Rainbow Dash Around the World

by MagicS

That Feeling, That You Can't Put Into Words

Rainbow Dash was just about to the edge of the desert now, the emptiness of Klugetown pushed out of her head as she focused on the next part of her return flight home. One day. One day and she’d be back within the limits of Equestria. Appleloosa really close after that, and finally Ponyville not much further beyond that. Home. Places she had seen and been to a dozen times would be sprouting up shortly. Though she was considering stopping for the day the next time she found a nice place or small town where she could sleep. That way she’d be in Equestria by morning in two days and then probably back to Ponyville by evening if she kept up a fast pace.

That was only really if she actually found a real place to stop that also had some food. Otherwise she’d probably fly well into the night and maybe make it all the way to Appleloosa before she actually stopped again. She’d see how she was feeling.

Did she want to push herself to get back as fast as possible? Or did she want to glide back home all relaxed and really savor and enjoy the final flight over Equestria?

Either way for now it was probably just going to be her flying and flying until she got tired. She didn’t think there were any small towns in this part of the world. Unless one had popped up recently in the jungles south of Equestria. Which was possible, there was certainly enough room and it would’ve been a nicer place to live than the desert or even how most of the harsh land around Appleloosa was. In the past it would’ve been too dangerous or remote but now? No different really than living in some of the more out of the way spots in Equestria.

Being right next to the dangerous Everfree Forest had never stopped the ponies of Ponyville for that matter…

Back to focusing on her flying, it wasn’t long before Rainbow Dash left the hot, sandy, desert behind and found herself once more flying over a green landscape. The jungle beneath her was likely hot and humid but she had no intention of plopping down randomly inside it anyways. At least it was something a lot more colorful to look at and she didn’t feel like she was being baked on both sides anymore. At the end of this jungle were some cliffs and small mountains and then—boom—Equestria.

Rainbow Dash started rocking her head side to side, humming to herself again to pass the time and even did a flew flips and barrel rolls through the air to spice up her flight. It was just such a nice day too now that she had left the oppressive heat of the desert behind. She could actually appreciate the sun and the clear blue sky now. If she wanted to fly up higher she was sure she’d be able to see for miles in every direction. As it was she kept at her current altitude and kept flying north over the jungle.

Something caught her attention nary a minute later.

There was a thin wisp of smoke coming up from the jungle ahead of her and just slightly off to the left. Not a forest—jungle—fire or anything like that, the smoke didn’t look or smell right for that. It seemed more like smoke rising up from a chimney, or maybe some kind of campfire. Either way, it was the first possible sign of civilization or other ponies she had seen since leaving Klugetown.

“Guess I am stopping for now,” Rainbow Dash said and quickly flew over to the rising smoke.

As she got closer to the smoke she saw the jungle open up into a big clearing, the trees and grass had been pulled up and in their place was a tiny village. Small homes made of wooden twig roofs and brick walls painted yellow, it seemed like a quaint and quiet place to live. There was a single road, more like a path, made of flat stones all placed and cemented together, running through the village and leading up into the jungle to the north. She saw a well in the middle of the village, along with some benches around the road, most of the little homes had flower gardens or carrot patches around them as well. And just as she suspected, one of the homes had a chimney that smoke was steadily rising from.

“Nice place,” Rainbow Dash smiled as she dropped down to the middle of the town.

She landed by the well and took a look around, ready to say hi to the locals.

There weren’t any locals.

The smile fell off her face, replaced with concern, uncertainty, and a small bit of fear that welled up from a place in her body she pretended didn’t exist.

It might have been something that was tickling the back of her mind, but she only really realized it as she stood here now in the middle of town with no one else around her. There weren’t any ponies walking around outside. There weren’t any looking out from their windows or opening up their doors to see who had just dropped in. There weren’t any sounds of ponies talking or playing around or working or cleaning or moving about in their homes.

There wasn’t anything. Again.

No, there was one thing. She saw a few sticks of chalk scattered on the ground along with a faded hopscotch drawing.

Rainbow Dash frowned and immediately flew over to the house with the chimney. She threw open the door without knocking, forget about politeness right now, and took a look inside.

An empty house. A table, chairs, cabinets, stairs leading to a second floor, and a small living room centered around a fireplace where barely burning embers smoldered. She took a second look and saw one of the chairs had been tipped over. She walked back outside and took a closer look at some of the other houses here and began to notice odd things about them. One had a smashed window. One had its front door broken and hanging on its hinges. One had a doll lying on its front porch, discarded and forgotten.

They were gone. Whoever had lived here before hadn’t vanished into thin air. They had ran away.

Ran away from-

Rainbow Dash walked back to the well and stood there, lowering her head and closing her eyes. She brought a hoof up and fitfully pounded it against the side of the well. “No… no, no, no, no, no.”

She took a few deep breaths to calm herself down before lowering the bucket into the well. All of a sudden her lips were dry and she needed some water to drink. The well still worked perfectly fine and she heard it dip into the water just a few feet down so she pulled it back out and rested it on the side of the well once it was filled. Before drinking any of it she first splashed her face with the cool water to clean up and relax a little better, then she took a few deep sips and left the water bucket behind.

She walked over to one of the carrot patches of the tiny village and pulled up one carrot out of the dirt. Truthfully, she did feel a little bad for stealing, but she wanted to eat something before continuing. And she figured the ponies who lived here would understand.

Three quick chomps and a big swallow later and the carrot was gone.

Rainbow Dash felt her wings flutter, and her heart was beating a little harder and faster than normal. There was an anxious feeling running through her that she couldn’t stamp out and the hair on her legs was standing on end. A few more deep breaths and she dragged a hoof across her forehead before turning and walking towards the path that led out of the city. Halfway there she opened her wings and started hovering above the ground a bit, ready to take off and start flying north again.

There was an arrow drawn in chalk on the ground.

She followed it, casually hovering along with a blank expression on her face.

There was another one, and another. They were pointing to the end of the rocky path right before it started going into the jungle.

Rainbow Dash looked ahead and saw a piece of discarded chalk lying on the ground. She flew up a little higher to get a better view and saw that there was something written on the path. Foreboding filled her chest and her heart started to beat even harder. Hovering above it now she looked down and felt the spirit drain from her body.

It was probably something she had always known no matter how much she tried to ignore it or keep it buried in her head. She had never truly forgotten, only lied to herself about it.

Rainbow Dash read the terribly written message for her scrawled in chalk on the ground.

I’M WAITING FOR YOU RAINBOW DASH

“Heartless.”

Comments

[Cosmic Potato]

And the true final confrontation begins.

[RoboRed]

Damn...
Something tells me there's no running away this time.

[redmar]

I was afraid that was the reason for all the emptyness. The final confrontation of Rainbow's journey is about to start it seems.

[Chicago Ted]

I’M WAITING FOR YOU RAINBOW DASH

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