Waiting For You

by Rainb0w Dashie

Chapter Seven: The Day of the Storm

“I don’t even care about the dreams anymore, I just want to get some sleep..”

Rainbow Dash sailed through the pointed-arch windows of her cloud-home and landed somewhere inside. She maneuvered through the familiar darkness, finding the staircase to her bedroom with relative ease.

Ascending the steps, she opened the door to her bedroom and ambled inside; quickly feeling the day’s adrenaline drain out her hooves and into the plush clouds that made up the floor.

“I don’t want to eat, I don’t want brush my mane, I just want to sleep.”

She was talking to herself.

During the flight home, Rainbow Dash had parted company with Gilda, explaining she wasn’t in the best of moods for dinner. After much protest, and much to the behest of the gryphon, Rainbow Dash was able to escape in exchange for a free lunch on top of the dinner she’d already promised as well as her assistance in re-appropriating the tapestry for the gryphon.

After four hours of round-trip flying on top of the accumulated fatigue of the last few days, the weary pegasus agreed without challenge. She just wanted to go home.

“My wings hurt, my hooves hurt, and. Oh Celestia, I’m soaked with sweat... Buck it, I’ll shower in the morning.”

Rainbow Dash tore off her flight goggles from around her neck and tossed them into the darkness, hearing a hearty clunk a moment later as they collided with her dresser.

“I’m not doing nothing tomorrow.” Rainbow Dash lept into her cloud-bed, feeling tiny tingles of pleasure crawl up her hooves as soon as she pulled up her sheets.

“Cancelling all of my plans, sleeping till noon. Yeah, that’s the plan!”

The pegasus arched her back, stretching her hooves and spine. She let out a moan as she she felt tingles travel from her hooves, up her back, and all the way up to the base of her neck, buzzing in her ears. It was an electric sensation. A physical release of all the day’s stress, almost as powerful as a sexual experience; three seconds or so of melatonic euphoria.

But then it vanished, and fatigue took its place.

The pegasus sunk into her cloud bed and squirmed into a comfortable position.

“That’s the plan.” She whispered as flash-memories from the day played out in her mind.

Her friends eating lunch in the throne room turned into an image of an oxbow lake she saw while flying over the Whinnysippi River. Seeing Gilda outside Twilight’s castle transformed to the two of them racing the Equestrian Express as it chugged down the track. All the while every conversation she had that day played at once. From Twilight’s morning history sermon to a conversation she had with Gilda about feather preening techniques.

Like a little bout of mania except the longer she lay, eyes closed, the farther away and less chaotic her recollections became, until even the physical world itself soon began to feel like it was melting away.

“That’s... the plan.”

The nightmares didn’t come this time. She didn’t even fall asleep in any conventional sense. Her mind was too active for her to enter into any meaningful sleep cycles. So Rainbow Dash simply lay half asleep as images from her trip through the everfree forest flashed through her mind. The mania returning in kind.

She saw herself maneuvering through the trees, walking down the train tracks, spotting the train car. Each vision getting more grim than the last. She saw the cobblestone path, the haunting building, the grim desolation inside its halls. Her body felt heavy, like she was finally on the verge of slumber. She didn’t dare open her eyes, so she simply kept them shut. Enduring the visions until all Rainbow Dash could think about was the upstairs bedroom and what she found in one of the bunk beds.

She tossed and turned, trying to push the image out of her head. She tried thinking of other things in hopes the distraction would help her fall asleep, but in every attempt the images came back clearer and stronger, until all she could think of were the two small skeletons in the middle of the bunk bed.

“Celestia damn it!” Rainbow Dash shot upright. “I just want to go to sleep!”

The pegasus threw one of her pillows into the dark and slumped back into bed. She turned on her side and saw that her bedside clock had read that two hours had past.

‘Was I really asleep, for that long? It only felt like five minutes!”

In a moment of desperation she flicked on her bed-side lamp and dug through one of the drawers in her nightstand, pulling out a bottle of sedatives. The bottle was a leftover from Rainbow Dash’s training at the Wonderbolt Academy. Weeks of nonstop flying drills and exercises that would leave her muscles sore and aching to the point where she couldn’t even sleep. She found the bottle in her locker one morning with a note from her captain saying they could help her sleep but only to use them sparingly as they had pretty nasty side effects. That she should only use them as a last resort.

Rainbow Dash looked at the bottle for a long moment, debating whether or not a night of sleep would be worth the possible side effects. She debated the alternative as well, not taking them and risking another round of nightmares and waking up screaming into the night. She was at an impasse. She was so tired, but every time she closed her eyes the skeletons were there, waiting for her.

“Side effects be damned,” she said and unscrewed the top off the bottle. “I want to sleep.”

Rainbow Dash took a hoof-full of pills and threw the bottle back inside the drawer, switching off her lamp and falling to her bed in a huff. She closed her eyes, ignoring the ghastly images as she waited for the pills to take effect.

She waited, but she didn’t feel anything. She could feel her pillow underneath her head. She could feel how her cloud bed conformed to the curves of her body. She could even feel her light summer bed sheets as they covered her. But she did not feel like the pills were doing anything. She didn’t feel drowsy.

Rainbow Dash tried to remember what happened the last time she took the sedatives, but that was well over a year ago. She tried to remember how long it took for the drugs to take effect but she couldn’t picture it in her mind. Couldn’t picture herself laying in the uncomfortable cots in the academy barracks; kept awake by her sore muscles and achy wings.

She couldn’t even picture the events of the afternoon anymore. All the random flashing images from her pool of memories had drifted far off into the ether, until all that was left was blackness.

Rainbow Dash considered getting out of bed and making a midnight snack or maybe even showering after all. Doing anything while she waited for the sedatives, when suddenly the sound of a door slamming open captured her attention.

“Honey wake up!” a frantic voice could be heard. “We have to go!”

The pegasus’ eyes snapped open. She shot up, her head dizzy, her vision blurry, her throat dry.

“Come oooon, we have to go!”

Through the haze of arousal Rainbow Dash could see she wasn’t in her room anymore. This room was much larger and smelled of dirt and hay and timber; smelled like an earth-pony’s house. Except she could also smell the light odor of woodsmoke as well, as if somepony had lit a hearth. As her eyes focused she could see a dirt floor and the bed she was in was made entirely of scratchy hay. Light was shining in from the hallway and in the open door stood the silhouette of a mare.

“Get up!” The mare shouted. “Pack a saddlebag, get your sister, we have to leave, NOW!”

She sounded scared, like she had been crying, but she didn’t stay in the doorway for long. As Rainbow Dash heard her hoofsteps echo down the hallway she could feel a real sense of panic overtake her, and she began to shove all the contents of a nearby nightstand into a saddlebag and galloped into the hallway as well.

A door opened from a neighboring bedroom and out of it stepped a yellow filly with a pink mane; the one from the train.

“What’s going on?” She rubbed her eyes.

“We have to leave!” Rainbow Dash said frantically.

“What? Why?”

But before Rainbow Dash could answer or even process what was happening, the mare from the doorway reappeared in the hallway with her own hastily packed saddlebag.

“Get outside!” The mare said, pushing them down the hall.

“But, I forgot my Luna doll!” The yellow filly protested.

“No time!” The mare cried and ushered them both outside.

The trio emerged into the housing district of an Equestrian town that looked a lot like Ponyville, except it didn’t look like any part of Ponyville Rainbow Dash had ever seen before. It had the same wooden houses with thatched hay gabled roofs, but they were densely packed together like Hoofington or South Trotsdale, and instead of the rough cobblestone streets this town had neatly laid greystone brickwork paved up and down the entire street.

This wasn’t the only thing that seemed immediately out of place to Rainbow Dash in the first few moments of stepping outside. The sky was a bright orange, as if the sun was about to set. This would not be out of place if it were not for the smell of ash and ember. Looking around she could see the full moon was shining high in the sky and the bright orange was not, in fact, the final remnants of a sunset; but flames. The entire town was on fire!

Other ponies were running through the streets. Some were screaming, some were crying. Most of them carried what little possessions they could grab before they had to evacuate.

“Go, Run!” The mare nudged at the foal's, trying to get them to move.

“But what about my Luna doll?” The yellow filly said, trying to go back inside.

The mare shut the door in the filly’s face. “I said there’s no time!” she cried as she pulled the ponies into the street.

“But mommy, it’s my favorite doll”

“I SAID THERE’S NO TIME!”

An explosion came from a nearby house. A flaming barrel had flown through the air, breaking against the side of the house and spilling fire and burning coals into the street. This was followed by a barrage of similar projectiles and flaming arrows which caught many more of the houses alight.

“RUN!” The mare shouted.

There was no argument this time, Both Rainbow Dash and the yellow Filly began to run as fast as they could, led by the mare. By now the air was thick with smoke and ash, and Rainbow Dash could barely breath. She coughed haggardly as she ran, her chest was tight and her lungs felt like they themselves were on fire.

The trio stopped in one of the market squares. The air wasn’t as thick here as as it was in the housing district, so they were able to catch their breath. If only for a moment as soon another barrage of flaming projectiles came down from the sky like orange rain.

“Mommy what’s happening?” The yellow filly was crying.

“I don’t know sweetie.” The mare said. She was crying too.

Rainbow Dash was crying as well. Not because of the fire, but from the sheer and utter confusion of what was happening to her. Where was she? What was this town? Why was it on fire? Who was this yellow filly? And more importantly, who was this mare? This mare wasn’t Rainbow Dash’s mother. Rainbow Dash’s mother lived in cloudsdale and was a part time cloud-former. She didn’t live in an earth pony town and she definitely didn't have two daughters. Rainbow Dash was an only child!

“We have to get to the St. Hoofsburg gate.” The mare wiped her eyes just as another wave of ponies began to evacuate their burning homes, their mournful wails filling the air as they watched their homes and business go up in flames. “We’ll be safe in the woods.”

“St. Hoofsburg?” Rainbow Dash was even more confused. Was that the name of the town? She’d never heard that name before. She’d heard of St. Hoofington and Trotsburg, but never St. Hoofsburg.

“What’s so safe about the forest?” Rainbow Dash tried to ask, but it had no effect. Either the mare didn’t hear her or she couldn’t hear her. She simply ushered them to begin running again.

“Hey! I’m talking to you!” Rainbow Dash shouted as she ran. But the only response the mare made were wordless sobs in between gasps for breath as she guided the foals to the outskirts of town.

Here the cobblestone street began to bend around a massive stone statue like a river would bend around a boulder. Rounding the statue Rainbow Dash could see it depicted a saintly greyed stallion tending to a group of frolicking foals. Rainbow Dash stopped in front of the statue. On it hung a plaque engraved with the words:

“The day of the storm is not the day to be fixing the thatch. Be patient. The sun will smile again. ”

The statue glowed a faint red-orange as the town behind it burned, and the juxtaposition of what the statue was meant to represent with the current destruction of the town almost made Rainbow Dash feel sick to her stomach.

The pegasus then felt a tug on the scruff of her neck and was pulled away from the statue..

“We don’t have time to stop!” The mare said through gritted teeth and dragged Rainbow Dash past the St. Hoofsburg city gate and into the Equestrian fields. The mare began to say something else but all Rainbow dash remembered was the sound of her sharp and sudden shriek...

In the fields Rainbow Dash could see they had run directly into the maw of a waiting gryphon army that had assembled in a v-formation around the city’s gate.

In the half-light of the burning town they stood holding swords, spears, axes, spiked maces, and other blunt weaponry, while many more hovered above them clutching bows and flaming arrows in their claws. Behind them were rows of gryphons loading pitch and barrels onto catapults before setting them alight and firing them into the town.

But perhaps what was most striking about the infantry was the armor they wore; Golden breastplates with blackened wings carved into the center. They gleamed in the wavering fire-light against the black of night like the moonshine reflected off a midnight ocean. Like the final embers of a dying campfire. Like the whites of the eyes of the townsponies that had begun to filter out of the burning town and into the waiting gryphon’s ambush.

And in that moment everything became still. Nopony moved. Nopony spoke. No gryphon lifted a sword, nor fired an arrow, nor loaded a bow. Both sides stood motionless, gazing transfixed at one another with grim and phantom faces.

There was no sound.

The discordant chorus of the town's destruction was far away and the screams of the fleeing towns ponies had faded to the point where the entire field almost felt like an image trapped in time or some kind of vision from the primordial mists; a dream. But the liminal veil was broken with the sound of a battle horn and then chaos descended upon the towns ponies.

The gryphons nocked their bows, and fired dozens of flaming arrows into the crowd. The townsponies scattered in all directions, but the gryphons squeezed in closer, raising their weapons at any pony in reach, and soon all that could be heard was screams and the grating sound of steel on flesh.

Some ponies tried to run back into the town, but more gryphons had descended from the sky, perched along the rooftops to swoop down like hawks on anypony that tried to flee. Other gryphons picked up the townsponies, flying fifty of sixty feet high and simply dropping them back to the ground. They sliced with their swords, bashed with their maces, skewered with their spears and polearms, and those brave few ponies who tried fighting back proved no match against the mighty gryphons and their golden armor; and served merely as a temporary stopgap for other ponies to try and escape.

The trio ran back into the town, somehow managing to escape the carnage. They ran past scurrying ponies trying to flee the fires only to be carried away by gryphons flying down from the sky. Rainbow Dash looked up to see several menacing black shapes perched on the roofs, taunting the ponies below.

“Run all you want little ponies, you’ll never be able to hide!”

They ran back into the burning town, through alleyways, and took a shortcut across a bridge into one of the markets. As they galloped towards the west gate Rainbow Dash watched helplessly as a salvo of flaming barrels sailed through the air like shooting stars before exploding the ground and nearby buildings. Sending chunks of glass, dirt, and rock in all directions.

One of the barrels hit close to them, blowing out the windows of a nearby dairy shop; knocking the mare to the ground. Rainbow Dash and the yellow filly helped her to her hooves and guided her along as she limped to the western gate, only to witness another battalion of gryphons assembling just outside.

It was all one big trap. Fire from the arrows and pitched barrels lured the ponies out of the town where the gryphons waited to cut them down. If they didn’t perish at the talons of the gryphon horde then they surely would by asphyxiation from running back into the burning town.

Rainbow’s head was in a swirl of confusion. The smell of fire. The sounds of dying ponies. The pain in her chest from running and inhaling too much smoke. Not to mention the yellow filly and the mysterious mare who had been dragging her all over town who was now frantically trying to get Rainbow Dash’s attention, gesturing and speaking to her but all Rainbow Dash could hear was a low distant ringing in her ears.

Finally the mare gave up trying to speak to Dash and grabbed her by the hoof, pulling her in the direction of a side alley that exited out of the town.

They ran into the darkness of the Equestrian field, guided only by the dim light of the still-burning town. They made it halfway to the neighboring treeline when an eagle’s cry pierced the night, followed by the sounds of a body hitting the ground and sharp shrill cries of terror.

“Mommy!” Rainbow heard the yellow filly cry.

As she turned, she saw the mare lying in a heap on the ground. Her hooves twisted and bent, and standing atop her roosted a gryphon who had swooped down and sank its claws into the mares back and stomach.

The yellow filly sobbed uncontrollably and Rainbow Dash could only look in horror as the gryphon unfurled its mighty wings and looked down at the two ponies; clutching a sword in one of its claws.

It was Gilda, of this Rainbow Dash was sure. This gryphon had the same body, same eye-markings, same wings, same fringed feathers that hung over her face. There was no other gryphon this could have been except for Gilda.

Rainbow Dash and gilda looked at each other for a long while, and in that moment Rainbow Dash truly feared for the first time that she was going to die. She could feel it in her stomach, in her bones. This gryphon was going to kill her, just like it had so effortlessly done to the mare mere moments before.

But the gryphon never broke her gaze with Rainbow Dash. Never lifted her sword or charged at the two ponies. Instead, after a long moment of looking, the gryphon flared her wings and took off into the air, slicing the wings off a fleeing pegasus who crash landed in the field some ten feet away. Then the gryphon was gone, flying back towards the town and disappearing into the smoky haze.

Without another thought Rainbow Dash grabbed the yellow filly and pried her off of her dead mother, folding their wings together to stop her from attempting to run back and retreated into the forest.

She didn’t know where they were running, in fact she didn’t even know why they were in the woods at all. Only that the mare had told them they would be safe in the woods. And that was reason reason enough for Rainbow Dash, so into the woods they went.

As Rainbow Dash galloped, the clangor of swords had died away. The shouting of the slaughter was hushed, and silence laid on the trees. She stopped and looked around. The gryphons, the town, and even the yellow filly were gone. Armageddon hadn’t actually come.

She could no longer see the red streaks in the sky nor could she any longer hear the dirge of the invaded town. Only the cry of an owl echoed in the dark.

She looked up only to see her cloudhome floating quietly above her head like a silent fortress, a flag flapping in the breeze, and nothing remained of her nightmare except a saddlepack on her back filled with all the contents of her nightstand and a foal-sized log she had drug through the woods.

***

Spike, Twilight's dragon assistant was in the castle’s kitchen making himself an after-midnight snack, half-humming a tune to himself about how his sandwich lettuce was as green as his scales were, when a knocking began to echo through the castle.

Poking his head out of the kitchen he listened intently, thinking he had imagined the sound when again came a series of knocks on the main door.

As he walked down the main hallway the knocks grew louder and more frantic, and as Spike approached the castle's door the knob began to jiggle as well; as if somepony were desperately striving for ingress. Spike undid the bolt that held the door closed and went to open the door, but before he could open it even an inch the door flew open and knocked him off balance.

"Where's Twilight?" Rainbow Dash said as Spike fell to the floor. Her eyes were wild like a startled fawn.

"What do you need Twilight for?" Spike said from the floor. "It's like two in the morning."

"Take me to her." Rainbow Dash said, looking around erratically.

"I don't think now's the best time." Spike hesitated. "She's-" but before Spike could lift himself off the ground or even finish his sentence, Rainbow Dash ran off to look for Twilight. Rushing from room to room looking for the royal bedchamber.

As she searched her adrenaline wore off the point where she began to notice the emptiness of the castle again, almost immediately. The air was charged, more amplified than normal, and Rainbow couldn't tell if it was because of her nightmarish experience or simply the fact that it was after midnight, but she had the overwhelming feeling that she didn't belong in the castle. Like she was being watched, and by the time her excitement had completely faded away she realized she had gotten herself lost.

"I can't find the stupid bedchamber!" the frightened pegasus shouted, here voice echoing.

"Up the stairs and to the left." Spike said nonchalantly, walking past Rainbow Dash holding a half eaten sandwich. He cut through an adjacent hallway and Rainbow Dash followed as he effortlessly navigated the labyrinthian castle.

Spike opened the door to Twilight's bedchamber. Light flooded in from the hallway and fell upon the face of the sleeping alicorn.

"She won't be happy with you waking her up." Spike said with his mouth full. "She had a late night."

Rainbow Dash didn't listen and practically galloped over to the sleeping alicorn and shook her awake.

"No quesadillas," Twilight said still dreaming. "I want to save myself for my special somepony."

"Twilight wake up," Rainbow yelled. "I need your help."

"Rainbow?" Twilight was groggy, still dreaming. "what are you doing in the mayor’s office?"

"Twilight I need your help." Rainbow began to frantically ramble. "we found the building last night. when we went into one of the bedrooms we found a couple skeletons.” Rainbow was getting in twilight's face, waking her up more, and she had to use her magic to push the pegasus away. "and when I got home I went to sleep and and and woke up in this burning house inside a town being besieged by an army of gryphons that chased me into the woods beneath my house." Twilight simply sat in her bed, watching the hysterical pegasus babble on and grew increasingly irritated. "and I don't know what I'm going to do. My holiday's over in three days, what if this keeps happening when I go back to the wonderbolts? What if Fleetfoot of Soarin see me like this? Spitfire's going to-"

Twilight's horn suddenly illuminated and zapped a bolt of magic at Rainbow Dash. She took a few unbalanced steps before her eyes rolled back into her head and she collapsed to the floor.

"What did you just do?" Spike exclaimed.

"Put her under a sleep spell," Twilight said bitterly and angrily resituated herself under her covers. "Whatever's wrong with her we can deal with it in the morning."

Comments

[Terran34]

Okay, Many curveballs just got thrown at me. Like a pony x griffon war. I suppose I could see that just from their past demeanor in the show alone. Also, I'm guessing that whatever pony RD is seeing isn't her, but a survivor of whatever this event was. As to why she's seeing what she is, I guess I gotta keep reading for that. As for the Gilda revelation, I doubt it's actually her. Probably a descendent.

though of course, nothing was more glorious than the following line.

"No quesadillas," Twilight said still dreaming. "I want to save myself for my special somepony."

Was so out of left-field it caught me off guard and I died

[BirdsBooksBrownies]

I'd so totally say something snarky/teasing about the quesadilla line to her