~ Part II ~
Out of the Dumps
Vanilla supposed himself lucky when the air had become fresh and the light had changed. The artificial glow of a bulb nothing in comparison to the original, sunny beams only the sun could produce. Even more so when the dust bin had been set on the ground like a building landing upon hardened dirt, his surroundings rocketing for a second before stilling into stillness.
Now is my chance!
He picked himself up from the ground and sprinted out from the platform, lowering across its curve into the bright world of golden blurs. Stale air replaced with fresh winds. The subtle chill of being in the bin replaced with the warm caress all over by the light itself he now stood in.
Not that he stood in it for much longer.
“Empty that bin so we can get out of here already!” Twilight's voice quaked from afar, disappearing further with every word. Even though they were now distant whispers, her voice still cracked the air with its presence. “We're going to be late for tonight if we don't get everything ready now!”
“Okay 'Miss Worry Pants.'” Vanilla yelped at feeling the dustbin lift off from the ground, ascending into a giant black blur in the distance. High above, it tilted into the dumpers as its contents cascaded inward. Waters of dirt and filth. Good thing he got out. “Hey! Have you ever thought about getting that done? The word 'worry' written over your pants? It would have to be written very tiny to get all of your worries onto it!”
Vanilla gazed up at the towering pink giant as she turned away, the twist of her boot against the hardened ground summoning plump boulders—nothing more than beads of dirt—from the ground around its size. Like a storm rising from beneath the earth, expelling in a wave around the foot, a light fog of dust kicked up.
It looked like a trip through a desert suddenly invented, that, with a monster tucked within.
I can't risk getting close to her now, Vanilla thought as he turned away from the giant, choosing to pass underneath the freezing shadow of the dumpster. Either way, he wouldn't be seen. But at least, in this case, he would be safe from the dangerous, gentle and unaware giants. They don't mean to hurt me. Pinkie would... probably cry if she knew he swept me into such a place... o-or... would she still do that for me now... at this size?
Vanilla choked a shivering breath upon leaning back against the top leftmost peg of the dumpster. A shiny and silver cone of metal, colder than ice, something which he didn't pry away from. Being in the thin landscape underneath the dumpster already exposed him to the new normal of this world.
Of needing to hide in dark, cold, and disgusting places to escape the unconscious wrath of soft, gentle, and warm giants. If only they knew. If only they knew! He clenched his eyes at being the only one to know. It killed him to feel this alone.
That was, of course, until something round and soft and yet somehow hard smacked into the ground beyond the slit of the dumpster. Gazing to his left, where the view rose only to the height of the feet present, something round and massive kept smacking into the ground, exploding in a boing!
“Swore I just saw them here.”
N-No. It couldn't be. Warmth flushed over Vanilla's body from beat struck back into his heart. That voice. Sweet and confident and full of something he couldn't explain or express. The girl who caught his eyes and earned his heart before she had even spoken a word.
Once she had, however, he'd been doomed to her, entirely.
R-Rainbow Dash.
He shouldn't have risked it, but he did. A step out from the cool and comforting shadows and into the heat of the sun, into the exposure of the giants, all so he could see all of her again. Coming out to the side of her pink shoe, runners and great for soccer, smelling of shaved grass somehow pleasant on the snout.
The tied laces of her shoves were beams over a bridge holding it over the waters. Her curved wall of smooth blue skin sprawled ever upward, slender still despite its size, looking so soft and plush that he would have loved nothing more than to walk across it with her lying down.
A landscape of a leg, a journey lasting a day, being able to experience and appreciate every inch of the woman he loved. He nearly imagined himself tucked within the laces of her shoe, enjoying the view of that island, its cool, girlish design. Rising with the lifting of the foot and experiencing the world from down here, safe and covering great distances, able to travel through the hall in a brand new way.
Those hopes dashed when her foot stomped into the ground again. It had lifted into the hair, dust raining from the white rim as it rose to the sky—kicking the boulder of a ball higher into the air. The kick cracked the air and, more importantly, made the young boy cover his ears once both had soon slammed into the ground again.
Soon, though, the force of the impact knocked him onto his bottom. Gazing before the shoes, he watched as one lifted, tilting in the air, slamming into the boulder of air as it then rocketed in the air. That foot shoe then crashed into the ground, lifting the boy into the air and, by the time he landed again, the other foot had risen, kicking the ball much the same way, a continuous process of monstrous proportions occurring right before him.
Had she been closer by a mere inch... Vanilla shivered at what could have happened. Life ended in a swift movement and moment. How could such a thing be? A cute girl, kicking her ball in place, a little further, dooming the minuscule boy standing in front of her.
“Will you quit foolin' around then?” there was weight to the accent as it thickened the air, particles disturbed against Vanilla's bare skin. Only he was small enough to feel it. To tell the difference. The little things, it turned out, killed him more on the inside than the big stuff. “We better get back if they ain't here. Unless this whole thing was just you wanted to fool around with that ball a little longer.”
The feet didn't rise. That ball struck the ground between them, digging into the ground and spewing a wave of dirt over the boy, washing him. It would have bounded over to him, too... if Rainbow's heels hadn't turned, like swinging gates, against its sides.
“You mean the ball you can't seem to kick?”
“I'll be the first admit you sometimes walk the talk.” Applejack monstrous brown boots approached from the right, settling in place. They dug deep in the earth. Enough to level it, a layer made beneath it. Those boots then came around the pink shoes, leaving Vanilla to shakily stand and shamble over the place where they had been. “But we both know I beat you in kicks and stamina.”
“Ball's yours to prove then.”
Vanilla wasn't quite sure what happened, only the shadow of the moon travelled over him, the current of air generated from the kick slamming his back and throwing him into the excavation site. He fell in with a tumble, rolling over rising ridges as miniature fogs of dirt roused around him.
When he finally stopped on his back, however, he was treated to a sight dangerous to his eyes. The faces of the two giants consuming where the sky was supposed to be. Each stern while they kicked the ball, back and forth, keeping it in the air. Each strike making the weak body shiver tighter and tighter into himself.
W-What am I doing? I can't break down here! It's not safe!
Vanilla rolled onto his stomach, watching the ground below him darken as his tears pelted it. Shaking his head, he rose onto his feet. Wiping his eyes with the sleeve of his shirt, he gazed around the crater. It'd might have been small and shallow and inconsequential to the giants that helped make it.
But to the little Vanilla... it made up the current plane of his world.
“Alright.” Slam! The ball crashed into the ground from underneath the force of Rainbow's shoe. It pressed down on the top of the boulder, its length blocking any possible sunlight over the impression the little body had found himself in. “We both the true way to settle this is on the field. All this does is tucker us out.”
“Don't think there's anyone around doubting your energy.” Applejack's feet crashed down on either side of the imprint of her boot. Two giants standing on either side, across from each other, making the tiny boy between them feel even smaller with their joint massive presences. “But the problem is you ain't got the endurance to hold it. One big burst and then you're done. No way you're making consistent progress with that.”
“Heh.” Rainbow shook her head, whipping droplets of sweat against Applejack's cheek. “Says you.”
“H-Hey! Why you.”
Vanilla stumbled back a few steps, the back of his foot catching against a ridge from the ground. His body tumbled over it, and he slammed onto his back in a miniature explosion of dirt. Every breath burned his lungs with the polluted air. Each taste of oxygen harder to swallow.
But the tainted breathing faded from his mind once his eyes had laid on the sight above. Following the legs sprawling into the sky on either side, exposed blue legs and blue-denim covered pillars, spouting that further upward, to the planets that were faces shaking about.
And their hair. Those waterfalls of prismatic strands like an ocean of colour crashing against the sky, each turn of their heads whipping the waves of hair in different directions, flying above and then falling above, their tips striking out before plucking back inwards.
It was like a sprawling screen, something broader than what the eye could see, a sheen to every hair. It glowed, in a way. Majestic and flowing. Curving inward and out like a proper current, like an actual wave, something old made new due to a difference of perspective and size. But, much like the sea itself, there was a secondary effect to the coursing ocean above.
Water sprayed from its waves.
They fell like gigantic raindrops from the sky. The first once struck the ground inches above his head, impacting and exploding against the ground, water splattering and covering every inch within its vicinity. The light brown his flooring darkened in colour, dampening, with every powerful explosion accompanying every drop of sweat droplet.
Oh, no. The shadow of a droplet consumed his body. A bead of sweat straight from Rainbow's forehead and hair, from her skin and from her body, directed now and falling toward him. So thick, so round, so large. It fell, growing in size, its danger and composition somehow, still strangely alluring to him.
It struck him. The whole of a pool smacking and splashing over him, a body of water rising into the air from the first hit—only to wash over him like a tidal wave. The force of the coursing water pushed him back, his hands smacking against the surface of the water while ridges below brushed against the skin of his back.
Even when he rolled onto his stomach through the coursing water, it was too late, for, on either side, two more droplets exploded against the ground. The hardness of dirt forgotten as the pooling waters collected, rising together, a tiny sea, made, inside an inch of a footprint.
“What's this? That a little bug down there?” The cracking of the voices blew louder than the crashing of the waters and, after a few moments of splashing around, Vanilla found himself washed against the ground. His frame struggled against the dirt, coughing up water, struggling a hand against the floor. “Looks like some of our sweat drenched the guy. Heh... think we should... wash him off?”
Vanilla pushed his chest off the ground, feeling sunlight fade into darkness, coldness, made from being layered in shadows. The scuffling sounds of clothes touched his ears while the two giants hunched over his impress prison. Still coughing, his full lungs couldn't shout for help.
T-They... finally see me! Though the salt of sweat consumed his tongue and occupied his lungs, a smile cracked across his lips. With a few more breathes, he rose onto a knee. I'm... I'm finally saved! Someone sees me! Rainbow Dash can help me! Rainbow Dash! Rainbow Dash!
By the time he finally stood on his legs, he was outright smiling, a flood of happiness coursing through his veins. All pains, all hurt, swept away at once, replaced by peace and joy. Slowly he turned to gaze upon the mighty faces of the giants. Those of incalculable sizes, now, wanting to help him.
What was supposed to be hope, instead, revealed itself to be despair.
Those faces he hoped to see did indeed loom high above. Rainbow Dash loomed to the left while Applejack consumed the right. The white freckles on those hills of orange cheeks nearly looked like stars in the night sky.
And what aimed above him, currently, was the cannon that was a water bottle. Its cap had already been taken off as its entrance reminded Vanilla of a damn. Something meant to be small between a pair of lips now bigger than any dam from all over the world. Rivers worth of water contain beyond it.
“You've always been a bit of a cruel one, haven't you?” Applejack muscular frame leaned a bit closer into the print, her large eyes narrowing on his minuscule form. “But doesn't that bug look a little different from the rest?”
“Nope!”
Vanilla stood hunched over as the shadows over him darkened to their darkness. He watched the tidal waves splashing around from inside the plastic slowly spiral downward. A gush of air cracked his ears like a bottle being poured too quickly. The steady streams of white within, splashing, hurtling toward him like a city overtaken by a rising sea.
And then Rainbow Dash poured the bottle over the bug.
Torrents after torrents of water splashed down on his body and swept him away with their currents. Fighting against the strength of the water, Vanilla's hands widely smacked in the water to regain some sense of balance, to earn control once more.
But as the water continued to pour, he soon realized what a helpless match it was. The suction of the sea pulled on his leg often, dragging him beneath the waters rising with bits of dirt and the occasional pebble growing above. He'd swim up, breaking the surface with a gasp—before the bottle hovered over him again.
He submerged once more, an ocean made into a footprint, while two giants watched with glee. Knowing he was down there, so small and so pathetic, unable to rise above something like water from a bottle. So minuscule and nothing. Worthy only of a few seconds of their time as his struggling granted them small feelings of amusement.
“Alright,” the voice was muffled by the water and barely broke the thickness of the liquid. The poor boy kicked his legs and arms, slowly rising to the surface. Upon breaking above, he treaded in place, gazing up. “That's enough of that. Little critter's suffered enough.”
Long orange fingers moved and slammed down over the cylinder of plastic, crumbling it underneath its grip, raising it above. On either side, the giants rose to their towering height, leaving him once more all alone in their footprint.
“Aw,” Rainbow cried. “You're no fun! I wouldn't have actually done anything to it.”
“Sure, you wouldn't.”
Their feet rose and flew away, smacking and crashing into the ground, each one second from the other, shocking waves into the recently made sea. Vanilla endured the rising waves splashing and beating into his body, ones caused by their walking, something they could have never guessed or seen, yet now a reality the poor boy had to survive.