//------------------------------//
// The Departure 
// Story: Her Eyes Reflect The Stars 
// by Lynwood 
//------------------------------//

We pack the next morning. Rainbow seems back to her normal self. If anything, she's invigorated. She chatters to Nothing nonstop about the details of the curse, or spell, or whatever it is. She's determined to get as much information about it as possible. 'Looking for a chink in the armor,' she calls it.

I say nothing. How can I? I can only think about the dream. I remember it in perfect clarity. And I'm not coughing anymore.

I guess She keeps her word.

While Nothing is fitting her foreleg with her walking splint— she always insists on doing it herself— Rainbow sidles up next to me. "Hey, why's her leg like that?"

I glance back at my love carefully inserting her bad foreleg into the wood-and-leather contraption, then give Dash a raised eyebrow. "Why don't you just ask her?"

"I, uh..." A blush spreads across the Element's face. "It just felt awkward, y'know?" She gives a nervous grin.

I chuckle a little. "It's alright. It's been like that since she was little. Got it during the Event."

"The Event? Is that..." Her confused look morphs into something closer to a grimace. "Right. That's what you call, um... what happened."

"Mm-hmm. Most folks have some kinda scar. Here's mine." I show her the ragged, shriveled remains of my right wing.

Her muzzle scrunches. "Ouch, dude. Just... ow. Damn."

"Yup. Children can really bite."

Nothing hobbles over then and we help her with her coats and wrappings. Rainbow insists on giving her the nice full-face mask we found in the Ponyville hospital. "If Rarity's not around, then I gotta be generous for her, right?" She says with a pained smile. We give her Nothing's old goggles and cloth mask after that.

Rainbow spent exactly a week plus three days with me, leaving her just over two weeks before the limit. After we calculate how much time she has left, she decides to go off on her own. She plans to fly ahead, hoping to find ponies in the West who know about magical curses. I can tell it's killing her to leave us on her own, so I reassure her that we'll make it there safely.

We're left standing, all wrapped and packed up, just outside the hut. Rainbow notices me studying the strange wooden mask over the door and chuckles. "Yeah," she says, her Wonderbolts jacket slung over her shoulder, "I always thought it was a little creepy too."

"What?" Nothing says as I give her an incredulous look. "You've been here before?"

She smirks. "Sure have. Friend of mine used to live here. She was a zebra."

I can't think to say anything more than "huh."

Rainbow laughs a little at that, then gives us both an intense look. "Nothing. Membrane," she begins. I imagine her biting her lip behind her mask. "I've never been good at the mushy stuff, so, um..." She rubs her neck. "Thanks. For everything. I never would have made it without you."

I nod and Nothing gives her a tight hug. "Be careful, Rainbow Dash," she says.

"There's one more thing." Rainbow holds out her Wonderbolts jacket to me, and I take it with as much care as I can manage. "That's not a gift. I want you to give that to the next one of my friends you see because... because I really could have used something like that."

I swallow. "We'll make sure of it."

Rainbow Dash opens her mouth, then closes it, and simply nods. As she flies away, Nothing and I begin the long journey.