The Waters of March

Chapters

A Stick, a Stone
Friday Morning
Friday Afternoon
Saturday Morning
Saturday Afternoon
Saturday Evening
Sunday Morning
Sunday Afternoon
The End of the Road
Friday Evening

A Stick, a Stone

, love, it’s

a stick, a stone, it’s the end of the road, it is days spent alone and nights with nowhere to go, a bump, a scratch, a long time ago, the feeling you once knew but now don’t know, it’s work, it’s wet, it’s pay once a week, a fight with a beast, a taste of defeat, it’s out there somewhere teasing with you, a sense of adventure, you don’t have a clue, it’s the sun on your back and your wings in the air, and the thought’s filling you and your heart with despair, it’s out of this world, it’s out of this berg, it’s not like you’ve ever seen the rest of the world, the bow, the draw, the horizon, it croons, but the weekend is over and work starts soon

Rainbow Dash leaned back in her chair and stared off into the distance. Her vision was 20/20. She could see the distant shapes of cloud formation moving over the horizon. If she tried, she could reach them just in time to take her pre-bedtime nap.

Yet she was still sitting here outside this little coffee shop, drinking coffee that could never win any awards if it tried, while Rarity sat across from her and talked about her day. The sun felt good, but Dash was in no mood to bask. No, she burned.

Rarity tapped her hoof against the table.

Dash looked around. “What’s up?”

“Were you listening?” Rarity asked, her face neutral but knowing.

“You were just saying how Coco Pommel stopped by last week with new specialty orders from Canterlot, it was nice to see her again, you loved her mane, you always love her mane, and then there were some technical things about how certain seam patterns flatter her outfits.” She sat back like a foal who had just schooled her teacher.

“Would it hurt so much to engage with me? Make a little eye contact?”

“I just zoned out.”

Rarity put her hoof on the table. This only meant she would soon be taking Dash’s hoof and squeezing it a little, and then there would be no hope of Dash paying attention at all.

“Are you okay?” Rarity asked.

“Mm’fine.” Dash looked away again. The town was quiet this time of day. Not silent, but quiet. It made talking harder somehow. “I met a couple long-range weatherponies today at work. They were making a pitstop at our office and staying the night. They’re working on stabilizing the jetstream north of here.”

“That sounds exciting.”

“Yeah, it does.” Was that loud? Dash wasn’t sure. “They travel all across Equestria. See those clouds up there?” She pointed to the wispy line marking the jetstream high above them.

“Erm--not really. That one there?”

“No. Look, second to the Wonderbolts they’re the coolest flyers in Equestria. They rode the jetstream into town and they’re just hanging out in the weather office.”

“Impressive,” Rarity said, though it almost sounded like she didn’t mean it.

“Yeah, it is.” Okay, so now she was definitely being loud. Why shouldn’t she? This was compelling stuff. Rarity needed to understand. “One of the northwest currents was getting out of control and dragging all the west coast clouds inland. These ponies just flew right up there and, and, I don’t even know how they did it, but they must have kicked it really hard or something because the clouds are all fixed.” Rainbow Dash sat back down and stared into her coffee. “They’re really cool.”

Dash felt Rarity take her hoof as she asked, “Are you okay, really? You can’t fool me.”

It was all over now. If anypony else had asked her that same question, Dash would have brushed it off. But Rarity had bought her coffee, and it wasn’t a date but it was just the two of them, and she was staring, not intensely but intently. So Dash just had to make an exception here.

She thought about how to open up without opening up all at once, which from her years of experience with her neurotic friends tended to look pretty bad. If she weren't so terrible at it herself, maybe it would be easier. She finally settled on a question. “Have you ever had a moment where you’re in a train, and you’re flying by some pit stop you’ve never heard of before, and you think, wow, I’m never going to go there, never gonna lay eyes on that place again, never gonna touch it or experience it, and it makes you kinda sad even though you don’t know why? You just--” She stopped short. Not all at once. “Do you ever think that?”

“I suppose. I guess I don’t think about it too often.”

“Well, I don’t think that anymore.”

“Oh. And that’s... good?”

“No!” Too loud. Who cares? The other patrons seemed pretty interested in what she was saying too. They stared at her with confused faces. One sipped wine with a straw at the next table over. Wasn’t that supposed to be better on your teeth? It looked almost as bad as opening up in the middle of the lunch rush. Where was she? “It’s not good. I don’t know, maybe that was a bad example. I’ve seen everything there is to see in the Ponyville box, and the box around Canterlot too for that matter. I can’t just fly away even though my job stinks and fighting monsters is like another job now. I almost let the wyrm that attacked us last week eat me just to spice things up.”

“You did what?”

“I can’t even fly too high most days cuz Ponyville’s right under the jetstream. Do you know where those weather ponies were when they started their day? Vanhoover. They started their day on the other side of the continent and they’re breaking here for lunch. I could barely cover that kind of distance at rainboom speeds, and I’m just sitting here drinking coffee while everyone else is so happy to be stuck here.” Dash looked up. “I didn’t mean that in a bad way.”

Rarity nodded. “I think I know what you’re getting at.”

“You do?”

“Yes, and I know just the solution--”

“You do?” Too loud! Too late at this point. The waiters were already huddling together by the door trying to come up with a polite way to kick the town heroes out without hurting business. Dash was certain they’d do just fine.

Rarity continued, “My dear, you’re simply getting cabin fever. You need a vacation.”

“I don’t get vacation days. I’m the manager. I have to tell everyone what to do.”

“You hardly ever take vacations longer than a siesta, anyway. I’ll bet you have plenty of days saved up. Your next-in-line would take over in your place, and you could fly all across the continent and do whatever you’d like.”

The wheels turned in Dash’s mind. Slowly, but surely. “I never thought about not showing up because I didn’t feel like it,” she said.

“Of course not,” Rarity replied, her smile as heavy as a cartful of bricks.

Dash soon had a smile on her face, too. “You can just tell everypony you’re not gonna do your job for a weekend,” she marvelled, “and they’ll let you. And you’re the boss, so they have to listen to you.”

“Well, I wouldn’t word it exactly like that--”

Dash had already stood up, her eyes bright again. She slammed the rest of her coffee, hardly noticing the burning tingling of her tongue, then took off towards the weather office.

She zipped back to the table a moment later, panting. “Um,” she said. “Rarity?”

“Yes?”

“Where do you go when you want to get away?”

Rarity smiled. “I have a few leads.”

As it turned out, roaming the continent without a plan was a pretty horrible idea for a novice traveler. Lucky for Dash, it just so happened that Rarity also needed a vacation. At the time, this didn’t surprise Dash in the slightest. Looking back on it, she would consider this a miracle.

The evening before their weekend began found them inside Carousel Boutique preparing. As Rarity packed, Dash laid on her friend’s plush bed and tossed a pillow in the air. Sometimes she caught it. Mostly she let it fall on her face.

“How about this one?” Rarity asked, levitating a bright green piece of swimwear.

Dash peeled the pillow off her face and gave it a slow look before letting her head fall back to the bed. “I don’t know. It looks fine.”

“Yes, but would it look good in tropical water?”

“What? It’ll be underwater. Who cares what it looks like if it’s underwater?”

“My dear, tropical water has different color properties than lake water or ocean water. It’s important to find something that works with the environment. Darker colors work well for lakes. Patterns work well in the ocean.” She pursed her lips and brought the swimsuit closer. “This color, I think, would work for tropical water.”

Dash groaned and covered her face with the pillow again. “Just hold it up to the sky or something,” she muttered, her voice muffled. “Tropical water’s about the same color.”

“Yes, the color is similar, but you must try to envision the properties of the water shimmering across the garment.”

The pillow flew across the room and slumped uselessly in the corner. “It looks perfect, okay? Everything you wear is perfect.”

Rarity narrowed her eyes and returned to her wardrobe. “You’re just anxious to leave.”

Dash put her hoof in her mouth and looked for another pillow.

It had been decided the day before that the two of them would visit San Diamingo, an island off the east coast of Equestria that had once been the site of a great diamond dog mine. Once the gems dried up a hundred or so years ago, they sold the island and headed inland. Now, the island was a haven for travelers like them, too remote for the average tourist and not remote enough for the hardcore adventurer. The brochures from Ponyville’s travel office showed isolated cabins on the beach, hiking trails snaking through a tropical jungle up to the summit of the island’s single mountain, a small town full of cheap restaurants and clubs, and enough thermals of rising warm air for a world-weary pegasi to glide on for hours.

Dash was most interested in the restaurants.

Using the old “elements of harmony” discount, Rarity and Dash were able to secure a cabin on the east side of the island for next to nothing. As with so many things in life though, the real fun came in the journey.

The jetstream had an inherently magical quality to it. Pegasi could feel it instinctively, though few had the arcane knowledge and strength to control it. All the weather in the entire continent gathered its power from this single source. Most ponies didn’t dare ride the current--the winds were just as liable to dislocate your wings as they were to carry you hundreds of miles off-course. Invisible bands of fierce wind and magical energy. Untamed, unconquerable, stationary yet ever-changing. Up there was pure uncontrollable magic ripping across the sky at incredible speeds Some ponies who navigated the channels claimed to see things while they were in the midst of it, premonitions of future events or magical-induced hallucinations of higher dimensions.

And one branch of it just happened to run from Ponyville to San Diamingo, approximately.

So before Rarity had a chance to decide which swimsuit went best with tropical water, before the long-range weather team had a chance to rest up and resume their work, before the staff at San Diamingo even had time to realize what chaos was about to befall their little resort, Rainbow Dash made her travel plans.

Rarity would take the train to the coast. She would hop on a boat at the coast and sail right up to their cabin and stick a flag with her cutie mark in the sand for all it mattered.

Dash would fly.

Friday Morning

it’s peace, it’s glass, it’s warm in the sun, it’s green far below and blue far above, it’s the feeling of fear when you leave what you know, it’s the knowledge that you sorta know where to go, it’s a piece of the sun falling down to the earth, it’s a moment of peace, it’s a thought, it’s rebirth, when you’re flying so fast you can’t help but be still, better not try and roll or you’ll surely get ill, it’s a plan, it’s a plant, it’s a fox, it’s a dove, it is you and the world, it’s a shark, it’s a shove, and your wings are outstretched and there’s wind in your hair, and you feel so free you just want to despair, and the riverbank talks of the waters of March, but you’re so far above them you can’t hear them talk

Dash heard a voice in the wind.

It started out as a constant roar, sound and matter moving together to buffet her from side to side. The usual sound of wind against her ears grew louder as she neared the jetstream. When she was close enough, it all but pulled her in. Her wings ached as they caught the full brunt of the current, and she lurched ahead. Pockets of erratic air pushed her up and down. The noise was thunderous and the wind blurred her vision, but she fought the urge to bail out and kept herself steady.

As she acclimated to the noise and speed, she looked down at the countryside. Years of training taught her not to be deceived by the slow pace of the ground beneath her. If she were lower, the green fields would be nothing but a blur.

It was here, looking down into the empty space between her and her home, that she heard a voice.

She lifted her head against the current and looked around. Nothing but empty air as far as she could see. She didn’t dare look behind her for fear of losing control and being spit out of the air channel.

“Hello?” she called out. “Who’s there?” Her words were carried away in an instant.

Dash focused once more on the horizon. Barely a minute had gone by when she heard the sound again, a vaguely pony voice speaking in perfect harmony with the incredible roar of the wind.

This time, Dash almost flipped over. She craned her neck to see behind her and got a faceful of wind in return.

Twilight had once tried to teach her about magical harmonics, how the fundamental energy of magic sometimes manifested in nature as vibrations. Since the jetstream was essentially one giant column of air being vibrated by unbound magical forces, it was only logical for it to produce sound as the overtones interacted in the space around her.

But there was something different about this sound. It carried like a voice, a brilliant shimmering hollow-sounding mare’s voice. It came from everywhere all at once, carrying over the wind in strange colorful tones. In one moment far behind, the next moment far ahead, the next right on top of her, right in her ear.

Dash yelped and ducked her head. The new downward force propelled her out of the jetstream, a cone of condensation briefly forming in front of her.

She let herself free fall for a moment before opening her wings again and stabilizing herself. The usual sound of the wind filled her ears. Not a voice to be heard.

She looked up at the current of air above her. She had already fallen a hundred lengths below it, and still the ground looked as far away as ever. With a flap of her tired wings, she rolled so her belly was facing the jetstream and wondered what she would look like from far away. A small dot of color against an endless expanse of the same color. If she were a hunter, it would have been great camouflage.

In that moment, something made her wish she had been born another color. Maybe brown, or some gross shade of green. Or bright pink, like Pinkie.

But then again, light blue suited her. Another thought overtook her, and she rolled to look at the ground. Up here, she was the sky. She was the wild blue yonder, the cloud, the jetstream, the lone flyer traversing its endless plane.

The wild blue yonder did a barrel roll and let out a cry of elation. Thin air did wonders for her sanity.

With her spirit renewed, Dash pumped her wings hard and ascended back into the jetstream--

--and there was the singing again! She had forgotten about the singing. The voice coalesced and fell apart, flowing around her like the wind, blowing past her, her ears were like bottles a foal would blow on and make a note, different pitches in her ears, and then there was harmony, brilliant shimmering harmony, like glass, like god, like the silvery sun shining down from above, there was no one above, just the sun, just the voices, the harmony, brilliant, shimmering,

the voice was singing

Dash hit the westernmost beach of San Diamingo going way too fast, rolling ten yards before finally coming to a stop. She was covered in sand, and golly did she ever come close to hitting that seawall--but it was all very graceful otherwise. The loose collection of vacationers and staff looked at her with a mix of shock and bemusement. Some awe too, probably.

Dash stuck her head out of the sand. Everything felt warm and fuzzy, and for once it wasn’t because she had bumped her head on the landing. She felt better than good. She felt alive.

She opened her mouth, spat out a glob of sand, and proclaimed, “Rainbow Dash, party of two awesome ponies.”

A nearby stallion wearing a staff uniform trotted up to her with a towel and said in an accent she couldn’t quite place, “Please follow me. We keep the most awesome patrons on the east side of the island.”

What wonderful staff, Dash thought. She followed him to a nearby dock, where half a dozen pontoon boats emblazoned with the three blue and white stripes of the San Diamingo flag were moored.

"What's your flag mean?" Dash asked.

"The two blue stripes on the top and bottom of the flag are the sky and the sea. The middle white one is the white sand of our beaches."

"How can you tell if you're flying it right-side up?"

The stallion laughed as he expertly unroped the last boat, and in a moment they were chugging across the waves.

“The only direct walking paths to the other side of the island run across the mountain,” the stallion explained over the sound of the engine, pointing at the single dormant volcano taking up a majority of the island’s real estate. “It’s easiest to just go around.”

“So, the restaurants and clubs, are they all on the other side of the island too?”

“There is essentially one town on either side of the island. Both have all the amenities you could want--restaurants, clubs, spas, bars--”

“But the restaurants are good? What kind of food do they have?”

“There’s a four-star restaurant by the north beach with a wonderful tropical theme--”

“But can I get, like, sandwiches? Or hay fries?”

The stallion chuckled. “There’s a good shack on the west side of the town. You’ll like the grilled pineapple burgers.”

“Pineapple burgers?”

“You’ll thank me after you try them.”

The comforting rock of the pontoon boat lulled Dash into silence for the next few minutes. She took the opportunity to take in the island from sea level. It really was an impressive sight. Dense tropical brush clung to the mountainside and extended all the way to the water in some places. High above, she spotted a pair of pegasi riding a thermal updraft into the clouds. A few ponies lounged on the beach. The ocean spread out in all directions. The sight almost overwhelmed her.

She closed her eyes, and for a moment she was alone, far away from the island, far removed from being. This was the feeling she had been aching for all this time. No land. No weather. No Ponyville. Nopony. Just blue.

The stallion cut it short. “Hold on please,” he said, and turned the motor over.

Dash opened her eyes to find they were already docking on the other side of the island. The feeling escaped her all at once, and for a moment she considered throwing the stallion overboard and stealing the boat. She’d turn it around, though she didn’t know how to steer, gun the engine, though she couldn’t find the throttle, and sail into the horizon.

“Miss?”

Dash looked around. The stallion was on the pier. The boat was all tied up. A thought came to her, focused on the winding path between the waves, leading to somewhere beyond the horizon. The water faded from a bright turquoise to a dull and stationary blue.

Wasn’t she supposed to be happy on vacation? That’s how it worked, right? She hopped off the boat and followed the stallion over the beach, but the thought kept nagging her. Wasn’t she supposed to be happy on vacation? Here she was, as far away from her normal life as money and fame could buy, yet it still wasn’t far enough. She looked at the horizon. The color was wrong. She wanted to fly.

Dash’s cabin was one of several spread out along the eastern coast of the island. The wood structure was nestled at the very edge of the treeline and separated from the beach by a low stone seawall. A single brightly-colored bird perched on the top of the cabin’s roof.

“Is the bird real?” Dash asked as she climbed the few steps leading to the cabin’s front porch.

“As real as the rest of the island,” the stallion replied. “You and your friend will find some pamphlets inside detailing all there is to do here. Water shuttles run every hour and depart from the same place we docked at earlier. Do you have any questions about your stay?”

“When is my friend getting here?”

“A few more hours at the most. The boat she took is experiencing some delays.”

Dash chuckled. “Thanks for the lift, dude.”

As the stallion walked off towards the dock, Dash finally realized how warm everything was. Warm and bright. Light reflecting off the ocean, the sea breeze blowing her mane, shafts of warmth cutting through the breaks in the porch roof, thoughts of spending a long weekend with her friend, her friend, her friend, her friend--it all blurred together into one overwhelming sensation. Rarely could she feel her hooves on the ground and still feel so dizzy.

To unclutter her mind, she went for a fly around the beach. After a few hours she wound up in the water, her belly warmed by the sun, her wings catching the underwater current and carrying her in circles. When the waves moved her and her head dipped beneath the water, the weird feelings disappeared, replaced by soft shapes dancing across the surface above her. Warm and bright.

She must have fallen asleep out there, because when she opened her eyes the island had nearly reached the horizon. The sun was growing harsh and the water a little too clingy. For a unicorn or earth pony, it might have been frightening. Dash flipped over and shook out her wings before taking to the air again.

When she arrived back at the shore, she noticed another boat had docked at the pier.

A jubilant squeal cut through the air. The trees closest to the dock shook. The brightly-colored bird perched atop the cabin ruffled its feathers and squawked.

There was no denying the fact that Rainbow Dash was fast. But when she saw Rarity galloping towards her, sand spraying to the beat of her alabaster hooves like water cut by a boat, she felt a twinge of something she had never felt before. It was strange, like a tightness in her heart and a looseness in her mind at the same time.

Dash assumed this must be what fear felt like.

The pleasantries were long--they were always long with Rarity, but always bearable. Maybe it was the way she spoke. Her accent made the words skip in a certain way. Kinda like a mare running along the beach, her mane blowing in the wind, the sun setting, dramatic music playing in the background, and strings, and acoustic guitars, and, and, her, and--

And it was just past midday. The island played its own kind of music. Rarity was saying something important-sounding. Dash never knew when to zone out. Everything sounded important when you said it like Rarity said it.

“My bellhop is just getting my bags off the boat,” Rarity finished. “Aren’t you excited?”

“You got a bellhop?”

Rarity gave her a sideways look. “Didn’t you?”

Dash turned towards the pier and saw a stallion in a staff uniform balancing Rarity’s trunks on his back. The wheels in her mind turned as he made his way to the porch and set the bags down. “You and your friend will find some pamphlets inside detailing all there is to do here,” he said with a professional smile. “Water shuttles run every hour and depart from the same place we docked at earlier. Do you have any questions?”

Rarity shook her head and slipped a few bits into his pocket. As he walked off towards the dock, she turned and asked Dash, “Are your bags inside?”

“Um.” A shaft of light caught Dash in the eye, and she teetered on her hooves. There was that feeling again, warm and bright and exuberant and expectation all at the same time--a pit in her gut, a weightless dream, the feeling of coming apart at the seams, all bursting out, all anxious and joy, but Rarity was staring so say something coy! “No,” she said.

The ocean sighed a gentle breeze. Or maybe it was Rarity. Dash turned red and fumbled with the front door, but stopped when she felt a hoof on her shoulder.

“You forgot your bags at home.”

Dash considered her words for a moment, then went back to fumbling with the door handle. “I didn’t forget my bags at home. You can’t forget your bags at home if you don’t pack them in the first place.”

“You know what this means, right?”

Dash slumped. “I just want to go flying.”

Rarity beamed, bright and warm. “You know what this means, Dash.”

“No.”

“Rainbow--”

“I know.” Dash looked away, her face red. “I know.”

Friday Afternoon

In short order, Rarity had unpacked, plied Dash out of the cabin with promises of food (“Eventually, Dash, eventually--and no, we can’t stop for a snack, or what’s the point of dinner?”), and led her down the single dirt road towards town.

Though it was called a town, it was much larger than Dash expected, with several narrow pedestrian streets feeding into a main thoroughfare stretching east towards the ocean and west further into the island. A dozen or so ponies milled around outside, perusing touristy clothes at outdoor stalls and drinking colorful cocktails with long straws. The whole place seemed to sway from side to side--or maybe that was all in her head.

“You’re walking kinda slow,” Dash observed as she slowed her pace--again--for Rarity.

“We’re on vacation, dear. There’s no need to rush.”

“Yeah, but the sooner we finish clothes shopping, the sooner we can eat. I don’t even wear clothes anyway.”

“I know,” Rarity said in a soothing voice, “but you look so nice when you do. A wicker sunhat, or maybe something green to go with your coat.”

Dash frowned and kicked the dirt. “I get to pick our dinner, then.”

“Fair enough. Now, I see a nice stall at the end of the street. Would you walk me over there?”

Of course, Dash wanted to say but didn’t. Of course I would.

An hour or so of painful shopping yielded a soft green beach towel for Dash, which she wore over her back like a cape, and a flowing see-through sundress for Rarity, who also convinced Dash to get a matching wicker sunhat with her. Dash compromised by perching a pair of knock-off aviator sunglasses on the brim of her hat.

“The hat will keep me cool,” Dash said, “but the shades will keep me cool.”

Rarity just laughed. “Of course, Rainbow. Of course.”

The sun began to set as they made their way to a sweet-smelling food stall at the edge of town closest to the beach. Long shadows of trees reclined over the carpet of underbrush. Ocean sounds cascaded through openings in the trees. A lone tropical bird cooed somewhere far away.

Dash wasn’t thrilled. Buying things didn’t feel like something to do on vacation. She could buy stuff at home. Heck, she avoided buying stuff at home, and her reasoning behind that was almost entirely laziness. This was just uneconomical--a word Twilight had recently used on her the last time she shelled out for Wonderbolts memorabilia.

Yet, when she noticed the sign on the stall for grilled pineapple burgers, she reached for her coin purse without hesitation.

Rarity turned up her nose when Dash returned with the food. “Did they run out of everything else?”

“Trust me,” Dash said, “you’ll like it.”

Rarity took the burger with some hesitation. “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather force me to eat something deep fried? You like deep fried, don’t you?”

“I could ask him to deep fry your pineapple burger.”

Rarity considered her options. Her eyes narrowed. “Let it be known that--”

Dash got bored and took a bit bite out of her burger. She chewed slowly and shook her head.

“Is it that bad?”

“It’s terrible. Horrible.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that--”

“It’s so terrible, I think I’ll have to eat yours too just to be safe.”

Rarity groaned, “Fine, Rainbow Dash, fine,” and took a bite.

The rest of the evening passed like a sunset. They walked to the beach, then back to town, then back to the cabin, and not once did Dash’s hooves leave the ground.

Saturday Morning

When Dash awoke the next morning, someone had pitched an umbrella next to her to shade her from the sun. She looked around to find she was on the beach, close to her cabin. Confused and still pretty groggy, she decided to sleep some more and let the situation play out.

Which it did about fifteen minutes later, when Rarity walked over with a picnic basket and a glare that sent Dash into fits of laughter.

“You could have gotten sunburned,” Rarity tried to say, though Dash kept on trying and failing to hold her amusement in.

“Your--your whole face! It was just like--”

“I brought lunch. Would that shut you up?”

The laughter stopped. “Depends on how much you brought.”

So for the next hour, they sat on the beach, and Dash ate every morsel of food in the basket.

Having nothing stuffed in her face, it fell to Rarity to make the majority of the conversation. Much to Dash's chagrin, she talked about work and fashion and gossip. The words sounded nice, but there was nothing to them. They fell right through the sand all the way to the wet clay below, or they got carried away by the birds for lunch, or the ocean scooped them up and pulled them down into the deep.

Dash never really struck herself as a deep person. Some ponies worried about the nature of things, or the scale of space, or the weight of experience. She worried about the frequency of meals and the patterns of the weather. She worried about air and the way it pushed her. She was like paper. All pegasi were. And the earth ponies were rocks and the unicorns were scissors.

Why was it now of all times she felt like grasping for something more? More was ridiculous. She already had more. She had a free vacation in a tropical island paradise with her friend--her friend, her friend, her friend--what more could she want?

She wished the feeling would go away. Maybe if there was just more food to eat, or more naps to take, or another island even further away from the rest of the world, maybe if there was even more of that, she could feel less of what she felt now.

“Hey, Rarity?” Dash interrupted. “Sorry, but--can we talk about something else?”

“Uhm--sure, of course. Was my story too much?”

She had been talking all this time? Dash was glad she hadn’t put on any sunscreen. Maybe the redness on her cheeks could be construed as a tan. “No, it wasn’t too much. I don’t know.”

“Oh.”

They sat in silence a few seconds.

Dash said, “I don’t know what I’m feeling, I guess. The ocean is--uh, it’s really pretty today.”

“Yes, very pretty.”

More silence. Where was that something more she wanted? Where was it? Beneath the sand? The waves? In the belly of the birds? Where? “Maybe I’ll try flying with the birds later.”

“Yes, just don’t scare them off with your speed.”

Lame humor. It slipped between the grains of sand and was lost forever. Good riddance.

“I just feel--ugh.” Dash let her head rest in the sand. Maybe if she was lucky she would sink too. “I don’t know what I feel.”

Rarity moved closer, and a strange clinging sensation came over Dash, like she should hang onto her friend for dear life or risk losing her to the sand. She didn’t, of course--that would be weird--but she still felt it all the same. Oddly nice. Warm and bright.

“Try not to think too hard, dear,” Rarity said. “You’re on vacation.”

So Dash closed her eyes and tried not thinking for a minute, and when she opened her eyes she found her head nestled in Rarity’s lap. She looked up at her, and in return she smiled down.

Rarity took her unkempt mane and ran her hooves through it. Nothing purposeful, just feeling the texture, that strange association between something so similar to your own yet so different.

Dash tried not to think about it too hard.

Saturday Afternoon

That afternoon, Dash negotiated a deal with Rarity. They would spend two hours in the beachside spa getting pampered however Rarity saw fit, then take a hike around the mountain in the center of the island. Rarity had the wherewithal to suggest they take the hike first. Dash agreed. If she tried hard enough, she could just wear herself out and fall asleep at the spa.

“So,” Dash said as they neared the base of the mountain, “I was talking to some of the staff lately.”

“Yes?”

“It was all about the cool things you can do while you’re on the island. I guess they have boat races here a few times a year, but they’re not going on right now.”

“You’d probably beat them anyway.”

Dash beamed. “Anyway, they have all sorts of stuff you can do on these trails, but if we take the trail leading all the way up to the top we can go spee-lunking into the mountain. Turns out, it's not a mountain. It's a dormant volcano. Isn’t that cool?”

Rarity considered the opportunity. “It’s pronounced spelunking.”

“Potato-tomato. Whatever. Point is, we should do it when we get up there.”

“When we get up there?” Rarity squinted at the distant lip of the mountain. “That’s a lot of walking.”

“It’ll take like twenty minutes.”

“For you, maybe. I can’t fly.”

“We don’t have to fly, we just need to attack the mountain.”

“This vacation is not a fitness class, Rainbow!”

“You’re right, I hate classes. This is fitness fun!”

And with that, Rainbow spread her wings and took off. She moved into a slow circle above Rarity, shouting encouragements.

Rarity shouted back, “If you leave me down here, I’m going back to the spa!”

Dash did a loop-de-loop and sped off to the next ridgeline. Rarity sighed and trudged on.

When the two finally found each other, Rarity was out of breath and covered with sweat. Dash laid in a soft bed of moss on the side of the road, humming and taking lazy swipes at the bugs flying around her.

“That was pretty quick,” Dash said. “Are you sure you didn’t sprout wings?”

“I want to go to the spa now.”

“Look there.” Dash pointed towards the mountain. We’re almost there. Just a few more miles and we’ll be at the top. The spa’s probably further away anyway from here.”

“Rainbow--”

“It’s so close! And check it out! While I was up in the air I found a really nice thermal.”

“I don’t care. I can’t ride thermals. Even if I could climb this awful mountain, I don’t want to do it by myself. You can’t keep flying off.”

“Can’t? Listen, the top is just a little bit further. We’ll go spelunking once we’re at the top. It’ll be so much fun.”

Rarity snapped, “Do you even know what spelunking is?”

“That’s--not relevant. Look, we’re on vacation. That means I’m on vacation too. I want to ride this thermal all the way up to the top of this mountain and then spelunk down it.”

“Let’s say for argument’s sake--”

“I don’t want to argue!”

“Yes, but let’s just say for argument’s sake that we are arguing. If I made it up there, and I didn't plan on risking my life going spelunking, how would I get back down? If you’re going to just spelunk back down, how do you propose I make it down in time for the spa appointment?”

Dash shrugged. “They’ve got a zipline.”

Rarity took a deep breath and looked around. Jungle brush enclosed the path on both sides, winding up the side of the mountain and out of sight. A flock of birds droned on in an endless song somewhere high above them.

“If I go up there,” Rarity said, “and mind you, I may not... but if I go, we’re taking an extra hour at the spa so they can redo my hair, which will of course be ruined if I go ziplining.”

“Yeah, sure!” Dash unfurled her wings and shot into the air. “Let’s get moving.”

“Wait a minute! If we go up there, we go up there together.”

Slowly, Dash drifted down to earth. “Yeah, sure.”

“You sound disappointed.”

“I’m not. I’m just--I don’t know. I don’t like walking.” But I’d walk with you, is what Dash almost added.

“I know walking must make your skin crawl. But I appreciate it.” Rarity moved in for a quick nuzzle.

Dash shied away, then gave in. “You’re a better friend than me.”

“No, just a little more thoughtful.”

“Yeah, well, thanks for being more thoughtful.”

When they made it to the top of the mountain, they parted ways with a promise to meet in front of the spa as soon as they were done.

When Dash finally touched down in front of the spa an hour later, she noticed a look of tired contentment on her friend's face. It reminded of of the same look she got after working all day on a thrilling new trick.

"Do you know how long the zipline ride lasts, Rainbow Dash?" Rarity asked.

"Nope. Was that you screaming?"

Rarity scowled. "It takes under ten minutes. And you couldn't have possibly heard that from inside the mountain."

"So it was you!"

As they walked into the spa, Dash lowered her voice and said, “I’m sorry about earlier. I didn’t mean to argue with you.”

“You have nothing more to be sorry for. Did you at least figure out what spelunking means?”

Dash nodded. “There was a lot of water down there. I kinda thought you’d just jump down and they’d let you out at the bottom like a log flume ride.”

Rarity cracked a smile. “In many ways, life is like a log flume ride. In this way, it’s not. Good thing I booked us the extra hour--you’ll need it if you want to look presentable when we go to the resort club for dinner tonight.”

“Resort club? Don’t you need a fancy dress to get in there?”

Rarity’s smile grew wider.

Saturday Evening

Sometimes, you don’t know where you’re going until you’re halfway there. Tonight was not one of those nights. Dash left the cabin with a purpose. She had to fly.

There was so much discontent in her life. This vacation was stressing her out, and the distance between her and Ponyville and the weather team that needed her was stressing her out, and the lack of distance between her and Ponyville and the weather team that needed her was stressing her out, and it all came together in a great wave that crashed over her whenever she took her mind off the immediate necessities of surviving flight. Flap your wings. Don’t tip over. Keep your head up. Don’t cramp. Don’t lock up. Don’t think too hard. Just don’t. Don’t. Don’t.

The low clouds from yesterday evening had been cleared out. Only the higher ones remained. Dash made it her goal to reach them by the end of the night. It helped to have goals.

What were her goals? Why was she here? To relax? She could relax in Ponyville on any cloud she could find. She could find a tree in Sweet Apple Acres and nap for hours uninterrupted.

Was it to get away? That notion seemed familiar, but it was equally easy to dismiss. There was always some more distant shore whose sand was slightly whiter, whose nights were slightly darker, whose clientele was slightly more interesting.

If she could just make it up to the jetstream--

But this arm of the jetstream didn’t end over tropical islands full of whiter sand and darker nights. This arm of the jetstream ended when it melded with another air current to form the Great Zebrican Front, ten thousand miles away. Miles and miles of ocean. There would be no way to stay airborne that long, not in the jetstream. It would fold her eventually, crumple her up and cast her into the ocean, and then finally she would be as far away from anything as she could possibly be, down at the bottom of everything, alone with herself forever--

But then, there was still the issue of Rarity.

a hope, a gasp, it’s a slip of the tongue, it’s a feeling of life, it’s the air in your lungs, a trip, a fall, a journey for two, get there and then go away, stay or just pass on through, she’s a truckload of bricks in the soft morning light, the sound of a shot in the dead of the night, a knife in a cake, or smoke in a hearth, the fear in the friend, the danger of art, she will take you alive just to chew you apart, not that you really cared, you might just feel it’s luck, in the dark, in the wet, you came up to breathe, and she pushed you back down to the crash of the sea, it's the fear that you feel when your lungs beg for air, you're so far from the sky, there's no time to get there, and the line holding back the sea from the sky, it is falling away and you don’t know why, but it’s all you can do to keep your mouth shut so you don’t taste the tears, so you don’t eat a bug

Rainbow Dash coughed and twisted in midair. When she stabilized, she finally realized just how high she had flown without realizing it. The jetstream roared above her, no more than a few hundred yards away. Lights from the island twinkled below her--no further away, it seemed, than they were last night.

This indecision was eating her. Dash was a pony of action. Many years of living had taught her that you never know which way is the right way until you’ve already arrived. It’s never good enough to speculate. All you can do is decide.

So she decided. It would happen tomorrow.

Sunday Morning

Dash knew from experience that Rarity was a pony of action. She rose with the morning sun out of habit and immediately thought of five things to do before lunch. Her eyes were all orange and yellow and warm and bright as she made herself up, even when they weren't reflecting the tropical sun. But as Dash had been reminded of when picking out her swimwear, colors had many different shades.

Dash was reclining on a plastic folding chair when Rarity walked outside. Disturbing the peace of the moment seemed mean, so Dash closed her eyes and pretended to be asleep . She could feel the unicorn's eyes on her for a moment before she walked off into the sand.

When Dash opened her eyes again, Rarity was walking down the beach towards town.

It felt strangely intimate to see her like this, with the colors of the sun falling into her and casting a curved shadow across the sand. It was all oranges and yellows. Bright and warm.

Rainbow Dash knew herself as a pony of action. For example, she acted on her impulse to doze in the folding chair until Rarity returned, then acted like she was asleep again.

She became understandably distraught when Rarity started poking her in the side. Her resolve to stay in bed until the tides washed the island away was strong. A little teasing wouldn’t make Dash buckle.

It was the ice-cold bottle of champagne pressed against the back of her neck a moment later that made her buckle.

Dash peeled herself off the ceiling to the mad cackling of an abusive unicorn.

“Not funny!” Dash hissed.

Rarity took a second to compose herself, then collapsed into giggles again.

“Whatever.” Dash eyed the paper bags sitting on the floor by the door. “You’re making breakfast for that.”

“Okay,” Rarity finally croaked. “Okay, fine, I deserve it.”

“What did you get, anyway?”

With a flick of her horn, Rarity swept the bags up and spread the contents across the table. “Wheat toast, eggs for scrambling, butter, orange juice, and a little surprise which you've already noticed.”

Dash nervously glanced at the bottle of champagne, which Rarity had set on the table alongside the other groceries. “Is that... Prench?”

“Do you like it?”

“Rares, I hate to break it to you, but it’s not New Years. We don’t need Prench champagne. We don't even need regular champagne.”

Rarity sauntered over and took the bottle from Dash. “We will need it if we want to make mimosas.”

“What’s that, some kind of protein shake?” Dash grimaced at the thought of tasting alcohol and whey together.

“It’s champagne and orange juice. I woke up this morning, and the sun was so beautiful, and I thought, why don’t we have mimosas on the beach? I for one can never find an occasion to make mimosas. So here we are in paradise, with the sun rising, the birds chirping, and--look at that! They just happened to stock high-shelf champagne at the market. Isn’t that a sign?”

“Yeah,” Dash muttered, gnawing at the plastic wrap around the toast, “the universe wants us to day-drink.”

“Hey.”

Dash turned to face Rarity and instantly regretted it. Her eyes were so earnest they almost hurt to look at. Full of life. Bright. Warm.

“Yeah?”

“Go get some cups and mix the orange juice and champagne fifty-fifty. Find a nice spot on the beach and I’ll meet you out there.”

Twenty thoughts all came together at the same time. Rainbow Dash was a pony of action. She knew an opportunity when she saw one! Without another word, she bolted to the porch, threw a few folding chairs and her towel over her back, and headed for the beach.

While Rainbow Dash was a pony of action, she soon realized with no small amount of shame that she was not a pony of subtlety.

In no time at all they were sitting there on the edge of the beach, their breakfast balanced on the seawall just behind them, hooves in the sand, butts in beach chairs, mimosas sweating gently, sun above them, earth below, birds in the air, sun in the sky, no one saying a word--

It was just so hard to approach. If she didn’t have an ulterior motive, Dash was certain it would have been easier. Now, though? The words came out all wrong.

“So, I love you,” Dash started. “Wait, no I don’t.”

Rarity giggled. “I sure hope you do, my dear. I love you very much.” She took Dash’s leg in her hoof and squeezed it a little.

“Uh, yeah.” Birds. Sky. Sand. Breakfast--lunch? It might as well have been lunch. Irrelevant thoughts always got the loudest when serious thinking needed to be done. Dash soldiered on. “Yeah, me too. And it’s why I love you so much that, uhm, I want to know if you’re happy.”

“Of course I’m happy. This weekend has been just wonderful.”

“Ok, but like, I meant the other kind of happy. Happy like, I want to know if you’re happy with the ponies in your life.”

“Of course I am. I am thankful beyond belief for the ponies in my life. Especially you.”

How it killed Dash to hear that! “Thanks, Rarity.”

“What are you thinking about, dear? What brings all of this up?”

“Well--I guess it’s because we’re safe here.”

“Yes, I suppose so, unless you count the potential for tsunamis.”

“Yeah--no, not tsunamis.” Did ponies count as forces of nature? Some sure felt like it. “I mean, we’re far away from everyone else. We can be honest with each other.”

“Of course we can.”

“And, since we’re so far away, I just thought you’d feel safe enough to talk about this.”

“I would feel safe?”

“Yeah. I know you’re sometimes scared to talk about sensitive things.”

“Mhmm.”

“So, I was kinda thinking you’d feel safe now that we’re a million miles away from everything else. Like, this is the safest place to talk about your feelings.”

“Mhmm.”

“So, since we’re both so safe here, I thought I would just ask about you, and your feelings--and, you know, if you’re happy with the ponies in your life. The stallions in your life.”

Rarity lifted her eyebrows. “I never thought I’d hear the day Rainbow Dash wanted to talk about stallions.”

“I don’t,” she shot back, “I just want to know if you’re happy with the ones in your life. Like, you know, the ones in your life.”

“In my life, huh.” Rarity thought for a moment. “Well if you insist on hearing it, no. I’m not happy with the stallions in my life. They all pale in comparison to my amazing friends, and if I can’t find a colt who does something for me my friends can’t, then why would I spend time with the colts when I could spend time with you? Does that make sense?”

A sign of life! “Yeah, that makes sense.”

“If you’re worried about some Blueblood swooping in and stealing me from my friends--”

“I’m not,” she said, “I’m not. I’m just--curious.”

“And I appreciate your curiosity.” Rarity smiled knowingly. Maybe not knowingly. Maybe she didn’t know at all. Why was all of this so difficult? “So, is there a stallion in your life?”

“Absolutely not. No one can slow me down,” Dash replied automatically. It was the truth, too. Lies were always the easiest to stomach when they were steeped in the truth.

“Of course dear, no one can slow you down--but is there a colt in your life?” This time, Rarity’s voice held no hint of questioning.

“No. No colts.”

Rarity turned her attention back to her breakfast. Lunch. Whatever. Dash kicked one leg around in the sand and waited for her to say something.

Finally, Rarity replied in a voice barely louder than the ocean, “I’m sorry, I hope I haven’t upset you. I was just curious.”

What? “No, I wasn’t mad!”

“You sounded a little mad,” Rarity said as she took another bite of her food.

“I wasn’t mad, okay?”

Rarity sized her up. How strange it was to enjoy the feeling.

“Okay, I believe you.”

“Good.”

“A mare, maybe?”

Birds took flight as Dash groaned. “I said I wasn’t mad, okay?” She grabbed her plate and started stuffing herself with whatever was left. Warm pieces of fruit and half a crepe met their fate. “M’m not mad,” she mumbled around the last few bites. “M’m not.”

“Do you feel safe here?”

“Course I do.”

“Do you want to talk about anything?”

“No.” A bemused look from Rarity made Dash reconsider her answer. “I just want to talk about you.”

“Just me?”

“Yeah.”

“Because I have a feeling you want to talk about you.”

“I am talking about you.”

“When you’re asking about me?”

“I’m not mad, okay?”

“I never said--”

“Then stop playing word tricks on me.”

A moment of silence popped their little bubble. Rarity looked down the beach, while Dash studied the surf.

“I don’t mean to pry,” Rarity finally said. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. I’m sorry.” Dash kicked the sand. “I’ll tell you the truth. I’m mad. Not at you. Just at everything else. Everything’s confusing and it’s all moving so fast, but nothing’s changing. This weekend’s almost over and I don’t feel better. I don’t know what I’m trying to find, but I can’t find it at home and I can’t find it here. I’m not convinced it’s anywhere in between either--I flew over there on my way here and I didn’t see it.”

Rarity was sitting up now, facing her. “What is it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Dash--”

“This vacation is supposed to make everything better. It was, anyway. It’s almost over now.”

“Then why don’t we do something?”

“I’m always doing something. If I needed to just do something to feel better I probably would have done it by now.”

Rarity stood up. “Not that you would know, but today is Sunday.”

“Yeah?”

“And if you had read the brochure the bellhop left on your bed, you’d know that every Sunday there’s a wonderful earth pony guitarist who comes and plays in the village.”

“The brochures on my bed? Rares, I haven’t used my bed yet.”

“I know. I’m trying to ignore that. He’s playing from noon til four. Let’s go see him.”

Dash looked up. The sun was further along than she thought. So little time left before--before what? She returned to Ponyville? Went back to work? Fought more monsters? It all seemed so far away. Her future felt so much like her past.

But Dash was a mare of action. Not subtlety. Not grace. Not basic conversational skills. But action, she could do.

“Okay,” she said, “let’s go.”

Sunday Afternoon

They found the guitarist, a younger mare with her mane pulled back in a single braid, on the front porch of the bar. She played guitar in the traditional earth pony way, leaning on a stool with one rear leg jutting out for support while the other strummed and the two front legs moved over the fretboard. She leaned her head back and sang as she played. It was truly a strange sight--if Dash didn’t know this was just music, she might have been concerned for the poor mare’s health.

“That looks so uncomfortable,” Dash whispered to Rarity as they approached.

“Just listen though. Isn’t it pretty?”

“I guess.”

A few chords went by, full of color and warmth.

“It could use drums,” Dash said.

Rarity just shushed her.

Maybe Dash just didn’t get it. The chords sounded funny and the lyrics were in another language. What was there to get?

She turned to pull Rarity away back towards the fun parts of town, but stopped when she felt a hoof on hers. Rarity was squeezing her with a grip she didn’t know the fashionista possessed. The look on her face was strange. Blue eyes half closed. Tiny wrinkles in her forehead. Something else, something else... there was something else there.

Dash felt something she couldn’t quite explain tugging at her heart. She couldn’t tell if it was the music or the look on her friend’s face--her friend, her, oh, what was the point anymore. The chords all sounded funny and the words made no sense. Profound ideas in a language she couldn’t understand played across her ears. It was like a word of hope on the tip of her tongue, or an almost-complete thought playing across her mind. Almost spoken. Almost thought. But then a bug buzzed in her ear, and she forgot.

She shooed the bug off and missed the last chords. As the crowd applauded, Rarity moved towards the musician and threw a bit into her jar. The musician smiled and spoke a few words. Rarity smiled and said something in the same language. As she walked back into the crowd, the musician waved the can high in the air and shook it around. Laughter echoed up the street, right through the forests and down to the beach.

Something about the little scene jarred Dash. Rarity didn’t know how to speak any other languages. She couldn’t have known what the musician was saying. She just couldn’t have.

When Rarity found Dash at the edge of the crowd, she said, “Did you like the music?”

Dash replied, “I dunno. It sounded kinda funny.”

“When you listen to nothing but rock, I suppose they would,” Rarity laughed.

“Whatever. How do you know that song, anyway?”

The music resumed, more distant than before. Rarity touched Dash’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, I was just making fun.”

“I know. I’m not a little kid.”

“I know.”

More music floated past them. The whole street seemed to pause and lean towards the bar.

“So how do you know that song?”

“That’s a long story. Let’s walk to the beach and I’ll tell you about it.”

“Everything’s a road to a beach for you.”

“Life is a road to a beach, Dash. Do you want to hear the story or not?”

Rainbow blew a raspberry and rolled her eyes, but when Rarity started walking towards the northeast beach, she followed dutifully.

“The last time I heard that song must have been nearly ten years ago,” Rarity said. “I was still young--well, younger--traveling the world in search of inspiration and cheap fabric. This was way before I ever established myself in Ponyville, mind you. I had no store, no budget, no clue how to make it. I had a dream and raw talent, and nothing else. I was doing odd jobs for whoever was vaguely connected to the industry. At one point I wound up traveling across the Eastern Ocean to Espanaro to collect special dyes local to the region.”

“I didn’t know you liked to travel.”

Rarity gave Dash a bemused look before continuing. “I met a stallion there, a furniture maker twice as talented and twice as poor as I was. I fell madly in love with him, and it took some convincing but eventually he returned my feelings. He had the most wonderful face, a little soft around the edges but glowing. Just glowing. It’s always sunny in Espanaro, they say. I know it’s true because he’s still there.”

Dash peeled off the road to fake vomit in the ditch.

“Digressing, I extended my stay as long as I could, but work demanded my return and my money ran out. I had to return to Equestria. We wrote often, and he even scraped up the money to visit once, but it was no use. We were too tied to our homes to leave without killing our dreams. That’s what he said in his last letter, anyway.”

“I’m sorry,” Dash said.

“I’m sorry too. I could have made waves in the Eastern markets. I guess he didn’t believe in me enough and I believed him too much. That made both of us wrong.” A moment of silence passed between them before Rarity continued. “Anyway, he lived with his family, and one of his brothers played guitar in the traditional way. The whole family would sit outside on clear evenings and smoke fruity-smelling cigars, which I just hated, but you can’t change some ponies, and we’d all goad his brother on until he set up his guitar and played a few tunes for us. Usually they were simple ones we could all sing along with. I never really learned the Espanaran language, but I could keep up for the most part, even though I never knew what I was singing. But sometimes he’d play more sophisticated songs.”

“What’s the song about?”

“A lot of things. Mostly life. The lyrics are all fragments of daily living, and they're written so it feels like the song is flowing around you. Everything’s centered around the waters of March--that’s where the song gets its name. In Espanaro, March is a month of rain signaling the end of summer. All the words blur together, until they’re cascading over you. It’s more of an experience--the words themselves aren’t too important.”

“That’s dumb. Words should mean something.”

“How they should,” Rarity replied. “Have you ever been in love before?”

“Uh.”

“Sorry,” Rarity chuckled, “bad question. I always wind up with my hoof in my mouth when I talk about romance.”

“No--sorry, you just caught me off guard.”

“So--”

“So yeah, I was in love once.”

“You? Rainbow Dash? In love?”

“Yeah. Kinda hard to believe it, right?”

“I should say.”

“Yeah, well, you don’t have to say it. We were weather academy sweethearts. She lived with me for a year or so after I graduated and then dumped me. Never really gave a reason why.”

“Being pegasi is reason enough I guess. You’re all so flighty.” She coughed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude.”

“Thanks, but it’s whatever. It was a long time ago.”

Rarity leaned in closer. The way she was walking made her hips move with this wonderful rhythm.

“It’s not whatever,” Rarity said, “it’s your heart. You deserve to be happy.”

“I thought I was. Look, this was all a really long time ago. Like, back when I lived in Cloudsdale long ago.”

“Still.”

Dash grunted and looked at the ground.

“What was her name?”

Dash hesitated. “Misty Waters. She was a great weatherpony. Good with air currents. Never cared for cities. I think she would have liked working in Ponyville.”

“Did you ever find out where she wound up?”

A small smile crossed Dash’s face. “They assigned her right in the heart of Manehatten.”

Shade gave way to warm bright light. Shielding her eyes, Dash saw they had arrived at the beach.

“It’s funny,” Rarity said as she made her way towards the water. “In Esparano, their summer ends in March. The waters of March symbolize the end of life. In Equestria, the only water in March is melting snow. The song means rebirth in our hemisphere and death in theirs.”

Rainbow Dash considered these things carefully, until she arrived at the ocean’s edge. With nothing else to say, she shrugged and dove in. Thinking back on the last few days, she decided it wasn’t too hard to accept the fact that a word could mean many things all at once.

The End of the Road

It was Sunday night when Dash’s hooves left the comforting coolness of the island’s beach, though she wagered it would be Monday morning by the time she touched down again. The night was perfect for flying. It invited her further and further up, past the high point of her previous night’s flight. Her wings pumped almost automatically. Flying up was all she could do to keep herself from flying apart.

Further and further up she flew, until the jetstream came fully into view. Without so much as a second thought, she pumped her wings and let the current take her.

A familiar voice sounded as the current took hold of her. The jetstream was singing--or had it ever stopped? This time she anticipated the song and kept her head forward. The vaguely pony voice spoke in perfect harmony with the incredible roar of the wind passing around her, but she remained flat and forward-facing. It came from everywhere all at once, carrying over the wind. In one moment far behind, the next moment far ahead, the next right on top of her, right in her ear.

Not that she noticed anymore.

It felt so good to be moving again. Some strange voice inside her kept saying this whole weekend was wasted. It felt like the same voice telling her to go on this vacation in the first place, though maybe it was something else entirely. Who knew? At this point, it felt like everything was up in the air, and not just literally.

No matter how fast she cut through the air, no matter how streamlined she made herself, she couldn’t escape her thought that she should have stayed in the jetstream and skipped the island entirely. She wasn’t even sure why she had gone on this vacation in the first place, yet she still felt at a loss now that it was almost over.

That feeling revealed her lie. She knew exactly why she came. She knew from the very start, from that very first moment Rarity had brought up the prospect of vacation. From the moment the idea of tropical paradise crossed the threshold from her mind to Dash’s, from the moment she first saw green, and blue, and whatever other sandy colors appeared in her mind when the phrase “tropical paradise” started being thrown around--from that moment, something gnawed at her. This was a horrible idea. This was a horrible idea and she knew it, she knew it but she still came, and every moment in the past three days had been a big waste, and worse than that, now her friend--her friend, oh no no no, she was not doing this again, just focus on the singing some more, that’s right, lull yourself back to reality--now her friend had figured her out. It all felt so wrong, even though it came from the heart. Rarity was a master of deduction and reading ponies. She probably saw through her from the start.

That was it--Rarity had known all along. She knew it and didn’t have the nerve to say anything to hurt her, or didn’t feel like spoiling what was supposed to be a happy weekend, or she just enjoyed playing with her food before tearing it to bits--it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. Not Rarity, not the island and its lights fading amongst the waves far below, not the land, not the ocean, not the wind, not the sky. Nothing. It was all over so quickly, almost like it hadn’t even started at all. The sun had risen and set--why couldn’t she remember? The day was so far away now. All that was left was the night. The clouds were all gone. The stars must be out in force tonight, shining their hearts out for no one to see. Dash was being carried faster than she could even believe. She just wished she could slow down and see.

When she looked down, a cold chill ran through her body. Without even realizing it, the jetstream had carried her way out to sea. The black ocean stretched on endlessly beneath her. The island was a tiny speck many miles away, then nothing at all.

The familiar panic of being lost without a map flooded her mind. This was too far. way too far. She was too far from home, too far from her friends, too far from everything. The ocean was everything else and if she touched down there she’d drown for sure. She’d never find the feeling she had been searching for all this time. There was no peace to be found in her tug-of-war between home and horizon. She was too close or too far away. Stuck in place or careening out of control. She had walked on the edge of the world, stared into the endless ocean, and she had shrugged. Now she was over the edge and all she wanted was to return, with all her heart, yes, she wanted to come back. The feeling was not a place or a destination, not a pony or ponies. The feeling was a feeling, same as the ache in her heart and the panic in her mind and the sting in her eyes.

The jetstream shoved her from side to side, and she strained harder to keep from crumpling. There was no escape from this current. It was so much harsher now than it was before, and the singing was louder too. It wasn’t the current though. It was her own will to fly giving out. The longer she stayed in, the harder it was to get out. Somewhere deep in her mind, she remembered what Rarity had said all those nights ago--or was it years? There were many kinds of blue. She was the blue color of the sky, wide and empty in the daytime. The ocean underneath her was not the kind of blue she wanted to get lost in.

As she fought with the current, desperate to escape, she realized this must be what the long range weatherponies felt like all the time, fighting the flow of nature, drifting miles each minute yet never going towards anything, only speeding away from one thing. One thing... one thing she felt she needed more than freedom, no, that thing she needed, it was freedom, it was, it was, it’s

, love, it’s

a stick, a stone, it’s the end of the road, it’s a weekend abroad, it is nights spent alone, it’s glass, it’s hope, it’s a simple refrain, one that’s easily learned and sung all day, it’s the sun, it’s the moon, it’s the tall sandy dunes, playing off in the light, it is dark, it is new, it’s hope, it’s soap, it’s a clean cleansing wind, not as cool as a fire, not as sharp as your wing, it’s the salt in your mane, it’s a feeling you catch, it’s a fire in your heart, it’s the lack of a bath, it's the feeling of hope when the stars are aligned, it's the sound of her voice calling out in the night, it’s a tear, then some more, falling down off your face, falling into the dark where they can’t be retraced, all the feelings let go, thrown away to the wind, it’s the feeling of grace balanced up on a grin, it’s a thrilling refrain, it’s the sound of guitars, tuning into the vibe, looking up to the stars, it’s the hopeless romance on some old distant shore, it’s desire in your brain, it’s the wanting of more, it’s the story that reads like it’s out of a book, it’s a thought on a page, it’s a fish on a hook, no one cares what the old crazy story books say, air is life, so it goes, air is life, yes we know, AIR IS LIFE, AIR IS LIFE, we are air, we are clouds, we are molded and shaped by the winds all around, and we fall back to earth in a lazy descent, touching down, sinking deep, flowing out riverbeds, and the riverbanks talk of the waters of March, and you hear them all sing of the song in your heart,

It took all night for Rainbow Dash to find her way back to the island. In the pure darkness, she retraced her flight path beneath the jetstream on instinct alone. She flung herself against the winds for what felt like days. The island appeared on the horizon just as the morning sun broke the waves.

She hardly even noticed she had arrived, even as her hooves sank into the cool sand of the eastern beach. She looked around and saw the coast stretching far in both directions. Her wings ached in time with her heartbeat.

She turned around, panting, and saw Rarity reclining against the railing of their cabin. Sunlight parted over her natural curls. She squinted delicately, her body at rest, a stick, a stone, it’s the end of the road.

Dash took a step and stumbled. Sometimes after you fly so long it’s hard to walk again. She shook her legs out and started again through the sand. When she reached the beach’s edge, she called out to Rarity, “How long have you been there?”

“I thought I’d watch the sun come up,” Rarity replied. “I was worried you wouldn’t get to see it.”

“I’m not worried about anything.” Rainbow flexed her tired wings and hopped onto the balcony.

Rarity looked ready to deliver a speech, but speeches took too long, and they only had so many hours left. “What’s out there?” she finally asked.

Dash shrugged. “Water. Air.”

They locked eyes. The words went away. Dash moved closer. Her wings were too stiff to fly, but she’d walk if that’s what it took. The sun was still and the ocean was orange. They were close, so close they could feel sun on their shoulders like the day at the coffee shop. There was no wind to whisk them somewhere else. No plans. No plots. Just ponies.

Everything was warm and bright. Everything was slow. They closed their eyes and saw the light of the sun through their lids, a hazy heavenly glow.

it’s a kiss, it’s the light, it’s a dream realized, it’s the air, it’s the sea, it is death, it is sky, and the riverbank talks of the waters of March, it’s the joy in your heart, it’s an end, it’s a start

Friday Evening

That first night, Dash found herself wandering the beach in near total darkness.

Rarity had fallen asleep as soon as they got back to the cabin. Dash wanted to join her, but an entire evening of not flying left her wings in need of a stretch. She waited until the clouds overhead had passed and the moonlight lit up the coast, and took to the sky.

it’s clear, it’s black, it’s a hole in the night, where the lights shine through, where you think, where you’re right, it’s asleep, it’s a hope, it’s a trap, it’s a knife, it’s the sound of a bird in the dead of the night, it’s nice, it’s juice rolling down off her chin, and you won’t wipe it off (though it did make you grin), it’s a flash, it’s a hoax, it’s a cloud moving slow, it’s the look of a friend when you’re stuck feeling low, when all that you want is to be next to her, but the fear twists your hopes until they seem absurd, so you leave in the night and you fly and you fly and the clouds kiss your face and the tears that you cry, it’s a feeling of hope like balloons made of lead that carry her to the clouds, where you sleep, where you bed, where you tell her the things that you’re meaning to say, it’s an animal part deep inside of your brain, it tells you to speak, it tells you to hunt, it tells you to mate, it tells you up-front, the thoughts of the heart and the beats of the brain, they swaddle you up like a cool summer day, but the sun’s gone away and you’re left with the night, the moon way up high and the stars and their light, and the sight makes you wonder if you’re here at all, the first moments of flight always feel like a fall,

Dash settled on a thin cloud floating above the island, kept in place by the thermals coming off the mountain. It wasn’t stable enough for her to sleep on, but it would hold for a few hours. From here she could see lights from both sides of the island, faint glowing oranges and yellows suspended on the water.

All around her there were sounds, too. Below her there were waves crashing onto the beach and the midnight chatter of a tropical forest. Above her, the jetstream roared a single uninterrupted note.

She lifted her head. Stood up on the cloud. Hovered a few inches. Came back down. She could hear the sea and feel the wind and see the light, but it wasn’t enough. She had to go further. Always further.

The cloud disintegrated beneath her as she took off. Once again there was nothing beneath her, nothing at all.

The first few moments of flight always felt like a fall.