That Sunlit Glow

Chapters

Chapter 2: Relentless Good Cheer
Chapter 3: Synthesis
Interlude: Sitting In A Tree
Chapter 4: Earth Pony Magic
Chapter 5: The Ambassador of Fluttershy
Chapter 6: Amidst Scattered Diamonds
Chapter 7: The Sky Garden
Epilogue: Dear Princess Celestia
Chapter 1: An Unscheduled Overcast

Chapter 2: Relentless Good Cheer

Through the hard grey sleet, they flew together. Through scratching leaves and battering branches, bruised by apples and choking on dusty fungal spores, they flew side by side. Rainbow Dash laughed with wild abandon, enthusiasm fuelled by the madness of the challenge. Fluttershy gritted her teeth with determination, heart set on helping her friends and their family.

The Blue Leaf disease had come to Sweet Apple Acres a few weeks beforehoof, and thanks to a stiff wind over the last week had multiplied out of control. Now the Apple family faced the failure of an entire crop, and just before winter. That was a risk they couldn't afford.

The solution, according to Twilight Sparkle and an ancient almanac, was simple in theory but dangerous in the execution. Like creating a firebreak, the outermost infected trees and the few outside them must be stripped of their leaves - but the whole operation must be done in a powerful downpour of rain. The disease's spores spread on the wind, and knocking off their leaves spread them throughout the air, but a sudden, torrential rainstorm - the kind that no pegasus would willingly spread their wings in - would soak most of them to their leaves, and knock even more down to the ground, to be collected and burned far away from any apple trees. It was a gamble. And Rainbow Dash was laughing.

About a third of their way across the field, and about two hours into the clear-up, Fluttershy stopped and gave Rainbow Dash the Look. It wasn't the Stare - it was just a signal they had agreed. If and when they were pushing themselves too far, and they needed a break, it was Fluttershy's job to make sure they took it. Of course Fluttershy knew best. Of course.

Pinkie Pie and Applebloom waited for them at the hayloft window of the Apples' north barn. There was a sharp gust of tailwind just as they arrived, and the two pegasi tumbled in head-over-flanks, before landing roughly on top of one another. Rainbow Dash gave a laugh and hugged Fluttershy enthusiastically. Too enthusiastically. Fluttershy squeaked and leapt to her hooves, bolting straight for the towel and snack waiting for her, and the chaste hug of the Apple filly with stars in her eyes for the heroes of the day.

Pinkie Pie looked strangely at Rainbow Dash's despondent expression, at Fluttershy's forced indifference. Something unspoken crackled between them. It looked almost like... but no. She giggled to herself. Anyway, they were doing a hard job in the worst possible weather for it; of course they were stressed. And Rainbow Dash was a touchy kind of pony - in both senses, sometimes. Maybe she was just enjoying being in the warm?

Anyway, they were stressed? Obviously what they needed was a song! And between her and Applebloom, they had just the song for the occasion.

Forty-eight seconds later, Fluttershy was the first to take off back out into the storm. Her wings weren't even warm yet, but when forced to choose between the storm and the song...

Ponyville was all-but deserted, as most waited indoors for the rain to begin. Since the weather team - well, Rainbow Dash - usually cleared away unnecessary clouds, they only usually saw the world in this dim grey light before the kind of storms that rolled in off the Everfree Forest in the autumn.

Behind closed doors and latched shutters, ponies prepared buckets to catch the leaks, stoked their fireplaces, and settled down with the books and boardgames they had laid aside for rainy days. In Ponyville, rainy days were family days, both by custom and necessity.

Only Bon-Bon was brave enough to approach the stormy-looking pegasus trudging her way through the streets, to ask her if it would be clear in the afternoon. Rainbow Dash had barely noticed the first time she asked, but eventually the earth pony cleared her throat loud enough to hurt, and the pegasus sighed, and sat down, and shook her head. Sensing something wrong, Bon-Bon cocked an eyebrow, backed off slowly, and made her way about her business for the day.

Even the sharp-edged, gusting wind didn't touch Rainbow Dash on that walk. She felt as if she was looking out of her eyes from a long way back, a place where ponies talking to her were muted and irrelevant, and shivering in the cold was a thing to be noticed, not felt. She knew she needed to do something to even make a start on fixing what she'd done, but not what she had to do, or how, or with whom. The happy structure that Fluttershy had given her, that infiltrated and influenced every aspect of her life, was now the bane and burden that she carried, for she could barely think without thinking about her.

The school, quiet and still, was just that place she might never visit again to take the Crusaders to Fluttershy's cottage. Roseluck's stall, now unattended, was just that stall she might never buy flowers from again. Still, if there was anypony who knew how to make a pony feel better - to feel at all - it was surely Pinkie Pie. The earth pony's enthusiasm never failed.

Rainbow Dash knocked on the door to Sugarcube Corner with an exhausted hoof. She might have been athletic, but she'd hardly slept for most of the last week, and she'd walked all the way from Clydesley Crag. If Mr. and Mrs. Cake noticed the state the pegasus was in, they were at least too decent to mention it. Sometimes, after all, a pony needed to talk to a friend.

"Dashie!" Pinkie Pie exclaimed, bouncing off the floor in genuine excitement. "Dashie in my room! Dashie in my room! Is it time for a day of pranking? We'll work on the perfect prank! And the perfect prank needs to have the perfect name - I've been waiting to try out the the perfect purple-pony pratfall prank? Wait, no - the perfect purple-pony pratfall plank prank! I haven't invented it yet, but I suppose I'd have to get a purple pony and hit them with a plank so they fell over..."

As if she had opened the door onto the storm, Rainbow Dash flinched back from Pinkie Pie's enthusiasm - which, for some reason, was anything but infectious. Everything about everything her friend had just said was either stupid or irrelevant. While Pinkie Pie rummaged through a trunk, tossing some hoof-made models of her friends out onto the carpeted floor, Dash flopped down onto the bed and lay her head on her tail.

"Ah-ha!" Pinkie spun round, holding a crude model of Twilight Sparkle gently between her teeth, and seemed to notice her pegasus friend's lack of enthusiasm for the first time. She dropped the model on the carpet and flopped down on her haunches in front of the pegasus. "Dashie? What's wrong?"

The words came as if from the next cloud along. Twilight had described what it felt like to do too many magic spells at once before, and it felt like this. The despairing pegasus had so much she wanted to say, but no way of saying it. She opened her mouth as if to speak, but nothing came out.

Pinkie Pie's eyes widened in shock, and she squeaked in panic. "Oh no! Something's stopped you talking! Something's silenced you! Did you fly into the Everfree Forest and meet a Tongue-Twister? Those things are so nasty! Or maybe it was-"

Rainbow Dash lifted her head and tried to speak, but she knew that if she tried, it would all come out at once, and not in order. She could scream, or she could cry, or nothing at all.

"-drank all of Twilight's hot sauce and she took away your voice with magic, or maybe you just can't talk after you drink that much hot sauce, or maybe-" Pinkie Pie's voice took on a note of fear, "-maybe you spilled it on Rarity and she magicked your voice away-"

On the other hoof, Pinkie Pie was succeeding in getting her to concentrate on something other than her troubles. One option was half a head in front of the rest.

"-got on the salt again and sent a letter to Princess Celestia with a print of your butt on it, but it can't be that, because she'd have banished you or thrown you in the dungeon or banished you and then thr-"

"Shut up, Pinkie!" Rainbow Dash yelled. They were the first words she'd spoken since she'd cried herself hoarse the night before. Pinkie Pie immediately zipped her lips shut - so quickly, in fact, that Dash got the feeling she'd been waiting to do so.

"You gotta... promise not to tell her I told you this," the pegasus began slowly. Pinkie Pie performed the appropriate ceremony with an almost reverent air, but held up a hoof at the end of it.

"If your story takes a while, you'll need supplies to keep up your smile! You look like you haven't eaten since forever." Within a minute, she had dashed downstairs and up again, carrying a plate in her teeth, and at her insistence, Rainbow Dash took something she'd never seen before - a scone, apparently. It was as good as anything to have sit there and listen to her tell her story.

Only the story wouldn't come. Try as she might, her rebellious tongue simply would not form the words she needed to say. Trapped behind a prison of her own shame, she curled up and watched the scone.

"You're not eating your scone," Pinkie observed.

"I've been dating Fluttershy for a year and a half," she said in response. That was it; that was it done, over with; that was her confession. And all it took was somepony to engage her in conversation. She had meant to say something about how she wasn't hungry, but what came out was The Words, and... well, it seemed that was enough.

Surely there should be some sense of achievement that came with this?

Of course not, said those parts of her brain which worked without her say-so, like her heart and her lungs and her conscience. That was the easy part. Here, though, I'll make it easy for you:

"And I'm not happy," she heard her voice say. "All we ever seem to do is sit around and play with the animals. Even when I do get her out of the cottage, and we get up in the clouds, she hardly wants to leave my place. She just... plays with Tank, and any birds that come by, and if she comes flying with me, she's always looking round in case anyone notices we're flying together. And I mean come on, two pegasi going flying together? What a big deal!

"And I got us tickets to the Cloudsdale Theatre 'cos, y'know, maybe she'd like it and it'd be a thing we could do together, and it was this awesome show about a sphinx from Agrabay and a unicorn from Canterlot, and they fall in love even though they're at war with each other - anyway, now I love a good story as much as the next pegasus - as long as it's a cool story - and this was a cool story - but she just spent the whole time looking around to see if anyone noticed we'd gone there together. There wasn't even anypony there we really knew!

"And this happens all the time! And I'm sick of it! I hate having to lie to my friends and I... I told her last night I couldn't take it anymore... and I think we're... I think we're not..." Numb or not, there were still some things that felt too big to say. It was like it wouldn't fit out of her mouth.

Pinkie Pie swallowed, then shook her head quickly, as if trying to shake something out of her mane. "Okay. Itchy mane, twitchy ears, left front hoof shakin' it all about, I guess that must be 'confession of love'. But not for me! Hold on, Dashie, I gotta make a note of this-" Rainbow Dash found herself lifted up as the earth pony rummaged under her mattress for a small notebook. She landed with the mattress; each made a small noise.

It was at that moment that Rainbow Dash started to wonder if her best friend might not have been her best confidante. "Pinkie, I'm kinda..." She didn't know what she was kinda, but... it wasn't this.

"Waitwaitwaitwaitwait," Pinkie Pie exclaimed. "I know how this song goes, don't you worry!"

That surprised her. "Song?"

"Song. Everything's got a song. Everything in the whole wide world has a song. Even little bunny-rabbits have songs. Especially little bunny-rabbits. And I know how this song goes."

The pegasus' eyes all-but crossed trying to understand. She shook her head to clear it. If she was getting the right message, her friend was saying something about... knowing how she felt? Had Pinkie Pie been keeping something secret? Had she been keeping the same secret? And... for all that she loved her best friend, who would date her? Who the hay could keep up with her? "You... do?"

"Yep! Abso-fabso-lutely!" Pinkie cleared her throat, took up a stance, and produced a microphone from... wherever it was that she kept these things. There was a brief pause, "YOU!" she bellowed; "I WANNA TAKE YOU TO A HAY BAR!"

Rainbow Dash's jaw dropped, and she leapt to her hooves furiously. With a growl she lashed out at the earth pony, sending the microphone flying across the room, and landed in a heap on top of her. "Y'know, you could at least have taken this seriously!" she shouted, right in Pinkie's face, which at least had the decency to look shocked. She felt something now; she felt anger. "I'm trying to ask for help here! Do you have any idea how hard it is for a pony as... as..." Awesome? Cool? Independent? Respected? "...as famous as me to admit to needing help?"

"Yep!" Pinkie Pie said with a grin, wriggling out from under her friend. "That's why I thought that song would be perfect for your coming-out party!"

Oh no, Dash thought. After crushing sorrow and furious anger, her third feeling of the day was mortal dread.

"Or for both of your coming-out parties! Ooh - do you think you'll want to have two separate parties or one really big one? I should probably sing it quieter for Fluttershy, though, since she doesn't like it when everything's loud." She cleared her throat again, and began in a tuneless whisper: "You! I wanna take you to a hay bar!"

Rainbow Dash threw her forehooves up in despair and turned away. "Haven't you heard a single thing I've said?"

"Everything!" Pinkie giggled. Surely she couldn't be being this stupid...

"And you're still just thinking about partying!" Rainbow Dash accused. "I knew this'd get all messed up. I knew you'd just... laugh! I don't know why I even came to you! I can't believe I thought you'd help me feel better, instead of just being stupid! It's not big or clever, Pinkie!" Rainbow Dash turned back to shout inches from her friend's face, and her voice began to crack under the same strain that was squeezing flustered tears from her dry, sleepless eyes. "It's just... stupid!"

To Pinkie Pie's horror, she snorted angrily and charged for the window - and fell as her cramped wings failed her. Snapping them out to slow her before she hit the ground, she managed not to break anything - but by the time Pinkie had made it outside, Dash had picked herself up and set off at a sprint. Behind her, she left a few bent feathers, almost grey in the dim storm-light, and cold words which echoed in her closest friend's heart.

Pinkie's mane sank a little, and watching as the wind tugged at the feathers on the ground, her own hoof seemed a little darker in the iron-grey light outside. Shivering, worried halfway to a straight mane, she ran back inside as quick as she could, and hugged Mrs. Cake in meaningful silence.

Chapter 3: Synthesis

After she messed up a Misty Flip and broke her right avian humerus, Rainbow Dash's friends rallied round admirably to get her to the hospital without hurting her any more. Rarity and Twilight Sparkle carried her with magic, while Pinkie Pie cleared the streets ahead of them, and between the three of them they set a new town record for the 1000m sprint.

Fluttershy stayed by her side with characteristic sympathy all the time she was unconscious. The normally-timid pegasus stroked her head, kept her from rolling onto her broken wing, even hummed quietly to her when she murmured in her sleep. She seemed to glow when she tended to her injured friend, as if she was happy to be able to do something. Watching Applejack chew her bottom lip and Rarity pace the hallway in powerless frustration, Twilight understood why Fluttershy was happy that she could do something - but that seemed too simple.

When Rainbow Dash began to move and whimper as if she was having a bad dream, Fluttershy sent Twilight to fetch the others into the room. It would be good for her to see all her friends there and waiting. Besides, someone had to check that Pinkie Pie wasn't going to roll in the party cannon for a 'Welcome Back (to Consciousness)' party.

When the doctor explained what had happened - a slight fracture, but nothing serious, and a few days in bed - Fluttershy argued first with his methods and then with his decision to keep Dash in the hospital. She would be much better taken care of in the company of a friend, she argued, and there were tears in her eyes as she argued it.

With the others gathered around the bed, and with Fluttershy's considerable fringe obscuring her from them, Twilight was pretty sure she was the only pony who spotted that.

They came back to visit the very next day, and for the first time, Twilight Sparkle noticed how different were the two versions of Fluttershy that she saw. Around Rainbow Dash, the pegasus didn't seem to be able to keep a smile from playing about her lips. Out in the waiting room she had preened her wings, nibbling off a couple of loose feathers, and when she'd noticed Twilight staring she'd first blushed, then hidden behind her that bright fringe as if worried.

Was it hero-worship, as Rarity had said the last time they'd sat down to tea and the conversation had turned to their pegasus friends? Was this tangible warmth radiating from Fluttershy really just that?

If it was something more, there was no way that Rainbow Dash reciprocated her feelings. The two were dismissed on the flimsiest of excuses, their game ignored, their company unwanted. Maybe the pegasus didn't like anypony seeing her injured and unable to move; that was certainly all that Twilight Sparkle could think of.

In any case, Fluttershy had taken to the sky before the unicorn even made it out of the front door. And though Twilight wasn't an expert in the physics of pegasus flight (yet), nonetheless, from the way she was shaking on her flight path, she could have sworn her friend was crying.

Twilight Sparkle sighed in exasperation at the mess on the floor before her, and, in Spike's absence, added "Tidy Up" back onto the short-term mental checklist. She'd just gotten rid of it, too, when Rainbow Dash barrelled through her front door and right into her carefully-organised research pile. She knew she shouldn't have given the dragon the day off; now her Coat-Colour-Changing spell would be set back a day at least.

Several clues immediately gave away the fact that something was seriously wrong. Firstly, it wasn't an athlete's run that brought the pegasus in through her door, but a panicked run, that of a mare being chased by something big. Then there were the sore and sleepless eyes, the listless mane, the way she didn't even seem particularly eager to scramble to her hooves as if nothing had happened. But what worried her the most was simply this: why was Rainbow Dash, of all ponies, running when she could be flying?

"Rainbow?" she just about suppressed the urge to shout at her for ruining her notes, but the words still came out a little too loud. "What the hay is this all about?" Rainbow Dash, swaying slightly, cringed under the unicorn's glare, and told her that if she wanted to know, she might have to provide coffee.

"Anyway, Pinkie Pie was just so cheerful; it's like she doesn't remember what it felt like to feel rejected!" Rainbow Dash finished her coffee at about the same time as she finished her story. Twilight Sparkle didn't look happy. "I mean, that time when-"

"-Rainbow, are you sure Pinkie Pie's really the pony you're annoyed with right now?" Twilight said, as if she were stating the obvious. It worked, too. The pegasus' head fell, and her eyes lost all of their aggression. "It sounds like you're angry with Fluttershy. And I'm not sure you should be angry at all."

Rainbow Dash was momentarily stunned. Having never confided in anypony before, nopony had ever told her before that she might be in the wrong about this. "I... but... whaddaya mean? I'm just trying to make her see how awesome it could be if we could, y'know, go places together. And do stuff. I wanna take her to the Cloudsdale Aviary - I just know she'd love it! My cousin Spin works there, monitoring the bird migrations as they go through Equestria, and trust me, those two could talk for hours. But she's so afraid that anypony might catch on... that it feels like she's ashamed of me." Dash's voice lost its edge, and as it did, some of the colour seemed to leave her fur. "She's even started finding excuses not to come to my races now."

Twilight Sparkle took a moment to run that through her head. She'd have to talk to Fluttershy, clearly. If there was one thing in all the world that would upset Rainbow Dash, it would be that. But she didn't get the chance to be sympathetic before the pegasus piped up again; "And y'know what's really ticking me off? I bought her flowers the other day and she got all quiet 'cos 'What if someone asked who they were for?'" Dash's imitation of Fluttershy was neither accurate nor flattering. A little shocked, Twilight's frown deepened.

"Hey, you hold your horses; you know she's shy and she's your marefriend! We all know that Fluttershy could do with lightening up a little, but that's no need to get angry when she's just being a little sensitive."

"Exactly! So I'm trying to help her be not sensitive! Unsensitive! Insensitive? She'll have more fun if she's not looking over her shoulder all the time." Rainbow Dash rolled her head out of long-learned habit, and something in her neck quietly went 'crack'. "Anyway, it really messes up your flying," she added, as an afterthought.

Twilight Sparkle stood up, and without looking, telekinetically fetched a thin magazine from the top of a bookshelf. Its front, mostly taken up with a picture of two ponies Rainbow Dash didn't know, bore the name Fillyfooler in deep blue text. Dash's eyes bulged. "Twilight?!" she choked.

"I was curious," the unicorn deadpanned. "Besides, it had a five-page interview with Clockwork, who're pretty much the world's foremost experts on magical music. Not that either of them had much to say about music," she added sourly. Her horn glowed, and the pages flipped through until she reached a page titled 'Coming Out in the Sticks'.

"'So you're young, fit, and up for anything with sexy curves and sensible horseshoes, but you're finding it hard to come out of the hayloft.' Twilight, who writes this stuff?" Rainbow Dash frowned, but kept reading. "I'm not gonna get my mane cut short... I'm not telling friends and family I'm secretly a superhero... I'm definitely not moving to Sopo - it's full of flanksters! And can you see Fluttershy doing any of this stuff?" The idea of a buzz-cut Fluttershy in a beret was briefly hilarious, and for a brief and sparkling moment the pegasus' heart lifted like it had always used to.

"Alright, maybe it isn't that useful." The unicorn blushed and flipped the magazine shut. "More coffee?" she said, changing the subject. Wait a minute. "Rainbow?"

Rainbow Dash didn't respond. The unicorn, uncharacteristically tactful, retreated.

The pegasus' heart seemed to have fallen down a well into which no light penetrated. For a moment, she'd remembered that affection she'd once felt daily, that wordless, heart-deep warmth that made the world explode into colourful song. Just for a moment.

Once upon a time she'd helped Fluttershy high enough to see the curve of the horizon. They had travelled for hours slowly upwards, flying diagonally to rest atop nearby clouds, and the sky above had darkened and darkened to a deep, pure blue as they fought their way higher. She had taken her marefriend by the hoof to helped her climb higher and higher, to the highest clouds it was safe to sit on - and there, Fluttershy had unrolled the sandwiches and poured the water-canteens full of fresh, delicious juice, and they had picnicked as only pegasi know how.

Their cloud had blown fast across the lonely vastness of a sky they seemed to own. Fluttershy had lain naming the clouds below, sending her marefriend to buck them back into shape when they disobeyed her naming. Rainbow Dash had shrieked and laughed and performed some of her best stunts for her adoring audience of one. Her heart soared, and the love of her life had never looked happier.

Had they really confessed their heartfelt adoration to the sky and the sun, snuggled tight beneath the same blanket for warmth? Was it a trick of memory, that Fluttershy had cheered her on in the clouds, up there where nopony could hear her? Was the sunburst of joy when their lips had touched?

What was that place, filled with so many wonders? Was it ever real at all, or was it just a rose-tinted trick of the memory?

"Why would you hide it if you really loved me? Why would you be so afraid? Am I just the secret little shame you think you're gonna grow out of?"

"Rainbow?"

The night before echoed in the cloudy hall of memory. Lost in that thin mist, unsure which way was up, Rainbow Dash hadn't noticed the passage of time. Nor had she noticed her face getting wet. Twilight Sparkle stood frozen, a tray with a coffee-pot hovering in front of her.

"Oh Rainbow, I didn't know it was this bad."

It's worse, the pegasus thought, before she could stop herself. The thought rippled through her hollow heart like a single cold wave of shame. "It's fine," she lied, her voice wobbling. "The only problem I got is that Fluttershy's so stubborn." She couldn't let Twilight see how shaken she was. She'd come here to... ask, not to plead. Rainbow Dash didn't beg. And if Twilight saw how upset she was...

Twilight arched an eyebrow. "If stubbornness could get you this upset, you'd have bucked Applejack in the jaw years ago. And probably me." She wafted the coffee down to one side of her friend, and moved in to offer her a hug. "C'mon."

To her surprise, the pegasus flinched away. "D-don't! I don't want any of that mushy stuff!"

Twilight facehoofed. "Rainbow Dash," she said sternly, in a passable imitation of Cherilee. "You're just going round in a circle. If she says she doesn't want anypony to know about the two of you, then she must have a reason for that. Being Fluttershy, she's almost certainly worrying more than she needs to, but - have you tried asking her why she's so afraid?"

"She's not afraid," Dash insisted. "She always used to say she'd let me-" brag about her. But she knew I meant it as a joke. She knew.

"She used to say she wanted to tell everypony about us. Usually just after-" Usually just after I woke up, and she said my mane was the cutest thing she'd ever seen. She wanted to tell people that. She actually wanted to tell other ponies that my bed-mane was cute.

"...but it's been ages since she's said any of that. She just goes quiet now when I talk about going out. Whatever it's about. If I just wanna go for a walk, she's got something else to do. I wanna come out, Twilight! I want ponies to look at me and say 'There goes the best damn fillyfooler in town!' And I can't just come out myself or everypony'll put two and two together and come up with Fluttershy. I wanna do it together, 'cos it's not fair if I just do it on my own, but every time I try she never gives me the signal!" Teary frustration cracked the edges of her voice.

"Well, duh, you've gotta wait for the signal," Twilight said, rolling her eyes. "But you're not going to get the signal with that attitude, Rainbow." That was when realisation hit. "Wait - when have you tried to arrange for this signal?"

"...Pinkie Pie's birthday party, Pinkie Pie's birthday after-party, the Grand Galloping Gala, the night we cleared the Apple orchards, Summer Sun, Nightmare Night..."

The unicorn sighed. "Every time everypony was going to be in one place?"

"Well, yeah," Rainbow Dash said. "How else do you want me to get the news out to everypony at once?"

Twilight Sparkle had to stop herself from banging her head on the pile of books to one side. "When everypony's attention was on her at the same time?"

There was a long silence. Rainbow Dash thought back to the times when she'd been fit to burst with the need to shout the words imprisoned behind her tongue and her promise. Parties. Gatherings. Nightmare Night - the disguises wouldn't matter when the point was to let ponies know who they were and how they adored one another. The bigger the better, she had always thought; Fluttershy's worth it, and so am I.

"So... thanks to you bugging her to give her the signal in public, she now thinks you want to make this huge thing of her, with the eyes of everypony she loves and respects on her, when for all she knows they might laugh at her or throw things at her or talk about her behind her back or ostracise her forever?"

She just said she was scared. And then she just stopped saying anything at all. The awful wrongness of her strategy now seemed like the most stupid thing she'd ever thought. Shame slapped her face; her cheeks burnt suddenly. And it was... it was Twilight who'd said these things.

"I knew you'd take her side," Rainbow Dash growled, suddenly right back where she started.

"I'm on both sides," the unicorn looked nonplussed. "I want both of you happy with who you are, and with each other. I wouldn't be a very good friend if I didn't."

"Horseapples!" Shame fuelled rage, and it had to go somewhere. "I came to you 'cos you're the smartest pony around and maybe you could help. But you won't help. You're just like her - and both of you just wanna make me like her too."

Cold crept down Twilight's back. "What do you mean, like her?" she asked quietly.

"You know exactly what I mean!" Dash yelled. "Shy and timid, and staying in the house all the time, and never telling me what she wants, and preferring animals to ponies 'cos there's never any danger they'll say anything she won't like!"

"Dash!" Twilight's temper was fraying, and her horn was itching to give the pegasus a snap-out-of-it slap. "I don't know if she's trying to make you like her. If I know Fluttershy, then you're being ridiculous. But by trying to make her the centre of attention, it sounds like you're trying to make her more like you. And anyway, if you really think all this, and it's not just your temper talking, then why in Celestia's name are you with her?"

'cos she glows in the sunlight. 'cos she warms me at night. 'cos I can't get her out of my head.

"...shut up!" Rainbow Dash all-but screamed. She stood hastily and flared her wings, and to Twilight's eyes, seemed to resemble Gilda the Griffon. But she had no rant prepared, and she wasn't a bully. She was just confused, and frightened, and far above her cloud. And that question had been hanging over her like the shadow of a roc for months. "I knew you'd be on her side!" she sobbed.

And before Twilight could do anything about it, she had burst out of the window in all-but-grey rainbow. "Come back, you... idiot!" Twilight called after her, impotently. "I've got an idea! I've got books full of them!" She banged a hoof on the window-ledge in punctuation, but the sound came back strangely muted.

But Dash was gone, and the greyish rainbow trail she had left faded like a shadow before a candle-light. Absently, Twilight Sparkle added "Investigate Optics of Pegasus Flight" to her long-term If-I-Get-Time-To-Do List, and sighed as she considered what she should pack to cheer Fluttershy up.

Interlude: Sitting In A Tree

If the sun had risen behind the clouds, then they had thickened in reply. Ponyville beneath the midday sun was no brighter than it had been when it first rose, and gliding along languorously beneath the threatening sky, Rainbow Dash flew towards the Everfree Forest without even thinking about it. It was ingrained now, like one of her tricks; simply something her body did while her mind worked on things that required concentration.

Right now, that mind was focusing hard on what Twilight Sparkle had said. She was divided, and she knew it, and it annoyed her. Half of her said: Of course I'm trying to change her. She's got a problem and I'm the only pony close enough to help. The other half, much to her annoyance, replied: Then how can I get annoyed if she's trying to change me? Other voices, other opinions echoed around her head, all of them on one side or another. Either she loved a pony for who she was, or she tried to help a pony who needed it. Why couldn't she do both?

Only as she cleared the tree-line and almost landed in Fluttershy's own garden did she realise what she'd done. Her heart leapt into her mouth. Flinging out her wings in a panic, she stopped herself on the spot, before leaping back into the sky and dashing away. She was still too hurt, and still too angry with herself and Fluttershy and everypony else, to have that conversation right now. She had to find a spot where nopony would bother her. Especially not her marefriend.

The streets and houses of Ponyville went unnoticed beneath her as she headed for nowhere-in-particular, as long as it was private.

She made it over to Sweet Apple Acres before the fear wore off. Hovering for a moment, she saw none of the signs of farming work going on, and surmised that her friend and her family must be elsewhere. That was alright. She could settle, then.

Rainbow Dash fanned her wings to bring herself to a halt somewhere over the south field, and dropped down into the upper branches of a suitable tree on the edge of a small clearing. And once she'd settled, she folded her wings in, closed her eyes, and remembered.

"Why do you need to make a big deal of us, Rainbow?" It was the same question that Fluttershy had been asking for months. Now, it almost sounded like she was tired of asking it.

"Because you're...sweet! and awesome! and helpful, and supportive, and everything a mare should be! And I want everypony to know I'm the one who got you!" And every word of it true. She was everything a mare should be, except confident enough to show it off. She should be happy. But-

"You sound like you think I'm a trophy." -she wasn't.

"WHAT? I wanna show you off, sure, but I wanna get you bright and confident so the whole world can know how cool you are!" How could she not see this? How could she be so... weak?

"But I don't want the whole world to know all about me. I want to spend time with you, and care for you, and make you happy."

This was her stock answer. And Dash was sick of it. Her first thought, then, had been to lash out. And she didn't have time for second thoughts. "Care for me? I'm not one of your animals, Fluttershy."

"No. They're happy to be who they are." The reply was sharp-edged. She'd never heard Fluttershy talk like that before.

"How can you stand to be so wonderful and not be known for it?" A change of direction, after a brief pause. It was the same question, phrased differently. That endless frustration, that sense that she wanted to scream until her throat bled, was always over this.

"My friends know me." No they don't! No they don't-

"No they don't, Fluttershy! They don't know you as long as they don't know this! They think you're one thing and you're something else all the time. They think you're straight. They think you're too shy to find a special somepony for yourself. They think you don't have anypony to hold when you're feeling down. They think you're lonely!" Fluttershy had flinched visibly. This much was true; that her choice to keep her relationship secret often involved seeming to be something she wasn't. And that hurt her every time she did it. Rainbow Dash knew how that hurt, and how it was probably the only angle she had to get her to come out at all.

"I wouldn't lie to our friends." Fluttershy had whispered at last, in nothing short of bad faith.

"No, you just make me do it for you."

Sitting up her tree, Dash winced at the memory. That was the moment when it had all gone wrong.

If it had felt disloyal to Fluttershy to tell some of their friends what was going on between the two of them, then surely this was nothing next to the year-and-a-half's betrayal of the other ponies' friendships she was already responsible for. How the hay was a pony meant to be the living form of loyalty when she couldn't even keep her story straight to the ponies she loved the most?

And if she failed as Loyalty, it wasn't even just Fluttershy she let down. It was the rest of her friends, who she'd fought with. It was Cloudsdale and Ponyville, which she'd fought for. It was the Princesses - one in whose name she had fought, one whom she'd rescued from the nightmare of her own corruption.

If she failed as Loyalty, she failed everypony.

And she was failing pretty hard, in her own estimation.

It was around this time, with the grey world around her showing no signs of colour, that something bright and cheerful forced its way into her awareness. "Hey, Rainbow Dash," it drawled, "Whatcha doin' up that tree?"

Applebloom. Wherever they were farming, they were doing it without her. "Uh... hi, Applebloom," she said uncertainly.

The filly looked up at her with big eyes. "Are ya lookin' for Applejack?"

"Uh..." What was she doing up a tree, anyway? Thinking.

But there was no way she could tell Applebloom what about. She was too young, too carefree and innocent. A pony learned about the sublime wonders of true love when she was ready to, not from the jarring experiences of a failed friend and marefriend who'd learned none of her lessons at all. Bravado, then. It wasn't out of character.

"You never seen a pegasus up a tree before, Applebloom?" she forced a grin. "It's what all the cool colts up in Cloudsdale are doing right now."

Applebloom took this in. "But you ain't a colt," she said slowly.

The pegasus blinked once. Of all the things- "It's just a saying, Applebloom. Don't read too much into stuff. You don't wanna get like Lyra, do you?"

"Oh," Applebloom said, realising her mistake. Slowly, though, her frown returned. "But ain't Cloudsdale made o' clouds? Are there trees in Cloudsdale? Are there apple trees in Cloudsdale?"

Uh-oh. "Well..." Make it good. "Y'know how pegasus ponies can make anything outta clouds?" She said it slowly, and held her breath to see if it stuck.

"What're y'all feedin' mah lil' sister this time, Rainbow?" Applejack's amused voice rang across the clearing beneath her. "And why're y'all sittin' up a tree?"

"All the cool pegasuses are doing it!" said Applebloom, "Mostly colts, I think, but I guess mares are allowed if they're cool enough." She was absolutely sincere, and sounded so proud to have been inducted into this secret of another species. Just wait till she tells Scootaloo-

A short bark of laughter caught Rainbow Dash off-guard. Applejack threw her a dirty look, which did it again.

And that was it. She had the giggles.

The two earth ponies gave each other a look of utter bemusement, which, for some reason, she just couldn't stop giggling at. It just seemed so funny. So much explaining she'd already had to do today, so much lying to make up for, so much sorrow in hers and others' hearts, and so much yet to come - and she'd just lied for the right reasons, and it seemed so absurd that she'd now have to explain this funny little fib to a filly just the same as all the big, scary, damaging lies. She laughed, and it felt like flying high. For now, all the lies were fibs to fillies, so like anypony would, she laughed.

"Don' listen to 'er, Applebloom," Applejack said sagely. "Anypony spends as long in the clouds as she does gets some strange fancies." She rolled her eyes, and Dash tipped alarmingly off her branch in uncontrollable hilarity. She flung out a wing to steady herself, failed, and flapped unsteadily to the ground, where she collapsed on her knees, still helpless with the escape of emotion.

Applebloom, with a worried look, ran to her sister's side. The older pony's eyes widened, and she lifted the brim of her hat with a hoof. "Dash? You okay there?"

"I... I'm fine..." she giggled through the tears streaming down her face. "I... gimme a minute..."

Applejack felt something wrong. Even Pinkie only laughed for the right reasons, most of the time. Dash's sense of humour might be simplistic, but it wasn't dumb, and ever since the whole fight at the Epic Meal Time debacle the two of them had been close enough to at least hug. She walked slowly across the clearing to try to help her friend stand up.

After a minute or so, the laughter subsided, but the tears didn't. Rainbow Dash had cried with frustration earlier in the day, and anger, and lots of other things she didn't like admitting to, but she'd not yet cried the tears of regret and sorrow she needed to if she were ever to think straight. She felt the warmth of a tight embrace and the movement of a meaningful nod, heard a filly's hooves scampering away, smelled the sweat and hay of her friend helping her to her hooves.

"C... can we talk?" she managed to stammer, between sobs. Applejack nodded at her, eyes wide and full of sincere compassion, and led her off down the path back to the farm.

Chapter 4: Earth Pony Magic

The tree-clearing work had gone on for eight hours. Three hours ago, with the storm abating, Rainbow Dash had been forced (against every feather of her being) up into the stormclouds to squeeze more out of them, to keep up the rain which plastered her mane to her back and made her sweetheart sob as she flew - the rain that they needed to do the job. Just over an hour ago, suffering the come-down from Twilight Sparkle's energising magics, Fluttershy had finally lost the strength in her wings and had ploughed into the ground shoulder-first and rolled to a stop. When it was over, Rainbow Dash had come down to earth, weak and shaking, and been slung over Big Mac's back for the journey home.

When the evening sun burned a hole in the dissipating storm-clouds, then, this band of friends who had suffered and won were given some closure, a celestial reward for their efforts. And with the work done, and the farm saved, everypony felt there was plenty to party about.

Applejack was beyond words with a delight which rose to far outshine the depths of the despair that the disease had forced her family into. Blinking back joyful tears, she grabbed Rainbow Dash and led her through an impromptu two-legged dance which seemed to mostly involve laughing and hugging, and sometimes spinning round in circles until they fell on their backs. She hugged Fluttershy forcefully, squeezing an enthusiastic, exhausted smile out of the sore pegasus. She all-but leapt on Rarity, her abject delight infectious enough that the tired unicorn didn't even complain about the leaves and dirt that the her friend left all over her.

Lacking the cannon or most of her supplies, Pinkie Pie had set up the old barn as a party with little more than hay and imagination. Applejack, at the centre of the festivities, danced with her brother and cousins and anypony who came close enough to get pulled into her orbit. Twilight fired off bright magical flares that lit the barn with lively shadows. Rarity generously turned her impeccable hooves to massaging some of the worst of the day's exercise out of the two pegasi. And everypony danced with an elation in their step which would only make their muscles ache far worse in the morning, but which, for now, was simply the necessary way of the world.

An hour after dusk, Rainbow Dash managed to tempt Fluttershy away from the milieu, behind a four-foot-thick barrier of hay-bales, and there she pulled her down on top of herself to nuzzle her with manic affection. Fluttershy giggled like a filly, so Dash giggled, so she giggled more; and this continued for a good few minutes before Fluttershy put an end to it with a sudden kiss.

Dash's wings tensed, though they were trapped beneath her, and she returned the kiss. Running her forehoof through her marefriend's mane, she sighed as she considered their hay-bale fortress, as well as the reason it was necessary. They'd done it. They were the heroes of the day. And for the first time in her life, Rainbow Dash was genuinely, awesomely happy to share the laurels with somepony else. Surely now, surely tonight was the time to tell everypony why she was so happy. They shouldn't have to hide.

Too tired or too happy to resist despite the risk, Fluttershy had lain in her marefriend's forelegs for all of twenty minutes before Dash, trying and failing at levity, said the unthinkable:

"Hey, wouldn't it be hilarious if we got caught here?"

And Applebloom, who by sheer chance was the only pony close enough to hear the panicked squeak and hissed conversation that followed, nudged her sister with a forehoof, and asked, with wide and innocent eyes, "What's a fillyfooler?"

There was a corner of that broken-down old barn set up as a den, with a blanket and a book to read, a barrel of cider and a thick bed of hay. Applejack explained that it was where Big Macintosh rested when his back started hurting again, and sometimes where he slept when he wanted time alone. Everypony needed some alone time, after all. Well, except maybe Pinkie Pie.

Rainbow Dash lay on her back in the bed of hay, gazing up at the simple ceiling, and doing all her talking to it. Applejack leant on another hay-bale, resting her head on a forehoof, occasionally taking a swig from the mug of cider next to her.

As calmly and clearly as she could, the pegasus related the day's events to her stoic friend. Applejack bit her lip once or twice as Dash accused their mutual friends of insensitivity, cruelty and "being stupid-heads", but managed not to interrupt. And when it was all done, the pegasus sighed and shook her head, and murmured an apology for all the things that she shouldn't have said. Applejack understood. She'd personally never had twenty-four hours in which quite so much had gone so badly wrong, let alone in which most of it was her fault. She could only imagine how her friend was feeling right now - angry, remorseful, scared - so what could she do to help?

"Well, ah can't help y'all make it up with Pinkie Pie or Twilight, but y'ain't got no beef with me yet, so let's keep it that way, huh?" Applejack said. Rainbow Dash nodded mutely. "So... lemme lay this out nice an' simple.

"You're walkin' out with Fluttershy. Flyin' out. Whatever. Y'all go picnickin' in the clouds an', ah dunno, read Darin'-Do to each other an' cutesy pegasus stuff. She says she's afraid o' ponies knowin' she's a fillyfooler, 'cos she don't know how they'll react, but she's gonna try real hard to work up the courage.

"So y'all roll along fer a while, keepin' it quiet an' hopin' nopony notices. I'm guessin' y'all played a whole buncha Monopony with that bunny on the bank, but sure, y'all manage to get her up to Cloudsdale a couple times, an' sure y'all never miss a party. An' every time it's somethin' big, you get an itchy tongue.

"So she figures if she can keep y'all in the house, an' down on the ground, then ya won't feel like you're gonna explode. But that don't work, 'cos now y'all ain't even out stretchin' your wings with her. So she starts findin' reasons not to do anythin'.

"An' y'all're wonderin', maybe not wrongly, whatcha got left."

There was a pause, and the tired pegasus sank slightly. "You don't have to say it like that," she sighed.

"Honesty," Applejack said simply.

Dash shifted uncomfortably in the bed of hay. Outside no birdsong, no rustling of leaves or branches made any noise to distract from that simple sound: 'Honesty'. So, what was on her mind?

"This place..." No. Don't start there.

"Y'know the... party..." No.

Dash inhaled deeply. "Remember the Blue Leaf?"

"How could ah forget?" Applejack smiled. "Y'all saved our flanks. We'd've been on oats outta town stores all winter, an'... in debt... an' worse." When the pegasi had arrived that morning, Applebloom had nuzzled up to them with tears in her eyes. She didn't want to have to leave school, but she'd have to help out more if the crop failed. "But hay, y'all flew better'n I've seen before or since. 'tweren't flashy, but it got the job done. Kinda like if ya put wings onta me." The farmpony grinned at her friend and hoofed the mug of cider over to her.

"You couldn't fly right with that hat," Dash quipped back lazily.

"Aw, horsefeathers to it, then. This hat's bigger'n the sky ta me, girl. Anyway..."

"Y'know how we came back here... was it here?" The pegasus looked around, frowning.

"Nah, it was the old north barn. The one y'all flattened."

"Right." That stung. They all looked the same to her, these flimsy earthbound wooden things, but she'd destroyed the place they partied in on one of the best nights of their lives. That was a weird feeling. "...anyhoof, that night, I got her behind the haystack. It was kinda like... if we were there, and the music was playing, and all our friends were there, it wasn't really a secret at all. If I closed my eyes, it was like I was hugging her right out in front of all our friends. Y'know, like you do with your special somepony when the party's winding down?"

"Ah wouldn't know. Ah ain't so much fer the pee-dee-ays," Applejack said with a wink, "But it's horses for courses, ain't it? Ah wouldn't buck y'all outta mah barn fer snugglin' up in a corner."

"Waitaminute-" the pegasus sat bolt upright, "You aren't... does that mean you..."

"Tell ya later, sugarcube," the farmpony smirked. "Carry on. Ah reckon ah know where this is goin'."

Rainbow Dash bit her lip, and gave her friend a reproachful look. She flopped back down into the hay. "Anyway, we were both so happy, I said we should think about doing it right then and there."

Applejack raised an eyebrow. "Now, that ah would buck y'all out for-"

Dash laughed despite herself, "Not that! AJ, where do you get these ideas? I mean just... going out there and kissing her. Right in front of everypony. I knew it'd be fine, but she panicked, and-"

"Hokay," Applejack held up a hoof. "This is where ah get off, sister. This is where your marefriend somehow managed to whisper so loud mah lil' sister heard her."

Rainbow Dash choked on her cider, and spat it out into the hay. "She WHA-" she yelled, before Applejack silenced her with a well-timed hoof. She flailed incoherently, panicking, but the same compassion as had calmed her in the clearing shone out of those bright eyes, and it soothed her panic a little.

"Whoa there!" the farmpony said reassuringly, "Hooves on the ground. Ah told her it was grown-up stuff. She was upset, Dash. She wanted ta know if she could help, or if anypony could. She was right darlin' 'bout the whole thing. An' when I said she didn't tell nopony 'bout none of it, she offered ta Pinkie-Pie Swear." She nodded to the hoof she still held in her friend's mouth. "Y'all gonna panic?" Dash shook her head, and spat out the hoof with a grimace.

"So you found out then?"

If there was a single deep and useful truth that everypony in Ponyville knew about the successful farmpony and saviour of Equestria who now sat opposite Rainbow Dash, it was her painful, embarrassing lack of a poker face. She couldn't keep a secret. Worse, though, she could even give away things she wasn't trying to keep secret.

Dash read her friend's sudden tight-lipped expression like Daring-Do read hieroglyphs. "Wait, you knew before?"

"Hoo, boy. Ah knew this weren't gonna be easy." Applejack rubbed the back of her neck with a hoof.

"When?" the pegasus demanded.

"Hol' on, now, y'all said ya weren't gonna panic!" Rainbow Dash opened her mouth as if to retort - but held it just in time. "Hokay. Ah didn't know fer long before that. But Fluttershy asked me fer a favour, an', well, it weren't none too subtle. Y'all don't think any one pony could plant the Sky Garden on her own, do ya?"

"I knew it!" Dash's wings flared, as if in triumph. "I mean... the Sky Garden, not that it was you. I always figured it might've been Zecora or something..."

"Ver' clever, darlin'," Applejack said, so sincerely that it could only have been cleverly-disguised sarcasm. "So anyhoof, once it was over an' done, she cooked up about the best hot chocolate ah've ever tasted an' kinda... exploded."

"She's just the most wonderful amazing pegasus I've ever met, and she knows it, and I don't even mind that she knows it because she thinks I'm amazing. She's good with the animals, especially 'the awesome ones'." Applejack chuckled at Fluttershy's impression of her marefriend, which was terrible, but flattering. "That's what she calls the raptors. She keeps trying to fit a stoop into a trick. It's so funny watching a pegasus pouncing on a cloud!

"And she's absolutely no good at Monopony, and she gets so wound up because Angel always beats both of us, so I have to hug her until she calms down, and then we fall asleep together. She sleeps so sweetly, you'd never think she was so loud while she's awake; by moonlight, she just looks so much softer, and she sounds softer too. And then she wakes up with the best bed-mane in the world, and she lets me brush it out for her. I can't think of anything I'd rather do when I wake up in the morning, except I always wake up an hour before her, so I go and feed the animals, and make a healthy breakfast of warm oats and honey. More honey for her, of course," the pegasus said with a giggle.

"And she's beautiful. Oh, my heart misses a beat whenever we go swimming together in the river, or when she flaps down out of the clouds and she's all sweating and..." Fluttershy squeaked and blushed, shrinking slightly, and Applejack burst out laughing. "Oh my!" the pegasus laid her ears, and her wings, which had fluffed up, snapped back to her back, and she seemed to get smaller yet.

Once Applejack had recovered herself and coaxed Fluttershy back to a state of calm, she went on, a little less overenthusiastically. "She's just so cool, and lots of ponies love her. I wish I could be like that, but I'm not cool or interesting, so I just keep to the animals. It's easier than trying and failing. And anyway, I was famous for a while, and I hated it." The pegasus shuddered as she remembered everything Photo Finish had made her do - not to mention being chased by fans and the trough press. "But... I think she wants me to be... more out there. So that ponies look at me and say 'That's Fluttershy - she's Rainbow Dash's'. So that ponies will just be able to look at me and know, because if they know who my marefriend is then they must already know that I like mares. She wants ponies to notice me."

"And I don't know if I want that."

"She said ah couldn't tell anypony else," Applejack had edited the story for her audience; after all, she reasoned, Rainbow Dash already knew what she had for breakfast, and presumably how adorable her bed-mane was. "Ah told her ah was about the worst pony at keepin' a secret in Ponyville. So she made me... Promise. On a whole buncha terrible and outright nasty consequences. Your mare's got some imagination," she mused.

"Hasn't she?" Dash sighed. It didn't hurt, now, to think of the good; or rather, it no longer hurt like the soulless emptiness that had stolen her wings from her while she flew that morning. But how come... "So why you?" she said, maybe a little too sharply; Applejack frowned. The pegasus shook her head, "I mean, why you when she said she couldn't tell anypony?"

"Privacy an' secrecy ain't the same, hon," Applejack said simply. "She wants ta be private, but she thinks she has ta be secret. An she ain't told ya who she's told 'cuz she's afraid ya'd go runnin' yer mouth off."

"WHA-" This time, Applejack had her hoof ready. Rainbow Dash growled quietly, and then sat back down, quietly fuming. Her wings fluttered impatiently, sending strands of hay drifting into the air.

"Think of it like... well, heh..." Applejack blushed slightly, "let's say a friend o' mine thinks the Wonderbolts are dumb. They know that y'all love 'em, though, so they ain't gonna say nuthin' in front of y'all, are they?"

"They better not!"

"'zactly. Now perhaps they got their reasons fer thinkin' it, but in any case, they ain't ashamed, an' they ain't hidin' it. There's just some ponies they'd say it round, an' some ponies they wouldn't."

"So they're keeping it secret!"

Applejack sighed. This was going to take more effort than she had realised. "No, Dash. Look. If ya asked 'em 'bout it, they'd say it, only they'd say it polite-like, y'know? Like 'Ah don' think they're all that special'. But they don't go round talkin' trash 'bout 'em all the time - they'd have ta really hate 'em ta think like that. D'you get it?"

But I do want to go round talking about her. I show off my tricks to everypony who'll sit still long enough, and she makes me feel just as awesome as that. How can I... not?

Before she could reply, Applejack continued. "Did y'all ever go sayin' anythin' about how ya couldn't wait ta tell the world? How ya'd write her name in the clouds?"

"The stars-" Dash said, before she could stop herself.

That was a promise she'd made on their first night together, still high with the exultation of the Best Young Flyer laurels, which sat, slightly askew, on Fluttershy's head. The next day she would go to spend a day with the Wonderbolts, but tonight, and all the delight and all the power which seemed to crackle between her and her brand-new something-complicated were hers to spend however she liked.

When she'd got used to the thrill of just being close to her old friend - oh, to do so truly would take months, but for the night, at least, she had to rest eventually - they had lain on their backs on a low cloud overlooking the dark streets of Ponyville and, snuggled up close for warmth, they had counted the stars in the moonlit sky. Dash rarely admitted knowing the names of the constellations, but in truth, as soon as her parents had let her out flying at night she'd become hooked. She had her nerdy side - not that she'd have ever admitted it.

But they weren't permanent, as they both knew. The stars could move. And if Rainbow Dash had her way, she'd find a way to write their names on the night sky.

"Yeah, sugarcube?" Applejack was, as ever, the voice of reality. "You do know, right... when y'all say that kinda stuff, it jus' scares her worse?"

Rainbow Dash said nothing. Of course she knew. Of course she knew. But... how was she supposed to admit it could never happen? How could she admit that if she wanted Fluttershy, she had to put down the dream of... whatever it was she wanted. Being known, being loved - not as herself but as one half of something. Any fame she gathered to herself could never be shared. If her marefriend had her way, nopony would know she existed.

"Do ya wanna make it better?" Applejack asked, her voice strangely quiet.

Rainbow Dash nodded quickly, her eyes down.

"Dash, look at me," the earth pony said.

The pegasus met her friend's eye slowly, trembling. She didn't want to hear the question. The first time was easy. The second time had to be the truth.

"Are ya sure y'all wanna make it better?"

I don't wanna give up the dream. But if I don't give up the dream, I lose it anyway. But what am I without the dream? If I'm not cool, I'm nothing! How can I be the best if I'm uncool just 'cos I'm trying to keep some other pony happy?

But she's not just some other pony, is she? And what's the point of being the best if you've got nopony to share it with?

Something - perhaps pride, perhaps arrogance - something shifted inside her. It didn't hurt as much as she'd feared it would. She still wanted to be the best, and to be known for it, but that admission - that she wanted to share it, that there was no point doing any of it if she couldn't share it - that was new.

Maybe. Maybe... it could just be our friends. If that's what it takes to keep her. Maybe I've just gotta change.

Privacy isn't the same as secrecy. I guess... I never thought of it like that before. Privacy, not secrecy.

Celestia burn my wings from my back if I break up a friendship over this. Luna send me to the moon if I hurt anypony I love.

"I'm sure," she said, more certain of herself than she'd been in months. She shivered as her prayer to her Goddesses reverberated inside her skin. If she'd ever felt their touch - other than in person, of course - she felt it now, in a tingle which ran down her back and through her wings, in the faint sensation of being watched.

"I'm sure," she said, and it seemed to her that it echoed.

"Good," Applejack sighed and hung her head, her ears laid. She'd been holding her breath for an answer, and Celestia help her, for a moment there, watching her friend wrestle with something she hoped she would never feel, she'd been afraid.

And then it was gone. The crackle down her spine, the uncanny sense that she knew where the sun was in the sky, and that she knew because it had told her: and she was left alone with just a friend and a brain for company. The friend was reliable, the brain less so, for while Applejack at least appeared cheerful, her brain was providing little in the way of useful advice.

Nothing's changed. You're still that same pony who hurt the pony she loved. Even if you've decided you want her back, who's to say she'll want you?

"So... what can we do?" she asked, and her voice was full of the unspoken answer: Nothing.

Applejack seemed to notice that, for she paused a moment to regard her with an unreadable expression. She grabbed back the forgotten mug of cider and downed the rest. "Well, ah don't rightly know straight away, but ah'll help however ah can," she said, shaking her hat off. A small flask fell out from underneath it. "Ah know how y'all go nuts fer our fine apple cider - ah don't think anypony's gonna forget y'all munchin' on dirt - but ah don't think that's enough fer today. If we're gonna get y'all fightin' fit, ah say we fill ya all the way up ta the backbone with the good stuff!"

Rainbow Dash, still a little slow, flicked her tail at the mention of The Good Stuff. "You mean... hard cider?" she whispered so the censors wouldn't hear. She didn't think it was a bad idea, but...

Applejack laughed mischievously. "You'll see." She emptied the small flask into the mug - it barely came up halfway - and hoofed it to her friend.

"AJ... do you carry that round everywhere with you?" Dash said, accepting the mug with reverence.

"Eeyup," the farmpony grinned.

This didn't sound like a good thing. "Are you... sure you should be...?"

"Try it."

Rainbow Dash looked down. It smelled delicious, like no breed of apple she could name, but like apple itself. It looked like she imagined liquid gold might, the first sign of true colour to register to her grey-tainted eyes on this grey-lit day. And when she was brave enough to touch her lips to it, it tasted like love felt.

It wasn't fermented. It wasn't for imparting that sort of unpredictable strength which would only drive a pony like Rainbow Dash to recklessness. It was just apple, seasoned with something exotic and exciting, cool and fresh-tasting; it was liquid perfection, and its strength was the love that beat the heart that moved the hooves that made it - love which, somehow, had distilled into the very taste of the thing.

Molten gold poured over her and through her. She would never forget this moment. If she had said half the things she remembered saying last night, then she would have a long way to go to earn Fluttershy's love and trust again - but something in the mix was inspiring. Like a glimpse of the finishing line through the other contenders, Rainbow Dash was given a glimpse through the indistinct hardship that lay ahead, all the way to the prize, which shone with clarity and certainty in bright sunlit yellow and soft, delicate pink. They could work it out, because they weren't just in love: they were friends.

"What is that?" Dash asked eventually, when she had regained her breath, when her hooves had stopped their imperceptible trembling. Her blue hooves, as blue as the sky she loved.

Applejack - solid, reliable, orange Applejack - had settled her head on her hooves on top of her hay-bale, and regarded her friend with an unreadable expression. She was happy to help, but it looked to Dash's eyes like she were running through the answers she could give to that question. Eventually, her expression became almost sheepish, though her bright green eyes still held a glimmer of mischief - and she chose her answer.

"Earth pony magic," she said, and it seemed that was enough.

Honesty and Loyalty walked back towards Ponyville in a slow step, heedless of the breeze. They talked while they walked; strategies, tactics, manoeuvres for the coming conversation.

Applejack reasoned that there was no way Fluttershy would be at home at a time like this; she'd have needed to go to be with somepony else, and since she hadn't come to Sweet Apple Acres, she must have gone into the town itself. Dash gulped when she realised one other of their friends must know - and especially when she realised who. If Pinkie Pie hadn't known about them, and if it was news to Twilight Sparkle, and she wasn't very close to anypony but the five of them...

Rarity.

Uh-oh.

"Why is it the unicorns I'm afraid of?" the pegasus asked nervously.

"'cos they can make swords outta, like, stringin' diamonds together, an' Rarity's house is full of diamonds?" Applejack said with a wink. That book had done the rounds of the six friends a few months ago, and even the farmpony had read it from cover to cover.

Rainbow Dash swallowed for a second, before she remembered where the idea came from. She kicked her friend in the shoulder with a forehoof. "Don't scare me like that!" she yelled, and Applejack reared and cantered off, laughing all over her freckled face.

"So why was Applebloom wandering round by her own, anyway?" Dash enquired, as they rounded a bend in the road. At some point in the scuffle she had ended up with Applejack's hat, and the farmpony had let her keep it for the time being. She'd said it looked very... Daring.

"Y'all didn't hear 'bout Sweetie Belle?" The pegasus shook her head, looking concerned. "Scootaloo got the three of 'em on rollerblades, an' it didn't go so well. Sweetie Belle went down hard on 'er head. Anyway, she ain't hurt bad, but her magic went crazy, an' now she changes colour every half-hour. So Rarity's tryna fix it, an' Twilight's workin' the books, an' Scoot's grounded, so Applebloom ain't got nopony ta play with fer a while."

"So why were you there?"

"Ah found her homework sittin' on the kitchen table right where ah put it out for her. Ah came out ta send her back to it."

"D'you think she's okay?" Dash said, her head sinking slightly. "I don't like ponies seeing me like that, but... I hope she's okay..."

Applejack stopped and laid a hoof on her friend's shoulder. "Y'all might not think it of 'er, but she's a strong lil' filly, that one. Ah'll tell 'er what she needs ta know when ah get back. In the meantime, she knows not to tell aught ta none but kin."

"Kin? You mean your whole family might know by now?"

"Sugarcube, they knew the night o' the party. But we Apples know when somethin' ain't none of our business, an' we know ta leave it well alone. We'd never kick up a fuss 'bout somethin' so simple as love." Applejack frowned in thought. "Well, maybe 'cept... y'all might wanna watch out fer Granny Smith. She'd buck y'all right through the wall if'n she caught ya like that with yer gal, hip or no hip."

Rainbow Dash's eyes widened, and she swallowed nervously. "She... hates fillyfoolers?"

There was a moment of silence, and Applejack blinked in confusion. Then she broke out in heartfelt laughter. "Why hay, 'course not, silly filly! She don't care who y'all're steppin' out with! She just thinks it's wrong fer ponies ta 'bout as much as hold hooves 'fore they're married!" There was warmth in her voice, and the laugh stayed with her as set off walking again. "Yeah, she's kinda old-fashioned like that..."

Chapter 5: The Ambassador of Fluttershy

In the weeks leading up to Nightmare Night, in a small, thatched cottage on the edge of the Everfree Forest, two pegasi repeated the same argument over and over. One, holding high the Cloudsdale tradition of couples dressing in paired or matching costumes, argued that they should uphold the honour of their hometown. The other, owing to a certain social reticence, was arguing the case for the local convention, that of wearing a unique (and ideally convincing) disguise, so that nopony would know who she was. Nopony whatsoever.

Well, that wasn't her only reason. In truth, she also really didn't want to see her marefriend dressed up as Flank-n-Furter, which was her current best idea, and which she already owned about half the costume for. Nor did she particularly like the strange and uncomfortable-looking suits of any of the mad doctor's servants. And when Rainbow Dash had presented her with the pair of tight red underpants (with built-in bulge) she'd need to wear if she were to go as Jockey, she'd hidden under the bed in embarrassment.

In fact, now she thought about it, she realised she'd rather not think about it again. That had been one disturbing stage show.

So the argument had gone back and forth, with stubbornness and concessions on both sides (albeit not in equal measures). Couches and clouds had been slept on, toast had been burnt, and Angel had been employed as both threat and weapon. Eventually, though, a reluctant Fluttershy had agreed to play the part of Ahuitzotl to Dash's Daring-Do, mostly so that she could claim there was nothing romantic about it if anypony said anything.

A week before the event, they stood outside the door to the Carousel Boutique. Fluttershy looked up with wide eyes at the place, knowing full-well that if Rarity knew anything about the customs of Cloudsdale, she would guess in an instant what was going on. And then she wouldn't go to the spa with her, or want to talk to her, or be her friend at all. Then she would dislike her for keeping the secret from her for so long. There's only so generous a pony can be.

As it was, she was quite distracted making Spike a sharp deep-purple suit and hat for some diplomatic function that Twilight was to attend up in Canterlot. Even with that distraction - or perhaps because of it - Rainbow Dash still had to stand in the doorway to stop Fluttershy from fleeing as soon as she got the chance.

"I'm going as Daring-Do!" Dash declared, sending Spike into a fit of giggles. Then again, around Rarity, Spike tended to the giddy. It was adorable to watch, if a little strange.

"And... if it's not... too much..." Fluttershy began. She didn't get far before tears of stress pricked at her eyes. "But what if she knows?" she hid her face behind her mane to whisper to her marefriend.

"E-shay osen't-day," Rainbow Dash hissed back, resisting the urge to facehoof in frustration.

"I can't I can't I can't-"

"Fluttershy would like a Ahuitzotl costume, Rarity," the athletic pony said loudly, shooting her marefriend a sharp look. "I think she just feels silly. I'm trying to get her into the spirit of it!"

"Rainbow Dash, oh my, I can't believe-"

"Just go with it, Fluttershy, d'you wanna look suspicious?"

"Suspicious? Do you think she's suspicious?" Fluttershy whimpered and cast a baleful glance at Rarity, whose expression presently blended concern with bemusement.

"Darling?" Rarity said, arching a pencilled eyebrow and drifting her measuring tape over to Spike, who seemed more than content simply to do what she asked of him. "Is everything quite alright?"

"Aheh, no worse than usual!" Rainbow Dash grinned and quite unsubtly nudged the other pegasus with a back hoof. "So, uh, how's about that grey mane-dye? Does anypony actually make it?" she forced out through her unmoving grimace. "And how are we gonna do the weird monkey paw thing on the end of the tail? She's not really Ahuitzotl at all without that. D'you think we could make it pick up stuff if we put magic in it? Can magic even do that?" Fluttershy, meanwhile continued to inspect her fetlocks as if for ticks.

"Oh, Rainbow, not right now," the unicorn sighed and waved a hoof. "Yes, of course I can fit a couple of extra-"

"Couple?!" Fluttershy's head shot up, and she looked at Rarity with horror in pinpoint pupils. "Who said anything about couples?!"

Rarity blinked and stepped towards her terrified friend. "Fluttershy, darling, you look terrible! Are you quite well?" Her horn flickered as she picked up her favourite mane-brush, and she advanced with a friendly smile. The quickest way she knew to calm down a nervous Fluttershy was chai and a friendly brushing. "Now, you really must let me straighten out-"

"Straight?! The pegasus' voice reached into the higher registers of pony hearing, and Spike winced. "I'm totally straight!"

"Yeah! It's totally straight!" Rainbow Dash said quickly, A bead of sweat ran down her cheek. This wasn't going as she'd hoped, and the easiest solution, surely, would just be to do something reckless. But she'd promised not to do that. Ever. "C'mon, Fluttershy, calm down!" said her mouth, while everything else in her screamed KISS HER; OUT HER; END THIS FOREVER.

But she didn't. No kissing, no outing, no end. The secret, the tension, all the problems that went with it, would remain.

And then Rarity opened her mouth again to try to make things better, and Fluttershy lost her nerve.

Standing on the flattened door, which still bore the deep imprints of two delicate but panicked hooves, Spike shielded his eyes as he watched the two pegasi retreat swiftly into the distant sky. Rarity sighed as she unwrapped the measuring tape from around the hoof which had been fidgeting with it, and shook her head, and resolved to go and tell Twilight she'd been right to wonder what was wrong with Fluttershy.

The streets of Ponyville were livening up a little, as ponies who had waited in for the morning accepted that they'd have to go about their business, even if it meant risking the rain. That movement didn't just bring the place to life; it brought it to colour, as ponies of all hues walked and shopped and chatted.

To Rainbow Dash, the grey cast that laid over the town no longer seemed like the way the world should be. Grey was the colour of empty despair, of monotone and monochrome, of endings and dust. When she woke, it had felt right, like the way the world should be out on the other side of her cold, cold fur and her cold, cold eyes. Now, though, she had felt again, thanks to Pinkie Pie; she had thought again, thanks to Twilight Sparkle, and she had wanted again, thanks to Applejack.

And now, trotting quietly through the streets towards the Carousel Boutique, all she could hope for was that she wouldn't bleed again, courtesy of a riled-up Rarity with a shop full of knitting-needles.

She could make it up to Pinkie Pie by giving over a couple of days to spend chilling out with her, or getting excited with her, or however it was that Pinkie was choosing to relax at that point in time; she could make it up to Twilight Sparkle by explaining, and apologising, and maybe returning all her overdue books; she didn't think she really needed to make it up to Applejack - but to do all of this, she had to avoid dying at the horn and magic of Fluttershy's best friend, armed with a shop full of sharp objects to fling with the full force of whatever period drama was playing out in her head.

The Carousel Boutique was still shut up, despite the cautious return of business to the streets of Ponyville. The curtains were drawn behind its round windows, and a sign hooked on the door read "Désolé". Reading it, Rainbow Dash shared a nervous glance with her orange-furred friend. This was the most sincere and serious of the Closed signs; Rarity only switched into Prench when she really meant it. Even more telling, though, was the occasional faint glimmer of blue-purple magic floating off the door like sparks from a fire. When Rarity wanted her privacy, maybe Applejack could have bucked the door down, but she'd have an easier time going through a wall.

"She doesn't want to see you!" the voice that came through the door was haughty, and rang out before the pegasus had even raised her hoof to knock. This wasn't the start that Rainbow Dash had been hoping for. "She is shocked and appalled and deeply upset by your disgraceful performance and most inappropriate slurs upon her name, her character, and everything which she considers dear in the world. We should consider it safe to say that you have sailed some distance from the sheltered harbour of her patience, and you should shortly find yourself cast upon the stormy seas of Rarity, should you linger too long!

"Too much?" Rarity added, as an aside. Presumably, the outsiders weren't meant to hear that.

"Hey!" Rainbow Dash yelled angrily, "Let mfff-" Applejack's hoof didn't taste any better after a walk through the town, and the pegasus spat it out with an indignant whinny.

"Y'all never heard o' humility?"

"Isn't that the thing you have when you lose?"

Applejack looked at her friend in utter astonishment. "Dash, ya are losin'!"

"But she's treating this like it's a stupid book or something!"

The farmpony snorted in frustration and turned back to the door. "Rarity, it's Applejack," she sighed, "C'mon now, this ain't a game o' sides."

"Fluttershy, darling, extended metaphors are the only way to treat such a dire situation," Rarity said, still standing too close to the door. "Dearest Applejack, this is no game at all! Two star-crossed ponies swore the sweetest and severest vow that can pass anypony's lips - to love one another - now lie broken on the rocks of one's boorish intransigence. It's a wonder that Fluttershy made it so far without fainting or breaking down again, such is the state of her inconsolable distress! Rainbow Dash may have wanted her love; now she must fear her revenge!"

The pegasus and the earth pony looked to one another for any signs of comprehension, and found none. "Come again?" Applejack asked.

"Oh, for... Fluttershy is really rather upset!" Rarity shouted impatiently. "But, owing to her magnificent devotion and loyalty, she does wish to enter into negotiations vis-a-vis continued relations, which I would already be thankful for, if I were you! And rather than speak herself she has appointed... a spokespony!" There was the faintest sound of magic from behind the door, and something clattered to the floor.

"Rarity..." Rainbow Dash began, but there was no reply. "I just wanna talk..." The faintest glimmering of magic continued unabated for a while, finished off with the snipping of scissors. And as the time wore on, the sense of being watched grew stronger and stronger. Applejack deflected those she could with a warning glare, but this was a short-ranged tactic that couldn't deflect the eyes behind curtain-twitching hooves, nor those watching from behind books at the café down the street.

Biting her lip, turning to face the gently glowing white door, the pegasus turned to risk a knock. It might just make Rarity even angrier, but... well, Fluttershy wouldn't care...

The door burst open, and behind it, a sight that neither could have possibly seen coming. Rarity wore a white uniform with a sharp cut to it, gold-embroidered cuffs and collar, and a strange row of small, brightly-coloured ribbons hanging from her left shoulder. Her violet mane was immaculate, as ever, but topped with the same kind of severe peaked cap that Rainbow Dash had only ever seen before on the occasional picture of some important pony or other from Canterlot. A holster on her left hip held something rectangular, with a handle of dark-brown hardwood.

She took a step forward, and seemed to grow larger as she did. Rainbow Dash backed away, unsure whether to laugh or worry. Applejack's bulging cheeks, meanwhile, suggested she knew exactly which she wanted to do, and she was having trouble holding it back.

She took another step, and in her best impression of Princess Luna, proclaimed: "I am the Ambassador of Fluttershy!"

Applejack had been hard-pressed to hold back her hilarity since the door had opened. Now the dam burst, and laughter spilled out of her in torrents. Beside her, Rainbow Dash giggled, but managed to maintain composure, at least. But the orange pony, whose mental overlay for this scene had suddenly come to include mud-masks and cucumber slices and a frantic Twilight Sparkle, collapsed on the floor in uncontrollable giggles. Her front hooves flailed as she tried to point to everything she found ridiculous, and each gesture only renewed her gigging.

"Now really, Applejack, you're being terribly rude!" Rarity admonished, a move which only made matters worse. "Applejack! How dare you laugh at a time like this! There is serious business to be done by serious ponies. It is inconceivable that you would even consider..."

Behind her, through the open door, Rainbow Dash caught a glimpse of a soft pink mane, and by some synaesthetic spell of memory, felt it brush against her face. The wide blue-green eye behind it seemed to shiver as if joining in with Applejack's laughter - albeit with far more restraint, far more dignity, than the farmpony could ever muster.

Recounting the various mishaps of Ditzy Doo and the Crusader Mailmares (with her best impressions) one winter's day, while a sick Fluttershy lay in her bed with a fever, had brought out that same laugh. Neither cruel nor hurtful, it was a laugh of loving affection.

That was Fluttershy. That was so Fluttershy.

That was Fluttershy, behind that soft pink mane, freezing as she realised who was looking at her. In an instant she was gone, vanished out of the doorway with all haste.

Surreality returned, as a few feet away, Rarity turned her back deliberately on Rainbow Dash to tower over Applejack. "Do you really think this is helping?" The farmpony was, at least, now back on her feet, though still standing in a crouch. She giggled occasionally, mostly whenever she met Rarity's angry blue eyes. "I warn you, I am carrying my heaviest mane-brush and I know how to use it."

"Is... is that supposed to be a threat?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"Applejack, you must inform your party that all negotiation is done only through ourselves, as ambassadors-in-extraordinary. Neither of you may speak with Fluttershy; nor may I speak with Rainbow Dash. These are the rules of engagement."

The pegasus' jaw gaped. "You can't be serious!"

"Deadly," Rarity replied with a toss of her head, but without looking at her.

Applejack snickered at the pale unicorn. "What?" Rarity demanded. "What are you laughing at now?"

"Y'all're just tryna set stupid rules, an' then ya broke 'em in seconds. Y'all talked to Dash!"

"I... I did not!" Rarity's cheeks flushed. "I was referring to my... prowess with the brush."

"Sure thing, 'Ambassador'."

"Are you laughing at me?!"

Meanwhile, the cogs were turning beneath a certain rainbow mane. Hilarious as this entire sideshow was, it wasn't bucking any clouds. If Rarity was going to stand in the doorway, that was one thing, but maybe...

Rainbow Dash strode around the outside of the Carousel Boutique, inspecting its windows. Neither unicorn nor earth pony seemed to have noticed her disappearing. In fact, their argument seemed to have collapsed into "Are-Not" vs. "Are-Too", that favourite of stubborn mares everywhere. Inwardly, Dash sighed. If it took all night to make it up with her marefriend - if it took a week or longer to make it up - there was still every chance that unless somepony got in their way, Applejack and Rarity would still be at it.

Well, that was alright for her, busy checking the Carousel Boutique's anti-pegasus security. Rarity wasn't stupid, in spite of the scene she was currently making at her own front door. She'd have shut the windows if her foe for the day was a pegasus - but had she shut them tight, or just enough to prevent Rainbow Dash's usual high-speed entry?

In fact, after a couple of minutes' comprehensive testing, only one room didn't have its curtains drawn behind latched windows. An upstairs room; the unicorn's bedroom, if she remembered properly. Hovering, Dash tested the window with a hoof.

The moment her hoof tapped the window, a lot of things happened very fast. There was a loud squeak from inside, and a miniature scarlet blur disappeared across the room and under the bed, pulling the blanket down with it as it vanished. Behind it trailed a ball of yarn, which caught on the base of a clothes-horse, which toppled, spilling both the unfinished gown it bore and the box of gems balanced atop it. Confused, Dash backed away from the window, but just caught a glimpse of two pale-green eyes peeking out from beneath the bed.

Huh?

Then the door inside opened, and Fluttershy walked in. Rainbow Dash gave a yelp and ducked back to one side, first cursing Rarity for not owning a balcony, and then her wings for preventing her from pressing an ear against the window. No matter. She was always working on her stunt flying, and a trick like that would be worthy of a Wonderbolt. She'd just have to work on it once... once this was all over and done with.

Something moved behind the window. As Dash peeked around the curtain, the scarlet form resolved into a familiar-looking unicorn filly with a curly mane and a bandaged horn; Sweetie Belle, looking like she'd been dipped in paint. Looks like her magic must still be all messed up. Fluttershy, smiling gently, gave her a hug, and Sweetie Belle pointed to the window with wide and worried eyes.

Okay. You've got a choice here, Rainbow Dash. Show yourself or run away.

One way lay a confrontation which she wanted but feared; the other way lay uncertainty, distance, and the need to work up the courage again.

Well, to hay with that!

So, smiling sheepishly, her violet eyes a mix of hope and trepidation, Rainbow Dash stuck her head into the window. The blur squeaked and disappeared back beneath the bed, and Fluttershy's wings flared for a moment in shock.

At first, she looked surprised.

Then she looked annoyed.

Then she sighed, hard, and gritted her teeth.

And then she opened the window.

Chapter 6: Amidst Scattered Diamonds

There was a time when Rainbow Dash had thought nothing about barrelling into Fluttershy's room without feeling the need to knock, or apologise, or to bother with the fine details of braking or landing. Rearranging the sock drawer opposite the window had become second nature, so often had it been emptied all over her enthusiastic marefriend. She did it without argument or fuss - after all, she didn't even use the socks very often, except in winter when she distributed them to all the hibernating animals who needed them, and it was good to be reminded they were there - but in truth, it had started to bother her a little.

Even filtered through her natural shyness and reticence, and in spite of her best attempts to accept it as just a quirk, Fluttershy's irritation must have crept through in her speech or her manner at some point. At first, she'd started trying to brake, but the impact with the window threw her balance off enough that a proper landing was all-but impossible. So at some point in the last six months - she couldn't remember quite when - Rainbow Dash had started to knock at her window.

And so, smiling at her small victory, she had started letting her in herself. Dash had waited patiently, and if she'd resented it, then she'd kept that feeling very much to herself. Of course Fluttershy was afraid her marefriend would be secretly annoyed with her, but she didn't seem to be...

And then, one rainy November night, she got out of bed to open the latch with a gentle hoof, and the face that hovered outside was frozen cold and miserable. Its mane was plastered down over one eye, and the other was downcast. It shivered, and its teeth chattered in its downturned mouth.

She paused in shock, hoof halfway to the window. She'd made her wait, out in the rain and solitude. That magnificent mare, who could have soared out through the clouds and slept atop them if she wanted, and woken up the next morning dry and refreshed, with the sun to warm her and little more than cloud-top dew to shake out of her mane - she, Fluttershy, had made that beautiful, wonderful pony wait in the rain just to keep her socks in order.

And she didn't even use them very often.

Sometimes, in amongst all the arguments they'd been having recently, Rainbow Dash had asked her why she never told her what she wanted. Whether it was what to do when they had a day to spend together, or what gift she wanted for her birthday, or flavours or colours or anything of her own preferences, she only ever said what she didn't want. And for some reason, she couldn't understand that; as if everypony should just say what they want all the time; as if there was no place in the world for quiet ponies, who were happy to do what their marefriends wanted, and who didn't want to cause anypony a fuss.

Every time Dash asked what she wanted, Fluttershy thought back to the window, and how she had ruined Rarity's fashion show with her loud-mouthed critique, and how she'd ruined the Grand Galloping Gala for them all with her obsessive need to be loved. And she kept her mouth shut, or she shrugged, or she gave a tiny little filly's whinny, as if she didn't care. Because if she did, that might upset somepony else, and if there was one thing she could never do, it was upset somepony else.

"Hi," Rainbow Dash said, and Fluttershy's heart broke.

She had opened the window onto Rarity's bedroom with a mixture of trepidation and annoyance. The very last thing Rainbow Dash had said to her was incoherent through her sobbing, but the word "over" was the kind of thing that stood out even through a rain of tears. And ever since she'd reached Rarity's place, sometime just before midnight, the unicorn had been coaxing the truth from her and stoking the fires of her love and her anger, as if to prepare her for this meeting. And now that it had come, not in the form of a screaming confrontation, but in such an ordinary way as this - now, she was disoriented.

"Wh... what do you want?" Fluttershy asked, trying to sound demanding, or assertive, or whatever it was that Rarity said she should sound like.

"I just wanna talk," the hovering pegasus said, quietly.

This was familiar ground. Rarity had warned her about this. She will say she wants to talk, the unicorn had declared, pacing back and forth next to a stack of cheap romance novels borrowed from the library, occasionally flicking through one with her magic. They always says they want to talk. And the next thing you know, their hooves are all over you.

Surely, Fluttershy had responded, surely Rainbow wouldn't hurt her? Rarity had raised a meaningful eyebrow at that, and the pegasus went bright red in reply.

"I just wanna talk," Dash repeated, and she rested a hoof on the window-ledge as if to come in.

Fluttershy stood in her way. There was no way this pony was just going to distract her, with her hooves or anything else. New Fluttershy didn't let herself get pushed around by a bane-of-her-life marefriend whom she adored beyond measurement, beyond words... "You... you can just stay hovering out there, missy," she said, swallowing the tears.

"I..." Rainbow Dash glanced around, noting several pairs of eyes still on her. "You wanna talk out here?"

"I don't want to talk in here."

"We could go someplace else," she suggested hopefully.

"Um... should I go someplace else?" said a voice from underneath the bed. Then it yelped, and a faint wisp of smoke came from the dark space beneath the bed. Fluttershy nodded, and a leaf-green blur shot across the room, further scattering the spilled diamonds, and out of the door.

Once the room was clear, Fluttershy turned back to the window. "You called me a coward," she said, icily.

Dash felt like she'd been slapped, by herself, and only now was the bruise coming up. "You aren't a coward," she said in a whisper.

"You said I loved the animals more than I loved you," she said, a little louder.

Rainbow's heart twisted in her chest, and her eyes dropped. "You don't. I know you don't. You love... differently."

"You told me it was over!" she shouted back in the face of the love of her life.

And Rainbow Dash's wings faltered again, and the cold and distant grey crept back into the edges of her perception. She only fell inches before she caught herself, but by the time she met Fluttershy's eyes again, her own were trembling, full of tears.

"I really hope it isn't."

There was a brief silence between them, punctuated only by the growing noise of Rarity and Applejack's increasingly ludicrous argument at the door of the Boutique. A single tear escaped the corner of Rainbow Dash's trembling eye, and she pawed gently at the windowframe, and at Fluttershy's own hoof resting there. The contact sent a shock through the yellow pegasus, who flinched away from it.

It took everything Rainbow Dash had not to turn tail and run away at that moment; fly right back to Cloudsdale, stay there forever, waste her life on lonely nights; flee everything that might remind her of the mare she had hurt so badly.

It took everything Fluttershy had not to drag her marefriend in by the front legs and hold her until she was happy again, having felt that touch she'd spent only a single day afraid that she would never feel again.

Instead, the two looked into one another's eyes, desperate to somehow bridge the distance of feet that might as well have been a hundred miles.

And Fluttershy broke first.

"Come in, then," she whispered, stepping back from the window and sitting down.

The clouds rolled past outside, showing no signs of abating, as Rainbow Dash drifted gently into the warmth of her unicorn friend's bedroom, and settled on the floor just beneath the window. They sat there for a time, not looking at one another, until the spark of a sentence finally found its way out of her mouth. "Why didn't you tell me you'd told AJ?" she asked.

"I was scared you'd get excited," Fluttershy whispered, half of her hidden behind her mane. "You always get excited. You feel so strongly about... everything."

"You feel it too, don't you?"

"Yes, but I don't want to shout everything I think to everypony I meet."

Dash sighed. That was the heart of it. Maybe I just gotta change.

"You get so angry, Rainbow," Fluttershy continued. "Whenever somepony jokes about Lyra and Bon-Bon, and they really are just really good friends, you fly off the handle."

"It's wrong to talk about ponies behind their backs..." Dash mumbled, laying her ears. If nothing else, she wasn't sure they were just good friends.

"You threw a book at that unicorn, and all he did was snicker!"

"It wasn't even a very good one..." It didn't feel like she could sink much lower than resting her head on her front hooves, but she was trying.

"And what about the Ambassador from Stalliongrad? You could have started a war!"

That had been a terrible night. The Ambassador had wished to pay his respects to the Elements of Harmony, and the Princess had taken the chance to make a cultural evening out of it. Dash had followed Fluttershy and Twilight Sparkle and Rarity around the Princess' art gallery, feigning interest whilst sneaking more hoers d'oeuvres than she had any right to from every passing waiter.

But out in the ballroom, somepony who said he was a friend of Doctor Whooves was getting it in the neck from a rich-looking pale-brown stallion who didn't appreciate his casual flirting. Quite a crowd was gathering, and word travelled fast. Rainbow Dash flapped up above the commotion - let the Royal Guard bite her world-saving flank if they wanted - and once she heard what it was about, descended upon the Stalliongradi aristocrat with an iron will and absolute fury. Right in the middle of the crowd she had ripped into him with the kind of language that turned the Princess' amused smirk into a pained grimace, and had got her seized by the stern-faced protectors of the Castle's peace. She'd almost been thrown out, but for the fact that Celestia understood the sentiment and censured them both equally.

The other stallion, once he'd recovered his balance, had slipped off into the crowd - but not without tipping Dash a wink, and leaving her with the cryptic words, "Maybe later, blue."

"If you can't keep your mouth shut in front of the court of Canterlot..." Fluttershy trailed off.

"I..." I should say I can. That would end this. But the truth is that I don't want to. I want to tell the world. I want to write your name in rainbow letters big enough to eclipse the sun. I want to fly your face on a banner through the skies. Again. You deserve to be known. You deserve to be loved. "I don't see why I should have to," she said the words through gritted teeth. Normally, at this point in the argument, she'd fly off the handle.

But privacy isn't the same as secrecy, Applejack had told her, and if she tried really hard that didn't sound like it was just a word-game. Of course, she had to know which one Fluttershy wanted. "I don't think it's right to hide what you are."

"I don't want to hide it, Rainbow," Fluttershy threw up her hooves in frustration. Did she not listen? "Nopony knows what time I go to bed every night except you, but if they asked I'd tell them. Nopony knows what I like to read, except maybe Twilight Sparkle, but if they asked I'd tell them. It's not-"

"But you'd tell them!" Rainbow Dash cut her off. "I've seen you reading! Out in the meadow, at the café in the marketplace, even on low clouds, I've seen you doing it! You're not ashamed of reading."

"But ponies knowing what I read wouldn't make them gossip and whisper and talk about me behind my back, and look at me when I go into town, and say bad things about me, and silently judge me behind their big, smiling eyes."

"And neither would this!" Dash shouted. She gave her wings a single flap of frustrated energy, which sent scattered diamonds skittering across the floor. "Why do you even care, anyway?"

There was a pause, then, while Fluttershy hung her head and shook with the effort of holding back the tears. From somewhere outside came a flash of magic, and the sound of Applejack yelping in surprise. "I don't know," she said, "I... I remember... we all... were all so nasty... to Zecora..."

"Nopony knew a single thing about Zecora. And you gotta admit, she is pretty weird."

"I... I... I'm pretty weird!" Fluttershy stammered.

"You're the best pony in the world!"

"I'm too shy and I live in a weird little cottage full of animals and I'd rather eat a nice bowl of hot oats than a bouquet of roses and-"

"-and you saved the world with nothing more than kindness! Twice! Doesn't that mean anything to you? Doesn't that get you some credit?"

"Applejack tried to run away because she didn't get first place," Fluttershy said quietly. "She saved the world too."

"We're not talking about Applejack and her stubborn flank."

"I'm still pretty weird."

"So is everypony! C'mon, Fluttershy; everypony you know has gone bug-out crazy sometime or other. Twilight messed with all our heads and gave us all magic poisoning 'cos she was so worried about what Princess Celestia would think of her. I still sneeze cotton candy from that darned magic sometimes!" She tapped a hoof on the floor to punctuate. "Applejack almost worked herself to death just 'cos she didn't want to ask for help. Pinkie Pie... dressed up a whole bunch of things as if they were... ponies..." Rainbow Dash suppressed a shudder at that particularly memory. "Rarity flounced around for days talking about exile just 'cos a fashion show went wrong. Your best friend thought she'd have to run away to Prance or something, just 'cos some wise-flank from Canterlot didn't like her stuff."

Fluttershy listened nervously. At least Dash wasn't shouting anymore.

"C'mon, Fluttershy, think about it. You put on the Mare-Do-Well costume too, didn't you?" The yellow pegasus looked blank. Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. "Did that make you think I was a crazy pony, and talk about me behind my back, and those other things you said? Did it make anypony do that?"

"Briefly, yes," Fluttershy said, before she could stop herself. "N... not me, I mean, other ponies." Please don't get angry please don't fly away please...

Rainbow Dash flinched. Having retreated to the safety of the clouds for a couple of weeks after that embarrassing incident, she'd avoided the gossip rather than hear it. Hearing it from Fluttershy's mouth still stung, though. "So... what, you're the one pony around who really can't drop a grudge? Is that it?" she said, wounded. "You're the one pony in the entire world who can point to a great big magical doohickey to show off just how kind she is; why can't you be kind enough to yourself to realise what everypony else thinks of you?"

"If everypony already thinks I'm so nice, why do you want so much to tell them how proud you are of me?"

"Because I love you! And that's what lovers do! They're proud!"

Fluttershy didn't even try to blink back the tears from that. It felt like a long time since she'd heard those three little words from her marefriend's mouth. It was like... some months since she'd wondered if she was just a project to Rainbow Dash, as if making her come out in the open was the whole reason they were together.

"Why?" she whispered, on the edge of hearing.

"Because you're beautiful," Dash said, "Inside and out. You keep me warm when I need it. You do stuff you know I'll like, just because I'll like it. You listen to me read stories out for you and you don't laugh when I don't know the words. You make me breakfast and you don't mind leaving me to sleep. You got me Tank, and all the other awesome pets I still get to play with when I visit. You're... the wind beneath my wings. That and that flank, girl! How could you not love that flank?"

Fluttershy felt her moving closer as she spoke, and she wanted the embrace that she knew was coming. She wanted it so badly. But... if everything Dash said were true, then why did it still feel like she was false? Why did it still feel like someday, she and everypony would realise they'd been wrong all this time? And that the more they knew about her, the closer they would get to that black day?

She looked up to see Rainbow Dash wearing a cheeky grin. "That flank, Fluttershy," she repeated in a whisper, her grin an obvious challenge. That's so her.

And in spite of everything, and with nothing solved on paper, Fluttershy felt the corner of her mouth twitch upwards, and she nuzzled the mare who loved her with all the desperate longing of months of worries.

"I was afraid you'd never joke again," she whispered, the tears now flowing freely down her face. Somehow, that was okay right now. They might have been tears, but they were real, and they weren't really sadness - just raw emotion, hot and salty and held back behind dams of fear and mutual incomprehension for months. "How do we make this better?" she asked, and for the first time, she meant it honestly. With that warm mare's tears in her mane, with her leg round her shoulder holding her close, with that sure and certain knowledge that she was the most important thing in the world to her, Fluttershy was the bravest pony in Equestria.

"I... I... dunno," Rainbow Dash choked out, with a wet laugh. "I dunno. Maybe... we just both gotta stop taking this so seriously."

Fluttershy giggled, and nuzzled again at her love's neck. Rainbow Dash gave a smirk and flipped over backwards, dragging her down with her with a little squeak of hilarity.

The two pegasi lay there, on their sides, surrounded by spilled diamonds, for time that didn't matter. One lay a hoof on the other's chest, feeling her breath; the other returned the gesture. One smiled; the other giggled. One ruffled the other's mane; the other stroked gently in reply. One told the other she loved her. The other kissed her back. If there was a world outside, neither noticed. If there was character in their gestures, it was lost in the intimacy of the moment. They weren't two pegasi; they were just two lovers, and two friends, happy to be happy again.

"They're putting on Kitty and the Cat again in Cloudsdale in a month," Rainbow Dash said. "You wanna go and watch it this time?" Fluttershy nodded, smiling sheepishly. "You wanna hold hooves?" Fluttershy gasped and bit her lip... and nodded gently. Her grip tightened a little, but she said she wanted to do it, and she wouldn't go back on her word. Not this time.

"You wanna get married?" Dash said, with her best cheeky grin on. Fluttershy stuck out her tongue.

Outside, the sounds of the fight abated for a moment. Neither noticed. A voice that sounded a lot like Twilight Sparkle was telling the participants off for fighting with each other, reminding them that friends don't fight. Fluttershy looked sheepish. Dash rolled her eyes.

And then Rarity yelled something about her duty to the triumph of love, and sprinted for the shop. The door slammed behind her, and the two pegasi heard the sound of hooves galloping across the shop floor. They sat up just in time for her to fling open the door to her bedroom.

"Sweetie Belle! Where is-"

Rarity stopped mid-word. Her gaze turned from anger to horror and back again as she surveyed the scene. Her clothes-horse toppled, and the gown she'd been working on spread gracelessly under it. Her gems scattered across the floor. Her bedclothes askew. And the mare she'd been trying to protect, sitting on the floor, looking awfully embarrassed... with her marefriend... and a mussed-up mane...

"L... Love has triumphed!" she shouted, mostly to regain some dignity. "And... in my bed!" Her horn began to glow threateningly.

"It's not what it looks like-" Rainbow Dash began. And like every pony since the beginning of time who has ever uttered that sentence in another's bedroom, she quickly found things being thrown at her.

"Get out!" Rarity yelled, flinging tape-measures and bolts of fabric and anything she could lay her eyes on. "You beasts, get out! And take your love with you! All of it!"

Fluttershy looked mortified, and her wings were tight with panic. She was afraid again; so terribly afraid that her friend was angry with her, and for the wrong reasons, too. Rainbow Dash ducked out of the way of a small tomato-shaped pincushion and took Fluttershy's hoof in hers, just as a thrown pillow hit them both. "We gotta go!" she yelled, "We can explain later!"

And when Fluttershy met her eye with a look that said I can't; I've let her down; I deserve her anger, she did the only thing that made any sense, and kissed her so hard her wings flared. Fluttershy shook her head and gave a small, shy whinny, before Dash all-but bucked her out of the window.

A second later Dash followed on, but not before yelling "Thanks for all your help!" to the furious unicorn in the doorway. Rarity screamed in anguish and pawed the ground, furious enough to charge. But the pegasi were gone, and she felt so dirty, and she had to do something really angry-

"Why're you throwing things, Rarity?" a small voice came from just beneath her right shoulder. Sweetie Belle was almost her normal colour again, though her mane was buttercup yellow with vivid orange highlights. Reassuring though it might have been to have found her little sister, the filly's presence watching the scene posed bigger questions. "And why did Rainbow Dash kiss Fluttershy?" she said, answering one of them.

...

Speechless. Utterly, completely, and in all particulars speechless, lost for any rational response, Rarity took the option that didn't involve burning down the Boutique, and fainted dead to the floor.

Chapter 7: The Sky Garden

It was the time when spring was blossoming into summer, the end of the rain-shower season, and Rainbow Dash had been looking forward to a relaxing week off for ages now. Having wrung the clouds dry for the last month, the weather pegasi traditionally took the last week of spring off, leaving what was left to do its worst. They would only return to their duties in case of emergencies, and even then, only to redirect them wherever was safest.

Despite her marefriend's desperation to spend some time with her, however, Fluttershy had been unusually reluctant for the past week. Whenever she'd been caught, she'd refused Rainbow Dash's offers of anything except the briefest of snuggles with unsubtle excuses. Most of the time she wasn't at her cottage, and Rainbow Dash was starting to get annoyed with how difficult she was to find. Even Angel was nowhere to be found, and most of her other pets and patients weren't as communicative.

She'd taken her other would-be pets out to stretch their wings, she'd given the flying squirrel some impromptu coaching, and she'd even sat by the pond and fed the ducks, but no matter how long she waited around, Fluttershy had only ever seemed to return when she left.

She'd searched from the skies, high and low, for some sign of what her love might be up to. And when that failed, she had gone from friend to friend, trying to find out what was wrong. Pinkie Pie seemed oblivious. Twilight was horn-deep in her studies. Rarity was looking after Sweetie Belle, and the two seemed almost to be getting along. And Applejack...

...strangely, Applejack was nowhere to be found either.

But Granny Smith said she'd gone to visit family, out somewhere near Trottingham, and she had no reason to disbelieve her. There were Apples all over the place, after all, and by blood and marriage the network of Apple cousins could probably claim about a quarter of the earth ponies in Equestria (indeed, by the time Granny Smith stopped talking and fell back to sleep, Dash figured she'd just heard the fifty-year-old gossip on about half of them).

So she sat atop the windswept crag and took what the weather had to throw at her, and she watched that sweet little cottage on the edge of the Everfree Forest, and daydreamed of the sweet little pegasus who lived there, and the happy days they had spent together.

-----

On Friday, returning from her midday nap to her cloud-house, she was followed. Subtly, quietly, by a pegasus who was used to not being noticed (and who had spent the week avoiding her), she was followed right up to her own front door. A few seconds after it closed, while she spent a simple moment standing still, a tentative knock right behind her sent her jumping out of her skin.

And yet all her annoyance - the week, the prank, everything - evaporated at the adorable sight of her marefriend wearing her best confident face, a bouquet of delicious-smelling tulips in her mouth and a bow tie around her neck. She blushed as the angry words she'd prepared shrank and died in her mouth. And as the obviousness of it struck her for the first time, she stood in her cloudy doorway, speechlessly regarding the mare she loved.

"Y... you didn't have to," she said, digging a small divot out of her doorstep with a front hoof.

Fluttershy said nothing, but smiled.

"You've got something planned..." she said, with a mix of amusement and suspicion.

Fluttershy nodded, and gestured something that she didn't understand. Dash frowned. "You okay there, 'shy?"

"Fowwuf," Fluttershy said quietly, out of the corner of her mouth. Dash giggled.

"Oh, right." She took them gently by the stalks, relishing the comforting brush of their cheeks. She turned to go inside, but felt a hoof tap her flank. Fluttershy shook her head, still wearing a small and cheeky smile.

"We're taking them with us."

They flew over Ponyville, to the edge of the Everfree Forest, and settled down upon a cloud near Fluttershy's own cottage. A small chequered blanket lay over it, its red-and-white pattern clashing horribly with everything, but soft under the bellies of the two affectionate pegasi. There were marigold sandwiches, carrot cake, strawberries and cream, Siisi honey-biscuits, and some of the finest apples from the Apple family's orchard - and Fluttershy had hidden a few bottles of delicious, sugary juice beneath a fold in the cloud, to keep them cool.

Rainbow Dash almost dropped the tulips when she saw it all.

"I've had the biscuits for a while now, since the camels visited Ponyville. But they're okay. They were last night," Fluttershy smiled impishly. "I might have tried a few."

"How did..." Dash began, before Fluttershy silenced her. Touching her nose with her own always had that effect, and it was an easier gesture for the timid pegasus than just kissing her all of a sudden. "Is this what you've been doing all week?"

Fluttershy shook her head, giving her marefriend a cryptic smile. If she wanted to know, then for now, she'd just have to wait.

-----

Basking in the afternoon sun, with full stomachs and warm-hearted smiles, the two lovers watched the thin clouds overhead and said nothing. They had disagreed recently, and they had argued. Threads had unwound from the ties that bound their hearts together. Each had wondered if they truly understood the other, and each, in their turn, had come to worry about even the most casual of misunderstandings. Their unspoken worry, common to every pony whose heart has ever danced to another's beat: how can two ponies love one another, when each fears they might never even understand the other?

In spite of all this, lying on that cloud, where anypony might see them, Rainbow Dash was happy.

In spite of all this, knowing what was coming, Fluttershy's heart beat a joyous tattoo against her ribs with the excitement of her big reveal.

The high wind gently drifted their picnic-cloud away from the Everfree Forest. On the edge of sleep, Rainbow Dash felt a kiss on her cheek, then the moisture of the cloud on her side as Fluttershy slipped out from beneath the blanket. She slipped off the cloud and hovered there, rummaging around in it. She produced a rope from somewhere within and looped it round herself, and to her marefriend's amusement and amazement, started to pull.

By the time they reached... wherever it was that Fluttershy wanted them to be, she was panting from the exertion of pulling a cloud and a lazing pegasus against the wind. Dash smirked and stroked her as she settled back down beneath the blanket.

"What was that about?" she asked, with amusement in her voice.

"You'll... see..." Fluttershy had flown them over their target - over it and past it, straight into the wind. It was the culmination of months of planning and growing, and a week's hard graft for herself and one of her best friends. It was the biggest idea she'd ever had, and the grandest gesture she could give to her lover. It was worth a little sweat now.

The wind picked up, and their cloud drifted a little quicker. Fluttershy spread a warm wing over her love's back, and gestured downwards, toward a clearing in the trees.

And watched her face light up with astonishment as the Sky Garden drifted slowly into view.

The flight over Ponyville was over as soon as it had begun. An angry unicorn provides a good reason to sprint even with a favourable wind, but an angry Rarity was something to be given serious thought from a safe distance. They'd think about how to pacify her later, when they'd asked Lotus and Aloe what discounts they had available. For now, though, Rainbow Dash could barely contain her mischievous laughter as she fled the scene of the crime, best hoof forward.

Holding tight to her tail, flapping as hard as she could, Fluttershy cringed as she travelled faster than she'd ever been since her fall to earth all those years ago. Ponyville was so small from the air, and the grey sky above so very, very large.

They drifted to a stop on a cloud some way away over the fields, and they took a moment to breathe.

"Eww, you got spit in my tail," Rainbow Dash complained in mock irritation, wiping her tail on the fluffy white cloud-stuff.

Her tail. She looked at it as if she was seeing it for the first time, there in that cloud. The colour had come back to it. She felt rainbow again; she felt real again. While Fluttershy preened her wings, she dropped off the edge of the cloud and looped upside-down and back onto it, just for the fun of it. Simple, but joyful.

"I think we might not be such a secret anymore," Fluttershy said quietly.

"Guess we'll just have to be private instead."

"D... do you think you can do that?"

"Kinda," Dash replied, thoughtful. "I don't wanna have to keep quiet about us being a thing. It's not honest. It's not right to our friends."

"I understand," Fluttershy nodded. "I still want to have some of you that's... mine." She dug a hoof into the cloud, and fixed her gaze on it. Dash made a questioning noise. "I never thought I'd have anypony... special. A coltfriend or a marefriend, I mean. I was so shy at school, and I wasn't very good at flying, and who wants a silly little filly who can't even fly very well?

"'sokay, Flutters," Rainbow Dash smiled reassuringly, "I got enough fly for both of us."

"I don't think anypony really minded that I left flight school when I did. And then I was down here, on the ground, and I still knew you, and then I got to know all the others, but... they all seemed to think about different things. Twilight has her studies to keep her busy; Applejack has the farm; Rarity has her career, and..." she smiled an almost wistful smile, "I realised a while ago that Pinkie Pie would never be able to love anypony over everypony else. She just doesn't work like that.

"I don't think I like colts or mares like some ponies seem to. Rarity's always had crushes, and she talks about them all the time, but..." Fluttershy shrugged, "I just never felt like that. I guess... I just thought I'd be alone with my little family. And I was happy with that, sort of. I cared for them when they needed it, and they filled my life with beauty and wonder.

"And then Twilight Sparkle came to town, and there were the six of us, best friends. Suddenly, some of these ponies really liked me, even though I couldn't fly very well, and even though I was shy and very very quiet. Everything that made me a... a not-very-good pegasus made me a really great earth pony." Rainbow Dash balked at that comment, but Fluttershy held up a hoof. "Please, Dashie...

"All the time there was you. You were so fast, and agile, and you tried so hard that you just seemed so... real. And you were so confident. Nothing ever hurt that confidence. You knew you were going to be the best, and when you didn't make it, you just picked yourself up and tried again. I watched you practising all the time. You wanted so badly. I had never wanted anything the way that you seemed to want everything.

"And then I realised I wanted you to want me. That was the first time I'd ever wanted to let anypony into my life. You have to know that, Dashie," Fluttershy insisted. "You have to understand, you were the first. I just wanted something for the first time ever, so I guess... I wanted all of you. I wanted you just to myself.

"And when you made a big deal of defending... fillyfoolers... in Canterlot, and all those other times, it felt like if I was okay with you talking about us, then it wouldn't just be about you and me anymore. It would be about big, scary things like politics and what's right and wrong."

Rainbow Dash laid a hoof on her shoulder. "Why in Celestia's name did you wait till now to tell me all this?"

Fluttershy ducked back behind her mane, suddenly embarrassed. "I was afraid you wouldn't like it," she mumbled.

She had been, too. She had spent so long inspecting and assessing herself, especially after the Iron Will debacle, that she had lost sight of the things that had made her lovable in the first place. She had sketched her story from beginning to end, but the words didn't seem to bear the weight of feeling that had once squeezed lonely tears from adoring eyes, watching her then-friend soar high above: and knowing this, she had assumed she no longer felt that love. Clinging to what remained felt more important than renewing it, as if the whole structure might have tumbled if not constantly supported.

In reply, her adoring mare lifted her muzzle with the back of a gentle hoof, and kissed her on the nose. Neither knew that they'd just learned the importance of that renewal, but maybe, just maybe, they were a step closer. Certainly, they were close enough now; close enough for Fluttershy to feel her marefriend's soft, warm breath, as close as when they slept. "I don't like it as much as I like kissing," Rainbow Dash whispered, with just a hint of a smile.

And then she closed the gap.

An hour later, beneath the thick cloud which still seemed to poison everything with enervating greyness, two brightly-coloured pegasi glided toward the Everfree Forest. They flew side-by-side for the most part, though the rainbow-maned pegasus occasionally dropped out of formation to dance simple tricks around the pale yellow mare. The grey did not affect them, for the only colours they saw were each other's; the Forest did not affect them, for they were brave in each other's company.

There were no clouds beneath the iron-grey sky here, so while one alighted in a tree, the other fetched a chunk of the ceiling and brought it down low. It did not move in the still air, but simply hung where it was. That would be their vantage.

The Sky Garden had become overgrown in the year since Fluttershy and Applejack had spent one of the most difficult weeks of their lives planting it in care, precision, and profound secrecy. Where once a careful symphony of flowers had portrayed a tricolour lightning bolt with three adoring butterflies dancing around it, now it resembled nothing so much as three large Parasprites molesting a rainbow-patterned snake.

The once-precise shape of the lightning bolt had blurred and softened with age. The close-growing forget-me-nots had burst their bounds, the star-faced yellow celandine had grown out in every direction, and the delicious red tulips, embracing their new-found freedom, had invaded the nearest patch of pink. Meanwhile, the once-carefully-sculpted butterflies, in delicate light-pink peonies, had filled in the gaps between their wings with vigour.

Not that it was easy to tell their colours, under that brooding sky, nor the weeds and runners that had invaded it from outside.

"Guess we fell behind," Rainbow Dash murmured.

"I wasn't sure if..." Fluttershy's eyes flickered downward, "I wasn't sure."

"How'd ya do this the first time, then?"

Fluttershy looked up, and there was real hope in her eyes. "I sat on a cloud just above the treetops, and I gave Applejack directions."

"You shouted all the way from up here?" Rainbow Dash exclaimed, "Ooh, that's so cool!"

"That's not the only reason. I tried to plot this out beforehoof, but it's really not possible to do from the ground. And if I'm up in the air, then I can see very well, but I can't really plant the flowers. So..."

"...it's a two-pony job!" Dash laughed, "That's awesome!"

"I never wanted to bother you with it before," Fluttershy said. "But would... would you mind helping me clear it up a little?"

"Well..." I guess I can spare the time. Rainbow Dash didn't finish the sentence out loud. She could be cheeky, or she could be reassuring. All the things she could say to remind her marefriend how much she cared flickered through her imagination; she could make promises and declarations, be sincere and serious, put on her best Twilight-face and call it a "priority action item" (whatever that meant).

But that's not what she loves.

"...I guess I can spare the time," Dash grinned cheekily, and jumped up to hover over the wide flower-bed.

Fluttershy smiled despite herself. That was the Rainbow Dash she'd missed so badly. And she set off to direct her marefriend's efforts from that small, torn piece of the hard sky above.

It would be nice to say that they cleared the whole thing off in one afternoon. That they worked their flanks off picking and cutting and biting to give their private little grotto back its beautiful shape and joyful brightness, and to rescue it from the creeping encroachment of its surroundings. It would be nice to say that they collapsed on their backs on the low cloud once they were done, and held one another while the sky darkened.

It would be nice, but it wouldn't be true.

There was far too much for one day, and they realised early-on that they would need tools to do the majority of the work. The creepers had crept a little too far; the weeds were a little too pervasive. Still, it was a job to be done, and they would come back to do it together. Rainbow Dash might be going back to work on Monday, but they still had a whole weekend together, and maybe once a month or so, they could promise to come down to their own little clearing and enjoy it together...

"Heheheh... if we showed it to Rarity, we might even get out of apologising," Dash said with a grin.

"Rainbow," Fluttershy chided gently, "Can this be just for us?"

"What about when somepony asks what we're doing on Saturday sometime? I'm not gonna lie to 'em."

"Just tell them... you're going on a date."

Rainbow Dash's smile spread from ear to ear. Her heart was beating again, and she could feel every pulse. Her soul was full of energy, and it crackled like lightning. If Fluttershy had asked, she would have flown her to the Moon.

She felt like she could loop-the-loop and never get dizzy.

She felt like she could clear the sky in ten seconds flat.

"I love you, Flutters," was all she could say, but oh, how she meant it.

"I love you too, Dashie," Fluttershy said, and the two settled next to each other, to enjoy each other's warmth and the softness of feather and fur.

They lay there then, just breathing and feeling and glancing down occasionally at their creation. And as they lay, they thought; and as they thought, they nuzzled; and as they nuzzled, they remembered all the feelings that simple shyness and stubbornness had hidden away from them. They had followed their problems and their principles to the edge of a precipice above which not even pegasi could fly, and had found one another there again, frightened and cold.

Cold. That was a thought that shouldn't have been on either of their minds, and yet that seemed to be the one thing about the day which didn't seem to have gone right. Alright, so maybe they'd upset Rarity, and maybe Rainbow Dash had outed them to two of their closest friends, two of three Cutie Mark Crusaders and, ultimately, probably about half of Ponyville during their flight from the Carousel Boutique, and maybe they'd caused far more problems than they'd solved, but... somehow, right now and right here, lying snuggled up to one another, the cold and the grey seemed the biggest problems in their bright, young lives.

It was Fluttershy who first noticed what seemed really wrong about the Sky Garden.

And ten seconds later it was fixed, as a narrow beam of afternoon sunlight burst through a new-bucked hole in the thick grey overcast, and lit up the Garden like it was meant to be.

The celandine lit up with the raw power of the invincible sun. The forget-me-nots illuminated so bright and so striking that they would have their wish. The tulips burst into flame, glowing fiercely with the love that went into their planning and their planting. And the peonies, so pale and so delicate, spoke in the sudden sunlight to the kind heart of their loving mother and carer, whose flank they cast in facsimile.

And with real and pure joy in her heart, Rainbow Dash spiralled downward towards the Sky Garden, twirling in the golden sunbeam for the whole world to see the colours she had won back. And she glowed, and she glowed, and for the rest of her life, Fluttershy would never forget that sunlit glow.

Epilogue: Dear Princess Celestia

Dear Princess Celestia...

"Is it alright to send stuff like this, Twilight? I mean, she asked for friendship reports, not... y'know..."

"I asked her about this a while ago, Rainbow. She said, and I'm quoting straight from the horse's mouth here, that she 'wished it was still a thousand years ago, when ponies had more than one word for love'. She sounded almost... sad."

"...huh?"

"She said that friendship is a kind of love and love is a kind of friendship, and anyway, she hadn't heard from either of you in a while."

"..."

"Fine, she said she'd banish you if you didn't send something to prove you were learning from it."

It's hard enough to know who we are in this world, even with our special talents to guide us. When we find out that there's somepony who wants to share our world with us as more than a simple friend, it can be a surprise. And there's nopony to tell us how to live together or make each other happy every single day, so it's too easy to worry that we're doing it wrong.

It can be hard to tell them how we really feel all the time. We can be so afraid of hurting them that we hide the things that made them love us in the first place, or we can try too hard to show our love, so that we forget the simple pleasure of relaxing in each other's company.

"Oh, that's good..."

"How about...?"

"Oh, Flutters..."

"Is that...?"

"Oh, have you been reading up on this?"

"Maybe..."

"Oh, Flutters, I told you reading was awesome..."

Crack.

"Aah! Oh, there it is... there it is... oh, Aloe and Lotus got nothin' on those hooves..."

And nopony can spend all their life in the company of just one other. Ponies have to have friends to meet up with and chill out with, to indulge those parts of themselves that their partners aren't into. And there's nothing wrong with that either - that's what friends are for! If they're really friends, they won't judge you by who you call your special somepony. Do the right thing, and trust your friends to do the same, and you won't go wrong.

"Who's the bride?"

"Hey! Whaddaya mean, who's the bride?"

"I mean... who is wearing the suit and who is wearing the dress? It makes a difference, Rainbow Dash!"

"Maybe we're both the suit! How's about that? Wouldn't that be cool? Huh? Huh?"

"I... but... fine! You can both be the suit! Beasts!"

Slam.

"Rainbow..."

"What."

"Didn't we both want dresses? I mean, I don't mind if you've changed your mind but I'd still quite like one..."

"This is one of those times I should say sorry, isn't it?"

"Maybe."

"I hate those times."

We guess we're trying to say that falling in love is the most wonderful, spectacular, and 120% awesome thing that can happen to anypony, but it's not easy. Just like a good friendship, a romantic relationship takes care and attention, self-control, compromise, and sometimes, time alone to be by yourself. And just like a good friendship, with all that attention paid to it, love is the most rewarding thing in the world.

"Of course I knew, silly!"

"...you knew?"

"Well, duh! You don't get to be Ponyville's première party planner without seeing who's looking at who and how! And you two were making eyes at each other way back. It was like 'Oh come get me Rainbow Dash!' Flutterflutterflutter! And you were all like 'Grr I'm so cool and aloof' - and everypony knows that's a warning sign, so when you stopped being all cool and aloof, it was obvious that one of you must have tried to take it a step further, and since you weren't avoiding each other all the time, it was obvious that it must have worked!"

Breathe.

"And then there was that time in the hayloft and the time with the watermelon and that thing that happened in the place-"

"-so who the hay else is a thing?"

"Uh-uh, Rainbow Dash! I'm not a gossip! Relationship news is strictly covered by Triple-P Protocol."

"But... why didn't you say you knew? When I came to you? Why did you act like you didn't know anything?"

"I did no such thing!"

"...but you were... talking about a coming-out party..."

"Of course! You told me you were in love with a mare! It doesn't matter that I knew already - you'd told me! That means you were coming out! That means it's time for a party! And it still is!"

"...Pinkie Pie, you really gotta explain yourself better sometimes..."

Thank you, Princess Celestia, for the sun which shines from my heart when I see her face.

Thank you, Princess Celestia, for the sun which sparkles from her smile when I make her laugh.

"Aw, you'da done the same fer me, sugarcube."

"I don't know... but thank you anyway. Without you, she'd never have come back."

"Hay ta that! Y'all're meant fer each other. Y'all go together like rose 'n cucumber."

"Rose and... cucumber?"

"...ah guess that's just a thing ah eat, then. D-don't you, uh, pay that no never-mind..."

"Oh, well, I've never heard of it, but that doesn't mean it's not perfectly delicious..."

Snicker.

"So... Rainbow said you had a secret drink which made everything right again."

"The good stuff? Yeah, that ain't really got a name... Twilight said we should call it 'Eudaiponia', but ah figured that was jus' Twi havin' one o' them jokes with herself again."

"Oh... erm... well... if it's so nice, I was wondering... maybe..."

"It don't work like that, ah'm sad ta say. Ah meant what ah said to her: it really is earth pony magic..."

P.S. If you get a minute off, you should come and see the Sky Garden sometime. I insist. No matter what my silly-filly marefriend might say.

I am quite proud of it, but only-

Finally!

"There, I've stopped the quill. Would you like to have your argument now?"

"If you're so proud of it, why don't you want to show it to the Princess?"

"I just don't think it's worth her spending a whole day when she has the whole of Equestria to run..."

"She came out to trick you into a tizzy about her stupid firebird! It's about high time we played a trick on her!"

"Er, Rainbow Dash, no playing tricks on the pony who controls the sun please."

"Aww, Twi-"

"No buts."

"I agree with Twilight. In fact, I think we should apologise. Can you do the magic again?"

We're sorry for having an argument all over our letter to you, Princess Celestia.

We're sorry for having an argument all over our letter to you, Princess Celestia, now will you please just send this, Twilight?

"Flutters?"

"Hmm?"

"Will you always..."

"...yes."

"Always?"

"Yes."

"...okay."

And they did. Always.

Author's Notes: I cannot consciously remember all the fanon I've referenced here - a lot of it kinda blends together - but I've credited what I can. Sorry about that, and please, feel free to email me if you think I've referenced something of yours without credit.

Lyra being a little weird seems to be a thing that writers play with everywhere you look, but the well-done concept fic Anthropology deserves a mention anyway.

So does the absolutely beautiful Yours Truly, which, though I am a pale imitation, was an inspiration toward writing this.

The mental image of Pinkie Pie singing Electric Six's Gay Bar was one of the things that gave this fic its structure.

Siisi is Egyptian Arabic for "pony". You go with what you know.

The single most thrilling game of Exalted I've ever heard recounted, Ponies Make War, leant a small idea in Chapter 4. Also, I can't help but feel that had the show actually been the magical-girl anime it was originally conceived as, this might be a grimdark version of how it would have turned out...

Please, someone make The Jockey Horror Show. Otherwise I'll have to.

The excellent song Rainbow Blues by Mysteriousbronie gave me juice to continue while I was having trouble with this. Thank you. I may have stolen a line. I hope you don't mind.

A drabble to the first pony to identify the source of "Maybe later, blue," without Googling it.

Chapter 1: An Unscheduled Overcast

The Sun rose, just like always.

But on the edge of the Everfree Forest, on the low cotton-wool cumulus upon which fitfully slept a lean, young pegasus pony, sunrise had little effect. The sky above was an iron-grey overcast, and the air was gusting cold enough to make her shiver in her sleep. A low autumnal mist clung to the ground, disguising the countryside, and lending all the world the appearance of the inside of a cloud. Only the forbidding, tall trees of the Everfree stood out against a dim and colourless horizon.

Waking with a start, Rainbow Dash yawned and stretched and flapped her wings to clean the cloud-stuff from them, but even that simple motion set her head pounding again. Gritting her teeth to concentrate better, she shook the stray strands of her unwashed mane from her eyes and looked out over the edge of her cloud. She recognised nothing below. The thought didn't overly bother her, although she was dimly aware that it should have.

Today wasn't meant to be overcast, she thought slowly. Today was meant to be sunny with occasional cloud. Guess I'd better fix it.

She set off at a slow glide from the low-hanging cloud down towards the mist. Once she hit the ground, she could work out where she was, and then she'd know what direction to head in. But Rainbow Dash felt like the world looked, monochrome and slow-moving, and she drifted purposelessly over featureless mist, her mind moving faster than her wings. She was used to waking up in a bad mood, especially lately.

"What?!" she yelled at Scootaloo, who had found her with a crash helmet in her little mouth and another on her head, trying to get her to come rollerblading with her and her friends. The little filly dropped the helmet and bit her lip, and before Dash could compose herself to reply, she ran off as fast as her little legs would carry her. Her friends simply stared in wide-eyed shock for a second, before running away as if a storm were chasing them.

She hadn't cared as she'd sent Scootaloo packing, and she found it hard now to feel anything about the incident. What she felt was guilt, but she had to force herself to feel that. Nothing made it through the grey, and that felt right, because the grey was easy...

"Fine, then - I don't care about your stupid little parade anyway! I'm doing my best here, and if you're gonna be ungrateful, I'll leave you to your rainstorm!"

That one cut into her. Of course she hadn't been doing her best. She could clear the sky in ten seconds flat if she wanted to; she just hadn't wanted to. She had bigger things on her mind, better things to care about. She had brooding to do, and a secret to keep. And anyway, if these prancing fashionista ponies Rarity was so desperate to impress were going to hold a rainstorm against the good name of a fashion designer, why the hay did she want them for friends in the first place?

The memory of anger leant her energy, pushed her higher, towards the thick cloud-bank above her, but-

"Why's it always gotta be me who does your lying for you?"

Rainbow Dash's heart broke as the night before came flooding back to her. Her wings flopped as despair over-rode even instinct, and she was not a pegasus pony, but a hollow hide floating somewhere between one cloud and another. The wind on her face and her feathers grew stronger and stronger for the few seconds it took her to compose herself, and when she opened her eyes again the black-granite reality of Clydesley Crag was looming in her near future. Wrenching her wings out as wide as they would go, she caught enough of the updraft to land her atop the tall granite tor, but she landed hard, and rolled to a stop on her side.

She used to sit up here when she wanted to think. On a good day she could see to the edge of the Everfree Forest from up here: the forest, and the sweet little cottage on its edge, and the sweet little pegasus who lived there; a soft smile, and a slow nuzzle, and a silent surrender to that heart-felt devotion she'd first caught sight of at the Best Young Fliers' Competition.

"You're awesome in ways I... can't even say."

She'd sat here and watched the day the northern geese flew by the wrong way, their map lost in the last lake they'd landed in. She'd laughed at them heading north towards the winter, but she'd still flown down to tell Fluttershy, who had intercepted them. With a powerful will to do the right thing, she'd drawn them a new map and led them off to the south. She was so kind... to everypony else.

"You've got the warmest heart of any pony I've ever met."

She'd sat here and watched the sun rise any time she couldn't sleep, whether she was nervous about a race or resting up the wing she'd broken six months before. It was Fluttershy who made her promise to rest every few days, and of course she knew best. Of course.

"And it's all for me."

She'd sat here, recently, and watched with a dull ache as the pegasus she was supposed to love flitted to and fro. Everything that was adorable about her had taken on an air of spiteful resistance, as if the songs she sang to the animals were just the songs she didn't sing to her, as if the spring in her step when she wasn't around was a celebration of her solitude. Dash had always put the effort in to make sure the sky was clear around the cottage, so she could watch and think and work out what she felt from a distance. If she watched from far away, she didn't have to think so close up, where she might say something she regretted.

"So why are you ashamed of me? Me, of all ponies?"

Last night, she'd said a lot of things she might, one day, regret, someday when the sun was shining and she could feel anything at all.

But today was an unscheduled overcast, and Ponyville's best weatherpony was shirking her duties. She could barely see the Forest even from her high vantage, and the cottage and its soft-hearted owner were lost in the gloom. That was fine by her. Let the rain fall, then. Let the horizon close in and her wings cramp up with the cold. All the kindness was gone from the world, and Rainbow Dash was cold enough already.