Rainbow Dash lied down on her back and stared up at the ceiling, expressionless. There was a lot she could be thinking about right now but truthfully she had already done that. Right now all she was doing was counting the tiles in the ceiling. They had come back up from the Keeper’s chamber some time ago—the elders leaving to notify the rest of the mountain lizard town down below the castle of what had happened. From there other lizards ran out to every other settlement in these mountains. In the meantime, Rainbow Dash was here with her friends. Despite what had happened, she hadn’t flown after Godfrey and Princess Fairscale and the Necklace in a mad rush. Though that would certainly have been a very Rainbow Dash thing to do. She couldn’t bring herself to act. She had hesitated when she realized there was absolutely zero way for her to stop him without him killing the Princess. Senax’s just as despondent attitude had also put a damper on things. No one had the energy to move. No one had the energy to even attempt to fix things. It was so completely unlike them but there was a feeling of defeat hanging over their heads practically before they had even began.
That’s why Rainbow Dash was just counting tiles. She couldn’t take the alternative at the moment.
A great sigh of despair and exhaustion came from Senax, the merpony slumped over on top of the table that they had dined on earlier. The table where they had treated with Fairscale. So much had gone wrong for her—she undoubtedly felt even worse than Rainbow Dash. It was all going so well and then it was all snatched away. The only respite she had was the images the Necklace of Ponyseidon had shown her. When she closed her eyes they were as clear as day and she almost felt like she could feel the Trident itself…
But that still didn’t change the fact that she had lost the Necklace itself and Princess Fairscale had been kidnapped. And with Bosche coming to the island her promise to protect the lizards was almost certainly broken. A deep feeling of lethargy had taken hold of her, her heartbeat diminished and weak.
Daylight Gleam, Gilbert, Breakwater, all of them wanted to say something. To try and shake their two friends out of this. Not just because they needed to do something but because they wanted to help their friends. There just wasn’t anything they could think of that they could say that would be comforting or constructive. They didn’t have any ideas either on how to save the day.
Rainbow Dash closed her eyes and took a deep breath. The ringing in her ears from the silence was getting annoying. She tried to clear her mind again-
NOPONY! IS DYING! AGAIN!
The screams from her memory shot through her mind and her eyes snapped open, Rainbow Dash immediately sitting up as she could see the image of a near-dead filly in the grass under her.
The three friends not completely in the doldrums looked over at her, startled. And even Senax lazily rolled her head to see what had gotten into Rainbow Dash.
“Umm… Rainbow Dash?” Daylight spoke up.
“Give me a minute,” Rainbow said back, blinking and staring off into space.
It wasn’t even really a promise she had made, now that she thought back on it. More like a denial of reality. She was trying to convince herself more than anything. Because the alternative was too awful to bear. Because it would’ve broken her apart failing there. Because she’d never be able to call herself awesome or a hero again.
It’s not even the first time I’ve felt like this. Bad. Worthless. Useless. Where everything awful that’s happened is my fault. Rainbow Dash thought to herself. In fact… geez, how many times have I failed before? Been beaten up, lost, imprisoned, totally helpless on my own. Celestia it’s happened a lot on this journey. It happened right from the beginning with Blizzard! How many times did I lose hope or really feel awful… like I couldn’t just bounce back, or feel like I could fix things? Barnaby… Anathema… the time when Vox… what’s always kept me going? What picked me up even when I didn’t have friends around or something great I did to point to?
Rainbow Dash frowned and propped her chin up on her hooves. She exhaled through her nose and thought about it.
It’s always just been… doing better. Knowing I could fix things and do better down the way. Staying as awesome as I ever could be, helping whoever I could, stopping any bad guys. It’s why I never turned back or stopped flying.
A small smile came to her face. So what’s the difference between then and now? How could I look any of my friends in the face if I quit before I even tried to make things right?
Aurora, Summer Rains, Wild Wind, everyone else in the Eternal Pegasus Empire… what would they think of me right now?
Those weather scientists who watched me fly through a hurricane and the huge pegasus who created it…
Larkon. What would Larkon think about all this?
All the gangs I united in peace in the Metal Mountain… Crush and Resin…
Ark’Nogt, Sia’Lorna…
So many ponies. So many creatures before I even came to this side of the world and really started to fail for the first time. Geez, and what would Barnaby and Anathema, who always tried their hardest for their homes, think? Those two trusted me, Barnaby—even unwillingly—left me to finish things. Anathema wanted me to live on at the cost of her own life. It’s because of them that I could even keep going in the first place and didn’t die right when I got out of the True North. Pff—and what about Daring Do and that obnoxious Valentine! They’d totally have a ton of words for me right now.
I don’t think anyone would lay into me like you though, Wish. After all I told you, after all I did to help you stay positive and be happy. Boy would you tear into me right now, wouldn’t you?
Rainbow Dash started laughing to herself, not a full belly laugh, but a light chuckling that shook her body. And also made the others quite confused.
“Are you alright, Rainbow Dash?” Gilbert asked her.
Rainbow smirked and stood up, cracking her neck and flexing her wings. “I’ve been better—but I’ve also been worse. Senax? How are you holding up?”
“I feel like the entire world has come crashing down,” the merpony huffed.
“Good,” Rainbow Dash nodded.
“Good?” Senax frowned.
“Yeah, because that means the only way you can go is up.”
A small smile came to Daylight’s face. “So does that mean you have a plan for dealing with this?”
“Nope,” Rainbow Dash shook her head.
The smile left Daylight’s face. “You… don’t have a plan?”
“I have no idea what to do,” Rainbow Dash shrugged, still smiling. “But. What I do know—from instinct and experience—is that having your heart in the right place is way more important than any plan. And right now my heart is telling me there’s no way we’re letting Godfrey and Bosche get away with this. What are your hearts saying right now?”
Gilbert clenched his talons into fists while he grinned and nodded at Rainbow Dash. “I would say my heart is saying exactly the same thing as yours, Rainbow Dash!”
“Mine too,” Breakwater agreed. He shot a questioning look at Daylight.
The more pessimistic unicorn bit her lip, but eventually nodded. “Mine too.”
They all turned to look at Senax, and Rainbow Dash walked over to her, offering a hoof.
“Well? I know how strong you really are, Senax. So I think it’s time you pick yourself back up. Plan or no plan, there’s a lot to do.”
Senax stared at her hoof and then her smiling face. “You always make it seem so easy...”
“It isn’t,” Rainbow Dash shook her head. “No, I really know it isn’t. I’ve been in your position a lot, and I’ve had so many friends do the same thing for me that I’m doing for you now. I’m not a quitter but I… yeah, even I’ve had a couple of moments when I’ve almost given up. Sometimes you can’t help it. Sometimes, like right now, you definitely have the right to be feeling awful and wanting to just lie down and do nothing. But are you? Are you going to do that? Or are we going to get back out there and save the day already?”
“I think what I’d really like to do right now is fall asleep after eating an entire carrot cake all by myself,” Senax said, sitting up in annoyance. “But I suppose that can come afterwards. So the answer to your question is yes—we’re going to go save the day. I just wish I knew how.”
“Yeah me too...” Rainbow Dash admitted.
“Me three,” Gilbert nodded.
Senax stood up from the table and walked around to the middle of her group of her friends. “We still have something we can do, right?”
Rainbow Dash thought about it. The whole planning part when it came to plans wasn’t her strength. Thinking in general usually wasn’t her strength. And knowing Godfrey could and would kill the Princess at the first sign of them trying to get her and the Necklace back made her first idea of “fly right over there and beat him up” a bad one. She wasn’t letting anyone die again. So the simple fact was that they had to think harder and come up with a real plan for how to deal with him and Bosche. Rainbow just couldn’t think of what that would entail though. The Heart of Azure’s sail was still torn. They’d be seen if they tried to go after the fleet when they leave the island. The entire fleet would fire on them with their ballistas if they did anyways. The ships would be full of lizards that they had no way of getting back to the island. No matter how Rainbow Dash thought about it there were far too many problems and far too few options they had for dealing with them.
Twilight or Starlight could come up with something for sure. But as Rainbow Dash rubbed her temples and wracked her brain there wasn’t an answer coming to her.
“Ughhh… do you guys have any ideas?” Rainbow asked her friends.
“To be honest there’s not much we can do,” Daylight Gleam said as she shook her head. “Especially since the mountain lizards are probably pretty upset with us right now, I doubt they’ll be much help either. I can’t really think of a plan with everything else that’s going wrong right now at the same time! It’s too much all at once!”
Rainbow Dash opened her mouth to respond when the doors to the castle’s dining hall were thrown open.
Perhaps it was just comedic timing after Daylight had mentioned the lizards, but the elders along with Smooth Tongue had rushed back in to see them.
Smooth Tongue’s eyes darted about for a swift second before they landed on Senax. “Child of Ponyseidon! Lady Senax! It is chaos in our society—please help us!”
“Y-You want us to help? But it’s our fault that...” Senax trailed off.
“The Princess and our matriarch both believed in you!” One of the elders said. “You are the only ones who can fix this!”
“We do not blame you, this tragedy does not weaken our loyalty to the Children of Ponyseidon at all!” Another shouted.
“So you’re not upset with us?” Daylight asked.
“Never!” The elders answered in unison.
“Our people are in just as much agony over the theft of the Necklace as they are the taking of Princess Fairscale,” Smooth Tongue told them. “Their hearts weep for both you and the Princess equally. Please, help us, we will do anything we can for you, we just have to make this right!”
Rainbow Dash grinned. “And we were just going over that.”
Senax was thinking, a little conflicted to be accepting their help in the first place, but knowing they needed it. “We could use your help… we don’t have much ourselves.”
“We don’t have anything,” Daylight grumbled.
“Everything we have on this island is yours now—to save the Princess and retrieve the Necklace,” Smooth Tongue said.
Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow at him. “What does that include?”
“Quite a few things actually,” Daylight answered instead, her brow furrowed as she rubbed her chin. Thinking hard on the new opportunities that had presented themselves.
“Thinking of something?” Breakwater asked her.
“Now I might have a few ideas on what we can do...” the unicorn nodded.