> Egghead and Featherbrain
>  by TheLastBrunnenG
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Epilogue
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“No! I can’t let you go! It’s too far down, you’ll never make it!” Iris Bolt’s grand wings strained to hold their falling altitude as her powerful muscles strained against the weight of the unicorn in her arms.

Sunset Glitter shook her head, her mane streaming behind her in the wind. “It’s okay, Iris. Let me go!” She struggled to push away from the pegasus against whom she was clasped, chest to chest, hearts pounding in time together. “I can do it, I know I can.”

Iris’ eyes were wide and watery, the rapidly approaching ground below reflected in their magenta majesty. “I let you go too many times already, Sunset. Each time I came so close losing you, too close, and I can’t take that chance again. Sunset, I…”

The roar of wind was silenced and the terror of deadly impact receded as the pegasus’ words were cut off by the press of warm lips. Descent turned into glide and mere seconds felt like long minutes to the two ponies. “Iris, “ said the young unicorn breathlessly, “I love you. I have since the moment we met. I trust you, I believe in you, and I’m absolutely head over hooves in love with you. And if you trust me, Iris Bolt, if you believe in me, if you love me too, then let me go.”

The pegasus stared down at her opposite for long moments. Shutting her eyes tight against tears, truth, and sure disaster, she flung her arms wide. She felt a great weight fall from her chest as the rush of cold wind replaced warm fur, and her wings beat furiously as her desperate dive became a sudden hover.

Seconds, minutes, maybe hours later, her eyes remained sealed against the harsh truth of what and who she’d let go. Tears streamed down her muzzle, falling like rain into the dizzying world below. No sound pierced her willing darkness, just a gentle breeze and the flutter of near-silent wings. There was no wailing scream fading in the distance, no sickening thud from far below, only the sweep of wings. Wings, she thought – I’ve never heard my own wings before.

Hoping against hope, she forced her eyes open. Blinding light forced her to shield her eyes with a raised hoof. Iris felt something lift her arm, and she found herself hovering hoof in hoof with Sunset Glitter, a pair of sparkling lavender wings formed of evening dew and sunbeams holding the smiling unicorn aloft.

“Sunset,” the pegasus stammered, “You’re alive! You’re really alive… I… I’ve never seen anypony so beautiful. Sunset Glitter, I love you!”

Glowing wings sweeping gently in the evening air and muzzle streaked with tears, the unicorn held tightly to her lover’s hoof. “Iris Bolt,” she whispered, “will you fly with me?”

THE END

~~~~~

“Oh sweet Celestia, that took forever!” Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes and unceremoniously dropped her dog-eared and spine-broken copy of Wonderbolt and Wizardess 5: Winds of the Heart. “I can see how Rarity might enjoy a bunch of horseapple nonsense like this,” at which she did her best exaggerated gagging impression, “but I can’t believe Fluttershy actually writes these.”

Twilight giggled and gently closed her own pristine copy. “Shy probably has more bits saved up from her published novels than all the rest of us combined. She has to pay for all that birdseed and otter food somehow, you know.”

Dash let out a groan. “Yeah, but how does she come up with this bunk? I mean, really, Iris Bolt and Sunset Glitter? Must’ve picked those names out of a hat.”

The purple mare looked down at the slim novelette, running her hoof over the cover’s tastefully lascivious illustration. “Oh, I don’t know,” she mused, “Fluttershy can be pretty observant.”

“Yeah, okay, whatever.” The pegasus stood up off her cushion by the flickering fireplace, stretching her muscled legs and flaring her race-trained wings. “I know the next Daring Do won’t be out for a while, but for our next little date, can we maybe, ya know, re-read the last one again instead of reading some totally lame romance junk like this?”

Lost in thought, the unicorn muttered half to herself. “Date…” she whispered. “If you love me too, then let me go.”

“Gotta run, Twi.” Trotting up the few steps to the Library’s upstairs balcony, Rainbow stifled a yawn and added, “There’s a bed made of cirrus clouds calling my name. See ya!” She leapt over the railing and launched herself into the dark evening sky. Seconds later she winced and wheeled around in midair as a bright flash from behind threatened to ruin her night vision. Her eyes took a few long moments to adjust, and they held wide at what she saw. There, suspended on sweeping lavender wings made of gossamer and morning dew, hovered Twilight Sparkle, one hoof held out toward Dash.

“Rainbow Dash,” she whispered, “will you fly with me?”
> Second
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“And then Daring was hanging onto the vine for dear life, ‘cause her wings were still singed from crossing the lava lake so she couldn’t fly, and the evil High Priest of the Goat-God swung his ceremonial staff at her, but it was totally a trick, see? ‘Cause at the last second she caught the staff, flipped around, used it like a pry-bar to toss the Goat Priest into the acid pit, and then inserted the staff into the black altar, where it opened to reveal - are you ready for this, Twi? - it revealed the Sacred Stone of Flankara! But…” Rainbow Dash clutched her sides and rolled off the Library’s couch onto the floor with a dull thud, still cackling madly as she struggled to continue, “But it wasn’t a Sacred Stone at all! The Goat Priest went through all that for nothing, ‘cause the whole time what he thought was the Sacred Stone was really the bung to an ancient cider keg!” The azure pegasus wheezed and gasped for breath between gales of laughter, beating her knee with a hoof. “Oh, that was rich! Yeah, Daring Do and the Doom Temple was off the charts, right Twi?”

Twilight sighed without looking up from a dusty, creaking tome in her hooves, her ears barely visible behind its oversized covers. “You do know we both read the same book last week, right Dash? I could’ve summarized it for you.”

“Yeah, but when you tell it, it sounds like a history lecture. When I tell it, it just exhumes coolness.”

“Exudes, Dash. ‘Exhume’ means to dig up a dead body. Although,” she purred, lowering her musty text to arch an eyebrow at the blue mare, “bonus points to you for trying to learn a new word! I might have to reward you for that later.”

Suppressing a sudden wing-flare, Dash sprang back onto the couch, resting her head next to Twilight’s, nipping at a tender purple ear. “If that’s the case, baby, then try these on for size!” Leaning down, she whispered with hot breaths, “Parliamentary! Oxygenate! Moderate Cerise! What kind of reward do I get now, huh?”

Flicking her ear, the unicorn cooed, “Mmmm, Dash… Do you have any idea what those words mean?”

Dash’s nipping teeth still hunted for the flicking ear. “No, but you could teach me!”

“Well, then,” the lavender librarian replied in school-marm deadpan, cuffing her marefriend on the muzzle, “get a dictionary and try again tomorrow.”

“Ow! You coulda’ just said you weren’t in the mood, ya know.” Rainbow rubbed her bruised nose for a moment then grabbed the musty volume from the perturbed unicorn. “Hey egghead, I’m bored now. Whatcha readin’? Aerial Displays of Pegasi in the Pre-Unification Era? I think I remember using this for a pillow in class during Flight School. Aw, were you reading this for your little Dashie?”

Snatching the age-worn book back in a glowing magical grasp, Twilight growled under her breath and narrowed her eyes. “Yes, my sweet featherbrain, I was. I doubt you saw this in flight school, though. There was only one copy I could find, and it was buried in the Canterlot archives.”

“So, does it show any cool old tricks? Stuff ponies used to do back in the day?”

“It’s mostly theory, really. But… there is one thing I thought you should see.” Lowering her voice and her eyes, Twilight opened the book toward Dash, a thin ribbon marking two creased and fading pages. “I wasn’t sure I should show this to you, but you deserve to know. Here, take a look at this illustration.”

The stained and cracking pages opened to a hoof-drawn image, rough and hastily scrawled, obviously made without aid of magic. It showed a stylized pegasus blazing a razor-straight and fiery trail over cloud-covered mountaintops, a great blazing circle of flames radiating outward from its path. Twilight’s magic closed the book slowly, silently, and set it aside.

“I’m so sorry, Dash,” she whispered, running a gentle hoof through the pegasus’ prismatic mane. “The descriptions are clear. There’s nothing else it could be - that’s a Sonic Rainboom.”

The azure pegasus sat frozen on the couch for long moments, her eyes wide. “That - that can’t be. I was the first pony to do a Rainboom, Twilight. I was the only one. Ever. My teachers said so, my coaches told me so, even Spitfire said so! Are - are you sure?”

Twilight moved gingerly upwards on the couch, shifting Dash’s rainbow-maned head to rest on her chest. She wrapped her arms around the blue mare and nodded her head. “I’m sure. This book was buried deep in the archives and forgotten centuries ago. There’s no way anypony could have known.”

Tears welled up in Rainbow’s eyes, dropping fat and wet onto the lavender coat which cradled her, and her voice was a harsh whisper. “There are thousands of pegasi out there, fast ones, a lot of them with really great moves. There are new Best Young Flyers every year. And it’s not like I can just go grab the Element of Loyalty from Celestia’s vault when I need to feel awesome. Twi, the Sonic Rainboom - that was my thing. That was me. Now it’s like the Rising Phoenix or the Tornado Firestorm, it’s just another trick. It’s a matter of time now before somepony else figures it out. If I wasn’t the only one to do it, if I wasn’t the first, then what am I?”

“You’re still the fastest pony alive. And if you weren’t the first to do a Rainboom, then you were still the first pony to do one in centuries. And you’re still the only pony alive who can.” Holding the shaking pegasus tighter, Twilight leaned down to place a kiss on Dash’s tear-streaked muzzle. They lay together on the couch for many minutes, the crackling of the fireplace uninterrupted by spoken words. Feeling Dash’s sniffling subside, she added, “Even if you weren’t the first, you’re still absolutely, positively the best.”
> Becoming Daring
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Daring Do and the Blossoms of the Heart, Chapter 2

Endless blooming lilacs stretched out before her, coating hill and valley alike in rolling waves of purple and lavender. Sweetness pervaded the gentle afternoon breeze, the tender scent washing away pain, trouble, and uncertainty. Daring fell to her back in an explosion of blossoms and petals, wings wide, her weatherworn pith hat rolling down the hill unnoticed. This was where she belonged! Here, in lilac arms, buoyed by soft scent and caressing flowers, she had not a care in the world, save one.

Her nostrils filled, her eyes shut tight, and her heart aflutter, Daring’s mind wandered back home. No, not home – or was it? Images sprang to mind: university classrooms, musty academic offices, museums of forgotten exhibits. This was the cloying, stuffy world she adventured to escape from, and yet – there she was. The museum’s Curator of Antiquities, that amazing unicorn, whose every glance left the hardened and scarred explorer trembling and short of breath, called her back to the civilized world without a word. She could never escape that call, nor did she have a desire to.

Once, in her younger days, the lure of thrills and fame drew Daring Do out of the world of academia, away from the drudgery of teaching, grading, publishing. Running away from it all and into the field was her only sure escape from the soul-grinding tedium of spending the rest of her days sorting dusty bones, broken potsherds, and unloved artifacts for display in exhibits few ponies would see and fewer still would notice or care about. That was her life, once, and though it may have been mere months ago, it may as well have been a story told in tomb inscriptions, for it felt like centuries ago.

Now she braved fiendish traps and deadly mazes, sought out eldritch amulets and legendary staves, and endured every harsh clime from the hearts of glaciers to the bowels of mountains, all to do what? To see her! That was enough, and Daring would do it all again. Every ancient tiara she recovered from a ghoulish tomb was another chance to sit with the Curator, to spend hours hoof in hoof with her, muzzle to muzzle with her, poring over every minute detail and every scrap of history of whatever trinket she’d retrieved. The more history an artifact bore and the more mysteries it promised to unlock, the more time it meant she could spend in the heart-stopping presence of that wonderful, brilliant mare.

Every gem-encrusted scarab she recovered from a lost cavern was like a first date, nervous, sweating, brief, and oh so very worth it. Every glowing, cursed torc salvaged from a sunken ship was like an anniversary dinner, familiar, intimate, and long awaited. Recovering that idol from Ahuizotl – that was like a honeymoon that never ended. So many hours side by side with the lilac mare of her dreams and her daydreams, so many late nights and early mornings… Daring wanted that feeling again, now and forever. But love was not an accursed pyramid to be plundered and romance was no ancient temple to be looted.

How was it that could she face demon priests and lava pits but couldn’t tell one smiling, bookish mare what she truly felt? How long could she keep up this pretense? How long could she go on trading relics for romance? It was a lesson she’d learned too well these past months: courage didn’t translate always from hoof to heart. Daring would trade all the adventure, all the fame and thrills of exploring and delving the depths of history just to be able to put her feelings into words.

One last expedition, she promised herself – then I can tell her. One last crown to liberate from some shattered sarcophagus  - then I can confess. One more, one more, always one more – would it ever be enough? Will I ever find the courage, she wondered, to make this incredible mare not just a curator, but My Curator? She opened her eyes to a spiral of lilac blossoms and flexed her wings to follow them aloft into the breezy evening sky. Not one more, she thought. No more, no longer. It was time to go home, home – to her Curator.

Daring Do and the Blossoms of the Heart, Chapter 3

The trembling tan pegasus stood before the museum’s oaken door, hat in hoof and heart pounding. She …

~~~~~

“Shy, lemme give ya some friendly advice, pegasus to pegasus.”

“O – Okay, Dash. What is it?”

“Don’t. Do. This. Just – don’t.”

“Oh, I promise I’ll never  - wait, don’t do what, exactly?”

“Don’t write me into this. Don’t write Daring like this, Fluttershy, just – okay, let me ask you a question. You know I dig Daring Do, right?”

“Yes…”

“And you know the only way you’ll get me to read anything is if it involves explosions or Daring Do, preferably both. Right?”

“Um, I think so.”

“So that means there’s no feathering way I’d ever be caught reading mushy romantic horseapple bunk like this. Got it?”

“I suppose.”

“Now, Shy, let me guess – you probably noticed me spending lots of time at the Library lately. And you might have figured out that whenever I feel like reading, I could do it perfectly well in my sweet cloud-house but instead I always seem to end up reading with our little librarian friend. How am I doing so far?”

“Well, you’re… surprisingly accurate, actually. I didn’t mean to notice things, I promise! I can be less perceptive, if you like.”

“So Flutters, here’s the kicker. I’m guessing you thought that if you could write a sappy romantic story, I’d read it anyway ‘cause it’s Daring Do, and if it showed Daring Do having the hots for an egghead bookworm unicorn, then maybe I’d be inspired to confess my undying love to Twilight. On the mark?”

“Um, kind of. Well, perfectly, really.”

“Shy, you’re my oldest friend, so I’m gonna tell you three things. If anyone asks, I swear I’ll deny them, and you can bet your wings I’m never gonna repeat any of this again. First – that was actually an awesomely good story. I can see why ponies love your romance novels.”

“Oh, thanks, Dash!”

”Second, if that Daring Do was supposed to be based on yours truly – well, then it was pretty darn close. I totally had the same problem. Guess you noticed that too, huh?”

“A little. Maybe. Sorry!”

“Don’t be. Third, you’re late.”

“Late?”

“Yeah, by about a month. Twi and I have just been really good about hiding it. Eggheads can be surprisingly sneaky, ya know? Great kissers, too.”
> Firelight
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Flickering firelight cast deep shadows over the reading room in Golden Oaks Library. Walls of books towered over the little nook, the two ponies below letting their eyelids flutter as they lay entwined on well-worn floor cushions. Scents of wilderness, icing, perfume, and apples still hung in the air but were fading quickly, replaced by aromas of crackling cut pine logs, spilled ink and fresh parchment, and distant storms.

Twilight’s head nestled on a blue-furred pillow, a feathered blanket drawn across her. Eyes closed above a contented smile, she murmured into her pillow’s prismatic mane. “It was really nice having the girls over for dinner. Still, I’m glad it’s just you and me again, Dash. Can’t think of any way I’d rather spend the rest of the night.”

Flames danced in the pegasus’ eyes. She managed a thin grin as the fireplace seemed to hold unusual fascination. “Yeah? More than re-reading History of Everything Everywhere again?”

“Definitely!” The purple pony drew Dash’s wing tighter around her, stroking its leading edge with a gentle hoof. “Speaking of reading, what do you want to do now that we’ve got some time alone? Want to read the rest of the first Alan Quarterhorse book? We only read a few chapters last time.”

Dash’s reply came as a snort. “Nah. I know they’re by the same author as Daring Do, but it’s not the same. Maybe we can hold off on that kinda stuff until the next Daring comes out.”

The unicorn shifted uneasily, her eyes opening slowly as her brow furrowed. “That won’t be for another three months, Rainbow. I thought you enjoyed reading here – or at least, reading with me. I was hoping we could find something else to read together until then.”

“Sorry, Twi. I do like reading with you, it’s just  - well, it has to be the right kinda stuff or it just loses me, ya know?” She lay her head on Twilight's and let her eyes close for a few long moments. 

Shaking her head as if waking suddenly, the librarian shifted to look up at her companion, enthusiasm brightening her voice. “Hey, what about going flying? Looks like it’s an almost cloudless night, the moon’s full – it’ll be perfect! You can carry me! I can do my cloudwalking spell, and we can spend the whole night just – “

“Twi, you can’t be serious.” The lavender mare recoiled a bit. She shook off Dash’s embracing wing and cocked an eyebrow at her, sitting upright suddenly. “That’d be a great idea, egghead, except that it’s below freezing out there! There’s still snow on the ground, for Celestia’s sake. Don’t get me wrong, it’s totally romantic, it’s just the kind of thing we should save for spring. Okay?”

“Oh, I… Sorry, Dash, I didn't think about it that way.” 

The azure mare hung her head, her parti-colored mane falling across one eye. “No, I'm sorry, Twilight. I didn't mean to come across so harsh. Pegasi are built for high altitude and total speed, so the cold doesn’t get to us too much. I was just trying to…” She sighed and dropped her chin to rest on her crossed forelegs. “I dunno.”

Twilight caressed her marefriend’s mane, her hoof finding color by color in slow, tender strokes. “Well, if you want to stay the night, I guess we could find,” and her cheeks burned a little despite the diminishing fire, “something else to do.”

Dash sighed deeply, taking the purple hoof and moving it between her own. “Not tonight, Twi. Yeah, it would be totally awesome, because it always is, and face it, it’s us, right? But it’s like – it’s like we always have to be doing something. Reading, or going out to eat, or flying, or picnicking, or whatever, but it’s always gotta be something. Can’t we just, ya know, be here with each other?”

Smiling widely, the horned mare leaned over to place a single chaste kiss on a blushing blue-furred cheek. “Of course we can. All you had to do was ask, you beautiful, silly mare! Did you want to head upstairs?”

Rainbow threw a powerful wing across Twilight and drew her close. “Nope, right here is fine. I’m a champion napper, so trust me on this one. Beds are cool and everything, but you can’t beat a good fireplace for warmth and an egghead for a blanket.” She smirked and settled onto a cushion, the young unicorn resting warmly against her chest.” You should totally try it sometime.”
> Lift, Weight, Thrust, and Drag
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Pleading was a practiced and perfected tactic in Rainbow Dash’s arsenal, and she knew when it was time to pull out the big guns. On her knees outside the Golden Oaks Library, she threw caution and dignity to the wind and groveled as if her life depended on it. “Pinkie, please please, please, you gotta save me! Prank me with ten pounds of sneezing powder, or lock me in a closet, or…”

The poofy party planner blew a raspberry in Dash’s general direction. “Silly Dashie-kins! You can’t go back in the closet when you’re already out. Besides, don’t you have a big date tonight?”

“Yeah, that’s the problem!” The cyan mare glanced over both shoulders, tapping her hooves nervously. “Twi and I have our three month anniversary today, and she’s expecting me to be all romantic and mushy and… and… bleah!”

Pinkie patted Dash on her tousle-maned head. “Sorry, no can do, Dasharoo. It’s pink hearts and roses for you! Oooh, I know! Want me to teach you a love song? You can serenade Twily until she’s a puddle of mushy purple happiness! Listen close, the lyrics are kinda complex.” Balancing on the Library’s mailbox, she began to croon. “It’s a piece of cake to bake a pretty cake! If the way is hazy, you gotta do the cooking by the book… Wait, no, that’s the song that works on me, not the one for Twilight. Hmmm…”

While Dash hopped frantically from hoof to hoof, the pink earth mare’s performance attracted the attention of two familiar passing ponies. “Shy, Rarity, thank Celestia! You two can help me think of a way out. If not, I’m doomed! Twi expects me to have some gushy snuggle-bunny anniversary dinner in there, and I can’t! My reputation for awesomeness barely survived that trip to the spa – if word gets out that I let myself get roped into this lovey-dovey muck, I’m ruined!”

“Rainbow Dash, I’m ashamed of you!” Hooves on her hips, Fluttershy put on an epically motherly scolding face. “Some of my best friends are snuggle bunnies and lovey dovies, and they’re perfectly nice little critters! Next time you come to my cottage, I want you to apologize to all the bunnies and doves for associating them with the kind of face you’re making.”

“Really, Dash, darling, it’s not so bad.” Rarity cantered over to lay a comforting hoof around the multi-hued mare’s shoulder. “It’s only one night of sweet romance with heartfelt confessions of love and devotion. Tomorrow you can return to your usual boorish, inarticulate, emotionally deaf-mute self. Tonight, though, is a night for amour!”

Dash leapt up and hugged the alabaster mare tightly. “You’re totally right, Rares! That’s it - armor! If I can find my old Commander Hurricane getup, I can rock it all night! Twilight hates that thing, she’ll kick me out for sure, at least until she’s over this whole hearts-aflutter thing.”

The sigh was inevitable. “Not armor, dearest, amour – love! It’s Prench for… ah, even better! I can teach you some Prench love poems, certain to melt the heart of your loving Twilight. How did the one about mi amour go? Yes, it – Dash, are you listening?”

If listening meant doing her best corpse imitation, complete with lolling tongue and twitching legs pointed to the night sky, then Rainbow nailed it. Behind her a door creaked open, spilling soft light onto the four gathered ponies. From inside the sinister abode came a voice that chilled the azure pegasus’ soul. “Dashie, sweetheart, are you ready for some cuddle-wuddle time? I have a warm fire and some fuzzy blankets all ready for us!”

A lilac glow surrounded the prostrate Dash, whose eyes grew large as her hooves scraped and scratched at the earth, failing find purchase. The glow drew her into the library, overcoming her desperately flapping wings and plaintive pleas. “No! I don’t want to snuggle! I don’t want to cuddle! I’m too awesome! Too… awesome… to… cuddle!” Her cries died as the door slammed shut and the library’s lights grew dim.

~~~~~

“Are they gone, RD? Think they bought it?”

“Yep, they’re gone. I totally sold it! Shoulda been an actor.”

Taking a cyan hoof in her own, Twilight headed up the stairs to her cozily unkempt bedroom. “Are you still okay with this, Dash? You don’t have to do this for me, you know.”

“I’d do anything for you, Sparky!” Dash’s smile was visible even in the flickering candlelight. “Even this. As long as our little agreement holds, right? And I get to pick what we do for our next anniversary. So tonight I’ll do what we talked about for you, but if you breathe a word of this to anypony, the girls included - even in a friendship report - then I’m outta here.”

They reached the bedroom landing, where the purple mare turned to face her blue counterpart. “So I can’t tell them you never dropped out of flight school like you claimed?”

“No.”

“And I can’t tell anypony that not only were you not a dropout, you actually graduated with honors?”

“Definitely not.”

“And that you were so far ahead of your classmates that they asked you to be a teaching assistant in your senior year?”

“Absolutely no way.”

“And that you published articles in Cloudsdale Aeronautics Monthly under the pseudonym ‘Prismatic Charge’?”

“So. Totally. Uncool.”

“Well, then… Let’s get started. It is our anniversary, after all.” Twilight’s tail brushed Dash’s as she sauntered to her bed, where she lay on her stomach, head propped in her hooves. Her voice was the sultry whisper all librarians know but few use openly. “Dash… teach me.”

“The things I do for love,” muttered the pegasus. She turned to an easel in the corner of the room and taking a marker in her hoof, began to draw diagrams. Clearing her throat, she motioned to the crude sketch of a wing. “Okay, the four basics of wingborne flight are lift, weight, thrust, and drag. Lift counteracts the force of gravity and is a factor of airflow across the wing surface, which acts as an airfoil. Weight represents gravity and opposes lift. See the arrows I drew here?” She glanced over her shoulder and saw Twilight’s eyes closed, her head on the bed, and her front hooves nowhere to be seen.

“Thrust is created by altering the angle of attack of the lifting surface, essentially converting pure upward lift into forward motive power. Drag is the action of air friction against the body surface and counteracts thrust.” A low moan behind her caused Dash to inhale sharply, her wings silently sliding outward.

“Right. Wings can be described in terms of aspect ratio, which is the ratio of wing length to chord, or front-to-back width across a flat plane. Long, thin wings like a seagull’s have a high aspect ratio, which means they can cruise and soar without a lot of effort. They’re also found in hovering birds.”

Her pupil cooed, “Mmmm, Professor Dash, don’t stop, please…” Catching the reflection in a clock face, Dash saw Twilight roll over on the bed, shaking and trembling.

“Um.. Yeah. Low aspect ratio wings are your typical raptor wings – shorter, rounded wings meant for high speed and maneuverability. Pegasi wings are a medium aspect ratio, meaning our varying wingpower is more of a factor of innate pony magic than of pure aerodynamics.”

She turned to face her erstwhile student, promptly dropping her marker and her jaw. “Can I call off the lecture now, Twi? ‘Cause I think your class bell’s about to ring.”

Eyelids fluttering, panting heavily, Twilight managed to rasp, “Get over here, Professor… just… just don’t stop teaching.”

Dash leapt onto the bed, pinning the quivering mare beneath her. Lunging down to nip ravenously at a silken-furred lavender ear, she growled, “Okay, wing loading is the weight of the flyer divided by the total wing surface area. High wing loading – small wings relative to body weight, exemplified by pegasi – means more efficient high speed flight but requires higher takeoff and landing speed…”
> The Wait
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The storm had been building for most of the day; weather teams distributed flyers to the entire town earlier that morning warning of the “Storm of the Decade”. The Everfree Forest was a wild, uncontrolled place, feared by ponies both for the myriad wild and ravenous creatures dwelling there and for its unpredictable weather. Storms and clouds uncontrolled by pegasus weather teams, unplanned and unscheduled, were a concept alien to the blissfully naive ponies of Equestria. Everypony assumed the ragtag but generally skilled Ponyville weather team could handle the occasional unusual weather  pattern which rolled out of the Everfree. If something truly freakish happened, then surely with help from Cloudsdale’s pegasi they could corral and control any storm which dared rear its thunderhead.

A typical uncontrolled storm could be dispersed within one hour and forty minutes, assuming the high and low outlier times were discarded in the calculation. A storm of highest magnitude had never taken greater than four hours nineteen minutes to bring under control, with an average time-to-dispersal of three hours forty six minutes.  Twilight Sparkle knew this with absolute certainty because she’d calculated it herself.

With equal certainty she knew that Rainbow Dash, head of the Ponyville Weather Team, had been fighting this storm for five hours and twenty two minutes.

She lay on the floor of the Golden Oaks Library, her back warmed by the crackling blaze of a well-stoked fireplace and surrounded on all sides by crumbling towers of books. Pegasus Aerodynamics lay to her left, Adverse Flying Conditions and You to her right, A History of Weather Management, Volume Three in her hooves. In the last five hours and forty one minutes she’d learned every fact, every facet, every iota of knowledge ever recorded about weather control, or at least, all of them available in her own little small-town library, however impressively stocked she’d kept it.

Six hours and six minutes earlier Dash had taken off in a spectral blur, her brilliantly sky-blue form lost almost immediately in the growing charcoal-black darkness of the gathering clouds. Six hours and seven minutes earlier she’d promised Twilight that she’d be careful and that she’d come back in one piece, holding Twilight so tightly it hurt and not daring to let go. Six hours and eight minutes earlier she’d dried Twilight’s tears and kissed her on the forehead for what felt like would be the last time.

Six hours and thirty five minutes after the skies went dark and the first lightning strike illuminated Ponyville in a flash of brilliant light and crashing violence, the librarian found herself chest-deep in ancient texts and dusty forgotten tomes, furiously digging through runes and glyphs and incantations the way a desert-trapped pony might dig for water buried under shifting sands. Bend Nature To Thy Will offered no solutions and Elemental Mastery stopped short of its promise. Still she dug, faster, deeper, desperation etched in her furrowed brow and quivering lips.

Water for a pot of tea boiled at the seven hour mark. The sudden whistle was jarring and terrifying, standing out harsh and shrill against the steady drive of rain on windowpanes and the wail of wind through swaying branches. Twilight sat at her kitchen table, a single lantern and the distant fire picking out wisps of steam rising from her cup and from the saucer which held a pool of spilled tea. She held the little mug in trembling hooves, thankful for the opportunity to hold something warm, solid, and real again.

She’d been staring at the dancing flames of the fireplace for half an hour, unmoving. A cold pot of tea lay forgotten on the table behind her, next to a shattered mug and an overflowing saucer. The firelight cast waving shadows on the bookcases lining her walls, each as still and silent as their source. Red-rimmed eyes stared out from under a disheveled purple mane. She had no more tears to cry, no more books to read, no letters to send. She had only the wait, hollow and stabbing, empty and crushing.

Lightning struck nearby, too near, and for a moment the pounding rain seemed louder and echoed through the library. Twilight woke with a start to the feel of something heavy, wet, and panting collapsed against her side. “Rainbow?” she whispered, trembling, “I was sure you’d - I thought - Dash, you were gone so long…”

“Eight hours,” mumbled the soaked and bloody pegasus, her chest heaving as she curled up by Twilight and her fire. “Eight hours and five minutes. I know. I was counting too.”
> Hoofing It
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Daring Do and the Amulet of Memories, Chapter 6

The unicorn shook in her sequined dress, her trembles sending reflections scattering across the ballroom walls. “Daring, I can’t do this! I’m a museum curator, not a field operative!”

“You’re doing fine, Moonlight. Remember the plan: we waltz our way to the other side of the dance floor, you pop your magic to douse the lights, and I snatch the Amulet of Memories from the display case.” The grey-maned pegasus smiled, her hooves on the unicorn’s shoulders as they stood waiting for the music to begin. “What could possibly go wrong?”

“Everything! What if I don’t get all the lights? What if there’s security on the Amulet that we don’t know about? Daring, recovering that Amulet isn’t worth the risk! We  - no, you can try again later, and I can go back to translating cuneiform and reassembling potsherds and – ”

“Shhh!” Daring Do put a hoof to the shaking mare’s lips and whispered, “The orchestra’s starting. We’ll never have another shot like this at the Amulet of Memories. After tonight, the Baron will put it back into storage. Now I believe in you, Moonlight, and I know you can do this. Let’s dance!”

Moonlight Glitter shook her head to disagree as she was swept off her hooves by the twirling tan mare. Daring led her across the floor, whirling, spinning, smiling, nudging their waltz ever closer to the sparkling Amulet. She looked out of place in her own slim dress, disguised almost entirely by glamorous evening wear nopony would ever expect to find her in. 

She pulled the wide-eyed unicorn closer, her hooves finding warm purchase in the small of the curator’s back. Daring grinned, surprised to find her unwilling partner returning the smile. The unsure academic seemed to forget her trepidation and leaned in, panting breaths mingling as their muzzles weaved in and out with every step.

“Moon,” she whispered to the adventuress, “you can call me Moon. Only my mother calls me Moonlight.” Glancing over the hoof on her shoulder, she saw the Amulet just a tail’s length away. “Are you ready?”

Daring’s wings flared involuntarily, drawing disdainful stares from other couples. “As I’ll ever be… Moon.” She allowed herself a quiet chuckle as the unicorn lit her horn. With a flash every candle, lantern, and torch in the ballroom flared then died away, plunging the dancing crowd into screaming and chaotic darkness. Daring leapt for the…

~~~~~

“Okay, Twi, now you’re not even trying.”

“What do you mean, Dash? I thought you’d be excited to read this together! You don’t know what I had to do to get a pre-release copy of this. It won’t even be in stores for – well, who knows how long?”

“First, how long? Answer is never, egghead. You can’t fool the President of the Daring Do Fanclub about release dates. Second, I know exactly what you had to do to get this little ‘pre-release’ chapter. You agreed to help Fluttershy feed her animals for a month, and you even volunteered to escort her into the Everfree so she could check on that poor injured timberwolf she swears she heard howling last week.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Well, maybe just a little. And I only have to feed her animals for three weeks, not a whole month. So how’d you know?”

“Shy spilled the story over lunch. She writes great romance novels, and fanfics too, but she couldn’t write an action scene to save her wings. Trying to write the end of that ballroom scene sent her into hysterics and she needed to vent. That, and I can see where you pasted a fake cover over a copy of Daring Do and the River of Jade and tried to stick the new pages into the middle of the book between the chapter about the cannibal pygmy ponies and the illustration of Daring holding the jade coin in her teeth.”

“Rainbow, you – you can tell what chapter a book is turned to just from where the spine is creased? How – wait, no, never mind. So what did you think?”

“About Shy’s fake chapter? Not bad, though I wish she’d had more detail on the Amulet, the legends behind it, why the Baron wanted it, and – “

“Featherbrain!”

“Okay, okay, Twilight, keep your horn on. See if I have this straight: you were hoping that a fake Daring Do chapter about Daring and the hot unicorn museum curator going to a big fancy ball would inspire me to ask you to the Sadie Hoofkins dance this weekend?”

“That’s – that’s surprisingly perceptive, really.”

“Answer is no.”

“But Dash, this is probably the last dance I’ll have  chance to go to, at least here in Ponyville! You know I expect Celestia to recall me to Canterlot to do some intensive research any time now.”

“Still no.”

“Oh, I get it. This is a Sadie Hoofkins dance – fillies ask colts to the dance, not the other way around, and you’re worried that if you ask me…”

“…Then everypony will think I’m the filly in this relationship. Or the mare. Whatever. Can’t happen. I’m already verging into seriously uncool territory just talking about this.”

“Okay then, Featherbrain. Dash, will you go to the Sadie Hoofkins dance with me this weekend?”

“Let me think, Egghead, let me think… So you were really willing to deface a book, even an old Daring Do novella, just to convince me that going to a dance could be cool?”

“For just anything, no. But for you, Dash… Yes. Yes I was. Once, so don’t push it.”

“Then you’d better see Rarity about a dress, Egghead, ‘cause mine’s completely awesome!”

“Wait, you already have a dress? You knew I’d ask you to the dance, didn’t you?”

“What, the amazing Rainbow Dash willing to wear a fancy dress to some dance? For just anypony, no. But for you, Twi… Yes. Yes I was. Once, so don’t push it.”
> Variations on a Theme
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Twilight A. Sparkle. You’re kidding, right, Egghead? Three years later and I never knew your middle name, and now I know why. Seriously, what were your parents thinking? Twilight… A Sparkle!”

“Funny, Dash. Mom always said I she knew I was going to be special even before I was born, when I was just a sparkle in Daddy’s eye.”

“Yeah, Twi, that wasn’t a sparkle in his eye. It was forty ounces of Apple Acres’ finest and a night without your brother in the house.”

“Keep laughing, Featherbrain. You know I’ll get you to be Rainbow Sparkle eventually. Your middle name is Aeryn, so you’ll be Rainbow Aeryn Sparkle, which I believe will make you - “

“Don’t say it. I’m warning you.”

” - Rainbow A. Sparkle.  See? That won’t be so bad. Then you’ll be - “

“I mean it, don’t you dare say it out loud, Twilight!”

” - you’ll be A Sparkle too!”

“You’re toast. You are so toast, Sparky.”

“Got a better idea?”

“Naturally! How about Twilight Sparkle Dash? Coolness name-ified.”

“Name-ified? Rainbow, that’s not even… Oh, forget it. Besides, Twilight Dash sounds like another name for a midnight run to the liquor store.”

“And Rainbow Sparkle is any better? With a name like that, I might as well start wearing a flower bonnet and farting glitter.”

“Well, can you imagine my middle name, followed by Dash? I got teased enough in school for having a name like that followed by Sparkle.”

“BWAA HA HA HA HA HA! Oh sweet sweaty Celestias, that’s a good one! Wow, just - wow. How come I never said that out loud? That is so going on the next ‘You saved Ponyville’ banner. ‘Thank you for rescuing our collective flanks, Twilight A…’ “

“LA LA LA LA, I hear nothing! As I was saying before you reminded me why we always think long and hard about a foal’s name before we get to the delivery room - we could hyphenate. You could, or I could, or we could both hyphenate.”

“Uh, sorry, Twi, I know you like to get creative with your magic and all, but I’m not really into that super-kinky stuff, remember? I mean, sure, I guess we could try it, but only if you can promise me this time we can get the hamster out of the accordion.”

“First, Dash - ew. Try to separate what we actually did from what you were daydreaming about, okay? And it was a guinea pig, not a hamster. Second, I meant hyphenate, as in we could keep both last names. Twilight and Rainbow Sparkle-Dash. Has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”

“Oh, ah, yeah - that was totally what I meant. Sparkle-Dash? Not awful, at least. But Dash never comes in second, got it?”

“Okay, Dash-Sparkle. I like it! So it’s a go?”

“Huh? You were serious, T? Nope. No go.”

“Why not? It’s us, it’s romantic, it - “

“It would take me eighty-seven years to mouth-write. Rainbow Aeryn Dash-Sparkle? I think I got older just trying to say it out loud.”

“Fine, Rainbow. If you have a better suggestion, let’s hear it.”

“Well, traditionally ponies don’t adopt the parents’ names at all, right?”

“Correct. Ponies name their foals whatever they believe will be the best fit. There’s a theory by Hoofstadter about pony naming predestination paradoxes as they factor into cutie mark emergence, which - ”

“Focus, Egghead! Anyway, this whole sharing-of-names thing is modern, right?”

“Yes. It’s a contemporary trend which began as a fad in the Vanhoover-Trotronto area about twenty years ago and - oh, sorry. Um, yes. It’s recent.”

“So there aren’t any conventions yet about what name goes where, right?”

“Right.”

“Brain-ify this, Twilight. What if we swap middle names instead?”

“You mean I’d become Twilight Aeryn Sparkle, and you’d be Rainbow - ”

“Correct! We have the same middle initial, so you’d still be Twilight A. Sparkle and I’d still be Rainbow A. Dash. Problem solved, ten seconds flat.”

“That - that’s the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard you suggest, Rainbow. I love it! But wait - remember what we said about Dash, if it comes after my middle name? How it would sound not a little - well, let’s call it unfortunate?”

“I know. Major loss of cool points. But that’s a bullet I’d take for you, Twilight.”

“And I wouldn’t make you, Rainbow. I know how much that would irk you, even if you wouldn’t admit it. How about this? I’ll take your middle name and become Twilight Aeryn Dash, while you take my last name and become Rainbow Dash Sparkle. Deal?”

“But I… I just… Oh, for the love of - fine. Rainbow D. Sparkle it is.”

“Wonderful! That’s my mare.”

“Yeah, I’m a sap. Don’t rub it in. Too bad you’ll have to lose a middle name like that, though. It was a real doozy.”

“That’s okay, Dash. Our family’s got a few of those to spare. Did I ever tell you Shining’s middle name? If you thought mine was bad, you’ll love this! His last name’s Armor, and we always called him Shiny. So keep that in mind, because his middle name is - “


> Reluctantly Yours
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“No. I am Rainbow Dash, the one and only.” The one and only Rainbow Dash stood on the balcony of the Golden Oaks Library, hooves crossed and face scowling.

Twilight Sparkle’s eyes were watering and her voice quavered. “But Dash, we talked about this. You promised!”

Dash snorted. “Have you been taking whining lessons from Rarity? ‘Cause that was epic whining, egghead. You have the nasally tone just right, and those eyes are really top notch.”

Wrinkling her lavender muzzle, the librarian glanced sideways at Rainbow through squinting eyes. “I’ll have you know that was not whining, featherbrain! It was emphatic pleading, which is entirely different. And I only took the one lesson.”

“Yeah, well, I promised nothing and we didn’t talk about this at all. You talked about it, and I might have been in the vicinity, but that doesn’t count. It’s not my fault that my snoring sounded like acknowledgement to you.”

The unicorn stepped to the other side of the balcony and drew her hooves tight around her, shivering in the evening breeze.  Her gaze downcast, she sniffed, “I… I guess that’s it, then. You really don’t love me, do you? If you did, you’d say yes. Instead I’ll be alone here, the old spinster librarian, unloved and lonely, heartbroken and pining away for the mare of her dreams, now long lost.”

“Nailed it, Twi! Nope, I don’t care in the slightest.” The pegasus put a hoof to her temple and shook her head. “ I’m just here for Spike’s cooking and the Daring Do collection. Your smokin’ hot flank’s got nothing to do with it.”

Twilight’s expression changed instantly from downtrodden to decidedly sultry and she sidled over to the azure mare. She ran practiced purple hooves over suddenly flaring wings, leaving a trail of hot breath and biting kisses up her lover’s neck. She stopped to draw teeth across the tender tip of a twitching blue ear before whispering, “Just say yes, Dash. My sweet, sexy Dash… I promise, I’ll make it worth your while.” Her hooves traveled down, down, past athletic hips and muscled flanks and lightning-cloud cutie mark and she added, “Very, very worth your while…”

Stepping away with wide eyes heart pounding, Dash spun and held a hoof out to stay the stalking unicorn. “Wow! Just - wow. Okay, seriously, that was amazingly hot, Twilight. And it would totally have worked to get me to agree if we didn’t, you know, do that anyway. All the time. Constantly.”

Twilight arched an eyebrow. “We do? Since when? What other lavender unicorn librarian Element-bearing students of the Princess have you been seeing?”

“I’ll have you know that one time for real is worth three or four times in my dreams and at least twice in my daydreams, egghead! So there.”

“Stick that tongue out again and it’ll be on my desk in a jar of formaldehyde, filly.” Twilight slid next to Dash, taking a place alongside her against the balcony railing. She lay a hoof around the pony’s shoulders and sighed. “Okay, I give up, Dash. What will it take to get you to agree? It’s not that big of a change, you know.”

The pegasus leaned over and lay her head on the cushion of a silken pink-striped lavender mane. “It is to me, Twilight. It’s part of me. I’m ‘the’ Rainbow Dash! It’s part of my identity, as much as my wings and my cutie mark and my mane and tail. I can’t just give this up!”

“But you’ll still be you, Dash! You’ll still be the Best Young Flier. You’ll still be the Element of Loyalty.” She nuzzled the prismatic mane beneath her muzzle and smiled. “These gorgeous wings will still be my two favorite blankets when I’m cold. None of that will change.”

“And the fastest pegasus in Equestria! Don’t forget fastest.” Rainbow fought back a quiet sob and drew Twilight closer. “You swear you won’t think any less of me, Twi?”

Laying a soft kiss on Rainbow’s forehead, Twilight whispered, “Not a bit. You’re the bravest pony I know, Dash, You can do it.”

Rainbow held the embrace for a few long minutes. “Okay, you win. I’ll do it.”

Twilight turned to face her beloved, muzzle to muzzle, and held her hooves. “Can you say it to my face, Dash?”

Dash looked up and locked her gaze on Twilight’s. “Rainbow.”

“Go on.”

“Dash.”

“Almost there.”

She gulped visibly, her muzzle contorting as if she’d swallowed something bitter and viscous and wriggling. “Sparkle.”

Twilight launched forward and threw herself into a warm, smiling, and tearful hug. “I knew you could do it! Oh, I love you, Dash! I can’t want to tell everypony!”

Silently Dash mouthed the words, “Rainbow. Dash. Sparkle.” Shaking her head, she muttered, “I swear, Twilight, the first time anypony calls me Rainbow Sparkle, the wedding’s off.”
> Closer to Home
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilight sat at her desk with a fresh quill, clean parchment, and a full inkpot at the ready. She tapped a dry quill-tip against the bare paper. Without looking up she asked, “So Dash, how’s the job coming?”

“The job? Oh, yeah, it’s a done deal. The promotion, that is.” Dash lay on a bed of pillows before the Golden Oak Library’s roaring fireplace, lazing on her side as she held her hooves to the glowing warmth. “Old Stormy Sprinkle’s retirement party is next week. I already signed the paperwork, so as of then, you’ll be looking at Ponyville’s new Regional Weather Director.” She yawned and lay back, strands of rainbow mane straying across her muzzle. “Not as much flying involved, but this means I’m the top of the feathered food chain. I can set my own hours and decide who does what when. How awesome will it be to schedule ‘official’ naptimes?”

Twilight smiled weakly. “Not as awesome as you, RD.”

“Good answer, Egghead! Yeah, it’ll be good to be the boss. Best part is, because it’s a Regional position, the paycheck comes from Canterlot, not from Ponyville, so we’ll be swimming in bits before you know it. Amazingly cool, right Twi?”

The unicorn’s gaze still hadn’t lifted from the empty sheet, her breath fanning the quill-feathers held in her magical grip.

Dash lifted her head and looked toward the desk, her brow furrowed. “Twi? Twilight, you awake?”

“Hm? Sorry, just thinking.”

“What else is new? Thought you drifted off there for a minute. Can’t have that, ‘cause I’m the champion napper here!” Dash winked and plopped her head back onto the pillow. “Wouldn’t want to have to get competitive, you know.”

Chuckling from her chair, Twilight set the quill down and turned to face the fire-warmed pegasus. “Nope, no competition here, Featherbrain. Ever thought of applying for a weather job somewhere bigger? Manehattan, or Fillydelphia, or maybe Canterlot?”

“Nah, big cities are too – well, too big. Too much bureaucracy, too much waiting around and doing absolutely zero.” The pillow muffled her response but she continued, “And Canterlot Weather’s impossible to get into. Even if I got accepted, I’d have to start from scratch, just a regular bottom-rung cloudbuster. Nope, this promotion is perfect. Bits, naps, job security – I’m golden!”

Twilight held a hoof to her chin and sat back in the creaking chair. “Anything else keeping you here, Rainbow?”

The blue mare ruffled her wings and flicked her tail as a log cracked in the fireplace. “Well, there’s you, but you probably knew that. Even if we haven’t tied the knot yet, you know I’ll always be here to warm the cushions, right?”

The unicorn closed her eyes and sighed, smiling. “Wouldn’t have it any other way, Featherbrain! But what else? I mean, you’re the one and only Rainbow Dash – haven’t you ever thought about getting out of little old Ponyville and showing off to the world?”

Dash rose and stretched her back legs, muscles rippling in the firelight, then circled cat-like on her pillow-bed and lay down again, still facing the licking flames. “Not really. I don’t think I could leave Fluttershy here alone. She’s a grown mare, I know, but she still calls me every time a shadow jumps.” She yawned again, licking her lips. “And after everything we’ve been through, I don’t think I could leave the rest of the girls either. What if  - okay, more when than if – what happens when Celestia comes calling with the disaster of the week? If the Elements are scattered halfway across Equestria, then the bad guys win, right? Uncool. Totally uncool.”

Twilight stared at the firelit pony drifting off to sleep on her floor, long minutes passing as only the crackling of flames and the splitting of logs broke the library silence. Slowly she turned to her parchment and lifting the quill in a lavender glow, penned a letter in her meticulous and careful hoofwriting. Satisfied and sighing, she levitated the letter into a box marked 'Outgoing' and walked slowly to the sitting room which encircled her fireplace. She lay her head against Rainbow’s powerful chest and pulled a blanket over her legs. Moments later a great blue wing settled across her shoulders as she let the azure pony’s gentle snoring and steady breathing lull her into warm and happy sleep.

~~~~~

Dear Princess Celestia,

Thank you for bringing the teaching position in Advanced Magical Theory and Practice at Trottingham University to my attention. It did indeed sound perfect for my skills and experience. For a number of personal reasons I believe I’ll have to let this one go. I appreciate the thought and I look forward to finding similar work closer to home.

Thanks again for your recommendation.

Your faithful student,

Twilight Sparkle
> Wings, Wonderbolts, and You
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------




The following is a Choose Your Own Adventure story. Please resist the urge to read ahead or to read sections out of order. By all means, though, please re-read the story to find all the alternate paths and scenes. Enjoy!








1

This started as the single most awesome-tastic day in the history of – well, of really awesome days. The Wonderbolts – yes, those Wonderbolts – finally got off their turkey-feathered flanks and sent you the letter everypony knew you’d be getting. They want you! They totally do. Not that you actually applied for the job – staying Ponyville’s Regional Weather Director means free naps for life, after all – but hey, let’s face it, you’re awesome. Of course they’d come looking for you, application or not.

You haven’t actually read the letter yet, but what else could it be? You won Best Young Flier (as if there were ever any doubt), you graduated their little Academy (naturally), you rescued their Captain (and copped a feel - don't tell Twilight!), and let’s face it – you’re the fastest flier in Equestria! Why ruin a day like today with details?

If you read the letter, go to 5.
If you skip the letter and go find somepony to brag to, go to 7.





2

Off you fly, bolting through the warm afternoon sky, amazing onlookers and your adoring fans with a series of death-defying loops, spins, dives, and Immelmare turns. They’re cheering for you! The trophy is yours, medals aplenty clinking and clanking around your neck while Spitfire and Princess Celestia engage in hoof-to-hoof combat for the chance to “thank” you for your performance. “Girls, girls! Chill! There’s plenty of Dash to go around,” you remind them. Celestia’s mane is soon wrapped around you, soft and fluffy and a little moist.

Actually it’s much like the cloud you wake up on, drifting lazily over Ponyville after a hard afternoon of showing off.  Naptime over, you stretch legs and wings and drop off the cloud into the early evening air.

If you’re finally ready to brag to somepony, go to 7.
If you  decide to read the letter after all, go to 6.





3

You flash your perfect smile. You flex your wonderful wings. You waggle your eyebrows, which may or may not be as stupendous as your wings, but they let this fine little unicorn know exactly what’s on your mind, and that’s… well, honestly you’re not sure what comes next, but she doesn’t know that, right? Carnal knowledge, schmarnal knowledge, what matters is that you’re excellent at everything excellent, and Twi’s read enough books to be excellent at whatever it is you’re trying to get done here. She smiles wider and beckons you closer. Oh, you’re good. No, you’re great! It. Is. On!

“Dash,” she purrs, glancing at the letter, “do for me what you’re about to do for your Wonderbolts, and I promise I’ll make it worth your while.” She’s grinning. You’re panting. Life is perfect!

If you let her have her way with you, go to 8.
If you read the letter in case you need to do this twice, go to 6.





4

Twilight takes her sweet time reading the letter while you strike what will surely be the first of many heroic poses. She looks up and smiles at you, giggling a little. That mare’s head over hooves for you, right? “Dash, this is great! I’m so proud of you,” she says, beaming. “Even if it’s not a full-time position, it still means they’re keeping you in mind. I’m impressed that they offered you an opportunity like this, and even moreso that you plan on accepting.” Yep. She’s hooked, your ego’s stoked, and it’s time to seal the deal.

If you sweet talk her into some hot wing action, go to 3.
If you read the letter to see how awesome you really are, go to 6.





5

You’re torn between gently easing the flap open to preserve the authentic Wonderbolt smell and ripping the envelope to shreds to get what you know you completely deserved. Patience… for the loss! You rip the flap open. “Dear Miss Dash,” it reads. “Blah Blah impressed by your style, blah blah, honored if you would report to Headquarters this Friday at Noon for blah blah.” Perfect! You feel so informed.

If you go find somepony to brag to, go to 7.
If you rocket off into the sky for a celebration stunt, go to 2.





6

“Dear Miss Dash,” you read aloud. “We are not able to offer you a spot on the team at this time. However, we were impressed by your style and your persistence at the Academy. We would be honored if you would report to Headquarters this Friday at Noon for a spot in our promotional photo shoot. We’re producing a pamphlet for our new recruits entitled Creepy Obsessed Fans and You. Should you choose to accept, you will be filmed in the role of  ‘Crazed Stalker #2’. We have a selection of your fan letters available if you need source material.”

Oh, horseapples.

     THE END.





7

Who could best appreciate your newly proclaimed awesomeness? Pinkie – no, she celebrates everything. Anti-climactic. Fluttershy or Rarity? Wouldn’t appreciate the achievement. Applejack? Nah, she’d try to one-up you. Probably try to compare this to her giant apple that won “best giant apple” at the giant apple fair. Twilight? Hmm, excitable, smokin’ flank, genuinely appreciates everything you do, connections in Canterlot, smokin’ flank…

Streaking through Ponyville at treetop height, you land with perfect precision at the Library. Then you extract your head from the flowerpot and dust yourself off with a flourish, because you totally meant to do that. “Egghead!” you call, busting through the door in a tinkle of bells and chimes and overturned stacks of books.

She looks you over with a mix of revulsion (she taught you that one!) and what can only be described as perfectly understandable wing envy. Yeah, that’s definitely the face she’s making. “Featherbrain! Not that it’s not great to see you, but I’m in the middle of a reshelving marathon, isn’t there a Boutique you’d rather crash into?” she asks, one eyebrow raised above her ever-present stack of checklists. “Or maybe a cottage, or a barn, or bakery?”

If you find the confidence to put the moves on her, go to 3.
If you flash her the letter and a smile, go to 4.





8

She takes you by the hoof and leads you into the Library’s basement. Bedroom would’ve been your first choice, but hey, whatever turns her on, right? Twilight races toward you to claim her sweet blue reward. With a hoofful of wires and sensors. Okay, maybe she’s planning to tie you up, or hooking you up to an awesome-o-meter (she has to have one, she’s dating you, right?), or… Or not. Hours and hours and not a single nibble or grope or grunt later, you’re a living experiment, detectors and gadgets and a nest of cables draped across you and plugged into bleeping, blinking, magic-powered whatchamacallits while Twilight mumbles about “theoretical effects of inflated ego on wingpower.” Worse, she’s got photos of everything. This is so not what a flying feast of fantasticness like you deserved.

Maybe you should have read that letter after all. Go to 6.

> Pinfeathers
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rafts of wispy clouds give texture to the darkening sky as Owl and Falcon launch themselves into crisp and cooling air. Feathers slicked back and wings beating, they climb over houses and stores, schools and shops, leaving branch and ground farther and farther below.

Free from ponies and population they wing their way ever upwards, gardens and lawns and streets reduced to patterns in the distance. Over fields and hills they glide until yards become farms. Weaving among the trees of an orchard, they share a smile and nod before peeling off to separate paths. Owl swoops low, darting among thick leaves and heavy, pendulous fruits as he scans the well-trodden grass for unsuspecting prey. Falcon climbs, wings splayed wide as she circles high overhead, every swaying leaf and weed below as clear as if she’d held them at beak’s length.

Opposite the orchard, over clear ponds and ambling streams they meet again, a mutual shrug the only indication that prey had been scarce. Into the forest they fly, threading their way at breakneck speed between crowded saplings and towering pines. At a coo from Owl they agree on a branch and alight to rest. Long minutes pass in silence as they breathe deeply of the forest air, its scent thick with sap and blossom and undisturbed earth. Carefully and meticulously they primp and preen, beaks clacking and feathers smoothed until once again they sit ready as they airborne predators they are. Woodland silence descends and they pause, watching and waiting, patient in their nocturnal vigil. 

Somewhere in overgrowth a tiny heart beats and thumps, tiny veins pulse, and tiny paws scamper across scattered leaves. Warm fur stands out beacon-bright and beckoning against cool earth, and tiny breaths puff against the hull of a nut. The fieldmouse rolls the nut back and forth, tiny teeth clicking as they search for a way to extract the succulent fruit while tiny claws clack and click against the shell.

On his perch Owl looks about and freezes, stock-still. Falcon sees nothing but shares the gesture, trusting her friend’s preternatural senses, coiling her muscles as she awaits the signal. A powerful hoot issues from Owl, his voice strident and reverberating through the treescape. Its effect is immediate: far below, something skitters through the leaf litter, frightened into movement by Owl’s booming call.

This is the moment for which the two were born, Owl silent and powerful and night-eyed, Falcon fast and sharp and inescapable. They dive, a race to the underbrush, and their prey is caught and silenced before the dust settles to the forest floor. There they dine in silence, fur and bone and sinew filling their stomachs. Falcon reaches in, cleaning a glistening red speck from Owl’s cheek; Owl preens an errant feather on Falcon’s silken breast. They share a knowing nod, their nightly ritual complete. They are invigorated, basking in the glow of the chase, and many clouds pass overhead before they sigh and resign themselves to a return to civilization.

Finally they wing their way at housetop level to land in the branches of the great golden oak, its heart warm and its windows glowing, scents of ink and parchment drifting up from below. Owl sits full-bellied, wide-eyed, and refreshed while Falcon pants, weary and tiring as night closes in. Fluffing feathers in the cooling breeze, Falcon draws Owl closer for warmth and a last goodbye before leaving to roost. Their adventure in the skies coming to its close, Owl leans in and shares a beak with his friend before gliding gently through an open window into the flicker-lit treehome below.

Sighing and contented, Falcon leaps into rapidly chilling air and beats her way up and onward, cloud-bound and soaring. By chance she glances behind and immediately curses her unfailing vision. Between the branches and leaves of the oak, through the still-ajar window, she sees what she swore she’d try to forget. Her heart leaps and her bile rises.

There on the floor of the oakhome library lies perfection in the form of taut muscles and rainbow mane, sky-blue coat and speed almighty, her beloved blue pony. Her great flawless wings lie outstretched, one warming and caressing the purple pony who so adores Owl. The other glorious wing, now traitorous and vile, covers and embraces Him. There It sits, wing-warmed, peaceful in his idiocy, the monster that stole from Falcon her joy, her future, her passion and her love. A cry escapes Falcon’s throat and echoes in the nighttime sky, a curse on the day the blue pony met that - that shell-armored beast.

Him.

That thing.

That goddamn tortoise.
> Daring Do and the Chapel Perilous
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilight tapped the ragged stack of papers with her hoof, her expression steely and her voice sharp. “Keep reading, Dash.”

“I don’t see what’s so bad. I mean,” protested the pegasus, “sure it’s a little rough, obviously fan-written, and it’s definitely rushed. But…”

Twice more Twilight rapped a hoof on the papers. “Keep. Reading.”

Daring Do and the Chapel Perilous, Chapter 11

Stones from the shattered facade crashed to the floor around the two trembling ponies, every tremor threatening to unleash a hail of stalactites from the cavern roof above. Crouching under a fallen slab, Daring coughed as the masonry around them was reduced to dust and pebbles. “If we can just get to the temple opening, we’ll be okay! I think we can time our run between tremors, so on three, we’ll - “

“Sorry, Daring, my ankle - it’s twisted.” The diminutive unicorn winced, her dusty and overlarge glasses magnifying her grimace. “I’ll never make it to the temple. Go on without me, I’ll stay under the slab and take my chances.”

“No can do! If we don’t make a run for it, we’re toast.” The tan pegasus flinched as another chunk of the temple’s intricately carved frieze collapsed and fell to the cavern floor with an echoing boom. “Sweet leaping Luna, who builds a temple in a cavern a day’s walk inside a cave tunnel, anyway?”

“The ancient Svise’M’oacha cult, that’s who. They worshipped a goddess of gluttony and hid their temple here to avoid persecution by the outside world.” The lavender mare put a hoof on Daring’s shoulder and shouted above the din of disintegrating stonework, “Now get out of here. I’m serious! I’m just a Curator, not an explorer. I’m not cut out for this kind of adventure. Get to the temple, find the Staff of Nes-Tele, and get us out of here before the entire tunnel complex fails and buries us!”

“I can’t do it without you,” the explorer pleaded, “I’ll carry you, I - “

From the temple’s dust-clouded entrance a chilling cackle rang out. “MWWUAA HA HA HA HA HA!!!”

“Daring,” gulped the curator, “this temple should have been abandoned centuries ago! I’m guessing that laugh came from whoever or whatever is causing this cave-in. We should - “

Dash stared at the sheet of paper, holding it first one way, the another, as if the letters suddenly made even less sense. “You’re joking, right, Twi? This is a prank, it’s gotta be. You mean she actually wrote ‘MWWUAA HA HA HA HA HA’ when the villain laughed?”

The lavender mare closed her eyes and sighed, a hoof to her temple. “Yes. With three exclamation points. Skip ahead a paragraph or two and keep reading.”

Daring Do and the Chapel Perilous, Chapter 12

One pink hoof tightly gripping the glowing staff, the High Priestess swirled her clashing candy-striped robes around her and grinned at the two trapped ponies, wild-eyed and laughing manically. “Dare disturb the sacred feeding and nom-nomming grounds of the Svise’M’oacha, do you? You shall feel the wrath and possibly the indigestion of most holy Nes-Tele, interlopers, and soon the entire surface world will follow! All of you heretics who deny yourselves Her sweet goodness will suffer, especially the assistant bakers, for gluttony is the path of the righteous and the really really hungry! This declare I, Carnation Tart!”

“Really? The evil High Priestess is a pink earth pony named ‘Carnation Tart’ who preaches gluttony and wants all Equestria to be on a permanent sugar high? First, I’ve read Daring Do fanfics based on us and our friends before, but this is ridiculous. Second, Twilight, this is half an hour of my awesome life I’ll never get back! I - oh, all right. Only for you.”

“…I think I have a plan! I’ll use the dust and debris to sneak around behind that babbling idiot priestess if you can distract her for a minute. One, two, three.. go!” Without looking back the tan pegasus launched herself at breakneck speed, winging her way through fallen columns and buttresses, darting through dustclouds and darkness toward the temple and its pink protector.

“Daring, wait! Distract her with what? Harsh language?” Shaking her head, the unicorn cleared her throat and shouted, “Oh most wise and holy Tart, in exchange for our unworthy lives, may I offer you the recipe for the sweetest concoction ever devised by the surface world, a beverage of unsurpassed syrupy goodness known as Arcturian Fizz?”

Carnation Tart stamped her hooves on dusty stone, her unworldly pink mane blowing behind her like a cotton candy halo. “Cower before the might of… Oooh, Fizz! Even just saying Fizz feels yummy on your tongue, try it! Fizzzzzzzz… Yes, the mighty Tart will hear your recipe and…”

“Rainbow, stop banging your head on my desk. You’ll break either the desk or your head, and I can’t replace either one. Now read the last couple of paragraphs where the hoofwriting gets shaky.”

There on the ancient temple’s altar they lay, dust and the Priestess’ lifeless pink body forgotten in the throes of passion. Sweat dripped from the pegasus’ brow as she held her lover in shaking hooves. In the glow of a magical grip the unicorn levitated the Staff of Nes-Tele, and angling it behind her paramour, eased it gently into

Five minutes later Twilight and Rainbow stood in the foyer of a small woodland cottage, staring at a quivering mass of yellow and pink which could have been mistaken for a paint stain had it not been feathered and whimpering.

Twilight’s muzzle wrinkled and her eye twitched visibly. “First, Fluttershy - we know you wrote this, because we recognize the hoofwriting. We also know you wouldn’t have written this abominable tripe on your own. Who put you up to it?”

The pile of feathers quaked and squeaked, “It was Spike! He offered to feed my animals for a whole month if I did it but he wanted it written in an hour and I’m oh so very, very sorry!”

Leveling a hoof at the trembling mare, Dash asked, “Second question, Shy. Why was Pinkie the villain in this story?”

“Um, I think she promised Spike a batch of cupcakes yesterday but then she burned another batch and had to use Spike’s cupcakes to fill a customer’s order and he was, well, a little miffed. A bit. Okay, a lot, and he asked me to write her that way. Can I hide now?”

“Last question, Fluttershy.” The offending papers shook in Twilight’s magical grasp. “Why in all Tartarus is there a sex scene in this? We know it’s supposed to be Dash and me, but for the love of Celestia, why?”

Yellow feathers flew from the pegasus as her shuddering became violent. “Oh, Spike thinks that…” She mumbled a few words but seeing the glares from her accusers, repeated, “mare on mare is hot. And every time you two read a Daring Do book, or even a fan fiction, you two get, well, um… frisky. Like bunnies in spring kind of frisky. The next Daring Do novel isn’t out until next month, so he was hoping that if you had some, um, reading material in the meantime, that, well…”

Dash leaned over to her purple marefriend and whispered, “You know, Twi, now that I think about it, they’re right. Say, do you think Pinkie might have a real Staff of Nes-Tele we could borrow?”
> Pew! Pew! Pew!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Onward sailed the Elements of Harmony, their tiny and ridiculously inadequate craft storm-tossed on the roiling sea. Wave after wave crashed over the bow as thunderclouds above and merciless ocean below conspired to end their journey.

“Eep!” cried Kindness, hiding under a gunwale.  She quivered in paralyzing terror next to Generosity, who refused to lift a single freakin’ hoof to help for fear that her precious mane would get mussed. As usual.

Laughter stepped bravely and absolutely uselessly to the railing and made epically funny faces at the thunderhead, her expressions a catalog of contortions and clown-y stuff. Somehow the winds failed to laugh and blew harder than before. “Wow,” she mused, “tough crowd!”

“Gee, imagine that!” quipped handsome and dashing Loyalty. “Say, Magic, you foxy little egghead, can you magic this storm away?”

“Not this time, you gorgeous hunk of pony perfection!” gushed Magic, her sweet little rain-slicked flank looking particularly hot. “My magic is suddenly and inexplicably ineffective against this weather! If only some brave pegasus would save me, I would be hers forever!”

“Done and done, sweetcheeks!” Awesomely epic fight music blared from the heavens as Loyalty leapt into the skies, her rainbow trail a beacon of hope and amazingness for all ponykind. Before her skilled hooves the stormclouds fled in panic, the hindmost kicked into wisps of harmless cirrus by Loyalty, who totally aced the job by shaping the rest of the clouds into her cutie mark in, like, no seconds flat.

Landing on the ship’s deck with her usual unmatched flourish, Loyalty flexed her wings in the spreading sunlight as the heavens themselves opened to congratulate her. Magic rushed to her side, throwing her hooves around the stunning mare, making that face she makes when Loyalty knows she’s totally getting lucky the second they’re out of danger.

Finishing her thank-you-for-saving-all-our-flanks-again makeout session with Loyalty, Magic trotted to the ship’s wheelhouse and gave the other Elements a four-hour lecture on the history of lectures about storm lectures, because, you know, when you’ve just barely escaped with your lives, that’s the first thing on your list of ways to pass the time while you dry off, right? While she was blathering on and on and fraggin’ on, Loyalty motioned to Generosity to join her at the stern.

“Oh darling, dearest,” she droned in that whiny voice that I have no idea how Fluttershy can stand, “I couldn’t possibly frou frou hoity-toity hooficure Prench dainty doily yadda yadda yadda.”

Loyalty rubbed her temple, looked around to make sure Magic’s lecture had successfully bored the rest of the Elements to sleep, and promptly kicked Generosity over the railing. She landed with a ‘ploop’ and mercifully sank below the waves before she could inflict another of her beauty tips on the rest of the Elements.

Magic looked up from the thousand pages of lecture notes which she somehow manages to pack on every single frelling trip we take and scratched her cute little head. “Loyalty, have you seen Generosity? I was hoping to lecture everyone at least once this trip.”

Loyalty shined her hooves and stared ruggedly out to sea. “She lost a false eyelash overboard and dove in to get it. I’m sure she’ll be fine. She said she’d tread water for a couple of weeks and wait for us on the return trip.”

Magic’s eyes glazed over at the awesomely azure sight before her. Blinking a few times, she muttered, “I somehow believe every word you just said.” Magic’s humongous brain usually turned to oatmeal around Loyalty, and today was no exception.

Suddenly the sea rumbled around them, threatening to shake the boat to splinters. The Elements fought in vain to keep their balance on the rain-slicked deck, except for Loyalty, who can, you know, fly. From out of the depths a scaly head exploded, borne on a vast coiling body bristling with terrible spines. The sea-serpent’s scales glistened in the sunlight like … like …

“Plates of iridescent armor, forged in the fires of some crystalline abyss?”

Yeah, totally! The towering beast roared with a deafening cry, circling the little ship as its occupants cowered in fright before its evil evilness. Except for Loyalty, of course, who glared at the great beast defiantly.

“Shucks an’ tarnation!” exclaimed Honesty. “Gol-dangit, y’all! Ah cain’t buck that there critter. It ain’t no apple tree, ya know, sugacube? Maybe if’n it comes closer, Ah kin chuck mah hat at it!”

Kindness peeked out from under a tarp strung between two barrels of gunpowder and squeaked, “Is it, um, a flaky chaos god or some little forest creature I can use the lotta-freakin’-good-it-did-against-Discord ‘stare’ on?” Loyalty shook her head, her +5 Mane of Uniqueness waving gallantly in the breeze. “Oh, well, I guess, if it’s, um, okay with you, then, Eep!”

Loyalty rolled her stunning magenta eyes as a brilliant tactical plan unfolded in her razor-sharp mind. Lifting the dripping tarp and twirling it into a tight bundle, Kindness and gunpowder and all, she spun it around and around, hurling the pitiful pony package toward the ravenously fangy creature. Naturally, ‘cause it was Loyalty’s plan, the monster fell for it and gobbled up the entire bundle, which it swallowed in a single voracious gulp, burping gunpowder and yellow feathers.

Loyalty launched off the deck to a trumpet fanfare, weaving in and out of the creature’s snapping jaws, circling tighter and tighter until it wavered and swayed in dizziness. With the fiend temporarily stunned, Loyalty sped into the sky, a rainbow contrail marking her … her …

“Marvelous ascent to the lofty heavens?”

Exactly! At her apogee, she turned, leveled a hoof toward the massive scaly brute, and shouting her catchphrase of “Who’s the mare? I’m the mare!” she dove toward the ocean with unbelievable speed. She felt the familiar shock cone forming around her, and mere seconds before impact, she pulled up triumphantly as her …

“Sonic Rainboom split the air and detonated the gunpowder barrels, sending the foul creature’s viscera raining down over miles of uncharted ocean?”

Totally! Victorious, naturally, she lit by the ship’s wheel as Magic rushed to her side and proclaimed Loyalty’s undying magnificence and irresistible sexiness. Loyalty turned to Laughter and Honesty and raising one stupendous eyebrow, asked, “Shouldn’t you two be out looking for Kindness and Generosity?” Balloons and Hat nodded blankly and jumped overboard, disappearing under the cruel sea as Loyalty held Magic close and …

Twilight stood in the bathroom doorway, hooves crossed and eyes squinting. “Dash, why is the Element of Magic grinding its jewel against the jewel on the Element of Loyalty?”

“GAH!” Rainbow leapt out of the bathtub, panting, soapy water covering the walls as bubbles floated gently through the room. “How … How long have you been standing there, Twi?”

The unicorn’s muzzle showed the slightest hints of a budding smirk. “Oh, long enough.”

Dash’s ears drooped soggily and her eyes shot wide. “Please, please, Twi, don’t tell the Princess I was using the Elements as …”

“Bath toys? Well, okay,” she grinned, “under one condition.”

“Anything, Twilight!”

“Pick them up, and stand aside.”

Quickly gathering five soapy necklaces and a waterlogged tiara, Dash stood up and waited. The single word she heard from Magic was one that echoed through the sleepy Ponyville night and would one day pass on into legend.

“CANNONBALL!”
> Less of Me
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Surprise! What do you think, Dash?”

“Uh, what do I think about what, Twi?”

“This, silly! I filled out your official application to the Wonderbolts. I put together your whole curriculum vitae complete with supporting documentation. How do you like it?”

“It’s … okay, I guess.”

“I know, I know, I fibbed a little. I said I was working on an important project all this time, and I even left all my beakers out and left my test equipment turned on to make it look like some grand experiment, but really I was working on this. Sorry if I …”

“No, Twilight, it’s not that. I mean, have you really looked at all this stuff? All these newspaper clippings, and articles, and - sheesh, where did you find all this?”

“All over Equestria, really. That’s what took so long, I had to write to dozens of different ponies and places to pull all this together. So you mean you didn’t want to apply after all? I thought that was still your goal, after your term as Regional Weather Director was up.”

“It is, Twi, it’s just … here, let me show you. Take a look at this journal article, for example. Cloudsdale Aeronautics Monthly, Volume 35, Issue 7. Let’s see, where is it? A Study on the Effects of Varying Tail Lengths on Maneuverability, no, that’s not it … The Bumblebee Effect: Obesity and Early Wing Stress, that’s not it either. Ah, here we go: Use of Negative Pressure and Countercurrents to Disperse Class 5+ Storms, by Prismatic Charge.”

“That’s you, Professor Dash! Do you have any idea how hot it is seeing your name in print in a peer-reviewed academic journal?”

“Yeah, you might have mentioned once or twice that it’s totally smokin’, except that’s not me.”

“What do you mean? You’ve always used ‘Prismatic Charge’ as your pseudonym when you write these intelligent, erudite … “

“Whoa, Egghead, stop right there! The fact that you used the word ‘erudite’ to describe my writing completely reeks of un-coolness. That’s exactly why there’s no way I’m letting the wide world of ponydom know that I got a little more education than I let on, and that I occasionally use it. I’d rather stay Rainbow Awesome Dash, thank you very much, and let Prismatic Charge keep her bylines.”

“Well, what about all the newspaper reports from our trip to the Crystal Empire? Defeating King Sombra and restoring Princess Cadance to the Crystal Throne has to rank right up there for lines to include on every résumé.”

“Did you actually read the articles? I did. Check out this one: … Princess Celestia’s personal student braved the horrors and snares of the Crystal Castle to retrieve the Crystal Heart. Trapped in the tower, she gave the Heart to her dragon assistant, who delivered it to Princess Mi Amore Cadenza in time to … See?”

“But everypony helped, Rainbow! Without all of us working together, we’d never have made it!”

“Let’s be realistic, Twi. While you and Spike were saving the world, the rest of us were doing face-painting and making straw hats. We weren’t even there as the Element Bearers! That whole gig was your mission and your test. We were there for you, not to get our names in the papers. That’s what friends do, right?”

“Loyal to the last, eh, Featherbrain? You know, I never wonder why I love you, Dash.”

“Maybe ‘cause I’m the postermare for stupendousness?”

“Aaaand the romantic moment dies. So, what about the Ponyville-to-Cloudsdale water-lift? You almost set a record, and you did it with Spitfire watching!”

“She knows I was there and she knows I was coordinating the lift. I still can’t put it on the Wonderbolts application, though. Read the official report, about three pages from the end.”

“Okay, let’s see … total wingpower hovered at 795, threatening integrity of the final lift attempt. Finally a late entrant arrived in the form of Ponyville resident Fluttershy, whose incredible last-moment efforts pushed her group beyond the 800 wingpower barrier and ensured success of the attempt … Wait, you wrote this report, Dash. You actually wrote yourself out of the official report and credited Fluttershy with the success?”

“Shy needed the confidence boost more than I needed the fame. I sent her a framed copy of that page afterwards.”

“You get more incredible by the day, Rainbow. I mean it.”

“I hear ya. There’s this hot little librarian I gotta keep up with in the amazingness department, you know?”

“There has to be something here we can use. Maybe this whole magazine article about the changeling attack on Canterlot and the defeat of Chrysalis?”

“Zip, zero, nada. Every official account says ‘the Element Bearers fought bravely but were outnumbered and overwhelmed before they could bring the Elements to the battle’. Which was true, of course. Totally not cool, but still true. Cadance and your brother get the biggest share of credit for turning the tide, along with you.”

“The Princesses can vouch for you, can’t they? And we took down Discord - there’s no denying that one!”

“Getting into the Wonderbolts is about flying skill and attitude, not about who you know. Even if the Princesses all swore that I was there and fighting my flank off, I refuse to mention it because don’t want anypony saying that I got in because Celestia was pushing for it. And let’s not talk about Discord.”

“We were all there, Dash, we worked together to …”

“No, Twilight, we weren’t all there. If I mention that I helped fight Discord, then I have to answer why even though all of us were crazy-fied by Discord, yours truly was the only one who abandoned her friends completely and left. Took off, bugged out, and bailed.”

“That wasn’t your fault, Dash! Discord made you …”

“No, Twilight, just - just stop. Even if I’m the only one who knows it, it still matters to me. We can say ‘the Elements won in the end’ but I know what I did, and I don’t want my name mentioned next to that.”

“I’m … I’m sorry, Dash. I guess I should have asked you about all of this first. I didn’t realize that the wonderful Rainbow Dash I know isn’t the one you want the public to see.”

“Don’t get me wrong, Twi. I love what you did for me - it was a ton of work, and I really appreciate it. It’s not like my vitae is empty. I still saved three Wonderbolts’ lives while winning the Best Young Flyer competition. I went to Wonderbolts Academy, told off Spitfire to her face, and still graduated at the top of my class. And I’m still the only pony in the modern era to do a Sonic Rainboom. Three, really, but who’s counting?”

“All true. Anything else I should include?”

“Something I’d want to admit in public, right? Well, then, you forgot the most important testament to my awesomeness of all! Here, write this down: ‘Rainbow Dash is totally nailing Princess Celestia’s personal stu …’ OW! Hey, what was that for?”
> The Ink Wasn't Even Dry Yet
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Applejack sat on her haunches, eyes wide and hat in hoof, staring at the scene unfolding in front of Ponyville’s Golden Oak Library. Leaning slightly to the side but unable to tear her gaze away from the impending carnage, she muttered, “Them two been together, what, a year now?”

Cowering behind her quivering pink mane, Fluttershy nodded. “Oh, I think so. Should we, um, intervene?”

“And do what, Sugar?” Donning her hat again and pulling it low, she shook her head. “Rainbow Dash could Sonic Rainboom half o’ Ponyville into a crater. Y’all saw how she helped demolish Barn Four? An’ Twilight could turn everypony in the whole durn town into salamanders or newts or some such without even breakin’ a sweat.” Turning down the lane to give the Library a wide berth, she added, “Nope, I ain’t gettin’ ‘tween them two.”

“Salamanders would be okay. They’re very nice.” Fluttershy ruffled her feathers and followed the farmer, still shaking with every step. “You’re right, but I still don’t want to see our friends in an argument.”

“It’s not an argument!” screamed the purple and blue ponies.

Muzzle to muzzle with the Ponyville Regional Weather Director, Twilight’s lip curled as she snarled, “You’re joking, right? I was born for this! This is what I trained for! It’s in my blood, Featherbrain, and if you know what’s good for you you’ll call this off before somepony gets hurt.”

Dash flared her wings and dropped her forequarters. Her magenta eyes narrowed as she growled, “Oh, no, Egghead. You brought this on yourself. Rainbow Stupendous Dash does not back down from a challenge, especially one she’s got locked up! Back off, Twi - this one’s in the bag and it’s all me.”

“No way, no day!” sneered the librarian, her horn crackling with bolts of lavender lightning. “You’ve been getting by on reputation and history. What have you done lately to back it up? Nothing! I didn’t spend my life learning from Princess Celestia herself just to let some overgrown bluejay insult me and everything I do!”

“Oh, so little Miss Purple Pointy Pony thinks she can do better? If that’s the way you wanna play, filly, then you’re on!” Lifting an azure hoof, she spat on it and offered it to her challenger. “Shake on it, Sparkle! You know the terms, right?”

Twilight grinned and returned the gesture with a slickly spitty hoof. “You’re on. And I know you remember what’s going to happen when I win.”

“I know what you wish would happen,” leered Rainbow, “but you can forget it. This one’s a slam dunk for yours truly! Two weeks, Egghead. Go!” The librarian vanished in a popping flash of purple sparks as the pegasus rocketed into the sky, trailing rainbows as she shot toward a floating cloud-house.

Some days later Applejack was closing her apple-stall for the day when she spotted a diminutive purple dragon trudging through the market district, an overloaded red wagon slowing his every step. “Spike,” she called, “need a hoof there? Sweet leapin’ Luna, think y’all got enough quills an’ ink? Looks like y’all musta’ cleaned out the scroll store, too!”

Spike paused, panting, and shook his head. “Nope, I’m okay. Gotta get this stuff back to Twilight. I haven’t seen this little of her since her final exams in Magic class!” Picking up the wagon handle, he continued as he walked away, “Funny thing, though. Half this stuff she uses and the other half she leaves out on the balcony every night. Gone every morning, too. That mare just gets weirder and weirder.”

Two weeks after the confrontation, Twilight and Dash smiled and waved cheerfully as the mailmare deposited two large packets in the library’s mailbox and wobbled off on her route. Twilight offered a sealed envelope to Rainbow as she grinned. “You first, Dash!”

Dash stopped whistling and flexing her wings long enough to take the letter in hoof. “Good news before bad, huh, babe? Okay, here we go! ‘Dear Prismatic Charge, Cloudsdale Aeronautics Quarterly is happy to announce that your article Techniques for Control and Dissipation of F4+ Tornadoes has been accepted for publication. It will appear in the Autumn 1007 AE (7 ALR) issue. Included here please find an offprint for review and final corrections. Sincerely, C.A.Q. Editorial Board’.” Pumping her hoof in the air, she leapt to treetop height and shouted, “Yes! Who’s the mare? I’m the mare!”

Twilight waved a hoof nonchalantly and smirked as she said, “Hold your horses, Rainbow, the best is yet to come! And here for the victory, I present… ” Opening her envelope, she bowed and read, “ ‘Dear Ms. Sparkle, We thank you for your submission entitled Use and Abuse of the 53rd Sub-Magical Element in Cross-Polyvectoral Transformation. We found it exceedingly well-written and researched. However, though ours is a well-read and technically savvy readership, we found the article perhaps too technical and erudite for even our most magically advanced unicorns to comprehend. We must therefore decline your submission at this time, and we hope you will consider re-submitting a less-advanced piece in the future. Yours, Editorial Staff / Canterlot Journal of Advanced Magical Theory'.”

Eyes wide and watering, jaw hanging open and ears drooping, she dropped the letter to the dust. Moments later she felt hot breath in her ear as Dash whispered, “So. Totally. Awesome! You knew the bet, and it's time to pay up. Here, Twi, I took the liberty of writing the letter for you. Just have Spike send it, and we’re even.”

Dear Princess Celestia,

Rainbow Dash is the sexiest mare in the air. She makes my heart quake and my booty shake.

Sincerely,

Dashie’s new pet,

Sparky T
> Audience
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilight flailed madly under Luna’s moon, limbs waving wildly in every direction. Her eyes were shut tight against the world’s distractions, and her tongue stuck out in total concentration. Rhythmic music pulsed into the little clearing from beyond a nearby hedge. 

Some distance away, Rainbow landed next to four ponies who watched Twilight’s lavender spasms intently. “Hey guys, you should have seen the look on… Oh, wow,” she said as her voice trailed off and her eyes grew large, “just… wow.” Looking around sheepishly, she added, “Does Twilight know we’re watching? I mean, does she realize just how…”

“Not a bit, darling,” sighed Rarity. “Not a bit. Your marefriend is completely oblivious to the atrocities she’s inflicting on centuries of cultured social dance.”

Pink hooves suddenly blocked their field of vision. “Popcorn?”

“No thank you, Pinkie," Rarity sighed, "although Twilight must have been taking lessons from you, as she seems to have no sense of propriety whatsoever.”

“Sense of propriety? Is that like Pinkie Sense? Because I’ve been twitchy-twitching all over and that means there’s a real doozy coming, and this looks like it. I’m so glad Twilight’s dancing because dancing makes her happy and I love seeing ponies happy but,” and at this Pinkie Pie seemed to deflate a little from her usual cotton-candy-maned bubbly self, “if she knew we all thought her dancing looked like an epileptic gerbil being electrocuted then she might not be so happy.”

Pinkie paused for a moment, then her mane and tail sprung back to normal. “But the rest of us are all happy and laughing, and the more the merrier, so I’m okie-dokey-lokey with that!”

Applejack sat to one side and shook her head beneath a wide Stetson hat and muttered, “Ain’t never seen nothin’ like it. Not since Big Mac drank a bad batch o’ Zap Apple Cider an’ thought it’d be a good idea to cool hisself by drinkin’ straight honey, without shakin’ the bees off the honeycomb first.” Suddenly grinning, she leaned toward Rainbow and whispered, “Does Twi get this, uh, energetic durin’ y’all’s private time, RD?”

Rainbow lifted an eyebrow. “Sparky? Sure, she can keep up with Rainbow Awesome Dash. But this filly?” she said, pointing at Twilight as the unicorn swiveled and oscillated unsteadily to a beat which had ended some minutes earlier, “Never met her.” Applejack began to protest but a blue hoof to her muzzle interrupted her. “Got that, AJ? Never seen her before. Don’t know her. And you can’t prove otherwise.”

Fluttershy quietly ignored the others and instead stood rapt by the grating display of gesticulations. “I feel like I should, um, tend to her or something. I think I have an herbal remedy from Zecora that I could treat her with.” She grew misty-eyed as she recalled, “Twilight reminds me of Mister Hedgehog, after he was run over by the garbage cart. His little legs just kind of, um, vibrated and spasmed a little before he… he…” She burst into streams of tears and bawled, “Oh, poor Twilight! She must’ve been run over by the dessert cart, I just know it!”

The quivering pegasus was seconds from rushing to Twilight’s aid, certain that she would soon be called upon to deliver last rites, when a great gust of moonflower-scented air and a shower of indigo sparks announced the arrival of royalty.

“Greetings, ponies,” boomed the resonant tones of the Night Princess. “Greatly have we enjoyed the night’s festivities. We are glad that…” Luna trailed off for a moment, then reared up on night-blue wings and bellowed in Royal Canterlot’s most commanding voice, “SWEET MERCIFUL MOON! TWILIGHT SPARKLE HATH BEEN POSSESSED BY THE NIGHTMARE! PONIES, QUICKLY! GATHER THY ELEMENTS! I SHALL HOLD OFF THIS MONSTROSITY UNTIL WE CAN EXORCISE THE FOUL DEMON FROM YOUNG SPARKLE! EVEN NOW IT TWISTS HER POOR BODY INTO HIDEOUS GYRATIONS!”

“Hold yer hat, there, Princess. Twi’s just dancin’.”

Luna paused, mid-air, and raised an eyebrow. “SHE IS... She is – dancing?  I thought surely some foul spirit lately freed from Tartarus was controlling her every sickening motion.”

“Nah. Popcorn?”

Dash took several steps backwards, slowly and deliberately easing away from the gathering crowd. Gingerly she stuck her head through the hedge and whispered, “Hey, Vinyl! Emergency favor to ask you. Can you kill this beat? Move on to something a little less, ya know, danceable? Please, as a favor to your favorite Best Young Flyer and future Wonderbolt?” She growled a little, ruffled her feathers, and hissed, “How about for a sack of bits? Perform a free rainboom at your wedding? Come on, V, help a mare out!”

She ducked her head back through the hedge and sat scowling, forelegs crossed. “Rats! Bad news, girls. It looks like the entertainment will be here all night.” Shrinking behind her mane, she muttered, “So. Totally. Uncool.”

Luna swallowed a hoofful of buttery popcorn and mused, “I confess, though I have been exiled for a millennium, I have taken pains to study the latest Equestrian culture, and still I did not recognize this as dance. Art thou certain?”

A voice both calming and majestic answered, “Why yes, sister, indeed it is!” Princess Celestia, radiantly bathed in moonlight and smiling beatifically, cantered up to the assembled audience. “You are a lucky mare, Miss Dash! Isn’t Twilight graceful? To think, before she became my personal pupil, she couldn’t dance at all.” Celestia’s eyes twinkled as she sighed and smiled.  “I taught her everything I knew of dance. Centuries of refinement in the movement arts, and she caught on so quickly! I’m so proud of her.”
> The Trip and the Destination
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilight paced the train’s rattling and cramped passenger car, back to front, front to back. “Read it again,” she whispered over the clatter of tracks and wheels and shifting luggage.

Pausing to clear her throat, Rarity shuffled a rumpled scroll in her hooves. “Twilight, dear, we’ve read the letter from Spike a dozen times. I don’t believe there’s anything to be gained by  - ” A glare from the younger unicorn froze her and she recoiled at the flashing purple eyes across the aisle. “Alright, then. Princess – Major thunderstorm over Ponyville. Rainbow Dash left to help weather team. Midair lightning strike, bad crash. Dash in Ponyville General Hospital. Please tell Twilight and the girls to hurry back. It’s not good. – Spike.”

Twilight stopped at the rear of the car, her back to the four ponies alternately watching her and whispering to each other. “She promised!” growled the diminutive mare, stamping her hooves on the rolling floor. “She promised she’d stay out of this. Out of the thunderstorms, out of the tornadoes, the hurricanes, all of it!”

“Twi, sugar, that’s her job,” Applejack said, hooves on her hat and hat in her lap. “Dash cain’t  - ”

Wheeling around, Twilight stomped the length of the car and stood muzzle to muzzle with the farmer. “No, it’s not! That’s why she took the Regional Weather Director position,” she spat, “so she wouldn’t have to put her life on the line for every black cloud that rolled out of the Everfree. It’s a desk job! It’s safe, it’s easy, it keeps her in charge and lets other ponies take the risk so I wouldn’t have to worry every week about getting letters telling me she’s injured, or in the hospital or… or…”

Applejack sat as far back as the seat would let her and looked around at the other three ponies, eyes wide. Twilight’s held her eyes shut tight and clenched her jaw as shudders ran the length of her body. “She lied to me,” Twilight hissed, “she lied to my face. She never intended to sit back and let other ponies take a the risk, did she? She has to play the hero every time, right?”

A pink hoof touched Twilight’s mane and shot back as if it were a livewire, then slowly and gently and gingerly stroked the shaking mare’s back. Pinkie swallowed and held a hoof to her chest as she lay the other on Twilight’s quaking withers. “Twilight, that’s what Dashie does,” she said. “Dasher was just being herself, and I mean her super-duper loyal self, not her napping-on-clouds self or her – ”

Jumping back and slinging off Pinkie’s hoof, Twilight curled her lips back and snarled, “Loyal? You call flying a suicide mission loyal?” Twilight’s ears pinned further back as her volume rose, each word pressing the pink mare further away. “What about loyalty to us, Pinkie? What about her loyalty to me?”

“Rainbow is a very loyal pony, Twilight.” The demure and squeaking voice from across the train caused all heads to turn toward the yellow mare hiding behind a pale pink mane. “Um, sorry for interrupting. But we all have lots of loyalties. Applejack has her family to be loyal to, and I have my animal friends, and – ”

“So?” Twilight shouted. “They’ve had storms before, bad ones, and she stayed behind to direct the action, not throw herself in the path of every lightning bolt and hailstone! So why did she have to fly out now? Why this storm, why the one with her name written on it?”

Fluttershy shrank behind her mane a little but held her gaze on the fuming librarian. “That’s not fair and you know it, Twilight. If they needed her, really needed her, then she’d go because that’s who she is. You have no right to be mad at her for being herself.”

The train shuddered and slowed as Twilight narrowed her eyes and said, “Fluttershy, I have every right to be mad, I – ”

“Ponyville Station, this stop!” echoed the conductor’s tinny voice. “All ponies departing for Ponyville, prepare to disembark.”

Five ponies shot out of the train, racing through muddy streets and splashing through ankle-deep puddles toward the looming grey bulk of Ponyville General Hospital. Bursting through the double doors, they skidded to a halt before the front desk. “M… May I help you?” stammered a white-coated nurse.

“Rainbow Dash! She was injured in the storm,” Twilight panted, “and they brought her here. Pegasus mare. Where is she? We need to see her. I need to see her!”

“Just a moment,” the nurse muttered, flipping quickly through a binder of names and dates and ominous red marks. “Dash… Dash… I’m sorry, ma’am. There’s no Rainbow Dash here.”

Twilight’s jaw moved but no words emerged. Her pupils shrank to pinpricks as she whispered, “There’s only one hospital in Ponyville! If they didn’t bring her here, that means she’s already…”

She stumbled back, head shaking, pink and yellow and orange hooves catching her mid-fall. Rarity stepped to the counter and with a flash of her horn levitated the register into her hooves above the nurse’s protests. She turned page after page, squinting at each and every line, then put a hoof to her mouth and inhaled sharply. Turning to the trembling librarian, she grinned and held the register book aloft. “Twilight,” she said above welling tears and through a widening smile, “I think you should see this.”

Long minutes later Twilight closed the recovery room door behind her, muffling the surgeon’s voice as the doctor explained therapies and medication schedules to the four ponies gathered outside. Beeps and hisses broke the silence as she stepped to the bedside where tubes and lines and immaculate white sheets covered a bruised and bandaged blue pegasus. Slowly the azure mare opened a swollen eye and a smile crept across her scarred muzzle.

“S… sorry, Twi,” Rainbow choked. “Sh… shoulda stayed home, I guess.” She coughed and winced, adding, “I know you’re… you’re probably totally mad at me.”

“I thought I was, for a while,” Twilight said as she brushed a matted clump of mane from Rainbow’s face. “Then I saw this, and I remembered just why and how much I love you.” She looked down and tapped a hoof on a hospital bracelet wrapped around the blue leg beside her. “When they checked you into the hospital, they signed you in as Rainbow Sparkle.”

“Yeah, saw that. Guess everypony knows, huh? Guess it doesn’t…” Dash’s spluttering laugh sent her into grimaces but her grin remained. ”It doesn’t sound so uncool after all.”