Evening Lights

by PrismStrike

First published

Rainbow Dash runs afoul of some poison joke, strangeness ensues.

One very dull and boring evening Rainbow Dash finds herself wishing for something to do while lazing around on a cloud. She will find that sometimes you really need to be careful of what you wish for.


Inspired by StolenAlicorn's comment On Come The Dawn.


Not an actual sequel but a companion piece to Come The Dawn from the perspective of the mothpony.

Rainbow Dash

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Rainbow Dash was bored and found herself thinking of her day as she lay on the cloud she had claimed just minutes ago. In fact her entire day had been boring, weather patrol had been uninteresting, just some minor cloud busting early on in the day. Her friends had all been busy or simply not in town Rarity was off in Manehattan tending to one of her store locations. Applejack had been busy harvesting apples from the west orchard and had told her she was 'Busier than a bee during pollen season' and didnt have time to entertain her. Pinkie was off in Yakyakistan for a several days visiting Prince Rutherford, for some Yak celebration she hadn't caught the name of. Twilight had left for Canterlot that morning something about official Princess duties. Even Fluttershy had been busy tending to an injured animal and wasn't able to hangout and help brighten Dash's day any.

"Ughh I'm sooo bored. I wish something interesting would happen" With Dash's loud declaration of boredom to the world and wish for adventure, the powers that be decides to give her just that. Without provocation or warning Dash's comfy little cloud suddenly begins to both dissipate and fire off lighting into the air around itself. Dash immediately taking to the air though not quite quickly enough

"YOWCH" Dash exclaims suddenly as she takes a near miss to the right wing scorching a few of her feathers, while also causing her flight muscles, in that wing to lock up, though thankfully her wing was already extended and so she is able to slowly glide down into what she quickly comes to realize is the Everfree forest below her. As her glide path takes her down below the tree's though, she see's something that almost makes her heart stop while immediatly putting her into a full panic.

"no..No...NO!" As Dash frantically tries to avert or change her path, the locked muscle of her wings prevents her from doing more than just listing to one side slightly, and after a few agonizing moment, she hits the ground hooves first, skidding into the single largest patch of poison joke she had ever laid eyes upon. As she skids through the flowers, her eyes closed on instinct, one of her hooves catches something in the dirt and she is thrown to the ground. Her skid turning into a sidelong slide as she goes barreling through the poisonous bulb's. No longer just disturbing them but now actively wrecking them with her body though not by choice.

As Dash comes to a stop she lays there upon the ground, stunned for several moments barely able to even think as it feels like her brain is still trying to catch up with her body. Once she has regained her senses though and has stood up, she looks to the now bare path through the poison joke her body carved. After staring at the destruction for a few moments she cranes her head around to check her side seeing dozens of poison joke bulbs now mushed into her coat all along the side of her body and in the feathers of her wing.

"This is bad, this is really, really bad." Dash begins to panic a little as after her and her friends last encounter with the evil, blue flowers, Twilight had gone through every book she could get her hooves on almost completely shutting herself in for sometime, only coming out to meet couriers from across Equestria bringing her books. After several days, almost a week in honesty she had come to all of them with a stern warning. That if they should ever come across poison joke, regardless of how little or how much. Whatever they do they must not destroy or otherwise damage the flowers. She had gone on to clarify that normally when disturbed they only release a small bit of chaos infused pollen, due to the shaking of the petals which resulted in the"pranks" they play, but when damaged or uprooted they would release an inordinate amount of their pollen and the effects of that much chaos on a living being was rarely good or healthy for the creature in question.

After several minutes of panicking Dash finally gets herself under control "Okay Dash, you have been smeared with dozen's of poison joke bulbs the effects of which, in this quantity, are unknown. Right now you gotta get back to Ponyville, your friends will be able to help you out of this, just gotta make it back first" After giving herself a very short pep talk mostly to give herself something to focus on, she begins to trot along through the forest in the general direction she remembers seeing Ponyville from in the air as she was coming down. As the minutes and steps go by though she starts to feel rather strange. For one her neck and chest have begun to itch, her wings feel weird and she must of hit her head at some point as it feels like she has two small lumps between her ears.


It is several hours later, from when she crashed, before she finally begins to see the tree's of the forest begin to thin, a clear sign she has nearly reached the edge. Over that time though her body had truly started feeling...strange. Her wings no longer felt like they used to, Instead of feathery and fluffy they felt light as air yet incredibly rigid, though as she had found she could still fly as the locked muscle had relaxed almost half an hour ago, and whatever her wings had become, they still functioned as wings. The itching of her chest had also stopped but now whenever she ran a hoof across the front of her body it felt, floofier than it should for mid summer and she could swear her tongue felt far longer than it should. Dash ignored these things though as they weren't important right now only making it back to Ponyville and the help of her friends was important.

As she stepped out of the forest, she saw it, her salvation and rescue as there just a short distance away was Fluttershy's cabin. She had done it, she had made it back out of the forest, but then something catches her eye, a light coming from one of Fluttershy's windows and without even thinking of it, she begins to trot forwards repeating a single word under her breath. "laammppp" She keeps repeating it over and over as she gets closer, going right to the lit up window. As she presses her snout against the glass though something seems to drag against the pane making a soft noise, before Dash can even react to it though she hears a crash from inside. For reasons she can't understand though she is unable to move transfixed by the light coming from the window and so she presses her face even further against it. As she is staring into the window her friend comes into view, only to stare right into Dash's eyes with a look of fear upon her face.

The look of terror that Fluttershy has is enough to break Dash from the hold of the light for a moment allowing her to retreat into the air, simply from the look her friend was wearing. 'Why..why was Fluttershy so afraid of me, she looked absolutely terrified, like she had seen a monster or something.' she thinks to herself before angling back down towards her friends cabin

As she begins to descend she spots the window to Fluttershy's kitchen lit up and glowing almost seeming like a beacon to her eyes. "LAAAMMMPP" she says with a strangely monotone voice, as once again the light seems to take over her mind and she goes diving down towards it.

BANG. The window rattles a little as Dash runs into it smushing up against it like a cartoon character for a second before sliding off. With a monotone cry of "LAAMMPP" she takes off into the air again this time spotting the first lit window on the front side of the cabin. Once again she finds herself unable to stop as she goes barreling into this one as well.

BANG. She hits the window once more mashing up against it and sliding down to the ground once more. Her mind is fogged now her own seeming far away and hard to focus on. The glow from the window seems all encompassing like if she can just get to it all will be well in the world. With that new thought now crisp and clear, completely overtaking her mind and thoughts, she slowly lifts off the ground into a hover, her wings silently beating. Dash slowly makes her way backwards until she has put a decent bit of distance between herself and the glow of the window. With a monotone cry of "LAAAMMMPPP!" she rushes forwards at top speed impacting and shattering the window sending bits of glass flying in front of her, only to hit something solid head on and go tumbling end over end through the cabin.

She flits about once more dazed and confused, smacking into random objects and knocking things over, until a little white ball of fluff and fur comes bounding out of nowhere to jump onto her head where it begins pelting her with its foot while squeaking. Suddenly more creatures begin to come out and start to chase her around knocking things over and generally making a big, as the chase her around the room until this really big one moves into her flight path grabbing her as she impacts against its chest.

As Dash struggles in the grip of this large brown creature, she suddenly stops, catching sight of something that her mind completely transfixes upon, the very source of the mesmerizing glow. With that her mind completely loses all semblance of rational thought and she begins to drool a little while chanting "Laaaaaammmmpppp"


Rainbow Dash had no idea how long she had been sitting here staring at this marvelous luminosity, this magnificent and beautiful display of light and heat. For a moment she thinks she hears something but it seems pretty far away and not important, until yeah she heard it again. Slowly turning her head she looks down at the source of the noise not understanding what this yellow, winged things wants from her or her lamp, so she does the only thing she can and tells her to leave though all that comes out is a single, long, stretched out monotone word. "LAAAAAMMMMMMMMPPPPPPP!!!"