Twilight was ready to talk to Rainbow about Fluttershy. She also had another thing she wanted to talk to her about the other information Princess Celestia sent her.
A Few Days Ago
Twilight was nursing a hangover that now was the bane of her existence. Celestia know thought that Twilight needed to get a special somepony especially after what Twilight had sent her. The purple unicorn still wondered if she did have feelings for the ruler of Equestria. She dismissed it at once because of the sheer craziness of that idea. She stared once again at the sheet of paper in front of her.
“Search for the sky pirate Rainbowmane. Last seen around Appleloosa. The mare’s most defining feature is her mane. It is the shades of the rainbow. Genetic information is that the pigment denotes a branch of the family of the past hero Commander Hurricane. The probability that a mane color like that happens outside of familial lines is one in a billion.
Twilight-
As you can see I talked to my Guards and we believe that your friend is a pirate. Rainbowmane’s list of accomplishments is vast. She has disrupted trade between Appleloosa and Canterlot for a few years, traded state secrets to Equestria’s enemies, and caused quite a bit of trouble with the law since she was a foal. Use caution.”
Princess Celestia
Twilight laughed. Since she sent the letter she hadn’t seen Dash do anything threatening or illegal. She slept all the time and was an overall decent pony with a loyal streak a mile wide. She had to talk to Dash about this.
The Shipyard
Twilight knocked on the hatch of Rainbow’s ship, The Prism, and the hatch swooshed open. “Hey Twilight, what’s up?” Rainbow looked around shiftily.
“We need to talk. I wanted to learn more about you and I sent your name into the Guard records and this came up,” Twilight held up the paper. “oh and have you heard? Fluttershy punched me.”
“Can we talk about this later? I have company and I-”
“Dash? Who are you talking to?” Twilight realized that she knew that voice. She pushed Dash out of the way.
“YOU!” Fluttershy glanced up when she saw Twilight and smiled.
“How are you?” She asked with a meek little grin.
“Dash. Tell. Me. Exactly. How. You Know. Fluttershy. From the beginning.”
Dash looked back and forth between the two mares in her house. “Okay I guess.”
“It all started when I was just a small filly living in New Cloudsdale. This was around the time that machines started popping up and the Wonderbolts became a thing of the past. The new thing was airships and boy did I love them, my dad and I started going to all these shows and I knew that when I grew up I wanted to have my own airship. So I joined the nearest flight camp.”
Fluttershy piped up. “This is where I come in.”
The Past
Fluttershy was trying to keep away from all the bullies who teased her for being different. It wasn’t her fault she liked building things instead of flying. She hid inside the closest ship that she could because she knew they wouldn’t find her there. Just when she was about to get comfortable, a voice scared her half to death.
“This is so cool. I can’t wait to fly this thing.”
Fluttershy peeked over the boxes to see that the pegasus had a rainbow mane and was close to her age. She also didn’t have a cutie mark. which Fluttershy found to be okay since she didn’t have one either.
“Well I don’t see anypony else around. I’m gonna see how fast this baby can go.” And with that, the blue pegasus started hitting every button on the console. Fluttershy knew that was completely wrong since she knew a bit on how these ships worked. She was going to show the other filly how to fly this properly until the engine blasted them off into Equestria’s blue sky.
“This is just so awesome. I can’t wait to tell my family about this.”
Fluttershy crawled to the blue pegasus and said, “My name’s Fluttershy. And, um, the strain you are putting on the ship will cause extreme altitude loss in about fifteen seconds.”
The blue pegasus jumped in surprise. “Woah, didn’t think somepony else was here. My name’s Rainbow Dash, and I want to be the greatest airship captain in Equestria. And what was that about the airship?”
“I-” The airship began to nosedive strait towards the ground.
We are so dead.
Fluttershy jumped into action. “Rainbow Dash, there are switches that control the flow of magic in this airship. Pull those and the engines should right themselves and then you can straighten out the issues with falling to our deaths.”
“How do you know that?” Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow.
“Well, I plan on building machines that make everypony’s lives better so I do have to have an idea how these things work.”
“Okay then.” Rainbow Dash did the necessary actions that Fluttershy had outlined and the airship evened out, but not before it crashed into the Rainbow Falls.
The two fillies looked out of the ship and, besides being a little worse for the wear, were okay.
Rainbow Dash was ecstatic. “Woohoo! Did you see how awesome we were? That was so cool. And how you just were like ‘I know what to do’ and blam we were flying and falling and I have so much adrenaline right now.” Fluttershy was shocked when Rainbow Dash surprised her by kissing her.
Fluttershy blushed heavily while Dash continued speaking. “Now Fluttershy, this is going to be the start of a great friendship.”
Neither noticed the new cutie mark Rainbow Dash had of a airship billowing a plume of rainbow colored smoke.
A Few Years Later
Rainbow Dash was excited for Fluttershy. She had finally gotten her cutie mark after building a robotic bird that sang a familiar tune and she had been running all over the airship that they lived in for an hour.
“Calm down Fluttershy.” Rainbow Dash chuckled a bit. Seeing Fluttershy like this was a breath of fresh air especially after that Iron Will character had given her “assertiveness” training and she had developed a nasty anger management issue that kept most of the ponies away from her fearing her wrath. Which was usually unfounded.
“But Rainbow...I am just so happy that I finally got my cutie mark.” Said cutie mark was of thre gears with wings.
“I know but we have to get going to Appleloosa. The next shipment of Princess Celestia’s gold reserves is heading towards the city and I want to pick it up.” Rainbow Dash grinned.
“Stop the story.”
Dash looked straight at Twilight. “What?”
“So you are Rainbowmane!” Twilight said angrily.
“Uh yeah. You just figured it out now. How many pegasi do you know of with my color of hair? I only know of my family that has this.”
Fluttershy piped up. “I came up with the name.”
“Twilight, I know that you probably don’t like this, but it was one of the few ways we survived out here. The frontier is not Canterlot. And even “the jewel of Equestria” is flawed. How many poor ponies have you seen in Canterlot? Probably none. I've dealt with the lowest of the low and the highest of the high in my profession and I have to say that you aristocrats live a lie. You think everything is going to be fine when actually there are hints of rebellion in the poor.” Rainbow Dash spoke with vigor.
“But...”
“And what of your ideas of harmony in these times of machines? You only see the good side of the Equestrian Revolution: more things for you to buy, more prosperity. While you sit on high moral ground, I have tried to spread the wealth a little better so you don’t have to see your ideals of peace and harmony get dragged through the filth that is reality.” Rainbow Dash sighed.
Twilight had no answer. She was conflicted: on one hand, Dash was a pirate, on the other she seemed to be a good pony.
“I’m going to have to think about this. See you later, Fluttershy.”
“See you too.”
“Dear Princess Celestia,
I talked to Rainbow Dash and she did say that her family had that special mane. But after talking to her, I found out something about my, dare I say it, friend. You might think that a person is a bad person, but maybe if you get to know them maybe they aren’t half bad to hang around. I believe that Rainbow Dash had a good reason for her actions and as such i believe that she has changed. If she has ever been Rainbowmane, she did it for reasons that are not so cut and dried than her just being a bad pony.
Twilight Sparkle"
Canterlot Castle
“Natura are you ready to visit Appleloosa yet?”
An alicorn that looked very similar to Celestia trotted on out of her chambers. “Yes, dad.”
Discord grinned at his daughter. “Remember that this is a vacation that we all wanted to go on. Plus messing with Twilight is going to be fantastic.”
Celestia walked in. “Yes Discord, I will allow for that to happen. But remember everypony the real reason for our visit. We definitely need to get Twilight a special somepony.”