Old memories

Chapters

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 3
Chapter 8

Chapter 1

The sound of shattering glass against the wall was not loud enough to cover up the screams. Screams of fear, screams of pain, screams of horror. No matter how hard she screamed, it was all in vain. Glassware flew around the chamber, followed by the plates of the dinner that they had not finished yet. And even though she tried, she could not escape. Never could she escape. Running was no use, hiding wasn’t an option. As she saw him grabbing the last plate on the table, she tried to dive away. But she was too late.

“Noo!” she screamed.

“Hi there Rainbow Dash! Welcome back to Equestria!” Pinkie bounced up and down.

“Wow Rainbow, you’ve sure made a biggie this time. What were ya even tryin’ to do? If I needed to get a tunnel I’d get myself some shovels.” Applejack said. She had been pacing around in the hospital since she came in. Even still she did not seem to be able to relax.

“Ugh, I don’t know, I think it was not the best idea to try a corkscrew right after a triple loop... Ouch, my head seems to agree. How long have I been gone? I mean, last thing I remember I was still in the air, not in here...”

“About six hours, “ nurse Redheart said as she walked in. “You’re lucky though, it could have been a lot longer. It seems like you’ve just got a minor concussion. A lot of pegasi would have been knocked out for way longer after a crash like this.”

Six hours. Six hours she had been knocked out. That crash definitely wasn’t one of the lightest, but still. Six hours seemed quite a lot of time. But well, that was the risk of being the most awesome pony in all of Equestria, and she was willing to take that risk all four hooves. But still, six hours. Usually when she crashed she was able to walk away, or at least within a couple of minutes. And this stunt was not the trickiest one she had ever done. But still, it managed to knock her out for six full hours. Six full hours of not being able to fly in the clea-

Her stream of thoughts was interrupted as nurse Redheart started to speak. “Well, it seems like you’re okay, but unfortunately we can not let you go just yet. Concussions always have a risk of coming with loss of memory. We will have to keep you here for the night. It’s probably best if the rest of you leave, miss Dash needs her rest.”

Rainbow had been in the hospital for some minor injuries like this one before, and she knew she was in for a long night.

Slowly the night passed by. There wasn’t much sleeping involved, as she had predicted. She would be woken up every two hours to answer a couple stupid questions, like her name, her color, her cutie mark and that kind of stuff. Even though nurse Redheart had explained to her that it was to make sure there was no loss of memory, it still was pretty annoying. But slowly time passed by, and eventually she wasn’t woken up by the nurse, but by a single stream of silver sunlight, breaking through the curtains.

Hmmm, how late would it be? Judging by the stance of the sun, she figured that it still had to be pretty early in the morning. Probably earlier than she usually woke up. But hey, what would she expect, those hospital beds aren’t exactly as comfy as a nice cool cloud. Oh, the memories of flight did not help her. What did she long to the fresh, clear blue skies. Even though she had only been in here for one night, she was sick of it. This hospital was really not the best place to be. It was hot, there was no fresh air, and she the air in here made her want to throw up. Oh, how long would it take for her to get released from this place?

As she looked up on the clock, wait... Clock? Oh, right, they had a clock in here. She wasn’t used to those things. Up in her sky there were no places to put clocks. She always just looked at the sun to determine how long it was until Celestia would bring her sun down again. Clocks were useless, she thought. Of course, when somebody says something like ten more minutes, then they were useful. But otherwise, she hated clocks. She once tried having a watch. Biggest mistake ever. She really tried, but she just couldn’t stand being bound to something like that. Everything suddenly becomes a lot more stressful when you’re bound to such accurate timing stuff. Nope, that was something for eggheads like twilight, who had their day planned out till the very last second. Then nurse Redheart entered.

“Good morning miss Rainbow Dash, how was your night?”

“Just great. You know, being woken up every two hours really helps when you’re trying to sleep.”

“I’m sorry miss Rainbow, but I’ve already explained to you why we do that. And you might not like what I am going to say now. The second time we woke up, you were unable to tell us the color of your coat.”

“So what? I can now, it’s the most awesome blue you’ve ever seen!”

“That might be, but still. It causes for some concern. We are not yet sure if you didn’t lose any memories, so to speak. We have got to make sure that doesn’t happen. If it does, we might need to take a closer look.”

“So you’re saying I’ve got to spend another night in here?! Nooo...”

“Now relax a bit please, miss, I’ve not yet said that. The only thing I’m saying is that you’ve got to be woken up and asked a couple of questions the next three nights. Now we would not mind keeping you here if you don’t have a place to go to with somebody who could take care of that, but I guess we could better let you discuss that with your friends. If you’d like to see them, that is.”

“Of course I want to! This place is sooo boring... Any idea when they will be here?”

“Hmmm, I think right now.” Twilight Sparkle said as she walked into the room, followed by Rarity, Fluttershy, Applejack and Spike.

“Hey guys! Thanks for coming by! You’ve got no idea how boring laying here is... I don’t think I’d be able to stay here much longer without anything to do.”

“Why of course dear, why wouldn’t we come to pick up our friend from this place?” Rarity said. She still did not feel very comfortable around a place with this little fashion, even though the gowns really did match the curtains.

“Hey guys, did you hear what the nurse said? About me having to be woken up? I’d hate to be a trouble to any of you, but I could not stand this place another night. I’ve already read all the Daring Do books they’ve got around here. And where’s Pinkie?”

“Pinkey seemed mighty busy, ah think you’ll see here pretty soon. And yeah, we did kinda hear what the nurse was talking about yeah. You know, ah wouldn’t mind you sleeping over at our place. We don’t have a bed free at the moment, since our cousin is staying at our barn, but we might have a couple haystacks you seem to like quite a bit. So, whaddaya say, wanna come hang out on the barn?”

“That’d be awesome, AJ, thanks a lot. Nurse Redheart, when do you think I can leave?”

“Well, you seem to have recovered pretty well. If you don’t have a headache I’d see no reason to keep—”

A trail in all colors was seen as Rainbow flew out of her bed and through the hospital, into the open air. Even though it was a relatively short stay, she had more than enough of that hospital for the rest of her life. She hoped never to have to get back in there anytime soon. Finally, fresh air. She flew high up into the sky, did a couple loops and started going back down again as she saw her friends coming out of the doors of that terribly boring place. “Ah, sorry guys, I just really needed to stretch my wings. You know, even though it was only one night, it seemed like forever in there.”

“We understand sugar cube, just try n’ take it a lil bit slower next time. Y’almost gave miss Redheart a heart attack back there... Now what were we talking about before you decided to fly out of there? Oh, right, you’re staying over at tha barn tonite, I should probably hit some hay into a pile then.”

“Thanks a lot for allowing me to stay tonight, AJ. I think I’m going to fly a couple rounds and see how Tank is doing. Thanks guys!”

A soft voice tried to say something, but Rainbow was already gone. High up into the sky, feeling the wind blowing through her mane. This is what she loved to do. This is how she was supposed to live. Not laying down in some sort of thing they call a bed down there. You almost can’t sleep on those things! No, just give her a cloud. Those are way better than beds. Haystacks were fine with her too, even trees. But those beds, she’d never get used to them. No matter how often she had to sleep in that hospital, she just could not sleep in those things.

“Let’s see, what are we going to do,” she thought to herself. She really felt like flying all day, but she also wanted to see how Tank was doing. And she hadn’t seen her pink friend, Pinkie probably didn’t even know she was out of the hospital just yet. “Well, let’s do a quick fly-by past Sugarcube Corner, and head home to see Tank after that. That way I can stretch those babies and let Pinkie know I’ve been released from the hospital.” She flew up high into the sky. As she passed through a small cloud she felt the damp and cooling effects of the small droplets of water. Clouds were a strange thing. Even though she could lay on them and sleep, she could fly right through them or make them disappear just as easily. She never really thought about that before, and didn’t think about it for long.

She had reached her desired height, and started rocketing down back towards the ground, heading for Sugarcube Corner. As she flew faster her trail became clearer and clearer. She knew that if she went fast enough to do the Sonic Rainboom, her trail would be visible for about a day. She wasn’t going to go that fast though, she did not want to leave a trail throughout the streets the entire day. Probably just a couple of minutes, so she was sure Pinkie would see it. When she was only about 3 feet of the ground, she pulled up and went straight through the street, right past Sugarcube Corner, and back up again.

The trail of rainbow colors was probably clear enough to hold for about ten minutes. As she looked back, she saw her bouncing friend looking up, smiling like always. She smiled back, and then took off into the direction of her cloud house, towards Tank. That poor guy has been alone for about two days now. Even though the trusty tortoise did not need to be fed every day, probably only once every five days, she still did not feel good for leaving him there on his own. In a matter of seconds she was at her home.

She landed in front of her door. This house was not the best cloud house she had ever seen, but she made it herself. Stamping all the clouds into the right shape, and making it stay there had been a lot of work, but it was worth it. She opened the door. “Hey Tank, I’m home!” she yelled. “Tank? Where are you?” She became a bit nervous. Would that tortoise have flown off? Meh, probably not. He was probably just somewhere slowly walking towards her. She started looking. “Tank?” She looked everywhere she could think off, but did not see her pet. “Tank? Do you hear me? Tank?” She looked and looked, but could not find her trusty pet. Tears started forming in her eyes. Where could that tortoise have gone?

Author's Note

Well, that was my first chapter ever. I don't think it turned out too badly. If you see anything that doesn't seem right to you, please just tell me in the comments. And, thanks for reading!

Chapter 2

Rainbow was running around her house, turning around every bit of cloud the tortoise could be behind. But no matter how hard she looked, she could not find Tank. Her own little pet, her playmate. For a while she just sat there. Sat there and cried, desperate to find Tank. Her Tank. “Come on Rainbow, you’ve got to be strong. You’ve got to find him. Where could he have gone? Would he have flown out of the window? And if so, then where would he be now? Oh I just hope nothing happened to him! Okay, enough is enough, now just be strong and find that little tardis. But where could he be? Oh, I just can’t figure this out right now.” Even though she had done nothing for the past two days except for laying around in a hospital bed, she was exhausted. Eventually, she decided to go to Applejack’s. She would be staying there for the night, after all. She walked out of her house and took off, heading to Sweet Apple Acres, her eyes still wet of uncertainty.

“Hey there Rainbow, didn’t expect to see ya till evening, I thought you wanted to stretch those wings again?” she heard AJ say as she arrived.

“Tank is gone,” she said. “And I’ve got no idea where he could be. Do you have any idea where he could be? Did you see him flying past, perhaps?”

“Wow Dash, don’t you remember? He was flying with you when you crashed. And he crashed with you. He tried to pull ya up before ya hit the ground. But don’t —”

Rainbow Dash was already gone. Devastated. How could she have put her pet, her friend, in such danger? She didn’t understand. What had happened? Why Tank? What went wrong? She didn’t even want to think about it. Right now, she just wanted to fly straight into the haystack AJ had prepared for her, and lay there crying. Where the hay had AJ put that hay anyways? She flew around the farm, trying to find it. Finally, there it was. Inside the barn, right next to the main house. As she lay down the tears started coming again. She tried to stay strong, but she couldn’t. Her friend, her pet. It was her fault.

“Rainbow, what the hay are you doing? Why didn’t ya let me finish? Look, what I wanted to tell ya is that I know where he is!”

“Wait what!? Why didn’t you tell me?” Rainbow yelled while grabbing AJ with both front hooves. ”Where is he?”

“Geesh Rainbow, it aint you just getting all upset about nothin’. Fluttershy is takin’ care of Tank for ya.”

“Why didn’t you say so!” And off she was. Flying as fast as she could, towards the little cottage at the edge of the everfree forest. Fortunately it wasn’t too far from the barn. She could fly this within a minute. Especially if she wanted to be really fast, which was exactly the case. She just wanted to see Tank again. Oh, there was the cottage already. She flew down, and right past Fluttershy who was just coming home. “Hi Fluttershy!” she yelled while aiming for the door. But then, she realised what she was doing. Because that right there, was a door. And she, was a pegasi going way too fast, heading straight for that door. “Oh no oh no oh no! Not another crash!” but she was too late. She hit the door at full speed. And then, darkness.

---|———|------|———|------|———|---

“Aw come on, not again.”

“Rainbow? Are you alright?” She heard Fluttershy’s voice, softly but worried. “Rainbow?”

“I don’t know. How long was it this time?” It was a relief to find that she wasn’t in a hospital bed. It couldn’t have been too bad then.

“Oh I don’t know, I saw you flying into my door and I just... I just... I froze. I don’t know how long it was.”

“Wait. Where is tank?!” Within a second the pain in her head was gone. She could only think about one thing now, and that was Tank. Was he with Fluttershy? Was he hurt?

“Oh, Tank is fine, he is inside. But you seemed to know that already. Is that why you came over here?”

Rainbow didn’t give Fluttershy the chance to finish her sentence. She was already at the door again, this time opening it before trying to get inside. And there he was, hovering right in front of her nose. “Tank! I missed you buddy!” She grabbed Tank with both hooves, and started hugging him. She could hug him for hours like this! At least now she knew tank was all right. Or well, that he wasn’t hurt too badly. “Thanks Fluttershy, I wouldn’t know what to do if something happened to him. Is he hurt?”

“Oh no, he isn’t hurt at all. He is a tortoise after all. He was just worried, and really wanted to see you.”

A tear of happiness grew in Dash’s eye. At least her Tank was safe. “Fluttershy, thank you for taking care of him. And I’m sorry but I have to ask. I’m sorry to you too Tank. But would you mind me leaving him here until tomorrow? At my own house he would be fine, but since I’m staying at Sweet Apple Acres and all, well, I think it would be better if he stayed here for the night. I don’t want to come home and have to search for him again.”

“But of course, Rainbow. I would love to do that.”

“Thanks Fluttershy. Just don’t forget the helmet. You really don’t want him to hit you to the head twice.”

“Ghehe, he won’t. He’s the sweetest tortoise I’ve ever seen.”

Rainbow walked out of Fluttershy’s cottage. As she walked out, she started wondering what just happened. “I mean, okay, of course I missed Tank, but I don’t cry? Why did I? I could have known Fluttershy would have taken care of him. And if something had happened one of my friends would have told me, right? Well, at least now I know he is safe. But why did I do this stuff? It’s not like me to cry. Nor to fly into doors? Well, I guess I could best just go back to the barn and get some rest. Or some food, I’m hungry.” She flew back to Applejack, and landed right next to her.

“Howdy Rainbow, you’re back pretty quickly. Tank still at Fluttershy’s?”

“Yup, I decided to leave him there, for the night. I mean, I wouldn’t want you to find a tortoise in between your fresh apples, you know how he likes them.”

“Ayup, ah do know that. That little critter ate more apples in one minute than Big Mac in an entire day!

“Ghehe, sorry about that. I guess I lost sight on him for a second. Hey, do you have something to snack around here?”

“Aaw, Little Dashy is hungry.Ain’t that cute?”

“Hey, knock that off. And yeah, I’m hungry. Have you ever even tried eating that hospital stuff? I’m not even sure what they put in there, and I don’t think I want to know.”

“Well, ah know something ya do wanna know. But it aint mine to tell, how about we go and see Pinkie?"

"Eeh, AJ, that just made no sense to me at all."

"Just walk with me and you'll see. Come on, let's get movin."

"Eeh, if you don't mind AJ, I'll just follow you through the air."

"Ah, of course. Just follow behind me."

"Now Rainbow, what was all the fuzz about? Ah mean with Tank? Ah know we'd never leave him hanging. Fluttershy has taken care of him before, remember? Your last crash she took care of him as well. Took a while for her to get up to ya house though, that pony would be scared of heights when she was standing on the newspaper.”

“I know AJ. I just... I don’t know. I don’t know what came to me. I’ve been thinking about it as well. I just... I’m not sure and actually I’d prefer not to talk about it.” They walked the rest of the way in silence. Fortunately ponyville wasn’t that big, and they soon arrived at Sugarcube Corner.

“I think you should go in first, Rainbow.”

Carefully Rainbow walked up to the door, being sure to open it before trying to get through. Sugarcube Corner seemed abandoned. The lights were off, and mr. and mss. cake weren’t behind the counter. It wasn’t closed, right?

“SURPRISE!”

Lights turned on, and ponies jumped out of their hiding spots all across the room, and the music started playing.

“SURPRISE! Aw shoot!”

“Hey there Pinkie Pie! Still practising I see?”

“Yep indeedie!”

“Wow Pinkie, so this is why I didn’t see you in the hospital. You really did your best again, didn’t you?”

“Yep, and it’s all for you. I thought you needed some cheering up after you crashed because when you crashed we had to bring you to the hospital and when you’ve got to go to the hospital that means there’s something wrong and if there’s something wrong that usually means that something is not right and when something is not right you might get sad and when you’re sad that means you’re not happy so I thought I’d throw a surprise party!”

“Say that ten times fast,” Rainbow heard from behind her.

“Hey there Spike, how’s my favorite dragon doing? Haven’t seen you around in a while.”

“Yeah, Twilight has got a lot of stuff for me to do as of lately. How’s your head? That wasn’t the softest landing, I had to re-shelf half of the books in the library!”

“Oh, my head is fine. It’s not like I’m not used to anything. You know, practice makes perfect, even at crashing! I usually don’t feel a thing. But well, I think I should be worrying about my stomach first, I haven’t eaten in two days. And knowing Pinkie, those cupcakes will be delicious! Eeh... Sweetie Belle didn’t help making them, did she?”

“Nope, they’re all safe.”

“Okay, good. I’d hate to end up in that hospital again.” She started to walk over towards one of the tables with cupcakes, but got stopped by somepony asking her how she was doing almost every step. “Ugh, come on, just a couple more steps to the table. How many ponies could there possibly be that hadn’t spoken to her just yet? Oh, and there’s another one.”

“Hey Rainbow Dash, how are you doing?”

“Hey there Derpy. I’m doing great, thanks for asking. I’m just a little bit hungry so I was making my way over to the cupcakes.”

“Oh, here, let me help you!”

“No thanks derpy, I think I can —” But she was too late. Derpy already reached over to the table, putting one hoof on the table’s edge.

“Here, this one looks good, just a little closer”

The table tipped, and sent a plate with cupcakes flying towards Rainbow’s head. She tried to avoid it, but it went too fast. It hit her.

“What’s going on?”

“I don’t know AJ, it’s probably best to get the Doctor over here.”

“Sorry, I just don’t know what went wrong...”

Author's Note

This chapter is a little bit shorter than I hoped it would be, but it 's still a chapter that's a big part of the story. Next chapter will be a bit bigger, with a bit more thought in it. (I hope)

Chapter 4

Okay rainbow, four days have passed. Today you’ll get released. Today is the day you can finally start living normally again. No more hospital for me! Let’s see... What time is it. Oh, only fifteen minutes until visiting hours. Time was going faster now Rainbow got used to laying here. And finally she had managed to get some sleep. Only about an hour, but it still was sleep. As soon as I get out of here I’m going to take a nap on a cloud. Maybe I should try to get another quick nap now. However, then I’ll be sleeping when my friends come. No, I can not let that happen.

Let’s see... Oh, I’ve got one apple left. This care-package definitely was the best one ever. Even though it did not contain any cupcakes. But at least it kept me from eating my hospital food. I’m wondering what the gardener will think when he finds all that food outside of this window. Well, it’ll probably happen more often, that stuff is just disgusting.

Hmm, ten more minutes to go. Let’s see. What can I do to get ready to leave. I can’t pack my stuff yet, I don’t have a bag. It’s a shame Rarity had to stay home with Sweetie Belle. I should pay them a visit, just to wish her well. Stupid flu, apparently half of ponyville has it. Well, I think I’ll just stay up in the sky as much as possible, just to make sure I don’t get it as well and have to spend another week in here.

Spending my time in the air. Oh I’ve missed that. I hope the lack of exercise hasn’t taken too much toll on my wings. I guess they are quite a bit weaker after laying in bed for such a long period of time. It’ll take at least a month to get back into shape. I hate to admit it, but even walking small distances is tiring. Heck, I hope I don’t collapse as soon as I step out of this bed, that would be embarrassing.

Five more minutes. Okay, I can do that. Let’s see if I can hear them already. Nope, I can’t. Well, not strange, nurse Redheart is keeping everything really quiet outside of visiting hours. I think they really shouldn't do that. A bit more noise wouldn’t be bad. At least it would offer some distraction. And that little filly that got brought in yesterday, she just kept crying. With a little bit more noise I wouldn’t even have heard it. I’m wondering if she’s okay.

Hey, I hear something. One set of hooves, probably nurse Redheart. Then it must finally be time.

And she was right, it was nurse Redheart. The nurse entered her room and started talking. “Well, miss Rainbow Dash, your friends are here to pick you up. I just need to take some final measurements to ensure that you’re absolutely okay, and then you’re free to go.”

Impatiently Rainbow rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, just hurry up please. I’m sick of this bed.”

The nurse looked at her. Her eyes had the way too familiar look. Rainbow already knew what she was going to say. “I understand that you’re a bit impatient, but we’ve got to make sure that everything is alright before we can let you go. Remember last time?”

She knew the nurse was right. If she had stayed in the hospital for another day, she probably wouldn’t have been laying here now. And even if she had gotten that plate against her head, she probably would have woken up a bit earlier. “Okay, okay. Can we please just go ahead?”

The nurse started taking measurements and mumbling. “Eye reflexes are fine, temperature okay.” She walked back towards the door, and then turned her head back to Rainbow. “You seem to be fine, just a little bit tired. I suggest you’d go straight to bed when you get home. Your friends are here to help you get there. I’ll send them in. Just be careful, we don’t want to see you back any time soon.”

That was a piece of advice that Rainbow did not need. No way she was going to do anything stupid and return back here. “Trust me, I don’t want that either.” Then nurse Redheart left the room.

Her friends walked in. They were all there. First was AJ, Rarity second. Then came Pinkie Pie with Fluttershy right behind her. Last Twilight walked in. She looked a bit strange.

“Hey there guys, coming to pick me up?”

“Ayup!” AJ looked around. “We didn’t think you’d wanna stay here any longer, n we couldn’t let ya pack all ya stuff by yourself, could we?”

Rainbow looked around through the room. There wasn’t really that much stuff around. Just some cards her friends had sent, and some other small things. Oh, and the entire Daring Do series. “All those things? It’s not that much. Just a couple books and cards, that’s it.”

Rarity laughed a bit. “A couple books? Dear, you’ve read the entire Daring Do series, that’s nine books!”

She was right, nine books. That was quite something for only four days. Especially since Rainbow hadn’t ever touched a book after flight school, until her last hospital visit. Well, the one before the last one actually, but the last one and this one could count as one. She still remembered the problems that book gave all to well. “Eeh, actually, I’ve read them twice. But well, let’s get this stuff packed and get out of here, I’m sick of this bed.”

“Okie dokie!” A trace of pink could be seen throughout the entire room. “Done!”

Wow, she knew that Pinkie was hyper, but this was just freaky! If Pinkie would have been a pegasus, Rainbow would have no chance in a speed competition with her.

“What’ve ya been eating Pinkie?” AJ exclaimed laughingly.

“Oh, mostly cupcakes. This morning I woke up, and went downstairs, and you’d never guess, there were cupcakes! So I ate a couple for breakfast. Then a little time later, I got hungry. But those cupcakes were soo goood, I decided to make some cupcakes! Extra sugar. And then I took a couple of those with the tea. But I baked quite some, so after the tea I had som—”

“Ah think we get it Pinkie, the extra sugar explains a lot!”

It was fun to watch Pinkie bounce up and down with all that extra energy, but Rainbow really wanted to get out of that bed. “Well, what are we waiting for, let’s get going!” She jumped out of her bed. A bit too quickly perhaps. Her right front hoof couldn’t hold, and she fell. Awkward...

“Howa missy, take it easy! Here, let me give you a hoof!” AJ rushed towards Rainbow.

“Thanks AJ, I guess laying around for a week or two isn’t exactly good for an athlete’s body.” I can’t even stand on my own any more. What’s going on? They started walking out of the room, but Twilight didn’t follow. She just kept staring out of the window. “Twi, are you coming? There are lots of other windows to stare out of.” Twilight didn’t respond. “TWI! Come on, I want to get out of here.”

Rarity walked back towards Twilight. “Go ahead, I’ll take Twilight along.”

What was going on with her? Every time they had visited Twilight had just been staring out of that window. It wasn’t too interesting out there, just the hills. Nothing else. “Well, okay.” Rainbow started walking again, Applejack close behind her. Pinkie was bouncing up and down carrying a bag, and Fluttershy followed with a smaller bag.

As they walked out of the hospital, Rainbow slowed down and started walking next to Pinkie. “Hey Pinkie, can you promise me something?”

“Sure, I promise you there’s no alligator on the way home.”

Rainbow stopped and looked confused at Pinkie. “Wait what? No, I mean can you promise me something, as in, —”

“Oh shoot, Gummy, what are you doing here? NO! I broke my promise! Noooo!” Pinkie cried out.

“Eeh, it’s okay Pinkie. I just want you to promise me specific thing.”

Pinkie stopped bouncing. “Sure, what do you want me to promise you?”

Rainbow felt a little bit uneasy asking this. She knew Pinkie had probably already prepared something, but she also knew that she had to ask her. “Well, could you promise me you’re not throwing me a party? It’s not that I don’t like your parties, I’m just too tired for one. And I don’t want something like last time happening again.”

Pinkies ears went down a bit. “Aaw, not even a small party? How about a get-together? Just us six! And Spike and Owlowiscious and Tank and Gummy and the other pets of course!”

Rainbow had to think for a second. Well, what could go wrong at a party like that? She would probably have to wear her helmet though, with Tank soaring through the skies your head wasn’t safe. “Well, I think that would be okay, how about tomorrow?”

Pinkie started bouncing again. “Okie dokie!”

They had already arrived underneath Rainbow’s cloud house. From here she would just have to fly straight up to get her stuff home. Just as she wanted to start carrying her stuff up she saw Rarity and Twilight coming. “Hey Twilight, you got out of that hospital? I thought you wouldn’t show up, seeïng that you’re addicted to that window!”

Twilight looked down at the ground. “Sorry Rainbow, I just —”

“Ah it’s okay Twi, I’m just teasing you. Hey, now you’re here, maybe it would be an idea if you’d take the Daring Do books with you to the library. I don’t think I’ll be doing a lot of reading any time soon.” Twilight was still staring at the ground. Something was wrong with that unicorn. She seemed worried.

It took Twilight a couple seconds before she realised somebody was talking to her. “Sorry Rainbow, I’ve —”

“No apologies Twi, just stop worrying”

Twilight sighed and looked up. “Hey, now I’m here, shall I take the Daring Do books with me to the library?”

Rainbow looked at Twilight and said: “Twi, that’s what I just asked. So, yes please. That bag is just books.” Pinkie walked up to Twilight and put the bag with books in front of her.

“Well, I think I’m going to carry my stuff up and take a nap, I’m worn out. Those hospital beds aren’t any good.”

Fluttershy looked up to the cloud house. She had been there a couple of times. She and Rainbow were the only ones who had ever seen it from the inside. Rainbow didn’t really like to get guests into her house. She would usually just meet them on a cloud nearby. “Shall I help you get your stuff up there?”

Rainbow already had the small bag in her mouth. “No fhank Flttrsh,” she dropped the bag again. “No thanks Fluttershy, I think I’ll manage. Thanks for helping me guys.”

“Aw you’re mighty welcome Rainbow, just be careful. Ah’ve got a lot of chores to do, ah don’t wanna have to see that hospital any time soon! See ya!” Applejack started walking back to the farm. Rarity, Fluttershy and Pinkie said their goodbyes and started walking back to their own houses.

Just twilight remained. She was still standing there. Staring at the ground where Pinkie put the bag with books.

“Yeah... Rainbow Dash, I.. I think I need to... I’ll just be on my way. I’ll see you.”

“Okay, don’t forget the get-together!” Geesh, that pony has been acting strange lately... What could be going on? Well, let’s get this stuff up there. She took the handle of the bag into her mouth, and flew up to her house. Wow, it definitely feels good to be on the clouds again. Let’s just lay down before getting that bag inside. Just ten seconds. Ooh, I’ve missed this. I just... She had already fallen asleep.

“Are you miss Rainbow Dash?”

A brown colt was standing in front of her.

“Yes? Who are you?”

“Doesn’t matter, I’m here to inform you that you’ve been suspended from the weather team until further notice.”

“What?! Suspended? And who do you think you are to tell me that I’m suspended?”

“Messenger of the Cloudsdale National Weather Association.”

No... No this can’t be true...This isn’t true. First the crash, then the plate. It’s all just a joke, a really bad joke. It’s a lie! That’s what it is! It’s all just one big lie! My entire life is a lie! It has all been one big lie. Not a single truth. I... I can’t live like this. I just can’t. I don’t want to live like this. This isn’t even living. You can’t call this living... I would be better off dead. Everybody would be better off with me out of their way. I’m just one big burden. Nothing else. Nothing more, nothing less. Just a pain. I’m worthless! Just look at me! I can’t do this any more! I can’t... I have to end this. I don’t want to do this. Right now, I just want to jump off this cloud. Head first. Straight down to the earth. Straight down to my end. Just shatter into a million pieces. I can’t live like this any more.

She walked out of her house towards the edge of her cloud. I... I can't do this any more. I'm going to jump. She looked down over the edge of the cloud. It was a long fall, and would probably kill ber instantly. She closed her eyes, and jumped.

So then this is it? This is the end? I'm going too fast now, I can't back out any more. She sighed. This was going to be her last crash. The ground came closer and closer. Then she felt it. Her front hooves touched, and the rest would follow within a second.

Chapter 5

"L... Luna?"

"Yes Rainbow Dash. Fear not, you are safe."

Rainbow could not understand it. One second she was falling, the next she was flying on the back of Princess Luna. Where had she come from? How did Luna know she was going to jump? Was this... "Luna, is this a dream?"

Luna did not answer. She flew back up to Rainbow's cloud house. There she kneeled so Rainbow could get off of her back. "Listen, Rainbow Dash, there is no time for me to explain. I will put you in a deep sleep. One without dreams. You will remain in that state for two days. Once you wake up you must go to Twilight Sparkle. I will tell her to prepare some food for you. She will explain everything to you. Now please lay down in your bed so I can let you sleep."

Rainbow wanted to ask Luna so many questions, but decided it would be better not to. So she laid down. Luna bent forwards and touched her head with her horn. "Good luck, Rainbow Dash."

Rainbow waited a couple seconds, but nothing happened. "Luna, I don't think it works." She opened her eyes, but Luna was gone. Instead, a letter laid in front of her hoof. She grabbed it and opened it.

Go to Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash.

-Princess Luna.

That was strange, I do feel a bit better though. Let's just visit Twilight." She jumped up in the air, and spread her wings. She caught an air current leading towards the center of Ponyville. There she dove down towards the ground, and landed on the balcony. The window was open. She jumped through it, and spread her wings to land softly on the ground.

Twilight sat behind her desk. She had not noticed Rainbow coming in. "Hey there Twilight!"

"Whaa! Rainbow! What did you do that for?" Twilight turned around. She looked tired.

"What? The window was open. I thought the doorbell might scare you so I came in through there." Rainbow nodded up towards the window.

"Next time please just use the door. Well, you must be hungry, you've slept for two days, after all."

Rainbow looked confused. "I thought it didn't work? It didn't feel like two days at all, more like two seconds."

Twilight sighed. She lowered her head and walked towards the kitchen. “Yeah, the spell we use is complicated. It does put the body in a physical state of deep sleep but since the mind uses dreams to process your thoughts, it might not have the full effect of a good night sleep.”

Rainbow raised an eyebrow. “English, Twi, heard of it?”

“The spell let’s your body sleep but not your mind.”

Rainbow looked up. That made a lot more sense. Twilight really needed to stop talking in riddles. “Hang on a second, Twilight, we? Do you use the spell as well?”

Twilight levitated a plate of sandwiches into the air and walked back towards Rainbow. She put the plate on the table and laid down on the couch. “Yes Rainbow. I use the spell as well. Let me tell you what is going on.” Twilight laid down her head and started to talk. “About two weeks ago I got a letter from the Princess. Not Princess Celestia this time though, it was a letter from Luna. She told me that we are under attack. An old myth turned out to be true. Let me tell you the myth.” She closed her eyes as she started to talk.

“A long time ago, when Celestia and Luna ruled together, an evil force slipped across the border. This force was the magic of and old unicorn, who had been banished out of equestria. His banishment had something to do with sleep poison in the water system, but the details are not known.”

“The unicorn lived in banishment for the rest of his life, but was filled with hatred against Luna, who had uncovered his plans. When an unicorn is filled with hatred, his magic will begin to form an life of it’s own. His hatred was so great that his magic became more powerful than anybody could have imagined. When the unicorn had passed away, the magic lived on. It became an invisible force. Hatred like this is known to be able to take over other ponies lives.”

Rainbow interrupted her. “Okay, old pony, hate, so what? What does that have to do with me?” She picked up a sandwich and began to eat.

“Please just be patient for a bit, Rainbow. His hatred was so big, that his magical abilities grew. It consumed the pony it had taken hold of, eventually driving this pony insane, often resulting in suicide. This went on for several decades, but nopony expected anything. Until that one fateful day. At that time both Luna and Celestia were known to take personal students. The magic still hated Luna, and was determined to wreck her. So it took hold of her student. There was nothing Luna and Celestia could do to save the student. he was lost.”

Rainbow looked at Twilight. “Lost? As in, lost lost? Or as in... you know?”

Twilight sighed. “Patience, Rainbow. They knew that the only way to stop magic was by the use of silver, and nopony could drive the magic out of her student, so he had to die. However, the magic was too strong and they could not end the students life. They decided to lock him in a silver cage, completely concealed from the outside world. There he would have to live the rest of his life, until he eventually passed away. To make things easier for him, Luna decided to put her student to sleep.”

“One hundred years passed, and the student neared the end of her life. However, the spell Luna had cast on her was not strong enough to hold. Just before her student breathed out her last breath, he woke up. Filled with hatred against Luna he kicked a hole in her silver cage. It was just a small hole though. Part of the magic managed to escape the cage before Luna’s student passed away.”

She just couldn’t sit still that long. Rainbow started flying around in the room. This seemed completely irrelevant to her.

“This magic had once again absorbed part of the magic of it’s host, but was badly weakened. It was unable to sustain itself in this realm, and had to hide in ponies dreams. That was over a thousand years ago. The magic kept switching host, regaining it’s magical powers bit by bit. Eventually, it grew strong enough to influence ponies dreams. It drove them insane. “

“Wait wait wait wait....” Twilight looked at Rainbow, annoyed for being interrupted again. “So you are telling me that a cloud of hating magic travels from one pony to another to appear in their dreams?”

“Yes, that is about right.”

Rainbow sat down looking sheepishly at Twilight. She had no idea what all this meant.

“This time the magic decided not to focus on one pony at a time, though. As soon as it regained enough magic, it split itself. This caused an outbreak of suicide. Eventually Luna managed to figure out what was going on. In utmost secrecy she and Celestia began to work on a spell that could purify the magic of a pony. This magic was taught to as many ponies as possible, and soon the outbreak died down.”

“They thought they had exterminated the hatred-filled magic. But recently they were proven wrong. The magic survived in the same way it did before. One pony at a time, gaining strenght death by death. And you, Rainbow Dash, are the one that proved them wrong.”

Rainbow stood there, trying to understand what Twilight had just told her. This sounded even stranger than Discord. “So I am possessed by some kind of strange magic that controls dreams to kill ponies to eventually take revenge on Luna?”

Twilight stood up and walked towards the window. She stared outside again. There was nothing to see there, though. “No, it is a little bit more complicated. The magic has grown, and now operates from several ponies appearing in other ponies dreams to weaken them before it really enters.”

It finally started to make sense to Rainbow. She had no idea how or why it was happening, but she got what Twilight was saying. “But if the magic needs to weaken somepony, then how did it get to me?”

“I don’t know Rainbow. It seems like it got you when you first crashed. Do you remember any nightmares since that first crash?”

Rainbow started thinking. There was nothing she could think of, except the one where Luna had to step in. Unless... No. There was no way that could count. That wasn’t a nightmare, it was a flashback, right? And if it was, she couldn’t tell Twilight!

Then Twilight spoke again. “I have. Since a day before your first crash, I’ve been having some minor nightmares. Nothing severe though. However, the nightmares became worse. That is why I informed the Princess, and she told me what she knew. Luna has visited to teach me her sleep spell. I have been using it on myself to make sure I did not dream.”

Rainbow was getting a bit worried now. She finally managed to understand what Twilight was saying. “So what do we do about it?”

Twilight walked back towards her desk. She opened up a drawer with her magic, looked through some papers and closed it again. Then she opened the next, and found what she was looking for. “Princess Luna has sent us this letter. It arrived yesterday.”

Rainbow grabbed the letter that was levitated in front of her, and started to read it.

Dear Twilight Sparkle, Element of Magic,

I am writing thou in response to our my visit the previous day. Our plans have been discussed with my sister, Princess Celestia, and she has agreed that we will let thou and thy friend Rainbow Dash, Element of Loyalty, have a stay in the Royal Canterlot Castle.

Due to recent developments I will be unable to help thou in thy investigation. We are needed to safeguard the dreams. Thou will have full aid of my sister, Princess Celestia, thou brother, Shining Armor, Captain of the Royal Guard, and Princess Mi Amore Cadenza.

We I have made notice to the Royal Guard, and thou hast full privilege in the Royal Canterlot Castle. Thou shall not be interrupted in thy investigation.

Thou Princess,

- Princess Luna.

Rainbow looked at the letter. “Wow, she still needs to adapt, doesn’t she? I can barely make sense of this.”

The paper was pulled out of her hooves, and put back in the drawer. “What she is saying is that we will continue our investigation at the Canterlot Castle. She came here right after she saved you. She told me everything that had happened.”

Rainbow looked at Twilight with an insulted look. “Everything? She just told you my dream?”

“No rainbow, she told me what had happened. She told me that you jumped, and that she could just barely catch you. Your dream is yours, and it is yours to tell, and only once and if you are ready to tell it.”

Rainbow looked away in shame. This dream had been a crazy one. She had been suspended for short periods of time before, that is a standard protocol after being taken into the hospital for more than a week. But this time it had been different. Her entire world had crumbled in front of her because of nothing. She could not tell that to Twilight.

Then they heard hooves outside the door. “Come, Rainbow. We need to go. Our chariot has arrived. I have already informed our friends that we would leave today. Pinkie wanted to throw a party, but I didn’t think that would be a good idea under these circumstances.”

Rainbow sighed. Her head felt like it was going to explode. Everything was just too much. How on earth were they going to investigate something that didn’t exist? Or at least not outside of her dreams? They walked out of the door.

Outside there was not one but three flying chariots. In front of each of them two pegasi, and on them three Royal Guards. One of them stepped off and walked towards Twilight. “Miss Twilight Sparkle? Your transport has arrived. We will guard over ponyville to make sure no incidents happen.”

Twilight was confused, but too tired to look up. “I think our friends can handle the situation here.”

Then all of a sudden Pinkie Pie came bouncing around the corner. In her mouth she had a bag. “We’re coming! We’re coming!” Following Pinkie were Rarity, Applejack and Fluttershy. They were all carrying a bag.

Rainbow looked at them. Twilight didn’t say they would all go. Of course it would be a lot of fun if the others came too, but this wasn’t exactly a fun visit to Canterlot. And what about their work? Rarity would be able to continue her work in Canterlot, but that would still leave Sweet Apple Acres, and of course Fluttershy’s cottage full of animals.

Rainbow started talking. “Look girls, I’d love it if you came along, but this isn’t exactly a fun visit to Canterlot. And what about your animals, Fluttershy? And the farm, Applejack?”

The guard that had spoken to Twilight started talking. “We have got that covered. Two of us will be at the apple farm, and two of us will take care of the animals. The other four will be guarding the rest of Ponyville. I will accompany you on your flight to Canterlot.

The guards that still stood on the chariots stepped off, and started walking to their destinations. Two headed for Sweet Apple Acres, two for Fluttershy’s cottage. The other four walked into directions that seemed random to Rainbow, but had obviously been pre-determined.

Twilight levitated two bags out of the house. Just as they flew through the door, she couldn’t hold it any more. She collapsed. The bags fell on the floor and opened up. One bag was filled with books, paper, ink and quills that flew all over the place. The other one was the one that Rainbow had used to take stuff home from the hospital. It was filled with everything Twilight thought Rainbow wanted to take along. That included the Daring Do series, her Wonderbolt lead pony badge and her flying suit.

They all ran towards Twilight, including the guard. He lowered his horn and said: “Stand back everypony.” They all did a step back as the guard’s horn touched Twilight’s head. Yellow sparks flew off his horn.

Rainbow looked concerned. “What are you doing?”

The guard’s magic stopped, and he raised his head again. “Dreamless sleep spell. It has been taught to all the Royal Guards. We need to get her to Canterlot as soon as possible though, your studies will have to start immediately. Only then can she truly rest.” He levitated the stuff that had flown out of the bags back in, and closed them. Then he levitated the bags onto the chariot, and Twilight with them. Rainbow flew onto the Chariot the guard had lowered Twilight on, and the guard stepped on it as well.

The other girls put their stuff on the other chariots. Rarities suitcase was so big that she needed a chariot of her own. The other three girls stepped on the other chariot, and they took off. Off towards Canterlot.

Chapter 6

“Your highnesses, they have arrived.”

“Good, bring Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash in, and show the others where they will be staying.”

“Twilight Sparkle has been put to sleep, your highness.”

“Then levitate her here, and make it quick.”

---|———|------|———|------|———|---

Finally they had landed at the Canterlot Castle. The flight had taken more than two hours. It wasn’t exactly a short trip, but if she had flown herself Rainbow would have been able to do it in ten minutes. But since they all needed to get there, that was not an option. A guard came running out of the castle. He spoke to the other guards, and then stepped towards Rainbow. “Miss Rainbow Dash, you and miss Twilight Sparkle are expected at the Royal Castle. Please follow me.”

The guard levitated Twilight up from the Chariot, and started walking towards the castle entrance. Rainbow followed him, and so did the rest of their friends. A different guard stepped forwards. “I’m sorry, but we cannot allow you to come along. You will be led to your rooms.”

“Oh but I am quite certain the princesses wouldn’t mind if we came along. We are their friends, after all.”

“I am sorry, miss Rarity, but we can not let you come along. Princesses orders.”

Rainbow turned around. “It’s okay Rarity, we will see you all soon.” She continued to walk into the castle, following the guard. She had no idea where they were going. Apparently towards the Princesses, but the castle was too big for her to know where that would be. She could easily get lost in here.

The guard opened a big door, leading towards a big, open room. She knew this room. This had been the ballroom during the Grand Galloping Gala. Now, however, it had changed dramatically. The room was long and high, with large windows reaching all the way to the ceiling. The windows were pieces of art by themselves. Each one of them was made up of thousands of colorful pieces of glass. They all told a story. Together they showed the most important events in Equestrian history.

On the other side of the room, there stood four ponies. On the far right stood princess Cadence, the princess of love. Princess Cadence had been Twilight’s old foal sitter. To her left stood princess Luna, princess of the night. On the far left stood Shining Armor, captain of the Royal Guard. He was also Twilight’s brother. To his right she stood, the largest and most majestic of all ponies, princess Celestia.

As soon as they walked in, princess Luna started walking towards them. She grabbed Twilight using her magic, and put her down gently on a couple pillows. Then she laid down in front of Twilight, and touched her head with her horn. As soon as she did that, her eyes closed. A blue glow shone from both of them.

Rainbow stood there, waiting for something to happen. Then princess Celestia walked up to her. “Rainbow Dash, please relax. You are safe, and so is Twilight. She has been exhausted because of the spell she has been using to put herself to sleep. Right now my sister is guarding her dreams.”

Rainbow had no idea what to say, so the princess continued. “We have called you over to Canterlot to help us. Twilight Sparkle has probably already told you the story.” Rainbow nodded. “As you might realize, the treat is big. You and Twilight Sparkle are currently the only ones that can do anything to investigate exactly what is going on. The magical force that we are dealing with has evolved from what it was. The spell we used in the past is now useless. We need more information to make it work again.”

Rainbow looked worried at Twilight. “And why exactly can only me and Twilight do something about it?”

Celestia turned around and walked towards one of the windows. Rainbow followed. “The magic has developed itself. It is spreading and killing much quicker than it used to. The Royal Guard is trying to prevent as much deaths as possible, but we can not put all of equestria into dreamless sleep. You two are the only ones we can trust. You have proven to be strong, no matter what thread you face.”

Rainbow began to understand what she was being told. Most ponies would kill themselves while doing this investigation. But because they were the elements, they would not. She was the element of loyalty, so she would stay loyal. Twilight, the element of magic, would manage to keep the evil magic down.

There was one thing she did not understand though. “How are we going to investigate when we try to kill ourselves in our dreams?” If they fell asleep and dreamt even they would try to kill themselves. She had already tried it once.

Celestia looked at Twilight. “Currently, my sister is working at that. You two will not be dreaming your own dreams. You will be dreaming each other’s dreams.”

Wow, that went too quickly. “Dreaming each other’s dreams? How is that going to help?”

Celestia pointed at her sister. “Right now, Luna is dreaming Twilight’s dreams. The magic we are trying to defeat adapt to the person it is invading. Right now, Luna is facing threats that would drive Twilight insane. But because the threats are aimed at Twilight, they are not hard for Luna to overcome. Imagine it like this. If you had to, would you kill yourself or burn a book?”

That was a strange question. Of course Rainbow would burn that book, who wouldn’t? But then she realised, that Twilight would find great difficulty in burning a book, and when helped a bit more into the wrong direction, would probably kill herself instead. “Oh, I think I get it. But... How can we live each other’s dreams? I mean, it’s obviously magic, and I’m a pegasi.”

Celestia looked at Rainbow and smiled. “Even though you are a pegasi, that doesn’t mean you don’t have magic. You still have a very strong kind of magic inside of you. I have even sent Twilight to study it.”

And Rainbow was pushed back to square one. She not understand what friendship had to do with this situation. Using friendship you can’t read somebody’s mind, could you?

The princess continued talking. “Your friendship links you to each other. Through this friendship we can set up a permanent spell, that will make you dream each other’s dreams until the spell is broken.”

On the other side of the room, Twilight opened her eyes. She yawned, and blinked her eyes. “I fell asleep, didn’t I?”

Luna spoke to her with a softer voice than Rainbow could have ever imagined coming from the Royal mouth. “Yes Twilight Sparkle, you did. And you have slept, and dreamt. Are you ready to start your studies?”

Twilight looked around the room, and saw Rainbow standing next to Celestia. “Yes, yes I am. Rainbow, do you understand what we are going to do?” She still looked a bit tired, but already looked a lot better.

Rainbow started walking towards Twilight. “I think so.” This was nothing for her, all those explanations. All that, well, egghead stuff. But if she could help her friends, she would do anything. Even if it meant sharing her deepest thoughts. She did realise, that having somepony else see her every dream, could have massive impact. Not all her dreams were, so to speak, for all ages. But well, she had to do what she had to do.

Princess Luna looked at Rainbow. “To establish the link, I need you to lay in front of Twilight, with both your wings on her horn.”

Wow, that was unexpected. Her wings? Why her wings? “Why my wings, can’t we do it with a hoof or something?” She didn’t like anything or anypony touching her wings, or touching anything with her wings.

Luna smiled. “No Rainbow Dash, we need to do it with your wings. Your wings are the most powerful part of your body. They will channel the magic better than anything else.”

Well, no arguing with that. Her wings were indeed the most powerful part of her body, and it did make sense. Kind of. Unicorns have their horn, and pegasi their wings. She laid down in front of Twilight, and unfolded her wings. Slowly she let the tips of her wings touch the tip of Twilight's horn.

“Now lay still please. As soon as I cast the spell, your dreams will be bound. I will have to cast the spell twice, once to make you see Twilight’s dreams, and once the other way around. As soon as the spell has been cast, Twilight will fall asleep. We will leave the room, except for Shining Armor. He will make sure nothing goes wrong.”

Twilight lowered her head back onto her own front hooves, and Luna cast her spell. Rainbow felt a strange flow of energy. A warm kind of flow. First Twilight’s horn became warmer, and then the tip of her wings. But it did not stop there. Slowly the warm glow spread across her wings. Each feather became warmer, as the warmth traveled through her veins. Slowly it came closer to her shoulders, and from there spread both down into her chest and up her neck. Slowly but surely, the magic spread further. When it arrived at her nose, the felt like she had to sneeze.

But then, the magic found a way to her brain. It felt like a lightning bolt traveling from her wings all the way to her brain. The heat retracted from all other parts of her body, and focussed around the two thin lines. One in her left wing, and one in her right, leading towards the center of her brain. The lines became hotter and hotter, and she felt like she was going to melt from the inside.

Then, a second bolt of magic stroke. Everything turned black. As she opened her eyes, she saw the Library. Twilight’s house. What was she doing in Twilight’s bed? Oh, this must be a dream. All of a sudden, she stood up and started walking. How, what is going on? Oh right, I don’t have control. I’m just watching.

Twilight walked down the stairs. Hmm, everything is looking normal so far. She walked to her telescope and started looking through it. Rainbow had to admit, the sky did look amazing through one of these. She had flown out there in the night sky quite often, but that was different from this. It was a bit clearer, but through a telescope she could see things.. Differently. They looked so much closer. Almost as if you could grab them.

The night sky was filled with stars and other objects. Now and then a pegasi flew by. Rainbow saw herself flying by once. And there was one more pegasi that stood out. It was a brown pegasi, with a letter as cutie mark. It was him! That was the messenger! That was the guy that brought her the news that she was suspended! What did that mean? She would have to tell this to Twilight.

But just as that pegasi flew by, something else happened. One of the stars he just flew by started to grow in size. It grew quickly, too quickly. Even though she was not an egghead, Rainbow knew this was not what was supposed to happen. Then, she got sucked back into darkness.

For a moment she just laid there. She had her eyes closed, trying to figure out what had happened. Twilight groaned softly, she had woken up. Rainbow opened her eyes and saw Twilight sitting straight up. Her brother stood next to them. “Twilight, are you okay?”

“I think I am. Well, that was definitely a bad dream. Rainbow, we need to go over every single thing that happened if we want to find out why it happened.” Rainbow was still laying down, her eyes half closed. She folded her wings back into place, and sat up.

Ouch, headache. “Twilight, do you know a spell against headaches?” Shining Armor stepped forward. His horn began to glow, and the headache was gone. “Thanks, Shining. Okay, Twi, could you just explain me what was going on before you woke up?”

Twilight had already grabbed a piece of paper, some ink and a quill and was writing down everything that had happened in the dream. “In a second, just write down what you remember.” She levitated a pot of ink, quill and piece of paper over to Rainbow who stepped back.

Dreaming somebody else’s dreams okay, but writing? She wasn’t really the type to write. “Eeh, Twi? Have you ever even met me? Me and writing isn’t exactly the best idea.”

Twilight did not lose focus, and kept on using her magic to write. Her paper was already twice as long as the average letter to the Princess. That much hadn’t happened, right?

“Here, let me help you.” Twilight cast a spell on the quill, and then on Rainbow. “Now just think of what you want to write.”

Okay, thinking should be doable. Let’s see...

Woke up

Looked at hooves

Twilight’s hooves, Twilight’s body.

Stepped out of Twilight’s bed

Walked down stairs

Stare through telescope

Brown pegasi flies by

Star grows

That was really all she could think of. The quill dropped. She looked at Twilight’s paper, which was currently roughly the size of three letters to the princess. “Okay, I’m done.”

Twilight raised her head and looked the paper Rainbow just wrote. “Rainbow, you will have to write in a bit more detail next time. If we read this back later we don’t know the details. For now it is good enough though.”

Ugh, more detail. Well, the writing wasn’t that bad with that spell. Twilight put down her quill carefully. “Hey Twi, that brown pegasi... He was the one that told me I was suspended. Do you know what is going on with him?”

Twilight started pacing around the room. “I am not sure Rainbow. I have seen him in my previous dreams as well, but in that dream he was an unicorn. he seems to bring the bad to our dreams. I think he could be representing two things. Either he is the one that is currently trying to infect us, or it could be him.”

That pony really never spoke without any kind of riddle. “Him, Twilight?”

“Yes Rainbow, him. Luna’s last private student.”

Chapter 7

Three pairs of hooves could be heard entering the the room where Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash and Shining Armor were standing. “We heard you were done with your first investigation, Twilight Sparkle?”

Twilight’s mouth stayed shut. She was shivering, not knowing how to ask what she had to ask. This question could not remain unanswered. Eventually, her mouth opened. “Princess Luna, your latest student...”

A pair of eyes filled with pain turned away. Just thinking of that subject seemed to hurt her a lot more than you could imagine. “Yes Twilight Sparkle?”

Twilight hesitated as she saw the pain that came with this subject. But once spoken, words could not be undone. She would have to continue her questions. “What did he look like?”

Luna walked towards one of the beautifully decorated windows. That window showed the entire story of her latest student. Not a single word was spoken, she just looked at the window and sighed.

The window was made out of small pieces of colored glass. It was divided into three parts. The lowest part showed a silver cage, and nothing more. The middle part showed a pink cloud entering ponies. The ponies were in a laid down position, under watchful eye of the moon. But the moon was powerless, and could not protect them. The ponies were lost.

And then there was the top part. That part was the biggest of the window, and laid with utmost care. The detail was immense. In the picture, the same pink cloud as in the center one. But this time, the cloud did not seem to enter a pony. Instead, it was breathed out, through the nose of a brown alicorn.

None of the ponies in the room spoke a word. The silence was deafening. The sound of a bird chirping on the other side of the window broke the silence. Luna opened her mouth, and spoke with a soft, tear-filled voice. “Now you know, Twilight Sparkle. Now you know.”

Twilight knew, but was too dazzled to say anything. Even though she knew, she did not understand. This was nothing she had expected at all. The alicorn was brown, and did resemble the unicorn and pegasus she had seen in her dreams perfectly. So it was obvious that the one they saw in their dreams was indeed, Luna’s last private student. But it did not make any sense to her.

How had he become an alicorn? Becoming an alicorn was the result of excessive studies of a certain object. It showed that you had absolutely mastered the subject. It was something she had looked up long ago. Princess Cadence had become an alicorn after studying Love, and Celestia and Luna had become alicorns as soon as they could raise the sun or moon. But how could somepony filled with hatred become an alicorn?

She tried to speak, but her mouth was unable to form words that made sense. Never had she known. As far as she was aware, alicorns did not age unless it was for a specific reason. They grew when their wisdom grew, and only when they were killed they could die.

“Eeh, could somebody explain what is going on please?” Twilight turned her head and looked at Rainbow Dash, who had broken the silence.

“I was right, Rainbow Dash, it was indeed her student. Princess, every time something bad happens in a dream, it is caused by your student.”

Salty drops fell off the chin of the princess of the moon onto the marble floor. With the grace of the sun a wing was draped over her back. “It was not your fault, dear sister. Nopony saw it coming. Twilight Sparkle, I think it would be better to continue your studies at a later time.”

Luna raised her head and sniffed. “No sister, they need to know. They need to know why he became an alicorn. They need to know his magic could not be killed. Why it lived on though his body had passed away. Twilight Sparkle, my student was the prince of hate.”

The words struck like lightning. Four mouths fell open. Hatred was powerful, but nopony had imagined it could be powerful enough to turn somepony into a prince. Only the most powerful kinds of magic could do that.

Luna continued. “This pony was my sixth personal student. He was studying the magic brought forth by the stars. Or at least, that was what we thought. He was able to raise the stars without any problems, and if needed he could even raise the sun or moon. Back in those times Equestria was not as peaceful as it is now. Sometimes, me and my sister had to leave to fight for the freedom of Equestria. At that time, we harnessed the power of the elements. In those days, my student would take over our everyday routine. He raised the stars, the moon and the sun.

“But what we did not realise is that he was actually studying a different subject. In utmost secrecy, he had been studying the powers of hatred. We did not realise it, until one fateful moment. We had left the palace to fight alongside the pegasi. The griffins had raided the northern part of Equestria, and needed to be brought to a halt before all of Equestria would have been taken over. We fought for three days, and gained the upper hand. The pegasi could now handle the situation, so we left to return to the castle. As we arrived at the castle, we could not enter. A black forcefield had surrounded all of canterlot. It did not matter what we tried, we could not get through.

“Then he showed up. He came up to us, and laughed. He just laughed. I tried to reason with him, but as soon as I spoke, the sun disappeared. My sister tried what she could, but it was in vain. She could not raise the sun. Then, he challenged me. He challenged me for a duel. We knew that it was the only way to save Equestria, so I accepted it. I also knew, that this could very well be the end. As soon as I accepted his challenge, the force field was lowered, but a new one appeared. This time, it was a smaller one. It only surrounded me and him.

“He charged at me, and hit. As soon as the tip of his horn hit, I was defeated. His hatred had been transferred. In a flash, he was gone. Hatred inside of me grew. Fortunately, his tactic backfired. My hatred was aimed at him, and at nopony else. After a while, he returned in a flash of white. There he was, the prince of hatred.

“I charged at him, and caught him off guard. He was terribly wounded, and was unable to do anything. He was defeated, but it was not enough for me. I did the worst thing you could imagine. I... I killed my own personal student!”

The last words were shouted with the force of a hurricane. A soft thump was heard, as the pony collapsed on the floor. A stream of tears fell like a waterfall. Silence returned in the room. This was a part of history that had been long forgotten, shoved aside as if it was just a myth. Just like Luna had been shoved aside as ‘the mare in the moon’.

Soft words from Celestia calmed her sister down a bit. “Twilight, I think it is the best if we would pause our studies for now. You know what you need to know, you and Rainbow Dash can continue your studies if you like, but my sister can not assist you right now.”

With the grace of the moon Luna regained her footing. “We are not done yet. The spell has only been cast one way. Please allow me to cast it the other way as well.” Twilight and Rainbow nodded, and laid down in front of each other. This time they knew what was going to come, and they did not speak a word. There was no need to. Rainbow unfolded her wings, and put the tips on Twilight’s horn again. Then, a soft touch on her head followed.

She fell the heat again, but this time it went the other way around. It started in her head, and spread through her veins down. Down her neck, into her spine. From her spine into her front hooves, and into her wings. Every feather in her wings was filled with heat. Slowly it reached the top of her wings, and continued to spread. It must be spreading into Twilight’s horn now, she thought. It took mere seconds after the magic reached the tip of her wings to reach Twilight’s mind. All the magic got pulled from all across her body, towards the fine line of magic that flowed from her mind through her wings to Twilight’s mind. Even though she knew what was going to come, she still was not prepared for the feeling. She was starting to melt again. The tips of her wings began to glow, and she felt like they could burst into flames any second now.

A vortex of darkness and coolness opened up behind her, and she got sucked away from reality into a deep sleep. This time the dream was different. Instead of waking up in Twilight’s house, she was standing in an entirely different house. This house... She had never expected to see it again! She hoped she would never have to see it again! What was going on? She barely even remembered anything of this place. Pushed aside, locked away into the deepest part of her memory. Not a single good thought could be associated with this place.

She stood on one end of a table. The table looked like they were eating, but she felt the wall behind her. She was trying to walk back further, through the wall, away from the table. On the other side of the table there were two ponies. One was a full grown pegasi, and the other one was just a small foal. The full grown pegasi looked at her, eyes full of fire. The foal just watched, a small evil grin on his face.

The sound of shattering glass against the wall was not loud enough to cover up the screams. Screams of fear, screams of pain, screams of horror. No matter how hard she screamed, it was in vain. Glassware flew around the chamber, followed by the plates of the dinner that had not yet been finished. Even though she tried, she could not escape. Never could she escape. Running was no use, hiding wasn’t an option. As she saw him grabbing the last plate on the table, she tried to dive away. But she was too late.

“Noo!” she screamed.

Her eyes opened. Trying to adapt to the bright light in the castle, she blinked. Her eyes could not help it, tears poured out of them. She stood up, and ran away. As fast as she could. The door came closer and closer. A pink cloud surrounded the door, and opened it for her. The castle walls and rooms flashed by as she ran. Where? She did not know. The castle was like a labyrinth.

As she ran through another door fresh air filled her nose. Her wings unfolded and carried her up. Up into the sky. Away from the castle. Away from her dreams. Away from her memories. She looked around and saw a cloud. She raced into it. The cloud moved as she landed on it. Not carefully, or slowly like she usually did. She slammed into it with all of her force. Almost had the cloud flown apart, it just barely held. Tears dripped into the cloud, and from the cloud down to Canterlot.

This could not have happened. This had never happened before. Why now? Why had she dreamt like that? Her mind went crazy. What had just happened? She thought she had left this behind her long ago. Then why did she dream about this?

The light of day turned to dark. The full moon rose into the skies, followed by thousands of stars. It was not like a normal moonrise. The moon flew into place like the sun, not the way it usually did. It was the same as before they had defeated Nightmare Moon.

Her thoughts wandered off as she relived that day. It was the best day of her life. Actually, it was two days. But there was no sleeping in between, so she counted it as one. That day she had met Twilight, who came into Ponyville to check on the preparations of the Summer Sun Celebration. It had not been a celebration though. Nightmare Moon had escaped from her prison on the moon, and the Princess had disappeared. A book revealed that the elements of harmony were the only way to defeat Nightmare Moon. A quest followed to find the old Royal Castle, deep in the Everfree Forest. In there, the Elements had chosen her and her friends to be their bearers.

Fluttershy, element of kindness. Applejack, element of honesty. Pinkie Pie, element of laughter. Rarity, element of generosity. Twilight, element of magic. And herself, element of loyalty. Their friendship had gotten them through that challenge and eventually brought down Nightmare Moon, to re-unite her, now as princess Luna, with her sister. From then on, they had been the best friends. Their friendship had pulled them through a lot of challenges.

First there was the Grand Galloping Gala, which turned out to be a disaster. They had split up to do what they liked to do, but only when they were reunited they could enjoy the rest of their evening.

Second, there was Discord. Discord had brought chaos throughout Equestria. He had almost defeated them, but through a spell Twilight cast to remind them of their friendship, they had been able to stand up against him as one. Once their friendship restored each of them, Discord had been easy to defeat.

After that there was the wedding of princess Cadence and Shining Armor. However, Cadence turned out to be a changeling, whose only goal was to consume pony kind to feed her own people. That time, their friendship had failed. Twilight stood on her own, to rescue the real princess Cadence and stop the wedding. After Cadence and Shining Armor had been reunited, their love was what saved Equestria. If they had listened to Twilight, and trusted her, everything would have been a lot easier.

Their friendship had pulled them through a lot of problems. And even though this time it was only her and Twilight, their friendship would be victorious! If only... That dream was not something she wanted to relive.

Eventually the cloud stopped raining. A well-aimed kick made it disappear. I have to find Twilight, I owe her an explanation. Rainbow thought. But no matter how hard she tried to get back to where Twilight was, the maze of halls did not let her through. One of the Royal Guards looked behind him as he heard Rainbow’s hooves on the marble floor. “Can I help you?”

As much as she did not like to ask help, she wanted to find Twilight. And it wasn’t asking help if it was offered, right? “Yeah, I am looking for Twilight Sparkle.”

The guard took a better look. “Are you miss Rainbow Dash?”

What a stupid question. How many pegasi are there out there with their hair colored like a rainbow? “Yes, that’s me.”

“I have received orders to show you your room. If you would follow me please?” The guard started walking. Left, right, right left, left, right, left, Rainbow could not remember what way they were going any more. The sound of hooves stopped as a door was opened with a blue cloud of magic. “This is your room, miss Rainbow Dash. I will notify miss Twilight Sparkle that you were looking for her.”

Well, that was a better idea than having to walk through the castle again. This place was so big she would need a map, compass and guide and would still get lost. “Thank you.” She walked in the room, and closed the door behind her.

Author's Note

This chapter took quite a bit longer to write, but I think it turned out pretty well. You might notice my writing style has changed from previous chapters. Reading through some writing guides I gained a bit of new insight, and I think this way of writing allows for a lot more detail where needed, but also allows to speed up quite a bit better when needed. Please let me know if you like the changes in my style or not.

And if you're going to say you expected the plot twist, well, I didn't to be honest xD. The best ideas come while writing.

Chapter 9

A young filly ran across the street. Her terrified eyes were filled with tears. Behind her, a faint multicolored trail was visible. In her mouth she had a shining red apple. Behind her, three colts. "Stop! Thief!" One of the colts took off and flew towards her. Just as he reached out, she turned hard left. A loud bang was heard as the colt flew into a market stand. Melons fell down, through the clouds down to their certain destruction.

One down, two to go. The other two colts were now also flying, and started to catch up. She could not fly yet herself, but her wings did allow her to glide fairly quickly. She jumped onto the back of a bypasser, and from there to one of the market stalls. One more jump and she would be on the rooftops. She spread her wings, and jumped. As quickly as she could she started flapping them. But it was not enough. The cloud wall came closer and closer, and she was not gaining altitude. Come on, just a bit higher... Come on stupid wings, FLY!

Just as she was about to hit the wall, a tingling feeling went down her spine, and into her wings. The wings, first just a couple small feathers, grew quickly in size, transforming into real wings capable of flying. All right!

She flapped her wings two more times, and was already far above the rooftop. The two colts following her were still closing in, though. She extended her legs in front of her, and flew up as quickly as she could, the two colts still right on her tail. Above her, there was a small cloud. As a pegasus, she knew flying through one of those at this speed would be like running into a brick wall, unless you did it just right.

The two colts were now almost next to her, and started to come closer towards her. One leg extended in front of her, the other just behind it. Now all that was needed to get through the cloud was to spin her front hoof clockwise a bit. Or was it counter-clockwise? At full speed she flew into the cloud. Eyes closed, all she could do was hope she did it right.

Bam! A loud bang confirmed her fears, it was counter-clockwise, and not clockwise... The cloud had refused to give way and the two colts grabbed her. "You ain't going nowhere, Rainbow Crash. Filthy thief you are." The pain in her head started to get worse, and she lost consciousness.

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A white light shone,bright enough to hide the rest of the room from sight. The headache was unbearable, especially with that light flooding the room. All she wanted now was a bit of darkness to relax, and some food. "As if it isn't Rainbow Dash," a colt spoke. "Try not to move. You crashed yourself pretty badly this time. Crashing into a cloud at those speeds is not really that good for new wings, you know."

Finally her eyes began to adjust to the light. Around the light there was a white ceiling. Around the ceiling were four walls, two of them white, and two with curtains in front of windows. At the end of her bed there was a stallion dressed in a white doctor's robe. To her left a heart monitor attached to her left front leg. Her right front leg was tied to the bed. Some small tubes ran from a needle in her left front leg to a bag suspended by an iron pole.

The headache became worse and worse again, and darkness filled the room again as she fell back out of consciousness.

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Slowly the darkness started to turn lighter again. From pitch-black the inside of her eyelids slowly turned to a soft gray, and then to a faint red color. Voices echoed through her head. "She'll need a long bed rest, but we can't keep her. Does she have a family she could go to?" The voice was one of a concerned adult mare. They were not spoken words though, mere some kind of echo, some kind of memory that seemed to replay inside her head. It sounded hollow, and started.to fade away as it kept playing over and over in her head. A different voice started to gain volume. This one sounded a bit familiar, though this one was hollow as well. The words were not clear enough to make a full sentence. Only three words were clear enough for her to pick up. No. Father. News.

Slowly a horizontal white line started to appear in the middle of the red. The light from outside her head penetrated through it, into the front of her eyes directly into her head, causing the headache to come up again and her eyes to close in reflex. Father. The word echoed through her head, gaining more and more volume. Her father, there was something about him. All her life she had been a street filly, or at least ever since he had disappeared. Never had she been able to figure out why he had disappeared.

In the streets, life was hard. Every waking minute she had spent finding something to silence her rumbling stomach, often resourcing to garbage bins and other sources of thrash, that contained some of the leftovers of other ponies. Usually she could find something to eat in those.

However, Wednesdays were not really that forgiving. Then the garbage was collected to be brought to the dumps on the ground, piled up high into the air slowly disintegrating so the earth ponies could use it to fertilize the ground. Or at least, that was what she had heard. It seemed strange to her, throwing garbage on fields to make food grow quicker and bigger. But right now, figuring out what happened to garbage was the least of her concerns. There was something those ponies knew about her father that she didn't.

Once again the white line appeared. This time though, her eyes did not slam shut again. The white line grew, and other colors started to appear as well. She was still in the same hospital room, but the other ponies had gone. However, a golden figure started to appear in the corner. Her eyes were still adjusting to the light, but the shape grew sharper, and slowly transformed from a golden glow into a golden harness. Inside the harness, a white colt. His face did not show any emotions. He was one of the guards, a high one. She had seen guards way too often before, especially when locked away for stealing, but none of them looked like this one. Usually the armor was just iron, the higher guards sometimes had a different color. But gold was rare. It was reserved for the highest order of guards. The Royal Guards.

Her eyes sprung open in surprise. What was a royal guard doing in the hospital, in her room? "Slowly, Rainbow Dash. We don't want you to slip away again. Allow me to introduce myself." She tried to interrupt the guard, to start explaining that she had not stolen that apple. That it had rolled off the table or something. But as she tried to open her mouth, she found herself unable to do so. Of course, paralyzed. It was a trick they used to keep ponies from escaping from the hospital. It was quite common for criminals to have to visit the hospital before being brought to the guard, and they tended to think that escaping from the hospital was easier than to escape from a building filled with guards. Therefore there was always one unicorn in the hospital, to paralyze those patients.

"My name is Golden Knife. I am an investigator of the Royal Guard. My job is to investigate crimes so we can prevent them in the future. Right now, I am investigating a series of murders. You are one of the key witnesses, even though you might not even know about the murders. But right now I can not go into detail. We are not allowed to discuss these matters at public locations. As for that apple, it has been paid." Golden Knife stood up and walked out of the room, closing the door behind him.

After a couple seconds, the door opened again. This time, a white unicorn entered the room. "Okay now Rainbow, I am going to release you from my spell. Please try to move as little as possible, you will need your rest." The white mare closed her eyes, and her horn started to glow. Instantly a freezing feeling surged from her head down her spine, followed by a warm glow. The spell had been canceled, and Rainbow was able to move again slowly she raised her head to take a better look at the mare, who had already turned around. "The doctor will be with you shortly." The sound of her hooves echoed around the chamber as it once again filled with silence.

Even though the spell had only locked her body in place, her mind seemed to be locked as well. A lot of thoughts were racing randomly through her head trying to make sense of themselves. Why would a crime investigator visit her? What could she have witnessed? And those echoes, about her father? What was going on with that? Did he have something to do with those crimes?

As her thoughts raged on the doctor entered the room again. His face was in a frown. It was not really a frown though, more a look of disappointment. Or more worrying, or a combination of those three. He checked off a couple boxes on a paper at the end of the bed, and let out a sigh. “Look, Rainbow Dash, we have got a bit of a problem here. I’m not sure how to tell you this.”

A long silence followed. Still working his way through some papers, the doctor walked around the room. He moved the chair from the corner next to the bed, and sat down. Rainbow could not bear it any more. “Well, what is it? What’s the problem? And what was up with that guard guy? And how -” The doctor raised a hoof to stop her.

“We can not keep you here very long. The hospital is too small and we need the beds. But you will need a lot of rest, so we would usually send you home.”

Her head raised up a bit and a smile formed on her face. “So I can go home now?”

“No... Rainbow Dash, I don’t think you can ever go home again.”

The smile slowly turned into confusion. The doctor did not make any sense. Going home was simple, she knew the way from here. She could walk, or fly, it with her eyes closed. Many times before she had walked that road. “Why not? I know the way.”

“Look Rainbow Dash. You don’t have a home any more. Nor a father.”

Tears started to form on her cheeks. What the hay was going on? No father? No home? “What do you mean?”

Slowly the doctor started to talk. His eyes were showing pain. He did not want to tell her this, but she had to know. “There has been an accident in your house. Apparently a gas leak. There has been an explosion, and your dad is no longer with us. That is all I know.” The doctor stood up, and walked out of the room.

Author's Note

Okay, this chapter is a little bit shorter, and it's not as fluent as others. The other chapters have been written over a period of at most two days. This one however, has been written while on vacation, at work, and the last part back at home. Therefore it is a little bit shorter and messier than other chapters. I hope it's not too bad, but the next chapter surely will be a bit better.

Chapter 10

Time has it’s own cruel ways of playing with you. Minutes almost never pass as minutes, hours never pass as hours. And right now, minutes felt like hours. Her house, her dad, gone. Disappeared. Evaporated, incinerated. Most of her life she had been on the streets, but still. Her house used to give some kind of comfort you could not find on the streets. And even though her dad was never there for her, it was still her dad. No matter how poorly he treated her, he brought some kind of strange comfort with him. Even drunk.

Many times she had wished it gone. Her house, her dad, her life. But now it had happened. It was gone. Her house and dad at least. And her life would soon follow. Street life was hard for anypony, even those in the best condition. And right now, she was not one of those ponies. Even now, laying down in a soft hospital bed, her eyes closed, she felt her weakness. Even laying still took energy. If it was true what the doctor had said, and she did have to be fired from the hospital before being fully recovered, she was a goner. Just like her house. Just like her dad.

One apple. One apple had defeated her. That one apple, so red and shining, just begging her to be eaten. She had no choice but to take it. She hadn’t eaten properly in three days. Her dad had been in bed again, unconscious after drinking too much. It had happened before, and it was nothing to worry about. Usually he would wake up after two to four days. It was just the way things went. They had always been like that. Ever since her mother had left them.

She had become familiar to hunger, and had stolen before. Usually she managed to do it without anypony noticing. And if somepony did notice, she was usually able to win them over with her eyes. But sometimes she had to run. When that happened, things sometimes went wrong. Sometimes she managed to outrun the other ponies, but other times it did not go that well. Usually she’d end up in jail or in the hospital for a couple days. At least there she could get free food, so it wasn’t too bad.

After being released from jail or fired from the hospital, she could always retreat to her home. Usually well fed, sometimes tired. But she had a safe place to sleep, so that did not matter. But this time... No home to rest, not enough strength to provide any kind of food for herself. She would have to sleep on the streets, resorting to garbage for food. That was when ponies passed away. Illness, underfed, too tired to keep themselves upright. Even though being able to walk on clouds, pegasi could still fall through them when completely exhausted. Not in houses though, they had thicker floors. Soon she would be that exhausted pony. Laying in the streets, trying to get some sleep. Drifting away, deeper and deeper into sleep, and into the clouds. And eventually, plummeting towards the ground while fast asleep.

That one apple had caused this. That one had sealed her fate. Her failed escape attempt, her first flight, her collision with that cloud. “My first flight!” She had shot up in her bed, now sitting, heavily sweating. It had been her first flight! Hooves pounded through the hallway and into her room.

“Are you alright Rainbow Dash?” The nurse stood at the end of her bed, quickly checking all equipment to make sure nothing was wrong.

“It was my first flight! Have they got it? Did they find it? Did somepony go looking for it?” Her heart was beating in her throat, the monitor on her left beeping like crazy.

“Please calm down, Rainbow Dash,” the nurse said. Her voice was soft, not hurried this time.

“How can I be calm if I might have just lost my feather?! My last fillyhood feather? The rest of my life depends on that!” Her eyes were desperate, waiting for answers, waiting to hear they still had it. To hear it had not been lost.

The nurse looked at Rainbow, her eyes pitying. “No, we have not got it. It has been lost. I know what it means, but unfortunately it will not be for you.” Her wings moved a little bit as the nurse tried to hide it. In one of her wings, a small black feather in between all white ones. Her marefriend’s last fillyhood feather. The symbol of connection between her and her husband, or fiance.

If her feather was lost, she would be unable to show her deepest feelings for somepony. It was a special tradition with pegasi. Instead of asking somepony for marriage, you gave them your last fillyhood feather. That feather was different from all others. Other feathers would decay, this one would not. Other feathers would get blown away, this one would not. Once given to another pegasi, and accepted by that pegasi, it would find it’s way into their wing. In between their own feathers. Firmly held in place, never to be lost. “I have got to find it.”

The nurse quickly interrupted her. It was clear this was not easy for her to tell Rainbow, but it had to be told. There was no hope. “Rainbow, you can’t.”

“Of course I can! If I go right now, it will probably still be where I got my wings!”

“Rainbow Dash, you won’t find it. The last pegasus following you, he saw your feather. He tried to get it for you. But it fell. It blew away. It fell down to earth. And it did not land where you would be able to find it again. Your feather, it’s in the Everfree.”

Slowly at first, her eyes began to fill with tears. Her vision blurred. Tears. More tears. Hundreds of small droplets of water, one by one being absorbed into the bigger mass of water, flowing down out of her eyes, over her cheeks onto the pillow. It was lost.

“I’m sorry, Rainbow Dash,” the nurse said, slowly walking out of the room.

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Minutes took hours to pass, as time slowly went by. Everything was lost. Everything at once. Her dad, her house, and if she would manage to stay alive, it would not matter. Her future was lost. Thoughts and tears. Nothing else.

Once more hoofbeats approached her bed. Golden Knife walked into the room. "I assume they have told you what has happened?" Her throat was filled with misery, and only a small mod could be brought forth. "As I said before, we can unfortunately not discuss matters here. You will have to come over to my apartment, where I will explain you everything we know, and where I will ask you questions. You are free to answer or refuse to answer to those questions. You can stay at my apartment as long as you like."

That last sentence seemed to clear her throat. It was as if somepony had held a rope around her neck and suddenly released it. Even though she might have lost everything, this would not yet be the end. It was almost too good to be true. "Really?" she said as she started to be filled with hope again.

"Yes, really. I have discussed it with my superiours. Though it is against the rules, they have allowed me to take care of you."

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Days went by in an instance. One day after hearing the news that she would be living with Golden Knife she had been fired from the hospital. Still very weak, he had supported her with his wing, all the way to the appartment. If he hadn't, she would surely have fallen over quite a couple times. It had still been a lot for her to handle. Her life had changed drastically, and it wasn't for the better. However, Golden Knife was taking good care of her now. Soon, the appartment felt like a new home.

Her new home was a small one. It was smaller than her old house. It had only four rooms. A kitchen, a living room, one bedroom and a bathroom. The bedroom was occupied by Golden Knife. He had offered to give it to Rainbow, but she had refused. The couch was good enough for her. After she had settled in, slowly Golden Knife had begun to tell her everything about the explosion. Not all at once though. Every day, when he felt like Rainbow was ready to handle some more, he had told her parts of the story.

Her father had been followed by the Royal Guard for a while. They knew everything about him. How he was always drunk, what pubs he went to, what his history was, everything. All the good things, but more bad things. And probably not even all of them.

Golden Knife was sitting in the living room. In front of him he held a newspaper. Even though he knew almost everything that was of importance through the Royal Guard, he often choose to read the newspaper as well to see what the public knew. Not much, appearently. He folded the newspaper and put it on the table. "Rainbow, could you come here for a second, there is something else I want to tell you."

A voice from the bathroom responded. "Just a second!" The toilet flushed, and Rainbow walked out of the bathroom. Her eyes were sleepy, and her mane revealed that she had only just woken up. She let out a yawn as she walked towards the couch Golden Knife was sitting on, and sat down next to him. They had sat like this quite a couple times already. She had been staying with him for a week now, and almost every day had he told her something. "Okay, what did you wanna tell me?"

"Look, Rainbow, I have told you we had been following your father for quite a while, right? But I have not told you why." He stood up and walked towards one of the cabinets. From it, he took a couple newspaper snippets and reports from the Royal Guard. The snippets were lined black. Inside the black lines, names. The names of ponies who had passed away. With those names, small lines of text written by other ponies to memorize them. Some names were circled in red.

Rainbow looked at the snippets and the names on them. She recognised a couple of them. Ponies she had known when she was even younger. To her surprise, most of the names she recognised had a circle around them. "What do those circles mean?"

Golden Knife had sat down next to her again. "Those ponies, are ponies who have committed suicide. They seemed to have taken their own lives away." Suicide was something that was not common among ponykind. It happened, but not often. Especially not this often. "We think however, that this is false. This is the reason why you have been brought here. Why we think you are of importance to this investigation."

Rainbow was confused. "If they have committed suicide, but actually they haven't, then why are they dead?"

"They are dead. But they just didn't commit suicide. Or at least, we don't think they did. Suicide is not something that happens this often. Just look at the dates of the newspaper."

In the right bottom corner some dates were scribbled. He was right, it was all within a couple years, and there were about fifty suicides. That would be about one every two weeks.

"See? It's too frequent. And it's too regular. The suicides happened about two weeks from each other, not less than one week, and no more than three weeks apart. And as you could read in the reports, almost all the suicides were committed in the same way. You don't have to read those reports though, they are pretty detailed and not exactly fun to read."

Quickly Rainbow stopped reading the first report. He had been right. So far she had read in detail how the pegasus had broken his wings, and thrown himself off a cloud. "Are they all like this?"

"Yes Rainbow, all the same. That caused us to think we had cases of murder instead of suicide. It wasn't coincidence, it couldn't be. We started looking for connections between the victims after the eleventh case. There seemed to be none. Then we started to draw up their connections. The ponies they spoke to, they worked with, all that kind of things. And we came out by one pony every victim seemed to know. At that time, a lot of time had passed and we already had thirty five victims."

"Did you arrest him?"

"No Rainbow, we couldn't. Even though he was the only possibility, we did not have enough evidence. So we started following him."

Slowly Rainbow's mind started to shift around the pieces, trying to connect them all together.

"We followed him until the amount of cases came to fifty. We did still not have enough evidence, but we decided this could not go on like this any more. We would lock him up for four weeks, and if no more 'suicides' happened, we would know we had the right pony."

Followed him. In her mind some pieces began to fall in place.

"A team of highly trained ponies was put together to form the arrest. In front of his house they gathered. Fifteen pegasi, and five unicorns. We did not know if he would be dangerous. Even though he was usually drunk, and we knew he was at that moment, he could still form a real thread..."

Drunk... Pieces were falling together quicker and quicker.

"As the team walked up to the house, they were struck by it. Nopony could have seen it coming. Most of them were badly burned, and two of them were killed by the explosion right away."

Explosion

"Rainbow Dash, we think the murderer was"

"My father..." she finished his sentence.

Author's Note

Well, I thought this chapter would be the last one of Rainbow's past, I guess I was mistaken. Funny how those things usually don't work out the way you planned them.

Chapter 11

It had been almost three weeks since the accident. Time passed by more quickly as everything became routine again. She had been with Golden Knife for eightteen days now. He was usually at work in the living room, laying out reports and newspaper snippets, making notes, and writing letters. When he did that, Rainbow was often outside practising her flying skills. She had always dreamed of joining the Wonderbolts one day, and now she had her wings the time had come to make that dream come true. It would be a lot of work though. Getting off the ground was a lot easier when being chased than in a nice and calm backyard.

However, today was not a normal day. Today was Sunday, Golden Knife's day off. It was the only day in the week they both slept longer than until eight o'clock. When the clock reached the tenth hour, that was early enough. Slowly a pair of purple eyes opened. Letting out a groan, Rainbow stretched herself. The smell of coffee had filled the room and had woken her up. Coffee was definately not something she drank. Once had she tried it, but one sip had been enough to make her realise most adults were crazy. However, waking up to the smell of it wasn't that unpleasant.

"Morning, Rainbow Dash," Golden Knife said while walking out of the kitchen, a cup of coffee and a glass of milk, both carefully balanced in one hoof. He placed the glass of milk on the table in front of Rainbow and sat down in the chair, taking a sip of his coffee.

Rainbow slowly raised her head, still getting the rest of her sleep out of her head. "Good morning, Golden." She reached for the glass, but couldn't reach it. Rolling her eyes back in her head, she got ready to stand up and grab it. Two hooves on the ground, her eyes open again, she saw that the glass was already held in front of her. "Thanks."

Golden Knife sat back in the chair again, watching Rainbow as she drank her milk. "And, how is the flying going? Able to get airborne without being chased already?" he chuckled.

"Yeah, it's actually not too hard once you've lifted off. Yesterday I've flown for surely half an hour straight!"

Golden leaned back in his chair. "Good, because I was planning something for today. And it would be a lot easier if you could fly there yourself. However, it's a flight of at least forty five minutes."

Rainbow looked away from her milk, one eyebrow raised. Forty five minutes of flight wasn't nothing. Canterlot was about an hour away. The other side of cloudsdale maybe fifteen minutes. "Where?"

Casually Golden Knife answered her. "Well, I thought that maybe, if you'd want to try it, we could go down. You know."

Rainbow was burning with curiosity now. What could he mean by going down? "Come on, just tell me!"

"Little impatient, aren't we? Well, I was thinking. You know how pegasi feathers never get blown away once they land somewhere? I thought that maybe we could go down to the Everfree Forest and look for yours."

An empty glass was turning on the table, as the bathroom door swung open and closed. Three seconds later, fully awake, Rainbow Dash stood at the front door. "Well, what are we waiting for? Let's go!"

Golden Knife stood up and walked towards the bedroom. He tossed a saddlebag over his back. In it, there were two rain capes, a can of hot coffee, and a couple sandwiches. Next he walked up to a hook on the wall, with around it a leather band. On the leather band there was a golden sheat, layed beautifully with gemstones. He threw the belt around him and fastened it.

On the night table next to his bed laid a knife. Apart from the golden handle, it looked like a pretty normal knife. However, if you inspected it more closely you could clearly see that it was not. The handle was thicker than that of a normal dagger, and so was the blade. It was als balanced a bit different, balanced perfectly for throwing. He grabbed the blade with his teeth, and smoothly slid it into the sheat.

Rainbow was tripping of excitement in the hallway. Her brain was eager to tell Golden to hurry up, but she had grown to know him good enough to realise that was not going to help at all. Instead, she waited. Biting her lips to make sure the words stayed in, but she waited.

"Rainbow, please do realise that there is a big chance we will not find your feather. The Everfree Forest is a big forest, and today we will only be able to cover the outer edge. There is a big chance we won't find your feather. Not today, not next time we go looking for it. It can easilly be lost forever."

"Yeah, blablabla, I know, can we just go already?" Rainbow said. She was already floating outside the door, waiting for Golden to follow her.

"Been working on your takeoff?" Golden Knife was watching her as a feeling of respect for Rainbow grew inside of him. It had only been three weeks since she had gotten her wings, and she was already flying. It had taken him at least half a year to acchieve such an easy liftoff himself.

Rainbow looked down. She realised she had already taken off. Slowly she started to tip over, head down. Quickly she raised her head, trying to get control again, but that only made it worse. Wings rapidly flapping as she tumbled over, letting out a muffled "ough" as she fell into the clouds.

Golden Knife laughed and gave her a hoof getting up again. "No need to fly yet anyways, we need to get to the other side of cloudsdale first."

Rainbow could not hold it any more. There were so much questions she wanted to ask. Even though Golden did not usually answer her questions if it wasn't the right time, she gave it a shot. "Where do you want to take off from?"

"You'll see," Golden Knife answered her.

"How do you want to fly?"

" You' ll see."

Questions were fired at Golden Knife the entire walk, usually being answered with "You'll see," or not at all, since then the next question had already been asked.

Finally, he said something different. "We're there."

Rainbow stopped walking. Her eyes grew wide and slowly went from left to right, taking in the entire panorama laid out in front of her. The weather was as clear as it could be, and they could see all the way from Canterlot in the south to the high mountains in the north of cloudsdale. Even though she had lived here all her life, she had never seen this place before. It was amazing.

"Are you coming?" Golden Knife had already taken off and was hovering next to her.

Rainbow snapped out of her amazement. She bent all her legs, and unfolded her wings. The base of her wings aiming up high, the tips of her wings aiming down. Then she straightened her front legs, shortly followed by her rear legs, kicking herself high up in the air. As soon as she did not go upwards any more, her wings straightened. This was the hardest part of liftoff, by far. When her wings were fully horizontally, she pushed them down as hard as she could, sending her up another meter into the air. She was airborne.

"Nice one, Rainbow. Next time try aiming your wings up a bit more when you unfold them, then you'll get more lift at the first stroke. Well, what are you waiting for? Let's go!" Golden forced his wings back with a huge stroke, sending him forward. Quickly, Rainbow followed. They were on their way to the Everfree Forest, on their way to her feather.

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"Wow," Rainbow gasped. They had flown for about forty minutes, when she could see they were getting close. Flying low definitely had it's advantages, like thicker air, which made it a lot easier to fly. However, there were also some downsides. Closer to the ground meant less time between losing control and crashing into the ground. And, you saw a lot less. From their takeoff spot in Cloudsdale she had seen the Everfree Forest, but as soon as they had descended she had lost sight of it. Now, they were there.

The Everfree Forest laid in front of them, extended far in both directions. It was not easy to miss. The Everfree had some kind of mist around it, that seemed to banish all happiness out of the forest. The sky above it was clearly a lot less blue, and more gray. Almost black. Even darker shadows were cast on the top of the leaves by the ink black clouds, moving in all directions but the ones that would make sense. The greenlife in the forest seemed dead, but it was too lively to be dead. The Everfree Forest. Forever free, forever expanding its boundaries into the rest of Equestria.

On their way Golden had told Rainbow a couple stories about the Everfree. Those stories included myths as old as the forest itself. Hundreds of years ago the forest had appeared out of nowhere, behind the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters. Behind the Castle had always been a small apple orchard. However, one of the apple trees had mysteriously turned corrupt. Within a matter of hours it had corrupted the rest of the trees as well. Vines had started to creep out of the orchard, and into the castle, quickly tearing it apart. Within ten hours the castle had been reduced to ruins. Since then, the forest had been spreading. Quickly at first, but slower as it got bigger. Even today, the forest was still expanding. However, not as quickly as before.

"Is it alive?" Rainbow asked. The sheer sight of the forest made her shiver. At first she thought Golden just did not want to go in there because he didn't dare. She was right. But now she knew, she wouldn't dare to enter that either.

"You tell me. Some say it is, others say it's dead. There are even ponies who say it has never lived, or has died and came back to life." Golden Knife had landed right next to a tree. They were about a kilometer away from the forest, but they could clearly feel it's presence. You just couldn't feel happy.

Rainbow landed next to him. Her legs numb of the flying, she decided to lay down before she fell over. Her wings folded back neatly in place. Her stomach rumbled. Until now, she hadn't noticed it, but the flight had taken a lot of her energy. This morning she had wished Golden would just forget about his preparations, and hurry up to go look for her feather. Right now, she was glad he had prepared a meal for them. It's strange how an empty stomach can change someponies point of view so easily.

Golden Knife took a couple apples out of his bag. Quietly they sat next to each other, eating the apples and looking at the forest. "You feel it as well, don't you?" she asked him.

"Yes I do. Everypony does. The Everfree Forest surely isn't a fun place." Quietness fell over them again. In the background there were still some noises of birds tjilping, bunnies jumping around and other wildlife, but they seemed a long way away.

They had finished their apples and Rainbow felt new energy flowing through her again. Even though only short, the rest had done her very well. Golden Knife took a map out of his bag and unfolded it in front of him.

The map was one of their side of the Everfree Forest. Lines were drawn all over it in different colors, and on one spot there was a cross. "This, is a map of the Everfree. The cross is where we are right now," he explained. "Today I want to cover this area." His hoof was tracing the outlines of a small box drawn around the cross.

"Today, we will walk through this area, scanning it systematically. We will start where we are right now, and then walk over towards that lake over there. Then we will walk back and forth, shifting about twenty meters in the direction of the Everfree every time."

Rainbow looked over at the lake he had pointed out. It wasn't close, and would surely take about half an hour to reach by hoof. Flying they would be there a lot quicker. However, she was not a dumb pony, and realised that she could not fly good enough to do that and get back home in the evening, so she nodded.

Golden Knife rolled up the map, and stood up. Rainbow stood up next to him, about five meters between them. They started walking, scanning the area with their eyes. Rainbow's eyes went back and forth between things that looked interesting to her, where she thought her feather might be. Golden Knife however, having done this many times before, scanned more systematically. Slowly going back and forth, left and right.

Not a word was spoken. The presence of the Everfree was hard upon them. If there was no need to say anything, they didn't. Hours went by in silence.

They had walked back and forth between the lake and the invisible line from their landing spot to the Everfree about seventy times, when Golden Knife decided it was enough for today. They had covered more area than he had hoped for. "I think that is enough for today."

Rainbow looked up at him. Her face grim and disappointed. As much as she would have wanted her feather, she wanted to get out of this place now. In silence she nodded and walked up to him. He had already taken some sandwiches out of his bag, and handed one over.

They had come closer to the forest, she could notice it. The silence was deafening. She could hear Golden Knife munch on his sandwich, and herself on hers. She heard every single movement she made. Her heart was pounding, more and more rapidly. She munched and munched on her sandwich, trying to think of something to even think of. But nothing came to mind. Nothing but emptiness, nothing but sadness. Her eyes started to water. Never would she feel happy again. Never.

Golden Knife looked at her, and saw what was happening. "Come, Rainbow. Let's go." He took her sandwich and wrapped it in the foil again. They both unfolded their wings, and took off. Away from the Everfree, away from sadness and despair.

As the distance between them and the Everfree grew, their moods raised. After about 15 minutes, Rainbow finally managed to speak again. "What was that?"

"'That', was the Everfree," Golden spoke. "Nopony exactly knows what it is that causes it, or what exactly it causes, but it's not good. All happiness is lost inside that forest. We were not inside it, but if you're near it for long enough, it has the same effects. If you really want to get that feather back, it's something you'll have to get used to."

It was not something she wanted to get used to. The unhappiness, the unlivelyness of that place, it was unbearable. She had known pain, stress, loss and a lot of other feelings she rather wouldn't have known, but this was entirely different. It was a lot worse.

All of a sudden, tiredness came over her. Her eyes started to get heavy, and her wings got weaker. Slowly she started to lose altitude. Golden Knife looked over, and started to fly down and under her. Her hooves touched and slid off of his back, her legs around it. Her wings were still moving, but lacked the power to lift her. They folded, and her eyes closed. Exhausted, she fell asleep.

Author's Note

It's strange how some chapters just start as quickly mentioning something, meant to take,at most two paragraphs. Well, I think this is a bit better than a 2-paragraph mention.

This story is going to be longer than I expected...

Chapter 12

A gust of wind quickly followed by a scream of pain woke her up. The rhythmical up and down that had been maintained throughout their flight had changed in a desperate attempt to maintain as much altitude as possible. Despite the attempts, the ground was coming at them fast. To their right, underneath them, a brown spot. Something, spinning around and around, just like them.

The ground came faster and faster. With only a couple meters to go, Golden Knife managed to get some control of the situation again. One wing broken, flapping up in the wind uselessly, the other almost straight above him, to allow him to steer a little bit. Only fifty meters left. Forty. Thirty. Twenty. Rainbow closed her eyes, afraid of what was going to come. Ten. One last mighty strike of Golden’s wing. A loud snap, followed by three others quickly after one another. Then a hard smack brought the fall to an end.

Pain.

A strain of warm liquid ran down one of her hooves as she stood up. Instantly pain struck, sending tears into her eyes. Slowly she stepped off Golden Knife’s back. He was laying flat on his chest, eyes forced closed, his legs in unnatural positions, dripping with blood. He groaned.

Black spots started to blur her vision. They grew quickly and the surrounding began to wave. The world turned ninety degrees as the spots blinded her entire vision.

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“There are two more over here! Quick, get a medic!"

"He's got a dagger, get one of the guards over as well."

Carefully she was lifted onto a brancard. Eyes still closed, Rainbow let out a small groan. "Easy there, it's all right, we've got you now," a voice spoke.

"Golden..." A voice to her left spoke.

"You know him?"

"We are colleagues."

"Do you know what he was doing here?"

"I do. Nothing of importance though." Nothing of importance? So a first feather is nothing of importance? Who does this guy think he is? Rainbow thought.

Finally she had managed to open up her eyes. She was not outside any more. Instead, she had been brought into a white tent. There were multiple ponies bent over her. Some obviously nurses, others Royal Guards, and some seemed just normal ponies. One of the nurses spoke to her. "Rainbow Dash, you have been hurt pretty badly. We will have to put you into a sleep until we get you to the hospital."

Warmth filled her body, forcing all thoughts out of her head, as she fell into a deep and restful sleep.

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A rhythmic beeping penetrated her mind. Beep... Beep... Beep... "Four broken legs, one broken wing," somepony spoke.

She opened up her eyes. The white tent was replaced by the solid cloud ceiling of the hospital. She was in a large room. To her left, on a bed surrounded by two pegasi and an unicorn was Golden Knife. To her right a curtain blocked out the view.

The unicorn was using magic, and had finished. Golden Knife opened up his eyes. "Easy now, Golden Knife. You have had quite a crash."

"Where's Rainbow Dash?" he responded.

"I'm here!" Rainbow jumped out of her bed, instantly regretting she did that. A headache worse than any she had felt before. But now she was already standing, and there was no use in laying back down. She walked up to Golden Knife, but one of the doctors stopped her.

"You should not get out of your bed yet, Rainbow Dash. Please lay back down." He grabbed her and led her back to her bed, helping her to get back in. Her face towards Golden Knife. As soon as the Doctor turned around, she caught a glimpse. He was looking at her. His face was one of a dead pony. Even whiter than he usually was, grimmer than he had ever been. His eyes did not shine like they used to. They were dull instead.

"What happened?" he asked. From across the room, a Royal Guard came. Clearly he was not glad to tell Golden what he had to.

"We have got another one. You have been hit by him, as he fell down."

Golden Knife moaned. He had really thought they had solved the suicides, but right now, they were back at square one. And disabled.

"When he hit you he broke your wing. On impact you broke four legs. We have managed to fix them up though. In two weeks we expect you back on duty," the guard said. He turned around, and left the room.

Golden Knife moaned softly. These were the times when he regretted becoming a Royal Guard. Four broken legs and a broken wing would have given most ponies at least a month off. But well, life goes on, and choices that have been made have been made. Slowly he sat up, and looked over at Rainbow. "Hey there, how are you doing?" he asked.

She had already raised herself, listening to the words spoken by the other guard. How was she doing? She actually had no idea. Aside from the headache, everything seemed to be fine. But it didn't feel fine. Something was not right. Realizing she had been staring at Golden for a while, she managed to answer. "Confused, I guess."

Golden was not really caught by surprise by that answer. She had had a rough time, lately. Figuring he was going to have to explain sooner or later, he spoke again. "We have been struck down by another pony committing 'suicide'. Your dad can not have been a murderer, but we've still got one on the loose, probably."

Three ponies dressed in black walked into the room. They walked past Golden and past Rainbow, towards the bed surrounded by curtains. Two of them disappeared behind them. After a while, they swung the curtains away, revealing a bed with on top of it a black cover. Under the cover must have been the pony that committed suicide. Rainbow's eyes traced the bed as it was being guided out of the room. Then they slowly went back to where the bed was. Behind where the curtains had been, there was a small cradle. Inside of it, a young brown foal.

Her jaw dropped, and her eyes grew. "Is... Is he... Did they... What..."

Golden Knife interrupted her. "Yes Rainbow. That little foal, just lost his father."

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Days went by without a hitch. After two days, Rainbow and Golden Knife were released from the hospital. Golden was still pretty weak, and Rainbow had to take care of him, but there were no notable events. Their everyday lives resumed relatively quickly. Even though he was only expected to be working again after two weeks, one week of doing nothing had caused Golden to get back to his snippets and reports, trying to figure out what was going on.

Thirteen days had passed, and tomorrow Golden Knife was expected back at the job. "Rainbow, I'm out for a while, could you start preparing dinner?" he yelled at the colorful trail flying through the yard. He walked out of the garden, knowing that no answer usually meant yes.

Rainbow practised her flying skills for another five minutes. Then she landed to get started on dinner. Today they would be eating simple, hayfries and daisy sandwiches. Having done most of the cooking for the past two weeks, she had gotten quite familiar with the art of warming up simple food. It wasn't really cooking, but the meals she produced were far from bad.

Just as she was about to get the hayfries out of the frying pan, the door opened. "Hey Golden. I'm almost done." she said as Golden Knife entered the kitchen.

In his mouth he had some kind of paper. He was grinning from ear to ear, as he laid it down for Rainbow to read. "Please Rainbow, call me dad." he said as Rainbow read the adoption form.

Rainbow jumped up and threw him over, hugging him as hard as she could. Everything seemed to slowly settle back into place again. First, she had found refuge when she thought she would end up on the streets, now she got herself a new dad. They were looking for her feather, so her future soon would not be a problem either. Everything was going to be just fine.

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Three years passed, and their lives had settled back into a normal rhythm. The number of suicides had declined drastically. Instead of once every two weeks, it now happened about once every three months. The Royal Guard was still working on it, trying to figure out what caused all those ponies without any obvious connections to kill themselves in a similar way, but the numbers were not as shocking anymore. Lately, however, the case had gained some new interest as there had been a suicide attempt by a young filly in the orphanage. She had only just been stopped. Both her wings were broken already, but a caretaker had caught her just before she had jumped off the clouds.

After the filly had recovered a bit, she was brought to the Royal Guard for interrogation. Golden Knife had led it. The filly claimed she did not know what had happened. That she had fallen asleep in the orphanage and woken up in the hospital. A couple unicorns had come over from Canterlot, trying to get into her mind, but they had found nothing. Nothing at all.

Rainbow was at the end of her first year in flight school. It had not really been an easy year for her, but definitely an important one. The high amount of crashes had given her the nickname 'Rainbow Crash'. She had been cast out by the majority of the school as being a failure, while actually the crashes had been the result of her pushing her limits. She was far beyond what most of her classmates could achieve in the air. Especially one of her classmates.

She was not the only one being bullied. In her class there was another filly, called Fluttershy. Where Rainbow was found in the air most of the time, Fluttershy choose to remain on the clouds as much as possible. Even though Fluttershy could not fly well at all, Rainbow did not tease her with it. Cast out from the rest of the group, they were kind of in the same situation. Fluttershy had become a good friend of Rainbow.

"I'm going to 'Shy," she said to her dad. He was once again focussed on the large pile of papers in front of him.

"Sure, just be sure to be back before dinner," he responded without looking up from his papers. There had to be something they were missing...

"Eeh dad, sleepover, remember?" Rainbow said while putting on her saddle bags. They were filled with a sleeping bag in one, and a pillow in the other bag.

Golden lifted up his head and jumped up from the couch. "Oh, of course, I forgot. Here, let me give you a hoof." He closed the saddle bags and kissed Rainbow on the cheek. "Have fun you two, and be careful please. And remember, I will be bringing Fallen Drop over." Fallen Drop was the foal that had almost been killed in the accident three years ago. Since he had lost his father, he had been sent to the orphanage. However, sometimes Golden Knife took him over to their place so he did not have to grow up as an orphan. There was no way they could adopt him as of right now, he simply did not have enough time to take care of a three and a half year old foal.

"I know," Rainbow answered. Having Fallen Drop over was not something special any more. Golden brought him with him every two weeks, in the weekends they did not go looking for Rainbow's feather. The search for the feather had not been a lucky one so far. They had scanned most of the perimeter mapped out around the Everfree already. There were only a couple patches of ground left to cover. If they would not find the feather there, it would probably be inside the Everfree. If it was in there, it was lost, Rainbow knew. She had gotten used a little bit to the effects of the forest, but it was still unpleasant. Going in there was, even in her mind, not an option.

She walked out of the door, and unfolded her wings. With one simple stroke she was hovering in the air. "See ya!" she yelled as she flew away towards Fluttershy's house. It was not far, and she had been there quite some times before. This was their first sleepover though. In no time she was at the house, three streets away from hers.

She landed in front of the door and knocked. A small peephole opened up, soon followed by the rest of the door. "Hey there 'Shy, ready for our sleepover?" Rainbow said excited, stepping into the house and closing the door behind her. Fluttershy nodded, her right eye covered by her long pink mane, her left showing the usual nervousness.

Hours went by in a matter of seconds, and before they knew it they laid down in the middle of the room, next to each other, yawning as their eyes slowly closed to take them away into the land of dreams.

The next morning Rainbow packed her stuff, and got ready to leave. "Hey 'Shy, do you want to come over? Fallen Drop is at our place this weekend. I'm sure you'd love him."

Fluttershy squeaked at the idea. She had only been at Rainbow's house once, for about five minutes. Never before had Rainbow seen that many hiding spots in her own house. Every single noise seemed to creep her out, and sent her flying off into a random direction finding cover. Now she thought of it, Rainbow wasn't sure if it was such a great idea either.

"Well, I guess I will see you monday then, back at school." Rainbow had already walked to the door, followed by Fluttershy.

Fluttershy helped Rainbow put on her saddle bags. "Bye," she said softly, almost too soft to hear.

Rainbow took off, and flew back towards her own house. Something inside of her was nibbling. She was not sure what it was. The sleepover had went well, she only had to pull 'Shy out of her cover about seven times. But something seemed wrong. She was not sure what it was. It was not a conscious thought, just a feeling in the back of her head.

She landed, and opened the door. "I'm home!" She was greeted by a lough. Not a nice one, more an evil one. "Dad?" She put down her bags, and walked into the room. Her dad was standing across the table. Next to him sat Fallen Drop. The little foal had an expression on his face she had never seen before. It was some kind of grin.

Her dad's wings were hanging uselessly along his sides, bend in places wings were not supposed to bend. His eyes were full of fire. She started to back away from the table, filled with plates of sandwiches. She walked back, against the wall, but did not stop. She tried to walk further, through the wall, away from the table. This was not her dad. This was not the dad she knew.

She sound of shattering glass against the wall was not loud enough to cover up the screams. Screams of fear, screams of pain, screams of horror. No matter how hard she screamed, it was in vain. Glassware flew around the chamber, followed by the plates and sandwiches on them. Even though she tried, she could not escape. Never could she escape. Running was no use, hiding wasn't an option. As she saw him grabbing the last plate on the table, she tried to dive away. The plate shattered into a thousand pieces, hitting the wall just above her. As she looked up, she saw his hoof reaching for the brown foal.

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Tears had soaked the cloud she and Twilight were laying on, causing it to rain down on the garden underneath. She gazed in Twilight's eyes. "Now you know, Twilight." Rainbow broke down, her eyes closed, water gushing from them. Twilight's eyes filled with tears, as she moved closer and hugged Rainbow. Now she knew. She knew. She knew what had been, and what has to be. And she hated every single bit of it.

Chapter 13

Silence had been over them for more than an hour. The only sound heard in the garden was the soft sobbing of Rainbow. Unable to do anything to raise Rainbow's spirit, she had just hugged her. She was unable to raise her spirit, but knew that soon she would have to send it crashing down further than it already was. Finally, she broke the silence. "What happened next?" she asked.

Rainbow got a bit of a hold on herself again, and responded. "I moved in with 'Shy. Three weeks later we went to Flight Camp. You know the rest of the story already."

Twilight nodded. The stories of Rainbow's time in Flight Camp were also not the best, but compared to what Rainbow had just told her it seemed like a pretty good time. Finally she decided it was time to get to the point. "Rainbow, I was thinking... Fallen Drop. He did... right?"

Rainbow bursted out in tears again. Twilight hated putting her friend through this, but she had to. "And your dad, he had broken his wings?" Rainbow nodded. "Rainbow, I hate to tell this, but I think I know what we have to do. You have to know. The princesses have to know too. Do you think you are ready?"

Another small nod came from Rainbow, and Twilight's horn began to glow. They were surrounded by a purple mist, as Twilight's magic did it's work. In the blink of an eye, they were in the large room with the windows that told the historical events of Equestria. On the other side of the room, the princesses were talking to each other. As soon as they noticed Twilight and Rainbow appearing, they stood up and walked over.

"Twilight Sparkle, have you found something?" Celestia asked.

Twilight closed her eyes, and tears started rolling from them. "Yes, princesses. I think I know where we can find him."

Rainbow looked up. Where to find him? What did that have to do with her story? Unless...

"Princesses, Rainbow Dash, I think the spirit of Luna's student is inside of Rainbow Dash," she spoke. Her eyes opened again, revealing the worries and pain inside.

The three other ponies stepped back in disbelief. "What?" Luna exclaimed.

Her voice shaking and cracking, she started to explain it to Rainbow Dash, as Celestia and Luna listened. "Look, Rainbow, the spirit seems to travel from pony to pony, driving the ones around that pony insane. Remember how you told me about that one pony in the orphanage that tried to kill herself? And then, when your dad took Fallen Drop from the orphanage to your house, he tried to end his life as well? Fallen Drop is the only one that is likely to have carried his spirit. And as he... you know... you took over the spirit..."

Rainbow's mind went crazy, trying to comprehend what Twilight had just said. She understood it, she got what it meant, but the realisation had not yet struck her. "But then why haven't there been any suicide attempts around me? Why haven't I gone insane?"

This was something Twilight had been thinking about. It had not made sense to her either, at first. But then she realised it had to do with who Rainbow was. "Loyalty," she said. "You are loyalty. You are loyal to not only those around you, but also to yourself. And that radiates. Others around you will also be more loyal, also to themselves. And when you are loyal to yourself, somehow the magic doesn't have influence."

It did make sense to Rainbow. "But then why do we get the dreams now? What has changed?" she asked, wiping away some of the many tears on her face.

"He grows in strength. His power is becoming greater and greater. He can already target ponies far away from you, and it will only be a matter of time before he can target you. And when he does, his strongest enemy is gone, and he will once again roam free."

Rainbow stood up, trying to gain control of her emotions again. If this force was inside of her, and it was killing other ponies, she would do whatever it took to take it down. "What do we do now? How do we get it out of me?"

This time it was not Twilight who answered, but Luna. "We can't," she said. "We do not know for sure if Twilight is right just yet. It does make sense, but it does not have to be truth. However, we can test that." Luna's horn lit up in a dark blue tint. Slowly the glow around her horn started to expand, and she started to glow in the same color. Celestia, standing right next to her, started to glow like the sun, soon followed by Twilight, who radiated a magenta color. Then, the magic reached Rainbow. First the tip of her nose, followed by the rest of her head. Then the rest of her body, followed by her tail. Rainbow glowed brown.

"So it is true..."

"So, what are we waiting for? Can't you do some kind of spell to destroy it?" Rainbow said, louder than she had intended.

"Rainbow Dash," Celestia spoke. "We can't. We can only destroy magic when it does not have a body. And there is only one known way to separate magic from somepony."

Then it struck Rainbow Dash. "So you are saying that I have to... die?" All that hard work, all that pain in her life, and it would just have to end like that. Life was not fair. Life had never been fair. It had always been taking things away from her. And when it had given her things, it was only to take them away later on. And now, even her life would be taken away from her. Life had never been good for her.

She gathered all the force she had left in her, and spoke. "Okay. If this is killing so many ponies, it has to happen. But there is one thing I want to do before we do this." She turned her head to Twilight, who was shaking on the floor, crying. "I want to go look for my feather one last time, Twilight. With you."

Author's Note

I think I have messed up with exactly where to end the chapters a bit along the line, but even though this is a short one this deserves to be it's own separate chapter.

Chapter 14

It had been three days since Rainbow had opened up her story to Twilight. After a day they had told their friends the story. Or parts of it, at least. Rainbow was still not really comfortable telling stories of their past, and the rest of their friends had not asked any questions. The news had been hard on all of them, and all of them had responded in their own ways.

Fluttershy had broken out into tears, after which Rainbow had tried to calm her. After all, being Rainbow's first and probably closest friend, Fluttershy had been able to put the pieces together. Rarity had passed out, this time for real. She had to be taken to the medical ward for a closer examination, but seeing her running out of the place while complaining about the terrible style had been enough for the medical ponies to tell she was all right.

AJ had walked away at first. She had not known how to respond, and thought not responding until she knew was probably best. When she realised she was not the one to complain, she had come to Rainbow and excused herself. And then there was Pinkie. As soon as Pinkie had heard the tone of the news, her hair had deflated. Once the full story had been told, she had already filled up three buckets of tears. After fifteen minutes she had stopped crying, and had softly asked: "Goodbye party?"

Within an hour after that the ballroom of the palace had been transormed using Pinkie's party cannon. Balloons and confetti, punch and cake in all flavors, from cakes that seemed to be pure sugar to banana cakes. There had been three tables of cupcakes. Though they had decided not to make the story public yet, there had been a lot of rumors and numerous ponies from canterlot had shown up. At first there had only been the six friends, the princesses and Shining Armor, but after half an hour the ballroom had been filled.

After the party everypony had continued their day to day lifes as good as possible. Rainbow and Twilight had started preparing for Rainbow's last adventure to the edge of the Everfree Forest, to try to find her feather one last time. And, more importantly, to re-live one of her oldest memories. The other four had insisted to come with them at first, but once Rainbow said she'd prefer to do this with just Twilight, to Fluttershy's releif, they had quickly accepted that choise.

Those three days had gone by in what seemed like a matter of seconds, but now they were all set to leave their last Pinkie Party seemed ages ago. Rainbow and Twilight stood next to each other, facing their friends. Even though they had travelled into the Everfree multiple times, and Twilight had paid numerous visits to Zecora, the feeling of deadness of the place had never truely disappeared. Rainbow swallowed as she spoke to their friends. "We will be okay guys, don't worry. I've got Twilight with me after all. If something goes wrong she can always get us out."

Fluttershy had been really scared of the idea. Her last trips into the Everfree she had seen what those creatures can do. "But what if you lose each other?"

Rainbow sighed. "Then Twi can still teleport out." A small tear formed in the corner of her eye, realising that for her it did not matter any more. "Let's go, Twilight."

Just as Twilight was about to charge up her teleportation spell, the shadows moved. From them, Luna emerged. Her dark coat and mane had blended in perfectly with the long shadows cast by the morning sun. "Allow me. And good luck," she said as she teleported Twilight and Rainbow out of the castle, in the blink of an eye.

"The Everfree Forest." Rainbow shivered as she spoke that name. Luna had teleported them perfectly, a lot better than Twilight could have done. They were exactly at the spot Rainbow had marked on the map.

"Rainbow, could I have one of your feathers?" Twilight spoke.

Over the years Rainbow had learned not to question Twilight too much, because that would often lead to a long speech she could not understand. She unfolded her wing, and took out a feather with her mound. "Whatcha need it for, Twi?" she muffled.

Twilight grabbed the feather using her magic, and levitated it right in front of her. "Well, you want to find your feather right? So, why not track your feather down using magic?" She closed her eyes and her horn started to glow brighter and brighter. The feather in front of her started to shine bright, and started to spin.

"This feather, is now a feather compass," she said looking at the feather that was now pointing towards Rainbow.

"Well, that's not really usefull Twi, I'm right next to you, remember?"

Twilight giggled and closed her eyes again. Thin streams of magic flowed out of the tip of her horn, and towards Rainbow. They travelled across every bit of Rainbow's body, touching every feather shortly. The feather that now seemed to levitate in front of them by itself, started to spin around again. "How about now?"

"Amazing Twi, I betcha we can find that feather in no time!" Rainbow said looking at the feathercompass. "Well, what are we waiting for?"

"Well, you!" Twilight said, already running towards the direction the feather pointed in. Rainbow flapped her wings, and in three mighty strokes she had caught up to Twilight.

"Gotta be faster than that to beat me Twi!" Rainbow yelled, quickly flying out in front of Twilight. Behind her, the magenta mare had stopped running, and was now charging up her horn. A small poof caused Rainbow to turn her head, and look at the empty spot Twilight had stood just a second ago. Suddenly, she was jerked back, a purple glow surrounding her, a tree just a couple centimeters from her nose.

From next to the tree Twilight spoke up. "Hmm, interesting. Trees do not step aside for hurried pegasi... Why don't we take it a bit slower, Rainbow?"

Rainbow chuckled, this had not been the first time Twilight had stopped her from crashing into things. "Yeah, that might not be such a bad idea," she said while landing next to Twilight. "Is that feather still pointing in the same direction?"

Twilight opened her saddlebag and levitated the feather out of it. As soon as she released it, it began to spin again. Quickly at first, but rapidly slowing down. This time it pointed a little bit to the right. Rainbow raised her head, following the direction the feather was pointing in. It was pointing straight at a thick treeline. The Everfree Forest.

"So it is in there... Twi, are you sure you want to do this?"

Twilight had also noticed in what direction the feather was pointing, and had taken a book out of her saddle bag. "Just a second, ah, here it is." Her eyes scanned the page she had opened. She closed the book, and her eyes with it. Her horn started to glow again, and the feather shot forward. About five meters from them, it stopped. Twilight opened her eyes again. "We will have to walk pretty far in there Rainbow. But yes, I am sure I want to do this. Are you?"

Rainbow swallowed. They had been in the Everfree Forest a couple times before, but that had been across paths. And right now, there was not a path in sight. And then there was that strange influence. The sadness of the Everfree. No matter how often you went in that place, it was always there. On the normal paths it was a lot less, she had noticed. When they went to see Zecora, the influence had been a lot less than when they had traveled to the castle to find the elements. But she had to do this. "Yes Twilight, I have to. How far is it in?" she asked.

Twilight looked at the feather, and walked towards it. "One, two, three, four, five, five and a half kilometers."

"Okay, that should be doable," Rainbow said, walking up to Twilight with her wings spread. "But we are not going to walk, Twi. Allow me to show you, the advantages of wings."

Twilight looked at Rainbow. She had flown before, but that had been with something solid underneath her hooves, like a basket or a chariot. "Are you sure about that?" she asked.

"Yes Twilight, I'm sure. I've carried things heavier than you." Her cheeks went red as she realised what she had just said. "Not that you're heavy, not at all of course."

Twilight raised an eyebrow, and decided to tease Rainbow a little more. "So you're saying I'm too skinny?"

Rainbow shook her head, her cheeks turning even more red than they already were. "No, no! I mean, yes, you're skinny, no, not skinny, just.. Just get on!"

Twilight burst out into laughter. "I'm just teasing you, Rainbow," she managed to say.

"I knew that, I knew."

Twilight moved forwards, and awkwardly climbed up on Rainbow's back. "Where can I -" She was interrupted by two big wings unfolding underneath her, pushing the air down. In three big strokes they were already up above the treeline. Twilight cramped her front legs tightly around Rainbow's neck.

"Twi, too tight, no air," Rainbow let out. Instantly the grip around her neck was released a bit, but Twilight's rear legs around her belly tightened their hold. "Ahh, fresh air, that's better."

"Sorry"

Rainbow shot forward, heading for the Everfree. They reached the border within seconds, and continued forward. As soon as they had crossed the border into the Everfree, the winds picked up, and the sky darkened. The dense layer of clouds above them blocked out almost all sunlight. No matter how hard she tried, maintaining a straight line in these conditions was impossible. After a minute of flying she stopped, hovering in the air above the trees. "Twi, what direction?" she screamed.

"I don't know, we need to land!"

She scanned the area below them, and found one small spot where there were no trees. Quickly she dove toward it. As soon as they were out of the open and below the leaves the wind fell. The leaves now above them, she could finally see what caused the trees not to grow around this place. Right below them, there was a lake. It was not a large lake, but still a reasonable size. The trees had grown around the lake, but not in it. Some vines had grown down to it, but not into it. They just stopped, a couple centimeters above the lake.

Rainbow landed on a small island not far from the edge of the lake. Twilight slid off her back. Rainbow looked at her. Her face was not a happy one. As soon as Rainbow saw that, she realised hers wasn't either. The effect of the Everfree had grabbed hold of them again. As soon as they had entered this place it had taken them in it's hold.

Neither of them said a word as Twilight took out the feather again. It started spinning again, but not horizontally this time. Instead it started spinning almost vertically. As it slowed down, it pointed almost straight up. Rainbow looked up, and right above them it was. Blue as the sky, shining like a rainbow, a small feather stuck between the leaves of an ancient tree of the Everfree. She flew up, and grabbed it with her mouth. Gently she put it behind her right wing, right underneath her shoulder. There it would be safe until she decided it was time for the feather to change it's position again.

Rainbow landed next to Twilight, who was already charging up a spell. In the blink of an eye the grim trees around them were gone. Instead, they were standing on top of a cloud, hovering above a small pond in one of the gardens of canterlot.

A scream entered Rainbow's ear. She stuck her head through the hole in the cloud where Twilight had just stood. Underneath it, a soaking wet magenta mare with a lily pad on her head burst out into laughter. Rainbow quickly followed. They had made it, and she had found her feather. Thanks to Twilight.

Chapter 15

Twilight quickly walked out of the icy water. She was soaked, top to toe. A quick swing of magic caused the water to disappear instantly, forming a small cloud around her. Two more spells caused her to stand next to Rainbow, not falling through the cloud this time. Both ponies were still laughing. It seemed to be the only way to shed off the remaining influence of the Everfree Forest. Twilight laid down next to Rainbow, shaking heavily. “Twi, you’re cold. We should go inside,” Rainbow spoke gently, noticing the shivers through the cloud.

The sun was gently approaching the horizon, making way for the wonders of the night sky. “No, Rainbow. There is something I want you to see.” Twilight closed her eyes, and her horn began to spark. The sun took one last breath for that day, as it fell below the horizon. The moon was not coming up just yet, like it had always done. Instead, across the horizon, where the sun had just went to sleep, a magenta line crept up. Slowly but steadily, rising and growing. After rising for a while, it stopped. From above it the pitch black began to darken the earth, showing off the countless stars. The magenta started to fall back down, shrinking and giving way for the moon.

Rainbow’s jaw fell, amazed by the magical wonders that had just happened right in front of her own eyes. Twilight had opened her eyes again, and was now smiling at Rainbow. “It’s what they call twilight,” she said.

“Twi, you... how...” Rainbow tried to find the right words. “How did you do that?”

“I have practised. A lot. The princesses told me about this time of day a year after I came to ponyville. They asked me if I could study up on it, and it seemed like something interesting to me. So I started practising.”

Rainbow was staring at the horizon, not knowing what to say. Next to her was somepony whose powers were greater than those of any unicorn who had ever lived, she realised. Even Starsworld, about whom she had learned quite something in Twilight’s dreams, had never been able to do anything with the sky. But even such powerful ponies were just ponies, and they could still be very cold. The shaking next to her had increased a lot. She shifted herself towards Twilight, slowly unfolding her wing and draping it carefully over her. “It is beautiful.”

“Thanks,” Twilight said. The moon had climbed up behind them, and the night time had come. The cool breeze blocked out by the feathery wing, Twilight quickly fell asleep. A bright sky blue mist formed, to disappear and make place for the wonderful sights of twilight.

---|———|------|———|------|———|---

Her wing moved gently. A cold breeze hit her flank as the pony next to her moved away. Her eyes partially opened by the first golden rays of sun as the last stripe of magenta fainted from the western sky. “Morning Twi,” Rainbow yawned as she folded back her wing.

Twilight stood up, her horn still glowing a bit. “You wanted to do it today, didn’t you?” Twilight asked grimly.

Rainbow sighed deep. “Yes Twilight. We have to do this. I have to do this. And I don’t want any more ponies to get hurt. Let’s go look for the princess.” They stood up and jumped off the cloud, onto the solid ground below. They walked through the doors into the castle. Even though they had spent quite a while in this castle, Rainbow was still not able to remember what place was where.

They had walked through quite some hallways and now stood in front of two large doors. The two guards next to them swung them open, revealing the majestic room behind them. Even though it was remarkably similar the room was entirely different from any other room in the castle. Though the size of it was enormous, it was very welcoming and almost cozy. On one of the couches the two princesses sat. One enjoying a cup of tea while the other sipped her hot choco.

“Welcome, both of you. Has your quest been successful, Rainbow Dash?” the elder spoke. “Please sit down and tell us about it.”

Rainbow and Twilight walked towards the couch across the Princesses and sat down. Then Rainbow started to tell their story. There was not a whole lot to tell, as they had not come across that many obstacles along their way.

When Rainbow stopped talking Luna spoke up. “But you did not come here to tell us your story, am I right?”

“Indeed. I think it we should do it now,” Rainbow said. “There is nothing else I want to do that wouldn’t take years, and I don’t want more ponies to go through all this pain.”

Silence fell over them. Nopony wanted this to happen. But they all knew, that it had to. Celestia nodded, and stood up. They followed her towards a door on the other side of the room. Through the door was a large balcony. You could easily fit fifty ponies on there, but today only four were needed.

They walked to the center of the balcony. Princess Celestia turned around. “Twilight Sparkle, I think you should go back inside. My sister and I can take care of this.”

Twilight had gone pale. She had known what would have to happen for a while, but had never realised what it would mean. Rainbow would be... gone. “No, I want to stay,” she said. “Until the very end.”

Celestia nodded, and then looked at Rainbow Dash. “One last show?” she asked.

Rainbow flapped out her wings. “One last show.” She shot up into the sky. The clear blue sky, her sky. Her sky, and her domain. It had been like that for so long now. But now, it was time to leave that domain. She climbed higher and higher, shooting through the layers of cloud. Those clouds. They had played such a big part in her life, she realised. Without those clouds, that first day she flew would have ended up very differently. She might never have gotten into that hospital, and might not even have met Golden Knife. She might not have survived the streets. Never have come to ponyville. Never have met Twilight. Never have found her feather.

The air had become thinner and colder up here. She was now far above the clouds. Most of them she had cleared away while flying upwards. Right below her she could see the platform. One last show. She folded her wings, and shot down. Faster and faster. Winds pounded in on her. Harder and harder, trying the best they could to sling her back up. A thin cone of water drops started to form from her front hoof, spreading backwards. The cone became tighter and tighter, trying to stop her. Then it shattered. A wide array of colors spread out in a circle across the skies of Equestria, brighter than ever before.

One last show, and one last gift. She raced down towards the platform, aiming straight between where the two princesses were standing. Her eyes zipped around the platform. There, in the corner. A small magenta mare, tears falling from her cheeks. Now. She released some pressure in her right shoulder, releasing a feather gently snuck beneath it.

The feather quickly lost speed, until it was gently flowing down on the winds. Slowly swinging from side to side. Gliding down through the gentle morning breeze. Down further and further, away from it’s original owner. Down and around. The feather gently touched down. It’s pin sank in between the magenta hairs. The pin touched the skin, merging with it with the magic inside of it. Never to let go, finally at it’s destiny. The long trip was over. It had finally found it’s new owner.

Chapter 3

“Aw come on, not again. Tell me I’m dreaming. Just let it be a dream. A really really bad dream.” But it wasn’t. It wasn’t a dream, and it never had been. It just was a series of terrible events. One after another, over and over again. First the crash, then losing Tank, and now this. Why was she even here? What had happened that put her in the hospital again?

Come on, think Rainbow Dash, what happened? Okay, you were at a party. You were hungry. You went to the table with muffins, and then. Think Rainbow, think... but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t figure out what had happened. She knew something had happened, and she knew that she realized it was happening, but what was it...

Okay, one more time, a bit more detail this time, Rainbow. So you enter through the door, talk to Spike, get hungry, walk towards the table and get stopped multiple times on the way there. So you arrive at the table, and grab a cupcake. No, that didn’t happen, that was supposed to happen. But if that didn’t happen, then what did?

“Hello there miss Rainbow Dash, I see you’re awake again? You know, if you wanted to stay here for a bit longer you could have just asked.”

“Hello nurse Redheart. What happened?”

“Oh, you don’t remember? That is a bit concerning, let me check a couple things. Please close your eyes for me, I’ve just got to ask you a couple questions to see how bad it is. What is your name?”

“Rainbow Dash”

“What is the color of your skin?”

“The most awesome blue.”

“Could you describe your cutie mark for me?”

“A cloud with a lightning bolt in the colors of a rainbow.”

“Okay, it doesn’t seem to be too bad. I think I can tell you what happened. You were knocked out by a flying plate.”

Flying plate? Oh, of course, now I remember. Derpy tried to hand me a cupcake. “How long will I have to stay in here?”

“Well, the last time you were in here we released you a bit too early it seems. Usually a plate would just shatter, not cause a concussion again. That’s why we are going to keep you here for a bit longer. We want to monitor you for a total of two weeks.”

“Two weeks?! I have to stay here for another two weeks? Aw come on, I’m feeling fine!”

“No miss Rainbow, you don’t. And you won’t have to stay here for another two weeks, only 7 more days.”

“I’ve been knocked out for seven days?!” It couldn’t be. It just couldn’t. The nurse was lying. She was used to getting lied at, she knew when someone was lying. But still, Redheart didn’t seem to be lying. But she had to. Seven days? Knocked out for seven days? Do you have any idea how much epicness you can have in seven days? And she missed all of that. Why was this happening to her. Why... Was it just bad luck, or was it something more?

“Yes you have. Now I assume you’re pretty hungry. I have got to take care of somepony else now, but you should be able to eat on your own. Your food is on the table right next to you. Just take it easy, and don’t shake your head too much. I’ll leave the lights dimmed a bit, so you can get used to it a bit more easily. We don’t want to give you a worse headache than you’ve already got.”

“Yeah yeah, fine. I’ll manage.”

Nurse Redheart left the room.

She was right, I am hungry. I should probably eat something. Okay, so the plate is on my right. Okay, easy now. Easy, almost there. Got it! Okay, now slowly pull it back without dropping it. Or dropping yourself out of your bed. Almost there, and there we go. Okay, now let’s get this stuff down my throat. Blegh, this stuff is horrible. Maybe if I mix it together. It couldn’t get any worse than it already is. Let’s see... Okay this stuff is pretty hard to mix, let’s just take a spoon of both at the same time. Okay, okay, you win. Together it’s even worse. What is even in this stuff? I’m not even hungry anymore. But I haven’t eaten in over nine days now, that can’t be good. I have got to keep my body fit. Okay, let’s try this again. Nope, not hungry.

I just hope it’ll be visiting hours soon. I’m really bored. Maybe I could ask AJ and Pinkie to smuggle in some food. That way at least I won’t starve. Hmmm, if I remember correctly visiting hours would be around three o'clock. Let’s see, where is that clock again... Not on that wall, nor that wall... Ah, over there. Hey, finally, a bit of luck! Only five more minutes to go. I hope my friends are even going to show up. I mean, I’ve been here for seven days, laying here knocked out. That can’t have been a lot of fun for them. Just watching me lay here, hoping I’d wake up. You know, being here makes me start to appreciate them a lot more.

“Okay, miss Rainbow Dash. Did you finish eating?”

Eating? You call that eating? That’s not eating. That’s stuffing food down your own throat. Well, I probably shouldn’t tell her I think of it like that. “Yeah I did. I’m pretty thirsty though.” Even though the food was terrible, the hospital had great drinks.

“I understand, let me get you a glass of juice.”

“Eeh, nurse Redheart, do you know if my friends will be visiting today?”

“They already did. They went away just before you woke up. We can’t leave ponies around here all day, of course. They’ve got to do their own things as well.”

“Wait, are you saying visiting hours are already over? But weren’t those at 3 o’clock?”

“Yes they are.”

“But it’s five to three?”

“Oh, right, we need to replace the batteries in that clock. I’ll get some right away.”

Aw come on! Why! Why does this happen to me!

---|———|------|———|------|———|---

Okay Rainbow, you’re almost there. Just a couple more minutes till you can see your friends again. Just ten more minutes. Ten minutes... That usually doesn’t seem that long. You’ve pulled yourself through the past day and night. Even though she was getting more and more used to the beds, she still couldn’t sleep in them. She had asked nurse Redheart if they couldn’t get her a cloud or something, but that idea immediately got turned down. Apparently clouds weren’t good for your health or something.

I’ve got to kill this time. Either I kill this time, or this time kills me. Let’s see, what could I think of. Flying of course, but that doesn’t really help. I tried that already, didn’t work out great. I just want to get out of here more if I think of that. Okay, let’s see. Tank. How would he be doing? I’m sure he’s fine. He is probably having a lot more fun than I am at the moment. Playing around in the open air, together with Angel and the other pets around at Fluttershy’s. Hmmm, what else can we think of? Well, actually, that probably has killed quite some time already. Let’s take another look. Ten seconds? Only ten seconds? Aww, come on!

Only five more minutes. Let’s see. You know what, let’s just do a countdown. three hundred ninety nine, three hundred ninety eight, three hundred ninety seven, Nope, not helping, I’m bored. Wait, what’s that? Who’s walking there?

“Well then miss Rainbow Dash. It’s almost visiting time. Your friends are waiting already, we just need to change your bandage real quick.”

Bandage? I’ve got a bandage? Wow, how did I not notice that? Well, I probably should not tell her that. “Okay, sure, go ahead. Just make it as quick as possible, I’m bored. Do they know I’m awake already?”

“Yes, they do. I contacted miss Sparkle as soon as you woke up, she told me she would make sure everybody knew you were awake. Now please sit still for just a moment. Well, I’ve got some good news. It looks like the head wound has healed a bit quicker than we expected. We might be able to get you out of here two days earlier than we thought. Let me just put on some new bandage though, just to make sure the wound won’t burst open again. And there we go, all done. I’ll tell your friends they can come in.”

Finally, a bit of good news! And most important, my friends are here!

“Isn't this exciting? Are you excited, 'cause I'm excited, I've never been so excited-- well, except for the time that I saw you walking into town and I went ‘ooooohhh’ but I mean really, who can top that? Well actually I was also that excited when I got into this town. Oh, and when Rarity did! Oh, and of course when you and fluttershy moved in but”

“Pinkie! We get it. Y’all pumped up, but let’s keep it down a bit? Ah’d think ah’d have a terrible headache after passin’ out for seven days.”

“Thanks AJ. I guess my head is aching just a little tiny bit. And I’m really thankful that you all came to see me. You’ve got no idea what it’s like to be stuck in a hospital for this long without doing anything.”

“Ah’d guess, but ya slept through most of it. Ah didn’t know plates could knock somepony out for this long. Ah mean, it didn’t look good and all. That was a pretty big wound you had.”

“Hey, how’s Derpy doing? I don’t want her to feel guilty.”

“Derpy is doing fine, my dear. She just didn’t know what went wrong.”

“Yep, sounds like Derpy. Hey guys, I’ve got to ask you all a favor. Is there any way you could smuggle some reasonable food in here? The food in here is well, not the best food in the world.”

“Ooh, care package! We’re making you a care package!”

“Oh of course my dear. We wouldn’t want to see you starve? Now it does have to be a healthy care package though, nurse Redheart wouldn’t allow something like cupcakes.”

“Ah could get some apples. We’ve got enough of them around the farm.”

“Oh, and I think Angel would be happy to help me get some carrots for you. And I could send out some other animals to get some flowers for you.”

“That would be amazing guys. Hey, you know what? They’ve got my favorite board game here, but I had nopony to play agains. No use playing against yourself. Anypony feel like challenging The Rainbow Dash in a game of-”

“Oh me! Me! Pick me!”

“Eeh, let’s see... Pinkie, would you like to play a game against me?”

“Yay! She picked me! Eeh... what game?”

“It’s over there on the table.”

“This one?”

“Yup, that’s the one. Okay, let’s see... You go first.”

---|———|------|———|------|———|---

“Okay, visiting hours are over! You’ll have to come back next time, miss Rainbow Dash needs her rest,” nurse Redheart said while walking by in the hallway.

As her friends said goodbye, they walked out into the hallway. All, but one. Twilight had been staring out of the window ever since she walked into the room.

“Eeh, Twilight? Are you alright?”

“I guess I am, I’m just worrying if you are. It’s not like you. First you crash, and end up in here. Then you fly into a door —”

Hmm, so Fluttershy told her?

“— and now you’ve gotten knocked out by a simple plate that you’d normally dodge? I’m just not sure, I’ve got the feeling something else is going on. I just can’t exactly put my hooves on it.”

“Okay miss Sparkle, time to leave.”

“Sigh, just... just hang in there Rainbow.” Twilight said as she walked out of the room.

Chapter 8

A lot of thoughts flew through her head, but not a single one could come out. So did a lot of explanations, but she found herself unable to give those. She could not think straight any more. So much had happened, and Twilight pacing around in her room did not help her to get her mind straight. “Twi, could you stop pacing and just sit down for a moment?”

The magenta pony sat down on one of the pillows, opposing the bed Rainbow Dash was laying on. “I’m sorry Rainbow, but I have to ask you what went on in that dream. We need to know everything we can if we want to stop this magic.”

A faint sigh came from the bed. She had known she would have to explain, and was planning on doing it as soon as possible. But right now, it just was not possible. She could not explain. “I... Look Twilight, I would love to, but it is kinda a big deal to me. And I don’t get what is going on either. Why don’t you go first?”

Twilight shook her head, a bit disappointed. “What is it you don’t understand?”

She could better have asked the exact opposite. This afternoon a lot of words had been spoken, and a lot of tears had been shed. But none of it made sense to her. It was just too much. For an egghead like Twilight it could be obvious, but currently she had no clue. “Well, just about everything I guess...”

Twilight switched her voice to one she used to explain things. It was a calm, tutor like voice. She began to explain. “Okay, let’s start at the beginning. Before Luna turned into Nightmare Moon, she used to have personal students from time to time, just like Celestia. However, one of those students betrayed her.

“This student was supposed to be studying the magic of stars. He did that, but it was only a cover. When he had the chance, he would use his resources to study the magic of hatred. Like friendship and love, hatred is a strong magic. His studies of hatred corrupted him and his magic.

“When the princesses went out to deal with the first Griffon war, he took his chance. As soon as the princesses were gone, he released his hatred into Canterlot, and shielded Canterlot off of the rest of Equestria with a force field. You have seen one of those before, right?”

Rainbow nodded. They had. When they came to the wedding of Shining Armor and princess Cadence, a forcefield had been raised over Canterlot. However, that one was made by Shining Armor’s magic, not by hatred.

“So when the princesses returned, the hatred had grown. Hatred can spread quickly when not controlled. Luna’s student realised that only Luna and Celestia could pose a real threat to him. Therefore, he decided he had to defeat them. When they arrived at the force field, he challenged Luna. Since she was the younger sister, she would be the easiest to defeat. After defeating her, Celestia would be too broken to pose a real threat.

“But his plan did not work out the way he wanted it to. He struck Luna, but his hatred was transferred into her.”

Now it went too quickly. “Ho ho, hang on a second, hatred transferred? How?”

“You see, Rainbow, when Cadence uses her magic it spreads love. When Celestia uses hers, it brings light. When Luna uses her, it brings freshness and rest. If your magic is based on hatred, it will spread hatred.”

Now that did make sense.

“So when he hit her, Luna got filled with hatred. But fortunately, this hatred was focussed. It was focussed at the one who had betrayed her, her own personal student.”

“So basically what you are saying is that he made Luna hate himself?”

Twilight nodded. “It was not his intention to do that, but that was what happened indeed. Blinded by this hatred, Luna killed him.”

Rainbow shook her head. “First you tell me an alicorn can not be killed, but then he gets killed.”

Now it was Twilight’s turn to shake her head. “No Rainbow, an alicorn’s magic can not be killed. The body around it can. But when the body gets killed, the magic will get released into the air, forming some kind of force. The magic can get destroyed, but that will have to happen separately from the body. I am not sure exactly how that works, there aren’t a lot of books on that subject. None, actually.

“And I think you already understand the rest of the story. His magic travelled around, took over ponies and took away their powers by killing them. That way the magic slowly grew into what it was. Then the outburst came, and they managed to destroy most of the magic. But the magic had settled into one pony specifically. They were unable to drive the magic out of that pony, and killing him would cause the magic to grow in power and spread to the next.

“So they locked him away in a silver cage, in an eternal sleep to die in peace. However, the spell was not strong enough and before passing away he managed to punch a hole in the cage, allowing a bit of the magic to escape. This magic did exactly the same thing as it had done before. Taking over ponies, killing them, and growing bit by bit.

“And now, it is trying to strike again. Still filled with hatred, especially against princess Luna. She had killed him after all.”

Rainbow laid down on her bed. “Okay, I think I get it now. You know, I’m really tired. How about I tell you what you want to know tomorrow?” She did not feel like telling Twilight anything she did not absolutely had to. This memory was one that was supposed to stay locked away. Even though she did not remember anything, it was not a nice memory.

She closed her eyes hoping Twilight would let her sleep. “Eeh, Rainbow, aren’t you forgetting something?”

She opened her eyes again and looked at Twilight. Forgetting something? What would there be to forget? “No?”

Twilight smiled. “Rainbow, the spell... You can’t just sleep right now.”

“Oh... yeah... Of course... But I’m pretty tired.”

Twilight walked up to the bed and laid down in front of Rainbow. “Okay, you can try to sleep, but I will have to watch.” Rainbow extended her wings, but Twilight responded. “That is not needed any more Rainbow, that was just to cast the spell.”

“Oh, yeah, of course, I knew that.” Quickly Rainbow folded her wings again, and closed her eyes.

The bed was a pretty soft bed. It was a lot better than the hospital beds, but it was also warm. Every Time she tried to get comfortable, one of her feathers got pinned underneath her and poked her skin. “Twi, do you know any sleep spells?”

Twilight looked up. She clearly was not keen on the idea of using a spell for sleep. “Look, Rainbow, I do but it won’t help. I know only the one I already used. You will have to sleep normally.”

But, that was the point. Those beds just were not normal to Rainbow. She was used to fluffy, soft and fresh clouds. Not these beds. They just did not feel right. “I can’t, Twi... I can’t sleep on this bed.”

Twilight let out a sigh, and stood up. Her horn began to close. Rainbow closed her eyes again, expecting to fall asleep, but instead she heard Twilight laugh. “Rainbow, I told you, no sleeping spells.”

“Then what did you cast?”

Twilight grinned. “Cloud walking spell. Let’s find a nice cloud for you to sleep on.”

All of a sudden Rainbow was fully awake again. “Great idea Twi!” She ran to the door, and opened it. But then she remembered she did not know the way. “Eeh, you know the way around here, don’t you?”

Twilight was already in front of her. Of course she knew the way. This castle had practically been her house ever since she became Celestia’s student, until she got assigned to study friendship in Ponyville. “Just follow me.”

They walked through the castle silently. A couple guards walked by, doing their routine night shifts. Before Rainbow knew it, they were in a garden. It was a different one than the one she had been to already. This one was a bit smaller. It had a small pond with a fountain in the center, and one picnic bench. Around the edge there was a marble guardrail, preventing you from falling into the depths on the other side.

“Hmm, not a single cloud in sight... I’ll fly around a bit to see if there are any a bit higher up.” With that rainbow took off. First a bit away from the castle, then higher and higher. But no matter how far she looked, not a single cloud in sight. Hmm, those Canterlot weather ponies sure are boring... Not a single cloud to take a quick nap... As Landed again, her hopes sank in. “Well, I guess this will be a sleepless night then... I guess I’ll have to ask the weather team if they could leave me a cloud here tomorrow.

Twilight giggled, and her horn began to glow. “Eeh, Twi, what are you doing?” Rainbow looked around, but saw nothing happening. Then she noticed that the fountain was changing a bit. There was steam coming from it. More steam, and more steam. Eventually the steam formed a thick layer of fog around the lake.

“I think you should be able to do something with this, right?” Rainbow was already busy. Flying around the outer border of the mist she pushed it inwards. It became smaller and thicker, and eventually formed a nice cloud. “Thanks Twi! I’d never have thought about that! How did you know how to do that?”

Twilight walked up to the cloud and stepped on it. “Pegasi studies. I’ve used this pond before to create clouds. It’s the only pond here where I can do that without emptying it out. They made this one after I emptied a different one. It is connected to a lake in the mountains.”

Rainbow lifted the cloud from the ground. About five meters above the ground she stopped it. “This should be high enough. So, pegasi studies?” She laid down on the cloud, and blinked. “You should really... *yawn* tell me” She blinked again, but found herself unable to open her eyes again. She drifted away into a deep sleep.

She stood on one end of a table. The table looked like they were eating, but she felt the wall behind her. She was trying to walk back further, through the wall, away from the table. On the other side of the table there were two ponies. One was a full grown pegasus, and the other one was just a small foal. The full grown pegasi looked at her, eyes full of fire. The foal just watched, a small evil grin on his face.

As soon as she looked him in the eyes, a magenta mist appeared from the corners of the room. The mist became denser and denser, covering the entire room until she couldn’t see a hoof in front of her own eyes. But then, just as sudden as the mist started to appear, it also started to clear.

She was no longer in her old house. Instead, she was back in ponyville at Rarities place. Rarity looked at a small creature flying in front of her. “Me too, oh, they’re perfect.” Rainbow and Rarity both grabbed one of the small creatures Twilight brought with her.

Pinkie stood in the open door. “Does anypony know where to find an accordion? Gals! Hello! This is important. Durgh! Thanks a lot.”

Everything around her became covered in a blanket of darkness. Then slowly, the darkness became lighter. Rainbow’s eyes started to adjust to the light. As they opened, she saw one of the best sights she had ever seen. In front of her laid Canterlot. Shining gold and bright purple covered the rooftops of hundreds of houses, towers and other buildings. Around the city there was a bright white marble wall. The wall stood on the edge of a cliff, separating Canterlot from the rest of Equestria.

In the distance she could see Ponyville. The small village laid peacefully in the green valleys. To the right of ponyville, hovering high in the sky, there was a distinct rainbow on top of a group of clouds. To an unknowing pony it might have looked like a couple of clouds, but it was actually the bottom of cloudsdale. The city of the pegasi, the city of her youth. Her youth...

Tears started to form in her eyes, as she thought back to those terrible years there in cloudsdale. The years before she went to flight camp. She had not thought about those years for a long time. She had managed to forget them. Almost. She did not think about them until her crash a couple weeks ago. It was then when she started dreaming about it again, and started to remember what happened. Next to her, a lavender pony started moving.

“Morning Twi.”

“Good morning Rainbow Dash.” Twilight yawned, and her horn began to glow. From a nearby window, two quills, a pot of ink and two scrolls came flying towards them. “I think we should start writing down some notes? Just the first dream, not the second one.” Twilight casted her writing spell on Rainbow and one of the quills.

Wake up in cloudhouse, next to a table. Across the table there are a full grown Stallion (dad) and a filly. Stallion looks angry at me, filly has an evil grin on his face. Pink mist enters from the corners of my vision.

It was not much, but it also wasn’t a really long dream. “Hey Twi, what was that pink mist?”

Twilight was already done writing, her note was a lot longer. Every single detail seemed to be described in there. “That pink mist, Rainbow, is something that appears when I change your dreams.”

Rainbow’s mouth dropped open. “You can change my dreams?! How? Can I do it as well?”

“Yes, yes you can. But only my dreams. The advantage of the spell Luna used is that others can project their thoughts. I saw that we, or you actually, had already had this dream. You still have to explain me what goes in there, so I thought I should give you some time to explain me first. And of course, you needed some good rest. So when I decided the dream should change, I just had to think of what it needed to change to. However, that part is a bit harder. So I thought of something random. And what is more random than Pinkie looking for a trombone?”

“Okay, I guess now I owe you an explanation of that dream, don’t I? Well, make yourself comfortable, you’re in for a long story. And it is not a fun one.”

Author's Note

Well, this chapter took a bit longer to write. It also wasn't an easy chapter, but I think, in the end, it was worth it. I know it is a lot of dialog in the first section, but that's what happens when somepony explains something to somepony else.