Nothing happens

Entering the spa, none of the three friends noticed the quickly shut door at the other end of the room. They were just too happy to be there and already in relaxing mode.

“Your majesty!” said Aloe with enthusiasm. “It is always an honor to receive you in our modest spa.”

As for usual, Twilight blushed under the attention, and quickly told the mare she was here as a normal pony and didn’t expect to be treated any differently as any unicorn, earth pony of Pegasus.
It was useless, of course, but it had become sort of a habit to try anyway.

“Please come with us.” Lotus asked, leading them to the steam room for the first part of the spa treatment.

There, Twilight began to enjoy the hot air and the refreshing effect of the water all around.

“This is so nice.” she said. “I wish I could come here absolutely every day.”

“Well, you do happen to be a princess dear.” Rarity replied with a tone that was holding enough insinuation.

Twilight let it slide away, as she wasn’t ready to just abuse her power like that. And still, it was sort of tempting.

Suddenly, she saw something moving behind the heavy curtain of steam.

“Spike?” she asked.

But the dragon was at Rarity’s side as was to be expected.

“What is going on?” asked the white unicorn. “Is there something wrong?”

“No.” replied Twilight. “I just think I had seen something for a moment. It must have been one of the spa ponies.”

She decided to forget about that and began relaxing again. After a while, Lotus and Aloe came back to take them away and apply the mud mask. Rarity smiled all the way, but Twilight literally laughed as she still wasn’t accustomed to having mud all over her face, and it was making her remember her first sleepover party and Applejack’s reaction to the occasion. During that time, Aloe and Lotus left to go seek some other products.

But in an instant, everything changed from standing still with mud and cucumber slices on the eyes to thrown on the floor by some mysterious violent force.

“What happened?” asked Rarity in panic.

“I don’t know…” replied Twilight. “All I felt was a powerful wind. I couldn’t see anything because of the cucumber.”

Spike, who had fallen asleep in the steam room, just entered the room and began to laugh.

“What are you two doing on the floor like that? Did you trip over or something?” he asked.

But when Twilight and Rarity explained to him what had happened, he began to wonder with them about what might have happened.

“That’s weird.” He said. “I didn’t see anything strange at all. Maybe it really was just some wind.”

Twilight would have explained to him that no natural wind would create such an effect during such a short period of time, but Aloe and Lotus were already coming back to them and she decided to put the matter on hold, as there wasn’t much more to be said.
Still, she was decided to crack down the mystery at some point.

The horn manicure went without much incident, but when the time for the massage came, Twilight noticed that the table she was on was already hot and she concluded that either the spa ponies had installed a new system to warm those, or that somepony had just left the table.
This was beginning to make some sense, even if she still had no idea what it all meant. Still, she decided to confirm her hypothesis.

“You know what? We should skip the massage and go directly to the mud bath. I read in a book that the massage should actually be made afterwards.” She lied.

“Really?” asked Rarity, surprised. “Well, it is certainly an original approach, but I guess a lady should stay open to new ideas.”

They convinced Aloe and Lotus to change the order in the treatment, and Twilight noticed a concerned look between the two spa ponies, but they obliged and took them to the mud tubs.

That was it. If Twilight’s reasoning was correct, she would find the culprit there. She looked around and noticed that there was one mud tub too many that had been filled. It was sort of a confirmation, but the tub was empty.

And then a bubble appeared on the surface of the mud.

“I have you now!” triumphantly stated Twilight.

She went to the border of the mud tub and just waited. A few seconds passed, a few more bubbles appeared, and then, finally, a pony’s head went out of the mud in one fast move to catch her breath again.
A blue head with a multi colored mane.

“Rainbow Dash?” both Twilight and Rarity asked, surprised.

The culprit looked around and then, in panic, just replied:

“Hum… no?”

“Come on Rainbow Dash…” Twilight told her. “What are you doing here? Or more importantly, why is it you have been avoiding us all this time?”

“It was you?” asked Rarity, suddenly catching on what had happened.

Rainbow Dash clearly searched for a lie to get herself out of this predicament, found none, sighed and just told them the truth:

“I just didn’t want you to know I had come to the spa.”

“But why?” asked Twilight. “It doesn’t make sense. We have already come to the spa together, don’t you remember.”

“It’s not the same.” Dash replied. “I didn’t want you to know I was trying to look more beautiful than usual.”

This time, it was for Twilight not to understand immediately and Rarity’s reasoning to find the answer.

“Oh my, could it be?” she began. “Would you by any chance be in love with a stallion?” she asked with glee in her eyes.

Rainbow Dash silence confirmed what she had thought. The Pegasus had fallen in love, and she had wanted to impress the stallion with a new more “awesome” look as she said in her own terms. She had just been afraid her friends wouldn’t understand and would make fun of her for acting differently.

“Well.” began Twilight. “I think there is a good lesson to learn from that experience, and that is to never fear your friends’ judgment, for a good friend will always look for your best interest in any situation.”

Rainbow Dash agreed and the three mares spent the rest of the day exchanging beauty advices, while Spike went back to the castle to escape from all the girly talk.