Laments of the Dimension-Stranded

Rainbow Dash ascended high into the sky in preparation of performing perhaps her most prodigious concatenation of stunts ever. She hovered momentarily in midair and contorted her body so she was leaning diagonally. Her legs were spread in a casual, eased way, as they weren't necessary to support her weight while midair. Rainbow gazed down at the ground where Vincent sat atop the roof of the Inexorable, observing her. She waved a hoof to assure his attention was captured before she executed her tricks.

She began by accelerating rapidly and extending her forelegs before herself, punching holes though clouds and configuring them into specific shapes as she passed.

Water originating in the clouds adhered to her feathers, mane and fur. Excess water droplets streamed in her wake, trailing her as she performed convoluted twists, dives, horizonal rolls and loops.

When Rainbow reached the apex of her ascent, she spread her wings to their maximum length to decelerate rapidly. The water droplets streaming in her wake finally caught up to her, splashing against her feathers and coalescing to form a picturesque rainbow arc that gleamed brilliantly in the morning sunlight.

Rainbow struck an elegant pose beneath the rainbow arc, pumping one of her forelegs away from her body. She glanced over her shoulder at the clouds she had rapidly punched holes through and molded. She knew how they appeared from the perspective of a grounded spectator.

<3 RD

Rainbow angled herself so she was facing directly downwards and began rapidly descending, pointing her forelegs forward and folding her wings against her back to achieve maximum velocity.

White streaks flanked her as the air molecules before her forelegs compressed, incapable of dodging her hooves as she rocketed through the air, continuing to accelerate. Her soaked mane and tail flapped in the turbulence like streamers on a windy day.

At the climax of Rainbow's spectacle, an opaque rainbow ring exploded outwards from her body and dilated rapidly. The Sonic Rainboom momentarily coated the entire sky before dissipating. Rainbow whooped and hollered, cheering.

She performed a celebratory corkscrew thrice before decelerating and landing onto the ground before the Inexorable. She grinned, her wings erect with enthusiasm and gratification. "Did ya see that‽"

Rainbow panted, out of breath. She sagged with fatigue, swiping a foreleg against her forehead to wipe away sweat. "Water, please!"

Vincent hopped down to the ground from atop the Inexorable's roof and tossed her a full canteen, which she gratefully accepted, catching from midair using a hoof. He grinned proudly. "That was... awesome! Never seen anything like it. Guess you really did earn that mark!"

"Sure did! Find me a storm cloud and I'll show ya lightning too!" Rainbow spoke between gulps of water. She emptied the canteen in mere seconds and juggled it between her wings. Once again having the ability to manipulate objects using her flight feathers was gratifying.

After returning the canteen, she glanced down at her sapphire pendant. The gold chain remained taut around her neck, neither excessively loose nor excessively tight. She used the primary feathers of her right wing to cant the gold setting, provoking the polished sapphire to gleam brilliantly in the morning sunlight.

"Doubles as a magic thing and a directed-energy weapon," Vincent joked, holding a hand aloft to obstruct the reflected sunlight beam shining into his eyes.

"Huh?"

Vincent shrugged. "Yeah, sorry. I dunno. Sounded funnier in my head."

"'Directed-energy'?" Rainbow repeated, raising an eyebrow. "I thought humans didn't have magic."

"We don't. The government and CCDCAC are working on weaponizing electromagnetic waves, lasers and sound waves and stuff to kill electronics like the ones used in guided missiles. I bet that tech'll be used in Afghanistan by..." Vincent rubbed his chin absently as he carefully pondered. "2011? 2014 at the absolute latest, assuming the war isn't over by then. Judging by how things were looking in 2007, it just might last that long."

"What year did you come to Nowhere?"

"It's about 2011 now. Came here about four years ago. Not sure, haven't been counting."

Rainbow gazed down at her sapphire pendant, avoiding eye contact for a moment. "Do humans... enjoy war? Is it part of their culture? Why do you have so many weapons?"

"Enjoy? Ergh... No. Most don't.

"Humans don't have one single culture, Dash. There's six-and-a-half billion of us, and that number increases by 100 million every year. There's 200 nations in the world—" Vincent paused, considering. "250? A lot. Modern humans have been around for thousands of years. The world's a big place. Everyone doesn't get along. Millions of people have died in war. Maybe billions."

"Why...?"

"Get in the truck. We'll talk." Vincent approached the driver's side of the Inexorable and ascended the shelf mounted beneath the door to climb into the vehicle.

Rainbow circled the truck and took flight, hovering adjacent to the passenger's side door and opening it, assuming a sitting position atop the car seat on her side of the truck.

Vincent inserted the key into the Inexorable's ignition and rotated it, starting the engine.

Rainbow hung her head in solemn contemplation, gazing down at her rear hooves folded beneath her as she sat back on her haunches. She felt the Inexorable reverse as Vincent guided the truck, directing it south. It began to move.

"Were any wars ever fought for a good purpose...?"

Vincent gripped the steering wheel with his left hand at 12 o' clock and relaxed his right hand as he leaned against the back of his car seat. "Rarely. Like stopping Hitler back in the '40s in World War II."

"Who was that?"

"Ergh..." Vincent shrugged. "Bad guy. Ordered a lot of people to be imprisoned because they were a race he hated or did stuff he hated. Killed them, sometimes did even worse things to them."

"What else did he hate?"

"Communists. Socialists. Homosexuals. A lot of people."

"Homosexuals?" Rainbow's ears laid back sadly. "How could you imprison someone based on who they choose to love?" Receiving no answer, she changed the topic. "Who let him be in charge?"

"No one. He exploited the terrible state of his home nation and manipulated everyone with his charisma.

"He wasn't the first bad person in human history, though, not by a long shot."

"You talk like you aren't human."

Vincent reached below his chin using his right hand and rubbed one of his dog tags with a thumb. He sighed. "I'm human. We all are. But there isn't just one definition for 'being human'."

He glanced over at Rainbow. "You can't identify flaws in your own society from an outside perspective?"

She carefully considered. "No. Ponies work and are paid for their own needs and talents. I'm a Wonderbolt, I'm a really good flyer. It's something I love doing. Pinkie Pie sells baked goods, and she learned how to bake because it's a practical skill related to her special talent. Equestria has a currency but it isn't hoarded by anypony. I guess the royalty in Canterlot do somewhat, but that's money coming in and out constantly. It's constantly in circulation funding schools, health care and a bunch of other public policies."

"Sounds like Karl Marx's theory of communism. Individuals are divided by their talents and rewarded based on their performance. As far as I know, there's never been a truly successful communist nation on Earth. All of them have either been twisted or corrupted."

Rainbow frowned. "Humans... suck. No offense. They're selfish. They have all this technology, culture and power and they choose to do the worst things."

"Yeah. I know. Not everyone's terrible, though. Humans have done some good stuff. Art, literature, music. Some people are very charitable. Humanitarian groups travel overseas to countries during wartime to help feed or evacuate the civilians. Africans. And Afghans.

"Anyway, I guess you could say humans are morally grey, and the choices they make depend on the cards they're dealt. They improvise and adapt. For years I never thought I'd join the military, then I looked at the benefits... and I knew what I had to do. You live your life and things happen to you, you make choices of your own and that molds you and determines where you fit in after enough time passes."

"You act like everything is uncontrollable. It's not. You're in control of your own life."

"You can't change the world, Dash. People have been trying since forever."

"Do you want terrible stuff to happen?" Rainbow persisted, changing her approach. "You think kicking the can down the road and justifying it by saying everything is out of your hooves is okay?"

Vincent didn't reply. He decelerated the Inexorable and stopped the vehicle, then booted up the iPod and began scrolling through the list of available tracks. "One of my professors in college... older guy. Professor Campbell, his name was. You know why I respected Campbell? He was a Vietnam vet, same as my dad. Campbell loved Billy Joel's 'We Didn't Start the Fire'. So did my dad. So did I." Successfully locating the relevant track, Vincent nodded in affirmation, tapping his thumb against the iPod's screen as he selected the 'play' button.

Vincent depressed the Inexorable's accelerator and drove the vehicle speechlessly as Rainbow listened to the song.

The Korean War. The first h-bomb. The communist Eastern Bloc. The 1956 Hungarian Revolution in Budapest. Rosa Parks' Montgomery Bus Boycott. The Cuban Missile Crisis. The Suez Crisis. The Soviet Union's Sputnik 1. Operation Blue Bat. The North American Mafia. Cuban Dictator Fidel Castro. Ernest Hemingway's suicide. The Berlin Wall. The 1962 Ole Miss riot. US president John F. Kennedy's assassination. The Vietnam War. Apollo 11. Woodstock counter-culture. Land Day. The Soviet–Afghan War. The maltreatment of Vietnam veterans. The Syringe Tide. The Tiananmen Square massacre.

"I didn't understand any of that," Rainbow admitted. "But... I'm guessing most of it's bad.

"What's an h-bomb?"

"You don't wanna know." Vincent gripped the truck's steering wheel tightly with both hands, watching where he was driving. "Point is, life's a game of dirty poker and you're always dealt a losing hand. People make choices based on the cards they're dealt, sure, but the whole deck's garbage, all of it. Living's hard when the whole deck's stacked against you."

"So you're just gonna fold and... give up?"

"Not yet. But y'know, Dash, the only way to win a rigged game is to cut your losses and quit."

Vincent released the grip of his right hand on the truck's steering wheel and rested it atop the gearshift stick.

Rainbow sat up straight and gazed through the Inexorable's windshield. The surrounding environment was transitioning from lush, green grass and healthy trees to rocky terrain interspersed with thin patches of weeds. Vincent decelerated and drove slower over the uneven terrain. The vehicle's superior suspension effortlessly absorbed each bump and jolt.

"Tell me one of your father's stories from when he was a soldier."

"When my dad was in Vietnam?" Vincent hesitated briefly, steeling himself. "There's some things I have to explain first..."

Vincent briefly provided context about the United States and the USSR prior to its dissolution in 1991.

He described the story in excessive detail. His father was one of the few survivors of a skirmish with communist forces. It was an open field. 9 men dead and an officer down.

Despite Vincent relaying excerpts originating directly from his father, Rainbow still failed to comprehend the sheer chaos that inevitably would have surrounded the battle. Vincent's descriptions and terminology incited terrible memories of her vivid lucid dream where she was fighting Sombra's forces in the Frozen North and lost her wing to a magical blast.

She decided then that war was humanity and Equestrians at their absolute worst. It was something she never wanted to personally witness, and was something she personally wanted to assure would never happened.

To make matters worse, Vincent's relaying of the story had reminded Rainbow of the Slavic soldiers she had witnessed him shoot. It was an act of self-defense, but, nonetheless, it was an inexcusable act.

She gazed out of the Inexorable's passenger-side window, observing rocky terrain enter and leave her view as the Inexorable soared by. She sighed sadly.

Outside, the terrain had gradually transformed from grassy plains and smoothly-inclining hills to exposed rock and dramatic shifts in elevation. To the right rose a tall cliff that cast a long shadow, partially obscuring the light provided by the dual suns. Shards of rock jutted from the ground like exposed bone from a compound fracture poking through the skin. Occasionally, Vincent had to decelerate the Inexorable and circumnavigate a few of the larger spikes.

She hoped the Inexorable's tires could withstand driving over the rough terrain without slashing or popping.

Far in the distance directly south lied a colossal rock formation that reached to the heavens like a skyscraper. It consisted of several thick rings positioned adjacent to one another.

"I don't like this place. It's creepy. Don't these rocks look like... bones?"

Vincent glanced briefly out of the driver's side window on his side of the vehicle. "A little. Pretty sure those aren't actual ribs ahead of us, though. Nothing that big could ever exist. Blue dragon that chased us a few days ago was the biggest monster I've ever seen in Nowhere, and that thing was only 'bout twice as big as the truck. Maybe thrice as big."

Rainbow shifted uncomfortably in her seat. She tapped her hooves nervously against the pleather material. "I know you said you don't wanna talk about when you were in your country's military, so I'm not gonna beg ya. Just wanna tell you I'm sorry. You're right, it's... a burden. Has to be. You promised not to sugarcoat. I believe everything you've told me, being a soldier sounds like a nightmare."

"Weren't the worst thing in the world. If I never signed up for the army, I never woulda met Jacob. And besides, I—"

A thump on the Inexorable's metal roof startled Rainbow, making her jump. "What the heck was that?" She gazed through the window on her side of the vehicle, seeing nothing but the weathered stone wall of the cliff.

An unidentified black ball landing onto the Inexorable's lemon hood with a heavy thump made Vincent curse. His grip on the steering wheel loosened and the vehicle swerved briefly before he could reassume control.

He slammed the brakes and the truck decelerated responsively. The black ball was sent careering off of the hood from momentum and rolled a few feet ahead of the vehicle.

"Heck was that?"

"You think I know? I've never been this far south before. Didn't think this place'd see raining..." he paused, blinking, "...Fuzzies."

"Fuzzies?" Rainbow repeated the unfamiliar name, raising an eyebrow.

Vincent jerked the gearshift lever and shifted into park. He opened the door on the driver's side of the vehicle and hopped down to the ground, immediately peeling left to withdraw one of the Kalashnikov rifles from the back seat of the vehicle.

Rainbow exited the Inexorable, flying over the truck's lemon metal roof to regroup with Vincent.

He chambered a round in his Kalashnikov rifle, clutching it securely in both hands. They went together to investigate the unidentified black lump that had struck the vehicle.

Rainbow hovered in midair, slowing the flapping of her wings and adjusting her altitude slightly to examine the black ball closer.

The sphere was no larger than the shape she could assume when curling up to rest. It was covered in a layer of black fur or feathers that waved visibly in a gentle breeze.

A head emerged from the sphere. Then legs. Then tiny wings. It vaguely resembled a pegasus pony, with four hooves and black feathered wings, but its snout was elongated like the snout of a crocodile. It opened its jaws and released a soft hiss, locking its black, expressionless eyes directly onto Rainbow.

"It's a fledgling." She cocked her head to a side.

"It seems okay, considering it fell so far onto my truck's hood. Probably made a dent, too."

"Maybe it was trying to fly?" Rainbow posited.

"Little shit."

Rainbow was about to reply, but the words caught in her throat and she made an unintelligible choking noise as she spotted the creature poised atop the cliff ahead. It was positioned with its hooves planted close together as it balanced on the edge of the precipice. Its massive feathered wings were spread as it prepared to leap. It released a low, gravely hiss. "Vince!"

Vincent had enough time to follow Rainbow's gaze, react to the creature and fire a shot with his rifle before the adult leapt off of the cliff, propelling itself downwards using its muscular rear legs.

"Shit—!" Vincent dove out of the way, narrowly avoiding the snapping jaws of the bird of prey as it soared through the position he had been occupying mere moments prior.

Rainbow had sufficient time to fall to the ground and duck, but, fortunately, she hadn't served as the creature's target. She rose to her hooves and observed the bird of prey land nearby. It bounced nimbly and rotated in midair to face her and Vincent, spreading its legs as it assumed a tactical stance. It unfurled its massive black wings, obscuring sunlight and casting dense shadows.

Rainbow copied its position, prepared to react to its impeding attack. She didn't dare glance in Vincent's direction, focused entirely on the threat before her.

Vincent fired a shot. This time, it managed to strike the creature, but it failed to impede it. It released a loud roar of pain and rage, fresh red blood slicking its black feathers as it launched forwards to attack.

Rainbow was prepared. She launched into the air and counterattacked to protect Vincent, landing a kick with one of her rear legs into the creature's neck. It was sloppy and poorly-timed, only serving to infuriate the creature further. She recovered quickly from the momentum of her own kick and hovered in midair, retreating as she led the creature away from Vincent.

Vincent fired a few shots, but they narrowly missed as the bird of prey rocketed forwards towards Rainbow, snapping its jaws. She dodged effortlessly backwards and looped around for a counterattack, landing a kick squarely into the creature's forehead, then another into its neck. The bird of prey was larger than the Inexorable, had thick bones and was mad. Rainbow's attacks did little more than piss it off further. Its wings were weak spots, however...

She dodged its snapping jaws once again and counterattacked, looping around and exploiting the creature's own huge mass and momentum against it as she bucked it powerfully in the side. Her target had been the base of its wing and she had failed to strike it, but she had succeeded in causing the bird of prey to crash headfirst into the cliff wall, releasing an avalanche of loose rocks that fell to the ground. It roared angrily, hovering in midair as it reoriented itself.

Rainbow retreated backwards a few feet, glancing downwards at Vincent as he attempted to line up a shot. "Now would be a good time to start shooting!"

"I'm trying, jackass! It won't stop moving!" Vincent fired a three-round burst of shots, then three more. The bullets whizzed past the monster and collided with the cliff wall, ricocheting off of the hard, flat rock with audible zinging sounds. He depressed the trigger once again, and the rifle clicked in an indication that the magazine was empty. He yelled expletives and ejected the empty magazine, reaching to his chest rig to retrieve a loaded magazine. His hands were shaking.

Rainbow heard the growl behind her and had enough time to instinctively duck as another bird of prey came careering over her head, its snapping jaws narrowly avoiding decapitating her.

Both monsters were now eying her warily, slowly encircling her from either side. Rainbow hovered in midair, twisting as she kept both monsters in sight simultaneously. She had no more options—she had to resort to utilizing the environment to her advantage.

Rainbow soared directly upwards and twisted, looped and corkscrewed to evade the monsters pursuing her.

It wasn't long before she broke through the clouds and emerged into the pure, unadulterated blue sky above. Nearby were fluffy white clouds, lacking lightning to be used offensively.

"Rain cloud!" Rainbow shouted triumphantly as she spotted a herd of rain clouds. They were light grey and not saturated with rain, merely lightly soggy, but they would suffice.

Rainbow encircled the rain clouds and consolidated them into a single giant cloud. When the second bird of prey pursuing her drew close, she bucked the giant cloud and zapped the creature with enough lightning to cause its muscles to lock up. It fell, roaring, to the ground far below.

Rainbow attempted to zap the first bird of prey and give it the same treatment, but the clouds lacked enough energy for another powerful jolt. The creature was stunned by the mild zap, but wasn't entirely impeded. It fluffed its bloodied feathers, roaring at her threateningly.

Rainbow yelped in surprise as the creature swiped a wing at her and a sharp claw raked her chest.

Rainbow was forced to retreat. She dodged the second attack by the creature and began descending in a sheer nose dive. She nimbly twirled and performed a barrel roll to evade the creature's attacks as it pursued her, leading it towards Vincent who, she assumed, was waiting patiently with a loaded gun.

He was.

Before the bullets exited the barrel of the rifle, Rainbow peeled left and made a precise 90 degree turn to evade the path of the rounds. Vincent fired rapidly in fully-automatic, burying seven bullets squarely into the creature's chest. Its wings fell limp and it dropped from the sky, its momentum causing its corpse to scrape along the rock ground for several moments until it eventually drew to a standstill due to friction.

Rainbow panted, out of breath. She regrouped with Vincent, landing onto the ground in front of him. Shocks of pain were coursing though her, which she assumed were her tense muscles aching.

"Nice flyin', ace. They ate your dust. And that second one sure ate some lightning!" Vincent ejected his rifle's magazine and shook it gently to estimate how full it was, then reinserted it. "That was a lotta ammo wasted," he grumbled.

"At least we're still alive." Rainbow breathed deeply, attempting to catch her breath.

"Believe it or not, they didn't train me to shoot shit zippin' around in the air 50 feet off the ground like a mad bat with rabies. Still, I got 'em."

Rainbow hung her head sadly, gazing at the corpses of the birds they had laid to waste. "I feel guilty. They were just defending their home. I hope they didn't have babies."

"Just the one, it looks like." Vincent glanced at the black fledgling left abandoned near the base of the cliff wall. "Figure if there were more, they'd have also tried to fly. It's probably old enough to take care of itself by now.

"We didn't do anything wrong," Vincent insisted. He depressed his rifle's safety lever and suspended the rifle over his shoulder by its sling. "Was self-defense," he clarified.

Rainbow clutched a hoof against her chest, grimacing. When she released the hoof and held it aloft, she realized it was covered in fresh red blood. The pace of her heartbeats quickened as alarm struck her.

"That's your blood?" Vincent knelt on one knee, frowning with concern. "Shit. What happened?"

"I - I don't know..." She panted, collapsing onto her haunches. She glanced downwards, witnessing the laceration that marred her blue-furred chest. For a moment, panic and overwhelming dizziness swelled within her.

"Last thing I need right now is for you to pass out." Vincent extended a hand in a 'stop' motion. He stood. "Just stay right there. Focus on breathing. I got more meds in the truck."

And so, for the second time in her life, Rainbow found herself lying in the lap of a friend during an intimate wound-dressing session.

Vincent advised her to divert her attention elsewhere by thinking pleasant or otherwise distracting thoughts. That was easier said than done.

"Does this bother you?"

"What?" Vincent's voice ushered Rainbow back to reality. She blinked, focusing and gazing up at him.

"You were frownin' and starin' off into space. Figured you were annoyed by something I'm doin'."

"Really? Wasn't tryin' to. Nah, I'm just tryin' to focus on other stuff like you told me." She sighed, gazing up into the sky, observing invisible air currents herd clouds east. She winced as shocks of pain coursed through her by means of Vincent routinely poked her with a needle.

"Tell me something about your life. Anything."

Contrary to her expectations, the prospect actually successfully distracted her. "I used to hate doing chores. Thought they were a waste of time. But, ponyfeathers, what I wouldn't do to fluff up my cloud bed or feed Tank right now. Bake some treats with Pinkie. Read books with Twilight. Heck, I'd even help model for Rarity. I used to hate being her pincushion—she always managed to poke me with the safety pins." She chuckled briefly, triggering Vincent to immediately rebuke.

"Stay still.

"Certainly are my pincushion right now. But, yeah. I know what you mean. Normal life felt mundane until I came here. Used to hate fixin' up my old piece-of-crap car only for something else to break weeks later."

There was a moment of silence.

Vincent pursed his lips in concentration. He applied some tape to secure the dense swathe of bandages newly wrapped around Rainbow's barrel. "Looky. Done now."

"Already?" Rainbow dared to stretch her extremities in an attempt to relieve cramping. The white bandages were stiff and impeded the range of motion of her forelegs.

"Resist the urge to stretch too often. New stitches are right between your two front legs—they'll easily rip out. Give 'em a week or so."

Rainbow considered this prospect as she attempted to stand. Immediately, her front legs buckled and she collapsed onto her side. Frustrated, she huffed and lifted herself off of the ground using her wings. She circumnavigated the Inexorable and, hovering in midair, used a hoof to yank open the passenger's side door. She landed atop the passenger seat and laid down with a grunt of exertion, folding her wings against her back.

Vincent deposited his rifle in the rear seat of the Inexorable before opening the driver's side door and ascending the shelf mounted to the side of the Inexorable, climbing into the driver seat. "So, story time?" He stretched with his arms raised above his head, relaxing his body. He turned his head, gazing in her direction.

Rainbow rolled her eyes, inordinately unamused. She trusted Vincent to ensure the laceration marring her chest was disinfected, closed and securely fastened with bandages, but, nonetheless, her body protested with consistent shocks of pain. "Not in the mood."

Vincent shrugged. He broke eye contact and lifted the iPod, pressing the power button and scrolling through the list of songs. He made a selection by tapping it with a thumb.

Rainbow listened to Pearl Jam's 'Yellow Ledbetter' until the five-minute mark when the gentle guitar strums gradually faded to a singular soft humming. She pondered before voicing her conclusion. "Why do these songs have lyrics you can't understand?"

"Doesn't matter." Vincent held his left arm out of the window on his side of the Inexorable and tapped his ignited cigarette with an index finger, discarding ashes. "What matters is how it makes you feel."

"I feel like..." Rainbow hesitated, favoring one reply over another, less-desirable one. "I feel like you and I aren't gonna make it out of here."

"Everyone dies," Vincent replied matter-of-factly. He exhaled, expelling smoke from his lungs.

"Stop! Stop saying this stuff!" Rainbow narrowed her eyes, her eyebrows dipping low as she frowned. "You're wrong! Things don't have to be this way, and by thinking this way you're contributing to the problem!"

"I've met people like you who thought they could change the world. But..." Vincent paused. He scrolled through the list of music stored within the iPod and selected 'Black' by Pearl Jam. "...things are already too far gone. You're seeing a tree you want to cut down, but you don't see the miles of roots extending far below the dirt. Human culture has been evolving for thousands of years, you can't just flip it off like a light switch."

Rainbow sighed, stubbornly gazing down into the depths of the blue reflections within her pendant's sapphire.

They avoided eye contact until the song concluded.

"You're all fucked."

"Watch your colorful language."

"Stubborn... fucks."

"Wow, real creative there." Vincent chuckled. "C'mon, I've taught you other curse words."

"Shut up."

"Well now, pardon me all to hell!" He extended his index finger and thumb and mimed removing an invisible Stetson hat. He smiled briefly. "My dad loved John Wayne. Old bastard, rest his soul."

Rainbow blinked. She opened her mouth to voice her confusion, then closed it, eliminating the question she had been considering asking from her mind.

"To enjoy living, you have to make the most of the little moments. There is no destiny or fate. Time will go down one specific path. Things rarely go your way. So don't expect to celebrate many victories."

"You're stubborn too. You always—" Rainbow cut herself off when she noticed Vincent grasp the iPod and begin browsing the available tracks. "Stop it!" She unfurled one of her wings and extended it, slapping his wrist. Vincent dropped the music player and rapidly withdrew his hand, his gaze snapping to hers as he frowned.

Rainbow didn't hesitate to mirror the facial expression, her eyes narrowing and ears folding flat against her head as she visually expressed her disapproval. "Are you even listening to me? Forget the stupid music."

Vincent shrugged. He raised a hand and rotated the wrist, revealing an open palm as he gestured in an unknown fashion.

"What's that supposed to mean? Look—" Rainbow winced as a shock of pain struck her. She sighed, lowering her head sadly. "Do you even care about me or yourself, or do you genuinely believe everything is supposed to happen one way, so why even try? You're afraid to rock the boat. You're a coward."

Vincent flicked the cigarette butt out of the open window on the driver's side of the vehicle, discarding it. He sighed, dragging his palm across his eyes and down his nose.

Rainbow hesitated, giving Vincent ample time to finish the statement he had started. When she attempted to speak, he raised a finger on his opposite hand in a halting gesture. "I figure I might as well be honest with you. I got nothing to lose. Said I would be anyway. I, ergh... Yeah. I know I'm a goddamn coward. I went on long hunting trips every weekend. Sometimes with my friends, sometimes not. That's how I ended up here—was driving my car and takin' my CZ 527 up to Woolsey Park. I avoided my girlfriend. I was afraid of her. I was afraid of committing." Vincent belched cigarette smoke in a husky cough. He sighed. "Am I making sense, here? Do you understand me? She was the most important person in my life and I fucked our relationship up."

"Maybe. I'm not gonna judge you. I don't know what being with someone like that is like." Rainbow bowed her head, nuzzling her nose against the sapphire mounted within the gold setting of her pendant. She rested her cheek against the crystal, lowering her head and relaxing for a moment as she considered what Vincent had revealed. "I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"Everything. Also, I think I maybe offended you. Said you were stubborn and cowardly."

"Well, it's true." Vincent shrugged, tilting his head aside in acknowledgement. "I'm not denying that. You're spot on. But," Vincent raised a finger, "before you say anything, no, I'm not gonna change my attitude. We escape Nowhere and survive in the meantime, then worry about changing our life philosophies. 'Sides, usually when a guy wants to try that, he smokes a lotta weed beforehand. Ain't got any handy."