Mistress Do Well: Revelation
by milesprower06
Revelation in the Night
The forest expanded endlessly in all directions in the sea of black. An eerie feeling crept up Rainbow's back as she made her way through the hoof-high grass. This place gave her an overwhelming sense of deja vu and she didn't like it one bit.
'Get a hold of yourself, Rainbow, Slendermare doesn't exist,' she thought to herself, fighting back recollections of stupid fillyhood horror stories. But the forest was unnaturally quiet. There should be wind, crickets chirping, not to mention some variety in the vegetation. But it was endless trees, and they nearly all looked the same.
She was fairly certain she was dreaming. Her dreams varied, sometimes she knew she was dreaming, and at times she didn't. But right now, she knew that she was still sleeping in Golden Oaks Library in Ponyville.
She heard a rustling of leaves directly above her, freezing her in her steps. Looking up, her breath left her as she saw herself through the branches, sitting in the tree forty feet up, noose around her neck.
"No!" She screamed, spreading her wings, pushing off the ground and taking flight. She didn't get ten feet up before a blast of energy came down from the tree, knocking her back to the ground. Dazed, she shook the disorientation away and looked up to see the cause, and her heart climbed to her throat.
Rarity stood on the branch behind the Rainbow in the tree. Dash's pupil's contracted when Rarity gave a smirk, and kicked the roped pegasus off the branch. She fell, and her fall stopped after ten feet, when the rope went taut.
Rainbow was already airborne again, going straight for her copy, who was struggling in the noose. Rarity let out a burst of blasts from her horn. Dash avoided them, but had to angle her flight path away from her copy to do so. She veered off harder to the right and rotated her body so she landed sideways against a tree, thirty-five feet up in the air. She stayed there for half a second, enough time for Rarity to believe she had a predictable target, then pushed off, avoiding another blast of energy, and flew right for the rope. She connected, but she was flung back from the rope, flipping backwards twice before regaining her sense of direction. Rarity had anticipated the move and cast a spell on the rope, knocking her back. She did rapid loops around the tree, keeping herself an unpredictable target as Rarity continued firing concentrated blasts of energy down at her.
Looking up in anger, Rainbow flapped her wings vigorously, racing up, and knocked Rarity off of the branch with a flying tackle. The pair hit the ground with a thud. Wasting no time, Rarity tucked her rear legs in and kicked Rainbow off of her, springing to her hooves. Rainbow, going with the blow, rolled to the side and came up on her hooves in less than two seconds, skidding to a halt in the dirt.
Rarity, giving a sneer smirk, powered up another spell in her horn as it began to glow. Rainbow spread her wings and prepared to dodge whatever came her way. Once the spell charged for five seconds, Rarity simply vanished in a flash of light. Not expecting such a move, Rainbow stayed alert, looking all around, preparing to meet at attack from any angle, until her eyes settled back on her copy, now hanging motionless twenty feet above the ground.
Her throat went dry and her lips began to tremble as her emotions threatened to spill over.
"You can't always solve everything on your own, Rainbow Dash," said a voice behind her; a familiar voice that she really didn't want to hear. Rainbow turned, and there, at the spot where Rarity had vanished, stood Princess Luna. Her anger rising up again, the pegasus took two aggressive steps forward.
“What did I say? What did I fucking say?!?”
“To never manipulate your dreams again, which I have not. I have done nothing, Rainbow Dash. I am simply here.”
“What makes you think you're wanted here?”
“You are obviously troubled.”
“I don't care. I don't want your help!”
“I'm not offering my help, but the help of another pony.”
Rainbow continued to stand defiant.
“Look. That is the very same branch you hung yourself from several weeks ago outside the Crystal Empire. Do you see it breaking, or even cracking or splintering?”
Rainbow glanced back at the tree in the sea of darkness, as her body hung lifeless from the limb. She turned back to Luna, remaining silent, tears falling from her eyes. As much as she didn't want to admit it, this nightmare had chilled her to the bone. She remembered how lucky she had been that she had so poorly chosen the branch to hang herself from, that it had broken from her body weight before she had strangled herself to death.
Or... It hadn't broken under her own weight.
“You broke it.”
Luna gave a slow nod.
“Cadance alerted us that you had tried to use the Crystal Heart while under the protection of your enchanted cloak, convincing yourself that no one loved you. I could not let you end your life in vain.”
“No, you had to spare my life so I could take somepony else's life in my sleep.”
Luna simply stared down at the pegasus, brushing off her snide reply, and causing her to sigh in resignation.
"I still believe what I did was for the best, Rainbow. If what I did is still troubling you, if screaming at me in the throne room didn't set your mind at ease, there is somepony that you can talk to about what you went through."
“Who? Who could help me come to terms with what you made me do?” She asked just above a whisper.
“There is a small town just east of Las Pegasus. Mustang Springs. There, at a small orphanage, you'll find a caretaker, a young pegasus, whom you may be able to relate to. He also has disagreed with some of the things I have done for him.”