Deal of a Lifetime
“And there you have it,” the salespony chimed. A bright orange stallion adorned by a thick, brightly-coloured coat, and a pair of saddlebags waving at his side, arriving at altitude as he concluded the tour. “Prime housing real estate with an unhindered view of the town and the surrounding countryside; it’s perfect for the mare on the go, and all for only just fifty bits.” Clearly a professional of his trade, he ran a hoof through his slicked, jet-black mane, flashing a grin so bright Rainbow was sure it would have blinded the nearest filly foolish enough to look their way.
“... I don’t know.” Rainbow Dash was sceptical. She hovered next to him with a deep frown, leaned back on her wings, and rested her chin against her hoof as she considering the stallion’s proposal. “Over the Everfree Forest? Are you sure it’s safe?”
“Platonically approved by the Air-safety and Aviation Commission of Manehattan,” he nodded. “There’s no place safer.”
“Okay.” Rainbow nodded. “And how’s the weather?”
“Perfect! Balmy in the afternoons; pleasant summer showers at night”— He flew up beside Rainbow Dash, throwing a hoof over her shoulder, and waved the scene with his hoof. “And would you look at that view!” he sung.
Looking to the stallion for a moment, Rainbow Dash turned slowly and looked around her, taking it all in. He was right. The sun was just beginning to set on the horizon, catching the light at a perfect angle to bathe the land in a mixture of golden-orange hues. Likewise, the canopy below framed the scene perfectly, reflecting the sunlight with a mixture of blue and magentas from their budding flowers. At that moment, a faint breeze stirred. The leaves rustled below, and cool air filtered through Rainbow’s mane making her shudder. But, even so, the silence was deafening; far removed from the constant bustling of her current lot. “It is...” she yawned, “pretty nice...”
The salespony’s grin turned into a smirk, and he tapped Rainbow Dash on the chest. Lowering his voice slightly, he leaned closer to whisper next to Rainbow’s ear. “I tell ya what; I’ll make you a special offer. This spot, with an added money-back guarantee—” He winked, and slapped Rainbow on the back, throwing in at his full voice. “But we won’t be needing that now, will we?” He chuckled, and laughed as he nudged Rainbow Dash in the side, winking as he did so. “Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, eh?”
Rainbow couldn’t help but smirk. She muffled a giggle with her hoof and watched as the stallion moved away from her. He flew out, gliding away from her side, then spun around and came back, grinning with a confident smile. Stopping at a more professional distance, “I’ll let ya have it right now, all for just thirty bits.” He thrust his hoof forwards. “We got a deal?”
“Um, well...” Rainbow Dash paused. Raising a hoof, she looked one more time at the setting sun, then to the salespony’s eye with his painstakingly bright grin, yet charismatic grin, then to his outstretched limb. She gulped, and pressed her hoof against his. “Deal.”
“Wonderful!” The stallion retracted his hoof and turned around; reaching behind him to pulled his saddlebacks up in his teeth. He undid the top, pulled out an ink-well and stack of papers, then held them out in front of him. One in each hoof, he motioned to the papers with his muzzle. “Now, if you will just sign here, we can be on our way.”
“Right, of course.” Plucking a loose feather from her wing, Rainbow quickly dipped it into the well and scribbled her name on the page. She spat out the feather, and rubbed her hooves together. “Oh, man, Twi’s gonna flip when she sees this!”
~ ~ ~
That night, our cyan Pegasus was lying asleep in her bed, comfortable and happily resting after the tiring job of moving her house to its new home. That is, until she was shook awake.
Lightning cracked, and thunder rattled outside her bedroom window. There was a flash of lightning, and deafening boom, and Rainbow Dash sat bolt upright. Looked around her frantically, she squinted to see as her eyes adjusted to the dim light in her room. The space was almost pitch black, even more so than normal, and was filled with the deafening howls of wind as a powerful summer storm shook outside.
There was a sudden crash and a flash, and electricity arced across the sky burning Rainbow’s eyes, accompanied by yet more thunder and the sound of rain hammering against the cloud roof. Rainbow Dash was instantly wide awake, sitting upright in her bed and looking around her. She lowered her erect wings and ran a hoof through her mane to reconstruct her cool composure. “Uh, I-” She stammered, unknowingly crumpling the sheets between her hooves. “It’s okay, Tank.” She started to comfort the turtle who would likely be terrified at the prospect of such a massive storm. “It’s just a little bit... of...” She looked to the far corner of the room, to where Tank usually slept, immediately setting eyes on the empty basket.
Her memory shook loose, Rainbow’s ears dropped and turned back down to look between her hooves. “Oh, yeah... right.”
Another crash of lightning and an unusually strong gust caught the side of the house, and it lurched to one side. Rainbow Dash was shook from her daze and had to steady herself as the house tilted.
There was the loud creak of wood splitting and the storm’s fury burst through the open window, whipping the curtains up into frenzy and spraying cold water across the floor.
“Pony feathers!” Rainbow swore as she leaped from her bed, slipped on her night gown and turtle-themed fuzzy slippers and rushed over to the window to shut and latch it. She grumbled to herself under her breath. “Buy a cloud lot over the Everyfree”, the estate agent said, “Prices are low— just like the chances of a life-threatening natural disaster.” Rainbow had made up that last part, but somehow she felt it should have been mentioned at least once.
She did a quick once over of the floor. The one advantage of living in a cloud home was that water-damage was near non-existent. The structure simply sucked it up like a sponge and deposited any excess to the ground below. The curtains were soaked, but they’ll survive, and the window’d seen far worse.
Another crack of thunder sounded outside and the floor rocked. Rainbow wobbled on her hooves and steadied herself against the wall until the motions subsided.
The contents of the room all slide downhill a few feet, and Rainbow watched as her bed went by far the furthest. It glided across the floor, knocked over the bedside table and sent a box of tissues, a reading lamp, and Rainbow’s photo album flying across the floor in its wake.
The whole mess came to a crashing halt with the dresser against the right wall, where they remained after the house finally righted. Past the constant roar outside, Rainbow faintly heard a similar sound from other parts of the house.
She gulped— “Um” – and glanced around at the mess. “I’d better check the rest of the house.”
~ ~ ~
The door to Rainbow Dash’s bedroom silently swung open, and the Pegasus stepped out into the corridor. Compared to this, her bedroom was like a brightly lit studio. The only light she could see was that which leaned in from behind. In the brief flashes of lightning she could see the outlines of furniture ahead, the living-room at the end of the corridor, and the handles of several doors along the way.
The rain was still beating mercilessly against the cloud rooftop, filling her ears as Rainbow Dash stepped cautiously into the corridor. “Okay, let’s see here.” She squinted into the darkness and took a few steps forward, careful not to bump into anything, and searched the walls for the light switch as she went.
On the third step, her hoof briefly brushed the switch in the dark and she backed up a bit to find it. She patted along the wall, searching aimlessly in the dark, until she finally came across it again.
“Aha!” Rainbow flipped it into the on position. There was a light click, only barely audible over the thundering of the roof, and the corridor remained dark.
“...Or course,” Rainbow groaned, facehoofing in the dark. “The electricity had to be out now.”
Granted, it was a miracle they got anything up here at all. Most cloud houses, even the fairly modern ones, didn’t have electrical installations at all. She vaguely remembered them giving an explanation in her science class, ages ago. It was something about clouds being a retarded material or something. She never really was that interested in the subject. At some point Rainbow thought to ask Twilight about it, but the ensuing lecture lasted far too long for her tastes, and she was asleep within the first ten minutes. In the end, she’d wasted an entire day and all she could carry away from it was that it involved the ‘electroductape properties’ of the clouds— that is to say nothing.
Wind howled outside and cold air permeated through the thin walls, sending a shiver up Rainbow’s spine. “Okay, Dash.” Rainbow thought to herself out loud. She braced against the wall as the building drifted sideways. “First order of business: get the power back on.” After that she could worry about everything else.
She tentatively took a step forward, trailing one hoof against the wall as her guide, and holding the other ahead of her so she didn’t run into anything in the dark. She had to get to the kitchen. That was where the switchboard would be.
There was a loud clattering in the dark, of something wooden falling over and a sharp pain rang out through Rainbow’s right hoof. “Yah!” She winced, backpedalling as something scuttled between her hooves, knocking between them with a hollow clatter.
In her haste, Rainbow stepped and leaned back, putting her weight on her back hooves, and something tugged on the back of her nightgown making her rear up.
She flailed and flapped her wings, knocking something else over. There was a crash, and something broke beside her. As Rainbow tried to turn her head to look, she finally lost her balance and pitched forwards.
The pegasus came crashing down like a fallen tree, her head connecting with the same object from earlier, and throwing up a shower of splinters and broken wood, finally blackness.
~ ~ ~
Rainbow Dash came to with a dry, furry sensation filling her mouth. She smacked her lips as her eyes slowly opened and aligned. She was lying face down in the middle of the corridor, her butt in the air and the shattered remains of a side-table scattered all around her. Timberwolves’ howls echoed in the distance, and the constant stomping of hooves filled her ears. “Uh... what in Tartarus...?” She groaned, rubbed her head as she slowly regained her orientation.
The howling only grew louder with every minute, sounding less like timberwolves and more like some kind of horrific beast. The howling changed tunes as her ears unfolded, turning to a low growl that beat against her chest. A slight wind drew up the passage making Rainbow shiver, and her ears pricked, a light-bulb came on in her head. “Wait”—she sat up, ignoring the pieces of wood sliding down her back and off her mane –“the storm.”
More pieces of wood slid down her back and mane as she stood, and her gown tugged gently against her back hooves. Rainbow adjusted her stance, lifting each hoof as she pulled the gown clear, and switched to hovering off the ground for the rest of her journey.
She followed the howls to one of the nearby rooms. The door was closed, but she could still hear the wind loud and clear through it, and to the faintest touch, Rainbow could feel the door shaking against her hoof. The slight sparks of magical potential jumped up her arm, making her fur stand on end.
She moved to open the door, but as soon as she turned the handle, and despite taking every conceivable precaution, it was as if the storm had come inside to meet her. The door slammed wide open, almost taking Rainbow’s hoof off in the process. Her ears were filled with an all consuming din as a cold wind blasted past her.
It hit like a brick wall, and threatened to blow Rainbow Dash all the way down the corridor. A mat or two blew past her and Rainbow could hear objects clattering around behind her as she squinted into the headwind.
She could feel her nose starting to freeze as she pushed forwards into the room.
It was cold inside, or, well, at least that’s how she thought it would be for anypony else. It’s not like she was cold or anything. Nope, Pegasi were perfectly well attuned for such conditions, an advantage of spending most of one’s life at high altitudes, and she was a Wonderbolt after all. Any professional flyer would have built up a strong enough tolerance, and Rainbow Dash was about as tolerable as it comes.
She wiped the icicles from her nose, suppressing a shiver, and pulled her nightgown closer around her body—not because she was cold or anything, but a little extra warmth never hurt anypony, right? And she began her inspections of the room.
The wind wasn’t any better inside, though now she could see where it was coming from. A vortex swirled around the room, centred directly over a gaping hole in the floor roughly the size of a pony’s head. Every few minutes, the wind outside would change directions, and send droplets flying up through the hole to cover the bathroom in a thin spray.
Rainbow approached the hole and peaked through. She could see the treetops of the Everfree far below, dancing around frantically as the storm shook though them. Branches and leaves whipped past as a mere blur. Looking east, she could see some lights on in Ponyville. She shrugged, “Looks okay to me,” turned back to the room, wiping the condensation from her face.
One of the cabinets was clattering loudly, which Rainbow kicked shut with a satisfying click as she passed. The bath was filled to overflowing so she reached in and pulled out the plug to let it drain, and then trotted back to the doorway. She took one look back, nodded, and shut the door.
~ ~ ~
When Rainbow arrived, the kitchen was in total disarray. It was like a tornado had ripped through the place. The dining table and chairs had all slid across the floor, and now blocked the entranceway, whilst the fridge had tipped over and was lying face down, slowly sinking into floor. Meanwhile the cabinets all hung open, their doors clattering and banging against each other.
But none of It wasn’t the fridge, or the cabinets, or what was in them. Rather, it was what wasn’t in them that shocked her.
“No!” Rainbow screamed, “Not the best china!” She leapt over the dining table, spread her wings, and took to the air, dashed across the room to catch a stack of plates as they soared through the air. Then, arcing downwards, she caught a tray on her head—accompanied by six cups, saucers, a teapot, and a jug. She then doubled back, stretching to catch her ‘#1 Best Flyer’ mug between her teeth, inches above the ground.
“Phew,” she sighed past the handle, and relaxed slightly. She hovered slightly higher, and quickly did a tally of the plate. She set down the tea set and mug, and did a quick tally of the plates as she stacked them away. One, two, three, f— She gasped, “Wait, where’s the—” She counted again, making sure to check in the back for any she might have missed.
There was no denying it. There were several plates missing, and there was only one place they could have gone. She shot a glare down at the cloud tile cloud floor. “Well,” Rainbow huffed and slammed the cabinets shut. “I’m not going out to get them now.”
Luckily, the dishes were the most of her worries. Rainbow flew around the kitchen taking stock of the rest of it. She moved the dining table back, and turned to inspect the window. So far, it looked like they were going to hold, at least for now.
The fridge wasn’t a concern, either. She never really kept anything it, except for maybe a week-old salad from a... less than stellar date with Sauren, and maybe a packet of left-over hay fries from dinner. But, really, other than it there was nothing.
She double-checked the latch on the windows and closed a few more cabinets, then went straight for a small grey box tucked away in the corner above the stove— the fuse box. It was completely forgettable, until something went wrong, that is—like right now. She hooked a hoof around its edge, flicked the latch open, and let the cover swing out under its own weight.
Squinted, she and leaned in, and scanned the row of tiny levers. There were eleven of them, five for the lights, five for the plugs, and a big red one labelled Do Not Touch, That means you, Pinkie Pie, in big bold letters—that was the mains—and just from looking at them she could tell there was nothing she could do. They were all in the upright position and the danger gauge—she quickly tapped it with a hoof. The needle jumped for a moment before dropping back to zero. It was dead.
“Dang-it,” Rainbow groaned slammed the cabinet shut. The problem was somewhere else, outside her house, and likely wouldn’t be fixable until the morning, which means she had to make do with stumbling around in the dark until she could find some candles.
~ ~ ~
Coming out into the living room, it was certainly better than in the passage. The large windows allowed plenty of light in, mostly constrained to be rapid flickers and flashes of the storm’s light. But even so, Rainbow Dash could only really make out the rough edges of her furniture.
She stepped further into the room, careful to fly past any low obstacles, and did a brief inspection. The recliner and sofa had both shifted. The former lay on its back, tipped over by the house’s movement, and the latter had been pushed all the way to the right wall. Rainbow landed and quickly righted the recliner, then turned around, and was about to head over to the couch to bring it back when she caught something out of the corner of her.
She froze on the spot. Wait. Backing up slightly, she turned and squinted to see what it was. There was something under the table. Some kind of mound, something that looked almost like— “... It can’t be.”
As she crept closer, there was the brief flash of lightning and thunder rumbled. The room flickered, and light fell upon the mounded. The faintest glimpse of green confirmed her suspicions. “Tank! I,” Rainbow yelped, and fell back on her haunches. “I, um, I—I—” She stuttered and backpedalled away.
It was Tank, there was no denying it. She rolled onto her hooves, and jumped behind the recliner. Somehow he’d come back from the dead to enact his revenge upon her and all of her friends for leaving him under that tree. Leaning with her back to upholstery, Rainbow pressed a hoof to her beating chest, and silently hoped that he hadn’t seen her.
She risked a glance around the side, and jumped back, yelping when she saw him still there. It was hard to tell in the dim light, but Rainbow was sure she saw him move. Oh, who am I kidding... She kicked herself, literally. It quite hurt, even with the turtle-themed fuzzy slippers. He totally saw me.
Rainbow Dash peeked out around the corner of the sofa to see where Tank was. For the most part the lump remained motionless. No more movement, this was bad. Is he mad? Rainbow took a deep breath. “Um,” She spoke again, trying to act nonchalant. “So, uh, how are you... Tank?”
No response.
Rainbow winced, “The silent treatment, huh?” She felt a tear at the corner of her eye, and sniffled as she wiped it on a sleeve. ... Guess I deserved that. “Well,” she huffed and crossed her hooves, sitting back with her head against the sofa. “Two can play at that game.
Silence descended upon the room, only broken by the continued roar of the storm outside, and the distance cracks of thunder. The occasional howl of wind swept past outside. The house creaked, and the floor bent. A chill air ran past Rainbow’s mane as she sat there, her muzzle scrunched as far into a frown as it would go.
At length, a faint, distant click of something made Rainbow’s ears perk. She looked up, and her eyes darted sideways. She checked over her shoulder again. He was still there, hadn’t even moved an inch, “Humph,” She huffed and resumed sitting.
The silence continued.
The roaring of the wind picked up, then wavered, and wobbled as the storm refused to let up. Lights flickered outside, and rainbow counted down the seconds—three—until the thunder rolled after. The sound of wood creaking, likely the windows again, tickled Rainbow’s ear, and several pieces of furniture were heard shifting as well.
The constant din of the storm outside and the noises of the house shifting slowly grew louder, working on Rainbow’s nerves. She tried to cover her ears, but it wouldn’t help. She then took off her slippers and tried shoving them into her ears, but still the tiny turtle faces only served as a further reminder of Tank.
Finally, she snapped. “Ok, I’m sorry!” Rainbow Dash shouted and jumped out from behind the sofa, shoving it aside. She could feel the tears streaming down her face as she shimmied up to the lump, threw the coffee table aside, and cuddled up against Tank to pull him into a hug.
Giving off a grunt, realising how well he had become lodged in the floor, she wrenched Tank free in her grasp and hugged him tight. “I shouldn’t have left you!” Rainbow cried, running her hoof over his smooth surface, pouring her love out, tears streaming down her face, and fondling the tree tiny holes in the top of his— “Wait what!?”
Frowning, Rainbow turned the object over in her hooves, and held it up to the light where she could get a better view. “This is a... bowling ball?”
Glancing down to the floor in front of her, she noted the round depression in the ground where the ball had been. Shards of glass lay scattered all around, lining up perfectly with the hole in the coffee-table. An empty shelf hung, swinging on the far wall, and the smashed remnants of her bowling trophy lying in a heap below.
The puzzle pieces fit themselves together in Rainbow’s head, and realisation washed over her. She flushed bright red, and facehoofed. Somehow, her cloud bowling ball—don’t ask how clouds work— had rolled off the shelf, smashed through her trophies, bounced across the room, and finally embedded itself in the living room floor.
“Heh.” She let out a quiet chuckle and held up the ball to look it straight in the eye— uh, hoof-holes. “You won’t tell anypony about this, right?”
Naturally, being an inanimate object, the bowling ball said nothing.
“I knew I could count on you, Bally.” Rainbow hugged the ball one more time, and then stood up to look around. With that confusion out of the way, all she had left to do was to—
A crash of thunder and the flash of light lit up the room making Rainbow jump. “Yah!” Her fur stood on end, static electricity arcing around her as she took flight.
Between that and the confusion, Rainbow’s hooves slipped, and the bowling ball spun away from her. She instantly dove after it, reaching her hooves out, as the ball arced across the air. She just nicked its edge, sending it into a tail spin, and then chased after it towards the ground as the ball dropped like a stone.
She collapsed to the ground, her hooves outstretched in front of her, and the ball just out of reach as it slipped through the cloud floor with a silent poof. “No!” Rainbow squeaked under her breath and scrambled to her hooves. “Bally!” Pulling herself forwards on her knees; she lifted her upper body and crawled her way closer to the hole, just reaching it as it closed the rest of the way—offering her the last glimpse of the ball as it continued in its journey down to the forest floor below.
“That’s my...” Rainbow’s breath caught in her throat. “My”— her ears dropped as tears began to well at the corners of her eye— “favourite ball.”
Rainbow quickly sniffed and stood back up, wiping her face with the sleeve of her nightgown, and held her head up high, glowing with determination. “Okay, storm,” she growled. “You can ruin my house, you can scare me out of my wits and make me look like an idiot, but nopony, and I mean nopony pranks Rainbow Dash.”
A beat of silence, and Rainbow, looking sideways, blushed, and added, “... Twice.”
She turned to looking around the room for anything useful, setting eyes on the utility chest in the far corner. In the dim light, a devious gin spread across Rainbow’s face and she brought up her hooves to rub together as her plan began to take hold. “Oh... It. Is. On.”
~ ~ ~
The storm raged on, thunder and lightning splitting the sky, rain coming down in a torrential downpour that roared against the cloud house’s roof as the winds continued to buffet it around.
Inside, in the dim light of the night, a faint creaking sounded out though the house. The flash of lightning from the windows fell upon a sea of cords, harnesses, ropes, and bungee cables. They creaked and stretched, straining against each other as the house bent.
Rainbow had spent the last hour tying down anything and everything she could find. Ropes clung to each piece of furniture in the living room, holding them by either the arm-rests, the legs, or what have you.
The windows and drawers in the kitchen were all secured, held closed with cords twisting through their handles, over the counter and around the bases of every appliance, and then past the refrigerator—twice—before heading back out into the corridor to join with the other parts of the house.
“Ah.” Rainbow took a deep breath as she flew slowly up the passage, a candle balanced in her left hoof whilst she traced her right along one of the cords, testing it for any slack as she followed the bundle back to her bedroom. It’d taken every piece of rope she had, and then some—she never thought she’d be grateful for Pinkie’s interest in bungee jumping— but she’d done it. The whole house was secured. There was no way anything could possibly go wrong. Heck, the whole place could flip upside down, and still, nothing would budge. All that was left was for her to get back in bed and settle in for a good night’s rest.
With a flap of her wings, Rainbow hopped over a bundle of cords crossing her path. She then ducked low to get past the next on at eye-height, and squeezed through the doorway into her bedroom.
She glided across into the centre, flared her wings and braked so she could do a quick check. “Okay,” she leaned back against her wings, hovering on the spot. “Living room? Check. Kitchen? Check. Bathroom, storage room, and guest bedroom? Check, check, and check.” She counted each item off on her hooves, and flew her way over to the dresser.
As she passed, Rainbow slipped off her fuzzy slippers, and dropped them into the bottom drawer, then blew out her candle and threw it in too. She pulled on a nearby rope causing the drawer to snap shut, and the entire dresser to be hoisted into the air as the cords tightened around it.
Finally, Rainbow Dash flew over to her bed and climbed in under the covers. She pulled up the mound of ropes, tightened them with her teeth to secure herself, and laid her head back to close her eyes.
It wasn’t long before the house went silent, save for Rainbow’s snoring, and the occasional creak of the cords, and the ever-present roar of the night.
~ ~ ~
As the night wound on, the storm only grew in intensity. The gentle sway of the cloud house turned into a jagged rocking. Then that, in turn, was replaced by a yawning sway that tipped the house sideways, curled it back down, twisted it the other way.
This continued for maybe an hour, or ten minutes, until Rainbow Dash was awoken by a loud snap of something breaking in the dark.
“Huh?” Her eye cracked open, “Wha?” She looked around, squinting into the darkness from her position pinned down against her bed. Rain was still hammered outside, and lightning flashed from the closed window. The faint jiggling of cables met her ears and she spied them in snaking the darkness above.
She relaxed— “Oh...”— and laid her head back against the pillow, letting it sink deep into the soft mound of cloud fluff. “It must have been my—” She twisted around to lie on her side, and pulled a hoof free to muffle a yawn. “—imagination...” Her eyes closed, and Rainbow Dash began to drift away, back to the sleeping realm.
She was just returning to beating changelings with her spiked hooves, whilst making out with Spike when, suddenly, a long, meandering groan vibrated through the house. Rainbow Dash froze. She lay there, tensed, her eyes wide and staring into the darkness, and straining her ears as she listened to the house’s creaks. All around her, the walls and ropes protested as the house slowly tilted, rolling onto its side as a strong gust caught it in its grasp.
As the incline grew, so did the creaks and cracks of the cords and ropes, all trying to keep the furniture in place. Somewhere, in the dark, chairs and tables could be heard shifting in their restraints and Rainbow’s bed suddenly jolted sideways, making the Pegasus jump. Her restraints pulled tight against her chest, and then silence fell.
The motions settled and the minutes slowly drew on into an eerie silence. The soft rumble of rain returned, filling the silence from outside. Rainbow Dash simply lay there, refusing to unable to move a single muscle, wide awake as she listened for any other changes.
At length, she let out her breath, finally able to breathe easily, and relaxed. “Whew,” Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes, almost chuckling. “For a minute there I thought it was going to—”
The droning roar cut Rainbow off as the wind picked back up. The house lurched, and tipped the rest of the way, flipping upside down and jostling its contents. All throughout, furniture lifted from the floor, and strained against their ropes. Rainbow Dash squeezed her eyes shut, gritting her teeth.
She felt her mane lift, falling down under the force of gravity, and the unsettling motion in the pit of her stomach as her bed lifted away from the floor, dangling from the ropes holding it—and herself—in place.
The ropes screamed around her in the darkness, and, slow at first but, quickly picking up pace as the house completed its manoeuvre, the sounds of snapping cords was replaced by the rumbling and crashing of furniture coming loose.
One very close tearing sound reach Rainbow’s ears and she panicked. “Oh, no, no-no-no-no.” She frantically clawed at her restraints as the bed, inch by inch, started to slip lower. Finally, there was a snap, then all at once the ropes came loose and Rainbow leapt clear into the air. She spread her wings, and flew straight for the exit, ignoring the chaos around her as she made a beeline to save her home.
Rainbow flew out into the passage, dodging whipping cables and shrapnel, at the same time swerving to avoid hitting the walls. She got through to the living room just in time to catch the main support line, a three inch rope spanning across the entire room, and the last line of defence to keep everything from falling apart.
She grabbed one tattered end between her hooves, and clenched down on the other between her teeth, and was strung out in the air between them. “Ugh,” she groaned. This was bad; she had to do something to fix this, but what?
Rainbow’s eye started searching cross the room, looking for something to tie the loose ends together when a loud crash sounded behind her, accompanied by the very distinct tone of an A-Minor—albeit a little out of tune.
A low rumbled started, followed by more notes, as something heavy trundled across the floor. It was at this moment that Rainbow Dash suddenly remembered something, something very important. She went pale. The one tiny detail she’d glossed over since the very beginning. The one room she rarely used, that often went forgotten, but played home to her single largest possession.
The east wall exploded, and Rainbow inched her head back, her ears dropping and her eyes going wide as a large object soared through the new opening. Its grey dust cover flapped and blew off in the wind, revealing a grand piano as it barrelled towards the pegasus.
“Sweet Celestia, why couldn’t I just learn to play the kazoo...”
~ ~ ~
The sun was out and the skies were clear, and the bright sunny morning brought with it the sweet smell of morning dew. Twilight Sparkle was standing atop a hill in the park, overlooking the landscape on the outskirts of town as she admired the sun peeking over the horizon.
She took a deep breath.
Never before had she felt so good. She was rejuvenated. Her mind was clear, and her body was rested. It had been weeks since the last time she got a full night’s sleep, and just last night, she was finally able to finish that peace treaty accords that she’d been so desperately working on the last few weeks. It was just sent off to Princess Celestia for the final look over— not that it needed it, or anything— and Twilight was left a free mare for the foreseeable future.
Yes, everything was right with the world, and nothing could possibly ruin this perfect day.
She waited a few more moments, admiring Ponyville in its fresh summer splendour, before turning her back and resuming her walk out to meet Rainbow Dash.
She trotted in silence for a good few minutes, mentally checking off the directions in her head, not noticing as she skirted deeper into the outskirts of the Everfree Forest. As she went, there was the faint glint of Rainbow’s house through the thick underbrush.
Though, something struck her as being slightly off. She couldn’t put her hoof on it, but she could have sworn she saw a fountain spraying rainbow-coloured water. Such a thing wasn’t unheard of, of course. Why, she’d seen many of them during her visit to the Cloudsdale weather factory. But she couldn’t remember ever seeing one at Rainbow Dash’s house. Nor could she remember the mare mentioning one ever being installed.
Twilight shrugged it off, and continued walking. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”
~ ~ ~
Sunlight shone across Rainbow Dash’s sleeping face. Her nose scrunched and she tried to lift a wing to cover her face, only to find it painfully tied back in a tangle of— she forced her eyes open to look around.
She was bound mane to tail in what looked like a mix of ropes and bungee cords, and hung upside like a bat with her hind legs and wings tied painfully together. Her wings held firmly to her sides and were already aching from being unable to move, and the blood was rushing to Rainbow’s head, which resulted in a mild, pounding headache.
Looking up, Rainbow Dash noted a grassy clearing with several pieces of her furniture, both broken and unbroken, lying scattered across the grass.
And looking down— or rather up— past her hooves, she could see clear through the top of her house into to the floor of her living room.
The piano; smashed and battered beyond repair, hung to her right. It rocked back and forth in the gentle morning breeze, chiming off a sad tune as its keys tumbled out one by one, and the dresser was heard smashing into the ground behind her.
Rainbow groaned. Struggling against her restraints, she managed to pull a leg free and smacked a hoof up her face, “... seriously?” Dragging it down slowly as she seethed, “I’m so going to kill that—”
“Rainbow Dash!?”
A voice shouted, startled, and Rainbow’s ears perked up. She squirmed a bit in her ties and looked down to find Twilight standing in the clearing and looking up at her with wide eyes, and a look of concern.
“What are you doing up there!?”
“Ugh,” Rainbow groaned again, louder. She tried to keep her eyes trained on Twilight, but failed completely as she began to slowly spin around backwards. “You don’t want to know.”