Rainbow Dash’s house sat floating in the air. Being a cloud this didn’t surprise Crescent. However, as she looked up, she looked over at Applejack. “How do we get up there?” She asked.
Applejack didn’t respond taking in a deep breath. She put her hooves over her mouth and shouted. “HEY! Dash! I gotta talk to you!” She put her hooves back on the ground and waited for a second.
Crescent looked up at the house. “It’s really high up there. Do you think she heard-” Crescent was interrupted as a rainbow blur burst from the house and landed right in front of them.
“Hey there AJ! What you need.” Rainbow Dash said flicking her tail and going back to hovering in the air. She looked over at Crescent. “Who’s the unicorn?” She asked grinning.
Crescent had her mouth open and her glasses sliding off her face. She hurriedly shut her mouth and pushed her glasses back up. She also messed with her mane which had been scattered from Dash’s landing.
“This here is Crescent Moonbeam.” Applejack said gesturing at Crescent. Crescent mumbled something that sounded like hello. “She’ll be staying with Twilight for a while, until she moves in completely.” Applejack explained. “Speaking of which is Twilight here or did we miss her?” She asked looking up at Dash’s house.
“No she hasn’t come by today.” She said stretching and yawning. “I was about to go take a nap since she hadn’t come, but you two showed up.” She said eyeing them.
“Really?” Applejack asked looking confused. “She hasn’t stopped by at all?”
Dash shook her head. “Nope. Now if you don’t mind I’m going to catch a few more z’s.”
“Do you know where she is?” Crescent asked hurriedly as Dash started to take off again.
“Umm… No. I don’t know where Twilight is.” Dash stopped and looked a little worried. “She’s never late, and if she can’t make it she’ll make sure I know. I mean she can teleport and she has Spike” Dash lowered herself to the ground looking more worried. “You don’t think something happened to her do you?” She asked looking at Applejack and Crescent.
“No, no, I’m certain Twilight’s fine. Nothing big’s come through Ponyville since that Bugbear. She’s probably off worried about something or other.” She stopped and looked at Crescent whose eyes were wide open.
“Or someone.” She finished. She turned back to Applejack. “I bet she’s trying to figure out where I am!” She stepped nervously looking back down the path. “All I did was make sure the door was shut all the way, but they’d already walked into town by the time I caught up with them.”
“Bwahahaha!” Dash laughed.
“Rainbow!” Applejack scolded.
“Sorry, but seriously, a door? You just got lost closing a door? On your first day here? Bwahahaha!” She laughed again. “A-A-And now Twilight’s probably searching the whole town for you. Singing some tragic song or something.” She said, nearly crying from laughing.
“Well we should probably find her so she’ll stop worrying.” Applejack said. Crescent was looking worried herself prancing from side to side.
“This isn’t how I wanted my first day to go.” She muttered. Dash was still laughing. Applejack was glaring at her, then smiled.
“So you think somepony should help Crescent find Twilight right?” Applejack asked Dash who was trying to compose herself.
“Yeah somepony should probably help them find each other.” She said.
“And that pony should be really quick about it too.” Applejack said. “And probably have the ability to fly so they can see everything.” Applejack continued.
“Yeah flying would be really handy.” Dash said then stopped. She turned to Applejack. “Wait! You mean me?! Don’t you?” She asked pointing at herself as she resumed hovering.
“Sure do sugarcube. I need to get back to the market with Granny and Apple Bloom, and you seem to have your morning open since Twilight isn’t here anyways.” Applejack said. Dash looked like she was going to object, but Applejack interrupted again. “And you laughed at her. Don’t you think it would be a bit polite to help her after that?” Applejack asked.
“IIIII’m not getting out of this am I?” Dash asked.
“Nope.” Responded Applejack. Crescent was standing there watching the exchange. She wasn’t sure what to do.
“Fine. I’ll see if I can find Twilight.” Dash said as she launched into the sky, leaving a rainbow trail behind her.
“I’ll leave you here then.” Applejack said, tipping her hat. She stopped at Crescent’s worried look. “Don’t worry about Dash. She’ll be back. If you can get her to promise to do something she usually does it.” Applejack explained and grinned. “The hard part is getting her to agree to do something in the first place.” Applejack patted her shoulder. “You’ll be fine sugarcube. She’ll find Twilight and take you to her, no problem.” She turned and headed down the path waving.
Crescent waved back slowly as she sat down to wait for Dash. She looked around taking in the valley that Dash’s house floated over. It was quiet and peaceful. Crescent could see the butterflies out on the flowers. She shivered, it reminded her of the hospital.
One of the treatments had been Awareness Practice. They’d sit her in a room and project an illusion in around her. Then they’d project other illusions in along with real objects. She’d had to find which were real and which weren’t. It hadn’t been bad, just weird. Crescent had always thought they were a waste of time. When she was in her right mind she passed the tests easily, she could tell the rabbit by the bushes was fake, but the rock in the stream was real. It hadn’t ever really crossed over for her like it was supposed to.
It should’ve helped her mind focus on what was real whenever her delusions took over and help her mind reassert control and ground her back in reality again. For whatever reason it didn’t work. Crescent could remember her delusions quite well usually, and they’d felt real. Just like the rock had. She couldn’t trick her mind back to reality because it said the delusion was reality. She shivered again at the thought of what might have happened if she hadn’t found the zebra’s cure.
“Found her!” Dash said careening to a stop. Crescent jumped as Dash landed. Dash was hovering again. “She was over at Sugar Cube Corner asking everypony if they’d seen you.” Dash said.
“Thank you very much.” Crescent said nodding at Dash.
Dash smiled. “So, now you know where to go. I’ll get back to having those z’s.” Dash took off.
Crescent raised a hoof and shouted after her. “Wait! Where’s Sugar Cube Corner.” Dash stopped and flew back a bit more controlled, hovering in front of her.
“Riiight. You’re new in town.” Dash sighed and looked over towards Ponyville. “Alright. I’ll take you over. Just try and be quick? I want to get a nap in before I start on the weather for the day.” Dash said as she started off.
Crescent started running after her, trying to keep pace with Dash. After a few minutes she was gasping and struggling to keep up. Dash looked over her shoulder and noticed Crescent was falling behind. She rolled her eyes and slowed down, letting Crescent catch back up with her. Crescent came up panting.
“All you eggheads are the same. Can’t you just try and keep up?” Dash asked annoyed as she hovered.
Crescent was still panting. “Well… I… Can’t… Fly…” She panted. “And… I… Thought… I… Did… Alright…” She finished.
Dash rolled her eyes. Then looked back over the distance they had covered. They were probably half way to Ponyville already. “Okay I admit you’re doing alright, but still couldn’t you try a bit harder?” She asked.
Crescent shook her head still trying to get her breathing back to normal. She adjusted her glasses again. They started towards Ponyville again, this time at a slower pace. It was silent mostly.
“How fast can you fly?” Crescent asked looking up at Dash.
“You mean if I really try or just like average day going around doing stuff?” Dash asked.
“If you really try. How fast do you get? Before you weren’t anything but a blur so how fast do you get going when you really try?” She asked.
Dash thought for a second. “I don’t know. Reeaally fast. Is that enough of an answer?” Dash asked.
“Not really.” Crescent responded. “I’d like something a bit more specific than ‘really fast’.” She said stepping over a rock on the path.
Dash thought for a second. “Could you calculate a Sonic Rainboom?” Dash asked.
“You mean that wasn’t just a rumor?” Crescent asked stunned.
“Yeah! Of course it wasn’t. I’m the one and only pegasus that’s done it of course. Which makes it even more awesome!” She squealed doing a loop in mid air smiling.
“So what happens when you do one?” Crescent asked as they walked along.
“What do you mean?” Dash asked back.
“Well you know. What do you experience? Does the air take any kind of form when you approach those speeds? Any other phenomena?” Crescent asked gesturing for Dash to answer.
“Hmm…” Dash took on a thoughtful look as she drifted on. “Well the wind kinds makes this barrier that I have to try and push through.” She gestured out in front of her as she explained. “It kinda starts out like a curved dome and I have to keep pushing and pushing to try to get any faster. As I get faster the tension increases and the dome flattens into more of a triangle. If I ever stop there it acts like a rubberband and it’ll launch me back, however I manage to keep pushing and the triangle breaks, the rainbow spreads out behind me and boom! I have a Sonic Rainboom.” Dash explained grinning.
Crescent was quietly muttering something under her breath, tilting her head back and forth and gesturing with her hooves. “Okay so that’s probably a mach cone which extends slowly so that means approximately mach 5.” She muttered then looked at Dash.
“Do you experience an increase in your speed when you break the mach cone?” Crescent asked tilting her head.
“Umm… Yeah. It feels like I do. Everything jumps afterwards when the rainbow happens.” Dash responded. Crescent went back to muttering. She drew lines in the air as they walked and Dash just watched confused.
“What are you doing?” She asked, floating in front of Crescent.
“The angle would probably measure 36 degrees… What?” Crescent asked shaking herself out of her thoughts.
“What are you doing there with muttering and pointing?” Dash asked again mimicking her gestures.
“Oh, I’m trying to figure out how fast you’re going. Assuming you’re forming a mach cone as you were flying which then elongated and you experienced the increase in acceleration from the reduction in drag…” Dash yawned and interrupted her.
“Anyways.” Dash said rolling her eyes then looked down expectantly. “Did you figure it out?” She asked eagerly.
Crescent thought for a second. They walked over a ridge and into the outskirts of Ponyville. Crescent was still quiet and she muttered a bit, but her expression was growing more and more confused. Suddenly Crescent laughed and shook her head, she pushed her glasses back up. “No, I really don’t know Rainbow. I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?!” Dash asked sounding annoyed as the pair walked into Ponyville.
“Well let me rephrase it as ‘I don’t have all the information I need and it was a little crazy to try and do it all in my head’.” She stopped for a second and thought. “Though I can generalize you probably were at around mach 5 or 6.” Crescent said as she started walking forward again.
“How fast is that exactly? Dash asked. Crescent stepped over a crack in the road carefully, looking thoughtful.
“Reeaaaally fast.” She said.
“Good!” Dash said lying on ahead to take her to Sugar Cube Corner. As they walked Crescent very carefully avoided the few places where cracks had developed in the roads.
“Yeah I’m fine.” She said, sidestepping another crack.
“You sure? I mean you can just walk over those.” Dash said pointing at the small crack Crescent had sidestepped.
“Yeah it’s alright.” She said as they continued walking. They passed through the streets of Ponyville, Crescent was careful to watch Dash and keep up with her as she floated on above everyponies heads. It was usually pretty easy Ponyville wasn’t too crowded, but she was careful anyways.
The ponies along the way were very polite and smiled at her as she passed or waved at her. Crescent waved and smiled back. Eventually she smelled fresh pastries and guessed they were getting close.
“There it is.” Dash said pointing to a shop in the middle of a street that looked like a decorated piece of cake with a cupcake on top of it. Crescent could see ponies walking in and out with various cakes and cookies.
“Well you’re here. Twilight should be just inside, so I’ going to get that nap.” She said stretching.
“Thank you Rainbow.” Crescent said before Dash took off.
Dash turned and smiled at her. “Don’t mention it. It’s good to meet another Twilight.” Dash laughed as she launched herself off back home. Crescent smiled and walked up to the door of Sugar Cube Corner.