Rainbow Dash marched purposefully through the academy's corridors towards Twilight's chambers. The two golden armour clad guards standing on either side of the double door barely had time to open the doors for her before she had barged her way in.
"TWILIGHT!" She shouted loudly.
The room was huge, about twice the size of Twilights' old home back at the library. The layout was very much the same inside though; the lower floor with a desk piled high with paper and quills, the second level with a small room for the bathroom and next door Twilights' bedroom. All wall space on both floors was taken up with bookshelves piled high with books, some crammed in horizontally on top of vertical books that are already so densely packed it would take incredible strength to pull them out. There were also books, papers and quills littering the floor as well.
Rainbow Dash picked her way through the mess, before deciding to fly instead. Twilights' head appeared over the wooden balcony of the second floor and she looked down at her friend.
"What can I do for you, Rainbow Dash?" she called down with a smile. Rainbow Dash shook her head.
"One of mine. She's amazing. I really think that she's ready. I want you to come down and view the tapes so you can tell everyone else that I'm right!" Rainbow Dash called up. Twilight shook her head but turned to go down the stairs.
"You know you can fly, right?" Rainbow Dash chuckled.
Twilight glared at her as she trotted carefully down the stairs, her horn glowing to clean a pathway through the chaos.
"Why is everything on the floor anyway, Twi?" Rainbow Dash asked as Twilight cleared a larger path to allow her friend to land.
"Have you heard of gravity, Rainbow Dash?" Twilight grinned evilly. Rainbow Dash paused and then stared at her old friend.
"HEY!" she said loudly, beginning to laugh. "I think you've been spending too much time with me Twi, you're getting all cynical like me" She managed to get out between laughs.
Twilight smiled at her friend and nodded. "So about this girl of yours...?" she asked as the two began to walk out of the room, the guards closing the doors behind them.
"Oh yeah!" Rainbow Dash beamed in pride "She's great! Really Twi, you're gonna love her! She's tough, and strong, and hard as rocks! But she's got a good brain on her too though, we tried her out on the modified version just now and.."
"YOU PUT A STUDENT AGAINST A MOD?" Twilight shouted in shock.
Rainbow Dash grinned. "I knew she could handle it, and I was right there, if she wasn't coping I'd have shut the whole thing down immediately, I swear, but she bested it! In one of the shortest times yet! I'm telling you, Twi, this is the next girl from my section. I'm putting her forward."
Twilight shook her head gently and continued to walk forward. She knew better than to try to talk Rainbow Dash out of putting forward a nominee. She turned Dash away from the training quarters and towards the reflection gardens.
The gardens were a way of remembering those who had fallen in this horrible war. Twilight quickened her pace as Dash continued to go on about her nominees skills, hoping that she wouldn’t notice where they were going until they got there.
The two rounded a corner and came face to face with a long corridor, with no furnishings or windows, just a pair of double glass doors at the very end, with light shining through. Tree branches and leaves spanned over the glass, turning some of the light a beautiful green. They got half way down the corridor before Rainbow Dash realised where they were, and she stopped dead.
“I’m not going in there.” She whispered.
“You need to. I ask it of all of the leaders, before they send forward a nominee, they must be one hundred percent positive that they are ready. You of all people know why.” Twilight answered gently, before continuing to walk forward towards the door. She pressed a button on the wall and the doors opened gracefully, and sunlight flooded into the corridor, so bright that you could not see into the room, only the beautiful bright light. Twilight walked into the room and disappeared in the light. Rainbow Dash bit her lip and took a deep breath before walking shakily forwards. She passed through the door, and into the light. Her vision left her for a second, but then the garden came into focus.
Any person new to the garden would have thought that they had entered a forest, and in some ways they were right. Before them was a small clearing with a statue of a great warrior pony, complete with armour. He stood tall and proud, with one hoof on a small rock, in which was buried a flag pole with the Princess Celestias’ symbol. Behind the statue was five pathways that led deep into the forest, but in different directions. Each pathway had a symbol engraved onto the ground and symbolised the different houses that made up the academy.
Rainbow Dash stood beside Twilight and swallowed, before following Twilight onto the path that represented her house. A few trees into the path the monuments started. Small stone statuettes on top of plaques lined the pathway, one between each couple of trees. Each statuette was a perfect representation of the pony whose ashes rested beneath the plaque. Rainbow Dash tried to keep her head high but could not stop the tears from falling and landing on the ground. Each statuette was one of her students, that had fallen in the line of duty.
Each pony down this path had been trained by her, nurtured by her, and had been put forward by her. The first loss had been a blow so severe Rainbow Dash had considered ending it herself, but in time this feeling was replaced by rage. Rainbow Dash hated the humans for what they were doing. The tears in her eyes began to dry up as this feeling returned to her. She strode forward, the memory of each of her students playing through in her mind. Eventually they came to the statuette that Rainbow Dash had been dreading. Her last student, Mirage. Rainbow Dash had put her hope into that colt, and he had certainly proved his loyalty, which is what all her students were known for. He had given his life to save his comrade, and Dash could not have asked for a more worthy hero, but as she looked down at his grave, the tears began to fall again. He was too young to leave the world, and he wasn’t ready.
“He’s ready, I can feel it! Really Twi, he’s ready, he’s everything we need and more! I KNOW he’s going to be amazing!”
“Alright, Twi, I get it.” Rainbow Dash whispered. She lifted a hoof and gently stroked the statuette of the grinning colt. “I won’t make the same mistake twice.” She whispered, more to the statuette than to Twilight. Rainbow Dash sat down in front of the statuette and her eyes glazed over.
“I don’t want to keep you from your royal duties, Twi” She said softly.
Twilight nodded in understanding and began to walk away from the scene, back to the clearing. When she got to the statue of the soldier, she paused, and bent her head in a moments silence and remembrance. As she walked slowly back through the door that lead back to the garden, she left with knew purpose. No pony should have to go through something like this, and the war had already gone on for far too long. Twilight trotted down the corridor deep in thought.
I have to work harder. There must be a better way. She thought as she made her way back to her chambers.
