Chapter 5
It had taken several minutes, but Fluttershy was soon mounted upon Rainbow’s back, held in place by her own weak arms and Rainbow’s unfolded wings. Her head hung down beside Rainbow’s neck, brushing Dash with her mane. Rainbow looked over to Ditzy, who had finished scouring for berries, and had also acquired a squirrel. The confused mammal stared down from atop Ditzy’s head, flicking it’s gaze between Dash and Fluttershy.
“Uh, Ditz,” Dash pointed at her head “You’ve got some squirrel on you.”
“Only some? Did a bit fall off?” Ditzy said, her right eye drifting up to look at the top of her head “Hey mister squirrel, you okay up there?” she asked. The squirrel squeaked a response. Ditzy seemed to understand and grinned.
Fluttershy emitted a strained giggle. The squirrel cocked its head at her. Fluttershy raised her head a small amount to look at it. For a moment the two stared at one another.
“You’re...adorable” Fluttershy told the squirrel before drifting her head back down. The squirrel stared at her for a moment.
“Okay, Ditz, I’ve got to ask. Why is there a squirrel on your head?” Rainbow said.
Ditzy tilted her head and shrugged her shoulders slightly, dislodging the squirrel and sending it tumbling unceremoniously to the ground.
“I just looked up and there he was” Ditzy claimed.
There was a moment’s silence as Dash stared suspiciously at the mammal.
“C...Can we keep him?” Ditzy asked.
“I don’t think so”
“Why?” she whined.
“Because” Rainbow explained “We’re going to need all the food we can get. And that little thing’s just going to eat it all”.
“No he won’t! He’ll be a good squirrel” Ditzy protested. “Aren’t you Mister Squirrel?”
The squirrel chirped something. Ditzy grinned back at Dash. It seemed to have said something good, perhaps promising it would find its own food.
“What’d it say?” Rainbow asked.
“The blue one ... is right, I’m a bit... of a ....oh that’s disgusting” Fluttershy translated. Giving the squirrel a weak glare at its choice of language. The squirrel hung its head in shame. “It’s...okay squirrel ... I forgive you”
The squirrel looked up and gave at the nearest to a smile a squirrel can give. Rainbow glanced back at her passenger, surprised that The Stare worked when she was this weak. It also concerned her that Fluttershy would immediately stare down a squirrel whose only crime was that it had sworn a little, but she may have simply taken offence to self depreciation. However, Rainbow quickly dismissed this as bad judgement, probably due to the amount of blood she had lost. Rainbow made a mental note to call Fluttershy out on power abuse if she did it again.
“The squirrel stays here” Rainbow commanded. Ditzy let out a disappointed noise, sounding like a petulant foal being denied its dessert. “Oh don’t do that!” she snapped “It’ll slow us down. Now come on, let’s go.”
Rainbow turned to leave, checking the sun above to get a bearing on her intended direction. After a moment of staring she worked out which way was south and began to trot confidently in that direction. She quickly reached the tree line and began to nose her way around the bushes.
She glanced back to make sure Ditzy was following.
But Ditzy was still standing where she had been left, with the squirrel sitting patiently on her head. It sat in between the stands of her golden mane like a bird in a nest, curled up and comfortable.
“Come on Ditz, leave the squirrel and get over here” Rainbow said, turning around to face her.
Ditzy did not reply.
“Come on, let’s go”
Ditzy screwed up her face, forcing her thoughts into order.
“Ditzy, don’t make me come over there and drag you home” Rainbow warned, eliciting a squeak from Fluttershy.
Ditzy slowly hung her head. The squirrel scampered down the back of her neck and onto her back.
“No” Ditzy uttered.
“What did you say?” Rainbow said, advancing.
“I said, no” Ditzy said, raising her head slightly. “He wants to come with us, so he’s coming.”
Rainbow gritted her teeth and snorted. She widened her stance, hoping an intimidating look would put Ditzy in line.
“I’m going to say this one more time” Dash said slowly. “You put that squirrel ... on the ground ... and come with me”
“Why?” Ditzy snapped. Her head shot up and she stared straight at Rainbow, both eyes fixed resolutely on the blue mare.
“What?”
“Why do I have to leave him out here all alone? What gives you the right to say he sits here and starves to death when we go home and eat everything around here? If it were a pony, or me or Flutty, you would bring them with you, so why not him? What’s so different about him?”
There was a strange, slow pace to Ditzy’s speech. She thought about each sentence before she said it, giving each phrase time to sink in.
Rainbow was at a loss for words.
“I...I...” she tried to say something in her defence. But she knew Ditzy was right. She had no real reason to say no. Maybe the squirrel could find its own food as they went along. And it would keep Ditzy happy. “I’m sorry” Dash managed.
Ditzy continued staring at her.
“Keep him.” Rainbow relented “Just, don’t let him get in the way, okay?”
Ditzy did not reply immediately. Rainbow looked over at her with defeated eyes.
Then Ditzy nodded curtly, picked up the bag of berries in her teeth and began to step forwards. The squirrel ran back up to her head and sat there.
“But Ditz, I’ve got to know. Why do you even want him so much?” Rainbow said “You’re going to make Fluttershy jealous.” she added, letting out a weak chuckle at her own little joke.
Ditzy put the bag back on the ground.
“He wants to come with us, and we don’t have the right to say no” Ditzy asserted.
“Did he tell you that?” Rainbow said. She doubted the grey pegasus had picked up the animal language skills her marefriend had.
“I think so...” she said doubtfully. Ditzy then looked up at the squirrel and asked “You do want to come along, don’t you?”
The squirrel squeaked.
“Fluttershy, what’d it just say?” Rainbow asked.
“Yes...he wants to come” Fluttershy told her.
Rainbow sigh inwardly.
“Fine, just ... come on” Rainbow hung her head slightly as she turned back to the trees. ‘What the hay was that?’ she asked herself ‘I had absolutely no reason to get like that. Eurgh, this is the last thing I need right now’
Rainbow Dash’s quiet reflection lasted a few minutes. As she thought, Ditzy followed behind, with the bag alternatingly being hung from a wing on in her mouth when either began to ache, her attention switching regularly between the squirrel, her marefriend, and the dense foliage around her. Her eyes panned across plants of all heights and shapes. But she quickly grew bored at the lack of variety. Nearly everything was green, with only the occasional coloured flower providing an interesting sight for her. Ferns and leaves, wet with condensation and the rain of the storm a few days prior, reached out at her from all around and brushed against her face, and battered the squirrel riding atop her head with a series of wet impacts. They walked for longer than they cared to try and time, pushing through the undergrowth. More than once a thick wall of trees meant they had to take a dip in the river to advance without turning back and losing their bearing.
“You know” Ditzy said, after their third splash in the river, having stopped for a break “This river’s going the same way we are”
“Yeah” Rainbow agreed “This thing runs more or less straight south quite a while”
“How do you know that?”
“Remember when I came to find you on the clouds?” Dash asked. Ditzy nodded a response, which only avoided throwing off the squirrel by its little brain expecting the movement and telling it to hold on for its life. “I had a little time to look around as we came back, you can see pretty far when you’re that high up”.
“Oh” Ditzy mouthed “That’s cool”
For the next hour they trotted along in near silence. The only sounds were the rustle and wet slap of the leaves they brushed against and the gentle sound of water flowing down the river. Fluttershy listened to the sounds of nature as she was bobbed up and down by Rainbow’s moving back. The movement was rhythmic and strangely lulling, although she would later come to the conclusion that her drowsiness came more from her blood loss than Rainbow’s movement, but she had no such thoughts at this time. She simply took in what her ears heard and her body felt. The leaf wrapping around her midsection was doing a good job of padding and keeping still the bamboo still embedded in her, but it made noticeable pokes and movements inside her as they travelled. More than once Fluttershy had asked Rainbow to try not to move so fast. Fortunately for her, the blue mare had heard Fluttershy’s timid, strained voice and quickly obeyed. Rainbow was itching to fly away and stretch her wings, Fluttershy could tell. Every now and then Rainbow would twitch her wings, as if she were to flap them, but suddenly remembering why she should not. A little guilt began to build up in Fluttershy’s head, regretting that she had effectively grounded her friend, who loved nothing more than to soar.
She did not voice that thought. As the drowsiness took a hold on her, she forced the thought to the back of her mind and let sleep embrace her.
Ditzy’s legs twinged. She drifted to a standstill and gently put the bag she carried on the ground.
“Can we stop?” she called out. Rainbow stopped abruptly and turned around.
“What’s the matter, you tired?” she asked. Ditzy nodded a little.
“Uh-huh” Ditzy said.
Rainbow gave off a little smile and stretched her legs a little. Ditzy grinned back hopefully.
“Yeah, I suppose we can do with a sit down a while” Dash admitted. She then turned her head and nudged Fluttershy with her snout. “Hey, Fluttershy, you awake?”
Fluttershy did not respond. Dash quickly looked to see if she was still breathing, and relaxed a little when she saw the fragile chest expanding and contracting. Tearing her eyes from the adorable pile of yellow and pink atop her back Dash saw Ditzy lay down on her front by a bush, extending a wing as a ramp for the squirrel, who had recently taken up residence on Ditzy’s back to avoid being thrown off again, to run down to the dirt at Ditzy’s hooves. Once the squirrel had disembarked from its haphazard transport, Rainbow called her over. Before long, they had managed to slide Fluttershy off of Rainbow and place her gently on her side in one of the less muddy areas of the ground.
They had stopped in what could be described as little more than an area of dirt and mud, which was in turn filled with thin trees that stuck up above them like the candles on a chocolate birthday cake.
The thought of cake brought the image of Pinkie Pie dancing gleefully into Rainbow’s mind. She briefly remembered that there had been a cake the night before the storm, a fluffy cake stacked several layers high.
The vestiges of her memory told her it had mainly ended up spread over the roof of a neighbouring building.
‘So that’s what happened to it’ Rainbow thought as she found herself remembering a few more fragments to the riotous night. But in the middle of her half interested memory, she was once again finding a terrible thought there.
‘What if the ponies who owned that house were caught in the hurricane?’ she asked herself ‘I ruined their last day’
And without warning, a little tear rolled out of her eye. Hurriedly, she wiped it away.
‘Gotta stay strong Dash, don’t lose it’ she told herself. She glanced around, Ditzy was sitting by a barely awakened Fluttershy, and chatting merrily with the quiet mare. Rainbow sighed inwardly, glad they hadn’t seen her moment of weakness.
A squeak by her hooves informed her of a witness. The squirrel was staring up at her, twitching its nose. Rainbow gave it a glare. The squirrel seemed to understand and hopped away wordlessly.
With a grunt of contempt for the animal, Rainbow wandered over to the food bag and dunked her head in, grabbing a small mouthful of food, before wandering over to the edge of the river. She sat.
And just stared. The water flowed away before her. And in it she saw herself, sitting there, staring back.
‘Hey Dashie’ she thought at her reflection.
The reflection didn’t talk back. Rainbow wondered for a moment why she thought it really would have.
“Dash” called Ditzy, dragging out the ‘a’ sound. Rainbow lifted her head to look at Ditzy, grunting a complaint about getting some rest. “Fluttershy wants to say something” Ditzy added, gesturing towards the mare at her hooves.
That got Rainbow’s full attention. She quickly swallowed the berries in her mouth and moved to Fluttershy’s side.
“What is it?” She asked gently.
“I...I don’t want to impose” Fluttershy whimpered. Rainbow noted inwardly that Fluttershy was not pausing as much as earlier and thought she might be getting used the pain. “But ... I was just ... wondering...” she trailed off.
“What is it?” Dash said, leaning closer to hear the soft speech of the broken pegasus.
“Um ... I just thought that ... maybe you ... if it's not” she paused to wheeze a little “Not too much trouble to find a ... um ... a doctor?”
“Ah” Dash said. “I don’t know if there are any out here”
“Oh...” Fluttershy said, barely audible even in the quiet of their surroundings. “Oh dear...”
The squirrel gazed on at the weakened mare as Rainbow began rapidly guessing what may have changed in her condition since she woke. It glanced between the three mares, Ditzy, who stood beside the two and stared on awkwardly, as if she felt left out, Fluttershy, who repeatedly denied the things Rainbow listed, and Dash, who’s guesses at medical problems other than the obvious injury were becoming somewhat unrealistic, and her voice began to sound strained.
But the squirrel knew the area, and knew where help might be found. But first it would need to confirm how far away they were from it.
And without another word, it scampered off eastwards.