//------------------------------// // Eleventh Day: Black Tides // Story: And He Silently Painted A Rainbow // by WritingSpirit //------------------------------// None of the ponies in town had heard from Rainbow Dash since yesterday evening. It was afternoon when the cyan mare finally woke up, rising from her bed slowly with fresh tears still lingering within her bloodshot eyes. Her lips were straight without any trace of emotion; all of them had been washed away in her ravaging state of despair. With a grunt of pain, she lifted herself up, pushing away the dampened cap on her chest and limping out of the solace of her bedroom where she had hidden since the events of last night. Her eyes glanced around at the cupboards once she was outside, picking out the white container of some salve from the miscellanous of items she had stored inside. Sniffling lightly, she gritted her teeth as she settled herself on the couch, popping the lid open with a trembling sigh. "Darn it..." she hissed, rubbing the cream onto her searing, sprained hoof she had sustained from her fall after her... she shrugged it off. Now's not a good time to think about it, Rainbow. Now's not a good time. You're a strong mare. Don't let it get you down... just... don't... think... about... Her hollow cavity of her heart started to sink, her breath shivering as the familiar sensations of the past flashed back into her: the happy smile on his face... the grateful hug... the soft, soothing feeling of his powerful wings around her... The... kiss... "Tassee..." Rainbow whimpered his name softly, feeling the tears tingling down her face again. Tank crept to his owner's side, glancing helplessly once she started to cry, curling up her hooves and burying her head within them. She let herself fall to the side, wanting to lay her tired head onto the couch. Her eyes sparkled with tears as she glanced at the door, just waiting, wanting for it to open and see the colt step inside again. "Please come back..." she prayed silently, yearning to see his face once more. She would've hugged him, cry in his chest and let out a thousand apologies, along with a confession: that she doesn't want their relationship to be constrained to mere guardian and patient; that she had missed him for the whole night in her restless sleep, the whole time staring at the Santa cap that he left behind. That she wanted him more than she could ever have thought of... "I love you..." Rainbow broke down again, stung by the deepest of regrets. She was a wretch to scream at him like that, she thought to herself amid her loud sobbing. She was an idiot to leave him alone. And when he returned his feelings... she just... she just... Her shivering breath stilled, her eyes catching a neat train of items in the corner of the room. Out of curiosity, she limped towards it, dragging her sprained hoof along the floor, gasping quietly once she saw what it was. They were Taciturn's paintbrushes, arranged in a zigzag-like pattern. It acted like a borderline crossing, encircling a few rolls of paper: the secret stash of paintings that the colt refused to show to anypony. Even to her. "He's gone now, Rainbow... he can't do anything about it..." she muttered assuringly to herself, taking the canvas and limping back to the comfort of her couch, not wanting to strain her hooves any longer. With that done, Rainbow let out a sigh, unfurling the rolled up painting within her hooves. Her eyes immediately widened, her jaw dropping as she saw a painting of herself smiling back at her, her mane flourishing underneath a painted sunset. It looked enchanting... she looked enchanting, more than she could ever see herself to be. Her surprise grew once she saw a small, white heart at the bottom right corner The rest of his stash all depicted her as well, with the same heart drawn onto in the various stills of the situations she was in: there was one where she was soaring through an euphoric sky with a wide grin on her face, and another where she was sleeping silently on her bed (she shuddered at the thought on how the painter got that one), but the most captivating of all was of her wearing Taciturn's Santa cap and giving a cheerful wink, her mind recalling on how that came to be. "I bought this for you in the market." "R-Rainbow." "What? You want me to try it on?" Rainbow chuckled at her recollection, though it quickly disappeared soon after, leaving her to swallow up her despair. The paintings of her once cheerful self stared back at her, as if mocking her in her current situation from the past. "If I only knew..." she muttered, staring at the various artwork around her. "That you were in love with me before all this time..." Tank suddenly nudged his owner's shoulder, stopping her in her pondering. The mare blinked in surprise once she saw what the tortoise was biting in his mouth: a small piece of paper, its size minuscule compared to the giant artwork surrounding her. She unfurled it open to see another painting of her hugging another pony: the creator of this artwork as well, adding yet another fascinating piece to his collection. Her heart lingered with hopeful yearning once he saw his whitewashed, beaming face again, aching with one desire, her hooves clenching tighter. "That does it!" Rainbow declared, settling the small painting alongside its colossal counterparts. "I'm going into town to find Tassee and get him back!" she exclaimed her plans aloud, her pet smiling at her returning determination; the one thing that made her special from the many ponies in town. "Even if he doesn't love me anymore. Even if everypony would laugh their flanks off at me..." "I'm his guardian, and if anypony wants to stop him from what he wants, I like to see them try!!" "What do you mean he disappeared?!" "I was going to ask you the same question, Rainbow!" Rainbow could only look in shock at all five of her friends, unable to understand the news that Twilight had just gave her. She returned to the gallery to expect the colt to be there waiting for her, but all she met was the confusion and bewilderment erupting all around, with many asking where the painter was ever since their disappearance last night. "I thought the both of you went home early or something!" the lavender mare continued. "Everypony kept asking around to know where the two of you have gone, then suddenly you show up the day after, and now you're saying he's not with you at all?" "Look, Twilight. You won't understand-" "Whadaya mean, RD?" Applejack interrupted before she could continue, eyeing her friend. "Last Ah heard from ya was the night b'fore. Ya can't just disappear like that when everypony around 'ere was wantin' to see ol' Tassee work his magic." "Plus, it was utterly rude," Rarity added. "I wouldn't leave our guests unattended, especially when they came to see his exhibition. I understand that Taciturn's a pony that's easily abhorred by crowds, but it would be unfair to others to just snatch him away, would it not?" "Can you just let me talk for a sec?" Her friends immediately stopped their chattering once she said that, allowing the mare to clear her throat. Her head whirled through the endless outcomes that could come out from this, knowing that there will be not a single chance that she would get away with this. "I..." she began, relieving herself with a sigh before moving on, "I d-did something stupid. Something awful-" "Ooh, ooh! Lemme guess! Um... bungee jumping down a staircase! Err... water-skiing on the fountain of Canterlot! Destroying the moon! Um... uh... Burning Twilight's library-!" "Stop it, Pinkie Pie!" she yelled, shaking her head at her friend. "Tassee... he did something. Something... and I blew up over his face from it..." "What?" Twilight started, unable to believe what she had just heard. "You screamed at him?" "I didn't mean to! I didn't want to! I just... I can't..." Rainbow's head suddenly started spinning, the mare stumbling towards the ground suddenly and making her five friends gasp with Applejack and Fluttershy catching her just in time before she hit the floor. Neither of them could ever imagine seeing their usually confident and proud friend being broken to such an extent, especially when she started to cry, cowering on the floor with her whole body trembling in ravaging depression. "All h-he wanted was for somepony to love him back!!" she screamed, more at herself than at her friends. "All he wanted was me! ME!! The stupidest, MOST DISGUSTING MARE in the WORLD!!" "Don't say that!" Applejack protested, trying to console her sobbing friend. "Ya din' know that he loves ya. Ya din' know he was tryin' to show ya-" "WE KISSED, APPLEJACK!!" The rest was shunned to silence at the words of her deafening voice, rendering all of them speechless at what the sobbing pegasus had just shouted out in a fit of rage. Her heart tingled with the darkening clouds of guilt, her tone softening immediately as she continued stammering: "We k-kissed... we ki-kissed...... then... then I don't know... I just... lost it......" "Why would you lose it?" Twilight asked, unable to understand the recent turn of events. "The both of you kissed, right? The both of you liked how it went and whatever, right? Then what went wrong?" "I freaked out..." was the small reply that Rainbow could muster, though her friends beckoned to explain, knowing that it was something more than just 'freaking out', and she did so hesitantly: "I fell in love with him, yet... a part of me said it was a bad thing. That I had to be stuck with him my whole life and give up any hopes of freedom. That I would be chained to him and just... can't break free thanks to... him." "But... I'm sorry to interrupt, but... if you don't mind me asking..." Fluttershy finally spoke, asking her friend a question: "Wouldn't it be great for you that he would be with you? Since you loved him so much, you would be happy with him, wouldn't you?" "What's the use of talking about it, now that he's gone...?" Rainbow just wiped her tears away, letting out a quivering sigh while her friends huddled around her, trying the best to comfort her. She stared down at the ground, wanting for some miracle to just happen: to whisk her away from this nightmare and find Taciturn sleeping peacefully right next to her. She gazed at the white blur outside the window, the harsh weather pelting against the glass pane. The pegasi in Clousdale notified her of the snow machine going out of control lately, causing a giant, harsh blizzard across Ponyville and throughout the stretches of Equestria. All the ponies from Canterlot (including the Princesses themselves) had to stay here for the time being until the machine can be fixed, and her friends were holed up in the gallery to brave through the snowstorm, though the cyan mare herself couldn't care less about a broken snow machine right now. "Pray that he would be safe..." she muttered. "Just... pray..." "Twily!" a voice called out suddenly, snapping them from their reverie as the said mare's older brother galloped up to her. He blinked in surprise once his eyes spotted Rainbow alongside the violet mare, his lips curling into a smile. "Well, that's one pony down, I guess?" "Huh?" the cyan pegasus uttered in bewilderment. "What do you mean?" "When I found out the both of you were gone, Princess Celestia, Luna, Cadance and I asked Shining to send out some guards to search for the both of you." Twilight then turned back to her brother, asking him frantically: "What is it?" "The guards have spotted somepony that matched Taciturn's description." "Tassee?" Rainbow suddenly sped up to him, grabbing him by his shoulders before any of her friends could stop her. Her magenta eyes widened once the news sank into her head, her heart prancing over a beat at the thought of the news. Taciturn's still around, her inner voice exclaimed in disbelief. She still has a chance! Then, realization struck her, glancing out at the roaring snow outside. If Taciturn's out there, wouldn't that mean...? "Where is he, Shining? Where is he, where is he, WHERE IS HE, CELESTIA DAMN IT?!" "Cr-crossing the western fields...!" Shining stuttered, startled by the pegasus's brash behavior. In a split second, she pushed him aside, galloping towards an open window and readying her wings, letting out a whinny of delight. Rainbow slid the window open, letting the roaring snow in as the fierce winds tossed her mane about, with snow thrown along its forceful gale of air and into the gallery, forcing her to shield her eyes from the cold pellets of frost. There seemed to be an endless field of white beyond her; with everything being obscured by the snow, she could only imagine how to navigate through all those without falling down. Though it didn't matter right now. "Rainbow!! Wait!" Twilight screamed, halting her desperate friend before she could take off. "You can't just go out there!" "Twilight, I-!" "What if we lose you?" she cried above the howling winds, throwing her friend into a state of decision; one that the cyan mare had hated ever since she was born. "We can't risk you out there, Rainbow! It's too dangerous!" "Don't you see, Twilight?" Rainbow stomped her hoof defiantly, proving her rebellion against her friend's words. All of them: Twilight, Shining, Applejack, Rarity, Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy could only stare in disbelief as she turned to face the raging storm outside, her wings fanning open as she said: "I screwed up! I screwed it all up! I don't want to see him out there when I can get him back, Twilight! He needs me...!" "And... I need him..." "RAINBOW!!" her friends screamed before they can pull her back, as the cyan mare zoomed out of the window and into the fusillade of snow, ravaging her with both its force and frost. She squinted through the blinding white, trying to see through the curtain to where she was going, and hopefully to be able to see the colt from here. She swerved to the left once she saw the obscured silhouette of Canterlot in the distance and, with a grunt of annoyance, she took a sharp u-turn back to the direction where her house would be. Fighting against the monstrosity, Rainbow held her breath as her wings battled through the raging tides of white, only hoping for Taciturn to be safe. "Hang on, Tassee..." she muttered beneath the hellish roar of the blizzard. "Dashie's coming for you..." Currents of snow swirled around the pitch black darkness as Rainbow Dash drilled a turbulent passage through the bowels of the freezing gales, the mare looking down at the ever-shifting landscape of white below her while she traveled in the darkness of the night. It was a long time since she had took off, the blizzard blazing even more powerfully as her wings fluttered frantically through the cold, her eyes scanning at every possible thing she could see in her field of vision. That colt might be anywhere, she thought to herself, unable to break through the whipping curtain of snow. "He has to be here... he has to be here..." she muttered, hovering slowly to the ground. Perhaps she could get a better look if she was down on the ground, she thought to herself. It'll save up a lot of strength from her frantic flapping of her wings anyway. Hovering down to the coated plains, her hooves crunching in the snow, she trudged through the desolate snowstorm, her teeth chattering at the deep-freezing temperatures that surrounded her, her body shivering from the sight. It wasn't long before the puff of snow sank down like a cliff, with any step beyond that would be a slip on the smooth surface of ice. She was at the lake, Rainbow thought to herself, reminding her of the last time they came here. The mare crossed her eyes and shielding from any threatening assaults of snow, gazing ahead at any shadowy figures standing out from the blur of white. Her breath stopped once she saw the body of a pony perched on the middle of the lake, her suspicions confirmed once she got a glimpse of his face. She nearly jumped with ecstasy at the sight of his white figure and his large wings wrapped around him in a makeshift blanket, nearly camouflaging in the backdrop of raging snow. "Tassee!!" she called out, earning his attention immediately. His black eyes just stared into her, though he didn't budge. His mouth was straight as a ruler, devoid of any sort of emotion on his face once he spotted her. "Tassee, it's me!" Rainbow tried again, limping down onto the frozen lake. "It's your guardian!" There wasn't a response. She limped closer, desperately wanting to apologize to him and sort everything out, her only setback being her sprained hoof, and a large setback it was. "Tassee! Come on!" she beckoned him over, wishing that she had brought his ornate paintbrush. Despite that, the colt did not move, staring unnervingly right into her, the cyan pegasus trying to ignore whatever intimidating stare he was giving. "Can't you listen to me? We have to g-" The ice below her hooves suddenly shattered apart, the mare plunging into the freezing recesses of the lake immediately. Her eyes widened with fear, her hooves flailing frantically about with bubbles rapidly rushing out of her mouth while she gave a choking cough. Rainbow tried to kick herself up, though the searing pain in her sprained hoof only made her howl in pain, the water gushing into her mouth as she sank deeper and deeper into the darkness. Her heart pumped anxiously, the mare trying to reach for the glittering surface of her escape route. The cold strangled her, tying her down in her agonizing struggle for life. Her desperate hooves turned numb, starting to slow in their movements in her losing battle against her situation, which gradually ceased once she felt the life seeping out of her. The water gushed into her throat, her head starting to spin as her eyelids became half-lidded, her mouth leaking out a few bubbles as her vision started to fade away... The last thing she saw was the empty, seemingly infinite blackness of the abyss below her; the same swirl of oblivion that she had seen in the deep trenches of Taciturn's black pupils. She let herself go: her thoughts, her feelings, her dreams as she was drawn deeper into Death's black tides, lulling into an eternal sleep. Her ears twitched suddenly, detecting the gurgle of something, or somepony, jumping into the lake. She suddenly felt a hoof around her, her eyes detecting the faint image of white feathers as she felt herself being hoisted to the sky. Was it... an angel...? With a loud splash, Rainbow soon emerged from the darkness, coughing and wheezing the water from out her throat. Droplets of water dripped from her mane and colt as she weakly turned to her savior, feeling his soaked wings tenderly grasping around her body, covering her in a coat of warmth. "T-Ta-Tassee..." her mouth chattered, glancing at the smiling colt, who was shivering feverishly as well. "I'm so h-happy to see you again..." The colt gave an agreeing nod, before they glanced into the snow with one, single, refreshing thought in each of their heads: it was time to go home. Rainbow couldn't walk, thanks to her injury, though Taciturn obliged by carrying her on his back instead, the colt fighting through the blizzard as he marched through the blinding snow. She gripped onto his wings tightly, which was convulsing and flapping violently from the freezing temperatures around him, trying her best to warm him up as well. Together, they trudged through the white hell, the colossal blizzard never receding as time passes by languidly. Everything was covered in the blinds of snow, with the pair only able to guess where they were going, or at least that's what she thought. "You kn-know the way, Tas-Tassee?" Rainbow asked, to which she received a weak, trembling nod. Of course he knew the way, she thought to herself: he has a bloody wicked memory, for Celestia's sake! Slowly but surely, they climbed up the side of a hill, battling through the wrath of winter, before the mare's eyes lit up in the horizon. "P-Ponyville..." she muttered, seeing a halo of lights inviting them. The shadowy shape of thatched houses and buildings soon came into view, once they got closer, only confirming her deductions. She couldn't believe it! They made it! They actually made it...! Taciturn suddenly fell forward, the mare letting out grunts as she tumbled down the hill, with the colt following right behind. She opened her eyes once the ordeal was over, now looking into the colt's eyes as she did so, his shivering, foggy breath becoming shallower and shallower by the second, complying along with her own. "T-Tassee...?" she called him, the colt just staring back at her. With that, she reached out her hoof, gripping tightly onto Taciturn's own cold ones. "Are... are y-you scared...?" He could only give a feverish nod, to which she replied weakly. "Just remember I'm here, T-Tassee... I'm your guardian, and will always be your g-guardian, okay...? Be brave now, T-Tassee... be br-brave..." "Dashie..." was all that he could respond, his eyes watering for hope, before he slowly closed them. Rainbow tried not to tear up as much as she tried not to give in to the cold, her grip on his hooves even tighter while she felt her heart being torn apart. Her breath a shiver, she edged closer to him, giving him a small peck on his cheek and a nuzzle in his mane, hugging him tightly around with her hooves in his wings, whispering softly: "I love you too, Tassee..." With that, she too closed her eyes, letting herself drift in the sensations of the blurring lines of dreams and reality. Of course, she took a peek at his face once more, before hesitantly closing them again, her shivering lips edging into a smile. They were together. Finally together. There's was nothing more she could want. Even if they were freezing up in the snow, even if they were losing their battle to the wintry cold... Both guardian and patient were together, and there was nothing more they could ever want from each other.