Faster. That was all that Rainbow Dash wanted to do. Go faster. Faster than her friends. Faster than anypony else. Faster than even she has gone before. Quicker, swifter, hastier; every single word synonymous with fast, and more. Rainbow wanted thrills. She wanted excitement. She wanted speed.
And there was no better place to get it but the speedway.
Rainbow Dash was no stranger to it. To be in the speedway was to be living life more dangerously and thrillingly than any other place. To know true excitement, to know the rush of adrenaline, and to enjoy every living second of it in super-slow-motion—that was the speedway.
Everypony has a speedway, somewhere. Some speedways are in one place, and others seem to be in many places at once. And while some are similar to others, each one is unique in their own way. They are, as such, hard to generalize. Most ponies never find it, or even use it. Some have once-in-a-lifetime experiences with it, and others are somewhat more frequent.
But Rainbow Dash was in the speedway every day.
And today, it was just another day of speed. Rainbow Dash wanted to go even faster than she had before; faster than the speed that creates a Sonic Rainboom. Such a thing was allegedly impossible, or so the other ponies believed. But she wanted to prove them all wrong.
The day eventually came where she decided that, of all days, now was going to be the one that she would break the speedway. Rainbow Dash was not the kind of pegasus to preplan any major stunt or daredevil feat—she lived in the moment. She lived in the speedway. And so today, with only last-minute notice given to her friends as they arrived to watch her (along with intrigued bystanders), Dash was ready.
She acknowledged the “crowd” she had accumulated with a nod and cocky grin, telling them that they were about to witness something spectacular—beyond their limits of imagination. Her friend Twilight, being the worrywart that she is, was quick to warn Rainbow to not do anything too reckless.
She laughed at the unicorn’s paranoia. There was no such thing as “safety” in the speedway; that was something Dash was sure that nopony else could understand. The ever-present sense of danger and looming risks that would terrify a common pony were nothing more than adrenaline fuel for her. She could hardly imagine an exciting and awesome life without them.
Not wasting any more precious grains of time, Rainbow Dash flapped her wings and took to the sky. She ignored the calls of her friends to be cautious; who needed caution? In the speedway, caution meant slowness. Slowness had no place in the speedway, and neither did safety. The only rules in the speedway were: Go faster, and don’t crash.
Simple, easy rules for Rainbow Dash to follow.
Faster and faster, she flew into the sky. Her wings beat furiously as she gained altitude. Higher and higher, she went. Not until she was beyond the cloud layer that she stopped. Dash took a deep breath in, and very slowly released it. Looking down at the dots on the ground that were her friends, she grinned. It was time.
Turning her body towards the ground, Rainbow Dash got into position. She flapped her wings, and shot towards earth like a bullet.
Already, she was going fast. Her vision blurred around the edges as she stared ahead, feeling her eyes already beginning to burn. The wind blew her mane and tail back, so they appeared to trail behind her. She began to see a distorted air cone begin to form around her, feeling significant resistance as it did.
She wasn’t going fast enough.
Rainbow Dash pushed herself harder, flapping her wings as fast as her stamina would allow and beyond. The cone around her grew more distinct, and her vision blurred even more. Blackness started to creep into the corners of her sight. She felt even more resistance than before.
The forces of nature always seemed determined to halt her attempts to break the barrier between herself and true speed, Dash knew. And it had even succeeded a few times in the past. But now, she had overcome this barrier on several occasions. This one and so-far only barrier meant nothing to her.
She pushed even further, past the precipice—and the world around her exploded in a furious spectrum of light.
The landscape below her disappeared as Rainbow turned skywards again, and every part of her vision — save for the very center — had blurred into nothingness. A blazing trail of colors followed in her wake, remaining still and shimmering for long after her passage. The dramatic acceleration of the Sonic Rainboom had created such absurd levels of G Forces acting on her body, Rainbow could barely move her eyes nor breathe. An incredible rushing sensation overflowed her mind, filling her with combined feelings of delight, terror, confidence, and power.
…There. That was the moment. She knew this moment, and she knew this feeling all-too-well. Rainbow Dash was in her element; she knew, and could feel, that she was the fastest flyer in Equestria. No — in all of existence.
And still, she knew that it was possible to go even faster.
She was on her speedway, after all. It is generally not possible to go any slower on it; especially considering that it was Rainbow’s speedway.
So she pushed herself even further. The land below was barely in sight as she flew horizontal, slicing across the Equestrian sky at speeds never before witnessed. A huge, glowing trail of rainbows followed after her; the only visible evidence of the pegasus that ponies on the ground could not even see anymore.
It was incredible how much faster that Rainbow Dash was soaring. Even she could not believe how much her eyes burned, or her body felt tortured, or even the sheer level of ecstasy that she was currently experiencing. It was overpowering, to the point where she felt like she would pass out from joy alone.
To her, this was what she pined for in life. For the thrills, and the excitement. To live life to its absolute limit. Being the best at anything and everything that involved speed. Defying the laws of rationality, and laughing when reason tries to bring you down. Showing the world that you were there, and wanted to make a statement. That you would never go quietly into the night.
And on her speedway, she could have it all.
As the ponies on the ground looked up, and saw the rainbow above them, not one could possibly imagine the thoughts that ran through the mind of who created them—for they were not thoughts of any common pony, or of any common instance. They were feelings that defied any verbal explanation. They had to be known and felt, firsthand. No other way was possible; for it was in itself impossible to describe the true understanding of a feeling with mere prose.
And on the speedway, the answers wait only for those who choose to step on the gas.
