"Happy Birthday, Dear Madison, Happy Birthday to you," chorused Rainbow Dash, Merle, and, of course, Maddie's father, Bill. Slightly over a month had passed since they had taken up residence with Merle and Rainbow Dash. Bill had really warmed up to the cocky pegasus. And he had also connected to his grandfather. Something both men were grateful for. The excited, newly minted seven year old happily blew out her candles.
A few minutes later, after opening her presents from her great-grandfather and her dad, Rainbow Dash came up to her.
"Maddie, I've talked it over with your dad, and with Merle. And they have approved, so would you like to go flying with me this evening?" Those words caused the little girl to freeze in place. Her eyes got as big as they could as she slowly rotated her head towards her dad, who nodded with a big smile. She slowly looked back at Rainbow Dash who was beginning to think her offer of a gift would be rejected. Her smile became brittle as the silence stretched for way too long for her taste.
"Really? Rainbow Dash? You would let me fly with you?" She screamed.
Spirits lifted, the cyan pegasus flared her wings and smiled. "Hop on kid."
Maddie didn't need to be told twice. Her slight weight didn't bother Rainbow Dash at all as she hopped on. Her knees falling right behind Dash's wing joints, allowing her to move them freely. She folded her wings and they covered up the little girl's legs as she trotted outside. As they exited the building, Bill tossed Maddie her jacket and gloves, it was early March, still pretty cold in the evenings. The sun was low in the western sky as she turned and faced the house. She took one last look at Bill before flaring her wings again. Bill's smile all of a sudden seemed wooden. She thought for a moment. "Bill, she's about to have the time of her life." Rainbow Dash called out as she took off gently.
Wings pumping hard to gain altitude. The little girl leaned forward and put her thin arms around Rainbow's neck. She adjusted for the shift in her balance easily as she accelerated. Maddie was screaming in delight as Rainbow banked gently, always keeping mindful of her load. She could actually fly better by holding the girl, but she wanted the girl to have the most freedom as she flew. She wasn't going to be doing anything too exciting this flight. She finally got to the altitude she desired, and then the acceleration really started. Maddie's arms tightened around her neck as she flew faster and faster. Banking from side to side in gentle S curves, then she decided to surprise the little girl further. She flared her wings and landed on a low cloud. Maddie screamed for a moment as Rainbow's wings stopped and folded next to her legs.
"You like Maddie?"
"Oh my gosh, we are standing on a cloud!"
"Yeah, it's something we pegasi can do. Don't get off," she said as the little girl shifted her weight as though she was trying to get off, "My friend Twilight could cast a spell to allow you to walk on clouds, but she's not here, so please stay on my back okay?" The arms around her neck tightened further as Maddie hugged her.
"Thank you, Rainbow Dash. This has been the best birthday present ever!"
Rainbow Dash chuckled as she took off from the cloud again. She kept flying as she heard her little charge keep screaming, "faster, faster Rainbow Dash." So… she did. Zooming around the sky, always keeping the old farmhouse in view. After a while, she noticed that Maddie wasn't holding on so hard.
Poor thing, she must be getting tired. She held her wings level to glide towards the farmhouse. Coming in for a landing, Rainbow Dash let her hooves touch ground and trotted up to the porch. After dismounting, Maddie came to stand in front of Rainbow Dash.
"Thank you so much for that, Dashie. It was wonderful."
Rainbow Dash had to suppress tears, "It was a pleasure Madison." She was able to keep her composure until Madison and her father disappeared inside. After the door closed she let the tears flow. She slowly collapsed to the ground. In moments arms folded around her, picking her up and bringing her into a hug. Merle may have been an old man, but he certainly was strong. His strong hands held her gently.
"What is it, my friend?" he asked the sobbing pegasus. She kept crying, he held her until she was able to speak.
"One of my best friends, Pinkie Pie."
"The crazy one?"
She was able to laugh while crying she found out. "Yes, the crazy one. She often called me Dashie. And for a moment, I saw her in my head, as though she was searching for me." She buried her face in his chest. "I miss them, Pinkie Pie, Twilight Sparkle, Rarity, Applejack, and Fluttershy. I miss Tank." She couldn't talk any more. The tears threatened to overwhelm her, and they had already demolished her defenses. She just let herself cry.
Merle, for his part, could only pat her back and whisper to her that everything was going to be okay. Eventually Rainbow Dash was done with her crying. She pulled back and wiped her eyes with a fetlock.
"I hate crying."
He chuckled. "Sometimes you have to, Miss Dash. Tears are lubrication for the soul."
She smiled at him. "Maybe, but I still hate it."
"So, are you going to try to send a letter home tonight?"
She looks at him. "How did you know what I was doing?"
He stops for a moment. "I've seen you with a pen in your mouth off and on for the last three days. There's no one on this world that you would want to write to. What exactly have you been writing?"
She urged him into the house. "Well, I've been trying to figure out how to send mail by flames. Twilight once talked about it for a good hour. And I've been writing down what I remembered from the egghead's lectures. Every time I write something, something else came to mind. It helped me think. I don't think I remembered everything, but I hope I remembered enough. She told me that any pony with magic can send messages by burning them with magic. Even pegasi and earth ponies can do it, but they usually have to use a candle or other flame to actually do the burning. Pegasi magic is centered around our wings. So, I'm pretty hopeful that including a feather when I burn the paper, and bringing as much magic as I can into it, I can send it."
She ruffles her wings. "I know I'm on a different world, probably a completely different universe. But the flame takes it out of our world for the traveling. So, what I hope is that it can come out in my world. The biggest problem I see is that pegasi use our magic without thought. We don't have conscious control of our magic. I don't know if it will work. I've preened out three primaries to attempt. I'm going to send all three tonight. Could I borrow a candle?"
"You most certainly can. If you'll hold on a few minutes." She appropriates her chair and waits for the old man to return. True to his word, he's back with a candle in an antique candle holder. He takes a match and lights it.
"Do you have your messages made?"
She trots to her room and is back quickly with the small rolls of paper. Each tied to a long primary feather with a lock of her mane. He takes them from her, and picks up a small stack of envelopes he had brought with the candle.
"What is that?"
"Oh, it's a message from me, to your friends. And no, you can't see it." He smiles as he slips his envelopes in with the rolled paper that Rainbow Dash had prepared. He repeats with the other two rolls. "Are you ready?"
Burning with curiosity she almost stops him so she can read what he wrote. But looking in his eyes, she decided better. "Fine." She huffed.
Gently taking the first scroll in her teeth, she flares her wings. Closing her eyes, she focused her energy, as one of the fastest pegasi in Equestria, she already knew her magic was stronger than most pegasi, stronger than most ponies. But she's never consciously controlled her magic. But the last few weeks of practice has shown her that she can channel her magic, to a limited extent, through her wings. She begins to feel the now familiar feel of vibration, starting at her primaries and moving forward along the surface of her wings. In moments her wings are vibrating all over. She hears a gasp and opens her eyes. Merle's eyes have gone wide. She's ready. She can't think of anything else, but to push that feeling forward as she touches the wing and feather to the flame. After a moment it catches. The flame slowly starts to eat the paper, then with a bright flash of green, it disappears.
"Oh, my Celestia, I think it worked." She smiled, and hopped up and down in her chair. "I think it worked, I think it worked! Oh my Celestia, thank you!!" She trotted around the room.
"Who did you send it to, Miss Dash?"
"Well, I was concentrating on Spike when I touched the flame, so, I'm pretty sure it went to him."
He looks thoughtful. "Why don't you try to send the other two, but to your princess and to your friend Twilight. Might as well cover all our bases."
"Good idea, it's better for them to get three letters rather than not get one."
In a matter of a few minutes, the other two had followed the first in a flash of green flame.
"What are we doing? Holding a séance?" A new voice comes from the entrance to the living room.
Rainbow Dash jumped over the chair and started prancing around Bill.
"I got a message home, my friends are going to know what happened to me!" She can't help it, she's prancing around the room as fast as she can.
"Well, Maddie just fell asleep, if you could keep it down," Bill chided the overexcited pegasus gently. She got the hint though.
They all end up sitting down. But after a short time, the adrenaline wears through Rainbow Dash's system, and she decides to turn in for the night. As she falls asleep, she has a huge smile on her face.
***
"Twilight, she's been gone for nearly three months. If Pinkie says she's okay, then you need to believe her," Spike says as he slams a book down on Twilight's desk, jerking her awake.
"You have to be forced to eat, you barely sleep, and…" the purple dragon pauses for a moment, "and we all are worried about you."
Twilight Sparkle, the youngest alicorn Princess in Equestria looks over at her number one assistant with bloodshot eyes. "My friend is missing, we need to find her."
"I know that, Twilight, but I know you haven't gotten a good night's rest in at least a month, you just nap a bit when you can't keep your eyes open any more. Come on Twilight, I used to make your bed in the morning, and you haven't slept in it since Rainbow Dash disappeared. Please Twilight."
"I know, there's something in the restricted wing I need to check." She jumps off her chair and places a hoof on Spike. "I know you don't like the long distance teleportation spell, but I need to find this book!"
Spike rolls his eyes as a burst of magenta light enfolds both of them, and they are all of a sudden in the Canterlot library. Thank Celestia he was fireproof, smoke emanated from his scales from the stress of such a long distance teleportation.
"Twilight, you really need to calm down. You will find out what happened to her, but you aren't making things go faster by killing yourself!" Spike yelled in Twilight's face. His words finally seemed to penetrate through her fog of exhaustion, stress, and worry. She hung her head.
"Maybe you are right, Spike. I should listen to my number one assistant once in a while, right?" She smiled at him and pulled him into a hug. He suddenly pulled away, holding his stomach and his cheeks puffing. A letter from the Princess? In moments he emitted a loud belch, and in the flames a rolled piece of paper appeared and flopped to the ground.
"I don’t think that's from the Princess," Spike said. "That felt really weird."
Both of them looked down at the roll, two pairs of eyes went wide.
"That's Rainbow's mane, and a feather!" Twilight eagerly picked up the paper with her magic, gently untying the lock of hair, she let it unroll, two envelopes fell out of the roll, she ignored them for a moment as she unfurled the paper the rest of the way. Quickly reading the paper she was interrupted by the sound of flames above her head, another identical roll appeared above Twilight's head and dropped in front of her.
"By Celestia, she's making sure we get the message. How wonderful!" She untied the second message, scanning it to see if there were any differences with the first one. Satisfied that they are identical, she reads aloud for Spike.
Dear Twilight,
If you got my letter, you'll know that I did listen to your lectures. See, I can follow the egghead's talking.
I'm writing to you from my new friend's house. I've been here since the day after I arrived in this strange world. After the lightning hit me, I ended up in a world that is so different from ours it's scary. I haven't seen any ponies here, but there are strange, ape-like creatures, and they call themselves humans. I was able to find a human that didn't freak out on seeing a blue pegasus. Him and I have become friends, his name is Merle, and I hope you get to meet him some day. But, seriously Twilight, you need to make some kind of magic and come get me. I miss all of you so much, and while things are stable here, I want to come home. If this works, I will try to send you a letter when I can. Also, they have horses here, but they can't talk. I'm hoping that you, Twilight, can somehow trace where this came from, and maybe use it to find me. Please guys, hurry. This world is dangerous, from what Merle told me, if I'm found out, they might try to do bad things to me. So, I'm staying low. I don't know how long that can last, though Merle did say that I can stay here as long as I need to. But all this is nothing your friendly neighborhood Rainbow Dash can't handle.
Your misplaced friend,
Rainbow Dash
P.S. I hope somepony is taking care of Tank while I'm gone, and please play with him, he worries.
Twilight rubbed a tear from her eye as she set down the paper. Pinkie was right. Her thoughts were interrupted by a loud belch from Spike, a scroll appeared in front of her, this one obviously from Princess Celestia, as she unfurled it, another copy of Rainbow Dash's letter fell out. Twilight smiled through her tears as she read the new missive from Celestia.
My dearest Twilight,
I am so happy to see that Rainbow Dash has found a way to send a message to us. I suspect she's tried multiple times to make sure the message made it to us. At your earliest convenience, please see me in Canterlot so we can attempt to decipher how to get our missing pony home. Also, you may want to read the letter addressed to you from Merle.
Celestia
From Merle? What? She looked on the floor, now six envelopes were laying there. Three were labeled Twilight Sparkle, the other three were labeled Rainbow Dash.
She opened the ones addressed to her and read with wonder.
Dear Miss Sparkle,
You don't know me, but we have a friend in common. Miss Rainbow Dash. For the last two months, I have gotten to know your friend very well, and she has told me a lot about you and her other friends. I am writing to urge you to do everything you can to retrieve your friend as soon as you can. My world is completely alien to her, and she is a smart, and adaptable pony, but I don't think my world is at all suited for the likes of any talking ponies. If she were found, our government, or even some very ambitious scientists would do everything they can to find what makes her tick, and I'm certain she wouldn't survive the experience. I worry for her on a daily basis, and I know how much she misses you. As far as I'm concerned, she's welcome to stay as long as she pleases, but I'm afraid circumstances will be out of our control before too long. I am enclosing as much information about how to find my farm. And I've also enclosed a note to her, if, and when, she returns to her home. Please pass my love on to her when you see her next. Thank you, Twilight Sparkle.
Merle
At the bottom of the letter, latitude and longitude coordinates were written, along with a hand drawn map with a star labeled "farm".
"Wow," Spike said as he held the note from Merle. "He really cares about her."
Twilight, for her part, was deep in thought. After a moment, she shook her head. "Come on, Spike, we need to see the Princess.
***
Rainbow Dash was asleep on a cloud, enjoying a nice midsummer day. Seven months have passed since she had ended up in this crazy world. Finally she opened her eyes and looked around. It took her a moment to orient herself. The cloud had drifted farther than she had anticipated. Shaking herself she stepped off her cloud. Letting herself fall, she thought about her time in this world. Slowly she spread her wings and allowed them to catch the air. With all the difficulties, and missing her friends so badly that she started crying every time she let herself dwell on them, she was not exactly happy. But she really loved her new friends. Merle especially, even Bill and Maddie. It was early afternoon, Bill was at work, and she knew that Maddie was having a sleepover with a friend in town. She had passed most of the morning, after the daily chores, napping. Merle was tired the last few weeks, so she let him rest. Most days it was out in his rocking chair. He was in the chair when she took off earlier to fly for a while. She needed some alone time though. Just enjoying the blue sky, the wind, and the clouds. She noticed that the clouds were pretty sparse during the summer, so when she found this nice cloud bank, she took the opportunity for a nap. She actually felt pretty good.
Shortly she found the farmhouse. Landing on the porch she noticed Merle wasn't in his rocking chair. She pushed into the house.
"Merle?" No answer.
She trotted down the hall towards her room. She called out again. "Merle?" a bit louder this time. Still, no answer.
Starting to get worried, she went to the door to his room, it wasn't locked. She took the knob in her teeth and opened the door. The room was dark. "Come on sleepyhead, time to get up. We need to get supper ready." Merle didn't stir.
Now really concerned, she jumped up on his bed. Her movements jostled the bed, and he moved.
"Rainbow." He was able to whisper.
"Merle, what's wrong?"
He smiled at her. "I'm going to tell you something you need to know. I didn't tell you before this because I didn't want you to worry. The reason I was so drunk when you found me is because on that new years eve, I went to the doctor." His voice failed him, she hopped over him and grabbed the cup of water that he always kept next to the bed, she hoofed it over to him and he drank. After a moment, he continued.
"He gave me bad news. I'm not going to bore you with all the long words he used, but he said I was dying, and that with medicine, I would have a few years, without, well." He went silent. After a moment, he gathered himself, "I wouldn't see the next new year. I bought two cases of beer on the way home, and was intending to drink myself to death. Then you came in my life. And I quit drinking. But I still couldn't make myself go through with the medicine, the doctor said I would live a bit longer, but my quality of life, as he said, wouldn't be that good. I would be in pain the whole time. I've still been in pain, but it wasn't that bad, until a few days ago. And now." He went silent again as tears formed in his eyes. "And now, my time here is nearly over."
"No. You can't die Merle. I need you."
"You silly pony, you did need me, but you don't now. I've sobered up, I lived my life as best as I could with you here. You gave me purpose for my time left on this world. And now, you need to find a way to live without me."
"No, no, no, no, no, no." Tears fell freely from her eyes. "I don't want to lose you. You are too important to me Merle."
"And you are just as important to me. Just listen to me, young one." He stopped for a moment, he sighed, "Thank you, Rainbow Dash. You have brought love back into my life. The love of a best friend. I wouldn't trade those months for years of pain and constant medicine, and constant doctor's appointments. I'm glad to have had you in my life. Please. Just stay with me. Please, my friend?"
"Please don't leave me," she pleaded him.
He laid his hand on her cheek. And petted her head as she lay down with him, her wings spread out over him, holding him in a hug.
"I don't have a choice, my friend. It won't be long now."
She lost track of time as Merle fell asleep. After a time, his breathing slowed. And then became uneven. The old man had a lot of spirit, but eventually, his breathing stopped and his body relaxed. Still she didn't get up. Her body jerked with every sob.