“I don’t care about your pointless excuses, Rainbow Dash!”
A large courtroom made of steel and old mahogany wood filled of what seemed to be hundreds of Pegasi. The large windows on both side of the walls allowed the golden sunshine to brightly shine into the room, creating a soft golden glow off of everything made of the reflecting steel on the walls. The actual walls that were made of the oak colored wood were coated in trimmings of the metal on the walls. The trimmings ran along the edge of the material and along the ceiling and even along the floor. The patterns created by the rusting steel swirled and twisted along the material led themselves around the room.
Two seating boxes were on both sides of the room where a jury sat. The ponies were wearing smart suits of all sorts of formal colors. Brown, black, grey, you name it. In the middle of the room sat a cerulean mare with a rainbow colored mane and rose colored eyes. She was wearing a dark brown pinstripe suit that looked tatty and old, and along her wings was the same steel material and a small disk shaped pack was resting on her back. The slot which was attached to it (which is usually meant to contain a weapon shaped to the owner’s choice of weapon). There was no weapon contained inside of it though.
There was even a sitting area behind her. On both sides were four rows of ten chairs equalling in eighty chairs behind her, and down the middle of both sides was a path just large enough to stick two ponies down at a time. A couple of heavily armed guards walked down the gangway in-between the seating area behind Rainbow, and as they reached the front of the room, they soon took her place by the podium at the end of the room. The weapons inside of the saddles that were attached to the frame golden, metal frame on their backs. They both carried two large rifles within them, and the rifles themselves were made of rusty old pipes painted gold. The front of the long barrel had holes in them to make the gunshots louder.
The floor was chequered with black and white squares that were fairly large. They at least took up the size of four tables stuck together. Dust was stuck to the floor and dirty hoofprints were also seen scattered along the floor. At the back of the room, the direction of which the accused was staring at with utter disgust was a large chair that was sitting behind the large podium made of the same wooden material. It stood dauntingly over Rainbow Dash as the pony who sat in the chair stared down at her with glaring eyes.
“You, Miss Dash have violated rule number one of living in this great city,” the judge called, pointing her hoof at Rainbow Dash who stared up at her with a snarl. “You went against your virtue!”
Rainbow stomped her hoof on the marble floor and then growled softly underneath her breath. “But I did it for the sake of others… if I didn’t go against loyalty, many ponies would have died!”
“They were Unicorns -- the insufficient race!” the judge called out with a hiss. “The Unicorns just showing off their magic… it’s not our way and if you think helping the so called ‘ponies’ will get you out of this, miss Dash, you are wrong!”
Rainbow Dash just remained silent and hung her head low. She was lost for words and not in the good way either. She was biting back the tears, trying to keep her reputation around these ponies and a lot of these she happened to know. And her friend that she had dedicated her life to, Gilda didn’t turn up like she had promised before the trial. In fact, as Dash did look around, there was no sign of the Griffin… no sign of any Griffins. Just Pegasi. And all of them staring at her.
“Now, the jury must decide your fate, Rainbow Dash,” she groaned with a loud bark of anger. “You’d best hope that they’ll be generous!”
The jury from all around Rainbow Dash began to talk among themselves, their voices echoed loudly in the large halls of the courtroom. Insults seemed to be belched from the mouths of the ponies in the sitting areas, as they spoke among themselves. The Pegasus sat in the center of the room hung her head low, allowing a tear to fall onto the floor. The feeling of her being watched by many daunted down on her and the insults grew louder. Words like ‘traitor’ and ‘mistake’ were thrown at her. The rest of the voices could not be deciphered due to the amount of ponies talking at once.
Some of them kept shooting looks to her, before turning back to the ponies next to them and even behind them. The judge however, sat back in her leather seat. The edges along the seat were diamond encrusted seats which sparkled softly in the golden sunlight that shined into the large room. The dust near the windows floated as there was no breeze -- but the sound of the soft wind outside was just audible.
And as the voices of the jury died down, the intimidating silence yet again slammed down onto the courtroom. Rainbow’s heart was pounding inside of her chest, as if it wanted to burst out and it only took a few seconds for the judge to glare at Rainbow, before turning her attention to the jury who had decided her fate.
“What has the jury said?” the judge’s voice echoed from the walls as she tapped her hooves on the podium in front of her. She awaited the reply and then when she got one, a stallion with a bright blue coat and a brown, pinstripe suit stood out, before looking down at a piece of battered old paper in his hooves.
“In our favor -- the punishment for Rainbow Dash is exile!”
Rainbow’s heart suddenly stopped and the jury began to talk among themselves as the sound of many voices talking at once. Rainbow Dash was speechless at this point, she was grateful that she wasn’t sentenced to death, but a melancholy feeling dominated her emotions due to her being exiled from her home of Cloudsdale.
Three loud slams of the judge’s hammer echoed. “Order, order!”
And at this point, Rainbow couldn’t even wisp a grin onto her face. She couldn’t even tell herself that everything was going to be alright, in fact, she knew everything wasn’t going to be alright. She was being sent away from her home, never to return ever again… and that broke her heart more than love had ever done to anypony.
“In the favor of the jury, Rainbow Dash. You are exiled from Cloudsdale, and stripped of your rankings!” One last slam of the hammer confirmed it, and then Rainbow was soon dragged by the arms by the heavily armed guards.
She didn’t bother to move, nor did she bother to struggle. She stared at the ground, losing all the hope she had and as the double doors to the courtroom slammed shut, she was dragged through the seemingly never ending corridors. Rainbow Dash no longer felt hope, as she had lost the one thing that mattered to her after trying to live up to her virtue to save the life of another and unfortunately… it got her punished.
However, Dash did not regret saving the pony’s life. Even if it did cost her. The once loyal and confident Pegasus was now nothing but a bitter, lonely and abandoned shell and inside of the shell was nothingness. It was empty. And with Rainbow now having her heart torn from her body, she was the one who felt betrayed by her own ponies.
As the guards reached the outside of the courthouse, they threw Rainbow Dash down the long, stone staircase and as they did, Rainbow Tumbled, hitting her face and body on the chipped staircase. Landing at the bottom, the guards flew down to her, binding her wings to her body with a light harness and as they locked the harness around her, they soon grabbed her around the stomach and hindlegs and soon flew off into the distance.
Rainbow noticed herself flying further and further away from her home and as she looked down at the large cloud city, knowing she wouldn’t get back in, tears filled her eyes and then she soon sobbed to herself with nothing but pain. The guards carried on flying into the distance, until there were no more clouds below… and then they soon hung Rainbow Dash upside down as if they were going to drop her and at this point, the mare could not do anything. Her wings were bound together and she knew she couldn’t walk on thin air.
She was helpless…
She closed her eyes, waiting for them to drop her and within a matter of seconds; she felt their grip loosen before their grip was gone completely. Feeling herself beginning to plummet down to earth, she tightly closed her eyes, waiting to hit the ground at max speed and waiting to die. The faster she fell, the more speed she picked up and the more sadness filled her heart…
She was falling…
Falling…
Falling...
