Dreams of Las Pegasus
From her perch in the clouds, it was obvious to Rainbow Dash that her number one fan had something weighing on her mind. Scootaloo trudged along with her head down and her hooves dragging, a makeshift sack on a stick slung over her back. The sight of the normally energetic filly in such a state worried Rainbow. She decided to see what was up, and dove leisurely off the cloud towards the youngster.
“Heya, Scoots, where you headed?”
Scootaloo glanced up at the voice to see her hero hovering just slightly overhead. “Hey, Rainbow Dash,” she piped up, the excitement in her voice not quite making it onto her face. “Nowhere, really. Just walkin’.”
“Uh huh,” Rainbow grunted, not buying it for a second. The expression, the posture, the baggage—they all indicated the same thing. “I’m guessing this is your first time running away from home, huh?”
The filly stared at her. “How the hay did you know I was running away?”
Rainbow pointed at the bindle across Scootaloo’s back. “Eh, it was just a hunch, but those things are usually a good clue.”
“Oh, yeah…” she replied sheepishly. “Are—are you gonna tell my dad?”
The older pegasus landed lightly at her side. “Well, if he asks me about you, I guess I’ll have to. But I’m not going to go out of my way to rat you out.”
Scootaloo leaped up and hugged her around the neck. “Oh, thank you! I knew you were—”
“Woah, woah,” Rainbow interrupted Scootaloo with a hoof. “ONE condition,” she said, a slight edge in her voice. “You tell me where you’re going, and you tell me what’s wrong.”
“Dang it.” Scootaloo dropped her bag with a squelch of smashed produce and slumped to her haunches.
“What, you’d really rather not tell me? Come on, what’s got you down, Scoots?”
“I just…” she began as a wave of anger washed over her face. “I can’t TAKE it anymore! I’m so sick of those stupid bullies! I HATE them!”
Rainbow jerked back at the hostility coming from the filly. “Easy there, squirt, let’s back it down a bit,” Rainbow said, trying to find a soothing tone of voice. “Silver Spoon and Diamond Tiara, right? Cheerilee said she would do something about it, didn’t it help?”
Scootaloo sighed. “She tries, but as soon as she leaves, they’re both back on my case. They never leave me alone.”
The mare nudged Scootaloo, gently urging her to get up and collect her bindle. The two began to walk down the path as they continued to chat. “What about your friends, they tease them too, right?”
“Yeah, but it’s not the same.”
“How’s that?”
Scootaloo stared into the distance, biting her lip anxiously. “It’s not just about being a blank flank. Apple Bloom doesn’t have her mark, but she still works on the farm and does a lot of stuff, like an earth pony should. Sweetie Belle doesn’t have a specific talent, but she can still do some magic, like a unicorn should. But I can’t do anything. Can’t fly, can’t do the most basic weather stuff...” Scootaloo stopped in the path facing her idol, her lip quivering just slightly. “I’m not just a failure at doing things; I’m a failure at being a pegasus! I can’t take it anymore, because they’re right!”
Rainbow remained silent for a bit. “So, you’re gonna go start over somewhere else then?”
Scootaloo nodded sadly.
“Is leaving gonna fix your problems?”
“I don’t know…” the filly admitted with a sniffle.
“Hmm. Well, where you thinking of going?” Rainbow looked down the road, trying to get her bearings. “This road goes to Fillydelphia, doesn’t it? It’s hard to tell from the ground.”
Scootaloo stared weirdly at Rainbow. “Um, aren’t you supposed to be stopping me right about now?”
Rainbow gave a chuckle and ruffled the filly’s mane. “I never told you that I ran away from home once, did I?”
Scootaloo’s jaw dropped. “No way! Why would you ever run away from anything?”
The older pegasus couldn’t help but blush slightly at that. “Well, I suppose everypony has something. This is a bit of a long story; I mean, it’s got traveling, and fights, and all sorts of stuff, but you aren’t gonna make much progress sitting on the ground listening to me talk.”
Rainbow gestured for Scootaloo to climb aboard. The filly beamed happily as she clambered up onto Rainbow’s back, bindle tucked under her tiny wing, and the two took a leisurely flight up to a small cloud. Rainbow took a deep breath as the two settled in for the directionless ride, looking at the filly who stared at her in rapt attentiveness.
“So, yeah, my story…”
Growing up in Cloudsdale was pretty sweet, all things considered, but I still had a lot of trouble with bullies when I was little. I was smaller than everypony else in my class, and even back then, I had the drive: I had to be the fastest at everything. It made me stand out, and bullies seem to gravitate to ponies like that. Every time I screwed up or lost, they’d be sure to let me know about it. “Rainbow Crash” was their favorite name for me, because, well, I really wasn’t always in control of myself. Not that it bothered me that much at the time, I mean. I was faster than all of ‘em and I knew it, so they couldn’t hurt me much—at least, not until I had a big accident at flight camp.
I just had to take another run at the Sonic Rainboom. It had been a month or two since I had done it, and I was just itching for another chance. It was the speed. It was incredible, something I’d never felt before. I had to taste it again. Looking back, I probably shouldn’t have done it at night. I definitely shouldn’t have been doing it outside of the flight camp’s airspace, but I didn’t want an audience. I snuck out of the dorms, took off, and started climbing. Nopony was around to see me, so I could just do it for myself. I didn’t really think about the fact that everypony in Cloudsdale would be woken up by a massive shockwave if I succeeded; I had other things on my mind.
Once I had gotten high enough to where my wings were starting to get cold, I dove. The wind was incredible, and the faster I went, the more dense it got. First, it was like flying through fog, then through water, then like I was pushing against a solid wall. Even if it had been daytime, I don’t think I could have seen much—the wind was making my eyes water so badly, but I just needed that much more to break through. In fact, when I saw the outline of the Cloudeseum go past my side, that was the first indication I had that I was badly off course. I tried to look ahead, and all of a sudden, there was the city.
By that point, it was much too late to slow down or avoid crashing. I knew the impact would be awful, but then I saw where I was headed, and there was a pony standing right in the way. He must have been a night janitor or something. I tried to yell, but I just couldn’t make any sound come out. I froze up and slammed right into him. I still remember the look in his eyes as he finally saw me coming. He even ended up in the hospital bed right next to mine. He wouldn’t forgive me—wouldn’t even talk to me. Not that I blame him, of course. I did kinda ruin his week by being incredibly foalish. At least I got hurt more than he did. I don’t think I could have lived it down if I hadn’t gotten the worst of it.
Anyway, the day after I got out of the hospital all the other foals in flight camp showed up in full hoofball pads and pretended they were terrified that I was going to hurt them. Most of them didn’t even know why, they just thought it was funny that they were all doing the same thing. The ringleaders knew, though.
They never tried to beat on me after that—they knew they didn’t need to. “Rainbow Crash” became a new name, one that constantly reminded me that I had gotten somepony else hurt. I tried not to let them know it got to me, but they had to know somehow, because they would always pile on when I felt worst. They could have beaten ten shades of purple into my hide and it wouldn’t have hurt more. I ran home crying more than once.
My parents were sympathetic enough, but they couldn’t really do anything about it outside of trying to encourage me. It was nice and all that, but it didn’t really help. My instructor was even more useless, because he just didn’t want to get involved at all. To top it all off, Fluttershy—my only real friend—had just moved away to Ponyville with her family. I suffered through it alone day after day after day, until I had just had enough.
I decided I was going to leave Cloudsdale. I packed my bag—just like yours, actually—and headed for the edge of the city.
I turned up that night on my own doorstep accompanied by a Royal Guardspony.
The next night, it was one of our neighbors who brought me back.
Then it was a janitor from my school.
I tried sneaking away at night and I tried in the middle of the workday. I even tried to sneak out with a Pegasus Freight wagon. Every single time somepony caught me and brought me back home with a lecture to boot.
I was cursed; I had to be. There’s no way my luck could have been that bad. Well, I knew if I was gonna get out of Cloudsdale, I would need to come up with something much more clever. So I decided that I was gonna ship myself away—but that came with its own set of challenges. I needed food and water, air would be nice, and a way to let myself out—but more than anything I had to decide where I was going.
I eventually settled on Las Pegasus. I’d heard stories about the place, and it always sounded like a dream. They said the Cloudwalk was actually paved, so non-pegasi could walk on the clouds. It was a city where you could be anypony and do anything. You could win more bits than you could count, and live like the Princesses themselves only dreamed of. It was a place of new beginnings. For a filly like me, who wanted to start over and prove herself, there was no dream sweeter.
So, I found a big crate. I think a chair had been shipped in it before, I don’t know. All I know was that it fit me, plenty of food and water, a lantern, and a bunch of comics to read, so that was good enough for me. I made some latches on the inside of the lid out of bent nails and some rope, stuck a bit of cloud inside to sleep on, and I was all set. I swiped as many bits as I could find into my saddlebag, dragged the crate outside the post office in the night, climbed in, and fell asleep…
Rainbow Dash jerked awake at a firm bump, stifling a cry of pain as she slammed her head against the wooden lid of the shipping crate. Rubbing her mane with one hoof, she reached out and shook the lantern to wake up the fireflies inside, and the interior of the crate came into focus.
The first thing she realized was that she was still in the crate. Nopony had found her as far as she could tell, so that was good. The second thing she noticed was the steady clicking noise outside. It took her several seconds to identify the noise that she had never heard before, but it could only be the sound of a train. She had made it! She was out of Cloudsdale and on a train bound for Las Pegasus! She cut her celebratory hoof-pump short as she made her last realization: she desperately needed to use the little filly’s room.
Oh crap, she thought. She hadn’t even thought about that! There wasn’t room in the crate for that, even if the situation was that critical. It would smell, and that would draw attention, and she’d be caught and not to mention she’d be all covered in—
She had to get out.
She pawed at the knots she had haphazardly tied to keep the lid shut. Oh Celestia, oh Luna, please don’t anything be on top of my crate! She pushed upwards, frantic to find the outside. The fates were with her, it seemed, because the lid gave way. It hit against something, but it was enough space that Rainbow could slide it off to the side. It turned out she was on a shelf, above the rest of the luggage piled up either side of the baggage car, right up against the roof. She struggled out, trying to wriggle between the crate and the roof of the car, banging against the wall as the train swayed back and forth. Her saddlebag kept getting caught on the crate, and her mane and tail got caught in the splintery wood, tugging painfully.
She gave a soft cry of triumph as she finally popped free, switching quickly to despair as she plummeted straight to the floor to slam against the wooden planks. Her vision swam for a moment. She shook her head, groaning slightly. There were a set of hooves in front of her. As she looked up, more and more of a very unhappy-looking earth pony with an official jacket and a ticket machine came into view. She tried to give a disarming grin as she reached back into her saddlebag, pulling out a bit.
“Uh, one please?”
Chapter 1 is dedicated to Invictus_Rising. Happy birthday, dude!
OtterCo. Story Staff:
Storycraft: Invictus_Rising
Editing: Firebirdbtops and Cheezesauce, via SALT
Art: Robert Zakes
“...filly, do you realize just how dangerous it is for you to be out on...”
Rainbow Dash sat on the floor of the train’s baggage compartment, not even listening to the dressing down she was getting from the conductor.
“...strange ponies all over the place these...”
I did it! I’m on a train! A real train! Her mind exulted in the new sensations. The floor continued its constant side-to-side sway, and the steady click-clack of the rails was an infectious rhythm.
“...one bit for a ticket, where do you think you’re going, little...”
She clutched her train ticket in her hooves like it was a gift from Celestia. I—I did it... I’m on my own— Rainbow turned to stare blankly at the conductor, suddenly noticing that he had stopped ranting and was merely staring at her expectantly. “What?”
The old pony sighed. “Whatever. Foals these days. Just don’t get into any trouble, okay?” He wandered off, muttering to himself the whole way about “fillies these days...”
Rainbow shrugged and started wandering in the opposite direction from the grumpy pony. She quickly came to a door. Hoping for a bathroom, it instead opened to show her a view she never could have imagined.
The landscape rolled on endlessly in every direction, flat and barren and fierce. The filly grabbed the safety rail, jaw slowly falling open as she took in every sensation. The heat was incredible, rolling off the ground in waves that were almost visible to the pegasus. I bet I could get lift without even flapping in this, she thought in awe. The flat-pack earth was dotted in the distance with mesas, and sprinkled with cacti and scrub brush closer in. The colors were saturated in a way they never were back home. Rainbow’s eyes almost hurt from the intense wash of brown and yellow land and glorious blue sky, completely absent of clouds. Without the rhythm of the rails and the track speeding by mere hooves under her, there would be almost no reference whatsoever that they were speeding down the line instead of standing still.
Even the mind-numbing view could only distract her for so long, however, and it wasn’t long before the unconscious dancing from hoof to hoof got Rainbow’s attention again. She galloped back into the train, finally finding an unoccupied bathroom.
Feeling much refreshed, she started heading further into the train, looking at everything. There were bench seats facing each other up the length of the car, covered in some sort of greenish fabric. She could see the odd set of stairs going up into the top of the car, presumably another level like the one she was on. Ponies of every style and color were scattered throughout the train, giving her the sporadic odd glance as she wandered from car to car with a look of pure awe stamped on her face.
Rainbow stopped short as she saw something entirely new—or rather, somepony. She stood in the aisle, staring at the strange sort of pony. Or, was it a pony? It almost looked like a pony...
The not-quite-pony was intent on his book. He flipped back and forth between pages, more and more agitated each time, before he finally set the book down on his lap and turned to glare at Rainbow.
“WHAT?” he growled.
Rainbow was so intent on figuring out what he was that she didn’t even notice his tone. “Are—are you a... donkey?” she finally asked.
He stopped, his mouth hanging open. “Uh, yeah? So?”
“Oh, nothin’,” she replied easily. “I’ve just never seen a donkey before.”
He hmmphed. “Well, you have now.” He picked his book back up as pointedly as possible.
He set it back down with a frustrated sigh as Rainbow clambered up into the bench opposite him, a gleeful grin on her face. His expression softened as he watched the filly practically bouncing on her seat, staring out the window.
“First time on a train, kid?”
She nodded emphatically while trying to figure out what the pull handle near the window did. “Yup! I’ve never even seen a train before today. We don’t have trains in Cloudsdale.”
“Uh, don’t touch that.” He rubbed the back of his head with a hoof. “Hey, don’t you think you should get back to your parents before they wonder where you ran off to?”
The filly stopped bouncing.
“Oh,” she started. “They’re not on the train. I’m here by myself.”
He arched an eyebrow at her. “What kind of parents send their foal from Cloudsdale to Las Pegasus on their own?”
The filly stopped grinning.
“Um...” she hesitated. “They, uh, they don’t really know I’m here. I sorta ran away.”
“You ran away? From home? What in Equestria for?”
Rainbow sat down on the seat and turned away from the outside view. “Well, I just—um, I dunno. I guess I just felt like I was being kept down and nopony seemed to want to help. So I wanted to find a place where I could do it myself.”
He leaned back against the bench, looking the filly over. “So, why Las Pegasus?”
“They say it’s where the best go. The best cloud sculptors and weather pegasi, the best performers, the best athletes, the best everything. So, that’s where I want to be, because I’m gonna be the best flyer in Equestria someday.” Rainbow puffed her chest out confidently, earning a chuckle from her companion.
“Heh, I like your style, kid. Name’s Cranky. Cranky Doodle Donkey,” he said, extending a hoof towards the pony.
“Rainbow Dash,” she replied, clacking her hoof against his. The two remained silent for several minutes, until Rainbow began to lose interest in the unchanging scenery outside. “Soooo, how long is it until we get there?”
Cranky gave her an irritated look. “You’re not going to start asking that every ten minutes, are you?”
“No.”
“Well then, it’ll be at least another 5 hours. So get comfy.”
“Jeez, I didn’t know it was that far,” she said, deflating. “Oh, hey!” she said, perking back up, having found a topic of conversation. “What are you going to Las Pegasus for?”
The donkey stiffened noticeably. “Eh, I’m just traveling.”
“Oh, that’s cool. You do it a lot?”
His sigh seemed almost wistful. “Yeah, more than I’d like sometimes.”
The pair passed superficial conversation back and forth for a while, but comfortable topics soon ran out. Rainbow wandered back to her crate and managed to dig out her comics, but those only lasted until nightfall. The brilliant sunset did give her something else to stare at, but with about an hour to go left in the journey, Rainbow found that she was quite bored. It was dark, and quite a few ponies had wandered off to sleeper cars, or just propped themselves up against their packs on the benches and dozed off.
The donkey seated across from Rainbow was still engrossed in his book, leaving her with nothing to do but sit and think. Cranky’s off-hoof comment wouldn’t leave her alone.
Don’t you think you should get back to your parents before they wonder where you ran off to?
She hadn’t even left a note. She hadn’t even thought of a note at the time she was planning her escape.
That was part of it, right? she thought, a bit anxiously. I mean, if they had found it, somepony might have stopped me before I made it to the train. Again.
It was a sound, logical analysis that completely failed to make the filly feel any better. Her parents were probably panicking, or heartbroken, or more likely both. She’d been gone for an entire day by this point.
Should I send them a letter? Would it help? If she told her parents where she was, they would almost certainly come looking for her. I can’t get carted off back to Cloudsdale before I’ve had a chance to even train, much less have a shot at proving how good I can be! Rainbow felt a sinking feeling in her stomach as she realized she couldn’t win, no matter what she did.
Her dreams warred inside her head with her family. Rainbow gritted her teeth in frustration as she tried to decide if she should go through with her plan or just stay on the train as it went back the other way, when she was interrupted by a tap on the shoulder.
“Hey, kid,” Cranky said, pointing out the window. “Now there’s a sight for you to see.”
Rainbow followed his hoof, and her jaw dropped. She pulled herself up to press her face against the window as Las Pegasus came into view around a hilltop.
The city glowed like Celestia’s sun—a gem of pure light in the dark desert air. As the speeding train drew nearer, more and more features came into view. There were two cities stacked, one on top of the other. The lower city had tall buildings, but the light coming from it was muted and overblown by the mesmerizing display of the upper city. The famous Cloudwalk of Las Pegasus was just visible. Indistinct blobs of ponies and carts and crowds flowed along the solid, cloud-banked surface between enormous and decadent buildings. The sections of the city hung like a blanket over the desert floor, with stunningly built solid bridges joining the major cloudbanks together.
The train slowed as it drew into the Las Pegasus station, the conductor wandering through the cars calling out to rouse passengers who needed to get off. Rainbow rushed to gather up her belongings and get them back into her crate. She trotted up again, standing by a doorway, bouncing eagerly from hoof to hoof. With a final lurch and a burst of steam, the train came to a halt.
The door slid open, and Rainbow burst out onto the platform, trying to stare everywhere at once. Rainbow’s jaw fell a little further open at every new detail that came into view. The crowds were massive. The ponies were dressed extravagantly. There wasn’t a single piece of the entire Cloudwalk that wasn’t covered in lights or simply shining like a diamond in the sky. Even the stones of the road surfaces were polished, almost to the point where she could see her own form in them. A small fleet of luxurious coaches stood by, waiting to ferry the passengers up the winding stone path to the Cloudwalk.
Rainbow waited on the platform until her crate was unloaded, shivering slightly. The air was already surprisingly cold, even with the barest hints of wind as the desert released its heat into the night. The filly sat, trying to figure out her next move. I guess I need someplace to stay first. Maybe I can rent a room somewhere.
Tugging her crate awkwardly along behind her, she made her way over to one of the coach-ponies. He tugged his driver’s cap down on his brow and stared at her.
Rainbow straightened up and tried to look like she knew what she was doing. “Um, hi,” she began. “I need to go to a hotel. Can you take me?”
The pony kept his face impassive as he looked her over. “Any one in particular?”
“I—don’t think so.”
The driver sighed. “Is somepony meeting you on the Cloudwalk?”
Rainbow began to sweat. “Uhhh... No?”
“Look, little filly,” said the chauffeur. “I seriously doubt you’ve got enough bits for anyplace up top. You should probably look into a place down in the Undercity. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” He trotted off to intercept a couple just getting off the train, and they climbed aboard his coach, chatting animatedly.
Rainbow huffed and looked around, until she saw a promising sight. “Hey, Cranky!” she called out, tugging her crate back the way she had come before.
Cranky looked up from giving the driver of a nondescript wagon a hooffull of bits. “What, kid?”
“Are you going to the, um, Undercity?” she asked, taking note of the wagon’s much less fancy appearance.
“Yeah.”
“Can—can I hitch a ride with you?”
Cranky sighed. “Yeah, sure. Climb on.”
The driver was nice enough to help Rainbow get her mostly empty crate onto the wagon, and the three began the descent off the platform and into the heart of Las Pegasus.
Rainbow Dash forced a smile onto her face. Sure, things had hit a bit of a bump, but she would manage. Once she had a place to stay, then all she had to do was worry about being the best darn flyer in Equestria.
“How many bits?
“It’s seventy bits, young filly.”
Rainbow stared in disbelief at the desk clerk.
“Per night,” he amended.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me!” she protested, feeling all optimism beginning to drain out of her.
“Look,” the irritated stallion began, “we’re pretty much the cheapest place in the Undercity. If you can’t afford a room here, then you’re just out of luck. Now get out before you start bothering our actual customers.”
The filly walked out the front door, not really paying attention to anything around her. She couldn’t afford a room, and the difference between what she had and what she needed was quite a lot. She dropped the rope to her crate and slumped against the side of the building. Was this really the end, and so soon? Was her dream really that far out of reach? It had only been one day and she was already on the street without a place to stay.
Just survive until tomorrow, she told herself. How often had she tried to do that back home, to just make it until the next day without breaking down?
Disappointed, cold, and alone, Rainbow drug the crate over to a nearby corner. She flipped it onto its side and huddled inside, just hoping to get through the night.
Things will turn out better tomorrow, I know it, she thought dismally. They’ve gotta...
Rainbow tucked herself into the box, laid her head on her hooves, and drifted into an uneasy sleep.