//------------------------------// // Whinnyworld // Story: Appledashery // by Just Essay //------------------------------// "Look..." Rainbow Dash pointed, squinting as she followed the culmination of a slightly overgrown path. "Another clearing." She gulped. "This one's a lot bigger." "Yes. Quite." Lancie stifled a yawn. "Instead of finding three dull buildings, we might find six." "Dude, could you be slightly less glum?" Rainbow's nostrils flared as she flapped her wings a few more times. "I'm hoping to get answers." "Out here, Sparky?" Lancie shook his head. "All you're gonna get is dust. Ashes. The detritus of chaos." He smirked. "I rather like it." "Then why aren't you more excited?" "Meh. I prefer unpredictability in action." "But then when you look forward to unpredictability, aren't you predicting it?" "Oh, and I suppose now you are the super old immortal entity with an expert grasp on all things cockeyed!" "Shhhhh... knock it off, will ya?" Rainbow touched down in the middle of a clearing. "Look. We're here." She blinked, and the mare's ears drooped as she looked up... and up and up and up. "Whoah..." "Hmmm?" Lancie craned his neck to see. "Huh. I take that back. This is rather fascinating." Rainbow squinted, shuffling forward one loose step at a time. She passed the crumpled remains of what must have once been a very tall building—at least seven stories high. At some point, the thing had crumpled over completely, exploding into steel beams and age-old shards of glass. She turned her head, squinting at the nearby tree line. She realized that several of the trees had grown in the bosom of the fallen building, suggesting that the ruins were even older than she previously thought. The base of the building still stood in place, with the remaining three stories broken at a jagged angle. It occurred to Rainbow that whatever caused the building to topple over wasn't a mere force of nature. As she rounded the far edge of the structure's foundation, she found trenches in the earth overgrown with grass and weeds. They were large enough to match hydra claws. "I'm sure this is all very interestin'..." With a jolt, Rainbow looked to her left. Applejack poked around the fallen remains of a wagon. Her green eye glanced up, glaring. "Almost as interestin' as a dyin' lil' foal." With a shudder, Rainbow forced herself to look away. "...I didn't say you had to stop talking," she grumbled. "Huh?" Lancie blinked. "Oh! Uhm..." He fidgeted in her saddlebags. "What do you want me to say, exactly?" "I don't know. Just think aloud." "You supposed if stallions wore lipstick it'd be called 'makedown?'" Rainbow groaned. "No, I mean about this place, ya hood ornament." "Well I'm sorry!" Lancie wheezed. "My experience with ancient ruins located inexplicably west of a continental divide is limited." Rainbow let loose a long sigh. "You have to understand, Sparky, I come from a time when... almost everything was new." "I think a monster must have shoved this building over. What about you?" "I'm inclined to agree." Lancie squinted, pointing at further plots along the open clearing. "Furthermore, seems like the same creatures did a number on the other structures that were once here." "Other... structures...?" Rainbow turned her head to look, then did a double-take. "Whoah..." Indeed, several more rectangular-shaped foundations loomed on either side of an uneven path. Rainbow realized that they covered just about as much ground area as the building that had fallen over. Where the ground wasn't layered with stone and steel anchors, she saw spurts of grass and wildflowers poking through. The warm air buzzed with insects wafting in from the forest. "Guess you were right," Rainbow said. "Some buildings were less fortunate than others." "I think it all goes to prove a point, Sparky." "Yeah? What's that?" "No one's lived here for years. Centuries, even." He took a deep breath. "I doubt there's any sentient thing around these parts that can lend you a hoof with Aatxe or any of his draconian doughpushers." Rainbow sighed. "You're right. I guess I was just hoping for some—" She stumbled on something. "...answers?" She looked down. Her hoof had stepped into a bed of craggly, brittle rock. Only, upon closer examination, she detected black matter and rubber filament. "Almost looks like..." Rainbow's muzzle scrunched. "...asphalt." "Asph-what-now?" Lancie slurred. "Asphalt. Y'know..." Rainbow looked back at him. "The sort of stuff they build streets out of in Manehattan, Fillydelphia, all the big cities." "What's that got to do with anything?" "It means that whoever lived here had some pretty bang-up engineering skills." She looked back at the toppeled building. "For whatever it was worth." "If that's true, and a civilization got that advanced out here..." Lancie rubbed his granite head. "Just what cooked their goose?" "See?" Rainbow smirked, trotting back towards the large building. "Now you're thinking aloud in a cool way." "If you say so." Lancie held on tight. "Where are we going?" "I just wanna check on something," Rainbow said, poking her head through a shattered open wall of the building's foundation. "Careful, Sparky," Lancie said. "This place is—like—a factor eleven on the Cruddy Scale. Don't go sticking your head into places that might lop it off." "I just gotta see if something... anything was living here recently." Rainbow flapped her wings so her hooves would stay safely out of range of any random junk on the floor. "Cuz if the dragons were what finished them off, then we might be facing a lot more than I can chew." "So long as one of us is doing the nibbling." Rainbow hovered into the remains of what looked to be a lobby of sorts, or an atrium. It was difficult to tell—for weeds and vines had covered most of the walls and artificial structures inside the room. A thick web of moss hung between the partially intact ceiling and the diagonal slope of the building top that had toppeled over, consuming the eastern half of the first few floors. The floor was a sporadic minefield of sun-faded tile, smattered across a plush bed of grass and crumpled leaves. "No burn marks," Rainbow muttered. "No vulcanized glass." "How does a pegasus like you know what 'vulcanized' means?" Lancie hissed. "Dude. One of my best friends has a dragon whelp for a lab assistant. I know a thing or two about what dragonfire can do." "Well, do you spell any whelpage around this place?" "Can't say that I do." Rainbow hovered past a doorframe. "If I didn't know better, I'd say—" Her eyes bulged and her body jerked to a stop. "Hellllo!" She turned towards the side. "What?" Lancie blinked. "Is Applespectre doing the hoochy-coochy?" Rainbow Dash touched down right next to a doorframe... that dwarfed her suddenly tiny body. "Since... when did anyone in their right mind build doors that tall?" "I'm a statue, not an architect." "For realsies, though." Rainbow gawked up at the tall frame. "You could—like—stack twenty of me on top of one another—belly to back—and still we'd fit through the darn thing." "Well, whoever built this place was obviously a lot taller than you mother hoofers." "I know, right?" Rainbow nodded. "That's super weird." She looked to the left, then to the right. "Hang on a second..." She trotted behind a curved structure situated halfway towards the glass-framed entrance. With nimble hooves, she fished around a bed of grass and mulch. "Watch out for snakes, Missy." "This part of the building is super dark," Rainbow muttered. "And yet, it's got shelter from rain." "Point being?" "Well, lack of moisture and light means very little photosynthesis." Rainbow dug and dug. "So, I'm willing to bet that if there's any junk lying around here, it's probably mostly intact around this spot. Ah-hah!" She pulled out circular metal object in both hooves. "Uhhhhh..." "And just what—pray tell—is that?" "I... dunno..." Rainbow blinked, turning the thing over and wincing slightly as a centipede scurried out. "Call me crazy, but, if I didn't know any better... I'd say this resembled a bell." "A bell?" "Y'know... like a front service bell?" Rainbow's muzzle scrunched, and she tossed the thing behind her. "I wonder what else is in here..." "This is all very interesting, Sparky, but..." Lancie cleared his throat. "The shards?" "Dude, I know I'm used to thinking on my hoof-tips, but there's too much at stake here," Rainbow huffed and puffed while digging. "If I have an opportunity to know what I'm about to dive into, then I gotta seize it. Grnnngh... cuz if there's no coming out of this run-in with Aatxe, then there's no coming home to save... mmmmfff... Apple Bloom!" With a lasting grunt, Rainbow finally pulled something out of the dirt. "Ummff!" She fell on her haunches, wincing slightly. "Guh..." Her eyes narrowed, and she did a double-take at what hung in her grasp. "Uhhhhhh..." Her throat gulped audibly. "What...?" "Hmmmm..." Lancie rubbed his stone chin. "I'm actually intrigued, for once." Rainbow held an object made out of a flexible, woven material. It felt like canvas to the touch, or a hard burlap—remarkably intact for however old it was. She turned the thing over, and it flopped loosely in several places. In fact, if she pulled each end of the thing out as long as it would go, she could count five fixed points. What's more, it had an enormous hollow at the end—large enough for her to fit her head in. "... ... ...the buck is this thing?" Rainbow grimaced, ruby eyes sharp and piercing. "Almost... almost looks like an infant's sleeping pajamas, only—like—it's got an extra leg!" "Uhhh... Sparky?" Lancie held his talon out. His gray eyes darted at his pointed digits, then back towards the article in Rainbow's grip. Rainbow shuddered, dropping the floppy thing immediately. "Brrbrbbrrr..." She stood up, wings tightly coiled at her side. "...just how friggin' big were the creatures who lived in this place?" Lancie opened his mouth to respond... And that's when a loud roar echoed from a distance, rattling each empty window pane of the structure. Rainbow gasped, spinning around. Lancie reeled from the movement. Nevertheless, he smirked. "Ahhhhhhh... Now there's a noise I haven't heard in a long time." The roar pierced the treetops yet again, growing closer. Rainbow could hear the resounding flaps of scaled wings. "Quick!" Rainbow squeaked, dashing behind the nearest structure and huddling in the dark. "Don't move a muscle!"