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// Chapter 1: The Accident 
// Story: Dash 
// by Everythingpossible 
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	They lived in a big house, just a few miles from Cloudsdale. It was just the two of them, father and daughter. He had bought the house after her mother left, to get her away from the city. The father’s name was Silver Cloud. Her name was Dash.
She didn’t remember much about her mother, just that she was a tall, white pegasus with marvelous pink hair. Whenever she asked her father, he could only say that she was ‘beautiful’, and then changed the subject. Silver Cloud worked at the weather factory. He would often take her with him, instead of hiring a foalsitter. She loved going with him, to see him work, to see how they made the rain, and the thunder, and the rainbows. She especially loved to see the rainbows.
She was an adorable little filly, with cerulean fur, big, pink eyes, and a soft, smooth mane of pearl-white. When she was of age, it came time for her to go to school. He would take her to Junior Flight School, and then he would go to work. She got very lonely. She wasn’t an especially good flyer, and the bullies only made it worse. She would count the seconds until the final bell rang. Silver Cloud would be there, tired from work, but still happy to see her.
One day as she left the school building, her father was there, and he told her that his boss needed him to work an extra shift that night. She wasn’t unhappy, it had happened before. It was almost spring, they needed extra help for the coming changing of seasons.
She was excited. Her father had recently gotten a promotion. This meant he had one of the most difficult jobs in the factory, in the room where they refined the crude colours into rainbows. Rainbows do not start as they are; they must be extracted from a raw substance, which is very volatile, as it is made out of almost pure magic. 
The large room was full of huge vats, each holding hundreds of gallons of crude rainbow. A large crane hung overhead, to remove vats so they could be refined. Silver Cloud’s job was to go to each vat and take its temperature, so they could know which ones were cool enough to take to the next room.
It started out normally. They both put on protective gear, goggles, aprons, boots. He retrieved a small clipboard, a pen, and a large scientific thermometer from a cabinet to the side. Smiling, they set off to their work. The night manager didn’t care that she was there, as long as the job got done. The work was slow and mundane, but they loved each other’s company. They worked for hours, him carefully monitoring the temperature of every last mixture, while she told him about her day at school.
And then, it happened.

Wham.

All of a sudden, time seemed to slow. His emerald eyes froze, with a look of shock and terror on them. The momentum of the crane’s load overcame his mass, and he was sent plummeting into a cesspool of scalding-hot colour. She thought she screamed, but she heard no sound. She panicked. Somepony had hit an alarm, but it wasn’t fast enough. Fearfully, she plunged into the liquid. The pure, undiluted mixture burned her skin. She began to hyperventilate, as her head slowly sank into the viscous heat.


She woke up with a terrible pain everywhere. Everything around her was white. Her vision was blurred, but she could distinctly hear a continuous beep, telling her she was still alive. Her vision cleared, and she realized that she was in a hospital room. She tried to move. Her muscles were stiff, and one of her wings was definitely broken. She tried to remember what had happened after she dove into the rainbow. She could hear voices, hurried voices, concerned voices, but not her father’s voice. 
“Well hello there, little filly” came a voice from somewhere. She turned her head. A tall grey pegasus in a lab coat with glasses was standing in the corner. “It seems you’ve been out for a while. A week, almost.” She suddenly got worried. A week? What had happened? Where was her father? “I know you want to get out of here, but we’ll need to keep you here for a few more days. After that–” he paused, a look of uncertainty spread across his face. “Now, you need more sleep. You’ve had quite a week. I’ll just–” he started, but before he could prepare the syringe, she was gone. 
She bolted down the hallway, scaring nurses and patients. Where was she? Where was her father? How was she going to get home? Before she could answer these, she came upon a mirror, and for the first time, she was surprised by the figure looking back at her. She was wearing bandages on her torso and wings, but that wasn’t what concerned her.
Her mane had gone from its placid white to all sorts of colours, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. It had been frizzled, so now it had no established order at all. She began to cry. Her father loved her hair, her perfect, neat, milky-white hair. What would he say? What would everyone at school say? She ran, not caring for any direction, just wanted to get away, away from this terrible nightmare. Not thinking, she bust through a pair of doors. It was dark. Several larger ponies were standing around a table, examining something lying upon it.
He was lying there, wearing the same shocked, horrid face she had seen just before he had fallen in. He was laid horizontally, his limbs set into panicking, frantic positions. He was covered from head to toe in asymmetrical colours, and his skin was cold and smooth, as if he had been sculpted from wax. 

He definitely wasn’t going to care about the colour of her hair.