One week. 7 Colours. A vacation given as a birthday present by Twilight to Rainbow will instead become a lifechanging experience for both ponies. What will become of their relationship?
Twilight Sparkle has a double dilemma on her hooves. First, it is Rainbow's birthday soon and she doesn't have a present. Second, she really wants to have a relationship with the mare.
The plan?
A week long vacation, each day dedicated to the pegasus. Twilight has a plan of action laid out, and she is certain Rainbow will love it.
But what will become of the relationship between the two close friends?
(Not based at all on Journey to the Center of the Earth)
It was one of the reasons she kept a detailed calendar, every single day carefully planned out. And each of these days possessed its own list. On it was the things she wanted to get done, as well as free time for reading, but most importantly her friends.
All in all, Twilight Sparkle prided herself on organization. Countless occasions this very trait has aided in the prevention of fiascos like the Winter Wrap Up that was almost late yet again. Thanks to this skill, as well as her leadership, everypony was able to remain on track and welcome in spring right on time.
So with this in mind, the unicorn considered it to be a skill of the utmost importance.
This explains why she was a frantic mess right now.
There were times here and there where she would forget some points on her agenda, but the majority of the time they were of minimal importance. So in turn, any ramifications for skipping an item on her well thought out list was tiny enough to not worry her much.
“How… How could I forget THAT!?”
Twilight was pacing around in her bedroom, Owliscious looking on in both fascination and confusion as she tried to avoid a mental breakdown. She had a feeling that something significant was going to occur on this Sunday, but anytime she tried to think of it, nothing came to mind. Twilight assumed something this important would have been written down on her calendar in bold letters, but when she checked, nothing was to be found. She was sure she had triple-checked it too, which made even less sense in how she forgot it.
But now here she was, pulling her hair out over an event for a very close friend of hers.
Sunday was Rainbow Dash’s birthday.
Even though it was only Thursday she was already starting to feel the stress of what she should do for her birthday. She wasn’t even planning the celebration and party, which was all under Pinkie Pie’s control. And since it's Pinkie Pie, we already know that makes logical sense.
Twilight’s only responsibility was to get Rainbow Dash a proper gift.
It wasn’t as easy as it sounded.
Last year, Twilight had bought her a limited edition copy of the latest Daring Do novel, to which Rainbow Dash was overjoyed in getting. The pegasus ended up reading nearly half the book the very next day.
So Twilight could cross book off her list, as with no recent Daring Do release, there wasn’t any other type of book Dash would be willing to read.
She thought of other things Rainbow might enjoy receiving. Her thoughts drifted towards the famed Wonderbolts, the group her friend still idolized and put on a pedestal. Twilight’s mind flash-backed to the last time she had seen the group live, and had to admit that they put on an awe inspiring show. On the flip side, whenever Rainbow Dash watched their shows, it was usually with loud cheers and excited jumps.
The only issue with getting Rainbow something Wonderbolt related was that she already had many different items of the sort in her possession. She had their autographs, a pair of goggles, posters, you name it.
“Perhaps I could get her a Wonderbolt uniform?”
Twilight considered the idea, but went against it for one major reason. To get a uniform made to the quality of what they wore would cost a boatload of bits, something she didn’t have. After reading a book on how to give out gifts to other ponies, she knew that giving a gift of so much value puts a lot of pressure on the recipient.
With those two ideas eliminated, it didn’t leave her with much else. She briefly considered a food item of some sort, but she’d leave the baked goods to Pinkie. Besides, when was the last time she baked, or better yet, cooked anything? Twilight considered it rather funny that with the amount she read, following a simple recipe could lead messes of disastrous proportions.
She walked downstairs to find Spike re-shelving some of the recent returns for the day. At this point he was so used to doing this kind of thing where he just went on his business and tuned out everything around him.
“Hey Spike, I have a question for you.”
Spike had two options. First, he could simply pretend to not hear Twilight’s voice and keep on with his activity. Second, he could have heard the unicorn, but ignored her for fear of having to succumb to any more tasks for the day.
“Spike I know you can hear me. I promise this isn’t another chore.”
With that, the baby dragon slid down the ladder, doing quite an impressive somersault so that he landed right at the feet of Twilight.
At least, that was his intention. Unfortunately, he hit the ground too hard upon sliding down the ladder, merely rolling over and onto Twilight's hooves instead. He looked up to see a motherly glare beaming down upon him like a microscope, and just smiled as he dusted himself off.
“So, what is it?”
“Well do you know what Sunday is?”
Spike pondered the question for a moment, furrowing his brow a tad. “Oh! It’s Rainbow Dash’s birthday right?” His eyes closed smiled proudly at his memory, only to open and see an infuriated Twilight Sparkle staring right back at him. “Was that steam coming out of her ears?” He thought, now starting to get just a little scared.
“Umm… you okay Twilight?”
“You knew that all ALONG!?!” Twilight’s growled, her stare seemingly making a hole through Spike, who tried his best to remain level headed.
“Well of course! Rainbow is one of our best friends, I’d feel really stupid if I forgot her birthday.” Spike realized what he had just said seconds after it was too late, and covered his mouth. Twilight turned red, and anypony nearby would say that she looked to be on fire.
She groaned loudly and stomped loudly over to the kitchen. The refrigerator door was bathed in a violet glow before opening hastily, a pitcher of lemonade and a glass appearing as poured herself some before slamming the glass pitcher back into its place. Spike was rather appalled on how strong that glass was, as he was sure the impact would have shattered it into bits. He was pleased that it didn’t as he envisioned himself mopping a floor sticky with lemonade if it broke.
“So… what were you going to ask me?” Spike kept his voice at a gentle tone, not wanting Twilight to become any more annoyed than she already was.
Twilight’s demeanor softened as she sighed. “Well I’ve been thinking all day about Rainbow’s birthday. The problem I’m having is that I have no idea what kind of gift to get her.”
“That’s it?” Spike questioned all the anger over a trivial problem.
“What do you mean that’s it!?! It’s a problem of immense proportions!”
“Twilight… it’s only a gift. Rainbow’s already happy if you come and celebrate with her. A gift is extra,” Spike explained, trying to reason that the gift wasn’t as significant as Twilight was making it out to be.
“I know, but I really want to get her something special. Something she can make a memory of, or look back on the rest of her life.” Twilight watched as Spike hopped up and sat on the other side of counter and swiveled his seat towards her. He put both of his hands under his chin and propped his head up while continuing to look at Twilight.
“You’re putting an awful lot of importance on a simple birthday gift. Any reason why?”
Most ponies knew about Spike’s crush on Rarity. Even Rarity was well aware of it, yet she got great satisfaction in teasing Spike here and there, especially with the ever embarrassing nickname of “Spikey-Wikey.” Twilight felt bad for laughing, but she always giggled every time Rarity used the moniker.
But despite his crush, Twilight was well aware that the baby dragon had very little grasp on the concept of love and relationships, so to reveal the real intention behind getting such a nice gift would merely confuse him.
“I just would like to get a gift for Rainbow that involves both of us. I’m trying to think of something less materialistic.”
This made Spike look upon her quite confused. “Wait, isn’t a gift supposed to be a material item?”
“On most occasions yes, but think about it. Are memories materialistic?”
“Well…”
Twilight stared down Spike as he tried to figure out a way to turn the argument in his favor. A look of defeat, but with a smile plastered on his face was the result as he realized where she was getting at.
“Exactly. The kind of gift I want isn’t the typical item or thing you would give somepony. I want to give Rainbow something she’ll cherish for the rest of her life. And yes, I understand that this seems a little much for a birthday present, but…” Twilight paused a bit, noticing the look of curiosity on Spike’s face. “…this time it’s really important for me. I have a really good reason for trying to find the perfect gift to give her.”
Spike reached his hand out and grasped Twilight’s hoof, looking up right into his mother’s eyes. Biologically, no they weren’t even the same species, but Twilight had raised him from when he was just a little speckled egg. At this stage, he didn’t care what the true definition of mother was, but Twilight seemed to be the perfect one at that.
“I won’t ask what the reason is, but I’m sure if you want to tell me you well. Now let’s get thinking.”
The pair got out some paper, quills, and ink. Twilight wrote Rainbow’s name in the middle and proceeded to jot down a bunch of things Rainbow enjoyed doing. Spike helped by thinking of related ideas, but otherwise merely served as support for the unicorn before him.
On paper, both literally and figuratively, this did seem like a great idea. However they continually ran into the same problem time and time again.
The problem was Twilight.
One by one, she refused each and every idea, her main complaint being that the idea felt too materialistic for what she was going for. It was frustrating for both parties, and at times Spike even considered giving up entirely. He knew as well as anypony how agonizing it was to work with Twilight on something research related, but toughed it through, knowing how much this meant to her.
After nearly 3 long and excruciating hours, both dragon and unicorn were slumped in their seats, brains weary from use. They were no closer to coming up with an idea than before, and it was starting to take a toll on both of them. Spike was getting cranky due to Twilight’s constant refusal, while Twilight’s expectations for the perfect gift started to reach unreachable heights.
“Maybe it’s time we call it a day?”
“NO!” This sudden outburst caught Spike off guard as he nearly fell off the stool. “I’ve already wasted enough time forgetting the gift, I can’t waste anymore. I promise we can take a break in a little while okay?” Spike nodded in approval, and once more the duo began to think of possible gift ideas.
“Hey Twilight?”
“Yeah Spike?”
“Speaking of a break, wasn’t Rainbow supposed to be taking a vacation for the next week?”
Somewhere in Twilight’s mind, a switch was suddenly flipped into the on position. Spike would call himself crazy for seeing it, but there seemed to be a faint outline of a light bulb appearing over Twilight’s head. Twilight wore a gleeful smile as she figured out the perfect gift.
“What if I took Rainbow on a trip?”
Spike pondered the idea for a moment, before realizing that it was probably the most practical idea either of them had yet. “That sounds... really nice actually! But where are you going to take her?”
It was Twilight’s turn to ponder the idea, and she did for a minute or so, strolling around the kitchen counter before setting her eyes upon a picture of all her friends on the fridge. More significantly, the pair of violet eyes were drawn upon the colorful mane of her friend, and yet another idea pulsed its way through her brain.
Journey to the Center of the Rainbow Chapter 1: Red
To say the least, Rainbow was taken aback by the idea of a weeklong vacation. She had never been away from Ponyville for such a long amount of time, and immediately worried about who would feed Tank while she was away. Luckily, Fluttershy offered her a place for her tortoise to stay, which Rainbow happily accepted, only with a promise that she would play with him at least once a day.
Rainbow had packed a simple bag with some necessities, but otherwise decided to travel light, as was her style. She was surprised she even had luggage to bring, considering she had never really taken an extended trip apart from visiting the Crystal Empire, and even that wasn’t really long enough to be considered as such.
She rested her head on the soft cushion of the seat and gazed out the window to the landscape before her. The sun had risen out from over the hills around an hour ago, bathing the sky in a warm orange hue for the last hour. She always enjoyed watching the sunrise, although it wasn’t something she was accustomed to seeing often, given her rather late waking times. It had been the first time in months she was awake before sunrise, thanks to Twilight. The mare in question sat in the seat beside her as the train journeyed its way through the vast plains outside of Ponyville.
Rainbow’s mind drifted off to the festivities of last night, smiling as she remembered the craziness of the whole party. Pinkie definitely outdid herself on the cake, which happened to be a near replica of her own cutie mark, complete with fireworks. Where Pinkie had gotten fireworks to put on a cake she would never know or understand, but it would be best if left unquestioned.
The real unexpectedness of last night came in the form of a present. Rainbow didn’t open her gifts until everypony had left so that nopony would feel embarrassed or such when comparing what they got versus what others got.
When counting the number of gifts that she had, she realized that Twilight’s wasn’t among them. Rainbow was surprised to see that Twilight was the last to stick around in her home, an unsteady look on her face as she presented a small letter wrapped in a ribbon. She unrolled it to reveal a letter, a letter written in her unmistakable near perfect hoofwriting.
Rainbow Dash,
You wouldn’t believe how much effort I made into putting together a gift to give you for your birthday. Wait, what am I saying? Of course it would be me to go completely overboard on something of this nature.
Anyway, I didn’t want to gift something that would be expected of me, like a book or really any material item. I wanted to give you something you’ll remember, better yet, a memory which you can look back on for years to come. Yes, it sounds like a rather grand idea for something like a birthday gift, but I’ve never been a pony who always did things simple.
So I thought, and eventually with the help of Spike came up with the idea to take a vacation. But I wasn’t satisfied with your standard run of the mill go to a beach or resort type of vacation. Instead, we’ll be taking a trip to see seven different sights, each of which will correspond to a different color. I like to call it “Journey to the Center of the Rainbow.” It sounds fitting doesn’t it?
Really though, this entire trip is centered around you, as we learn about each color of the Rainbow and their potential significance and symbolism. Sounds very egghead-like, I know, but trust me when I say it’ll be in your own words, “so awesome!”
You don’t need to bring any bits, or anything to compensate me with. The only request I ask is that you bring yourself along for the ride.
Happy Birthday Rainbow Dash, and hopefully you enjoy the vacation I’ve created for you.
Your dear friend, Twilight Sparkle.
On very few occasions did a gift touch her as deeply as Twilight’s. She imagined just how much effort Twilight had put into creating a special vacation for the two of them, and was more than delighted to accompany her friend on a weeklong adventure. Other than reading together on various days, the pair didn’t spend much time one on one. Rainbow assumed for the time being that this vacation would be a really rewarding experience for the both of them.
“Next stop is Ignis lacum! Arrival time around 10 minutes from now,” the conductor said loudly over the intercom of the train. Rainbow herself had never heard of the small town Twilight had in mind as the first stop, but she was quite curious on what was so special about it. The only bit of info she was able to conclude on her own was that it was a different language.
She looked over to find her friend sleeping peacefully, her head resting against a small carry on pillow tucked between her and the window. Rainbow watched for a minute or so as she breathed softly into the window, causing a small patch of fog to form and block out the outside. Rainbow felt bad for disturbing her, as she seemed so peaceful.
“Twi, come on, our stop is up next,” Rainbow nudged.
Twilight mumbled something incoherent and turned back towards the window, breathing softly still. It only took another sturdier nudge before she looked over at Rainbow with sleepy eyes. She yawned rather loudly and stretched her hooves out, one of them brushing up and feeling a back leg of Rainbow’s.
“Are we there yet?” Twilight’s voice still retained some drowsiness.
Rainbow’s face was turning a light shade of red as she felt Twilight’s hoof linger on the upper part of her back leg. She tried to think nothing of it, as it was a genuine mistake since Twilight wasn’t fully awake yet.
“Almost, but we should wake up first before getting off… right?” Rainbow smirked as she joked with unicorn who was trying to shake sleep from her eyes.
Twilight chuckled lightly. “Well that makes logical sense I guess.”
The pair sat in silence as the train slowly came to a halt, its brakes screeching on the track before it, showing the age of the train itself. Twilight ventured a guess and thought the train would be around 30 or so moons old, judging by the rust it had on the outer edges at parts. She was the first to get off, followed by Rainbow who looked skeptical at the rather haphazard town they had come upon. In fact, they were the only two ponies to exit the train, which was fairly crowded.
“Uh Twi? This is the right town right?”
“This is Ignis Iacum correct?” Twilight asked.
Rainbow looked over to the tiny train station to see Ingis Iacum printed in bold script letters on a sign. She nodded to Twilight in response.
“Then this is the right place,” she added, starting to trot into town, Rainbow in tow behind her.
Rainbow suddenly noticed how tiny the town really was. It made Ponyville look like Manehattan in comparison. She recognized from the sign that the road they were on was main street, and that it was the only street in the entire town. She spotted a small little building which Twilight seemed to be walking towards, and noticed it was a diner. She had to admit she was kind of hungry, as neither of them had eaten breakfast yet.
Being the loyal friend she was, Rainbow usually would always offer to split the bill fairly. She knew it was the right thing to do, but also wasn’t keen on letting others treat her. It was a quality that surprised herself at times, given her brash and sometimes boastful nature. But Rainbow was set on letting Twilight cover everything, as she had previously mentioned in the letter that she wanted it this way.
“Oh Rainbow! Look at how cozy this diner looks!”
It was a classic diner, but given a western makeover. This was about 100% accurate to the small eatery they were currently standing in. The booths and tables were all made from a natural wood, finished so that you could even see the lines of once was a tree. The walls were cedar planked and full of antiques and knick-knacks like old cider bottles and saddles. Rainbow made a mental note that Applejack might like the place.
Because of the hour, the diner wasn’t very busy save for a couple of ponies who looked to be residents. A rather chipper mare stood at the waitress station when they had arrived.
“Well good mornin’ to y’all! How are you two doin today?”
Twilight beamed at how nice the waitress was, who seemed to somehow become even happier with the gesture. Rainbow on the other hand just felt uncomfortable.
“We’re doing okay, right Rainbow?”
Rainbow smiled lightly when she felt Twilight nudge her in the side gently.
The young waitress smiled and led the pair over to one of the empty booths, placing down menus and a rollup of silverware before going on her merry way. Rainbow opened the menu and noticed just how many different types of food the diner made. It easily dwarfed out any of the diners in Ponyville, even just the breakfast menu.
Rainbow looked up at Twilight who was busy focusing on finding something to satisfy her own appetite. Her own mind drifted as she tried to fathom why Twilight would put so much time and energy into something for her. It wasn’t as if Rainbow had done anything of this magnitude for Twilight.
“Hey Twi?”
The unicorn glanced up from studying her menu to meet Rainbow’s eyes. “Yes?”
She wasn’t sure how to properly ask the question without offending Twilight. “I was just curious about this whole trip. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you do anything like this for Rarity, or anypony else really. So, why me?”
“Well… I just thought a change of pace would be nice for a change. Really I think it started when I first was thinking of what to get you.”
“Lemme guess, you had planned this out months in advance right?” Rainbow joked.
“Actually, everything was planned out less than a week before your birthday.”
That caught Rainbow off guard. She knew that Twilight was somepony who would obsess over the littlest detail, and that to plan something like a weeklong vacation would take her a month at the very least. She could only imagine just how time she had spent in the last week dedicated to her gift, and even wondered if the mare lost sleep from the ordeal.
The waitress had made her way back over at this point and taken orders. Twilight had gotten a glass of orange juice and a cup of coffee, while also getting a simple cheese omelet. Rainbow opted for just the orange juice and a bowl of oats, as she wasn’t as hungry. She took the orders and briskly went on her way.
“How did you manage to do all that?”
“I wish I knew,” Twilight responded, chuckling as she fiddled around with her utensils. “I mean at least Spike was around to assist me.”
“Poor little guy. Child labor is frowned upon in these parts you know.”
Twilight merely gave Rainbow a glare at her little tease. “But the concept was easy to figure out. It just came out of nowhere as I was looking at one of my pictures.”
“So you didn’t use any books to come up with the idea?”
“Oh nonsense! Of course books would come into play eventually.”
Twilight glared again as Rainbow’s smile turned into a smirk as she began to laugh at her reaction. She shook her head as Rainbow wiped a couple of tears out of her eyes from laughing so hard.
“Well to continue, coming up with the places I wanted to take you was the hardest part to accomplish. When all of Equestria is open to consideration, it takes a while to whittle that down to a couple places.”
“So how did you pick the places you have?”
“Well I just started to pick out books based on different colors. I was surprised myself to see so many books on colors. Turns out I had a book on every single color of the rainbow, so I used those as reference.”
“So, where are we going today? Since you haven’t told me yet,” Rainbow replied, curiosity at a rather high level as she tried to figure out why they were in this rather tiny town.
“Patience Rainbow, all your questions will be answered soon.”
To say she was surprised at how hot it had gotten would be a severe understatement. Rainbow still didn’t have the slightest idea of what Ignis Iacum actually meant, but she was sure something along the lines of “hottest place in Equestria” would be pretty darn close.
Then again, Ignis Lacum was located in a landscape that was very similar to that of Dodge Junction. The ground was compacted and walking on it was comparable to walking on concrete. Rainbow was sure that the area got little to no rain, and wondered if the ground could even soak up any precipitation if it did rain. A brisk wind blew on occasion, causing sand and dust to be thrown into the air.
She looked over at Twilight, who wore a content smile as she walked beside her in silence. Rainbow had already attempted to get all of the information she could out of the mare, but Twilight was insistent in keeping everything secret. Her reasoning was the element of surprise.
Rainbow could hardly stand to wait any longer, and what they were walking to seemed to be a giant hole in the ground.
Wait.
Rainbow stopped dead in her tracks and her expression changed to that of annoyance.
“You took me all the way out here to see a giant hole in the ground?”
Twilight seemed to expect that the pegasus would show some impatience. “Well, see for yourself,” she replied, gesturing her hoof towards the pit in question.
By this point Rainbow had risen up into the air and was slowly using the wind to gently glide towards the pit in question. “I don’t understand what the big deal is… woah.”
She landed on the ground before her to see not just any pit, but one that was incredibly hot. It was hot for a reason, as the majority of this pit was covered in orange flames, dancing along the edges creating smoldering edges which looked rather interesting, almost like art. The hole itself was deep, at least a good hundred feet or more before seemingly turning into a black abyss into where she couldn’t see anymore.
Rainbow marveled at the sight before her, and realized what Twilight was talking about. She stood motionless in awe as Twilight came beside her, patting her on the back with one of hooves, almost as if to say “never doubt me.”
“The name of the town, Ignis Iacum, is actually a latin name. It stands for Fire Pit.”
“Ohhhh! That makes a lot more sense now.”
They continued watching the land before them continue to burn, the flames almost acting in a hypnotizing manner as they danced with one another. Even though they were both hot and sweaty from the weather conditions, the heat from the flames almost had a cooling effect on them. Rainbow and even Twilight herself wondered at how that could even be possible.
“So would you like to learn about the first color of the rainbow?
“You bet, after I get an aerial view of the flames! I wanna do a fly by over the pit!” Rainbow had unfurled her wings and was already in the air and quickly approaching the edge of the hole.
“Rainbow don’t!!”
The flames proved too aggressive and loud for Twilight’s voice to be heard. She watched in blank fear as Rainbow floated over and into the area of flames.
Rainbow wasn’t there more than a couple of seconds before she howled in agony, losing her composure and sinking dangerously close to the incredibly hot fire. Twilight near panicked, but was able to wrap Rainbow in a magical aura before bringing her back beside her. Rainbow to her own credit was still flying the entire time, and more than likely was able to make it back under her own accord.
Twilight stared at Rainbow in near disbelief and annoyance, her eyes tearing up slightly. The realization had just struck her that if she hadn’t been to catch her friend, Rainbow might have fallen and fell victim to the vicious flames. The imagery proved to be too much for the unicorn, as she had to turn away from Rainbow as she laid there and collected herself.
“Thanks Twi, I owe you one. Those flames are a heck of a lot hotter than they seems huh?” She didn’t seem to notice that Twilight didn’t find the situation humorous in the slightest. “Twi?”
“In what way or manner did you think that was a good idea!?” She had whipped her head around so that her eyes were staring directly into Rainbow’s.
Rainbow’s look softened immediately with the slight of Twilight’s reaction. “Twilight, I’m okay. I mean sure, a couple of my feathers might have gotten a bit torched by the flames, but I’m perfectly fine.”
“Rainbow you could have killed yourself if you fell in there! Do you know how hot those flames really are?”
“Yeah yeah, I’m sorry okay? I’ll be more careful, for the time being that is,” she replied, wearing her usual grin.
Twilight rolled her eyes at the statement.
“Now could you tell me what you were trying to tell me earlier? Rainbow asked.
“Are you going to fly into thousand degree flames again?”
Rainbow shook her head with a resounding no.
“Good.”
“So according to the research that I’ve done before coming here, the pit is filled with natural gas that some scientists found about 40 years ago. When they realized how much natural gas was leaking, they decided to set it aflame, thus causing the natural gas to eventually burn away completely.”
“I think they were wrong Twi.”
“Well,” she began, “It’s not that they were wrong, their idea was sound enough. But they couldn’t detect just how much natural gas was actually there. So instead they let it burn since it wasn’t threatening anypony out here.”
“That’s actually pretty interesting. I appreciate you not going into total egghead mode while explaining it.”
Twilight had to laugh at the half sentimental compliment, half insult. “No problem. So I’m guessing you’re curious as to why I brought you here?”
Rainbow nodded, still not exactly sure why Twilight had wanted to begin their so called “vacation” in the middle of scenic nowhere. But she had a notion that the flames had something to do with why they had come here.
“So as you can see, the flames are rather red in color. Red is the first color in sequence of the rainbow. It is a color of fire and blood, and has a variety of meanings behind it. Anger, power, strength, love, willpower, and desire are some of the various meanings given to the color. Passion is also one of these, and is probably the most outstanding quality you have.”
Rainbow agreed wholeheartedly with the statement.
“Red is also seen as a color which is very emotionally intense, also something I see in you a lot, even if you might not notice it. When you show your emotion, whether it be anger or happiness, out of all of use you seem to be the most forceful in terms of expression. Like when you get annoyed with one of us, you’ll make it known that this is the case.”
“I can agree with that I guess, although I tend to overdo it at times,” Rainbow added sheepishly.
“But however, on the flip side your overall intense emotional nature mixed with your passion for things makes you a pegasus nopony should ever underestimate. When you set your mind on a goal, you’ll go to unfathomable lengths to achieve it, going over leaps and bounds many ponies wouldn’t even attempt.”
“You bet I am!” Rainbow stuck her chest out and went into a more dramatic pose of victory, getting chuckles out of the unicorn beside her.
“And with that, now onto the next color. Come on Rainbow, no time to waste on this vacation, I’ll even race you back to the town. No flying!” Twilight shouted back to her as she started to dart off into the distance, leaving a trail of dust flying high into the hot desert air.
Rainbow smiled and let Twilight get a head start, knowing the librarian wasn’t exactly the most physical pony in Equestria.
There was one thing she had noticed as she watched Twilight explain the color red to her.
Twilight seemed to be more enthusiastic than ever when talking about it, even sounding positively excited at times. Rainbow noticed that there to be a twinkle in her eyes as she talked about Rainbow herself.
Journey to the Center of the Rainbow Chapter 2: Orange
“Holy heck! Is this huge or what?”
Twilight refused to make a stallion-related joke at Rainbow’s exclamation. She knew Rainbow would probably laugh, but the joke itself was out of left field on her part.
Ever since they left for their trip, Twilight’s overall thoughts had become more sensual, especially her dreams. It was something she was quite unaccustomed to.
She had woken up last night with her body feeling as if somepony had stuck her in an oven, and had went to stand outside their hotel room to cool off. Her mind raced as she tried to figure out the cause, but only drew a blank. Luckily Rainbow was a heavy sleeper, so she didn’t have to worry about waking her up. She was tempted to poke fun at her loud, heavy snore. Although it was annoying initially, Twilight found it kind of cute.
She did a double take on how a pony could find snoring cute.
“I know right? The city seems so much more gigantic when you finally walk around in it. My mother always told me how incredible the city was and promised to take me down here one day. Turns out I just went on my own.”
The duo trotted down 5th Avenue, Rainbow busy looking around at the massive buildings and skyscrapers. She couldn’t believe just how huge some of the structures were, as a few seemed tall enough to reach Cloudsdale and then some.
Rainbow had never been to Manehattan, but had definitely heard about the city before. One of her buddies from flight school happened to live in Manehattan for a part of her life, and always mentioned how cool the place was. She lived in one of the high rises, and said that one of her favorite times of day was the morning. She loved to watch the sun rise over the tall skyscrapers, casting massive shadows upon the ground. Rainbow tried to think of the pegasus’ name, but couldn’t.
“So why did you come to the city? You don’t seem the city type.”
This caused Twilight to wonder how in Equestria Dash would know anything about cityfolk, considering she never lived in one herself. “How would you know? You’ve never been in the city yourself”
“Well, I always assumed ponies who lived in the city generally were outgoing and social. You don’t seem like that type.” “In that case, would you enjoy living in the city?” Twilight countered, curious as to how she would respond.
“A hundred and twenty percent no. Too crowded and cramped for me, I need my open space to fly around and get some fresh air. No offense to these city people, but their air smells!”
This comment caused a couple of ponies to look at Rainbow with a look of annoyance before continuing on their day.
“Rainbow! Don’t insult others like that. Besides, it’s hard to keep the air clean when there are millions of ponies living in the same area. There is a lot of pollution from the higher density of ponies, and this coupled with the ratio of how much oxygen is produced around the area causes…”
“Twilight,” Rainbow interrupted, a terrible look of boredom flooding her face, “You promised not to go full egghead mode on me remember?”
Twilight smiled sheepishly in response. “Sorry, I’m always used to doing that kind of thing. I can’t help that I love reading about facts and figures and such.”
Rainbow rolled her eyes. “You’re such a bookworm Twilight. But you’re just as awesome as you are bookwormish?” Rainbow seemed unsure on how to word this, “…so it can be forgiven,” she replied, flashing her trademark grin.
Twilight felt a small resurgence of butterflies in her stomach, but dismissed the notion as hodgepodge.
“Speaking of awesome, what’s with the hundred and twenty percent thing? You could have just used a hundred?”
Rainbow watched Twilight as she spoke, but didn’t do the same for where she was walking, and nearly crashed headfirst into a stallion going the opposite direction. The stallion skidded to a halt, nearly dropping the coffee he held in his hoof, but thanks to Rainbow’s quickness she was able to hold it steady.
“Woah, sorry about that. Totally my fault.”
The stallion brushed himself off a bit with his free hoof before looking up at Rainbow. Twilight noticed that his eyes seemed to do a once over on her friend, and immediately felt really annoyed.
“It’s cool, no harm done right? Thanks for saving my coffee though,” he replied, smiling devilishly at Rainbow who seemed more confused than anything. “But bumping into a pony with your fantastic looks is a-okay any day of the week.”
“Excuse me?”
“Name’s Sparkdust,”he crooned, nearly causing Twilight to lose her lunch as she fumed a few hooves away. “What brings a cute pegasus like yourself to the big city?”
Rainbow was not impressed by the attempted pick up, but an idea popped into her head on how to get out of the situation.
“Actually, not to dampen your flame Spark, but I’m already taken,” she replied with confidence, dragging a surprised Twilight to her side, her hoof holding onto Twilight’s back as a marefriend would. Twilight blushed a deep shade of crimson as Rainbow continued to hold her, the strange heated feeling returning in full swing.
Sparkdust seemed rather shocked, and also embarrassed that he seemingly tried to pick up a mare who was “on the other side of the coin” as he would put it. “Oh… you’re a fillyfooler…”
“Yes, and a proud on at that. Got a problem buddy?” Rainbow stared right into his eyes, her confidence growing every inch Sparkdust seemed to be losing as he cowered in fear.
“Right. Ahem, well, I’d better be on my way then.” With that, the young stallion zipped over twice as quick as beforehand.
Once he disappeared from sight, Rainbow continued walking, her hoof still embracing Twilight rather suggestively. She noticed right away, and let the unicorn go, much to her dismay.
“Sorry about that Twi. I assume there are a ton of idiots like that one in the city as well right? Rainbow looked over to notice Twilight’s flushed composure, cocking an eyebrow in the mare’s odd behavior. “You alright there?”
“Me?! Yeah, I’m alright. Just… a bit hot from being around so many other ponies. I keep forgetting the city was like this,” she stuttered, earning another look of confusion from Rainbow as she tried to keep calm.
“Well, wherever you’re taking me should be cooler than this outside air right? It’s sweltering out here.”
“But of course. This doesn’t mean I’m going to tell you where we’re going.”
This earned a groan of annoyance from the ever impatient pegasus. “Aww, come on! Please?!”
Twilight merely shook her head with a sly little smile on her face.
They continued strolling through the impressive cityscape, Twilight looking up often at the street signs and buildings to make sure she remembered the directions. Rainbow walked beside, her desire to start flying over all these ponies increasing with every passing second. But the last thing Twilight wanted was to attract attention, so she opted for normal ground travel.
As she followed Twilight, Rainbow began to watch the other ponies, and noticed that there were very little pegasi among the thousands of earth ponies and unicorns. In fact, at times she seemed to be the only pegasus in a crowd of hundred. She assumed that many of them felt the same need for space that she did, and that a massive city wasn’t the kind of place a pegasus would live in.
“We’re almost there, it’s a few more blocks to the south,” Twilight called from in front of her, motioning to continue on.
It was a rather silent journey across the next few blocks, with neither pony making a noise or saying a word to one another as they watched the city around them. She passed by a store and something caught her eye sitting in the window. Rainbow went wide eyed. She could recognize those color patterns from a mile away. Sitting in this store’s window was a brand new Wonderbolts’ uniform, the seal of authenticity right on the front.
At this point Twilight noticed the disappearance of her friend, and turned over to see the pegasus gazing twinkly-eyed at one of the store windows she had just past. Oh for Celestia’s sake, we’re never going to make it to this aquarium.
Twilight walked up to the storefront and noticed immediately what she was staring at. Rarely do full official Wonderbolt gear appear in public, let alone on sale for the general public to purchase. Twilight was rather surprised to see this sitting in a store in Manehattan, as she assumed that the ponies who made the Wonderbolt’s uniforms weren’t the type to go commercial.
She choked on her own saliva when she saw the price.
“15,000 bits!?”
Rainbow jumped at the sudden appearance of her friend, completely lost for a second on what she was doing. “Yeah I know. Sorry for stopping so sudden like that, but I just never saw one of these for sale before,” she replied.
“Funny thing about these uniforms. When I was thinking of ideas about what to get you as a gift, this was one of the things I had in mind.”
Rainbow’s eyes widened at the revelation, mostly in shock that Twilight would even consider something of this expense. “Twi… I couldn’t accept such an expensive gift. And do you even have that many bits to spend on something like this?”
“Well,” she began, “I was going to ask Princess Celestia about them and see if she could get one of the extras from the Wonderbolts themselves. However, I don’t think she has time for trivial matters so I didn’t bother asking. I would have asked them to autograph it too.”
Rainbow was stunned silent for even the prospect of such a gift being reality.
“Did I ever tell you how awesome you are?”
“Hmm, not within the last 10 minutes?”
They both laughed.
“Alrighty then. Twilight Sparkle my eggheaded friend, you are without a shadow of a doubt, awesome in the book of Rainbow Dash.”
Twilight cocked her head in confusion, while also giggling a bit. “Book of Rainbow Dash? I don’t think I’ve read that one before.”
“I’m in the process of writing it. It shall be a memoir about me.” Twilight rolled her eyes as Rainbow continued to jokingly boast, or so she hoped was a joke.
“And what page of this book are you on?”
“…one.”
Both of them broke into hysterics at that statement, causing a few ponies to yet again look at them with strange looks, as if they were outsiders.
Finally Twilight’s eyes made out a rather impressive glass building, the outside dotted with spectacular gardens and sculptures of various sea creatures including sharks, manta rays, and dolphins.
“An aquarium?” Rainbow questioned. “Aren’t these like zoos but with water?”
“Kind of. Aquariums mostly feature animals which live in aquatic environments, hence the word aquarium. I’d figured it’d be cool, and perhaps you could learn a thing or two.”
Rainbow groaned once the worn learn was mentioned. “Twilight, Twilight… vacations aren’t supposed to be educational.”
“Who said that?”
“Me!”
Twilight smiled and shook her head. “Trust me, this is a really cool place! You’ll love it!”
“Pinkie Pie promise?” Rainbow requested.
“Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye,” Twilight responded confidently.
“Alright, I suppose I could believe you this once.”
“Just this once?” Twilight squinted a bit at Rainbow, expecting a different answer.
“Alright alright, more than once. How about… twice?”
Twilight sighed and rolled her eyes yet again, motioning her to follow as she started to walk inside the large entryway to the aquarium.
As they walked in they were greeted by a positively gigantic tank of water, so clear that one could even make out ponies standing on the other side. In the tank swam hundreds of fish, all of them a variety of colors and sizes and moving in all different directions. Both Twilight and Rainbow were already impressed with what they saw.
The rest of the day seemed to roll on quickly as the duo made their way through the aquarium, Twilight trying her hardest not to get sidetracked from the task at hand. The bookworm could have easily spent multiple days observing the creatures inhabiting said tanks, but that could be saved for another trip entirely. This was a birthday present for Rainbow, and she knew that Rainbow would remain the focal point.
Rainbow herself nearly squealed in delight when she saw an exhibit near the back of the aquarium which featured an open sandy tank which housed a dozen baby turtles. Twilight watched as she zoomed up to the side and reached out to pet one of them. Their heads initially went into their shells in fear, but eventually they accepted Rainbow as not being a threat, and one proceeded to mouth on Rainbow’s hoof. The excitement she got out of it was incredible, and she looked like a filly getting a tub of ice cream. Twilight found it to be the most adorable thing she’d ever witnessed Rainbow doing.
Eventually they came upon a tunnel-like exhibit. Just as Rainbow was about to pass it and go on to another exhibit, Twilight put her hoof out and stopped her, motioning towards the tank they were now standing at.
The tank they were currently observing was actually shaped in that of a tunnel one could go through. It was an innovative design, and allowed ponies to see a 180 degree view of the marine animals. Both Rainbow and Twilight were mesmerized by the overall beauty of all the different types of fish and other sea creatures, some of them colored purple and yellow, others the size of fillies swimming among the smaller.
Twilight pointed out one particular type of fish out to Rainbow.
“See these fish here?”
Rainbow watched as a school of bright orange fish swam into view, each one about a foot or so in length with some smaller ones behind it. She noticed their color more than anything, and realization came to her. “The orange ones right? I’m going to guess the next color you’re going to talk about is orange, correct?”
Twilight nodded happily. “Indeed. Now these fish here are called koi, spelt K-O-I. It’s a species of carp which usually come up a whole bunch of colors, including white, black, red, yellow, and most rare, orange. From what I’ve read, the orange ones are the most sought after, and they can represent good luck and fortune to a pony who has them.”
Rainbow was listening intently while also focusing on the koi who were darting overhead.
“Now the color orange itself has a lot of interesting meanings. The most common perhaps is joy and happiness. Other qualities include fascination, determination, attraction, and enthusiasm.”
Rainbow quizzically looked at Twilight when she mentioned attraction. “What do you mean by attraction?”
“When I read what I did on the color, it mentioned attraction as being more of a component of red-orange. It described red-orange as being a color representing physical and sexual attraction, desire, pleasure, and a thirst for action.” By now, both Twilight and Rainbow’s cheeks had turned red, especially Twilight’s as she embarrassingly recalled what the book had told her. “I guess having a thirst for action is something that fits you well. And when I mean action, I meant adventure, not the other thing…”
“Ah,” was all Rainbow said.
“But I think the quality of determination fits you best.”
“Not trying to be overly curious, but why?” Rainbow wanted to see what Twilight was going to say.
“Well, I always see you practicing your flying routines in preparation to someday join the Wonderbolts. And though you haven’t gotten there yet, you still continue to practice everyday in hope that one day you’ll reach that goal.” Twilight watched as a genuine smile began to form on Rainbow’s face.
“Remember the incident where you lead all the pegasi in bringing water to Cloudsdale? Despite the amount of ponies who got ill, you continued to motivate everypony and helped everypony believe that it could be done. Remember what happened with Fluttershy? It was you who persuaded her that she could reach the wing power necessary to help, and she did! So I think determination is a strong point of yours and trust me, I could go on and on if you want.”
Rainbow was stunned into silence, unable to process what she wanted to say to Twilight at this very moment. She attempted to put into words what she wanted to say.
“You know I hate being sappy. But that was one of the nicest things anypony has ever said to me.”
“Aww Dash, you’re being so sappy!” Twilight teased, earning a groan of annoyance out of the pegasus.
“Quit it. I was trying to be serious.”
Twilight started to walk towards the end of the tunnel as Rainbow stayed beside her. “Of course I knew that, I was just teasing you a little. Ever heard of treat others how you want to be treated as a filly?”
“Well yeah. But…”
Twilight turned around and gave Rainbow a smile knowing that there wasn’t really a good way she could properly respond.
“Alright you win,” Rainbow replied dryly.
“Yessss! Twilight one, Rainbow zero!”
“Actually if you count that race from the fire pit, we’re tied sister.”
“Oh right,” Twilight chuckled, “Forgot about that one.”
After a few more tanks, and a second trip back to the baby turtles so Rainbow could play with them, they eventually exited the aquarium an hour or so before it was scheduled to close for the day.
Twilight noticed the sky had grown much darker, and it had to be sometime around late afternoon. She had planned for the two of them to head to their next location a bit earlier. However, she had factored in possible delays, giving her a few hours worth of leeway in their travel plans. She knew they had to get a move on if they wanted to keep on schedule though.
“Ready for our next adventure?” Twilight asked, leading Rainbow back towards the subway they had come in on.
“Will you tell me what it is?”
Twilight giggled. “You still haven’t figured that out yet huh?”
Journey to the Center of the Rainbow Chapter 3: Blue
Rainbow Dash loved the thrill anything extreme gave her, from diving to the ground at unbelievable speeds, to whipping through razor sharp canyons. The exhilarating feel of adrenaline coursing throughout her body was something she lived for.
Which was why she was currently excited for what Twilight seemed to have in store for their next vacation stop. Even though the mare wouldn’t tell her where they were headed to next, she had caved a tiny bit and hinted at the next stop.
All she said was that it involved water.
Rainbow looked out over the edge of the wooden cart they were riding in, taking in the fresh misty air from said water which happened to be a mere couple of feet to their side. It was a whole other story when referring to the depth at which the water sat.
The water was at the very least, a few hundred feet lower the cliff-like land they were currently traveling on On most occasions, there would be some evidence of a beach or some sort of rocky alcove. Instead, the water eroded the rock directly and thus carved away the land to make nearly perfect 90 degree angles in spots. Although not a pony to be interested in this sort of thing, Rainbow found this to be quite incredible, and wondered why they didn’t start in a place like this.
Twilight meanwhile just marveled at the breathtaking landscape they were currently riding through. While trees and plants were at a minimum around these parts, the overall rock and land itself made up for it. She observed the coloration of the cliffs, greens and reds blending into one another to make a scene unlike any she had ever seen before.
A picture of the area they were in seemed like a no-brainer but Twilight had refused to bring a camera. She meant for the trip to be purely non-materialistic, and she was determined to stick by this notion. Every sight, every experience that she and Rainbow had would be saved within their memories. Rainbow didn’t even object to not having a camera, she was perfectly happy with Twilight’s idea.
Although excited, there was a bit of uneasiness to Twilight’s demeanor which would unnoticeable to most. This time it didn’t involve her whole situation with Rainbow Dash. Instead, it involved what she was about to do with the mare, which scared her to an extent.
“So Twi, where exactly are we? I might have found a new vacation spot.”
Twilight smiled in response. “The name of this place is actually pretty literal. It’s called the Cliffs of Teal, named for the teal color you can see in the worn away rock.” She gestured towards the cliffs themselves as she mentioned the teal color.
Rainbow looked over and admired the coloration, which she didn’t notice before for some reason. “So… since we’re almost here I suppose you could tell me what we’re going to do?”
“Tsk-tsk Rainbow, just a little while longer and I’ll tell you everything you need to know.”
The pegasus groaned loudly and fell back into her seat with an audible thump. “You are such a tease Twilight.”
Twilight giggled yet again at how annoyed Dash was getting at this. She knew that she would have to deal with this three more times and couldn’t help but wonder how Rainbow would cope without going mad. “No, you’re just really impatient. Learn to savor what’s around you, and don’t be in such a rush. It’s a nice life lesson.”
“…Says the one who nearly had a mental breakdown because she was going to forget to write a letter,” Rainbow replied, smirking at the unicorn.
“Hey! That was just a really bad day and… I can’t argue that one well at all can I?”
“Nope.”
For a second, both of them stared at one another, before breaking out into fits of laughter. Twilight was the first to stop, wiping a tear away from the corner of her eye as a result. “Darn it. Anyway, I’m going to guarantee you’ll love what we’re going to do though. It’s somewhat more exciting than the other two places.”
The stallion slowly came to a halt next to a rather tiny brick building which seemed to be precariously positioned on the edge of the cliff. Unlike the rest of the land, there was a rather strong fence which separated any of the public from being able to walk off the edge.
“We have arrived at the destination you specified Miss Sparkle,” the stallion spoke with a clear voice, sounding like he was reading from a script for some bizarre reason Twilight couldn’t put her hoof on. She gave him the bits that the ride cost, which wasn’t very much.
“Hey Twi, what does this say?” Rainbow’s hoof was gesturing to the arch-like sign which was erected over a pathway which lead down the steep cliff.
“Aqua Caerula! It’s also Latin, and when you convert it to English, it means water of deep blue,” she explained. “Basically, this is the location of arguably the bluest waters in all of Equestria.”
“Awesome! So where does the whole exciting part come in?”
Twilight had turned to face the narrow pathway leading down the wall of the cliff. It couldn’t be more than two feet wide, and snaked its way steeply down the side of the cliff. Thankfully a very secure iron and stone wall had been built to keep ponies from slipping off. Twilight could see the rocks which sat at the edge of the water, and noticed just how jagged and sharp some of them looked. She swallowed silently in fear, trying not to get the attention of Rainbow Dash.
“It begins down this path here.”
The two set down the small rocky pathway, cautiously watching every step as they descended. Rainbow wasn’t as worried about stepping wrong or slipping on the rock, but was watching Twilight’s own hooves more than her own. Just in case, she wanted to be in position to catch Twilight in the air if she slipped.
Rainbow noticed a slight unsteadiness in Twilight’s walk, but decided to leave it alone. She knew the unicorn would definitely appreciate the sentiment, but Twilight's independence was something she was proud of, even if she didn't show it. It was a quality Rainbow shared with her.
The path continued, winding further and further down the cliff, and within 15 minutes the pair were 100 feet above the mesmerizing blue ocean waters.
“Look up ahead!” Twilight pointed at the small hut which seemed to be built on a more stable piece of the cliff, which jutted out of the side of the landscape at 15 feet.
In it was an older pony, although not old enough to be considered a member of the elderly. He sported a bluish coat in similar color to the water, and wore a hat on top of his yellow greenish hair. He was kicked back in a stool-like chair, sipping on a glass of lemonade while reading a magazine.
Twilight approached the hut, unbenounced to the stallion, and quietly tapped the counter. He looked over, and a smile appeared on his face as he set down his magazine.
“Hello there! And I’m going to guess you were Miss Twilight Sparkle from the letter I had received a few days ago?”
“Indeed I am! I’m going to guess you know why me and my friend Rainbow Dash are here?” Twilight gestured back to Rainbow, who stood there looking a bit befuddled.
“But of course. Why else do ponies come down here for?”
He hopped off his stool and went back to retrieved a small clipboard with a quill attached by a string. “Now I need you to sign for you and your friend here before I let you two go along.”
Twilight nodded and signed along the dotted line, to the delight of the stallion before her.
Rainbow stood next to her, still quite confused and trying to get a look at what the paper said.
“I should probably tell you what we’re doing now.”
Rainbow rolled her eyes mockingly, but was still sporting her smile. “About time. I was wondering when you would, considering you led me down a sketchy path along a 400 foot cliff. Sounds like an ordinary day huh?”
“Oh stop it, you knew I was going to tell you,” she replied. “Anyway, we are going to take a swim in some of the bluest waters in Equestria. However, in order to get in, everypony needs to jump into the water.”
“Well I expected no less. I mean we are on a cliff and all… wait do you mean off this ledge?” Rainbow’s eyes opened wider in realization.
Twilight didn’t need to tell Rainbow the answer to that question, and merely shook her head up and down in response.
“It’s a cool 100 foot drop from here to the waters below. The waiver that Twilight signed here just states that you’re alright putting responsibility on yourselves if something wrong happens,” the stallion explained, coming out of his hut now with a couple items in his hoof.
“It’s just a jump into water, how could that be so dangerous?”
The stallion seemed to sigh with annoyance at the memories of certain ponies who completely disregarded the safety rules. “Let’s just say that some daredevil type ponies tried to do fancy stunts that resulted in some nasty injuries, and as a result blamed me and my buddies for it, even though we had no part in it. So I introduced this waiver here to make sure that nopony can do that.”
Twilight expected Rainbow to start an argument with the stallion over how he portrayed daredevil types. She hoped Rainbow wouldn’t cause them to be uninvited, while a small part of her would be okay to turn around and head to the next place. “I can understand that,” Rainbow replied, much to Twilight’s surprise. “I mean if I want to do stunts when I’m flying, I take full responsibility for anything that might happen. Like if I crashed into somepony by accident? Well it would be a total uncool move for me to blame that pony for being in the way.”
The stallion looked impressed by Rainbow’s response and glad that he wasn’t dealing with another brainless daredevil adrenaline junkie. “Well I’m glad you think that way. And with that, I just need you two to slip on these life vests here.” He handed one of the orange nylon safety items to each of them.“Alright now when you jump off, be sure to go in hooves first. If you land on any other part of your body, you might be hurt and we don’t want that right?”
Twilight and Rainbow nodded in response. Rainbow watched Twilight’s face as he continued explaining in detail all the precautionary measures, and once again noticed her getting very anxious and uneasy.
The stallion went over how they should enter the water, and also explained how he and other ponies had checked the water to make sure there were no sharp edges within a good radius of the diving point. He also mentioned how they made sure the cliff was perfectly free of any jutting out obstacles or rocks.
“Oh and if you need to use the life vest, just pull this little string here, and this baby will inflate in seconds. I’ve used it when I get lazy and want to nap in the water here. It comes in handy sometimes.”
The stallion led Rainbow and Twilight to the platform which jutted out of the cliff itself, telling them that they could jump at any moment.
“You ready?” Rainbow looked over at Twilight.
Twilight peered over the edge to see just how far down the water was, and paled in response. She backed away from the edge before looking at Rainbow with fear on her face.
Both Rainbow and the stallion looked at her with concern, not sure whether she would be able to tackle the challenge.
“I… I don’t think I can do it,” she stammered.
“Now don’t force yourself into something you don’t want to do,” the stallion remarked, sympathy in his voice.
“Twilight, you don’t have to do this for me,” Rainbow added, trying to reassure her. An idea popped into her head as she thought about the situation.“Are we allowed to jump off with other ponies or do we have to do it alone?” Rainbow asked the stallion.
He pondered the notion for some time. The stallion couldn’t remember the last occasion in which somepony had asked him that.
“Well, I suppose as long as one was careful about it. Yes, you are allowed to if you’d like.”
Rainbow put out her hoof, and looked at Twilight. “Grab my hoof and hold it tight. Don’t let go alright?”
Twilight did as she was told, and nodded in response to Rainbow’s request. She could feel a chill go up her spine as Rainbow held her own hoof tightly.
“Good. Now on the count of three, jump off the ledge. Ready?”
Twilight nodded.
“1…”
“2…”
“3!”
The pair jumped off in perfect sequence, their hooves still tightly in grasp with one another.
Twilight screamed instantly as she felt the air in her face and mane. Her eyes scanned down to see the water rapidly approaching.
Rainbow was also screaming, but to the complete opposite of Twilight’s. Hers were filled with pure joy and excitement as they fell to the water below.
Both closed their eyes as they made a massive splash which from afar would impress most.
Twilight felt the air leave her lungs as they sank into the water. She started to panic and fumbled for the small string to activate the life vest. Suddenly she noticed that she was floating up to the surface, only she wasn’t swimming at all. Instead, her eyes looked over to see that her hoof was being tightly held by Rainbow as she used her wings to help both of them up to the surface. She became mesmerized by how the sun shone through the water and onto Rainbow, giving the appearance of a silhouette, and making Rainbow seem almost angelic-like.
Both of them popped out of the water, looking at one another with confused expressions as they floated. They looked over and heard the sound of rowing, and they saw the stallion now in a small wooden boat coming towards their direction.
Twilight had no idea what to feel right now. So she started to giggle, and before long was full out laughing at absolutely nothing.
“Twilight, are you alright?” Rainbow was very confused, but started to giggle herself at how much Twilight was laughing.
Twilight didn’t respond, and continue going into hysterics in the water, nearly dunking back into the water accidently. She was staying above water thanks to Rainbow, who continued to slowly tread water using her wings.
Rainbow joined in the laughter herself, unsure onto why she was doing so, but thinking nothing of it.
“Oh Rainbow, that was incredible,” Twilight said, wiping what she assumed was a tear off her face from laughing so hard. “I think I wanna do that again.”
“Let’s not get carried away now. You turned ghostly white when you looked over the edge for the first time,” Rainbow replied.
Twilight rolled her eyes but giggled at the comment.
They waited as the stallion came by and came to a stop on the calm waters, his smiling face greeting them.
“Well judging from those mugs, you seemed to enjoy yourself huh?”
Twilight and Rainbow both nodded enthusiastically.
“Good to hear. Hop on in and I’ll row you to the lower deck over there.”
Rainbow got in first, preferring to just fly out of the water and land easily on the boat itself. She looked over to see Twilight having a bit of trouble, as the mare seemed to lack the energy to even climb in the boat. Rainbow put her hoof out to Twilight and pulled her in gently, and chuckling as Twilight came in face first onto the inside of the boat.
The stallion docked the boat and tied it up in case of any larger waves that could whisk it away as Rainbow and Twilight hopped off . The dock wasn’t much bigger than the boat itself, so they were careful not to fall back into the water.
“You two are welcome to go swimming and do whatever you’d like. When you wanna make your way out, just take that spiral staircase here up to the hut. Then again, I didn’t have to tell ya that, how else could you get up?” He chuckled a bit before heading up himself, looking eager to see if there were any other ponies who would stop by today. “Do you wanna go back in for another dip?” Twilight questioned.
To her surprise, Rainbow refused.
“Nah, I’d like to just sit with my feet in the water and chill a bit. Besides, you haven’t explained blue to me yet.”
It just dawned on Twilight that she had nearly forgotten the main reason she had come here in the first place.
“Well where to begin? Blue is considered to be a color of the sky and the sea, and its usually associated with depth and stability.”
Rainbow recoiled and made a face of discontent, catching Twilight off guard.
“What happened?”
“Did you make that rhyme of sea and stability on purpose?” Rainbow teased.
"Sigh… "Can I continue now?” Twilight watched as Rainbow nodded her head in response. “Good.”
“Anyway, blue is a color which is strongly associated with calmness and tranquility like I was explaining before. It is also color which can represent a bunch of things, some like confidence, wisdom, truth, and heaven. However, the two qualities which I see most in you are trust and more well known to yourself, loyalty.”
“Well,” Rainbow began, “Loyalty is my element and all.”
“Indeed it is,” Twilight agreed. “And ever since I met you, you’ve always been there for any of us when we needed it. Even if it can be out of your way sometimes, loyalty is something you live by, almost like an unwritten code which you sleep to every night. Take my magic for example, as it’s my own element, and is a part of my life more than anything else in Equestria. You may not realize it yourself, but your loyalty is a much deeper a part of you than even flying is.”
Rainbow listened intently, watching how the sun’s rays skipped and scattered across the calm waters of the ocean.
“The quality I wanted to mention in more detail was the quality of trust. Just now, when we were up on that platform and about to jump into the water, I placed my trust in somepony for my safety. No, it wasn’t the stallion.”
“Why me though?” Rainbow questioned. “After all, the stallion is here to watch over any pony who comes here, and obviously can swim much better than either of us.”
“I didn’t ask him to jump off with me did I?”
Rainbow was silent and really didn’t know if Twilight was expecting an answer or not.
“Exactly. You offered me your hoof, and convinced me that everything would be alright if I just held tight. Sure enough you were true to your word, and helped me conquer a fear of heights than frankly I didn’t even know I had till today. When we were in the water, I continued holding on as you pulled me up to the surface. If you didn’t do that, I think I was seconds away from pulling the string on that life-vest.”
“You know, about this whole lesson on colors you’re giving me… I think I’m actually learning more about myself than I really ever thought I would.”
Twilight’s face was a mixture of genuine astonishment and glee as she finally got concrete evidence that her idea was finally having effect.
“Well that’s good, because we have four colors left, and plenty left to learn!”
Journey to the Center of the Rainbow Chapter 4: Yellow
With every place she was taken, Rainbow was beginning to notice a pattern. Each place, with the exception of the aquarium in Manehattan, had kept her and Twilight secluded from other ponies. This was especially evident now, as they walked down an empty dirt road somewhere in Equestria she had never been to before.
Rainbow didn’t mind being alone with Twilight, in fact, she found the extended amount of time with the unicorn to be fun and rewarding. Outside of the library, Rainbow kept forgetting just how much of a character Twilight was, and that her entire existence didn’t revolve around reading and her studies.
What initially surprised her was how personal and open Twilight was becoming as each day passed. Rainbow made a mental note to ask the others about this, but she was certain that Twilight had never really opened up this much to anypony else before. The fact that she was made Rainbow wonder what the unicorn saw in their relationship.
She already considered Twilight to be a close friend, but it seemed like Twilight was thinking deeper into that than ever before. Rainbow could see her in a best friend sort of light, and assumed this is what the unicorn was thinking of.
Could it be more than this?
Rainbow never thought much about romantic relationships. It wasn’t expected of her to be a mare who would think and daydream of a coltfriend or marefriend, so in order to hold up her persona, she never did.
Yet, here she was with Twilight, contemplating the idea of potentially being her marefriend. She didn’t know how her thoughts got to this position, or why. In the end however, Rainbow somehow got herself into wondering how it would be like to take that big of a step forward in their relationship. To go from friends, to their special somepony could be considered more of a jump than a hop and a skip in Pinkie’s terms.
Rainbow shook her head a couple of times to rid her mind of the thought. She would address the issue later on. Doing so now would only work to make the rest of their vacation incredibly awkward and unenjoyable.
She watched as Twilight fumbled with a rather large map.“You seem to be having trouble with that. Need a bit of help?”
Twilight didn’t respond, too focused on studying the map before her to hear anypony or anything around her.
Rainbow had to admit, the unicorn’s ability to block out her surroundings when she wished was a useful talent. She wished she had the ability herself, it would make naps much easier.
She didn’t ask a second time, letting Twilight sort out the issue herself before delving in again.
“It doesn’t make sense, where we should be going should be right up ahead!” A frustrated Twilight groaned as she fiddled with the now partially wrinkled map of the area.
“Can I help in any sort of way?”
“No,” Twilight replied instantaneously. “Sorry if I’m getting flustered over this, but this was a birthday gift for you. The only thing I need you to do is enjoy it,” she explained, smiling at the last sentence.
“Well what if I said that I would enjoy this gift more if you’d let me help you?”
“You’re just saying that,” Twilight said, calling out Rainbow’s bluff. “Do you really want to help me or do you just want to prove a point?”
Rainbow knew that Twilight was only acting how she was because of her annoyance at her navigational errors. Nevertheless, the comment still acted like a thorn in Rainbow’s side, and the pegasus was somewhat peeved. “If you know me well enough, you could answer the question yourself.”
Twilight glared at Rainbow, but only for a few seconds before her expression softened into an apologetic smile, although it could have been a frown, as Twilight wasn’t exactly sure. “Sorry, I didn’t mean that. Here,” she gestured for Rainbow to come over a hold a side of the map,” we’ll look together.
“Apology accepted. Really Twi, do you think I’d be angry at you?”
“Well, you do tend to get more angry than most of us,” Twilight retorted. “Rarity might be the exception of that, but you have a temper sometimes.”
Rainbow turned to look at Twilight, leaning in so close to the point where the tips of their noses were touching. She glared menacingly, watching as Twilight suddenly shrunk in composure. “Maybe I do. But I like you too much to be mad at you,” she replied in a deeper more serious tone. Out of the blue, she poked Twilight in the forehead. Rainbow grinned and watched as Twilight could do nothing roll her eyes and smile back.
“I guess that’s good to know?” Twilight knew she blushed hard the second their noses touched, and that there were beads of sweat sliding down the back of her neck. She hoped to Celestia Rainbow didn’t notice any of it.
“Now where on this map are we looking for?” Rainbow watched diligently as Twilight pointed out the location in which she was trying to find.
“There. The Playa De La Arena Dorada.” Twilight wasn’t surprised to see a look of pure confusion on her friend’s face as she read out the place name. Surely she could have expected Rainbow not to know any Spanish.
“Um… how about translating that out for me?”
“It means Beach of the Yellow Sand.” Twilight gasped, immediately put a hoof over her mouth.
“Well,” Rainbow began, “I’m going to guess that yellow is the next color?”
Twilight kicked a stone upside down, and merely nodded. “That was supposed to be a surprise until we get there. Well, I guess we can still go there, even though I ruined the surprise and all.”
Rainbow could easily sense the disappointment in the mare’s voice. Of course she would love to go to the beach, but it wouldn’t be much of an enjoyable experience with Twilight in her current upset form. An idea suddenly popped into her mind as handed the map back so Twilight was holding it on her own.
“Here’s what we’ll do. Take around 30 minutes or so, and find someplace that better represents the color yellow on that map. While you do that, I’ll take a little nap.”
Twilight smiled, liking the idea, as well as the thought behind it. “Wait, we’re in the middle of a huge grassland? Where are you going to take a nap?”
Before her very eyes, she saw a blur of rainbow and cyan across the sky gather small clouds out of a relatively clear sunny day. Eventually it was about the size of a small bed, good for any pegasus, but perfectly sized for Rainbow Dash. She hopped up on her fluffy creation, sighing at the instant comfort it gave her.
“That answers my question,” Twilight said, chuckling a bit. “Alright, I’ll give you a wakeup call in half an hour.”
Rainbow nodded happily and closed her eyes, shuffling herself a couple of times before finding the perfect spot. It didn’t take but a couple of minutes before she was snoring and heading away into dreamland.
I was greeted with blinding sunlight.
…That might have been the quickest 30 minute nap I had ever taken in my life.
Slowly I sat up, stretching out my arms and legs as I worked the drowsiness out of my system. I unfurled my wings and gave them a good stretch as well, enjoying the feeling.
“So Twi, did you find someplace else for us to go?” I said. Surprisingly, I received no answer.
“Twilight?” Again, the air remained unnaturally calm and quiet. The only thing I could make out was a light breeze that drifted through my mane.
Once fully awake, I went to fly down to the ground, when I realized that there wasn’t one to fly to. I looked down to see an endless sky, both above me and below me. Thankfully I wasn’t falling, and had the ability to stand on clouds and fly, or this would be a much more frightening experience.
What I did notice was that all the clouds that were around me seemed to be forming themselves into a line. As they floated into place, it's almost as if they were telling me to follow their path. I decided to follow, as it beat sitting here all alone.
I couldn’t comprehend at the moment whether I was in some other world or dimension. That wasn’t my main focus right now. I had to find Twilight.
Panic began to set in and I started running along the clouds, their pace mirroring mine as they quickened their own movements. I thought about flying, but for some reason abandoned the idea.
“Rainbow Dash…”
My hooves skidded to a stop as I heard the faint whisper of a voice that sounded incredibly close to Twi’s.
“Rainbow Dash…”
I ran as fast as my legs could possibly take me, hoping some sort of violet color would appear upon the horizon.
“Rainbow Dash…”
It was getting louder, I knew it was. It was the only thing keeping me from slowing down. The path of clouds ballooned to a point where it looked less like clouds, and more like a white floor.
It was also at this very point where I noticed that the voice had stopped altogether. At this point, there was no reason to turn around and head the other way. So I continued to run forward.
The smallest dot possible appeared on the horizon, so faint that under normal circumstance, I probably would have missed it. But on a white surface, it stuck out like a sore thumb.
A single dot of violet.
By now my legs were screaming to slow down, and my lungs felt like they were on fire from breathing so hard.
But the farther I went the larger that dot became.
“Twilight!”
She was sitting down, the cloud below her colored similar to that of her mane. She looked… happy?
“There you are. I’ve been waiting your arrival.”
I watched as she rose, turning her head from side to side as her mane flowed around her next. She began to walk towards me in a slow methodical manner, each step used to accent her body in some way. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t keep my eyes off her, and could feel the air around me begin to warm up and humidify.
She placed her front hooves around my neck, gracefully sliding them down till they reached my back. I watched as she came back up, using my own body to hold herself up as she buried her face into my mane and inhaled deeply. Her head became tangled among the colors as I felt her warm breath tickle the side of my neck, making every single nerve ending dance with pleasure. Finally coming up for air, she lifted her head off me, her eyes scanning my mane as she played with it in her hooves. She treated each strand as if she were admiring a rare treasure, hooves running through each singular color as her eyes nearly twitched with delight.
“Did I ever tell you how amazing your scent is?”
Her voice wasn’t that of the Twilight I was used to. There was an element of huskiness to it now, a positively playful tone I had never heard in my life. As I finally into her eyes, the differences were shockingly evident.
I kept on telling myself that I shouldn’t be enjoying this as much as I was. Besides, Twilight was my best friend, somepony I could go to for anything. Right now though, every move she made was causing me to rethink just how I saw her. But the way she was strutting around and every calculated move she made was effectively making my patience all the more harder to keep. I cannot explain how much I wanted her.
She held her nose against mine, and flashed me a grin that made my mouth water. I watched as she licked her lips, almost painfully slow, not breaking eye contact with me. In an instant, she pushed me down so that I was sprawled out on my back. I watched as she straddled my waist, before bringing her head down to my own yet again.
Her hooves felt like the softest velvet as she stroked my face, brushing my mane away from my forehead.
My eyes closed as her lips descended onto mine…
As Rainbow slept, Twilight’s mind was in a flurry as she thought of every single yellow object she could imagine. Her thoughts constantly dragged her back to the sun for some reason, but while it was a nice idea, what could they do with the sun? She thought about sunbathing but tossed the idea away, knowing Rainbow wouldn’t enjoy laying in the sun all day.
She got up from the small boulder she was seated on and wandered around, hoping something could catch her eye and potentially conjure up an idea. Her eyes centered upon a singular purple flower gently shifting in the breeze, and at that very moment in hit her.
“That’s it!”
Twilight picked up the map she had folded and placed next to the boulder and quickly opened it up. It only took her a couple of minutes before she found what she was after. About 10 miles to the east was the exact place she was looking for.
She thought about if 10 miles would be too far a trek, but assumed that Rainbow would offer to fly the two of them over there. Her heart did a backflip at the very thought, and she wondered how she could possibly maintain herself in such a situation. She remembered the entire plan at hand, and knew that it wasn't the right time yet. She would worry about it when it came.
Twilight guessed it had been around 30 minutes so she decided to wake up Rainbow Dash. She strolled back over to the cloud to find the sleeping pegasus, who oddly seemed to be having hot flashes of some kind. This confused Twilight, as the overall temperature wasn’t really hot at all.
“Rainbow,” she nudged her gently, “Time to wake up.”
She squirmed a bit before shooting straight up, her eyes bolting open out of nowhere. Breathing heavily, she took a quick scan of her surroundings before sighing in relief.
“Rainbow, are you alright?” Twilight looked at her, puzzled on what she could be thinking about.
“I’m alright… just had a really odd dream just now,” she replied, wiping the sweat off her face, her breath now calming down.
“Do you want to talk about it? You look really flustered.”
Rainbow appreciated the concern Twilight gave, but wouldn’t dare tell her about the dream she just had. “I just need a few minutes.” She smiled, trying to reassure her friend. “Trust me, I’m okay.”
Twilight nodded and left to retrieve the map she had left by the boulder. She could sense that there was something really throwing Rainbow off, but decided against trying to coax it out.
“Where did that dream come from?” Rainbow thought, trying to process it all. She remembered talking to Fluttershy about dreams some time ago. She had mentioned that sometimes dreams can be predictors of how one really can feel. “Is this really how I view Twilight?” Just less than a week ago she viewed the mare as just a best friend. She wondered how things could possibly change so quickly. “Come on Rainbow, play it cool, don’t make it awkward between you and her.”
A few minutes later Twilight saw Rainbow strolling towards her, looking much more relaxed than she was beforehand.
“So then, which way are we headed captain?” Rainbow stood with her body completely aligned, mimicking a navy pony.
Twilight giggled in response. “Well my loyal crewmate, we are heading due East for 10 miles. However, may a favor be requested?”
“Do tell.”
“Since 10 miles is a long walk, I thought you could fly us over there instead. It would give you an opportunity to give your wings some use, since we haven’t done much flying since day one,” Twilight explained, watching as Rainbow’s eyes lighted up to the mention of flying.
“Asking me to fly is more of a gift than a request you know,” Rainbow mentioned, extending her wings from her sides.
“So I’m taking that as a yes.”
Rainbow merely nodded.
Twilight watched as Rainbow continued doing a couple of basic stretches. Even though it was a short flight in terms of distance, Rainbow had mentioned to her multiple times about keeping herself in top condition, which meant stretching before flying. She also mentioned that the stretching routine was crucial if she took a passenger with her.
“You know the deal right? Just hop on and hold your arms around my neck. Don’t choke me though, don’t feel like losing oxygen,” Rainbow teased.
Twilight got into position, blushing madly as she was doing so. She was thankful Rainbow didn’t notice, and was surprised that she was able to keep all of this under her nose. “Ready when you are!”
“Hold on tight!”
With a couple of sprints Rainbow took off into the skies, a place she felt like was her home away from home. She savored the way the wind blew through her mane, feeling at peace as she watched the blur of the landscape down below.
Although she only did this a couple of times previously, Twilight always loved being in the air, especially with Rainbow Dash. She felt herself gazing longingly at her as she flew, but shook the cobwebs out of her mane in order to keep focus on the agenda at hand.
After a few minutes, Twilight began to start searching for the fields of sunflowers, assuming they were not very difficult to locate.
“Do you see them yet?” Twilight asked, since Rainbow had the better view off things.
“No, not… woah.”
Out of nowhere, the once grassland landscape became overrun with sunflowers, thousands upon thousands of them. Both of them were amazed at how vast the fields were, as they seemed to stretch out for many miles in all directions.
"Rainbow Dash, welcome to the Equestrian National Sunflower Fields."
Rainbow slowed down so that she was nearly floating on the breeze alone, and circled over the fields, taking in their beauty. Eventually she found a thinner section of the field and descended, landing gently within the sunflowers.
Twilight hopped off and wandered around, taking in just how huge some of the sunflowers were. A few of them reached over her and Rainbow’s heads. “Rainbow, look at how big some of their inflorescences are!”
“…What?”
“Oh that term means the big yellow flower part of the sunflower. See how all of them point in the angle of the sun?”
Rainbow looked at all of them as a whole, and found Twilight to be correct. She found it amusing that a simple sunflower was something she normally overlooked, but putting thousands of them together made it seem all the more fascinating. “So, yellow huh?”
“Indeed. Would you like to hear more about it?” Twilight asked.
“Actually before that, there is one thing I wanted to ask you about,” Rainbow replied.
“Okay, go ahead.”
“Well,” she began, “when you mentioned about teaching me the about the rainbow and all, I assumed that you were going to go in order of how each color appeared in the rainbow. Why did you mix the order up?”
A genuine look of curiosity appeared on Twilight’s face as a result of the question. “To be honest, I don’t really know. I tried to plan everything out according to time, distance, and other elements of the sort. I felt like going in order would have made things more hectic. Besides, you’re still learning about all seven colors in the end, and that’s all that counts right?”
“I guess so,” Rainbow replied. “I find it funny how interested I’m becoming in this. This might bite me in the backside later on, but this type of learning is actually fun.”
Twilight jumped and clapped, overjoyed with what Rainbow had just said. “You're becoming an egghead just like me!”
Rainbow couldn’t help but laugh.
“Anyway, the color yellow. Yellow is the color of sunshine…” Twilight stopped completely as she saw Rainbow making incredibly dramatic facial expressions as if she had heard the most amazing thing ever. She glared at her, and Rainbow complied, sitting intently.
“So where was I… oh yes the color of sunshine. Yellow is a color of intellect and energy. Out of all the colors, it is a color which stands out bold and bright. Perhaps the most common association of the color is its characteristic of joy and happiness.”
“Which of those qualities do you see most in me?” Rainbow asked.
“I would definitely say happiness. Although you have a serious side to you which can easily be provoked, most of the time you’re an enjoyable presence which helps lift the rest of us up. It explains why you seem to get along with Pinkie Pie better than most of us. The whole idea of playfulness is present in both you and her.”
Rainbow pondered the idea for a second. Never in her life had anypony ever called her playful before. “So even though I can be serious and brash a lot, you still consider me to be playful?” Rainbow asked, a bit confused onto how she could be both.
“Nopony is expected to act in one kind of way. Take myself for instance. Yes, I can be a really introverted pony who would rather read books and do research. On the flip side I love hanging out with all my friends and having adventures, or just having fun. It’s an even mixture of both.”
A look of enlightenment filled Rainbow’s face. “You make a good point there Sparkle. I’m inclined to agree.”
Twilight cocked an eyebrow in response to the use of her last name. “Since when do you call me Sparkle?”
“I felt like it.”
They continued to walk along the fields of sunflowers, admiring their bold yellow color, and how tall and magnificent some of them looked.
Twilight took a step and found the ground to be sinking a couple of inches or so, and looked down expecting mud or water of some kind. Instead, the ground seemed to be shifting under her hooves.
“Hey Rainbow, is the ground moving under your hooves?”
Rainbow looked down herself, and noticed the same thing. “Yeah, its like the ground is alive or something. Weird.”
“Yeah I, Woah… Woah… Woah!!” Twilight felt the ground rumble as the section she was suddenly on vanished, the dirt and sunflowers breaking apart and sliding down into the earth below.
“RAINBOW!!”
Rainbow had fallen off balance and smacked headfirst into a sizeable rock which was hidden among the sunflowers. Dazed, she scrambled to find Twilight, although it proved hard as everything had become blurry. “Twilight! Hang on I’m coming!” She saw a speck of violet down below in the landslide and dove after it, the land around her continuing to crumble and fall.
Journey to the Center of the Rainbow Chapter 5: Green
When her eyes opened, the first thing Rainbow felt was dirt.
She looked at her hooves and found that they were covered in dirt and remains from what used to be a sunflower. A searing pain suddenly hit her temple, and Rainbow’s hooves shot up to her head as she tried to make it go away. Her pain subsided when she realized Twilight was missing.
Around a second later, everything clicked into place.
“Twilight!? Rainbow started digging through the massive sinkhole, checking any crevice she could find for a sign of the unicorn. “If you can hear me, say my name!”
To her dismay, no response came.
Rainbow panicked, wondering both how long she had been knocked out, and how long it had been since Twilight vanished. If she were buried under the dirt somewhere, Celestia knew how little oxygen she must have.
She scanned the ground, trying to be as still as possible while doing so. Perhaps she could hear Twilight’s breathing if she kept quiet. Nopony was within miles and miles of the area, and Rainbow didn’t even think about leaving before finding her friend.
A sound similar to crinkling paper made her head in to the direction of the sound. Sure enough, Rainbow saw a small section of Twilight’s map near the side of the sinkhole. A look of hope flooded her face as she cautiously made her way over. One false step could eliminate the only shred of hope she had.
Slowly, Rainbow shoveled out piles of soil with her hooves. She was aware that this process would take her forever, but really had no other choice. If the map was buried in this area, there was a chance Twilight was here as well.
After a few minutes, she was able to uncover the map. Rainbow was more than amazed to see that the dated paper had survived in a single piece.
“Twilight, you have to be here somewhere!”
She continued digging at the same pace, when her left hoof suddenly struck a rather squishy object. Her eyes widened as she uncovered the spot to reveal a small violet hoof, and she quickened her pace while still watching the rest of the land around her.
After a good 5 minutes, she had finally uncovered her friend. Rainbow figured she was in stable condition, as she was relatively unharmed and was breathing normally. She quickly checked Twilight's body and legs, followed by her head, just in case there were any nasty bruises or cuts she might have received. Thankfully, she found nothing serious.
The only issue was that Twilight had been knocked out during the event. Rainbow tried nudging and talking directly into her each of her ears, but Twilight remained unconscious. One way or another, Rainbow knew she had to somehow fly Twilight out of the hole. To do this while carrying the weight of an unconscious unicorn would be extremely difficult.
Rainbow looked up, trying to figure out just how far down from the surface she was. Her guess was around 40 feet or so, but it seemed like much more than that.
Using her front hooves, she guided them under Twilight. Rainbow strained, her head searing in pain as she was somehow able to pick up Twilight. Rainbow tried to balance on two hooves, the weight of Twilight making her wobbly, along with her vision which was becoming blurred yet again.
She stumbled back before falling onto her backside, Twilight still cradled in her arms. She sighed in relief that Twilight was unharmed. “I’m going to get us out of here, one way or another. I just need some time too-”
Rainbow froze in horror as she felt the entire ground beneath her shook yet again. She saw jagged thick cracks in the side of the hole begin to develop, and panic set in as she desperately tried to pick up Twilight to fly again. To her dismay, the ground was too unstable for her to even make an attempt. There was nothing she could do as she watched the ground collapse.
Despite the nagging head pain, she thought of a last minute idea to shield Twilight from the oncoming cascade of dirt and debris. Rainbow held Twilight close as she felt what amounted to tons of dirt and soil slam into her back, instantly knocking the wind out of her. She closed her eyes, grimacing in pain as rocks, branches, and other objects crashed onto her.
Finally after a while, the rumbling noises ceased entirely, and Rainbow opened her eyes to see darkness before her. She groaned in both pain annoyance as she brushed the dust off her own face, as well as Twilight’s.
“Why is it so dark?” Rainbow fumbled around to try and find solid ground. “Twilight I wish you were awake, your horn would come in good use right now,” she said to nobody in particular.
Picking her up again, Rainbow slid gently down the hill of soil she was sitting atop. To her relief, she felt herself hit stone, and blessed the existence of something solid she could properly stand on.
Rainbow placed Twilight cautiously on the ground, making sure the unicorn was at a comfortable angle at the very least. She knew that hard stone wasn't the most comfortable thing in Equestria, but at least it didn't move. Rainbow then laid next to her, grateful to finally rest her head without worry. Even though she was in a mysterious cave in the dark, she already felt safer.
“Ughhh... what happened?” Twilight suddenly asked, attempting to rub cobwebs out of her eyes as she struggled to notice anything around her. “Oh Celestia… AM I BLIND?!”
Rainbow grabbed her hoof and for some reason this helped to calm her down. “Relax, you’re not blind. We’re in a cave, that’s why it’s so dark.” She could hear an exhale from a relieved Twilight. “We sort of got trapped in here by the huge landslide. You were unconscious when I found you. In fact, I’m surprised you woke up so quick.”
“Strangely enough, I feel perfectly fine other than a bit of a headache. How did you get me down here anyway?”
“Initially I tried to fly us out,” Rainbow started, “but I couldn’t carry you while unconscious and fly out at the same time. Normally I could, but my head was in so much pain that my vision was blurry. That, and the ground was pretty unstable,” she said grinning before bringing her hooves back to cradle her head.”
Twilight sat up and insisted she come and sit beside her. “Let me just check your head quick. Maybe there’s a spell I could cast to help alleviate the pain.”
She lit up her horn and noticed immediately that Rainbow was in far worse condition than she mentioned. Her entire back had multiple scrapes and bruises, with some cuts in between them. Her head was relatively okay, save for the huge bruise that was on the left side.
“I’m going to put a healing and pain relieving spell on you, so if you feel weird, it’s just part of that. Okay?”
Rainbow nodded, and she began the process. Her horn glowed with a greenish and violet hue which spread over Rainbow’s entire body. The pegasus kept her eyes closed during the whole ordeal. Soon, the glow faded and Rainbow opened her eyes to see Twilight smiling in response. She looked down to notice that some of her scrapes were already beginning to heal.
“I never will understand how that kind of magic works, but thanks a bunch Twi. My head’s already starting to feel better,” she replied.
“Good to hear! Now let’s find our way out of here, we have to continue on to the next color, green.”
Rainbow sat there dumbfounded. She expected a look of defeat from Twilight, but instead received eyes that were full of perseverance and ambition.
“Even after all this, Twilight still wants to make my gift perfect,” Rainbow thought. Although not for awhile, she kept Twilight’s birthday in the back of her mind. She wondered how in the world she could ever repay the unicorn for such an incredible week.
“This has sure turned into an adventure huh?” Rainbow remarked.
Twilight turned back to Rainbow.
“I would call that an understatement,”
She chuckled, Rainbow doing so as well.
Both their eyes met suddenly, and neither one could help but stare at the other for a moment. Rainbow smiled softly, in exchange for a smile from Twilight, who coughed and turned her head away as a result. Rainbow knew she was faking it, but understood why she did it.
Twilight looked around, trying to see if there was any sort of way out of this cave. She lit up her horn brighter to present a better view, and for the first time both of them noticed the cavern they currently sat in.
Other than themselves, there was no life to be found whatsoever. The cave presented itself in the form of almost an alien like world made up entirely of rock formations. Stalagmites dotted the ground, while stalactites lined the ceiling, each one dripping slowly like a leaky faucet. The ground was littered with small depressions, a couple of them containing water that most likely was a result of past rainfall or just groundwater. To their right presented some sort of passageway, which was the only direction in which they could go, since the other side was now buried beneath a mountain of dirt.
“I guess we head this way. Stay close, since my horn is the only light we have. Be careful where you walk.”
The pair made their way into the small opening, which had barely enough space for them to walk through single file. Twilight led the way, keeping her horn at a bright hue to illuminate their surroundings more easily.
Rainbow felt around the walls, trying to see or feel something in particular. She was curious if there was evidence of any other ponies being in this cave. The whole idea reminded her faintly of Daring Do. Curiosity got the better of her as she miss-stepped and tripped on a small piece of rock, falling into Twilight who tumbled to the ground.
“Sorry Twi. Heh.” Rainbow was met with a glare from a pair of violet eyes.
They continued walking for a few minutes, silence hanging in the air between the two. Normally she considered the random silences awkward, but Rainbow was beginning to become accustomed to them. With Twilight, they didn’t seem like silences, but rather moments of time where they shared an appreciation of the world around them.
There were times those silences even proved to be useful.
Twilight stopped in her tracks, looking up and to the side before pressing her ear against the right side of the cave.
“What is it?” Rainbow was visible concerned that there could something in the cave with them.
“I hear something… it sounds like water? I think there is an underwater river or something nearby here.” Twilight smiled in triumph. “If we follow the water, eventually it should lead us to an exit.”
“Lead the way oh intelligent one!” Rainbow chuckled at the eye roll she received. “I mean that as a compliment you know.”
They quickened their pace in anticipation, both watching their steps more carefully after stumbling earlier. Soon they came to a larger opening, and were greeted with the sight of a large stream, about 8 feet across.
Twilight dipped a hoof into the waters, and nearly fell over at just how powerful they were. Rainbow managed to catch her and keep her balance.
Both of them realized that the power of the stream was much stronger than they anticipated. Initially, Rainbow thought they could use the water to try and find a path to the surface, but neither of them were in any condition to even attempt it. “So, what now Twi?”
Rainbow glanced over to her and found the unicorn to be deep in thought. She looked forward and saw the slightest hint of a greenish glow coming from the other side of the cave. “Look over there.” She put her hoof on Twilight’s shoulder and pointed towards the light.
“Hmm… I don’t know what that is? But I suppose our best option is to go straight then right?” She received a nod of agreement from the pegasus.
Twilight stared down into the rapidly flowing stream below. A feeling of dread filled her face as she wondered how she could cross without possibly getting swept away. “Rainbow, can you fly me across the water? I mean if you’re still weakened from before then forget it but…”
“Twi it’s no problem, really. Besides, I feel perfectly fine and look,” she stomped loudly on the solid ground, “perfectly stable. I should have no problem now. However, we’re going to do this a bit differently.”
“How so?” Twilight looked at her with a questionable expression.
“Well remember how you got on my back last time?” She nodded. “Since my back is still scratched up, I was thinking I could wrap my hooves under your chest and carry you that way.” At this point Rainbow was beginning to blush slightly.
“Oh… so basically you’d be hugging me from behind?” Twilight was given a soft nod as an answer. “Okay I suppose.”
Rainbow walked over and wrapped her front limbs under and behind Twilight’s, making sure she was holding her correctly before moving. She blushed as how her body was basically pressing up against Twilight’s, and wondered how this currently looked from afar. The silence returned as she did this, only this time it was an awkward one.
Twilight felt conflicted. On one hoof, her mind was enthralled to be so close to her friend. She could feel the temperature in the cave increase, along with her general desire to just kiss Rainbow then and there. However, the other half of her was a hurricane of anxiety and worry over the very same situation. Although she wanted to show Rainbow how much she really loved her, it had to happen at the right time.
“Ready?” Rainbow saw Twilight nod lightly. “Hold on tight.”
She unfurled her wings and gave them a couple hearty flaps before leaving the ground, careful to not crash into the ceiling above them. Rainbow didn’t have a ton of clearance, but enough to pass by.
Once on the other side, she gently came to a perfect landing on the rock below.
“Umm… you can let go now,” Twilight remarked, as Rainbow was still holding onto her.
“Oh.” Rainbow quickly withdrew her hooves, face turning a hint of crimson. “Sorry about that.” She hadn't even noticed that she had stayed in that position that long.
“It’s fine, really.” Twilight attempted to fix the awkwardness between them. “Now then, you said you saw a greenish glow over here?” She looked over to see a blank expression on Rainbow’s face. Twilight waved her hoof in front of the pegasus a few times. "Hello? Equestria to Rainbow?"
“Gah! Sorry…” She watched as Twilight gave her a puzzled glance. “Yeah I saw it through this part of the cave here. I was wondering what it was.”
“I guess it could lead us to the exit. Even if it doesn’t, I wouldn’t mind examining some things down here. I’ve never been in a cave like this before. Too bad I can’t take any samples of anything to study further.” Twilight continued to ramble, receiving only a sad shake of the head by Rainbow.
They made their way towards the glow, grateful to have some outside source emitting some sort of light. Rainbow suggested that Twilight tone down the brightness on her horn, to make the glow easier to track in darkness.
“Rainbow, I think the glow is getting brighter.”
“Yeah I know, it should be right ahead of us at this point,” she replied. “I’m curious what could make this… oh WOW.”
They stumbled into a huge opening in the cave, so massive that a decently sized apartment building could easily fit inside. But it wasn’t the size of the cave which amazed them, but rather the contents of said cave.
Inside all along the ceiling, as well as on the majority of the walls, jutted green crystals of all sorts of sizes. Normally these crystals weren’t too bright on their own, but because the cave contained thousands of them, all of their glows combined to bathe their entire enclosure in a bright green hue.
Twilight and Rainbow forgot about being lost for the time being. Instead, both of them were mesmerized by the sight beforehand.
“I’ve… never heard of such a thing before,” she remarked, Rainbow agreeing. “I mean I’m aware that crystals can reflect light similar to that of glass, but I had no idea they could give off their own light like this, much less to this brightness.”
Rainbow for her part didn’t really know what to say. She simply walked slowly around the area, observing them. Not often did she use this word to describe things, but Rainbow couldn’t help but call the sight beautiful. In this case, it made for two beautiful things before her now.
“Hey Twi? Green is a color we didn’t mention yet right?”
“No, I don’t believe we did. Come to think of it, it wouldn’t hurt to do green and yellow in one day now would it?”
“To be honest, I wouldn’t mind taking a rest day on this vacation after today,” Rainbow replied, sounding quite tired. “…Unless you had something else in mind for the color green?”
“Well, I did have something in mind. However, this probably beats it twice and even three times over. I mean look at how massive some of these crystals are!” Twilight found one in particular which was bigger than herself.
“I wonder how these were created.” Rainbow saw Twilight desperate to answer her question, but put a hoof up. “I appreciate your fascination for science and stuff, but I’d rather just leave the question as is for now.”
They continued walking around until they found what almost looked like a rock which was carved into something resembling a bench. Twilight took a seat on said rock, while Rainbow used the rest of the space to lie down on her back, head on the other end of the rock.
“Now then, green is actually one of my favorites when it comes to colors. It is the universal color of nature, as the majority of plants are this color. But green also can represent the element of safety, as well as growth, harmony, freshness, and fertility. It also is known for healing properties, as if you noticed the glow from that spell I gave you earlier had a green glow as opposed to my normal violet one”
Rainbow thought for a moment about all the different meanings. “I don’t think that any of these really reflect me well at all.”
“It depends. When I look at you and the color green, I think of the other less popular meanings of the color. One of these is the equilibrium that the color has on the head and heart. You are a pony who has learned to distinguish the instances where you should follow your heart, and the times where your best bet is to listen to your mind. The element of loyalty comes into play here somewhat.” Twilight watched as Rainbow yawned loudly, but remained attentive to her.
“I’d also say you represent growth. From when I first met you, you’ve changed a lot, even though you may deny it. At one point, you were irresponsible and reckless, but now you’ve matured from this and realized the consequences of your actions.” Twilight chuckled as Rainbow gave her a look of doubt. “…Alright, most of the time this is true. “
“You know, I’m beginning to wonder *yawn* how you can figure out so much about me. It’s as if you’re a psychologist or something, and you’re poking inside my brain. Not that I mind, as long as you don’t do that literally.” Rainbow mocking shuddered at the thought of her friend performing some type of brain surgery.
“It’s always been my nature to observe, that’s just how I am. Whether it's in nature, to books, to other ponies, I look at the world in a way where I want to figure out the mechanisms of everything. I want to figure out how things work, and I think when this comes down to ponies, it’s a really difficult task. There is so much to take into consideration, and…”
Twilight was taken aback by a loud snore which echoed throughout the crystals. She looked over to find Rainbow fast asleep and couldn’t comprehend how she could fall asleep so easily. Twilight shook her head, but couldn’t blame Rainbow for being tired after a day like the one they had. She was pretty tired herself.
She noticed that there wasn’t enough space for her to lie down without having to somehow sleep on top of Rainbow. However, she figured out that the stone was wide enough for them to sleep right next to each other. She scooted herself up right next to Rainbow, close enough that she could feel her warm breath on her own muzzle.
Twilight put her head down, taking one last glance at the crystals before succumbing to sleep. She didn’t seem to notice an outstretched wing that gently wrapped around her, and the smile that formed on Rainbow’s face.
Journey to the Center of the Rainbow Chapter 6: Indigo
Serenity.
Coming off the hectic nature of the past couple of days, Twilight and Rainbow welcomed this. No worries about landslides or flaming pits of fire, just an empty beach, and a few moments before sunset.
Following the events of the landslide, the pair had spent another hour searching for the exit. They were surprised to find a ladder which went up a perfectly cylindrical shaft reinforced in concrete. Together they climbed up, eyes shining in happiness when they saw daylight flood the shaft.
It turned out that the ladder had led them to a pony’s home in the middle of the woods. A mare by the name of Jadestone had watched this unfold, eyes widening in both confusion and surprise at their appearance.
Twilight and Rainbow gasped in surprise themselves over this strange encounter, and the three ponies stared at one another before one of them spoke up. It was Twilight who explained what had occurred, recalling all the way back to the very reason she and Rainbow were there.
Jadestone listened intently, nodding in understanding at the very intricate story. She in turn explained, the reason she was living out in the woods, and how she had accidentally stumbled into the crystals one day. A geologist, she told Twilight and Rainbow about how she spent her lives studying rocks, specifically underground cave structures. Once she found the crystals however, she picked that very moment to retire and start a less intensive side job of jewelry making, using the green crystals for all sorts of designs.
Twilight was curious as to why she could give up something she loved so easily, but the question didn’t faze Jadestone in the slightest. She simply said that even though she loved what she did, there comes a time in a pony’s life where it is appropriate to hang up one’s boots; to know that there comes a time where you simply cannot perform to the level you are used to. She knew that would happen, and gracefully moved on, although she did mention going on little cave expeditions from time to time.
Jadestone also mentioned the bigger reason, which was her husband. The countless expeditions she went on all over Equestria had taken away much of the time she had to spend with him, and they grew apart. Their hearts were still fond for one another, but she missed him more and more by the passing day. After many years, she just wanted to spend time with him without having to worry about what the next day brought.
Rainbow stayed silent during the whole ordeal, though not out of disrespect. Instead the pegasus began to get lost in her own thoughts. What Jadestone had mentioned impacted her more than she imagined, and Rainbow thought about her own dreams for being a Wonderbolt.
She was well aware of the ramifications and amount of time it called for, which basically was any time she currently had free. Being a Wonderbolt was a dream for Rainbow, but at the same time she knew it was also a lifestyle. From talking with Spitfire, she knew that there would be months at a time where she didn’t see loved ones due to how busy she was. Rainbow could only imagine having to stay apart from Twilight for that long.
It was these thoughts which put her at a crossroads she never approached. She could choose her dream, or choose the one she loved.
Right now, she wasn’t entirely sure if the last one was true.
So on the beach they sat, the only sounds being the ocean waves which rolled onto the sand below. It was as beautiful as it was soothing, and Rainbow didn’t really feel like making any sort of noise to drown it out.
Twilight sat on the sand next to her, her eyes glimmering like the sun on the horizon as she too watched the gentle waves come upon the shore. Her left hoof dug a small hole in the sand, appreciating just how soft it was. She was glad that they ended up coming to the Playa De La Arena Dorada, as she was really looking forward to spending the entire day on the beach with Rainbow. Even though she ruined the surprise of the yellow, there was another color that Twilight had planned on using the beach for.
Besides the sand, the beach was known for producing one of the most vibrant sunsets in Equestria. The amount of color they had rivaled that of anywhere else, and it was due to a specific color in particular.
Indigo.
She watched as the sun began to dip into the horizon, those very colors beginning to appear in the sky. Oranges and yellows swirled into one another, but soon the indigo color take over and soon the entire sky was completely bathed in the magnificent color.
This was one of the only places where Twilight had already been to on a previous occasion. Even though the sunset was breathtaking, Twilight was more interested in someone beside her. This time, she decided it would be more entertaining to watch Rainbow Dash out of the corner of her eye.
Rainbow’s eyes widened, and there was an evident twinkle in them as well. Her mouth formed a silent “o” at the presentation nature was currently giving them, fascinated by the way the colors blended together, almost like a watercolor painting. She considered asking Twilight about this phenomenon, but decided that the current silence was too nice to give up.
Although this was a sight to behold, it didn’t distract Rainbow from her thoughts very long. Apart from her thoughts about Twilight, she was curious about what the last day had in store. Twilight had mentioned something about this one being both "personal" and “close to home,” two phrases that didn’t do very much to quell Rainbow’s wandering mind.
She attempted to focus solely on the sunset, hoping that it would eventually help her empty her mind for the time being. Unknowingly, she watched Twilight out of the corner of her eye. Rainbow couldn’t help it, the way the unicorn was sitting in the sand made her look cute, in an awesome sort of way.
Even better was the look of captivation Twilight always wore when she was doing something she loved. Although science could give her headaches at the very thought, just watching Twilight ramble on and become more and more excited was a show in itself. She just observed how the small dances and noises Twilight made when she got eager over something, or even someone.
Their viewing sessions of each another were cut short.
“Ahh!!”
Both were startled, Rainbow falling backwards onto her wings. She tried to brush the sand off her mane and the rest of her body, annoyed with how sticky the sand was.
She suddenly was enveloped in a violet aura, and watched as every speck of sand floated off and back to the ground.
“Thanks Twi.”
“No problem,” she replied. “So, why were you staring at me?”
A surprised Rainbow put both her front hooves out in defense. “Well I think I’m not the one we should be asking now am I?”
Twilight cocked her head. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well, it seemed like you were staring at me from the corner of your eyes. Now am I wrong or right?” Rainbow folded her front hooves.
“How could you possibly know that without staring at me?”
Twilight grinned, but then frowned and facehoofed, realizing that she basically did the same thing. “Look, let’s admit that we were both staring at one another.”
“Oh alright. I can’t deny it Twi but when you become really excited or fascinated by something, you’ll act like a filly sometimes. It’s really cute.”
Twilight blushed as she remembered all the times she had acted exactly like Rainbow described. She was completely unaware of just how many times she did this until now.
“Well, the same can be said for you,” Twilight began. “You may not act like a filly when you get super excited about something, but instead you get extremely enthusiastic. On a scale of 1 to 10, any time you hit a 10 you go into another world of happiness and joy. It can rival Pinkie’s at times, and in all honesty, it’s just adorable.”
It was Rainbow’s turn to blush, which she did, albeit more evidently given the cyan fur. The moment which came into her mind in particular was right when she won the Best Young Flier’s Competition. Her friends always told her about just how incredibly happy she became, especially when she finally got to meet the Wonderbolts in person.
Rainbow turned to the sunset again, noticing that it was dissipating. “Hey Twi, how long does the sunset last around here anyway?"
“I actually have no idea, but I would venture out and guess that it could be anywhere from 10 minutes to even an hour."
“Also,” Rainbow began, “I’m going to assume that the next color in this journey to the center of the rainbow vacation is indigo?”
Twilight applauded. “Very good, and yes that is the plan. So Indigo was probably the hardest color for me to do research on, as it isn’t considered to be that popular of a color, nor a color you see very much of. Go and find a pony who’s favorite color is indigo, I will assure you they’re hard to find.”
“I think indigo might be Rare’s favorite color, although I’m not totally sure,” Rainbow replied, surprising Twilight and herself with the knowledge of such a thing.
“I’m not sure myself. I think it’s a royal or higher class type of color though. Speaking of which, indigo does fit that description. It also is a color which helps to promote deep concentration, as well as devotion and wisdom. It is a color which is reliant on one’s intuition rather thing planning things out.”
“That last one is a definition of me pretty much.”
“Well, it has other meanings I think fit you somewhat,” Twilight reassured. “When I said wisdom, I wasn’t actually talking about the kind which involves reading, science, and all that. Instead, it involves an inner knowingness and awareness of oneself, and one’s surroundings. For being a pony on the weather team, as well as a pony who is one of Equestria’s greatest fliers, I’m safely assuming this as a must. “
Rainbow nodded in agreement, a smile crossing her face.
“There is another element I found about the color, which may be a positive and negative thing.”
“I can handle it, trust me,” Rainbow replied coolly.
“Well it says that indigo can also represent one who can be a fan of showing off to others, and performance is something that can come naturally to you,” Twilight said, attempting to make it sound positive.
“Well, that’s pretty easy for me to agree with. I mean, how can I say no to something that I am right?” She chuckled, making Twilight breathe a sigh of relief.
The air cooled significantly with the setting of the sun, and now the pair sat in darkness. The only illumination was provided by a rising moon. Twilight swore she could sense the presence of Princess Luna nearby.
“Well then Rainbow, we have a single color left.”
“Indeed we do,” she replied. “Now I’m almost 100 percent sure you won’t tell me, but where in Equestria is the next color going to be.”
Twilight merely giggled, getting up and trotting off the beach, Rainbow close behind.
“You can’t give a location to a moving object Rainbow.”
Journey to the Center of the Rainbow Chapter 7: Violet
Rainbow Dash wasn’t the type to get nervous about something, that wasn’t her style. Confidence was a quality she proudly put on display for the world to see.
Today was one of those rare occasions in her life where the nervousness hit her like a freight train. It wasn’t due to anything in particular, rather, it was the sole result of somepony.
Twilight Sparkle was her name, and if Rainbow were to be asked, making hearts melt was her game.
Rainbow had never asked for this to happen, and didn’t see it coming. When Twilight initially presented her with the birthday gift, the week-long trip sounded more like an incredible adventure across Equestria with a best friend. In the end, this part was 100 percent true, she didn’t doubt her enjoyment in all of the places Twilight took her to see.
It was gradual, but Rainbow Dash could no longer deny what had happened during that week.
She had fallen in love with her best friend.
Love wasn’t a topic Rainbow knew much about. In fact, she had no clue where to begin when the question was presented to her. Her love for being independent always overshadowed any thought for a companion, and up to this point in her life, she never seriously approached the idea about having a marefriend. The little she knew about relationships was that one would have to dedicate time to the other, something she wasn’t interested in.
Yet, even those thoughts had changed with time. The idea of spending extended time, even the rest of her life, with Twilight came to her with the increased amount of time they spent together. Instead of the consequences of a relationship, she listed the advantages in her mind. Twilight could cook better than she could, nights alone in her home would be eliminated, and of course there would be the playful arguments and steamy makeout sessions to look forward to.
Even Rainbow’s own brain did a double take on the last one.
The vividness of the dream she had on that cloud a few days ago continued to resonate, although a bit subdued with the passage of time. Once she got the time to sit down and think about it however, every single thought came back to her clearer than that very day. She swore she could feel Twilight’s body on top of hers, even taste her.
After every recollection of those dreams, came the questioning of them. All during flight school, she prided herself on being able to hang with the colts, and never acted like most mares. It was a quality which she considered to be a critical part of who she was. Now, it happened be a quality of who she used to be.
She flopped down on her pillow, her legs telling her that pacing across her living room a thousand times was more than unnecessary. Staring at the ceiling, she wondered what Twilight was up to, and what the unicorn had planned for later on in the night.
Their train ride home from the beach had been uneventful. In fact, Rainbow would label it as déjà vu, a phrase she spent over an hour trying to remember, and exclaimed with happiness when she finally did remember. This didn’t sit well with the other passengers, who gave her glares of annoyance before going back to what they were doing previously.
The exception to this uneventfulness was the conversation she had with Twilight before parting ways. She was well aware that they had covered all the colors save for violet, and that was exactly what Twilight wanted to discuss.
It was a short conversation, consisting of a couple of jokes peppered here and there. But it was the final thing Twilight said which continued to reverberate in her mind like an overplayed record.
“Come to the library at 7pm tonight. We’ll have some dinner, and talk and relax. Think of it as a reflection on the trip. Then after… I’ll tell you about the color violet.”
To anypony else, it would seem like an innocent invitation. What Rainbow noticed more than anything was the way Twilight said the last sentence.
“Then after… I’ll tell you about the color violet.”
The way Twilight had spoken in her dream, that sultry, luscious tone which at times was a nothing more than a whisper, was evident in the way she said that last sentence. Rainbow heard this, and was instantly left standing with her mouth agape for a few seconds until she collected herself.
All along her walk home, she replayed the sentence in her head, attempting to connect the voices in her dream and the one Twilight had just given her. Hard as it was for her to believe, the truth was there.
It presented Rainbow with an entirely new set of questions. Initially curious as to whether Twilight would have similar feelings, she knew that this was now a real possibility. Rainbow even played around with the idea of telling Twilight how she felt, but presented with this scenario made her rethink this.
She could even wait and let Twilight come to her. Although this would be the easy way to take, Rainbow knew that there was a real risk of doing so. If what she heard was false, Twilight might not share mutual feelings in any sense, and the final result would be heartbreak. From what little she knew on the matter, which consisted of occasional romance scenes in novels, or talking to Fluttershy or Rarity, this was something she had zero interest in ever experiencing.
Rainbow stared at the clock on her windowsill. The hands read 6:30 pm, which meant she would soon have to leave for the library. However, her divided mind made watching the clock a chore. One half pleaded with the clock to speed up so that she wouldn’t have to arrive awkwardly early. Her other half wanted time to freeze, so that she could never have to face this situation.
She sighed. “Better now than never. What do you think Tank?”
Her tortoise friend looked at her with his wide, yet relaxed eyes.
“I had a sense you’d agree.” She nuzzled her pet before putting a few special turtle treats in his cage before walking out of her bedroom. “See you later buddy. Don’t stay up too late for me,” she said as she walked towards the front door.
A last minute idea came to her as she walked out the door. Perhaps a small token of appreciation for the entire trip was in order? Rainbow considered it, but quickly abandoned it, knowing Twilight wouldn’t accept something in exchange for something she considered a birthday present.
With a few flaps of her wings, Rainbow was airborne. The wind flowed through her mane, and a sudden peace overtook the pegasus glided over Ponyville. Flying was her go-to for stress relief, or really any relief. It helped to clear her mind, and did she ever wish she could do this now.
The library came into view, the lively tree lit up like a decoration. Rainbow could only wonder what Twilight had planned for the final color.
Instead of descending, she climbed the sky, gaining altitude until the library could be covered up completely by a single hoof. From there she calmly circled the home of her friend, her flight patterns mirroring those of a vulture. She sighed while looking down in earnest, her anxiousness now drowning out her confidence she tried to build up.
“I hope she feels how I do.”
She slowly descended, landing gracefully in front of Twilight’s door. Peeking through the window, Rainbow could see Twilight wearing an apron of some kind, happily whistling a tune as she prepared something. She was surprised that Twilight was making dinner, as she always mentioned how she lacked cooking skill.
She knocked lightly on the door three times, watching as Twilight looked over and at her clock before walking over.
Twilight opened up the door and greeted Rainbow with a smile. “Well somepony’s early! Come on in, I’m just putting the finishing touches on dinner. It should be done in a few minutes.”
Rainbow’s nose immediately picked up a wonderful scent, and her mouth began to water. “Whatever you’re making, it smells delicious!” Her stomach rumbled as she realized she didn’t eat much of anything the entire day.
“I figured I’d make dinner for the two of us,” Twilight replied. “Spike usually cooks for me, but he pointed out this recipe as being idiot proof, so hopefully it came out alright. It’s called Pasta Primavera.” She made a mental note to impress her assistant with the same recipe in the near future.
Rainbow stood at the edge of the counter as Twilight continued to cook, fascinated with watching her maneuver about. “Anything I can do to help?”
Twilight shook her head, "I want to do this on my own, just to prove to myself if I can," she replied. “Actually, you could get us drinks if you’d like. I just made a fresh pitcher of lemonade.”
Rainbow poured two glasses and set them on the dining room table, which was nicely set for the occasion. She was quite surprised to see the expertly folded napkins and high quality china, as well as the candles which had been lit. She realized that all of this showed just how important tonight was to Twilight, and wondered if she was anxious over nothing at all.
She was startled out of her thoughts as a huge bowl of pasta, filled with an assortment of vegetables, was placed in the center of the table. She had heard of Pasta Primavera once in her life, but Rainbow didn’t know that it was supposed to look this delicious.
Together, they sat down at the table as Twilight served some food to both of them. Rainbow strained in preventing herself from shoveling down the food in front of her, knowing that it wasn’t the way ponies acted on a date.
Wait… was this a date?
“Hey, speaking of the two of us, where’s Spike? I’m sure he’d love to try some of this,” Rainbow asked, taking a sip of her lemonade.
“He’s having a sleepover with the Cutie Mark Crusaders tonight. They invited him a while ago, and he was too nice to say no.” Twilight giggled at the thought of poor Spike being dragged around by those three energetic fillies.
“Whoa, so it's Spike and three girls? Wonder where that’ll end up?”
“Oh shush,” Twilight kicked her lightly from under the table. “He’s just a kid Dash. I can’t see him developing some kind of relationship with any of those fillies. Besides, as long as Rarity is around I think his heart will be covered.”
Rainbow chuckled as she was taking a bite of pasta. “I can’t believe that he still thinks nopony notices it.”
“I pretend I don’t see it, even though it’s obvious,” Twilight remarked, “It’s a natural process to have a crush like that sometime in one’s life. I’ve had one before, I imagine you have too.”
As soon as Twilight said that sentence, Rainbow had to use all of her willpower to keep her normal expression. “Yeah, I know what you mean.” She attempted to change the conversation. “So I guess the library is ours for the entire night?”
Oh joy… that’s exactly what I wanted to say.
A faint blush stained Twilight’s face. “Yeah, I figured it would be nice have a home cooked meal together, just like this.” She could feel the temperature warming, and drank the other half of her lemonade in a couple large gulps.
“So… that was delicious!” Rainbow got up with her plate and placed it in the sink along with Twilight’s, who followed her with the two glasses. “I wouldn’t mind doing this more often, it was kind of nice actually. I don’t get ponies to cook meals for me, exception being Pinkie Pie, only that’s usually dessert.”
“I’m actually impressed it tasted that good,” Twilight replied, glancing back at the cookbook Spike had insisted she use. “Leave it to books to make cooking easier!”
Rainbow could only roll her eyes.
“So what do you want to do now?”
“Let’s not beat around the bush Twi. You asked me to come here to talk about violet, so that’s what I’m expecting,” Rainbow demanded, but in a way which made her look more cute than intimidating.
“Alright then. Follow me upstairs.” She made her way up to her bedroom, Rainbow in tow behind her.
The two entered Twilight’s bedroom as she flipped some lights on.
Each of them were nervous, it was plain as day to see from their body language.
Rainbow hopped up on Twilight’s bed, her nervousness of the whole situation coming to the forefront. She had planned this moment within her head for well over a week, her mind like a rewound cassette tape as she played out every possible scenario. These thoughts invaded her mind constantly, to the point where she couldn't take it anymore.
One way or another she was going to let them free, because she knew that this was something nopony wanted to hold inside them. Rainbow hoped Twilight understood enough to not let this affect their friendship if it wasn’t meant to be. The prospect of damaging one of her closest friendships frightened her, but her need for closure won out.
“There is something I want to tell you.”
Both of them looked quizzically at one another, not sure if they had perfectly repeated each other’s sentences.
Rainbow gestured for Twilight to go first.
“The color violet, is a color which symbolizes royalty and wisdom. It is a color associated with power, wealth, and nobility.” Twilight slowly sat on the bed beside Rainbow, who was seated near the headboard. “None of those qualities are the ones that stand out most for me and you however, for violet also can stand for ambition, independence, creativity… and magic. Sort of makes sense in who I am.”
Her hoof slipped between Rainbow’s, eyes gazing deeply into hers as she paused for a moment. “Violet is a color which evokes mystery. Sometimes, you never know just what to expect with it.”
Rainbow Dash was frozen to the spot she sat. She only glanced at the unicorn, shivers traveling up her spine as Twilight’s lips slowly moved so that they were right next to her ear. That dream she nearly obsessed over was being replayed again, only this time it wasn’t a mere figment of her imagination.
“Violet is also a color associated with romance,” Twilight cooed into her ear. “Now I want you to tell me… what do you think the violet is?”
The answer was instantly known as Rainbow’s eyes widened in realization. Every piece of the puzzle came together now. The hint of sultriness to what Twilight said as they got off the train, her comment about the thing being a moving object, ending on the color violet. She felt like a fool for not noticing it earlier.
The “object” Rainbow was expecting the color violet to be was not an object at all.
It was a pony.
…And she was right in front of her.
“You mean to tell me that all this time, right from the beginning when you conjured up this trip in that head of yours, you planned for this to happen all along?” Rainbow watched Twilight nod silently.
Twilight could only smile wholeheartedly as Rainbow finally figured it all out. She stifled a giggle at how flabbergasted Rainbow seemed by the whole thing, even though she understood completely.
“So since you’re the color violet, what exactly does this mean?”
“Hmm… that depends. What do you think it means?”
Rainbow had to stop and think for a moment, even if the answer seemed obvious.
“I… This is going to be a long drawn out response, so be prepared.” She watched as Twilight nodded.
“First off, this past week has been awesome. In fact, it’s been better than awesome, twice the awesome that awesome usually is,” she stated, much to the delight of the giggling unicorn. Rainbow realized what she had just done and rolled her eyes.
“During this entire week, two things happened that I never saw coming. First, I looked at the vacation as an actual vacation, but I also saw it as a bonding session with you. I can’t remember any occasions where we spent this much time together. In fact, I think we spent more time together on this vacation than we have since we met.”
Twilight also thought about the lack of time she had spent with Rainbow when first thinking of the vacation idea. Although she always hung out with her friends, she never did spend time exclusively with Rainbow.
“The first of the things I never saw coming is that I actually enjoyed, and even started looking forward to the small lessons on color you gave me. I learned much more than I expected, partially about color, but more about myself. You proved to me that there are parts of me I have that I would never be able to notice myself. Like right now, I never saw myself as an introspective and sensitive mare.”
“I do,” Twilight replied. “It’s only natural to continue learning about yourself and others over time. I still learn things about myself, even with all the reading I do.”
“I suppose,” Rainbow smiled, but the smile disappeared as she became more serious and anxious again. “The other thing that happened is that for the first time in my life serious thoughts of a relationship entered my mind. And just so you know, it was the thought of a romantic relationship with a somepony I knew very well. Over that week, I learned just as much about her as I did about myself, and recognized that maybe I wanted to not only be her friend, but something greater than that.”
The sudden knowledge of Rainbow’s feelings caused a great weight to be lifted off Twilight’s shoulders. Anxiousness was a thing of the past, and she desperately wanted to embrace and kiss the pegasus like she did for no other pony in her life.
However, Twilight respected the situation at hand. The way Rainbow was opening up to her was something she had never seen her do before, and being the friend she was, Twilight wanted Rainbow to say whatever she felt.
“These thoughts lingered in my head long before the vacation, but I never put much emphasis on them. This week brought those thoughts out into the open, to the point where I almost lost control of them. I wanted to let it out so badly, I wanted to tell her how I felt," Rainbow confessed
Although the anxiousness of the situation had left Twilight’s mind, it was replaced with concern for her friend. Rainbow’s personal life was something the unicorn knew little about, and here she was, spilling it out on the floor before her.
“The problem I faced was if I wanted to put our friendship at risk. Maybe she doesn’t feel the same way, then what happens? Am I just supposed to pretend like nothing happened and wave it off? I don’t want that friendship to just turn into a bunch of awkward meetings where neither pony knows what to say.”
Twilight’s heart was breaking, and she just wanted to hug her friend till everything was okay.
“For the first time in my life… I’m scared. A dragon didn’t do it, Nightmare Moon didn’t do it, Discord didn’t do it. What did it was the ever real possibility that I could lose one of my best friends to something my heart wanted. I hope this works out between her and me, but there are so many uncertainties. I’m scared, and I have no idea what to do about it.”
Twilight heard enough, and hopped up onto her bed before allowing Rainbow to fall into her warm embrace. She stroked down her mane, comforting her friend as she heard her sniffle once or twice. Twilight knew Rainbow wasn’t the type to cry, but she seemed as close to it as she had ever witnessed.
She broke away from her friend, holding her chin up so that their faces were perfectly level from one another.
“What color are your eyes?”
“Uh, violet?” Rainbow responded a bit confused.
“And what color are mine?”
“Violet.”
“This is one of the things you and I have in common with one another. What we also have in common is this underlying fear of what might happen to a friendship when romance becomes involved,” Twilight explained.
“That feeling of fear right now, of being frightened over all of the unknowns, don’t you think that she would be feeling the same way? That during this whole vacation, she was just as nervous at times as you were?”
Rainbow thought about it and realized she never did think about how Twilight felt about all of this.
“To answer all of those questions for you, she was. Just like you, she wanted to embark on a more intimate and personal relationship with a friend of hers, but at the same instance, she had no desire to lose the relationship they already shared. There was as much to gain as there was to lose.” Twilight slowly moved her face closer to Rainbow’s, to the point where their noses nearly touched.
“She thought about what she truly desired, and made a decision.”
Twilight closed the distance between them instantly as two pairs of lips met. Rainbow’s eyes widened at just what was happening, a sense of euphoria coursing through her veins as she returned the favor, pushing her own lips back onto Twilight’s.
Their tongues danced as one, creating sparks of electricity that jolted down their spines as they explored one another in ways they only dreamed of. Rainbow could feel her wings extend out to the sides of her, normally something which she would find embarrassing. Now, it was welcomed, a sign of the immense amount of pleasure she was taking from this.
Twilight saw Rainbow’s wings extend, which only worked to excite her more than ever. She felt herself being held and then flipped over as she was now the one lying on the bed, Rainbow asserting herself on top. Twilight watched as she smiled at her, although it was a smile filled with raw passion. She dove back down onto Twilight, the electricity returning as they went for another round. Twilight closed her eyes, a soft pleasurable moan escaping her.
Eventually the two broke apart again, the need for oxygen becoming too overbearing. Together they sat on the bed, staring into one another’s eyes as they recollected on what had just occurred.
“I guess you can determine what decision she made,” Twilight said, her breath still labored. “She might appreciate it also if you were to ask what you were going to ask all along.”
Rainbow could only smile gleefully in anticipation. “Twilight Sparkle, would you like to be my marefriend?”
Twilight giggled, before going onto her back legs while holding one of her hooves, as if she was going to marry her. “I would be delighted to Rainbow Dash.”
“You don’t know how happy I am to hear that answer.”
They hugged one another, before meeting for a small token of their affection in the form of a quick kiss.
Together they relaxed on Twilight’s bed, content with staring up at the ceiling. Their hooves were intertwined, and they felt like they were on cloud nine.
“I always expected relationships to be mushy and full of embarrassing gestures like this. Turns out, I actually enjoy them. Who would have thought it?”
Twilight turned herself over so that she was learning on her side, propped up on one of her hooves. “Like I said before, you learn new stuff about yourself every day.”
“Yeah I guess. This doesn’t mean that I’m going to randomly make out with you in public or anything,” Rainbow teased.
“I wouldn’t expect you to, not that I would mind if you decided to,” Twilight purred. She watched as Rainbow fell over laughing at her attempt to sound sexy. “Give me a break, I’m not going to get it perfect every time.”
Rainbow wiped a tear of joy from her eye. “I think I’m going to be laughing a lot more now being with you,” she replied. “Seriously though, so this thing between you and us, is official now?”
Twilight nodded.
“Okay, just making sure. This is going to sound surprising coming from me, but I’d like to take things slow. I don’t want to rush you, or myself into levels we aren’t ready for, and I want to make sure both of us are comfortable.”
A genuine look of compassion filled Twilight’s face at the request. “That’s fine by me. Actually, I prefer taking things slow, considering I’ve never been in this type of relationship with anypony before.”
“Yeah… So when do we let everypony else know?”
Twilight never thought about this until now. She wasn’t sure how to break the news to the rest of the group, if she wanted to at all. Twilight assumed all their friends would be accepting, and even encouraging, of their relationship. But that same element of doubt entered her mind on the possibility of one of their friends not supporting them.
“Do you think that they’d all support us?”
Rainbow didn’t even need a second to think about the question. “Twilight, the seven of us will support one another even if we don’t agree on things. As long as they can see that being together makes us happy, I think they’ll all be perfectly happy with that.”
The reassurance made Twilight feel better. “I guess you’re right. Wonder who’ll react to it the…” Both of them turned as they heard echoes of loud knocking on Twilight’s front door. “…most.”
“Twiiiiiilight!?! Raaaaainbow Dash!?!”
“Pinkie Pie?” They questioned in unison.
Both of them stared at one another, before heading downstairs to answer the door. As expected, they were greeted to the sight of an exuberant and joyful pink pony who was holding a box which easily distinguishable as a cake box.
Immediately after opening the door, she began to toss around confetti and glitter, showering Twilight, Rainbow, the door, and herself in sparkling colorful pieces of paper. Twilight looked down at all of it, and her eyes widened in disbelief at the writing on every single piece of confetti.
On every one, were the letters T.S and R.D, centered together on a drawing on a heart.
“Okay okay, so around an hour or so ago I was just making some cupcakes for Derpy when all of a sudden my Pinkie sense went off. Only this time, it was shivers in my front left leg, uncontrollable blinking, twitching in my tail, an inability to say the word chocolate, and itchy hair. Now I never had this combination before, so I spent the last hour trying to figure it out, and only in the last hour did I finally figure it out! And all I can say, is that I’m so happy for you two!!”
Pinkie grabbed both of them in a monstrous bear hug, before letting go and hopping around in pure delight.
“Oh! And so I took some time to bake you guys a cake in celebration. It isn’t much now, but I’m going back to Sugarcube Corner to start planning for the party! This is going to be the most incredible excellent awesome super-duper special celebration for Twilight and Rainbow becoming marefriend and marefriend extravaganza ever! I should start making invitations,” She said, nearly out of breath as she handed the box to Rainbow Dash. “See you two later!”
“Thanks Pinkie,” Twilight replied, watching as her friend zoomed out of view, leaving a trail of dust in her wake.
Both Rainbow and Twilight looked at each other with blank expressions, not exactly sure how to react with what just happened.
“So… I guess we don’t have to tell anypony now do we?” Rainbow assumed.
Twilight shook her head, and started giggling. Eventually her giggling continued, before growing into full blown hysterics as she fell to the floor.
Rainbow watched, soon snickering herself before falling directly next to Twilight in hysterics of her own. Tears formed in the corners of her eyes as she tried to catch her breath, her sides hurting from how hard she laughed.
“Oh Celestia… I don’t think I’ll ever understand Pinkie Pie,” Twilight said, wiping the tears that had formed out of her own eyes.
“To be honest, Pinkie Pie probably doesn’t understand Pinkie Pie,” Rainbow replied.
Twilight walked over to her fridge and pulled out the pitcher of lemonade from earlier, and a glass to pour it in.
“You know, I just realized. You called the vacation Journey to the Center of the Rainbow right?” Twilight nodded, curious about where Rainbow was going. “It sounds… kind of perverted when you think about it.”
Twilight pondered it for a moment. “Does it… OH! Gross Rainbow, get your mind out of the gutter will you?”
“What? Don’t tell me you didn’t notice it before,” Rainbow teased.
“I didn’t until now,” she whined. “However, if you wanted it to be perverted, I should have called Journey to the Inside of the Rainbow.”
Twilight watched from the corner of her eye as Rainbow started to laugh before going wide eyed at the realization of what she had just said, her face going flushed
“Did you just…” Rainbow asked, struggling to complete her sentence.
Twilight could only giggle at her marefriend’s shocked response.
