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Imploding Colon
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Afternoon came, and the hilltops blurring beneath Rainbow Dash turned into jagged promontories as she came upon the crest of a mountain range. The sun was well overhead, approaching its peak climb over the globe of the sky. Rainbow Dash realized she was still squinting, so she raised a hoof up to her goggles and turned a dial. With a gentle click, the shades of the lenses popped back to reveal a clear pair beneath. She relaxed her ruby eyes and kept soaring eastward.
The earth turned progressively uneven below. When the mountains began, the topography shattered into a craggy affair, with several stretches of alabaster rock shredding the green vegetation into thin emerald scraps. The air above these sharp formations grew misty, coalescing into thick clouds that gathered into a gray miasma above the sharply rising landscape.
With experienced caution, Rainbow Dash elevated her ascent several dozens of meters above the visible stone. She was adamant about making a speedy pass over the mountains, but she wasn't about to stupidly plunge into any hidden rockfaces beyond the clouds.
The mist in the air grew denser. Rays of sunlight danced around Rainbow Dash in swathing beams. In mid-glide, she reached a hoof out and played with the many yellow bands. Her mind wandered, and for the briefest of moments she thought she heard laughter. Her eyes blinked beneath her goggles, and the sensation left her, trailing on the fringes of a deep sigh.
There was a sudden gust of wind. If she was any other pegasus, she would have been tossed wildly into the ether, but Rainbow Dash swiftly countered for the gale attacking her wings. She leveled out and hovered up, getting a good view of the landscape beneath her as the misty clouds parted.
She spotted a sudden dip in the mountains. A deep ravine had formed suddenly, and a heavy current of cold wind was billowing down to fill the canyon.
As Rainbow Dash coasted the top of this landscape, the clouds dissipated, and she was taken back by a sight ahead of her. Two mountain ranges rose sharply and met a single point, as if bluntly colliding. The result was a pair of tall summits, twin spokes of ancient rock that pierced the sky like granite antennae.
Rainbow Dash hovered in place, staring for a prolonged period of time at the image. She couldn't help but feel as if the twin peaks looked familiar. Bothered by her lapse in memory, she spun cyclonically through the mountainous currents until she found a dry plateau of pale rock to perch on. A sharp rise in craggy stone behind her canceled out the wind, giving her a peaceful spot to touch down and reach back for her saddlebag.
She slowly removed the contents of her pack: a cantene of water, two loaves of crumbling bread, a first-aid kit, a metal hatchet, a compass, a container of flint and steel, three blankets, and finally a green-bound book. This last item she purposefully avoided looking at as a loathsome shudder ran through her body. Gently, she slid the book out of sight and reached into the saddlebag one last time. She produced a paper scroll with a lunar seal.
Unrolling the scrap, she stretched out a rich detailed map labeled 'Known Realms.' In the center of the amber parchment was a landscape etched in black ink. Rainbow Dash's eyes started at the mountainous summit of “Canterlot Mountain,” then traveled to the right past “Everfree”, then past a broad stretch of dotted paper titled “Undermarshes.” She traced her hoof even further across the paper, past “Dream Valley,” past “Sea of Songs,” past “The Diamond Flats,” and finally settling on “Blue Plains.” Just east of this spot was an unnamed mountain range, but one thing stood out. It was a pair of mountains that rose up like sharp spokes into the sky.
Rainbow Dash looked up. She saw two enormous peaks lingering two kilometers in front of her, bathing a thick shadow across the grand, misty ravine surrounding her. She looked back down. The twin peaks dotted a part of the map that was no less than five centimeters from the right edge of the paper.
For some reason, that only made her smile more.
Rainbow rolled the map back up. She put away her belongings, lingering slightly with the green-bound book, and clasped the saddlebag shut with its crescent-moon buttons. Hoisting her goggles back over her eyes, she stood against the wind, gave the mountains a silent snarl, and threw herself off the clifface so that she soared between the two peaks as if they were polished goalposts.
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Gotta say, beautiful scenery being discribed here. I can't even imagine this world as a cartoon anymore. Even RD is starting to get more realistic-looking in my head. I can even imagine the bluish mist that forms around those mountains.
My only gripes at this point in the story are that we still don't know much of what is going on. Obviously, RD is happy to be flying out East. But what is she flying away from and why? Or, what is she flying towards? Why does she despise that book? Of course, this isn't a story problem.
The other problem IS though. The name Rainbow Dash is being used to commonly, instead of words like "The cyan pegasus" or "The rainbow-maned pegasus". Some alternative would be nice. Even just using "she" and "her" a bit more would be okay, since it's only RD that's present in the story so far.
I'm wondering if the reason her name is being used instead of 'she', 'her', 'the cyan pegasus mare' &c. is that she's reminding herself of who she is. She never seems to think about anything. The closest she comes to that is a feeling of revulsion directed at the book.
It reads almost like it's a story about an amnesiac.
Of course, many more chapters to read, so I guess I'll see if I'm on the right track soon enough.
You know how to write a hook, that's for sure. It's either going to be your beautifully described scenery and pleasant prose, or the huge overbearing mystery that will drag readers in.
New guess: Yes she is on a mission from Luna -- because of the seal -- or at least one of the princesses. The book is most likely the same one Twilight read that dealt with the Elements of Harmony, or one related to the elements, seeing as she dislikes it just as much, if not more than, the necklace on her neck -- aka her element piece.
She misses Pinkie, or the laughter of her friends, so I'm assuming she's either going to see them, possibly rescue them, or is just flying solo. Based on the map, she has also flown very, very far so far. She flew past places that I very much would have liked to read about, but that is for another story I guess. Now, I doubt her mission -- or whatever it is -- will end with the mountains because the map was only the "Known Realms". Her smile is either going to go unfounded or she's just experiencing wanderlust.
Welp, that's what I got, pretty decent for two chapters, no? Now just watch as it gets shot down...
>>1166221 I have two things to add to that. Perhaps she lost her friends or did something terrible and is trying to become someone else under the same name, and maybe when she for the mission Luna sensed that and decided to accommodate her by tellig her to explore new lands.
Hai guys! Just a note, I started my evaluation time after this chapter, soooo...yeah. I suppose I could still do one, if anyone wants me to, but it wouldn't be a first impression. So I'm just gonna leave this chapter evaluation-time-free.
-MASH
P.S.: If I get a note that someone wants an evaluation time for this chapter, I will write it.
Seeing Rainbow brimming with excitement and wonder at the prospect of exploring the great unknown, I can't help but smile and think back to when I last played Minecraft and lost track of time testing the limits of the impossibly huge world. Each mountain range hides a new horizon, each hill offers a new vista, and every ocean crossed reveals new lands. The pegasus may be alone on her journey, but I feel this absolute solitude serves to intensify the experience, and I can't wait to share in the adventure with her.
By the way, how many pages would a 200k word paperback be? 
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