Rainbow Dash removed the goggles from her eyes as soon as her hooves touched the soft sands at the base of Mount Aris. The towering mountain home of the hippogriffs loomed high above her, the city nestled between the protective stone wings that shielded it from the worst of the southern storms. Colorful creatures that were half pony and half bird (or half fish, as the mood took them), flew above the sands or swam within the waves, and the beaches seemed alive with the sound of happy laughter and squealing fledglings playing games of tag both in and out of the water. It was a home, a place of happiness and family, where a sense of community and friendship tied everyone together in the celebration of life and the joys of having their ancestral home back. It was a far cry from how Rainbow remembered the abandoned mountain when she first saw it a long, long time ago.

The pegasus smiled to herself and began to make her way further up the mountain, quietly reveling in the awed looks some of its denizens gave her as she passed. She knew she must have been like a hero to the hippogriffs; after all, it was her and her friends that managed to defeat the Storm King and allow them to reclaim Mount Aris. And while she would have loved to chat with them and let them stroke her ego some, she had more important things she needed to take care of. After all, it had taken her a long time to figure out that who she was after had hid herself away in Mount Aris, and she hadn’t believed it at first when she did. But there was no doubting her revelation, and Twilight had even helped her confirm it. Now, all she needed to do was go and see that person for herself to be sure.

It all seemed so absurd.

Though she intended on climbing the stairs to exercise her legs instead of her wings after the long, long flight to the south, Rainbow swiftly grew bored of that and unfurled her blue feathers. After all, if she lingered too long, then she might arrive too late to catch her quarry before she disappeared again. Besides, she was a creature of flight, and that meant avoiding walking as much as she could. So, even though her wings were sore and stiff, she forced them to carry her skyward once more, bypassing the hundreds and hundreds of stairs that led all the way up to the city at the top of the mountain.

Once more, her colorful appearance caught the attention of the hippogriffs around her when she proudly landed in the middle of the town square. Excited whispers and foalish giggling made their way to her ears, and she briefly waved her wings to at least acknowledge the attention coming her way. But before word about her sudden appearance could spread too quickly, she made her way to the nearest soldier in gold armor, who smiled at her as she approached. “Rainbow Dash?” he asked, the crest on his head momentarily rising in surprise as she approached. “Welcome! What brings you to Mount Aris? If we had known you were coming, we would have prepared a better reception.”

Rainbow shrugged her wings and stopped in front of the tall hippogriff, momentarily smirking at her reflection in his polished gold armor. “I didn’t really want to let anybody know I was coming, y’know? I’ve got things I need to take care of here, and it definitely wouldn’t help if everybody knew I was coming beforehand.”

The soldier blinked. “What kind of things? Maybe we can assist you.”

“Nah, I don’t really need that,” she said. “Though some directions would be nice. I mean, you guys have an awfully nice place set up here, and I’d love to explore it now that it’s not dead and empty, but maybe I’ll do that after I find what I’m looking for.”

“Well, ask away, and I’ll try to assist you.” The soldier proudly stood up taller. “It’s little in the way of repaying our debt to you, but the hippogriffs are happy to help.”

---

Rainbow Dash had to admit it: Mount Aris was about as awesome as awesome could be. There was something that she found utterly fascinating about the blending of regal hippogriff architecture with the nature around them. They turned great trees into their homes, hollowing them out with magic completely alien to her and living within. Everything looked so natural yet so controlled at once that it made the Golden Oaks Library appear wild and unkempt by comparison. Of course, now the library had been replaced by a big, gaudy, crystal tree, so it was certainly in a much sorrier state than even the lowliest home at Mount Aris could ever possibly be.

But even more splendid than the architecture and pleasant greenery of Mount Aris were the hippogriffs who lived there. Down on the streets, beneath the canopies of their homes, Rainbow Dash felt small in comparison to the hippogriffs towering around her. Yet she never felt uncomfortable or threatened; if anything, the tall hippogriffs looked up to her, and she felt like she belonged here, even if she didn’t have a beak or talons like them. It was a shame that the hippogriffs had been hiding beneath the sea for so long, chased from their home by the Storm King. Equestria would become an even greater place now that the hippogriffs had been returned to Mount Aris and the two peoples could mingle together for the first time in a long time.

It certainly explained why she had to come here to find who she was looking for.

Counting the numerous treehouses on the shaded cobblestone street, Rainbow Dash stopped in front of a weeping willow with cheery, light blue windows. The tree lived sheltered beneath two larger oaks on either side, whose tall canopies enshrouded the smaller home, lending an air of privacy and meekness to the otherwise happy structure. It was cozy and unassuming, which is why Rainbow knew she’d come to the right place. If she’d tried to remain this difficult to find, then it made sense.

She climbed up the stone steps wrapping around the tree’s trunk and moved to knock on the door, but another hippogriff called out to her before her hoof could make contact with the wood. “If you’re looking for Dee, she’s not in right now,” she said. “She’s at the café having some lunch.”

Rainbow turned around and spied a hippogriff hen with a coat as pale as the sand at the base of the mountain smiling at her from the road. Clearing her throat, she gestured to the door with a wing. “Um, any idea when she’ll be back? I just… had a few words I wanted to say to her.”

The hen tilted her head. “Really? What do you need with her?” Her brow lowered, and her smile turned into a frown. “Is this about—?”

“Really, it’s nothing,” Rainbow said, cutting her off by holding up a hoof. “I just want to have a friendly talk with her, and then I’ll go. I’ve uh… I’ve been looking for her for a while. Consider me a concerned friend.”

Though the hen didn’t seem to exactly trust Rainbow’s words, she shrugged regardless. “Well, I’m sure she’ll be happy to see you then. She won’t be back to her house for a while, though, so if you want to catch her, you should see if she’s still at the café.”

Rainbow quickly searched the hippogriff’s face to see if she was concealing anything from her, but the hen seemed earnest in helping Rainbow out. Shrugging, Rainbow hopped down the short flight of stone steps up to the door and landed in front of the sandy hippogriff. “Thanks,” she said, offering a wing for the hen to shake. “I’ll try that. Which way to the café?”

The hen took Rainbow’s wing in one of her own and pointed across her chest with a talon. “Just go down that road for a bit and make a right at the square. You’ll see it quickly enough.”

“Thanks.” Rainbow took her wing back and started to walk in that direction, only to come to a hesitant stop a few strides away. “Oh! Sorry, I didn’t get your name.”

“Sandbar,” the hen said with a little bow of her head. “I’m one of Dee’s neighbors and friends. She’s nice, you hear? She might not really be one of us, but still…”

“Like I said, I just want to talk to her,” Rainbow said. “It’s been a while and, well… I need to apologize about something. But thank you, again. You’re awesome.”

She waved her wing one more time and then set off to the café, not wanting to waste more time trying to explain something really complicated to Sandbar. Once more, she fell into the trickle of hippogriffs venturing up and down the street, at least until she entered a large courtyard. Here, hippogriffs took to the air where there was a break in the canopy, passing by the rustling green leaves that battered each other with the wisps of winds diving into the city over the mountain’s stone wings. It offered her a clear view of the blue sky, decorated with puffy white clouds arranged like a bouquet of flowers. Rainbow had to admit, even if the weather wasn’t controlled out here, the skies had a natural beauty of their own that was hard for even the Cloudsdale Weather Company to fully recreate back home. Rainbow decided that she’d need to test them out before she finally went back to Equestria.

As Sandbar had said, the café was situated off to the right, at the base of a great hemlock. There, the roots spread out from the stone platform the tree rested on, imitating columns to support an awning over finely carved seats and tables. A smattering of hippogriffs and their families sat at the tables beneath it, creating a mishmash of cheery springtime colors that made them all blend together. A slight buzz of conversation drifted to Rainbow’s erect ears, accompanied every so often by a punch of happy laughter.

Rainbow Dash approached the café but stopped about twenty or thirty feet away to get a better look at its patrons. She vaguely knew what to look for, but if what Twilight had said was correct, she didn’t know if that would help or not. But if she could at least look for the colors…

There! Through the shroud of colorful hippogriffs, Rainbow saw what she was looking for: light sea green beneath a golden crest. Smiling to herself, proud of spotting her quarry in the middle of a busy café, Rainbow slowly sauntered closer to the hippogriff. The hen Sandbar had called Dee sat by herself, making a meal of berries harvested from one of Mount Aris’ meadows, coupled with a tea steeping in a ceramic cup. She seemed quite happy and content at the café, and her wings or shoulders weren’t pinched in a show of discomfort. She really, truly looked like she was happy, liked she belonged. Rainbow felt like she should just walk away and not bother her with any more worries about her past.

But she’d flown all this way, and she wasn’t going to go home without a word. So instead, she continued onwards, walking right into the café, and stopping just behind the hippogriff’s seat. Clearing her throat, she put a smile on her face. “Long time, no see, eh?”

The hippogriff stiffened, and Rainbow saw her talons clench in surprise and a bit of worry. Her throat bobbed, and then she turned her feathered head around, looking right into Rainbow’s eyes. A spark of recognition flashed in her own golden orbs, and she seemed to shrink down. “Do… do I know you?”

Rainbow sadly shook her head and moved around the table, pulling out the seat opposite of the hippogriff. There, she sat down and sighed, her body practically worshipping her for giving it the first real chance to rest and relax in a long time. “C’mon, don’t be like that, LD. Or ‘Dee’, as I guess you’re calling yourself these days.”

The hen’s beak grinded as her jaw tightened in worry. Ultimately, however, that worry turned to indignation, and she frowned across the table at Rainbow. “Did you come all the way here to drag me back?” she asked. “Because I don’t want to go back, Rainbow.”

“I’m not here to make you do anything, Lightning Dust,” Rainbow said, tilting her head slightly back to look up at the taller hippogriff. “I just… well, it’s been a long time since the Academy, and I feel like we should talk.”

“About what?” Lightning Dust asked. “There’s nothing we have left to say.”

“Maybe for you, but I have a few words of my own I need to say.” Rainbow inhaled and closed her eyes. “Lightning, I’m sorry about what happened back then.”
Lightning narrowed her eyes at Rainbow. “Why are you sorry? You’re not the one who almost killed another pony’s friends with a cyclone.”

“Yes, I was,” Rainbow said. “We built that thing together, and only you got blamed for it. It wasn’t right. And so I’m sorry.” When Lightning remained silent, Rainbow shook her head and tapped her hooves together. “Look, I spoke to Spitfire, and she agrees that it’s been long enough. If you want to come back—”

“Why would I come back?” Lightning asked, perhaps louder than she intended, if Rainbow were to judge based on the worried look she gave to the hippogriffs sitting around her. Grimacing, the hen slouched back in her seat and idly fondled with the necklace resting against her breast. “I don’t want to go back to Equestria. I just want to stay here.”

Rainbow blinked in surprise. “Why not?”

“Because I like it here.”

That answer had certainly been one of the last things Rainbow ever expected to hear from the mare-turned-hen. “Really? I thought you were just hiding out here because you were afraid of made-up consequences over what happened years ago. It’s all water under the bridge, LD, I promise.”

A pained expression took hold of Lightning’s face, and she looked away. “I picked up a reputation from that incident,” she said. “Ponies knew me as the mare who almost killed the Element Bearers. Can you imagine how hard it was to find work after that? The best I could get was a third-rate cloud pusher job in Manehattan, where there are so many weathermares that my name just faded into the background.”

Rainbow winced; she hadn’t imagined that what had happened at the Academy could have such far-reaching consequences for one mare who made a bad call. “Yeesh, I… didn’t know, LD. I didn’t know it was that bad.”

Lightning hung her head and stared down the length of her beak. “It was, I can assure you that.”

“But why here, though?” Rainbow asked. “Why run all the way to Mount Aris? Why turn yourself into a hippogriff, for Celestia’s sake? That’s just crazy!”

“Because I was tired of being ostracized in Equestria,” Lightning calmly retorted, though Rainbow could feel the anger crawling around underneath the hen’s feathers. “Mount Aris was a fresh start. The hippogriffs didn’t know anything that had happened in Equestria in years. And they liked to fly almost as much as I did. I felt like I could feel at home, here. So, I flew here, and I pleaded with Queen Novo to make me one of them.” She grasped the necklace in her talons and held it out to Rainbow. “Thankfully, they had enough to go around. It was a fresh start. And I… well…”

She lowered the necklace and allowed a little smile to appear on her face. “I thought I would just be a refugee at first. But they took me in. They like me. They don’t know about my past, and they treat me like I was always a hippogriff. I never had much in the way of family back in Equestria, but out here, on the other side of the world…” She hesitated to swallow a lump in her throat. “Believe it or not, I actually feel like I belong. And I couldn’t be happier.”

Rainbow Dash began to chuckle, which only earned a frown from Lightning Dust. Before she could get the wrong idea, however, Rainbow waved a hoof. “No, I’m not laughing at you. It’s just… I thought you were out here, doing this, because you still blame yourself for what happened. And I came all the way out here to tell you that it’s okay to come home, because we forgive you. I didn’t want you to be somewhere, being miserable, because you thought that’s what you deserved.” She shook her head and managed to stifle her laughter into a solemn and understanding look. “But if you’re happy out here, I’m not gonna try to take that away from you. You deserve to be happy, LD, whether that’s as a pony in Equestria, or a hippogriff in Mount Aris.”

At the very least, the confession made Lightning smile. “That’s… thank you, Rainbow. I just… I don’t know.”

“Thought I was pissed at you?” Rainbow asked, wiggling her eyebrows. “That I swore to destroy you if you ever came near me or my friends again?”

Lightning chuckled. “That’s a bit of an exaggeration.”

“I was never good with the boring truth. It’s… well, boring.”

The hen shrugged her shoulders. “True that. And I guess you were kind of right. I was afraid that speaking to you again would only bring me more pain. I just… needed some time to cool off, I guess.”

“Me too,” Rainbow said. “But there’s nothing to worry about, now. I don’t hate you, and I hope you don’t hate me.” She smiled at Lightning Dust. “Maybe like this we can start over. You’ve certainly taken to your fresh start.”

The corners of Lightning’s beak twitched upwards. “Yeah, that’s one way of putting it, I suppose.”

Rainbow Dash and Lightning Dust both visibly relaxed. Instead of enemies, Rainbow felt like they saw each other more as old acquaintances who hadn’t spoken in years. And that much was true, at least; they certainly hadn’t shared a word of communication since their time at the Academy a few years back. Now, far removed from the time and place where they’d gone their separate ways, Rainbow felt like she could rekindle with a pony who had once reminder her so much of herself. “So, LD, I have to ask…”

Lightning Dust raised an eyebrow. “What?”

“What’s it like being a hippogriff?”

The green hen blinked in surprise. “Oh. Uh… that’s a really hard question to answer, believe it or not.”

“Well, then what’s the best thing?” Rainbow pointed to Lightning’s face. “I bet it’s having one of those awesome beaks. Or maybe not; you don’t really have lips, do you? I bet that’s annoying.”

Lightning ran a hand over her beak and frowned at it. “It’s flexible enough to smile and frown,” she said. “But it’s definitely weird. Nah, the best thing is probably my talons.” She held them out for Rainbow to see and wiggled them one by one. “I don’t know how I survived without fingers. These things are amazing!”
Rainbow looked at her own plain hooves in comparison. “Now I’m really starting to feel inadequate. You’ve got bigger wings, bigger legs, fingers…”

“I don’t fly as fast as I did as a pegasus,” Lightning said. “And I lost my cutie mark. It has its ups and downs.”

“Dee!” A hippogriff’s voice sounded from the other side of the café, and Lightning turned around to spot a dusty gold tercel approaching them. He came to a stop by Lightning’s side and placed a hand on her back, between her wings. “There you are! I wondered if I’d catch you before you headed down to the shore without me. Figured you might enjoy the company on the flight down.”

Lightning smirked at him and brushed her cheek against his foreleg. “That’d be great. Can you get some towels from my house? I was going to run back there after I finished here, but if you get those, we can skip right to the beach.”

“Sure.” The tercel’s eyes shifted to Rainbow Dash, and he gave her a smile. “Rainbow Dash? I didn’t know you were coming to visit Mount Aris, or that you were a friend of Dee’s.”

Rainbow and Lightning briefly made eye contact that ended in small smiles for the both of them. “Old friend, actually. From before all this. And I just dropped in for a quick visit.”

“That’s pretty cool.” The stallion stuck his taloned hand out for Rainbow to shake. “Name’s Swash. Nice to meet you.”

“Yeah, you too.”

They shook hoof and hand, and then Swash teasingly tugged on Lightning’s head crest with his beak. “Be back in a minute.”

Lightning rolled her eyes and playfully warded him off with her talons. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll hold my breath until you get back. Grab the snacks, too, and see where Sandbar’s at. She said something about joining us.”

Swash nodded, and then he was off in a brief flash of wings. Rainbow watched him go, then cocked an eyebrow at Lightning. “And who was that?”

“Erm… my coltfriend,” she said, beginning to blush.

Rainbow laughed again, her voice full of mirth. “Coltfriend? Hey, that’s pretty awesome, LD. I guess you really are getting along with the natives!”

“You could certainly say that,” Lightning said, sheepishly peering through the end of her head crest, which had fallen over her eyes.

Rainbow Dash shook her head in disbelief and leaned across the table to pat Lightning’s shoulder. “Then it seems like you’ve really found your own happiness out here. That’s awesome. I’m super excited for you.”

“Thank you,” Lightning said, lifting her head. “I’m really glad to hear that. It’s… it’s a load off my chest, in all honesty. I’d gotten so used to it being there that…”

“You don’t have to try and justify anything to me,” Rainbow said. She slid back into her seat with a thump and sighed. “You know, I think I might just hang around here for a little bit. I never gave anypony a timeframe for when I’d be back, so I think I can stay for a bit. I need a vacation, anyway. I am not teacher material.”

Lightning blinked. “You’re a teacher?” she asked, obvious disbelief coloring her voice.

“I know, I don’t think I’m qualified either.” They laughed, and Rainbow concluded it by standing up when she saw Swash and Sandbar walking toward the café from the street. “So, what do you say, Dee? Wanna hang around for a bit, get caught up, maybe make it like the old times?”

“If you mean before the cyclone, then sure,” she said, likewise standing up and finishing her tea. “I can even show you around Mount Aris. I’ve certainly had plenty of time to get to know it.”

“Heh. That sounds great.” Rainbow fluffed her wings up, and the two began to walk away from the café. “Maybe I’ll figure out why the hippogriff life is so appealing to you.”

“Maybe I can convince you to come join me.”

“Hah! I’d like to see you try!”

They fell into a fit of giggles, and as they rejoined Lightning’s friends, Rainbow took to the air with a smile on her face and a warm feeling in her chest, knowing that a mare she’d been so worried about had made such a happy life for herself far away from Equestria.



[i]Author's Note: Story inspired by this picture and the comments accompanying it.