Life-Led

by Trevor Rain


Chapter 3

        The ground moved below in a blur and the wind bit the eyes of the flyer that cut across the skies towards the eastern horizon. Faster she flew, channeling the maelstrom of emotions that consumed her into a reckless energy that fueled her determination and speed. The patchwork earth below broke into a deep blue as her maddened dash brought her to the expansive sea that bordered the continent. The flyer took little notice, as thoughts and questions assaulted her mind.

“Who are they?”

“Why couldn’t they come back?”

What were they like?”

        Then one thought surfaced that brought anger to the front of of all other thoughts. One question that stood against her strongest belief. the thought caused her to push harder and to beat her wings faster. A slipstream coma appeared before her, shaping her form and it was with one final push that allowed her to break through the barrier in a grey shockwave of speed, leaving a colorless rainbow to trail behind. The only sound that could be heard was the beating of her heart that hammered against her chest.

Why had they abandoned me?”

        Questions dominated her focus and feelings of betrayal and confusion blinded her to the fact that she was alone in a desert of water, flying to a destination she knew nothing about. Blinded also by the tears in her eyes that were not caused by the rushing wind that stung them.
        
The speed gained from the rainboom quickly waned and, before long, so did her endurance. Rainbow found herself slowing and her breathing erratic. She then noticed the sea turn from a deep blue to a black as the sun began to give way behind her to the moon. She continued on, but the brightness of the moon was quickly obscured by darkened clouds that were indistinguishable to the blackened sky.

 A gale of wind came, heralded by the rolling clouds., hitting Dash and throwing her to the side before should could correct for the change. The wind stung her eyes with an icy bite, taking away most of their sight, making it harder for her to fly straight. Desperate for light and relief from the storm, Dash veered skywards to seek rapture from the elements, but a mighty crack resounded before she could reach the clouds followed by a bright light that left a burning after-image against her vision. The rumble ended with an ear splitting sound which was like God cracking a whip against the stars in the sky. Rainbow Dash saw the charged clouds that sparked with chained lightning and knew that any attempt to surpass them would prove a deadly experience. If the the lightning didn’t strike her down in flight, the electrically charged moisture of the clouds would surely stop her heart.

Having few other options, Dash banked towards the wind and set her determination to fly as long as she was able. There was no turning back, as the skys left no marker to provide her direction, and there was nothing but blackness and rolling waves surrounding her, leaving the wind the only hint of direction. Rainbow Dash flew against the wind.

Flying with the wind would be like turning back, Dash was not ready to be beaten.

Her wings burned and her lungs heaved, yet she continued to fly for what seemed like hours to her, and gave into no thoughts of regret for her journey...

Until the rains began.

The droplets of water were driven into her by the biting winds. They sent shivers across her body with an unwelcome coldness, but the fear in her eyes showed more than simple discomfort. Wet wings are heavy, and each drop of water was an unwelcome addition that weighed her down. Dash started to drop against her efforts to fly well above the now windswept waters, and any attempt to shake the water off of her form became an exercise in futility as the droplets of rain steadily became a downpour, causing her wings to feel as if they were made of iron, instead of the cyan colored feathers that adorned them.
        
Lower and lower, she was forced down towards the rolling waves that seemed to eagerly await the chance to engulf her. Dash’s legs were not skimming the surface of the water, and she prepared herself for the worse, as she was a creature of the sky, and wouldn’t survive the waters in a storm like this.

The waters started to recede from her legs, and, despite her exhaustion and the burning in her wings, she started to gain altitude. In thinking that the storm was over, relief came over her face, and she looked up towards the sky...
        
...and whatever relief she felt before was dispelled, and quickly replaced with panic and fear. A colossus towered before her that consisted of water and foam. The wave began to return back to earth once more and, in the process, engulfed the lone pony of the skies into the waiting waters below the storm. Dash’s form twisted in the water, trying to find some semblance of control as the wave drove her deeper and deeper into the waters while they attempted to steal the breath from her lungs.
        
Rainbow kept her eyes closed tight, and her mouth even more so as she fought the downward push. she kicked ever harder at the abyss, but stopped when the force that pushed her down suddenly stopped. She opened her eyes to see why.

Blackness. Just the telltale signs of light above her. The waters above shimmered, but below, there was a sort of peace from the storm. The black abyss around her almost a comfort if not for the sheer contrast of what was occurring on the surface. Dash’s reverie was quickly broken by her protesting lungs, screaming for air. Her legs kicked and wings pushed against the water, wanting so much to return to her birthright, but it was not to be at this time. Her body betrayed itself, and Dash’s lungs opened to receive air, bringing water instead. Her legs kicked less, and her wings floated beside her without use or purpose. Dash’s body lay in tay in the water, thoughts muddled and slow while the vision in her rose colored eyes began to fade to gradients of grey and black.

In her delirium, she could almost make out a figure in the darkness that stood in front of her vision before the black sea. It was walking through the deep, as if it were on land, coming closer to Dash. Dash’s eyes went from panic to calm, but her face looked confused. Dash knew this mare, somewhere, sometime. She reached out a hoof as if the touch the strange mare before her, but the darkness overtook her vision, and her thoughts turned to black.

*                *                *                *                *                *  

Steady warmth behind numbing cold, shifting sensations beneath, dull painful ach to the left, skull splitting pain in the head.

These were not the sensations of the dead.

Rainbow Dash opened her eyes and shut them quickly after from the glare of the sun. the discomfort of light was soon forgotten, however, when she was forced to wretch and force water from her stomach. Massive coughs wracked her body afterwards, as she expelled the remnants of water from her lungs. Feeling tired, sick, and like the living dead, she laid back down. Curling against the hard surface behind her, she closed her eyes again to fall into a much more welcoming darkness than the one she faced before.
        
        She slept.
        
        Several hours passed before she once again opened her eyes to the ocean waves before her, the glare of the sun no longer blinding her eyes. She lay in the shadow of a rocky alcove which she curled against while in a delirium. She could almost swear by the fact she was facing the rising sun in the east last she could remember...

Remember!

        Dash shot up to her hooves, but immediately regretted it as the painful evidence of her last night’s journey brought more for her to remember. The worse of the pain came from her left side, causing her to favor that part as she limped out from the alcove into the light to better study her injuries. She knelt down, and looked over her body, wincing just by the effort of turning her neck. Bruises marred the surface of her skin, dark blue contrasting with the light likeness of her hide. They didn’t seem too bad to her, but a look at her left wing made her think otherwise. The dark blue was highlighted with a light yellow around the joint where her wing attached at the shoulder. She tried to extend the wing, but a wonderful burst of pain proceeded the attempt that caused her to cry out. A groan escaped her mouth as she recognized the injury. Her wing was dislocated, and nothing short of ropes and a strong tree would help her lock it back into place on her own to allow it to heal. Until then, she was grounded, there would be too much pain in trying to fly in this condition. Dash doubted she would find anypony around here that would be able to help her wing.
        
“Where is here?” she asked herself, stepping out from the alcove and looking at the sky and the midday sun. The sand beneath her hooves gave her unfamiliar hoffing, forcing her to take a moment to adjust to the constant shifting. Looking around, all she could see was white sand spanning the horizon, waves rolling against it in the west. Water in one direction, sand in every other.
        
        Dash was beginning to think this wasn’t such a good idea.
        
        “What idea?” She mentally chided herself “Fly hundreds of miles in uncharted airs without a wing guide or weather solution, to coordinates that was harder to read than Twilight’s writing?”

        Dash kicked at the ground in frustration, letting anger distract her from facing the more serious truth about her rash actions. She didn’t want to think about her situation. Another distraction came to mind as her stomach growled, which also brought to her attention just how thirsty she was. The salt water from the ocean did nothing but accentuate the thirst, it seemed, because she knew she swallowed plenty of it when she die-

        Dash shook her head and started trotting westward, if only for the fact that it was the only direction away from the waters, and setting a destination would be another thing to help keep herself distracted from thinking.

        Before too long, the soreness eased enough for her to lengthen her stride as she quickly distanced herself from the ocean shore, the sound of waves cascading across the sands waning with each step.
        
        It was almost startling how the sand gave way to the sea of grass. The grass seemed to go on forever, well, at least to what she could see, for it grew tall, and above her sight. She moved through the tall grass which bent easily to her passing form. Dash couldn’t help but take a bite of the grass, finding it surprisingly sweet. She found herself enjoying her feast, despite hating the taste of raw grass back in Equestria, her home. This was delicious!
        
This didn’t satisfy her thirst, though. She needed to find water before her thirst grew too great. As she continued away from the setting sun, the grass began to lower in height, due to the lack of water, she reasoned. Dash finally came to a point where her head cleared the length of the grass, allowing her to see above the expanse.
        
The landscape was flat, and the grass grew on every inch, though it changed it’s color from green to lighter shades of brown the further from the shore she became. It was somewhat disorientating to see the land move with the wind much like the waves of the sea, the grass bending together in a cascade that is amassed into a colossus of water and foam that-
        
Dash closed her eyes, and took in a deep breath from the warm air to try and clear her mind, during the thoughts and emotions deeper. “Not now.” She whispered aloud.
        
Opening her eyes, she noticed something in the distance that stood against the clear sky, a tall speck. It took several hours to be close enough to make out the tower, the pain in her side and countless bruises keeping her from moving any faster than a slow trot. The tower was old and weathered, the stone surface marred by cracks and missing chunks. There wasn’t much around the base but debris, the tower itself being only a few leg-lengths in width. It seemed out of place with the rest of the land.
        
Before Dash could walk through the still intact entrance of the tower, she spotted a wooden barrel to the right. The barrel had a wide brim that spread out around the opened lid, and this piqued her curiosity. Dash walked over to the barrel and put her head down into it, then she jumped in with a splash.

Freshwater! The barrel was created to catch and store rainwater. The water was cool, and it soothed her swollen wing-joint. After a moment, she climbed back out of the barrel, shaking off the water that soaked her coat, then winced in pain as her bruises protested the treatment. Not regretting the decision tough, as the water felt good under the mild heat of the sun. She then turned her attention back to the tower where her eyes caught an engraving next to the entrance that was carved into the stone. She could barely make out the worn lettering, but the words gave her pause.

“Life-Led”

“Destined are the Pegasus to conquer our enemies.
The very sky now bends to our will.”

Dash didn’t understand what the caption meant, but the name of the tower was what stood out. Lifeled was the name given in the paper, the place in which two pegasus flew to and were cut off, and assumed missing in action. Dash raised her leg and placed it on the rough inscription, feeling the coarseness as she moved it across the stone.

“Mom, Dad, they were here.”

A wave of emotion went through Dash that she couldn’t suppress. There were combinations of sadness and anger that simply confused her. She blinked away any tears that came to her eyes, and continued through the entryway into the tower in front of her.
        
There wasn’t much inside of it. Straw was strewn about the floor that smelled of mold and decay. There were stone steps that went along the side of the tower that let out of an opening at the top. There was nothing besides the floor she stood on now, the area up to the opening clear. Dash wouldn’t doubt that she could save a walk up the stairs and fly past there, if her wing weren’t injured the way it was.

Dash kicked the straw around her feet, and foud the remnants of a few blankets amidst the dust. Seems if there was anything of worth, it’s gone now, just a few traces of those who had lived here before. Having nothing else to see below, Dash climbed the stone stair to the opening above the tower. She stepped out into the open air and could find again, nothing but a view of the sky all around. The sun was setting down towards the west behind the coastline, which Dash was surprised to be able to see from so far away. She drifed her vision across the whole horizon, taking it in from every direction.

To the south, she could make out the tops of trees, but nothing much more than that. North was only more of the same expanse of grass that continued on, a sea of it’s own. East were mountains and rock that marred the earth, but were appealing at how close they came to the clouds. Dash had been grounded for only a day, but already she was missing the freedom. Walking took more patience than she’d like to admit, she couldn’t understand how Earth Ponies could stand to be on the ground all their lives, just imagine, if AJ could fly-

Dash thought about her friend. She wasn’t prepared for that thought, nor the thoughts that came after. She was going to see Fluttershy, her close fillyhood friend that day. She would be left waiting. Dash let her head fall onto the ledge in front of her, she had left Fluttershy hanging, and she hated the thought of that. Dash kicked at the ground in her frustration to try and banish the thought, but the anger with herself stayed. She lifted her head to look at the mountains once again, but saw something different. Movement.
        
It was hard to make out, but she could just see three forms through the twilight. The figures moved between and in twain of each-other, a dance in the sky that comes naturally to born fliers that seek to fly with other’s. Dash’s heart leapt in excitement! They must be pegasus come to get her! Someone must have seen her fly off and sent help right away, because that would be the smart thing to do. Princess Celestia must have sent some of her personal guard to come rescue her. “Not that she needed rescuing, she would have been fine on her own after her wing healed.” she reasoned with herself.
        
Dash extended her right wing and hoof to wave up at the fliers and shout for them to hear her; it would be good to not be alone anymore. One of the forms must have saw her, for it broke off from the other two and began it’s decent towards Dash, quickly outdistancing itself from it’s companions, but something was different. As the form came closer, Dash noticed that it was bigger than any pegasus she ever saw, and the wing span was twice the size of her own, yet it seemed familiar.

The figure came into view, and Dash saw that it was no pegasus, but something far different. It’s wings, head, and arms were that of an eagle where the body and haunches were of a lion. The figure was a creature of duality: A gryphon.

Dash knew only of one gryphon before. She was Gilda, a friend she met in school when she was but a young flier. They spent most of their free time together doing their best to ignore homework. They parted ways for a while after school, but Gilda would still visit sometimes. Dash couldn’t get away to see Gilda very often because she had a job to keep the skies clear of clouds in Ponyville. That last time Dash saw her was when her new friends had met Gilda. Gilda had always been a hot-head, but it was different that time, she openly insulted her friends. Dash didn’t like the way her old friend treated her new ones, and gave Gilda a choice.

Gilda chose, and left.

Dash never met another gryphon, and Gilda never talked about others before. She didn’t know how they acted or where they lived. She always just said they had too many rules for her to want to stay with them. Dash never could get her to say more, but she didn’t need to, she could sympathize.

The gryphon went into a dive towards Dash with a speed that made her uneasy, that was not a maneuver that a pegasus would use, this was more like the form of a bird of prey. Realizing this, Dash started to turn and run through the opening ot the stair below, but was impacted before she could make it. The gryphon slammed into Dash and sent them both into the opening in a spinning blur of feathers as they rolled down the steps, pain erupting down Dash’s side every time the impact hit her wing.

The staircase was curved though, and this caused them both to be flung off mid-way to fall to the tower’s base below. Dash landed under the gryphon with a large thud that nearly knocked the wind out of her. She tried to kick under the grasp of the gryphon, but she couldn’t land a good enough hit to get away from her, and the gryphon kept her pinned by it’s sharp talons which dug into her side, drawing blood. Dash’s attention was drawn to the gryphon as it stood up higher, lifting a talon high as if to strike.

Dash didn’t look away, but was amazed by what she saw. Her shock was mirrored by the face (beak?) of her attacker which caused her to lower the talon slightly.

“Gilda?” Dash questioned.

“Dash!” shouted her childhood friend.

A look of bewilderment overcame Gilda’s face as she looked down at Dash, then over at her outstretched talon. It looked like she was going to say something, but then a noise came from above that sounded like scraping talons. The other gryphons have landed and were going to come down to see what Gilda flew off to. Gilda looked up towards the noise, looking panicked, then she looked back at Dash.

Dash had many of her own questions racing through her head, her pain long forgotten in the confusion. She opened her mouth to say something to her friend, but was silenced by what came next. Gilda looked at Dash, then around the base of the tower, then back at the stair, then again back at Dash but with a change. Her face showed anger instead of confusion.

Gilda raised her talon back into the air, and brought it down hard against Rainbow Dash. Everything, once again, went black after the impact.


(Authors Note: This is the longest chapter I’ve ever written, and I hope to do longer in the future. This is also one of the few works in which I was excited to finish. I’m looking forward to hearing what people think of the ocean scene, which was fun to write. I’m sorry for the long update, but I was caught up reading Fallout Equestria and Project Horizons and I didn’t really start this chapter till last week about this time. I should be updating regularly from now on.

Thank you for reading, I appreciate it greatly.)