Rainbow Dash was what one might call a specialist. There were plenty of things that she wasn’t too good at, all of which she was continually prepared to deem “uncool” at a moment’s notice; several things she was really good at; and not too much in-between. Going halfway into a skill or interest was for timid ponies like Fluttershy: once you started something, according to Rainbow Dash, you had better be prepared to see it all the way through. One effect of this was that her promises were extremely powerful; another was that she tended to take things rather farther than necessary.
Right at the moment, though, she was quite content to lie comfortably beneath the shade of a tall tree, one of her best friends resting comfortably against her side, while the sun lowered peacefully in the west and the clouds made their steady progress across the sky. It had been a good day.
Rainbow Dash’s most obvious skill, and the one she spent the most time by far practicing and boasting about, was flying. The sky was a second home to the bright blue pegasus, the fact that her home was in the sky notwithstanding, and her airborn accomplishments were familiar to the tongue of every pony in Ponyville. Clouds shivered in fright at her approach well before her powerful hind legs could even make contact with them, silly little barriers like the speed of sound knew better than to get in her way, and many was the shopkeeper or homeowner who had bought comprehensive Rainbow Dash Insurance for the near inevitable pony-window collisions that plagued the otherwise frequently peaceful village of Ponyville. One day, Rainbow Dash had bargained her way into getting a cut from each Rainbow Dash Insurance policy sold, putting her conscience at rest as far as crashing into buildings was concerned, even if she had little to no understanding of the legal intricacies (or possible future repercussions) of the deal.
Napping, and other forms of rest, were not exactly skills as Rainbow Dash traditionally chose to list them, but it was hard to deny how well she and sleep got along at all hours of the day. At present she was doing her best to pursue some rather premium resting, although she had to admit her choice of current companion, though undeniably awesome, did not allow for a very restful experience. The other pony was poring over the contents of a large checklist, reciting its contents to herself in a sort of delighted-yet-faintly-worried singsong.
Next to flying, one of Rainbow Dash’s most beloved activities was the fine art of pranking ponies. Even the thrill of performing an especially difficult aerial feat before a cheering crowd had trouble standing up to the pure joy that was a properly perpetrated prank. There were many steps that had to be executed perfectly, but it was all worth it for the aftermath as the prank victim stood, or sometimes sat, bewildered, until the moment that Rainbow Dash revealed herself from her hiding spot, triumphant, full of good-natured and infectious laughter. And after a few seconds of further befuddlement, the victim would join in the laughter, realizing the brilliance of the prank they had just undergone. Or at least, that was how it went these days.
Rainbow Dash opened her eyes wide enough to gaze fondly on her companion, the vibrantly colored candy seller known as Pinkie Pie. Once Rainbow Dash had let Pinkie into her life, around the time Gilda had vehemently left it, the party pony had boosted Rainbow Dash’s pranking to a whole new level. Rainbow Dash was full of energy, ideas, and raw power itching to be let lose. Her pranks were extravagant, complex, and sure to be the talk of the town for days afterwards. But Pinkie brought another factor to the equation: a deep and individualized understanding of practically every pony in Ponyville. It was Pinkie who could tell Rainbow Dash when a planned prank would be too much and would end up hurting the victim’s feelings, or alternatively, when it was too simple and could stand to be ratcheted up a notch to truly tickle the victim’s funny bone. Far beyond simply keeping Fluttershy safe from their fun, Pinkie would always seem to know exactly how far was too far or not far enough for dealing with any given pony, and the strange thing about it was, she was practically never wrong.
The nearly-finished day behind them had been a bountiful oasis of pranking. It had started innocently enough, as Rainbow Dash had flown headlong into Twilight Sparkle’s library to return a book she had just finished and pick up a new one, reading being a skill that she was working on becoming as amazing at as at everything else that she did. While there, she had run across one of Twilight’s old day-planner checklists, which the studious unicorn had been about to throw away. An instinct had inspired Rainbow Dash to ask for the checklist, and Twilight, understandably confused, had allowed her to take it away with her. With Pinkie Pie at her side, Rainbow Dash had devised the perfect plan.
It had been a while since the two of them had gone on a pranking spree of any real merit, and loathe as Rainbow Dash was to admit it, this was in large part due to a lack of new big ideas. Hanging a hammock from the outside of the Carousel Boutique and dumping Rarity into it while she slept had been fun, but they’d had precious few ideas since then. Twilight’s checklist, however, brought with it inspiration. The unicorn forever insisted on creating large colorful pictures for each item on her checklists, rather than writing out the task in actual words. Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie had no way of knowing what the drawings had originally meant to Twilight, but the two of them together could read each image as a suggestion for a new prank to be pulled somewhere in Ponyville. The fruits of Twilight’s hard-earned organization had therefore become the haphazardly constructed road plan for a full day of fun and games with Ponyville’s unwitting citizens.
The first item on the checklist was a series of red apples, which was boring enough until Pinkie noticed that the apples looked unusually large. After some hurried scheming, the idea had arisen to try inflating some of Applejack’s apples with helium, to see if they would expand like Pinkie’s beloved balloons. The apples had not actually expanded as they had hoped for, but the addition of a levitating apple tree to the Sweet Apple Acres orchards was a source of pure consternation for their farmer friend, and pure delight for the two pranksters as they revealed themselves to her.
Second was a picture of a bright blue diamond, a pair of wings attached to it. Rainbow Dash had immediately defined the diamond as a baseball diamond, but it had been Pinkie Pie who decided the wings meant there had to be an aerial game of baseball. Rainbow Dash had a large collection of fancy outfits from her childhood “dressing in style” days, and these had been rolled into a ball and inserted into one of Pinkie’s many differently-sized cannons. That had left them needing only a bat, and, well, they already had this nice floating tree. Admittedly this second adventure wasn’t exactly a prank, but it was a lot of fun, and Rainbow Dash was glad to see those clothes gone before Rarity could somehow have accidentally discovered them.
Next was a bulky white blob, which Pinkie proclaimed was clearly coconut. Rainbow Dash had flown to the nearest beach and brought back a large quantity of sand, which they proceeded to dye white and dump in a large pile outside of Coconut Cream’s house. When the baker pony got home, she was initially horrified to discover what appeared to be her entire store of her “secret” ingredient stolen and poured out onto the dirt. Shortly after she had discovered it to be sand, however, the unicorn Beachberry had walked by and interpreted the white pile as Coconut Cream’s attempt at making her own private beach. The two prankster ponies could only watch curiously as a new friendship was struck up right before their eyes.
The next picture was of a giant mustache, which gave Rainbow Dash the inspiration for them both to go to a hairstylist’s and get each other’s hairstyles, to see if they could fool anypony into thinking they had switched bodies or something. Unfortunately, Pinkie Pie’s mane always snapped back into its usual poufy mass a few short seconds after anypony did anything to it, so that didn’t end up working out. Still, Twilight was nothing if not well-organized, and those four items were only the beginning of a long list of pranks and other activities that occupied the two close friends for all the rest of the day. Now Rainbow Dash was lying lazily under a tree, one eye partially open and keeping an eye on Ponyville and the skies above, while Pinkie Pie went through the checklist again and again to see if there was anything they had forgotten to reinterpret.
“Geez, Pinkie, give it a rest,” said Rainbow Dash at last. “If you read through that thing one more time, you’re going to grow a horn or something.”
“Oh, Dashie,” answered Pinkie, “you’re such a silly filly! What would little old Pinkie Pie do with a big horn growing out of the top of her head? I’d much rather have a pair of awesome wings like yours. But I can’t help it, I just feel like there’s something I’m forgetting that we’re supposed to do!”
Rainbow Dash sighed. “It’s not baking cupcakes again, is it? I swear to Celestia, that strawberry syrup got everywhere last time and I was cleaning it out of my feathers for weeks. I gotta say, I don’t think I’m cut out for kitchen stuff.”
“No,” said Pinkie with a giggle, “I think it’s something bigger than that! Like, record-breaking party-throwing finger-licking big! But I just can’t think what, and I don’t think it’s anywhere on this list.”
“Hey, you want record-breaking, I’m your gal!” said Rainbow Dash, before frowning. “Hold on… what’s a finger?”
Pinkie Pie, however, had already completely abandoned that train of thought. “I hate forgetting things, Dashie! Once I forgot to turn the oven off after baking some cakes, and then I went out for a spontaneous picnic with Twilight and Colgate and a box of staplers, and when I got back everything was covered in icky smoky black smoke! Fortunately I got the Cutie Mark Crusaders to help me clean everything up before Mr. and Mrs. Cake got home, but that could have been really bad!” She raised a hoof to her face, looking very thoughtful and inquisitive for a moment until she began sucking on it. “Hey, Rainbow Dash, what are ‘child labor laws’?”
Rainbow Dash groaned and shifted herself against the tree trunk. As she lay back down, her head bumped into something soft and plasticky that was decidedly no more a tree than Fluttershy was. “Huh?” she said.
Pinkie Pie rolled over to see what Rainbow Dash had found. “Oh,” she said, “that’s one of my balls! I keep balls stashed all over Ponyville, in case I need them for any ball-related emergencies!” Suddenly she blinked several times in quick succession, and her face lit up in jubilation. “That’s it! Oh, Rainbow Dash, you’re a genius!”
“What? I mean, yeah, of course!” Rainbow Dash stared at her easily-excited pink friend in mild alarm. “What did I do this time?”
“That’s what I’ve been forgetting!” said Pinkie Pie, now bouncing up and down on top of the abandoned checklist. “You! Balls! Your party! You were about to break the Equestria ball-bouncing record of three hundred and fifty bounces, and I was going to throw you a huuuuuuge celebration party with everypony in town! Remember? Then we all got called away to calm down that silly red dragon, and we never got to have your party!”
Rainbow Dash did remember. She also remembered that both times she had gotten close to the record, it had been Pinkie Pie who had broken her concentration – first by trying to count her while planning the party, and later by roaring like a dragon – but she was enough of a good friend to hold her tongue on that particular detail. What mattered was that a dragon had cheated Pinkie Pie out of one of her beloved parties, and more importantly, that she, Rainbow Dash, hadn’t proved her awesomeness by breaking the ball-bouncing record! Leaving that record in the hooves of another pony would mean only going at ball-bouncing halfway, and Rainbow Dash did not do things halfway.
“You’re right, Pinkie!” she said. “Tell you what: you have that party, and I’ll break the record right then and there, with everypony there to see!”
Pinkie Pie cheered. “Hooray! Dashie, you’re the best! I mean, I feel I’m still forgetting something, but first, I’ve got a party to plan! Ooh, I’m going to need so many balloons! And streamers, but mostly balloons. La la la la la…!”
As the pink pony bounced happily away, Twilight’s checklist long since forgotten, Rainbow Dash smiled to herself. With Pinkie’s help, she would break that pesky ball-bouncing record once and for all, show off a little for her friends, and reinforce for anypony who hadn’t gotten the memo that it was she, not that made-up Mare-Do-Well, who was the true hero of Ponyville. Yep, there was no doubt about it: Rainbow Dash was amazing.
Rainbow Dash was a terror.
Rarity’s latest string of difficulties with the cerulean pegasus had begun just the other day, the day of her appointment to meet with Filthy Rich to discuss his daughter, Diamond Tiara, modeling a new line of filly fashions she had been developing. Filthy Rich, however, had mistaken the time of the appointment and arrived early. This would not have been so egregious an issue, had that not been the day that Rainbow Dash had snuck into the Boutique – wearing a ridiculous ninja get-up, no less, she had later been informed! – and spirited her away from the comforts of her bed, only to deposit her in an outdoor hammock. And so Filthy Rich, on his arrival, had witnessed her sleeping there.
Still, that minor embarrassment was not completely irreparable for a pony of her considerable talents, and she had been able to reschedule the meeting with Filthy Rich for a later date, at which time he would bring his daughter along as well. The day before the meeting, Rarity had had Twilight come over to cast the Glimmer Wings spell on her, so that she could visit Rainbow Dash’s house and apologize for her less than polite language following the hammock incident. Rainbow Dash had not been home, however, though Rarity had noticed some rather gaudy outfits in her house that she had resolved to ask her pegasus about sometime later.
The next day, Rarity had met with Filthy Rich and Diamond Tiara, who both appeared understandably impressed with her sales pitch. At last came the moment to reveal the designs themselves, and with her typical flair for the dramatic, Rarity had instructed them both to close their eyes and wait. As Rarity walked away to fetch the new outfits, she heard a distinctly undignified crashing sound. She spun around, discovering as she did so that Diamond Tiara had become mysteriously covered in incredibly loud and colorful filly-sized costumes that might have been fashionable several years ago, but were no longer remotely cutting-edge let alone magnifique. Diamond Tiara had fled, disgusted, and Rarity had been left to glare at the guilty garments and recognize them as the property of… Rainbow Dash.
Now here was Pinkie Pie, being her usual bubbly insensitive self, proffering an invitation for Rarity to come to Sugarcube Corner to celebrate some one or other of Rainbow Dash’s less than financially motivated accomplishments. She graciously accepted the invitation – a party would likely be good for her current frustration, after all – but the resentment continued nevertheless to simmer within her. Seriously? That weather team ruffian was getting the full gala treatment, or at least Pinkie Pie’s equivalent thereof, for bouncing a ball up and down on her head?
It wasn’t that she was against balls or anything, Rarity thought, once Pinkie Pie had departed in search of more ponies to invite to her party. Allowing herself a faint smile, the fashionista unicorn walked over to an old closet, quietly opened the door with her magic, and looked inside. There on the closet floor lay the old white ball that had occupied such a surprising number of hours in her childhood, a trifle dusty and yet just as round and inviting as it had ever been. Before Sweetie Belle and the enticing world of fashion had become her companions in life, that ball, with its serenely painted replication of her own cutie mark, had accompanied her everywhere. It had been perfectly sized for her young filly self to ride around on, or else to send rolling madly at the hooves of unsuspecting adults. She had always meant to pass it on to Sweetie Belle, but she felt her sister might be a little too grown-up for such innocent pleasures at this point, and besides, the presence of Rarity’s cutie mark on the ball might make it not nearly so enchanting for other ponies.
Rolling, riding – now those were the ways a gentlelady played with her ball, none of this hooligan bouncing nonsense. Although, now that she thought about it, Rarity supposed that she had witnessed even gentle Fluttershy bouncing a ball on her head on occasion. Either it was some sort of pegasus thing, or perhaps it was not so disreputable as she had first assumed. Gingerly, making sure that she was not near to any windows, Rarity levitated her old ball onto the top of her head, disconnected it from her magic, and began to bounce it up and down.
After several false starts, Rarity found herself quickly getting the hang of bouncing the ball atop her head. The most important quality was control over one’s body, and she had to admit, that was one talent that she and Rainbow Dash certainly shared. The pegasus speedster needed fine control over her every muscle for some of her more complicated maneuvers, whereas she was a lady of grace and poise. Bouncing a ball up and down assuredly required paying attention to her body in a different way than did appearing elegant and ladylike, but it was by no means outside of her abilities.
Moreover, some ten or twenty bounces in, Rarity found herself enjoying the sensation of the bouncing ball. The impact was soft enough that it was not remotely painful, instead reminding her of some of the gentler massage sessions at the spa. The regularity of the bounces additionally provided a certain calming air to the exercise, one which Rarity found herself deeply welcoming after the frustration of pondering Rainbow Dash. Somehow, she felt more peaceful with her old ball bouncing on top of her than she had in some time. For a moment she even considered recommending the treatment to Aloe and Lotus, but realized quickly that she undoubtedly looked quite ridiculous right then, and few of the spa’s other patrons would be likely to test out such a regimen voluntarily.
Gradually, Rarity began to lose herself in the peaceful rhythm of the bounce. She wandered through the rooms of the Carousel Boutique, the tools and priorities of her trade all but forgotten as she inspected herself serenely in the full length mirrors stationed within the building. Yes, there was no getting around it; she had misjudged Rainbow Dash. Nopony who practiced so refined and delicate a pastime as this could be as roughhewed as Rarity had previously thought her. Perhaps this was how Rainbow Dash relaxed? Well could she imagine the stresses of the speedster’s life, what with the demands on her time brought about by her fame, the catastrophic results possible from the mismanagement of the Ponyville skies, and… well, that was about it, she supposed. Still, what did she really know about weather? For all she knew, it took great effort to ensure that no lightning bolts struck the thatched roofs of Ponyville, and if Rainbow Dash wished to destress herself after such strenuous effort by the judicious application of a ball to her head, well, who was Rarity to blame her?
It was in this state of profound calm and forgiveness that Rarity was once more interrupted by the ringing of the bell over her front door. Placing aside her endless parade of mirrors, Rarity made her way to the front door to greet her newest visitor or perhaps customer. This time, instead of Pinkie come to bring her another invitation, it was only Fluttershy, and Rarity smiled warmly at her in welcome.
“Why, if it isn’t Fluttershy that visits me,” she said. “Come in, come in, my darling; say what business brings you to my door.”
Fluttershy stared at her in obvious concern. “Umm… Rarity, are you all right?”
“All right? Why, Fluttershy, I can’t for anything imagine any time that I’ve felt better!”
“Oh, um, okay,” said Fluttershy. She stared worriedly at the air above Rarity’s head. “It’s just, umm… you’re bouncing a ball on your head. Also, you’re talking in an iambic rhythm in time with the ball?”
Rarity, startled, stared upwards. The white ball completed its latest arc and fell onto her face, but narrowly missing being impaled by her horn. Rarity let out a soft screech and backed up several steps, suddenly remembering the impropriety of her actions. “Oh, dear!” she cried. “What am I doing? Fluttershy, this secret must not escape your lips. Nopony must know that I was engaged in so base an art as one of Rainbow Dash’s hobbies!”
Fluttershy gave her a curiously satisfied smile. “You can count on me,” she said, resting a sympathetic hoof against Rarity’s side. “Um, that’s actually kind of why I’m here. To ask for your help, I mean, with Rainbow Dash.”
Rarity gasped, certain of Applejack’s less plausible suspicions springing to her mind. “My help with Rainbow Dash?” she repeated. “Fluttershy, my dear… surely you do not mean… a tryst with her, do you?!”
“What? No, I… oh my goodness!” Fluttershy went instantly scarlet. “No, never! I mean, not that I wouldn’t want your help if I did, but, uh, I don’t, and…”
“No, no, I understand,” said Rarity. “Forgive me; I assumed too much. Won’t you come in? We can talk better in private.” As she spoke, she telekinetically urged her ball back into the closet from whence it had come.
“Oh, thank you,” said Fluttershy, “but this really shouldn’t take very long. I just wanted to ask for your help in, um, dissuading Rainbow Dash from going through with her plans. I don’t think she should try to break the ball bouncing record, and I’m not sure if she’ll listen to me.”
Rarity frowned. “Well, I doubt I have much influence on her, but I can certainly try. Why is this so important?”
“Well, umm…” Fluttershy gulped. “It’s a pegasus thing. If we bounce balls too long, um, our wings fall off.” She gave a feeble grin. “Right off, feather by feather. It’s simply horrible, and you know how much Rainbow Dash loves her wings! So I’m sure you can see how you’re just being a good friend by keeping her from doing it, and…”
“Fluttershy, you are lying to me.”
Fluttershy drooped. “…yes. Yes, I am. Oh, I’m sorry.”
“Why?”
Rarity watched, concerned, as her friend shifted back and forth on her hooves. “I won’t tell you everything,” she said at last. “It’s complicated. But, um, if she breaks the record, then the current record holder wouldn’t be very happy, and that might not be so good for Rainbow Dash. So you see, you’re protecting her!”
This second story did sound more plausible, Rarity supposed, if agonizingly devoid of detail. “And who is the current record holder?” she asked. “Some awful thug, defending his position through threats and violence?” Her eyes flashed once. “Blueblood?”
Fluttershy sighed. “I can’t tell you that,” she said. “Oh, please, Rarity, just say yes. It truly won’t be a good thing if Rainbow Dash breaks this record, really it won’t.”
Rarity looked at her closest companion, who was obviously concerned for her old friend if curiously unable to explain fully the reason, and felt her own heart soften in response. “My dear, how could I refuse?” she answered. “I will try my hardest to make Rainbow Dash forget this mad plan of hers.”
“Oh, thank you, Rarity!” said Fluttershy, breaking into a wide smile. “If there’s anything I can to do help…”
Rarity returned the smile with one of her own. “Oh, don’t worry. I’m sure I can handle Rainbow Dash.”
Two hours later, after sitting through an entire party’s worth of Rainbow Dash’s smug boasts and incessant conceit, Rarity had had enough. A fit of pique inspired her to assert that being able to bounce a ball on one’s head was nothing to be proud of; anypony could do it. Things spiraled out of control from there, and so Rarity found herself agreeing to compete against Rainbow Dash the very next day to see which of them could bounce their chosen ball for longer. As she squeamishly shook Rainbow Dash’s spat-upon hoof to settle the deal, Rarity spared a thought for Fluttershy’s warnings, but pushed them aside; she was a unicorn of means and influence, after all, and could surely handle herself against the current record holder if need be. In the meantime, she had a contest to win.
Rainbow Dash eyed her newfound opponent’s ball with contempt. Sure, it was round, but that was about all it had going for it. Rarity’s ball was plain, boring, white, with only a single blue diamond to break up its boredom. Didn’t Rarity’s cutie mark have three blue diamonds? Clearly this was a rather substandard attempt at imitation. Her ball, by contrast, didn’t even bother trying to replicate her cutie mark, since clearly she was too awesome to be reduced into ball form. A darkish pink, dotted with brilliant white stars: the sky was the limit! If balls were pets, she’d have just won easily in the Style column. This contest, though, was all about Agility.
In front of them stood Twilight Sparkle, whom they had both agreed would make the best referee, plus the unicorn Colgate, who was serving as her second just in case either of the balls went wild in their trajectories and ended up incapacitating her. Twilight’s unicorn magic flipped through the pages of an enormous book called “Beachberry’s Boundless Beginners’ Ball-Bouncing Bible, Volume 1 of 4,” the cover of which had a complicated abstract picture that clearly had nothing to do with balls or bouncing at all. From time to time she would stop at one page or another and make an interested tutting sound, which never quite seemed to signal that she was done reading. Sweetie Belle and her parents were there as well, hidden beneath an enormous pink umbrella, and Pinkie and Fluttershy stood to the side, having some sort of animated discussion – well, animated for Fluttershy – though Rainbow Dash didn’t see Applejack anywhere. Probably she had chalked the whole contest up to foolishness. Heh, her loss!
“All right!” said Twilight an eternity later. “I guess I’m ready to get going! I hope I didn’t keep you girls waiting too long?”
Rarity gave her a simpering smile. “Oh, no,” she said. “We understand how important is that you know exactly what you’re doing, Twilight Sparkle. Our referee must be knowledgeable, after all, and observant, and wise, and…”
“And fair and unbiased, right, Rarity?” asked Rainbow Dash. She had talked to Scootaloo enough to know a suckup when she saw one.
Rarity gave a light cough. “Quite right. So, Twilight, shall we begin?”
Twilight smiled radiantly at them, seeming not to have noticed their little discussion at all. “Definitely! Let me just make sure we’re all on the same page first. So, girls, is this two simultaneous but discrete tries for the Equestrian record, or a more localized competition to be held between the two of you and judged independent of the more general record?”
Rainbow Dash opened her mouth to answer there was nothing discreet about it, but Rarity cut her off. “The latter,” she said. “I have no interest in the record itself, after all. I only want to show Rainbow Dash that she is being ridiculously arrogant.”
Twilight gave another smile, although this one looked somewhat faker. “Uh, okay then! The rules are actually quite simple… most of the book is about special cases, historical sidenotes, and lots and lots of illustrations. Basically, each ball must be bouncing continuously; whosever ball stops bouncing first loses. For the purposes of this contest, only the head is a valid surface for the ball to bounce against, defined as all areas above two inches below the neck, plus all of the mane.” She gave them an appraising look. “Rarity, your mane has much more body than Rainbow’s does, so you’ll probably have an advantage there.”
Rainbow Dash gave a short laugh. “Yeah, like that’ll make any difference. You can keep your mane, Rarity.”
“Thank you, Rainbow Dash,” said Rarity with a sniff. “I do believe I shall. Twilight, what about my horn? I notice poor Rainbow Dash does not have one, after all.”
Twilight flipped through several dozen pages. “Aha! Okay, Rarity, your horn does count as part of your head. However, you are not allowed to use your magic to move the ball, directly or indirectly. For example, summoning a light breeze to angle your ball towards your head would count as cheating, although you would be allowed to, for instance, summon a fireball to destroy something that your ball might land on instead of your head. Umm, allowed to in terms of the rules of the contest, I mean. There’s a pretty big disclaimer here that fireballs may cause property destruction which may be against Equestrian law, and something not being against contest rules doesn’t necessarily mean it’s legal.”
Fluttershy raised a timid yellow hoof. “Umm, Twilight?”
“Yes?”
“What about Rainbow Dash’s wings?”
Twilight looked confused. “I don’t know if that’s strictly in here, but I’m pretty sure they’re not part of her head, no.”
“No, umm, I mean…” Fluttershy hesitated. “Can she use her wings to fly? To get herself in a better position to bounce the ball if it’s at a bad angle?”
“Oh!” Twilight looked relieved. “That makes much more sense. Uh, yes, she can, so long as her wings don’t actually touch the ball.”
“Ooh, ooh!” said Pinkie Pie, doing a serviceable imitation of a bouncing ball herself. “Can they help each other?”
“I’m not sure I understand…”
“Well,” said Pinkie, pointing to them each in turn, “Rarity’s Generosity and Dashie is Loyalty, right? So what if they wanted to get generous or loyal or something and help each other out? Like, could Rarity bounce Dashie’s ball on her head?”
Twilight’s head vanished into the depths of the book for several minutes, while Rainbow Dash felt herself growing increasingly bored. Did she have a weather meeting later? She suddenly thought that maybe she did. Hopefully Rarity wouldn’t put up too much of a fight after all these delays.
“Apparently,” said Twilight at last, “yes, that would be perfectly okay. All that’s important is that your ball bounces on a head or mane, not necessarily yours. So Rarity could bounce both of their balls at once, or Rainbow Dash could, either way.” She turned another page. “Likewise, you each – heads aside – count as illegal surfaces for your opponent’s ball, so for example, Rainbow Dash could cause Rarity to lose by flying under her ball mid-bounce so that it landed on Rainbow’s tail instead of Rarity’s head. The book says that this is ‘perfectly legal but incredibly unsporting.’ “
Still standing beside her, Colgate got a wicked grin on her face. “Hey, Twilight,” she said. “So if both their balls hit the ground at the same time, is that a tie?”
“Umm…” Twilight flipped back to the beginning of the book. “Yes!”
“But Rainbow Dash’s ball is pink, and Rarity’s is white.”
“So?”
“So how are you going to account for the effects of redshift? And besides, to detect true simultaneity…”
As Twilight’s eyes went wide and she began hurriedly paging through the book, Rainbow Dash stomped an impatient hoof on the earth below her. “Oh, come on!” she said. “I’m pretty sure me and Rarity know what we’re doing, and if Twilight needs more time to figure out how to judge us, hey, she can do that while we bounce. Let’s do this thing, Rare’!”
Rarity gave a graceful nod. “Rainbow Dash, my dear: it is on.”
Two long-loved balls were tossed into the air. Two heads rose up to meet them on their descent. And things continued on from there without much change.
In her youth, Rainbow Dash had once spent a month-long winter’s break from flight school on top of a mountain, studying within the monastery of the Most Ancient Order of Bouncing Monks. The reclusive and graceful flutter ponies of the Order had taught her how to control her body in numerous nearly imperceptible ways, with far more delicacy than was needed for calming errant clouds or even most of her stunt flying moves. It was these teachings she was now putting to use: mere fractions of inches in the position and angle of her head could make for radically different bounces, and extreme caution was needed for calculating every impact. She had not practiced the Art of the Bounce in many months, and with both an audience and an opponent, failure was not an option.
Unfortunately, Rarity was proving surprisingly talented as well. After some initial shows of concentration, she seemed to have settled quite serenely into her own rhythm, her white ball bouncing regularly up and down without seeming to draw much effort from her at all. Rainbow Dash even cast a suspicious eye at the unicorn’s horn, but there was no sign of its magical glow. Apparently Rarity really was just that naturally graceful. Her ball rose and fell with scarcely a bit of variation from one bounce to the next, and Rainbow Dash could just make out the beginnings of a smug smile on her opponent’s face. She was going to have to step up her game. Or maybe… flap it up.
Giving her ball a mighty push upwards, Rainbow Dash took to the air. Her powerful blue wings beat slowly at her sides, synced up perfectly with the ball making its mostly regular impacts on her scalp. She began to circle the still-standing Rarity, her wings coming perilously close to brushing against her friend’s ball as it bounced in the air, although she made sure not really to touch it. As Twilight had said, that would have been incredibly unsporting. Better to frighten Rarity enough that she messed up all on her own.
“Sweetie Belle,” said Rarity without warning, “emergency measure 3S.”
Rainbow Dash turned to watch while Rarity’s younger sister searched through a large basket she’d had concealed beneath her umbrella. After a few moments, Sweetie Belle produced a pair of enormous sunglasses, which she trotted over to place on Rarity’s face.
“Thank you,” said Rarity. “Rainbow Dash, I hope you are not trying to distract me, because I suddenly can’t seem to see you at all.”
Rainbow Dash growled. “Hah, like I’d need to distract you to win this!” she said. “This contest is just way too stale, that’s all! What’s the fun in winning if all we’re going to do is stand here like a couple of dummies?”
Twilight frowned from behind her enormous book. “Rainbow,” she said, “you don’t get any points for style, you know. This contest is based solely on how long the ball goes without hitting anything besides your head.”
Rainbow Dash gave her most impressive mid-air shrug. “Yeah, well, winning isn’t everything. If you’re gonna win, you’ve gotta win big.”
She began a rapid ascent, her ball now bouncing against her upturned face rather than the top of her mane. The flutter ponies of the Order had taught her this particular move last of all, calling it the Kitchen Sink. Now several dozen feet above the treetops, she began a spiraling descent, the ball bounced continually just in front of her in an ever narrowing circle. As she reached the spiral’s center, she flew quickly up and gave the ball a powerful downward headbutt, sending it hurdling towards the ground below. Sparing a quick grin for her small audience, Rainbow Dash rotated herself downward and sped towards the earth, overtaking the ball’s trajectory in the nick of time. One quick angling motion before she hit dirt, and the ball was again bouncing regularly on her head, the velocity of their mad descent totally gone. She smiled as the tiny crowd broke into applause.
“There! Let’s see you top that, Rarity!” she said in triumph.
“Why?” asked Rarity with an infuriating calm. “Didn’t you hear what Twilight said, Rainbow Dash? Mad stunts are only going to decrease our chances of winning. They’re risky and tiring.”
“Sure, but…” Rainbow Dash struggled for a moment to think of what part of Rarity’s nature she could appeal to. She pointed wildly at their watchers. “But who do you think deserves to win more, huh? You, just standing there calmly without a worry in the world, or me, giving the audience something to see and really putting my back into the art? Pinkie? What do you think?”
If Pinkie Pie had stopped bouncing up and down since the contest began, Rainbow Dash had not noticed it. “Oh, you should definitely win, Dashie! I mean, just now you were all WHOOOOOOOSH, and then VROOM VROOM VROOM VROOM VROOM and EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEkaBOUNCE!” – she did a quite passable grounded reenactment of Rainbow Dash’s trick – “and Rarity’s just standing there all like actually I don’t know how to act out standing there because it’s really boring.”
“Fluttershy?”
The yellow pegasus looked obviously conflicted, but finally nodded. “Um, I agree with Pinkie,” she said. “So far you’re obviously putting a lot more into this contest, Rainbow Dash, and it would be much more emotionally satisfying if you won than if Rarity did. Um, sorry.”
“Twilight?”
“As your mutual friend and as the formal referee of this contest, it would be doubly wrong of me to express a particular favor to either one of you.”
“Right, okay.” Rainbow Dash sighed, suspecting that asking Rarity’s own family for their opinions might not be the best idea. “Come on, Rare, this isn’t like you. Imagine if you were making a dress! Would you just make the most boring dress you could possibly make, so long as it covered everything it was supposed to cover?” She pointed vaguely at various points on her body.
“No,” said Rarity, “I would make it a beautiful dress.”
“Even if you weren’t in competition with anypony and you were going to get paid no matter what you did?”
“Of course.”
Rainbow Dash had a feeling she was winning, unless that was just the ball’s constantly knocking on her skull. “And why’s that, huh?”
Rarity gave a tremendous sigh that miraculously failed to affect her own ball in any way. “Because if a thing is worth doing… it is worth doing fabulously. Fine. Did you have anything in mind?”
“Of course!” Rainbow Dash lied. She thought quickly. “Okay, so, you’ll need to come on over to the dam.”
Twilight gasped and began paging frantically through her rulebook. “Wait!” she said. “The book is very clear that as referee, I am not allowed to leave this spot until the contest is complete!”
“Are we?” asked Rainbow Dash. “Like, as players, not as referees?”
“Well… I suppose so,” said Twilight. She scanned the page. “Um, yes, apparently. Because you might need to go retrieve your balls from a particularly difficult bounce or something like that.”
“Okay,” said Colgate, who Rainbow Dash had once more managed to forget was there. “So you have to stay here, but in the meantime the rest of us can go to the dam and can find out what Rainbow Dash has got planned.”
Twilight glared at her. “Whose side are you on?”
“As not the formal referee of this contest,” answered Colgate, “I get to do and say whatever I please.”
Rarity was not sure what she had expected for her challenge of style, but it had most definitely not been this.
Rainbow Dash had gone on ahead, her wings allowing her to reach the dam much more quickly than the rest of them even while bouncing a ball on top of her head. Along the way she had apparently enlisted two other pegasi who had helped her tie a rope across the dam. No, not across the dam – across the ravine just next to the dam, on the other side from the nice safe reservoir.
“So you just have to walk across it,” Rainbow Dash was explaining, “like a tightrope. Except obviously your ball has to keep bouncing the entire time!”
Rarity stared downwards, sickening flashbacks to the Best Young Flyer competition already entering her mind. “Tightropes usually have nets beneath them, Rainbow Dash,” she said, trying to hold her voice steady. “If I fall…”
Rainbow Dash pointed smugly at her two pegasus companions. “Then Thunderlane and Blossomforth here will fly down immediately to save you!” she said. “I mean, I’d do it myself, but I’ll still be bouncing and I don’t want to mess that up. Besides, if I save you from falling to certain death too many times, some ponies might start to get the wrong idea!”
“Celestia forbid,” Rarity said to herself darkly. She turned to her friends for help. “Fluttershy, dear, can I trust these two?”
“Hey!” said Blossomforth. “We’re right here.”
Fluttershy gave a small nod. “They’re both very fast,” she said. “Um, if Rainbow Dash thinks they can catch you, then I’m sure they can.”
“Fastest wings in the west!” said Thunderlane, his wing feathers rippling outwards.
“Yeah, in the west of your own house, maybe,” said Rainbow Dash. She laid a soft wing over Rarity’s back, once again just barely avoiding knocking Rarity’s ball off course as she did so. “Look, Rare, I promise you’ll be fine. I’ve worked with these two loads of times, and they really are quick. If they don’t catch you, I will, and you know how fast I am. Seriously, this is all about skill, not danger… if I wanted to get you killed, there’d be way easier ways I could find to do that.”
Rarity shuddered. “Thank you for those incredibly encouraging reassurances, Rainbow Dash,” she said. “..all right. Let’s continue this ridiculous competition.”
The tightrope that had looked terrifyingly thin at a distance looked even thinner up close, and the other side of the ravine even farther away. Nonetheless, Rarity brought herself to place one hoof onto it, and then another, and then another, until she was standing fully off the edge of the cliff, a single rope all that hung between her and needing to find out just how fast Thunderlane and Blossomforth really were. She took another step forward. The rope was rough, but that was good, because that made it easier to get a grip on. She stepped again, and again, all the while remembering to hold her gaze up, her expression firm, her head moving up and down to catch her fillyhood ball still bouncing on top of it.
The encouraging cheers from Rarity’s friends and family on the cliff behind her dwindled from her consciousness as she focused entirely on getting herself across the ravine and safely to the other side, where she could begin to find a way to have her revenge on Rainbow Dash. The pegasus could say what she liked about skill and danger, but Rarity had come near to death by falling from a great height twice already, and there was no way Rainbow Dash couldn’t realize how terrifying this would be to her… was there? For all she knew, maybe Rainbow Dash wasn’t even capable of seeing the open sky as anything other than a beautiful expanse of freedom. Either way, she needed to think of something that she would find beautiful but that Rainbow Dash would be afraid of… ah, of course. She had a plan; now she just had to get across the tightrope.
Hoof step, ball bounce, hoof step, ball bounce. She was maybe a third of the way across, if she still had any sense of distance. What was a tightrope, anyhow, besides an elaborate metaphor for… something? Well, whatever it was a metaphor for, she was quite certain she was an expert at walking it. She was, after all, a pony of two different worlds: the quaint rusticity of Ponyville on the one hoof, contrasted with the glamour and – admittedly – snobbery of Canterlot on the other. If that was not a tightrope that she walked, she didn’t know what was. None of her friends could understand what skill and dedication it took for such doubleness of one’s life… except perhaps Rainbow Dash. She was a creature of the sky, after all, though simultaneously a citizen of Ponyville. Perhaps the girl had a tightrope of her own to fly across? Hoof step, ball bounce, hoof stop, ball bounce…
“Hi Rarity! You’re doing super duper great so far!”
Rarity turned her head slowly to the left to confront the impossible. Pinkie Pie was standing there beside her, her face a radiant mask of support and good cheer. That in itself was not so very bad – Rarity had warmed to the party pony a little since Rainbow Dash had decided to strand them in the middle of the desert together – but the fact was that Pinkie Pie was standing there beside her.
“Pinkie, dear,” she said, “…what are you doing here?”
Pinkie Pie laughed. “Umm, duh! I thought you might want some encouragement, so I came over here to walk next to you!”
“Pinkie,” said Rarity, very slowly, “I’m on a tightrope. Halfway across a ravine. There is no ‘next to me.’ “
And then Rarity made the mistake of looking down to make sure she was right.
Four very predictable things happened all at about the same time. First Pinkie, who really truly wasn’t standing on anything, fell. Second, Rarity’s ball hit Rarity’s head, which was looking down into the ravine and not at all properly oriented for an optimal bouncing angle, and the ball fell. Third Rarity, through a combination of shock and disorientation, screamed and lost her footing and fell. And fourth, Blossomforth and Thunderlane leapt into the air and took off at top speed to save them.
For a brief few seconds, Rarity watched her life pass before her eyes for the third time in recent history. Then Thunderlane caught her. Nearby, Rarity could see Blossomforth struggle for a moment to lift Pinkie Pie, her wings struggling frantically against the earth pony’s weight, before finally beginning to climb upwards. She also saw her ball plummeting beneath them, and with it her chances of beating Rainbow Dash at her own game. One specific memory presented itself to her, a certain rather muddy lesson she’d received from Applejack one day, after she’d thoughtlessly accused her friend of being little more than an unskilled laborer…
“Mr. Thunderlane,” she told her rescuer, “I am about to use you in a very undignified manner, and I apologize.”
“Wha… HEY!”
Rarity twisted in midair and climbed onto Thunderlane’s back. She knew a little of how pegasi’s wings worked from talking to Fluttershy. She knew a little about riding bulls from fighting with Applejack. And she knew a lot about how much she wanted her ball. Her kind dressmaker’s hooves grabbed Thunderlane’s body and wings roughly and pulled him into a steep dive towards the ravine’s bottom. She could only imagine her friends’ and family’s reactions just then, having tuned out all else but the relentless pursuit of the falling white sphere that had been her fillyhood companion. It was in front of them now, growing closer, closer, they were matching its speed, they were surpassing it, they were well beneath it now, without much more room to fly farther down…
Rarity pulled up on Thunderlane, hard. Together they shot upwards, seeking to intercept the ball. For a moment, Rarity thought they weren’t going to make it, she had miscalculated by just a little, it was too far away from her head to bounce off it – and then she remembered her mane. A flick of her head sent her solid purple curls whipping to her side, and the ball was hit and bouncing, up, up, up, until she and Thunderlane returned to the top of the ravine and she finally let him resume control of his own body. Slowly, probably somewhat painfully, they flew back down to the cliff to rejoin their waiting companions.
“Thank you, Thunderlane,” said Rarity as she disembarked to the welcome feeling of rocky ground beneath her hooves. She looked at him, head still nodding regularly to the sensation of the ball bouncing up and down above it. “You are a true gentlecolt.”
The dark-coated pegasus grinned awkwardly at her. “Lady,” he said, “you’re crazy, but you’re also pretty cool.”
“Oh, is she?”
Rarity turned to meet the other pegasus, Blossomforth, who was glaring pointedly at her. “Come on, Thunderlane,” she continued, “let’s get you home. You’ve had far too much excitement today. Remember your allergies!”
“Huh? Oh, uh, right.” Thunderlane scratched his snout experimentally. “Yeah, okay. Cya later, Rainbow Dash!”
Rarity watched the two of them go with some amusement. Ah, the thrill of the fight! Perhaps she needed more of that in her life. Although there was something to be said for the thrill of the flight as well… no, she thought, and shook her head. She had really better leave the pegasus duties to Rainbow Dash.
Fluttershy engulfed her in a hug. “Oh, Rarity, I’m so glad you’re all right!” she cried into her mane. “I was so scared, and you should really stop this awful contest, and, um, are Blossomforth and Thunderlane okay?”
Rarity smiled. “They’ll be fine, dear. I think Blossomforth is just a little jealous, that’s all.”
“Who cares?!” It was Rainbow Dash, hovering excitedly above them with her ball bouncing very erratically against her colorful mane. “Rarity, that was awesome! I’ve never seen anypony ride a pegasus before! That dive, that pull back up… I don’t know where you learned all that, but it was way better than my trick!”
Rarity stood calmly for a moment as the rest of her admirers, a safe and sound Pinkie Pie among them, ran up to sing her praises. Yes, she had done well. She had not actually made it across the tightrope, but she had managed something far more daring and skilled than her original task. So now…
“You’re right, Rainbow Dash,” she said. “It was quite awesome, wasn’t it? So I guess now it’s your turn to go up for a challenge, to see if you can get a little of your own back.”
Rainbow Dash appeared to hesitate for only a fraction of a second. “Suits me!” she said. “What did you have in mind? Something from Scoot’s catalog, like bungee jumping or fire breathing or trapeze swinging?” She hesitated again, this time for a little longer. “…bungee flaming trapeze swinging?”
“Well,” said Rarity, “you are clearly quite talented at physical activities. So I was thinking…” – she flashed her very most charming smile – “perhaps you ought to try staying still for a while.”
This sucked. This sucked royally. Rainbow Dash’s only consolation was that all their audience had gotten bored and gone home half an hour ago, so that only she and Rarity were witnessing this atrocity. Every nerve and instinct inside of her was beginning her to take off and fly somewhere far off, but she knew if she tried that, she’d probably get a lot of needles buried in her skin. Such was the life of a dressmaker’s dummy.
“Rainbow Dash,” said Rarity for the dozenth time, “please stop fidgeting.” A wealth of fabrics and small gemstones hung suspended in the air before her while she slowly circled Rainbow Dash, her ball still bouncing regularly on top of her.
“I can’t!” said Rainbow Dash. She tried to point to her head for a moment before realizing she was in no good position to move her hoof that much. “If I stop moving, I’ll lose my ball!” Her eyes narrowed. “Hey, you’re not going to make me wear a hat too, are you? That’d totally be cheating.”
Rarity looked genuinely offended. “Of course not! You have had numerous opportunities to cheat me of my victory, by knocking my ball away or kicking my head or other such things, and you’ve been a perfect gentlemare. I’m not going to make you lose by putting a hat on your head.”
“No,” said Rainbow Dash with a grumble, “you’re just going to make me lose by boring me to death.”
Rarity shrugged. “If you like. Personally I think you look marvelous.”
Rainbow Dash looked down at herself. Okay, being fair to Rarity… she really didn’t look all that bad. ‘Marvelous’ was a bit much, but her friend-turned-opponent-but-still-friend-on-the-inside was pretty good at what she did. Rainbow Dash knew talent and dedication when she saw them, and Rarity did have those, even if she was currently using them to try to drown her in ruffles. It was a strange feeling, practically doubling in size.
Her dress… well, it was definitely a dress. It was big and white and ruffly and also a dress. An enormous skirt stretched from her midsection to the floor, with several circles of rainbow-colored ruffles sewn onto it, and she wore enormous white boots on each hoof. Her cutie mark, invisible because of the skirt, had been recreated as a gem-encrusted pendant hanging around her neck by a dark blue ribbon. As she stood there, Rarity was busying herself in finding spots to attach further jewels to the outfit.
“Rainbow Dash?”
“Huh?”
Rarity’s eyes looked curiously up at her, although her head remained mostly level, presumably so as to avoid puncturing her ball with her horn. “I said you looked marvelous. Surely by now you should be agreeing with me or else lavishing me with your witty comebacks.”
Right, the trouble with being a motormouth was that ponies got suspicious when you stopped talking. “Oh,” she said, “eh, it looks… okay, I guess.”
Rarity laughed mirthlessly. “Ah, my favorite response. By all means, Rainbow Dash, let’s do this again. No, the color’s fine, the shape’s fine, there’s just this third scale of dress quality that only I am privy to and I cannot possibly explain, and you, Rarity, will have to interpret it based on my utter lack of hints.”
Despite herself, Rainbow Dash felt a slight blush coming on. She probably really didn’t make the best model; it had been a long time since she had last thought clothes were especially cool. But Rarity clearly thought they were cool, and Rarity had just done such a bang-up job of being a pegasus earlier, maybe she should pretend to be a dressmaker for a little bit? That seemed the friendly thing to do. “No,” she said, “uh, the shape really isn’t fine.”
Rarity stopped and stared at her. For a moment it looked like she was going to lose control of her ball, but she made several desperate dives for it in quick succession until it had regained its regular bouncing rhythm. “I’m sorry?” she asked at last.
Rainbow Dash did her best to point at herself through her giant white boots. “This isn’t really a pegasus dress,” she explained. “You’re just doing your normal stuff for unicorns and all, but it doesn’t work on me. Like, I bet you’re all into your horn, right? For pegasi, it’s all about the wings. You need to be accenting… emfising… umm… my wings need to be more of the center of attention. Right now you’re doing all your work on my head and tail, but it’s the middle that really matters.”
Rarity continued to stare. “Rainbow Dash… that was…” she resumed pacing around in a circle, staring fixedly at Rainbow Dash’s wings. “That was… surprisingly astute. Why do you know these things?” She paused. “Why didn’t I know these things?”
Rainbow Dash cast around frantically for an explanation that wouldn’t make Rarity feel bad about her skills. “Uhh… probably your clients, I guess? How many pegasi do you really get in here, most days? Mostly you’ll just be talking to Fluttershy, who’s half earth pony anyway, and me, who…”
“Who has never deigned to tell me a word of helpful advice before today?”
“Uh, yeah, that thing.”
Rarity shook her head as much as she could without sending her ball drastically off course. “Well, whatever virus of helpfulness has infected you, I welcome it. More midsection. Anything else?”
Rainbow Dash shifted uncomfortably on her dais. “Umm… yeah. Less skirt.”
“Less skirt?”
“Less skirt.”
“Why?”
“It’s not aerodynamic at all! Besides, what the hay do you have against my tail? It’s like you’re always trying to cover it up with as much fabric as you can get your hooves on, while I’m trying to be perfectly awesome-looking all on my own. I need to be able to move, Rarity, and you keep making it harder.”
“We must all make sacrifices for the sake of fashion.”
“Maybe you must! I’m telling you, you’re just doing unicorn styles on everypony. You’ve never been in a real pegasus city.”
“Rainbow Dash, I can understand you might not want to be reminded of the event, but I have in fact visited Cloudsdale…”
“Yeah, but that’s Cloudsdale. It’s kind of the closest we’ve got to an earth city. Remember Commander Hurricane from that play we put on? A lot of us still have the proud warrior race bit going on, y’know, armor and stuff; ‘swhy we make such good guards. Speaking of, what’s with all the white? Can I get some gold plating on this?”
“I… certainly,” said Rarity. She had a very curious, appraising expression. “I just don’t understand. Wherever did you pick up so much about fashion?”
“Oh, heh, well.” Rainbow Dash gave a worried grin. “I, uh, might have been a bit more of a clotheshorse when I was small.” Her eyes went wide as she realized what she had just said out loud. “And you’re not going to tell anypony else about that, okay?!”
“You can count on me,” said Rarity. “I… Rainbow Dash, this has been quite the day. First I get to experience flying, and now you get to help design my dresses!” Rainbow Dash wasn’t sure that was quite what she was doing, but stayed quiet. “Would you care to step out for a bite to eat with me sometime? I would love to hear more about your pegasus culture.”
“Uh, sure, okay?” Rainbow Dash frowned. “Um, aren’t we kind of in the middle of a competition with each other, though?”
Rarity spared a glance upward at the star-studded ball still bouncing tiredly on Rainbow Dash’s head. “Yes,” she said, “I suppose we are. Though I will confess my heart is no longer in it. I was quite angry at you yesterday, and that spurred me into challenging you, but… I suppose I feel much better able to relate to you now. I apologize for my anger.”
“Aww, that’s cool,” said Rainbow Dash. Her eyes lit up. “Wait, so, are you forfeiting?!”
“Never!” Rarity drew herself upright. “I may apologize, but I never forfeit. Still, I am a creative pony, and I’m sure I can find a second option.” She appeared to think for a moment. “Sweetie Belle!” she cried. “Are you nearby?”
A few seconds later, Sweetie Belle trotted into the room, bits of her mane curiously singed. “Hi sis!” she said. “I’ve been making grated pasta with cherry sauce! Do you want any?”
“No,” said Rarity, “no thank you. Perhaps you could feed it to Spike. But Sweetie Belle, I need your help. Do you see this ball I am bouncing?” Sweetie Belle nodded. “I am getting quite tired of bouncing it, but I cannot let it touch the ground just yet. So you shall have to take over for me.”
Rainbow Dash stared, enraged, as Rarity passed her ball over to Sweetie Belle, who began bouncing it up and down on her own head with a look of confused excitement on her face. “You can’t do that!” she cried. “That’s cheating!”
“It most certainly is not,” said Rarity. “According to the rules Twilight read us, my ball only has to keep bouncing on somepony’s head or mane, but not necessarily mine.”
“Oh yeah?” Rainbow Dash glared, but when she thought about it, that was what Twilight had said. “Well, two can play at that game. Open the front door, will you?” Rarity obliged, and Rainbow Dash twisted her head carefully around to look outside. “Hey squirt! Come in here for a sec!”
An orange and purple blur shot out of one of the bushes in front of the Carousel Boutique and came skidding to a stop a few inches away from the dais. “Wow, Rainbow Dash!” cried Scootaloo. “How’d you know I was following you around this whole time?!”
Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes upward. “It’s a knack, kid. Look, I need you to take this ball off my head for a while, okay?”
“Anything for you, Rainbow Dash!”
“That’s what I like to hear.”
A careful bounce later, and Scootaloo had joined Sweetie Belle in the ball-bouncing league, while both Rarity and Rainbow Dash were refreshingly free to move their heads around as they pleased. Rainbow Dash stretched luxuriously. “Oh, man, that’s better! Want to go get some food now, Rarity? We can finish your dress later or something.”
Rarity smiled. “That sounds lovely. Now, remember, you two,” she added, turning to the new bouncers, “those balls must keep bouncing until we get back. Specifically, they must touch nothing but head and mane. Is that clear?”
“You can count on us!” said Sweetie Belle. “You’re not going to lose this contest if I can help it!”
“Me neither!” said Scootaloo. “Your ball’s in good hooves, Rainbow Dash!”
“In fate’s hooves, maybe,” said Rarity, and turned to Rainbow Dash. “Come on, let me get you out of that dress.” She paused. “Wait, so, those little clothes I found in your house… were those yours?”
Rainbow Dash looked worriedly at Scootaloo. “Shh! I mean, yeah, I guess so, but not so loud.”
Rarity considerately began to whisper. “But those were all years old! You’re not giving me outdated advice, are you?”
“Nah. I mean, stunt flying has got fashions too, right? You’re not going to catch anypony seriously still doing the double inside-out loop anymore. I know what styles are.”
Apple Bloom looked at her two closest friends, whose heads were nodding very nearly in unison. “Ah dunno,” she said at last, “ah’ve never heard of a ball-bouncin’ cutie mark before.”
“It’s not for cutie marks!” said Scootaloo. She waved excitedly at the balls bouncing on their heads. “We’re doing this to help out Rarity and Rainbow Dash, because they trust us with important stuff!”
Sweetie Belle gasped. “Hold on… Scootaloo, what if we helped them with important stuff and got ball-bouncing cutie marks? That would be even better!”
“Now, wait just a second!” Apple Bloom drew herself up as far as she could go in indignation. “That ain’t fair! What if you two got ball-bouncin’ cutie marks and ah didn’t just because nopony gave me a ball?”
“Well,” said Sweetie Belle, looking thoughtful, “I guess we could keep switching off. Like every five minutes, everypony passes their ball to the left. Sound good?”
“Sounds awesome!” said Scootaloo.
However, in practice it was a little less awesome and a little more boring. There really wasn’t anything especially exciting about bouncing a ball up and down, and when a couple of rabbits ran in front of them and Scootaloo thought maybe they should become Cutie Mark Crusader Rabbit Hutch Builders, that seemed a much better idea. Applejack was easy enough to convince to help out either Rarity or Rainbow Dash – they had forgotten by then which ball was which – and Big Macintosh tended to agree to things…
Carrot Top looked out across her carrot fields to check up on the barn of her marketplace rivals. The Apples were definitely up to something, and with the success they’d had with the weird rituals involved in Zap Apple production, she didn’t put it past them to have some financial motive in mind. She would have to check this out in person.
“Applejack,” she said, leaning lazily against a fence post, “what in Equestria are you two doing?”
The lighter-colored farmer pony looked glumly up at her head, where a starry pink ball was bouncing in place of her usual hat. “Carrot Top, ah only wish ah knew,” she said. “Best ah could figure from those crusader fillies is that this is maybe for some kind of contest. One way or another, these balls are supposed to keep on bouncin’, but ah gotta say it’s awful boring.”
Carrot Top frowned. A contest? Perhaps… an agricultural contest? She really couldn’t afford to let any opportunity to get one over the Apples pass her by. “Well, Applejack,” she said, “I’d be glad to take that ball off your head for a while. What else are neighbors for?”
Applejack gave her a wide smile. “Why, thank you kindly, CT.” Her head bobbed, and the ball was bouncing on top of Carrot Top instead. “Don’t suppose y’all have got anypony in there who might want to take Big Mac’s, too?”
Carrot Top froze for a moment at the idea of a certain clumsy pegasus giving it a try. If these balls were supposed to keep on bouncing – for some reason – she’d need somepony with a little more coordination. “Dinky!” she called to her house behind her. “Come outside for a second!”
“Lyra?”
“Yeah?”
“There’s a ball bouncing on top of your head.”
Lyra grinned cheekily. “Yeah! And check it out… no hands!”
Bon-Bon gave a weighty sigh. “Why is a ball bouncing on top of your head?”
Lyra thought about it. “I dunno. Linky gave it to me while we were out sitting on a bench. She said it was supposed to be important that it keep bouncing.” She looked at Bon-Bon. “Hey, you’ve got one too!”
Bon-Bon nodded, turning over to inspect her tray of candy while a pink ball bounced up and down on her. “It was Twinkleshine’s or something. She said it was important and didn’t really know why. The things I do for a customer!”
“The pink’s kinda clashing with the pink in your mane,” said Lyra. “Want my white one instead? I could use a nice contrast from all my green.”
“That sounds nice,” said Bon-Bon. They tilted their heads in perfect synchrony, and the two balls flew across the room, the pink landing on Lyra’s head and the white landing on Bon-Bon’s. “So what have you been up to today, Lyra? Just sitting on that bench?”
“Yeah, pretty much…”
Candy Mane watched sadly as two pegasus mares, both purple with ice blue manes, floated by above her. Each was bouncing a ball on top of her head while they talked animatedly about something or other. She sighed. Was it really worth trying out ball-bouncing too? Maybe she was just never going to get a cutie mark, full-grown adult though she was.
“Don’t bother. Some marks just aren’t worth it.”
Candy Mane turned to look at her friend Junebug, who tended to carry baskets around to conceal her own blank sides, standing beside her. “Sorry, I didn’t know I said any of that out loud.”
“You didn’t. Trust me, I know how you react to these things by now.”
“Lily, there’s a ball bouncing on your head!”
“AAAAAH! Oh no, Daisy! There’s a ball bouncing on your head too!”
“Get it off! Get it off!”
“Rose! Now it’s on you!”
“AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!”
Silver Spoon looked worriedly at her closest friend. “Um, why are we doing this again?”
Diamond Tiara rolled her perfect eyes perfectly. “Guh! I told you, Silver Spoon, we’re bouncing these balls so that ponies will take photographs of us! After all,” and she lowered her wonderful eyebrows for the most exquisite possible smirk, “if I can’t make the news… I might as well be the news!”
“Oh, all right,” said Silver Spoon. She looked at the white ball bouncing on top of Diamond Tiara, narrowly missing getting punctured on her friend’s immaculate headpiece. “I guess it is kind of fun.”
“Fun?” Diamond Tiara’s scowl was transfixing. “We’re not doing this to have fun, Silver Spoon! You’re not having any fun, are you?”
“No, no, no!” Silver Spoon backed away quickly. “I didn’t mean it! Like, this is, um, totally boring and stuff! Who could possibly be so lame that they’d enjoy bouncing a ball on their head?”
“Sister,” spake Her Royal Highness Princess Luna, “we… that is, I do not understand why you art bouncing that ball.”
Celestia’s royal head dipped and wove in time with the gem-bearing spheroid bouncing thereupon. “It’s fun, sister!” she said in answer. “After all those meetings I had today, I could use a bit of simple relaxation like this!”
“If so you sayst,” said Luna. Such senseless frivolity still struck her most dubious. Then another burst of emerald flame embrightened the room about them, and a second ball, this one picturing the starry sky that was her home, appeared to them. Luna thrust her head underneath of it before it could fall to the floor.
“Huzzah!” said she. “The fun hath been doubled!”
“And so, lowly denizens of Trotsdale, the Great and Powerful Trixie stands victorious once more! Is there no pony she cannot beat? No skill she cannot best? Is there anypony but Trixie who so delights in these rhetorical questions?”
“Now hold on just a second!” said a voice from the audience. The crowd before her parted to reveal two tall yellow unicorns with shining red manes. “Now hold on just a second,” repeated the one with a mustache, “because our skills are insurmountable!”
“We’ve talents, acts, and daring-do,” said the other, “that you’ll have to call uncountable!”
The mustached one spoke again. “So, brother mine, tell her she’ll find we’ll soon beat her agility!”
Two illusion spells dissipated at once, revealing two balls, jumping up and down on the two yellow unicorns’ heads…
“In all your act, this thing you’ve lacked: a ball-bouncing ability!”
Braeburn stood happily on the crest of the hill, staring down at the apple orchard below him. The upcoming harvest would be plentiful indeed. Appleloosa’s peace with the buffalo tribe was stronger than ever, and he and Little Strongheart had been spending a lot of time together in recent times to celebrate this fact. She was, in fact, supposed to meet him there any minute.
“Braeburn!” came the strong, confident voice of his buffalo friend from behind him. “We’ve often smoked my family’s peace pipe together. Tonight I thought we could try out one of your pony traditions.”
Braeburn turned to face her with an enormous grin. “Sounds great, Little Strongheart! What did you have in mind?”
Little Strongheart bowed to her side, where two buffalo from her tribe stood in solemn silence. Two balls, one pink and one white, bounced regularly up and down on their heads. “A pony gave these to us,” explained Little Strongheart. “She was passing in a traincar and told us she and her fellows were done with them. I think her name was Cherry Jubilee. Shall we bounce?”
“I don’t get it, Dash,” said Gilda the Griffon. “You show up in my life again after who knows how long… just so we can bounce balls on our heads together? You know this is totally lame and I wouldn’t do this for anypony else, right?”
Next to her on the cloud, Rainbow Dash fidgeted. “Um, I’m not actually Rainbow Dash.”
“What?”
A sheen of green magic passed over the form of her old friend, to reveal a large black thing that only resembled a pony at best. Her mane was long and blue, and there were holes in her body. “I am Chrysalis, Queen of the Changelings,” said the not-Dash. “However, my subjects are all brainless morons, and I really wanted someone to bounce with. I am sorry to have intruded on your privacy.”
Gilda sighed. “Nah, it’s fine. Really my life is normally kinda boring and lonely. We can keep bouncing these suckers.”
“Berry Bubble,” said Dusk Shine testily, “I don’t know where you got those balls, but put them back this instant.”
The jungle air was stifling, and the clinging vines brushed uncomfortably against her sweat-coated legs as she traipsed determinedly forward. Still, she would not let herself be dissuaded now. She had made it through the traps of the ancient temple, forded the wide river, and navigated the vast crystal maze, and the Scepter of Night was just a few feet away, in the clearing on top of this hill. She threw aside the last few enormous leaves to reveal…
“Ahuitzotl!”
“Hello, Daring Do!” said the evil creature standing before her. “As ever, you arrive at your treasure mere moments too late! But this time, I have a deal to propose.”
“What is it now, Ahuitzotl?” she asked. The knife in her hat was ready if she needed it.
“Two of my feline friends have brought me a couple of lovely children’s toys,” said Ahuitzotl. He gestured, and Daring Do watched while a jaguar and a panther entered the clearing, each bouncing a colorful ball on its head. “I challenge you,” he continued, “to a ball-bouncing contest for the ownership of the Scepter of Night.”
Derpy Hooves was a very happy pony. She was given a ball! A pink ball! Now the ball was bouncing on her head because she was a good bouncer. Oh no! Her head had moved stupidly! The ball was going to fall!
Wait, Rainbow Dash had caught it on her own head! Wow! Rainbow Dash was really amazing. “Thanks, Rainbow Dash!” said Derpy Hooves.
“Yeah, yeah, sure,” said Rainbow Dash. “Uh, thanks for the help, Derpy. I’ve gotta get this ball to somepony a little more reliable…”
Screwball not had Discord. Discord was in stone. Screwball not could still fly. Screwball not had job. Screwball not have reason in life. But Screwball had ball. Ball bounced in Screwball head! Now Screwball needed only screw. Also turnip. Also novelization in Titanic. Eleven? Tense mood. Camel!
Unicorn took ball. Unicorn Rarity. Screwball still needed screw.
Flemish? “Oh dear,” Rarity Unicorn said. “I must find somepony a trifle safer to bounce this ball for me, I think. Aha! I know of just the pony kind enough not to pass this on to anyone else…”
On the outskirts of Ponyville, a few feet away from the edge of the Everfree Forest, stood a little hut surrounded by animals and happiness. In the hut lived a gentle yellow pegasus who was very good at being quiet, very good at tending to her friends’ injuries, and very good at a few other things as well. Just then, she was being very good at sewing. Also her head was darting rapidly from side to side: as her head passed to the left, a pink ball would land there and bounce back up again, and when it passed to the right, a white ball would bounce off of it. In this way she managed to bounce both balls at once with little worry or imprecision.
Fluttershy supposed that counting on Pinkie Pie hadn’t been the best idea. Pinkie was good with promises, but she did have to remember the promise in order to keep it, and it had been a long time since Fluttershy had thought to remind her of this particular promise. Far from making sure that Rainbow Dash never got too close to breaking the ball-bouncing record, Pinkie had actually encouraged her to do so. Next Fluttershy had sought Rarity’s help, but Rarity had only sent things even farther out of control by introducing that awful contest into the mix.
Perhaps there were some tasks it simply wasn’t safe to trust one’s friends with? Somehow, though, fortune had brought both balls to Fluttershy, and now she was prepared to keep them both as long as necessary. And in the meantime, of course, to keep bouncing them. Shortly after Rainbow Dash and Rarity had left, she had annulled the contest and converted the bounces into a standard bid for the record. Or perhaps bid was the wrong word.
True, some might have seen it as a little unfair that Fluttershy was also a registered observer for the Equestrian Book of Records and as such qualified to judge her own ball bouncing. But by not getting other ponies involved, she kept things safe, and Fluttershy liked safe things. Right then she was engaged in a very safe attempt to boost the ball-bouncing record – as well as the related record for bouncing two at once – to such a high level that Rainbow Dash would never try to break it again.
She was the world champion, after all.
“Are you sure the contest is still going on?”
Colgate looked up from her newspaper and shrugged amiably at Twilight. The purple unicorn stood in the middle of the field, still a little wet from that morning’s rain, the enormous ball-bouncing guide lying discarded at her hooves. “Dunno! You should probably just go ask them.”
Twilight’s eyes rolled back into her head a little. “I can’t! The rules state very explicitly that as the referee, I am forbidden from leaving this spot until the contest is complete!” She whimpered. “If it were over, somepony would have thought to come and tell me… right? It's been days!”
“You would think,” said Colgate. “Hey, I’m going to go to your library and eat all your food. Is that cool with you?”
“What?! No!” Twilight stared beseechingly at her, hooves still rooted to the ground. “Colgate, I need food to live!”
“Don’t worry,” said Colgate, beginning to walk off. “It’s surprisingly easy to stop me from eating somepony’s food. They just need to be there in their house to tell me not to. Unless some ridiculous sense of order and propriety prevents them from following me there, of course.” Twilight growled. “You want me to bring you back a book to read?”
“Ooh, yes, please!”
“Which one?”
Twilight gazed into space for several seconds. “Can… can you bring me Beachberry’s Boundless Beginners’ Ball-Bouncing Bible, Volume 2 of 4? I wouldn’t like to leave the series unfinished, and I want to be sure there aren’t any rules for the referee in there that I’m missing…”
“Don’t worry, Twilight,” said Colgate. “I’m sure you’re the most dedicated referee Equestria has ever known.”
