Sail On Little Rainbow
It’s not every day a pony finds herself weaving through scores of talons and drilling beaks in a desperate gambit to reach a city filled to the brim with monsters. It’s not every day a pony is shooting through dragon-established no-fly-zones like a gnat buzzing through a nest of flame-throwing frogs. It’s not every day a pony volunteers for a literal suicide mission to essentially sever the head of an enemy military leadership.
Yet here she was.
Her mind had long tuned out the snarled squawks of the avian creatures that shot after in furious pursuit. Her skin had long dulled of the fire from talons ripping at her hind legs. She’d lost sight of her tears as the wind whipped past her crinkled eyelids, her already blurred vision turning to an indecipherable blob. Her wings were on fire from hours of flight and relentless slashes. Blue feathers fluttered to the ground as she fled the golden burn of the late-summer sun. From the warm center of her ribs to the cold tips of her hooves, there was only agony.
Yet through the pain and anguish, the fear and anger, through the crushing sorrow and guilt, in her heart, she felt nothing but peace.
Passing over a towering mesa, the blue pegasus pony pulled herself into a steep climb and grinned. She never in her life thought she could know a peace like this…
The day was warm and cozy on the first weekend of summer, the late morning sun hanging lazily in the sky. A perfect day for rest and play.
One pegasus, though, paid little attention to the placidity of the morn.
Rainbow’s itinerary was pretty straightforward, much like it usually was each day. She’d already done her morning exercises and polished up on her karate katas. At current, she was busy with training. She may have won the Best Young Flyer’s Competition last year, and even got to fly with the Wonderbolts, but it wasn’t enough, she still hadn’t been actually inducted as a member. She clearly needed to get more practice in, and by Celestia, she would do just that, every day until she made the cut!
Pinkie Pie had volunteered herself to spot Rainbow while she was practicing her routine, helping to find any negative deviations of perfection in each phase. Of course, Rainbow knew why she was really up here with her. Despite the fact that the group’s pet play date was just a few hours away, Pink just couldn’t wait to give Tank a whirl. The rainbow-mane Pegasus rolled her eyes as she whizzed past another cloud, shoving a hoof into its side as she went by. The white cotton ball turned a dingy grey before purple rods of light streaked from its base.
Mental note: lower the propellers so Random and Thoothleth can’t take Tank out for joyrides. She chuckled. Thoothleth. Classic, Rainbow.
In Pinkie’s defense, though, she was spotting for Rainbow Dash even as she was squealing and chortling atop Tank’s chartreuse-spotted shell.
“That was awesome, Rainbow!” the snout beneath the puffy mane cried. “That last kick was just a teensy-bit-of-a-smidgameter-of-a-second-off I think, but it was still really good!”
Much as Rainbow appreciated the praise, she couldn’t help but scowl at herself for the error; most ponies wouldn’t have spotted such a small deviation in timing; even egghead Twilight and picky Rarity probably wouldn’t have noticed. But if there was anything Rainbow had learned about Pinkie, it was that she had a bizarre knack for noticing the slightest things. She sometimes wondered if it were possible that the pony was smarter than she let on. After all, she was able to organize insanely complex festivities in almost ten seconds flat without breaking a sweat. Last time Rainbow tried to help the Pinkness with that, she swore up and down that her wings had fallen on the grass. Literally swore. Took hours to brush all the soap out of her teeth.
Her body itched to try the maneuver again, but she had to keep going. This first flight was an evaluative test-run, meant to see which maneuvers she had down-pat, and which ones still needed work. She was hitting the final item on her run now.
Her final move last year was the Sonic Rainboom. It’d won her the trophy then, but if she was going to take home the gold again this now, a simple repeat performance wouldn’t cut it. She needed to come up with something even better. A super-duper-mega-combo-wumbo.
It’s ‘combo-wombo,’ Dashy!
The Pegasus cringed at the pink earth pony’s telepathic powers.
Refocusing her thoughts, she shot herself into a steep climb, wings beating with the ferocity of a hummingbird’s as she broke through the cloud layer. The numbers were ticking in her head as she ascended. Ten-thousand feet…twelve-thousand feet…fifteen-thousand. When she hit thirty-thousand feet, she started a long and wide immelman until she was only twelve degrees from diving straight to the ground.
Her wings incessantly pounded her sides as she clawed for airspeed. With hooves extended and eyes blurring from her intense velocity, she could see a small band of translucent white bending to her front. Her body began to heat as the air friction increased. Another two seconds, and the sky above was enveloped in a bright flash of blue with jagged streaks of purple bounding past the blue Pegasus. She was down to about fifteen-thousand feet when she closed her wings, the maneuver minimizing drag and boosting her speed further. A light-grey blur was on her eyes before she could blink and then turned to a dark grey as the sunlight was briefly lost. Breaking through the grey to see splotches of green and brown, she saw a pink dot blast past her peripheral.
Nearing ten-thousand now.
The translucent band had extended, now enveloping her figure, the front of the band sharp claw-sharp. Her mane was in a frenzied dance as the wind pushed the strands together and her cheeks numbed as they flapped from the air that poured around grit teeth. Suddenly, she felt an explosion of color on her sight as a fiery burst consumed her body. Her speed doubled in that instant as she dove straight for the area she’d selected for ‘bombing’ practice, a simple plain field; close enough to Ponyville for ponies to preview her performance, but far enough to keep from causing any damage. The numbers yet ticked away in her mind like an altimeter. Eight-thousand, six-thousand, four-thousand, two, one, five-hundred. She let out a triumphant bellow as her hooves slammed into the ground, her ears drowning in the sound of an enormous roar.
It would be a few minutes before the dust settled. With the granules cleared away, she spread open her wings and fluttered off the ground to take a look at her results. She grinned at the crater that she’d left behind before flying back towards the clouds, stopping when she saw Tank hover through the white puff with Pinkie grinning and guffawing in tow.
“Oh my gosh, that was AMAZING! I mean, a Buckaneer Blaze, a Sonic Rainboom, and a Rainboom Bombidad?! I’ve had some pretty cool combo-wombo’s, Dashy, but that was the bestest one ever!”
‘Dashy’ smiled. “You really think it was good?”
“Good?! Rainbow, you frazzled up my already fabulously frizzy mane- what do you think?!” Pinkie yanked on her split ends with her mouth for good measure.
Pinkie had a point. “But did you see anything, you know, off about it? Where could I improve?”
“What is there to improve on with that finale?! I mean, how many other pegasus ponies do you know who can-ah!”
Pinkie was collapsed on the tortoise shell with a quivering grimace shaking her face. Rainbow hovered up to Tank.
“Pinkie, you okay?”
Pinkie lifted her face to the blue pegasus, the color draining from Rainbow’s face as she saw unbridled fear clamped on the earth pony’s features. “My knees are so pinchy I can’t move.” Her voice was a shaky and faint squeak. “We need to get to Rarity’s place. Now.”
A rainbow-spectrum blur bobbed and weaved between ponies with a constantly bending pink band trailing right behind in a most unintentional relay race. Ponies of all sorts of colors and hues warped past Rainbow’s vision as her hooves pounded the cobblestone, small pebbles lifting beneath her feet in the wake of her frantic sprint through Ponyville’s market district. Produce spilled from a cart that Rainbow bumped into, prompting a stream of shouted curses from the vendor. Anger swelled beneath her fear and anxiety, yet she bit her tongue, refusing to return the rude shouts in kind.
After an agonizingly long gallop through the streets of Ponyville, they neared the city square; just past that was the cluster of tents that surrounded the Carousel Boutique. Rainbow would’ve been there by now had her wings not locked up; she blushed angrily at this embarrassing phenomenon, feeling like Fluttershy whenever she saw her lanky shadow at sunset. Pinkie never said why they had to hurry to Rarity’s, but the slow deflation of her normally airy mane was more than enough to make Rainbow’s mind spin with gruesome predictions. They only got worse when they heard a bellowing roar preceded by a shrilly gravely scream. The pavilion of the city square slid past the peripheral of winged pony’s left eye and her sight locked onto the tips of the tents ahead. Over the bridge, they burst past the tents and slammed head-first into the front door of the boutique.
Rainbow and Pinkie stopped dead at the entrance.
They were greeted to an atrocity of a mess; an absolute nightmare by Rarity’s standards. The first things that their eyes landed on were the white pony figures. Mannequins lay strewn on the ground with threads of red and purple yarn pouring off from them in strings and coils; as if in a twisted premonition, a pool of red dye spilled from beneath one of the mannequins. Rainbow immediately jerked away her eyes as she inched her way in, looking frantically between the broken limbs of the craft table, the tattered tapestries, the dresses, some sound some shredded, trying to get a grasp of what had happened.
She turned to a shivering Pinkie, tears streaming down her snout as she stared at the floor. She was shaking like the giant carpet beneath her had suddenly turned into a sifter.
“Ear flop…knee pinch…b-body shudder…No, please, no…”
Her voice was cracking and breathing stinted. Her mane completely slack, sheen lost, bright and vibrant pink traded in for a dreary, faded magenta.
Rainbow stared, disbelief already setting its barrier around her heart. “Pinkie?”
“Rarity can’t…she can’t be…” The pink earth pony turned and ran out the door. By the time Rainbow called for her to come back, she’d already cleared the bridge and was running back into town.
Turning back to face the room, Rainbow’s mind immediately closed, her eyes sealing away the fashionable slaughter of the pony mannequins from her sight. “Rarity’s fine… She probably just got robbed and hid away, probably hid upstairs or something. Or maybe she fought them off. Rarity’s smart like that…she’s smart and-“
“Rainbow Dash?”
She opened her eyes to see a small filly poking her head out from a small chest, eyes shining with yet collecting tears.
“Sweetie Belle?”
The small filly dove out from the chest and ran to the pegasus, eyes full of fright. “Where’s Rarity? Where’s my sister?” she squeaked. Her poofy pink-and-purple mane was ruffled, split ends where her puff-ball curls should’ve been.
“I don’t…know where she- Belle, what happened here?”
“I don’t know!” she cried out. “I was coming back from another crusading adventure when I found the place like this! All of the rooms were a mess and I know Rarity says that her messes are organized chaos but it didn’t look like organized chaos and her jewels were gone! Then I heard a scream and another loud sound and I went upstairs to see if Rarity was there and if the other rooms were trashed. But when I went to her room, there was all this red stuff on the walls and there was a scary looking monster with an eagle head and a lion tail and it had red stuff on its claws and…and then I ran back down and hid in that chest and…I was so scared!” Sweetie buried her face into Rainbow’s forelimb as she cried.
Rainbow was shaking now too, her body heating with worry and rage. There were a lot of creatures and ‘monsters’ in Equestria and the neighboring regions, but only one kind like Sweetie Belle had described.
Pulling what little she could from filly days, she kneeled down to Sweetie’s level, trying to put as much honest empathy as she could into her eyes. “Sweetie, I need you to stay here, okay? I’ll go upstairs and find Rarity, and we can try to sort out what’s going on. Just wait here until I come back, okay? Can you do that?”
The filly nodded in sniveling confirmation at Dash’s soft-spoken request.
Rainbow Dash flashed a fleeting smile before adorning a rocky expression as she walked through the kitchen (remarkably untouched compared to the rest of the boutique) and ascended the stairs. Her tough demeanor, normally easy to maintain, crumbled the second she knew she was out of Sweetie’s sight. For a brief minute her legs were unsteady, her head swimming.
It just couldn’t be possible. There was no way Rarity was…was gone. Yet things seemed to point that way. Pinkie’s senses, Sweetie Belle seeing the ‘red stuff’ all over Rarity’s room…
“No, there’s no way,” she rebuked with her familiarly strong voice, staring at the steps as she climbed. “Rarity’s far too resourceful. I mean, she girl-handled a whole pack of diamond dogs, even got their stash of jewels! Rarity could easily handle a stupid griffon.”
“A stupid griffon, maybe, but not me.” Rainbow’s eyes locked at the center of the doorframe, eye muscles contracting into a frown at the golden beads that lay above the speaking beak of an ex-friend. One she now wished she had never known.
“What are you doing here, Gilda?” Rainbow growled.
“Not that it’s any of your business, Rainbow Crash,” Gilda sneered, “but the Griffon Kingdom’s low on funds, and I’m here to collect a very charitable donation.”
Rainbow asserted her cool, craning up her neck to meet Gilda’s stare, batting nary an eye. “Where’s Rarity?”
Gilda laughed and laughed, and Rainbow looked down. Just like Belle had said, there was red on the hybrid’s claws. Rainbow’s stomach churned. “That lame-o friend of yours? Yeah, I played with her a bit, but she got too frisky, so I had her put down.”
And just that quick, Rainbow’s cool was gone. “You…killed her?” Her voice was quivering, legs weakening beneath the hatred in Gilda’s stare. “How…How could you just kill her?!”
“Real easy, actually,” the griffon replied nonchalantly. “One swipe at her neck did the trick. Though I did take a few more swipes at the horse just for kicks.”
“But…She was my friend!” Rainbow shouted. “She had a little sister! She had parents! How can you just kill her?!”
“Simple. You get in the way of what I want, you get cut down.” Gilda started her march down the stairs, sneering as Rainbow backed down the same spiraling well. Large size plus elevation equals supremacy, an advantage griffons always had over ponies. An advantage she seized as she swiped at Rainbow, the sudden backwards jerk of the pony making her lose her balance and tumble down the decline. Gilda smirked at the wounded pegasus when she reached the foot of the steps. “Now if you’ll excuse me,” the griffon lifted a wing, raising the strap to a bag filled to the brim with jewels, one of several that hung on her side, “I’ve got a stash to vamoose with.”
The pegasus’ head was pounding and her chest stabbed with pain, yet she forced herself on her hooves. She threw a fierce determinant glare to match the bemused smirk of Gilda’s. “You’re not going anywhere!” She went to erect her wings when she yelped. A shockwave burst from one of her wings, sapping the strength from her legs. Even as she kneeled in agony, she tried to spread her wings again, only to be met with another stab of pain.
Gilda laughed again. “Oh, yeah, I’m really scared of you, one-wing.” The griffon stomped on the disjointed wing, smiling as Rainbow wailed beneath convulsions. “See you later, Rainbow Dyke.”
Paying no mind to the squeal of terror as she marched through the foyer and out the door, the griffon took flight, banking left of the beaming sun before climbing and gliding towards home.
Back in the kitchen, Rainbow forced herself back on her hooves again, ignoring the pained screams of her body. Amidst the churns of her stomach, she staggered up the stairs and into the bedroom.
All she could see was red. On the walls by Rarity's workstation, showering shelves and pooling in bins, seeping into the fabrics of incomplete dresses and staining the whites of bare mannequins. Slowly staggering further into the room, she winced when she heard a soft splash. She stood there frozen, a cold chill surging down her spine as a hoof sat in a puddle, the liquid feeling warm and sticky. Chancing a downward look, she saw that the crimson spray was focusing in towards her, the polka-dotting growing thicker as her purple eyes followed the pointing trail, the pony growing queasier with every newfound inch.
It was far too long before Rainbow Dash could find the door and stairs, legs trembling in her descent. The stains from Rarity's room followed her, tainting the blue of her chin and forelegs and the edges of her mane of many colors.
Her mind repeated over and over in an undying chant the thing she knew to be true, yet refused to think but a lie.
She didn’t realize she’d staggered into the foyer until she saw another patch of white on her vision. Her eyes jumped on the form, her heart striking hard against her ribs as she stared into giant shamrock irises.
“Rainbow?” Sweetie Belle stared with hopeful eyes, yet the rest of her hadn’t lost a hint of fear or worry.
The pegasus, Equestria’s best flyer and most awesome pony, fought to maintain what little of her composure she still had as she sat by the filly, eyes misting again. “I’m sorry Sweetie Belle…but Rarity…” Rainbow’s neck craned towards the ground, unable to bear the hurt forming in Sweetie’s eyes. Her throat panged and her eyes clamped shut. “She’s…Rarity is…I’m so sorry Sweetie Belle…”
The filly’s hind legs went dead as she plopped on her bottom. Tears spilled onto the floor beneath, her eyes turning glassy as she stared ahead. “It’s all my fault.”
The pegasus scooped the little unicorn into a sheltering hug. “It’s not your fault, Sweetie Belle,” Rainbow rasped, sobs lined on her tongue, ready to jump.
“Yes it is!” the filly screamed, her words already mixing with her sobbing. “Rarity needed me, but I was too scared and… And now I’ll never see her again and it’s all my fault!”
“No it's not, Sweetie. It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault.”
She would repeat this for many minutes, yet with every rendition, she grew more certain that she was wrong.
It was her fault. It was all her fault.
When Pinkie had come back with Twilight, the pegasus and filly were still weeping, hugging each other in hopes of a condolence that would never come.
The grieving period was hard on everypony, but perhaps no harder on anypony than Rainbow Dash.
Not knowing how to handle the grief, she found herself growing distant from her friends. In the day, she poured herself into her training sessions, working double-time to try and perfect her routines. At night, she was plagued by endless nightmares. Many nights, when she couldn’t sleep, she would lay in the bed, staring at a picture within a simple wooden frame that sat lonely on her nightstand.
In the picture was a stunning portrait of a strong, wonderful mare. Her eyes twinkled with pride beneath the proud blue Wonderbolts uniform that she adorned. Her orange-and-blue striped mane flowed in graceful waves, her tail tipped with the sharpness of Rarity’s well-groomed horn. The moonlight gave the Wonderbolt an ethereal look that always moved the young pegasus to tears.
Her name was Sidewinder. That mare was her hero, an absolute legend. The true reason she wanted to join the Wonderbolts.
She used to hear stories all the time about her many exploits, of how she used to save mares and colts from certain disaster, of how she single-handedly defeated an entire group of Diamond Dog renegades that attacked Canterlot.
As a young filly, Rainbow Dash would always look forward to the tales of Sidewinder’s exploits. But over time, the stories would fade, until they were told no more.
Of all the tales she remembered, there was one that Rainbow held closest to her heart, of how the amazing mare saved her friends from an impossibly large dragon that'd threatened to smoke out Cloudsdale. The pegasus smiled to herself, amused by the parallel with she and her friends driving out the dragon that threatened Ponyville. But then, the images that reminded her of that glorious triumph were cut down, memories of seeing Rarity's unmoving body wrestling away the little scrap of joy she'd managed to muster.
The tears came again as her mind drowned in thoughts of defeat. Sidewinder was fearless, able to weather any danger with grit and strength, yet Rainbow fell in the face of fear. Sidewinder was able to protect her friends from legions of diamond dogs and a dragon that far dwarfed the one Dash had fought, yet she couldn't save Rarity from one Griffon.
The pegasus turned away from the portrait, unable to bear seeing the face of the pony she most disappointed. Dash whispered bitter sobs into a pillow as she thought, “She’ll never remember me now…”
Trying to figure out how to live life without Rarity was hard enough for Rainbow and the rest of her friends. Things only got worse when Equestria was plunged into war two months later.
The griffons struck hard and fast, taking the hapless pony populous completely by surprise. Before the military could even hope to organize an effective counter against the threat, the griffons had swiftly taken siege of several major mill and industrial towns throughout the Equestrian region. Major cities like Fillydelphia and Stalliongrad were choked by supply embargoes.
The Princesses of the Day and Night worked furiously to organize the military forces and set up counterattacks, and for a time, they managed to halt the Griffon Kingdom's advance. The Princess of the Night dealt heavily with military affairs, while the Princess of the Day tried to negotiate a ceasefire with the Griffon Kingdom royals; together they seemed to be making much needed progress. But soon another threat exploded from the depths. Surprise mass attacks against the southern territory by diamond dogs, attempting to use the chaos to grab mineral-rich land, helped to stretch the desperately undermanned domestic forces far past their limits, making it impossible to repel forces from the two fronts.
It was then that civilians were drafted into the military.
After a recent negotiation had gone horribly awry, Rainbow Dash and what remained of her friends were inducted into a special task force dubbed Mane 6, to be commanded and coordinated by Princess Luna herself. Their purpose: disrupt military operations within the Griffon Kingdom and slow their war machine. Many times they infiltrated enemy territory, destroying weapons factories and slaughtering training camps. Yet even with all these efforts, the Griffon Kingdom still had enough foreign forces within Equestria to overwhelm the country completely, and no matter how intense the attacks and losses got within their land, the government and military leaders refused to recall their forces. Soon, all of the major cities in Equestria were captured or destroyed, and many of the small towns that held strategic value were also taken and converted to forward operating bases.
The final strongholds before the capital of Canterlot were the pegasus city of Cloudsdale and the small, quaint village of Ponyville.
With what remained of the pegasus forces being tasked with holding Cloudsdale, all eyes were on Ponyville. The most elite of the royal forces, elements of the Galloping Gallant Guard, two divisions of the Wonderbolts, and even the village populous, all rallied in a final stand to hold the city. Rainbow and the rest of the Mane 6 immediately pleaded with their royal superior for permission to defend Ponyville, to fight for their home and their friends. After thoughtful consideration, Princess Luna granted the appeal, but to the group's despair, one pony was omitted.
Princess Luna had another mission for Rainbow Dash, one she believed only the blue pegasus could accomplish. During the Battle of Ponyville, she would initiate a bombing campaign against the Griffon Kingdom's capital, Aires II. Spitfire, Soarin' and Mustang of the Wonderbolts would fly top-cover, taking out any airborne griffons as they guided Rainbow Dash in.
On the day of the attacks, the others all gathered together to wish Rainbow good luck. They all were moved to tears when they found Rainbow wearing Rarity's favorite purple silk scarf, a present she'd received from Sweetie Belle shortly before the younger fillies and elder ponies were evacuated. They all gave the pegasus words of encouragement and praise, and all promised they'd see each other again. But they knew it would be a lie.
None knew more than Pinkie.
As the normally giddy pony embraced Rainbow for what she knew was the last time, she whispered four solemn words in her ear. Words that carried a history that Rainbow only shared with the closest of friends.
"Sail on, little Rainbow."
Deep behind enemy lines, the group was about fifty miles from the capital when the news broke over the radio.
"Flight group FillyTrot, are you there?" It was Princess Luna. Though not a word of news had yet been spoken, their royal's downtrodden tone spoke volumes. Rainbow was already tearing as they approached a vast canyon.
"FillyTrot 1-4, we're here, Princess," she spoke over the com.
"We just received reports from Ponyville." There was a pause, as if the royal mare were doubtful of her words. "The griffon forces took the village."
"Any reports of casualties, Princess?" Spitfire requested.
"Nearly all of the populace and military forces were routed. Only a few managed to get out before the village was sealed off. They're retreating to Canterlot now."
"My friends," Rainbow inquired. "Did any of them make it out?"
The radio fell silent. There was no reply.
"Princess, are you there?" Still no response. "What happened to my friends, Princess Luna? Tell me!"
Silence consumed the channel for agonizing minutes.
"I'm sorry Rainbow Dash… But they don't appear to be among the survivors. Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Twilight…they're all gone."
The rainbow-mane pegasus closed her eyes, her face forming a soft grimace as she allowed the tears to collect beneath her lids. She whispered soft sobs into the com, uncaring if anypony heard them.
Her headset crackled to life and Spitfire spoke, her voice soft. "If you want to turn back Rainbow, we can. Canterlot will probably need us more now anyway."
Rainbow Dash shook her head, opening her eyes and letting the tears fly from her face, sparkles of light falling into the deep scar of the earth. "No, you guys should go back. I'm seeing this through."
"What?" Soarin' blurted.
"We're not leaving you Rainbow," Spitfire cried in retort. "We never leave a pony behind!"
"And that's why you should go back to Canterlot, Spitfire. All of you." Her voice shook, failing pitifully to reach the commanding sound she had wanted, but she knew her words spoke clear. "You'll have a better fighting chance there, and the Princess needs you more than I do." She hesitated briefly. "And I don't want to lose anymore friends."
The radio was silent as the group flew on. Finally…
"This is FillyTrot 1-1 to Diamond. FillyTrots 1-1, 1-2, and 1-3 are RTB, Princess Luna. FillyTrot 1-4 will carry out the mission," Spitfire reported, voice cracking with lament.
"Understood. Report straight to Rook 4-1-1. Repeat, Rook 4-1-1." Another pause. "May the light of Celestia shine on you, Rainbow Dash."
Rainbow whispered her thanks. The other Wonderbolts turned around, heading back for home as Rainbow pressed forward, passing over the lip of the divider far below. The radio crackled one last time.
"Rainbow? It's Spitfire."
"Yeah boss?"
"I…I just wanted to let you know that you're the most awesome pegasus I've ever known, and the best friend I've ever had. You're truly the bravest pony that has ever come out of Cloudsdale." The orange maned mare sniffled, her voice shivering. "She would be so proud of how far you've come, Rainbow."
For the first time in months, Rainbow Dash felt an ebbing of her sadness as her chest began to glow with warmth. She smiled, her throat swelled with joy. "Thanks, Spitfire."
There was a brief pause before the flight lead spoke again.
"Hey, one last thing, Rainbow?"
"Yeah?"
"When you see her, tell Rarity I haven't forgotten about that rescue debacle. I still want my five Sapphires."
Rainbow Dash laughed. "Sure thing, boss."
The city of Aries sat high upon a towering mesa. It was a metropolis in isolation, a raised dot of steel and glass in a vast sea of stabbing rocky needles. High above the capital, a thousand shrieks seared the sky as a blue explosion radiated outward, followed by a band of colors that burst in a radial wave. A bright beam of light made of every color imaginable bounded earthward from the shockwave, far outpacing the falling husks of griffons. At the head of this color spectrum was a small blue pegasus, hooves stretched out front as her tattered wings clamped shut on her sides. Her mane danced furiously as she picked up speed, her heart thumping with excitement. Her body burned with an unbearable intensity and she could swear that her skin was ripping from her bones.
She felt her chest explode as she smiled, and let out a bellowing cry.
In the distance, a trio of Pegasi stared into the darkness of the twilight sky, eyes glued in awe at the colorful mushroom cloud that rose from the earthen spire in the distance.
A yellow mare could be seen with her body erect in a bobbing hover, hoof held to her eyes in salute as she smiled.
"Sail on, Little Rainbow."
Spitfire grinned softly as she stood outside of Ponyville Retirement Village, her Wonderbolt uniform traded in for a simple burlap sack that was laced around her neck, the bag nestled on her side. She found it amazing that, with all the damage inflicted on the town during the Battle of Ponyville, this quaint little cottage stayed perfectly unharmed, as if war had never set hoof anywhere near it. Looking up at the calm of the blue sky, two ponies soared overhead.
"Hey Spitfire," one of the colts shouted, "Tell Old Girl we said 'Hey!' when you see her, huh?"
"I will Soarin'." She rolled her eyes and shook her head. Why does everyone call her that?
Spitfire trotted on in and, after a short wait at the receptionist desk, was shortly guided to her room. The young pony creaked open the heavy wooden door and entered, hooves softly tapping on the wooden floor as she walked in. A figure was sitting by the window, staring out upon the city square as if in a daze.
Spitfire had come to visit the blue colored mare many times before, often to the find her in that very spot and state. It always puzzled Spitfire as to why she would be in a place like this. She wasn't nearly as old as the other colts and mares that called this dainty place home. Only in her early forties, she was decades behind the other residents who were cresting into their seventies and eighties. Nothing in her physical appearance eluded to old age either, her short-standing fur holding that same lustful shine and her mane, a flare of fire parted by a river of water, still full-bodied with a healthy sheen. She wasn't creaky or weak like the older ponies, either. The only thing that seemed to make her fit in with the crowd was that she always was…distant, silent. Yet this never impeded on Spitfire's visits. Even as she sat there in the shadow of her former glory, the younger pegasus always felt honored and privileged to visit Equestria's most legendary Wonderbolt, the one she'd admired since she was a young filly.
"Hey there! It's great to see you again, Sidewinder," she softly said as she hugged the older mare. "Soarin' and Mustang say hi too. They couldn't make it today, helping with rebuilding Cloudsdale and all." There was a brief pause and Spitfire stared attentively, as if absorbing a silent response from the mare. "I know it's been a while since I visited last, I apologize. But I've got some wonderful news for you; I know you'll love it."
The older mare kept her stare at the window, unaware of Spitfire's presence.
The younger pegasus yet smiled as she dug into her bag and pulled out a small rectangular item. Unraveling the fanciful paper that concealed its identity, she revealed the item, a small picture frame. Pulling out the small standing tab on the back, she sat it on the windowsill.
"I'm sure you've heard by now, but we finally drove them out. The Griffon and Diamond Dog Invasions failed and Equestria's safe again." There was a brief pause. "Princess Luna is going to hold a special memoriam for Princess Celestia and the others who gave their lives in the fighting during the Summer Sun Celebration. Me and the other Wonderbolts are working on a special routine for our fallen wingmates."
The yellow pony's throat constricted and she briefly closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she nudged the picture in front of the mare's eyes.
"I wish I could've told you sooner, but your daughter joined the Wonderbolts last month. And before that, she and her friends did covert ops for Princess Luna. She did a lot to help us through the conflict and she…" She sniffled, letting out a few sobs before her cracking voice sounded again. "She saved us. Your little Dashy and her Sonic Rainboom is what saved Equestria. It was so beautiful, 'Winder, I wish you could have seen it. You would've been so…"
The younger pony lost what remained of her words when she saw the older pony rock forward. Slowly, the older pegasus reached out to the picture frame, holding the wooden borders that surrounded the image in her hooves as she slowly brought it to her face. Glazed eyes quivered every which way, as if taking in the photo in small, rapid bits. For many minutes the yellow pegasus stared at the mare, watching intently as she stared at the picture; Spitfire's heart grew heavy as Sidewinder's eyes remained glassy, showing no signs of reaction or emotion.
Spitfire then jumped when she heard a weak gravelly voice whisper into her ears. They perked and turned all about the room, her head doing the same, looking for the source of the sound, but saw nopony else. Galloping to the door and poking her head out, she saw nopony anywhere near their room. Focusing her hearing, she knew it was coming from behind her now. She whipped her head around and saw something that made her heart drum.
Sidewinder's maw…it was moving. The sound was coming from her…she was talking. Slowly returning to the windowsill, Spitfire stared in awe, taking in a sound that she hadn't heard for years. Sidewinder was holding the picture to her chest, tears slipping between thinly slit eyes. She wore a soft, pristine smile. As Spitfire's ears tuned in attention to the mare's long unused voice, she realized. She wasn't talking…
She was singing.
"The seas of life can be calm and placid,
Blue skies stretching along the waters,
In your small little boat you raise the drapes,
Eyes sparkling, heart yearning for adventure.
But the seas of life are not always peaceful,
Oftentimes the skies will darken,
Storm clouds rising over like a curtain,
Distant thunder bidding to be hearkened.
The storm will sift the seas,
Knocking your boat to and fro,
Seeking to drown beneath the waves,
Your heart, your life, your hope.
But remember my little filly this,
Every storm that comes must go…"
Tears fell from Spitfire's eyes and she grinned as she joined in tune…
"So with heart of steel and hope anew…
Sail on, my little Rainbow."
Author's Note
I am sad, sad person. This story was originally just something I wrote to get a plot-bunny out of my head. But the more I've looked at this piece of...well, I don't wanna call it crap, but I know it's not as good as it could be, so...sour milk? Anyway, the more I look at this piece, the more potential I see in it. In fact, I see so much potential in it that I've begun planning a much longer story, using this one-shot as a base. I also have an odd story where Trixie races Rainbow Dash in a race around the world that I'm also in the planning stages for (How in the butt-nik could I possibly make that premise work? Heh, look at my Avatar; I'll have to recall the designer's name so I can credit him...). Whether or not that story (title draft currently "Demons Flee Beneath Their Wings") will factor into the overall arc of the other story, which I have decided on "In the Sun's Dying Light" as it's title, has yet to be determined. It probably won't as I've already developed a means of thrusting the plot forward on that front, but who knows? The wonderful thing about fiction is that nothing is set in stone until your work is finished.
Anywho, I'm a person who simply loves critiques. The more you learn, the more you grow, right? So feel free to leave yours in the comment box below. Or you won't get any cake.