• Published 7th Apr 2012
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Alicorn - Aldea Donder

When an incredible revelation sends Rainbow Dash's life into a tailspin, she finds herself at the mercy of emotions she never thought she had, faced with hard questions and impossible choices.

Alicorn written by Aldea Donder
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01. The Start of the Matter

ALICORN
by Aldea Donder


My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is property of Hasbro, Inc.
Please rate and review.

CHAPTER ONE
The Start of the Matter

Originally Published 6/7/2011

This chapter is a rewrite of the flashfic Mommy Nearest by Fairy Slayer.
All credit for the original idea goes to him.

Trouble can come calling in all manner of ways. It can announce itself and come expectedly, without any pretense. Or, if it prefers, it can jump at you out of the clear blue. Trouble can change the course of a life. Trouble can change the course of a nation.

In Rainbow Dash’s case, trouble came in the guise of a migraine.

It was only Monday, and the week already felt like a never-ending slog. The forecast called for rain, and with planting season in full swing, the farmers sure were thirsty for it. But Cloudsdale was late on a shipment of storms, which meant Rainbow didn’t have a drop to spare.

Try telling that to a certain orange earth pony, though.

“Consarn it, Rainbow Dash!”

Rainbow sighed and massaged her forehead, her wings snapping back and forth irritably as she hovered in the apple grove. She could feel the headache coming on. Oh yes, she could. “Look, Applejack—”

“Don’t you ‘Look, Applejack’ me! Now, see here, I put in a request for a spring storm three weeks ago. That oughta be more than enough time for you and your weather team to get it together!”

“Me and my weather team have it together! The shipment was—”

“—Late. You already said.”

Rainbow threw up her hooves. “Yeah, I was pretty sure I mentioned that to you a few times already! Just like I spent the whole freaking morning mentioning it to Carrot Top, Chives, Leafy Greens, Red Onion, Potato Peels, Rutabaga Root—”

“Rainbow.”

“—Celery Stalks, Roma Tomato… Jeeze, who’s the idiot that comes up with the names for you earth ponies, anyway?”

Applejack’s voice cut sharp. “Rainbow!”

“What?”

“Get this through that colorful head of yours! These here trees are full-grown, which means they can tough it out—leastways for a while. But the seedlings are just babies. They need all the water they can get!”

Rainbow rubbed her head again. “Yeah, yeah.”

“Y’all been slackin’ off, if you ask me. Been keepin’ it too dry all month long. And June’s right around the corner! I don’t need to tell you what that means, do I?”

“No, I’ve got a pretty good—”

“It means the Summer Sun Celebration, that’s what! And two weeks of clear, sunny skies leadin’ up to it! I need my crops watered now, Rainbow Dash! Before the drought! So get off your lazy pegasus butt and whip me up a storm!”

“I already told you, the shipment’s late!”

“Then go figure out some way to make it un-late!”

Rainbow grit her teeth. “Yes, ma’am.” With that, she spat on the ground and zipped away over the treetops.

No sense wasting time. She still had half a dozen farmsteads to notify of the weather postponement… Which meant she could look forward to getting chewed out by half a dozen more farmers before the day was done. Joy.

It was after six o’clock by the time she punched out. Being the last one out of the weather office wasn’t exactly her style, but then again, neither was having her reputation smeared by the Ponyville Board of Agriculture. Even so, despite her best efforts, she still had no idea what happened to the missing shipment. She flew back home with a scowl on her face and a percussion band thumping away in her skull.

She tried to unwind by practicing a couple of her aerial stunt routines, but the headache put her completely off her game, and it just didn’t seem to be going away. After she messed up the double-barrel triple-corkscrew for the fifth time in a row, Rainbow called it a night, retreating to the sanctuary of her cloud house with a look of self-disgust.

She went straight for the cider. Poured out a shot, and tossed it back without a second’s pause. It didn’t go down smooth, but then again, she wasn’t in a mind to care.

Slamming the empty glass down upon the mantle, she raised her eyes to the framed work of art that hung on the wall above. A painted rainbow darted out from the left side of the canvas, full of resplendent color and energy, set against a brilliant blue sky. But as it arced rightward, the blue sky gave way to gray, and then to the jet black of night—and the rainbow curled in on itself and shriveled away into nothingness.

“It isn’t what you thought it would be, is it?” Rainbow muttered to an empty room. She closed her eyes and sighed wearily, using the long of her hoof to wipe the drink from her mouth.

“Tryouts again in September. Gotta keep at it. Gotta keep going. Gotta show ’em all you’re good enough.”

She went to bed not long after that. Her head continued to throb with pain, even as sleep whisked her away.

◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆

That night, she had a dream.

A very old dream.

She knew it was an old dream because somehow, it resonated in her. In the weird, sealed-up sarcophagus of her subconscious, it resonated. In that dusty place where all memories go once they’re dead and embalmed, until something jars the lid and wakes them up. It resonated.

A feeling of peace and wholeness came over her. Of love, and of being loved. There was a sense of herself as a tiny foal, of being held and being nuzzled, and echoes of a lullaby that made her heart sing.

She was… She was in her mother’s loving embrace. She could feel the warmth of her body, and smell the fragrance of her mane… could hear her mother’s voice whispering to her, soft words filled with adoration, taking away all her pain, all her fear…

Then, as the dream drew to a close, she felt another pony’s arms wrap around her, lifting her up, wrenching her away. She cried and reached out, but her mother was gone, nowhere to be found. She looked all around, but she couldn’t see her.

She was separated—

Abandoned—


She woke up with a splitting headache and a hole in her soul.

It took her a full five minutes to get hold of herself. The sobs just would not quit coming, and she had to clamp a hoof over her mouth to keep herself from hyperventilating. Blinking through her tears, she looked around the darkened room and made out the profiles of her dresser, her chair, and her Wonderbolts posters on the walls.

It was a dream.

It was only a dream.

But knowing that didn’t make her feel any less hollow inside.

“What—the hay—was that?” Rainbow gasped.

She flopped back onto the pillows, heart still flying in her chest. With every rapid beat, her head gave another pang of discomfort.

Her hoof went to her face. It came away with a dab of moisture.

She scowled at it.

Rainbow Dash didn’t cry.

Rainbow Dash never cried.

“I must be losing it,” she murmured, closing her eyes and settling back under the covers. “It was just a nightmare. Everypony gets them. It’s not real. It doesn’t mean anything. Just… go back to sleep.”

She grunted and rolled over.

And she rubbed her forehead.

◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆

Toothpaste… Band-Aids… Mouthwash… Tweezers…

The pile of junk on the bathroom countertop grew larger by the second as Rainbow emptied out her medicine cabinet.

Cough drops… Thermometer… Vitamins… Rubbing alcohol…

Aha!

Rainbow’s teeth clenched around the lid of the pill bottle. She twisted it open and popped two aspirin for the headache. No, wait, scratch that. Better make it three, just to be sure.

She went about her morning rituals, showered and ate breakfast, and then she was ready to head out. Hopefully, work wouldn’t be as miserable today as it had been yesterday.

Before she left, she spared a parting glance for the little picture frame on the table near the door. The elderly pegasus couple in the photograph smiled back at her. The same as they always did.


Rainbow’s prayers for an easy day went unanswered. Tuesday proved every bit as miserable and then some. Not only was the shipment still missing, not only did she have half the earth ponies in town at her throat, but also—

“What do you MEAN, all your storms are on BACKORDER?”

She stared across her desk at the Cloudsdale sales rep, incredulously.

“I meant what I said,” the sales rep replied.

Rainbow moaned into her hooves. This could not be happening.

“You own a weather FACTORY!” she said. “If you don’t have any more storms, how about you turn on the waterworks and make some more?”

“Really, Miss Rainbow Dash. You’re a pegasus. You of all ponies should know there’s more to it than that. We run a refined operation in Cloudsdale, and there are variables to account for. Per-annuum water exports, supply and demand—”

“Yeah! Supply and demand! I’ve got a demand for rain, and I need you guys to supply me some!”

“It just isn’t that simple, I’m afraid.”

Rainbow slammed her hoof down on the desk. “Look, I’ve got a whole town here that’s gonna dry up if it doesn’t get some water! The crops are wilting in the sun out there!”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” said the sales rep with a patronizing smile on his face. “But that, as they say, isn’t my problem.”

He coughed just then, and with a look of disdain, glanced around the cramped and dusty confines of the Ponyville weather office. A hoof went to his jacket to brush off some imaginary dirt.

“Nice place you’ve got here. Very… quaint,” he said. Then he left.

Rainbow watched him march out. The moment the door clicked shut, she groaned and rested her aching head on a stack of paperwork, allowing her eyes to fall shut.

This day could not get any worse.


The day got worse.

Or rather, her headache did. But she figured one was about the same as the other. There had to be a mathematical formula somewhere in one of Twilight’s dumb, egghead books equating the horribleness of your day to the horribleness of your headache.

The hours passed with grueling slowness, and each hour that went by sent her migraine soaring to new heights. It took forever, but eventually, five o’clock rolled around, and she flew home.

She didn’t even bother to practice her tricks. She went straight for the medicine cabinet, downed another dose of aspirin, and then crawled into bed, burying her head beneath the pillow.

◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆

That night, she dreamed again.

She dreamed of white wings and smiling eyes. Of hooves that held her and rocked her to sleep, and a soft voice full of tenderness that sang. Of a lullaby she still couldn’t remember, the notes wafting across her memory without any words to pair them with.

And of a love that warmed her. And of a peace that filled her heart. And the feeling of being safe. The feeling of being little and helpless, but knowing that she was protected, knowing that somepony treasured her and would never, ever let anything happen to her.

But then she felt herself being pulled away again, and she reached out for her mother’s wing and caught only air, and she looked and looked, but she couldn’t see her, couldn’t see her anywhere—

“MOMMY!”

Rainbow sat bolt upright in bed, tears streaming.

It probably would’ve taken her just as long to stifle her emotions as it had the night before, but a dagger of pain picked that moment to slice into her brain. She yelped and fell back, clutching her head.

The tears didn’t stop, though. And she hated herself for them.

“You’re cracking up!” she yelled. “Quit having these dreams! This is all stupid! It isn’t real! It ISN’T!”

Even to her ears, the words seemed to drip with despair.

◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆

“Charades?”

“Boring.”

“Musical chairs?”

“Boring.”

“Hmm…” Pinkie Pie tapped her chin. “Monopony?”

Rainbow gave her a glazed-over look. “I thought the point was to celebrate our friendship with Twilight, not destroy it forever.”

Pinkie giggled. “You’re totally right, Dashie! Monopony’s probably not the best game. Guess I’ll just… bank that idea for now. Ha!”

She snorted at her own funny.

Ordinarily, Rainbow might have been annoyed to find herself assailed with bad jokes after another excruciating day at work, but at the moment, she didn’t have enough energy to be irritated. As she trudged—not flew—down the forested path out of town, the full-boughed trees swayed in the breeze above her. Their shade helped hide her suffering.

Beside her, Pinkie bounced along obliviously, full of her usual pep.

It was all Rainbow could do to try to keep up with her.

“Look, Pinkie, no offense, but party planning’s your special talent, isn’t it? Do you really need my help with this?”

It was an earnest attempt to convince Pinkie Pie to leave her alone. It was also totally doomed, but nopony could blame her for trying.

“Don’t be a silly filly!” Pinkie chirped. “A one-year friendiversary party is a super special thing! I need a lot of help to pull this off! You don’t want Twilight to be disappointed, do you?”

“No, I… Of course not.”

“Besides, it’s not just a party for Twilight! I mean, I guess it’s mostly for her, since it’s the day she and Spike first came to Ponyville, but it’s also the one-year friendiversary for all six of us, too! And you know what it is that makes one-year friendivesaries so special, doncha Dashie?”

“They… only come once?”

“No, it’s the paper crowns they let you wear at Burger Princess! Oh, but I like your idea too.”

Rainbow shook her head. “Pinkie Pie, you are so—”

“TRIVIAL PURSUIT!” Pinkie shouted suddenly.

The pegasus almost fell over. “W-What?”

“You know. Board game? Question cards? Test your knowledge?”

“…Total egghead game. Twilight would probably love it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. She’d be the only one, but she’d love it.” Rainbow gave a flippant toss of her mane. “Why don’t you go ahead and throw her an encyclopedia-themed party while you’re at it?”

“Hmm. Do you think she’d like that?”

“Of course,” Rainbow said, voice dripping with sarcasm. “Who wouldn’t want an encyclopedia-themed party?”

Pinkie’s face screwed up in concentration, her tongue sticking out the side of her mouth. She almost looked to be taking mental notes.

Another few minutes went by, and they continued down the road, the blue sky opening above them as they traded the woods for flower-specked meadows. All the while, Pinkie kept rattling off ideas, and Rainbow did her best to put up with it. She was glad when her cloud house finally came into view, its colorful waterfalls sparkling in the air above them.

“Ooh! Ooh! I know! We could play Mother May I!” Pinkie shouted.


This time, Rainbow did fall over.

One second, she was looking up at her house. Then Pinkie opened her mouth, and the waterfalls turned into a vivid mane, and the clouds became white wings, and she was a tiny foal reaching out for her mommy, but her mommy wasn’t there, her mommy was gone and she was alone and crying and scared and—

“Oof!”

She hit the ground. She hit the ground and she didn’t get up.

“Uh, Rainbow Dash? Are you okay?” she heard Pinkie ask.

“I’m—”

She opened her eyes, and she was promptly rewarded with a blast of agony from inside her brain. “GYAH!” she yelped, clutching her head as she writhed on her back.

A few moments later, the pain fizzled away, and she lay groaning as Pinkie appeared upside-down above her. “Um… How are you feeling?” the party pony finally thought to ask.

Rainbow winced. “Awesome. Just awesome.”

Pinkie made to help her up, but Rainbow waved her off, climbing back to her hooves with some difficulty. She slapped on a grin that was all too fake. “Those… Potholes. Heh. I don’t know how you earth ponies manage to get by without… uh… tripping over them… more often.”

Pinkie hesitated, presumably weighing the excuse, and Rainbow could only stand there with a big, dumb grin stapled to her face, fully expecting to be called out on her lie. In a couple seconds, she’d probably be shot out of a party cannon on her way to the clinic. Or worse, to Twilight’s basement of mad science horrors, to be hooked up to some weird machine and run tests on for the next three days in a row.

But then, to her surprise—“STOP, DROP, AND ROLL!” Pinkie shrieked.

Rainbow stared. “W-What?”

“It’s the super fantabulous idea you just gave me! We would play stop, drop, and roll! It’s great physical activity, AND we’d get to practice our fire safety at the same time! We could even…”

Whew. Rainbow congratulated herself. Slid that one right past her.

“Look, Pinkie,” she said, “I appreciate your wanting to get my opinion on the party, but I think I’m just gonna go home now. I’ve got… stuff to do. In places that aren’t here.”

“Okay, seeya, Dashie! I hope your head feels less achy tomorrow!”

“Huh? But I didn’t even mention—”

But it was too late. Pinkie was already gone, bouncing her way up the road.

She shook her head. So random.

Rainbow sighed and flexed her wings, trying hard to ignore the twinge that went through her. It was two hundred feet straight up to her house, and getting there had never been harder.

◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆

Wednesday came and Wednesday went, and Rainbow didn’t feel any better. No matter how many pills she took, the headache wouldn’t let up. It did just the opposite, in fact. Each minute that went by gave her a deeper understanding of true misery.

Thursday, the post office found the missing shipment. Thank goodness for small favors. It had been mailed to the next town over and stuck in delivery hell for days on end. Rainbow was glad to finally have the storms she’d requisitioned, but unfortunately, Cloudchaser was on leave visiting family in Fillydelphia, and Thunderlane was out sick again.

Which meant it was up to her to deploy the weather.

All by herself.

The job took hours. Tearing open boxes, digging through the packing peanuts to get at the clouds, then hauling them up into the sky, pushing them over this pony’s ranch or that pony’s farm, kicking them to make the water rain down. Her headache was so bad by the time she was done, she wondered if she was dying.

Friday was torture. Literally torture.

She was growing desperate. Headaches were supposed to go away on their own, weren’t they? They weren’t supposed to keep getting worse by the day! This wasn’t even pain anymore. This was anguish!

Sleep was the only escape. In the fantasia of her dreams, the pain and agony abated, only to be replaced, each night, with that same awful scene of herself as a foal, reaching out in vain for her mother. After a while, she stopped trying to resist and just accepted the tears.

She hoped the weekend would cure her. A break from work, from the stress of her job. That was probably all she needed.

But as Saturday grew long in the tooth, her suffering became unbearable. The pain was like a nail being driven into her skull. It affected her to the point where she couldn’t think. Could barely even fly.

As she felt her wings start to fail, she made an emergency landing on a nearby cumulus, doubled over, and collapsed. For some time, there she lay, nursing her head and trying to remember how to breathe. There in that place where she had always felt safest: high in the sky, nestled in the warm embrace of the sun.

“Please, make it stop!” she cried, and she hugged herself. A futile attempt to keep from shaking. “This hurts… so… much.”

Far below her, Big Macintosh was hard at work tilling and seeding the land. The scrape of his plow seemed to echo in Rainbow’s ears.

It was the last thing she heard before she hit the ground.

◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆

“HELP! HELP!”

Most of the shoppers milling about the Ponyville market square were wise enough to make way for Applebloom when she came galloping down the road, screaming and hollering at the top of her lungs. The ones that didn’t were bowled over by the hulking red stallion who came charging after her.

“HELP!” the little yellow filly cried again. “APPLEJACK!”

A screech of pain like nothing a pony should ever make pierced the air, and the throng of onlookers backed away.

Applejack raced over from her stall, accidentally upending a ripe bushel in her haste. The juicy red fruits spilled across the street and splattered ’neath her trampling hooves. “Applebloom, what the hay—?”

She broke off mid-sentence, interrupted by another one of Rainbow’s horrific, ear-splitting wails.

Big Macintosh had her draped over his back, trussed up by all four hooves to keep her from falling off. In spite of that, she was putting up one heck of a fight, writhing and jerking against her bonds, babbling incoherently in-between cries of unbelievable pain. Her wings fired uselessly, landing blow after blow against Big Mac’s neck and head, but he didn’t even seem to notice as he sprinted through the plaza and up to his sister, jabbering at her through his tears.

“Big Macintosh,” Applejack said, and when he wouldn’t quit blubbering, she grabbed him by the shoulders to make him stop and repeated herself again, “BIG MACINTOSH! What happened?”

“She—She fell,” he choked out. “I thought she’d be fine—she’s come out okay from worse falls, but she just—”

Applejack paled at the news, and at the thin trickle of blood running down Rainbow’s head. “Take her to the hospital,” she said to her brother, and then, to her sister, “Applebloom, go fetch Twilight, NOW!”

Applebloom nodded and bounded away.

Rainbow continued to thrash and sob as Big Macintosh took off around the corner, with Applejack nipping at his hooves and a small crowd of other ponies in tow. They trucked it past Town Hall and the Carousel Boutique, over the bridge, barreling through the double doors of the hospital. The receptionist rushed them into a room.

Applejack struggled to untie Rainbow and get her situated on the bed, but every time she managed to lay a hoof on her, the pegasus kicked and fought her way free, screaming in tortured agony. Thankfully, a doctor and a pair of nurses came racing in to help. It took all of them plus Applejack and Big Macintosh to hold Rainbow down. On more than one occasion, one of her forehooves would jerk out of their grasp, and whenever this happened, she would begin savagely hitting herself on the head, shouting, “IT HURTS! IT HURTS! MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOP!”

“What happened to her?” the doctor demanded.

Big Macintosh filled him in as best he could.

When Rainbow’s wings kept flaring open and pushing her off the bed, one of the nurses cried out, “Put her on her stomach!” It was no small feat, but they managed to roll her over. Once that was done, the doctor ordered her restrained to keep her from killing herself, and they went to work belting her legs and arms to the bedposts. She was pretty well immobilized after that. Except for her wings, of course, which continued to flap erratically, occasionally gaining enough lift to raise her an inch off the mattress.

“Applejack!”

The farmpony turned around to see a purple-colored unicorn pushing her way through the congregation of onlookers at the door. She had never felt more relieved in her life.

“Excuse me! Pardon me!” Twilight said, forcing her way through the crowd. As soon as she made it into the room, she glanced back at them and said, “Sorry, hate to do it, but the show’s over, everypony. Doctor-patient confidentiality and all that. You know how it is.”

Then she slammed the door in their faces.

“Thank goodness you’re here, Twilight!” said Applejack.

Twilight strode over, looking concerned, but unruffled. She stooped beside the bed to examine Rainbow.

“What happened?”

“She fell,” Big Macintosh said hoarsely, not for the first time that day. He was beat to hell, covered in rope burns and scratches. His face, normally stoic, was streaked with tears.

Twilight nodded. “How long has it been since—”

“AUUUUUGGGGGHHHHH!”

Rainbow’s scream made everypony jump—especially Twilight, who’d been kneeling six inches away from her. Who now found herself sprawled on the floor with her heart jackhammering in her chest.

“STOP! PLEASE! IT HURTS!” Rainbow yelled, twisting her head to bang it against the mattress. The bloody wound in the center of her brow oozed a sanguine trail down the bridge of her nose.

The doctor proceeded with his examination. After ten minutes looking her over from head to hoof, he shook his head. “Other than the one obvious wound, I can’t find anything physically the matter with her. She has no other injuries. I can only speculate that brain damage stemming from blunt force trauma to the head has put her in an extended seizure.

Applejack looked ill. “B-Brain damage?”

The diagnosis didn’t inspire confidence, but that didn’t stop Twilight from pushing past the nurses to kneel again by Rainbow’s side. “If it’s okay with you, doctor, I’d like to conduct my own examination.”

The doctor frowned, but agreed.

Twilight leaned in close, thinking to nuzzle the pegasus and calm her down. She was rewarded with a smack to the face.

“Ow!”

Rainbow suddenly stopped squirming and looked up at Twilight, her teary eyes pleading for help. Then she went back to struggling. Even though she was exhausted, she was no less determined to break free.

The tormented look Rainbow had paid her sent a chill down Twilight’s spine. She hunkered forward, lowered her head, closed her eyes, and concentrated. Her horn began to shimmer, gradually brightening as she probed ever deeper into her friend’s anguished mind.

A fraction of the agony slipped across to Twilight’s side of the mental link. The pain was so sharp, it stabbed; so intense, it seared. She cried out aloud from it, and Applejack, Big Macintosh, and the others were instantly at her side, telling her to stop what she was doing.

“Don’t go hurtin’ yourself, sugarcube! The last thing we need is to put you in the hospital, too!”

Twilight took a minute to catch her breath. It felt like somepony was trying to drive an icepick through her brain. Still, she wouldn’t allow herself to quit.

“I’m going to try again,” she announced.

But after minutes and minutes of delving through the pain, she couldn’t find anything the matter with the distressed pegasus aside from the bleeding gash on her forehead.

Twilight doubled down, determined to do something—anything—to help her friend. She tried pouring her magic into a healing spell. The drain on her was so immense, it caused her to tremble, the pinkish glow of her horn brightening to a blinding white as she put everything she had into the warp and weft of the restorative energy.

It was no use. No matter how hard she tried, the pegasus continued to moan and pull at her bonds.

Twilight was finally forced to give up. She wobbled to her hooves, staggered, and probably would’ve fallen down on the spot if Applejack hadn’t been there for her to lean against.

When she opened her eyes, she saw Pinkie Pie standing at the door.

The party pony’s saddlebags were crammed full of candy, flowers, and a giant ‘get well’ card, and she held a colorful bunch of balloons between her teeth. But as she took in the unvarnished horror of Rainbow’s suffering, she was frozen in place with eyes as wide as saucers. Her jaw fell open, and the balloons shot up, covering the ceiling.

There was a clear note of desperation in Twilight’s voice now that her magic had failed. “Pinkie Pie! You and Big Mac, go get Zecora! Quickly!”

Big Macintosh didn’t waste any time. He rushed to the door, pausing only to whisper something to Pinkie. Whatever he said seemed to un-stupefy her. She shook off her paralysis and dropped her saddlebags, and then then two of them went racing for the Everfree Forest.

Twilight toddled over to one of the chairs and slumped down in it, overcome with tiredness. She only pretended to watch as the doctor brought a clean rag to Rainbow’s forehead to soak up the bleeding. Her magic had been a bust. She felt utterly defeated.

When Applejack noticed her staring off into nothingness, she approached.

“What’s wrong, Twilight?”

“I couldn’t do it,” Twilight mumbled. “I couldn’t help her.”

“Don’t blame yourself, sugarcube. None of this is your fault. Maybe you have another spell you haven’t thought of? You did put that ursa minor under like it wasn’t nothin’ a few months back.”

“That’s… actually a good idea.”

Swallowing her apprehensions, Twilight returned to the bedside. The glow of her horn washed over Rainbow’s entire body, and slowly, the fight seeped out of her. Her cries softened to whimpers. Her eyes fell half-shut.

“Weird. She should be completely unconscious,” Twilight muttered.

“At least she’s doing better. You done good, Twi.”

Rainbow twitched and murmured. Then she began to rub her face against the mattress, as if she were trying to nuzzle it. She started crying softly. “Mommy. Mommy. Mommy…”

Applejack sniffled. There were tears coming down her face.

Twilight cast an urgent glance toward the earth pony. “Do you know where her parents are? We need to find them.”

“I’m sorry, sugarcube, but they passed away. A long time ago.”

“That’s terrible! I never knew.” Twilight looked down at Rainbow, her heart weighed down by a new sadness. “How did it happen?”

“Illness and old age. They were already gettin’ on in years when she was born.” A frightened look came over Applejack’s face. “If she doesn’t remember that, does that mean she really is brain damaged? I mean, if her memory’s goin’—”

“No.”

Twilight’s confidence startled Applejack. “But how can you be sure?”

“Because I couldn’t sense anything wrong with her aside from the pain and the cut,” Twilight explained. “If she had any permanent damage, I would’ve been able to detect it.”

Applejack sighed in relief. “Thank goodness for that. I was terrified there for a minute.”

“What I don’t get,” Twilight said, circling around to the other side of the bed to get a better look at the wound, “is why my magic couldn’t heal it. If it were an ordinary laceration, I should’ve been able to patch it up, no problem.”

“But… if’n it ain’t an ordinary cut, then what is it?”

Twilight shook her head. “I don’t know. But it scares me.”

◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆

Fluttershy came as soon as she heard the news, but she stayed in the hall for some time, covering her ears at the sound of Rainbow’s screams. After a while, Twilight went outside and convinced her it was okay to come in. The instant the yellow pegasus saw Rainbow lying there half-conscious, tied up and shaking, she pushed a second bed up against the first one and hopped up on it, hugging her friend and nuzzling her gently.

Rarity brought her most luxurious blanket for Rainbow, as well as the softest, comfiest pillow she had. The blanket proved to be a godsend—the extra warmth made Rainbow feel better and helped calm her down—but lifting her head for the pillow turned out to be too painful. It ended up tossed aside in a corner, and Rarity ended up sitting in a chair next to Twilight, looking equally as miserable as everypony else.

It was nearly dark by the time Big Macintosh and Pinkie Pie returned with Zecora. When the zebra’s troubled face appeared in the doorway, Twilight rose to greet her. “Zecora! Thank goodness you’re here!”

“Show me to the injured mare. For her, I’ll do my best to care.”

Within a matter of minutes, Zecora had set up a small tray next to the bed, piled high with ingredients and chemicals and the implements of her alchemy. One by one, she applied them to the wound on top of Rainbow’s head. First this salve, then that one. A rubbing of rare blue belladonna, or an extract of poppy from the far reaches of the world.

One by one, her treatments failed, and Rainbow continued to shudder and convulse. Zecora’s lips drew thin. Undaunted, she reached for another assortment of roots and a mortar to crush them up.

Meanwhile, Pinkie Pie crouched beside the bed and began to whisper into Rainbow’s ear. “It’s okay, Dashie. I know it hurts, and hurting’s never any fun, but before you know it, you’re gonna be all better again! And I promise, just as soon as that happens, I’ll throw you the biggest, bestest, funnest party ever so you can celebrate, and all of us will be there to celebrate with you, because not hurting anymore is always something to celebrate. And all of us will have something to celebrate, too! Because even though you’re hurting the most, we’re your friends, and we’re hurting right along with you.”

Rainbow didn’t reply. She only whimpered and wept.

As Zecora continued her work, Twilight trudged to the far side of the room, where the doctor stood monitoring the situation with a glassy-eyed expression. “What are your thoughts?”

He grimaced and shook his head. “I’m afraid this is all beyond the scope of what medicine we practice here in Ponyville. It’s one thing to mend a scrape or set a broken bone, but an injury like this…”

“What do you make of the cut on her forehead?”

“It’s magical in nature,” the doctor observed. “There’s no doubt about it. But I can’t even begin to imagine what could’ve inflicted it. I’ve never seen or heard of anything like it before. Perhaps a creature of the Everfree might have the power, but then again—”

CRASH!

They looked up in time to see Zecora’s wooden mixing bowl explode against the bedpost.

Twilight’s eyes went wide. “What was that?”

“The bowl, darling!” Rarity said, her mouth agape. “It just—well, it took off, flew through the air, and shattered!”

Pinkie Pie jumped up and down. “I saw it! I saw it! It had one of those aura thingies around it! Like when a unicorn levitates something and the air goes all swirly and colorful!”

Twilight stared at Rarity, incredulous. “Did you—?”

“I swear, I didn’t do anything! I’m as baffled as you are!”

Twilight’s brow furrowed. “But you and I are the only unicorns here. If you didn’t do it, and I didn’t do it, then who…?”

“It does no good to frown and blame,” Zecora interrupted. She wasted no time in reaching for another bowl, and a few seconds later, had already begun to whip up a new concoction.

“But—”

“This pony’s illness is no game.”

Twilight fell silent at that, but the gears kept turning in the back of her head. It didn’t make any sense. Who could have caused the bowl to go hurtling across the room, if not herself or Rarity?

Rainbow sniffled and cried out again. “Mommy… Mommy…”


Forty minutes later, Zecora set down the last of her liniments, pushed away the tray, and got up from the bedside, shaking her head. “What ails this girl, I do not know. I cannot lift her from this throe.”

The news didn’t exactly come as a surprise. The exasperated look on Zecora’s face had done nothing but grow since she began her efforts. Hearing her admit defeat was a bitter pill, though. Another ray of hope snuffed out.

“Thank you, Zecora, for all of your help,” said Twilight.

Zecora nodded, then grudgingly turned to go. Before she departed, she gave the pegasus writhing on the bed a solemn look and promised, if she thought of anything, that she would come back straight away.

Nopony said anything after she left. Nopony but Rainbow Dash, whose sobs went on… and on… and on…


After hours of sitting, pacing, and long chats with the doctor, Twilight told the others she would return to the Golden Oaks Library and consult her medical books on how to help Rainbow. It was a half-truth: she would do the research, of course, but part of her desperately wanted to be out of that hospital room, away from those horrible cries.

In the end, even her most prized texts let her down. As she closed the cover on the very last book, Twilight knew there was only one pony in the world left for her to turn to.

She picked up her quill and prepared to write the letter.

◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆

Dear Princess Celestia,

In recent months, with the benefit of your guidance, I’ve learned friendship is one of the most important things in the world. But it can be painful sometimes, too. When a friend is suffering, everyone else suffers right along with them.

I’ve attempted to become more self-reliant since I moved to Ponyville almost a year ago, to solve problems by myself instead of depending on your favor. But now my good and loyal friend, Rainbow Dash, has been badly hurt, and neither I nor anypony else can figure out how to aid her. She fell from the sky this afternoon, and ever since then, she’s been in horrible pain. There’s an open wound atop her head that will not heal, no matter how hard we try. Medicines, both modern and mystic, have proven ineffective. As she cries, she also keeps calling out for the comfort of her mother, who sadly is no longer with us. Our hearts are breaking.

I beg you, dearest teacher and princess. Please help her.

Your Faithful Student,
Twilight Sparkle

◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆

A thousand miles north of the grisly drama that was unfolding in Ponyville, a howling wind whipped ’round the pinnacles of Griffil’la, the city’s snowcapped spires sprouting from snowcapped summits to meet a starry evening. On a terrace made of alabaster covered in white, Princess Celestia stood tall, unmoved by the gale. A plain brown cloak draped her body, and a concealing hood was drawn about her face.

“Thirteen? Are you certain?” she asked.

Across from her, the only other living soul nodded his head. He was a griffin, ungarbed, the black of his feathers like coal against the snow. “Yes. Thirteen, in two weeks’ time.”

“And you don’t know where it will happen?”

The griffin shook his head. “No, Your Majesty.”

“Then you must endeavor to find out. Glean it from your contacts as best you can. I shall meet you here tomorrow at the height of the moon, and you shall tell me what you’ve learned.”

She turned to leave, but paused to give the griffin a sober look.

“Let none know of this meeting.”

“Of course, Your Majesty. For Equestria.”

“For Equestria.”

With that, they went their separate ways. The griffin, home to his den, and Celestia, to the hole-in-the-wall inn where she’d taken out lodging for the week. The accommodations weren’t anything to write home about, but the place was quiet and unfrequented, and the innkeeper was on her payroll, and that made it worth its weight in gold for an alicorn princess attempting to go undetected in the Griffin Kingdom.

It was after midnight by the time she arrived, touching down in front of the chalky old building amid ankle-high eddies of snow. As she stepped inside, she cast her eyes about furtively. The common room was empty, as promised. The door swung shut behind her, and the all-encompassing sound of the wind died down to a mere howl.

All was still, but just the same, she kept her head down and pulled the hood of her cloak tightly about herself as she strode across the room. The lock to her door clicked open with a faint glow of her horn. She hurried in, flicked the bolt, hung the chain, and cast her wards.

“I should have left this to Luna,” she mumbled to herself, allowing her eyes to fall closed. “She used to be so good at espionage, and the hours always did suit her better.”

She shucked her cloak, all but collapsed onto the bed, and would have been asleep in no time.

If not for the belch of green dragon fire.

Celestia eyed the letter. She half considered letting it set until tomorrow, but no. If Twilight sent something at this late hour, then it must be urgent. She ought to take a look at it.

Off popped the seal, and the parchment unfurled before her.


Three minutes later, Celestia came tearing out of the building. She took off into the sky so fast, she set off a shockwave, and lights went on in homes up and down the street and clear across the whole griffin city.

She left the room in disarray: the door ajar, the cloak forgotten, and a scorch mark on the desk where she had quite literally fired a message back to Twilight.

◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆

UNDER ROYAL SEAL OF PRINCESS CELESTIA:

My Faithful Student,

Go to Rainbow Dash and comfort her. Apply neither magic nor medicine upon her, no matter what! You need not beg ever, and you need not despair. As surely and swiftly as the first rays of dawn kiss the earth, I will be in Ponyville upon the sunrise.

—C

◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆

Twilight did as Princess Celestia bade her and returned to the hospital, glad for the knowledge that she was on her way. If anypony could heal Rainbow Dash, it was her.

Princess Celestia would fix things. Princess Celestia always had. In the years and years Twilight had spent in Canterlot as her pupil, she had never known a problem the princess couldn’t resolve. Had never known her to make a mistake, or to fail at anything she tried.

Princess Celestia would fix Rainbow Dash. She was sure of it.

It was a rough night for everypony. Mercifully, Rainbow didn’t rouse from her half-conscious state, but she still continued to whimper in her strange delirium, calling out for her mother.

Fluttershy made room on the bed for Applejack, who crawled up next to her and helped comfort their injured friend. But as the hours dragged on, she only grew worse. Again and again, her sobs rang in their ears. There was a desperation in Rainbow’s voice that cut into their hearts; a longing for something that none of them could provide.

It seemed to take forever, but at long last, morning came. As the first slivers of dawn filtered through the window and inched across the bed where Rainbow lay in her tormented fugue, Twilight rose stiffly from her chair, traipsed down to the lobby, and opened up the doors. There in the threshold, she stood, watching the sky as brushstrokes of pink and orange appeared.

The first glimmer of sunlight over the mountains exploded in a brilliant glare, forcing her to shield her eyes. When she looked up, there was Princess Celestia in all her glory. Yet she was without raiment, coach, or guard, and the goddess incarnate couldn’t hide her tiredness.

“Princess,” Twilight said, falling into a bow. But before she could bend at all four knees, Celestia had already brushed past her.

“Where is she?”

Twilight grasped for words as she stood up again. “Upstairs.”

“Take me to her.”

Twilight led the princess up the stairs and down the hall, to the room where she and her friends had endured the night. As they approached the door, Rainbow cried out—a long, painful, yearning cry that made Twilight cringe and stopped Celestia dead in her tracks.

Twilight swallowed hard. “Like I wrote in my letter, she’s been doing that all night,” she said, peering up at the princess. “Ever since yesterday afternoon, when she fell off a…”

She stopped talking. Bit down on her lip.

Twilight had pinned all her hopes on Princess Celestia being able to mend Rainbow Dash. She had expected to see an expression of determination on her face. Or confidence, or wisdom, or serenity, or—horseapples, any emotion in the world but fear!

But no.

Celestia. Looked. Terrified.

“P-Princess?”

Celestia looked down at her with wide eyes. It took a moment for the shock on Twilight’s face to register, but once it did, she seemed to realize the panic she was telegraphing and clamped down on it.

She took a few more seconds to compose herself.

Then she opened the door.

Applejack, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, and Rarity all jumped up as soon as they saw her, each one bowing in respect. Celestia barely even noticed, so frozen was she by the tableau in front of her. By the sight of Rainbow Dash restrained by the arms and legs, quivering in pain.

The goddess lingered in the doorway for a few seconds more. Then a change came over her. Her face hardened with resolve, and she walked to the bed with purpose in her step. In an instant, the belts holding Rainbow in place snapped free, and her body went limp.

Celestia gently pushed back Rainbow’s colorful bangs, and then, with special attention, began licking the wound on her head.

“M-Mommy?” Rainbow whimpered.

“Shh,” Celestia said. She climbed onto the bed, wrapped Rainbow in her wing, and nuzzled her. “Yes. Mommy’s here for you.”

Twilight’s mouth fell agape.

There were similar reactions all around. Fluttershy squeaked in surprise, and Rarity gasped. Applejack just looked plain confused, her mouth frozen in a tiny little ‘o.’

But… Wait. There was a perfectly logical explanation for all of this. It was a ruse! That was all. A brilliant ruse to calm Rainbow down, to make her think her mother was near and lessen her pain.

Truly an impressive demonstration of the principles of modern psychology. That didn’t make it any less surreal, though. The sight of her teacher nurturing Rainbow Dash, of all ponies… It was bizarre! And pretending to be her mother, on top of it!

“Are you really Rainbow’s mother, Princess?” Applejack asked.

Twilight rolled her eyes. Naturally, she was the first one to figure it out while the others jumped to conclusions. “No, Princess Celestia isn’t really Rainbow’s mother,” she explained. “She’s only saying that to calm her down. It’s a trick.”

Fluttershy stepped forward. “Will Rainbow Dash be okay?”

“Rainbow Dash is going to be fine.”

Celestia bowed her head. Breathed in, and breathed out.

“And… it isn’t a trick.”

She nuzzled Rainbow again, then tilted her face to peer into those unseeing pink eyes.

“I’m your mother, Rainbow Dash,” she said.

And Twilight’s brain short-circuited.

Not even Celestia knew if Rainbow understood what she was saying, but the revelation left everypony else dumbfounded. All except Pinkie Pie, that is, who tapped her chin thoughtfully.

“Huh. Y’know, I guess it’s kinda obvious now that you mention it,” she mused. “Seriously, guys, they’ve both got the same rainbow thing going on with their hair. And practically the same eye color, too!”

“But—But—”

Twilight reached out for a wall to steady herself.

It wasn’t possible!

Applejack glanced back and forth between Celestia and the little blue pegasus in her hooves. Rainbow was still completely out of it. But driven by something—instinct? craving?—she had cuddled up against Celestia, buried herself beneath that blanketing white wing, and pressed her face into the crook of Celestia’s neck. The princess looked down at her somberly and went back to tending the wound on her head.

It didn’t seem to be doing any good. The trembling that wracked Rainbow’s body was worsening by the second.

“Beggin’ Your Majesty’s pardon, but what’s wrong with Rainbow? Can you do anything to help her?” Applejack asked.

Rainbow suddenly latched onto Celestia and started huffing.

“There, there. Everything is going to be fine. I’ll take care of you,” the princess whispered. Then she glanced up and gave Applejack a tired look. “It would seem you’re about to see for yourself.”

The pegasus let out one last anguished, strangled cry, so long, they thought it would never end. She tossed back her head, every muscle in her body strained to the breaking point.

Then, with everypony’s eyes glued to the spot, a bump erupted from beneath the wound on her head. It kept rising and twisting, and after several excruciating seconds, a horn had grown out of her skull!

“Oh, my!”

“What in tarnation?!”

“Aww, it’s so keyuuuuute!”

Pinkie Pie jumped up with one hoof on the bed to support herself. With the other, she reached out for the new horn.

“Don’t touch,” Celestia said. Her voice carried no malice, but it was enough to make the excitable pony immediately back off.

Twilight’s jaw was half-dislocated from such a sudden drop. “But… But that doesn’t make any sense!” she cried. “I’ve never heard of a pegasus pony growing a horn before!”

“That’s because pegasi don’t grow horns,” Celestia said quietly.

With a sad little smile on her face, she nuzzled Rainbow.

“Alicorns… do.”

Rainbow was completely gone. Her energy spent, her week’s long torture at an end, she had succumbed finally, mercifully, to sleep. A sigh rattled out of those tired lungs, and at last, she knew peace.

Celestia kissed her gently on the forehead.

When she looked up again, she saw bewildered, astonished expressions all around. Applejack and Rarity were at a loss for words, and her faithful student was staring at her incomprehensibly.

The time for secrets was past. One way or another, the truth would have to come out now.

Easier, then, to tell them all here and now. If nothing else, it would prepare her for the task that lay ahead of her…

…in a matter of time, when Rainbow Dash woke up.

“Come around, my subjects,” said Celestia, inviting them with a smile, weary and strained though it might have been. “Come around, and I shall tell you the whole story.”

◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆

Regret can be a pernicious thing. It creeps, and it clings, and it stings, and it smothers… and it yearns for forgiveness.

But the choices we make can’t be unmade, nor the paths we walk be walked back. And often, the forgiveness we seek is not so easily given.

◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆

Celestia was tired.

It had been a long night, and a long day, to top it off, lying awake with this little blue pony curled beneath her wing, passing the time idly, just listening to her breathe.

The others had departed ages ago, gone back to their libraries and cottages and bakeries and boutiques and farms to get some much-needed respite. Which left Celestia alone in the company of a sleeping Rainbow Dash.

In the company of Rainbow Dash… and her own thoughts.

A thousand years of regret played out in her mind’s eye.

Rainbow gave a little yawn and stretched out, snuggling into the warm white of her coat. Celestia’s wing gripped her protectively, pulling her against her side and holding her there, safe and secure.

She could still remember it all so clearly. That was the worst part. The way the December snow piled up along the square panes of the window, and how the sky outside looked so bleak, and white, and cold. The painted cradle in the corner. The pop and crackle of the fire as it danced orange in the hearth, and the smell of burning pine.

The knock at the door…

Celestia closed her eyes.

A thousand years of loss. A thousand years of heartache. A thousand years of having to say goodbye, over and over and over.

A thousand years of guilt.

A thousand years, looking up at the Mare in the Moon. A thousand years, singing her nightly penance across time, across space.

A thousand years, and how well her heart had been eclipsed by it.

Yet so much had changed since that cold December day. She had taken on a pupil, whom she cared for more than she could ever say. And she had reunited with her sister again after lo these many centuries. Her heart had opened up so much, in so many unfathomable ways.

Why, oh why, couldn’t it have opened up just a little sooner?

“Perhaps it was losing you that made me want to feel whole again,” Celestia said, gently stroking her daughter’s bangs.

Her face darkened with despair.

“Oh, Luna, this isn’t going to work, is it? I’ve really messed up. I’m… I’m not sure I can do this. Once was hard enough. I can’t go through it again.”

A tear rolled down her cheek and landed, unnoticed, in the vivid tangle of Rainbow’s mane.

She wished it had all happened differently.

She wished this moment would never end.

But even though she could raise the sun and lower it, Celestia couldn’t make time stand still. Nor could she make it go backward, no matter how desperately she wanted to.

◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆

Three times, afternoon turned into night, and night into morning, and still, Rainbow lay asleep, her chest rising and falling with deep, peaceful breaths. Her suffering had disappeared, replaced by a serenity that manifested in every soft exhale. Her face, formerly the province of anguish and misery, was split by a smile that stretched from ear to ear.

Dreams flitted behind her eyes. Dreams of being held by a wonderful mare, whose face she could almost see. Who tended her wounds when she was hurt, and comforted her when she was afraid.

She could feel the heat of her body, and the softness of her mane…

She could almost remember the words of a lullaby, dancing on the edge of her memory.

The light crept across her sleeping visage. It shined through her eyelids and coaxed her back into the waking world. Slowly, Rainbow became aware of herself lying against something soft and warm, with what felt like a big, feathery blanket wrapped around her.

She yawned and stretched.

Then she rolled over and promptly fell back asleep.

Little did she know there was a goddess watching over her.

Minutes went by, and Rainbow’s breathing grew deep again. Celestia looked down upon her, and her heart glowed in a way she had so seldom felt it do in the past millennium.

She began to hum. Softly, at first, so as not to wake the sleeping filly. Then she began to sing:

Hush-a-bye, don’t you cry.
Go to sleep, my little baby.
When you wake, you shall have,
All the pretty little ponies.
Blacks and bays, dapples and grays,
All the pretty little ponies.

Way down yonder, in the meadow,
Poor little baby crying mama.
The birds and the butterflies flutter ’round her eyes,
Poor little baby crying mama.

Can you see the little ponies dance before your eyes?
All the pretty little ponies will be there when you arise.

Rainbow stirred, enticed by the promise of something wonderful.

She seemed so close, that motherly figment. And there it was: the lullaby. Not in snatches, half-forgotten, wrapped in deafening obscurity, but as golden and pure as the first time she’d heard it, so many years ago.

“Mommy,” she whispered urgently.

“I’m here, little one.”

A warm snout nuzzled the back of Rainbow’s neck. She smiled.

Then reality caught up, and she snapped awake in realization.

“Who—I—what?!” she sputtered, jerking away automatically, only to realize a gigantic white wing had her in its clutches. She threw it off and scooted back until she banged against the headboard. “Ow!”

She blinked through the pain, and then recognition dawned.

“Princess Celestia?!”

The princess! Here! Rainbow’s brain fired into maximum overdrive. She was supposed to bow, right? But she was still in bed! Was she supposed to get up and then bow? Or maybe she should stand on top of the bed—

“Shh. There’s no need for any of that.”

Rainbow stared at her, slack-jawed and bewildered and totally confused as to what the hay was going on. In a state of still-cool, totally-not-panicking, she scanned her surroundings. She arrived at one inescapable conclusion.

This… was not her cloud house.

The angles were wrong, and so were the colors, and the air in here was way too stuffy. It smelled a bit like antiseptic, actually. And it looked a whole lot like the cell they’d stuck her in at Ponyville General that one time last year, after she botched the snap roll coming off the Bell Tailslide. She could still taste the dirt from that crash.

But even if this was the hospital, she still wasn’t sure how she’d gotten here. She wasn’t sure of anything, actually. Except that waking up in Princess Celestia’s plumage was bucking weird.

“How do you feel?” Celestia asked.

“Um… Okay, I guess?” Rainbow said, frowning. She shook her head to clear out the cobwebs.

Nope. No good. Still couldn’t remember anything.

Except the pain in her head. How could she forget that? And… falling and hitting the ground. She definitely remembered that. Emphasis on the hitting the ground part. And then… er… Big Macintosh was in there too, somewhere. She remembered Big Macintosh. And pain. And Twilight. And pain, and more pain. And… Zecora?

Urgh. Her memory was totally fried.

Oh well. She was still alive, apparently. Still, she musta hit the ground pretty hard to wind up in the hospital. Especially since, like… two hundred percent of her memories were all about pain. They’d even called in the princess on this one. Weird… Twilight hadn’t even done that the last time she’d been laid up with an injury, and she hadn’t been able to fly for a whole week after…

Rainbow’s heart clenched with fear. Her eyes widened.

“Oh my gosh, my wings!” she shouted, twisting to get a look at them. Were they okay? Please, let them be okay!

There wasn’t a sling, no bandages she could see… She fanned her primaries experimentally to test them out…

“Rainbow Dash.”

She froze. Oh yeah, the princess.

“Er… Sorry ’bout that,” she said with a sheepish look. “Wings. Pegasus thing. You wouldn’t understand. Uh… Well, then again, I guess you’ve got wings too, so you probably do understand—”

“Rainbow Dash,” Celestia interrupted. “We need to talk.”

“Uh… Am I in trouble?”

Celestia was silent for a long moment.

“No, you aren’t in trouble,” she finally said.

Then she took a deep breath, held it for a few seconds, and blew it out in a long exhale. She almost seemed to deflate as the air went out of her, and in that moment, a strange thought struck Rainbow: that in all the times she’d seen the princess since they met after last year’s Summer Sun Celebration, she had never looked more apprehensive, more exhausted… more mortal.

“Something wrong?”

Another pause. And then…

“Everything is wrong,” Celestia murmured. “I’m sorry, Rainbow Dash. Let me say that much up front. For all that’s happened to you, I’m sorry. For everything I’ve done to you, I’m so, so sorry.”

A tendril of dread squirmed in the pit of Rainbow’s stomach. She didn’t like where this was going. “Uh…”

“This isn’t going to be an easy conversation. Not for me, and certainly not for you. I expect you’ll be angry with me by the end of it. You may even hate me for it.” Celestia’s voice all but dripped with sadness.

“Just… Please. Please, no matter what happens, no matter how mad you get, please, don’t run away. Stay here with me on the bed until we’ve finished talking. I… I don’t…”

She looked away. Far, far away, as if she were peering back through time to reflect on a distant memory.

“I don’t want to part ways in anger,” she whispered. “Not again.”

“…Sure,” Rainbow said, slowly.

It didn’t seem like too much to agree to. Although this little chat was really starting to weird her out.

“Do you remember anything of what happened to you? Do you recall any of the day’s events when you were brought here?”

Rainbow bit down on the urge to roll her eyes. She’d already cruised this jet stream. “Yeah, uh… It’s kinda hard to remember anything.”

“Order your thoughts. Begin with the first thing you recall, and proceed from there. Try to remember as much of what happened as you can. In the meantime, I shall tell you a story.”

Rainbow’s brows knit together, but she did as the princess commanded. She let the lids of her eyes droop shut.

And she remembered… She remembered…

Panic. Yellow panic, rising in her belly. Her wings. Sluggish. So sluggish. Too sluggish to stay aloft. And the pain, so sharp, she couldn’t breathe. Like a red hot fireplace poker stabbing her in the brain.

The cloud… The warmth of the sun… The scrape of the plow… The whistle of the air in her ears… The red-speckled green of the orchard and the blue of the sky, somersaulting in her field of view…

Meanwhile, Celestia began her tale:

“Once upon a time, there was a princess who lived in a beautiful castle. She reigned over her kingdom with the wisdom and experience of years, and the land prospered under her leadership.”

The sound of her own voice screaming, crying, howling as they forced her onto the mattress… Twilight’s face, filled with worry, suddenly there in a single moment of clarity, then gone the next as the darkness seeped back in, tugging at the corners of her vision…

“But even though her people knew peace and happiness, their ruler’s heart was sick with grief. For the princess had alienated everyone she had ever loved and cared for. In her arrogance, she allowed a wedge to come between herself and her sister, the only family she had left. Their relationship grew bitter. Many cruel words were spoken in anger. And the things they did to each other… the things they did were crueler still.

“Eventually, the princess realized her folly. She pined for reconciliation. But the opportunity was gone. The princess found herself all alone… and alone is a terribly lonely thing to be.”

All alone. All alone as she cried out in the darkness. All alone as she cried out for her mommy.

But her mommy was gone. Her mommy had left her.

And now the hooves came around her again, and now they were lifting her up, wrenching her away, and now she reached out for her mommy, reached out as far as she could.

She came up empty.

Celestia’s gaze went out the window.

“With each passing year, the princess withdrew more and more into herself. She forgot how to love. And even though she remained a just ruler who treated her subjects with kindness, she closed herself off from them. She closed herself off from the whole world, and would not let anyone in.”

And now the tears were streaming down her face. And now she was all alone, and scared, and she would never see her mommy’s white wings again, or her smiling eyes, or listen to the songs she sang…

“Then, one day, a certain earth pony came to her court. At first, the princess thought him an ordinary petitioner, but he…”

The smallest of smiles touched her lips.

“He had a way about him. A way of making others laugh. And laughter was something she had been without for far too many years. She was so desperate to make that feeling last, she asked him to stay for dinner. There was food, drink, and many hours of conversation. One thing turned into another, and they… had an indiscretion.

“Months later, before she began to show, the princess went into seclusion. ‘To study and meditate in solitude,’ with only her most trusted servants and advisors to aid her. And then…”

And then Celestia was beside her.

Through the fog of a fevered dream, in the warm light of a new dawn, she felt Celestia lay down beside her and wrap her in that motherly embrace she knew all too well.

And she could feel the warmth of her mother’s body, chasing away the cold and the dark. And she could smell the sweet fragrance of her mother’s mane, the same as ever before—

Rainbow snapped alert in shock. Her pupils shrank to pinpoints.

“And then you were born, my little Aurora,” said Celestia. The princess gave her a tiny smile tinged with sadness, and looked at her in a way that said more than words ever could.

Rainbow could only stare open-mouthed and make strange, voiceless noises in the back of her throat.

A few seconds later, the old gray matter finished rebooting, and she backed away as far as she could until she was up against the edge of the bed. Frantically, she looked around, half expecting to see Pinkie Pie hiding behind a curtain or something, waiting to spring the prank on her. “Good one, Pinkie!” she would say, and they’d all laugh.

But no. They were alone. It was just her and Celestia.

“No.” Rainbow shook her head. “You’re lying. You’re making it up.”

“Touch your forehead.”

Rainbow did as Celestia asked, and to her amazement, found herself with a hoof full of horn. “Wh-What—?” she stammered as she crossed her eyes to look up at it. “What—!”

“The alicorns of old had a name for it. They called it Unity,” Celestia said. “It’s the moment when one of our kind grows into the fullness of their potential. It happened to my sister, and it happened to me. And now, it would appear, after all these years, it’s finally happened to you.”

No matter how hard Rainbow tried, she couldn’t string a sentence together. Trying to find the right words—or any words, for that matter—was proving to be an impossible task.

In the end, she went with just one of them.

“How?”

Celestia looked away. “The ‘how’ of it isn’t what’s important.”

“The ‘how’ of it isn’t what’s—” Rainbow repeated. Then she broke off. Her face twisted into an angry snarl. “What do you mean, it isn’t important? How ISN’T IT important? I HAD a mom, AND a dad!”

“Yes,” Celestia agreed. “You did.”

“Then HOW?”

The question hung in the air like an accusation.

“Reality is a world of beliefs, Rainbow Dash. We build up our lives on a vast foundation of assumptions—the things we’re told to believe are true. Most of the time, it’s sturdy ground, but every now and then, a falsehood creeps in. In your case, you were brought up with the belief that Nova and Blaze were your true mother and father—”

“No,” Rainbow said. “No, no, no, no, no. I am not hearing this!”

“Listen to me, Rainbow Dash. Listen to me!” Celestia’s voice gained a frantic edge when Rainbow spread her wings and tried to take flight. She had to reach out with her magic to keep her from running.

“Please, you mustn’t leave! Not now! Not yet! And no matter what comes of this, you mustn’t think any less of your parents! They had no idea whose child they were adopting. They weren’t complicit in anything other than loving you as their own.”

Rainbow squirmed, wings straining instinctively against Celestia’s hold on her. She needed to think—she needed to fly—

“Let go of me,” she begged. “LET GO!”

Celestia immediately released her.

She felt her heart skip a beat when Rainbow shot off the bed, though thank goodness, she didn’t try to flee the room. She only zipped away to the far side of it, fear and confusion rapidly trading places on her face as she beat a course back and forth through the air, the same way an earth pony or a unicorn might pace the floor.

Celestia grimaced.

Somehow, somewhere, in some alternate reality, there must be some magic combination of words she could speak to fix all of this. The right combination of subject and predicate and noun and verb and explanation and apology that would make Rainbow understand what she had done and why she had done it. That would allow her to be forgiven.

She closed her eyes and remembered Luna.

It wouldn’t be enough.

It never was.

“Why?”

Celestia winced. ‘Why’ was the only question more difficult than ‘how.’

“Why did you do it? And why didn’t you ever tell me?”

Rainbow felt the stuff of her nightmares be dragged out into the light of day. The being-wrenched-away, the reaching-out-and-not-finding, the feeling-afraid, the feeling-abandoned, and all those other things she’d told herself weren’t real, all of those horrible, phantasmal things from her dreams and nightmares came rushing back at her now.

“All those times… All those times you coulda said something, and you never did… the Best Young Flyer Competition, the Gala—”

Celestia looked away.

“—that thing with the parasprites, the one time with Fluttershy and the stupid bird… All those times you just brushed me off, and you never said ANYTHING!”

“Rainbow Dash…”

The tears flew off her face in a rage. “WHY? Wasn’t I GOOD ENOUGH for you?” She squeezed her eyes closed and looked away—she wasn’t good enough, she was never, ever good enough—

Celestia felt the room close in on her. It was all spiraling out of control and she didn’t have the words. “I couldn’t… I just couldn’t…”

“WHY? Because I didn’t have one of THESE?” She jerked a hoof at her horn.

Celestia’s mouth fell open. “No, that’s—”

“You took Twilight in, and you didn’t even KNOW her! WHY NOT ME? What was wrong with ME?” Rainbow’s wings flared, every sky-blue feather bristled in fight-or-flight readiness.

Celestia tried to break in. “I never—”

“Oh, but the day I grow a horn, all of a sudden, I’m good enough for you to show up! ‘Hey, Rainbow Dash! Guess what? I’m your mom! Here, have a lullaby to make up for all the years I WASN’T THERE!’ What kind of idiot do you TAKE ME FOR?”

“It had nothing to do with that!”

“You never said anything! You never even looked TWICE at me! What, were you laughing at me behind my back the whole time too?!”

“No!” Celestia’s voice rose to a rare volume. “Listen to me. I know I’ve done wrong by you, and I’m sorry for it. Goodness knows, you have every reason under moon and sun to bear grievance. But pegasus, unicorn, or alicorn—Rainbow, it never made a difference to me!”

Rainbow fell quiet at that, her face unreadable.

Celestia fixed her with a look that bespoke all the love and regret she had in her heart. Or at least, she hoped it did. There were so many ideas she wished she knew how to express. So many thoughts floating around inside her, all bunched up in memories and feelings and other abstract forms she just didn’t know how to give voice to.

“I can’t believe this,” Rainbow muttered. “I can’t believe YOU. I thought… I always thought you were different. I thought you were somepony that we—that I could TRUST.”

“Rainbow—”

“But no, turns out you’re just another BUCKING PHONY! ‘It never made a difference’ my bucking hoof—”

“I would never lie to you!”

“You just spent my WHOLE LIFE lying to me!”

Celestia sucked in a breath. “I…”

The words stuck at the end of her tongue.

She was right, of course. She was right, and Celestia didn’t know what to say. Her diplomacy, her oratory, her confidence, all of it burned away beneath that withering, rose-colored glare.

Another argument. Another hopeless, unwinnable argument. Say the wrong thing, and the world falls apart. Say nothing at all, and the world falls apart. Why did it always seem to come to this?

Celestia gathered her wits.

“You were always good enough. Giving you up was one of the most painful things I’ve ever done. I agonized over it for weeks, and the day I sent you to live with your parents, I cried so hard, I couldn’t raise the sun.”

Rainbow looked away. A storm raged behind her eyes.

“Words can’t express how sorry I am,” said Celestia. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. A thousand times over, I’m sorry.”

Her face turned to ash. She wilted in shame.

“I’m not perfect,” she continued. “People suppose I must be because I am who I am, and because it gives them the comfort they need to sleep at night to think I’m watching over them with some kind of… divine insight. But it isn’t so. The universe never told me any of its secrets. The truth is, I’m just as lost and adrift as everyone else who’s born, lives, and dies in this world. I try so hard to do the right thing, but at the end of the day, I’m just as capable of making a mistake, just as capable of—”

Her voice broke.

“—of hurting the ones I love.”

Rainbow choked on something. Half a laugh, half a sob.

She didn’t know what to think or what to feel. Her mind was a dragon going around and around in circles. A dragon with its jaws clenched around its own tail, slowly eating itself.

Pissed off? Boy, was she ever.

But it wasn’t anger that was threatening to break her down. It was heartache and sadness, not knowing who she even was anymore, and the thousand voices in her head all shouting out in denial. It was the shock, the confusion, the terror. It was the fear and self-doubt. The hurt.

The betrayal.

And like a shadow beneath the waves, rising quickly to the surface, it was the feeling being completely, totally worthless. Tossed out like a pile of old rags.

Not good enough. Never, ever good enough.

She could feel it squeezing her, trying to get out. She was over a pit, dangling. She was flailing on the edge of a knife.

“How could you?”

The question was barely a whisper. Celestia flinched, just the same.

“I don’t get it—” Rainbow felt the tears pooling in her eyes, even though she hated herself for them. “Why did you do it? Why? Why?”

“Because I was afraid,” Celestia said.

Rainbow stared at her uncomprehendingly.

“I was afraid. There’s no other reason. There’s no… There’s no better reason,” Celestia mumbled. “I’m sure it sounds absurd to you, but the thought of holding another’s life in my hooves… terrified me.”

“You’ve ruled Equestria for, like, a million years. You rule over millions and millions of ponies. You raise and lower the freaking sun. And you’re telling me you skipped out because you were scared of the responsibility?”

“Partially.”

Celestia cast her eyes downward. She spent a good, long while studying the wrinkles in the bed sheets.

“The thought of allowing another into my heart, of opening myself up to all that love, all that inevitable pain…” She swallowed audibly. “I was so afraid of it. And… I’ve never been the best role model. I’ve always had a way of… hurting… those who hold me close. Of bringing out the worst in them. I… I just… I didn’t trust myself to be the one to…”

She trailed off. Shook her head. How could she explain herself? How could she possibly explain herself in a way she would understand?

“Did you know this was gonna happen?” Rainbow demanded.

The princess looked up at her. “What?”

Rainbow pointed at the horn growing out of her head. “This. Did you know I was gonna get this thing?”

“No. I didn’t.”

“And… if I hadn’t gotten it, would you have ever said anything to me about any of this? Or would you have swept me under the rug for the rest of my life and gone on not giving two bits about me?”

Celestia opened her mouth to reply. But the painful truth lodged deep in her throat, and she found she couldn’t say anything at all.

She didn’t have the words.

She never had the words.

Rainbow wrenched her head to the side, refusing to let Celestia see her tears, even as she furiously rubbed a forehoof across her eyes to dry them. But within a matter of seconds, her poise, her mask of bravado, eroded and washed away. The tears fell freely.

And Rainbow Dash, who’d always prided herself on being strong, fell apart right then and there. An anguished wail tore from her chest, the sum of all the horrible, unspeakable things she’d been through, every moment of misery and agony and anxiety and insanity, every self-image called into question, every self-doubt seemingly affirmed, and every knife, every knife Celestia had just plunged into her heart twisted, until the only thing she could hear was the sound of her own cry filling the room—

“GYAAUUUUAUUUGUGHH!”

She blasted to the window and threw herself against it as hard as she could, but before she could crash through, Celestia’s aura flowed into the glass, infused it, reinforced it—

“LEMME OUT!” Rainbow cried.

She made a desperate lunge for the door. But now the golden glow was over it as well, rendering it impervious to her hooves, no matter how many times she pounded against it—

“Lemme out! LEMME OUT!”

“Rainbow Dash!”

She whirled. Celestia was up off the bed, standing right behind her, so close, so very close—

Too close!

Her wings fired into reverse gear, her back hit the wall, her feathers splayed in every direction. She slid down to the floor, then scrabbled backwards until she hit the corner.

“Stay back!” she said, staring up at Celestia fearfully. “Stay b—”

Before she could finish, the princess fell to her knees and swept her up in a flurry of white.

“I’m sorry,” whispered Celestia, pulling her close, holding her tight, as every last muscle in Rainbow’s body locked up and she could only sit there, paralyzed. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered, and the dampness on Rainbow’s shoulder made it clear Celestia was weeping openly now.

It didn’t register in Rainbow’s head. She was in a world disconnected, staring past the colors of Celestia’s mane through distant, unfocused eyes. She felt the words trickle into her ear, though she didn’t hear them. All she knew was stupor and numbness, a dull throb and the scent of spring.

Several seconds passed before her brain plugged itself back in again. And as soon as it did—

“Ge’off,” Rainbow said, voice muffled by the embrace. She wriggled to get out from under Celestia’s wing. “GET OFF!”

At once, the wing lifted from her, and she scrambled to get away as fast as she could. She scrambled away and didn’t stop. Not until she reached the far side of the room, where at last, she crumpled against the wall, panting.

They remained that way for some time. Rainbow Dash and Celestia, each in a different corner. And there was a long stretch of silence that neither of them wanted to be the first to fill.


“I want you to know how… proud… I am of you.”

After what felt like hours, but could only have been minutes, Celestia finally made a pathetic attempt at conversation. Her voice was as flat and worn-out as old parchment.

She looked utterly defeated.

GOOD! Let her feel bad! I DON’T CARE! Rainbow told herself—even though her head was gushing with memories—memories that dangled like little white strings, just begging to be pulled—

Celestia continued on, not quite meeting Rainbow’s gaze, “You’ve grown so much. You’ve become confident, talented, brave… A true, true friend to others, in every sense of the word, and a more self-reliant pony than any brought up in Canterlot, to be sure.”

—The princess, lying there beside her on the bed, tending her wound, cradling her like a newborn… a loving voice whispering loving words, taking away all her pain, all her fear…

“And a Bearer of Harmony, to top it all off.” Celestia managed a small smile. “Imagine my surprise, finding out. That Loyalty would choose you, out of all the ponies in the world.”

“Why? Didn’t think I was worth it?”

The smile evaporated. “You are worth it. You always have been.”

Rainbow just folded her hooves and looked pointedly away. They went back to nursing their scars in silence.

Another minute passed, and Celestia spoke again.

“Things are bound to change now,” she murmured. “Whether you like it or not, you are my biological daughter, which makes you the Princess Aurora and a Scion of the Realm. The truth will come out now, one way or another. It won’t be possible to keep it hidden. Your path will be forever altered.”

Rainbow’s scowl gave way to a fearful look. Forever altered?

Celestia went on:

“I would… I would like to be able to make this right,” she said. “I know I can never make up for what’s happened to you—for what’s been taken from you. But if you’re willing… If there’s any way that I can earn your forgiveness… I would welcome you to Canterlot. I would welcome the chance to spend time with you. Maybe… the chance to get to know you better.”

She sucked in a breath. Her chest quivered.

“You had the chance.”

Celestia slumped, the spark of hope fading from her eyes. The weight of the moment brought her low, her head drooping in resignation as a mask of sadness slid across her face.

“Do you wish me to leave?” she asked.

Rainbow stared at her, her expression somewhere between anger, loathing, and uncertainty. Slowly, she nodded.

Celestia stood and turned away, breathing pain. “The offer still stands, if… if you decide to reconsider,” she said hoarsely.

She made her way to the door.

When she reached it, she paused for a moment and stared at the knob. Her face reflected back at her in the brass, warped and devastated.

She thought of Luna.

She thought of everything that had happened between them a millennium ago. The unsettled arguments, like open sores left to fester, breeding bitterness and grudge.

In all the solitary years that came after, what would she have given to have another chance? Another chance to go back in time and say something different, something more, something that could bridge the distance between them and bring them together again. To speak the words she hadn’t spoken, because she hadn’t known what to say.

Because she didn’t have the words.

Because she never had the words.

Maybe… Maybe, if she tried now, she could do it. She could figure out the right combination of words and speak them, and it would make everything all right. She would be forgiven her past mistakes. She could be forgiven for all the wrongs she had done.

And she wouldn’t have to live on with the guilt and the shame of it. And she wouldn’t have to suffer the heartbreak. And when she closed her eyes and went to sleep tonight, it would only be Luna’s face that haunted her.

She had to make it right.

She had to say something.

She had to try.

She stopped and looked back. “I want you to know, I always—”

“Get. Out.”

Celestia’s eyes traced the floorboards. She lowered her head, resigned to the futility of it all.

There was no reconciliation to be had here.

Rainbow didn’t even react when Celestia slipped out. She only sat there, her eyes unfocused, clinging to the debris of her life. The floating bits and pieces she thought she still knew about herself.

Her whole body began to shake.

And the whispers of a lullaby bobbed on her memory:

Hush-a-bye, don’t you cry.
Go to sleep, my little baby.
When you wake, you shall have,
All the pretty little ponies.
Blacks and bays, dapples and grays,
All the pretty little ponies.

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Comments ( 48 )
Stalin the Stallion
Stalin the Stallion #1 · Apr 7th, 2012 · · 6 ·
Reply

i40.tinypic.com/bjbmvs.png Hello, fillies and colts! Stalin here, bringing yet another installation on STalinview! Now, when i almost finished all stored Stalinview comissions, i decided to take some good stories again!

i40.tinypic.com/bjbmvs.png This story is a special case though. Misha saw the picture for your story and it immideately caught his attention
i39.tinypic.com/35bxab6.png Right-o *hic*
So, before digging into harendously long chapters, let's analyze the picture and say why it is awesome!
i40.tinypic.com/bjbmvs.png Are you ready team?

i40.tinypic.com/2wptjee.png Stupid question.

i39.tinypic.com/35bxab6.png Of course we are!

i40.tinypic.com/bjbmvs.png Okay, let's dig into Prologue!

--------------------------------

i40.tinypic.com/bjbmvs.png Okay, what we see on a cover.

i40.tinypic.com/bjbmvs.png First of, Celestia and Rainbow Dash are facing each other, while Rainbow has horn. Hm, guess that's where name of this fic came from.
i40.tinypic.com/2wptjee.png The idea of mare six becoming alicorns is a little bit overused though.

i40.tinypic.com/bjbmvs.png Next thing what catching our eyes is first form Luna (guess fic taking place before season 2) and Filomene, fighting with some pegasus ponies.
i39.tinypic.com/35bxab6.png This is easily BEST part of a picture. It is done perfectly.

Next thing we see is Twilight Sparkle, surrounded by cloaked figures of unicorn ponies. This scene is just screaming "Badass!"
i40.tinypic.com/bjbmvs.png Oh, and there is some silly-drawn old geezers in a middle, but let's not look at them. They are unnesessary for this cover.

i40.tinypic.com/2wptjee.png Buuut as for title, it is lame. No offence. I mean not name of fic itself, but how it is written.

i40.tinypic.com/bjbmvs.png First of, it has no perspective. Reader's eyes are displeased to see it. It sould be in middle or further to the left.
i40.tinypic.com/bjbmvs.png Second, while font itself is fine, it's a little TOO rainbow-ish. I know, this story suppose to be about Rainbow, but still...

i40.tinypic.com/bjbmvs.png Okay, COVER OVERVIEW:
i40.tinypic.com/bjbmvs.png This cover screams "badass" and attracting readers to the story. It would be PERFECT without those 2 silly stallions and text though.

i39.tinypic.com/35bxab6.png Either way, Good Job, Shocktarts! You are really lucky to have a friend like this, autor.

i40.tinypic.com/bjbmvs.png Moving to the Prologue!

---------------------------------

i40.tinypic.com/2wptjee.png Oh, by the way, since this is a sequel, dont pay too much attention to things you dont know, boss
i40.tinypic.com/bjbmvs.png I know, i know.

"Her suffering had gone quietly into the night, replaced by a serenity that manifested in every gentle motion and soft exhale. Her face, formerly the province of anguish and misery, was liberated by a smile that stretched from ear to ear."
i42.tinypic.com/1r4u8n.png Guess i ALREADY must read the sequel to understand what is wrong with Rainbow Dash

"Dreams of being held by a wonderful, faceless mare, who licked her wounds when she was hurt and comforted her when she was afraid. The warmth of her body. The familiar fragrance of her mane. A gentle voice filled with love, whispering soft words to her when all she knew was pain and fear.
i40.tinypic.com/bjbmvs.png LESBIANS! OH SWEET MERCIFUL CELESTIA! NOT HERE!
i40.tinypic.com/2wptjee.png Calm down, boss!
i40.tinypic.com/bjbmvs.png I CANT! I voved to myself to never read this kind of stories!
i39.tinypic.com/35bxab6.png Let's just see what next, boss! I bet this story is not about lesbian relationship
i43.tinypic.com/14ux72x.png *huff*... Grrr... Okay... Let's try.

"Her mother’s scent was replaced by the unpleasant odors of antiseptic and gauze."
i40.tinypic.com/2wptjee.png See?
i40.tinypic.com/bjbmvs.png ...
i40.tinypic.com/2wptjee.png It's not lesbian.
i40.tinypic.com/bjbmvs.png ... But previous paragraph looked like it. Ok, heat down. Next.

i39.tinypic.com/35bxab6.png Waaaaaiiiit... Is CELESTIA her mother?
i40.tinypic.com/2wptjee.png Sequel, boss.
i42.tinypic.com/1r4u8n.png I know! I am just.. so confused.
i39.tinypic.com/35bxab6.png Here, drink vodka
i40.tinypic.com/bjbmvs.png Thanks, Misha

---

i40.tinypic.com/bjbmvs.png Seem's like Celestia is not her mother after all. Well, that was utterly confusing.

Celestia nuzzled her. “I’m your mother, my little Freyja.”
i43.tinypic.com/14ux72x.png
i40.tinypic.com/2wptjee.png *sigh*
i39.tinypic.com/35bxab6.png Awwwww. How cute!
i40.tinypic.com/bjbmvs.png i40.tinypic.com/2wptjee.png
SHUT UP!!!


"I cried so hard I couldn’t raise the sun. I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t believe it was in your best interests. The High Court of Canterlot would never have accepted you."
i40.tinypic.com/2wptjee.png Yeah. And still you risked her life making her banish dragon, making her fight with discord ect. You're such a good mother, Celestia! Bravo!
i40.tinypic.com/bjbmvs.png Pioneer, a little less poison, okay?
i40.tinypic.com/2wptjee.png Grrr.

"The warmth of her body. The smell of her mane."
i40.tinypic.com/bjbmvs.png Stop it!


i40.tinypic.com/bjbmvs.png Okay, time for overview.

----------------------

OVERVIEW:
i40.tinypic.com/bjbmvs.png Well, aside from all my whining and confusion, this is a very promising story.
Yeah, the idea of Celestia being Rainbow's mother is fresh and i am sorta curious in that story.
i39.tinypic.com/35bxab6.png It's deep too. Many poetry! Misha loves poetry! And vodka! *hic*
i40.tinypic.com/bjbmvs.png I am interested in that story.... buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut all other chapters are HARENDOUSLY LONG. Ten Thousand Letters! I defenetely can't take it without my electronic book. And even with it, it will take quite a lot of time.
i40.tinypic.com/bjbmvs.png Althou, i CAN Stalinview other chapters, but only if it will be some sort of benefit for us.
i40.tinypic.com/bjbmvs.png Are you thinking what i am thinking?
i39.tinypic.com/35bxab6.png Vodka?
i43.tinypic.com/14ux72x.png no, stupid bear. Let's make an offer.
i40.tinypic.com/bjbmvs.png A basic offer for a stalinview comission, really. Autor, i shall gladly do a stalinview on your other chapters, if you shall make "basic payment", which is to read my storyn and do some sort of review on it (or at least comment on it)
i40.tinypic.com/2wptjee.png Whadda ya think? First rule of alchemy is "To get something, you must give something in return"


i40.tinypic.com/2wptjee.png By the way, everypony can get their own Stalinviews! Also i am doing cover art comissions! Check our blog!

A Floofy Flapper
A Floofy Flapper #2 · Apr 7th, 2012 · · ·
Reply

0_0 That comment...

Atomic Vortex
Atomic Vortex #3 · Apr 7th, 2012 · · ·
Reply

Loved the first one and good tweak at the end there! I read the first sequel!:pinkiehappy:

Error 404
Error 404 #4 · Apr 8th, 2012 · · ·
Reply

421916
Um..nice comment?

DJ DASH3R
DJ DASH3R #5 · Apr 8th, 2012 · · ·
Reply

421916 :twilightoops:..............well ok then:eeyup:

So how about that story?

Jm4573r
Jm4573r #6 · Apr 8th, 2012 · · ·
Reply

421916
This is the second time I have seen one of your STalinview comments. How often do you do these?

RealityCheck
RealityCheck #7 · Apr 8th, 2012 · · 1 ·
Reply

too bad you couldn't put "mommy nearest" as a prelude chapter or something...

And I have to say--- I read the original version of this first chapter, where, if even for only the moment, Celestia and RD reconcile in a tearful embrace. I liked it MUCH better.

Zervziel
Zervziel #8 · Apr 8th, 2012 · · 1 ·
Reply

EDIT: Nvm. Just read the first and realized if I should be calling anyone out on it, it's the original author.

TimeRarity64
TimeRarity64 #9 · Apr 8th, 2012 · · ·
Reply

I was listening to this song Color the sky by Two steps from Hell http://youtu.be/CveV2gkTj64

And couldn't help but, tear up a little.Good chapter dude I'll continue to keep on reading.

Brony2
Brony2 #10 · Apr 8th, 2012 · · ·
Reply

o sauce this is so awesome

Zervziel
Zervziel #11 · Apr 8th, 2012 · · 7 ·
Reply

The Element of Loyalty everyone! Unable to forgive her own mother!

Connorbeast
Connorbeast #12 · Apr 9th, 2012 · · ·
Reply

:rainbowlaugh:426945 Your point tis indeedquite valid.
Still tis a pretty good story.

Joural
Joural #13 · Apr 9th, 2012 · · ·
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426945

Loyalty. Not forgiveness. When she sees something as wrong... well, Rainbow strikes me as the type to jump to conclusions and then cling for dear life. Not as bad as Twilight and Pinkie, but close. In this case... her real mom abandoned her because she was worried what others would think of her... to Rainbow, that is like the ultimate betrayal- and if you haven't noticed, several of the mane six consider their inverse the ultimate crime. Applejack is offended, deeply, whenever anyone accuses her of lying. Rarity sees self centerdness as disgusting. And rainbow dash considers traitors to be the worst kinds of ponies. I could see her in a war, refusing to accept soldiers who turned to her side because they betrayed their cause or country.

Comma-Kazie
Comma-Kazie #14 · Apr 9th, 2012 · · ·
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This at least looks to be more promising than the story it's based off of. That one was painful to read . . .

The Stare Master
The Stare Master #15 · Apr 12th, 2012 · · 2 ·
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...any reason it takes 6 months to update?
Just wondering cause its 6 months of torture :P

bcsnakeeyes
bcsnakeeyes #16 · Apr 14th, 2012 · · ·
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ok ive read the first chapter and the prequil to this mommy nearest and i must sy this is an awsome fiction..but in my opinion the randomness that is mommy nearest is totally random especially near the end when pinkie jumps for joy and says i have a sister. totally random.

Low-quality memes
Low-quality memes #17 · Apr 26th, 2012 · · ·
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Celestia: Twilight never told you about your mother
Rainbow: She told me enough, she told me YOU killed her! :rainbowdetermined2:
Celestia: No, Rainbow, I am your mother :trollestia:
Rainbow: That's not true! :rainbowhuh: THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE!!!

Redfiend
Redfiend #19 · Jan 27th, 2013 · · ·
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My face when. :fluttercry: followed by :pinkiesad2: then a large amount of :raritydespair:

AgentVan3
AgentVan3 #20 · Mar 2nd, 2013 · · ·
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d'awwww this story is so sweet :D more? :fluttershysad:

cringe
cringe #21 · Jul 29th, 2013 · · ·
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Umm I am suprised 0_o

ElLoboSolitario23
ElLoboSolitario23 #22 · Nov 4th, 2013 · · ·
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This is still an awesome fic that i shed a bit of mh liquid pride:fluttercry: from reading all current chapters and when do you think you'll release the other chapters? A bit curious I am:ajbemused:

Pinklestia
Pinklestia #23 · May 11th, 2015 · · 3 ·
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*“I’m not perfect,” she continued. “People suppose I must be because I am who I am,*

Replace "People" with "Ponies"

Assasin_Asha
Assasin_Asha #24 · May 11th, 2015 · · ·
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5963752
Never really understood this complaint. There are many definitions of the word people, and about only one of them pertains to humans. It might be the first one, but that does not make others wrong.
It frankly seems like it's a complaint to complain, not to actually have a point.
Not to mention we can find it in the show. True, it's once or twice per season but it is there.

Fourpony
Fourpony #25 · May 11th, 2015 · · ·
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Since I didn't leave anything the first time I read this, I guess I will now. Though I am not really sure what the hell to write about.

This is a lot like I remembered but for some reason I thought Rainbow's given name was Freya or something like that. Though it could have been a different story. The plot here is intriguing and I am happy you decided to stuck to your gun despite the changes to canon. Rainbow's little flashback for the Equestria games doesn't change this a whole lot, it would have been a few years after she was adopted.

I like the justified anger and hurt Rainbow has. She really nails Celestia to the wall with the whole not visiting or saying anything to her (Rainbow) if she never ended up growing the horn.

The technical parts of the story where fine, I did not notice a lot of grammar or spelling errors. The pacing was good if maybe a little tedious for the bits about Rainbow being in pain.

Lex_Drago
Lex_Drago #26 · May 11th, 2015 · · ·
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Wow...
Just... wow...
Last time I read "Mommy is near" and "Alicorn" three years ago on the dawn of my brony lifestyle, they were powerful.
Now... snif...:fluttercry: after all this years... like a phoenix... it's rebirth...
Two stories become one for the new start... With new cute cover...:pinkiesad2: An promises of old, unknown Equestria from our youth...:yay:
It's a... beautiful...

Starcat5
Starcat5 #27 · May 14th, 2015 · · ·
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423831
Ask and you shall receive. ...several years later. :trollestia:

lunashonorguard
lunashonorguard #28 · May 20th, 2015 · · ·
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:rainbowderp:wow. I'm going to be honest here I didn't know of this story until I ready Realities blog. Now that I read this chapter alone.... damn the emotions in me have ranged from fear to anger and almost everything in between. Not to mention is an idea I never thought about. So far it's really good and I, well you can probably guess what I'm going to go next and again, :rainbowderp:damn

DarkPinkie
DarkPinkie #29 · May 23rd, 2015 · · ·
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—Until the day when everything had changed.

When the Fire Nation attacked.

Rereading this story is going to be a task in of itself. But the great rewrite will make it worth it.

The Ohvist
The Ohvist #30 · Jun 11th, 2015 · · 26 ·
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Somehow, somewhere, in some alternate reality, there must be some magical combination of words she could speak to fix all of this. The right combination of subject and predicate and noun and verb and explanation and apology that would make Rainbow understand what she had done and why she had done it. That would allow her to be forgiven.

In layman's terms: the author isn't as good at writing this story as he originally thought possible and at this point is just rolling with it.

Aldea Donder
Aldea Donder #31 · Jun 12th, 2015 · · ·
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6079862

It's gotten me this far! :rainbowlaugh:

Radical Gopher
Radical Gopher #32 · Sep 28th, 2015 · · ·
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Very interesting story.

King of Kings
King of Kings #33 · Sep 28th, 2015 · · ·
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The tortured look Rainbow had given her sent a chill down Twilight’s spine. She hunkered forward, lowered her head, and closed her eyes. Her horn began to glow, gradually brightening as she probed ever deeper into her friend’s anguished mind.

Don't you watch Star Trek, Twilight? I mean, come on! Think before you act!

Bugsydor
Bugsydor #34 · Sep 29th, 2015 · · ·
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Huh. I'd been putting off rereading this fic after its nigh-eternal hiatus because I wasn't eager to retread the same old ground, but it seems you've been busy. There's a little where it's trying too hard to play with readers' emotions, but it's otherwise better than it was before. Let's see how the rest has chamged!

Koipondponies
Koipondponies #35 · Dec 17th, 2015 · · ·
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6007571 Only the Alicorn, master of all six elements could stop them. But when the world needed her most, she vanished.
One thousand years past, and I discovered a new Alicorn, a Pegasus named Rainbow Dash.

Dragon of Shadows
Dragon of Shadows #37 · Feb 18th, 2016 · · ·
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The job took hours. Ripping open boxes, digging through the packing peanuts to get at the clouds

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

ShadowStreaks0
ShadowStreaks0 #38 · Apr 11th, 2016 · · ·
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6740768 ha! U genius I love that show!

Gypsy Heart
Gypsy Heart #39 · Jul 17th, 2016 · · ·
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I know there are lots of people told you that your story is awesome, though I am gonna say it again. I freaking love it!

Slender-EXE
Slender-EXE #40 · Jan 5th, 2017 · · ·
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Whoa, that was intense. Even though a read Mommy Nearest long before this, for some reason this still had me at the edge of my seat. Wierd.

Blaze Song
Blaze Song #41 · Apr 2nd, 2017 · · ·
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“I’m your mother, Rainbow Dash,” she said.
And Twilight’s brain short-circuited.

Twilight_Sparkle.exe has stopped resonding, please restart system.

And yeah, Dash has absolutely EVERY right to be pissed.

ZanarNaryon
ZanarNaryon #42 · Jan 17th, 2018 · · ·
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All the pretty little ponies will be there when you arise.

Reminds me a bit of a swedish lullaby my mother used to sing

Vem kan segla forutan vind? Who can sail without wind?
Vem kan ro utan åror Who can row without oars?
Vem kan skiljas från vennen sin Who can be sepparated from their friend
Utan at fälla tårar? Without shedding tears?

Jag kan segla førutan vind I can sail without wind
Jag kan ro utan åror I can row without oars
Men ej skiljas från vennen min But not be sepparated from my friend
Utan at felja tårar Without shedding tears

On a different note: Celestia made the typical mistake of trying to find an excuse. No matter what reason you have, someone angry or grieving do not want to hear an excuse, they want you to admit your f*cking mistakes

Nightflight406
Nightflight406 #43 · Apr 6th, 2019 · · ·
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8675644
Really? Wow. When I read it I thought of the Lullaby from the Prince of Egypt. Which if you want to see done in MLP form go to Youtube and search for Pony of Egypt. I think it's funny to see which characters are chosen and which scenes are used

AetherToast
AetherToast #44 · Jul 1st, 2020 · · ·
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Holy crap, it has been literal years since I remembered this story existed and it is very very different from what I had read back then.

Aldea Donder
Aldea Donder #45 · Jul 1st, 2020 · · ·
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10310754
I'm not sure how long it's been since you read it last, but welcome back! I hope you stick around, and that the rest of this story brightens up your day a little. I always love reading comments from readers, so leave a review and let me know your thoughts if you make it to the end! :twilightsmile:

There have been a LOT of revisions since the story was published back in 2011. The original versions are preserved, and you can find them here, in case you feel nostalgic.

Lord King Cocoon
Lord King Cocoon #46 · Jul 4th, 2020 · · ·
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You did put that ursa minor under like it wasn’t nothin’ a few months back.

Just a nitpick. But technically, all Twilight did was use the cattails and wind to create soothing music, filled a water silo with very fresh warm milk, and used levitation to rock it to sleep while sending it back to it's cave. There was no sleeping spell involved. Granted, I see no reason why sleeping spells wouldn't exist though. As I said, just a nitpick.

Lord King Cocoon
Lord King Cocoon #47 · Jul 4th, 2020 · · ·
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It's kinda ironic. Celestia said that she's always hurting the ones that are closest to her, and that's why she gave Rainbow Dash up. It's ironic because that's the very act that hurt Rainbow Dash the most.

ZanarNaryon
ZanarNaryon #48 · February 7th · · ·
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Heyooooooooo guess who got randomly gripped by my little pony hyperfixation after uuuuuh 5 years, give or take. This gal! And what better way to ride that fixation than to go back and reread one of my absolute favourite fics of all time, and see if it still holds up.

It does. Hoooly shit does it hold up, actually it's even better than i remember i love this fic so much and I wish i'd have come back to reread it earlier because it's so amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!
God seriously the way you write prose?!?! Amazing, holy fuck the whole thing of really getting into Rainbow's head to show how miserable and in pain she is and the steadily getting worse through the week, gotta love it when a story starts with the main character being miserable and then everything gets worse. Also having read it before i can't help but read line were Rainbow remarks on ruining their friendship with Twilight as foooooreshadowing!!!!!

and God, everything with Celestia and Rainbow Dash! Just, the prose is so fucking evocative i had to go to class just after i finished reading if i hadn't id be able to point out specific examples but overall it's just everything, runion with long lost mother and it's someone you've met many times and she never ever thought to say anything, you did a really good job of balancing Celestia's grief and regret and acknowledge of her own failing, with Rainbow Dash's extremely understandable anger and rage and abandonment complex (god i loved how even though she hates Celestia here being abandoned by her still very much fucks her up and not being seen as good enough, especially with the part about her not being born with a horn, and aaaaaah!!!!!), and you balance that in a very good way where like Celestia's perspective is tragic and sympathetic and doesn't make me hate or even really be anger at her, but also Rainbow's anger is obviously EXTREMELY justified, she should be pissed and Celestia should be sad and aaaaah i love the conflict in this story i love this story so much

and the reveal (well, reveal, the audience ofc knew already) of rainbow's parentage and just the sense of building dread as she puts together what's happening and then first instinct is to deny it because if it's true then that means so much that she doesn't and and aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah the emotion in this story im gonna die!!!!!

hey do you mind if i write a tvtropes page for this fic?

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