Chapter 15: Honest Hearts
Amber Grain hummed to herself, a happy tune whose words had been lost in the annals of time seventy or eighty years ago. Her rocker creaked on her front porch with each gentle push of the old mare’s hoof, back and forth, back and forth. Between surprisingly nimble and dexterous hooves, two sewing needles danced off one another, looping and pulling yarn into a vividly colored afghan.
One of her wrinkled ears twitched at the sound of approaching hoofsteps. Pulling her eyes away from her handiwork, she smiled at the sky blue mare making her way up the dirt path. “Why hello there, Rainbow! Glad to see you’re up and about!”
Rainbow Dash smiled faintly at the old mare’s cheery voice. “Yeah, I feel like I’m alive for once. I’ve had enough bed rest this past month to last a lifetime. I’m feeling pretty good now, though.” She glanced at her wing, still held tight against her side. “Well, almost good. Could be better.”
“I bet,” Amber answered, her squeaky voice taking on a more sympathetic tone. “I saw some of the things you did during that fancy airshow of yours. My, an earth pony like me could only ever dream of the things you did there. Makes me wish I had wings… and was ninety years younger.”
“Heh,” Rainbow laughed, nervously. “Well, can’t say it ended on a strong note.” She grimaced and looked away. “Shoulda listened to Lanner. Stupid.”
“Oh, of course it was,” the mare said, surprising Rainbow with her bluntness. When she looked back, however, she saw the mare’s face was hardly condemning; it was supportive, understanding. “But nopony ever got anywhere in life without doing something stupid. You listen to your heart, not your mind, and while one’s smarter than the other, it’s also a lot less exciting.” Her hoof pushed off the ground, setting the chair back in motion, and once again the needles in Amber Grain’s grasp began to dance. “Listen to your heart more; it suits you.”
“I… thanks,” Rainbow managed, a little taken aback by the old mare’s perceptiveness. “I’ll try. At least, as long as my doctor doesn’t stop me.” She shook her head. “Shoulda listened to Lanner...” she mumbled.
Amber smiled and went back to her work. “So, what brings you up here? Looking to be productive? Want to hear a story? Something fresh to drink?”
Rainbow held a hoof out. “No, no, that’s okay. I just wanted to see what Wrangler’s up to. I haven’t seen her since I… well, you know.”
“Made love to the earth?” Amber suggested, a sly smile on her face. At the startled unfurling of Rainbow’s good wing, she shook her head. “I was young too. Don’t think my mind lacks the youth my body lost.” She gestured to the side with her head. “Wrangler’s out back with Combine. The two of them are playing a game of ‘shoes between their chores. You can hear it from the porch.”
Rainbow’s ears flicked towards the side, and sure enough, she could make out muted chatter and the occasional ring of metal from somewhere behind the house. She waved a wing at Amber Grain and took a step back off the porch. “I’m gonna go see what they’re up to. It was good talking with you, Mrs. Grain.”
“Of course, of course!” Grain answered, beaming at Rainbow. “Come by any time. You know where to find me; I don’t go to town much these days. Got my grandkids for that.”
“Sure thing!” Rainbow called over her shoulder, already trotting away. Her hooves took her around the side of the house, and soon enough she started on the downhill path to the farmland behind the homestead.
It didn’t take her long to pick out Wrangler and Combine; between Wrangler’s whooping and Combine’s tremendous musculature, they stuck out against the browning wheat clear as day. The two earth ponies stood at one stake and took turns bucking heavy iron shoes at an opposite stake a good thirty feet away, scoring square hits almost every time. Rainbow stood and watched them from a distance until both ponies were out of shoes; as far as the pegasus could tell, Wrangler had the advantage by three ringers to Combine’s two.
After kicking her red horseshoes into a pile, Wrangler bent down and shook the sweat out of her mane after letting the sun beat down on it all day. She reached up with a hoof and tucked the errant auburn strands back under her bandana; Rainbow noticed that the beige earth pony was wearing a red bandana today instead of her usual brown one. As Rainbow resumed walking down the hill, Wrangler caught sight of her prismatic coloration and stepped away from the game to greet her.
“Well I’ll be, look who’s up and running!” Wrangler called ahead, trotting up to Rainbow with firm and powerful strides. The two mares bumped hooves and slapped each other on the shoulder before Wrangler began ushering Rainbow along. “I’d thought you’d gone to ground and weren’t ever gonna show your face around town after that stunt.”
Rainbow rolled her eyes. “People thought it was awesome,” she said. “I might have given a few of ‘em a heart attack with the sheer awesomeness that’s the Sonic Rainboom, but I got invited to have dinner with the king… or something like that.”
“Well, now ain’t you just the purdiest-looking noblemare I’ve ever seen!” Wrangler exclaimed, bumping Rainbow’s ribs. She flashed a mischevious smile at Combine before adding, “I’ll bet you don’t last an hour in Mymis before you’re dying to get outta there.”
“I’d do better than you,” Rainbow countered, sticking her tongue out at her.
“Never said you wouldn’t; I don’t think I could stand ten minutes in the capital.” She smirked and began pantomiming waving a fan in her face. “The air’s just absolutely thick with the stench of perfume and stilted egos there. I’d like to see some of them nobles come and try my life for a day or two; I’d probably die laughing.”
“I’ll bet,” Rainbow agreed. She looked around Wrangler’s shoulder at Combine and smiled. “How’s the game going?”
“Could be worse,” Combine answered in a leisurely drawl that reminded Rainbow of… somepony. “Only down two points.”
“Down two?” Rainbow asked, eying the ringers. “What do you guys play to?”
“Fifteen, but we play cancellation scoring. Otherwise it’d be forty to forty-two by now.”
Rainbow winced. “Ouch. I think I’ll pass on games with you guys. I think I’d break my hoof first if I tried.”
Wrangler smirked. “Baby.” She trotted back over to Combine and stomped on the base of a red horseshoe, knocking it into the air. Squinting over her shoulder, she delivered a solid buck right as it passed over her tail. With the cry of iron on iron, the shoe struck the stake square on and looped about it several times before settling into the dust. The rancher nodded to her brother. “Your go.”
As Combine leisurely nudged a horseshoe into position, Wrangler turned back to Rainbow. “So, how’re you feeling?”
The pegasus shrugged. “Good. I’m not hurting anymore, but being grounded sucks. The air’s too heavy on the surface.”
“I, for one, like our heavy air,” Wrangler countered, “and keeping my hooves on the ground. But I getcha. Not being able to fly for you would be like not being able to run for me.”
The iron stake cried out from across the lawn, drawing the mares’ attention. Combine’s shoe rattled down its length until it rested neatly on top of Wrangler’s, and the stallion nodded at his sister. It took Wrangler all of three seconds to respond with another ringer and turn back to Rainbow Dash. “So I heard you and Hawk had a good night the other day?”
Rainbow blushed and her good wing flared out defensively. “T-that’s none of your business!” she stammered, glowering at the rancher. Wrangler just waved a placating hoof and turned back to her game. The field was quiet for a few seconds barring the striking of iron until it was broken by Rainbow’s voice. “Yeah, we had a good night…”
“Good to hear,” Wrangler said, smiling and patting Rainbow’s shoulder. Hearing Combine’s shoe rattle the iron stake, Wrangler trotted back over and took her final shot—another ringer. “You two are cute together, you know?”
“Shut up,” Rainbow growled, abashedly looking away. “I was going to see if you wanted to go on a run with me, but I think I’ll just take one by myself.”
Wrangler took a step back and angled her head, offering Rainbow a reassuring smile. “Aww, Rainbow you know I didn’t mean anything by it. Cheer up some! I’ll be happy to take a little run with you when me and Combine finish our game here.”
“No need to wait,” Combine interrupted, trotting over with a victorious grin on his face. “Game’s over.”
Wrangler smacked him and turned back to the playing field. “Haw. There’s no way you could’ve won. You’d need two ringers over me, and I hit all mine—!”
Rainbow had to lean around the mare’s shoulder to see why she’d stopped. Sitting untouched around the stake were two blue horseshoes with no competition. At the back of the box were Wrangler’s red shoes, trapped against the wall with a blue shoe half-buried in the dirt pinning them back. Rainbow gaped at Combine, her expression mirroring Wrangler’s. “How…?”
“I hate you,” Wrangler muttered under her breath. “Frickin’ cheater…”
“Ain’t nothing in the rule book about knocking away an opponent’s shoes,” Combine countered. “Face it, sis, you just ain’t ready to hang with me yet.”
Wrangler slugged his shoulder and stepped away, grumbling. The big green pony didn’t even flinch, instead crossing the playing field to collect the shoes and wedge his blue one out of the earth. “Have fun with the five o’clock chores tomorrow morning!”
“Come on, Rainbow, I could use that run now,” Wrangler said, leering at her brother. Shaking her head, the rancher began to trot away at a pace that quickly approached a gallop.
Rainbow wasted no time in catching back up to her. “How bad does your flank hurt after that beating?” she asked, grinning at Wrangler.
“You shut your whorse mouth,” Wrangler growled at her. They ran on a few seconds before the earth pony grumbled. “I hate losing.”
“Heh. Sounds a lot like a pegasus I know,” Rainbow teased, bumping Wrangler’s shoulder with her own.
“Oh, so you’re the competitive type?” Wrangler asked, smirking. “I couldn’t tell.”
The pegasus rolled her eyes. “Do you even know me? I mean, come on!”
Wrangler came to an abrupt stop at the crest of a hill. Rainbow nearly skidded past her, and she had to flare her good wing as an emergency brake. An impish smile dominated Wrangler’s face, and she dragged Rainbow back to her hooves. “You’re a lot of talk lately. Feel up for a race?”
Confidence and cockiness met her smile. “What, you want to get beat twice in a day? I can help ya with that, sister.”
“Big talk from a mare who couldn’t get out of bed a few days ago,” Wrangler countered. She pointed towards a distant copse of trees. “First to get to Willow Point’s the winner. Try not to hurt yourself.”
Rainbow blew a raspberry at her. “Try not to chokeon my dust! Ready?”
“Ready,” Wrangler said, crouching low. Barely a second passed before the rancher kicked off of the ground and rocketed forward, hollering. “Go!”
Rainbow blinked for a half-second before angrily charging off after her. “Hey! That’s cheating!”
-----
“Come on, Dasher! Keep up!”
Rainbow ground her teeth together and leaned into her gallop. Her hooves thrummed a steady staccato across the prairie grasses underhoof. Birds chirped in the branches of the nearby trees, their songs almost teasing the blue pegasus as she galloped in hot pursuit of the flickering auburn tail just a few feet in front of her.
“Grrr…. If I wasn’t still reeling from my crash landing, I’d be a spot in the distance!” Rainbow said, panting. At the moment it was all she could do just to stay on Wrangler’s tail. Her sides ached, but she wasn’t going to let a little pain keep her down. She had to push herself, had to go faster, had to win…
The blue pegasus yelped as a whipping tree limb slapped her cheek; luckily it was a grazing hit, leaving nothing more than a few scratches in the blue fuzz on her face. Rainbow shook her head and took a deep breath, setting her sights back on a wisp of auburn disappearing into the foliage.
“Why couldn’t we have stayed on the plains?!” Rainbow exclaimed, hooves hammering the grass underneath with each stride. “All this brush and crap is getting in the way!”
Wrangler’s voice echoed through the trees somewhere ahead of her. “Well maybe if you were the one setting the pace, you’d get to choose how we get to the Point! I figured that you’d be keeping up with me in this stretch, being a nimble pegasus and all.”
“Give me both my wings and I would be!” Rainbow cried back. She sucked in a breath as she leapt over a fallen log. Blowing air out the side of her mouth, she followed the crunching of grass stalks and the occasional glimpse of a red bandana in the foliage. In a few seconds, her natural agility brought her back within spitting distance of Wrangler’s hide, and the rancher smirked before pouring on the speed again.
“Stream ahead! Watch yourself!” Wrangler shouted, leaping over a patch of ferns and sliding down a pebbly hillside. Kicking off of the dirt, Wrangler flung herself over some brambles and rolled across her shoulders. Swiftly righting herself, the rancher charged forward into a crystal clear brook, her hooves splashing through the water as she fought the current.
Rainbow moved to mimic Wrangler’s path, but her eyes caught sight of a low hanging branch just past the copse of ferns. A smirk of determination lit up her face, and instead of jumping forward, she launched herself up. Her hooves made solid contact with the bark, and the branch shook under her weight. Carrying her momentum, Rainbow kicked off of the branch as it sprung back into place, getting the distance she needed to reach a higher limb on another tree.
From there, the path was easy to follow. A few delicate jumps and swings off of branches sent the hollering pegasus clear across the stream as Wrangler was trying to stomp her way back up the opposite slope. Hooking one fetlock after the other on descending branches, Rainbow’s hooves soon crunched the grass once more. She spared enough time to blow a kiss to Wrangler, who was just cresting the slope, before tearing off through the trees at a breakneck pace.
“Hey! No fair!” Wrangler exclaimed. The earth pony shook what water she could from her hooves and hammered after Rainbow Dash, her heavy hoofprints completely obliterating the lighter pegasus’ imprints in the dirt. “Nopony said you could climb!”
“Nopony said I couldn’t either!” Rainbow retorted, laughing. “Awesomeness like this can’t be limited to just two dimensions!”
Wrangler shook her head, feeling her lungs burn as she tried to chase the pegasus down. “When I catch you I’m gonna make you two dimensional!”
The threat didn’t deter Rainbow in the slightest. The pegasus mare cackled with each step of her gallop. Trees and brambles whipped by in a gust of green, a blur of brown before they were gone and another filled their place. Dirt and grass padded each step, the springiness seemingly pushing Rainbow forward. Ahead, the trees opened along a worn dirt path leading back to the prairie. Willow Point was only a hill away, and feeling the adrenaline invigorating her veins, Rainbow pushed her limbs faster than even she thought possible.
Wrangler was hollering all sorts of vulgarities behind her, but Rainbow tuned it out. Instead, her lips twisted in a victorious smirk, shadows dancing off of her blue muzzle as she raced underneath the trees—
White.
The crisp autumn air filled Rainbow’s lungs with each breath, and they expertly, efficiently drew out the oxygen to power her limbs. Her heart was racing, but it didn’t bother her; no, it only invigorated her. The flax rope around her midsection chafed her wings, but she didn’t let it bother her; this was a race she needed to win.
An orange blur slowly crept into Rainbow’s periphery. The pegasus spared a second to glance aside at the orange earth pony mare racing alongside her, hooves beating the earth in unison with Rainbow’s. Green eyes shot a look of determination in Rainbow’s direction for a split second before the mare redoubled her efforts. In a few seconds, she had a nose on Rainbow as the pair of ponies whipped around a bend in the path, the draft kicked up by their hooves tearing brown and red and gold leaves from the trees in their wake.
Rainbow spared no time to gawk. Instead, she focused on lengthening her stride by an inch. Just an inch was all she needed. She could already feel the slightest of sores working their way through her joints and muscles, but she paid them no mind; she was an athlete, and it simply wouldn’t feel right if she wasn’t a little bit sore from pushing herself. Disregarding the mare at her side, Rainbow’s ruby eyes focused on the winding path ahead of her. She minimized her turn radius and poured her all into the straights. She had no reason to save her stamina for the late race; she was a sprinter, and she needed as big of a lead as she could get going into the second half of the race.
The extra effort was just enough; once more, Rainbow’s muzzle pulled ahead, and she reclaimed her tenuous lead in the race. Her breathing was a touch harder than she would’ve liked, but she refused to let her lungs start gasping.
“Heh,” panted the mare at Rainbow’s side. “Not so easy without wings, is it?” Her emerald eyes shot Rainbow a coy tease that the athlete in Rainbow’s heart practically growled at. Once more, the earth pony began to inch back in front, her weathered Stetson somehow staying glued to her head despite the wind tearing through both ponies’ manes.
Rainbow frowned and felt her body cry out as she tried to squeeze another burst of speed out of it. “C’mon, Rainbow!” she muttered to herself. “Show ‘em a little Dash!”
The earth pony strained and strained, but it was clear Rainbow was just a hair faster. Her small build and light weight let her cut through the air and get the most out of each step, an efficiency that the larger and denser earth pony mare was struggling to achieve. In a second, Rainbow had a nose; in five, she was leading by a neck. Grinning, she looked over her shoulder. “Didn’t think I was gonna let you off that easily, did you?!”
Whooping with joy, Rainbow turned back to the trail and sped on ahead, leaving the orange earth pony in the dust. She thought she heard a cry and the crack of a hoof against wood, but she didn’t spare the time to look back. Her eyes were forward, focusing on nothing but what was around the next turn—
Crack!!
Rainbow’s senses returned just soon enough to feel her shoulder slam into the ground. She hissed in pain as her broken wing followed, and she likely would have cried out had she not taken a faceful of dirt and grass as soon as she opened her mouth. Sore, aching, and trembling all over, Rainbow lay on the ground, unable to find the strength to move her limbs.
“Rainbow!”
Wrangler’s hoof pressed down on Rainbow’s shoulder as the weak and dizzy pegasus tried to stand. “Rainbow, stay down! What’s going on? You just ran face-first into that tree over there!”
Rainbow’s ruby eyes weakly followed where Wrangler was pointing. Groaning, she rubbed her temple with a blue hoof, trying to blot the stars out of her vision. “I’m fine…” she hissed, forcing herself into a sitting position. Noting Wrangler’s look of concern, she held a hoof out. “Really. I just… lost myself for a while.”
Wrangler blinked. As soon as Rainbow tried to stand, the rancher hooked a hoof under her gut and helped the struggling pegasus up. Letting Rainbow lean against her shoulder, Wrangler led the two of them to an old willow tree to rest against. Panting, Rainbow nodded her thanks and switched from leaning against Wrangler’s shoulder to the tree trunk. Neither pony said anything for a few minutes as they caught their breath. Only when the shaking in Rainbow’s shoulders stopped did she dare speak. “I’m good… thanks.”
“Don’t mention it,” Wrangler answered. Lying down in the grass, she chuckled to herself. “Man, you really must’ve wanted to win. You reached the Point and just kept running until your face found a tree.” She winked at Rainbow, then rolled onto her back. “Great run, by the way. Phew! That certainly helped work out the stress.”
“Yeah…” Rainbow panted, likewise flopping down onto the grass. “Great run… though not the best I’ve ever had.”
She looked away, tracing the contours of the valleys until her eyes spotted the mountains to the north. She closed her eyes, almost willing herself to be standing amongst their peaks, but of course it didn’t happen. Instead, she lowered her head into her hooves until her chin was tickled by the grass growing up around her.
“Applejack… what happened to you guys?”