Rainbow Dash stopped staring at the ground, and the first thing she saw was Pinkie Pie's bright blue eyes. A breath escaped her lips as she saw her friend waving towards her from the front entrance to Sugarcube Corner. More bright colors joined the fray, with Rarity winking and Twilight giggling and Fluttershy and Applejack strolling around the bend.
Pinkie Pie cupped her hooves around her mouth and hollered something before motioning Rainbow Dash dramatically towards the group.
With a bright smile, Rainbow wasted no time. She blurred over the rooftops of Ponyville on swift wings. Touching down in a billowing cloud of dust, she struck a heroic pose... only to blink confusedly at what she saw.
Pinkie Pie was making a strange face. Twilight Sparkle was squinting. Fluttershy and Rarity flinched in disgust while Applejack marched up and pointed worriedly at Rainbow's face.
Rainbow Dash was confused. She turned to look in the windows of Sugarcube Corner. Her reflection glossed over. In a blink, her eyes morphed into red-on-yellow phantoms of their usual ruby luster. Before she had a chance to react to this, a lock of her mane fell limply from her head.
She fell on her haunches and raised two hooves in time to catch the limp hairs. When they fell in her grasp, they lost all of their color, turning to a pallid gray... along with the rest of her coat. She gasped, glancing at her limbs, trying to find where her bright blue hues had disappeared to. She heard a whimpering sound.
Spinning, Rainbow Dash glanced towards her friends, but they were gone. Sugarcube Corner had also vanished, and in its place was a dense wall of green foliage. Rainbow hyperventilated, finding herself surrounded by a labyrinth of emerald hedges. She flexed her wing muscles, but all her feathers were suddenly gone. Just as she felt the urge to scream, she heard the whimper again, only this time it was directly overhead.
She tried looking straight up, but her neck was being weighed down by a golden pendant. After much sweat and aching, she finally gazed skyward, only to be flooded with a wall of impenetrable gray ash.
Still beautiful, still don't know what's going on
The dream....there are subtle hints in there. She loses her hair, then her friends, and then her feathers. Then she is destroyed by ash....
I'm guessing she lost something. Maybe her friends. Perhaps the town was destroyed by some disastorous event and she's running away. I'm just taking guess.
Rather short chapter, but oh well. Nothing to really critique. So I guess I'll move on to the next chapter.
And now she's haunted by nightmares as well. I'm even more certain that she's running away from something now.
Is this an alternate universe where RD failed in some way during the Discord fiasco?
Loss of wings, loss of friends, loss of colour... now why does this sound familiar?
Okay, screw what I just said, she's guilty as all hell.
She is most likely running from something, or too something? Maybe she's looking for help, and she feels she's abandoning her friends? Maybe, possibly...
Dude, or ma'am, seriously, this is how you write a story. If you want readers, give them a mystery.
IIIIIIIIIIIIt's Dashie's evaluation time!
Okay, so so far we know that Dash is traveling somewhere, either towards or away from something. Her nightmare has her lose her color and become gray, as well as lose her wings. This is strikingly similar to the Discord incident, wherein she both lost her wings and was "discorded," turning her color to gray. We can also recall that Dash was the most difficult to "un-discordize." Perhaps in this fanfic's universe, she gave the mane six more trouble that they expected, and Dash got away. Now, since Dash lost her element of loyalty from being discorded, it would make sense if, in this fanfic, she was traveling away from her friends. That still doesn't explain, however, why she currently has the element of loyalty necklace. Regardless of how she has it, it seems that it is affecting her judgement in some way. Since it is the element of loyalty, it wants to be loyal. And assuming all if the above is true, assuming that she is discorded and running from her friends, the element of loyalty necklace is trying to make Dash go back to her friends, (perhaps by sending her dreams,) even though she doesn't want to. These are my thoughts so far.
-MASH
"sapphiric"...
Discord...
This is clearly a representation of a faltering of loyalty. The lack of friends, wings, color, green foliage (hedge maze), and being weighed down with the loyalty amulet.
Ugh...creepy nightmare....
I LIKE IT!
For some reason the philosophical-figure-it-out side of my brain isn't working today.
So, with lack of anything else to say... Good chapter.
I was about to type "tell me whats going on" in angry font. but then I read this chapter and my hunger was saited... for now.
Great illistration, whenever I feel like I need to write a fanfic, I'll read yours to remind myself that there is no way I could pull it off. Descriptions like yours are just too dang good.
denver.mylittlefacewhen.com/media/f/img/mlfw98_130058433009.jpg
No one is really thinking about the book. Its probably important. Maybe, shes the one running from discord with a magical book of some sort . Maybe some way to fight discord that she is instructed not to open until the right time.
It was a volcano.
POTENTIAL SPOILERS, I DON'T KNOW BUT COULD BE IF I'M ANY GOOD AT GUESSING
Okay here's what I think. Most people seem to have forgotten an extremely important detail from chapter 2, that map had a lunar seal on it. If I'm right, she's undergoing a mission under direct orders from the princesses to explore uncharted lands. Why, you ask? Well if this dream gives any insight, it appears something of the sort of a mass volcano probably now threatens to destroy the entire known map, and RD was picked for her speed. The reason her element continues to bear her down is still pretty vague, but maybe something to do with memories of home, and maybe there is some sort of effort underway to stop the volcano, and she feels like she's not being loyal by abandoning her friend for this mission. Maybe she never even got to say a proper goodbye, who knows. The book from chapter two almost definitely imo is something that reminds her too much of home, hence the avoidance. Just my opinion, and I know it sound stupid, but you never know.
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I'm currently caught up and to date with Innavedr, and coming back to this chapter, that last line was SO AWESOME. DAMN IC, YOU PLANNED THIS ONE GOOD.
spoiler alert further on
It's not just ashes, it's the ashes of all your dead friends
Oh. Wow. This chapter is most likely a treasure chest full of tibits pointing us in the right direction, if I could only see them. She misses her friends, but she's turning grey and they're running away from her. And the element of loyalty around her neck. Maybe she betrayed them badly, went against her element, and now she's running away. Whatever happened, poor Dashie
As she dreams of friends
She feels funny; finds them gone
Landscape turned to ash
So first bit of fanart here. Sorry about line paper, bad background, and no color. I believe the quality will naturally better itself. Any recommendations\questions? This is of Sunrise by the way. Hope you like it!
http://alafreo.deviantart.com/art/Sunrise-426098331
(next one will be smaller for your convenience, folks)
2556765
Why would you tell them that? To me that seems like a bit of a dick move, even with the spoiler alert. Please edit your comment and say it in the Austraeho group or on ICCs page. The mysterious quest makes the story more fun. Hope I didn't come off like an ass.
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A really cute drawing. Are you colouring it? I hope you'll continue. This series needs more fanart!
BTW, she's missing her pendant, I think :)
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Thanks for the support, it means a lot to me! As for me coloring it, probably not this one. Crayola crayons is all I have at the moment and I don't think it would help the drawing. The was a mistake because I didn't leave enough room so oops. So yeah, my next work will probably be better, but don't know if it will have color either. Can you tell what RD is doing in the paper, or are the lines not defined enough? (also will not use line paper again)
I would like to point out a few details...
They say that rainbkw's eyes are red on yellow or something similar. Discord's eyes.
She turns gray. Discorded
The loyalty element hurting her... that ones easy.
I say its clearly dash running from home, from her friends.
S2 ep1.... something went wrong when Twilight had to 'fix' the Elements or Rainbow feels guilty about something non-canon that she did while being disharmonic, and because of what she did, she had to leave/forced herself out of Ponyville and furthermore Equestria... just some initial guesses.
What was with/was making the whimpering sound?
Theory:
The element of Loyalty around her neck in current time symbolizes something she did during Discord's reign that ended in her being completely broken and separated off from her friends (figurative or literal). She's flying east in an attempt to find herself/forgiveness from herself. Ballpark guess. Now, let's head forward and see how this goes.
S-so... When Discord... When the hedge thing happened... She didn't recover...? She ran away? She accepted her wings from Discord and escaped? No, no, that can't be, she has her Element...
So it would seem Discord has a lot to do with why Rainbow left. Given she has her element I imagine they still beat him but maybe something happened in the process and that's the reason why she left? Of course, I could and probably am wrong but hey I'm still interested in finding out.
2556765 Seriously?
When I go out and plug this story to folks, I always recommend that they read all the comments, because the Jury is awesome and generally has a lot of cool and insightful things to say about what's going on. I only started reading them myself more than halfway through this book, and was always kicking myself for it... until now. Suddenly, I'm glad I started late, at the point where everyone far enough to know spoilers had enough respect for the story not to go back and post them earlier, not even hidden, just to be trolls.
Now I'm going to have to change my recommendations, and go track down and apologize to anyone who took my advice. Thanks a lot. I hope you had your laughs. Go sit on a barrel and rotate.
That gradually rising suspicion that something is terribly wrong back home in Equestria.
Dream or memory? Both?
A nightmare. Her element is an unimpedable weight on her soul, preventing her from seeing certain things.
And I can only assume those were the ashes of her carreer.
Equus transfigurat et omnes perdet. (A horse transforms and loses everything.)
Equus Orientalis.
Chapter 4 Opinions
So many questions! Why was all the mane six acting so strange when Rainbow arrived. Why did Rainbow's eyes suddenly change? Why did her coat color change from blue to grey after she lost a single lock of hair from her mane? Who was whimpering? Why was Rainbow suddenly in a different location (I know that's just dream logic, but there has to be some reason to why she went there.)
This chapter just made me want to know even more what's going on!
Anyway, I'm off to chapter 5!
7709620
Well, I read your comment, and checked out who you meant.
And got spoiled.
Ironic.
Ok these 4 chapters could have been 1 chapter. Your chapters are very short in my opinion. Chapter 1 (heck the first few paragraphs) should be part where it hooks your readers. It doesn't have to have all the expositions but it needs a little of it. But your first chapter has Rainbow flying and she has her element with her for some reason. Chapter 2 she stops at the lake and looks at a map with the lunar seal. Chapter 3 she eats an apple and I guessed she remembers applejack. Chapter 4 we have what I thought was a flash back and I'm thinking "Oh good! Some exposition!" but then it was a memory of a dream. Why do I think its a dream? Because Rainbow still has her main, so that didn't happen.
what is she doing? What is this mission that Luna gave her? Why is she alone? Are her friends in trouble? I don't think so because she was so dang happy that she was flying on her mission. Is it a mission to chart new land? If so then shouldn't a cartographer be doing this mission and not Rainbow Dash? And there are a lot more "whys" that I'm not going to list them.
I'm sure this is a good story if I read more but right now I feel like I'm not progressing at all in this story. It's too slow and that makes me sad, I'm here because I saw Argodaemon's video for this story and I thought "Huh, this looks interesting. Where is this from? Oh! Its a fanfic from fimfiction. Hey there are a lot of chapters here and it's completed. Ok I'm up to reading this see how Rainbow got in this mess and it will be a long story that I can enjoy." But Instead I get 4 chapters that are too short and could be one chapter (and I bet chapter 5 and 6 can fit in one chapter as well) and each chapter is talking about one thing. 1) Flying 2) Landing 3) Eating 4) A Dream.
I'm glad people enjoy your story but this didn't hit home for me.
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Speaking as another new reader here mostly because of Argodaemon: there are a couple things going on here. One, you're letting the chapter breaks trip you up. If you look down the list of chapters on the main story page, you'll see that of the 200 chapters, there are none over 3,000 words, and hardly any over 2,000. Most are under 1,000. Up to the point you and I are at now (assuming you haven't read further), in four chapters we haven't even read the length you'd get out of one chapter in a more typical story. These chapters are tiny, and that's obviously by design. They're meant to be taken in abnormally bite-sized chunks. So I recommend you think in terms of word count instead of letting the divisions dictate your opinion of the pacing. Which admittedly does still feel slow so far (though I like it that way, personally), but keep in mind the overall series is MIND BOGGLINGLY MASSIVE, and to fill a word count like that, slow pacing ought to be the default assumption. Also remember we've hardly scratched the surface; we're still not far enough in to have a good feel for it yet.
Two, the multitude of questions that have already been raised are the hook. From the first very short chapter, we've had this picture of her surroundings painted beautifully--but more to the point, we've had a number of things hinted at.
First paragraph: it's implied she's been flying all night in a more or less straight line ("towards the fiery horizon"). Why the marathon, and why at night? At the least, we can already tell this is probably not situation normal; something big likely happened for her to be going out of her way like this, straying so far from home (or returning to it, though we now know that's not the case) under cover of darkness.
Honestly, that's already enough to hook me, but not everyone. Let's keep going. Read through some gorgeous scenery descriptions, and ...aha. Fourth paragraph: "It was the first thing that made her smile in hours." So she's not in the best of moods, which implies the cause for her journey likely isn't an entirely happy one. So what happened? Is this an emergency trip? Maybe someone's sick, and the only cure is in a far away land? Maybe the country's on the brink of war and this is a diplomatic mission? Or maybe she's not happy with who she is, and this is about self-discovery. I don't know, but I'd like to find out.
...next paragraph confirms she was flying all night...
...Ooh, the bit in the seventh paragraph about her eyes being "alive and awake as ever" has already taken on an interesting meaning given that we've learned there's something odd going on with them in this fourth chapter we just finished (and also from Argodaemon's video). But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Eighth paragraph, we get a description of her goggles and learn they almost certainly have something to do with Scootaloo. Why? Did Scootaloo get them as a gift for Dash, or did they belong to Scootaloo? If the latter, why are they with Dash now? Did something happen to Scootaloo?
The way Rainbow handles them, looks over them fondly, also implies some probable measure of homesickness.
In the ninth paragraph we see the saddlebags. They're dark blue with lunar crests but are tailored to Dash's figure, so we can immediately assume Luna, or at least someone associated with Luna, had them made for her, probably specifically with this trip in mind. So this journey is of royal import or was embarked upon with a royal blessing. Even given the Elements' relatively close relationship with the Princesses, that's a big deal. So now this thing has definitely taken on the weight of a mission, with all kinds of new questions surrounding it.
The end of the same paragraph mentions needing to find food "again", which lengthens the amount of time we can assume she's been travelling for. Given she has a means to store food, it has to have been more than a week, for her to have run out of food at least twice.
Then we learn she has her Element of Harmony with her. Her Ancient Artifact of Ultimate Heroism. Holy shit! But why? It only works in tandem with the other Elements, and we've just established that their normal home is a long journey away. Unless her friends journeyed ahead of her and she's playing catch-up (kind of doubt it), she's making it less and less likely to be of use--at least in the way we'd expect--with every beat of her wings. The hell is going on here?
On top of that, she seems to hate the thing at the moment. Again, the hell? What, is she somehow duty-bound to this mission because of her Element? Does she have a problem with that? And the "wave of dizziness" thing is a total wildcard. If I get ahead of myself again for a second, I'm wondering if it's related to the thing with her eyes. Maybe she's afflicted with a condition that alters her state of mind, and the Element's magic is holding that at bay? Maybe the dizziness is because of some alter-ego trying to take control and toss the Element while it can?
But getting back on track: Last things of note that we get are the "devilish grin" (which tells us there's gotta be something exciting driving her forward, not just drama or looming tragedy or what have you), and the fact that she's flying toward the rising sun, so eastward (though we already knew that from the main story page).
So! From just the first absolutely puny chapter, we know that she's on a journey--probably some kind of mission--of royal import, at least a week or so in if not more; that it's important enough to be worth flying all night; that it's not just all sunshine and smiles and high adventure but there is at least a silver lining of some sort; that either something happened to Scootaloo or Scootaloo saw Dash off in dramatic fashion; and that she has her Element with her even though she presumably can't make Deus Ex Machina Super Rainbows with it, so either it's helping her in some more subtle way or the point of the journey involves bringing it somewhere.
All that, without ever explicity stating a word of it. That's impressive.
And while it's a good bit of information for just the first few paragraphs (especially accounting for how much of that text was scenery descriptions), it leaves us with far more in terms of interesting questions, as each of the items she's carrying clearly has a story of its own behind why it's there, and each of them, along with her mood and her food situation, simultaneously hints at and raises questions regarding the nature of her journey. In other words, we have a mystery on our hands--so far, at least. I want to know more, to fill these holes in my knowledge, and thus I read on. The questions are the hook.
That actually gave me goosebumps.
I think Discord is involved.
Dream? Memory? Either way, it seems something horrible might have happened.
Discord.
8538051
I agree whole heartedly as my second time reading this story it only gets better the more you think into it
8538051
That's pretty impressive.
I won't say if it's right or not to avoid spoiling new reader, but it's impressive either way.
Joyous friends!
But wait.
Something is amiss.
Colors changing...going.
The gray.
The hedges.
The ashes.
A haunting chapter indeed.
From what I GUESS - her friends fell. Fell to Discord, likely. Now she works, works for SOMETHING, ANYTHING to get her mind out of the gutter. Freshly battle forged over Nightmare Moon, just a year or two of fun memories - and they're gone. And her being LOYALTY - it must hurt a lot.
Rainbow turns grey and loses her wings? That's just Discord, baby! Her eyes turning yellow and being choked by the smell of ash? Maybe not so much...