//------------------------------// // Meander - Hap // Story: Operation Westhorse // by PropMaster //------------------------------// Rainbow Dash squinted through her goggles at the river below, tracing its chocolate-milk curves all the way to the horizon where it melted into the sunset. Its sinuous lengths were interrupted only by a single latticework bridge, painted a shimmering pink by the western sky. The chill spring air was getting chillier, and that only increased the stiffness in Rainbow’s wings. With a subtle twist of her feathers, Rainbow began a shallow glide toward one of the bridge’s towers. She touched down on an iron girder, balancing comfortably as only a pegasus can as she pulled the goggles up to the top of her head. Several vertebrae cracked as she stood on the tips of four hooves and arched her back. One wing after the other coiled and uncoiled, finally free to relax after hours and hours of uninterrupted flight. The scent of farm animals and rich earth mixed with the odor of car exhaust from the traffic below. The river seemed to separate two worlds; lush, soft fields on her right, freshly plowed and stretching as far as the fading light could show her, and the city on her left, all bright lights and brick buildings stacked onto hillsides and surrounded by thick forest. This was the first bridge she’d seen in hours. Here she sat, at the only point of connection between two worlds as different as night and day. Light and dark. The steel span of the bridge fell away on either side of her like a swooping, expansive dress. Twisting her neck around, she looked at the bridge’s long shadow on the water behind her. Her own shadow was miniscule, perched at the top of a spire woven of darkness as fine as spider’s silk against the chocolate surface. Above the noise of the passing vehicles, Rainbow’s ears caught the sound of a blues band strumming over the rooftops. She turned back around and gazed toward the center of town, squinting against the sunset and the streetlights. Hundreds of people were gathered in the brightly lit downtown, their laughter adding to the noise, even from this distance. Rainbow looked at the horizon again and tensed her muscles for an instant, with the thought that she might take off again. She had a long way to go, and she was so very tired, but something about the music reminded her of Ponyville, of ponies in bowties sharing a single voice. Before she knew it, she was gliding downtown on wings that didn’t feel her own. She landed on the outskirts of the festivities, on a side street with a closed bakery and a newspaper office. Her little blue hooves carried her forward, past the bakery’s sign that said, “See us Downtown!” and the dress shop and the candy shop and the model train store and… A wooden barricade stood blocking the road. On the other side, throngs of people crowded around booths set up in the middle of the street, eating fried food, standing in line, or just laughing with their friends. Everyone was smiling, and nobody seemed to notice Rainbow Dash shuffling through their midst. Rainbow walked past a flagpole sticking out of a fountain, with a dozen people sitting on the concrete edges with drinks in their hands. Spotlights illuminated an American flag and a sign that said, “Welcome to Washington, Missouri.” Deep bass notes and the twang of a banjo reverbrated off the red brick facades, cracked and held upright by cast iron star-shaped anchor plates, filling the air with soulful blues. The smell of funnel cakes tickled Rainbow’s nostrils, tugging at her empty stomach and turning her head toward a parking lot packed with merrymakers and food hawkers. The sky had fallen into a deep, rich indigo, and despite the streetlights and bonfires, a wealth of stars, galaxies, and nebulae shone unmistakeably stark above. As she squeezed through the crowd, a young girl’s voice captured Rainbow’s attention, piercing through the noise and echoing through the bright void where the pegasus had been pulled time and again. “Restore what was lost.” Rainbow Dash tilted her head and said, “Buh?” The child stretched out her arm and held a giant fluff of pink cotton candy in front of Rainbow’s muzzle. Rainbow reached out a hoof and accepted the feathery confection, then took a bite and let it dissolve into nothingness on her tongue. When she looked back up, she could see that everyone was now looking at her. She should have been surprised, but… for some reason she felt as if she’d always known that they were watching her. A man in a denim jacket knelt down next to the girl and said, “You have what you need, Rainbow. To go beyond.” Rainbow spun around as a woman behind her spoke up. “The wind is with you.” The petite pegasus spun in a slow circle as she listened to the murmurs of the crowd, their words blurring together but their message only becoming clearer. She came to a stop when she saw the little girl again. The girl smiled and said, “Restore what was lost.” Rainbow looked up, into the depths of the infinite ocean above her swirling with life and magic, and leapt into the air. With only a few powerful beats of her wings, she was high into the crisp night air and following the river again. It felt good to fly, to be moving again, to have the wind with her. She smiled and opened her eyes with a jolt. The ache in her wings told of hours of uninterrupted flight, and the sky had lost its otherworldly luminescence. Rainbow turned her head and looked at the inky serpentine shape of the river behind her, finding no trace of a bridge in the cool white moonlight. There was no city, no festival, no lights. Everything since her brief rest on the bridge was fading into the blurry sharpness of those who have just awakened from a nap, but the wind was with her, and the taste of cotton candy was on her lips.