Rainbow Dash’s eyelids slowly peeled open. “Ugh, my head...”
“Oh! You’re awake,” said the voice coming from the blurry shape hovering over her.
She blinked several times until her vision cleared. The voice had come from a nondescript cloaked shape, no longer blurry but no more identifiable than before. It appeared to have four legs and a head, but the basic form of it was the only discernible feature. The dense forest environment was a bit more distinct, but not at all familiar.
“Who’re you?” Dash asked.
“Oh, that’s not important. You have a train to catch.”
“I do?”
“Yeah. You need help getting up?”
“I don’t think so,” she said, straining just a little to stand. Everything seemed to be in order. No strange pains and no trouble moving... she flapped her wings once. No problems at all, other than the complete lack of memory as to how she got here or what she had been doing. Or whatever train business needed to be taken care of.
“C’mon, it’s not far. Train leaves in twenty minutes, but it’s only a ten minute walk.”
With no idea where she was or what was going on, Dash couldn’t think of anything better to do than follow the cloaked figure.
“Remind me, where am I going?” She cast her eyes around the area. “And where am I now?”
“It’s a little hard to explain either of those. Come on though, we should get moving. While we walk, how about you tell me the last place you remember being?”
Dash frowned, shrugged, and then set off following her curious companion - already leaving without looking back. “Uh... I dunno. Okay, um, I was at Twilight’s and she was yakking about something from some book. Mythologola or whatever. Old stories. I wasn’t really paying attention because I was excited about... I can’t remember what. Even if I wasn’t, though, come on, that crud is way boring.”
“That’s quite interesting. It actually might explain why you’re conscious. Normally you’d be asleep and I would just carry you to the train.”
She stopped. “Say what? You stuff knocked out ponies onto a train in the middle of some creepy woods?” Her wings spread and she was ready to take off at any moment. “I don’t think I want to get on.”
The cloaked figure turned around and sighed, pulling his hood down to reveal the face of a handsome grey stallion with a snow white mane. His eyes were a deep and pure aqua, but lacked the sparkle present in the eyes of most ponies. “You don’t. Nopony ever does. But you don’t actually have a choice. Think, what were you excited for? Where did you go after you left your friend?”
The muscles in Dash’s legs and wings tensed. “Give me one good reason I should fly outta here right now.”
“You can’t.”
“Oh yeah? I’ll take that challenge,” she said as she rocketed up and rebounded right back down. Something was in the way. Something she couldn’t see.
“I told you you can’t. Listen, you need to think very hard about the last day or so. Any time I try to tell a pony what’s going on, they get hostile and start denying everything. This will work much better if you can put the pieces together yourself.”
“What the hay did I crash into?”
“I can tell this is going to be fun. Look, we don’t have all day. The train does leave pretty soon. Let’s just keep walking while you replay the events for me. It’ll come back to you.” The stallion turned back around and set off again.
Dash sighed and followed. She couldn’t fly away, and there weren’t any other ponies to get answers out of. And the one pony around was talking like he was trying to help. “I was gonna go do something. Something really awesome. I’m not sure why I was at Twilight’s. Maybe just passing the time?”
“Maybe. Why you were there isn’t too important. What really awesome thing were you going to go do, and what happened when you got there to do it?”
“Well obviously something went wrong. I can’t remember anything, so I guess I hit my head. Maybe I crashed?”
“Good. What sort of thing would you have been doing where you could’ve crashed?”
“Flying. Duh,” she said, fluttering her wings.
“But for what? What sort of flights end in crashes?”
“Oh, I get it. Umm... stunts and stuff. Like what the Wonderbolts...” she trailed off and got a vacant look in her eyes. She gasped.
“Ah, so you remember something.”
“Ohmygosh... I had a date with a Wonderbolt! I won one of those contests where you buy junk and get pieces that say you lose and to please buy more stuff so you can try again! I was excited to go out, and I didn’t let Rarity dress me up or do my hair or anything because I figured at some point we’d do some radical flight and frilly crud would just get in the way.”
“Alright. So you were flying dangerously, trying to impress your date, and you crashed. Now let’s hop up on this train,” he said, gesturing with a hoof.
The thing was gigantic. An enormous mountain of metal, strikingly out of place amongst the trees. The two ponies boarded the beast and the door hissed shut.
Dash looked nervously at the door. “So, I’m not sure I get what you were saying earlier.”
“You’re dead. You-”
“WHOA. Hang on a sec, I’m... dead?”
“Yeah. Ponies usually deny it like crazy if I just tell them, but since you already got to the part where you crashed - spectacularly, I might add - it shouldn’t be too much of a leap.”
“I can’t be dead! I was out on a date! With a Wonderbolt! Where are we? How do I get back?!”
“There’s no turning back. When you hit the ground at twice the speed of sound, you bought yourself a one way ticket to the afterlife.”
“Nonononononononono, this isn’t... this can’t... I’m not dead!”
The stallion slumped down and sighed deeply. “Why does this always happen? Why can’t they all just be passed out?”
“Hey yeah! You said something about that. Like, Twilight’s dumb books had something to do with it.”
“Less the books, more your subconscious. My guess is somewhere in the myths your friend was reading about, there was a mention of challenging Death. You didn’t pay attention, but you did hear it.”
“Challenging Death?”
“It is within your right to know, I guess. Any pony who upon death feels that they deserve more life can challenge me to a contest of their choosing. Should they win, I have to send them back.”
“You’re Death?”
“In the flesh. You should know, though, beating me is practically impossible.”
“Whatever, don’t care. I’ve got a date with to get back to, and you’ve gotta give me a shot, right? A race then.”
“You want to race Death? You want a literal race with Death?”
“Is that a problem?”
“No, it’s just pretty darn unusual. All mortals are in a metaphorical race against me. You’re just the first one to make it physical.”
“Then let’s go.”
“You weren’t in such a hurry a few minutes ago.”
“Shut up, don’t care.”
“Very well then. Rainbow Dash, there is a mountain range quite some distance away from here. It’s in the same direction the train tracks go. Follow the tracks, and you’ll find the mountains. If you reach them before I do, you may go return to your life.”
“Awesome,” she said as she kicked the door off. “See ya next time I die.” With that, she was gone.
Death smiled and galloped toward the front of the train.
It was impossible. Death was a cheater, and there was no way to win. Rather than getting out and actually racing Dash, he just took the train. At maximum speed. With all the cars detached.
The enormous engine had more than enough power to send the single segment remaining screaming down the track at a zillion times the fastest speed Dash had ever reached. How or why there were no sonic booms, rain or otherwise, she didn’t know. The titanic train had her completely outclassed. A quick eyeballing of the scene told her that Death would be at the finish line in less than an hour. She was doomed. Worse, she was going to lose.
Death understood boredom all too well. Living (or the equivalent term for the ponification of the opposite of life) as long as he had dulled things. He knew he would win. He had always known. There was no fun in it. He slowed the train down.
Dash took immediate notice of the drastic reduction in speed. Redoubling her efforts, she sailed through the sky toward the mountain range with all her might. Her wings ached. Her lungs burned. She didn’t care. Death had slowed and the reason why didn’t matter. This was a chance to catch up that she couldn’t afford to waste. Within minutes, she caught up and he didn’t regain any momentum. She surged ahead, now able but unwilling to contemplate more than the need to go faster.
The train slowed further, eventually grinding to a complete halt while Dash looked back in confusion. It slowly receded from view, eventually winking out of existence at the edge of the horizon. She continued her mad dash for the mountains, desperate beyond measure to win this most important of contests.
A blur at the edge of her vision spoke. “You’re pretty fast.”
She turned her head to see Death flying alongside her, a proud pair of wings visible now that the cloak was removed. She turned away and ignored him, only acknowledging him by flapping her wings even harder.
“You aren’t going to win, you know. You’re just a pony and I’m an eternal and immutable natural force. At any time, I can shoot off and to the finish and leave you in the dust. I could’ve stayed on the train and not even broken a sweat.”
“Don’t care.”
“Do you really think you’re the first pony to try with everything they had to earn a second chance?”
“Don’t know, don’t care.”
“There have been countless others, many with better reasons to live than you.”
“Still don’t care.”
“You’re not capable of going faster than me. The only way you’d win is if I stopped.”
“And your point is? It doesn’t matter. The finish is that way. I’m going that way.”
“You need a different tactic! Your top speed is lower than my top speed. It does not matter how hard you try.”
“I don’t care how many other ponies didn’t want to leave their friends. I don’t want to leave my friends! I’ve still got a lot of tricks to pull off, and I need to get into the Wonderbolts. I need to beat Applejack fair and square at a hoof race. I need to pull more pranks with Pinkie. Everything else aside, all my friends and my goals, I still can’t stop now. You never leave your date hanging. Besides, why do you even care? Aren’t you supposed to go win so you can take my soul or whatever?”
“Pardon me if reaping souls gets a little boring after the first few thousand years.”
“You know what might be fun? Letting a pony go once in a while, just to see what happens.”
“Nice try, but no. I told you, the only way you live is if you win and the only way you win is if I slow down.”
Though she continued hurtling forward at insane speed, Dash’s mind momentarily stopped before the stupidest and craziest idea she’d ever had struck her. “You know what might be fun and might get you to slow down?”
“What?”
“This,” she said as she dove to her side and grabbed Death.
“What are you-”
She kissed him.
He stopped.
She kept going.
Rainbow Dash lay stretched out on the grass. Her friends had all come out for the picnic they’d been planning, but the topic of conversation had remained fixated on her recent dating adventure. She hadn’t mentioned her brush with Death. “Yeah, I’m alright. He wasn’t a jerk about it or anything, he just told me he wasn’t actually interested. He was only even out with me because he had to be.”
“Darling I did try to warn you. You simply wouldn’t listen, assuming any piece of advice I offered would be about your looks,” Rarity offered.
“Eh, really it’s fine. There’re no hard feelings or anything, and when I audition for the Wonderbolts this won’t even get brought up. I’m just a little embarrassed I crashed in front of him, but he didn’t actually see it and he’s gonna pretend it never happened.”
“Y’all crashed and burned in front of yer idols?” Applejack asked.
“Well, yeah, but it wasn’t a big deal or anything. I had a little adventure besides the date that day, and I even lost a race, but I can’t actually tell you guys about it yet.”
Twilight raised an eyebrow. “Well now I’m curious. I’d love to hear about it, as soon as you can tell us.”
“Yeah, I will eventually. Don’t worry about it.”
“Still, dear, even if it doesn’t affect your career aspirations, certainly a date going poorly doesn’t do any good for your love life,” Rarity said.
“You’d be surprised what kinda deals you can make. I actually have a date next weekend.”
This time it was Rarity’s turn to be inquisitive. “Oh really now?”
“Yeah. Pretty cute grey pegasus. White mane. You’ve probably never met him.”
