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Love Letters for a Girl I Hate

by GaPJaxie

Chapter 1: Glory

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Rainbow Dash emerged onto the great balcony of Whiterun, yawning as she shoved her way through the great doors. It had been a long night, and she wasn’t sure how much she had slept—if she’d slept at all. The last two days were a blur of running, fighting, flying, and drinking which left her a little bit uncertain just how she’d come to be in Castle Dragonsreach, but she had some bounties to turn in anyway, so that worked out just fine. The balcony’s torches were still lit from the previous night, but there was enough light to see without them, and Rainbow Dash quickly spotted that the table on the balcony’s far edge was occupied.

“Hey, Proventus,” she called as she stepped up to the table. In the distance, the sun was rising, and the light made her squint sharply. She ignored the discomfort, took a deep breath, held it, and stretched. First, she stretched her left wing, lifting it straight up and then reaching it up and over her back. Then she lifted her right foreleg and reached it up over her back as well, hooking her hoof around the opposite wing. Her spine twisted sharply to allow such a feat, and when she pulled with her leg, the result was a chorus of cracking joints. She let out a stiff groan, and released the breath she was holding, repeating the exercise with her right wing and left foreleg. When she finally finished and opened her eyes again, she could see clearly other than a few floating spots, and finally noticed the other pony glaring at her.

“Good morning to you too, Dragonborn,” Proventus said, his words quiet, slow, and unfriendly. His expression wasn’t much better. He was an older earth pony, with a thinning tail and a thinner mane, both starting to turn white from their original teal. He wore a thick padded vest that covered his flanks, chest, and back, only barely leaving his cutie mark exposed. That was starting to grey as well, and the parchment and gavel looked a bit fuzzier than they probably had when he first got them. The table in front of him was spread with food: bread, cheese, honey, garlic, roast skeever, sweetrolls, and stew. A large jug of spiced wine sat in the middle, and the long table was clearly set for numerous ponies who had not yet arrived.

“Oh. Yeah.” Rainbow Dash glanced in his general direction, a gesture she decided was sufficient for his morning greeting. She kicked a chair out from the table and slid her rear down into it, leaving both of her forehooves free to work. “Hey, is there any cider?” she asked, grabbing a loaf of bread from the table and giving the spiced wine a dubious glance.

“No. And you should wait. The Jarl is off conducting an early morning inspection of the city defenses. We will start breakfast when he returns shortly.” Proventus added an forceful kick to the last word, a gesture which Rainbow Dash completely ignored. Reaching down into her vest with her teeth, she pulled out a shiny skyforge steel dagger that glowed a faint blue. The enchanted weapon, designed to shred the flesh of pony and beast alike, more than sufficed to cut the loaf of bread in half. When she was done, she returned the weapon to its sheath. “You know,” Proventus snapped, “you could buy your own house in the city.”

“Seems expensive.” Rainbow Dash shrugged her wings before reaching up to the table to grab the honeypot. She roughly upended it over half of the bread, poured out what she deemed to be a reasonable portion, and then slapped a slab of roast skeever down on top of the honey. “Besides, I’m bunking with the Companions now. They’re a real hoot, you know? Those griffons know how to party.”

“I suppose that’s where you acquired your taste for meat,” Proventus said, curling his lip back in disgust. Rainbow Dash shrugged again, and took a bite out of her now complete sandwich. “You have something...” he gestured at the side of his face.

After a moment, Rainbow Dash turned her gaze to the table, finding a silver platter of sweetrolls. She roughly picked it up, dumping the rolls out over the table and lifting the platter to use as a mirror. She could see that she was a mess—her mane tangled and sweaty, her armored vest still splattered with blood. Her knife rested over her chest, while her axe and bow hung by her sides. Her horseshoes, enchanted with the power of lightning, had left ugly scorch marks over her hooves that nicely mirrored the electrical burn marks along the side of her face. She considered them for a time.

“Yeah, no,” she finally said. “I think I’m going to leave those. Warriors respect a few scars, you know? Plus, it’s a great story. I’ve never seen a mage throw lightning bolts like that. He totally thought he had me right up to fus-roh-offthecliff!” She chuckled, sitting back in her chair. ”Oh hey, are you sure there’s no cider?” she asked suddenly. “Because I am craving cider.”

“Did you have any business here today?” Proventus demanded, the feigned politeness dropping from his tone in favor of outright hostility.

“Yef,” Rainbow Dash spoke through a mouth full of bread, sticky honey, and roast meat. “That rift bandit guy.” She swallowed. “He’s dead.”

“The bandit leader at Rift Watchtower?” Proventus asked. Rainbow shrugged, and the earth pony scowled. “I got reports of his death nearly a month ago. Are you telling me you waited until now to bother collecting the money?”

Before Rainbow could answer, a distant roar carried through the air. It echoed off the stone walls of the city and across the rooftops, reverberating multiple times across the two ponies ears. In the streets below the balcony, the reaction was the immediate. Though the ponies of Whiterun were too far away to be heard, Rainbow Dash and Proventus alike could see them freeze for a moment—and then gallop away in all directions, scattering like startled insects.

“Well, basically,” Rainbow Dash said, kicking the chair away as she rose from the table. “I’ve been a little busy.” She briefly stretched her wings, readied her bow, lifted her haunches, and then leapt off the edge of the balcony. The cold morning air of Skyrim caught her wings, the sudden tension in her feathers pulling her up and away. So early in the day, there were no thermals to catch, so she flapped hard to gain altitude, quickly pulling above the roof of Dragonsreach. The roar sounded again, and in the distance, she spotted a gout of flame, the light emerging from the farms around Whiterun. She spun, lowered her wings, and took a breath.

“Wuld Na KEST!” she roared, and a massive whirlwind sprung up around her. Hurricane force winds sprung up around her, strong enough to pick up a pony like a ragdoll. Her open wings caught the full brunt of the gust, her posterior shoulders screaming in pain as the wind did its best to wrench them from their sockets. But Rainbow knew her limits, and the joints held as she was hurled forward through the air.

The whirlwind lasted only a few seconds, but the moment it was over, Rainbow Dash snapped her wings in closer to her sides and stretched out her body. Her profile thus lowered, there was nothing to arrest her velocity, and her course became ballistic. She flew like shot from a catapult, gravity pulling her faster and faster towards the ground as she arced over Whiterun’s walls and towards the outlying farms. The wind pulled her tail straight behind her, pushed back her ears, and lashed itself against her face with such intensity that frost started to form across her cheeks and brow.

Her vision blurred, and she squeezed her eyes shut, but she could tell she was close to her target. There it was in front of her, a blurry red mass that was the source of the flame. She extended her wings slightly, tilting them to guide her. Her throat still burned from her last mighty dragon shout, and it would be a little while before she could conjure the whirlwind again. But there was one other shout she could use. A shout of her own discovery, though thus far she only knew two words of it. She tensed her body, and against the low pressure cone created by the wind, forced herself to take one more deep breath.

“Hey, ugly!” she screamed, whirling in mid-flight so her rear hooves went first. She slammed into the dragon’s back at full speed, both of her rear hooves impacting in the middle of its ribcage. It was like getting hit by an out of control wagon, the shock striking Rainbow with such force she briefly thought she’d bounced off completely. When she realized her knees had buckled, her body had already slammed fully into the dragon’s side. Both of them tumbled, rolling in a chaotic mess to the ground. The creature’s tail lashed, and Rainbow flew through the air, landing in a heap on what felt like a pile of hay.

Rainbow groaned, and slowly picked herself up, spots dancing in her vision. Now that she could see clearly, she realized she was near the Pelagia farm on the outskirts of the city. The dragon had been in the process of burning down the windmill when she’d struck, and it now lay next to the burning windmill as it struggled to rise to its feet. Rainbow noted with a certain smug satisfaction that sparks still crackled over its body, originating from the hoof-shaped impact marks along its back.

Her joy was short lived though, as the creature hauled itself up onto its feet and wings with a furious roar. It was a dull red, with an uncommonly long hooked muzzle, and trails of smoke still emerging from its nose and mouth. Looking around quickly, Rainbow Dash spotted her bow lying in the grass a few dozen yards away. She sprinted over, swept it from the ground, and flew into the air with a single beat of her wings. Once her legs were free, she held the front of the bow with both forehooves, took the string in her teeth, and pulled it back. The dragon turned to notice her just as she finished the motion, and an ethereal blue arrow appeared in the bow of its own accord.

Rainbow Dash released her jaw, and a moment later, the arrow bounced off the dragon’s shoulder. Rainbow could immediately tell it had done no damage, but that was not her goal. Her goal was to get and hold the beast’s attention, and when it let out a furious roar, she knew she had succeeded. She ignored its sound and fury, turning and flying away before it could launch any real attacks.

The dragon took to the skies and gave chase, just as Rainbow had planned. It was faster than her, but not by much, and her head start gave her plenty of time to kite it along. She spun and weaved as she flew low across the landscape, twisting her body so she could fire her bow behind her while losing a minimum of speed. Some of the arrows missed, others bounced, and a few actually landed, but all of them irritated the creature. Rainbow could tell it was seeing red, screaming in incoherent rage as it pursued her. It opened its jaw, and deep from within it’s reptilian maw poured forth a rumbling voice. “Yol Toor!”

“Crud!” Rainbow Dash banked her wings down and dove as a blast of fire raced through the air around her. It didn’t fully hit, but it didn’t quite miss either, and pain screamed through Rainbow’s back and neck. She smelled melting feathers and burning hair, but she was still flying, so she knew it wasn’t a direct hit on her wings. She realized that the dragon was closer than she thought. She’d hoped to get out into the mountains first, and she was still over the farms outside the city, but there was no time.

“Alright you dumb ugly lizard. Come and get me!” she roared. She picked a landmark at random—a building below her—and angled straight for it. She dropped her bow, and let it fall away. She picked up speed as she fell, hearing the dragon gaining on her. She reached down with a forehoof to find the shaft of her axe. “Fus-”

Just at the moment before impact, Rainbow pulled up sharply. She flew in a tight arc, backflipping up and over the dragon. It turned to follow her, snapping at her with its mighty jaws. “Roh-” The two spun through the air until the dragon was vertical, and Rainbow Dash behind him. She lowered her head, looked at its tail, and spoke: “DAH!”

The blast of force caught the dragon in its tail and lower body, flipping it over onto its back. It fell like a stone, smashing back first into the building, which crumpled under its weight. The thatch roof gave way and the walls fell in, and Rainbow Dash grinned viciously when she realized the shattered timbers were forming a crude cage, trapping the beast’s legs and wings. She spun, righted herself, balanced her axe in both forelegs, and dived for the creatures exposed underbelly. The axe found it’s target over the creature’s heart, and blood splattered over Rainbow Dash’s legs and armor.

Before Rainbow Dash could lift the weapon to strike again, the Dragon violently twisted its spine, trying to shake her from its belly. A quick beat of her wings lifted her from its scales, but she lost her grip on her axe, which remained stuck in the knotted muscles of its underside. She dived, grabbing the weapon and heaving with all her might—flesh tearing as the axe came free. She flipped the weapon around so the spike on the back of the blade pointed forward, and again swung. The dragon got a wing free of the debris, and struck at Rainbow Dash, but the blow arrived a hair too late. The spike of the axe plunged down through the open wound moments before the undirected wing strike knocked Rainbow from the creatures belly.

Rainbow hit the floor, landing hard on a pile of broken timber. She felt something tear, and knew that she now had lacerations to match her burns, but she paid the injuries no mind. The dragon was roaring still, but its voice carried more than just fury. A sickly gurgling sound told Rainbow Dash how close she’d come to the mark, and scrambled back to her hooves. She looked for her axe, but it was still stuck in the wound, and she quickly made other plans.

The dragon roared again, its tail lashed, and two of the buildings walls collapsed as it started to work its way free. Rainbow ducked under a massive flailing wing and charged towards the dragons shoulders. She pulled her little knife from its sheath, and struck where the dragon’s neck met its body. A sharp motion of her head plunged the knife into a vein, and in one motion, Rainbow withdrew the blade and ducked away from the inevitable counterattack. A talon whipped through the air where Rainbow had been just moments before, but she was already attacking again.

She struck three times this way, until the dragon’s flailing finally dislodged her axe and she swept it from the floor. The beast’s motions were growing sluggish, but Rainbow took no notice, except to take advantage. She hovered above the thrashing creature as she swung again and again.

She didn’t notice when it went still, and kept hacking away at its corpse until a bright orange light shone from it’s body. It was only then that she realized the beast was gone. “Oh yeah,” she grinned, tossing her axe away. “Come to mama.” She opened her jaw, and inhaled the orange light, sucking the dragons essence right from its body. Its flesh seemed to evaporate away as its life energy poured down Rainbow’s throat, until she hovered above a cage of bones. She felt stronger—larger, somehow—and she laughed.

“Oooh, I’m sorry,” she mocked the bones as she moved past the dragon’s ribcage, landing and striding from the wrecked building. “Let me show you how it’s done.” She emerged from the building, and craned her neck up towards the sky. “Yol Toor SHUL!”

Rainbow’s jaw stretched open, and a blast of fire fifty feet in length roared out of her mouth. When the blast of fire was done, she giggled and lowered her head. It was only then that she noticed the half dozen ponies in the yard in front of her, staring at her with open-mouth shock.

“Who...” asked one of them, a young earth pony mare in a dress. “What...”

“Yeah. Hey.” Rainbow reached up to push her mane back over her ears. “I’m Rainbow Dash. You’ve probably heard of me. I’m the Dragonborn. Thane of Whiterun. Hero of Skyrim. The Great Dragonslayer. You know, basically, I’m kind of a big deal.”

The mare continued to stare with her mouth agape, and Rainbow turned slightly, noticing the sign behind her. Though surrounded by debris from the house, the sign was still intact, and informed visitors that this was the Honningbrew Meadery. “Oh!” Rainbow said quickly. “Honningbrew. I’ve heard of you!”

“You... have?” the mare asked. Her words were sluggish, and her eyes were dilated and blank. The other ponies behind he couldn't even muster up the will to speak.

“Oh, yeah.” Rainbow nodded. Then she jerked her head towards the destroyed house, now filled with dragon bones. “So, I know mead is your thing, but do you have any apple cider? Because I’m craving apple cider right now.”

Behind Rainbow, the last freestanding wall of the house collapsed. The mare opened and shut her jaw, but said nothing.

Next Chapter: Freedom Estimated time remaining: 25 Minutes
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