Chapters This would have been one of the greatest days of my life. Rainbow Dash was flying in her own stunt show, and I had a backstage pass. The sky was a little clouded but at the moment, nopony was thinking much about that. Turns out we should have been.
She hit the ground hard. The cheering crowd silenced. After she didn't get up for a full minute, some ponies came to check on her. They thought it was just a crash. She would walk away with a few broken bones, be in the hospital for a few weeks, then be back to her old self. That was what they hoped.
Dash's funeral was a few days later. It was the worst day of my life. Afterwards, an old guy came over to me. He invited me to the weather factory in Cloudsdale to say my last goodbyes to Rainbow Dash. At the time, I had no idea what that meant. I soon found out.
We were hesitant to release the rainbow that Scootaloo had fell into, but feathers were becoming scarce, and Equestria was counting on us. The next day, after a rainstorm, we let it loose.'No, not now.'
"What do you mean, Dash?" I asked as Rainbow Dash finally stopped hugging me. Her face was tear streaked.'This is paradise,' I decided. I didn't know why I was here, but I didn't care. Who in their right mind would turn down paradise?
It was the day after I'd arrived in this weird place. Everything was perfect as before, but something few felt wrong.
I really tried, but the gate never appeared and none of the other ponies had gone here. I was alone.
I continued on.
I had been following the skeleton pony for hours, and it finally paid off. I'd found the gate.
I woke up in a white room in front of a white unicorn with a white mane wearing a white suit sat at a white desk. He was staring at the gate behind him.'I don't deserve this.' But I walked through the gate anyway. And as I looked at my new home, I realized that I did deserve it.
I stood outside the weather factory nervously for a few minutes, then I finally entered the waiting room. A white pegasus with a poofy yellow mane that reminded me of Pinkie Pie stepped outside of a door in the back of the room, individual feathers of all different colors clinging to her fur and mane.
I woke up in a shiny white room, with a few old ponies and some younger ones around me. A white male unicorn with a white mane wearing a white suit sat at a white desk looking over white papers. I walked up to him.'How'd I get here anyways?' I shrugged it off. It felt like ancient history now.
There was no mistaking that blue coat and rainbow mane. Rainbow Dash was here with me, alive as can be. She had a long white dress on, and I suddenly realized I was wearing one too. She seemed so happy for some reason, though back then, I couldn't figure out why. All of her friends thought she was dead, and she was up in the clouds, being happy? Looking back, it's amazing I hadn't realized sooner. I ran up to her.
The Brightest had gone away, but the shame stayed. In our shame, we did away with the feather-dissolving chemical altogether and upgraded the machine. Now it just grinded the feathers away until they were nothing but colorful goop, which it would turn into rainbows. All of the tradition and meaning in rainbows were gone, and they would never be as bright as they once were. The room that once held so much beauty was just a factory now. Dark and lifeless, and there would be no final triumph for the dead pegasi. It would just be more shame.