Chapter Eight
For a brief moment, Rarity just stared at the farmer pony, her lips partially drawn back in a look of mixed bewilderment and concern, as if Opal had just jumped onto the breakfast table and vomited a ten-carat diamond right onto morning breakfast.
“So you’re telling me that Rainbow Dash lost her memory, and when Twilight Sparkle tried to help her, she ended up making Rainbow believe that she’s Daring Do? And then after attempting some kind of trance therapy with Zecora, our friend is now galavanting through Ponyville on what can be best described as a literary brain-bender?”
“Is it really necessary to repeat everything I had just told you not ten seconds ago?” Applejack deadpanned in response.
“You’ll have to forgive me for being a bit taken off-guard given that your story does sound a bit...unbelievable at first,” Rarity explained in a polite apology. “I just wanted to make sure I hadn’t misheard you, or that Discord wasn’t just playing a prank on us again.”
“Believe me, Ah wish this was one of his jokes.” If Discord had been involved in this entire ordeal, he would have been rubbing it in their faces the entire time. The avatar of chaos was many things, but subtle was not one of them. Given how desperate the situation was, even asking him for help was beginning to sound like a worthwhile course of action. However, there was a reason why nobody ever asked Discord for help, especially not since last Winter Wrap-Up Day; some of the trees still smelled of cinnamon.
By the time that Applejack had finished bringing her friend up to speed on this week’s disaster that made life in Ponyville anything but dull, they had arrived back in town to search for Twilight. Applejack had abandoned her friend in a rather sticky situation and felt compelled to help her before resuming their joint venture in finding Rainbow Dash.
However, upon returning to the scene of the glue-bombing, their friend had already left the scene. All that remained were smears of dried glue across the ground with a pony-shaped void in the center, along with tufts of fur, mane, and feathers. For a brief moment, Applejack was worried that Rainbow Dash may have returned to the scene to ‘take care’ of the pony thought to be the evil sorceress, Azura.
“You don’t think Rainbow Dash came back for her, do you?” Rarity inquired.
“Ah sure hope not,” Applejack said with growing worry, “Daring Do never struck me as the type to kick a pony when they’re down, but she also don’t stop at nothing to get what she’s after.”
Regardless of the how, that still left the unanswered question as to where their friend had made off to, but that mystery was a brief one as Rarity spotted some glue-stained hoofprints leading down a side street. Like detectives following the trail of a glue-store robbery, Applejack and Rarity followed the trail of glued feathers and fur all the way back to the Ponyville Library, which in hindsight should probably have been their first guess as to where Twilight had run off to.
“Ah hope she’s okay,” Applejack commented before setting a hoof on the door and giving it a push. “Hey Twilight, are you—” The farmer’s words came to an abrupt halt when, rather than yielding to the farmer, the door remained stubbornly shut, resulting in a face-first encounter with solid mahogany. “Consarnit! What in the hay? Since when does Twilight lock her door?”
“What if Rainbow Dash did go back for her?” Rarity said with a startled gasp.
Daring Do had left Applejack gagged and suspended from a rafter in a barn outside of town, and that was the treatment for a former lover. One could only imagine the kind of situation a delusional Rainbow Dash would have left Twilight in if she thought that the alicorn princess was an evil sorceress. Sadly, Applejack had a very vivid imagination, and her thoughts were soon flooded with thoughts of Twilight Sparkle being tied up and hung from the ceiling, hounded by a delusional pegasus who thought the librarian was after a priceless artifact. That imagination was helped along when they heard a sharp, distinctive yelp of pain echo from an upstairs window. There was no mistaking that voice for anyone but Twilight.
“Oh sweet, merciful apples,” the farmer muttered to herself once the horrid images in her mind proved too much to bear. “Ah’m a-coming, Twi!” Without further consideration, such as using a window or climbing up to the balcony, Applejack loosed her apple-bucking legs upon the library door. Whether it was a tree or a door, all wood yielded to the veteran apple farmer when she unleashed her full fury upon them. While the door was resilient, the frame in which it was housed was less so - the hinges shattered instantly. Wooden splinters and busted screws were sent scattering across the library, followed seconds later by the resonating ‘thud’ of the library door.
Of course, upon entering the library, the two ponies did not see any captive Twilight to be rescued, but rather a startled and confused looking Spike, who had just dove for cover to avoid being hit by a flying slab of mahogany.
“Opps, sorry about that, Spike,” Applejack apologized with a sheepish grin upon seeing the startled little dragon.
“It’s a good thing that Twilight budgets for library repairs,” Spike muttered once he got up and dusted himself off. Equally fortunate was the fact that library repairs had been under budget for the last fiscal quarter, which could be attributed to Twilight finally mastering the use of her wings and her royal duties impeding with her experimentations.
Noticing that Spike was acting rather casual, with the exception of having almost been pancaked by a door, Applejack began to think that she may have been a bit hasty in rushing to the rescue. “Is...everything okay here, Spike?” she asked. “Twilight’s not in any kind of danger is she?”
“Beats me,” Spike answered with equal confusion as to the earth pony’s unusual questions. “One second I’m minding my own business, and then suddenly Twilight comes barging in, and locks herself in her bedroom.”
“Was she okay?”
“I don’t know.” Spike shrugged his shoulder to emphasize his uncertainty. “I was cleaning the basement when I heard her come in. By the time I got up here, she had already gone upstairs. When I tried to ask what was going on, she just told me to go mop up the mess.” The dragon then directed the two ponies’ attention to a nearby mop and bucket, both of which had been crushed underneath the door, creating a mess that Spike would have to clean.
While Applejack was able to breath a sigh of relief with the knowledge that her friend was not in any danger, she was still curious as to why the alicorn princess retreated to her library in such a hasty fashion. Leaving Spike to tend to his cleaning duties, the two ponies headed upstairs and discovered, unsurprisingly, that Twilight’s bedroom door had also been barred.
With more restraint this time around, Applejack knocked upon the bedroom door. “Twi, are you in there?” she called out, her voice still full of concern but now with less urgency.
“Oh? Applejack, is that you?” Twilight’s voice echoed from the other side of the wooden barrier. Her voice sounded a bit frantic, as though her attention was drawn to something more urgent. “Did you manage to get Rainbow Dash?”
“Um, no. She got away,” Applejack reported. “Are you alright in there, sugarcube?”
“Who? Me? Oh, I’m fine. Perfectly fine. Yup! Everything is a-OW!-okay in here!” Twilight’s hasty and haphazard response conveyed the sense that things were anything but ‘fine’. She would have had better luck convincing them that she was Nightmare Moon. Something was wrong, that much was obvious, but without any sign of immediate danger, kicking down the door now seemed like too extreme of a solution.
After concluding an eyeroll that threatened to launch her eyes from their socket, Applejack gave it another shot. “Well, could you open the door then so we can talk? Ah need your help if Ah’m going to catch up to Rainbow Dash.” With any luck, appealing to Twilight’s helpful nature would prompt a more honest response.
“I...uh, can’t right now. I’m in the middle of something super important.” Once again, Twilight’s response was as convincing an apple swearing its a banana. “You go on ahead without me. I’ll catch up as soon as I can. Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine! Er, I mean, of course I’ll be fine because there’s nothing wrong with me!”
Applejack and Rarity exchanged worried glances before the farmer pony stepped aside and motioned for her friend to try her luck at coaxing the reclusive alicorn out. “Twilight, dear, it’s me,” Rarity began, trying to allow her voice to be a warm blanket to comfort her friend. “Could you please open the door so we can talk? If there’s something troubling you, I’m sure we can work through it together.”
There was a brief, but tenseful pause before finally a sigh of resignation echoed from the other side. “Okay, but you girls have to promise not to laugh...or scream, in Rarity’s case.”
“Now why in Equestria would I—SWEET STARS OF CANTERLOT!”
Despite her best efforts, shock and bewilderment got the better of Rarity’s composure when the door opened up. On the other side was a mangy-looking Twilight Sparkle, with huge clumps of fur missing, exposing red, sore, and raw flesh beneath, and a ruined mane that looked as though it had just been on the losing side of a duel with a pair of deranged hedge clippers. Her wings had not been spared either, both of which had been robbed of a large portion of their form and colour, leaving little more than twitching appendages curled against her side like timid woodland creatures.
“Hey Twi, you’re looking… um, swell,” Applejack greeted with her best attempt to maintain her composure. “How’d you get out of that glue mess?”
“A pair of scissors and a lot of shrieking,” Twilight deadpanned whilst ignoring Rarity’s flabberghasted stares. “I take you didn’t have any better luck?”
“Ah may have been lured into a trap and strung from the ceiling by mah fetlocks,” Applejack admitted with some reluctance. She then motioned to her unicorn friend, who was still staring at Twilight’s mane as though it had sprouted eyes. “Lucky for me, Winona managed to get Rarity’s attention, and she helped me down.”
It took a sharp nudge from Applejack, but eventually the dumb-founded Rarity was brought back to her senses. “Oh! I...er, anyways, Applejack explained to me what happened, and I was hoping there might be some way I could help. Perhaps I could start with helping you with your mane, or what’s left of it at least.”
“Rainbow’s safety is top priority,” Twilight explained as she stepped aside to allow her friends to enter. “Although, I’m beginning to run out of ideas at this point. I mean, between Rainbow’s speed and Daring’s cunning, I feel like we’re a bit out of our league.” Although it was tempting, once her friends were inside, Twilight refrained from closing the door behind them. “And I’m sorry for trying to brush you off earlier. I was letting my vanity get the better of me.”
The disheveled princess promptly received a reassuring pat on the back from her trusty and honest friend. “Don’t you worry about it, Twi,” Applejack told her. “The sooner we get this Rainbow problem solved, the sooner we can work on fixin’ yours.”
The three ponies paused and pondered their precarious problem, pacing about the room with hooves scratching their chins. Finally, Rarity turned to the others with an idea in mind. “Sometimes when I’m having trouble getting Opal into her travelling basket, I have to coax her into coming out with some treats or one of her favourite toys.”
“Ah think you might be onto something there, Rarity,” Applejack nodded in agreement with eager grin spreading across her face. “Daring will also go to wherever her goal is, so we just gotta use that to make her come to us. She kept mentioning something about a book - she must be referring to that lost Star Swirl book.”
“Except we don’t have it,” Twilight pointed out.
“We also don’t have an evil sorceress, but that didn’t stop Rainbow from thinking that was you,” Applejack explained. “We just need a book and we gotta convince her that it’s the book she’s after.”
“And how exactly do we convince her that we’ve got the book when we can’t even convince her that we’re not who she thinks we are?” Twilight didn’t want to be a nay-sayer, but she was having trouble thinking of how they could convince a pegasus, who happened to be delusional and convinced they were the enemy, that a random book was the book that everypony was after. “Even what we say is distorted by her delusions.”
“Perhaps she would respond better to you if you tried to play along with her,” Rarity suggested.
The suggestion made Applejack think back to her conversation back in the barn with Rainbow Dash, and to how the pegasus responded to her. “That might actually work,” the farmer pony agreed. “Back in the barn, some of the things Ah said did seem to get through.”
“Well, you and Blondie do share certain qualities,” Twilight added as she began to see the reasoning behind their new plan. It was a longshot, but they were starting to run out of options. “One other thing, Applejack, I know you didn’t want to make a huge issue out of it, but I think it might be time to get some extra help.”
As Daring Do had often learned in her adventures, quite often the best place to hide when ponies were looking for you was out in the open, or more specifically, in the midst of a crowded restaurant. It had the added benefit in that she was famished, and it was hard to save the world on an empty stomach. To the casual observer, she was just another pony out of many enjoying a nice, hearty lunch. It served as a good distraction, too, as the incident with Blondie was still weighing heavily on her mind. She had said that she had moved on, but Daring wondered if that remark was more to convince herself than her prisoner. After five years, Daring Do had long since abandoned any hope of finding the remarkable mystery mare, so why did it bother her so much?
Maybe she hadn’t abandoned hope. Telling Blondie off put closure to a long-standing uncertainty in her life, but it had been a comforting uncertainty. Clinging to the forlong notion that one day Blondie might come waltzing back into her life made it easier for Daring to forsake intimacy. It made it easier to endure the many long, solemn nights in her cottage retreat. Now what did she have to look forward to at the end of the day other than smug self-satisfaction and an empty bed?
Daring Do’s spiralling sense of emotional turmoil came to an abrupt halt when a siren-like shriek of a young filly cut through the air. Bursting through the restaurant door was a familiar-looking pegasus filly - the same one that had helped her earlier in the day.
“Quick, we need a doctor! It’s Blondie, and she’s hurt real bad!”
There were gasps and confused murmurs amongst the patrons, but alas no doctors to step forward. After a frantic scan across the room to confirm the lack of volunteers, the filly raced out the door once again to continue her apparent quest to find help. Once she had left, Daring quickly tossed a few bits onto her plate and bolted for the door. Her instincts warned her of a trap, but she had left Blondie tied up in a barn so if anything had befallen the gunslinger as a result, then Daring would have that on her conscience.
Outside the restaurant, a crowd of ponies had already begun to gather. She could heard the murmurs and gasps of horror, all of which motivated the archaeologist to push her way to the front. In the center of the crowd, covered in caked sand and smeared blood, was the nameless mare.
Concern overrode Daring’s usual sense of caution as she quickly raced to the gunslinger’s side. “Blondie! Blondie, can you hear me?” From a cursory examination, it seemed as though somepony had worked over the gunslinger like the proverbial piñata. “Come on, wake up you stubborn mare!”
It took a few more ‘encouraging’ pats on the cheek, but gradually the nameless mare came to. “D-Daring?” she murmured, her voice strained and weakened.
“Don’t you worry, Blondie, I’ll get you to Doc Tenderhoof and we can get you fixed up in a jiffy!”
“No time,” the nameless mare groaned as she reached out for Daring. “You were...you were right. Azura...double-crossed me. She’s...she’s going after the book. Ya...gotta stop her...’fore it’s too late.”
The book!
Although Daring Do knew the importance of stopping Azura’s plot, it felt wrong to just abandon Blondie again. “But what about you? I can’t leave you like this, Blondie.”
“Go, ya dang fool!” Blondie said in the best attempt at a barked order she could muster with the limited strength she had left. “Equestria itself...could be in peril.”
Despite being torn between loyalties, however fleeting one of them was, Daring Do knew that the safety of Equestria had to come before all else. “Which way did Azura go?”
“Towards...Madame Violet’s parlour…” With her last ounce of strength, the struggling gunslinger pointed a hoof towards a building down the road: a large and ornate building that was far above the income level of everyone else in town. Before Daring could question Blondie further, the mare fell into the cold embrace of unconsciousness. Now she had two things motivating her to get Azura: saving Equestria, and exacting revenge for what happened to Blondie.
“Make sure she gets to a doctor!” Daring instructed before flying off towards the aforementioned parlour. In a strange, grim way of looking at things, Blondie’s incapacitation meant that she no longer had to worry about confronting the gunslinger. Now she was free to show Azura just how daring she could really be. No matter what happened, Daring was determined to finish this.
She was getting tired of playing on the defensive anyways; running and hiding from adversaries had never been her style. It was time to take the offensive, which sometimes meant throwing caution to the wind and drop-kicking your way through a window. Who needed subtlety anyways?
“All right, Azura, it’s time to end this!” Daring Do shouted out shortly after landing inside the parlour. Unfortunately, in her haste, all that Daring accomplished was break a window and land in the midst of a room full of mannequins, all adorned in a plethora of attires. There was no sign of anypony, but the absence of evidence was not the evidence of absence. Cautiously, Daring Do began to skulk through the forest of fabrics, eyes alert for any sign of movement.
All of the curtains had been drawn, casting darkness through the entire room, save for the window that Daring had come in from. Unfortunately, as the outside breeze came through the opening, the fluttering curtains played with the lighting, causing the shadows to dance across the walls. It was hard to keep track of every moving shadow; in fact, she didn’t even see the stallion standing just a few feet away from her until he had tackled her to the ground with all the force of a locomotive.
“Well look who finally decided to drop in,” a voice echoed from beyond the shadows. The faint glow of a magic aura drew Daring’s attention to a large, leather-bound tome that floated into her view. “Looking for this?”
“Maybe—why don’t you bring it a bit closer so I can see it better,” Daring sneered in response. Unfortunately, her pithy comeback only earned her a mocking laugh from the disembodied voice.
“Give it up, Daring, you’ll never beat me,” the voice continued taunting as the book hovered closer in order to tease the pegasus further. “If you want the book so badly, maybe I’ll just let you have a little peek inside.”
As the book began to drift closer, the trapped archaeologist saw an opportunity to capitalize on Azura’s hubris. With a quick flick of her head, Daring Do tossed off her helmet and caught it between her teeth. The extra bit of reach it proved was all she needed to knock the book aside, disrupting the magical field enveloping it, followed by a surprising surge of strength to buck the stallion off of her back.
“Quick, somebody stop her!” the voice shouted as Daring Do grabbed the book.
The hefty-sized stallion quickly jumped to his hooves and attempted to crash tackle the archaeologist once more. This time, however, Daring Do was ready to receive the lumbering goon, diving low towards him just as he began his tackle. As his legs were bowled out from under him, his considerable momentum carried him across the room and crashing into a collection of mannequins. But Azura had brought more than just one stallion to help her; a second stallion emerged from the shadows and charged at the pegasus.
“Catch!” Daring shouted as she did the unexpected and tossed the book towards the stallion. Thankfully, his reflexes were quick enough that he caught the book just before it struck him in the face, but at the same time his charge skidded to a halt. He didn’t realize how open his defenses were until a sharp kick right to the gut left him crumpled on the ground like a used dishcloth.
“Give that book back!” The disembodied voice revealed itself as the robed unicorn, Azura, stepped out into view. “Just put the book down, Daring, and I won’t have to resort to using my magic.”
Daring paused for a second, glancing to her surroundings as she mulled over her options. “You’ll have to catch me first!” she boldly declared before diving into the forest of mannequins. Between all the shadows and fancy hats adorning the felt models, the archaeologist vanished like dust into the breeze.
“You can’t hide from me, Daring Do!” Azura scoffed.
As tempting as it was to just charge headlong in the hopes of finding Daring before she got too far ahead, Azura could see an obvious lure when it presented itself. Instead, she simply used her magic to move the mannequins from one side of the room to the other. In clusters of five or six, the figures were carried across, whittling down Daring’s cover bit by bit. Azura kept a look out for a telltale sign of a pith helmet or a gray-toned mane. However, the sorceress’ attention was so focused on finding a pegasus hiding beneath cover, she failed to notice that amongst a cluster of mannequins, Daring Do had taken the place of one of the figurines, clothing and all.
The statuesque pegasus waited until Azura set her down on the other side of the room before making a stealthy shuffle to the exit. Given that Azura would soon have the entire mannequin stock displaced, whereupon she’d realize Daring’s plot, the archaeologist bolted out the door as soon as she was out of the sorceress’ sight.
“Ha! Too easy,” Daring chuckled in self-congratulation. She gave one last glance over her shoulder to ensure that there were no followers before deciding to take to the sky. Sadly, the second she went back to looking ahead, all she saw was a blur of orange and yellow before running headlong into something solid and coma-inducing.
“How in the—Rarity, quick! Rainbow must have slipped past us somehow!” Surprised didn’t even begin to describe the cloak-and-jeweled-adorned Twilight when she moved the last of the mannequins, only to find more empty floor space and a single, undressed mannequin removed from its stand.
Rarity was still over helping a weary-looking Soarin’ and Big Mac, both of whom were slow to get back to their hooves. “She’s escaped?” Rarity replied. “And she still has my diary? Oh, why did I agree to let you use that for the bait?”
Wasting no time in making a run for the door, Twilight motioned for the other ponies to follow. “If we hurry, we might be able to catch up to her,” she explained.
Unfortunately, not everypony was up for the task. “You go on ahead,” Soarin’ said with a pained groan while still doubled-over. “I just...need a minute to collect myself. Good thing that Spitfire is already pregnant.”
Leaving the pegasus in Big Mac’s care, Rarity and Twilight raced out the door, intent on chasing full speed after Rainbow Dash...only to skid to a halt just meters from the door. There, sprawled across the ground, was a semi-conscious Rainbow Dash, and standing over her was Spitfire with a dented garbage can lid in her hooves.
“Lose something?” Spitfire quipped with a small triumphant smirk. She couldn’t help but chuckle as the other ponies just stared at her in awe-struck silence.
“Did you...knock her out with a garbage can lid?” Twilight asked.
“Well you told me to keep an eye out for her, and when I saw her running from the boutique, I stepped in and stopped her,” Spitfire explained while she pounded out the bend in the aforementioned garbage lid. “I believe the proper response should be ‘way to go Spitfire, good job’.”
Twilight’s expression gave the message that she was anything but impressed with the pegasus. “You could’ve seriously injured her!” she shouted.
“And judging from that high-pitched, girlish scream I heard thirty seconds ago, Rainbow just ‘seriously injured’ my husband-to-be,” Spitfire pointed out. “Besides, my plan clearly worked better than your silly ideas with your costumes and booby-trapped books.”
Just at that moment, Rainbow Dash let out a dazed moan. The pegasus was slowly coming back to reality, but was still underneath the heavy haze of the blunt-force anesthetics. Spitfire was the first to notice the stirring pony, and promptly picked up the stolen book. She held the book a few inches from Rainbow’s face and opened it up, triggering the hidden trap inside that released a small cloud of knock-out gas directly into the victim’s face. With one last dwindling groan, Rainbow Dash fell back unconscious.
Twilight and Rarity were able to breath a small sigh of relief, both at the safe return of Rarity’s diary and their success in capturing the runamuck Rainbow Dash. With their friend safely subdued, they gathered their things and returned to the library.
“And that's when Spitfire smashed you in the face with the garbage can lid.”
“Hey, I wasn't about to try and tussle with her; I'm pregnant, remember?”
Despite the vocal protest, Twilight ignored the pegasus' remarks and continued explaining the situation to the now-recovering Rainbow Dash, who still had an ice pack over the bruise on her head.
“Anyways,” Twilight carried on, “once we got you back to the library, Zecora was able to brew an antidote, and we were finally able to make you better.”
Better was a relative term. While the aching pegasus wasn't mistaking Twilight for her nemesis, her memories were still about as fragmented and misconstrued as they had been before her delusional bender. The events explained by the alicorn left Rainbow feeling humbled and extremely apologetic, particularly to Soarin' who was still off in the corner of the library with his fiance upon his shoulder and an ice pack between his legs. Twilight, too, was still recovering from her 'injuries', but thanks to an application of some growth magic, she no longer had patches of fur missing.
“I still don't understand how Zecora's treatment could have had such a disastrous result,” commented Rarity, who stood behind Twilight with several combs and a pair of scissors. The growth magic had not restored the Princess' mane to its original state, but Rarity had graciously volunteered to make the necessary alterations while the others conversed.
“According to Zecora, powdered poison joke got mixed into her brew somehow,” Twilight explained. The mentioning of the familiar blue plant surprised everyone in the room, save for Rainbow Dash. “Now I believe Zecora when she said that there was no
way she would've used poison joke by mistake. Unfortunately, that only leaves one alternative.”
Applejack gasped upon realizing her friend's implications. “Somepony poisoned her on purpose? But you, me, and Rainbow were the only other ponies there.”
“Azura!” Rainbow blurted out. While most of the ponies in the room just gave the pegasus a blank stare, Twilight looked on with genuine confusion.
“That's impossible,” Twilight said. “Why would Azura come after you now of all times?” There was also the minor problem in that Rainbow was not the real Daring Do, but the princess decided against bringing that point up since it would be dismissed immediately by the amnesiac pony. Twilight also figured that Azura would have been defeated at the end of the last Daring Do book, although she hadn't read that far so the sorceress' ultimate fate was unknown to her.
“What would she even be after that would benefit from making Rainb—er, I mean, Daring Do act all...crazy?” Rarity postulated between snips of Twilight's mane.
Sadly, with Rainbow's memory still in shambles, the only source of reliable information was the Daring Do novel. “Maybe there's some clues in the book,” Twilight said as she levitated her saddlebag over to her. However, upon opening it up, she found a copy of 'Supernaturals' sitting where the novel should have been. “What in the—? Where did my book go? And how did this get in here?” She cast a suspicious glance to Applejack and Rainbow Dash. “Did either of you see it?”
“I might have taken it last night,” Rainbow sheepishly admitted. “I was going to read it through, but then I fell asleep about twelve chapters in. When I woke up, it was gone so I assumed you had taken it back.”
“Well I never took it out of my bag since this morning,” Twilight added. Despite possessing similar size and weight, there was no chance anypony would have mistaken Zecora's copy of the natural remedy book for the latest exploits of Equestria's famed explorer. And since most of her day had been spent dealing with Rainbow Dash's hallucinogenic rampage, she had never bothered to check.
While Twilight and Applejack were contemplating how the mix-up might have happened, Rainbow Dash dove headlong to her preferred conclusion.
“I told you, it's Azura. She's back and she's after the lost tome!” Rainbow asserted as she hopped to her hooves. “How's your wing, Twilight?”
“My wing? It's still a bit stiff, but I should be able to fly,” Twilight reported. She was half-tempted to lie and say that it was still too painful to fly, but she suspected such a fib would deter Rainbow Dash, whose plan was so obvious, it may as well have been written across her forehead.
“Good,” Rainbow said with a sudden burst of renewed vigor, “because we’re going on an adventure! We’re going to find that lost tome and put a stop to Azura’s evil plan! We’ll need to search high and low, probably brave a few dungeons, and maybe even a monster or two. But this is for the sake of Eques—”
“Actually, the book is in Canterlot,” Twilight interrupted.
“It is? Seriously?”
“It’s in the Starswirl the Bearded wing of the royal archives.”
“Okay then,” Rainbow said with a now deflated sense of enthusiasm, “I guess we’ll be going to Canterlot then. Maybe we’ll get to...uh, deal with an unruly security guard or something.” Despite the underwhelming sense of adventure their destination brought, Rainbow Dash was nonetheless in a hurry to get on her way. However, just before she could make a hasty exit out the window, her take-off was interrupted by a sharp tug on the tail from a surly-looking farmer.
“Where in the hay do you think you’re flying off to?” Applejack asked in a rhetorical fashion. Since the answer was obvious, the other ponies simply waited for her to voice her actual objection. “Listen, missy, we just spent all dang afternoon chasing your blue, fuzzy hide across Ponyville, and now that we’ve got you acting normal, relatively speaking, you’re proposing to go flying off again?”
The sudden interruption left Rainbow Dash looking just as annoyed as the pony at the other end of her tail. “The book isn’t going to just fly to us,” she snapped back. “Maybe you haven’t realized it yet, but all of this mess with my mind, your girlfriend, and Azura are connected. You want your Rainbow Dash back; I want my old body.”
The atmosphere of the library had been so tranquil that the ponies could hear Applejack’s grinding teeth as she held back her temper, lest she attempt to browbeat the truth into the stubborn pegasus. She placated her temper by reminding herself that playing along with the Daring Do delusion was the best way to keep the pegasus under control.
Thankfully, Twilight spoke up to try and ease her troubled friend. “I’ll go with her, Applejack,” she began, as she trotted over to the farmer and placed a reassuring hoof upon her shoulder. “We’ll go to Canterlot, get the book, and come right back, I promise.”
Applejack cast a cautious glance between Twilight and Rainbow Dash before motioning for the princess to lean in for a more private word. “Twilight, this is getting ridiculous,” she whispered with barely-restrained irritation. “What Rainbow Dash needs is rest and time around her friends. Flying off to Canterlot ain’t gonna help her.”
“But what if there’s something in Canterlot that could help?” Twilight suggested. “Starswirl was one of the greatest wizards in history. There might be something in his old writings that could help. If not, then perhaps somewhere else in the archives, or maybe even Princess Celestia.”
“More magic?” Applejack snapped, which was loud enough to pique everyone else’s attention as to the nature of the conversation. She was quick to tone down the volume before continuing. “Twilight, you tried magic already and look where it got us. Rainbow ain’t some schoolwork problem - she’s a pony. She’s mah girlfriend; she’s mah responsibility; she’s—”
“She’s leaving,” Spitfire chimed in.
Sure enough, both ponies turned their heads just in time to see a rainbow-hued tail disappearing out the window.
“Oh for the love of—!” Applejack managed to rein in her anger before she unleashed a very unladylike string of profanities. “Now look what you’ve done, Twi! Now Ah got to go and wrangle her...again!”
“How? You can’t exactly fly after her,” Rarity remarked.
“I could go get her,” Spitfire volunteered.
Applejack, however, scoffed at the idea. “So you can knock her out again? Thanks, but no thanks. How about Soarin’?”
“He still can’t walk straight,” the Wonderbolt Captain replied. “And if it’s not too much trouble, I’d like to keep the possibility of a second child on the table.”
Seeing her options running dry, Applejack let out a low, irritated grumble. She cast a sideways glance to Twilight, who had been waiting patiently with a nervous, expecting smile. It was obvious that Twilight wanted to help, but she knew all too well how difficult it was to force help onto a pony as stubborn as Applejack.
Though the grumbling sigh hinted at her apprehensions, Applejack realized she didn’t have much choice. “Just bring her back,” she instructed in a firm voice, accentuated by a light jab to the princess’ chest.
“I’ll bring her back, Applejack, I promise,” Twilight answered. She could see how the situation was wearing on her friend’s patience and nerves. It didn’t excuse all of Applejack’s behavior, but she could sympathize with those feelings. If the situation were reversed, Twilight had no doubt that she would be feeling equally frustrated, and that crankiness would be wrought upon those around her. All she could now was help her friend as best she could.
Once Twilight had departed out the library window, the still-simmering farmer got a scrutinizing glare from the other mares in the room.
“I know you’re under stress, dear, but that was a bit harsh,” Rarity spoke up first. Having finished with Twilight’s mane, she had been lingering around while she tidied up the mess, but now stayed due to concerns for her other friend. “Twilight’s only trying to do what she thinks will help the most.”
“Well her ‘help’ isn’t being very helpful!” Applejack shot back.
“Knock it off, AJ!” Spitfire barked. Thanks to all her time as a drill instructor at the academy, her voice carried enough force on it to even stop the stubborn farmer in her tracks. “Listen to yourself for a second. I know things haven’t been going well but that is no excuse to take it out on your friends!”
For a second, Applejack returned only a blank stare to the pegasus. Suddenly, as if someone had just flicked on a light, the farmer’s expression softened, accompanied by a disheartened sigh. “Y-you’re right,” she eventually stammered out. “Ah’m real sorry, folks, Ah don’t know what came over me.”
“It’s okay,” Spitfire said in a swift change to a more reassuring tone. “Nobody blames you for being stressed or frustrated, but you gotta remember who your friends are. And from a pony with a temper that makes dynamite seem stable, believe me when I say that it’s important not to knock your friends when things get rough.”
“Tell that to the scar on the back of my head,” Soarin’ murmured afterwards.
“Still bugs me that Twilight is the one with her rather than me,” Applejack commented as the bitterness began to return to her voice. “She’s mah girlfriend, Ah’m the one that should be takin’ care of her. This ought to be mah responsibility.”
“She is also Twilight’s friend,” Rarity interceded, “as well as mine. We all deserve to be involved.”
“Well somepony needs to be the one making the final decisions, and not get all distracted with talks about magic books and treasure hunts.” Applejack was defiant, but could see that she wasn’t going to persuade any of the ponies in the room. Rather than face the mounting objections, she decided leaving would be the best method to handle things. Besides, she had no intention of just sitting around and waiting for Rainbow Dash to be brought back.
“Where are you heading off to?” Spitfire asked upon noticing the farmer walking towards the exit.
“Ah’m going to Zecora’s place to find that dang book of theirs,” Applejack answered with a marked note of impatience lacing her voice. “Maybe Ah can use it to knock some sense into those two…”
Only a short distance from the library, Twilight Sparkle was making slow progress due to her still-sore wing. Despite her claim of being well enough to fly, she could only manage a leisurely pace that would be comparable to walking. It had only been a few minutes, but she was already worrying that she might not be able to fulfill her promise to Applejack. While normally not cause for major concern, her friend’s souring mood motivated the princess to accomplish her task.
Sadly, at the rate she was flying, Twilight would reach Canterlot around the same time that winter would. Perhaps she should have argued for Spitfire to go, but a part of her felt responsible for the situation, which meant a compulsion to set things right. She was just reaching the outskirts of Ponyville when she heard a voice from the last pony she expected.
“Hey, Twilight! Up here!”
It was...Rainbow Dash? The voice was unmistakable, but Twilight was nonetheless confused and skeptical. It wasn’t until she glanced skywards and saw a blue hoof, partially concealed in a cloud, waving her over. Overcome by curiosity, she flew closer and discovered the missing pegasus lounging comfortable upon her white, fluffy perch.
“What are you doing here? I thought you were flying to Canterlot,” Twilight asked the most obvious question first. She didn’t get an answer right away, at least not a verbal one. Rainbow Dash invited the other pony over by patting the patch of cloud next to her.
It was only until Twilight took up the invitation that the pegasus offered an explanation. “To be honest, I kinda just needed to get away from Applejack for a little while.”
“Why would you want that?”
“She makes me uncomfortable, okay?” Rainbow admitted with some reluctance. “I mean, I’m really grateful for all her help, but every time she looks at me, I can see all the pain she’s in just because I’m not who she wants to see.”
“That’s nonsense; she loves you.”
“No, she loves Rainbow Dash!” The sudden outburst made Twilight cringe inwards, but she held her tongue for the moment. The frustration was evident, but she wasn’t sure yet how to address such an unusual concern. “It feels like she’s trying to force me to be that pony, but I can’t do that.”
Twilight drew upon every iota of knowledge she possessed about the famed Daring Do from her many years of reading. It was one thing to know every detail of the exploits of her hero, but it was more difficult to understand the pony behind them. A product of delusion or not, Daring Do was still a pony with all the complexities and nuances that ponyhood entailed. What would Daring Do be feeling in this situation?
“Daring, you can’t blame yourself for what Applejack is feeling,” Twilight said in a gambit to offer some reassurance to her friend.
“Why not? All I’ve done these past few days is screw over her life and leave her hanging upside in a barn,” Daring Do answered, followed thereafter by an exasperated sigh. “I’m supposed to be better than this, but my freaking brain feels like its trying to fly through molasses.”
“Have you considered trying to talk to Applejack about this? I’m sure she’d understand.”
“My name is Daring Do, not Daring ‘Talk About Your Feelings’. I’ve never been very good at the whole expressing yourself thing,” Daring lamented.
Twilight let out a small giggle at the sight of her friend being so modest. “Neither is Rainbow Dash; AJ will understand. She cares a great deal about you, even if you’re not exactly who she sees you as, but she can get a bit...stubborn when she sets her mind on something.”
“Reminds me of a certain free-ranging pony,” Daring replied with a brief chortle of her own. “Okay, I’ll try talking to Applejack, but on one condition.”
“Name it.”
“You have to help me get Starswirl’s lost tome.”
“But I promised Applejack I’d bring you back to her!” Twilight insisted.
“And you will,” Daring shot back, “right after we get that book. Listen, if I’m right and Azura is involved, then that book is in danger. We just need to secure it in order to keep it safe. Once we do that, then I promise you, I will go wherever and do whatever you need me to do.”
Twilight’s eyes narrowed as she scrutinized both the pegasus and her offer. “I don’t know,” she pondered out loud, “I could just bring you back to AJ and then get the book myself.”
Rainbow Dash responded with a brief, scoffing chuckle. “I’ve seen you fly, Twilight; not only would you take forever to get to Canterlot, but I could just as easily outrun you. I’m going to Canterlot, with or without you.”
When Rainbow Dash made it sound more like an ultimatum than an offer, Twilight found herself with few alternatives but to cooperate. It wasn’t the best solution, but it was the best way to fulfill her promise to Applejack. She could use her magic to try and restrain the pegasus, but she didn’t want to risk upsetting her friend and provoking a struggle.
“Very well, we’ll do things your way,” Twilight acquiesced. “But if I’m so slow, how do you intend to get us both to Canterlot quickly?”
“That’s easy,” Rainbow said before hopping off the cloud. She flew around to the side and braced both hooves against the side. “You just relax, princess, and I’ll push!”
While one side of Twilight didn’t appreciate the connotations of ‘princess’ and being pushed around like the cloud was her personal chariot, she couldn’t argue with the efficiency of the plan, as well as the relief that came with not having to fly to Canterlot on a sore wing. Thus, despite her initial misgivings, Twilight settled into her makeshift chariot as her friend began pushing it towards Canterlot.