Rainbow Dash Kills a Hooker

Chapters

Day 1, Part 1
Day 1, Part 2
Day 1, Part 3
Conclusion, Day 1
Day 2, Part 1
Day 2, Part 2

Day 1, Part 1

To say that Rainbow Dash was slow to wake would be an understatement even in the best of circumstances. The morning after a Pinkie Pie party, however, was an entirely different beast, and still more so when said party involved as much alcohol as last night’s had. Sprawled face-down on her bed, the pony snorted as one of her hind legs spasmed, and again a moment later as she rolled over onto her side. Unfortunately for her, the motion brought her face straight into the sunlight let into the room by its lone window.

The pony grumbled, beginning to wake up ever so slightly, although not quite awake enough yet to feel the pounding headache she would suffer from for the rest of the morning. Vaguely muttering what was in all likelihood an epithet, she dragged the tuft of cloud she was using as a pillow over her eyes, blocking out the baleful rays of the sun.

Alas, it was too little, too late. She had begun to feel her head throbbing in harmony with her heartbeat. Every second of rise from slumber brought a slightly more painful pulse, and every pulse brought her a little bit further from sleep in an unspeakably cruel cycle. Within ten minutes, the ache had reached its peak, and Rainbow Dash finally gave up on trying to avoid it by going back to sleep.

Groaning, she pulled the pillow and makeshift sleepmask off her head and threw it to the floor below, then tried to force her eyes open. She quickly abandoned the attempt. She had only peeled her eyelids a sliver apart, but the bright light of the sun doubled the throbbing in her skull.

The pony grunted, rolled to the side, and slid her forelegs off the bed and onto the cloud below. Barrel still resting on the bed, she paused for a moment to vainly try thinking her headache out of existence.

“Ow,” she muttered as a particularly strong series of pulses hit her. “Ow, ow, ow.”

Sighing, she dragged the rest of her body off of the bed and again cracked her eyes. It still exacerbated the effects of the hangover, but this time she was prepared and it didn’t hit her as hard.

Finally up and awake, Rainbow Dash moved towards a roughly rectangular opening in one of the walls, then turned left and made her way to the bathroom (not noticing the trail of dark red spots leading down the hallway). Glancing into a large mirror mounted on the wall, she noticed a splotch of dried, dark red liquid on her chest, with quite a bit of the same on her forelegs. Probably spilled punch, she thought, then tried to remember what exactly had gone on the night before.

Her summons only attracted a hooffull of disjointed images—a dark room with pulsating colored lights everywhere, a splash of bright red, and puke. Lots of puke.

At that moment, hungover, covered in alcoholic fruit juice, and stinking of vomit (although she had yet to realize this last part), Rainbow Dash made a decision that would stick with her for the rest of her days.

I am never going to drink again.

She nodded in affirmation of her new goal, then winced as the sudden movement sent a railroad spike of pain through her head. She reached out and smacked a small bit of cloud cropping out of the wall, and water began to pour out of it. Most of it landed on the puffy floor below and was absorbed back into the house. As she placed her hooves underneath the flow, however, a small magical field captured most of the liquid, which she promptly splashed into her face. After repeating the motions several times, she felt marginally better.

At this point her stomach had started rumbling, telling her to eat something, dammit. And that was just what she would do... after a nice, quick shower to get the punch out of her coat.

Nearly fifteen minutes later, she had finally gotten the last of the stuff out. She shook herself from muzzle to tail, ridding herself of the remaining drops of water and—accidentally—sending a dull but powerful pain shooting through her skull. “Gah! Dammit!” she exclaimed, and again silently swore to a life of sobriety.

Cradling her still-throbbing head with one of her hooves, she made her way out of the bathroom and down to the opposite end of the hallway, again not noticing the small spots of red. When she got to the stairs, rather than walking down, she flapped her wings once, propelling herself forward and up off of the cloud to a somewhat gentle landing below.

There were still more stains below the stairs, and she finally noticed them. Frowning, she looked down the hall, where the drink that she had only just gotten off of her coat looked less like drops and more like somepony had poured it out of a cup as they walked out of the kitchen. The closer it got to her, the more spaced out it was, each drop growing farther and farther apart as they went up the stairs and, she assumed, down the hallway. She glanced at the stains, wondering exactly how much punch had been spilled on her. Probably a hell of a lot, with how much she had trailed throughout the house. She would’ve had to have had an entire bowl dumped on her to account for all that. She sighed and facehoofed, realizing that there was really only one pony in town clumsy enough to do that. “Ditzy,” she muttered. “Featherbrain.”

Her stomach rumbled, reminding her why she was downstairs. Thoughts of punch driven from her mind by hunger, she began to walk the short distance down the hall to the kitchen, simultaneously trying to remember if she’d had anything to eat last night (Pinkie Pie’s parties were notoriously heavy on pastries and cakes and light on actual food) and come up with a plan for breakfast. She came up empty on both counts a few feet before entering the kitchen (she was still unable to remember the vast majority of exactly what had happened the night before, and she could never really remember what was in her fridge). She drew even with the kitchen doorway, turned to enter... and froze as she discovered the only truly important thing that had happened the night before.

The kitchen, it should be noted before continuing, was usually the only room in a cloud house mostly built and containing groundside materials—after all, it’s rather difficult to cook eggs when your oven’s incapable of supporting a pan or generating heat, or to eat when your food keeps falling through the floor. As such, everything in the room short of the walls and ceiling was composed of solids. The same thing that made it possible to keep, prepare, and consume food, however, also made it one of the most dangerous rooms in a pegasus house—used to the safety of clouds, a tired, intoxicated, or accident-prone pony could severely injure or even kill herself... or another.

Rainbow Dash’s kitchen was almost exactly as it usually was, barring four details: the refrigerator had fallen and was propped up by the island, one of the two chairs that had been around said island lay in pieces on the floor, there were dark red stains on virtually every exposed surface, and laying next to the refrigerator was a dark gray female pegasus, glassy eyes wide to the world, impaled through the barrel and back by a long, splintered leg of the broken chair.

Rainbow Dash could simply stare at the scene, first with confusion, then with growing horror as she realized what she was seeing. Unwillingly, she found her gaze attracted to the mare on the floor.

She was lying on her stomach, having come to rest on the floor. She was about the same size as Rainbow Dash, although her wings, one splayed across the floor and bent unnaturally backwards about halfway out, were slightly smaller. There was a long, cylindrical piece of wood running through the mare’s body and about six inches out halfway down her back. It was a dark red above the exit point, and the visible end was sharp and jagged. Her cutie mark was composed of two white, interlocking circles, one on top of the other. The bottom one had a line extending straight down and crossed near the end; the top had an arrow pointing to the upper right. Her mane and tail—both about as long and styled similarly to Rainbow Dash’s—were a rich sky blue, and her coat was the deep gray of charcoal. She lay in a small pool of dark red blood, still wet without a patch of cloud to absorb it. Her head... her head was turned towards the door, allowing—forcing—Rainbow Dash to absorb every detail. There were thin, dried streams of blood coursing down from the slightly open corners of her mouth, her ears drooping slightly, and her eyes—

Oh, dear Celestia, her eyes. Her eyes were still open, but dull and glassy, the aquamarine iris far too pale and small and the pitch black pupil much too wide. It was instantly, painfully obvious to Rainbow Dash that those eyes were devoid of life, but they were still open, and they were looking at her, they were staring at her, accusing her, and now she was backing away from the horrific scene in front of her, and—

“What...” she whispered, trembling as the reality of the situation came crashing down on her, “what did I do?”

Day 1, Part 2

Rainbow Dash stared, mouth agape, at the body lying on her kitchen floor and fell back onto her haunches. As she tried to comprehend that there was a dead pony in her kitchen, some idle part of her mind noted that she was no longer hungry. In fact, she felt a little bit sick.

Okay, a lot sick.

She bent over and retched over the floor, producing only a few scattered specks of bile. She repeated this twice, although neither bile or vomit came forth—a testament, much like the body lying in a puddle of blood barely ten feet away from her, to the copious amounts of alcohol she had imbibed the night before.

Several seconds later, the realization hit her, really hit her, in the delayed way that massive and life-changing events tended to do: she had killed somepony, and while Dash was by no means the smartest pony in Equestria, she knew that it was way, way bigger than breaking into a hospital to finish reading a book. It was... was... she didn’t even have words to describe how much bigger (although if she’d been Twilight Sparkle, the phrase “orders of magnitude” would have come to mind).

She had to do... something. Anything. Anything at all, it didn’t matter what, but she needed to make this go away, and fast. A rough plan began to form in her head. Get rid of the body, that was the important thing, the body had to not be in her house anymore, whatever happened after that would be okay because there would be no more body in her house.

The pegasus stood back up, recovered from her nausea—mostly, there was still the faint urge to throw up but it was barely noticeable—and stepped slowly into the kitchen, approaching the body. She wasn’t scared, at all. Nuh-uh. Only foals were scared of silly things like dead mares in the kitchen.

She reached a hoof out towards the corpse to drag it outside, but couldn’t bring herself to touch it and pulled her hoof back. It rested in the air for a moment, raised, before again extending, and again being withdrawn before it could find its mark.

Rainbow Dash closed her eyes and inhaled, deeply, and then her hoof shot out and touched the charcoal mare on the shoulder. She shuddered as her brain registered how the corpse felt underneath the fur—cold and clammy and not at all pleasant. Removing her hoof from the body, she took a step that brought her to the mare’s head rather than her side. Squeezing her eyes shut and taking deep, ragged breaths, she began dragging the dead pony, first under the refrigerator and then through the doorway that connected the kitchen and the largely-unused dining room. The body did not seem to want to move at first, and she realized that the pool of blood had become sticky overnight. It left a dark, tacky trail on what had once been a slick white tile floor.

Rainbow Dash dragged the body through one room, two hallways, and down another stairway on the way to her front door, by which point enough of her reason had come back online for her to realize she had put absolutely no thought into her plan. She had no idea where she could take the body, and even if she did she couldn’t go dragging it around in the middle of the day, and even if she could somehow do that she had no idea what to do with it once she got there. She took a few deep breaths, trying to calm the panic that was still growing inside her, and sat down to try and think of solutions.

She wasn’t exactly sure when she’d left her house and started flying, or when she’d landed in Ponyville, just that she hadn’t been able to think around the body. She had tried going into another room and pretending that it just wasn’t real, that the situations she was thinking of were only hypo-watcha-ma-callits, but she just couldn’t do it, couldn’t make herself believe that it was just a game or something, and she needed to exercise if she wanted to think. So after hastily dragging a few tufts of cloud over the deceased pony in her front door in case anybody came by, she started flying as fast and as long as she could, not paying attention to where she was going or how long she was flying, but eventually she had had to land. So she did, and she walked, and she was so busy trying to figure a way out of her problem that she had been walking through the busy streets of Ponyville on a Sunday for ten minutes without realizing it. When she had, her first thought was something along the lines of, Run run run they know you did it how could they not get out while you still can you idiot. This prompted a frenzied attempt at flight, which her wings seemed to find offensive for some reason because they refused to do anything. She had just begun to turn tail and run for it when it occurred to her that—

Maybe I can ask one of my friends for help.

Almost immediately she dismissed the idea. She was Rainbow Dash, the coolest, fastest pony in Equestria, only pegasus in living memory to do a Sonic Rainboom, future Wonderbolt, and—

Completely and totally beyond anything you have ever even thought of dealing with.

She flicked her ear in annoyance and went to war with the reasonable part of her brain, logic and pride duking it out in a battle royale that ended in a rare compromise: she would find Twilight and have her cast some sort of spell that would let her remember what happened the night before (and maybe get rid of her hangover, she amended as the market lay siege to her ears). However, she would not—not!—tell her about what exactly she wanted to remember. Twilight may have been a great friend, but she knew as well as any other that really big, really important stuff could splinter friendships.

Which was how she found herself trotting through the Ponyville market on a Sunday... morning? Afternoon? She only just realized that she hadn’t yet bothered to check the time, although at the moment she didn’t particularly care. She was preoccupied by trying to not like she had a dead pony stuffed in her floor and simultaneously looking wildly around at everypony, convinced that somewhere in the crowd that wouldn’t stop jostling her, someone was telling some guard that they had somehow seen her doing it, and that in a minute one would come up to her and say—

“Howdy, Dash! How’re y’all doin’ today?”

“Gah!” the pegasus shouted, jumping nearly five feet into the air, followed by an “Oof!” as she hit the ground a moment later.

Applejack leaned over the Sweet Apple Acres market stand and snorted in a kind of suppressed laughter. “Ya alright there, sugarcube?” she drawled as she leaned down even further and offered a hoof to the pegasus. “Didn't mean to scare ya none.”

Rainbow Dash accepted the proffered hoof wordlessly, not looking at her friend. “Bit jumpy there, huh, RD?” she joked. When the pegasus didn’t seem to notice her teasing, she took a close look, and saw that Dash’s ears were flattened against her head, which in turn was darting to and fro, not focusing on anything for more than a second. She looked like she was running from somepony, and it hadn’t helped how quickly she’d been moving through the crowd. “Dash?” she said, concerned for her friend. When no response was forthcoming, she tried again. “Dash!” she said, somewhat louder, thinking that maybe the other pony hadn’t heard her over the crowd. She was proven wrong when the pegasus turned to leave, still glancing over her shoulder every second or so.

“Rainbow Dash!”

The addressed pony started.

Beat.

“Ididn’tdoanythinglastnightIdon’tknowwhatyou’retalkingaboutyoucan’tproveanything!”

Applejack recoiled for a second, surprised, and said, “Hold on a sec, Dash, what’re ya—” and realized it was pointless, since the pony had somehow already shoved through the crowd and escaped her sight.

Part of her wanted to go after the mare, and she was just about to, when one of the “Flower Girls” (the one with a rose for a cutie mark, she could never remember their names), as they were referred to around town, approached her stand and started on about who was having the illegitimate foals of whoever. She tried to interject several times but was unable to find an opening. She sighed and settled in for forty minutes of inane blather she didn’t give half a damn about, and resolved to speak to Rainbow Dash later. As the rose pony babbled about this and that and whatever, though, only one thought went through Applejack’s mind.

What the hay’s got into that mare?

Author's Note

Thank you to everyone who's read, commented, liked, faved, or even just looked at this on the front page, thought it might be interesting and promptly forgot all about it (even though you're not reading this... jerks). Comments, questions, concerns, suggestions, and death threats are welcome, although I make no guarantee they will be responded to, answered, addressed, inserted, or not be met by a hitman, respectively.

Ceterum censeo EQG esse delendam.

Day 1, Part 3

By the time Rainbow Dash made it out of the market, she was finally beginning to calm down. Her breathing was still shallow and rapid, but the thudding of her heart had dropped to a distant drumbeat. She hated to admit it to herself, but she had completely freaked out when Applejack addressed her. She sighed and wiped sweat from her brow, momentarily relaxing—then snapping back to full-blown paranoia a second later, certain that she was being watched by somepony. Wanting to get away from everypony else as quickly as she possibly could, she took the remaining several blocks to the Golden Oaks Library at a mild trot, doing her best to look like she had nothing suspicious to hide and failing miserably.

She approached the door and stood in front of it, hoof raised to knock but not moving. She closed her eyes and inhaled, deeply, exhaled, inhaled again and held the breath this time, and rapped her hoof against the door three times. There was a brief pause before a voice inside called out, “Come in!”

Twilight Sparkle, unlike some ponies she could name, had only had a single drink the night before, and woken up with no ill effects at her usual weekend time—7:30 AM sharp. She had immediately gotten to work: removing the dust that settled throughout the library each night, making sure that every last one of the books currently in the library was in its proper place, sending off vaguely threatening letters to the borrowers of long overdue books, and other tasks that needed to be done each day. At eight, the schedule called for her to begin making breakfast which on Sundays was Prench toast. After the forty five minutes she allotted herself and Spike to eat, she made a final pass throughout the library to make sure everything was ready to go. And at 9:00 AM, on the dot, she was sitting behind the librarian’s desk, horn aglow as she flipped the sign on the front of the door to read, “Open,” and unlocking it.

With her number one assistant out helping Rarity dig up gems for the day, that marked the beginning of three hours and forty seven minutes of near isolation for the unicorn, punctuated two and a half hours in for eighteen seconds when somepony from out of town asked where to find town hall.

Still the librarian remained at her post, her only defense against soul-crushing boredom a thick textbook on theoretical physics. She was nearly halfway through, reading through a theory about mass-energy-magic equivalence, when somepony knocked on her door.

Two emotions flashed through her: elation at someone finally coming by; and annoyance, partially because she’d have to wait to finish, but mostly because it was a public library and how many times did she need to tell ponies that before they stopped knocking and just entered?

She took a moment to memorize the page she was on, close the book, and set it to the side of the desk. “Come in!” she called, briefly wondering who it was before the door opened.

Twilight inhaled sharply as Rainbow Dash quickly entered and slammed the door shut. Her friend was breathing rapidly and sweating. This could have been dismissed as the effects of a recent workout, if it weren’t for the fact that she was darting her head around. It’s almost as if, Twilight thought, she’s afraid of somepony else being here. Stepping out from behind her desk, she approached the pegasus. A worried look on her face and concern in her voice, she said, “Rainbow, are you—”

That was as far as she got. In the time it took her to blink, Dash was on top of her, almost literally. The unicorn found two hooves on her shoulders and a stream of gibberish flowing out of Dash’s mouth, the pegasus talking so quickly Twilight couldn’t keep up. The only words she could make out were “Celestia” and “help”. After a moment of confusion, she took a step back and a light purple glow flared up around her horn. An identical shade appeared over Rainbow’s mouth, which the pegasus was now unable to move. For a few seconds, she didn’t seem to realize, but stopped trying to move her jaw as soon as she did. The light vanished as Twilight released the magic. “You about done?” she deadpanned.

Rainbow grinned sheepishly and looked down, rubbing the back of her neck with a hoof and relaxing somewhat, the nature of her visit half-buried by embarrassment. “Heh... sorry about that,” she said, looking back up and lowering her hoof.

Twilight smiled and nodded, saying, “It’s alright, Rainbow. Now...” she hesitated, “you said you needed help with something?”

The smile on Dash’s face disappeared. “Yeah...” she said slowly, now looking off to the side rather than at Twilight. “D’you remember what happened last night?”

“You got drunk,” she said flatly. “Really drunk. Which I imagine you’re paying for right now. Here,” she said as her horn lit up again. This time, rather than confining itself to Dash’s mouth, the soft glow of magic enveloped her entire head. For a moment, the headache—which at this point had actually receded to a distant thump—came back in full force, as if cannons were firing at the inside of her skull, then disappeared entirely. She blinked twice and shook her head, somewhat disconcerted by the magic but glad to be rid of the accursed hangover.

“Better?” Twilight asked.

“Yeah, thanks,” said Dash.

“Good,” the unicorn said. “Now, was that all you needed, or is there something else?” She assumed there was. After all, the pegasus had asked if Twilight remembered last night, and if the pegasus hadn’t been able to remember she got drunk then she needed to be checked into the hospital.

“Yeah,” she said hesitantly. “There’s...” she paused, then looked at Twilight. When she spoke again, there was no mistaking the seriousness in her voice... and, Twilight thought, a touch of panic. “Look, Twilight. You can’t tell anypony about this, got it?”

“Of course, Dash.” She put a hoof on the pegasus’s shoulder, looked her in the eye, and smiled. “It stays between you and me.”

“Alright. I... I need to remember something from last night,” she said nervously. “You got a spell or something?”

By the time she had finished her sentence, Twilight had spun around and moved to one of the bookshelves. Looking at the spine of each book on one row, she dismissed tome after tome, until finally coming to one called Mastering Magical Manipulation of Mind and Memory. She telekinetically grasped the book and opened it. She walked back over towards the pegasus while flipping through the pages, until she came to the section regarding memory recovery.

Rainbow Dash sat down and fidgeted as Twilight read through the procedure on casting the spell, though the unicorn didn’t notice. It only took her a few minutes before she felt ready to cast. The spell itself was pretty straightforward, wouldn’t require much magic, and had no risks greater than failing to recover the memory and the caster getting a glimpse of whatever recently-formed memory the subject was thinking about.

“Okay, Dash,” she said, closing the book and setting it to the side. “Ready?” The pegasus nodded. “Alright. Just sit down and we’ll get started,” Twilight said, taking the action herself. Once Dash was settled, Twilight touched her horn to the pegasus’s forehead, closed her eyes, and focused intently as she released her magic.

The spell failed miserably, despite being perfectly cast—a one in fifteen chance associated with each memory, rendering it permanently inaccessible to magical viewing. Fortunately—or perhaps unfortunately, depending on how pessimistic you may be—the failure of the spell brought into being the second risk, showing Twilight the memory at the forefront of her friend’s mind; and a mere hour and a half after discovering that they had committed a murder, what sane being would be thinking about anything else?

The memory flashed across Twilight’s mind, and for a moment as it was downloaded she thought it had first been one of her own. Neurons fired and certain glands kicked into gear, others shutting down as her system switched from “regular morning” to “stressing the hell out”. Adrenalin surged through her veins, her body getting ready to do whatever it took to preserve itself... and then it processed the memory again, cross-referenced it with earlier ones, and came to the conclusion that it had not in fact happened, stuffing it away for later examination. Twilight Sparkle was, of course, unaware of this, knowing only that she felt like she had just fallen half a mile and that one of her best friends had a dead body stuffed away in her house.

She stood up shakily—the catastrophic failure of the spell had knocked both of the ponies down—and collapsed again. Rainbow Dash, who hadn’t had to deal with a terrifying memory being forced into her head, was already standing, albeit a bit shakily. As Twilight collapsed, her eyes went wide with alarm, confusion from the effects of the spell being shoved aside by concern for her friend.

“You alright, Twi?” she asked, concern clear in her voice.

Twilight looked up at Dash, eyes wide, and again forced herself to her hoofs. Body trembling as the adrenaline rush began to wear off. “Rainbow, I...” she stopped. She thought. And then she exploded.

“Do you have any idea what you’ve done!?” she yelled. One might have thought, had they been there at the time, that she hated her friend. This was, in fact, simply one of Twilight’s methods of showing concern for her friends when they did something remarkably stupid and legally dubious. A fact Rainbow Dash was unaware of, as evidenced by her trembling in what was most definitely not fear. Nope.

“Twi, I—”

“No! Don’t! Just don’t! You have done some ridiculously idiotic things since I met you, but this! This is just... I don’t even have words to describe what this is!” As Twilight ranted, her horn began to glow, as did a collection of objects throughout the room—a few dozen books, two lamps, a glass paperweight and a pepper grinder—which began very slowly rising into the air and started rotating counter-clockwise. Despite the fact that the door and all the windows were shut, there was a slight breeze picking up in the same direction. Neither mare noticed, one too busy being furious and the other too busy being terrified.

“Do you have any idea what this means?” she continued, the objects and wind beginning to pick up speed. “What’s going to happen to you?” Her eyes were glowing a brilliant, blinding white. “You could be banished, Dash, or thrown in a dungeon, and I’m not even exaggerating this time, there’s precedent!”

The magical storm was getting stronger every second. At first it had started off as just a few floating books in a light breeze; now nearly half the library was flying through the air at breakneck speeds, forcing the pegasus to seek shelter under the table in the center of the room even as the projectiles flowed around the unicorn, wind roaring at her ears, and still Twilight’s seemingly-enraged voice nearly drowned it out. It was fortunate that Twilight had long ago taken the liberty of soundproofing the library.

“And even if you manage to get out of this before you’ve died of old age, you’ll be ruined! How do you think you’ll be treated, wherever you go!? You’ll be shunned, Rainbow, by everyone, and do you think that you’ll ever be allowed to join the Wonderbolts after this!? YOU HAVE MADE THE BIGGEST MISTAKE OF YOUR ENTIRE LIFE!”

Everybody has breaking points, at least two—anger and despair, and Twilight’s rant was what finally pushed Dash to the second one. She had known already that she had screwed up, and bad, but hearing it from one of her closest friends, put so mercilessly... and there had been the terror lying dormant in the back of her head, that she’d be exiled from ponykind even as she lived with them, that the dream of becoming a Wonderbolt she’d nursed ever since she was a little filly was gone, shattered, as dead as the mare hidden underneath her floor—

Rainbow Dash reached her breaking point, and she started to cry.

At first, before the tears began to flow, one might have mistaken the drawn-out, choking sobs for a somewhat deranged laugh. As the seconds dragged on, though, it became quite obvious. Still under the cover of the table, the pegasus drew her forehooves to her face as she curled up in the fetal position, and then she sobbed not like a baby but like a child who’s dog just died, the stress and fear and shock from everything that had happened pouring out through her weeping eyes and her wailing mouth, and all the while the library was filled with the roar of the wind and the brilliant white light pouring from Twilight’s eyes and the cacophony of hundreds or thousands of books smashing into each other, and—

“I-I’m sorry!” she choked out, “I’m sorry, it was an accident, it was an accident!” she screamed even though she had no idea if it was, and—

—somehow Twilight heard Dash’s tortured screams, even over everything else that by all rights should have blocked it out, and she realized then that she’d gone way, way too far. She had done what no unicorn was ever supposed to do—lose control of their magic, because when they did ponies tended to get hurt like she now feared Dash had been. Twilight hadn’t even realized that she had been using her magic, and when she did she released it instantly. Freed of her telekinesis, everything that had made up the magical tornado dropped to the floor. The paperweight shattered, but Twilight didn’t notice it, because in the sudden relative silence that permeated the library she could easily hear her friend’s crying and the occasional choked plea for forgiveness.

She crawled under the table and after laying on her side, wrapped her hooves around Rainbow Dash. The pegasus pulled her head from her hooves and looked up at Twilight for a moment, then buried it in the fur on the unicorn’s chest. Her cries, which had been slowly but surely tapering off into a heavy sniffle, redoubled in force. And as Rainbow Dash sobbed out her fears onto Twilight’s chest, the unicorn patted her on the back and whispered, “It’s alright, Dash, it’s okay, everything is going to be okay,” and after a long long while like that Rainbow Dash managed to cry herself into a deep and dreamless sleep.

Author's Note

Arrrgh what a fucking week. I hate finals, especially when I have to write twenty pages of short stories. Thank God I planned to release the first four chapters at the same time, since otherwise this would be chapter two and you'd be getting this a week or two later. Unfortunately for you, this is the last one I had written at the time of publishing. I should have chapter four out this time next week, but after that I make no promises. I'll try and keep you up to date on progress, though.

I wasn't too sure about this one—the last four paragraphs felt a bit too emotional for me. Still, I needed to bring Twilight into things, and I had the whole "Twilight yelling at RD" thing for sure. Once I finished with that, the rest of it sort of wrote itself.

Anyways, thanks again to everyone who's read this story, and especially to those of you who've stuck with it this far. Constructive criticism would be very much appreciated, since I know I'm not a perfect (or probably even particularly good) author, and when I only get positive feedback I feel like the only people commenting are incapable of actually telling good from bad (I know this isn't true, but it's like being afraid of heights: you know you'll be fine, but you still just can't do it). Not necessary, but it would be greatly appreciated.

On a non-pony note, you should all go and buy this game about jumping through windows and punching people in the face. You get to... you know... jump through windows and punch people in the face.

Signing off, but...

Conclusion, Day 1

There was something calling to Rainbow Dash, dragging her away from sleep, not a voice or any other noise... a smell. There was something cooking, and although she didn’t know what exactly it was, she did know that it smelled fantastic, so only put up minimal resistance to waking up. There was a moment of confusion as she opened her eyes, the walls around her unfamiliar to her barely conscious mind, before she remembered the day’s events—finding the body, her frenzied flight, and how angry Twilight had been with her.

She stood up and stretched, moaning as she did so—her wings were obscenely sore, a result of pushing herself as hard as she had earlier. After flexing the wings a couple of times, it became obvious that there was no way she could fly on them... something that would prove to be rather problematic, since as she looked at her surroundings she realized that she was in Twilight Sparkle’s bedroom.

Figuring out how to get home could wait. She was starving, a consequence of having not eaten all day. Walking out of the room, she found herself face-to-face with the unicorn who’s bed she had just been occupying.

“Oh!” Twilight said, surprised. “I was just coming to get you. There’s food downstairs, if you’re hungry.”

“I-wha?” Rainbow said, confused. “But...” Twilight wasn’t making sense to her. Last thing she remembered, she had been screaming at her, and now she was standing there offering her food? “I thought you hated me!”

“What? No!” she exclaimed, shocked. “Of course I don’t hate you, what made you think I do!?”

“So why were you... ya know, with the yelling and the magic and the...” she made a vague, circlish gesture with a hoof.

Twilight became visibly tense, her ears flattening back against her head. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you like that,” she said guiltily, “It’s just... I freaked out, Dash, and I shouldn’t have. I’m so sorry for yelling at you like that.”

“It’s alright, Twi,” the pegasus said with a barely-detectable tremble in her voice. “I get it.” She smiled weakly at her friend, and the unicorn visibly relaxed. “So...” Dash said, “you mentioned food?”

Twilight led the other mare downstairs to the kitchen. In the sink sat a strainer filled with spaghetti and a large pot of tomato sauce. Starving, Rainbow Dash loaded a bowl with as much food as she could, Twilight taking a somewhat more reasonable helping. Occupied thinking about the day’s events, they ate in silence, and had both finished within ten minutes. For a moment the two mares looked at each other without speaking. Then Dash groaned, slumping over and bashing her head on the table loudly, dishes and silverware clattering.

In an instant Twilight was at her side, fearing some major injury or illness. “Dash! Are you alright!?” she yelled.

“No,” the pegasus said miserably. “I’m not alright.” She turned her head to face the unicorn. There were thin trails of blood trickling out her nostrils and down her face, and although her head was turned towards Twilight her eyes were staring off into space. “What you said, earlier...” she paused. “You were right, about all of it. Once someone finds out about this, everypony’ll hate me.” She raised her head a few inches off the table and let it fall, repeatedly, muttering, “Stupid, stupid, stupid,” with each crash.

Twilight gently placed a hoof under her friend’s head when it was at its farthest from the table and said softly, “It’s going to be fine, Dash. Nobody’s going to find out.”

Rainbow Dash slowly raised herself about halfway off the table, a confused look on her face, and said, “What?”

With a clear tremble in her voice, Twilight said again, “Nobody’s going to find out. We’re...” she hesitated, knowing that if she actually said what she was thinking she would be beyond the point of no return. Would it really be worth it? After all, if she messed up or overlooked something and they got caught, there’d be a case against her as accessory to murder, and even if everything turned out alright she knew her conscience would trouble her for a long time. But... Rainbow was one of her closest friends. If she didn’t help the pegasus, she’d feel like she had betrayed her. And she’d be thorough, make sure there was nothing left to trace. She had convinced herself what course of action she should take.

“We’re going to get rid of the body.”

The pegasus’s ears twitched. Touches of hope and suspicion poked their way through the neutral tone she put on the word, “We?”

“You’ve always been there for me when I needed it. And besides, we’re friends. Friends help each other out,” Twilight explained.

“But... I...” she didn’t know what to say, except for one thing. She wrapped her legs around her friend and said softly, “Thank you.”

After a moment, Twilight backed out of the hug. “We need to get it done right away,” she said. “Spike’s going to be getting home soon and I want to be back before him. Just give me a minute and I’ll be ready.” She breathed deeply and closed her eyes as a magical aura surrounded her horn and hooves. A moment later, it disappeared, and the unicorn opened her eyes. “Right,” she said, “let’s go.”

“Twi, you don’t—”

There was a flash of brilliant white light, a loud “Pop!” and the wood underneath their hooves became clouds, walls and ceiling replaced by the deep reds and purples of the dusk sky.

“—have wings,” she finished lamely. She swore there was a little smirk on the unicorn’s face.

Together the two entered the house and set about their grim task. Most of the work was done by Twilight, Rainbow Dash doing little more than setting her refrigerator upright and answering the few questions Twilight had. Spheres of blood, ranging in size from barely a drop of rain to two small bowls put on top of each other, were telekinetically raised through the air and deposited in a pair of buckets magically summoned. When the buckets were filled, Twilight took them outside and forcefully dispersed the contents into mist.

Then it was time to take care of the body itself. Rainbow Dash removed the bit of cloud that was covering the body, quickly turning away as she did so. Twilight’s face turned a shade paler, but refused to let the mild feeling of illness she was experiencing slow her task. Again there was a flash of light, and the ponies and corpse flashed into existence in the Everfree Forest.

While it had been bright and relatively warm up in the skies, the sun had long since set on the Everfree, leaving the forest gloomy and cold. Twilight, unaccustomed to such temperatures, shivered. The two had arrived in a small clearing, perhaps twenty feet across, the ground strewn in leaves. The sky was illuminated by only a few scattered stars; the moon had yet to rise.

“What are we doing here?” Dash asked.

“Getting rid of the body,” Twilight said grimly. “Clear away all the leaves within five feet of it, quietly. I need to get a spell ready.” The unicorn sat and shut her eyes, horn glowing as she prepared her magic for the task ahead. Rainbow Dash set about her own task, taking great care to not touch the body itself. Within three minutes the area specified had been cleared of leaves and sticks, and Dash moved away from the body over towards her friend.

One minute passed. Then two. Growing impatient, the pegasus whispered, “Are you almost—”

“Shhh!” Twilight hissed. “I’m trying to concentrate!”

“Well, sorry,” Dash muttered.

“Shhh!”

Bored, she spent the next few minutes scratching around in the dirt with a hoof, not drawing any specific pattern. It was just as she was finishing a long spiral that a thick jet of magic shot out of Twilight’s horn, engulfing the dead mare and startling the living one, who recoiled from the blast and fell over backwards. Scrambling to her hooves, she was greeted by the sight of Twilight standing legs spread apart and eyes squeezed shut, horn glowing a brilliant purple. There was a hemisphere of light around the body, which was obscured by roiling purple energy. A powerful wind had kicked up, tugging a mass of leaves towards the dome and even creating a noticeable pull on the two ponies. The entire clearing was bathed in the vivid lavender glow of the forces at work on the body. And then, mere moments after it started, the light vanished and the wind died, the only indicators that anything had happened being the wave of dry heat that rolled across the clearing, the perfectly circular charred spot on the ground, and the bits of ash floating through the air.

Stunned, Rainbow turned towards the unicorn and started to say, “What—” but was cut off as her horn flashed one final time, sending a strong breeze through the clearing and scattering the ashes. She turned her head to follow them as they began a voyage that would take them Celestia knows where, then back towards her friend... who promptly collapsed, panting heavily.

Rainbow hurried to her friend’s side as she struggled to her hooves on shaky legs, and the unicorn slung a leg across her neck to prop herself up.

“What the hay was that?” she asked.

“Go that way,” Twilight muttered, looking to the left. “Heating spell,” she explained as they started walking. “Put as much magic into it as I could.” She yawned. “Probably a bit too much,” she said sluggishly. “Tired.”

The two ponies forced their way through the undergrowth until they reached a path, which was fortunately only a few minutes away. By the time they left the forest, both of them were yawning, although Twilight was no longer using Rainbow Dash to keep herself upright.

An odd property of the Everfree was that the positions of the sun and the moon were rarely the positions visible from Equestria. Thus, while it had been almost pitch-black in the forest, in Ponyville the sun was still setting. The pair passed dozens of fillies and colts running through the streets, enjoying the newfound freedoms of summer while their parents chatted about their jobs or the weather.

“More to talk about tomorrow,” Twilight mumbled as they approached the library. “But now, sleep. Wings working?”

Dash extended one of said wings and frowned as a dull bolt shot through it.

“Nope.”

“Stay here tonight,” Twilight said through a yawn. “Guest bedroom.”

Opening the door, the mares were greeted by Spike. Although the young dragon would have liked to spend some time with Twilight, a hasty, yawn-filled explanation (with quite a bit of the actual events left out) convinced him that it would be in everyone’s best interests for the unicorn to get some sleep, and that all would be explained tomorrow.

The ponies parted ways just past the stairs at the door to Twilight’s bedroom. Rainbow Dash continued on, and when she reached the room where she’d be staying, the first and only thing she did was flop down down onto the bed face-first, and within a minute she had fallen asleep.

Author's Note

No, I didn't have Twilight turn Dash in. Maybe I should have. *shrug* No point second-guessing myself when there's story to write.

You may have noticed that this chapter is coming out nearly a week after I said it would. That would be because my prereader seems to have dropped off the face of the God damned planet. Because I really hate publishing stuff without having it read in advance, it also means that the position is looking to be filled like a New York whore with her power bill due. Drop me a line if you're interested.

Real sorry about the delay and possible low quality on this one. I'll try not to let it happen again.

No promises on when chapter 5 is going to be done.

Signing off, but...

Day 2, Part 1

Despite being packed with ponies, the town market was virtually silent. Not a sound could be heard—no apologies made as ponies bumped into each other, no merchants hawking their wares, no heated haggling between vendors and potential customers. Everything outside perhaps twenty yards was obscured by a thick fog, leaving the town itself invisible. The dull color of the fog seemed to permeate the stalls, the ground, even the ponies themselves, leaving the entire scene a monochrome gray, the only differences those of shading.

Rainbow Dash stood alone in the center of the market, not a single pony approaching her. It did not occur to her to attempt to speak; not yet, at least. Instead she moved, walking forwards, and as she did so so did the ponies around her, not a single one coming within ten feet of the confused mare.

She turned and took a few steps in the other direction, and again the crowd shifted the same distance she did, seemingly without noticing.

Suddenly a pony burst out of the throng, tumbling to a stop at Dash’s hooves, and she looked down into the face of Scootaloo. The filly, who had landed on her back, was starting to right herself when she caught sight of the mare above her. A look of pure, unadulterated fear flashed across the young pony’s face. For a moment there was stillness in the market, the two ponies in the center looking at each other and the rest of the market looking at them.

The stillness was shattered as Scootaloo shoved herself away from Rainbow Dash as quickly as possible. Having put several feet between herself and the mare she once idolized, she scrambled to her hooves and ran into the crowd, screaming.

Shocked, Rainbow Dash started to follow the filly, but stopped after a few steps. The ponies in front of her had, for the first time not moved to avoid her. Indeed, they had all stopped their routines, and instead were looking directly at her. Each pony was someone she was or had been close to; friends both recently made and long since fallen out of touch, family, co-workers, old flames. On each pony’s face was a cold look of disappointment verging on disgust. She turned, looking into more and more faces, the faces of everypony who’s opinion of her she had ever cared about.

And then she stopped. Standing side by side in the front row of the assembled ponies were her five best friends, each one with a look of cold loathing on their face that communicated more than words ever could.

Then they turned, first Twilight in the center, and then she started walking, and as she did so the ponies in her path shuffled to either side to allow her passage. She did not look back before disappearing into the fog.

The rest of her friends followed. The next two to turn were Fluttershy and Applejack, who had been standing at Twilight’s sides, followed by Rarity and Pinkie Pie. Then the rest of those present followed, leaving in columns, two ponies turning and filing out and then the two behind them, two by two by two and not a sound made throughout.

And then the pegasus stood alone, her only company the abandoned market stalls.

“Guh!” the pegasus grunted as her eyes flew open. Breathing heavily, she rolled over into a sitting position, shoving a sheet off of herself as she did. Had she been a unicorn or earth pony, she would likely have shivered from the sweat coating her body, but having lived and worked high in the sky for most of her life she didn’t even notice it.

The sound of birds chirping invaded her ears, which she flicked in annoyance. She didn’t have the dislike of birds harbored by some pegasi who had lived their early lives without the constant noise they provided, but waking up to them was an experience that was perhaps best described as “extremely aggravating”, and she had found that whenever she spent the night groundside, once she woke up there was no going back.

She dragged herself out of bed and stretched, arching her back like a cat. Moving slowly over towards the window, she lifted the curtain with a hoof and looked out over the town. The sun looked as if it had just finished rising, painting the scattered clouds loitering over the Everfree shades of pink and red. The streets below were empty save for Ditzy delivering the morning mail. She spotted the movement in the window and waved.

A feeling of relief spread throughout Rainbow Dash. Just a dream.

She waved back to the pegasus, then let the curtain fall back into place... and almost collapsed as she was overwhelmed by joy. I’m not an outcast. Nopony hates me. Nopony knows. She smiled, then turned and walked towards the door.

“Good morning, Rainbow Dash,” Twilight said as she walked into the room. “How’d you sleep?”

“I’ve had better,” she mumbled. “‘nd you?”

“You pretty much nailed it.” Twilight yawned, as if to drive the point home. “I woke up a few hours ago and couldn’t get back to sleep.” She walked past the pegasus and hauled herself up onto the bed. “Look, Dash, while I was up I did some thinking.” She patted the spot of bed next to her with a hoof, prompting Rainbow Dash to clamber up beside her.

Twilight took a deep breath. “If we remember this, we’re going to get caught,” she said firmly. “We’ll feel guilty and start acting strange. Eventually somepony’ll notice, and after that it’s only a matter of time until somepony puts the pieces together.” Rainbow Dash opened her mouth to speak, but was unable to as Twilight continued talking. “I know a few spells that can remove memories, but the problem with doing that is that if somepony starts investigating we won’t be able to do anything about it.” She sighed. “So there it is,” she said grimly. “If we remember what we did, we’ll probably get caught, and if we don’t remember, we still might get caught.”

There was a moment of silence after she finished, and then Dash said, “I don’t want to forget.”

Twilight’s jaw dropped. “Y-you—you what?” she said, shocked. “Why would you—what!?”

“If I forget, it--it might happen again.” The pegasus shook her head, then looked Twilight in the eye, and the unicorn saw a kind of desperation as she looked back. “I can’t let it. I...” she shook her head again.

“Alright,” Twilight said softly. “But... are you going to be able to deal with any problems that might come up?”

Dash said nothing and looked away.

Twilight sighed. “Fine,” she said. “Okay, I think I’ve got something. If someone starts looking into this—” she stopped, and after a second said,“—or you need to talk about it—then tell me today’s date and say ‘the train's running late,’ alright?”

Rainbow Dash looked back over at her friend. “‘The train's running late?’” She raised an eyebrow. “What—”

“It’s a code for when I need to send a message to myself,” she explained. “I came up with it after... you remember." She looked down sheepishly. "You remember it?"

Dash nodded, and recited the date and the phrase.

“That’s as much as I can do, then,” Twilight said. She leaned over and hugged her friend. “I’ll wait a few minutes before I cast. Good luck.”

Twilight swallowed as the door closed behind the pony who had just left. Lighting her horn, she felt her resolve waver, just a little bit. Before she could change her mind, she focused on everything that had happened since yesterday morning, and cast the spell.

Twilight Sparkle stopped and looked around, confused. Nothing seemed out of place—at least not yet, she had gotten up early to reorganize the library and in a few minutes everything would be out of place—but she could swear she was forgetting something... maybe why she was in the guest room, or why she felt so tired. She stood still for a few seconds, then shrugged and walked downstairs to start the reorganization. Whatever it was, it would come to her.

Author's Note

Jesus Christ, I'm sorry. I've had this one ready to go for ages, and I just kept either putting it off or forgetting about it. I still haven't made much progress, but I'm going to try getting something ready to go within a week. Which probably means another couple months, but... *shrugs*

Yeah. Still alive, hope you enjoyed this one.

And I still need a pre-reader, if anybody's interested.

Day 2, Part 2

Rainbow Dash flew from the library, although if anyone was watching they would hesitate to call it that—she was neither moving at any significant speed or height. Anyone who knew her would have tried to figure out why she was moving so slowly—a wing injury, perhaps, although some would insist on an imaginary friend in the form of a gopher. No matter how many ponies guessed, though, none of them would have stumbled upon the truth: she was thinking. She had nearly an hour until when she would usually wake up, and didn’t really know what to do. She supposed she could practice her flying, but what was the point if there was no one around to tell her how awesome it was? No, no tricks. Still, that didn’t mean she couldn’t go for speed, did it?

She settled onto the ground and stretched for a moment, then leaned forward and narrowed her eyes. She imagined another pegasus next to her, relaxed, smirking. She gritted her teeth and looked straight ahead.

At a shout from an unseen official, she shot forward, leaving a rainbow trail down the street and pulling up a few flowers as she passed them. Barrelling through the streets, she made a quick turn to the right and barely avoiding smashing into a wall. Certain that she had lost the other racer, she looked back over her shoulder, laughing mentally.

She was shocked to realize that not only was the other pony was still following her, he was actually gaining on her! It was slow, yes, but steady. She gritted her teeth and looked forward again, pulling straight up to avoid a house she hadn’t noticed. Looping around, she resumed her course at a higher altitude. Her competitor was still gaining on her, barely forty yards behind her now. She could see the finish line... she forced herself even faster, pushing herself to her limit. It was going to be close, he was close enough to touch her now, almost there...

“Yes!” she hissed, crossing the finish lines mere inches ahead of her imaginary opponent. Pumping her hoof in the air, she took a moment to indulge in the cheering of an imaginary Ponyville.

After a moment the smile faded from her face as the cheering only she could hear died out. What was the point of cheering without anything to cheer over, after all? The “race” was over, and the ponies were going home.

Of course, since she didn’t need to convince anypony to race against her, she could keep it up as long as she wanted, couldn’t she?

The invisible crowd silently roared as the two ponies once again took to the skies.

Okay, I was asking for that one, Dash thought as she untangled her limbs from the tree branches she had crashed into. For the last half hour, she had been flying faster and faster and looking for even harder obstacles to get through. Eventually, she had ended up at Sweet Apple Acres.

There are a handful pegasi in the world who can successfully navigate several hundred apples and tree branches every second while maintaining speed. Rainbow Dash was not one of them, and that was how she came to be tangled in branches with what might be best described as applesauce splattered over her face.

She wiped the gunk from her face with a hoof, then popped her head out above the branches. A glance at the sun and a quick guess as to how long she’d been “racing” suggested she should probably go and get ready for work. As she jumped out of the tree she grabbed an apple, then shot off towards town.

Far across the orchard, almost on the other side of the property, Big Mac and Applejack walked between the rows of trees, scanning trunks and leaves for signs of disease or infestation. For a time, neither pony spoke (nor did they see the two rainbow contrails).

“Ran inta Dash down at the market yesterday,” Applejack said eventually.

Big Mac didn’t say anything, but he didn’t need to—a raised eyebrow speaks a thousand words.

“She was actin’ mighty strange, too,” she continued, without waiting for him to speak. “Like a filly who’s been sneakin’ outta the cookie jar, then tries ta pretend she didn’t with the crumbs still on her face.” For a minute she didn’t say anything. Then, “We’re due ta get some raid today, right?”

“Eeyup.”

Applejack nodded. “Think I‘m gonna talk ta her when she comes by, then.” She nodded again. Nothing else was said.

Author's Note

Yeah, I know, it's short and not much happens. This was supposed to be part of a larger chapter, but I ran into a roadblock on the next bit of it. Already had this, so I figured I'd throw it up.

Anyways, I'm still looking for a prereader if there's anybody interested, and if anybody's got thoughts on where they'd like this to go... well, I've got it pretty much planned out, but screw it, I'm open to suggestion.