He looked like a pony alright. He might act like a pony, too, but how could she love him when she knew what was hiding underneath the skin? When she knew the insect that lurked behind those eyes? Rainbow looked up at the stallion in front of her as he reached out a hoof to touch her.
“No,” she said and pushed his hoof away. “I can't love you! I'm sorry,” she said and jumped up. A pained look crossed his eyes. She needed to get away and be alone with herself. She couldn't look at him right now. “Maybe somepony can, but … but I just can't! I'm sorry,” she repeated and turned, hurrying away down the corridor.
“Rainbow, wait!” he called after her. She was surprised when he hurried past her and stopped in front of her, looking imploringly at her. “Rainbow—”
“Just leave me alone,” she said and pushed him away again as he reached out to stop her.
“Rainbow, please.” He was back in front of her, trying to catch her eyes. Rainbow pushed to get past him while looking away, but he continued and tried to hold her. “Please, I just—”
“Let me go!” she cried and fought to get free.
Doodle looked shocked at her reaction, but he didn't let go. “Rainbow, I—”
“Just let her go, Doodle.”
He blinked and turned around. “Flix?”
Rainbow didn't wait. She raced past both of them before another word could be said. She didn't stop until it became clear that no one was trying to follow her. She landed in the empty corridor and leaned against a wall for support as she tried not to cry. After a few minutes to collect herself, she took wing again and turned down another corridor towards the prison.
She stopped outside the door. She didn't have the key. She couldn't let them out, even if she wanted to. And what would she do then, anyway? Run away too? She had to save her friends, and herself, and what if Eden really was the only one who could help her? If it was all true, then she didn't have a choice. She looked at the door for a long time before pushing it open.
“Ah! Our daring friend an' rescuer returns triumphant!” Frostfell said excitedly and jumped up as Rainbow stepped into the room. “Ya kicked them changeling bastards, eh? Kicked 'em good?”
Blaze looked up from behind a book he had been lazily reading. “Oh, you got the key then?”
Rainbow stopped, looking down. “I didn't get the key,” she said. “I'm sorry.”
“Ach! Blast it,” Frostfell grumbled.
“What then?” Blaze asked, putting his book down. “What happened?”
“I have to save my friends.” Rainbow sat down, careful as usual to not move her broken leg unnecessarily. “I may have no choice but to stay here. I may need their help.”
“Ye cannae trust 'em,” Frostfell said and sat back down heavily. “Lyin' bastards, the lot of 'em.”
Blaze watched her with more concern. “What's wrong with your friends?”
Rainbow looked down at her hooves for a long time, going back over everything in her head. “I'm … going to die soon,” she said finally. “And there's going to be a war, or something, and all my friends will die too if I don't stop it … and I don't know how long I have, or if I can stop it at all. I know what I must do, Eden told me, but I'm not sure I can.”
“Ach, that be a nasty mess.” Frostfell got up and trotted back and forth along the bars of her cell, like a tiger in a cage. “Ye really trust her?”
Rainbow took another long pause before nodding. She wasn't sure why, but she could honestly say she did. Rainbow wasn't normally quick to trust, but perhaps the gravity of the situation made things clearer.
“What do you have to do?” Blaze asked.
She found it hard to look at him. She knew he wasn't the one she had been with earlier, but they had looked the same, and she had thought he was Blaze at the time. She had thought she lay with the Shadowbolt, not some changeling. “I … I need to give up the Elements of Harmony,” she said. “That's easy … I'd … I'd do that in the blink of an eye if it meant saving my friends. I'd do anything to save my friends!”
“But?” Frostfell said, anticipating the complication.
“They need to give them up too. We all need to give them up, otherwise it will all end in war and Eden won't be able to help us, or me.”
There was a long silence from all three of them. Frostfell was the first to break it. “That be nothin' but rubbish,” she said angrily. “Ye cannae believe that, right? Ye believe a bunch o' changelings and their … their Quin, when they say ye have tae give up the Elements? Ach, they have ye brainwashed, is what they have!”
“It does sound a little nuts,” Blaze said with a bit more diplomacy.
“Yeah,” Rainbow muttered. “That's what I expect my friends will say, too.”
“Aye, good on 'em! Ye cannae honestly tell me ye'd do this?”
“Hey! I'm dying, alright?” Rainbow said loudly and got up to face them. “It sounds dumb, but I'm not! Alright? I'm not stupid! I'm dying, my friends may be dying, so if you have a better idea I suggest you tell me right now, because I could really use one!”
There was another long silence. “Aye, sorry,” Frostfell said. “Ain't sayin' ye're stupid, just … consider it, right? An' dinnae ye trust any changelings, they put strange spells on yer heid. So why ye be dyin', anyway?”
Rainbow landed again and gave an unsatisfying half-sigh before explaining.
“… so Death got a bit confused and hasn't caught up yet, but when he does I'm a goner. And Eden could fix it all, if only I wasn't all tied up with the Elements, but I can't just give that up because there's still the other me out there, right? And she'd have to agree too, at least. And that's just me, then there are my friends.”
“Surely there is a better way,” Blaze said after a while.
Rainbow half-sighed again. “You tell me,” she said with her eyes on the far wall. “Is there?”
There was a knock on the door and Flix, still disguised as Frostfell, peeked inside. “You alright, Dash?” she asked as she opened the door fully and stepped inside.
Rainbow glanced around at her. “Yeah, um … thanks,” she said. “Thanks,” she repeated.
“Ah, don't mention it,” Flix said brightly and ruffled her wings. “So, hey, the Queen told me about some magic herbs and stuff to fix your leg, since she can't just fix it for you, and I wondered if you might like a bit of fresh air?” She looked hopeful. “Since, you know, I was going out anyway looking for this stuff.”
Rainbow didn't need any reason to get out of here and into the fresh air. Being holed up in here was torture. She got up and turned to the two prisoners. “Thanks, and … sorry, again.”
***
“My brother really ain't so bad,” Flix said apologetically. She was leading the way up a long flight of stairs. “And he's sorry if he got a little too pushy there. He shouldn't have tried to force you. He didn't mean to scare you like that, he just isn't good at rejection. It's a bit of a new concept for us both.”
“I don't love him,” Rainbow muttered. “I just … can't love a changeling.”
Flix stopped to open a heavy door and stepped out into the cool air of a cave. A roaring veil of water separated the cave from the outside world, and the air was damp and cold with mist. “Yeah, I can understand that,” she said with a sigh. “I think he really does like you and wants to make you happy, he just isn't good at dealing with it. Look, if he ever gives you trouble of any kind, just tell me, alright? I'll give him a thrashing if he bothers you. But I don't think he will.”
Rainbow followed as they flew along the wall of falling water and through a narrow crack into the open. It was such a relief to see the forest and the open sky again, even if it had only been less than a day. She didn't say anything as they dived down over the tree tops.
“I better switch voice,” Flix said next to her, letting her voice shift back into Frostfell's distinctive accent. “Dinnae want tae be heard by anypony by accident an' blow me cover, ye ken.”
They flew in silence for a while, gliding over the tree tops. Rainbow flew in front, trusting Frostfell to make some kind of sound if she needed to change course. She glanced around at the forest, the sky, and then back briefly at the changeling in disguise. She could escape, right here and now. What would Flix do? No way the changeling was faster than her our here in the open. She really could just fly away and never look back. It would be easy too.
Rainbow picked up speed, slowly accelerating. It was good to feel the air under her wings and the wind blowing in her mane again, and secretly she wondered what Flix would do if she got too far away. She was flying pretty fast now, racing close to the trees. She looked back and saw Flix far behind her. There was no hint of concern, or any suggestion that she was going to give chase. Rainbow looked around. She could simply leave, Flix was not going to stop her. She looked back again.
Flix stopped and pointed down, before disappearing into the forest. Rainbow stopped and hesitated. After a moment she turned around and flew back to where she had last seen Flix. She dived into the foliage and landed next to the changeling where she was standing among the ancient trees.
Flix looked around and pointed at the tangled undergrowth of the forest. She didn't comment on Rainbow's little attempted escape, even if it wasn't really an escape after all. “We be needin' a few things: wee flowers, white with yellow stripes on the underside o' the petals, some light green mushrooms what grow on trees, wee transparent berries with a red core, an' the bark o' … them trees here,” she said, patting a tall, thin tree with her hoof. “Think ye got all tha'?”
“Yeah, sure.” Rainbow looked around and began flying towards a patch of white flowers a bit away. They turned out to have white undersides, no yellow at all. She continued for a while until she found a few and picked them carefully.
Rainbow looked back. She could see Flix a bit away, picking berries from a bush. She wasn't even looking at Rainbow. She shrugged and looked around. Picking flowers was so utterly boring, even if it was to fix her leg. Maybe she could just wander off, fly around for a bit and then pretend she didn't find anything.
As she was considering her plan, her ear flicked at a sound further in among the trees. She listened for a few seconds before silently sneaking closer, peeking above a tall bush. An earth pony was cursing under her breath at her tail, which had got tangled up in a bramble bush and refused to get free. The more she tried to get it free, the more tangled it got.
Rainbow pushed a few branches aside. The sound made the other pony look up suddenly and turn her head in Rainbow's direction. The stranger blinked and stared at her. “Rainbow Dash?” She seemed surprised, almost shocked. “What are you doing out here?”
Rainbow moved out from behind the bush. She didn't think she recognized the pony, who had a creamy coat and coffee colored mane. She was wearing a small saddlebag, and her glasses were slightly crooked from the effort to get her tail free. “Um, do I know you?”
The pony looked taken aback for a moment. “Café au Lait?” she tried, and when that didn't seem to ring any bells, she added, “From the café? Is …” She looked around. “Is, um, Twilight with you?”
Rainbow shook her head, and the other pony suddenly looked embarrassed. “Oh, you probably don't remember me,” she said and chuckled, turning red in the cheeks. “Um, do you think you could help me out? I seem to have got myself tangled up here, eheh, dumb tails, right?”
Rainbow shrugged and approached the pony. “Why are you out here all by yourself anyway?”
“Oh, I was just, um, gathering some flowers for the café,” she grinned uncertainly and stuck her head in her saddlebag, poking around for something. “I, um, might have a pair of scissors in here …” she mumbled.
Rainbow flew past her and stopped to inspect her tangled tail. It really was a mess. Scissors might be needed. “Odd place to—”
“Dash!”
Rainbow blinked and turned around just in time to see the flash of metal in Café au Lait's mouth and a streak of white as Flix collided with the startled earth pony. Rainbow blinked as a long, thin blade dropped and lodged itself in the ground by her hoof. Café au Lait's tail was torn free of the bush, leaving several tufts of hair behind in the brambles, while the two mares rolled around on the ground.
Flix ended up on top, with her front hooves around the other pony's neck in an iron grip. There was a brief sneer of recognition from Café au Lait as she looked up at her attacker. “You! You betray—” she hissed before a sickening crack of her neck made a definitive end to her sentence.
A pained look crossed Flix's face as she held on for a little longer, then let go of the dead pony and stepped back in a daze.
“You … you killed her!” Rainbow said, feeling sick to her core as she stared at the lifeless body. The head was twisted around, dead eyes staring into the treetops, mouth open and forever silenced.
“She would have killed you,” Flix said, her voice flat. “She had a knife … she was going to kill you.”
A shiver ran through the body of the dead pony, and Rainbow blinked as the coat and mane blurred, leaving behind the chitinous body of a changeling. Flix looked away and closed her eyes as the transformation began. Rainbow looked from the dead changeling to the knife stuck in the ground by her hoof, then up at Flix.
Flix had just killed another changeling to save Rainbow's life. The last words of Café au Lait began to sink in as she watched the haunted look on Flix's face.