Rainbow Dash Seeks an Editor

by Dusk Raven

Rating: teen
Tags: Slice of Life, Twilight Sparkle, Drama, Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Rainbow Dash, Comedy
Length: 23418

Requirements: Must be a fan of Daring Do, must not be boring, and must be willing to work with a pony more awesome than they.

Rainbow Dash is a busy mare. She has to juggle Ponyville weather duties, training for the Wonderbolts, handling the occasional friendship mission or threat to Equestria, and napping. After all that, she only has so much time to spend writing Daring Do fanfiction.

Needless to say, that means her writing’s not that great - especially when combined with her inexperience at anything eggheads do.

Clearly somepony needs to fill the role of editor… even if the results aren't what Rainbow had in mind.

(Begins in the middle of Season 4, but the events take place over the next two seasons. References to episodes will happen as applicable.

Artwork modified with permission from a sketch by EvoManaphy. Story proofread by SPark, and others who don't have Fimfiction accounts.

Published 2017-11-08 00:20:09 UTC
Last updated 2019-04-04 01:26:07 UTC

1: Blue Fast Needs Editor Badly

“Ugh, I can’t take it anymore!” Rainbow stood up from her position at a desk in Twilight’s library. “I’m going to stretch my wings, you keep going.”

“Rainbow, wait-!” was all the library’s owner was able to say in response before Rainbow opened the balcony window and flew out into the open sky. In the span of a moment, she was out of speaking range and flying around Ponyville, taking part in her deepest passion in life.

Anypony who knew anything about Rainbow Dash didn’t need to be told just how much she loved flying. Even if it wasn’t her special talent per se, she practiced her flying skills and pursued her dream of joining the Wonderbolts with an unmatchable passion - the passion of those who know what they’re best at and enjoy that above all else. There was no greater determination than that shown by those who know that if they follow their special talent, hone it, and master it, they can achieve their dreams.

But of course nopony could function, either in society or as an individual, if they did just one thing every day. Behind every ace flyer, star celebrity, or other renowned expert was a pony, and ponies needed to live, not just exist as machines that endlessly performed a single task. Perhaps they might be more effective at their special talents if they devoted themselves completely to them - but at what cost? Thus, they always had hobbies, side-interests, and personal lives - and Rainbow Dash was no exception, though many who casually looked at her would see only an athlete.

This was understandable, since aside from napping, Rainbow Dash’s hobbies weren’t well-known - and in some cases only her close friends knew of them. This was sometimes intentional - there were some things Rainbow Dash preferred to keep away from the public eye, such as anything that might threaten Rainbow’s image as a cool, awesome, radical athlete. But in some cases she simply had hobbies she pursued indoors, where she was naturally insulated from spectators. Fitting that category was reading, though at one point she had been embarrassed enough about such an “egghead” hobby that she kept a tight lid on it.

But even less known than her love of certain adventure stories was writing fanfiction of said adventure stories. Rainbow had a terrible weakness for awesome things, and in the case of her beloved Daring Do, she felt she could only add to its greatness. Had to add to it, in fact.

But when at last she had finished the draft of her first epic tale of non-canon Daring Do awesomeness, there was only one pony in town who’d really appreciate it on anything close to Rainbow’s level, and that was Twilight. And though Twilight was a speedy reader, Rainbow just couldn’t stand sitting around, waiting around for Twilight to finish reading the first part, as she looked over Rainbow’s work with increasingly judging eyes. Especially not after the first words out of Twilight’s mouth were some silly bit about spelling. So what if Rainbow had spelled “Excruciating” as “Exscrewtiating?” Twilight clearly understood it, and she could help Rainbow fix those errors anyway.

So Rainbow Dash, rather than deal with the tension of having her work silently judged right in front of her, decided to head outside, and enjoy the rush of air and the pleasant exertion of flapping wings. She wanted to do something she was unquestionably amazing at - because, while she couldn’t admit it, she wasn’t sure her own writing was quite as good.

But as Rainbow flew circles around the library, the town square, and the local windmill, she started feeling better. Now in her element, she felt her usual hard-earned confidence return to her. Of course her story would be good. Okay, maybe a few touch-ups, and maybe she could use a little more practice, but she thought her work was good for a first try. Actually, it wasn’t just good, it was great. She’d thought about it and planned it while flying, while pranking, and even while going into the Everfree for a taste of inspirational danger (though that time, the Everfree just turned out to be mildly creepy instead of actually dangerous, something that had been happening more and more lately). Her story had been thought out, but it had also flowed quite well on its own once she started writing. She was sure she’d properly recreated the feel of a Daring Do adventure. There was nothing to be afraid of.

After a half-hour’s worth of flying, Rainbow returned to the library balcony, feeling quite pleased about her decision to go for a flight around town. Her nerves soothed, she opened the door and proceeded inside with the air of a best-selling author about to ask her publisher how sales were.

“Soooo,” Rainbow said, with casual coolness, “What’d you think? How far did you get?”

Twilight seemed oblivious to Rainbow’s confidence as she replied, “I’ve just finished chapter six.”

“So fast?” Rainbow grinned. “You’re getting through it pretty quickly.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “There’s thirty chapters, Rainbow. I’m only twenty percent done.”

“I know that.” Rainbow turned her head to the side and closed her eyes, as if unconcerned with such trivial details. “I’m just trying to give you a bit of encouragement.”

Twilight rolled her eyes, even though Rainbow wasn’t looking. “I would have made more progress, but the spelling and grammar errors kept slowing me down!”

Rainbow dismissed her complaints with a gesture from her hoof. “Well, if I stopped and looked up every fancy word in the dictionary, I wouldn’t have any time for the important stuff! I mean, I’m not an egghead.” She glanced sideways at Twilight, looking a bit sheepish, and starting to wish she had been a little more careful with her spelling. “...I mean, not exactly.”

“Speaking of the important stuff…” Twilight frowned, looking intently at Rainbow, who avoided her gaze, “...those needed work too.”

“...What kind of work?” Rainbow examined a writing quill on a nearby desk, pretending to look coolly disinterested, but she started fidgeting with the quill as her nervousness slowly grew stronger. She couldn’t even think of a witty comeback. Twilight may have been lacking in coolness, awesomeness, and radicalness, but she knew her stuff when it came to books, and that wasn’t something Rainbow could just ignore. She was starting to get a sinking feeling about how her work had looked to Twilight.

“Yes,” Twilight said. “For starters, you often tell the reader something about a character, or what they’re doing, instead of showing us through their actions. This is a principle referred to in writing as ‘show, don’t tell’ and…”

And with that, Twilight dove at full speed into what Rainbow called ‘egghead stuff.’ Rainbow suppressed a growl of boredom and let herself zone out… but somehow, Twilight’s words got to her. The concepts flew over her head like clouds on a windy day, but Rainbow couldn’t ignore the lecturing tone, and she couldn’t shake off the gist of the words - that her work wasn’t good enough. With each new subject Twilight mentioned, each new critique, Rainbow felt her pride in her work slowly eroding. It didn’t matter that Twilight was trying to make it better, like a sculptor chipping away at marble - Rainbow still felt each sharp hit of the chisel, like it was cutting away at her very pride.

This wasn’t how Rainbow thought her story would be received. And deep down, she knew Twilight was right.

Finally, Rainbow Dash looked straight at Twilight and gave the bookworm her full attention - right as Twilight said, “...And the idea that Ahuizotl would even make such a blunder when he-”

“Fine!” Rainbow, in a burst of speed and frustration, rushed towards the desk on which her story lay, and swept the entire thing onto the floor, pages floating to and fro as they fell to the ground.

A moment passed, as a stunned Twilight stared at Rainbow, who quickly grew sheepish and embarrassed, glancing away as she grimaced. “I’m sorry, that was uncool. And… kinda stupid.”

After a brief moment, Twilight’s expression changed from surprised to sternly exasperated. She seized the scattered papers with her magic and, without even taking her eyes off of Rainbow, sorted the pages into their proper order before placing them neatly on the table. Once the glow of her magic left the stack, she said “I would like to finish your story, if that’s all right.”

Rainbow finally looked back at Twilight, the statement putting a halt to the free-fall that her mood had taken. “...Really?”

“Yes, really. I enjoyed the premise, and you’re great at writing action scenes. And for the most part you have Daring Do’s personality down pat, other than...” Twilight sighed. “I’m just saying, there is room for improvement. And you can improve, Rainbow. Just because it isn’t the best right now doesn’t mean it can’t be.”

“But…” Rainbow sighed in turn. “I… I really put a lot of work into it…”

“And it shows. I can see you really spent a lot of time, thought, and effort on this. It wouldn’t be anywhere near the level it is if you hadn’t done so.” A smile crept onto Twilight’s face, one that reassured Rainbow with its sincerity - but only a little.

“That’s the thing! I did everything I could, and... well, it’s obviously not enough for you.” Rainbow stamped a hoof on the floor, half-heartedly. She didn’t have the willpower at that moment to really show how she felt.

Twilight closed her eyes, her hoof rising up to her face - only to shift direction and move to her chin instead, as if in thought. Finally, she opened her eyes and spoke. “Rainbow, the first time you ever raced, did you win?”

“Yes!” As happy as the memory was to Rainbow, it just served to illustrate her own failure at the completely unrelated skill of writing. “I was always great at… well, maybe not great, but I’ve always been good, and I’ve only grown better!” Rainbow really couldn’t compare the two - with racing and flying, she’d always known she was destined for greatness - and she knew what she had to do to improve!

Twilight’s hoof restarted its journey to her face, slapping audibly against it. “Okay, better example - the Sonic Rainboom. When you were practicing for the Young Flyers Competition, at first you couldn’t successfully create a Sonic Rainboom. But you kept at it, practicing and improving, until by the time Shining and Cadance were married, you could do it practically on command.”

Rainbow was silent for a moment. “So… you’re saying I’m…” Rainbow swallowed, as if to metaphorically gulp down both her pride and her shame. “It’s going to be a while before I… do a good job?”

Twilight nodded. “Yes. It takes time, patience, effort, and determination. But just like winning a race, the results are worth it. You just have to not give up, Rainbow.”

Well, Rainbow wasn’t acquainted with giving up, and she had no plans to change that. Still: “...If it’s like perfecting the Sonic Rainboom, it might be easier if some evil pony kidnapped you and our friends and forced me to write fanfics to save you all…”

Twilight’s brow and mouth tightened into her best “does not approve” face. Rainbow chuckled and waved her hoof in appeasement. “I’m kidding! If that happened I’d just beat the bad guy up and save you all.”

Twilight cracked a smile at the signs of Rainbow’s returning good mood. Still, she continued: “Well, you just have to keep up the effort. But it’s also best not to do this sort of thing alone.”

Rainbow titled her head. “What do you mean?”

Twilight smiled more fully. “Few writers can succeed on their own. Due to various factors - from personal bias to things simply escaping their notice during writing - authors make mistakes, and that is where editors come in!” Twilight’s voice was taking on that giddy tone Rainbow recognized as her ‘I know something and I’m going to talk about it!’ voice - usually about a ‘something’ that Rainbow herself found boring.

“An editor?” Rainbow was curious where Twilight was going with this but was also wondering if Twilight was about to break into another ‘egghead stuff’ lecture.

“Yes!” Twilight’s smile broadened. “An editor helps you proofread, corrects errors in spelling and grammar, and points out any flaws in the writing so you can correct them! They are often essential to a work’s success, making sure a story is as good as it can be!”

“You seem really excited by this.” Rainbow raised an eyebrow.

“Oh, yes! You see, Rainbow, as your friend, your proofreader, and your fellow Daring Do fan, I would like to volunteer to be your editor!” Twilight closed her eyes and placed a hoof on her chest. “It would be my honor to help you grow as a writer.”

Rainbow had two thoughts in response to this, in rapid succession. The first was that, perhaps, she did have hope as a writer. It would be harder than she thought, and would definitely take longer - but she didn’t want to just quit. She believed she could write the best Daring Do fanfic ever, and she just needed to do some more training. She could do this.

Her second thought was much more succinct, and less hopeful: This is gonna involve so much egghead stuff! Ugh...

“Uh, Twilight, I appreciate the offer…” Rainbow shifted slightly. “But I need to think about this for a bit. This is a lot to take in, and I’m tired.”

Twilight opened her eyes, returning her hoof to the ground. “It really is important to have an editor, perhaps even a writing tutor. I could definitely help with everything you need to write a great work of fanfiction!”

Rainbow trotted across the room, gathering her saddlebags from next to the balcony exit, before moving to the desk on which her draft sat. “I get that, Twilight. But a lot’s been going in my head about this-” She paused as she gathered the pages and carefully placed them in her saddlebags, “-And I need to think about a few things.” Her draft safely packed away, she made her way to the balcony.

Twilight extended a hoof towards Rainbow. “Take your time, but just remember what I said! It really would help you to have an editor!”

“I’ll think about it,” Rainbow repeated, slightly impatiently, before taking off and flying towards her cloudborne home, ignoring Twilight’s call of, “Can I at least read the rest of…?”

In truth, it wasn’t the things going through her head that concerned her, but the things going through her heart. More than she wanted to admit, that fanfic meant a lot to her. Twilight had given her encouragement - but she had also shaken Rainbow’s faith in her writing, and in a way, herself. Rainbow would of course continue to work on her story… and she probably would get an editor. Rainbow couldn’t just accept failure like that, and she’d make sure her story was as good as it could be, no matter what it took.

But until then, it was still a failure.

Author's Note

And thus this little project begins! I've been planning it for quite a while, but sadly various factors - such as laziness, perfectionism, and lack of confidence - delayed me somewhat. This is, however, something I very much want to write, and I have every intention of seeing this through. Obviously, the subject of writing will be a major theme, but I'm planning on having a few other issues addressed in here as well!

In this chapter, Rainbow gets to play the role of "first-time writer who learns the hard way how inadequate she is." It's a phase every writer goes through at some point - there's no way to learn how to fly unless you fall. Or something.

2: Practice Makes Perfect

Rainbow Dash’s reluctance to accept Twilight’s help - or anypony’s help - hadn’t lasted long. She had flown around while thinking, then rested on a cloud while thinking, and then went to Ponyville’s bar for a round or two or more in the hopes that she would be able to stop thinking about whether or to have Twilight as an editor. In the end, this had worked, and she had decided that yes, she would hire Twilight to help her. It was a relief to not have to think about that anymore, especially since it involved as much feeling as thinking, trying to work through her wounded pride and sense of inadequacy.

And so, the next morning, she stood in front of Twilight’s library, knocking on the door without hesitation. “Twilight! I’m here for-” She suddenly stopped and looked around, eyes peeled for ponies who might overhear that Dash not only liked reading about Daring Do, but also liked writing about Daring Do. She didn’t need anypony speculating just what kind of fanfiction she wrote…

After a moment the door glowed purple and opened, and Twilight stood behind it, smiling at Rainbow. “Yes, Rainbow? You’re here for…?”

Twilight’s eager smile could only mean that she already knew what her friend was here for, but Rainbow continued anyway, “I’m here to… you know. Take you up on your offer.”

“You mean you want me as your editor?” Twilight’s smile lit up, her voice practically chirping in excitement.

“Not so loud!” Rainbow hissed. A moment passed in silence, and then Rainbow cleared her throat. ”It’s, uh, kind of early for me and I have a bit of a headache. Can we head inside? It’s quieter there.” While this was partially true, she also didn’t need Twilight accidentally spreading word of how deep Rainbow’s eggheadedness really went.

In reality it was unlikely that the library - containing two ponies who were about to discuss writing - would be any quieter than the totally peaceful Ponyville morning outside, but Twilight accepted the excuse and backed up to allow Rainbow to enter. As the door shut behind her, Rainbow said, “Yeah, I’m… willing to give it a shot.”

The library had changed slightly - a movable blackboard stood in the center of the library’s common area, and a short distance away was a sitting stool. The implications were clear to Rainbow: she was about to be schooled. Rainbow hated being schooled. “Really, Twilight? You’re doing the whole ‘classroom’ thing?” Rainbow rolled her eyes, but Twilight didn’t seem to notice, given that she was happily trotting over to the blackboard. Rainbow reluctantly followed, moving towards the stool as Twilight levitated a piece of chalk in the air.

“Well, Rainbow, I felt it best if we begin by covering a few basic fundamentals,” Twilight said cheerfully.

Rainbow raised an eyebrow at her. “It was that bad, that you need to start me at writing kindergarten?”

“No!” Twilight frowned, her face torn between indignation and concern. “But it’s important to understand a few fundamentals before moving on to advanced concepts, especially when the latter material builds upon the former!”

Rainbow wearily and randomly thought the only thing “former” about this situation was that she formerly had some pride in her writing, but before she could mumble anything about that, Twilight continued, “The first thing I’d like to go over is a very simple but essential concept, known as ‘Show, Don’t Tell.’ Something I’ve noticed, Rainbow, is that you often simply summarize events rather than describing them through details. While this isn’t always a bad thing, I think you would benefit from…”

Rainbow started to feel her will to listen slip away, although frankly there wasn’t much there in the first place. This surprised her, and she found that thinking about her issues with the lecture was much more interesting than the lecture itself. So, while Twilight’s words faded into the background, leaving only the sound of her voice to provide ambient noise, Rainbow thought about how she felt.

Obviously, the lecture was going to be full of egghead stuff, and Rainbow had expected that. In fact, she was pretty sure she was prepared to endure it, if it meant succeeding at writing. So while that might have been it, Rainbow wasn’t quite sure.

Rainbow focused on Twilight for a moment - and in the process, tuned in to her lecture: “...show me the glint of light on broken glass...” While Rainbow had to admit that did sound kind of cool, she also had no idea what topic that was supposed to be part of, and within a few moments she changed the channel back to her own thoughts.

Still, had Rainbow noticed that paying attention to Twilight caused a slight twinge of… unease? She wasn’t sure what it was or why she felt it, but she decided to focus on that in order to find out. She tried to figure out the origin of her unease by imagining various scenarios, her mind proving surprisingly focused and organized on this task:

Twilight lecturing Rainbow on writing: Rainbow was living that scenario, and was unhappy about it, so she envisioned another:

Twilight going over the defective fanfic with her and painstakingly correcting every flaw: this looked incredibly tedious to her mind’s eye, and she still had that feeling of unease. If anything, the feeling was even worse

Rainbow going over her fanfic alone: obviously not happening.

Rainbow going over her fanfic with some random editor: still tedious, but without that same feeling of unease she felt with Twilight.

Rainbow glanced at Twilight, pondering this. It was odd that she would be reluctant to have Twilight help her with this, since Twilight was one of her best friends, a fellow Daring Do fan, and absurdly overqualified to do “egghead stuff.” But it didn’t take too long for Rainbow to realize the reason - she was bitter about Twilight’s rant on how bad her work was.

Rainbow cringed a little inside at that revelation. She knew Twilight was just trying to help, that and that she still had faith in Rainbow’s ability. But Rainbow had put a lot of work into that, and she was, apparently, taking it personally. It was petty, and Rainbow knew it was petty, but she still felt that way, even if she wasn’t happy about it at all. But she also wasn’t happy about this little lecture session either, so Rainbow’s course was clear.

“Hey, Twilight!” Rainbow spoke up, after a brief lull in background noise that Rainbow assumed was a pause in Twilight’s lecture. “I, uh... appreciate the thought, but I’m not sure we should do this right now.” Rainbow spoke vaguely on purpose, still trying to come up with a good way to phrase things even as she spoke.

Twilight raised her eyebrows in surprise. “‘Right now?’ You mean, you’d rather do this some other time?”

Rainbow immediately seized on the ‘out’ that Twilight had unwittingly gave her. “Yeah. I need some more time to dwell on this. My brain’s still exhausted from all that writing and stuff. I gave you the story right after I finished it, you know.”

To Rainbow’s surprise, Twilight nodded in agreement. “You’re right, Rainbow. It’s a good thing to let your work sit for a little while after you finish it. That way, it’ll seem new when you look at it again and you won’t be mentally exhausted from writing it!” Twilight smiled and blushed. “I guess I hadn’t really realized how ‘fresh’ it was when you presented it to me, how recently you’d finished it. And I was so eager to help you with editing that I… kinda jumped into lecture mode.”

Rainbow smiled just a little - Twilight sure was adorable when she was being a dork, and it was hard to be mad at such an honest attempt to help. But she still needed time. “Don’t worry about it, Twilight. I didn’t think waiting would turn out to be such a good idea. Besides, you know I’m not much for sitting around. I’m always moving on!”

Twilight nodded, still smiling. “That’s right. But sometimes it’s good to take a step back and let your work breathe, like a bottle of fine wine.”

Rainbow playfully rolled her eyes - she liked wine, but if she had to compare her work to alcohol, she’d prefer to compare her work to some good bourbon or vodka. “Yeah, I get you.”

“Also, if it’s all right, you could leave your story with me for a few days - I can look it over and make a list of things that need work!” Twilight put on a wide, giddy smile.

But while the idea of making long lists may have been weirdly appealing to Twilight (and Rainbow feared that this list would be quite long), Rainbow wasn’t as excited - and besides, that petty grudge against Twilight meant that the overeager egghead have to wait to even look at her work again, much less finish it. “Sorry Twi, I want to keep it on hoof, maybe glance a bit at it. I know you said it’s good to let it sit, but It won’t hurt if I take a few peeks, right?”

Twilight’s smile faded, but she still nodded in agreement. “All right. Just don’t push yourself, it’ll still be there if you wait.”

Rainbow nodded and stood up from the stool, stretching her wings first and then the rest of her body. “Well, I need to get started on my day. Got weather duties, training, naps, you know how it is.” She grinned.

“All right, thanks for stopping by!” Twilight waved as Rainbow trotted to the door and left the library. Rainbow thought about what to do next as she departed. She did indeed have things to do. The morning was nearly over, and Rainbow had important things in her schedule.

So of course, the first thing she did was fly back to her house, get a glass, and open up her booze cabinet. After eying a bottle of good bourbon for a moment, she reached instead for a bottle of wine - specifically, a bottle of wine that she and Pinkie Pie had once tried to make by hoof, just to see if they could. The result had been rather lackluster - it wasn’t bad enough to pour down the drain, but it wasn’t good enough to drink or share… until that morning. Rainbow thought it’d be symbolic to drink it now… insofar as she was any good at judging poetic symbolism or other egghead concepts....

A full week had passed, and Rainbow didn’t feel much better.

Sure, her little case of animosity towards Twilight had eased a little, but it had been replaced with a sort of nervousness or hesitation. She hadn’t looked at her writing at all in the past week, and her will to work on it wasn’t improving. Rainbow was aware of this, but not happy about it - and being unhappy about it hadn’t fixed anything. Nor, as it turned out, had several rounds of various hard beverages helped that problem.

Fortunately, somewhere between the ale and the gin, the alcohol had given her enough ‘perspective’ that she decided it wasn’t good to sit around moping. The final push had come from Pinkie Pie - as she pushed Rainbow out the door of the pub, telling her that they should do something she enjoyed. While Rainbow didn’t feel like she’d really enjoy anything at that moment, she figured she’d try - if anything would break her out of her rut, it would be her one great passion, flying. She had been neglecting her practice, she realized, and a future Wonderbolt couldn’t afford to slack off!

While Rainbow Dash had many middle names, such “Danger,” “Daring,” “Dashing,” and “Dazzling” (and that was just the ones in the Da- section of the glorious list of her middle names), “Perfect” was not one of them, to her chagrin. She had a rather embarrassing record of crashing into things when she didn’t want to, and this clearly had to change if she was going to make it into the Wonderbolts, especially with her application to the Reserves ahead of her. She’d been making headway, of course, but she wasn’t going to be satisfied at being mostly accident free, not even nearly accident-free. No, she had to make sure that no matter what happened, she wouldn’t fall victim to any stupid mistakes or accidents or anything that would extremely uncool if it happened in front of the Wonderbolts, or as a Wonderbolt.

Today, Pinkie Pie was helping her in her training. The plan was simple - Rainbow Dash would speed through the lesser-used streets and alleys of Ponyville, and Pinkie would jump out at various locations of her choosing - thus forcing Rainbow to fly out of the way. It might have seemed cruel, but Rainbow Dash was confident in many things - her own flying skills, Pinkie’s strange ability to avoid danger, and if all else failed, Pinkie’s likelihood of just trotting off the effects of impact with a speeding pegasus without even a frown.

So what if Rainbow had gulped down more drinks than she had hooves, before thinking up this plan - and then decided to implement it only a short time after leaving the bar? Rainbow Dash could hold her booze with the best of them... surely it hadn’t affected her planning. Besides, Wonderbolts needed to be able to fly in all kinds of conditions, like flying home after a few rounds too many! It was all part of her training!

Pinkie Pie certainly hadn’t seemed to find fault with the plan, cheerfully agreeing to it before slinking off into the alleyways to plan ambush points. Some voice in the back of Rainbow’s head had suggested that maybe Pinkie wasn’t the best judge of whether a plan was sane or not, but she shoved such silly notions aside - there was absolutely nothing that could happen during this “training exercise” that a self-respecting future Wonderbolt couldn’t handle.

And so, Rainbow Dash began her first flight through the alleys. Here the building were close together, with little foresight put into their placement, turning alleys into erratic tunnels. A series of tight turns challenged her, but she knew these streets, and she knew just when to turn. But after banking around a building, low to the ground, she spotted a barrel in the middle of the alleyway, and no sooner had she spotted it than the top popped off and Pinkie Pie jumped out of the barrel, up to Rainbow’s altitude, all four hooves spread wide as if about to hug Rainbow. But Rainbow just grinned and barrel-rolled to the side, easily avoiding the enthusiastic pink obstacle.

Just after passing Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash turned around. “That was a good one, Pinkie, how about-” but as she turned around, she saw only an empty barrel, with no pink pony in sight. Rainbow just grinned and continued on her way, wondering where the next ambush would take place.

As she zoomed along, passing between buildings, she weaved from one side of the street to the next, trying to present a difficult target as she sped down the alley. But just before the alley opened up into a main street, as Rainbow neared one side of the line of buildings, a second-story window opened ahead of Rainbow, and Pinkie stuck her head and barrel out, hoof reaching out for Rainbow. But Rainbow merely banked to the side, even reaching out a hoof to bump Pinkie’s along the way.

At last the path straightened, leading out into the main streets. Only a short distance, and she’d have completed this run without any accidents. Flying low under a balcony and skimming the ground, she prepared for another Pinkie surprise, expecting the best for last.

Unfortunately, this meant that she was not prepared for a pony who was not Pinkie. Instead, there was a shout of surprise from outside the alley, and a blue unicorn stallion jumped out from behind one of the buildings at the end of the alley - right in front of Rainbow. Time seemed to slow as the stallion quickly turned his head to look behind him, only for his eyes to stop on the pegasus flying at high speed towards his side.

Rainbow wasted her reaction time processing this unexpected development. She stared at the new pony, sadly unprepared for this situation, as the stallion stared back. But she didn’t spend much time dwelling on that, because in that moment Rainbow slammed into him. Her hooves, outstretched as they were, hit him first, but accustomed as she was to collisions, she instinctively let her forelimbs bend while still applying pressure, slowing her slightly before her face impacted into the stallion’s side. She handled the collision masterfully, able to transfer her momentum to the hapless stallion, allowing her to land shakily but on all fours as she bounced off - while sending him flying into a mud puddle a short distance away.

“Ow!” was the young stallion’s only reaction as he splashed into the mud.

“Oops,” Rainbow Dash said, somewhat embarrassed. “I, uh… was expecting somepony else.” Rainbow was busy trying to rationalize this accident - she focused on the fact that she’d been expecting Pinkie Pie and not some random stallion. Besides, this pony wasn’t pink at all, but a rich yet soft shade of rainy blue, with a black mane. Very different from pink. Why, this pony practically blended into the background compared to Pinkie! Rainbow couldn’t be blamed if her senses simply didn’t register him in time.

Pinkie, meanwhile, hopped along between Rainbow and the unfortunate pony. “Oh no! I saw a new pony in town and I had to put the training session on hold to greet him!” She frowned slightly. “But I also wanted to warn him that a super-fast pegasus was about to come zooming through the alley, and I tried to greet him and warn him at the same time… didn’t work out so well…”

“It’s not your fault,” Rainbow said, trotting up to Pinkie. “You couldn’t have known that he’d jump right in front of the alley like that. Unless you have a Pinkie Sense thing for that, I dunno.”

“Ow!” The stallion being discussed repeated his exclamation, a little more indignantly, as he turned his head to glare at the ponies chatting idly about the incident which had left him in the mud.

Rainbow put off thoughts of Pinkie’s mysterious special sense, and trotted over to the stallion. “Hey, uh… I’m sorry I ran into you, but it couldn’t be avoided. You kinda just jumped out while I was practicing my flying.”

Pinkie Pie hopped along beside Rainbow. “I’m sorry too!” she said, her smile returning. “My Pinkie Sense is pretty good at predicting falling objects, but I’m still working on ‘high-speed horizontally-moving objects!’ Also, welcome to Ponyville!”

The newcomer opened his mouth to speak as he tried to stand - a set of saddlebags becoming visible on his back as the mud dripped off him - but he winced and stumbled. “Aah! I think you might have broke something…” He grimaced. “Possibly... several somethings.”

Rainbow frowned. “I didn’t hit you that hard…”

“Yeah!” Pinkie added cheerfully. “Rainbow’s slammed into ponies before and they’ve been fine!”

The stallion raised an eyebrow, but said nothing, while Rainbow glared at Pinkie for letting slip this uncool little detail about her flying - though the pink pony seemed oblivious. Rainbow turned back to the stallion, and as she glanced at his saddlebags, she asked, “So you’re new in town?”

Rainbow walked over to him and offered a hoof, and as he took it and slowly got to his hooves, he responded, “Yeah… I-I’m just visiting, but I’m staying for a few days...”

An idea formed in Rainbow’s head, and she immediately voiced it. “That means you don’t know where the hospital is! I should take you there right away to get you looked at.” Part of this idea sprang from a genuine concern over the poor pony’s health, but also from a desire to build good publicity with somepony who could spread tales of her awesomeness.

“Thanks,” said the stallion. Rainbow took flight, hovered just over him, and slipped her forelegs under his, hoisting him into the air by his forelimbs as his hind hooves hung beneath him. “Eep! W-wait-!” the stallion protested as Rainbow began to ascend.

“Come on~” Rainbow said teasingly, “This is the fasted way to get to the hospital! You need to get help as fast as possible!”

The stallion gulped, but said nothing, even as Rainbow carried him over the rooftops of Ponyville, straight towards the town hospital. He shivered slightly in her grip, but seemed unable to look away from the town below.

Rainbow frowned - he was clearly afraid of heights, and while she felt it was best to get over that sort of thing by literally facing it… she thought it best for now if she distracted him from their altitude, mild though it was by Rainbow’s standards. “Hey, what’s your name?”

“U-uh…” After a moment, the pony looked up at her, his sea-green eyes wide. “N-Night Rain…”

Rainbow gave him a smile she felt would be reassuring, though some ponies would have described it as ‘cocky.’ She said, “Don’t worry, Night Rain, you’re in safe hooves. I’ve never dropped a pony who’s depending on me!”

Night Rain gave her a smile in return - a weak one, but it was enough to let her know that he believed her - or at least appreciated her attempt to calm him down. “What’s your name?”

Rainbow gasped in mock hurt. “You’ve never heard of Rainbow Dash, coolest and most awesome pegasus in Ponyville? National hero and future Wonderbolt? If you had, you’d totally be able to recognize me!”

Night Rain chuckled and rolled his eyes. “Oh, I’ve heard of you, I’m just making sure. I wouldn’t want to mistake you for somepony else.” He smirked up at her. “Not that that’s likely, it’s hard to find another pony like you.”

Rainbow snickered in return. “Don’t forget it!”

A moment later they reached the hospital and Rainbow gently set Night Rain down. He was still covered with mud, and the flight over Ponyville had only partway dried it. He tried to brush some of the dirt out of his mane with his hoof, but had little luck. “I should clean myself off…” He winced suddenly, reaching his hoof to his side.

“No time for that, we’ve got to get you inside!” Rainbow lightly pushed him forward into the hospital reception area. Inside, there was a lone, white-coated receptionist mare, but also an earth pony doctor familiar to Rainbow, with a tan coat and brown mane.

“Doctor, there is a pony in need of aid!” Rainbow declared dramatically as she and Night Rain approached the front desk -- or rather, melodramatically, but she didn’t care about the difference. “He’s been injured in a brutal accident, and I’ve brought him here so he can get help!”

“But…” Night Rain glanced over at Rainbow, “You… you were the-”

Rainbow cut him off with a wave of her hoof. “Details, details!” The doctor in attendance raised an eyebrow, but Rainbow went on. “The point is, he’s taken a hit to the side, and there might be something broken!”

The receptionist started to write down notes with a pen, while the doctor simply said to the injured stallion, “All right, this way please. Your name?”

“Night Rain,” the thus-named pony said as he walked towards the doctor, and then the two started going through a hallway into the hospital. But as they did so, Rainbow caught sight of something. Night Rain was generally a plain-looking unicorn - rainy blue coat, black mane, sea-green eyes, as she’d noticed... but she hadn’t noticed his cutie mark before, since one side had been covered in dirt - and she was now looking at his unmuddied side. It was two sheets of paper, with a large raindrop falling onto each of them. One sheet held a drawing of a planet - the other was filled with lines of text.

Rather than leave, Rainbow walked over to one of the seats in the reception area and sat down. That cutie mark had given her an idea… if she wasn’t comfortable with Twilight being her editor, what if she got somepony else to be her editor? She had a bit of thinking to do now - enough that she wasn’t likely to get bored before Night Rain was checked out of the hospital…

Author's Note

Thankfully, Rainbow is no stranger to collisions. But collisions are a little more harsh to strangers, it seems!

3: Beggars Can't Be Choosers

Rainbow Dash had time to think about what she would say when Night Rain returned from his hastily-scheduled doctor’s visit. She didn’t have much of a plan, either for what she was about to ask him, or for what would happen after that… but if there was one thing Rainbow Dash was good at (other than flying, being awesome, and lots of other things, of course!), it was working “on the fly.” But when she spotted the rainy blue stallion walking down the hall towards the entrance, she felt that a bit more time would have helped her. The alcohol had begun to wear off (not that it had affected her that much in the first place, of course!) and it left behind an unwelcome feeling of uncertainty.

Night Rain raised an eyebrow as he spotted her, but said nothing as he walked towards her. Rainbow just flashed him a grin. “Surprised to see me?” The question was really just a delay on her part, but it was still worth asking, she felt.

“A little. Kind of. I mean…” He reached a hoof up and rubbed the back of his neck. “You didn’t need to wait for me.”

“Well, I…” Rainbow glanced aside. “I really do want to make sure you’re okay.” While Rainbow Dash had her ego and loved being seen as a hero, she really did have a sense of justice and concern for other ponies. At least, that was what she told herself. Also, it would be quite a(nother) blow to her pride if she were to seriously injure a pony while practicing. She looked back at Night Rain. “So, how is it?”

“Nothing broke, thankfully. There's just some heavy bruising…” He sighed. “But I figured I’d be fine. It might feel like I broke half my ribs on that side, but I just have very low pain tolerance.”

He seemed to blush very slightly, but Rainbow paid it no mind. She wasn’t interested in whether or not he was as tough as her. She was used to interacting with ponies who were less durable than her - she was just so sturdy that few could match her in toughness. No, she had something less physical in mind..

She glanced at his cutie mark again, just to make sure it was the same as she remembered - two sheets of paper being rained on, one with writing, one with a drawing of a planet. That could have meant a number of things... but if she was right, she might have just found a solution to both her fanfiction problem and her Twilight-as-editor problem. She just needed to figure out how to ask him if he could help her without actually revealing what the issue was… in case he thought it was uncool.

“Are you a writer?” Rainbow asked.

“Huh?” Night Rain followed her gaze to his cutie mark. “Oh… kind of? I mean, I like to write, I want to be a good writer, but that’s not actually what my cutie mark means…”

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Rainbow said. Coulda’ just said yes or no, but I can work with that. “...What kind of writing do you do?” She glanced towards the hospital receptionist - who, thankfully, was busy with paperwork and not paying attention - before turning and walking towards the exit, not wanting to talk about such things in public.

Night Rain smiled as he followed, trotting up alongside her as he responded cheerfully. “Oh, all sorts of things, but I like adventure stories the most… stories about epic journeys to fight evil or just explore the unknown…” He cleared his throat. “That sort of thing.”

Sounds good so far! Once they were outside the hospital, Rainbow offered her next question. “You wouldn’t happen to like the Daring Do series, would you?”

Night Rain smiled, eyes staring ahead almost wistfully. “Ah, I do… used to read them a lot when I was younger, I really enjoyed them… I still do, I just haven’t been as… up-to-date as I used to be.”

Rainbow frowned. His dedication obviously didn’t match hers - but this impromptu job interview wasn’t over yet, and there was still hope for him. “How not-up-to-date are you?”

“Well, I actually have the last book, but I haven't finished it, and...“ He sighed. “I forgot to bring it with me on this trip, I brought a few books to read on the train ride, but I left out Daring Do...”

Rainbow scowled, turning away so he wouldn’t see her expression, and thought for a moment. Forgetting Daring Do for any reason was a crime, but not an unforgivable one. He was still a candidate to help her with her Daring Do fanfic, but she needed to interrogate him further. Not something she could do on a casual walk…

Thankfully, Rainbow could work on the fly, and not just in the literal sense. “Hey, why don’t I lend you my copy? I’ve got all the books at my house.” She grinned at him. “You can read it, and we talk about some other things!”

Night Rain’s eyes widened - an expression Rainbow Dash was used to whenever she did something nice for a fan of hers, and his next words were also the kind of thing she'd heard before. “R-really? You’d really do that?”

“Sure!” Rainbow waved a hoof. “It’s not problem for a fellow Daring Do fan. Besides, I have a few other things I need to ask you…” She glanced around, checking to make sure nopony was listening in, before continuing in a soft voice, “And maybe there’s something you can help me with…”

Night Rain lit up - but then raised an eyebrow, glancing around the pair of them in confusion before looking back at Rainbow. She couldn’t blame him - her insistence on secrecy was bound to look weird. She gave him a reassuring smile and said, “I’ll explain when we get to my house. It’s not something I want to talk about in public. I don’t want to make anypony jealous - not everypony gets to help me with a project like this!”

“Ah, I see...” Night Rain nodded, smiling. “Well… I think I’m up for it! Where’s your house, and when you do want to meet?”

“My house is right up there!” She pointed to her cloud villa in the sky above, smirking as Night’s face grew pale. “And I was thinking, ‘right now’ would be perfect!”

“But how a-” The acrophobic stallion was interrupted as some air was knocked out of him, as Rainbow abruptly took flight, grabbed his barrel from above, and lifted him into the air. “Not again!” he wailed.

“Have you forgotten who I am?” Rainbow laughed as she quickly ascended, flying towards her house. As she approached, she noticed Night had closed his eyes. “Come on, the view is great from up here!” She sighed as he shook his head violently. “All right, maybe next time.”

While it might seem odd to others for Rainbow to be taking home a stallion she just met, without even a night out first, realistically anypony she chose as her editor who wasn’t Twilight would be somepony she didn’t really know. She couldn’t think of anypony in Ponyville who was good at writing and liked Daring Do. At least, if they were, they hadn’t told her about it.

Besides, she had a good reason for bringing him to her cloud villa - up here, they’d be safely out of earshot of anypony who might overhear and spread rumors. While the whole town probably knew about her love of Daring Do by this point, it would not do to have anypony know about her attempts at writing fanfiction… and not just because she didn’t have a good product yet. Meanwhile, she could interrogate him in much more detail, for as long as she needed. He may have been a writer (sort of), and he may have liked Daring Do… but she needed someone who really liked Daring Do. Maybe not as much as her, but he had to at least understand how much Daring Do meant to her. He needed to understand why Daring Do could drive her, a radical athlete, to do egghead stuff like writing.

Of course, since he was obviously an egghead himself, maybe he just wouldn’t find it odd that she wanted to write, or perhaps he’d even approve like Twilight had when it became clear just how much Rainbow Dash had gotten into the series… Whatever, Rainbow thought, I’ll see whether or not he’s up to the job!

Rainbow carried Night over the clouds that made up the front “yard,” over the threshold of her home, and into an impressive hallway patterned after Cloudsdale’s architecture, complete with cloud pillars - and a solid grey floor, which Rainbow gently set Night upon. His eyes widened, and he tapped the floor with his hoof. “A solid surface in a floating house made of clouds. Interesting.”

“Well, yeah,” Rainbow said. “Pegasi cloud-sculptors can make clouds that support solid objects. Pretty important if you want furniture.” Rainbow chuckled. “I like being able to keep my Daring Do collection in my own house. Besides, Tank needs a place to walk.”

“Ah yes, I should have known-” Night looked over at Rainbow, brow furrowed. “Tank?”

“My tortoise!” Rainbow grinned. “You can meet him later, right now we have an interview to get through!”

Rainbow trotted further into the house, though Night hesitated for just a moment. “...A tortoise?” He shrugged and then followed Rainbow, through her house into a living room of sorts. It was really more like a place where Rainbow crashed after a hard day of work, rather than a room she spent her waking hours in. There was a well-used couch and a newer-looking recliner, with a small table between them. Rainbow quickly took the recliner, settling into it while Night found a spot on the couch.

I should have broken this in by now, Rainbow thought, shifting awkwardly in the recliner. Also, I should have ponies over more often.

Rainbow cleared her throat, sitting up straight. The recliner’s seat was slightly higher than the seat of the couch, and that along with Night’s slouching posture meant she towered above him… or at least, she hoped she did, for the effect it would have. “All right, Night Rain… I have a very important job for you, and I need to find out if you’re up for it!”

Night’s eyes widened. “A job? I… I’m afraid I don’t have all my info on me for a proper job application…”

Rainbow frowned. “Err… not actually a job. I mean, I can’t pay you. Not that much, anyway. But drinks and snacks are totally on me while you’re over here!”

He looked a little crestfallen at that, but responded with, “Well… if it’s important, I could probably do it anyway. I want to be able to help.” Night frowned. “But if it’s here, then… how long will it take? I live in Canterlot, and if we can’t do it in one stay I’ll have to keep coming back…”

Rainbow frowned as well. “Yeah, I hadn-” Rainbow stopped herself, instinctively avoiding having to admit a flaw. She needed to project an image of confidence and authority to him, after all! “...That could be a problem. I mean, I guess I could pay train fare… or something like that.”

“Is this really that important to you?” Night raised an eyebrow

Rainbow’s appearance of confidence quickly eroded away in a moment of silence.

Night looked away. “Well, if it’s that much of a problem…”

A switch flipped in Rainbow Dash’s mind. It wasn’t just the threat of losing a potential editor, it was the feeling that, somehow, this pony needed a little push, and not just in terms of getting him to edit her story… though that would of course be a bonus. She suddenly leaned forward. “You said you wanted to help, right?” She glared at Night. “Is it that important to you?”

Night Rain leaned back away from Rainbow. “Well, I…” He clenched his teeth and glanced aside, though it seemed this time he was thinking rather than actively avoiding her gaze. “I mean, I’m not really sure what you need my help for, and there are some complications in how exactly we’re going to arrange all this, but…” He looked back over to her, having that look of a pony determined to do something unpleasant - a look familiar to Rainbow, and one she was glad to see. “If it really is something you need my help for, I’ll help.”

Need. Well, he’d given Rainbow an easy hook to reel him in with… but it wasn’t an easy line to pull, for no other reason than pride. The idea of needing anypony’s help, even for writing, was still uncomfortable for Rainbow. She was supposed to be the best at anything she put herself up for, and while failure gnawed at her insides like nothing else, having to admit weakness was a tough pill to swallow. She’d asked for help before, but only when the need was great. And while this wasn’t quite on the level of being trapped in a gorge with a boulder on her wing, or trying to create a tornado to funnel water to Cloudsdale, it still mattered to her.

She needed his help, he needed his help to be needed. That was that, and there was nothing for Rainbow to do about it but swallow her pride. ...Besides, one flashback of an extremely tired Applejack trying to buck an orchard on her own was all she needed to think about to not try and do monumental tasks on her own.

“Well…” Rainbow’s face scrunched up. “...I wouldn’t normally ask for help with something like this, but… I tried doing it on my own, and that didn’t work out so well, so I need help with it.” She blushed a little. “This is embarrassing, but… this is important to me, and I can’t do it alone. So yeah, I need you, Night. Will you help me?” Her blush deepened.

“Well, of course!” Night smiled. “I don’t know how good of a job I’ll do… especially since you’ve kinda avoided telling me what it is…” His smile suddenly faded. “Is…” He gave a sidelong glance at her. “It’s not anything, um… personal is it?”

Rainbow scowled and looked away. “Yeah, it kind of is.”

Now he was blushing. “I, uh…” he looked down. “I’m really not the best stallion for this, but if you want me to do that with you, I…”

Rainbow stared at him for a long moment, then something clicked in her mind as she realized why he was being so bashful, and she snickered at the consequences of her vagueness. "Relax, Night. If I were going to do that with you, I'd buy you dinner first. I'm sure you like the idea, but get your mind out of the gutter."

“Oh!” Night chuckled nervously, looking back up at her. “I’m sorry, I really am, it’s just… I don’t really have much to go on for what you want me for. Other than… my writing skills, I think.”

“Yes!” Rainbow straightened herself up, deciding to take back her air of authority, as was only appropriate for her to have. “It does require your writing skills, and it is a personal thing. In fact, I want you to realize that this is top-secret. Nopony else can know about this, unless I tell them! Understood?”

Night nodded, face sternly serious.

Rainbow grinned. “Now, what I need your help for… is editing my fanfiction!”

Night Rain blinked, then stared. “What.”

Author's Note

If Rainbow can break a wing one day and be checked out of the hospital the next, I'm willing to believe she can ~~sober up~~ come down from being tipsy in under 30 minutes.

I was going to link a TVTrope I felt was relevant, called "What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?" But they changed the name, thus making it less awesome. Regardless, it probably looks odd to onlookers how "into it" Rainbow's getting... especially to a filthy Daring Do casual like Night Rain. :rainbowwild:

4: Entrance Exam

Rainbow grinned nervously, as Night Rain’s gaze turned from puzzled to scrutinizing. She did her best to recover her composure, continuing her explanation of what she needed from him. “You see, since Daring Do is the most awesome book series ever, I really want to write about it. Like, fanfiction writing.” Rainbow idly thought that the whole idea would have been lame even if she weren’t the one trying to write the fanfic. “So, I went and wrote a really awesome, epic story, but I need somepony to help… uh… look over it.” Note to self - figure out what the egghead word for that is. I’ll bet Twilight said it at some point...

Night Rain’s stare changed from questioning to excited. “Ah, writing this fanfic means that much do you, does it?”

You have no idea, Rainbow thought, but outwardly she made no reaction but to inspect her hoof, trying to feign detachment… though, given that she’d already admitted that it was quite important to her, it wasn’t a very convincing bluff. Really, since that part of the draw for him was that it was something she needed him for (ugh!), there wasn’t much point in trying to make it seem like a casual matter to maintain her coolness. But she could at least try. “Well, I’ve put a lot of work into this and it’d be a shame if that went to waste. After all...” She smirked at him. “I’ve got such awesome ideas, I’ve just got to share them, you know what I mean?”

Night grinned. “I do, I do. It’s one thing to have a story in your head, it’s another to have it out there!”

Rainbow grinned with him. “Exactly! But, before I can get my story out there, it needs to be edited! I need somepony to help fix it up a little.”

Night nodded. “Quite. Writers and stories alike benefit from feedback. Have you had anypony else look at it?”

Rainbow hoped she would benefit from feedback, she wasn’t sure about that yet. “Yeah, somepony else took a look at some of it. I… wanted a second opinion.”

Night frowned just a little. “I’m not sure what I’ll be able to find that they overlooked, but I’ll do my best.” He fidgeted slightly. “Uh, were you wanting me to get to work on that right away, or should I finish that latest Daring Do book first?”

Rainbow thought about that for a moment, trying to recall if there were any ‘spoilers’ in her fanfic, or at least the early parts. Inevitably there would be - finding out Daring Do was real and, and actually adventuring with her, was the spark that motivated Rainbow to write this fanfiction. Obviously she’d have referenced the latest Daring Do book - but Rainbow was confident she could at least get Night started with this fic that evening. “...You should read the book pretty soon, but I think we can get you going now.” She grinned. “Besides, I want you to get started as soon as possible!” She jumped off the recliner and took flight. “Just hang tight!” She quickly zoomed through her house to her bedroom where her draft was stored, before returning just as quickly to her living room and plopping the draft in front of Night Rain, in less time than it had taken her to tell him to wait.

Night’s eyes widened at the stack of papers thicker than his hoof. “How long did it take you to write all this?” He levitated half of the stack off the table by a few inches, before letting it fall page-by-page back to the pile, slowly releasing his ‘grip’ on the bottom pages first.

“Oh, about… four months. Probably less. I’d been tossing around ideas since I first picked up the Daring Do books, but it took me a little while to put them together. And I recently got some… inspiration.” She smirked.

Night glanced up at her in surprise. “Dang, you work fast, if I’m any judge.” Rainbow grinned as Night turned back to the stack, continuing to speak as the last of the papers fell from his magical grip. “I envy your dedication… writing stories this long is no small feat, certainly not in that time frame.”

Wow, really? Rainbow grinned a little. She actually hadn’t thought about it… she had just done what was natural for her, and had assumed that Daring Do - and all good stories - had been written at similarly brisk pace. It was also the most praise she’d gotten on her work so far. Of course, she only had two readers right now counting Night Rain, but compared to Twilight’s mixed review, she was glad for his compliment.

Besides, she had a feeling his praise wasn’t going to last long. Soon, he’d take a look at the actual contents, and while she hoped he’d be more generous than Twilight… her faith in her writing had already been shaken once...

Night Rain turned his eyes from the impressive stack of papers to look at Rainbow. “I, uh… definitely won’t be able to do this in one run.” He chuckled. “I mean, I wasn’t going to do that anyway… not how I work.”

Rainbow tilted her head. “You prefer to take it slow?” Rainbow herself was a bit of a binge-reader as well as a binge-writer. She was used to ponies being slower and less gung-ho than her, of course, but she was still wary of anything that might lead to bad synergy between her and her soon-to-be proofreader…

Night nodded. “If I were to read through the whole thing before talking to you about any of it… by the end, I’d forget about all the stuff I wanted to talk about in the first chapters. Besides, I don’t like doing everything all at once. If I were to just unload a whole bunch of suggestions and corrections on you, then I’m sure that’d be tiring for us both.”

You have no idea, Rainbow thought. “So you’re going to do it chapter by chapter?” She smiled. Even though his speech was getting more formal, and his tone was growing less nervous and more serious, she recognized this as the signs of a pony getting “in the zone” - and that was a good sign for her. “I’m fine with that. I don’t want to have to try and cram everything all at once, not when it comes to this stuff.”

Night nodded. “Cramming is rarely helpful. It’s better to digest information at your own pace. Better to be a little relaxed when it comes to studying.” He chuckled. “Although if you’re trying to cram things all at once, it’s probably because you’re being rushed, and you’re probably stressed, and that doesn’t help either.” He cleared his throat. “Speaking of, uh, rushing… I should probably get to work instead of talk all day.”

Rainbow snickered. “Probably.” Still, she’d have to make a note of that warning against cramming. Granted, she usually didn’t cram, because she usually didn’t study. But at least now she knew that too much studying was bad. At least, that was what she took away from Night’s words.

Night Rain blushed a little in return. “Oh, do you have any particular concerns you have about it, before I begin? Anything you wanted me to be aware of?”

Rainbow thought for a moment. She tried to recall what exactly Twilight had said was wrong with the fic, during her brief time as Rainbow’s proofreader. Sadly, she’d blocked a lot of that out. Ugh, all I remember is stuff about Ahuizotl and… oh yeah, spelling! She could go with that.

“Well, the spelling might be a little… messy. I was kinda focused on getting things out rather than being fussy with the writing.”

Night nodded. “Understandable. Spelling errors and the like won’t be hard to correct. That’s the easy part.”

“All right then!” Rainbow grinned. “Don’t let me stop you!”

“Ah, almost forgot…” Night opened his saddlebags with his telekinesis from where they lay next to the couch, and brought out a quill and inkwell. Setting them on the table, he pushed the draft to one side to clear a space to work, then levitated the title page of Rainbow’s fanfic and held it in front of him. “Daring Do and the Winds of Destruction…” He flipped the page over face-down onto a spare space on the table, then picked up the next page.

He hadn’t even made through the first page of text before his eyes widened. “Oh my.” Somehow, Rainbow didn’t think that was a good ‘oh my.’

Still, Night set down the page, levitated his quill over, and crossed out one of the words, writing a replacement on the margin. He examined the page while the ink dried, before flipping it onto the “read” pile and picking up the next page. A few moments later, he said, “I see what you mean about the spelling.”

Rainbow chuckled nervously, privately glad that that was the worst he’d found, so far. “Yeah… I tried to get things right at first, but then I decided to just roll with it and worry about it later.”

“I see.” Night made another correction, before setting the page aside and looking at the next, before glancing across the table at Rainbow. “I might need to have you come over here and read with me, I, uh… might find a word I can’t identify properly.” He glanced away, looking embarrassed.

Hmm, Twilight hadn’t had a problem. At least, she hadn’t asked. All the same, Rainbow was happy to help those with less-than-perfect reading comprehension -- even though the only reason she could help at all was because it was her own poor spelling. She smiled, and took flight, flying over the table to hover just above Night Rain as the pair looked down at the pages. “All right, what do you need help with?”

“Well, I think I can manage at this point, but in the future…” Night frowned as he looked at the next page. “Ah, right here, what’s this word meant to be?”

“That word is…” Rainbow frowned. Okay, what was I trying to say there? “...I’m not actually sure.”

Night smiled. “Well, it’s either ‘confiscated’ or ‘constipated.’ I’m guessing it’s the former.”

Rainbow couldn’t help but snicker. “I dunno, it could be either one there.”

Night chuckled. “Well, one makes for better reading than the other.” He looked up at Rainbow, though he had to crane his neck a little. “Do you have a dictionary on hoof, by any chance?”

“I don’t,” Rainbow said. She felt that should have been obvious, given the quality of her writing… although she could pretty easily get one from Twilight. Now that she thought about it, doing so actually seemed like a good idea. “We can pick one up from Twilight, probably.” Shoulda’ done that ages ago...

Night nodded. “Sounds good, I think I can manage until then.” He turned the page, and after a few moments his eyes widened again. “Or… maybe not.”

Rainbow rolled her eyes. “It can’t be that bad, can it?” She flew a little closer to the table, looking to where Night’s eyes were staring at. “...I guess it can.” She was starting to feel a little wounded in the pride from these errors. Not that she had ever prided herself on her spelling ability, but surely she could do better than this. “Uh, in fairness, I was just learning how to use a typewriter…”

“Fair enough. I imagine those things take getting used to…” He turned his head to look at her. “Maybe we should get that dictionary sooner rather than later.” He smiled. “Besides, there are words I don’t actually know how to spell. ‘Archaeologist’ is one of them.” He pointed to the word where it appeared on the bottom of the page.

“That makes me feel a little better,” Rainbow admitted. Rainbow herself certainly didn’t know how to spell it, and Daring Do was probably the only thing in the world that could make her even think the word.

Night nodded. “So yeah, a dictionary would be great. How long would it take for you to grab it from your friend? I can keep working while you grab it.” He suddenly glanced away. “If it’s okay for me to be here, that is.”

Rainbow grinned. “I’ve got a better idea - you can come with me! You can meet Twilight, and you two can bond over being eggheads.” She quickly seized him in her hooves and flew towards the front door of her home as Night fidgeted in her grasp.

Rainbow didn’t settle for simply setting him down beneath her villa - she carried him all the way to Twilight’s library through the air. As Night squirmed and screwed his eyes shut. Rainbow frowned. “What'd I say about keeping your eyes open? You're never gonna to get over this if you don't look.” But Night's only reply was to shake his head.

As she descended, Rainbow grinned, getting a wicked idea. She gently floated down in front of Twilight's library, but rather than set him down on the ground, she hovered just above the ground, and let him go. Night started to gasp, only for his breath to be cut off by a yelp of surprise as he hit the ground after only a hoof-length of falling distance. As he looked up and glared at her, she smirked and said, “Keep your eyes open next time and you won’t be surprised.”

He sighed. “Point taken...” He gestured towards the library door with a hoof. “After you, she's your friend after all,” he said tersely.

Rainbow ignored his mood and went for the door, knocking briskly on it. It was only a few seconds before Twilight opened the door and greeted the pair. “Hello, Rainbow!”

“Hi, Twilight. This is going to sound odd, but we're going to need to borrow a dictionary. Me and Night Rain here were-” She stepped to the side to allow Twilight to see her other visitor, while she glanced back at him, hoping his mood didn't put Twilight off. Her explanation to Twilight was cut off, however, out of surprise – once Rainbow was out of the way of Night’s view of Twilight, the stallion’s eyes widened and he immediately dropped into a bow that almost looked like one of Rainbow's warmup stretches, with how much he was pushing himself into it.

As the two mares stood, momentarily at a loss for words, Night Rain stammered, “I'm sorry, I didn't realize- I should have known- that Twilight... I mean, Princess Twilight-”

Thankfully, that Twilight was the kind of Princess to have mercy on him. “It's all right, you don't need to be so formal... I'm sure you're here because I'm a librarian and not because I'm a Princess.” Twilight blushed a little.

“O-oh.” Night hastily straightened up, blushing as well. “I'm sorry, I've never been... well, this close to a princess – an alicorn – before.”

Rainbow couldn't help but smirk. Rainbow was used to herself, her friends, and the townsfolk being casual around Twilight, but it was always funny to her to see ponies try and be all formal with her. It also always impressed her how Twilight was so humble about it. Sure, Twilight was proud of her accomplishments – who wouldn't be, with those wings? – but she was also modest and informal. Ironic for a pony normally obsessed with doing things literally by the book.

Looks like Night’s mood is better now, too, Rainbow thought. He may not know how to take a prank, but at least he doesn’t stay mad.

Night coughed lightly. “Uh, anyway, Rainbow Dash and I were just-”

Rainbow cleared her throat, causing him to abruptly fall silent. “Night Rain and I were just playing… Scrabble! And he called me out on how to spell a word, but we didn’t have a dictionary, so I suggested we come to you to get one!”

Something had clicked in Rainbow’s mind. She wasn’t sure she wanted Twilight to know she was being snubbed - however tentatively - in favor of a random out-of-town pony for the position of ‘Rainbow’s Editor-in-Chief.’ At least, not right away. It was inevitable that she’d find out, of course - but Rainbow wanted that to happen on her terms.

She grinned at Twilight, hoping Night wouldn’t ‘spoil the surprise,’ that he remembered her telling him that this was ‘top-secret.’ She glanced briefly at him, and saw him looking at her with a frown and a raised eyebrow. Obviously confused, but silent for now, which was fine by Rainbow. She figured it probably looked odd to him, watching her glibly lie to a friend and princess.

She looked back at Twilight, who was smiling - either she was oblivious to Rainbow’s deception, or she had gotten really good at hiding when she was displeased with somepony. “Oh, well, I’ve got plenty of dictionaries to choose from! Come on in!”

She backed up to allow the pair entrance, smiling. Rainbow just rolled her eyes. “It’s not like we’re going shopping or anything, Twi. We just need a dictionary, you don’t need to show him your entire collection. It’s probably huge.”

“Well…” Night put his hoof to his chin. “We could stop in, get some other books…”

Twilight beamed at him. “What kind of books?”

“Reference guides, mostly. I’m only in town for a week, so I don’t want to check out any long stories.” He stepped forward, moving into the library as Rainbow followed. “Let’s see what you have…”

Rainbow glanced at Night Rain, worried he might reveal her secret, intentionally or not, if he sought out books on writing. She wanted to make this visit as brief as possible, but wasn’t sure how to do so except in the most direct and blunt fashion possible - so as she followed, she asked, “I hate to cut this short, but we’re in a bit of a rush… gotta get that game of Scrabble done before we settle Night in, wherever he’s staying. Where are the dictionaries, again?”

Twilight pointed with a hoof. “Right over there-”

In an instant, Rainbow had flown past her and back, with a thick book in her hooves as she hovered. “How about this?”

She was a little dismayed when Twilight said, deadpan, “That’s a thesaurus.”

Rainbow tilted her head, frowning. “A what now?”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “A thesaurus is a reference guide for writing, that groups words together by their meaning. Each word’s entry lists other words associated with it.”

“Basically,” Night added, “If you look up a word, it tells you what other words mean the same basic thing. Of course, it looks a lot like a dictionary inside.” He chuckled. “When I was young, I actually used one as a dictionary for a while, not realizing there was a difference.” Twilight giggled at that.

Rainbow flipped the book open, her eyes landing on the entry for ‘tireless.’ Listed below it were its synonyms: energetic, enthusiastic, indefatigable, and so forth. She raised an eyebrow at Night. “Your vocab must have been out of control.”

He chuckled again. “Still is, sometimes.”

“Anyway, we’d best get going!” She flew back to the shelf, and put the thesaurus back. After a moment’s thought, she took the thesaurus back out, grabbed a nearby dictionary, looked at the cover to make sure it really was a dictionary, then flew over to Twilight. “I’ll check these two out.”

Twilight looked at the thesaurus, next to the dictionary that Rainbow had claimed she needed for Scrabble, then looked at Rainbow, seemingly scrutinizing her. Rainbow felt a twinge of nervousness. Does she know? Did she figure it out? Will she get really mad?!

Then Twilight levitated a records book over to herself and started making a note in it. “All right then. You two enjoy your game of Scrabble!” Twilight grinned, the look on her face halfway between a cheerful smile and a face that said, ‘I know what you’re doing.’

Either she’s actually being really chill about it, or she really likes the idea of me playing Scrabble. Rainbow glanced at Night Rain. ...Or she thinks we’re banging. That’s possible too. I really should have ponies over more often, so it doesn’t look odd when I pick up a random stallion - literally - and take him to my house.

As Twilight finished recording the checkout info, she smiled at Night. “I hope you enjoy your stay in Ponyville! It really is a wonderful place!”

Night smiled back at her. “I hope so too.”

Rainbow nudged him, and he jolted forward, trotting out the library with her following behind. As he closed the door behind him with his magic, he frowned at her. “So… if you don’t mind me asking, is there a reason you’re keeping this whole thing secret? From her in particular?”

Rainbow sighed. Justifying it to him would probably be even harder than justifying it to herself. But she wondered if maybe telling him about it would make her feel better about her decision to snub Twilight for the role of editor. She motioned over to a nearby alley and led him there, so as not to be overheard - especially by Twilight. Once they were safely secluded, she faced him apprehensively. “Okay, so… you know how I told you I’d had somepony look at it, but I wanted a second opinion?”

Night nodded, but she continued without waiting for a reply. “Well, that pony was Twilight. She’s smart, she’s an eg- I mean, well-read-” Rainbow coughed, hoping he wouldn’t be too put off by her making fun of qualities that he actually shared with Twilight, “-And she’s the biggest fan of Daring Do other than me. So… I gave the draft to her first.”

Night frowned. “She didn’t like it?”

“I… really don’t know.” Rainbow shook her head. “She was pretty harsh when she talked about it, even after reading the first part of it, but… she said she wanted to read the rest and was willing to help me edit it.” She dragged a hoof along the ground, making a small furrow. “I… I thought about it, but… I just didn’t want her to see it. Not yet.”

Night Rain bit his lip as he looked at her, but said nothing. Whether he wanted to say something but was holding back, or was just waiting for her to finish, Rainbow couldn’t tell. Either way, it looked like she’d have to continue. “I just… kinda wanted to start fresh with a new reader.”

One side of his mouth tightened as his eyes revealed something clicking in his mind.. “I see… I think I understand.”

Rainbow tilted her head. “You do?” She wasn’t sure spelling out her issue made it make more or less sense to her, never mind what he made of it.

Night nodded. “Yeah. Every writer deals with it when something they worked really hard on is rejected. It takes getting used to, I think. But basically, you’re...” he scrunched his face. “...You’re a little bit mad at her so you’re not choosing her as your editor?”

Rainbow shrugged, looking down. “I guess, yeah. I mean, I was also hoping it was better than she made it out to be…”

“Don’t worry about it.” Rainbow looked up at Night to see him smiling lightly. “This is just the first draft, right? There’s bound to be errors. I mean, I’m kind of a perfectionist so I try to have everything right the first time… but you can still correct things. It’s not over.” He chuckled, though his tone was more of chagrin than joy. “It’s better than criticism after you’ve published something.”

“I know, it’s just…” Rainbow slapped her face with a hoof. “It sucks.”

“You really put a lot of work into it, right?” Night received a nod in response. “I know that feeling too… when you invest a lot of effort into something, and it comes out… well, not as good as you wanted.” His tone took a morose turn. “Kinda makes you doubt yourself a little.”

Rainbow nodded, then frowned. She could see where this was going, because she’d gone down this route recently herself. While she’d had a hard time snapping herself out of that sort of funk… she could at least try to snap him out of it before it got too bad. She was great at encouraging others, after all. She stood herself up tall, a smile coming to her face. “Yeah, you’re right, no point in worrying about it. We just gotta work harder, is all! If a dark cloud hangs over you, you just kick it away!”

Night gave her a small smirk. “I can’t, I’m a unicorn.”

“Details, details!” Rainbow waved a hoof dismissively. “The point is, you can either feel glum about it, or do something.” She was being a little hypocritical here, but that wasn’t the point. She needed to seem confident. Part of being a leader in any capacity was getting your team to feel the way you wanted them to feel, even if you had to fake it. Who knows, maybe she could even get him confident enough that it’d rub off on her.

Night nodded. “Alright, sounds good…” He frowned. “Rainbow, are you sure you want me as your editor? Feelings aside, Twilight really would be a good editor, I think. She knows you better, she knows Daring Do better, and she’s certainly smarter than I am…”

“Hey, I don’t wanna hear that kind of talk!” Rainbow’s firm statement made Night jolt a little. “You said you wanted to help me out, right? Well, here’s your chance! You’re going to go through this fanfiction with me and make it the best Daring Do fan story ever, and if you aren’t the best pony for the job, we’ll make you the best pony for the job!” She smirked. “Got a problem with that?”

Night stood up straight. “No, m’am.”

Rainbow raised an eyebrow at him, causing him to quickly blush as he stammered, “I-I’m sorry, you just… you made me think of a drill sergeant or something - or how I imagine they’re like-” He was interrupted by Rainbow failing to hold back a giggle. He stood silent as she laughed, but when she smiled at him, he returned it.

“Come on,” Rainbow moved up to him, circling around him and putting a hoof around his barrel, looking over into his eyes. “It’ll be great! You’ll get to read and edit the fiction of Daring Do’s number one fan! I’ll even mention you in the book’s credits, so when it’s a hit, you’ll be famous too!”

Night chuckled. “Aiming high, huh?”

“I always aim as high as I can.” She gave him a grin that could only be described as ‘wicked.’ “By the way, hang on to these books.” She passed him the dictionary and thesaurus. “Tightly.”

Night subtly pulled his head away from her, his horn lighting up as he gripped the books. “Why?”

“Because we’re going back up to get some work done!” And with that, she took flight, gripped him in her hooves, and lifted him into the air as he yelped. As she soared up into the sky, she said “And not only am I going to make you a good editor, I’m going to get rid of your fear of heights, too!”

Author's Note

Blehhhh this took ages to finish. Note to all writers - try not to let a chapter take too long to write, and refresh yourself with what you've already written. If you spread out your writing over too long a period of time, you might forget what exactly your plan was.

In other news, this fic now has more words than my now-second longest story. :eeyup:

5: Brave Face

“So that’s the word I was trying to use.” Rainbow Dash chuckled. “No wonder I misspelled it.”

Night Rain nodded, setting down the dictionary. “And no wonder I couldn’t figure it out from the context. "Prodigious" doesn’t mean what you thought it meant.”

Rainbow winced. “Yeah… maybe I should just rewrite that sentence.” Rainbow peered over Night’s shoulder as he read, looking at the margins of the page. “But I don’t think there’s enough room here to write out a new sentence…”

“Most drafts are double-spaced for that reason. Hmm…” Night Rain looked back and upwards at Rainbow as she literally hovered over his shoulder. “Do you have any spare paper?”

“I should.” She zipped over to her bedroom where she’d stored her draft, and in another moment had brought a thin clump of pages back to Night Rain. “Here!”

Night Rain nodded, set the paper on the table with his magic, then took a single sheet and laid it next to the draft. “We can use this to write out whatever you want the new sentence to be, and put that between this page and the next.” He looked up to her. “You want to come down here and write a replacement sentence?”

“Sure!” Rainbow landed next to Night on the couch and reached out to slide the paper over to her. Night passed the pen to her, and as she took it in her mouth she mulled over what words to write for a moment before jotting down a replacement sentence - one that didn't interpret "prodigy" to mean "really awesome." Well, being really great at something from a young age was awesome, but still. When she was done, she dropped the pen in the inkwell. “That should do it.”

Night looked it over. “Better. The famed writer Ore Well had as a rule, 'never write a long word when a short one will do.' Sometimes it's better to be simple.”

"Really?" Rainbow raised an eyebrow at him.

Night tilted his head in response. "That surprises you?"

"Well..." Rainbow frowned. "...I sort of figured that writing meant you used big words.”

"Sometimes." Night chuckled. “I mean, I use big words a lot, but that’s just me. Usually it's more..." he waved his hoof in a small circle as he struggled for words. "...It's more about using the right word. Sometimes it's a long one. But the most important thing is that it sounds right. Like, if it’s the kind of thing a narration or character would say, use a long word. If you need a very specific word, use it. Otherwise, just use something simple.”

Rainbow just stared at him. After a moment, the previously-eloquent stallion blushed. “...You won’t have to worry too much about that with Daring Do. A.K. Yearling’s good at describing what’s going on while keeping things simple, as far as words go. Since your style is pretty close to hers, it shouldn’t be a problem.”

Now it was Rainbow’s turn to blush. “You really think so?”

“Well, so far.” Night smiled faintly. “I mean, I’m not that great at judging what an individual writer’s style is, and I haven’t read that much, but there definitely are similarities.”

Rainbow felt a little like she was glowing inside. She really liked the idea of her writing being close to that of her favorite author. Now that she thought about it, Twilight had mentioned that too… but Rainbow hadn’t been receptive to much praise at the time.

“Of course, we do need to clean things up first.” Night looked back to the pages while Rainbow snapped herself back to reality. “Hey, what time is it?” he asked.

“Time to get a watch,” Rainbow quipped, causing Night to snort. “Seriously though, I’m not sure.”

“Maybe you should take your own advice,” Night replied.

Rainbow snickered. “Maybe. Let me check my bedroom clock…” She sped out of the living room, as usual, and quickly returned, not bothering to land. “Six-forty.”

“Wow, time sure went by. We’ve spent a couple of hours on this...” Suddenly he jolted and stood up from the couch. “I still need to check in to the hotel!”

Rainbow waved a hoof dismissively. “Relax, the Golden Horseshoe Hotel lets you check in pretty late. But, I wouldn’t mind a break.” She grinned at him. “Want me to drop you off?”

“That’d be wonderful, thanks.” Night smiled, levitating his saddlebags onto his back.

“Oh, before you go!” Rainbow once again flew to her bedroom, before grabbing a certain Daring Do book and returning to the living room. “My personal copy of Daring Do and the Ring of Destiny! I got it a week before anypony else, autographed!” She turned the book around to look at the cover, featuring Daring Do and a likeness of herself. She couldn’t help but give her widest grin she’d given him yet, and it took a bit of willpower to keep herself from audibly squeeing her delight - or from telling him then and there that Daring Do was real and that she, Rainbow Dash, had gone on an adventure with her. I mean, she thought, I guess he might figure it out from seeing me on the cover. I’ll just tell him that I met her and she liked me so she based a character off me. It’s totally true, too!

To her extreme disappointment, however, Night Rain looked over the cover without any comment on the fact that she was on it. Instead he just smiled and said, “Thanks for lending me this, Rainbow. I’ll try and take care of it, and I’ll be sure to read some tonight!”

Rainbow tried her best to not roll her eyes. Perhaps once he read it, he’d figure it out. Clearing her throat, she said, “All right, hold on tight to it!” before flying over to him and picking him up.

“Hey, I can at least walk to the front door! I th-” But in the time it took for him to say that, Rainbow had already flown him to her foyer and out the front door, and he gasped and trembled in her grip at the sight of the open sky and the distant ground.

“Keep your eyes open, Night! You’ve gotta get used to this if you’re gonna hang out with me!” She smirked at him, even though he was not looking in her direction at all. But as far as she could tell, his eyes were open, so at least she was getting through to him.

A few short moments later (long moments for him, no doubt) and she had brought him to the front door of the Golden Horseshoe Hotel. The “hotel” wasn’t fancy by the standards of Canterlot or even Cloudsdale - more like a roadside bed-and-breakfast - but it was pleasant and cozy - or so Rainbow had heard. Night looked over the rustic building, and the outdoor tables near a small open hut that would serve breakfast in the morning, before Rainbow brought his attention back to her. “So, how long are you staying, again?”

“About a week, give or take, depending on what there is to do and how much I like the place.” He blushed a little, glancing down. “...It’s looking pretty interesting so far, though.”

“Oh yeah, Ponyville’s a great place! I’ll have to show you around when we’re not working on-” She glanced around for anypony listening, before looking back at Night Rain. “-you-know-what.”

Night chuckled. “I’d like that. For now, though, I need to get checked in-” A rumble from his stomach interrupted him. “...And find somewhere to eat. Got any recommendations?”

Rainbow shrugged. “I don’t eat out a lot, and when I do, I usually just go for hay burgers… not that there’s a whole lot of fancy places in Ponyville. If you don’t mind that, though, there’s a pretty good joint over there-” She gestured with a hoof, “-To the right, around the corner of the street. It’s a lot better than the ‘fast food’ you can find in Manehatten, if you’ve been there.” She frowned suddenly. “Hey, where’d you say you from, again?”

“Canterlot.”

Rainbow grinned. “Twilight’s from Canterlot! You two should hang out sometime, talk about the place, or magic stuff, or whatever. Almost nopony from Canterlot comes here unless it’s official business…” She chuckled. “Which is actually why Twilight first came here, but still! She barely gets any word from her hometown, so you should hang out with her, let her know what’s up.”

Night blushed and shook his head frantically. “Oh, n-no, I… I’m just an ordinary pony, and she’s a princess, I wouldn’t be able to just… ‘hang out.’”

Rainbow rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on. She’s the Princess of Friendship. She likes making friends. She wouldn’t be very good at friendship if she let silly things like being a princess get in the way of talking to ponies!”

“Maybe, but…” Night glanced off in the general direction of Twilight’s library, frowning, before shaking his head. “I’ll think about it. Right now, I just want to get settled in. This day has… gone a lot different than I thought it would.”

“Yeah, just think of how boring your day would have been if you hadn’t met me.” Rainbow smirked. “It’s okay if you’re tired, spending a day with me can be exhausting for ponies unprepared for my awesomeness.”

Night laughed at that, while shaking his head. “You sure are confident, huh?” He smiled at her. “Just bring some of that confidence to our… ‘work’ tomorrow, okay?”

“Yeah, sure.” She waved him off. “Hurry up and get settled in.”

“All right.” Night nodded. “See you tomorrow, then?” He smiled and turned to the hotel, trotting towards the door.

After he’d gone through the door and vanished from sight, Rainbow sighed, before flying back to her cloud villa. It had been a tough day for her too… She’d drunk a little to get her mind off things, ran into Night Rain, recruited him to help her edit, and they’d worked. She felt it was a pretty productive day.

But as she returned to her living room, and saw the thin pile of reviewed pages, next to the much larger stack that was still untouched… it occurred to her that it would take a lot of productive days to make her story great.

Rainbow had managed to get up and perform her morning stretches without thinking of her fanfiction, or of Night Rain, and it was only when she looked at Tank - resting in his own bed next to hers - did she realize, Oh yeah, I should go meet Night Rain at the hotel or something… she glanced at her clock, saw that it was 7:15, and thought, ...Would he be a morning pony, or not? ...Judging by his name, I’m going to guess no.

Chuckling to herself, she proceeded to set out Tank’s food in the kitchen and prepare his bath (important for a tortoise!). She’d finish her weather control duties, she reasoned, and then find where Night Rain was. Fortunately, today was scheduled to be a partly cloudy day… a trivial task to handle for a pegasus of her talents…

It was 11 AM, and Night Rain was nowhere to be found.

Rainbow swished her tail impatiently as she flew about the town, eyes peeled for her designated editor, but continuing to not see him. Where could he be? I’ve checked the library in case he decided to visit Twilight, I’ve checked all the bars and restaurants… I’ve even checked out the lake in case he decided to go for a swim. Where under Celestia’s sun could he be? ...He’s at the hotel, isn’t he? She came to a stop in the air, frowning as her mind considered the only remaining possibility, absurd as it was. Is he still sleeping? She didn’t consider it hypocritical at all to roll her eyes at his sleeping habits - she may have been fond of napping, but at least she could get up in the morning at a decent hour.

As she flew down to the hotel grounds, she saw Night Rain exiting out the front door. She quickly landed and trotted over to him. “Finally up, huh?”

Night looked aside. “I, uh… I’m kind of a late pony. Didn’t mean to wake up this late though…”

Rainbow smirked. “Yeah, looks like you missed breakfast.” She glanced over at the food serving hut that served as an outdoor cafeteria. “Maybe I’ll have to get you up earlier next time.”

“That might be best.” Night blushed. “I… sometimes have trouble with that on my own.”

Rainbow looked back at Night. “Did you get some reading done, at least?” She grinned.

“Oh yeah! I didn’t read all night, but I did get about halfway through. I’m sure I’ll be done long before I have to go back.” He smiled.

“Good, because you’re going to need to be caught up before we get too far in our ‘work.’” She gave her wings a slow stretch. “Speaking of which, are you ready?”

“Yes-” He was interrupted as Rainbow flew over to him and picked him up without waiting for his answer. He squirmed uncomfortably, but didn’t complain otherwise.

“Get ready, Night, we’ve got a long day ahead of us!” She smiled, but the expression faded a little at the realization that she was not really looking forward to a whole day of writing…

Fortunately for her, it wasn’t very long before the two were interrupted by something very pressing - hunger.

Rainbow chuckled as Night’s stomach rumbled loudly. “You really did miss breakfast, huh?”

Night blushed. “Yeah… I’m sorry to ask this, but could we take a break so I can get something to eat?”

Rainbow grinned. “Don’t worry, I wouldn’t mind a break either.”

Night nodded, standing up from his spot on the couch. “Well, as the host, would you care to show me somewhere to eat? You’d know the local eateries better than me.”

“All right,” Rainbow smirked. “But don’t expect anything like what they have in Canterlot!”

Soon, the pair were seated next to each other at a rectangular table at the edge of a spacious and cozy burger joint, facing out the window as they ate their food. Rainbow was chowing down with her usual speed and intensity, but Night was a little slower, despite supposedly being the hungrier one. He also spent a lot of time staring out the window, looking around the area and watching ponies go by.

Since Rainbow had finished both her hay burgers, her fries and her drink, while Night was still nibbling away at his burger - which he had specifically ordered without lettuce, tomatoes, or most other typical burger dressings. Rainbow found herself squirming a little… she didn’t have anything to do, and it would be a little while before Night finished his food. Finally, Rainbow decided to do something that neither of them had done since they began eating - talk.

“So, how long have you been reading the Daring Do books?” She glanced around at the other patrons, a tic of hers when talking about Daring Do in public, something she had yet to totally shake.

Night swallowed his mouthful of food and turned to her before replying as though this was the middle of a conversation they’d been having the whole time. “Well, it was just after the fourth book came out, when I was younger… I’d heard of the series a couple times before, but one day I decided to check it out, and fell in love. By the time I was done with the fourth, the fifth had come out, so I started on it. I’ve been reading the series ever since, although I’ve been a little… lax lately, like I said.” He frowned a little before dipping a couple fries in ketchup before levitating them into his mouth. He quickly chewed them before continuing: “What about you? How’d you get into the series?”

Rainbow glanced away for a quick moment - but she could tell from the slight frown on his face that he’d noticed the motion. “Well… Twilight introduced me to them. She’s the next-biggest fan of Daring Do other than me. A year back I’d actually gotten injured and she gave me the first book to read while I recovered. I finished it in two days, and started reading the rest!” She smirked.

Night was silent, having taken a large bite of burger while she talked. He swallowed his food, and frowned. “Did… something happen at that time? I mean… Daring Do’s obviously your type, but you seem to be a little…” He looked over at the nearest patrons, a pair of mares chatting animatedly with each other and not paying attention to the two Daring Do fans at all. “...Secretive about it.”

“Well…” Rainbow scrunched her face, then chuckled. “I didn’t like the idea of reading at the time. I thought it was… uncool. So at first I tried to avoid reading the book Twilight gave me, then I tried to read it in secret, then… let’s not go there.” Rainbow waved her hoof dismissively. “As it turned out, Twilight was right. I did like it. After all, Daring Do’s a lot like me.” She flashed him a smirk. “What about you? Do you like brave, adventurous mares, or is it something else?”

“Well, a little.” Night blushed. “But more than that, it’s…” He scrunched his snout, staring into the table. “I really like stories of adventure, of going on journeys to save the world or stop villains or even more minor stuff… I always like reading about strange places, and interesting ponies, and… doing things that matter. Like, having an important mission to accomplish…” He trailed off, glancing back at her.

Rainbow nodded, her expression neutral as she thought about what he’d said. “...Yeah, that makes sense.” Hero of Equestria that she was, she hadn’t really thought about what typical ponies thought of adventure, or what it was like to wish for an epic quest to go on. After all, adventure had a way of finding her and her friends whether they wanted it or not. She wanted it, but she was also the awesome one. More importantly, she was in the position of being able to have adventures if she wanted.

She frowned a bit as she thought about that, looking at Night. He hadn’t responded to her, and was once again eating in silence. “Well…” she began, hoping to cheer him up, “Now you’re helping to work on a tale of adventure, yourself.” She smiled, before quickly frowning and glancing around the restaurant.

Night chuckled, before quickly finishing the last of his burger and washing the food down with his drink. “Let’s head out, get some space between us and other ponies, hmm?”

Rainbow snickered as she stood up from her stool. “Eager for some personal time, huh?”

Her comment earned a blush from him. “Well… doing that kind of work, it’s best to have as few distractions as possible.”

“Mmm, I agree.” Rainbow winked, causing Night to blush some more.

“Seriously though,” he cleared his throat as they left the burger joint. “There’s a lot of work to do, some of which we haven’t even touched on. We’ve just been going over spelling and grammar, and some minor rephrasing. If there are issues with the story, that’s going to be a lot harder.”

As Night finished off his burger, Rainbow nodded. “What happens if something’s wrong with the story?” She asked with some trepidation.

Night frowned. “Well, on a basic level, we have to analyze what’s wrong and how to correct it if possible… and if it’s just unworkable, we’ll have to come up with a replacement. And that’s going to require a lot of work from both of us.”

Rainbow sighed. She’d been dreading this part. So far, their work was fairly mechanical - identify a spelling or grammar error, and correcting it. But actually changing the story… that was something more involved. And given that Twilight had found problems with the plot, Rainbow knew there would be things to fix.

Rainbow frowned. “...Do you see any problems so far with the plot?”

Night shook his head. “Not really. There are a lot of different directions things can go in, and most of those directions could work. Especially if it’s well-written.” He smiled at her. “I’m certainly eager to read more.”

Rainbow smiled. Truth be told, she really needed to hear that he was enjoying the fic so far… not that she would tell him that. She still needed to appear confident, after all… but she was still nervous about how the plot would go. “Hey, I have an idea… what if we hold off on the spelling and grammar correction, and just have you read ahead to see how the story is?”

Night put a hoof to his chin. “Well… maybe you’re right. I’d planned on taking it a piece at a time, but it actually might be best to analyze the story first.” He looked at her, tilting his head. “...Out of curiosity, is there something you’re not sure about that you want me to look at…?”

Rainbow’s instinct was to look away, but she forced herself to return his gaze. “Nah, it’s fine, we can go over some more grammar stuff, I don’t mind.” That was something Rainbow never thought she’d say, but… sometimes she was a slave to appearances. She wasn’t sure about the entire fic. But she had to put on a brave face. Ponies looked up to those who were confident and self-assured… and that was especially true of ponies who weren't very confident themselves.

She could tell Night Rain was one of those. If she couldn’t show confidence, he’d lose heart as well. Or worse… maybe he’d decide it would be too much work to fix her fanfiction. If he felt that way, she would too.

Author's Note

Ugh, it's taken a monstrously long time to do this... I'm sure that's a topic I could cover in a future chapter. I've actually had to re-examine my style because of this... my planning style, specifically. There's a lot I want to have happen, a lot I want to discuss, but... I haven't been the best at organizing. Perhaps somepony's going to get a lesson on that!

I think the hardest part might have been figuring out what word Rainbow Dash was trying to use at the beginning...

6: Verdict: Guilty (Of Being a New Writer)

Rainbow was up early this time, flying from window to window at the Golden Horseshoes Hotel, trying to locate Night Rain’s room as discreetly as she could - after all, even for Ponyville, looking into a hotel’s windows was odd. Of course, “discreetly as she could” meant looking while nopony else was on the streets to see her, which was just before the sun rose. After all, there really was no way to fly stealthily, which was why most pegasi didn’t even try to be sneaky. Daring Do and her #1 fan were exceptions.

Her reasons were perfectly legitimate, of course - she was going to make sure he woke up at a decent time. For days now, she’d had to impatiently wait until he stumbled out the front door of the hotel... often barely in time to get breakfast. Today, this would change. ...But since Rainbow didn’t know which room was his - having forgotten to ask - she was scouting out the hotel now, in the early morning when there was nopony to wonder why she was looking in hotel windows. Rainbow did her best to make her search quick, only spending a couple seconds at each window before moving on. In no time at all she had found Night Rain’s room on the second floor. Naturally, he was still asleep, so Rainbow resolved to go back to her home and kill time for a little while until a good time came to wake him up.

This resolution did not last long. Ugh, why won’t he just wake up already and tell me what he thinks!? She glanced at the clock on her bedside table, wishing that time would hurry up and get to the time of day that normal ponies got up by, so she could wake Night Rain up and they could properly talk about her fanfiction. Over the past few days, Night had only talked about grammar details and writing concepts, but had stayed silent on the matter of the plot and how the whole thing felt. He had said he would tell her today. He’d better tell me, this is the day he goes back to Canterlot! ...That’s it, I can’t wait any longer!

The sun had hardly risen by the time Rainbow returned to the hotel, and Night Rain was of course still asleep. Rainbow quickly rapped her hoof on the window frame, and grinned as Night stirred… he sure is a light sleeper… I guess I can’t blame him for wanting to sleep in!

She waved, still grinning, as Night groggily looked over at her. He glared sharply at her, the harshest expression he’d ever given her, not that that meant much - and anyway, she couldn’t blame him for that either. Slowly, he shuffled off his blankets and walked over to the window, eyes half-open. “What do you want?” he asked as he pushed the window open.

Rainbow’s grin widened. “What do you think? I want to do some work before you leave for Canterlot!”

“I’m taking the evening train, we’ve got time!” Night scowled. “If I get up now I’ll just be miserable the whole day and we won’t get anything done.”

Rainbow flicked a hoof and scoffed. “Hey, you’ve got to be able to work even while under the weather. You have to be prepared to work through anything. You never know what life will throw at you!”

“Like an overeager, obnoxious pegasus?”

She grinned. “Precisely!” She then frowned suddenly. “Hey, I’m just really excited to hear what you have to say about the story.” This got Night to smile a little. “Also, it wouldn’t hurt for you to get up earlier.”

“Tell me about it,” Night said, then yawned. “What time is it?”

Rainbow shrugged. “6:30, ish?”

Night glared at her again, then sighed. “It’s going to be a long day… just let me pack my things. Come back in a half-hour.”

Rainbow put her hooves in the windowl to keep him from shutting it. “Oh, no. I’m staying with you, so you don’t just go back to sleep!”

For a moment Night Rain looked about ready to put her to sleep. “...Fine…”

Night Rain’s prediction was right, he was miserable, and generally uncooperative, even while packing his things. He refused Rainbow’s help, leaving her to jump up and down on his bed out of sheer boredom. Once he was done, however, he perked up a little when Rainbow mentioned food.

Soon, Rainbow was eating breakfast with him just outside the hotel, while talking with him… or at least, trying. “So… you haven’t talked much about your life back in Canterlot.” Rainbow noticed that Night kept taking big bites of syrup-drenched food right as she finished asking him a personal question - and this time was no exception.

Night took a long moment to chew his food before swallowing, before pouring even more syrup over a pancake, the liquid flowing like a wave across the food. “There’s not much to tell. I study.” He took a large slice out of the pancake and bit into it, while Rainbow tried to think of another angle of attack.

“Well, you’re pretty good at this whole...” she glanced around for other ponies - through the town wasn’t fully awake yet, the stillness of the early morning air made her voice seem even louder than usual. “...You know, the writing thing.”

Night shook his head. “It’s mostly a hobby. I don’t do it for a living.” He used his magic to grip a piece of French toast, not even bothering to pour syrup on it and instead just soaking it in the puddle that had formed in his plate.

Well, A.K. Yearling writes as a second job, Rainbow thought, but she kept that to herself.

Night hesitated, the toast levitating in place in front of him. “...I wish I could write for a living, though.”

Rainbow tilted her head. “What’s stopping you?”

Night shook his head before biting into his toast. Once he’d finished chewing, he replied “Just been busy with things. I never really have the time.”

“I see…” Rainbow frowned. Well, if he didn’t want to tell her, she’d just have to deal with it. Clearly, she wasn’t going to get anything out of him by just asking. “...Well, you really are good at it, you know.”

Night chuckled, but it was a humorless, empty chuckle. “You’re just saying that.”

“No, really. I mean, I haven’t seen any of your work, but you know a lot more than I do, and you seem like you know what you’re doing.” Rainbow wrinkled her nose. There was humility, and then there was pointless self-depreciation… she needed to break him out of the latter somehow. “...You know, if you aren’t too busy, you could come back and help me work some more.”

Night instantly brightened up at her words, making Rainbow smile in turn. “R-really? I’d love that.” He cleared his throat. “I… I should be able to make time pretty soon.”

“Just send me a letter when you’ve got things worked out.” She grinned.

Night chuckled. “A letter… haven’t sent one of those in a while… well, now I’ve a good reason to get back into it.” He sighed. “Of course, you might want to wait until after I’ve given you the full verdict to invite me back…”

“Huh?” Rainbow frowned. She had a bad feeling about this, but she’d been dealing with the sense that her writing was bad for quite some time, so she was used to it by then. Sort of. “...That bad?”

Night took a deep breath. “I think we should discuss that at your place. I spent the time since I finished the fic last night trying to think of a way to describe my thoughts… it’s going to take a while. But I want to say that I am willing to keep helping.”

Rainbow smiled. “Glad to hear it. Now, if you’re done eating breakfast, let’s check you out of the hotel and take you up to my place.”

Even after the two had returned to Rainbow’s villa, Night Rain was still quiet. He fidgeted in his place on the couch, seemingly aware that he couldn’t put off the discussion for much longer. Meanwhile Rainbow tried not to glare as she looked at him expectantly. Spill the beans, Night,” she said, “How’s the story?”

Night sighed. “I’m trying to think of how to-“

“Enough thinking, more doing!” Rainbow had hoped her voice didn’t come across as too harsh, but to her surprise Night chuckled.

“That’s good writing advice actually,” Night said. “ I definitely have a problem with that.“ He sighed, leaning back into the couch. “All right, let’s start with the good news. You write action scenes well. Your style conveys the intensity of those sections quite nicely. They’re gripping to read, and they flow well, which is very important for those kinds of scenes.“

Rainbow smiled, even though she found his wording a bit dry. She remembered that Twilight had also complimented her action writing, and it was good to hear that Night agreed. Still, she spoke up. “But…?”

Night smiled. “I’m not done with the positives. You also have a good grip on Daring Do’s character. Although I personally don’t think that’s hard to do.” He chuckled. “But if I’m any judge, you did a good job. For the most part, she seems in character.”

“For the most part?“

Night Rain waved a hoof. “I’ll get to that in a little bit. Anyway, some of the original characters are… interesting. I’ll get to that later too, I want to say what I think of the plot first.” He shook his head. “I should have done that first before looking at the spelling and grammar. It was like looking at trees instead of at the forest.”

“Or looking at the clouds instead of the sky,” Rainbow interjected with a Cloudsdale idiom.

Night smiled, “Yeah, you’re right.”

Rainbow gave him an apologetic look. “I guess I’m guilty of that too. I was kinda hoping that the spelling and grammar were the biggest problems. Like, I knew those were issues, but I was hoping that Twilight had been wrong about everything else. And it sounds like there are a lot of things wrong...”

Night sighed. “No, it just seems that way because I can’t get around to actually talking about them.“ He frowned. “Rainbow, there are things you did well, and things you didn’t…”

Rainbow frowned in turn. Was he trying to avoid hurting her feelings? That was nice of him, but it also wasn’t what she needed. “Spit it out.”

“Well, for starters, there’s an issue with what in writing circles is known as the ‘show, don’t tell’ rule.“

Rainbows ears twitched. “Twilight said something about that she read my fic. What is it?”

“It's basically about describing - or ‘showing’ physical details rather than simply telling the reader that something happened. The thing is, you do that well with action scenes, just not anywhere else. To be honest, I wonder if you were so excited to get the action scenes out that you neglected the rest of the story.”

Rainbow chuckled nervously. “That… might be true…” She certainly was a mare of action.

“The good news with that, is that you already know how to show and not tell. It’s just a matter of actually doing it outside of action scenes.“

Rainbow smiled just for a moment at the indirect compliment. “Anything else?”

“Yeah, that Spectrum character…” He scrunched up his face. “You… really like hyping her up. I mean, you like hyping up Daring Do also, but it’s like you can’t decide which of the two is your favorite.”

Rainbow coughed. Night had apparently not caught on to just who “Spectrum” was based on. From the time of his voice “Well… I just really liked her in the new book, so I wanted to include her in this fic.”

Night chuckled. “You certainly like her a lot. Honestly, though, that can be a problem. An issue in a lot of fanfic, from what I’ve seen, is that they have a character around whom the story revolves around a little too much.”

Rainbow tilted her head. “I dunno, aren’t Daring Do books supposed to revolve around Daring Do?”

“Yes...however one can reach a point where it’s not just the story, but the world itself that revolves around a character. They succeed when they shouldn’t, everypony - or at least everypony the author likes - adores them, and even their personalities lack flaws. In general, they can do no wrong.” He waved a hoof. “Of course there are variations, but the general trend of this character type - known as a ‘Merry Zoo’ in fanfic circles - is that they’re too perfect.”

Rainbow tilted her head. “Too perfect?”

“Yeah.” Night frowned for a moment, looking at nothing in particular, before continuing. “The reason these ‘Merry Zoos’ are disliked so much is that, quite simply, they’re boring. When somepony who can’t fail is in a fight, or a race, or a collapsing temple, there’s no dramatic tension because there’s no risk that they’ll fail, at least not in a significant way.” He tapped his front hooves together. “Think of it this way… the first time you read Daring Do and the Quest for the Sapphire Statue, how did you feel while Daring Do was making her way through the temple, or caught in Ahuizotl’s trap?”

Rainbow grinned a little at the memory. “Tense… I couldn’t help but read more. I needed to find out what would happen!”

“Exactly!” Night grinned. “That’s the feeling you want to give the reader. However…” his grin faded, and his face returned to the somber expression he’d had previously. “If the outcome isn’t in doubt, if you have a character who’s too awesome, you don’t get that. And more than that, characters who are perfect are boring. You need some kind of conflict for a good story, and characters with no real flaws don’t have that. You can sometimes manage if the story is mostly about the action itself and not about the characters.” He waved a hoof dismissively, “Admittedly, Daring Do leans in that direction, but it does it well, and there’s nuance to it as well. I mean, personally, I find stories that are mostly about action to be boring, but Daring Do still my interest. That’s the beauty of it.”

Rainbow mulled his words over in her head, trying to ensure she was understanding him correctly. “So, to avoid that, you have flawed characters?”

“Sort of, it’s a little more complicated than that. You go too far with flaws and you wind up with a different kind of Merry Zoo, the kind whom everypony feels sorry for because they have it so rough…” He sighed. “Anyway, one of the typical Zoo traits is that all the other characters practically fawn over them, and in the hooves of a bad writer, a character can fail at everything and everypony still treats them like a princess.” He coughed. “Also! Not all flaws are ‘flaws,’ so to speak. A flaw needs to actually cause issues. If you have, say, a mare whose only flaw is ‘keeps falling in love with the wrong stallion’ ...in a story where the ‘right stallion’ is the protagonist...”

“Ugh…” The round of disgust came from both ponies.

“Anyway, a flaw needs to actually cause problems, to make things difficult. And that’s pretty much how you write a character who isn’t a boring, perfect character - they have issues. They have difficulties. They have to work hard to get what they want. And that’s what you need to get across.”

A moment passed, and then Night glanced away. “Sorry, kinda went on a tangent there…”

“It’s all right, I think I get the point.” Rainbow chuckled. “So you’re telling me I shouldn’t hype Daring Do and m- err, Spectrum up so much? Like…” She pursed her lips, trying to apply what she’d just heard… which was proving surprisingly difficult as she was still trying to process it all. This simply wasn’t her area of expertise. “Basically, I’m making it sound like they’re awesome and unbeatable, but even if they are it shouldn’t look like they are?”

“Kind of, yeah. You don’t need to tell the reader how awesome they are if you can show it, but… like I said, they need to be challenged. The most satisfying victories a character can have are the ones that they really had to earn, after all.”

Rainbow chuckled. “Just like in real life.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s right…” Night Rain smiled, but trailed off and said nothing more.

Rainbow cleared her throat. “...That’s not all, is it?“

“No, it’s not.” Night grit his teeth. “I think the biggest problem is that events in the story tend to happen because the plot wants them to happen, rather than because that’s what should happen.”

Rainbow tilted her head. “...What does that mean?”

Night frowned, his mouth twisting as though wrestling with words that wouldn’t quite come to mind. “Best way to describe it, is that what happens next isn’t what would logically result from what happened previously. What’s a good example…” he put a hoof to his chin, “...Ah, when Jetstream fights Daring Do the first time, he kind of just... wins. I guess that sometimes happens, realistically speaking, but… in Daring Do’s adventures, whenever she loses, or gets set back, it’s usually for a reason: she’s out numbered, or she encountered something she didn’t expect. Stuff like that. Jetstream is just better at that point in the story and it’s not really clear why, if that makes sense.”

He cleared his throat. “I think you’re basically yanking the story around on a chain, trying to get it where you want it to go by any means possible.” He then shrunk back, suddenly bashful again.

Rainbow was silent for a moment, before she spoke, slowly. “So… how do I fix that?”

Night shifted, saying nothing for a few moments, until Rainbow herself started to fidget. Finally, Night said, “...I don’t think that’s something I can just tell you, Rainbow.”

“What do you mean?” Night shrunk back at the sound of Rainbow’s voice, making her realize she’d unconsciously raised it.

“Well… I know how I would go about fixing it, but that might not be what you want. On some level, you really need to figure out what it is you want, and then…” his voice faltered a little, “...maybe I can help with that.”

He was silent for a long moment, and when he continued it was in a quiet voice. ”Ultimately it depends on you, and how much you’re willing to let me help. I can edit all day, but I think I’ll be most helpful if I can suggest things, and actually work with you in the creative department.” He blushed. “...If that’s not too, uh… out-of-bounds to ask.”

Rainbow frowned, her eyes unfocusing slightly as she grew deep in thought. Finally she took a breath and said, “I need to think about it. It looks like a lot more work than I thought it would be...”

Night smiled faintly. “I really do hope you finish it. It’s got potential, and I’m excited to see the finished result. Oh, one more thing, it might be useful to re-read the fic over, I might have mentioned that already. It’ll especially be helpful if you haven’t read it in a while. ...I assume you haven’t read it front-to-back since writing it?”

“No, I haven’t.” Rainbow winced. “Is it that obvious?”

“Not as much as you’d think. The story is mostly consistent, it’s just little things here and there. That, and…” He hesitated before waving a hoof. “Never mind.”

Rainbow narrowed her eyes at him. “Go on.”

Night shook his head. “It’s nothing!” His insistent tone, to Rainbow, seemed to be confirmation that he was trying to spare her feelings… something she did not need.

“Night Rain, something tells me that you’re trying to hold back because you don’t want to hurt my feelings. But something also tells me that that kind of thing won’t help me. I need to know everything wrong with this story, and that means you can’t be holding back.”

“Yeah… you’re right, it’s just… hard for me sometimes.” He sighed. “It really is nothing, I just… I was wondering, if you did try and re-read it, would you be able to understand it at times?”

Rainbow frowned, then looked over to the half-edited draft sitting on the table. After the third misspelling in a single sentence (in fact, her alter-ego’s name was the only word of two syllables or more that was spelled correctly), she replied “Probably not.” The rest of the page was covered in Night’s editing notes, making it even more illegible. She turned back to him, looking grim.

Night Rain seemed to sense her mood and the pessimistic thoughts going through her mind. “Rainbow, I really think you can do this… it’s just going to take a lot of work.”

Rainbow snorted. “I’ve heard that before.”

Night winced in reaction. “I mean it. I mean, it takes a lot of work to write a story… especially a longer one. Frankly, I wouldn’t have been able to write anything as long as this… if this is the first thing you’ve written, it’s pretty damn impressive!”

Rainbow couldn’t help but smile a little.

“Actually,” Night continued, “I’m kind of surprised you tried to match the length of a Daring Do book. Most writers would have started with a short story.”

Rainbow might normally have made a quip about how she wasn’t like most writers, but she wasn’t even sure whether that was a good thing or not. “Well… I just had an idea, and I just had to write it…”

Night smiled, but there was just a touch of… sadness? “I know that feeling… although, I’m a little envious that you managed to get all this written off of inspiration alone…”

“It was a really good idea.” She sighed. “At least, I thought it was.”

“It is.” Night smiled, reaching a hoof out to Rainbow, though of course the distance between the couch and her chair was too great for him to reach her. “You’ve just… got to keep at it. It gets better.”

“Maybe…” Rainbow sighed, stretching. “But not right now. I’ve been cooped up inside for too long over the past week… I need to go out and do something.” She slid off the chair and onto her hooves. “You wanna hang out with me until you need to leave for your train?”

Night’s eyebrows raised a little, before he dismounted the couch and stood on his hooves. “All right… there’s just one thing though.”

“What’s that?” Rainbow tilted her head.

“When we first started working together, you said snacks were on you. But we haven’t had a lot of snacks while working…” He smirked. “I believe I could use some snacks for the trip…”

Rainbow rolled her eyes. “All right, but you’d better work hard when you come back to Ponyville!”

Rainbow waved at the departing train, while Night simply smiled back at her as he grew more and more distant, until finally his face was no longer distinguishable in the passenger car window. Once he was gone, she sighed, looking over and up to her flying home. Speaking of hard work… she thought ruefully, before swiftly taking flight.

Once she was in her house, she flew through the rooms until she reached her bedroom, and landed next to her wall-mounted calendar. Let’s see… do I have any days off when I can just sit down and read?

There was… however, it was just a few days before a date that was circled and labeled, ‘Wonderbolts Reserve Test.” Of course… another challenge that involved skills she wasn’t good at. She groaned in frustration. Why did everything she wanted in life require her to do eggheaded stuff like read or study? Why couldn’t everything be solved by pushing herself physically, by flying as hard as she could? That was what she was best at in life, and better than any other pony in Equestria. Why wasn’t it enough?

She didn’t want to think about that… so she trotted out her front door, dove off the landing, and sailed through the sky to take her mind off things.

Author's Note

This was probably the hardest chapter to write so far... or at least it feels like it. But finally, we are done with Night's first visit!

7: In Review

“How under Celestia’s sun did Night Rain get through this?”

Rainbow glared at her own story as it sat on her living room table, as though she could intimidate it with her eyes into becoming a better story. It wasn’t that it was unreadable to her - accustomed to her own poor spelling and grammar, she could read it just fine… but on second inspection, she could definitely see how other ponies would have problems with it. For that matter, she was amazed Twilight had gotten through it without the logical part of her brain - aka, almost all of it - imploding.

Actually, it wasn’t the spelling and grammar that bothered her - it was the plot. Night Rain was right, there were definitely parts that, to say the least, seemed simplistic. It seemed, in retrospect, foalish to make some of the decisions she’d made.

She didn’t like her work and was having serious self-doubt about her potential as a writer… and yet, she hadn’t thrown away the draft. She knew the work still had potential, and she knew both Night Rain and Twilight felt the same way. Besides, the thought of making this story into the best Daring Do fanfic ever (even if she didn't have anything to compare it to but the Daring Do books themselves) was irresistible, even if she weren’t determined to not give up.

And yet… she didn’t know what to do next. She’d tried and failed… but she knew she could improve, that her skill as it stood was not the best she could be. She just didn’t know how to improve. She was caught in a place where her story was too bad to publish, yet too good to abandon.

In a way, it would have been easier if it was a total failure.

Rainbow finally took her eyes off her draft and leaned back in her chair. How does a pony get better at writing? When I want to get better at something I usually just practice and train… would that work here? She sat up and took flight, heading for the room where her typewriter was located. Well, it's the best idea I’ve got… I'll make it work if I have to!

Moments later she was seated at her makeshift writing desk, staring at the typewriter that Twilight had lent her. Her mind felt as blank as the paper. She sat still for several minutes - possibly breaking her record for “time spent sitting without fidgeting” - before she growled irritably. What am I even supposed to write about?

Well, what kind of things did she want to write about? Daring Do, of course, but she felt it would be odd to write about Daring Do when she was doing this little writing exercise to get better at the other Daring Do fanfiction. Maybe it was a valid option, but… she just didn’t want to write about that right now. But she really didn’t have any better ideas.

Clearly, she needed to pay a visit to somepony more knowledgeable about books than her…

“Twilight!” Rainbow rapped on the door with her hoof, too impatient to care if anypony heard her. “You there?”

The door was enveloped in a purple glow before it opened, and from the other side of the doorway Twilight gave Rainbow a smile. “Good afternoon, Rainbow. What’s the occasion?”

“I, uh…” Rainbow scrunched her muzzle, trying to figure out how to phrase things. “Let’s talk inside.” She walked forward, with Twilight backing up to give her room to enter. Once inside, she cleared her throat and said, “I… need a recommendation.”

Twilight tilted her head, brow furrowed slightly. “What kind?”

“Well… I was thinking that maybe I could write something else, and that might help me improve my big project somehow.” She reached a hoof up the back of her neck and scratched at it. “...I just don’t know what.”

Twilight grinned. “Perhaps what you need is inspiration!” Her horn lit up, and from across the library a dozen different books slid off their shelves and flew towards the pair. “I’ve always felt your reading tastes were a bit narrow, especially if you plan on writing fanfiction. I’m glad you like Daring Do so much, of course, but it might help if you were to broaden your literary horizons!”

Rainbow stood still, flatly staring at Twilight rather than the books orbiting around her. “Really?”

“Yes!” Twilight nodded, still grinning. “Reading multiple styles of writing will help you to become aware of different techniques, and help you become a better writer! It will, of course, also enrich your life by giving you more to read!”

Rainbow had to resist rolling her eyes - of course Twilight saw reading as a good thing in and of itself. She probably read the encyclopedia for fun as a foal. Still, Rainbow wasn’t going to turn down help at a time like this. “Well, what do you got?”

“Thankfully, I’ve already prepared a list of books similar to Daring Do’s style that you might like. I’m certain you’ll like them… I mean, I do have a good track record for giving recommendations, after all!” Twilight winked, and brought one of the books up to Rainbow’s face - the title read The Collected Adventures of Roanan the Barbarian. “This one’s a bit older, but it really set the standard for the genre of fantastic adventure stories for the past half-century!” Twilight then drew it back, immediately sending another book to take its place in front of Rainbow for her to view: Adventures in the Eternal City. “This one is probably the closest to Daring Do in premise, although the writing style is-”

“Thanks, I’ll take it." Rainbow reached a hoof out to swipe the book from the air, mostly to cut Twilight off - there was no telling how long she’d ramble if allowed. “Just this one for now, don't want to overload myself.” If I don't like it, I’ll return it in a day or two, she thought. …If I do like it, I’ll probably finish it in a day or two.

“Excellent!" Twilight smiled, levitating the books over into a neat pile on the center table. “I’m glad you're finally expanding your reading horizons, Rainbow! Just make sure you set aside enough time for…”

Rainbow tucked the book under a foreleg. “Don’t worry, I won’t forget to practice my skills - flying or writing!” She flashed Twilight a smirk, then took flight, pausing only to open the door to the library, before continuing on her way, completely heedless of whatever else Twilight was going to say.

A week later, Rainbow was curled up on her couch, reading. The book she held in her hooves was not the first, or even the second book she had borrowed from Twilight, although she had enjoyed the previous two books quite a bit. She was now on the third, and there was no doubt in her mind that it would soon be replaced by a fourth.

Rainbow finally set the book down on the table and stretched, looking out her expansive living room windows. The day was still young, but she needed to stretch her wings…

Meanwhile, the typewriter sat on her desk, its pages blank. Over in her bedroom, the calendar had the next day circled with the date of the Wonderbolts History Exam. Not that Rainbow was worried… she’d get around to studying, and writing… after she had some fun flying.

Author's Note

I actually finished this months ago, but didn't want to release just this chapter seeing as how it was essentially filler. Unfortunately, writing block (and getting a job) hit me, so the next chapter had been... set aside.

Ideally, I get can working on this again, however!