Red. Orange. Yellow. The coloured strands wavered across her vision like grass in the sunset.
Rainbow Dash stood poised on the edge of the cloud, her mane blowing freely in the wind that caught at the edges of her feathers, insistent – tugging at her, inviting her to jump. To lean into it, to fall and twist and soar.
To be free.
But Rainbow lingered there, in that one rare moment of peace. Suspended above the world, where houses were reduced to specks and ponies to silence. Looking down on it all, knowing that not one bit of it had the power to touch her up here. The earth below was nothing more than a painting, laid out for her to view – a work of art.
Her eyes traced that tangled web of colour, shocking in its complexity. The dark ashy green of the forest. The yellow squares of wheat. Little bright splotches of earth-bound civilisation, and the white beacons of the cloud cities above. A silvery wisp of a river threading through it all as it led toward the great vast blue beyond.
Rainbow Dash lived for the thrill of the dive, of the chase. For the wind howling in her ears and tearing at the very roots of her mane. Her heart hammering in her ears. Breath catching in her throat as it approached – that feeling of raw, unadulterated power as the living rainbow blossomed behind her, her magic arcing across the sky.
There was nothing like it.
But these moments, these fleeting, floating moments…well, they weren’t so bad either.
She tilted her head, mane billowing as the wind picked up, and squinted down. Was that…there, that pinkish-purple smudge just beside the Everfree’s edge. That was Ponyville. She shot a glance up at the sun, which was climbing high overhead.
Almost noon. She was nearly late.
Her friends would be down there. Rarity would be locking up the boutique, Fluttershy would be leaving the sanctuary. Pinkie would be bouncing down the street right now, and any second the crack of Twilight’s teleportation would sound. Applejack, punctual to a fault, bless her – she would have left the farm three-quarters of an hour ago to be sure she was on time.
Only one ingredient was missing. Rainbow herself.
But still she lingered. Just a little longer, up here in the blue and the quiet. Silence was not something that came naturally to Rainbow Dash. She preferred the roar of the crowds at the Wonderbolts shows – or better yet, the roar of the wind, wild and unadulterated. She liked the laughter of her friends or the comforting honey-treacle tones of AJ’s voice late at night. Silence…well, she could do without it most days.
But sometimes, like right now, it hit just right. It was times like this that Rainbow remembered why she loved to fly.
And then somewhere far below, a hawk screeched, and the silence was shattered. The moment was lost. Rainbow Dash sighed, grimaced, and stuck her tongue out at the distant interloper who dared to fly where no pony would. Nopony but her, anyway.
And then she shook it off, that sense of vague disappointment in the ephemeral nature of peace, and spread her blue wings wide. A grin spread over her face, and she tensed the powerful muscles of her shoulders.
“Alright, then,” she said, eyebrows lowering into a glare. “You wanna go?”
It was a look that was at once both challenge and invitation. There was nopony in sight, but it was a challenge nonetheless. Rainbow Dash never went. She raced.
She rolled her head, listening to the vertebrae crackle. “Because let me tell you, buddy, I can go.”
She waited for a moment, but no response came from her invisible opponent. She laughed, a noise that was more an expression of defiance than of humour, and took a step toward the cloud’s edge. Then another. And another.
And then, with less fanfare than an earth pony exiting a train carriage, Rainbow leaned forward and simply let gravity take her. She fell like a stone, the wind pushing the flesh of her cheeks back to bare her teeth in a vicious grin.
She spiralled down, the world blurring into a mish-mash whirlwind of colour – a kaleidoscope run mad. And then, just as the force pressing on her eyeballs grew almost too much to bear, her wings snapped out. Her fall became a swoop and she banked out, the wind screaming behind her, the colours of her tail already blurring to show the rainbow forming behind.
“Aw, yeah!” The whoop echoed behind her as she soared away.
And far behind her, far above, the lonely little cloud continued on its solitary way as the silence and the peace returned.
The sky grew darker with the gathering clouds, and the sun seemed to quicken its pace as it slipped below the horizon. Rime put her head down and pulled herself on up the final slope. The snow was slippery underhoof, and little balls of ice clung to the shaggy fur on her legs. At the top of the hill she paused and looked up at the overcast sky just in time to see the first snowflake fall.
Her mane blowing in front of her eyes, Rime watched it tumble end over end. Floating down and down until it merged with the snow blanketing the earth and became unidentifiable. Just another member of the herd. What would that feel like? Above her, the second snowflake fell, and the third, and the ninetieth. Drifting down like dandelion seeds to layer the white coating the world a little thicker.
With a small sigh, Rime shook the half-frozen snow from her mane and began to walk again. The silence and the stillness could play tricks on you, out here in the wastes. You could lose track of the time, lose your way. Wander on and on, growing colder until you finally froze, with a dreamy smile still fixed in place.
But Rime had a job to do, and she needed to keep moving.
The light faded quickly after the snow started to fall. Rime paused on another hilltop to scratch the snow away. The brittle stems of frozen grass crunched beneath her teeth and slid down her gullet like tiny shards of winter.
The wind howled over the icefields that night, and even beneath her thick coat of fur, Rime shivered. Before the first hint of sunrise lightened the sky she was walking again. One hoof before the other. The walk was a long one, but it was a path Rime had trodden before. She could do it again, no matter how the cold bit at the soft flesh of her nostrils.
She found the first spur of ice just as the pale midwinter sun was reaching its zenith. It jutted out of the snow: a blade of diamond fragmenting into two smaller branches near the peak. Rime blinked fearfully up at it, and gave it a wide berth. She could almost hear the soft tinkling creak of its growth.
The jagged blades of ice grew more and more frequent, bursting up from the snow like spines on the back of some gigantic beast. The cold grew crueller and sharper, until the very air in Rime’s throat hurt as she breathed it in. Her progress grew slower — no longer trustworthy snow, packed hard by countless snowfalls over the long winter months. Now only ice was left, slippery and treacherous. The snow was still falling, thicker than ever, but it froze as soon as it touched the ice, joining the fantastic, otherworldly shapes that spiralled and staggered across the landscape. A forest of ice, a lifeless jungle. The Heart of Winter.
Rime swallowed hard, but she never made a sound. She did not waver. She just kept moving, one hoof after the other.
She stumbled upon the lord of this elfhame almost by accident. She rounded another towering icicle and suddenly there he was. Gleaming in the sunlight, his glassy scales iridescent as the snow. A colour so pale it seemed to burn like fire.
Raw cold curled out from its nostrils, tracing curlicues in the air. Lacy patterns that seemed almost like they would freeze solid and fall to the ground. Clinking like glass. The cold was a physical force, a claw around Rime’s throat, making it hard to breathe.
The ice dragon opened its glowing eyes, and Rime fell to her knees in the snow.
“Oh, Fiddlesticks,” she says, her voice so hoarse that it’s hardly even a whisper. “I’m out of time.”
My throat convulses. I rub my hoof over hers, over and over again. I’ve done that so often these past few months sometimes it surprises me the keratin is unmarked. But her hooves are still beautiful, still whole and shining. I buff them and file the edges myself, once a week. Saturday afternoons. We always loved our girlie saturdays.
The rest of her, though…she sighs, the breath rattling a little, and I raise my eyes to her face. I can see the changes there. I can see the changes everywhere. Her golden eyes are sunken, hollow. Her mane lies limp and flat against her head. The outline of her skull is much too clear beneath her face. Like the reaper himself is here, inside her, just waiting to come out and take her.
The worst of it is her wings. Lightning’s wings have always been her pride and joy. When I shut my eyes and picture her, her wings are still whole. Gleaming with health, freshly preened and every feather aligned. Not ragged and broken, half the feathers fallen out. The grey-green flesh beneath clearly visible.
Like something out of a zombie movie, huh? she said, a few mornings ago, when I helped her to the bathroom and started to tear up at the sight of them without the shield of the bedsheets. Still trying to make me laugh even now. And I…I couldn’t even manage a smile for her.
I try now, though. Bravely paste one onto my face and will my tear ducts to close back up. There’ll be plenty of time for that. After. When I can’t hurt her anymore.
“Come on, Dustie,” I croak, my treacherous voice wobbling and betraying me even if my face does not. “There’s still plenty of time.”
Weakly, she shakes her head. “Not…not anymore, I don’t think. It’s coming. I can feel it.”
I can feel it too. I’ve felt it for weeks. For months, ever since the doc first sat us down and told us. Your tests came back, Ms. Lightning Dust, and…well, we have some difficult news for you. You may want to take a seat.
And every day since then we’ve only slipped deeper into this waking nightmare. I’ve stayed hale and hearty, nothing wrong but a few grey hairs in my blue mane, a little case of the shakes sometimes when I play too long, but nothing like Lightning Dust. Nothing like the invisible vampire that has latched onto my wife and slowly leeched the life from her. She’s wasting away right in front of my eyes and I can’t do a single thing to save her.
“Please, Dustie,” I whisper, clutching her hoof to my chest as though that will keep her here. “Keep fighting it. For me, for Dust Devil. Stay with us. Just a little longer.”
She smiles, one corner of her mouth tugging her sagging skin upward just enough to recreate a simulacrum of the crooked grin that first stole my heart. “Not sure I’ve got much more fight left in me, Fids.”
I set my jaw, hold her foreleg tighter. “That’s a lie and you know it, Lightning Dust. I’ve never met a pony with more fight than you in my entire life.”
She blinks blearily up at me. “I wish that was true, hon.”
“I love you,” I tell her, because I have nothing left to say. Nothing left to give than this deepest, most primal truth.
“I love you too,” she says, and she is wilting against her pillows. “I’m just so…dang tired.”
“Sleep, then,” I soothe her. Helping her lie down, tucking the blankets safe and secure up to her chin. “Just sleep, Dustie. I’ll be here the whole time.”
“I know you will.” Her eyes slip shut, and I know that one of these days it will be the last time I see that motion happen. The very last time.
“I love you,” I repeat, the words so soft I can barely hear them myself. Nothing that will disrupt her rest, the precious respite she so desperately needs. “I love you so much.”
But we’re out of time, and there’s nothing I can do.
