"Why don't you tell the princess what you told me?"
"I dunno, Twilight. I can't believe I told you!"
The lavender unicorn sighed. "What's wrong with learning a lesson?"
"That's not it!" Rainbow Dash spread her wings to emphasize her point. "It sounds sappy! I'd rather not look like a baby, especially in front of the ruler of Equestria!"
Twilight rolled her eyes. "The princess is not going to think you're a baby. Just tell her."
"I learned something important, Twi. That's enough. I don't need to share it."
"You just admitted it's important," responded Twilight. "Doesn't that alone mean you should share it?"
The cyan pegasus tried to argue, but could do nothing but cast an annoyed stare. She scowled briefly as she tried to form a rebuttal. Failing this, she relented with a sigh.
"Fine."
"Great!" Twilight gleamed. "Come on! Let's go before you change your mind!"
"Like you'd let me..."
The unicorn trotted excitedly across the clouds towards her mentor, the most recognized political figure in the nation. Rainbow Dash walked less enthusiastically, barely lifting her hooves. She had no issues with speaking to Princess Celestia, but she had a reputation to uphold. She felt like she had been outshined. Normally something like this would scare her, but this didn't. In her mind, admitting to her pride would be a weakness, especially since she doubted she could have the same strength as the young mare she just saw perform.
The sky above was mostly clear, with only the occasional fluff travelling across the calm blue backdrop. The only meaningful cloud cover was that which made up the stadium and the adjacent floating city of Cloudsdale. The pegasi did a great job preparing the weather for today's event. Disappointingly, most ponies took the weather for granted today, as was strangely common in a city made up of the weather itself.
"Princess Celestia!" Twilight called as she and Rainbow neared the tall white authority. The winged, horned figure commanded a graceful and welcoming authority. The flowing pastel colors of her mane flowed behind her in the non-existent breeze.
"Good afternoon, Twilight Sparkle," the princess greeted cheerfully as she turned. "Rainbow Dash, it is good to see you as well! Those were some spectacular performances today, were they not?"
"Yeah." Rainbow chuckled. "Too bad I didn't get to perform! I'd have stolen the show!"
"I'm sure you would, but there really is no need for you to compete here anymore." The princess smiled. "It wouldn't be fair to the other contestants anyway, right?"
Rainbow passed a hoof through her multicolored mane. With her ego stroked, she nearly forgot about being embarrassed.
"Anyway, princess, Rainbow has something she wants to share with you."
The embarrassment returned. A bit of red appeared on Rainbow Dash's cheeks.
"Oh?" The princess looked at the pegasus. "What would that be?"
"Well... I was thinking about what Spitfire said about bravery."
"Do you disagree with her?" The princess raised an eyebrow.
"No." Rainbow paused. "I never thought about it that way. But I guess being brave doesn't mean facing danger. You can be brave without fighting to save Equestria or anything like that." The pegasus paused again and blinked a few times to try to save face. "Doing something other ponies think you can't takes a lot of guts too."
The princess smiled. "I agree. I doubt anypony here today expected to see what they did."
"Yeah," Rainbow spoke with a hint of a laugh. "Well, I gotta get going. They're waiting for me. See ya!"
"I understand," the princess said with a nod. As Rainbow turned to head back towards the stadium, Princess Celestia spoke again. "Are you proud of Scootaloo?"
Rainbow stopped and turned back around. With a large smile, she replied.
"Heck yeah, I am!"
===== Four years earlier ====
"Ugh!" Rainbow Dash complained. "How much longer is this going to take?"
Rainbow Dash stood in the most humiliating outfit she could ever imagine. It was pink. It was frilly. It had lace. It was something the proud pegasus would refuse to be caught dead wearing. She imagined she would re-animate herself by sheer will long enough to dispose of the dress in the event she died wearing it. She wanted to abandon her promise to Rarity two hours ago when she first saw the thing, but she couldn't bring herself to do so. Rarity was a friend, and Rainbow hated letting her friends down.
Rarity stood beside the pegasus. As always, she wore her mane in pristine royal purple curls and she had made sure her pure white coat was perfectly groomed.
In contrast, Rainbow Dash rarely spent much time on her appearance, since her high-speed flights always threw her mane out of place. She just chose to let her mane fall as it may today. It was by pure happenstance that the six distinct colors in her mane never seemed to mix.
"It will go faster if you quit fidgeting, dear," Rarity stated as she place a pin in the dress.
"I'm supposed to be clearing the clouds by now," Rainbow reminded her friend. "And I have plans for the rest of the day. I have stunts to work on!"
Rarity sighed. "You moved again, darling. We could have been done twenty minutes ago."
"Why didn't you ask Fluttershy to do this?"
"I did, but her bunny is sick and she's nursing the poor thing back to health."
The unicorn stared for a moment at her living mannequin's mane. With a sigh, she turned towards a dresser behind her and opened a drawer. Rainbow opened her mouth, but only an instant later her question was answered as Rarity turned back towards her with a hairbrush.
"I am sorry, but I just cannot concentrate. Your mane is a mess today!"
"Please don't." Rainbow knew it wouldn't work, but the utterance was not intentional to begin with. Even if nopony could see her right now, she was already handling more embarrassment than she thought she could handle.
Rarity brought the brush to her friend's bothersome mane. As she worked the kinks out of Rainbow Dash's mane and neatened it, she presented an idea.
"How about if we make a deal, Rainbow Dash?"
"Anything but this," Rainbow groaned.
"I will need to make alterations when the client gets here anyway, and she won't be here for a few weeks. My replacement pegasus mannequin will be here next week, so I could put this part off until then and work on other dresses…"
"Perfect," Rainbow said loudly. "Let's do that."
"However," Rarity added, still brushing the objecting pony's mane. "I would have to rearrange my schedule and such. You could do something else to make up for the inconvenience."
"I'm listening." A bit of irritation seeped out with the words Rainbow spoke. "What do you want?"
"It's not for me. It's for Sweetie Belle's friend."
"Your sister's friend?" Rainbow stopped. If it was Sweetie Belle's friend, that could be either of two fillies. Rainbow didn't care for the trio too much. The three tended to spend their days doing ridiculous things just to find what they were good at, and had a habit of annoying her in the process.
Rainbow squinted suspiciously. "You didn't ask me to help you with the dress just so you could make me do something slightly less embarrassing, did you?"
Rarity rolled her eyes. "Of course not, darling! Sweetie only asked me this morning before she left for school. Anyway, Scootaloo's birthday party is this Saturday, and you know she would be delighted if you could attend."
"No!" Rainbow spread her wings, pulling a few pins loose from the dress. "That kid? No!"
"Why not, dear?" Rarity took a step back and glanced at the pins on the ground before returning her attention to her friend. "She is your biggest fan. In fact, I'm fairly certain she's the president of your fan club. You could make her birthday very special just by showing your face. Of course you would need to bring a gift, as it is common courtesy…"
"No! It's great that she's the president of my unofficial fan club." Rainbow stressed the unofficial status. "But she's always following me around and bothering me! She's like a baby bird who thinks I'm her mommy! I am not giving her an excuse to stalk me!"
Rainbow stopped her argument when she heard knocking from the front door. "I thought you said you closed the shop for the day."
"I did. Anyway, please consider it. You could make a filly very happy on her birthday. While you think about, I will go see who is at the door." Rarity cantered through the door, making her way to the front door of her boutique.
Rainbow Dash was aggravated. She didn't want to be Rarity's mannequin any longer, but she was very hesitant to spend more time with Scootaloo than she already did in passing. That little pegasus filly dropped whatever she was doing whenever she spotted Rainbow. Whenever Rainbow was on the ground and Scootaloo was nearby, the filly would soon be by her side offering streams of compliments. Rainbow Dash loved attention, but that child offered too much of it.
Rainbow heard the chime of the front door opening, followed by a familiar, high-pitched, over-excited voice. She heard Rarity greet their mutual friend Pinkie Pie, and overheard snippets of a conversation involving extra cupcakes and delivering them to friends. Dread washed over the pegasus's face when she heard the next part of the conversation.
The pegasus heard Rarity say, "In fact, Rainbow Dash is here too if you want to give her a cupcake now."
Rainbow Dash found herself frozen, desperately trying to convince herself to make a break for it. If anypony saw her in this state, she could die from the humiliation. Unfortunately, if she ripped the dress off, she and Rarity would have to start over. There were many things in this room, but the only things large enough to hide her were against the wall. She hated it, but she stood still, hoping against all odds that Pinkie would not comment on the dress. She closed her eyes tightly.
"Oooh, Dashie! You're getting married?"
Rainbow opened her eyes to find a pink face inches from her own. Blue eyes danced before her, gleaming in excitement.
"Omigosh, Dashie! This is WONDERFUL! Who's the lucky stallion? Oh! Who's going to be your mare of honor? Can I cater? I can make you the bestestest wedding cake you have ever seen!"
The pink pony pounced around, assaulting Rainbow Dash with question after question, speaking so fast it became difficult to understand her. After what seemed like ages, the pink embodiment of a sugar rush took a much -needed breath in which Rainbow interjected.
"I'm not getting married, Pinkie."
Pinkie Pie's excitement instantly turned to disappointment. "Oh. I really thought it would work between the two of you."
After little more than a second, Pinkie's cheer returned. "Oh well. You'll find someone way better than that loser. Plenty of fish in the sea! Except you're a pony, not a fish, so you wouldn't really want to date a fish, unless you really want to date a fish, I guess… it's important to be open-minded about romance. Oh! Before I forget, I brought a cupcake for you! It'll cheer you up!"
"Uh, yeah… Thanks, Pinkie." Rainbow was shell-shocked by the rapid-fire discussion. "Just… Just set it over there." She nodded towards one of few empty spaces on the counters nearby.
Pinkie turned to her saddlebag and stuck her head inside to retrieve an intricately decorated cupcake with cyan frosting matching Rainbow Dash's coat. She balanced it upon her nose as she carried it over to the counter and sat it down. Exactly how the cupcake managed to stay pristine after being jostled around in a saddlebag on the back of a pony bouncing around like a rabbit hopped up on caffeine and sugar, was the type of question Pinkie's friends had learned not to ask. Regardless, Rainbow Dash and Rarity still wondered in silence.
"Okie-dokie-lokie," Pinkie said after resting the cupcake on the counter. "I'm off to deliver Twilight's and Applejack's cupcakes now! Seeya, girls!"
"Bye, darling. I'll see you out." Rarity set her cupcake next to the one Pinkie left for Rainbow.
"See ya, Pinkie Pie." Rainbow stood deadpan, still in her rare moment of awkward panic.
Rarity assured Rainbow Dash that she would be right back, and then led Pinkie Pie through the door. Rainbow took a long, drawn-out breath. She couldn't remember the last time she had been as mortified as she was currently. By the time Rarity returned, she had made up her mind. She could not take any more humiliation today.
"So, do I have to RSVP for this party or what?"