//------------------------------// // The Cage // Story: A Rainbow Over Myst // by Moon Flame //------------------------------// “Twilight?” Rainbow Dash called. There was no answer. Rainbow Dash could hear books being shoveled above her rainbow colored mane. Twilight was hovering in front of the bookshelf located inside her castle library. Rainbow Dash raised her blue pegasus wings in an upset manner. “Twilight?” Rainbow Dash retried. There still was no answer. Twilight breathed heavily. “Where is it? Where is it?” She kept on repeating. Rainbow Dash felt her chance of getting Twilight to join her on her evening flight narrow by the second. Once the alicorn Twilight had committed herself into a study it would usually take days for her to consider it finished. “Twilight?!” Rainbow Dash raised her voice. “Sirrus... Achenar... Atrus... Where are you... Where?” Twilight blurted while frantically searching through the bookshelf. A book fell down from the shelf. It landed page up in front of Rainbow Dash. “Twili...” Rainbow Dash felt her words jam as her eyes festered on a shimmering light coming from the book. She squinted. Both pages were pure white without anything written on them. One of the pages had some kind if of attachment, a sort of picture glued onto the page. But why was it...? Rainbow Dash walked closer. She leaned her head over the book. The attached picture appeared to be of a landscape. A vast sea widened with a group of smaller islands. There was a forrest now. Why was there a forrest now all the sudden? Well, that was just the point. The picture in the book wasn't static, it was moving! It almost looked like a unicorn was flying over the land and projected what she saw into the book. But why would anypony do that? Curious, Rainbow Dash leaned her hoof forward to touch the moving picture. There was a horrified voice from above. “Rainbow Dash? NO...!” The world flashed around Rainbow Dash. She felt herself fall into a vacuum. Rainbow Dash opened her eyes and gasped. She could hear the wind blow through the steel bars in front of her. She flung her eyes around in panic. The walls around her was made out of solid metal, creating a space not much bigger than a closet. Rainbow Dash pressed her hooves against the steel bars. They wouldn’t budge. She was trapped! “Hello?” Rainbow Dash wailed. There was no answer. Her scream echoed through the forrest outside the steel bars. “Hello!? Can anypony hear me!?” “You...There is no time...Age unstable...Must find...Linking book...” A voice below spoke while being interrupted by what appeared to be transmission disturbances. Rainbow Dash looked down. She saw a book lay spine up on the metal floor inside her small space. Hesitantly she reached down her hoof and picked it up. She looked at the front page. Once again it had pure white pages with a picture glued to one of them. A figure seemed to be fading in and out of it. “Hello...Can...Hear me...?” The figure appeared to ask. “Hello?” Rainbow Dash said. Finally the figure in the picture became clear, along with his voice. It was a creature with a red robe. He had a large beard and nerdy glasses. He was looking down at a table as he spoke. “Ah, finally. There is little time. You need to find the linking book and...” The mans eyes squinted when he looked into at Rainbow Dash from his weird face in a book perspective. “...Wait? Who are you?!” The man asked bewildered. “Me?” Rainbow Dash hesitated. “I’m Rainbow Dash. Can you help me? Im trapped...?” “Who are you?” The man didn’t appear to listen. ”Whats the meaning of this? Where is the Stranger?!” “The Stranger?” Rainbow Dash asked. “Yes. Stranger? Did you steal the book from him?!” The man asked darkly. Rainbow Dash face twisted in anger. “Wait a minute. That’s not how things are going to work out here. I’m the one who’s trapped after all!” Rainbow Dash hoof motioned the steel cage. “Despite, I don’t even know who you are.” “My name is Atrus. I am the creator of the age of which you have entered,” Atrus then added firmly “...Without permission.” “Hold on! Age? What do you mean, ‘enter’. There’s only one way to enter a new age and that's on your birthday.” “No stupid, not that kind of age. The ‘book’, the world that you’re in.” Atrus straightened his glasses. “As I said, my name is Atrus and I am the master in the art of age creation. I write down the details into the book and then the world creates itself through the carefully thought out rules that I set up, that i ‘describe’ on the pages of the book, allowing us to...” “Wait, hold on. So what you’re basically saying is that I am INSIDE the book!?” Rainbow asked. “Yes... Well, inside the world described in the book more accurately put. The age you’re in now is called Myst.” “Myst?” “Yes, Myst. But there’s a problem.” Atrus said. “A problem?!” Rainbow Dash felt the cage narrow more and more while the worrying word circulated her mind. “You see, there's currently no way out of that age.” “No way out!?” Rainbow Dash wailed. “Yes. But you see, there may be a way to create one. All you need to do is to find the five book pages currently being kept as sacred objects around the island. You will then have to insert them into the D’ni linking book located in the village, after you've found the book of eternity of course. That should open a link to my lab.” “Your lab? But i don’t want to go to your lab! I want to go home!” “Even if you could there’s no way i let you. I need that book of eternity.” “No!” Rainbow Dash blasted. “I need to be with my friends. In fact, soon you’ll see them. there’s no way Twilight is going to just leave me here.” Atrus smiled nervously. He straightened his glasses “Well, I'm afraid you’re out of luck blue pony. You see, that book you just wasted on yourself is a one use only. You’re friends won’t be able to reach you and you won’t be able to reach them.” “Fine. So I'm trapped here?!” Rainbow Dash asked incredulously. “Actually, you're not. You just need to use that lever above you.” Rainbow Dash looked up. She spotted a small lever above the steel bars. She reached out her hoof. Atrus continued talking. “Now, as I said, iv'e designed a series of puzzles so that the locals wouldn’t be able to reach the book of eternity. These was really meant for Stranger to solve but I guess you will have to do...” The lever broke. “...Aaaaand that's it. You broke it.” “I broke it?” “Yes, it’s broken now.” Rainbow Dash looked at the broken lever in her hoof then at Atrus with a bewildered face. “A, hehe. Yea, i can see that. How do i fix it?” “No, you broke the lever, you broke everything. There is no way out of that cage now. Five years of puzzle designing down the drain.” Atrus turned his face down and leaned it against his closed fist. He made a long sigh. “Huuuuuuuuuuuuh.” “Wait? You’re not giving up on me, are you?” Atrus did not answer Rainbow Dash's desperate plea. He picked up a quill and started writing. “Atrus? What are you doing?” Atrus still didn’t answer. He mumbled to himself in a crazy manner. “And then Achenar said that he would burn it and then Sirrus said that he would rewrite it and then Yeesha spilled the tea all over it’s pages...” Atrus muttered. “Atrus?!” Rainbow Dash cried. “You know. At first I doubted you, thinking there is no way you will be as good as Stranger to solve my puzzles.” Atrus spoke firmly while writing. “You couldn’t even make it through the first door without completely breaking my age.” Atrus made a punctuation with his quill. He then dipped it in the ink glass. He leaned back in his chair and sighed again. He reached out his hand and appeared to be closing the book of which were transmitting to Rainbow Dash. “Wait Atrus!” “Maybe you’ll find a way out, maybe not. Ether way I’m going to design a new age. This one will have a sunny beach, a bar and an unlimited supply of ice cream. Maybe we’ll see each other there.” “Atrus! No. DON’T LEAVE ME!” Rainbow Dash wailed. The transmission ended. The picture previously showing Atrus face jittered with a series of blinking black and white dots, a cracking sound as they went. Rainbow Dash closed the book. She looked with a desperate face out toward the forrest. She imagined this image being the view she would be forced to settle with for the rest of her life. She felt her muscles pull in panic. Rainbow Dash threw herself forward and shook the bars. “Help! Please! Somepony! Anypony! Please, HELP ME!” The young pegasus filly tried to strain her eyes, understand the letters. To Rainbow Dash the text seemed to go on repeat. Or was it she who just read the same passage over and over again? And what exactly did she read? Rainbow Dash lowered her eyebrows in frustration. Her hooves shook. She wanted to stretch them while soaring the sky. She heard a subdued note coming from somewhere. She was to frustrated to bother investigating it though. “Waaaaaaaah.” She moaned in frustration. The chair made squeaking sounds behind her as she leaned back at it. There was a familiar shadow closing in over her. “Rainbow Dash?” Rainbow Dash heard Bow Hothoof speak. “This is impossible dad.” “Nothing is impossible for my Rainbow Dash.” Hothoof stated proudly. “Well, this is. I’m never gonna past that fliers theory test.” Rainbow Dash wailed hopelessly. “Come on. Let me help you.” Bow Hothoof sat down beside his daughter. He pointed his hoof at a passage. “What does this say?” He asked, another subdued note sounding as he did. It was almost like the shimmering sun coming in from the window into Rainbow Dash's childhood room sang to her. Rainbow Dash read the passage to her father with a bored face. “Yes, and what does this say?” He asked. Rainbow Dash read the next passage. The patching sun sent colored beams from her fathers rainbow mane. His presence slowly washed away the aching feeling inside her stomach. There were the sound of another note. “Wow. My daughter is great at flying AND reading.” ‘Reading... Reading...Reading...Reading’ The proud words of the pegasus pony’s father circulated her mind as she was looking at the Myst book laying on the steel floor. Rainbow Dash had tried her best to get some sleep. She felt the hunger press against her stomach. Rainbow Dash reached out her hoof and grabbed the book. She went through it’s pages. They were all as blank as her mind usually was when trying to read them. The linking window was still blurring with dots. Rainbow Dash closed the book. She looked at the broken lever laying on the floor. “Stupid Atrus.” She muttered. Her eyes festered on the hole above were the lever had recently been in business. “Might as well try.” Rainbow Dash picked up the lever. She tried to jam it back in place. The lever fitted perfectly in the hole but it couldn’t be pulled. Rainbow Dash released the lever. The small cage resonated when the lever hit the floor, the same floor of which there was a series of dentals forming a round sphere. Rainbow Dash squinted her eyes. She studied the dentals. She tried to touch them with her hoof. The dentals seemed strange considering they were placed in a esthetically illogical place on the floor. Not that Rainbow Dash was much for esthetics, might as well have brought along Rarity for that. But this Rainbow Dash could tell. She looked around her. The walls had round screws going in a straight line, circulating her prison. It was indeed straight, all except for one place. Above the line there were seven more screws, again odd from an esthetics perspective. Rainbow Dash walked over and touched one of them. She pressed her hoof against it. This caused the screw to retract inward. There were the chiming sound of a note. The face of the pegasus pony twisted in bewilderment, her mouth bending sideways. She tried pushing the other seven screws. Rainbow Dash pressed the buttons in every possible combination. Each one resulting in a different note. She was sure this was some kind of code, but what was the combination? An half-hour went. Rainbow Dash tried to find patters but no matter her attempts the only thing sounding was the note that the button conjured. Rainbow Dash growled. She slammed the buttons in frustration, resulting in a disharmonic blur of notes. The minutes went, hours eventually. Soon the sun started to fade beyond the horizon. Rainbow Dash felt her stomach ache with hunger along with her heart. The anger slowly transformed into a round hard stone inside her throat. She crumbled down onto the metal floor. She leaned her head close to the narrow opening between the bars. The sky opened itself above, showing it’s clouds soft and white, but Rainbow Dash would never reach them again. ‘Father.’ Rainbow Dash felt the stone inside her throat rise to her head. She snorted. The forrest world went blurry with tears. She felt the crying calm her down and slowly put her back to sleep. Rainbow Dash opened her eyes. The morning sun patched through the treetops above before hitting the steel bars. The wind blew against her face, shilling the wet parts of her chin were the tears had yet to dry out. She heard the sound of another subdued note. Was it the same as...? “Am i dreaming still?” The notion that this was all a bad dream sent Rainbow Dash into a temporary state of happiness. But now she heard another note. She looked up toward the tree crowns outside the cage and spotted several metal rings of different sizes, all held up with metal pipes planted in the ground. Rainbow Dash counted five of them in total. She heard her own voice speak inside her mind. ‘This is impossible dad.’ ‘Nothing is impossible for my Rainbow Dash.’ Her father answered. The eyes of the pegasus pony widened. She rose up to her hooves. She listened as the wind blew through each ring, creating a different note depending. She noticed that the pipes connecting them to the ground was of different lengths, placing the rings in different levels from it. Rainbow Dash turned to the screw buttons again. She pressed the buttons that made the same notes as the rings, starting with the ring furthest up, proceeding toward the one closest to the ground. The first time it didn’t work. She tried again. It still didn’t work. She looked outside again. She noticed that one of the rings was slightly tilting. Rainbow Dash tried again, this time taking into account that the tilting ring would have been higher than the ring beside if it hadn't tilted. There were a clicking sound. Rainbow Dash watched the dentals on the floor part, revealing a small opening. Rainbow Dash walked up to it. She looked down the hole that seemed to bend slightly into a mechanical contraption. Rainbow Dash leaned her eyeballs to the left, catching sight of the broken lever. She picked it up, placed it in the hole and pulled. There were a rapid sound of five notes sounding from highest to lowest. The sound of metal sliding against rock followed when the steel bars retracted into the roof. Rainbow Dash felt that stone inside her throat fade away, making way for a inner smile, her face staying in bewilderment though. She picked up the Myst book and proceeded outside. Rainbow Dash felt her legs stretch in relief as she exited the cage. She looked around. There were birds singing above the treetops and animals sneaking inside the bushes. She heard one animal make a strange slurping sound. Rainbow Dash walked across a wooden bridge, crossing a creek below, the water flowing gently. Her eyes wailed around, sparkling with a combination of confusion and wonder. This was nothing like the nature that she had seen around Ponyville. The trees curved into odd shapes. Plants rose like they wanted to hug the sky. “The sky!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed. She spread her pegasus wings and thrusted. Nothing could have prepared Rainbow Dash for what she was about to see from sky view. She wailed her head around in wonder. Several islands laid themselves before the vast sea appeared to go on forever. The Myst islands seemed to be connected by some sort of railway track, if there ever was a train that could traverse on a single track that is. Rainbow Dash counted six islands in total, five if you discounted the one that seemed to be just one big golden sphere. In the middle of all the islands there seemed to be a huge crater, probably a volcano. Rainbow Dash spotted some kind of temple ahead. Maybe there would be souls there that knew anything about this place. Rainbow Dash needed to find a way back to Equestria and, unfortunately if Artus were right, she would have to do it alone.