Rainbow Dash Around the World

by MagicS


Tearful Promise

“Okay, okay, now just stand still, you have a lot of knots and stuff in your mane but I can straighten it all out,” Wish said as she pulled a comb through the other filly’s mane. “Wow, how’d you get it all messed up like this?”

At the moment, Wish was situated in Arondel’s town square, at a table that had been set up earlier, and she was showing off her mane care skills for everyone who was interested. Because she had never gotten the opportunity to do this herself back in Hoofica, thanks to her maids taking care of her mane and her mother before that, it was really refreshing to get to do it herself. It was something that maybe she should’ve discovered earlier in her life but just didn’t have the possibility to. Now that she had “acquired” it and new the truth about herself it was just wonderful. She had always loved painting but she had never known how much she loved mane care and styling either. Until finally now.

“Well we were running through bushes and tumbling down a few hills… my mane got all tangled and stuff,” the filly said.

“Guess it doesn’t really matter. I’ll get it all fixed up in a minute, it’ll look even better than before,” Wish said and continued on combing and styling the mane.

“Can you do mine next?” A colt asked her.

Wish shrugged. “I don’t see why not. I don’t have as much experience when it comes to colts manes but if anything it should be easier, right?”

“After him how about the two of us?” An older voice said.

Wish looked to see Jolene and Angie walking towards her with smiles on their faces. It was kind of strange to see them without Rosalie but Wish didn’t pay it any mind. They must’ve known she was hanging out with the local kids and came to check on her.

“Our manes aint messed up or anything but we’d still like to see what you can do with them,” Jolene said.

“Uh huh, I wonder what ideas you have for styling my mane,” Angie smiled.

“Heh,” Wish confidently smiled at the both of them. “Sure, I haven’t actually tried to style any adults’ manes yet. You two can be my first. Fair warning though, if I get any wild ideas then you’re both going to be guinea pigs.”

Jolene giggled. “Don’t worry, Wish. We trust you.”

Since she had a lot of ponies to work on now, Wish spent the better part of an hour combing, brushing, and then styling and practicing every kind of thing she could think of on these manes. Jolene and Angie were really perfect for this since their manes were longer than the fillies her age. If there was a mare here with a really long, really straight, mane, Wish would love to meet her to have an even better canvas to practice on.

Right now her hooves were just finishing up with tying Angie’s mane into a bow against the back of her head.

“Hey, kid. You having fun?” Rainbow Dash’s voice called out to her.

Wish smiled and turned around to see Rainbow and Rosalie walking towards her. “Yep!”

“That’s good to hear, glad you’re having a better time in Arondel now,” Rainbow grinned.

“Well… I kind of have you to thank for supporting me and not letting me just… you know, keep being me.” Wish said.

“No problem when it comes to that,” Rainbow reached down and ruffled up Wish’s mane.

“Hey!” Wish shouted in playful indignation. When Rainbow Dash stopped, she looked back up at the mare and saw her looking down with a more serious expression on her face. Wish cocked her head to the side. “Rainbow Dash?”

“If you’re done practicing with the kids here and everything do you want to come back to Rosalie’s cottage for a minute? There’s some stuff to talk about,” Rainbow said.

Wish shrugged. “Alright.”

Rosalie went to talk to Angie and Jolene, whispering in their ears. The two of them nodded about something and said goodbye to Wish, leaving it to just be the three of them going back to the cottage. Wish didn’t get what was up with that either but it must’ve been something private. Either way they went back to the cottage without any other issue, Wish’s mind occupied by what she could try out next when it came to manes. Maybe her Cutie Mark had to do with tail care too? She hadn’t tried styling any tails just yet…

Once they got back to Rosalie’s cottage, she said she had to clean something up and went into her bedroom. Leaving just Rainbow Dash and Wish in the sitting room.

Wish now raised a curious eyebrow at her pegasus friend. “So what is it?”

Rainbow Dash tilted her head back and forth a bit, chewing on her lip and tonguing the inside of her mouth. “Well… we’ve been here for a while now, you know?”

“Oh...” A somewhat regretful realization came to Wish. “It’s time to leave?”

“Yeah. It is,” Rainbow Dash stiffly responded. She glanced down at Wish and stared into her eyes. “Did you like it here? Were you having a fun time in Arondel?”

“I-I was… yeah. After everything that had happened… and then getting my Cutie Mark… I like it here.”

“Are you happy here?”

“Mhm,” Wish nodded. “For the first time in a while I felt happy for real.”

“Have you made some good friends?”

Wish looked to the side, thinking. “I mean… I haven’t known anyone here for long, but they’re all nice. And… I’d call them friends, yeah. Sometimes it only really takes a day to make a new friend, right?”

“Yeah, you’ve got that right,” Rainbow Dash nodded. “You really like Rosalie too and get along with her well, I’ve seen it.”

“Rosalie’s really nice. She helped me out at the festival… I think I told you about that,” Wish said.

“Yep...” Rainbow Dash said.

“I’ll miss it all when we go,” Wish sighed.

“When we go… there’s still… a lot out there. And a long ways to go. And I’ve been here too long,” Rainbow said. She calmly breathed in and reached down to rest a hoof on Wish’s shoulder. “I’m leaving you here, Wish.”

Wish stiffened and her pupils shrank as she looked up into Rainbow’s eyes. “W-What? What did you just say?”

“I’m leaving you here in Arondel. I’m going to be heading south on my own.”

“T-That’s a bad joke,” Wish shook her head back and forth. “That’s a bad joke, Rainbow Dash.”

Rainbow Dash sadly looked down at her. “It’s no joke.”

“You… why? Why are you doing this? Y-You made a promise, you said you’d help me and now-”

Wish,” Rainbow Dash cut her off. “You’re happy. I saw your smile when you got your Cutie Mark. I’ve seen how you’ve been with the local kids and Rosalie ever since. You’re happy, Wish. I told you I would never leave you until you smiled for real. And I kept that promise.”

Tears were starting to spill down Wish’s face. “No, no, I don’t care! I don’t care about any of that! I-I just want to be with you! I don’t want you to leave!”

Rainbow Dash kneeled down and hugged her. “Wish, you can’t come with me. Do you think I’m happy to have to do this? I wish you could come with me the entire way, and we’d tackle whatever adventures we came across together. But you can’t. It’s too dangerous for you, a-and you deserve better. You deserve a normal and happy life, someplace here like Arondel. You deserve a place where you can finally relax and live with ponies who love you.”

“L-Love me?!” Wish shouted at her as a river of tears fell down her face. “No one loves me… you were the only one… and now you’re going away and leaving me all alone! You were the only one who cared and now I’m going to be alone again...”

“Wish...”

“I don’t care! I don’t care what happens, just take me with you! For the first time I had a pony in my life who cared about me… don’t go, please don’t go and leave me alone...”

“You won’t be alone.”

Wish and Rainbow Dash both looked over to Rosalie’s open bedroom door and saw her standing there.

“You won’t be alone, Wish,” Rosalie repeated as she walked over to them.

Rainbow Dash too smiled down at the filly. “You think I’d just ditch you? Rosalie and I were talking.”

“Yes,” Rosalie nodded, she also lowered her head so she could look Wish in the eye. “We spoke earlier and… i-if it’s okay with you… would you like to live here with me? In my cottage in Arondel? I-I could understand if you didn’t want to, or wanted something else, b-but I… I would love to have a little sister living here with me.”

Wish cried out and reached over to Rosalie, hugging her now instead of Rainbow Dash.

“Why? Why are you all so nice? Why can’t you be mean so I can stay with Rainbow Dash some more?...” Wish cried into Rosalie.

Rosalie giggled even as she started to cry too. “Oh… you silly girl.”

“Is it alright?” Rainbow Dash asked. “Do you think you’d like to stay with Rosalie?”

Wish sniffled and rubbed some of her tears away. She nodded her head a bit while looking at the floor. “Y-Yes.”

Rainbow Dash reached down and hugged her again too. “I know you’ll have a good life here kid. Way better than what would happen if you came with me.”

“You’ll… you’ll come back and visit though, right?” Wish asked her.

“Heh,” Rainbow grinned and looked into her eyes. “You know I’m a pony who keeps my promises. So yeah, I promise I’ll come back one day.”

“Thank you. I just… I just feel like I’m being abandoned. You were the only one who cared about me in all of Hoofica… I-I’m going to miss you so much,” Wish said.

“I’m going to miss you a lot too, kid. But you’re not being abandoned,” Rainbow said. “And I think you’re going to like having a normal life again.”

Wish smiled at her. “I-”

The sounds of a few muffled shouts from outside suddenly came into the cottage. All three of the mares looked to the door, wondering what was up. Rosalie was pretty confused and she walked over into her kitchen, looking out the window that peered out from the front of her home.

“What’s going on?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“There’s a mare out there causing a fuss with some of the villagers. I don’t recognize her,” Rosalie frowned.

Rainbow Dash’s blood ran cold. No. It can’t be. She can’t have gotten back to me so quickly.

She shot up and flew over to the door, throwing it open and jetting out to the area in front of Rosalie’s cottage.

“Rainbow Dash?!” Wish yelled from behind her and started running to follow, Rosalie also coming out of the kitchen.

There was a crowd of ponies out in the middle of the dirt road, and Rainbow Dash could hear panic and confused shouting coming from the crowd. There was someone moving around past them. She flapped her wings and flew past them, almost throwing some of the Arondel ponies aside, but it was for their own good anyways. At last she broke through the group and could finally see the mare that had interrupted the peacefulness of Arondel.

“Heart-” Rainbow Dash’s voice caught.

“Where is she?!” A mare unfamiliar to her yelled, she looked ragged and exhausted, with bags under her eyes and her mane and tail all frazzled. She was a cream colored pegasus with a salt and pepper mane and tail and on her flank resided a Cutie Mark of a painter’s palette with several dots of paint on it.

“I asked you where she is? I know she came here, I heard it from the family up north by the Divide! Where is she?!” The mare continued to yell, breathing heavily. As she looked around the crowd her eyes caught on Rainbow Dash and immediately the mare’s jaw dropped and her eyes widened in shock. And even a slight bit of fear. “Y-You?! You’re still here too?”

Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow at her. “Who the-”

“Dotty?”

Rainbow Dash looked over her shoulder and saw Wish walking through the crowd. “You know this crazy mare?”

Wish just blinked and kept walking forward. “Dotty? Is that really you?”

Dotted Easel’s entire body relaxed as her eyes grew misty and a smile broke out over her face. “I found you.”

“Y-You’ve been looking for me?” Wish asked.

“I was so worried,” Dotty nodded. “I was so worried about you, Wish. I had to make sure you were okay. I just… I had to make right. I-I don’t know what you think about me, or if you’ll believe me, but I cared about you, Wish. All that time while I was your maid, I really did. After what happened I just had to find you and make sure you were happy. Y-You deserved better.”

A mewling noise escaped Wish’s throat as she started freshly crying again. “Dotty!” She ran forward and wrapped the mare in a big hug. “Dotty! Dotty! Dotty! I’m so sorry about what I did! I’m so sorry for leaving you behind! Dotty… Dotty...”

As the two cried together, Rainbow Dash looked on with a smile.


“You sure you have to leave right now?” Rosalie asked.

“If I don’t I feel like I might accidentally stay for a month,” Rainbow Dash said, shrugging. “Sorry, Rosalie, but it’s gotta be now.”

Six mares were south of Arondel in one of its many fields, later in the same day but still before it was going to start getting dark. Angie and Jolene looked just as upset to see her go, and Wish was still glum even as she stood between Rosalie and Dotted Easel as Rainbow Dash had come to learn. That pony looked slightly familiar for some reason but Rainbow figured she must’ve just seen her in the castle at some point.

“We’re going to miss you!” A teary-eyed Angie said.

“I wish we could’ve danced some more...” Jolene said.

“I know, I know,” Rainbow Dash came up and hugged each of them in turn. “Someday, I promise.”

She then walked over and looked Dotty in the eye. “Er… don’t know you too well but Wish likes you a lot, I hope you have a good time living in Arondel too.”

"I think it’ll definitely be nicer than the last place I lived eheh...” Dotty nervously chuckled.

Rainbow grinned and then stood right in front of Wish. “Hey, kid.”

Wish snorted.

"Hey, Wish,” Rainbow rolled her eyes.

“That’s better...” Wish looked up at her.

“You’re an amazing filly,” Rainbow said. “You’re strong, you’re smart, you’ve got your own path in life, and now you’ve got a bunch of great friends to walk down it with. You’re compassionate, lively, traveled, sweet, and you’re going to grow up to be the nicest mare around.” She leaned down low and gave Wish a brief but tight hug. “I love you, kid. And I’m going to miss you way more than you can know. But it’s not going to be goodbye for good, I’ll see you again. I promise.”

Wish sniffled but she managed to not cry this time. “Thank you, Rainbow Dash. Good… goodbye.”

“Goodbye, Wish.”

Rainbow Dash spread her wings and flew up into the sky, all of them waving at each other the entire time.

Up.

Up.

And away.