II.14 - Through the Looking Glass
The forest was silent when Rainbow finally found the spot where she and Flix had buried the changeling. She landed and quickly located Flix's saddlebag with the herbs they had gathered. She hoped it was enough, because she couldn't remember half of what they had been looking for, nor did she feel like sticking around to find it in any case.
She picked up the bag in her mouth and paused, looking around the forest. She could go see Zecora instead. She knew where the zebra lived, and Zecora always had lots of herbs and potions. Rainbow bet that Zecora would be able to fix her leg in a jiffy. It was hurting pretty bad after the incident with the guards. But what if Zecora thought she was a changeling too? What if her hut was guarded too?
Rainbow bit her lip. Flix had told her not to linger, and she didn't want to in any case. The eerie light of the two moons made the forest even more unnerving than usual. No, she couldn't turn to Zecora for help, or any of her friends. Not anymore … not yet. She looked up and resolved herself.
Rainbow swung the bags over her back and set off, quickly picking up pace as she burst out from the cover of the forest into the open night sky. It didn't take her long to reach the waterfall. She glanced around the dark treetops, scouting for anypony watching, before slipping past the curtain of water into the hidden cave and ancient ruins hidden there.
It took her a bit longer to find her way through the still unfamiliar halls and corridors to the prison. She paused outside the door before peeking inside. Frostfell was sleeping in the corner of her cell. Blaze was still awake, reading a book in the dim light of a candle. He looked like he wasn't far from falling asleep as well. Rainbow hesitated before quietly turning around to leave.
“You're not going to say hi?” Blaze said quietly, looking up just when she turned around.
Rainbow froze and bit her lip. She couldn't leave now that he had seen her, that would really be rude. She turned around and entered the room, looking around without really looking at Blaze as she sat down. “Yeah sorry, I didn't want to disturb you,” she said, not too loud so as not to wake up Frostfell.
“Fair enough.” She couldn't tell what his expression was. She was sort of looking at the floor in front of him, occasionally glancing at the walls or the sparse decoration of the cells. “So how went your trip? I see you came back,” he said. “I take it you didn't take the chance to escape, then.”
“They aren't bad,” she said, a little louder than she had intended. She felt she needed to defend the two changelings. She added more quietly, “I trust them.”
She could hear Blaze close his book and put it down on the floor next to his bed. “I'm sure me saying this doesn't change a thing, but don't you think they have messed with your head a bit? They've got some strange magic that screws with your thoughts and makes you think they're really your friends, that sort of thing. It's pretty scary stuff, when you think about it.”
Rainbow scowled at the floor. “If they've fooled me, then they're really good at it, and … and I don't think they're really that good.” She looked up and sort of stared past Blaze at everything but him. “They try, and they really do the best they can, but I don't think they could pull off fooling anypony that much. They're just ordinary cha—ordinary ponies, doing the best that ordinary ponies can.”
Blaze said nothing. Rainbow scraped the floor idly for a few awkward seconds. “Anyway, I didn't want to bother you,” she said and got up to leave again.
“I wish you would stay a little longer and talk to me,” came Blaze's voice again. “We can talk about something else if you like. I don't mind.”
Rainbow paused and slowly turned back again. “I would kinda like to find Eden. My leg hurts pretty bad,” she muttered as an excuse. She didn't want to simply leave him.
“You're not looking at me,” Blaze said somewhere outside her field of vision. “I don't blame you for this, you know. I understand that you are in a difficult situation.”
“It's not that.”
“What then? I would like to know why I'm making you uncomfortable.”
“Trust me, talking about it would only make it more uncomfortable,” she muttered and tried a grin. It didn't quite work and ended up more of a facial twitch.
Blaze sat up. “I don't understand,” he said slowly.
Rainbow forced herself to look up at him. It was a mistake. She sat down again and bit her lip as she sought for a way to put it. “I thought I loved somepony,” she said.
Blaze looked at her for a moment before his eyes flickered in understanding. “Until he turned out not to be the pony you thought he was.”
Rainbow gave a half-nod, ending up staring at his shadow on the floor and feeling her cheeks redden. “Yeah, that. I thought I loved one of my friends too, until I found out she loved some other pony. And … and maybe I don't know what it means to love somepony, maybe I'm just confused. I can't love a changeling,” she felt herself rambling slightly. “But I think I still do.”
Blaze smiled. She could hear it in his voice without looking at him. “When I was a young colt in flight school, I thought I loved a filly named Sky Dancer. I invited her out and we really clicked together. Sky was beautiful, witty, and so damn sexy. We spent a lot of time together, just hanging out, you know?” Rainbow could hear him grin with the memory. “Then I met Flash Fatale, a new filly at the school. I showed her around, and she showed me a couple of tricks behind a shed. After that I thought I loved her too. She was pretty wild, pretty addicting.”
Rainbow looked up at him. He was still smiling as he recounted. “I tried to be with both, until Sky found out. Needless to say she was pretty angry … well, furious is more the word, and I was pretty broken. I went to a bar to drown myself and woke up next morning with another filly named Moon Flower. For a little while there I thought I loved her too, even though I was still fooling around with Flash. She was like a drug, I couldn't say no to Flash. That's when things got really complicated, when Flash announced that she was with foal. I wasn't exactly prepared for that in my life.”
“Anyway, long story short,” he said and shook his head. “After a lot of nerve-wracking time and some magic, it was determined that the foal was not mine but some other stallion that Flash had been fooling around with behind my back. Neither of us knew, and he wasn't too happy to learn that I had been screwing his lady, so he kinda gave me a black eye, and that was the last I saw of Flash and her coltfriend. I think he's a guard now. Moon Flower found somepony else a few days later, and then I was alone and depressed. I poured all my loneliness and frustration into my training and forgot all about fillies for a while. All that single-minded training really helped me a great deal in qualifying for the Shadowbolts, in fact.”
“I learned a lot from all that,” Blaze went on. “I haven't thought much of Flash or Moon since, but I have often missed Sky. There have been times when I wanted to go find her and tell her how sorry I am, but I'm sure I had my chance with her long ago, and I totally blew it by being a bastard and a fool. An intelligent, witty mare like her is probably married now with somepony who deserves her more than me, and I have no business getting back into her life. Love takes time, Rainbow, and sometimes we lose it. I don't put much stock in the loves that hit you like a flash, because they leave you like a flash too. If you want to know that you truly love somepony, and that they love you too, then you need to get to know them as a friend first.”
Rainbow stared at the floor for a long time, then looked up a Blaze again. “You never found anypony else?”
Blaze smiled. “Before joining the Shadowbolts I trained every day and forgot all about love and friendship. After getting the job … well, I've had time to get to know some pretty great ponies now. One pony in particular.” His eyes drifted briefly to the sleeping form of Frostfell. “I haven't told her yet, but after knowing her for some time I'm pretty sure she knows and feels the same. Maybe after all this is over I'll take the vacation I have saved up and open my heart to love again.”
Rainbow smiled a little for the first time. She felt relieved. “Thanks, Blaze. You've given me something to think about, that's for sure.”
Blaze winked. “My pleasure, and now you know what to ask me if you ever wonder if I'm the real me. Nopony else knows. Yet.”
***
Rainbow wound her way through the halls and winding stairs in search of Eden. She wasn't sure she had taken the right turn a few times, and she couldn't quite recognize all the rooms she passed by either. She had intended to check with Kin first, but every stair she headed down seemed to ultimately lead further up instead. The corridors took on a less ruinous look as she continued on, and a few ghostly wisps passed her by in their own mindless tasks. Rainbow watched them uneasily, still unable to get used to their eerie presence or the non-sound they made.
And then she was back in the grand hall, and she didn't know how she had got there. The door to the pool under the tree was open, letting out small bits of mist and gently dancing light. Rainbow approached and looked through the doorway.
There were a lot of clouds. Eden was reclining on one, looking like she was asleep, or possibly in some deep meditation. Rainbow glanced into the water. Strange shapes flickered in its deep, too washed out and vague for her to make sense of. It was kinda mesmerizing, however, like a sort of lava lamp. She moved closer and reached out a hoof to touch the surface of the pond.
“Bad pony!”
Rainbow squeaked and jumped several feet in the air. There was a chuckle from one of the clouds. Rainbow glanced up at Eden and tried to regain her cool. “Oh, heh, just checking the pool—” she began.
“Got you,” Eden smiled, her eyes twinkling. “But really, don't touch the water.” She noticed the saddlebag with herbs and swung herself around on the cloud. “Ah, you got all the herbs, did you?”
“I have no idea,” Rainbow admitted while glancing into the water. The shapes had drifted off, leaving just a blank surface of bright blue water. “I got bored, and then we ran into some trouble.”
“Yes, I know.” Eden levitated the bag off Rainbow's back and dug through the contents. “Now let's see what you've got so we can get that leg of yours fixed. It's starting to look a little bad on you. It must be so tiring too, having to be careful all the time.”
Rainbow nodded, and her brow furrowed in thought. “You knew what was happening, didn't you? Did you arrange all of this? With that changeling and the guards and everything?”
Eden put a bunch of mushrooms back into the bag and looked up. “I keep a close eye on what goes on, and sometimes I play a little card or two, usually because someone asks for help, but I am not here to rule your lives and play you like puppets on strings. That's Discord's game, not mine.” She looked back into the bag and snapped a paw. “Take a look in the water.”
Rainbow looked down into the pond where now images were forming again. She saw a pony she didn't recognize, brown coat and blond mane, fairly plain looking, sticking a hoof into an unsuspecting pony's saddlebag and surreptitiously slipping out a bag of glittering bits.
“Random pony in Manehattan, has absolutely nothing to do with you, probably never will,” Eden said and watched from her cloud. “The greatest connection between your two fates is that you're watching his right now, and he is not. This is five minutes in the future. I didn't make him steal those bits, he made that choice for himself. Just about now he's going to regret it.”
There was some yelling and tumult as apparently somepony else had seen the thief's misdeed. Eden smiled and snapped her paw. “He might have got away with it, and since that was the future we just saw, I could make it so, but I'm no petty puppet master. He'll make his own decisions and reap his own rewards.”
The images changed, now showing another—no, the same pony, Rainbow realized, but older. He was working a field and wiping his brow. “Twenty years later, this is his fate, almost certainly. Not too bad. Good honest life for a former thief.” She snapped her paw again, and the image changed to show the same pony now at a grand dining table in some fancy mansion. “This is not his fate, but I could make it so. It would affect other ponies, of course. Everything affects something else, the only question is what and how.”
Another snap, another change of scene. Rainbow narrowed her eyes. The image before her was slightly blurry and occasionally things seemed to change for no reason, like ponies suddenly appearing that were not there moments ago. She recognized one pony, though. It was Soarin' and the place was Sugarcube C—no, some fancy restaurant in—no, out training somewhere near Cloudsdale?
“Tomorrow morning, and a pony who has become quite entangled with you and your friends. The uncertainty here is noticeable.” Another snap, the scene fixed on Soarin' comforting Fluttershy in Sugarcube Corner. “Of course, I am not without talent, so I can tell you that some very strange things indeed would have to happen for this not to be the real scene, more or less.”
Another snap, yet another scene. Now Soarin' was older, and that was about all Rainbow could tell. She thought she saw a flash of a grave, and a ceremony, but everything flowed together into complete obscurity. “Twenty years later, and even I will have to work hard to tell you much of interest. The effects of a life touched by the Elements, even tangentially, are clear.”
Now the scene changed to show Rainbow herself. Rainbow blinked as she looked into the water as if it was a perfect mirror. “You in this very instant, right here in this room. Clear as day. The present is fixed, after all. As is the past. I can not affect either.”
The water changed and now showed herself standing in a throne room. Twilight was there next to her, and Luna and … Blaze, or Doodle. “Still right now,” Eden commented. “But this is the other you.”
Again the scene changed, but now it was a blur of vaguely recognizable shapes. “You again, a week from now. I could try to narrow it in on the most likely future, like I did for you yesterday, but I am sure you can see how the Elements distort your fate, and the fates of everything you interact with. I can see clearer than you, but I can not fully penetrate the veil around you and your friends. Therefore, even if I wanted to play puppet master, the Elements would probably foil me. Even Discord struggled with you more than you think, and he's an exceptionally skilled puppet master.”
Rainbow considered the pool as it returned to just plain water. “The double moon? Was that you?”
“Dragons,” Eden winked and looked innocently into the bag of herbs. “I might have tweaked the timing just a tad,” she muttered very quietly and smiled at the corners of her mouth. “Anyway! I think you got most of the herbs.” She plucked out a single small berry and popped it in her mouth. “Mmm, yes.”
Rainbow squeaked in surprise and moved aside swiftly as a ghostly wisp snuck up behind her and drifted up to Eden, carrying a small crystal goblet with water. Eden took it carefully and began mixing in the herbs while the wisp drifted off again.
Rainbow settled down on a cloud as she watched the process, occasionally glancing into the water or behind her for any more sneaking ghosts. “What's going to happen?” Rainbow wasn't sure she had intended to ask that out loud, but it just happened. “Is there any hope for my friends?”
Eden crushed a small piece of dry bark into the goblet. “Have faith, Rainbow Dash,” she said and swirled the cup as she looked up. “Have faith in yourself, and those around you.” She held out the cup for Rainbow to take. “Drink this.”
Rainbow winced as she leaned forward to take the goblet in her teeth and carefully tipped it to let its contents trickle into her mouth. It tasted slightly sweet, probably because of the berries, with a strong earthlike undertone. Once finished, Eden picked the goblet back up and levitated it in the air. A wisp appeared and took it away. Rainbow licked her lips and watched the ghost drift off.
“That should help,” Eden said. “Make sure you don't move your leg for the next few hours. You can stay here in the well until it is healed. I will have the wisps provide you with something to eat and drink.”
“What about you?” Rainbow moved carefully so that she was lying down and could rest her broken leg without moving it. She was tired and didn't mind a rest.
“I need to make a little appearance elsewhere,” Eden said and dropped off her cloud. “I may not be able to simply fix everything with a snap, not yet, but I do my best where I can. Have faith in me, too.” She snapped her paw.
Rainbow glanced down into the water where images of the forest blurred into focus. Among the trees she could see herself and Twilight. She looked back up at Eden.
Eden smiled. “A little entertainment. I can't take you with me, but I can let you watch from here. Rest, and have faith.” She snapped her paw a last time, and with that she was gone.
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YIPPE
moar pweese?
Woona want MOAR
t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSNVY6HhsvM5G9XliBwR8PxzWVBMf3S3jlskRJ62fxzkiNcHuKH
Sorry but I am at a crossroad with your fic and one direction is to go out of here.
The reason is your OC romancing Rainbow,I hate when this happens (a OC romancing a main character).
So the only way I could continue to read is that Rainbow don't have feeling for him or better that he can go buck himself
This is the only reason I don"t favourite your fic or give a thumb up.
So please tell the traitor to go back to his hive.
Yeah I also not a big fan of changeling who go again the hive mind, They are only betrayer and traitor to their kind.
Cédric
1776525
Can't please everyone, I suppose. Sorry if this story is not to your tastes
Oh no! Oh no! Oh no! Not complete? NOOOOOOOO! THIS WAS SO GOOD! I STAYED UP AL NIGHT, AND ITS NOT COMPLETE! Please finish soon... Please...
I have to disagree with Cedric. I think the romance between Doodle and RD is perfect. It seems a whole lot more natural then TwiDash at least for this story. Hell in my mind I would have them get together and even have Blaze and Frostfell stick around. I don't know why but the OCs here just fit in. Ty Deadly.
1779456
Next chapter should be soon, but the story has a ways to go. Glad you liked it
1780664
It's so ironic that I set out to write a deep, slowly developing romance between Twilight and Dash because people had been complaining about my other stories doing it too fast and suddenly, and then I add a one-night stand between Dash and a changeling, like the most sudden romance ever, and suddenly everybody loves it and want it to last
Not that I mind, the romance between Dash and Doodle has been an interesting development. It was never meant to be more than a one-night stand, but now there's doubt and drama and romance and stuff. I love when my stories surprise me 
I do hope the TwiDash also makes sense and feels natural, seeing how it was supposed to be the primary, serious romance here. I guess it's just because it's slower and less ... dramatic so far.
1780775
+ 
= 
I just want to say one thing, I not against OC, sometime you need a character and the original story doesn't have this in stock, especially changeling since if you respect the hive mind you don't have traitor.
And appart The one night stand,who made me grind my teeth,the story is interesting, if that stay a one night stand I will be ok with it.
A slow romance who is building between Rainbow and Twilight is always fine with me.
How you could call a romance a one night stand and that Doodle had lie to her, I know I'm old school for love and romance but come on that not how you can built a lasting relationship.
So in summary I like your story but the part with Rainbow and Doodle made me a little mad, but only because he is a OC, if that was,
for instance, Soarin' or another background character like Caramel, it wouldn't have bothered me so much.
I hope I cleared some point of my last post and I can wait for the next chapter.
Good luck
Cédric
this is the first fan fic i ever read for anything and theres a problem with it....its sooooooo good how am gonna enjoy another one xD but serously great job, cant wait for next part
1780775
To be honest with you I am not against TwiDash it just is done so much. Dash and Doodle seems fresh to me. I guess I just really like your characters. Anywho I will keep reading. Ty!
1781678
The relationship between Rainbow and Doodle is meant to be very unlikely to work in the long run, and definitely may not last. I won't reveal whether it will last, but the whole idea with that relationship, and what I feel makes it so interesting, is that it shows us how not all romances work or last and even those that do last sometimes start out very poorly. Both in real life and in stories, some romances just don't work or start out in a mess, and the people involved don't just abandon the whole thing at the first sign of trouble, because that would mean they never actually cared in the first place. Love is complicated, messy and difficult, that's what Rainbow and Doodle are there to tell us.
1783931
Don't worry, there's a LOT of great fanfics out there
I'm glad you're enjoying this one so much
1786803
I definitely take it as a compliment and a sign that I'm doing something right with my OCs. Still, I hope I can also make TwiDash interesting, even if it's not as new and different