A Rainbow of a Different Color

by The 24th Pegasus

Chapter 4: Dazed and Confused

Chapter 4: Dazed and Confused

“What?”

It was the only word Hawk Tail could mutter. His mouth fumbled over several attempts to speak while his brain could hardly comprehend what Lanner had just said. Still, he was one word ahead of everyone else as they remained stone silent, hooves resting on the table or loosely holding a forgotten drink.

Lanner inhaled a drawn out breath and walked into the room. “She’s awake, Hawk. I… I was just sitting in the room watching over her while dad went to go drag the garbage to the burn barrel when she jolted straight upright in bed. She was p-panting and clutching at the sheets, and when she turned to look at me I panicked and I didn’t know what to do so I went to try and find you but I had no idea where you were and I had to hunt you down all across town and—!”

“Lanner!” Hawk Tail shouted as he placed a hoof over his sister’s muzzle. “Calm down. Deep breaths. It’s okay, everything’s fine.”

The young mare backed out of Hawk’s reach and took several noisy gasps of air. When she was finished she turned to her brother again. “Right, I—I just didn’t know what to do. What should we do? I left her there in the house all alone! She’s probably scared or confused or something!”

“Relax, Lanner,” her brother ordered. Placing both hooves on her shoulders, he looked her in the eyes. “Dad’s still there, right?”

The mare nodded, although the panic still remained plastered across her face.

Hawk Tail took a deep breath. “Right. She’ll be fine. Did she… say anything when she woke up?”

Lanner vigorously shook her head. “No, not at all. She kind of gasped and started panting when she sat up, and then she looked at me and I freaked out and ran.”

“Did you at least tell Dad before you flew off?”

Lanner bit her lip as her answer.

Sighing, Hawk Tail nodded. “Okay. I can handle that.” Turning back to Flurry, Wrangler, and Amber Grain, he guided Lanner towards the table. “Stay here and just relax,” he said to his sister, before addressing the rest of the adults. “You guys keep an eye on her while I go take care of this, okay?”

The four nodded, and Flurry stood up to guide Lanner over. “Come, sit. Wrangler will pour you some lemonade.”

“If there’s any left,” Wrangler, who was finishing her third glass, said as she turned away to find another.

Amber Grain seemed absolutely delighted. “Why yes, come sit with us! I’ve got plenty of stories to tell!” She smiled to herself. “Oh, the romantic tragedy of youth. Why, back in my day, we…”

Lanner’s eyes widened in terror.

Hawk Tail, meanwhile, took that as his cue to leave.

It took Hawk less than two seconds to get to the door and leap off of the porch at full gallop. Spreading his wings, he pushed down hard until his lift overcame gravity. With several more flaps, he sailed clear over the side of the hill and found an air current to boost his progress back towards River’s Reach. Stretching his feathers as far out as they could go, Hawk Tail pressed down harder, rocketing towards the center of town and inclining with a slight angling of his wings.

With the occasional flap to boost his momentum, Hawk cleared River’s Reach and began a sharp descent to his house. From above, he could see his father sitting against a rock on the northern face of the hill, legs crossed and hat drawn low across his brow. It was his thinking spot, and by the looks of it, he had been there awhile. Hawk resolved to tell him that their guest was awake as soon as he finished talking with her. He figured that letting the mare interact first with a more sensitive pony than his father would make a good first impression.

Well, second impression. He was pretty sure Lanner’s dramatic exit was something worthy of recognition.

By the time he landed on the steps of his porch, Hawk Tail’s heart was racing. What should he say? What would she say? He worried for an instant that he would say or do something stupid and scare her. Or something. He wasn’t really sure. Regardless, it was with a sizeable amount of trepidation that he opened the door to his house, walked in, and made a left down the hallway.

The door was halfway closed, as if it had rebounded from being slammed against the wall. No doubt that was from when Lanner scrambled out of the room earlier, panicked. He could see several locks of colorful hair laid against the pillow from the crack in the door, but the mare had her face turned away from him. Hawk Tail paused at the doorway, unsure if the mare had gone back to sleep or even passed out again, when she turned and looked at him.

Two pools of rubies froze him with one hoof still in the air, reaching for the door. Hawk Tail couldn’t look away. The two ponies stared at each other as the seconds ticked by, both unsure of what to do. Hawk Tail could barely see the corner of the mare’s mouth twitching as her face tried to decide on what expression it should settle on.

Then she blinked, and the trance was broken. Shuddering slightly, Hawk Tail shook off the spell and placed his hoof back on the ground. As he opened the door, the mare turned away, uncomfortable and nervous, hugging her covers tighter to her chest. Hawk Tail could see her trembling and hear her shallow breaths come out as small whimpers as she stared at her rear hooves through the blankets covering them.

Closing his wings, which had crept open on him in the hallway, Hawk Tail walked into the room and found a stool to sit on. He left the door open, figuring that was a good way to start; he didn’t want the mare to feel trapped. When her shallow breathing began to deepen and her heart stopped pounding, Hawk Tail tapped his hooves lightly against each other and leaned forward.

“So…” he attempted, not sure where to begin, “are you… feeling alright?”

The colorful pegasus gasped at his words and drew the covers tighter against her stomach. She cowered behind the knees of her forelegs and peered at him with those wide, ruby eyes of hers. It took all of Hawk’s willpower to resist being entranced again.

Angling the crests of his wings out slightly as a sign of goodwill, Hawk Tail tried again. “I hope everything has been good enough for you so far.” He paused. “Erm… it has, hasn’t it?”

The mare glanced at him with frightened eyes, looking him up, down, and up again. Eventually, her lips parted, and she mumbled something Hawk Tail couldn’t quite make out.

“I’m sorry, could you repeat that?” He tried his best to make the inflections in his voice as soothing and as friendly as possible. When the mare remained silent, he was worried he might have overdone it, and he moved to apologize right as she spoke again.

“I… I-It’s been good…” Looking down, she added a quick “Thank you” almost as an afterthought.

It was quiet in the room again, save for the ticking clock in the corner. Tapping his hooves against his knees, Hawk Tail soon reached out to the mare again. “That’s good to hear. Yes… very good.” There was another awkward pause before he began again. “Are you comfortable? Are you hungry or thirsty or… anything? If there’s anything you want, just ask, and I’ll be more than happy to get it for you.”

The rainbow-maned pegasus thought it over, her forehooves clicking against each other as she slid them back and forth. Eventually, she gave the smallest shake of her head. “No, thank you… I’m… not hungry… or anything. Really.” Hawk Tail noticed the hoof she moved over her stomach and frowned, but refrained from saying anything at the moment.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

“So… I guess I should get you caught up on what happened,” Hawk Tail said after he couldn’t take the silence any more. “My sister, Lanner—she was the one who was in the room when you woke up, I heard?”

The pegasus gave a slight nod of her head.

“Anyway, she and I found you lying by the side of the Run about three days back. You were passed out, and it looked like you had fallen from the sky. We were worried about you, so I carried you all the way back from the Run to here.”

The mare’s eyes widened slightly as she studied Hawk Tail’s face. “Yeah… y-you were… I… remember…”

Hawk Tail dipped his head reassuringly. “You woke up on the way back and started… well, screaming about something. Do you remember that?”

Her eyes shifted across the room, and she bit down on her lower lip with a tooth. “…no…”

Shrugging his shoulders, Hawk Tail leaned back slightly. “That’s okay. You were pretty feverish then. I’m not surprised you can’t remember that. You were saying something about ‘them’ being gone. Does that… ring any bells?”

The colorful mare only returned a blank stare, which she accentuated with a small shake of her head.

Scratching his muzzle with a hoof, Hawk asked, “Do you know who ‘they’ are? Was there anypony in trouble when you flew off?”

She only shrunk back deeper into her covers. “I… I don’t know. I don’t remember.”

Hawk Tail raised an eyebrow. It was difficult to get any answers out of this mare. “What were you doing so far north, anyway?”

“Not north, south,” the mare mumbled.

“Pardon me?” Hawk asked, genuine confusion on his face. “What do you mean ‘south’?”

“…I don’t know…”

Hawk Tail took a deep breath, starting to become frustrated. “There’s nothing north of the Run other than mountains. How could it be south?”

The mare was trembling now, but she still looked directly at Hawk Tail’s eyes. “What’s… what’s the Run?”

“Have you heard of the Emerald River?” he asked her.

“No…” Her answers were becoming more and more timid, and a sort of primal fear was developing behind her ruby eyes.

Clapping his hooves together in thought, Hawk Tail tried to put on a smile to mask his frustration. “Think, I’m sure you’ve heard of it somewhere. After all, it’s the river that runs through Mymis, and—”

“Through what?” the mare broke in, before sheepishly adding, “Sorry…”

“Mymis,” Hawk repeated. “The capital city of Nymera? Home of King Regal II and the royal family? It’s only about a hundred miles south of here; surely you’ve heard of it before?”

She shook her head vigorously. “No, no, I haven’t!” Almost alarmed at her own voice, she pulled back deeper and hugged herself with her forelegs. “I haven’t,” she repeated in a soft mumble. “Never. Never heard of it.”

Hawk Tail shuffled his stool closer to the bed. The mare withdrew slightly at his advance, but kept her eyes fixed on him the whole time. “Are you even from Nymera?” he asked her, his voice low and serious.

Her answer was equally as quiet. “No.”

It was something at least. Rolling his shoulders, Hawk Tail rested his forehooves on the edge of her bed. “So where are you from, then?”

The mare’s eyes darted around the room. “Why are you asking me so many questions?”

“I just want to help you,” Hawk said as he furrowed his brow. “I’m trying to figure out where you’re from and what happened to you. Can you please tell me where you’re from, if not Nymera?”

When she gave silence as her answer, Hawk Tail sighed. “Are you from Roilla in the west? I see a few ponies from there every once in a while. Or perhaps Qalterra?” He tapped a hoof on his chin. “No, that wouldn’t make sense, that’s to the south of Nymera.” Pausing, he asked the question that had been nagging at him for the past few days. “Are you from the north? Beyond the mountains at the edge of civilization?”

The mare shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know. I really don’t know.”

Hawk Tail frowned. He was starting to wonder whether or not the mare hurt more than her wing in the fall. “Can you at least tell me your name? Maybe with that I can find where you belong and what happened to you.”

She only drew the sheets closer against herself and stared down at her hooves with hollow eyes.

Concerned, Hawk Tail reached a hoof out to her. “You… you do know your name, right?”

The mare drew away sharply from him. “I don’t know!!” she shouted, tears beginning to stream down her cheeks. “I don’t know anything! I can’t remember anything! I’m so confused! I don’t know who I am or how I got here or what happened to me! I… I…” Her sad screams died down into a tearful whimper. “I’m scared and alone.”

With that, she hugged her blankets against herself and turned onto her side, facing away from Hawk Tail. He could still see her shoulders trembling as she lay there, sobbing in silent agony.

“I, uh… erm, I’m sorry,” he said to her. He felt bad, horrible. Had he pushed her too far? He should have been more sensitive to her plight, but he just wanted to know… Now he worried that she was afraid of him.

Standing up, Hawk Tail quietly placed the stool back against the desk in the corner of the room. He moved for the doorway, but paused before heading out. “If there’s anything you need… just come on out and ask my dad or my sister or myself. We’ll get it to you right away.”

The mare didn’t respond to his words, leaving Hawk Tail to shake his head in disappointment. With a sad sigh, he stepped away from the bed and out into the hall, closing the door behind him.

Comments

[Skeeter The Lurker]

So, she's got amnesia?

Ok...

~Skeeter The Lurker

[Latisha McPeanuts]

I love this! We're all still guessing whats even happening!

[RoboRed]

Nng...the suspense...I wanna know what's going on!!

3233301
Well, it was kinda pointed out in the story description...

[Ruirik]

It had to be done.

[Flying-Claw]

Nice chapter!

[The 24th Pegasus]

3233519
And I was waiting for it.

[djthomp]

Hmn, still a bit up in the air whether regular Equestria is just way to the north on the other side of the mountains, or if something else is going on. It feels unlikely that there could be two completely separate pony civilizations on the planet that know nothing about each other, especially with the airships we've seen being used in canon Equestria. On the other hand, no language barrier, but that could just be narrative convenience.

[ponygrad]

Only now that they're quibbling over north/south am I finally convinced this isn't an Austraeoh tie-in.

This chapter was good, my only concern being that RD isn't acting very RD right about now. But maybe something happened to her or where she came from that made her despondent.

[The 24th Pegasus]

3233964
It's hard to be brash and confident when you literally have nothing to found your personality on. I'd be more than a little afraid as well if the past twenty something years of my life suddenly went poof.

[Rainbooms]

EMOTIONAL CLIFFHANGERS.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

[Pega-ace]

Nice chapter!

Looking forward to more of this. So many questions!

Pega-ace

[MellowMabari]

Hmm...This is quite intriguing so far. Interesting premise and some solid world-building, and yet...my only concern is that Rainbow with pretty much complete amnesia isn't really Rainbow at all. At this point she's basically an OC. Hopefully she regains some of her memories as the story progresses so she becomes more than a new character who simply looks like Rainbow Dash.

Only one way to find out - onward!

[dashybrony2012]

Hawk Tail is such a sweet amazing character, I really am glad that he's a main character and POOR DASH!!! It's so sad .....but good sad but good :)

[Admiral Q Ponyform]

yup sounding like not different world but different country that is isolated from Equestria by the mountains and the badllands.

[Titan Commander Sebaste]

Damn... Wonder what happened that made Rainbow lose her memory...

[Speedbreaker]

Is it possible that the badlands are what are refered to as the dragonlands in the show?

3233964

3233972
That makes sense. Besides, i think rainbow like this is adorable.