RoMS' Extravaganza

by RoMS

May 2015 - The Ride

“What is so important about going faster than anypony else?”

The guards in the middle of the faintly-lit throne room stepped back from a shackled mare. Alone, prey to myriads of stares and drowning in silence, she rose. Her eyes shone in the penumbra as a maddened smile crawled upon her face.

“Waiting. We always have to wait. Everything is a matter of… boredom. But when you hit the track, the air… the road. Everything has to keep up with you. It feels like you’re ahead of life.
The smell is so peculiar. Burnt tires on the track. Fire of gasoline. Blood and sweat. No matter how you fly, how you run, what you drive… The air hitting your face is a song: the song of freedom. Something that nothing else, not even you, ever offered me.
I can see ponies’ grimaces. I am a blaspheme. Have you ever hit the road? Felt the sparks of those crashing down around you? Smashed down below your hooves?
Going fast is to conquer and, on the track, I am the empress. There, I am the queen. There, I am somepony you’ll never be. There, I am finally myself.”

The mare’s voice echoed shortly in the massive room. Nopony spoke, not even the Nightmare Queen. The chained up and restrained Pegasus snorted and smiled ruefully.

“To be number one is all there is. If I’m not first, I am nothing.”

The mare stopped and growled, finally meeting the cat-like turquoise eyes of a millennium-old queen.

“You want to get rid of me,” the Pegasus continued. “Go ahead, try to shut me out, shackle me, silence me… kill me. Prohibit the race. Prohibit what I’ve made years to put up. Or at least, I challenge you to try. Nopony will bow. This race, my queen, it is our personal act of rebellion against you. And nopony, no… goddess will ever steal that drive from us. The race will live on until you’ve extinguished all spark of life of your servant. But at that point you’ll be alone, in a dead country, under a dead sky which nopony will ever watch and relief under. For now, the next aeon, and the aeons ever after.”

The queen did not speak but her face told a thousand word. Frowning, her blazing eyes devoured the relentless and defying pony that dared speaking out. With a low, nearly inaudible, groan, the queen of the nigh turned towards a nearby squire who stepped forth. Unrolling a scroll, the stallion cleared his throat.

“Rainbow Dash, I hereby condemn you, for the accounts of drug-dealing, conspiration, outspoken rebellion, attempted murder, murder and lèse-majesté, to death.” The stallion stopped, cast a glance at the queen, and resumed without enthousiasm. “You’ll be executed tomorrow. As hath spoken our dear queen, Nightmare Moon.”

As Rainbow Dash lowered her head with her dagger-throwing eyes riveted on the mighty alicorn, she hissed:

“I may pass, but the ride must go on. And this ride will outlive your sorry ass.”