Ladies and Gentlemen, Take My Advice. Take Off Your Pants and Slide on the Ice.
Ladies and Gentlemen, Take My Advice. Take Off Your Pants and Slide on the Ice.
Rainbow Dash lived her life, one day at a time. But those days were always uneventful. Always hollow. And she knew the reason why. She was missing something in her existence. She was missing...
...him.
It came to her gradually—the realization. The remembrance. Rainbow Dash wasn't entirely certain how or why the memory spell had failed on her—but it did. Maybe there was something different about her mentally... physiologically. Maybe fifteen years spent in another dimension had made her resistant to Princess Celestia's influence.
Fifteen years...
Nearly half of Rainbow Dash's life had been spent elsewhere. They didn't belong to Equestria—or to the monarch thereof, much less. And yet, Celestia had tried to take them away from her. Her friends... had tried to take that away from her.
But now...
Now, the spell had worn off. And Rainbow Dash remembered.
She remembered, and there was only one goal in her mind. To get back to where she belonged. To return to the place where she was happy, where she felt whole. To be reunited with him...
Daddy...
“Rainbow Dash... this is... y-you're acting all cr-crazy!” Twilight Sparkle exclaimed. She chased Rainbow Dash as she flew circles all around the Golden Oaks Library. “Who is this pony and why do you keep calling him 'Daddy?'”
“He's not a pony,” Rainbow Dash grunted, bitter and determined. She flew from shelf to shelf, “borrowing” books on Equestrian geography and stuffing them into her saddlebag. “He's a human being and he's loved and cherished me all his life.” Her wings went stiff as she flicked her tail in indignance. “But I don't see how you care, seeing that it was your spell that zapped me out of Equestria to begin with!”
“I... I've no clue what you're even t-talking about!”
“Of course you don't!” Rainbow scoffed. “Your high-and-mighty Princess made sure of that! She made sure that nopony remembered anything!”
“Who? Princess Celestia?!?” Twilight plopped down on her rear and rubbed her aching head. A few stray bangs went loose as a pale wave of stress and confusion washed over the frazzled lavender unicorn. “None of this makes sense! First, you tell me that you were removed from Equestria for fifteen years and then that Celestia covered it all up with a memory spell?”
“Yes.” Rainbow slipped in the last book and zipped up her saddlebag. “And now, if you don't mind, I must be returning back home. My true home.”
“Rainbow, wait—!”
The door opened and Rarity, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, and Fluttershy stepped into the library.
“Twilight, darling, what's going on?” Rarity asked. “You look pale.”
“Rainbow Dash says she was missing for fifteen years and then brainwashed by Princess Celestia and now she's threatening to leave Equestria forever in search of her long-lost father!”
“Yes, that's all well and good, but do you have a copy of Ballgowns and Prance Braids?”
“Smell you later, losers,” Rainbow Dash said, spreading her wings and approaching the door.
“Consarn it Rainbow!” Applejack blocked her exit. “Again with this hogwash?! Day in and Day out, you've been mumblin' about 'Daddy' this and 'Daddy' that! When are ya gonna end this ceaseless obsession? Why... you even talk about that feller in yer sleep!”
Rainbow's ruby eyes squinted. “How do you know that?”
A sheen of sweat covered Applejack's freckles. She squirmed in place, looking left and right. “Uhhhhhh...”
Pinkie Pie zoooooped over and smiled in Rainbow's face. “You should listen to AJ! You've been waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too glum as of late! Just smile! Equestria isn't all that bad, after all!” She displayed her pearly whites with unnatural exuberance. “Cheer up, Dashie!”
Rainbow Dash was instantly triggered. “Do NOT call me that!” She pointed into Pinkie's chest so hard that the party pony fell backwards. “Nopony gets to call me that!” She shuddered, her eyes watering a bit. “Only him...” Her teeth clenched. “Daddy... I've been gone for so long...” A sniffle, but then she stood up tall with a determined frown. “...now I'm coming back to you.”
Silence.
“Anyways, Twilight...” Rarity looked over. “It should be in the 'Fashion and Couture' section under 'B.'”
“Dag nabbit...” Applejack flung her hat to the floor. “Yer makin' a big mistake, there, Rainbow!”
“Please, won't you reconsider?” Twilight asked, sadly.
“I've moved beyond reconsidering,” Rainbow muttered. “Like... twenty percent beyond it.” She looked past her immediate friends. “Fluttershy? You got anything to say?”
“No. I'm good.”
“Right.” Rainbow flapped her wings and soared out the front door. “Have fun with eight more seasons of rainbow lasers and crap.”
“Heehee! We will!” Pinkie Pie hopped up to a window and waved her friend goodbye forever. “So long, Dashi—er... Pride Horse! You go get 'em!” She turned to grin at the somber group left in Rainbow's wake. “You wanna bet on a cardinal direction? I'll place a baker's dozen on south this time!”
Twilight wept. ~Cakeran 11:35
“Rainbow Dash!”
Tiny wheels against dirt and grass.
“Rainbow Dash! Wait up!”
Rainbow Dash grimaced, halting in mid-flight. A sigh rolled through her, one that sent her body slumping gradually until she landed like a feather to the ground. She spun around to face the source of the voice, and in so doing she threw on a brave smile.
“Hiya, squirt!” She winked. “Gettin' much air with that thing?”
Scootaloo looked less-than-enthused at the prospect. She glided to a stop, gaping up at Rainbow Dash along the fringes of Ponyville with a sorrowful expression.
“Rainbow, is it true?” Her bottom lip quivered as her ears folded back in distress. “Is it true that... you're leaving?”
“Look, kiddo... the truth is... I just can't stay.”
“But... but why?” The first of many tears ran down the winged crusader's cheek. She hung her head, shaking with each word that came out. “...there's still so much we have to do together! You still gotta teach me to fly. And... and I-I want to be there when you j-join the Wonderbolts!”
“Aww jeez, Scoots, don't let us part ways like this.”
“Then don't leave!” She stomped a little hoof and frowned up at the mare. “Why do you gotta go anyways? What's so special about someplace far away that you gotta ditch Ponyville? Ditch your friends? Ditch... d-ditch me?”
“Oh Scoots...” Rainbow leaned over and caressed the filly's chin. “...if only you could understand.”
“Understand what?”
“You see, it's quite simple.” Rainbow smiled gently. “A unicorn weather spell of Twilight's summoned a crapton of lightning that zapped me so hard that I regressed fifteen years and got teleported to another universe where I somehow ended up in a cardboard box on a suburban sidewalk that was found by a random single adult human male who then raised me for the next decade and a half as a sort of hybrid dog-slash-daughter-slash-cat-slash-mid-pubescent-tween-horse-person-thingy and for the most part we just lounged around the house without my being allowed to go outside and we watched a lot of t.v. that for some reason had a cartoon representative of Equestria and all its lore and we both cried a lot and I called him 'Daddy' and then someone took a photograph of us at some point.” She smiled. A beat. “And I wanna go back to him.”
“.... … … … … …” Scootaloo blinked.
“Sooooooooo...” Rainbow Dash slowwwwly turned around and spread her wings. “Cardinal direction, ahoy!”
“Wait, Rainbow Dash—!”
“Sorry, kid!” Rainbow was already airborne, zooming towards the horizon. “This story's too short for a B-Plot!”
“At least take me with you!”
“Nah. Somehow, 'My Little Scootie' sounds like an anatomical euphemism. Or worse. An ethnic slur.”
“Rainbowwwwwwww!” Scootaloo sobbed.
“Bruh!” And Rainbow was gone.
Rainbow Dash flew.
And that's the story.
But then there came a time when she didn't fly.
And that's another story.
Essentially put, she had taken several opportunities to study the books that she had “checked out” from the Golden Oaks Library. One of them consumed her interest the most: A List of Inexplicable Ancient Machinery, Deus Ex and Otherwise by Starstub the Neckbearded. In it, Rainbow Dash had read about an enormous waygate of black metal that was powered by lightning bolts. It was said that the device was long abandoned in a swamp, several hundred years ago.
So, on a whim, Rainbow Dash flew to Froggy Bottom Bog. There, she found an enormous waygate of black metal that was powered by lightning bolts.
“Huh.” Rainbow Dash's jaw dropped as she perched atop a nearby tree. “Sure. Whatever. What next?”
She flipped through Starstub's book some more. About halfway through the tome, a section caught her eye: “In order to power up an enormous waygate of black metal that's powered by lightning bolts, you will need lightning bolts.”
“Cheese and crackers, why didn't I take up reading before?”
She slapped the book shut. With a smirk, she lifted high up into the air and flew after random clouds. With expert hooves, she kicked and pushed and bucked and herded the clouds together. Soon, Rainbow had them all bunched up into an enormous cumulonimbus formation that was already broiling with thunder.
A shrill whistle escaped her lips as she observed the bright strobes of electrical energy bursting from within the enormous cloud. “Well, it's either this or I use the Elements of Harmony. And I seriously doubt Daddy's moved to the moon.”
Soon, Rainbow realized there was no point in delaying the inevitable with more useless bits of dialogue. It was time for the return. The Return of His Little Dashie(™).
“This is it.” Rainbow Dash pushed and shoved down against the thundercloud. “Come on!”
Lightning bristled in every direction, nipping at her mane and tail. A cyclonic wind picked up as the tempest lowered closer to earth, approaching the waygate. Tongues of lightning zapped closer and closer until one finally struck one of the obsidian spokes of the machine. Electricity coursed through the ancient device, giving it a blue-tinged glow from deep within its hollow core.
The wind picked up even more, carrying with it a cacophonous roar. A veritable tornado of elemental energy rippled around the base of the device. As the blue glow intensified, a portal appeared, through which Rainbow could see a blinding white light.
“Hrnnngh!” she hrnnngh'd, kicking off the cloud, backflipping, and sailing straight towards the fluctuating anomaly. The cycling wind resisted her, so she flapped her wings harder. She gnashed her teeth, struggling. She stripped off her entire saddlebag to make her nimble body even more aerodynamic.
The portal grew larger and larger. The black frame of the waygate buckled from the sheer stress of the universal bridge. All around the scene, frogs were flying and trees were being ripped out from their roots.
“Grrrrrrrghhhh...!” Rainbow Dash squinted into the brighter-than-bright nexus of the machine. “I'm coming, Daddy!” Tears screamed from her ducts as she clenched her eyes shut and inched her way into the portal, defying wind and gravity and all the forces in between. “Daddy, I'm coming!”
At long last, she passed the event horizon. The machine had nearly exploded from all the fluctuation—but not without sucking in a spunky cyan pegasus first. With a raspy cry, Rainbow Dash felt herself spaghettifying into an infinitesimal point in time and space. All light around her drained. The sound fizzled out. She dropped down an eternal well between cosmic universes. And just as new colors were born upon the fringes of her beleaguered mind...
Her eyes rolled back...
...and she fell unconscious.
Cold wind.
Birds chirping.
Rainbow Dash felt a rocking sensation. Almost as if she was being cradled in a warm pair of arms. His arms.
A trilling sound escaped her lips as she shifted and stirred awake. Something resisted her limbs. It took her a moment or two to realize that her hooves and wings were bound.
“Hrmmm... guh...” Her eyes opened to a foggy, gray world. Snow-flaked trees drifted by. “Huh...?” Her ears tickled with the sound of grinding wood. Like wagon wheels. “Where am...?” She looked directly in front of her.
"Hey, you,” Lyra Heartstrings said. She sat in the wagon across from Rainbow, wearing a stone-gray hoodie. “You're finally awake. You were trying to cross the border, right?”
Rainbow Dash blinked. She looked at the wagon riders and the rest of the procession wearing leather-girded armor.
“Walked right into that Imperial ambush,” Lyra continued with a nod towards the other occupants of the wagon. “Same as us, and that thief over there."
Rainbow groaned, her whole blue body slumping. “Oh for Pete's sake...”
Author's Note
Much lurve, Rob. You're a paragon of this fandom, whether you like it or not.
Forgive me, oh lord, for I could not constrain my righteous fury...
