The sun was just starting to rise outside the hotel, bringing with it warmth and light. As the city of Manehattan was bathed in gradually increasing amounts of light and heat, songbirds began to sing their morning melodies. While the traffic outside had never really stopped, it had quieted somewhat after sunset. Now it was returning in full force, the rumbling of taxi carriages and general chatter of hundreds of ponies going about their business on the streets below filling the air.
Twilight would have loved nothing more than to claim that it was that growing cacophony of hectic noise that roused her from her already restless sleep. But, alas, that was not the case. Instead, it was the uncomfortable mumblings and anxious shifting of the pegasus next to her in the bed that roused her.
“S-stop… please…” Rainbow mumbled almost incoherently, rolling over onto her back with her eyes screwed tightly shut. Twilight opened her own eyes when Rainbow’s hoof thumped into her shoulder, destroying her last shot at getting in some more sleep. Looking over, she saw the distraught look on Rainbow’s face, saw the cold sweat blanketing her body and observed the uncontrollable shivering that Rainbow was displaying.
Her heart broke a little at the sight, but she put aside her own sorrows for now. Right now, Rainbow needed to wake up. “Hey, Rainbow, wake up,” Twilight said urgently, shaking Rainbow’s shoulder.
Rainbow suddenly gasped out as if struck, her eyes snapping wide open. She sat bolt upright, panting heavily with her shakes only getting worse. Twilight quickly wrapped a foreleg over Rainbow’s shoulder, offering her whatever comfort she could to her confused friend.
“You’re okay, Rainbow. Ssh, ssh, it’s okay. I got you.” Twilight whispered softly, gently patting Rainbow on the back to help her calm down. After a few seconds, Rainbow managed to relax somewhat, taking in a very deep breath before letting it out and flopping back down on her pillow.
“...Thanks, Twi,” she mumbled quietly, looking up at the ceiling with a blank look in her eyes.
“Are you okay?” Twilight ventured carefully, her ears falling against her head a bit.
“...I’ll be okay,” Rainbow said, though she sounded like she sincerely doubted her own words. Twilight frowned sharply before sighing and glancing over at Fluttershy, who was now looking back at the two of them with concern.
“Is something wrong?” she asked, worried.
“Just a nightmare, Fluttershy. It’s nothing new…” Rainbow answered with a sigh before rolling to get out of bed. She paused for a second while sitting on the edge before glancing back at the other two mares. “Uh… did you two sleep okay?”
Twilight and Fluttershy shook their heads. “No. I don’t know if it’s the unfamiliar bed or the sounds of the city outside, but I didn’t sleep well at all.” Twilight answered vocally before rubbing a hoof over her face.
Rainbow sighed and shook her head, her ears falling completely flat. “...Sorry,” she murmured dejectedly before rising completely from the bed. She stretched languidly before looking towards their hotel room’s bathroom. “Do either of you mind if I take the first shower?”
“I don’t mind. Do you?” Twilight said while glancing back at Fluttershy.
“Not at all. Take as long as you need, Rainbow.” Fluttershy stated with a small hoof gesture and reassuring smile.
Rainbow’s ears perked back up just a little. “‘Kay. I won’t take too long.” she said before disappearing into the bathroom and closing the door behind her. For a few seconds, there was a solemn silence before the sound of the shower turning on behind the bathroom door could be heard. Fluttershy slipped out of her own bed and uneasily approached Twilight, her eyes betraying a certain confusion.
“Um… Twilight?”
Twilight turned around to face the timid mare. “Yeah?”
“Um… If you don’t know, that’s okay, but do you know why Rainbow Dash said ‘sorry’?” Fluttershy inquired, her brow furrowing slightly. “It sounded like she was guilty or something. Like she thought our, uh, poor night’s sleep was her fault.”
Twilight frowned at that, her eye narrowing in thought. “I don’t know. I’ll ask her when she gets out of the shower.”
“When a pony slumbers, their consciousness joins with a plane of existence known as the Dream Realm. The dreams of ponies can influence each other. Happy and joyful dreams create peace and tranquility, making the slumber of those close enough even more restful and rejuvenating. Nightmares have a similar effect, sadly. A strong nightmare will bleed into the dreams around it, tarnishing their happiness and rendering the sleep of the dreamers into a restless one…”
Rainbow Dash remembered Princess Luna’s words and grimaced. She knew it wasn’t her fault, but in the wake of her nightmare, which she was glad she could no longer remember, her heightened emotions had inhibited her ability to think. The moment she had learned that Twilight and Fluttershy hadn’t slept well, she mentally scolded herself. Now that she was under the warm and relaxing stream of water coming out of the showerhead, rinsing the suds of shampoo from her mane, tail, and coat, she realized just how foolish and baseless such self-criticism was.
She couldn’t control what she dreamt about, or if it was a happy dream or a nightmare. It was something that she had no say in. She knew this…
But it still made her feel guilty. Thinking back on the common trends within her nightmares, she took a moment to carefully consider what she could do about it. They were all stemming from a deep-seeded anxiety and fear of what might happen if Starlight Glimmer went back in time to change things again. So, the only logical course of action was clear.
Make sure that Starlight Glimmer never goes back in time. That was the whole reason they came on this trip, Rainbow reminded herself. Finally, with her resolve reinforced with the added incentive of ending her nightmares, she shut off the water and stepped out of the shower. She ran one of the hotel’s plain white towels over her mane for a few moments before moving it to her tail. While she worked, she couldn’t help but spot her reflection in the mirror. For a second, she did a double take on the light purple color of her mane.
“Right; Lilac,” she commented quietly to herself. Out of curiosity, she lifted up her bangs with a hoof to see where the hairs came out of her head. At the base of her mane hairs, she could see an incredibly thin line where the purple gave way to her natural kaleidoscope of colors. The entire spectrum of the rainbow ran along her hairline. With a small snort, she dropped her mane and got back to work drying herself.
A sharp knock came to the bathroom door almost a minute later, just as she was finishing up with drying herself and returning the towel to the bar it had been hanging on the wall. She opened the door immediately after. She blinked when she saw the anxious faces of Pinkie Pie, Rarity, and Applejack staring back at her along with Twilight and Fluttershy. She glanced just slightly down and spotted Spike, who was looking up at her uneasily. In his claws was clutched a scroll, bound with a red ribbon clasped by the royal seal.
Rainbow felt some of the blood drain from her face. “...oh,” she said quietly.
Spike stepped back, letting Rainbow out of the bathroom. “We don’t know what it says, yet. We figured everypony should hear it at once. Plus, you know, it’s from your mom, so…” he explained.
Rainbow Dash nodded and ran a hoof over her mane to straighten it out a bit. “Alright. Fair enough. What does it say?” she asked simply.
Spike dutifully undid the clasp and unfurled the scroll, beginning to read it aloud.
“My dearest daughter, Princess Rainbow Dash,
I hope this letter finds you well. I know it hasn’t been very long since we last spoke to one another face to face, but I fear that in the wake of Discord’s brief return, we didn’t truly have a proper chance to catch up with each other. You’ve been in Ponyville for nine months, going on ten now. In that time we have only met in person on a few short-lived occasions. I am embarrassed to admit that I miss having you here in the castle.”
“Aww, that’s sweet~” Rarity cooed sweetly, much to Rainbow’s dismay.
“Hush. Let Spike read the thing.” She shot back bluntly.
Spike kept going.
“Which is why I am writing to you, now. I would love it immensely if we could figure out a good time for you and, if they’re up for it, your friends to come visit Canterlot. I know that your ‘volunteer’ work with the Ponyville Weather Service eats up a lot of your spare time and that you treat it is if it were your full-time job, so I understand if you won’t be available for a while.
Yours, Princess Celestia.”
There was a second of silence before Rainbow Dash gave a sigh of relief. “Whew… okay, so she isn’t ordering us back to Ponyville by royal decree. Good.” she said while putting a hoof over her chest.
Spike raised an eyebrow. “How would she even know? I mean, it’s not like any of us told her we were making this trip.”
Rainbow shot Spike an odd look. “You’d be surprised the stuff mom knows just because she can. I swear, sometimes I wanted to call her the ‘purveyor of useless information’ because of just how many weird and random facts she has rolling around in that head of hers. So trust me when I say that her knowing about our trip before we even began it is not at all an illegitimate fear.”
“There were a lot of big words in there, Rainbow!” Twilight pointed out with a small smirk on her face. “I must be rubbing off on you more than I thought.”
Rainbow waved her off. “We can snark later, Twi. Right now, we gotta figure out what to do about this.” she said while plucking the note from Spike’s claws and pointing at it with her free hoof, hovering a few inches off the floor with her wings.
“Well, what do we say to her?” Rarity asked curiously. “She’ll probably order us back if we tell her what we’re up to.”
“We ain’t lyin’ to the Princess, much less RD’s mother,” Applejack added sternly with a frown. “Ah can’t and won’t go along with that.”
“So what do we tell her, then?” Twilight asked, a hint of frustration in her voice. “I don’t want to lie to her either, but I also want to make sure we can see this mission through.”
“Ooh! We could tell her our cover story!” Pinkie suggested with a hopeful smile. “I mean, it's technically not lying since we are shopping for Rainbow’s birthday while we’re here. I already bought her three out of the five gifts I wanna get her this year.”
Rainbow Dash blinked, her eyes wide. “Uh… how?”
“How what?” Pinkie asked innocently, glancing at Rainbow with a tilt of her head.
“How did you buy me three things? And how are you hiding them?” Rainbow pressed, trying to wrap her head around this logical fallacy.
Pinkie snorted. “Haha, please.” was all she said before bouncing over to Fluttershy’s side and smiling widely.
Rainbow paused before sighing in defeat. “Okay, fine, I won’t question it. It’s Pinkie,” she looked back to Spike, thinking for a moment. “...I can’t think of any better ideas, so I say we go with Pinkie’s plan. Is that okay with everypony else?”
Applejack shifted uneasily. “Ah mean… ah don’t like it, but yer right. We ain’t lyin’ and we don’t wanna let her know what we’re up to just yet, do we?” she asked, sagging a little bit.
Everypony else voiced their agreement. Rainbow smiled softly at them before nodding to Spike. “Okay, Spike. Uh… Considering the fact that our cover story includes me ‘not being here’,” she began, using air-quotes for emphasis. “Why don’t you write a reply telling mom that you’ll ask me about her offer when you all get back to Ponyville?”
Spike nodded and saluted. “Aye-aye, Princess!”
“Don’t call me that,” Rainbow said dryly before looking back towards everypony else. “When he’s done with that, we gotta figure out what we’re doing about Starlight.”
Everypony agreed with that but chose to remain quiet for the time being while Spike set about writing their response. He would occasionally run what he had written down thus far by Twilight and the others to make sure it lined up and made sense, only needing to make one or two corrections along the way.
While this was going on, Rainbow sat herself down by the window and looked out onto the busy streets of Manehattan, the city practically churning and writhing with activity beneath her.
In the back of her head, she felt that burning sensation at the thought that Starlight Glimmer was not far away...