Rainbow lay half asleep on the makeshift bed on top of a bookshelf in Twilight’s library. The magical pony had long since faded into a monotonous droning sound that vaguely resembled a list of activities that were required to go forward, but it was better than waiting at Rarity’s place, and she was less likely to get left behind due to having fallen asleep by the hyper organized Alicorn. The three of them had been invited to the palace for another session of “Show off for the dignitaries” that had been getting more and more frequent since Twilight’s ascension to princessedom. Something about soothing the griffon dignitaries about some imagined insult or something of the sort, Dash wasn’t sure, but it had something to do with honor and politeness. All Dash really knew for sure was that this was a meeting with somepony that used to be a general, and that the only old generals that she had ever met were long winded and boring. Rainbow was frustrated that she couldn’t even go pranking with Pinky to pass the time, as the hyperactive mare had gone ahead to “deal with a McGuffin,” whatever that meant. Fluttershy had to skip out due to spring meaning lots of animal babies, and Applejack had ended up with too much work on the farm, leaving Rainbow to either make the trip alone, or wait on Rarity and Twilight… which was a very close race in terms of “which one was more boring.” The chromatic maned Pegasus sighed as she stared at the ceiling, “TWI, are you almost done yet?”
Her innocent question was met with a huff of indignation from the lavender Alicorn, “Well, if you would help me get everything together, I would have been done half an hour ago.”
Rainbow rolled over on her bookcase to eye the lavender mare below, “Yeah, well, if you would make the stuff you were doing more awesomer, I’d pay attention to help, maybe.”
“That’s not a word.”
“Yeah, it is, you use ‘attention’ all the time.”
“That’s not what I… You know what? Fine, just stay up there, see if I care. I’ll take all day, then we’ll miss the train, and it’ll all be your fault.”
Rainbow grinned devilishly at the former unicorn’s tactical error in this battle of words, “Right, we’ll be late, which will throw your ENTIRE schedule off track right from the beginning. That would be TERRIBLE, wouldn’t it?”
A pair of purple eyes slowly grew wider as the Pegasus pony talked, “Oh... my... gosh… WE HAVE TO HURRY!” Things all around the room began glowing purple, filling the bags far beyond what they should have been able to hold, until everything was sealed away with spacial manipulation spells and much effort. The lavender mare yelled upstairs as she bolted, “SPIKE! We’re leaving; you’re in charge of the library until we get back!”
Rainbow smirked at the baby dragon as he appeared on the balcony, “See ya, Spike, we’ll be- ACK!” She was interrupted when a purple glow appeared around her tail and pulled her forcefully through the window, which was currently closed, “TWI! What’re you trying for? You wanna get me killed or somethin’?”
The mare in question didn’t even check up as Rainbow appeared flying at her side, “No time for that, Rainbow, we’ve got to get Rarity before we’re late to catch the train.”
The Pegasus rolled her eyes, “Twi, I was joking, we’ve got plenty of time, and I doubt Rares is even done getting ready.”
Twilight didn’t slow down, however, keeping herself at a steady pace, “Well, then, we’ll just have to hurry her up, won’t we?”
Rainbow raised a brow, “You’ve already worked out how close she is to being ready, haven’t you?”
Twilight’s answer was interrupted by their arrival at the boutique, she knocked once, and opened the door, beginning to talk before she even saw the scene, “Rarity, your mane is plenty shiny. You don’t need more than one dress of each color, so the second red one is superfluous, making room for the hat you can’t do without, and solving the wardrobe fiasco you were about to have a serious problem with. It’s too warm for more than four scarves, despite their having come in handy that one other time, and you shouldn’t use that suitcase, as it has structural damage that is irreparable without needless wastes of magic and time, which we do not have.”
Rainbow‘s eyes widened as she looked in amazement as she looked in at Rarity seemingly putting shining powder in her mane, and suitcases strewn about the room in a disorganized mess. Rarity, however, seemed to be thoughtful, “You are absolutely right, darling, however did I not see that before?”
“You would have soon, but I hadn’t planned on you reaching those conclusions for another ten minutes to an hour and a half. I tested it as a part of my recent study into probability magics. It works like fortune telling is thought to, except...”
Rainbow yawned loudly, magic stuff was permanently on her “Things to tune out and ignore” list, which was admittedly long. She wondered if the Wonderbolts would still be in Canterlot after their last show, since their next scheduled appearance wasn’t for another week. Maybe they would be at the palace for… some reason… Hey, it could happen! She idly wondered if that future spell of Twilight’s could tell her if they would go to the palace, or even where they would be. Maybe she could use it to get free tickets to their next Cloudsdale gig, that would be awesome. Or maybe Twilight would be able to tell her how much longer it would take for- “RAINBOW!” The Pegasus in question jumped as she was jarred from her daydreaming to discover a frustrated Alicorn, and an apparently amused Unicorn staring at her, “Hey, I know you live in them, but come down out of the clouds for a minute, we’ve got to get to the train station before they start loading too many ponies. I already have the seats I want us to get picked out in my head, since they have the optimal…”
Rainbow looked over to Rarity, who was smiling politely, but clearly holding back a snicker. Looking back to the Alicorn in the room, Dash lifted her hoof, cutting the lavender mare off, “If we’re late, we should probably go ahead and get there, right?”
Twilight’s eyes widened, “You’re right, let’s go.” The world disappeared in a flash, as they were suddenly on the platform for the train, “Good, we made it in time”
Rainbow blinked as her mane and tail smoked, dreading to look towards the surely devastated Rarity, but a pleading voice drew her eyes, “Tell me… how bad is the damage?”
It was atrocious, even by Rainbow’s lower standards. The purple curls had been wrinkled and blackened, her long lashes reduced to sizzling stubs over her eyes. The normally pristine white coat was splotched randomly with black spots, reminding Rainbow wryly of a Dalmatian. The cyan mare licked her lips and tried a line that had been used as encouragement after she had been training hard and looked dirty, “You’re still beautiful on the inside?”
Rarity sighed, “Thank you, darling, I was afraid of that…” Their luggage floated up, none the worse for wear as Twilight talked to the conductor, seeming to get more irate as she went, “I’ll simply have to fix it once we’re under way, it seems.”
Twilight walked up to them, clearly agitated, “Well, bad news, it seems that we won’t be sitting where I had planned. We’ve got to sit in the ‘royal coach’ for some reason. Can you believe that?”
Rarity and Rainbow looked at each other baffled at Twilight’s complaint, which the Alicorn in question took as agreement to the inconvenience of her interrupted plans, “I know, it’s terrible, I had everything planned out, and someone goes and says that they can’t have the princess of magic riding third class! Like my budget can afford to bump up any further. HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO AFFORD ALL MY NEW BOOKS OTHERWISE? It’s ridiculous some…”
Rainbow facehooved, and mumbled under her breath, “Because it would be a tragedy if you got any less than a hundred books per stipend, now wouldn’t it?”
Rarity leaned in to whisper in the Pegasus’ ear, “And wouldn’t it be sad if one of the ones that didn’t make the cut starred a certain daring Pegasus pony?” She snickered as Rainbow visibly cringed, the entire exchange having been missed by the purple princess, still expressing her outrage at the injustice of… something, neither of her companions could quite make out what anymore, but it was clearly upsetting her. “I noticed that Twilight didn’t bring nearly as much luggage as she normally does, did you convince her not to be quite as... over prepared as she normally is?”
Rainbow waved the comment aside flippantly, “Nah, she packed everything she normally does, but she had some spell or other that made it all fit in fewer bags. I don’t really know the details, since I wasn’t actually listening when she explained, but it had something to do with bending space to make the bags bigger on the inside, which sounded cool until she started in on the how, which is too egghead for me, if ya know what I mean. So, yeah, she got a good spell, I guess.”
Rarity raised a brow, “Space distortion magics? That’s a bit risky, even for somepony of her caliber of magic ability. Did she mention any fail safes or anything of the like, darling?”
“She might have, I dunno, like I said, I was just-“
“FAT! Can you believe that? Why would anypony call me that? I’m NOT fat, and I don’t gorge myself on cake! It’s REDICULOUS!” Twilight’s rant came to an abrupt, but violently loud end as they reached the royal car, luggage still in tow, “Well, here we are… I guess I can make some adjustments to my schedule to make up for being in the wrong car…” She sighed as she glumly trudged into the private car, leaving Rainbow and Rarity to stand outside, dumbfounded at the magnificence of the carriage, gold plated siding, and plush interior, it was what everypony in their right mind dreamed of riding around in, and Twilight continued to act like it was the end of Equestria that she was being forced to ride in it instead of coach. Both of them shook their heads as they boarded.
Rarity wasted no time in confronting Twilight about the potential disaster that she foresaw, and Rainbow wasted even less as she started to zone out into the landscape, ignoring the talk of magic formulas and apocalypse prevention via boring means, which was an impressive thing to boringify. She examined a few stray clouds with mild disdain for her temporary replacement in the weather team. The cloud shortage meant that each cloud was needed to shade important areas, not to float randomly around the place. Whoever it was, had clearly not spent as much time with somepony highly organized as she had herself. She contemplated heading out to correct the problem, but the train jerked to life beneath her, and nap time called her name. She sighed and tossed her single bad up onto the luggage compartment along with Twilight’s and Rarity’s.
She heard a pair of gasps from behind her, then a thud, then everything went black.