• Member Since 23rd Dec, 2011
  • offline last seen Oct 28th, 2018

Ardensfax


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Every rising star must eventually fall. Rainbow Dash is locked in a struggle against her own past, and with the help of Twilight is about to make a discovery that will change the way she flies forever. But what will she lose in the process?

Massive thanks to Furor1 and Nyuuchandiannepie for the ridiculously awesome artwork, you should really check them out on DeviantArt if you've not already.

Dedicated to Donald Campbell and his Bluebird, for chasing his horizons for no other reason than the fact that they were there. Also to Steve Hogarth and Marillion for writing Out Of This World, the song that inspired this story.

Chapters (45)
Comments ( 1765 )

Hi, just a quick request. If anyone wants to rate this story particularly low, it'd be much appreciated if you could leave a constructive reason for doing so in the comments, so that I can improve. Getting a 0.5 star rating for my first rating with no explanation whatsoever is kind of disheartening.

EDIT: It appears that some troll has been going down all of the stories posted today, rating them 0.5 stars. Well, yay for that. :facehoof:

trolls will be trolls i guess story looks intresting and with the anonymous ratings disabled cause of the rate bombings hopefully it will start getting the higher rating it deserves.

Thanks for the support! :pinkiehappy: Ah well, can't stop the trolls trollin', I guess...

Hey, I enjoyed this first chapter. Don't let the trolls get you down :P

New chapter for you guys, relieved to have gotten this up before Christmas. Sorry it's a bit on the short side, but woo, internal monologues! :pinkiecrazy:

This is turning into one of my favourite stories at the moment! I'm off to read the Wikipedia article on Imposter Syndrome now.

85641 Thanks a lot! :twilightblush: Must admit I only heard about Imposter Syndrome myself a short time before I started writing this, but I thought it was a bit more varied than the straight up depression that Dash often suffers from in fanfics. Man, this fanbase loves to be cruel to its characters sometimes...

Long chapter is long... :rainbowhuh: This one kind of ran away with me, decided to go for some background exposition stuff. Hope you all like it!

Great story, keep up the good work!

:derpytongue2:4000 is about average from what ive read ive seen stories with capters anywhere from 9,000 to 14,000 words that i consider long.

Thanks for the positive feedback, everyone! :yay:

93685 True, there are some pretty long chapters out there in the Fanfic universe. I meant in comparison to the previous chapter more than anything. The average chapter length for this story will probably be just on the upside of 3000.

New chapter for y'all, hope you like it. Over here it's been 2012 for 3 hours now... Happy New Year everypony! :yay:

I apologise for the wall of text this comment's going to take up, but it's necessary IMHO.

First off, let me say I've really enjoyed it to this point. The only thing that really jumped out at me was that one of the paragraphs was FAR too long. I've given a suggestion as to how to break it up below,

I hope she’s okay, Twilight thought concernedly* with concern as she closed the door. Turning away, she paused. Was I seriously just worrying about sounding flirty? She felt her face become flushed again as she remembered. Now that the haze of worry had passed, and she had time to think about it, the more bothered she was by the last ten minutes. Why did I hug her like that? I guess I was concerned, but still…If she was honest with herself, she knew that something else had come close to happening as they lay together in front of the empty grate. Twilight put a hoof to her head, mentally berating her heart for choosing this moment to spring something like this on her.Oh Celestia, this is such a bad time. I don’t know anything about this kind of thing! <<new paragraph>>

This was perfectly true. In the years she had spent under the Princess’s tutelage, it was rare that she would speak more than three consecutive words to another pony outside of study conditions. This isolation had been largely of her own creation, driven by her inclination for academic work, but had largely precluded her from having any kind of romantic involvement with other ponies. She was not entirely oblivious of the feelings involved in such situations. Indeed, she would be a liar if she claimed never to have harboured slightly inappropriate fantasies concerning her regal mentor, (she went even redder at this thought, rapidly locking it back up again in some sealed box in back of her mind.) However, she had honestly never even thought about that sort of thing since she had arrived in Ponyville, particularly not about her friends. She supposed that this was understandable, after all, fighting dragons, hydras and goodness-knows-what else was bound to be fairly distracting. But now, she was forced to accept that seeing Dash without her bluster and abrasive brashness had changed the way she saw her. Suddenly her friend was beautiful. <<additional paragraph break. Probably unnecessary, but it brings Twi's thoughts into sharper focus IMHO>>

“Why now? Why her?” she whispered. Remembering looking into her friend’s eyes made her heart pound almost painfully, seeing Dash’s gentler self behind the gleaming magenta windows, without the shields of boastfulness that she had spent so long building.

<<rest of text as is>>

That's probably about as good as I can do on splitting the paragraph, but that particular paragraph REALLY needs splitting. It affects readability quite a lot. I also felt "becoming flushed" flowed better than "becoming coloured" flows just a smidgin better, but that's *really* a nitpick.

With that out of the way, keep up the good work! That paragraph was the only thing I really have to criticise - the rest of it really is VERY good.

*I'm pretty sure concernedly isn't a word, and even if it is, it sounds clunky here. The comma's probably not needed here with the changes. I've also simplified a sentence there. The italics have been established with the first thought as indicating Twilight's thought, and it's redundant to mention it as her thought one sentence after this has been established.

You don't have to follow my suggestions of course, but I figured, what the hay.

Apologies for the ludicrously long comment.

100518 Thanks so much for the epic comment! It's brilliant to get some detailed feedback.

Now I come to read back over the chapter that paragraph is rather on the enormous side! I'll definitely edit to chop that up a bit. Actually, now I think about it, the last paragraph change you suggested is right at a transition from 'Twilight's-internal-monologue' to 'Twilight-actually-speaking-aloud' so it could easily be regarded as a change in speaking character.

The online dictionary seems to think that 'concernedly' is a word, (although the Microsoft Word spellchecker dictionary doesn't seem to, so the jury's out on that one), but, existent or not, I agree it seems clunky used in that setting.

No need to apologise for the ludicrously long comment, they're the best kind. I'm glad you think that it's generally good!

EDIT: Changes have now been put in. Many thanks again for the feedback!

Brilliant! I know it's against Dash's new (or old, I guess) views, but I still can't wait till she rainbooms the hell out of that Lightning guy. :rainbowdetermined2:

And the Twidash is just superb! Really loving how it's progressing--maybe it IS a little rushed, but it seems to me that it's rushed in a way that is still believable.

TwiDash ship is best ship

110300 Thanks a lot for the support! If Lightning's actually introduced as a character, he'll most likely be a quite background-ish one. (It's a bit too Mary Sue for comfort otherwise.) I wanted him to be more an outside force than an actual character. With regards to the speed the TwiDash's happening at, I wanted it to seem as if the characters themselves are rushing into it a bit, perhaps too fast for their own good, rather than making it seem that it's being forced along by the author. I hope it struck that balance.

110581 Must admit I'm more of a TwiShy fan myself under normal circumstances, but this narrative needed somepony who could realistically break a speed record, and Fluttershy... Well, she probably couldn't. :rainbowlaugh:

D'aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaw!!!

I love this story!! Poor Rainbow. I wanna hug her so bad. :fluttercry:
Hmm, your take on Rainbow's psychology is sort of similar my views in 'Faded Rainbow'

I love the shipping cuteness. TwiDash is adorable.

The story was really well written and the characters practically leaped off the page. Loved it!

Can't wait for more!

New chapter! Take that, writer's block! :pinkiehappy: I decided to include Rarity at last, after much procrastination and rewriting. Pinkie is probably sad now for not being included, but I have plans for her. :pinkiecrazy: (Probably.)

I like your thoughts on how Pegasi can fly with such disproportionately small wings! It makes a lot of sense, though it poses some unfortunate implications for my favorite Pegasus. :rainbowdetermined2: If every Pegasus knew they could potentially break the sound barrier just by believing in themselves, they'd be pulling off sonic rainbooms left and right! :rainbowlaugh: PREPOSTEROUS!

I somewhat agree with SatoshiKyuionpuno but this is a good story overall, like the concept of the wing thingy should make her fly better cuz shes in luv with Twilight and stuff. They also should join together and steal Celestias powers and imprison her, then they rule Equestria.

119765 Thanks! :pinkiesmile: I need to read your stuff so I can stop accidentally ripping off your ideas! :derpytongue2:

119795 I must admit, I'm kind of regarding Dash as having abnormal amounts of determination, confidence, the general 'winning spirit' as compared to most Pegasi. In my headcanon, based on what I've seen in the series, the majority of Pegasi are pretty tenacious, but Dash's instinctual ability is way beyond most. It's in the same way that Twilight's magical ability is so far beyond most Unicorns.

121582 Curses! My nefarious plans have been revealed! Cheese for everyone! :pinkiecrazy:

New chapter time! :pinkiehappy: Sorry this one's a tad on the filler-ish side, I just wanted to tie up a few details of the TwiDash stuff before launching into the 'Experiment' story arc. Also I wanted to give them a nice ending to their first day. (Uh-oh, I'm empathizing with fictional characters. This way madness lies!) :derpytongue2:

121995 I must admit I have quite a thing for psychology fics as well. Actually, the original Pony Psychology series is still one of my favourite MLP fanfics out there.

122001 Well, thanks! :yay: I must admit, the lack of views compared to most stories with this many chapters is probably due to the fact that I have absolutely no idea about posting at peak times, etc. (I'm in England, so my chapters probably tend to go up at 3 in the morning or work/school hours or something.)

Good chapter, great grammar. I think this deserves more views.

I agree with the rest, it definitely deserves more views!
Can't wait to read the next part!

124675 Well, I'm glad you think it deserves more! :pinkiehappy: Hopefully it'll pick up a bit now there's quite a lot of chapters.

125088
126686
Thanks a lot to both of you! :twilightblush: Just prepping the next chapter for publishing as I type this, actually.

OOOOOOOOOOOHHHHH woooo Dash finally overcame her feaaaaaaaar.

This is a great story, some of the best characterization I've seen from a Rainbow Dash story. Psh, study for Praxis tomorrow? Nah, TwiDash is all I need! :rainbowlaugh:

"She had never before heard Fluttershy accuse anypony of being a sack of anything,"

I love your writing style so much, this is such an easy read, my eyes drink it up. It's hard to describe what reading is like to me, but I can tell a really cohesive work when I see one and this is a prime example, a million awesome points to you!

"“I walked in on Twilight and Rainbow Dash kissing on the rug this morning!” he blurted out in a single breath, before he could prevent himself.

You’re dead."

I lol-ed, that scene was perfect, haha

"Twilight lived for the moments when she could simply gaze into those deep magenta pools, but each of those moments were tempered with sympathetic pain for the scars that her love still bore inside her, long after her father’s hoof-marks had faded, and long after the Flight School nicknames and taunts had stopped echoing in her ears. Twilight wished that there was some way for her to help, some way that she could change Dash’s past, but she knew that it was a challenge beyond her intellect. All that she could try to do was to give her the future she deserved."

Agh, I loved this paragraph, Twilight's adorable and awesome. Keep up the great writing!

I totally expected Dash to pull a Spiderman there. Hover in front of and just above Twilight, and then roll upside down and kiss her. :rainbowlaugh::twilightblush: The thought was strangely both amusing and adorable all at once.

Woo, plot development! This was a very fun chapter to write. :pinkiecrazy:

129360 Thanks a lot! :pinkiehappy: Glad you're enjoying the story.

129757 Dang, I missed an opportunity there. :facehoof: I could even have slipped in a 'friendly neighborhood' joke as well!

Wow...shit suddenly got REAL!
LOVE IT

There must be some sort of purpose for them doing this, who knows? Perhaps Twilight might join them, or Dash, or both. Or one of the gets cut in half and only half of Twilight goes, or only half of Dash goes, or both of them cut in half goes.
But the being cut in half brings the possibility of dieing so maybe Twilight doesn't go, or Dash doesn't go, or both of them don't go.
Also, with the possibility of death means that the possibility that only one of them dies so maybe, Twilight joins or Dash joins.
Not to mention all the possibilities if only one of them dies, so maybe Dash joins, or Twilight joins, or even both
Or Twilight joins, or even both, or dash.
And, or even both, Twilight joins or Dash joins.
Also, someone they might not like, like Trixie may be in there group too, so this brings the possibility of revenge, okay I'm sounding retarded now with this piece of shit reply.
If this is a piece of shit reply, it brings the possibility of being hated on, which may start a flame war, and if that happens the owner of this site might ban us and track down our ips to kill us in real life.

Whew, got it posted in time. :pinkiehappy: This is part one of probably 2 or 3. This particular bit of the arc felt too cohesive to be split under different chapter names, but I didn't want to make everyone wait for me to spend all week bashing out a 10,000-worder. So, here's part one!

Awesome, the plot thickens. Can't wait to see Celestia kick major ass! :trollestia:

Oh, when will these random evil pony organizations learn that you don't mess with Celestia's favorite pupil (possibly the most powerful Unicorn in existence and an Element of Harmony) or the fastest Pegasus to have ever roamed Equestria's skies (another Element of Harmony who can turn herself into a living nuke and walk away without a scratch). Screwing with both of them at once is just asking for a beatdown, really... :rainbowlaugh::facehoof:

IT'S GO TIME. :rainbowdetermined2::twilightangry2:

141346 Stop! Celestia time! *Epic breakdown* :pinkiecrazy:

141722 This lot have done their homework... They know what they're up against, and they've got a few tricks up their sleeves. Hoping to get in a nice Flutter-Rage moment, though...

142692

Not homework so much as clutching at the straws of hope :rainbowlaugh:

Huh, I'm in suspense to who these people are, I mean, they could be anyone... very nice.

And Part II's here! It's official now, this is the longest thing I've ever written. (Actually, it's my first go at writing a story per se, but this now beats any other project I've done in terms of length.) For the record, this is both the first and the last legitimate 'fight scene' that this story will contain... I don't want this to devolve into a beat-'em-up. :rainbowwild:

EDIT: Yeah, my predictive abilities when I wrote this comment were not up to much, apparently.

Princess Badass and Epicshy:flutterrage:

oh shit...celestias gonna fuck 'im up!:rainbowlaugh:

YES!!! Awesome action scene with Princess Celestia in the role of the cavalry. Excellent!

AWWWW SHIT, the definition of bucked lies before us: the three helpless unicorns, about to get destroyed by Celestia! Woooooooo :rainbowdetermined2:

Saw it coming, but nice fight scene really.
Also can't wait for Celestia to kick some ass.

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