Rain pounded on Root Strider’s head as he ran. Once out of sight of the cottage and its questioning occupants, his pace slowed to a canter, then walking pace, and finally he stopped and sat down in the mud and rain.
“Root Strider,” He said to the rain, “What am I going to do with myself. Zecora keeps telling me I should confide in other ponies, and it seems like they're friends of hers, but why did they butt their heads into my business and make everything a complicated mess," He stomped a small leaf into the mud, the green of the leaf was covered by the mud. He wondered what they must think of him, and all the secrecy and running away. A green leaf, covered by the mud of his problems. "Gah, why can't I just be angry at them?"
He looked up into the rain, glad that it was a cold shower, "I guess I'm not too angry, I just really wasn’t expecting to be explaining it to a whole group of cute mares,” He thought back to just how physically close he had been to the mares just in the past two days. Yep, definitely happy for the cold shower.
Thud! Root Strider found himself on his back in the mud, pinned by Rainbow Dash. “Aha! Found you! So, what are you hiding under that hair?” With a wing, she swept back his hair, revealing the nub of his broken horn. “Whoa, I didn’t know unicorn horns could break.”
With a yell, Root Strider jerked and twisted, trying to buck her off, but she was ready and used her wings for balance and leverage over him. She let him struggle until he gave up a few minutes later.
“Feel better now?” Rainbow asked, sarcasm dripping off her tongue.
“Honestly, a little bit.” He panted.
“So, you aren’t going to run off again if I let you up?”
With a smirk, he shook his head. Rainbow Dash helped him into a sitting position and sat next to him. They sat in the pounding rain, in silence, for about twenty seconds before Dash couldn’t take it anymore. “So, uhh, this is kinda awkward for me, I’m usually on the other side of this, but, thanks for saving me from those timber wolves, I was trying to stabilize my tornado when something hit me.”
“Wait, your tornado?” He reeled backwards away from her.
“Yeah, it’s a new trick I’m coming up with. I call it the Rainbow Tornado. I’m just having a little trouble with color stability, but soon it will the most awesome trick ever!” She exclaimed, mistaking his look of shock and fear as awe and wonder.
“Uhh, yeah, don’t mention it, ever. Your tornado thing kinda destroyed my home,” He deadpanned.
Dash winced, realizing he wasn't impressed, “Ouch, sorry. I didn’t know anyone was living in that part of the everfree.”
Root Strider let out a sigh, “Eh, don’t feel too bad, I was going to move into Ponyville eventually. I’m happy nopony was seriously hurt,” He turned away and whispered, “See, she’s just a normal pony, no reason to be scared.”
“Who are you whispering to?”
“Uh, no one. Zecora tells me that I shouldn’t talk to myself.”
“So, what were you saying, to yourself?”
“It’s nothing, really.”
“C’mon, I wanna know what you said.” She took a few steps towards him.
“It’s personal, that’s why I told it to myself.” He took a few steps back.
“Yeah, but I’m here and I want to know!” Her voice rising.
“Why do you want to know so much!” His voice rising to match hers.
“Because you won’t tell me!” She was shouting now.
“Fine! I was telling myself not to be terrified of you!” He yelled back.
She took a step back in shock. “What? Are you... scared of me?” She asked quietly.
Seeing the hurt look on her face, he quickly added, “Well, not all of you, it’s your hair.”
Her hurt look turned to confusion, “My hair? What’s wrong with it?” She looked at and ran a hoof through her mane, “My mane is as awesome as it’s always been.”
“Well, it’s rainbow colored,” He said. Here it comes, he thought.
“So, lemme get this straight. You are scared of rainbows?” Rainbow Dash held it in for as long as she could, about four seconds, before bursting out laughing.
Root Strider sighed and looked away, “They always laugh. This is why I don’t usually tell anypony.”
“Bwahaha! I’m sorry, I know some ponies have irrational fears, but this one takes the cake!” She wiped away tears of laughter, “You shouldn’t be afraid of rainbows, they can’t hurt anypony.”
“Yes they can!” He yelled, “They’ve hurt me twice now!”
The laughter stopped. “How?”
“Well, for one, a rainbow colored tornado destroyed my home earlier today!”
Rainbow Dash blushed, “What about the other one?”
“It was back when I was a foal, the day of my kindergarten entrance exam for Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns. A rainbow colored explosion happened which caused this,” He pointed to his nub, “and got me kicked out of my hometown.”
“What? How can an accident get you kicked out of a town?”
“C’mon, let’s get outta the rain and I’ll tell you the whole story. I was born in a small town, about the size of Ponyville, a place called Little Bighorn.”
Rarity’s and Twilight Sparkle’s eyes widened in understanding and darkened into a look of disgust.
“Little Bighorn? Ah never heard of it,” Applejack turned to Twilight for an explanation.
“It’s a small town, about the size of Ponyville, but only inhabited by unicorns. They are very isolationist so we don’t hear much from them, and-”
“They are absolutely ghastly!” Rarity cut in, “They think unicorns are the only ponies that matter and they run out any non-unicorn who tries to move into their ‘Unicorn Utopia’.” Rarity’s scorn showed what she thought of their utopia.
“Ah don’t buy it. If’n there are no earth ponies or pegasi, how do they grow all their crops, and keep the weather in order?”
“Well, for their food they use a complex system of greenhouses to produce fresh foods all year long. As for-”
“Green houses?” Pinkie cut in, “Why not yellow houses or blue houses. Oh, I know! Pink houses!”
“Pinkie, greenhouses are made of glass.”
Pinkie stopped her bounce in mid-air, “Ooh, and they call them greenhouses because of all the green, growing plants inside them.”
“Uh, yeah,” Twilight was uncomfortably not looking at Pinkie, trying not to think about it, “The weather is a lot simpler. It’s controlled by a family of unicorns whose special talents are all weather based. It just runs in their family.”
“What!? How can a bunch unicorns do a better job than a pegasi weather team!?” Rainbow Dash’s wings flared as she stomp paced around the tree they had taken shelter under.
“Whoa, whoa. I never said they did a better job,” Root Strider said quickly, his eyes wide. He backed up, away from her, and bumped into the tree. With a shudder, the tree dumped the water it was holding all over them. “Great, we’re soaked again; wanna just head back to Zecora’s?” He asked.
The water helped Rainbow Dash to calm herself down. “Sure, but with our luck we’ll-”
“NO!!” Root Strider yelled, covering her mouth with his hoof.
Dash pulled his hoof away, “What the hay was that about?”
“Uhh, sorry. I’m not sure why, but whenever something like that is said around me, bad things tend to happen.” He was looking around nervously as they began walking back.
“Don’t worry, nothing bad is gonna happen.” She waved a wing dismissively as they entered into a clearing.
“Maybe we should just talk about something else.” His eyes darted back and forth, trying to pierce the darkness of the tree line they were heading towards. The only sound that could be heard was the pounding of the rain.
“Don’t be such a baby, we’re almost there. What could go wrong?” KRACK-KABOOM! The flash of lightning revealed six timber wolves as they slunk into the clearing.
“Well great,” Root Strider said through gritted teeth, “I’m so glad nopony said ‘what could go wrong’ just now.”
“How was I supposed to know that would happen?”
“Nevermind that, run!”
“So, after the rainbow explosion that broke his horn, they kicked him out of town? That’s awful,” Twilight’s hooves made small circles on her temples as she processed the information.
“Why? Why would they do something so awful right after he had been hurt in an accident?” Fluttershy’s eyes welled up.
“As a form of punishment. Losing the town’s magic, they resent.”
“They blamed him for it? That ain’t right; he didn’t do anything wrong. Why didn’t they give him treatments for his horn? You said there was treatment, right Twilight? ”
“Well, unfortunately I know why those ponies wouldn’t do it. It’s an imperfect cure. While it returns the horn, it doesn’t bring any of the magic back. It only allows what’s left to be channeled,” She explained, “and from what we just heard, he was able to animate and manipulate multiple trees as a foal, which would have been invaluable when they rotate crops, I could barely levitate anything at that age. He would have been the pride and joy of Little Bighorn; strong in magic since foalhood. Seeing only a sliver of that and knowing they would never get it back would only breed resentment, so they threw him out. This is only guessing though, I’m not sure exactly why.”
“It seems to be a good reason, to turn tragedy into treason.”
"Hold on a sec, this happened back when he was a foal, when we were lil' foals too, an yer saying it was a rainbow explosion that caused his horn to whack out?"
"yes, but what does that have to do with anything... oh." Comprehension dawned on all the gathered ponies and zebra.
“C’mon slowpoke, keep up!” Dash shouted as she alternated speeding through the trees and waiting for Root Strider to catch up.
“I can’t outrun them. Go! Quickly, back to Zecora’s! I’ll be fine and catch up in the morning!” He shouted as he weaved through the trees as fast as he could.
“I’m not going to leave you all alone out here!” She dropped to her hooves and kept pace running beside him.
“It’s okay, I’ll be fine. I’ve lived alone for years. I’m used to taking care of myself” He grabbed a low hanging branch and pulled it back. Letting go, it smashed into a timber wolf, sending it flying backwards. The howling only got louder as more timber wolves melted out from the forest, chasing them.
“I have an idea!” Dash shouted over the sound of thunder, “I’ll fly us back to Zecora’s! They won’t be able to catch us then!”
“You can’t fly in a thunderstorm! What happens if you get struck by lightning! This isn’t Ponyville where the lightning is planned!”
“Well, we can’t keep running, and I’m not going to leave you here to get eaten!”
They broke through some underbrush and found themselves in a flat open clearing. The timber wolves all stopped at the edge of the clearing. Howling and snarling, but not entering.
“Ha! You timber wolves scared? Make like a tree and leave!” Root Strider facehoofed as Dash continued assaulting them with tree puns, “What’s wrong? I’m stumped. Is it just your bark is worse than your bite?” She hovered just inside the clearing, out of reach of the timber wolves, “What’s wrong, you guys aren’t going to stick around?” The timber wolves snarled at her, but continued to retreat back into the forest.
“Please stop taunting them. I want to figure out why they won’t enter this clearing.”
She glanced over, “does it really matter? We’re safe now and nothing bad can happen.”
She had about a second to throw a hoof over her mouth as it happened. KRACK-KABOOM!
Lightning struck the center of the clearing, exactly where Root Strider was standing. Electricity flowed through him, dissipating into the ground. He struggled to remain conscious; as everything faded to black, he saw a rainbow rush over to him, and the ground moving away from him?