Rainbow's End

by Bronyxy

2 Missing In Action

Rainbow Dash picked herself up slowly and painfully. That had not been a good landing and she looked around to see if anypony had watched her ungraceful arrival. Nopony was anywhere near, except possibly in that cottage a few hundred yards away. She stood and checked out the source of all the aches and pains that that were vying for her attention and gave a little groan. Definitely top of the list of hurts was her right wing which did not furl neatly to her body as the left one did; it wasn’t broken and would heal, but in the meantime it would hurt like hell and she wouldn’t be able to fly.

She set off for the cottage, one step, then another, then floomp! as she sank to the tops of her legs in a snowdrift, the shock of the fall jarring her sprained wing. She cursed and dragged herself out, doubting that this would be the last hidden trap she would fall into before she reached her goal.

The lights were on at the cottage and it held out the promise of warmth and company, two things she really liked the idea of round about now. Her short walk became the assault course she feared it might be and was very grateful when her hooves finally made repeated contact with a path that led up to the front door. As each successive hoofstep struck through less and less snow, she started to question who or what she may find here; perhaps Dr Caballeron or even The Smooze?

By the time she knocked at the door she was so past caring, but still felt a little flutter when she heard a bolt being slid back and watched the light spill out as the door cracked open inwards.
“We don’t want no carol singers nor yodellers round here, just ‘cus its Hearth’s Warming; now sling yer hook!” came a coarse voice from inside before the door was slammed shut and an overhang of snow fell with a floomph! next to Rainbow.

She sat back on her haunches, utterly stunned and suddenly feeling very sad. She had put herself into danger to help the likes of him and really needed his help, but even a friendly word was too much to ask. Rainbow felt her eyes start to sting and a lump form in her throat and didn’t even try to hold back the torrent of emotion that deluged from her in loud sobs. She didn’t know where she was, but she was certainly miles away from home and she was injured and didn’t know where else to go.

Eventually, the door cracked open again, but she couldn’t bring herself to look around and face further rejection; the last time still stung her badly enough.
“Come on young ‘un” came the voice, a little less harsh than last time “You’ll catch yer death out there.”
Rainbow hung her head down to the ground and turned, walking in through the door without even looking up or acknowledging the stallion’s change of heart.

“Looks like that wing needs a splint” he said, “What are yuh doin’ round these parts anyway?”
“I’m a weather pony” she replied meekly, all the fight drained out of her.
“Hah! A weather pony with a busted wing, eh?” he continued “What do you do, round up the clouds when they’re on the ground?”
She was so done with this conversation, she just couldn’t be bothered to answer. Either he was going to help, or she would be thrown out again. After all she had been through, she suddenly didn’t care.

“C’mon, let’s see if I’ve got an old belt.”
She stood near the door of what was a sparsely furnished front room with a log fire roaring ahead of her. The smell of wood smoke caught her nostrils and the heat started to melt the snow from her legs and her underbelly, creating little puddles on the floor. As the heat started to permeate into her aching body she gave an involuntary shudder and a cascade of water droplets fell to join the puddles on the floor. Somehow, she found she couldn’t stop shaking as the shock began to catch up to her.

The stallion came back bearing a thick leather belt, not a nice shiny one used for fashion, but a rough old thing that had probably been used for something agricultural and messy. He ran it round her an gently lifted the right wing up into the correct position. Rainbow winced at the pain and cried out involuntarily; she had not intended to show any weakness to this stranger and chastised herself inwardly.
“There, there young’un” he said with a much greater tenderness in his voice than before and gently tied the wing in place “Good news is, it don’t look broke, but yuh ain’t goin’ to be flyin’ for some while.”

Rainbow chanced moving her head up slightly and saw an old buckskin coloured earth pony stallion with off white mane and tail, a colour scheme that stood out by its soberness rather than the explosion of colours you generally saw when there was a crowd of ponies together.
“Well what you waitin for?” he asked, “Get over here by the fire and warm yerself up while I get you a blanket.”

She did as she was told and walked few hoofsteps forward, feeling the tightness of the belt holding her wing in place and stopped close to the fire, relishing the extra heat warming her body. A look around betrayed very little in the way of personal memorabilia except for an old photograph in a frame on the mantlepiece. She looked closely, a chord of vague recognition striking dimly somewhere inside her, at the sight of a pale coat and pink mane, but she wasn’t sufficiently alert to start trying to identify the pony.

Her host returned bearing a warm dry blanket, but stopped when he saw her looking at the picture.
“You ain’t got no right to start nosin’ around my private belongings!” he bellowed.
Rainbow recoiled in shock, the picture had been on display on the mantlepiece where he had told her to stand; this was hardly nosing around, as he had put it.
“Don’t go thinkin’ that you can take liberties with me just because I let you in, yuh hear?”

This old timer was a grouch and no mistake, but she decided not to bite back; it was his home after all, and he had invited her in. Her uncharacteristic lack of a sassy rejoinder owed less to any particular sense of respect she felt, but more that she was so done with it all.
He snatched the picture from the mantlepiece and thrust it in a bureau, slamming it shut for good measure and stared accusingly at her.

Rainbow wasn’t going to say anything, but vaguely recognised her mouth opening by itself just as her vision went black and she fell down where she stood.

***

The storm and twister drove in towards Ponyville, rending a swath of devastation in its path. All too late the ponies became aware that their Hearth’s Warming celebrations were going to have to wait while they rushed for whatever cover they could find, dragging the young and the elderly alike from their beds with no time to spare.

All available weather ponies fell in from whichever parties they had been at and took to the air, some of them still wearing the fancy dress costumes they had gone out in, while others were sobering up quickly from varying levels of intoxication. Under normal circumstances none of this would have been allowed, but now everypony was acutely aware that these few ponies were all that stood between Ponyville and the oncoming storm.

They formed up on the twister, all flying in wide circles against the direction of its rotation, just as Rainbow Dash had attempted, but this time there were more of them. It still took tremendous courage to fly against such a force of nature, partly because it could be carrying sharp and even heavy objects within the vortex but also the intensity of the wind could knock a pegasus from the sky.

Lap by lap, they moved in a little closer, braving the hidden dangers of this towering leviathan until slowly they could feel it begin to subside and sink. They kept flying in tighter and tighter circles, more ponies coming to join in as time went on until eventually it sputtered its last and collapsed just short of the school, dumping its remaining water on the playground.

With no time for complacency they then set about rounding up the remaining storm clouds and clearing the skies, a process that still took a good half hour, such had been the scale of the storm. Finally, the winds died down and all ponies in the air and on the ground were able to look around and see no more traces of the meteorological mayhem that had gate-crashed their parties and threatened to destroy the evening for Ponyville.

The weather ponies formed up for a victory roll in the crisp moonlight to the applause of all the ponies below, but something was wrong and they all knew it; at any opportunity for grandstanding, Rainbow Dash was always at the front, but where was she? All those scheduled to be on duty that night knew that she had dismissed them and all were equally aware that she would never shirk her duties if a storm was coming in. The aerobatics were half hearted and hurriedly completed as the weather ponies formed up away from the grateful crowds, not wanting to be delayed by basking in their well-earned adulation but instead to look for Rainbow.

While all other ponies went back to their parties, the search for Rainbow stepped up a notch, other pegasi being drawn in to help in the search for Ponyville’s favourite Wonderbolt. Although they were all tired, Rainbow was known as being the Bearer of the Element of Loyalty and all knew that she would have kept going to rescue any one of them, and so kept searching well into the night.

With each unsuccessful search, they pushed a little further until little by little, hope faded and they returned to face the very unpalatable prospect that she was lost; missing in action; the phrase sending unpleasant shudders through every one of them.

By morning’s light, the pegasi who had taken charge of the search went to report to Ivory Scroll that they feared the worst. Visibly taken aback, the Mayor’s voice cracked as she asked how certain they were. She did not like the answer and looked away to shed a few tears before turning back to take charge.
The Mayor dismissed the pegasi to continue the search and took the longest walk of her life, just down the road to the Castle of Friendship to see a very special lilac pony and give her some news she desperately didn’t want to bear.