//------------------------------//
// Just a Little Longer 
// Story: The World Beneath Her Wings 
// by Void Chicken 
//------------------------------//

Rainbow Dash hated waiting. It was worse when she had to wait for something without a clue when it would happen. That it was her own body she was waiting on added insult to injury.

At the moment, waiting consisted of lounging on the couch while listening to Rarity sew in the other room. Everything was as ready as it could be. The guest room had been fully converted into a baby's bedroom, all the cabinets and drawers were equipped with safety locks, and everything even vaguely sharp or chokable was secured. The only thing missing was asleep inside Rainbow.

For her part, Rainbow was bored. Rarity had occupied herself with manic sewing, the sounds of which echoed through the house. Rainbow glanced at her bulging belly, taking some satisfaction in the knowledge that it was as large as it'd ever be. With a groan, she rolled off the couch.

Sighing, she said, "Let's find something to do, kid. I could use a distraction."

Rarity was in the room so quickly Rainbow swore she'd teleported. "Did you say contraction? Is it time? Do we need to go to the hospital? I'll pack!" Rarity had packed seven times already.

"No, no, babe. It isn't time. Calm down," Rainbow said with a raise of her hoof. She quickly returned it to the ground. She knew she wouldn't miss all the extra weight throwing her balance off.

"Oh, yes, of course," Rarity said, fiddling with a needle and thread in her magic. "Rainbow, dearie, can you do me a favor and not have the foal until I'm ready for it? Perhaps another two or three months?"

The foal was two days overdue. "Sorry, Rarity." Rainbow shifted her weight. "She might be comfy in there, but I'm ready for her to come out. In fact, I think I've changed my mind. I'd rather you be carrying this right now."

"Yes well, me too, but I'm not and you are so all I can do is wait." Rarity's thread had managed to tangle itself around the needle. "Wait and sew."

"Uh-huh. Hey, I'm going to go for a fly." Rainbow flapped her wings and took to a hover. The extra weight under her wings made itself apparent. She landed slightly harder than she usually did. "Walk. I'm going to go for a walk. Maybe I'll see if Pinkie has some of those brownies I like."

Rarity set down her mess of thread. "Okay, do be careful, dearie." Hugging Rainbow, she said, "If you feel anything, come right back home."

Briefly returning the hug, Rainbow said, "You'll know as soon as I do, babe."

"Oh!" Rarity exclaimed. "What if it's a red earth filly with a bright green mane? I haven't got a thing that matches that!" She hurried back into the other room.

With a smile, Rainbow left the Boutique. Giving a glance back at her bulging sides, she said, "Hope you're not a hideously colored filly. Rarity would have an aneurysm every time she looked at you. Don't worry though, I promise we'll both love you no matter what you look like."

After a minute of silent walking, she looked up. "It's a nice day out here, you know. I made sure of that. Going to have some summer showers in a few days to make up for it, so you'd better be born before the weather team decides to kill me for putting it off for so long. I was a week early, you know. Rarity was three days late. Fashionably so, she says. Guess you're taking more after her. It's all right if you're more like her than me. I like her. But if you get some of my awesomeness, that'd be pretty sweet, too."

Taking a few more steps, she noticed a lack of motion in her belly. "Still asleep? All right, get your rest. You got a really big day soon. Biggest day of your life, really. One of the biggest of mine, too."

Soon, Sugarcube Corner appeared in the distance. "Oof. Anypony ever tell you how heavy you are? How do the mares in Cloudsdale handle this? But I'm not going to be doing this much longer." Rainbow paused. "But you? Everything is going to begin." She looked up. "I'm going to finally get to meet you. Find out what race you are, what colors you are, what kind of person you're going to be, everything. I can't wait."

A brief tremor ran under her hooves.

Rainbow looked down. "Hm?"

Sounds of commotion prompted her to look up again. To the northwest, the horizon turned orange.

Her blood ran cold. "No," she whispered. Within seconds, the orange spread, passing over Ponyville, enveloping the sky and wiping the clouds away. Everything was bathed in its light.

"No no no no!" Rainbow turned back and forth, not knowing what to do. She spotted Twilight's castle in the distance and took off running.

Running soon turned to flying, low across the ground. Rainbow ignored her wings' protests and soon arrived at the castle. She dove through a window and landed in front of Twilight.

Twilight turned. "Rainbow? What's—"

"What did you do?" Rainbow shouted.

Taking a step back, Twilight responded, "What?"

Rainbow pointed a hoof out the window. "The Roundhill! What did you do?"

Twilight flew up and looked out towards the horizon. "Is that what you were talking about with the sky? How in the world—"

In less than a second, Rainbow was at her side, grabbing her by the shoulders. "Twilight. What. Did. You. Do?" A few orange sparkles wafted down outside.

"I haven't done anything to it!" She pulled herself out of Rainbow's grasp. "Look. Calm down. I'm going to go find Starlight, and we're going to get to the bottom of this. Stay here."

"But—"

Twilight looked into her eyes. "Rainbow. Whatever is going on, it can't hurt us. Magic doesn't work that way. I'll be back and we're going to figure out what's going on."

Rainbow looked away. "It doesn't make a difference, I guess."

With a smile, Twilight said, "Trust me, all right?"

Instead of answering, Rainbow glided back to the floor. Twilight had gone out the window and out of sight.

Above, the orange sparkles came down thicker, passing through the ceiling. One landed on Rainbow's back, sending a chill through her body. Then another. And another.

"Twilight?" Rainbow called. She trotted, then ran into the hallway through the thickening orange haze. Before she reached the front door, her legs gave out.

As the strength ebbed from her body, she struggled to breathe.

"No," Rainbow gasped. "Not like this... please... give me... another chance..."

---

Rainbow Dash jerked awake, breathing heavily. She was once again in her bed at home, and the sun shone through a blue sky outside. She rolled out of bed, collecting her thoughts.

Once she was on all four hooves, the weight in her belly asserted itself. Rainbow looked back at it to see it bulging outward as large as it had just been. She didn't quite remember how large she had been a month and a half earlier, but she knew it was smaller than that.

"Wait a second," she said to herself. "How far back did I go?"

With uncertain steps, she made her way to the calendar on the wall in the hallway outside. She soon spotted the most recent crossed-out date.

"A week?"

---

Rainbow opened the door to Twilight's throne room. Twilight looked up from whatever she was reading.

After crossing the distance between them, Rainbow took a breath to collect her thoughts. "It happened again."

"What did?" Twilight asked with a glance at Rainbow's flank. "Is something wrong with the foal?"

"What?" Rainbow shook her head. "No, forget the foal. It's the Roundhill. Somepony woke it up."

Twilight looked out the window. "The Roundhill's dead, Rainbow. Nopony can wake it up. And besides, even if it was," she said, looking back, "nothing like what you said is happening."

Rainbow's hoof met the bridge of her nose. "Not now, a week from now."

"You mean you had another vision?"

"It's not a vision, Twilight!" Rainbow stomped the floor. "It really happened. And... and you!"

Twilight backed up a step. "What?"

"You said it couldn't hurt us! You told me to trust you!" Rainbow leaned into her face. "You told me to trust you and I died."

Raising a hoof, Twilight said, "Calm down, Rainbow. It was only a vision."

"Stop saying that!" Rainbow opened her wings. "I know what happened! It wasn't a vision! I don't know who woke it up, but somepony did and it killed us all. You..."

Rainbow took a step backwards and fell onto her haunches, looking down. She looked back up, pleading with her eyes. "You told me to trust you. But don't you trust me?"

Twilight hesitated, then walked over and sat next to Rainbow. "Of course I trust you. It's just... I mean, it's not—" She paused to take a breath. "All right. This isn't helping. Let's just say that you're right, and we put aside"—Rainbow could hear a twinge of annoyance enter Twilight's voice—"some very fundamental laws of magic that are absolutely crucial to our understanding of reality. You said that somepony, ugh, woke up the dead Roundhill and it exterminated ponykind as a result?"

Rainbow nodded.

"Then the least we should do is find out who. But if we didn't find any documentation of the Roundhill's existence, then I don't see how anypony else could either. Starlight and I only know about it because you told us. You didn't tell anypony nefarious about it, did you?"

Glancing at her, Rainbow said, "Like that mare in the black cape and top hat? Had a handlebar mustache, a skull and crossbones cutie mark, and wanted to end the world? Of course not, Twilight. I mean, Rarity knows. I don't know if she'd tell anypony about it." With a sigh, she added, "She never believed me, either."

Rainbow thought for a moment. "The first time, you and Starlight found it by following some weird magic stuff. Maybe... somepony else did the same thing?"

Briefly looking down, Twilight said, "That's possible, assuming you're right about that being how we found it in your vision—I mean, how you remember it. Starlight and I stopped following the clues once you told us about the Roundhill, so I don't know what steps we'd follow from where we were to it. Maybe—"

A door opened. Through it walked Starlight Glimmer, whose mane and tail were each wrapped in a towel. Water dripped from her sides. She glanced between Rainbow and Twilight.

"What's going on?" Starlight asked.

Rainbow hesitated. Twilight spoke up, "Rainbow's had another, uh, experience with the Roundhill. Like the last one. Apparently somepony is going to cause that disaster she told us about in a week's time."

Starlight rubbed her tail. "So she had another vision?"

With a snort, Rainbow said, "It's not a—"

"I think," Twilight said, raising her hoof, "it's for the best if we take Rainbow at her word until we figure out what's going on. Maybe this other pony has information that'll help solve the mystery. But how in Equestria would we find them? They could be anywhere."

Unwrapping her mane, Starlight said, "We know where they'd be next week, right?"

"Right. So all we have to do is be at the Roundhill at the right time." Twilight paced in a circle. "Then we can talk to them and figure things out."

"And beat the tar out of them for putting me through this," Rainbow added. Inside her, it felt like her foal shared the sentiment.

Twilight either didn't hear her or decided not to respond. "Which leaves us with the question of what to do until then. I'd like to do some research, but I've already exhausted the library, and from what I remember, in Rainbow's vision—experience, neither Canterlot nor the Crystal Empire had anything, either." She scratched her chin. "Rainbow, do you know if I checked the Forbidden Section of the Royal Library?"

Rainbow tilted her head. "There's a Forbidden Section?"

"That answers that. I'd have to ask Celestia permission to look through it, though."

"You're a princess," Starlight said with a smile. "Can't you just walk in?"

Turning to her, Twilight answered, "Well, Celestia banned me from it after the time I accidentally melted all the snow off of Canterlot Mountain when I was nine." She gave a sheepish grin.

Rainbow stifled a laugh.

Twilight cleared her throat. "In any case, I think it's for the best if Rainbow comes along, too. Her recollection can help keep us on the right track."

"Great," Rainbow said. "Travel. Just what my body needs right now." She sighed. "But if it'll help, I'll go. Just let me tell Rarity what's going on. And get something to eat. I'm starving."

Rainbow turned and left the room. In the hallway, she heard Starlight's faint voice saying, "You don't really believe her, do you?"

There was a pause, then Twilight replied, "I don't know what to believe anymore."

---

Rainbow pushed open the door to the boutique. Inside she saw Rarity, who quickly made her way over to her.

"Rainbow, dearie, you up and left without saying a word," she said. Rarity glanced into Rainbow's eyes. "Is everything okay?"

Taking a breath, Rainbow answered, "Remember that month and a half when I died and went back in time? It happened again."

"Another month and a half?"

Rainbow walked inside, letting Rarity close the door behind her. "A week." She lay on the nearest couch and stretched herself out, glad to be off her aching legs.

"If you're from next week, then..." Rarity's voice drifted off and her eyes went to Rainbow's belly.

"Huh?" Rainbow looked at herself. "Oh. No, no I haven't had her yet. She's going to be late."

Rarity set her hoof on Rainbow's side. "Then late or not, I'm sure things are going to work out." The foal returned the gesture, prompting a smile from Rarity.

"Speaking of workouts, I'm being dragged to Canterlot so I can help them figure out more magic stuff. Then I'm going to find the idiot who's going to wake up the Roundhill and show them exactly what I think of their meddling."

Turning away, Rarity said, "Well then, I should pack our things."

Rainbow sat up on the couch. "Huh? 'Our' things?"

"I'm coming with you, of course," Rarity said, looking over her shoulder.

Letting herself settle down again, Rainbow replied, "There's no point in both of us going. You might as well stay here and make cute little outfits or whatever it was you did last week. Did today. Was... going to have done today?" She shook her head. "Whatever. You know what I mean."

Rarity fetched some saddlebags. "You might have the foal while you're there."

"I told you, babe, she isn't coming for at least a week." Her eyes followed the various bits of cloth and sewing implements making their way through the air.

"You've also told me that the future you remember changes. I will not risk missing the birth of our daughter."

Getting to her feet, Rainbow said, "All right, all right. But promise me you'll help beat up whoever is putting us through this."

Rarity gave Rainbow a quick kiss on her cheek. "Naturally."