Rainbow Dash has her eye on the new mailwoman that came to town. And she slowly gets to know about herself and Ditzy's pasts while growing to like each other.
"You okay Rainbow Dash?" Those words made Rainbow notice the mailmare that happily went her own way around town. Those words were uncomplicated and focused on her well being and even though the speaker accidentally destroyed City Hall, it was a nice time for most.
Now a month later, she has some more courage in asking out her secret crush in person and it terrifies her. Her past relationships had failed, but maybe just maybe, Rainbow could make this one work. At least it would be a fun time and the mailmare could listen to her without Rainbow needing to hide her issues. That would be really nice.
But first she'd need to survive the whole first date thing.
Rainbow Dash had a problem. A rather minor one when compared to a lot of other friendship report type problems that seemed to pop up in Ponyville every week or so to fulfill Twilight's need to never be tardy on the Princess's demands. And Rainbow liked Twilight as a friend but after the whole Discord week followed by the Smarty Pants Incident- that egghead had to be a tad unstable. That's what living in a literal book fort does to the head.
Rainbow wished she was in a book fort right about now. Better than being on cloud eight with a slight updraft towards cloud nine. Rainbow brushed her prismatic hair out of her face with a hand and tried to get comfortable in the bush that she was trying to hide in. Sure, it was not a great moment for sure. The girls would just lecture her about what she was doing was literal stalking. Not the 'I didn't plan for this restraining order' stalking, but the 'Rarity's favorite movies' kind of stalking. The romantic kind.
Rainbow gagged even thinking about that term rolling around in her head. She quickly noted down to later try to wrestle Fluttershy's bear to erase that feminine thought in her head. It's not that she didn't enjoy a few feminine things but maybe she had been staying a bit too much at Rarity's Boutique lately. Rarity was so pushy with trying different clothes on her or something.
Relax.
Rainbow straightened out her clothes and fixed her hair. Being in a bush was hard. Being in a bush while the person you like is delivering a package with your name on it. That's much more difficult to keep calm and just be awesome. Rainbow Dash knew this as a fact- she had studied for her awesome degree in the college of awesome. Well okay. Maybe Twilight then said she got scammed by a computer quiz, but the principle of being the town guru in awesome and feeling butterflies in her stomach? Not cool.
"You okay, Rainbow Dash?"
The secret lady of her crush stared at her flustered face. And also slightly looked in another direction. Like people knew of the whole looking in different directions thing and just ran with it- people were accepting here in Ponyville. At least she hoped so. Rainbow hadn't heard of things that could be bad- and Ditzy was a nice person.
Rainbow shook her mind to action. Especially since Ditzy had been just quietly standing and waiting for an answer. Dash just tried to act cool.
"Yeah. Just you know out for a jog to keep in shape for the coming Wonderbolt tryouts. My whole flight skills are totally awesome but, uh, I heard they now have a running portion on the ground and since pegasi are light, I thought a good leg day or two in my normal routine can't be all that bad of an idea."
"Yeah that's nice and all, but why are you in a bush?"
Shoot. Think, think, think.
"Well I tripped and fell into this bush right here and just got out now. You now do big deal."
"That's pretty neat. Well I was just on my rounds around town and saw you and thought to myself that I could shave off the couple minutes it usually takes for me to get up to your house. I mean you somehow have a pretty awesome house for the whole weather position you have and all and while its a mansion compared to mine- I don't always enjoy lugging up some of your larger things you get." Derpy sighed and crossed her arms, her mailbag hanging limply at her side and her uniform snugly fitting over her.
Rainbow Dash groaned. For two reasons and not just the one she wanted- first of all, yeah her family loved sending her care packages of some ridiculous sizes. And secondly, Rainbow Dash realized that she might like Derpy in uniform better than normal clothes. That or she liked Derpy's pout. She'd have to think about that later.
"Oh yeah, sorry about that. I thought I told the delivery company to just not make mailmen deliver those to my house. Maybe I forgot. Well can I make it up to you somehow?"
"I mean you could and all but I don't really mind that much. It let's me kind of quietly think about my day and usually because those are so heavy, I try to put it either the first or last delivery in the day. Makes it easier for me since its close to my house. And I like the whole look of those times of day with how the sun hits your house made of clouds and makes it like shine all around you."
"Uh. That's great."
"Oh sorry. Sometimes I get a little bit carried away with stuff like that but I'm free this weekend."
"Oh. Okay. Where do you live anyway?"
"Like a block away from Sugarcube Corner. It's in a good school district and really close to muffins. And I got a good price on it too."
Rainbow blinked. "You do know there's more than just one- wait. You have kids! How is that possible?"
"Well you know, the usual way. And yes I do, my two little muffins. Don't you have a kid Rainbow? I see one with you all the time."
Rainbow blinked. Was that what the town thought of her and Scootaloo? I mean that's okay- Scootaloo never talked about her parents and Rainbow never asked. But Rainbow liked the kid and she needed a mentor to help her fly. It's not that weird. It can't be that weird. Celestia dang it, she was supposed to be a Wonderbolt in Training soon- not a surrogate parent. But why did she like the idea of raising Scootaloo? Oh no, she was becoming her mother and her mother was totally uncool.
"Nope. Not related- I guess you could say we are more like awesome sisters not related by blood or something. No wait that doesn't make sense. I know. Its like a mentor program or something. That might be better to say." Rainbow breathed a sigh of relief as she regained her awesome card in her mind.
"Oh that's just too cute. Oh shoot forgot I have to go get my muffin from school soon. My watch tells me so. See?"
Rainbow blinked as she saw Ditzy hold up her arm and showed that she had a drawn on watch that always said that it was muffin o'clock. That had to be the most useless clock ever, but after opening up her own phone, Rainbow noticed that it was actually three pm.
"How did you do that?"
"Oh a lady has her secrets, Rainbow. Here's your package though. My boss would be so mad if I forgot one. He'd be all 'Ditzy I told you to deliver all the packages. No bonus for you' and that totally would be bad. See you tomorrow, Dash." And with that Derpy flew off in a spiral pattern, her eyes making it a bit more dangerous to fly in a straight line but not bad enough to make it impossible.
Then Dash realized that she had a date for tomorrow with Ditzy. Staring at the care package in her hands, she had an even worse thought. Did this mean that her mother helped her break the ice with the person she liked? That had to mean that she had lost some awesome points but maybe it wasn't that bad. Though she was surprised that Ditzy had two kids. She looked Rainbow's age. Her mind boggling with possibilities, she turned to the next best pony to ask for romantic advice- Twilight.
Maybe she would get the whole mess she was in.
That or she would know Cadance's phone number. What's the worst that could happen anyway?
Twilight loved the quiet that happened after a friendship letter. With every possible thing that could have gone wrong all fixed thanks to the magic of friends and whatever else they could figure out a nice case of silence usually fell over the town as it went back to relative normalcy. And after the whole Applejack mess that was her being stuck in a cherry farm with a southern belle stereotype its just better to move on and not think about how weird these messes can get.
It's like Discord liked having a mess of chaos fan out and annoy her. At least he'was encased in stone again. That level of insanity and blatant disregard for every law of physics ever devised made her a bit miffed at what Pinkie termed "his lovable tricky ways" which just, ugh. Picking up the latest copy of the banned list of books she quietly teleported through the stacks to pick up the books to transfer them to the restricted section.
A librarian's work was never done.
Just as she was balancing the final book on top of her stack, a loud bang came from the front and startled her. Trying to compensate for the surprise, she wobbled slowly back and forth before she misjudged a nearby step down to the lower level of the library and the books came tumbling down with a wordless crash.
Picking herself up, Twilight glanced around to see Rainbow Dash try to hold in her laughter and failing. Trying to utilize Cadance's breathing techniques, Twilight counted to ten and tried to smile as she tested out her limbs for any painful spots. Falling down stairs hurt more than people realized sometimes.
Finding nothing wrong and quickly straightening out her glasses, she turned to her athletic friend and tried to be somewhat cheerful. She liked her friends but having a general lack of coordination and little social skills made her rather wary in dealing with som of her friends' strange requests. And if Rainbow Dash was in her library, it had to be a strange request.
"Hey Twilight, got Cadance's number or something?"
"Rainbow, you know that I don't just give out the number to a Princess of Equestria on a whim- there's protocols for this, procedures, lists, and if I had to rank my friends need for the Princess of Love's phone number I would have to put you further down the list than the others."
"Why is that anyway. I like doing girly stuff too sometimes. I hang out with Fluttershy a lot and Pinkie too."
"Well going by the level of involvement that you share with the others, of course you hang out with Fluttershy- while childhood friends can be lost over the years, you two have stayed close. You and Pinkie bonded over pranks. . ."
"You goof. I didn't need my life's story put into one of your graphs. Don't tell me you graphed out my life or something."
"No. Haven't really had time to ask Cadance how she gets her charts to be so thorough and accurate yet and with the whole mess of the Changelings and all, I haven't planned out a template yet. I mean I've been trying to expand the whole definition of friendship so I've been asking Pinkie to supply me with slang terms that contain the word friend. I guess I could see that friendship could become a relationship by accident but I haven't figured out the variables just yet.
"Okay then. I should not have asked. Of course you've planned out that. So you got Cadance's number or not?"
"Sure I do but Celestia told me to not give it out just yet. She said the Changelings really messed up Cadance."
"Pssht. Like what's the worst that could happen in that whole thing? That wasn't terrible."
"Not to you Dash, but having your wedding almost ruined and finding out that things that worship and feed off your general thing you have sway over can mess up anyone. And from what I've heard, the diplomatic sessions between Cadance and Chrysalis have gotten rather weird."
"So bored. Twilight, I'm sorry if this sounds not very great and all but I don't care about how your old babysitter is dealing with her fear of insect alien things. Should have gone to Fluttershy. She gets relationship things better than this."
Twilight groaned. "Seriously Dash? Not again."
"What? I like a person and that makes total sense right?"
"Yeah sure if you think brain chemistry is a joke and everything. You aren't in love because its love, it's probably one of your random flings again."
Dash scoffed and crossed her arms pouting at Twilight. She thought about this. Being rather close to Ditzy after City Hall got wrecked, primarily thanks to Ditzy to be sure, and the whole Ditzy falling on Rainbow Dash made her pretty sure. And usually the whole egghead jerkwad head thing that Twilight's talking about would have worn off by now. It had been a good month of probably illegal stalking or something.
"No it's not Twilight. I have a date with them tomorrow. That automatically makes it much better than what you are hinting at."
Twilight raised an eyebrow and frowned. "I have two years of data to back up my point. And in that time you had five relationships with people. You've been shipped with nearly everybody in Cadance's computer program and I got so worried that I actually had to call up Cadance to figure out why."
"Yeah and so what? I rather like the idea of being in a relationship. Sometimes they just don't always work out. You know sixth times the charm and I'm still good friends with the people I have been in relationships with for the most part."
"Nothing came of my search though. I guess you could say I'm just being cautious is all. For some reason, attraction likes to play games with you. I just want to make sure this is real and not going to cause a problem."
"Twilight, you are being silly. It's probably just a stupid computer error and I'm fine. I've already checked if I'm sober, dreaming, or if Scootaloo moved on to using love potions on me yet to ship me with people. Which while I'm thinking about it- you should really have a talking to with the CMC about that."
"Yeah. That's on the list of things to do after fixing City Hall. You and Ditzy really messed that up."
"Uh yeah. I guess she didn't notice where she was going when she backed up. And then City Hall did kind of fall apart. At least I didn't get hurt."
"Yeah. Don't know how that happened since you do tend to push yourself and then go to the hospital a lot."
"Low blow, Twi. Low blow. I mean that's true but I don't like having that brought up, miss I turned my parents to plants."
"I didn't mean it that way. But yeah I guess bringing up your past could be a problem."
"Yeah. That's pretty sweet and all I guess. See you later, Twi. Thanks for the tip." Snatching the paper from Twilight, Rainbow Dash silently walked out of Golden Oaks Library. She thought she had gotten past her past. But words and jokes could trigger bad memories and stuff like that. But she was still there and kicking and her awesome card was still okay if a bit more full of those nice stamps that food places got to hand out for a nice free sandwich or something.
Shouldn't have told the other girls about her past in that truth or dare slumber party girls night thing a while back. She was Rainbow Dash and no bad news could bring her down.
Just think about Ditzy. Stupid Twilight saying she dated too much. Cloudsdale was far behind her and nothing would change that. And she had a date.
Pulling out a piece of gum, she quietly chewed it and looked up at the stars.
"Good job, Luna. Looking pretty sweet up there."
Stretching her limbs, she hummed quietly to herself all the way home. Have to come to terms at some point but tonight was not that night.
I'd Rather Be Dreaming Of Someone Than Living Alone
The sound of a blaring alarm woke up Rainbow Dash. Her head hurt as she gingerly touched the deadly alarm for her head and stared at the time. Eight am. Okay could work with that. Her head was pounding though and the light was doing a number on her eyes. Great. Twilight magically caused a hangover thanks to bringing up bad memories. Dash did not have a drinking problem- not one bit. She just liked to hide her feelings and deal with them only when completely smashed. So overall, a functioning member of society with just a few quirks. Pulling her body up to a sitting position and quickly swishing her tongue around to check how smashed she had got came up with her final level smashed- Vodquila shots. Oh so that was why she didn't remember running home from the Library.
Guess she had to brush her teeth then. Sunglasses? Maybe. Best check the light outside to make sure.
Dash stared outside for a few seconds, looked back and for sure there was some of those weirdly colored dots dancing in her vision. Great. That's a call for her sunglasses then. Quickly rummaging trough her bedside table, she quickly grabbed them and put her feet gentely on the floor. Ugh, now probably couldn't clean or whatever.
"Guess that means I should clean up though. Dunno if she's a clean freak or not. Don't want to have a repeat of her attempt to have a relationship with Caramel- he was rather all for neat freakiness. But she didn't want to come of like what dating Vinyl Scratch caused her to turn into. That was a mess that made Rarity have a panic attack. Yeah.
"Well that just does it then. Option C. Hide my dirty clothes under my bed like a true adult. Take that responsibilities. Meet air freshener!"
Laughing to herself in her empty house on top of the hill looking down on the town, she got up and got ready for the day.
Rainbow Dash rather liked Saturdays. She could sleep in and enjoy herself since weather patterns weren't fickle enough to cause major headaches even when right near the Everfree. The Ponyville Weather Service was whipped in to shape so often, most of the recruits and staff could deal with the off chance that a huge storm could happen at the blink of an eye. Most days though were a nice and balmy high sixty temperature in the later summer months and so even with the hint of there being possible weather issues thanks to summer weather- it was a perfect day to get a date.
And if Rainbow had anything to say outside the hearing range of a certain fashionista- she didn't look too shabby either. Though Rainbow hoped that she wouldn't see her friends at all, now especially Twilight cause that chick was a complete social mess, but more so because of the fact that for once Rainbow was wearing a dress for her own choice. Sometimes she liked fashion.
And her gala dress was perfectly serviceable, though Rarity would call it something like so last year. But so was the curse of being born with a natural rainbow hair. It made it so hard to find a nice dress to match with clothes that looked nice at all.
Moving on from her daily one uncool thought, she glided slowly through the lazy town only quick enough to feel the breeze in her hair and not ruin her dress. She thought it was a date. Sounded like a date to her or something. Maybe it wasn't a date. No, it had to be a date cause that would make sense, two people sort of agreeing on a date to do something- that was how her last few relationships worked and those worked great before- oh course they stopped working and then they didn't but it wasn't like she hadn't tried.
She was so lost in thought that she almost ran straight into Ditzy's front door. Well she would have if she hadn't been stopped by a quick wand wave of magic by somebody she'd seemingly never seen before but was frowning daggers into her.
"Oh yeah thanks for that. Should have looked where I was going or something."
"Oh Celestia, it's you. Of course it had to be. No this is just so amazing." The purple haired girl that Rainbow Dash didn't remember, for she was bad with people's faces so that was just a given, seemed to know her.
Rainbow Dash tried to play it cool. "Yeah, thanks. I get that a lot."
Purple girl just facepalmed. "Seriously? Great. I mean you fail at opening a pickle jar and you are friends with the person that stole my role in Winter Wrap Up and yet you don't remember me. Should have figured. Names Amethyst Star and have fun or something." The random girl just ran off in a huff and Rainbow Dash just put that up to an adoring fan trying to get attention or something.
Moving on, she knocked on Ditzy's door and waited. The door opened and Rainbow Dash just stood there breathless. Ditzy was wearing a grey dress and a long brown coat and Rainbow thought that combo looked rather good on her but she was probably being overly focused on the whole it being Ditzy and not that it matched or anything.
"Want to go to Sugarcube Corner, Dash?"
"Sure, that sounds great to me."
Rainbow would have gone anywhere if Ditzy asked her and for the beginning of the first date, it really was going better than all the others Dash had so that had to mean something.
