Chapter 5
Dash was a little surprised to feel a pang of worry as Duran disappeared into the badlands hills. Though she'd disliked the biped rather intensely at first, she found herself warming a bit toward her new human acquaintance. Yeah, he was a jerk at first, and yeah, that whole thing with those… parasite things… (she wondered momentarily if she'd ever stop shuddering at the thought, carefully not looking at the crushed remnants on the floor) was about the second most embarrassing and uncomfortable thing I've ever had happen, but the explanation for the jerky attitude was a good one, and he sure seemed as creeped out as I was by the whole… um, situation, once he realized why it was bothering me. And he's been pretty nice since he realized I was real. He may have survived here by himself for a long time, but it must not have been easy, judging by all those scars. Not to mention whatever happened to his arm! Now he's out there, alone in the dark again, going to get food for two ponies he just met, and I'm actually worried about him. Ah, maybe it's just because I can't help. She castigated herself mentally, kicking at the floor in annoyance. I know I wouldn't do any good out there right now. I can't fly, I'm exhausted and beat up and hungry, and I don't know anything about this place, but dang it, I feel like I should be out there helping, instead of just sitting here waiting. Argh, I hate sitting and waiting!
Dash decided to go check on Twilight. The walk to the bedroom she'd left the unicorn in raised her spirits a bit, as she realized she'd probably only seen a fraction of this place. Even if she couldn't find anything else to do, she could explore.
She nearly walked straight into the door before remembering that the bunkroom doors didn't open automatically like the other doors in this place. She stepped carefully as she entered, trying to reduce the clicking of her hooves on the hard floor so as not to wake her friend, but she didn't need to bother. Twilight was looking around, blinking in sleepy confusion.
"Oh, good morning, Applej- Rainbow Dash." Twilight blinked. "Rainbow, why are you wearing Applejack's hat?"
"I was afraid I'd forget about it if I left it somewhere." Rainbow hesitated. "You okay, Twilight?"
"I've been better." Twilight shook her head and looked around at the room. "I was hoping I'd wake up and find that the whole thing was just a nightmare. No such luck, I guess?"
"Afraid not. Hungry?"
Twilight's stomach rumbled audibly, and she looked at Rainbow with a sheepish expression. "Um. Yes. Is there anything to eat around here?"
"Yeah, Duran said there was some, but not a lot. I was just about to go find it, want to come with?"
"Sure." Twilight rubbed at her eyes and jumped off the bed to follow her friend. "Who's Duran?"
As the pair walked, following the signs that pointed to the mess hall, Rainbow filled Twilight in on everything that had happened while the unicorn slept. (Well, almost everything) The pegasus could tell that Twilight's brain was still half asleep, but half of Twilight's brain was still better than some ponies could manage fully awake.
"A different world…" Twilight mused as they walked down the hallway. "I thought I'd been precise with my endpoint calculations. I mean, the portal wasn't distance-limited, so it could potentially take us to some distant planet, but the odds would make it far more likely that we'd end up in deep space somewhere…" she trailed off.
Rainbow flipped her wings in a pegasus shrug. "I'm just telling you what he told me. He's been here for a long time without seeing or talking to anypony, and if we were still in Equestria that doesn't seem likely to happen."
"And there's another thing that confuses me!" The unicorn exclaimed, "Here's a completely alien being from a completely different world that's never encountered pony civilization, and he speaks the same language we do? Do you know how unlikely that is?"
"No." Rainbow shrugged again. "And whoever built this place was from a third group, and we can read the writing here just fine."
"Aaaaah!" Twilight yelled in frustration. "This doesn't make any sense! The portal should have sent us to the edge of the forest, not to some… some alien planet full of creatures that all speak Modern Equestrian! I don't know how any of this could even be possible!"
"Maybe you'll think better with some food in your stomach," Rainbow suggested. "I know I'm planning on eating something and getting some sleep. You still look kind of tired too, Twilight."
Twilight's head drooped. "I am. I'm still feeling the aftereffects of the portal; it may be several days before I recover most of my magic." She heaved a sigh. "I've never been drained this badly before. I hope it doesn't have any permanent consequences."
The two were silent for a moment, before Rainbow remarked, "Ah, here we are!" The door marked "Mess Hall" was finally standing before them. Pointing at the sign with a forehoof, Rainbow grinned and said, "See, Twilight? Perfectly readable."
Twilight just facehoofed and groaned.
The room they entered was huge. Row upon row of gleaming metal tables and benches filled the space, and Rainbow spotted what she thought was the storage area at the far end.
"Wow, whoever they were, they sure liked their chrome." Twilight observed, as they wove through the rows of tables.
"I think they were called the 'nays' or something like that." Rainbow said.
"'Nays'?" Twilight asked, "What makes you say that?"
"Oh, when Duran turned on that terminal thing in your bedroom, it said 'nays outpost library mainframe.'"
"Woah, wait, what now? What terminal thing? What library?"
"It's that glass picture-frame-looking thing on the desk in your bedroom." Rainbow answered as the storeroom door slid open. "I'll show you what he did when we get back." They found themselves in another huge room, this one filled with shelving and with several doors of a different design than those they'd seen thus far. Dishearteningly, most of the shelves were empty, though there were several sealed containers close to the entrance. Twilight was able to float the bins on the upper shelves down to them, and Rainbow busied herself checking the contents.
The first bin turned out to contain strips of a dry, fibrous substance that smelled a bit smokey. Rainbow sniffed it carefully, then took a bite. "Meat of some kind, I think," she observed, chewing thoughtfully. She stuck the strip in her mouth so she could chew on it while she checked the other bins.
"Rainbow!" Twilight sounded shocked. "What are you doing?"
Rainbow Dash looked up from the bin she was examining. "Trying to figure out what all this stuff is! I think this one's dried fruit of some kind." She answered, past the strip of meat in her mouth. She lifted one of the small wrinkly orange things with a hoof and sniffed it. "Yeah, apricots. Too bad it's mostly empty"
"A- are you eating meat?"
"Yeah. Don't know what he did to it, but it tastes pretty good, actually." She pulled the half-chewed strip out of her mouth and held it out. "Want to try some?"
Twilight gagged. "What is wrong with you, Rainbow Dash?"
Rainbow returned the strip of dried meat to her mouth and continued chewing on it, to Twilight's evident horror. The pegasus grinned. "Nothing. I just had a griffon friend in school that would make me eat part of her lunch sometimes when I lost a bet." She swallowed. "Don't worry, Twilight, it's fine as long as I don't eat too much of it." She opened another bin. "Dried peas in this one, looks like. I looked it up after the first time Gilda made me eat some. I'd bet her I could do a triple backflip without flapping my wings, and I totally almost managed it. Almost doesn't count for bets, though, and her lunch wasn't like this stuff; it was pretty raw. That was pretty nasty; this is way better." She opened another bin. "Ew. No idea what this is, but it doesn't smell very good. Anyway, I managed to eat it without throwing it back up, and it was probably easier with a mouthful of my own blood since I'd landed on my nose. I kind of figured since Gilda saw it gross me out, she'd make that a normal thing for losing a bet." The next couple of bins were empty. Rainbow shoved the empty ones to the side, opening another. "More dried meat, different kind, I think. So on my way home, I went by the Cloudsdale library, just to make sure Gilda's lunch wouldn't hurt me or anything, 'cause if it did I figured I should tell her. Turns out ponies don't get too much from eating meat; can't digest most of it, but it doesn't really hurt us, either." She opened another bin, ignoring Twilight's look of shock. "Oh, hey, looks like some kind of bread." Popping a crumb in her mouth yielded a crunch. "Wow, it's kinda stale. At least there's nothing growing on it, should be fine if you spray some water on it. Where was I? Oh yeah. Like I said, it's pretty much harmless, so I wound up having to choke it down every once in a while. I tried not to lose bets when Gilda had chicken. She didn't like it much, so she didn't mind losing part of it if I lost the bet, and she'd always make that my forfeit if she had it." She looked around, deciding the rest of the bins were empty. "I got used to the taste after a while, and some of it wasn't that bad. I actually kinda liked snake. I think that's all for the bins, Twilight, I'm gonna check these doors and see if there's anything else."
Twilight gaped at the blue pegasus for a moment, at a loss for words. She searched for something to say, finally settling on, "Y- you looked it up? In the library?" Her tone held a fair amount of disbelief.
Dash frowned, then shot Twilight a dirty look, an edge of hurt underneath it. "Oh, I get it. Dumb old Dashie, always charging in where Celestia fears to tread. Who knew she could actually read?" Her voice started rising, and her wings flared aggressively as she rounded on the unicorn. "Yeah, she's so stupid! Hey, she even dropped out of flight school! Did you hear she failed fourth-year history three times? Yeah! And I don't think she ever passed Sociology! Never mind that she was always top of the class in physics, or that she can do multivariable vector equations in her head, what use does she have for a library? All she ever does is pick fights and screw up!" Rainbow was almost yelling now, and Twilight cringed back. "And who cares that she aced both parts of the weather exam first time through, something maybe one or two pegasi a year can manage, and got put in charge of a local weather patrol, even though she was barely old enough to be out of school, but that's just in some podunk hick town in the middle of nowhere! But that's just poor stupid Rainbow Crash. She never does anything right! Too dumb for classes, always trying stuff just past her reach and wiping out, isn't that right? Isn't it?" Old frustration and pain, laid bare by stress and fatigue and a sense of betrayal that her friend could sound like the other pegasi that used to pick on her, caused Rainbow to virtually scream the last question at the quailing unicorn. Rainbow stopped, panting and glaring, only to bring herself up short as Twilight's posture registered. Her friend was cringing away from her, ears laid back flat and violet eyes huge and filling with shocked tears. She looks like she's afraid I'm gonna hit her! Rainbow realized, and her anger and hurt drained away in an instant, leaving only hollow guilt behind. Dangit, Rainbow, she had no way of knowing what the kids that hassled you in school sounded like! Watch your temper!
"I- Twilight, I'm sorry. That was way, way out of line, and you totally didn't deserve it." Rainbow reached out to Twilight, but the unicorn drew away from the proffered contact. Rainbow hung her head and nodded. "Okay. I understand. I'm gonna go check these doors. F- for what it's worth, I'm really sorry I lost it at you like that. I- I didn't mean to…" She trailed off, her breath catching in her throat. Instead, she just shook her head and turned to look deeper in the storage room.
Why the heck did you flip your lid like that, Rainbow? She castigated herself as she made her way through the shelves. Twilight's never been mean to you! She was just joking, dummy! How could you do that to one of your best friends? Worse, she's all you've got right now! Stupid, stupid, stupid!
The door she came to was closer in design to the first door she'd seen, at the entrance to the base. It was thick and heavy, and clearly swung outward rather than sliding into the wall. It didn't open at her approach, and there was a small keypad next to it. Recalling the quick tutorial Duran had run her through before he left, Dash reared up so she could reach, and carefully pushed the keys in the sequence the human had said was the "open" command. It was harder than she'd expected; her hooves were broader than the narrow human fingers and tended to hit more than one button at once if she wasn't careful, and she kept having to blink away tears. She finally got the sequence right, and the door opened with a hiss as frigid air spilled out. She stepped inside, and found one of the biggest freezers she'd ever seen. It was mostly empty, though she did find a couple of sealed bins, one of which had frozen uncooked meat that wasn't at all appetizing, but the other was a jackpot; full of what looked like frozen strawberries. She was checking the rest of the shelves in the huge freezer, with a notable lack of success, when she heard Twilight clear her throat from the doorway.
"R- Rainbow Dash?" Her voice was hesitant, and Rainbow saw her peeking timidly in through the door. The pegasus made her way back to the entrance slowly, trying not to further startle her friend. At least, I hope she's still my friend…
"Yeah?" Rainbow stopped a fair distance from the door, not wanting to crowd the unicorn.
"Are you okay? I'm sorry I upset you."
"You're…? Twilight, you don't need to apologize to me!" Rainbow had been half-expecting Twilight to smack her for being such a jerk, and had been prepared to take it without complaint. She hadn't expected the bookish unicorn to apologize to her, and found that it actually stung worse than a smack in the face would have. "I'm the one that flew off the handle! If you want to hit me for being a jerk, that's fine, I won't hit back." The blue pegasus braced herself.
"Hit you? Rainbow, I'm not going to hit you! You're my friend!" Twilight was aghast. "You know, I think we both just need to calm down. It's been kind of a stressful day." The unicorn smiled, "Come on, I think we've found enough to eat for a little while."
"So… we're still friends?" Rainbow was starting to tear up again out of sheer relief. She swiped at her eyes with a hoof before the tears could freeze in the frigid room.
"Oh, Rainbow, of course we are!" Twilight closed the distance between them and hugged the pegasus. "Goodness, it's cold in here!"
"Yeah, I guess it kind of is," Dash replied, returning the hug tightly. "I really am sorry I yelled at you."
"It's… well, it's not really okay, but I'll forgive you. I shouldn't have insulted you."
"Pah, you didn't mean to insult me any more than I did when I was making fun of you for reading books about running." Dash shook her head, disgusted with herself. "I overreacted."
"Well, let's eat and get some sleep. Like I said earlier, I think we're both stressed, and we'll feel better in the morning."
Dash grinned wanly at her friend. "That sounds like a good plan to me. Oh, hey, I found some frozen strawberries in here. Let me get 'em and I'll bring 'em out."
She trotted out moments later, carrying the bin of strawberries on her back, frost flaking off her cyan coat. Twilight stared. "Rainbow, aren't you cold?"
"Nah, pegasi don't really get cold. We'd probably freeze to death if we flew too high, otherwise." Rainbow brushed ice off of Applejack's hat before returning it to her head. "Hey, let's eat! I'll take some of that dried meat, so there's more stuff you can eat."
Twilight hesitated. "Rainbow, I'm more than willing to split it evenly."
"Nah, no need to. That dried stuff tastes fine, and it'll give me something to fill me up. I don't mind eating it anyway, and I know it grosses you out."
There was actually more in the bins than they'd realized, and both wound up full, with more than half of what they'd found left over. Feeling much better with full stomachs, they carefully packed away the remainder and headed back towards the bedrooms. They walked in a semi-companionable silence, the stress brought on by Dash's verbal explosion draining away, though Rainbow could tell Twilight was still a little jumpy around her. My own fault, she thought glumly, as they approached the sleeping quarters. Then she remembered something that might help perk the unicorn up.
"I just remembered a couple of things I was gonna show you, Twi. How awake are you?"
Twilight responded by yawning hugely, and Rainbow had to struggle not to follow suit. "I can stay awake for a little longer, but I do need to get some more sleep soon."
"Okay, awesome. First off, let me show you the library terminal thing that Duran showed me." Rainbow opened Twilight's bedroom door and putting her own fatigue aside for the moment, hopped up on the desk chair, and flipped over the panel with the array of buttons on the other side. The picture frame obediently lit up, showing the same thing it had before. "See? 'nays outpost.' Hell's Reach must be what they called this place."
Squinting at the screen, Twilight replied, "I think it's an abbreviation for something, or maybe an acronym. N.A.I.S.? I wonder what that could stand for."
"He said the screen was touch-sensitive and that these buttons are a 'keyboard.' Maybe like a typewriter?" Rainbow looked for an ink ribbon or paper, finding neither. "I didn't really ask much about it, to be honest." She tapped the screen with a hoof, just to see if it would do anything. To her surprise, the screen changed, now showing a bewildering array of labeled icons. "Woah."
"Do you mind if I have a look, Rainbow?" Twilight asked, and Dash hopped down out of the chair. The unicorn heaved herself up to the spot the pegasus had vacated, and peered intently at the screen. "Wow, there's certainly a lot here." She shook her head. "I think I'm a little too tired to deal with this today, but I certainly intend to have a look first thing in the morning! Thanks for showing me this!"
"No problem! There's one more thing you should see before you hit the hay." Blinking sleepily, Twilight followed the pegasus down the long hallway to the shower facilities. Rainbow showed her how the showers worked and warned her about how awkward the sanitary facilities were to use, and left the unicorn to get cleaned up and ready for bed.
Walking back down the hall, Rainbow opened up another of the bunkrooms, finding it to be identical to the one Duran had left Twilight in. She took off the hat she'd been carrying around and left it on the desk, and turning her attention to the bed, piled the blankets and pillows into a fairly comfortable approximation of her cloud-bed back home and fell quickly asleep.
She only had the nightmare about things crawling under her skin once.