Chapters The Sun rises. The Moon sets and the morning fog has been lifted. Fluttershy loves this part of the day, the morning. It's clear, bright, quiet, and just overall relaxing. She loves the time alone with her animals until noon where she then meets up with the others. Today, however, Rainbow Dash has different plans. "Hey Shy! You awake?" She yells, knocking on the door. It swings open and Fluttershy lets her in.
"Good morning Rainbow, you're excited today."
"Camping!" Fluttershy jumps. "I mean, let's go camping. You and me, just for the heck of it."
"Oh, ok, well, why so randomly?"
"I don't know, I just feel like it."
"Um, ok, well, that sounds like fun but, where? Where would we go?" Fluttershy asks, nervous of the answer.
"The Everfree!" Once again Fluttershy jumps.
"T-the E-Everfree? But-"
"But nothing. We've been through that forest twenty times at least, and the more we go through it the less frightening it becomes. So what do you say?" Rainbow stands there, a smile on her face.
"Well, Angle and the others would-"
"Just fill up the bowls before you leave."
"And the others, they-"
"We'll be back first thing tomorrow, they won't even notice we're gone."
"But what if something happens to us, no one would-"
"Nothing will happen to us, come on Flutters its me. I'll protect us. Plus you and the way you handle animals will keep us breathing. So what do you say?"
"Oh, this is a bad idea Rainbow. A really, really bad idea. But..."
"But?" Rainbow asks, the anticipation growing.
"But ok, just for one night." Fluttershy reluctantly answers.
"Woohoo! Alright, I'll go get my things and we'll meet back here in an hour, don't be late!" Rainbow flies off.
"But I live here." Rainbow doesn't hear her as she is already half way back to her house. Angle hops towards Fluttershy and kicks her hoof.
"Well, I mean, she really wanted to go." Angle stares at her, an annoyed look on his face. "And she is right, we have been through the forest multiple times. I'm sure we'll be fine." He continues staring. "Here, I'll fill up your food for the rest of the day. Same with the others' food too." She walks around the house, filling the food and water bowls for all the animals. She grabs a blanket and no sooner is there a knock on the door. Fluttershy answers and Rainbow flies in.
"Ok, I got the tent and the food, ready?" Fluttershy looks back at the animals then back at Rainbow and nods. "Ok, let's go." They head out of the cottage and walk into the woods.
Fluttershy breaks the science. "So why did you decide to go camping?"
"Meh, it's been a long time since I've done anything at all with nature. I figured to get in touch with it for at least a night, and why not with the one friend who knows everything about nature?"
"Well, I don't know everything about nature, I mean no one could understand the EverFree." Rainbow looks up.
"Yeah, it is pretty unpredictable." They continue on until they find a flat area about twenty minutes into the walk. "Here will work." They set up the tent near a small cliff and lay out the food inside of it.
Rainbow finishes putting up the tent and walks out, seeing Fluttershy staring at the sky. She sits next her and looks up. "Isn't it amazing?" Rainbow walks over and sits near her.
"Wow. I never thought it'd look like this." The sky is a dark, navy blue. The moon is half full and it reflects off of the clouds that are slowly moving in the sky. The stars shine through the holes in the clouds and twinkle slowly. The two ponies stare at the night sky, both speechless. Suddenly the ground shakes below their hooves. "What was that?" The ground begins to move backwards, sounds of crashing coming from behind them.
"What's happening?"
"The rocks are giving way!" No sooner did she say that sentence when she falls onto her wing, a loud snap echoing throughout the forest, a sharp scream following soon afterwards. Fluttershy, scared and confused, holds Rainbow Dash by the hooves and flies up and over to solid ground. She falls to the ground as her wings give out, panting on the ground. Looking at what went wrong she sees scratches all over her both wings. She tries to fly up again to test them but is unable to do so as the pain is too much.
After two minutes the crashing completely stopped and the two ponies lay on the ground, neither moving an inch. "Dash? You ok?" Fluttershy asks, looking over at the motionless pegasus.
"No, I broke my wing. And I saw your wings, you have to be in worse shape then me." It's true, the pain is tremendous. But Fluttershy passes it off as nothing as she doesn't want Rainbow to worry. "Fluttershy, listen, I know you didn't want-"
"Rainbow, please, it's ok. No one could have guessed that this would happen." Fluttershy says, interrupting Rainbow's apology.
Rainbow sighs. "Ok, well, what do we do now?"
"I was hoping you'd know." They fall asleep on the ground, staring up at the navy blue, star lighten sky.
Fluttershy slowly opens her eyes as the sun beats down onto her checks. Yawning and turning she breathes in sharply as she forgets about her injured wings, feeling the aftermath from last night. Looking over at Rainbow Dash she now has a better view of her broken wing. It looks like a folded pice of paper, a tight crease going all the way from the top to the bottom of the wing. "Dash? Are you awake?" No response. She gets up and looks at the cliff. It looked small last night, but looking down she no longer can see the bottom like she thought she could last night.
Rainbow groans and rolls, stopping when she feels the hurt wing begin to act up. Looking around she sees trees that fell, looking as though it could have fell onto them if they moved any slower escaping the sliding ground. She stands up and begins to walk, or rather limp, attempting to walk off the pain from her wing. All her life she was told to do exactly that, just walk it off. It never worked and she has her doubts it will now. She sees Fluttershy looking over the edge. She feels awful, guilting Fluttershy into going on this trip and now they are stranded alone, hurt and in trouble. "We were pretty lucky huh?" She asks, walking over.
"I'd say." They look at what could have been their new homes, the bottom of darkness. Instead of thinking deeply into it, Rainbow Dash decides to walk around, clearly looking for something. "What are you doing?"
"Looking for hoof prints from when we came here. If we can find them, all we have to do is follow them back to pony-" She stops herself.
"What is it?" Fluttershy walks over and sees a track of four bear prints that walked towards them, then turned around while they were asleep.
"Pretty lucky." Dash whispers to herself. Looking a bit farther up she sees mud that wasn't there last night. Following it she realizes that a river must have spilled water when the ground broke. "Ah Pony Feathers, the mud must have covered up our tracks. How are we supposed to find our way back?"
"Um, could we just start walking?" Rainbow doesn't respond. They could always just begin to wonder, look for home. Or would it be better to stay put? Wait for help?
"Alright. Come on, let's go."
In Ponyville, Applejack has gone over to Twilight's as she has noticed the two Pegasi missing. "Twilight!"
The door opens and Twilight, obviously just woken up, frustratingly looks at Applejack. "Applejack, it is five in the morning. I got to sleep at three. Please tell me this is important."
"It is, have you seen RD or Fluttershy around?"
"No, why?"
"Well, I went to both houses and neither of them were there. Fluttershy had food bowls and water bowls for the animals out across her house, and Rainbow left a food bowl out for Tank. I'm worried, they could be hurt. Missing even, so how about helping me find them?" Twilight, woken up a bit more, nods and agrees to help.
"Rainbow, please, slow down." Fluttershy pleads, out of breath and her legs sore.
"We can't, we have to keep going. They might not have noticed that we're gone yet."
"But do we have to run?" Rainbow gives in and slows down. Immediately after doing so, her legs throb and become numb.
"Ok, ok wait. Wait, hold on." Rainbow sits on the ground, her legs in pain. Fluttershy walks over. "Can we just sit here for a moment?" Fluttershy chuckles from the irony and sits next to her. "Flutters, what are we doing?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, this. Walking into the abyss, hoping to find the others again. We most likely just went deeper into this forest, and we are out of food and water. It's like..." Rainbow trails off, looking at a certain tree.
"Rainbow?" She looks at the same tree but sees nothing. Rainbow jumps to her hooves and runs over to it. "Rainbow, wait!" Fluttershy chases after her.
Rainbow pushes through the pain and numbness and gets to the tree. Her smile turns to cold fear. What she thought was light from a house isn't that at all.
"Rainbow, what-" Fluttershy looks. "Oh, Celestia no." In front of them lies an infinite looking, boiling, searing desert. "But, this isn't, how did-"
"We went the other way." Rainbow says coldly. She walks out of the forest and into the sandy desert. "We." Rainbow begins to laugh. "We walked for a day. An entire, day! And look! Look at what we found!" She digs her hoof into the sand and holds a bit, showing Fluttershy. "Sand! We went the wrong way. The WRONG, WAY!" She laughs hysterically. Fluttershy, scared, holds onto the tree. "You know, I saw a bit of hope. A slight, sliver, scarce gleam of hope. Now, I don't see anything."
Fluttershy slowly walks towards her parshally-insane friend. "W-well, m-maybe we just don't remember going through a desert. Maybe the way home is this way."
"Yeah. Yeah, I bet it is. And then we can dehydrate and die out here while we're at it, or perhaps starve. Get bit by a venomous snake, walk into cacti, maybe..." She begins to mutter as she walks farther into the desert.
Fluttershy stares at her, then realizes she isn't turning around. "W-wait, you can't go walking through there. It's dangerous, the wrong way even." Rainbow ignores her. Fluttershy runs up next to her. "Rainbow, please, think about this. We will die if we go walking through this desert."
"We were dead the moment we walked into the forest." Rainbow continues walking. Fluttershy knows how this will end, but it won't be any better to be by herself.
"Celestia help us." She runs up next to Rainbow and walks aside her, giving up hope of getting through to her.
"Come on Twi'! Keep up!" Applejack yells behind her to Twilight who is struggling to keep up with the running mare.
"Applejack! Just, please, wait." Applejack annoyedly stops and waits for Twilight. "Listen, Applejack, we have gone through the entire town several times. If they were still here, we would have found them by now. I think we need to expand our search."
"Ok Princess, then to where exactly? Cloudsdale? Because that won't exactly work out now will it?" Twilight begins to pace.
"Let's think about this. Rainbow Dash likes adventure, danger, excitement, and she does what she needs to do to keep her friends both happy and safe."
"And Fluttershy likes calmness, quiet, and relaxation. She does the same as RD." Applejack jumps in.
"So what is both dangerous and calming? It needs to be something that they can both gain something out of."
"Well it can't be to just stay at home, nor can it be to go for a walk."
"But what if it is a walk, a walk into the wilderness. A forest. A forest that is both calming and dangerous." They look at each other and say it at the exact same time. "The Everfree!"
"Dash! Please! Wait up!" Fluttershy yells, trying to keep up with the trotting mare. She hasn't said a word ever since they entered the desert, just trotting forward. Fluttershy knows that if they keep this pace they could easily dehydrate. "Dash!" Fluttershy yells at the top of her lungs, loud enough to stop the mare in front of her. "Dashie, please, we can't keep going like this. We need food, water, and help, we need to find the forest again." She looks back and is shocked, as the hoof prints they left were blown away from the wind. They could just turn around and try.
"I can't."
"You can't what?" Fluttershy gently asks.
"I can't be the friend you need me to be Flutters. I guilted you into going with me, I got us into this mess, and I need you to go back." Rainbow stares at the ground, her body facing away from Fluttershy.
"I will not leave you, we need to stick together if we want to-"
"I don't want to!" Dash yells. "Just, go back." She begins running, kicking up dust as she goes.
"Dash! Wait!" Fluttershy tries to catch up but can't, realizing that her last chance is to turn back. "Oh pony feathers, why dash?" She begins to make her way back to the forest, hopefully going the right way. "I'll get you when I find the others Dash, I promise."
Walking through the forest, Applejack and Twilight carefully make their first sweep of a section of the forest. "So." Applejack starts. "What do you reckon they came here to do?"
"I would guess a walk, but knowing Fluttershy it'd take more than that to gat her anywhere near this forest."
"She could have gotten some courage and decided to go anyway." Applejack proposes.
"I doubt it, you know Fluttershy, she isn't one to be easily swayed. Rainbow on the other hand, I'm not sure."
"What are you talking about?"
"Well, each one of Fluttershy's friends mean everything to her, but Rainbow is special as she was there for her ever since she was a filly. They've known eachother a long time and I doubt Fluttershy could say no to spending time with her oldest, and possibly closest, friend."
"Ok, so let's figure that what ever it was, Fluttershy said yes. So what was it? A walk?"
"No, Rainbow doesn't go on walks. They're too slow, too boring. They could have gone camping."
"Camping Twi', really? That's your theory?"
"Well think about it, Dash likes adventure. She likes trouble, fighting, but being with friends as well. If they had gotten into any trouble she would gladly jump to action and save them." Applejack holds out her hoof, stopping Twilight. "What?"
"There prints, see them?" She points to hoofprints in the mud. "Let's go and see if your theory is right." They follow the prints until they hit a mound of mud.
"Let's walk around it and see what we can see." They find a disfigured cliff and see bottles and snacks near the edge. "Oh no, please no." They run to the edge of the cliff, looking down at an abyss. "You don't think-"
"No, no they're more careful than that, they got out of this. How exactly I don't know but, they did." Looking around she spots a trail of holes in the mud. "The Over there! More prints, come on." They go to run but see something stumbling in the woods. Running over the skip a breath.
Twilight walks in front of Fluttershy who is aimlessly, subconsciously walking. "Fluttershy! Fluttershy, look at me." She stops walking and looks up, revealing a tired, worn down, pleading face. She goes to talk but can't and only points behind her. "Ok come on, Applejack will keep looking for RainbowDash. Right Applejack?"
"Uh, yeah! Yeah, I'll find her, don't worry." She fakes a smile. Fluttershy looks at her and falls over, passing out. "She's dehydrated, get her to a hospital, I'll keep going." Twilight nods and flys away, carrying the surprisingly-light Fluttershy. "Ok Dash, where are you?"