The Three Wanderers
They meandered through the hills, their path winding up and down and forcing them to move at a slower pace. The drop in speed gave AJ time to mull over what the soldier had said to her. She knew it was wrong, Sunset had shown her, but how could she show the soldier she'd talked with, and any other Cloudsdalers who shared her opinions, that?
She sighed, then looked down at her geode. It made sense that it gave her strength; it was one of the main good things about her, along with her determination. She could heft a barrel of apples, and do it for the whole day, but that was pretty much the extent of her abilities; she wasn't as smart as Sunset or Twilight, as clever as Rainbow or Rarity, and she definitely wasn't as creative as her or Pinkie. She was a rock, like Pinkie's sister, dependable and sturdy but not much else.
She shook her head; she didn't need to be. Her friends were with her, she could ask one of them to try to figure out how to show the Cloudsdalers that friendship was the right way to go. Probably Fluttershy; Rainbow wasn't much for debating things like this.
She frowned; that was right, she needed to investigate Rainbow's weird behavior. If her acting shady about her past and asking them to hide her name hadn't been suspicious enough, the snippet of talk she'd heard between her and Fluttershy earlier in the morning confirmed that she was hiding something, and from the sounds of it something big. But what? And who could she ask to find out?
She flashed a glance at Lord Skies, currently looking around the hills idly. Biting her lip before reassuring herself that Rainbow had probably only meant not to ask her about her family anymore, and that, even if she had meant not to ask anyone about it, she was lying to AJ, so it was fair for her to ignore it, she gently turned her mount until she was trotting alongside Soarin. Clearing her throat, she asked, "Pardon me, Lord Skies, but can I talk to you for a second?"
"Please, Applejack," he smiled back. "Call me Soarin. I don't like to stand on ceremony if I can help it. Anyway, you had a question?"
"Uh, yeah," she replied, caught off-guard by how casual he seemed. "Have you heard of someone called Rainbow Dash?"
Strangely, he laughed at that. "Every child in Cloudsdale has," he replied, chuckling. "and nine out of ten of them have played at being her."
She scowled to herself; so much for 'middle-class.' "Really?" she drawled. "An' what's she known for?"
"Holding the Spear Gate with the heads of the other great houses," he replied. "They were outnumbered more than a hundred to one, but they managed to hold the gate."
Apparently, 'middle-class' was as easy to redefine as Fluttershy showed 'elite' was. "Really?" she asked. "I never heard about that."
"Guess the stories people tell vary from state to state," he shrugged. "Trust me, though, everyone in Cloudsdale knows about her."
"What happened to her?" AJ asked, leaning forward in anticipation. "After that business with the gate, I mean."
Soarin bowed his head. "She died," he answered. "She saved Cloudsdale, but she didn't survive to see that."
Feeling sick to her stomach, AJ prepared to tell him about the imposter wearing a dead girl's name, but was preempted by him continuing, "Her niece brought her back to life, though; she put on her aunt's armor, led the charge, and the enemy broke at the sight of Rainbow Dash's shade. She has lived ever since, House Prism providing a new Rainbow Dash every generation to bear her name and post."
AJ licked her lips. "Is," she asked. "House Prism near the Rainbow Vale?"
"Just on the edge," Soarin nodded. "Why do you ask?"
"Just wonderin'," she replied, turning to look at her lying friend, a ways ahead.
"Then would you mind answering a question of mine?" Soarin asked.
"Question for a question sounds fair," she smiled back.
"Who sent you here?" Soarin's face became a mask of professionalism. "Curiosity doesn't drive the curious as far as you've gone, and burglars or disturbers of the peace wouldn't have traveled as openly as you have. So tell me, and speak truly, who sent you here?"
AJ scratched the back of her head; Celestia had told them not to blab about their mission, but that didn't mean they couldn't tell anyone, just that they needed to be careful about who they told. It would help them if Soarin knew why they were here, and he seemed trusty, and the kind of guy who could keep his mouth shut. Screwing up her courage, she replied, lowering her voice, "I'm gonna have to ask you to keep this a secret, but we're here on royal orders."
"Royal?" Soarin whispered back, furrowing his brow. "The princess sent you here?"
"Someone under her," she replied, taking a hard copy of the email ordering them here (she was extremely grateful that Celestia had printed it out for them before they left) out of her pack and handing it to Soarin. He read over it, bewilderment growing on his face, before handing it back to her.
"I haven't heard about the appointment of this Sunset Shimmer," he quietly said. "either from those who trade and talk with Flatmarch or the Spear Gate. But it looked legitimate, down to the seal the government accounts put on their emails. But then why haven't we heard about her?"
"Maybe they're tryna keep it on the down-low?" AJ offered as she put the paper away. "Lettin' word slip that they hired someone to help with magic might spook people, make'm think it's dangerous. Might," she frowned. "might help Starlight get elected."
Soarin's steed whinnied. Soarin calmed them down, then turned a cautious glance to AJ. "Don't speak that name so loudly," he warned her. "or so darkly. She has her supporters here, though not as many or as strong as she does outside; there is little love for Crystal City, Castellot, or Manehattan in some areas here, though they don't like Starlight's immobile stance on magic any more. Magic is dangerous, they agree, but so is electricity, and those places we've managed to electrify are thriving. Magic is a tool to them, one that can be used for good or evil, but the elite in the cities seem to them only useful for the latter."
"But aren't the great houses elites?" AJ asked, confused.
"Not anymore than an older sibling is elite," Soarin shook his head. "They can talk with us, see us, they work alongside us a lot of the time. How could they do that with the elite? We can't be the elite, then. At least, that's how I think they view it. Speaking of viewing," he asked. "why didn't you show us that paper when we first met?"
"Tryna keep it as low-down as possible," she replied, before wincing. "At least, for as long as I can. Once we meet up with the governor, I've gotta feelin' quiet's the last thing this is gonna be."
"Probably," Soarin admitted. "It would be a good idea to prepare for that possibility, at least."
"My lord," one of the other riders called back. "there's something you should see."
Frowning, Soarin spurred his steed forward, AJ following shortly behind.
Atop the hill from which the call had come, she saw a footprint, or at least what looked like one.
What had made it, though, she had no idea; it was wide and splayed, four thin branches growing out of a small oval, shallowly pressed into a patch of bare mud. Lifting one of her feet out of her stirrup, she measured it with her eyes, which quickly widened; whatever had made that had made it with feet three times larger than her's.
"How old is it?" Soarin asked, his voice level.
"A few days," one of his soldiers, dismounted, answered. "No more than five, I'd guess. I'm sorry, that's the best I can give you."
"Strange," Fluttershy murmured, peering intently at the print. "It almost looks like an amphibian made it."
"Maybe a bird?" Soarin offered.
"Maybe," Fluttershy replied, narrowing her gaze. "I don't know. It doesn't look like any bird I've ever seen."
"Or any toad I've ever seen," Soarin added. "Amphibian, I mean, any amphibian I've ever seen."
"Whatever it was," the dismounted soldier sighed. "it looks like it just made the one print, either that or time swept away any other tracks it left. What do you say, Soarin? Do we try to pick up its trail?"
"It's gone too cold," Soarin shook his head. "We'll let Mountainboss know if we meet any of their patrols and tell Fleetfoot and the others about it once we get back, but I think that's all we can do for now. Just in case it stayed around here, though, I'd like us to pick up the pace for the rest of the day. Rather not be trapped here with something potentially hostile at night."
The others nodded, and followed him as he spurred his horse as fast as he dared in the uneven terrain. As they did, AJ maneuvered Jordskred until she was alongside Fluttershy, who was frowning in thought. "What're you thinkin', Shy?" she asked in a whisper. "You think Soarin's right 'bout that thing bein' from a bird?"
"I don't know," she replied. "It could be, but at some points, it seemed a bit...I guess 'thick' would be the right word. Even aside from that, it just didn't feel like a bird print for some reason."
AJ flicked a glance at Fluttershy's geode, half-hidden under her sweater. "I reckon I've got an idea why," she murmured. "But if it's not a bird, what is it? You said it seemed like an amphibian made it, like some kinda freaky giant frog?"
"I don't know," she sadly shook her head. "That doesn't seem right either. It doesn't make any sense."
"We'll make sense out of it," AJ reassured her. "Either that or someone else 'round here will. We've got this, Shy, don' worry."
She smiled softly at her in thanks, before a pensive look washed over her face. "Did Soarin seem off to you back there?" she eventually asked. "He seemed a bit tense to me."
"A bit, yeah," AJ nodded after a few moments' thought. "There was that weird stumble after you told him it didn't look like the print of any bird you'd ever seen, for one. 'Course, that might've been 'cause he was lookin' at this print made by who-knows-what."
"Yes," Flutters murmured in agreement, staring off into the distance. "Who knows what."
They escaped the hills as the sun descended, stopping for the night a few meters away from their feet. They made camp much as the Rainbooms had last night, though Soarin set multiple watchers for the night, watchers which he refused to allow those he began referring to as his guests to join. "Keeping watch is the duty of the host," he'd said when AJ pressed him about allowing her to help shoulder the burden. "not the guests. Don't worry, it's no worse than we'd bear if we were alone. It's a light burden, if even that; 'hospitality's no true burden,' as the saying goes."
Once again, they lacked the materials to make a fire, and once again company more than made up for it. She and one of Soarin's soldiers, High Spirits, managed to scrounge together a decent dinner between their supplies, one that found a highly-appreciative audience. They talked and laughed while they ate, leaving serious topics behind in favor of the low and high points of simple everyday life. Rainbow and Fluttershy broke down laughing when she and Cerulean Skies, another member of Soarin's crew, got into a fight about who got up earlier, her to tend her farm or him to tend his sheep. She won, and proceeded to regale the crowd with the story of Apple Bloom's first attempt at apple-picking. There was food and friendship and cheer, enough to forget her troubles for a while.
Until those troubles found her again, in a lull in the conversation. Their talk quieted down as the last of them finished eating, until Soarin snapped his fingers. "That's it," he whispered to himself, before turning to smile at the confused Applejack. "You remember that thing you were asking me about earlier today?" he asked her. "That story?"
"Story?" AJ frowned as the others turned to her. "Story, story, stor-" She remembered, then, and flashed a distressed look at the other Rainbooms. "Oh, that story!" she laughed shakily, waving her hand. "'S'okay, Soarin, you managed to tell me what I needed to know, I don' need no more!"
Soarin shrugged, then replied. "Well, even if you've had your fill, it's a good story, and it is tradition to have a song before sleep in Cloudsdale." He closed his eyes, as did AJ as she grimaced, and then Soarin began to sing:
The Commander's brow was heavy
And his speech weary low
As looked he out from 'top the Gate
Upon the coming foe.
"Their van will draw nigh upon us
Before be closed the Gate,
And if they prize it from our hands
Dark shall be our land's fate."
But up spoke Rainbow Dash the brave,
The warden of the Gate:
"Why do we ask us 'do or die?';
Death is all mortal's fate.
The flier dies as the steadfast does,
As do the mean and great;
Though we shall die, the war we'll bar
If we meet them at the Gate."
She leapt deer-down from the battlements,
Her fellows at her heels,
And marched and stood without the Gate
Which creaked and groaned its wheels.
They drew their swords and spun their spears
As the foe drew e'er nigh,
And grimly stood within their way,
To bar and fight and die.
AJ kept her eyes firmly on Soarin as he sang of the Battle of the Gate, of the valiant last stand of the twelve great houses' leaders and the Commander. She tried to listen, but the heat of the glare the other Rainbooms were shooting her made that difficult. She managed to tune them out for bits and pieces, before eventually managing to ignore them entirely as the ending drew near. Reinforcements had poured out of the Spear Gate and driven the enemy back, but a rearguard prevented it from turning into rout, and now Rainbow Dash lay dying in the arms of her niece, dying at their hands:
"Oh niece of mine! Oh niece of mine!
I must leave you, I grieve!
But though I pass, my heart is high,
For a safe home you I leave!"
And then she closed her blazing eyes
And loosed her lungs in gasp,
And in the arms of her dear niece
She sighing breathed her last.
But her dear niece did grieveth not,
But fell into a rage
And bore herself her aunt's bronze arms
With savage saddened strength.
The rearguard froze in shock as she
Charged, for seemed to them
That there Dash stood with sword in hand,
The last of the dozen!
With red the grass beneath her feet
And red her armor bright
And red the glow of the dying sun
That bathed her in its light.
"Come on, come on!" the great lade called;
"My sword is hungry still!"
And with a cry of savage rage
She charged down from the hill.
And now, when night draws up its cloak,
And drives all to their homes,
And lights arise like household stars
And doors like great Gate close,
With weeping tears and lion's cries
The story Men still say
How Rainbow Dash kept safe the Gate
And does so to this day!
All save the Rainbooms applauded as Soarin finished, then turned to look at those who stayed silent. They started in confusion; while AJ was desperately looking around, biting her cheek, Fluttershy was glaring at her in fury, and Rainbow had a resigned look on her face.
"What happened," Fluttershy asked in an acid voice. "to 'Don't ask about it anymore,' Jacqueline Apple?"
AJ flinched, then stammered, "Technically, that was only 'bout her family-"
"Technically," Fluttershy cut her off with a voice like a sword. "it was none of your business."
"She's my friend," AJ mumbled half-heartedly. "That makes it my business."
"It doesn't, and you know it," Fluttershy retorted. "You had no right to snoop about her."
"I might've agreed with you," AJ clenched her fist. "if I hadn't overheard you two talkin' 'bout how you were lyin' to me. I'd say knowin' that somebody's lyin' to me gives me the right to try to find out what they're hidin'."
"We weren't lying to you," Fluttershy replied. "We were trying to keep a secret, something you agreed to do. So much for your 'Apple word,' hm?"
"Keepin' a secret's one thing," AJ retorted, bristling to her feet. "Lyin' to the person you wanna have help you keep the secret's another. If you wanna trust me, don' turn right around an' give me a reason not to trust you."
Fluttershy prepared to answer again, but was stopped by a weary hand from Rainbow. "Enough, Flutters," she sighed. "Enough." Turning wearily to AJ, she asked, "So you think you know who I am now?"
"I do," she hotly nodded. "An' I know why you didn' want us to use your name, Rainbow Dash."
Silence fell. AJ's finger hovered in the air, pointing accusatively at her morose athletic friend, while Fluttershy seethed beside her.
Then the silence was broken, by the sound of Soarin's laughter. "Hate to rain on your parade, Applejack," he chuckled. "but I've met the real Rainbow Dash, and unless she can change her height, age, and colors, this isn't her."
"Wha?" she gasped in confusion.
"Applejack," Rainbow sighed. "You remember when I asked you to call me Platinum while we were here?"
"Yeah," she nodded, frowning. "You said your parents called you that."
Rainbow winced, then replied, "They've called me that since the day I was born. AJ, I wasn't asking you to lie about my name while we're here." She looked at the ground in shame. "I was asking you to stop lying about my name."
AJ blinked, bewildered.
"I'm not Rainbow Dash," she continued. "You never really knew a Rainbow Dash. I've been lying to you about my name for the last five years, I've been lying about it to almost everyone for almost my entire life. But now, I'm going to start telling the truth." She turned to the stunned Applejack with a determined look on her face. "You were right, AJ," she said. "My parents did give me a nickname. But Platinum wasn't it; Platinum's my real name, Platinum Brilliance. Rainbow Dash was the nickname, the persona, the mask." She bowed her head in sorrow. "The lie. I'm sorry, AJ; the Rainbow Dash you thought you knew was fake, a lie. She's as dead," she sniffed. "as the woman who inspired her."
AJ simply gaped at her, staring in shock. Then, surprising everyone, even herself, she began walking away from the camp, flatly murmuring, "I need to think."
The others watched her go, then watched as Soarin left after her. "I'll be back as quickly as I can," he said. "It's probably not a good idea for any of us to be alone right now; whatever made that track we saw might be out here."
Then silence fell after he left, Soarin's soldiers muttering amongst themselves, Fluttershy rubbing her friend's back in comfort, and Platinum holding her head in her hands.
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Is she talking about from last chapter? Because, I honestly didn’t understand what they were talking about.
Is that why she was given super strength?
Ok, I’d have to disagree on some of these.
If he’s heard of her shouldn’t her know what she looks like?
Wait what?
So they’re natural?
What does that mean?
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure that a sign to watch your back.
I’m pretty sure the right word would be big.
Applejack, I know you’re a terrible liar, but you gotta play dumb.
Is there a difference?
Ok, that’s a good point.
I don’t. Can someone explain?
But, why now?
But, what was the goal?
So the original Rainbow Dash is basically Horatius?
10847336
Yep.
Ah. Very interesting mythological roots for Rainbow Dash. Leads to the question of how that may carry over to Equestria.
I didn't realize Starlight's middle name was Blucher.
When and how did "elite" became such a negative term, anyway? And that applies as much to this world as that one.
Smooth as Velcro.
Oh, AJ...
This is why all six Elements are needed. Any virtue in excess becomes a vice, and Honesty is no exception. This is going to be awkward at best. Here's hoping her friends can find in themselves to forgive themselves. And that she thinks to apologize for tearing off the mask. We'll see what happens from here.
10847331
She is, and they were basically debating building up personal strength or trying to form alliances in order to gain power.
She thinks it is.
Which ones, might I ask?
Rainbow Dash isn't her real name; the real Rainbow Dash, the one who inspired her to give herself that name, lived and died centuries ago. The girl AJ knows as Rainbow Dash gave it to herself almost like a pseudonym.
Because she's going somewhere where she won't be able to use it anymore; non-Cloudsdalers wouldn't know about the real Rainbow Dash, so she could go by that among them, but in Cloudsdale, like Soarin said, everyone knows the story of Rainbow Dash, so they'd easily be able to call her out on it.
She answers that question later.
Pardon?
It's easy to hate the impersonal, aloof elites, but the great houses of Cloudsdale frequently interact with those under their rule, personifying them. Thus, since they are neither impersonal nor aloof, they must not be elites, at least according to those Soarin describes.
"Roll for Deception."
*dice rattle*
"I gotta 1. Is'at good?"
Yes, actually; with lying, you're attempting to mislead an individual from the truth that they have a right to know: with keeping a secret, you're trying to keep an individual from the truth that they don't have a right to know. For example, if someone comes up to your house and asks if you've seen an innocent person who they want to kill, and you're keeping that person safe, I would argue it would be keeping a secret to say 'No,' because the person planning murder doesn't have a right to the truth they seek.
Yep. Like she said last chapter, trust is a two-way street, and if you make your way distrustful, the other stands a good chance of soon mirroring it.
And here we come to the heart of the chapter; the personal drama between AJ, Platinum, and Fluttershy...which is distracting them from the warning signs along their road.
She's not referring to their size, though; she's referring to the diameter of the toes.