//------------------------------//
// The Jig Is Up 
// Story: Rainbow Dash and the Shameless Self-Insert 
// by Wise Cracker 
//------------------------------//

Rainbow Dash was home. And she was lost in a spiral of self-pity. It was so strange, the facts kept replaying in her head, like someone had to remind her of what had happened. Like her whole life had suddenly been interrupted by a commercial break, and the powers that be needed to be brought up to speed in case their attention spans didn't last past five minutes. Which was something Rainbow Dash could relate to, at least. She pouted her lips as more bad memories surfaced; of getting told off by her teachers, of being sick, of feeling humiliated. It didn't matter how awesome she was, it never did. Something would always make it all come crashing down, and that something had happened today. 

Her story, the culmination of her hard work, not to mention a collection of the biggest insults anypony might ever deliver to her friends, was lost. 

Fluttershy hadn't found it, Twilight hadn't found it, the Writer's Guild hadn't found it. The Weather Patrol ponies or Pinkie Pie would have given it right back by now if they had it. Which could mean only one thing: whoever had found it still had it, was reading it right now, and would probably let everypony in town know.

She was doomed. Maybe now would be a good time to consider a long stay in the Wonderbolts barracks. 

A bell rang downclouds. 

She flew down in a daze, hardly noticing the white unicorn stallion waiting for her. 

"Hey, Rainbow Dash," he said. 

"Hey," she replied. She recognised him from somewhere, but she couldn't tell where, exactly. The voice was definitely familiar, and his brown mane and tail made her think he was related to Featherweight, but she quickly decided he couldn't be, not with those broad hooves. No, this was somepony from down the Wet South, swamp country, not the Northern Slopes goatish build Featherweight had. His cutie mark was, from the looks of it, something related to either plants or cooking. She recognised the purplish blue flowers on his flanks, but it wasn't something she used a lot, so the name eluded her. 

She quickly stopped caring when he slid out a bundle of paper out of his saddlebag. 

"Err, I found this on the main road today. It's yours, right?"

Rainbow Dash gasped. She took the book and quickly flipped through it. Page one, two, three... hurricane duty, the theoretical exam, the changeling scare, the whole thing, still in one piece. The ring binder had held. She had her story back. And it wasn't one of her friends who'd brought it back.

She quickly dashed back up into her home to give the thing a longer look. Finding that, no, the book hadn't spontaneously lost pages in the few seconds she'd stopped looking at it – because in Ponyville, you learned not to trust anything – she let out a sigh of relief. 

Thank the stars. Nopony read it.

Wait. Somepony did read it. 

Did he? 

Oh, no.

With a quick flap of the wings, she was back in front of the stallion, motioning for him to stop. "Wait!"

He smiled. "Hello again, Rainbow. Everything okay? I didn't show up at a bad time, did I?"

"No, no! Umm, reflex action, you know," Rainbow stammered. "Nothing to worry about." Shoot, she knew this guy, she was sure of it. But from where?

"And that was your story, right?" he asked.

She nodded feverishly. "Yeah, it was. Where did you say you found it?"

"Main road, near the park. Found it this morning, just lying there."

She could have stuck her head in the ground right then and there to hide from the shame. With her usual Wonderbolt level of intelligence, apparently she'd thought to check all the places she'd gone to without checking the paths she'd taken to those places. Oh, if her mother ever learned of this... "And you waited this long to bring it back?" Please tell me no one read it, please tell me no one read it. 

He perked his ears and looked away. "Well, I didn't know it was yours at first. It only had a pseudonym on the cover. I mean, M.D. Bolter? That's pretty generic. I had a quick look, just to see if I recognised it. I didn't let anyone else read it, if that's what you're thinking."

Her heart sank. "Oh, good. And then you read the Rainbow Flash thing, and you figured it was mine, huh? Kid stuff, wish fulfillment fiction?"

The stallion chuckled. "Actually... no. That didn't tell me it was yours, I mean. That only narrowed it down to ponies who are fans of yours. Which, in this town, isn't narrowing it down at all."

Rainbow idly dragged a hoof over the ground. She hadn't had the thing pre-read since the rewrite, she might as well. "So what gave it away? Is it because of how bad it is, then?"

"Hmm? Not at all. I thought it was pretty nice for what it was trying to be."

She squinted, thinking. "For what it was trying to be?"

"A coming-of-age story that parodies all the goodie-four-shoes literature that's out there nowadays. Good idea to use an adult protagonist, by the way. You open up a lot more avenues like that."

Not the response she was expecting, but a good response, regardless. "So you don't think it was bad? You don't think it needs work?"

He shrugged. "About as much as any first draft does. A few style tweaks, but nothing major on the grammar front, not at first glance. It might need to settle on a direction, but, sure, anthologies do sell."

"Gesundheit."

He quirked an eyebrow. "I mean, some ponies prefer reading things in shorter bursts, and having a bunch of short stories makes for easier reading than one big novel. Less of a hassle to keep track of, too. Were you planning to publish it sometime? It looked like you got the layout for it."

She pouted. No one else had read it. No one else could answer the big question. "Is it good enough to publish?"

Again, he shrugged, pondering. "With enough editing, sure. I didn't find anything really wrong with it at concept level, it was entertaining. Maybe make it even more over the top so it's clearly meant to not be taken seriously, and who knows? At the very least, there are a few publishers looking for material like yours. I don't know if you've noticed, but right now the market is monopolised by Daring Do and everyone trying to copy her. Some new boys' literature wouldn't have much trouble getting through the process. If you feel like it, I mean."

Something rattled in her head when she tried to think about that. "Boys' literature? You think I've been writing boys' literature?"

"From what little there was to go on, and skimming it, yes. Your main character acts like a typical coach, there's lots of descriptions when it comes to the action or practical problems, some accurate depictions of motion and the like... that's usually what gets served to boys. Relatively speaking, of course. Plus, you have caricatures of female archetypes. That's always popular."

"But boys aren't gonna want to read that: Rainbow Flash is a mare."

"So was Corna from the Avatar series, and no one cared about that," the unicorn argued. "As long as it's an awesome character, the boy/girl thing doesn't matter that much."

She gulped. "W-what about, you know, Rainbow Flash's being... umm... you think ponies would... to me, I mean?"

He squinted, thinking. "If you want to get fancy about it, you could just call it a hypersigil, I suppose. That's s-i-g-i-l, with 'hyper' in front of it. Trust me, unicorns will lap that up. And really, lots of authors put pieces of themselves in their writings. Half the time, I think A.K. Yearling's living vicariousl-umm, trying to live the life of her character, through her character."

Rainbow's ears twitched. His voice sounded so familiar, like she'd heard it just yesterday. Stopping himself mid-sentence to explain a big word, she remembered that, too. But from where? It was driving her nuts. Her last birthday party, perhaps? He wasn't related to Cheese Sandwich, she was sure of that. Or was he? There was a connection between the two, but it wasn't bloodlines. A friend of Cheese's? No, that wasn't it, either. 

"So what gave it away, then? How'd you know it was mine?"

A good dose of pride bled into his smile then. "You mention Captain Hurricane's fondness of licorice, something that was passed down through the generations of her family. Most ponies don't know that. They think because you eat chocolate and gingerbread for Hearts and Hooves, that the Commander liked chocolate, instead. She didn't. Only an actual descendant would know that sort of thing."

She let her head hang and sighed as it finally dawned on her. "Now I remember you. We met at the Hearth's Warming Eve thing. You were the other one with the bloodline, you were-"

"Direct bloodline descendant of Smart Cookie, yes, but with some obvious mixing in that regard." He tapped his horn at that. "Sorry, lots of ponies in town know me, I forget which ones don't."

She shook her head. "That's okay. Umm, thanks for, you know, bringing my story back."

"No problem. If you need any help with finetuning it or spreading it, I have a print shop not too far from Sugarcube Corner. Can't miss it."

"Will do." She turned to leave. "I guess I'll see you around?"

"See you around, Rainbow Dash."

"See you... Wise Cracker."

"Sage."

"What?"

"It's Sage Cracker, like the herb. Sage Cracker, not Wise Cracker. Big difference."

She smirked to herself. "Right. Big difference."

The End