Old memories

by TheSourceCode95

Chapter 12

A gust of wind quickly followed by a scream of pain woke her up. The rhythmical up and down that had been maintained throughout their flight had changed in a desperate attempt to maintain as much altitude as possible. Despite the attempts, the ground was coming at them fast. To their right, underneath them, a brown spot. Something, spinning around and around, just like them.

The ground came faster and faster. With only a couple meters to go, Golden Knife managed to get some control of the situation again. One wing broken, flapping up in the wind uselessly, the other almost straight above him, to allow him to steer a little bit. Only fifty meters left. Forty. Thirty. Twenty. Rainbow closed her eyes, afraid of what was going to come. Ten. One last mighty strike of Golden’s wing. A loud snap, followed by three others quickly after one another. Then a hard smack brought the fall to an end.

Pain.

A strain of warm liquid ran down one of her hooves as she stood up. Instantly pain struck, sending tears into her eyes. Slowly she stepped off Golden Knife’s back. He was laying flat on his chest, eyes forced closed, his legs in unnatural positions, dripping with blood. He groaned.

Black spots started to blur her vision. They grew quickly and the surrounding began to wave. The world turned ninety degrees as the spots blinded her entire vision.

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“There are two more over here! Quick, get a medic!"

"He's got a dagger, get one of the guards over as well."

Carefully she was lifted onto a brancard. Eyes still closed, Rainbow let out a small groan. "Easy there, it's all right, we've got you now," a voice spoke.

"Golden..." A voice to her left spoke.

"You know him?"

"We are colleagues."

"Do you know what he was doing here?"

"I do. Nothing of importance though." Nothing of importance? So a first feather is nothing of importance? Who does this guy think he is? Rainbow thought.

Finally she had managed to open up her eyes. She was not outside any more. Instead, she had been brought into a white tent. There were multiple ponies bent over her. Some obviously nurses, others Royal Guards, and some seemed just normal ponies. One of the nurses spoke to her. "Rainbow Dash, you have been hurt pretty badly. We will have to put you into a sleep until we get you to the hospital."

Warmth filled her body, forcing all thoughts out of her head, as she fell into a deep and restful sleep.

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A rhythmic beeping penetrated her mind. Beep... Beep... Beep... "Four broken legs, one broken wing," somepony spoke.

She opened up her eyes. The white tent was replaced by the solid cloud ceiling of the hospital. She was in a large room. To her left, on a bed surrounded by two pegasi and an unicorn was Golden Knife. To her right a curtain blocked out the view.

The unicorn was using magic, and had finished. Golden Knife opened up his eyes. "Easy now, Golden Knife. You have had quite a crash."

"Where's Rainbow Dash?" he responded.

"I'm here!" Rainbow jumped out of her bed, instantly regretting she did that. A headache worse than any she had felt before. But now she was already standing, and there was no use in laying back down. She walked up to Golden Knife, but one of the doctors stopped her.

"You should not get out of your bed yet, Rainbow Dash. Please lay back down." He grabbed her and led her back to her bed, helping her to get back in. Her face towards Golden Knife. As soon as the Doctor turned around, she caught a glimpse. He was looking at her. His face was one of a dead pony. Even whiter than he usually was, grimmer than he had ever been. His eyes did not shine like they used to. They were dull instead.

"What happened?" he asked. From across the room, a Royal Guard came. Clearly he was not glad to tell Golden what he had to.

"We have got another one. You have been hit by him, as he fell down."

Golden Knife moaned. He had really thought they had solved the suicides, but right now, they were back at square one. And disabled.

"When he hit you he broke your wing. On impact you broke four legs. We have managed to fix them up though. In two weeks we expect you back on duty," the guard said. He turned around, and left the room.

Golden Knife moaned softly. These were the times when he regretted becoming a Royal Guard. Four broken legs and a broken wing would have given most ponies at least a month off. But well, life goes on, and choices that have been made have been made. Slowly he sat up, and looked over at Rainbow. "Hey there, how are you doing?" he asked.

She had already raised herself, listening to the words spoken by the other guard. How was she doing? She actually had no idea. Aside from the headache, everything seemed to be fine. But it didn't feel fine. Something was not right. Realizing she had been staring at Golden for a while, she managed to answer. "Confused, I guess."

Golden was not really caught by surprise by that answer. She had had a rough time, lately. Figuring he was going to have to explain sooner or later, he spoke again. "We have been struck down by another pony committing 'suicide'. Your dad can not have been a murderer, but we've still got one on the loose, probably."

Three ponies dressed in black walked into the room. They walked past Golden and past Rainbow, towards the bed surrounded by curtains. Two of them disappeared behind them. After a while, they swung the curtains away, revealing a bed with on top of it a black cover. Under the cover must have been the pony that committed suicide. Rainbow's eyes traced the bed as it was being guided out of the room. Then they slowly went back to where the bed was. Behind where the curtains had been, there was a small cradle. Inside of it, a young brown foal.

Her jaw dropped, and her eyes grew. "Is... Is he... Did they... What..."

Golden Knife interrupted her. "Yes Rainbow. That little foal, just lost his father."

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Days went by without a hitch. After two days, Rainbow and Golden Knife were released from the hospital. Golden was still pretty weak, and Rainbow had to take care of him, but there were no notable events. Their everyday lives resumed relatively quickly. Even though he was only expected to be working again after two weeks, one week of doing nothing had caused Golden to get back to his snippets and reports, trying to figure out what was going on.

Thirteen days had passed, and tomorrow Golden Knife was expected back at the job. "Rainbow, I'm out for a while, could you start preparing dinner?" he yelled at the colorful trail flying through the yard. He walked out of the garden, knowing that no answer usually meant yes.

Rainbow practised her flying skills for another five minutes. Then she landed to get started on dinner. Today they would be eating simple, hayfries and daisy sandwiches. Having done most of the cooking for the past two weeks, she had gotten quite familiar with the art of warming up simple food. It wasn't really cooking, but the meals she produced were far from bad.

Just as she was about to get the hayfries out of the frying pan, the door opened. "Hey Golden. I'm almost done." she said as Golden Knife entered the kitchen.

In his mouth he had some kind of paper. He was grinning from ear to ear, as he laid it down for Rainbow to read. "Please Rainbow, call me dad." he said as Rainbow read the adoption form.

Rainbow jumped up and threw him over, hugging him as hard as she could. Everything seemed to slowly settle back into place again. First, she had found refuge when she thought she would end up on the streets, now she got herself a new dad. They were looking for her feather, so her future soon would not be a problem either. Everything was going to be just fine.

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Three years passed, and their lives had settled back into a normal rhythm. The number of suicides had declined drastically. Instead of once every two weeks, it now happened about once every three months. The Royal Guard was still working on it, trying to figure out what caused all those ponies without any obvious connections to kill themselves in a similar way, but the numbers were not as shocking anymore. Lately, however, the case had gained some new interest as there had been a suicide attempt by a young filly in the orphanage. She had only just been stopped. Both her wings were broken already, but a caretaker had caught her just before she had jumped off the clouds.

After the filly had recovered a bit, she was brought to the Royal Guard for interrogation. Golden Knife had led it. The filly claimed she did not know what had happened. That she had fallen asleep in the orphanage and woken up in the hospital. A couple unicorns had come over from Canterlot, trying to get into her mind, but they had found nothing. Nothing at all.

Rainbow was at the end of her first year in flight school. It had not really been an easy year for her, but definitely an important one. The high amount of crashes had given her the nickname 'Rainbow Crash'. She had been cast out by the majority of the school as being a failure, while actually the crashes had been the result of her pushing her limits. She was far beyond what most of her classmates could achieve in the air. Especially one of her classmates.

She was not the only one being bullied. In her class there was another filly, called Fluttershy. Where Rainbow was found in the air most of the time, Fluttershy choose to remain on the clouds as much as possible. Even though Fluttershy could not fly well at all, Rainbow did not tease her with it. Cast out from the rest of the group, they were kind of in the same situation. Fluttershy had become a good friend of Rainbow.

"I'm going to 'Shy," she said to her dad. He was once again focussed on the large pile of papers in front of him.

"Sure, just be sure to be back before dinner," he responded without looking up from his papers. There had to be something they were missing...

"Eeh dad, sleepover, remember?" Rainbow said while putting on her saddle bags. They were filled with a sleeping bag in one, and a pillow in the other bag.

Golden lifted up his head and jumped up from the couch. "Oh, of course, I forgot. Here, let me give you a hoof." He closed the saddle bags and kissed Rainbow on the cheek. "Have fun you two, and be careful please. And remember, I will be bringing Fallen Drop over." Fallen Drop was the foal that had almost been killed in the accident three years ago. Since he had lost his father, he had been sent to the orphanage. However, sometimes Golden Knife took him over to their place so he did not have to grow up as an orphan. There was no way they could adopt him as of right now, he simply did not have enough time to take care of a three and a half year old foal.

"I know," Rainbow answered. Having Fallen Drop over was not something special any more. Golden brought him with him every two weeks, in the weekends they did not go looking for Rainbow's feather. The search for the feather had not been a lucky one so far. They had scanned most of the perimeter mapped out around the Everfree already. There were only a couple patches of ground left to cover. If they would not find the feather there, it would probably be inside the Everfree. If it was in there, it was lost, Rainbow knew. She had gotten used a little bit to the effects of the forest, but it was still unpleasant. Going in there was, even in her mind, not an option.

She walked out of the door, and unfolded her wings. With one simple stroke she was hovering in the air. "See ya!" she yelled as she flew away towards Fluttershy's house. It was not far, and she had been there quite some times before. This was their first sleepover though. In no time she was at the house, three streets away from hers.

She landed in front of the door and knocked. A small peephole opened up, soon followed by the rest of the door. "Hey there 'Shy, ready for our sleepover?" Rainbow said excited, stepping into the house and closing the door behind her. Fluttershy nodded, her right eye covered by her long pink mane, her left showing the usual nervousness.

Hours went by in a matter of seconds, and before they knew it they laid down in the middle of the room, next to each other, yawning as their eyes slowly closed to take them away into the land of dreams.

The next morning Rainbow packed her stuff, and got ready to leave. "Hey 'Shy, do you want to come over? Fallen Drop is at our place this weekend. I'm sure you'd love him."

Fluttershy squeaked at the idea. She had only been at Rainbow's house once, for about five minutes. Never before had Rainbow seen that many hiding spots in her own house. Every single noise seemed to creep her out, and sent her flying off into a random direction finding cover. Now she thought of it, Rainbow wasn't sure if it was such a great idea either.

"Well, I guess I will see you monday then, back at school." Rainbow had already walked to the door, followed by Fluttershy.

Fluttershy helped Rainbow put on her saddle bags. "Bye," she said softly, almost too soft to hear.

Rainbow took off, and flew back towards her own house. Something inside of her was nibbling. She was not sure what it was. The sleepover had went well, she only had to pull 'Shy out of her cover about seven times. But something seemed wrong. She was not sure what it was. It was not a conscious thought, just a feeling in the back of her head.

She landed, and opened the door. "I'm home!" She was greeted by a lough. Not a nice one, more an evil one. "Dad?" She put down her bags, and walked into the room. Her dad was standing across the table. Next to him sat Fallen Drop. The little foal had an expression on his face she had never seen before. It was some kind of grin.

Her dad's wings were hanging uselessly along his sides, bend in places wings were not supposed to bend. His eyes were full of fire. She started to back away from the table, filled with plates of sandwiches. She walked back, against the wall, but did not stop. She tried to walk further, through the wall, away from the table. This was not her dad. This was not the dad she knew.

She sound of shattering glass against the wall was not loud enough to cover up the screams. Screams of fear, screams of pain, screams of horror. No matter how hard she screamed, it was in vain. Glassware flew around the chamber, followed by the plates and sandwiches on them. Even though she tried, she could not escape. Never could she escape. Running was no use, hiding wasn't an option. As she saw him grabbing the last plate on the table, she tried to dive away. The plate shattered into a thousand pieces, hitting the wall just above her. As she looked up, she saw his hoof reaching for the brown foal.

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Tears had soaked the cloud she and Twilight were laying on, causing it to rain down on the garden underneath. She gazed in Twilight's eyes. "Now you know, Twilight." Rainbow broke down, her eyes closed, water gushing from them. Twilight's eyes filled with tears, as she moved closer and hugged Rainbow. Now she knew. She knew. She knew what had been, and what has to be. And she hated every single bit of it.

Comments

[I hate you all]

Holly fricken crap I didn't get the part about her dad being that way and what the hell was wrong with Fallen Drop but you just mind fucked my brain.

[Flying-Claw]

Awesome Chapter. Like always. But, please, continue the flashback !

[TheSourceCode95]

2623268 Actually, that was the end of the flashback... Twilight knows what she needs to know, and even though she does not like it there is no need for Dash to continue telling.

2622521 I'm going to say nothing except for: Broken wings.

[Flying-Claw]

2623310
But... But.. I want to know what happens next - With her dad, her life, everything !

[TheSourceCode95]

2623369 Oh she will tell, just not in a flashback. And you're closer than you think.

[Flying-Claw]

2623392
YAY !

[Daring Cammie Do]

I hate you.

YOU KILLED GOLDEN KNIFE, YOU BUCKING PSYCHO! AFTER ALL HE DID FOR FILLY RAINBOW DASH! HOW COULD YOU?!

*breaks down sobbing*

*gets up smiling maniacally*

I'm fine. Everything's fine. Heh heh! It's aaaall good. See? We're good. Nothings wrong.