The Paladin of Prismatic Light

by Keeper of time RD

Chapter 7: Faith and Temptation

Rainbow Dash darted from one cloud to the next, disappearing into the sky-bound puff of water vapor. At the moment she was above the northwest edge of the Liberty Forest, right on the boundary between the forest and the town.

If somepony had asked her why she was hiding in a cloud she’d have said that it was because her mentor still had her practicing the art of stealth. However, the fearful tremble in her eyes as they searched the skies for any sign that she’d been spotted betrayed the truth.

Of course, if somepony were around to ask her anything she wouldn’t be feeling quite so anxious about the fact that today was the first time she’d been asked to go retrieve the waters of night and day alone.

The weight of the kegs proved her mission was effectively complete, and given how fast she could fly and how close the Liberty Castle was she was effectively home free. But that’s when she spotted a glowing orange hole in the sky and a lone shadow pegasus tugging at its dark rope. The rope was taut from somepony putting up a good struggle on the other end.

From her past encounters with them, Rainbow Dash knew that the pony on the other side of that energy sucking rope wouldn’t win this rigged game of tug-of-war, not unless she unrigged it for them. Or rigged it in their favor.

Bursting forth from her cloudy hiding place she became a prismatic blur shooting across the sky.

By the time the Shadow pegasus noticed the colorful streak barreling down on it, it had just enough time to blink before a silver bladed wing cleaved it in two. It managed to blink a second time as it admired its two halves dissolving into specs of white light before nothing was left of the pegasus-like spell.

With the shadow gone its dark rope also began to evaporate and the sudden slack on it proved that the pony on the other end had pulled free.

Rainbow Dash quickly returned to the edge of the portal.

“Hey! You okay?” she called out as she got there.

No response came. And looking through the portal it wasn’t hard to see why. In the skies beyond the ring of magic Dash could see a brown pegasus hightailing it away from the portal as fast as their wings could carry them. Judging from the wing span said brown pegasus was a stallion, but with the distance he’d gained from the portal, that was about all she could tell about the pony she’d just saved.

Then she looked down and it hit her.

Equestria, Ponyville. They where right there. All she had to do was fly two feet to the other side of the portal and she’d be home.

She made the slightest movement toward her home and then stopped. Her gaze shifting to her silver-clad wings. The wing blades belonged here, to this world. On top of that Storm Gale, Mister Weatherright and heaven knows how many other Equestrian pegasi in this world weren’t with her.

No. She couldn’t leave them behind.

The image of her friends flashed before her eyes. Yes. They would be worried about her. After all she’d been in this world for over a week now. But they were safe in Equestria. It was the ponies here that needed a hero right now. Equestria could afford to wait for her to come back when she could do it along side the others who belong there. She just wished she could send a messaged to her friends to say she was okay.

A glance at the portal left a frown on her face. Although there wasn’t really any surprise seeing that, with the shadow that had made it defeated, the portal was slowly shrinking. And from the looks of it she had maybe two minutes before it collapsed entirely, not exactly enough time to get back the castle, find something to write on and with, come back and toss an actual note through. No, if she was going to send a message it needed to be something on her right now.

But what did she have right now? The wing blades. Nope, those belonged here. So did the small barrels of magic water. Other than that she had… herself.

With an idea flashing in her mind, she quickly undid the clasp of the wing blade’s vest. Pulling it half off she freed one of her wings from the silver sheaths, and with a violent flap of her wings she managed to shake free a lose feather. Taking the feather in her mouth she returned to the shrinking portal, spat out the feather and gave a flap of her wings to make a gust pushing it all the way through the hole in the sky.

Dash smiled as she watched the wind on the other side of the portal take the blue feather toward Ponyville.

Yet when the portal finally collapsed and shattered into a shower of sparks that quickly flickered out of existence, she frowned.

“Really? A feather, that’s the best you could come up with? You’re not the only pegasus in Equestria with blue feathers you know. It’s not like anypony is even going to notice a random feather falling out of the sky,” she muttered to herself.

* * * * * * *

A gentle breeze carried the sent of apples through the orchard clearing where Scootaloo sat alone. Well, as alone as she ever was these days. Ever since Celestia’s decree went out informing everypony of the mysterious disappearances targeting pegasus ponies and strongly encouraging pegasi to never be alone, her friends had become a constant shadow for her.

Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle where whispering to themselves near the base of their clubhouse ramp, trying to give Scootaloo some semblance of space, even if they refused to let her out of their sight. On top of that Big Macintosh was apple bucking not far in another direction. If anything today would be the last day the three friends would be able to use their clubhouse for a while, seeing as the adults where running out of threes with apples to harvest in line of sight of it.

Why was Scootaloo sitting alone? Long story short, Sweetie Belle’s attempt to cheer up her pegasus friend had backfired and only made the sting of Rainbow Dash’s absence all the worse.

It probably didn’t help that today was suppose to be a meeting of the Rainbow Dash fan club, but Scootaloo had to cancel it. It’s a little hard to hold a meeting to talk about all the awesome things Rainbow Dash had done since the last meeting when nopony had seen Rainbow Dash since the last meting.

Or that they’d called off the search parties looking for Rainbow Dash the other day.

Yeah, that was definitely the big one. Scootaloo had finally gained the attention of her hero and even got her to agree to be her honorary big sister at a recent camping trip, and now just like that she was sisterless again.

It just wasn’t fair.

Although to be fair it wasn’t Sweetie’s fault that Rainbow Dash was missing. Or that Scootaloo had sacrificed her entire Rainbow Dash feather collection to Twilight’s spells only to be rewarded with absolutely nothing. Not that anypony else knew that. She hadn’t bothered to mention that Twilight’s last attempt before giving up on the locator spells had also consumed the last of her collection.

If only she could have a sign that her honorary big sister was all right.

Then a blue feather came floating down, landing right on Scootaloo’s muzzle. A blue pegasus feather.

With the flick of her neck she grasped the feather in her mouth and looked skyward.

Nothing, there was no pony there.

In the blink of an eye the orange filly shot past her friends and darted up the ramp. The filly’s sprint didn’t come to an end until she’d made it all the way up to the observation tower. Which was basically the small room with the telescope in it that was above the foliage of the tree that the rest of the clubhouse was in.

“Scootaloo! Are you okay?”

Naturally her friends had followed her.

“Is there something up there?”

The obvious question once they saw how Scootaloo was leaning out the window, scanning the sky. It was with a broad smile that the young pegasus answered them.

“No, there’s absolutely nothing up there.”

“What’s that?”

Another obvious question that was asked as soon as her friends saw the feather grasped in Scootaloo’s mouth.

“It’s a Rainbow Dash feather! It just fell from the sky,” Scootaloo said, looking happy for the first time in days.

“But didn’t you just said nothing’s up there?”

“What makes ya so sure it’s a Rainbow Dash feather?”

The first question came from Sweetie Belle. The latter came from Apple Bloom.

Scootaloo pushed out her jaw and curled her upper lip, causing the feather the stand up and cover her nose. Through which she took a deep breath. Then she let her mouth settle, sticking the feather straight out again.

Taking the hint, Apple Bloom stepped forward and took a whiff of the feather. After pausing for a moment, the yellow farm filly pushed her muzzle to Scootaloo’s side and took a whiff of Scootaloo’s wings.

“Ah don’t know. Pegasus feathers all smell the same to me.”

“Then trust me. It’s a Rainbow Dash feather.”

Apple Bloom was about to open her mouth again when Sweetie pulled her aside and whispered in her ear.

“Does it really matter if it’s really from Rainbow Dash or not? This is the first time I’ve seen Scoot happy since the disappearance. And I don’t know about you, but I want the old, happy Scootaloo back. So if letting her believe that that feather came from Rainbow Dash makes her happy, does it really matter if it did or not?”

Apple Bloom hesitated for a moment and then spoke with a tone that tried to be encouraging, but it still carried a hint of her doubt.

“So, Scootaloo, if that’s from Rainbow Dash, where do you think she is?”

“I don’t know. But at least I know she didn’t forget about me.”

Comments

[Keeper of time RD]

7865023

Perhaps not his wisest decision. But being a 300-year old event, the exact reasons and circumstances of that decision have long since been lost to time.