That night, Twilight cast a small cloaking spell on herself, hiding in a bush near a fence post she had removed three posters from every day that week.
Unknown to her, Rainbow Dash stood on a cloud watching her, debating what she would do. Would she defend her friend, or would she side with the protestor? At the moment she was considering forcing Twilight to see reason.
Finally a speckled dark green pegasus stallion descended and landed by the fence post. He reached into his saddle bag and pulled out a poster.
“That’s far enough,” Twilight said, coming out of the bush.
The stallion looked at her and smiled. Most of his focus was apparently still on the post. “Is it now?”
Twilight paused. “I… I thought about having you arrested but… let’s say I’ve had reason to think alright? Just put the poster away and let’s talk okay?”
The stallion paused, looking at his poster. “We worked hard making these. Kinda irritating someone keeps taking them down.”
“Who is we?”
The stallion grinned. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“Yes I would, but we can talk about that later if you like. What are your views on this? Maybe you’re coming from an honest place.”
“She hit me.”
Twilight nodded. “Okay, so this is personal.”
“She hit him.”
“A friend too…”
“She hit them.”
“The same mare?”
“So many shes, I’ve lost count.”
“Okay now I know you’re just being a jerk. Stop playing. Do you have a point or not?”
The stallion rolled his eyes and chuckled. “Go home little girl.”
“Not a little girl and don’t talk down to mares.”
“Your feelings matter as much to me as mine do to you.”
He went to put up the poster again, but Twilight quickly pulled it away with her magic. “You’re not getting around me.” The stallion slowly turned and glared at her.
“Little girl, a warning-“
“I’m not a little girl!” Twilight shouted.
The stallion turned his whole body towards Twilight. “Little girl, you were raised with stallions who were afraid to hit you because of stigma and law. I fear neither stigma nor law. Back. Off.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t you? It doesn’t matter. I’m not from your world anymore. Leave me alone.”
Twilight grunted. “Make me.”
“Last warning.”
Twilight gritted her teeth and- was tossed away in a powerful gust of wind, ripping through a post a few feet away. The mare got up and snorted. “That was a HUGE mistake!” she shouted.
“Oh is the kitty angry?” In response to that, Twilight’s horn glowed and hummed, a powerful beam cutting towards the stallion, aiming for his legs. Instead of being hit by the beam, the stallion was blown to the side, his leg getting caught on the fence and him toppling over onto the ground. However when he hit the ground, he rolled with the impact, recovering immediately, like it was planned.
Twilight reared up her head, horn glowing again, disappearing and reappearing inches from the stallion. She slammed both hooves into his face, sending him toppling over.
In the mud, the stallion opened his wing, another gust slamming into the mare, her summersaulting in the air and slamming down on her face.
Her head covered in mud, Twilight slowly got up, fury on her face. The stallion did not show the same anger though. “The ironic thing? I never fought her like this. I loved her too much.”
Twilight opened her mouth to respond to that when suddenly the stallion disappeared and appeared in front of her. “Teleport?” she asked before he slammed his shoulder into her.
Twilight didn’t fall down this time, that hit doing more damage than push. Her head throbbed. She stumbled back. “Do you have any idea who you’re fighting?!!” she said, gritting her teeth to ignore the pain. The stallion disappeared and reappeared several feet away. “You’re a pegasus, how are you doing that? What are you?” Twilight teleported to him and slammed him with her shoulder. The stallion fell over, a tooth falling out of his mouth. Again the stallion disappeared and then reappeared this time on a roof top a long distance away.
“You’re more powerful than me,” he shouted. “Lucky for me, I’m not really fighting to win, just to distract you.”
“Distract me from what?”
The stallion looked around. “Well that would have been the que but-“ Twilight appeared by him and reared up on her hind legs. As she brought her forelegs down suddenly her vision was filled with a powerful white light, leaving her completely blinded by its power. Twilight slipped on the roof, still unable to see, falling to the ground. She heard him land near her, but without her vision it was hard to tell where.
Twilight blinked to get her vision back. Finally blurry colors started to come back to her vision. “Your tricks won’t work forever!” she shouted.
“Probably, which is why I’m lucky they’re here now.”
Twilight raised her head. She was about to attack again, but stopped herself. “You didn’t attack me at all there… what are you really after?”
She looked around, seeing as papers were falling from the sky above her. She turned around, seeing they were falling all over Ponyville, maybe a hundred stallions and a few teenage mares and teenage stallions dropping them as they flew overhead. Twilight shook her head. “You think what you’re doing is right?” she asked. “You’re going to break up families!”
“Some things need to be broken.” The stallion opened his wings and shot into the air.
“Think you’re getting away?!” She flew up after him. The stallions and young mares started flying away, all in the same direction. Twilight watched them, trying to figure out her next move. Finally she flew forward, preparing to just grab one of the pegasi at random. She did so, grabbing a young dark green mare as she passed. “I’m getting answers from someone-“
“Daddy, help!” The young mare screamed, Twilight realizing the teenager’s heart was racing and she was starting to tremble. She was really panicking.
“Calm down-“ Pain. It shot across Twilight’s skull as she felt herself fly back.
The purple alicorn crashed through the overhang of the thatched roof of one of the buildings below. She staggered to her feet, vision blurred and body unsteady. She looked up, her right eye not wanting to stay open at all and her side screaming with pain. The stallion who had been fighting her earlier flew next to the teenager she had grabbed. “Touch her again and-“
A white pegasus stallion with a black mane flew next to him. The stallion’s coat was completely white save for a black spot in which his right eye rested. “Get going, we’re done here.” He commanded.
“She grabbed my daughter! The last time I didn’t fight for her-“
“Go.” the white stallion said again. The group of pegasi continued to fly away, the green stallion and his daughter following.
Twilight breathed a few times to recover. She looked up to the white stallion who had stayed. “Listen to me… I get it, something is happening that I don’t understand okay?” she flew into the air. “Talk to me. Violence isn’t the answer here.”
“Work with the law?” asked the white stallion. “A lot of us tried that. Forget it.”
“Then just talk-“ a blast of wind hit Twilight, tossing her away. She landed in mud again.
Twilight gently shook her head. The damage she had taken over the battle was pretty bad, but she was determined to- and she realized all the pegasi she had seen earlier had finally moved out of sight. Just the white stallion remained. “Please, stay and talk. What do you want?”
The stallion flapped his wings once, a powerful gust of wind tossing him away and making him fire off into the distance.
Twilight could only watch as he disappeared.
(***)
Rainbow had watched it all. Twilight had been trashed and normally she would have come to the rescue, but this time… this time so much was different. Right now, Rainbow wasn’t interested in taking sides. She just wanted to know who these new ponies were. She would have kept her friend from being killed… but really… no one was trying to do that.
As the… protestors?... took off she flew along the ground, following through a tree line. Rainbow’s training helped her silently dodge the trees as she went.
The procession of ponies just kept going, the tree line ending and Rainbow had to shoot into the clouds before anyone noticed. As she flew overhead, Rainbow took a particular interest in the pony who had fought with Twilight.
The stallion flew with the teenager she now knew as his daughter. Really they were cute together, competing to see who was faster as they went, daughter stretching several times to show him that her wing span was getting close to matching his. Rainbow wondered just how old she was, if she had to guess, maybe thirteen. Rainbow was too far off to hear was they were saying, but the pegasi around her seemed to be joking with her as they went, one even grabbing her and giving her a short lived noogie. It was like she was watching a large family.
Well… not entirely like a family. Several of the other pegasi joked and played as they flew, but Rainbow noticed a number of the stallions seemed to avoid the young mares and a few of the stallions seemed to be protective of them. She could only speculate on what this all meant.
Rainbow lost track of time and distance as they all flew. Soon enough she realized they had passed Appeloosa. Just how far were they going?
As they flew over the famous patch of apple trees where she and her friends negotiated a treaty between the settlers and the buffalo, Rainbow suddenly had to dodge deep into the clouds and move swiftly as the group started to send out scouts to see if they were being followed. Up until that point Rainbow was starting to disarm mentally. Suddenly she was reminded that whoever these ponies were, they were operating in secret.
Finally the group descended into a small forested area just before the Machintosh hills. Rainbow landed in a series of bushes, noticing that all around a heavy fog had fallen. She suspected they were around a swamp, but she couldn’t confirm it.
Rainbow heard the beating of several hooves moving quickly towards her. She ducked into the bushes, hoping she hadn’t finally given herself away. Looking through the leaves she sighed in relief realizing she was hiding from a group of small colts. The three children laughed and started rough housing, toppling over each other and running around. Rainbow chuckled at the nonsense.
As she watched them, the mare realized they all had fairly pronounced injuries. A blue unicorn colt had a healing black eye, a white earth pony with a large red mark on his side and a number of his ribs were bent the wrong way. Finally, one who was a similar color to herself, an earth pony, walked awkwardly, his right foreleg wrapped in bandages.
They seemed alright in their own respect, but seeing how young they were, Rainbow felt pretty bad for them. The one with the broken leg fell many times, Rainbow tempted to jump up and run to him, but he seemed okay so she didn’t.
The mare’s thoughts began to wonder. What was going on here? How was she going to investigate without being spotted anyway? What would she do when she returned? If she was discovered- the white colt screamed in pain.
Welp- Rainbow was apparently about to find out what she would do if she was discovered. Instinct took over, hearing a crying child with a caved in rib cage- not exactly something a kind hearted pony like herself found easy to ignore. She stood over the colt, the two other colts with him staring at her.
The white colt slowly got to his hooves. “Who are you?” he asked.
“Are you okay?” she asked back, delaying introductions.
The blue colt pushed him back and glared at Rainbow, stay away from them, they’re MY friends. OUTSIDER!”
Three large stallion pegasi landed around Rainbow. One of them was the white stallion with the dark eye from earlier, the second the one who fought Twilight and the third one she didn’t know, a freckled navy blue pegasus with a cyan mane. The blue pegasus grinned at her, a menacing gleam behind his eyes.
The blue pegasus opened his wings, fire dancing in the air around him. “Fire Sky!” the white stallion shouted. “That’s enough, she’s an element bearer. Hurt her and who knows what will happen.”
“Be willing to find out…” Fire Sky replied. The white stallion glared at him. Fire sighed and hung his head. “Fine. But what the heck is she doing here? I thought you made sure you weren’t followed.”
“If I recall correctly, Rainbow is a trained Wonder Bolt recruit. Not surprised that of all her friends she was able to follow us,” The white pegasus said. “But as to why, well… Out with it young mare, what are you looking for? A fight?”
Rainbow quickly shook her head. “Really just answers.” Rainbow pulled a flier out of her saddle bags. “Who made these?”
“Obviously someone in this camp, why do you want to know?” the white pegasus replied.
“But who- what is this place? Who were those kids? What is the point of these posters?” She shook her head. “Look, let me start by saying this much. These posters, I agree one hundred percent. No one should take being abused.”
“Can I go? My little girl is still shook up,” said the green stallion.
“From Twilight?” Rainbow asked, “She didn’t hurt-“
The green stallion shot her a glare that made her freeze. “A strange mare grabbed her to interrogate her possibly as an enemy combatant. My little girl is barely fourteen, it was terrifying! I never knew Equestria allowed cowards of that caliber to be their leaders.”
The stallion turned his back without even checking Rainbow’s reaction and walked away. Rainbow felt an instinctive desire to defend her friend, but she paused. If Twilight grabbed Scootaloo like that, how would she have felt exactly?
“Look,” she turned to the two ponies still with her. “I’m willing to hear your side of things alright… but for the record Twilight isn’t a coward. She stood up to him didn’t she?” Rainbow pointed her hoof at the leaving pony.
“Yea, real courageous,” The freckled pony pointed at him too. “Notice the back of his right shoulder?” Rainbow looked and quickly realized, there was a huge red mark, probably a healing scald. “Just how much do you think it impresses us to see a mare fighting an injured stallion she outclasses a hundred times over?”
“Hey now be fair. I watched that fight, he started it and that injury didn’t impair him one bit. Sides, you guys are way more than just pegasi, be honest,” Rainbow objected.
“So he did well against her? Too bad he didn’t finish her off.” Fire said with a grin.
“Okay…” Rainbow breathed deep. “Ground rule. Twilight is still my friend, you threaten her again-“
“Typical mare,” Fire interrupted, “Pushing us around. I’m bigger than you, by far your tactical superior and I doubt you would last ten seconds, but by all means, come at me if you think you got the guts.”
“Fire…” growled the white stallion.
“No, I’m tired of mares doing this. That threat was empty.”
“It wasn’t.” Rainbow glared at him. “I see something is going on here and we could be in the wrong, but you’re pushing me bucko.”
“You think I should be afraid of-“
“Fire Sky!” The white one demanded. “That’s enough. You’re the one provoking a fight with her. If you attack her, I’m fighting you, understand?”
“I understand just fine,” Fire Sky turned around and walked away.
Rainbow sighed, unruffling her fur. “Okay… I see he’s gonna be a problem.”
The remaining stallion shook his head. “You have no idea. Half the camp here is nut cases like him… they come by it honestly. All he has left of his sons is a pair of hooves. Fire was kidnapped by Gray. When he got free, he came home to find his wife shoved his boys in a basement and starved them. I’m surprised he’s as sane as he is.”
“Oh… wow… that’s terrible,” Rainbow said, her anger at the stallion receding faster than she expected. Rainbow sighed. “Okay, so I’m not as dense as some ponies think… well I was once, but I’ve grown a bit. This is a refuge isn’t it?” The white stallion nodded. “Mares abuse stallions, Celestia doesn’t help them, they come here right?”
“Well they’re brought here, if you haven’t noticed, we’re not exactly a government funded shelter.”
“I haven’t seen the place, but already, I just want to say, I’m sorry you guys feel you have to go to lengths like this to get away.”
“You’re not gonna tell me we’re all just being pussies?” he asked.
“What? No! When I was a little filly my dad took me to a few mare shelters, I’ve seen the crap some ponies do to each other, it’s not pretty. I won’t call anyone a wimp for leaving someone who’s cruel like that. It’s your right. And like I said, I’m really sorry Celestia’s laws don’t respect you guys very well.” She shook her head. “Please, I’m willing to listen- just don’t threaten my friends anymore okay? For the record, I’m pretty sure most of them would be with you guys.”
“I guess I can chance trusting you for the moment. Heck if you try anything, Fire Sky will take care of you so what do I need to worry about? Follow me,” The stallion turned. “By the why, my name is Silent Storm.”
“Figures.”
The stallion smiled back at her. “So I’ve been told.” He walked and talked, Rainbow following like he asked. “This place is called… really it’s just called “the camp”. Most abused stallions in your country, if they leave their wives, live on the run, some with their kids, the royal guards hunting them down as kidnappers.”
“Guess that figures,” Rainbow said. “Don’t think I’m blindly trusting everything you say… but that part makes sense all the same.”
“It does now? Oh I know what you mean, just how you phrased it. Why would a supposedly good leader treat her subjects like that? Make sense? Not from where I stand.” They came out of the fog and Rainbow looked around.
She saw a series of tents and sleeping bags lying around, with camp fires burning near several of them. “The fog from the swamp keeps suspicion about the smoke to a minimum. That’s why we choose to live here… you get used to the smell.” Rainbow had been ignoring it until this point, but yea, this place reeked. “We mostly live by stealing from the settlers.”
“What?!”
“What do you want us to do, grow our own food?”
“Well… still…”
“Not like we take pride in it. There are edible plants out here, but not enough to sustain a growing population. Most of the families out here can’t return to Equestria. They’ll be treated like criminals.”
Rainbow looked around at the tents and camp fires. “Can’t you make a better city than this?”
“And advertise to that bitch Celestia where we are? Many of these stallions escaped their wives fearing for their own lives or their children. They can take a little outdoor living… well to be honest, these are terrible conditions for the children, especially those with injuries. But well… as you know, we are trying to change our lot now.”
“Gonna guess you’ve been around for a while, so why only now are you trying to get noticed? Someone dying or something?”
“Wish it were that dramatic. No, the simple fact is, when Gray raised his army of impulses, he deliberately looked for stallions that were disaffected. He found our camp and kidnapped several of our fathers and sons. I wasn’t here for that, but I’ve been told it was a dark time, even for us. The fillies and colts around here have been through enough as it is, I can only imagine what it was like when they woke up and found their father’s and older brothers gone. In any case, when Gray was killed, his army disbanded and many of those ponies returned here. Now that we have the military might… I guess we’re asking for a fight.” He shook his head. “We don’t want that, or at least I don’t, but we’re criminals so we have to be prepared to fight for Celestia to talk to us without locking us up.
The stallion sat down. Rainbow hesitantly looked around at the stallions and their children around her. Silent spoke up. “They won’t worry about you as long as you’re with me, have a seat.” Rainbow did so. “Let me explain our side of things a little. I guess I’ll use myself and Fire Sky as examples. My wife had always been abusive towards me, belittling me every day and she even hit me a few times. Mostly I was able to handle it before, but when I returned from Gray and it didn’t stop, a mare from the camp saved me from… well myself. I nearly drowned myself.” Rainbow put her wing on his shoulder. “In time I reflected on what happened to me. Aged Light, my wife, she had attacked me in public verbally and physically many times and no one ever did anything about it.”
“When I was at the mare shelter, I learned that’s often not different for mares.”
“Sorry to hear that. At least they have shelters. You’re seeing what we have.” Rainbow nodded. “Then there’s Fire Sky. His colts were his life before he was kidnapped. He tries to draw them all the time, because he has no pictures of them… well the pictures are kinda his fault, but that’s beside the point.” Rainbow raised an eyebrow to that point, “Don’t worry about it. Just be careful around him. Anyway, when a stallion leaves his children, the law assumes he went rogue and abandoned them. Fire had been protecting his children from his wife before he was taken as he had managed to prove something was wrong with her even under a biased system. When he disappeared, they looked for him, but they also disregarded his case. Equestria put his kids back with his wife, apparently assuming he was just a “dead beat dad” and was only trying to ruin the lives of his wife and children to exert control over them –… Celestia’s narrative that all abuse happens for the purpose of control really does fall apart under examination doesn’t it? So yea, his ex wife murdered his children.”
Rainbow gave a fearful grimace. “So he’s a little pissed huh?”
“Understatement of the year. More like he wants Celestia’s head on a pike. But what I’m getting at with him is that we’re treated poorly when it comes to custody of our children as well. I understand that often when mares want to divorce stallion soldiers, Celestia allows them to take full custody of the children, generally stating that if they cared that much for them, the stallions would have chosen a career that didn’t cause them to be away from home so much.” Silent sighed. “I don’t know when this started, but Celestia is turning on the stallions of Equestria and she doesn’t respect us.”
“I never knew about any of this…” Rainbow said. “I thought we were better than this as a country.”
“Nothing is ever perfect. Fire Sky thinks Equestria is the worst nation ever built, though well… I mean he’s Fire Sky, if you haven’t noticed he’s a little-well yea... I however think Equestria is a pretty good nation. Bad as things get, it could certainly be worse. Most nations out there don’t care about domestic abuse at all, let alone is this an issue.” Silent looked into the sky. “Really, I think… maybe there’s a way that Celestia thinks what she’s doing is right. Maybe if I could sit and talk with her, we could fix this.” He looked around him. “The ponies here have helped me and I have helped them, even Fire Sky and those like him. They are my family. There has to be something I can do to help them… I’m gonna watch them die if I don’t figure something out but…” he shook his head.
“Well why don’t you? Talk to Celestia I mean. I mean no one is hunting you down personally right?”
“I’m harboring criminals Rainbow. If it were just me, maybe I could do that, but… besides I um… I’m pretty sure I’d be jailed for something else.”
“What?”
“Not in a sharing mood on that. Everyone here has their scars, and a number of them… we gave out our own number of scars in return.”
Rainbow shook her head to wake up. “Wait… Silent, where’s Aged Light?” The stallion got up and started walking again. Rainbow paused. “Okay, that wasn’t fair of me, look I won’t assume the worst alright?” She got up and ran in front of the stallion. “Still why do I get the feeling that as bad as Celestia’s sexism is, you’re no better?”
“Never said we were.”
“Not all mares are guilty of what she’s doing. I watched your group from the air. You have fillies and mares around here, I understand that, but you treat them differently.”
“Some of us do. So?”
“So… you have a lot of work to do before you can tell Celestia anything, don’t you think?”
“Exactly how much work do you think it is we need to do before we can stand up for our rights?”
“Okay… maybe that was poorly phrased, but the point remains. You discriminate against mares.”
“Some of us. I’m being alright with you personally aren’t I?” he asked.
“But you should be worried about this shouldn’t you?”
“The other stallions here can think what they will, it’s not something I can fix.”
“You have mares that live here Silent! If you look down on them, how will that effect them? Don’t you care?”
“Rainbow you’re not seeing the whole picture.” The stallion turned and walked into a large tent with a warm glowing light inside.
“Not seeing what? Misogyny isn’t the solution to misandry. I guess I understand how some of you feel, if stallions had been mean to me all my life, I would probably hate them too, I get it but- what the…?”
Inside the tent, Rainbow looked around. Several stallions were in the tent appearing to be saying prayers to a large picture on the wall of the tent. Many ponies around Equestria were religious, so Rainbow wasn’t unfamiliar with the concept, most worshiped Celestia but others claimed an even higher power. However what they were worshiping was a god she had never seen before.
The image was of a silver maned unicorn with a sea green coat. In the image her horn glowed yellow and she held a small colt in her forelegs.
A pony raised his head and came over to her. “Hello, have you come to learn about our Great Guardian?”
“What?” Rainbow asked.
Silent chuckled. “I can only imagine how this looks to you. No one said all of our experiences with mares have been bad. Most of us had mothers didn’t we? One would assume anyway. And most of them were good.- Heck, most of us want to get back to our mothers.”
“The Guardian saved us, and she will guide us back home. We pray to her every day to give Silent Storm guidance.” The pony with them said.
Rainbow just looked around the tent wide eyed. Silent chuckled at her. “Silver Strider is the mare who founded this camp. She saved many of us herself, and she fought to protect us, forming this group out of many other stallion refugee and homeless groups around Equestria. See, not all of us are as sexist as you would think. We worship a mare- some of us.”
The cyan mare paused. “She’s not alive anymore is she?” Rainbow asked.
“The royal guards have found us a few times, she fought them several times, along with the stronger members of the camp…” Silent looked down. “She saved my life… I couldn’t get to her fast enough to save hers.”
Rainbow held her head down next to him. “You’ve lost a few ponies out here haven’t you?” she asked.
“We’re a wandering group of homeless stallions and children on the run from the law, what do you think? I’ve watched young colts die of exposure and disease, their fathers… many have hung themselves. I’m supposed to be their leader but all I can do half the time is watch.” Silent gritted his teeth and stamped his front hoof a few times. He then walked out of the tent.
“Going to tell her how many ready fighters we have? How about tell her our maneuvers while you’re at it?” Fire Sky walked over to them. He looked to the tent. “So you’ve seen our weaklings. When I take over, I’ll whip them into shape. They’ll stop turning to a pathetic mare-“
“Silver was better than you by far!” Silent shouted. “I told you, you respect her in front of me.”
Fire rolled his eyes. “She was good, for a mare, but in the end, no one can overcome their birth. Celestia taught us all that. We were born how we are, and because of how we were born, she does this to us.” He waved his wing at the camp. “So when do we strike?”
“If possible, we don’t,” Silent replied.
“Oh brother,” Fire growled. “You’re giving them a chance to compose themselves and strike back. If we strike Celestia now-“
“Most of our forces will perish and you know it. We’re not soldiers out here Fire. We should protect ourselves yes, but if we keep at it we can turn public opinion and force Celestia’s hoof. We’re not even at war.”
“LOOK AROUND YOU!” Fire yelled. “Wake the hell up! We’re refugees Silent. My sons were casualties… tell me Rainbow Dash, if someone subjected you and your friends to this, would you say you were at war?”
Rainbow looked at him. “Get the feeling I shouldn’t talk to you.”
“Answer the question you cowardly wench!”
Rainbow’s eyes flared. “Yes, yes as a matter of fact, I get what you’re saying,” she yelled back, “But why are you attacking me? I didn’t even know this shit was happening. Only because I’m a mare. You’re no better than Celestia.”
“Who says I want to be better? What would being better even mean?” he laughed. “She can do this to us, she can reduce hundreds of ponies to scrounging for food and the public doesn’t even care. If the stallions here rose up as one, her power would mean nothing against them, but she commands enough soldiers to enforce her madness anyway. Hell I could probably beat that bitch personally, but it doesn’t matter. What’s better than that?”
“What she’s doing is wrong, but it sounds like you want to do something equally wrong.”
“Rainbow, let’s go talk somewhere else,” Silent said.
“NO!” Rainbow shouted. “I feel sorry for you Fire, I really do, but someone needs to set you straight!”
Fire grinned, “Oh I look forward to it little girl.”
“I am NOT a little girl!” Rainbow shouted. “You listen to me colt! Being an adult isn’t about being big, right now I don’t see you as a real stallion, I see you as an injured child screaming for attention.”
“Keep going filly!” Fire raised his wings, fire dancing between them. Rainbow opened her wings too, pawing the ground.
Silent jumped between them. “ENOUGH! Fire you aren’t helping anyone right now and Rainbow you aren’t either. Rainbow, do you really want to hurt Fire Sky?”
“Not exactly, but if he keeps talking like that-“
“You’ll attack him with half your heart and you’ll die.“ Silent said.
“Why do you put up with someone like this?” Rainbow asked.
Silent grunted in exasperation. “Why do you think I’m here? Rainbow, I can leave, I have no children here. I can change my name, dye my coat and leave. I’m trying to save him, I’m trying to save all of them. What exactly are you trying to do?”
“I’m trying to set him straight!” she shouted.
“You think he’ll listen to you before your daughter no longer has a mother?” Rainbow glared up at Silent. “Rainbow, you are not one of us. This is not your country you are an intruder here. Go.”
“No! You’re all citizens of Equestria, and as an element bearer I’m supposed to protect you…” she tried to calm down a little. “Look, work with me Silent, I can help.”
“We can talk later, you need to go now,” Silent said.
“You can’t push me around here-“
“Here I am Celestia!” Silent shouted. “I am the ruler. I told you to go you have to go. This is not Equestria and we are not Equestrians. Equestria turned it’s back on us!”
“Are you honestly siding with Fire Sky?” Rainbow asked.
“Are you even listening to- LEAVE!” he shouted.
“I want to help,”
Silent closed his eyes in frustration, but then forced down his ruffle feathers. “We can meet later. But you have to leave now. Don’t start a fight… especially not with Fire Sky, please, listen to me. He would like nothing more than to destroy you.”
“That’s why it’s important for me to fight him.”
“It’s important for me to cure him…” Silent said. “You can’t beat him anyway.”
Rainbow shook her head. “Well I know you can’t cure him.” She flapped her wings starting to hover. “I’m sorry, this is your camp, so I’ll respect you. Still we can talk again, I want to help.”
“Tell anyone about us and I will-“ Fire started.
“I said enough,” Silent said.
“It’s better if you meet me,” Rainbow said. “If I keep coming here, someone will follow eventually. Change your coat color and you’re not well known in Ponyville so you should be alright.”
“You’ll know when it’s me.”