Spitfire massaged her forehead as she sat at her desk and reviewed the forms she had just completed, quill in hoof in case she found any mistakes, then gave a wary glance to the pile as large as her head that she had not read yet. Murder investigations, even ones where it turned out there had been no murder, required so much documentation. In the end she had temporarily damaged a major street, though it looked like the guard investigators would cover for her since cleaning up the crime scene shut the area down for longer than the street's enchantments took to finish repairs. Worse, she had technically filed a false charge, having leaped to the conclusion that Rainbow Dash had been killed. Fortunately, it looked like her sentence had been commuted to filling out reams of paperwork.
And so it was that the first words in her mind, when Twilight knocked on her office's door and let herself in, were, Is this parole?
Alas, it was not to be. "You've talked to her?" Twilight seemed equal parts hopeful, frazzled, and happy.
"Yeah." Spitfire brushed the finished forms to one side and set her quill down. "She remembers everything. She's ready for you now. The doctors had to do surgery to reassemble her wing, but they say she can go home tonight, just so long as she doesn't do any fancy stunts for a few days."
Twilight sat down and exhaled sharply, eyes temporarily unfocused as she envisioned it. "That's...that's really good news. I'm still convincing myself she's still alive."
"I'll try to avoid punching her again until she heals."
Twilight gave Spitfire the most venomous, murderous look her still exhausted soul could summon on short notice. The result was closer to mildly inconvenient itching powder than deadly poison, and she knew it, but it was the thought that counted.
Spitfire held up her hooves and ducked behind them, smiling weakly. "Hey, hey, this is Rainbow Dash we're talking about."
Twilight relented and chuckled. "I suppose. So umm! I was wondering if I could do her job."
Spitfire blinked, mind whirring for a bit, then let her hooves down and looked at Twilight in unmasked surprise. "You. A Princess. Want to be part of the Wonderbolts?!?" She frowned. "And you want to replace Rainbow Dash?"
"Huh? Oh, no no, nothing like that!"
Spitfire folded her legs, looking at Twilight suspiciously. "Then what?"
Twilight looked around, avoiding Spitfire's eyes. "I just thought, y'know, you wanted to learn how to teach little ponies, maybe I could help?"
"Oh, tha-" Spitfire blinked. "How did you find out? I swore Rainbow Dash to secrecy!"
Twilight glanced to a wastebasket next to the desk, currently filled with wadded-up paper. She telekinetically lifted one and flattened it, revealing the heading "Toughness Vs. Friendship". "I found these scattered around your office a couple days ago, and then Rainbow Dash said she remembered hurting in here..." Twilight tapped her heart. "...even when she couldn't remember who she was. Once I knew she was Rainbow Dash, it wasn't hard to put together what happened. Also you told me when you were drunk yesterday."
Spitfire facehoofed. "So that's how I got home. You had the bartender walk me back to my place. He's a good stallion; I need to apologize to him for making a pass at him."
Twilight chuckled as she let the paper drop back into the basket. "I'm sure he gets that from beautiful mares all the time."
Spitfire blushed. "Aww, c'mon, Twilight. I may be cool, but half the mares in this town are 'beautiful', and that includes you. I'm not even in your league."
"You don't give yourself enough credit. Come by Rarity's the next time you're in Ponyville and I'm sure she can convince you. Anyway, so, training. If you want to learn how to teach, I can tell you." Twilight smiled nearly ear to ear.
Spitfire evaluated Twilight's eager expression. "I'm sure you could. And I'm sure you could do a better job than Rainbow Dash."
Said expression faltered. "But..."
Spitfire sighed. "But...that's not the only reason I wanted to learn it from her."
"Oh, I..." Twilight blinked. "Oh!" She smiled even wider. "I see!"
"What do you see?" Spitfire looked at her.
Twilight grinned, placing her hooves on Spitfire's cheeks. "I see a very wise commanding officer, who I am more than happy to help. Ohthisisgonnabesomuchfun!" She let Spitfire go and nearly bounced out the door.
Spitfire wondered if she had just invoked a worse fate than paperwork.
Rainbow Dash remembered hospitals.
The murmur of doctors and nurses outside. The bed, never as fluffy and comfy as a cloud bed; she had once made the mistake of asking Rarity how most ponies could sleep on something so hard, which earned a bout of teasing from Rarity that even the tough and cool Rainbow Dash allowed herself her own comforts. The scent of sterilizing treatments, as opposed to the lack of scent in her cloud home where most grime, mold, and other odor-producing things were absorbed by the floor and washed right out. But mostly, the boredom: Rainbow Dash knew all too well that, if she was here, she needed to stay in bed and not move much until the doctors said she could go, no matter how tortuous that was to a pony used to being active all day. At least learning to appreciate books gave her some relief, or would if the doctors here would bring her some.
Painful as it was, boredom was but the gateway to mulling over what she had done wrong. In past hospital visits, this had been a simple visualization exercise, to make sure the next time she pulled that particular stunt it would go right. But this time, Spitfire had made it clear why Rainbow Dash should never, ever repeat what had resulted in her current stay, and every time Rainbow Dash's thoughts drifted near it her heart sank in despair.
She had almost betrayed Twilight.
Her head knew that was not the right term for it. She could not have foreseen what would happen. There was no way any pony could predict that she would temporarily lose her memories and thinking she was a changeling, nor that the changeling would be arrested for the murder of the suddenly-missing Rainbow Dash, and especially not that Twilight herself would think she owed it to Rainbow Dash to seek revenge, taking the prosecuting attorney's role so she could personally execute her friend's "murderer".
But her heart insisted it might as well be the right word. All that happened as a direct result of what she had done. She knew she would argue with Spitfire, even if she did not know it would hurt that much. She had chosen to try to trick Spitfire rather than to apologize. Fortune, and that other attorney she thought she recognized from somewhere but could not put a name to, smiled on her and prevented disaster in the aftermath. But all Rainbow Dash could see was Twilight looking at her with a disappointed stare, as if ready to give up on their friendship forever.
"Hello, Rainbow Dash."
And that tone, weary of the world, weary of Rainbow Dash being Rainbow Dash. Spitfire had said Twilight just needed to lecture Rainbow Dash and it would all be better, assuming Rainbow Dash listened and took the lecture to heart. Again, her head tried to use reason to quell her heart's fears, and yet again met with little success. The pegasus cringed, drawing up the covers to shield herself all the way up to her eyes as if to protect the majority of her body from any accusing stares, and curled up underneath the covers.
"Do you know why I'm here?"
Rainbow Dash whimpered and scooted back on her bed, as far away from Twilight as she could, which was about two inches further than she had been.
Twilight took one hesitant step forward. "Rainbow Dash? What do you remember?" The worry in her voice only heightened Rainbow Dash's panic.
The pegasus pulled down her bed sheets just enough to uncover her mouth, squeezed her eyes shut, and clasped her hooves together as if praying to Twilight. "I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I was an idiot pleeease forgive me!"
"Oh Rainbow Dash." She heard a few hoofsteps of her friend running across the room and then she was hugged, pressure and warmth dispelling any notion that Twilight was a figment of her imagination. "You really are an idiot if you think I could stay mad at you."
Just to be sure, Rainbow Dash slowly opened her eyes to confirm that Twilight was right there, by her side. Once she had finally convinced herself of that, she hugged Twilight back.
"And I'm an idiot for thinking I could pretend to be mad." They stayed like that for several seconds until Twilight let go, shrugged out of Rainbow Dash's embrace, and looked her in the eyes, letting Rainbow Dash see the full extent of her worry. "But I need to make sure this doesn't happen again. I don't want to lose you."
"Spitfire said you had a lecture for me?"
"Yeah, I did, but..." Twilight levitated forth a stack of note cards, then with a flash of her horn's aura, disintegrated it. "...buck it. You and I both know that's not how you learn. And this answer isn't something I can put into a play for you to fly over."
Rainbow Dash's eyes widened. "No! I'll listen! I'll listen!"
Twilight looked away. "You'll listen, but you don't know how to hear." She sighed. "I just...I just want to be sure, next time you get into an argument like this, you'll apologize instead of looking for a cheap way out."
"I'll do it! I swear!"
Twilight raised an eyebrow at the note of desperation in her friend's voice, and looked sideways at her. "Cross your heart, hope to fly..."
Rainbow Dash nodded eagerly. "Cross my heart! Hope to fly! Stick a cup-"
Twilight looked at her, resuming eye contact, and frowned. "...lose my trust if you lie?"
The pegasus gulped.
Twilight stared as if boring holes in her friend's soul.
"...lose...your trust if I lie," Rainbow Dash finished, cowering under the stare.
Twilight closed her eyes and slowly let out a breath, then opened her eyes so they could share in her smile. "Thank you. That's one of the two problems. Now for the fun one!"
Rainbow Dash blinked. "There's a fun one?" Her voice was just as worried, but now for an entirely different reason.
"Sure! So, in your own words can you tell me what you think Spitfire wanted you to teach her? Don't worry, I know about that training session that inspired this."
Warning flags went up in Rainbow Dash's hindbrain but she chose to ignore them. ""Uhh, how to train colts and fillies?"
Twilight sat next to the bed and levitated a clipboard that was pegged to the bed's foot, listing the patient's condition and prognosis. "More basic than that. Think about it: why can't she train them?"
Despite the situation, Rainbow Dash allowed herself a brief chuckle. "'Cause she's a hardass, and that's all she knows how to be."
Twilight nodded, her eyes darting over the clipboard to note the doctor's name. "Mm-hmm, exactly!"
Rainbow Dash blinked. "So?"
Twilight looked back at her friend. "Sooo, what does her wanting you to teach her that, say about what she wants to know how to be?"
"Well duh! She wants to..." Rainbow Dash stopped, contemplating.
Twilight smiled wider.
"She...wants...me to teach her? But she's...no way...uh-uh! C'mon, Twilight, I did it in front of her, she's gotta have figured it out by..." The pegasus blinked. "Seriously? She still doesn't know how?"
"When you have eliminated the impossible," Twilight quoted as she put the clipboard back, "what remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth. And it is consistent with the evidence."
"But...c'mon," Rainbow Dash sputtered. "It's easy! You just gotta use a gentle touch!"
"You know that and I know that. But why would she want you to teach her if she did too?"
"I...I thought she was just testing and training me, somehow."
"Wellll..." Twilight looked to the side. "She was, in a way."
Rainbow Dash blinked, then sat up slowly. "Twilight, if you know something, just spit it out!"
Twilight chuckled. "Tell you what, if you teach her about the gentle touch, I'll tell you what she wants you to learn afterward. And I'll talk to your doctor to see if you can get checked out early, so we can go home on the evening train."
Rainbow Dash could not help but smile. "Deal. Now, how do I teach her?"
"Just explain it. Start from the basics. Find out what she knows and build from there. Don't think she's stupid just because she doesn't know something you think is obvious. I mean, when you were teaching me to fly, you took me through all the basics."
"Well yeah! You weren't born an alicorn, so of course you didn't know anything about using your wings. But Spitfire was born a filly! She had a childhood!"
Twilight frowned and looked away, her voice suddenly quieter. "I'm...not sure I would make that assumption. Physically, yes, but mentally, socially...I can't help but think she had to grow up fast, so she never experienced the things you and I take for granted. I think that may be why she's attracted to Soarin."
Rainbow Dash blinked. "Soarin's just her second in command, not her coltfriend."
Twilight blushed, now looking at the floor. "Ah, well, one of the benefits of being close friends with the Princess of Love is, sometimes she tells me what she's picked up on, you see."
Rainbow Dash's mind slipped a cog. She reflected on what she had seen of how well Spitfire and Soarin worked together. A commander had to trust her second in command; they wouldn't be like that if they didn't trust each other intima-deeply, she corrected. And sure, they had some private briefings, just the two of them, that wasn't unusual. With the door locked, because they were private briefings. And sure, some of them took a while and they came out looking like they had just had a really enjoyable workout...
Twilight gave her a guilty grin. "Don't tell her I told you?"
"Ask Cadance to tell me what other pairings she sees in the Wonderbolts and it's a deal." Rainbow Dash shook her head to stop the visions before they could get dirty. "So, um, just explain the basics? Like I'd explain it to Gilda, or fair play to Flim and Flam?"
Twilight winced at unpleasant memories of the brothers. "Yeeeah, that's a good example. Ask her first so you know where her baseline is, or it'll be like explaining cloudshaping to you. You don't want to bore her, but you don't want to start where she can't understand. I take it that's what happened last time."
Rainbow Dash looked off into space as she replayed the argument in her head. "Yeah. It started okay, but then suddenly she acted like I was insulting her and she said stuff I thought was insulting me but now that I think about it..."
"It sounds like you know what to do." Twilight began walking toward the door. "I'll tell her to come see you in about, oh, an hour or so? Think you'll have a good lesson plan by then?"
"Yeah, that should be enough time." Rainbow Dash folded her legs, thinking. "Just...tell me one thing. Is this the kind of thing you do in ten seconds flat?"
Twilight chuckled and winked back as she walked out. "You know it! Talk to you tonight!"
The sun was just finishing setting, giving rise to Twilight's namesake as she watched from just outside the hospital. If the doctor stuck to his word, Rainbow Dash would be coming out any second.
"TWILIGHT!" The one she was waiting for practically bounced, unknowingly mirroring Twilight's exit from Spitfire's office, rapture on her face. "TWILIGHT TWILIGHT! I did it! I taught her, and she got it! She totally gets it now!"
Twilight tore her gaze away from the sky to smile at her friend. "You seem happy."
"No, no, you don't get it! She's my hero and she learned from me! Isn't that awesome?!?"
"It is!" Twilight noted that Rainbow Dash was walking - well, bouncing not unlike Pinkie Pie, but not flying. Apparently the doctor had taken her advice to tell Rainbow Dash not to fly until tomorrow and no stunts for a week or her wing would fail and she would fall from the sky like a chip from Spitfire's punching bag. "Not as awesome as the rest of the Wonderbolts learning from you, but it's a good start."
"Yeah, I-" Rainbow Dash froze. "Wait, what?"
Twilight giggled, turned toward the train station, and began walking. "So I promised to tell you what she wanted you to learn. What do you think the job of commanding the Wonderbolts consists of?"
Rainbow Dash walked beside her, head tilted. Even on the ground, though, her peripheral awareness kicked in, letting her wander around obstacles without looking directly at them. "Well, she said it's leading, and making ponies want to fly. I guess there's a bunch of paperwork involved too."
"There is that, but let's get back to making ponies want to fly. That includes showing them how, showing them what they can do and convincing them they can." Twilight veered around a stack of crates.
"Yeah, I get where this is going. You're saying she wants me to be able to help out?"
Not hearing Rainbow Dash's voice following her, Twilight looked back. Rainbow Dash had crawled right over and through the stack without missing a step, and apparently without being fully conscious of it. Shaking her head, she continued, "It's called, 'grooming junior officers'. Cadance thinks Spitfire intends to retire around the time she gets married."
Rainbow Dash blinked. "She wants me to take over?"
"Years from now. It'll be a long road, and you'll need to prove yourself over and over, but you're probably in the running."
"I...whoa, Twilight. This is a lot to take in."
"You'll get used to it. I'm just glad Celestia's power was able to help."
Rainbow Dash just stared at Twilight for ten seconds, until she tripped on a bench leg.
Twilight caught Rainbow Dash before Twilight knew what her body was doing. Once she realized it, she wondered if she had been unconsciously copying her friend's habitual awareness.
"You're joking. Celestia? Your mentor?"
"No joke. From her to me to you. This won't help you raise the sun, probably, but if you have to rule Equestria for over a thousand years...she commands Equestria just as Spitfire commands the Wonderbolts. She can't be there for everypony all the time, but teaching how to teach helps us get by."
Rainbow Dash slowly stood up, looking at Twilight.
"...what?" Twilight blinked, suddenly getting the feeling that her friend was peering into her.
"I just realized. Those books of yours. This is what you do with them, right? Read them so you can help others learn what they need to know?"
"Well..." Twilight blushed, looked away, and stuck a hoof in her mane, twirling a lock of hair. "Yeah, that's part of it."
Eye contact broken, Rainbow Dash continued on, entering the train station. "There wouldn't happen to be any books of secret flying or weathercrafting techniques, too dangerous for most ponies to even hear about let alone read, would there?"
Twilight grinned as she followed. "If you want to find that sort of thing, sometimes you just need to ask the right questions."
Rainbow Dash came to a halt at the edge of the train platform to wait for the train to arrive, and favored Twilight with an amused but questioning glance.
"Like in this case. It's not whether those books exist. The question is, 'How do I open the secret door at the end of the library, behind which Twilight keeps that sort of book?'"
It was at that point that Rainbow Dash came to believe a week without much flying could still be awesome.
