Trixie's Forest Retreat

by crowscrowcrow

Chapter 24 - Rescue

Rainbow Dash relaxed on top of her cloud with a sigh, staring up at the blue sky. A nice cool breeze played with the scruffy ends of her prismatic tail and mane. The best discovery she’d made so far during her exploration of the Everfree Forest, an area where there was no sound.

When she had spoken to Twilight about it she immediately regretted it, what followed was a half hour monologue about some old dusty long dead unicorn. She could not remember the unicorns name very well.

”Obias Phonoph? Those aren’t words.” Rainbow Dash threw up her hooves.

“Either way, apparently back when the castle of the two sisters was still in use, he enchanted one of the gardens to make it one of the most peaceful places in Equestria. Isn’t that fascinating? This means his enchantment still works to this very day!” Twilight’s magic aura enveloped three more books, flipping through pages while explaining more about the magic behind it, but it was all egghead white noise to Rainbow Dash

Twilight had said it was called ‘The Royal Garden of Quiescence’, Rainbow Dash called it a good nap spot. She called it that, but she had yet to actually take more than half a nap there.

Her first attempt was cut short by a nightmare. She had dreamed of rolling off the cloud in her sleep and crashing into the Everfree Forest below. Badly hurt by the landing, and unable to cry for help due to the muffling enchantment. She never slept there again after that.

It felt like a silly thing to be afraid of. She had never rolled off a cloud during her naps since she was a filly, and even if she would she was almost sure she had a good enough grasp on her crashing problem these days to stabilize long before hitting anything. Still, she never managed to get to sleep again above the Everfree Forest.

Fortunately she thought up another use for her discovery. She preferred to think out loud, but she did not like ponies overhearing her. And so it was that the good nap spot had become a good thinking spot. Not that she often did much thinking. The last time was after the incident with Gilda, and it had not even done her much good. As far as that went the track record of this particular thinking spot was terrible. She had not come to any conclusions about Gilda, and she was not coming to any about Trixie either.

Her hoof struck a tuft of vapor off the cloud in a huff. “I thought I was getting somewhere, what gives? She was into it… Right? She did not complain to Fluttershy about being lonely anymore. Why would she say that all of a sudden? Did I screw it up again?”

She glanced towards the sun, judging the passage of time. She knew that at pace they had been going it should take Fluttershy and Trixie at least half an hour to catch up to her, leaving her with plenty of time to cool down. Trixie’s remarks played through her head again.

“It’s not like I wanted to almost kill her… It was an accident, could have happened to anypony right? Except maybe Applejack, she’d have gone all the way… Ugh what am I saying!?” She fell onto her back on the cloud staring up at the sky.

Her thoughts drifted back to her meeting in the forest with Trixie, a brief argument, her temper flared, then a horrible sickening sound that she not only heard but felt through her hind hooves. That warm wet feeling on her hooves, she felt her stomach turn at the memory. Afterwards she had spent an hour washing her hooves, but she never felt clean.

She absolutely had to make it right somehow, and Fluttershy had been giving her advice. It would have worked too, bringing the hat and cape would have gone great... But she only got to see Trixie’s genuine reaction to seeing her again, complete terror. Rainbow Dash had been too scared of making things worse, and focused too much on making sure Trixie did not make her a murderer, by heading out on her own and dying.

She only later realized what a terrible mistake it had been. The images of the crying, trembling unicorn begging not to be hurt again haunted her. How could she not have seen what was happening? Fluttershy obviously saw. She even tried to stop her multiple times, but at the time the soft pleas just did not register.

The only time she managed to forget the guilt even briefly was when she was angry, like when defending Fluttershy. But most of that anger ebbed away the longer she actually saw Trixie scared out of her mind while she jumped to all kinds of conclusions. “Maybe I… Maybe I really wanted her to be a horrible pony. So I could say she deserved it?”

She drug her hooves over her eyelids in frustration, giving a growl “Arrgh! I’m asking what’s wrong with her? No! What’s wrong with me? No wonder she hates me! If I get within hooves reach of her she freaks out, and she’s right!”

Even if she knew she was the problem that still did not help her much. “Chillax Rainbow Dash. At least you left Trixie with Fluttershy this time, instead of blowing up,” she sighed, feeling she finally managed not make things worse this way.

“I’ll talk to Fluttershy after this trip, she’ll know what’s up. Maybe this was not such a good idea… I guess I did not really think Trixie would be grateful for helping her get to the castle... but she seemed really annoyed instead. If she didn’t want to go she could’ve stayed ho–Woah!”

Rainbow Dash’s musings were rudely interrupted when a spark suddenly rose up through the cloud she rested on, and exploded into bright colors right in front of her. Kicking herself away from the explosion, she fell off the cloud, and quickly stabilized. Finding it was not the only spark, everything between her and the canopy was exploding into color. “What the hay? Who’s shooting at me?!”

She spotted another spark break through the canopy then dove through it to find her assailant, itching to unleash a week’s worth of frustration. Once she broke through she stopped dead in midair with her eyes wide in shock, disbelieving what she found.

The very first thing her attention was drawn to was the source of the sparks, Trixie, but how on Equestria she even got there was beyond Rainbow Dash. She should still only be half way along the road. The second thing was the largest timberwolf she had ever seen, stomping its way towards the downed unicorn. And finally Fluttershy who was making desperate attempts to get the timberwolfs attention, even bucking its legs, but going completely ignored.

A thousand questions flooded through her head, but she knew one thing for sure. “Oh no you don’t!” She beat her wings hard and nearly held them directly behind her, sending into a literally death defying nosedive. She pulled up only just in time to level out over Trixie, sparks still flying from her horn. She wrapped her hooves around Trixie midflight, and snatched her out of the gaping jaws of the timberwolf. A few powerful wing beats lifted them both up above the canopy. Fluttershy broke through the canopy a few seconds later, looking completely exhausted and landing on the nearest cloud wheezing.

Rainbow Dash swooped up to a nearby cloud. She tried to lay the still sparking Trixie down on it, planning to retreat to safe distance afterward, only to have her sink right through. “Ugh right, only pegasus ponies can do that. Plan B!” She hovered over the cloud and looked at the limp Trixie in her hooves briefly.

“Don’t freak out okay?” She was not even really sure if Trixie was conscious, but still a bit of warning upfront seemed appropriate. The next second she pulled her tightly against her chest and rolled in the air, pulling Trixie above her and folding her wings. She landed on her back upon the cloud, with a shaking Trixie slumped on top of her. There was no immediate response. But there was one thing that changed, the sparks finally stopped.

Author's Note:

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed.

Rainbow Dash back in the spotlight.
We get her side of the story.
And a small demonstration of her awesome.

Comments

[Knight of the Raven]

'Afterwards she had spent an hour washing her hooves, but she never felt clean.' eh?

"Yet who would have thought the loudmouth to have had so much blood in her?

What, will these hooves ne'er be clean?

Here's the smell of the blood still. All the perfumes of Saddle Arabia will not sweeten these little hooves. O, O, O!"

I liked these lines;

'but it was all egghead white noise to Rainbow Dash' which incidentally lacks a period at the end

and

'Twilight had said it was called ‘The Royal Garden of Quiescence’, Rainbow Dash called it a good nap spot.'

Corrections;

I think you could put a comma after 'She fell onto her back on the cloud'

'timberwolfs' should be 'timberwolf's' in 'desperate attempts to get the timberwolfs attention'

and

add a comma after 'Oh no' in 'Oh no you don't!'

I didn't have enough time to review the remaining chapters and I don't know when (or even if) I will, so I stop here.

[crowscrowcrow]

4358028

I-I am not sure how to respond to all of this.

I come home from work, notice there is 1 new comment. To my surprise it is on the first chapter.

I'd like to start with this: if you're about to go to bed, don't read on. My reviews points out several mistakes and I don't want you to spend hours into the night to correct them. With that said...

I had no idea how true was about to turn out to be.

Every couple seconds I get a ping there's a new message and I was barely through the first. I read one, go next chapter, read another, go next chapter.
At the time I thought there would just be a couple.

It took me well over an hour just to read all 24 posts you'd made.
All of whom you somehow posted within half an hour.
Are you magic?

Frankly, I'm astounded you found the time, inclination and energy to review all those chapters.
Though I am a bit overwhelmed here.

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Okay, okay, I'm good now.

So first of all, thank you for all the time and effort you put into this! This is amazing.
I promise to put in at least twice as much effort putting your advice into practice.
You have officially stripped me of any plausible excuse to put off working on touching up the earlier chapters.

I will get started on working through your corrections and suggestions as soon as I am done with this post.
There are some questions I am left with though. More than anything, I am wondering what made you decide to review them, and so many of them?
It is just I would feel awful if I asked you for this in the past and completely forgot about it.

Now for a few quick comments, though by no means extensive, before I get to work.

Trixie thinks Rainbow Dash is a filly? Better than being considered a stallion I guess.

The intended goal was for Trixie to carry on the 'Foal' insult. By referring to RD by other child terms. I hope that came across.

I cringe everytime I hear any pony say 'buck.' I never found this pun clever, all the opposite in fact. I can live with 'hay' because it's actually used in the show but this invention of the fandom's never fails to annoy me.

I can see where you are coming from on this, and I would agree. I don't think I actually use the phrase 'buck' like that later on in the story, and prefer for Trixie to use more magic related swear terms like 'accursed'. So I will make that change here.

Trixie already has the 'more comas' thing checked.

I see what you did there.

'“Hello angel, and you too rabbit.”' as well, assuming I understood it correctly and Trixie called Fluttershy an angel.

Nailed it.

Fimfiction didn't show a skipped line

As grateful as I am for an excuse for my ineptitude... I later discovered these tended to be because Word would sometimes show the next paragraph on the next page, making me think there was a skipped line when there really was none. I have since changed the display option in Word to prevent future mess ups like that.

I didn't have enough time to review the remaining chapters and I don't know when (or even if) I will, so I stop here.

That you somehow found the time to review the first half is still amazing to me.
I can't in good conscience ask you to sacrifice that much of your time again, but I can tell you I would love to see you do so again.