//------------------------------//
// Epilogue 
// Story: Wingmares 
// by CouchCrusader 
//------------------------------//

“I know, darling—these spa treatments are always over too soon!” The white-coated unicorn threw a curl of her immaculate purple mane onto the other side of her neck as she walked down the hall.. “Lotus and Aloe are the best of the best, though, so I always make sure to enlist their services whenever I come by. I do hope you enjoyed yourself?

“I did, um, Miss Rarity.”

“Oh, please, dear, how many times must I say this? There’s no need to be so formal around me.” Rarity stopped before the door leading into the main reception room, as if to linger in the comfortable, jasmine-laced air for a moment longer before stepping outside into the dirt and dust of the world once more. “I understand the stress of moving into another town that isn’t your own. Perhaps you’d like to make this a weekly thing for now, to get you comfortable while you’re here? I mean—if you say you’re going to be working with animals—” She let the implication hang in the air.

“They’re not all bad,” said Fluttershy, pushing the door open for her spa partner. “A lot of them are quite skilled at cleaning themselves. Besides, I made the mistake of bathing a cat once—never again.”

“You’re too nice a soul to be dealing with such creatures on a regular basis,” sniffed Rarity.

Fluttershy blushed and hung her head as she passed through the door.

“Aaaaand I want that one. No, wait—gimme that one instead. Orrrr was it that one? Hang on, that one’s part of a set? Just grab me something that comes in one bottle. Aw, haystacks, I don’t even know what I’m doing here.”

The pegasus’s head bounced back up as she stopped in her tracks. She knew that voice from somewhere.

“Rainbow Dash?” Rarity gasped.

The noise of glass bottles shattering on tile filled the air. “R-R-Rarity? Boy, of all the ponies I had to run into today, I just—”

Fluttershy’s eyes grew wide at the same time the other pony’s voice died away. They gaped at each other for a moment that could have spanned the life of a glacier. And then Fluttershy broke out into the largest smile she’d smiled ever since she moved to Ponyville.

“Rainbow Dash!” She launched herself across the room just as the other pegasus threw her hooves out wide, and the two of them embraced as if the years after their last meeting had never happened at all.

“I-I-I can’t believe this!” Rainbow’s voice sang in her ear. “Fluttershy! I looked for you everywhere after I got kicked outta camp! You live here now?”

Fluttershy’s throat tightened in ecstasy. “I moved here last month, yes.”

“Ahhhh! Get outta here!” Rainbow hugged her all the tighter, and the two of them moved toward the front door. “You’ve gotta tell me what you’ve been up to all this time!”

Behind the animated chatter of their reunion, Rarity reached up and scratched her head. “Goodness, Rainbow Dash,” she sniffed, surveying the broken bottles by her hooves. “I, well... hm. If you wanted to get the right conditioner for your mane, all you had to do was consult me on the matter and I could’ve saved you all this trouble.”