Cloudsdale, the Untold Story

West Cloudsdale Post Office, 9:05 A.M., Saturday July 21st 2001, 10 years ago

“Rainbow Dash. Wake up.” Rainbow Dash heard a faint voice calling out to her. “Wake up little filly.” Rainbow opened her eyes to see Mr. Hooves standing in front of her. “All the other new mail ponies are here now. Come on, get up, let’s get goin’. You don’t wanna be late for the new recruit meeting, do yah?” Mr. Hooves spoke softly.

Rainbow slowly started standing up while working the tiredness out of her joints. She stood up, and started walking to the mailroom right behind Mr. Hooves. As they stepped into the room, she saw four other fillies standing and waiting. One pony stood out over the rest. She looked liked a younger, more feminine version of Mr. Hooves, but something about her was off. She had crossed eyes and she kept looking in random directions and smiling at nothing.

Rainbow Dash walked up to her, trying to start a conversation. “Hi, my name is Rainbow Dash, what’s yours?”

The little gray filly turned towards Rainbow Dash, eyes crossed, and replied. “I like muffins.”

“Um...okay then.” Rainbow Dash slowly backed away in confusion. The cross eyed smile didn’t leave the filly’s face. “What was that all about?”

“Alright, listen up, fillies. Since this is your first day here, we’re gonna go over the basics. Each of you will be getting here at 5:00 every morning so we can get all the papers out before anypony is up. Here’s a map of each of the routes you will take every day.” He pointed to a large map, representing West Cloudsdale with different colors of lines across it. “This map will be up here every day just in case you forget. Each of you will have one of these lockers here that will be for your paper bags. Every week, you will each get 10 bits when you get back from your paper route on Saturday.”

“10 bits! That’s all!?” Rainbow dash thought to herself. “It costs 200 bits to get into flight school, and junior flight school starting in 4 weeks. There is no way I’m getting in this year.”

West Cloudsdale Post Office, 6:00, Saturday August 4th 2001, 10 years ago

Rainbow Dash flew in through the front door of the post office into the mailroom. “I’m done with my paper route, Mr. Hooves” She hung up her mailbag in her locker.

“Here’s yer 10 bits, Rainbow.” Mr. Hooves said as he got the bits out of his bag. “Have a happy rest of your birthday.”

“Thanks, Mr. H. See you tomorrow morning.” She headed to the front door, ready to head towards her house.

“Oh wait, I almost forgot.” Mr. Hooves pulled something out of his bag. “Ditzy made you this muffin for yer birthday. She wanted me to give it to you.”

Rainbow looked at the muffin but something seemed off about it. The muffin was dark black. It was burnt to a crisp.

“Did she... burn the muffins?” Rainbow asked him.

“Yep.” You could hear the regret in Mr. Hooves voice. “The instructions told her to put them in the oven at 450, but she put them in for 750. We have a whole batch at home. We still eat them because we don’t wanna upset her. But she told me to make sure that one got to you.”

She looked at the sad little burnt muffin for a bit. “Um... Tell her I said thanks.”

Mr. Hooves sighed. “Will do Dash. I understand if you don’t want the muffin. Well, see yah tomorrow.”

She left out the front door and started heading back to her house. She flew back to her home, eagerly waiting to spend her birthday with her family.

Rainbow Dash slowed down and landed in front of her house. “Mom Dad, I’m back, where’s my cake? Because all I have right now is this burnt muffin.” She looked around her house to see her parents come around the corner. “There you two are. So, how are we gonna spend the rest of my birthday?”

“Rainbow, honey, please have a seat.” Rainbow’s mother was pointing to their couch. ”We need to talk.” Her parents sat down in the two chairs across from the couch.

“Rainbow, your father and I have been talking. We’ve seen how hard you’ve been working for the past two weeks. Even though we still don’t agree with it, we’ve come to a decision, and we decided to pay for your enrollment into West Cloudsdale Junior Flight School.”

Rainbow sat on the couch in shock. She then sprung off of the couch screaming, “Yyyyyyes! I’m gonna go to flight school! I’m gonna go to flight school!”

“Alright Rainbow, calm down before you break something. Flight school doesn’t even start for two weeks” Her mother said, worryingly.

“This is so awesome! Alright, now let’s get some of that cake, I’m starving.”