//------------------------------// // Chapter 2 // Story: Flight for a Friend // by DarkBlueDreamer //------------------------------// The Everfree Forest.  Even in the light of the morning sun it was a dark and creepy place, but Rainbow Dash shrugged it off, reminding herself that she was the awesomest thing in the forest.  Also, it wouldn’t say much about her if she were afraid when there was a young earth pony filly trotting fearlessly ahead of her into the forest.  Gnarled tree trunks twisted up from the ground, reaching for the sky, branches writhing out chaotically to greedily consume every beam of sunlight, leaving almost none for the fungus and ferns dotting the undergrowth below.  Every dozen paces or so a small wooden mask festooned with feathers and brightly-colored paint was tied to a tree.  Even knowing that they were special zebra magic that kept the path clear of overgrowth and warded off hostile animals didn’t ward off Rainbow Dash's unease at the inequine designs.  Sweetie Belle apparently wasn’t feeling any better about it, staying pressed to Rainbow Dash’s legs during the journey.  Every time they passed a mask Sweetie would scurry to the other side of Rainbow Dash.  Only Apple Bloom’s fearlessness kept the little white unicorn from fleeing back the way they came.   Rainbow Dash spread her wings slightly as she walked, giving Sweetie a measure of shelter that seemed to go well with Apple Bloom’s confident gait.  The two things combined to draw Sweetie out a bit and eventually she was walking normally beside Dash.  She still didn’t stray far, but by the time they had passed Zecora's home and proceeded deeper into the forest along the path she was straying farther ahead, eyes wide and head turning to look at trees and undergrowth with growing curiosity.   Eventually Apple Bloom came to a stop at one of the small masks along the trail, looked around at the surrounding foliage, then beamed back at Rainbow Dash and Sweetie Belle.   "This is the place! Just off in the trees from here," she declared brightly.  Rainbow Dash couldn't tell what made this spot different from all the others along the path but since Apple Bloom had done this before she resolved to go along.  Sweetie Belle hesitated at the edge of the path even as her friend jumped head-first through the overgrowth of two massive ferns.  She looked up at Rainbow Dash nervously, who gave an encouraging smile in return.   “Apple Bloom knows her stuff, and she’s done this before. Let’s go,” Rainbow curled her wing down and around behind Sweetie to encourage her, then folded it back up so she could fit.  Sweetie Belle nodded and straightened herself up bravely, but the pegasus didn’t miss a visible swallow of trepidation from the little unicorn before they pressed in between the ferns to follow after Apple Bloom.   The other side of the ferns was a very different world.  Every time Rainbow Dash followed Twilight Sparkle into the Everfree Forest they had followed some sort of path, even if it could barely be called such and occasionally ended at a river or chasm.  She recalled only a few times she had not been following a path, and those times she’d always either been flying or with the rest of the girls.  Now, she was the adult responsible for two fillies in the middle of the strangest and most dangerous forest in all of Equestria.  The weight of responsibility formed a lump of tension in her throat as her ears and eyes darted back and forth, searching for danger.  It was impossible to see more than a pony’s length in the foliage due to a combination of lack of light and density of plant matter, and the noises of distant creatures occasionally disrupted the buzz of nearby insects.   “Right over here!” they heard Apple Bloom call out, and Rainbow Dash pushed on ahead through the dense Everfree undergrowth while keeping Sweetie Belle in sight.  This left her following Apple Bloom by sound, and after helping Sweetie up from tripping on a fallen branch they broke out into a small, surprisingly sunny clearing where several brightly-colored flowers grew.  Rainbow Dash didn't have the best track record with brightly-colored Everfree flowers, the bold blue Poison Joke coming easily to mind, but Apple Bloom fearlessly trotted about these.  The sun and cheery flowers turned Sweetie Belle’s mood around significantly and she leapt from Rainbow’s side to run over to where Apple Bloom was carefully digging in the earth near some of the purple-colored flowers.   Rainbow Dash ran her gaze over the clearing curiously, walking out closer to the middle of the area while somewhat studiously avoiding the flowers themselves despite seeing both of her charges step right through them.  The dark of the surrounding forest did little to hinder the rather warm and relaxing feel of the flower patch itself, mostly due to the sun filtering down on the clearing from above through sparse branches. Even lush green grass grew in the clearing, as though the leaves of the trees above just couldn’t be bothered to cover this spot.   The Everfree wildflowers, though not in the neat squares, circles or orderly rows that pony-grown flowers were usually found in, still managed to organize themselves into roughly-circular patches.  Each group kept mostly to themselves with only a bit of overlap where the patches touched.  It was strange, to a civilized pony like Rainbow Dash, but unlike most of the weird stuff of the Everfree the flowers managed to catch the eye and their various scents combined to soothe the senses.   Apple Bloom was working on a second plant now, apparently trying to dig up the entire thing instead of just plucking the stem or leaves.  Sweetie Belle was storing the first one in her saddlebags.  Content to let the fillies dig up flowers, Rainbow Dash beat her wings a few times and lifted up off the ground, rising up a bit to circle the clearing just below the thin interwoven branches of the canopy while keeping an eye on the surrounding forest below.  Thus far it had been a remarkably uneventful trip into the Everfree, but Zecora was involved so perhaps it wasn’t so remarkable.  The zebra shaman certainly knew a thing or two about the wild magic that infested the forest.   A few minutes later, while Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle were working on collecting samples of the other flowers in the clearing, the clearing darkened noticeably.  All three ponies looked up through the gap in the forest canopy to find that gloomy grey clouds had floated overhead to mask the sun.  Two pairs of filly eyes looked up at Rainbow Dash for her opinion on the change, and the pegasus shook off the creepy feeling instilled by autonomous weather to smile reassuringly down at her charges.   “Don’t worry girls, those aren’t rain clouds.  Even the Everfree obeys SOME rules,” she explained, and the two fillies made relieved sounds before getting back to their work.  Rainbow Dash did try to chivvy them along a little, adding, “We should probably finish up though.  Without the sun things are going to cool off pretty quickly, plus we won’t be able to keep track of time as easily.”   “All right, Rainbow Dash.  Ah just need a couple more a’ these and we can head back,” Apple Bloom called up.  Accepting that, the cyan pegasus began to circle the clearing a bit more rapidly to burn off some of her nervous energy.  This was the Everfree, after all!  There was always something to fight, or something creepy going on.  While part of her knew it was dumb to wish for that kind of thing while she was watching over two innocent fillies, she found herself growing impatient with the creeping feeling that something was going to go wrong.  Briefly, she found herself wishing it would just happen already.   Which was, of course, when things stopped going so well.   The cloud cover above, previously a gloomy grey but nothing threatening, suddenly began to darken.  Without the sun to warm them directly, the air in the glade chilled rapidly, sending a shiver up the spines of the two ponies on the ground.  Rainbow Dash barely noticed the chill, her pegasus magic protecting her as naturally near the ground as it would high up in the sky.  The darkening clouds overhead warranted her attention, however, and she frowned up at them.   “Okay, that was freaky.  Girls, we should finish up.  I don’t like the looks of those clouds,” Rainbow Dash called down without taking her eyes off the clouds in the sky.  Where before they were merely grumpy, now they looked positively threatening, as if the ponies had overstayed their welcome and were now prime candidates for being drenched.  Definitely time to go find shelter.   “Hey, where’d all this fog come from?” Sweetie Belle’s squeaky voice chimed up somewhat muffledly from below.  Rainbow glanced down finally and found a thick fog rolling in from the surrounding forest, obscuring not only the ground but the ground-bound fillies as well.  Silently cursing the bizarre weather of the Everfree -- as well as herself for inviting trouble -- Rainbow Dash made a swift descent to the ground.   “Hold on girls, I’m here,” she called out, flapping her wings a couple times in preparation.  Then, she reared up and with a violent flap sent a powerful gust of wind swirling from her wings through the glearing, carving a path through the fog and revealing Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom.  Dashing over to the girls, she held her wings out and let them cluster close to her.   “Stay close girls,” Rainbow advised, though the press of the fillies to her legs made the words seem unnecessary.  The fog rolled back in to fill the gap she had carved almost immediately, and now had swelled up to be over Rainbow Dash’s head as well, turning the entire world into a murky dark grey.   “This ain’t never happened before,” Apple Bloom observed, voice trembling a little as she swung her head around in an attempt to see more than just Rainbow Dash’s legs and the ground beneath them, “I can barely see Sweetie Belle and she’s right next ta me.”   “I, uh, got turned around. Do you remember which way is back to the path?” Rainbow Dash asked, gulping audibly as she vainly tried to see through the fog.  Regular fog wasn’t supposed to be so thick!  The dark forest around them made it worse, as though night had fallen suddenly.   “Maybe I can…” Sweetie Belle offered, then made a curious growling noise.  A glance over to her showed her muzzle and eyes screwed up in concentration.  A faint glow of magic sparked, fizzled, then popped into existence around the tip of her horn, brightening the immediate area.  After a moment she opened her eyes, and gasped.   “I did it! I finally did it!” she cheered, hopping around a moment before curling up to look at her flank, though it remained blank.   “Awww,” Sweetie hung her head as Apple Bloom patted her on the back.  The light sputtered as Sweetie’s concentration waned and she wrinkled her nose as she fought to keep it going.   “No, no, that’s good Sweetie! At least we can see now,” Rainbow Dash spoke quickly, encouragingly, “and gives me an idea.  I’m going to blow away the fog again.  Apple Bloom, I need you to try to tell which way we need to go.  Sweetie, keep up that light, it’s the only way we’ll be able to see where we’re going.”   “Ready?” Dash asked the fillies standing beneath her.  They nodded as one and she grinned, “Don’t move. Apple Bloom, just find and point the way.”   Rainbow Dash launched herself into the air and, using the bright gleam at the tip of Sweetie Belle’s horn as a center point, flew in a quick, tight circle above the middle of the clearing to form a miniature vortex.  An expert weather pegasus, Rainbow Dash knew better than most how to manipulate both the air and the water vapor within it.  She knew all about forming whirlwinds, but more importantly she also knew how to shatter them to break up fog like this.   It took mere moments to begin drawing in the fog filling the glade, then she pulled up above it and dove straight down the middle, causing an explosion of pegasus magic to burst outwards.  Briefly, illuminated by Sweetie’s magic, the clearing came entirely into view.  Apple Bloom immediately squinted, spun around, then oriented herself facing on side of the clearing and pointed a hoof out.   “That-a way!” she declared brightly, though the cheer was short-lived as the fog aggressively swelled back up from the surrounding forest to try to obscure their path.  Rainbow Dash had already darted down and sent another rush of wind in the direction Apple Bloom was pointing, beating her wings sharply to force the obstinate fog back.   “Let’s go, then!” Rainbow insisted, and Apple Bloom led Sweetie through the tunnel in the fog with the pegasus bringing up the rear.  They made it into the thick undergrowth of the forest proper when Apple Bloom paused and glanced back at her.  Nodding, Dash reared up to free her wings and sent another burst of air forward, rattling the trees and ferns violently.  Apple Bloom corrected her course and lead the way again, Sweetie Belle and Rainbow Dash following behind.   Things became a bit trickier once they were in the forest's thick undergrowth.  Without more room to spread her wings, Rainbow couldn't properly clear the fog away from their path.  Sweetie Belle was holding the light valiantly, but a bead of sweat was forming on her forehead as she did her best to maintain her concentration.  Cursing herself for wishing for "excitement" Rainbow Dash pressed on, sheltering the two fillies as Apple Bloom tried to retrace their steps back to the path and the markers that would lead them back to Zecora's hut.   "Ahh!" Sweetie cried out suddenly, tripping on the same fallen branch she stumbled on earlier, and she face-planted in the dirt, the glow of her horn snapping out immediately afterwards.   "Sweetie! Are yah alright?" Apple Bloom exclaimed as she tried to hop forward to where Sweetie fell, only to stumble herself and echo Sweetie Belle's cry of surprise.   "Girls! Stay still!" Rainbow Dash snapped, much more carefully reaching out and feeling for them.  Her hoof poked Apple Bloom, earning her a "Hey! It's me!" of protest, at which point, she moved in closer to stand protectively above the two fillies.   "I'll be okay.  I just tripped," Sweetie protested.  "You didn't need to fall on me."   "Sorry Sweetie. Ah was just worried," Apple Bloom replied apologetically.  "Here, lemme help yah up."   "Okay, let's be careful, girls," Rainbow Dash admonished.  "Take a breather and get the light going again.  Then, we can get moving."   It took a minute or two, but they were able to calm Sweetie enough that she was able to find her magic and cast her light spell again.  This time Apple Bloom insisted on going first to make sure there was nothing that would trip Sweetie up, and Rainbow Dash kept close behind her to catch her if she did stumble.  They pressed on back towards the path, taking it more slowly, shoving through the increasingly uncooperative undergrowth of the forest.  Twice Apple Bloom paused, gave the surrounding fog-enshrouded foliage a suspicious look, then corrected her course and led them onwards, her ears laying further back each time until she stopped and looked back.   "Ah, Ah don't think I know where we are anymore," she admitted with a tremor to her voice, "Ah just can't figure out what way ta go. Ah'm sorry..."   "WHAT!?" Sweetie shrieked, making Rainbow Dash wince and pin her ears back, "You mean we're LOST!? But... but... you're out here all the time!"   "Ah'm SORRY Sweetie!  This fog makes it impossible ta tell one gnarly old tree from another!  And it's all wet too, so I can't try and smell my way to the river or nothin'," Apple Bloom whimpered, curling up on herself as her eyes begged the other ponies with her for forgiveness.   "Look, it's okay Apple Bloom," Rainbow Dash started, earning an incredulous look from Sweetie Belle prompting her to amend, "Right, the situation isn't okay but we'll get out of this.  If we weren't turned around I'd say we go back to the clearing and have me try to break through the branches there but as it is..."   "Maybe we can get to the river and Rainbow can fly us out from there?" Sweetie offered hopefully.   "That'd be good, but Ah just don't know where it is," Apple Bloom said as she hung her head.  Sweetie Belle chewed her lip in fret and rubbed her head, while Rainbow Dash closed her eyes and tried to think of a solution.  The girls were counting on her, after all, and there was no telling when the strange fog would lift.  Silently cursing her luck, Rainbow Dash almost missed a sound in the distance.   "I... I don't think I can keep this light going much longer," Sweetie said suddenly.  "I'm feeling kinda woozy and my head's starting to hurt."   "Shhh," Dash hissed quickly, waving a hoof at Sweetie.  The little unicorn whimpered but quieted down.  Dash's ears pivoted around rapidly, quickly zeroing in on the sound she had heard.   "Girls... I think I hear the river," she said quietly, causing both fillies to perk up at her hopefully.  Dash gave them both a broad grin, then ducked her head and tossed them both onto her back.   "Hang on and stay quiet," Rainbow Dash admonished, then began picking her way through the forest, ears focused on the sound of running water.  She had to stop every few steps to make sure she was going the right way, but soon even Apple Bloom perked up while Sweetie just focused on keeping her horn alight.   "Ah think Ah hear it," Apple Bloom whispered.  Dash gave her a quick grin and a wink, then forged on ahead.   "I don't think I can keep this up," Sweetie Belle moaned miserably from Dash's back, immediately dampening the excitement that had been welling up in the other two ponies.  Apple Bloom rather nimbly twisted around and pushed Sweetie between Rainbow Dash's wings, then hugged her supportively.   "C'mon, Sweetie, just a little more," she whispered encouragingly, earning a whimper but also a nod from the unicorn.  Rainbow Dash picked up her pace, risking the occasional stumble and some bruises around her fetlocks in order to find the river before they lost their light.   As fate would have it, they just managed to break out from the forest itself as Sweetie let out a quiet groan and the light at the tip of her horn sputtered out.  The fog dimmed only slightly, however, as without the forest canopy the sun was able to filter down from above.  The rush of the river could be heard very close by now, and Rainbow Dash looked over her shoulder at the two fillies.   "Great work, Sweetie Belle.  We couldn't have done it without you.  Hang on tightly, you two... we're going up," Rainbow Dash cheered, though conservatively as though still under the hush of their earlier prowling.  Apple Bloom nodded to Dash and hugged Sweetie Belle down against the pegasus' back.  Spreading her wings, Rainbow Dash flapped experimentally a couple times, testing the weight of the fillies on her back, then with a quick warning she sprung into the air and flapped vigorously, drawing them up from the ground and towards the brighter sky above.  The fog clung to them desperately, but in the end only tendrils were able to hold on to the pegasus and her passengers as they rose above it all and into the sky.  Rainbow Dash paused in a hover and looked around to get her bearings while Apple Bloom peeked down at the forest they'd just left behind.   "Aw, hey, wouldja lookit that," she groaned, pointing down with a hoof.  Sweetie Belle was still holding her head, and holding on to Rainbow Dash for dear life, not at all willing to look down from this height, but the pegasus they were riding did.   The fog which had harried them from the clearing to the river was rolling back away with unexpected swiftness, melting away like ice cream in the middle of summer and in barely a minute they could see the river and ground clearly, as though the fog had never been.  There was no sign of the clearing from their vantage point, and the sun was much lower in the sky than they'd anticipated.   "I hate this forest," Rainbow Dash muttered, "it never works the way it should and now I'm convinced it has it in for ponies.  I can't believe Twilight says that anypony used to live here."   "It ain't usually this ornery," Apple Bloom observed, chewing her lip in concern, "and that was downright strange.  We should get back, I bet Zecora's worried about us."   "I just wanna get home and sleep," Sweetie Belle moaned miserably.   "Right, Zecora's first, then home.  We'll circle around to the Ponyville edge of the forest and walk back from there.  I don't want to get lost again," Rainbow Dash said as she turned and began flying towards Ponyville, doing her best to keep level and smooth for Sweetie's sake.   "Ah hear that!" Apple Bloom agreed, while Sweetie just whimpered and nodded.   ---   The trek back to Zecora's hut was, thankfully, uneventful, but it was nearly dark by the time they arrived.  Apple Bloom hoofed over the flowers they had gathered, prancing a bit afterwards after Zecora complimented her skills in gathering the flowers.  Judging it too late to do any work on the potion, the trio bid Zecora farewell and Rainbow Dash flew the fillies home.  There was a bit of explaining to do, neither Applejack nor Rarity were very pleased with how late they were in returning, but Rainbow Dash had no trouble talking up the adventure.  She made sure to exaggerate her part, but gave both Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom's glowing praise as well.  While remaining dubious, the fillies' elder sisters were at least glad they were home and thanked Rainbow Dash for keeping the fillies safe.  Boasting took time, however, and it was well past sundown when the cyan pegasus knocked on the front door of the Ponyville library.   "Coming!" Spike's voice chimed out from inside, followed by the soft clattering of dragon claws on hardwood and the click of the door latch.  The door swung open and Spike poke his head out from the brightly-lit interior, going from a curious-but-professional expression common to his "customer service" mode to a slightly wider-eyed surprise which gave way to cheerful recognition.   "Rainbow Dash! Come on in," Spike said brightly, opening the door wider and stepping out of the way.   Exhausted from the day's exploits, Rainbow Dash chose to leave her wings folded at her sides and simply walked into the library's main lobby.  Twilight was, predictably, resting with her legs folded on a large cushion and reading a massive book with the sort of cover that screamed "boring" to someone like Dash.  Twilight wouldn't be Twilight if she didn't have her nose buried in an improbably thick book and while Dash enjoyed adventure novels she'd never get what was so interesting about non-fiction.  Earning those wings got Twilight into the air, but that just made it easier for the purple princess to read the book titles on the top shelves.   The guest pillow, broad, stuffed with goose down and colored a deep purple to match the one Twilight sat upon, was just on the other side of a low table stacked with books.  Rainbow Dash would be the first to admit that she didn't spend a lot of time paying attention to little details, but she had been in the library often enough to know that a lack of scrolls or sheets of parchment meant that Twilight was reading for pleasure and not seriously studying.  She made straight for the guest pillow, then did her best impression of Rarity and flopped onto it with a gusty sigh.  She laid still for a moment, watching Twilight read, then got up, inhaled deeply, then threw herself onto her back upon the pillow with a loud groan, looking up at the ceiling.   "Huh?  Oh, Rainbow Dash!  How'd it go?" Twilight looked up finally, smiling brightly for a moment before her forehead creased beneath her horn and she added, "Wow, you look kinda rough.  Did something go wrong?"   "Oh, nothing big," Rainbow Dash swirled a fore-hoof around in the air above her head, "Just the Everfree trying to trap us in the forest with fog!"   "What? Really?" Twilight's magic marked her page in her book and set it aside as Twilight turned her attention to Rainbow Dash.  "The Everfree's been really quiet for a while now.  Not even timber wolf sightings."   Rainbow Dash shot Twilight a cocky grin, put her fore-hooves behind her head and crossed her hind-legs.  Now she had Twilight's attention.   "Yeah, Apple Bloom said she'd never seen anything like it," Rainbow continued.  "Freaky weather blocked out the sun with clouds half-way through the flower-picking, and then this strange fog moved in right before we finished up.  Good thing I was there!  Those two might have been in a lot of trouble.  That fog was THICK!"   "Well, I'm glad you three got out all right!  I suppose the Everfree is still pretty wild and resistant to pony magic.  Tell me about the strange fog," Twilight tapped a hoof against her chin thoughtfully.   "I couldn't do much to it.  I'd blast it away and it'd just come right back.  Kinda of annoying.  It was weird, too... it rolled in and stuck to us as we tried to find our way out.  Once we got to the river and I took the girls up into the sky, it cleared up and went away again," Rainbow Dash added, trailing off to add a little mystery to it.  Twilight frowned unhappily and nodded.   "We'll have to keep an eye on it.  I guess it was too much to hope that the Everfree would stay quiet forever.  Did the girls find all the ingredients they needed?"   "Yup!" Rainbow Dash preened, "Thanks to me being awesome we got back to Zecora's with all the stuff, though it was too late to get started tonight."   "Hmmm.  That gives them a couple days to get it right, but I know Zecora will help them mix up the potion.  Did you come here just to brag?" Twilight added with an arched eyebrow and a wry smile.   "Hey, I'm just proud of my part!  Especially since I can't infuse my awesomeness into the potion itself," Rainbow protested petulantly, ears laying back along her skull.  Twilight apologetically mirrored the expression and reached out to put a hoof on Dash's shoulder.   "Sorry, Rainbow.  I know you wanted to be involved, and it clearly WAS a good thing you went along.  Don't worry about it.  I'm sure Scootaloo will appreciate you being there at her party, even if she doesn't know about your part in the gift," Twilight reasoned hopefully.  It did help, if only a little, and Rainbow Dash relaxed her ears and smiled back a bit.   "Thanks, Twi.  I should head home.  I'm beat and we have a flight date tomorrow!  By the way, any word on the next Daring Do?" Rainbow Dash rolled off the pillow and onto her hooves, standing up as she stretched her wings.  Twilight shook her head.   "None yet, though she DID mention in her last letter that it's off to the publisher, so hopefully we'll get a date soon!" Twilight responded, picking her book back up in her magic.   "That's better than nothing, I guess.  I'm counting on you to tell me the ABSOLUTE SECOND you find out!" Dash finally said, then lifted herself into the air with her wings and flew right out an open window.  Spike, having opened the window just before, pushed it closed again and went back to his shelving tasks and Twilight turned back to her book after allowing herself a small laugh at her friend's exit.