Catching the Wind
Catching the Wind
by D. G. D. Davidson
Evening came on, but Rainbow Dash was too nervous to stay in her tent. As the light faded, she climbed over the boulders strewn across the low hill west of camp.
The sky darkened to purple as the sun went down, and, from the midst of the camp, Luna quietly rose into the air and raised the moon. It came up over the horizon large and full, marking the rocky badlands with wan, blue light.
The moon shone for only a moment, however: the black wall of clouds quickly eclipsed it, plunging the desert into darkness. The campfires cast small circles of flickering orange, in which silent silhouettes huddled. Heat lightning flickered back and forth in the sky.
Rainbow opened her wings, flapped, and crested the last boulder. She started at the sight of Big Macintosh sitting quietly on the hilltop, his sandy mane blowing gently in the cool wind, his large green eyes watching the sky.
He glanced at her. “Storm’s a-comin’,” he said in his quiet, deep voice.
“Yeah,” she answered, “and we’re bringing it.” She lowered herself to the ground. When the lightning flickered, she could glimpse some of the thousands of pegasi pushing the clouds forward, moving the front to Draconium. In the morning, they would use the storm in the first attack on the Earth Dragons’ stronghold. Before the battle, Rainbow and the other pegasi resting in the camp would relieve the ponies who had been working all night to keep the storm strong. She would fight in the first wave in the sky, and Big Macintosh would be one of the first soldiers on the ground.
She sat down next to him. He glanced at her again, but then returned to watching the sky.
“Are we doing the right thing?” she asked. “I know we’re planning to free the dragons’ slaves, and the stuff the dragons do to them really makes me mad, but I still wonder.”
He didn’t answer.
“Big Mac?”
“Eeyup.”
Frustration gnawed her, so she turned away from him. Trying to hold a conversation with Big Mac was like floating teeth. He’d visited her every day in the hospital after she’d injured herself while attempting a Sonic Stormboom, and he’d made his intentions clear, but she still couldn’t get more than ten words out of him at a time.
The wind rose and turned cold. Big Mac shivered. Unaffected, Rainbow opened a wing and allowed the breeze to play through her feathers.
He placed a forelimb across her withers, and she decided not to pull away; the cold no doubt bothered him more than it did her, since he didn’t have the benefit of a layer of down in his coat. His leg over her back felt solid and heavy, and she could feel his heart beating slowly against her shoulder.
Ducking her head, she rubbed her front hooves together. “Look, Big Mac, if we survive this, I really . . . I mean, I can’t promise I’ll still be around. I need to fly. I can’t hold still, and I never could. I know your ancestors were settler ponies, and I know your family’s been farming for generations. You’re all about putting down roots. But that’s not me. I don’t think it ever could be me. I don’t know if I can stay in one place forever.”
For a moment, she tried to envision living on the Apple farm and growing old there. She tried to imagine having foals running by her side, gamboling around her hooves, tugging on her teats. The vision was dim and vague; it seemed alien, impossible. She thought, too, of what it would mean if she had foals who couldn’t fly, a family with whom she would be unable to return to Cloudsdale.
She tried to swallow, but her mouth was dry. “Would you please say something, Big Mac? And I mean something besides ‘yup.’”
Big Mac took a deep breath and slid his hoof up to the back of her neck. As he stroked her mane, he spoke softly, and his deep voice rumbled in his chest.
“When I was a young colt, Rainbow Dash, I’d sometimes take one of ol’ Granny’s Mason jars, and on a windy day I’d run out to the back forty to a field where the grass was tall an' there weren’t no trees. There was a little hillock out there, an’ the grass’d wave all around it like a sea. I’d stand on that hill and imagine I was out in the ocean, an’ the farm was gone an’ there weren’t nothin’ around for miles but water full o’ long, snaking ripples made by the wind. I’d hold open that jar. In summer, the wind would blow hot and hard like a blast from an open oven, an’ I’d spread my lips and feel my eyes and gums dry out. In winter, it’d be so cold, it would feel like needles digging through my coat an’ into my skin, pricking me all over. It’d make my eyes water until my tears ran fast and turned to ice on my cheeks. I’d stand in that wind for an hour or so, holdin’ that jar, an’ then I’d clap the lid down tight, run on home, an’ hide that jar under the bed in my room.
“Then a day’d come when there weren’t no wind at all. The air’d be hot an’ thick an’ still, an’ at night I’d lie in bed, stewin’ in my own sweat, just wishin’ for some breath, some breeze. I’d climb out o’ bed, pull out that jar, an’ pop off that lid. I’d always hope that wind’d leap out, blow all around the room, push against my face, an’ make me feel the way I felt when I stood up on that hill, takin’ the full brunt of it.
“But it never did, o’ course. Every time I’d open that jar, I’d just stand there, holdin’ it, listenin’ to the crickets chirpin’ out in the fields, feelin’ that same heat an’ that same thick air, gettin’ no relief. No matter how many times I tried, there weren’t never a thing in that jar at all.”
His hoof stopped stroking her neck, and she looked up at him. His eyes reflected a faint glimmer from the campfires below, and white light flashed in the clouds above his head. He looked very solemn and a little sad.
“I’ve always known I couldn’t capture the wind, Rainbow Dash, but I’ll be durned if I can quit tryin’.”
He brushed her forelock back, leaned down, and kissed her forehead. She slid toward him and buried her face against his neck. There was no telling what tomorrow would bring, but, for the moment, there was this.
Before I discovered FIMFiction, I was working on a lengthy My Little Pony fic over at FanFiction.net. The second season thoroughly jossed the story, and, because I didn’t make a good outline, the story got bogged down by its own subplots, of which there were many. I currently have no intention of finishing it, but I’ve picked out some of its useful parts and recycled them in Princess Trinity. The present scene would not fit in Princess Trinity, but I found that I wanted to write it anyway, so here it is. It is an orphan.
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So, you've recycled some of the best parts of SDL into PT? Perhaps I spoke too soon about Derpy...
I'm kinda hoping RD can win Big Mac's large heart somehow in this story, because there are only so many single stallions in all Equestria (not counting the background ponies). If not, Time Turner might be a good catch, but he's too splashy, I hear...
Always good to see more MacDash.
When you say vignette, I think House On Mango Street. Oh well, I'll read. its probably better
EDIT: this is amazing. I can feel mac's emotion, and Rainbow Dash's too. I commend you, good sir/madam
Oh. Oh, man. That last line from Mac was like a punch to the solar plexus. Bra-freakin-vo, man. I never even considered the idea of MacDash before, but I gotta say, I can suddenly see it working.
867565, 867773
Thanks. I thought of it ages ago and really enjoyed writing it. Perhaps I'll find a place to work it into a larger story. At least it managed to snag 120 hits before disappearing into obscurity.
Hmm, an epic with a side of MacDash? I'd like to read it.
This is a rather good one overall. Once I got a hold of the setting, I felt that the characters reacted like they would, and characterization is always important.
Here, Rainbow's concern is well illustrated, even though she's trying to hide it. And I've got the strangest impression that Mac's little (hah) speech emphasizes that he reflects her concerns as well. Maybe even a bit of longing. 
To the groups!
868697
Ah, I made the MacDash Group! I am honored.
I'm fond of the idea that the strong, silent Big Mac might have hidden depths under that reticence. If you just gotta ship, MacDash seems to me the most interesting pairing simply because the characters are such opposites. I think it's funny that it seemed immediately obvious to me, whereas it is apparently an unpopular ship overall.
If you want the context for the scene, the link in the author's note will take you to the incomplete story at FanFiction.net. Even though I wrote it, I can't honestly recommend it, though a few people have begged me to complete it and they might one day break down my resolve. At the very least, it does contain more MacDash.
868731 Not to undermine your gratitude, but because MacDash fics are still so rare, I add all the MacDash I can find to the group. You actually have to try hard to NOT get in, which is easy if you're story is...sick.
The irony is that it's so unpopular, even though the two are the most shipped with everypony else.
And I'd like to read the story, but I'm pressed for time myself. Not that I've checked, but I think I'll wait for the new story to progress a bit further. No pressure.
Keep Writing.
868752 "You actually have to try hard to NOT get in, which is easy if your story is . . . sick."
868906 "This story was tasteful and sweet."
Thanks to you both. I could probably write a lengthy screed on the subject of tastefulness in romance, but that would be more appropriate for a blog post than a story combox. This modest story fragment might be clunky, overwritten, pedestrian, or whatever adjectives a reader may supply (I won't argue with any of them), but at least I made it through without crude references to body parts or allusions to kinky activity. Levity is one of romance's many enemies.
i hope you continue this into something it would make a good series itself
Does it have to end here?
That last line from Mac nailed it, bravo!
870863
Eh, well, I wouldn't want to see it in the show myself, either. I think the show's focus on platonic friendship is quite refreshing, and I hope the writers keep the focus there.
864933
Hey, wait a minute, Eric, are you telling me you don't pair Time Turner with your beloved Derpy?
873277
Of course I pair Derpy with Time Turner! It is canon, after all (see below). And it's no mystery who gave Derpy the rose in "Fall Weather Friends." I'm just imagining what would happen if Time Turner traveled to an alternate past where he never dated Miss Ditzy Doo and thus she never fell head over hooves in love with him.
images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120211155820/mlp/images/thumb/3/3b/Town_Square_Exterior_S2E17.png/640px-Town_Square_Exterior_S2E17.png
Hearts and Hooves Day, the bridge on the right
images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110131221542/mlp/images/e/ea/DerpyRose.png
874024
But you just said he might be a good catch for Rainbow Dash.
Hmm . . . Rainbow Dash and Derpy Hooves fighting over Time Turner. I feel a fic coming on . . .
874324
I also said that there's only a handful of single stallions in Equestria. So Turner works for most of the mares. Personally, I still think Soarin' is the best match for RD.
Are you suggesting a love triangle fanfic? Now, where could you have gotten that idea? I know this guy who likes to do love quadrangle fanfics...
877521 "So Turner works for most of the mares."
Wuh? What is this, a horse herd? . . . Oh.
Eh, I'm all about the love polygons. At least two polygons per story is my usual policy, except maybe in Assassinate Princess Celestia!, in which the protagonist just doesn't have the time for that nonsense, nor the interest.
877542
Yeah, that's one of weird things about writing shipfic for anthropomorphic horses: typical horse herd behavior is turned upside down. Don't get the wrong idea; I'm still assuming the ponies in Equestria are monogamous (e.g. the Cakes, Shining Armor and Cadence, Rarity always wanting to settle down). I'm not an economist (we might need to get Nate here to help me out), but I'm guessing based on supply and demand principles that a shortage makes people less picky and a surplus makes one more picky. So, assuming economics, monogamy, and the realistic stallion-mare disparity, I think the stallions will probably be choosier about the mares they court, because there's more than enough for everypony. (Notice stallions like Big Mac aren't that aggressive, again, because if things don't work out with Miss Cherilee, well, there's always RD and so on). The mares, on the other hoof, might be less choosy for the opposite reason and perhaps more competitive and prone to fight over the few available stallions.
encrypted-tbn2.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcREwSxOLH0-1XhJFVx736ETBHopozc7Y9qDqYMf1jtLNufgZUUZTg
I guess that Rainbow Dash vs. Derpy idea isn't so far-fetched after all...
Of course, there's more to romantic love than economics...
Wonderful! This is the first non slash story with RD I've seen, and it was fantastic.dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/Twilight_Sparkle_lolface.png
Please, good sir. Write this story in full.
It's just all so beautiful and sadly fitting that Big Mac compares Rainbow Dash to the fleeting yet powerful wind of his foalhood.
I can feel Rainbow's uncertainty and fear of being forced to be tied down to live a life she could not picture herself living and Mac's utter understanding of what he's going into falling in love with her and not expecting her to change for him, to give up her freedom and her very being for him. Just accepting and enjoying the time they have together, however brief it might be.
Forgive me for the redundant rambling, but this one shot manages to hit all the right buttons everytime I read this. I demand more of this pairing from you, good sir, for great justice.
1615355
That you have read it more than once is quite a compliment. Thank you.
What's a vignette?
I do not like MacDash
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= NOOOO!!!! But that part when big mac talked about that jar I had to hold in some tears. 
But I support Fluttermac! 
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=
864933 Time Turner? You mean Dr.Whooves? I think he's got derpy on his side,
3256138
I am not a strong shipper one way or the other myself, but I formerly liked the idea of Big Mac steadily and stalwartly and mostly silently breaking through Rainbow's shell. But since I wrote this, canon has established him with a pretty serious shell of his own, so I no longer have any idea how I'd make the ship work if I were to attempt to develop it.
3256138 Don't like, don't comment. Personally I hate Fluttermac.
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