Rainbow Dash has her eyes glued to the creature that is trembling where she once stood mere minutes ago. It shudders in place, lifts its gangly head up high with its spindly, angle-ridden neck, and swivels it all the way around twice. It looks like it's barely holding its balance and would fall at its first step, but I know how deceiving that particular appearance can be.
"Whoof," I say, "looks like I got you inside in the nick of time."
She looks back at me, furious, and speaks in a shuddering tone. "What. Is. That. Thing."
"Um... it's kind of hard to explain." I tilt my head. "You're really Rainbow Dash, right?"
Her glare deepens. "You're asking for a bruising, pal."
I roll my eyes. Yup. Just like I remember. "Forgive me for not questioning finding a dead mare walking around in the Wastes."
She makes a choking sound and recoils as if I smacked her across the side of the head with my shovel. "What the hay do you mean I'm dead?"
"I mean you died when I was little, at Canterlot or something. That was years ago, and you suddenly just showed up here, just asking to be killed by our friend out there." I point my hoof at the thing outside. It's trying to scrape at the ash. Does it think something is buried there?
"I..." Rainbow Dash collapses into one of the chairs and stares at her hooves. "I don't remember dying." She looks at me with wide eyes. "I don't remember how I got here. I just woke up out there, in the..."
"In the ash," I finish for her.
"Last thing I remember, we were just hearing about the― Dear Celestia, did we lose?"
"Hmm?" She pulls my attention from the thing that's now digging with its face.
"Did we lose against the machines?"
I have a feeling she already knows the answer. "Yeah, we did. That was a long time ago, though. I was barely ten, so I don't really remember it all that well." I turn and sit down in the chair across from her. "If that's all you remember, then lady, I've got a lot of stuff to catch you up on."
Her face hardens. "Okay."
"Equestria is very different. Most of it is gone." Already, I can tell that's a hard one for her to hear. "That 'most of it' is called the Ash Wastes. I bet you can understand why."
She nods, her face glum.
I point with a hoof. "That thing out there is what we call an Ash Child. As you've probably guessed, it was a pony once." I see her wince and lean into it. "Look at me, Rainbow Dash. Listen. That is not a pony anymore, no matter what it tries to tell you. If it catches you, you had better hope it's hungry, because if it isn't, it's going to turn you into one of them too. But they aren't the worst things that we're going to need to worry about, because–"
That's when the ground begins to rumble beneath our hooves.
I sigh. "Well, because of that."