Rainbow Dash’s wings were beginning to ache, a testament to how long she'd been flying for. One doesn’t become a member of the Wonderbolts without some serious flying abilities, including endurance.
Rainbow always prides herself on being the best flying in Equestria, in all aspects. She was fast and agile, but also had amazing long flight capabilities.
So it was a testament to how long and far Rainbow had been flying for her to feel her wing beats getting slower, her brow getting sweaty, her body heavier in the air.
Rainbow shook her head as she continued to push through her fatigue. She’d never flown this long before, but she just had to keep going.
This high up in the air, the sun was blazing hot on her back. This was usually no issue, and the lower air resistance was well worth the potential sunburn, but after so long in the air, she was feeling very uncomfortable.
She looked down at the low hanging, dark clouds, then up to the bright sun. She sighed as she tucked her wings in for a second, falling below the clouds.
Immediately the heat of the sun was replaced with a cold drizzle. It was raining quite lightly, and the wind was almost non-existent, so she didn’t feel in danger of crashing.
She closed her eyes and enjoyed the feeling of the cool water cooling her fur and muscles.
She looked down to her surroundings, not recognising any landmarks. She wasn’t too surprised by this, she’d been flying east for quite a while now.
All she could see was forest all around her, wild and untamed weather and beasts existed this far out of Equestria, but she tried to pay that no mind as she pushed on.
She had to keep going.
With her body momentarily cooled by the droplets, the pegasus’ mind began to wonder.
Her thoughts immediately went to her friends back in Equestria. She couldn’t help but feel a little bad about them.
She’d made up a story about Wonderbolt training, before beginning her journey. She’d made sure to fly around Griffonstone, let alone anycreature recognises her.
She briefly wondered about the covert nature of her journey. She felt awkward about lying to her friends and leaving them on such short notice, well, in their point of view anyway.
But whenever thoughts of potential regret began to fill her, they were washed out her mind when she listened to bells and reminded herself why she was making this trip.
She began to shiver a little bit from the cold air and rain. She beat her wings a little harder and flew above the clouds once more. The warm sun felt good on her cool, wet body. Mist slowly wafted from her body as the water evaperated.
She’d repeated this cycle many times over during her flight. She’d never flown for this long in a single go before, and she wasn’t used to the feeling of her body struggling outside of a workout, so she wasn’t quite sure how long she could keep flying. But the method of cooling her body below the clouds then warming back up above them was working well, so she kept at it.
As she looked out to the massiveness of her surroundings, she thought about if any pony had been this far before. Ponies tend to stick to Equestria, rarely leaving its borders. Under Twilight’s righen, with Equestria accepting more creatures as citizens than ever before, ponies were beginning to travel, but still not too much.
Looking behind her, she failed to see any of the tall mountains that border the lands she grew up above. The Yakyakistan and Crystal Empire’s ranges were long out of her sight. But she’d now flown outside of visual range of the Griffon Mountains.
Forget ponies, she wondered if any creature had been this far. She figured that even somepony as awesome as Daring Do would be reluctant to go so far as to no longer see their home. She smirked as she reckoned that no creature would be willing to go this far, making her the first.
No fear or regret existed within her. She knew that if she’d told anypony about this they would’ve tried to stop her, and she couldn’t allow that to happen. She knew she had to make this journey.
Refocusing on the sky ahead of her, she picked up the pace a little. She still kept to a relatively slow cruising speed. Well, slow for her at least.
She didn’t enjoy pacing herself like this. She was always one to push the boundaries of what was possible, not just go with the flow. But she also wasn’t stupid, she knew that pushing herself would mean having to stop, and she wasn’t going to stop for anything.
She looked up to the blazing sun, squinting her eyes as she did so. She wasn’t really keeping a track of how long she’d been flying for. She thinks she remembers the sun lowering and the night rising at least three or four times, but she’d also flown through many storms that disrupted her view of the sky, and therefore of the sun and moon.
She passed the dark rain clouds and could now see the land clearly before her. Forest was all she could see around her. No mountains, lakes or oceans could be seen. There were the occasional streams, but they were small compared to the large, dense forest that existed all around.
She started to descend towards one of the streams, ready for a small break. She slowly let herself drift down, making sure to still make up some distance even while landing. The lack of wind and now clear weather made the landing easy, and she gracefully came down to a jog and she made the rest of the way to the stream.
She stopped in a little clearing.
She trotted to the side of the stream and leaned down, taking a drink m. The water was a little brown from the silt of the stream, but Rainbow didn’t really have any options so drank it regardless.
It didn’t taste great, but it wasn’t terrible either. She figured that it wasn’t too dangerous to drink, so had her fill. After lapping at the water for a while, she moved over to a longer patch of grass and started to eat. She kept her ears perked in case a predator came for her.
She didn’t like feeling like prey, but as a pony trying to rough it, she didn’t have much of a choice. She spent a good 20 minutes eating slowly, making sure not to give herself a stomach ache.
She smirked as she thought how Applejack would be proud of her for being able to live off the land like this. Her heart panged a little as she turned to look back the way she came. All she could see was forest, trees and bushes. Not a hint of Equestria or it’s surrounding nations.
She turned her body and lifted her hoof to take a step. She suddenly felt very homesick, and very physically tired. She was about ready to fly home then and there, wondering what in Tartarus she was doing all the way out here.
But those thoughts were washed away with the sound of the bells. The dominating, rhythmic clanging focused her back on her task.
Her body suddenly snapped back east like a magnet, and she took flight once again.
The bells oppressed her thoughts, leaving her head fuzzy. But she didn’t mind that, it helped her focus on her journey, on why she had to do it.
She couldn't fully remember when she’d started hearing the bells, she just remembers that they started softly. One morning she’d woken up to hear the faintest little ding-a-ling in the background of her life. As she thinks about it, she figures she probably didn’t even hear it for the first couple of days.
It slowly increased in volume as time had passed. At first she just thought she had some ringing in her ears, too many Sonic Rainbooms or something. It was easy enough to ignore at first.
She realised something was up the moment the second bell was added. She came to the conclusion that it probably wasn’t just her ears ringing. But it was still easy enough to ignore, and she wouldn’t be Rainbow Dash if something like some phantom bells were going to slow her down.
So she continued to ignore the bells, even as they multiplied and became louder. Eventually, she became concerned at the noise, as it was beginning to interfere with her life, and it didn’t seem to be going away. She knew Twilight was visiting Ponyville in a week, so she decided to wait it out until then.
She began to struggle to follow on with conversations, as the bells began to take over her mind. She struggled to focus on much else, but the constant clanging.
It was the morning the day before Twilight was due to arrive, her friends having grown concerned with Rainbow’s odd behaviour.
Rainbow Dash shot awake to the deafening sound of bells. They filled her head completely and hurt like all Equestria. She clutched the side of her head and screamed out, but failed to hear herself over the sounds filling her mind.
The bells suddenly told her something. She didn’t know, and still doesn’t know, how they did, but they did. The bells gave her instructions, told her to go. To find them.
Almost blindly, she went to her friends and told them that she was feeling heaps better, and that some Wonderbolts training had suddenly come up, and she had to leave.
“Say ‘hey’ to Twilight for me!” She vaguely remembers saying through the fog of the bells.
So she started to fly east. Pushing for days through day and night, rain and sun. Stopping only for the barest moments to eat and drink.
She was very, very tired at this point. But she kept going regardless. The bells kept her going.
In a moment of lucidity, she wondered about whether she was being loyal to her friends, running off like this chasing something she didn’t understand.
She always felt a little weird about her relationship with loyalty. For years now, she’d been the Element of Loyalty, she’d been a champion for her homeland. But she wondered what it actually meant to be loyal.
It wasn’t like, bam, she knew how to be loyal, or anything like that. Sometimes she questioned if her friends found it easier to embody their “elements” than she did. Like, Applejack just seemed to know when somepony was lying, and Twilight was just the best with magic.
Loyalty didn’t seem to come as naturally to her as something like kindness to Fluttershy. Rainbow had to sometimes really think about what being loyal actually meant. She didn’t like letting ponies down, and she didn’t like holding other ponies back.
She guessed that must be a loyal thing to do. To be independent as to not let anypony down. She figured that meant that by keeping the bells to herself, by keeping them safe from prying eyes and going on this journey by herself, she must be being loyal.
She smiled and nodded to herself. Yes, she was doing the right thing, the loyal thing.
She started to descend. The bells were telling her she was getting near. She was tired, and confused. But she was almost giddy with the thought of reaching her destination. She didn’t know how or why, the bells were telling her this was what she needed to do, and she didn’t want to let anypony down.
She continued her flight to the ground, noticing a small, rocky hill, barely taller than the trees around it, very easy to miss if one didn’t know it was already there. Despite this, Rainbow focused on it like a beacon. This was it, she knew it was.
She tucked her wings in and began to dive towards the rocks. Quickly picking up speed she plummeted to the ground. She snapped her wings open and sharply angled herself forward speeding low to the ground.
She landed and began running, before slowing to a job, and eventually a walk as she neared the rocks. Between a few of them she focused on an opening, an entrance of a cave. Even from the ground, the entrance was hard to spot.
But the bells were ringing loud in her ears, filling her head completely. She knew this was where she needed to be.
She stopped by the entrance of the cave, despite the bells willing her forward, she couldn’t help but pause. She breathed fast and shallow as panic began to fill her. What was she doing? Where was she? Was what she was doing right? Was it loyal?
She shook her head, or maybe the bells shook her head for her, either way, she remembered why she was here, the bells told her this was right.
She stepped into the cave and walked into the darkness. The cave was long and deep, but she kept walking forward.
For the first time in what must have been weeks, the bells in her mind began to recede, and she began to hear them from the outside in, not inside out.
She began to ran deeper and deeper into the caves, closer and closer to the bells.
She burst into a dimly lit cavern. A few torches burning on the walls, giving the cave a creepy, oppressive feeling.
At the far end sat a large ram the sort Rainbow had never seen before. It was a deep blue, with a short, white mane. Two large, dark blue horns grew from the ram’s head, curling large above its body. On its neck was a large, red collar, with golden bells wrapping around it.
But Rainbow didn’t give that any mind. For her mind focused on what it was doing. The ram was standing in front of a large rack, many meters tall, filled with bells of all shapes and sizes. The ram’s horns were glowing a brilliant yellow, and the yellow glow was floating darting from bell to bell, playing the melody that had taken over Rainbow’s life.
Rainbow ran toward it, but stopped short. She was panting and her whole body was shaking with exhaustion.
The ram stopped playing it’s bells, and Rainbow Dash heard silence for the first time in a while. After the endless bells that had been filling her, the silence was oppressive and uncomfortable.
The ram turned its head and looked to the Rainbow. It’s yellow eyes and red pupils piercing the darkness.
“Hmm, so someone finally heard the call.” Said the ram in a deep, dark voice.
To most, the voice would’ve been dangerous, evil even. But the voice, mixed with the jangling of the bells around its neck, felt like audio honey to Rainbow’s ears.
The moment of quiet seemed to last far to long for Rainbow Dash. She began to shuffle uncomfortably as her head was no longer filled with sound.
The ram seemed to notice this, and it’s horns yet again glowed yellow, , and with a pop a dog collar appeared in front of Rainbow. It was red like the ram’s, and had a single golden bell the quietly jingled.
Rainbow’s eyes were fixated to the small collar and bell, it filling her every thought.
“Put this on.” The ram commanded.
Rainbow Dash leapt forward towards the collar. The neckwear seemed to melt through her body, fitting perfectly around her neck, with no obvious way to put it on or off.
Rainbow sighed with satisfaction as the bell’s melody filled her head. She swayed slightly to make sure that it wouldn’t go quiet again.
The ram smirked darkly at this. “You are mine now, pegasus.” The ram suddenly turned, before walking deeper into the cave. “Follow, we have much to do.”
Rainbow happily followed the ram, the bell ringing in her ears.
Maybe Rainbow didn’t really know where she was, she didn’t really know what she was doing or why. But she did know that she was a loyal pony, and while she might not fully understand loyalty, she knew what she was loyal to.
And she was loyal to the bells.