Dark Horizons

Chapters

Chapter 1: Premonitions
Chapter 2: Stormy Complications
Chapter 4: Pleasant Dreams
Chapter 3: When All Seems Lost

Chapter 1: Premonitions

The wind flew past her face as she ran. She was nearing exhaustion, but she didn’t dare stop or even slow down. She knew that something was behind her, and for some reason she just had to get away from it. There was a dull throbbing pain in her right side as she ran, almost mindlessly, avoiding trees, dodging rocks and branches in the path, frantically trying to escape from whatever was after her. She recognized that she was running through the Everfree Forest but had no idea what part of it, or even for how long she had been running.

As she whipped past another low-hanging tree branch, a part of her bright and colorful mane snagged on it and left a tuft of multicoloured hair behind her. Great, thought Rainbow Dash, another way for them to find me. She suddenly realized that she was running and not flying, having seemingly completely forgotten about her wings. She leapt into the air and tried to spread her wings but a searing bolt of pain shot through the right side of her body, causing her to come crashing to the ground in a very ungraceful tumbling heap. She rolled head-over-hindquarters down a gentle slope, finally stopping at the bottom. She moaned and sat up to look at her side and see what had gone wrong.

She stared in disbelief at what awaited her gaze. Six long slashes ran down the right side of her body, starting from her front leg and continuing up and across her battered right wing to end just before her tail. She was shocked that she hadn’t noticed them before, but realized that fear must have overcome her and dulled the pain to a less noticeable level.

She quickly came to her senses and realized that if the creature that had caused her wounds was chasing her, the last thing she wanted to do was sit still. But which direction should she go? She wasn’t entirely sure which direction she had come tumbling from, so she took off in a direction that seemed to continue slightly downhill. This she hoped would lead her away from them.

That was when she heard it. A low, sinister sounding growl from the woods, which seemed to be coming from her left, so she quickly veered off to the right, only to be confronted by a thick mass of underbrush that she was sure would not be easy to get through. She began to look frantically around for a way out, but was unable to see any other option than to continue in the direction she was already headed, so she pushed herself onwards.

She was not used to running so much, naturally preferring to fly, so her legs were beginning to feel like they might collapse underneath her at any given moment. She heard another growl from behind her and pushed herself even harder. She glanced backwards, but couldn’t make out anything at the speed she was running.
Then she felt her hoof snag on something, causing her to sprawl on the ground and slide to a halt. She tried to regain her footing, but in her panic all she could do was scramble in the dirt. She heard more growls, this time from on two sides of her, and to her right a set of pointed eyes glowed menacingly from the undergrowth. She scrambled away from the thicket the creature was in, only to feel herself hit something hairy behind her. She froze in fear and slowly looked up, into a menacing pair of eyes and a gaping mouth of sharp teeth. The creature growled, raised a large six-clawed paw, and then swung it down towards her with a tremendous amount of force. At the very last moment before it hit her, she let out a small scream.

~*~*~*~

“AAAAAAHHH!” Rainbow Dash jolted out of her sleep, tumbling off the edge of her bed. She fell to the floor struggling to untangle herself from her blankets. She freed herself and stood there for a while, before sitting down and realizing that she was in her home and safe from what must have been just a dream. “Good, only a dream…” she mumbled.

She waited for her racing heart to calm down and, just to make sure, she checked her right side but saw nothing out of the ordinary. Thoroughly shaken, she decided she should brave another attempt at sleep before the morning came. She gathered her blankets off the floor and crawled back into her bed, curling up carefully before falling into a deep, dreamless sleep.

~*~*~*~

When she awoke the next morning, she decided to clear up her thoughts with a quick morning flight. She walked outside onto her front step and stretched her wings. She noticed that her whole body was slightly sore, probably from being tense for the second half of her night. Well, here goes nothing! She launched herself off her step and into the air, glad to be flying once again. As she flew, she let her subconscious take over while she mulled last night’s dream over in her head. She just couldn’t shake a feeling of dread about the dream. Every time she thought about it, she would get the shivers and she would have to take a moment to get her grip on herself again. Although she would never admit it to anypony, her dream had really shaken her.

It took her only a few seconds to deduce where she would most likely find information on dreams and their meanings; a library. She didn’t want to seem so fainthearted as to be distressed by a mere dream but, on the other hand, she knew she had to find some answers to why it shook her so badly. After much deliberation, she came to the conclusion that she would sneak into Twilight’s house that night to see what she could find out. After all, her library is sorted alphabetically so all I would have to do would be look under ‘D’ right? How hard can that be? She concluded her flight and returned home to wait for nightfall.

~*~*~*~

She wasn’t really sure what time would be best for sneaking into somepony else’s house, but she assumed that after midnight would do fine. It was quite some time before she finally decided that she was ready and had gathered enough courage to go ahead with her plan. She reasoned that what Twilight didn’t know couldn’t hurt her, so all she had to do was avoid getting caught.

She carefully approached Twilight’s library, stopping momentarily to take a good look to make sure nopony else was around, before heading up to the door. Careful not to make any rushed movements, she took her time to carefully open and then shut the door quietly. When the door closed, she was in darkness. The only sources of dim light in the library came from the windows and, despite knowing nopony should be up at this hour, she avoided them just to be safe.

Creeping along the wall, she found the shelf with titles beginning with ‘A’ and continued until she found ‘D’. The only problem was that spike’s ladder was resting against the ‘D’ shelf. Carefully she grabbed it and slid it slowly across the floor. Sweat beaded on her forehead as she concentrated on not making any noise. She heard a thud behind her and whirled to face the source of the noise. In her concentration to stay as quiet as possible, she hadn’t noticed that she backed into a small pile of books, which were now toppled along the floor. Carefully replacing them, she returned to the ‘D’ shelf and began to search for a book relating to dreams. That was when the lights turned on. She spun around to see a startled Twilight regarding her with a very surprised expression.

“Rainbow Dash? What are you doing in here?” she asked, as Rainbow quickly tried to work out some kind of an excuse.

“Ummm, well… I can’t sleep lately, so I thought you might have a book that might help me? Oh, but I didn’t want to disturb you so I figured I would try to be quiet…” her voice trailed off at the end of her sentence as she noticed that Twilight was clearly not buying it.

“Then why were you looking under ‘D’? Sleep starts with an ‘S’ and the ‘S’ shelf is in the next room.”

“Yeah, but I thought… ummmmm…”

Twilight noticed that Rainbow’s eyes were becoming wider, she was beginning to paw at the floor, and she was sweating slightly. Three signs that point to a liar, she thought. “Rainbow, why are you really here?” she asked, choosing her words carefully, “You know I am always happy to help a friend in need, and you said that lately you haven’t been able to sleep. Couldn’t you have come to see me during the day?”

“Well, yeah I guess so…” Rainbow quickly tried to search for another excuse to use, but found none. Closing her eyes, she admitted “The truth is Twi… I… well I had a dream and it kind of freaked me out... just a bit.”

“Oh Rainbow, that’s not unusual for any of us. I have just the book for you too but, if I am to lend it to you, you must agree never to go skulking around my library at night again.”

“All right, I’m sorry Twilight.” Rainbow dash replied, lowering her head slightly.

“It’s alright Rainbow, we have all done things in the shadow of poor judgments” Twilight said softly to her friend, as she used her magic to pull a book down from the shelf. “I think this book should be able to answer any questions you may have about your dreams.” She laid the book on the floor in front of her friend.

Rainbow Dash eyed the book titled ‘Dreams: an Analyst’s Guide’ suspiciously, wondering if it was even possible to come up with a duller name. “Thanks Twi, and I really am sorry about sneaking around on you like that.”

“Don’t worry yourself over that now. It’s all behind us, but now I need to get some sleep” Twilight replied with a smile.

“Of course, goodnight Twilight”

“Goodnight Rainbow Dash” The two friends parted ways, one heading out the door while the other returned to her bed. Now to get home and read this book she thought, hardly able to believe that she actually wanted to read a book. She arrived home and immediately curled up in bed to read. Not ten seconds after opening the cover and reading the introductory sentence, she was sound asleep.

~*~*~*~

When Rainbow Dash awoke the next morning, all she could see was darkness. She scrambled briefly, causing the book she had been reading last night to fall off her face. Feeling rather sheepish, she headed to the kitchen, whipped up a quick salad, and sat down on the couch with the book. She opened it and began to read, hoping she could manage to stay awake while doing so. After skimming through the introduction, which went into fascinating detail about the boring-sounding middle-aged stallion who wrote the book, she arrived at the first parts of useful information.

Little is known about dreams, it began, but that is why I wrote this book. For some, dreams are simply our minds experimenting with scenarios, while for others they can sometimes be premonitions. Upon reading this, Rainbow’s mouthful of salad shot out of her mouth with a horrendous velocity. Ignoring the mess she had just made she flipped to the index and searched for ‘Premonitions’. Her hoof shook slightly as she searched for the entry, found it, and turned to the appropriate page. She glanced along the page until she saw the table she was looking for, titled ‘Was Your Dream a Premonition?’ She read through the table, mentally checking off factors as she went.

When she reached the end of the list, she realized that she had checked off almost every checkbox except for one. The last checkbox in the list, and the only unchecked one, stated ‘Has your dream come true?’ She sat in shock. She had seen how she was going to die. But did she die? She didn’t know for sure, since she woke up right when she was hit. She noticed one last phrase that caught her attention. At the bottom of the page there was one line written in red that said ‘NOTE: Even if your dream was a premonition, there is still a possibility it may not occur.’ That line gave her very little reassurance…

Chapter 2: Stormy Complications

Applejack awoke with a start, hearing a rumbling boom as another low peal of thunder expressed its anger. She groaned and sat up to look at the clock. It was two-thirty in the morning. She sank back into her bed and rolled over to try to sleep again, but it was no use. The constant flashes of lightning, followed shortly by loud claps of thunder, prevented her from escaping into sleep once more. She wondered why Rainbow Dash hadn’t done anything about the storm yet, considering it had hit Ponyville mid-afternoon yesterday. She decided that she would have to find Rainbow and see if she and the other weather ponies could fight off the storm so Ponyville could get some sleep.

She slowly crawled out of bed, donned her hat and a heavy rain-repellant cloak, and headed out of her room. She wondered if it was a good idea to try to find Rainbow now but when another loud clap of thunder rang through the air, she decided that it would probably be worth it. As soon as she had stepped outside her front door, she almost lost her hat to the wind. She slowly but surely made her way down the road towards Ponyville.

It took her quite some time due to the incredibly strong winds, but she had finally made it. She headed for Rainbow Dash’s house, located on the outskirts of Ponyville. She finally arrived, only to realize that she had no way of getting up to the door! In this storm there would be no way Rainbow would hear her from way down here, so she decided to return home. Later she would find Fluttershy and see if she could convince her to fly up and talk to Rainbow.

She was just heading back through Ponyville, when a huge gust of wind picked her up and tossed her against a house. She was dazed for a moment, but quickly regained her senses. She realized that it would be insanity to continue trying to get home in the winds. She saw that she was only across the street from Twilight’s library, so she headed over and knocked on the door, holding onto the handle so as not to be blown away. A very sleepy and confused-looking Twilight opened the door as Applejack tumbled into the room.

“Quick, close the door before another gust comes!” she said, as Twilight complied and shut the door. Applejack breathed a sigh of relief, glad to be safe from the storm.

“Hello Applejack. Um, what are you doing here?” Twilight asked.

“Oh, sorry Twilight, ah guess ah have some explainin’ to do” Applejack said as she proceeded to tell Twilight her plans to go see Rainbow Dash about the storm they were having.

“But it’s three in the morning!” Twilight replied, “What made you believe Rainbow Dash would even help now?”

“Well ah figured if ah can’t sleep then it was likely nopony else could either, so ah decided ah would see if she would help out all a’ Ponyville and let us all get some sleep” Applejack explained while she maneuvered herself into a sitting position.

“Well you were right about that, at least for me anyways, because I haven’t had a single moment of sleep all night with this horrendous storm” Twilight agreed “Say Applejack, how would you like to stay here for the night rather than having to travel all the way back to your farm?”

“That’s mighty kind of ya Twilight, but ah couldn’t impose…”

She was cut off by her friends quick response, “Oh it wouldn’t be imposing at all, especially considering the severe danger trying to make it back to your farm tonight would entail” Twilight pointed out, “You’re welcome to stay, and I still have that spare bed you and Rarity used back at my slumber party!”

“Well gee Twilight, ya make it sound so temptin’ ah suppose ah’m just gonna have to accept that kind offer a’ yours” Applejack said, smiling in agreement, and the two quickly set up the spare bed.

The storm raged on throughout the night, both ponies trying to sleep but neither succeeding. All they could do was rest and try to save their strength for the next day.

~*~*~*~

That morning, they both got up and had a brief breakfast. Then they headed out to find Fluttershy to talk with Rainbow Dash. When they reached Fluttershy’s house, they knocked on the door but it wasn’t answered. “Fluttershy? Are you in there?” Twilight had to yell to even hear herself over the storm, so she doubted Fluttershy was able to hear their knocking. She opened the door and went inside, shutting the door behind her, glad to be leaving the storm behind.

“Sugarcube, are ya in here?” Applejack asked, glancing around the room. She noticed a distinct lack of furry critters moving about the house; usually Fluttershy’s house was alive with small animals, but not today. “Let’s check upstairs” she suggested to Twilight, and began to head over to the stairs.

“I’ll stay down here and finish searching the ground floor” Twilight replied, as she headed off into the kitchen.

“Sounds good Sugarcube” Applejack replied, as she disappeared up the stairs. It sure is dark up here she thought as she stumbled around, I wonder where the lights are? She felt her way around the wall beside the doorframe until her hoof hit a switch, causing the lights to burst into life. She heard a squeal from across the room and looked to see two very large eyes regarding her from under the bed.

“Is it over?” the eyes inquired cautiously, “I’m scared, it was so loud”

“Yes Sugarcube the thunder and lightnin’ is over, at least for now it is” Applejack replied, “Although ah believe we need your help in order to get this storm to pass completely”

“But isn’t that the weather pony’s job?” the eyes asked in surprise.

“That’s just it Sugarcube, we need ya to fly up to Rainbow Dash’s house and get that darned weather pony to come down and talk to us about why she ain’t doin’ her job” Applejack explained.

Slowly and carefully a terrified-looking Fluttershy emerged from under the bed, glancing back and forth between the windows in the room. She cautiously stood up and followed Applejack out of the room. They headed back downstairs to find Twilight just returning from the kitchen.

“Hello Fluttershy” Twilight greeted her friend brightly, “Sorry to intrude, but we need somepony to…”

She was cut off by Applejack saying “Ah already told her we need her to get Rainbow Dash”

“Oh, I see” Twilight replied, slightly irritated by Applejack’s abrupt and unnecessary interruption, but she continued “So Fluttershy, would you be able to help us then?”

“Oh, well I suppose so, but that would mean we would have to… have to… go…” she stumbled to find the courage to continue but only managed “out THERE!”

“Yes,” Twilight replied carefully, “We would have to go out into the storm, but don’t worry Fluttershy, we’ll be with you the whole time”

“Yes… Um, ok… but can I stay between you two?” Fluttershy inquired timidly.

“Absolutely,” Twilight said, glancing at Applejack and seeing her nod of approval, “Now let’s get going!”

They headed outside, into the wind and rain of the storm, hoping to finally be on the way to clearing up the awful storm.

~*~*~*~

As they headed to Rainbow Dash’s house, they were constantly fighting the tremendously forceful winds. Several times they had to help each other stay standing, but they made it safely and without any major incidents. Fluttershy flew up to Rainbow Dash’s door and knocked quietly.

Twilight sighed and yelled up to her “Just go in, there’s no way she can hear you in this storm!” She hoped that Fluttershy could hear her, but couldn’t be sure as she was unable to see her anymore. A few moments later Fluttershy flew back down from the house and landed in front of Twilight and Applejack.

“She says that she won’t come out. She wants to stay in her home where she is safe from something, but she won’t say what. Sorry, I know this isn’t the answer you wanted but that’s what she said…” Fluttershy explained to them.

“That’s quite alright Fluttershy I was kind of expecting this actually. See if you can convince her to come down here just to talk to us.” Twilight said, while she wondered what Rainbow could possibly have seen in her dream to make her this fearful of even leaving her house. Fluttershy took off again to give it another go. She returned shortly, this time smiling. Behind her was Rainbow Dash, looking very uncharacteristically scared. She was glancing all around quickly, and she was quite worried looking about the nearby wooded areas.

“Hey guys, what’s up?” Rainbow Dash asked in an odd, slightly shaky voice as she landed in front of them.

“Hey Rainbow, we haven’t seen you in a long time, and with this storm we thought it was about time we found you. Ponyville needs you to organize the weather ponies to clear up this storm. It’s been going for almost a whole day now.” Twilight explained, hoping her friend would see their point of view.

“Well… Ummm…” Rainbow stumbled for words to express her thoughts, trying her best to find something that wouldn’t make her look like a coward in front of Applejack. “Well Twi, you remember that dream I told you about?” she asked carefully.

“Yes, I remember giving you the book I had on dreams, but you never did tell me what your dream was about.” Twilight replied gently, seeing that Rainbow Dash was very uneasy talking at the moment.

“Yeah, that dream was definitely interesting… and the book you gave me helped me understand a lot about it… I think…” she talked slowly, carefully trying to avoid embarrassing herself. “Cause, well I read in the book that some dreams are premonitions… and my dream checked out on all the categories except one, which was that it hadn’t happened yet and well… In my dream I… I died…” she concluded.

Applejack had done an excellent job listening so far, but this was just too much! Rainbow Dash got scared by a dream?! Was it even possible?! She managed “So you’re afraid you’re gonna die, because a book says so? AHAHAHAHAHA!” Applejack burst into a laughing fit, falling onto the ground.

Rainbow Dash turned her head away to hide the blood that was quickly rushing to her cheeks. “This was another reason I didn’t want to come down…” she mumbled.

“Applejack!” Twilight scolded her friend and tried to talk some sense into her “Rainbow Dash’s fears are very real! I didn’t think you actually believed that anypony could be entirely fearless!”

Applejack was too enthralled in rolling with laughter to reply. Twilight decided that if she couldn’t get Applejack to quit embarrassing Rainbow, then she would just have to find a reason for Rainbow to leave. “So Rainbow, do you think you could get the weather ponies together and fight off this storm?” She asked, hoping she would get the response she needed.

Rainbow Dash saw her opportunity and leaped on it “Yeah sure Twilight, I’ll get to it right away!” she said as she quickly flew off, fighting the storm’s forceful winds as she did so. Thankfully, the storm’s winds helped to drown out the haunting sound of Applejack’s laughter from the back of her mind.

~*~*~*~

It hadn’t taken very long to get the weather ponies organized and in the skies to fight the storm, Rainbow Dash mused as she and the other weather ponies fought the clouds back from Ponyville. She took stock of how they were doing, which was very well, and noticed that the storm was quickly being defeated. It roiled in rage as it put up a good fight against the weather ponies driving it back, but it was outmatched in this battle. She smiled and resumed pushing the storm back.

She noticed that they had just pushed the storm past Fluttershy’s cottage and were almost entirely clear of Ponyville. Soon she would be able to return, victorious after vanquishing the storm. Then she remembered Applejack, her mocking laughter invading Rainbow Dash’s mind and clouding her thoughts. She had to focus hard on the storm and the task at hand just to stay in the air.

This was when the storm ceased its teasing and unleashed all its pent-up force. Rainbow Dash was taken completely by surprise, as were the other weather ponies, as the storm rushed over them. Rainbow Dash found herself engulfed in clouds and gale-force winds as she was buffeted around. She knew that she had to get down lower, but she couldn’t see anything below her. She slowly and carefully descended, watching for any sign of the ground through the thick clouds, but she couldn’t make out anything but white. The storm seemed to have taken on a mind of its own, tossing her around like a leaf as she tried to guide herself down. The last thing she needed to happen was to crash into the ground.

At that moment, she hit a powerful downburst which sent her plummeting towards the ground with ever-increasing speed. She flared her wings to try to slow her descent but then she saw the ground, or rather the tree-tops. She crashed through the trees before hitting the ground with a dull thud. She moaned as she sat up slowly, her whole body aching slightly, and took a quick look around.

She was in the Everfree forest. The storm must have blown her towards its center when it had engulfed her, she thought as she quickly looked around for any kind of landmark. She saw nothing that she recognized and had no idea where Ponyville, or anything for that matter, was in relation to her. She stood up, only to quickly sit back down with a cry when her leg screamed out in pain and protest. She tried again, slower this time, and managed to stand.

She took it easy and began heading through the Everfree forest down what might have been a path many years ago, but it was horribly overgrown so the going was slow. The wind was still blowing like crazy, even on the forest floor it managed to gust around unpredictably. That meant flying was not an option at all. An image of herself impaled on a tree branch crossed her mind momentarily, but she quickly brushed it off.

She had come to a slightly more used-looking section of the ‘path’ that she was on, and found the walking to be a bit easier. She glanced around again to see, yet again, nothing familiar. CRASH! She jumped back as a tree came crashing down in front of her. She heard a crunch of something moving behind her and began to turn, but she felt a sharp blow to her head and her world faded into black…

Chapter 4: Pleasant Dreams

Rainbow Dash felt consciousness returning to her slowly. The first sensation she felt was that she was warm and lying on something soft. Her eyes slowly opened and began to bring the blurry world surrounding her into focus. She could make out five brightly-coloured shapes surrounding her and she smiled. She blinked several times which mostly cleared up her vision, but it still seemed like the world was a bit fuzzy.

“Rainbow Dash, you’re finally awake!” Twilight said “You’ve been asleep for almost the whole day”

“Hey guys” Rainbow replied “What am I doing here? Why is my vision slightly fuzzy?” she asked.

“Ya don’t remember?” Applejack asked. She seemed rather surprised, but Rainbow Dash couldn’t quite figure out why.

“Not really, I remember…” Rainbow Dash trailed off as her memories poured back; her waking up in the cave, escaping and getting cut, and finally her friends arriving to save her. “Oh… right… Now I remember…” she said absentmindedly. She tried to sit up more in the bed, but groaned in pain as her side screamed in protest. The cyan mare tentatively peeked under the sheets of the hospital bed to be greeted by the sight of a mass of white hospital bandages adorning her body.

“Careful Rainbow, the doctor said your side is going to take a while to heal. Oh and your vision is probably a little fuzzy from the painkillers they gave you” Twilight said. Gathering her courage, she continued “He said that… well… it might be up to a month before you’re able to leave your bed”

Rainbow Dash groaned as she thought about how long a month would be. “I can’t stay here for a month!” she protested.

“Ya can’t do much else though” Applejack pointed out, quickly cringing at her choice of words.

Rainbow Dash glared at Applejack, who seemed to shrink under her gaze, but the pegasus pony’s expression quickly melted away to be replaced by one of resignation. “Yeah, you’ve got a point” she said in a defeated tone, sliding slightly farther down in the bed.

“Aw now don’t be sore Sugarcube, ah didn’t mean for it to come out that way and ah’m sorry”

“But you’re right, I can’t do anything” Rainbow replied “I have to lie in this bed and do nothing for a whole month!”

“No you don’t silly!” The bubbly voice of Pinkie Pie eased a little of the tension from the room “You can read, um… I know! We could throw a PARTY!” she squealed.

“Um, Pinkie? Remember Nurse Redheart’s reaction last time you suggested that?” Twilight mentioned casually.

“Oh shoot, I forgot about her” Pinkie admitted, scuffing the floor with her hoof.

Rainbow Dash smiled “Thanks Pinkie, even though the party idea won’t work out, I haven’t read the last few books in the Daring Do series yet” she said pointedly glancing towards Twilight who smiled and quickly departed for her library. She returned a few moments later with a small stack of books.

“Here Rainbow, these are all the books in the series that you haven’t read yet” Twilight said cheerily, placing them on the bedside table.

Rainbow Dash eyed the stack of books, noting its size would not be sufficient to last her a whole month. She let out a small, almost-silent sigh and replied “Thanks Twi”

Something must have alerted them to her feelings though, because they all looked at her concerned and Twilight asked “What’s wrong Rainbow?”

“Well…” she didn’t know how to proceed, but she tried anyways “I don’t know that I can make it a whole month without flying” she said quietly.

The voice that replied came from a corner of the room which had been quiet since she had awoken, it came from Fluttershy. “Don’t worry Rainbow Dash, if you ever need anything just let us know” she said reassuringly, smiling kindly.

“Thanks Fluttershy, if I need something I’ll be sure to let you all know” Rainbow Dash replied, smiling and blushing a bit.

“We’ll always be here for you dear” Rarity chimed in.

Rainbow noticed that Twilight was whispering something to Applejack. Applejack’s face turned a bright shade of red and she mumbled something back, looking rather embarrassed. “Um, Sugarcube ah kinda forgot to tell ya somethin’” Applejack said, looking down at the floor “When you came outta your house and we were tryin’ to get ya to clear the storm up, ah um… acted kinda foolishly” she admitted “ah shouldn’ta let myself get so carried away… ah’m sorry Rainbow” she finished, looking up into Rainbow Dash’s eyes to see a look of complete forgiveness there.

“It’s all right Applejack. After all, you’re the one I have to thank for being alive” The pegasus replied smiling.

“Well shucks Rainbow, it was the least ah could do” Applejack replied, blushing.

Nurse Redheart entered the room and said “Come along my little ponies, Rainbow Dash needs to rest now” as she held the door open for them. They all said their goodbyes for the day to Rainbow Dash, and left for the night.

Now that Rainbow was finally alone, she realized that she was exhausted. She tried to turn onto her side, but was met by a sharp pain so she remained on her back. Closing her eyes, she smiled softly as the darkness of sleep began to envelop her and draw her towards dreams of a more pleasant variety than those she had been having recently.

Chapter 3: When All Seems Lost

Consciousness slowly returned to Rainbow Dash as she lay on a cold, hard surface. She was momentarily confused as to why her bed felt so weird, until her memories flooded back; the storm, the winds, getting blown to the ground, and then the noise behind her. Slowly she half-opened her eyes, careful not to make any sudden movements, and surveyed her surroundings.

She was in a dark corner of a circular cave with a fire in the middle. There were two hairy creatures seated around the fire, their bodies and the flickering flames cast spooky shadows along the walls. Shuddering, she recognized the creatures as the ones from her dreams. They roughly resembled bears, but with longer limbs and two small fangs protruding from the tops of their mouths and descending downwards, to end in sharp points just below their chins. They didn’t look friendly before she noticed their fangs, but now they looked downright horrifying.

Remembering her attempt at flight from her dream, Rainbow Dash slowly shifted to face her right side and was relieved to see there were no scratches adorning it. She heard a growl followed by a few grunts and a shuffling noise from over by the fire, and slowly shifted to see what was going on. One of the creatures had gotten up and was walking on two legs across the cave to another dark corner. It walked hunched over and seemed in no hurry at all. When the creature arrived at its destination, it rummaged around for a while before finding what it was looking for. It hauled out a large log and dragged it behind itself as the creature made its way back to the fire. The log must have been at least three ponies long and at least three hooves thick, but the creature simply tossed it casually onto the fire and sat back down. Rainbow Dash felt a bead of sweat trickle down her face and drip onto the stone floor. She was far outmatched when compared to these creatures.

The second creature, the one that was seated closest to her, got up and turned towards her. The cyan mare felt her heartbeat stop for a moment as fear began to slowly grip her, but she pushed it back into the recesses of her mind. She had to remain calm or it could spell her end. The creature stood there regarding her for a few moments, moments which seemed to crawl by for Rainbow Dash. Finally the creature turned back to the fire and sat down. Her mouth tried to let out a loud sigh of relief, but she managed to restrain it.

Rainbow Dash knew she had to find a way to get away from them, before the events of her dream could take shape. Looking around the cave one more time, nothing caught her eye as being useful in her escape. The cave was circular and almost entirely lit, save the corner she was in and the corner with the wood. This meant that any attempt at escape would almost certainly lead to detection, unless… Her heart skipped a beat. If she could creep along the ground in the shadows of the creatures, she could make it to the cave entrance! Upon retracing her route however, her heart fell as she realized the gap between the two creatures’ shadows was too large to cross without getting noticed.

A movement by the mouth of the cave caught her eye and she saw another creature coming into the cave. It was sopping wet and left small puddles behind it after every step. She noticed the cave’s mouth was just barely big enough for it to fit in as it bent over to fit through the opening. It was carrying three large sticks, two Y-shaped sticks and one long one. It put them down near the fire but not on it, and sat down to the growls and grunts of its companions, as they moved to facilitate it.

Rainbow Dash pondered the reasoning of bringing in the sticks but not putting them on the fire, until the horrifying reasoning became clear to her. When she was younger, her mother had once told a horror-story about sophisticated meat-eating ponies that would cook their food over a fire using two sticks to hold up one that was suspended over the fire. They planned to eat her! Not if I can help it! She thought, glancing around the room once more for anything that could help her escape. Rainbow Dash’s heart nearly leapt out of her chest when she found it.

When the second creature had sat down, the other creatures had rearranged themselves and the gap in the shadow had closed enough that she might be able to make it through without being seen. Rainbow decided that she had to give it a try, and began to slowly and carefully crawl around the edge of the cave. Every step, she carefully chose where to place her hoof to make the least amount of noise as she crawled along the wall.

It felt like it was taking forever, but she was making progress. Rainbow Dash was now just before the gap in the shadows, so she settled down to wait for a better opportunity. The wait wasn’t very long. At that moment the creatures appeared to have struck up a conversation, or something similar, as the cave came alive with their growls and grunts. The cyan mare quickly took advantage of what she hoped would be their lack of attention, and darted across the gap. Glancing back at them, she saw no sign that they had noticed her. Satisfied that they were not alerted to her disappearance, she continued crawling along the perimeter of the cave.

Rainbow Dash had crept halfway around the cave and was at the midpoint between where she had been lying, and the exit. The cave came alive with an incredibly loud roar as all the creatures got up. Pressing herself against the wall, Rainbow Dash felt her heartbeat increase rapidly as she became aware that they were searching the room quickly. Knowing that she had no choice, the mare made a quick bolt for the entrance. The creatures roared in rage as they saw her rapidly approaching freedom. One of them was quicker than the rest, and reached the cave entrance before Rainbow Dash, extending its long and very sharp-looking claws. Thinking quickly, Rainbow feinted right and then dashed to the creature’s left. Sailing past the creature’s right side, she felt a sharp pain run down her whole side and came crashing to the ground outside the cave’s mouth.

Scrambling to right herself, the cyan mare glanced at her side to see six crimson slashes adorning it. With the creatures roaring from the cave and doing their best to hurry out, she had little time to think and instead ran on instinct. Bolting into the Everfree forest, Rainbow Dash tried not to think about the fact that this was where her nightmare took place. There was a torrential downpour that splattered her face and muddied the forest floor as she dashed through the woods as fast as possible. After having run for what seemed long enough to have lost them, she began to slow down. Listening for anything following her, Rainbow Dash heard nothing and continued trotting through the woods, looking for anything familiar.

It feels like I’ve been moving for hours, Rainbow Dash thought. Her pace had initially been a thunderous sprinting that eventually degraded down to a trot, which had now been reduced to a slow and stumbling walk. She knew that the wound in her side was weakening her and decided that she would have to stop somewhere to rest. The last thing she needed right now was to collapse in the middle of the trail from exhaustion. Looking behind her, she caught sight of the trail of dripping blood she had been leaving behind, tinting the mud and puddles on the path with small red specks. As much as the mare wanted to stop and rest, she knew if she did it would all be over.

Stumbling through the woods, Rainbow Dash heard a series of growls from behind her. They had caught up to her! Forgetting both her wound and her exhaustion as a burst of pure adrenaline kicked in, she bolted forward with newfound speed. Some part of her mind screamed in protest that she couldn’t keep running forever, but she pushed the thought aside. Then she recognized her surroundings, although what met her eyes was not to her satisfaction. Rainbow Dash had bolted through the forest so quickly that she failed to notice that she had entered the part of the woods in which her dream began. Growling came from her left and, seeing no other options, the mare veered right only to run into the wall of undergrowth. Her heart was pounding faster and faster and she felt cold fear begin to grip her mind as she realized that despite all her efforts, her dream was unfolding before her eyes.

Rainbow Dash heard a growl from behind her, but knew that looking back was the cause of her downfall in the dream, so she pushed herself onwards and past the rock that spelled her previous doom. Finally she burst out of the thick forest into the full force of the rain that blurred her vision and stung her face as she ran. She felt the mud under her hooves, but didn’t think quickly enough to save herself. Time seemed to progress slowly and she watched helplessly as first her front hooves lost their footing, followed quickly by her back ones. Tumbling to her left, she slid to a halt in the mud. Rainbow Dash knew that she should be getting up, trying to run, but lying down felt so good and getting up seemed like it would take so much energy.

Growling came from around her somewhere, she couldn’t tell exactly where. Blinking as much of the rain out of her eyes as she could, she looked up to see a large slightly-blurry shape growling down at her. So this was how it would end, the great Rainbow Dash was destined to die exhausted and lying in a mud puddle at some vicious creature’s feet. She had always envisioned a more heroic end but there was nothing for that now, so she simply closed her eyes and, feeling somehow calm, waited for the final blow to arrive.

That final blow never came though. She heard the familiar sound of hooves splashing though mud followed by a loud shout of “If you dare hurt her, ah will…” Rainbow Dash didn’t hear the rest as a particularly irritating raindrop hit her in the ear, but she knew right away from the accent exactly who had said it. She looked up just in time to see a very muddy and bedraggled-looking Applejack slam into the creature above her with tremendous force, causing them both to tumble over her. The creature fell into the mud after doing a nearly-complete front-flip over her, but Applejack glowed purple and was quickly righted and set back down on her feet. Rainbow Dash looked over to see a similarly worn-down looking Twilight standing by the edge of the woods, saving Applejack the trouble of sprawling in the mud with her foes.

Applejack continued to beat away at the creatures, with Twilight dutifully saving her from crashing into the ground several more times, until the beasts finally realized that they couldn’t win and retreated. “Yeah, y’all go ahead an’ run!” Applejack yelled after them, as they quickly melted away into the undergrowth. Rainbow’s friends quickly trotted over to her, Twilight letting out a gasp at her wounds.

“Rainbow! You’re hurt!” Twilight said, her jaw hanging slightly open in shock and her brow creased with worry.

“Are ya all right Sugarcube?” Applejack asked, not yet seeing her wounds. She moved around Rainbow to where Twilight was standing regarding her. Applejack saw the scratches running down Rainbow’s side and gasped. Making a quick decision, she said “We’ve gotta get you back to Ponyville Hospital right away!”

“Uh… hey… thanks for the rescue guys” Rainbow said weakly, struggling to stay conscious to speak. “I would love… to get back to Ponyville but… I don’t know that I can” she mumbled “I’m exhausted… too tired to walk anymore.”

“You just hold on Sugarcube, we’ll carry you back then!” Applejack said urgently, as Twilight agreed and carefully lifted Rainbow with her magic and placed her on Applejack’s back.

Rainbow Dash smiled, mumbling a quiet “Thank y…” before trailing off and falling asleep. The group then headed back through the Everfree forest towards Ponyville as quickly as possible…