The Time of Storms

Closer to the door as she was, Applejack made it to Rainbow Dash slightly ahead of Twilight; she threw her forelegs around her friend's neck, embracing her tightly, relief coursing through soul her in great waves. “Oh, Celestia, Rainbow Dash,” she said, almost hysterical with delight at the sight of her, “it's so good to see you. I thought that you were-”

“-Rumours of my death,” replied Rainbow Dash, gently extricating herself from Applejack's overbearing hug. Being an earth pony made her naturally very strong, of course, but years of hard work on the farm had only served to increase her strength and she seemed determined not to let her out of her considerable grip. She looked at her friends and let out a small, contented sigh. “It's good to see you guys again, too. It's been a while.”

“What do you mean, a while?” asked Twilight, studying Rainbow Dash with a curious expression darkening her muzzle. “We saw you just this afternoon.” It was definitely her – the cheeky grin, the playful cast to her eyes and the confident posture attested to that – but there was also something decidedly off about her. Her polychromatic mane, what she could see of it underneath the threadbare Stetson that she was wearing, seemed duller somehow, as if the colours were beginning to fade, and it was shot through with streaks of grey, the corners of her eyes had developed crow's feet, and the normally thick, lustrous feathers of her wings looked brittle and worn. If Twilight didn't know any better, she would've guessed that she was looking at a pony who was a good twenty or thirty years older than she knew Rainbow Dash to be. “Applejack, step back,” she said warningly, igniting her horn, veins of incandescent purple light suddenly reflecting off of the castle walls.

“Sugarcube, what's gotten-?”

“-Whoever, whatever, that is, it isn't Rainbow Dash!” said Twilight, venom in her voice. “Look at her properly.”

If she was offended by how her friends were treating her, Rainbow Dash did her best not to show it; she allowed Applejack to peer at her intently without comment, instead maintaining studious eye-contact all the while with Twilight, keeping her face firmly neutral as she did so. She wanted to tell her that she wasn't a Changeling, or a Siren, or Discord playing some kind of an elaborate prank, but she decided that the best thing to do was to keep quiet and let Twilight figure that out for herself.

When she was finished with her examination – both her earlier heartache and her more recent sense of joy were now buried under a cold, hard layer of practicality borne out having had to incur so much responsibility from an early age – Applejack found herself coming to much the same conclusion that Twilight had. She backed away from the impostor and crouched into a defensive posture. Baring her teeth and pointing an accusatory hoof, she sneered and sternly asked, “Who are you? Really, I mean? D'you have something to do with the disappearance of the real Rainbow Dash?”

“Applejack, you'd know if I was lying, right? It's me,” Rainbow Dash said quietly, tapping her puffed-out chest gently with the tip of her hoof. She took the hat from atop her head and smoothed out her silvery mane, letting it fall around her neck on its cord. She was neither angry nor was she bitter about their interrogation, simply resigned, as she'd been expecting something like this to happen. Didn't make it any less difficult, though. With much-practised patience, she said, “My name is Rainbow Dash. I was born in Cloudsdale to Bow Hothoof and Windy Whistles. I work in the Weather Factory, and I am also a member of the Wonderbolts. I have a pet turtle named Tank, and I adopted Scootaloo as my little sister.”

“That's all basic information that anypony could find out pretty easily about Rainbow Dash,” Twilight said tersely, eyes narrowed, horn still bursting with energy. “If you want us to believe you, then you'd better tell us something that only she could possibly know.”

Thinking for a moment, her head bobbing from side to side as she considered the options, Rainbow Dash's eyes suddenly brightened. “Last year, when I tried to sabotage the Weather Factory to prevent winter from falling so that I could spend more time with Tank, Fluttershy said to me, Your winter is going to be pet-less, and that was the push that I'd needed to start getting over it.” She shot a reproving yet wistful glance at Applejack. “Of course, you weren't much help when you said that I'd see him again in a few months.”

Applejack frowned, shooting a sideways glance at Twilight, still maintaining her alert stance; there was just no way that this could be the Rainbow Dash that they knew and loved, but they'd all been there to witness her breakdown that day – probably the first time she'd ever cried over something that wasn't herself – and she could not detect any dissembling in the intruder's words. If this was some kind of an imposter, then they'd done some very thorough research into their target. She said as much to Twilight. “I don't know, though,” she added, a hoof dangling helplessly in the air between them, “I mean, I could be wrong.”

For a further few moments, Twilight continued to channel energy into horn; just because the facsimile wasn't lying – or at least, it didn't think that it was lying – didn't necessarily mean that it was the real Rainbow Dash, but still … there was just some indefinable sense of something about her that carried with it the beguiling notion that she was indeed who she professed to be.

Perhaps it was their connection through the Elements of Harmony?

Perhaps it was more subtle than that: Rainbow Dash was a close friend, and Twilight wanted to believe with all of her heart that – no matter what – she'd always recognise her friends.

Had the bolt of lightning from the storm prematurely aged her through some bizarre property of its magic? Was it something to do with the teleportation effect? Twilight just stared at her for a long time before finally coming to a decision: the luminous glow surrounding her horn faded. “All right, I'm willing to keep an open-mind,” she said evenly. “What happened to you? Why do you look so much older all of a sudden?”

“Look,” said Rainbow Dash, rubbing her chin thoughtfully as she watched the play of emotions across Twilight's mulberry eyes, “I have quite the story to tell you, and at my age it's one heck of a flight-” she extended her frail wings and fluttered them haltingly by way of demonstration “-from Canterlot to Ponyville, so can we discuss this like civilised ponies: inside the castle and with a pot of fresh coffee?”

Twilight and Applejack exchanged glances. “Since when do you drink coffee?” they asked at the same time.

Strutting her way across the threshold, flicking her tail at her stunned friends as she passed by them, Rainbow Dash loftily replied, “I've been drinking coffee since before the two of you were even born.”