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// New Challenges 
// Story: A Camping We Will Go 
// by Trinary 
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“Rainbow Dash?”
The pegasus in question had no sooner settled down and gotten comfy than she was approached by Silver Spoon, Snails and Dinky. She looked up. “Hey squirts, what’s up?”
Silver Spoon, the ringleader, inhaled. Because of the sensitive nature of this conversation she knew extreme care had to be used in broaching it to the mercurial and touchy pony. “Well—”
“We want you and Trixie to become friends!” Blurted out Snails, grinning proudly. Silver Spoon winced.
SNAP.
Dash’s rose-colored eyes flew open. “WHAT?!” Her voice rose, cracking and turning into a squeak. “You want me to be---friends?! With HER?”
“Um…sorta?” The gray filly gave a wide, forced smile. Rainbow Dash punctured her smile with a scowl.
“Seriously? Why in Equestria would you want me to have anything to do with the Lame and Wimpy Trixie?”
Dinky spoke up, her eyes bright and earnest. “Because making new friends is fun!” She chirped, bouncing a bit in place. “She was really nice when she saved me from falling out of a tree and she helped Pip down, even if he did go sick on her hooves…”
“Yeah…still not seeing why I should be wasting my time here.” Rainbow snorted. “I’ve already got the best friends in the world, and now you want me to go for an obnoxious, loud mouthed, lying pain the rump? I have my standards, you know.”
Silver Spoon stomped her hoof. “Come on! Aren’t you supposed to be the mature adult here?” She objected. “Doesn’t she deserve a second chance? You gave me one!”
“That isn’t the same thing!”
“Yes it is!” The filly stomped her hoof. “I was a mean filly! I made other ponies feel bad, I said mean things and I was a j-jerk.” She hiccuped, getting worked up. “If you’re saying that you can’t forgive Trixie for ONE thing that she did…t-then why should I believe that anypony can forgive me for all the bad things I did?” She finished softly, taking off her glasses so she could roughly rub at her eyes.
Rainbow Dash’s ears lowered and gently flattened against her head. “Aw, c’mon…no fair. That’s playing dirty. Fillies aren’t allowed to out argue grown-ups.” She groaned. “Hnng. Fiiine. I’ll give Trixie a chance to…NOT be Trixie, I guess.”
“Yay.” Snails smiled. “You’re the coolest ponies of all time!” Rainbow Dash’s face fluctuated, not sure how to respond to praise (which she loved) when it was joined with praise for Trixie (which she did not).
Looking to Silver Spoon, who was putting her glasses back on, Rainbow sighed. “So, how exactly did you want this to go? I just walk up to her and say, ‘hey wanna be friends?’”
Silver Spoon shrugged as if to say, ‘couldn’t hurt.’ Dinky tapped her hoof thoughtfully against her chin. “I know! You could offer to buy her a muffin!”
Rainbow felt a smile tug at her lips. “Hmm…I wonder where you got that idea….”
“Um, I ‘unno!” Dinky chirped innocently, repressing a case of the giggles. Badly.
Pursing her lips, Rainbow Dash pretending to think hard about it. “Was it….Cheerilee?”
“Nooooo….” Giggles started leaking out of Dinky’s mouth as she shook her head.
“Hmmm…what about—Big Macintosh?” Dinky shook her head faster, unable to risk opening her mouth for fear that once she started laughing, she wouldn’t be able to stop. “Really? Not Big Mac? You sure?” Rainbow grinned, having fun with this. “Hmm…gee, what about—Carrot Top?”
Dinky shook her head even faster, her cheeks bulging out like a chipmunk.
Pretending to stomp her hoof in frustration, Rainbow Dash put on her best Twilight-I’m-really-in-the-middle-of-deep-egg-headed-thinking-face. Her eyes lit up. “All right! I got it for sure this time!” She leered, her rosey-pink eyes narrowing as she stared right into Dinky’s face. “It was---Princess Celestia!”
That did it, Dinky fell over, stricken by a near-terminal case of the giggles. “N-no! Silly!” She chortled, kicking her legs with mirth. “It was f-from mommy!”
Rainbow clapped her hoof to her forehead and made a ‘d’oy’ noise and accompanying derpy face. “Oh….of COURSE! I shoulda known!” She fake-sulked, sending Dinky into further peals of laughter. Snails started laughing too. Silver Spoon rolled her eyes, but a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.
Getting to her hooves, Rainbow Dash left her campers in stitches as she went to find Trixie. She had just rounded the long side of Trixie’s tent when she came face to face with the mare in question. The two came upon each other so quickly their snouts were almost touching.
“Rainbow Dash.” Trixie’s voice was frostily polite, chilly as mountain air and her smile was about as warm.
“Trixie.” Rainbow returned, matching her inflection for inflection.
“It seems to Trixie,” Trixie continued. “That we should set a good example for the foals. As the bigger mare, Trixie feels it only appropriate that she make the first move.”
Rainbow snorted and just narrowly managed to bit down on her lip to prevent her from connecting Trixie’s assertion on being the bigger mare to the blue unicorn’s rump. “Actually—” Rainbow Dash cut her off. “I feel that I should go first, since I AM in charge.”
Trixie trembled in barely repressed rage. “Oh no, Trixie INSIST.” She gritted her teeth. “Trixie should be the one to extend the olive branch in the name of peace, friendship and getting along—edness.”
“That isn’t even a word.” Rainbow Dash pointed out, her politeness beginning to fray at the edges.
“Forgive me, I wasn’t aware that you were SO literate.” Trixie ground out between her teeth, her smile getting wider and more tenuous the harder she fought to keep control.
Rainbow nodded. “Not at all…I’m sure there are a lot of things you aren’t aware of.”
“No more than you, certainly.”
“Whatever you say.”
There was a pause before Trixie spoke up again. “Trixie feels that you’ve been doing simply a wonderful job as these foals chaperone…I’m sure them getting lost and separated in the woods after nearly being attacked by a bear could have happened to anypony.”
“Anypony—such as a third-rate magician who made up a story about besting an Ursa Major, for instance?”
“Trixie wouldn’t know.” Her eye twitched. “Or perhaps a feather-brained pegasus with a voice like a squeaky horseshoe insisting that she is the greatest pony ever.”
“What about an egotistical pony who runs with her tail between her legs when her not-so little lies get exposed?”
“Whatever little quips and quibbles you may have, Trixie as the better mare still insists upon making the first move herself!”
Dash snorted. “Nopony ever beats Rainbow Dash to the punch!” Rainbow shot back, pressing her forehead against Trixie’s and pushing.
“I suppose that would explain why it looks like you’re retaining every ounce of liquid you’ve consumed lately!” Trixie snarled, matching Rainbow Dash move for move.
“The only fat I see around here is between your ears!” Rainbow growled.
“I’ve seen pigeons fly better than you!”
“Spike’s little claw is bigger than your horn—more useful too!”
“I don’t even know who that is!”
“That’s okay—nopony’s gonna know who you are either! Or care!”
From there things only escalated as the two mares argued and jabbed over the right to make the first apology. The irony sailed clear over them.
Trixie pawed the ground with her hoof. “When I’m finished with you, you’ll never impress anypony ever again!”
“You’ve never impressed anypony before!” Rainbow Dash shot back, flaring out her wings.
“Just shut up and let me apologize!” Trixie shrieked.
“If you don’t let me apologize first then I’m gonna REALLY give me a reason to apologize to you!”
“That doesn’t even make any sense!”
“Your FACE doesn’t make any sense!” Rainbow announced with triumph.
“What the hay is going on out here?” Yawned a sleepy-faced Big Macintosh as he poked his head out of the tent flap, blinking wearily. Thinking quickly, Trixie and Rainbow Dash stood on the hindlegs and wrapped a foreleg around one another's shoulders and smiled widely. 
“Why, we were just apologizing for getting under each others' skins, weren’t we?” Trixie said. Rainbow nodded, not wanting to be shown up in front of her coltfriend—especially after he made a big deal about wanting the two of them to stop fighting earlier.
“Totally!” Dash’s head bobbled up and down so fast that Macintosh got a headache trying to follow it. “I was just apologizing to Trixie for thinking that she was a fat-headed fraud!”
“And Trixie was making amends for considering Rainbow Dash an immature pain in the flank!
Big Mac blinked. “Um, okay…” He was still too tired to follow this. “Think you two could, uh, agree and apologize a little more quietly?”
“Sure thing!” “No problem!” The two agreed quickly, smiling broadly all the while. Big Macintosh shivered at the sight of all those teeth and didn’t quite know why.
He slowly pulled his head back inside the tent, eager to grab some more much-needed rest before things got crazy again. Assuming they hadn’t already. As soon as he was gone, Trixie and Rainbow Dash broke apart again, glowering balefully at one another.
Rainbow snorted. “I can see what you’re up to. You are NOT gonna show me up in front of Big Macintosh!”
Grinning to herself, Trixie let out slight hmph as if the whole thing were below her notice. “When Trixie is done, that handsome stallion will see who is the best mare in Equestria…and who is the rest.” She gave Rainbow a meaningful look. “Play your cards right, and I may help you find a more suitable companion for you: a donkey perhaps or an old sow.”
“Pfff, whatever oh weak and helpless Trixie. Bring. It. On.”
The two mares matched glares. The challenge had been made and accepted.
Celestia help them all.
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