//------------------------------// // Chapter 7. Encounters // Story: A Rainbow in the Dark // by Sparky Brony //------------------------------// Night after night, Rainbow had been moving from place to place. The days had blurred together for her, summer had faded to fall, fall fell to winter, and spring is fully here now. She's explored up and down the east coast of the United States and Canada. Keeping away from population centers and people, she has been able to keep away from any more encounters with the military. She's found ways to buy food. Humans will stare incredulously at a pony walking into a grocery store, buying things, and getting out quickly. They usually think it's some kind of joke. Even as they take her money. She loved that. Early in the afternoon she's sleeping in a wooden house in a tree. She had arrived in the outskirts of Annapolis, Maryland that morning, and upon finding this house in the middle of a copse of trees, she fell asleep. It's been a long night. She feels a poke, she shifts away. Another poke in her side, she moves a hoof to push it away. Another poke. She opens her eyes and sees a pair of blue eyes intently looking at her. "Hey!" she screams as she scrambled back from the little girl poking her. The girl withdraws her finger. "You're a pony." "Yeah, and you're a little girl." "Hey, I just turned six!" the little girl pouted at her. Rainbow Dash couldn't help but smile. The little girl had plenty of spirit, she could see that. Not a drop of fear in the kid's eyes, and a strong defiant tone in her voice. "Yes, you are a little girl, and yes, I'm a pony." She struck a pose. "I'm Rainbow Dash!" The girl giggled in delight. "You have wings!" "Yup, I'm the fastest flier in Equestria, and apparently Earth too." "Really?" Rainbow puffed out her chest. "Yeah. Do you want to hear about some of my adventures?" The little girl sat cross legged in the tree house with Rainbow Dash as the latter talked to her. She told her stories of Equestria, of Cloudsdale, of Canterlot, the city on the mountain. As the sun finally started to set, her sharp ears heard a woman calling the girls name. "I think you need to go, your mom is calling I think." The girl made a face, "I want to keep talking to you Rainbow Dash." Rainbow Dash rubbed the child's head, "Tell you what, you go home, and tomorrow, after school, you come here, and we can talk more." "But tomorrow's Saturday, I don't have school." "Okay, then come here when you can in the morning, and I'll tell you about all my friends. Sound good?" "Oh yes, please. Do you like apples?" "I love apples." "I'll get my mommy to give me some apples, I like them too." The next several weeks passed quickly with her regaling the little girl of stories about Equestria. She hadn't talked to anypony in such a long time, it felt good to talk to her. Ponies are social by nature, for crying out loud, they form herds because no pony likes to be alone. And Rainbow Dash wouldn't admit it to any pony, but she was lonely on Earth, especially after Merle's passing. She had managed to not break down in front of her new little friend, with her dark red hair and piercing blue eyes, she reminded her a lot of Madison, though Madison's hair was blonde. Her new friend kept bringing her fruit and other foods, and it made for tastier fare than just cropping the grass with the other farm animals nearby. "So, we finally went to the Grand Galloping Gala, it was held in Canterlot, in the castle itself. Though it wasn't the first time I'd met either the Wonderbolts or the Princess, it was totally amazing. Poor Fluttershy, all the animals in the Canterlot Gardens were afraid of her. She dashed around the entire gardens, scaring the poor creatures, and messing up the beautiful dress that Rarity had made for her." The little girl was rolling on the floor of the tree house, laughing while holding her sides. "And then she burst into the main ballroom, her dress was half hanging off of her, half the animals in the Gardens had gotten through just ahead of Flutters, and she screamed loud enough for all of us to hear, "You're going to love me!" "Stop, please stop, I can't take any more." The girl was panting so hard she was having trouble breathing. Rainbow wasn't letting up though. "So, the entire ballroom was destroyed, the Princess and Twilight had just entered the room, and Fluttershy had just screamed. And what did the Princess say? She leaned her head down to Twilight and said 'Run' and boy, did we run, we ended up in a nice little doughnut shop in Canterlot near the castle. That was where Spike had spent the entire evening himself." Rainbow paused for a moment to let the girl get her breath. "Well, Princess Celestia ended up following us to the doughnut shop. We were sitting there, all sad because of what had happened. And the Princess wasn't mad at all." "Really?" "Yeah, she said that the Grand Galloping Gala had been a boring party for so many years, she had invited us because she wanted the element bearers to spice it up. She was actually expecting there to be something besides the old same old same old, but I don't think she expected quite the chaos that we caused though." Rainbow Dash was surprised to find the little girls arms around her. She patted her back awkwardly. "What was that for, kid?" "You looked sad, and my Daddy always the best cure for a frown is a hug." Rainbow Dash started to have trouble keeping her tears from falling, "Yeah, Pinkie Pie has said that many times." "Lauren," an adults voice rang out clearly. The little girl stuck her head out the window of the tree house. "Coming, Mom." She turned to Rainbow Dash. "See you tomorrow?" she asked quietly. "You bet you will squirt," Rainbow responded. In moments the little girl was standing in front of her mom. Rainbow Dash crept next to the window and listened, they were talking quietly, and she couldn't make out the words at first. Then she paled as she heard the final thing the woman said, "Well, I would love to meet your imaginary friend up there." As quietly as she could, Rainbow gathered up her saddlebags and strapped them on. She could hear the woman climbing the tree, Rainbow stuck her head out of the window and found she was stuck. With her saddlebags, she was too wide to get through the small window. She put her hind legs on the edge of the window and pushed hard, crashing to the floor of the tree house. "What's up there?" The woman's voice sounded more than a little concerned. Oh drat, only one way out, and it's past the woman. Rainbow Dash was trapped. She tried to hide in the corner as the woman's head popped above the level of the floor, her head slowly rotated from side to side, maybe she wouldn't get noticed in the shadows. "What the hell is that?" Drat, Rainbow Dash did the only thing she could do, she rushed the door, leaping lightly over the woman, ignoring her shout as Rainbow Dash glided to the ground in front of her friend. "I guess we'll have to take a rain check squirt." She looked up at the very frightened woman climbing down the tree house ladder, jumping the last ten feet she bounded to her daughter and picked her up, Rainbow, for her part, was long gone, she took off straight up through the trees as fast as her wings would take her. "Well, it might be a long time before I get back here," Rainbow said to herself as she turned west and brought her altitude to just above treetop level. She was scared of flying in daylight, but she didn't have a choice at that point. In a few minutes she found a westbound cargo train, landing on the top of one of the rail cars, she sat down and looked around. This might be a good idea. She curled up and laid down and kept an eye out ahead of her for anything low hanging. West might be a good idea for now. *** Bill looked over at his daughter. Maddie was sitting in her seat, seat belt buckled, bouncing up and down in her seat as they turned off the paved road onto the dirt road heading to his grandfathers old farm. The last half year he had been able to connect with his grandfather were some of the best times of his life. And with Merle's unexpected generosity, Bill found himself the owner of a farm, one that was actually debt free, and fairly prosperous. Bill had been learning to be a farmer, first from Merle, then on his own. With the profits from the farm, he had been able to hire a few farm hands. He knew they had spent most of the day working on the combine he had been able to pick up third or fourth hand. His first harvest that he had been entirely responsible for was coming up soon. It's been slightly over a year since his grandfather had passed. And their very unusual friend, Rainbow Dash, had decided to leave. He looked around and noticed the only vehicles near the house were the farms, so his guys had gone home. He missed the rainbow maned pegasus, and so did Madison. There were times he heard her crying in her room about the cyan pony. The only thing Bill could do was hold his daughter and whisper that he missed her too. He wondered every day what his friend was going through, though she did visit a couple of times while she was heading up and down the east coast. She had told him about her encounter with military airplanes, of course she covered her fear by telling him they couldn't take her, and apparently she was right, she had out flown the F-15's easily. But that encounter had disturbed Bill greatly. He was thinking about that as he parked the old truck and got out. His daughter grabbed his hand as they walked to the door of the house. An odd sound perked his ears though, he turned and looked. The wind had changed, as a new farmer, he had learned to keep track of the weather, especially because of what it meant to his crops. So, watching the wind swirl in front of the house riveted his attention. They both turned and watched the wind start whipping harder, swirling, kicking up dust in front of the house. "What the hell?" Any other words died unuttered as, with a huge clap of thunder, a form emerged from a bright magenta flash. Bill rushed over to the form, and saw a pegasus like Rainbow Dash, oh wait, she had a horn too, so she must be Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow's friend. The young alicorn's eyes were closed, apparently the shock had knocked her out. Bill reached down and picked up the surprisingly heavy alicorn and brought her inside. Fending off his daughter for a moment, she really wanted to help, so he sent her off to get a wash cloth wet with hot water. He set Twilight down on the couch. School had just started, so Bill sent Madison off to start on her homework, with a strict promise to the 8 year old that he would get her when Twilight awoke. A few hours later, he was startled from his book by a low groan from the couch. He moved off and got to his knees next to the couch, grabbing the wash cloth, he passed it over the forehead of the lavender alicorn. The touch caused her to move and mumble. "Rainbow Dash?" He could finally make out her words. A pang of sadness hit him at her words, she was looking for her friend, he knew that, but hearing the tone of her voice… well, she was going to be disappointed when she fully regained consciousness. "She's not here, but you are with friends." His quiet words caused her eyes to open wide. When the focused on him, she gave a yelp and her horn glowed, another bright flash of magenta and she wasn't in front of him anymore, she all of a sudden was ten feet back, behind the couch next to the front door. "Daddy?" He heard Maddie's voice from her room. "Maddie, Twilight is awake." He called to her. Twilight got a confused look on her face. "You know me?" Bill smiled. "Yes, after a fashion, I'm Merle's grandson, and his great granddaughter is about to bowl you over." He said as Madison appeared from the hallway and tackled Twilight in a huge hug. "You came, you came, you came, you came! Rainbow Dash said you would come, and you came!" The little girl gushed excitedly. Twilight, for her part, was utterly confused. "Where is Merle? Where is Rainbow Dash? I don't remember anything about Bill or Maddie in her letter." "Twilight, Rainbow Dash has told us all about you. You, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Applejack, Princesses Celestia and Luna, your brother, Shining Armor, she's told us how you are her friends, and she told us how much she missed you. My grandfather, Merle, passed on last summer. He would have loved to meet you Twilight," Bill informed Twilight. Her eyes moved from Bill to Madison, who had attached herself to Twilight's side, hugging her as hard as she could. "Where is my friend? Where is Rainbow Dash?" Twilight repeated herself. Bill all of a sudden looked nervous. "I don't know, exactly, where she is. She hasn't left me a way to get mail to her. She calls from time to time, and..." He walked over to Merle's old desk, opening a drawer and pulling out a sheaf of envelopes, all addressed to him. He handed them to Twilight. "Rainbow sends us letters when she can. She said that if one of her friends shows up, to get the letters to her." Twilight opened the letters, one by one with her magic and scanned them, committing each one to memory. After a quick look at the dates on each one, she reread the most recent one. "Hmmm, Big Sur, California, she's living on the beach. She hasn't talked to any humans since she left Maryland. Is this the correct date? September fourteenth, nineteen seventy nine?" He nods assent. "Where is California?" Bill was ready for her questions, he had grabbed an atlas while Twilight was reading Rainbow's letters. He opened the book and set it in front of her. "This is a map of the United States of America. We are here." He pointed, "New York state," he moved his finger, "and California is here. It's over two thousand miles from here." "Well, I had better get started. I have a lot of flying to do." She got up and headed to the door. "Can you please stay a little bit? We really miss Rainbow." This came from Madison. Twilight looked at the little girl. Maddie was giving her the little puppy dog look that she knew always made her dad melt when she really wanted something. Twilight looked at the little girl, at her dad, and back. Then she sighed. "I guess I can stay the night. The interuniversal teleportation really took a lot out of me." No sooner had the words escaped her lips as she was bowled over, for the second time that day, by a overenthusiastic eight year old.