You Can't Take The Sky From Me

by FailcopterWes

Chapter 3: The Song of the Pegasi

Chapter 3

Ditzy awoke to the sun beating heavily down upon her back. She immediately closed her eyes to the glaring light. In the distance, something chirped and croaked, and from closer by came a returning chorus, backed by the steady trickle of the river. Beneath her head, pieces of grass poked up from the strangely soft dirt.

And for a few moments, Ditzy was at peace. In this idyllic piece of countryside with just her and the yellow Pegasus beside her she could forget about her worries, about the world she lived in, and the sound of thunder that echoed in her head.

Ditzy sat up.

Thunder and lightning were pushing their way into her head. The images of swirling gales and violent stabs of electricity sprung to the forefront of her mind’s eye. She clutched her head in her hooves and shook away the thoughts. Slowly, her head cleared. Ditzy lowered her hooves and began to stretch herself out, first her forelegs, then her hind legs, then her wings. Something cracked as she stretched her wings. Her right wing stiffened and a strange sensation instantly filled it. Ditzy gazed at the problem, seeing her damaged wing but not fully processing what it meant. She stared emptily at her wing for a moment, before her mind clicked into place. She flexed the wing again, and winced at the result. Her face fell, and her head drooped slightly to look at the mare beside her.

Fluttershy was still unresponsive. She was still in the same laid out position Ditzy had put her in when she fell asleep. She was on her side, with her forelegs moved up out of the way of the bamboo protruding from just under her ribcage. Ditzy made a deflated, squeaky noise at the memory of finding her marefriend impaled the day before.

Ditzy awoke in a bush.

Her head felt as if it was stuffed with cotton wool, and her ears were ringing. The sun was nearing the end of its time above her, heading towards the horizon with all due haste. Ditzy stared up at it for a while. She liked the sun; it was warm and made sure she was too. Ditzy remembered fondly how she often laid out on a cloud or in a field if Dinky was staying with her, and simply let the sun warm her body. Her mind followed on from this to wonder about Dinky.
‘She was staying over when I left’ she thought absently ‘I wonder if she got back to town okay”

Ditzy paused her own thoughts for a second, remembering something.
‘Why did I leave again?’ she asked herself.
“Dinky? You there?” Ditzy called out, still face up in the bush. “Wait...”

She giggled to herself.
‘Silly me’ she thought ‘you’re not in the house. Dinky’s not going to be here. ’

Ditzy sat up.
“Where is here?” she wondered aloud. Then a look of abstract horror crossed her face as she realised something. “Dinky’s on her own!” she scrambled out the hedge, flapping her wings and madly waving her legs to dislodge herself. After a few moments, she rolled out, caught her leg in the branch and went face first into the floor.

After picking herself up, Ditzy winced in pain. Her wing felt like it had been snapped in two, although from what she could see it was only a little bent. Slightly confused, she pulled the wing in to her side and glanced around to take in her surroundings. There were a lot of bushes where she had landed. They seemed to flourish underneath the tree canopy. Trees were cramped in around here almost as much as the bushes. Above the one where Ditzy awoke, a rough hole had been knocked out of the overhanging trees, revealing snapped branches and a disrupted bird’s nest amongst the leafy cover.
“Where am I?” Ditzy said, addressing a squirrel that sat in nearby branch. The squirrel looked at her quizzically for a moment before hopping to the ground and darting under a bush. “You don’t know either...”

Ditzy tried to think, remember what had happened recently. Her memory was never very good, but she tended to remember important details, or at least, the details she thought were important. But all she could remember now were crashing noises and bursts of light. In the light bursts she remembered a cottage, broken and crumbling, being battered by the weather.
‘There wasn’t a storm scheduled’ Ditzy thought. But then she remembered who had accompanied her recently, Rainbow Dash, who had been saying something about a storm. ‘Maybe they just didn’t tell me about it until it was really big’ she reasoned as she looked up through the hole at the cloud free sky.
Ditzy felt something tug on her leg. She looked down to see the squirrel had returned, carrying with it a large green berry, which it held up to her.
“For me?” she said, surprised. The squirrel nodded in reply. Ditzy leaned down and took it in her mouth. “’nk ‘ou” she said as she chewed it. The berry was tough, but full of juices. It tasted like the blueberries back that could be found near Ponyville, but with an unusual bitter aftertaste. “Mmm, thanks Mr Squirrel!” Ditzy exclaimed to the expectant creature, which appeared to be waiting approval of its offering. Upon hearing her thanks, it turned and ran over to the bush it had disappeared under earlier, beckoning with one arm for Ditzy to follow. It pointed to the berries hanging in the bush, and then to Ditzy. “Ooh, a whole bunch of berries! You’re really nice Mr. Squirrel. And smart too. I didn’t know squirrels were that smart.”
“I’m not, I’m just a squirrel” said the squirrel.
“What?” Ditzy looked back from the butterflies that had momentarily stolen her attention.

The squirrel cocked its head, regarding Ditzy with a stare, and ran away.
“Oh yeah, squirrels can’t talk” Ditzy giggled, leaning in to pick up a berry. She chewed it for a moment, trying to remember what she was thinking about before the squirrel interrupted her.

She was suddenly reminded by a horrifying scream.

“Ditz? Ditz, you okay?”

Ditzy looked up from Fluttershy’s unconscious form to see Dash standing over her. The blue mare was gazing down worriedly at her. Ditzy looked back to Fluttershy.
“Not really” she said quietly.

Rainbow moved closer to her, putting a wing across her shoulders.
“Ah, don’t cry Ditz, she’s going to be fine” Dash told her, trying to be reassuring. But Ditzy did not appear to be listening. “Look, I’ve seen stuff like this happen before when out on weather patrol. I mean, we haven’t got a full med team out here, but after a day or two they wake up and they’re usually fine”
“Usually?”
“Yeah, most of time” Rainbow immediately realised that this was a bad thing to say.
“But Flutty isn’t like most of them...”

Dash looked down at the body. It was true, Fluttershy was different from other pegasus. Most notably, she spent most of her life on the ground. Rainbow remembered often having trouble convincing her to take off because walking took too long, and often having to remind her that she had wings.

It had turned out that Fluttershy did not like flying in front of Angel, and some of the slower and more vertically challenged animals, who seemed to think she was showing off.
‘Well she’s not showing off to anypony now.’ Rainbow thought ‘That wing’ll never heal up’

She pulled her wing off of Ditzy, causing the grey mare to look over in confusion.
“Do you think these berries are poisonous?” Rainbow asked, indicating the small pile she had brought back with her. “I found them a minute ago, didn’t think to taste ‘em”
“No, they’re good. They’re the ones Mr Squirrel gave me” Ditzy informed her.
“...right” Dash said, reaching for a berry “I hope you’re right”. She bit down on the green skin of it, chewed and finally swallowed. “Well, I don’t feel poisoned”.

Ditzy got up to get herself a berry. As she walked, she never took her eyes off Fluttershy.
“She’s going to be fine Ditz, trust me” Rainbow said, having noticed where her gaze fell.

Ditzy simply picked up a few berries in her mouth and began eating.
“Do you think we could mush up these and feed them to her?” Dash suggested.
“Uh...maybe” Ditzy replied. She swallowed her own berries and picked up another two. Sitting down, she crushed them with her forward hooves, and then held the result before her. The chunky green mess on her hooves was regarded with some interest before she looked to Rainbow Dash with a half smile on her face. Without waiting from a response from Dash, who had raised a wary eyebrow at the sudden smell this action seemed to have generated, Ditzy pushed her hooves towards Fluttershy. She waved them under her nose, wafting the acrid smell back and forth in the hopes it would shock her awake.
“I don’t think that’s working” Dash noted. “But nice try” she added. Her companion’s mood lifted slightly once this had been said, happy that her effort was appreciated. Dash picked up a berry for herself, and opened Fluttershy’s mouth. “Hey, could you put this in her mouth?” Dash asked, as Ditzy began licking the berry off of her hooves. Once she was done licking, Ditzy shuffled closer and took the berry carefully in her hooves. Dash held Fluttershy’s mouth open wide. Ditzy pushed the berry in, and Dash manually simulated chewing, followed by tilting her head and rubbing her throat to try and get her to swallow it. “That’s seems alright” Rainbow reported, checking her mouth for remaining berry. “Some of it got stuck on the teeth but I think it’s a bit safer than making her swallow it whole.” Rainbow looked over to Ditzy. “Let’s give her another one”

Ditzy reached for another berry, and the procedure was repeated, with Dash taking care to properly crush the berry inside Fluttershy’s mouth before she swallowed it. Rainbow called for another one berry.
“There’s none left” Ditzy told her.
“What? I thought I got more than that!” Dash exclaimed.
“Maybe you ate some of them while you weren’t looking?” Ditzy suggested.

Rainbow gave the grey mare a look that was equal parts confusion and unamused glare. Ditzy responded by looking back with her customarily skewed eyes.
“Maybe I just dropped a few” Dash said, looking away. “It’s kinda hard to carry those things in your mouth without crushing them”.
“They were in your mouth? Ew” Ditzy said accusingly, before sticking out and brushing her tongue of any potential Rainbow related infections.
“How else was I gonna carry them?” Dash responded. “And you’re going to get dirt on your tongue doing that”

Ditzy stopped brushing, looked down at her tongue, and pulled it back inside her mouth.
“Do you want me to go find some more berries?” Ditzy asked.
“Not right now” Rainbow said, looking up “It’s about noon now I think, so we can give it a while before we go get something to eat.”
“Oh, okay”
“What?”
“Nothing” Ditzy said “I just thought I could help somehow”
“Hey, hey, hey, you are helping” Dash insisted. “I just don’t want you wandering off now I’ve found you, and we can’t just leave Fluttershy on her own if I want to come with you”
“Okay” Ditzy mumbled.

Rainbow looked up again. There were a fair few clouds drifting past up in the sky, some large and fluffy, some more stringy.
“Hey, Ditz” Rainbow nudged her friend “You remember those really bouncy clouds we used to set up around Ponyville?”
“Yuh – huh” Ditzy nodded.
“What’s the betting that big one up there is even bouncier” Dash pointed towards the biggest cloud she could see.

Ditzy’s face lit up.
“Come on, get on my back, I’ll take you up there” Rainbow offered.
“What about Flutty?”
“She’ll be fine for a minute on her own, now come on, get on”

Ditzy clambered unsteadily onto Rainbow’s back, and held on around her neck.
“Your mane feels like hay” Ditzy commented with a grin. Unsure whether to take it as a compliment or not, Dash simply shook her head and kicked off, quickly speeding up high into the air. The air rushed against her face, and for a second Dash let her eyes closed and just enjoyed her flight. But she knew she could not go for a joyful flight whilst everything was as it was. Grudgingly, she did a little spin and landed on the cloud, depositing Ditzy upon it, who stumbled dizzily for a moment before she stood firm.
“Okay, I’m going to come back up for you in a little while” Rainbow informed her “If you need me for anything, I don’t know, if you see something or you get bored or you fall off and can’t glide just...yell.”

Ditzy smiled at her. Taking that as her cue to leave, Rainbow smiled back and nose dived off the cloud. Ditzy leaned over to watch the multicoloured streak disappear towards the ground. Once the colours had faded, she wandered further towards the centre of the cloud. With a little bounce, she tested the cloud, and found herself launched into the air. She let out her delight with an excited squeal as she bounced higher. The cloud was warm, and every time she landed her hooves were treated to a moment of fluffy heat. She giggled like a filly being tickled. All of the bad moments of the past were washing away. For now there was only the bouncing.

Down on the ground, Rainbow Dash curled up next to Fluttershy. From above she could faintly hear the giggles and squeals of the ecstatic Pegasus. She smiled.
‘Maybe it’s not so bad out here’ she thought.

Ditzy bounced until she forgot about the world. But eventually, she tired of moving up and down. Her legs had begun to ache a little. She trotted over to the edge of the cloud and looked down.
“Rainbow Dash!” she called. “I want to come down now!”

No response came.
“Rainbow Dash!” she called again “I said I want to come down!”

Still no response.

Looking down, Ditzy realised she couldn’t see the river. She began to glance around. Her knees began to shake.
“Rainbow Dash!” she yelled, stepping back onto the cloud. “Rainbow Dash, where are you!”

Rainbow stretched her legs out.
“Ugh, that was a good sleep” she told herself as she got up. “Right, better go get Ditz”

She was about to take off when she noticed something different about the sky.

The clouds had moved.
“Uh-oh” Rainbow muttered. She scanned the sky for Ditzy’s cloud, but could not see it. Her eyes darted across the sky, desperately seeking out her friend. She quickly braced her legs and shot up into the sky. In a matter of seconds she had broken through the clouds and began spinning around, trying to look in every direction at once. “Ditzy! Ditzy, can you hear me!” she yelled. But the only response she received was the cold howl of air. In every direction there were dots of fluffy cloud, any of which could be the one containing Ditzy.

She could only hope that she had not tried to fly back.

Rainbow called out again, just in case she could hear, but again no response. Rainbow looked down at the clouds, and hoped the wind had stayed blowing in the same direction while she was asleep. After taking a moment to work out which way all the clouds were heading, she tore off through the sky, leaving a multicoloured trail in her wake. Rainbow’s head jerked from side to side, scanning each cloud for a grey shape. Some cloud’s had dark patches, some got in her way and she had to change course to check them. Rainbow became more and more desperate as she got further away. She could hear herself breathing almost as fast as her wings were beating, her pulse raced. Every part of Rainbow’s mind flared and screamed at her for letting Ditzy go.
“Ditzy where are you!” she called hopelessly to the clouds around her. She stopped suddenly, glancing around. ‘How long was I asleep?’ she asked herself ‘she could be miles away by now’.

She shoved the thought from her mind. There was no time to worry about that. She had to find her. Rainbow charged off again.

A grey speck appeared in her vision. Dash instinctively locked on to it, turning sharply in mid air without as much as slowing down.
“Ditzy!” she screamed. The grey speck did not move. Dash raced towards it, getting closer and closer until she could see the details.

It wasn’t Ditzy. It wasn’t even a Pegasus. It was just patch of grey cloud.

Rainbow’s wings slowed, she dipped in the air, slowed.
“No” he muttered “No, no, no”. Rainbow drifted downwards. Her legs hung limply below her. “Where are you?” she asked the clouded sky, her voice cracking. Her legs brushed against a cloud. Following her legs, Rainbow collapsed onto the cloud. “No, don’t cry” she sternly told herself, screwing up her face “You will not cry Rainbow Dash, you’re better than this!”

She looked up at the lowering sun.
“With Celestia as my witness, I will find you!” Rainbow dragged herself to her hooves. “You hear me!” She beat her wings down, smashing the cool air below her. Dash rose into the air, her face set with solid determination.
‘She can’t be much further’ she told herself. “Just keep going!”

She flew on. How long she flew she had no idea. All she knew was she was flying. Every dark patch in the ever darker sky she darted to, searching and searching for the abandoned mare.

Until finally, a patch of grey, topped by a mane of gold.
“Ditzy!” Rainbow screamed. The grey shape turned to her, and waved. Within a second, Rainbow had crossed the gap between them and barrelled Ditzy to the ground. “There you are” she said, holding Ditzy down onto the cloud “I’m so sorry I left you”
“It’s okay Rainbow Dash” Ditzy said. “I like it up here”
“Well, I’m going to have to bring you back now” Rainbow pulled Ditzy back onto her hooves “I’ve got to look after the both of you now”
“You left Flutty alone?”
“She’ll be fine for a minute, remember?” Dash shook her head, not even trying to argue. “And I bet she’d want me to go find you at all costs. She’d do anything for her special somepony, and I bet you’d do anything for her”

Ditzy nodded. Rainbow smiled.
“Come on, get on” she said “Let’s get you back before she wonders where you are”
“But she’s unconscious...”
“...I know Ditz...I was just joking around”
“I was always told not to joke in serious situations”
“Oh just get on, would you?”

Rainbow took her time taking Ditzy back. She flew under the clouds, gliding most of the way. Once or twice, she got close enough to a cloud that Ditzy tried to reach out and grab it. The second time this happened, Ditzy pulled a chunk away with her hooves, and merrily shoved it in her mouth. Rainbow let her do it. The cloud was full of water, and the more she drank the better. But that was not why she immediately let her friend do it. She was simply too relieved to have found her to care. Twice in as many days she had been flying around the sky trying to find the same mare. And each time she had been rewarded with success. Rainbow quietly hoped that she wouldn’t have to do it again.

Rainbow looked down. The land below slid by, forest and river rolled away beneath her, until finally, the bamboo clearing came into view. Rainbow angled herself down, letting gravity pull her in. As much as she enjoyed the tug of the night wind on her mane, right now she just wanted to put all four hooves on the ground. With a little flap of her wings, she slowed herself, halted in the air, and let herself land. Ditzy slid off her back, landing in an undignified heap in the grass. Rainbow just looked down at her and smiled.

But she was not going to sleep. Not now. There were two girls in her care, and they could not be left unguarded. Rainbow walked around Ditzy and began gently tugging her leg, pulling her over towards Fluttershy. After this task was completed. She remembered how quickly they had run out of food earlier. There were bushes nearby, most of which in sight of the two mares. With a single glance down to make sure that her charges were alright, she trotted over to them.

Rainbow rummaged through the bushes until the sun finally dipped below the horizon. By the time the golden light had gone and Luna had raised the pale moon above her, Dash had collected a large amount of berries, all piled in front of Fluttershy’s snout. Dash was proud of her work, and sat down between the river and the others. She would not lie down, knowing that if she did she would sleep. She had to stay awake, if only to make up for her failure earlier.

The only problem was staving off boredom. By the time the moon had reached its peak Rainbow was bored out of her mind. She groaned loudly at the lack of excitement, or entertainment, that her usual fast moving lifestyle demanded. Every now and then, a rat or rabbit or some other woodland creature had poked its head into sight, undoubtedly investigating the strange appearance of three pegasi in its’ woods. A small chorus of hoots alerted Rainbow to the presence of a pair of owls flying in unison above her head. They circled her twice before departing together. Dash grew silently envious of the birds. It seemed that even animals were finding something to love. The nearest Rainbow had was a fangirl crush on the Wonderbolts.

She scorned herself mentally. Her ‘appreciation’, as she termed it, for the Wonderbolts was a matter of professional wonder at their amazing flying skill and obvious talent.

But still, the thought lingered. Rainbow asked herself why she had never found anypony to be with. ‘Simple, no stallion dared to approach somepony as radical as myself’ Dash told herself. ‘Or mare for that matter’ she added, remembering the unconscious couple a metre from herself. ‘It only matters if the stallions do it, I don’t swing that way’ Dash reminded herself. ‘Although, I don’t think I ever made myself available’.
“Hoo”

The hoot, so close by, startled Rainbow out of her thoughts. An owl, apparently in possession of bravery nearing suicidal tendencies, had landed by the berry pile and begun pecking at it.
“Hey! Get outta here!” Dash yelled at it, shaking a hoof like an old stallion shooing fillies from his garden. The owl let out an indignant hoot at her and held its ground. Rainbow got to her feet and advanced. “Shoo, go on, move!” she demanded kicking in the direction of the owl with her forelegs. The owl finally seemed to get the picture and took off. Rainbow watched it go, making a mental note to keep a watch on the skies for any more invasive owls.

Another hour passed. Rainbow was shivering in the cold. She looked around to see if there was anything to light a fire with, but then Rainbow remembered that she had never got the hang of fire lighting and gave up looking. Having failed there, she decided to move closer to Fluttershy. She was surprisingly warm.
‘Maybe she’s getting better’ Dash thought. She looked at the one piece of bamboo that still pierced her body. ‘If we start moving, that’s going to be a problem’ Rainbow looked to the yellow mare’s wing, which was still stuffed with leaves. ‘I suppose we could pad it’ she theorised ‘I dunno’.

Her thoughts settled again. Feeling acutely thirsty, Rainbow stood up and wandered to the water’s edge. She lowered her head down and drank deeply. As she pulled her head out, she watched the ripples spread across the water, distorting the mirrored moon in its surface. It reminded her of a scene in one of the Daring Do books she had read in Twilight’s library, where the titular mare had been stuck in a jungle with a wounded buffalo and had to stay up guarding it. It was one of the slower points of the novel, and Dash had skim read it, but the moon in the water reminded her of Daring’s thoughts as she gazed up at the moon. She called it the “ultimate treasure in a sky full of wonders”. Dash looked up to the moon. She had always wondered what it was like up there, but never tried to fly high enough. She had always been deterred by the freezing cold, or the thin air, or somepony falling to their doom.

But to land on that white orb was the ultimate goal of the pegasi since they first looked to the sky at night. Rainbow had been told that once, when she was a filly.

And from her time as a filly, a tune drifted into her head. She remembered it vaguely, and still knew the words. She remembered it was a song that had no music, only words, to be remembered by voice alone throughout the ages. The melody was slow, and the song old.

And before she knew it, she found herself singing.

“Do you fear, the tales of the past?
In the far future our legends will last.
And tell of the days when we fought and when we stayed.
When out flew the pegasus soldiers so brave.

No matter what the trial and no matter what’s at stake,
The feeble and the mighty fly together for our sake.
With a trial for these stallions and mares who are so brave,
And through their great commitment all our fears will be allayed.

They fight for the kingdom and they fight for the clouds.
They fight for your live and they battle for the ground,
In defence of the innocent, the young and of the old.
So to our foals their legend will be told.”

Rainbow tilted her head back, and shut her eyes, letting the song flow from her memory.

“So sing.
With me,
The song,
Of the free

So sing, my dear.
With me.
The song
Of the free.

Should you take our foals and the ones who cannot fly
Every last one of them is not afraid to die.
And if you think that you can escape from our sight.
We take it as a challenge and prepare for a fight.

We’ll bring them home and clear the threats away.
The soldiers of the pegasus shall succeed this day.
Through any kind of storm and through any king of rain.
We will fly on t’wards the morrow facing any kind of pain.

If you burn up the land and boil the sea away.
The sky remains our homeland and forever our domain.
When the ground below is engulfed in flame,
The beautiful sky remains our rightful claim.”

Another voice joined Rainbow’s. Dash turned to see Ditzy standing and staring towards the sky, continuing the song.

“So sing
With me.
The song
Of the free.”

Rainbow smiled at Ditzy, who returned it. And with all of her heart, Rainbow dived back into the song. Their voice’s harmonised together in a beautiful chorus.

“So sing my dear
With me.
The song
Of the free.”

Ditzy stopped singing. Rainbow’s voice lowered, as did her gaze. She looked into the swirling mirror at her hooves as she entered the final verse.

“The tales of the future, the tales of the past.
The tales of the strongest and the bravest and the fast.
Their stories will guide you through the world so vast.
So sing up to the heavens and make your song last.”

Rainbow found herself looking into the sky again.
“That was the first song I ever learned” Dash said aloud “You know that, Ditz? When I was little I would sit and listen to my mother sing it long into the night.” Rainbow smiled at the memory. “I used to sit there and grin like the happiest thing in the world and afterwards, every time, she would say to me “You can have a great song too, Dashie”. And I believed her. Why wouldn’t I?”

Rainbow turned around to face Ditzy.
“But now, I guess, if we ever get back from this...there’s not going to be much time for singing, huh?”

Ditzy stood quietly.
“Where’d you learn it?”
“Erm...” Ditzy began, searching her memory. “I don’t know. I haven’t heard it for years. I stopped hearing it altogether after Dinky was born. Seemed a bit weird to sing about a pegasus in front of a unicorn”

They both grinned a little. Dash let out a chuckle.
“Do you want me to sit up?” Ditzy asked suddenly. “Watching, I mean. You look really tired.”
“Ditz, I got this” Rainbow said, waving a hoof dismissively.
“You sure?” Ditzy leaned towards her. One of her eyes lolled downwards, noticing the pile of berries “And you got food too!” she squeaked. “You do too much”

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes.
“You sure you can stay awake until morning?” she asked.
“Uh-huh” Ditzy nodded energetically.
“Alright” Dash said “I guess I could do with some rest. Try not to eat all the berries, and if we run low there’s some more in the bushes over there.” She gestured with her hoof the direction of the berry bushes. With that, she trotted over to Fluttershy and settled down. “Oh, and don’t let any animals eat them either. There was an owl earlier that thought it was being clever. Night Ditz.”

With a yawn, Rainbow fell asleep, leaving Ditzy to stare blankly into the cold night.