> Quadruple Sonic Rainboom - Into Thin Air
>  by sparks2037
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Quadruple Sonic Rainboom - Into Thin Air...
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Quadruple Rainboom – Into Thin Air
By Sparks 2037


I looked up into the bright blue sky.
I wasn’t happy with what I saw.
I let out a snort. My wings beat out a steady rhythm. My mane and tail left a rainbow-sheened haze of color behind. The land rolled by below in a green blur, sliced in half by the tan knife-edge of a road that led towards Ponyville.
Up close, up above, it was clear. But in the direction of town, down low, things changed.
A bank of dark gray clouds slanted across my way like a beach made of ground-up slate. Black thunderheads boiled up from the bank in the shape of anvils the size of a house. Exactly the kind of cloud that Applejack’s granny would look at and say, It’s chuckin’ down rain over yonder.
I frowned.
Look, I may the best flier in all of Equestria, but I don’t like getting my feathers wet unless I’m on Weather Patrol.
I stretched out my wings and banked sharply down and to the right. That cost me some altitude, but it won me a bunch of speed. If I couldn’t fly between the raindrops, I’d sure as heck outrun them!
Low-flight approach over Ponyville usually gets me a few extra admiring glances. Hey, it’s understandable when you’re watching pure awesomeness in action. This time, nopony saw me as I pulled a tight and fast turn to hover by Twilight’s library. Their loss, but everyone was busy trying to get out of the incoming rain.
Drizzle began to turn into full, fat drops as I landed. A flare of wings, and I shifted to a quick trot through the door. I was greeted by the warmth and light of a crackling fire, the smells of sweet honey and spicy nutmeg. And best of all, the sounds of my friends laughing.
“All right!” I announced as I made my entrance. “Who wants to get their party on?”
Twilight, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie let out a cheer. Fluttershy piped up with a cute ‘woo-hoo’ from where she reclined in one corner, bundled up in a bright pink and green sweater. Applejack came over and pushed a mug full of something frothy and delicious looking into my hoof.
“It’s a mite laid back for a full-on party,” she said, “but it’s good that you made it, Rainbow!”
“I’ll drink to that!” I tossed back half a mug of what had to be the Apple Family’s egg nog recipe. Notes of vanilla, whipped cream, and sugarcane did a little square dance on my tongue. “Sorry I’m late, everypony.”
“Actually, we’ve been busy playing ‘Twenty Questions’,” Twilight said. “You only missed the first couple of rounds. It’s Pinkie’s turn as the questioner right now. And believe it or not, she’s stumping all of us.”
Pinkie bounced happily back and forth on her hooves and let out a giggle.
“You better believe it!” she sang out. “That was guess number seventeen! Three more is all you’ve got left!”
Twilight held up her hoof and tapped on a phantom chalkboard she spoke. It was a little quirk of hers. Counting ‘in the air’ whenever she was listing out things in her head.
“It’s not a person, a place, or a living thing,” she said. “It’s bigger than a waterfall, longer than a freight train, yet weighs less than a Daring Do novel.”
I squinted at Twilight. “That’s not seventeen answers, is it?”
She gave me one of her trademark wry looks. “It is if you count the intermediate guesses.”
“Hey!” Applejack protested. “Asking if the mystery item was a kind of apple was helpful.”
“Darling,” Rarity said, “asking if it was more or less stylish than a Sapphire Shores concert outfit was entirely appropriate!” 
“Oh, and I just had to ask if it was as cute as a fluffy bunny,” Fluttershy piped up. “Pinkie said ‘yes’, so whatever it is must be exceptionally adorable.”
“Let’s cut to the chase,” I said. “Pinkie, is this thing as cool as me?”
She stopped in mid-prance and blinked, twice. “Is that a trick question? I mean, who or what in the universe is as cool as Rainbow Dash?”
I beamed. “I like your style, Pinkie.”
“I’ll take that as a ‘no’,” Twilight said. “So…is it something that grows in the ground?”
Pinkie shook her head. “Nopey-nopey-nopey!”
“Well, the rules say that we only have twenty chances to ‘ask’, or ‘guess’. I’m completely flummoxed. Anyone want to take a guess?”
Applejack and Rarity traded a look. They shared a laugh, and then Applejack raised one hoof. “I’m guessin’ that it’s a six-legged pony with a purple polka-dotted mane and shootin' stars comin' out of his eyes!”
“Who flies through the air all over the world,” added Rarity, “in order to hide magic, sparkly eggs!”
“No, sillies!” Pinkie said, “It’s a double sonic rainboom!”
Sudden silence from all around. Applejack and I let out a groan. Rarity rolled her eyes while Fluttershy clapped her hooves politely at Pinkie’s win. Twilight’s horn glowed as she flipped through her book, Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Playing Twenty Questions.
“Pinkie,” she said, “there’s no rule that says you can pick something that doesn’t exist!”
“Well of course not,” Pinkie chuckled. “That would be ridiculous. But that’s not the point, you know.”
Twilight’s brow wrinkled. “It’s not?”
“Nuh-uh! The point is that there’s no rule that says you can’t pick something that doesn’t exist! And since you can’t go fast enough, a double rainboom simply can’t exist! Right, Rainbow Dash?”
I burst out with a laugh. It was either that or get mad, and how do you get mad at a pony like Pinkie Pie?
“It sure can’t, Pinkie.” I lifted my mug of egg nog against and drank a toast. Twilight let out an annoyed ‘urrrgh!’ and set the book down.
“Well, that’s enough of that game,” Twilight said. “Anyone up for cards? A couple rounds of poker, maybe?”
Applejack choked on her drink. “Oh, applesauce, no! Whenever we play that, Fluttershy wins every time!”
Fluttershy blushed. “Do I? I’m sorry…maybe I could lose a few games to make everyone feel better about playing?”
This time, we all laughed.
And the rest of the time passed just like that. The warmth of the fire, the warmth of friendship. The kind of day that made me wish I could hold it, trap in in a glistening droplet of amber, forever.
But for one thing.
That one thing that stuck in my head. Stuck in it like the seed of a snowflake that grew and grew until it was big enough to jam up the weather factory in Cloudsdale.
That one thing that Pinkie Pie made me admit could never exist.

*	*	*

I found the right spot a couple of weeks later. No, not just the right spot. If I had to pick the most ultimate of ultimate spots in Equestria, right now, this would be it. Way, way outside of Ponyville. Way, way outside of most of the routes that pegasi normally flew. All the way out by the Dragon Lands.
Hey, when you’ve got a pair of the fastest wings in Equestria growing on your back, it gives you certain benefits.
The large bowl-shaped valley was remote and uninhabited. I flew the perimeter one more time, clockwise from the top. At the two o’clock spot was a ragged bunch of trees. At six, a huge boulder of sandstone. At the ten, the trickle of a tiny waterfall.
But the most awesome part?
The rim of the valley was lined with these saw-toothed peaks. They channeled the air just right for what I wanted. If I flew with a gentle turn to the right, I could circle the inside rim of the valley with little to no effort.
Oh yeah, this was what I was looking for!
I almost shouted for joy!
I caught the warm updraft of air that funneled up the outside slope of the valley. I did a full-on barrel roll the Wonderbolts would’ve approved of, and shot off in the direction of Ponyville. The valley fell away behind me as I picked up speed. Mountains slid past, some jagged and covered in enough jewels to glow blue or red in the setting sun. Dragons heard the roar of my passage, answered me in challenge. 
No time for stopping, though.
I had bigger things on my mind.
I put on the brakes as I drew close to Ponyville. In fact, I landed on the outskirts and did a slow, Luna-may-care walk towards the library. Look, I may have cornered the market on things like ‘coolness’ and ‘awesomeness’. And I know that other ponies think I’m direct. I mean, more direct than my workhorse friend, Applejack.
But I had a favor to ask. And as the saying goes, the hungry pony is the one that doesn’t get fed.
Time to play it cool.
I strolled in through the library entrance. Even whistled a couple bars of something I’d heard Pinkie singing a while back about sunshine and lollipops. 
I got about three steps through the door before Twilight grabbed me about the shoulders with her forehooves and pulled me into her private study. 
“Rainbow Dash!” she exclaimed, “You’re here! Perfect timing! I need your help with something that only a pegasus like you can understand!”
I rolled my eyes skyward and whispered, “Thank you, Celestia!”
“What?”
“Ah, nothing. As it happens, I need your help with something too. Something only a scholarly-type like you might understand.”
That got Twilight’s attention. Her horn glowed purple as it opened a large book on her desk, but the glow vanished as she turned towards me. 
“Okay, you have me curious.”
“Pinkie-swear that you’ll help me with it, and I’ll answer whatever pegasus-related question you got!”
She frowned, made a motion like she was about to argue, and then thought better of it. “All right, stick a cupcake in my eye and all that rigmarole. Take a look at this.”
Her horn glowed again as she held up the book on her desk. The plain blue cover had an even plainer title: Pegasus Flight Compendium.
“Wow,” I said. “Bet that’s a blazing read.”
“It’s a frustrating read, is what it is!” She set the book back down, this time using her magic to ruffle to a specific page. “I’ve been trying to understand the cognitive process pegasi go through when in flight.  What in the world does ‘bounce’ and ‘tack’ mean?”
“Oh, that?  It’s about how the air ‘feels’.”
“Air has…a ‘feel’ to it?” Twilight looked skeptical. “Really?”
“Sure does.  Without bounce, how could you jump from cloud to cloud?  And if the air’s got no tack, you’d skid like…well, like if you were on the ground and you ran across a patch of ice.”
“Hm.”
“So now that I answered your question, I got one of my own. Real egghead type stuff. I want to know why I get a burst of speed as soon as I break the barrier to create a sonic rainboom. I mean, all I know is that it’s helpful. It saved the day at the Young Flyer’s Competition. It also saved Rarity, the Wonderbolts, and my reputation.”
Twilight blinked. “Um, yes. You get a burst of speed from something called a wash vortex. An object moving through the air can disrupt it in a way that makes it easier for something following closely to hold or gain speed. It’s why birds fly in formations shaped like ‘V’s.”
“Interesting.” I spoke like nothing was up, but inside my mind was going a mile a minute! “So let’s imagine that I’m going full-tilt through the air. And someone almost-but-not-quite as awesome pulls off a sonic rainboom right in front of me. What happens to my speed?”
“Well, in theory, you’d get serious speed boost. But that couldn’t happen, because you’re the only one who can–” She gave me a look. “Rainbow, all this is just theoretical, isn’t it?”
My hooves made little clops on the study’s hardwood floor as I began to pace.
“Maybe. Maybe not. I’ve been thinking about how to make my moves more…I dunno, more radical.” That was a real hedge. I wouldn’t lie to Twilight. So I hoped to Celestia that she wasn’t going to ask me flat-out what I planned on doing.
“You know,” she said, “I just find it…amazing.”
“Yeah, my moves are pretty–”
“Not your moves, Rainbow. Your confidence. It makes you brash, sure, but I’d be foolish if I didn’t admit that it gives you an edge sometimes.”
That stopped me. I guess it really hadn’t occurred to me before.
“Maybe we have that in common. I mean, your parents encouraged you to develop your magic, didn’t they? Otherwise you’d never have taken your magic exams on the day that Celestia happened to be passing by.”
“Or the day a certain rainbow-colored filly happened to make a sonic rainboom.”
“Yeah, there is that.” I grinned foolishly, but had to force myself to stay all serious-like. “My parents did everything to encourage me to develop my talents as a flier, right from what I was a foal. My mom, she told me that there was a secret to why pegasi aren’t afraid of falling.”
“What is it?”
“Because someone will always be there to catch them. Sure enough, the first time I jumped off a cloud I dropped like a rainbow-striped rock until I got my wingbeats right. My mom was right there, saying ‘Don’t be afraid, I have you.’ And that’s why I can usually put worry a couple of pony-lengths behind me.”
Silence as Twilight thought about that for a moment. 
“Well, if you actually try anything new…just don’t do anything foolish, all right? The vortex effect could boost your speed a small amount. Or a great deal. It’s hard to tell.”
“Yeah, it might depend on the bounce and tack of the air.”
Twilight shook her head.  “I’m still trying to understand those terms.”
“Maybe I can put it in words you’re more familiar with.”  I cleared my throat, and added, “Those are terms for kinesthetic phenomena experienced by aviators because they involve the senses of touch, usually incorporating the sensory input from the skin, hooves, and workings of the vestibular organs in the inner ear.” I shrugged. “That’s in the reference notes for Daring Do Vanquishes the Air Pirates.”
Twilight gave me a look. “Rainbow, do you learn everything technical from the reference notes to A.K. Yearling’s novels?”
“What’s wrong with that? We know what the author goes through. That’s all real and accurate knowledge she uses to handle situations.”
“It’s just that–” She did a totally adorkable double-take, as I knew she would. “Wait a minute! I read all of Yearling’s books too, and I’ve never even heard of Daring Do’s adventures involving ‘high-flying hijackers’ or ‘air pirates’!”
“That’s because A.K. Yearling lets me read her drafts before her books ever hit the shelf.” I patted my friend gently on her shoulder. “Don’t worry about it too much, Twilight. It’s a fan thing. You wouldn’t understand.”

*	*	*

Another week went by before everything was just right.
It’s not that I wanted to hide anything from my friends. It’s just that I wanted some space in case anything went wrong. I dropped Tank off at Fluttershy’s, telling her that I was going to be on an extra-long distance patrol, asking if she could feed the little guy. Applejack and Pinkie were busy doing another barn raising with the entire Apple family.
Twilight was off to Canterlot to hold this year’s magic finals for the new unicorn fillies and colts. Sweetie Belle went along with her, and to my surprise Rarity tagged along. She said that she was curious about how the finals were going to be done for her little sister. If you asked me, she was probably more curious as to what kind of hat the in-crowd was wearing in Canterlot, and wanted an excuse to check it out.
Perfect.
I left a note tacked to Twilight’s door in case she got worried about what I was going to do. Then I put in a bit of hard flying time as I made a beeline for the bowl-shaped valley. I made it there without trouble and landed up by the small waterfall. Goggles perched atop my forehead, plastering the red lock of my mane flat against my forehead. The spring that fed the waterfall burbled noisily across the rocks at the rim of the valley, but that was all the sound I could hear. Hazy afternoon sunshine filled the bowl before me. The air was as flat and still as a millpond.
This was just what I wanted.
Once upon a time, a time that seemed ages ago now…there had been a filly who’d wanted nothing more than to join the Wonderbolts. But now? What did this ever-so-slightly older filly truly desire?
Long-distance flying gives you a lot of time to think on matters like that.
I’d broken the rainboom barrier.
Won the Young Fliers Competition.
Trained at the Wonderbolts Academy.
Maybe I’d still go back to the Wonderbolts. The bright pins they wore were a little more tarnished in my eyes these days. Yet it was something that scores of young colts and fillies desired more than anything.
No, all these goals were milestones. Achievements to be unlocked and frames on a piece of paper or engraved on the side of a trophy. The real stuff was what lay behind it: speed.
The need to go fast, be fast.
And what if I never pushed for my limit?
I looked up into the blue reaches of the sky and the answer came: Then I’d never know what I could have done.
I had to know. I just had to.
Goggles down. Wings spread, every bit of plumage groomed to within an inch of its life. My mouth went dry in anticipation. Joints tensed. Start of my wing beats, a pistoning that ratcheted up in volume and pitch until it was a buzz in my ear.
I took off like I’d been shot from a party cannon.
The wind rushed by. Wings flapping, not full-out yet. Had to pace myself. Forced myself to not burn up the muscles just yet. I shifted one wingtip, pointed my nose a point or two off to the right.
Everything reacted the way I wanted it. With almost no energy spent braking and turning, I could spend the maximum on forward air speed. The valley bowl turned into a brown and orange shadow. The peaks on the saw-toothed rim blurred into a buzz-saw of teeth. Quick blips of the waterfall, the banded rock, the sparse trees. Over and over and over again until they were wiped from my vision into part of that same smear of color.
The air began to take on tack. Getting denser, harder, like water on the lake freezing into little chunks and ‘bergs and then, finally, into a single diamond-hard sheet.
Too hard for anyone to fly fast enough to do two sonic rainbooms, one after another. Even I wasn’t that fast. The air pushed back too much, took on too much tack and bounce and fluff and zing, all those qualities that pegasi use to describe what they felt.
That’s when I had gotten the idea.
I couldn’t fly fast enough if I went in a straight line, though normal air.
However, what if I flew through a vortex? The vortex created by a rainboom in the first place?
I couldn’t double back on myself once I reached hypersonic speed.
But I could keep going in a nice flat, horizontal circle.
I upped the power to my wings, started to feel my muscles dig in as my wings bit the air. Clawed it, even. I shifted positions again. Both hooves out front. Mouth and nostrils open in tiny slits, letting the air supercharge my lungs.
Eyes wide behind the glass of the goggles. Watching as a white, cone-shaped shimmer formed around me.
The skyline began to shimmer. Like hot air rising off of stone.
I dug down deep for my last reserves of strength. The wind howled in my ear now, not letting up a millisecond. Howled at me to go on, go on, go on…
The white cone shattered!
With a KRACKOOM, the barrier in front of me shattered into a thousand million bits. Ripple of color and sound rippled down my back with a spine-tingling crunch. Wave upon wave of brilliant color spread out behind me like smoke rings, red and orange and blue. 
And ahead of me? Shades of colors no one but the fastest of the pegasus will ever see.
Red all along the left. Deeper than the color of love. The edge of a cloud touched by the rising sun. The very edge of candle flame. The outline of Celestia’s cutie mark. 
Violet stretching across my course to the right. Like the very last ray of light in the sky before the darkness of night. Like the color of star sapphires. Of Luna’s mane. Of deep dark waters where giant fish dwell.
I completed the curve around the valley.
Now more sound caught up with me. Or I ran into it. The sound of splintering rock, of storm-tossed water. 
I dove through the center of my own rainboom.
I gasped as the air gave way in front of me like tissue, like mist, like nothing was there at all.
My wings didn’t falter. The breath I gasped out was shoved back into my lungs as I shot forward at an even higher rate of speed.
KRAKATHOOM!
Ohmygosh ohmygosh ohmygosh…
I’d pulled off the unheard-of second rainboom. Another circle of light spun out behind me, expanding twice as fast.
I tried to look back. Couldn’t do it. The momentum was carrying me so fast, it was like trying to change the course of a boulder in mid-fall.
I couldn’t pull out. I couldn’t pull out!
All the hues and shades of color began to flow and smear and merge around me. As if I’d gotten stuck inside a glowing tube of lightning.
Blink of an eye. 
I’d made the full circuit again.
KRAKATHOOM!
Searing light flash-marked my skin. I smelled burning hair…
The third rainboom hit the sandstone boulder at six o’clock and atomized it.
Ahead of me, the arc of the first rainboom had been bent. Torqued. 
More sound hitting me now. Landslides. Rumble of pulverized rock.
I couldn’t slow down. I couldn’t.
All the color merged back into white. I saw the monstrous explosion of the prior rainbooms looming up ahead of me. 
I dove smack through all of them, one-two-three.
A hideous ROAR of sound and light.
As if every molecule of air around me exploded!
The ring of rainbooms shattered the saw-toothed peaks around me and turned them into gravel. The grove of trees leaped up into flame like struck matches. The waterfall vanished into a hissing mist. A couple drops hit my chest. At this speed, they felt like needles.
The vortex grabbed me, shook me. Tossed me up into the sky like a pony’s rag doll.
The air’s tack came back at once, pounding me everywhere at once with a thousand angry hooves.
A snap! of bone in my left wing. 
A second snap! as my right wing followed suit. 
Suddenly, both wings did nothing more beyond radiating pain as they flapped uselessly behind me.
I screamed. I was so far beyond trying to be cool anymore that it wasn’t even funny.
The wind buffeted my wings. Tore out my pinions. Stole breath from my lungs.
Now, a high-pitched ping. Followed by a whistling sound, jabs of air into my eyes.
The lenses of my goggles had cracked under the pressure. 
Horrified, I watched as the hair-thin lines in the glass began to spread. Only a little at first. Then with the sharp sound of glass scraping on metal. The cracks spread out into a web. A deadly web that would shatter into daggers that the wind would drive like knives into my eyeballs…
I cursed at my own forelimb as it moved like it was stuck in quicksand. Fighting the wind, fighting the pressure. Desperate, I jerked my hoof up, caught the strap by my temple. Shoved it, hard, just as the lenses gave way.
Shards of glass peppered my forehead. Crystal talons raked my skin, nipped at an ear. Thread of warm blood flowing across and into my mane. Eyes safe, for the moment. But vision gone. Everything was a soft tumble of blue and indigo now.
The ragged skein of high clouds fell away below. The rumble and lightshow of the quadruple booms lay hidden under that layer I’d punched through.
The cold hit me next. A searing, burning cold.
Heart pounding now, even as my speed began to finally decrease. Blue gave way to black. Overhead, the stars came out, flaring in the sudden darkness.
I hung there for a moment, suspended between the blackness and the distant curve of the ground below. Curved in such a way that no pony, with the exception of the twin princesses, had ever seen it before.
And my wings were crippled.
The descent came. A gentle tug at my limbs first, a little breeze that whispered falling into my ear. The first stirrings of panic in my head. I fought to tamp it down!
It was clear, though, that I had no way to slow my speed, to control my landing. At least in a way that didn’t involve my becoming a rainbow-colored splotch for the dragons to come and puzzle over.
Then I saw it. At the end of my vision. So dim, so flickery, that I thought it was a trick of the light at first.
Just below me, off to one side. A milky wall of something like ice, like metal. Up here, in the blackness that reached up towards the stars. The top was a razor-thin bit of whiteness like solidified moonlight. Maybe it was the width of a single pony. Maybe…
It was all I had to go on. If my eyes were playing tricks on me, I was dead in any case.
My wings had seized up. They wanted out, wanted to rest, wanted to stop hurting.
I forced them to reconsider.
This wasn’t flying. It was barely-controlled falling.
I banked a little to one side. Tried to line up a little better with the sliver of ‘runway’ available.
I cried out again as I flexed my broken wings. My voice made almost no sound in the void. I got the job done, but it was ham-hooved as anything I’d ever done.
I had all the flying grace of a brick somepony had lobbed through a window.
The milky-white surface came up from below. It would have been an exaggeration to say that it got any bigger.
One pony wide, that’s all it was.
I remember the horrible pain in my hooves as I slammed down, hard.
A spin. A glimpse of the sheer sides of the wall as they descended into unseen blackness.
I didn’t recall much else until my eyelids fluttered open. Blood from the gash in my forehead dripped down the side of my face, sticky and half-clotted. Hooves aching, but limbs unbroken. Wings a mass of aches and pains, begging me not to move them ever again.
And the air…
The thinnest I’d ever experienced. 
Lungs straining to pull in whatever it could, like straining chilled soup.
The wall beneath me was mirror smooth. I tried, once, to stand.
I slid a single hoof forward as I tried to get up. Limbs flailing, I gasped as they encountered the void beyond. The void below.
I pulled back as if I’d been burned.
“Oh, Celestia,” I whispered, “this can’t be happening.”
I couldn’t fly, I couldn’t stand, I could barely breathe…
It wasn’t enough to just stay here. I had to find out where I was. Maybe then I’d have an idea…well, if not to get down, then to at least figure out how my friends could find me.
I raised my head up. My eyes were still watery from the wind, so I swiped them clean with a hoof and squinted into the dim light ahead.
The wall ran ahead into forever, as far as I could tell. It felt like ice under my belly, but it was something else. Something harder. Less yielding. Perfectly level, one pony wide, and with a just-there curve to the left. And off on that left side…I realized that was where I could make out the familiar greens and browns of Equestria. The horizon curved off in the distance, ending in the shining whiteness of mountains. Blue sparkle of sea off to the edges. A smudge of white down below that could have been the towers of Canterlot.
On the right side…
It looked like void to me for a long, long while. Then I made something else out in the blackness. Other dim textures, horizons of worlds, furtive movements of colors and shapes.
I didn’t understand.
I hadn’t paid all that much attention in school. Or flight camp, for that matter. But I knew geography as well as any filly my age. 
And no map anywhere had ever mentioned this wall sitting at the edge of all things.
Another bolt of pain hit me, stabbing down from a wing into my back. Making me realize how messed up I really was. I throttled a whimper before it escaped my throat.
A bitter thought came to me. At least I know how fast I can go now.
I don’t know how much time passed.
…how much time…
…how much time…
The pain had fallen away. To be replaced with the numbness of deep cold.
I struggled to keep my eyes open. Someone had to be looking for me. Twilight would have come back from Canterlot by now, she’d have found my note. Known to alert everyone to be on the lookout for Equestria’s best flyer. 
That thought made me begin to tear up.
Maybe Twilight hadn’t come back yet. Maybe the finals went long. Maybe she went to Pinkie’s for a party before she reached the library, or stopped by AJ’s to see how the new barn was coming along…
The light around me began to dim.
Then sun was coming down, and night was upon me. Upon this harsh and terrible place I found myself in.
“No, please,” I begged, and my voice came out in a harsh croak. “Please, please…”
No one heard me.
The darkness swallowed me up.
My head swam. A chill wind blew up. Stole the heat out of me as quickly, as effortlessly, as the cold wall below me. I looked around desperately, saw no clouds to land on, to even try to walk on.
I finally admitted it to myself: I might not be going home.
No!
I pushed that thought away, kicked it away.
I had to beat the panic down. Keep control of myself. 
I went over the list of things I did on Weather Patrol.
I went through the list of clouds, of winds, of types of lightning that pegasi knew.
I went over each and every one of my pre-flight checklists from the Wonderbolt Academy.
I made up new lists. What I swore to do with my friends, my pet, my life, when I returned. If Celestia was so kind. If Celestia was even helping to look for me. 
I didn’t know anymore.
…how much time…
…how much time…
Eyes fighting to stay open.
Lungs failing now.
Heartbeat slowing down.
Brain shutting down.
From out of the darkness, hateful voices from my past.
“Ha! Looks like you’re in for it now, Rainbow CRASH!” 
I jumped up and flared my wings in anger.
“You shut up! I don’t need to take that from you, from anypony!”
No answer.
I guess my mind really was starting to falter. After all, I’d proved myself a hundred times over to the jerks who I’d been in school with. Even come to terms with them, now that they were adults.
What was that?
A flicker of light from up ahead on the wall.
I furled my wings back and trotted closer. 
The light took on a reddish hue. As I drew closer, I realized that it was nothing more than an everyday campfire. Sitting on the far side of the fire sat a figure in a black, hooded cloak. 
I leaned away on all four hooves. I didn’t see a scythe or anything but the figure gave me a real case of the creeps. That said, at least he or she had a hood on. That kind of meant that whoever it was had a head. So it couldn’t be the Headless Horse, or…
“You look cold,” the figure said. “Come. Warm thyself by the fire.”
The voice sounded familiar. I trotted over the rest of the way and then took a seat. The warmth was delicious, penetrating me to my bones. I let out a sigh of contentment and held my legs as close to the fire as possible before my hair began to smoke.
The figure across from me pulled her hood back as she stood up. Her shining dark mane rippled and sparkled in the air, moving independently of the chill wind. Her face was dignified, regal, though her brow was furrowed with kind concern.
I gulped, and quickly jumped to my feet. I managed the best bow I could, under the circumstances.
“Princess Luna!” I said, “What are you doing here?”
A chuckle. “The Princess of the Night has many duties. Though never before have I ever been called upon to perform search-and-rescue.”
“You came for…I mean, you’re looking for me?”
“All of Canterlot and Ponyville is, Rainbow Dash. As soon as Twilight found your note, she informed us of your intentions. I must admit, I have never met a pony as dedicated as thou art. Dedicated, that is, to shaking the very firmament of our world. Which is probably why I am the first and only one who could find you.”
“What do you mean?”
“You are one of the handful of ponies who have wielded the power of the Elements of Harmony. You are the sole practitioner of the sonic rainboom, something that used to be an old mare’s tale. In short, thou hast brought legends to life. For a pony like that, my sister has cast spells to search for you in every corner of Equestria.”
“I’ve been up here all day! She never found me.”
“Note what I have said, Rainbow Dash: my sister has cast spells to search for you in every corner of Equestria.”
“But that means…” My gut quaked as the realization hit me. “That means I’m…outside of Equestria?”
“On the outer cusp of this facet of it, yes.” 
I thought about the vague shapes of places and ponies I’d glimpsed, off on the side of the wall beyond Equestria.
“Princess, what do you mean by ‘facets’? Maybe I’m missing something here.”
Luna trotted past the fire to come stand next to me. She nodded towards the outer darkness, and a small amount of light winked into existence, just enough for us to see. There were more walls out there, each cradling a place within it, like an egg’s yolk cradled in the white. Bright green fields, stark castles with high walls. Stranger looking places that looked faded, as if the color had been leached out. Ponies who looked like the ones in Equestria, but ever so slightly different. I couldn’t tear my eyes away.
“Out there, thou canst glimpse a fraction of the truth. That there have been other forms of Equestria before us. And there will be others after us. The eye of creation is upon us for now, and as Celestia wills it, so it shall remain for a long time.”
The idea of other worlds, other ponies, it was awesome and awe-inspiring in equal measure. It felt like my head was going to burst just thinking about it!
“What…where did we come from before the ‘eye’ fell upon us? And what shall happen after?”
“Truly, I cannot say,” Luna admitted. “But you are a very rare individual, Rainbow Dash. It is why you were able to fly right to the edge of our very existence. Because you are what my sister and I call a nexus. A pony who exists across multiple worlds.”
My voice came out in a squeak. “Another me…exists out there?”
“Indeed. Applejack is another. And in a sister world it is Pinkie Pie who occupies the role of leadership and reason held by Twilight Sparkle.”
“Okay, now that is pushing it,” I muttered, but Luna went on.
“The actions of a nexus pony influence a world much more than others of his or her kind. ‘Tis why Pinkie can perform actions that ‘break the wall’, where others cannot. Or why you are able to influence great talents with your magical explosions. Your so-called sonic ‘rainbooms’.”
“I…it’s going to take me some time to get used to that idea. But I thank you for sharing your wisdom about the world with me, Princess.”
“Thou art welcome.”
“And if I may ask one last question…if Celestia couldn’t find me ‘outside’ of Equestria, how did you do it?”
Luna tapped her forehoof on the wall, making it ring. “Though you were out of sight of my sister’s spellcraft, you were not beyond the realm of dreams. And that is how I was able to get closer to you.”
“You found me in my dreams…”  I blinked. An icy fear stabbed through my gut. I galloped madly away from the fire and back towards my starting point. A dark, broken mass of muscle, hair, and feather lay crumpled atop of the wall. Eyes closed. Limbs sprawled. 
“Of course,” I said, and my voice broke. “This isn’t happening. None of this is happening. My wings are broken, this wall is too slick to stand upon. Why didn’t I notice? Why didn’t I see it?”
Luna was back at my side. “Because I willed you not to see it. You are suffering badly, and I could not take the chance of your waking up before I could get closer. My night-chariot is fast, but the wall spans our entire world. Without your mind to guide me, there would have been no chance to find you before you froze to death, or fell into oblivion.”
I stared at my body. Tears had run down my face as I lay atop the wall, and I felt them now. Hot, moist, salty.
“I’m dying, aren’t I?” 
The Princess didn’t mince words.
“Yes. The time of your passing draws near even now.”
I looked closer at myself. The very tip of my nose had gone black as ash. My wings bent in ways that were never designed for. I looked hollow-faced. Drained. Dead as a doornail.
“Oh, Celestia…” I whispered.
“Even if I can reach you in time, you may never fly again. Icenip – what your people call ‘frostbite’ – is a difficult thing to treat. You may lose your wings. You may lose more than that. If you wish not to be found, then I can lead you to a dream world that you might enter and live in for what feels like an eternity.”
That stopped me. It was all about the speed, wasn’t it? To see how fast I could go? What use was a pegasus like me without that? 
Why should I go on?
The answer came to me: Because I was loved.
Loved as a daughter filly, as a mentor and instructor.
Loved by five of the closest friends I’d ever had…even if I never got off the ground again for the rest of my life.
How could I turn my back on that?
“I’m not passing up the chance to be found,” I declared. “I’m too awesome to die, you know. And…I’ve never left Ponyville hanging before. I sure won’t start now!”
Luna spoke once more. Her voice began to fade, as if she were speaking to me from a far mountaintop. “So be it, Rainbow Dash. I leave you to wake now. I am close, but I cannot find you quickly without your help. Call to me. Call to me if thou wishes to return.”
And like that, I was awake.
I knew I was awake because it hurt. Oh, Celestia, did it HURT.
My eyes popped open. My wings screamed in agony, both from the freezing cold as well as the broken bones. Joints in my legs popped and cracked as I stretched them. I couldn’t raise my head. The wound on my forehead had trickled enough fluid to form a bloody icicle that melded to the top of the wall.
“I want to live,” I croaked.
The wind swept the words away like so much confetti.
“I want to live!” I said, a little louder. My jaw refused to work right. The thin air made my voice sound faint, tinny.
I tried to raise my head. No luck.
“I want to live!” 
I twisted myself back and forth. The frozen trickle of blood snapped off and the wind stole it away.
Still trapped.
With all my remaining strength, I pushed out with all four hooves. A sickening tearing sound from my cheek, the one that had been pressed against the top of the wall. Flash of pain. I left a bloody chunk of skin against that metallic surface. I let that agony fuel me for the last. I scrabbled my hooves, trying to stay upright 
And I brayed like a mule, boomed like a foghorn, forcing the words out of my throat by sheer willpower alone.
“I! WANT! TO! LIVE!”
The moment was gone. My knees crumbled and I pitched forward over the edge.
Consciousness swam in and out of focus as I fell. 
Wind whistled in my ears, usually the music I loved best. This time a funeral march for the filly who flew too high. Too far.
The thought swam through my mind: I’m sorry, everypony.
I gave in to the end. Gravity makes fools of us all. Pegasi even more so.
A new rush of air by my ear. 
Different pitch, different sound than somepony falling to her death.
The leathery beat of bat wings.
Dark shapes coming into focus under me.
A thump of contact. Strong, armored hooves grabbing me, holding me, shielding me from the wind.
Bearing me up against that which would harm me.
Princess Luna’s face swam into focus.
“Be not afraid,” she said. “I have thee.”
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.
Blackness began to claw at me again. I fought it, fought it like I’d fight a demon. Luna shifted her cloak to protect me, even as the wind whipped to gale force around her chariot. She shouted commands to her steeds, urged them on to ever-greater efforts. Warmth began to seep back into my skin. A web of pain started to creep along my ruined wings.
“You’re almost home now,” Luna said. “Twilight Sparkle has notified the hospital, and the entire staff is ready to receive you as soon as we land.”
“That’s good,” I murmured. “I like to have an audience.”
“You face a difficult time ahead, young one. The healing process involves warm baths to restore circulation. Pain, alas, is to be welcomed. With luck, only a little flesh will be sacrificed to the nip of the ice, though even with medication–”
“Princess Luna…how is it you know so much about treating frostbite?”
“Why, I read about it. Frostbite is an ever-present threat to the heroine in Daring Do and The Ice Rings of Tigrin.”
I blinked. “You…you read Daring Do?”
“Most assuredly. I have found that it is an excellent method of coming up to speed after a thousand years of separation from your ‘pop culture’.”
The blackness came back again, this time with a vengeance. Only one thing kept me above it for a few more moments. One question I had to know the answer to.
“Wait a minute. I’ve read all of A.K. Yearling’s books. Even her yet-to-be-published manuscripts. I’ve never even heard of this ‘ice rings’ story.”
“That is because A.K. Yearling dreams all of her novels before she puts pen to paper.” The Princess of the Night patted me gently on the shoulder as my consciousness finally slipped away. “Do not worry about it, Rainbow Dash. ‘Tis a fan thing. Thou wouldst not understand.”

*	*	*

Things got hazy for a bit after that.
I dimly recall ponies in white coats. The glint of needles. The gleam of knives as they flayed and sawed at my skin. 
Blue feathers falling to a green tile floor.
Smell of wet plaster.
Sound of drills, of ratchets, of doctors and nurses quietly making decisions.
Metallic scent of iodine and raw alcohol.
I didn’t mind it as much as I should have. It beat time out on the wall any day of the week.
Finally, some sense decided to visit my world and stay. 
I opened my eyes and found myself in a hospital bed. My wings were held out at the sides, encased in plaster. Bandages covered my nose, one cheek. Everything still hurt, but only in a vague, sore-muscle sort of way.
Across the room, Twilight sprawled out on the nearest couch. Her eyes popped open as soon as she heard me stir.
“You’re awake!” she exclaimed, and she was at my side in an instant.
“Hey,” I gritted out, “how’s it hangin’?”
Twilight plunked a bendy-straw into a glass of water before levitating it where I could take a long sip. The water was flat and metallic tasting.
And it was the most delicious water I’d ever tasted. I gulped down the rest before my friend spoke again.
“How’s it hanging? It’s pretty topsy-turvy, to be perfectly honest.”
“Figures. I’m gone a single day, and all of Ponyville goes to heck.”
“We’re just glad to have you back. You’re going to be in the hospital for a while, I’m afraid.”
“Why would you be afraid? I’m the one in the hospital bed,” I joked, trying to put a brave face on things. “Lay it out for me like Applejack. Are my wings beyond all hope?”
She shook her head. “You lost the very tip of your nose, a patch of skin on your cheek, but they can grow it back. Same for your wingtips. It’ll be a while, but once the bones knit, you’ll be as good as new.”
My heart banged against my chest so hard that I almost gasped. I held back the tears with a will. It was better than I could have hoped for.
“I wasn’t kidding about things being out of whack,” Twilight went on. “You don’t know your own power. Your set of rainbooms rippled through all of Equestria. It awakened powers in a lot of places, places no one saw coming.”
“Yeah. I guess I am pretty amazing, huh?”
She rolled her eyes at that. “Your first rainboom awakened my talent. Your latest maneuvers did something similar for the Cutie Mark Crusaders. I’m still trying to straighten out the mess caused by Rarity’s little sister, for example. It stirred up a lot of problems with the Changeling Empire.”
“Anything you can’t handle? You need a certain rainbow-colored speedster to knock some heads and take out the trash?”
She looked at me for a moment, and then burst out laughing. “How can I ever stay mad at you? No, I’ll find a peaceful way to deal with Queen Chrysalis.”
“You always manage. Say, where is everypony else? Or did Celestia delegate patient-sitting to the newest and youngest Princess?” 
“Everyone’s waiting outside. Princess Luna gave orders that no one was to talk with you until I did. I think you know why.”
I nodded. “The wall between the worlds. The nature of the universe, and all that jazz.”
“Luna’s just not sure how ponies will react to it. Best if we kept it to ourselves.”
“I’ll keep my lip zipped,” I said.
“Thanks, Rainbow.” Twilight turned away and went to the door. She barely stuck her nose out before the rest of our friends burst in, surrounding my bed.
“Well, lookee there!” Applejack said. “Looks like someone decided to sculpt those wings of yours out of plaster!”
“Tacky, tacky,” Rarity added. “Those casts are just begging for an art makeover.”
Pinkie squealed in delight at that. “Ooo, and they just got a new shipment of paint and glitter in at the Quill and Sofa!”
“We’re just glad to have you back in one piece,” Fluttershy declared quietly.
The rest of my friends decided that this was the final word on the subject as they gathered round to hug me as best they could.
“Aw, now look what you did,” I complained, as tears brimmed in my eyes. “You went and made me all sappy!”
That didn’t stop them. I was glad of that.
I looked up, let the tears flow and wash away all the hurt and pain and strife I’d been carrying around. The view was bright. Directly above my bed, the room had a porthole-style skylight. 
I thought about all that had happened, how I’d come to all of this.
The fact was: speed rocked. 
My friends just rocked harder.
I looked way up into the deep, perfect blue circle of the sky.
And I was happy.



# # #