“Yo, Dash! Wake up!” Sharp talons grasped the rainbow-maned pegasus by the forearm, attempting to pull her into the world of the waking. After a minor hesitation, Rainbow’s nighttime guest shook her again. “Hey! This is important!” But the sleeping pegasus grumbled, brushed the talon off her arm, and rolled over, still sleeping. “Come on, dude!” the voice insisted.
Suddenly Rainbow Dash jolted awake as she was thrown off her bed. With a few precise wing maneuvers, she was able to right herself and land with all four hooves on her cloud floor. She was not too happy to have been disturbed in the middle of the night when she needed her sleep to recover from the extreme amounts of effort she put into training by day. Her anger quickly dissolved into shock, however, when she squinted into the darkness to get a look at her mysterious visitor.
“Gilda?” she blurted. “What are--” she began with joy, but quickly remembered how her griffon friend had treated her and her friends during her last visit. “What are you doing here?” she asked sourly. Her expression soon softened, however, as she recognized the look of genuine distress on her ex-friend’s face.
“I--” Gilda stuttered. She seemed to be nearly frantic with worry. “I know you probably don’t want to see me right now, but I’ve got no one else to turn to, man. Ya gotta help me!”
“What’s the problem?” the pony inquired, all sense of bitterness gone, the grudge forgotten. Rainbow Dash had never really wanted to abandon her friend. She had enough loyalty to help any friend in need, even if that friend had made a few mistakes in the past.
“There’s no time, dude. We gotta get goin’ now!” She spread her wings and threw herself out of the window, soaring off into the night sky.
“Hey, wait up!” Rainbow called, preparing herself to take flight. She paused and thought about getting her friends, but she didn’t think they’d be willing to help Gilda since they didn’t seem to like her one bit. Plus, based on how much of a hurry Gilda was in, Rainbow figured there wasn’t really time to waste waking all of them up. Whatever the problem was, she was sure that she and Gilda could take care of it as a team. It would be just like the good old days! With that thought she threw her wings back and burst out the window in hot pursuit of a griffon-shaped silhouette in the distance.
It wasn’t easy for her to catch up. She and Gilda had always been pretty evenly matched in speed when they were giving it their all, and apparently Gilda wasn’t going easy. But the years the pegasus had spent in training since she had last seen her griffon friend came to her aid, and she was able to slowly advance towards her guide. When she drew nearer, she noticed that Gilda was wearing a small saddle bag, but she couldn’t tell what it contained.
“So… What are we doing?” Rainbow screamed when she got close enough to her friend. Gilda looked at her with confusion and Rainbow saw her beak form the word “what”, but she couldn’t hear her at all over the roar of the wind in her ears. “I asked, ‘WHAT ARE WE DOING?’”, she bellowed, voice cracking. But the griffon only shot her an annoyed look and shook her head, apparently still unable to hear. She just pointed forward and increased her velocity even further with a few hard flaps of her wings. The cyan pony tried to look where Gilda had pointed, but couldn’t see anything in the inky blackness. When she looked below her she saw more black, but a few streaks of lighter grey highlighted the swirling darkness. She recognized them as waves on the ocean, so that meant they must be headed over the sea to the land of the Griffons. She’d made the trip many times before when she still went to spent a lot of time with Gilda.
Since she’d figured out where they were going, now all that was left was to figure out why they were going there. She turned her gaze to look thoughtfully at her companion, but was surprised to find that she was gone. She turned around and looked behind her, scanning the night sky for any sign of her friend. Slowly, her pace lessened until she was nearly at a complete stop. Perching on a cloud, she tucked away her wings and perked her ears, trying to detect the sound of griffon-wings flapping. All she could hear, however, was the gentle breeze and the distant rumble of the powerful waves far below.
“Gilda?”, she called, but was answered by more near-silence. Not even the sound of her voice returned to her, for there was nothing within miles that could cause an echo. “Giiiiilda!” she cried, awaiting a reply that did not come.
Suddenly a bolt of brown and white feathers appeared seemingly out of nowhere and struck her down, pinning her against the cloud. Gilda stood with her powerful wings spread wide, holding Rainbow down with a single talon. “Hey!” Rainbow grunted. “Get off me!” She made a halfhearted attempt to wiggle out from under her friend, but surrendered when Gilda dug her claws into her fur-covered belly, almost hard enough to break Rainbow’s skin. “You’re hurting me,” she protested, growing angry with the griffon.
“Hold... still,” Gilda hissed, glaring straight into the pegasus’s eyes.
“Fine. Whatever,” Rainbow huffed, thinking that maybe Gilda didn’t entirely deserve her forgiveness quite yet. Then, with a well-practiced motion, Gilda reached into her saddle bag, pulled out the end of a rope, and tied it around Rainbow, managing to capture her wings and forelegs in a single loop. “Hey!” Rainbow cried defiantly. “What the hay are you doing?” She wriggled her limbs, but to no avail. The rope was secure and expertly tied. Gilda took her talon off of Rainbow’s chest, allowing her to struggle all she wanted. Her threatening glare transformed into a cruel smile as she watched.
“You’re such a dweeb, Rainbow Dash,” the griffon chuckled maliciously. “I can’t believe I thought you were cool.”
The pegasus growled, trying to reach the rope with her mouth to see if she could pull it off, but it proved to be out of her reach so she gave up and looked up at her ex-friend. All signs of panic and worry were gone from the griffon’s face, replaced by malice and triumph. “What do you want, Gilda?” she spat.
“I want to make you pay for what you did, moron!” Rage simmered in her eyes.
“What I did? Do you mean those pranks, and how I made you ‘lose you cool’? You can’t seriously still be mad about that.”
“A griffon never forgives,” Gilda muttered, gnashing her beak. “Especially when their lifelong friend ditches them for a bunch of lame-o ponies.”
“Those ‘lame-o’ ponies are my friends, and they’re better friends than you ever were.”
“Oh, are they?” She feigned surprise. “Where were they when you first got rejected from the Wonderbolts? Where were they when your mom died? Where were they when you needed someone to fight off every single bully at school, Rainbow Crash?” Gilda’s anger only escalated as the list grew. “Face it, Dash. You and me have been through more than you and all your pony friends put together. We’re more than friends. I taught you to be tough. I taught you how to survive in this world. I was always there for you, and how did you repay me?” the pegasus was too awestruck to reply, so Gilda answered for her, practically screaming. “By humiliating me in front of an entire town and entirely shutting me out of your life! That’s how!”
“I… I’m sorry,” Rainbow stammered. “I figured you’d come back after you cooled off. But after a couple years I just… sort of… forgot.”
A smug, satisfied smile grew on Gilda’s face and she seemed to calm down a bit. “Ah, that’s nice,” she sighed. “I didn’t realize just how much I wanted to hear you apologize.” She waited a few seconds as Rainbow watched her warily. “Unfortunately for you, it’s too late. I made up my mind long ago that this is how I’d do it.”
“Do… what, exactly?”
“Do you remember the day you thought you could fly through a rainbowfall?”
“Of course I do. The rainbow soaked my wings and I couldn’t fly. Luckily you were there to--”
“That’s right! I was there to save you, just in the nick of time. Pretty gnarly, right? That’s the kind of thing real friends are for. They’ll always be there to catch you. You don’t even need to scream, or cry for help. They’re just… there.” She smiled to herself. “And that’s why I think this is appropriate. With your wings tied, it’s almost as if we’ve gone back to that day when I saved your life. Only, this time, we’re not friends, so I won’t be there to catch you. Go ahead and scream all you want. Call for your pony friends. They won’t come. They’re not here for you, dude.”
Gilda picked Rainbow up by the tail and carried her to the edge of the cloud, ignoring her kicking legs. The crashing waves below suddenly grew louder as the water came into Rainbow’s view. “At least,” the griffon continued, “the fall won’t kill you. Though I bet it’s pretty hard to swim with just your two hind legs. You probably won’t last too long. Just long enough to think about what you’ve done. To think about how you brought this upon yourself. I want you to remember, as you try to breathe and all you can suck up is water, when you’re dying, that your friends aren’t here to save you. Then, maybe then, you’ll understand what you did to me.”
Rainbow felt her tail start to slide out of Gilda’s talon and she began to beg in desperation. “Wait, Gilda! I’m sorry! We can still be friends! Gilda! Nooooo!” But Gilda let go, and Rainbow lost sight of her almost instantly as the all-too-familiar sensation of freefall filled her senses. She instinctively tried to spread her wings to slow her descent, but the rope held fast. Knowing she only had a few seconds before she hit the water, she twisted around and straightened her body so her back hooves would hit first, taking most of the shock where it would hurt the least. She breathed in as much air as she could hold and squeezed her eyes shut.
The water enveloped her in an instant. The roar of the waves, which had grown to a fever pitch along with the howling wind, simply vanished. Completely submerged, she was almost grateful for the momentary peace before she floated back to the surface like a cork. When her head broke the surface and the deafening sounds returned she gasped for air. Looking up, she saw Gilda’s head poking out of a cloud, watching her. Out of nowhere a huge wave rose above her, blocking her view of the griffon, and crashed down on the hapless pegasus like a giant’s fist.
The sheer force of the wave drove the air out of her lungs and forced her far below the surface, where everything sounded peaceful once more. But Rainbow Dash needed air, and when she tried to breath saltwater flowed down her throat rather than air. She choked, coughing out the last few bubbles of air from her lungs. Realizing she needed to go up, she furiously kicked her hind legs to force herself back to the surface. Ignoring the stinging bite of the saltwater, she opened her eyes to determine how much farther she had to go, and what she saw was not promising.
Her lungs burned and her legs weakened. Her vision grew dark and she stopped kicking altogether. Her mouth fell open and one last tiny bubble escaped her lips. “I bet Twilight would have a spell to let me breath underwater,” she thought to herself. “And Pinkie Pie is a great swimmer. Plus she’s got all those floaties. I could really use one of those right now.” In a strange state of tranquility, her thoughts continued. “I bet Applejack wouldn’t have drowned this easily. She’s so strong, she could’ve lasted for hours. And Fluttershy never would’ve gotten into this mess in the first place. She would’ve just stayed at home where it’s safe. And,” she laughed internally, “well, to be honest, Rarity would have been pretty useless in this situation, but this isn’t really her thing. She still would’ve tried her best to save me... I wish they were here, even if they couldn’t save me, I wish I could say goodbye. They’ll never know what happened.”
“Don’t sweat it, Rainbow,” came Applejack’s comforting southern drawl.
“Really, darling, there’s no need to be so dramatic about it. That is my job, after all,” Rarity cooed.
“Did you really think we’d just let you come all the way out here by yourself?” laughed Pinkie Pie.
“But, um, we’d still forgive you even if you were a little reckless, because we love you anyway,” assured Fluttershy.
Underneath the waves, down where it was so quiet and still, Rainbow found peace. She was glad her friends were there. She smiled at her own foolishness for ever thinking that they wouldn’t be there to save her.
“They’re right, Rainbow,” declared Twilight. “It probably wasn’t the smartest move to come out here alone, but we’ll always be here to catch you when you fall.”
“Thanks, Twilight,” Rainbow thought. “You really are the best friends a pony could wish for.” She reached out to pull them all together in a big group hug, but her arms found nothing except water.
“Okay, you’re going to need to save your strength,” Twilight explained sternly. “No hugging until we get you out of this mess.” Rainbow nodded to show her understanding. “Now I want you to kick your legs like you were doing earlier, remember?” In Rainbow’s mind, she pictured Twilight rotating her hind legs in a kicking motion. “There’s no need to rush, just keep kicking… That’s right. Very good. Look, you’re moving!” Rainbow managed to crane her neck and crack open her eyes to look above her. Slowly, ever so slowly, the surface drew nearer to her. “Oh, sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. Don’t actually look. You’ll waste your energy, and, in case you hadn’t noticed, you’re just a teensy bit low on air right now.” Rainbow closed her eyes sheepishly and focused on moving her hind legs. “Good. Just keep doing that. Any second now you’re going to reach the surface and you’ll get a nice big breath of fresh--” As twilight spoke, her voice started to fade and Rainbow’s mental image of her grew dark. She felt her legs grow heavier and heavier, and soon she was completely unable to move them.
“I failed them after all,” she thought. “I’m sorry, guys. I don’t know what I was thinking. I’m going to miss you. I’m going to miss all of you.” A tear crept out from underneath her eyelid and lost itself in the seemingly endless abyss of water. “It’s okay that you weren’t really here for me. I can’t blame you.”
And this time no response came. Her friends were gone, since they hadn’t actually been there in the first place, and there was nopony who could save her.
She became dimly aware of a hoof reaching around her and pulling her upwards. “My friends! They really did come back for me!” she thought. In an instant she was torn out the water, coughing up more water than she thought her lungs could possibly have room for. Rising higher and higher above the water, carried by an unknown savior, she gratefully sucked in a huge gasp of salty air. Her rescuer dropped her on a low cloud and untied the rope.
“Are you alright? I saw everything that happened.” Rainbow, laying on her back, opened her eyes to see a light turquoise pegasus standing over her.
After recovering from another coughing fit, Rainbow managed to gasp, “Yeah, I’ll be alright. Thanks Lightning Dust. You saved me!”
“Save the thanks for later,” she growled. “Right now we need to take care of that griffon.” Her eyes scanned the clouds, trying to find their third companion. She didn’t have to look long, because Gilda soon revealed herself, rocketing towards them with deadly velocity.
“Not! cool!” she roared with an animosity unlike anything Rainbow Dash had ever seen in another living creature. She flashed her talons and tried to tear Lightning Dust open as soon as she reached her, but the pegasus was too fast. She darted over Gilda and pushed down on her head, forcing the griffon to skid to a stop on the cloud. Gilda immediately leapt up, however, and fixed her hateful glare on Rainbow Dash. “I’m going to make you suff--” but she was interrupted by a swift kick to the head from Lightning Dust, throwing her off the cloud and down towards the sea below.
“This is my territory, and I’m not about to let you hurt anypony as long as I’m here to stop you.” Lightning Dust cried, taking off and putting as much distance between her and Rainbow as she could. Gilda soon recovered and flew after her, but when she was close enough, Lightning Dust vanished behind a cloud and kicked it, causing a powerful bolt of electricity to paralyze the raging griffon. As Gilda fell, Lightning Dust flew in tight circles around her, forming a swirling vortex of air, holding her in place. She flew above the tornado, ready to smash down the top, causing a microburst to drive the griffon farther underwater than she could ever swim back from. But just before she struck the final blow, a weakened, panting pegasus blocked her path.
“Stop!” Rainbow Dash shouted over the storm, holding out her hoof. Lightning Dust screeched to a halt and hovered over the out-of-breath pegasus.
She grimaced. “Get out of the way! That griffon deserves the same punishment she was going to give you.”
“No she doesn’t!” Rainbow gagged. “She’s made some pretty serious mistakes, but she doesn’t deserve to die for it!” As she spoke the vortex started shaking and began to break apart.
“You don’t deserve to die either, but that didn’t seem to matter to her!”
“And I didn’t die, did I?” but Rainbow’s reasoning only frustrated Lightning Dust. She quickly brushed past the annoying pegasus and drove herself into the top of the broken tornado, but she was too late. The air pressure had normalized and she was unable to force it in a tight downward stream.
Gilda had already recovered from the shock and the dizziness, and she broke out of the wall of the storm, shooting one last unforgiving glare at the pegasi before she sped off into the dark sky.
Lightning Dust shot off after her, but soon felt a weight fall on her back. Rainbow Dash had tackled her and pinned down her wings, so they collapsed on a cloud.
“Just let her go,” Rainbow grunted. “Everyone’s okay. Let’s not change that.”
“Let go!” Lightning Dust forced the rainbow-maned pegasus off her and leapt up to pursue the griffon only to realize she had no idea which way she had gone. “Hmph,” she groaned, lowering herself back to the cloud. “I guess I don’t have much of a choice.”
“Thank you,” Rainbow Dash sighed, relieved. “And thank you for saving me, too. That was pretty awesome.”
“It’s my job to make sure no ponies come to harm on the ocean. You don’t need to thank me for it.”
“Wow, I didn’t know that was even a thing. That’s really cool!” Rainbow smiled.
“It is,” Lightning Dust said coldly. Apparently she had not forgiven Rainbow Dash for their falling out either. “And now that you’re safe, you should go back home. You can make it on your own, can't you?”
“Yeah, I can manage,” Rainbow sighed. She despaired to realize how many of her friends seemed to be holding grudges against her without her knowing. She figured it would be best to head home by herself.
“Good.” Lightning Dust turned away. Without looking back, she said, “safe flight,” and took off into the night. And so Rainbow Dash was left alone with nothing but her dark thoughts and the dark night to keep her company.
She made her way home, stopping every once in a while to rest, since she still hadn’t entirely recovered from her near-death experience, but she made it back in one piece. She’d had some time to think during her flight, and she was grateful when she returned to her home that she had held on to the journal after she’d gone on her previous adventure.
She read through some of the older entries, not as impressed with their heartwarming tales of friendship as she was before. She picked up a quill and turned to a fresh page.
“Today,” she wrote, “I learned something very different about friendship. We’ve always taken it for granted that friendship lasts forever, and that we would all be together for the rest of our lives, but today I got a very harsh reminder that that isn’t necessarily true. Sometimes friends do drift apart, and sometimes that can lead to really bad consequences. It’s important to always remember that all friendships will come to an end. We just need to make sure that we do our best to end them on good terms.”
Then she set down the quill and read over what she wrote one more time. She wasn’t entirely certain that she meant everything she wrote, and she knew she meant to say more than she wrote, but she was confused and exhausted. Maybe tomorrow she would talk to her friends about it and see what they had to say.
But for now, she closed the book and set it aside, collapsing on her bed. Soon she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.