all those cliffs and such herself and just suffering ammesia Background Pony-style, but I really think that something else is at play.
Way cool.
Her mind might be going, ever so slightly.
-Spirit
Damn...
Finally I got the chapter reference.
Also, she may be a bit lonely and/or insane
I would hate this. I would hate making thus journey so much. I want to say I'd go insane, but I have not a clue what would happen. This is far too bad for me to even fully comprehend. Ugh, I hate deserts.
I think a place like this, Would get to anyone eventually.
Echoes of the past. Pain of the present.
Someone is going nutso.