Mane Camp

by Canterlot Voice

Rating: teen
Tags: Twilight Sparkle, Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Sad, Rainbow Dash, Comedy, Rarity
Length: 5161

Twilight has Rainbow Dash over for a slumber party!

Twilight Sparkle has been studying the magic of friendship in Ponyville for just over a year, and she’s come to the inescapable conclusion that she and Rainbow Dash became friends as a prelude to something much greater. But will the pegasus agree? When Rainbow Dash accepts Twilight’s invitation to a slumber party, she has no idea what she’s getting herself into.

Published 2012-07-04 21:34:01 UTC
Last updated 2012-07-04 21:34:01 UTC

Mane Camp

Rainbow Dash considered a dilemma as she watched the sun set. On one hoof, she was feeling lazy, but on the other hoof, the weather was beautiful for flying and there was at least a half hour or so of daylight left. Wow, I wish every decision was like this. I really can’t go wrong. She yawned and stretched out on her cloud to think it over, but she couldn’t help but feel like she was forgetting something.

Oh, that’s right! Twilight’s slumber party. Twilight had invited her nearly a month ago; the unicorn really liked to plan things in advance. Most of the time, Twilight’s friends’ attention spans were long enough that at least one of them remembered and could remind the others.

Rainbow Dash hopped off the edge of her cloud and spread her wings wide, reveling in the sensation of wind rushing through her feathers. With a few brisk flaps of her wings, she was on her way to Twilight’s library. She circled the building twice as she considered bursting in through the wall again just to see what Twilight would say, but she thought better of it and landed on the balcony outside Twilight’s bedroom instead. The window wasn’t latched, so she let herself in.

Inside, Twilight’s bed was covered with open books; she’d obviously been up late reading last night, and Spike obviously hadn’t gotten around to cleaning up yet. Rainbow Dash grinned. The things that dragon puts up with. She was just about start nosing around in the open books when she heard hoofsteps coming. Darned if she was going to let Twilight see her reading anything that wasn’t Daring Do.

“Oh! Hi there, Dash!” Twilight Sparkle came trotting in through the door. “I was wondering when you’d get here.”

“Sorry I’m late.” Rainbow Dash sighed. “I’m the last one here, aren’t I?”

“Oh, not at all!” Twilight blushed. Her eyes darted to her bed, and with a flick of her horn she flung the books underneath it and tucked the corners of the sheets under the mattress. “You’re the first, actually. I have no idea what the others are doing.”

“Beats me.” Rainbow Dash shrugged. “I’ve kind of been off in my own world all day – you know how I can get when the weather’s just right. Although, come to think of it, I haven’t seen Fluttershy or Rarity for nearly a week.”

“Well, they should be here tonight.” Something about Twilight sounded off, Rainbow Dash realized. Like there was something she wanted to say, but she was afraid to say it. And how many times has one of us landed everypony in trouble with that routine? Not that I’m exactly innocent on that count.

“So…slumber party.” Rainbow Dash flitted into the air and plopped down on the guest bed, grabbing herself a spot before anyone else could get to the party. “I missed your first one. How do we get started?”

“I was thinking we could, uh…” Twilight nervously glanced back and forth, avoiding eye contact. “Go to sleep, maybe?” She hopped into her own bed.

“Sleep?” Rainbow Dash laughed. “Twilight, what has gotten into you? The sun isn’t even down yet! I mean, seriously. I can tell the cat’s got your tongue about something. Spit it out!”

“Oh.” Twilight blinked. Her normally lavender cheeks were red as a pair of apples. “Is it that obvious? Well, I…I’ll tell you later tonight. For now, let’s just go to—”

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. “C’mon, Twi. Did you actually invite anybody else, or is this the Twilight Invites Rainbow Dash Over To Tell Her Something Important And Then Beats Around The Bush For A Couple Hours Instead show? I’m your friend. No need to be nervous.”

“—sleep,” Twilight finished with a jarring tone of finality. Faint swirls of magical energy coiled around her horn, and Rainbow Dash suddenly felt very, very, tired. She rolled over on the bed, and heard herself start to snore before her eyes even fully closed. Hmm, I wonder what it is? I bet it’s some sort of surprise! Maybe it’s something to do with what Rarity and Fluttershy have been doing!

Rainbow Dash woke up feeling groggy and dry-mouthed. The room was pitch-dark.

She lay still for a few moments. Ugh…what am I doing up this early? I need a glass of water. She blinked her eyes a few times, waiting for them to adjust, but the darkness remained impenetrable. Wait, wasn’t it supposed to be a foal moon tonight?

She frowned. Oh, the shutters must be closed. Duh! Shutters weren’t a feature Rainbow Dash had ever bothered to add to her own house; she liked to be able to see the sky, and keeping bad weather out was never an issue for obvious reasons.

Well, she could feel her way into the hall and then turn on the lights. Rainbow Dash rolled over onto her stomach and flapped her wings as quietly as she could, taking off straight upward.

On the third upstroke, her wings struck something hard and unyielding. What the hay? I’m way below ceiling level! The unexpected shock caused her to lose balance and come plummeting down. Pain shot through her right foreleg as she hit the floor at an odd angle, causing her to let out a strangled yelp.

Wait, why am I on the floor? I took off straight from my bed! Or…was I even on my bed when I woke up? Did I roll off sometime during the night? Yeah, probably. Could be worse. Could have been sleeping on a cloud. Rainbow Dash sat up on her haunches, cradling her injured leg. It hurt, but it didn’t feel anything like her wing had when she’d broken it a few months ago. She considered climbing back into bed and trying to sleep it off, but thought better of it. Better wake up Twilight and see what she thinks. She’s the responsible one. Usually. Sometimes. Rainbow Dash turned to face the direction she was relatively sure Twilight’s bed was in, and started limping toward it in a three-legged gait.

Her nose hit something, and her reflexes betrayed her by making her catch herself with her injured leg. There was no choking back her cry this time. “OW!”

Rainbow Dash scampered backwards a few feet, and her backside slammed into another barrier. Something was wrong here. Her heart started to race, and she took off to her right at a full gallop, pain forgotten for a moment. Again, she hit something almost immediately, but she kept her balance this time and spun around, launching herself in the opposite direction. She had just enough room to get up speed that the impact knocked her off her hooves.

She scrambled back up. “Twi! Help! I’m--” I’m…what, exactly? What the hurricane is going on here? Where am I? “Twilight, what the hurricane is going on here? Where am I?”

“And….lights!” somepony shouted, maybe a few dozen feet away. Rarity? It sounded like her voice, but what was she doing here?

The blinding glare of high-powered floodlights burned away the darkness. Rainbow Dash squeezed her eyes shut and threw a hoof over them. After several seconds, she lowered her hoof and very gradually began to raise her eyelids. It was still too bright.

Everything beyond a neat circle that expanded just a few feet in every direction was tinted purple. Rainbow Dash was stuck under some sort of semi-transparent dome criss-crossed at regular intervals with shimmering gridlines.

“My brother’s spell,” Twilight Sparkle explained. Rainbow Dash whirled around to face her. “I asked him to teach it to me after the wedding. I’m nowhere close to good enough with it to shield a whole city—yet—but I’m working on it.”

“Twilight!” Rainbow snapped. “What are you…wearing?” It wasn’t the question Rainbow Dash had meant to ask, but it was the one that came out as she got a look at her friend.

Twilight Sparkle was clad in a brown coat cut in the sharp lines characteristic of some sort of militaristic uniform. On her hooves were black iron horseshoes polished to a mirror shine, and over the sleeve of her left foreleg she wore a bright red band of cloth a couple inches wide. On the band was a stark white circle containing a twisted angular symbol in black that Rainbow Dash dimly recalled seeing somewhere before. Was it on one of those books that had been on Twilight’s bed? She hadn’t thought much of it at the time. The same symbol in the same white circle adorned several crimson banners that hung from the walls of the room. It was most definitely not the same room that Rainbow Dash had gone to sleep in.

“I’m glad you noticed the uniforms!” Rarity stepped up next to Twilight. She was wearing a uniform cut identically to the other unicorn’s, but out of black cloth instead of brown. A pair of stylized silver lightning bolts decorated her collar, and she wore a peaked black combination cap adorned at the front with a grinning silver death’s head. A flowing black greatcoat covered her back and ran down to the floor. “I designed these myself—to Our Leader’s specifications, of course.” Rarity raised her right front hoof into the air, pointing it straight at Twilight. “Heil Sparkler!”

Twilight raised her own right hoof, and Rarity dropped the salute. She turned back and forth, letting Rainbow dash see her attire from every angle. “I do believe that I’ve finally arrived at the perfect blend of style and functionality! Do you like them? Do you?”

“I…uh…” Rainbow Dash blinked and shook her head vigorously. She glared at the unicorn. “Rarity, I don’t know what you’d be thinking about in my situation, but what I’m thinking about ain’t fashion! Now, where am I and what are you crazy ponies doing?”

She was nearly shouting by the time she finished the question, but despite her best efforts at putting on a front of bravery, Rainbow Dash was feeling more and more worried. Twilight’s answer didn’t reassure her: “Spike, bring out the working copy of The Book.”

Rainbow Dash laughed nervously, feeling beads of sweat run down from her mane. “Twilight, ah, not really interested in a book right now. Nope, not even if it’s the latest Daring Do.”

Before Twilight had the chance to respond, Spike walked into the room with some weird high-stepping march. He was wearing a metal helmet and a tan shirt with a black neckerchief and had one of those weird red bands around his left arm. He was carrying a thick cloth-bound book with a picture of a winged unicorn on the front. Under the picture was the title: My Struggle.

“Perfect!” Twilight Sparkle’s horn shimmered as she lifted the book out of Spike’s hands and made it hover in the air in front of her. She opened it to the first page and cleared her throat.

“Once upon a time, years and years before Equestria was made…

“The wise and mighty alicorns were the lords of all they surveyed. With their magic, they charted the course of the world; with their wings, they claimed dominion over the sky as well. The earth ponies lived under their care and protection, and the alicorns asked only loyalty and veneration in return for the thousand thousand years of peace and prosperity they gave the world.

“But for some earth ponies, this was not enough. They grew jealous of the alicorns’ power, and formed a traitorous cabal to steal it for themselves. They could not hope to prevail by direct means, of course; their betters would crush them in an instant. Instead, the conspirators would work through subtlety and treachery.

“It began with the foalnapping of alicorn fillies and colts, who were sacrificed to dark powers that predate the world. The traitorous cabal’s mares bathed in the blood of their betters’ foals to gain powers of seduction, which they used to bed the alicorn stallions, polluting the alicorn lines with impure blood and passing a fraction of their power along to the mule-like offspring of the muddied union.

“Their vile plot was partially successful. The alicorns retained their horns and the power of magic, becoming the first unicorns. However, their wings were stolen and passed along to the ill-begotten creatures who were the first pegasi. The leaders of the unicorns immediately ordered a purge, but it was too late. With their connection to the sky gone, the unicorns could no longer channel the power of the stars and planets through themselves, and their magical abilities were shadows of their former glory.

“Unable to eradicate the pegasi—and realizing that they now needed the foul creatures’ help to control the weather lest they all perish—the unicorn leaders agreed to a truce. They would bide their time until the moment came when they could reclaim their former glory.

“But that time didn’t come. Over the many long millenia that followed, the unicorns by and large forgot who they once were and condescended to treat the pegasi and the earth ponies as equals. Many went so far as to lie with their inferiors even in the absence of their sacrifice-fueled blood magic. Thus the lines were further polluted.

“Eventually, when it was almost too late for there to be any hope of going back, the stars revealed the answer. Over the many centuries, one family of unicorns had remained unfouled by inferior blood, doing what was necessary to keep their lines pure. One night, as a distant comet lit the dark sky, a unicorn was born of this stock. She was the last and true heir to millennia of pure and powerful magic, and her destiny was to restore the Glorious Alicorn Master Race to its former greatness.”

Twilight Sparkle closed the book, revealing a beatific smile. “That last part was about me. In case you were wondering.”

Rarity raised her hoof to Twilight again. “Heil Sparkler!”

“Heil Sparkler!” Spike mimicked the gesture with his right arm.

Rainbow Dash blinked, feeling even more confused than she had before she started asking questions. “Uh, Twilight, what the hay was that crud?”

Twilight narrowed her eyes, her face taking on an angry cast. “That crud,” she said, “was the prologue of my autobiography. I’m trying to write it as I go along, so that I get everything down while it’s still clear in my mind.”

It was Spike who spoke next. “Wait. if that was just the prologue, why did it take up the whole book? It looked like a few hundred pages.”

Twilight leafed back through the pages. “There are a lot of footnotes. When I first read about that business with the alicorns and the earth ponies and the unicorns and the pegasi, I didn’t believe it, but I tracked down other sources. Then I tracked down some more, just to be safe. When I was writing the prologue I decided I should cite them all to silence the neigh-sayers.”

Rainbow Dash’s expression twisted like she’d just eaten a whole lemon. “You mean you actually believe all that?”

“Of course I do,” Twilight said casually. “Remember all the times I’ve read something in a book, and you’ve laughed it off? Have I ever actually been wrong? No? I didn’t think so.”

“Twilight, listen to yourself!” Rainbow Dash shouted, stomping her good front hoof. “We’ve been best friends for over a year, and now suddenly you’re buying this hooey?”

Rarity stepped forward. “The dirt pony traitors who corrupted the alicorns’ genes to create the first pegasi worked by entering themselves into the alicorns’ good graces, too.” Suddenly, hot tears of betrayal welled up in her eyes. “This hurts me, Rainbow Dash. It really does. I’m just grateful that Twilight discovered the truth before you or Fluttershy had the chance to sacrifice Sweetie Belle to Discord so that that you could seduce Our Leader and bring a final end to the Glorious Alicorn Master Race.”

Rainbow Dash just stared for a few seconds as her mind processed Rarity’s tirade. It was all she could do. Then she burst into hysterical laughter. “Ha! Y’know, this really isn’t a bad prank! Did Pinkie Pie put you up to this?”

Rarity made the sort of face normally reserved for the occasion of finding cockroaches in one’s breakfast hay. “Pinkie Pie?” she said with a derisive snort. “I assure you that the dirt pony unter- meine kleine pferden had nothing to do with this.”

Rainbow Dash sighed. “Look, I don’t know what’s gotten into you. Was it something in the brownies? Please let me go. I’ll just forget all this dookie ever happened, and we can get on with our lives.”

“In a moment,” Twilight said. “We just need something from you first. To help us restore the full power of the Glorious Alicorn Master Race.”

“And you think you need to drag me into some dungeon and use magic on me to get it?” Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. “Come on! This is your friend Rainbow Dash you’re talking about here—Element of Loyalty! Remember all that stuff? I’d do anything to help my friends!”

For a moment, Twilight looked honestly uncomfortable. “I know, but…I was worried you might not still feel that way once you found out what it was. You see, we need, ah…” Twilight had started pacing, as she often did when she was nervous or indecisive. Rainbow Dash got her first look at Twilight from the side, and suddenly what the unicorn was saying didn’t seem to matter so much anymore.

Twilight Sparkle’s uniform had two neat holes cut in it near the top of her back, just where Rainbow Dash’s few articles of clothing had holes for her wings.

“We need you to return what your dirt pony ancestors stole from us,” Rarity finished.

“Oh no,” Rainbow Dash whispered, her body starting to shiver uncontrollably. “Oh hell no!”

“It’s not so bad,” Rarity said. “It’s not like we’re going to kill you. We’re only going to restore you to your proper status as a dirt p — er, as an earth pony.”

“I’m sorry,” Twilight Sparkle said sincerely. “But this is the way it has to be. The evolutionary imperatives of Our Race demand that—”

“No!” Rainbow Dash shook her head vigorously. “No! I’m outta here!” She stepped back to the far edge of the shield spell that confined her. She coiled her hindleg muscles and kicked off the shield like she was helping Applejack buck apples from a tree, simultaneously beating her wings as hard as she could. She shot up to full flying speed in under ten feet and threw her shoulder into the shield wall. She heard an ear-splitting crack as fissures spiderwebbed across the shield’s surface, and she felt it buckle and deform under the stress she was putting on it as she beat her wings harder and harder.

On the other side of the shield, Twilight Sparkle’s horn glowed like a beacon as she charged and fired a bolt of restoring energy into her spell. The bubble snapped back into shape, hurtling Rainbow Dash down onto the floor.

“Twilight, this is nuts!” Rainbow Dash shouted as she rolled back onto her hooves, her voice ragged. “Why? Why me? Why—why not—” Her voice gave out as she broke down sobbing and curled up against the edge of the shield.

Rarity and Twilight Sparkle exchanged a look. “Show her,” Twilight said after a tense silence.

Rarity swallowed. “Do you mean….”

“Yes. Bring Subject One out.”

“But…My Leader…she’s sleeping….”

“Then wake her up,” Twilight said, rather sharply. “Rainbow Dash may carry the blood of traitors, but we owe it to her to show her why we can’t take what we need from just anypony. Why it has to be her.”

“Y-yes.” Rarity visibly steeled herself and raised her hoof. “Heil Sparkler!” With that, she telekinetically jerked a set of double doors open and all but ran through them.

Rainbow Dash could hear locks being worked and chains being thrown to the ground out of sight in the other room. She took several deep breaths, trying to calm herself. It didn’t help.

Soon, Rarity came back into the room holding the loop of a leash in her mouth. The pony that followed was clad from horn to hoof in black leather, and walked with a tired, nearly mechanical gait. One look into her violet eyes, visible through eyeholes surrounded by open zippers, showed that there was no life left within them. As the unfortunate pony shuffled farther through the door, Rainbow Dash could see a pair of light grey wings hanging uselessly from her sides, dragging along the ground. A hole in the leather over her flank revealed a star-tipped magic wand crossed with a crescent moon.

The room spun. Rainbow Dash felt bile rising in her throat, and it took a strong effort to choke the contents of her stomach back down. She hadn’t realized it until now, but until Rarity had walked in with this thing, she had been able to hold on to some sliver of hope that Twilight and Rarity were joking, no matter how sincere they sounded in their craziness.

“Our Leader started by experimenting on Undesirables,” Rarity said, gesturing toward the unfortunate creature at the other end of the leash she held. “Unter- meine kleine pferden whose disappearance would go unnoticed except by those with a unique talent for completely missing the point. But, as you can see, the Derpy Trix experiment was a failure.”

“Oh, not really,” Twilight cut in. “No experiment is a failure unless you learn nothing from it, and we learned a lot from poor Derpy Trix. The problems that we ran into led me to realize that even with my magic guiding the process, you cannot simply take the wings of any pegasus and return them to just any unicorn. But what were the criteria?” She paced in circles around the shield as she spoke. ”The answer tied into the reason that Princess Celestia sent me to Ponyville to study friendship in the first place. Some pre-existing bond between the unicorn and the pegasus is required—and the stronger the bond, the more seamless the fusion. This was a major breakthrough, but it was troubling; there are a lot of unicorns who don’t have any friendships with pegasi that are strong enough to make the reintegration process work. Rarity came to the rescue on this one.”

“Right.” Rarity smiled. “It occurred to me that if not enough friendships existed to restore the entire Glorious Alicorn Master Race, the solution was to help form them. In a fit of inspiration one night, I realized that we could institute special camps to expedite the process—tightly concentrate the ponies to increase the chances they would encounter each other, and use conditions of adversity to push them together. Once they made friends, the process could be done, and they would be free to go assume their proper roles in the world. Freundschaft macht Frei.”

“We confirmed the Friendship Hypothesis with our next experiment,” Twilight said.

Tears were welling up in Rarity’s eyes. “I cannot begin to describe how proud it makes me to know that my little sister is the first of the reborn Glorious Alicorn Master Race. Sweetie Belle threw something of a tantrum when she woke up after the procedure; even the appearance of an alicorn cutie mark on her flank did not console her. Still, one day she will embrace what we did for her, and in the meantime, cleaning it up the mess she made venting her anger in the Carousel Boutique will make for good practice for her role in the ethnic cleansing to come. She will spread her orange wings to fly, and—”

“Orange wings…Sweetie Belle’s friends…oh no. You—you monsters.” This time, Rainbow Dash couldn’t hold back the vomit. Her first convulsion expelled a stomach full of half-digested hay, which struck the shield and ran down to the floor. She dry heaved several times as Rarity went on.

The unicorn was on a roll. “—and she will assume her rightful mantle of supremacy over the dirt ponies.” Her voice took on a more somber tone. “Unfortunately, her tardiness in earning her cutie mark will likely mean that she will never be suited for breeding to the purest Alicorn Master Race stock. And you shouldn’t feel too bad for Scootaloo. She wasn’t really using her wings for very much, anyways.”

“Wasn’t using them?!” Without warning, hot tears of rage flowed down Rainbow Dash’s cheeks. “Do you have any idea how much she looks up to me? She wanted to be a great flyer, just like I am! And now—and now—” She broke down sobbing, unable to go on.

“Well, she won’t be jealous of you for very long, at least,” Rarity said casually. “And speaking of pegasi who weren’t using their wings for much…” Rarity shrugged off her greatcoat and stretched out a pair of light yellow wings. “I’m a very weak flier right now, unfortunately—five wingpower wasn’t much of a starting point—but I’m getting better every time I practice.”

Rainbow Dash stopped crying, a cold fury rising in her heart and pushing away the despair. “I’ll kill you for this,” she said, her voice cold as steel in winter. “I’ll kill you both.” She heard the words echo around the room, and sat still in shock, unable to believe what she had just said. Unable to believe that she meant it.

Without warning, she kicked off the floor and launched herself straight up, her wing muscles burning as adrenaline pushed them far beyond anything they were ever meant to do. Wind ripped through her mane and stretched her gums back, and a massive pressure wave built up in front of her nose. She smashed through the sound barrier just as she struck the top of the shield, and with a deafening thunderclap, a rainbow-colored shockwave ripped across the room, carrying tiny fragments of Twilight’s shattered spell with it.

Not slowing down, Rainbow Dash performed a gut-wrenching midair turn. Wind howled in the enclosed space, and tattered red banners spiraled around the room. A rainbow streaming behind her, Rainbow Dash dove straight for Rarity, front left hoof out in front of her, ready to smash the unicorn’s horn back in through her skull.

Rarity gaped up at Rainbow Dash as she closed in, blue eyes wide with horror. She flapped Fluttershy’s wings, trying to get out of the way, but she was too slow, and she knew it. Rainbow Dash looked straight into the eyes of a pony who knew her life was measured in fractions of a second, and she screamed a wordless howl of rage and despair as she swung her hoof forward to strike the killing blow.

Somewhere a world away in Rainbow Dash’s red-tinted peripheral vision, Twilight Sparkle’s horn flared with a burst of purple light. A vibrant red heart surrounded by a shimmering amethyst aura shot out of her horn and flew across the room to strike the diving pegasus square in the chest.

Horror gripped Rainbow Dash’s heart. How could she ever have even contemplated doing this to one of her best friends? She flared her wings wide open and twisted her flight path away from Rarity, feeling her feathers whisk through the unicorn’s mane as she just barely missed. The near-impact cost her control of her flight, and she spun wildly before crashing into the wall and striking a crater a foot deep. Eyes rolling in dazed confusion, she slid out of the hole and flopped to the floor.

“You…you saved my life,” she dimly heard Rarity say, her voice breathless and quavering. “Thank you, My Leader.”

“That was too close,” Twilight said, sounding nearly as shocked as Rarity. “None of my spells had the raw power to stop her. I tried grabbing her with my telekinesis, but I don’t think she even noticed. If Princess Cadance hadn’t taught me her spell, we’d both be dead by now.”

With the a subtle blue glow of her unicorn magic, Rarity lifted her combination cap from where it had fallen on the ground, returned it to her head, and leveled it. “Then her wings are truly worthy of the Leader of Our Glorious People—you will truly be the über- mein klein pferd among über- meine kleine pferden. Heil Sparkler! I just hope she didn’t break either of them.”

“Well,” Twilight said somberly, “Let’s get down to business.”

Rainbow Dash pulled herself to her hooves as hoofsteps approached her. Her head rang, and her vision was blurred. Every inch of her body ached. She stood there trembling with pain and exertion as four figures approached.

Her best friend, Twilight Sparkle, did something with her horn, and the headache subsided. The double images came together, resolving themselves into Twilight and Rarity. Rainbow Dash could always count on Twilight. She loved Twilight. She would do anything for Twilight. Anything at all.

“Thank you, Twilight,” Rainbow Dash said. “I’m sorry I rejected what you were saying, just because I didn’t want o hear it. I can’t believe I tried to…my god, I almost killed you and Rarity. I would never have forgiven myself. I don’t think I’ll ever forgive myself for just trying.”

“Hush,” Twilight said softly. A second heart floated out of her horn and entered Rainbow Dash’s chest. “It’s going to be okay.”

Rainbow Dash cantered over to the two unicorns as fast as her wounded legs could carry her. She grabbed them both in a tight hug, and if Rarity looked just a little revolted, Rainbow Dash knew it was because she hadn’t proved herself worthy of such a wonderfully perfect pony’s friendship. “I’m so sorry,” Rainbow Dash wailed, twin waterfalls of tears arcing down from her eyes and running like a series of streams and rivers through the cracks in the stone floor. “Please forgive me.”

“My Leader,” Rarity said, “We’re wasting time here. We need to get on with this.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Twilight said with a short sigh. “Dash, remember what we said about your wings?”

“Oh, yeah,” Rainbow Dash said, breaking off the hug and blinking away her tears. She bit her lower lip. “Twilight, you’re the best friend anypony could ever hope to have, but I don’t know—”

Twilight gently touched her horn to Rainbow Dash’s chest, and a river of glowing hearts flowed into Rainbow Dash’s heart of flesh and blood.

“—how I could ever have even thought of denying you something this important,” the pegasus finished. She lay down on her belly and stretched her wings straight out, away from her body.

Silvery-violet light swirled around Twilight Sparkle’s horn, solidifying into a blade so sharp that Rainbow Dash could hear it cut through the molecules of air as Twilight took aim.

“Heil Sparkler.” The pegasus raised her hoof. “You have my loyalty.”