Chapter 1: Leaving Home

Rainbow Dash tossed and turned, eyes closed, trying to get to sleep. "Hrrmph" she grunted to herself as she continued the never ending struggle to get comfortable in her bed. Sighing she decided to get up and check the weather schedule for tomorrow, she walked over drearily to the calendar she had on the wall that kept track of what the weather had to be like every day of the week. Dash was using moonlight to guide herself and when she reached the wall she squinted up trying to discern the symbol on tomorrow's place. "Clear skies all day, oh great" she thought to herself, rolling her eyes and moving to the window to look out at the night sky, clear skies were already present so she knew she had no work tomorrow but she wondered what the point of no work was if she couldn't even get to sleep.

Out of the corner of her eye Rainbow Dash thought she saw a pair of eyes reflected in the window, she spun around in fright but there was nothing there, just her bed, her posters on the opposite wall and a lot of empty space in between. Dash had never been one for having too much stuff, it was all clutter and effort, no Dash preferred only keeping some things but that made them all the more special to her, her posters, her trophies, these were the things that helped define her life, that had shaped her to be who she was today and they meant the world to her. "Calm down Dash there was nothing there, you're just tired and your mind is playing tricks on you" she walked back to bed and lay down again, determined to pull some sleep out of this night.

Suddenly there was a noise from downstairs, sounded like something landing outside her door, then wait, that sounded like the door being opened. *SLAM* Okay that was definitely the door, Dash leapt out of bed and launched forward, using her wings to propel herself out of the bedroom door and into the hallway upstairs, she skidded out to the top of the stairs and proceeded to shout down at her intruder "HEY GET OUT OF MY HOU-huh!?". Standing there back to the door and panting out of breath with her hat askew and clutching a leather bound book was none other than Daring Do.

"Dash! No time to explain, I'm being chased, we need to barricade this door RIGHT NOW!".

Rainbow Dash sprung to action and started pushing nearby furniture to block the door, Daring Do helped her once they had a few items holding the door closed. As they worked Daring started to explain what was happening, she had went to some old ruins searching for a book that had reportedly been seen there she wasn't the only one though, a group of mysterious masked unicorns had also been searching but Daring Do found it first. After retrieving the book the strange ponies had been hounding her everywhere she went so that they could get that book, she had taken refuge in a village nearby and after describing them to the local villagers had been told that she had crossed an ancient cult who had spent years searching for the book she now held in her hands. Later that night the village was awoken to the sound of chanting before being attacked, razed and burnt to the ground with Daring escaping narrowly and fleeing across the country until finally something led her to Dash's house.

"Hang on a minute, that was all very rushed" interjected Dash as she pushed a sofa towards the ever growing pile of her furniture that now manned the doorway, "Now when you say chanting did it happen to sound anything like that?",

Daring Do stopped in terror and looked up at Dash, her ears pricked up as she heard it coming from outside "Burning down, caving in. Die by fire and begin again.".

"Rainbow Dash, is it getting hotter in here"

"Is now really the time for flirting?"

"No Rainbow is it actually getting hotter, can you not feel that?"

"Actually now that you mention it, it is getting hotter...and harder to breather",

" is there a back way out of here"

"Well there's a window through the back there but I don't know if you wo-"

"THEN START RUNNING" Daring Do screamed as she ran towards where Dash was pointing.

Rainbow Dash ran in pursuit of her adventurer friend and ran into her kitchen just in time to see Daring Do smash through the window in to the night, "oh what the hell is going on" Dash thought to herself as she swiftly followed, launching herself out after her friend. As she did this Dash felt extreme heat against her back and she turned her neck just in time to see the inside of her house erupt into flames. The force of the fire bursting out escaping the confines of the walls was enough to knock Dash's rear out of sync with her front and sent her hurtling towards the ground unable to steady herself, she hit the ground hard with a sickening crack.

Author's Note

The first ever chapter in my first ever fanfic woohoo! I hope I got the rapid dialogue part before the end working alright without it just seeming like sloppy writing. Please provide constructive criticism so if there's any major problems I can address them and improve my writing before continuing much further into the story and producing a lot of wasted reader time.