The sky was clear and the clouds were floating about, gently being pushed by the breeze as the two pegasi raced through the air.
Omigoshomigoshohmigosh, yes! I’m winning! Wait, how? It’s a Wonderbolt I’m racing…
Rainbow raised an eyebrow and glanced behind her at the light blue Wonderbolt not too far behind her. He was neither gaining nor decreasing speed. Hmmmmm, I wonder…
Rainbow stopped flapping her wings and glided for a few seconds before continuing to flap her wings, only slower than before. Soarin did the same and slowed down his wing-beats. She tilted her head slightly, in confusion, before coming to a complete stop on a nearby cloud. Not too long after, Soarin landed next to her.
“What gives? I thought we were meant to be racing?” She asked him, whilst raising an eyebrow.
“Oh, well, I realised I don’t actually know where the boutique is, so I just started following you instead,” Soarin smiled sheepishly. I probably should know where it is; I think Fleetfoot pointed it out on the way to the Friendship Castle.
“Ohhhh,” she chuckled, “my bad, I forgot you only arrived this morning,” She smiled sheepishly, before pointing with a hoof. “It’s that building in the distance.”
Soarin followed her hoof, to see a slightly odd shaped building in the distance. “It looks like a carousel, in a weird way,” he commented.
“That’s probably why it’s called the Carousel Boutique then.”
“Ah, makes sense,” Soarin smiled.
“So, you still wanna race?” Rainbow flipped her mane to the other side of her neck.
“Yeah, go!” Soarin fired from his spot as he dove off the cloud.
“Hey!” Rainbow jumped off the cloud after him.
It was just them and the sky. The wind felt like it was strongly blowing against her, when in reality it was just her speed. The clouds started to become a blur as she sped up towards Soarin. At this rate I’ll end up breaking the sound barrier!
With every second passing Rainbow was nearing him. Everything else seemed to fade out of existence. It was just her and the sky.
The wind whipped around her athletic form, and blew her mane and tail back. The air was forcefully pushing against her face and hooves, but she couldn’t stop now. She was so close, yet so far…
“Urggghhh!” Rainbow slightly miscalculated her distance from the ground, and had a rough landing. She did a short tumble before falling on her front. So close…
“You okay?” asked Soarin, bending over and offering her a hoof.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” she helped herself up, shook her mane out and brushed some dirt of her coat. Rainbow spread out her wings and had a quick glance at them to check they were still preened to an okay standard. Once satisfied, she turned back to face Soarin. “No fair, you cheated.”
Soarin chuckled, “Yeah, but so did you last time.”
“Oh yeah, okay then, we are equal…And this is the Carousel Boutique! Although I’d watch out if I were you, its home to one of the CMC.”
“CMC?”
“Oh, right. It stands for Cutie Mark Crusaders. Their goal is to get their cutie marks. I’d watch out if I were you, they’re an interesting bunch and one just happens to be my little sister,” Rainbow started to walk towards the door.
Before she knocked, a sound of crashing and banging came from inside the room, closely followed by Rarity’s scream.
Rainbow hesitated before knocking.
“Aggggghhhh,” Rarity groaned before continuing in a forced normal voice. “I will be right there! Let me just…sort out some things first.”
“Rarity, I’m sorry,” a voice belonging to Sweetie Belle replied. Rainbow put her ear to the door.
“Sweetie! I told you before; don’t start playing about when I’m working. I know you wanted to help, but you weren’t really much help, I mean, look at this place.”
“I’m sorry,” Sweetie Belle replied sadly.
“Hmmmm,” Rainbow thought out loud, “Rarity! It’s me, Rainbow Dash.”
“Oh! Rainbow,” Rarity could be heard running over to the door and opening it, where she then greeted her best friend. “My apologies, I thought you were Flower Wishes, looking for a very specific-“her eyes widened as she looked up at the slightly taller stallion, awkwardly standing behind Rainbow. “Oh, my…Come in, come in, now!” Rarity ushered them into the boutique.
The floor was covered in needles, sewing threads, multi-coloured fabric, silk, glitter, pencils, pots, pens, drawings and a few dresses as well. One of the curtains had been pulled down- with a guilty looking Sweetie Belle sitting by it- and a table had fallen over. A couple of ponyequins had been knocked over, adding to the mess on the floor.
“Wow, Rares,” Rainbow commented.
“Heh, sorry about the mess, Sweetie wanted to help, but it didn’t really work,” she smiled sheepishly. “Sweetie,” she looked over to her sister, covered in glitter, “I think you need a bath.”
“Okay Rarity!” Sweetie bounded over an up the stairs.
“Make yourselves at home! I need to run Sweetie a bath, and then I’ll make us all some tea, if you want,” she said in a slightly higher pitched voice than usual. Rarity then trotted up the stairs a little more happily than usual
“Okay,” Rainbow called back before turning to face Soarin, “Not sure what’s got into her, she’s usually not that excited about seeing me, I sometimes break her-“ I can’t tell him I crash into windows! She shook her head. “Um her…her,” Rainbow frantically looked around the room for something she could have broken. “Her…vases… with flowers in them. Yeah, her vases, I usually end up messing her flower arrangements up and then…the vases fall on the floor,” Rainbow put on her best smile. Please buy it, please…
“I don’t see any vases in here…” Soarin looked around, confused.
“Umm, that’s because they’re all broken,” a tinge of red came to her cheeks.
“That makes sense then?”
“Yeah…Hey, let’s make ourselves at home, like Rarity said,” Rainbow turned around and breathed a sigh of relief, before going and making herself comfy on a sofa, tucked away at the non-messy side of the room. Soarin followed her and sat next to her on the sofa. Soon after, Rarity came trotting down the stairs.
“Anypony want any tea?” she asked.
“Nah, I’m fine thanks,” Rainbow replied.
“I’ll just have some water, thank you,” Soarin glanced at Rainbow and grinned to which Rainbow returned.
Rarity joined them in the room, with a cup of tea and a glass of water, as well as a few biscuits on a tray. Soarin looked over the biscuit selection carefully, as Rainbow tried to suppress a laugh because of how serious he looked, before choosing a chocolate one.
“So, I just wanted to ask, how long?”
“How long what?” Rainbow questioned and raised an eyebrow.
“Oh don’t be silly, you must have kept it quiet for a while,” she smirked slightly, and then took a sip of her tea.
“Kept what quiet?” Rainbow was beyond confused. What on earth is she on about?
“Oh, you know. Quite frankly, I’m surprised you were the first Rainbow Dash, I was sure I would be…” she looked up and sighed.
“What on earth are you-OH!” Rainbow exclaimed as she realised what her friend was on about. Soarin looked over at her, from her sudden outburst. She started to blush heavily and used her wings to cover up most of her face.
“Wait, you’re not…?” Rarity asked and Rainbow nodded her head. Soarin glanced between the two mares and raised an eyebrow. “Oh…oh my, well this is embarrassing,” Rarity desperately tried to conceal a blush. “I think I’ll go and check on Sweetie Belle,” she left quickly.
“Uh, what was that about?” Soarin asked the flushed Rainbow Dash.
“She thought we were…an item,” she mumbled under her wings, it was just enough for Soarin to hear.
“Oh,” he started to blush and looked around awkwardly.
“Like that would ever happen…” Rainbow chuckled lightly and tried to make the situation less awkward.
Soarin laughed, “Yeah like ever…” he turned away from Rainbow. “Wouldn’t mind it though…”he muttered under his breath.
“What was that?”
“Um, nothing…” Soarin replied quickly.
Rarity came waltzing down the stairs and sat down on a nearby chair.
“My apologies, I should have never assumed so without asking first,” Rarity said.
“Its fine, Rares…” Rainbow gazed out the window at the cloudy sky. “Hey! Someone messed up the weather schedule. It’s not meant to be cloudy, the forecast was sunshine with patches of clouds and light sprinkles of rain in the outer areas of Ponyville!” she complained and flew over to the window, to get a better look outside. “Urggghhh,” she groaned, “now I need to find somepony to fix this at some point.”
“Hmmm, that’s odd…clouds don’t usually do much by themselves and they rarely clump together so much…” Soarin trotted over next to Rainbow.
Outside a few pegasi had started to clear some of the clouds and, slowly but surely, sunlight was starting to seep through.
“Hm,” Rainbow nodded her head in satisfaction. “At least that’s getting sorted out.”
“What?!” Rarity shrieked, “It’s two o’clock already? Sorry, Rainbow, I need to get ready for when Princess Luna arrives.”
“We should probably get going. Meet you at Sugarcube Corner then,” Rainbow smiled and motioned for Soarin to follow as they excited the boutique.
-------
“Something tells me this isn’t going to be good,” Night said. He and Purple Dust were on their way to Sector H, where they had been told previously to go at three o’clock, only they were going earlier.
“That’s why I’ve brought my cape,” Dust replied as she stopped to adjust it.
Her cape as she called it was just that, a cape. However, due to her size and the fact that the cape was stretchy, she could easily wrap it around her and hide in the shadows if needed. It was a custom in their family to give a cape to any new-born child, as an alternative to a blanket, but it usually had the same purpose. It was only for when they were young, but she hadn’t grown much, and so could still use it. Night also had one but he just never used it because of his size.
“So, what’s the plan?” He leaned up against the wall and peered round the corner to check if anypony was coming. He then walked around, and beckoned for Dust to follow, to which she did.
“I don’t know, you’re the one that dragged me down here to help you with your ‘research’,” she said bitterly.
“Well, my ‘research’ is actually very important,” Night replied with pride evident in his voice.
“Why?”
“In case you haven’t noticed, lots of weird stuff has been going on here lately. Firstly, more of the sectors suddenly got put off-limits. We used to have free roam of just about anywhere. Know what happened to Blizzard Storm?”
“No, what happened?” She eyed him curiously and raised an eyebrow.
“Word around Sector C is that him and Moonlight were called to meet Midnight late afternoon a few weeks ago. Moonlight came out fine, but Blizzard Storm never came back. Ponies have asked…actually, I’ve asked her as well, but she denies ever being with Blizzard Storm in the first place.”
“Huh, interesting. It’s not like Moonlight to lie…”
“She doesn’t. I think she had her memory wiped,” Night turned another corner. “She doesn’t even remember what happened whilst she was in there and- see! Look at this,” he threw his hooves out as they approached a door at the end of the corridor. It was metal, with a large bolt across it, held firmly in place by a lock.
“When…her," he hesitated before continuing," …and I first joined here, before the training schedule was properly implemented, we used to race up and down here, pretending to beat down the bad guys,” he chuckled at the memory.
“I don’t remember that.”
“That’s because you weren’t here yet, you still lived with mum and dad…y’know, before it happened,” he smiled weakly at his sister.
“Well, I guess there was no point in coming here early; I guess we’ll go back to our sector?”
“Yeah, sounds like a plan.”
They both left Sector H and made their way back to Sector A.