The Destination Doesn't Matter
The Destination Doesn’t Matter
“Finally,” sighed Rainbow Dash as she nestled into her more than comfortable bed, “a week long trip to Salt Lick City with my five best gal pals.”
Twilight Sparkle, Rarity, Applejack, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie each nodded in agreement with the sentiment. Each pony had her own reason for wanting to come on this little excursion, and each one had saved up a surprising amount of bits to spend in the metropolitan city. As the train chugged along the rails that lead ever eastward, the excited mares passed the time with delightful conversation.
“So Applejack,” began Rarity, “might I ask what you will be doing in Salt Lick City? If I recall, you don’t exactly mesh well with higher society.”
The orange farm pony chuckled a bit and replied, “That I don’t Rarity, an’ I hope I never do either. I’m only going for the Guild of Agriculture convention on Monday to get my hoof in the door an’ try to get the business of these city big wigs.” Applejack walked over to a small cabinet placed under the bottom bunk and pulled from it a bottle of grape juice. “An’ what about you Rarity? What’re you gonna do in the city?”
“Oh that shouldn’t be much of a mystery darling,” replied the white unicorn as she slightly adjusted her glamorous purple mane, “I will be rubbing elbows with the cities’ elite at the mayor’s birthday party on Tuesday.” The unicorn’s eyes began to stare off into the distance as she went on, “And maybe there, among the fabulous mares and stallions of the upper class, I will find my one, true, love!” Rarity’s eyes fluttered as she drifted off into her favorite daydream.
The others rolled their eyes as Twilight began passing around glasses of grape juice to each of them. Pinkie Pie downed her glass in one gulp and excitedly bounded over to Rarity’s side and exclaimed, “Oh may gosh Rarity, we’re gonna have so much fun together!”
Snapping out of her haze, the white unicorn turned to her bright pink friend with a confused stare. “W-what?” she asked bewildered, “Pinkie, don’t tell me you’re...”
“I’m going to the mayor’s birthday too! Somepony has to make sure his eighty-third birthday is as amazing as it possible!”
The other mares all stifled small snickers as Rarity let go a defeated sigh and buried her head into her pillow. “Don’t be so down Rarity,” said Rainbow Dash from her perch on one of the top bunks, “I’m sure Pinkie will aim the cake away from you this time.”
“She’d better,” said the fashionista glaring up at the blue pegasus, “and what about you Rainbow Dash? Why are you heading out to Salt Lick City?”
The pegasus sat up and rolled her eyes, “Uh, to attend the Wonderbolt’s performance on Wednesday, duh.” She pounced off the bed and made a solid landing on the floor amongst her friends as a confident smile spread over her features. “After the show, I’m going to go hang out with them like I should have gotten to at the Grand Galloping Gala. It’s going to be awesome! I’ll be showcasing a few of my most amazing stunts and we’ll all go flying together and then they’ll ask me to join the team and it’ll be the most awesome day EVER.”
“Gosh Rainbow, that sounds amazing!” Pinkie Pie added, “Why, you’re geeking out as much as Twilight does when she visits a museum!”
“I do not ‘geek out,’” responded Twilight as she took a sip from her drink, “and the fact that I jumped at the chance of visiting the Museum of Historical Facts and Figures’ grand opening on Thursday doesn’t make me a ‘geek.’”
Rarity daintily lifted her drink to her lips and said, “Twilight darling, you not only jumped at the chance, you jumped around in circles for nearly three minutes while listing off all the things you would be doing.”
“And it was about boring geek stuff, so that kinda makes you a geek,” commented Dash. Seeing that the purple unicorn was staring daggers at her, the pegasus backpedaled and added, “N-not that that’s lame or anything! I mean, I think you’re one of the coolest ponies I know that isn’t me.”
Twilight let out a sigh and finished off her drink before hovering the bottle of grape juice over and refilling her glass. Turning to the quietest member of their group, eager to move the subject off of herself, the unicorn pleasantly asked, “How about you Fluttershy? I can’t think of a reason you’d want to go to the city with all the noise and, well, noise.”
The timid yellow pegasus who had so far simply sat in silence perked up with surprise at being addressed. She demurely lowered her head and gazed at the carpeted floor of the train car as she meekly replied, “I...I just wanted to spend time with you all. It doesn’t really matter what we do, I just want to...um...is ‘hang out’ the right word?”
There was a collective feeling of warmth amongst the mares in the car as they heard the rather simple goal of their friend. Placing their drinks on a secure surface, the five other ponies all rushed to their yellow friend and gave her a big group hug. After recovering from the shock of such sudden contact, Fluttershy returned the warm gesture as best as she could.
After a brief time, the six friends separated from the hug and happily gazed at one another. Fluttershy, still somewhat shocked from the sudden group hug, asked, “W-w-what was that for?”
“Because you probably have the best reason out of all of us for going on this trip,” replied Applejack, “Spendin’ time with friends is what this should be all about. Like the Gala should have been.”
“And I would much prefer not having a repeat of that,” added Rarity with a bemused grin.
“Oh my gosh!” exclaimed Pinkie, “I can’t believe I didn’t see it before!”
“What?” all her friends asked with confused glances.
The pink pony stood on her hind legs and put her fore hooves to her temples, “We all do things Monday through Thursday! We can all go to each other’s events as a group through out the week and let Fluttershy decide what we all do on Friday! It’s too perfect!”
The others all nodded their approval of the idea and looked to Fluttershy with eager faces. The yellow pegasus began to shrink back as her friends leaned towards her with anticipation. “Um...” she murmured at length, “...well I thought that, um, maybe we could...well...hit up the Golden Griffin Casino.” Her request was met with stunned expressions from all her companions, to which the meek yellow pony hastily tried to apologize, “I’m sorry! What I meant was...uh...we could do that if you all want to, I mean, we don’t have to.”
Her friends all shook their heads and made their own quick apologies as Twilight stated, “No no, we can do what you want. It’s no problem at all.”
“Indeed darling,” added Rarity, casting odd glances around, “ It’s just that, well, I don’t think any of us were expecting you to be a gambling mare is all.”
Fluttershy once again lowered her head and blushed as she admitted, “I know I don’t look like I would be good at that sort of thing, but it’s how I’ve been able to feed all my little animals and own my home. In fact, my house actually belonged to a gnome before I won it from him in a game of cards.”
And with that, the six mares talked and joked and laughed all the way to Salt Lick City, where they had a week of fun and adventure.
The End
(read: Ran out of time)
