CHAPTER EIGHT:
THE FEELING OF FLIGHT
1
Rainbow Dash was genuinely surprised to feel a bit of apprehension once she got closer to the doors. Although she had been through them on countless occasions, it was still somehow a big deal in her mind. And in a way, she hoped in would remain like that forever.
A plaque attached to the door read “SPITFIRE: CAPTAIN OF THE WONDERBOLTS”.
She hesitantly raised a hoof to knock when a wave of nostalgia caught up with her. It had been just over a year ago, she remembered, when she had been standing at this same spot and had been even more hesitant than now. But at that time she had a great many reasons to be.
A few years following the collapse of Tirek, Rainbow and her friends neatly disbanded their little table of governing in search of what life would mean for each of them. With no known enemy to vanquish or adventure to take part in, Rainbow returned to that steady dream she knew in her heart would genuinely never go away.
“The Wonderbolts. It was meant to be.”
This was the mantra she told herself each morning before arriving at the Academy. It was this same mantra she told herself as she slowly excelled up the Wonderbolts’ ladder, going from a mere cog in their arsenal to a full blown front-of-the-stage show stopper. After a time they even had her teaching her own classes to would-be recruits (although her approach to instructions had to be redrafted a tad when not a single new flyer made it passed her first course). But like all things airborne related, Rainbow took it to heart and gave every inch of herself over to the Wonderbolts. And in return it was the job she had dreamed in would be. And then it became more.
It was during her second year, in the very thick of her career, that she finally broke the ice with Soarin. Originally she had labeled him as a goof—probably due to his unnatural love of pie or seemingly hapless nature—but when their conversations turned to the subject of flight and all things involved, Rainbow perceived a whole new side to the colt.
The relationship between the pair proved an unusual one. Friendship began once Soarin took a seat next to her in the mess hall, and their love of all things aerial-nautical took over. From there things did not appear so different on the surface. Upon occasion they would meet and partake in races in the clouds, tag-team events that would dizzy the eyes of many first year cadets, but what exactly made this different from any other friend of hers? Perhaps that was the reason Soarin got the jump on the mare many had already claimed as “un-claimable.” (Whether that was due to her harsh attitude toward most or something else entirely, was left for others to surmise.) But many viewing it from a distance saw their relationship just as that—a relationship. And since the words “date” or “mare- or colt-friend” never entered their collective lingo, it did not enter the head of Rainbow Dash, either.
Until that was, it proved all too late.
A year of simple friendship and Rainbow had discovered something she never thought she would—she had feelings for a colt, honest and true ones, too. And although she never would announce it from the rooftops or even from the tip of a singular lone cloud, her original mantra had unexpectedly slimmed itself to: “It was meant to be.”
And things would only continue from there.
2
Deep in her own thoughts and thorough lack of willingness to enter, Rainbow Dash was still standing outside her doors when she surprised her from behind.
“You gonna knock or you think the doors should just open for you?”
Straight away Rainbow froze in place, already knowing exactly who was standing in back of her. Carefully loosening herself of her nerves, she whirled around to face her. “I was just… thinking, you know. It’s… been a long time.”
Standing several feet outside her own office was Spitfire, dressed in a formal uniform and carrying a muffin on a plate. All these years later, Rainbow was happy to note, and she still greeted her job like it was her very first day. Never, in all her years on the Wonderbolts team, did Spitfire ever show a lack of character or willingness to purely call it a day. Maybe that’s why she had never left her post as Captain, even if some thought she would have passed it down by now. Maybe that’s also why the wrinkles around her eyes always seemed more prominent than before—year after hard year of overseeing the daily grind of an entire Academy would take their toll on anyone. Regardless of that, Spitfire greeted her warmly and opened the door for them both.
“Have a seat,” she said, while she positioned herself behind her carefully laid out desk.
Back in her more energetic years, Rainbow had been inclined to completely forgo walking into her office and instead fly right in and crash into the visitor’s chair. Now she only strolled in and calmly took a seat.
“I’m glad you came, Rainbow Dash,” Spitfire said, as she leaned back in her chair. “It had been so long since you’d been by I was unsure if an invitation would be enough.”
“I try and come by from time to time,” Rainbow answered a tad guiltily. “Usually it’s to see Soarin or help with something he might be working on.” She hesitated. “I’m sorry if you feel I might be ignoring you or something.”
Spitfire waved a hoof in the air. “I don’t feel that way Dash, so don’t keep thinking I do. I know your life’s changed quite a lot since you’ve been here and I don’t expect things to remain as they once might have been. Everyone fears change, I guess, in one way or another.” Spitfire scooped up her muffin and plopped both legs on the desk to eat. Rainbow was happy to see this conversation wasn’t emerging as serious as she originally had believed. “So how is Soarin these days? I see him around from time to time but barely get a chance to talk to him. How long you two been hitched now?”
“Two years, actually. And he’s good. He’s constantly tired but he’s good. Going from a busy workplace to a busy home with three others can’t always be easy. But he makes it through. I love him for that.”
Spitfire nodded while chewing. If any of that got through to her, Rainbow wasn’t entirely sure. “Oh right. The little filly pegasi. What were their names again? Sonic boom or some-such?”
“Lightning Dash and Thunder Dash. Just over a year old now.”
“They been flying around the house yet?” Spitfire chewed and mused.
Rainbow Dash gave her a look that should have informed her aplenty. Being the son and daughter of two professional flyers meant that they would be hard pressed to find their children not flying by that age. “They get around,” she answered tiredly.
Spitfire finished her muffin and tossed the wrapper in the trash. Then she sat up in a more professional manner and all at once Rainbow grew agitated all over again. So this wasn’t such a friendly visit, her mind echoed.
“I’m sorry to try and spring this on you Dash after all that you’ve told me, but I know not only would I be kicking myself if I didn’t try, but the people above me would try to, too. In your years of service here, you proved that you were the hoofs-down absolute best among flyers—any flyers. And I also don’t think this place has ever run better than when you were apart of it. What I’m getting at is…” Spitfire took a moment to rearrange her words. “I want you back on the Wonderbolts. You and Soarin, if possible.”
Rainbow shuffled uncomfortably in her seat. Now she had just been faced with what she had feared at the outset might happen if she accepted the invitation. If it had been up to her, she wouldn’t have even been sitting there in the first place, but Soarin had been the one to pester her out of the house and away from the children for a few hours at least, so for him she had folded. And now the question she had been hoping to avoid had come and now she only wished she had stayed at home.
She tried to squash the query quickly. “My kids are too young to stay by themselves… or attend school.”
“We could arrange a caretaker for when you’re here. The Wonderbolts would cover it, of course.” Spitfire shot back her answer as soon as she could. Obviously she had thought these notions out well in advance.
“I don’t want my kids growing up thinking someone else is looking out for them. They should feel that their parents are there for—”
Spitfire then mumbled something under her breath.
“What did you say?” Rainbow asked.
Spitfire sighed. “I only said that maybe Soarin could stay at home then. Be your child’s caretaker… while you came back.”
Their conversation had now taken a steep decline, and instantly Rainbow felt she didn’t want to be in that room anymore.
She said, “Can we take a walk outside?”
Spitfire looked timid for a moment. “Sure.”
3
Ever since she found the urge to flap large bales of air underneath her wings, Rainbow Dash had felt the urgent pull towards flying. To fly fast and to fly often. If others grew tired of her ways she wholly figured it was the sad strings of jealousy that must have been weighing them down. But not her. Never her. She was too fast and she was too high for any such thought. Miles above the ground, with nothing for company but breathtaking vistas and soft puffy clouds, what more could a pegasus ask for?
It was when she first felt her friendship with Soarin turn into something more that she initially started to question just that. Perhaps she had been wrong, she thought. Perhaps other things existed in this world that might be deserving of her attention.
It was only then, when the unexpected creation of life came knocking at their door (she or Soarin would never admit to a single soul that their children had come unprepared or unexpected—not even through torture would they dare utter such a thing) that Rainbow found something solely new to look forward to. Although the original thought of taking more than a year away from the Wonderbolts chilled her nearly to despair, she found the life growing inside her filled her with a new type of yearning. She would think oddly at the time: Perhaps she wanted to be a mother, after all.
When both fillies came into the world healthy and hearty, the question on many ponies’ minds was when Rainbow Dash would make her grand return to the Wonderbolts. Not being one to follow expectations, Rainbow made the abrupt decision not to come back. They had her husband, Soarin, an excellent flyer in his own right. Why did they need her so bad? Now she had a new job to content with—one she was surprised to learn nearly matched the fulfillment she felt while in the air. And who was to say she would never fly again? Of course she would fly. Such thought to the contrary would be idiotic. Only now she would fly while teaching her children how to do so too.
And it was thoughts like these that kept her grounded as she watched them all float above her.
“You all right, Dash?”
Rainbow looked down from the sky, where currently dozens of pegasi were hurriedly dashing to and fro, through hoops and around flags, throwing rings and doing acrobatics in the beautiful afternoon air. To a unicorn in might have looked like madness in the sky, but to her it just looked gorgeous.
Spitfire stopped their walk near a set of bleachers. “I’m sorry if my asking phased you or whatnot, but like I said I just had to ask. You were a legend when you were here. You did things no one thought were possible, including me. I’m just sorry to see it come to an end so soon.”
Rainbow Dash shook her head with a smile. As nice as it was to be complimented with such words, there were others reasons for her happiness. “I never said it was over, Spitfire. Only that my time with the Wonderbolts was. I still love everything you do—of course I must, if I still let Soarin come here day after day—but I guess I’ve grown since I’d first entered here. I’ll always fly; I’ll never stop doing that. The only thing that’s changed is why I fly. And that’ll be for my kids, when they’re ready.”
Spitfire nodded solemnly, although it looked like she had one more idea in mind. “How ‘bout teaching a summer session? A few hours a day; one class; whatever subject you want?”
Rainbow craned her head to view the many flyers once again. Then she said, “I’ll think about it,” while knowing a very different answer in her heart.
4
Forty-eight hours had passed and yet he still thought he could feel the warmth on his hooves; the sharp smell of ash and oil and alcohol that seemed to linger in his nostrils much longer than it should have been able to. But those senses were not the worst he had to contend with. No. The one he wished he could almost rid himself of completely was that of sight, and every thing he had seen in that bar as it burned to its foundation.
Nimble Hooves had hoped the distance of time might have made the images go away—or at least fade in their distinctness—but on his second night back on the watch he didn’t know if that would ever truly be possible.
“You okay, Nimble?”
His secondary watcher sat to the left of him, wrapped tight in a green cloak to help shield him from the wind. Atop a tree forty-foot high they sat and watched the snowcapped mountains for miles around. Nimble had always been complimented on his keen eyesight, so his position on the Royal Guard had only felt proper. Now he only felt as if his gift was more like some curse.
They could have gotten out, there was still time so why didn’t they try, I just—
“Nimble, you falling asleep on me?”
Nimble swam back from his images and turned to his partner. “No. I’m sorry. I haven’t been sleeping all that well lately… and…”
“Say no more. I hear yeah.” With his hood pulled far over his face and his sight professionally fixed on the regions ahead, all Nimble could make of his partner were the tip of his nose and the exhale of his breath as he puffed it out into the cold night air. “After what you’d been through, I can understand clearly.” He paused. “You ever gonna to tell me about that? About what you saw?”
Nimble thought a moment for a less blunt answer, but honestly this was a conversation he was never planning on having started. “No,” he said plainly.
When his partner figured nothing more on the subject would be mentioned that night he muttered something along the lines of “All right then” and got back to staring at the stars. Nimble did the same but found his usual concentration heavily tested once more. The nightshift had the ability to make any pony tired beyond reason, but due to Nimble’s own lack of sleep during the day, he found the shadows of the night just that much more inviting.
But all those ponies and all that blood and—
But Nimble’s weary mind grew too fatigued for such loud grievances, so he lowered his head and he slept, for what must have felt like the first time in days.
What awoke him was not the sound of anything, only the sudden panicky urge that he was doing something he wasn’t supposed to. He opened his eyes and blinked rapidly, assuring himself that something must have woken him or have moved for him to come to, but it all was as it had been before. The trees. The mountains. The starry sky that peeled back into infinity. His only hope was that his partner had not caught him in the act of dreaming.
Nimble turned to find his partner still seated where he’d been, huffing out large strands of white vapor in the air. I wonder if he was sleeping, too, Nimble thought ironically, before noting the new color of his partner’s cloak.
Nimble brought a hoof to his eyes to help rub out some sleep and yet still he saw a black cloak when he knew it should have been green. Had his partner changed his attire since he’d slept? Did they even give out black on the Guard?
Before Nimble could think of anymore reasons to prove the contrary, his partner quickly closed every last notion he could fathom. “Hello, watcher,” the stranger greeted, before turning to face him. The dark pony’s eyes burned with a haunting green glow; bits of purple smoke floated lazily from the rims of both eyes. Without fully putting together what had just happened, Nimble already knew who was sitting beside him. Or what was.
“It was you,” Nimble croaked. “You were at the bar.”
“Yes, I was. And so were you, watcher. Did you enjoy what you saw? Were you not entertained by my play of many acts?”
“It was the worst thing I’d ever seen.”
“Perhaps if you would have seen things the way they had, you might have understood it more.”
Since discovering the cloaked stallion sitting closely on his post, Nimble had been hit with a paralyses of the nerves—every string in every limb felt as tight as piano wire. Slowly, he looked around the rest of the platform for his partner.
“What did you do with the other pony?” he asked, shocking even himself by his own lack of trepidation.
“He went away,” the stallion said thickly.
“What did you do with him?”
“He went away, I said. And if you’d like to go away too, I’m sure that could be arranged.”
That shut Nimble up fast, and suddenly he wondered how many bones he might break should he abruptly decide to jump off his perch while forgetting how to fly. There was still a chance he might live, right? Dodging trees in the dark?
He asked timidly, “Have you come to kill me then? Because I saw you?”
The dark creature giggled under his hood, sending more puffs of white into the air. “No. No, watcher. You will serve a purpose grander than that. You are handy at your job, yes? You see what many others cannot, yes?”
Nimble stuttered a bit. “Sh… sure, I guess.”
“Then tonight you will witness something not many alive have yet had the privilege. You will make note of my return and inform Princess Celestia forthwith. You, watcher, will do this for me.”
Just as Nimble was starting to feel the cool breeze of relief run up his back, something much larger irked at him. “But why? Why would you want her to know?”
The dark stallion finally looked away from him and viewed the many miles of darkness ahead. “Because I am a noble King, and since finding life once more I have tasted the many animals that live in these mountains, and have grown considerably stronger because of it. I do not wish for a fight with an unprepared foe; rather, I want a fight that will quiet every voice that might have said how unfairly she’d been defeated. If when I win begins a new era of history, I want it to be written that I triumphed only on an equal field of play.
“And as Celestia sinks away from this life I want to taste the tears of defeat from her eyes, and I want her to know that no matter what she thought she might do, she could not stop what’s to come.”
When Nimble felt a little surer he was not going to die that night, he hastily said: “Do I have to say all of that?”
“No, watcher. Just tell her that ‘He’ is coming home. I’m sure the rest of the message will reveal itself loud and clear.” He turned back to him. “One more thing, watcher, before I let you fly away.”
Nimble felt each of his joints lock firmly into place and suddenly he was being dragged closer toward the dark figure. His brief sense that not all might be lost swiftly floated away in the high breeze.
“Show us your eyes,” he said, before removing Nimble’s hood from his face. The black stallion regarded him for a moment before smirking. “You have such… beautiful eyes, watcher. You must see all of Equestria in such a brilliant light.”
Nimble nodded up and down in spastic motions. He felt it was the only thing that might get him away from this monster any quicker.
The black stallion raised a hoof in the air. “Do you feel that? Do you feel that little pulse in your head?”
And instantly Nimble did. All too clear he felt it, like the tickling legs of dozens of spiders behind both of his eyes, pulsating and pulling and pushing. It was a horrific sensation, to say the least.
The dark one continued, “For every hour that Celestia does not know of my return, that feeling behind your eyes will grow. If word arrives too late or not at all, each one of your eyes will find its way to the very back of your skull, with force most severe. So the last question I have for you, watcher, is:
“Do you see me now?”