Chapter 7: You Can't Go Home Again
Commissioned artwork & mini-comic by FruitbloodMilkaShake
An alien world lay hidden beneath the deceptively tranquil surface of the ocean, harsh and unwelcoming towards anything from the surface foolish enough to plunge into its depths. In that hostile environment not even the pure light of Celestia's sun remained unaffected, the higher wavelengths filtered and mutilated so that everything took on the same hazy, bluish tint. It was easy, therefore, to miss the tiny, insignificant blue pegasus descending deeper and deeper into the vast abyss.
Even though she was almost ludicrously out of her element she blended right in, with even her garish mane losing its luster. The uneven strands floated weightlessly around her still, serene face, waving and rippling in an eerie fashion, like a colorful shroud. Warmer shades did not exist in her cold, underwater tomb, so from the gaping wound on Rainbow Dash's head there seemed to bleed only a thin trail of dark ink, swirling in her wake like the smoking contrails of her beloved Wonderbolts.
Gravity—which Rainbow Dash had so often and so blatantly defied—was finally conquering her in the end. As natural buoyancy and pegasus magic both failed, it patiently pulled its helpless, unconscious prey down into the murky bowels of the great sea, where the blue gradually faded into black. The darkness there grew thick and ancient, until at last even the faintest memory of warmth and light was snuffed out for good.
The drowning pony at least seemed to be at peace, her body acquiescing in its fate as essential processes shut down. The stream of tiny bubbles from her mouth and nose had ceased, her limbs were all relaxed, her limp body gently rotating on every axis as it sank. Her mouth was open slightly, the water filling her muzzle and slowly, inexorably forcing itself into her airways, still blocked off by laryngospasm. Everything was dead silent. Her eyes were closed, and it was almost as if she were sleeping—
They snapped open.
In an instant, they were wide with primal fear, her pupils dilating in a futile attempt to compensate for the everlasting, hostile darkness in which she was afloat. She might still have been dreaming, caught up in some horrible nightmare, were it not for the unmistakably real, searing pain tearing through her oxygen-deprived lungs.
Rainbow Dash began to move frantically, struggling against her fate without plan or purpose, her limbs flailing and kicking, her body contorting in a macabre, weightless dance. The frantic urge to breathe took hold of her, but the disoriented pegasus fought it, knowing that she was faced with a question as simplistic and binary as it was dreadful.
Up, or down?
Life, or death?
It seemed impossible to tell the two apart, with no next to no light left to guide her. But there wasn't time for even a moment's hesitation; what little presence of mind she still possessed was slipping, fast. The same impenetrable column of water that prevented the sun's rays from coming to her aid was slowly crushing her, every last drop of it bearing down on her unfairly frail body. Her chest ached, threatening to collapse from the sheer pressure, and even her sonic-boom-proof eardrums felt like they were on the verge of rupturing.
Rainbow Dash closed her eyes, calming herself even as every cell in her body ached for her to breathe, and so seal her fate. Her brain was close to insensibility, but she didn't really need to think. She did what she always did: she listened to what her gut told her and went with it. Pure instinct. No looking back. Shooting up like a cyan torpedo, it took mere seconds for her to break the surface. She had guessed correctly. The half-drowned pony inhaled with a desperate gasp, appreciating the reinvigorating air flooding into her lungs more than she ever had before. Then the coughing started, all the briny water she had swallowed pouring forth from her mouth and nostrils in painful heaves; for a few horrendous moments the struggling mare felt like she might choke to death, just after finally breathing the free air again.
When it was finally over, an exhausted Rainbow Dash allowed herself to simply float on her back for while, keeping her battered wings splayed out, with only the stinging of the saltwater in her wounds reminding her that she was indeed still alive. She wearily pulled the shattered goggles from her head and watched a very surprised seagull circling above her, while she groggily tried to piece together what, exactly, had happened.
Her Sonic Rainboom had been successful, for only the third time in her life, hurtling her past all of the competition in the Mareathon with ease. The poor pegasus officials posted at the finishing cloud were probably still spinning; she had just kept on going, not bothering to stop for their pointless trophy or empty accolades. The only thing that mattered was that she had bested Spitfire—possibly securing herself a spot in the Wonderbolts—and that she was flying faster than she ever had before. Why would she want to stop? There really was no reason to, no freshly fallen Fluttershy or Rarity to check up on. And the rush, the euphoria, the adrenaline pulsing in her veins... it felt too good, too awesome. It had been so long since she had experienced the true sense of speed, that panicky little wobble in her underbelly, the twinge of fear she seldom managed to recall during her usual stunts nowadays...
But gradually, as she pushed the envelope and found that she could go faster still, that addicting thrill had been replaced with something else: a sense of disconnection, of Zen-like peace. She was in the zone, achieving through sheer velocity what she could not accomplish during all the wasted, precious minutes of sitting still and trying to meditate with Twilight.
Although Rainbow had never really noticed it before, she became aware of the fact that there was something insulating her from the world that rushed past her, some involuntary magic nullifying even the friction of the air, so that it no longer made her eyes tear up and her face contort the way it did when she was still at subsonic speeds. It seemed to expand as she pushed herself harder until it felt like an invisible bubble, growing to envelop her like the magical shields she'd seen powerful unicorns like Twilight project around themselves.
All sense of velocity and distance faded into obscurity. Everything was tranquil and silent, since no sound reached her ears; she far out-raced those sluggish oscillations. The mountains and forests and clouds that whizzed past, repeating over and over in ever-more-rapid, psychedelic patterns, grew blurry, blending into a surreal tunnel of colorful streaks, the reflections of which flashed and flickered in the mare's flight goggles. It was as if the pegasus was no longer a part of the physical world she was rapidly circling; she merely passed through, ghost-like, unseen by naked eyes, almost completely unaffected by the forces that shackled and held back all living things.
She was free.
From the day a foal named Rainbow Dash first dove from the clouds and soared like a bird through the boundless skies, ignoring the cries of shock and terror from her parents and instructors both, this had been what she had yearned for. This had been her dream. Her desire for fame and recognition and derring-do, her lifelong ambition to join the Wonderbolts, even her hopeless love for a certain yellow pegasus... everything came second to this one drive, this one, simple need.
She had felt an inkling of it the moment she first stretched her tiny wings, and confirmed it when, as a young filly, she tore through the sound barrier with casual ease: somewhere, deep within her, lay the potential to one day transcend it all, to break free of this world entirely...
Maybe even reach the stars.
But it was not this day. The universe had caught on to her, almost literally it seemed; as if it were a living, conscious entity that could not long abide anypony so flagrantly violating its rules. Rainbow Dash began to feel like she was pushing up against something again, similar to the now-familiar sound barrier but without the flashy, visible effects; some fundamental threshold she could approach but not surmount, not even with the magical, gravity-defying potential of the pegasus race. Reality itself felt like it had become thick and viscous, wrapping around her and holding her back. It was like trying to fly underwater. Worse. Where before she had been like a nearly immaterial wraith, now it felt like her body was being magically transmuted into lead, one agonizing atom at a time.
Rainbow Dash tried to slow down, but the more she managed to do this the quicker she inevitably lost control. The world abruptly became a thing of distinct shapes and objects again, hurtling past at beyond-breakneck speeds. But then the sheer friction of her deceleration set the mysterious field enwrapping her ablaze, and her world was made of all-consuming flame. To make matters worse, her protective cocoon began to shrink as panic and fear took hold of her heart, diminishing further and further until, at last, one of her wings became exposed. There was a sickening snap as the fragile extremity was instantly forced back at an unnatural angle, though not fast enough to prevent the outermost primaries from lighting up like a torch. The nauseating smell of smoke and smoldering feathers tingled in Dash's flaring nostrils, but this horrifying sensation barely registered, since the trauma had her going into shock. The insane g-forces the now-unprotected pegasus was pulling tinged her vision with red as the blood rushed to her head.
Her forward momentum was finally failing, but with only one wing she knew a crash-landing would be pretty much inevitable. When her consciousness had faded to only the dimmest shred of survival instinct the field collapsed entirely. If she hadn't already been slowed down considerably, that would have been the end—but even at this reduced speed it still felt she like was being torn apart. With the last coherent thought that bubbled up in her brain, she steered towards a vast swath of glittering blue.
The ocean had been Dash's savior, dousing the fire and lessening what would've been a fatal impact had she slammed into the ground, but it had also very nearly been her undoing. And now she was adrift, trying to catch her breath after surviving the entire ordeal. But in between the deep, rasping breaths, Rainbow Dash was smiling. She was alive. She hurt in more places than she cared to list, had probably broken her wing, definitely singed a whole bunch of her feathers, and clearly lost a lot of blood from the nasty gash in her head. But she was still kicking.
"A-Any landing you can trot away from... Right, pops?"
Something stirred inside of the pegasus, urging her to get going, to move. She tried swimming a little, padding clumsily with all four of her limbs, but it was frustratingly slow and tiring. She hated the water. The more she moved her legs, though, the more it felt like she was gaining a hoofhold. It had never occurred to Rainbow Dash to try, but if she could walk on water vapor, then it stood to reason that she could walk on water, if she put her mind to it? That thought alone—the firm, unwavering conviction offered by what seemed like sound logic to her befuddled brain, coupled with a healthy dose of desperation—appeared to actually make it possible. Climbing up onto the tranquil surface, the dripping, injured pegasus took a few shaky, staggering steps.
It wasn't as easy as she thought; despite being technically more solid than the fluffy, static clouds of her birthplace, the fluid beneath her hooves kept shifting and changing, causing her to lose her balance or slowly sink. As long as she kept moving, though, Rainbow Dash found that she could manage. If only the ocean would stop spinning madly around her, and that stupid flock of noisy, identical birds would shut up for a minute...
Now that it was easier to move, however, the first order of business was patching up her damaged body a bit. As much as she had always loathed the nickname, ‘Rainbow Crash’ had never been an entirely undeserved epithet, but over the course of her crash-prone career the resilient stuntpony had at least picked up plenty of basic first aid techniques. Tearing her flight-suit to shreds with her teeth, and squeezing herself out of the tatters that remained, Rainbow Dash made herself some makeshift bandages. It felt pretty awful, ripping up a precious gift like that, but hey, she had to be practical here! She had never been one to cling to material possessions very much anyway.
Even her own body she tended to treat with callous disregard; driven by her dreams, she always trained harder than was advisable (or even sane), straining her muscles and wings to the breaking point. And whenever a daring feat of aerial acrobatics backfired, she often ended up covered in scrapes and bruises. Her friends always cautioned her about this, worried about her self-destructive tendencies. Their concern was touching, but Dash always just shrugged it off. An added bonus was that it gave her a convenient excuse to drop by Fluttershy's cottage for frequent pit stops. Although, of course, she had stopped doing that after her caring friend grew concerned, and shyly suggested that Rainbow Dash swung by so suspiciously often it almost seemed like she was getting hurt on purpose...
Rainbow Dash considered wrapping a bandage around her head to stem the bleeding, but the seawater-soaked rag stung horribly. The last thing she needed right now was more salt in her wounds, so she decided to just skip this luxury. It wasn't really that bad, anyway. Just a flesh wound; she'd had worse. But the injured mare did prepare a few strips of fabric with which she intended to secure her poor wing. She knew this was necessary—judging from the way it was pathetically flopping around, it was probably dislocated. Further jostling could permanently damage the ligaments at the base of her wing, and would hurt. Quite a lot. Unfortunately, so would the treatment.
After cobbling together a rough, clumsy sort of sling from the blue shreds, Rainbow Dash gingerly looped it around her damaged wing. She could barely even bear to look at it without feeling nauseous, knowing full well what she had to do next. There was nothing for it—she pulled, hard, and for a fraction of an eon her world exploded into the flashing, epileptic colors of excruciating pain. The intense, electrifying sensation bloomed from the stretched tendons of the joint, raced to the very tips of her wing at the speed of pure agony, and dug deep, sinewy roots into her shoulder and back. The staggering, convulsing pony nearly lost consciousness again, but remained standing by planting the hooves of her hind legs wide apart. The tears that welled up in her eyes she fought back, but the bile still burned in her throat, and there could be no withholding the shrill, unearthly whinny-scream that escaped her lips.
For a long while Rainbow Dash stood there, slightly bobbing up and down on the gentle swell of the sea, trembling, hyperventilating, and trying to hold on to her lunch. Slowly, the throbbing subsided and the pain ebbed away. When she felt ready to open her eyes again, she noted with relief that she had successfully secured her injured wing.
"Piece of cake," she told herself, straightening up while still trying to keep her panting breath from catching in a pathetic sob. Even here, isolated and alone, where there was nopony around to see her being a weak little crybaby, she didn't like giving in to a pointless display of emotion.
Crying never solved anything. It didn't heal your wounds; nor did it make the source of the pain go away. No amount of tears had ever persuaded the inexorable universe to start being fair... or to bring anypony back.
Banishing that unpleasant memory and inhaling deeply, Rainbow Dash cleared her sinuses and wiped at her eyes, her jaw once again firmly set. Everything was fine, she told herself. She was fine... a little banged up, maybe, but otherwise her cool, confident self. But she wasn’t fine—she felt very lonely, all of a sudden; a tiny blue dot on that enormous body of water, with no land in sight. Only now did the lost little pegasus realize how far out she really was, and how long and arduous the journey back home was going to be. Her ordeal was far from over. The fact that she was hurt and unable to fly made her feel even more stranded, and navigating was going to be difficult with no landmarks around to guide her and the stars obscured by the light of day.
If only Twilight were here. She’d come up with some brilliant spell to teleport them all safely back in no time at all, and hopefully in one piece. Or triangulate their position based on... something or other. Applejack would be a sight for sore eyes, too—the sturdy farmfilly would probably tell her she looked terrible, and to move her sorry butt already. Just the kind of encouragement Rainbow Dash needed right now. And Pinkie would find some way to make her laugh, even in a situation like this. It would probably hurt to do so, but what the hay. Rarity would probably want to kill her for ruining her painstakingly hoof-sewn creation, but even that seemed like a welcome diversion right about now.
Fluttershy... would have done a better job of fixing up her wing, for one thing. Rainbow Dash had no trouble imagining her doing so, her skillful hooves gently prodding to determine where it hurt, her hasty, heartfelt apologies when she happened to poke exactly at the most painful spot. Her eyes filling with concern...
The mental image startled Rainbow Dash out of her reverie. How long had she been gone already, flying around for her own amusement? How many more days would it take her to get back home? Fluttershy would be worried sick about her pretty soon, if she wasn’t already—all of her friends would be. She didn’t have time to be standing around here, she needed to get back home as soon as possible.
With this renewed sense of urgency, Rainbow Dash studied the declination of the sun, squinting and trying to remember what direction she’d been going in. It was hard to think. Trusting to luck, she started limping towards what she thought was the west, trying not to be discouraged by the sight of the enormous stretch of ocean in front of her unsteady, faltering hooves, easily spanning the distance to the horizon like a vast, lifeless blue desert with ever-shifting dunes.
The novelty of soft splashes rather than clops accompanying the fall of her hooves wore off almost as quickly as her gratefulness towards the blazing sun that swiftly dried her dripping mane and coat. The bowl of cool, refreshing water she had dunked her head into before the second leg of the Mareathon haunted her thoughts; her throat and lips were dry and ached at the tantalizing sight of the cruelly undrinkable water all around her. Compared to that torment, the feeble protests of her stomach barely even registered.
Dash didn’t know how long she had been trudging along when she noticed that it was getting darker, and that the repetitive sine wave of water beneath her hooves was increasing in amplitude—the rises resembling hills now more than subtle little bumps. Wearily lifting her head, Rainbow Dash’s tired eyes widened at the sight of the ominous clouds that were gathering in the distance.
Beneath the dreary, grey roof blotting out the sky an orange sun was beginning to set. It seemed to plunge into the ocean, but failed to fizzle and throw up steam as it sank beneath the waves. In the gathering gloom, the brewing storm looked even more threatening. Even after seeing it happen over the Everfree Forest a number of times, it was still unsettling to a pegasus to see clouds behaving so unnaturally, conglomerating into a dark mass by themselves.
But there was another, less concrete reason why the spontaneous shift in the weather disturbed Rainbow Dash. She wasn’t sure why; far away from the sphere of influence of earth ponies and alicorns alike, weather like this was probably a common occurrence. However, the thunderstorm seemed like an ill omen to her, filling her with an irrational but unshakable sense of foreboding. She felt her pace quickening when the first, deep roar of the thunder rolled past her, though she was unsure where she was even dredging up the energy from at this point.
Before long, the roiling clouds were directly overhead. That’s when the floodgates opened and the downpour began, as suddenly as if a thousand pegasi had started jumping up and down atop the moisture-laden thunderclouds. The surrounding water looked like it was boiling, the texture of the surface changing as it was bombarded with innumerable droplets. The torrential rain pounded down heavily on Rainbow Dash as well, but she didn’t even care about getting completely soaked again. The rain was nice and cool, and the parched pony threw her head back and opened her muzzle wide, drinking all she could of the reinvigorating shower of freshwater.
Having escaped from the blue void, Rainbow Dash now found herself an out-of-place splash of vibrant color in a drab, depressing world, with grey skies and churning black water as far as the eye could see.
Just as she mounted the foamy-white crest of a towering wave that pushed up from beneath her, and a heavy gust of wind blew back the lank strands of wet mane that clung to her cheeks, a haggard-looking Rainbow Dash caught sight of an anomaly in the otherwise-unchanging view. The rain was easing up a little, making it easier for her to raise her head and gaze up at the small hole that had appeared in the otherwise ubiquitous cloud cover. It was like a window had opened, offering a brief glimpse of the peaceful night sky that was hidden behind the turbulent storm. The little patch of stars was an unexpected but welcome sight, since it could help her ensure that she was still heading the right way.
After she had spent several moments studying the distant, twinkling lights above, there was the sudden, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it flicker of a falling star. The sight, reflected in her awestruck eyes, both moved and further disquieted Dash. She paused for a moment, trying to figure out where this dreadful, sinking feeling was coming from, but then began to walk faster, almost gallop, ignoring the throbbing pain in her hind leg and the protests from her overtaxed body.
If there was a limit to how far loyalty alone could take a dehydrated, starving, wounded pony who was running on fumes, Rainbow Dash would discover it soon enough.
Somewhere along the Equestrian coastline, at the pristine beach of a tiny lagoon, a large wave broke as it rolled in towards the shore. Atop it, riding on the overturning crest, was Rainbow Dash, trying to keep her balance but eventually getting wiped out anyway. She washed up on the beach a few moments later, like so much colorful flotsam, simply too worn out to even move at first. As fond of flying as she was, Dash couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so intensely grateful for the feeling of actual sand supporting her. It did so automatically, requiring no effort on her part, something Rainbow Dash had always taken for granted and only now fully appreciated. She could finally give her mind a reprieve from the constant concentration required to traipse around on water.
Subsequent waves, advancing and retreating in their continuous assault upon the shore, kept shifting the exhausted pegasus around, seemingly toying with her as they carried her further ashore only to suck her back in again. Finally, when a particularly large wave came crashing in, Rainbow Dash was swept away, only to roll onto her stomach. With some effort she managed to seize this opportunity to get up on her hooves once again, shivering from the cold wind that cut straight through her soaked fur and chilled her to the bone.
“Just... Just a little further. Then you can rest,” she told herself for roughly the gazillionth time.
By the time Rainbow staggered into Ponyville, she had at least managed to get some food and water in her. During her trek through the woods she had often stopped to hunt for even remotely edible plants and patches of grass, or to drink her fill from the streams she stumbled across, which had kept her from collapsing. If she hadn’t been staggering around in a daze or quite as hungry, she might have wondered why there were no berries or any fresh grass to be found.
The bedraggled pegasus with dried blood clinging to her mane drew stares of concern from passersby, few of whom Rainbow Dash thought she was familiar with, although the scarves some of them had wrapped around their necks didn’t help with recognition. She ignored the unfamiliar faces and the whispered conversations behind her back, not noticing the doubtful or even disturbed looks some of these ponies were giving her. She was suffering from tunnel vision, single-mindedly dragging herself to her first destination, and shrugged off any time-wasting and unnecessary questions like ‘Are you okay?’ or ‘Do you need help?’.
Dash merely shook her head and stubbornly pushed past everypony who tried to hinder her, doggedly keeping her head down and mumbling something about an emergency. Her breathing was growing increasingly shallow. The light-headed mare knew she had to keep going; if she allowed herself a moment of rest now, there was no telling whether she would be able to drag herself up onto her hooves again.
When she limped up to the Carousel Boutique, Rainbow Dash was frustrated by a large ‘CLOSED’ sign hanging haphazardly from the front door. The noticeable film of dust that covered both the sign as well as most of the exterior of Rarity’s home and workplace didn’t bode well, but she banged on the door anyway, and tried to peer through the darkened windows even though all the curtains were drawn.
Immediately, Rainbow Dash worried that her prolonged absence had something to do with this. Rarity and she had never particularly gotten along... for which she was largely to blame, she supposed. But then the unicorn had made such a big deal out of the fact that Rainbow had "saved her life." Which was pretty awesome, she guessed, but she would have done that for anypony. Still, it had put a serious dent in the thick layer of ice that had separated the two vastly different mares.
For some reason, while she turned and walked away, Rainbow Dash found herself hoping for a chance to talk to Rarity again. She needed to apologize for wrecking the suit, first off, and then maybe ask to hang out with her some time—preferably at some place that didn’t have any makeover-related facilities. Rare could be a pretty cool pony when she wanted to be. And she was Fluttershy’s best friend, making her the most qualified pony to consult on that sensitive matter.
There was no answer to her insistent knocks on the door of the Golden Oaks Library either, although this building at least still seemed to be inhabited. Still, the lack of response left Rainbow Dash feeling increasingly restless and worried, a frown of concern clouding her already-pained expression. She shivered again, feeling an inexplicable coldness seeping into her skin and gripping her heart in its icy claws. She had so been looking forward to telling Twilight that her theories on pegasus flight had proven correct, and that her additional advice had ended up helping immensely. And, although it would probably end up with her getting a bunch of magical sensors taped to her body again, Dash was dying to discuss the weird stuff that had she had observed when really pushing herself.
Upon reaching the outskirts of Ponyville to visit Sweet Apple Acres, Rainbow didn’t fare much better. At first the place seemed unchanged, but when Rainbow looked more carefully she noticed that sections of the orchards had gone missing, and that the farm itself had also seen better days. Her gut feelings were looking more and more sound by the second; something bad had clearly happened here. But there was nopony in sight to ask about what had transpired, and Rainbow Dash didn’t feel up to a visit to the farmhouse, where the entire Apple family’s well-meaning concern and barrage of questions would only lead to lengthy delays.
Dash pressed onward despite her disappointment; she had really been hoping to catch Applejack outside. There had to be an explanation for all of this. She had only been gone for a few days, her muddled brain estimated, and it seemed hard to believe that so much could have changed in Ponyville during such a brief absence. But if she could rely on anypony to explain it all succinctly and simply—even for a slow-on-the-uptake pony with a concussion—without demanding that trivialities like her injuries were addressed first, it was Applejack. She would understand.
While she continued to reminisce on years of rivalry and friendship, and involuntarily began salivating when her mutinous brain cruelly recalled all the the scrumptious meals she had enjoyed here, Rainbow Dash wandered aimlessly towards the Everfree Forest. On the one hoof, she desperately needed to know what fate had befallen Fluttershy; on the other, what she had seen so far made her dread every step that brought her closer to the cottage.
Then she spotted something in a clearing ahead and let out a cry of relief, laughing as she forced her unwilling legs into something resembling a trot. A large wooden table had been set up there, and there were some wooden bowls and plates and such, but what had really caught Rainbow Dash’s eye had been the banner stretched between two trees, reading, in multi-colored letters, ‘Welcome home Dashie!’ She immediately recognized the flowery, scribbly penmareship as belonging to Pinkie Pie.
But the hopeful blue pegasus’s pace slackened as she got closer to the scene that had filled her with such elation, and began to think things through a little more. There was nopony there waiting for her, of course; she had been lost at sea for several days, and there was no way for her friends to know she had made it back yet. She tried to push away the unreasonable sense of disappointment. At the very least, the fact that a surprise victory celebration had clearly been in the works made her feel a little better.
That is, until Dash started noticing disturbing little details she couldn’t have made out from afar. Things like the fact that the table, while clean, looked to be in a state of slight disrepair, or that the writing on the banner looked rather weathered and faded. The whole place had a decaying and eerily quiet feeling to it, like a graveyard or old monument that was being carefully maintained by some caretaker, but was still being gradually worn down by the relentless, eroding influence of time.
If this was a prank, it was a frighteningly elaborate one, and in very, very poor taste.
Slowly, Rainbow Dash backed away from the clearing with that strange, cold shiver running up and down her spine again. Then she hastily turned and quickened her steps, eager to put as much distance between herself and that uncanny scene as equinely possible.
After closing her eyes to cut through some tangly brush, Rainbow Dash had to blink heavily when she opened them again. She froze completely, mouth hanging open at the sight that greeted her. It was like all mental processes shut down temporarily whilst her brain feverishly tried to make sense of the surreally impossible.
“No way,” Rainbow said, directly quoting her stumped brain’s eventual conclusion.
Right before her lay Horseshoe Lake, a crescent-shaped body of water that was, at the moment, completely and totally... frozen solid. Which meant that either reality had decided to look the other way while Pinkie and the Crusaders had pulled off their completely asinine plan with the ice cubes, or she was hallucinating. And she had hit her head pretty hard...
But wait, no, of course! Twilight had probably helped them out with some awesome instant-freezing spell, Rainbow Dash told herself, attempting to keep her sanity from slipping. That had to be it!
At that exact moment, the snow began to fall.
Looking up in bewilderment, Dash saw entire formations of winged ponies busying themselves with the relocation of several large clouds, all of them carefully prepared in Cloudsdale and heavily laden with moisture. The hard-working pegasi of the Weather Patrol were lifting them up to the correct altitude to allow for the water vapor to crystallize. It was all part of the annual routine, the first step of the artificial push towards seasonal change when ambient temperatures began to drop. Sort of the opposite to Winter Wrap Up.
The simple truth was finally beginning to sink in. The constant shivers she had been experiencing... they weren’t due to blood loss, fatigue or lingering uneasiness. It was, quite simply, cold outside. Ponyville was preparing for winter. But the Pegalympics had been held when autumn was only just around the corner...
Moving slowly and with difficulty, like an ancient, decrepit pony on her last legs, Rainbow Dash climbed a nearby hill. There was a bleak, barren tree that stood on top of it, like a lone sentinel. Only when she got to the top and leaned up against that dark trunk, heaving for breath, did she notice that her exhalations were coming out of her muzzle as a fine mist.
Shading her eyes from the pale winter sun and the gently falling flakes of snow with her one good wing Dash surveyed the land below, which the ever-airborne pegasus had once known like the inside of her saddlebag. Instantly, her sunken but unfailingly keen eyes spotted the differences—shifts in the foliage, patches of forest where the trees had been felled, a barn she could have sworn hadn’t been there when she left—subtle changes, but none of them the kind of thing that could happen overnight.
The forlorn pony atop the hill sat there for a long while, looking out at what should have been her home, but wasn’t. The ways it had been altered were minor and not particularly sinister, but felt enormous, in that they took away any sense of security and familiarity. Rainbow Dash was afraid—as any pony would be when faced with the blatantly impossible—but the horror she felt was so weird and atypical that she didn’t know what to make of it. She was faced with a reality that her mind utterly rejected, but which steadfastly refused to go away no matter how often she closed and reopened her eyes.
Rainbow Dash would have given anything just for the comforting sight of a familiar face. Somepony to tell her this was all just a horrible, messed-up dream; that she had crashed into the sea and lost consciousness, but had miraculously been rescued. She only had wake up and open her eyes to find all of her friends crowded around her, crying and laughing and wildly hugging her, welcoming her back to the land of the living.
She held out a foreleg and caught a snowflake on her hoof. Holding it close to her face, she could see something of the unique, complex structure of the frozen snow crystal, although it rapidly began to melt from the exposure to her body heat. It was a level of detail she didn’t think her brain could ever conjure up, especially after rattling around inside her skull for a bit.
As a final test, she moved away from the tree to the curious rock below its outstretched, skeletal branches, and touched it, feeling the soft, squishy moss and the coolness of the stone. Idly, using the edges of her hoof, the lost-in-thought pony scraped off little bits of plant matter, which would probably not survive the coming winter anyway.
Then she frowned. There were markings on the surface, carved with the magical precision of a unicorn horn, which she was accidentally bringing to light. Removing some more of the growth she could slowly begin to make out the design...
Rainbow Dash suddenly shrunk back as though the rock had burned her. It wasn’t a rock at all, of course; the smooth rectangular shape was clearly pony-made. Adorning the marker and staring her in the face, she realized aghast, was her own, beloved cutie mark.
She stumbled, her trembling legs finally faltering and giving way when she tried to take a few hasty steps back from this grisly, unnatural sight.
“W-What,” Rainbow Dash stammered, incapable of finishing even that simple thought. Her mind momentarily lost all coherency, teetering dangerously on the edge of utter despair while she stared, blankly, at this final straw.
“What... am I looking at exactly, Princess?”
Normally speaking, Twilight Sparkle would have treated the mysterious painting Princess Celestia was showing her as yet another important assignment—a mystery to unravel. But it was the day after Rainbow’s memorial service, and her heart just wasn’t in it today. It didn’t help that she had barely slept, having spent the majority of the night tossing and turning while she mulled over the frustratingly vague contents of her mentor’s letter, until the quiet sniffling coming from Spike’s basket distracted her.
He’d taken Dash’s death so hard... Twilight had tried to console him, but what could she possibly say to make it better when her own heart was filled with the same doubt and sadness, and was terrified by the same, stark reminder of her own mortality and that of her dearest friends?
She had had a rough night, in other words; one that had ended with her finally falling asleep in the wee hours of the morning, cuddling a still-depressed and equally exhausted little dragon to her chest. She wasn’t in the mood for riddles or enigmatic answers. Certainly not from Celestia, with whom she was still quite upset for failing to show up yesterday.
In fact, she’d practically stormed into the tower her mentor had summoned her to, and had been purposefully late, by at least two-and-a-half minutes, which the usually extremely punctual unicorn imagined was sufficient to make her point. She had been quite ready to give Celestia a piece of her mind; the entire carriage ride over had been spent rehearsing her pressing, poignant questions and mentally steeling herself for the fallout. She’d just... needed a moment to catch her breath; there had been a lot of stairs to climb in order to reach the observation tower.
But she had choked on her carefully prepared cross-examination, of course, when the tall, regal alicorn politely invited her in, standing there in all her stupid, ancient, magical, intimidating splendour. Twilight’s ire had been further mollified by the apologetic smile Celestia had been wearing. There had been something a little off about her expression that Twilight couldn’t quite put her hoof on. The Goddess of the Sun had looked almost... fragile. Old. Even though that ageless face was as immutable as ever, Celestia’s most faithful student—who knew her better than probably anypony alive today—had detected subtle signs of weariness and pain in the alicorn’s normally unfathomable eyes. It had been the first time Twilight had ever caught such glimpses of weakness and frailty in her venerable teacher, and it had taken her completely off guard.
“Hello, Twilight Sparkle. Thank you for coming,” Celestia had said, managing a smile. “I realize you must be angry with me, and for good reason. I truly apologize for my inexcusable absence yesterday, and I hope you will allow me to explain myself.”
Twilight had remained silent, her indignation evaporating rapidly as Celestia took the words right out of her muzzle. But then the Princess had pointed a golden sabaton at the painting she was looking at right now, asking her to tell her what she saw, and some remnant of the unicorn’s irritation had decided to linger. She failed to see how this ancient piece of artwork, depicting what looked like two newborn foals, was at all relevant.
“I assure you this is not a frivolous question,” Celestia remarked, startling Twilight a little. Her mentor had an uncanny knack for correctly guessing what was going through her mind at any given moment.
“I see two foals,” Twilight droned, still feeling slightly mutinous, particularly now that she felt compelled to state the obvious. “One dark blue, the other white and— wait.” She looked from the picture to the white alicorn beside her. “Is that you, Princess? You and your sister? I mean, Princess Luna?”
Celestia merely nodded encouragingly. “Please, continue.”
Turning back to the painting, Twilight leaned in a little closer, studying the scene again now that she was equipped with this crucial bit of knowledge. Something was bothering her about what was depicted—something was incorrect. She had the distinct feeling that it was one of those situations where, were somepony to give her the answer, the answer would be blatantly obvious in retrospect.
The two sisters had been painted together in a manner that was rife with symbolism, their tiny, curled up, winged bodies forming a circle, with the two foals arranged in such a way that they were facing each other, but were flipped vertically. Light and dark. Sun and Moon...
Suddenly it hit Twilight. “Wait. Princess, Luna is your younger sister, right? I can't really guess how many years—or, erm, centuries—separate the two of you, but surely this painting is employing artistic license by showing you as young foals together?”
“Well spotted,” Celestia said proudly. “You are right, of course. Luna is my younger sister, and I am a few hundred years her senior at the moment. But it was not always so. This painting, carefully preserved by magic throughout the ages but kept locked away from the public eye, was actually created on the very day Luna and I were born. Paradoxical as it may sound, we are, in fact, twin sisters.
“Twin... sisters... ?” Twilight repeated, frowning and looking completely baffled by this unexpected revelation. “But... but we were always told— Even Luna herself called you her ‘big sister’!”
“And so I am,” Celestia said softly, “albeit, originally, only by a few minutes or so.”
“I don’t understand,” Twilight said, making her old teacher smile by inadvertently adopting the familiar expression that had always accompanied that statement. The inquisitive look in those violet eyes, the insatiable eagerness to learn—coupled with a sigh of frustration because, at the moment, the answer seemed to be just beyond the intelligent young mare’s knowledge or comprehension.
“Then let me explain,” Celestia said, sitting down on her haunches. ”I will try to keep the ancient history brief, since I know you have more pressing questions on your mind. But I am afraid a little background information is needed.
“Millennia ago, during dark times, Luna and I were born. Though little more than fillies at the time, we eventually wielded the Elements of Harmony to restore some measure of order to our world. Despite both being heralded as the saviors of Equestria, as the elder sister it remained my destiny to rule in our mother’s stead, once she finally tired of the long years of immortality and decided to pass on the crown.
“Luna always begrudged me my privileged position, I fear, though I never foresaw the depths to which her inferiority complex would drive her until it was too late. She was always grumbling about how it had been mere chance that I had crawled out of the womb a little sooner, and that this feat in no way made me more suitable to ascend the throne. She was right of course, but I was an ignorant young fool and tended to tease her about it, failing to realize the psychological repercussions this would have in the long term.” Celestia hung her head, experiencing a pang of shame over her past transgressions.
“The two of us were rather fiercely competitive, you see. Luna, particularly, was always quite eager to show me up in any activity, to beat me in every game, no matter how trivial. One fateful night, she challenged me to a race. Or I challenged her - I cannot quite remember what set the entire chain of events into motion. I suppose it no longer matters. She pointed to a dim star in the night sky, which she said was the closest star to our own, and declared that the last one there was ‘an egg most rotten.’”
Twilight blinked in disbelief. “P-Proxima Humani? I am familiar with that system, but... Princess, despite being relatively nearby, in terms of stellar distances, isn’t it still over four light-years out?” The astronomy-loving mare could have quoted the exact figure, but the distances involved were already making her head spin. It wasn’t so bad when they were just abstract numbers on a page, but to actually consider an equine trying to travel across a gulf of space that wide... “So even if you were - theoretically speaking, of course—flying at the speed of light...”
“It would indeed take more than four years to get there,” Celestia said with a faint smile, “That does not seem very long to an alicorn, even at the tender age of a century-and-a-half, however. And to be completely accurate: Luna merely reached an appreciable fraction of the speed of light. But it was enough...”
“I see. Merely a fraction. Naturally. Silly me,” Twilight said weakly. Then she frowned. “But wait, you only mentioned Luna going. Wasn’t it supposed to be a race between the two of you?”
A brief, meaningful silence fell, wherein Twilight realized she had asked a delicate question.
“I only pretended to start,” Celestia admitted, and for the first time ever the alicorn, plagued by guilt, failed to meet her student’s eyes while she spoke. “I didn’t think she was actually going to go through with it,” she added, and the nearly pleading tone to her voice made Twilight shift uncomfortably. It was almost like the Princess was asking her for forgiveness.
"I wanted to at least humor Lulu and her challenge,” Celestia said, shaking her head sadly, ”but leaving our ailing mother to tend to the sun and moon for the duration would have been incredibly irresponsible. The whole thing was really quite mad and foalish to begin with...” She sighed, and looked at the dark pony on the painting, who would later be corrupted and reborn as Nightmare Moon. ”I could feel Luna’s malcontent and jealousy beginning to grow, even then. I thought that if I just pretended to have given up somewhere along the way and declared her the victor, it might cheer her up a little. A startlingly naive and ill-advised plan, as it turned out.”
Twilight felt like pointing out the obvious, that despite these mitigating circumstances Celestia needn’t have led her sister on, but she held her tongue. It wasn’t fear that motivated her to remain silent, even though she had just been duly reminded of just how vastly ancient and unimaginably powerful Celestia and Luna really were. Instead, it was pity. To have a single, seemingly innocent, juvenile prank produce such unexpected consequences...
“I’m guessing something weird happens to a pony when they go that fast? Is it like time travel?” Twilight tried to imagine the effects, but didn’t quite see how sheer speed could account for what seemed like the results of an aging spell gone horribly wrong. Although astrophysics had always been a hobby of hers, her focus on magical studies had prevented her from delving into the thick tomes of alicorn and unicorn lore that detailed more advanced stellar theories.
“It is more like time dilation,” Celestia explained, briefly sounding like the teacher Twilight was familiar with again, now that she had something other than her own mistakes to lecture about. “It would appear, Twilight—counterintuitive though it may seem—that time is neither constant nor absolute. It is dependant on the reference frame it is measured in, and is affected by relative velocity.”
“So... time flows differently for everypony, depending on how fast they’re moving?” Twilight thought the entire concept hard to believe, and even harder to visualize. But the twin sisters’ disparate ages and firsthoof experience were pretty solid and dramatic empirical data, so she tried to accept it for now and work out the equations later.
“Yes,” Celestia said, visibly impressed at how quickly her star pupil grasped the basic gist of what she was trying to explain. ”Normally speaking nopony notices this; the effect is negligible with day-to-day modes of travel, even for the swiftest Wonderbolt. But Luna, accelerating away from the rest of us at such immense speed, appeared to be gone for hundreds of years here on earth—even though she only experienced a few hours of travel before, thankfully, seeing through my ruse and turning back.”
Approximately one point four million questions popped up in Twilight’s head. The science was fascinating, even though she didn’t fully understand it yet, but her curiosity would have to wait. Instead, she tried to guess where this was going, how it all related to her deceased friend and to Celestia’s absence at the funeral. It didn’t take her long to put the pieces together. Her eyes went wide with dawning comprehension and horror. “P-Princess... are you implying that... that Rainbow...?”
“Yes. I fear that the same fate may have befallen your friend Rainbow Dash.”
“She... she’s alive?” Twilight could barely speak, barely breathe; her heart felt like it had stopped entirely.
“I believe she is,” Celestia confirmed, looking sympathetically at her understandably shocked student. She seemed glad to have finally gotten to the crux of the matter. “I have been trying everything in my power to locate her, but...” The lengthy horn upon her forehead pointed floorward a little more.
“But we... we buried her.” Twilight was speaking symbolically, of course. There had been nothing left to bury but their dwindling hope of ever seeing their friend again. ”I was—I mean, we were all trying to.. to move on... and now...” Twilight was struggling to form even these fragmented sentences; the uncontrollable sobbing was quite a nuisance. She didn’t even know if she was crying because she was happy to finally have hope again, or because it hurt, because it robbed her of closure and the modicum of peace she had gleaned from weeks of gradual acceptance. It felt like a healing wound being cruelly torn open again. “Are you sure?”
“I can only confirm that the Element of Loyalty still resides with her,” Celestia said gently, extending a wing to pull her protege into a comforting hug. ”I only became aware of it the day before the funeral; even though my connection with the Elements was severed, I can still faintly sense their presence. But she’s moving so fast, Twilight... I attempted to augment my senses until I felt the level of stimulus would surely drive me mad, but still I couldn’t intercept her...“
“I was so angry with you!” Twilight confessed, much more upset with herself now. “And all the while you were trying to save her...” She sniffed, looking up at the tall, regal mare. ”Why didn’t you say anything, though, Princess? Why all this secrecy?”
“I am not going to lie to you, Twilight,” Celestia said, though it clearly pained her to be so brutally honest. For what it was worth, she placed a comforting hoof on the crying mare’s shoulder, patting and rubbing lightly. “I fear we have a difficult decision to make. I originally did not want to burden you with this knowledge at all, but Luna insisted that it would be presumptuous of me to withhold this information and demanded that I confided in you, at the least. She seemed to think that I was being overprotective of you, and that you were much tougher than I gave you credit for.”
“Totally living up to her expectations at the moment, aren’t I?” Twilight said hoarsely and with a stuffy nose.
“You’re doing fine.” Celestia smiled, glad to hear that her student hadn’t lost her sarcasm, at least. But the expression vanished as quickly as it had appeared. “But here are the facts, Twilight: Rainbow Dash may still manage to eventually slow down and rejoin us in our reference frame—providing her fragile, mortal body endures the severe stress of deceleration. But even if she does, it might take her a while, from our perspective. She may show up in a few weeks, or a year later...”
“Or...?” Twilight asked, already knowing the answer (and dreading it), but needing to hear it spoken aloud.
“Or she may return hundreds of years from now, only to find her home irrevocably changed and all of her friends and family long gone...”
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Oh wow....so over the moon that you updated!!!
I loved the twist of time dilation and using it to explain the age difference between Celestia and Luna. That was really clever! And the sheer level of description and desperation in Dash's plight...poor girl.
This is one of the greatest Rainbow Dash stories out there.
Please continue!
Well. Now we have to find out how much time she missed out on..
Poor Rainbow. :(
well....that sucks. I wonder how long shes been gone for? hopefully not a depressingly long amount of time.
Reading Description.
"But making the impossible possible, while neglecting other things, may have unforeseen consequences and sunder her from those for whom she cares the most."
"may have unforeseen consequences"
"Unforeseen consequences"
i171.photobucket.com/albums/u302/Aph2nd/gman.jpg
Rainbow Dash pushing the light barrier? Holy shit.
I didn't think there was any way for this story to get sadder, but now it has...
I weep for Dash's dilemma.
Now, I must go read something happier, and hope that it helps.
Bravo dear author, bravo.
Oh wow... I did not expect that.
There are probably only one or two novels that have had me hooked because of awesome plots.
This is definitely going bump that number up. I begrudgingly await the next chapter!
"Proxima Humana"? Approximately four light years away? I see wut you did there.
I really hope this has a happy ending, with Twilight figuring out how to get Rainbow back*...
*I think I may have an idea on how that will happen too, but I'm keeping quiet to see if I'm right.
You. This story. EMOTIONS.
Go from sad at the start, to being damn hopeful when her friends start helping her. Then she pulls of the sonic rainboom. I scream that flutter yay in my head, before remembering that this story was a tragedy. Then pinkie. Man tears were shed after that. And now you leave me with this?
Cruel.
Ya better keep writing. <3
Nice twist, but the relativity in Luna's backstory doesn't quite add up. If she was going fast enough that she experienced only hours for Equestria's centuries, that puts her so close to c that even the full 8 light-year round trip should have kept her away from Equestria for less than a decade.
(A quick order-of-magnitude calculation puts her speed around 0.999c.)
(EDIT: That number is incorrect. I squared, where I should have taken a square root. It's more like 0.999999999999c.)
That last sentence gave me chills. It shook me to my core.
The worst part is that I have no idea what to expect now.
I eagerly await the next chapter.
1065040
She stopped for hay fries and a malt on the way.
1065040 Quite true... but the actual math behind relativistic speeds isn't common knowledge. You're quite right, of course. If Luna only reached a fraction of the speed of light, (even a significant fraction) she'd only experience a small time dilation.
And Rainbow Dash's trip... Assuming the planet Equestria is on is about the same size as our own, something moving at very near speed of light could travel around our planet seven times in a second... and in that second would experience only a faction of a second of time. So... if Rainbow Dash truly reached relativistic speeds, to be gone say, even a single month, she'd have had to have traveled around an average size planet over 18 million times. More than that if you count acceleration and deceleration. It's actually difficult to tell if this is what happened from the description. At first Rainbow Dash can make out landmarks.... (which wouldn't really be possible at relativistic speeds) but eventually things blur... and she loses track of time. So... perhaps she really did travel around her planet millions of times in the story, as incredible as that may seem... and ended up landing only several days walk from Ponyville through some stroke of extreme luck. Why not?
But this story is about magic, not accurate physics, and I'm willing to suspend my disbelief at the mechanisms involved and simply enjoy the story for what it is. MLP and Hard Sci-Fi is a pretty difficult combination, after all, and very little science fiction is based all that solidly on science fact... with a few notable exceptions.
Oh... if I'm being unclear, I'm enjoying the heck out of this story! Keep it up!
This is the best Rainbow Dash story i've ever read!! I can't wait to see what happens next!
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Yeah, uh, whenever you notice something like that,
the author fudged the mathan alicorn did it.This came out so good, I feel so bad for Rainbow and Shy
It is damn good to have my faith in this story rewarded.
I can't see where this will go from here and I'll be glad to have you write it.
Tragedy indeed. And thus the name of the story, and this chapter.
Why do I read these at 2am?!?!?
Now this is an interesting turn of events. And I mean interesting in the most literal sense
Too bad I always keep forgetting what this story was about when it finally updates... :P If it's not too much work, a small recap at the start of a new chapter would be much appreciated
Well It was Autumn, now it's Winter(I think) and there's dust on stuff...My guess is either 3 months or 27 months she's been 'gone'
Edit: 15 months is also an option, but I don't think it is I swear if you do 15 months I will destroy you
RAINBOW DASH IS NOW JESUS.
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And the ponies on the beach knew not whence she had come. But the inhabitants of Ponyville did know, so they applauded loudly in the town square. And they said unto the Pony Savior: "How the hell did you do that?" And inquired of her: "Do you do foals' parties?" And Rainbow Dash said: "No." But they did press her, saying; "Go on, give us another one!" And so Rainbow Dash brought forth a carrot, and said: "Behold this, for it is a carrot." And the ponies about her knew that it was so. For it was orange, with a green top. And she did place a large red cloth over the carrot, and then removed it, and lo, she held in her hoof... a white rabbit.
And there came unto her a filly called Fluttershy, who had seen the Mare and believed, and Rainbow Dash said unto her: "Put on a tutu, and lie down in this box." And then took she forth a saw, and cleft her in twain! And there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth. But Dash said: "Oh ye of little faith!" And she threw open the box and lo, Fluttershy was whole. And the crowd went absolutely bananas. And Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy took a big bow. And she said unto her: "From now on you shall be known as Trixie - for that is a good name for an assistant."
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And this brony did rejoice, for he had at last found true religion. And he did say unto the author of the new faith: "That's too awesome for words!" And he did inquire: "What must I do to become your disciple?" And he did then utilize the ancient and mystical arts of copypasta to begin spreading the new faith, confident that the author thereof would make an excellent Prophet. Holy word thus in hand, he did merrily frolic from forum to forum, posting knowledge of the new faith so that those of pure heart and sound mind might learn of it and rejoice. In doing this holy work he did find peace, and in his tranquility he did find within himself the inspiration to name this new faith, what would now and forever be known as Radicality.
I'm making myself a What Would Rainbow Dash Do bumper sticker right freaking now.
1183288
Totally stole that from Rowan Atkinson, just so you know.
But it just fit so well... (Although in the above version he says "Sharon" instead of "Trixie," for some inexplicable reason.)
I am totally for WWRDD stickers, however.
1202448
...
I am officially an idiot.
1209946
My bad.
1223588
... Pretend that what never happened?
1223599
Oh, you're goooood.
1223734
I mean, thanks!
This is one of the saddest stories I've read so far. That moment with Twilight and Scootaloo...
You. Have. To. Keep. Writing.
I had forgotten about this story, been so long, then I saw that comic that was made for it again. Looked this up and lo and behold, a new chapter.
Forgot to mention it before, but I love how you described this. Letting us know subtly that Dash is flying much faster than even she realizes, what with the repeating scenery changing into indistinct blurs of color. Reading this gives you a real sense of what she's experiencing, which is always a nice touch.
Gah! This must have a happy ending! It must! *cue Rarity whining - yes whining - voice
Seriously, though, this is awesome. Its just so damn emotional. And now that you finally made me actually like Flutterdash you can't leave me hanging with them never getting together, or having Fluttershy be an old crone by the time Dash made it back. Of course you totally could - its your story
Anywho, I'm hooked, and eager for an update whenever you have time
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)
Alas, poor Rarity! Your impressive high-pitched whining notwithstanding, this tale is labeled a tragedy for a reason... (Awww, crap, you're making me feel like such a cruel person, now.
Anyway, regarding updates, I have a new fic that's being proofread right now. After that has been published, I plan on working full time on the next chapter for this one.
This was INSANELY good; I'm surprised this doesn't have higher ratings.
So... the flood destroyed Applejack's farm, and they rebuilt it; Twilight is still in Canterlot, along with Rarity on a business trip. Pinkie is... being Pinkie... and Fluttershy is having a picnic with animal friends...
must... be... optimistic...
By the way, I have to say it, the art-work is very well done.
Is this dead?
Please update this Its a work of pure, undiluted, perfect genius!
And the artworks fantastic by the way
Are you going to finish this fanfic or are you done with this story?
3128909
I'm actually working on a small update now. Trying to pick it up again!