New Beginnings
Chapter 3
The scream from Rainbow Dash could be heard all the way back at the library, during the time that Rainbow was sulking to her home, Applejack had started to walk home as well. She had barely left the door when she heard Rainbow's yell. She immediately rushed back into Twilight's home, causing a confused pony to look down at her as Twilight was heading up to bed.
“Ah think somethin's wrong with Rainbow, Ah heard her yell.” Twilight needed no further encouragement, she gave Applejack a quick nod and begun to follow her out the door. “Think she's still upset Twi?”
“Probably, otherwise why else would she yell? She was probably just angry and yelled up at the sky or something.”
“Ah guess we'll see.” It was a short gallop to where Applejack heard Rainbow yell. They slowed to a trot as they saw her sitting on the ground alone, staring up at the sky. “Rainbow?” She took another step closer as she elicited no response, “Rainbow, Ah heard ya yell, what's the matter?”
Rainbow didn't take her eyes off the same spot in the sky she had been looking at, and she whispered barely enough for Applejack to hear her, “I haven't lived anywhere else in my life. I grew up there, I never moved, after my parents were...killed, I felt like I needed to take care of the place they raised me. I never left it, never before has something meant so much to me. And now it's gone, just like that, it's gone.”
Both of the listening ponies' eyes were already wide when they learned about Rainbow's parents, but as the realization of why their friend was upset hit them, their mouths dropped. Applejack stepped forward and put her hooves around Rainbow's neck, pulling her into a hug that all three knew she desperately needed at that moment. Never before had the other two see Rainbow cry the way she was right now. Twilight looked at the spot that Rainbow's house used to be, just an empty spot in the sky fading away into the far away stars, no beautiful home constructed of the softest material known to ponykind.
Emptiness, a perfect comparison to the way Rainbow felt, her feelings embodied perfectly in the blackness of the sky. “Rainbow...ah...ah had no idea about yer parents, why didn't ya ever tell us?”
“I can't be seen as a weak pony, that's not me. Ever since that day I've made myself the toughest pony I could be. I had to be to survive on my own, this only happened when I was a little filly, that day changed me into who I am now.” Rainbow closed her eyes as she began to recount the terrible events.
It was late at night after Rainbow's mother tucked her into her cloud bed and read her a bedtime story. Rainbow had been asleep for about five hours when she heard a bloodcurtling scream that she knew could only have come from her mother. The sound woke her up and left her heart pounding a mile a minute.
She whispered as quietly as she could, “Mom?” she realized that her mother obviously couldn't have heard her at the volume she was whispering, but as she was about to ask again a little louder she opened her door at the same time.
Her mouth was left agape as she saw the sight that would be burned into her mind for years and years to come. She saw two Pegasi standing in her living room whom she had never met, and her father lying face down in a pool of his own blood, a knife sticking straight up out of his back. Her mother was sobbing fiercely lying on her back at the hooves of one of the intruders. She could see the sadistic grin on the colt's face as he slid the knife straight across the throat of Rainbow's mother.
Tears were streaming down her face as the two colts began to ransack her living room, she couldn't rip her eyes away from her mother's own as she used the last moments of her life to reach out to Rainbow. As if trying to comfort her, to show her everything was going to be okay. One of the colts pointed to Rainbow's room, forcing her eyes away from her mother's as she scrambled away from the door to hide under her bed.
She put her head in her hooves, trying to block out the world around her, hoping that this was all a terrible nightmare and she would wake up any moment now. But she never did. She listened as she could hear the colt rummaging through her stuff, taking everything he could get his greedy hooves on. After a while she heard him walk away, the front door slam, and she knew it was safe to get up.
It still took her a lot of inner-strength to do so, she didn't want to get up out of her hiding spot, it managed to keep her safe from the burglars, maybe it could keep her safe forever. But she wasn't a completely naïve pony, and forced herself to get up and look around. Her room was a wreck, she couldn't find a single thing that was valuable in anyway to her...except for the picture of her parents. The colt had knocked it on the ground and cracked the glass covering the photo that she would end up keeping as long as she possibly could. It had a tear running all the way from the bottom to the top from the glass cracking, but it was hers, and it hadn't been taken.
She picked up the picture and walked slowly into the living room, for a long time she looked down at her mother she had no idea what she was going to do anymore. Rainbow lay down next to her mother and rested her head on her belly and placed the photo in front of her where she could see it. She wept herself to sleep laying in that exact spot.
All three ponies were crying after Rainbow's story. Not once during the story did her eyes leave the spot where her home had once stood, she shifted a little bit and pulled the photo out from under her and placed it upright in front of the ponies. “I'm not materialistic at all, this is the only thing I had in my home that wasn't made of a cloud. This is the only thing I have left...again.” She put the photo down again and lay her head on top of it, silently shedding more tears.
“Rainbow, oh mah gosh Rainbow, Ah'm so sorry. Ya watched all of that happen? Ah can't believe that happened! Ah knew you were strong, but that strong? Ah had no idea...”
Applejack couldn't speak anymore and hugged Rainbow's neck again, “Nopony did, I never told anypony. I didn't even tell Fluttershy, she obviously knew something had happened since I was living by myself now, but she's too polite to ask about it. I've had nightmares at least every week since that day...
“Things don't work the same way in Cloudsdale as they do here, news didn't spread, and only the authorities and I know what happened. The next week I begged the captain of the weather team to give me a position there, I knew I needed money if I was going live by myself. I was small and couldn't do much, but I worked hard to do anything I possibly could.
“I forced myself to be strong, I had to be, that's why I am the way I am now, because of that day. I was able to keep myself together as well as my home. That place was proof of everything I had done, a self-accomplishment type of thing. And it's all gone, what do I do now?”
Applejack wiped the tears from her eyes and stood up, extending a hoof to her azure friend, “yer comin' to stay with me, and ah am not taking no fer an answer. Ah don't necessarily have a spare room, or another bed for ya, but Ah'm sure you can make a bed out of a cloud, and stay in my room right?”
Rainbow took her hoof and nodded, “I can easily, but why would you want to do that for me after what I blurted out earlier?”
“Key word being blurted sugarcube, Ah know ya didn't mean it, or ya wouldn't be talking to me right now. Yer comin' ta stay with me, and that's final.”
“But-”
“Fer the third time now, no buts. Now come on.”
Applejack walked past Rainbow leading the way to what was going to be her new beginning. Rainbow looked nervously from Applejack walking away to Twilight, who was looking at her with tears still in her eyes, and a soft smile on her lips. “I'm so proud of you Rainbow, you have no idea how amazingly brave what you did was. I don't know of anypony else who could have gotten through that on their own, you're an amazing pony, don't forget that.”
Rainbow's tears transformed into a happy cry as she jumped at Twilight to give her a big hug. Twilight smiled and embraced her, “next time don't be alone like that, you have friends for a reason. Each one of us is here when you need it, take advantage of that fact. Right now Applejack is the one you should be paying attention to, now go.”
“Thanks Twilight.” Rainbow broke the embrace and smiled at Twilight, she wiped the rest of the tears from her eyes and turned to grab her photo and a bunch of the cloud that Derpy had been aiming for before the damage had been done. She sped after Applejack who had been casually walking towards her farm. She had been confident that Rainbow would follow her shortly, and hadn't even looked over her shoulder as she heard Twilight and Rainbow talking. As Rainbow caught up, she turned and smiled at her. “Thanks to you too Applejack, seriously, I'm really happy you're letting me stay with you.”
“Aw shucks sugarcube, it ain't nothin', I owe ya.”
Rainbow looked confused, “how do YOU owe ME?”
“If ya hadn't have been so strong, then Ah wouldn't have had the best friend in the world comin' ta live with me right now” Rainbow blushed and looked down, tears coming to her eyes again.
“I can't believe how nice you girls have been to me, Twilight was right, I need to take avantage of friends more often. You girls are the best friends I could ask for as well.” Rainbow hugged Applejack again and broke it after a couple of seconds, coughed, and looked around embarrassed. “Weeell I think that's enough of the sappiness, lets totally forget any of this happened, kay?”
Applejack chuckled, “glad ta see yer back ta normal Rainbow, Ah don't like seein' ya get down like that..”
“Psh, I was totally fine!” This elicited another chuckle from Applejack and grinned at her in a much more Rainbow Dash-y way than she had been acting. When Applejack looked away Rainbow's grinned softened into a normal smile, “That eggbrain Twi knows what she's talking about sometimes, I can't believe I overlooked at exactly how much my friends rock! Especially Applejack, she offered to let me stay with her so easily...she doesn't exactly have much room at her place.”
Applejack caught Rainbow smiling at her from the corner of her eye and turned to look at her, “don't tell me yer gettin' all sappy again already!”
Another blush found its way onto Rainbow's cheek, “I totally was not!!”
“Sure ya weren't, I believe ya alright!” Rainbow's blush didn't go away at all, but she just rolled her eyes and kept heading forward. A smile still managed to creep its way onto her face while Applejack looked away.
When they got to Applejack's house Rainbow started to get nervous, she began to realize how much of a change she was about to receive. Her whole life had changed for the second time in one day, she hoped with every fiber of her being that this change was going to be for the better. Applejack led Rainbow up to her new room, Rainbow placed her picture on the ground and began to assemble her bed.
“Night Rainbow.” Applejack looked over to the other bed after getting no response and found that Rainbow was already asleep, she couldn't blame her though, today had been quite a day for the filly, Applejack chuckled and soon fell asleep as well.
Rainbow woke up in the middle of the night, rubbed her eyes sleepily and yawned. “Hey AJ, where's the bathroom at?”
…
“AJ? Are you awake?” Rainbow got up rubbing her eyes again and walked over to Applejack's bed, where she was facing away from her, and poked her friend. “Wake uuuup! I need to go to the bathroom!” Rainbow made Applejack roll towards her and saw a scared expression on her friends face, blood soaking the sheets where her head had been, and her throat was slit.
Rainbow screamed and backed away from the bed, and ran into something soft. She slowly turned around terrified and came face to face with the gray face of the colt that had been haunting her dreams for countless years. The same sadistic grin she remembered on his face, the same glinting blade dripping blood that she could remember so well. She dashed away from him as fast as she possibly could and hid behind Applejack's bed, broke down and started to cry.
“Raaaaaaaaainbooooooooow”
She was breathing in quick rapid breaths now as she saw his face edge around the bed to look at her. She whimpered and backed away from him as much as she could, her back against the wall as he stood there sneering at her. Then he lunged at her faster than she had expected.
“RAINBOW!”
She whipped her eyes open to find Applejack looking at her with a worried expression on her face. “Rainbow it was a nightmare, it's fine, yer awake now.” Rainbow jumped at her crying for the umpteenth time that day, Applejack just held her close as she cried into her mane. “Rainbow, sleep with me tonight, if ya try to sleep alone again yer just gonna have another nightmare.” Applejack felt a nod in her mane and led Rainbow to her own bed and lay down, pulling Rainbow beside her. She wrapped her hooves around Rainbow and pulled her close, putting her head on top of Rainbow's.
She whispered into Rainbow's ear trying to get her to calm down, “it's fine, it was just a nightmare, ya don't have to worry. I can keep you safe.”
Rainbow's crying began to cease, and she started to drift off to sleep again. She scooted closer to her friend, and right before she fell asleep she heard Applejack whisper in her ear again, but she couldn't make out what she said. She was out.
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“'I can't be seen as a weak pony, that's not me. Ever since that day I've made myself the toughest pony I could be. I had to be to survive on my own, this only happened when I was a little filly, that day changed me into who I am now...that day..." Ooooh, thank you thank you THANK YOU! I love when authors give the characters a good, not BS reason to be the way they are. Even if "my parents died" is cliched, the fact that you connected that to her personality is great.
) (it's hard to tell it's missing with the way I formatted the excerpt, but if you go find it you can tell it needs the quotation mark).
Also, that needs a quotation mark at the end (lol, totally killed the mood there, sorry.
"It was late at night after Rainbow's mother tucked her into her cloud bed and reading her a bedtime story. Rainbow had been asleep for about five hours when she heard a bloodcurtling scream that she could only have come from her mother which woke her up leaving her heart pounding a mile a minute." Read that aloud. You see the problems, I'm sure. The second sentence is a run-on, by the way.
At this point in time I would like to remind you about the comma thing I mentioned in the first chapter. That is all.
"She could see the sadistic grin on the colt's face as he brought slid knife straight across the throat of Rainbow's mother."
(Oh god I'm sorry, did I really only leave an emote after that? I've gotten more sarcastic the longer I've been editing for some reason)
"All three ponies were crying after Rainbow's story."
Oh. I hadn't realized that she was telling this story. I just thought it was a flashback. You might want to mention that before the italics launch into that tragedy. Actually, that being said you have a lot of little inconsistencies like that throughout the story. Remember that we can't see what you're imagining in this story, you need to write it down so that we can imagine it.
“Rainbooooooooow” Needs to be 20% creepier/scarier. I wasn't sure if this was the colt or not. More wtf, I says!
Other than that....
HHHHHNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!
That's the first time I've ever used that annoying, overused phrase, because it's the only time I've felt the need to use it. Damn, that was adorable.
Keep on writing, Phxntxom, you're doing such an awesome job with this. Let me know whenever you want me to do any editing!
On that note actually, any conundrums, concerns, cares, questions, or kumquats you want to ask me about?
>>Dash is Best Pony
I've fixed all the little things you mentioned, and looked through for the quick conversation thing. I figured the "inconsistencies" that you mentioned would have been there, I'll read through the whole story and look for those at some time. As for the stupid little errors (like the one that got me the sarcastic Trixie face) I usually write after midnight when I'm in the mood 
Thank you very much, I do appreciate it
But thank you for the compliments! I feel proud that the first story I've ever written turned out a lot better than I thought it would
CONTINUE IT, NOW! :
Sorry lol, I'm gonna write soon, I got dejected after being rejected by EQD and wasn't in the writing mood
still waiting, this story is to good not to keep writing!
Sooorry guys, I really am...I had like 5 different ways that I could have taken this story, so I've sat down to write chapter four about 5 times and I kept changing things. But I figured out how i want to do take the story, and I'm aaaalmost done...I'll try to finish it before I go to bed tonight.
I really liked the way you had this chapter go. For some sadistic reason, I enjoy it when somepony's parents end up dead or something. It makes for a good story. Keep up the great writing!
oh my gosh I can't stop crying
I get this is old and no longer canon but the fact that dash’s parents were killed when she was very young is heartbreaking, and the fact that it’s the only home that she’s ever known is very sad, F**K YOU DERPY REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE