Dumbbell imagined the sound of a round bell striking as he and Rainbow Dash met in the middle of the ring, they touched gloves once and immediately began the predatory circle. Then Dumbbell realized something he had not expected, as he went in already on his guard, expecting Rainbow Dash, as was usually her way, to explode into a fury of punches. When that did not happen, Dumbbell switched strategy and took the offensive, his height advantage made it easy to corner her. He threw out a few jabs, and Rainbow jumped back, weaved left, then right, and slipped around out of reach. He was already feeling a hit to his side before he caught up and threw another punch that was deflected. Cheers and whistles of encouragement buzzed around them as their advancements became more aggressive. He absorbed two more body blows, opting to keep his face guarded, and threw another row of hard swings. But Rainbow Dash rolled with the punches, taking much of the bite out of them.

“Go! Keep em on his toes!”

“Be smooth, Dash, use your jab!”

“C’mon, get her on the ropes, Dumbbell!”

“Don’t lean out too far, Rainbow!”

Dumbbell heard the last comment clearly between the others, though he was too busy concentrating on the fight to pinpoint just who had said it, but it was an interesting tell. After another brief bout of punches and the dodging of said punches, Dumbbell slid his gaze passed her well-formed legs to notice Dash’s hoofwork. While whiplash quick, sometimes suffered a lack of coordination, and he understood then that while Dash had been practicing to fight while remaining on two legs, she had not fully mastered the art of keeping the motion fluid. So instead of stepping quickly, she literally had to hop every time she needed to dodge.

‘Let’s test this, shall we?’ And then he went in quick with no regards to guarding, focusing every possible movement onto Rainbow’s chest. She balked and ducked, practically bending backwards to avoid his swings, and when she was finally able to move, she didn’t step back, she jumped back like a kangaroo. And as he had surmised, this put her too far away from him to deliver a good hit. He watched as she over extended her upper body to make the swing count. He parried her blow, then feinted an attack on her left, and that was when it happened. Her attempt to slide away put her so far off-balance that her back legs practically wrapped around one another.

This was most likely the main reason boxing would not take off as a massively popular sport in Equestria. It was one of the most popular sports in Taurus Minoa for various reasons, mostly because it was meant specifically for natural bipeds, something a pony was not. But Dumbbell had been exposed to several, if not hundreds of boxing matches in his lifetime, and at some point during his youth, had started practicing standing on his hind legs. He taught his younger cousin, Score how to do it and it just went on from there, with the sport catching on among niche circles.
It was a challenge, something a pony could never really do for the long haul without a lot of practice, and running in that mode was flat out impossible.

All coordination had gone Rainbow Dash pinwheeled for a second to regain her balance. That was all the time Dumbbell needed. Sure, he thought, it wasn’t really her fault that she tripped. It was a natural biological limitation that most ponies would never overcome. Could he really...really take advantage of such a blatant handicap they both shared?

‘Yes.’ his subconscious smiled wickedly. The princess of athletes could take a tablespoon of humility. His straight, flew right into her cheek, a clean hit. It was not the hardest he had ever hit another pony, far from it, but it was enough to get the job done. He saw her face scrunch up against the contour of the glove before she launched backwards. Her legs struggled to keep her up before buckling almost completely, the only thing keeping her upright were her arms suspended by the guard rope. The crowd around them pitched a fit, howling in excitement and trepidation, with many voices begging or demanding Rainbow Dash to get back up.

Dumbbell glanced sideways and happened to pick the little orange filly from the crowd. There was no fear on her face, instead she was standing up, with her forelegs pressed against the back of the pony in front of her, yelling and hollering with more competitive fierceness than anyone else. Dumbbell heard Rainbow Dash grunt and pull herself back up to a standing position, with her mane stuck over her forehead and eyes like rough tassels, framing a disgruntled sneer.

“So about that doctor visit.” Dumbbell hit his gloves together. He saw Score standing ready on the side lines, the only pony in the small space who wasn’t in a frenzy. One hit would be enough and he would end the round. He went forward, ready to deliver the last blow. She was up again but Dumbbell already knew he would reach her first, but the sight of her clenched teeth, flared nostrils, and earnest rise and fall of her chest made him stop mid swing. He met her fierce gaze and felt his joints go cold.

“Hit him, Dash! Come on you can get him!” There was Squirt again jumping up in the crowd. He honestly had no idea why he could pick out her voice out of all the others. Was she that shrill? Or maybe it was because she was the youngest pony in the room.

‘Huh, if Rainbow goes down, Squirt won’t be very happ—’
The thought flew out of his mind like a bullet out the back of his skull when Rainbow Dash’s uppercut crashed into the bottom of his chin.

“Urk!” He staggered backwards, one hit, two hits, three hits, four, five, six, quick as lightning right to his middle. That time the stance mistake was his, as his center of gravity slipped out of his control, but there wasn’t a rope to stop his fall.

“Yeah go Dash!”

“Looks like a knock out!”

Rainbow Dash leaned over him wearing a victorious smirk. “Better luck next time!”

‘Next time, yeah right.’ He’d give her five seconds to gloat. Score jumped into the ring to begin the countdown. Just before he closed his eyes to fake being passed out, he saw Rainbow Dash turn her back to him and wave at the crowd. Big mistake.

“Four...five—”

He jumped up in the middle of the countdown, Score jumped out of the way in time, leaving Rainbow Dash open to attack. She seemed to have sensed his movement and turned, but she wasn’t fast enough. When he brought his wing power to bear several things happened at once. Rainbow Dash fell back hard, emitting a sharp bark of pain, the sheer force knocking the wind out of her. The gust of air shot past her and into the tightly packed crowd. It was enough to knock over chairs as well as the ponies sitting in them, the rest flew helter skelter,bumping into bodies and wings to escape the flying objects.

“What the hay, Dumbbell?” one of the stallions said after he’d picked himself off the floor like several others. They were all throwing complaints and disdainful jeers his way.

“Wings are against the rules! You should know that!”

“Don’t be a sore loser, Dumbbell!”

“Yeah, way to be a cheater!”

He stood rebelliously as the audience reformed in front of the ring. “Cheating against what? We’ve all got wings, we’re all pegasus here!” he reasoned. At that moment, the very last thing he expected happened. A little pink unicorn poked her head in through the door, her ears pricked forward in earnest as her eyes darted around the room.

“I heard a loud noise! Rainbow Dash, what’s going on in here?”

Everything after that was sort of a blur.

Heedless to the previous objections, Rainbow Dash returned fire with her own powerful blast of air. More heavy objects flew back,this time, thankfully, not in direction of the crowd, though both the onlookers and Dumbbell cautiously braced themselves when a weight rack flipped over. She landed back in the ring solidly, forehooves up and ready.

“So, you wanna play hardball, huh? Then let’s go!” Dumbbell noted with a frightening amount of excitement, that she was smiling.

They both launched into each other at the center of the ring, bringing their physical strength and wing power to bear. Dumbbell’s felt his glove connect moments before Rainbow Dash’s hook caught him right on the end of his snout. A sudden symphony of violent crashes rumbled against his ear as the turbulence created by their combined wing power pushed outwards.

It ended surprisingly quick, by the time the dust settled, he was laying definatively flat outside of the ring, and Rainbow Dash who was again clinging to the ropes as if for dear life, was still in it.

“Rainbow Dash is the winner!” Score shouted, the crowd cheered exuberantly, and the little filly jumped through the ropes to give Rainbow as big a hug as she could manage. Rainbow reciprocated while still wearing the boxing gloves.

“I knew you would win!” exclaimed the filly who was smiling more brightly than anyone in the room. “You made it look easy!”

“Did I?”

Dumbbell coughed loud enough to grab their attention, rubbing his sore jaw and spitting out the mouth guard.

“Damn that smarts.” he murmured, and turned to Rainbow Dash and the squirt with a heavy scowl, and they stared back with wide questioning eyes. Then he broke into a grin and reached a hoof out over the rope. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks.” Rainbow replied and bumped her hoof to his. “You didn’t make it easy.”

“Scootaloo! Where are-oh, there you are, Scootaloo are you okay? Was there an explosion? Did you get hurt?” The unicorn from earlier ran up to them, climbing clumsily between the ropes and pulled the orange filly to her chest. Scootaloo appeared a little less than thrilled at this. Then she looked at Rainbow Dash with a far less than approving glance. “Heaven of Mercury, what in the world were you thinking, Rainbow Dash?”

To her credit, Rainbow did look ashamed. She blushed and pinned her ears back. “Uh, Sorry, Moonglow. I guess I got a little carried away.”

Moonglow’s brow crease deepened. “Yes, a little.”

“No way, mom!” Scootaloo protested. “Didn’t you see it? It was awesome!”
She had just survived what could be considered an explosion.

‘This is the kid’s mom? Yikes’

“Oh, yes, yes, I did.” Moonglow sighed. “But I’m even more glad that I didn’t see a chrome weight smash into your head.”

Dumbbell saw Dash cringe when she hastily tried changing the subject. “Oh yeah, uh, I had plans to go to the library today and Scootaloo hasn’t seen it yet—”

“The one with the really big mural?” asked Scootaloo.

“The one and only.”

“Can we go now, mom?”

Moonglow’s ears went flat and her eyes dilated. “Like...right this moment?” Her breathing grew heavy, as if the very idea compelled her to run for the hills, but she seemed to give it some thought.

“Oh,well...h-how much solid gr-uh-cloud is between us and the library?”

Rainbow Dash shrugged. “Enough.”

Scootaloo hugged one of Moonglow’s forelegs. “Don’t worry, I already know where it is, it’s right at the center of Cloudsdale.”

Moonglow’s mournful gasp was like a cat dying. “But there’s hardly anything at the center of Cloudsdale!” she said, her breath beginning to hitch. “It’s...it’s-it’s just like a big hole!”

“We can take a sky chariot.” Scootaloo lifted Moonglow’s hoof with her own and started to lead her away. “Come on I promise it’ll be safe, lets go!”

“Alright if you insist...I guess a trip to the library would be nice, and quiet, and safe.” She turned back to Rainbow Dash, eyes pleading. “Will you be coming?”

“Right behind you.” she turned to Dumbbell. “You’re coming, right?”

‘...Uh...’

He looked over to see Score leering at them. Scootaloo and Moonglow had since left and the other ponies were picking their way through the mess, still adrift from the previous excitement. Eventhough his eyes were completely covered by his thick forelock, his mouth was set in a frown.

“If my boss walks in on this, that’s my hide on the wall.” he growled, ”I said no wings for a reason.”

Dumbbell grinned. “But we put on a good show ,right?”

Rainbow Dash scanned the room and it was clear that the knocked over chairs were the least of their concerns.lucky for them, nothing was badly damaged, just thrown far and wide from their original positions.

“Ah, heh, sorry about that.”

Cleaning the sparring room felt twice as exhausting as the actual fight itself, because Score wanted to be a heel, and make them pick up all of the fallen equipment and chairs without even a chance to rest. By the time they were finished, everyone else had shuffled out.

“Well that’s finally done,” Dumbbell wiped a forehoof across his brow after setting the last piece of training equipment upright. “Time for a shower.”
The shower room was empty when he made it inside. He picked the nearest stall and turned on the water, eager to stop smelling like concentrated used gym socks. The tension in his muscles deflated under the warm water striking his body. He wiped his damp mane out of his eyes and reached for the soap, just as he heard a set of hoofsteps pass into the room behind him. The steps stopped somewhere next to him though not directly, he glanced over and saw Rainbow Dash turning her faucet and lathering a dollop of shampoo into her mane in round slow circles. He liked the scent when it reached him, something smooth with a hint of spice, almost like a cider.

‘Ask what brand that is.’ Some part of his subconscious piped up with what he knew was the most idiotic suggestion ever. You don’t just...talk to ponies standing next to you in the showers. Not unless you were spoken to, at least that was his mode of conduct inside the place, and by the looks of things Rainbow Dash was too preoccupied with cleaning herself to want to share words. The suds clung thick to her shoulders and back. From his angle, Dumbbell could tell that her eyes were closed to keep the stinging substance out of them.

‘Ok then.’ the voice in his brain said. ‘Then stop gazing at her like she’s some kind of prized trophy, you dope.’

“What the...” He suddenly felt strange and looked away. He had been standing under the water for a few minutes now and hadn’t even created a lather.

‘She's really not too bad from this angle, why not take another look—’

‘Ok, shut up, brain. Shut it up right now!’ He scowled, and crushed the pitiful bar of soap into paste between his hooves. This was the last thing he needed to be thinking about, especially with other ponies around. Off to his side he heard humming of the Cloudsdale Anthem.

‘Go on, enjoy the view, you know you want to. She won't know.’

She was already rinsing out the lather, gracefully shaking strings of water from her glistening mane. Rainbow tipped most of it behind her ear, letting it hang flat in a delightful wave around her face, only a few strands flecked teasingly over the bridge of her small nose.
Despite their rough bout in the boxing ring, both of them had opted to use the showers while standing upright again. A lot of ponies did that anyway even though the shower room was built so that you could stand under the heads normally. It was just easier for the water to hit more of your body at once that way and it prevented awkward rump brushing from accidentally occurring. A lot of ponies also chose to simply sit as they washed. It provided a new point of view rarely seen when a pony stood normally, a view he realized he appreciated a lot.

At some point he had given in. He couldn't help but admire the way her bright mane followed along the delicate curve of her back, like a kind of rainbow river flowing down the center, stopping finely just short of her rear.

"Hey Dumbbell," She was turning towards him.

His mind exploded into a choir of curses and reprimands as he turned away from her just in time. If not for her unintended warning, Rainbow would have seen his shamelessly adoring viewing of her backside.

“Uh, yeah?” he coughed against his shoulder, hoping to dispel any sign of discomfort. “What is it?” He chanced another glance. Since Dash had spoken, looking at her figure would stop being a crime. She was sitting down with her back facing into the stream of water, letting it trickle off her plumage.

“Sorry if I hurt you too bad back there.” she said.

‘She didn’t see me gawking at her...’ Dumbbell thought as he sat down, feeling relieved.

’Good.’

He realized that he needed to respond.

“Hurt me?” he scoffed. “Right, as if. I let you win.”

Rainbow, of course, wasn’t convinced. “Pfft, yeah right! That is so not true.”

“You can keep tellin yourself that, Crashie.” Dumbbell said as he shrugged and went back to trying to wash himself with the soap mush he had created. Though it came apparent that even it it’s new form, the former bar of soap was not good at producing any lather.

"Say that again?”

He turned around and went rigid. Rainbow Dash was right next to him then his shower head now covering them both with water. The use of her childhood , well, nickname would not be the correct for it but that’s essentially what it was, must have drawn her over to him like a wasp whose nest had just been disturbed. She looked at him with unhappy regard.

“In that case, Dumb-bell.” She said his name in a way that emphasized the first syllable. “Why would you let me beat you in front of all your gym buddies?”

‘Good question. Why did I?’ he thought glumly. He turned the question over in his mind. In truth he hadn’t let her win. And in truth he could have won the match easily as had been his plan after she’d practically wiped the sky with him in a game of airball, and while it seemed to be her goal in life to be best at every sport she deemed worthy of experiencing, He knew she was a novice at best at anything that didn’t require fast flying. With her ego on the line, he knew it would be easy to lure her to her defeat. So he wondered, when he the chance to finally lord a victory over her in the presence of an audience no less, why had he hesitated? It was his hesitation that doomed him, and the reluctance that gave Rainbow the upper hoof. He thought about the little orange filly, what was her name? Either way, he noticed how close Rainbow seemed to be with the kid.

“It was because of the filly.” he finally said aloud, content with his own answer.

“Hm?”

“You know, the kid who follows you around like a puppy, what’d you say her name was? Squirt?”

“ Yea-no. Her name is Scootaloo.” She jabbed him once in the ribs. “Come on, Bell, don’t play dumb.”

“I’m not!” he laughed. “Thats what you call her any time I’ve seen her around you. And I figured she'd be heart broken to see you lose.”

“Yeah but you know her name is Scootaloo. I've told you,” she said. "And don't worry about upsetting her, she's tough stuff. Like me."

“Sure, I’ll try to remember that the next dozen times you call her squirt.”

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes and looked at the undefinable yellow soap mass between his hooves.

“I really hate the soap they use in this place. It doesn’t make suds at all. ” Then she brought up the bottle of shampoo she was using.

Suddenly, Rainbow Dash pushed the oblong bottle of shampoo into his hooves. He looked down at the bottle dumbly.

“Um, what are you giving me this for?” he asked. He turned to wear Rainbow Dash had been standing just before only to see her walking away. She had heard him and looked back,with a brief smirk.

“You think I’ve got time to stick around and bathe you? I’ve got places to be.”

Dumbbell’s left ear flicked involuntarily.

“You can give it back to me later so don’t use all of it.” she said and walked through a cloud partition, she was completely dry once on the other side.

“Oh and before I go,” She reached up and flipped her forelock back to mimic his own. “I like how your mane looks pulled back like that, you should wear it that way more often.”

He narrowed his eyes. “What?”

But she had already left the shower room.

“Hey wait a minute, when am I supposed to...eh, forget it.” He looked down at the little orange-reddish shampoo bottle.

‘At least I know what the brand is now.’ he thought. He could smell the spicy scent through the closed top. Yeah, definitely cider.

Around twenty minutes later Dumbbell landed on the steps of the library. Every pegasus learned in school that Clousdale was the first among their race’s cities. But even Cloudsdale had a beginning, and that beginning was on the ground. Dumbbell had never heard the details on why Cloudsdale had been made, just that something had scared the pegasi into lifting their city off the ground and into the clouds… somehow.

Not much remained of the old city, except the library. It was a colossal structure, many-columned halls affixed to a shallow dome, all built with pale, gleaming marble, polished to a shine by the winds of time. Here and there, spots of paint could still be seen on statues and reliefs, relics of a more garish era. The roofs were done in red tiles, some faded from long centuries under the sun, some bright and new replacements. Some tiles were completely out of place; most modern pegasi were more at ease working with cloud-stuff than with mud bricks or slate.

But all was not well with the ancient library. Around many cracked pillars, cruel iron bands were wrapped, holding them together. Some pillars stood slanted, like legs splaying outwards under a heavy burden, and even some of those had rings as well, added years ago. Here and there were metal rods holding walls up, though they couldn’t stop the obvious tilts and sags. Rumor had it that three mighty chains were wrapped around through the dome to stop it from collapsing inward.

It wasn’t that the pegasi were bad engineers; indeed, it was the opposite. Their library still stood while others from that lost time had long ago fallen into rubble. But history had its way with all things, and now it worked to ruin even their proud library. Fortunately, the inside was still holding up against time’s march. The entrance hall was open and airy, always cold too, Dumbbell had found. Many of the citizens of Cloudsdale came here in the summer just to get out of the hot sun. There were desks and chairs and even a small cafe tucked in a corner; obviously not an original design element. After that, the library truly began.

Most of the lower halls were dedicated to ordinary books on all subjects, from law to adult fiction. Height was not an issue for pegasi, so the cases went nearly to the ceilings, a good thirty feet up. Reshelving was probably a nightmare, Dumbbell guessed. The efficient use of space allowed the Cloudsdale library to hold more volumes in less space than similar libraries in Canterlot or other important ground cities.

There were few windows, the library had been built in a time before ponies knew how to leave huge openings in walls that would allow them to support the weight of a roof. In the past, he’d need a lantern to get around in here, otherwise it’d be nearly pitch-black. Dumbbell could only imagine how many horror stories had potential to happen in such a dark, vast building. Luckily, the city had installed its own lighting system years ago, magic stones that shined with a clean and smooth light that mimicked the sun. At night, the stones faded into a soft fire-glow which did not burn the eyes of tired ponies. Not that many ponies were ever supposed to see the night mode of the stones, as the library closed in the evening. Dumbbell’s curiosity had a habit of getting the better of him, though.

Under the dome, in the deepest hall of the library, laid the true literary treasure of Cloudsdale: manuscripts and scrolls from the old days, going back over a thousand years. The guardianship of these things were the original purpose of the library. It was not unheard of to find earth pony or unicorn scholars visiting to uncover some obscure slice of history that had only been preserved here, beyond the reach of the fires and earthquakes and storms and floods that plagued the world below. Cloudsdale’s library was a place out of time, and a vital gateway into Equestria’s past.

He made his way past the arts, music, and health branches, made a left turn at music, crossed a courtyard, took a shortcut through the sports, law, and the massive history section until he found the general area of fiction and non fiction. He had to mill around the general area for a few minutes before finally noticing Rainbow Dash tucked away in a little alcove, gym bag tucked to her side. The installed solar lamp emitted a soft cone of white light, bright enough for a pony to read by. He saw a book between her hooves, she was reading it with vested interest

He managed to get close enough to see the words on the page before Rainbow noticed him.
“You told me to fly all the way over here to help, and you’ve already found something?”

Rainbow jolted back to the present, becoming aware of her surroundings all at once. When she saw him, she paled slightly and closed the book, pushing it down to the seat next to her.

“Uh, hi, when did you get here?” she asked shakily.

Dumbbell looked at her oddly. “Just now.”

“Well it took you long enough. For a while I thought you wouldn’t show.”

He immediately fished the little red bottle of cider scented shampoo out of his gym bag and put it on the table. “Here, you can have this back now.” He had felt a little weird holding it.

“It makes your mane feel awesome doesn’t it?” she giggled.

“You were reading something,” He said, unwilling to leave the subject. “Is it what you’re going to show at your book club night?”

Rainbow went silent and looked down at the book, probably to make sure it was out of his line of site, before finally stuffing it inside of her gym bag and then kicking the gym bag against the wall.
“No it isn’t.” she looked annoyed, but he noticed the slightest wash of color on her cheeks.

“Then what is it?” he asked, casually sliding onto the chair opposite.

“It’s nothing.”

“...Right. I’ll just take your word for it.”

They sat quietly in the little alcove, passively observing their surroundings as the slightest murmurs bubbled up and echoed along the walls of the large hollow space.

“So...” Rainbow Dash tapped her forehoof idly on the table top. “Have any ideas?”

“It depends.” he responded. “What are the other ponies interested in?”

Rainbow Dash groaned and leaned back in her chair. “Romance, sex, adventures in sex and romance, forbidden love, and exotic kinky crap.”

Dumbbell stared at her wide eyed. “Is that all.” He tried not to flinch when her forehead hit the table.

“Do you see what I have to deal with?”

He couldn’t help but feel a twinge of pity.
“Yeah, that’s pretty bad,” he said with a nod. “But I can think of at least one book that might save you, c’mon.”

He left his chair and made his way to the vertical sea of books. A few minutes later both pegasus hovered half way between the floor and the ceiling at the heart of the historical fiction section. Dumbbell scanned at least two rows before he came across the correct one. “Ah, here it is!” He slid the book off the shelf and presented it to Rainbow Dash.

“This should impress them.”

Rainbow Dash cautiously took the book, examining the cover with an eye of a critique.
“Lady of Griffins...” she mused aloud. “Written by...uh...Sy..si-neh burg Li-pen-wirtha,” She shot a testing glance his way when he’d started to snicker at her. He stopped and she went back to the cover.
“Translated by Ace Inkwell.” She looked completely baffled, the cover featured a luxurious looking unicorn mare with a smug smile, sitting cross legged on a throne of iron, two hulking griffin drakes standing tall on either side. She looked up at him, apparently too impatient to read the information on the back.

"What kind of book is this?"

"It’s a time travel mystery story with a lot of adventure...and a little romance."

"Oh really." Dash didn’t look impressed and Dumbbell wondered if it was because of the cover or due to the inclusion of a romantic aspect in general. "Adventures in what, exactly?"

“It’s about the heroine going into the past to stop an evil king from wiping her lineage out of existence.”

“Huh, well that sounds pretty awesome actually.” she said, she looked down at the cover, reconsidering. “Anything else happen?”

“If I tell you everything that happens now then what’s the point?”

“Because I’m on a time limit, Dumbbell,” she said. “I’ve already lost a lot of time from having to change books so close to the next meet date, and I may not have time to read as much as I’d want to in just under a week.”

He rolled his eyes. “Fine. Think Daring Do but with a ton of political intrigue, and an ongoing love story between a unicorn princess and the griffon king’s younger brother.”

“Hmmm,” she absently flipped through the pages. “Well, I guess I’ll have to trust you.” she finally conceded. “There aren’t any other libraries around that I can get to in a reasonable amount of time.”

“Hey just trust me, alright?” he said. “The book is good.”

“ You even like those awful mushy parts?”

He shrugged. “Yeah. Why wouldn’t I? Do you got a problem with it?”

Rainbow’s back stiffened slightly, He saw how it affected her ability to remain aloft. “No, I don’t have a problem with that kind of stuff.” She looked away and Dumbbell couldn’t help but wonder if there was some kind of subtext there that he was missing.

“It’s just that I always think they’re badly written.”
Dumbbell felt the corner of his mouth twitch upward. “So you’ve been reading enough romance to form an opinion.”

She gasped, apparently being caught in a lie.
“No I haven’t! I don’t like them!”

“You’d have to have read at least,like, five of them. Because there are thousands. Especially of that real sappy stuff. It’s everywhere.”

Rainbow didn’t answer, instead she turned away, flying back to their original place in the lobby area. “It’s none of your beeswax.” she mumbled crossly.

Dumbbell thought about the book Rainbow Dash had been leaning over when he arrived, how into it she looked, and how she nearly sat on the thing to keep him from seeing what it was.

“There’s no reason to be ashamed of it.” Dumbbell pressed when they landed outside of the isle of books. “I mean, I can’t say that I read any of them myself, but if I did, it’s not like I’d hesitate to just take the book up to the counter and buy it. It’s easy! No reason to be scared of a book, ya know?”
He didn’t get a response as they walked, so he continued.

“It would be a sad sad spectacle to see the great Rainbow Dash, cowed into anonymity because she was too scared to be seen buying a two bit romance novel out of a drug store!”

She stopped so fast that he bumped into her.
“Shut it.” she groused. “Or at least keep your voice down, we’re in a library.”

He lowered his voice to a hushed tone “Right,right,but tell me something first.” he said. “Just how do you keep other ponies from recognizing you?”

Rainbow Dash huffed and lengthened her gait, she was practically trotting now, but Dumbbell kept pace. “No need to tell me, I can already imagine you slinking through the front door all done up in a trench coat and shades, probably a big hat, hovering around the register like some kind of sleazy corner urchin looking for a quick f—”

“I’ve read one or two of them, okay!” Rainbow Dash slammed the stack of books she had collected onto the table. “There I admit it, you can turn jerk Dumbbell off now.”

“You seem to think there’s an off switch.” he scoffed. “I don’t think you know me very well.”

“Oh yeah?” Rainbow Dash turned and lifted a curled hoof. “I think I know just enough to shut you up.”

Dumbbell frowned. “Oh yeah? Well—”

“Shh,shh,shhhh! There is to be quiet inside this library. Please refrain from using your outside voices.”

They whipped around to see to see a prim middle aged mare with a mane kept vertical with at least a dozen pins pushing a cart. She was looking down her nose at them, not at all amused by their arguing. A brief glance made it clear that she was not the only one.

“Sorry.” They both said. The librarian pony nodded once before walking away, the frown on her face still plainly visible.

“So, um, think we’re done here?” Dumbbell asked, his volume consciously lowered. Rainbow Dash stacked the small collection of books she had acquired under his recommendation.

“Yeah, I think so. I’ll go round up Scootaloo and her mom and we can get out of here.”

A few minutes later, Rainbow Dash checked the books out, and located Scootaloo and Moonglow chowing down in the cafeteria. The day was drawing long into the afternoon and it was clear from the shadows laying soft against the cloud that evening was approaching.

“How beautiful.” Moonglow looked out at the cloud city under the gradually setting sun. “I don’t think I could ever grow tired of this.”

‘Just try living up here, lady, and you’ll see how long it takes.’ Dumbbell kept his thoughts to himself.

“But it is getting late, Scootaloo.”
“Aaaww, mom!”
“Did you even finish your homework before we came up here?”
“Mmmost of it.” the filly smiled her best winning smile.
“Then it’s time to leave.”
Scootaloo groaned as they made their way to the hot air balloon docks. “Of all the things that got exploded two months ago, why wasn’t the school house one of them?”
“Are you asking to be grounded on top of the homework?”

Rainbow Dash slowed her pace and hung back with Dumbbell chuckling softly to herself as mother and daughter walked down the cloudstone path.

“So a unicorn in Cloudsdale.” said Dumbbell. “You don’t see that every day. Unless there’s something going on that I don’t know about.”

“Moonglow is crazy afraid of heights,” Rainbow Dash stated. “But she really wanted to be up here with Scootaloo, it took two months just to convince her the balloon would be safe enough to take, and longer than that to convince her she wouldn’t fall straight through the city.”

“Is that what they call a cloud walking spell?” he asked.

“Sort of, did you notice the shoes she’s wearing?”

Dumbbell had observed that Moonglow was wearing a set of dark shoes with small gold wings on the sides, there was a slight shimmer to them.

“Cloud walking shoes, it’s kind of a new thing actually. Moonglow was too paranoid to trust a regular spell, said she needed something to physically proves that it works.”

By balloon, the return trip would take over half an hour since Cloudsdale was at least a mile high. Rainbow Dash told Scootaloo she would hang out with her again later, since for a flying pegasus, the trip would only take a few minutes.

“How much longer will you guys be hanging over Ponyville before heading south?” she asked. She was asking about Cloudsdale’s annual rotation around Equestria. They usually drifted towards the port towns in a counter clockwise motion starting from Neighgra Falls all the way down to San Palomino, and then making their way back up the eastern shore. Besides local management teams and individual weather stations for major cities, this was the best way to distribute weather. Ponyville was an agricultural town so it received extra attention.

“A few more weeks to a month maybe.” said Dumbbell. “It depends on how fast we can finish off the rains for the farm land, and make sure the reservoirs are full. And that’s management’s call.”

They made their way to the very edge of cloudsdale where the clouds became more wispy and thin but still thick enough to walk on, some moisture had condensed, turning into tiny rivulets that twisted down the cloudscape, eventually rolling over the side. Some pony had been out there sculpting cloud flowers and cloud ponies in a scene depicting a snowball fight, probably a group of kids having fun after school, and Dumbbell had to admit they had done a pretty good job.

“Fly down to Ponyville with me.” Rainbow said suddenly, shoveling her hoof into the thin cloud. “I found this game at Shields and Satchels that might catch your eye.”

“Really? What is it?” he asked. It may have been something he had seen before in a Cloudsdale shop.

“Oy,” Dash rolled her eyes. “The name doesn’t matter, just come on,” she hesitated a little, seeming almost shy. “You don’t already have plans do you?”

No he didn’t have any real serious plans. He thought for a little bit about catching up with Highball, Tango and Pompellyite but figured too much of the day had passed for any kind of chariot training to be productive. He could maybe find Hoops and get a drink with him if he wasn’t too busy, but Dumbbell had a feeling that wouldn’t be the case. And Rainbow Dash seemed oddly eager for him to tag along.

“No plans,” he said finally. “So let’s go.”

Author's Note

Another chapter that was starting to run long so I've cut it in half.

As usually critiques and comments are welcome.