The Plan
After the talk with Applejack, Rainbow Dash felt that now the time was right to check to see if Fluttershy was finally home. She flew from the farmhouse straight over to the cottage, landed, and knocked lightly on the door. It was highly unusual for Rainbow Dash to knock on a door, usually opting to fly through a window or something instead. Sometimes it was to annoy somepony like Rarity, other times it was just because she felt that it was faster, and usually it was.
However, this time it wasn’t a casual visit, so Rainbow felt that knocking would be way more appropriate this time around.
She heard a little rustling coming from the other side of the door before it opened, revealing the yellow pegasus who Rainbow had been searching for ever since her startling discovery.
“Oh, um, hi Rainbow,” Fluttershy said hesitantly, refusing to look her friend in the eye.
“Hey Fluttershy. I was wondering if we could talk for a second.”
“Um, sure,” she said extremely quietly and nervously. Rainbow took these as signals that she should be calm and speak slowly, so as to not upset Fluttershy more than she clearly was.
Rainbow walked through the open door and past the pegasus that was ushering her in. She walked in and sat on the couch in the living room as Fluttershy shut the door behind her and sat down on the couch with her, although Rainbow realized that her friend was trying as hard as possible to keep her distance all the while.
A small moment of silence between the two formed, as Fluttershy was nervously waiting for her friend to continue, observing everything in her cottage except the blue pegasus twice over, and Rainbow was trying to form the right words in her mouth. Eventually, they came.
“Fluttershy,” she sighed, “can you guess why I came to talk with you today?”
“Um, I’m not really sure, Rainbow,” she murmured, although she felt that she could guess the reason.
Rainbow picked up on this and sighed. “Look, I don’t really know what’s going on, but all of our friends for some reason think that you and me are, well, together.”
The only response that Rainbow got from her friend was a squeak. From experience, it was one that she uttered when she understood, but it still made her uncomfortable, like the time that Rainbow had to explain to her where foals came from.
The Wonderbolt asked the next question, “So do you happen to know why ponies think this?”
All Fluttershy could do was shake her head, making her friend slightly concerned
“Listen Flutters,” Rainbow started, “I know that this whole thing makes you uncomfortable, especially since it isn’t true, but I don’t really know why everypony thinks it’s true and I really just want to end it, so can we just get through this and avoid as much awkwardness as possible?”
Fluttershy’s eyes lifted and focused on the magenta eyes in front of her for the first time since she had invited the pony into her abode. “You mean that you don’t like me that way?”
The magenta eyes she was focused on widened and showed signs of annoyance. “No Fluttershy, I don’t like mares that way.”
Rainbow didn’t know what would happen next, but the last thing she expected was for the shy mare to suddenly release all of her anxieties and look relaxed. “Oh thank goodness,” she sighed in relief, “I thought that I would hurt your feelings if I told you that I wasn’t interested in you.”
‘Wait, so you thought I liked you?”
“No, but the whole thing kind of made me scared and confused, so I really didn’t know what to think. All I knew was that I didn’t want you to be hurt if you did like me and I had to reject you.”
Rainbow Dash scowled, “Don’t worry about that then, but I’m still not hurt at all. Angry and annoyed if anything, but definitely not hurt.”
“That’s good,” Fluttershy smiled, “but how do you suppose everypony came to the conclusion that we were dating?”
“Well, remember that night you wanted to show me that nest of baby birds that you saw, and we were sitting there together looking up to the trees watching them?” Fluttershy nodded. “I guess Applejack saw us while she was walking by and she assumed that we were snuggling and stargazing together.”
“But then why didn’t she just ask us about it later?”
“I think she wanted to give us time to come out and tell the rest of our friends, but I’m guessing she couldn’t hold it in and squealed anyways.”
“Oh,” Fluttershy said as soon as the explanation was finished. She processed the information for a moment before asking, “but how are we supposed to make them see that we’re not dating?”
“I already tried telling some of them,” Rainbow growled, “they wouldn’t listen. We need to come up with some way of telling them.”
Fluttershy put a hoof to her chin in thought before she came up with what she felt was an obvious solution. “What if we just asked them all to come to a meeting at Twilight’s castle and told them all? They would have to believe us then.”
“It’s not going to work,” Rainbow said, waving a hoof in the air like she was waving the idea away, “if they didn’t listen now they won’t listen then. I talked to a bunch of different ponies today, Pinkie, Twilight, Starlight, Applejack, and a few more, and they’re all totally convinced that there’s a thing happening between us!”
“Oh dear,” Fluttershy gasped, “that many ponies? I suppose then it might not work.”
Both pegasi sat on the couch for a few moments coming up with ways to persuade all of their friends away from the nagging rumor, but whenever one of them got an idea, it was shot down due to it either being outragously stupid or totally inaffective.
After a few more ideas were thrown back and forth, Rainbow Dash suddenly sprang up from the couch, flapping her wings to hover in the air a few feet.
“Aha!’ Rainbow exclaimed loudly, startling Fluttershy a little. “I know what to do! It’s so obvious!”
“Oh, please tell me!” Fluttershy said, excited.
Rainbow smiled and landed back on the couch with her burst of excitement finished and it all culminated as a big smile on her face. “What if we just stopped talking to each other?”
Fluttershy turned her head to the side a little waiting for further explanation, which Rainbow Dash was happy to give. “Okay, so hear me out. We don’t talk to each other and avoid each other like the plague for a week or so, and if we run into each other or have to go somewhere with our friends, we won’t even look at each other. During this time our friends will be given no “indication” that we’re in love, and by then this whole thing will blow over and we’ll be able to get past this like nothing ever happened.”
Rainbow smirked as she thought about the cleverness behind the plan, but Fluttershy seemed a little bit worried, digging her hoof at the fabric of the couch. “But I don’t want to not talk to you for a whole week.”
Rainbow’s smile disappeared for a second as she had forgotten that. Fluttershy was very shy, but even a shy pony like her didn’t want to avoid a friend for a week, planned or unplanned.
Rainbow’s smile reappeared, albeit a twinge of sadness in it. “I don’t either, but I think it will be the quickest and most effective way to put this whole dating thing behind us.”
“And you’re sure it will work,” Fluttershy asked, unsure.
“I think it’s worth a shot.”
Fluttershy looked away as if pondering the pros and cons. She certainly didn’t want to lose her friend, even if it was only for a short amount of time, but she felt that Rainbow was clearly suffering from this confusion more than she was.
Despite what everypony might have assumed from her confident personality, Fluttershy knew that Rainbow cared a lot about her reputation, and Fluttershy could see that her friend felt that this was a big shot at it. After Rainbow described her earlier attempts to convince them otherwise, it seemed like maybe staying away from each other for a little bit was a good idea.
And, besides, it would only be for a little bit.
“Alright,” she said smiling, “if you really think it will work.”
“Thanks Fluttershy!” she exclaimed, jumping off the couch. “So I guess the only thing left for me to do now is leave and be out of your mane for a little while. Once this whole thing has gone down I promise we can go back to the way things were before, promise!”
The promise at the end washed away any further doubts the yellow mare may have had, even though it wasn’t a full on Pinkie Promise, and she smiled and nodded. “Alright then, Rainbow.”
Rainbow gave her a hug before flying out of the front door, into the sky, and waiting for all the pieces to fall into place.
It had been just under a week of Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash’s plan to make everypony see how not together they were, and it hadn’t gone unnoticed by their friends.
True to the plan, Fluttershy hadn’t gone to Rainbow’s house, and Rainbow hadn’t visited Fluttershy once. The friends that were once inseparable since flight school were now, well, separable. For the first time since she had come to Ponyville, Rainbow Dash was now practicing her new tricks without her most loyal fan, and Fluttershy wasn’t sick, so their friends thought something was seriously off.
The final straw came when the six best friends got together to have some tea and talk about life. Not only did Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash sit as far as possible from each other at the table, but they didn’t say a word to each other, and didn’t even seem to want to look at each other.
“Girls, something is definitely wrong here,” Twilight announced as soon as their “favorite couple” had left the castle, Fluttershy waiting an extra fifteen seconds after Rainbow had flown through the doors, they noticed. Twilight hadn’t even asked her other friends to stay for the conversation, they just knew that this was something that absolutely had to be discussed.
“I’m afraid I have to agree,” Rarity nodded, “those two were acting quite queer today.”
“Not just today, but the whole darn week for crying out loud!” Applejack chimed in.
Pinkie gasped and her face lit up. “There’s only one thing that we can do to make them talk to each other again.”
Twilight rolled her eyes and shot an unamused glare at Pinkie. “We already discussed this Pinkie, and we aren’t going to throw them a party.”
The party pony’s face dimmed slightly, but because of her seemingly immortal happiness it seemed to barely leave a dent. “Well then I’m out of ideas,” she giggled.
“Do y’all think they’re just having a fight?” Applejack asked the other three mares.
“I don’t know,” Rarity shrugged, but then an idea came to her and a grave expression came to her face. “But it must have been a terribly dreadful row if neither of them even want to look at each other.” The suggestion made the other ponies worried as well, fearing the loss of not only the two pegasi’s love for one another, but their friendship as well, and they started going around in a circle coming up with ideas of what it could be about.
“Maybe they just had a bad date or something.”
“What if that brash Dash hurt Fluttershy’s feelings somehow? The poor dear!”
“What if the two of them are playing the quiet game against each other? Fluttershy’s totally going to win! Who wants to place bets?”
“Well we can’t just stand around and let the two of them fight,” Twilight said over the murmuring, “I think we should try to help them somehow.”
“But how?” Applejack asked, raising an eyebrow.
Twilight put a hoof to her chin in thought as her big brain tried to think of an idea.
“Hey Rainbow Dash,” Applejack called out to her friend as she sat laying on a cloud up above soaking in some rays. Rainbow heard the call and looked over her cloud bed, smiling when she saw her friend.
“Hey AJ,” she replied, spreading her wings and gliding down, landing in front of her. “What’s up?”
“Well, Ah was walking through Ponyville this morning when Ah saw a crowd of ponies gathered on the side of the main path, and Ah asked one of the ponies there and they said that some pegasus flyer was in town, and his name was Blue Blur, and-”
“Blue Blur?!” Rainbow interrupted loudly before smiling bigger than Applejack had ever seen. “That stallion is so awesome! He’s a living legend! He broke the record for the fastest successful thousand foot nosedive when he was younger! Wait, he’s in Ponyville? As in, right now?!”
Applejack chuckled at the excitement written all over her blue friend. “Eeyup! Anyways, Ah managed to get his attention for a few minutes and Ah mentioned that Ah was friends with the youngest Wonderbolt on the team, and one thing leads to another, and Ah got you set up to go out to dinner tonight with him!”
Applejack focused on Rainbow’s face, frozen in complete excitement. Suddenly a small high pitched squeaking noise escaped past her mouth that got louder and louder and lower and lower until she took off like a rocket into the air.
“YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!”
She then realized how she had just lost her chill persona, so after a few seconds of hang time she dropped down again, shaking off the example as much as possible, and landing next to the Element of Honesty. “I mean, cool. When and where does he want to meet?”
Applejack raised an eyebrow at Rainbow’s attempts to seem cool and collected, even though her shining eyes and the excited flapping of her wings told a different story. “Ah told him that Ah’d set up a private dinner for the two of you in Twilight’s castle at seven o’clock.”
“Why couldn’t we just eat at a regular restaurant,” Rainbow asked, cocking an eyebrow.
Applejack felt a little bead of sweat escape from below her stenson. She had rehearsed the lie for a half an hour with the other girls, and now she had to go off the script.
“Uh...yeah…w-well, you see, he’s a little bit nervous about other ponies being around him, so Ah talked to Twilight and she agreed to set up some, y’know, accommodations.” Applejack smiled afterwards in order to make the lie seem more believable.
“That’s weird,” Rainbow said, “he’s never been shy in the past, especially when ponies recognize him.” Rainbow hesitated to think of an explanation, in which time Applejack felt her heart stop. “I suppose he just doesn’t want to be bothered. I’m cool with that.”
Applejack released the breath she didn’t know she was holding in and nodded her head in agreement. “So seven at Twilight’s. Oh, and you might want to wear something fancy. You’ll want to look your best when you meet him for grub.”
“What are you, my mom?” Rainbow chuckled, rolling her eyes. “Alright, I’ll wear the dress from our first Grand Galloping Gala. Thanks AJ! I totally owe you one!”
Rainbow turned around and flew toward her cloud house, ready to get ready for the dinner. When she got there she zoomed up to her room and went to her closet, pulling out the dress and putting on record speed. It was only when she got to the mirror and looked at her reflection that she realized something.
“The dinner isn’t for another six hours.”
For once in her life, Rainbow Dash made sure that she was early for something, and that something was her dinner with Blue Blur, one of the fastest pegasi ever at his peak. She was super excited about the meeting for the whole day, unable to do anything else but sit at her house, reread one of her Daring Do books, and look up at the clock every few seconds. The hands seemed to move at a snail’s pace, and by the time it was six, she had already reread the first trilogy of books before she finally decided to get ready.
She took a shower, dried her mane, and put on the dress before standing in front of her mirror and fixing any little imperfection that she saw. It was highly unusual for her, but this was like meeting the Queen of some foreign country to her, only way cooler because she was meeting a speed demon.
“Maybe he’ll teach me some of his tricks,” she said to herself, flying toward the crystal castle, “or maybe offer words of encouragement. Maybe I can get his autograph, and maybe shake his hoof, and get his address so we can send letters back and forth about techniques and everything that’s happening in the world of flying!”
She snapped out of her daydream as she saw a glimmer in the corner of her eye, and realized that she had been so caught up in her fantasies that she had nearly gone past her destination. She quickly doubled back and landed right at the doors, nudging them slowly to see if the elder pegasus had already arrived.
Set up inside the main hallway was a fancy wooden table with a white cloth going over it and two chairs on either side. On top of the table there were two glasses filled with cider, a single red rose in the middle for decoration, and two plates of food with steam coming off indicating its freshness. When she got closer she could see that it was spaghetti and hayballs.
“He really knows what an athlete like me is supposed to be eating,” she mumbled to herself, “this stuff is awesome for carbs.”
Suddenly she heard the door open and the figure of another pony walk in, without even looking directly at the pony, she walked over with an appreciative smile.
“It’s such an honor to meet y-. FLUTTERSHY?!”
Rainbow gaped at the cream colored pegasus in front of her, surprised that anypony else would have come by, but figuring that it wasn’t out of the question, especially since Twilight couldn’t have made the dish. Rainbow had seen her cooking, and it wasn’t pretty.
“Rainbow? What are you doing here? Where’s Rarity?”
“Rarity? Why in Equestria would she be here?”
“She told me that she wanted to do some modifications on this dress,” she pointed to the sparkly, pale pink, and flowing dress draped around her barrel, “but apparently her boutique was a disaster, as she put it. So she arranged to meet me here.”
Realization hit Rainbow Dash like a speeding stallion.
“Oh no.”
“What,” Fluttershy looked at her, confused by not only the situation, but now about Rainbow’s reaction.
“Don’t you see? This is a set up! The girls are putting us on a date!”
“But I thought our plan was working so well.”
“It worked too well! They probably think we’ve been avoiding each other because we had a big fight or something!”
Rainbow groaned in frustration, once again feeling trapped between the assumptions of others, but also the feeling that she wouldn’t be meeting Blue Blur.
“Well, this food does look really good.” Fluttershy’s words got Dash’s attention, and she moved over to take a seat at one side of the table. “We might as well eat it and humor the girls.”
“Are you nuts? We can’t let them have what they want, Flutters!”
“But if the girls think we’re fighting, they’ll just keep trying to do the same thing, so let’s eat and come up with a different plan.”
Rainbow realized her friend had a point, so after a moment of considering her options, and hearing the rumbling of her protesting stomach, she took the seat opposite of Fluttershy.
“Fine, but we need to try something else.” Rainbow picked up one of the hayballs from the dish before swallowing it.
Or, at least, trying to.
Fluttershy was alerted by the choking sounds coming from the other side of the table, and she quickly flew over the table and grasped herself around her friend, preparing to perform the Heimlich maneuver.
Outside of the castle, four very nosy ponies were sitting in the bushes, planning to check on the two sweethearts occasionally. Suddenly, Applejack’s ear perked up as she heard a weird noise coming from the inside.
“What in tarnation is that?” she asked her friends, who had at this point heard the noise too.
“Go check it out,” Twilight whispered.
Applejack then got out of her crouching position and looked through the nearest window, her jaw dropping a second later.
Due to the positioning the two ponies were in and motions they were in, it looked like something else was happening. Not like a pony saving another pony from choking on a hayball, but instead something else.
Something a little more adult.
Applejack’s head jerked away from the window and she crouched back down, eyes wide and muzzle red.
“What was it?” Rarity asked.
Applejack turned to Rarity, her green eyes never narrowing or blinking. She hesitated for a second before announcing, “Well, let’s just say the two of them aren’t fighting anymore.”
The ponies around her looked confused while Applejack just stared off into space with her thoughts.
“And Ah thought that Rainbow would’ve been the dominant one.”
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10469590
Sorry man, I kind of meant for this to annoy Rainbow, but not the audience
Oh deary, deary me.
10470642
. The first draft’s version was much, MUCH worse, so I’m actually happy with how this chapter turned out.
Yeah, but I still feel like the way I did it here was alright
10470653
Oh no, I'm talking about the misunderstanding, not the comments :)
10470654
Oh sorry, but yeah i needed something big like this to happen. This should be fun...
10470660
Rainbow is going to flip out once she finds out what people think.
She may get especially annoyed at people thinking she's a sub :)
10470662
And especially to Fluttershy of all ponies. I honestly need to think of everypony’s reactions to this, RD and FS to what they think and the other four to how they react to the couple now
Just noticed that you say "meatballs" several times instead of "hayballs"
hope in the end they get their own back and have everyone thinking AJ,Rarity and co are all dating
10470696
Oh, thanks for noticing!
10470709
, but please know that I have the ending planned, it's just the middle parts that I have to sort out.
Maybe, maybe not
Heh, amusing, specially the end, that's not gonna make things any easier. Was expecting Spike to act as their waiter, in part for spying purposes.
Another amusing one kind of like this I so 'Pair the spares', though that resolves itself much faster, amusing to have a bit longer if a dilemma.
I suppose the next steps will likely be to try Dating some pony else, or give in and just accept that they have to go out now.
Waiting for Twi or Rarity to mess up and get an announcement about FS and RD in the paper, and then the ribbing RD will get from the wonder bolts over it.
Looking forward to more.
Nice. I actually think you did well in limiting the cringy romcom/sitcom "this is the only solution that makes sense" sort of thing. It might have benefitted from a little more explanation between the two that, yes, they had in fact directly stated the fact to their friends already and that hadn't worked. Random thought that you don't have to put in though: maybe actually allude to other plans they might have had, specifically one where they pretend to have a "break up" to end the rumors quickly, blatantly, and publicly. But then of course mention that Fluttershy couldn't be that mean to Rainbow Dash even if it was pretend. Just a little more context to show that they did consider more options to make the solution a little more believable. But like I said, this only pokes at my past my suspension of disbelief but doesn't come anywhere close to breaking it, so it works as is.
Somehow missed that this was updated!
I'm really loving how this is going, especially the relationship dynamic forming between RD and FS despite the fact that they're not dating. It just makes me wish that they were!
10482217
I’m a shipper of the two personally, but I like writing confusion stories more than anything (as evidenced in some of my other stories)
I know this is cliche, but I really hope this story ends with the two realizing they really like each other. That's the only reason I'm staying with it.
That ain't good... shoot!