Rainbow Dash Around the World

by MagicS

Camping for the Night

They had set up camp on softer ground away from the rocky cliffs of the southern face of the island. For now the night of searching was over, it was time to sleep and see if they could get back on the fugitive’s trail tomorrow.

Three tents were set up and Rainbow Dash was going to have to share hers with Tyluck. For now though they had to eat first. The party of four was gathered around an impromptu campfire, ringed by some convenient rocks that Berten had tried to kill Rainbow Dash with just earlier. They didn’t need to cook their meals since they were just eating bread and vegetables, and the Trolls didn’t seem to mind the cold weather of the Stormlands, so Rainbow figured the fire was mainly for her own convenience. Thunder kept roaring in the storm clouds over their heads at a regular interval—threatening to drop rain at a moment’s notice.

Rainbow Dash put down the gnawed up corncob she had been eating and looked up at Tyluck. “I have some questions for you.”

Tyluck sat back and nodded expectantly. “Ask away.”

“Well first off-” Rainbow glanced at the two other Trolls next to her. “What are your names?”

“Bahahahaha!” Tyluck threw back his head and laughed loudly. “My! How rude of us! Of course you deserve a proper introduction to my comrades!” He smiled and nodded at both of the others in turn.

“I am Tyval,” the Troll to her right said with a polite smile.

“And I am Tornal,” the Troll to her left said with a polite smile.

“Okay,” Rainbow Dash nodded and imprinted the names on her brain. “I’m going to try my best to remember which of you is which.”

“Don’t stress yourself if you can’t,” Tyluck chuckled.

Rainbow Dash snorted and rolled her eyes before a more serious expression settled on her face. “Well anyways—got something else to ask. What’s that guy’s deal? Berten, the fugitive, there’s a difference between dangerous and suicidal. Who is he? What did he do that you’re chasing him for? I trust you that he’s a bad guy, that he’s a serious criminal, but I need to know more than just that now. He called you traitors too. Why?”

“Ah, I am not surprised he said that,” Tyluck nodded and scratched his chin. “And yes—you certainly have a right to know the details. There’s no reason for us to not tell you, especially when we would like our relationship with Equestria to grow even stronger and friendlier.”

“Okay, then lay it on me,” Rainbow shrugged.

“Well all of this started in the first place because our Troll Kingdom… it went through a bit of… political upheaval recently. We had a revolution. The old King, the old system, it was completely thrown out and we’ve been changing our ways for the better since. Berten—the fugitive—was a loyal servant of that old system. When the revolution happened he was imprisoned for being a dangerous element. He truly believed in and had always given his all to the old oppressive class system. Imprisonment was the only option we could see. However, as resourceful as always, he escaped. And we’ve been searching for him since,” Tyluck sighed and sat back. “That is the simple why of it all. But you wish to know more, yes?”

Rainbow Dash nodded. “Yeah. What do you really know about him? What was so bad about how your kingdom used to be and why was he so loyal to it?”

“The bad of our old kingdom I could go on about for ages...” Tyluck chuckled mirthlessly “As for his loyalty to it? I believe he wished to prove himself.”

“Prove himself?” Rainbow raised an eyebrow.

“Obviously you can tell he is different from the rest of us. The white streaks in his fur?”

“Yeah. What about it?”

Tyluck’s eyes turned downcast, a somber expression on his face. “A terrible tradition. To even call if a tradition hurts me. But the old ways, for as long as any Troll could remember, fur like that was seen as a terrible curse. It was a blight on the family who had a child with fur like that. They would be seen as unclean, others would shun them. The family would be forced to… dispose of the child.”

Rainbow’s blood ran cold and a disgusted frown appeared on her face. “Dispose...”

“It was a ritual,” Tyluck nodded. “The Troll Kingdom exists on a small island plagued by dangerous monsters and beasts in the wilds outside of our castle and a few small settlements along the coast. Any white-streaked child would be taken by their family far away from the castle and left in those wilds… helpless… defenseless… left to die. Only after that ritual was done would the family be welcomed back into society.”

“That’s horrible!” Rainbow Dash yelled and looked between the three Trolls. “How could your people ever do something like that?!”

“We know, Rainbow Dash, we know,” Tyluck said, still looking down at the ground in shame. “But it will never happen again now. I promise.”

Rainbow Dash sighed and shook her head. The horrors of the past couldn’t be undone… but you could make up for them. “Alright… so then what happened with Berten?”

Tyluck raised his eyes to stare into hers. “He came back.”

Rainbow Dash gulped.

“Years later, he appeared before the castle wearing the skulls and pelts of the monsters and beasts he had killed in the wilds of our kingdom. And demanded the King himself come to acknowledge him and allow him entrance into the same world that had cast him out. A company of a dozen beaten and broken warriors later and the King decided to allow him an audience. That is how Berten came back and eventually gained the powerful and influential position he had in the old system before the revolution.”

“Why the name Berten?”

Tyluck this time gave a brief snort of amusement. “A favor and an insult all in one. The King gave him that name, but made sure it would always symbolize his difference—his otherness. Every Troll would know, even without seeing him, that he was not one of us. On the outside though he did not seem to care, in fact, I would say he wore the name with pride. It did not matter to him what other Trolls thought, from the King down to the servants and peasants, he only wanted to be acknowledged.”

Rainbow Dash thought for a second, what a life like that would be like. She couldn’t fathom it or even begin to put herself in his horseshoes. She wrinkled her brow and looked up at Tyluck. “What about his parents?”

Tyluck shrugged. “As far as I know he never spoke to them or even attempted to seek them out. They may as well not have existed to him.”

“That’s so… ugh… maybe he wasn’t wrong to not want to see them again honestly,” Rainbow Dash sighed and shook her head. “So what did he actually do after he got back into Troll society or whatever?”

“He was given a task that he was uniquely suited for—and at this point the King, Dukes, and other powerful Trolls knew of his strength as well—Berten was put in charge of a group that managed the dangerous monsters on the Troll island. Either killing or chasing them away from sensitive areas. When it was obvious how good he was at this job, he was given more and more responsibilities. Chiefly among them was that he was put in charge of chasing down and recapturing runaway slaves as well.”

Rainbow Dash’s eyes narrowed at that word. “Wait. Slaves?”

Tyluck grunted and looked away ashamedly “Ah, right, we didn’t mention that...”

“No. You didn’t,” Rainbow glared.

“It was yet another flaw of the old system. We Trolls enslaved many others. But that is also over and done with, we will never do such a thing again,” Tyluck explained. “Please believe me.”

Rainbow Dash flapped her gums and rolled her eyes but relented. “I know you’re being honest so fine. I can tell you feel bad and it’s not like you were in charge or anything.”

“Back on the topic of Berten-” Tyluck returned to that. “He accepted any task given to him with no complaints and would always do them better than anyone else. It was like a point of pride, he wanted everyone to acknowledge him and know how great he was. It was unfortunate that our society treated him so poorly to begin with, I believe that contributed to him becoming what he is. It was because of that that he threw his all into everything and was more loyal to the King and old system that tried to throw him out and kill him than anyone. He needed to prove himself. He had to.”

Tyluck sat back and took a deep breath before continuing. “And because of his unique position it gave him a strange power in our society. He didn’t truly belong to any class, or have any power on paper, but because of his competence and ties to the King it was still like he was above anyone else anyways and the rules didn’t apply to him. Duke, Earl, Baron, servant, they were all strangely equal to Berten. He could do anything and was quite often given the task of reining in any Troll noble that was being truculent. Everyone was afraid of him.”

“I guess he really lost a lot when that revolution happened,” Rainbow Dash said.

“Indeed,” Tyluck nodded. “Not just position, or comfort, but his reason for living itself was taken away. I… do not blame him for escaping and seeing us as traitors. In his eyes that is the truth. But he is still a dangerous criminal who can not be left alone. There’s no telling what he could get up to.”

“What do you think he’s doing? He doesn’t… after meeting him, he doesn’t seem like someone who’s just running away for no reason,” Rainbow asked.

“I don’t know,” Tyluck shook his head. “But I know he wishes to get vengeance on those who participated in the revolution and tore the old kingdom down. How he plans on doing something like that, all by himself, is a mystery to me. But his tenacity and drive is too much—he will not give up.”

“Haahhh…” Tyluck exhaled greatly and stood up. “I believe we have spoken enough about him and the follies of the old kingdom. It is late and we must rest if we wish to be at our best to continue our pursuit of him tomorrow morning.”

Rainbow nodded. “Yeah, had a good enough dinner anyways.”

“We’ll be up before sunrise. If we’re even able to tell thanks to the weather here,” Tyluck said.

“Could go either way,” Rainbow said as she looked up at the dark sky.

“I’ll douse this fire and we can all retire to our tents then,” Tyluck said. He reached down to the ground and dug his hands into the dirt, taking a huge chunk of it out before dropping it all on the fire and smothering it.

The moment it was gone the cold rushed in with the damp air and Rainbow Dash shivered. Night in the Stormlands was unsurprisingly miserable. Without fire or adrenaline running through her veins she felt the cold all around her, even just a light breeze in the air like now was terrible. It was almost totally dark too thanks to the clouds blocking off even the light from the moon and the stars. Rainbow was only able to see a little bit thanks to her eyes acclimating quickly to the darkness. She was going to enjoy getting into that warm tent. Shared or not it was better than sleeping outside with nothing.

She followed Tyluck to his tent while waving goodnight to the others, the Troll had a large down roll in the tent for him to sleep in while Rainbow Dash was making do with a spare blanket. Not super comfortable but at least she could wrap the blanket around herself so the ground wasn’t as rough to sleep on.

Now curled up like that she thought back to what she had learned. Berten was merciless, relentless, dangerous, and willingly engaged in many horrible things back in the Troll Kingdom. He had even attempted to kill her without question or warning. And yet she couldn’t hate him for it. Not after hearing about his past. He never had a real chance, did he? He never had a friend. And the world around him was just as miserable and responsible for everything.

Rainbow Dash decided then. She was going to make up for her last failure.

She was going to do what Twilight would do.

She was going to make a friend.

Comments

[RoboRed]

Wow, never knew that Berten had such a deep chip on his shoulder. Does kind of explain his motives though. He finally crawled up towards the top of the system to a position of power and respect and then had it all kicked out from underneath him after the revolution. Too bad he didn't try and find another way...

[redmar]

Berten's anger is understandable but befriending him is very difficult if it's even possible at all.

[Chicago Ted]

“Why the name Berten?”

Tyluck this time gave a brief snort of amusement. “A favor and an insult all in one. The King gave him that name, but made sure it would always symbolize his difference—his otherness.”

Talk about getting trolled.