Echo

by Valley Fjord

Chapter 2

The first leg of the trios journey sent them straight north. Frustration at the unexpected storm caused Rainbow Dash to punch herself straight through the layers of cloud that she had worked on while Twilight Sparkle and Spike fought just to keep their eyes open in the wind. In trying to keep aware of their flight, Twilight lowered her head as far as she could, the strain on Rainbow Dash's wings was immediately noticeable from the new perspective. Twilight reached her neck forward and shouted. "Rainbow! Slow down, we're going too fast!" but from the speed and the acceleration her protest was drowned out by the rush of wind.

In less then an hour after take off the towering white pillars of Cloudsdale began to loom on the horizon. And as the city rolled over their heads, Twilight and Spike couldn't stop themselves from taking in the sight. Soon enough though the white city had passed over them and was already fading behind the three with Dash beginning to work herself into a fevered pace.

The light packing of trees and hills gave way to a cluster of mountain ranges that Twilight had mapped out for them to stop near and with quick eyes Dash spotted a long stream of water. Several heavy wing flaps brought Rainbow Dash into a landing with her front hooves dipping into the water, allowing her to drop her head in up to her ears.

As Dash took a long draft of the cool river water Twilight's magic began its work on the harness straps around Spike and herself. The purple swirls methodically loosened straps and belts and once her back legs were released Twilight jumped free from Dash and immediately she slips on the rocky ground. Twilight grinned looking back at her legs, a numbing sensation was so strong she hadn't noticed it, “Rainbow, how do you get your legs use to not walking after so long?” she asked while studding the tremors that came from her hooves.

Pulling her head from the stream, Dash forced herself not to laugh. “We only just started and you already lost your land legs? What are you going to do if you aren't able to stand when we get back to Ponyville tomorrow?” from that she plunged her head back into the water for another draft.

Twilight slid her legs beneath herself and pulled open the saddle bag saying, “I'll just make sure that I'm use to this before we get home.” Inside the bag sat the three books. She lift the whole stack out and shuffled them together. “Alright Rainbow, we have one hour for rest before we pack up and head to our next stop.”

Dash's ears flip back and she pulled her head out of the water, turning to Twilight with a frown. “An hour! You want us to wait for an hour?”

“Of course, we did plan everything out already, one hour here, then a second two hour flight and when we reach our next stop we will wait for an hour again, finally we'll make the last stretch of our track – and once we land at our destination we can start with all the calibrations of my equipment, after that the experiment can begin.”

“But the storm, I was late because of it and I know it completely threw my speed off.”

“And I have already made adjustments for that. I set aside a three hour rest period once we finish the flight, which means if I cut a few minutes from it then everything will be fine”

“The storm only made you thirty minutes late,” Spike added “and if you think of how dry my eyes got from you flying us here we might have actually passed up our planed time. I mean did any of you two see how fast we went under Cloudsdale?”

“Of course we did!” Rainbow Dash shouted while pumping her hoof at the chance to boast. She flung herself into the air and made a powerful turn before feeling her tail pulled back towards the ground.

“This is a one hour rest stop Rainbow. That means no flying.” Twilight's magic pulled Dash's tail harder, forcing her to land. “You'll need all your energy to get us to our destination and preform the experiment, not show off while you wait.” holding her friend down, Twilight pulled the bottom book from the stack and sent it over to Dash. “You can read this while letting your wings rest.”

With a skeptical glance in Twilight's direction Dash took the book and read the title, “Daring Do' – The Parasite's Lament and the Grown Fanatics.” The illustration on the book cover was split between an angry swarm of rainbow colored Parasprites and an overgrown forest with glowing eyes coming out of the plants.

Twilight smiled brightly with an inward joy at the gift as she levitated the book closer to Rainbow Dash. “It's not officially been released yet, but living in a library has so many perks to it that...”

An interrogative glare from Spike stopped Twilight, "The only perk she used was asking Princes Celestia for an advanced copy."

Rainbow Dash took the book from the air flipping to the first chapter. “So, just one hour right?” she asked with a sedated tone before falling into the book. Twilight watched Dash's eyes dart across the pages before turning back to the the top of the two books.

She opened to the table of continence of a book with the title of Aerial Physics and turned to the page for high altitude flight. “Spike, will you make sure we only stay for an hour?” she said before diving into the pages herself.

The sun rolled across the sky swiftly while both ponies remained deep in their books. Twilight blinked heavily as she came too from the joy of information in the pages, knowing that the rest period was coming close to an end. When she looked over the group a warm glow crossed her face and she smiled broadly.

“Rainbow – Rainbow Dash, it's time to get ready,” Twilight spoke softly and her voice slipped into Dash's imagination in the form of a very quiet but very large stone Pegasus. The granite stone face she imagined caused Dash to jump back from the book and turn to Twilight expecting the same gray visage.

“You're not – what?” Dash stammered and shook her head to get the image to fade away.

“We've stayed here long enough. It's time to get off the ground and on to our next stop.” Twilight said. Using her magic to lift the book from between Rainbow Dash's hooves she took a quick glance at the page number before sending it over to the saddle bag. “Spike, are you ready to go.” For his part in resting, Spike was fast asleep and curled up under the shade of a rock. Twilight's excitement to get going was all that kept her from feeling any announce at him.

“Wasn't he supposed to be keeping track of the time!” Rainbow Dash shrieks as the idea of them losing more time sunk into her mind. She scurried up to her feet then launched into the air, stretching her wings out for the next leg of the trip.

Twilight watched her friend without a hint of concern and blushed lightly. “I kind of knew he might do this,” she used her magic to lift Spike out from under the rock and lowered him in front of herself. “but not to worry...”

“Not to worry!?" Rainbow Dash shouted. "With Spike falling asleep like that we have no idea how long we've been here.”

“Yes we do.” was Twilight's rebuttal in Spikes defense. “I've been reading almost my whole life, and of course I memorized how many pages I can read in an hour and made sure to stop myself not one page late.”

Rainbow Dash touched back down directly in front of Twilight and stared at her in disbelieve. “But you read all kinds of books. You could have counted wrong or – or.”

“Dash, I will stake our friendship on the fact that we have not over shot our stay.” Twilight stated while proudly holding a hoof to her chest. “But we do need to get ourselves together and go right away.”

The harness was set back up on Dash's back and Twilight took all of five minuets to strap herself in and once they woke Spike up she cinched him in too. Last was the saddle bag to her own back, everything was done faster then the first time and Twilight gave a light tapping to Rainbow Dash's side to signal for take off.