A World in Chaos

by Mocha Star

Not Broken

Rainbow coughed and opened her eyes, shutting them tightly immediately. She squeaked as dirt and dust fell against her eyes beneath the lids and stung more than it had in over a year. She flapped her wings and rolled to her belly as she hovered in the air trying frantically to wipe her eyes clear.

She fell to the floor when she lost concentration on her flying as her eyes began to burn, tears began streaming down her face as her body tried to wash the debris out. “So,” she said as she planted her hooves firmly on the floor with a thump, “this’ how he wants to play it? Fine, I know this place better than I know anything. I don’t need to see to find that stupid necklace to kick his stupid rump.”

She shook her head as she felt and heard debris falling to the floor, a cough let her know there was a lot of dust around her and she stood tall and backed up. Several long paces later and she had bumped into a wall, she then turned her body to face her left, walking with her wing lightly brushing the surface tracing the familiar walls she had known for years.

“There we go, that damned door. Sturdy, like me. Then I turn that way,” she turned slightly and began cantering ahead until she bumped into her couch and frowned, “to Tartarus with this thing.”

She reached her left foreleg up and poked it. As soft and rough as the last time she laid on it three weeks after Fluttershy came back into her life. Life, what it was and how great it felt to do things. To fly, to eat, to laugh with ponies, and to have friends. She turned and bucked the couch hearing it crack under the stress. She smiled looked to her right.

“The stairs would be there so away I go.” Rolling her eyes slowly in her head she felt the sting but it wasn’t as bad. Opening her eyelids again she felt a slight burn but she could almost see through the haze of tears. She coughed a little as she took in the sights of her old home, just like it used to be, only a little larger for some reason.

Only a few hooves difference, but it was still larger, she couldn’t place what else was different as she placed a hoof on the stairs and took the first step. She closed her eyes and felt the tears stream down her face but she persevered and continued up the steps, finally reaching the top, she opened her eyes and gulped.

That’s what was different... She felt foolish for not noticing it before. There was a run of stairs leading down and Discord had pushed the wall against the stairs back to make space for it. She looked down and saw the floor below her was dusty while the floor she was currently on was dirty and dusty but hadn’t been blessed by her flapping wings’ impromptu dust storm.

She walked from the stairs to the center of the room, she winced but opened her eyes wider. Her vision swam slightly but she could still trace the sunlight from the boarded window to the couch, which was intact, and the mud trailing across the floor. Broken clock, “The corner!”

She trotted carefully to the corner table and carefully moved to away watching as dust left it and settled on the floor over where she wanted to look. She hesitantly opened her wings and closed her eyes tightly as she turned and brushed the floor lightly clearing the corner.

She waited a moment and opened her eyes. It stings and hurts still, she thought as she turned her head, not her eyes, to the floor.

---

“Rinbuw Daz Lyvz Hire”

---

She sat on her haunches and sniffled. “It’s my old home, not my new one. This’ the place I really would have died if I’d stayed here a little while longer. Why would he send me here?”

She moved her head to the left to look at the rest of the room. Dust in the air, broken everything.

“No, wait,” she said hesitantly standing up, “not everything is broken. Fluttershy fixed ME. I’m not broken in this tree anymore and that means I can fix everything.”

She turned and galloped to the door grabbing the handle and turning it. Pulling the door open she jumped through the threshold and stopped quickly on the spot as the door slammed shut behind her.

Turning her head left and right she growled deeply. Back in the room just like it was on the other side of the door. She galloped to the stairs and up them, leaving a trail of dust behind her. Again and again, floor by floor it, was exactly the same. Stopping suddenly she was washed from behind in a cloud of dust that had trailed her coating her more deeply in dirt.

Coughing as she turned to the floor and made her way to the couch instinctively she stopped and sat on her left flank leaning over and looking at her coat front and back and did her best to not cry.

“I look almost as bad as I used to, and I can’t cry cuz it hurts. I’m just gonna have to think about this. Think like Fluttershy told me to do when I have a problem. Think like a mare, not a filly. What did he say with his paw things? Darnit I was too scared to think about his dumb face. Couldn’t be that hard so I’ll just try different ways to get out.”

She laid on the floor and closed her eyes and smiled. It didn’t hurt anymore to use her eyes. She began to remember his silent movements and how badly she wanted to be a monster like a dragon and bite his paw off. “Fluttershy said I shouldn’t be mad at other ponies but he isn’t a pony and I hate him. If he hurt her,” she huffed loudly and growled as she looked to the couch and remembered him pointing to it last.

“Bucking couch!” She turned and bucked it cracking it before she went up stairs and smashed that one and the next and the next. She stopped when she felt her coat getting matted from the dirt mixing with her sweat.

“Grrreat. Just like before,” she said before she laughed. “‘Shy’s gonna be mad when she has to clean me again.”

“Okay, what did that worm guy do. Up, down, that way, this way, what the hay? Well, upstairs and downstairs. Left is the door, right is… the door, if I turn the other way. And that flocking couch is where he said last. I’d better just test the place. Fluttershy always said tests are important and this’ important so this’ a test? This’ a test!”

She jumped up, standing straight, and looking around excitedly. She glanced at the stairs and walked up slowly counting each step and listening to each creak they would give. Her ears twitched and fluttered around as she listened so intently she could almost hear her heartbeat as she topped the stairs and ascended the next flight.

“Last stairs was 16 so this might be the same.”

She stepped slowly up the steps. Each one sounded exactly the same. “Hmph, 16 steps. One more then I try down.”

The next flight was just as uneventful until she reached the top. It wasn’t something she heard but felt. The magic, an unexplainable ethereal energy force that was typically inert it flooded over her from head to tail, it was almost tangible albeit as light as a single hair going across one's body it was still noticeable.

She shuddered as the chills ran down her spine and to her tail root making her tail swish uncontrollably like an excited dogs before she smiled and counted to 16 on the next run, the sensation returned from the tip of her nose to her tail.

“I passed this part I think. Now the down part.”

Comments

[Sun Struck]

I don't like tests