Welcome to the Party, Pal
“Is that him?” Whony asked.
Quint nodded, pausing in mid-mop. “Those are Monket's ships, alright.”
Several orphans stared as a pair of steamships cruised in from the northwest, adding smog and fumes to the already filthy air. They approached the northern edge of Red Barge, and the struts glided apart to afford space for the two vessels to dock.
Whony gulped. “Why am I suddenly a lot less jazzed at seeing them now than I was last time?”
Quint grumbled, returning back to his cleaning job. “Grow a pair, will ya?”
“Things are going nuts,” Whony remarked. “I mean... first we've got the slaver of waves showing up. Then we've bagged ourselves the rainbow monster. But now—on top of all that—we have a griffon guardian down in the brig? I mean, how deep is Skagra willing to scrape?”
“If he knows there's something to exploit, he's going full force,” Quint said. “Would you expect any less of the stallion?”
“Just...” Whony gulped. “I've never seen him balance this much bullcrap before!” He blinked. “You think he'd actually bluff now that he's got so much weight on his shoulders?”
“What do you mean 'bluff?'” Quint glared at Whony.
“I mean... what does Skagra actually expect to get out of the bastards in Rohbredden? They have enough resources to surround us on all sides and reduce Red Barge to sea junk!”
“It already is sea junk,” a nearby colt muttered.
Several foals chuckled.
“No, seriously!” Whony frowned. “At first, I was kinda thrilled to watch what was unfolding. But now—with two mega important prisoners instead of one... I'm starting to think that Skagra is going in over his head! And he only has half of one!”
“I'm sure Skagra has a backup plan for anything,” Quint said.
“Yeah.” Whony snorted. “But if his original plan fails, then that mean his backup plan is carried on our sorry carcasses.”
“Pretty much,” Quint replied.
Whony blinked at that. He hung his head with a sigh. “... ... ...has any top dredger lasted as long as Skagra?”
“Not that I know of,” Quint said.
“Why's that?”
“Isn't it obvious?” Quint muttered. “Nopony's turned the steam on him and roasted his ass.”
“So... like... what happens if Skagra goes all the way?” Whony looked up, eyes narrow. “What if he becomes the first top dredger to raise Red Barge to another level?”
“Yeah...” Another colt leaned in, breathing. “Could you imagine if Skagra owned the seas?”
“The Syndicate's gone!”
“It could happen!”
“Could you imagine?”
Silence hung over the laboring heads.
Quint dunked his mop into a bucket again and sighed. “Do any of us really... really expect to live long enough to see that happen?”
Whony winced. The other colts had nothing to say.
Beyond the central platform, the northern struts rattled into place. Loud metallic thunder echoed over the murky waters. From a distance, a yellow-coated stallion with green dreads descended from one steamship, flanked by slaves and servants. With a shifty trot, Monket made his way for the lofty office on the central platform.
“One thing's for sure,” a colt muttered. “The slaver of waves isn't going to be happy.”
“About what?”
“The griffon. Who else?”
“Nah... I think he'll be plenty happy.”
“Why's that?”
“Why else?” A colt smirked. “He's likely the stallion Skagra pays to murder the bloody sap.”
Around this point, Swab had strolled up with extra buckets of water. He scuffled to a stop, nearly spilling the containers' contents. “Huh?” The one-eared colt blinked. “Murder who?”
“Pffft... great...” Whony rolled his eyes. “...all the turds have risen to the surface today.”
“Who's getting murdered?” Swab stammered.
“Who else?” A colt looked over. “The prisoner.”
Swab gasped, dropping the buckets. “He's going to axe the Rainbow Rogue?!” he exclaimed, voice cracking.
“Pffft... what, have you been living under a rock or something?” Another foal cackled. “The griffon!”
“The member of the Right Talon of Verlaxion that went snooping below deck!”
Swab breathed a bit easier. Even still, his muzzle hung agape. He glanced south, shuddering. “...the griffon from Rohbredden...”
“Heh... if he's lucky, that monster in the brig will eat him alive before Monket gets ahold of him.”
“Yeah! Haha!”
“I'd give a day's worth of nibbles to see that.”
Swab bit his lip, squirming in place.
“Hey!” Whony barked. “Dipshit! Grab more buckets!”
“Erm... r-right...” His one ear folding back, Swab scampered off to do just that.
Quint watched with a surly squint. Nostrils flaring, he returned dutifully to his mopping duties.
A raspy voice drifted across the stuffy, pungent air of the brig.
“Alright. Alright. I believe you. So he doesn't look permanently damaged on the outside. But what about from the inside?”
Silence.
“Well, I dunno. You're all ghosty n'stuff. Can't you... like... dip your head halfway into his chest and take a look at his bones or something? Isn't that a trick you can pull off?”
More silence.
“Fluttershy, for crying out—” A groan. “You're a living spirit! You have no breakfast to throw up! So what if it grosses you out a little?”
Keris' magenta eyes fluttered open. The battered griffon lay crookedly against a wall, glancing out the metal bars of his cell. He blinked several times.
The voice continued—like a scratchy whisper: “Yeah. Okay. You got me there. No, I don't expect you to know as much about griffon body stuff as... say... bunny rabbit body stuff. But, still, I don't think it'd hurt to try and see. And it's not like any of the melon fudges here are going to do anything to help hi—” The voice cut off, then resumed with a sharp tone: “Well Twilight's not around to give advice with that stuffy egghead of hers, is she?!” More silence, than a groaning sigh. “Flutters. Darn it, Flutters. Don't... don't cry. I'm not mad at you, I'm just... huh...?”
Keris shifted—winced—and shifted again. A tiny groan escaped his beak as he stretched his aching muscles. To his frustration, he could only flex his limbs so far before the binding metal of his shackles forced him to stumble back onto his haunches.
“He is...?” Something shifted in the cell opposite the Lieutenant. A petite source of weight. “Since when?” A beat. “Now?”
“Grnnngh...” Keris tilted his head up to the ceiling. “Hello?”
Everything went dead quiet.
Keris' eyes darted to the left... then to the right.
At last, the voice cracked from beyond: “I think you perched in the wrong place, buddy.”
“I beg to differ...” Keris winced as he spoke. “I simply... mrmmff... chose an ambitious way to go about doing it.”
“Heh... if you say so. Can you move your limbs?”
“Scarcely.” Keris exhaled out his beak nostrils. “The miscreants who run this place have made a fine art out of fettering a griffon's limbs and wings.” His eyes traveled along the lengths of his cell, tracing each edge and corner. “It's quite alarming, actually.”
“Yeah, well, these miscreants mean business, buddy. If you can find a way to make a bargain and get out of here, then that's all for the best.”
“The Right Talon of Verlaxion does not negotiate with criminals,” Keris grunted.
“The Right Who?”
“Hrmmffff... your voice certainly doesn't carry a Continentalist accent,” Keris remarked. “I was here on official business from the Council. I discovered a little too much about what lies beneath this Goddess-forsaken place, and before I could carry the information back to my superiors... I was ambushed.”
“Seems like you bit off a bit more than you could chew.”
“I was headstrong,” Keris muttered, his eyes thin as he took in the shadows around him. “I pitied the poor ponies being enslaved by the wretched overseer here, and such sympathy—however noble—was my downfall.” He sighed. “I should have gone about this intelligently. Even more so...” His headcrest drooped. “...I should have obeyed my Commander's words.”
Silence.
“Well...” The raspy voice muttered. “...some of us belong here more than others.”
Keris raised an eyecrest to that. “And what might they want with a pony such as you?”
No response.
Keris pivoted his feathery head. “Hello...?”
More silence... then—
“Did you really come from the continent?”
“That I did,” Keris remarked. He tried to get up—only for his limbs to scream in pain. Stifling a groan, he slumped over to his side, resting against the bars of his cell. After a heavy sigh, he muttered on: “And now that I'm in this despicable hole, all communication with the mainland has been completely cut off.”
“Yeesh. That sucks.”
“I beg to differ.” Keris exhaled. “My comrades will know that something is amiss. Commander Seraphimus will surely send the rest of the Talon to retrace my past steps.”
“Commander Seraphimus?”
“That's right.”
“... ... ...now that's a goofy-ass name if I ever heard one.”
Keris frowned towards the bars. “Have you truly never heard of the Right Talon of Verlaxion?”
“No. But I know a thing or two about your Goddess.”
“Oh?” Keris blinked. “Care to elaborate, friend?”
Dreadful silence.
Keris listened to the sound of his own breath.
At last, the voice muttered: “Mrmmfff... what does it matter anymore? Friggin' beacon's a gazillion miles away... behind Celestia—knows how many traps.” A bout of silence. “Fluttershy, please, I really don't want to get into it.”
“Eh...?” Keris' beak parted. “Is... is there somepony else in there with—?”
“You know what? Just forget it. You're in here. I'm in here. It sucks. But there's not much we can do about it. And even if we could... heh... sounds like you've got friends who are willing to bail you out. That's... that's a good thing, y'know. I do hope they get you out of here, whoever they are.”
“I... have the utmost faith in them,” Keris murmured, squinting curiously between the bars. “Provided—of course—that the delightful Mr. Skagra doesn't attempt exterminating me beforehand.” He winced, shifting where he sat. “I can only hope to be so blissfully lucky.”
“Not in that shape you won't,” the voice muttered. “Here...” There was a loud scraping sound. “Have this.”
“Huh?” Keris glanced over his shoulder.
Through the bars, he caught the glint of a metal tray full of rice and meaty bits being slid his way across the brig's narrow corridor. A blue hoof was shoving the thing from the opposite cell. “The rice is... okay. But there's tons of meat in it. And I don't eat meat.”
“You don't eat—?” Keris blinked. “But... aren't you famished?”
“There's a crazy scamp of a kid from above deck who loves smuggling me fruit. Don't ask... and don't breathe a word about it. They're liable to skin him alive.”
Keris gulped. “You have my word...”
“So here...” The blue hoof shoved the tray as far as she could reach through the bars. “Griffon it up.”
Keris winced, shifting about. He fumbled with his forelimbs, but found that the manacles made it impossible for him to properly reach through the bars. So—turning around—he resorted to fitting his lion's tail through the bars. The prehensile limb caught a corner of the tray. His muscles tightened, dragging the food dish towards him.
But before the aching griffon's beak could even begin to salivate, his magenta hawkeyes caught a sheen of light off the prisoner's mane hair, and it flickered with every color of the rainbow.
“... ... ...!” Keris jerked back. His tail inadvertently flipped the tray, tossing rice and scraps of fish across the brig's main corridor. “You.”
The pegasus said nothing. The blue skull and rainbow mane drifted back into shadow until all Keris could see was the tell-tale outline of a ruby pendant.
He stood up, muscles tightening in the face of excrutiating pain. “I should have known!” His beak tightened. “Skagra had you in his hold the entire time! Part of me knew, but I allowed myself to get distracted with the horrors below deck!”
“Well congratulations,” the voice muttered with a bob of the ruby lightning bolt. “You're awesome, but a moron.”
“Watch your tongue!” Keris frowned. He channeled the pain from his bruised limbs as he spat: “You're wanted across all of Rohbredden and the seven seas for the atrocities you've committed against Verlaxion and Her foals!”
“Jee, what a surprise.”
“And you would boast of desecrating the Goddess' glory with such a flippant tone?!”
“Dude, I'm not boasting—”
“Then what have you got to say for yourself?!”
“Look, I can tell you're pretty ticked, so I'm just gonna let you simmer do—”
“No!” Keris hissed, pressing his beak up to the bars as he snarled in the direction of the opposite cell. “You do not get to rest easy with the sinful burden you've sown!”
The voice drifted back, icily this time: “Do not talk to me about burdens...”
“You've wrecked an entire culture... ruined lives... tore an entire civilized commune to ashes...”
“...ruined friendships...”
Keris cocked his head to the side. “Huh?”
“Tell me something I don't know...”
“Alright. I think I shall.” Keris fumed. “Those poor, homeless monks inside the Quade? Dozens of them are dead now because of you.”
Dead silence.
“The faithful... the penitent... the elderly...?!” Keris shook his head. “They did not last a single week in the wake of your carnage!”
More silence... until a shuddering voice breathed back: “K... K-Kyron the Elder...?”
“Deceased,” Keris said bluntly. “And those who are actually healthy continue to refuse supplies and medical attention. I mean... what did you expect, monster?! Those monks were secure in their tranquility and worship for hundreds of years. And then you went in and ripped their precious Reed to shreds? What else would you expect would happen from such blatant disregard for the livelihood of others?!”
There was the shuffling of circular hoofsteps in the other cell. Eventually, the pegasus' pacing scuffled to a stop. “... ... ...I take it you've been there?”
“Rainbow Dash... if that is your real name, and not some pathetic alias...” Keris nodded. “Yes, I most certainly did venture through the Quade. It was part of my investigation for the Council of Verlaxion—to capture you and bring you to justice before some avaricious group of deviants got to you first.” He shuddered, his manacles rattling. “Alas, it would appear I've failed on all fronts.”
“Tell me something, buddy...”
“Do not even pretend to call me—”
“Tell me,” the raspy voice grew firm, sharp. “Did any of the ponies there testify about me actually killing anyone?”
Keris blinked. “Huh?”
“Did the monks have eyewitness testimony of me being some crazy, freaky monster? Ripping throats out? Eating ponies alive?”
Keris squinted. “No. They did not. But you—”
“They did it do themselves, didn't they?” the voice muttered, wilted and melancholic. “Those crazy monks whipped and scarred themselves into a bloody mess as soon as I left.”
Keris exhaled heavily. “Then you actually are capable of perceiving their plight.” He slumped back on his haunches. “You're not some mindless, demonic wraith out to destroy all things blessed by Verlaxion. You're... you're just a thug. A winged bully who stumbled upon an opportune congregation of innocent lives to ruin when the opportunity presented itself. Just what have you to gain from all this?”
“Dude, don't you get it? Those monks would be alive and well today if they weren't so backwards and crazy to hurt themselv—”
“To even think about putting the blame on anyone else but yourself is an insult to all things living!” Keris snapped. “Now I want to know, Rogue. Just what have you to gain from all this?!”
“You wouldn't understand even if I told you!” the voice roared back with far greater ferocity than even Keris was expecting. He squinted to see a lightning-bolt shaped beam of ruby energy glowing, pulsating, then dissipating from beyond the bars. “Nopony understands! Not even—” The shouting breath cut off... sputtered... then limped on through a sigh. “Not even my friends.”
Keris raised an eyecrest, listening curiously.
“I... I guess I-I'm just fooling myself by calling them that anymore,” she muttered. A slight pause. “Well, of course I don't mean you, Flutters. And—yes, I can say that about them! Not like they're gonna be around to hear it! Or give a darn about anything! Or... or...”
Shuddering silence.
The voice cracked: “I'm not proud of what I did at the Quade. I'm not proud of a lot of things I do on my journey. But the journey must go on... at all costs. There's too much that depends on it. I'm not the only one who knows this. Verlax does too. And she's set things up... so many darn things. The monks were part of it. For all I know, this stinkin' place is as well. I... I don't know what she hopes to get out of me being here, but if the continent's already sending poor saps like you to lock me up, then I can already tell the whole mess has reached the Divine's lair by now. So... it must be part of her plan. It must be... be...”
Keris blinked in confusion.
Finally, the voice muttered: “My only regret about the Quade... is not doing what I did sooner.” A deep breath. “I should have been upfront about what I needed to do. I should have been honest... honest with Kyron... honest with Bard and Wildcard... honest with my friends. But it's too late for all of that now. It was too friggin' late from the beginning. Heck, an entire lifetime of honesty can't do crap to pierce a stubborn wall built out of thousands of years of lies. Perhaps... perhaps that's Verlax's latest test... the trap I'm now in. The whole continent. These seven seas. If that's so... then... th-then I think she's winning.”
The pegasus' voice ended with a sigh.
After a full minute of dull contemplation, Keris finally murmured: “You're insane.” He grimaced, beak twitching. “Perhaps you are from beyond the Blight. My goddess... such madness.” He slowly shook his head. “I no longer know whether I should despise you or pity you.”
Her response was swift enough to startle the lieutenant: “Welcome to the party, pal.”
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Well, if anything, at least she was up front about it to Keris. What he does with this info now is up to him.
That being said, he doesn't seem like he's going to be very chummy with her anytime soon.
Oh that's putting it mildly, crazy boy.
Well Keris, you met your quarry, you've got a chance to talk with her, to understand her.
What are you going to do?
More importantly, are you going to help her? If for no other reason than to take her back to Frostknife and place her before the council.
or are you going to attempt to present her corpse, and end up badly battered and broken?
The clock is ticking Lieutenant.
Make your choice.
-In the end isolation, hunted by a nation. Utaan.
Wow, I'm definitely seeing a real Meh-Hate relationship right now, maybe they'll team-up just so Keris gets the chance to actually capture RD if they escape.
I also love how RD isn't even bothering to explain at this point, hate her, swear at her, whatever. That is one depressed rainbow.
media.giphy.com/media/XV2fO0nlD0XPG/giphy.gif
Oh no. I already see it happening. Keris is angry... but anger leads to hate... and hate leads to being completely at the mercy of the unintentional charms of Rainbow Dash.
Well, your entire culture is based on lies from an insane immortal, so hey, Dashie is just fitting in with the local customs!
Gawd, don't tell me Swab is going to end up being the voice of reason between these two.
As much as Midnight wants to tell Keris he's being an idiot for not believing Rainbow Dash, he isn't really at fault for it. He saw the Quade destroyed and an entire religious group all either dead or severely wounded, and Rainbow Dash was indirectly responsible for it by destroying the Reed, so of course Keris thinks Rainbow is a monster; he doesn't know the whole story, ergo he cannot believe her...
6609426 He doesn't understand her yet. The real question is, will he attempt to?
Probably both.
It's hard choosing sides on this front. I feel like what Dash did at the Quade was wrong, but I understand why she did it. I sympathize with her. That doesn't justify what she did and I think she knows that. At the same time, however, she was right about the journey having to go on.
6609456 s'why I said he's got a chance to talk to her, so he can understand her.
Ok this bothers me I really doubt that seeing internal organs and the like would really gross Fluttershy out that much.
I'm sorry but Keris is right; Rainbow is starting to blame everyone but herself for what happened, she isn't thinking of the consequences of what she is doing and in fact no longer seems to care about them. It's Veralx's fault, It's the Monks fault, It's the Journeys fault; but it's not hers.
I think this is going to be part of this books theme Rainbow finally being honest with herself about what actually is her fault and what isn't. Because she blames herself for stuff that happened before the Grand Choke (a lot of which was not her fault at all.) but seems to not want to for stuff after it.
Yeah, I don't buy into Dash's line of thought here. Sure the monks had their own agency, if one can call generations of religious indoctrination agency, but its completely unreasonable and illogical to expect thousands of years of religion to be cast aside at the drop of a Reed. Her logic is a flawed crutch at best, though I'll give Dash one point... Verlax holds as much responsibility for all this for setting up the religion in the first place as Dash does for handling the situation with no intelligence to foresee and prepare for the consequences of her actions.
Dash just isn't very good at learning how to think and to prepare for contingencies. At the moment she's just psyching herself up to do the same kind of thing again, instead of learning to think ahead and try and outwit the situations in front of her instead of crashing through them.
This is exactly why she needs the support of the rest of the Mane6 instead of the silence.
On the Swab front it seems clear we'll have some kind of rescue attempt inbound. I'm most curious if, when the fecal matter hits the air rotation device, what side of things Quint will choose.
Well, the Rainbow met Keris.
And now Keris is convinced that Rainbow is insane.
That went well...
6609440 KeriDash? :3
Veiwing ahead, I'd say that it will take Keris quite a while before he comes to trust Rainbow Dash, since he currently thinks that she's insane.
The best thing for Rainbow to do is to tell her entire story from the beginning. Heck, she already seems inclined to honesty at the moment; why not go all the way?
6609440 I'd call this Daris.
I agree with Battle Chant pretty much across the board. What Rainbow did in the Quade might be justifiable, but I can't quite avoid the conclusion that what she did was wrong. I suppose my biggest issue is with:
This is what's bothered me the most about Rainbow, during and since the destruction of the Reed. Maybe she'll have to get her hooves dirty sometimes, but the kind of thinking she's exhibiting there is a very dangerous road. Because where does it end? Let's say--and this is just me playing devil's advocate--let's say that, through some orchestration of Verlax's, the only way Rainbow can continue her journey is to strangle a group of foals with her bare hooves... would that be justified? Wouldn't that be serving the "greater good"?
My two cents: Rainbow's journey has never only been about getting from A to B. It's been about standing for something. Harmony, perhaps. For whatever dark deeds she might have been forced to do on occasion, she's tended to leave the places she's encountered better than she found them. She's deposed dictators, ended wars, freed slaves, etc. She shined a light--a spark, if you will--in the shadows along the road.
At some point, Rainbow's gonna have to draw a line. Because what if she gets to the Midnight Armory, and she has no spark left to give?
6609507
this is very much a thing
Rainbow Dash is great and all, but without someone to think ahead, she tends to run in and do, choosing to react to rather than plan for unexpected results
which leads to things like her not even considering what would happen if the reed were to die from her cutting it
6609548
goosebumps thinking about that idea, very dark
6609548
I completely agree, this is exactly what scares me about what she did at the Quade. The road she is going down with this mentality is very dangerous and she clearly doesn't see it.
Rainbow and Keris will make the cutest battle couple one day
And now, I propose a theory. Here's my theory:
One of the effects of absorbing Discord's essence was that Rainbow's personality was knocked off-kilter. As an additional consequence, her memories were also effected by the Chaos energy. When the Loyalty Pendant was placed on Rainbow, the harmonic energy attempted to reconcile her warped memories and off-kilter personality.
The result was a healed Rainbow whose memories had been warped to include romantic feelings for Applejack, and an off-kilter personality that was open to homosexual attraction. And every time Rainbow's encountered a ruby flame or beacon, it's made both those problems worse, not better, because that first Harmonic healing wound up setting up the 'normal' state of Rainbow incorrectly due to the influence of the Chaos magic.
That isn't to say that she can't be restored, but merely that doing so will be rather difficult, and it may not happen for years.
In other words, I've found a way to tolerate Skirt's fascination with Appledashery and gay Rainbow by postulating that the restoration of Rainbow's 'canon' personality will take place at a undetermined point after the series ends.
How's that for a logical theory?
Oh boy, we're finally getting some more direct interaction with Rainbow over the whole Quade business. And it looks like that when the attack hits, Keris and Rainbow are going to be unlikely allies in escaping, before Keris is confronted with whether to turn her in or let her go upon his return. Time will only tell what his outlook is by then.
At least she doesn't call her a tool. They need to do become alive before she does.
Maybe them being in the pendant minimizes its energy depletion, so they'll have more time.
...well, you're not the first griffon to think that. Speaking of whom, wasn't there a certain cowpone/griffon duet that were headed to one of the other two barges? The same barges that are now filled with rumors of how Skagra has the Rainbow Rogue? At this point, their intervention is unlikely at best. But wouldn't it be spiffy if they showed up?
Also, that last line. The feels are real.
Anagram 'Utaan', and you get a tuna.
Quick, everyone spawn more tunas, so that we can feed Keris!!!
6609685 If they showed up, it would be incredible.
But I think that IC wants things to be more difficult than that...
Keris.talkWith(Rainbow);
Int awesomeness = Keris.getAwesomeness();
awesomeness += 50;
Keris.setAwesomeness(awesomeness);
Keris.newGoal("Understand Rainbow");
Keris.newGoal("Escape from Red Barge");
6609548
Maybe she can get an extra life? Some beacon that creates an extra her?
Keris has joined the party.
Despite the morbid conversation this takes place in... I couldn't have said it better!
Fault and Responsibility aren't the same thing. It's absolutely Rainbow's fault that the Quade was destroyed, but she's not at fault for their deaths. She bears some responsibility in that her actions lead the monks to make a (foreseeably) horrible decision. Fault implies that most of the responsibility lies with a single entity, while responsibility can be shared.
She's not responsible for the fact that Rohbredden is too fucked to be able to deal with a refugee crisis or (perhaps more accurately) the results of a natural disaster.
The responsibility of re-igniting the world weighs heavily on her. I don't think that giving up the Noble Jury is something she just "got over" at the beginning of ynanhluutr. She can't really communicate how much their company meant to her, nor how she had to choose between them and her journey. Since she doesn't really communicate this... no one else can really understand that.
I don't think Rainbow has completely lost sight of the purpose of her journey, of being that harmonic spark. Perhaps she is "going through the motions" more than she did before, but I also think that Rohbredden has been particularly shitty. Back with the Noble Jury, Rainbow Dash was able to fly over most obstacles. If things needed be tackled, she had an entire squad to cover things. In Rohbredden, RD has had to trudge through shit every step of the way. Thanks Verlax.
People discussing RD's troubling moral issues: Contrast the Quade with the Ultimo arc. RD manipulated the locals and did her damnedest to destroy something precious to them, something important to their way of life. Difference is, the monks couldn't even imagine changing. I agree that they didn't deserve it, but something so rigid was bound for failure. It was not happenstance that they were over one of the beacons. They were set up as a test where they were going to be the immovable object to RD's unstoppable force. One way or the other, without enduring years of rituals, RD was going to break through.
6609687
That sure is a biiig tuna fish.
Edit: Of all the references I've busted out(and have yet to), I did not expect this one to get noticed.
6609615 ...why can't she just be gay?
I wonder if the COuncil has an insanity clause that RD could fit into. She's chronically plagues by chaos sickness. She's culturally out of touch wit the [continent], and she's talking to voices only she can hear.
Pity may temper ehatever Seraphimus level zeal that comes Rainbow's way.
Like it or not, it's pretty clear that Keris and Rainbow Dash will have to rely on one another to get out of Red Barge on their own accords. Birds of a feather, or whatever. The question then becomes what will happen which even gives them the opportunity to work together, and what will happen once they're able to escape?
Rainbow Dash can't exactly fly away; she probably needs medical attention if she ever hopes to fly again. Keris has an open mind, so maybe he'll have a new opinion of Rainbow Dash by the end of this.
6609440 Keris the new Roarke?
RD really messed up by jumping the gun right after initiation. Who knows how long it would have taken to figure out how to bypass the Reed "safely", if that was possible. Another week? A month? So why so desperate to get Flutters? I think this goes beyond some of the others. RD wasn't so desperately persnickety about Rarity or PP.
The Noble Jury worked differently than Spirit 6. Bellesmith actually understood what Rainbow went through, having lived through much of it herself, and the rest had seen some shit. Lived it. RD inspired the best out of them, and her awesomeness allowed them to both be themselves and work towards being something better.
Rainbow is truly lesser for their absence, and the journey through the Blight left scars.
Spirit 6 didn't replace that. Just like the Noble Jury didn't replace the Mane 6. RD couldn't quite get Twilight to understand the brutality and horror that she had seen earlier, and eventually RD gave up on trying. Then with Rarity and PP things were further glossed over and sugarcoated, and RD didn't feel the need to make them understand. She was past all that, right?
Beyond that, I think there's still a leadership struggle. RD is the captain of this boat, but Twilight was the leader back in the Mane 6 days, and I think the other spirits are more with her than with Rainbow. I'd have to re-read it, but I'd bet that Twilight led the walk-out after the Quade. It was the only way she could assert any control over what's been going on.
RD was so desperate to free Flutters because she thought that Fluttershy would understand her situation better. Would understand doing what needed to be done. That didn't quite work out.
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I still say Wildcard is a lot more badass.
I hope she does explain it to keris. Everything, don't care if he doesn't believe her, I just want him to know. That's gonna eat me up for a long while I bet. I think keris would be smart enough to actually understand it, maybe not believe it but at least understand.
That's... probably the best initial reaction we could have hoped for. It was entirely possible that he would immediately see her as some kind of evil incarnate. He knows, and has acknowledged, that her goal wasn't to harm the Luminards. And while he may still see her as a monster for her actions on the Quade, he's intelligent enough to recognize that she has a story to tell, and that he has nothing but time, and reason, to listen to it.
Well, that could've gone better but given everything so far that was the best. At least Keris and Rainbow finally met eachother.
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I agree with everything you said but if I recall, Rainbow is dying and doesn't know how long she has or something close to that. She did jump the gun in The Quade but it's not like the chaotic energy in her would just chill while she got past the Reed safely.
I don't know why, but this chapter gives me a really odd vibe about Rainbow's journey. Suddenly, I'm not so confident that she will make it to the dark side and back. She seems too broken and chaotic to be the spark of harmony that will make its way to the midnight armory.
First I thought, Yaay,
But then this happened.
I missread what the first part meant, instead of setting up the getting thrown in jail to take them down from the inside.
6609446 ok, we won't tell you
The feeeels! Dont give up Keris and for the love of feathers do not do anything stupid to Rainbow Dash!
Yay, Dash thinks my name is goofy!
I...I don't even know who's bad anymore...
Guilt is a complicated and multi-layered term. Duerrenmatt argued that in a modern society of numerous levels of multiple structures constantly interacting, it is no longer applicable at all. Systems grind against each other, cause disaster in the process and no individual is to blame.
So, who is guilty? The one that spilled the oil, the one that bore the torch or the ones that fanned the flames as they tried to put them out?
The problem is the no one has the time to listen to Rainbow, it's like arguing with a fundamentalist of a religion, you could explain that the Bible wasn't written to be literal, but they'll interrupt you immediately. Instead of swallowing and contemplating what you're saying, they form factless opinions whilst tuning you out, all the while using insults to make up for the gaps in their argument.
EG
Nobody is thinking past the destroyed reed and looking into why there's a giant metal rod coming from the ground, they ignore the fact that there's unknown metal dust scattering from the 'natural' material and simply jump onto the conclusion that the holy relic was purposefully desecrated.
All it takes is someone like Theanim or Bard and his birdy to listen, and they're eventually shown the evidence.
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She's certainly capable of spinning a yarn about her journey when time allows.
A tale so detailed that, while I imagine Keris would be a tad more sceptical than Theams was initially, he most likely shares the same ability to come to comprehend her trek with enough evidence. I mean, a "thug" like her wouldn't just drop a load of BS about crazy exploits beyond the Plight to justify her apparent misdeeds in the Seven Seas, right?
If she has fortitude to really open up about it here, such comprehension might find its way into that brain of his sooner or later. But given how quickly things are being set into motion up above and Keris' life about to be flogged off to the certain slaver, I'd say time is the real enemy.