//------------------------------// // Chapter 6: The Hazards of the Heights // Story: Dragonshyness // by Jordan179 //------------------------------// From the small plateau, they continued up the mountainside. The trail snaked up along the side of a winding crevasse, at the bottom of which flowed a stream. Rainbow Dash scouted, flitting around them, while Twilight led the way, followed by Rarity and Pinkie Pie. Applejack and Fluttershy formed the rear, with Applejack perforce at the extreme rear because she had to keep nudging Fluttershy's actual rear to keep the frightened Pegasus moving. At points, Fluttershy's legs locked completely, and Applejack physically pushed her along the trail. Fluttershy knew that Applejack was constantly helping her, practically babying her up the mountain. One really amazing thing was that the orange Earth Pony remained unwaveringly kind and considerate to Fluttershy, no matter what difficult and exhausting thing she had to do in order to keep Fluttershy moving while preventing her from tumbling off the side of the ledge on which they marched. Fluttershy was grateful to Applejack for this. She was also humiliated. The terrifying snores had stopped, but her fear just wouldn't leave her. She was showing to all her friends that she was a total coward, a weakling, unfit to be of their august company. Nopony else was like this. Twilight was determined, professional, the friend submerged in the role of leader. Rarity might have been tiring a bit, but she remained jaunty and unintimidated by the bleak landscape and the rotten-eggs smell of the Dragon's emissions, now tinged with an unmistakable odor like that of some impossibly-great crocodile. Pinkie Pie was now walking normally instead of bouncing, but her mien remained optimistic. And Rainbow Dash ... Fluttershy didn't even want to look at Rainbow Dash. She didn't want to see the contempt and scorn that she knew must be fixed on Rainbow's face now, every time she saw Fluttershy. Fluttershy was disgracing not only herself, not only her ancient Wind clan, but the whole Pegasi Kind, forcing Rainbow Dash to uphold the honor of their race all by herself. Were it not for Fluttershy's own unworthy fear, Rainbow Dash would have a wingpony to ease the task of scouting, to watch her back should some danger manifest. If anything happened, Fluttershy knew she would be able only to watch helplessly as her oldest and dearest friend fell to her doom. The others didn't understand this. They were wonderful Ponies, but they were not Pegasi. They did not have the same Traditions. They did not realize how profoundly Fluttershy was betraying Rainbow Dash -- her friendship, and her love. She was so very unworthy of her best friend -- so unworthy to be her friend, let alone more. But she could not help looking. Rainbow Dash was so fleet, so agile, so perfect as she darted above. She was the distillation of everything Fluttershy admired in her own Kind -- so full of courage, of spirit, of high ideals. She had known her share of blowhards and bullies among her own maternal kin -- but the very fact that there were Pegasi like Rainbow Dash affirmed the merits and the honor of the race. Once, they had been fillies together. Once, they had giggled as they pretended to be heroines of Equestria, going up against perilous foes. Reality had caught up with their games, and Rainbow Dash was throwing herself against the foe with the same gusto she had shown in their fillyhood frolicking, the same eagerness for fame and glory, undaunted by the fact that there really was a ... a dangerous enemy ... at the top of that mountain. It was she herself, Fluttershy, who was letting her fillyhood friend down. She who was showing herself to be a worthless coward. She wanted to cry, but crying would only make her shame all the worse. *** After some walking, Twilight, Rarity and Pinkie Pie came to an obstacle. The course they needed to take crossed the crevasse, where the trail continued on the other side. However, there was no bridge, and it was a long drop to the stream many hundreds of feet below. The three Ponies stopped for a moment to size-up the gap. Rainbow Dash galloped along the trail and athletically leaped the gap, flapping her wings to increase her hang time. Observing that the ground on the far side was firm, Twilight and Rarity realized it was a fairly easy jump and bounded across it themselves, followed by Pinkie Pie and Applejack. Fluttershy stood indecisively at the edge, looking across the abyss to her friends on the far side. "It's your turn, Fluttershy," said Twilight gently. Fluttershy clung to an outcropping on the near side, as if the ledge were likely to suddenly tilt and pitch her down to the stream below. "But ..." she said, "it's so ... wide." "Come on, Fluttershy," repeated Twilight. "We should be much farther along by now." Applejack smiled warmly at Fluttershy. "You could just ... leap on over," she suggested. Fluttershy looked doubtfully down into the gorge. The stream was flowing rapidly, and it was a long way down. "I ..." she began. Suddenly the Dragon made a horridly-carnivorous sounding noise. Fluttershy's eyes went wide with fear, and she flung herself to the ground, shivering, teeth chattering like a terrified foal. "I don't know," she said. Twilight and Applejack both shook their heads sadly. "There's nothing to be afraid of," Pinkie Pie piped up. "it's just a hop, skip and a jump." At the word 'jump', Pinkie demonstrated what she meant by bounding across the chasm. "See?" She smiled down at Fluttershy, then began singing: It's not very far ... Just move your little rump! You can make it if you try with a hop, skip and jump! Once again, on the word 'jump' Pinkie leaped the gap, this time back onto the far side with the others. Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash looked disgusted. "We don't have time for this," Twilight said impatiently. Pinkie Pie continued singing, her beat growing increasingly frentic: A hop, skip and jump, Just move your little rump, A hop, skip and jump, A hop, skip and jump, A hop, skip and jump, A hop skip and jump, A hop skip and jump! Like some crazy pronghorn, she bounded back and forth, back and forth over the chasm. Watching her, Fluttershy smiled. "O-okay," she said, getting up. "Here I go. A hop ..." she leapt to the edge of the gorge. "That's it," said Applejack, smiling at her and hoof-pumping the air. "You've got it," confirmed Twilight. "Almost there," added Rarity. "... skip ..." continued Fluttershy, putting her weight on her forelegs and raising her hind legs into the air, then lowering and pushing off with her hind legs to propel her in a leap ... As she did this, Twilight added some advice of her own: "Just don't look down." So of course Fluttershy did. It was a very long way down. Fluttershy's eyes widened, her pupils pinned to points, and her wings closed. She gave an incoherent little whimper as she fell forward. She closed her eyes, only to feel her front hooves touch the far side ... ... as her rear hooves touched the near side. She opened her eyes to observe that she was standing spread out across the chasm, which was no wider than the span from the reach of her forelegs to the reach of her back legs, a leap which would have been ridiculously easy for her to make had she not been paralyzed with fear. This was, in fact, why Pinkie Pie had been able to hop back and forth across it in such a manner -- it had not been some strange Pinkie power, but an act well within the normal physical capacity of any Pony of any Kind who happened to be in tolerable good health. Let alone a Pegasus, who even without her wings had legs intended for powerful jumping and light, hollow bones to reduce her total body mass. Oh, she thought to herself. I'm really an amazing coward. To make matters worse, she was now stuck: if she moved either forelegs or hindlegs, she would tumble into the abysss. Any proper Pegasus, of course, could have gotten out of this by simply unfolding her wings and flying the few feet to safety, but she was no proper Pegasus, and her wings remained paralyzed by what was now a combination of fear and shame.. All her friends were frozen in amazement at her signal failure to surmount such an absurdly tiny gap. Twilight Sparkle said nothing, seeming silently saddened by the spectacle. Rainbow Dash groaned and drew a foreleg across her face in utter disgust. Rainbow Dash simply flew back over the gorge, got behind Fluttershy and shoved her, pushing forward and up on her bottom, as if she were a mother trying to move a recalcitrant foal. Rarity and Pinkie Pie reached forward, each one grasping one of her forehooves with both of their own. Fluttershy shot forward to the far side of the canyon. Rainbow Dash, surprised by the degree of force which Rarity and Pinkie had exerted, flew forward even faster, so that Fluttershy wound up on and across Rarity's back. "I guess I forgot to jump," said Fluttershy, smiling sheepishly. She was so happy to finally be on the other side of that terrible gap that her relief in part overcame her depression. At least this has to be the worst things get, she thought, before we reach the ... the thing's lair. She was, of course, dead wrong. *** The path wound to the right along the edge of the canyon, which lay far below to the left. The ledge widened ahead. Above, the cliff rising to their right looked steep, broken and unstable. Great slabs of rock seemed to be leaning outward, as if it would take put a slight tremor to send them tumbling down onto the trail. Twilight led the way. Behind her, Applejack kept Fluttershy close company, walking on Fluttershy's left, the better to interpose her own body to block Fluttershy from any slide off the ledge. Following them were Rarity and Pinkie Pie, with Pinkie taking the rear. Above them cruised Rainbow Dash, keeping an aerial eye out for any danger. "Let's keep it down," said Twilight Sparkle, softly, looking up to her right to eye the obviously-fractured cliffs above them. "According to my map, we're entering an avalanche zone." Applejack looked up nervously. She clearly did not like the looks of these cliffs either. She slowed her pace, watching them for signs of slippage. "The smallest peep could cause a huge rock slide," Twilight continued. The other ponies stopped for a moment, watching Twilight walk forward. Fluttershy was horrified by the implications. If the rock faces were normally unstable, what would the loud infra-bass of the Dragon snores have been doing to them? She tried to point this out, but her own thoughts terrified her too much for her to speak coherently -- or in a sufficiently low tone of voice. "An... an ava... ava..." she began, stuttering in a normal conversational tone. "Shhh!!" hissed Twilight, stopping and turning back to her. Fluttershy realized that speaking loudly on this -- or any -- topic could make things much, much worse. She decided to remain silent. The chance of the face giving way just as they were passing it was fairly small -- unless, of course, they made noise. The party resumed their advance, walking in single file. They stepped slowly and carefully, not wanting loud hoof-beats to trigger an avalanche. Twilight was of course in the lead, followed by Applejack, Pinkie Pie, and Rarity. Rainbow Dash kept pace overhead. Fluttershy, slowed though not quite paralyzed by her fear, lagged behind. *** At the place where the road bent to the right and around the unstable prominence, a tree clung to the edge of the canyon side, its roots anchoring it precariously to the mountain. The tree grew on the outside of the trail, but some of its branches hung down toward the ledge. As Rainbow Dash passed the tree, she ran into one of those branches. It was but a glancing collision, hurting Rainbow not at all, and merely dislodging a few leaves from the branch. Fluttershy, cowering down to almost crawl along the ground, failed to notice what was happening ahead and above. The leaves fluttered down. One landed just an inch forward of Fluttershy's dock. *** Fluttershy -- her nerves keyed up almost to the breaking point with the fear that at any moment tons of rock could crush her into paste, felt something touch her back right in front of her tail. She reared up in blind terror, hooves lashing out to strike at nonexistent foes, and shrieked "AVALA --!" That was all Fluttershy could get out before Applejack, her eyes wide with almost as much fear and teeth gritted with the effort of not making a sound, grabbed her friend and gagged her with Applejack's own right hoof. For a moment, Fluttershy tensed to struggle, then realized why Applejack was doing this to her. Slowly, carefully, Applejack turned her head and looked up at the cliff face. Everypony stood rock still, neither moving a muscle nor making a sound, as the echo of Fluttershy' brief cry rebounded back and forth from the canyon walls. For a moment, nopony even breathed. Nothing happened. The echo died away. They emitted a collective sigh of relief. From far, far above -- where a convexity in the cliff prevented them from seeing its upper slope -- came an ominous rumble. Everypony looked up in dawning fear. First a sifting of dust, then a few stray pebbles, began to rain upon the trail. *** Twilight Sparkle, ahead of her friends and facing back toward them, began backing away slowly, her face tense. Even at this terrifying moment, though, her ears remained alert, her eyes looking right at the source of danger, her every sense straining for the information which might mean the difference between life and death for herself and her comrades. And then the first sizable stones began to fall. First hoof-sized, then head-sized, then bigger. Much, much bigger. "Avalanche!" they all screamed, fully aware now that any purpose in silence had just passed. Twilight Sparkle seemed to freeze for a moment, her eyes fixed on the death coming down toward her. Then she darted back along the trail, in the direction from which they had come, as she saw plainly that the bulk of the lithic doom was falling upon the path of their planned advance. As she did so, an immense boulder the size of an ordinary house buried itself into the ground right where she had been standing, and Twilight found herself in a fight for her life. *** Fluttershy stood paralyzed by fear as she watched what looked like the last moments of her friends' lives. Pinkie Pie darted forward, shrieking, toward the avalanche. Fluttershy had absolutely no idea why Pinkie would do anything so crazy, but through her fog of fear she did notice a strange method to the pink Earth Pony's progress -- it was as if she knew where the stones would strike, and stepped only into the spaces where they would not. But that, of course, was impossible. Rarity darted out from a protective overhang past a fallen boulder and made straight for safety, moving with moderate rapidity but extreme determination. She managed to clear the danger zone before any more really large stones could fall in her vicinity. Applejack followed, not letting even large boulders check her speed -- she simply hopped from one to another, her strength and coordination astounding. She was very aware of her surroundings, or very lucky, or both. At one point she leaped off one boulder the size as a shed, just as a smaller one, the size of her body, slapped against the bigger stone exactly where she had been poised; onto a second large boulder, and then in an arc which took her just short of a house-sized one that slammed into the ground inches ahead of her nose. For a moment -- but a moment -- even Applejack stood still -- first shocked by what had nearly happened to her, then looking around to determine her next course of action. Rainbow Dash was a streak of light, whipping through and dynamically-dodging the deluge of boulders. She treated the avalanche as an aerial obstacle course -- retro-thrusting and somersaulting to let a huge rock fall ahead of her, then streaking ahead and jinking away from the trajectories of one after another lethal missile. In those few seconds, her life was saved again and again by her flying prowess, while Fluttershy watched with astonishment. Rainbow Dash was, exactly as she imagined herself to be, the ultimate Pegasus. Suddenly something heavy slapped into Fluttershy's right side. She had time only for a squeak of alarm before a weight pinned her down and the world went dark. *** Twilight Sparkle was desperately racing toward safety, but she was in the middle of a major fall of huge boulders. Her senses were wide open, her mind attempting to keep track of all the trajectories, discern the patterns the knowledge of which would mean the difference between death and survival. But it was all too complex, too chaotic. A house-sized boulder descended toward her from ahead and to the right; she dodged left slightly to let it miss her by half a body-length, then raced forward before it could roll onto her. There was a another huge crash farther ahead and to the right of her -- she thought she was safe but then something flashed right in front of her face, nearly grazing her muzzle. It was not foresight, but sheer dumb luck which saved her at that moment. "Oh no," she said, realizing that her intelligence had failed her, that she had lived through that instant by blind chance -- and that the boulders were falling around her with increasing rapidity. "Help!" she called out uselessly, feeling her courage beginning to give way in a situation where her mind was useless, where her strength and agility were not enough, where the one thing her knowledge told her was that the odds were rapidly mounting against her survival. She bounded forward, and realized her mistake a moment too late -- she could see the biggest boulder yet falling right for the spot upon which she was about to land. She shrank back, but there was no way to change her course -- time slowed to a crawl as Twilight realized she was going to die, her adventure ending here ... ... and an orange blur came from her right and powerful forelegs picked her up as if she were no more than a foal, bearing her out of the danger zone. Twilight's head turned to see Applejack somehow running on her hind legs alone, leaning far forward in a position rendered even semi-stable only by the immense speed and strength of Applejack's hindquarters. Applejack tucked Twilight into her own belly and rolled, taking the bruising impact of flesh against stone with her own hips and back and shoulders, not letting her leader so much as scrape a limb against the rough surfaces until their speed had slowed sufficiently to render it gentle. An immense cloud of dust whipped over them both and everything went dark for a while. *** And behind them, unseen, Pinkie Pie collapsed in exhaustion upon a rock, satisfied in the knowledge that she had succeeded. The effort had drained her -- she had shifted worldline after worldline, grasping at every straw of possiblity, every improbable but conceivable coincidence that could have altered the trajectory of this or that boulder, safely out of sight of any observer and hence not directly threatening causality. She had never done anything this complex on such a scale before -- her mass unweaving of Nightmare Moon's spell in the forest of fear had been by contrast a repetitive effect which merely acted to destabilize an existing alternation of reality. Within Pinkie, her reserves of entangled particles were dangerously depleted; her link with Paradise at the lowest bandwidth it had been since she had gained her Cutie Mark. She would not be able to warp reality again until she had rested for a good, long time. But it had been worth it. With what were left of her extra senses, she could smell that her best friend was still alive and unhurt. You're not going anywhere, Pinkie thought to herself, smiling in relief. The party's just starting, and this time you're staying with me. I'm not losing you this time, Minty. *** The dust slowly lifted, to the sound of Ponies coughing. Twilight Sparkle looked at her friends, full of joy at simply being alive. She and Applejack lay side by side. Rainbow Dash was a little farther away in the same direction, and Rarity and Pinkie Pie were off to one side. Pinkie looked back at Twilight and gave her a dazzling smile. "Oh my," gasped Applejack, wheezing. "Everypony okay?" Twilight looked fondly at Applejack. "Thanks to you I am," Twilight said, leaning her head forward and turning it to rub her cheek against Applejack's forehead. At this moment, she felt very glad to know somepony like Applejack. Applejack smiled shyly, as if to say that it was only what any friend would do for another. Pinkie beamed happily at both of them. *** Realizing that she was buried under a pile of earth, Fluttershy knew a moment of immediate physical panic, struggled, pushed her head out into the light. She saw her friends sitting and standing ahead; before them was an immense pile of rubble completely blocking the trail. It had only been by great good fortune that all of them were unharmed. I nearly got them all killed, she thought to herself in horror. I nearly got my friends killed.. Rarity made a sound of immense disgust as she shook grit and dust from her white hide. Incredibly, Pinkie Pie was bouncing up and down in joy. "Whoo-hoo!" she cried. "Let's do it again!" Pinkie was now covered in much of the dust that had come from Rarity, but it clearly didn't bother her. How can they all be so happy? Fluttershy thought. They almost died. How can other Ponies just get back up after something like that? "Uh!" said Rarity. "This is why a girl always packs extra accessories." She reached into her bag, pulled out a striped pink scarf and put it on. Then she looked worried. "Oh, please tell me I brought the tiara that goes with this." Apparently, she had forgotten to pack that part of her attire. Rainbow Dash flew over to confront Rarity. "Uh," she pointed out, indicating the huge rockfall. "Think we got bigger problems than making sure our hairbows match our horseshoes." Everypony stared dejectedly at the immense obstacle. The tiny margin of trail still remaining on the outside of the fall was clearly too dangerous to traverse, as even a slight shift of the pile could send the party hurtling into the canyon. "Oh." Fluttershy sighed. She had not only nearly gotten everypony killed, she had also made their progress more difficult. "Sorry." Sorry for blocking your way,. she thought. Sorry for almost murdering you all. Sorry for being such a failure. "Aww," Applejack said, smiling at her kindly. "No big whoop, sugar cube." "Yeah," said Twilight cheerfully, smiling as well. "We'll just have to ..." she turned her head, regarded the huge rockslide, "... climb over." The last part of that came out as almost a whimper. *** So they climbed over. Twilight led, followed by Rarity, Applejack and Pinkie Pie, with Fluttershy in the rear. This time, Rainbow Dash watched over Fluttershy. The pile was steep, and not yet settled into its final angle of repose. The dirt constantly shifted beneath their hooves, forcing them to exert both strength and caution to avoid tumbling down. There were large rocks underfoot, some of which dug painfully into the soft and suckered portions of those surfaces. They were already close to exhausted from the climb this far, followed by that frantic race for survival, and they gasped and groaned as muscles and tendons strained to keep them going forward. Even Pinkie Pie no longer seemed cheerful, just as grimly determined to press onward as any of them. Fluttershy looked up once to see Rainbow Dash pacing her slowly overhead. Rainbow looked back down at her with an expression of irritation. She could sense no friendliness from her. She's coming to resent my cowardice, Fluttershy thought sadly, the way I've slowed us down, nearly gotten us killed. She's disgusted by me. And why not? I'm disgusted at myself. I'm the most pathetic, timid excuse for a Pegasus who has ever lived. My uncle was right. I'll never amount to anything. I became the Bearer of Kindness by a fluke, a mistake. I just happened to be there, and the Element couldn't find anypony else at the time, so it chose me. They're all heroines, champions. I'm a failure. A fraud. I'm not even a real Pony. Just some kind of monster that happens to look like one. I don't even know what I am in truth. While thinking these dark thoughts, Fluttershy managed to reach the top of the rockslide, and was now making her way down the other side. On footing this uncertain, descending was considerably more difficult than climbing. She had to lean her whole body back on her legs, with each leg strained in a painful and unnatural position, hooves digging into the ground to avoid slipping. Her entire body trembled with the necessary effort. And then she slipped. Her back legs went out from under her and she tried to dig in her front legs, then use the friction of her own rump to stop herself, but nothing worked. Her hindquarters slid completely under the rest of her body and with a pitiful scream she found herself sliding down the far end on her back, hind hooves first. Those hind hooves slammed into Rarity's rear. The white unicorn gave a surprised and pained grunt, followed by a cry of alarm as she found herself sliding down face-first, on her belly. Applejack turned toward the noise, but her reflexes were slowed by exhaustion and the pain of her many minor injuries, and she had only managed to raise herself and twist half around before Rarity's face and front hooves collided with her back. Applejack cried out in dismay as all three of them slid to the bottom. Pinkie Pie had, whether by luck or some other reason, managed to avoid the pile-up. Rainbow Dash flew over to help the three mares, who lay groaning at the bottom of the slide. "My apologies," said Rarity as Rainbow Dash was forced to strain hard to pull her to her feet. "Not your fault," replied Rainbow Dash, who glared at Fluttershy. Fluttershy whimpered pitifully at the Pegasus she had always counted as her best friend. Rainbow Dash merely looked down her nose at her and flew away. Nopony else said anything to Fluttershy. There was nothing they could say. Reality had been eloquent enough. *** The trail wound up toward a natural rock arch. Twilight Sparkle unrolled her map, studied it carefully. They went through the arch. The road turned right, onto a wide rock ledge. Rainbow Dash flew up beside her "Still think it was a good idea to bring Fluttershy along?" the blue pegasus asked. "We're about to find out," said Twilight, some trepidation creeping into her voice. The cave was immense. Great quanties of sulphurous black smoke proceded from its mouth. There was only one thing that cavern could be. "We're here," said Twilight Sparkle. It was the Dragon's lair.