Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy each discover that, not only does everypony suddenly think they like mares, but that they're dating each other
After weeks of stares and odd reactions from everypony around her, Rainbow decided to find out the reason. As it turns out the reason is that everypony thinks that her and Fluttershy are dating, even though they totally aren't. As it turns out, everypony is dead set on that idea, and they can't convince any of them that it isn't true, so now what are they supposed to do?
It’s a beautiful day in Ponyville, and there were tons of different ponies out going about their days. Some were trotting down the main path, some were working in stands trying to sell their products, but one blue pegasus in comparison was anxiously rushing trying not to draw attention to herself, which was highly unusual of her.
Rainbow Dash was confused to say the least. It seemed like all the ponies had started to react oddly whenever they were around her.
It wasn’t that she hadn’t noticed before, because, even though she seemed scatterbrained to anypony on the outside, everypony close to her knew that she was surprisingly observant, so it definitely wasn’t that.
It wasn’t that there was some big news going around about her. Ever since she became a Wonderbolt and the initial wave of everypony wanting to shake her hoof or get her autograph, things seemed to calm down, and although the occasional colt or filly would still marvel at her from time to time, it didn’t seem possible for her newfound fame to be the cause.
It wasn’t that she had something on her face. She checked, so it wasn’t that either.
So what could it be?
Well, that was the exact question on the pegasus speedster’s lips as she trotted into Sugarcube Corner, trying to find the answer to her question. She figured that if anypony knew the reason for the odd behavior of the ponies around her, it was the pony who knew everypony in town. That just so happened to be one of her best friends who also worked at the sweets shop, Pinkie Pie.
As Rainbow Dash walked through the door, she gazed around at the surroundings in the establishment, she saw about half of the tables filled, with several ponies munching on their delicious pastries, cupcakes, or slices of cakes. Rainbow took note of how they seemed to be normal, and how none of them looked at her weirdly, and it didn’t surprise her.
The reason was that the looks weren’t the only thing Rainbow noticed, but she also noticed the timing of when she noticed them. When it was just her out in public alone, she would not see anypony looking at her weird or turning away to pretend like they didn’t notice her, but all of it happened when she was with one pony in particular, and only that pony.
Fluttershy.
Whenever the two pegasi were out together, Rainbow Dash noticed the looks, the head turns, and the smirks she got. At first she didn’t care all that much, but after a while it started to annoy her when everypony did it, and not just the random strangers in Ponyville that she barely talked to, but also her closest friends. Just the other day when they went out to lunch with their friends, whenever the two made each other laugh, she caught the rest of them giving each other knowing looks, and when Fluttershy gave her the rest of her hay fries toward the end because she was too full, Rarity and Pinkie seemed to almost explode with excitement. The blue pegasus was used to seeing her pink friend getting excited at the drop of a hat, but for Rarity to break out of her sophisticated mask in public was very rare, unless of course she found some big fashion news or something like that.
Then there were a bunch of the random ponies of Ponyville that did almost the same things. They would look at her funny whenever Fluttershy and her were out, and it made both of them uncomfortable.
The one moment that stood out from the rest was the time that she was practicing her tricks and she accidentally crashed into her number one fan. After they stood up together, they noticed that the crash had grabbed a number of ponies’ attention. The weird thing was that they didn’t go away immediately after they saw that the two were alright, in fact if anything they did the exact opposite. They all smiled at each other and at the two pegasi, and Rainbow could have sworn that she saw Cherry Berry wink at her. The sudden attention made Fluttershy nervous and try to cower behind her friend, but that made everything worse, as they all smiled bigger and a few of them even “awwed” at them.
That was the last straw for Rainbow Dash, and now here she was waiting at the counter of Sugarcube Corner wanting answers.
“Hey Pinkie,” Rainbow called out to her friend as she passed with her hooves full of pastries of some kind, fresh from the oven.
“Just give me one second, Dashie and I’ll be right with you lickity-split!”
At lightning speed, she ran to a few of the tables, delivering the goodies in the blink of an eye with a great big smile each time. When she was through with her deliveries, she went back behind the counter. “So whaddya need, Dashie?”
Rainbow Dash finally let the question that had been on her lips for a while now come out. “I was wondering if you knew why everypony has been looking at me weird for the past few weeks.”
“Looking at you weird?”
“Yeah, you, the girls, and almost everypony in town always look at me funny whenever I go somewhere with Fluttershy. It’s kinda freaking me out at this point.”
Pinkie’s facial expression of confusion morphed into one of her usual extreme happiness. “Does this mean what I think it means?”
Rainbow raised an eyebrow at the huge smile that now adorned Pinkie’s face. “What do you think it means?”
“Well, you don’t have to worry about hiding it from us anymore because we’ve all known for a while now! And now I can throw a great big party for it! There’ll be dancing, and games, and tons and tons of balloons!”
“Uh, Pinkie, a party for what?” Rainbow Dash’s voice seemed to snap Pinkie out of another one of her party dazes.
“Duh, about you finally opening up about your totally secret relationship with Fluttershy, silly.”
Wait, thought Rainbow, Me? Fluttershy?
IN A RELATIONSHIP?
“WHAT!!!?”
Everypony outside of the shop stopped as they heard the loud yell, but after not noticing an immediate rebuttal of some kind, they went on with the rest of their days, shrugging it off as another victim of Pinkie’s antics no doubt.
Inside the shop it was different. All of the ponies who had been minding their own business before had turned toward Rainbow Dash, mouth agape and staring at the party pony with saucers for eyes. Instead of being alarmed by the outburst, Pinkie just started giggling at her shocked expression.
“What the hay, Pinkie?” Rainbow cried after her minute of regaining composure, “You think I’m a fillyfooler? You think Fluttershy’s a fillyfooler? You think we’re in a relationship together?”
“Of course, silly filly,” Pinkie said as her laughter died down, “and it’s not just me. All of us have noticed how differently the two of you act around each other, and how cute the two of you look when you’re with each other. How you two are always walking together, flying together, and how you each support each other is super beautiful. When Applejack told us about how she saw you two watching the sunset together, we all connected the dots and decided to support you two no matter what. I wanted to throw a party right away, but Rarity told me that it wasn’t proper, or something, and made me pinkie promise not to say anything until you love birds decided to be open about it. But now that you finally are, I can finally throw that party I’ve been planning since this whole thing started.”
“But I’m not gay,” Rainbow insisted loudly, “I like stallions.”
“Well of course you do,” Pinkie said, ‘I know you’re really good friends with that one stallion on the Wonderbolts, Soarin.”
“Not that kind of like, Pinkie,” Rainbow deadpanned.
“Oh, so you’re saying that you liked him on Facehoof or something?”
“What?” Rainbow Dash asked, before shaking her head and gave up on trying to get through to Pinkie, instead opting to fly straight out of Sugarcube Corner and out into the open sky, mumbling the same phrase over and over again as she went along.
“Have to find Fluttershy! Have to find Fluttershy! Have to find Fluttershy!”
Fluttershy and Rarity were at Ponyville Day Spa as they were every Sunday, relaxing and being pampered, which were two of the unicorn’s favorite things. Currently, they were sitting in a relaxing hot tub together and gossiping about the latest hot topics.
Okay, Rarity was the one gossiping while Fluttershy was just enjoying her friend’s company, but it was still fun for Fluttershy to listen to. The conversation had turned into one where Rarity was talking about some handsome stallion in Manehattan that she met.
“I’m so happy for you Rarity,” Fluttershy smiled, happy for her white and purple friend, “he sounds absolutely lovely.”
“Yes, well, I suppose he is a stud,” Rarity said as she found her opening to interrogate on the burning question she had been dying to ask for weeks, “although I’m sure he’s nothing compared to your very special somepony, darling.”
“Oh, but Rarity,” Fluttershy replied, confused, “I don’t have a very special somepony, although often I like to think about what he'll be like.”
Rarity simply sighed at the implication that she was referring to a stallion and moved closer across the hot tub. “Listen, darling, what you’re going through is perfectly normal. You don’t have to hide your feelings from me anymore. It’s just the two of us here, Fluttershy, and I’ll love you no matter what.”
Fluttershy got really confused and scooted against the edge of the hot tub. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Rarity.” She was nervous of the advancing purple unicorn who had her hooves out, preparing for a hug.
“Oh Fluttershy, you really don’t have to keep your secret any longer. In fact, I think it’s rather adorable how you and Rainbow Dash are trying to keep your little relationship a secret.”
Fluttershy felt her cheeks heat up even more than they already were from being in the hot tub. Rarity noticed the red on her yellow muzzle and her comforting look turned into a plastered smirk.
“Well it appears as though you really do like Dash. And Twilight thought you two were just experimenting with each other.”
“B-but, Rarity, y-you don’t understand,” Fluttershy stammered. “Me and R-R-Rainbow aren’t in a relationship with each other. I mean, I like her as a friend and all, but...n-not like t-that.”
Rarity simply laughed a little and seemed to brush off the statement as another one of Fluttershy’s mini panic attacks, and she finally closed the distance between them, placing her shoulder under the other mare’s chin for support. “Darling, honestly, there is nothing wrong with loving mares in our time, thank Celestia for that. I have plenty of acquaintances in Canterlot that go that way, and I could introduce you to some of them if you like.”
Fluttershy pulled away from the fashionista just as confused as she had been before the offer. “Rarity, what gave you the idea that I loved Rainbow?”
“Well, first Applejack mentioned something about seeing you two together in a very romantic setting and we observed the two of you over the past several weeks before we came to the inevitable conclusion. I always did think that it was possible that Rainbow Dash liked mares, but I must say it was a surprise to me that you liked them as well.”
Before Fluttershy could respond, Aloe Vera trotted up to the hot tub. “You’re half an hour of soaking is finished,” she announced with a smile, “and now that your hooves are now good and soft, it is a perfect time to do a hooficure.”
Rarity practically jumped in excitement. “Oh goodie! Come on, darling, our pampering continues this way.”
Fluttershy watched as her friend rose out of the warm water and put on her pink bathrobe and followed the spa pony out. The pegasus hung back to think about the information her friend had just told her, before following and deciding to just be relieved that it was over.
However, one thing was certain about what she must do next.
Rainbow had immediately gone to Fluttershy’s cottage and knocked on her front door, but upon receiving no answer, she decided to go to Twilight’s castle and see if she happened to be hanging out with the alicorn.
A few seconds after she knocked the doors opened and revealed a purple baby dragon with a broom in claw.
“Hey Rainbow,” he said cheerfully, “Twilight’s in the library reading about something again. Feel free to let yourself in.”
“Thanks Spike,” she smiled. “Have fun with the cleaning.”
“I will,” Spike said in a way that Rainbow couldn’t tell if it was sarcastic or not.
She walked down the large crystal corridor, making a turn here, a turn there before eventually coming to a set of large wooden doors that Rainbow knew all too well, as she would come everytime she reread Daring Do. All thirteen times so far.
She walked in quietly and saw her friend with books of all different sizes and colors circling around her in a magical glow produced by her horn. Rainbow had always wondered how Twilight was able to research and study that way, but she never really asked.
“Hey, Twilight?”
Twilight jumped in surprise, jerking her head around to see the rainbow-maned pegasus standing in the doorway of her library. She took in a breath before addressing her.
“I would complain about you interrupting me while I was in the zone, but I’m just happy you decided not to bust through the window this time!”
Rainbow shrugged, “And you’re very welcome for that, but I came to ask if you know where Fluttershy is. I need to talk to her about some stuff.” Rainbow rolled her eyes when she see a little red appear on her friend's face and her inability to verbally respond, instead just shaking her head from side to side. “It’s not for the reason you think it is, egghead.”
“Oh, well either way I haven’t seen her,” Twilight said perhaps a little too quickly, before her face lit up with a big smile and a light gasp. “Does this mean what I think it means?”
Rainbow slapped a hoof to her head with a slight groan. “Nevermind! See you later.”
“Rainbow, wait-” before she could continue, the pegasus turned and hightailed it out of the castle library. She was moving so fast that she didn’t notice a light purple unicorn trotting down the hallway from the opposite direction unaware of the flying bolt of speed.
The collision knocked both of the ponies backward, and as soon as Starlight Glimmer regained composure, she looked to the cause of the accident holding a hoof to her hurting head. “Rainbow, what’s the rush?”
“Sorry Starlight,” she mumbled as she rose to her hooves, “I was just here to ask Twilight if she had seen Fluttershy around anywhere.”
“Well I haven’t seen her recently, although she did mention that her and Rarity were going to the Ponyville Day Spa today. Maybe they’re still there.”
Rainbow slapped a hoof to her forehead for what seemed like the thousandth time today. She had forgotten it was Sunday, which equaled spa day for both of them.
“I’m actually kinda surprised, Rainbow,” the mare opposite of her said, pulling Rainbow out of her thoughts, “I thought that maybe you of all ponies would know where she would be considering, uh, you know...you and her-”
“Oh, shut up!” Rainbow yelled as she dashed out of the window away from the stammering unicorn, relieved at the fact that at least now she could pinpoint her location.
Due to her speed it only took her a minute for her to get from Point A to Point B. She bursted through the door, surprising a few of the patrons of the spa, and flew right up to the counter, where Lotus Blossom was currently doing paperwork of some kind.
“Hello,” Rainbow Dash said, getting the attention of the mare, “I was kinda wondering if my friends Rarity and Fluttershy were here.”
“Ah yes, Miss Dash,” she said with a nod, “Miss Rarity left about five minutes ago with your little marefriend-”
“SHE’S NOT MY MAREFRIEND!”
Lotus and every other pony in the shop were startled by the yell and the sudden blue flash leaving the shop that followed it. Lotus seemed the most confused of the ponies, as she recollected herself and announced out loud, “I just believe what all the rumors tell me.”
Next Rainbow Dash went to Sweet Apple Acres, as she was now more curious as to the origin of the rumor than her desire to talk to Fluttershy about it for now. As she passed overhead she scanned the grassy apple orchard for Applejack, but the only pony she saw was her big brother, who saw her shadow, looked up, and offered a friendly wave. After waving back she doubled back and decided to try the barn instead, thinking that Applejack might have taken a break or something like that. Landing at the small dirt path, she walked up to the red barn and knocked on the door, waiting for an answer that would come in the form of an orange pony with a blonde mane.
“Howdy, Rainbow! What brings you around these parts?” Applejack said with a smile that disintegrated once she saw the stressed and somewhat annoyed expression her friend carried. “Rainbow, what’s wrong with you? You look more stressed than an apple that’s still on a tree past harvest season.”
“Listen AJ,” Rainbow began, “I don’t know what you saw, and I don’t know why you drew the connections, but Fluttershy and me are not dating. I don’t even like mares, and I’m pretty sure she doesn’t like them either.”
Instead of Applejack realizing some sort of mistake and then apologizing like Rainbow thought, she just chuckled and placed a hoof on her shoulder. “Oh Rainbow Dash,” Applejack sighed when her laughter ceased, “Ah know that a pony like you has a tough time expressing her feelings, and if anypony understands that, it’s me, but there’s only a certain point when you can’t push them down no more.”
“But what if there aren’t any feelings in the first place,” Rainbow deadpanned.
“Oh please, Rainbow, Ah saw it with mah own two eyes the way you and Fluttershy were sitting together out in the west field watching the sunset. The way you had your hoof wrapped around her and pulled her closer to sit together was so precious. Ah almost wanted to watch, but Ah knew you two probably wouldn’t want to be disturbed or nothing, so Ah decided to let you two be.”
“Wha-? Precious? Applejack, you got it all wrong-”
“Maybe you’re the one who’s wrong, Rainbow Dash,” Applejack interrupted, somewhat concerned. “We all have moments where we doubt ourselves and think that what we’re doing is bad, but know that what you’re feeling is natural, and we as your friends support you two to the ends of Equestria.”
“B-But I...I...Apple-”
“Now Ah want you to do something for me, you hear? Ah want you to go home, take a good long look at yourself in the mirror, and ask yourself ‘Am Ah gay?’ Trust me, you’ll thank me later when you learn that-”
“That’s it!” Applejack stumbled backwards in the doorway at the exclamation. “Just forget it, Applejack. I am not a fillyfooler and that’s that! I’m going to see Fluttershy so good day to you ma’am!”
Rainbow knew she should have chosen her words better, especially after she heard, “Have a nice day with your very special somepony,” coming from behind her after she took off.
Applejack stood at the doorway still and mumbled to herself going inside.
“That pony is really bad with emotions. What does Flutters see in her anyways?”
After the talk with Applejack, Rainbow Dash felt that now the time was right to check to see if Fluttershy was finally home. She flew from the farmhouse straight over to the cottage, landed, and knocked lightly on the door. It was highly unusual for Rainbow Dash to knock on a door, usually opting to fly through a window or something instead. Sometimes it was to annoy somepony like Rarity, other times it was just because she felt that it was faster, and usually it was.
However, this time it wasn’t a casual visit, so Rainbow felt that knocking would be way more appropriate this time around.
She heard a little rustling coming from the other side of the door before it opened, revealing the yellow pegasus who Rainbow had been searching for ever since her startling discovery.
“Oh, um, hi Rainbow,” Fluttershy said hesitantly, refusing to look her friend in the eye.
“Hey Fluttershy. I was wondering if we could talk for a second.”
“Um, sure,” she said extremely quietly and nervously. Rainbow took these as signals that she should be calm and speak slowly, so as to not upset Fluttershy more than she clearly was.
Rainbow walked through the open door and past the pegasus that was ushering her in. She walked in and sat on the couch in the living room as Fluttershy shut the door behind her and sat down on the couch with her, although Rainbow realized that her friend was trying as hard as possible to keep her distance all the while.
A small moment of silence between the two formed, as Fluttershy was nervously waiting for her friend to continue, observing everything in her cottage except the blue pegasus twice over, and Rainbow was trying to form the right words in her mouth. Eventually, they came.
“Fluttershy,” she sighed, “can you guess why I came to talk with you today?”
“Um, I’m not really sure, Rainbow,” she murmured, although she felt that she could guess the reason.
Rainbow picked up on this and sighed. “Look, I don’t really know what’s going on, but all of our friends for some reason think that you and me are, well, together.”
The only response that Rainbow got from her friend was a squeak. From experience, it was one that she uttered when she understood, but it still made her uncomfortable, like the time that Rainbow had to explain to her where foals came from.
The Wonderbolt asked the next question, “So do you happen to know why ponies think this?”
All Fluttershy could do was shake her head, making her friend slightly concerned
“Listen Flutters,” Rainbow started, “I know that this whole thing makes you uncomfortable, especially since it isn’t true, but I don’t really know why everypony thinks it’s true and I really just want to end it, so can we just get through this and avoid as much awkwardness as possible?”
Fluttershy’s eyes lifted and focused on the magenta eyes in front of her for the first time since she had invited the pony into her abode. “You mean that you don’t like me that way?”
The magenta eyes she was focused on widened and showed signs of annoyance. “No Fluttershy, I don’t like mares that way.”
Rainbow didn’t know what would happen next, but the last thing she expected was for the shy mare to suddenly release all of her anxieties and look relaxed. “Oh thank goodness,” she sighed in relief, “I thought that I would hurt your feelings if I told you that I wasn’t interested in you.”
‘Wait, so you thought I liked you?”
“No, but the whole thing kind of made me scared and confused, so I really didn’t know what to think. All I knew was that I didn’t want you to be hurt if you did like me and I had to reject you.”
Rainbow Dash scowled, “Don’t worry about that then, but I’m still not hurt at all. Angry and annoyed if anything, but definitely not hurt.”
“That’s good,” Fluttershy smiled, “but how do you suppose everypony came to the conclusion that we were dating?”
“Well, remember that night you wanted to show me that nest of baby birds that you saw, and we were sitting there together looking up to the trees watching them?” Fluttershy nodded. “I guess Applejack saw us while she was walking by and she assumed that we were snuggling and stargazing together.”
“But then why didn’t she just ask us about it later?”
“I think she wanted to give us time to come out and tell the rest of our friends, but I’m guessing she couldn’t hold it in and squealed anyways.”
“Oh,” Fluttershy said as soon as the explanation was finished. She processed the information for a moment before asking, “but how are we supposed to make them see that we’re not dating?”
“I already tried telling some of them,” Rainbow growled, “they wouldn’t listen. We need to come up with some way of telling them.”
Fluttershy put a hoof to her chin in thought before she came up with what she felt was an obvious solution. “What if we just asked them all to come to a meeting at Twilight’s castle and told them all? They would have to believe us then.”
“It’s not going to work,” Rainbow said, waving a hoof in the air like she was waving the idea away, “if they didn’t listen now they won’t listen then. I talked to a bunch of different ponies today, Pinkie, Twilight, Starlight, Applejack, and a few more, and they’re all totally convinced that there’s a thing happening between us!”
“Oh dear,” Fluttershy gasped, “that many ponies? I suppose then it might not work.”
Both pegasi sat on the couch for a few moments coming up with ways to persuade all of their friends away from the nagging rumor, but whenever one of them got an idea, it was shot down due to it either being outragously stupid or totally inaffective.
After a few more ideas were thrown back and forth, Rainbow Dash suddenly sprang up from the couch, flapping her wings to hover in the air a few feet.
“Aha!’ Rainbow exclaimed loudly, startling Fluttershy a little. “I know what to do! It’s so obvious!”
“Oh, please tell me!” Fluttershy said, excited.
Rainbow smiled and landed back on the couch with her burst of excitement finished and it all culminated as a big smile on her face. “What if we just stopped talking to each other?”
Fluttershy turned her head to the side a little waiting for further explanation, which Rainbow Dash was happy to give. “Okay, so hear me out. We don’t talk to each other and avoid each other like the plague for a week or so, and if we run into each other or have to go somewhere with our friends, we won’t even look at each other. During this time our friends will be given no “indication” that we’re in love, and by then this whole thing will blow over and we’ll be able to get past this like nothing ever happened.”
Rainbow smirked as she thought about the cleverness behind the plan, but Fluttershy seemed a little bit worried, digging her hoof at the fabric of the couch. “But I don’t want to not talk to you for a whole week.”
Rainbow’s smile disappeared for a second as she had forgotten that. Fluttershy was very shy, but even a shy pony like her didn’t want to avoid a friend for a week, planned or unplanned.
Rainbow’s smile reappeared, albeit a twinge of sadness in it. “I don’t either, but I think it will be the quickest and most effective way to put this whole dating thing behind us.”
“And you’re sure it will work,” Fluttershy asked, unsure.
“I think it’s worth a shot.”
Fluttershy looked away as if pondering the pros and cons. She certainly didn’t want to lose her friend, even if it was only for a short amount of time, but she felt that Rainbow was clearly suffering from this confusion more than she was.
Despite what everypony might have assumed from her confident personality, Fluttershy knew that Rainbow cared a lot about her reputation, and Fluttershy could see that her friend felt that this was a big shot at it. After Rainbow described her earlier attempts to convince them otherwise, it seemed like maybe staying away from each other for a little bit was a good idea.
And, besides, it would only be for a little bit.
“Alright,” she said smiling, “if you really think it will work.”
“Thanks Fluttershy!” she exclaimed, jumping off the couch. “So I guess the only thing left for me to do now is leave and be out of your mane for a little while. Once this whole thing has gone down I promise we can go back to the way things were before, promise!”
The promise at the end washed away any further doubts the yellow mare may have had, even though it wasn’t a full on Pinkie Promise, and she smiled and nodded. “Alright then, Rainbow.”
Rainbow gave her a hug before flying out of the front door, into the sky, and waiting for all the pieces to fall into place.
It had been just under a week of Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash’s plan to make everypony see how not together they were, and it hadn’t gone unnoticed by their friends.
True to the plan, Fluttershy hadn’t gone to Rainbow’s house, and Rainbow hadn’t visited Fluttershy once. The friends that were once inseparable since flight school were now, well, separable. For the first time since she had come to Ponyville, Rainbow Dash was now practicing her new tricks without her most loyal fan, and Fluttershy wasn’t sick, so their friends thought something was seriously off.
The final straw came when the six best friends got together to have some tea and talk about life. Not only did Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash sit as far as possible from each other at the table, but they didn’t say a word to each other, and didn’t even seem to want to look at each other.
“Girls, something is definitely wrong here,” Twilight announced as soon as their “favorite couple” had left the castle, Fluttershy waiting an extra fifteen seconds after Rainbow had flown through the doors, they noticed. Twilight hadn’t even asked her other friends to stay for the conversation, they just knew that this was something that absolutely had to be discussed.
“I’m afraid I have to agree,” Rarity nodded, “those two were acting quite queer today.”
“Not just today, but the whole darn week for crying out loud!” Applejack chimed in.
Pinkie gasped and her face lit up. “There’s only one thing that we can do to make them talk to each other again.”
Twilight rolled her eyes and shot an unamused glare at Pinkie. “We already discussed this Pinkie, and we aren’t going to throw them a party.”
The party pony’s face dimmed slightly, but because of her seemingly immortal happiness it seemed to barely leave a dent. “Well then I’m out of ideas,” she giggled.
“Do y’all think they’re just having a fight?” Applejack asked the other three mares.
“I don’t know,” Rarity shrugged, but then an idea came to her and a grave expression came to her face. “But it must have been a terribly dreadful row if neither of them even want to look at each other.” The suggestion made the other ponies worried as well, fearing the loss of not only the two pegasi’s love for one another, but their friendship as well, and they started going around in a circle coming up with ideas of what it could be about.
“Maybe they just had a bad date or something.”
“What if that brash Dash hurt Fluttershy’s feelings somehow? The poor dear!”
“What if the two of them are playing the quiet game against each other? Fluttershy’s totally going to win! Who wants to place bets?”
“Well we can’t just stand around and let the two of them fight,” Twilight said over the murmuring, “I think we should try to help them somehow.”
“But how?” Applejack asked, raising an eyebrow.
Twilight put a hoof to her chin in thought as her big brain tried to think of an idea.
“Hey Rainbow Dash,” Applejack called out to her friend as she sat laying on a cloud up above soaking in some rays. Rainbow heard the call and looked over her cloud bed, smiling when she saw her friend.
“Hey AJ,” she replied, spreading her wings and gliding down, landing in front of her. “What’s up?”
“Well, Ah was walking through Ponyville this morning when Ah saw a crowd of ponies gathered on the side of the main path, and Ah asked one of the ponies there and they said that some pegasus flyer was in town, and his name was Blue Blur, and-”
“Blue Blur?!” Rainbow interrupted loudly before smiling bigger than Applejack had ever seen. “That stallion is so awesome! He’s a living legend! He broke the record for the fastest successful thousand foot nosedive when he was younger! Wait, he’s in Ponyville? As in, right now?!”
Applejack chuckled at the excitement written all over her blue friend. “Eeyup! Anyways, Ah managed to get his attention for a few minutes and Ah mentioned that Ah was friends with the youngest Wonderbolt on the team, and one thing leads to another, and Ah got you set up to go out to dinner tonight with him!”
Applejack focused on Rainbow’s face, frozen in complete excitement. Suddenly a small high pitched squeaking noise escaped past her mouth that got louder and louder and lower and lower until she took off like a rocket into the air.
She then realized how she had just lost her chill persona, so after a few seconds of hang time she dropped down again, shaking off the example as much as possible, and landing next to the Element of Honesty. “I mean, cool. When and where does he want to meet?”
Applejack raised an eyebrow at Rainbow’s attempts to seem cool and collected, even though her shining eyes and the excited flapping of her wings told a different story. “Ah told him that Ah’d set up a private dinner for the two of you in Twilight’s castle at seven o’clock.”
“Why couldn’t we just eat at a regular restaurant,” Rainbow asked, cocking an eyebrow.
Applejack felt a little bead of sweat escape from below her stenson. She had rehearsed the lie for a half an hour with the other girls, and now she had to go off the script.
“Uh...yeah…w-well, you see, he’s a little bit nervous about other ponies being around him, so Ah talked to Twilight and she agreed to set up some, y’know, accommodations.” Applejack smiled afterwards in order to make the lie seem more believable.
“That’s weird,” Rainbow said, “he’s never been shy in the past, especially when ponies recognize him.” Rainbow hesitated to think of an explanation, in which time Applejack felt her heart stop. “I suppose he just doesn’t want to be bothered. I’m cool with that.”
Applejack released the breath she didn’t know she was holding in and nodded her head in agreement. “So seven at Twilight’s. Oh, and you might want to wear something fancy. You’ll want to look your best when you meet him for grub.”
“What are you, my mom?” Rainbow chuckled, rolling her eyes. “Alright, I’ll wear the dress from our first Grand Galloping Gala. Thanks AJ! I totally owe you one!”
Rainbow turned around and flew toward her cloud house, ready to get ready for the dinner. When she got there she zoomed up to her room and went to her closet, pulling out the dress and putting on record speed. It was only when she got to the mirror and looked at her reflection that she realized something.
“The dinner isn’t for another six hours.”
For once in her life, Rainbow Dash made sure that she was early for something, and that something was her dinner with Blue Blur, one of the fastest pegasi ever at his peak. She was super excited about the meeting for the whole day, unable to do anything else but sit at her house, reread one of her Daring Do books, and look up at the clock every few seconds. The hands seemed to move at a snail’s pace, and by the time it was six, she had already reread the first trilogy of books before she finally decided to get ready.
She took a shower, dried her mane, and put on the dress before standing in front of her mirror and fixing any little imperfection that she saw. It was highly unusual for her, but this was like meeting the Queen of some foreign country to her, only way cooler because she was meeting a speed demon.
“Maybe he’ll teach me some of his tricks,” she said to herself, flying toward the crystal castle, “or maybe offer words of encouragement. Maybe I can get his autograph, and maybe shake his hoof, and get his address so we can send letters back and forth about techniques and everything that’s happening in the world of flying!”
She snapped out of her daydream as she saw a glimmer in the corner of her eye, and realized that she had been so caught up in her fantasies that she had nearly gone past her destination. She quickly doubled back and landed right at the doors, nudging them slowly to see if the elder pegasus had already arrived.
Set up inside the main hallway was a fancy wooden table with a white cloth going over it and two chairs on either side. On top of the table there were two glasses filled with cider, a single red rose in the middle for decoration, and two plates of food with steam coming off indicating its freshness. When she got closer she could see that it was spaghetti and hayballs.
“He really knows what an athlete like me is supposed to be eating,” she mumbled to herself, “this stuff is awesome for carbs.”
Suddenly she heard the door open and the figure of another pony walk in, without even looking directly at the pony, she walked over with an appreciative smile.
“It’s such an honor to meet y-. FLUTTERSHY?!”
Rainbow gaped at the cream colored pegasus in front of her, surprised that anypony else would have come by, but figuring that it wasn’t out of the question, especially since Twilight couldn’t have made the dish. Rainbow had seen her cooking, and it wasn’t pretty.
“Rainbow? What are you doing here? Where’s Rarity?”
“Rarity? Why in Equestria would she be here?”
“She told me that she wanted to do some modifications on this dress,” she pointed to the sparkly, pale pink, and flowing dress draped around her barrel, “but apparently her boutique was a disaster, as she put it. So she arranged to meet me here.”
Realization hit Rainbow Dash like a speeding stallion.
“Oh no.”
“What,” Fluttershy looked at her, confused by not only the situation, but now about Rainbow’s reaction.
“Don’t you see? This is a set up! The girls are putting us on a date!”
“But I thought our plan was working so well.”
“It worked too well! They probably think we’ve been avoiding each other because we had a big fight or something!”
Rainbow groaned in frustration, once again feeling trapped between the assumptions of others, but also the feeling that she wouldn’t be meeting Blue Blur.
“Well, this food does look really good.” Fluttershy’s words got Dash’s attention, and she moved over to take a seat at one side of the table. “We might as well eat it and humor the girls.”
“Are you nuts? We can’t let them have what they want, Flutters!”
“But if the girls think we’re fighting, they’ll just keep trying to do the same thing, so let’s eat and come up with a different plan.”
Rainbow realized her friend had a point, so after a moment of considering her options, and hearing the rumbling of her protesting stomach, she took the seat opposite of Fluttershy.
“Fine, but we need to try something else.” Rainbow picked up one of the hayballs from the dish before swallowing it.
Or, at least, trying to.
Fluttershy was alerted by the choking sounds coming from the other side of the table, and she quickly flew over the table and grasped herself around her friend, preparing to perform the Heimlich maneuver.
Outside of the castle, four very nosy ponies were sitting in the bushes, planning to check on the two sweethearts occasionally. Suddenly, Applejack’s ear perked up as she heard a weird noise coming from the inside.
“What in tarnation is that?” she asked her friends, who had at this point heard the noise too.
“Go check it out,” Twilight whispered.
Applejack then got out of her crouching position and looked through the nearest window, her jaw dropping a second later.
Due to the positioning the two ponies were in and motions they were in, it looked like something else was happening. Not like a pony saving another pony from choking on a hayball, but instead something else.
Something a little more adult.
Applejack’s head jerked away from the window and she crouched back down, eyes wide and muzzle red.
“What was it?” Rarity asked.
Applejack turned to Rarity, her green eyes never narrowing or blinking. She hesitated for a second before announcing, “Well, let’s just say the two of them aren’t fighting anymore.”
The ponies around her looked confused while Applejack just stared off into space with her thoughts.
“And Ah thought that Rainbow would’ve been the dominant one.”
“Well, that was super disgusting,” Rainbow Dash said to Fluttershy, who was walking right beside her through Ponyville.
She thought back to the past few days since they had been unknowingly called together for a date, and how all of their friends thought that now they were even closer. Their friends had told Rainbow they accidentally saw Fluttershy and her “having some fun” as they called it, not knowing the circumstances.
All of the ponies’ responses varied, including Rarity's cautioning Rainbow to be careful with Fluttershy, Applejack's being unable to say anything, instead turning away with a blush, and Pinkie's asking everypony why they were acting so weird, and none of them wanting to have the talk with her.
But they had just endured the worst of them when Twilight called them together at the castle for an unknown reason. Once again the two didn’t know that the other was also coming, so when Rainbow saw Fluttershy sitting down in the castle library across from Twilight, she was confused, but even more so when she saw the alicorn's face nervous and as red as an apple from Sweet Apple Acres.
“What’s going on?” Rainbow asked.
“Have a seat, Rainbow,” she said, motioning toward the space on the sofa next to Fluttershy. Once she did, she noticed Twilight struggling to say what she wanted to say next. “So the reason I called you girls here is because I really wanted to ask a huge favor from you two, and if it would make you feel too uncomfortable, then you absolutely don’t have to do it. So do you remember the whole incident at the date we set up for you two?”
“We weren’t doing what you think we were doing,” Rainbow Dash tried to explain for what seemed like the millionth time. But Twilight just shook her head.
“There’s nothing wrong with it, it’s just a normal expression of love, and we’re all sorry that we were intruding on it. But anyway, that brings me to what I wanted to ask you two. You see, since the Scientific Renaissance started about twenty years ago, scientists all over Equestria have been making fascinating discoveries in the realms of Biology, Botany, Chemistry, Physics, Engineering…” Twilight paused when she saw Rainbow’s bored expression and realized that she had been rambling.
“I’ll skip to the point,” she nervously chuckled, still clearly uncomfortable. “So there have been numerous scientific breakthroughs and achievements, but there’s a few areas of study that barely have any research put into it, and, uh, one of those is…is, well…the sexual behaviors of homosexual ponies. So I was wondering i-if maybe I c-could, you know, s-s-study them…?”
The silence was absolutely palpable, cuttable with a knife, and really, really awkward. Both of the two mares’ faces exploded in red, Fluttershy’s with embarrassment, and Rainbow’s with rage and frustration.
“First of all,” the Wonderbolt started, “that’s gross. Second of all, I’m not gay, and neither is Fluttershy. Third of all, even if we were, there’s no way either of us would even consider for a second letting you watch us have sex. Fourth of all, that’s gross. I know I’ve already said it once, but it’s such a big part of it I thought it needed repeating. Finally, WE...ARE...NOT...DATING!!!”
“Rainbow, you don’t understand,” Twilight tried to explain, her blush still showed brightly and beads of sweat were running down her face.
“No, you are the one who clearly doesn’t understand! You and everypony else! Come on, Fluttershy, we’re out of here!”
Fluttershy snapped out of her shock status and followed the retreating blue pegasus to the doors of the castle.
“At least consider my offer, please?” they heard Twilight ask as they shut the doors.
Now here they were, outside of the crystal castle, trying to shake off the awkwardness that they felt from the conversation with Twilight.
“Now what do we do?” Fluttershy asked. Both mares sat down on a nearby bench on opposite ends and facing away from each other so that nopony would get the wrong idea. Although at this point Rainbow didn’t see the point considering it seemed like everypony already had the wrong idea.
“Okay, so what do we know?” Rainbow asked aloud, letting Fluttershy cue in on her train of thought. “We know that everypony, including our friends, thinks that, not only are we fillyfoolers, but dating one another. We know that although our original plan to avoid each other was a good one and seemed to be going alright at first, it backfired when they thought we were having a fight, and even more when they thought we were, uh...yeah. They didn’t know that it was a plan to get them to back off, and they didn’t know that I was choking on a hayball, because instead by the way we were positioned and moving-”
“Please, let’s not talk about it,” Fluttershy murmured, refusing to look up from the ground.
“Uh, yeah, right, so anyways, now we need a way to make them see we’re not in a relationship that can’t fail, so maybe we could try something else, like get coltfriends or something."
“Coltfriends?” Fluttershy tensed up.
“Yeah, so is there anypony you have your eye on? I’m thinking maybe Soarin for me because he’s kinda cute, and plus, I can tell he’s crazy for me. I can just date him for a little while and then break up with him before he gets too attached.”
“Uh, well, I don’t really know if I want a romantic relationship with anypony right now,” Fluttershy said.
“Come on,” Rainbow exclaimed, “there’s gotta be somepony out there who you like.”
“I haven’t really thought about it much. Besides, I really don’t think I’d be comfortable dragging a stallion along only to break up with them later and never have felt any love for them.”
“Do you have any better ideas?” Rainbow asked, to which Fluttershy shook her head. “Well unless we come up with a better Plan B, I think we should do it. I mean, if we can’t hook up with other ponies, how will our friends...ever...believe…”
Suddenly, her face lit up completely, along with the lightbulb in her brain, and Fluttershy quickly noticed this reaction. “What is it?”
“I’ve got it!” Rainbow exclaimed, shooting in the air and hovering a few feet above the bench. “What if instead of hooking up with two new stallions, we just break up instead?” Rainbow looked down and saw her friend’s confused expression, encouraging her to explain. “Hear me out. We go out to a place where at least one of them can hear us, we pretend to end our so-called relationship, do the whole ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ bit. They’ll think we just ended on good terms, and then we can get back to normal, and maybe one day they’ll finally be ready to listen, and we’ll tell them the whole story then.”
“B-break up? But I don’t know if I’ll be able to do that,” Fluttershy pointed out.
Rainbow looked her over and could see something that she hadn’t done throughout this entire thing. She thought about how Fluttershy felt, and it made her feel terrible that she hadn’t before, and been so selfish. While this whole dilemma was effecting Rainbow mostly for her reputation, it had been affecting the timid pegasus to her core. The initial confusion, the plan to be away from her foalhood friend, the dinner date, the choking incident, the conversation with Twilight, the looks, stares, comments, and more that other ponies had been giving to her, and the whispers behind her back.
It must have been tough for her friend to be put in such a position, and all Rainbow had done was think about how her friends would see her, how other ponies would look at her differently as she flew through the clouds with the tag of “gay” on her tail. It wasn’t really emotional unlike Fluttershy, but more of a social thing.
She hovered down and sat back down on the wooden bench, trying to catch Fluttershy in some form of eye contact. “Fluttershy, I know this whole thing is uncomfortable for you, and it’s making you feel insecure, but this time I think it will work. That last time was my fault, and I didn’t look ahead far enough, but I know that this time we can just break it off and then nopony will question it, so just stick with this a little longer, okay?”
Fluttershy thought for a second, considering the options, and when she did she couldn’t really think of anything that could go wrong. Like Rainbow said, it would only be a matter of acting like it was mutual and their friends wouldn’t react too much, especially if they were witnesses to the fake breakup.
Aside from that she was starting to get tired of everything, and knew that this was the best way at the moment given all the circumstances. Plus, it wouldn’t be that hard, just like ripping off a bandaid, one and done.
“Alright,” she said after her deliberation, “I’ll do it.”
“Great! And since I still kinda owe you for the whole saving my life from choking thing, I’ll be the one who breaks up with you, because then only I’ll look like the bad guy. Plus, I’m a better liar and actor”
Fluttershy nodded in agreement, but then a realization came to her. “But won’t our friends get mad at you then?”
“Not if you act like the feelings are mutual. Just say something like you were thinking it was time we went our separate ways too or something.”
“Alright. Where are we going to do this, Rainbow?”
Rainbow considered some options before coming up with a time and a place. “Aren’t we having a picnic with our friends tomorrow afternoon?” Fluttershy answered with a small nod, letting Rainbow continue. “Well what if we did it then?”
“That seems like a good idea,” Fluttershy smiled, and Rainbow smiled back.
“Awesome! So here’s the plan…”
The next day, all six of the best friends got together to have a picnic in the lovely weather. Rarity brought the blanket, Twilight brought some sandwich supplies, Applejack brought some of her apples, Pinkie got desserts, Rainbow brought herself, and Fluttershy brought a basket for picking flowers. For the first half and hour or so, they just sat around talking to each other and eating their sandwiches and laughing along with each other.
Eventually Rainbow Dash caught Fluttershy’s eye and motioned for her to follow her out into the field to set their plan into motion. They got up and moved into the flower fields, Fluttershy taking the basic with her, and moving along the rows of flowers. Rainbow turned around and smiled with almost a joking grin on her face.
“Um, Rainbow Dash?” Fluttershy asked.
“What’s up?” she asked, turning to face her. Fluttershy looked nervous, eyes staring around at the surrounding area, and it made Rainbow slightly concerned. “You’re not thinking of going back on the plan, are you?” She tried to make the tone of her question as calm and innocent as possible, so as not to put pressure on the nervous mare.
“Oh, no sorry. Please continue.” Her words said she was alright, but the look in her eyes didn’t say she was fine to Rainbow, but she brushed it off and continued.
“Alright, so here we go.” She cleared her throat in a very exaggerated fashion, the cocky and amused grin returning. “I know we’ve been dating for quite a while now,” she chuckled for a second before continuing, “b-but I really, I really think we should see other p-ponies.” Rainbow was close to bursting with laughter, and the next part definitely did it. “Fluttershy...it’s not you, it’s me!”
The blue pegasus started rolling over the flowery ground, unable to keep her fit of laughter anymore. She found the mock break-up extremely hilarious, especially considering how serious everypony seemed to be taking the idea of the two dating, so she couldn’t help but die laughing.
After a few minutes of nonstop hysterics she inhaled and exhaled heavily to regain her breath and flew up, her vision a little blurry from the tears. “Alright Fluttershy, now I’m going to go home so it seems like I’m giving you some distance. All you have to do is go and tell them I broke up with you and you feel the same, which should get all of them off our backs!”
“B-but Rainbow, can I wait for j-just a-”
“Sorry Fluttershy, but the sooner the better. Just come up with something on the way there. You’ll be fine.”
And just like that, Rainbow left with her signature multicolor streak trailing behind her, sailing around the clouds, and back to her mansion of a house, ready to wait for the next day when she could go out, and everything would be back to normal.
The next morning Rainbow got up even earlier than normal, ready to start the day even earlier than usual. She still had her weather duties even with Wonderbolts Practice, but since it’s the offseason, she didn’t have to worry about the two jobs getting mixed together at all.
Today was boring in terms of weather, the order simply being partly cloudy in the morning and clear at night, so all she really had to do today was move a few clouds in here and there, and then bust them all before sunset, which she could do in ten seconds anyways.
After she was done collecting the clouds and spotting them across the sky, she decided to glide over Ponyville and look to see if any of her friends were out, and lowered her altitude so that her eagle eye could see even better.
“Let’s see,” she thought to herself, scanning the area, “there’s Derpy, but she looks like she’s delivering mail right now. Vinyl’s by Sugarcube Corner, but there’s no way she’d notice me with those headphones, let alone talk to me. Big Mac has a wheelbarrow full of Apples behind him, so he’s probably getting ready to sell them. Aha! Rarity!” She had just passed over the Carousel Boutique, and saw Rarity go out of the door to see Sweetie Belle off to school, which meant that it was still early enough that she wouldn’t have opened the shop up, which meant…
“She should be free to talk!”
Rainbow swooped down, landing graciously behind the unicorn who was preparing to go back inside of her shop, knowing that her friend didn’t really appreciate it when she would dismount right next to her and scare her. “Just because I’m not always the most polite pony around doesn’t mean that I’m rude all the time. Contrary to what some ponies think, I do have a heart.”
“Hey Rare,” she trotted a few steps toward the mare, “how’s it going?”
Rarity snapped around quickly, her brows furrowing at the sight of Rainbow. “How’s it going? HOW’S IT GOING?! How dare you speak to me as if nothing is the matter after what you did to Fluttershy, you heartless brute.”
Rainbow jumped back surprised, the good mood she had come with immediately soured by the accusation. “Wha- What do you mean after what I did to Fluttershy? What did I do?”
“Oh don’t act dumb, Dash! We were having such a lovely time at the picnic yesterday when you called Fluttershy aside. About five minutes later the poor darling comes back without you and eyes full of tears telling us you broke up with her! How could you?”
Rainbow shook her head, confused by what the white unicorn had just said. “Wait, crying? Why in Equestria would I make her cry?” She asked the question more to herself than to Rarity, but since she had heard it, her anger rose more.
“Are you serious Rainbow Dash?! She loved you so much, I could see it in her tear filled eyes when she told us the sad news. Sweet, little Fluttershy was so heartbroken that she flew all the way back home right after she told us, too sad to give the details or be with her friends. We tried to go to her cottage to comfort her, but she had the door locked and wouldn’t speak with any of us.”
Rarity’s angered expression was replaced by one of sadness for just a moment, but it was quickly revitalized, and with a quick humph, she turned, flicked her tail in the direction of Rainbow, and went inside without another word.
Rainbow hesitated for a moment staring at the Boutique door, when she felt her face pale and her insides turn in and out. “Oh no, what happened to Fluttershy? Is she okay? Did I actually hurt her feelings somehow?” Then Rainbow thought of something really fast. “This is Rarity right? She’s been known to exaggerate and make things up that aren’t really there, plus she is very close to Fluttershy so why is this any different? Fluttershy is probably just fine, maybe playing up the sadness a little, but never crying, right? I’ll just ask the other three what they saw, and they’ll probably give me a little more of the truth.”
She was about to take off when she stopped for a second to remember that she had done something very similar to this earlier in the week, flying through town and asking everypony if they thought her and Fluttershy were dating. Déjà vu.
Regardless, she flew down the street to Sugarcube Corner to visit her very pink friend.
“Come on, Pinkie! Open the window!”
Rainbow was on the window sill outside of Pinkie’s bedroom, trying to get inside to talk to the party pony, but was rejected access.
“I don’t want you being a big meanie meanie pants to me like you were to Fluttershy! You’ll just hurt my feelings!”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Rainbow said, “I just want to talk about yesterday with you. I’m not going to hurt your feelings or anything like that.”
“That’s what they all say. Now leave me alone because I don’t want to talk to you right now!” Pinkie reached for the cord by her window and lowered her blinds, not allowing the pegasus to see her room anymore. Rainbow decided to just give up reasoning and try somepony else.
“So you broke up with her because she cries too much?” Twilight Sparkle asked with a suspicious glare. After failing to get much out of Pinkie, Rainbow Dash decided to fly over to the castle to try Twilight instead, but she just told her pretty much the same story and was now trying to find the reason why Rainbow supposedly broke up with Fluttershy for no reason.
“At least she’s talking to me.”
“No, you don’t understand, it was a mutual agreement. Both of us just decided it would be better if we saw other ponies, simple as that.”
“But it’s clear that Fluttershy still loved you and wanted to be with you based on her emotional appearance and hasty exit, so it must be more than that.”
Rainbow could see there was no way of working with this one either, so she just threw up her hooves and groaned. “Well, if you want to believe me then fine, but if you don’t then don’t. I’m outta here!” She jumped up from her seat and zoomed out of the castle, leaving the alicorn behind.
“Something is seriously wrong here,” Twilight said to herself, “maybe I should just wait for Fluttershy to get over it and ask her.”
“Ah knew you had a hard time expressing your emotions, Dash, but Ah didn’t think it was this bad.”
The final destination on Rainbow’s tour was Sweet Apple Acres to visit honest Applejack. She had wanted to go straight to Fluttershy’s at this point, but figured it wouldn’t hurt to visit the farmer first to get her insight as she had everypony else. The farmer told almost the same tale as Rarity and Twilight and apparently thought that Rainbow had broken up with Fluttershy because she was scared of what other ponies might think. Ironically she wasn’t too far off the mark.
“I’m not afraid of my feelings, AJ. I’m telling you, we just decided that it would be best for both of us if we broke it off!”
“Ah find it hard to believe that since that mare of yours seemed to be so happy around you all the time, and especially how heartbroken you made her. Poor sugarcube.”
“So that’s it? You don’t think that me and Fluttershy could decide to stop being marefriends? You just think that I would have had to have an alternative motive to break up with her?”
“And bingo was his name-o,” Applejack nodded, her expression was stoic, although it held a hint of disgrace toward the pegasus in it.
“Fine!” Rainbow shouted. “Whatever! I’m going to Fluttershy’s to clear this whole thing up, and then you’ll hear from both of us that it wasn’t for some stupid, shallow reason like all of you think it was.” She started to take off, but felt herself restrained and then slingshotted back onto the earth. Applejack had grabbed her tail, again, to stop her from leaving.
“Ah don’t think so, Dash. You’d better give her some space to recollect herself. It’s not easy losing the pony you love, you know?”
At that point, Rainbow couldn’t take it, and she turned around, madder than she had ever been during this whole thing, and yelled at her, “She never loved me! I never loved her! All of you assume that we were a thing, but we never were! This whole thing was a plan so that you girls would leave us alone, but guess what? It didn’t work! So now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go get her so that she can tell you exactly the same thing I said to you, but you’ll probably believe her because ‘Ah’m afraid of mah emotions!’”
The last part of her declaration had been done in a poorly done accent, but she didn’t give Applejack time to respond, as she instead decided to take off into the sky. Destination: Fluttershy’s Cottage.
All Applejack could do was watch her friend as she disappeared in the direction of the mare’s house. She considered her options for a moment before deciding to simply get back to work.
Fluttershy was flying all around her small backyard wishing all of her animal friends a good morning and feeding them. As she began to pour some squirrel food in the bowl that she had set out, she noticed a pony shaped shadow going across the ground. She looked up and saw a cyan pegasus flying above her, preparing to turn around and land. To most ponies, they might not have realized who it was considering the first thing that they noticed about this particular pony was her rainbow mane, but since Fluttershy wasn’t most ponies.
She panicked and ran straight for her back door, opening it and closing it before her friend could catch up to her. A few seconds later there was an inevitable pounding noise against the door.
“Fluttershy! Hey, Fluttershy! Open up! I need to talk to you for a sec!”
Reluctantly, Fluttershy reached her hoof toward the door and pulled it open, revealing Rainbow Dash, looking slightly tired and irritated, something she had been so often over this past week.
“What’s going on Fluttershy?” Rainbow asked loudly. “I wake up this morning and fly down to meet Rarity, and she’s all mad at me because she thinks that I made you cry! All of them are! I didn’t make you cry, though, the whole thing was fake!”
“Uh, I-I’m sorry, Rainbow Dash, but I m-may have accidentally overlooked o-o-one s-mall thing about out plan-”
“And what’s that?” Rainbow interrupted. “The plan was so perfect, and you agreed to it and everything!”
“Well, I may have overlooked something about going to the flower fields.”
“But I thought you said you were going to pick flowers there anyways. That’s why you brought the basket, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but I kinda...sorta forgot that daisies are in bloom right now.”
“So?”
“Well, um, I’m a little allergic to them. I tried to wait so that my eyes would stop watering and my nose wouldn’t be so stuffy, but they saw me and called me over before I could prepare myself. I tried telling them that we had decided to break up, but they thought I was trying to cover for you, and I got so overwhelmed by all their questions that I...ran off…” Fluttershy’s voice faded as her explanation concluded, and so did Rainbow Dash’s icy expression.
“Well, that explains a lot, I guess,” Rainbow supposed, before sighing and slumping to the ground while placing her face in her hooves. She was so frustrated with her dumb luck at the moment that she just needed a moment to clear her head completely.
“Are you alright?” Fluttershy asked after about a minute.
Rainbow lifted her face, took a deep breath, and nodded. For a little bit they just sat there and basked in the silence, and they both used the time to think of what to do next.
Fluttershy was ashamed that the plan had failed because of her allergies, even though she knew it wasn’t her fault. She tried to think of a plan herself now, since Rainbow had come up with the first two and because they had both failed, and besides, she could use it as a chance to make up for the latter of the two. Unfortunately, unless it had to do with organizing animals or thinking up the schedule, she wasn’t the most creative with her planning, so she couldn’t think of anything to do at the moment. She then thought back through the time Rainbow and her had spent together and realized that she never really had to since her friend always seemed to know what to do next and she was always willing to follow and support. Nevertheless she thought harder, trying to come up with something, anything that would get Rainbow off the hook.
Rainbow Dash, on the other hoof, was so fed up and angered that she couldn’t think straight, so all of her ideas were arbitrary and completely out of left field. The first one that came to mind was to try to fake their deaths and come back a few weeks later with dyed manes and new names, but after a few seconds she shook it out of her mind. Then she thought she should make it seem like they made up by actually faking going on a date, but she figured that it would just be a repeat of before and, if anything, it would be worse now.
Next she considered her idea that both of them should get coltfriends to prove that they weren’t fillyfoolers and they weren’t dating each other. At the moment it seemed the most practical, especially compared to the first idea she had, but she didn’t want to intentionally put Fluttershy in that position when she wasn’t even looking for a real colt, let alone a temporary fake one. Besides, Fluttershy would have a really hard time breaking up with him.
“Fluttershy,” Rainbow’s voice cut through the silence, getting the yellow pegasus’ attention, “I think I’m out of good ideas. What do you think we should do?”
“I don’t know, Rainbow,” Fluttershy admitted as her head lowered slightly.
“We need another plan, and at this point I’m open to any and all ideas because this,” Rainbow Dash waved her hoof around the surrounding air, “all of this, this whole thing, is starting to seriously bug me.”
“I know, and I’m sorry, but it seems like each plan we dig ourselves into a deeper and deeper hole, so I think we need to get to the center of the problem and convince our friends that we aren’t together first and foremost.”
Rainbow Dash nodded her head in agreement before realizing something. “But we need to make sure they understand. Every time I’ve tried to tell all of them, they don’t listen, and I’m sick of it!”
“I know you are, and I’m personally starting to dislike all of the attention.”
“I thought you hated it anyway?”
“I know, but it was at least tolerable for a little bit, but now I just wish it would end.”
Both mares sighed at the same time. “I know, Flutters, I know,” Rainbow whispered.
“Well, what if we tried again?” Fluttershy asked
“What do you mean?”
“Well, each time we tried telling them that we weren’t together, it was always alone, but maybe if we were together and we told them this, they would believe us.”
“How would that work any differently? And besides, we were together when we told that to Twilight and she didn’t get it.”
“She probably thought it was an excuse for us to get out of her, uh, experiment.”
Rainbow cringed at the memory of when her lavender friend had basically asked them to have sex with each other and let her watch. “Yeah, that was just...really gross. I mean, at this point, what do we have to lose? Let’s try it!” Rainbow’s enthusiasm was regained for the first time since before she talked to Rarity. “I’ll round everypony up and tell them to meet us at Twilight’s Castle in an hour or so.”
“Perhaps you should let me do it if all of our friends are as mad at you as you say they are.”
Rainbow nodded and chuckled, “You’re probably right. Alright, see you in an hour.”
Rainbow opened the back door to the cottage again and flew out, going high in the sky to take an hour long mid-morning nap on a cloud.
“Hey everypony!” Pinkie Pie said in her naturally cheery and excited voice, “Are you gals ready for the party?”
At the map table, Applejack, Rarity, and Twilight stared blankly at the pink pony who was carrying about a dozen balloons. “Uh, Pinkie,” Applejack started, “you do know that the reason we were called here isn’t for some sort of party, right?”
The balloons seemed to magically deflate as soon as Applejack had finished, but the smile on the ponies face didn’t. “Okie dokie lokie,” she said as she bounced to take her seat at the table.
“Speaking of which, do any of you know why Fluttershy asked us to be here today?” Rarity asked.
“Ah don’t know,” Applejack responded with a shrug, “but it sounded might important. The shy filly almost never asks me to come somewhere by herself. Usually she’ll send one of her little critters with a note or something.”
“I wonder if this has anything to do with the break up,” Twilight guessed.
“Oh, the poor darling,” Rarity gasped, “I completely forgot about that! She must be devastated.”
“We should throw a party for her,” Pinkie exclaimed seriously, “it will be a Feel Better Fluttershy Even Though that Meanie Mean Face Rainbow Dash Crushed Your Heart into a Million Pieces Party, or FBFETTMMFRDCYHIAMP Party for short!”
“Yeah,” Twilight said, rolling her eyes. Then the doors opened, and in trotted Rainbow Dash, followed closely behind by Fluttershy. The two mares stood to scan the room for a second before looking at each other, nodding, and continuing.
The expressions of the ponies already sat down at the table ranged from confused to angry, with Twilight and Pinkie Pie aiming toward the former side of the spectrum, and Applejack and Rarity toward the latter.
“Hey girls,” Rainbow Dash greeted. She sat down on her throne next to Pinkie, which made the pink earth pony scoot to the side of her throne. Rainbow saw this, but decided to ignore it. As soon as Fluttershy sat down in her respective throne, she cleared her throat. “Now, as you all know, or think you know, me and Fluttershy broke up, and don’t say it Twilight!” Twilight’s mouth was clamped up by the last part of her sentence, the grammar correction disappearing. “Listen everypony, and really listen to me, because what I am about to tell you is the absolute truth. I have been trying to tell you this exact thing for the past week, but you never believed me, and every single thing we’ve done to make you see it has failed. So here we go. Plain, simple, to the point.” Rainbow inhaled deeply, eyes darting around the table to see the looks of anticipation from all of her friends, before saying those three words. “We aren’t dating.”
There was silence all around the room, nopony willing to break it, and everypony was just trying to process this not-so-new information. Sometimes two of them would make eye contact with one another, but it would always be short lived. After what felt like a million years, Twilight spoke up.
“But we saw you two…”
“I know what you thought you saw!” Rainbow shouted. “We weren’t doing that stuff. She was saving me from choking on one of those hayballs that you tried to serve us on that date you set up.”
Next to speak up was Applejack. “But what about that time Ah saw you two sitting under an apple tree in mah orchard together?”
“I was trying to show Rainbow Dash something,” Fluttershy’s soft voice rang in.
“The sunset?” Applejack asked.
“No, it was a nest of baby birds.”
“But what about when we were at the picnic and you came out of the flower fields running and sobbing and with no Rainbow Dash,” Rarity pointed out.
“That was allergies,” Fluttershy explained. “Our last plan was to fake breakup so that nopony would see us as a couple anymore, and then explain everything to you later. I didn’t realize there would be daisies, and when I got back, I was going to wait for my symptoms to subside, but you all called me over anyways and, well, I suppose you got the wrong idea.”
The silence was back again, with Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash stealing a glance and smile, knowing that they had finally done it. None of their friends were able to raise an objection or any other point of proof against them. It was as if they were finally realizing that they may have been wrong about the entire thing. Finally, when a pony decided to speak up, it was Pinkie Pie.
“You guys aren’t joking, are you,” she said in a surprisingly serious tone. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy nodded. “Well, I’m really sorry that I pushed you so hard. Please forgive me.”
She flashed her signature puppy eyes at the two mares, who both chuckled and nodded.
“Of course, Pinkie, we forgive all of you!” Fluttershy looked around the room and nodded. The other three ponies quickly apologized as well.
“Ah’m mighty sorry, you two.”
“I whole-heartedly apologize.”
“I really thought you two were dating, though, the statistics don’t lie. Either way though, I’m really sorry.”
“It’s whatever,” Rainbow sighed in relief. “Just please listen to us from now on. That was really bad.”
“We will, promise,” Rarity assured.
“Cool,” Rainbow said before turning around. “Well I’m going to practice my new Wonderbolt routine if anypony needs me. See ya around!” She kicked off the ground and zoomed out of the castle, her signature rainbow trail following behind her. Fluttershy smiled at her friends before trotting out the door, a content smile spread over her face.
“Alright, so how long do you think it will take before they come clean to us?” Twilight asked the remaining ponies in the room excitedly.
“It shouldn’t be too long now, darling,” Rarity predicted. “I mean, it’s obvious that they are absolutely enamored with one another.”
