//------------------------------//
// The Race In My Head, part 2. 
// Story: The Race in My Head 
// by Owlor 
//------------------------------//

Back at her camp, Fluttershy had been overcome by ennui. The isolation was tearing on her and she may or may not have attempted to talk to a mushroom. There was a brief battle between her boredom and her shyness, but eventually her boredom won out and got to dictate terms. She collapsed the tent-cloud (a process that slightly resembled deflating an air mattress) and put it in the backpack with the rest of her stuff. She then started wandering back towards Cloudsdale.

Fluttershy didn't expect to stumble onto Rainbowshine and Derpy on the Main Street of Cloudsdale, and to be fair, by that point, neither did them. By this point “getting ice cream” and eventually “eating the ice cream” had replaced “finding Fluttershy” as their mission objective.
“Hi, we thought you where still in the forest”, Rainbowshine said.
“And I thought you would be over at Rainbow Dash's place”, she replied.
“We would, but it's just not fun any more.” Rainbowshine said, “Ponies keep visiting to buy candy, and then they hang around forever, acting all weird from the sugar rush.”
“We're a bit worried about Rainbow Dash”, Derpy said, “we think Tam-a-line is getting too much control over her life. She really should think about last-minute training.”
“Come think about it”, Fluttershy said, “So should we. We can talk to Rainbow Dash after the race, provided she still wants to talk to me...”
“I know an indoors swimming pool around here!”, Rainbowshine said, “Diving is great exercise for flying, plus it's really fun!”

The indoor swimming pool was a surprisingly intricate piece of engineering. It wasn't easy to combine cloud with ceramic tiling. There where a lot of things going on underneath the cloud just to keep the water in place, tricks of material science that could only be described as “dark arts”, and possibly a hint of actual dark magic. Beyond that, it was a perfectly pleasant indoor swimming pool, however, the water made the light display a playful fragmented reflection on the ceiling and walls.

For some reason, the ponies felt the need to change into swimsuits, even though they normally didn't wear any clothes whatsoever (Don't ask, that's just how the world works...). In the dressing room, Fluttershy and the othe friends found Rainbow Dash. She had changed int oa pair of boyshorts with the Wonderbolt logo on them, but rather than go to dive into the pool, she just sat there, apprently lost in thought.
“Aren't you gonna get into the water?”, Derpy asked her.
“Yeah, evenually...”, Rainbow Dash replied, “Right now I just don't feel like it... wait a minute! Derpy, what are you doing here?”
“Goin' swimmin!”, she replied with a smile.
“Fluttershy!”, Rainbow Dash exclaimed!, ”Uhmmmm...”
Fluttershy echoed the last sentiment. There was a moment when neither of them dared to speak and the meaning of the word “mamihlapinatapai” seemed to resonate trough the air.
“We need to talk!”, they both concluded in unison.
In response to this, Rainbowshine couldn't help but snicker. Realizing the riddiculusness of the situation, the two ponies started laughing as well, and Derpy joined in because... well, if this many ponies was laughing ,it must be really funny. 

The bland taste of the pools cafeteria didn't exactly benefit from the smell of chlorine that was in the air. Honestly, the cafeteria where mostly there to complete the scene, to create a place where people who didn't want to get wet could talk, and to provide bland chlorine-tasting snacks for those who absolutely had to have a hit of sugar before their swim. While they sat around a tacky table shaped like an ornate pillar, Rainbow Dash explained her predicament.
”...she's completely taken over!”, Rainbow Dash said, “I'm sorry if I got you guys in trouble, you made the right choice to leave.”
“We shouldn't have left you like that”, Fluttershy said.
“At least we can help you now”, Rainbowshine added.
“How?”, 
“I dunno, just tell the city guards?”
“Of course I can't do that!”, Rainbow dash exclaimed, “If Tam-a-line and her friends realize I ratted them out, I'll never be able to go back to Cloudsdale. And I was in on it, remember? They'll probably want to arrest me too, and then I'll miss the race.”
“I got an idea”, Derpy said, “but one condition: You must never ask me how I did it, allright?”
The other ponies agreed and they all went back to the pool. They didn't exactly get too much training done once they discovered how fun it was to dive in like a cannonball and try to make the biggest splash. They may have eventually gotten back to training if they hadn't found a Beach-ball. Supervising Derpy in the deep end of the pool wasn't easy, so they mostly stayed at the shallow end, bouncing the ball around and generally played around like foals. Once they got out of the swimming pool, Derpy separated from the rest with minimal explanation. She took off and flew the straightest path she could manage back to Ponyville.