Pipp's PR Problem

by nixf

Chapter 2

Getting to Zephyr Heights was not that simple of an exercise. It wasn't exactly a hop, skip and jump away. Just a few days ago it would've been an overnight trip to get back, making it very difficult for Pipp to get her plan together before Sunny turned up, but with her wings she could halve that travel time, probably. With sunset approaching in a few hours, Pipp knew that she couldn't delay her departure any longer.

Or at least that was the idea going through Pipp's head as she stood on the stone path that led there, tentatively flapping her wings and trying to get the courage to push herself into the air. She had flown a little over the last few days, but the prospect of trying to fly long distance was a daunting idea. The idea of flapping her wings for the hours that it would take to get back seemed exhausting to her, but she also knew that she had to do it.

"What are you doing?" Zipp called out from overhead. Pipp groaned as she heard her sister's wingbeats touchdown beside her. So much for her stealthy escape.

"I'm not exactly living up to my sneakiness level. Izzy wouldn't even count this as low level sneaky," Pipp groaned before turning to her sister. "How did you know I was here?"

"You've been talking about nothing but trying to change pegasi opinions in Zephyr Heights for the last day. Then you tell us that you need to go feed your dishes. It wasn't hard to figure out." Zipp pointed out with a chuckle.

Pipp just huffed and turned away from her sister's accusations, which were annoyingly accurate.

"Look, sis," Zipp began. "I know that you want to go there and try to win everypony back over, but I think that maybe we should focus on things that are a little more important. So just stay with us for the journey instead of trying to fly ahead. I think it would be good for you to focus on your friends a little more and ease yourself off the phone a little. Give your trotter profile a break, okay?"

"Do you honestly think that this is about my trotter profile?" Pipp angrily yelped as she shot her sister the strongest pout that she could manage. Zipp wisely managed to avoid booping her adorable nose, though it was not easy for her. "Every pony in Zephyr Heights hates mom, every pony there hates me, and every pony there hates you. But guess what, that isn't all they hate. They hate unicorns, and they hate earth ponies."

"They don't hate-"

"Yes they do," Pipp interrupted, shoving her phone in Zipp's face. "Every news site, every comment thread, everywhere. They weren't here to see unity brought back flight, they saw nothing."

"Then we just need to tell them."

"How are we going to do that"

"With words"

Pipp bit back a yell as she glowered at her sister, "how are we going to make them believe anything we say? They hate us and think that we ran off after being revealed as fakes. Some are already thinking that we were the reason that they couldn't fly. We can't just 'tell them'. We need to convince them."

"Oh, so running off on your own is supposed to fix that somehow," Zipp shot back sarcastically.

"I have a plan," Pipp was exasperated with the entire conversation. "Look, maintaining the royal image is my thing. I know what I am talking about here. So just let me head off early and try something. If it works, great. If it doesn't work then we are no worse off."

"Are you sure you want to go alone?"

"This is my thing, Zipp. So just let me do this."

Zipp sighed and scrunched up her muzzle in thought, nibbling on her lower lip as she ran through her sister's words. Zipp knew that her sister was probably right, but that didn't mean that she liked it. She groaned. "Fine. I'll just tell Sunny and the others that you flew ahead or something."

"Thanks, I mean it." Pipp smiled as she opened her wings and gave them a flap. "I promise, when you get there it'll all be dealt with."

Pipp flapped her wings as hard as she could, her body throwing itself into the air as she twisted to catch a thermal. "See you later," Pipp called back to Zipp as she pumped her wings.

Good luck," Zipp called after her, they both knew that Pipp was going to need it.

---

Pipp panted as she forced her wings to flap just one more time before she gave up, spreading them wide and letting herself slowly glide down to the ground. As soon as her hooves made contact with the dirt she pulled in her wings and slumped over. Her attempt to fly the entire way to Zephyr Heights in a single evening was not going as well as she had hoped.

"Okay, so flying long distances is exhausting," Pipp panted as she laid on the grass and tried to regain her breath. She was relieved to know that she was most of the way back to Zephyr, but she was absolutely exhausted. Her wings were drenched in sweat and she was even starting to feel the feathers beginning to clump together and provide significantly less lift.

"Note to self, don't try to dry your forehead sweat with wings," Pipp chastised herself as she finally felt her breath returning to her lungs. She tenderly stretched out one of her wings again, tentatively giving it a gentle flap, grimacing at the effort it required. Groaning to herself she pulled herself back onto her hooves to continue to journey on the ground.

In truth she was always going to make the end of the journey on hoof to avoid getting spotted by any patrolling guards. However she still had at least another half hour of trotting left before she got close. Pipp sighed before picking the pace to a proper canter, huffing as she tried to keep a steady breath.

"Zipp probably could've done this whole journey in an hour," Pipp complained to herself between pants, ignoring how ridiculously sweaty she had become. Pipp tried to speed up to a proper gallop before quickly slowing down again as she felt the tell tale sign of a stitch forming.

Pipp was not the most energetic of ponies, preferring to focus on building up her online following before she built up any leg muscles. However she was not entirely weak either. The wirework needed for her performances required a strong amount of upper torso strength, so she had spent a lot of time exercising in preparation. Unfortunately this did little to strengthen the muscles in her shoulders or knees, so she was soon struggling to keep up the effort.

In the end it took nearly an hour before she even reached the outreaches of the city. Night had fallen and she was barely trotting by the time she finally stepped onto the smooth concrete of Zephyr Heights. The pale yellow lights of the streetlights almost felt comforting for her, up until she saw the wanted posters plastered on the walls demanding the detainment of Pipp and her sister. Zephyr Heights felt decidedly less welcoming after that.

"Okay Pipp, time for you to be at least medium sneaky," she muttered to herself as she stealthfully trotted through the city streets, making sure to stick to shadows as much as possible. The flight may have been exhausting, but at least it had smoothed down her wings and reduced the chance that someone would recognise her. Though with her face still plastered over half the advertising within the city, she knew that she couldn't become complacent.

Unfortunately it was at this point that she realized the biggest problem with her original plan. Pipp had wanted to run the livestream from the airship station that she was all too aware that Zipp used to hide at, but the only way she knew to get there was from the castle. She stole a glance up at the castle and frowned as she saw most of the walls had at least a pegasi guard watching over it. She quickly ducked back into the shadows before they could spot her. The guards were clearly on the lookout for the two fugitive princess pegasi.

It was here that she knew that her medium sneakiness was going to become important. Sure, the castle was definitely a no go zone, but the airship station was still accessible from the air. All she had to do was go around the edge of the castle and hover down to the abandoned airship station entrance that was beneath. Hopefully everypony was still not used to flying pegasi and would keep their eyes on the ground. She carefully ducked down another alleyway before reaching the edge of the ravine that separated the castle from the rest of the city.

Carefully Pipp gave her wings a flex, ignoring the tiredness that had begun to seep into her bones. She was tired, but she also knew that she had enough energy in her for a short flight. Besides it wasn't like she could just go to the castle gates and get let in, her mom had not done a very good job at appeasing the pegasus public.

"It's just like mom to make things harder than they need to be," Pipp complained to herself before throwing herself forward and into the dark misty sky, trying to keep her wing beats as steady as she could. She didn't need to fly fast, she just needed to do it slowly. She flexed her wings with a slight flare, enjoying the cool breeze as it passed through her primaries. She stilled her wings as she saw a guard stand nearby, thankfully she had plenty of distance in the air and was able to silently glide overhead.

As she approached the walls of the castle things became more difficult as there were numerous lights that lit up the facade, forcing her to keep her distance as she maneuvered past, trying to keep close enough to the castle that anyone looking up wouldn't see her, but also far enough away that the facade lights didn't make her glimmer as brightly as a Hearth's Warming tree. It was difficult to manage and more than once she strayed too far either way, however luck was with her and soon as she glided into the abandoned station, flaring her wings to bring herself to a gentle landing.

Of course she ended up flaring a little too early and fell the last few hoof lengths, but she was able to catch herself without too much drama. Now she just needed to get a quick rest before Pipp cleared her sister's name and made sure that every pegasi knew that they should love Zipp. Pipp yawned and didn't even bother looking for a decent place to rest, instead just curling up on the ground surrounded by her sister's secret flying research.

---

"Did she really just leave?" Sunny asked incredulously, shocked that Pipp had just run off on them. "She knows how important this is for every pony."

"She said that she needed to sort something out first." Zipp awkwardly tried to excuse Pipp's behaviour, but it was clear that Sunny was not happy at all. "I'm sure that by the time we get to Zephyr Heights she will join us and it'll all go fine."

"Pipp has made it quite clear that she isn't going to be joining us." Sunny huffed and turned back to the smoothie sitting in front of her, wondering what she was going to do now that one of their number had run off on their own. "She probably thinks that I am trying to force everyone to be friends. Pipp already told me yesterday that she didn't agree with what I was trying to do."

"She isn't against what you are doing, none of us are," Zipp tried to continue defending Pipp, but she could tell that it was a lost cause.

"Just stop," Sunny groaned, rubbing her eyes carefully with a hoof. "It's not like this is the first problem that I have faced, an annoyed princess is easier to deal with than a four storey high robot. I just need to work around the problem and make sure that I can do what I need to do."

"What we need to do, right?" Zipp asked awkwardly as she sat down beside Sunny as the earth pony noisily drank the rest of her smoothie.

"Isn't that what I said?" Sunny asked with a shrug, pushing away the now finished drink. She yawned and checked how high the sun was, groaning as she saw that it was still a while before midday. "I wish that the sun would hurry up. You know, the day/night cycle used to be controlled by two immensely powerful alicorn goddesses who could make the sun and moon move to their whim."

"I know, you've already told me three times," Zipp rolled her eyes, hoping that Sunny would at least have enough tact to not start another historical lecture on the special six friends. The stories were interesting the first time Sunny told her, but repetition did not help. "I think it's time we went back to check on how the rebuild is going, staring at the sun isn't going to make the day go faster."

"I know, but we can't just keep waiting," Sunny groaned, resting her head on the table in front of her. "Every second that goes by it feels like another second where I could be helping every pony to be friends. I can't just sit here and wait when there is so much that I have to do."

"None of that is going to change the fact that Hitch's shift is on today," Zipp waved off Sunny's concerns. "So how about you and I go for a walk today. Stressing about this isn't going to change anything. Either way, tomorrow all four of us are going to be heading to Zephyr Heights."

"You just don't get it," Sunny complained, her voice muffled as she kept her face buried in her hooves on the table top. "I am the one that has to make sure this all happens, they all expect it."

Zipp just rolled her eyes before resting her foreleg on the table to prop up her head. She knew that today was going to be a long day.

---

The sun shot through the stained glass windows, casting it's savage burning light directly into Pipp's sleeping eyes. Swearing in a very unmarely way, Pipp yawned and turned away from the light, before opening her eyes and realizing where she was. She pulled herself onto her hooves, wincing as she felt her back complain about the night's floor sleeping on the hard tile floor.

Pipp's back wasn't the only thing sore from the night spent roughing it. Her forehooves were all equally unhappy, and somehow even her hips hated it and no amount of stretching would alleviate the dull ache. Groaning to herself she also felt her stomach start to grumble, reminding her of how many meals she had managed to miss in her mad rush to get to Zephyr Heights early. So it was with a few dull aches and a hungry tummy that Pipp decided to explore the abandoned airship terminal and come up with some sort of plan.

It turned out that Zipp had a lot more secrets hidden within the abandoned airship station. Sure, Pipp wasn't surprised to see a lot of chalkboards 'acquired without permission' covered in the supposed secrets of flight. However Pipp was surprised to find a whole lot of super unhealthy snacks hidden everywhere.

Of course, candy and almost stale cupcakes were not what one could call a balanced meal for breakfast, but Pipp couldn't really bring herself to care. In anything, the intense sugar rush would just make her come up with a plan even faster than before. So, with her stomach no longer grumbling at her and enough sugar running through her veins to cause her to constantly vibrate off the excess energy, Pipp was ready to think.

Pipp quickly realized two very important things. The first was that the airship station had seen better days and was honestly a bit of a hazardous place to be. The second was that it was very difficult to calmly think up plans when one was hyped up on sugar. Neither really helped her planning, so it ended up taking more than an hour to plan out and sketch up a plan for her next video.

Research on her phone had actually brought up some rather interesting things about flight in the capital. While the magic of flight had somewhat returned, it was barely enough to support much more than gliding on thermals with a little flapping. For some strange reason the flight had not yet fully returned to Zephyr Heights, and Pipp realized that a fair amount of the anger from the last stream had been from an audience thinking that she was faking flight again. She needed to be extra convincing this time around.

After a few practice takes and rehearsals Pipp was happy with the flow of the livestream and was ready to go for real. In all honesty, she was not looking forward to it. The chat had been particularly vicious with her last time, and she knew that as soon as she hit the start stream button those same comments would be thrown at her. She knew that they were just words and that it was just ponies venting at her, but that did little to stop her feeling horrid at every bad word aimed her way.

Her hoof hovered over the start stream button as she tried to psych herself up for the stream, however she just kept on seeing the anger waiting for her. Just the merest twitch of her hoof and all of her ex friends would be throwing anger at her. However, she pushed past her worries and tapped the small button, the phone instantly switching over to streaming mode. Within just a few seconds the comments started to fly by, and Pipp couldn't stop herself swallowing nervously as she saw the hatred re-emerge.

"Hello, everypony," She called out nervously into the phone, not able to keep the nervousness out of her voice. "I understand that my last live stream did not go down well. I don't blame anypony that was unhappy with me. I know that I did wrong, so I was going to stop doing any live streams. However there is something more important than me that I wanted to talk to you all about."

Pipp paused to check the chat, before quickly minimising it as she was hit by the wall of anger directed squarely as her. She took a deep breath to calm herself, this wasn't for her. She was doing this for Zipp, Izzy, Hitch and Sunny. She knew that she just had to power through this and make sure this all worked out.

"I am not live streaming today to try and beg for forgiveness. Today's live stream isn't even about me. Today's live stream is about a mare who tried to tell everypony, a mare who was driven to find out the truth of our lost flight. The mare who is part of the reason that flight is starting to return."

Pipp paused for a dramatic reveal as she quickly twisted around so that the chalk drawings by Zipp filled the video. "Princess Zipp Storm."

"For years my sister had been sneaking down to this abandoned airship station to try and relearn the power of flight." She turned again to reveal one of the powerful fans that Zipp had been testing with. "She actually was able to maintain a glide with one of these fans, and I am pretty sure that she used to sneak out to ride low level thermals around Zephyr Heights entry ravines."

"So even if you dislike me, you should at least know the truth of Zipp's work to bring back flight to everypony. She never wanted to keep it a secret, but she was unfortunately never in a position to make it known that we were unable to fly. So instead she would spend every waking minute she could spare running tests or doing research down here."

"However, that isn't what I started this live stream to tell you. The most amazing thing is that she actually did succeed." Pipp flared her wings as she angled her phone to do her best to demonstrate that there were no strings attached to her. "I didn't fake my flight from the last video, flight is slowly returning to every pegasi. Soon you will all be able to fly, and it is all thanks to Zipp and the three friends that she made last week."

Pipp tentatively opened the chat in the desperate hope that her audience would finally listen to her and return to at least loving Zipp. However her dreams were dashed as soon as she saw the first comment flash by the screen accusing Pipp of lying about flying.

Pipp thought back to Zipp's words when she convinced her little sister to join her in the journey to bring back magic. Zipp had been so sure that returning magic to everypony would make them so excited that they would just forget what happened. Pipp hadn't believed her at the time, knowing far too well that the everyday pony would remember. However for just a few brief minutes Pipp had believed Zipp. That little glimmer of hope that bringing flight to everypony would make them love her again, and now Pipp knew that her sister was wrong.

She could see the hatred bleeding through the comments, each one digging just a little deeper into her. She had known going into this that there would be anger, but somehow every little negative comment just was like a needle digging into her flank. Each one was annoying, but on mass it was almost unbearable. Somehow the fact that now the comments were starting to focus on her sister as well made it that little bit more painful to read.

Pipp was failing and she didn't know how to fix any of this. In the past her apologies had been easy enough, often focused on small mistakes that were easy to rectify and make sure that they never happened again. This was something much more fundamental, this was a mistake in who she was. They weren't angry that she was careless or stupid. They were angry about the decisions she made and why she made them. They were angry at who she was deep down.

Pipp blinked back tears as best as she could to try and regain control over herself, but she knew that it was becoming too much. She wasn't even talking back to the chat, just endlessly doom scrolling through the venomous words that spat bitterness with every syllable. Pipp tried to push through it, to pretend that she was okay, but she couldn't.

She sat down on her rump heavily and tried to rub the moisture from her eyes with a hoof, but it did little to clear her vision. She knew that she was seconds away from crying and there was nothing she could do about it. So with a quivering hoof she jabbed at the button to end the live stream, before dropping her phone beside herself and staring glumly at the dusty floor.

Pipp had failed and she knew that when her friends arrived in the evening it was going to go badly. She had tried being selfless, making it about Zipp and the magic that everypony deserved, but it had not worked. If anything, her attempts had made everything worse.

Pipp's vision started to blur as tears slowly started to fall, landing on the dusty surface between her hooves. She made a weak attempt to wipe her eyes clear before giving up and slumping over against the hard wall, lost in her own misery.

A small part of her knew that it was ridiculous to even be affected by some mere words written anonymously online, but a bigger part of her knew that behind every negative comment there was a real flesh and blood pony. Behind every angry comment there were real feelings of anger and betrayal, and it was all her fault.

Pipp didn't know how long she sat there in silence staring into nothing as she let herself sob. Her online friends hated her, her real life new friends were going to get hurt, and everything was her fault. She didn't know how to handle any of this mess, and she didn't even have a plan left to try. She was lost in her own misery and she couldn't find a way to get free.

A loud snap suddenly dragged Pipp out of her gloom and she quickly jumped to her hooves, her heart thumping as fear raced through her. The entirety of Zephyr Heights hated her and she suddenly became aware that her new friends were not the only ones in potential danger. She had betrayed everypony and it was naive to not realize that an angry mob could easily form. They might even demand her wings on a platter fried in oil and seasoned with salt, pepper and paprika.

Pipp paused as that horrifying mental image bounced around her mind, before she quickly shoved it away. Now was not the time to scare herself when there was somepony nearby trying to find her. She nervously crept forward through the messy airship station, her eyes darting around as she desperately searched for what had made that sound.

"Hi Pipp!" A voice called out from behind Pipp, she quickly spun around to find herself face to face with two young mares. One was a short pale green pegasi filly with a full mint green mane, the other was an equally young pegasi filly with a grey coat and an orange mane. However the most surprising part was that both had ridiculously happy smiles on their faces.

"Told you that Pipp's live stream was from here," The grey filly told the pale green filly as she nudged the other filly with her shoulder. "You wanted to check the alleys, but it was obviously the secret base in the castle."

"Who are you two, and how did you find me?" Pipp asked nervously, glancing behind herself at the stained glass windows as she contemplated making a run for it.

"Oh, I'm Soarin Sunset," The grey filly told Pipp with a smile, "and this is my little sister, Northern Lights." Soarin Sunset gestured at the lime green pegasi beside her.

"We saw your stream and we wanted to make sure you were okay," Northern Lights told her, giving Pipp the most ferocious puppy dog eyes to have ever existed. The cuteness nearly gave Pipp a heart attack, but she was a resilient mare who knew better than to kneel over at the first sign of adorableness. "Are you okay? You looked a little sad before."

"Things could be better," Pipp sighed and winced at the crestfallen expressions that now adorned the young fillies' faces. "I was hoping that everypony would listen to me this time and let them all know that unicorns and earth ponies can be our friends. Unfortunately I wasn't strong enough to do it."

"But you're Pipp Petals," Soarin Sunset protested with a pout. "You're the most bestest mare we know. You are great enough to make every pony be friends."

"No, I am not," Pipp told them miserably, turning away from them. "I'm a failure who wasn't able to do the right thing."

"You always told us to be friendly and help each other," Northern Lights pushed her with her cheek to try and get the older mare to look at them. "You know, Pipp Pipp..."

"It's not time for a Pipp Pipp Hooray," Pipp mumbled. "This is a mess that I don't know how to fix with everypony rightly hating me."

"We don't hate you," Northern Lights told her as she stared at the mare with the most diabetes-inducing pout of adorableness ever performed. "You're Princess Pipp Petals. We could never hate you."

"Well you should!" Pipp huffed as she stared at the ceiling wondering what else could go wrong. "This mess is all my fault."

"It's not your fault, right Northern?" Soarin Sunset countered stubbornly.

"Yeah, none of this is your fault!" Northern agreed eagerly, hoping that she would be able to cheer up her idol.

"I know that this is my fault," Pipp groaned as she sat down with her back to the fillies, shrugging off the hoof that one of the siblings put on her shoulder. "I spent years trying to pretend to be the perfect Princess Pipp, and now everypony who looks at me sees that fake Pipp instead of me. It doesn't matter that I wanted to do the right thing now. For years I was doing the wrong thing, and that is really what matters."

"Why did you do the wrong thing?" Soarin Sunset asked carefully, the two sisters moving to sit in front of her and stare up at her with their adorableness on full power.

"Why?" Pipp laughed bitterly. "I did it because that is what everypony wanted. They all wanted perfect Princess Pipp who could gracefully fly through the air and sing. When I first started I didn't use any strings. My sister and I had just enough residual magic to glide down, so I started my older shows like that, hovering down and singing. It wasn't enough. Every day, I saw comment after comment from people demanding that I do more and more. Asking why I was being lazy. So do you know what I did?"

"No?" Northern Lights shot a glance at her equally confused sister. "What did you do?"

"I tried harder." Pipp exclaimed angrily. "I put everything into my shows. I trained for hours every day to be the perfect singer, I tested wirework for weeks, I dieted and exercised to make sure that I was light enough to move how I needed without straining the wires. I spent months perfecting the wirework, and then on my first perfect performance it all went to Tartarus. That show was half a year in the making, and now everypony just points at it and calls me a lazy fraud. I put my heart and soul into it and now it is just yet another symbol of me being a bad pony that everypony should hate. It doesn't matter what I was trying to do, or why I was doing it.

"All I wanted was to put on a great show, and now everypony hates me because of it." Pipp paused and let out a loud sigh. "Do you want to know what the worst part is? The thing that actually hurts me the most."

"Please, can you tell us?" Soarin Sunset asked, her voice barely more than a whisper as if she was afraid to hear the answer.

"The worst part is that everypony's anger with me is anger that I earnt and deserve." Pipp felt her phone vibrate, but ignored it. Knowing all too well the amount of vitriol held within the notifications. "I did something incredibly bad, and nothing I ever do will make up for it. I voluntarily faked my flight and perpetuated the myth that the royals could still fly. I used my position to lie to everypony. I betrayed everypony's trust, and there probably is nothing I could ever say to make up for it. I can't just say sorry. I can't fix the fact that I lied. I can't pretend that I just made a simple mistake. I chose to keep the lie going every day that I pretended to hover on a wire. I chose to keep the lie going when I spent a month of flight choreography. I chose to be a bad pony who lied about everything."

"Why did you lie about flying?" Northern Lights asked quietly, the two sisters moving to be closer to Pipp as if worried that she would leave if they didn't stay close.

"I don't even know to be honest" Pipp admitted, "It didn't even start as a lie for me. I was always taught that I would be able to fly, but I just wasn't ready yet. In truth Zipp and I could glide, and with the right updrafts I swear Zipp was able to hover. We did have some residual amount of magic, but it was never enough to fly." Pipp paused, wondering if she should continue, before rolling her eyes and continuing anyway. "Eventually I just got sick of not being able to fly for real, so mom helped me practice. She set up wires that I could attach to so I could hover with her. Obviously I did eventually work out that she was also attached to those same cables and everything kind of fell apart. I was stuck in the lie as well. I had told everypony that I could fly, and that my mom could fly, but it was all false."

"Did you ever think about telling the truth?"

"Personally, I never questioned it. But my sis never liked us faking it." Pipp chuckled bitterly to herself. "Mom always told us the same thing, we have a duty to protect everypony and keep up the lie. To make pegasi feel safe. Mom genuinely believed it, so we did as well, until we didn't. Though, then what was I meant to do? Zipp chose to try to convince mom to tell everypony the truth, I chose to make something for everypony to like. I kept up the lie while Zipp searched for a way to actually fix everything."

Pipp frowned, turning away from the siblings as much as she could. "You don't have to tell me that Zipp chose the better option. I knew that it would be better to stop lying, but Zipp had been trying for years with nothing to show of it. So I decided to try a different option. A much worse option."

"Why do you still lie about flying?" Northern Lights asked quietly as her sister continued to tap on her phone. "We all know that pegasi can't fly, so why do you keep pretending? You know that we'd still love you without the flying."

"Still lying?" Pipp frowned and turned back to the two sisters. "That's what I have been trying to tell everypony. Zipp worked out how to bring back flight to everypony with the help of a unicorn and two earth ponies."

The two just stared at her, unconvinced.

"Fine, I'll prove it!" Pipp rolled her eyes as she flared out her wings as wide as she could before flapping them down as harshly as she could, her entire form jumping into the air and staying afloat with her wings flapping carefully. The two sisters stared at her in surprise, their mouths agape as they stared at her. "See, no hidden strings or thermals to keep me in the air."

"H... how did you do that?" Soarin Sunset finally asked, her stutter both adorable and worrying. "Are you actually flying?"

"That's what I've been trying to tell everypony," Pipp landed beside the two twins. "Zipp discovered that our flight can be returned to every pegasi, but it requires us to all live in harmony with the unicorns and earth ponies."

"Don't they smell?" Northern Lights asked, doubt evident in her voice.

"After a long gallop they might've a little," Pipp rubbed the back of her neck with a hoof nervously. "I'll be honest, they didn't smell any worse than Zipp whenever she forgets the deodorant."

"Do you think that we will be able to fly like you?" Soarin Sunset asked quietly, knocking Pipp off her trail of thought and onto a better path.

"Not sure," Pipp sighed at the question, knowing that there was really only one way to let them fly and it would require a unicorn and earth pony meeting them. Pipp's phone vibrated and she grumpily pulled it out, lifting an eyebrow as she saw multiple messages from Zipp. She opened them to see that the others were barely more than a few miles away, she frowned as she knew that she had failed them.

Pipp's eyes snapped open as she looked back at the two siblings beside her realizing that there actually was something that she could do. Sure, there was a bit of a risk, but if it worked then it would fix everything. She smiled at the opportunity sitting right in front of her. If the other pony species couldn't make it to Zephyr Heights, then she was going to take Zephyr Heights to the others.

"I can give you your wings," Pipp told them with a smile, "but you're going to have to trust me. Pipp Pipp Hooray?"

"Pipp Pipp Hooray!" The siblings cheered together, smiles plastered over their faces.

Pipp swallowed nervously and hoped that she wasn't about to make a massive mistake. She just hoped that Zipp hadn't watched her previous attempt crash and burn.

---

Sunny was not in a good mood and Izzy was not happy with the dour tone of her friend at all. They were meant to be happily trotting along the path to Zephyr Heights, talking and making jokes together as friends. Instead Izzy was just slowly walking while Sunny stroppily stomped ahead of them, and Zipp and Hitch were bringing up the rear.

"Can we please stop for a few minutes, Sunny?" Hitch tiredly called out as he plodded along from the back, trying his best to stay alert and awake for the journey. "We've been walking for hours and I think we all need a quick breather."

"We've got to get there," Sunny called back, not even bothering to turn her head as she stared determinedly at the path ahead. Her own breathing was nearly as laboured as Hitch's, and she was very much aware that he had been working preparing for their trip that morning. However that did little to make her even entertain the idea of stopping. She had to get to Zephyr Heights, she couldn't let them down.

"Hey, you are starting to look a little woozy. Are you okay?" Izzy asked as she trotted up beside Sunny, giving the mare a gentle nudge to get her attention. "Hitch isn't the only one who needs a quick rest, you know?"

"They can rest when we get there," Sunny replied between breaths as she tiredly kept walking ahead, still not even looking back. "We have to get there so I can make them all friends. I have to."

"Okay, it's time to stop Sunny" Izzy stepped in front of Sunny and crossed her forehooves as grumpily as she could. She even made sure to put on her absolute best pout. It was utterly adorable.

Sunny just stepped around the Izzy adorableness blockade and continued her bitter walk. Izzy looked back at the other two, gesturing for them to try something. Hitch groaned and picked up his pace to a canter to catch up with Sunny. As soon as Hitch got alongside her, he grabbed her on the shoulder and pulled her to a stop.

"Hey I w-" Sunny tried to complain before Hitch covered her muzzle with a hoof.

"We are all tired, we need to rest," Hitch told her, not even bothering to hide the annoyance in his voice. He pulled his hoof away from Sunny's face. "So we are all going to sit down for a little while and regain a bit of strength before we continue. Okay?"

"Fiine," Sunny sat down heavily, ignoring the fact that she probably hurt her flanks doing so. "Five minutes, then we keep going."

"Ten minutes and stop complaining," Hitch shot back as he turned and waved for the others to join them.

As they sat down, a quiet buzzing sound broke the quiet. Zipp quickly pulled out her phone, silencing it with an eye roll. However she paused as she saw the notification that she had missed a completed live stream from Pipp that morning. Thankfully some smart pony had made sure to clip the entire thing, so Zipp quickly put on some headphones and pressed play.

Zipp frowned as she realized that Pipp was standing in the airship station. It almost felt like her sister was betraying her by invading her personal room. The feeling was somewhat alleviated by the fact that the station was a public space anyway. However, whatever misgivings Zipp had disappeared as Pipp began to try and explain why she was live streaming.

Zipp smiled as she heard Pipp talk about Zipp in such a happy tone, trying to plead with the audience to care about what Zipp had been trying to do. It was sweet, in an incredibly invasive and awkward way, but still rather sweet. Zipp frowned as she saw that the comment fly past did not share Zipp's positive nature. On screen, Pipp was struggling as her audience lashed out. Zipp sighed as she paused the video, unwilling to watch her sister crash and burn any longer.

"What are you watching?" Izzy asked from beside Zipp, who merely rolled her eyes at the sudden appearance of the unicorn.

"I was just watching a live stream of Pipp trying to make everyone like her," Zipp responded with a shrug, putting her phone back into standby and pulling off the headphones. "She wasn't doing all that well."

"It didn't look like it was going that well," Izzy muttered. "Any ideas on how we can help her? My magic can do all sorts of cool stuff, like sparks and..." She trailed off.

"You can't think of anything other than sparks, can you?" Zipp smirked, "You don't need to worry about Pipp. It's just internet ponies getting angry at her. It's not like they are real or anything. Ponies just like to vent, you know?"

"Pipp didn't seem to think the same way," Izzy pointed out.

"Pipp thinks a lot of things, not all of them are correct." Zipp countered.

Izzy didn't look convinced, but wasn't willing to actually make an argument over it.

"Sunny, what's wrong?" Hitch asked cautiously as he sat beside Sunny, frowning as he saw how jittery she was behaving. "You're acting like you've been living on coffee for a week."

"You wouldn't understand," Sunny rolled her eyes. "It's like every second is another second of failure counting against me. I need to make sure that every pony is friends. You understand that, right?"

"I understand why it is important, and why it should be done." Hitch told her quietly. "What I don't understand is why you feel that you have to rush out and do this all right now."

"I just have to." Sunny snapped, crossing her arms.

"Sunny?" Hitch asked, unsure what was wrong with her.

"Okay, it's been ten minutes," Sunny called out, ignoring Hitch as she pulled herself back onto her hooves again. Grimacing as her leg muscles complained.

"It's been two," Hitch tried to argue, but Sunny wasn't hearing it.

"We've been waiting long enough," Sunny shot back as she started to continue their journey. She knew that the longer they waited, the higher the chance that she would fail to do what she had to do. She had to do this, and she couldn't delay. So it didn't matter if she was tired, she was going to keep trotting until they made sure that every pony all across equestria knew that every pony could be their friend.

Izzy, along with the others, stared at her as she walked off, before huffing in irritation and quickly cantering to catch up with the bitter Sunny. Izzy knew that today was going to be a tiring one, but hopefully the pegasi of Zephyr Heights would be ready to help the travellers rest their tired hooves. Hitch and Zipp followed closely behind.