//------------------------------// // A Ship By No Other Name // Story: Yaerfaerda // by Imploding Colon //------------------------------// Rainbow Dash sweated. There was not a single minute of the day when she did not sweat. Even when she was beneath the blissful shade of the lean-to, she struggled just to keep from fainting due to the heat of the sun-baked ocean. At the moment, she was preoccupying herself with a delicate task. She squatted over, teeth clenching the handle of her hatchet as she continued etching the finishing touches of a small circle into the raft's starboardmost plank of wood. This figure alone was taking the better part of an hour, and previous eight figures had consumed two full days. With gentle persistence, however, she was at last finished with the final “O.” Spitting the hatchet back into her saddlebag, she stepped back and admired her task, having to cock her head upside down in order to better read it from the center of the raft: “Scootaloo.” The mare smiled tiredly. A spray of salt water kissed her flanks. She turned and looked ahead, squinting. Foamy waves undulated wildly ahead of her. She was approaching another oceanic swell. Sighing slightly to herself, Rainbow Dash trotted briskly to the back of the raft, dipped the rudder in, and steered the vessel slightly towards port, preparing to round the crest of the incoming waves at an angle. The sun set in the west, opposite of the Yaerfaerda symbol. Both beacons bobbed on either side of the watery world like lanterns situated on an epic sea saw. Rainbow Dash clung to the mast while this recent bout of turbulence passed over. The sensation only gave her slight nausea; Rainbow was remarkably in control of her faculties. Mentally, the mare chalked it up to years of flying every stomach-churning aerial maneuver in comprehension. It still didn't make the moment pass by any more swiftly. The pegasus remained hooked to the mast, shuddering as she watched the waves bob and weave around her. All the while, the persistent scent of salt and moisture filled her nostrils, making it hard to shut the moment out of her beleaguered mind. By nightfall, the ocean had calmed somewhat. Rainbow Dash lay on her back, dipping a lazy hoof into the rippling waters. She hadn't seen a single hint of marine life since she shoved off the Grand Choke's dry surface—so she had little worry of sharks or other predators. It only made the moment all the more dull. She inhaled and exhaled, her eyes darting around the stars above. She locked her eyes on the center of the cosmos, and—with great audacity—began counting the twinkling specks outward in a spiral. She'd get further and further in the count, but would ultimately blink one time too many, lose her place, and have to start over again. The largest number she got was two hundred and fourteen, and when she lost that she simply gave up, accepting that she had counted enough. Relaxing her mind, Rainbow Dash focused on the silver haze the stars produced when she allowed her eyes to shut part of the way. Without even a crescent moon to illuminate her oceanic sojourn, the world took on an eerie, dim glow. She started pondering about life on the dark side of the plane—if this was the kind of existence they had to look forward to, day after sunless day. Was it so incredibly bleak and desolate that they still had to fight over something? Was the Trinary War capable of illuminating the bastions of the Midnight Armory? Rainbow Dash's eyes flickered open. She imagined torchlight shining off of Chrysalis' glossy exoskeleton. Only in quiet, subdued moments like this did Rainbow Dash reawaken to just how incredibly quickly the mutant alicorn had chosen to surrender. Perhaps it wasn't all a victory for Harmony. Perhaps Chrysalis had simply remembered enough about the Dark Side to realize just how hopeless that half of the world was. It was the Changeling Queen's past, and it all but consumed her. What could Rainbow Dash expect, knowing that the Dark Side was her only absolute future? The mare shuddered. She ran a hoof up to her neck, feeling along the golden lengths of the pendant. She had far more “futures” than just one, and all of them equally bleak. To keep from dwelling on it, Rainbow Dash tried recounting the cosmos, and somewhere amidst the taxing task, she fell blissfully asleep. Three morsels. There were only three Heaven Slices left, and even that was a generous estimate. Their edges had gone black due to disintegration and decay. Rainbow Dash had tried her best to restore them with doses of Harmony from her pendant, but there was no real way to tell how many nutrients they still contained until she ate them. However, she was afraid to eat them too liberally—or else they might lose their enchanted cohesion altogether. It didn't change the fact that Rainbow Dash's stomach practically screamed in hunger. On this occasion, she had gone for a full two days without eating. She figured that—now that she had the raft riding the winds over the ocean—she might not have to exert herself quite so much. She was only partially right. Now, as the sun rose, it was getting increasingly hard to keep her eyes open, much less her limbs moving. In just a matter of hours, the world would start getting roasting hot all around her, and she knew that there was only one true way to weather it. So, with a nervous shudder, she folded the last two bits away and started nibbling on the smallest, brownest Heaven Slice in her hooves. The taste—if you could even call it that—was beyond bland. Rainbow Dash feared that it was too late to properly utilize the gift that the Val Roans had given her. With a despondent look in her eyes, she pivoted about and glanced at the slender jar poking out of her satchel. There was barely any mist left inside the jar of Nebulum, and Rainbow feared that the next time she turned the nozzle may be her last. The ocean swelled around her, churning as she glided ever eastward, into the great blue oblivion.