“For Pete’s sake, Fluttershy, do we really have to go see Harry again?” asked Rainbow Dash irritably. “I mean, he’s a bear. It’s not like anyone’s going to cause him any grief. Surely he can look after himself for the next week without needing us standing over him like a couple of foalsitters.”
Fluttershy laid a soothing forehoof on Dash’s shoulder and said, “It won’t be for very long, Dashie, really. We’ll be back home by this evening. It’s just that Harry said before he left that he had something he really wanted to show us while he was there, and I promised we’d go. It would be awful if we let him down now.”
“But that beach is so boring,” complained Rainbow. “There’s not even anyplace to windsurf or dive or canoe, and precisely nothing for anypony to do on shore either. It’s totally empty!”
Fluttershy smiled as she adjusted her saddlebags. “That’s why Harry likes it. He’s always preferred to be someplace a bit more relaxing for his vacations. He just likes a bit of peace and quiet, that’s all – and you know he wouldn’t get a moment to himself if he went to a crowded place like Clopacabana. As you said: he’s a bear.”
Rainbow sighed, but said no more. The two pegasi took to the air and soared easily through the skies above Ponyville. Dash frowned slightly as she caught a glimpse of a slightly misplaced raincloud: Blossomforth was enthusiastic, and had been ecstatic to be named Rainbow’s stand-in for the day, but she still had a lot to learn in the fine arts of weather manipulation.
Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash struck out west, the morning sun increasingly warm on their backs as they flew steadily onwards. They said little as they went, though they did spare the occasional friendly smile at each other and Fluttershy dipped low several times to greet a passing squirrel or raccoon.
After a while, a thin line of blue could be made out on the far horizon, gradually broadening as the minutes went on until it was a wide strip of sun-sparkled azure. The ponies moved into a shallow glide, angling their wings so as to expend the minimum of effort. Fluttershy gave a quick glance at her friend and smiled to herself as she saw that Dash’s expression had softened considerably. An old pegasine proverb rose unbidden in her mind: The wide sky never fails.
The yellow pegasus’s smile broadened as she and Rainbow landed simultaneously on a strip of coarse grass just above Haynton Sands. “All right, Dashie,” she said, “shall we pay our friend a house call? Well...” She paused for a moment. “It’s not exactly a house he has here.”
Rainbow rolled her eyes. “Let’s not start that one again, ‘Shy.” Fluttershy giggled softly and walked lightly onto the sand. She giggled again as she felt the heat of the warm, golden grains against her hooves, tickling them lightly and throwing up light plumes that made swirling patterns as they caught the sunlight. A little way down the beach, she passed the high water mark and the sand became firmer. At this point, Fluttershy turned abruptly to the left and accelerated into a trot.
Dash was rather less at ease. “This is ridiculous, Fluttershy,” she whined. “It’s going to take ages to get all this sand out of my hooves. You can carry on with this ground-bound stuff all you like, but there’s a whole heap of air up there just crying out for pegasi. I’m flying.” So saying, she moved into a low, level flight, her head at the same height as Fluttershy’s and her wings beating almost idly as she kept pace with her friend’s trotting.
As Rainbow had said back in Ponyville, Haynton was indeed a lonely beach. There wasn’t anything wrong with it: it was just too far from civilisation for most ponies to bother with, especially when the dubious delights of Trotte Carlo lay just a few miles from Manehattan and were now linked to that great metropolis by a direct rail service. There were certainly no trains to Haynton. There was barely even a road.
What there were were pawprints. Big pawprints. Fluttershy gestured with a wing, grinning at Rainbow Dash. “There, you see? It won’t be very long now.”
“Can’t I at least go for a swim?” asked Rainbow plaintively. “The sun is really getting hot now and this stupid sand is everywhere.”
To Rainbow’s surprise, Fluttershy drew up short. “Oh, how silly of me! You’re right, Dashie: we have to get down by the water!” She changed up to a canter and headed straight for the ocean’s edge. The protection offered by the substantial headlands that flanked Haynton Bay meant that the sea here was quite calm, with only gentle waves breaking on the shore. Rainbow squinted out into the blue vastness as she flew to join Fluttershy, but even her sharp eyes could see nothing but a dancing haze in the far distance that might or might not have been a sailing yacht.
By the time Rainbow reached her friend, she was busily engaged in scraping at the ground with a forehoof. Dash watched her in puzzlement for a few moments; Fluttershy looked up and seemed about to say something when Rainbow cut her off.
“Fluttershy, what are you doing? Is this another of those crazy ideas you picked up from Zecora?”
“Now, Rainbow Dash,” said Fluttershy, rather sternly by her standards, “just because Zecora digs up her herbs like this doesn’t make her ‘crazy’. I’m surprised at you, after all this time. And if you’d been listening to me during our flight here, you’d know exactly what I was doing. I’m looking for some really nice seashells.”
Rainbow furrowed her brow and looked sideways at Fluttershy. “Uh... why?”
“To take with us,” said Fluttershy simply. Rainbow gave her a confused look, but decided not to press the issue and joined in the hunt in a somewhat disengaged manner. Every so often, she would find a shell and present it to Fluttershy for inspection; many shells that Rainbow thought looked perfectly good were rejected, but she persevered. It was worth it to see the look of happiness on Fluttershy’s face when she dug up a large conch shell.
“Oh, Rainbow Dash, that’s absolutely perfect!” she exclaimed, deftly taking the shell and depositing it safely in a saddlebag. “I think we can get going now. Harry will be so pleased. Thank you ever so much for helping me; I couldn’t have done this without you.”
* * *
Rainbow grimaced as the large brown bear sitting across the table from her gave a snort of frustration. She did her best not to let her apprehension show, keeping her eyes firmly fixed to the rough wooden board that lay before her. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Fluttershy resting on her haunches beside her. The sight gave her a certain amount of reassurance, but an irritated bear was not something she could really ignore – especially in this low-roofed cave where flight would be close to impossible.
“Okay, okay, I know,” she said, as much to Fluttershy as to Harry himself. “Call it beginner’s luck?”
Fluttershy turned to her, grinning. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you claim that quality for yourself before, Dashie!”
“Yeah, yeah, very funny. There’s a great big bear in here with me, in case you hadn’t noticed. Or do you just class all the critters you deal with the same or something?”
Rainbow sighed inwardly as she realised that Fluttershy had taken her question absolutely seriously: “Oh no, of course not. It can be very bad for them if they’re given the wrong type of care or a bad diet. They’re no different in that way from ponies, really. Imagine if you were a bear – then you’d have to eat fish instead of apples!”
Dash gave an involuntary shudder at the thought. Ponies had occasionally been reduced to eating flesh, but the taboo against it was so strong that the fact was barely acknowledged outside serious historical tomes or – at the other extreme – the sort of lurid horror novels that fillies and colts of a certain age devoured almost non-stop. For once, Rainbow felt positively grateful that she hadn't been a bookworm as a foal.
Harry grunted and swept a massive paw across the table, sending a number of seashells flying to land scattered across the cave’s rough and rocky floor. One, propelled almost to the far wall, came to rest against a large chest in which were stacked several dozen colourful balls, perfectly matched in size – each a little smaller than a basketball – but varying greatly in age, condition and composition. Most were fully inflated, but one or two were flabby and old, with nicks and scratches covering their formerly smooth skins.
Having cleared the playing surface, Harry picked up the conch shell Rainbow Dash had found, and with surprisingly delicate claws held it out to the pony sitting opposite. She stared at it blankly.
“Go on, take it,” urged Fluttershy, nodding and smiling at her friend.
“Excuse me?” said Rainbow, completely lost. “What, exactly, am I meant to do with this? It’s a shell, Fluttershy.” Nevertheless, she accepted the conch from the bear, who gave another grunt, this one carrying with it a rather more contented feel.
“Oh, Rainbow Dash,” said Fluttershy, “you don’t do anything with it. You just put it on a shelf in your house for other ponies to see. Um, if you want to, that is. I told you this morning that Harry wanted to show us something – and this is it.” She extended a forehoof towards the now-bare table. “His holiday cave didn’t have a board installed, so he made it himself. And, well, I thought we’d find him some nice new pieces to use with it.”
“Yes?”
“It’s a trophy, Rainbow Dash. Besides,” Fluttershy finished with a smile, “you have something else to boast to Applejack about now. She’s never been a champion at playing Seashells!”