Laments of the Dimension-Stranded

— Four years earlier —

Vincent shifted his weight and spun, gazing upwards, his eyes unfocused in the dark room. He withdrew from beneath the bedsheets and sat on the edge of the bed, groaning as he stretched his toned arms overhead.

"Come back to bed..."

"Anna." Vincent released a gentle sigh. He smiled briefly. The familiar accent of his girlfriend as she whispered lulled him into a soothing state of tranquility.

He lowered the tone of his voice to a soft whisper. "No. You know I have a long upcoming week. Need to get a head start. It's an hour drive to Woolsey Park."

"Don't go. You always waste your vacation days on you. Let's do something together." Anna tugged the bedsheets closer to her chin, more snugly lodging herself against the plush mattress.

Vincent breathed, inhaling the subtle scent of lavender emanating from the clean bedsheets. "Maybe next time. I made plans with friends, they're kind of expecting me to show up."

"You always have a convenient excuse."

"Yeah, maybe." Vincent hung his head, sighing. He rested his hands over his thighs for a moment, then twisted 180 degrees and leaned downwards, planting a kiss on his girlfriend's lips.

"Ich liebe dich." She smiled.

"Du bist mein ein und alles, Engel." Vincent exhaled gently, not wishing to ruin the moment.

Vivid blue eyes, luscious brown hair that spilled over the shoulders and a thin, subtly-square jawline—they were distinctive facial features of his girlfriend that Vincent's brain accurately recalled, despite the years that had passed since his departure from Earth.

He stood, stretched and retrieved the potted plant from where it had been displayed atop the nightstand. He had plucked it from the soil mere days after he had began dating Anna, and despite thorough internet and word-of-mouth research, the mysterious flower remained unidentified. Maybe his hunting buddies could share some new knowledge.

Departure checklist: CZ 527 carbine, tools and enough food rations to last a few days. Fill the car's tank with gas. Take the weird pink heart flower. Remember the cellphone to stay in contact Anna—more specifically, for Anna to stay in contact with him.

Respectfully, Vincent stealthily crept through his house so as to not disturb his girlfriend while she slept. He went about his standard morning routine where he washed his face and combed the hair aside that blanketed his forehead. His skin appeared pale in the bathroom mirror. His eyes looked sunken.

Vincent sighed, resting his palms on the stone bathroom counter. He maintained eye contact with himself, scrutinizing his unsightly facial features. "Hey, good looking. Well, she's stopped begging you to stay. She just looks tired, now. Guess you finally got what you wanted, huh?"

Beyond the abandoned car and atop the crumbling concrete slab thrust into the otherwise-unremarkable forest lied neglected concrete outbuildings. Collectively, they were one of the few human structures on Nowhere. It was the burial grounds of the Slavic soldiers Vincent had killed.

A concealed figure crouching atop the metal roof yelled in a guttural, trilling language.

"Did you hear that?" Vincent glanced at Rainbow before rotating to face the outbuilding atop which the unidentified man crouched. The fingers of his right hand curled tighter around the grip of his CZ 527 carbine. "Something don't feel right about this."

"Somethin' feels wrong about this?" Rainbow chuckled, rolling her eyes. "C'mon, don't be stupid. I coulda told ya that. Actually—"

The distinct crack of a rifle firing startled Vincent and triggered him to instinctively jump. He didn't detect the report of a bullet whizzing past his head, but, ever so briefly, he dared to hope he and his companion were unscathed. That was before he heard the dull, deadened thump of bullet striking flesh. Blood splattered against the asphalt. Rainbow tottered to a side, stumbled over her own hooves and collapsed from the recoil imparted into her body by the large rifle-caliber round.

Vincent froze. "Dash!" His hunting rifle clattered noisily to the ground as he tossed it haphazardly aside and darted forward, planting one of his hands against his companion's furred chest. Rainbow thrashed as she moaned in pain, kicking at his body with her hooves weakly in a futile struggle to find purchase and stand. She was disoriented, her mind wasn't functioning correctly. The bullet had struck her throat and punched through her trachea, shattering bone and ripping open a gash that steadily gushed blood.

Nauseated, Vincent swore, his words being caught in his throat as he hyperventilated. In the moment of gripping horror yet intense clarity, the ringing in his ears triggered by the loud gunshot and the sensation of his heart beating erratically in his chest faded. The world vanished then, for as little as it mattered. He helplessly watched Rainbow choke as she attempted to speak, spitting blood that dribbled down her chin and marred her untainted blue fur. Her blood dripped down, seeping into the cold, uncaring black asphalt. Her pleading cerise eyes briefly locked with his, expressing heartrending terror, before focusing somewhere far away over his shoulder and glazing over. The brightness, animation and lifeforce was rapidly draining from her body.

His only friend was dying, and it had happened because he was oblivious to their surroundings. She was dying on a decrepit, crumbling slab of asphalt and concrete in a turbulent world unversed with the invaluable concepts of sympathy or mercy. Their relationship had abruptly concluded, and he would never be able to bring her back.

Never.

Never.

Never...

Vincent awoke with a start and gasped, clutching his chest. He inhaled rhythmically in an attempt to stabilize his rapid heartrate, gazing up at the Inexorable's metal roof listlessly.

What he had experienced was nothing more than an intense nightmare, but he couldn't deny his suspicion that Rainbow had been killed.

To confirm her safety, he glanced at the passenger's seat. As anticipated, Rainbow Dash lied next to him, sleeping peacefully while curled up in a ball. She mumbled incoherent words and shifted, the movements occasionally accompanied by a wing or ear twitch. Hopefully she wasn't drooling onto her sapphire pendant.

To save his friend, he had killed those three Slavic soldiers. Vincent knew three was too few—he had eliminated the remnants of a larger fireteam or squad. He had unwittingly killed the unfortunate survivors of an unknown incident which had claimed the lives of their other late buddies. He was a slaughterer.

Despite his actions being an excusable act of self-defense, he nonetheless felt guilt. He could, after all, sympathize with those experiencing grief. He had witnessed acquaintances and friends die before his very eyes.

He hadn't thought about that for a long time. The terrible nightmare had awoken ancient memories long since suppressed.

"Ergh..." Vincent sighed, rubbing his eyes with the sleeve of his yellow-green military blouse. A potent amalgamation of exhaustion and sorrow bound him as if by dense rope around the extremities. Struggling to persist and move on was as challenging as fighting to free himself from a noose biting into his neck. And, indeed, he did feel like he was being led, shambling, to the gallows.

Movement in the fringes of his peripheral vision attracted Vincent's attention. He glanced to the right, observing Rainbow make a concerted effort to stand before eventually surrendering and collapsing onto her side. She grunted in frustration, exhaling sharply.

"Hey." To brighten the ill-lit vehicle interior, Vincent extended an arm and depressed a button mounted in the Inexorable's roof to activate its overhead interior lighting.

Rainbow blinked, immediately suspicious. "Your tone's too flat. Something's up."

"I'm fine. I'm, ergh..." Vincent sighed. "I'm fine. How are you feeling? Did a good job patchin' ya up, didn't I?" He raised a hand, gesturing to the swathe of bandages that enveloped Rainbow's barrel. "You look like a newly-stuffed teddy bear."

"I... guess, yeah. You did a good job." Rainbow eyed him knowingly for a few moments.

"Give it a day or two. You'll heal real quick. Your feathers started regrowing in, what, a week? Less?"

"Something like that." Rainbow hung her head, releasing a sharp exhalation in reaction to a sudden assault of pain. She clutched a hoof against her bandaged chest. "You don't have anything to help with the pain?"

"Patched you up with an IFAK. Most are just designed to keep you alive until a medivac arrives for exfil. No extra bells and whistles, including painkillers in this one. Unfortunately, seems we're AWOL and shit-outta-luck. Flying ambulances ain't comin' for you or me anytime soon."

Vincent reclined in his seat, folding his hands in his lap. He observed Rainbow frown, nervously rubbing her sapphire pendant with a hoof as she fidgeted. "Vince, what's wrong? You normally don't avoid talking to me."

Vincent lifted the iPod and offered it to Rainbow, which she accepted with hesitance. "Why don't you try choosing a song this time?"

Rainbow cradled the foreign device in a hoof delicately, tilting it curiously and observing the reflections in the cracked screen. "But you always choose the music—"

Vincent intentionally exited the vehicle while Rainbow was speaking, forcing her to act independently. He opened the driver's side door and hopped down to the rock floor below to the Inexorable.

Bits of gravel crunched under Vincent's combat boots as his weight pressed onto the rock floor. The cave was gigantic and flat in key areas, which were excellent attributes for encampment. Unfortunately, the mouth of the cave was wide and offered little protection from the outside world. Additionally, the flat sections of the cave were either elevated near the mouth or at the bottom of the cave. The natural formation was vaguely bowl-shaped, with several flat shelves of rock at various heights. The trail descending downwards was rocky and insufficiently level as to navigate the Inexorable's wide chassis across. As such, they had parked near the cave entrance.

Vincent descended the shelves of rock by nimbly leaping and planting his feet carefully when he landed to counteract the pull of gravity and resist toppling over. The deepest section of the cave was only a few dozen feet below ground, and featured the widest expanse of flatness. It was the ideal position for lounging.

When he approached the Inexorable's position near the cave entrance by climbing, Vincent paused momentarily, listening to the gentle acoustic and electric guitar strums of Coldplay's 'Don't Panic' emitting from the truck's sound system. He jogged to the driver's side of the vehicle and hopped up onto the shelf beneath the open door, peeking inside the cab.

"Hey, how's it comin', DJ?"

Rainbow had cleverly utilized her sensitive nose to precisely manipulate the controls of the iPod. "Harder than you made it look, but I think I got it." She glanced up from the screen she had been studying.

"Try 'Yellow' next. Coldplay's a bit too modern for me, but it's not bad."

"A'ight." Rainbow opened her mouth as if she were prepared to begin a new sentence, but hesitated, electing to remain silent.

"C'mon down when you're ready." Vincent leapt off of the shelf beneath the driver's side door and hopped onto the floor below. He gathered supplies before descending into the deepest section of the cave. Unfortunately, among towels, a plastic crate and his Kalashnikov rifle, only one could be conveniently suspended over a shoulder by its attached sling.

Within the pit at the deepest point of the cave, Vincent spread towels across the cold rock floor, set the plastic crate nearby and rested his rifle atop, assuring it was pointed in a safe direction. He sat atop one of the towels and occupied himself by rummaging through the plastic crate while waiting for Rainbow to join him and participate in the basic picnic he was arranging.

Within the crate were various foods. There was another unopened MRE package alongside the remaining tins and miscellaneous components of the MRE package he had previous ripped open. Vincent helped himself to one specific item—a generous serving of potatoes and meat.

Rainbow glided down into the pit and landed gracefully on her hooves, sitting back on her haunches atop one of the towels. She eyed the food Vincent was handling curiously, communicating non-verbally that she was starving.

Vincent tossed her a couple packages of crackers and a small tin of cheese. She happily dug into the crackers immediately, munching one before even attempting to open the tin. When she did, however, she witnessed the viscous yellow substance within and raised an eyebrow. "Is this... cheese? Urgh." She grimaced. "Your army food is so gross. It's like... rubber."

"What do you know about pony army food? Is it much better?"

"I don't know anything." Rainbow shook her head. "Equestrian military tradition is never talked about. The Wonderbolts have traditional food they can prepare for long journeys, but there hasn't been any need for that in a hundred years. They're very rarely mobilized, and never across long distances."

Rainbow plunged a cracker into the processed cheese and gulped it down. When she was finished, she cocked her head to the side in thought. "I just realized—the Wonderbolts will never need to prepare their own food. They could just purchase food from local friendly villages wherever they traveled."

"What if they were at war with one another?"

Rainbow frowned. "I don't want to think about fighting another friendly species with the Wonderbolts."

When the final Coldplay song concluded, Rainbow maintained eye contact, tossing aside the empty cracker wrapper. "C'mon, Vince. I can see you're just going through the motions today. I can see it all over your face. You think I don't know what it's like to have a day where you're acting automatically? Spill the beans."

Vincent deposited his plastic fork into the tin of diced potatoes and meat he had been eating. Determined to delay the inevitable, he gazed sidelong at his rifle resting atop the plastic crate. When Rainbow stubbornly refused to surrender and cease demanding to know what was wrong, he sighed and reluctantly began to speak. "Last night... I saw you get shot by those soldiers."

Rainbow's concerned expression advanced from mere concern to shock. "Oh... Well, it was just a dream. That didn't happen. You saved me back there. I'm here talking to you about this because of what you did." To compensate for Vincent's silence, she continued. "I know we don't always see eye to eye on stuff, but I do actually enjoy talking with you. It's nice hearing a different perspective about stuff and learning more about humans. Twilight'd say 'knowledge is power'."

Vincent sighed, glancing downwards. Recalling the horrific sights he had seen in his nightmare, he clasped his hands together and interweaved his fingers, flexing them. "Dash?"

"Yeah?"

"You're not going to leave me alone, are you?"

"I've been doing a pretty good job staying alive so far, right? I wouldn't leave you even if I weren't the Element of Loyalty." Rainbow chuckled nervously, apprehensive. "Why are you staring at me like that? Why do you have that look in your eyes?"