//------------------------------// // Chapter 7 // Story: The Dread Chitin // by Karazor //------------------------------// Chapter Seven Rainbow started to get worried the next morning, when there was still no sign of the human's return. She even went outside the base and climbed a ways up the mountain, looking for any sign of him, but there was nothing. Mindful of his warning, she kept her wings tightly folded and shot the occasional nervous look at the sky. She heard eerie cries echoing across the badlands, overlapping with one another in an unsettling chorus, but none of the chattering thunder of Duran's gun. Dash was torn between going to look for him and staying put with Twilight, but the memory of her fight with the bugs (and the fact that she had no idea where the human was headed when he left) persuaded her to stay put for now. Besides, he said there were worse things out there, and I barely survived the ones we ran into as it was. As she was climbing back down to the door, an impossibly brilliant flash, far brighter than any lightning she'd ever seen lit the horizon, with a deep roll of thunder rumbling by several seconds later, and she shivered. Was that something trying to fly? She stopped in her descent and peered intently in the direction the flash had come from, and her keen vision picked out several moving creatures far in the distance, though none with the human's silhouette. As she watched, they fell on each other in a frenzy, ripping and tearing at one another in a horrifying display. Rainbow watched, appalled, as one group annihilated the other. She was about to resume her descent when she saw the last member of the losing group attempting to flee, only to stagger as the ground moved beneath it. Several immense, scythe-shaped claws emerged from underground, spearing the unfortunate creature and two of its pursuers and dragging them down under the dirt. As the screeches and shrieks of the battle she'd just watched reached her, Dash bolted for the entrance, looking as she went for any sign of disturbed earth that might indicate the presence of another lurking horror nearby. She reached the door safely and sealed it behind her, but her fears weren't so easily shut away. Oh, Celestia, what are we gonna do? If Duran doesn't come back, we're gonna need to go out and find supplies, but with things like that running around… how can I avoid them if I'm stuck on the ground? How is he planning on avoiding them? And where did they all come from, there was nothing when we got here two days ago! She wanted to go see if Twilight could track Duran with her magic, so that Rainbow would at least know what direction to go to find him, but at the same time she didn't want to interrupt the unicorn academic's studies, since that was their best chance of ever getting home again. She shuddered at the thought of being trapped in this place forever. Dangit, dangit, dangit! I won't do anypony any good if I go out there and get killed, but sitting here all nice and safe is driving me nuts! She considered going back to exploring the base; there were several hallways she hadn't been down yet, but she balked. If the human came back and got stuck outside, she'd never know it if she was off wandering deep in the mountain somewhere. He'd helped them, and set out to help them more, and her stubborn sense of loyalty demanded that she stay here in case she was needed. The terminal on the table in the anteroom's corner caught her eye. I… well, judging by those flying vehicles I found yesterday, these humans evidently know something about flying. And if I'm gonna be stuck sitting and waiting, it might as well be somewhere that I might be useful… Making a quick decision, Rainbow activated the terminal and sat down where she could see the window out. If he gets in trouble out there, I hope it's at least close enough that I'll be able to see it. I owe him one. Before she could start a search, she noticed an icon that hadn't been present on the terminal Twilight had used to run her through the tutorials. Activating it, she found a list of cameras. Each one she activated switched the view on the window beside the door; (Huh, cool. Guess it is a terminal of some sort after all.) at first it had displayed the mountain right outside, but she was able to see views from the very top of the mountain and from several points scattered around, as well. The last camera listing was something different, however. It looked at first like she was looking at a very detailed relief map, but she noticed she could see clouds moving around the tiny mountains and could see the sun reflecting from the miniature lakes. The realization of what she was looking at hit her like a thunderbolt. This must be from the starship! She'd seen terrain in miniature before, when she went really, really high. This, though… it was astounding. And beautiful, in its way. It was higher, way, way higher, than Rainbow had ever flown. Oh, man, this is awesome! The image was centered on a small, craggy mountain range, and the pegasus's practiced eye realized she was actually looking straight down at where she actually was. The thought made her mind reel for a moment; how could she be looking down from far away at the space she was occupying? She shook her head and returned the display to the view outside the door. She'd look at the other one some other time, when she wasn't worried about what was happening right outside. Instead, she brought up the archive search Twilight had showed her and, lacking any other ideas, carefully typed out 'aerodynamics.' They're sure to have something if they've got stuff that flies. Even if it's not as much as a pegasus library would have, maybe they'll have something I can use someday. The search result was vastly more extensive than she had expected. Pages and pages and pages of titles, some just articles, others full-length books on the subject, were displayed on the screen. Picking one out at random, Rainbow started reading, trying to simultaneously keep an eye on the outside view. She was still reading hours later. There was stuff here she'd never even heard of back in Cloudsdale, equations for modeling airflow and turbulence over an irregular surface, analyses of aerodynamic instabilities using chaotic math, and hundreds of other things. It was so fascinating that Rainbow had barely even fidgeted, sitting there immobile. She wasn't even sure how to properly work some of the more complex math she'd run across that morning; when she'd started trying, she realized it would take days, easily, just to model the airflow over a simple surface. Most interesting, though, was the effects of different wing forms on maneuverability and aerial performance. I'd never even thought about what I could do with different wings! She'd already come up with a bunch of different ideas for using that data, from artificial extensions she could attach to her own wings, to canard arrangements she could use. She had some really awesome ideas for entirely new maneuvers using artificial instability generated by canards attached to her forelegs, and she was sure more would occur once she started actually testing. Rainbow found her attention drawn suddenly to the large screen showing the outside view, and she realized it was well past noon. The gnawing worry she'd suppressed suddenly came rushing back, and she studied the screen, trying to spot whatever had pulled her out of her reading. She finally spotted the bipedal shape lumbering around the final hill in front of the doorway and gasped. The lupine lope he'd set out with was gone, as was the gun he'd been carrying. The armored suit no longer matched the color of its surroundings; instead it wavered and flared with odd bright colors, and much of its surface was spotted and sprayed with ichor, blood, and other less identifiable substances. She shot off of the desk chair as he approached the entrance and keyed in the entry sequence as fast as she could. The heavy door swung silently open just as Duran reached it, and he staggered inside, each footfall clanging heavily on the metal floor. The suit was making some unhealthy noises, too, grating and whining as it moved. Up close, Rainbow could see numerous dents and scratches along the surface of the armor, and it looked alarmingly like blood was leaking from several places in the joints. The pegasus had just entered the code to close the door and was moving to help, as the human twisted and reached over his shoulder, evidently to detach the heavy box he still carried on his back. The armor let out a sudden, sizzling pop, the wavering colors instantly faded to a dull black, and Duran dropped to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut, the heavy armor smashing into the floor with an incredible racket. It sounded like somepony dropping a box full of heavy frying pans out of a second-story window. Rainbow barely managed to get out of the way of the plummeting mass of metal in time. "Ohmygosh!" She blurted, "Are you okay?" The metal-clad form lay flat on its face, frighteningly still. "Duran! Hey! Oh, please don't be dead…" She moved closer, trying to figure out some way to get him out of the suit. There was a sudden, quiet hiss, and she could suddenly hear his voice muttering an uninterrupted stream of weary-sounding curses from inside the helmet. Oh, thank Celestia, he's not dead. The curses continued, growing more colorful as one arm lifted, slowly. Um. Wow. Those are… really inventive. Rainbow blushed a bit as she listened to the imprecations, making a mental note to look some of them up later. "Hey! Can you hear me? How can I help?" He evidently couldn't hear her. He lifted one arm wearily, trying to reach back over his shoulders. The motion was slow and labored, and she tried to figure out what he was trying to do. He clawed laboriously for something, and she finally realized he was trying to reach the release catch for the big cargo box. Dash quickly flipped both catches, finding just enough space to fit her hoof into, and pulled out the various connecting wires with her teeth. Duran's hand fell back to the floor with a muffled crash when the catches released, and he lay still. Darting around beside him, Dash shoved at the cargo box. It was much heavier than it had been before, and it evidently sat in such a way that it couldn't just slide off, but she was able to lift and roll it off of Duran's prone form, resulting in another metallic racket as the box wound up lying connector-side-up next to the armored human. With the weight removed from his back, the human braced his arm and started trying to roll himself over. Seeing him struggling, Dash tried to help, only to find out just how heavy the armored suit was. It was enormously, impossibly dense, heavier than any metal or stone she'd ever encountered in her life. The pegasus was forced to hook both forehooves under the human's bicep, plant her back hooves on the ground, and heave with every muscle in her body in order to turn the armored form over, and a fair amount of the foul-smelling matter splashed about the armored plates wound up smeared in Dash's cyan fur. That accomplished, the human's cursing faded, and his mobile right arm (she noticed that the left hand was balled into a fist) flipped a couple of small switches hidden behind parts of the suit's chest plate, loosening the solid chest and helmet pieces. He pried the armor open and caught sight of Dash. Blinking, he looked around the room and, seeing no one else, informed her, "Miss Dash, you are a lot stronger than you look." "Hey, I told you before, I'm just that awesome. And you don't need the 'miss,' just 'Dash' is fine." Rainbow replied, trying not to show how appalled she was at his appearance. Where before he'd looked tired, now he looked half-dead. The bags under his eyes were larger and more pronounced, and much darker, almost like bruises. He had a couple of actual bruises, too; one on his forehead and a really big one on the right side of his face. Dash could smell a strong odor of sweat and blood wafting out of the open suit, and when he started trying to struggle out of the armor, his movements were slow and pained. Rainbow hooked one hoof under Duran's arm to help him free himself, and received a grateful look in return. He had to fight to get his left hand free of the suit, and when he finally pulled it loose, the pegasus saw that it was clenched into a tight fist. Once he'd managed to pull himself out, she could see that he was bleeding from several deep cuts and puncture wounds that must have punched through the armor's joints. The human staggered to his feet, blood streaming from the inside of his right elbow, both legs, and left shoulder, and began lurching unsteadily for the door. "Dude, what happened?" Rainbow asked, finally getting tired of waiting for the story. "That Rift happened. A lot of the predators around here are acanovores; a big arcane event like that will draw them in from all over, and it makes them a lot harder to avoid." "Arcanovores?" "They eat magic. Or siphon it, or something." The human winced as he limped down the hallway in the direction of the infirmary, and Rainbow, with no idea of what else to do, hovered up next to him and looped his right arm over her shoulders. "Ran into a big pack of shriekers on the way out. Had to detour a pretty good ways to avoid them, so it was nearly daylight by the time I got to the greenhouse." "Hey, you can lean on me, you know. I'm trying to help, here." Rainbow interrupted, annoyed. In spite of her efforts, the human seemed to be trying not to put much weight on her. "I- right. Sorry." He leaned a bit into the arm hanging over the pegasus's shoulder and started walking a little more easily. It wasn't anywhere near the limit of what Rainbow could carry though, even hovering like she was. She noticed that he was carefully holding his hand out to the side, too. "With you being so much smaller than me, I was trying not to overburden you." "Pah." Rainbow scoffed. "I could pick you up and fly you down this hall if I wanted to." The human stumbled, and she held him steady until he regained his balance. "See? So just let me help. And why are you holding your arm out like that? It's gotta hurt, with that gash in your elbow." "Ah… I was trying to avoid the… discomfort I caused you before." "Oh, for… look, the spots you need to worry about are right under and between my wings, okay? Just let your arm hang down, you'll be fine." Duran followed her instruction, though that meant she now had blood soaking into her fur again. Oh well. Bright red and light blue make a nice contrast. "I'll warn you if you do something you shouldn't, so don't worry about it." He nodded. "Oh, I kinda interrupted you, didn't I? You'd just gotten to a greenhouse." "Right. I filled up the cargo container, but it was way too dangerous for me to start heading back while the sun was still up. I holed up in one of the maintenance buildings, but I was attacked by a couple of hopperlions." Rainbow wondered what the heck a 'hopperlion' was, but she let him continue instead of interrupting again. "I was able to kill them easily enough with a knife, but they made some noise, and that attracted six or seven of these big bear things I'd never even seen before." He paused. "Look, it was exciting enough to experience, but the retelling is going to be kind of dull. Short version okay?" "The short version's fine, as long as you don't mind me asking questions! Like, what's a hopperlion?" The human smiled. "It's… a little like a grasshopper crossed with a lion. Not really, I mean, it's got the big jumping legs a grasshopper has, and they sort of hunt like lions, but it's got this sort of thick leathery skin, and it's got mandibles more like a really big ant…" He trailed off for a moment before continuing. "Look, basically, I'm really terrible at naming things, okay?" Rainbow snorted a laugh. "Anyway, I wound up having to dodge all kinds of things for pretty much the entire day, so I was a lot further away than I'd planned to be when I started back here last night, and I didn't get a bit of sleep. I realized I was going to have to really hustle to have a chance of getting back here before daylight, so I spent pretty much the whole night running, and didn't pay enough attention to my backtrail." "You haven't had any sleep in two days?" Rainbow was aghast. Running and fighting for two days straight, and he was still on his feet? Well, more or less on his feet, she thought as he stumbled again. "Yeah, and it's no fun, let me tell you. Oh, here we are." The human cut himself off and pointed at a door marked 'infirmary.' "If you'll excuse me for a moment, I need to do some minor wound treatment. I'll finish my little story in a moment." "No problem at all. If you'll wait here, I'll go get Twilight. I'm pretty sure she knows at least some minor medical spells; she should be able to fix you up pretty quick." Duran shook his head. "Oh, there's no need. None of my wounds are particularly serious. In fact, I was prepared to have to spend a night on the floor recovering my strength; I didn't expect you to be in the entryway waiting. That was a pleasant surprise, by the way, and I sincerely thank you for helping me out of my suit." Rainbow grinned. "I was just glad to be able to do something. I've been sitting around twiddling my hooves for two days now, and it's been driving me nuts!" She sobered, looking at his wounds. "You really should let Twilight help you out there. A couple of those look pretty deep." "Oh, they're pretty deep alright," the human admitted cheerfully. "Particularly these two." He pointed to a puncture in his left armpit and the one behind his left knee. "But neither hit any major blood vessels this time, and I can't feel any nerve damage. Well, you don't exactly feel nerve damage, it's more like not feel, but you know what I mean. Just muscle, might have nicked a tendon. Ruined yet another set of fatigues, though." Rainbow was momentarily startled by his attitude, before remembering the impressive collection of scars she'd seen. If I'd been cut up as bad as he has been, it probably wouldn't bother me much either. Nonetheless, she was about to insist on getting Twilight when the human staggered into the infirmary and plopped himself down on a chair. "Actually, Dash, if you still want to help, would you mind handing me that box over there? Or, ah, whatever you do without, you know, hands." He pulled out the glass-faced tablet thing she'd seen him use before to stop his metal hand from twitching, and again pulled back his sleeve and plugged a wire into his forearm. Dash picked up the item he'd indicated, a small red box with a symbol that looked like a coiled spring and passed it to him with a hoof. He reached out absently and took it with his good hand, setting it down to tap at the tablet connected to his left arm. He stopped abruptly, looking from Rainbow to the box and back again. "Er, how did you do that?" "What?" The pegasus tried to think of something unusual she'd done, but drew a blank. "That." He gestured vaguely from her to the box. "How did you just pick that up without fingers?" "I just picked it up. See?" Rainbow took the box out of his hands, held it in front of the human's face, and put it back down again. Duran looked shocked. "But… but how did you do that? How can you grip something with a hoof? You've got nothing to grip with!" He peered intently at her hoof, as if expecting her to suddenly manifest fingers or something. Rainbow, annoyed by the scrutiny, waved the hoof in the human's face. "Hey, are you planning to just sit there and bleed?" He blinked. "Oh, sorry, priorities." He tapped a few more times on the tablet, and his left fist relaxed. Flexing its fingers, he disconnected the wires from his left arm. "Why do you keep doing that? Hooking that thing to your arm and messing with it?" He gave a one-shouldered shrug as he opened the red case, pouring something that smelled of alcohol over his leg wound. "I did something wrong when I was attaching this fake arm. It screws up a lot, and when it does, I need to reboot it. That's what I'm doing with the pocket computer." As he spoke, he pulled a curved needle, some thread, and a pair of scissors from the case. Is he going to fix his clothes before he fixes himself? Rainbow wondered. "Now, where was I?" Duran muttered to himself as he threaded the needle. "Ah, yes, the short version of my return trip. Well, the desert around here's swarming with arcanovores just now. Thank the Fire for that mimetic armor; I'd have been dead about thirty times over if it wasn't for that." He pulled up the leg of his jumpsuit, showing the pegasus even more scars. "Some of them got close enough to spot me anyway, and those I had to deal with." To Rainbow's horror, he braced his leg and started actually sewing the wound shut, poking the curved needle through his own flesh with barely a twitch. He just kept right on talking. "Used up more than three quarters of my ammo that first day, took some injuries, lost one of my knives, and had a pack of shriekers on my tail when night fell. Managed to lure them right past a sleeping dragon-tiger, and it woke up mad! Ha, ha." He finished stitching the wound in his leg, wrapped some gauze around it, and sealed it with tape. "Got through the rest of the night with no major problems, but I was still kind of a long way from here when the sun came up." Unzipping the front of his jumpsuit, the human pulled his arms free and left it hanging around his waist. This was the first time Rainbow had seen the artificial arm in its totality; it looked like it attached to a metal cap where his natural arm ended, slightly below the elbow. She wondered idly if he could remove it, or whether it was permanently grafted. Splashing more alcohol on the wound under his left arm, he threaded another needle and started sewing it up as well, while still chattering on cheerfully. Rainbow had to look away, unable to keep watching the needle and thread moving through flesh. "Well, it's generally a bad idea to travel during the day, especially when there are a lot of predators around, but I was worried about the two of you running out of food, so I decided to go ahead and risk it. Besides, there weren't any places to hunker down for the day! Didn't even see the three wolverine bugs that jumped me. Got the first one, but the second one got close and smashed my gun." He glanced up, nearly finished with his stitching. "Oh. Sorry, I guess this is kind of unpleasant to watch, isn't it? I can get behind a curtain, if you like." "No, don't let me stop you! But doesn't that hurt?" Rainbow glanced at Duran to check his progress before averting her eyes again. "A bit. Not as much as it used to." He chuckled. "Either I'm getting used to it, or I'm just getting tougher!" He went back to his needlework. "Anyway, those two wolverine bugs were nasty, that's when I took nearly all of these scratches and dents, and when my blasted arm locked up again. Good thing I was only a couple of hours away from here at that point; if it had been farther, I don't know that I would have made it." The human tied off his last stitch with a grunt of satisfaction. "Did you and your friend have any problems while I was gone?" The pegasus decided not to mention her little incident in the armory. "Nope! Actually, we've got good news!" Rainbow told the human about Twilight's idea to get them home, while Duren closed the rest of his cuts with more of the little butterfly-shaped things that he'd used on her. When she finished the explanation, Duran smiled, but Rainbow saw a moment of hesitation. She heard it when he spoke, too. "D- Dash, that's great! If she can get you home… nobody should be stuck here! Let me know if there's anything I can do to help." He paused, pulling his jumpsuit back over his shoulders and zipping it up. Rainbow started to say something, but he interrupted her. "The cargo unit's full; the storeroom should be pretty much empty now, but I managed to pack the box pretty tight, so it should be enough for at least a week. I'll sort it and unload it later, but right now I desperately need some rest. You and Twilight should feel free to take whatever you need." He turned and walked out of the infirmary without giving Rainbow a chance to get a word in. Rainbow stood there for a moment, openmouthed. That was kinda rude. Why would he… oh. She felt a little dumb for taking so long to figure out why the human might be upset. She easily caught up to him in the corridor; he was still limping, and she'd bet that she was faster than he was even on his best day and her worst. "Hey! Duran!" The human didn't respond, just kept walking, head down and apparently deep in thought. Rainbow flew past and stopped square in front of him, hovering so she could look him in the eye. "Dude, we're not gonna leave you here. Twilight said the spell makes a portal that sticks around until she shuts it down; you can come back with us." He looked a little startled. "Come on, you helped us! We're not just gonna go, 'oh, gee, thanks for the help but we're going now, byeeeeee!'" She continued, rolling her eyes and putting a sarcastic sing-song tone into her spoiled-little-princess impression. She followed up by poking him in the chest and glaring. "We owe you, ya big bald sasquatch! The least we can do is get you outta here!" The human ducked his head in the face of her glare. He was silent for a long moment. When he spoke up, eyes still cast downward, his voice was quiet. "Thank you, Dash, for the offer. I'll certainly consider it." That certainly wasn't the response she'd expected. "Consider it? What's there to consider? Equestria's nicer than this place in, like, every possible way! You don't have to worry about getting attacked or eaten, there's no horrible monsters outside of the Everfree Forest, and nopony goes there anyway," She hovered forward so she could reach out and lay a hoof tentatively on his shoulder. "And there're other ponies like me and Twilight there. You don't have to be alone anymore; there'd be others around to talk to. You could have friends. Why would you ever want to stay here?" He finally looked up and met her eyes. Underneath the exhaustion, he looked drawn. He looked old, she realized, and she wondered how old he actually was. "Why would I want to stay here? I know this place. Hideous as it is, terrible as it is, hard as it tries to kill me, I know it. I don't know your world, I don't know your people, and Dash, I don't really know you." She shied back a bit, startled and a little hurt. "You and I have only spoken a bit, and I haven't talked to your friend at all. I don't know you, and you don't know me. All you've found on this world is horrible monsters, how do you know I'm not another one?" She started to reply heatedly, but he interrupted her. "But all that aside, you say that your world is better. I have no reason to believe that you're wrong, from your own perspective." He started to reach out a hand, but seemed to change his mind, withdrawing it without touching her. "For you, yes, your world is undoubtedly the better one. But I have no way of knowing if that's true for me… and I stopped hoping for the best years ago. For example, I accept that you and your friend might regard me kindly. But would the rest of your people? Or would they see a giant monster with a metal hand?" He raised his left arm, flexing his fingers to punctuate his question. She could see despair in his eyes, so strong it made her want to cry. "I used to think things would get better. I used to hope that another Rift would open, one that would lead me home. Or that a ship would arrive, and the crew would find me, and…" "…And take you back, so you could publish your book and get rich." Rainbow cut him off, prompting a surprised look. She had felt his despair reaching out to her, and she dealt with it the way she often dealt with such feelings. She got mad. She had just realized something, in a moment of blinding clarity. He's lying. Not to me, to himself. "I do know you, at least some. I read some of your journal. I know what you were thinking when you got here." She moved forward, getting in the human's face. "And you know what? I think you're wrong. You haven't stopped hoping for the best," She snarled. "You just gave up on getting yourself home, so now you're sitting here, whining about how there's no hope, but secretly hoping things will get better if you just stay here so home can find you. But you know what?" Rainbow shoved him in the chest with both forehooves, sending him stumbling back a pace. "It hasn't, and it won't. There's no ship coming. Twilight says those portal things can lead to different universes, so unless your ships do too, you're gonna be stuck here. Home's never gonna find you. Even Twilight can't get you home, but she can get you someplace better than this. You're either gonna have to try to make things better and get yourself home if you can, or you're gonna have to let it go and let us help you! Like you helped us!" She shoved him again, his eyes wide as he stared at her. "Listen to yourself!" the pegasus spat, "'Oh, Rainbow Dash, there's no hope'" she misquoted mockingly, in a whining imitation of his voice, "I'm offering you some, metalhead! So whatcha gonna do, huh? Are you gonna take it and run with it, or are you gonna throw it back in my face?" The human gaped at her, stunned, and Rainbow held his gaze angrily. If he listens, he's either going to agree, or he's gonna take a swing at me. I just attacked a lie he's probably been telling himself for a decade or more; if he believes me, it's gonna hurt. And if he doesn't, I don't think there's anything else I can do. He stayed silent for a long, long moment. Rainbow didn't blink until she saw the first tear. He finally dropped his gaze, tears running down his face as he wept soundlessly. "You're right," he finally said, in a whisper so quiet she would have expected it out of Fluttershy. "You're right. I've prayed for a chance to get out of here, and now that it's come, I'm almost too frightened to take it." The sight of the tall, battered, scarred biped crying silently in the middle of the empty, sterile hall was heartbreaking. Rainbow, deciding to take a risk, hovered forward and threw her forelegs around his neck in a hug. Duran tensed for a split second before carefully returning the embrace. "Hey, I know you don't know us, but it'll take time for Twilight to work out the return spell." Rainbow spoke to the human quietly, feeling the tears soaking into her fur and mane. "Take that time to talk to both of us. Get to know us some. Maybe that way it'll be easier to leave this place behind." She felt a little awkward. I sorta wish Fluttershy was here. This is more her thing than mine; I'm a little worried I'll screw up. The hug didn't last long. Duran backed away after a couple of heartbeats, regaining control of himself. His voice was still a little choked up when he thanked her, promising that he'd speak to both ponies once he woke up. Rainbow helped him as he limped to his sleeping quarters. She hadn't been in the room, but there wasn't anything remarkable inside; only a pair of long, heavy-bladed knives and slightly untidy blankets made this room look any different from one of the uninhabited ones. He was already asleep when the door closed behind her. A quick shower washed the blood and nasty-smelling ichor out of her coat and gave Rainbow a chance to think. Um. I don't think I've actually talked to Twilight about bringing Duran back to Equestria with us, she realized, standing under the spray. She had come to find the shower room oddly calming, with the echo of the falling water hissing throughout the huge tiled space, and the tiny drops drumming against her back and her mane. Surely she won't argue about it, though. And we can't leave him here. That would be seriously not right. Rainbow knew that the human was dangerous. She'd seen him kill five creatures right in front of her, and he'd casually mentioned killing several more creatures in his brief explanation for his tardiness only minutes ago. On the other hoof, though, he'd been decidedly non-hostile and even friendly towards her. Even when she'd gotten in his face and shoved him, he hadn't lashed out. Gilda, for example, probably would have reacted aggressively to that; heck, she'd known other ponies that might have lashed out with that kind of provocation. Like me, she thought ruefully. The problem was that the human had been a friend to them, of sorts. Rainbow Dash was loyal to her friends, sticking by them even in bad situations, and sometimes even when she shouldn't. It had been hard to stand up to Gilda at the party Pinkie Pie had thrown for her, even after it had been clear that Gilda was being horrible to Pinkie. (And Fluttershy, as she'd later learned) Even after the griffon had shouted at and outright insulted her other friends. Rainbow squeezed her eyes shut at the memory, moving her head so the spray was washing over her face and forelock. That had been terrible, and she was still trying to figure out how to sort the situation out; she hadn't spoken to Gilda since then, though she desperately wanted to. This isn't what I should be worrying about right now, she thought to herself. I need to go talk to Twilight. Shaking water out of the polychromatic mane that gave her part of her name, Rainbow stepped out of the shower to dry off. Sticking Applejack's hat back on her head, (the pegasus had gotten used to the feeling of that hat. It was going to be kind of hard to give it back at this point!) she trotted briskly back down the hall to talk to Twilight.