Rainbow Dash Around the World

by MagicS

Friends, at the Least

“Okay, now this—this here? Twilight would never leave this place if she came here,” Rainbow Dash said as she looked around the gigantic Copper Section public library.

As far as libraries went the only two she could think of that surpassed this one were the Canterlot archives and the Crystal Empire’s library. This Copper Section library took up an entire building and there were multiple levels to it. Shelves upon huge shelves covered the first floor and the walls above, quiet tables, chairs, and reading alcoves could be found all over between the bookcases as well. Rainbow really could just imagine Twilight squeeing in delight and prancing up and down on her hooves.

“I hope you’ll be able to appreciate it just as much as your friend,” Barnaby said.

Rainbow Dash snorted. “Nopony could appreciate it as much as Twilight. But I’ll try to get like—halfway to how she would be. Anyway I’m not really sure where I should start, truthfully I’m trying to think of what she would want to see most. Cause she’s going to want me to tell her a lot about Oreville and what kind of stuff you guys have in here.”

“You know… your inquisitive friend would want to know the most she could about this unknown part of the world, wouldn’t she? And probably the history of Oreville rather than any fiction books we read for fun,” Barnaby said.

“Yeah, probably,” Rainbow nodded.

“Well then instead of a leisure trip we can make our visit here a learning experience,” Barnaby said.

“Oh. Great,” Rainbow rolled her eyes.

Barnaby chuckled. “Come on, I know exactly where we should go in here.”

The two of them went down the rows, passing numerous sections like Geology, Seismology, and Biology. And to be fair, Twilight Sparkle—the egghead among eggheads—probably already knew everything there was to know about those subjects. Rainbow Dash only spotted a few others in each part of the library, she wondered if it wasn’t busy hours yet or if there were always this few ponies in here. Would kind of be a shame if it was the latter. Even Rainbow Dash could appreciate libraries nowadays. She bet Larkon would also have loved to see a place like this.

Once they got to the History section, Barnaby took a turn and led them down a particular bookcase. They ended up in a little alcove surrounded on all sides by shelves with a small table with a lamp in the middle of it. A sign hanging above the entrance gave the name to this little sub-section: Cartography.

“These shelves are full of maps drawn by the ponies of Oreville over the centuries we’ve been here—and elsewhere for that matter. While we are not particularly traveled, especially not in the recent decades, these maps will still give you a detailed view of this part of the world,” Barnaby said. “Truthfully I wouldn’t know where to start, it’s not exactly my domain, and some of these historical maps are very old and very out of date.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll figure it out and try to soak up as much as I can—got a natural sense for maps and geography anyways. Comes with being a pegasus always flying above the ground,” Rainbow Dash cracked her neck. “And gotta make sure I can fill up this noggin all the way too so Twilight doesn’t complain when I get back home.”

Thankfully the shelves with the various maps and atlases were organized by date so Rainbow was able to trot over to the more recent ones and pull a book out. Barnaby briefly glanced over the date on it.

“Oh, that’s only 125 years old. Should be as up to date for a map as you can find here in Oreville.”

“Ponyville didn’t even exist 125 years ago...” Rainbow grumbled.

She opened up the heavy book to a random page and saw a mess of grids and scribbled notes laid over a foreign landscape. But maybe not so foreign. It was part of her natural ability, as she had figured out with Twilight’s help a while ago, but Rainbow Dash was able to effortlessly remember any landscape she had flown over or seen while flying. And she vaguely recognized what she was looking at even through the grids and other notes. This was a topographical map of the mountains and landscape above Oreville. She could make out a lot of the mountains she had seen before coming down and first making her way into the Copper Section. Rainbow flipped a few more pages and saw that it was more of the same, more pages going over these mountains in details, some of them devoted entirely to one mountain or the land between them while others were huge sweeping maps of the entire range.

“Really gives a sense for how huge this place is,” Rainbow said.

“The mountain range is bigger than Oreville. The city and various sections don’t spread out entirely underneath it,” Barnaby said. “From what we know though, the mountain range spreads all the way across this side of the world like a belt, before hitting two other mountain ranges that go from north to south.” He pointed out at the edges of the map Rainbow was looking at.

Rainbow thought about it for a moment and pictured where those mountains would be if she was on the other side of the world, back home. “Yakyakistan… and the snowy mountains north of Griffonstone.”

“Hm?” Barnaby raised an eyebrow.

Rainbow shook her head. “Just getting an idea of how the world looks.”

It was weird how even though the Ore-Range Mountains that Oreville sat under were at the same latitude as the icy, snow-capped mountains on the other side of the world, they were completely temperate. So was the landscape and forest right outside the Gate of Winter, while if Rainbow was at the other entrance to the True North she would’ve had to go through the snow and ice of the Yaket Range and the Crystal Empire before it. Maybe it had something to do with the gate itself?

Rainbow turned a page and saw a detailed drawing of a lone mountain to the east of Oreville—The Weeping Mountain. Another page and she saw something that was labeled “The Sloth Forest” to the west. She couldn’t recall Barnaby or anypony else mentioning that before. Another page showed a map of the forests and smaller mountains to the south, along with a place called “Pinetree Warren”. There were a few other small dots placed on the map to the east and west of Pinetree Warren labeled things like Wildflower Grove, Dagget’s Rush, Rockfall, Summerlight, and others. They must’ve been the towns and villages that supposedly existed south of Oreville.

She turned a few more pages in the hopes she’d find a map of the desert that also supposedly sat to the south but all she found were more maps of the mountains and the lands directly around them.

“I think once I leave Oreville the first place I hit up next is going to be this Pinetree Warren place,” Rainbow said as she scratched her head.

Barnaby peered over her and looked at the map. “An apt choice it seems. Maybe they’d have a map or at least some knowledge on what the desert that lies beyond them is like.”

Rainbow shrugged. “Would be nice but I’ve been fine not knowing what’s coming next anyways. Er—maybe not fine, but it kind of makes the adventure more fun like that. Right now I’m just doing this to mostly learn about where I already am. For Twilight’s sake.”

“What a wonderful friend you are then,” Barnaby rolled his eyes. “I suppose if you’re truly invested in informing your friend about this side of the world when you return home, you’ll want to read through our dullest, most tedious, and longest history book on the founding of Oreville.”

Rainbow Dash blanched. “Y-Yeah...”

---

It took less than 5 minutes of going through that dusty old tome of a history book before Rainbow Dash felt like falling asleep. Everything just slipped right out of her mind. The only thing that really stayed with her was how apparently the ponies who founded Oreville had migrated from the south and discovered these resource rich mountains. As the northernmost settlement on this side of the world they managed to be the last stop for any traders and travelers and survived on their exporting of precious metals and jewels before becoming totally self-sufficient. It would be easier to read on the history if there was any sort of flavor to the text whatsoever but instead it was like reading a dictionary. She didn’t even manage to see where they had started to live entirely underground. As much as she wanted to help Twilight out, this just wasn’t the kind of thing her brain could work through. Twilight would have to deal with the bare minimum.

“Ugh,” Rainbow Dash slammed the book shut and then slammed her head onto the table in front of her. Perhaps a little too loudly for a library.

“Tired?” Barnaby asked.

“What do you think?” Rainbow mumbled without looking up.

“Sorry you can’t take a book or map, or even just a notebook with you when you go,” Barnaby shrugged.

“Yep, gotta keep it allll in here as best I can,” Rainbow sighed and pivoted her head so her chin was resting flush against the table and her bored eyes were peeking out from behind her mane. “When I go, huh?”

“Something the matter?”

Rainbow sat up and leaned back, staring up at the library’s ceiling. “Sorry to be a downer but I’m just thinking how I haven’t really accomplished anything here. Nothing major at least, in fact I may have made some things worse. And now it’s like, I don’t even know if I will be able to do anything. I’m worried that I’m going to leave here like that. I can’t stay forever after all. When I think about all the other places I’ve been to, I was at least able to do something at them.”

Barnaby was quiet for a moment as he took a seat beside her, letting out a deep breath and thrumming his hoof on the table. “Well, it may not be a huge deal or anything, but I do think you did do at least something here.”

“Yeah? What?” She scoffed.

“Made a new friend.”

Rainbow Dash blankly stared at him.

“I mean, with how much you ponies of Equestria seem to value friendship, it seems like making a new friend in a far away land should be a pretty big deal,” he smiled.

Rainbow looked back up at the ceiling and blew an errant strand of mane out of her face. “Honestly, you’re right. Making friends is important. I like doing it. And it should be a big enough accomplishment on its own.”

“But you want more.”

“Yeah. I want to be more awesome,” Rainbow nodded.

“It’ll come. We’ll find something somehow,” Barnaby tried to comfort her.

“That’d be nice,” Rainbow said and stood up out of her chair. “Well, I think I’m done here though. If I read anymore of this my brain’s going to melt. Got the maps down at least.”

“It’s pretty late in the day so we might as well head out,” Barnaby nodded.

“Before we go back to the facility let’s get something to eat again. All that reading made me hungry,” Rainbow grinned.

“Works for me,” Barnaby patted his belly and stood up to follow her.

As the two exited the history section though, they almost walked smack into a large group of young fillies and colts being led by a single older mare.

“Woah!” Rainbow said as she backed up to not accidentally trample any of them. Immediately she was subject to a chorus of shocked gasps and hooves being pointed at her in disbelief.

“It’s her!”

“The pegasus!”

“Look at her mane!”

“She has wings!”

“I read about her in the news!”

“Mom and dad were talking about her!”

Rainbow Dash sheepishly grinned and blushed at the attention being heaped on her from the kids. Meanwhile the older mare, their teacher most likely, was trying to corral them. And not having much success.

“Students, please quiet down! This is a library!” She said to them as they all rushed past her and mobbed Rainbow Dash.

“Your name’s Rainbow Dash right?”

“Is that mane real?”

“Your wings are so cool!”

“You’re from someplace called Equestria?”

Rainbow Dash coughed and decided she might as well indulge these kids. “Yes, yes, they’re totally awesome, and yes.”

“Oh, students… please...” The embarrassed teacher said but her pleas fell on deaf ears. As she tried to calm them down, Barnaby came up to her with an amused grin on his face.

“Well, miss, what do you think about turning this library visit into an impromptu lesson on Equestria?” He asked her.

The teacher bit her lip as she looked at her students and how enraptured they were with Rainbow Dash before she finally sighed in defeat. “I think that’s going to happen no matter what I say now.”

“So, if you kids are so curious about me and Equestria, let me start you off by telling you about something called the Sonic Rainboom...” Rainbow Dash grinned as she began to tell her story.

Comments

[redmar]

Most of those books wouldn'tbe interesting to Rainbow Dash but at least she managed to get some knowledge out of them.

[TheCommunistDog]

W

In today’s chapter: Rainbow does the reading.