“Foal.”
Rainbow Dash gnashed her teeth, spiraling through the cosmos.
”Yesterday.”
Trembling, she squeezed her eyes open.
Urohringr spun beneath her. Around the bent horizon, Yaerfaerda appeared. Its shimmering bands pulsated as the mantra repeated, booming across the celestial expanse.
“Leave me...” She hissed. Her eyes flickered red on yellow. “Leave me alone!”
“Foal.” The east sun rose, blotting out the symbol. As the lavender glare faded, ashen piles of calcified dust appeared in a circle. “Yesterday.”
“I said leave me be!” Rainbow hollered, spinning through the ether. “They're gone! They're all gone! My friends need me now! My friends—”
Out from the middle of the refuse, a serpentine creature appeared, its antlers brimming with chaotic energy. With a demonic cackle, it flew towards Rainbow Dash on an intercept course.
Rainbow flinched. In so doing, she got a good look at her own limbs. One was a lion's paw and the other was a griffon's talon. “No... please...” Blood trickled over her face, covering her eyes from where the horns sprouted from her forehead. “Not now... Not now!”
The chaos lord's mouth opened wide, consuming her in one howling lunge.
“Nnnngh—NO!” Rainbow Dash sat straight up, drenched in sweat and panting.
The dizziness was gone. She sat in the middle of a desert valley. Stars broke out across the darkening sky, and the shimmering vista of Val Roa's capital loomed to the east. Far beyond the edge of the Grand Choke, the Yaerfaerda continuously pulsed, faint but persistent.
Rainbow shuddered, breathing heavily as she stood up on wobbly legs.
“Wait...”
She stared up at the evening sky.
“...how?”
She sensed a body behind her. She twirled with a slight gasp.
Floydien sat on his haunches, gazing due west. His antlers glowed with a gentle aura. His muzzle hung in a melancholic slump.
Rainbow blinked. “Floydien...” She gulped. “Where... where did—?”
“Back at the compound,” the elk calmly replied. “Hairy boomer and charcoal boomer chose to fight back the stabby stabs.” His ears twitched beneath his glowing antlers. “Color Wheel boomer was out and the stabby stabs surrounded. It was the only way.”
Rainbow grimaced. Slowly, she shook her head. A dull roar rose from her chest. “We were so close...” She seethed. “We were so damn close!”
She spun and bucked at a pile of rocks. The stone bits splattered across the valley, echoing in every direction for a hundred meters.
“Rrrrrghh-aaaaaaugh!” Rainbow slumped to her haunches, yanking her hair in frustration.
Floydien said nothing. His eyes fell to the arid soil beneath them.
“What do you want from me...?” Rainbow seethed. She gripped and tugged at the Loyalty pendant, tempted to rip it off completely. “What do you want?! Can't you see I'm trying to do something here?! This is for Harmony! Isn't that what the Austraeoh would do?!”
She screamed in another fit of frustration, ultimately deflating to the earth as her lungs wheezed and trembled. Fighting tears, she clenched her eyes shut. A sniffle escaped her muzzle.
“I... I'm sorry, Floydien,” she murmured. “I am so... so sorry.” Her eyes opened, dull and glossy. “All I am is a tragedy. It touches everypony I'm with, one way or another. They were your friends...” She gulped. “I know they were your friends, even if you refuse to say it.” She shuddered. “And I let them down. I let you down.” She ran a hoof over her flinching eyelids. “All over again...”
Silence.
At last, Floydien spoke. “How does the color wheel boomer do it?”
Rainbow sniffed. Wiping her face, she turned towards him. “H-huh?”
Slowly, he gazed over, his face deadpan. “How does the color wheel boomer remember?”
Rainbow merely blinked at him.
“Floydien began not long ago, born unto shimmer glimmer of stabby stabs. But Floydien's been told...” He clenched his lips momentarily. “Floydien knows that there was shimmering before that. And boomers aplenty. Friendly boomers.” His brow furrowed as he stared west. “Only, Floydien doesn't remember. There's just... too much shimmer glimmer.” His lips pursed. “But Floydien remembers Simon.”
Rainbow Dash sat up straight, listening intently.
“And after Simon bit the dust dust, Floydien came here.” His ears twitched as he thought aloud. “Which is a very odd thing, for Floydien set out west to begin with. Floydien doesn't think that... th-that Floydien had any intention of returning.” He gulped. “But now that Floydien is back... and has met boomers from before the shimmer glimmer...” He winced visibly, hesitating. After a sigh, he gazed directly at Rainbow Dash. “How does color wheel boomer do it? How does she remember?” His nostrils flared. “Because if Floydien could remember, maybe Floydien would have never come back east.”
Rainbow hugged herself, shivering in the cold desert wind. “Floydien, look, I...” She shuddered. “Every time I try to compare what I've been going through to my friends, I fall flat on my face. Destiny... Austraeoh... or whatever has something in store for me.” She trembled, sensing the glow of Yaerfaerda beyond her peripheral vision. “I lost all my friends, Floydien. But yours? They're still—” She winced before she could finish that sentence.
Floydien stared at her. “Sometimes Floydien thinks he didn't grieve for Simon like he was supposed to. Sometimes he thinks he just flew with the boomers east because he wouldn't have to remember.” He bit his lip. “When was it that Floydien failed? He didn't have to fly back. He doesn't have to be here right now.”
“Well, Floydien, lemme ask you this,” Rainbow Dash said, looking squarely at him. “Now that you've seen what you've seen, and witnessed what you've witnessed, would you want to be anywhere else?”
Floydien was silent.
Rainbow gritted her teeth. “I don't know how, but someway we're going to get your friends back, Floydien.” She stood up straight with a steely frown. “We're going to fix Val Roa. We're going to fix everything.”
“Floydien... doesn't know how,” the elk said. “So much has been lost already. What more is there to give?”
“You see, Floydien, sometimes...” She fidgeted, looking behind her at the distant Yaerfaerda symbol. “A lot of times doing what's awesome means doing what you're afraid to do.” She looked back at him. “If you don't trust yourself, that's fine. But you... you c-can count on me.” She frowned. “I promise that I will not let you down.”
Floydien's eyes narrowed. “And does color wheel boomer believe in Floydien?”
Rainbow eventually nodded.
Floydien stood up on wobbly legs. “Yes yes yes... Floydien supposes that is enough.”
Rainbow Dash was about to say something when a loud crackling noise emanated from beneath her loyalty pendant. She gasped. “The Jury!” She reached underneath, pulling loose the sound stone. “Belle?! Pilate?! This is Rainbow Dash! We have a situation—”
“Scrkkk! Rainbow... Rainbow, it's so h-horrible!” a feminine voice wept.
Floydien blinked.
Rainbow's lips pursed. “Jet...? Jet, what's wrong?!”
The voice on the other end needed time to compose herself. “It's the Duchess! Arcanista and Mamunia! Fishberry's.... she's c-captured them!”
Rainbow Dash's blood ran cold.
“I... I-I don't know what to do!” Sniffling and weeping. “I barely got out of the High Council building with my skin intact! I... I'm scared. I'm scared for them, Rainbow Dash.”
“Jet...” Rainbow paced about on blue wings. “Where are you right now?”
“Mmmm... Plaza Topaz. I came here as soon as I could.”
“Stay right there!” Rainbow exclaimed. “Floydien and I are going to meet up with you there as soon as we can!”
“Huh? Why... why j-just the two of you?”
Rainbow glanced aside at Floydien. “A lot of horrible things have happened tonight...”