Rainbow Dash Around the World

by MagicS

Camelback

Rainbow Dash and Miss Valentine stared at one another.

They had been stuck like this for the past five minutes.

“Are you really going to keep being so stubborn like this?” Rainbow Dash asked Valentine.

“You know, I could say the very same thing to you,” Valentine said back to her.

The two of them were standing in the desert, a day’s travel by hoof away from Camelback. Rainbow Dash’s wings had now healed and Valentine was wearing a tightly wrapped green robe over her midsection to hide her wings. The sun was beating down mercilessly on the both of them. They had just woken up not too long ago and a blisteringly hot day traveling through the desert was promised to them. Despite this, and the hurry they were in, the two were still at something of an impasse.

“I am not letting you carry me like I’m some sort of package for you to deliver,” Valentine narrowed her eyes behind her sunglasses.

“And I’m not letting you ride on my back like I’m some kind of mule,” Rainbow crossed her hooves.

Valentine’s eye twitched. “Do you really have to be so difficult, honey?”

Rainbow popped a vein. “Are you seriously saying that right now?”

The two stared each other down some more. Rainbow had let Anathema win a war of stubbornness before because she at least knew the doctor was coming from the right place. But Valentine was not so noble. There was no way Rainbow Dash was letting her get her way here, not over something so petty. Not when she was the one who had to do the hard work in the first place and it was easier to do things the way Rainbow wanted to.

“You know I could just ditch you and fly to Camelback on my own,” Rainbow said.

“Oh yeah? And please tell me exactly where it is and how to find it?” Valentine asked, a smug grin tugging up her lips.

“Uhh...” Rainbow Dash looked to the east and frowned. It was just all sand dunes as far as the eye could see. “I know it’s in that direction. Generally.”

“Well good luck finding it before you run out of food and water,” Valentine clapped her hooves together.

“Oh yeah and I’m sure you’d have a great time all alone out here too,” Rainbow Dash snorted. She looked at Valentine’s robe-clad body and raised an eyebrow. “Do you just not want me to carry you cause you don’t want me touching your wings?”

Valentine’s body froze up in shock and her jaw dropped. “A-Absolutely not! I’m not like some damaged filly about them!”

Rainbow Dash shrugged. “Just saying, if I carried you I’d have to wrap my hooves around your midsection, and so I’d be touching your wings. That’s the only thing I could think of for why you’d be so bothered by me carrying you. I’ve already told you your wings aren’t a big deal to me. Seriously, just relax about them.”

“It’s not about my wings...” Valentine blushed in embarrassment.

“Liar.”

Valentine glared angrily at her. “Well what if it is then?! So what if I don’t like to have them touched? So what if I don’t care about what you say about them or it not mattering to you? It matters to me! I don’t want you touching my wings, even if you’re only doing it because you have to. I don’t want you feeling those deformed “things” against your legs.” She finished and looked down at the sand, sadder than Rainbow could remember seeing her before. “It’s bad enough that you’ve seen them at all.”

Rainbow Dash looked at her for a moment longer, frowning and trying to see how genuine the other mare was being. Eventually she sighed and walked over to Valentine. “You could’ve just told me that in the first place.”

“It’s humiliating,” Valentine ground out.

“Everyone’s got their issues,” Rainbow Dash said.

She put a lot of effort into not saying “Except for me” right after that.

“Well don’t think you can get all sentimental and touchy-feely with me all of a sudden now, okay?” Valentine said. “I don’t need any comforting hoof on my shoulder or anything like that, honey.”

Rainbow Dash wryly grinned. “I didn’t think you did.”

Valentine rolled her eyes. “Let’s just go, we’ve wasted enough time. You can… you can carry me. But don’t say a word or bring up anything about it. Okay?”

“Okay,” Rainbow nodded. “And whose fault is it that we’ve wasted time?”

“Shut up.”

---

The sand ship carrying Daring Do, Coin Flip, and Birdseed arrived in Camelback late in the evening. The air here was too dry for clouds and it allowed the starry sky and bright moon to shine down unmolested. None of the trio cared much for such pretty sights though. Not right now. All of them had a lot on their mind. Two of them were thinking things quite a bit more nefarious than the third though.

It sure was cold too as they stepped out of the sand ship. Cold and windy. It wasn’t a surprise that sandstorms were common to the desert around Camelback if this is how it normally was.

Daring Do looked back into the ship as they stood at the ramp leading to the sand below. A few passengers had gotten off with them, but not all. All of them had veils and other sorts of coverings for their faces to protect them from the sand being blown around by the wind. Seems they had come here better prepared than Daring’s group.

The “sailor” who had let them onboard in the first place noticed their lack of proper headgear as he ushered them off. A grin came to his scarred face. “You know for the right amount we have some turbans and veils lying around you can buy from us.”

“No thank you,” Daring stalwartly replied and tipped her hat down, walking down the ramp and doing her best to ignore the sand.

Birdseed wrapped his scarf more around his face and Coin Flip had the best solution of a simple magic shield.

No trumped up, outrageously unfair, sales would be made here.

There wasn’t a dock here for the ship, the three of them walked off the ramp and right onto sand with the town of Camelback before them. Even though it was dark out, the town was lit up well enough by torches and lamps that they could see what it was like. For one, it wasn’t a bunch of tents or shoddily constructed buildings. This was a real town. Actual sandstone buildings made up the majority here, a lot of them stacked on top of each other or built up in ascending tiers and levels against the large rock formations around. It was a sprawling but also very clustered town at the same time. Very dense. It was still built with an actual plan and care to it though so even with as maze-like and imposing as it was, there were still real streets to follow. The very outskirts of the town had tents and stands surrounding the perimeter of the stone building, but with this wind raging right now they were all closed or boarded up.

“I don’t think it will be too tough for us to find an inn from here,” Daring Do said. “There are probably a few built close to where the sand ships drop creatures off.”

“But we’ll have to find one not owned by camels,” Birdseed grumbled.

“Ugh, good point.”

The three quickly made their way into the narrow streets of Camelback where sandy orange and red buildings crowded them at every turn. Everywhere they looked it seemed to mostly be camels around, unfortunately. Every window they could see into, every creature walking down the streets, every sort of business. It was camels, camels, and more camels.

“We’re going to need to find another area of town.” Birdseed said.

“Dumb humpbacks,” Coin Flip snorted.

The wind and sand blowing everywhere wasn’t helping their moods either. And even though Camelback didn’t have a bad reputation, they couldn’t help but be a little worried blindly wandering the streets at night while in camel central. Daring Do noticed a lot of glares and looks being sent their way from the camels who noticed them. She really hoped they didn’t overhear what Birdseed and Coin Flip were saying.

“There’s gotta be a non-camel inn here somewhere, or at least someplace we can wait for the two of them to show up,” Daring Do said. “Let’s just keep quiet, keep our heads low, and do this without causing anymore trouble.”

Birdseed and Coin Flip shared a secretive glance with each other. The orange pony then nodded. “Whatever you say.”

---

And while the trio searched through the streets of Camelback, a duo followed close behind, quietly and out of sight. They had been watching and following since Daring Do and the others had first stepped off the sand ship. As their targets rounded a corner going down a long alleyway, the two pursuers took the time to talk. Both of them were wearing heavy robes and shawls over their faces that they pulled down so they could discuss things.

One of them was a unicorn stallion with a deep blue mane on an ebony black body. “Can’t they hurry up and find a place to stay so we can stop tailing them?”

“We’re just going to have to wait around staking them out anyways,” the other one, an earth pony mare with a butter yellow coat and a poofy brown mane said.

“I know that, Popcorn. The boss’s letter said there were still two more coming. No matter what we’re going to be sitting around here until The Red Hornet and that “Rainbow Dash” pony come here,” Astral Comet said.

“Would’ve been easier if they all came here at the same time,” Popcorn said.

“As long as we keep an eye out we’re not going to miss anything,” Astral said. “Of course that doesn’t matter until these three stop and find a place to stay.” He sighed.

“There’s an inn owned by some antelopes not far from where they’re going. Maybe we’ll get lucky and they’ll see it?” Popcorn said.

“Hopefully.”

---

Daring Do opened up the door to the first of two rooms she had booked at the “Curvy Horn” inn. An establishment luckily owned by an elderly antelope couple who were more than happy to have their business. It was sparse, with only two small beds, but Daring Do didn’t plan on staying here for the night after Valentine and Dash got here anyways. The room for Birdseed and Coin Flip was probably the same. For their purposes, this would more than do.

Once they were all together Valentine could lead them to the spot north of Camelback where supposedly another clue to the Crystal Sea’s location was—if not the final direction needed to find it. She just hoped the two of them got here soon.

“And you guys are next door,” Daring Do said as she looked over her shoulder at Birdseed and Coin Flip. Coin Flip was grinning dumbly, pretty normal, but Birdseed wasn’t paying attention at all, instead looking back in the direction of the stairs. “Birdseed? Something the matter?”

His head slowly drifted back to look at her. “No, just thinking about Valentine and Rainbow Dash.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “Uh huh, anyways since we’re here now and there’s nothing else we can really do, we should probably get some rest. If I know Rainbow Dash she’s not going to take long getting here.”

“Alright,” Birdseed nodded. “The two of us will get some sleep too then. We’ll knock first thing in the morning.”

Daring Do turned away from him to go walk over to the nearest bed—she never saw the attack coming.

Birdseed smacked her in the back of her skull with his heavy forelimbs as hard as he could. She was out before she hit the floor, her vision instantly going black. The two stallions looked down at the sprawled form of the unconscious pegasus, there was no turning back now with what had just been done. Birdseed frowned and looked at Coin Flip.

“Get some rope from her bag and tie her up,” he said.

“My pleasure, nice not having to listen to her talk anymore,” Coin Flip said and went ruffling through her bag. He didn’t just take out rope but all the stolen money left as well. “Now that’ll tide us over for however long we’re still in this desert.”

Birdseed grinned. “Which won’t be much longer at all. We’ll be getting a move on again very soon.”

“Need to stay ahead of The Hornet,” Coin Flip said as he started tying Daring Do up. Once he was finished knotting all the ropes he stepped away to admire his hoofiwork and trotted over to the door. “We going?”

“Yeah,” Birdseed nodded and turned to join him, prepared to leave the room and the inn behind.

“Unggg...” A groan escaped Daring Do’s lips.

Both stallions paused and looked back at her, she was already blinking her way awake and it didn’t take long before she started struggling at her bonds and moving about on the floor—her dazed mind still not fully aware of what had happened or what was going on. Daring Do groaned again and her one wing that wasn’t pinned down flapped open, she tried lifting a hoof to rub the back of her head and only then seemed to notice the rope binding her limbs in place. Her eyes slowly came into focus and another pained groan left her lips.

“W-What happened? What’s going on?” She managed to look over in the direction of Birdseed and Coin Flip, though she was still seeing double.

“I’ll make sure her lights are out until morning...” Coin Flip said and started walking towards her.

Birdseed however held up a hoof to stop him. “No.” He closed the door to the room behind them and walked up to Daring Do with a stony expression on his face.

She meanwhile finally grasped what had happened to her and was glaring right up at him. “Why?”

“Cause I don’t feel like dying for something I don’t even care about,” Birdseed said and reached into his scarf. “Also—since you’re awake anyways—I figure I might as well do something nice for you. After all you haven’t been nearly as much of a pest as Valentine.” He pulled out the map and showed it to her. “This is what you’ve been looking for, the map to Cinnabaron’s temple.”

Daring Do’s eyes widened and she shifted in an attempt to try and get up and grab it from him. “How long have you had that?! Where did you-” She suddenly sucked in a breath.

Birdseed snorted in amusement. “Realized that quick? I found it at the same place we found the other map.”

“And you were always going to betray us since you found it?” Daring Do asked, her angry eyes glaring between him and Coin Flip.

“Actually, no,” he looked up as he thought for a bit. “To be totally honest? I didn’t know what I was going to do with this map when I first found it. Give it to you, sell it to you, both seemed like pretty good options. I only made my decision to betray you after that crazy mare tried blowing us all up. Whether she killed Valentine or not, I don’t really care, this job isn’t worth the trouble anymore.”

“Isn’t worth it? The entire desert will be flung into chaos if Shining Diamond gets his way!” Daring yelled.

“Oh no, what a horrible tragedy,” Birdseed rolled his eyes.

“It is! Can’t you—the both of you—not be selfish for even just a few more days!” Daring tried to break free of the ropes as she struggled back and forth on the ground.

“Valentine got the wrong ponies to help her,” Coin Flip shrugged. “We’re scared of dying more than we’re scared of her.”

“And since another, even greater, reward showed its face there wasn’t really any reason for us to stick with you anymore,” Birdseed shrugged.

“You two are going to regret this,” Daring Do glared at him.

Coin Flip frowned and came up to her with a lit horn. “Valentine and that rainbow brat might not even learn what happened if we shut you up for good.”

Again, Birdseed stopped him, slapping him in the back of the head. “No. We don’t need to go that far, that could get the authorities here sent after us faster too.” He grinned at Daring Do. “But you won’t waste the time chasing us or going through all the trouble with camels to do that now, not with Shining Diamond and the Crystal Sea to worry about.”

“Grrr,” Daring Do grit her teeth.

Birdseed laughed and turned around, heading back to the door. “Goodbye. Tell that to Valentine too.” His hoof stopped just before he opened the door, and he instead reached over to Coin Flip and grabbed the bag of money he had pilfered from Daring Do. He withdrew a few coins and threw them at Daring’s hooves. “That’ll be enough for a meal for you tomorrow, don’t say I never did anything for you.”

And after that the two stallions left. And Daring Do could do nothing.

Comments

[TheCommunistDog]

Not big surprise.

In today’s chapter: The 2 idiots betray the wrong ponies.

[redmar]

Coin Flip and Birdseed will regret betraying Valentine and Daring Do as the story about Amethyst Star makes clear. Not like Valentine would allow them to get away with it anyway with the reputation she has to uphold.

[Mini-Joe]

11255865
soup rice

[RoboRed]

Traitorous jerks.

I'm getting the feeling that Rainbow and Valentine are going to be the absolute bestest of friends after this next crazy adventure is over, yep!