//------------------------------// // Mountains Beyond Mountains // Story: Appledashery // by Just Essay //------------------------------// Rainbow Dash flew... somewhere. Epcot flitted after her in ethereal orbit as a tiny geodesic sphere. Meanwhile, the pegasus scaled a gigantic floating promontory of perfectly chiseled green rock. Once she had scaled half a mile, she came upon a levitating plateau, atop which several crystalline castles stood side by side, surrounded by brilliant flower gardens. Beneath her, babbling brooks trickled upstream, collecting into floating spheres of crystal clear water. Rainbow drifted past the undulating globes of moisture. Curious, she flew down and hovered before the first crystalline structure that she found. Peering inside the tall eggshell-shaped building, she saw silken draperies of purple and lavender velvet. A plush couch lay before a breezy window lined with fresh flowers that refused to die. The marble pillars and support struts inside the one-room building were pale white, sculpted out of immaculate marble. A bowl of grapes lay on a mahogany table, all fresh as the very day they were plucked—assuming they were ever plucked at all. Rainbow leaned in to sniff at the fruit. She leaned back, exhaling in thought. Then, with galloping hooves, she ran clear off the side of the plateau and soared for the next continental structure looming beyond the mists. A gigantic hoop of craggy rock slowly circled, defying gravity. Within the inner ring, several humble cottages loomed, likewise impervious to the tug of natural forces. When Rainbow Dash touched down, she felt as if she was walking on even land. The world spun and twirled beyond her peripheral vision, but she trotted forward, moving past white picket fences and dangling bird houses and tiny ponds lined with cattails. By the third revolution, she entered the bottom floor of a two-story lodge. The rustic smell of wood and spices wafted across her muzzle. She felt a warmth, then glanced across the rosy, empty chamber to see a stone hearth. A fiery blaze flickered endlessly. Curious, Rainbow Dash trotted straight up to the flames... and stuck her hoof in. The heat didn't burn her. If anything, the flames felt cool to the touch as soon as she made contact. Rainbow soundlessly glanced aside at Epcot, but the twirling sphere had no reaction. All of this was perfectly normal. Chewing on her bottom lip, Rainbow trotted up the stairs of the random cabin, glancing out the window to see an upside world slowly twirling beyond a line of rose bushes. She entered a bedroom. There, several crystalline diodes stood on a marble table. Curious, Rainbow shuffled up to the first of many and tapped the thing with her hoof. She jolted slightly as the translucent image of a pair of nuzzling alicorns appeared. They kissed each other's muzzles, then stared back at Rainbow Dash with glimmering eyes. A smile flashed across both of them, and they fizzled in an instant. Curious, Rainbow pivoted towards the next diode. She tapped it as well. This time, she had to squint from the brilliance of the projection. Three swirling galaxies rotated before her, and beyond them lingered a fluctuating nebulae of infant stars. It all fizzled out just as quickly as it had appeared. Nostrils flaring, Rainbow looked to her left. An enormous bed with snow-white sheets lay before her, covered all over with rose petals that refused to blow in the endless breeze from the windows. Trotting past an equine suit of armer in the corner, Rainbow mounted a window pane, slipped through, and flew upside-down into the twirling horizon. Dazzling white comets and streaks of snowy dust skirted past Rainbow's vision. She spread her wings, watching as her blue feathers were gradually reflected off the pale surface of cosmic sleet. Tilting her head up, Rainbow Dash flapped her wings and soared higher, scaling a horizontal waterfall of cosmic dust. She twirled about until the waterfall became a ceiling, and soon a grainy overcast sky stretched over two unfathomably large equine effigies. Mountains of polished gray stone formed a pair of alicorn figure heads that stretched for miles and miles. In each eye socket, entire cities loomed, their streets and towers devoid of all life. Along their shoulders, a series of torch-lit bastions flickered into eternity. Far beyond the enormous structures, Rainbow Dash spotted floating globes, populated all over with castles and grassy fields and galloping grounds that clung to the rotating surfaces. Beacons of light danced between the spherical continents like tributaries of living faerie dust. It was all so incredibly spacious and beautiful... "But so very empty," Rainbow Dash muttered. "YES." Rainbow Dash glanced aside at the sphere. With a deep breath, she ascended rapidly. "Let's see just how high these alicorns got..." And she pierced the mists above, floating into nebulous dreamscapes carved out of trailing thought and threadbare desires, stretched thin above the inner spheres of Cider Space.