//------------------------------// // Chapter 6: Shattered Rainbow, Broken Claw // Story: Farmers and Swindlers, Friendship and Pain // by Wunderbrony //------------------------------// Chapter 6: Shattered Rainbow, Broken Claw A few days after the SuperStar Race... ...Pain... ...Flight...pain... And then there was black. A pony found herself in a grey landscape. There were no distinguishing features as far as the eye could see, but still she had a sense that something in her was missing. She looked around for a while, seeing nothing but gray, but the sense of loss and emptiness got stronger and stronger. However, whenever she tried to remember what she lost, or who she was, the world darkened to black and she heard screams in her head. So instead of thinking, she started walking. For an eternity or two that was all there was. Walking and the grey. Walking through the grey. The grey around as she walked. After a few lifetimes a feeling aroused in her. It was fear. There was something to fear. She broke into a run, and her fear curdled to terror. Her terror built like a crescendo, heart pounding in her chest, wind roaring in her ears, and the sense of loss and emptiness was back and she knew that what she was missing could stop the fear, could help her escape. And then her plane of existence went black and red spears, ice cold, shot through her vision and there was screaming in her ears and in her head and in her heart and she could hear herself and she was screaming and screaming and screaming--- And then she sank into the blackness and there was nothing, for a while. The mare awoke with a start to find that she was falling. The ground was a long ways away but she could feel it, hear its thunder, and she felt fear at its immanence. All around her was blue and there were clouds, but still she fell, and she knew she was devoid of something. There was a vital piece of her that was not present. She could not remember anything, not even what it was she had lost, and trying to remember seemed to make the ground rush upwards towards her faster, with a hungry roar. Without the piece of herself she had lost she did not know what to do. Fly, suggested a voice. What? the mare inquired slowly. Her mental voice was slow and viscous, her thoughts like cold syrup. Forget what you’ve lost, Recall what you know. So come on, old hoss And give us a show! The mare had no mind for puzzles but the phrase ‘give us a show’ struck some chord deep within her. She felt her mental lethargy begin to fade, and she asked the voice, What do I do? How do I fly? The ground was hurrying towards the mare at an alarming speed and she knew she had to do something soon. The solution was on the edge of her consciousness, but she could not quite pull it towards the forefront of her mind. The voice replied, With your wings, of course, and then it was gone. With my wings? Thought the mare. She felt that this was an excellent solution, and she looked back over her shoulder to examine her wings. She cried out at what she saw. She had no wings. Where the joint of a wing would attach to her shoulders, there was only an empty black hole. The holes whistled in the wind, and she could feel the air sucking down inside them and touching her very soul. All of a sudden she realised what she had lost, what it was she was missing, and she wailed her horror to the sky and the earth. The former was receding and cared not for her cries, but the latter was upon her and promised to bring cold oblivion to balm her pains. She saw the ground, only a second or two away, and then her screams ran out when she impacted. The same mare snapped awake in a different existence, her body wracked with pain and her heart cold with terror. Her adrenalin was still pumping from her fall. She appeared to be laying on something soft on a floor somewhere and her body was covered in a rough blanket. “Back amongst the living, I see,” said the voice. The pegasus was startled and looked around for the source of the voice. Turning her head made her incredibly nauseous, however, and her vision swam and threatened to black out. “You sit still now. You no need to be killing yourself after you finally decide to live,” the voice said. “Who...where...” the mare tried to speak, but her voice was thick and hoarse and every word was a symphony of agony. “Shut up. You no need to be talking right now. You have need to be sleeping,” the voice was hard, and the mare was desperate to know who or what it was. Or who she was, or how she got here, or the answer to any number of the questions she had. Instead, she asked the most important one, with a Herculean effort. “Please...water? Thirsty...” she closed her eyes with the exertion of speaking. “No. You will only be hurling it back up. You eat and drink after you sleep more.” The infirm pegasus had no choice, as she was already sliding deeper and deeper into sleep. She gave in and let sleep dull her hurts for a while. The mare awoke after her sleep, and her internal clock told her it was early evening. She felt very rested but still wanted answers to her questions, not to mention the fact that her thirst was by now nearly unbearable. She tried to turn her head, but abandoned that as a futile exercise. She wondered how she would be able to get the attention of the mysterious voice she had been hearing. She was saved a search when she heard the voice speak over her head and behind her. “You are awake again. Good. You are going to be living.” The mare struggled to form words to speak, but the voice interrupted. “No speaking. You must drink this. Will help the pain. Then you can speak.” A cup was pressed to her lips, the touch efficient and firm, no traces of coddling or softness. She drank a sip of the sweet liquid, and then tried to gulp more. The cup was pulled away from her lips and the voice said “No. You drink slow, or you will be vomiting.” She nodded, and the cup was slowly replaced to her lips. She called up all the discipline she had known in her life before this one, and forced herself to slowly drink the whole cup. After a few minutes, the pain in her body faded a bit, and she relaxed. She tried to speak again. “Where...am...I? What...happened?” The voice laughed. The sound of it was throaty and deep, but without a lot of mirth. “What has happened is you lost a race, little filly. You took a tumble, and I brought you here.” The mare tried to remember, but it was too grey and fuzzy, and the vague shapes she could recall to memory made her want to scream in fear. Instead she continued asking questions. “Where...” she began, and then cleared her throat. “Where is ‘here’?” She heard movement behind her, and she saw a figure walk towards the front of her vision. To her surprise, it was a grizzled old griffin, who was missing an eye and had a mangled front paw. “Here is my place, little filly,” said the griffin in his rough voice, “This is the place of Broken Claw.” The pegasus on the floor hid her surprise and said, “Tell me what happened.” Broken Claw laughed his humorless laugh as he sat on his haunches in front of her. “You are thinking to give Broken Claw orders when you lay there on the ground? No, don’t apologize. Apologies are for weaklings. You are not weak. I will tell you what happened.” Broken Claw told the cyan pegasus about the race she entered, and how she was unprepared for the brutality of the racers. He told her of her fall, and her crash, the reliving of which caused the pegasus to have a shaking fit as irrational terror coursed through her. The griffin seemed not to care for her discomfort, and continued, explaining how he had brought her to his home after the race was over, and rehabilitated her. “You have been sleeping for 5 days. Sometimes you were dreaming, and yesterday you were no stopping screaming. And then you were awake.” “Why? Why did you save me?” the pony asked. “Because I was seeing strength in you. You are fast, and strong, but not strong enough. I can make you strong. And then you will win race, and you will win money.” The griffin laughed again, and it was cold and hard. “And I was thinking, if you were not waking up, your pretty colored pelt would make a good decoration for my home.” The mare looked at her rainbow colored mane out of the corner of her eye, and gulped. The old griffin fixed the pony with his one good eye. “Now, little rainbow pony, I am having one question for you. Are you as strong as I thought you are? Was Broken Claw having a mistake when he was bringing you to his home?” The pegasus may have been laying bruised and broken in a complete stranger’s house after losing a race, but she was still as prideful as she had ever been. She gave her reply with fire in her eyes. “My name is Rainbow Dash, and I am the toughest pony in Equestria!” The old griffin threw back his head and opened his beak wide as he laughed. “Well then Rainbow Dash, I am glad I was hauling your body off that race track!”