“Slow down!” Twilight Sparkle called.
“Have we met?”
Rainbow Dash squinted over her shoulder but came in for a landing on a cloud anyway. She didn’t feel like ground right now, but Twilight looked like she was about to throw up.
“C’mon, egghead, I thought you were gonna teleport!”
“W-wh-what do you…think I’ve been doing?!” Twilight wheezed, half drifting, half trembling to blessed ground. “Been…going on and off…for hours now! Ooooh sun and moon!”
“Hey, mixing contrails for this weekend was your idea!” Dash’s wings flared as her hooves kneaded the cloud stuff beneath her. “And Rarity said teleporting was the only way you could keep up with me!”
“I said it would add to the effect,” Rarity clarified, trotting over primly with the others, she and Applejack carrying the picnic baskets because Pinkie Pie was already weighed down with party supplies and Spike was not to be trusted. “Imagine it! A bold rainbow arch underscored by a dignified dark sapphire blue one, with that delightful raspberry streak! What could you possibly add to that?!”
“Literal sparkles,” everypony except Twilight said in unison and with the weight of a week’s worth of this exact line.
“Dignity,” Twilight panted, sweat streaming around her horn, “I remember that…”
“Also, yes, it probably is the only way she can keep up with your stunts, Rainbow.” Rarity arched a perfect brow at Dash, the way her shoulders and chest were heaving. “If you insist on your current pace, at least.”
“You want this festival to be a success or not?!” Dash’s grin was feral. “We can rock this like tiaras on a princess, right Twilight?!”
“Think I’m gonna throw up…” Twilight wheezed, crawling over to the unfurled blankets.
“Can I have yours then?” Spike asked.
“No!”
Applejack shook her head as plates and cups were laid out. They were coming together the way they always did, but there was an empty space she (and Fluttershy from the looks of it) felt just that little bit more.
Here we go.
“Rainbow!” she called up to the bouncing figure. “Grub's up! It’s your favourite! Chili hay dogs!”
“Nope!”
Magenta eyes flashed back and forth between the sky and tartan blanket, the only thing tethering her.
“...what kinda chili?”
“Since when do you care?”
“I’m feelin’ all…I dunno, keyed up!”
“Kiss your mother with that mouth?” Applejack winked. “C’mon down and have some sane pony food!”
“She has a point.” Fluttershy tried not to sound too pleading. “You’ve only had a protein shake a-and remember what they said at camp?”
“♪Junior Speedsters are our lives--♪”
“I thought that was flight school,” Pinkie said before taking a bite of her Scooby Doo sandwich. Rarity tried not to flinch.
“Same cheering department both times!” Dash beamed. “There was a fire or something!”
“I, um, I meant about cramping up?” Fluttershy managed. “You only have so much energy they said, so if you keep going without refuelling it’s possible your wings will cramp up because you’re trying to do something you don’t have the energy for?”
“Filly, please!” Dash did a somersault just to show off. Ignored the sloshing feeling inside. “I’m a (junior) Wonderbolt! I don’t cramp!”
“Well I might,” Twilight cut in, feeling better for three pulls of cider inside her. “If I don’t set myself on fire from teleporting too much first. I’m not a stunt flyer, Dash.”
“Say what? You’ve dodged plenty of missiles since you earned your wings!”
“Thanks!” Twilight flapped them appreciatively without meaning to. “But we need to talk about the routine. Mixing our contrails is fine, it’s the perfect show of respect because they fit our visitors’ flags, but you’ve been adding in so much stuff!”
“No need to thank me!”
“She ain’t,” Applejack deadpanned.
“I just think your original idea was better,” Twilight tried again. “The crisscrossing, the big arch. For starters, that’s all stuff I can actually do.”
“But…literal sparkles!” Rarity pouted.
“We don’t have to get rid of them!” Dash assured.
“No,” Twilight said, trying to put enough gentle weight into her words, “but we should probably drop the Butterfly.”
Fluttershy let out a startled, questioning mewling sound through her bite of tofu, lettuce and tomato sandwich.
“Nonono, the manoeuvre!” Twilight assured.
“Uh, yeah,” Dash shot back, “double nonono! That’s our centrepiece! We get guests all the way from both ends of the Sister Seas and you wanna fob ‘em off with foal tricks?!”
“I modified my party cannon to shoot jelly!” Pinkie chimed in.
Everypony stared.
“Well it’d get a lot of attention!” That indefatigable smile.
“Maybe I could do it alone and you could do some big magic thing!” Dash suggested, raising her voice slightly over the sound of her brain speeding up.
“I didn’t mean I wanted to leave you all alo--”
“’Cause then, yeah, yeah, then I could do all the stunts and Rarity would get her sparkles! Yeah!”
“Dear...” Rarity began. The cloud beneath Dash was vibrating, turning grey and stormy as she assumed a launch stance. Her wings were blurring cyan knife edges, the air filling with the turbine roar of mounting Pegasus magic.
“Like this!”
***
She’d generated bigger shockwaves, but the cloud was still left rippling and churning from her launch.
She could see it so clearly in her head. So clearly. She just had to get it out, then everypony would too. Like the Rainboom.
The Rainboom…
Oh yeah.
But something was wrong with the air. She was using a cirrus grouping as a marker, even halfway would do because the downturn was the important thing, down meant acceleration, more speed, but the air…wasn’t fighting her but felt…thicker. Like that gunk the Changelings wrapped prey in.
Or maybe it was her. Going straight up wasn’t as easy as it sounded, but that launch should have sent her further than this. Her muscles already felt like they were drying up inside her, less strength to wring. She didn’t even know if she was going fast enough to leave the contrail.
She needed to do the Rainboom now, needed the visuals.
“Cramp,” she hissed, voice distorting, “show you cramp!”
She stretched both hooves as far forward as she could, biting down on the weight. The Mach cone began to sputter into life in front of her. The pocket, she’d started thinking of it, ever since she got the Rainboom back. The pocket where everything was perfect.
For example, now her twists were wider, longer, the contrail carving her idea into the sky for all to see. See? We need this. They’ll love it! She could hear them so clearly now, over the whine in her ears. The crowds. Celestia’s awed gasp. The chant. Rain-bow! Rain-bow! Rain-bow!
...if everything was perfect inside the pocket, why did her tummy hurt?
She had to get more control for this next twist, the big down one, tip juuuust right.
Stabbing pain knifed through her stomach to her shoulders suddenly, followed by a wave of cold air as the shuddering pocket burst under her startled hooves. She felt the tug as her legs began to pull her backwards.
“Wha-?!”
Her right wing was doing all the work, but she could feel the flight bleeding out of it. The other was almost tucked back in, pulsing savagely at the very idea of moving.
She looked nonplussed at her cramping wing as gravity began to crawl over her.
“Ruh-roh.”
And then she was falling.
Of course she panicked! Which was dumb. The flailing just sped up her descent, sent her spinning, added momentum, made her even more disoriented…
Voices. Somewhere in the maelstrom there were voices and colours. Good voices and colours. She was still in the pocket. If she could use them to get her bearings she could aim herself, use the momentum to take back control and, and this was the big thing, not plough a medium sized crater or trench into the unforgiving ground.
...but this was familiar.
Maybe…
And there she was.
***
“Rainbow, Rainbow, Rainbow! We’ve gotta stop meeting like this!”
White fur. Black shirt, black hair, black eyes, black lips. That wild mane. That Eye of Horus tattoo. That ankh necklace. That smile.
She was lounging on a cloud, one hind leg idly kicked up, like a cross between a cat and an angel. No wings. Yet.
“You’re real.” Rainbow Dash didn’t recall righting herself. “I remember you…”
The tattoo (if that’s what it was) crinkled along with her amused eyes. It was the best thing because she did remember it but was also seeing it for the first time.
“Yeah,” Death said. “Been a while.”
Rainbow’s body was still in freefall somewhere, but that didn’t matter right now except for the nice benefit of getting rid of those pesky, chattering survival instincts. Spirit counted for a lot more wherever this was, and she had plenty of that.
The pounce and the kiss were defined almost by the absence of feeling. Gesture meant more here too. And she wanted the pale mare to know.
Her mouth was full of a concept, one hoof caressing her back while the other tried to snatch a hold of that stupid shirt.
“Whoa nelly!” Death herself was giggling at her as she nuzzled that perfect neck, feeling the cord of the on-brand ankh necklace (or the idea of it, whatever) pressing into her side just right.
“Sorry…” Dash whispered. She gave a final tug, too drunk to stop herself. Death’s face vanished with a yelp as her shirt came free.
Dash froze. The now frizzy punk mane draped across Death’s face in strands.
She blew one out of her face, expression patient.
Rainbow burst out laughing. It was so much more powerful here that she had to bury herself in that perfect blank chest to stop shaking herself apart. Death lowered a gentle foreleg around her.
“Dash. We’ve talked about this. There are rules.”
“Yeah,” Dash sighed, still unable to wipe the smile from her face. Or move from this perfect place. “I remember.”
Stillness. The sky, the real sky, even at her most zen, was never this perfect.
“Even my arms cramp, girl.”
“Nag, nag, nag…”
A clenched hoof that had swept away entire planets gave her a half stern buddy punch on the shoulder.
“So!” Dash beamed. “How was your day?”
“Eh. Work stuff.” Death pantomimed squinting side to side and beckoning her closer. “There’s this one filly in some nowhere town on the wrong side of the Everfree Forest that’s maybe kinda sorta gonna do something dumb.”
“Awesome.” Dash couldn’t even fake a scowl. Not with her. “That’s not how you pronounce awesome.”
“It’s inconsiderate is what it is!” Death swatted at her wing, the remaining working one, forcing a laughing Dash to cower under the soft assault. “Because now I have to take time out of my busy schedule, the busiest there is, so she can have a near-me experience!”
“Yeah?” Dash shoved back. Gesture meant more here, after all. “Y’know somepony might point out this now means you get the benefit of a near-Dash experience!”
“Lucky me.”
“Oh, you’re griping?” Dash sneered. “You don’t call, you don’t write…yeah, yeah, rules, but all I’m sayin’ is I didn’t see you anywhere during Tirek, or that Starlight Glimmer thing!”
Death winked. “Who said that was the big moment?”
“Smooth. Speakin’ of.” Dash looked out at the ocean of clouds before them. “Is this, uh…y’know?”
It didn’t feel like it, but she technically didn’t have much to feel with right now, couldn’t hurt to ask a professional. The professional.
“What part of near-me was unclear?”
“Just checking!” Dash stuck her tongue out.
“You’re almost worse than my family.” Death smirked, gesturing around them. “This is a place. There’re more pretentious names, but that’s all it really is. Like last time.”
“So we can just…hang out?” Dash was trying a little too hard to sound casual.
“Like last time, yeah, if you want.” Death flopped back onto the cloud, forelegs behind her head. “But be careful. This place is soft. Easy to fall through.”
“You cosmic types all went to the same high school creative writing class, huh?”
“I’m so telling Luna you said that.”
She laughed as Dash’s wings and mane spiked with terror. “Kidding! Yeesh.”
“Man, what’re you trying to do, kill me?”
Death’s head swivelled to stare at her.
Rainbow Dash held it for a beat that technically didn’t pass. Then winked.
Death laughed, forcing her to sit up and hunch over.
It’d almost be worth it. It really would. If she could just have the promise of that laugh.
She admired the assassin against whom no lock could hold as she started making a snow angel in the cloud.
“You’re cool.”
“Flatterer.” Death booped her nose.
“No! I mean, yeah, but…” Dash nestled in next to her. “You hear all this stuff, Twilight says all this stuff. All these stories sayin’ you should be cold to the touch, but you’re cool. Like Rarity’s weird cucumber water stuff!”
“They just call it cucumber water.”
“I’m trying to compliment you here!”
“Sure, now!” That tattoo crinkle. That perfect smile. She’d done that. “Time means something completely different here and you still tried to take my shirt off the second you saw me!”
The ultimate reality looked around the cloud. “Aww man, where’d you put it? That was my favourite shirt!”
“That was your only shirt! Who said you need a shirt anyway?”
“Hey, is it my fault mortal-kind needs everything to be the same shape? Stop giving me a personality and I’ll stop having a fashion sense!” Death toyed with her necklace. “At least you always leave this alone!”
“It’s hotter with it on,” Dash smirked.
“Careful.”
“Right, right.” Dash rolled her eyes and waggled her hooves with a ghostly voice. “Ru-oooh-oooh-les!”
“Yeah.” Something in Death’s eyes made her stop even though that smile never changed. “Rules.”
Silence.
Rainbow would almost rather be still falling to her…well okay, technically she still was. And she’d just float right back up here anyway, and it’d still be weird and awkward now, but even more, and why did she always do this?
“What were you going to say?” Death was giving her snow angel devil horns, even though pony ears arguably made it redundant. “Before. I’m cool. Cool like what?”
“Like my pillow. When I finally get home.”
“Smooth!”
“Still friends?” Dash smiled. Those eyes. So black. It almost felt like she should be able to see her reflection in them. It was obvious why not, but that was…nice.
“’Til the end.” She winked. “Just friends.”
“Rules!” Dash tried to throw up her hooves without disturbing the cloud, but wasn’t sure she could if she’d really wanted to. “I get it!”
“And yet, I have to explain every time.” Death was probing the mounds just behind them, the impression their bodies had made when Rainbow had sprung at her. “Oh, score!”
She’d found her shirt! Dash felt oddly relieved when she wadded it up instead of putting it on, lying back on it as a pillow. Like this moment wasn't over yet.
“Can I try on your necklace?”
“No.”
But she didn’t stop her from slipping it off. One ear twitched as the cord brushed against it.
“So, what’s new with Rainbow Dash?”
“I thought you were everywhere.” Dash admired her new trophy. She missed her own necklace a little, was all.
“I take an interest, sue me!” Death reached over. If Dash still needed to breathe it would have caught in her throat, but she was just adjusting the ankh. “It’s always better to hear it in their own words.”
“Let’s see. Twilight’s still a princess! But she’s, like, like one now? If that makes sense.”
“About time.”
“Some people were really mad about it. That was dumb.” Dash tried to balance the ankh on her nose. “I think what really helped was that mirror. She doesn’t talk about it so much now, the Map keeps us pretty busy, but she explained what was on the other side a million times and I still don’t know what it’s supposed to be.”
“High school,” Death said, rolling up a little ball of cloud stuff.
“Fine, don’t tell me.” Dash sat up suddenly. “Hey, did you see?! Scootaloo finally got her Cutie Mark!”
“Yeah? Sweet! Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle too?” Death rolled over slightly to look at her. “I don’t see them unless it’s with you guys, is all. Not the same way.”
“Is it bad that that’s a relief I didn’t know I wanted?” Dash turned the necklace in a hoof nervously, trying to make it seem casual rather than nervous fidgeting, as she looked Death in those eyes. “I mean, I don’t wanna offend you…”
“No, it’s cool. I know. Give me my ankh back.”
“In a minute.”
Dash put up a wing to be a jerk. As if she could have actually stopped her. Rainbow Power? Please.
“Did, um, didja hear that I’m a Wonderbolt now?”
“Were you not before?” Tattoo crinkle.
“You always know just what to say!” Dash relaxed back into the cloud, grinning. “It’s like a Sonic Rainboom goin’ off inside me, all the time! I even blew the first day and I still can’t stop smiling! Like, for real, I have gotten super powers three times now and none of them felt as awesome as this!”
“You even have a fancy little suit,“ Death smirked.
“Oh, everywhere includes the barrack changing rooms?”
Dash tried to mimic her pose. Maybe when she got back she should get a Horus tat. If she got back.
“Three, huh?” Death raised a brow. “I saw the Harmony stuff, but when was number two? Stop snickering!”
“You said it!” Dash clutched the ankh to steady herself. “Ah, the Power Ponies thing?”
“Oh, so that’s where you went!” Death adjusted her shirt pillow. “You guys were off the grid there for a bit. I mean, I could have found you, but...”
“Twilight said it was rigged not to do…that kinda thing. Maybe that had something to do with it?”
Dash slipped the ankh off. The thought of that tattooed gaze not on her felt…wrong.
“Maybe.” Death accepted the necklace back. “You tell your folks yet? About being a Wonderbolt?”
“No,” Dash scowled, throwing herself back to glare at the sky. Then sat up quickly. “Why, did something happen? Is Mom okay?”
“Relax.” Those cool hooves on her wings. Stroking. Like her sheets after a long day’s practice. “Just asking.”
“Hearth's Warming and New Year’s isn’t enough anymore? I’m 24!”
“Okay.”
Her wings felt too good, so she settled back down. Tried to get closer. Death didn’t stop her.
Rainbow didn’t need to breathe here, but she did anyway, letting it out through her nose as she placed her head against those perfect shoulders.
One of those cool hooves was in her hair now.
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay. There are rules, but we’re friends. I want to listen if you want to talk.”
“I do!” Dash grinned at that perfect upside-down smile. “So much is happening! My life is finally taking off, man!”
“Then shouldn’t you get back to it?”
Upside-down tattoo crinkle. But...cool hoof still stroking her mane.
“In a minute.” That stuff with Mom and Dad had thrown her. What a downer. Then a jolt. “Cadence and Shining! Oh man! They’re gonna have a little pony!”
“Hey, mazel tov!” Death was hugging her, the coolness spreading all over her wings.
She wanted another kiss so bad. But there were rules.
“So?”
“So what? Kinda thought the baby was enough.”
“No.” That smile. Like her stunt smile. “I want to hear about what it made you do.”
A beat.
“...you monster."
“Out of your mouth.”
“You total monster!”
“In your own words.” She wasn’t letting go. Not that Dash wanted her to, but ugh, that whole deal.
“Okay, okay! So. Big revelation. Emotions are kinda high. Really high. And I save the world part time I should point out, so I know from high.”
“Quit stalling.” That ankh against her chest. She wanted to wrap the cord around them if it was long enough. Stupid indie rock stuff like that. “You know what I wanna hear.”
“You’ve gotta promise not to laugh!”
“But I like laughing.”
“Okay, okay…” Dash shut her eyes, fighting to hold back the grin. “So for a few weeks…I was…a blonde!”
“Aaaghh, you actually said it!”
Death buried her head in her shoulders, both of them shaking from the absurdity.
“I just wanted to do something big!” Dash gripped the ankh to steady herself because if Death collapsed on top of her she wasn’t sure she’d be able to get back up. “I dunno! It was just a phase! I’m like 5% blonde already!”
“You and your made-up percentages!”
“Shut up! You love it!”
“Maybe. But there are rules.”
Death was smiling but quiet now. She was like that, flowing from eruption to the stoic goth bit. Dash envied that level of control.
“Yeah,” Dash sighed.
She peered down over the side of the cloud, curious for the first time. Just more blue sky beneath them. "...are we upside down?”
“Do you wanna be?”
“Don’t give me ideas like that, there’s rules.” She made herself comfy again. “Ah, you’re right. I should get back. All that awesome stuff. How do you say no to the birth of a princess? I wanna be able to walk up to a little filly and unironically say y’know in my day, MPV actually played music!”
“Pffft! In the 2000’s? Like what?”
“♪My girlfriend’s got a boyfriend and she hates that-♪” Dash’s mischievous smile stayed as one of those deliciously cool hooves shot to her lips.
“Kiss your mother with that mouth?”
“Kissed you, didn’t I?”
“Yeah. You did.” Tattoo crinkle.
All that talk about rules…but something in those black eyes. She was so sure of it.
“Death?”
The pale mare actually blinked. Rainbow had never used her name before.
“What’s up?”
“Is this wrong?” Dash couldn’t smile anymore “I mean, this. I know I can be intense, but am I…am I sick?”
“You’re a hero from a near-utopia, babe.” Death stroked her mane again. “Your life is taking off. You get antsy! But you do good work. Just maybe stay close to the ground, stop trying to rush to the next big thing. Stay with your friends. Do all the little things. It’s where you all do your best work.”
“But you’re…you! And I want…”
Dash shut her mouth. Rules.
“Why do I keep seeing you? The first time I get, but we could make half a wing out of how many of these things we’ve done.”
“You live the life you do. Sometimes that brings you closer than normal. The rules adapt.”
“So you’ve had this with other ponies before? Other…” The word didn’t feel right coming from her own mouth. “Other heroes?”
“A few.” When did she put the shirt back on? “But not like this.”
“Yeah?”
“Everypony talks eventually. I listen! It’s cool, and honestly the least I can do.” Death reached out, gently taking Dash’s hoof. “I want to listen if you want to talk.”
Dash had to know. It felt like it would be better if she knew. “If there’s rules…there must’ve been…”
“A first.” She closed those black eyes, briefly. “There was.”
“So…so why?” Dash squeezed their hooves tighter together. “If you can’t be more, why do I always feel you give back, just a little? Why do you keep letting me see you?”
“I try to be a friend.” Death leaned back into the cloud, trying to gently take Dash down with her. “You treat me like one.”
“See?!” Dash pulled her hoof back, pointing accusingly. How could she still sit there, so casual? “Stuff like that! You always do this! Is this why I’m like this? Answer the question! Am I sick for feeling this?!”
“You’re not.” Cool hoof on her shoulder. “You’re alive. That still means something here. You can’t help how you feel.”
“Do you feel anything for me?” She was pleading, and she felt no shame. “Anything at all?”
“I couldn’t tell you if I did.” Impassive black eyes framed by that Horus tattoo, but there was something in her face. No smile. “There are rules. And you’re my friend. I couldn’t do that to you.”
“What if I make the choice? Isn’t that how it’s supposed to work?”
“Some choice!” Death sat up, infuriatingly calm. “It’s your friends or me, Dash. Come on.”
“So that’s it?!” Crying was the last thing she wanted to do but she was suddenly just so angry. “I get my life, but I don’t get…this? I don’t get us?! That’s what I get for giving everything I have to truth, justice, and the Equestrian way?!”
“There’s no justice, sweetie.” Death’s smile was sad as she looked at the unchanging horizon. “There’s just me.”
A beat.
Dash sniffed, the laugh cutting right through her anger. “You and your lines!”
She rubbed her streaming eyes, utterly deflated. Felt cool arms wrap around her.
“This’d be so much easier if you were the guy from my metal albums,” she muttered petulantly. “I couldn’t get out of here fast enough.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“It’s your fault for being so adorable!” She shouldn’t tease, but. “I’m just not afraid of you anymore!"
“So we’ve established you're dragging your hooves.” She could hear that smile.
“I’m sorry. I try not to be so selfish, but ever since I was a kid something in me just wants to keep going faster, and faster, and…” She shrugged her wings haplessly.
“At least that one time you got a turtle out of it.”
“Tortoise.” Dash blinked, bolting upright. “Oh man, Tank! I gotta feed Tank! I can’t go now!”
“My favourite kind of reason!” Death chuckled. It would be worth it for the promise of that laugh. But everypony waiting for her was worth so much more.
“Same time next kinda sorta dumb?” Dash smiled.
“Count on it.”
“Awesome.” Dash spread her wings, nose pointed straight at the sky.
Nothing.
“Um. Been a while, how exactly do I…?”
“Let me give you a little incentive,” Death said, and showed Rainbow Dash her wings.
She couldn’t believe she hadn’t noticed them before. They’d always been there. They always would be.
Black. Black wings. White fur. That smile. Filling the sky like it always had. Heights nopony living was ever meant to reach. A sudden deep gratitude for the rules.
Of course she was everywhere. She was too big. She couldn’t not blanket everything.
This one time, a couple of days after the Nightmare, Applejack had suggested a camping trip, to shake off the jitters they all pretended not to be having.
They’d set it up in the woods outside Fluttershy’s cottage, sat around a fire, the whole shebang. Of course they’d started telling ghost stories. They’d exorcised one of Equestria’s greatest!
Anyway. The reason she was staring into the ultimate end of all things and thinking of something this Rock Wellian was it had been Twilight’s turn. Back when she’d been completely out of her depth and keeping afloat from sheer enthusiasm.
She knew a ton they’d learn later, but at the time it was all so new she blanked, so she’d rambled about the stars. How technically every star you saw was the light of something that had been dead before the birth of the planet.
Nopony had known what to do with that. Just the crackle of the fire, Twilight’s desperate eyes full of fear of a summons back to Canterlot for blowing it this early. And then Spike had burped and everypony laughed.
But that moment before. When they’d been looking up and thinking about it.
That’s how black Death’s wings were.
“Are you afraid of me now, little pony?”
“You kiddin’?” Even through screaming primal terror Dash’s inner-city filly couldn’t believe the question. “I’m terrified of you!”
“That’s my girl!”
Cool hooves against her chest, shoving.
The ankh, perfectly still. Wind, her mane in her face. The cramping.
Jelly?
***
“Oh man!”
Rainbow Dash scrabbled at the air as she flipped again, rebounding off the giant red cube over and over.
“Think I’m gonna throw up!”
“I’m never safety checking this thing again!” Pinkie Pie’s concerned face was frantically bouncing up and down with her, keeping perfect pace. “If you hadn’t turned like that you might have missed it!”
Dash finally slowed enough for a pale gold cannonball to slap into her. Warm hooves around her neck.
“Daniella Sacharissa Rainbow!” Birds took to the sky from the pitch of Fluttershy’s voice. “Don’t you ever do that to me again!”
“That goes double for me!” Applejack blinked when she realised Dash wasn’t shaking from the jelly anymore. “This is funny to you?!”
“Adrenaline, sorry!” Dash was quaking, tail lashing.
“That’s it, I’m takin’ you to the hospital! Twilight, Rarity, hold her down!”
“Get off!” Dash flared her wings, which was a mistake. Cramp! “Agh! Could we eat first?”
She looked timidly at Twilight. “Maybe go back to the original routine?”
“Sounds like a plan.” Twilight squinted through her relief as she and Rarity used their magic to wash jelly out of her fur. “What’s that in your hoof?”
“Nothing,” Dash said quickly. She stuck it in her still-working wing.
It was a black feather.
Author's Note
Death-Neil Gaiman
There's just me-Terry Pratchett
Lyrics from Why Don't You Get a Job? by The Offspring
