What do you see?

What do you see?-by derpyhooves15

"Hello. Miss Rainbow Dash?"

Rainbow looked around the room she had entered. It was nothing special. 4 beige walls topped with a blue ceiling and a floor covered in a worn blue carpet. There was a chair in the middle of the room, again, it did not strike Rainbow as anything special, but different to what she expected. It was not a fainting couch, but a simple hard backed dinning chair, totally plain down to the varnished hickory and the brown seat cushion. Besides this lone chair, the room was devoid of any other furniture that she would have expected at a psychiatrist's office. More notably, it was devoid of a psychiatrist. Instead, the voice came from a grate, embedded into the wall opposite from the chair.

"This is the office, right? It's not-"

"What you expected? Yes this is the office, and it won't be what you expected because we, we are not taking part in the moving pictures."

The voice came through the grate again, clearly from a stallion. The tone was neutral even to the point where it could be considered monotone. Not a shred of emotion was shown.

"Instead of standing there looking confused, you could take a seat. Maybe then I can explain a few things to you that will help us on our way."

Rainbow Dash moved a few steps from the doorway towards the chair, but stopped to watch the door swing shut behind her, closing without a sound putting her in a state of total physical isolation. She continued onto the chair and leaned onto the slats of the back. Once again the voice came out of the grate in a tone which showed no emotion.

"You can call me Doc. No, that isn't my name, but you asked for total confidentiality. Therefore, I am not your enemy, your friend or even your psychiatrist until the end of the session when i will provide you with my thesis, on you. I am just Doc. Something to talk to that will not exist outside this room. Is that acceptable."

Rainbow gave a simple nod in response.

"Good. In this session anything is open for discussion and we are not limited by time. Anything you do not want to say will not be forced out of you, but I suggest, for your future benefit, that you hold nothing back be it painful, embarrassing or illegal. From your earlier actions I can see that this room is not what you had in mind when you thought of a psychiatrist's office. This is because I want you to be you. No ornaments to distract you, no ponies to affect you. Now, Miss Dash, we will begin the session. What would you like to discuss."

"Okay, Rainbow Dash, this is it. This is it. This is it. Now. Talk!"

"Errrr...."

"Talk you stuck up prismatic bitch! You've gotten yourself this one chance to sort out your past. So talk!

"I guess, I'm hear to talk about my past more than anything, Doc. My life at the moment is fine, if not perfect for me. I have 5 amazing friends, a steady job and nothing to hold my back or tie me down. But before that was bad, like, real bad. It's all started weighing on me now. I don't want my friends to know what I've been through if they're going to see me differently because of it. So I need to tell somepony about it. So I came here."

Rainbow took a moment to think of what she was doing. It already hurt to admit that her life was never anything compared to what she has now.

"Ah boo-hoo, get to it Dash!"

"Um, I don't have a clue where to start."

There was a few seconds pause in which the sound of a pencil scratching on paper came from the grate.

"Your parents. Who were they and what were they like."

"wow, shit, right in the deep end, ey?"

"It's parent in my case, Doc. My mum. And what was she like? She's the reason I will never have foals, it would remind me of her!"

Manehattan. A utopia nicknamed the the "City of Dreams" by Equestria Today and claimed to be "The thriving epicenter of pony culture" by the Princess herself. Rainbow saw none of this. The filly trudged home through the grime of the lower suburbs, praying that her journey from school would go without being brutally beaten or raped in an alleyway. She wore an old cloak, now more reminiscent of rags, to hide her namesake mane from view. The bright colours contrasted with the grimy bricks and littered paving stones perfectly. Making her the perfect target. Ponies walked around paying no heed to the 6 year old Rainbow Dash.

"Oi! Slut Spawn! your mum working today?"

She ignored the jibe. The cloak was as much to hide herself from the people who knew her as it was to hide from the common criminals. Emotion was something she had quickly learned not to show and she continued onward. Her house came into view. It could be mistaken for any other house in the area. Grotty windows, soot covered bricks, cracked masonry and a peeling door. The one difference was the price board outside, advertising her Mums rates for the "Stress Relief" service she offered to any stallion who had the cash. Rainbow climbed the steps and slipped through the door.

The hallway was no different to the outside in the level of upkeep applied. Cracked plaster and broken floor boards. A low bench ran along one wall and several stallions were sat on it reading smutty magazines and checking they had enough bits for the "service" that was supplied. The place smelt of damp and musk, making Rainbow cringe back against the now closed front door. She had vowed to herself that she would never let herself get used to the smell of poverty and cheap prostitution. She knew that the day she came tolerant of it, was the day that she had been broken. Primal moans and grunts rang through the house and Rainbow made a move to cover her ears with her wings, wafting a note off of a table in the process.

She read it.

Rainbow Dash

I'm on the job tonight. Interrupt me and I will throw you down the stairs. Again. Do not interfere with my customers. There might be some food in the fridge, if not there are some apples in a bag by the bin. Feed your little sister and put her bed. If she starts to cry, shut her up! Don't stay up, your doing the shopping in the morning.

Mum

"Wow, she didn't order you to clean up between her sessions tonight. Your really looking up in the world Dash!"

Rainbow made a swift exit through the doorway labeled private which lead to their home itself. She climbed the stairs and came into the "living" room, a squalid space with a torn sofa and broken radio. Her cloak slid of her back as she undid the clasp. Despite the general clutter of the living space, Rainbow had made a habit of hanging up her cloak behind the door. She had seen that in the one moving picture she had seen, after she had begged enough bits. The Mare who was being serenaded by a handsome stallion would walk into her luxury house and hang her red velvet cloak on the back of the door. she would do it every time she entered. When Rainbow Dash did it, it helped her distance herself from her squalid life.

Once rainbows cloak was removed, she took a look at herself in the mirror (another quirk she had picked up from the moving picture). As always, a sorry sight stared back at her. Sunken eyes, faded coat, matted mane, spindly legs, festering tail, rotting hoofs, molting feathers, loose skin and showing ribs. A picture of death.

"A picture of you, Rainbow Dash!"

"shutup"

She mumbled this under her breath.

"Little Sis? Where you at?"

She called out into the house and headed towards their shared bedroom. Pushing open the door, she laid eyes on the target of her calls. Her cruelly unnamed earth pony sister, yet more proof to Rainbow Dash that her mum didn't care. She couldn't be assed to even name her second child. She lay asleep on her mattress, a ragged blanket laying across her. Clutched to her chest was her favourite doll. Her only possession. And it was made by Rainbow Dash out of an old scarfs. Like Rainbow, the filly was malnourished and a sickly sight, only worsened by being 2 years younger than Dash and subsequently, much smaller. On the floor was a small amount of blood filled sick. Not an unusual sign.

"Hey, Little Sis. Wake up now."

Rainbow gently rocked the filly's shoulder back and forth. Her eyes fluttered open at the sound of Rainbows raspy voice.

"You okay now?"

Rainbow motioned to the smattering of sick and waited for an answer. The answer came in the form of tears and two frail forelegs wrapping around her neck. Rainbow Dash returned the hug with earnest.

"hey, hey, hush up now. I'm here, I've got you."

The filly buried her muzzle deeper into the stained fur of Rainbow's chest. Between the quite sobs came small coughs and strained intakes of air. 3 months ago Dash heard the same sounds and had seen the same sick for the first time. For days she had screamed at her mum to take the filly to the doctors, but of course, the request was denied and Rainbow was left with a cracked hoof and twin black eyes. It became normal to come home and cradle her sister in her hoofs from that point.

"You eaten yet?"

"y-yeh. An apple and some of the bread."

"Okay. Did you take the medicine?"

The medicine in question was a lucky find for Dash. She had pulled it from the skip behind an old chemists. It wasn't the right medicine entirely, but it had offered her sister some relief from her ailment.

"I'm out Rainbow Dash. The medicines all gone now. Do you know if you can get more?"

"Shit!"

Rainbow screamed out. She knew that she would not find more without actually buying some, but finding the bits would be even harder. Her sister flinched and buried her head into Rainbows neck at the shout.

"Oh ho ho, and you thought your mum was a failure little Dash. Look who's got the only thing they love dying in their hoofs. You! Ha ha ha, It's you! Isn't that funny"

"Shut up! Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up!"

"Rainbow!?"

The younger filly pushed of her shrieking sister and back onto the mattress before hiding under the blanket with the doll clutched to her heaving chest. After a few moments, both fillies calmed.

"I'm sorry, Little Sis. I wan't shouting at you. I was...just shouting, okay? I'm sorry."

"Will I be alright without the medicine? You can't get more can you?"

"No, no, I can't get more. But you'll be alright, because I'm here, and as long as I'm here, nothing will hurt you or take you from me."

"Rainbow?"

"Yeh?"

"Is that true?"

"As true as it gets, Little Sis."

Her sister spent a second in thought, and several seconds coughing.

"I believe you, Big Sis."

"And what happened then?"

Despite the stoic expression she portrayed throughout her recap of event, the Doc's words envoked a response. Rainbow brought her hind knees to her chest and lent forward in the chair.

"I don't want to say."

If anypony were to take a closer look at Rainbow's eyes, they would undoubtedly see the film of moisture that threatened to spill over the lower eyelid.

"Go on, Miss Dash. I can help you if you tell me. Don't lock up now, you've been doing well so far."

"No pony can help you. Your a lost cause Rainbow Dash."

"You can't help me."

Rainbow curled into herself ever more, until her legs were painfully strained in a tense ball.

"Why is that?"

"Because for the next few days she got worse, my Little Sis. Every night I would comfort her in her bed and we would fall asleep. Every morning I would wake up to her retching and writhing. There was more and more blood each day. Then o-one day. O-one day, Gahhh!"

By this point the film of moisture had formed full blown tears which slid down the mares cyan fur and dripped onto the carpet. Rainbow screamed in anguish once more before she found the words.

"Then one fucking day, I didn't wake up to anything! Nothing at all! She was dead. Its as simple as that!"

"Yes, do you remember the details though. She was clinging to you instead of her beloved doll. There was salt on her face where she had cried quietly to herself and the tears had dried to her coat. Her eyes were staring straight into yours, completely unfocused. She was stiff and cold, in your moment of fear and panic you snapped one of her forelegs as you tried to get away from her corpse. You wailed, because it was your fault. You couldn't save her, but anypony else could of. It was your fault Rainbow Dash!"

"Then mum came in."

Rainbow spat into the air as if the very name was bitter on her tongue. She let her hind legs uncurl from her body, instead, she flared her wings and snarled at the grate. Searing hot tears flowed across her face, not in remorse, in anger!

"That's why you can't fucking help me! Because I screamed and cried, but just watched! Mum looked at my Sister, her own daughter. She just snorted! Before I knew it she had used her mouth to pick up my sister by the scruff of her neck. All I could do was watch as her stiff body swung from my mothers mouth. Then do you you know what she did? Do you know what the bitch did!"

She screamed into the grate and pushed her muzzle into it. The thin pieces of wire bent and shifted under the force. She screamed again, smashing her hoof into the wall with vigour until her leg was numb and her hoof chipped. Spent of her energy, the distraught mare stumbled back into her chair and cradled her numbed leg. She let out a dejected sigh.

"Do you know what she did? She put my sister in a bin liner. She didn't care. She just stuffed her in and tied the bag off. The bag was dropped on the floor and then she spoke to me. I had stopped crying by then and could only stare at the bag, completely emotionless. Why? I had lost my sister but all I did was stare at the black bag that held her. My mum told me to take the bag outside to the bins, she told me she had to get back to work."

The room hung in silence for a moment, before rainbow let out a single pain filled sob.

"And do you know what? I did, Doc. I did."

It was a visage of a broken mare sat upon the chair. Her cheeks glistened with fresh tears and her limbs hung limp. She was staring into nothingness, completely separated from her surroundings. Even her breathing seemed to have stopped, only the faint whistling coming from her nose suggested otherwise. Minutes passed in a thick silence before Doc spoke up.

"However obvious it may seem, I need you to think for me about how this made you feel."

"You felt like the piece of shit you were. The piece of shit you still are."

"I don't really know Doc. I felt sad of course. I also felt angry. Pure unrefined anger. Heck, I even found myself stood in my mums doorway, holding a knife in my jaw and tears running down my face."

"Did you!?"

Rainbow caught onto the panic in the Doc's voice, mostly because it was the first time he had shown emotion throughout the session.

"What? Oh, no. Celestia no! I might have been angry Doc, but I wasn't a killer..."

Rainbow stared forwards into the wall, looking beyond. Her eyes seemed sunken and shadowed, her rosy irises looking closer to blood red in the light.

"No Doc, I wasn't a killer. I wasn't a killer at that age. When I was 16 I went-"

"Wait!"

Rainbow was startled at the rebuke from behind the grate but it did little to bring her out of that dark demeanor she had entered. She growled, with venom in her voice.

"What. This is important!"

"I'm sorry Miss Dash, but I think this is a bit of a jump forward. Surely there were other important events which happened between the ages of 6 and 16? That's 10 years Miss Dash. I can't believe nothing important happened."

A moments silence.

"That's the thing Doc. Nothing did happen. After my sister died I went back to my regular routine, albeit I was better fed."

"I suppose your sisters death was good thing to you Dash. More food. Is that how you see it you heartless cunt"

"One year I got a brief chance of a different life. I convinced my mum to send me to summer flight camp. I nearly made friend by defending another filly. I'm friends with her now, but that didn't happen until I was 26. No, I knocked her of a cloud shortly after defending her and she fell to the ground. She was a weak flyer, she could have died. After I knocked her off, I got my cutie mark by going fast enough to break the barrier of the spectrum, a sonic rainboom. You might think this Important Doc, but afterwards I got kicked out for breaking the rules, putting others at risk and destruction of property. I never saw that filly again until I was 26."

"Okay. If you really don't see that as Important that's fine. If I remember correctly you can only go to summer flight camp when your 10 or over. If you got kicked out on your first camp, that still leaves 6 years unaccounted for."

"Good. I came home, I went back to my routine for 2 years before my mum put me to work. I followed in her hoof steps. I choose not to remember those years and I don't want to try to remember them!"

"792 Stallions, 136 Mares, 3 STI's and 2 failed pregnancies. That a good enough recap for you Rainbow Dash! And all starting from the age of 12. You really are a disgusting whore 'Miss Dash'."

"Okay, Miss Dash-"

Rainbow Cringed at the name

"-I think it's good that you don't remember those years, and I won't force anything out you."

"Lying as always, she remembers those years Doc!"

"So when you were 16..."

The venom re-entered her voice, and the anger, her eyes.

"When I was 16 I went and joined the guard. Do you know what major military event happened 12 years ago, Doc?"

"Would it be-"

"The Griffon wars? Yes."

Water lapped at Rainbows fetlocks as she looked along the putrid trench. Mares and Stallions alike were crowded between the walls, their rusting armour grinding against each others as they moved to their pre-designated positions. Spears were propped along the walls, most of the tips crusted in a film of dried blood, some gleaming and dripping with...Rainbow shuddered at the sight. Her own spear stood at her side, tip clean and gleaming. Her armour showed no blemishes or taints unlike her fellow soldiers. She was fresh. Fresh meat.

"1 minute!"

The sector warden's gravelly voice screeched over the clamor hooves and metal, then fear fell like a cloak. Ponies reached and clutched at their spears. Ponies took positions at mounted crossbows. Ponies snapped on chest plates and donned helmets. Yes, fear fell like a cloak, but only for a pony with a prismatic mane. She trembled in her armour and shrank back into the wall, pinning a spear into the mud, much to the annoyance of the stallion who was reaching for it.

"Hey! Shift it kid!"

He did a double take.

"Kid? How old are you?"

Rainbow looked to his face. He looked concerned.

"S-s-s-sixteen sir. Why s-s-sir?"

"First of kid, I'm a private, same as you. There aint no need for 'sir' with me. Secondly, I'm interested because your shit'in your self and you don't look old enough to be out'a diapers!"

Rainbow could understand this. She had a relatively small body for her age, made all the worse by the armour, which was a few sizes to big. She had stopped it from moving around so much by stuffing a blanket under neath it, but her helmet still sat on her head as a saucepan would sit on the head of a foal. She averted her gaze, a hint of a red tinge working its way onto her cheeks.

"Hey, no need to get all embarrassed. Don't take what I said to heart, you're just a might young for the trenches in my view. On this stretch of the line, the closest pony to your age is 19."

"O-o-okay."

She looked back to the stallion. He wore a goofy, but comforting smile on his face underneath his scratched and battered helmet. He gestured over the wall of the trench.

"Don't worry about the charge. If you stick by me, or anypony else for that matter, you'll be fine. These Griffon bastards go down easily. They're to big to avoid our spears and arrows and they can't fly away due to the scorched sky!"

As if to answer the statement, the magically charged clouds hanging above the battlefields sparked with thunderous arcane energy. Purple lightning arced across the blackened sky and a scream followed by a dull thud could be heard from over the trench wall.

"See what I-"

A shrill whistle blasted from all directions.

"Go over! Go over! Teach those bastards a lesson!"

As the sector warden roared his orders, the trench exploded in a flurry of activity. Ponies leaped up the trench wall and scrambled onto the dirt on. A great cry of moral rung through he air and hoofs thundered across no ponies land.

"Cm'on Kid!"

The stallion gripped his spear in his mouth by the handle sticking perpendicular from the shaft and joined the other ponies starting the charge.

"Go on you worthless runt, go kill other creatures. Heck, It'll be easier this time Dash, you don't love them like you did your sister!"

Rainbow screamed and leaped over the top. The earth was churned up by her hooves and her spear swung menacingly from her mouth. In front of her, other ponies barreled ahead and jumped over coils of Razor wire. The enemy trench could be seen as a dark blotch of spikes and flags across the no mans land. Rainbow muttered to herself as she ran.

"150 meters to go dash!"

The first ponies reached the trench and dived into it, spear first

"100 meters!"

Bird like screeches and Pony like howls emitted from from the battle ahead.

"50 meters!"

"What the fuck is that!?"

As a pony hollered behind her, a continuous strobe of flashes came from the Griffon trench and an explosive rattle tore through the air, even over the noise of fighting. Ponies ahead of her were wiped back with force and spurts of blood came from their tumbling bodies. Searing pain bit into Rainbow's flank and she tumbled forwards into the mud.

"Aaaaaaaaaah! Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!"

She screamed at the top of her lungs as she pressed a hoof to the profusely bleeding wound. Glowing projectiles flew overhead and more screams clawed at Rainbow's ears.

"Kid!"

Rainbow Dash could feel herself being dragged sideways, but she payed the motion no heed. The pain in her right flank received a similar shunning. Her eyes were focused on the scene in front of her as hot tears ran down her face. Bodies and limbs lay scattered in the mud. The mud which was quickly turning a deep red. In the distance she could make out the repeated flashes from the Griffon trench, but the only sound she heard was a constant ringing. Griffons were clambering out  of the trench in the distance, strange combinations of metal and wood clutched in their armoured talons. As she was dragged sideways her view panned across the body of a mare. She was starring back at rainbow. She was shouting and screaming to Rainbow and whoever was dragging her as she lay incapacitated in a rapidly growing pool of her own bodily fluids. Rainbow opened her mouth to shout back only to leave it hanging open wordlessly as the mares skull shattered outwards, shredding her face asunder and coating Rainbow in a layer of crimson fluid. She tasted the copper in her mouth and gagged instinctively, adding her vomit to the rapidly changing battlefield. With a final heave, she rolled sideways, taking up residence with her savior in a abandoned foxhole. As to strong hoofs grasped at her tumbling body, she slipped into blackness.

Rainbow Dash awoke to the sublime feeling of water lapping at her hoofs and the horrific shrieks of pain and anguish coursing through the air. As her eyelids fluttered open lazily, the scenes of the previous...she realized quickly that she had no conceivable ideas or what time it was, or date even. She looked up towards the blackened sky. From the levels of light filtering through the clouds, she could safely assume the time. Sunset. Panic clawed at her mind. Being caught out of the trenches at night was near suicide. The hawk like eyes of the Griffons would spot her within seconds, but a pony could look straight at her and miss her, despite her vivid colours.

"Don't worry about none of that for now."

The familiar voice snapped her out of her scouring of the skies. Lying next to her was the stallion from the trench and now, he was presumably the stallion who had saved her. He lay against the embankments of the deep foxhole, stripped of his armour and cradling his spear in the crook of his foreleg.

"And you can give your thanks to me for patching up that wound."

"What..."

Rainbow ran a hoof down her barrel and felt towards her flank. As she drew near to her cutie mark, she felt the edge of a haphazardly placed field dressing. In a state of frantic panic she twisted her body to get a better view only to whimper when a previously unnoticed pain seared through her right flank. Then she noticed the blood. Smeared down her rear leg was a smattering of semi-clotted blood, glistening in the faint light that spilled over the edge of the pit. Her hoofs rubbed frantically at the stain, doing nothing more than spreading the crimson liquid deeper into her fur.

"Get it off. Please, get it off. Get it off me now! Fucking get it-"

She was silenced as a pair of hoofs were pushed into her shoulders, pinning her down, and a pair of lips were pressed against hers. After a few seconds, the stallion pulled away.  Rainbow fell limp against the mud, her mouth still frozen into the image of a kissing mare. It dawned on her what had just happened, she had been kissed.

"W-w-w-what?"

The stallion looked into her eyes, then smirked as he pulled away from her. He shifted and took up position opposite her on the other side of the foxhole.

"It doesn't mean what you think it does. I hardly know you, and don't get me wrong at all, you're pretty, but a tad young for my liking. It was a stalling technique. Works for all mares. If they're struggling, push your lips against theirs. They'll freeze up and will stop whatever they're doing. Sorry about it, but you need to shut up. If we don't keep quite we'll be jumped by the Griffons. That's why the armours gone to, makes to much of a racket when you move."

Rainbow stared back in silence for a few seconds before a powerful blush spread across her cheeks

"Yeh, w-w-well, try that again b-buddy and I'll slice you."

She tried her best to look threatening as she stared at the stallion. He stared back at her with an equally threatening look. They broke into giggles. After a few solid minutes of carefully muffled snickering, the stallion spoke again.

"Yes, well, you wouldn't be the first to try Miss...?"

The stallion beckoned with his hoof, bringing forth an answer.

"Miss whore/slut/worthless-bitch/sister-slayer oh kind sir."

"Miss Dash. Rainbow Dash."

He smiled kindly to her. A smile which Rainbow would have expected from a father to a child, despite the kiss he had placed upon her.

"What a beautiful name, Rainbow Dash. Everyone round here calls me 'Uncle', you can call me that, but for a more personal level, my name is-"

He was silenced by a hooked beak tearing his throat from his neck.

"No!"

The fear at the sight flared up then boiled down, leaving only unrefined anger surging through Rainbows blood and swarming through  her mind. The Griffon looked up from the prey it had leaped onto. Flesh hung lazily from the blood stained beak and the tail flicked angrily back and forth. The Griffon dropped it's latest meal to the ground and rounded on Rainbow Dash. With a desperate lunge, Rainbow brought her spear into her mouth and brought the tip to press against the beast's throat.

"How dare you."

The fire of anger in the Griffons eyes went out as Rainbow spoke around the handle in her mouth. As the it back stepped, Rainbow advanced, keeping the spears point at the Griffon's quivering throat until it was pinned against the steep embankment of the once foxhole, now grave.

"How fucking dare you."

Despite the fear, panic, happiness and emotional, not to mention physical, pain that Rainbow had felt earlier, remorseless anger only took presence in her mind, driving her to push the spear a little harder. Beads of crimson formed around the tip and hung on the downy feathers of the predators, now turned prey, throat.

"Please. Don't."

"Don't what? Kill you? Why the fuck not, you killed my friend. You killed him before he could tell me his name!"

"I-I-I have a sister out here. D-don't make her be alone."

"Oh, Rainbow, she has a sister, you should spare her. You've got so much in common. Oh...wait...never mind."

All rational thinking and pity was cleansed from Rainbow by the flare of solar magnitude which seized her. Venom was laced through her voice and practically dripped onto her words.

"I. Had. A. Sister!"

The spear was pushed forwards with agonizing slowness. Rainbow watched as the Griffon writhed and clutched at the point slowly sinking through her gullet. Rainbow Dash could feel the Griffon's rapid heart beat through the dense hardwood of the spear shaft. She could feel it as the creature dying by her doing, at her spear point, screeched in anguish. Even while the beast died, Rainbow spoke, sorrow slipping through the web of anger.

"I lost her. I made a friend. I had to leave her. I had a job. It destroyed my soul. I went to war. I though I was going to die. Then I made a new friend."

With a sickening crack, the spear was driven through the Griffons spine and the creature fell dead, pinned to the earth by the point which killed it.

"And you killed him!"

A lone tear pooled at the corner of Rainbow's eye.

"Then I killed you."

It ran down her face and dripped onto the ground.

"And I'm sorry."

The tear dripped of her face onto the carpet.

"I was sorry for her."

Rainbow Dash looked up from the carpet and fixed her eyes on the grate. Tears flowed in a steady stream now, soaking her already damp cheeks and leaving Rainbow feeling empty of any emotion except for her past sorrow.

"I was sorry for her. I had killed her. Taken her life from her and killing someones daughter and someones sister. I should have let her kill me. I was worthless at that point. An injured pony with no family at the bottom of a hole."

"To right!"

The silence in the room hung thick for what could have been seconds, minutes, hours or days for Rainbow. She no longer cared about what was now, only what was then. When Doc spoke up, his voice was filled with concern, yet blanketed in comfort.

"Miss Dash? When you speak of this 'voice', who does it sound like?"

"M-me. It sounds like me when I was a filly. Back when I didn't care about the world around me and... didn't have to live up to expectations."

Again, a heavy silence came over the room only broken by the occasional scratch of a pencil on paper from behind the grate.

"Miss Dash?"

Rainbow stopped studying the finer details of her hoofs and looked back to the Grate.

"I wan't you to go on with your story."

"But why did you ask about-"

"Never mind. I will get to that when you've finished. Now, what happened next Miss Dash? Were you rescued?"

The words seemed to sting Rainbow for a heartbeat, but then she slipped back into the sorrow of before. However, when she came to think of the events of that day and what happened after she had taken that life, she couldn't help but give a smile, albeit slight.

"No. I met that Griffons sister. Her little sister."

"Okay. So you killed her as well. I can underst-"

"Shut it! Your wrong there. I became friends with her."

Despite her elation at still being alive after her encounter with the Griffon, and her sorrow that stemmed from the same confrontation, panic was quickly taking hold. Night had quickly taken hold over no pony's land and that meant she was trapped. Rainbow could not make it back on her own. The hawkish eyes of the enemy would pick her out like a white rose against red poppies. She would have to wait in the foxhole until Equestria made another assault on the Griffons, only then could she use the attack as cover to escape back to her own lines.

"But they won't attack."

In the prevailing silence of the muddy pit, Rainbow found herself talking to the air, like a mad pony. Yet she spoke the truth. The night made all chances of attack impossible, ponies were just to damn blind in the starless night. Daybreak offered little hope either. With the number of personal and the amounts of equipment lost when the fire had flashed from the Griffon trench made it questionable if Equestria could even hold off an attack, let alone stage a counter offensive. As she shifted to find comfort under her ratty blanket, the full weight of the situation struck home.

"You're fucked Rainbow Dash."

"I'm practically dead already."

In her frenzied lunge for her spear earlier, Rainbow had torn the small wound in her flank into a sizable gash. The field dressing, bloodied and frayed, swirled silently in a puddle of water and blood at the bottom of the foxhole. Much to her disgust and dismay, she had convinced herself to search the bodies of 'Uncle' and the Griffon. She came up poor. A pack of blood for the wrong species from the Griffon and ration packet of hay from 'Uncle'. The hay had been satisfying to her, but the wound continued to seep thin trails of blood. Despite the slowing rate of blood loss due to clotting, she had already lost much. Nearly to much.

"An hour if I don't stop the bleeding, a day before everything else gets to me, right?"

Rainbow again scanned the foxhole for something of use. She had considered her blanket, but the dirt would lead to infection and besides, what's the point in stopping the flow if she's going to freeze to death after? The field dressing was completely beyond redemption. Her own mane had even become an option to her at one point, but that idea was quickly abandoned. Her eyes fell onto the body of the Griffon, still pinned by the spear stuck through her neck and into the earth. Rainbow looked at where the shaft of the weapon entered into the Griffon. The blood was soaked into the feathers in a concise red blotch against the downy white.

"No..."

Rainbow twisted away from the limp body only to flinch as pain burned from her flank and she felt more warm liquid trickle down from the stressed gash.

"I wouldn't Rainbow Dash. But knowing your reckless abandonment for life, you would!"

She cursed at her self under her breath.

"I don't defile bodies, no matter who they are!"

"Sit here and fade away then! You won't be missed."

"Quite gladly."

Rainbow wrapped herself tighter into the blanket. She muttered her prayers and stared into the mud as blackness enveloped her.

"Celestia, I beg of you to take pity on my sin filled soul. Look back on what I have done and judge me. I...I-I Rainbow...Rainbow Dash await your guidance into the s-summer lands, or into tartarus."

She inhaled what she thought to be her last breath and relished in the smell of the earth beneath her and the smell of the ozone from the 'scorched sky'.

"I'm coming Little Sis."

Blackness ensued.

A firm slap across Rainbows face brought her reeling back to the real world.

"Wake up kid!"

"Uncle?"

She sat upright shakily and tried to focus her bleary eyes onto whomever had woken her from deaths edge. Sunlight blinded her and at the same time told her that she was alive but had been out for some time. Unfortunately, she quickly realized that it was not Uncle who had woken her. His stony body lay where it had been before, his eyes still open and his jaws forever locked into the first sounds of his true name. As Rainbow tried to make sense of her predicament, she couldn't help that realize the voice was-

"Uncle? Nah kid, you lost a lot of blood but I didn't think you would be that delirious."

-feminine. Rainbow snapped round to look at whoever was speaking. She nearly missed them. Leaning back against the mud, not but a meter away, was a Griffon. Her lean body spoke of a younger female to the one who had attacked her. She blended near perfectly into the sodden dirt, only the white plumage of her breast giving her position away. She lent forward and reached out a claw towards the stunned Rainbow Dash.

"Names G-"

In an instant, Rainbow had wrenched the spear from the other Griffon and swung it round to the newer arrivals chest.

"I'll run you through too! Get away from me!"

The sentiment of greeting dropped from the still alive Griffon's voice. Her beak cracked shut with an ominous clack. She tensed up against the spear tip. When she spoke, it sent tremors running the length of Rainbows body. The Griffon gestured to the body of her kin.

"It was you who killed me sister."

The spear fell to the ground.

"S-sister?"

The Griffon rolled onto her legs and advanced onto Rainbow Dash, her tail flicking angrily from side to side.

"I helped you, no, saved you, but you were the one that killed her!"

Rainbow had fallen back onto her rump and stared forwards, eyes focusing on nothing and everything at once. Her breathing was uncontrolled, coming in irregular bursts of ragged breathing. Tears brimmed in the corners of her eyes for a second time that day.

"Sister?"

"Yes, my fucking sister you dolt! Your the one telling me you killed her!"

A slender but strong talon closed around Rainbow's jaw, pricking her cheeks and drawing droplets of blood onto her cyan coat. The dull pain of pressure emphasized by sharp stabbing brought rainbow out of her trance like state and dared her to look into the angry beast's cold eyes.

"You selfish slime ball! You come out here with nothing and take a loved one from another, then just stand there offering no explanation? You don't deserve a chance out of this one Dash!"

"Kill me."

The Griffon's grip slackened and her emotionless demeanor flashed its colours of surprise and shock.

"What?"

"I said: Fucking, kill me!"

Hot tears were running through Rainbow's matted coat, picking up grime and blood before rolling over the talons wrapped around her face. The talons dropped away and the Griffon flopped back onto her original resisting place, placing her talons behind her head.

"Why?"

"Why not, I killed your...s-sister didn't I?

"Tell me why I should kill you and I might let you live. As it appears that you wan't it enough, that should be punishment enough for killing a member of the tribe, no? Now, talk! But first, what can I call you?"

"R-Rainbow Dash."

"Well, Rainbow Dash. My name is Gildaria-"

Rainbow couldn't help but smirk at the fancy name for such a layed-back Griffon.

"-but you ever call me that and I will drive my talons through your eye sockets. Call me Gilda."

"Okay, Gilda, you wanted me to...err...tell you why you should kill me...right?"

"It sound's pathetic when you say it like that, yes is the simple answer. Now, enlighten me."

Rainbow began to recite her tail with stoic ease, not breaking focus of step, even at the questioning Griffon's intrusive remarks and questions.

...

"Your mum really wrote that?"

...

"She didn't even name her second daughter?"

...

"She wouldn't even buy her own daughter medicine!"

...

"A fucking bin liner!"

...

"That explosion was you? We saw that in the home roost."

...

"You were how old, when that was your job?"

...

"Wait, you're 16? And you got here yesterday? Well, It's a small world after all, right? Same age, same situation. But I'm not the youngest on our line."

...

"Err, sorry about that. Sorry isn't really enough though is it. I despise the MG's!

...

"Wow, wow, hold the fuck up."

She used a claw to gesture to the fallen body of her sister, now lying at the bottom of the deep foxhole since the spear pinning it in place had been removed.

"She attacked you first?"

"Y-yes, but then I had her bested. She was trapped and begging for her life. She killed someone I hardly knew, but I shouldn't have killed her."

Tears having dried up some time ago, Rainbow sank into a bout of quiet sobs and whimpers.

"Rainbow, stop it! I forgive you."

Rainbow froze mid breath and seemingly mid heart palpitation.

"What! You can't forgive me just like that. I killed your sister! A sibling, someone you grew up with, who looked after you and comforted you in-"

She jumped as she felt a cold talon press to her lips, silencing her foal like rant.

"You don't know anything about Griffon culture, do you?"

Despite the restricting appendage having been removed from her lips, Rainbow only shook her head in answer, feeling no need to speak lest she cause further offence, or embarrasses herself even more.

"Sisters aren't anything like that to us Rainbow Dash. They are competitors and opponents. We're hatched in clutches ranging from 10 to 20, and even though only 2/3rd's of the hatch-lings will survive more than a day, we live in crowded roost's. There isn't any comforting or sibling bonding. It's survival of the fittest, especially as there is a new clutch every year or so. Once we can fly and hunt for ourselves, we flee the roost and make our own way. The Males go of to find mates and the females will wait to become a Males bitch. If it weren't for this war, I would be at home laying my first clutch of eggs right now. Sisters will spend most off there pre-flight days squabbling over food, then we spend the rest of our lives fighting for the best male. In some sick and twisted way, and please don't think I want this, but you actually helped me today by killing a rival."

The trivial amount of pain in her cheeks and jaw brought her reeling back to the angry Gilda from earlier.

"If sisters don't matter for you, why were you so angry that I had killed a Griffon that you specifically addressed as your Sister, and why did she beg for her life using 'I have a sister out here' as an excuse, huh?"

"She was using that only to gain pity, she probably didn't even know if I, or any of her other sisters for that matter, were still alive on this stretch of the line. You ponies take such pride over your sibling strength that it becomes a weak spot that can be prodded and picked at. And earlier, well, I should apologize for that. I just used 'sister' as a title, kind off playing that weakness I mentioned as well, but it effected you for other, darker reasons than a sibling bond. I'm sorry for that Dash, like, really sorry.I can't really be sorry for the anger, that was well placed. We've been brought up being taught to hate ponies and the first one I meet, even if they were unconscious, the first thing they do when they get a chance is to pull a spear on you. Don't really help the image, does it?"

The apology was unexpected to Rainbow. Even though she had told story explaining why she deserved to die, Gilda had taken pity on her and even apologized. Not the Griffon behavior from propaganda that Rainbow had truly expected.

"I'm sorry to Gilda. I should have been more... controlled towards someone trying to greet me the way you did when I woke up. And I'm sorry for killing your sister, even if you say it wasn't that important, you deserve some form of remorse from me. Wow, that sounded much better in my head then it did out loud, kinda weak. Either way, I'm sorry."

Gilda nodded in response, a true smile gracing her beak. Getting back onto the topic of Griffon culture, Rainbow stared at Gilda, trying to wrap her brain around what she had learned. After a moments pause to think, she spoke up again.

"Wait, if your breed so fast, don't you run out of-"

"-territory and food. Yep, that's what the whole war is about Dash. Somewhere new to hunt, somewhere to lay eggs. We Griffons are so head proud that we can't even reform a flawed system that is destroying our nation, we just have to make our nation change to support it. It's kinda what I'm doing out here in broad daylight."

"Yeah. Yeah, what are you doing out here? Are you a spy?"

"Not a spy, but besides saving your flank, literally..."

She gestured in a playful manner to the crisp, white, decisively Griffon looking, field dressing applied with care over her right flank. She blushed and gave thanks, even if she mumbled it out.

"...I'm deserting."

"No! You can't desert, you'll be executed!"

She wasn't sure why she cared for Gilda at this point, she just knew that she did.

"Only if I'm caught, well, by the Griffons anyway. I'm going to surrender to ponies."

Okay, that was unexpected, even from a species that was almost alien to Dash.

"Wait, why would you do that? They'll just shove you in a P.O.W camp the moment you reach the line."

It saddened Gilda, that much was obvious, to think of spending an unprecedented amount of time locked away. But cresting over the wave of sadness came determination.

"I don't care! I'm fed up of living in a country which to main values are to eat and to fuck, but when they ain't got the room to do either anymore, they invade an innocent country just to eat and fuck some more! I'm just sick of it. I will spend any amount of time incarcerated if it meant that one day I could live in Equestria. Where I don't have to bow down to the opposite gender all of my life and I could finally be free of expectations or traditions which turn me into a knocked up 'roost raven'! They can fucking take me, but one day I will leave the Griffons behind and start my own life."

Again, Rainbow felt somewhat caring towards Gilda. A Creature twice her size, armed with natural weapons and would quite happily eat her. But she cared. Cared enough to try something, anything to help.

"I'll help you."

"Pardon?"

"I'll help you!"

Gilda scowled back at Rainbow, but more with a tone of goading, not of defiance.

"Oh, really, and how do you expect to do that. You don't exactly look like a guard with much pull or say?"

"No, but you're not going to look like the Griffon who would kill a pony. You'll walk into camp, a traitor to your own kind, an enemy of the enemy, supporting a pony who's life you saved. I can make that work with some begging. You won't walk free completely. They'll want to make use out of you, but I promise you this, when my wounds healed and I'm back in service, I will find you a join you in whatever task you have been given."

Gilda's scowl vanished into a wash of disbelief.

"Why, exactly?"

Rainbow blushed gently and tried to avert her gaze from the hawk like eyes boring into her.

"Well, I... umm... I guess because I would consider you a friend. You won't have any friends in Equestria and I don't anyway. Everypony needs a friend, so we need each other."

"Mega corny, Dash."

Gilda laughed quietly to herself and Rainbows blush depend in intensity.

"But the it's the truth I guess, Friend?"

"Yes, Friend."

Despite the happy orientations of the story, Rainbows muzzle was curved into a very deep frown.

"I think it might be Important to address something here Doc. Gilda is the one creature alive in this world right now that knows of my past in the detail that you do. That's why I'm afraid here Doc. Because telling Gilda that stuff changed her for the better for both of us in that moment and quite a while afterwards. But slowly it made things tense and we fell out. It was while we were both stuck up in re-training. In the rush to get back to the Equestria line, she took a bullet to the leg. In the end, my plan to keep her free from the prisoner camps worked, but I actually ended up supporting her as we came to the captain. We we both spent a good few weeks on a hospital ward 'getting better', even when the wounds were little more than scars. Gilda got lucky and was signed to the Junior Speedster messenger squadron. As I had said, I filed my requests and was quickly flying alongside her in training."

Rainbow let out a guttural growl cementing her feelings of anger into her voice.

"She used my past against me. Whenever a decision was needed between my ideas for attacking a problem and hers, she would always liken me to my no-good mother. She was subtle with it, but she dropped the hints when they were 'needed'. We never saw action, the war ended before we could even complete the full training cycle and the Junior Speedsters were dissipated. Gilda took of to her home land, telling me she had some things which needed sorting out before she could live in Equestria. Didn't see the bitch again for about 9 years, when she came to see me in Ponyville, and before I knew it she had sabotaged my friendships and was using the same old tricks to work her ideas into my head. I've cut all ties with her now!"

She sighed and deflated back into the chair.

"Boring!"

"I guess I just thought you should hear that while it was relevant. She's mostly the reason I couldn't tell my friends, I feared the same would happen, but they would have more against me. Gilda never used my action in the war against me because she had been there for it, but what if the others did? 'Careful with that Rainbow! You might impale it on a spear in cold rage!'. It's silly yes, but... but I'm just not sure."

The tapping of a pencil against a desk filtered through the Grate before the Doc said anything.

"It's not silly Miss Dash. Everything is important and it is very useful to know how your mental living state is controlled by your past. However, I will discuss this-"

"-at the end. I get it, Doc. Next you will ask me what happened next? Where did you go? or something like that. I'll tell you. I used my compensation from injury and my save up wages to buy myself a small flat in Cloudsdale. Took up the most respectable job I'd ever had at that time. A Barmare."

Her face fell into a state of depression and she once again took up the habit of examining the flaws and growth patterns of her hoofs. A shallow but long sigh poured from Rainbows muzzle as her eyes locked onto nothingness, focusing on no depth or point in the known universe.

"That's when I met Him, my hearts bane."

A simple red apron hung loosely around Rainbows neck as she busied herself across the bar, the long ties drooping across her back in a lackluster bow. The clamor of 30 or so (mostly male) pegasi drowned out the clinking of cheap, but enchanted, glasses sitting on the cloud bar top. The Cumulus. A rather boring and cliche name for a pegasi bar in Cloudsdale in Dash's mind. Then again, it was a boring and cliche bar.

"Your peers, Rainbow Dash"

"Lowlifes."

Rainbow muttered under her breath as she continued to keep an eye on the rowdy patrons, but not deferring from her menial glass cleaning task. She despised working here, even though she had not had an exactly luxurious career history, it didn't make her resent the job of a barmare any less. Long hours, drunk customers, awkward task, rude customers, pools of vomit and Celestia dammed perverted customers.

"Oi, barmare! Pint of the house ale!"

A drunken stallion waved from his solitary position in a  corner booth, his slurred speech and uneasy posture suggesting that he might of just drunk a gallon or two already. Rainbow poured the drink into a tankard as she grumbled to herself. Balancing the drink on an outstretched wing, she walked around the bar and up to the table. The drink slid with a practiced flourish onto the smoothed out cloud table. She turned to leave, then yelped as a hoof slapped her flank lightly.

"Thanks sweet cheeks. It's on ma' tab, right?"

In a prismatic blur, Rainbow pushed one hoof to the stallions neck while another threatened to crush his ribs.

"What the fu-"

"It'll be on your face in a minute bucko. Learn some respect!"

A second passed before Rainbow realized her exact position and just how many of the other patrons, and the landlord, were watching her. She pulled away sharply and made a hasty retreat back to the bar. She halfheartedly spoke to the stallion over her shoulder.

"Sorry. Drinks on the house, okay? And the one after."

"Shud' think so. Crazy bitch."

She snorted and continued to her earlier position behind the bar, gently swishing a cloth over the glasses. The landlord shifted from his rump and his spot in the corner and walked up to Rainbow. Leaning in close, he spoke venomously into her ear.

"A days wages and you pay for the 'on the house drinks,' got it?"

Rainbow slumped forwards and bit back an angry outburst at the unfairness of it all, since the stallion had started it.

"the 'but he started it' argument, Dash? Suitable for your mental age of 7, aye?"

"Yes boss."

"Good."

With that, the hefty stallion turned and walked into the back room of the establishment , slamming the door behind him. The bar rumbled back into life and the many occupants spoke veraciously to one another, once again. That is, many occupants, minus the small group of stallions occupying the shady booth in the corner.

"Barmare, over here, now!"

The largest member of the group, a beefy pegasus with rippling muscles beckoned her by stomping his hoof repeatedly on the table, producing not but a quite flumpf from the cloud surface, but a menacing gesture all the same. Rainbow gulped and cautiously made her way over. The stallions never took there eyes of her as she approached. When she was close enough, the largest stallion who had called out for her grabbed her around the neck and dragged her close before pressing her face down onto the table. His hoof threatened to break Rainbows skull as he applied more and more pressure to her temple. It was excruciating.

"Now, listen up. We saw what you did over there and we didn't like it, right fellas?"

The few other ponies round the table nodded in agreement, serious but leering grins spread across there rough and un-cared for faces.

"You aint gunna do that again, you'll show us stallions some respect you little harlot. Now, pass me that lock knife!"

Despite the absurdity of it all, Rainbow panicked when she saw one of the stallion pull a simple lock back knife out and hoof it over to the stallion pinning her face down to the hardened cloud. He pried the blade out with his teeth and rubbed it along her cyan cheek. A few hairs fell away as the sharp edge ran back and forth, almost as if it was a comb being wielded by a skilled hair stylist. The outcome would be much more sinister than a comb. The stallion stopped stroking Rainbow's face with the blade and pressed the edge lightly against the cheek, the razor like edge beckoning a thin line of blood from her skin. The stallion breath ruffled her mane as he leaned in close and Dash could smell the copious amounts of alcohol that laced his throat and dulled his sense of right and wrong. Rabid fear stormed through Rainbow's body. Her breath was laboured and her eye darted around, searching for a way out of her predicament.

"Now we're gunna do you a favour and make sure you have something to make you remember not to disrespect us stalli-"

"Put the knife down."