There's Nothing Quite Like a Friend
The mountains broke into small and smaller hills. In place of craggy rock, fields of dust and sediment crowded the ravines. Dry wind gales blew gritty clouds across the arid surface of the Choke, refracting the sunlight and giving the world an ethereal ghostliness.
The ravines grew shallower. The exposed rock was smoother, rounder, more polished by the elements. All was silent, save for the persistent howl of desert winds.
Off into the east—as the landscape dipped—a baking sun slowly rose, cooking the worldscape through in through. Vapors rose off the vanishing point, distorting the geography and causing phantom plateaus to hover at a distance.
All was dead, continually desolate.
Yaerfaerda shimmered beyond it all, persistent, bright, and unwavering.
Rainbow Dash scaled the first of several blistery sand dunes. The shifting ground was hot to the touch—but not quite searing. It was the right degree of heated torture to make the pegasus wince, but not scald her. She shuddered briefly, but trotted on, shuffling up to the top of the dune only to see several more gritty beds rolling between herself and the next island of solid rock in the middle of a yellow sea.
Her gait was strangely steady that day, solid and sure. She made a slow bee-line for the next stone summit, her eyes locked on a delicious patch of shade hugging the west side of a jutting promontory of rock. She figured that—by the time she reached it—the sun would have scaled the sky so as to eliminate the shade. Still, undaunted, she shuffled forward.
The mare sweated and wheezed, but she forced herself to conserve the last container of Nebulum.
Nostrils flaring, she reached the top of another dune... and lingered.
Quietly, fidgeting, she turned and looked past her flank.
The west horizon was a gray slab of distant mountains and lingering dust clouds.
Rainbow gulped. She continued trotting forward.
Several more minutes passed.
She reached another dune. Yet again, she stopped—heaving—and glanced back.
The west loomed, cold and silent.
Rainbow clenched her jaw. Her ears twitched as she faced forward. A dull expression hung off her fuzzy face, and she trotted slowly, her eyes staring far ahead.
She was about ten steps forward when her lips began moving.
“Mmmm... mrmmmm...”
She sniffed. She cleared her throat and cracked the joints in her neck.
“... … …maybe if you weren't so quiet...”
Rainbow descended the east side of the dune, approaching another swath of shifting sands.
She murmured, “There's nothing to worry about. I've still got another container.”
Wind blew at her mane. She squinted her eyes, rubbed her face, and trotted sideways into the downdraft.
“Nnngh... those are fine too. The Element's keeping them together. Don't worry. I'm cool. I'm cool...”
She sighed, reaching another dune and climbing up the sandy face of it.
“Just... cool. I got this. Don't you sweat. Well... you know what I mean...”
Rainbow Dash skirted the stone edge of a rock cropping as the sun slowly set behind her.
“Don't know how you guys do it,” the pegasus stammered, teetering slightly as she narrowly surveyed the uneven terrain ahead. “Feels like friggin' anvils are hanging off my fetlocks—I swear to Celestia.”
Dead silence.
Rainbow's hooves clopped over dull stone.
“But I do get plenty of exercise!” Rainbow wheezed. “You think I'd have kicked so much flank with friggin' noodles for legs? I... I'm just all the more awesome with my wings, y'know?”
More silence.
“Mrmmmf... yeah... yeah, go figure.” Rainbow sighed, grumbling slightly as she trotted around a column of rocks. “Guess you had a lot worse to deal with. My bad.”
Her tail flicked for the first time in hours.
“Pffft... please. We all find different ways to do cool stuff. Don't sell yourself short. So what's a horn?”
The mare exhaled heavily.
“Magic is soooo yesterday... heh...”
Rainbow Dash sat beside the fireplace, huddled under a blanket as she held the last pieces of Heaven's Slices to her glowing pendant.
“It's okay! I told you, I got this!”
She squinted down at her task, giving her finicky pendant several more rubs in order to maintain the Harmonic glow.
“See? Like cake.” Rainbow shuddered. “Ugh... why'd you even make me say 'cake?'”
Her ears twitched.
The edge of her muzzle curved. “Heh... well, can you blame her, dude?”
She took a deep breath. Once she was satisfied with her work, she folded the rag around the Slices and slid them back into her satchel.
“And don't you start,” she muttered. “This is about as tough as it gets, girl.”
She stood up and trotted towards the fire. All of the sudden, she paused, and flicked her tail again.
“Ugh... I know, right?” She smirked yet again, leaning down to fan the flames in front of her dust-covered tent. “At least in Foxtaur, there was plenty of wood about. I remember when I once went to Appleloosa, I had no clue how the buffalo kept their fires going. Now I think I know how. They cheated.”
Silence.
“Snkkkkt...” A very strange, high-pitched thing came out of Rainbow's mouth. “Heeheeheeehee!” She hugged herself, careful not to fall into the fire from her relentless giggles. “Ah jeez! Cut it out! You're so stupid.” She lifted her grinning muzzle. “Somepony hit him already!”
Her giggles descended into chuckles, and then into breathy sighs.
“Guh... Luna poop... it never fails.”
With a yawn, she trotted away from the fire. Entering her tent, she turned around three times and then collapsed gently on a mess of blankets. “Just keep it down, will ya? I've got lots of ground to travel tomorrow,” Rainbow muttered. “And I gotta keep my wings in one piece for when I reach the far side.”
Silence.
She gulped. “Well, just tell her to calm down, Pilate. Get her to... I dunno... brush Kera's mane or something. She digs that. She really does.”
She stared into the darkness. Despite the chill of night, she cooed, lowering her fuzzy head to the blankets.
“Mmmmm...” Her lips curved as a sleepy smile crossed her face. “I love you guys...” Her glazed eyes reflected the fire, then shut. “...you're all too good to me.”
A shudder ran through her body. Tiny tears squeezed out from beneath her eyelids.
“See you in the morning...”
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No, no. Stop that.
I'm going to hate this chapter, aren't I...
5718881
Well, at least it had dialogue.
Well isn't this just fucking depressing, huh?
Annnnnnd shes snapped! Well her sanity was fun while it lasted I guess, but now we get to see the adventures of crazy Dash.
WELP. The voices have begun.
That being said, this is so sad and happy at the same time.
Dash's mind is breaking, and yet her friends are still there with her. As far as hallucinations go, this is probably the best she could ask for. Maybe, just maybe, it'll keep her going for a little longer. Hopefully they don't accidentally lead her off a cliff or something.
Yeah, fuck this chapter.
5718885 AND YOU TOO
UGHHHH
DASHIE I'LL BE YOUR IMAGINARY FRIEND
(Sorry, not sorry for the youtube reply, and the cliche song, even though it's an awesome song.)
Is it wrong that I am happy that its her living friends she hears, and not her dead ones?
Well thats probably just a side effect of dehydration, I wouldn't worry about it until we see Applejack start talking to Rainbow....you know what? Screw it, that should totally happen. I'm gonna need an Applejack force-ghost like a Jedi...er...but ya know with more harmony and less space/mind powers.
I have got this horrible thought.
What if the reason Crysalis didnt mention any of this in the crossing, is because, for her, this enviroment didnt exist. In this instance, its been created specifically for Dash?
Its not just Dash thats hallucinating here.
5709884
I feel this bears repeating.
...
Skiiiiiiiirts...
5718937
No.
I'm grateful her subconscious has forced her to cope with the environment by distracting her whether it's her dead friends or her living friends or both.
graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/01/21/science/castaway533.jpg
...welp...
Well, there are worse buggers to be talking to, at least.
Not sure if this is better or worse than her mind fading to that of a simple animal due to a lack of magic.
5718925
wow that was r00d d00d stop scaring off the newbies
5718986
Strangely enough, I had a similar thought right about here:
Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if she had both sets of friends there. She just only named living ones.
And here we go. . .
. . .
. . ..
Well, considering everybody is blurting out music on youtube, have some old Johnny Cash. Since we're all watching the sharpest flier of the West... slowly wither away.
Welp.
Wow, this is sort of like the early chapters of Austraeoh but twisted, warped, just wrong.
so soon you turn the embrace
Of that which you fight
madness, chaos
and soon
death
let the sands soak
in your tears
for they will soon
take the rest of you
5719322
or right, if you think about it
it is the trial-by-fire of Ms. Dash
and the purifying flames will leave nothing but the hardest, and most resolute
or nothing at all
Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together.
At least this isn't Lerris!
The feels hit me when reading this.
-Elvis Costello, "Absent Friends," Goodbye Cruel World
Over thirty posts and nobody mentions Queen?
For shame. All of you.
D:
She wasn't climbing around the same dune the whole time, right?
...
At least.... She's kind of... En...joying herself? Sorta?
...
Fuck it, this is plain painful.
Well ain't that a downer. At this rate she'll be a real trainwreck before the story ends.
Getting to the dark side? That's not the hard part.
It's letting go.
Only if you're the flying spaghetti monster!
As for the hallucinations, I won't declare it bad until she starts seeing them as well as hearing them.
Hmm... Well...I'll just leave this here,
-Treachery and deceit, kingdom of conceit Yaerfaerda.
And she's losing it. Fun...
Axan? A little help here? Please?
Oh...
Well...
Fuck.
Oh... It's starting.
The spiral continues.
5719159
You just had to pick that song. That is the second time this week its been used in connection to fanfics I read. First in the newest Project Horizons and now here.
5718982 I do hope if she starts hallucinating AJ, it'll be a much needed kick in the flank, rather than being her final breaking point.