• Published 30th Sep 2020
  • 4,310 Views, 1,103 Comments

Glimmer - Estee



There are those who say that marks are destiny. But there is one who believes destiny is a trap. And there is nothing she will not do to make the world free.

  • ...
20
 1,103
 4,310

Callback

It felt somewhat impractical to murder one raindrop at a time.

Taking them out at the source made much more sense.

(It would let her solve something.)
(One thing.)
(Anything.)

The tent, when properly constructed, was mostly a rough dome. There was a small forward extension at the entrance, supported by the inner poles: roof, walls, and a bit of fabric floor creating something akin to the world's shortest hallway. The purpose was to give whoever was on watch a shielded area from which the careful survey of the night could take place, somewhat separate from those sleeping within. What little remained of the wind gusts which hadn't been completely broken by branches were doing their best to make sure Twilight didn't also have a place where she could remain dry.

It had rained off and on through the night: drizzle through short-term deluge, with the current storm existing in something of a halfway state. And when it was wild weather...

Twilight was fully aware that a number of issues had taken firm root in the depths of her psyche, and had also learned that being aware of what she hoped was every last one didn't give her any edge in actually fighting them. There were times when she effectively tried to kick her compulsive organization urges to death, and they simply insisted that she arrange all future pointless attacks by appointment. Something within her wanted the entire world to cooperate with checklists, and it found the Weather Bureau's schedule to be comfortable.

There was a welcome aspect of predictability to knowing the atmosphere would be operating almost exactly as dictated. (The 'almost' came from two sources: the wild zone which just about completely surrounded Ponyville occasionally tried to test the weather border, and you couldn't realistically expect Rainbow to follow any schedule down to the exact hour.) As with the majority of Equestrians, Twilight kept the schedule in her bathroom: close to the mirror, allowing her to check it every morning -- but there were ways in which that physical posting wasn't necessary. She had an occasionally-distressing tendency to just memorize the whole moon, because that both let her know exactly what was supposed to be coming while keeping a running clock on just how late Rainbow actually was.

She knew what the weather was supposed to be like in Ponyville at the estimated hour: clear, cold, and dry. Sun wouldn't be due for hours, because it was winter. And she was on the wrong continent, in a heart of a summer whose heat hadn't reached her heart, watching for the first faint signs of too-early dawnlight to make it through the canopy, and it just kept raining and the wind blew the water into the little vestibule, making her blink all the time as the moisture saturated exposed fur and dripped down to the cloth floor and she couldn't say a word in complaint because there were ponies sleeping behind her.

She also couldn't move too much, because she'd brought some of the palace-sent books along and they were currently safe and dry behind her tail. They were keeping company with a blank notebook, one bottle of ink, and a quill. Twilight didn't jot notes down in the margins of books. It was disrespectful.

Two ponies sleeping behind her.
Only two.

Two stallions step off an air carriage, and now we're here.
Eight of us are here.
Five are lost.

There were also animals out there in the darkness. She could hear their calls, sometimes wondered how Fluttershy slept through them or -- if it was simply like drifting past a susurrus of background conversation. Attention would focus on names or news, but otherwise... it was just sound.

Every so often, an animal would almost come up to the tent. She usually had to let that happen, because she couldn't always be sure as to whether any of them were the caretaker's scouts, trying to report back. The exception had been the jaguar, and she'd simply stared at the luminescent eyes until the great cat had decided to leave.

She was on watch. There were things to watch for, and a chance that some of them could think.

They'd been... lucky, to have the tent. It was one of the heaviest items, and those usually wound up being carried by either Applejack or Pinkie. In this case, there had been two supply pieces of exceptional mass, and the tent had wound up with them. A place to sleep within the protection of water-repellent fabric. And if three were shielded, then it meant five were exposed.

Perhaps Twilight's miniherd could have managed, if Pinkie had been carrying the tent. Previous missions had placed them in wild zones, and there hadn't always been shelter available. Applejack had eventually learned how to weave some basics together out of leaves and branches, but... that was her skill. And even if she'd been with the other group, most of the local plants were simply -- wrong. The tensile strength of certain branches had certainly changed: they'd all found that out when several pushed-aside low specimens had come springing back at them just a little too fast. And when it came to leaves...

There were a few right next to the tent, sprouting on long vertical stalks. Just one leaf per stalk, and they smelled horrible: something which deep instinct recognized as a sign of poison. They had broad, ribbed surfaces covered in thousands of tiny bumps of what felt very much like wax. It made them water-repellent in a way which the tent's fabric was having trouble matching, and Twilight knew that because the leaves kept shedding water directly onto the shelter. She supposed it wouldn't have been so bad if each of the green shoots hadn't been larger than her own body.

And the rain just kept coming, while she stared out into the dark. Looking for signs of approach. Of attack.

Of... forgiveness.

If they all found each other, and her friends forgave --

-- but it wouldn't happen at night. Not when the others were trying to shelter somewhere, anywhere, and they didn't even have the tent. Something which could easily pretend to shield six ponies and one dragon --

-- seven.
It's seven.

It just kept raining. Twilight didn't always deal well with wild weather, wanted something to be under control, and she couldn't raise a shield around the tent. It would serve as rain protection: liquids tended to get tangled up with fields, but that just meant running in strange rivulets around the outer border. But the dome would prevent any of Fluttershy's scouts from getting too close, and... she was keeping watch because they didn't know what else was in the rainforest with them.

Or who.
Somewhere.

It was possible that someone was looking for the glow of magic. Someone, when she longed for it to be somepony. The right ponies. And one sibling.

She couldn't stop the rain as a unicorn would. And when it came to being a pegasus --

-- her horn was effectively invisible, she could pass for a normal pony and the fact that said 'normal' was still for the wrong species almost felt incidental --

-- she didn't understand the techniques involved in moisture dispersal, and was just barely starting to learn about the principles. Twilight was mostly certain that going at clouds headfirst was probably wrong, in part because she was still working on density shifting. A pegasus had to choose whether an unmolded cloud would be solid or vapor to their touch and because having foals fall through the floor was a bad thing, their magic set 'solid' as the default. Flying into a solid cloud headfirst was also bad.

Fluttershy's parents were part of the International Stormbreaker Team: the traveling part of the pact between Equestria and allied nations, forever ready to save strangers from the worst that wild weather could offer. It meant their daughter understood all of the necessary techniques -- on the intellectual level. Hybrids always seemed to be weak in the magic of their birth species, and the eldest among them was nowhere close to becoming the first exception. She fully comprehended everything which had to be done: she just couldn't execute any of it. And for Twilight to try, when she didn't understand...

My friends are lost.

But she carried them with her. A portion of their essence was bound to her soul, for as long as she lived. And with Rainbow... not around at the moment...

Was it possible to tap so deeply into Rainbow's shadow as to access pegasus techniques which hadn't been formally taught? Twilight wasn't sure. And even if it could be managed -- making the attempt came with its own issues. To bring forward the aspect of a friend, trying to channel some portion of their essence through her own psyche -- that created a certain degree of... overlap.

Influence.

Twilight, when trying to operate in Rainbow mode, had noticeable problems with impulse control. She tended to operate on instinct, went with her initial decision on anything before becoming fully aware of what that choice had actually been. If a given topic was foremost on her mind, then she was probably going to try and do something about it. And to seek the sky for what had been intended as a localized stormbreaking attempt might just see her soar off into the night, in search of those whom she had --

She would also be flying in the rain. Twilight was completely sure that she wasn't good at that.

There was a new bird sheltering in a nearby tree: one with a black head, beige body, and what seemed to be gray frames around the eyes. The head turned to look at her. Then it kept turning...

I know. Owlowiscious can't fly in this much rain, so you can't either. All you can do is wait it out. And you probably don't know what I am. Maybe you've spotted the wings, and you're wondering if I'm going to make you a part of my hunt...

There's somepony who can explain all of it to you. But she's sleeping.

The spectacled owl kept staring at her.

Twilight usually didn't feel like a very good companion for her pet. Owlowiscious seemed to use the tree as a home base more than he ever did as a home. He always came back, and there were times when he stayed close to her for a while -- but she could go for half a moon without seeing him at all. She often felt like that was her fault. As if she wasn't doing enough for him. It wouldn't exactly be the first time she'd failed someone. Or somepony. Or the plural --

-- too much rain. She didn't know whether the water-repellent treatments on the tent had a limit. The current weather felt like an exceptionally poor way to find out.

Maybe Rarity would know.

But Rarity wasn't there.

The designer's shadow was within her. Twilight had seen it once, in dream. But in the waking world...

She'd initially felt that Pinkie's essence would be the most difficult to call upon, and she'd been wrong. Since becoming aware of that shadow's existence, Twilight had tapped into it a few times -- mostly by accident. (The mantra was still a work in progress.) And Fluttershy's essence had made itself known. Twice.

But she'd never been able to call upon Rarity. She'd tried, and... it just hadn't happened. Twilight didn't understand why. Her best guess was that it was because her own creativity was generally kept under tight control. Something which had to be done in order to ensure that the results would be...

...safe.

Spike had sent a scroll.

It wasn't your fault.

'Less than controlled conditions.'

I wrote her, when we were all still in Trotter's Falls. I asked her to come, as somepony who knew more about essence than I did. Just in case that was part of it, and because...

...I needed my friends.

Spike was worried. He knew Rarity and Pinkie weren't going to have a good reaction. He saw it coming before I did. And she was on the way, but -- with everything that happened, she never reached us.

I needed my friends.
I needed all of my friends...

The rain was beginning to slow down. She'd noticed that it did that occasionally, mostly as a tease --

-- no. It was stopping, at least for now. And the first hints of Sun were beginning to push their way through the canopy. Given the thickness of the cover, that probably meant light had been on the approach for quite some time.

She waited until there was just enough to see by, then moved the supplies forward. She didn't want to wake anypony just yet. Applejack kept farmer's hours and needing less sleep than most ponies was an integral part of Fluttershy's mark, but the previous day had been...

...'long' seemed to exist as both understatement and insult. Twilight wasn't entirely sure how that worked.

She kept watch on the forest. But she also brought the books forward, and made a few notes because organizing something would calm her -- as much as it could. And she worked by mouth, because now she was pretending to be a pegasus. It was almost a refreshing change from pretending to be an alicorn, especially since she was so bad at that.

Mouthwriting. She hadn't really tried it for years, not for an extended stretch. The legibility of her results needed some work. But this was practice.

I want my friends.
All of my friends.
I wanted them all to be friends...

Trixie had apparently asked Spike to send along what had potentially been meant as a joke. Asking how much the seven-pony version of the escort test cost, and whether the scale even went up that high.

It wasn't your fault.

The rain had stopped. Fresh drops of salty moisture began to fall onto the page.

How?

She had to find them. And if they forgave her, only if they were all safe and forgave her... then, perhaps, she might consider forgiving herself.

But she had to keep herself going.

She had to reach them.


Spike knew the group had a lot of problems. Finding water hadn't been one of them.

"I've been thinking," Pinkie announced as the group squelched their way through the verdant carpet, maneuvering by green-stained light.

Rarity's voice was casually dripping curiosity, mostly because there was a lot of dripping going on in the vicinity of the jaw and syllables more or less went along for the ride. "About?"

"Types of rain," the baker said. "Rainbow?"

A very damp "Huh?" sounded from somewhere up ahead.

(Spike fully understood that you could ask Rainbow to stay with the group, and she would. It was also possible to request that she stay on the ground, and that would get you a pegasus with four hooves planted against soil -- along with steadily-increasing complaints about just how sore those hooves were, how the group would do so much better in plotting out the path if somepony was just scouting a little, and then you had to figure for what was probably happening within her mind just from being under the suffocating canopy the whole time. So all things considered, it was best to let Rainbow move a little. One of the other options was a pegasus overwhelmed with claustrophobia making a desperate attempt to reach the sky.)

"What are the types of rain?" Pinkie asked.

There was a long pause. "Sorry?"

"Do they have any formal names?" the baker clarified. "From the Bureau, I mean."

"Well, yeah," eventually made its way back to them. "There's three major types. You've got convectional, orographic, and cyclonic --"

"-- oh," a rather disappointed voice cut in. "I was thinking more like 'Misting Number Five'. Which kind of means there's at least four others, and that makes sense because we've had three different mists since we got here and I'm pretty sure that's not the limit. Plus there was Driving Force Four. And Drip. Drip is sort of generic, but there's a lot of it going on. And there really should be something for 'somepony takes a whole pond up into the sky and flips it over', only a lot shorter. You know, one day, somepony is going to give this kind of place a really fitting name. Like 'rainforest'." She wetly shrugged. "But I guess that already happened."

Nopony laughed. And at the back of the line, Trixie steadily, silently plodded along.

"Rainbow, dear?" Rarity carefully inquired.

"Yeah?"

"Perhaps I should have also asked this last night. Is there a reason why you're not breaking all of this up?"

"Yeah," somehow managed to emerge without any ego at all.

"And that reason would be...?"

"There's one of me," the pegasus solidly stated. "This place doesn't have any standing techniques in the weave for me to work with. It doesn't have a weave. I'd be doing everything from first thread. I can still clear out a decent patch, though."

"Oh? So if you would please --"

"-- and unless I spend at least an hour up there reinforcing everything, the rest of the system is going to flow in right behind it. And that's just for where we are now. You're asking me to clean up the sky, Rarity. And the longer I stay up there, the more magic I use? That's all the more chance to get noticed --"

"-- I take your point," the designer sighed. "And the plural. We proceed."

There hadn't been any problems in finding water. The main issue had been in stopping.

Twilight's group (and Spike could only hope the missing three had all arrived together) apparently had the tent. There had been an early attempt to construct a temporary shelter out of local materials, but the branches had been somewhat springier than expected and nopony knew where most of the first version had actually landed. And then Trixie had tried to step forward while saying something about damage to the caravan on the road and having to improvise, which had made Rarity huffily march off in the direction of the largest, most shelter-offering tree available. In turn, the tree had provided them with plenty of non-sheltering, constantly-dripping leaves.

It had rained for a good portion of the night, generally starting again just after those who weren't on watch had finally gotten back to sleep. Those who had clothing found it soaked, fur was quickly saturated, and Spike's scales turned into a shining pattern of miniature streams and tributaries.

There had been a short break after Sun had been raised. This had lasted just long enough for Rainbow to get some of the water out of her feathers, followed by taking Spike above the canopy so he could sight on the mountain again. Another rough sketch was made, accompanied by an estimate of distance covered and the portion of a gallop which remained. The resulting scroll was successfully sent to Twilight, which at least told him that she'd made it through the night. Just... not if she was hurt.

She never learned my trick.

I should have tried harder to teach her.

(Why hadn't he made more of an effort? Because he was a dragon, and it was something which had been his?)

Food wasn't currently an issue. They'd been sent with rations -- for Spike, this included a personal gem coffer -- and those had been appropriately divided among everypony involved, so they weren't at risk of running short for a while. Rainbow's recent experience with vomit-launched seeds meant nearly everypony was holding off on trying the native offerings. The exception was the showmare, whom Spike had caught sampling a few basic grasses -- but that might have just been in an attempt to not be on the receiving end of another speech. Spike was almost certain Rarity had one prepared regarding how Our Supplies Were Not Meant For This Many Ponies, and suspected Trixie had both figured that out and was trying to delay its public debut.

They were wet. They were irritated. They'd had no trouble whatsoever in finding water and if they did somehow start to run low, Spike was carrying a reserve: the issue would be in extracting it from his lungs. (He was starting to wonder how long he could be within this environment without falling sick. The most humid portions of Ponyville's summers suggested he had a few days, but... he wasn't meant for this.) And Pinkie was trying to keep them going, because that was Laughter's job. But even if you factored out the ongoing stress created by the splitting of the herd, plus their -- temporary addition -- everypony's spirits were still more than a little waterlogged.

Too many plants, most of which seemed eager to stain fur: Rarity had almost no portions of her exposed natural hues left. The dubious luck of the split had left them with at least some of the soap, because one of the possible disguises was 'traveling performers' and such were expected to stay clean. The designer was steadfastly refusing to use it until they reached an area where her efforts wouldn't be undone within six hoofsteps, and that decision was making her eyelids twitch. A lot. And she was wearing wet clothing because she was supposed to keep her mark covered, the fabric was becoming stained, she could neither clean nor revise it, and that wasn't helping either.

The animals they didn't know were also the animals they had to let come a little too close, because Fluttershy. A giant rodent had made it all the way up to the group, ignored every bit of frantic pony questioning, and then simply hung around Spike for the better part of an hour. Apparently it just liked hanging out.

They were making progress, but -- it was slow. The distance measurement of 'gallop' had originally been based off the distance a pony could cover over level, clear terrain. They had yet to begin any degree of ascent, but 'clear' was nowhere on the local options list. Pushing through plants, going around plants -- it slowed them down, over and over. By Spike's best guess, they were two days away from the mountain: a blazed trail would have had it at less than one.

(There had been a brief argument about placing markers along their path, because there was a chance that the others were behind them and just needed something recognizable. The counter was that whatever they'd been sent to seek was also somewhere in the area, and anyone could follow a blazed trail. They were compromising on the thing they couldn't stop: prints in the dirt. Every so often, Spike would press a walking claw against the center of a hoofprint, and simply hoped that the right mares would spot the overlay.)

The pace was getting to Rainbow. It was getting to everypony, because the entire species tended to become frustrated when they couldn't travel at their normal speed. Foreign scents were a distraction. Every animal call could be a friend or a threat. There were also monsters native to the region. And if they came across a sapient...

This would be easier if we were all together.
(If he knew everypony was okay.)
If Twilight was in charge.
If anypony...

Too many questions.
Too much fear.
Too much water.

The water, perhaps feeling neglected by its place on the list, decided to step up its efforts.


They stared at the river.

It wasn't white water, at least. There weren't enough boulders and elevation changes in the flow to produce that level of turbulence. The actual hue, however, wasn't much of an improvement.

"Black," Rarity softly said, watching rain impact the fast-moving surface. "Why is it black?"

In a small way, it was something of an exaggeration. The liquid was flowing quickly against to splash against the banks, and any small portion which came free possessed the rough hue of a moderate tea blend. It only appeared black in quantity -- which was to say, it appeared black.

...well, mostly black. It had picked up a lot of leaves, because there were trees whose branches stretched all the way across the flow. The river didn't create enough of a gap in the forest to be truly seen from the sky, and Rainbow's restless wings told them that it wasn't allowing enough of the sky to be seen at all. But the leaves had to fall somewhere, and the rush of lost greenery told them just how fast the water was moving.

"It's probably just soil," Pinkie's rock farmer background informed them. "You can see how rich it is here. And the river just picks some up and carries it along."

Rarity managed a slow nod. "So not to be consumed without filtering. Although it is hardly as if we've been lacking for rainwater." Blue eyes moved from the near bank to the far one, carefully measuring. "Nopony here can jump that. Not thirty body lengths. And we must cross it to reach the mountain."

"We've got the raft!" Pinkie reminded them. "And it deploys on its own! We just have to get into it --"

"-- and then we face the same problem which we met when considering whether to upend it as our shelter," the designer crossly stated. "If you need a reminder, Pinkie, that would be our inability to bring it back to a collapsed state. We would need to abandon it, providing sure proof of ponies in the forest -- or take it with us. The whole way." She looked at the river again. "Additionally, even with enchantments to assist, none of us have experience in steering -- and that water is moving rather quickly. Not just far too quickly to attempt swimming --"

"Way too fast," Trixie abruptly spoke up. "You might go under." There was a brief pause. "There was this one river I had to deal with when the road got flooded out near Drover. But that was with the caravan. For this one, I could just --"

Rarity turned. Glared.

Trixie stopped.

"-- but at a speed," the designer resumed, facing the river again as if there had been no interruption at all, "where we might be carried downriver for a considerable distance before reaching the other bank -- and if this river has been created by the waterfall, then it will be flowing away from the mountain. Our travel time might wind up becoming considerably increased."

"...oh," Pinkie said, and temporarily left it at that.

Should I say something?

They're all in bad moods. Maybe if I just give them a minute first....

Trixie was once again silent. It was something which Spike didn't see as a natural state -- but it was an ongoing one. Pinkie had mostly been ignoring her, and it had just been reproven that there was very little point in trying to start a discussion with Rarity. The showmare had made occasional attempts at speaking with Spike, and they'd both found those moments always coincided with something Rainbow needed to say.

"I could wish for Applejack's rope," Rarity sighed. "But it is hardly long enough to reach the other side. And what would we do, if we had sufficient hemp and an anchor point? Clamp our jaws to the cord and chew our way along, while hoping the river fails to sweep the raft out from beneath our hooves?"

"If it's from the waterfall," Pinkie pointed out, "we could follow this."

"Except that this is hardly the only flow we have seen in this forest. Simply the largest. And it may twist a hundred times. Think of that one time Discord claimed he was simply attempting a stretching exercise while in public view --" the shudder was enough to shed a few drops from saturated cloth and fur "-- and then make it worse. We need to move in the straightest possible line. If we find this river again, we can consider tracking -- but for now, we must cross. And it may take too long to find a place where we can ford it on hoof without risk. However are we to --"

Wings flared.

Wings flapped.

Rainbow touched down on the opposite bank, stared across the water at all of them and, for one of the very few times in her life, almost let the silence say it all.

"...yes," Rarity finally said. "Yes, Rainbow, we know. I'm sure we would have thought of it eventually, but nopony slept particularly well last night -- all right, you hardly have to look so smug about it. Please stop looking so smug about -- very well, we likely have some degree of smugness coming. But this is still going to require a degree of -- and it is raining. Again. Another little downpour. Or not so little. Driving Force Six, I imagine. With Drip provided by the trees. And Rainbow, the next time you go over the canopy to orient us, please focus on the color of the water coming over the falls. Although it may be picking up the soil at the landing point." The unicorn sighed. "So how are we managing this?"


Supplies were taken over first. It lightened the subsequent loads.

Spike was the easiest. He climbed onto Rainbow's back, she flew across, and then he climbed back down. Most of the rain which flowed across him along the way wound up reaching the river, and the little tributaries merged with their angrier sibling.

Pinkie was... a bit of a problem. Applejack was the largest of the Bearers, but Pinkie was close behind her. The hybrid had forfeited none of an earth pony's default size -- nor had she given up that touch of extra density to flesh and bone which made the entire species a little heavier than they looked. And Rainbow could carry quite a bit of mass, something she'd demonstrated during the Best Young Flyers rescue -- but all of that weight had already been in motion, and most of what the pegasus had done was redirect the vectors. Getting something off the ground still required overcoming both weight and inertia.

Rainbow strained. Flapped her wings all the harder, scattering raindrops in all directions as the increasing torrent tried to stall everything out through grounding her. At one point, she attempted to direct a wind gust straight down in the hopes of getting a little more lift: the majority bounced off the soil and disrupted two soaked manes. Pinkie helpfully jumped, and most of what that did was nearly put her out of Rainbow's desperate pressure carry, because four inward-squeezing pegasus legs hadn't quite been ready for the drop back down. But eventually, Rainbow got the baker into the air, and then brought her across as quickly as she could.

(Spike briefly thought about some of the times when Twilight had claimed to see Pinkie pop up in strange places -- but the hybrid didn't seem to be capable of fully doing it on purpose. Such movements couldn't be predicted, they never seemed to occur when somepony was watching, and Trixie was right there.)

It was Rarity's turn and in one way, that was easier: the designer was considerably lighter. She just didn't like being carried: another legacy of the Cloudsdale trip, along with her steadfast refusal to ever consider using the wing spell again. Spike could see the tension in her legs as Rainbow initially lifted her, followed by ribs moving a little too fast against the pegasus' legs. It placed enough force on the mark-concealing dress to strain out a few drops of moisture: something which almost became lost against the increasing rain.

They were about a third of the way across when it happened.

The rain was coming down harder, to the point where Rainbow was actively fighting against it. Some of it went under the cyan body, got into Rarity's eyes. The unicorn instinctively blinked, squirmed a little in order to get away from the onslaught.

Rainbow felt the movement. Pressed her legs inwards all the tighter, on instinct alone.

When it came to personal experience, it was possible that only Spike truly understood the principles involved. A lazy summer day by the swimming hole, and handling claws placing slickened scales against a watermelon seed.

The soaked cloth shifted against two layers of saturated fur.

Slipped.

Rarity fell.

It wasn't a long plummet, for Rainbow hadn't been all that high above the river. The minimal momentum acquired wasn't enough to send Rarity fully under the water. It left her head above the surface, allowing her the freedom to scream as her legs frantically kicked against the rushing current.

Rainbow was just starting to turn, trying to react, but even she needed time in which to move and the racing waters were carrying Rarity away, she was flailing and trying to direct her course, but ponies were poor swimmers, they weren't meant for anything flowing at this kind of speed and all Spike could do was start his run as Pinkie did the same, his arms outstretched towards somepony he could never reach, he was the smallest among them and the river would take him in an instant, but Rainbow was trying to get lined up and something had to be done because Rarity was kicking and screaming and the liquid shadows seemed to be lapping up her neck --

-- the sound reached him first, just barely managing to penetrate through the wail of fear. A cross between a mass cracking and small explosion, as if something had just kicked a door in half. And then a thick glowing tree branch, about half the diameter of Rarity's barrel, slammed into the water, and the splash sent black water everywhere.

Part of the splash reached both riverbanks. Some of it coated the plants.

The branch slammed into the water, and then Rarity slammed into the branch.

Her cry of pain sluiced through Spike's soul.

He saw the glowing wood tilt down, pushing into the water. Making sure Rarity couldn't slip under it. And Trixie was on the opposite bank, her horn's corona surged to a fierce double, straining to hold the broken wood in place against the flow of the river, trying to keep everything just where it was --

-- Rainbow caught up, and she had momentum now. Her forelegs went down, got under Rarity's shoulders, did their best to scoop.

It wasn't a position which could be held for long, and the pegasus didn't have to. The white unicorn, trembling within the fragile grip, was quickly deposited on the original riverbank. Rainbow touched down next to her --

-- Rarity was shaking. Blood was beginning to stain the dress, welling up from her right shoulder.

Spike saw the glow wink out from around the broken branch. The river claimed the wood, carried it away as Trixie, corona carefully dropping back towards a full single, started to race towards the other two mares --

-- Rarity was shaking. Fear. Terror. Adrenaline with nowhere to go.
Then she stopped.
Fierce, furious blue eyes focused on the intruder.

And he knew what was about to happen, for Spike knew Rarity. There was an argument to be made that he understood her best, along with one which suggested the knowledge had been born from a sort of love. He understood her, just as a dragon instinctively recognized the quality of a gem -- and that also meant he'd spotted all of the flaws. The selfishness which served as the other side of Generosity's coin, forever being fought back. The tendency to overreact, and not always for drama's sake. She had, on some level, decided that she was the eldest sibling of the group: certainly the most worldly and insightful, the one from whom the others should clearly be seeking advice -- which meant she had a rather hard time backing away from anything she'd gotten wrong. Rarity, faced with an absolute disaster of a personal decision, would frequently respond through becoming a distorted reflection of Rainbow: repeat the flight pattern, double the energy which had been put into it, and see if that was enough to steer out of the crash.

And when she was already emotional, something which could spring from worry and stress and just about anything else in her life, when friends were lost and there was nothing she could do to stitch the tear which had divided the herd... she would be looking for a reason to let it out. Worse: an excuse.

Now she had one.

Every Bearer partially reflected every other. Distorted mirrors.

"What was that supposed to be?"

In the case of Fluttershy and Rarity, it was a tendency to take everything out on the wrong targets.

Spike stopped moving.

Everypony stopped.

Pinkie froze. Trixie's hooves pulled up well short of the other unicorn, a full four body lengths away. Rain ran down Rainbow's paralyzed feathers.

"Why didn't you simply just pick me out of the water?" And Rarity's horn had ignited, a full corona with nowhere to go and thin needles of rage coruscating around the borders. "Inferior and looking for anything which would let you pretend otherwise, but you're at least capable of lifting an adult mare --" and the pause lasted just long enough for a single sharp breath "-- you could have just lifted me across! You could have lifted all of us, even if it was one at a time --"

"-- you were a moving target!" The decibels from Trixie's shout pushed a few raindrops out of their paths, seemed to make others fall all the faster. "And I was going to make the offer before all of this started, but you made it pretty clear that you didn't want me ferrying --"

"-- a moving target?" Rarity's half-scream pushed ripples into the water, sent half-drowned leaves to their final grave. "That's your excuse?"

Pawing light blue forehooves were beginning to put trenches into the riverbank mud. "I didn't want to risk missing you! The branch was stationary! Once I had you stopped, there was time to do everything else! I just did the first thing I thought of --"

Nearly all of Rarity's volume dropped away.

"-- you are not Twilight."

And the resulting hiss failed to contain any of the rage.

Trixie blinked. Drew back, if only by a hoofwidth. The rain kept coming down.

"I know I'm not --"

"-- you do the first thing you think of." The blood was flowing down now, steadily staining its way towards the knee. "Pick a thought, call it a plan, and stick to it regardless of the consequences. Such with the Amulet. And once I was against the branch, once I was hurt, you could have lifted me then --"

"-- I was trying to hold it in place! She --" this with a too-quick horn tilt towards a still-unmoving Rainbow "-- was coming for you! I was just trying to --" stopped, and took a single sharp breath. "You're screaming at me --"

"-- I am not screaming --"

The showmare pushed on. "-- because I tried to save you! What would you have said if I'd done nothing?"

And with a total calm which was all the more impressive for being false, "After Rainbow had rescued me, without inflicting hurt? I would have said 'Thank you.' For the first and only time."

He was hoping unto Sun and Moon that it was over. That he'd just heard the worst of it.
He was wrong.

The words were too calm. Too even. Too controlled to be anything other than a cold expression of pain both new and old.

"And then I would have questioned just how much of a part you had played in the initiation."

The showmare moved another hoofwidth backwards.

"...what?"

"Wouldn't that be quite the performance?" Rarity rhetorically asked. "Plant your own hecklers, then shout them down? Quite standard, as I now understand -- and thank you for that, Pinkie. So why not arrange your own disaster? Something you can save me from, and thus work your way into the group? After all, if you can lift a grown mare, you can yank on one --"

Purple eyes went wide.

"My horn was dark --"

"-- I have some faith in your ability to hide your field --"

"-- you still would have felt the tingle on your legs, nothing hides --"

"-- Twilight," Rarity steadily interrupted, "told me a little about your supposed talent. Perhaps you figured out a way to make another kind of change -- innovator."

Trixie was breathing too hard, too fast, her ribs were heaving in and out as if she was running at full speed without moving and froth was likely seconds away. "How -- how I am supposed to prove I didn't do anything? How do I prove a negative?"

"Oh," the designer airily observed, "that should be no trouble at all. When it comes to proving something negative, we've already proven that you exist --"

"STOP IT!"

He hadn't meant to be that loud.
He hadn't meant to roar.

But they stopped. Both coronas winked out.

Pinkie slowly looked down, sought his eyes.

"I..." she whispered. "...I can feel it sometimes, when unicorns cast. I didn't..."

The little dragon took a slow breath, and felt air trying to fight its way through the water.

Who's in charge?

"We need to keep going and find the others," he said. Find Twilight. Find her so she can fix this. "So we all need to be on this side of the river. Rarity, when you're ready, we can try again."

Eventually, the designer nodded.

"Trixie --" and the name nearly stuck in his throat "-- can you levitate yourself?" She had the mass manipulation capacity, but projecting a field backwards took a special trick of thinking.

The showmare slowly shook her head.

"Then Rainbow has to carry you."

"...yeah," the pegasus finally said. "I can do that."

Who's in charge?

They waited until Rarity was fully calm, or could pretend to pass for such. She was carried across, and her wounds were tended.

I'm the youngest. I don't know enough.

The white unicorn was passing for calm. The little dragon was trying not to shake.

Who would listen?
What if I get it wrong?

Trixie's set-down came across as a little rough. Supplies were reacquired. And then they all moved on together, if only physically.

Who's in charge?

Please don't let it be me.