Dash knows that rainbows exist, no matter what anyone says.
The elders say there's nothing above the stone but endless water, stretching forever into the darkness. But there are older stories, hidden in the soil and the dirt. Stories of a place with no ceiling at all, where light falls from on high in every color one can imagine. And a dog by the name of Dash is going to find it.
Dash hated digging. Strange thing for a dog, sure, but she hated it all the same. She didn’t mind the dirt, or the sweat, or the smell, that all went with any kind of hard work. No, she hated the slowness. Soil wasn’t so bad, the stuff you could move by paw, but stone was the worst. Blow by blow, her pickaxe chipped away stinging flakes, every inch a battle of minutes or even hours. What she wouldn’t give for a drill!
“Stupid rock.” She sighed and slumped against the tunnel wall, dropping her pickaxe in the dirt and wiping a paw across her brow. There was a reason nobody’d tried to dig into the Arfberta sheriffs department before, and that was the thick granite of the cave floor. That and there was nothing in there worth breaking into. At least, not usually there wasn’t.
Dash hefted the axe back in her paws, and resumed driving the hardened steel into the stone, gritting her teeth at the sting that ran back up her arms. A part of her was honestly a little proud she’d thought to dig most of the tunnel years ago, back when she was convinced there was a secret stash of surface evidence locked in the beat up old station. That was before she’d realized how far out in the ass end of nowhere she was. If there were secret surface treasures, they were obvious stashed in central Quebark. Still, tonight that tunnel was coming in use.
“Come on you stupid...” She grit her teeth and slammed the axe in harder, her muscles and joints burning from the effort. Narrowing her eyes, she just drove herself further. She was sick and tired of this stupid wall. Sick and tired of this stupid city. And sick and tired of flipping digging!
Her axe smashed through the wall with such force that it whirled from her grasp, sailing through the air to smash against distant metal. She stared for a moment at the blinding light, then howled in triumph. She jumped forward, into the main cell of the Arfberta sheriffs department. It was a small thing, gray granite walls, an old set of rusting bars, and a narrow hallway leading down to what was probably the sheriff's office proper.
But none of that mattered, because the important thing was the cell itself. Her eyes quickly swept the dull gray interior. There was a toilet, a small cot covered in a filthy burlap sheet, and absolutely nothing else. Her face twisted in a frown. She was absolutely certain she’d heard the deputy saying he’d bring ‘it’ to the empty cell at the station. Had they already moved it? Was she too late?
“Something’s happening! Get the keys!” She heard the fumbling of metal in paws, but paid it no mind. Instead she swept the cell again. She squatted down to look under the cot. She jammed her paw in the toilet bowl and rummaged around. She even yanked the sheet off the bed, seeing if somehow they hadn’t stolen a pancake from the surface.
“You! Stop!” Dash paid the authoritative bark about as much heed as she ever did. Instead of rolling over like a good dog, she rounded on them.
“Hey! What gives?!” She turned on the sheriff and deputy, a bulldog and pinscher looking sort respectively, and shook the bedding at them. “What? Are you running a bust on crappy sheet smugglers? Where are the surface treasures?”
“What?” The two dogs fixed their eyes on the sack like she was waving a severed head at them. “Where is it?! What did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything! Here!” She whipped the sheet at them. “See? Still right here just like I found it! Seriously, you guys are the worst...” As the rough fabric left her paws, a flash of something caught her eye. It was the palest violet she’d ever seen, edged in deeper tones of indigo and rose. Long and light, it fluttered in the air, until she snatched it with her paws. She eyed it with awe for a moment, before brandishing it with a mocking smirk. “Looking for this?”
“What? No, what is?” The two dogs seemed confused for a moment, sharing a glance. “You, stop! That’s police property!” They frantically started jangling their keys, fighting to jam them in the cell lock as fast as they could.
“Not anymore, finders keepers!” She stuck out her tongue, and dived back in the hole, tearing down it like a whippet. She might not be the best digger, but nobody with paws could beat Dash on the run. She flew through the tunnel so fast, she couldn’t even hear them by the time she kicked aside the garbage can she’d used to cover the tunnel entrance. As soon as she was clear, she grabbed the can and upended the trash into it, digging around in her pants for a set of lampsticks. She struck one, the smell of burning phosphorus teasing her nose, and dropped it down on the pile of garbage filling the tunnel. “Hope you boys weren’t ‘hot’ on my tail.” She snickered to herself, and turned away from the now burning hole, taking off down the streets.
-=-=-
It didn’t take her long to reach her apartment, not that it ever took her long to get anywhere. Luckily, one of the perks of having your own place was that there wasn’t anyone around to ask why you were covered in dirt and garbage during lights out. She dug out her keys and worked the lock, not for the first time feeling a little bit bad as she smeared grime on the once polished knob. The place was better than she should have been able to afford, or even wanted to afford for that matter, but there were certain ‘responsibilities’ with old money. Responsibilities she shirked as often as she could bear.
She flicked on the lights, the dull hiss of gas filling the house as the lines opened up. Most of the house was left barren, a consequence of Dash’s discomfort with it. She’d never felt like she’d needed more than a bed and maybe a dresser, and in the back of her mind she’d always knew she’d just be leaving the place someday. Still, her mother had insisted she live there, at least so she could be in a ‘safe’ part of town, so she obliged.
For the moment, however, she pushed those thoughts to the back of her mind, instead racing up the stairs to her bedroom. She threw open the door, and darted over to the dresser, hauling out the top drawer and eagerly shoveling out the clothes within. Behind them, her claws brushed against old leather, and she quickly hauled it out and onto the dresser top.
The heavy, leatherbound journal had been her father’s, returned to her after his ‘accident.’ The official story was that they’d dug him out of a cave in, suffocated while he’d charted a new tunnel. The journal was supposedly his last demented ravings, as he ran out of air in the dark. She knew better though, she knew he’d seen something real.
She undid the cord that held it closed, and began rifling through the pages. Inside were stories of a place without a roof, where space just stretched upwards and upwards. Where gasless light simply fell from above, and lights like diamonds sparked in a depthless infinity. Where green plants covered every surface imaginable, and strange ephemeral creatures sang and darted between trees that formed a roof of their own. And sometimes, sometimes lights the color of every gem imaginable would fill the sky. A rainbow.
She set her newfound prize on the desk beside her, and quickly flipped to the descriptions of the creatures. It wasn’t a bug, she could tell that much, and she knew that the scurrying things had fur like a dog, or like the moles that sometimes broke into the tunnels. She stopped as the page fell open on one of the flying creatures, it’s long, frilled arms studded with the spitting image of what she’d found. She felt her mouth go dry.
“They actually found something. They found something from the surface.” She backed up, then immediately started to pace. “It’s real, it’s true, it’s all true! They found something, and...” She played back the events in her head, her eyes going wide. “They lost it! They lost it! It’s somewhere down here and they lost it!” She felt her heartbeat pick up, and nearly tore out the door, actually having to catch herself on the frame. “Wait, Dash, wait. Think. Think first.”
She turned back to the book, and began reading the entry in detail. The creatures were small, easily panicked, and spent most of their time in trees. So, if one of them had just escaped capture, where would it go? There was only one place with trees in Arfberta, the farms. There would be light, trees, and better yet, they’d be totally abandoned during lights out.
There was the bang of a door being kicked down.
It occurred to Dash that breaking into a sheriff's department while being the only dog in town with a bright rainbow mane might not have been the best idea.
In one smooth motion, she grabbed her messenger bag, rammed the journal inside it, then pulled the window open and hopped out. As cool as it would have been to dive out it, the smashing glass would probably have told them where she was. Also possibly cut her to pieces. Let it never be said Dash didn’t leave some considerations for safety.
As soon as her paws hit the dirt, she knew she was home free.
-=-=-
The Gardens were quiet during light’s out. Even though they technically ignored the city wide ordinance about lit hours, didn’t mean dogs got to hang around them at night. Something to do with union regulations or something, honestly she’d never paid much attention. Not that anyone ever actually bothered to enforce the rules. All the food was harvested as soon as it was ready, and anydog with unripe food on their breath could be easily pegged as a thief. That left the delinquents, and who would honestly try and sneak off to the only well lit portion of the city at this hour.
Just the same, she did have to dodge one guard before vaulting the fence into the gardens.
Honestly, she’d never much liked the gardens herself. Sometimes good for a quiet nap, most of the time just depressing. She’d stare at the sickly green trees, and think about the passages her father wrote, the way he made the greens seem so much more alive than what she could actually see and feel. She sighed and pushed the thoughts back out of her head again, instead focusing on the groves of trees and crops.
She closed her eyes, letting the silence of the grove surround her. There was a stillness you could find sometimes in Arfberta, without the murmur of crowds, or the flow of water, or even the barest brush of air. A perfect, complete silence. Into which intruded the single rustle of a branch.
Dash was off like a bolt. The same instant, that rustle exploded into the snapping of branches, but it was too slow for dash. A great twisting mass of purple and white was all she registered as she leaped into the air, paws outstretched. They closed on fur and something she couldn’t quite recognize, and with a startled shriek from her quarry, the two of them tumbled to the earth.
For a few seconds, everything was flailing limbs and claws, and Dash barked out in pain as one scored a deep gash along her leg. Finally, her fingers closed on what had to be its throat, and the whole creature went stock still. Panting and gasping, Dash finally got a look at the thing from above. It was bigger than anything in her father’s book, fur and those strange paddle shaped hairs mixed together on its body. More, it looked up at her with eyes that weren’t just scared, but intelligent.
“What?” Dash’s head snapped away from the creature, over to where an entire pack of police dogs were huddled around the gate. How had they found her? Only she knew the creature would have come to the gardens! She’d even taken back alleys, doubled back, used every trick in the book.
She prepared to shout something back at them, except the moment she took a breath to do so, she nearly gagged. It suddenly occurred to Dash that she’d spent the afternoon sweating in a filthy tunnel, followed by lighting trash on fire not a foot away from herself. Honestly, they probably would have been able to find her three cities over in a sewer. She had to pinch her nose just to catch her wits, and resolved to absolutely, positively, not stop running from her own stink until she could roll herself in a tub of soap, and maybe lye.
She turned back to the creature in her grasp, the exact moment its big round eyes turned to hers. In that instant, there was a moment of the kind of universal understanding that can only be shared between fugitives. Whoever they were, they were both in this together. Without a word, Dash let go, and took off, the flap of wings telling her that the creature was following her lead.
She made a beeline for the wheat fields, the tall waving strands offering total concealment. Dash smirked to herself. She’d lead the whole pack in there, run circles around them, then dart out once nobody was outside to see her go. The perfect plan.
She dove in, the strands whipping against her face. Bracing her paw in front of her, she turned and weaved, cutting back across her trail, trying to confuse the path as much as she could. One officer came barreling at her out of the stalks, but a quick turn on her toes left him staggering past her. Another nearly got her, then another, then another.
“What is going on?!” She shouted, panting, her teeth locked in a grimace. It was like they could see her through the damn stalks! Her ears caught the sound of flapping, and she looked back. There was the creature, right behind her, flying visibly above the wheat. “Oh, come on.”
Ducking another lunge, she simply tore right out of the field, vaulting over two startled dogs that had been waiting for her. Landing with a roll behind them, she was off before they could even turn around, kicking up dirt as she tore off for the heart of the gardens. All the while, her brain ran through her options, which currently looked pretty slim with a whole pack right on top of her.
The creature squawked, and she stopped to glance at it. It was looking back at her, one of its wickedly sharp claws gesturing at a small concrete shed in the heart of the greenery. Dash frowned. She knew it was scared, but hiding wasn’t going to do them any good!
“No, we can’t hide! We gotta escape!” Dash thrust her paws out towards the outer gates, where they could maybe find a place to vault over and get out.
In response, the creature just rolled its eyes and took off for the shed, leaving Dash cursing in its wake.
“Stupid, flappy, paddle bat!” Dash raced after her, only arriving just as the creature landed before the metal door to the shed. Before she could even begin to argue with the creature, it reached over and yanked out one of the odd paddle hairs on its wings. It quickly took several chomps on it with its beak, and jammed the now bent end into the lock on the door. Again, before Dash could speak up, the door let out a click, and the creature ducked inside, waving Dash in after it.
“Okay, that was pretty cool.” Dash followed her inside, pulling the door closed and plunging them into darkness. There was another startled squawk from the creature, but Dash quickly found the gas switch, and flipped the lights on. They’d stepped into a narrow stairwell, the wall labeled maintenance. Dash glanced down the stairwell, spiraling down to a wider concrete floor below. “Sick, I’ve never been in… hey!”
The creature was already trotting down the stairs, her four legged gait making the operation somewhat awkward. Every other step her wings would flare out for balance, only to bump into the walls and make her snarl in displeasure. Dash had to fight the urge to giggle as she watched the awkward sight, following the creature down slowly. Eventually, the reached the main floor where all the machinery sat.
The gardens were one of the biggest projects in the city, seeing as they fed a lot of dogs. All day, massive water pumps churned away alongside the steam mains that kept them running. There were rows and rows of gauges and posted advisories. Dash glanced at a few, most of them notes on which pumps were being sticky, or ‘never switch on 3 while 5 is going’ and other instructions. She snorted and turned to look for the creature, only to find it with its claws dug into one of the housing screws.
“Hey hey hey!” Dash charged up, only to get a surprisingly vicious snarl from such a small creature. She backed off a step. “Don’t mess with those! That’s like a triple felony or something! They throw you out in the dark for that!”
Heedless of her words, the creature deftly unscrewed the cover to one of the water mains, stepping back as the liquid promptly started gushing out. There was a lot of it, seeing as the tube was well over a dog’s shoulders in width. It suddenly dawned on Dash what the creature was doing.
“That… that’s genius! We’ll escape through the water pipes! They empty out in the main cistern!” She let out a howl of triumph, only for the sound to be answered by the banging of claws on the access door above. “Oh, come on!”
The creature started hopping from foot to food, her eyes flicking back up to the stairwell as the banging of claws turned to the scratch of a key in the lock. Dash glanced at the water main, and her mind flashed back to an old story she’d heard. There was a job for inspecting the water mains, making sure they were still clean and clear, that was part of why they were so big. But then there were stories of dogs getting forgotten down them, someone turning the water back on before realizing there was still someone down there. She grit her teeth.
“I’m really sorry about this!” She grabbed the creature, stuffing it in the tube with another squawk, and quickly ran over to the controls to the pump. Right next to one of the gauges, helpfully labeled pressure, there was a big red lever that could only do one thing. Taking it in both paws, she hauled hard on it, the screech of freed steam followed by the thunder of suddenly rushing water. The creature disappeared without a peep, just as the door above slammed open. She slammed her paw into the lever, wincing as it broke just shy of breaking her paw in return.
“One way to take a bath.” Dash said, throwing herself into the pounding water. It seized her the moment she touched it, slamming her painfully into the side of the panel opening, before dragging her all the way inside. She slammed and bounced against the walls, the air they’d let into the pipe turning the ride into a pounding brawl of white water. She would have screamed, if she could have kept her mouth open along enough.
She went a full twenty rounds in the ring with the walls of the pipe before it finally spat her out, dumping her into a falling, sparkling sea of droplets. For a moment, she thought she could see the night sky her father had written about, before the cold waters of the reservoir slammed into her hard enough to do concrete proud. She flailed to the surface, gasping, and clawed her way through the water to the shore.
The creature was already there, soaking, sullen, and shooting her a glare that she probably deserved.
“Yeah, yeah.” Dash flopped out on the concrete ‘shore,’ panting loudly. She slowly felt herself up and down, wincing as her paws reached bruises and cuts. At least nothing was broken, and she smelled a little better than before. At least they’d bought some time for themselves. She was just starting to feel good about things when she realized her bag was missing. “Where’s my… hey!”
The creature had her bag, the soggy container already opened, and the contents laid out. Most of them were now useless snacks and a letter or two she’d failed to deliver, but fortunately her father’s journal was an explorer’s journal, designed to keep the water out so long as it was sealed. Of course, the creature had unsealed it, and was now leafing through the pages.
“Hey! That’s--” Dash almost finished, before the creature rounded on her with an outright roar that knocked her flat on her tail. “But I’ll let you borrow it,” Dash swallowed. “Just this once.”
As she watched, the creature flipped through page after page, its claws showing even greater care than Dash’s own. After a few pages, it started glancing around, locating a loose chunk of concrete. It pressed the chunk against the ground, and began to drag, the chunk leaving a rough, pale scratch. With a nod and an approving squawk, the creature continued, before finally waving at Dash.
“Can you read this?” Read the scratches.
“Holy crap! I totally can!” She felt herself begin to wag. “This is so cool, what’s your name? Did you really come from the surface? What’s it like? Are there--”
Her questions came to a sudden halt as the creature thrust the chunk at her, shooting her a flat look.
“Oh… you can’t speak, only read. Uhhh...” Dash held the stone, and then scratched a message of her own. “What is your name?” She passed the stone back to the creature.
“Twilight Sparkle.” It wrote.
“Pfft, what kind of dumb name is that?” Dash asked, before remembering she needed to write the question. When she glanced up to take the stone, however, the flat look from Twilight indicated some things didn’t need translation. Frantic scribbling ensued.
“I will have you know that it is tradition in the zixzmv disciplines to adopt a klmb name, so as to continue the lineage of apprentice to master as has carried on unbroken since the days of Platinum [excepting the Ofmzi interregnum of 213 as stipulated by the vjfrmlc concordat of...”
“Okay!” Dash threw up her paws in the also hopefully universal gesture of surrender. “It’s a great name, I’m sorry!”
Twilight puffed up triumphantly, and handed Dash the stone. “How can you read?” she wrote.
“Your language appears to be a structural offshoot of Pre-classical Abyssinian, using the same grammar structure and symbolism, but with a completely disjointed phonetic association that I suspect--” Dash promptly snatched the stone from Twilight.
“How did you get here?” she wrote instead.
Twilight snatched back the stone with a glare, and started to write. “Neglecting the finer points of the school of gvovkligzgrlm and general zixzmv theory--” Dash cleared her throat, and Twilight sighed, writing a new sentence below. “I need my nztrx staff.”
“Where is it?” Dash asked, finding her own rock.
Twilight paused, clearly thinking, before starting to scribble in the rock. For a moment, Dash couldn’t figure out what Twilight was writing, until she realized Twilight wasn’t writing, but drawing. As she watched, Dash felt a sinking feeling in her stomach.
“Oh, come on.” Dash muttered, staring at a surprisingly accurate recreation of the Arfberta sheriff's department.
Dash stared flatly at the scene before her. The Arfberta sheriff's station was not an intimidating sight at the best of times, but she’d at least expected a blockade or a few patrols. Instead, all she could see was maybe two guards. And one of them was old Half-ear Hershel. Come to think of it, she could probably run up, clock the other guy, and Half-ear wouldn’t hear a thing. The thought brought a smirk to her face.
A smirk wiped off as the edge of a wing clipped her upside the head.
“Okay okay! I’ll stick to the plan!” She huffed and rubbed her head, glaring at Twilight beside her. Honestly, the plan was too complicated by half, but Twilight seemed to have a better idea what she was doing than Dash did, so it was worth a shot. Taking a deep breath, Dash threw up the hood of her cloak and stumbled out into the open.
“Officers! Officers!” She staggered forward, clutching the cloak they’d ‘borrowed’ close to herself, her paw resting on the pool of bat’s blood they’d soaked into the cloth. “It attacked me! It’s here! It’s...” She did her best exhausted fall, which was certainly helped by her legs getting tangled in the cloak.
“Aw, hell!” She heard the two dogs rushing over to her, paws quickly grabbing her fur and touching her face. “She’s ice cold! Get her inside!” Though a tiny part of Dash winced at the fact she’d had to soil her fur with the icy slop of charcoal and water, she had to admit that so far Twilight’s plan was working. After a moment, they were hefting her up and hauling her inside the station.
“Make some room!” They laid her out across a desk, half a dozen dogs quickly filling the room, probably the entire complement of the station. Perfect.
Dash felt claws grasp at her cloak, and immediately turned her performance up a notch. “My baby! It took my baby! The horrible, purple bat thing! It swept out of the dark, screaming, and ripped her from my arms!” She made sure to flail as wildly as she could, her slippery, soaking fur only helping her struggle from their grasp. She broke free quickly, and started to sprint around the office, doing her level best to make her perpetual escape from the officers looked completely accidental. All the while she screamed and raved, knocking over desks, sending chairs careening about, and at one point even doing a wall run that, while suspicious, was too cool not to try.
This continued for about five minutes, before a bucketful of water splashed straight into her face.
“See, you just gotta soak em’, and it calms...” Half-ear Herschel paused and squinted his milky eyes. “Don’t I know you?”
It was at that moment that Dash realized all the muck had been washed right out of her fur.
“It’s Dash! Get her!” The chase resumed immediately, though ironically no better than before. If anything, knowing it was the dog that had broken into their cell earlier the same day only galvanized the department. The whole place could have set fire and they’d probably kept chasing her. Which, of course, was perfect.
“Oh wow, you guys are really out of shape!” Dash teased, sliding between a pair of legs. “How do you even stop crime? Do the criminals just turn themselves in out of pity?”
“We’ll… show… you…” Even the fit rookie she’d seen from the cell was panting at this point, waving one paw ineffectually while he braced himself on the wall with the other. “Just… you… wait...”
“Sorry, but I don’t wait well!” She actually managed to get to of the dogs two slam into each other, bursting out laughing as she did. She finally pulled to a stop in front of the district stairs. In front of her, the entire department sat or slouched, too out of breath to continue any longer. “Though for you guys, I might just make an exception.”
“Looks like they might need it.” Dash nearly jumped out of her own skin as the voice sounded behind her. She hadn’t heard a thing, not a single step! She whipped around, and felt her jaw simply unhinge.
Behind her was a dog of moderate height, shaggy but fit, with a patch over one eye. And a metal paw too. Her body quickly found itself overwhelmed with the question of which essential function it should lose control of first. “Big Dog,” she whispered.
He gave a simple nod. “You’re pretty good.”
“I am?” Dash asked, certain that her heart had stopped beating, and about 80% sure she’d soiled herself or worse.
She got a nod in response. Followed by two swift jabs to the face and a spin kick that launched her head over heels into a concussion.
It was probably the greatest moment of her life.
-=-=-=-=-=-
When Dash awoke, she immediately decided that anyone who’d described their hangover as ‘splitting their head open’ didn’t know what they were talking about. She groaned and reached up, feeling a dense layer of bandages clinging to her skull. She gave it a cautious press, and immediately winced, pledging never to do that again. Instead, she gradually pulled herself upright, slowly recognizing the cell she’d broken into just this morning. How poetic. No wonder she hated poetry.
“Can a girl get some water here?” She asked. As per her wishes, a giant splash of icy water immediately hit her full body. “Gah! Real funny!”
“Cops get to be funny too,” Half-ear grumbled, sitting back down across from her cell. “Not so fast in a three by three cell, are ya?”
“Not so slow sitting on your butt, are you?” Dash shot back, sticking out her tongue. “Oh wait, you are.”
“You know, sometimes, I feel bad about losing my hearing. Then I lip read one of you young punks, and realize I ain’t missing anything.” He snorted at her sour look, and continued. “Still, I’d hate to be you. You rolled in a lotta’ shit today, young lady.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice.” She felt her head again, wincing. “Was that really Big Dog?”
Hershel chuckled, a deep dry sound. “In the flesh. Half the department nearly asked him for an autograph, cept’ none of em’ had the courage. Still, I’m sure they’ll be tellin’ their pups about today for years.” He grunted and stood up. “Not you though, I doubt you’ll be telling anyone but the dogs in black about anything.”
“Wait, what?” She felt a pit open up in her stomach.
“Oh, you didn’t think this was going to be a little sheriff operation, did you?” He gave a rasping cackle. “No, we were just holding down the fort. Poor sheriff's probably gonna get his hide tanned clean off, but that’s nothing compared to what’s waiting for you. They’re gonna have quite a few questions for you, especially about how your little friend got the best of Big Dog himself.” He slammed the door behind him as he left, long before Dash’s brain had finished processing the information.
“Wait. Wait! She did what?!” She craned her head against the bars, again wincing as her skull brushed the cold steel, but try as she might she couldn’t see down the hallway, much less out the door to the office. “What do you mean she got the best of Big Dog?”
Only silence greeted her question.
She sat back down, dumbfounded. She’d gotten the best of Big Dog, a living legend, the greatest soldier in the world. Twilight Sparkle, a squawking pile of feathers, had gotten the best of him. How? He hadn’t been cut up, had he? She hadn’t really been paying much attention before he (awesomely) cold cocked her. Her claws were pretty big, if kinda dull, but she’d heard Big Dog had once wrestled a tatzlwyrm by himself. Hell, she’d faced down half a dozen dogs by herself, and her first instinct had been to freeze up just in his presence.
But somehow, Twilight Sparkle had done it.
And then escaped.
Without Dash.
Dash felt her heart sink, then shook herself. She’d seen Twilight’s eyes. They were honest eyes. Twilight wouldn’t have bailed on her. She felt it in her bones. She was just getting help, that was it. She’d be back with help. Dash was sure of it.
She relaxed, and eased herself back against the wall. It was just a matter of time. Any minute now. Why, she was so confident, she’d even close her eyes.
The minutes slipped by. She thought she heard talking in the room beside her, but she couldn’t quite be sure. She hadn’t noticed anything before, but then, it occurred to Dash that she didn’t spend much of her time actually just being quiet, naps excepted. It was kind of a strange feeling.
Did she actually spend so much of her life just doing things? Running from place to place? Why? She’d always talked about joining the explorer corps, going out there in the dark like her dad, but she’d never actually sat down and done it. If she was honest, the tests scared her. Tests were never straightforward, you couldn’t perform a test the way you could a competition or a sports game. They were tricky, full to the brim with minutia and useless details, like the word minutia.
But was that really an excuse? Didn’t she boast about how hard she worked, turning her delivery routes into a training routine? But then here she was, just running delivery, and by her age her Dad had charted the Northwest Caverns. What kind of example was she setting for little Scooter?
The door clicked.
Dash muttered a quick thanks to the gods as her eyes snapped open. She sat upright and fought the urge to wag her tail at the prospect of questioning and maybe even torture. Anything was better than being left alone with her thoughts again. Anything but that.
A familiar set of beak and purple eyes poked around the corner.
“Twilight!” Dash barked, only to receive a hissing shush from the griffon, her head swiveling back behind her before she scurried in the room and shut the door behind her. On her back, she carried a long rod of wood, the tip adorned with a spiraling length of bone tinted a deep shade of violet that no bone should ever be. As Dash watched, Twilight stood on her hind legs and took the staff in her paws, pressing the tip of the staff to the cell lock. “Uh, Twilight, bone isn’t going to drill--”
There was a flash of purple light, and the door came open with a resounding click.
“What was that?!” Dash almost missed the fact the door had opened, still staring at the lock even as the door was slid aside. “How did-- what was-- how?”
A wing upside the head brought her back to reality.
“Owwwwww!” She shot a glare at Twilight, who at least had the good grace to look sheepish as Dash pointed to her bandaged head. “I. Am. Injur-- look out!”
Old half-ear charged through the door, barreling in at Twilight. Twilight turned, took a deep breath, and shrieked. It was a sound like having pickaxes driven right through Dash’s ears, and she had to cover them despite the pressure it put on her skull. Even then, she slumped to her knees as the sound went on and on, bringing tears to her eyes.
And then it died with a wheezing gasp.
Blinking the tears from her eyes, her gaze slowly focused on a Twilight bent nearly double around old Half-ear’s fist, buried solidly beneath her ribs. With a soft, squeaking wheeze, she tipped to the side, and fell to the floor. With little more than a grunt, Half-ear yanked the staff from her grasp, and tossed it back across the room. “Kids, all the same.”
“Twilight...” Dash staggered back to her feet, just in time to see Half-ear slam the door closed, the lock clicking shut again.
So this was it, this was how her story ended.
And then everything caught on fire.
-=-=-=-=-
Foreign voices babbled in Dash’s ears. She tried to sit up and open her eyes, but the blaze of light that greeted them forced them shut again. What was going on? Her fur felt warm, like she was sitting before a flame, but her nose couldn’t smell any smoke. In fact, it smelled more like the gardens, that open earthy scent of growing things.
She shielded her eyes, squinting hard as she could as she cracked her eyes open. It took her almost a solid minute to make out the window she was looking into. Outside, was a light unlike any she’d ever seen. It blazed brighter even than the great gas fire of ‘97. It was so direct, so intense, it hurt to look at, but she couldn’t look away.
There was the rasping of cloth, and a thick sheet fell over the window.
Dash realized it had grown quiet. She turned around, finally noticing the room she was in. The walls were filled with books, shelves reaching the ceiling, built with enough wood to have emptied the city budget of all Arfberta, to say nothing of the gold that traced traced through every curve and carving. Along with them were arms of war, old stuff, spears and swords polished until their shining edges took on the gold of the room. In the center of the room was a grand stone table, rough topped and asymmetrical. It reminded her of her father’s geological charts from when he mapped his caverns, except flat.
“Zmw hl gsv kvg zdzpvmh.” The words came from the creature beside Twilight. Despite standing a hair shorter than Twilight, the griffon shied away from the creature the way one would from an open flame. The comparison was an easy one to make, as the creature was furred in a rich gold that was only accentuated by its hair, colored in a red and yellow so bright Dash wondered if it dyed its hair like she did. All of that on top of a set of heavy gold armor touched with rubies, and there was certainly a look to the ensemble.
By contrast, her turquoise eyes were cold as ice.
“Could you run that by me again?” Dash asked, reaching up to give a scratch to her bandages.
There was a burst of conversation from Twilight, halting as soon as those hard eyes fell on her. With a sigh, the creature turned back to Dash, and it was only then that dash noticed the spiraling horn atop her head, suddenly ablaze with crimson light. Before Dash could so much as move, a shock of heat ran up her spine, and clean through her head, making her gasp.
“Better?” The creature asked, snorting as Dash blinked in surprise. “Good. I am General Sunset Shimmer of her holiness’ royal army.” Her eyes flicked back to Twilight for just an instant, making the griffon flinch again, before settling on Dash even harder than before. “And you had better be worth the inconvenience.”
“Woah, woah, woah, wait a minute here!” Dash folded her arms across her chest, shooting the firey little creature a solid glare. It didn’t matter who she was, nobody pushed Dash around. “How about you tell me where I am, first?”
A crimson glow flared around that spiralling horn, even as those icy eyes narrowed. Dash all at once felt a pressure all along her body, almost like she was deep underwater. Her feet left the floor, and she found her arms and legs flailing of their own accord, instinct taking over. She opened her mouth to shout, but the pressure redoubled, and all the air in her lungs shot out in a startled wheeze.
“You answer my questions, and then I’ll answer yours, deal?” Those frozen eyes bored into Dash, until she nodded frantically, her diaphragm spamming against the pressure encasing her. It lessened slightly, and she immediately gasped in relief.
“General...” Twilight began, only to be silenced by that same piercing stare. She ducked her head.
“Now.” Sunset trotted over to her table, lifting Dash’s father’s journal off of it with that same crimson glow, and flipping through the pages so quickly they blurred. She stopped, and turned the book to where Dash could see. On one page was scrawled what looked like a four pointed compass rose, five gems studded pentagonally around a sixth in the center. “Where are these ruins?”
“Ruins?” Dash stared at the page, the particular image not stirring any particular memories. “I dunno.” She felt the pressure tighten, and squeaked quickly. “I mean I don’t recognize them, genius! I need to see the other pages!” She shivered as the pressure lessened again, and fought the urge to glare as the book was thrust into her paws.
She quickly flipped back, searching for the details of the ruin in particular.
Today we found the most fantastic thing. There, in a great lava chamber, was an entire city of gold and silver, glittering with gems that looked poured rather than cut, as though they had once flowed between their mountings. They curl and sweep like nothing I’ve ever seen. Of course Rex tried to snap one off for his collection, but would you believe his pick just glanced off? Not even a scratch! I look forward to exploring more of the city. What wonders it may hold!
She started to remember the passage, and immediately her heart sank. If this general was looking for this place, she was going to be really disappointed.
I have never had an expedition go from such hope to such… emptiness. The entire city is completely impenetrable. The walls, the windows, even the mountings of the gems are utterly impervious to any attack. We even took Daisy’s diamond file, and that just slid off the glass without even a rasp. We can clear away the lava flows at least, but it seems to have flooded the doors on both sides, so even those we can clear our way to, we can’t open.
We’ll be leaving in a few hours, supplies are low and we still need to find something we can actually profit from. I did have hopes for one door, the stone is warped and smoothed before it, like it was opened and closed while the lava was settling, but the mechanism is completely incomprehensible. I’ll take a rubbing before I go, perhaps another ruin will shed more light on this later.
Dash swallowed, and quickly made her way back to the earlier entries, backtracking her father’s notes relative to the other charts he made. “It’s… 175 kilofathoms due southwest from Quebark, but that’s going through the tunnels. There might be a faster way through a side tunnel, but as far as I know they haven’t charted those yet.”
The General stared at her a moment. “And where is Quebark?”
“Oh, it’s pretty far west of Arfberta, a few weeks travel, easy.” She stared at the blank looks she was receiving. “What?”
The General pressed a hoof to her forehead, and rubbed the base of her horn. “Twilight Sparkle, when you promised me progress, I wasn’t expecting you to lean so heavily on the technical definition.”
“General Shimmer--” She again bit her tongue as the General raised a hoof.
“Let me make myself clear. If this project were not important, I would not have bothered with the difficulties of opening her holiness’ archives to you, much less the incessant nagging of bureaucrats and your ‘abominable’ inclusion in her school.” She turned and fixed the griffon with a stare that made Twilight nearly implode on herself. “And were you not, by technicality, presenting me with the best results seen in centuries, I would send you packing back to your flea and frost bitten eyries with that hideous staff preventing you from sitting ever again.” She let out a low, hissing breath that could have been a boiling pot, or a venomous snake. “However, I find myself forced to let you continue. So take your savage, and find those ruins on a map I can use!”
Dash suddenly felt herself moving, and before she could even yip she found herself slammed into Twilight, and the both of them sent flying down the hallway out of the room. Skidding, tumbling, spinning, the two crashed into a heap in the middle of the cold marble floors. The slam of doors echoed a moment later.
“I-I’m sorry for the general.” Twilight said, her feathers fluffing out and her eyes going wide a moment later. “N-not that I’m questioning her decisions or judgements!” Her eyes whipped around frantically, but if someone had heard, they weren’t making a show of it. She sighed and slowly smoothed her feathers, offering Dash a talon to help her up.
“What is her deal?” Dash brushed herself off with a huff, finally letting loose with every glare she had saved up at the looming red and gold doors they’d just been tossed through. A second later they creaked back open, and the temperature dropped as a single turquoise eye gazed through the gap.
“She’sverystressedandhasalotonherplateandisactuallyveryniceandweshouldbegoingRIGHTNOW!” Twilight grabbed Dash by the tail so hard her claws probably drew blood, dragging her so quickly her paws slid with a clattering of her claws on the smooth stone.
They didn’t stop until Twilight heaved open a door for them, and shut it just as Dash dove in. Twilight turned and slumped her back against it, panting. Dash was about to offer her a helping paw, when she noticed the room was filled with the strangest light. She turned around, and found herself staring out a window, but not like the windows in Arfberta.
Before her was a vista of more light than she could ever have imagined. Great gold and marble spires rose into an emptiness the color of purest sapphire. Great tufts of something drifted past on high. Her heart gave a start as she realized some of the puffy things were shaped into towers and buildings. Little flecks of color darted between them, feathered limbs propelling them through the air with a grace and majesty no bat had ever possessed.
“Welcome to Canterlot,” Twilight said, not so much breaking Dash out of her reverie as reminding her that there was more to the world than the vista outside.
“Dead ends,” Dash swore softly. “This is incredible.”
“I mean, I actually prefer the pre-classical architecture of...” Twilight glanced at Dash and sighed. “Yes, it’s amazing.”
Dash pressed her face to the window. Outside, the city stretched on and on both left and right. Below, streets thronged with more life than she’d ever seen. Even at midlights in Arfberta, you could throw a rock and stand an even chance of hitting someone. Here it looked like you couldn’t throw so much as a punch without knocking into three.
“How are there so many people?” She asked, staring down at the clogged streets. “What do they eat?”
“What do they… Oh! Oh of course!” Twilight bonked her head, and ran over to one of the shelves littering her room. Dash finally dragged herself away from the window to watch, and immediately became aware of something interesting. Twilight’s room wasn’t so much a living room filled with books, as it was a booking room Twilight apparently lived in. Aside from the shelves, books hung suspended on various strings and pulleys from the ceiling. As she watched, Twilight deftly adjusted several, swapped two or three for others on the shelves beside them, then spooled a set down from on high to hang where she could read them on the ground.
“What I wouldn’t have given to be born with a horn,” Twilight grumbled, finally having an adequate quintuplet of tomes open to her. She then grabbed a scroll and started scribbling on it. “Still, I can’t believe I never realized the energy restrictions a subterranean society would face! Of course there would be such an emphasis on developing fossil fuels, and a push for increased mechanization to compensate for a severely circumscribed population capacity.” Her head whipped up, and fixed Dash with a gaze that nearly made her back right up out the window. “Do you still operate on a twenty four hour circadian rhythm or has your society abandoned those conventions in light of the resource demands of illumination?”
Rainbow blinked rapidly, trying to parse what Twilight had just asked. Maybe the General’s whatever-she-did was wearing off. “What’s a sirkadian?”
“I…” Twilight blinked and shook herself, immediately giggling and quickly roping the books up to the ceiling as though embarrassed of them. “Sorry, sorry! I just… got a little excited. I’m sorry, here I’ve yanked you out of your home and now I’m badgering you with questions. Are you hungry, cold, hot? Is the light too bright? Oh, feathers! You’re not allergic to light are you?” She immediately seized one of Dash’s paws, examining the fur before Dash yanked it away.
“I’m fine!” She frowned at Twilight, giving her a firm bonk on the head with her paw. “Besides, that General seemed pretty ticked about whatever you’re doing for her.” Her eyes went wide. “My journal! She still has--”
Twilight all but flew in front of the door. “I’ll get it back, I promise! Just… once she’s in a better mood. I’m sure she’ll give it back as soon as we ask… assuming she’s in a better mood. Here, here, help me...” She again fiddled with her pulleys, drawing down several other books. “Help me figure out where the ruins are. Then we’ll go to the General, get your journal, and I won’t have my staff… improperly stored.” Twilight shivered at the last two words.
Dash noticed the staff in question propped against one of the walls. She was about to ask why Sunset had seemed so repulsed by it, until she noticed that spiraling bone affixed to the top. The same one that had adorned Sunset’s own brow. Twilight must have noticed her staring, because she gave an uncomfortable cough.
“I sometimes wonder if bringing that thing wasn’t a mistake,” she said, a conflicted expression on her face. “We griffons don’t put a lot of weight on the dead, everyone makes their own legacy, not their parents or grandparents.” She stepped over and took the staff in her talons, hefting it back and forth. “Ponies love history though. You’ll hear earth ponies talk about how many generations back they can follow their farm’s lineage. Pegasi will brag about the heroism of their ancestors, their legacies of service. And unicorns will actually keep charts, absolutely staggering ones, detailing every single branch and fork of their family tree, and each one of their accomplishments. So of course, I thought I’d impress them by bringing them an obvious pony heirloom, show them that I was different from other griffons, that I cared about the things they did.”
“I, uh...” Dash wasn’t exactly the queen of sensitivity, but the message was impossible to miss. “I’m guessing that didn’t go too well?”
“Unicorns are terribly, terribly proud of their magic.” She said, her voice small and soft as her claws caressed the horn atop the staff. “It doesn’t help that its channeled through their horns. A broken horn never heals, you know. To break a unicorn’s horn is to put them to a fate worse than death.”
“But… couldn’t they just...” Dash glanced at the staff, and suddenly felt like there was something horrible lurking behind the answer.
“Ah, you saw it too, huh?” She gave an odd, wry smile, which was a trick with a beak. “Somepony had the same idea did you just did, the same one I had when I saw the staff. Why not just find another way?” Her voice grew softer. “The unicorn’s name was Heart Mender, ironically they worked mostly in skeletal anatomy... well, ironically to you and I. To unicorns I’m sure the name has a certain poignancy. She had a sibling, Foxglove, who lost her horn. Probably the impetus for her research. She was sure the connection could be repaired. She found that the horn wasn’t the source of magic, but more like a focus. A unicorn without a horn can still produce magic. If anything they can’t stop. That’s the problem, you can’t set the horn again with the magic rushing out, and any fixative that could actually seal the horn has to be magically active as well, and…”
“Can’t be done?” Dash said, finishing the thought.
“Uh, yeah, in a nutshell. But Heart Mender didn’t give up. She knew magic came from elsewhere in the pony, so she kept digging. It grew into an obsession. It got to the point where it was destroying her relationship with Foxglove, until the day Foxglove demanded her horn back.” The room felt oddly quiet, as though the world outside had retreated from the tale. “Remember how important unicorn horns are? An argument broke out, the story goes. Neither one would budge, and Foxglove finally threatened to fetch the guards. Of course they would side with Foxglove, it was her horn. They’d treat it as though she were asking for the body of a loved one. In a fit of rage, Heart Mender threw the horn at her, staff and all.”
A shiver ran down Dash’s spine as she suddenly noticed how very sharp the tip of the horn was.
“No one agrees on how much of it was intentional. In the end, Heart Mender solved her problem. Magic comes from blood. You wouldn’t think it, without any vessels in the horn itself, but it does. Create a proper base for a broken horn, supply it with blood, and it’s good as new. But ponies love their history, and they could never forget how that fact was discovered. The whole thing got lumped under the same auspices as necromancy and, fittingly, blood magic. Horns had always been considered semi-sacred, but after that any broken horn was to be destroyed, and grave robbing became a capital offense. After a while, ponies forgot why this was even done. Until a hapless griffon found an old staff tipped in unicorn horn and thought it would be a great gift to impress her teachers.”
“Ouch,” Dash said.
“Sorry,” Twilight coughed, and set the staff back down. “I haven’t really been able to talk about that story with anyone. It’s not the kind of thing you can bring up with ponies.”
“Ah...” Dash scratched the back of her neck, her eyes drifting back to the staff. “How’d she get around the blood thing?”
“She didn’t.” When Dash cocked her head, Twilight lifted her talons. There, between the scales, were sets of thin white scars. “You can’t tell just looking at the staff, but the grip is serrated. Just needs a drop to establish the connection. Turns out lots of creatures have enough magic in their blood for spells, it’s just that unicorns have the horns. Another reason my staff isn’t that popular. If it hadn’t turned out that the staff had been ‘gifted’ to King Grover in return for his allegiance to Solaria, they would have destroyed it on the spot.”
“Who’d give a gift like that?” Dash asked.
Twilight snorted. “Somepony who finds out a griffon found their ancient, hated staff, and doesn’t have the leverage to get it back.” She sighed. “Sorry again, it’s… nice to have someone to talk to.”
“Uh, no problem.” Dash managed an awkward smile. “Should we--”
“Oh, oh! Oh you’re right, the maps!” She immediately snapped back to attention, quickly tugging strings and setting books flying around the room. “How much do you know about, geology, geography, and climatic trends since the pre-separation era?”
“Uhhhhhh,” Dash said, trailing off. It was going to be a long day.
