Appledashery

by Just Essay


Gauntlet

"Pffft! Nice going, Rainbow Crash!"

"Sleeping during the lesson again, Rainbow Crash?!"

"Awwww... what's the matter? You going to cry?!"

Rainbow Dash heaved and hyperventilated. She kept one hoof gripped around Epcot's while she gawked left and right at the images and visions rippling frenetically past her. The Chaperone was leading her slowly—one oozing hoofstep after another—down the ambiant corridor, but it felt as though they were breaking the speed of light on more than one occasion.

It still didn't stop Rainbow from devouring glimpses and sensations with nauseating detail.

"Look at her!" a colt stuck his tongue out while the lengths of Cloudsdale spun in the distance. "Small and scrawny! Just like her old stallion!"

"Hah! Yeah! I bet the only reason the teacher made her team Captain is cuz her dad's about to croak!"

"Hey Rainbow Crash! What are you gonna earn for a cutie mark?! One of them vomit pales they hoof out at the hospital?!"

"Why you snot nosed little—" Rainbow flew towards them, snarling—only to be yanked back by Epcot's strong grip. She flailed at the end of her tether, her voice taking on a foalish squeak: "I could fly circles around you from here 'til sundown! In fact... I..." She panted and grimaced. "I... did fly circles around those little turd biscuits..." She turned around, mane billowing in the wind. "Celestia on a bike, where are you taking me?"

"But... but..." A teenage pegasus orbited around her, eyes watering as she wilted away from her best friend. "Fluttershy, I don't understand. I... you... Don't.... don't you like me?"

"Ah jeez..." Rainbow covered her face with her free hoof, instantly seething. "Gotta turn this crud into a gauntlet, huh?!"

"So are you going to tell me now, dweeb?" cooed a strangely gentle voice. Rainbow peeked over her hoof to see a petite pegasus curled in the feathery embrace of a griffon twice her size. A morning sunrise glistened across the edges of Cloudsdale. "Just what do you like best about flying?"

"Promise not to tell anyone, G?"

"Pffft. As if."

The mare buried her face in Gilda's down feathers. "I know it sounds lame... but... but when you got the wind in your eyes, nopony cares if you're crying or not..."

Rainbow's muzzle moved in time with Gilda's beak: "'But when you finally stop flying, what's gonna be your excuse then, Dash?'" And she turned her cheek sharply to the right.

WHACK! Even Rainbow felt the sting through the years. She looked away from the pegasus flying across the apartment room floor, landing in a crumpled, heaving mess. The shadow that loomed consumed the two of them.

"You're not so tough, Dash! Don't kid yourself! Without me, you're nothing but a sham! And where will you be without me to pick you back up, huh?! Yeah, go ahead and cry, ya lame wimp! I'm done cleaning after your filth!"

"I left that filth..." Rainbow shook her head, seething. "I left it all behind... with you." She gazed up and outward, angry eyes brimming with tears. "I crammed it inside you, ya big junkheap! That's what you wanted in the end! Admit it!"

"Sugarcube..." The warm drawl rolled across Rainbow's ears, tickling them.

The pegasus gasped inwardly. She dangled behind Epcot, her pupils shrunken to ruby specks. "No... no... please..." She ran a hoof over her grimacing muzzle. "...I'll shatter. A million buckin' pieces, I swear..."

"Don't you sweat, sugarcube..."

Rainbow whimpered. She turned. She looked back, hyperventilating.

Emerald green eyes reflected her frozen howl. Slowly, the mare turned around, walking back towards the farmhouse. The sun bent the shadows of the orchards, stretching the fertile landscape between where she trotted and a loose envelope lying discarded in the grass.

"No..." Rainbow shook, shivered. "No, please... don't go. Don't walk away. Turn around... please..."

Applejack was a distant pinprick of light by this point.

"You have to see it! Don't let this happen again—you have to read it!" Epcot dragged her further and further. The mare shook, struggled, tears streaming as she screamed into the ether: "Turn around!!!"

Applejack slammed the door shut. The resulting wind blew the letter into tattered white fragments, like stardust. White hospital sheets tangled with dead limbs and tearstains.

"Celestia damn it, Applejack!" Rainbow wailed, heaving. "I love y—"

Epcot opened a door at the end, and the two plunged through it, surrounded in darkness.