Rainbow Dash
Chapter 4
The gravity of the situation took a few moments to dawn upon the multicoloured mare as she gazed up at their salvation, the bright light shining not a clouds distance above their heads. This should be easy, she was a Pegasus. If it was above her, or even more than ten feet in front of her, she simply opened her wings and propelled herself into the air. They opened at her sides, it was second nature at this point, sucking in a sharp breath at the instantaneous pain that followed. But the pain just frustrated her. She didn’t furl them back; instead she tried to power through the pain. Finally taking notice of what she was doing, Fluttershy took a gasp of her own.
“Rainbow, what are you doing?”
The cyan mare clenched her teeth dangerously tight. The pain was shocking, she had never experienced anything like it before. She felt the dry blood crack under her wing, and the sudden raw exposure of her wound to the stagnant air caused her extreme agony. Her muscles pulled and tightened, and the rent flesh of her wound rubbed against itself, causing her every nerve to cry out in pain. A high pitched whine resounded in her ears and refused to cease. Her wing was only two-thirds extended and already tears were building in the corners of her eyes.
“Rainbow,” Fluttershy exclaimed. “Rainbow Dash stop!” she shouted so forcefully, Rainbow felt herself take pause. The yellow mare stepped in front of her, placing one hoof on her cheek and the other to her crimson-stained wing, placing just enough pressure to keep her from extending further, but light enough to prevent further agony. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”
“Fluttershy, all I need is one good flap. It's not so high.” She said, scrutinizing the opening above them.
“Even if you could get up there, there's no way I can follow."
“I’ll carry you up with me.” She said like it was obvious.
“Dash, this kind of stunt would be a stretch, even if you were healthy.” Fluttershy said, staring straight into her eyes. Rainbow couldn’t help but feel slightly offended by the remark though. Fluttershy was a very light pony, and Dash had carried her in flight tons of times.
“I can-”
“We’re in this cave because I threw you off in flight,” She said blinking away a tear. “You’re left side won’t be able to hold both our weights.”
As much as it hurt her pride, she knew the yellow mare was right. Even if she could finish the extension, she couldn’t get the two of them up there with one flap, and any more would just be too painful. Slowly and reluctantly, she folded both her wings, which, to her relief, hurt considerably less than opening. She wiped her own eyes of the tears that were forming.
“What do you want to do then?” she asked.
Fluttershy let her hoof slide down from Rainbow’s cheek and looked around. Dash tore her eyes away and immediately began to eyeball the stony walls. There were many places were the rock jutted out. Some were just large enough to support hooves. But the walls were wet in some places and mossy in others, and there was no way in the world that she would be able to get Fluttershy to-
“Climb.” She said, turning back towards Rainbow. “Do you feel strong enough to climb?”
The blue pony stared at her incredulously.
“Yeah I’m up for it.” Dash paused. “Are you?” She seemed so beaten, the days events had just been so much for the little pony. And yet she still defied to give in, and her resilience was becoming increasingly surprising to Rainbow.
The shy mare nodded her head slightly, but her eye’s seemed to scream in terror.
“Are you sure?” the cyan mare asked. “We can find another way if you’re-”
“Rainbow you need serious medical attention. It could take us hours, or maybe days to find another way. I can do this. I have to.”
Rainbow walked over to her and locked her into a tight embrace. This mare was truly amazing. Sometimes Fluttershy could put her fears to the side and stand up tall for the ponies she cared for, but in Dash's eyes, this was even braver than staring down a dragon. She planted a quick kiss on her again. “I love you.”
“I love you too.”
Every time. Every time she heard those words escape her, Rainbow’s heart skipped. How sweet those words sounded, Fluttershy’s voice seemed to be made for them. Even the way she looked as she said them was so beautiful. The gentle way her lips moved as she spoke, the way her eyes locked with her own, the hint of red that crept into her cheeks, Rainbow noticed it all, and kept the image in her mind. It warmed her even more than the rays of sun that she had been missing.
It took the blue mare a moment to realize her forelegs were still wraped tightly around the back of Fluttershy’s neck. Her flowing pink mane brushed against them as she pulled herself away
“Are you ready?” Rainbow asked. Fluttershy paused but nodded again, only this time without any trace of fear in her eyes.
They chose the wall closest to the opening. Luckily, it was clear of moss, but the stones were visibly wet in some spots, and surely there was more they couldn’t see. Rainbow couldn’t help but take pause. She rarely ever climbed, she never had to, and even when she did, she always had her wings to fall back on.
This time, there were no wings. It was oddly humbling. She had lost the use of her wings before, but it wasn’t such a handicap that it endangered her life. One misstep, one slip up was all it would take to send her crashing back down, and she doubted her luck would last for two falls in one day.
But nothing was going to get better by sitting around, and she couldn’t let Fluttershy see that even she was having second thoughts.
“Okay listen,” she spoke softly. “Stay right under me and do exactly what I do, okay? I’ll warn you when it gets slippery and you need to tell me when you’re having trouble.” She gave the yellow mare a quick peck on the nose, and promised herself to give her another one when the grass was under their hooves again. She stared back to the opening above. By the light shining through, she guessed the sun was just beginning to lower behind the hills. She turned to the wall, placed her hooves and began to pull herself up.
Immediately she was reminded why she didn’t like climbing. She had to place the backs of her hooves against the stones, which aside from being hard on the legs, was a very awkward movement. After about ten seconds of climbing, she heard Fluttershy’s own hooves clacking below her. While it was comfortable to have another pony with her on the wall, it was a bit unsettling to be unable to see her. at any second she could slip, or her muscles could fail her and Dash wouldn’t be able to help her. after only thirty seconds they were only a quarter of the way up, and Fluttershy was huffing below her.
“How you doing, Fluttershy?” she called.
“Not too great.” She wheezed back. “Can we take a break?”
Her own haunches were killing her, but she knew a break wouldn’t be a good idea. She felt it in her early days of flying. She got so tired, a break seemed like a good idea, but once her wings folded, she didn't open them again until the next time she trained. If they stopped and didn't start again, they would be in big trouble.
“Tell you what,” she said pausing to gauge the distance. “Count to twenty with me, than we can take a break okay?”
“Okay.”
Every time she pulled herself to another ledge she counted. “One. Two. Three.”
After she got to eight, she could hear Fluttershy grunting beneath her, unable to keep up with her steps, so she slowed down a bit. Her little noises might have been really cute, had the situation not been so dire, but now, they heralded big trouble. They were just a little past half way to the top. Rainbow was very active; she knew her limits and knew how far she could push them. She didn’t know Fluttershy’s and she doubted the mare knew her own either. “Fifteen. Sixteen,” Fluttershy’s counting became a series of rhythmic grunts rather than numbers. Rainbow was considering an early break, when her right hind leg fell from under causing her to lose the little grip she had. She nearly fell before finding grip again a few feet lower.
“Rainbow!” Fluttershy screamed.
“I’m fine! Just be careful on that step.”
“Can we take a break now?” she sounded like a little filly again.
“Yeah, I think I could go for a break now.” Rainbow said.
As hard as she tried, she couldn’t get her head to stop spinning. She had almost fallen to her death. For the first time since she first took to the air, Rainbow Dash truly felt terror towards the ground below her. Only now did she realise how much she owed to her wings. The wind in her mane, the twist in her stomach as she fell through the air, if unicorn or earth ponies ever felt those sensations that she relished so much, they would only feel it once. She looked over to her blood-stained wing and winced. She really hoped the cut would heal up properly. If this grounding was permanent...
She breathed deeply.
“You good Fluttershy?”
“Yes.” Her reply sounded strained.
“Just remember to breathe and watch where I step. No more breaks, we have to push it."
Fluttershy’s breath was still heavy and her grunting continued almost immediately, and Rainbow hoped she could keep up the next fifteen feet. But as she looked up, she noticed yet another problem. The lip of the opening in the ceiling was at least three feet away from the wall, even at its closest. And even if she could reach the opening, there was still another five feet to climb before she could actually touch the surface. Her options were quite limited but she already knew what she would have to do. She didn’t like it though, and she doubted Fluttershy would either, so she kept it to herself. Unfortunately that didn’t last long.
“Rainbow that opening is a lot further than I thought it was.” She breathed
“We’re almost there; you’re doing fantastic, just keep going.”
Finally, there was nothing but rock above her head and their salvation lay just three feet behind her.
“Rainbow,” her yellow love called “I know it’s not a very good time, but I can’t feel my front legs.”
“Yeah it was a pretty good workout huh?” she took a few deep breaths, both from exhaustion and to steady herself for the next task.
“What are we going to do? I don’t think i can climb back down.”
“Hey Fluttershy,”
“Yeah?”
“I love you.”
“What-?”
With a heavy grunt, Rainbow used every ounce of power left in her legs to push herself off the wall, and into the open air, once her best friend, now a dangerous enemy. Her timing had to be perfect, and it was. The instant she felt the warmth of sunlight shining on her again, she threw her hooves above her, looking for any purchase in the hole above. If she missed, nothing was stopping her from plummeting fifty feet to the stony floor. Her left hoof found nothing, but her right locked onto a bit of rock just below the exit.
She swung her free left leg up and felt grass tickle it. She released a powerful yell and used all her strength to pull herself towards the fresh air above her. Her muscles ached, her heart and head were pounding but even without her wings she was beating gravity. The grass brushed against her legs, and the sun was warm on her mane. She wanted more and pushed her muscles. And finally she brought her hind legs up with the rest of her, collapsing to the ground. She was out.
But there was no time for celebration, no time to stop and enjoy it. Her every muscle ached, her breath came in ragged gasps, and her heart felt like it might explode. Yet all these sensations were at the back of her mind, her thoughts fully focus on the friend she just left on the wall. As quickly as she had pulled herself onto the grass, she turned right back around to face her stony imprisonment. Now it looked like a great gaping pit, sucking in her rediscovered sunlight, a danger to any who dared travel this deep into the wood, which Rainbow doubted many ponies had.
She carefully lowered herself down keeping her hind legs planted firmly on the ground. Then, she let the front of her body drop out from under her, an let herself become gravity’s prisoner once more. But she had no reason to mind that, as her eye’s were immediately greeted by her little yellow angel, sill holding tightly to the wall, stareing at the spot where she had watched her friend disappear. The relief in Fluttershy’s eye’s was more than a reward for Dash, but her look quickly changed.
“Rainbow! I think I’m slipping.”
Rainbow knew what she had to do, she steeled herself.
“Fluttershy, you have to jump!”
“What!?” Fluttershy shrieked
“Push off the wall like I did, and I’ll catch you!”
The yellow mare looked the floor of the cave fifty feet below her, then clutched the wall.
“I can’t!”
“Fluttershy trust me, I will not let you fall!”
For just a moment, she was afraid she wasn’t going to listen. She clung to the wall like it was her last salvation, and Rainbow truly couldn’t blame her. But if she didn’t jump, she couldn’t cling there forever.
“Fluttershy, you have to trust me, I will catch you, but you have to jump.”
“What if I fall?”
“Falling isn’t even a possibility.”
The clinging pony stared back towards her meeting her eyes.
“Ok.”
Rainbow released the breath she hadn’t even realised she was holding.
“All right, I’m going to count to three. When I say three, put all your power into your legs and push off, I need you to get as much distance from that wall as possible.”
“Ok.”
Rainbow breathed deep.
“One.”
This was going to work.
“Two.”
It had to.
“Three!”
Rainbow watched as Fluttershy tossed herself back, with a mighty grunt, into the open. Not missing a beat, Rainbow locked her legs with Fluttershy’s and used her remaining momentum to swing her up through the opening. Both ponies landed heavily on the grass and gasped for air. Rainbow moved herself towards her brave little pony and wrapped her hooves around her again, pressing herself into Fluttershy’s back. Rainbow could feel she was trembling violently. Rainbow placed her muzzle against her cheek.
“Shh, it’s over, we’re ok.” She whispered into her ear.
“You did amazing, Fluttershy. You did so great.”
After a few moments she saw Fluttershy’s lips pull back into a delicate smile.
“Can I take a break now?”
Rainbow couldn’t stifle her laugher.
“Yeah, I think we earned a break.”
Within moments, the little yellow pony fell asleep, which came as quite a shock to Dash. Despite the exertion, her adrenalin was up to eleven, she couldn’t sleep if she . She basked in the sunlight, or the little of it that there was. By the looks of things, equestrian was just setting into the evening hours. Like it or not, Dash would have to turn in soon too, and sleeping next to a huge hole in the ground didn’t exactly spell out sweet dreams.
The two ponies were surrounded by thick brush on all sides. The trees were short enough to let the sun hit the forest floor, but tall enough that Rainbow had no idea where they were. Long vines dangle from the branches, some might’ve even reached to the ground, but the dense shrubbery sprawling as far as she could see made it near impossible to tell.
Rainbow hated the forest. Everything about it was just so overwhelming, all the green, the density, even the intoxicating scents entering her nose, it was just too much. And it probably wouldn’t get too much better. Spending a couple days in this hell? It was going to be a nightmare. Fluttershy, mumbled something incoherent and Dash smiled despite herself.
The cyan Pegasus, untangled herself from the pony she loved and stood up. Her the muscles in her legs hurt, but it wasn’t a foreign feeling to the athletic mare. As carefully and gently as she could, she got Fluttershy onto her back. She stood up straight and decided where to go. She knew that town was to the north, and if the sun was setting, she wanted to keep it to her left. She wondered if Fluttershy would be proud that she figured that out. With long and careful strides she began the trek into the woods, feeling the plants tangle around her hooves as she went. But just before it left her sight, Rainbow Dash took one last look at the pit. That cave had caused her a lot of trouble. Fluttershy mumbled and scooted around on her back. It was worth it.