To Live is to Love

Chapters

Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 1
Sequels

Chapter 2

Out of all of the places that I could have fallen asleep, this was the worst. It might have been nice to fall asleep at Fluttershy’s, even if her demon-bunny Angel seemed to dislike me. At least she had a couch, and there was always the promise of being awoken in a gentle way. The way that I had been awoken was definitely not something I wanted to repeat.

Rarity has a really shrill voice when she’s startled.

“What ever are you doing in my house, darling?”

I had barely opened my eyes before I was asked that question. The only thing I could do to respond was to first remember where I was. That meant I had to look around. I could have sworn that I had left this place the night before, after finishing the whole thing with the dresses.

“Huh. I have no idea.” About that time, it came back to me. “I guess I might have passed out trying to fly out the window.” I had to smirk, it was better than the alternative. That sort of thing didn’t happen to me, I didn’t tire out. “You’re not gonna tell any of our friends about this, are you?”

“Tell them about what, darling?”

If it hadn’t been for the wink, I probably would have started explaining exactly what it was that had happened the night before. Nopony needed to know that I had helped, and nopony needed to know that I had passed out from exhaustion. “Thanks, Rarity.”

“Think nothing of it.” It was at that point when I saw a smirk from her. “So, since you’re here, what is this thing you needed my advice about? Is it about how to style your mane? I could give you some wonderful tips.”

It always seemed to come to that. I liked the way my mane looked. Not only that, but it was practical. There was no way for me to go as fast as I did while worrying about the affect that it was going to have on some mane style. I wasn’t exactly going to be slowing down to make sure that nothing happened to one, either. “Actually, it’s about … this is going to take a while to explain.”

“Then why all means, darling, you can start after a nice breakfast.” I started to move to object, but she was already in her kitchen. “And I won’t take no for an answer. If we don’t have breakfast, it will ruin the entire day. I can’t possibly let that happen.”

I wasn’t going to get out of it.

By the end of it, I was glad that I didn’t. I’m normally not one for breakfast. It isn’t that I don’t like eating, but I normally wake up around ten and get straight to work. Maybe I get a donut from Sugarcube Corner, but not even that all the time. It really depends on how I’m feeling that day. Orange juice, toast, eggs, they all tasted so good. “That was awesome, Rares. Maybe I’ll have to come by more often.”

“That would mean you would have to wake up before noon, darling.” The chuckle told me that she was trying to make a joke, and so I chuckled back. She probably didn’t mean it, or at least I was hoping that she didn’t actually think that I slept past noon. That was what napping was for, right after lunch.

“So, Rainbow, what is this big problem that you needed solved. I have the whole day, thanks to your lovely assistance.”

“Alright.” I took a breath, just to notice that she was moving to start cleaning up. “Errr … would you like some help with that?”

“No thank you, I can get this done really quickly. Please, you’re my guest, I’m doing this to help you with a problem.”

Sometimes, arguing with Rarity was a wasted effort. I could already tell that this was going to be one of those times, and so I started to think about how to word it. “Well, it really started at the Gala. I went there, and everything had been so cool. I had just saved this pie from falling on the ground, it was Soarin’s pie, and I got invited to spend some time with the Wonderbolts.”

“I know all about that, darling. We all had a rather … ghastly time at the Gala.” It was strange, she seemed to want to glance over it. I really couldn’t think of why she would interrupt like that, but I decided to continue.

“There was something more, something that I hadn’t told any of you girls.” I sighed, then looked up at the ceiling. “Do you know that I’ve never been on a date before in my life?” I saw her move to answer that, so I quickly added. “That was a radical question.”

“Rhetorical, you mean?”

“Sure, that too.” I had to chuckle, that sort of word was one that I had only heard a few times. It had obviously been what I meant. “The answer is zero. It’s not like I haven’t been looking, either. It seems like nopony sees me as anything other than the daredevil Rainbow Dash … which is cool and all.” That didn’t explain what I hadn’t told them. “So I went to the Gala, and I thought it would be so cool to be able to spend the event with the Wonderbolts … and Soarin specifically.”

I saw it, the look of realization.

“I thought I knew everything about him. His top speed, his favorite food, his goals and dreams, how he likes to spend his free time.” Rarity was looking at me with a look of confusion, so I knew I had to explain. “Magazine articles with interviews, they ask some of the weirdest questions. But, yeah, I thought I knew who he was and that was who I was going to spend my time with. I figured that he would be able to see through what I do.”

“Well, everypony deserves that. It couldn’t have gone that bad.”

“Don’t you remember what happened? They both ignored me. Spitfire was busy with … I’m not even sure what” I was getting a little frustrated, but it made sense to me. “And then there was Soarin. When I did get to talk to him, it was about how great the Wonderbolts were and how amazing he was. It was so great to be famous, that’s all he would talk about when I was actually able to get his attention.”

“Is that not what you think too, darling?”

“Well, yeah, but that’s not the point.” I could hear that my voice had an edge to it, and Rarity was startled. I took a deep breath, I was getting too angry at the wrong pony. Rarity was trying to help, she obviously just didn’t get it. “It’s just … I was there, dressed up, and all he could talk about was what he did and how great he was. That wasn’t the Soarin that I had read about, it wasn’t the Soarin that I was going to try to go to dinner with.”

By this time, my voice had shrank. I looked down at the table, which was amazingly clean by my standards. I didn’t like thinking about that night, and talking about it didn’t seem like it was going to be much better. I had gotten mad at my friend, when she was just trying to figure out what was wrong. I couldn’t even blame being tired, the breakfast had woken me up more than I thought it would. “I’m sorry about getting … frustrated, Rares. It wasn’t your fault, it was mine.”

“No, no, no. I will not have you talking about yourself like that, Rainbow.” I looked up, and she had this determined look on her face. What was she going to do? I was almost afraid to find out, but I was going to soon enough anyway. “I should have been able to figure out that something had gone wrong, and I will find a way to fix it.” Her eyes looked directly into mine, and her hoof moved to my shoulder. “Soarin may not have been the one for you, but there are plenty of ponies out there that would be lucky to have such a lovely mare as yourself.”

Lovely wasn’t a term that I was used to being called, so naturally I blushed.

Obviously, she took that as a good chance to try to lighten the mood. “Sadly, dear, it’s not going to be me. I know, I know, it’s going to be difficult to find somepony as fabulous as me … but we will.”

I stared, confused for a moment. I knew somepony who did like her, a lot, but it quickly dawned on me that it was all a joke. One of my front hooves moved up to my forehead. “Oh, to be turned down by my one true love. This is. THE. WORST. POSSIBLE. THING.” I stuck my tongue out at her, and we both had a good laugh. “Thanks, Rares, I needed that.”

“Don’t mention it.” At this point, the smile left. “No, seriously, don’t.”

“Don’t worry about it, Rares, nopony will know.”

“Good.” I could see the smile again, and mine returned with it. I hadn’t even realized that I hadn’t been smiling, but her expression was scarier than I thought it could be. This was Rarity, after all, she hardly seemed like the scary type. “I was serious about helping you find your special somepony, though. I wouldn’t be a good friend if I didn’t help you out when you came to me.”

Something told me that this wasn't going to end well, but I couldn't really tell her no now. There was something that I was wondering, though. "How?"

"Oh, don't worry about that darling. Just come back in two days, and you'll see."

For some reason, I was even more worried than before.

Author's Note

Two chapters in two days? What is this blasphemy?

Anyway, the weekends are always good for my stories. I should be able to keep up this pace on the weekends, at the very least.

Chapter 3

The trip hadn’t been a complete waste of time, but now I was waiting. Rarity had told me that she had a plan, something that could help me out, but she wouldn’t tell me anything. There hadn’t been any real advice given, which was slightly annoying. I trusted that she wouldn’t do something completely stupid, but that didn’t make this any less of a waiting game.

It was funny, that little piece of information completely ruined my day off. I couldn’t nap, I was thinking too much about what would happen in two days. I couldn’t think of anything else to do, other than maybe practice. That wouldn’t be able to be a day-long event, I knew it. Then again, I could always keep working out until I’m able to get some sleep.

Maybe I could try to figure out a way to do the Sonic Rainboom without needing the force of gravity. That might be cool, and it would definitely be a workout. If I was going to be able to get into the Wonderbolts, I was going to have to be able to show my skills, and being able to break the sound barrier while fighting gravity would definitely be a good skill.

First, though, I just wanted to be able to do it without having to rely on it. Even I knew that there were things you had to take a little slower.

It didn’t take long for me to get to the clearing I always used, the one that I had trained for the Best Young Flier’s Competition at. The first thing I had to do was stretch my wings, they would be in for quite a workout by the end of this. This was going to be the most awesome thing I had done all day, maybe even since I was at the competition.

A Rainboom without any help, that might have been even better than the competition.

The first thing I had to do was get around fifty feet in the air. It wouldn’t be good if I ran into anypony. The next step was easy, I had to build up speed. I had to go from a complete stop to accelerating, which I quickly did. There was only one thing that was going to be a problem with this, and it was the idea of being able to break that sound barrier.

It never took me long to start to go fast, but I had to go faster. Without the aid of gravity, this was turning out to be a lot more difficult than I thought it’d be. I knew what it felt like, to get to the threshold of breaking the barrier. That was something that normally took me no time, but I was normally smart enough and used gravity to help myself out.

No pain, no gain. I had to force my wings to flap faster, even though I could already feel that they were being strained. I was able to do this, I knew my wings had the strength in them. As I continued, I started to feel it. This was the time when everything would either go really well or really horribly. I had to push myself to go faster, the push against me could be ignored. I was almost there, I could feel it.

Then I felt the slam against the wall, and the word “uh-oh” came out as I went flying through the air in the opposite direction.

That wasn’t exactly how it was supposed to go, but things happen.

Another thing that I hadn’t wanted to happen was felt when I slammed into something, and heard a grunt of pain. I didn’t have the time to figure out who it was, everything that had happened took a lot out of me and I passed out.

-Some time later-

When I awoke, I thought I’d be on the ground. Maybe, if I was lucky, somepony would have taken me to the hospital. As much as I hated those places, even I knew that it was better than doing nothing. This didn’t look like the hospital, though. I stood up, then promptly fell back down onto the couch. When I stood up again, I looked around to quickly discover where I was.

Then again, even if I hadn’t, a bunny quickly discovered that I was awake and jumped on my head. I really didn’t get why Fluttershy liked that demon-spawn so much, but maybe it only hated me.

“Oh, Angel-bunny. You shouldn’t do that.” Fluttershy seemed to appear out of nowhere, which was usually what Pinkie did, and she tried to give what I guessed was a stern look to her pet. “Now you go apologize to Rainbow.”

Next came a look, from the bunny and me, as if to ask if she was serious. A second later, Angel hopped away.

“Angel’s really sorry he did that, he normally isn’t so rude.”

I had to fight to keep myself from chuckling, or smirking, or anything that would have given away that I didn’t believe that. Perhaps I could change the subject, I needed to figure out exactly why I was here anyway. I remember that I had been training, then I went flying into the air and hit something that seemed to have been hurt by it, then I was here.

My eyes went wide, I had slammed into Fluttershy. The sound had been a little more masculine, but it was possible that I had remembered that wrong.

“I’m so, so, so sorry, Flutters.” It seemed like it was her turn to get confused, so I knew I had to explain. “I didn’t mean to run into anypony with my training, and I ran into you. Are you okay? I mean, you look okay, but still. Please forgive me, Flutters.”

She had started to chuckle partially through, and now I was confused.

“Don’t worry, Rainbow, it didn’t go anything like that. It went more like this.”

-Fluttershy flashback time!-

Alright, I knew what I needed.

Angel-bunny wanted a specific dish, and I was going to find a way to make it for him. It wouldn’t be easy, but he was worth it. The others wouldn’t understand how much he helped me. I needed carrots, and some tomatoes, and then I needed to go get some Apples. If Applejack was selling them at the stand, that would have made it easier.

After that, I would have to get a couple of cherries and some walnuts. I always had plenty of lettuce back at the house, so I didn’t have to buy that for another week. The stallion that runs the stand always seemed to love it when I come in for lettuce, he always said I was the reason he was able to continue running the stand.

Then came the loud crash, and soon I was under one of the stands.

Luckily, the mare didn’t seem to mind at first. She even let me look around before she told me that I had to get out from under it. That wasn’t embarrassing, or at least not as much as I had thought it would be, so I went back to trying to gather up the last remaining things I needed to make Angel-bunny’s meal.

It was about that time that I saw him. That wasn’t true, I barely saw him at all at first. The thing that I saw first was a pegasus, a cyan mare that looked a lot like my friend Rainbow Dash. “Oh my goodness!” I had to get over, I had to figure out what had happened.

Then I saw who was carrying her. When had Spike gotten so strong?

“Can you help me?” I heard him huffing with each word, it was obvious that he didn’t like having to carry her by himself. I might not have been able to carry her by myself, but I knew that I could at least help a little bit. I started to fly, hover might have been a better term, a couple of feet above the two of them and grabbed hold of my unconscious friend.

The meal could wait, or Angel could eat something else, I was sure he would understand. “I was hoping we could take her by your place, Fluttershy.” My help was obviously making it easier for him to talk, though that didn’t make any sense to me. “She didn’t get too injured from the fall, she hit something soft. She probably just needs a good rest.”

That’s when I finally looked down to see that Spike didn’t look so good either. He might have actually been more hurt than Rainbow, or at least he was showing it more. Despite that, he was still doing everything he could to get Rainbow to somepony who could help her.

“And after we get her there, you need to let me look at you. I just don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you that I could have done something about.”

“Nah, don’t worry about it.” I couldn’t believe it, he was turning down my help. I had to say something, I had to make sure that he stayed after we got to my cottage. Even a glance showed me that his walking seemed a little off. He made a pained expression every so often, as if walking was a chore. “Besides, I’m sure that Twilight has a book about taking care of dragons. It’ll be fine, don’t worry.”

That might have been right. It was probably for the best, it would have been almost impossible to take care of Rainbow and Spike. I still felt bad, I knew I should have been able to do something. I was a horrible friend. I didn’t know what to say, so I simply focused on trying to make sure that I helped out as much as I could.

At some point, I heard him clear his throat. “Are you alright, Fluttershy?” I blinked a couple of times, I hadn’t realized we had gotten back. “There you are, and here we are.”

Soon enough, we had sat Rainbow on the couch and Spike was slowly walking away. I knew that I should have done something, but I didn’t know what to do. The only thing I could do was make sure that I took care of Rainbow. If he was wrong, she was going to need a lot of TLC. I wasn’t going to let her down, and I wasn’t going to let this trip be for nothing.

-The present, Rainbow-

That was unbelievable.

Spike could carry me?

Another thing came to mind. I had really hurt Spike. If Fluttershy hadn’t been there, he would have had to carry me the entire way by himself. He would have done it, too, I knew him well enough to know what he would. That guy could almost put me to shame when it came to how much he cared about his friends, how he helped them out whenever he could.

Sometimes, I got lucky with who my friends were.

“Is he alright?”

I probably should have asked a few other questions first, but I had to know.

“I don’t know, I haven’t seem him in the past couple of days.”

That wasn’t good. If she didn’t know, then I would have o figure out on my own. I started to move, and that was when the second part of it hit me. “Wait, Flutters, let’s back up for a moment.” She physically backed up, and I just rolled my eyes. “How long have I been out?” I looked out, it was about dusk. If she had said what I thought she said, I had an appointment with Rarity.

“You’ve been asleep for a little over two days.” Fluttershy looked down, I could tell she wanted to say something. “It’s actually a good thing that you woke up, I actually have a date tonight.”

That was good, she probably finally told Rarity how she felt.

“Awesome. I can walk you over to Rarity’s if you’d like.” I felt bad not telling her why, but this was going to be embarrassing enough that I had gotten help with this in the first place. “Rarity said she wanted to see me in… well, it had been two days. I think she wants to have me watch her sister or something.”

I felt horrible telling that lie, but I had to.

“Oh, that’s wonderful of you.”

-Ten minutes later-

“And that’s why you don’t have cider with hay bacon.”

Fluttershy didn’t look like she enjoyed the story, but it was one of the only ones I knew. It hadn’t ended all that horribly for me, but few things did. I was pretty lucky, really.

We both looked at Rarity’s house, business, whatever would describe Carousel Boutique. “Well, here we are. Hope you have fun on your date.” I smiled over at Fluttershy, it would be good for her to finally get a date with the mare she loved. I opened the door, motioned for her to go in, and then Rarity looked at thw two of us.

“So I see the two of you decided to meet up before the date. That’s fabulous. I knew I had chosen the right pony for you, Rainbow!”

I felt faint again, then passed out.

Chapter 4

-Fluttershy-

This was a prank, I knew it. I had walked over here because Rarity had asked me about a date with a very beautiful mare. It wasn’t that Rainbow didn’t have her own, unique, beauty. Out of all of the mares that I called my friends, though, she was my best friend. Rainbow was almost like a sister to me. There was one thing that hadn’t escaped my attention, though.

Did Rarity think Rainbow was looking for a date?

I didn’t laugh, that would have been rude. If Rainbow had been looking for a date, I would have known. There wouldn’t have been that accident, she wouldn’t have done something like that before she was supposed to go out with somepony. Actually, no, that wasn’t right. Nothing could stop Rainbow from doing the stunts that she did, Celestia herself would probably have trouble.

I looked at Rarity, confused. If this really was a prank, I had yet to discover the humorous part of it. Aside from that, I didn’t know Rarity to be the type that pranked. If this was a prank, it likely had gone wrong. Actually, the more I thought about it, this couldn’t be a prank. Rainbow Dash passing would have been a really funny end. She would have started to laugh, then I would start to laugh.

Now nopony was smiling, and my cyan friend was laying on a couch. Not even that would last long, a glass of water being poured over her face to quickly awaken her. That had probably been a smarter move than if she had just letting her lay there. This still left me wondering why it was that I had been asked her, all I could do was try to list in on what Rarity was trying to say.

-Rarity-

This was supposed to go perfect.

I knew that Fluttershy had a crush on somepony, some things just couldn’t be kept a secret from me. With that knowledge, and the knowledge that she stayed around Rainbow when the two of them were younger, I couldn’t think of anypony else. It had made perfect sense, the two of them would be a cute couple.

It hadn’t quite gone as predicted.

I had known that the couch would be useful when I got it, fainting wasn’t something that should just leave one on the floor. It was strange, lifting Rainbow over to the couch. I had certain expectations, when I had tried to lift her. It was going to be difficult, I knew it, but I was determined to use all of my strength to make sure that it did happen.

Apparently, working out did wonders for her.

“I have to do something, it can’t fail like this.” I couldn’t let either of them hear what I was saying. With Rainbow, it was easy enough. I lowered my voice, I barely heard it myself. There had to be something that I could do to fix what had happened. Rainbow didn’t seem to be receptive to the idea of going out with Fluttershy, and the expression on Fluttershy’s face told me that she wasn’t receptive to it either.

“Maybe Big Mac, or Cheerilee, or even Twilight.” I hoped neither of them had heard those names, I wanted Fluttershy to be surprised when I next tried to set her up for a date. She had seemed even more enthusiastic than Rainbow, though I hadn’t told her what I had really been planning. Oh, it had turned into a real fiasco.

Well, it was time to awaken Rainbow.

A glass of water always did the trick, and I knew it was going to do the trick again tonight. It had to.
-Rainbow-

Was I drowning?

Eyes shot open, and I tried to remember what had happened. I had gone over to Rarity’s with the idea of her fixing me up with somepony. That was all it could have been, really. When I walked into the door, with Fluttershy, Rarity had said something about her finding the perfect pony. She had also said that I had come to the boutique with that perfect pony.

I had only come there with Fluttershy.

“Fluttershy’s my perfect date?” I didn’t think any of this made any sense at all. Fluttershy was a lot of things. She was kind, compassionate, she was a lot of the things that I totally thought was awesome when it came to somepony I would totally date. True, she really couldn’t fly that well. With all that she was, she kind of made up for it.

I still couldn’t see myself dating her.

I continued to look at Rarity, every so often I glanced over at Fluttershy. None of this made any sense at all.

-Rarity-

I was going to have to try this couch when Rainbow left, probably clean it as well. I hadn’t thought of the fact that she likely put some of the dirt from her flying around on my couch. Her words were the only things that snapped me from that train of thought, and then I simply looked down at her. I truly had thought that it would have gone differently, I had to tell her.

“From that reaction, darling, I doubt that it’s a good idea. It seems that I have a little more work ahead of me befor-”

-Rainbow-

Neither of them looked happy, which meant I wasn’t happy either. There really wasn’t much that I could do, though. Rarity had just tried to set me up on a date. As she continue to try to apologize, though, one single idea came to mind. “It’s not the worst idea ever. I mean, it could be fun to go out and spend some more time with Flutters.”

It felt weird, even as I said that.

I knew that Fluttershy had come here with the idea of being swept off her feet by Rarity, or maybe she had wanted to be the one who did that. That wasn’t going to happen tonight, though, so I knew I had to do something to make everything better. Fluttershy’s been my friend for forever, she was basically my sister. Maybe I could help her come up with something over the course of the night.

“So, where did you have in mind?”

-Fluttershy-

I couldn’t have just heard her right. Rainbow knew that I liked Rarity, she knew it. I knew that Rainbow didn’t like me in that way, either. She had been the one who called me her sister first, and I don’t think she meant it like that. There had to be something else to this, or maybe I had completely misunderstood.

Then again, she had said she wanted to have fun and spend time with me. That sounded like something that Rainbow would say. Romantic implications didn’t seem to factor in sometimes with her, she simply seemed to think about how she could have the most fun with her friends.

She really was a good friend sometimes.

-Rarity-

Had I been wrong about failing?

This might have turned out to be the best thing ever. I looked at Fluttershy, who looked just as confused about this as I was, then I looked over at Rainbow. “It wasn’t going to be much, just a small dinner over at a diner down the street from here. Their service more than makes up for the small size of the venue.” I had been there once, I had really liked the salad there.

-Rainbow-

Alright, now I was going to have a fun night with my good friend. This had started out as a date night, now it turned into something just as awesome. It was a good thing that the place we were going to didn’t need me to dress up. I only had one outfit that could be described as dressed up, and I didn’t have that particular item of clothing with me.

I actually had no clothes with me.

Before I left, I turned to Fluttershy and tried to keep my voice down. “This is going to be an awesome night, Flutters. But before we go, just go with this. It’ll be so awesome.” I waited for a smile to form on my friend’s face. This was going to be one of the best pranks I had pulled off, it was definitely one of the best ones I could have thought of on the spot.

This was to get Rarity back for her when she splashed me with water.

I quickly leaned in, planting my lips on Fluttershy’s. She seemed to move at first, but she trusted me enough to go through with it. I hadn’t thought that Fluttershy would have been such a good kisser, she was almost as good as me. I heard Rarity drop to the floor, and I knew that the prank had been a success.

“Come on, Flutters, let’s head out. You’re probably hungry, I know I am.”

I could only laugh as the two of us left. “Man, I can’t wait to see the look on her face when we tell her the truth. It’s going to be so awesome.” I turned to my friend, as we walked away. “You did great, Flutters. I think you might have gone a little overboard, though, with the tongue.”

-Fluttershy-

It wasn’t easy being friends with Rainbow, sometimes. She isn’t known as being the most thoughtful pony, almost always going for the prank. There were times when it turned out to be alright, if you just went with it. This was one of those times. I had heard her say to go with it, and then she kissed me.

It had worked because I had closed my eyes, I tried to imagine what I would have done if it had been Rarity that had kissed me. Rainbow told me that I might have gone too far, that I had put my tongue in her mouth, but I could only blush in response. That hadn’t actually been my intention, but it just kind of happened.

I had to shove that thought aside, tonight was going to be some quality time with a good friend.

Chapter 5

-Rainbow-

I looked over to Fluttershy, a smile on my face. This might not have been the date that I wanted, or had been somewhat looking forward to, but this was better in its own way. I didn’t have to show any specific side, I didn’t have to spend the night getting to know somepony who might not even like what I had to show. There would be no pretense, there would be no possibility that I could over-think any of it.

It was just going to be me, and Fluttershy. Two friends going out, getting some salad, we were going to spend the time talking about a lot of things.

“I’m kinda glad it turned out like this, ‘Shy.”

-Fluttershy-

Those words brought me back to reality. It wasn’t that I wanted to ignore Rainbow, I would feel absolutely terrible if she thought I had been ignoring her. I should probably apologize, I’m sure she’d understand if I told her that I was still thinking about what had been going on in the boutique. Rainbow has always been my best friend, even if I never got to spend as much time with her as I should have.

Perhaps if I did, I would have been able to understand what she just meant.

“But … wasn’t Rarity going to help you out with your problem? I mean, this is one step away from you being able to find that special somepony.”

Was I really talking about her, or me? I had never thought of Rainbow as anything bad, but right now I just wanted Rarity to be here with me.

-Rainbow-

“It’d be awesome, but there’s nothing I can do about that.” I flashed her a smile, the thought ot the prank coming back to mind. I had almost been afraid that Fluttershy would have ruined the prank. She was always a dependable friend, but that had been pushing the envelope. That was the sort of thing that separated good pranksters from great ones.

“Besides, I should probably talk to Rarity a bit more. She seems to have the …”

-Fluttershy-

“Wrong impression?”

I hoped that I finished it correctly, and it turned out that I did. It seemed like she had the wrong impression for me as well, thinking that I had a crush on Rainbow. “Don’t get me wrong, Rainbow, you’re an amazing friend. I don’t know where I’d be right now without your help. But I don’t see you like that, you’re more like family.”

-Rainbow-

“And I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

I turned, and looked at the diner. It looked like a good enough place, and it did have some good salad. This had to be the one that Rarity had meant for us to go to. Even if it wasn’t going to be a date, it was going to be good, “Listen, ‘Shy, I’m really sorry that it didn’t turn out the way that it should have. And if there’s anything I can do to help, I will.”

There had to be a way that I could make this up to her, I just had to think about it. I had to come up with something. As I mulled the thought over, I opened the door.

“After you.”

I watched her go in first, waited about ten seconds before I went in as well. There was always the chance that she would just stop, and running into Fluttershy’s flank was something that had happened far too many times before I started to create a system. Ten seconds was enough to make sure that I had time without making it seem as though I had abandoned her.

With that, her sudden stop didn’t end with me slammed into her.

She always stopped when somepony spoke to her, even when they simply said they were going to be showing her where she would sit. A place for two, that was what I heard her ask for.

Two friends, but nopony would do anything other than assume. I didn’t care, though, they could assume all they wanted. I wasn’t going to let them ruin my night.

-Fluttershy-

Rainbow seemed awfully quiet. I knew that she tried to give me space, physically, but it seemed as though she was going to give me space to think as well. I didn’t know what to say about that, since I knew she was likely trying to think about some way that she could help. That was the best part about her, she was always trying to help.

The only upside was that she wasn’t telling me how she was about to be able to join the Wonderbolts. As much as I cared about her, I was starting to think that it might be possible for me to know too much about the aerial team. I would never say anything to her, though, this was her dream.

As soon as we were brought to our table, I put on a smile and looked at Rainbow. She wasn’t going to be the only one who helped her friend tonight. I was going to get the full story from Rainbow, what she hadn’t told me yet. I knew she was hiding something, but sometimes I knew that she had to be left to figure out things on her own.

Tonight was not such a night, and this was something I somehow knew I had to help her with. “I was wondering … that is if you don’t mind … if you could tell me about what you told Rarity to get her to help you I would be thankful.”

-Rainbow-

What could I say?

I could face down a dragon, I had done it before. I had faced down a manticore. I had faced down Nightmare Moon. When it came down to it, though, this was something that I couldn’t face down. I couldn’t just sit there and tell lies to Fluttershy. It could have been that expression, that hopeful expression, or it might have been the way that she said it.

“Okay, but listen up. I don’t wanna repeat it.”

Then I told her everything about that night. I told her everything about how great it had been to spend some time with the Wonderbolts, and how I had hoped to spend more time with them even after that night. I told her about how I had been let down, a dream shattered because Soarin hadn’t been the pony that I had thought it was.

It hurt less this time, when I brought it up.

It was still a sad moment.

“The reason I went to talk to Rarity about it is because … well … I thought she had dealt with the same thing.” I saw the confused look, so I continued. “With Blueblood, that is.”

-Fluttershy-

I didn’t know what to say.

Part of me wanted to go over and give Rainbow a hug, even if she never seemed to want any part of those. Another part of me wanted to say something about how she could have come to me. I might not have had the same problem, but it would have been good to not be left out. The only thing that came out of my mouth was something a little more helpful.

“Why do you want a special somepony all of a sudden?”

-Rainbow-

That was a question that I hadn’t thought of.

“It isn’t all of a sudden, I’ve put a lot of thought into this.” I looked up, and closed my eyes. “I always saw that look, from cool-mom and awesome-mom, whenever they were around each other. It was as if nothing could take away their happiness when they were around each other.” This had to be the most uncool thing I had ever said, but I had to finish. “They found their special somepony.”

I opened my eyes, and looked at Fluttershy. Those weren’t tears from what I had thought, I just had closed my eyes for too long. My eyes were trying to stop themselves from becoming too dry. That sounded like a reasonable enough explanation, one even Twilight wouldn’t be able to argue against.

-Fluttershy-

Had she just said she had two moms?

Did that mean she was a baby born of the magic of love?*

That was likely not a subject that she wanted to talk about, and it wasn’t a way that I was going to be able to help her. “That’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard.” I saw her scowl at me, but I couldn’t help but chuckle. Rainbow didn’t like to show her feelings to anypony, though that would likely turn into a problem later on.

“Okay, I’m going to try to help you out.” I saw her move, to object, but I put a hoof up. “I can help by listening. Tell me about your perfect somepony.”

-Rainbow-

This was a better way of helping than a blind date.

I hoped this would work better, anyway.

A waiter, who had been standing behind Fluttershy for the past couple minutes, cleared his throat again. Apparently, we had been ignoring him. “Oh, sorry about that. We’ll both have spinach salads.” It was something that I liked, and Fluttershy really liked. If this was going to be a good meal, this was definitely what we’d have to get.

That, and we’d have to get some cupcakes from Sugarcube Corner later.

“Well, he’d have to be cool. I mean, ya gotta be cool if you wanna hang out with me.” I heard a chuckle, so I cleared my throat and continued. “But beyond that, he’d have to be thoughtful, and wasn’t self-centered. I mean, I could get just about any of the self-centered ponies around here to notice me.” I smirked. If I had been looking for just anypony, they would have been found.

Who wouldn’t notice Rainbow Dash?

“I’m not saying I want them to have their lives focused on me, but…”

-Fluttershy-

I secretly hated spinach salad, but she had already ordered. I was going to tell Rainbow eventually, but tonight didn’t seem like the right night.

It seemed like I was going to be finishing her sentences a lot tonight. I just felt like I knew what she was going to say, because I felt the same way sometimes. “You just want to feel special. You want to know that somepony out there cares about you like you care for them.”

-Rainbow-

Was I that predictable?

“Yeah, ‘Shy. I want to know that I’m loved.” That L-word was one of the most overused things I had ever heard. I didn’t like it, but it was the best way to describe what I wanted. “And he’d have to be really nice, kind of like you are with that demon-spawn.”

I saw a slight glare sent my way, she knew who I was talking about.

-Fluttershy-

I had to get those two to get along eventually.

“Angel-bunny is not a demon-spawn. He’s just … different.” I didn’t know why those two didn’t get along. They both had the same goals, they both just wanted to be there for their friends. Even if they went about it in different ways, they should have at least been able to get along because of that. But unless I planned on her dating Angel-bunny, I should probably be focused on what she was talking about.

I didn’t know what to say about this problem, though.

I didn’t know who would have been best for her.

“We’ll find you a special somepony, Rainbow. Trust me.”

-Rainbow-

I trusted her, but part of me didn’t want her to try.

This was my problem, I had to be the one to solve it.

“Thanks, ‘Shy, but I don’t think there’s much that anypony else can do. This is a problem that can only be solved by me.” I knew she would protest, so I had to think of a subject to change it to. “But enough about me, I thought you had sealed the deal. I mean, you were finally going to get a date with Rarity.” That probably hadn’t been the best thing to bring up.

“I’m going to make sure your next little dinner is that date, by the way. All I have to do is figure out how.”

-Fluttershy-

Why did that have to be the topic she brought up?

The two salads were brought out, sat in front of us, and I set down the bits. “I’m suddenly not feeling very hungry. We’ll have to do this some other time, Rainbow. I think I’m going to take some medicine and head to bed.” I had to come up with some excuse. “I think one of my animal friends passed something on to me.”

If she didn’t believe me, she didn’t show it.

Either that, or it might have been because I didn’t give her a chance to say anything before I left the diner. I didn’t want to let anypony see me cry, and as I left a couple of tears dropped. Tonight should have been a great night, with a good friend, but I just couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that it should have been Rarity on the other side of the table.

I fed Angel-bunny, then went to bed. Tonight had been a disappointing night.

-Rainbow-

As soon as she moved to leave, I felt like I had been hit by a dragon. It didn’t take a genius to realize that this whole thing was my fault. I had said the wrong thing, and now my good friend was heading back to her house. She hadn’t even eaten.

“Give it to those two hungry ponies out in the alley. I know they’re always there.”

I suddenly didn’t feel hungry either. All I wanted to do was head back to my house, after I paid, and get some sleep. And that was just what I did.

Tonight had been another night of me shoving my hoof in my mouth.

Author's Note

* This seems to be confusing a lot of people. The magic of love happens when there are two mares that really love each other and produce a foal. It's as simple as that. For anyone who thinks it is similar to the Winningverse's idea, that's because I got the idea from there. They deserve all credit for making me realize that it's the only way that a society that is dominated by females could continue to exist for more than a couple centuries without the concept of males being used to procreate with as many females as possible.

As for how the mechanics work, it is almost impossible to explain. We're talking about a universe where you can feed off love and love magically makes you not tired anymore. It isn't one based on logic and reason.

Chapter 6

~The next day~

It wasn’t that much of a surprise that I was still able to sleep like a log, at least not to me. I didn’t think there was another pony out there with napping skills I had, not that I bragged about them much or anything. The real shock, though, came when I looked outside.

It was earlier than I was used to, and I actually didn’t feel like sleeping.

Today was going to be a slow weather day, I knew it. I had to kick some clouds, the sunny day was going to be one of the best. After that, I was going to be left to my own devices. That meant that I could nap later, work on my moves, and go talk to some friends. That was all that I could think that I had to really do that day.

I hoped that Spike would be doing all right, I hadn’t seen him in a few days.

Another stretch, and I went speeding through the air toward the clouds. I wanted to get this done as quickly as I could. It was a little after nine in the morning, the two ponies that I wanted to see today were likely already up. Fluttershy would probably be busy taking care of her animal friends, and Angel-bunny. Spike would probably be the first I could go see, though I wasn’t quite sure what to say.

I hoped he was all right.

I didn’t even notice that it had only taken me ten minutes to get the entire job of the day done. It wouldn’t take that long, I was sure, but I could have sworn it would have taken at least twice that long.

Maybe I could cut the time down even more.

With work done, it was time for me to head to get some breakfast. That might have actually been a good idea before working, but I hadn’t thought of it. Regardless, it was time to head to Sugarcube Corner. I had to get something to eat, and an eclair seemed like as good of an idea as any.

Part of me hoped that one of the cakes was running the cash register, it was way too early to deal with the energy ball known as Pinkie Pie.

It turned out, this was going to be one of those situations where I actually had some luck. The eclair wasn’t all that I had gotten, a good gem-filled cupcake would hopefully be enough to make Spike feel better. I knew that I couldn’t have been easy to carry, and he was apparently really hurt when he had gotten to Fluttershy.

I needed more friends like him.

On another note, I needed to stop spending bits like this. It would be good if I learned how to cook at some point. Maybe I could get Pinkie Pie to teach me. Then again, she would likely only teach me how to make sweets.

That wasn’t the worst idea, though.

Next stop was over at the library. I wanted to see how Spike was doing, thank him for what he had done, and make sure he was doing all right.

Ponyville is a small place, so the trip didn’t take that long.

I thought about knocking, but I quickly decided against it. Nobody ever knocked to get into a public library. Then again, few knocked to get into Carousel Boutique. Now that I thought about it, the ponies who knocked the most weren’t the ones who were actually trying to get into a building. Either that, or it was because it was really early or really late.

This was neither.

“Oh, hey there Twilight. Is Spike ar-”

I saw a glare that I didn’t expect. It didn’t make any sense for her to be mad at me, it wasn’t like I had done any of this on purpose.

“What did you do to Spike?”

She didn’t know anything, obviously, except that it was my fault. That was a typical experience for me, really. Maybe she would listen to me, since she was my friend and all. “It was an accident, Twi! I was practicing a stunt. It didn’t go the way that it was supposed to, and I was sent crashing.” I thought about it, I had to word this next part correctly.

Yep, I was being a thinker.

“If it hadn’t been for him, I don’t know how bad the crash would have been.” Was I really saying this? I wasn’t the type to admit these things. The only thing that made me do it this time was the fact that things would have been a lot worse if Spike hadn’t been there. I would have slammed into the ground, full force. I would have probably been taken to the hospital, of course, but it still would have been a lot worse.

Twilight looked at me, shocked. What was she shocked about? I looked back at her, and then started to move further into the library. “I just want to talk to him.” Then I remembered another part of it. With a quick movement, I showed off the surprise that I had meant to give to Spike when I went up there. First, though, I would have to get permission.

I heard a sigh, as if she was deeply contemplating what to say next. That was something that I could work with, actually, given the fact that it meant she was thinking. She might have said yes, or no, but at least it wasn’t something that she was going to decide quickly. A quick answer would have probably been no, considering the fact that it was Spike who had been hurt more than I had.

I felt horrible when I thought about it.

“Please, Twi?” I had to make sure that it went in my favor, and that meant showing feelings. I really hated doing that, but she had to know how important this was to me. “I really just want to make sure that he’s okay.” I had to get to see him, or my entire day would be ruined. That was something that I wasn’t going to tell her, though.

I didn’t want to sound like a drama queen, Rarity had that job taken.

“I’m probably going to regret this.” That was either a really good sign, or a really bad sign. I still wasn’t sure about which one it was. “But … okay. You can go up there and talk to him.” Twilight looked at me, then the cupcake, then back at me. “When you come back out, tell me if I need to change his bandages. I read in a book that not changing the bandages enough can lead to infection.”

“Couldn’t you just … magically heal him or something?” Maybe it was something about being a pegasus, and not having had any classes in magic, but it made perfect sense to me. Magic could do a lot of things, this just seemed like it was probably one of them.

“Sure, let me just go up there and cast ‘cure light wound’.” I had no clue what she was talking about, but I heard a snort and a chuckle. When she noticed my confused look, she simply waved it off and pointed me up the stairs. “Don’t worry, Rainbow. But, sadly, that’s not something that I can do.”

I decided to just listen to her, and head upstairs. The cupcake had to be put back into my bag, of course, because it would have sucked to drop it halfway up. I would have had to give him my eclair, and I definitely wasn’t going to do that. It had been hard enough to not eat it yet, and after I left I would probably do that. Even I knew it was rude to eat in front of ponies, or at least it was rude to eat in front of ponies who weren’t eating.

And from how Twilight had talked, it would just be rude to eat in front of the dragon. I didn’t know why, it just seemed that way. After all, I came here to talk to him to see how he was doing.

When I got up to the room that he was in, or at least the one I assumed he was in, I knocked on the door. Even though I hadn’t knocked to get into the library, this was different. This wasn’t a room that was a public room, the library was obviously public. That was why it was called a public library, and not a private library. Even I knew that.

“No, Twilight, I’m all right. You need to continue your studies, I’m not going to die. Seriously.”

I stifled a chuckle. Out of everything that I had heard downstairs, I had assumed that he was going to be in horrible condition. He still might have been, but it sounded to me like Twilight might have overestimated how badly be was hurt. “Nah, Spike, it isn’t Twilight. Mind if I come in?”

A couple of moments passed, before he started to chuckle. “Rainbow, come on in. I would have come see you, but … well, you’ll see when you get in.”

I slowly opened the door, and my mouth immediately fell open. It didn’t make sense that he would be laughing. Twilight’s bed was taken up, by Spike of course. There was a lot of bandages, covering an obviously deeply wounded dragon. One of his legs was raised, and held by rope. I didn’t know a lot about medicine, but it looked like a cast had been made.

There were also wires coming off of him that led to what could only be a heart monitor.

I was worried.

“I’m sorry, Spike. I didn’t know that it was this bad.” Was I crying? That didn’t happen, I didn’t cry. Then again, I usually didn’t put my friends in a situation where they needed to have a heart monitor. “Twi told me that you might need to have your bandages changed, but I didn’t know it would be this terrible. I-” I saw him cut me off.

“First of all, there’s nothing to be sorry for.” I saw him point to his leg. “My ankle was broke, and she read that this was the best way to let it heal. A cast and elevation.” Then I saw him motion over most of him, as if he was going to explain had caused the rest of it. “I had a few cuts, and she read that bandages were the best way to stop infection. She also read that it was best if they were changed every few hours.”

My eyes moved to the machine, and he sighed.

“I made the mistake of telling her my chest hurt. I didn’t mean my heart, but she wasn’t hearing it. She told me that she has to make sure that it’s normal for a couple more days before she can take the wires off.” Spike motioned for me to take a couple of steps closer, then he looked around as if he was going to tell me a giant secret. “And it’s a good thing, too. These things itch like no other.”

I couldn’t help it, I started to laugh. Apparently, he thought it was funny enough to start laughing with me. There was still something about this whole thing that felt like it was my fault. He had just told me otherwise, but that didn’t help me as much as I would have hoped.

“So, what did you come here for?” Spike quickly bit his lip, right as I took a step back. “Not that I don’t want you in here, but … aren’t you busy with weather work?”

“I got that done about half an hour ago.” That was the truth. For once, I wasn’t just slacking off. For once, I had been able to get an entire day’s worth of work within a small amount of time. “So I decided to come see how you were doing. I mean, Fluttershy told me how you were the one that brought me to her cabin.” The idea that it could have been worse, along with how Fluttershy had described it, came back to my mind. “And now that I’m here, I feel like keeping you company.”

Part of me told the rest of me to slow down, that I had planned to go over and see Fluttershy today. Another part of me told that part to shut up. I knew that Fluttershy needed me, but she might have also needed some space. It had been my own instinct to push things that had ruined our nice dinner. If I just went over there, there was no telling what might happen. For all I knew, I could have made the entire thing worse with a quick reappearance.

Either that, or I was trying to convince myself that she didn’t need me today. I could go see her tomorrow, that would likely be good enough.

“That’s awfully sweet of you, Rainbow, but you probably have a lot better things to do.”

That was, for once, not true. I wanted to make sure that I was able to be at my best before I tried that stunt again. Then there was Fluttershy, who I had reasoned didn’t actually need to see me today. Napping was all well and good, but I didn’t feel like it. After all, this guy was trapped here without a single pony that he could really talk to.

It was my duty to entertain him.

“Nah, I was just gonna do a lot of napping today.” That was mostly the truth, I had scheduled a lot of naps today. I scheduled a lot of naps every day, without fail. Then again, those naps always helped me make sure that I could perform those awesome tricks. Ponies generally didn’t understand it, and I doubted that my current audience would understand it either. “This is way cooler than some nap. Besides, how often do we get to hang out?”

Spike looked up, then smiled.

“Okay, Rainbow, you win. But before we do, you might want to go get Twilight. She’d rush in here later if you didn’t tell her about the bandages.” His smile had gone, it seemed almost like he had surrendered to the idea of the bandages being changed every few hours. There was likely nothing he could really do about it, after all.

“Sure thing, Spike.” I walked over to the door, opened it up, then took a few steps toward the stairs. “Hey, Twi! You said you wanted to change the bandages, right? Well, I figured I’d give you the heads up before I went back in there. Let you do your … whatever you want to call it.”

By the time she came up, she was wearing a nurse’s hat.

I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing.

Unfortunately, I would have to be standing out there for another fifteen minutes. Occasionally, I heard Twilight saying something about how Spike needed to stay still. A couple of times, I heard her say something about his heart, the sound of writing, and then what sounded like a relieved sigh. I didn’t know what to make of that, so I tried to ignore it.

I couldn’t believe that it would take that long to change the bandages for somepony that had magic. Then again, I had thought that she would have been able to magically heal him. Apparently, I thought magic was capable of things that it wasn’t actually capable of doing. Either that, or I assumed that Twilight would be able to do anything with magic.

I think it was more the second, she was the element of magic after all.

“All right, you can go back in. If something looks suspicious to you, let me know.” Twilight stepped out of the room, and I walked in. When I saw Spike, he looked like he had even more bandages than before. His claws were bandaged together, each of them now being a single claw for a hand. Once again, words escaped me.

They didn’t escape him, it seemed. As soon as Twilight hit the bottom stair, he let out the largest sigh. “I made the mistake of saying that my claws hurt. I think it was just some sort of cramp. But when I did, she said something about a new wound and wrapped it up.” Spike looked at me, all amusement was gone from his face. Apparently, this had gone to an annoying extreme.

“Luckily, she took the wires off me.”

I glanced over at the machine, which had been powered down. There weren’t any wires on him, either. That was a good sign. Now all he had to do was heal the rest of the way, with the cuts and the broken ankle. I knew that last one, the ankle, could take a long time to heal.

“Rainbow, I need to ask you for the biggest favor.”

Out of everything that I had come here to do, a favor wasn’t one of them. I wasn’t adverse to them, but I hardly knew of anything that I could do. I certainly wasn’t brave enough to go try to talk Nurse Twilight out of her patient. I had been lucky enough to be able to see him in the first place, she might go overboard and kick me out.

That wouldn’t be cool.

“Sure thing, Spike. What do you need?” Why did I just say that? I could have asked him what he needed, and then decided from there. That would have actually been the smart thing for me to, but I hadn’t done that. Instead, I had just given him the okay to ask me to do anything that he actually wanted me to do.

This could turn out bad for me.

“Can you fly me out of here? I need to feel the wind on my scales …” He looked down at the bandages, and I smirked. “Well, on what scales can actually feel the wind.”

That still left me wondering if that was a good idea. It might have sounded like a fun idea, it was always fun to go flying, but something told me it wouldn’t end well. It wasn’t like I was going to drop him, but Twilight would freak out if she knew what he asked. She might even tie him to the bed, ask me to leave, and tie him to the bed again. It wouldn’t turn out good for anyone.

Yet, I looked at his face. Spike looked desperate, or at least a little desperate, and I couldn’t help myself. There was just something about that face that I had a hard time saying no to. I wouldn’t tell Fluttershy about this, she would probably make a big deal about it. It didn’t mean anything, it just meant that I felt bad for the little guy.

It was my fault he was like this.

“All right, but we’re going to have to be careful.” I moved to the elevated leg, and slowly removed the rope. Spike seemed to be able to take things from there, and I noticed that he did his best to make sure that he didn’t slam the cast into the bed.

Then again, I thought casts protected the leg as it healed. The whole thing with the elevated leg seemed to be a bit of overkill. “And now.” I took a few steps, and then I was right next to his bed. “You’re going to have to not make too much noise. I’m going to help you move onto my back, wrap your arms around my neck.”

I didn’t even hear the hoofsteps as they moved up the stairs.

“We wouldn’t want Twi to-” The door started to open, and I quickly did the only thing I could think to do. I quickly bolted out the window, even though it wasn’t open. It was a good thing that Spike had quickly gripped, or our little escape wouldn’t have gone that well. I would have been able to escape, but he would have probably just fell from the bed.

That wouldn’t have helped anypony. It wouldn’t have even been funny, not with the fact that it would probably make Twi freak out even more. It would likely have led to him being chained to the bed, without guests, all because of what I had done. The thing that did happen, though, is that I saw a surprised look from a unicorn.

Hopefully, Twilight would forgive me eventually. Wait, no, I hoped that she would forgive me soon after I explained to her why I had done what I did. Of course, before I could do that I would have to understand why it is I did what I did.

“You okay back there, Spike?” I had to get my mind onto something more simple. If Spike wasn’t doing well, I probably needed to slow down to make sure that his grip didn’t slip. Another possibility was that we could head to the ground level, but that ran the risk of the two of us running into Twilight. I guessed that she would probably be out looking for Spike.

“A-as well as can be expected.”

That wasn’t reassuring.

“I was wondering, Rainbow.” That never went well for me. Those words had come before he had asked a favor from me, and I had just went through a window. I just now started to feel a couple of small cuts, though they weren’t anything major. I was almost afraid to hear the rest of it, almost wanted to cut him off, but the words didn’t come to me. “Do you think you could take us to a cloud? It’d be way easier to hide from Twilight if we were on a cloud.”

I was glad I hadn’t stopped him, that was actually a pretty good idea. “Hang on tight, Spike. There’s a nice cloud or two that I left at Sweet Apple Acres.” As soon as I felt that he had a really firm grip, I shot through the air toward the orchard. Today was supposed to be a clear day, but I always made sure to leave myself a couple of clouds to sleep on.

Today was slightly after noon, it was the perfect time for us to take a nap.

Then again, I wasn’t going there to take a nap. I was going there for … I didn’t know why I was going there. It didn’t make much sense for me to take him there, but he had asked. I should have said no to the whole thing, yet I hadn’t. Oh well, it was time for me to go the rest of the way through with this. I couldn’t just leave him hanging, he hadn’t left me hanging.

“And here we are, Spike.” I had softly landed on the cloud, which was generally what happened when I landed on clouds. I arched my head to look at him, but it was actually difficult. “Hey, little guy-”

“Just call me Spike, okay? Always little guy…” It was obvious that it bugged him a little, or maybe a lot, so I cleared my throat.

“Hey, Spike, you mind if I let you lay on my stomach? As cool as it would be to let you lay on my back, it’s kinda hard to talk to you.” I put my hoof, my front right hoof, into the cloud. “And something tells me that you’d find it a lot harder than me to sit on your own.”

I heard grumbling at the last part, then the grip loosened. “All right, all right. I don’t know what to do, so you go on ahead and do it.”

That would make things difficult.

“Try to use both of your hands to grab hold of one of my legs, and then I’ll swing around.” I put the one that I wanted him to try to grab up, and he was surprisingly good at following directions. It must have come from being Twilight’s assistant for so long.

She seemed a little bossy sometimes.

A quick swing, my other hooves moving to make sure he didn’t get dropped, and he was laying on my chest and stomach. I was actually surprised that it had gone this well, the last time I had tried to do this was when I was trying to come up with a stunt. The bag of flour hadn’t been as easy to get, and so it had ended up hitting Applejack in the head.

This time, it was incident free.

“So, Spike, what ha-” I looked down to see that he wasn’t awake anymore. Apparently, he was more tired than he had let on. There was something else that I had noticed, though. Actually, there were two things that I noticed. Spike’s scales were amazingly warm, I could tell even though it wasn’t all that chilly up there. The second thing that I had noticed was that he was kind of cute when he was sleeping.

I was determined to never tell anypony about that thought, except maybe Fluttershy.

My wings moved to cover him, both to serve as a blanket and to serve as another measure of keeping him safely there. It would really have sucked if I ended up waking up to the sound of him falling to his doom.

Even if Twilight would forgive me for that, I doubt I would.

But that wasn’t going to happen, I was sure. My eyes started to close, a nap didn’t seem like the worst idea. At the very least, it would have been boring for me to stay up and watch Spike sleep. That would be more boring than almost anything I had done in the past couple weeks. The sound of a snoring Spike was soon followed by my own snoring.

I hoped it wouldn’t attract too much attention.

~Some time later~
-Spike-

What had I been thinking?

Okay, I knew what I had been thinking. The past three days had involved me being on Twilight’s bed. That wouldn’t have been so bad on its own, but she had gone crazy. This had been my perfect chance to get to see the outside for a while, and I had taken it. I hadn’t even realized that I had been tired.

Then again, the sleep that I had gotten while restrained hadn’t been that much or that good. I slowly opened my eyes, and did my best not to move. It would be terrible if I fell. I didn’t have to know how high I was, I knew I was high enough for it to hurt if I fell. Wings were covering me, and four hooves were holding me there.

Apparently, Rainbow felt the same way.

I looked at her face, there was a smile. I bet she was having that dream again, where she was able to get into the Wonderbolts. It would happen eventually, in real life, and then she would probably go off and be the best flier they ever had.

At this point, right now, I had started to get bored watching her sleep. I could be forgiven for waking her up, I knew she wasn’t the type that would hold a grudge. I wanted to take a single claw, and use it to poke her cheek. That was even what I tried to do, but the bandages made that a little more difficult to do.

Instead, I basically patted her cheek.

I saw her eyes open up, and then heard the yawn. “Rainbow, I need some advice.”

“Always eat your veggies and get a good night sleep, then you’ll be as awesome as me.” The words were half-mumbled, I barely understood what was being said. I couldn’t really work with that, it didn’t have anything to do with the thing that I hadn’t asked her about yet.

I had to wake her up.

A few ideas came to mind, and the one that I went with seemed like the best idea at the time. Both of my bandages up hands moved for a spot, under her wings. I remembered Twilight saying that directly under the wings, where they connect to the body, was one of the most ticklish spots on the body of a pegasus. She said something else about the tips, but I barely heard her.

She had started to lower her voice, and only told me that I didn’t need to know. Something about how I was too young.

It turns out, she was right. All I had really needed to know was about where to tickle Rainbow, since the laughter burst out and she started to move around. I saw her eyes quickly open, but that wasn’t it. Her wings moved out, as she tried to do something about it, and her legs flailed around.

There was nothing to grip me, and soon I almost fell.

“Oh crabapples.” I heard her say as I was quickly grabbed. “Don’t you ever do that again, Spike. What would have happened if I hadn’t realized I wasn’t holding you anymore? With you tickling me, you could have fallen.”

I actually hadn’t thought of that. I guess that I had assumed that Rainbow wouldn’t move around so much, or that even if she did she would still be able to catch me. “I knew you’d never let me fall. You’re the fastest flier in Equestria, right?” If nothing else would work, I knew that playing to her ego would have a great chance of working.

And it did.

~Back to Rainbow~

It had actually been luck that had helped me catch him before he fell, but I wasn’t going to let him know that. I was the fastest flier, I was the best pegasus in the history of the pegasus. Of course, that still left me wondering why it was that he had woken me up like that.

“You know it!”

I smiled at him, quickly moving a hoof to pat him on the head. “And don’t let anypony tell you otherwise.” I really needed to focus on what I needed to ask him. “So, what’cha need, sq- Spike?”

I looked at his face, saw some conflict.

“So.”

I heard him start. It wasn’t a horrible start, but I really hoped that he wouldn’t take forever to get whatever it was out.

“Can you keep a secret?”

That was the start of it? I wasn’t sure what to say, this was obviously more important than normal advice. It was probably not about Twilight, or getting stronger, or anything like that. He was going to trust me with something. “Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.” I didn’t even know why it was that I did that, it just seemed like the right thing to do.

“I have a crush on Rarity.”

That was the secret? I could have sworn that wasn’t a secret. There had been the shirt that said “I heart Rarity” with the heart being a symbol for a heart. I didn’t think anypony was unaware of that secret, except maybe Rarity herself. I wasn’t even sure that she didn’t know about it, since figuring out what she thought was next to impossible. Still, I had to at least pretend to be shocked.

Nah, that was way too much effort.

“I don’t know how I can help you with that, unless you just wanted to tell me about it.”

“No, no, I needed your advice.” Spike said again, though he didn’t say how. “I know you’re awesome. If you wanted something, or if you wanted to go out with somepony, you’d be able to get it done.” That wasn’t completely true, I still didn’t know anything about dating somepony. It was bound to happen eventually, but it hadn’t happened yet.

“I was hoping you might give me some advice on how I could get Rarity to fall for me.”

Chapter 7

This was a joke, right?

There was a long list of things that I was an expert of, some things that I was the expert of. This, however, fell onto a list of unknowns. I didn’t know anything about trying to get somepony to fall for you. That would have been a good thing to know when it came to my own problem. Then again, I would have to know who it is that I wanted to make fall for me first.

Wait, that was a good idea.

Spike was here, and Spike knew who it was that he wanted to fall for him. He would be able to help me figure it out, and I could even make it seem as though it’s part of some sort of process. I could get a conversation going, and then he could help me figure out my own problem. It didn’t have any real downsides. I would get to look smart, I would get to solve my problem, and Spike would have the solution he wanted.

Sometimes, I was too smart for my own good.

Hopefully, it wouldn’t make me seem too egghead-y, since this seemed like something that Twilight would do. I had to start this off right, think about each and every word.

Then again, it was me. I hardly ever had to think through what I said.

“All Right, I’ll help you out. First thing we have to do is talk about Rarity.” That got me a confused look, so I cleared my throat. “Well, I mean, Rarity’s great and all … but we’re talking about something important. If you want her to fall for you, I wanna know why you want her to fall for you.”

That made so much sense to me, and apparently it made perfect sense to him as well.

“Well, she’s really beautiful.”

That was it? There had to be something more to this romance thing than appearances. I had been trying to figure out somepony who was right for me in so many ways. Of course, they all had to do with how awesome and fast they were. That was hardly relevant, though, this was about Spike’s want for Rarity to fall for him.

“Not only that, but she’s generous.”

That made perfect sense, she was the element of generosity. If she wasn’t generous, another pony would have been selected. I couldn’t fault Spike for pointing that out, though, because it was definitely true. I couldn’t count the amount of times that Rarity had given away something, usually some dress or some gem, when somepony else needed it.

“I’m really bad at explaining it, but it’s just fun to be around her. We don’t even have to be doing much, but it’s just fun.”

That was another thing that made sense, in a weird way. I enjoyed doing a lot of things with my friends that I didn’t enjoy otherwise. I would have never gone to see the Butterfly Migration if it hadn’t been something that Fluttershy enjoyed a lot. She seemed to really enjoy that sort of thing, though, and it was always good to make a friend smile.

Did that mean I really did love Fluttershy?

That didn’t make much sense. I had never thought about Fluttershy like that. There had been one time, in Flight School, that we didn’t talk about much. I had been dared to kiss Fluttershy. Apparently, the way I acted made ponies think I was more likely to love mares. That wasn’t true, but a dare was a dare. I didn’t have any choice but to kiss her.

It was one of the strangest things I had ever done, and I doubted that anything could ever seem more strange. It just didn’t feel right.

“Okay, but what makes her different than a good friend?” I knew I was edging dangerously close to being discovered. These were questions I wouldn’t ask, I would just give out some half-flanked piece of advice based on whatever felt right at the time. This was for me, though, I had to figure out what it was that distinguished a friend from a special somepony.

“Wow, you’re pretty deep there. I didn’t expect that.”

“Yeah, well, don’t let it spread too much. I have a reputation to maintain.”

“Sure thing, Rainbow.” I always liked it when my friends laughed, happiness was generally a good thing. I wasn’t as crazy as Pinkie was about it, but there was something about laughter that always seemed to be so refreshing. “It’s hard to say, really. I mean … everything just feels right. I’ve been around so many ponies, and none of them have made me feel this way. It’s just, you know, something that you either know about somepony or not.”

I didn’t know Spike could be this deep.

“Well, then, the answer’s obvious. You have to be bold.” That elicited a confused expression, so I continued. “You know she’s the one, right? Well, you have to let her know. You have to go in there with everything.” The confused look continued, so I threw more into it. “You know what she likes better than me, but she seems like a mare who just wants to be swept off her feet.”

I nodded to myself, the thing with Blueblood definitely gave that idea more credibility.

“So, just go in there. Flowers, chocolates, a poem, and maybe one of those nice-looking tuxedos I’ve seen you wear. You look nice in them.” That last part quickly led to a blush, but not just from him. I hadn’t really said that he looked nice before, at least not that I could remember. “Just go into it with everything, throw it all on the line, and everything will probably work out right.”

That didn’t seem to be persuading to me, I doubted that he would believe it.

“Besides, it’s a lot better than just waiting. If you don’t do anything, you’ll never know.”

I hadn’t been able to think of anything more to ask. The questions that I had asked, even if that last answer hadn’t exactly been all that helpful. Every piece of advice, or in this case the pieces of the single line of advice, seemed to point to the idea that I would know it when I saw it. I would just have to think about it later, at least I had gotten advice from somepony who knew more about it than me.

And I knew that Spike wasn’t the type to blab secrets, so I was safe.

“Well, it’s about dusk. I should probably get you back before Twilight gets too mad.”

There were plenty of reasons for that, one of which was that I saw Applejack heading for us. She didn’t look happy, either, which was probably because Twilight had said something to her about what I had done. It had been worth it, though.

“Hold on tight, we’re going to be in for a bumpy ride.”

Just to make sure that nothing went wrong, I wrapped all four legs around him and quickly started to fly toward the library. With the speed I was going, it was almost a surprise that I didn’t break the barrier. Then again, going straight into it was something that I still hadn’t been able to do.

Last time, Spike had to save me.

I shook my head, I couldn’t think about that. It wasn’t that there was anything wrong with Spike, he was awesome for making sure that I got to Fluttershy’s, but the idea of that happening was just so embarrassing. I told myself that I had to focus on flying, because I had to quickly get into the library and get Spike back in that whole leg thingy.

Also, I had to make sure that Twilight didn’t catch me.

I felt so cool doing this, nopony was as awesome as me.

I did my best to open the door slowly, to make sure there wasn’t any noise, and then I tried to quietly move into the room. It seemed to be working, too, there wasn’t a single indication that anypony had found out that I was there. There wasn’t a single sound that came from me, or Spike, as I quickly sat him back down on the bed.

The leg was raised, just as it had been before, and I was just about to leave when I felt something hit me.

It was weird, though, because it didn’t hurt. It was more of a tingle, and then I couldn’t move.

“Don’t you dare do anything like that again, Rainbow.”

I couldn’t turn to see her, but I could feel the glare. There was another thing that I couldn’t do, and that was respond. Maybe it was for the best, there wasn’t much for me to say. It would have sucked for me to say something stupid, and then ruin a good friendship. I was also more than a little scared, this seemed to be far more than what Twilight would normally do.

“Spike means everything to me, I couldn’t stand it if my little brother got hurt.”

I still couldn’t talk, but it didn’t matter soon. I could feel myself being enveloped in magic, and then the next thing I knew I was sitting on my bed at my house. That wasn’t completely accurate, I was laying down. This wasn’t really my choice, I had basically fallen. It seemed like the spell hadn’t worn off yet, which I hoped meant that it was more of spell that lasted so long.

It would really have sucked to be stuck there like that forever.

-Switch to Spike-

“Woah, Twilight, you’re kind of scaring me. Is Rainbow going to be all right?”

I had never seen her this mad. Maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea to get Rainbow to take me away from the bed. It certainly didn’t help her, I knew that.

“Of course she is, Spike. She just won’t be able to move ten minutes.” I saw her look up for a moment, then her hoof met her face. “Or maybe I accidentally made it ten hours. Let’s hope I didn’t teleport her anywhere too bad.”

“Wait, what do you mean?” This wasn’t making me feel any better. “I thought you knew where you teleported her.”

“Hehe.” That was never a good sign. “Well, I thought to teleport her to her favorite place. What harm could come of that?”

I really hoped it wouldn’t end up biting us in the flank, none of us knew what Rainbow’s favorite place was. For all we knew, it might have been dangerous. Obviously there was nothing I could do, Twilight wouldn’t let me go look for her. “You’ve gotta make sure you apologize to her tomorrow, Twilight. She was just doing what I asked her to do.”

This was Rainbow, her favorite place was probably one of three places. She could be at Fluttershy’s house, Sugarcube Corner, or on Sweet Apple Acres. Any of those places would be safe, I was sure of it.

-Back to Rainbow-

I didn’t want that. I didn’t want to be stuck here forever.

I was laying there, and my mind started to wander. There weren’t a lot of things that I could do, aside from sleep. It might have been good to get some food, but that would have involved being able to move. The only other thing I could really do was try to think. If I could start thinking about something, I could ignore the fact that I was really starting to get really hungry.

Aside from that, I still hadn’t solved my problem.

How could I find a special somepony?

Spike had started off with saying something about how beautiful Rarity was, so I figured that’d be a good place to start. Of course, I quickly remembered that the last time I had gone for something as mundane as appearances I had tried to get Soarin to fall for me. That hadn’t turned out so well, he had been more than a little self-absorbed.

Generosity was the next trait that he had mentioned, so that was the next one that I focused on. I knew a few generous ponies. A lot of them were mares, but that was probably because gender incombabulance or whatever Twilight had called it. That cut them out. I just couldn’t see myself with another mare, they just didn’t enter my mind as romantic partners.

I didn’t judge anypony like that, it just wasn’t for me.

There was always Big Mac, though. He seemed generous, and he was physically attractive.

What else had Spike said?

The pony in question had to be fun to be around, even when I would be doing something I didn’t like doing. I tried to see myself going to some sort of even with everypony else, something like I had with Fluttershy. Maybe Big Mac would try some sort of poetry thing, Twi told me that some of the most silent people have giant hearts or something.

Nope, couldn’t happen.

I don’t even know how long passed while I started to cross ponies off the list. One thing or another, something Spike said always crossed them off. At this point, I felt more like Twilight than me. This just wasn’t my style, too much thinking. If it hadn’t been for Twilight, though, I might have just gone over to Fluttershy’s to see how she was doing.

All I could move was my right foreleg.

I couldn’t think of anypony else, this didn’t make any sense. Then again, this problem had been haunting me for so long that it wasn’t even funny. Since mares didn’t feel right to me, and I had already gone through all of the stallions in Ponyville, I was stuck laying there thinking. Maybe there just wasn’t anypony out there for me.

I tried to move my head, and it moved.

This was progress.

I looked out the window, I had to try to figure out what time it was. Part of me had said it was night already, and it turned out that it was true. I hadn’t been able to get any closer to being able to solve this, which was frustrating. A yawn told me that skipping that nap, along with the fact that it was Luna-knows how late, told me that it wasn’t going to be solved tonight.

“Tomorrow, maybe.”

With that, I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep.

Chapter 8

This was weird, I could have sworn that I had just gone to sleep in my bed.

Now I was laying in a tree.

Maybe this was just one of those days, or more accurately nights, when I just forgot where I went to sleep. Maybe I had flown in my sleep. Both of those made sense, though obviously only one of them could be true. I stretched out, I was amazingly not tired. This was only amazing because it wasn’t daytime yet.

I landed on the ground, and looked around. It looked just like Sweet Apple Acres. The strangest part about it, though, was what happened when I started to walk. It didn’t seem to matter how far I walked, I was always around the tree. Sometimes I would walk straight, and it would be right there. Other times, I had ended up turning to see it again.

This was why I didn’t stay up at night. There was nothing wrong with the night, I just found it a lot better to sleep during it.

“That saddens us, Rainbow Dash.”

I hadn’t heard that voice before, I had no clue who it was. There was a swirl of blue, dark blue, and then a … whatever you’d call the princess appeared. She wasn’t quite as big as Celestia, but she was close. It took a couple of seconds for me to remember who she was.

“Nightmare Moon! I thought we defeated you with the Elements?!” I hadn’t thought that she would be able to continue her existence. The Elements of Harmony had turned her into that little foal, Luna. “I’m gonna go get the girls and we’re going to-”

I looked over, and she was crying.

Nightmare Moon didn’t cry.

“Huh? Shouldn’t you be all “Eternal Night” and “I will eat your foals”? I could have sworn that was how it went. That was what Nightmare Night had taught me, anyway. There had been a time when I had assumed it was fake, but if Nightmare Moon was real then all bets were off.

“Please don’t remind us of that. We do not want to be Nightmare Moon anymore.” She looked at me, and I couldn’t help but feel like a real mule. Something was different about her, she looked even smaller than she had when we had ran into her.

Wait.

“Princess Luna?” It only made sense that she would be a princess as well. If she was Celestia’s sister, she would be royalty as well. And I knew that the female royalty was princess, or queen. Either way, it was time for me to apologize in the only way I knew how. “Sorry about that. Guess I need to learn how to think these things through.”

I started to laugh, and soon enough she was chuckling as well.

“We forgive thee, Rainbow Dash. You did not know what had happened to us. But that is not why we are here.”

That brought forth the obvious question. “Then why are you here?” The next question it brought forth was something I didn’t bother asking. Before, when she had said us, I had assumed that there would be multiple ponies. There was only one, though. I knew it wasn’t a princess thing, Celestia didn’t really talk like that.

Part of me thought it was smarter to just not say anything about that.

Her smile widened, and she extender her wings. “We are here because it is our duty to help our subjects through their dreams.”

Heh. I had to stop myself from making a doody joke right there, this seemed like a bad time.

Maybe it was because I didn’t know what problem I was having in this dream. “But I don’t even know what the problem is. How can you help me if I don’t even know I have a problem?”

Luna looked at me, a cocky grin on her face, and then shook her head. “You went to sleep with a problem, young Rainbow Dash. Surely you don’t have that poor of a memory.”

That was right, the hours of thought hadn’t gotten me anywhere. “Maybe I’m just not meant to find anypony, Princess. It might just be my lot to be alone.” That thought wasn’t one that I liked, but it might have been true. “I don’t know anypony who I didn’t cross off because of what Spike told me.”

That grin, it didn’t disappear.

Something did happen, though, the sky seemed to break. “Our time grows short. Rainbow Dash, remember the advice. Remember yesterday. You’ll figure it out.”

With that, I was startled awake. I was actually startled enough to fall right out of bed, which was the best thing that had happened to me since I had dropped Spike off. The dream had been pretty weird, hadn’t been all that helpful. This meant that I could move, which meant I could head down to Sugarcube Corner and get something to eat.

About twenty minutes later, that was out of the way. It had been a good pie, cherry.

Today was going to be a good day. I was about to head out to do some cloud kicking, my job didn’t wait for anypony, but then I remembered that Cloud Kicker hadn’t actually given me any work to do today. It still felt weird going by that, I had been bumped down from the leader when Cloud Kicker had been forced to take over during my short recovery.

My Weather Team would eventually be returned to me, Cloud Kicker was way too focused on other things to be much of a leader for long.

Maybe I would start trying to get my team back tomorrow, I had to go see Fluttershy today. There was an apology with her name on it, maybe even a hug if the apology didn’t work. I didn’t like that second one, but it would be totally worth it if it meant that she forgave me.

Another stretch, it was time for me to head to Fluttershy’s.

As I left my house, the sound of a voice calling my name caught my attention. I looked down, and that was when I saw her.

Twilight was there.

This wasn’t going to be a repeat of last time, and I knew that flying away quickly wasn’t a sign that I was afraid. I just didn’t want to end up getting zapped again, since last time I had been stuck for Celestia-knows how long. I couldn’t give her the chance to do something, not again, I just had to rush over to Fluttershy’s and hide.

With any luck, I had lost her on the way.

I wasn’t going to take any chances, though.

A couple of knocks later, and Fluttershy had the door cracked open. “Ya gotta let me in, Fluttershy. We have a few things to talk about … and some crazy mare is after me.” I couldn’t say it was Twilight, she wouldn’t let me hide out here for the day. She looked at me, confused for a moment, and then let me in.

“You just missed tea time. I can fix some more if you’d like.”

This seemed like as good of a reason as any to say no, and it would even seem like I was doing the right thing. “It’s all right, ‘Shy, you don’t have to worry about me. I had something to drink before I came here.” That wasn’t a complete lie, I had drank some water at my house before I came here.

“Oh, all right.” Both of us were sitting on the couch before we knew it, looking ay each other. “What do you need, Rainbow?”

I wrapped my front legs around her, and gave her a hug. “I’m sorry, Fluttershy. I shouldn’t have said what I did when we went out that night. It was totally too soon.” That was not the order of things in my head. I had thought that I would apologize with words, and hug if that failed. For the life of me, though, I had hugged before I had apologized.

“Oh, it’s all right Rainbow. I know you didn’t mean anything by it.” Regardless of intention, she was hugging me back. “I could never stay mad at you.”

That was my sister for you. She might not have been biologically related to me, but she was definitely the most understanding part of my family. I loved that about her. “I just … I felt really bad about what I said. I even thought about going to see you yesterday, I had a big apology planned. I was going to go, take you to Sugarcube Corner, get you whatever you wanted. If that didn’t work, I was going to talk to Pinkie Pie about making a party for it. She would have totally agreed.”

“You’re darn right I would have.” I saw Pinkie appear from a vase, and then quickly disappear.

Both of us looked at the vase, and then started to laugh. “Oh, Rainbow, you’re the most thoughtful friend I could ask for. All you ever need to do is - wait, why didn’t you come over yesterday? I mean, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. I’m not mad at you.”

What should I tell her?

I thought about it for a good minute, and then I heard knocking on the door. Twilight’s voice was heard, and I quickly hid behind the couch.

“I’m not here. Tell her I’m not here.”

There was no way I was going to get zapped again.

“Tell her I just… errr… left a couple of minutes ago.” Fluttershy looked at me, confused. I couldn’t tell her that I was worried that Twilight might paralyze me again. I doubted that she would believe that it had happened the first time, it just didn’t make much sense. Twilight was usually not the type to assault her friends, but I knew it had happened.

A couple of minutes and a lie about Sweet Apple Acres later, Twilight had left.

“Thanks, ‘Shy. I guess I have to tell ya about what happened yesterday now, don’t I?”

“Not unless you want to. It’s all right if you don’t.”

If I didn’t tell her, I would feel guilty. If I told her that I had gone to see Spike, and spent the day napping and talking, she might not understand. After all, I always talked with her about my problems. This time, though, I hadn’t told her much about it. There were a lot of things that Fluttershy could move on from, but something told me this wasn’t one of them.

“A friend I hadn’t seen in a long time needed my help with something, it was kind of spurt of the moment.” That was the start of a vague truth. I hadn’t seen much of Spike, and he had needed my help. Actually, I probably needed to spend more time with him. He was my friend too, and it wasn’t like I saw him much when we spent time with Twilight.

“We ended up laying on a cloud, taking a nap.” I thought back to yesterday, which wasn’t that long ago, and realized something. It hadn’t seemed weird when he had laid on my stomach when it happened, when I had put him there. I remembered how warm it felt, how warm he had felt. Somehow, it seemed different now that I had some time to think about it. It felt kind of nice, really.

“Oh, that sounds lovely.”

I heard her, but at the same time it didn’t register. It was almost as if she wasn’t there at all, and I was just by myself again. This wasn’t the best time for me to space out, though, Fluttershy could easily see that there was something wrong. That was a bad way to put it, I didn’t think there was anything wrong. The best way for it to be described was that she could tell that there was something distracting me.

“Is something wrong, Rainbow? You seem a little … distant.”

That was one way of putting it, maybe it was the best way. Nothing was wrong, that was what I had to tell her. “I just have something on my mind.”

~Fluttershy~

I wished so much that she would tell me what.

I’m not the type to throw ponies out, or force them to tell me, but this was Rainbow. I didn’t want her to have something on her mind that might lead to bad things. The only other thing that I could think to do, I could always ask but that ran the chance of getting nothing, was to try to figure it out on my own. I had to figure out what it was that was bothering her.

Something about yesterday.

I wasn’t the smartest pony out there, but there was obviously something more to it. There had been an expression, I just couldn’t explain it. Something about remembering what had happened had led to that expression. She hadn’t told me much about yesterday, though, so I had to do something. I was going to be more assertive, and I was going to help out my friend.

“So you just napped with him yesterday? He must have been a really nice pegasus, but I still don’t see how you helped him.”

That happened, and I was so proud of myself. I had just pushed a little harder, and I was going to get some more information about yesterday. Oh, I could just hug myself. Maybe I really could be assertive, maybe all I had to do was try.

~Rainbow~

This was actually kind of nice.

Fluttershy seemed to be taking charge, and all I could do was go with it. That was going to happen after I wiped the shocked look off my face, of course. Out of everything that could have happened, this was the one thing that I hadn’t actually expected.

“Well, it was mostly advice.”

Another truth, though it wasn’t much. I should have been able to tell her everything, yet for the life of me I just kept quiet about most of it. I didn’t want to let her know it was Spike with his attempt to try to get together with Rarity. I didn’t know why, it wasn’t like she could date both of them. That wasn’t the type of thing that could have worked for anypony.

Yet I couldn’t say it.

“He wanted some advice on how to finally say something to the mare he loved.” I saw a wince, this might not have been the best subject. Fluttershy still had feelings for Rarity. This whole thing was just one giant ball of confusion. Rarity was the only one who could make a decision here, and I couldn’t say I envied her right now.

If she chose Fluttershy, Spike would be crushed. If she chose Spike, Fluttershy would be crushed. Either way, a friend of mine would end up being shot down. Which one would likely get shot down? I didn’t know anything about Rarity’s love life, I didn’t care, but it was more likely that Spike was going to end up getting shot down.

That thought didn’t help much.

“I’m sorry, ‘Shy, I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

~Fluttershy~

I had to be strong, I had to say something.

“No, Rainbow, it’s all right. Some things just aren’t meant to be, and dancing around them won’t help anypony.”

I didn’t want to talk about love, it just hurt. At the same time, I didn’t want Rainbow to feel bad. The only thing I could think to do was ask more about who she was with. She still hadn’t told me a lot. I wasn’t as good about these things as Pinkie Pie, but it was always nice to know the ponies that your friends were going to be spending time with.

Apparently, this pegasus was important enough for her to drop everything and help. He must have been something fairly important to her, and so I had to do my best to be his friend as well.

“Umm … if you don’t mind … maybe you could tell me more about this pegasus that you were helping. It might be nice to meet him sometime.”

Chapter 9

~Rainbow~

Oh, this was not going to go well.

I still couldn’t tell her that it was Spike. Not only that, but I had to come up with some way of describing him without actually letting her know who it was. That sounded more like something that Rarity would be able to do. Part of me wished that she was here, maybe I’d be able to get some sort of clue about how to answer this.

Then again, if she were here she would probably know exactly who I was talking about. If she didn’t, she’d probably bug me into telling her a name.

I knew this was wrong. It would probably be for the best if I just told her. She might have been angry at me for a while, but eventually it would fade. Our friendship might have even been better for it. For some strange, reason, though, I couldn’t bring myself to say that name.

“Could you be a little more specific? I mean, he’s from Cloudsdale so a name probably wouldn’t be enough.” Every lie I told felt horrible, but it wasn’t that bad. Little things like this would help make sure that she felt better. I knew I was doing the right thing.

~Fluttershy~

I didn’t expect this.

Rainbow wasn’t the type that kept anything. Out of all of my friends, she was the one that I could always trust to tell me what she was thinking. She might not have even told everypony else, but I knew that she would have told me. The only thing that made sense was, of course, that she was telling the truth.

This was somepony that I didn’t know from Cloudsdale.

What exactly could I get her to tell me? Part of me wanted to know what was so special about this pony, obviously there was something. Rainbow didn’t just give advice, she didn’t just do something else instead of visiting her friends. This pony was special, even if he didn’t know it himself. As a good friend, it was my duty to make sure that she was all right.

Yes, I had to get more information about him … for Rainbow’s sake.

“”Oh. Well, maybe you could tell me about him.” I had to think on my hooves for this one, and quickly I knew what to add. “Like … what is he like?”

~Rainbow~

What was he like?

Did she mean what he looked like?

“Well, he’s kind of short, really, but he’s kinda st-”

It was a strange thing to be cut off by Fluttershy. In all actuality, she’d never cut anypony off. There was just a look in her eyes that she got when she wanted to say something. If she said something to ponies, they might stop.

She always told me that it was rude to interrupt.

“Yeah, ‘Shy?”

“Appearance is all well and good, but that isn’t what I meant.” That didn’t make any sense, that was the most obvious thing she could asked about. I couldn’t think of anything else, so I simply looked at her with a confused look. “I mean what is he like to be around. Is he … nice?”

Part of me thought that this was all Gilda’s fault. She was my friend, everyone had welcomed her, and then it turned out that she wasn’t my friend anymore. During the years we’d been away from each other, I had been the one that had managed to grow up a little. If Gilda hadn’t already left a long time ago, I’d go give her a piece of my mind.

I thought about the best way to answer.

“He’s really nice.” That wasn’t likely going to be enough, I would have to continue. After all, Fluttershy was one of my friends that talked the most to me. It might not have seemed that way, but she was almost as curious about the things that happened in my life as Twilight was about … everything and anything. “But I suppose you’ll want to know more about him than whether or not he’s nice.”

Something about saying he was nice seemed to bring a bigger smile to her face, or maybe I just wanted to see one. She nodded, though, so I knew I had to continue. It had been worth a shot, at least.

“Well, what can I say?” I closed my eyes, thought back to every interaction that I had with Spike. There had to be a way of describing the way he acted. The best way that came to mind was just to start naming off everything that I thought when he came to mind.

The first thought that came to mind was what had happened a few days back. He had been the one that had taken the hit, however minor, when he had caught me. “Well, he’s really loyal. Not as loyal as me, obviously, but still up there. That really isn’t much of a fair competition, really.” I was the bearer of the Element of Loyalty, obviously the competition was a bit rigged.

The next thing that came to mind was prank-time. It was awesome when we went and pranked Spike, but even more awesome when he had taken it in good humor. Then there had been the time that he had helped me prank Pinkie, it had been the most awesome moment of that day. I didn’t realize that my smile had grown wider. “He’s also really fun to be around.”

I opened my eyes, part of me hoped she didn’t take that wrong. “Not that you aren’t fun to be around, ‘Shy. You’re loads of fun.” I knew that she could get a little self-conscious about some things, and this was one of them. She always seemed to try really hard to be fun, but it never actually seemed to come to fruition. Well, she wasn’t un-fun. I just didn’t have a lot of interest in the things that she considered to be fun.

“Oh, Rainbow, you don’t have to worry about that. I know you didn’t mean anything by it.”

I could tell that she didn’t like it being brought up, though. There was something in her voice, when she had said that, that told me that she was just being nice. That was the type of thing that Fluttershy did a lot, she tried to be the nicest that anypony could ask for, and I would say that she went above and beyond the call. I would never tell her, but she probably embodied her Element a lot better than I did.

I would never admit that to anypony.

“Tell me more about this pony. He sounds really … nice.”

That was the word of the day, and for Fluttershy it seemed like the word of her life. I couldn’t fault her for it, she didn’t really know a lot about whatever she normally described as nice. This time, it was Spike, I had just given her a couple of descriptions. My mind went back, I had to think of what it was that I really thought about him. “Okay, if you’re sure.”

I thought about all of the times that he wrote those letters. That might have seemed like a small thing to a lot of ponies, except maybe Applejack and Twilight, but that was dedication. I heard he even worked until he got claw cramps. “He’s definitely dedicated to his job. I mean, there have been times when he’s actually been hurt on the job.”

This elicited a shocked gasp, but I shook my head.

“Nothing too major, though. He still works there, after all.” I couldn’t tell her that he didn’t have a choice, she’d probably want to be to try to get him out. Then I’d have to tell her it was Spike, which was the thing that I had been trying to avoid this entire time. “Believe me, I’d be the first trying to get him to quit that job if it was too dangerous, or maybe his boss would be the first. She’s a pretty awesome pony, if I do say so myself.”

Twilight was also kind of scary sometimes.

“He’s a good friend, ‘Shy. I don’t really know much more to say about him, though.” That wasn’t going to work, I knew it. I would just have to throw it out there. “He’s kind, loyal, compassionate ... I don’t think he could hurt another living creature if he wanted to. But he’s also really fun to be around, smile and laughter all around.”

I laid my head back, and I looked up at the ceiling. Out of all of my friends, I spent the least amount of time with Spike. It didn’t just happen, he was always too busy to go out with us on the picnics. It seemed, though, that he was one of the friends that I needed to spend more time with. He deserved it, he was awesome.

“He’s pretty awesome.”

I closed my eyes, and thought about it. I really needed to spend more time with him, there couldn’t be any excuses. It might be nice to find out even more about him.

~Fluttershy~

Oh my.

I knew that Rainbow wasn’t the type who could be described as a great speaker. She wasn’t bad, but I knew several ponies who she could probably learn from. There was something different about this description, though I couldn’t place my hoof on why she would be this way. It seemed to me that she was vague. That happened sometimes, but not when she was describing somepony.

But more importantly, she didn’t have a single bad thing to say.

I would be the first to say that saying good things was important, but even I knew that everypony had flaws. When somepony asked me about my friends, I normally told them the good things like Rainbow just did. This was different, though. I told Rainbow everything about Angel, and he was my best animal friend. Either she was being purposefully vague, or she wasn’t trying to think of anything negative.

Oh, if only Twilight were here. She’d know exactly what to ask to get the right answer. I didn’t have a way of getting in touch with Twilight, though, so I would just have to think like her. I would just have to do my best to use the deductive reasoning that she always went on about.
Actually, maybe I could come up with something from the last thing she said about him. Kind, compassionate, caring, and fun to be around sounded like all of the traits that somepony would describe somepony else that they really cared for. If I didn’t know Rainbow better, I would think that she had some sort of feelings for this pony.

Rainbow had never been the type to care about those sorts of things, though.

“He does sound pretty amazing, and a good friend.” I had said that before, I knew it. “That must be why he went to you for advice, and of course you had to help him.”

~Rainbow~

That wasn’t why.

I still wasn’t sure why Spike came to me for advice about love. He could have gone to a book, or maybe another of our friends. I hadn’t said anything about it at that point, he had come to me for advice and I had felt the need to provide. “No, I’m not really sure why he came to me for advice. I mean, he asked me about … love.”

For some reason, I started to giggle. At the same time, though, I thought about exactly what he had asked. Spike had wanted me to help him land the mare of his dreams, or at least the mare who he assumed was the mare of his dreams. “He has his heart set on a mare, and he just didn’t know how to approach her.”

Amazingly enough, when I looked over to ‘Shy she was simply nodding. It was almost as if Spike’s problem resonated with her. That’s because it did, really. She didn’t know how to go over to Rarity any more than Spike did.

Rarity really was lucky sometimes.

At the same time, I could feel a little bit of jealousy. It wasn’t something that happened a lot, but it happened. I knew why ponies had their crushes on Rarity. Everypony saw her as a vision of beauty, and she was. Not only that, but everypony saw a beautiful mare that also happened to be one of the most generous friends I had.

Well, she would make a good marefriend for Fluttershy, when that eventually happened.

I knew it would happen, and I knew they’d be happy together.

I hadn’t noticed that a slight grimace had shown on my face, but Fluttershy did. I don’t even know how long I had that look before she tried to get my attention. I had just been focused on thinking about the advice that I gave, and the fact that I was now regretting that advice.

“Umm … are you all right?”

That was the million bit question.

I wanted to say yes, even if it was a lie. “She’s an awesome mare, the one that he wanted to get the advice for.” That didn’t help much, I knew, but I had to get this off my chest. “But I sometimes have to wonder what she has that I don’t. I mean, I see the way stallions look at her all the time. She’s got ‘pose’ , ‘sophistication’ , ‘beauty’. She’s generous. But I can be those things.”

I had started, it would likely be a while for me to stop.

This likely wasn’t the best way to tell Fluttershy about my problem, but it was going to have to be it.

“It’s just like when we all went to the Gala. I thought that it was going to be an awesome night spent with the Wonderbolts, and maybe I’d get to know Soarin some more.” My anger was at a boiling point by now. “But he just ignored me the entire night, so focused on himself. Oh, and pie.” I looked to see that my expression was scaring Fluttershy a little, or at least it worried her.

“I’m sorry, ‘Shy, it’s not your fault. I’ll just … think about something else.”

“No!” Fluttershy’s expression quickly changed to a look of determination. “You need to tell me what’s going on. You’ll never start to feel better if you just keep this bottled up.” A kind expression quickly took over. “You’ll feel better after this, I promise.”

“Okay, if you say so.” I didn’t really want to talk about this, but something told me that she might have been right. “That night had been a complete bust, until we ended up meeting up later. But it hadn’t just been everything that went wrong, the whole destroying everything part anyway, but it was something else.” How could I describe it? “I guess I had put Soarin on some sort of pedestal, and he decided to jump off.”

That wasn’t the best way of putting it.

“It didn’t end there, though. I mean, I had kind of hoped that we might have something, some sort of … I don’t know. I just thought he was special.” It sounded weird to say that I had been hoping he would ask me to be his special somepony. It also sounded farfetched, the more that I thought about it. “I even went to Rarity later, to get some advice on that sort of thing.”

I winced, but Fluttershy motioned for me to continue.

“But she just tried to get me to go out on a date with you.” I chuckled a little, then put on a serious expression. “There’s nothing wrong with dating you, ‘Shy, I just don’t feel that way about you.” I had to move on, this wasn’t going to get me anywhere, “And then he came by, my friend, and he started to ask me about love.”

Yep, my anger had come back full force.

“There’s nothing wrong with me, is there? No, there isn’t. I can be as beautiful as she can, I can have poise.” That was the word I had meant earlier, not pose. I don’t even know why I had said that other word. “But dates don’t come to me. And they all seem to think I like mares for some reason, I just don’t get it at all. It’s like I might as well be a stallion. He came to me for advice, ‘Shy. Not for a date, for advice about how to get one.”

Right after I said that, I just stopped talking. That didn’t make any sense. I didn’t want Spike to date me, did I?

~Fluttershy~

I was used to this sort of thing, or so I had thought.

When somepony got discouraged, or mad, sometimes they needed somepony to listen to them. This had actually happened a few time before with Rainbow, though they were about different subjects. This time, though, something had turned out to be different. I didn’t expect that she would go on about love, she hadn’t seemed to care about that before.

Those last words, though, they seemed to even shock her.

This friend of hers, he was definitely important to her. I should have been able to see the signs, and I should have said something about that. It would have even been all right if I just started to talk now, yet I couldn’t come up with a single thing to say about what she had just said.

What should I have said?

I couldn’t really do anything. She didn’t want me to know who he was, or much about him. There hadn’t even been the intention to let me know that she cared about him like this, she had probably come here with the intention of keeping it some sort of secret. Part of me knew that I should be offended by that, the idea that she would have kept something secret from me.

I couldn’t, though.

If she wanted to have it kept as some sort of secret, I would have let her. Now, though, I had to come up with something to say. There had to be something that I could have said that would have made her feel better. Nothing came to mind, because these weren’t the types of situations that I was used to dealing with.

I didn’t know what advice to give, I just sat there quiet for a few minutes.

Only one question came to mind, so I figured that this was as good of a place as any to start.

“Have you told him about how you feel?”

~Rainbow~

Had I ever told anypony about how I felt?

It seemed like that question was a good, or at least it probably was. I didn’t know what to say, though. Part of me still didn’t believe I could have said something like that, it didn’t make any sense. Spike was my friend, and he was a good friend.

I didn’t love him, did I?

“I don’t know why I said that, he’s just my friend.”

I couldn’t look at Fluttershy, but I didn’t need to. When things happened to one of her friends, she always had a similar expression. Fluttershy was always so supportive, and that was just what I needed right now. “He’s obviously more than just a friend to you, Rainbow.”

I looked at her, she was being so understanding. For the life of me, though, only one thought came to mind. I didn’t love Spike like that, and I had to make sure that Fluttershy knew as well. “I’m just a little frustrated, ‘Shy. I haven’t been on a single date, and we’re both adults. Even you’ve been on a date. I just … I have no clue how to find a special somepony.”

She draped a wing around me, and gave me a hug. “Don’t worry, Rainbow. It will happen when it’s meant to. And it will start when you tell this pony that you care about him.”

She wasn’t getting the message, so I had to just say it.

“Nah, ‘Shy, that was a heat of the moment thing. I couldn’t go out with him.” I chuckled, and looked up at the ceiling. It would have ruined everything if I did. It would have been even worse it if turned out that I really didn’t have any feelings for him. “He’s a good friend, a great friend, but that’s about it. I mean, it’s not even about the fact that we’re both busy. He’s the type of guy you spend a day with and have some fun.”

I didn’t love Spike, I just had to repeat that to myself.

“I really shouldn’t have worried you about this, ‘Shy.” I started, though I knew she would disagree. Fluttershy was my best friend, my sister, she wouldn’t have thought that any of this was wasted time at all. “But you were right, I feel a lot better.” She had helped me out, she always seemed to be helping me out in one way or another. “And you’re also right about it happening when it’s meant to. I’ve been worrying about this for no reason.

I’m the Rainbow Dash. It’s totally going to happen.”

Fluttershy just chuckled. I had come here to help her feel better, but it turned out that we had both helped each other out. “That’s the Rainbow I know. It’ll happen, I know it.”

It felt good to get that type of response.

“Well, ‘Shy, I’m gonna have to head off.” She looked a little disappointed, as if she thought that I was going to stay forever. “But I’m definitely going to spend a lot more time with you, now that I’ve got my head sorted out. Maybe we could even go to one of those animal events that you like going to so much.”

Part of me knew that I was going to regret this.

“Well, there is another Butterfly Migration this year. Oh, it’d be so wonderful to go see it.”

It was really good to get that last subject removed, and this one to replace it. Of course, I hated the idea of going to see butterfly migrate. Or was it buterflies? Either way, it was incredibly boring. At the same time, though, I had brought up the idea of going to see something with her. Not only that, but this was always a good way to spend time with Fluttershy.

She loved these things, though I had no clue why.

It probably had something to do with her Cutie Mark.

“No problem, ‘Shy. It’ll be awesome.” I didn’t have to force a smile, it came on its own. The idea of spending the say watching those bugs wasn’t the part I liked, it was knowing that my sister was going to have a good day that day. “I’ll see you in a couple of days, ‘kay. It’d be tomorrow, but I’m gonna have to try to get my weather team back…”

Right now, I needed to head home to take a nap.

Fluttershy simply nodded to me, the smile hadn’t left her face, and she quickly moved to do something that probably involved Angel-bunny. I didn’t know for sure, but that little thing seemed to be one of the few animals that controlled her life. The others seemed to be a little nicer, but she would never listen to me when I offered to scare him into behaving.

It would have been fun.

Either way, I soon found myself back at my favorite cloud. It was fluffy, it was comfortable, it was big enough to hide me if somepony thought they could find me. The best thing was that I moved it from time to time, just to make sure that Pinkie couldn’t just figure out where I was and try to stop me from napping.

She always had a reason, but I needed a good nap.

And since I had nothing else to do, I patted the cloud a couple of times before laying down and closing my eyes.

I awoke to find that it was night.

That didn’t make any sense, it hadn’t been that late when I had decided to take a nap. Those things lasted an hour tops. The worst one had been was two hours, but I had been really tired that day. Today didn’t have a lot of weather-work, so there was no real reason for me to have slept through so much of everything.

I should have headed to home, if it was night, but I wasn’t tired at all.

Besides, this seemed like a perfect excuse to go apologize to Twilight. If she was still up, she would be focused on studying. That would be the perfect time for me to come in, say I’m sorry, and leave before she could zap me again. It seemed like the perfect plan, so I hopped off the cloud and drifted down to the ground.

Had the cloud moved?

I wasn’t even twenty feet away from the library, this didn’t make any sense. The cloud had been over Bon-Bon’s house before I had gone to sleep, that was on the other side of the town. It might have been Cloud Kicker’s idea of a prank, she always seemed to have some of the best ideas. Then again, I don’t know how she would have known to do this.

I really needed to figure out how she did these things.

My thoughts were soon interrupted by the sound of a familiar voice. It wasn’t Twilight, it was Spike. I looked up to see that he was looking down from the balcony, not a single bandage on him or anything. The real shock came when he actually jumped down for me to catch him.

He was lucky I did, since he hadn’t given me any warning.

“You really gotta be more careful about that, Spike. I’m awesome and all, but a little warning would have been good.”

“Nah, I knew you’d catch me.”

Why was he so sure? I knew I was fast, but even I made mistakes. At least if I had made a mistake this time, it wouldn’t lead to anything too bad. “And how’d you know that? I could just … get suddenly weak, and drop you.” I feigned that my grip was faltering, and then I landed.

“You’re too awesome for something like that to happen.”

That was true, I was awesome.

“Besides, everypony knows you don’t let your special somepony fall to their deaths…”

Yeah, that was true. Wait, what? How had Spike gotten the impression that I wanted him to be my special somepony. “I … what?” It was at that point that I felt like I was thrown out of my body. I felt myself float up, and all I could do was watch myself from above. “How long have you know?”

“I didn’t, until now.”

This didn’t make any sense. That was my voice, that was my body, but it wasn’t me. I was up here, trying to move back down. There was something keeping me there, though.

“So, Spike, how about we head out to dinner tomorrow? That’s what couples do, right?”

I opened my mouth, tried to say something, but not a single sound came. It didn’t make any sense, the fake me was going to get a date with Spike. I didn’t even want the real me to go out on a date with Spike. How could something like this have happened?

It was then that I heard a voice, the one from before. I looked over to see that it was Nightmare Luna, or whatever she had called herself. Or was it Princess Moon? I really couldn’t think straight right now, I simply had to get my focus on anything that wasn’t the train-wreck that was about to happen.

“Now we see your true heart’s desire.” A hoof moved, she was pointing over at the fake me.

Wait, was this all just a dream? That didn’t make any sense at all.

I looked where her hoof pointed. It seemed as though I had ignored the conversation for a few minutes, because the strangest thing was happening. The two of them weren’t talking anymore, it seemed as though Spike had kissed me. Or, well, it wasn’t me but it looked like me.

This was going to be one confusing dream.

“Did you do this, Princess?” I finally could talk, and that was the first thing that I said. I moved my eyes from the couple, the fake couple, and back to the mare that had caused all of this. There couldn’t be any other explanation, really, she had manipulated my mind using some sort of weird-o magical powers that only she had.

“We can only enter dreams, and give our guidance. We could not force you to do something you did not already want to do.” A sly smile appeared on her face. “But what we can do is this.” A hoof moved toward me, and I flinched. Then it touched my face, and she simply said one word. “Boop.”

My eyes shot open, I looked around to see that I was still over Bon-Bon’s house.

That had all been some weird dream.

None of it made sense, really. I knew I didn’t love Spike, right? It didn’t make any sense for me to love him, he was just a great friend. The dream was still fresh in my mind, I couldn’t force it out. My mind moved back to the kiss, the one with fake-me, and my face started to feel warm. It wouldn’t really be so bad if Spike was my special somepony.

It would actually be really awesome.

I nodded my head, I had to figure out a way to tell him. First, though, I knew what I had to do. I had to go back to Fluttershy’s, and I had to make sure that she knew that this wasn’t over. I was going to make sure that she found a way to tell Rarity how she felt.

It was for purely good reasons, I told myself as I started to head back.

Regardless, the first step would be assuring her that this sort of thing was still possible. I didn’t have much of a plan after that, but we had time. She had waited this long, there was no way that she would rush things now.

Things were going to be just fine.

Author's Note

I wasn't exactly sure how to have her discover it, that had been the one thing that had been eluding me. In the end, I decided to take a page from my own life. Aside from a few details, the dream sequence mirrors what ended up happening to me once. My own admission didn't turn out so well, but c'est la vie.

Chapter 1

I didn’t need anypony.

It has been about three weeks since the Gala, since I returned from having the best night with my friends. They had been there for me. That night had been nothing like I had expected. Everything had turned out alright in the end, but there was still something that had hurt. Rarity would understand, she knew exactly what it was that I had gone through.

That night was the destruction of an illusion.

Maybe I need to stop paying attention to the shows, the tabloids, the fans. I mean, I should have known best of all that ponies put their best selves out there in front of the camera. Ponies let everypony else see the best them, because that’s what they want. Part of me wanted, right after that night, to go talk to her. She might have been the town gossip, but she would have known the hurt of knowing exactly how it felt.

Then again, Soarin just ignored me. Her date was the one that proved to be a horrible pony.

There no reason why I shouldn’t go see her, though she told everypony that the Gala had held up a large number of orders. That might have been a reason, but there was always a solution for something like this. The solution that I had thought of, though, was something that was definitely not going to be something that I was going to brag about.

I had to help her.

I couldn’t sew, I couldn’t get materials, I couldn’t give her advice. She always knew better, our Gala dresses had proven that one spectacularly. My face scrunched up, the thought of what I was going to do wasn’t my favorite thought. Rarity had always told me that she hated using those … I forget what she called them. It was something with quin on the end, I remembered that. She always told me, well all of us, that they couldn’t let her know what it was like for a pony to move after the dress was made.

The only way I could think to get her to talk to me was to do the unthinkable. I was going to have to let her use me as one of those model thingies. I was going to have to stand there, get measured again, and then move certain ways when she was done. This was going to be the worst day of my life, and if anypony saw me it would be horrible, but I couldn’t think of any other way.

If I wanted to talk to Rarity about this, I was going to have to sacrifice this. Man, this had to be the most uncool thing I had ever thought about doing. It was a good thing that Scootaloo wasn’t going to be around, that would make everything about a hundred times worse. She looked up to me, not some prissy pony who put on dresses.

Good thing I don’t tell Rarity, she’d never help me if I said that.

Part of me felt like knocking, but I knew she was busy. Besides, I was coming in to offer my help, as much as it hurt to even think. I opened the door, took a few steps in, and was promptly hit by a flying cat.

Okay, I was either dreaming or Opal really didn’t like me. The pain told me that it was the second one. “AHHH! I’m under attack!” I tried to be as dramatic as possible, probably eliciting a glare from Rarity as she pulled her feline friend away. I didn’t look too bad, hopefully. It wasn’t like that demon-cat had tried to draw blood, or at the very least I couldn’t feel that she had succeeded even if she had been going for that.

“Is there something I can help you with, Rainbow? I’m awfully busy, just as I told you girls.” I could see that she wasn’t that happy to see me, or likely anypony, while she was trying to fill the backorders that had come up. At least the Gala had helped out one way, her dresses had gotten a lot of attention from a lot of ponies in Canterlot. She was going to be busy for a few weeks just to get all of the orders done.

“Actually, I was gonna offer to help out, Rares.”

That look, of shock and curiosity, was the one that I had expected. “And just how can you help me, Rainbow Dash? Did Fluttershy teach you sewing? I’m afraid I don’t need anypony to get supplies, I can do that part myself.” It hadn’t actually dawned on her, that was somewhat good. I would be able to surprise her with something for once.

“Actually, you always told us you hate those model things you use … right? What if I … errr … let you make the dress on a real pegasus instead of a model?” Was it wrong that those words hurt even more to say than think? I couldn’t even look her in the eye, this whole thing just felt weird. “Unless you’d rather I ju-”

I could feel myself being pulled over, that was obviously my answer. “Oh, I just knew the Gala would help you see the beauty of a good dress. I knew that you’d come here, that you would want to look beautiful again. Not that you don’t have your own natural beauty.” It was always the same with her, I knew exactly what she meant. She had a certain idea of what beauty was, and I wasn’t it.

I was okay with that, she wasn’t really my type either.

“I was hoping, after we work for a while, I might be able to get some advice from you.” That had actually hurt more to say than the other thing. I hated the idea that I would have to go to somepony else for advice, especially about this. I should have been able to solve this problem on my own, but something about it was just too hard.

This was more complicated than anything else I had done.

“Of course, but after. With you here, I should be able to get the work done on the pegasi dresses even quicker. You don’t know how much this means to me that you’re helping, Rainbow.”

I knew what it meant to me. It meant that I was going to have to stand still for the next few hours. I didn’t think that anypony could die from standing still, the Royal Guard seemed to be capable enough of standing still for long periods of time, but maybe I would be the first.

-Later-

I didn’t know how many hours passed, or maybe it had been days. I hadn’t seen the sun rise again, though the moon had come up. Rarity had drank some coffee, but offered none to me. She had told me that it might get on the dress and that we’d have to start again. It was a good thing that I had taken a nap before coming here, and that tomorrow was going to be one of the few days off from Weather Patrol, because it felt like this would never end.

“Three days worth of dresses made in only eight hours. I do say, Rainbow, you were an amazing assistant.”

Had she said that we had only been here for eight hours? It felt like forever, all I could do was simply yawn and nod in response.

“I do believe, though, that neither of us are in any shape to be doing any talking. Please, believe me when I say that I will talk to you tomorrow. But a lady needs her sleep.”

I wanted to argue, but I couldn’t. I didn’t have the strength to do anything other than simply nod. I was barely even standing at this point, it wasn’t easy. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Rares.” With that, I started to walk away. The last dress had been removed, I had hoped. It seemed that I was more tired than I thought, when I jumped up to fly away I simply fell back down and hit the floor.\

And then sleep came.

Sequels

http://www.fimfiction.net/story/83194/rainbow-dashs-spike

http://www.fimfiction.net/story/105498/not-everyone-will-be-happy