As Rainbow Dash lay sleeping I stoked the fire and gazed into its flames, not the yellow-tinged edge, but the center.
I had avoided watching for far too long, had avoided knowing.
There had been a time where I had been obsessed with my flame. When I had watched for weeks on end. I had nearly starved myself for the visions it would bring.
In that time I had particularly liked watching the elements, Rainbow Dash and her friends… the future had always seemed so bright in their hooves. Six friends who would cast out the dark, who had been called together by this… this glisten, this spark.
I had to stop watching.
There was a happy ending to be had, that was part of what drew me to the flames in the first place, but as I watched the future only grew darker, and no better off for my watching.
Only watching did nothing, I had to act. But I did not know what to do.
The fate of Equestria, indeed the whole world depended on knowledge I had, and all I could do was run away.
But I could run no longer.
Rainbow Dash was here alone and an Alicorn, and Canterlot has burned, all because I ran away.
I did not know what to do, what action to take, how to make things right, but it was my responsibility to find out.
So I tendered the flame, and gazed into its heart, to learn what I might of what, was and what was to come.
Life sprung into existence at the light patter of the yellow Alicorns trudging hoof-steps.
Here she stopped, to look back upon the grandeur of her creation, the rolling hills of green, the endless meadows and forests which eked across the once barren land.
She sighed.
She stopped not because she had to. She could continue that cantered dance for eternity, spreading the picturesque girding of nature, but all the same.
She flittered her wings, a light zephyrian breeze serenaded from beneath them, butterflies playing amongst the wake.
For the briefest moment, she seemed to look right at me, her gaze stretching across all of time and space to me and my meager flame.
It startled me, but as soon as the moment was, it wasn't, and she was again looking across her verdant field of green.
The fire crackled, some timber falling in on itself, and the image shifted.
A different fire touched the night and licked at stars, and Canterlot was burning.
Ash chard the black sky and drifting embers lit the night.
Over the roaring of the inferno, a clatter of hooves could be heard, the populace in flight. A miasma lay in the air, the taste of death.
Six friends galloped against the surging crowd, towards what danger I could not yet see.
The foremost of the charging ponies, a little purple alicorn skidded to a stop, as her friends rallied to her side.
Twilight Sparkle and the Elements, it had to be.
They huddled close. Eyes wide with fear they alone stood against the darkness, even with the roaring fires all around to light the night, a shadow loomed before them...
Again the visage shifted.
I saw the Yellow Alicron staring across her rolling fields of green. A tear touched her cheek, I do not think that she knew why.
She sat down and brushed her hoof along her face with a sniffle. As if nervously she began running her hooves through her flowing pink main.
I leaned in closer to the fire, hoping perhaps to get a better view of the features of her face, trying to understand the sorrow in those youthful ancient eyes.
Something was missing.
Something had been missing for a long time, and she just couldn't put her hoof on it, I could see that much in her gentle gaze.
Although her eyes spoke of a boundless ancient wisdom; she seemed…
lost.
Suddenly or seamlessly I found myself there.
I could feel the west breeze in my mane and felt the warmth of that new summer sun on my back.
I felt as if I was sitting beside her, close enough to touch her shoulder with my hoof, a gentle prod of kindness.
But, then, she looked at me and I was again a thousand miles, and unknown ages away.
Again the flame was just a flame, once roaring it now dwindled.
A slight chill had crept over the cave.
I shivered.
I glanced at my shaking hooves and took a deep breath.
…
I looked toward Rainbow Dash, who still lay mumbling incoherently in her slumber.
It wasn't just about me anymore. I could no longer selfishly look away.
I had to know, to help, to do something.
I rekindled the flame, building it up log by log, coxing life back into it with my breath until it again roared. Only hesitating for a moment, I then watched.
I could not look away. In the cave, Rainbow Dash fought for our lives, hoof and horn and wing a blur of blue against the onslaught of tooth and claw of the invading wolves. I knew the danger, knew she was doing everything she could to keep us alive, even despite her injuries.
Her loyalty knew no bounds.
but I could not look away, the flames engulfed my mind.
Six friends stood against the darkness and Canterlot was burning. Again and again, the Rainbow in the flames clashed against the advancing nightmares
With each charge, a rain boom expanded behind her, a resounding shockwave echoing in the night, and entire legions of shadow fell before her.
In the cave, she struggled against the raging wolves and I could do nothing to help her.
I could not look away from the flame.
My flame.
In the flame, I saw the yellow alicorn, the matriarch of nature gazing out on the bastion of her creation. Her gaze stopped on a brier of darkness. In all the rolling hills of green lay a black plane of decay.
She spoke to me, something that would have been startling were I not so transfixed. Something that shouldn't be, but all the same she spoke to me.
And I was speechless.
“Tell me. Do you see them in your flames? I forget sometimes… It has been so long, but I think they were once a part of me… I think they still are.”
Her voice was soft, almost no more than the wisp of whisper from a breezie’s wing, a murmur…I leaned closer to the fire, to her, I wanted to absorb her every word.
The cave reverberated with a resounding thump as Rainbow Dash slammed a poor wolf into a wall, only for her to be assaulted on all sides by another three.
“I see them sometimes,” The Alicorn continued “In the little things.
Can you say that you've seen the dew caught in a spider's web or the cotton candy in the clouds? I hear their whisper in the wind… is it all in my head?
But that is the least of my concerns now. You and your friend… you and Dash…That was her name, oh I miss her so…
I'm so sorry, you two are in danger and here I hold you in idle chatter.”
More wolves were filling the cave now, a surge of shaggy gray forms swarming on the blue Pegasus who only barely held them at bay from me and my flame. And all I could do was stare at the yellow alicorn in awe.
She pointed her hoof toward the gathering darkness in the distance… that, that is what we were, are up against. The Tantabus threatens all.”