It was raining. The storm clouds had rolled in from the east and the downpour began. Rainbow Dash was pretty well sheltered at the bottom of the forest thanks to the trees but a consistent drizzle still got through. It wasn’t even as bad as some of the storms that had hit Ponyville to be honest. Even if she was flying up above, unprotected, it would just be an ordinary heavy rain. And down here it was almost sort of pleasant.
She was directly underneath the thickest part of the tree branches of one of the redwoods and as she looked up a few drops of rain peppered her face. Thanks to the dampening effect of the trees it wasn’t very loud of a downpour either.
Rainbow had no intention of sitting here just waiting for the storm to pass, a little water never hurt anybody. With how slow walking already was she didn’t need to waste around and do nothing while it rained. She’d rather get through this storm and forest. As soon as she walked a few steps and the branches above thinned out slightly, she felt more raindrops hit her back. At first just a few, then a few more, and then a constant pitter-patter along her back, the top of her head, and her wings. It was kind of refreshing though. At least it was a change.
Moving from tree to tree quickly got her soaked from mane to tail. Not something she cared about now but if she couldn’t dry herself off and spent another cold night out here she’d likely catch that cold she was worried about. As soon as the weather cleared she should probably take the opportunity to shake and squeeze the water off of her before attempting to start a fire. Which was going to be a pain with everything wet.
Or she could just start flying through the storm to get out quicker—or above the clouds to avoid it entirely.
She looked back at the wings folded by her side, they felt so much stiffer and heavier than normal. She used them when she needed to but… it’s like she was too depressed to fly freely through the sky right now. There was something she needed to do with herself or finally get past before she was ready to fly like normal again.
So for now she walked through the rain, through the trees, over the ground soaking all the water up. The plants here were certainly happy for the rain, as were most of the animals too probably, aside from the ones who were getting their burrows flooded right now. She didn’t envy them. But a rain like this would feed the trees and flowers for a good long time, Rainbow Dash knew that well enough from her time on the weather team. She had no idea how often rainfall like this came to this forest but she doubted it was usually as heavy as this. If there was a rainy season and a dry season up here though she could be wrong and it might storm like this every couple of days or more.
Rainbow Dash intentionally stepped out into a small clearing where the rain fell mostly unobstructed. She ended up completely soaked in seconds, holding open her wings and moving them around to get them soaked all the way through too. Her normally wild mane lay flat against her head and she looked up at the sky with her mouth open to get a big drink of fresh water.
Done with that, she walked through the puddles of water on the ground—the dirt already reduced to a sloppy mud beneath them—and shook like a dog once she got under the next tree. Sort of a pointless gesture but it still made her feel a little nicer.
Thanks to the rain, even most of the forest floor that had trees covering it was getting very muddy. As Rainbow Dash walked along her hooves sank an inch with each step at the minimum and she had to fight a couple of times to get them out. Applejack wouldn’t have a problem with this, she was used to it, Rarity though—a ghost of a smile came over Rainbow Dash’s face as she pictured that.
At any moment Rainbow could just fly off and avoid this mud altogether but things still didn’t feel right.
A roar of thunder rumbled overhead, shouting for several seconds before it died down. Not a single flash or bolt of lightning though.
Rainbow Dash kept walking through the rain for several more hours like that. The downpour started to let up over time, gently at first, and eventually it was nothing more than a light drizzling everywhere. More water seemed to be falling from the tree branches of the redwoods than directly from the sky now. It was still enough to keep her pretty drenched until she found someplace to really dry off and her hooves and underbelly were still covered in mud.
But as she walked the clouds overheard started to break too and sunlight once more shone down on the forest. The sky after a storm broke was always beautiful, Rainbow wouldn’t admit such mushy sentiments to her friends, but even she knew that. It was quite a bit more time before the clouds had completely cleared though and Rainbow Dash spent it sitting at the edge of a break in the trees that turned into a small meadow before the trees rose up again a little further away.
Her face was blank as she looked around the meadow and let out a breath of air through her nose. Flowers dripped with water, grass grew long and tall, she saw a few animals coming out now, and a fresh ray of sunlight was shining on it all. It may have just been raining, pouring so hard especially on a spot like this with no trees over it, but everything was so pretty now. Everything was continuing to go on and make the best of things.
When it rains it pours but after the rain comes the shine.
She was pretty sure either Fluttershy or Pinkie Pie had first said that to her about something a long time ago.
Rainbow Dash smiled as she took it all in. “Crom, Eleanor, Dolph… Barnaby. I can’t make anything up to you if I don’t get around to doing anything, now can I?” She took a deep breath and then exhaled. “I get it now. I won’t forget anything, but I won’t keep feeling down on myself either. I need to be better.” She smirked. “And I will be.”
Rainbow Dash cracked her neck and extended her wings. With a single flap she shot off high into the sky, above where the clouds used to be, and spun in a vortex. She became a total blur thanks to the intense speeds and when she was done she was dry as a bone. “Wooh!” She combed a hoof through her mane and ruffled it up on purpose. “That’s how it’s supposed to be.”
The forest still stretched far into the distance, but Rainbow Dash wouldn’t be taking a slow walk through it anymore. Whatever was ahead, whether it be Pinetree Warren, some other town, a new adventure, or whatever else this side of the world held, she’d be flying to it like a star. Excitement and an eager desire to face her next adventure and not screw things up filled her. The way she could prove to herself and the world that she was still doing good and not just for selfish reasons. For a second she basked in the heat of the sun and took a look around at the world, the north, the south, the east, and the west—and then she was off.
Great chapters!
Nice
In today’s chapter: Rainbow gets some natural depression pills!
It's good that Rainbow got over her depression.
So, we got past the first major arc of the story.
For starters, there really isn't much constructive criticism I can give without repeating myself (being a bit too telly and talking about intentions before they actually happen or show a bit too often), but I think something that's rather new is how the action scenes are handled: there's too much being shown and/or told (like specific body parts hitting other specific body parts) that, at times, it bogs down the fast pace expected from fights and so on. Cutting down on stuff that'd be too generic (like hooves hitting this or that location) would mean more focus on the fight itself; perhaps, since Rainbow's proven to be the analytical sort, maybe she can tell fighting styles at a glance from just one swing from her opponent, but that's a suggestion.
That out of the way, this one's... I think, other than the Starlight stories (which I haven't read) and Amethyst (which I'm not sure I should count, given her attitude that's somehow more stubborn than Rainbow's), this is a first for protagonists in your stories: bleak, unqualified failure. The obstacles you've given Rainbow in the past were very difficult but she could and did overcome them anyway. However, you also painted this failure as one that'd truly change Rainbow... how much, it remains to be seen, but the final few chapters in the forest have cemented in me that, if and when she comes back home, Oreville will still be a thorn in her heart (but also, hopefully, a proven catalyst to change fro the better). It does make sense of why you've made Rainbow more adventure-focused at the beginning of this arc than I expected: to provide a place to fall from, to cause her to re-examine why she's out here in the first place. For that alone, I think this is a significant step up from your writing in the past with Rainbow.
Your characterization are also on point for everything and everyone else, especially with those you've ended up killing... especially Barnaby. I can't deny that it was a gut punch to see him die. But beyond that, you've got Eleanor and Abernathy... those you've fleshed out but left hanging. It's something I'm on the fence on, because I really wanted to see Eleanor's arc resolve, but perhaps it's sharing Rainbow's agony that Eleanor was left to the dust. At the very least, there was a bit of closure with the funeral... As for Copper, I knew there was more to him than just "I look like the bad guy," but for all that you've painted him as the antagonist, you've also made him sympathetic at the end with his constant blaming of Rainbow for Oreville's (or at least Copper District's) ultimate decline. It's because I can't say that he's 100% wrong: Rainbow really should've been more serious about saving who she could've, and if it meant not sticking it to Copper until everyone was safe, them so be it.
I'll repeat myself if I say that you're still good with worldbuilding, but this time, it will be bittersweet. I don't think you'll tell us what happened afterwards (but hey, a postmortem blog post about what happened to the places and creatures Rainbow's met by the time she returns home is a suggestion I'll put forward), but for now, much of the intricate world and history you've crafted in Oreville is also swept away or at least put in jeopardy. I don't know if the library or the spa will survive, for one, but the mines, the many ponies who used to call the mines their working home... yeah, there is that.
There's still a lot more for me to cover. I probably won't catch up to this until the story ends, but that won't stop me. I'll most likely make comments like these at the end of each major arc.
Looking forward to the rest, and thanks for your writing, MagicS!