Chapter 7
Rainbow burst through the cloud, leaving a small trail of coloured light and wisps of fluffy cloud in her wake. She wheeled up against the sky, silhouetting herself against the stars. Her mane flowed out behind her, rippling in the winds that jostled her flight. Rainbow turned herself over, her belly up to the moon, and gazed down. Beneath her, the punctured cloud was drifting apart, revealing the rolling hills beneath her. Rainbow looked down at the expanse beneath her, seeng it specked with a faint layer of light. Curious, Dash tilted her head and angled herself down into a gentle descent, gliding down at a comfortable angle, circling until she was close enough to see the lights rising out of the trees. She hovered just above the forest and glanced around, seeing the little motes of golden light dart around.
“Fireflies” she muttered, smiling contentedly. Her momentary fears allayed, she scanned the treeline until she found the gold-lit shapes of her companions, who appeared to be playfully reaching out for the bugs as they gathered around the unfamiliar arrivals. Rainbow gazed for a moment, watching Ditzy dab at the air and Fluttershy lie peacefully beside her. Rainbow rose back up into the air, spiralling upwards into the sky, dimly realising she had burst the only cloud in the nearby sky. The thought hung around in her mind for a moment.
Rainbow looked around the sky, gazing through the dark for shapes. Her eyes trailed over the faintly glowing forest to a peak, sticking up out of the trees like a castle in a village. She had seen it out of the corner of her eye during the day, in glimpses between the trees, but had not paid it much attention. Now, she flapped her wings and propelled herself towards it. She slowly gained speed until the mountain rushed up at near blinding speed. As she approached, she angled herself upwards and swept up the side of the mountain, barely skimming the rocks that jutted out at various angles. It took only five seconds for her to scale the height of the mountain at this speed. Rocks sped past her, sometimes missing by just inches.
The mountain's summit passed her, and her passing launched a small cloud of snow into the air. Rainbow arced back, looping in a slow curve, letting the land roll away beneath her until the world was finally the right way up, before neatly landing on the mountain’s peak. Rainbow twitched slightly as her hooves were embraced by the layer of soft, cold snow that lined the hardened ground.
For a moment she simply stood there. The icy wind froze the stray moisture in her mane and chilled her to the core.
But Rainbow did not care. She just looked out. She stared into the distance. From up here, she could see for miles. Her eyes followed the river they had loosely followed on the way up, tracking its winding journey through the forests until she lost it in the trees. Her eyes drifted across the landscape. Most of it was trees, for miles and miles just trees, stretching away to her left and right for untold miles. However, in front of her, in the direction they had come from, was something different. It was hard to make out in the dark, but Rainbow honestly believed she could see an end to the overgrown landscape, and nothing beyond it.
‘Maybe that’s where I landed’ She thought to herself. A short mental journey later, Rainbow was almost sure that that was where she had crashed. A barren area, where the trees were dying and grass brown, bordering on this luscious forest. Rainbow tried to remember the place in more detail, but to no avail. As she recalled, there was nothing else to remember, it was just an empty land.
Rainbow sailed through the air, steadily decreasing altitude until she pulled up and dropped lightly onto the grass. To her right, Ditzy and Fluttershy were sleeping, with Fluttershy’s hoof reaching over and around Ditzy, holding her close. A spark of envy lit for a moment inside Rainbow’s brain. She hastily squashed the thought and trod a circle of long grass flat, slowly turning on the spot and stamping down. Once an appropriate bed had been made she curled up in it.
After half an hour of twitching, rolling and squirming in an attempt to get comfortable, Rainbow groggily sat upright, flicking her ear in an attempt to dislodge the grass she blamed for keeping her up. She glanced around. The fireflies still flitted around the skies, but were no longer paying any attention to the ponies in their midst. Rainbow gave a glance to the sleeping ponies beside her.
‘Somepony has to make sure nothing gets them’ she reasoned ‘and I’m the only one for the job’. She stood triumphantly for a moment.
Silence gave its empty applause for her. Rainbow swung her gaze around the hills before her. In the dark they did not seem like hills any more. They seemed more like covers, a cloth over an object, hidden from her.
She screwed up her eyes and shook her head. Now was no time to be thinking like a poet, her brain decreed vigilance.
And yet a few persistent thoughts would not leave her mind.
‘Where am I?’
‘Is there anypony else out here?’
‘Why am I so alone?’
“Stop it Dash, nothing good’ll happen if you think like that” she said.
‘Where am I?’
‘Is there anypony else out here?’
‘Why am I so alone?’
“I’m on the way home, that’s where I am” she told herself.
‘Where am I?’
‘Is there anypony else out here?’
‘Why am I so alone?’
“I’m somewhere in the north, like Ditzy said”
‘Why am I here?’
‘Is there anypony else out here?’
‘Why am I so alone?’
“I’m...I’m...There’s got to be somepony out here. Maybe we’ll see a village somewhere if we keep going”
‘Why am I here?’
‘Is there anypony at all here?’
‘Why am I so alone?’
“I’m here”
‘Why am I here?’
‘Is there anypony at all here?’
‘Why am I so alone?’
“I’ve got Fluttershy and Ditz with me, I’m not alone”
‘Why am I here?’
‘Is there anypony at all here?’
‘Then why do I feel it?’
“There’s got to be somepony there”
‘Why am I here?’
‘Is there anypony at all here?’
‘Then why do I feel it?’
“There’s got to be...”
‘Why am I here?’
‘Is there anypony at all here?’
‘Then why do I feel it?’
“At least they have each other”
‘This is unfair’
‘There's nopony here’
‘I'm so alone’
“What have I got?”
‘Nothing’
“Nopony to keep me company” Rainbow sniffed “Nopony to sit beside”
‘Nothing’
“Nopony to stay”
‘Nothing’
“Nothing ever lasted...”
‘She won’t last either’
“She’ll be fine”
‘Why did you stay?’
“I couldn’t just leave them!”
‘Why did you stay?’
“They’re my friends.”
‘Why did you stay?’
“I didn’t want to leave them”
‘Why did you stay?’
Rainbow screwed up her eyes and took a deep breath.
“Because I was lo-“
“Go to sleep Rainbow Dash” Ditzy called groggily. Rainbow glanced across, guessing that she was not fully conscious, and the sunk sheepishly to the ground.
‘They don’t want you’
“Shut up brain” she hissed.
For a while she sat in silence. The night became still. The grass stopped moving. Her mane stopped flapping. Rainbow glanced around warily. Her ears snapped up. Shapes and shadows shifted in the dark.
In the distance, the shifting dots of light suddenly came together and swarmed towards the forest. They streamed overhead and hid in the depths of the forest, their passing rustling the leaves and momentarily covering Dash with their golden light. She flattened against the ground as they flew over her head, afraid something unwelcoming might spot her.
“Something’s got them creeped.” she murmured. The last of the fireflies sped overhead and left the grass dark and silent again. Rainbow slowly raised her head to stare out into the moonlit hills.
After a few moments of searching, the moon hid behind a cloud, leaving Dash to blink in the blackness. Her eyes flicked up to the cloud, seemingly the only one up there, which had drifted firmly over the moon. At a glance, it seemed like it would take at least a minute to pass. Dash closed her eyes and listened for a moment.
No sound.
The night hung around her. Dash squirmed and opened her eyes. The silence was uncomfortable. It stood around her like a wall. It cut her off, pushing in and trapping her in the unnatural calm. Dash stared out into the dark.
And something in the dark stared back.
“Ditz” Dash hissed, her gaze straight ahead. “Fluttershy. Ditz wake up! Fluttershy!”
A tired groan answered her, but no real reply came.
“Guys...” Dash said, keeping her voice low. “Come on, wake up”
The thing came closer. It slid through the grass, almost appearing to pass through it without disturbing it.
Dash strained her eyes and ears, but could hear nothing and see nothing in the black.
Nothing except the silver lights that stared at her. The lights slid through the grass, smoothly coming closer and closer.
“G...guys!” Dash said, louder “Guys wake up!”
The lights advanced.
Twenty metres.
Dash began to back up, her legs stiff and unwilling to move, protesting every instinct to run with the demand to be brave. Her wings slowly extended out to their full length.
“Wake up!” Dash shouted. Her head was locked, she could do nothing but stare.
Fifteen metres.
Her legs screamed at her to run. Every muscle in her body locked up.
Twelve metres.
The lights moved smoothly, like they were flowing in a river. They did not move in a straight line, but swirled in the air. Their indistinct shape slid up and down, sometimes back and forth, but always advancing.
Seven metres.
They moved fast, impossibly so. Back and forth, their movements random.
“Hey, shift off!” Dash yelled, trying to force her face into an expression of determination, but her twitching lips and shaking body betrayed her.
Two metres.
The lights flared, retreating a moment, and then charged forwards again.
Ditzy awoke.
It was still dark.
Above her, the stars glittered in the sky, like reflective beads had been scattered on a dark sheet. The silver moon sat lazily amongst them, half concealed by a large cloud. Ditzy lay on her back, with the grass in the edge of her vision. Fluttershy’s foreleg was draped across her chest, and Fluttershy herself had curled up around Ditzy’s side. Ditzy gently pushed the leg off and rolled onto her front. Her ears raised up. There was an unusual quiet to the air. A breeze, barely noticeable, not even powerful enough to move the grass, flowed around her.
But no sounds. Glancing around the air, Ditzy remembered fireflies before she had fallen asleep. But there were none around now. She wondered where they had got to. A faint smile flickered across her lips at the memory of her last early evening in the presence of the insect mounted lights.
‘They flew everywhere’ she reminded herself.
This jogged another thought in her brain. Flight.
The last she had seen of Rainbow Dash was when she was flying up with the stars.
Ditzy looked around again, scanning the skies with one eye whilst the other skimmed the ground, searching for anything blue or even remotely pony shaped in the moonlight.
Nothing presented itself to her sight. All she saw were the beautiful hills. Ditzy no longer saw them as beautiful. They were treacherous, and hid her friend away from her. A chill ran through Ditzy’s body, making her shudder, flicking her wings out momentarily as she did so.
“Rainbow Dash?” Ditzy called. “Rainbow Dash?” Ditzy gazed around, turning quickly on the spot. With one eye she saw the moon finally cast away the obscuring cloud.
Then came the screaming.
The sound pierced the air like a burning poker shoved through a piece of parchment, ripping at the unnatural calm and lighting Ditzy’s brain into a frenzy. She leapt back, her wings extending and her eyes wildly spinning around, searching desperately for the source of the agonising screeches. The screams continued, raking through the night. At Ditzy’s side, Fluttershy awoke and joined the screams, cowering behind Ditzy. Ditzy raised a hoof to hold her, still searching.
Something was moving in the tall grass. The moonlight seemed to focus on the shifting blades. Something was moving around just under the edge. Something frantically running back and forth. Something screaming at the top of its lungs. Something that suddenly stopped quite a distance away.
The screaming stopped. The something changed course. It was now heading towards Ditzy. It came closer and closer, seemingly galloping. Ditzy could see its outline as it came closer. It was a familiar shape, head bowed and charging. Ditzy pushed Fluttershy back, who whimpered quietly and clung to Ditzy’s back.
“Wait...” Ditzy murmured, squinting at the thing advancing rapidly towards them through the tall grass.
“Ditzy...” squeaked Fluttershy “Run!”
The creature leapt into the air, marking itself against the silver moon, spreading its wings and diving towards Ditzy at impossible speeds. It crashed into her, knocking both her and Fluttershy to the ground and pinning them to the ground with a cyan hoof on each chest.
“Are you two alright?” Rainbow shouted in their faces, her eyes wide and her pupils dilated. Her mane was dishevelled, with bits of grass and twig sticking out of it. Her coat was muddied and her teeth were scored with scratches and chips, as if she had been biting rocks. Her mouth hung open as she breathed heavily, seemingly struggling to draw air into her lungs.
“Fine, thank you” Fluttershy whispered, her eyes shut and her head turned away.
“You’re both fine?” Dash yelled, rapidly switching her gaze between the two mares.
“I think you’re hurting Flutty...” Ditzy pointed out, with a strange half smile on her face.
Rainbow practically launched herself off of the other ponies, rearing up on her back hooves and nearly falling backwards. She stumbled a few steps on two hooves, before turning and collapsing into a small heap. Ditzy sat up and leant over Fluttershy.
“You okay?” she said quietly.
“I’ll be fine” Fluttershy replied. “Just let me... catch my breath.” Fluttershy pushed weakly against the ground. Seeing her marefriend struggle, Ditzy put her forelegs around her and lifted the wounded mare to a more comfortable position. “Ditzy...” Fluttershy said “Can you... check the ba... bandage, please?”
A whimper behind her caused Ditzy to turned her head, cocking it to one side quizzically.
“Can it wait a second, Flutty?” Ditzy asked.
“Oh... um, yes”
At that Ditzy turned fully towards Rainbow Dash, who was curled up into a ball a metre away, and was sobbing.
“Rainbow Dash? You okay?” Ditzy asked, hesitating. She dared not step forwards. Rumour had it that Dash had a tendency to lash out when upset.
“I tried to get it to go” Dash sobbed. Snuffling noises came from the face hidden behind Dash’s front legs. “I tried to make it go away. But it wouldn’t leave... it... it...” Rainbow broke down, her speech descending into unintelligible noises.
“What? I don’t get it?” Ditzy said.
Rainbow slowly dragged her hooves away from her face and gazed into Ditzy’s eyes, tears running down her face.
“S...something was h...here. It w...would...n’t go”
Ditzy looked around in the dark.
“I don’t see anything” she told Dash.
“It’s watching” Dash hissed “It’s always watching as long as we’re in its land it can see and it knows what we do and wants to know what we’ll do and how we survived and oh Celestia, get it out of my head! The eyes! The eyes! The-“
Rainbow Dash was cut off by a hard buck to the head from Ditzy. As Rainbow settled into unconsciousness, Ditzy simply stood, shaking like a spinning top in an earthquake.