//------------------------------// // Chapter 1: The Weekend Ahead // Story: Glimpsing the Future // by Minds Eye //------------------------------// “San Franciscolt Bay!”  Twilight Sparkle pressed her nose to the window like a foal scoping out their favorite store.  But instead of candy or toys, her attention was fixed on the green water, tossing and rolling along with the wind, under the train tracks outside their cabin.  “Oh my gosh, I’ve never seen so much water before!  How deep do you think it is?” “I think the train’s never felt so slow,” Rainbow growled.   Twilight smiled and leaned against her.  “The city’s right on the other side of this bridge.  It’s only a little longer.  Then we can finally scratch this off our list.”   “No kidding.  You promised to come see my parents next week for about a zillion weeks in a row.”   “And that little vacation up to the Wonderbolt Academy was...?”   “A lifelong dream!”  Rainbow grinned and threw a leg around Twilight’s shoulders, trying to pull her tighter.   Twilight hissed as Rainbow’s grip dug into her new wing joint.  “Too hard!”   Rainbow’s hoof jerked away.  “Sorry!”   “It’s okay.  Just... stings.”  Twilight tried to flex away the pain.  Headaches, she could deal with.  Stubbing a hoof or twisting an ankle were also child’s play, but the wings and all their nerves, muscles, and reflexes were still foreign to her.  She tried to spread the wing and stretch out the joint, but felt the second instantly push against Rainbow’s body, her muscles there struggling in vain to join those on her other side.  “I still can’t control them, can I?  I’m sorry.”   “Eh, at least you didn’t hit me in the eye this time.”  Rainbow shifted and let the wing out to its full span.  “No problem.”   Twilight bit back her reply.  Both her wings flapped in spite of her effort to only move one, and she folded them back to her body.   “Hey, don’t go all silent on me like that.”  Rainbow’s leg returned to her shoulders.  “It’s fine.  Your wings are new.  So what?”   “So I’m visiting a family of pegasi, and I don’t even have a foal’s understanding of my new body yet.”   “And I’m telling you that you’re overthinking it.  Your parents didn’t kick me out because I didn’t have a horn, did they?  My folks are cool.  If you don’t want to go flying, then don’t go flying.”  She shrugged.  “Nothing else to it.”   Everything else to it!  Rainbow never actually had a horn to channel her magic when she visited Canterlot, but Twilight’s new wings had the exact same capability of lift and thrust as any other pegasus’.   And pegasi flew.  And Rainbow and her parents were all from Cloudsdale.  And they flew every day.  And Rainbow was a super athlete.  And according to her, her parents were stars in their own right during school.  And her parents trained her.  And if they wanted to take a family flight during the vacation—   “Stop it,” Rainbow said, squeezing her hoof.  “You got that look in your eye again.”   Twilight let out a slow breath and nodded her thanks.  She and Rainbow had gone round and round about Twilight’s flying skills—lack thereof, Twilight had to admit—and in spite of all Rainbow’s assurances her parents wouldn’t care if Twilight couldn’t fly with them, she still dreaded being little more than a lump to be planned around.   The simple solution had been to cancel to give her more time, but cancelling again had been out of the question.  They had promised to make this trip every week after their visit to Twilight’s parents, and as the train entered the city, Twilight ticked off another reason for their delay with every building that sailed by the window. A surprise test from Princess Celestia that had turned into a quest to save a lost Empire, Trixie’s return and imprisonment of Ponyville, some had certainly been more dire than others, but all had been followed with the same promise she and Rainbow made on the way home from Canterlot: next week.  Then next week came, quickly followed by another excuse, followed in turn by another promise of next week.   The train shuddered, and the buildings outside began to pass slower.  She grinned, stuffing some travel brochures back into her saddlebags.  The constant rescheduling had hardly been fair to Rainbow’s parents, either, but as Rainbow had always pointed out, there were no secrets to reveal this trip.  There was nothing but two ponies to meet and a vacation to enjoy.   Rainbow Dash stood up, arching her back.  “Longest...”  She rocked back and forth, stretching out her legs with audible cracks.  “Trip...”  Splaying her wings out and making one slow, giant circle with them, she was done.  “Ever.  Seriously?  We had to go north to go west, then south again just to get to the west of where we started.  What sense does that make?”   “It’s better than plowing a rail line through a historical landmark.  How were the buffalo tribes supposed to know ponies would end up building a city right next to their earliest settlements?”  Twilight stood and shook her legs one by one, trying to get some feeling back into them.  “If it bothers you so much, we can change our return tickets to go south on the way home instead.  That way we’ll swing by Las Pegasus.”   Rainbow’s jaw dropped open.  “Really?”   “Sure!”  Twilight smiled and put on her saddlebags.  “I booked another non-stop trip anyway.”   “Evil, Twi.  Just evil.”  Rainbow grinned and helped Twilight adjust the bags over her wings.  “You know, this might be part of the problem.  You just got these beauties, and you haven’t done anything but tie them down.”   Twilight twisted about to look at the tips of her feathers poking out, just a bit too long to hide completely.  “I know.  I just... I want to be Twilight Sparkle this weekend.  At least in public.”  Rainbow’s parents knew about her ascension, of course.  Almost all of Equestria knew by now, but most of Equestria had also only seen pictures of the newly-crowned Princess Twilight—wrapped in the royal colors of her gown, mane stylized, wings extended, and adorned with her crown.  Without those trappings, her identity was still private.   She hoped.   The saddlebags had worked so far, on their trips to and from the dining car, and as she and Rainbow stepped out to join the bustle of ponies making their way off the train, there was a decisive lack of exclamations and bowing.   Rainbow grunted and nudged an apologizing earth mare off of her.  “Don’t suppose you could blow your cover until we’re off the train?”   Twilight smiled.  “Keep walking.”  They squeezed through the doors and onto the platform, Rainbow giving an exaggerated sigh about being able to breathe again.  Squinting her eyes against the sun, Twilight looked out to the horizon, and the sea stretching out from the city to meet it.  It was remarkably easy to do, considering the towering buildings of light she had seen last night passing through Vanhoover and had expected to see here.  “Everything looks so flat.  We are in downtown, aren’t we?”   “Uh-huh.”   Ponies hooked up to carts and cabs trotted through the streets while pedestrians lined the sidewalks, some jockeying for position in front of the stores with those climbing down from the platform.  Above the crowds, every window Twilight could see was decorated with streamers or signs or clothing.  A few ponies even stood by the doors, crying out their goods for all to hear.  “Wow, this almost reminds me of the market in Ponyville.  More colorful and crowded, but it feels familiar.”   “Uh-huh.”   Twilight closed her eyes and drew a long breath in her nose.  The slightest scent of salt lingered in the air.  “So that’s what the ocean smells like!  The only beaches we ever went to in Canterlot were lakefronts.”   “Uh-huh.”   Frowning, Twilight looked back at Rainbow—standing on the tips of her hooves, neck stretched out and craning around to search the crowd.  “Are you listening to me?”   “Uh-huh.”  Rainbow settled down, flicking her tail.  “They’re not here!”   Twilight furrowed her brow and scanned the crowd.  A moment later, her cheeks flushed.  “Um... what do your parents look like?”   “Dad’s got the mane.”  Rainbow waved a hoof through her hair.  “Coat’s darker than mine, but you can’t miss him.  Mom looks like a storm cloud, gray coat, dusty hair.”   They made their way down to the street, but Twilight failed to spot anypony matching Rainbow’s descriptions.  “They knew today was the day, right?”   “Yeah!  I’ve still got Mom’s letter in my bag.  She promised one of them would be here!”   Twilight raised an eyebrow at the sour note in her voice.  “Are you okay?”   Rainbow’s tail flicked again.  “I thought they were looking forward to this!”  Her head bowed after one final scan of the crowd.  “We haven’t seen each other since I moved to Ponyville.  They’ve never missed out on me like this before.”   “Oh.”  Twilight looked up to the sky, seeing no incoming pegasi.  “Do you think they could be on their way?”   “I don’t know.  Probably not, if they aren’t here by now.”  Rainbow looked back up to the platform.  “Did you see a map anywhere?  Let’s get moving.”   “No need,” Twilight said, waving a hoof.  “You said you still have the letter, right?”   One of the cab ponies stopped next to them.  “Welcome to San Franciscolt!  Where am I taking you today?”   Rainbow told him the address, and they were soon on their way.  The bustle of activity around the train station faded into the background, and a much quieter San Franciscolt took its place.  Several times, Twilight found herself confused on what was a home or a shop of some kind, and she soon picked up a pattern on what stores she did make out.  Each neighborhood seemed to have its own grocer, its own hardware store, its own set of goods and services with no centralized competition like Barnyard Bargains. The paved roads provided a much smoother ride than the rumbling of the train, and Twilight used the opportunity for more reading.  “Did you know kelp is used in over half a dozen grocery products, and also in dental health?”   Rainbow quirked an eyebrow.  “Kelp?”   “Kelp!  And Equestria’s largest resource of it is right off the coast!”  Twilight flipped over the brochure.  “There are forests of it in the eastern ocean, of course, but the mermares keep a close eye on them.”   “On the kelp.”   “Yep!  They harvest it for themselves out there, but there aren’t any mermares in the western ocean.  In fact, the university here in San Franciscolt has identified over fifty new species since their founding, all in addition to their discoveries in processing kelp!”   “Kelp.”  Rainbow scowled at a passing grass and hay smoothie shop.  “My folks came here for this and kelp.”    “It’s San Franciscolt’s biggest export.”  She levitated the brochure up for Rainbow to read.  “See?  They harvest and process it here, then ship it out to Vanhoover or Las Pegasus to reach the rest of Equestria.”   Rainbow’s eyes flicked over the page, and pushed it away.  “So they’re farmers.  I thought this place reminded me of Ponyville.”   “You noticed it, too?”  Twilight watched the city pass by, only a sparse few buildings more than a single floor.  “There’s more ponies, certainly, but I guess the kelp trade doesn’t bring in a lot of money.  I wonder if a direct railroad to central Equestria would help.”   “Historical dig site or whatever, remember?”  Rainbow prodded her.  “They’ve got some tourists at least.  Drop the studying and focus on relaxing.”   “If you insist,” Twilight said.  She rested her head on Rainbow’s shoulder.  “Speaking of tourists, what’s on our itinerary, anyway?”   “Our what?”   Twilight rolled her eyes.  “Don’t play that game with me, Rainbow.  You asked me to give you the chance to plan our schedule for once, so let’s hear what you’ve got.  What are we doing this weekend?”   Rainbow wrapped a wing around her shoulders.   “I wouldn’t mind visiting the university, or maybe taking a boat tour out to the kelp forest.  They offer snorkeling, you know.”   Rainbow just tightened her grip.   Twilight peered up at her mischevious grin.  “We’re winging it, aren’t we?”   “All weekend!”     Rainbow grimaced as she looked down the street.  “Kelp is one thing, but they traded Cloudsdale for this?”   Twilight followed suit much more impassively, studying every building in the little cul-de-sac their cab left them in.  The same welcoming yellow shade saturated every wall.  The same slanted roof capped off every second floor.  The same brass insignia decorated every brown colored door at the end of every split pathway over every patch of green grass.  “I didn’t know they lived in a duplex.”   “I didn’t know they lived in Dullsville.”   A rebuke slipped away with the sight of an elderly mare peeking through a ground floor window at them.  Twilight smiled and waved.  The mare adjusted her spectacles, took one look at Rainbow’s mane, and instantly returned it, gesturing to the building’s other door.  “At least we know it’s friendly here.”   “Friendly, yeah.”  Rainbow trotted to the door and rapped a hoof against it.  A shout echoed past it a heartbeat later, bringing a grin to her face.  “And them realizing they screwed up.  Ten bits says it’s Dad first.”   The door flung open, and a rainbow blur shot out, slamming into Rainbow Dash in a peel of laughter.  “Kid!  You made it!”   Twilight sprang aside, but the blur settled into a stallion before it reached her, his mane nearly matching Rainbow’s to a T in style, length, and color.  “M-Mister Rainbow, I presume?”   He didn’t seem to hear her.  “Celestia, it’s been too long!  Let me get a look at you.”  His hooves cupped Rainbow’s face, and he leaned back, his yellow eyes locking onto Rainbow’s violet.  “Ah, you’ve still got that confidence in you.  You’ve kept up with your training, right?”   Rainbow stepped back with a smirk, stretching out her wing.  “Want to see for yourself?”  They slapped their wings together, and the stallion gaped, shaking his off.  “See?  Even stronger!”   “I told you they were due an hour ago!”  A mare followed the shout outside, dark coated, beating the air behind her with a light gray tail.  “And did you even realize you missed the guest?”  She extended a hoof and offered a smile, her face framed by her short mane.  “Excuse the oaf.  Welcome to our home Miss... uh...”   Twilight fidgeted as the mare’s green eyes dropped to her hidden wings.  “Twilight Sparkle.”  She took the offered hoof in gentle shake, returning the smile.  “Just Twilight.  It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”   “Same to you,” she said.  “My name is Cloud Dart, and this is—”   “Rainbow Blaze!” the stallion said, taking Twilight’s hoof from Cloud Dart’s.  “So you’re the one who’s taming my daughter, huh?”   Dart rolled her eyes and turned her attention to Rainbow.   Twilight blushed.  “I-I’m not sure I’d put it that way.  She’s—”   “Ha!  Only joking!”  He squeezed her hoof before letting go—his grip nearly strong enough to make her shout.  “Rainbow’s told us so much in her letters, but it’s great to meet you.  And wow!  It’s an exciting time for you, huh?”   Dart gave him a sour look, but slipped Twilight a wink.  “What he means is, we have a lot to catch up on.  Like the Wonderbolt Academy!  I always knew you’d make it, Rainbow!  I knew it!”  She kissed Rainbow’s forehead, holding fast against her daughter’s squirms, and waved a hoof to the door.  “How about we head in?  I was just getting dinner ready.”  She led them into a small alcove at the foot of a stairwell, only a coat rack and a mat to wipe their hooves filling the space.   “Allow me,” Blaze said, lifting Twilight’s bags and draping them over his back.  “I’ll drop these off in your room while you two go up and sit for a bit.  Rainbow?”  He took hers as well, and followed Dart upstairs.   The stairs emptied into a spacious room.  A simple wooden table sat to the side, with a pair of sofas beyond it making a de facto sitting room.  Next to them, Twilight could see an unkempt bed lying beyond an open set of double doors.  There was a kitchen in front of her, separated from the communal area by a chest-high counter.   Dart walked past it, swishing her tail at Blaze as he retreated down a nearby hallway.  “We have a guest room down there, and a bathroom for you right next to it.  So long as you don’t mind sharing with Rainbow.” Twilight shook her head.  “Not at all.  Um...”  She swept her eyes across the simple decor.  What would Rarity say?  “I like it!  It’s, uh, elegant in its—”   Rainbow grabbed her shoulders, spinning her around.  “Check out the hardware!”   The sight behind her stopped any protest in its tracks: the entire wall—stretching from the rail overlooking the stairwell all the way to the window at the end of the room—was covered in hanging medals of gold and silver, with a few plaques and pictures filling in the few gaps.  “They’ve... they’ve got even more than you do, Rainbow!”   Dart laughed.  “Just about, but there’s two of us, and one of her.  Not exactly fair odds.  Plus, some of her early ones are up there too.”   Twilight paced along the wall.  “For the highest performance and indomitable spirit,” she read aloud from one of the plaques bearing Cloud Dart’s name.  A spread of medals bearing identical insignias surrounded it, and after a few inches of bare space, another plaque dedicated to Rainbow Blaze shared the same decoration.  “For selfless service and exemplary sportsmanship.”   “Our last competition in our last year!” Dart called from the kitchen.  “Cloudsdale Academy whipped those up for us after it was over.  Blaze and I graduated as the most decorated students they ever had.”   Five golds, Twilight noted, studying Dart’s half of the display in more detail, and three golds for him.  “You beat him.”   “Dad got his share, too.  Look!”  Rainbow pushed her farther down, hoof darting from  medal to medal.  “Hundred Meter Sprint!  Two Hundred Meter Ring Weave!  The Long Glide, keeping a max altitude of five meters after a dive bomb!”   Twilight stumbled along, barely able to note the passing pictures.  Dart, standing tall on a podium with her short hair still pulled back to keep it out of the way.  Blaze, riding the shoulders of three other stallions, all of them holding up gold medals.  Every picture, showing strikingly similar images of one or both of Rainbow’s parents.  “Wait, were these all in the same year?”    “Most of ‘em, yeah.  Dad didn’t get rolling until Mom got in his face about taking things seriously.”   Twilight glanced towards the kitchen.  “I think I sense a story.”   Dart looked up from the counter with a ladle in her mouth, dropping it to her hoof.  “Not much of one, really.  You read his plaque, didn’t you?  The selfless service it mentioned, he was practically an assistant coach our first few years.  He helped the team improve, certainly, but his own marks weren’t getting much better.  I just gave him a little push.  He was better than that, and he knew it.”   The results were plain to see, all his medals hanging there because he listened to one mare.  “You must have been good friends.”   “Not really.”  Dart smiled.  “I was better than him, and I knew it.”  Her eyes flicked over to the plaque display.  “We both hit the top of our game, and I finally got to beat him at his best.”   That sounds familiar.  Twilight caught a glimpse of Rainbow’s face reflected in one of the frames.   “I heard somepony talking about me!”  Blaze trotted back in to join Dart in the kitchen.  “Don’t you believe a word of it, Twilight!  I liked helping my teammates improve.  It was good for morale, getting everyone to feel better about themselves, and she never really needed my help until that last year.  I let her win!”   Dart scoffed, shaking her head.  “And what was that trick you pulled, cutting into my lane in the last lap of the semis?”   “Youthful exuberance!  Speaking of which, are we sure we want our daughter shacking up with a pony we don’t even know right under our roof?”   Twilight flushed and shuffled towards the far end of the house, nearly missing the not-so-hushed whispers snapping back and forth at each other from the kitchen.  The memories and accolades on the wall passed in a blur, until she found herself staring at her hosts’ smiling faces—Blaze dressed in a jacket and tie, Dart draped in a beautiful white gown—holding each other close and smiling at the camera.   Alone on a dance floor surrounded by happy and cheering ponies, they looked no older than they did on their podiums.  Her eyes lingered on a strip of cloth that looped around their necks, binding them together with three knots.  She recognized the tradition from a social studies lesson Princess Cadance had taught at the school: a pegasi symbol that no ill wind could undo what had been bound. A promise to share a life together. “You’re so young!”  Twilight slapped a hoof to her mouth.   Rainbow walked over.  “Oh, the wedding photo?  Yeah, they got married after school.  Like, not even a year, I think.”   Blaze rolled his eyes.  “And Cloudy here hasn’t changed a bit since then!”   She swiped a wing at him.  “What did we just talk about?!”   Twilight bit her lip and tried to ignore the voices arguing behind her by studying the faces in front of her.  Not even a year out of school, they were younger than her parents at their wedding, even younger than herself and Rainbow Dash.  A hair smaller than their current selves, too, lacking some final muscle development.   Except...   Her eyes focused on Dart’s barrel.  The white dress hanging so loosely around her shoulders and flanks wrapped snug around her stomach, swollen like an overgrown watermelon, and completely out of place with the rest of her trim physique.  Her breath caught in her throat.   Rainbow chuckled.  “I know that look.  You saw it, didn’t you?”  Her hoof entered Twilight’s frozen vision and pointed to Dart’s bulge.  “There I am!  With them since day one.”   Questions streamed through her thoughts, each one raising another logistical issue so quickly she had no time to voice her concern, much less reason an answer.  Food.  Housing.  Employment.  Younger than her parents, who had planned Shining Armor to the last detail. Younger than her and Rainbow. Married and pregnant while younger than their daughter now was. Rainbow waved a wing in front of her face.  “Twi?  You okay?” “I... I had no idea.”  All the time she had spent worrying about her identity and her relationships, and her own partner had grown up in a home with two parents who had barely gotten their legs under them in life.  “Rainbow, I can’t even imagine trying to raise a family now.  How is it even possible that young?” Rainbow shrugged.  “We stuck together.  They might have been young, but that’s what normal families do, right?  They stick together.”   “Dinner’s ready, girls!”   They made their way back to the table, Twilight’s head still reeling.  What normal families do...  Rainbow was right, of course.  Twilight saw no reason school-day friends couldn’t get married and have a happy family, even if the wedding was demonstrably swift compared to other such couples.   You came all this way to meet them, so don’t let one surprise throw you off.  Relax, Twilight.   She was hardly a stranger to a whirlwind year herself.  A wedding, competitions, graduation, all those could have easily left a strong foundation for a life together just like discovering the magic of friendship.  She owed it to Rainbow to try and understand, and she tried to narrow down her queries as she sat down.  One memory surfaced as Blaze sat across from her.  “Rainbow told me you were the one who taught her how to fly.  Did you teach for a living?”   Dart laughed.  “Teach?  Him?”  She fought her chuckles, setting down a serving tray on the table.  “He knows how to organize a practice, or a floor in the weather factory.  Not a classroom.”   “Ah, you worked in the the weather factory.”  Twilight took an offered plate loaded with steamed vegetables covered in a cheese sauce.  “Did you join the weather team here?”   Blaze waved a hoof towards the window.  “Not a whole lot of inclement weather gets scheduled here.  The roster is only about a dozen deep, including the reserves.”   “That’s not much more than Ponyville!”   “I’m not surprised.  No, my real job is coaching the track team at a school.  Speaking of which...”  He turned to Rainbow.  “We’ve got a practice scheduled tomorrow, and I wouldn’t mind a little help.  The best flyer I ever trained would be a pretty good thing for the little ones to see.” His plate slipped out of Dart’s hooves, crashing to the table and flipping over.  Twilight threw up a field and caught everything before it hit. Rainbow whistled.  “Nice catch, Twilight!” Twilight ignored Rainbow’s cheer, but her any comment died on her tongue at the sight of Dart’s face. She glared at Blaze—her eyes trying to throw fire at him, but her open mouth weighing down her anger with shock.  “How could you— Blaze, we talked about this!  You promised me you wouldn’t make her go!” He shrugged.  “She can say no.  Besides, it’s a little late to reschedule.  I can’t just drop in on every family tonight and tell them the practice is off.” “I’m not worried about the practice!” she snapped, stomping a hoof.  “We agreed not to drag her into—” “Have you met our daughter?  This is something she’d enjoy, so I offered it!  I’m trying to entertain the guests!”   Dart snorted.  “Right, because the best hosts in the world always schedule work for themselves over the weekend.”   Twilight huddled down as more volleys of arguments swarmed back and forth overhead.  Did... did I say something?   Rainbow stretched a wing over her back, leaning in and whispering, “Chillax, Twilight.  They argue like this all the time.” All the time?  She studied Rainbow’s face. “What, your family never argues?”  Louder, she said, “I’d love to go!”   Dart’s mouth snapped shut. Blaze gestured at Rainbow.  “See?” Dart finished passing out the plates and returned her tray to the kitchen, offering a guilty look at Twilight as she finally sat down to join them.  She broke the silence after a few moments of everypony eating.  “So how has little Fluttershy been doing?”     Twilight lay on the white sheets of the bed she would share with Rainbow Dash, flipping through the pages of her book and failing to read any of them.  Countess Cordial of Canterlot might as well have been Twilight Velvet for all the good Twilight Sparkle’s attention did, navigating the treacherous politics of her dinner party with all her guests making faces at each other like two foals behind her back. She closed the book and rolled over, her head dangling over the side, and she stared out the now upside-down window.  Rather than the idyllic neighborhood past the windowsill flower bed, she saw Shining Armor’s face contorted like a pumpkin carved for Nightmare Night.  A quick threat from their mother to withhold dessert for the night had ended that game in its tracks, and her scolding of Night Light after he had been caught making faces right after kept the entire table quiet for the rest of the night. Her father, for his part, had a knack for settling disputes in his own way.  Shining Armor had once accused her of fiddling with his homework, and her assertions that she had corrected it fell on deaf ears.  She had backed off once Night Light suggested she take on all of Shining’s homework if she was so set on interfering, however.   So we argued, too.  A normal family.  Why is this bothering me?   Twilight rubbed her temples.  She couldn’t get Dart’s face out of her mind.  Their fight had been so avoidable—Blaze could have settled his business before his daughter arrived, or even after, or a half dozen other scenarios that came to mind—but the look of hurt Dart had over such a minor thing...   She heard the door push open.  “That’s not a good look for you, you know.  What’s up?”   Twilight sat up as Rainbow shut them inside.  “I was just thinking about dinner.”   Rainbow rolled her eyes.  “Again?  Twilight, nothing happened.”  She walked over to the bed and pulled up the sheets.  “Trust me, I’ve seen them act like that before.  It’s not a big deal.”   “I believe you.  It’s just...”  Twilight sighed and climbed off, pacing in front of the oval window.  “My family had fights.  I remembered a couple of them now, but something tonight was... different.”   “Of course it was.  It was my family this time.”  Rainbow settled in and pulled up Twilight’s half of the covers as well.  “They were just stressed.  They missed us at the station, and it’s been so long since we’ve been together, and it took so long for us to get here in the first place, and this, and that, I’ve seen this all before.”   “Stress?”  Twilight closed the blinds.  She nodded and climbed back into the bed.  “I guess that makes sense.”   “Guess nothing.  You should have seen them around the time for my competitions at the Academy.  Or when I told them I was gay.”  Rainbow reached for the desk lamp, but her hoof stopped short of it.  “You saw their medals.  They’re competitive, and they push each other.  They’ve done it for years.”   Twilight smiled, willing to let her thoughts escape her in the coming darkness.   They didn’t.   Rainbow nestled next to her, and Twilight tried to accept her reasoning.  The next day would be quiet, at least.  Rainbow would leave with Blaze, and she would be alone with Dart for a few hours.  Dinner had ended pleasantly enough, but there was still more under the surface for her to learn. Satisfied at her plan, her mind let itself shut down, and she slept.