Chapters Cloudsdale: Metropolis
Rainbow Dash flew through the corridor, feeling her rapid, panicked heartbeat pounding against her chest. The dark, stone hall was dimly lit by flickering torches, held in place by grimy golden sconces. Dash could see their light fly past, leaving bright lines in the corners of her vision, but she had no choice but to press onward. A vibrant rainbow traced her path as she rounded a tight corner.
Dash nearly flew into the wall when she came to an intersection. Her panic-stricken eyes darted back and forth between the two corridors, but she soon made up her mind and sped down the right hall. She could feel the walls slowly begin to move closer together, threatening to crush her body into a pancake. She put on an extra burst of speed.
Suddenly, the open corridor disappeared, replaced by solid stone wall. It was a dead end! Rainbow Dash frantically pushed against the wall in an effort to move it, but the task proved impossible. Her pupils dilated as she looked back to see the walls closer than ever. She sank down onto the frayed red carpet that ran down the center of every corridor and curled up, wide eyed, waiting for the end. She felt the pressure of the walls pushing on her from all sides, slowly but surely snapping her ribs and ending her life…
Rainbow Dash sat bolt upright in her bed, her chest heaving. It took her a few moments to realize where she was. Her eyes landed on her massive poster of the Wonderbolts, and it all came flooding back. It was all just a dream.
Dash dragged her tired body out of bed. She hadn’t gotten a good night’s sleep in weeks with these horrible nightmares. Her mane was a complete mess; the once-beautiful rainbow had become limp and tangled. She didn’t bother to groom it today. She was still shaken from her dreams.
When her bowl of oats fell to the floor and shattered, leaving shards of glass and piles of oats for her to clean up, Dash realized that she desperately needed help.
Twilight Sparkle, she thought to herself. She’ll know what to do.
Not even bothering to clean up her kitchen, Rainbow Dash took off from her home in the clouds and flew towards the library.
~
Twilight Sparkle was lost in her studies, just as she was every day. As she pored over a large volume (Advanced Meta-Psychology Through the Ages), she began to notice a low sound coming from upstairs. The unicorn marked her page and made her way upstairs.
“Spike!” exclaimed Twilight as she saw the young dragon snoring in his bed. “We’re supposed to be studying! This is no time for sleep!”
“Mhrhmhmmrmnn…” Spike mumbled, rolling over and falling right back to sleep.
A loving smile appeared on Twilight’s face. She would let him sleep for now. He had worked hard all through the night. Of course he would be tired!
On her way back to her studies, Twilight briefly stopped to look out the window at the horizon. The sun was just beginning to push into the sky, setting the entire scene on fire with brilliant reds and yellows. It was the most beautiful sunrise she had ever seen, and although Twilight knew, scientifically, what caused the sun to rise, and why the colors of the air changed, the beauty of it was not lost on her.
As she stared into the horizon, a dark comet shot in front of the sun. Intrigued, the unicorn began to watch its progress. Instead of flying downward and fizzling out, the comet seemed to stop in mid-air, just in front of the sun. It was lost in the blaze of light from the sun for a moment, but it reappeared, seeming to grow larger and larger until it covered the sun.
“Rainbow Dash…?” asked Twilight, confused.
CRASH!!
The cyan pegasus smashed through the window in an explosion of rainbows and glass. Twilight Sparkle unleashed a force field to protect herself from the flying shards and hurried down to the main library, where Rainbow Dash had landed.
“Dash! Are you okay?” asked Twilight.
“Yeah, I’m alright, Twilight,” muttered Rainbow Dash. Glass fell to the floor around her as she rose to her feet.
“Are you sure?” pressed Twilight. Her gaze fell on Dash’s bloodshot eyes, made worse by the dark circles under them, and on her twisted, tangled mane. “You look awful.”
“Well…” replied Dash slowly. “I’ve been having trouble sleeping… You know, nightmares and stuff.”
Twilight brightened up instantly. “Oh, nightmares? I know just what you need!” she declared. “Spike! Wake up!”
A sleepy voice echoed from upstairs. “Twilight?” Spike yawned loudly. “What do you want?”
Spike, still wearing his nightcap, stumbled downstairs as he rubbed his tired eyes. He yawned again and asked, “What is it, Twilight?”
“I need you to find a book for me, Spike,” stated Twilight, with her usual air of studiousness. “It’s called ‘Five Hundred Cures for Insomnia (Plus Thirteen Bonus Cures for the Avid Bookworm).”
Spike immediately climbed up the ladder and grabbed a massive, faded volume. It immediately flew from his hands and Twilight summoned it to her and opened to the first page.
“Thank you, Spike! Now, let’s see… First up, cookies and hot chocolate!” said Twilight as she read. “The book says that it’s ‘A Sure-Fire Cure for Standard Insomnia.’ Let’s try it out!”
“Sounds awesome!” shouted Rainbow Dash.
Twenty minutes later, Dash was curled up in the bed in Twilight’s spare bedroom, warm and full of cookies and hot chocolate. Twilight smiled as she watched her friend sleeping soundly, feeling proud of herself for solving Dash’s problem so easily.
Suddenly, Twilight noticed a change in her friend. Dash’s smile began to fade, quickly replaced with a look of terror. Her wings unfurled and beat against the bed, and her whole body shook violently.
Twilight Sparkle quickly woke Dash from her nightmare. It was pointless to allow her to suffer. “Eh… Let’s try something else,” suggested Twilight with a look of apology.
She summoned the massive book once more. “Hmm… How about this? ‘Aromatherapy: Nature’s Calming Scent.’ Sounds reasonable enough.”
Her pegasus friend, even more tired from her last nightmare, yawned and replied, “Okay, Twilight. Let’s give it a shot.”
Twilight returned to her book. “It gets pretty complicated, but for simple insomnia, the book calls for Essence of Lavender,” she read. “It’s supposed to create a calm, soothing environment. Perfect for sleeping!”
“Calm and soothing sounds nice,” replied Rainbow Dash, stifling another yawn.
The spare bedroom was quickly filled with purple, sweet-smelling candles glowing with flames provided by Spike. The scent permeated the room, and soon the library, calming everypony (and Spike) in no time at all. Dash curled up for another try at sleep.
After Rainbow Dash woke up in tears from her nightmare, Twilight Sparkle tried everything the book had to offer. She read bedtime stories, made Dash perform tiring exercises, showed Michael Mare documentaries, and told her to count sheep. She even asked Fluttershy to come and sing a lullaby. Nothing seemed to work, and the book was out of ideas. Dash’s nightmares would not leave her alone.
“I’m sorry, Dashie…” apologized Twilight, hanging her head low with embarrassment. “That’s the end of the book…”
Rainbow Dash looked worse than she had when she first sought Twilight’s help. The dark circles under her eyes had grown larger, and she could barely stand from lack of rest. But she was determined to make sure Twilight knew that it wasn’t her fault. She yawned and replied, “It’s okay, Twilight. I’ll be alright. Just don’t worry about me, kay?”
Twilight flipped through the book miserably. “I just don’t know why it didn’t work… My books have never failed me before…”
Spike was sitting beside Twilight as she combed the pages in hopes for another solution. Suddenly, he noticed something.
“Twilight, is that page stuck to the back cover?” he asked.
“What?” said Twilight in confusion. “Oh! Spike, you’re right!” She pried the page from the back cover and read it. It was a list of related books on the topic. Rainbow Dash stumbled over to read the list. They read all the way down the list. The final book on the list caught their eyes, and they looked at each other.
“Hypno-therapy?”
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
“Close your eyes and begin to relax. Take a deep breath and let it out slowly. Concentrate on your breathing. With each breath, you become more relaxed.”
Twilight Sparkle’s calming voice melded with the clock’s ticking.
“Imagine a brilliant, white light above you. Focus in on this light as it flows through your body. Allow yourself to drift off as you fall deeper and deeper into a more relaxed state of mind.”
Time seemed to slow as a tunnel of purest light surrounded Rainbow Dash, filling her body and infusing her with a sense of complete tranquility.
“Now, as I count back from ten to one, you will feel more peaceful and calm.”
Tick. Tock.
“Ten… Nine… Eight…”
The ticking of the clock echoed in Rainbow Dash’s ears.
“Seven… Six… You will enter a safe place where nothing can harm you.”
Twilight’s voice began to slowly fade away into the light.
“Five… Four… Three… Two…”
The ticking clock echoed until the individual ticks were nearly indistinguishable. Dash could scarcely hear her friend as she gave her one last instruction.
“If at any time you need to come back, all you must do is open your eyes. One.”
Rainbow Dash felt her mind detach from her body and pass through the tunnel of shining, white light. The light acted as an impenetrable barrier, protecting her from all the pain and fear brought on by her nightmares. Her tired body left behind, Dash felt wide awake, but quite content to conserve her energy and drift towards wherever this light would take her. It was like entering into a wonderful, vibrant dream that she would awake from without forgetting a single detail in the haze of wakefulness.
It was much too soon when Dash caught sight of the end of the tunnel. She was loath to leave this glorious peace behind, but her resent was not enough to take away the smile of pure contentment she would’ve worn if her mind and body were reunited.
The affects of the light lingered long after Rainbow Dash had left the tunnel. Her mind free from worry, she let her body do as it pleased as she considered the experience.
Wow, I feel great! Dash thought to herself. That hypno-therapy is awesome stuff! I gotta tell Twilight!
But where was Twilight? Rainbow Dash couldn’t see the lavender unicorn anywhere. In fact, Dash wasn’t even in the library anymore. The inner sanctum of the tree had disappeared, to be replaced with a puffy, white bedroom. A cloudstuff bed, wide enough for two pegasi to sleep in with wings fully spread, took up the vast majority of the room, leaving just enough space to walk around the foot to the other side. Both sides of the bed were complimented by matching cloudstuff end tables. A large mirror with an ornate trim hung on the wall at the foot of the bed.
Dash didn’t recognize the room at all. Her sense of peace was fading in the haze of confusion. She had no idea how or why she was here. In fact, she wasn’t even sure where “here” was. Cloudsdale was the only cloud city she knew of, and the view outside the window eliminated that possibility. It wasn’t until she tried to get a closer look at the scenery that she realized she was not in control of her own body. Instead of following her brain’s instructions and rushing to the window, Dash’s body lowered its head and slowly paced back and forth at the foot of the bed.
Her mind instantly filled with terror. Even in her nightmares, she could always bend her body to her will. What was wrong with her? Had she died? Maybe that’s what the light was. Or was this some new, more horrifying nightmare, brought on by the hypno-therapy?
After several minutes of pacing, Rainbow Dash began to calm down. If this were truly a nightmare, something terrible would have surely happened by now. And didn’t dying typically involve some type of judgment and sentencing? Perhaps this was merely her mind sorting through the underlying issues behind her nightmares, creating a confused reality based on its endeavors. Yes, that was much more likely. Dash decided to sit back and relax as her subconscious took its course.
Rainbow Dash felt her body come to a halt. She was relieved when her head lifted; after staring down vacantly at the cloudstuff flooring for quite some time, even the sight of a cloudstuff wall was a welcome change. She realized that she was standing in the middle of her path. If memory served correctly, Dash was standing right in front of the mirror. She knew that she would recognize her reflection in the polished glass, and she relished the opportunity to see a familiar face in this unknown world, even if it was her own.
But the mirror did not show her what she expected. Instead of her beautiful cyan coat and the red, orange, and yellow of her tousled mane, Rainbow Dash found herself staring deep into the mournful gaze of a pair of deep, hazel eyes that perfectly complemented their forest green body. Just above the eyes grew a long, flowing, and shockingly scarlet mane, with twin streaks of green running through its entire length. Dash could just make out the mare’s cutie mark, a white wing that had been blurred, as if it was constantly in motion.
Rainbow Dash was so fully focused on taking in the strange pegasus’ appearance that, when the only plausible reality set in, it hit her like a ton of cloudstuff.
She was the pony in the mirror! Everything Dash could see, she saw through the mare’s eyes. All her involuntary motions were the actions of the forest green pegasus. Her mind was merely spectating on the life of this sad-looking pony. Smug in her newfound knowledge, Dash mentally settled in to watch.
Rainbow Dash felt herself pick up a pencil in her mouth and lower her head to a scroll lying flat on a cloudstuff dresser beneath the mirror. She began scrawling words across the scroll, and Dash followed along, reading the words she wrote without her mind’s consent or knowledge.
Mr. Hoofton,
I am writing this letter to you in hopes of expressing to you what I have somehow failed to express in spoken word. I must make this as clear as I can. You and I are not a couple. I do not love you; I am in love with your brother. Surely you know this, which leads me to believe that you care not for what I want, but only for your own selfish, deluded desires. It pains me to have to do this, but I simply cannot tolerate your behavior any longer. From now until you decide to change, I wish to have nothing to do with you. It is a pity, as I would have relished your friendship, but your actions are simply unforgivable.
Goodbye, Mr. Hoofton.
Victoria Wing
Rainbow Dash felt a single tear roll down her face. Now that she had relaxed, she could feel traces of Victoria’s emotions flowing through her own mind. A numbing misery slowly invaded her mind, wiping out all hope in the face of a lost friendship. Dash had no idea how the green pegasus managed to hold back her tears; she had never felt such sadness as the feelings that now flooded her soul.
Victoria once again looked into the mirror. Gazing into her hazel eyes, Rainbow Dash thought she saw the faintest hint of pleading. Her heart felt as though it was tearing; she had no idea how she could possibly help the miserable-looking pony.
Dash felt her mind begin to separate from Victoria. An ever-growing tunnel of blinding, white light surrounded her vision as she slipped further and further from the pegasus’ body.
“No! Come back!” shouted Dash in her mind. “I want to help you!”
But it was too late. The world of the forest green pegasus disappeared as Rainbow Dash glided through the shining tunnel back to her real body. The peace that she felt last time was gone. She couldn’t feel at ease knowing that there was a pony out there who needed her.
Dash could see Twilight’s library through her own body’s eyes as she approached the end of the tunnel. The light began to disappear, replaced with countless books, located both on their bookshelves and scattered over the floor. Twilight was nowhere to be seen, but the mess of books piled on the hardwood betrayed the fact that she had been studying.
As soon as Rainbow Dash reentered her familiar body, she attempted to locate her hypno-therapist. The unicorn wasn’t in the library, nor was she in the kitchen. Dash checked upstairs, but found only Spike, asleep in his little bed, tired after a long night of helping Twilight with her studies. She must have gone out for some air, and Dash, strangely enough, didn’t feel like flying around to look for her. Instead, she fixed herself a delectable daffodil sandwich in the kitchen and settled down to wait for Twilight’s return.
Rainbow Dash heard the creaking of Twilight’s front door just as she finished her sandwich. She leapt to her hooves and galloped out to meet her friend. Dash had a lot of questions for her.
“Rainbow Dash, I’m- Oh, there you are!” said Twilight Sparkle.
“Yeah, I’m here,” replied Dash. “Where have you been?”
“Oh, well, after you fell asleep, I decided to do some more in-depth research on hypno-therapy, so I stayed up all night studying and then Spike fell asleep, so I figured I would go to Sugarcube Corner and buy some cupcakes for after breakfast. Pinkie Pie’s always up and finished a couple dozen by dawn, of course. And did you know Bon Bon works there? Apparently, she only works early hours. I told her you said ‘Hi,’ even though you really didn’t, but I—“
“Hang on, Twilight!” interrupted Rainbow Dash, in part because Twilight’s rambling was beginning to annoy her. “You said you did some research on hypno-therapy?”
“Well, yes, of course, mostly on the effects, but I also learned some thrilling history. Did you know that hypno-therapy was discovered by Starswirl the—“
“Twilight !” yelled Dash. “I don’t care about the history! I have some questions to ask you!”
Twilight looked disappointed that she couldn’t continue to talk about her idol, but she quickly brightened up at the prospect of answering questions. “Oh! I’m sorry, Rainbow Dash! What did you need to know?”
Dash had no idea where she should begin. “Well…” She took a moment to gather her thoughts. “Do you know of any cloud cities? Besides Cloudsdale. I already knew that one.”
Twilight raised her eyes to the ceiling as she searched her massive stores of knowledge. “Hmm… Sorry, Dashie, but Cloudsdale’s the only one. What does that have to do with hypno-therapy, though?”
“I’ll get to that,” said Rainbow Dash. “Also, you wouldn’t happen to know a pegasus named Victoria Wing? She’s dark green with a bright red mane.”
Her friend looked confused. “Rainbow Dash, you sure ask a lot of weird questions. But no, I don’t— Wait! Give me one minute!” Twilight ran off towards the bookshelves.
Dash sighed. It was just like Twilight to check a book, of all things, for a pegasus she didn’t know. Why, in the name of Celestia, would some unknown pony be in one of Twilight’s history books? Didn’t a pony have to do something incredibly important to get into those? Were living ponies even allowed into history books?
“Found it!” exclaimed Twilight, slamming a large volume on the floor.
“Really?” asked Dash. It couldn’t possibly be the same Victoria! “What did she do to get into that history book?”
“Oh, this isn’t a history book,” answered Twilight cheerfully. “It’s a book of old police records. I knew I’d seen her name before. You know, when I first started learning under Celestia, I wanted to be a police pony. So I used to study these records for hours and hours, but then I realize that there’s really no crime in Equestria anymore, so it wouldn’t really be a wise—“
“Twilight!” interrupted Rainbow Dash, once again. “What’s it say? Was she flying too fast in a public area? Or did she crash into an expensive building? I hope it wasn’t anything too bad…”
“No, she didn’t commit any crimes,” Twilight informed her friend.
“Oh, thank Celestia!” Dash breathed a sigh of relief.
“She’s dead.”
The happy expression on her face quickly turned to confusion. “What??” yelled Dash. She felt a wave of sadness roll over her. “How could she be dead?”
Twilight flipped through her book. “Dashie, she’s been dead since the year 928.”
“928??” Dash shouted. “That’s… That was seventy-five years ago!”
“Well, that’s what it says, Dashie,” Twilight shrugged. She looked confused. “Why does that matter?”
“In a minute, Twilight,” replied Rainbow Dash. “How did… How did she die?”
“Apparently, she was murdered by somepony named Julian Hoofton,” said Twilight.
Hoofton… Dash knew that name… But from where?
“Dash?” asked Twilight. “Are you okay? And does this have anything to do with your hypno-therapy?”
The cyan pegasus sat down on Twilight’s carpet and related to her friend the whole story. She talked about the tunnel of light, and how it had filled her with ecstasy. How she found herself in a strange place, unable to move of her own accord. Twilight’s look of interest never faded; she leaned in when Dash told her about Victoria and the letter.
“…And then I went back through the tunnel and ended up here,” finished Rainbow Dash. “Twilight, I just know that she wanted me to help her with something. I could feel it. But how can I help her if she’s dead ?” Tears began to pool in her rose-colored eyes.
Twilight, in an effort to console her friend, wrapped her hooves around Dash’s neck in an awkward hug. “It’s okay, Dashie,” she whispered. “It’s okay.”
Rainbow Dash buried her face in Twilight’s mane. The pain and fear she had felt as Victoria now filled her again as she recalled the helpless look in those hazel eyes. She didn’t know what to do. Tears leaked from her eyes, dampening Twilight’s lavender coat.
“You really care about her, don’t you?” asked Twilight. “After such a short time?”
Dash only nodded twice into her friend’s neck.
Twilight sighed. “I guess that’s to be expected,” she began. “After all, she is, well… you.”
Rainbow Dash immediately detached herself from the unicorn’s embrace. “Me?” she asked. “What the hay do you mean? She can’t be me. I’m me!”
Twilight Sparkle sat down beside the confused pegasus. “Maybe I should explain exactly what I learned last night.”
“Now, before we begin, you must understand that hypno-therapy is a very… imprecise art,” stated Twilight Sparkle, seated comfortably in front of Rainbow Dash. “It is, in essence, a way to connect with your inner being and communicate with your soul. However, it is incredibly imperfect; one cannot trust the information they discover, as the soul is a very subjective force, driven by its own desires.”
Dash felt her head begin to spin. She wanted to interrupt the studious unicorn and ask for a simpler explanation, but her pride wouldn’t allow it. Perhaps Twilight would notice her look of extreme confusion and tone it down a bit. But, on the other hand…
“Because of this, the art of hypno-therapy is utterly useless except in very special cases. For instance, many Hoofist monks take advantage of this practice in order to connect with their souls in their quests for enlightenment and self-awareness,” Twilight’s lecture continued. “In rare occurrences, the soul is troubled by something and it attempts to gain its body’s attention through various means, such as a trapped feeling, nightmares, insomnia, and even physical illness. This is what I believe happened to you, Rainbow Dash.”
Although she was still confused, parts of it were beginning to make sense, particular the part about the nightmares. Reveling in her newfound, if mild, understanding, Dash managed to miss the next few moments of Twilight’s lecture. Upon realizing this, she quickly returned her attention to her lavender friend.
“As for the tunnel of light you passed through, that was actually just the visualization of your soul transcending time itself on its journey to your past. It’s basically a brief glance at what scholars believe to be the Afterlife. When a pony dies, it is believed that the pony’s soul enters the Afterlife until it is prepared to return in a new body. Some souls return in only a few weeks, and others, like yours, Dashie, can take years and years,” Twilight explained.
“Hey, wait a minute!” shouted Dash. “Are you saying my soul is worse than all the other souls?! Just because it took longer to come back doesn’t mean-”
“Oh, no, of course not, Rainbow Dash!” said Twilight quickly, sounding apologetic. “There’s absolutely no difference between a soul that returns in a week and a soul that returns in a century. It just depends on the preferences of the soul.”
Rainbow Dash brightened up considerably, her ego instantly healed. She leaned back with a smug grin on her face. “Yeah, my soul’s just too awesome for Equestria. It probably only came back to defeat Nightmare Moon and Discord, and then join the Wonderbolts.”
Twilight gave a nervous, half-forced chuckle. “Umm… Yes, that’s probably what happened…. Anyway, after your soul travelled through the tunnel, it took up temporary residence within its previous body, Victoria Wing. It’s unlikely that you lived any other lives between yours and Victoria’s, because you would’ve caught glimpses of them in the tunnel.”
Dash’s smug grin spread wide as this new evidence supported her theory. Twilight continued to enlighten her friend.
“You mentioned that, when you were Victoria, you couldn’t move, right? Well, that makes perfect sense. You were reliving one of her actual memories, so it’d be pretty silly if you could do whatever you liked,” she said, laughing a little at her humor. “You could, however, feel everything that Victoria felt physically, as well as a few traces of her emotions. I doubt very much that she actually looked at you, but I suppose it would be, for you, the equivalent of looking into a mirror and seeing a stranger stare back. She would’ve been looking into her own eyes, but I can understand your confusion.”
Rainbow Dash seemed a little crushed. “So… She doesn’t need my help, then?”
“Oh, I think she needs it very much,” affirmed Twilight. “I just don’t think she actually meant to look at you. It’s just a technicality.”
“Okay then. In that case, how am I supposed to help her?” asked Dash. “She didn’t really show me a helpful memory, you know.”
“Well, Victoria didn’t really choose the memory,” Twilight began. “It’s only possible to see the memories that correspond to your exact age when you viewed them.”
She saw her friend’s eyes begin to roll in confusion. “For instance, say you were exactly fifteen years old.”
“But I’m not fifteen, I’m—“
“I know you’re not, Dashie, but it’ll help explain it,” Twilight smiled at Rainbow Dash’s indignation. “If you were exactly fifteen years old and you tried to view a memory from a past life, you would only be able to see what happened when your past life was exactly fifteen. You couldn’t see what happened when they were, say, fifteen and one day old.”
“Okay… So, how can I find out how to help her?” asked Dash. “I can’t spend my whole life watching her memories until I find something.”
“And no one expects you to, Rainbow Dash. It’s a complicated science, but to put it simply, you still have all of Victoria’s memories,” Twilight explained. “They just have to be triggered by something. If, for example, you were to talk into the room where Victoria used to eat lunch every day, you would get a strange feeling of lunchtime and déjà vu.”
“Twilight, I can’t go experience everything in Equestria to figure out what was wrong with Victoria. That would take forever! And then I’d have to figure out how to help, and then actually help—“ Rainbow Dash complained.
“Oh, Dashie,” sighed Twilight. “You could always just, you know, take the intelligent approach. Go to places that Victoria probably spent a lot of time, like her house.”
“And how am I supposed to know where she lived?” Dash asked incredulously. “I didn’t even recognize the town!”
Twilight laughed. “Just go to Cloudsdale’s police department. They should have the files on the case there. You could learn a lot from them.”
Rainbow Dash’s face lit up. “Twilight… That’s a great idea! I’m going to head over there now. I’ll see you later, Twi!” Dash opened her wings and took off through the hole she had created in Twilight’s house the morning before.
“Good luck, Dashie,” murmured Twilight as she watched her friend fly off into the sky, ready to solve the mysteries of her past.
