[}{}- Six Feet -{}{]
Just because you can fly doesn’t mean you can’t get lost.
The wind swirled around her wings as she flew, gusting in her ears as each flap drove her faster through the air. She didn’t know where she was going, nor did she care. All she wanted was to be far away from her past. From where she had lived. Time had lost all its meaning ages ago, when she had taken to the skies and started her journey. The muscles that ran down the feathers from her back ached and groaned with every single flap of her wing, but she didn’t stop; she couldn’t, not while they were still behind her.
Not while he was still behind her.
Of course, there’s a reason that there’s a saying you can’t ever outrun him. “Aw now where are you off to in such a hurry, Rainbow Dash?” The taunting voice that sounded an awful lot like Discord, though deeper and much more sinister, somehow managed to make it through the roaring wind and grated on her ears even more than it already had. “Come now, can’t we just sit and talk for a bit? Take a load off? Brood about how you’ll never get to see your friends again?”
“No! Leave me alone!” Despite her protesting muscles, Rainbow Dash shot forward with a burst of speed, leaving the voice far behind her as she continued to fly in no particular direction. “I don’t care! I don’t want to see them again!” Just then a weight settled on her back, making her drop down just a little bit as she looked up to see a pair of orange spheres looking right back. “Get off!” Her body twisted around like only an athlete’s could as her hoof dove towards the hooded figure, only to whistle through thin air.
“Aw, that’s no fun, Dashie.” She winced as something tugged at her hind legs, yanking her down closer to the ground, but when she kicked out nothing was there. “I thought you of all ponies would love to hang out with me, after all don’t you play with danger all the time?” This time the force tugged at her wings, making her spin in the air over and over as she got closer and closer to the field of grass below. “I would have thought talking to Death would have been an exhilarating experience for you!” Just then she stopped, hovering about six feet above the ground despite the fact that her wings were snapped back behind her. “Isn’t that right, Rainbow ‘Danger’ Dash?” When he saw the snarl that her face had became, a soft little laugh danced through the air. “Isn’t that what you called yourself when we met, little miss daredevil?”
Before she could retort with a venomous statement involving bucking and the word ‘yourself’, the memory came rushing back in vivid detail.
“Nnn... Wh-what happened?” Her voice seemed to echo back to her as she opened her eyes to a wall of sheer blackness. She looked down at her hooves to see only a layer of thick, white fog that swirled up to her chest blocking the rest of her body from view. “Where... Am I?” Her question asked itself over and over again until it faded away, though she didn’t wait long before shouting out again, trying to quell the beginnings of fear in her heart. “Is anypony out there?”
More silence than Rainbow Dash had ever known greeted her ears. A few more seconds ticked past and with each one that flowed past, her breath came faster and faster just like her heartbeat did, pounding in her ears with the sound of a bass drum as her eyes darted in every direction, fear creeping slowly into her thoughts. “Hello!?” A small sound from behind her set off the tension that had been building in her muscles and within moments she was galloping away from whatever it was that she thought she heard. “S-stay away from me!”
A jolt ran through her body as she smacked face-first into something, coming to a complete stop and sliding down almost comically into the mist. After blinking away the irritating white clouds, Rainbow pushed herself back up angrily and glared at whatever it was that she had hit. Despite her frustration, she couldn’t help but back up a few steps after her mind had realized what it was that was lounging on a hammock strung between two bone-white trees before her.
It was a pony, albeit one so vastly decomposed that it was barely discernible as one. Instead of skin and hair, it only had bones and wisps of grey, faded fabric that was so tattered it barely covered any bit of the bleached-white bones at all. A dark purple aura seemed to hover around its covered face, dancing through the air like it was as happy as it could be. Resting against the taller of the two trees was a scythe, wickedly curved and spattered with what seemed to be flecks of dried blood. She nearly ran off again as whoever it was stirred from its slumber, though for some reason fear had taken hold of her body and stopped it from doing anything other than staring at the pony as it lurched upwards. Without a word it slowly turned to stare into her eyes with its own, a pair of glowing reddish-orange orbs that pulsed ever-so-slightly as they seemed to pierce straight into her soul.
“Why, hello there, little pony.” With a surprising agility the skeleton leapt out of its perch and snatched up its scythe with ease. The shrouded figure bowed deeply, scythe clanging against the ground as is slipped out of its hooves, though it hardly seemed like an accident and its toothy smile proved it.“How are we doing this fine day in Limbo?”
“L-Limbo? What is that? And who are you?” Rainbow nearly winced as she heard her own voice, hating how pathetic and scared she sounded. “Why am I here!? I better get some answers, mister, or I’m going to kick that bony fla—” The rest of her words were left to stew in her throat as a hoof suddenly pressed against her muzzle. When it was pulled away, she shuddered violently for her skin felt cold and numb.
“Ah ah ah, little pony. One at a time... and no demands! After all, we wouldn’t want anypony’s feelings to get hurt, would we?” The chuckle that it let out was bone-chilling, almost as if somepony had gotten a chalkboard and scrapped something across it but somehow turned down the volume a few decibels so that it was merely a whisper in the air. “Limbo is a place that anypony who happens to be between life and death winds up in, which would obviously explain the reason as to why you’re here in this lovely place.” The pile of moving bones sunk into the mist only to appear right next to her, throwing one of its hooves over her shoulder. “And as for who I am, well, that’s not really a valid question, now is it?” Another grinding laugh followed the figure into the mist, making Rainbow wince and step back away from where he had been simply a few moments ago.
“What!? Why not?”
“Because, I’m not a who, but a what.” Her vision was suddenly filled with the bone-white apparition of a pony’s skull, blotting out the blackness with the painfully bright color. “I’m Death.” A few moments of silence ticked past, during which Rainbow’s mouth was open wide with a mixture of shock and disbelief, and was promptly interrupted by the strange figure before her erupting into a chorus of uproarious laughter. “You should see the look on your face, absolutely hilarious!”
“Shut up!” Rainbow Dash, despite not knowing if anything that this weird pony skeleton was true or not, swiped her hoof through the air where he had been just a second before she clenched her eyes shut.
“Oh come now, little pony, do you really think your hoof is going to do any serious damage to Death itself?” The shrouded figure swirled around her in the air, flapping invisible wings as it laughed even harder. “You should know that not even the fastest pegasus in the world can fly faster than death.”
Rainbow Dash bent down low, her legs and wings quivering with the urge to leap into the air and take off into the sky, despite the fact that there was nothing but that faint mist still. At the hint of a challenge, she spread her jaw-dropping, wing-cutting, crowd-pleasing wings wide and smirked a little bit, though it was ruined by the tremble in her voice. “Then you’ve never flown with Rainbow Danger Dash!”
