Rainbow Dash Around the World

by MagicS

Home

Rainbow Dash could see the castle in the distance. It was pretty hard to miss after all.

The school was also easy to see.

Sweet Apple Acres off to the side as well.

And finally the rest of Ponyville came into view.

She had an easygoing grin on her face and let out a simple sigh of relief when she finally saw it all. Gliding low, barely high enough to clear some of the buildings, Rainbow Dash made her approach. It was good to be home. For years before leaving she had woken up almost everyday and seen or gone into Ponyville—either hanging out with her friends or doing some other work.

It truly was a sight for sore eyes.

She had missed it even more than she realized.

Ponyville today shimmered and shined and Rainbow Dash could see how alive and busy it was. Ponies she recognized were out on the streets, walking, talking, working. It was a normal day in Ponyville and that’s what made it so perfect. Rainbow Dash slowed down the closer she got so she wouldn’t miss anything. There was Carousel Boutique, there was the spa, there was Big Mac and Sugar Belle at their apple cart together, there was city hall, there were the flower ponies, there was the schoolhouse, there was Sugarcube Corner.

Rainbow was low enough where quite a few saw her. How aware were they of what she had been doing? Either way it probably wouldn’t have changed their reaction—they smiled and waved up to her like the friendly ponies they were. Seeing those smiling, familiar, faces, it filled Rainbow’s heart with warmth.

She had made it. Despite everything she was back. She was home.

She was the first pony to fly all the way around the world. Nothing had stopped her. She had completed the circuit and done so many things, changed so many lives, on the way.

Now she was home.

Now she could rest.

After she said hi to her friends of course. She hadn’t seen any of them outside and didn’t know where most of them would be right now, but she was willing to bet Twilight was in her castle. Would probably be best to start there anyways. That’s where she had left from and that’s where her journey around the world would truly end once she touched hooves down there. Then Twilight could either gather everyone together or tell Rainbow Dash where she could find them.

Rainbow Dash nodded, flying straight to the Castle of Friendship. A normal friend or visitor might use the door, but Rainbow Dash planned on flying right into it from one of the balconies. She usually did that anyways. Cooler way to announce her return, shock Twilight and Spike right out of the blue.

A smirk lit up her face as she made it to the castle and zoomed on in, first check would be the map room and then the library.

Place was kept as immaculately clean as ever as she zipped through the hallways. She hadn’t seen anyone just yet but just one more corner and she’d be right before the big doors that led to the map…

There they were, closed, waiting for her.

Rainbow Dash took a deep breath, preparing to loudly shout and announce her return right as she threw the doors open.

What she saw inside instead brought her to a pause and Rainbow Dash dropped to her hooves with her mouth hanging open.

There was a gigantic cake sitting on top of the Cutie Map. It was easily ten feet high and had seven huge layers, going up and up like a big frosted pyramid. Candy, sprinkles, cookies and all sorts of sweets decorated it. But that wasn’t all either, a huge banner going from wall to wall across the ceiling hung, reading: “Welcome back Rainbow Dash!”. There were party cannons, loads of confetti, balloons, party hats, and everything else that was a signature of a Pinkie Pie party filling up the room.

And there were her friends, in the middle of setting it all up.

Fluttershy hanging more streamers from the ceiling.

Rarity setting the table around the huge cake.

Applejack tying off some balloons.

Twilight Sparkle and Pinkie Pie standing there with a surprised look on their faces. The others also had heard the door get thrown open and were now looking her direction as well, surprised but happy.

Pinkie Pie pouted and withdrew a stopwatch from her mane, frowning at it. “Aw phooey! She got here thirty-two seconds early! Now the surprise party is ruined!”

“Uh…” Rainbow Dash blinked, despite what Pinkie Pie had just said, she was still the surprised one here.

Twilight though regained her composure and smiled at Rainbow Dash. There was only one thing that needed to be said to a friend after she was gone for so long. “Welcome back, Rainbow Dash.”

Rainbow Dash looked at her and the smile from before found its way back to her face. She chuckled and shrugged at the big cake and the surprise party with all her friends in front of her. “I’m home.”

Author's Note:

Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed the story.

Comments

[SPANIARD KIWI]

Holy kiwi, it's done! Congratulations for writing this leviathan! 👏

[Elroy777]

Rainbow Dash is home! Now that's a 20% cooler story and 200% awesome cooler story!

[Sugar Spoon]

What a journey... Now she just needs to be the first pony to fly around the solar system.

[THERDSTORYWHISPERER]

Great chapters!

Great story!

[RoboRed]

Home again at last. What a journey. What a story.

Thank you for writing this.

[Johnny B Mediocre]

and breathe

[Cosmic Potato]

Thank you for this wonderful story. It's rare for these behemoth journey style stories to come to a conclusion, and I'm glad I got to see it end. Again thanks for the story, and I can't wait to see your next one.

[redmar]

This was a very enjoyable story.

[Chicago Ted]

Remember when you said it was going to be only 750k words? I do.

Nitpicking aside, I remember first seeing the coverart of its predecessor on Derpibooru right around the time it first came out, and thinking to myself that it was just a knockoff of Austraeoh -- just north instead of east. But now? I think you're a cut above SS&E, insofar as you've outlined and started writing with the end in mind, rather than just write and publish by the seat of your pants. Even when it became clear that you ran into something of a writer's block, you at least kept moving things along, rather than just write a bunch of fluff to maintain a strict daily update schedule.

In a way, I suppose the timing could not have been more right. When you first published Rainbow Dash's Unstoppable Ego, we were well within the clutches of the pandemic, so many of us (myself included) were looking for some form of escapism from the constant barrage of news. I myself was still worming through college around that time, so you can imagine how the stress must be getting to me. But now that it's over, and that I've graduated, it only seems right that Rainbow Dash's circumnavigation end here.

But that's just for me, I suppose.

You mentioned the other day that you liked writing Godfrey the most, but I think your best character was in fact Heartless. I work as a proofreader for a lawyer, so I get to read about all sorts of criminals, from dime-a-dozen gangstas to stone-cold child killers. All of them are remorseless in some way, shape, or form -- even the ones who are sorry are only sorry they were caught, not because they did the things they did -- but I wouldn't call any of them carefree, not in the way Heartless is. She doesn't understand what she's doing is wrong; she just does what feels right and good to her, shrugging off literally everything thrown at her like water off a duck's back. She knows she gets called a monster, and at some level she knows she's a monster, but she doesn't quite understand what that means -- and that, I say, is what makes her truly dangerous. If she can't regret her actions, how can she ever hope to change? I aspire to write a character like that someday -- in fact, I've got a sheet of notes on her right in front of me.

And my favorite arc was probably The Eternal Furnace, for much a similar reason. The fervor of faith has compelled many to do what are otherwise strange and even dangerous and deleterious acts -- how would Resin be any different? Analyzing her character in that context is a fascinating task, especially with her putting the Flame before everything else in her life, even compelling everyone else in the Metal Mountain to do the same -- a cult leader, in other words. She's a carbon copy of Heartless in that way, save for acting out of fear instead of joy.

Thank you kindly for taking the time to write out all of this. I know it can't be easy balancing a project like Rainbow Dash's odyssey with your job, especially when it ultimately amounted to 1,531,110 words. (Just to put it in perspective, this is almost two-and-a-half times the length of Fallout: Equestria.) I'm proud to say I've been here practically from Day 1, following Rainbow Dash from Ponyville to the Eternal Pegasus Empire, up to the City of Mammoths, inside the Metal Mountain, then up and around the North Pole, descending through the Weeping Mountain, Pinetree Warren, the Great Camel Desert, the Kingdom of Hoofica, the Grand Ocean especially, and back up north to Equestria -- it's been a hell of a ride for me, through all its ups and downs, from Rainbow Dash's greatest triumph to her worst detriment (which may or may not be a mere few thousand words apart).

All because I happened to spot one piece of art on another website.

But I think I've rambled on for long enough, so I'll just leave you with perhaps the most fitting ending piece I could think of.

[Cosmic Potato]

I am now sad because I'm missing the daily updates

[Khampostel]

11610117
Great job! May the stars bless you and may darkness not cloud your path.
Good luck!

[Comma Typer]

So, originally, I was supposed to comment at the end of Wish's arc. I then kept pushing the goalpost further and further... until, well, having made it this far, it was just a hop, skip, and a jump away to the end.

Given that the last time I commented was so long ago, I'm at a loss on what specific thing to say about any specific arc. Just that, well, it's been quite a ride. The last bit with Heartless... it's a shame she can't be alive, but at least she's turned, saved by Rainbow before the very end. Not to mention that Rainbow finally gets to meet with Barnaby, Anathema, and Crush one more time.

But I think what got me in the end was One Last Look. After all the drama and the tragedy and the highs and lows, the very last major thing she does is to help a pegasus filly fly. It felt like a slice-of-life episode from the show, which genuinely capped this action-/drama-packed adventure off with one last breather before the end.

This saga is big. To use Tehsnakerer's words from his review of Yakuza 5, this story and its prequel are "big. Huge, colossal, grandiose, towering, pretty stonking large." Yet it never really felt overwhelming (though to be fair, up until the last leg of chapters with Heartless, I didn't really read much in a single day). It felt... right. Pacing was quite consistent, which seems to be a daunting task with over a million words, and it was easy to recall the gist of even the earliest arcs in the last story after well over a year (two years!)

And it's good. Very good. Not much else to say other than that it's inspiring. Thank you very much for this, and my apologies for a comment that's probably too short for the very big nature of this saga.

I will probably get to one of your short stories first, and then get to Applejack at the End of the World... and, perhaps, finally catch up to your latest chapter of anything. Just skimming the comment section of the last few chapters here, it oughta' be fun to finally get back to the live-action gang.

Again, thanks for it all, MagicS, and until then, see you around!

[MagicS]

11807915
You know I was wondering if you were still reading.

I'm glad you enjoyed the story so much, I always look forward to your comments. And yeah now you have a bit of a backlog again to get through while my next story comes out.

[TheCommunistDog]

Well finally finished this after over 1,5 years.