//------------------------------//
// ...But Are They Any Good? 
// Story: Cheating at a Thousand Words 
// by SparklingTwilight 
//------------------------------//

Rainbow Dash had to write a thousand word essay for school. The going had been tough, but a proper pegasus kept going and eventually the work was finished--one way or another. Rainbow Dash wasn't a "proper" pegasus. She had speed, gobs of it, but not endurance or focus.

She chatted, helped Fluttershy brush up on flying technique, then dashed to the store and picked up extra clouds to shore up a sagging corner of her trophy room, burgeoning with prizes commemorating racing victories won even against cheaters. 

Despite athletic prizes, Dash had failed too many classes, so her academic status and future employment depended on the essay. She had offers from weather districts and applied to the Wonderbolts--the most-awesomeist aerial performance group; however, the Wonderbolts would never be interested in a failure.

But friends came first, and when Fluttershy returned to Dash's with a big smile after passing the remedial flying course's final, Dash threw a foreleg around her. "Awesome! Time to Par-tay!" And they did, with nose-candy, cake and snooker, reflecting on how Dash's imparted lessons were key to Fluttershy's success. When Dash first offered to help, she had imagined it would only take a brief few hours instead of an entire school year! But she was loyal to her friend, no matter the cost... and anyway, she would not have used freed-up time to study. 

Thus, it was early in the morning when Rainbow Dash finally began her essay.

"This thousand word essay takes a thousand words to tell a story of a thousand words that is a Thousand Words of Awesome!" Rainbow Dash started. "A THOUSAND words seems like only a little bit, but it can really become super-duper-califragilistic-frustrating to reach, so I'll add some fluff. Fluff. Fluff. Fluff, fluff-fluff-fluff-fluff-fluff-fluff-fluff-fluff-fluff..." and it went on like that for 940 words--Dash's counting skills weren't great.

An hour before the essay was due, Fluttershy returned. Hearing Dash's deep and monstrous snoring, she shrieked, but soon recovered, realizing a monster had not replaced her friend. So, she shook Dash awake, "Are you ready?"

"Blew it away," bleary-eyed Dash bobbed her head.

"May I look?"

"Sure," Dash hoofed it over.

Fluttershy's brow furrowed. "Oh, Dashie. This... needs some work."

"Noooooooooooooooo!" Dash buried her face in her hooves.

"...You still have time... not much, though. Your assignment was--"

"Gotta write a thousand words."

"On what?"

"A thousand words."

"...May I see the prompt?"

"The what?"

"The assignment." 

Dash merely blinked, so Fluttershy sifted through papers until she uncovered one. "Discuss, in at least a thousand words, how you overcame a struggle about flying."

"I've always been an awesome flyer!" Rainbow Dash declared. "I can't write about struggling! Wait. There was a topic?"

Fluttershy sighed. "Dashie, I'll help."

"Okay!" Dash nodded.

"Can you dictate--"

"Mmmph." Dash put a hoof to her mouth, laughing.

"What?" Fluttershy asked.

"You said dic-"

"Dash!" Fluttershy bopped her friend's snout. "Focus!"

"I've never struggled at flying."

Fluttershy frowned. "But your endurance and focus... you didn't follow the instructions."

Dash shrugged. "Guide me. I'll dash it off--heh-heh."

"You could write about your struggles with focus and endurance."

Dash, lightning-fast wrote, pen in mouth. Soon, she hoofed the product over to Fluttershy.

"Oh my," Fluttershy frowned. "This won't do."

"Why not?"

Fluttershy squinted: "'I focus bad. I tire fast. I have bad focus. Try hard. Work better. No sleeptime. Win.' Then, it repeats."

"Let's adjust..." Fluttershy kindly inserted carats and expanded sentences with a wavering pen and a sweating brow.

"Class is like in thirty minutes," Dash noted.

Fluttershy set aside her edits. "This is a terrible idea, but get a new sheet."

"Okay!" Dash dipped a quill in its ink reservoir.

Fluttershy related how a pegasus lacked confidence to focus, but a friend helped her endure and pass an important test!

"That doesn't seem cool enough," Dash complained.

Fluttershy fixed Dash with a strong stare. "What looks less cool--being held back or writing about learning!"

"When you put it that way..." Dash considered. "Both sound pretty uncool. I'm not an egghead."

Flutttershy filled her cheeks, then released their contents with a shout: "You could fail!"

Dash blinked: "But isn't writing a thinly-disguised story about you cheating?"

Fluttershy sighed. "It'll also be true for your experience when you pass."

"But it isn't my words."

Fluttershy swallowed. "Don't you want to pass?"

Dash nodded, visions of Wonderbolt membership dancing in her head.

"Write."

Dash finished scribbling. "So... I'm a cheater," Dash frowned.

Fluttershy shivered. "It's... not really cheating."

"Whaaa?" Dash cocked her head.

"You... wrote it...and you aren't plagiarizing since I'm dictating."

"Huh," Dash nodded. "Plague-ism has to be written?"

"Yes," Fluttershy said, authoritatively.(She's wrong.)




"So," Rainbow Dash admitted to her friends gathered around the campfire for Truth or Dare. "That's my greatest secret."

"Ya' mean ya' shouldn't have graduated?" Applejack, the Element of Honesty, narrowed her eyes.

Apple Bloom's mouth gaped wide.

"And Fluttershy helped cheat!" Rarity exclaimed.

"Yeah," Dash elaborated, whispering to Rarity, "she's sort of a cheater... don't tell you-know-who."

Rarity blushed, then made a sign over her lips with a hoof.

"I knew I should be cheating!" Scootaloo turned to Sweetie Belle with a look of disgust. "I've already got things going against me," she indicated her undersized flightless wings. "Like Rainbow Dash, I should seize every opportunity. You can't argue that Rainbow shouldn'ta been held back in school! If she had, she might not have become an Element of Harmony and saved Equestria!"

Sweetie Belle, who had been counseling Scootaloo against cheating, studied the ground.

"Heh, heh," Rainbow Dash chuckled. "Maybe, but that also led to my greatest shame."

After another round, Rainbow Dash explained that due to her poor understanding of mathematics, she spent a week in tax prison for improperly calculated taxes. Nowadays, her Wonderbolt salary would let her hire professionals, but: "If I had studied better, Scootaloo, then I wouldn't have had that problem."

Judging by the gigantic grin on Scootaloo's face, it was unlikely that the filly would take the warning to heart.