Little Redd: the Lost Concept of Peace

Chapter Ten

Set on Repeat

Redd looked at Rainbow Dash, who's eyes were still glaring back at her.  She got off the Pegasus, turning away from her to look out at Sweet Apple Acres only about a half a mile away.  The moon had begun to rise, already clear of the horizon as stars turned to face the world below.  She heard Dash get up, though they both remained still.  The only thing that stirred around them were the crickets and occasionally, her wings.  When she finally spoke, her voice was soft, edging between true speech and a loud whisper.

"You want to know why I'm impatient?  You want to know why I never go more than twenty-four hours without drinking a glass of herbal tea?  When I was young I had a ribbon.  A dark red ribbon given to me for my third Hearth's Warming by my mother because she couldn't afford much else.  I wore that ribbon every day, I wouldn't let her wash it, I would rarely take it off to sleep."

She turned around, locking those magenta eyes with her own.

"One day I forgot my bow, and when I was coming home from school, I found my home in flames.  My mother had been asleep when it started.  When I ran into the home to find her, a firepony caught me and held me back.  I thrashed and struggled, but it was no use.  So, when I was in his grasp, I teleported for the first time.  I reappeared inside the house, just down the hall from her room."

A tear streamed down her cheek, though her expression remained hard.

"When I got into her room, she was already dying.  Laid across the bed, she was gasping for a breath, too weak to move.  The last thing she said to me... "

Her voice began to tremble.

"... the last thing she said to me, was 'Never let your fear decide your fate.  I love you, Little Redd.'  Then that same firepony pulled me out of the house, kicking and screaming, begging for my mother."

She looked down at Deepest Care's bracelet.

"After her funeral, Zecora brought me this.  I had seen my mother wear it all the time, so I was overjoyed to have it... "

She looked back to Rainbow Dash, who had her own tear threatening to boil over her cheek.

"It's the only thing I have left of my previous life.  Of her."

She scoffed.

"And ever since she died, my life has been fake.  A living hell."

The seconds drug by, and a frog joined in the night life chorus.

"... Redd, I--"  Dash's voice cracked, finally losing her grip on the tear as it rolled down her cheek.

"... I'm sorry.  If I knew, I--"

"Stop.  Just go home."

Redd turned, and walked back to Zecora's.

A dark brown Pegasus with a fiery red mane strode across the paved walks of Trottingham, her dark red eyes beaming at the excited filly bouncing on her back.

"This place is huge!  Why haven't we come until now?"

Deepest Care smiled at her daughter, and kept walking.

"Becaaaause, I've been too busy working.  The only reason I was able to come now is because the transportation fees were paid for by Photo Finish.  You know, she's known for photography, but she knows her fair share about painting."

Redd's first vacation faded into flowing green hills, two colts running on either side of her.  Party Hard's bright blue coat and darker mane shone in the gleaming highlights of the sun behind him.  Irish Cream's golden eyes, mint green coat and mane, and white stripes shone in the sunlight with a strange iridescence.  The saddlebags thrown across his back were crushing his wings and brushing the ground a bit, but he didn't mind.  The fields were cut off by a small dirt road, a small cottage sitting with a triumphant air next to it, as if it was never coming down.  Buildings kept going on past here, into East Riding, Redd's hometown.  Irish Cream left the saddlebags on the front lawn, and hid around the left corner of the cottage along with Party Hard.  Little Redd vanished behind the opposite corner.

A spark of magic erupted from her horn with a funny belching sound, and slowly drifted under the lid of the saddlebags to reach the contents.  After a moment, the saddlebags shook and burst open, biscuits spilling out.  An old mare stepped out onto her front porch, squinting at the green saddlebags for a moment, before the biscuits bounced onto the porch and stared wrecking the scene.

"Oh!  I-- oh my!  Why are there crumpets attacking my house!?"

Unable to contain it any longer, the foals burst out laughing, Irish Cream snatched up the saddlebags, and the trio made off.

Running back over the hills, Party Hard's eyes locked with hers.  His familiar magenta eyes were replaced with a dark red hue, and they had a pained glint hidden in the lifelights.

"Never let your fear decide your fate.  I love you, Little Redd."

She gasped. and her eyes flew open.  She was sweating and breathing hard, and after a moment realized she'd been crying in her sleep.

... I need to quit sobbing like this.

Glancing over to the window, she saw that it was still night out.  Redd stood, and walked over to the door.

"Nightmares?"

Redd jumped and turned.  Lying nestled between the inactive cauldron and a bag of herbs was a colorful, furry little slice of the sky.

"I thought I told you that you wouldn't understand."

"And I thought I told you that you don't know that."

Dash stood, her determination having returned.

"You're in pain.  I get it.  But you can't expect to get anywhere if you don't spill your problems to somepony every now and then."

Redd had turned back to the window.

"It's not that simple."

"Why not?"

She sighed.

"Because if I 'spilled my problems to somepony every now and then,' I'll be thrown in prison."

Rainbow Dash scoffed.

"That's only a worst case scenario--"

"That's a best case scenario.  Worst case?  I'm no longer allowed to exist here.  And if I don't exist here, the... chances... "

She trailed off, her eyes on a dark splotch in the sky.

"Is that... smoke?"

Applejack frantically ran around the outside of the burning farmhouse.

"Apple Bloom!"

No response.  Nowhere.

"Apple Bloom!"

From the direction of the column of soot rising into the sky, both Redd and Rainbow Dash could tell was coming from Sweet Apple Acres.  Rainbow was trying to fly low, what with the Unicorn dangling in Dash's grasp by her underarms.  The barn began to lean towards the house, and Redd's horn ignited.  She pointed and shot a few rounds at the barn as it began to fall, shattering the danger in a fiery red explosion.  Redd heard Dash utter something above her head.

"Woah."

A grim line set across her lips, Redd leaned in to the Pegasus's neck.

"Get Twilight."

And she slipped from Rainbow Dash's grasp, heading for the ground like a charcoal missile.

No stranger to determination, Dash kept flying.  She pulled out of a wide turn and shot towards Ponyville as a falcon, her wings clasped tightly to her sides in a dive.  Unable to slow down in time, she did the next safest thing: aim for a window and brace herself.  By her personal standards, blowing through a window, a pony, a railing, a floor, and a mountainous pile of books was considered a safe landing.

Sadly for Rainbow Dash, Twilight didn't have the same view on things.  She literally needed glasses.  The Unicorn, who had just been thrown out of bed by a crashing Pegasus, was crumpled under a bundle of cyan fur and history books.  After the various book titles around them stopped spinning, her senses returned.

Although she still only heard the last words of Dash's sentence.

"--Acres is on fire!"

After wincing under her friend's volume, Twilight clopped her nose.

"Ow!"

"Not so loud.  What?"

Rainbow Dash failed to change the magnitude of her voice, which was currently only a few inches away from Twilight's muzzle.

"Sweet Apple Acres is on fire!  Redd's trying to stop it, but I didn't see anypony else!"

Redd fell about fifty feet before hitting the grass, tumbling, and getting back on her hooves in a single swift motion.  As she ran towards the house, Applejack ran from around the rightward corner of the building.  She ran to the front door and bucked it down before leaping inside.

"Apple Bloom!"

Redd froze as her burning home flashed through her mind.

"Oh.  Ohh, no.  This has happened once."

She lowered her head as her left eye cracked, a dark red abyss replacing the black spot entirely, and glared at the building.

"It won't happen again."

She leapt into the farmhouse with one pony in mind.