At some point in her life, Rainbow Dash had lost track of where her home was. Or, perhaps, had come to realize she had never known where her home was to begin with.
Originally she had lived with her parents in Cloudsdale. She spent her fair share of time escaping from their care to fly around the city in search of adventure, but little more than the average pegasus foal of her age. She had a few friends – mostly a bit older than herself, fillies and colts whom she could race against or swap dares with – but no one too close. Her report cards and parent-teacher meetings tended to describe her as bright but inattentive, with her mind always somewhere else, specifically the sky. Even as a young filly, she had loved the sky. She’d had a house, but had it really been her home?
Life had truly begun a few years later, the sky opening up to her a wealth of new possibilities and experiences. Summer Flight Camp. The Junior Speedsters. Gilda. The Sonic Rainboom. Her Cutie Mark. Fluttershy. Her parents came to take more and more of a back seat in her life as Rainbow Dash literally flew from one adventure or discovery to the next. Her grades were awful, but still, everypony could tell that she was a pony that was going to go places in the world. The excitement of performance flying beckoned to her, and she developed practically overnight an encyclopedic knowledge of stunt teams and individual fliers. For a brief moment, Rainbow Dash thought she had found her place in the world: no fixed place at all. Everywhere could be her home, anywhere could be, sometimes at scarcely a moment’s notice, but nowhere for too long a stretch. It was in this glow of personal discovery that she had hunted down Fluttershy, waving a sheet of paper so excitedly it was a miracle it didn’t fall down through the clouds beneath her.
“Fluttershy!” she had cried, finally encountering her yellow pegasus friend in an alley in the Cloudsdale residential district. “I’ve got the program for the next dozen Wonderbolts shows, only just released today! I’m going to follow them around on tour, and you’re coming with me!”
Fluttershy, sweet timid Fluttershy, had spoken at almost the same time, with almost as much enthusiasm: “Rainbow Dash, I’m moving to Ponyville!”
And they both stared at each other as Rainbow Dash felt her lofty, wonderful, glorious plans slipping away from her.
They talked. They even argued, if only as well as Fluttershy was capable of arguing back then. Rainbow Dash said things she would spend the next several years of her life apologizing for at random intervals. In the end they both moved to Ponyville, because somehow, Fluttershy was not something that Rainbow Dash could let escape from her life.
Rainbow Dash built a huge and ostentatious house from the clouds themselves, rainbows pouring from its immaterial gardens, and she parked it above Ponyville and never allowed it to drift too far away. She forced her way onto the Ponyville weather team and allowed herself to be bound by a routine, albeit a routine that she devised herself and one that involved a healthy amount of rest time.
Fluttershy made her home on the very outskirts of the town she had derailed Rainbow Dash’s dreams to live in. Rather than using clouds, her small hut was if anything more tree than house, and she surrounded herself with animals like Rainbow Dash came to surround herself with admirers. While Rainbow Dash found an ardent fan in the filly Scootaloo, Fluttershy found a rabbit. One of Rainbow Dash’s recurring jibes was making fun of Fluttershy for being a pegasus bound to the land, practically flightless, but then she would look at her own house – always hovering somewhere above Ponyville, never given leave to float curiously away into the adventuresome skies – and wonder.
Before Rainbow Dash could go stir crazy, though, or learn to hate Fluttershy for what she had let the gentle animal caretaker do to her, everything had changed. A unicorn arrived in town, looking for her – looking for both of them, though she hadn’t known that at the time – and there had been something undeniably, indefinably, almost imperceptibly awesome about her. They had an adventure together, without hardly taking to the skies at all, and Rainbow Dash, forced to choose between joining a stunt team or helping Fluttershy and four ponies she hardly knew, chose friendship. The six of them had more adventures after that, and Rainbow Dash began to learn that not all adventures involved going places, seeing things, or even doing anything at all but talk to other ponies. Somehow Twilight Sparkle had made friendship into an adventure of its own.
In Applejack, she found a pony who was her physical equal – almost her equal, rather – but without the same drive for action that propelled Rainbow Dash through her waking hours; one who had learned to revel in the everyday and pay attention to the grounded world. In Rarity, she found passion and drive to rival her own, but in an area she had never even thought to consider, let alone disdain; a passion that she learned in time to respect, loathe as she would be to admit that to the fashionista in person. In Twilight, Rainbow Dash found somepony who respected her talents but still managed to question every belief she held dear. In Fluttershy, she found whom she had always sort of known was there, but understood more clearly than before: a pony who saw through every artifice that she invented, every show of false bravado, every grandiose boast, every exaggeration, every little white lie to make sure that nopony worried about her; a pony who saw through all that, and still called her friend, dear friend, oldest friend, hero.
In Ponyville, it seemed, Rainbow Dash had found home. But…
But there was a sixth element. An Element of Laughter, or perhaps more aptly Chaos. There was Pinkie Pie, the party-throwing apprentice of Sugarcube Corner, whom Rainbow Dash had always avoided and even scorned in her early days in Ponyville. Pinkie forced her way into Rainbow Dash’s life around the same time Gilda made her disastrous exit from it, and neither of them ever looked back – Pinkie because she had no wish to, and Rainbow Dash because Pinkie gave her no time to. Pinkie was no Applejack, but she was fast, and strong, and eventually just as good a chef in her own way. Pinkie was no Rarity, but she flung herself with passion and laughter into everything she did, even if nopony could predict what it was she was going to do before she did it. Pinkie was no Twilight, but she still found a way to take every preconceived notion Rainbow Dash had and turn it on its head, since what was the point of having preconceived notions? Pinkie was no Fluttershy, but she possessed as detailed and accurate an understanding of every pony in Ponyville – their friends especially – as Rainbow Dash had once possessed of the top stunt fliers, and she used that understanding to find ways to brighten everypony’s day, every day, everywhere she went. Pinkie was no Rainbow Dash, but somehow the pink party pony showed her that you didn’t need wings to fly, anymore than you needed an excuse to throw a party, or have an adventure, or learn a ridiculous new dance move, or demonstrate that ridiculous new dance move in front of your entire fan club, or pull a prank, or make a friend, or fall in love.
And so one day in Spring, after they had all six gone through many adventures together, after many friendship reports to Princess Celestia had been written by every one of them, after Friendship alone had grown familiar and the temptress Love had begun to creep into their collective subconscious, Rainbow Dash admitted to herself that she really was in love with Pinkie Pie, reason be damned, and the very first thing she was going to do was tell Fluttershy all about it. Fluttershy would be sure to have some good advice, but more importantly, Rainbow Dash wanted her to be the first to know.
She sped over the streets and houses of Ponyville, bright blue wings beating the air against her sides, searching for that familiar pink mane and yellow coat until the moment she found them and came down to land, grinning, breathless. She carried no program with her, but was still every bit as excited as the time she’d tried to get Fluttershy to travel Equestria with her and the Wonderbolts. She noticed that Fluttershy was also excited and had something to say, and just that one time, in deference to her oldest friend, her kindest friend, her most trusted friend, she let Fluttershy go first, sure it would have something to do with some badger or hummingbird that had finally learned to hibernate or something quintessentially Fluttershy like that.
“Rainbow Dash,” said Fluttershy, “Pinkie and I are together!”
Rainbow Dash spent the next five minutes making her repeat that, over and over again, explaining and re-explaining that yes, Fluttershy meant that they were together like a couple, like dating, like romantically: like everything the single fastest pony in all of Equestria had been one day too late to get for herself. Rainbow Dash managed a few words – she dearly hoped, and Fluttershy later reassured her, that “congratulations” was one of them – and then took off into the air to vent her frustrations on her house, a tree, a nearby lake, bowling pins, a jar of peanut butter, a brick wall, anything that couldn’t fight back. For the first time in years, Rainbow Dash once again discovered that she didn’t know where her home was.
Rainbow Dash did, however, know where her house was, and it was there she spent the next several days. She cried into her pillow, and beat up her pillow for making her cry, and reread the many sections of her Daring Do collection that talked about just how little one needed a lover in order to have fun and live an adventurous life. Several ponies from the Ponyville weather team came by to check on her, but were duly repulsed by strategic use of an old cloud she had stashed away with some pent-up lightning bolts inside of it. Eventually, though, Rainbow Dash realized she was accomplishing nothing like this and had better talk about everything to somepony. She ran through her list of friends in her head, and decided that if she was going to get a lecture, at least she’d rather get it from somepony who wouldn’t make it sound like a lecture while it was being delivered.
When she arrived, Applejack was hard at work picking apples – Rainbow Dash had long since concluded the orange earth pony did nothing else all day – but looked up to greet her visitor with a glad smile. “Hey there, Rainbow Dash,” she said. “Haven’t seen hide nor hair of you in several days! Twilight and the girls were getting a touch worried. How you doing?”
“Applejack,” said Rainbow Dash, coming in for a graceful landing beside her farmer friend. “You, me, fight. Now.”
Applejack pushed her familiar hat back a few inches to scratch at the top of her head. “Begging your pardon?”
“I need to talk to someone,” said Rainbow Dash, “but first I need to fight someone, badly, or I’ll just keep building up anger and frustration until I explode. You’re one of the only ponies I know that can keep up with me in a tussle, and you’re pretty smart too. You’re basically perfect for this.”
“So let me get this straight,” said Applejack, annoyingly calm about the whole thing. “You want to talk to me about something important – but before you can talk about whatever’s so important, you want to fight me.”
“Yeah!” said Rainbow Dash, pleased to be making herself clear.
Applejack appeared to give it a few seconds more of consideration, and then finally shrugged. “Well, everypony’s got their quirks, I reckon. Besides, it’s been a while since I had a proper workout. How do you want to do this? Another of your fool Iron Pony competitions, or should I get Twilight or somepony down here to referee some plain wrestling, or—“
Rainbow Dash tackled her.
Blue and orange, weather pony and farm pony, the two old rivals rolled about Sweet Apple Acres in a ball of flying dirt and hair and feathers. Applejack’s teeth, long-time bunkmates of Rainbow Dash’s tail in moments of impetuousness, found purchase in new parts of the pegasus’s body, and Rainbow Dash’s wings buffeted the earth pony’s legs and back in place of their more familiar skies. Twice the powerful, apple-bucking rear legs of Applejack nearly knocked the senses from Rainbow Dash, who retaliated by straining with her front hooves to shove her opponent down to the disturbed earth below them. Stray apples, absorbed by proximity into their rolling battle, became rudimentary weapons to be hurled or smeared violently into eyes and nostrils. Still, through it all, Rainbow Dash could not find it in herself to fully recast her inward frustrations into outward rage, and – for which fact she wasn’t sure whether she was grateful or angered – she could tell that Applejack in turn wasn’t giving the fight her all either. Too soon it was over and Applejack stood triumphant, two hooves holding Rainbow Dash carefully down to the ground and the other two planted firmly beside her for support, her mane completely frazzled, her coat dirty and bruised, and her face filled with concern where there ought to have been smugness and excitement.
“Sugarcube,” she said, “I’ve had better fights than that from Braeburn, and he’s got more tells than we’ve got apple trees. What’s eating you, girl?”
Rainbow Dash twisted uselessly beneath her friend’s strong hooves. “I’ll tell you if you just get offa me for one sec! Stupid roughneck farmer…”
Applejack raised her eyebrows at her, very lazily. “And if I do, you’ll jump me again?” Rainbow Dash was silent, so she continued. “Remember, Rainbow, you came here to talk to me too. We can do this the easy way, or I can keep on standing on top of you till you’re ready to do this the easy way.”
Rainbow Dash glowered. “Hate you. Yeah, let’s talk.”
“There’s the Rainbow I know!” said Applejack with a wide grin. She stepped casually away, leaving Rainbow Dash to gasp for a moment in pain before standing back up. “You wanna sit over by the water? Let me just retrieve my hat and I’ll be right with you.”
In a minute the two ponies sat against the side of an enormous apple tree, silently watching the ripples of the small pond below them. It was the sort of thing Rainbow Dash would have had no patience for, once upon a time, but Fluttershy and Ponyville had changed her in ways that she could still only partly comprehend. On the opposite side of the pond, Rainbow Dash could just make out the tree where Apple Bloom kept track of her growth by making notches in the wood. The young farmpony was nearly fully as large as her sister Applejack by now, her cutie mark long since appeared, but she and her two Crusader friends were as close as ever. That, Rainbow Dash supposed, was the best she could hope for now – a bond that remained unbroken, if unchanging.
“AJ…” said Rainbow Dash, after it became clear that her friend was not going to start the talking for her, “have you ever been in love?”
Applejack blinked. “This conversation about you or me, sugarcube?”
“Me! I mean, I guess. Why, is there a you to have this conversation about?”
“Hard to say,” said Applejack. “None of us are getting any younger, Rainbow, and sometimes I get to noticing that a pony that I once thought I had nothing in common with – a pony who, by all rights, ought to have left Ponyville for bigger things a long time ago – might be more similar to me than I’d expected. And sometimes this pony says things in just this certain way, and winks just subtly enough to make me wonder if, just maybe, she mightn’t be amenable to such a thing herself.” She blinked again, and shook herself. “But I’ve been burned before, as you know, and as I hear it, you’re the one with problems that need a little rough and tumble just to get you to loosen your lips. Can’t spend all day preening yourself at getting the Element of Honesty to reveal her inner secrets.”
Rainbow Dash felt herself torn between what could lead to painful soul searching on the one hoof, and learning some juicy info about one – two? – of her best friends on the other. “Yeah!” she said ambiguously. “Uhh, but so, are you…”
“Nah, I don’t think I’m in love exactly,” said Applejack, anticipating her question. “Just… interested. But it sounds like you might be.”
“Yeah.”
“So… Pinkie or Fluttershy?”
Rainbow Dash stared at her, wide-eyed.
“Aww, come on, girl. Even Colgate can notice the mess of complicated emotions y’all three have got set up, and you know she’s still a bit awkward around any of us but Twilight. Then Fluttershy and Pinkie get together, and that same day you disappear. It doesn’t take much brains to put these things together.”
“Wow.” Rainbow Dash looked back at the waters. “I… I didn’t know we three had any ‘mess of complicated emotions.’ Look, the rest of you aren’t jealous, are you? I mean…”
Applejack scoffed and pulled her hat down. “Not right now we aren’t! No, but seriously, Rainbow, we’re all six good friends, real good friends, and that’s all that matters. But you’re stalling. Pinkie or Fluttershy?”
“Pinkie Pie,” answered Rainbow Dash with a sigh.
Applejack whistled. “Well, I just lost ten bits, then, and I ain’t telling you who to.”
Rainbow Dash ignored her, her weariness from the fight fading away to be replaced with agitation. “This is all wrong! Don’t you see, AJ? I can’t be in love with Pinkie Pie while she’s going out with Fluttershy – that’s adultery! And I certainly can’t steal her from my oldest friend!”
“Slow down there, honeybunch,” said Applejack. “It’s only adultery, or stealing her, if she goes along with it. Your heart’s in the right place to be worrying ‘bout Fluttershy, but that’s still a mite presumptuous of you.”
“Okay, fine! But still, if I don’t steal her, I can’t be in love with her! I mean, what’ll that do to our friendship? What if, like, the whole six of us start to fall apart?”
Applejack chuckled quietly. “You know, I used to wonder if maybe those Elements of Harmony had maybe gotten us mixed up, and I was really the Loyal one and you Honesty, but I reckon they were right all along. Look at you, worried about everypony but yourself.”
“So what?” Rainbow Dash flapped her wings in frustration. “I need advice here, Applejack, not dumb jokes about my great talent for selflessness or whatever!”
“Hey, now, that was a compliment, not a joke. Look… Rainbow, I really don’t know if I’m your gal for this! Rarity, she’s had all sorts of prospects from that Canterlot crowd, and you know she likes her romance stories. Twilight’s got Colgate these days, so she’s got some real life experience in the matter! But me? Rainbow, you know how I solve my problems here at the farm?”
Rainbow Dash smirked, always primed for an opportunity to tease a friend. “You kick them?”
“Exactly. I kick them until the apples fall down, and then I move on to the next problem and kick that one too.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?! …are you saying I should tell her?”
“I ain’t saying nothing at all, dang it! But you, Loyalty, are fretting about splitting up the group if you say some things that Pinkie and Fluttershy might not want to hear… keep in mind, they’re Kindness and Laughter. I can’t think of two ponies more likely to forgive you for what you have to say, if forgiveness is what you’re looking for.”
“So… Honesty, huh?”
Applejack smiled a little. “I stick to what I know, Rainbow. That’s how Sweet Apple Acres is still running strong, year in, year out.”
Rainbow Dash sensed an opportunity to stall. “So if you’re so flipping honest, why won’t you tell this other pony how you feel? Or even tell me who it is? Just because it didn’t work out last time…”
Applejack visibly stiffened a little. “Because I’ve got better things to do with my time, that’s why! I’ve got apples to pick, and, um, apples to pick, and…”
“Is it Rarity?”
“Ain’t saying,” said Applejack, staring fixedly at the water, but her blush was obvious.
“I’ll tell you what,” said Rainbow Dash, determined to get something less than agonizingly dangerous out of their conversation. “If you tell Rarity what you think of her, I’ll explain myself to Pinkie Pie.”
Applejack narrowed her eyes at her. “Counting on me as an excuse, are you? Well, all right, if that’s how you want to play things—“
“I dare you to tell Rarity,” said Rainbow Dash, eyes glinting wickedly.
Applejack rose to all four hooves and glowered. “I hate you.”
“Then we’re even!” Rainbow Dash sprung into the air and hovered a few feet above Applejack, ignoring the muted pain from her wings’ new scrapes and bruises. “So, are we on or what?!”
“We’re on,” said Applejack, and then looked surprisingly serious. “Look, Rainbow… I do think they’ll forgive you. But afterwards, be happy, y’hear? We don’t want to lose our favorite arrogant, oversaturated, loose cannon, do-nothing superspeedster.”