After The Fall

HOLY LORD. Sorry for this chapter being so short and taking so long to get out but I hit writer's block while writing this like a freight train hitting a solid brick wall several miles thick. But this chapter, while short as hell, got me out of that rut and hopefully back on track.

“What do you mean ‘now’?” Dax asked. He thought they’d be landing tomorrow.

“I mean NOW! As in the present. As in ‘It’s happening right now.’ ‘The ship is landing now,’ Now,” Vinyl chirped.

“I thought Rarity said we’d be landing by tomorrow,” he said still confused. He shoved his pad in his pocket.

“I miscalculated Darling!” Rarity shouted from the bridge.

“I think you should leave the calculation up to the egg heads next time,” Rainbow Dash said flying down from one of the ship’s masts where she’d been sleeping.

“Well excuse me!” Rarity huffed.

“It is a beautiful city,” Fluttershy said as they got a better view.

It was a much forested place. The city was built into the side of some of the massive trees that comprised its surroundings. The trees themselves were huge. Dax had seen skyscrapers on Colombia that came close to their size but nothing like this. The towering spires of wood and leaves dwarfed the ship as it entered the outskirts of the city. Entire buildings were built into the city. In fact none of the cities buildings rested on the forest floor. Houses, restaurants, stores, shops, everything was resting in the trees above. Tall walkways connected each tree. Cable cars ferried people from one corner of the city to the other. The occasional Pegasus would fly by, waving hello before continuing on their way.

The city was literally alive.

“This place is amazing!” Dax said. His headset was recording everything he saw, “Ajax is gonna be sorry she missed out on this!”

Everything had a forest theme to it. The ship drifted towards an airship dock before quietly setting down on its landing struts.

“Looks like we’re here everyone,” Twilight said as the gangplank lowered to the deck. Everyone stood up and headed down stairs.

“Ooh! I can’t wait to sample all the sweets!” Pinkie bounced as they headed out.

“Pinkie Pie,” AJ said, “The last thing yall need is more sugary sweets.”

“Oh please, silly billy!” Pinkie beamed, “You can never have too much sugary sweets!”

“YES YOU CAN,” everyone said. They all stepped out of the yacht. They were hundreds of feet above the forest floor.

“So what’s the plan?!” Vinyl asked, “Cause the big guy and I want to find the nearest club and I know for a fact not all of you wanna join us.”

“Well I’d like to find the library,” Twilight said.

“I’m gonna fly all over this city,” Rainbow said, “Peace!” She ran to edge of the dock and dived off and into hustle and bustle of the forested city.

“Well that was fast,” Twilight said.

“Ah’ myself am gonna find a grocery store. We’re running low on supplies. Plus a little extra flavor in our food wouldn’t hurt,” AJ said.

“Fluttershy and I will be shopping,” Rarity said, “But first we must register the ship.”

Everyone started going their separate ways. Pinkie mysteriously vanished but no one found that too unusual.

“So what’re we gonna do?” Dax asked.

“I dunno,” Vinyl said, “We can go find a record store or something. I honestly meant we’d find a club here later.”

“Well let’s walk around for a while.”

“Ugh, can’t we do something fun?” Vinyl asked, her purple shades glistening in the sunlight.

“Vinyl my dear, you gotta learn to relax,” Dax said, dragging out relax, “Sometimes you just gotta learn to go with the flow; slow down a little and take in life for a moment.”

“Geez,” Vinyl laughed, “Don’t get all philosophical on me. Fine.”

“Don’t you want to learn about this place? Other than where the clubs are?”

“To me it’s just another town until we get to the party places. Aren’t you looking forward to those? I only booked in these first two towns for the others.”

“Well to me it’s a new place to explore and get to know. On all of the worlds I’ve seen I’ve never seen a people live in the trees like this. And these are some huge trees. Larger than anything known by my people to exist.”

“Well when you’re on tour a lot you generally don’t get time to know the place you’re in before you leave. Not really in one place for too long so I never saw the point in getting to see it.”

Dax sighed, “Well for me I always took the time to see as much of the place I was in as I could; no matter how long the stay was. You never know when you’ll next be there or if you return at all. Who knows? You may find something fun to do that doesn’t involve a club.”

Vinyl pawed the ground with her foot, “Well when you put it that way…”

“Come on,” Dax laughed, “Let’s go enjoy the scenery, and then we can find a club.”

“Yes!” Vinyl said.

They walked along the docks before coming onto the large wooden pathways of the forest city. Many of these paths and walkways were as large as full sized roads in Ponyville. People pushing carts were able to get around just fine on the wide streets. There were ramps that led to the different levels of the city as well.

Dax and Vinyl walked along, taking in their surroundings. Surprisingly Vinyl wasn’t restless about the whole thing. She actually seemed interested in their surroundings as they walked along. Dax smiled. Her hair was spiky and out of control like usual and she had a few earrings in her ears. Her purple shades were resting on her head revealing her red eyes. She had a blue colored lipstick on as well as a pair of ear buds resting in her head. She was wearing a white tank top that revealed her nicely toned body. Her shoulders had her signature double quaver cutie mark along with a PON3 tattoo.

Dax shook his head rather violently. Was I just doing what I thought I was doing? He thought, was I checking her out? No, you can’t do that Dax. Bad things happen when you think things like that. Besides, you’re not even the same race as her. You also have a mission to complete. What would AJAX think?

They continued walking past various stores and shops. A few people stopped Scratch to get and autograph or a picture with the legendary DJ. Soon they came to the entrance to a park like area.

The sign read,

Oakum Park

“Wanna check it out?” Dax asked.

“Love to,” Vinyl smiled, “I never realized it but it’s kinda relaxing; not partying or clubbing right now. Still love to party but this is… nice.”

The two walked into the park and gasped at what they saw. The park was resting inside the center part of one of the large trees. The huge branches branched out around it. Smaller plants and trees rested on the green grass of the parks fields. But that wasn’t the best feature of it. In the center was a reservoir of water. A huge basin that sat atop a tree.

“WHOA,” they both said as they walked into the wonderland.

The water was sparkling and crystal clear. Birds chirped and zipped about in the air above. Squirrels skirted about the branches while rabbits and other various animals bounced about below.

The found a bill board that rested near the entrance.

Welcome to Oakum Park.

This small lake was formed by the accumulation of rainwater in the bottom of this small basin. Various fish and other animals were brought in later…

Bla bla bla. They didn’t bother reading the rest of it. It was a beautiful oasis in the sky among the trees. Fluttershy herself would find beauty in this place. The lake was surrounded by a grassy knoll.

“This place would be the perfect setting for a picnic,” Dax said.

“Picnic’s? Boring,” Vinyl said, “Though I will admit this place is pretty rad.”

“I’ve never seen anything like this before. How old do these trees have to be to grow this huge? And for a lake to form? That must have taken hundreds of years.”

“Or it could have been done in a few days. Weather control? Remember?”

“Oh yeah, right. Well we don’t have weather control like that we’re I’m from.”

They continued walking along until they found a nice spot on the grass to sit down on. Dax laid down on his back with his head resting on his arms.

“What’d ya stop for?” Vinyl asked, “I thought we were just gonna walk around this place before finding the club.”

“I don’t know about you but I plan on enjoying this moment while I still can. All this peace and tranquility can balance out the chaos and noise of a party life. I enjoy all the peaceful moments I can get.”

“You’re not gonna leave here for a while, are you?” Vinyl asked already knowing the answer.

“Yup.”

“Gah,” the impatient DJ sighed, “Fine.”

She laid down on the grass next to him. They stared up at the trees and leaves above as nature existed in perfect sync with the city that resided with it. Dax couldn’t help but feel a sense of peace and happiness fall over him. Moments like this were rare when the other half of humanity wanted you dead since you were the one thing stopping them from ultimate victory. But considering the war was lost, there wasn’t much harm in simply lying here and enjoying the best nature had to offer.

“Hey Vinyl?” Dax asked.

No response.

“Hey Vinyl,” Dax said again.

Again, no response.

Dax rolled over on the grass. Vinyl had fallen asleep on knoll. Dax smiled. In so many ways she reminded him of Naomi. She had the spunky impatient attitude of his old number 1. She had a lot of the same mannerisms. She was a lot like her. Only that Naomi was gone.

He sighed at the sad memory of it. She had been his best friend since training, even if she was a bit eccentric and crazy. All of them had been like brothers and sisters to him. Ever since their deaths all he’d felt was an empty, hollow, coldness within. But something about this place was beginning to make him feel alive again. He felt, almost happy. Was that how he would describe it? Maybe. It was the only emotion that made sense. Yeah that was it. Happy; something he hadn’t felt in years.

He sighed contently and rolled back over; listening to Vinyl’s quiet breathing mix in with the tweets of the birds.

He closed his eyes and nearly dozed off when a certain pink haired, girl popped up in front of him.

“HEY!” Pinkie Pie yelled, “I finally found you guys!”

Dax and Vinyl both screamed and shot up like bullets at the verbal assault Pinkie had put them through.

“AH!” Vinyl yelled, “PINKIE PIE! What was that for? The loud club music won’t have to make me deaf at this rate!”

“Well after I fell through the space time continuum I decided to reenter reality at this town’s club! There’s a rave there tonight! Just thought I’d tell ya.”

“Good to know Pinkie!” Dax said rubbing the side of his head.

“Ok nice talkin to ya bye!” With that, Pinkie Pie disappeared into the folds of space in which she appeared from.

“Um,” Dax rubbed the back of his head confused, “Where did she just go?”

Vinyl laughed, “Who the hell knows? She does stuff like that all the time.”

“Doesn’t anyone want to know how she does that?”

“Twilight tried once. Never cracked it. The closed anyone has come to figuring her out is that space and time simply don’t apply to her. Don’t question it, just accept it.”

“Ok then.”

Vinyl sat up, “So we know this place has a club. Wanna head there later? Get a little crazy?”

“Sure I guess,” Dax said.

“Yes!” Vinyl jumped up in the air.

“Hold on there, girl. Raves don’t start until later. Let’s relax.”

“Fine. But later boy we are gonna get naughty!”

Dax’s face turned red, “I, uh, um, oh, uh,”

Vinyl fell over laughing, “Oh you are just so easy to mess with!”

Dax sighed. Yup, just like Naomi.