//------------------------------// // Memories of Turquoise and Crimson // Story: Falling // by PinkiePie35 //------------------------------// Though few sounds stir in the Wonderbolt Academy Arena waiting room save hushed and nervous whispers, the air is tense with anxiety. The ear-ringing silence appears only to intensify such a nerve-wrecking atmosphere. According to her, the Wonderbolts are only taking one addition to their team this year. As such, the expected environment of extreme competitiveness is blatantly present, even in the waiting room for the auditions; nerve-ridden performers jeer harsh glances at each other; Pegasi stretch their wings and warm-up in efforts to display their abilities and intimidate what are essentially their opponents. Even through all of this, the room manages to be, in reality, mostly silent as I stand next to her. The room manifests an oppressive veil of claustrophobia, unsuited for the magnitude of ponies it houses. Its warm peach walls, decorated with pictures of Soarin, Spitfire, and other Wonderbolts, seem to constrict and close in on the mass of bodies inside. The checkered tile floor creates an irritating array of light; the black squares absorb the shine from the lights hanging from the cieling, while the white ones reflect the light rather obnoxiously. Fortunately, the crowd seems to thin out over time as, one by one, contestants are dragged outside into the performing area to present the talents they bear and prove (or at least attempt to) their importance as an asset to the Wonderbolts' team. The two of us are so close to each other that I need not raise my voice over a light whisper so soft as to be inaudible to everypony except myself and her. Her face glows brightly, a strained grin forced upon her face. The violet-pink irises of her eyes burn with a passionate aurora of determination. Still, I can sense stress and fear in her expression. The will and persistence emitting from her eyes is slightly masked by feelings of uneasy nervousness. I wear a dark cloak, without my crown, and wear my mane in a different style than the regal getup I would normally wear it in at the Canterlot Castle; after all, the hype that would erupt in the crowd as they realized the Princess was standing right in this very room would surely not do Rainbow Dash any better than Rarity did when she dragged all of the Attention towards her before Dash's Sonic Rainboom some years back. And so I stand there with her, my wings hidden by the cloak, a Princess disguised as a simple unicorn waiting with her friend. The others wanted to come, but Dash requested that only I be present for a day so special as this. I can understand, since after all, this is the moment where she can make her dreams come true; having her whole group of friends might make her nervous, at least a bit more if it were not just myself, the one mare closest to her heart. "Still nervous, are you?" I say softly with a smile and a chuckle. Rainbow looks to both sides in question. "Who, me? Nervous? Pffft. Oh, come on. G-good one, Twi. After all, this is me we're talking about here, right?" she spews out rapidly. Again I giggle; ever since Rarity pointed it out back before Rainbow's victory in the Best Young Flyer's Competition, Dash definitely gets very noticeable stage fright in times of performance in front of important ponies. It's pretty cute when she tries to hide it. Even now, her cheeks flush slightly pink as I respond to with an 'Oh, you,' stare that tells her I know how she's truly feeling. She lets out a deep sigh and her head droops a bit. The rasp in her normally energetic voice vanishes as she begins to speak once more. "Ah, what the hay. Who am I kidding..? Yeah, I'm still nervous, Twi... heh..." she mutters. "Hey," I reply quickly with understanding and care. I tuck a hoof underneath her chin and raise her head up, re-fixing her eyes, those beautiful roses of magenta, back onto my own. Slowly I place my hoof atop her head and begin to stroke her mane past her ears and down onto her cyan back with tender and easy brushes. She starts to grow calmer. "Rainbow, you have no reason to be nervous," I start. "You're amazing at flying." I pause. "This is what you've been waiting for your whole life. Believe me, if anypony here has the incredible talent to be a part of the aerial flight team of Celestia herself, the talent to fly with the best- it's you, Dash," I remark "Plus,you don't really think the Wonderbolts just forgot about the time you saved their lives in the Best Young Flyer's Competition, do you?" I add with a smile and a sly wink. She giggles back at me, and I sigh with relief. At least after she's been so tense for this entire time, I was able to make her laugh once to lighten her mood and boost her morale, even if only by a little. I nuzzle myself into her shoulder and put a hoof around her neck. She wraps a hoof around mine and returns the hug, and for several standstill moments, we merely stand there together, held in an unbreakable bond, leaning on each other for support. The thudding pound of her heartbeat lessens slower and slower as her nerves begin to relax further still. "Thanks, Twilight." "Any time, Dashie." I give her a sudden peck on the lips. Not expecting it, she blushes a bit and retracts. Shortly after, however, she surprises me in response with a kiss of her own; hers is noticeably more intense than my original short one. Our tongues contend with each other, our lips pressed tightly together. The kiss only lasts for a short while, as other ponies are present in the room; we are not alone. We ever so slowly pull away from each other's snouts. Her eyelids are half shut as she focuses her line of sight on my eyes. I lean inward above her left ear. "I love you, Rainbow," I whisper. "Love you too, Twi," she whispers back. And there we continue to wait, the mob of Pegasi and their friends, family, and mentors gradually shrinking smaller. I feel myself beginning to grow impatient and begin to fidget. I softly clack my hooves against the tile floor for several minutes. We stand together for what seems like an eternity and then some, waiting, waiting... And then, finally: "Ms. Rainbow Dash, you're up next! Ms. Dash? Where are you?" Squeaks the high-pitched voice of a Wonderbolt employee. He is a young male Pegasus, his coat an earthly brown, his eyes a shiny and energetic crimson. The color of his mane, a bright sapphire, clashes with the main color overtones of his body. Rainbow takes a deep breath and says, beaming with confidence, "That'd be me, sir." He looks over to her and gives a quick nod of approval. "Alright then, miss. If you're ready, then it's about time to get out onto the arena rink." She looks towards me. "Don't worry, Rainbow," I say. "This is it. This is your moment. You can do this. Now go and make me proud." For the first time today, I see that cocky, prideful grin on her face she has when she's about to show off just how darned fantastic she is in the sky. And she truly is just that. Fantastic. She is ready. I know she can pull this off. I take her into a final embrace, let her go, and she walks over to the Pegasus employee, who is to escort her into the arena. Before they exit the room into the arena, however, he speaks once more. "Um, Miss?" he says to me. "Yes?" I reply with a tinge of curiosity. "There is a section in the arena for relatives or friends of the Contestants for them to watch, so long as they keep quiet for the Wonderbolts to make accurate judgments. If you'd like to come, you may." I look to Dash for approval, who nods her head agreeing, and I tell him I'd like that. "Alright then, step right this way, behind me." He leads the two of us through the door, but as soon as we step out into the fresh air of the outdoor arena in the sky, I hear him speak once more. "The seating for viewers of the participants are directly over there," he says, waving a hoof towards some cloud bleachers. "As for you, Ms. Dash," he continues, "Feel free to take a moment to stretch and make any final preparations. The Wonderbolts are just finishing up the comments on the last contestant, and they'll be with you in a minute." Before I go, I look her in the eyes once more. "Go get em', Dash," I say. "You got it, Twi," she says back. I flash a grin and slowly canter my way over to the bleachers, slowly lowering my flank onto one of the ever-fluffy seats. I watch her from a distance as she rests on the rim of the basketball shaped arena, a ring with surrounding walls and large open space in the center. The Wonderbolts' desks lie directly across from where she is standing, also on the rim of the arena. They sit with papers on the desks, mounds and mounds of paper, some of them wearing paper, cringing, frowning, scratching their heads, scribbling furiously and the like. I notice Spitfire and Soarin', two of Dash's most inspirational idols in the 'Bolts. They seem to be on a high stress level as suggested by their contorted and short expressions. I can only begin to imagine, with the countless contestants trying to make the team and whatnot, that it has to be rather high-strung work. At last, a voice only recognizable as Spitfire's booms from four speakers that surround the arena. "Alright, Kid, you're good to go. Whenever you're ready. Give it all you've got." Dash looks up at Spitfire and replies with a smirk: "Yes, Ma'am." She bends down, bringing her face to her forehooves, spreads her wings to their full span, and thrusts mightily with her hind legs, launching herself into the humid mid-day air. Slicing the air with ease, her sleek body flies through the sky at rapid speeds. She soars upward higher into the sky, but not to the point as to make herself no longer within the judges line of sight. Dash deliberately bashes straight through many clouds, never lessening her velocity by any amount. A trail of precipitation follows behind her as she zips across the sky, gathering more and more dew. With a sudden nosedive, she bolts back down to the core of the arena, now level with the Wonderbolts once more. The crystals of water droplets still trail behind her line of flight. She begins flying in a circular motion, tightening her radius until she's soaring incredibly quickly in a circle. A small twister begins to form as she revolves round and round. At first, it seems nothing out of the ordinary. Creating a twister is a feat not all too difficult for a skilled Pegasus pony. But then the water droplets start to kick into action, as she had planned. Circulating at rapid speeds and glistening in the unmistakable rainbow trail left in the wake of Dash's flight, the dewdrops begin to gleam in a spectral tornado, illuminating the entire arena with a strobe of multicolored radiance. I see Spitfire snicker and pass a comment to Soarin' while she's watching Dash go. Soarin' shakes his head, seemingly in agreement. I can read their expressions. They're impressed. Dash never did tell me, or anyone for that matter, of her actual flight routine she had planned for the auditions. So in fair honesty, I'm not any less impressed than they are. She abandons the twister, flying upward into the sky above it and leaving it rotating in the center of the Arena. While flying free, she performs several stunning kicks, flips, dives, turns, and tricks, like her unforgettable Filly Flash and her trademark Buccaneer Blaze to further stun the Wonderbolts. Every so often, when the twister begins to become slightly unsteady, she'll descend back level with it and circle around it a few times, so as to re-stabilize it and assure that it remains controlled, rapidly whirling in the arena's middle. After effectively showing off her slick control of the wind and her wings with several aerial manuvers (as indicated by the Wonderbolts' jaw-dropping expressions), she comes back down to the tornado and revolves around it, this time faster than before. By doing so, she stabilizes the twister greatly, giving her a large amount of time to leave it without concern of it spinning out of control and wreaking havoc. She breaks off from the tornado and allows it to circulate on its own once again. She spreads her wings to their full, prepares to climb the sky, and darts straight upwards. Higher and higher she rises as her altitude swiftly increases; eventually, she is a mere cyan dot hardly distinguishable from the similarly colored baby blue sky that her toned body is set against. Even with no direct sign or indication of what she intends to do, I know what she's going to try to pull off. A Sonic Rainboom, of course. Though I'm not incredibly sure it will have the jaws of the Wonderbolts' agape on the same degree of disbelief as the time when they first witnessed it, it's still sure to leave them amazed nonetheless. A wide smile cracks onto my peachy face as she suddenly dives downward, gaining speed from both her momentum gained by falling and the physically-exerting flapping of her wings. A transparent cone of wind resistance forms around the peak of her soaring form, forcefully trying to bounce her back the other direction. She hardly lets that intimidate her; Dash only increases her speed as the going gets tougher. Faster she accelerates, gaining roaring speed with every second she rips through the wind vertically. The edges of the cone deform, changing its shape from a rounded head into a pinnacle comparable to a pencil tip. As she gets at least slightly closer, I am able to once again make out her features; her mane spatters and flickers erratically in all directions, her magenta eyes squinted into a thin line of eyesight. Her entire body is sailing directly down, perpendicular to the ground some distance below the floating arena in the clouds. It is only when she begins to draw close back to the arena that I am able to calculate the trajectory of her dive: She's aiming straight for the center of the rainbow colored twister she had conjured and steadied earlier. Knowing her, Dash's going to dive right into the top of the tornado and cause the eruption of the Rainboom to occur while she's somewhere inside the twister, allowing the water droplets caught in the cyclone to explode and vaporize with the ring of multicolored light that emits from the breaking of the sound barrier. I snicker to myself. If this won't completely stagger the 'Bolts and make them accept Rainbow onto their team, I have no clue what will. On a side note, now that I recall back in my days as a youth in Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, we actually learned about several natural phenomena that Pegasus ponies could create, including tornadoes. We learned, of course, how one would generate the wind patterns needed to spawn one, as well as their properties. We learned about catastrophic twisters that laid waste to entire villages, even some in the sky; those that occurred in the sky cities and towns took death tolls because they were so large that it led to the suffocation of those trapped inside it, even Pegasi that could fly. After all, there's no oxygen inside a tornado... Oh no. Nononononono. Dash is going to enter that thing way too fast. The wind is currently rushing through her mouth and nostrils rapidly from the sheer speed she's flying at, making it rather difficult for her to breathe as is. If she breaks the sound barrier, which greatly increases her velocity than before the sonic boom, the air will be jetting through her lungs at an even more intense rate than she is currently experiencing. If she's getting pure oxygen being forced into her at an incredibly fast speed, coupled with the complete lack of oxygen in the twister... It could knock her out cold. She has nearly reached the twister; she only has a bit more than what looks to be about a hundred feet. She's only got a few seconds left before the time of impact with the tornado. "Rainbow, no! Stop!" I shout at the top of my lungs. But it's too late. KABOOM!!!!!! She enters the spiraling cone of water vapor and splits the sound barrier, eradicating the water droplets inside and creating a ring of beautiful, rainbow stained mist that lingers in the stadium for quite a while. Through all of the beauty and serenity if such a gorgeous stunt, I fear that not all things are quite alright. I can't look over the edge of the arena to see where she is. I shout to the Wonderbolts, who are sitting in awe at their desks. "Hey! Is she okay? Is she alright?" I scream. Spitfire, shaking her head and attempting to get back into the swing after such a phenomenal stunt, replies after a few seconds. "Yeah, I'm sure she's fine, kid. Lemme have a look..." Spitfire pulls some binoculars out from under the desk. She adjusts the lenses for a moment and then proceeds to use her hooves to lift the scopes up to her eyes. She looks downward. At first, she's grinning a bit, likely still from the performance she was just shown. But then, her expression changes drastically. Her face goes from yellow to pale in an instant, and her hooves begin to shake. The binoculars clumsily fall out of her hands. She mouths some words silently to herself, the other 'Bolts talking among themselves, not paying attention. "What's going on?" I shout back. Is everything alri-" THUD. All of the Wonderbolts stop what they're doing at the audible sound of the impact on the ground hundreds of feet below. For a moment, everyone just freezes in denial. Finally, Spitfire, regaining what seems to be lost bearings, shouts to her those next to her: "BOYS! MOVE IT! WE'VE GOT A PONY DOWN! GO! GO! GO!" Simultaneously, all of the Wonderbolts hop from their positions behind their desks and fly in formation as fast as their wings will carry them to the site of the accident below. All the while, I stagger, remaining on the arena alone, my mind screaming in protest and trying to swallow the capacity of the event that had just unfolded. No... I think quietly to myself. Surely, this cannot be happening... No. No! I power my horn and teleport to the ground below. When I arrive a fraction of a second later, the grass in front of me is empty. "R-rainbow Dash?" I wail through tears. "Rainbow... where are you?" I turn around slowly. The sight lain before me is the one I have feared my entire time I have been with her. My brain takes a few full seconds to fully process the image my eyes are allowing me to perceive. There, coated in blood, with fractured bones sticking through her body and her rib cage visibly dented inward, lay my Dashie, convulsing uncontrollably in a fatal seizure of head and internal trauma. Her normally multicolored mane is, for the most part, stained but one color at this point in time: Crimson. My thoughts become my words as I fall to my knees in front in her and begin to scream out loud, liquid flowing from my ducts in remorse and sorrow. "Dash! No! Why... why did you have to...no... please... Dashie... you can't be...!" I pause in silence. I receive no response except the ceasing of her shaking and seizure, replaced by sporadic periods of movement that come and go with a rest of a mere few seconds in between. I lay my head on her belly, coating my face in blood; I don't care. I slowly begin to stroke her face, pushing blood and bits of hair from her mane out her eyes. I know she's gone, but I don't cease. I sob continually as I do so, some of my tears running into my mouth and filling my tongue with saltiness and bitterness. I continue to stroke her mane behind her ears while looking up at her with my head on its side on her stomach, admiring a face even so beautiful in a situation like the one at hand. "I-it's okay, Dashie... it'll all be... okay..." Her body convulsions become less and less frequent. I can hear the Wonderbolts land on the ground behind me, cringing at the display before them. My Dashie... I think to myself. ...is really... gone? My mind forces all of the memories we've shared together, all that we've been through. All the difficult times we've pulled through. Together. Everything I held dear to me, the one thing that matters most to me... ...is gone. I lift my head from her belly and look her directly in the face. I peck a compassionate kiss on her nose and embrace her for the last time. "I love you... Rainbow Dash..."