Blue Flame Summons the Dead.
Chapter 9
“Hey, Rainbow! Earth to Crash! Wake up!”
It took a while for the response to come. Rainbow Dash’s eyelids painfully unhinged little by little, her vision immediately filled by a blinding white light. She flinched, and tried to turn away but her body was assaulted by the sensation of many sharp and pointy objects jabbing into her side, tangling through and around her feathers and mane, scratching abrasively against her face. Everything she could see through the white blindness tumbled round and round while she remained still, and now someone two miles away was screaming into her ear.
‘A white light, a tunnel, voices? Oh great job, Dash you got yourself killed in some jungle by a few falling rocks! You totally suck!’
The voice came again, this time a few octaves lower in volume but still rough with aggression. “C’mon, Dash. Get it together.” The sharp light dimmed as the pony standing over her put it to the side and Dumbbell’s form slowly filtered into recognition.
“What the hay...happened?” Dash slurred. She braced herself against the dead wood and sticks, flinching as they clawed into her coat, definitely not a comfortable sensation to say the least. She got herself to stand half way before dizziness swept in again to finish the job.
“I told you not to get close.” Is what she thought she heard Dumbbell say as he brought himself between her and the ground, the...floor?
“What are we standing on?” Dash asked. Looking down she saw nothing but weeds, and sticks tightly woven. It ran up along the sides as well, giving the impression of a basket. “Are we in something’s nest?”
“Yep. You startled the heck out of the thing, a giant bird, and it flew away.”
“Huh, I wasn’t expecting that.”
“I wasn’t either,” Dumbbell said as he helped Rainbow Dash pull herself out of the nest and down into a new area so dark that only the lantern light could provide any illumination. He found a wall and helped the blue pony lay next to it, with her head supported on her saddlebag.
“But I’ve gotta say, nice moves there, dragon tamer.”
Rainbow Dash felt anger split through her disruptive headache, but in her state the only thing she could do was leer. “I’m knocking your head next! Besides, it wasn’t even a dragon.”
“I’d love to see you try.” Dumbbell wasn’t taken by her threat, just as well because it was empty.
“What was I thinking bringing somepony like you to a place like this? You’re helpless!” he groaned.
Rainbow Dash took him by surprise when she leapt to her feet almost before he could finish speaking.
“Hey! I’m nopony’s helpless filly, you got that!”
“Yeah, yeah...you’re lucky that it wasn’t trying to eat you.” Dumbbell matched her scowl with his own.
“Oh, were you worried?” Dash teased dryly but flinched as a tight pain slithered up between her ears. Suddenly disoriented she sat down with a groan as her half lidded eyes fluttered closed, she could practically feel her heart pulsing behind them. With a sigh she tucked her legs under her body in an effort to seek comfort.
“That thing really got you didn’t it.” said Dumbbell. Rainbow Dash cracked open an eye to see the expression he wore. A hoof lifted tentatively over her head, gently parting the mane over her scalp. “Let me see, maybe it only glanced ya.”
Dash flinched, partly from pain and because she never knew what to do with unfamiliar touch. She didn’t give him a chance to examine her and pushed his hoof away.
“I’ll be fine, just give me ten minutes.” she said, burying her face into the cloth of her bag, the wall was nicely cool too and she began to feel drowsy.
“Way to be stubborn.” Dumbbell complained, but he retracted his hoof anyway.
“Because its not a big deal.”
Dumbbell laughed. “Yeah I forgot. You’re seriously the only pony I’ve ever met who’s used to gettin a bump on the head.”
At that, Rainbow Dash found it a better idea to just turn her back to the stallion, letting her forehead rest on the smooth wall felt good anyway. She heard him rummaging through his bags behind her.
“Big deal or not, here.” He placed something down. Rainbow Dash turned to see a square metal water canteen glinting invitingly in the lantern light. It wasn’t until that moment she noticed the dryness of her throat, and that she had her own water. In the wake of current events it had slipped her mind. Still, she reached over for the canteen, eager to wet her dry throat.
“Thanks.”
Some time later Rainbow Dash felt her eyes open. She couldn’t possibly guess how long she had been asleep but judging by the way she felt, it was probably longer than she had anticipated. She lifted her head, it felt clear and mostly pain free, only the slightest twinge remained. She sat up and examined the quiet darkness of her surroundings, despite its unfamiliarity it felt serine. Not long after she awoke, she saw the familiar bobbing of a lantern in the far side of the room, the light bent and swept along the tunnel until she saw Dumbbell trot into view.
“So you finally woke up!” He said after placing his light down. “You were out for a while.
“For how long?” asked Rainbow Dash.
“'Bout an hour.” he said.
Dash frowned, a lot longer than she wanted, but it was for the best, she figured.
“Well I’m fine now.” she said cheerily.
“Good, I mean, could you imagine dying here? That would suck so much.” Dumbbell mused, shaking his head, and Dash smiled despite herself. She stood up and looked around the dark room once again, as best she could at least. “Do you have any idea where we are?”
Dumbbell grinned excitedly. “Oh, do I? I’ve got something cool to show you. Come on.” He picked up his lantern and went back the way he’d come. Dash gathered up her things and quickly followed. The self lighting torches made their return, only now the flame was a light somber blue, producing a glow just strong enough for the pegasi to see their way until the next turn, where another torch sat lonely in its little niche, kindled to life as they got close. Soon they reached an edge, Rainbow Dash could feel that the space ahead of her was significantly bigger than what they had spent the past few minutes traveling in. She leaned in and looked into the empty space, glanced down and saw it.
Descending into the darkness barely half a meter from the cliff edge was what appeared to be a staircase. Obviously not professionally made, but they didn’t appear to be a coincidental occurrence of the natural stone either. They seemed to be roughly hewn into the stone itself, perhaps by the primitive tribal toads many years past.
“It feels like we just keep going down.” Dash said, feeling mystified. Dumbbell offered that they could turn around, but she wasn’t ready to quit . They had made it this far, it’d be ridiculous to turn back now, not without some awesome story to tell her friends back home. The path felt safe and solid, nothing crumbled or gave under hoof as they trotted down step by uneven step. At the end stood a doorway, tall and thin and slightly ajar to show that Dumbbell had already been on the otherside.
“Got three guesses on where this leads?” he asked her.
“I only need one.” she said solemnly. “This is it, the crypt.” Together they reached their hooves to the door and pushed it inward, it was more like a slab and it grumbled reluctantly in its well worn grooves until the crypt stood in full view.
Rainbow Dash was staggered. “Wow.”
Low ceiling, crooked columns and crumbled arches stretched out before them. The streaked and speckled quartz walls shimmered in the innocent blue flame providing light to the solemn chamber, which also timidly puffed to light when the two ponies walked near enough. Though the flame was only slightly larger than that of a candle the illumination reached several yards.
“This is the place Daring Do woke up in after she was ambushed.” said Rainbow Dash in fascination. In the Jungle of Dread, Ahuizotl promised the tribe the gift of eternal life if they held Daring prisoner until he arrived to take her away. But they had taken it upon themselves to use the adventure pony in an appeasement sacrifice in their own grab for power. Obviously their plans fell flat and the titular hero escaped, leaving Crimsoncroak temple’s denizens to their fate.
“Pretty cool, right?” Dumbbell spoke from behind still near the entrance, admiring detailed wall decorations. “The kind of effort these people put into their dead. And I never would have found this place if you hadn’t spooked that bird.”
“That’s because Dash curiosity is the best curiosity! And don’t you forget it!” Rainbow Dash trotted eagerly past several red stone pillars coming up to what appeared to be rows of dark slats pressed into the wall.
“There sure are a lot of these.” she said softly in a subdued respect for the dead. And in fact the long walls were filled with narrow unmarked coffins. Above each coffin was a small pendant like object nudged into the wall, they all depicted a face, different in small ways but universally the same, they looked to be made out of the same stuff as the shiny red pillars and floor.
“Hmmm.” She tapped the piece with her hoof, it definitely felt solid, she knew she couldn’t pull it from the wall even if she wanted to. Her thoughts went back to the idol fragment Dumbbell had kept with him. It came to mind that she wanted a souvenir of her own.
“Theres gotta be something around here I can take with me. I can already imagine the look on Twilight’s face when I tell her I’ve been here!” Rainbow Dash trotted down a narrow hall, noting the designs and murals pressed into the walls in the blue light They didn’t seem to depict death, but there was a lot of fighting.
‘Something cool...’ some of the murals were accented with skulls, Rainbow Dash cringed. ‘But not creepy.’ She turned a corner expecting to see more coffins, and instead found something entirely different.
Rainbow Dash knew what she was looking at, the little stone altar sat alone, isolated in a small cul de sac partition. Maybe for privacy though she could never be sure. It was draped so heavily in roots and greenery that the alter seemed to be halfway embedded into the stone and soil behind it. A primitive carving of some squat looking creature sat at the bottom of the stone table, staring up at her with bulging eyes and an uneven grin that did everything in its power to dissuade Rainbow Dash from taking even a single step nearer.
“Oh come on! I’m not afraid of some stupid rock carving!” The little pony grit her teeth and marched towards the altar, doing her best to keep her gaze well away from the strange carving, despite this her vision would still slip down to it again. It really was terrible. Rainbow Dash would never see anything so frightening back home in Ponyville, even on Nightmare Night!
“I can totally do this, I’m not scared of a bunch of dead frogs!” she said out loud to nopony, which only magnified the severity of the isolation.
Then she saw something in the low light, the smallest glint in the blue candle light covered by dirt and wedged into the roots that spilled over the stone table. A dark handle connected to a long curved blade of about seven inches. As unaccustomed as Rainbow Dash was to weapons, especially seeing one up close, she couldn’t help but be lost to it for a few moments, until she noticed the stain.
“Ugh!” To Rainbow Dash the cold room suddenly felt a lot colder. Her ears swiveled, her nostrils flared, just how long had that dagger been sitting there-.
“Yo!”
Rainbow Dash shrieked and leapt so high that her back hit the roof of the little hollow. She fell roughly into Dumbbell who had been standing just a few feet away. She hadn’t meant to but her back hoof landed a clean hit against his chest.
“Oof! Hey,watch it, will ya!” Dumbbell pushed her back and she stumbled. She braced herself against the altar and felt something press down under her weight in the middle of the slab.
Click.
Uh oh.
The table spun and the entire room seemed to move with it. Actually it was the floor beneath them. A moment later, the two ponies found themselves in a new room with no immediate exit.
“W-what the heck just happened?” Dumbbell gasped, he lost himself for a moment, taking in the new scene. The first thing Rainbow Dash noticed when the revolving door stopped was a light pile of cloth lying limply against the wall right next to her. At first she thought it was just rags but a second look told her it was a dress.
“I...think I found a secret door or something.” Dash mused while scanning the room. It was full of items, books, hats, clothing, jewelry, broken and torn with time and neglect.
“Why would they have books here?” Dumbbell cautiously approached one of the piles and picked an old dusty book that was wedged in between two sleeping bags. “Why would any of this junk be here?” He noticed something wedged between the pages, he pulled the flat object out and examined it. He flipped past the ornate stamp on the cover, trying to understand the faded scribbles on the yellowed pages, some of which was obscured by the cumulation of blocky colorful stamping. “What in the world?”
“What did you find?” Rainbow Dash heard his musing and walked over to see what he had found.
“A passport?” she asked, seeing the placid un smiling visage of a griffon staring back at them. “How old is this?” Dumbbell flipped through until he found the last date stamped in and frowned. “Fifty years ago.” he answered.
“Oh.” A small amount of color left Rainbow Dash’s face as she produced what looked to be a photograph, holding the image of two smiling earth pony mares in a pair of wide brimmed cowboy hats. At first Dumbbell didn’t seem to know what to make of it, until Rainbow Dash flipped it over, revealing the date the picture was taken.
“One year ago.” she said, her mouth ran dry as she uttered those words. Dumbbell at first gawked, then swore under his breath. They both assessed the interior. A sealed room full of seemingly miscellaneous items, tossed carelessly in little piles, to be forgotten by everyone on the outside in suffocating caverns miles below an abandoned temple.
Rainbow Dash returned to the altar, exceedingly aware of the dagger still stuck in the roots. “Lets get out of here.” she whispered, she found the button and mashed it earnestly.
As they quickly made their way through the winding passageways a strange warbling echoed through the halls wafting its way towards them hauntingly, mixing in with the air of the forbidden. It bid they leave, quickly.
“W-what was that?” Rainbow Dash went completely still, nearly causing Dumbbell to fall over her. Instead of complaining, Dumbbell perked his ears forward to catch the sound. His eyes showed understanding. “Sounds like your friend is back.” he said dryly, he noticed the blue mare flinch as he side stepped her to continue walking.
“Oh. Is that it?” Dash brought herself up to speed again, catching up with her travel companion in a boisterous walk. “Well, that’s no big deal!”
“Of course it isn’t.” Dumbbell agreed. “Because I’m here to keep you out of trouble.”
Before Dash could retort something hit the floor with a battering smash, destroying the silence for a few shocking moments, far ahead of them, shrouded by shadow. Rainbow Dash gasped, the best she could do to not scream, and jumped backwards. One stroke from her powerful wings sent her gliding back the way they had come.
“Rainbow Dash get back here!” She heard his voice echo through the corridors followed by the sound of galloping hoofbeats. But the sound ended long before Dumbbell came into view. In fact he didn’t show up at all, the hurried galloping was just swallowed up in the dismal gloom. Rainbow Dash peaked her head timidly around the pillar she had hid behind expecting to see him somewhere near by. “D-Dumbbell? Where’d you go?” There was no response when she creeped back into the open. The only thing left to her now was the low erratic warbling that flitted down to her from the crypt entrance and the decorated skulls on the wall, that seemed to whisper things in her ear.
“Wait up!” Rainbow Dash felt her heart beat race, he had been running towards her and now she was alone. Had he gone down some other passage? She took a deep breath and continued on, expecting to see Dumbbell at some point walking ahead. Knowing him, he would just turn and leave her to run in circles for the rest of her life. Typical.
She decided to just walk on and not call out to him again. He probably already thought she was a total scaredy cat, and to defuse that she would calmly find her own way out. It was a straight shot from where she was to the exit and if nothing else, the annoying chirping of the bird acted like a beacon. She went on for a while, not coming across anything that could have fallen along the path that would have made such a loud noise, but what upset her more, though she didn’t want to admit it, was the dramatic absence of her companion. Maybe her fear had frustrated him and he really had left without her. The thought both angered and embarrassed the blue pegasus. Of all the ponies in Equestria to see her act like this.
“Just wait till I catch up with him! I’ll-”
It was then that she came across the object that had crashed to the ground and frightened her so badly. She noted to her dismay, one of the coffins had fallen out of its hole in the wall. It lay cracked nearly in half, its covering had fallen away to reveal...nothing.
Rainbow stepped away from the broken coffin involuntarily, not wanting to see the inevitable skeleton or whatever remains that would have fallen out, how had it fallen out? Rainbow Dash could feel her breath growing short.
“Okay, Rainbow Dash, just get a hold of yourself.” she whispered pitifully after taking a long deep breath. “It’s just a dirty old coffin made out of rock and mud, nothing in there can possibly hurt you.”
Scrape.
It was the smallest of sounds but in Dash’s heightened state of paranoia, she heard it.
“Wh-who’s there?” she asked urgently. “Dumbbell if you’re playing some kind of trick then I’m on to you!”
“Uuuuugh...Ugggghh...“
The low, heavy unnatural rattle of some creature met her ears. Her eyes had already adjusted to the gloom, the faint candles cast spots of faint blue light into the tunnel at uneven intervals. There was something moving on the edge of the light, but it was still too dark to tell what it was.
“Uuuuuu...”
“What are you!” Rainbow Dash shouted in what she truly hoped was an authoritative voice. Whatever it was crept closer, followed by the dreaded sound of scraping. “Stay away from me!” Rainbow Dash shouted again.
“Daar...Daaaar...” The form advanced and Rainbow Dash retreated. “S-stay back! I’m warning you!” She couldn’t understand it, was it trying to say her name? Then it lunged, roaring like an angry manticore, so large that it’s sides strained against the sides of the tunnel, banging and clattering and screaming.
“DARING DO!”
“Aaaah!” The back of Rainbow Dash’s hoof struck the side of the coffin and she tumbled back into it, she struggled and kicked wildly to get out of the cramped smelly thing, terrified that if the monster caught up, it would seal her inside.
“Daring...Doooo!” The monster roared as if harboring some ghastly vendetta against her.
“No! I’m sorry we raided your ancient burial grounds!” Rainbow Dash pulled herself out of the coffin and galloped away without looking back. “We didn’t mean anything by it!”
Rainbow Dash felt like she had never flown faster. Out of the crypt, up the stairs and out of the pit in the blink of an eye, the giant bird didn’t know what hit it. Under the enraged squawking, Rainbow Dash never would have heard the enraged howling breaking down into bouts of uncontrolled laughter.
“Hold still!” Rainbow Dash scooped up another pebble from the brook and flung it into the branches. Her aim was normally good but Dumbbell’s reflexes were quicker. He ducked behind the massive jungle tree trunk, laughing with careless abandon.
“Hahaw! If only you could have seen the look on your face.” He said, though barely through his own heavy breathing.
“I oughtta pull out your pin feathers!” Rainbow Dash shouted. She gave up with the rocks and flew into the thick branches to knock Dumbbell in the head with her own hooves.
“Ya know there’s no point in trying to act tough, now.” Dumbbell said while ambly trotting to the farthest reach of the branch he stood on, it was so thick that it didn’t taper at all, and held his weight just as well as the part nearest the trunk. He turned to see Dash staring daggers at him and it filled him with mirth. “Just admit it, you were so spooked you couldn’t even think straight!”
Below him Rainbow Dash growled and turned away. She looked up to see flecks of the fading sky through the canopy. The sun would be completely below the horizon soon, they’d been inside the temple for longer than she thought. She changed the subject quickly. “It’s getting dark. So we’d better head back now before it gets too late.” She spoke irritably, feeling his depreciative smirk beaming into the back of her head. Dumbbell took a deep breath and exhaled. “Smells like rain.”
Of course Dash had smelled it too. “Can’t handle a little rain?” she chided. “We can beat the worst of it if we fly fast enough.” They leapt over the stream and continued down the path at a quick pace. They made a straight line to the dragonthorn tree with no troubles in between. From that high the smell of rain was even stronger, dampening the atmosphere and bringing quiet to everything around them. It felt like it was going to be more than just an average downpour.
As the silence between the two ponies ripened, Dumbbell spoke. “Go on if you want to, but I’m going back to the temple first thing tomorrow.” This nearly made Dash stop in her tracks. “What? Go back down there,why?”
“I wanna see what else is down there. The idol was fixed, all of that stuff hidden away inside the crypt, pretty weird isn’t it?”
“Which is why we should be flying back to Appleloosa.” Dash said sternly. “Think about what we saw down there. Like that photograph!” She insisted, remembering the sorrowfully discarded dress and the other items inside the secret room, and the dagger stuck on the altar. She paced back and forth inside the makeshift tree cave, not bothering to hide her discomfort.
“That was definitely recent.” she said. “Ponies out of Appleloosa it looked like, we’ve got to go there and tell them what we found.”
The brown stallion removed his saddle bag and pulled his lantern from the outer clasp. “You’re faster than me anyway. I gave up my idol piece to prove a point, but I’m not leaving here empty hooved.” Dumbbell said so matter of factually that Rainbow Dash shook her head in disbelief. She ground her teeth, why was there no reasoning with this pony? She tried again to make her case. “But-”
“Besides,” Dumbbell interrupted. “If that photo is really over a year old, it won’t matter much if getting it back to Appleloosa takes a few more hours.” A resounding rumble of thunder rolled across the plains, its thunderous roar adding in to their conversation. Dark clouds came over the plains swiftly blotting out the hazy glow of sunset and filling the air with electric tensity that made both pegasi lower their heads almost instinctual. Rainbow Dash had only heard stories about how violent storms could become in the badlands, and wondered if she was about to experience one first hand.
“They’re usually not as bad as you think.” Dumbbell said, catching Dash off guard. He seemed to have picked up on her thoughts.
“But there is a simple saying. ‘Challenge makes storms angrier’. Do you really wanna risk it?” he asked her honestly. The blue pegasus sighed and sat down. She knew he was right , and besides, ever since they arrived in Dragonthorn jungle the one thing Dash wanted to do besides explore was take proof that she had actually been here. Something so concrete nopony, not even Twilight, could hold a doubt in their minds! Rainbow Dash smiled to herself, the reactions of the other fans during next month’s book club meeting were going to be off the charts! It would be pretty lame to fly all the way back with nothing to show...
“One more day won’t hurt, I guess.” she said. Dumbbell lit the lantern and set it down between them. “I knew you’d see reason.” he replied. Then the rain came fast, and very hard.
“You know what this reminds me of?” Dumbbell asked suddenly, pulling Rainbow Dash out of the rainy haze. She looked over to see him, his brow set in a sentimental line.
“Reminds you of what?” she asked.
“Remember Quackers?” he asked simply. It took a moment for Dash to process the name. “I think...oh yeah! I remember her! She was kind of uh...” she hesitated.
“Weird.” Dumbbell completed her statement. Rainbow Dash nodded her head in agreement. “Yep she was weird.”
“She lived down in Froggy Bottom Bog. Her parents collected and sold spider silk.” Rainbow Dash’s ears perked at that bit of news, she hadn’t known. “Wow really?”
“Yeah apparently there’s a kind of giant spider that lives in the swamp, it’s webbing is so strong you can build stuff with it.”
“I’ve heard about those but I never got to see one.” Dash commented as she continued to listen.
“Got no idea why they wanted that job of all things, a swamps no place for a pegasus. Anyway, you’ve got to remember the one time she invited the entire class to her birthday party, right?” Dash’s mind had already begun tumbling through old fillyhood memories and pinpointed the the correct one easily enough. The party was in the swamp. She remembered when the sloppy invitation was slapped down onto her little desk. They had been written on wet, slimy tree bark, ‘Come one, come all to Quacker’s Bayou Birthday Bash!’, or something like that. Only half the class showed up, if even that. And if she remembered correctly, Dumbbell had been there, complaining about his mom forcing him to go and make more friends.
“I hardly remember any of it up until the part we started telling ghost stories.” Dumbbell continued. Quacker’s birthday was on the day before Nightmare Night, so she fancied herself a certified spook enthusiast.
“She told us about some monster that always stalked the swampland at night, even worse than two crag-o-diles put together, she said, and we were gonna go out and capture it.”
Rainbow Dash chuckled lightly. “Yep, I remember that! It was a lot like this, raining, sun was setting. We were all holed up in that rickety old tree house for what felt like forever, waiting for whatever it was to crawl along. We all thought Quackers was wasting our time until something finally happened.”
“Her stupid brothers in some thrown together bogg monster costume is what happened. We were runnin around out there for hours.” Dumbbell said. “She didn’t even know that it was them testing out their costume. Think it’s safe to admit they had us fooled.” He glanced over at the blue pegasus with a disassembled grin. “You know, I swear you didn’t scream as loud back then as you did down in the-ow!” Rainbow Dash cut him off with a swift kick to the haunch.
“Don’t push it.” she growled. “Your memory must have holes, I wasn’t afraid of a stupid costume and I’m not scared of anything now.” she said as if the very notion was preposterous.
“Geeze no need to act pissy.” Dumbbell spat while rubbing his sore backside, his fiendish nature deflated as he turned back to the entrance and gazed silently into the falling rain.
A wall of silence wrapped them in once again. Though the storm had not reached its full strength, it was already strong enough to deaden any natural noise in the forest below them. And Dash’s sour mood did a good enough job keeping the stallion’s ridiculing words to himself, besides.
“I’m...I’m sorry.” Rainbow Dash heard Dumbbell say something again after some time. Following a stilted sigh, his voice a shade less confident, lower also in tone. Through the gale, Rainbow Dash wasn’t even certain she had heard him speak. The patter of rain, wind and rolling thunder doing it’s job of muting the landscape.
“Huh?” Rainbow Dash murmured a half hearted response, only turning her ears in his direction. “Sorry about what?”
“We haven’t seen much of each other since the Young Flyers Competition, I don’t expect you to remember.” he said. This made Rainbow Dash look at him with her head cocked to one side. “What are you talking about?” she asked. Dumbbell awkwardly scratched his foreleg, staring attentively at the ancient wood as if seeking advice from it.
“I don’t like having to repeat myself, but I don’t want you to think I’m being insincere.”
Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. "Well you're not really doing a good job of that, even though I still have no idea what you're on about."
“When we were kids, giving you a hard time, I’m apologizing.” Dumbbell repeated in short cutting phrases, like it took effort.
“Oh, uh.” Rainbow Dash hung on the sentence, not really sure what she was supposed to say. It had been two years, maybe even longer than that. The topic of discussion wasn’t as sour as it was perplexing that he would want to bring it up now.
“It-it’s okay. Really!” Rainbow Dash insisted, ignoring her stammer. “Besides you had already apologized about that.”
“Yeah, right after you pulled off a Sonic Rainboom in front of all of Cloudsdale.” Dumbbell confessed with an undertone of amusement. He shrugged. “It probably wasn’t the best moment.”
Rainbow Dash understood. “Hey, no hard feelings.” she said. She smiled at him and he smiled back, it was as simple as that.
The two pegasi talked on from that point with little inhibition, about life, past exploits, and current ambitions. They moved further back the hollow wooden cave when the patter of rain turned into a steady strum. At first Rainbow Dash had her doubts about staying inside of it despite Dumbbell’s insistence of it’s safety. But the tree was a warrior, not even flinching or swaying under the strong wind. It felt like they were inside an actual house and not an ancient vertical hollow log. It was comfortable enough and the lantern gave them plenty of light. Perfect conditions for reading as far as Dash was concerned.
“Say, where did we leave off?” she asked and pulled the Daring Do book out of her saddle bag. It was a rhetorical question given the fact she always used a book mark. They had already made it far past the halfway point, roughly two-thirds of the adventure finished. Daring had reached the crypt of the Dark King and his legendary death mask, and was now facing off against some strange spectre, a ghostly guardian charged with keeping the sanctum clean of thieves.
“I dunno, I think she’s finally met her match this time around.” Dumbbell muttered as he turned the page.
“What? Are you serious?” Rainbow Dash asked incredulously. “You do remember who we’re reading about here? She’s ridden dragons, swam through shark infested waters, and pulled teeth straight out of a wyvern's mouth!” she leaned in close for dramatic effect. “A.Wyvern.”
Dumbbell leaned away. “Look I’m just sayin,” he brought up a hoof in mock submission. “She could at least hit those other guys. This is a ghost, carrying a mace, and the mace shoots lasers. I don’t see a winning situation here.”
“You speak blasphemies.” Dash whispered menacingly, but the seriousness of her words were lost on the stallion.
“This isn’t turning into a weird egghead unload session, is it?”
Rainbow Dash snorted and turned back to the book. “Daring Do always knows the way out.”
Time passed serenely in the midst of the storm, and before Dash realized it, it had begun to lull her. The long flight south and the brief stint inside the temple were taking its toll. The last thoughts to pass through her mind was whether or not the ponies back home would be more impressed by a sword or a chest full of treasure, and which would be easier to carry back, when she finally drifted off . It was common knowledge that Rainbow Dash was a notoriously heavy sleeper, the storm did not bother her.
Rainbow Dash awoke bleary eyed and struggling to breath when something thick and coiled stretched around her neck, pulling her head back with a rough jerk. She growled and jumped up, back hoof hit something that felt like a gut, the owner grunted in pain and fell backwards. Rainbow Dash started to turn around but was caught under a sudden weight on her back. It was crippling, she collapsed, the rope grew tighter and tighter.
She opened her mouth to yell but no air was available so she kicked again, trying to find something, anything to hit. But she couldn’t move, the pressure from above was too much. Then came a sharp pain as something gouged into her side just above the wing. She tensed from the pain but before she could even try to scream, the world became soft and floaty as her vision fell away into darkness.
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....dafuq?
4068090
Something wrong?
You sure have a thing for cliff hangars
MOAR I DEMAND
4069259
I'll get right on it.
Well... she's dead...
Two weeks wait is ok for me. What I'm afraid of is this going cancelled or hiatus. Also, pretty long chapter we got here. I'm just loving this story more and more. This is my OTP.
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Brings a tear to my eye...
weknowmemes.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/shit-just-got-real.jpeg
I'm a maths nerd. I like maths jokes. I'm sorry.
Would have been good if you'd have a scene break when Dash fell asleep; would've separated the description better.
Damn this is turning out super awesome.
You had me thinking that the two earth ponies in cowboy hats were AJ's parents and I was all like "dafuq? 
"
Dis is so good.
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You're right. Added a scene break line thing just now.
Hmmmm.
watching this fic....with interest.
I was about to say, that hopefully Dumbbell has a decent side to him (because Rainbow has to dislike bullies.....especially after gilda, that being my train of thought) but he appologized....so that's a start XD
4219026
Well I hope you've found the story interesting so far.
4224130
Of course! Wouldn't have fav'd it otherwise!
This is pretty good. I am working on Dumbbell and Rainbow Dash fanfic myself.
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Really? Well that'll be a welcome edition in my eyes.
Thank our but this is my first time at writing and the title is Crushing On Crash.
4274524
Nice title. If you need any help then message me.
*Taps foot*
Hehe, rhymes
So there are still continuing on the temple and it looks like they found a couple of items and it turns out there were ponies and creatures were down here like exploring the ruins and now we don't know what happened to them so when a minute outside after a couple of hours rainbow wanted to decide to go to Appaloosa to tell them what's going on but dumbbell wanted to stay here to explore more but it doesn't matter because the rain is coming so they basically waited there and rest and it's pretty sweet to see talking to each other and everything but it looks like something when horribly wrong somebody kidnap rainbow dash who the hell could that be and what happened to dumbbell