The Foals of Harmony: Equestrian Rhapsody

by Rainy Meadows

Chapter 1 - Miss Misty Mysterious

Is this the real life?
Is this just fantasy?
Caught in a landslide
No escape from reality
Open your eyes
Look up to the skies and see...

Isn’t it annoying when you wake up far too early, and try as you may you can’t get back to sleep?

You close your eyes and try your best to drift off, but it’s too late: you’re wide awake and there isn’t anything you can do to change that fact. The sun is already completely up, and the light penetrating your eyelids is only further persuasion to get out of bed and begin the new day.

But you don’t want to get up and out of bed, because you’re so cosy and comfortable, and you feel like getting out of bed at the moment could be compared to walking into a blizzard with no clothes on.

That was exactly how Rainbow Dash felt at the moment. She was awake, sure, but she definitely didn’t want to be, so she dragged her pillow out from underneath her head, pressed it over her muzzle, and with a groan she rolled over in her bed.

At that moment, she sensed that something was wrong. Surely that space wasn’t empty last night...

“Tearaway?”

Dash groggily lifted the pillow from her face and scanned the area, her magenta eyes taking in every last detail on her endless Wonderbolt posters and memorabilia.

“Hey, Tearaway, you here?”

No answer.

Reluctantly, Dash tried to get out of bed, but her legs and wings weren’t quite awake yet and she rolled off and onto the floor. Cursing something dreadful, she clambered to her hooves and heard something crunch. Lifting up her hoof, she saw the remains of a glass syringe.

‘How the hay did that get there?’ she thought to herself.

“Come on, Tearaway,” she said. “This isn’t funny, where are you?”

She cantered out of the room, looking around and shouting his name.

“Tearaway, where are you? Tearaway?”

Dash frantically searched her entire house, inside and out. She was certain that the amount of noise she was making was sure to wake up all of Equestria, but right now she didn’t care. She’d give anything to see his...

What colour where his eyes again? She couldn’t recall.

She darted around corners and uprooted the kitchen, looking under and behind couches, searching for a flash of that...

Great. Now she couldn’t remember what colour his mane was. Or his coat, for that matter. But at least she knew what his cutie mark was. It was a – a lightning bolt, wasn’t it? Or maybe it was a cloud...

‘Perfect way to start the morning, Rainbow,’ she thought. ‘Your new coltfriend’s disappeared and you haven’t got a clue what he looks like. What was the deal with that syringe, anyway?’

Rainbow Dash may not have been famed for being a genius, but she knew how to put two and two together.

“He drugged me!” she shouted. “He suckered up to me and he drugged me! And I totally fell for it; I can’t believe I actually thought he was an alright kind of guy! So much for gratitude. After everything I did for that little parasprite, he knocks me out and bunks off. Well, I’m going to find you, Tearaway.”

She walked over to a window and looked out at the broken cloud canopy, with Canterlot just visible in the distance and Ponyville right below her.

“I’m gonna find you if it’s the last thing I do,” Rainbow Dash declared.

Two months later...

If anypony had been outside that night, they would have seen a lilac-coloured unicorn pony with pink and purple strips in her indigo mane and tail galloping frantically through the streets of Ponyville, panting for breath and positively saturated in rain. Thunder rumbled through the clouds over Equestria, and lightning struck down relentlessly and unpredictably from the skies.

‘The weather teams really outdid themselves this time,’ thought Twilight Sparkle to herself and she dashed past Sugarcube Corner. ‘Anypony caught out here in this kind of storm would probably drown. Oh wait, that means me!’

There was the library, right up ahead. Shelter from the horizontal rain and a warm bed lay only across the street. Not wishing to spend any more time in the torrential downpour, Twilight teleported straight into the centre of the library and almost collapsed in exhaustion.

“I’ll be home before the storm starts, Spike, I promise,” said a voice behind her, bathed in bitter sarcasm.

“Sorry, Spike,” said Twilight as she turned to face her no. 1 assistant, “I was so busy helping Fluttershy with her animals that I must have lost track of time. I didn’t mean to stay out so late; didn’t I tell you not to wait up for me if I was delayed?”

“It’s not that,” said Spike. “Who do you think has to clean up?”

Twilight looked down at the spreading puddle around her hooves. Her horn glowed briefly and she and the floor were as dry as a bone.

“Oh,” said Spike, “right, thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Twilight said politely. “Did anybody stop by while I was gone?”

“Only Pinkie Pie and Applejack,” said Spike. “They were looking for Rainbow Dash – something about a promise to make cupcakes and not seeing her for several days.”

“Really?” asked Twilight. “That’s kinda weird. Fluttershy said that her animals had never been calmer than they have been over the past couple of months, and that’s because a full eight weeks have passed without Rainbow Dash swooping down and terrifying them with one of her stunts.” She walked over to the window and watched another lightning bolt lance down from the duvet of clouds which covered the sky, striking somewhere near Sweet Apple Acres. “I hope she’s alright.”

“Oh relax, Twilight,” said Spike. “This is Rainbow Dash we’re talking about here, remember? The first and only pony ever to successfully pull off a Sonic Rainboom? The fastest and strongest of all ponies?”

Twilight sighed. “You’re right,” she said, and glanced at the clock on the wall.

“It’s late, Spike,” she pointed out, “you should probably get some sleep.”

“As if!” Spike said objectively, “I’m not in the least bit-“He missed out the last word because it was cut off by a snore; he had fallen asleep right there on the stairs.

“No, Spike,” said Twilight, “I guess you’re not.” Leaving the baby dragon to sleep, she approached the ‘L’ section of the book shelves and pulled out the first book she found about lightning.

“Lightning Strikes: Everything You Need To Know About Storms And Other Weather Phenomena,” she read. She opened the book to the section on lightning and started to read.

“Lightning is the name given to the discharge of atmospheric electricity in or between clouds and the ground, usually occurring during a thunderstorm...”

Up in the sky, in a house floating far above the insanely violent weather, a young sky-blue pegasus pony with a rainbow coloured mane was sobbing quietly into her pillow.

“Phoowee!” Applejack exclaimed the next morning when she saw the mess the storm had made in the streets of Ponyville. “We’ve sure got our work cut out fer us!”

“Speak for yourself!” said Rarity as she left the Carousel Boutique. “That awful gale blew a rock straight through my window! All of my best dresses are simply saturated in rainwater, and Sweetie Belle spent the entire night under my bed, hiding from the thunder. Why did they have to schedule a storm for last night?”

“Truth be told, Ah have no idea,” said Applejack.

“There y’are, Sweetie Belle!” said Apple Bloom, emerging from behind her older sister to see her friend cowering beneath Rarity, glancing nervously up at the sky. “Let’s go find Scootaloo and start cleaning up the street!”

“Yeah!” said Sweetie Belle, and this called for a chorus of:

“CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS STORM MESS CLEANERS YAY!”

And with that, the two little fillies sped away and out of sight.

“As long as Ah live, Ah’ll never understand those two silly fillies,” said Applejack.

“The feeling’s entirely mutual,” said Rarity. Her eyes wandered to the sky and she caught sight of a familiar face.

“Rainbow Dash, darling!” she exclaimed. “We were beginning to worry about you!”

“Agreed,” said Applejack. “Long time no see, Rainbow.”

“Oh,” said Rainbow Dash, “hi girls.” Slowly (and most unlike Rainbow Dash) she flapped down the ground and stood before her two friends, and it took less than a second for them to see that something wasn’t right. The normally fiery and over-confident pegasus they knew had been replaced by what looked like the most dejected creature in all of Equestria. She was pale as a sheet, slightly green in the cheeks, and her eyes were red and puffy as if she’d been crying lately.

“Are you alright, Sugarcube?” asked Applejack. “You don’t look so good.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” said Dash, but she caught sight of her reflection in a nearby window and shuddered.

“What do you mean, you have no idea?” asked Rarity. “Look at you! We need to get you straight to the spa, pronto!”

“Sounds good,” said Dash, resisting her unicorn friend’s attempt to push her along the ground, “but I’m afraid I’ve got other stuff to – oh no! No, no! Not again!” Her cheeks bulged; she clapped a hoof to her mouth and sped away into the clouds.

“Now Ah can’t have been the only one ter notice somethin’s up with her,” Applejack said.

“You’re telling me,” said Rarity. “I mean, did you see her mane? She was a total shambles!”

“Yes,” said Applejack, “and then there’s the fact that Rainbow never cries, and yet looks like she’s done nothin’ but for the past month! And was Ah mistaken, or did she look like she was about throw up just as she left?”

“Of course I noticed!” said Rarity. “I’m no fool! We need to figure out what’s going on with her. She looked as if she could break down at any moment.”

Once she’d cleared up her little digestive problem, Dash made sure she was well out of hearing range.

She’d never felt so angry in her entire life. Of all the things that could have happened to her, this was the WORST. POSSIBLE. THING. And this was no Rarity Drama-Queen overreaction either. This was serious. Deadly serious, and it was all his fault. If only she could just remember what he looked like, it might not have felt so offensive, but as it was, it was something for which she would never, ever forgive him as long as she lived.

What would the others think of her if they ever found out? Dash dreaded to think of what they would say to everypony else if she told them what that bastard had done to her, what he had gotten her into. And worst of all, there was no possible way of turning back. Not here. Not now. Not ever.

Her anger had reached a new physical peak. She felt as if she could scream at any moment.

So she did.

“TEEEAAARAWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYY!!!”

A couple of hours later there was movement in the bushes on the outskirts of the Everfree Forest. But this was no ordinary movement, this was movement of the bushes. Or rather, a single solitary bush.

The pony responsible for the movement had seen a certain blue (in more ways than one) pegasus landing nearby, and pressing a hoof to an ear which had something black hooked over it. A stick of black extended out from the hook, and was tipped with a black bud, and then the rainbow maned pony began to talk, apparently to nopony.

‘And they have the nerve to call ME crazy,’ the spy thought to herself. She shuffled closer, until she was just within earshot. She shivered – obviously, there was going to be a real doozy later today.

If Rainbow Dash had been paying attention, she would have seen a nearby bush suddenly sprout a pair of Groucho Cutie-Marx glasses surrounding a pair blinking baby-blue eyes. The wearer leaned in closer to get a better listen.

“...they found out? You know how they fuss over things; especially Twilight, she won’t be able to keep away from those damn books of hers!”

There was a pause, presumably to allow the out of sight converser to reply.

“No!” said Dash. “No, nopony can ever find out, do you hear me? This is my problem, and I’m gonna deal with it by myself.”

Another pause. The eavesdropper shuffled in as close as she dared.

Dash sighed, and a smile somehow worked its way onto her lips. “You’re a real good friend, Hex, you know that?” she said.

‘Who the hay is Hex?’ the spy asked herself, and watched as Dash sniffed and quite obviously wiped away a tear.

“Okay, I’ll see you later then, and remember: not a word to anypony.” She pressed the black hook again and the stick retracted – only a pony with keen eyesight would have noticed the strange device hanging from the pegasus’ ear.

“Numbskull,” she said affectionately, and started to head out of the forest, passing the bush in which the eavesdropper was concealed.

“Hey Pinkie Pie,” said Rainbow Dash.

‘How in Equestria did she penetrate my cunning disguise?’ Pinkie Pie asked herself, but Rainbow Dash had frozen when she realised who she’d been talking to. She turned on her hooves and pinned her energetic friend against a tree, scattering twigs, leaves and the glasses all over the place.

“How much of that did you hear?” Dash demanded, her furious muzzle centimetres away from Pinkie’s.

“I-“

“You can’t tell anypony about this, you hear?” Dash furiously prodded the pink pony in the chest. “NOPONY!”

“But I don’t even know what you were talking about!” Pinkie squeaked. “Why were you talking to the air? Sometimes I talk to the air, which is strange, because the air never talks back so why would I talk to it?”

“I wasn’t talking to the air, I was – I – you wouldn’t understand!” Seeing the fury in her eyes, Pinkie squeaked fearfully.

When she saw how terrified her friend was, Rainbow Dash released her and retracted until she was almost in another bush.

“I-I’m sorry,” she said, “I didn’t mean to scare you, it’s just...”

“What?” Pinkie chirruped cheerfully. “And what’s that black thing on your ear, anyway? Is it a fishing hook? Are you going fishing? You forgot your fishing rod! And the lures, where’s your lures?” Pinkie gasped. “Are you going to catch dinner for us?”

Dash’s bottom lip began to wobble uncontrollably, and she departed at top speed. Pinkie Pie was certain she heard a sob as her speedy friend disappeared.

“No way,” Pinkie said to herself. “No wonder she’s being all Miss misty-mysterious, Rainbow Dash has a secret! Wonder what it is?” She looked around at the empty air surrounding her, apparently waiting for a reply, and when none arrived she just said “Thought so,” and bounced off merrily back towards Ponyville.

“Not too fast now Angel Bunny, you don’t want to get a tummy ache.”

The small white rabbit looked up at the demure yellow pegasus in front of him, and promptly pushed the half eaten carrot away.

Fluttershy gave a little giggle and said “You really should eat more than that, don’t you think? It’s not playtime yet. I know you want to run, but just three more bites.”

Angel turned his nose up.

“Two more bites?”

The bunny eyed the carrot, but still refused to eat any more.

“One more bite?” Fluttershy pleaded. “Pretty please?”

Suddenly there was a tremendous crash, and every chicken in the coop outside went nothing short of hysterical. Angel dived for cover under the couch.

“What was that?” Fluttershy wondered aloud. She opened the door to see the extent of the damage. The outlook was grim: a whole section of the wire fence had burst wide open, and there was straw strewn all over the ground, not to mention the chickens which now ran amok around the garden. But if Fluttershy listened hard enough, she could just about make out the sound of someone crying. She wandered closer; it was coming from the chicken shed.

“Fluttershy! Fluttershy!”

“Oh,” said the pegasus, “hi Pinkie Pie.”

“Fluttershy!” said Pinkie. “I just met Rainbow Dash in the woods and she was talking to the air, and then she pressed me up against a tree and told me not to tell anypony, which I think is weird and I got this shiver which means my Pinkie sense is telling me there’s going to be a major doozy-“

Fluttershy held a hoof to her lips for silence, motioning towards the shed, and she and her hyperactive friend cautiously approached the little wooden hut. As carefully as defusing a bomb, Fluttershy looked around the edge of the doorway, and saw a blue pony with a rainbow mane curled up in the corner, shaking with sobs and slowly creating a miniature sea of tears on the plank floor.

“Rainbow Dash?” Fluttershy asked. “Are you alright?”

“Do I look alright?” Dash demanded, and her friend recoiled fearfully.

Dash wiped her muzzle on her foreleg and wiped her foreleg on some nearby straw.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I-I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“That’s okay,” Fluttershy said, “you didn’t mean it. Do you want to tell me what’s upsetting you?”

Contrary to making her feel better, this question only made Rainbow Dash more frustrated.

“Why do you have to be so-so nice, Fluttershy?” she asked. “It’s not like I deserve your kindness. I don’t deserve anypony’s kindness, least of all yours, or Pinkie Pie, or Applejack, or Rarity or Twilight or...” She trailed off, and wiped her muzzle again.

“Would you like to tell me about it?” Fluttershy inquired patiently.

“That’s just it!” said Dash. “I can’t tell anypony about it! It’s something I have to do alone and-and I-“ She couldn’t finish. She buried her face in her hooves and began to cry. Fluttershy walked over to her and patted what was supposed to be a comforting hoof on Rainbow Dash’s shoulder.

“It’s okay,” said the kindly yellow pony. “Would you like me to leave you alone?”

Dash sneaked a tear-ridden glance over her shoulder, and nodded.

“Okay,” said Fluttershy, “you can just stay right here. I won’t try to move you if you don’t want to.” And with that, she left the chicken shed and the sobbing form of the Element of Loyalty.

“I think we should leave her alone for a while,” she said to Pinkie Pie. “Now, what were you saying?”

“Well,” said Pinkie, and took a deep breath in preparation for a very long sentence: “I saw Rainbow Dash flying into the Everfree Forest so I thought ‘that’s kinda weird’ and so I disguised myself as a bush and I followed her and when I got there she was talking to the air – well not really to the air she was talking into this black hook thing she had on her ear – and when she finished she found me and she made me promise not to tell anypony about it but I didn’t know what she was talking about and I came here because I hoped you and me and Twilight and Applejack and Rarity could come up with a solution or something to make Dashie feel better.”

Fluttershy could feel the lack of punctuation and knew that this was urgent.

“I agree,” she said. “Something tells me that this can’t wait another minute. Come on, Pinkie let’s go find the others. They’ll know what to do.” They started to head towards Ponyville, but Fluttershy stopped and said “Oh, wait a minute.”

She cantered back into her cottage and knelt down on the floor next to her couch.

“Angel,” she said, “I have to go to Ponyville for a while. Do you think you could take of Rainbow Dash while I’m gone? I promise I won’t be long.”

Angel nervously looked out from under the couch and nodded.

“Thank you,” said Fluttershy. “And don’t worry, she’s a pushover.”

“Isn’t it kinda lazy to get your younger sisters to clean up the street for you?” asked Twilight as the Cutie Mark Crusaders zoomed around the street picking up twigs and detritus which had blown down during the storm.

“Nah,” said Applejack, “they think they’re gonna get their cutie marks from it, so Ah’d hate to stop them. Besides, look at how much they’ve cleaned up already!”

Twilight had to admit that the street outside the library was considerably tidier than it had been first thing this morning.

“That reminds me,” she said, “have either of you two seen Rainbow Dash?”

“Not since this mornin’,” Applejack told her. “She came down from the sky looking more than a little worse for wear, and flat out refused to give an explanation.”

“I think ‘a little worse for wear’ would be a major understatement, Applejack,” said Rarity, trying and failing to mimic the apple farmer’s accent. “Oh, she was a right mess, Twilight, you wouldn’t believe! Her mane looked as though it hadn’t been washed in weeks, and her eyes were so puffy and she just looked so ill that I tried to take her to the spa for a little beauty treatment, but she departed in a hurry and I swear she was about to vomit as she left!”

“Why were you asking for her, anyways?” asked Applejack.

“I was wondering if I talk to her about the storm last night,” said Twilight. “I’ve never known it to rain like that before, and the way the lightning was coming down you’d almost think it had a mind of its own.”

“Come ta think of it, Ah did find it strange that the weather’d be so fierce,” said Applejack. “You think if the weather ponies were to arrange somethin’ like that, they’d at least make it pretty short, not sweat it out all night.”

“Something tells me that it wasn’t actually made by the weather teams,” said Twilight. “I know it might sound strange,” but I think it was something else that made that storm. Don’t ask me to explain how, but it just felt... unnatural.”

“I’ll tell you what’s unnatural!” said Rarity angrily. “All my best dresses were completely soaked when my window broke, it was simply dreadful! I’ll have to do so much work to make up for it, I’ll be surprised if I get any sleep tonight!”

“Twilight! Rarity! Applejack, come quick!”

“What is it, Fluttershy?” asked Twilight.

“Oh Twilight, Rainbow Dash just crashed into my chicken’s shed,” said Fluttershy. “And she’s so upset, I don’t dare to go near her.”

“I saw her in the woods!” Pinkie Pie piped up between shivers. “It looked like she was talking to the air, and it was weird, ‘coz it seemed like the air was talking back, but she had this black hook thing on her ear and it looked like she was talking into it, but I couldn’t hear anything and my Pinkie sense is telling me there’s gonna be a doozy-“

“Whoa, there, Sugarcube,” said Applejack, “calm down. Now, tell us what’s going on.”

“I tried to ask her what was wrong, but she said she can’t tell anypony about it and I don’t have any idea what she’s talking about,” said Fluttershy. “And that means it’s really, really serious and I didn’t know what to do.”

“We saw her earlier today,” said Rarity, “and a right mess she looked as well.”

“We know, Rarity,” said Twilight, “you’ve said so about fifteen times already.”

“You know what I think?” asked Pinkie Pie. “I think Rainbow’s gone crazy! Crazy Rainbow! ‘Coz after I saw her talking in the woods she told me the same thing she told Fluttershy, which was that she couldn’t tell anypony, and I asked her what she was talking about because it looked like she had this really weird fishing hook on her ear, and I wondered if she was going fishing, but she flew away before she answered and she was crying!”

“That settles it,” said Twilight. “Rainbow Dash obviously needs our help. C’mon girls, let’s go find out what’s going on with her.” And with that, the five young mares cantered away from Ponyville.

“Hey!” shouted Scootaloo as she fanned some leaves off the street with her wings. “We finished the street, don’t you want us to do anything else?”

“I’m bored,” said Sweetie Belle. “Whoever heard of a street cleaning cutie mark anyway?”

“What shall we do now?” asked Apple Bloom.

After five seconds hard thought...

“I got it!” declared Sweetie Belle. “Let’s go fix all Rarity’s dresses that got ruined in the storm!”

“I like it!” said Apple Bloom.

“That’s a great idea!” said Scootaloo.

“CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS DRESS MENDERS YAY!”

This wouldn't end well.

Twilight didn’t know what to expect from her fast and apparently distraught pegasus friend, so she looked inside the chicken shed as slowly as she dared to find...

Nothing.

“She’s not in there,” the purple unicorn declared.

“That’s odd,” said Fluttershy. “Where could she have gone?”

“And in such a dreadful state, she’s bound to have stuck out like a sore hoof,” Rarity pointed out.

“Ooh, she’s playing Hide-And-Seek!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed excitedly. “Where is she? Is she under the hut? Is she in the cottage? Did she burrow through the ground to the centre of the earth?”

Everypony else just stared.

“Panic’s over, guys,” said Applejack, breaking her friend's haze of confusion by pointing a hoof up at a nearby cloud she said “She’s right there.”

A sky blue hoof and a scrap of rainbow tail were just visible, hanging over the edge of the cloud which was just large enough to hold a pony.

“Rainbow Dash?” Twilight asked nervously. “Are you alright up there?”

Wordlessly, the hoof and tail were withdrawn.

“Look,” said Twilight, “I know you’re upset, and I don’t blame you for wanting to keep it to yourself, but you know, if you only told us what the problem is then I’m sure we’d be able to help you.”

“You can’t!” shouted Rainbow Dash. “You can’t help me. Nopony can help me!”

‘Isn’t Applejack the one who’s meant to be so damn stubborn?’ Twilight said in the privacy of her mind.

“You won’t know if anypony can help unless you let them try,” she pointed out. “So why don’t you come on down from that cloud and let your friends help you, because there can’t be nothing we can do about whatever it is that’s bothering you.”

“That’s just IT!”

In a rush of colour Rainbow Dash zoomed down from her cloud and looked Twilight right in the eye, causing her to recoil, alarmed.

“You always try to understand things, Twilight Sparkle,” Dash growled, “so understand this: there is nothing that anypony can do to help me at all. So I’m asking you as politely as I can to LEAVE ME ALONE.”

“What about Hex?” asked Pinkie Pie. “Can’t he help you?”

Rainbow Dash stared.

“How the hay do you know about Hex?” she asked.

“Well, duh, I overheard you talking to him in the woods! Isn’t there anything he can do?”

“Wait a minute,” said Twilight. “Who’s Hex?”

“None of your business!” Dash shouted rudely. “Now please, do the world a favour and all of you, LEAVE ME ALONE!!” And with that, she turned and flew back up to her cloud.

Applejack opened her mouth to shout something, but Twilight just told her to leave it.

“What do we do now?” asked Fluttershy.

“Well, there’s no way we’re going to get an answer out of her by asking,” said Twilight. “So we’re gonna have to make her tell us. I’m sorry girls, but for Rainbow’s sake, we need to get tough with her.”

Out of earshot, resting on her cloud, Dash said to nopony in particular;

“Where the hay are you, Tearaway? I need you.”

She didn’t know how long she was up on that cloud or if she fell asleep. All Rainbow Dash knew was that one moment it was daylight and her friends were discussing something below her, the next she’d been harnessed to her cloud by a length of rope and was moving involuntarily through the sky.

“Hey, what the- Applejack, what are you doing?”

“Sorry, Sugarcube,” Applejack said indistinctly as she galloped, “but it’s for yer own good.”

“Where are you taking me?” Dash demanded. “Can you at least tell me why you’ve lassoed me to the cloud? Let me go! What do you want with me?” But despite her protests, Applejack didn’t say another word, so Dash decided to struggle, but all that achieved was tightening the noose around her stomach which pinned her wings to her sides, preventing her from flying.

It wasn’t too long before she was greeted by a familiar, nay unwelcome sight (equine pun unintended); the ceiling of the Sweet Apple Acres barn. The lasso around her waist was loosened and she struggled free, kicking the cloud out of existence in her anger.

“What the hay is going on?” Dash demanded.

“We aren’t letting you leave here unless you tell us what’s going on,” said Twilight firmly.

“The hell you are!” shouted Rainbow Dash, and she started circling her friends at high speed, whipping up a strong and terrifying tornado. Rarity’s mane was blown way out of control, Applejack lost her hat, and the beams of the roof structure creaked rather threateningly before Twilight was able to conjure up a strong enough telekinesis field and drag the infuriated pegasus into submission, and Dash was roughly dumped onto the ground and pinned there by Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie, who shivered violently as her supposed ‘doozy’ came closer.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, Rainbow,” said Fluttershy meekly.

“You still don’t get it, do you?” asked Dash. “This thing, not even I can do anything about it!”

“Well, we won’t be able to see about that unless you tell us what the hay’s been goin’ on with you!” said Applejack. “You turn up after two months looking like you crawled through a pigsty in a hurricane, and you expect us not to want to find out why? So come on! Spill the beans! What’s the big secret?”

Rainbow Dash sighed. She knew she’d have to tell them all sooner or later.

“...I’m pregnant.”

The resounding result was as she’d expected: Applejack’s face fell, Rarity gasped in horror, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie leapt back in shock, and Twilight simply stood where she was in stunned silence.

“How can you be-“

“Please!” said Rainbow Dash. “Please, just-just let me explain.”

Twilight looked around at her friends, and received a nod of approval from each one.

“Go ahead, Rainbow Dash,” she said.

Dash sighed with relief. This was going far better than she’d expected.

“A few months ago,” she explained, “I found a young pegasus stallion not far from my house. He was in a really bad shape – his wing was twisted, two of his legs were broken, he had this horrible cut on his muzzle – I don’t want to have to draw you all a picture. So I did what anypony would do; took him back to my place.”

“It was ages before he woke up, and it was obvious from the smell on his breath that he’d been drinking like crazy. I think-I think he told me that his name was Tearaway, and I knew that if I hadn’t found him he would have died for sure. I remember he explained to me that he’d got drunk, too drunk to fly, and accidentally flown into a thunderstorm and crashed.”

“It was weeks before he was able to walk again, let alone fly properly, but over that time, I-I got to really like him. Hell, I would even go as far as to say I...”

“Loved him?” asked Twilight, and Rainbow Dash nodded.

“Then one evening,” she continued, “I found him wandering around the place screaming his head off for someone called Lotus Breeze. He was out of his mind – he was going to fall over the edge and he wasn’t even trying to flap his wings. I’m pretty sure that if I hadn’t found him and pulled him back in, he’d have fallen off and plummeted to his death. I’d expected him to be at least a little angry at me, but instead he just- I dunno, broke down in my hooves. He told me that Lotus Breeze was his wife, and that she’d died alone at their home, which was when he’d fallen off the wagon and started drinking.”

“That was when he kissed me, and he told me that he’d loved me from the moment he’d first set eyes on me.”

“Long story short, we ended up spending the night together, and when I woke up he was gone and the son-of-a-parasprite had drugged me so that I wouldn’t remember what he looked like. And now he’s gone and I’m...”

“Pregnant?” Twilight suggested.

Rainbow Dash charged forward and threw her forelegs around the purple unicorn in a hug which was both chokingly tight and extremely tearful.

“Oh Twilight, I’m so sorry!” she bawled. “I didn’t want to push you away. I didn’t want to push any of you away! I was just so scared of what you all would think of me that I didn’t want anypony to find out!”

“It’s okay, Sugarcube,” said Applejack, pulling the sobbing pegasus into a loving embrace. “Ah’d be lying if Ah said Ah din’t have things Ah din’t wanna tell nopony.”

“Some Element of Loyalty I am,” said Rainbow Dash. “I’ve been nothing but rude to you all day, and all any of you were trying to do was help. Especially you, Fluttershy. I’m sorry I destroyed your chicken coop.”

“That’s okay,” said Fluttershy, “I can easily fix it.”

“Perhaps now you can let us wash that dreadful lank mane of yours,” said Rarity.

“Would you like that, Rainbow?” asked Twilight.

Rainbow Dash took one look at her unwashed multicolour locks.

“Yeah,” she said, “I’d like that.”

“Good,” said Twilight, “and you shouldn’t worry. You’re going to be a mother, and that isn’t anything that a pony can do alone. You’re gonna need all the help you can get.”

“Face it, Rainbow,” said Applejack, “there ain’t no way you’re getting rid of us in a million years.”

“Dear Princess Celestia,

Unlikely as it may sound, I’m writing to you from the barn of Sweet Apple Acres, where your very own Best Young Flyer Rainbow Dash learned that if something seems hopeless, and even if help appears to be completely beyond reach, friends will always be there to help you, no matter how serious or hopeless the situation may seem.”

“I wonder whether it’s a colt or a filly!” Pinkie Pie bounced up and down excitedly as Rarity tipped warm water over the head of the pegasus who was sitting in a tub dragged out from the farmhouse. “What are you going to call it if it’s a boy? And what if it’s a girl? What do you think of Desmona?”

Rainbow Dash giggled at her friend’s boundless energy.

“Pinkie Pie,” she said, “I don’t know how I would have got by without you. Sorry about getting so up close and personal earlier.”

“Aww, that’s alright, Dashie!” Pinkie squealed. She hugged her sky blue friend, but leapt back almost instantly because she was sopping wet.

“My Pinkie sense stopped,” she said. “I think I’ve figured out what the doozy was.”

“Enlighten us,” said a smiling Applejack, “what was the doozy?”

There were no surprises as to what Pinkie Pie screamed next:

“WE’RE GOING TO HAVE A BABY!!”

Twilight looked on fondly at the scene.

“Your faithful student,

Twilight Sparkle.”

‘That’ll make a good report,’ Twilight thought. ‘If only I could persuade Spike to stay awake long enough to write it down.’

She wandered out of the barn and into the cool night air. It was peaceful and quiet...

Too quiet.

The sounds of her friend’s laughter seemed to fade into the background as a light rustled the leaves in the nearby orchard, but the sound hardly seemed significant compared to the apparent, almost fake stillness in the air. Even the clouds refused to move from their present position. Somewhere in the distance, thunder grumbled as a storm brewed somewhere over Fillydelphia.

‘Who exactly is this Hex that Pinkie and Rainbow were talking about?’ Twilight thought.

There was a storm coming, and this one was going to be one hell of a doozy.

NEXT TIME: Combine Efforts

“No, but there is a very slow lightning bolt.”

“I’m presuming you mean ‘electricity’?”

“Isn’t that what I said?”

“I have a hunch, and this time I hope to smeg I’m wrong.”

“You’re right. As usual.”

“Well, let me put it this way. Have you ever read War of the Worlds?”

Author's Note: Well, there you have it: the first chapter of Equestrian Rhapsody. I apologise for any faults that you, the readers, may find; this is a chapter I wrote in a single day, and it's undergone a LOT of edits since then. Please let me know what you think in the comments.

Comments

[clap2times]

Interesting...

How can one drug wipe weeks of memories from somepony? And not even the whole memories, just one part (what he looked like) .
Other than that everybody seemed in character, and didn't catch on any errors (not that that means anything, I've never been good at picking up on those types of things

[Rainy Meadows]

I'm planning on expanding on this a little more, in particular RD's memory loss. Thanks!

[clap2times]

205442 Looking forward too it

Also, I'm failing to see the connection to Bohemian rhapsody toher than the lyrics at the start... will it come into play later?

[Rainy Meadows]

Very likely. :D

[Darkness_take_you]

Its scary, because drugs like that can, and do, actually exist.

[BluWinter]

I read the first chapter! I LOVE it! I;ll upload a pic of Winter Pony on dev art :3

[malfarious]

Is this the real life?
Is this just fantasy?
Caught in a landslide
No escape from reality
Open your eyes
Look up to the skies and see...

Bohemian Rhapsody, Queen. The first few lines and i'm in love already