Rainbow Dash smiled the whole time she was asleep. Even back when she was using a nice bed at Summer Rains’ home she didn’t feel so comfortable as this. And it was the first time in a while she had gotten to eat such tasty fruit, her stomach thanked her. When she did finally wake up she felt totally refreshed. In fact her sleep was so good that she woke up several hours later than she had expected, the sun already high in the sky by the time she opened up her eyes. But wasting a few hours of daylight didn’t bother her right now when the trade-off was getting to feel better and more energized than she ever expected to. Like this she could fly faster to make up for the lost time and it wouldn’t tire her out one bit. She rolled over onto her back and stared up at the sky. It was gray and looked so much colder than you’d ever expect if you were in this warm spot. Rainbow Dash had to remember that that was because this spot was the weird outlier. Stuck in a tropical bubble of warmth it was a strange and unique refuge in this cold northern land.
Sitting up, Rainbow Dash yawned and then got on all fours, stretching her back like a cat and hearing a pleasant pop in her back. “Oh yeah, that’s the good stuff. Not quite like a real massage but good enough.” No one gave a massage quite like Bulk Biceps.
Dash flew over to a banana tree and yanked off three ripe bananas. Peeling one she scarfed it down in an instant and held onto the other two to save them for lunch. It was a nice breakfast and she was pretty sure Twilight once told her that bananas were really healthy. Probably during some kind of lecture or lesson she was only half listening to. Quarter listening to. She flew over to the hot spring she had used yesterday and took a drink of water from it. Not something she would normally do but there was something so clean about this water and the whole place.
When she had quenched her thirst she gave her wings a quick preening and took to the air again, slowing floating up and up with quick flaps of her wings until she was above the trees and close to the spot where she’d exit this warm enclosure. With a small wave goodbye to the oasis she said farewell and darted off higher into the sky around the mountain. In a second she felt the air change and the cold winds wrap around her body again. She winced at the sudden change in temperature but quickly adjusted. Rising higher to well above the mountain she moved a bit to get back on course for true north and sped off.
Two hours of flying saw her making her way through falling snow as the temperature dropped the further she went north. Not as much wind as yesterday but heavy cloud cover kept the sun away in the direction she was going. This wasn’t exactly what she would call a snowstorm but the clouds were still peppering the land with a constant light rain of powder. Every now and then she had to shake her head to get the snow coating her mane to fall off.
Rainbow Dash had gone from flying high in the sky to gliding closer to the ground. Only ten feet or so above it as she flew north at a decent speed. Like some of the areas she had seen further south there weren’t any animals nearby that she had caught sight of yet. Back to desolation. That’s where she was. The True North was probably mostly like this after all with only a few cities and scattered settlements, she was willing to bet. But she knew she could find all the cool ones. It would just take a little flying and journeying, nothing she didn’t expect. Nothing that she felt would be a problem on her grand adventure.
Her adventure…
She’d be lying if she said she wasn’t disappointed with the way her final fight with Blizzard had ended. She couldn’t beat him. Not on her own, not in the way she really wanted to. It’s one of the reasons why she was still going further north instead of returning home. She couldn’t have her adventure end on that. Rainbow Dash needed a real fight and a real epic victory over evil, or a monster, or whatever. Anything that would’ve been cool. She was still pretty impressed with how she beat Blizzard but it wasn’t good or personal enough for her.
All the change she brought to the Empire because of beating Blizzard? Oh yeah, she was super proud of that. But it wasn’t enough. She needed to do even more amazing stuff and have ponies and whoever else cheering for her.
The True North was clearly still a big place and even if she didn’t have a real goal or destination in mind now other than finding some adventure she’d bet that with her luck so far she’d stumble upon something sooner or later. Seriously, giant ice monster? Ancient society of pegasi controlled by an evil dictator who threatened Equestria? If those were the first two big things she came across in just her first few days in the True North then what else was waiting for her? Thinking about all that stuff kind of made her wonder how those wolves were doing too. She hadn’t heard or seen anything about them after that second battle...
Rainbow Dash looked down at the two bananas she was still carrying and quickly peeled them with her teeth. These ones she ate a bit slower than the one she had inhaled for breakfast but they still disappeared pretty quickly. The oats back at the Empire had been pretty good but having something like this was nice too. She vaguely recalled the last fruit she had eaten before finding the oasis was those apples from when she was running from the Ice Sentinel.
How long had she been in the Empire anyways? More than half of it had to have been her stuck in that jail cell recovering… she should’ve kept better track of the days.
“Whatever,” Rainbow Dash shrugged. Not like she was on a time table.
She knew this was going to be a long adventure when she started it. She was aiming for this to be the longest and most amazing adventure she had ever been on. The kind of thing Twilight would have to write a book about. Even now despite it not being quite good enough for Rainbow’s tastes she had already done way cooler stuff than most ponies would ever do in their entire lives. Even that stuff before she came into the True North was cooler than what most ponies got up to. That’s just the awesome life Rainbow Dash lived.
The pegasus grinned as she praised herself, flying up a little higher and looking out to the horizon.
It looked like another mountain range dead ahead. One she’d reach by tomorrow for sure. The only thing about it that really drew her attention was it looked like there was a storm going on over the entire mountain range. If she squinted her eyes hard enough she could see fast moving winds and clouds, so fast it looked nearly like tornado winds. And it rose so high into the sky it might’ve been impossible for her to go over. As she looked to the east and west to see where the storm tapered off she realized that it didn’t. The entire horizon was taken up by a fast moving storm.
It didn’t seem possible. This was like a hurricane that had somehow formed over land. Rainbow Dash frowned, going around it would take too long and drive her off course. Going through it would be a huge hassle.
But then again why not just force her way through it? She was a strong flier, she knew she could handle it. This would be just like when she conquered Mt. Everhoof. Another personal challenge that she can brag about—the time she flew right through a hurricane. If she looked to the bottom of the mountains at the outside of the range the winds didn’t seem so bad down there, it only got really strong and thick a little deeper in. She’d head there first to see just how windy it was and then break on through. No hurricane was a problem for Rainbow Dash.