There was some next level eggheadedness going down, and Rainbow Dash was okay with that. She was missing Twilight something awful, and watching both Vinyl and Tarnish work together made Rainbow Dash feel better. It was soft where she was sitting, warm, and comfortable. In fact, since Tarnish had done whatever it was that he had done, sealing off everything, it was now almost downright toasty in here, with the temperature at just above fifty degrees.

Outside however, a storm squalled and begged to be let in.

Beside her, Daring Do was Daring Doing what pegasus ponies did best. Napping. With nothing else to do, she had snoozed to conserve energy, and was only half covered beneath one blanket. Dash couldn’t help herself, she found that Daring was kind of cute when she napped. Reaching down, she brushed Daring’s mane out of her face and then returned her attention to what was going on.

Vinyl was examining the strange automaton arm cannon. It was a long tube, about two yards long, and all along its length were bits of copper wire, what appeared to be iron, and small wafer-thin sections of crystals. It was a baffling contraption, as it didn’t look anything like a gun, but it somehow fired projectiles.

The projectiles themselves were small and pill-shaped. They were wrapped in fine copper wire and coated in a slick, slimy substance that smelled just awful, even worse than the stupid ration bars. At the moment, Vinyl was holding up one of the projectiles for Tarnish to examine, and Rainbow felt a gush of admiration as she watched the two of them work together.

They were the Heliophant and the Herald of Selene—something Dash thought was cool.

Loyal to each other, they were were like two peas in pod. Okay, so maybe they were the shriveled, icky peas that nopony liked, but still, two peas in a pod. Rainbow didn’t care about Vinyl’s controversial approach to magic and she liked the danger that seemed to follow Tarnish everywhere he went. She admired their loyalty to one another in the face of all odds, which was why she didn’t mind being stuck inside of a smelly, stifling cave with them, stuck on the other side of the world, far, far away from home.

I’ve seen air guns, and I’ve seen firearms, but this don’t make sense! The magic around Vinyl’s slate filled the cave with a pale purple-pink light. She rubbed the letters away and then scribbled in fresh new words. This is an electrical device of some sort, I’ll figure it out.

“It looks like toaster parts,” Tarnish said.

You dingleberry, everything looks like toaster parts to you!

Rainbow found herself grinning.

Tarnish did not reply, but held up a wafer of crystal instead. It crackled in his magic, throwing off sparks, and the smell of ozone filled the area, which was almost impossible to smell because of the putrid stench that was heavy in the air. “What is this, anyhow?”

“Crystalised lightning,” Rainbow Dash said as she eyeballed the piece.

“What?” Tarnish squinted as he looked at the wafer thin crystal fragment. “How would you know what this is? No offense.”

“None taken,” Rainbow replied as she gave Tarnish a nod. “I’ve worked in a weather factory and I’ve had hooves on experience with distilled lightning, jarred lightning, and crystalised lightning. Lightning in a jar isn’t too bad, but liquid lightning is pretty dangerous and if you crystalise that liquid, you get pure, refined, condensed lightning crystals. We pegasus ponies use them to power our factories and other things that require tremendous amounts of power.”

“So why would this gun require so much electricity?” Tarnish asked.

Lifting her head, Vinyl began jotting words down upon her slate, and after a few seconds, she held it up for all to see. Electromagnetic fields.

Rainbow watched as a blank expression settled over Tarnish’s face and tried not to laugh. She didn’t get it either, but she wasn’t going to let others know that she didn’t get it. Daring stirred in her sleep, grunting, then she rolled over and quieted. Patting the napping pegasus, Rainbow Dash let out a sigh.

“I miss Tank.”

“I know how you feel, Rainbow. I miss Grrrr.” Tarnish paused, then had an idea. “You know, with this being our day of rest, we should have some nice food. We have more than those ration bars. We have canned food of all kinds, and fresh food outside in the freezer. We should have a nice meal to make us feel better, and not just eat food for survival.”

“I could go for that.” Rainbow leaned forwards, eager to hear more. “What did you have in mind?”

“Well, I’ve gotten pretty good at steam cooking, and Vinyl’s great at flame searing stuff. I don’t know. We’ve got options though and we’ve got time. That’s one thing we have plenty of today, time. No having to worry about wasting precious moments cooking.” Tarnish let out a sigh and slumped over.

“Can we have broccoli and cheese?” Even as she spoke, Rainbow could feel Vinyl’s penetrating stare boring through her, and Rainbow Dash did her best to look innocent. “We have those little tiny cabbage-thingies too… and those are good when they’re hot and cheesy.”

Scratching out a few words on her slate, Vinyl then pushed it into Rainbow’s face for her to read.

I’m putting those deep, throbbing bass notes on my next dance mix. See if I don’t.

Daring Do clapped her hooves together to get everypony’s attention and then looked each of her crew in the eye. As the pony responsible for all of them, it was upon her neck that this disaster rested, she felt the keen need to keep them all going. She was still very much in charge, and she planned to keep it that way. Of all of them, she alone was fit to bear this responsibility. Tarnish was too young, too squirrelly, but he was getting better. Rainbow Dash had no interest in responsibility. As for Vinyl, she made scary hissy noises when the word was mentioned.

“Now that we have a bit of downtime where we can breathe a little easier,” Daring Do began, and she rubbed her hooves together to warm her frogs. “We need to think about contacting home. Tarnish, you have your mirror. Have you given any thoughts about what to say?”

“I can’t,” Tarnish replied.

“Whaddya mean ya can’t?”

“I mean, I can’t do it. I can’t stomach the thought of calling anypony. I don’t want to tell them I’m not coming home. I don’t want to explain all of this”—Tarnish made a broad sweeping gesture at his surroundings with both of his front hooves—“and all of the complexities that go with it. I don’t wanna say to them, ‘Hey, I fronked up, I should have listened to Princess Celestia.’” He gritted his teeth for a moment, squeezed his eyes shut, then added, “And I don’t want to start bawling like a foal when I hear Maud’s voice and know that I’m never gonna see her again.”

Daring almost said to keep a stiff upper lip, but she thought better of it. Out of all of them, Tarnish was not only the youngest, but he had the most fragile mental state. He hadn’t quite yet been hardened. The poor dear had the enthusiasm of youth, but not the wisdom nor toughness of age. Not yet. She was determined to keep him alive long enough for him to have it though, because one day, he would be an exceptional pony. She believed in that with all of her heart.

Instead of telling him to buck up and keep a stiff upper lip, she leaned over, scooted closer, pulled him into a hug, and kissed his cheek. Much to Daring Do’s relief, Tarnish didn't try to wiggle away, he didn’t show signs of resentment, and he accepted her offer of comfort. She remained close, her forelegs around him, with her snoot pressed up against him. Tarnish was a warm, solid body, and this brought her some measure of comfort as well.

“I hate being young and finding out that ponies that are older and smarter than me are right,” Tarnish mumbled in a low voice. “I just want to be right sometimes, ya know? Princess Celestia doesn’t mean to be, but sometimes she comes off as being real smug. I hate it. Right now, she’s off in her nice warm castle that doesn’t stink, mourning the lot of us because she knows something about this place, and the four of us… we’re all too young and dumb to trust her judgment.”

“Yep.” Rainbow Dash sucked in a deep breath, then blew it all out with as much force as she could muster, causing her lips to flap together like a flatulent windsock. “What is Skyreach? A place of ancient evil and a cave that smells worse than the stallions’ locker room at the Wonderbolt Academy. They all practice the jitter jerk-off technique.”

“I don’t even want to know,” Daring said when she heard this. She shuddered against Tarnish’s side, then felt her gorge rising as she listened to the sound of the wind outside. The practical pegasus did start to think about bathing at the mention of a locker room, and she wondered how this might be done here in their cave. The humidity was already a growing problem.

“If you give me the mirror, I’ll try to contact Twilight.” Rainbow Dash’s offer hung in the air like a lead balloon, but the brave pegasus continued, “I’ll just… say hello or something, and then I’ll wing it from there. Call me foalish, but Tarnish is right. There is no way in Tartarus I’m giving Princess Celestia the satisfaction of knowing that she was right.”

“That’s really the wrong way of looking at it.” Daring Do took a moment to prepare her argument, and she pulled her head away from Tarnish’s cheek. “All of us here in this cave, we’re all part of an exclusive club… a very special club. We’re all ponies that can be credited with saving all of the world and allowing life to continue. That is a very exclusive club. Princess Celestia is also part of this club. We are contemporaries.”

“Yeah, but Princess Celestia founded this club and she’s no doubt saved the world more than all of us combined. We’re like Junior Speedsters and she… I don’t even know what she is and I don’t know where this metaphor is going!” Rainbow Dash threw her hooves up into the air and let out another exasperated lip flap.

“We save the world by accident because we get drawn into sucky shit-show situations.” For a moment, Tarnish looked as though he was chewing on lemons and his eyes gleamed with real, actual malevolence. “Princess Celestia, she saves the world as a hobby. It’s something she pencils into her day planner between ‘lunch’ and ‘teatime’ and she just goes off on a lark. Afterwards, when she’s done, she goes off and gets a hooficure and probably gossips about her maids.”

Rainbow Dash began sniggering and did her best to make it stop.

Daring Do pulled her forelegs from around Tarnish, then sat back to think about his words as Vinyl shook with silent, wheezing laughter. With a plop, Vinyl tipped over onto her back, then rolled over onto her side. Tarnish was shaking, and Daring Do looked into his eyes, where she saw hurt as well as anger.

“I can’t resent her though… she was there with me when I carried that crown… I couldn’t have made it without her. I suppose… I suppose she was teaching me how to save the world one step at a time... just put one hoof in front of the other and keep going, even when it feels impossible.”

Ears drooping, Daring listened to Tarnish’s disjointed, broken sentences and knew just how upset he had to be. On his face, she saw guilt. Rainbow had stopped sniggering, and Vinyl was just laying on her side, silent, her front hooves together against her cheek. The sound of water dripping could be heard as condensation trickled down from the ceiling.

“We’ve walked in her shoes,” Tarnish whispered. “Each and every one of us. She’s tried to show us what it’s like to be her. Not tell us, because we’re too prideful and arrogant, we’re young and we know everything, but show us, because we’re her friends, we’re ponies she trusts, and the only way to understand her, the only way to know her, is to be her. And she let us walk in her shoes. I carried that crown and she carries the sun. The weight of those things is unimaginable… I’ve shouldered the weight she carries... Twilight too… that’s Princess Celestia’s way of letting us in, I think.”

Humbled, Daring Do bowed her head and did not know how to respond.

Author's Notes:

It's heavy.