Try as he might, Tarnished Teapot could not think of a worse feeling than being stuck. He was… stuck. There was no other way out of the place they were in than the metro tunnels. He and his companions had themselves a look around, and found every other passageway collapsed. Daring Do had pointed out that they were relatively safe in here, at least from marauding mechanoids, because they too, would have to brave the spider-infested metro tunnels.

Unless of course, there was a secret way in and out that they had failed to notice.

Disturbed by a distinct lack of options, of choices, Tarnish wanted to go home. He was sick of this place, of being on edge, stuck in a state of permanent fight or flight. It was wearing him thin and he knew it. Damaging him in some way that he could scarcely comprehend. He had no choice but to continue, to be damaged, to erode his mind as he desperately tried to find some way out of this place.

Would Maud still love whatever pony came home from this place?

That was assuming, of course, that going home was somehow possible.

This place was almost an oasis of safety, a place of refuge along the dangerous road that was the metro tunnels. Truth be told, they hadn’t journeyed all that far, but it felt like it. With no sun, no moon, no day nor night, time was becoming weird, unpleasant, and distorted. He felt the need to sleep, even though he hadn’t really been awake for all that long. But now was not the time for sleep.

The metro tunnels beckoned.

There was something wrong with Rainbow Dash, but Tarnish dared not bring it up. She was acting funny, in that she wasn’t acting up at all. No jokes. Not a single irrepressibly cheerful interjection. Why, she wasn’t even smiling. While alert and aware, there was something about her that held the merest suggestion, the hint of depression. No bright twinkle could be seen in her eyes, and her movements seemed sluggish compared to her usual quickness.

Though he had bathed, doing the best he could with what he had to work with, Tarnish did not feel clean. There was a strange grittiness to his fine chocolate pelt, which was irritating and uncomfortable. More than that, he was stressed and he knew it. His best method for coping with stress was unavailable to him, as she was thousands of miles away. A little dinner, a little dancing, and then the doing. Lots and lots of doing. Doing until the dawn. Doing, doing, doing.

At the moment, the tunnel seemed empty. Sounds could be heard in the distance, horrible, indescribable sounds echoed through the tunnel, but they seemed far, far away. Perhaps the spiders had learned their lesson. Or maybe they were building up a spider army. If that just so happened to be the case, Tarnish hoped that he and his companions would reach their destination and be gone from this tunnel before the spiders were organised.

Organised spiders gave him the willies.

“Flamingo…” Rainbow Dash’s voice was a bit grittier than usual, a bit more raspy. “What do you remember about being a pegasus?”

“I’m still a pegasus,” Flamingo replied without skipping a beat.

Rainbow’s face contorted in some weird, unreadable way and she walked for several steps while making this odd face. Then, her features smoothed out and she asked, “What do you remember before becoming a soldier?”

“Oh.” Flamingo somehow let out a breathy gasp, an impressive feat from a sword with no lungs or respiratory system. “I remember being pink. The pinkest pony in all of the Everfree county. The other ponies were kinda plain, but I stood out.”

“Huh.” Rainbow’s ears pricked with interest and her head lifted just a little higher.

Tarnish, in silence, watched and listened.

“There was some white ponies, but not too many. Lots of greys and some light browns. A few yellows. Most of them were kinda dull. But I was a pink pony, and Princess Luna was a blue pony, and we stood out. Oh boy did we stand out. I used to roll around in the mud and the dirt so I wouldn’t be quite so pink. I was teased a lot as a filly. Either I’d be too pink or I’d be too dirty, and I’d get teased for both.”

“What about Princess Luna?” asked Rainbow.

“Oh, she only came out at night, so she wouldn’t be noticed. She told me this once. We talked once, about not being like the others. It was right after I got my helmet. Princess Luna took me under her wing when I became a soldier.”

“Why’d you join the guard?”

Tarnish too, wanted to know the answer to this question. In general, Flamingo avoided saying anything about her past, and he wondered when she would freak out. If she hit a breaking point, she’d go running for her sheath, and that’d be awful, given the current circumstances. Yet, for whatever reason, Flamingo was answering Rainbow Dash’s questions.

“One day, my sire, he comes up to me and he tells me that there’s not enough food to feed me, so I needed to join the guard or get married. There was a pretty bad famine at the time. The land was still recovering from Discord and everything else that had happened. Weather was all wrong. It would be summer one day and winter the next day and there were too few of us pegasus ponies to fight the weather.”

“I’ve read about those days,” Rainbow Dash remarked.

“My sire even a had colt ready to marry. He was about my age. The problem was, he was a teaser and a tail puller. But this colt, his sire and his dam were in the guard, and they were well off, and they had food. And my sire, he keeps telling me that if I get married, I can eat. Let me tell you, I like eating. So I’m thinking it over, wondering if I want to get hitched to a teaser and a tail puller, and so I decide to join the guard. My sire and my dam both cried and my dam even got angry with me and she started shouting at me and my sire. Rough day.”

Rainbow nodded, and Tarnish wondered if Flamingo was even aware of it happening.

“I joined the guard, and being a filly, I got to stay with Princess Luna. It was nice. She was nice. I had lots of food. She kept the older colts and stallions away from me, and I knew why. She told me why. There was a whole gaggle of little fillies and she kept us with her and she was our commander. She made us march and we learned formations and she taught us how to fight on land and in the air. Princess Luna was like… our dam or something.”

As Flamingo talked, Tarnish’s blood ran cold; Princess Luna, as Nightmare Moon, had been Flamingo’s undoing. But Flamingo didn’t seem to be aware that Nightmare Moon and Princess Luna were one in the same. He wasn’t about to point this out, and he hoped that nopony else would either, because from the sound of it, Flamingo really loved Princess Luna.

He wondered what Rainbow thought of all this.

“Princess Luna battled the weather. It was hard on her. Draining. Rough. She kept telling me the world was broken and that she was trying to fix it. But it is no easy thing to fix a broken world, I guess. It made her moody and she cried sometimes when things didn’t go right. Her sister wasn’t much help. I guess Princess Celestia was busy fixing other things, or maybe she was terrible at weather magic. Princess Luna—we called her Commander Luna—she was pretty upset because everypony was sleeping at night and nopony saw the hard work she was doing.

“Ponies called her lazy, for sleeping all day when there was work to be done. All the nobles called her worthless and weak. She was called the weak sister. I’m pretty sure this hurt her feelings. It hurt my feelings. She was nice to me and my battle sisters. Ponies just didn’t see all the stuff she done. That she did.”

“Yeah, that happens sometimes,” Rainbow Dash said while she marched forward, matching pace with her companions. “Ponies just don’t see all the amazing stuff that my friend Fluttershy does. She’s a real quiet type, Fluttershy. She doesn’t go around boasting about all the good things she does… like I do. If there is a sick animal, or a sick pony, Flutters is right there for them. You know, sometimes, it feels as though she’s more loyal than I am.”

“Princess Luna is the Element of Loyalty.”

Tarnish, thoughtful, did not bother to correct Flamingo. From beside him, he heard a faint, soft sigh from Daring Do. As for Vinyl, she was quiet, but he knew that she was listening to every word spoken. Vinyl seemed to be in a mood, but he wasn’t sure what mood. When they had a chance to rest, he would need to spend some time with her and try to get her to talk. To communicate. He needed to know that she was okay.

“I’m also the Element of Loyalty,” Rainbow Dash said to Flamingo.

“Huh,” the floating, flying sword grunted in response.

Tarnish tensed, fearing that Rainbow might say more, but then he heard her say, “Sometimes, I don’t feel very loyal. I mean, I have my doubts.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean. Sometimes, I worry that I’m not brave enough to be the Element of Pinkness. I’m scared of the dark. And spiders. Warlock goats. Snakes? I don’t like snakes. The way they move. Yuck. I’m scared of crickets. I don’t like the sound. And earwigs. Gross. Gross! See, there’s all this stuff, and somehow, I’m still the Element of Pinkness. Do you know why?”

“Why?” asked Rainbow, with warm sincerity.

“Because, no matter what, I will never stop being pink. The dark can’t scare the pink out of me or off of me. It is just who I am. I was born to be the Element of Pinkness. I am pink inside and out. To be the Element of Loyalty, you must be loyal. It’s how you’re born. It is what you are. What you’re made of.”

“Thanks, actually. That’s really helpful. I mean it. That’s sorta what I needed to hear right now. You’re the best, Flamingo.”

“I’m the pinkest,” the pink sword said in return.

“And I am the loyalest.” A bit of swagger returned to Rainbow’s step, her tail hiked a bit, and she fairly bounced as she trotted along.

Whatever had momentarily broken in Rainbow Dash now seemed a little bit better. Tarnish however, still felt broken. Skyreach was beating him down. Wearing him thin. His anger was getting the best of him, and he wasn’t sure how long nursery rhymes would keep the fury at bay. Something had to give. He was glad for Rainbow Dash though, relieved, and he hoped that she had found her awesomeness.

Because right now, more than ever, he needed an awesome friend.

When Tarnish laid eyes on the metro station platform up ahead, he almost cried with relief. The sounds of the spiders were always just behind them and just ahead of them, just out of view, the eight-legged horrors lurking in the darkness, waiting for just the right moment to strike. But now, they had the platform. A fight had happened here from the looks of things, and it hadn’t happened all that long ago. The bodies appeared to be mostly devoured and very little of them was left.

This station was not like the others. A steel floor glinted in the faint light, and the distant wall was more like a fortress than a metro station. The door had been blasted right off of its hinges and Tarnish wondered if Twilight had done this when she had come this way. It lacked the layers of dust that everything else had.

Everything about this place felt wrong though. There was a sort of weird magic in the air, something with an odd, unsettling resonance. The platform was deserted, with no signs of life. Just dead things to be found here. Tarnish stepped up onto the steel platform, a feat made easy by his long legs, and then he offered a foreleg to help pull Vinyl up while his two pegasus pony companions lept up.

Much to his surprise, Vinyl pulled him into a hug, and then she clung to him, her forelegs tight around his neck. He froze, remaining very still, unsure of her intentions, or if something was wrong. After several long seconds, he slipped one foreleg around her back, and then held her, feeling awkward the whole time. She shuddered a bit—no, she wasn’t shuddering at all, she was crying.

She was sobbing in her own mute way, making little gasps that were difficult to hear over the blood pounding through his ears. Using his magic, he lifted her, swung her over his withers, and laid her to rest along his back. Her grip around his neck doubled, and Tarnish, already feeling exhausted, could most certainly feel the extra weight right in his tired knees. He could feel her sniffling and huffing against the back of his neck, which caused tingles to go running up and down his spine.

Daring Do was looking at him, staring at him, and he wasn’t sure why.

“What?” he asked, hoping that she might clarify.

“Look at you,” she replied. “Aren’t you the strong one.”

“I don’t feel strong right now,” he confessed. “In fact, truth be told, I feel like I’m going to come undone at any minute. I’m tired. That bath didn’t help. I don’t feel clean, not even in the slightest. Everything feels itchy. I miss Maud. I want to be home. Right now, I am doing everything I can just to keep myself together, because I don’t know what will happen to all of us if I don’t. I don’t feel like I’m doing a very good job, and if I can be completely honest, Daring, you’re doing a better job of holding me together than I am.”

“No”—Daring’s head nodded from side to side—“no, I meant aren’t you the strong one. You’re standing there with Vinyl on your back, all of her gear, and all of your gear, and quite a bit of our gear. Though, this might explain why you’re feeling so fatigued. Honestly, I’m not sure how you’re standing right now.”

“Oh.” Embarrassed, Tarnish tried not to squirm, but failed. He had revealed too much. Ran his mouth. Left all of his weaknesses exposed. Biting his lip, he turned away.

“It’s okay, Big Guy. Hey… hey! Don’t turn away from us, we’re your friends.” Rainbow moved around to where Tarnish could see her, and kept moving while he tried to turn away. “Stop that. We’re all having a hard time right now. It’ll be that much harder if we start turning away from one another. There’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”

Closing his eyes, he froze in place, not knowing what to do.

“Let us go topside. I don’t know what is up there, but anything is better than this tunnel. The darkness is oppressive. Also, I think the spiders are coming closer. I am willing to bet that the metro station is at least somewhat safe, but then again, with the door blasted off…” Her words transitioned into a pained groan of uncertainty.

“Well, at least you tried to be reassuring, and for that—”

“Shush, Rainbow Dash.”

“But I was going to tell you, thank you.”

“It is entirely unnecessary.”

Rainbow Dash, who had recovered some of her good cheer, made her way towards the door, which lay on the floor. She paused for a moment to study it, flicked her tail a few times, and with a turn of her head, studied the doorway. The bold rainbow-maned pegasus stood with her barrel puffed out, defiant in the oppressive darkness.

She truly was a rainbow in the dark.

“There’s a light up there,” she said to the others. “Let’s go.”

Author's Notes:

No apologies... she really is a rainbow in the dark.