The battle was over, and both the Lounge and Cartel were far away. It was so quiet atop the desert ridge that Rainbow Dash heard nothing but her own rattling breaths. She came to a stop, hooves squirming in the hard gravel-laden dirt.
Before her, Roarke sat, gazing south like a statue.
Silence reigned.
Then Roarke spoke up, calmly: “Haman, the leader of the Cartel, is dead.” Her voice was dull, thin. "There are times when I wonder if I'll ever be finished killing. But, then again, I know my place."
Rainbow said nothing.
The metal mare continued: “It was simply a matter of timing. I assumed that murdering him and his comrades down south would have been a task so complicated that it would have consumed my life in the process. Alas, I had simply forgotten several things that I've learned as of late. Martyrdom is noble, yes, but not entirely fruitful. It's much better to live... to continue inspiring beyond a mere idea. I'd like to think that Imre would respect my decisions as of late. But, as we both well-know, she never did quite defeat her demons in the end.”
Rainbow gulped and said, “You're staying with the Cartel?”
Roarke's brown shoulders went slack. Slowly, scarlet mane billowing in the dry wind, she turned and stared coolly at Rainbow Dash. “But of course,” she said. “Just as you are leaving.”
Rainbow gritted her teeth.
Roarke continued: “It wouldn't be... very loyal of me to leave this place to ruin. Nor would it be generous.” She slowly shook her head. “Not after all we've done to change the place.”
“Roarke, their big bad boss is dead. They can—”
“They need guidance, Rainbow,” Roarke said. “Just like I once did.” A gentle pause, then, even gentler: “But no longer.”
Rainbow trotted closer with trembling muscles. “But, does it really h-have to be you? I mean... Arcanista and Constable Jake has dealt with those creeps for years! With the way things have turned out in Val Roa, I'm sure they'll hold a lot more power than they used to! With... with enough influence—”
“The Noble Jury may have solved a lot of problems,” Roarke said. “But we invented several of those same problems. We picked the fights, and just because the battle is over, it doesn't mean the war is. As Searo is my witness... as Harmony is my witness, I mustn't abandon what's begun here.” The metal mare sighed. “I turned my back on my own kind because I knew that they had no hope. That isn't the case now.”
“Roarke, I—”
“If you love Belle and Pilate enough to give them up, then you can do the same with me.”
Rainbow's ruby pupils shrunk. Her muzzle hung open. For several seconds, she appeared upon the cusp of a retort. Instead, with a wavering voice, she murmured, “When did it happen?” She sniffled. “You... learned to let go before I did. But wh-when?”
Roarke's ears folded back as her ice blue eyes grew misty. “...when I saw your future, Rainbow Dash,” she said. “A future I could never be a part of.”
“Rainbow!”
Roarke skidded to a stop along the bitterly cold mountainside. She stared at the crashed hull of the Noble Jury, still steaming with emerald vapors from the combined volley of the Val Roan perimeter defense. Hyperventilating, the metal mare scrambled madly, digging at the edges of the vessel so as to peer into the shallow space sunk beneath the ship's weight. “Rainbow, say something! Why'd you go and do it?! So what if we crashed at a sharp angle, you idiot?! We could have put it back together! You didn't have... have...”
At last, she saw it.
From beneath the bow of the ship, a ragged tail of shiny, multicolored hairs stuck out.
Wordlessly, muzzle quivering, Roarke darted over to the far side of the metal hull. What she saw forced her to fall back on her haunches, trembling.
“Sear alive...” She brought a hoof up to her paled face. “No...”
“I've... never truly tasted the bitter sting of loss,” Roarke murmured. By this point, Rainbow Dash had squatted down beside her. Both mares sat side by side, gazing south into the dusty horizon. “The fall of Searo's Hold was more liberating than anything. And Imre...” Her facial features stretched briefly as she gazed into the desert desolation.
Rainbow simply gazed at her.
Nostrils flaring, Roarke continued. “She never truly latched onto hope. As a result, I never felt like I had played a part in her deliverance. Even if I whisked her away to the furthest corner of this plane, she'd still be a prisoner to her father. But...” She looked up again. “But you?”
Rainbow listened intently.
Roarke said, “You saved my life, Rainbow. You spared me from dishonor, annihilation, and ruin. I... cannot begin to describe the depths of my dedication to you... and to what you stand for.” Her muzzle hung open, and at last she muttered, “I could only pull the strings loose and watch... watch as your own destiny showed me just how powerless I truly am.”
Roarke trembled more than she ever had in her life.
She squatted low, crawling towards the bottom of the wrecked Noble Jury.
Before her, she spotted the crumpled neck, spine, and forelimbs of a blue pegasus. The skin twitched and spasmed. A set of feathers flexed and unflexed like a crushed dragonfly.
The hulking weight of the Noble Jury was too great... too massive for anything of Rainbow's size to survive. It didn't take a genius bounty hunter to figure that out.
Roarke nevertheless huddled in place, trembling, her ice blue eyes tracing and retracing the crippled contours of Rainbow's once-healthy figure.
“R-Roarke?!” Bellesmith's voice called out from somewhere above. “Roarke, is everything okay out there?!”
Roarke clenched her eyes shut. She shook... she seethed. At last, with a determined frown, she reopened her eyes. Hot tears collected around the tender sockets, but they didn't stop the metal mare from reaching in, stretching, struggling to slither her hoof between the hull of the ship and Rainbow's shattered figure.
At last, after much strain and gnashing of teeth, Roarke plucked something loose. She fell back, clutching something golden and glistening to her chest. She shuddered, staring at the loose Loyalty Pendant. Its ruby lightning bolt pulsed, then remained bright and steady. Roarke hadn't even begun staring at it when she heard a low growling noise, followed shortly by an unsettling creakkkk!
She looked up with a gasp.
The Noble Jury was shaking, shifting. At last, with a flash of blue feathers, the skystone vessel tipped upwards by several degrees. Just as quickly, the metal weight slouched loudly back on its side, but not without a quivering blue figure darting out.
Th-Thud! On four squriming hooves, Rainbow Dash perched before Roarke, her body hunched over and spasming. A series of sickening snaps and cracks popped all along her spine... but it didn't end there.
“Grnnngh—hckkkt... frmmmm-guaaahahk!” Rainbow Dash bowed her head low. Her tail flicked as the hairs stripped off one by one, replaced by a leathery tail. Her fetlocks grew coarse fur, the blue hue replaced with coarse browns and grays.
Roarke's muzzle trembled. She clung tighter to the pendant. “Rainbow...?”
A pair of eyes suddenly flicked her way—red on yellow with a piercing glow. Trickling blood framed her deep sockets while a pair of horns grew out of the pegasus' head. Then, with a carnivore's shriek, the chaotic beast lunged at her.
Roarke gasped, flexing a metal fetlock.
THWACK! Rainbow's unshorn hooves clamped over Roarke's figure, preventing the ex-bounty hunter from readying any of her weapons. She slammed the pony down into the earth, forcing the two to slide down the mountainous incline. Rainbow's muzzle hung wide open, her equine molars slowly being replaced by serrated fangs. The horns on her forehead grew longer, thicker, and the fresh blood from the transformation splattered all across Roarke's brow.
The mare struggled with the creature's grasp. She realized she had dropped the pendant entirely. Flashing a look to her left, she spotted the ruby lightning bolt resting a few inches away.
“RAAA-AAACHKKKSSSH!“ Rainbow's maw enlarged impossibly, her breath reeking of sulfur. Her feathers began falling off, replaced with webbed flesh and bone spikes.
Gnashing her teeth, Roarke thrust her head aside, picked the Element up in her mouth, and wrenched a hoof free. She spat the necklace into her fetlock, then slapped the thing firmly around Rainbow's neck.
The creature froze in mid-lunge, her jaws just centimeters from closing around Roarke's skull. A flash of ruby light billowed across those mutant eyes, and soon all traces of yellow drained away. Rainbow Dash stumbled backwards, shedding hair with each dizzying step. She whimpered and hissed in pain as the horns along her skull disintegrated, spilling like ash before the wind. At last, her wings coiled tightly by her side, the feathers mostly spared from the near-transformation.
Roarke sat up, watching with nervous shivers.
Rainbow hugged herself, trembled, and fell to her belly. Gravity took over, and she tumbled down the cold mountainside.
Roarke reached out and caught her. Rainbow had never felt so small and frail to the metal mare, and all she did in the pony's embrace was shiver and sob quietly. Roarke bit her lip, closing her eyes as she held the pegasus close. She reached in, tightened the pendant completely shut, then nuzzled her gently, keeping her warm in the frigid cold winds. When the Jurists finally got out of the stranded vessel, what they found were two marefriends, hugging closely, with Roarke's eyes locked on the jagged horizon blocking her view of the east sky.
“I could follow you. The whole Jury could follow you.” Roarke slowly shook her head. “But we can never truly fix you. That's something that was determined long before you even took flight. And you know it.”
Rainbow stared at the southern horizon beyond them, listening to Roarke's words in somber silence.
“You mean something to this world, Rainbow,” Roarke said. “Maybe even to this universe. Why else would something so harmonic be entombed in chaos? You're built to go places that the rest of us would die trying. And while we would gladly do just that... what good would it accomplish?” Roarke raised a hoof towards the landscape around them. “How would Val Roa adjust without us? How would Durandana persist without the Sword of Solstice? And how would Luxmare enjoy peace without the likes of Seclorum and Arcshod to see to its future?”
Rainbow Dash was silent. At last, she swallowed and said, “I... I was kinda sorta hoping that... I could find a place where the world could have peace... a-and I could have it too.” She looked at Roarke with a vulnerable smile.
Roarke stared at her. “You will have peace, Rainbow Dash.” Then, she slowly shook her head. “But that's not here. Leave Val Roa to us. Let us be loyal to you by being loyal to each other. Let us live... in the most awesome way that we can live... as you've taught us to. Nopony but you can survive the Grand Choke... the Dark Side... the Midnight Armory and beyond...”
Rainbow shuddered. “And if I don't...?”
Roarke bore a bittersweet smile. She ran a hoof up and caressed the pegasus' face. “The rainbow never ends.” A shuddering breath. “Where you come from, there is no horizon.”
Rainbow couldn't see her at this point. Her vision had fogged to terribly. Sniffling, she ran a hoof across her face, collecting the tears. “I... I just wanna know...” She hiccuped. “Was it ever real? You and me, I mean. What we had....”
Roarke suddenly grasped the other mare's hoof. She squeezed the tears away between them as she drew Rainbow's hoof over her chest. “I can no longer remember a time when anything wasn't real,” the metal mare said with a smile. “I'll always be grateful for what we have. Now and forever.”
Rainbow stared at her. Through her. In a cracking voice, she quietly sobbed: “I think I can b-be at peace with that...”
Roarke smiled back. She pressed her hoof against the back of Rainbow's head.
Rainbow surrendered, burying her face in Roarke's chest as she cried through a cracked smile. Meanwhile, Roarke gently stroked her neck and back, leaning down until her brown muzzle rested gently atop Rainbow's crown, nuzzling her through her silk mane.
The two lingered there in each other's embrace until they had grown quieter than the desolation itself.
Well, shit, today's just been one huge feelsfest after another. First Monty Oum goes and dies on me, and now this. Yay.
new1.fjcdn.com/pictures/Thank+you+monty+oum+animator+of+rwby+passed+away+yesterday_371377_5441791.png
5582286
So, uh, you ready to be a character on the Dark side?
this is me trying and failing to brighten up the mood.
i was right, after a fashion
that death scene was still relevant
i don't like being right anymore
Choo Choo! Feels express!
And we finally learn what Roarke saw, and it was pretty much exactly what I expected.
Remember in Super Mario 64, how if your health piechart was low, you could jump in water and it'd switch to being a breath meter and then when you got out it'd fill up completely again? Is that like Rainbow taking off her pendant?
5582289
I am ready to be the bat pony guide through the dark side like Beatrice for Dante in purgatory.
Just wait. The feels train is just getting started. I have a bad feeling that the Keraine train is about to be derailed.
This is what I get for forgetting about that flashback.
I wonder how many chapters of this we're going to get before hell breaks lose.
5582331
You're something RD accidentally steps on and bounces really high off of it.
Not that it's exactly the appropriate time or anything (would it ever be?), but I just remembered that back in Stratopolis, there was that one changeling that showed that it could bleed red to further disguise itself. Was the significance of that ever explained?
That was the first one to make me tear up since the end of the first book... I will miss Roarke.
5582347 this comment was not enough to get rid of the feels i'm having right now...
SS&E.
I have one wish for the end of this story.
Please let Rainbow get a happy ending with Roarke.
5582348
Changelings are just overpowered. Dash went full-chaos, here. Unrelated.
5582388
And what's Applejack? Chopped liver dust?
5582420
At this point yeah. Discord kinda did that.
We can safely assume Roarke will be safe with the cartel so I love the idea of rainbow going back to find her at the end of this.
Guess its time to get ready for chapters less than 1k soon, now that Rainbow is most likely going alone.
You know this really feels like this is exactly what should happen, but I just don't feel like this is what will happen in the end. Because as much as Rorarke is right (and she is completely right) I still think there is one more screw you coming for this (mostly) happy ending.
5582457
You know what we haven't seen in a while? Lavender light. Something about a hoof reaching out from it. Something about early thematic themes. Something something speculation.
*Dramatic music plays*
Damn...You kno I'm not as broken up as I thought I would be. I guess like roarke I knew it was inevitable. Sighhhh..time for more sad goodbyes and lose ends to tie up at val roa. Roarke better give rainbow the damn shagging of a life time though.
5582495
That's kinda what I thought, too (regarding the former point, though the latter is certainly possible too). For all we know, he could kill Rainbow off, forcing the others to finish her quest for her. Doesn't seem likely, but you never know.
i.imgur.com/X8NFTeR.jpg
Well. Tears and stuff.
And thus endeth the Rainboarke, but Keraine is yet on the horizon.
Only Rainbow Dash can survive The Dark Side?
Chrysalis? Changelings?
Is Dash going to have to go absolutely on her own, or is she going to be able to go with a Black Ops squad at least?
Cos Im sure, if so, at least one or two of the Jurists will want a quiet word with her Changelings.
The rest of us?
We will be here. Waiting. Fighting the unending fight against Entropy.
Hoping. One day. The next flight, will be her last flight. Home.
Feely... The next chapter starts with Zaid saying a joke, right?
Last chapter, Belle was fearing Rainbow would just leave without saying goodbye, as she knows Rainbow has done before, right?
No restrictions, let the tears flow free...
On another note, I am really excited about where this is heading. Honestly, I hated the second story at first because it was so drastically different. Of course it grew on me, but I was really enjoying the lonely wanders. How we had to slowly piece together what truly happened in Rainbows past. If you look at the first comparitively to the rest, it is a vastly different story, and while there's nothing wrong with that, I just thought it was heading in a different direction. Now Rainbow will be alone once more as she travels to lands unknown by the ponies on the west side of the Choke. I can only see more feels in the future.
5582348 It just proved a point that no amount of checks could lead anyone to trust the changelings. The changeling loved Rainbow enough to show her that she couldn't trust anyone in that group not to be one. Thus came the realisation that the only hope was to convert them to harmony instead of hate. Only friendship could result in the level of trust that was needed.
Well.... yup...
Day of feels.
let it be known that today the 2nd/3rd(depending on time zone) of February 2015 is the day of feels.
5582388
he has no mercy
So many feels, I can't handle it...
Really man? Making me tear up in school?
I need to stop reading this around people.
5582481
The lavender light did kind of return, you know, except now it's only in the form of Yaerfaerda.
I went in expecting feels, but wasn't prepared to feel this much
i.imgur.com/HtAJBdo.jpg
Melancholic Roarke is the best Roarke.
I don't remember a single moment when the chemistry between Dash and Roarke was not interesting to read. Whether it's animosity, love, or merely them talking about, I dunno, something, it has always been good to read.
5582388 There are no happy endings. Bittersweets at best.
I have no speculation to offer.
I have no predictions.
I do not look to the future.
I do not have the strength to wish.
I have nothing left but to enjoy the moment. This horrible, tender, inevitable, all-encompassing moment.
Dammit, IC.
Who has two wings and sucks to be?
Yyyyyeah...
Translation:
i.imgur.com/QbKdj.jpg
i.imgur.com/DZ7qCCf.jpg
This isn't giving up.
This is letting go
What should I even say? I know I had to read that flashback at least five times...
It was coming though. For once IC followed up on what was said, instead of throwing a crazy twist.
I know this is the only way, but one can hope right?
Well...
Back to shipping Rainbow and Gold Petals.
I hate this. I knew it was coming and yet I still hate it.
5584555
What about shipping Rainbow Dash with one of the ponies from the local pegasus sex crater?
5582738
Yep. Especially since Belle and Pilate are probably staying in Val Rona.
Yo the final conclusion to this story'd better be ridiculously cathartic
5585356
As opposed to the partial conclusion of the story, which will only be moderately cathartic.