Photo Finish sat exhausted at an outdoor café in Central Canterlot, one more day of meetings out of the way. Staring into her small, delicate coffee cup, Photo dropped back into her mental to-do list. Since the meetings went well, she was free from her magazine related duties for a short while. Raising her cup to her lips, it properly registered in her mind that her next obligation was the party. She had almost a day of nothing to do until then. Her face inadvertently twitched as the phrase “calm before the storm” floated through her mind.
Well, she did have one thing left to do. Twilight was still waiting for that picture of Photo. She’d found an old passport photo of herself that would probably do the job, she just had to fly back to Ponyville. Noticing her drink had run dry, Photo paid her bill and stood to leave.
The instant she stood up, something felt wrong. Always one to trust her instincts, Photo glanced over her shoulder. Nothing out of place except another customer paying and getting ready to leave. That little twinge of paranoia kicked in. He was slightly familiar, but she couldn’t really place it. He had the type of looks you’d forget completely if you had only crossed paths. Yet another white unicorn in Canterlot.
Her paranoia had gotten her this far in life, she wasn’t going to stop listening to it now. Photo quickly made her way down the street away from the café, occasionally looking into shops so she could try to catch sight of the stallion in the corner of her eye. Sure enough, he’d left the café and was walking the same direction. Forcing herself to remember there was a 50-50 chance of that, Photo stopped in front of a store, looking in the window intently. Sure enough, the stallion just kept walking, ignoring her completely.
Mildly embarrassed of her overreaction, Photo moved on, looking for somewhere to change out of her disguise. She wasn’t really in the right area of the city to find any public facilities to use, but surely she’d find somet- Her steps slowed as she noticed the stallion had stopped in front of her, looking in a store window. It was the same trick she had just used.
She wanted to take to the sky, but that wasn’t an option. He was probably with the tabloid and that’d be playing right into their hooves. She slowly kept walking, making like she was checking out the storefronts, until she was right behind him. As she glanced out the side of her goggles to watch his movements, her eyes locked with his reflection in the window, staring right back at her.
Struggling to not just fly off, Photo judged her options. She could run. Even without her wings, not many ponies could best her in a hoofrace. It would make a scene, though. Damn tabloids loved dramatic shit like that. Confronting him wasn’t a real option, either. As badly as she wanted to, she had nothing to confront him with. In the fraction of a second she had to think, she spotted a second doorway opposite the entrance to the store. Residential stair for the upper floors. Quickly moving the few feet past her pursuer, she reached for that handle, hoping beyond hope that the residents were as lazy about locking the door as she was.
The door opened. Quickly making her way up the stairs, she felt safe for just a moment. She knew he wouldn’t immediately follow her in, it would look too suspicious. Then again, he also probably knew his cover was already blown. Photo made it to a landing that opened out into a hallway, multiple apartments on either side. The end of the hall had a window, probably large enough to fit through. Quickly making her way down the hall, she peeked her head out the window, double checking that the stallion wasn’t able to see it.
She could make the jump, but it would probably trash her dress. That option was clearly out. She closed her eyes to think. There were hoofsteps on the floor above. Thinking about it, she didn’t hear any on the floor she was on. It would be a risky move, but it seriously sounded like nopony was coming. Changing in the hall like this was undignified, but she wasn’t seeing many other options. Photo quickly detached her fake tail, tucking it in her bag.
Halfway through getting the dress off, she heard a door. It was the entrance, at the bottom of the stairs. Throwing caution to the wind, she tossed her dress off and shoved it in her bag, diving out the window. One flap of her wings and she was silently on the ground, clutching her bag in her forehooves, heart pounding in her chest. She stared back up at the window she just dove out of, her white bangs blocking her view.
She couldn’t hear much over the sound of her heart, but she knew. Somepony was walking down the hall, and they’d be checking out that window any second. She had to leave.
“Come on,” Dash said, her body refusing to obey, “I gotta move.”
In a sudden burst of motion, she pulled the wig off her head and started walking toward the back of the building, hoping to cross an alley onto another main road. Her heart refused to slow down, adrenaline still coursing through her system. As she reached the road, she glanced back down the alley in suspicion. Despite all evidence, she couldn’t admit to herself that she’d shaken the tail.
She planned to move a few blocks on hoof in order to pull range before taking off. As she moved, she got more and more comfortable that the white stallion hadn’t managed to figure out what happened. She just had to keep on edge in case they started getting more persistent or organized. With a sigh of relief, Rainbow finally decided she was clear to take to the sky and head to Ponyville.
Rainbow landed outside the Ponyville library, exhausted. The late afternoon heat was weighing heavily on her as she reached forward and opened the door. Inside, Spike was sitting in a corner, reading comics. Looking around, Twilight wasn’t in the main room.
Before she could even ask, Spike noticed her and spoke up, “Oh, hey, Dash. If you’re looking for Twilight, she’s in the kitchen having breakfast.”
“Thanks, Spike,” Rainbow replied before the sentence fully processed, “Wait, breakfast?”
With a groan, Spike set his comic down and looked over at Rainbow with an expression more fitting of a disappointed father, “Yeah, when I woke up Twilight was just getting in bed. She’s been asleep all day. Said she got distracted with something she was working on last night and forgot to sleep.”
With a chuckle, Dash turned to make her way to the kitchen, “Yeah, sounds like her.”
“Tell me about it,” Spike snarked, returning to his comic.
The first thing she noticed upon reaching the kitchen was that Twilight hadn’t taken any time to get ready for the day after climbing out of bed. Twilight looked up at Rainbow with a disheveled mane and tired eyes. What took Rainbow a few more seconds to process was that Twilight was a pegasus.
“I... what?” Rainbow stammered out.
“Morning, Rainbow,” Twilight replied with a sleepy smile, “I did a magic again.”
Rainbow walked over, impressed. Poking a hoof forward, it drifted effortlessly through the false wings. With a chuckle, Rainbow accepted, “Alright, that’s pretty cool.”
“Yeah, isn’t it though?” Twilight glowed with the praise, “I’m getting close to done with the thing for you, I just need that picture and some time. You got my letter, right?”
Rainbow laid the picture of Photo face down on the kitchen table, “Yup. So how long do you need? Any chance you’ll have it for tomorrow?”
Twilight nearly spat out her cup of tea, “Tomorrow?”
“Yeah, I’ve got the party tomorrow night,” Rainbow explained.
Twilight’s face turned to a suspicious scowl, “And you’re taking my advice?”
With a sigh of defeat, Rainbow admitted, “Yeah, I am. You were right. Like usual.”
“Hold on,” Twilight paused, “I need to go write down the time and date. It’s not often you admit you were wrong, I want a detailed record.”
Dash groaned at the bad joke before continuing, “No, but really, can you pull it off by tomorrow?”
Twilight thought it over, “Well… I mean I will be up all night since I wrecked my sleep schedule. We’ll see.”
“Thank you, but seriously. If you can’t, you can’t. I get that,” Rainbow reassured, “It would be amazing if you pulled it off, though.”
Twilight slid a cup of tea over to Rainbow, “Stay a while?”
“Sure, no harm,” Rainbow replied as she sat down.
Sitting with her conspirator, able to discuss the stress she was under, was oddly calming. Between the party and the tabloids chasing her, she had plenty to bring up. Something about saying it all out loud helped her organize her thoughts, and that made everything just a little bit more manageable.
“I just can’t understand how the paparazzi manage to keep tabs on you,” Twilight said, “You’re literally all over the place and bouncing between disguises.”
“I know,” came Rainbow’s answer, “it’s been kinda worrying me.”
Twilight started to offer forward thoughts, “I mean, there are about four different schools of magic I could think of that might be ab-”
Rainbow cut her off with a raised hoof. She swore she’d heard it. After a pause, it came again. A gentle coo from outside. Turning to look out the window, it was there, just staring at her. The little grey flying rat. She glared back at it.
“You think they could use a bird?” Rainbow asked quietly.
Twilight thought for a moment, following Rainbow’s eyeline, “Plausible. There would be better ways, but plausible.”
“I’m gonna go use your roof for a bit,” Rainbow announced, leaving the room.
Slinking upstairs like a hunting animal, Rainbow slid out a window and up into the boughs of the tree. As best she could tell, the pigeon was still looking in through the windows of the bottom floor, trying to figure out where Dash went. Rainbow just laid in wait.
The sun was very nearly set when the pigeon apparently decided it was done and turned to fly toward the town park. Using the lighting to her advantage, Dash tailed it with catlike grace, ducking from cover to cover a ways behind the bird. As she followed it through the park, she was surprised to see it continue past the park and toward Sweet Apple Acres. Intrigued that the pigeon would be heading out of town, Rainbow kept up pursuit. When it finally landed, Rainbow immediately went pale.
As the trail ended, she found herself staring at Fluttershy’s cottage, the pigeon settling into a coop in the upper branches near Shy’s bedroom.
As Photo finally woke up in the morning, one question was still digging at her mind. How much did Fluttershy know? Angry stalker pigeons seemed so incredibly out of character for her, but it’s not like anything else even held a semblance of sense.
She struggled to reassure herself. After all, when Fluttershy panicked and fled from Photo, she was more than happy to be chatting with Rainbow after. She couldn’t have figured out everything yet. It’s not like Fluttershy could actually speak with her animals, she just read the body language and inferred from there. At least, Photo was pretty sure that was how it worked.
Photo tried to take a mental step back. One of her best friends sending animals around to stalk her? It had to just be her paranoia, the concept was absurd. It was the only conclusion she could reach, but it couldn’t be right. She was missing something.
Even if it were true, Fluttershy wouldn’t be selling her information to the tabloids, right? It felt too indirect, even for Fluttershy. As far as Photo could tell, Fluttershy held no animosity towards her, and it was hard to picture such a skittish mare working with the same ponies who she'd spent so much effort avoiding. That meant there was still another leak. Cursing her luck, Photo finally sat up and got out of bed.
Dragging her way through another routine morning, she thought things over. Maybe Twilight was on the right track with her idea, ponies from the tabloid could easily be using magic to follow her. The one following her was a unicorn, after all. If that was right, then that meant she could never fully shake them. Well, at least as far as Rainbow understood magic. With a groan, she flopped her head on the kitchen counter.
As far as Fluttershy, she wasn’t certain how to proceed. Thinking it over, she’d only ever seen the pigeon as Rainbow. She couldn’t come up with any good reason Fluttershy would be proxy-stalking her. Maybe it was worth talking with her. Fluttershy was the indirect type, but even this seemed odd. Weighing the risks, Rainbow resolved to try and get some information out of Fluttershy. Even if it wasn’t Fluttershy’s doing, she was dealing with a pigeon that lived at her house. Fluttershy could just ask it or something.
Finishing her breakfast, Rainbow descended upon Ponyville. Gliding her way back to the cottage, Rainbow reached up a hoof to knock, but hesitated. She had zero idea how Fluttershy would react to being confronted, but with a deep breath Dash shoved aside her worries and knocked. After a few seconds, Fluttershy opened the door, Angel standing at her hooves.
“Heya, Shy,” Rainbow said with a wave, “I’ve got animal questions.”
Surprised, Fluttershy led her in, “Okay, I’ll answer what I can.”
Sitting down on a chair facing Fluttershy’s couch, Rainbow wasted no time, “How much do you know about pigeons?”
Lighting up with excitement, Fluttershy bubbled, “Oh, pigeons are just so fascinating. Most of the ones you see around these days are homing pigeons, since the army used to use them for carrying messages. When they switched to using magic, they just let all the pigeons go. Of course, they all flew back to their roosts, since that’s what they do.”
Rainbow watched Fluttershy carefully as she rambled about birds. Knowing Fluttershy, if she had anything to do with the one following Dash, the very mention of pigeons would have made her a nervous wreck. Still, this was too much to be a coincidence.
One thing did catch Rainbow’s attention, so she spoke up, “Yeah, I’d heard that ponies used to send messages with them. How does that work, do you like… tell them to go somewhere?”
“Well, no,” Fluttershy explained, “They just know how to fly back to their home roost. You have to carry them to where you want to send the message from and let them fly back home with a little rolled up letter.”
Rainbow had a sudden thought, “You have pigeons, right? Have you ever used them for messages?’
Fluttershy started to blush and get evasive, “Well, um… sometimes.”
Rainbow wanted to press harder, to ask why her pigeon kept showing up in Canterlot, but she’d known Fluttershy for years. Pressure like that would just panic her, and once Fluttershy panicked, all bets were off.
Forcing herself to act natural, Rainbow just smiled, “Cool, I’ll remember that’s a thing you can do.”
“Why did you ask about pigeons, anyway?” Fluttershy asked abruptly.
“Uh, no real reason,” Rainbow fumbled out, “Just been seeing them around, got interested.”
Fluttershy could clearly tell Rainbow was avoiding answering, but she said nothing. Rainbow figured it was probably since she’d been hiding something in the conversation as well. She just hoped that Fluttershy would move on and forget about the exchange.
“Do you want to hear any other animal facts?” Fluttershy asked, breaking the silence.
Rainbow quickly thought up an exit to the conversation, “Nah, I should probably double check I have no weather patrol things to be doing.”
A little disappointed, Fluttershy mumbled, “Oh, uh, sure. Go ahead.”
Saying their goodbyes, Rainbow left Fluttershy’s cottage, sparing a glance up at the coop in the upper branches. It easily had space for a dozen pigeons, but it didn’t seem like all of the boxes were occupied. Trying to do a quick count of how many pigeons she could actually spot, Dash was interrupted by a knocking from inside the window. Angel was standing there, eyeing her suspiciously. Wishing she could have gotten more information, Rainbow turned to leave before the rabbit drew Fluttershy’s attention.
As Rainbow landed near the library, she could smell pancakes. Stepping over to the kitchen window, she looked inside to see an exhausted Twilight and a freshly awoken Spike finishing up dinner and breakfast respectively.
“Mornin’,” Rainbow called.
Spike absently waved, face filled with pancake. Twilight turned to see Dash and grinned sleepily, “Good morning, Rainbow.”
“How’d the night go?” Rainbow awkwardly asked through the window.
Twilight yawned, “Pretty well. I think I’ll finish up after a nap.”
“I assume you mean after sleeping the entire day away,” Spike teased.
Twilight shot Spike a playful glare, “You’re one to talk.”
As Twilight and Spike both chuckled to themselves, Rainbow’s mind raced, “You think you’ll finish, though?”
Twilight looked back over to Rainbow, catching the slight panic in her tone, “I… Probably?”
Forcing herself to keep calm, Dash faked a smile, “Cool. Okay. I’ll check back later.”
Walking away from the library window, Rainbow knew she needed something to distract her. She had hours still before she needed to be in Canterlot, and if she just spent the time sitting around worrying, she’d go crazy. Something, anything.
She took to the sky. She decided to go for a fly. Fly and think. Her past few days had been nothing but stumbling upon all kinds of secrets. She still couldn’t quite place what had started it all. She wanted to pin all of her problems on that damn pigeon, but some part of her knew that she was just using it as a scapegoat. She didn’t have all the pieces.
Rainbow struggled to get the thoughts out of her head and just fly. Spotting a few unscheduled stormclouds drifting off of the Everfree, she distracted herself with them for a moment. Focusing on mindless work always helped her when she was overthinking things.
As she shoved the last cloud back from whence it came, something occurred to her. Before contacting Rarity, before the bird, before any of this, there was one thing so dramatic for her that she’d still never fully spent the time to process it. The Wonderbolts shoot. It was real, it was happening, and it had always been her dream. She had been so distracted by everything around her that she’d nearly forgotten, but as she thought about it, she felt no more stress or excitement than any of the days prior. It had always been there, weighing on her. Even without actively thinking about how much time and effort she was going to have to put in, somewhere in the back of her mind she knew, and it had left her scattered. All that excitement and anxiety was there, whether or not she acknowledged it.
Rainbow laughed at herself. No wonder she could barely focus, her mind was spending so much energy on maintaining its weird state of denial and longing. Unconscious stress. Now that she’d realized, now that she knew, she could try to do something about it. That thought alone made her feel so much better. Hovering there, watching the dark clouds roll into the distance, Rainbow felt truly relieved for the first time in days. She had a next course of action, she finally knew what she needed to do. She had a photo shoot to plan.
Photo Finish squinted at her schedule, the orange light of sunset bleeding into her bedroom. Wait, what time was it? She’d gotten so wrapped up in planning and being productive that she’d completely lost track of the day. She checked the clock, eyes locking on the hands as her mind struggled to slide back out of an imagined photography session and into reality. The instant she finally processed the time, Dash rocketed out of her home.
Landing on Twilight’s balcony with force, she opened the door in a flurry of motion. Spike jumped up with a start from where he’d been napping on the stairs, “What? Who? What’s happening?”
Immediately at his side, Rainbow turned him to face her, “Spike, please tell me Twilight woke up.”
“Huh? What?” Spike stammered, wiping at his eyes, “Man, I dunno, I was asleep.”
“Is everything okay up there, Spike?” Twilight called from the basement, “What was that loud noise?”
Calming herself as much as possible, Rainbow descended into the basement. Twilight stood in her workshop, surrounded by countless books and apparatuses. The entire lab was aglow with various magics and what looked to be the light of a tiny forge.
Seeing Twilight sufficiently awake, Rainbow felt far more at ease, “Hey, yeah, that was me. Are you done?”
“Pretty close,” Twilight replied with a silent yawn, “I’d like to spend a few hours testing it to make sure there aren’t any anomalies in its effect, but-”
“So wait, it works?” Dash quickly replied.
Twilight lifted a small silver locket from her desk, “Well, initial results are promising. One way to find out, right?”
Twilight slowly floated the small pendant over to Rainbow, setting it in her hoof. It was a beautiful little thing, all silver with delicate engravings around the edges. Flicking the latch, the locket swung open effortlessly. Inside, facing one another, were two tiny pictures, one of Rainbow and one of Photo. She immediately recognized both shots, one a newspaper clipping from after they’d stopped Nightmare Moon and the other the passport photo she’d brought the day before.
“Well, here goes nothing,” Rainbow announced, sliding the chain of the locket over her head. She quickly looked around for a mirror, but what she saw was Twilight looking impressed with herself. That was enough for her.
“Miss Finish,” Twilight greeted.
Craning her neck to look herself over, Photo smiled back at Twilight, “Jou’ve outdone jourself, Tvilight.”
After a stifled giggle at the accent, Twilight replied, “You look perfect. Just gotta make sure nopony touches your wings.”
Confused, Rainbow glanced at her back, only to find her wings absent, “Oh, uh… Shit.”
“‘Shit?’” Twilight replied in confusion, “‘Shit’ what?”
Dash awkwardly turned to face Twilight, “Uh… I kinda needed those.”
“Wh-” Twilight sputtered before letting out an exasperated sigh, “Rainbow, you told me you needed to hide them.”
“I totally told you I changed my mind,” she replied, trying to deflect blame.
“You said you might change your mind,” Twilight corrected, “You never said you had.”
Rainbow wanted to argue, but she had nothing, so she just drooped her head and asked, “Well… can you fix it?”
Twilight plucked the necklace off with her magic and looked it over, “It’d be a makeshift change at best, and without proper testing I can’t guarantee much of anything.”
Rainbow looked at her friend with an apologetic grimace, “Can you try?”
With a drawn out noise halfway between groan and sigh, Twilight closed her eyes to focus, “I’ll need a bit.”
Rainbow stood and watched for a moment, but the longer she watched, the less she could tell what was going on. Eventually she decided the best course of action was to just go back upstairs. Sitting down in the main room, Rainbow tried to distract herself.
“So, how goes the scheming?” Spike called out, sitting up in one of the upper bookshelves.
Rainbow jumped at the noise, “What? Scheming? Who’s scheming?”
Spike let loose an amused laugh before looking up from his book, “Please, Rainbow. You’ve been stopping by and having serious conversations with no proper nouns. I can tell there’s something you don’t want me to overhear, I read spy novels.”
Right, Spike was raised smart. Rainbow dropped her chin on the table in front of her, “Could be going better. Also, I wouldn’t say it’s a scheme.”
“Plot? Conspiracy? Con? Ploy? Racket?” Spike started listing off, clearly amused with himself.
“What are you, a thesaurus?” Rainbow fired back.
Spike chuckled and returned to his book, “Well, good luck with it. And be sure to tell me when it’s over, I love cool stories like that.”
“Sure, why not,” Rainbow replied noncommittally.
After a few more tense minutes of watching the clock, Twilight called up from downstairs. Nervously, Rainbow descended to see Twilight holding out the locket once more. Dropping it over her neck, Rainbow looked herself over again.
“So without proper testing, I can’t guarantee the effect is stable,” Twilight explained, “Especially given the makeshift modifications I just did. If it starts failing, the pendant will start getting warm to the touch, so you should have time to get out of there. Then again, by my calculations it should just work no issue. Just stay away from any strong magic that might interfere and you should be good to go.”
Photo walked up and gave Twilight a quick hug, “I can’t even begin to tell jou how thankful I am.”
Twilight returned the hug, “Good luck tonight.”
Panting from flying harder than usual and then galloping from her penthouse, Photo Finish found herself at the top of an exterior stairwell at one of the tallest buildings in Canterlot. She carefully adjusted her dress and went to make sure her wig was on straight, forgetting in the moment that it was just her mane now. She stared at the doorway, only a few minutes late. The sounds of revelry came from inside, loud music and chatting. Here she was.
Photo stepped through the door.