She's Waited Long Enough...
It’s been nearly a year since Twilight called in her favour from me…
“Why’d you send for me?” Daring Do whispered in her guise as A.K. Yearling. Twilight ushered her into the castle where she widened her eyes at the collection of ponies gathered. In front of her stood the two Royal Sisters that governed over Equestria, the the friends of Twilight and Rainbow, and an oddly robed figure that she hadn’t seen before.
“We need to ask something of you, Miss Do, as your skills of finding that which was lost is desperately needed,” Celestia stated. Daring Do winced as she blushed and simmered at the same time. She knew most of these ponies already knew her alter ego, but that mare with a cape sure didn’t.
“It’s okay, Daring, Starlight’s with us,” Twilight whispered, and she sighed. Taking her glasses and cloche off, she pulled her hat from under her shawl and put it on. She then wrapped her disguise into the shawl and threw it over her back.
“Alright, fine. What’s the sitch?” Daring Do asked. She watched as all eight mares present looked sorrowfully and nervously at each other, Starlight having the most grievous expression. She then noticed the lack of a certain action mare she had grown a fondness to.
A year since Rainbow Dash went missing during a Wonderbolts training regiment…
She couldn’t believe her ears.
“I’m… sorry?” Daring Do murmured with disbelief.
“While Starlight fought, rips in space and time appeared all over Equestria, sporadically and with unknown duration,” Twilight explained, “She fell through it and it closed behind her before anypony could stop her.
“When we re-created a portal of the same nature with Starlight’s insistence and help, we were able to find out that objects thrown into it were displaced spatially and temporally. Apart from that however… we really don’t know anything else.” Twilight finished.
“It’s all my fault, and I need to be the one to fix it,” Starlight murmured with tears in her eyes which she wiped away. Fluttershy couldn’t help but hug the robed pony in comfort.
“You didn’t know that fighting that entity would lead to this, Starlight,” Luna asserted, “Blaming yourself, however, does not bring her back.”
A year since they asked me to help look for her…
“She could be anywhere in the world, at any point in time,” Celestia provided, and Daring Do flinched.
“How would I even know where to begin to look?” the archaeologist asked, her eyes watery but holding back her own.
“Well, from what we’ve seen, whatever falls through said rifts is only displaced locally. We can only hope for the best that Rainbow Dash is somewhere in Equestria, and is either in the future waiting for us or trying to reach us now as she was transported to the past.” Rarity sniffled.
“And if I know anything about that consarned mare,” Applejack stated as she wiped her eyes, “She’ll make sure you know she’s wherever she is in the most awesome fashion.”
“That sounds about right,” Fluttershy murmured softly.
“And- and when you find her, I can throw a… a ‘Welcome back from Oblivion party’! Yeah, th-that sounds nice…” Pinkie exclaimed weakly. Her mane seemed flat, and her coat had an almost greyish tint to it.
A year since Tank became my plus one…
“Rainbow Dash has a pet, and not only that, but a turtle that can fly?” Daring Do asked Fluttershy with amazement.
“Oh, yes, a tortoise, actually!” Fluttershy exclaimed softly, “Rainbow had a big competition to see who would be her pet because she was jealous of not being a part of our pet playdate and Tank won. He’s a real softie once you get to know him.”
“And you want me to take him with me?” Daring Do inquired skeptically.
“If you’re worrying about him not keeping up, he can fly with Rainbow Dash at full speed.”
“That’s not what I’m implying here,” she whispered as she watched Tank buzz around to show his own capabilities. “It might not be safe where I’ll be going, and he might not make it.”
Fluttershy opened her mouth to say something but Tank caught her eye. As Tank turned his head to look at Fluttershy nodded and patted him on his shell. With a sigh, Fluttershy closed her eyes. “Tank says that he’ll come anyway. Rainbow Dash is his owner and he’d rather wither away than do nothing to help.”
Daring Do smiled widely at the tortoise. “Well, nothing says Rainbow like a stubborn pet.”
A month since my last major clue to where she may be…
“Tank!” Daring Do shouted over the roar of the wind and snow. With a buzz and flash of his front and rear lights, Tank returned to her side. With a sigh, Daring Do tugged her parka closer before wiping Tanks flight goggles. “Stop going away from me like that! Remember last time you did that, something bad happened?”
Tank seemed to say “That was only once!”
Daring Do laughed with an edge. “Yeah, well, once is enough with how suicidal you are sometimes. It wouldn’t do for me to find Rainbow only to present to her your frozen body.” Glancing at a map of Equestria that she had vandalized with markings of her findings and the possibilities of where her long-lost friend was, she fell onto her four knees into the snow and lay the map out in front of her.
All the strands of evidence, anything she could find on anything even remotely mentioning a polychromatic mare all led to the Frozen North. Past the Crystal Empire, further than many ponies dare venture, it seems that is where Rainbow Dash may be… and yet Daring Do dreaded what she might find. She stroked Tank stressfully, subconsciously using the motion to relieve her own tense physique. What bothered Daring Do so much were the timestamps on nearly all of what she collected. Scraps and pieces. References and libraries.
They were all at least a thousand years old.
At first, Daring Do couldn’t possibly believe that one of the repeating saviours of Equestria could have been sent that far back. It just seemed impossible. So Daring Do looked for everything recent. Anything mentioning ‘the Great Rainbow Dash’. Anything that came up was what she already knew and trivia and other nonsense she didn’t need.
Looking further, she had found tiny pieces of code and such scattered through many old books. At first, Daring Do had figured it was because Rainbow thought that Daring Do had to come from somewhere and read old dusty books, but when they consistently appeared only in one edition of a certain book, she couldn’t believe it.
That was when she had begun to get desperate. Upon relating her findings to Twilight and co., they all agreed that it had to be looked in further upon. They had all been shocked that Daring Do had even found anything, as they had already began to fear the worst. Assuring them she would find Rainbow, she set out once more, looking and delving deeper.
That had been 5 months ago.
And just a month ago, Daring Do had found something that might have helped, hidden away in the Zebra lands, apparently a gift from somepony special a very long time ago.
And a month since witnessing the surfacing of a legendary item I had thought to only be a Zebrican folktale and an Equestrian fable…
She had seen a shield provided by an elder of one of the oldest, most well respected and most well known tribes in Zebrica. Zecora was more than happy to show Daring Do the relic, yet Daring saw that Zecora lacked the information to know how unprecedented the item was.
“If it helps in the locating of Miss Rainbow Dash, I will gladly lend it to you in a flash,” Zecora nodded before revealing a secret compartment which was so cleverly hidden that Daring Do was impressed. In it, lay a beaten up and weathered badge-shaped shield.
A shield that donned the impossible colours of Rainbow Dash and the tell-tale symbols of stars from the Equestrian flag. A shield that, to Daring Do’s knowledge, had belonged to somepony who was now just a bedtime story Mothers told foals. It was always the part of the story that highlighted this figures generosity, giving a gift from one nation to another. Yet it seemed so comical, unreal. The only reason she actually believed it to be what Zecora said it was was because of some scrapings she had tested, her trustworthiness, and it’s own weathering.
But the most interesting detail would’ve been the hoof shaped dent in the shield, with an inscription on what was clearly the side that faced the wearer:
Be Awesome! Never give up! Find the strength to do what’s right, and you'll Find Me in your heart!
If it didn’t scream Rainbow Dash’s ego, Daring Do would have marked it off as another relic that proved to be real… but it was more than that. Maybe the Zebras didn’t fully understand it, but “Find Me” seemed to be improperly capitalized. If it was implying what she thought it was…
A fortnight since I began to see how all the scraps had one thing in common…
Daring Do folded the map back up and tucked it within the folds of her coat. Making sure Tank was settled on her back, she readjusted her facemask and goggles before continuing onward.
The legend always ended in tragedy. Of how one of Equestria’s earliest saviours helped defeat the baddest of the bad guys and eventually ended up disappearing, never to be found again. Daring Do suspected that the failure to locate any solid evidence to where this pony ended up caused ponies to twist her story into one of fantastical proportions, letting her live on in their memory as nothing more than a story.
Yet what did not make sense were the perplexing descriptions of this mare, and the similarities Daring Do now found between her and Rainbow. The same unwavering loyalty, the same tendency to do what was right, and the same affinity to never give up. Equestria’s First Wonderbolt. Daring Do never believed that the story was true… but now she doubted herself.
As she moved further and further into the confines of the Frozen North, she covered Tank in an extra warm blanket. If there was one pony who would believe any legend to be real, it would be her. She was always proving stories as either genuine or fraudulent, yet she never considered this one to be real.
The First Wonderbolt. Looking into the history of the name, it seemed to have existed before even General Firefly, but only briefly, which is why she was always considered to be the creator of the name. But if it was anything to go by…
Daring Do could only hope.
That was new for her. She almost always knew what she was jumping into. Always knew what could happen. But with this… there were so many variables. Too many. And all the stories… each and every variation she could find always ended her story in snow. Someplace cold. And only one ever specified.
The Frozen North.
And Daring Do was nearly there.
“This is it, Tank,” Daring Do whispered as the snow and wind began to calm down, and some sunlight broke through the cloud cover. “The end of the line. Are you ready? If we don’t find Rainbow Dash here… well...”
Tank shivered before shedding a tear and nodding.
It had been a wild ride for the both of them throughout their year of exploration, and she now cherished every moment. Stupid marehunt had made her sentimental. When she found Rainbow, she’d give her a piece of of her mind. Smiling at the thought, they began to walk forward once more before a large reverberating crack froze them in their tracks.
From Daring Do’s hoofstep, tiny cracks began to splinter, before they began to grow so loud and so big that the ice was now becoming unstable. With nothing else to do, Daring Do abandoned her parka and steadied her wings. “Tank, to the air!” Daring Do shouted before the duo launched of the shattering ice.
With a large boom, the ice seemed to cave in, and revealed a small pocket of air that seems to have frozen itself over after something happened. It was large enough to have been dangerous, but small enough not to be anything too big. And what was inside… Daring Do could only stare wide-eyed.
A plane composed of opaque crystal lay embedded in the ice. A wing stuck out of the now revealed pocket of air, and she could only guess at to what it truly was and why it was there in the first place. Beckoning Tank to come over to her, she hugged the tortoise tightly as they settled and landed at the edge of the plane’s wing.
“Do you think…?” Daring Do trailed off as she looked from Tank to the cold machine in front of her and Tank could only stare at it as she did.
Tank slowly outstretched a leg to the vessel, seemingly saying “It’s worth a try”.
“You’re right,” Daring said, fishing out some tools from her within her hat. “One can only hope…”
“It’s been a long trip, Tank,” Daring whispered as she cut an opening into what she expected was the ship’s bridge, “And I’m glad I got to know you, so even if we never find Rainbow, at least you got to hang out with the one pony she idolized more than the Wonderbolts, hm?”
Tank rolled his eyes before nodding, as if to say “Yep, and I’m very glad to have met you as well.” Lowering his, he seemed to say “Thank you.”
With a loud crash, the hole Daring Do had made opened up, dropping the frozen crystal porthole and shattering it. Gripping Tank in one hoof, she tied a rope around the wing before diving in. As they landed, Daring Do took out a tool and picked some pieces of the crystal up, as well as sticking something into snow and ice present in the craft.
The flashlight she held in her mouth dropped to the ground with a clang as she read her results.
“It matches up, Tank…” Daring Do expounded, dumbstruck. She checked the ice and found similar results. “It’s all almost one thousand and seven years old…”
Tank buzzed near Daring Do, licking the ice before widening his own eyes. He looked at her as if to say “This ice is really stale!”
Picking the flashlight back up, she swung it around, scanning the rest of the bridge. Ancient instruments and tech dotted the scenery. Icicles and snow littered the ground, and new snow was blowing in through the hole they had made.
Finally looking to the Captain’s Chair, she could see the whole thing and nearly everything ahead of it was frozen solid in ice. Bringing her flashlight to a shiny object embedded in said glacier ice, and a figure beside it resting in the chair's confines she fell to her knees at the sight of it all and dropped the flashlight once more.
Tank flew over to Daring Do and she hugged him with new fervor, a tear coming out of her eyes. The light from the torch rested on the frozen item and figure, and they both stared at them with wonder and disbelief.
“We’ve done it, Tank,” Daring Do solemnly breathed, her breath fogging the air. “We did it...”
We’ve finally found her… and something more than I could’ve ever thought possible…
In front of the two explorers lay an item and its wielder.
Frozen in time for long enough...
A round spangled shield…
And a rainbow maned mare.
Author's Note
Written for extra backstory. I'll do prelude one-shots before any major stories I write from here on out.
To read the continuation of this one-shot, go to The First Wonderbolt
