Despite being packed with ponies, the town market was virtually silent. Not a sound could be heard—no apologies made as ponies bumped into each other, no merchants hawking their wares, no heated haggling between vendors and potential customers. Everything outside perhaps twenty yards was obscured by a thick fog, leaving the town itself invisible. The dull color of the fog seemed to permeate the stalls, the ground, even the ponies themselves, leaving the entire scene a monochrome gray, the only differences those of shading.

Rainbow Dash stood alone in the center of the market, not a single pony approaching her. It did not occur to her to attempt to speak; not yet, at least. Instead she moved, walking forwards, and as she did so so did the ponies around her, not a single one coming within ten feet of the confused mare.

She turned and took a few steps in the other direction, and again the crowd shifted the same distance she did, seemingly without noticing.

Suddenly a pony burst out of the throng, tumbling to a stop at Dash’s hooves, and she looked down into the face of Scootaloo. The filly, who had landed on her back, was starting to right herself when she caught sight of the mare above her. A look of pure, unadulterated fear flashed across the young pony’s face. For a moment there was stillness in the market, the two ponies in the center looking at each other and the rest of the market looking at them.

The stillness was shattered as Scootaloo shoved herself away from Rainbow Dash as quickly as possible. Having put several feet between herself and the mare she once idolized, she scrambled to her hooves and ran into the crowd, screaming.

Shocked, Rainbow Dash started to follow the filly, but stopped after a few steps. The ponies in front of her had, for the first time not moved to avoid her. Indeed, they had all stopped their routines, and instead were looking directly at her. Each pony was someone she was or had been close to; friends both recently made and long since fallen out of touch, family, co-workers, old flames. On each pony’s face was a cold look of disappointment verging on disgust. She turned, looking into more and more faces, the faces of everypony who’s opinion of her she had ever cared about.

And then she stopped. Standing side by side in the front row of the assembled ponies were her five best friends, each one with a look of cold loathing on their face that communicated more than words ever could.

Then they turned, first Twilight in the center, and then she started walking, and as she did so the ponies in her path shuffled to either side to allow her passage. She did not look back before disappearing into the fog.

The rest of her friends followed. The next two to turn were Fluttershy and Applejack, who had been standing at Twilight’s sides, followed by Rarity and Pinkie Pie. Then the rest of those present followed, leaving in columns, two ponies turning and filing out and then the two behind them, two by two by two and not a sound made throughout.

And then the pegasus stood alone, her only company the abandoned market stalls.

“Guh!” the pegasus grunted as her eyes flew open. Breathing heavily, she rolled over into a sitting position, shoving a sheet off of herself as she did. Had she been a unicorn or earth pony, she would likely have shivered from the sweat coating her body, but having lived and worked high in the sky for most of her life she didn’t even notice it.

The sound of birds chirping invaded her ears, which she flicked in annoyance. She didn’t have the dislike of birds harbored by some pegasi who had lived their early lives without the constant noise they provided, but waking up to them was an experience that was perhaps best described as “extremely aggravating”, and she had found that whenever she spent the night groundside, once she woke up there was no going back.

She dragged herself out of bed and stretched, arching her back like a cat. Moving slowly over towards the window, she lifted the curtain with a hoof and looked out over the town. The sun looked as if it had just finished rising, painting the scattered clouds loitering over the Everfree shades of pink and red. The streets below were empty save for Ditzy delivering the morning mail. She spotted the movement in the window and waved.

A feeling of relief spread throughout Rainbow Dash. Just a dream.

She waved back to the pegasus, then let the curtain fall back into place... and almost collapsed as she was overwhelmed by joy. I’m not an outcast. Nopony hates me. Nopony knows. She smiled, then turned and walked towards the door.

“Good morning, Rainbow Dash,” Twilight said as she walked into the room. “How’d you sleep?”

“I’ve had better,” she mumbled. “‘nd you?”

“You pretty much nailed it.” Twilight yawned, as if to drive the point home. “I woke up a few hours ago and couldn’t get back to sleep.” She walked past the pegasus and hauled herself up onto the bed. “Look, Dash, while I was up I did some thinking.” She patted the spot of bed next to her with a hoof, prompting Rainbow Dash to clamber up beside her.

Twilight took a deep breath. “If we remember this, we’re going to get caught,” she said firmly. “We’ll feel guilty and start acting strange. Eventually somepony’ll notice, and after that it’s only a matter of time until somepony puts the pieces together.” Rainbow Dash opened her mouth to speak, but was unable to as Twilight continued talking. “I know a few spells that can remove memories, but the problem with doing that is that if somepony starts investigating we won’t be able to do anything about it.” She sighed. “So there it is,” she said grimly. “If we remember what we did, we’ll probably get caught, and if we don’t remember, we still might get caught.”

There was a moment of silence after she finished, and then Dash said, “I don’t want to forget.”

Twilight’s jaw dropped. “Y-you—you what?” she said, shocked. “Why would you—what!?”

“If I forget, it--it might happen again.” The pegasus shook her head, then looked Twilight in the eye, and the unicorn saw a kind of desperation as she looked back. “I can’t let it. I...” she shook her head again.

“Alright,” Twilight said softly. “But... are you going to be able to deal with any problems that might come up?”

Dash said nothing and looked away.

Twilight sighed. “Fine,” she said. “Okay, I think I’ve got something. If someone starts looking into this—” she stopped, and after a second said,“—or you need to talk about it—then tell me today’s date and say ‘the train's running late,’ alright?”

Rainbow Dash looked back over at her friend. “‘The train's running late?’” She raised an eyebrow. “What—”

“It’s a code for when I need to send a message to myself,” she explained. “I came up with it after... you remember." She looked down sheepishly. "You remember it?"

Dash nodded, and recited the date and the phrase.

“That’s as much as I can do, then,” Twilight said. She leaned over and hugged her friend. “I’ll wait a few minutes before I cast. Good luck.”

Twilight swallowed as the door closed behind the pony who had just left. Lighting her horn, she felt her resolve waver, just a little bit. Before she could change her mind, she focused on everything that had happened since yesterday morning, and cast the spell.

Twilight Sparkle stopped and looked around, confused. Nothing seemed out of place—at least not yet, she had gotten up early to reorganize the library and in a few minutes everything would be out of place—but she could swear she was forgetting something... maybe why she was in the guest room, or why she felt so tired. She stood still for a few seconds, then shrugged and walked downstairs to start the reorganization. Whatever it was, it would come to her.

Author's Note

Jesus Christ, I'm sorry. I've had this one ready to go for ages, and I just kept either putting it off or forgetting about it. I still haven't made much progress, but I'm going to try getting something ready to go within a week. Which probably means another couple months, but... *shrugs*

Yeah. Still alive, hope you enjoyed this one.

And I still need a pre-reader, if anybody's interested.