The Rainbow in The Grime

Equestria was, indeed, a utopia. Candy colored clouds raced across the sky as it slowly faded into the plum of the night. The glorious sunset held the sky with a warm grasp over the apple orchard where fillies were playing hide and seek, their giggling penetrating the soft silence with a magical chime. As the mothers of Ponyville started calling their children inside, out of the heavy summer night, one pony lounged on a grassy hill that climbed over the trees, wanting nothing more than to be alone. Her teary eyes followed the shooting stars chase the earth in bright flashes, there one second and gone the next, like the memory of a dream. Her rainbow mane covered her face from the view of the fillies being ushered inside, sparing her any embarrassment for showing emotion. Maybe they would have understood. But it didn't matter to her if they did. She sure as hay didn't.

Applejack approached Rainbow calmly on the hill, the purplish light of the new night glimmering in her blonde mane. The orange pony smiled with the tenderness of a sister at her friend, for while Rainbow might try all she wanted to hide her tears, there was no concealing a bad mood from ol’ dependable Applejack.

“Sugarcube?” She startled herself with the loudness of her voice compared to the nearly silent hush of crickets and starlight. “Why aren’t you inside with everypony else?”

Rainbow said nothing, bowing her head so her mane covered her tearing eyes. “It’s called a sleepover for a reason, y’know. You got to sleep over there. You know… with the rest of us?” A.J. chuckled at her joke for a moment, but at seeing that Rainbow’s bad mood wasn’t budging, she sighed and plopped on the soft grass next to her friend.

“What’s going on, Rainbow?” she asked sweetly as the colorful pony quietly sniffled. “You… you haven’t been the same, and I got to say, that, well, you have me worried.”

Rainbow remained silent, her rosy eyes fixed on a lone dandelion among the sea of dark grass—vibrant and bright, but all alone. A tear dripped down her nose.

“I’m fine,” she muttered, almost indiscernibly. “Just… just allergies.” She winced at the sound of the lie leaving her mouth, tears escaping through the lashes.

“Oh, come on, Rainbow.” A.J. reached a caring hoof to the crying pony’s shoulder but it was shrugged off with a huff of hot air. “You can tell me. Whatever it is, we can get through it.”

Rainbow looked up at the freckled mare, anger and hurt in her red eyes. “I can get through it on my own,” she snarled. “No one asked you for help, Applejack. I don’t need you to swoop down every time I have a problem like Superpony with a magical solution. I’m big enough to handle my own issues. So leave me alone.”

Applejack glanced at the moon, almost too big and bright that night to look at without blinking five times. “I can’t do that, Rainbow. You’re my friend.”

“Yes. Yes, you can!” Rainbow Dash stood up and turned to look Applejack in the eye. “You can leave me alone. You just won’t. I’m sorry you don’t have wings or a stupid horn, but you don’t have to overcompensate for it by being extra-invasive! Believe it or not, A.J., I don’t need you to show your flank every time I have a problem, and I can survive just fine without you and your so called friendship!”

She had said it with the red-hot intention of hurting Applejack, and even though she had no real reason for doing so, and regretted the words the instant they left her mouth with a sour aftertaste, she had succeeded.

Applejack stared at the trees she had spent the previous week harvesting with Big Macintosh, her green eyes fighting tears she barely let fall.

“Well, Rainbow,” she whispered finally, her throat dry and creaky, “I’m going to head inside. The others will be waiting for me…” The tears streamed down her face silently as she clopped away a few feet and turned. “And Rainbow…. I don’t know what’s wrong with you, but you’ve changed. And if you don’t want my friendship anymore… I’ll try not to burden you with it any longer.”

The tears fell anew down Rainbow’s face as she collapsed to the ground again, emotionally exhausted. She didn’t know what was wrong with her either. All she knew is that she wanted nothing more than to be alone, away from all of them and their smiling faces. Applejack would rather be there anyways, she thought. Even I wouldn’t want to be around me right now.

She could smell Pinkie’s cake even from so far away, though it had probably all been eaten by now. Rainbow had barely eaten all day, but she wasn’t hungry. Her appetite had disappeared weeks ago, replaced by exhaustion and boredom with everything and everyone around her. Her usual vivacious manner of zooming across Ponyville to spread awesomeness one wing flap at a time was replaced with a heavy, moody demeanor. She thought of what Applejack had said; I’ve got to say, you have me worried. The fact of the matter was, Rainbow was worried too.

It was ripping her apart. This need for something new, for something fresh, for something raw, for something real; it was killing her. It felt at times like she was just a character in some cartoon, the result of an overactive imagination. As though none of this mattered. Like she didn't matter. She felt lost in all that she knew, and so small in the vast world that surrounded her.

They were all so happy. How could they be so happy? How? For as she sat on the hill, gazing at the clouds she had passed a thousand and one times, and the stars she had envied a thousand and one more, she had never felt so alone. Yeah, her friends were incredible. Pinkie kept her smiling, and Twilight kept her trying, and while all she wanted to do at times was tell Fluttershy to suck it up and be braver, she had nothing love, and even a certain respect for the way she just listened whenever she had to talk to someone. Applejack, who always stopped her from going too far (which she always seemed to do), and Rarity who was a, without a doubt, a gem that shone with a beauty that was almost enviable. She loved them. But they kept her grounded in this world where all she wanted to do was fly, fly, fly away.

The truth was that they were happy and she wasn't. They were all inside the house at Sweet Apple Acres, snug and smiling, Twilight probably blowing out the light as she finished yet another good book. But here she was-- Rainbow Dash, THE Rainbow Dash-- crying on a hill as the night chilled and the wind chipped at her nose. Feeling, even though she was filled to the brim with love for her friends, empty. So, so empty, and sick of the beautiful land that was her home. And yes, it was beautiful, and she couldn't imagine life without the fresh vast world around her. She had grown up here. Equestria was all she ever knew. All she ever needed was the wind rushing in her face and mane as she flashed across the sky, light as a feather and free, truly free, even if it was only until she touched the ground again.

That was it, wasn't it? She looked down at the grass bending in what looked like a dance to the wind. She was trapped. And only when she was soaring, when her wings felt the breeze kissing them and carrying her above the cage that was her life did she feel anything like freedom. It was shameful, to call this beautiful land and her friends (who were really more like family) a prison, but the emotion she was feeling, this heaviness that held her usual light spirit down, and the geyser hidden within that resulted in the tears rolling out her magenta eyes....It was hopelessness.

She was confined in the smiles, in the commitments she had made to every pony. The dependency they had on her were restraints, but not as hard to break out of as the dependency she had on them. To be in constant need of someone... she wasn't the same pony she was once ago. Once upon a time, she was alone, and it was just her and her wings and wherever they could take her. She needed no one. She loved no one. She felt weak, as though it was her fault for letting so many ponies into her life that she was in this situation.

Rainbow Dash sat still as the last tear crawled down her face, the breeze chilling her wet cheeks. The cold felt good. Being alone felt good. She looked to the sky for support.

“You could do this.” Rainbow Dash muttered it under her breath, so quietly she could barely make it out over the whispers of the wind.

With one last look at the apple orchard, she spread her wings and, with a running start, leaped into the air, the rustling of the leaves muttering good bye.

But mere seconds after her feet left the ground, while she angrily tried to push the images of her friends out of her head with any feelings of regret or second guesses, the world around her faded to black and she felt herself fall, as though she was awaking from a dream.

When she awoke, the air around her was filled with a scent unknown to her-- the scent of cigarette smoke, and she was surrounded by soft stinky white and black bags. There were metal walls around her, tall and cold and green, and a roaring noise that seemed to shake whatever box she was in every few seconds. She struggled to find a place for her hooves among the mushy and crunched bags, just enough so that she could peek over the edges of the container. What she saw left her more thrilled than she had ever been in her life.

Buildings of stone climbed to the sky, colorful lines of paint staining the red brick, the dingy windows smiling back at her. Roads of concrete stained with yellow dots and arrows paved the way for hunks of colorful metal zooming past her, blowing gray smoke in the air. Everything was so loud and fast and.... new. But that wasn't even the half of it.

These … things were lurking around on two hooves or... well... whatever the hay they were. The males were in clothes that hung loosely on their bodies, and the females wore so little that their breasts were nearly overspilling. Rainbow Dash heard them shouting, screaming, yelling, laughing out of their ugly misshapen faces. The noise enveloped her and she was overwhelmed. Somehow, she had awoken in an entirely new world. And she didn't know if it was good or bad. She didn't know how to survive, or even if she could.

The one thing she did know was that she wasn't in Equestria anymore.