Ace Flier

Chapters

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 9

Chapter 1

This should have been a fun night, but instead, it was quickly turning into one of the more boring nights that Rainbow Dash had experienced with the team. When Spitfire had told her that the team was going to be having a fun night clubbing throughout Cloudsdale, Rainbow Dash had pictured a very different night. To be fair, it had started with a pretty fun set of bars, and Dash had enjoyed a fair number of spirits at each one. However, the night had taken a turn when they trotted into the last place on Spitfire's list.

Spitfire and Soarin had both been incredibly eager to go to the undercloud club, and one look at the sign over the door had told Rainbow Dash everything she needed to know about it. Rainbow Dash wasn't an idiot, and it would be difficult to describe her as a prude. She knew exactly what happened in places like this. She knew that the dancing mares and stallions on the stage waving their rumps at the crowd were going to attract some attention., and she also knew that personal dances were often a lot more than just dances.

A part of her was actually surprised that there was a lot of talent being displayed on stage. Some of the upper body strength demonstrated by one of the younger unicorn mares was downright impressive. However, despite the show, it did little to keep her interest. Rainbow Dash sighed as she slowly swirled the cider in her glass. Passively watching the amber liquid's surface smoothly spin as she ignored the world around herself. This was a whole new level of boredom, and yet it somehow was the most expensive place they had gone to yet. In Rainbow Dash's book wearing weird clothes and gyrating did little to make up for the drinks being twice the price they should have been.

Rainbow Dash was far from sold on the idea of the place, if she wanted to see a mare shove their plot into her view she'd just walk anywhere with Pinkie Pie. Sometimes Rainbow Dash wondered if the pink pony even knew what it meant to be modest. Of course, she was aware that Pinkie didn't actually mean anything by it, and she did seem to only do it when they were just with their friends. Either way, it did mean that pony butts were not something Rainbow Dash was all that drawn to.

So far, It had been an hour of waiting at the gentlemare's club and she still didn't really find anything redeeming about the place at all. She was definitely not one for lavish locations, but she was discovering that there was actually a way to not reach her incredibly low standards. She eyed up the tacky magiLed strips behind the bar and frowned at the suspiciously sticky floor. Many glasses of cider had clearly lost their lives to the floor beneath her hooves. She hoped it was only cider and beer.

"Having fun," Soarin appeared from beside her, throwing an arm around her as he settled down beside her. Rainbow Dash couldn't help wrinkling her nuzzle as the strong smell of the sweating stallion hit her. "If you want your own private dance with one of them, I'll cover it. Interested?"

Rainbow blinked. Normally Soarin wasn't this willing to spend bits, but he did seem to be in a very good mood. "Maybe later," She responded her tone a lot meeker than she intended. A dance really did not sound all that interesting at the moment. "Just enjoying my cider right now." She held up the glass as if he required proof.

"All good didn't want to pressure you," Soarin responded as he waved down one of the mares to order himself a drink. "I just wanted to make sure that we properly celebrate you finally joining us on tour next week. Well, that and the newbies joining the team. We've got to make sure that you all feel properly welcome."

"I'm sure that we are all feeling very welcome after this night," Dash responded before taking a gulp of her cider. Sure, she knew that it was a drink designed for sipping, but where was the fun in that. "Thunderlane looks like he has been having a very welcome night."

"He's had quite a few private shows this evening." Soarin chuckled as he took a sip of his newly ordered drink. A sip that was followed by a frown. "Okay, the lager at the last bar was better than this."

Dash just gave a shallow nod and returned her focus to her drink. Then a thought occurred to her.

"Doesn't Thunderlane have a marefriend?" Dash muttered to herself as she stared into her now empty glass. She wondered where the sub-par cider had gone. She swore that, along with being over-priced, the drinks here were smaller as well. Either that or she was drinking them faster.

"I wouldn't bring that up with either of them," Spitfire interrupted as she sat down on Rainbow's other side. "He's only buying dances anyway. No happy endings... I think? Either way, that's something that's between them. So, I wouldn't get involved."

"Point made," Rainbow faked a smile, not really liking the idea herself. She wondered to herself why Thunderlane had so little self-control that he would risk making his marefriend angry just for a dance. It's just a dance. Why risk ire just to see some mare shake their rump? "I have to say, the drinks here are a lot of bits."

"It's pretty common for a place like this," Soarin told her with a laugh. "Most of the clientele are willing to burn a few bits to enjoy the other features." He paused to glance over at one of the hostess mares.

However, before the conversation could become any more awkward, Spitfire trotted over. She gave Soarin a friendly shove with her rump.

"Speaking of bits, did Soarin remember to tell you that we have a party fund to cover your costs for a private dance or two? '' Spitfire asked, looking over her sunglasses and raising an eyebrow at Soarin as she sat down on Rainbow's other side.

"Of course, I did." Soarin quickly interrupted before I could respond. "Rainbow just wanted to finish up her drink before she went for a dance of her own. Right?"

"Yeah, he told me." Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes at Soarin's worry. She wasn't about to tell Spitfire that Soarin had neglected to mention that HQ was footing the bill when he offered. Rainbow Dash glanced down at her glass and grimaced as she remembered that it was now empty. Groaning, Rainbow decided that she may as well try to be a little more honest with them. "I'm not sure I'll go for it though. It's not really my scene, you know?"

"Come on, they have mares and stallions here," Spitfire told her with a weirdly wide grin. "They might not have any alicorns, but I'm sure you just need to step out of your comfort zone a little and try it. I had fun."

"Nah, it's fine." Rainbow waved a hoof before yawning, making an effort to ignore the alicorn comment. Sometimes it was easier to just pretend that she didn't hear. "It's getting late so I need to head off anyway."

"You sure?" Spitfire asked with a frown. "If it's about the drinks, I'm sure the fund can cover a round or three for you."

"Maybe next time, I've gotta fly. I have a friend who needs me for something earlyish tomorrow." Dash paused as she checked the time, wincing a little as she realised what time the clock actually said. "Okay, a friend who needs me for something later today, I guess. I didn't realise it was getting that late."

Dash pushed away her empty glass and pulled herself back off the seat. The world shifted awkwardly around her as the alcohol in her system made itself known. She took a careful breath before turning back to the other two. "I'll see you next week for training."

Soarin and Spitfire just gave her back a wave as she trotted outside. She stepped out into the cool air of Cloudsdale. The night was quiet, few pegasi liked to be up this late in the evening. Rainbow frowned, wondering if it counted as late night or early morning by this point. Either way, her sleep cycle was not going to enjoy this night.

Rainbow cast her eyes back to the club, frowning as she eyed the rather tacky exterior. She had been rather surprised that Spitfire had led the team there to celebrate. It was not the type of venue that Dash had ever seen herself going to. Sure, there had been some level of curiosity at what actually happened in them, but that curiosity was now very much sated.

She was more than a little disappointed by the reality. It was just a bar with overpriced subpar drinks with staff that liked to get a little too close. Even with some impressive dancing, Rainbow Dash could admit to herself that she had not enjoyed it. To be fair to Spitfire, it also hadn't been all that bad. Though the mares and stallions there were a little weirdly insistent at times, at least they backed off after Rainbow Dash told them off.

Sighing to herself, Dash began the long trot back to the team's hotel. Staying out so late was not the best decision she had ever made. Unfortunately, Rainbow Dash's next day was not one to stay hiding under the covers recovering from a proper hangover. She promised a friend that she would be in Canterlot to support them, so she was going to make sure to be there. Even if it meant that she would regret every single wingbeat in the morning. Loyalty was a curse at times.

So it was with a groan and a frown that Rainbow Dash curled up in the hotel room. She was already wishing that she had drunk less. Unfortunately, drunk Dash was not the best at counting her drinks, so sleepy Dash had to deal with it. Morning Dash was not going to be a happy pegasus. She rolled over onto her side, ignoring the strain she was putting on her wings and tried to sleep.

However, when one tries to sleep it often leads to them being entirely unable to. Rainbow Dash groaned and rolled over again, hoping that her other side would be more comfortable. However, there was no luck. She could feel the evening's drinks still in her stomach as she once again vowed to not drink heavily again. A promise she had made many times, that she knew she would never actually keep. Tipsy Dash was not very good at keeping her promises it seemed.

Time passed as she tried to will herself to sleep, with little success. She tiredly looked over at the clock and sighed when she realised that it was only an hour or two away from sunrise. She briefly considered going to Canterlot and begging for a few more hours to sleep, before giving up. Princess Twilight might owe her a favour or seven, but Rainbow Dash knew that no favour would ever stop Twilight from being perfectly punctual.

Rainbow Dash rolled onto her back and stared at Cloudsdale through the hotel window, her mind deciding that now was the perfect time to think about everything she had done wrong that evening. The night had been a bit of a disaster. Dash had wanted to show that she was a mature mare who could hang with them. Unfortunately, she knew that she had utterly failed at it. She just hadn't liked being at the club. There was no doubt in her mind that the others probably thought she was some silly child who got skittish around a few scantily clad ponies. She didn't even know if they were wrong.

Rainbow Dash huffed and rubbed her forehead with a hoof. However, the annoying pounding refused to go away. She was going to have a horrible headache. She checked the clock again, this time managing to only yelp a little as she saw the time. She didn't have time to keep worrying about her stupidity from that night. Her bed was calling and she needed her rest now.

So, it was with no small amount of reservations still spinning in her mind, that Rainbow Dash curled up in the hotel's soft bed and closed her eyes. Eventually the quiet lulled her into a proper sleep, pushing away her worries for the night.

The next morning, and after a rushed flight, Rainbow Dash was shocked to realise that she had achieved the impossible. She had managed to finally find a place that was more awkward to be at than that gentlemare's club. She was sitting surrounded by hundreds of ridiculously gussied-up mares and stallions. Each looked like they had spent hours preparing every strand in their manes to produce the perfect shimmer. Meanwhile here she was sitting in just her coat with a pair of wings that had gone a week without preening and a mane that was still windswept from the flight.

Canterlot fashion shows were the absolute peak of pony fashion, and Rarity was going to be presenting some dresses as a part of some fall fashion group. Rainbow Dash wasn't all that clear on the details, but she knew the important part. Rarity wanted her friends to come to see her accomplishments, so Dash made sure that she turned up. However, that didn't mean that she had to like it.

She was already getting some strange looks from the mare next to her, she was staring way too much at Dash. Admittedly Rainbow Dash was not a mare that minded attention, but the mare wasn't looking with eyes of adoration at her awesome flying. There was something else that Rainbow Dash could not quite recognise.

"Mare Jacobs is the peak of culture, don't you agree?" the mare asked Rainbow Dash, leaning closer to her.

"I literally know nothing about fashion," Rainbow Dash sighed in response as she checked the setlist to try to work out how much longer she would have to wait. She was already regretting not having a decent excuse to skip out on the rest of the day. "I'm just here for a friend."

"Is she a model in the show?" the mare asked, though she was more interested in looking at Rainbow than the question being answered. "Your paramour, perhaps?"

"She is a dressmaker," Rainbow paused as she tried to work out the second question, before giving up. "I have no idea about that paramount thingy?"

"You're fun," The mare laughed, though Rainbow couldn't help cringing at how false it came across. "Has she captured your heart, or are you still on the hunt for hers?"

"We're friends," Rainbow rolled her eyes, as she finally found Rarity's name a considerable distance down the list. There was going to be a bit of a wait. Rainbow briefly considered taking a quick nap but knew that she would never hear the end of it if she slept through Rarity's section. May as well try to make small talk to distract herself. "What about you, here for a friend?"

"You're curious about if I'm a free mare?" The mare blinked her own eyes a few times. "Why, I keep my horizons open. I'm just waiting for a nice mare to fall for me, or at least sit beside me."

"Any luck with that?" Rainbow Dash asked with a raised eyebrow. "Most of my friends seem to think that I would need to actually put the effort in to find somepony. I still think I can prove them wrong. For a pony as awesome as me, I don't try, I succeed."

"My luck in the past hasn't been that great, but I think my luck has just changed." The mare responded, moving closer to Rainbow Dash until they were practically touching. "Are you interested in helping me?"

"Is there somepony that you have your eye on?" Rainbow asked, looking back at the fashion show's runway to try and gauge how far through the show they were. "I mean I'm here to see Rarity's stuff, but if I have time, I'm sure I can help you find yourself a mare, I guess. Are you interested in somepony specific?"

"Surely you can guess what I am interested in?" The mare rested a foreleg around Rainbow Dash's shoulder and leant in close, her cheek practically pressing against Dash's own. "A mare who is daring, somepony who is sporting, and has a colourful mane. A cute Wonderbolt perhaps who is also the best stunt flyer on the team. Something tells me that you might know somepony who fits that description."

"Could you not do that? You should ask before doing something like that with a stranger." Rainbow Dash responded, frowning as she pulled the mare's arm back off of her and leant away. She wasn't the biggest fan of random strangers being all touchy-feely. The mare at least had the good graces to look somewhat chastised for her actions. "Anyway, sorry to say that I am at least eighty per cent sure that Spitfire is kind of taken. Most of the Wonderbolts are, so you're probably not going to have much luck."

"What about you?" The mare asked quietly. "You said that you were an unattached mare?"

"Meh, the tour is coming up. Got to dedicate myself to the team and be the best. Dating co-workers when you're focusing on work probably isn't exactly a smart way to earn your way onto the team." Rainbow Dash shrugged, as she checked the setlist again. Realising that her wait was finally over, she looked over at the runway to see the tell-tale flash of Rarity's purple mane from backstage. "Finally, time to pretend to enjoy Rarity's prissy dresses."

She quickly sat up in her seat and got ready to wave to Rarity. After all, she had to make sure that Rarity understood the sacrifice that Rainbow Dash was making. A full morning surrounded by fashion stuff was something she would only do for a friend, she even had to get up only a few hours after the sun.

The actual dresses on display looked ridiculously uncomfortable to Rainbow Dash. She watched the third mare in Rarity's line-up nearly fall over from the clearly cumbersome clothing. Thankfully the other ponies there were far too distracted by the extravagance on display and there was a crowd of smiles. After barely a minute had passed, they were all gone and Rarity had ducked back behind the curtain.

Rainbow Dash sighed, slumping back in her chair now that she no longer needed to pretend to be interested in the prissy nonsense before her. However, her chance to relax was abruptly ruined.

"Ah, you actually made it!" A familiar voice called out from beside her. Rainbow Dash turned and saw Rarity trotting over to her. Rarity didn't hesitate before taking a seat right beside her. "Have you enjoyed the show so far?"

"It's not exactly my sort of scene, yunno," Rainbow Dash didn't really want to tell Rarity that she was bored out of her mane. Rarity actually cared about this stuff, and Rainbow was trying to be tactful these days. Though she did sometimes wonder why she bothered when every other pony in the room could clearly see through her. "It's been okay so far."

"Just, okay?" Rarity looked away from the runway and frowned at Dash.

"She has been enjoying herself just fine," The mare from Rainbow Dash's other side interrupted, holding out a perfectly manicured hoof to Rarity as she leant over Rainbow Dash. Naturally, Rainbow's response was to shove the mare away with a glare.

"It was fine," Rainbow Dash huffed as she did her best to stop glaring at the annoying mare who just didn't seem to understand the concept of personal space.

Rarity sighed, "I suppose the runway is not your scene, but I thought you would enjoy some of the other things on display here? Some of the stallions are just a whole new tier of yummy."

"If you say so?" Rainbow Dash replied, not really sure how to respond to something like that.

"There were also some nice mares," Rarity paused, "you make it rather difficult to know which you prefer you know."

Rainbow Dash didn't bother even responding, wishing that the awkwardness would end.

Chapter 2

An hour later the two of them were waiting in one of the more upper-class restaurants in Canterlot. Twilight was running late, giving them a while to admire the questionable decor. Everything in there was clearly driven to emulate the royal castle as much as possible. Of course, Rarity and Rainbow Dash had spent a lot of time in actual royal castles over their years, so the place felt a lot tackier than either of them was really expecting.

Rainbow preferred it over the previous night's gaudy club, but she was still disappointed by how close they were.

Still, it was the best-rated place in Canterlot to eat, and with Twilight hopefully making time between royal duties it seemed like the only reasonable place to go. Rarity was already questioning her choices. Rainbow was at least willing to wait until she saw what was on the menu before complaining.

They eventually did get to sit down and look over the menu. Rainbow managed to not cheer too loudly when she saw that there were hayburgers on the menu. Sure, they may have been in the foal section, but Rainbow was taking her victories where she could. Unfortunately, Rarity was less interested in the menu and more interested in the other ponies there.

"Well, he has a nice hindquarter, don't you think?" Rarity nudged Rainbow Dash and gestured to a rather heavily built stallion. Personally, Rainbow Dash didn't really see what was special about them, they were just flanks. They didn't look any bigger or smaller than normal.

"They look fine to me," Rainbow Dash responded as non-committedly as she could, not really seeing it. It was just another butt, the same as all the others Rarity had complemented. However, Rainbow also knew that saying nothing in response was not an option. Rarity would probably assume she was into mares again if she didn't at least pretend to show interest. "Anyway, how much longer are we waiting for Twilight?"

"Oh, don't rush it Rainbow," Rarity playfully chastised her, "we have a few minutes to admire the scenery..."

"What scenery?" Dash muttered to herself as she looked back at the door, hoping that Twilight would turn up soon. She did not want to have to listen to Rarity pointlessly swoon over every stallion with a pulse. Though she did notice that Rarity was pointing out some of the mares as well. None of them was an awesome Wonderbolt or stunt pony, so Dash really could not bring herself to care.

"What about the mare near the back corner?"

"She's fine I guess," Rainbow sighed as she looked back at the entrance in the hope the wait would end. There was only one way that would happen. "Though I think I'd prefer to see Twilight so this wait ends."

"Really?" Rarity leaned closer with a smirk plastered across her muzzle, "you're not the only mare with an interest in her."

Rainbow Dash just groaned before putting her head onto the table with a bump, though she did resist the urge to throw something at Rarity. This was not the first time that their conversations had somehow strayed into talking about which of their friends were attractive. Personally, Rainbow Dash wasn't all that interested in talking about which of them had the best rump, especially when her own wasn't exactly top tier. Maybe if she had a top-tier tushy like Rarity it would change things, but Rainbow's boney behind was far from that.

"Speak and she appears," Rarity nudged Rainbow and gestured to the entryway. Rainbow wasn't all that surprised to see Twilight awkwardly walking in, flanked by a fair amount of ponies trying to get her attention. Twilight still had not fully worked out how to tell ponies no, so somehow the short few pony lengths took nearly a minute to get to their table.

"I've been the ruler for almost a year, you'd think that they were used to it by now," Twilight mused as she finally settled down beside them. "Anyway, it's good to see that not much has changed with you two at least."

"We're still as awesome as ever!" Dash smirked, reaching out for a hoof bump. Twilight quickly returned it with an eye roll.

"A hoof bump isn't how you are meant to greet royalty" Rarity tried to chastise Rainbow Dash, though the smile on her face made it clear that she didn't actually care.

"Better than when the dragon delegate tried to pretend that a grope was an appropriate greeting." Twilight groaned. "I nearly teleported that dragoness into space when she tried."

"Knowing Ember, that delegate is going to wish you had sent them to the sun," Dash chuckled.

"She didn't actually manage, right?" Rarity asked with a frown. "You know that isn't okay."

"Years of adventuring have made me very good at acting on instinct," Twilight confirmed, "It's not like they were the first to act inappropriately around me. The fun of being the newest ruler is that you need to teach every delegate that you aren't to be trifled with. You'd think after taking down as many villains as we have, they'd figure out. Somehow, they need me to point out the blazingly obvious. Did you know that Blueblood still doesn't seem to get it? At least this time went better than the splice incident."

"The what?" Rarity asked as her eyebrows nearly raised high enough to get lost in her mane. She knew enough about magic to know that a splice was never a good thing.

"It was an accident, "Twilight admitted with a blush, "I was working on a linear transformation of a magic matrix to produce a duplication matrix, and I accidentally included it on the teleport charm."

"I have no idea what any of that means" Rainbow Dash flatly pointed out with a bemused smirk, "Do you feel like dumbing it down a bit."

"I might have accidentally made them into discrete pieces, temporarily of course"

"Now that sounds like a cool story, princess." Rainbow lent closer, eager to hear. "How many pieces did they-"

"Right, I think it's time for a topic change" Rarity interrupted, knowing better than to let the two of them get stuck on such a macabre topic. "Has anything changed for you, Twilight? Is the Canterlot castle treating you well?"

"I'm only here every second week, so it's been fine," Twilight told her. "The guards were a bit of a change though. What about you, Rarity? Any particular nobles or royalty caught your eye this time around?"

"There is one royal that I might have my eye on, but it's still early days. You?

"There's a particular mare that I've got my eye on right now," Twilight admitted with a blush. "She may not officially be a noble, but she seems like a noble to me."

"Sounds positively scandalous," Rarity teased, "the ruler of Equestria snapping up a non-noble to join her. What would the nobility think?"

"Candace got away with it without much drama," Twilight chuckled, "it's not like I particularly listen to the nobility anyway."

"What about you, Rainbow?" Rarity asked, a smirk on her lips as she looked over at her. "What stories do you have of past lovers? Anyone we would know? Maybe one of the Wonderbolts showing a bit of tail?"

"My past?" Rainbow winced; she had never been with any pony. Well, she hadn't really been with any pony romantically. However, she had another mare who tried to date her at flight camp, though Rainbow hadn't really understood how to reciprocate it. Fluttershy and her had also sort of tried something, but it had stopped before it really started. Time to bend the truth a little. "I don't really have any interesting stories. They all pretty much go the same way, we tried to date, but it didn't work out, and we're still friends. Nothing really all that exciting to say."

Rainbow Dash was proud of herself. She had stopped the questions and hadn't lied. Though it was clear that Rarity would believe what she wanted. It wasn't like Rainbow Dash could have been entirely honest and just said that she had never dated and never really had that desire to connect with anypony yet. That would just bring along even more annoying questions. Questions that she was already getting far too often from the weather team.

"I wish I had nothing exciting going on," Twilight mused, financially bothering to open her menu. "Every day seems to be filled with a lot, and the stress has not been a small problem. Without Rarity spending so much time up here as a distraction, I'm not sure how good I would be right now."

"While I do feel proud that I could be a good stress reliever for you," Rarity replied as she waved over a waiter, "I would hope that things would be improving for you."

"They have been getting better," Twilight relented, "It's just been so long since I was able to spend a lot of time with the five of you apart from our monthly meetups. Add that with the new delegates trying to make me marry them. It's been a mess."

"I'm sure they recognise that they would have to compete with me." Rarity huffed, "that heart is mine. No annoying noble is going to try and take it from me."

"If it was a competition then you would have already won." Twilight smiled sweetly at Rarity.

"Wait, what?" Rainbow Dash cut in; the other two mares seemingly surprised that she was still there. "Are we still joking around, or is there actually something between you two?"

"Whatever gave you that idea?" Rarity asked as she not too subtlety reached out for Twilight's hoof. Twilight instead swatted it away with an eye roll.

"Rarity?" Twilight did not sound all that impressed.

"Okay, I suppose I should stop messing with Dash before the poor dear gets too distressed." However, just as Rarity was going to tell Dash what was going on, they were interrupted by the presence of the waiter. With a lifted eyebrow shot at Dash, Rarity quickly switched her attention over to the waiter, leaving Dash just to wonder what was going on between Rarity and Twilight.

Her first thought was that they were just becoming closer friends, or potentially trying out some sort of friends with benefits deal. Dash had seen that Fluttershy and Pinkie had been doing something similar to that second option for quite a while, so it wouldn't be that surprising. However, something told her that there was something much more intriguing going on here.

"Was there something you wanted?" The waiter's voice shoved itself into Dash's mental musings, throwing her thoughts away. Scowling, she pulled out the menu and gestured to what she wanted. "I'm sorry ma'am but that is the foal's section."

"I want a hayburger and fries." Dash snorted, "I don't really care if it is in the foal's section. It's not like it matters."

With a forced smile, the waiter took her order and quickly trotted off faster than was strictly necessary.

"Well, that was awkward," Dash muttered, before turning back to the others. "So, what is this secret?"

"Surely you can guess?" Rarity teased, leaning over to Twilight and giving her a quick nuzzle.

"I mean I have a few ideas about what it could be, but most of them are probably offensive" Dash shrugged, before deciding that she may as well just say it anyway. Offending Rarity was fun anyway. "I'd say that you two have some sort of friends with benefits going on like the others. Am I close?"

Rarity blinked twice before glaring at Rainbow Dash. Twilight just lifted an eyebrow, clearly having no idea what either of them was talking about.

"Okay, let's pretend that I was joking and my first real guess is that you two are dating," Rainbow Dash backpedalled as quickly as she could. Angry Rarity wasn't as funny as embarrassed Rarity. "Is that close?"

"Honest, both are accurate enough," Twilight responded, a slight blush tinting the edges of her cheeks, "though I probably wouldn't have said it quite like that. "

"Darling, 'dating' and 'friends with benefits' are two very different things." Rarity sighed, staring at the ceiling. Clearly, she was regretting ever starting the mess, or at least that was what Dash hoped she was thinking. Rainbow Dash could only hope Rarity learnt such a lesson. "Twilight and I are indeed in the middle ground between friends and more. Taking those first few glorious steps towards being together."

"So, we are not friends with benefits at the moment?" Twilight asked, clearly confused. "Friendship has a lot of very clearly defined benefits, Rarity. You can't just say that our friendship is entirely devoid of anything positive coming from it."

Rarity groaned before leaning over and whispering something into her ear. Twilight's eyes shot wide.

"Okay, we are definitely not that." Twilight quickly amended as Dash couldn't stop herself from laughing. "Just to be very clear, Rarity and I are dating. However, after talking, we both realised that it was a bigger thing than just us. We really needed to talk to you about what you think before we take it any further."

"You're literally the ruler over all of Equestria," Dash told her as the laughter finally subsided. Her chest was nearly sore from it. "You don't really need to involve anyone else in decisions about your personal life. You don't need to talk to anypony but the one you want to date."

"That's why we want to talk to you," Rarity amended, "are you currently dating anyone?"

"The Canterlot times has been running full-page spreads on how I'm currently the most eligible bachelorette in all of Equestria," Rainbow complained, "so I think you can probably guess the answer to that question."

"So, you are..." Rarity asked carefully.

Rainbow Dash groaned, wishing that Rarity would just take the hint, "I am not currently dating any pony, and it seems that everything in life is trying to remind me of that."

"Do you want to try it?" Twilight asked, a soft smile on her face that she was doing a very poor job at hiding. "I think Rarity and I could possibly have a little proposal for you."

"What the ruler of all of Equestria is dancing around is that Twilight and I have realised that what we feel for each other, is what we feel for all of our group," Rarity told Rainbow Dash, reaching out a forehoof and resting it on Rainbow's shoulder. Rainbow raised an eye at the gesture but made no move to stop Rarity. "The six of us have been through a lot together, and we realised that we are linked at a far deeper level than just mere friendship. So it would feel incomplete for only Twilight and I to be together without the rest. So we wanted to form a herd, with you and the others."

The silence was the only response that met Rarity's query. Dash opened her mouth to respond, but no words managed to actually come out. This meal was not in any way going the way she thought it would go.

"I... I don't know," Rainbow Dash managed to pull herself together to actually force out a response. A large part of her was actually rather happy that the others were interested in her in that way. Unfortunately, a significantly larger part of her knew that something was wrong with the idea, she just wasn't sure what it was. All she could work out was that she was not entirely comfortable with the idea of dating her friends, not yet at least. Though, another part of her was curious about how it would work.

"You don't need to rush to make a decision now," Rarity at least understood that Rainbow's silence was not rejection. "We just wanted you to be aware of what is going on and that we would gladly have you join us. We aren't putting any pressure on you to decide now. We just want you to know that the offer is there, and it is a very enthusiastic offer."

Twilight frowned "I hope you're okay with being in a herd, we probably should have also checked that you're into mares."

Rarity rolled her eyes. "I've seen her staring at my rump enough to know that is not an issue."

"Where have I been staring?" Dash asked herself in confusion.

"It isn't an issue, right?" Twilight asked nervously.

An awkward silence hit, with Twilight clearly being the most uncomfortable out of the three of them. Rainbow Dash knew that Twilight was only a few seconds of panic before she reached for a the inevitably hidden scroll of notes hidden under a wing. Taking pity on her friend, Rainbow Dash decided to step in before things got any more awkward.

"Those are not an issue, probably." Rainbow spluttered out, "I am just not really sure about what I should say. I'm definitely flattered. Just not really sure what to say past that. This is kind of sudden and I-."

"You don't need to say anything." Twilight interrupted, reaching out a hoof and resting it on Rainbow Dash's foreleg, "we did spring this on you without warning. So, we both understand that there isn't much-"

"It's not that." Rainbow Dash cut Twilight off, holding up a hoof to silence Rarity as well. "I don't have an answer right now. I'm not against the idea. It is interesting to me, I guess? That's not really the right way to say it. Look, yeah, I just need some time to really, you know, figure it out and stuff."

"So, are we okay?" Rarity asked hesitantly.

"Only if we now switch to talking about anything else." Rainbow wanted to just move on from this mess.

"We could always talk about getting my dresses on the runway," Rarity offered.

"I would've preferred to talk about Soarin finally managing to pull off the filly dash." Rainbow muttered half-heartedly before relenting and letting Rarity talk about the trials of getting her work accepted. Rainbow did her best to comment and pretend to pay attention, but the truth was that she was lost in thought.

The last few months had been some of the most frustrating of her life, as every one of her friends and work colleagues seemed to pair up and find their special somepony. To hear that Rarity and Twilight were practically going out was not something that she wanted to really hear. Sure, the impact was lessened to know that they wanted to include her in it. But in some ways that made everything even more uncomfortable. There was something that made this not work, and she couldn't even tell herself what the problem was.

All she knew was that there was a reason she didn't want to date them, but she just couldn't put her hoof on what it was. She also very much did like spending time with them, so really absolutely none of this made any damn sense.

It also made her wonder why they were only asking her and not the other three. Was she just the first they wanted or had the others already agreed? If they had all agreed, then did she really have that much of a choice? They were her closest friends and she knew that she would always be loyal to them, no matter what they asked.

Dash was dragged out of her musings as their lunch finally arrived.

"Your requested meal, ma'am" The waiter snootily spat at Dash as they gently levitated the dish in front of her. Dash's face fell as she finally remembered what she had ordered. The filly's meal sitting before her was a far cry from what she expected, the soggy hay fries and the slightly burnt bun did little to convey a quality product. She glazed over at the considerably more proper meals sitting in front of her two friends, wincing as she caught Twilight's questioning glance. Rainbow turned back to her meal and grimaced. Did they have to make a smiley face with the sauce on the plate?

"Thanks," she muttered darkly to the waiter, who quickly made themselves absent. Knowing better than to make a scene, Rainbow Dash wiped away her frown and dug into the meal, trying her best to not feel absolutely mortified.

"Is that what you ordered?" Twilight asked with an eyebrow raised. "We can call back the waiter if they made a mistake."

"It's fine," Rainbow Dash replied in a tone that made it very clear that it wasn't fine, but also that it was not a topic to talk about. "I told them I wanted a hayburger, so they found one on the menu."

"You'd think an establishment of this calibre would be able to cater for it," Rarity mused, levitating up her cutlery and beginning her own meal.

"Maybe hay burgers are beneath them." Rainbow Dash grimaced as soon as she took her first bite, quickly putting the burger back down. She sighed. "Or maybe they just don't know how to make a decent hay burger.

"The pasta is pretty good, want some," Twilight offered, gesturing to her own plate.

"It's fine, I'll just grab something later." Rainbow Dash pushed away from the meal. She was not a picky eater, but the bun was more ash than bread and even Rainbow had her limits. She was annoyed that the restaurant had somehow managed to make her feel like even more of a foal. Normally she would've not been too annoyed at getting a bad meal, but this time it just made everything that little bit more mortifying.

As Rarity and Twilight returned to their meal, Rainbow Dash was hit with the realisation that they had invited her along to their date. A date that Dash had proceeded to make an absolute mockery of, acting like a foal, literally ordering a filly's meal, and then refusing to eat it. This wasn't a lunch for the three of them to catch up, this was a date with an annoying friend intruding on it. A friend who was acting like a filly a quarter of her age.

Rainbow pretended to check the time, not even bothering to look at the clock properly, as she searched for an excuse to get her away before she died of embarrassment. She gave a quick cough to grab their attention. "Well, this has been fun, but I am running a little late for some Wonderbolt stuff. It's been fun meeting up but I really do need to go."

"Already?" Rarity asked, giving Rainbow Dash a rather curious look. A look that made Dash feel that she was under a microscope. "You sure you don't want to at least stay for dessert?"

"I'm fine," Dash repeated, ignoring the fact that Rarity was trying to bribe her with ice cream. Also trying her best to ignore how tempting the offer was. She was a full-grown mare, and she shouldn't be tempted by junk food. Rainbow Dash dug into her saddlebag, pulling out a few bits to cover her badly made meal. She got up to leave, pointedly not looking at either of them. "We'll have to do this more often. We really don't meet up enough."

Twilight and Rarity did their best to give her a farewell, but Dash didn't really give them much time. Instead, she made her farewell and got out of there as far as she could. The instant her hooves stepped outside, she flared her wings and leapt into the sky. Barely a few seconds passed before she was above the clouds and enjoying the relative privacy that the sky gave her.

Chapter 3

Rainbow groaned as she flapped her wings much harder than was strictly necessary to keep herself afloat. She was angry with herself and she honestly did not know what she was going to do about it. So, she did what she always did when she was too frustrated to think properly, she flew.

The chilled air wrapped around Rainbow Dash as she propelled herself higher and higher into the sky. At the higher altitudes, even pegasi started to dislike the inescapably sharp coldness that sunk deep through even the thickest of furred coats. Normally Dash was no exception, but with her thoughts in such a mess, she relished the constant reminder of reality around her. The discomfort had never been so wonderfully comforting to her. The lack of other pegasi was also a nice bonus. If she was hovering on the tropo layer she would've already gotten a lot of fans badgering her, but up on stratos, it was a different deal. Even a hard-core fan wouldn't try to follow, most were likely not even capable.

At ten thousand cubits up the thinned air made breathing harder, and every wingbeat was a far cry from the power it had lower. Here even hovering was hard, but Rainbow Dash wasn't hovering. She was training. Lower down, moving fast was just what she did, but up here she had to earn every wing beat. Rainbow Dash forced herself through the thinning air, the exertion slowly pulling her mind into a softer calming state as she let her thoughts fade, leaving her with just pure focus.

For half an hour she threw herself through the air, beating the air into submission as she soared through the empty expanse. However Rainbow Dash still had her own limits. Eventually she ran out of steam and was forced to land on a cloud to rest. Rainbow Dash groaned as she laid back on the cloud, staring up into the sky and tried to ignore the strained muscles in her wings. She was all too aware that she would be feeling it for the next few hours. Unfortunately the calm also meant that she no longer had any way to distract herself from the mess that her light had become.

She just wanted to hang out with friends, but instead the day had turned into a confusing mess. She wasn't into dating at the best of times, and it was not made easier with two friends trying to double team her into one. She understood why they asked, but that didn't make anything easier to figure out. How was she supposed to tell her friends that she didn't have an answer?

That was the real problem, she just did not know what she wanted.

Rainbow Dash knew that her friends did care about her and would respect her wishes. However that didn't help much when she didn't even know what she wished for them to do in the first place.

Did she want to take them up on the offer and try to get closer? Did she want to just stay a close friend and pretend that they weren't even interested in her? Did she want something more? Or did she not?

"I can't figure out this mess myself," Dash muttered, annoyed that something so seemingly simple was impossible for her to deal with. Glancing around to get her bearings, she was not all that surprised to see that she had drifted out towards Ponyville. It seemed whenever there was a problem that she couldn't work out herself, there was only one pony smart enough to help her.

It was time she paid Fluttershy a visit.

Fluttershy smiled as she cuddled up next to Pinkie Pie, happy that the hyperactive mare was finally sleeping. It had taken a lot of effort to tire her out, and Fluttershy was appreciating the silence that her efforts had finally produced. They had worked together for hours at the bakery, working together from a ridiculously early hour to get the store ready for the day. Eventually, the Cake twins had taken over the register and Fluttershy took the chance to enjoy some solo Pinkie time. It had taken a lot of effort to drag Pinkie Pie back to Fluttershy's cottage for some gentle cuddles away from staring eyes.

The effort had paid off and Fluttershy couldn't help smiling as she looked over at Pinkie Pie's sleeping muzzle. The pink pony softly snored, her nose occasionally wrinkling as she unconsciously nuzzled into Fluttershy's mane. To Fluttershy the peaceful cuddle was bliss, and it was only early afternoon. If her luck held out, she would get to enjoy hours of peaceful rest beside Pinkie Pie.

Unfortunately, it was exactly at this point that fate decided that Fluttershy was no longer allowed to enjoy the peace and quiet.

At first, it was just some distant wing beats, but already Fluttershy knew that the peaceful afternoon was going to end. While she was slightly miffed that her peace was ending, she was happy to recognise the tell-tale flight of Rainbow Dash. There was only one pegasus that she knew that flew with such a violently aggressive wing beat.

The distant wing beats soon sounded to considerably closer ones, and Fluttershy sighed as she knew that it was time to get up and greet one of her closest friends. She quickly squirmed out from Pinkie Pie's constricting cuddle, pushing Gummy into Pinkie's embrace to take her place. It mostly worked, and a part of Fluttershy did wish that she could capture that brief instant of adorableness that was on her couch. However, she knew that she needed to see what Rainbow Dash needed before the speedster woke Pinkie Pie.

She pushed open her cottage door just as Rainbow Dash flared her wings wide and landed hard in front of her, skidding to a stop a mere few inches away from her with her blue hoof raised. Rolling her eyes, Fluttershy gave her friend a hoof bump. Naturally Rainbow Dash pretended that the hoof bump was extra powerful and jumped into a backflip as if pushed.

"Hey, Fluttershy" Rainbow Dash greeted her with an unconscious flap of her wings, the speedster clearly still a ball of energy. "Do you have time for a quick bit of talking? Twilight and Rarity asked me about something that was a bit out there, and I kind of need some advice."

"Oh, did she finally ask you out?" Fluttershy asked, smiling in the hope that Rainbow Dash had agreed.

"Wait, how do you know about that?" Rainbow Dash frowned, taking a step back from Fluttershy in surprise.

"Twilight and Rarity have mentioned their interest in you quite a few times to Pinkie and me" Fluttershy chuckled. "Those two together can act just a tad like love-sick school fillies. So, you said that they finally managed to ask you out?"

"Yeah, I didn't really have an answer though." Rainbow Dash admitted nervously, rubbing the back of her head with a hoof. "I kind of thought it over before flying straight over here to talk to my main mare."

"I can see, you look a bit tired from the flight." Fluttershy politely didn't mention the strong smell of sweat coming from her friend. "I'd invite you in for a tea, but Pinkie Pie is asleep right now. I don't really want to wake the sleepy head."

"Does she actually sleep?" Rainbow asked, tilting her head to one side, before shaking herself. "Actually, scratch that, I don't think I want to know. I just wanted to talk in private for a bit about what Twilight and Rarity said because I don't really know what I should say."

"Oh?" Fluttershy frowned, "Do you not feel the same way?"

Rainbow Dash sighed, sitting down on the soft lawn in front of the cottage and looking away from Fluttershy. "I really don't know what I feel. Yesterday I would have thought of them as friends, and today now I know that they both think of me as somepony more. I love my friends, but I don't know if I feel the right thing."

"Is it really such a difficult thing to know?" Fluttershy softly asked, sitting down beside Rainbow Dash and pulling a wing around her close friend. She gently pulled Rainbow Dash closer with her wing, smiling as Rainbow Dash let herself be pulled into the embrace. There was a quiet silence as they both sat there, one lost in her thoughts.

"It's not just Twilight and Rarity," Rainbow Dash finally responded, "I'm not sure how much she has talked to you and the others about this."

"You don't need to worry about accidentally revealing anything." Fluttershy quickly assured her, nuzzling her in as comforting a manner as she could. "Rarity and Twilight did talk to us a week ago about the idea of a herd. I know that they wanted to ask you first, but your busy schedule with Wonderbolt training has made it difficult."

"If it was just Twilight, I might've had an answer." Rainbow Dash admitted, before letting out a bitter laugh. "It'd probably be a no as I would push her to be with Rarity. Herding is a completely different deal though. A part of me is worried that we're just friends, but another part of me is interested."

"If you are interested," Fluttershy smiled, hope filling her, as she saw the spark in Rainbow Dash just begging for a bit of kindling, "then you should let yourself try."

"It's not that simple, Fluttershy. You know that this stuff is never that easy," Rainbow Dash responded with a shrug. "If this goes wrong, then it could hurt our friendship."

"Hiya Dashy!" Pinkie Pie suddenly called out, clearly the mare had just woken. Neither Fluttershy nor Rainbow Dash got a chance to respond before they were engulfed in the forelegs of Pinkie Pie. "Now how about you stop being so mopey wopey and tell me what has twisted you up my little Dashy."

"I'm not much smaller than you." Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes, before pushing her way back out of Pinkie Pie's brutally tight hug. "Twilight and Rarity asked if I wanted to herd."

"Oh, they finally asked you to join our herd?" Pinkie Pie asked, her voice rising at least two octaves higher than it should've.

"Wait, are you all already in a herd?" Rainbow Dash asked nervously, suddenly feeling a lot more left out. If they had formed a herd without her, then did that mean that she was just an afterthought?

"We're not yet in a herd," Fluttershy quickly clarified, "Twilight and Rarity have talked with us about herding, but they wanted to talk with you and Applejack to see your thoughts on it before rushing into things."

"Oh, they still haven't asked Applejack?" Rainbow Dash let out a sigh of relief, glad to know that she hadn't been last.

"Don't be silly," Pinkie finally released her crippling tight hug of them, sitting down in front of them. "I've been having super special private cuddle time with Applejack for like two weeks now. I would bet at least five cupcakes that she would totally be on board with it."

"So, you are all herding without me then!" Rainbow Dash growled, angry that her closest friends had been keeping something so important from her until the last second. "Twilight and Rarity didn't ask me to join a new herd, I was just the straggler that they asked to complete the set."

"Rainbow, it's not like that." Fluttershy quietly interrupted Rainbow Dash with just a gentle nudge. "You are entirely correct that Rarity and Twilight have been getting closer. You're also correct that Pinkie and I have also been spending a lot of time together. Applejack has been spending a lot of time with us as well."

"Though apparently one of us neglected to tell me that they had taken a few more steps with her." Fluttershy paused and gave Pinkie Pie a rather curious look, before turning back to Rainbow Dash. "The point is that right now none of us has really worked out what we are. We know that there is a connection between all six of us, and we also know that it is getting stronger."

"So, Twilight started doing a whole bunch of reading," Pinkie Pie interrupted with a laugh. "You should have seen how high the piles of books were a fortnight ago. Apparently, somepony messed up her book fort."

"It was a good landing area," Rainbow Dash muttered with a shrug. "Wait, that was what she was looking into? She kept on asking me weird questions about icky stuff and took forever to get me the next Daring Do."

"I heard that the next one in the series has a super awesome twist ending," Pinkie Pie whispered to Rainbow Dash, though with her lungs it was closer to a quiet yell. Volume management was still a talent that the pink mare lacked by choice.

"Hey, no spoilers!" Rainbow Dash playfully shoved away Pinkie Pie. "Nah I'm already like halfway through."

"We should probably get back on topic," Fluttershy pointed out quiety. "The point is that Twilight only approached us about herding a few days ago. I'm not entirely sure she has even had a chance to talk to Applejack about it yet."

"Why doesn't Dashy tell Jackie?" Pinkie Pie suddenly cut in, staring contemplating at the sky. "That way every pony pretty much gets a turn asking somepony out."

"I'm not sure about this, Pinkie. I didn't exactly accept Twilight and Rarity's offer." Rainbow Dash admitted.

"Why not?" Pinkie Pie asked, reaching out to Rainbow Dash and pulling her into a hug. "You love us, we love you. If we're all in a herd I can do this to you all the time." Pinkie Pie then proceeded to nuzzle into the side of Rainbow Dash's neck.

"Knock it off," Rainbow Dash quickly pushed Pinkie Pie away slightly, not entirely liking the ticklish feeling of Pinkie Pie's muzzle's fur on her neck. Somehow it was even more annoying than getting her hooves pedicured. "It's not like I don't want to be with you girls, it's just that something seems to not quite fit, you know?"

"What do you mean, Dashy?" Pinkie Pie tried to throw her best pouty face at Rainbow Dash, however, the pegasus easily countered with the strongest of eye rolls.

"I understand that you're a little bit hesitant to go for this," Fluttershy told them, stepping in between the two silly fillies. "I'm not sure if Pinkie or I are going to be all that helpful with this. However, Applejack isn't currently dating, so she is probably the best for you to talk this through."

"It's worth a shot," Rainbow Dash muttered, frowning a bit. "Do you think Twilight will mind if I tell Applejack about this? You know as well as I do that, she probably has a twenty-step plan on how to ask her."

"Although, I didn't see a single flashcard in Twilight's hooves at lunch." Rainbow Dash paused before chuckling, "In hindsight, Rarity was clearly the one running it. So, I don't think she would worry all that much."

Rainbow Dash quickly pulled herself out from the constructing cuddle of Pinkie Pie and unfurled her wings. "Thanks for the talk, I'll see you two later."

And with that Rainbow Dash was in the air seeking out yet another friend in the hope that they could help her work out the confusing mess that Twilight and Rarity had caused. Surely, Applejack would be able to give her some down-to-earth advice on this stuff.

Sweet Apple Acres was a ridiculously large expanse of land that covered almost the same area as the entirety of Ponyville itself. Despite the ridiculously large size, it was still super easy for somepony as awesome as Rainbow Dash to spot Applejack within seconds of flying overhead. To be fair, Applejack was standing out in a field messing with some large machinery on her carrot field.

Rainbow Dash tried to get Applejack a quick scare by buzzing the farmer, but her plan was quickly halted when Applejack grabbed her by her tail, throwing the two of them into the dirt. Groaning, Rainbow Dash rolled over and pulled herself back onto her hooves, shooting Applejack a glare.

"You didn't have to pull me out of the sky," She complained, checking over her wings for any bent primaries.

"You didn't have to try and buzz me." Applejack chuckled, trying to pretend that she hadn't just bruised herself as well.

"Fair." Rainbow Dash huffed.

"So, were you just here to crash? Or was there something you wanted?" Applejack asked, turning back to the farming equipment in front of her. Though whether she was attempting to fix it, or just regretting its existence was not clear. "Make it quick if you can, I've got to get this rust bucket working, either that or I am going to be manually harvesting four acres of carrots."

"We both know that you are going to give up and ask Time-Turner to look at it tomorrow long before you ruin your back harvesting the field yourself." Rainbow Dash countered with an eye roll. "Anyway, Twilight and Rarity made me an interesting offer today and I kind of wanted to get the option from somepony that I trust. You think you have a few minutes to chat?"

"I always have time for my friends." Applejack turned and gave Rainbow Dash a smile, before giving the machinery behind her a swift kick. The harvester suddenly roared into life. Applejack jumped up onto the harvester and fiddled with some of the controls before it began slowly trundling forward at a walking pace. "However, sometimes you can work and chat. So, jump up here and tell me about what seems to be the issue?"

"Twilight and Rarity asked if I wanted to be in a herd," Rainbow Dash blurted out, without any of the preambles that she thought of on the fly over.

"Figured that they would start asking about that sooner or later," Applejack admitted, keeping her eyes on the carrot rows and angling the machine as best as she could. "So, what is the issue? Did you not want to do it?"

"Of course, I didn't want to not do it, I think?" Rainbow Dash paused, not sure how to continue. Applejack paused and looked over at Rainbow Dash, rolling her eyes as the pegasus continued to not say anything.

"You're being more difficult than Apple Bloom was whenever we have early morning harvests. Stop stalling and just blab it out." Applejack pointed out with a smile, checking that the harvester was still running smoothly between the rows of carrots, pulling the fully grown food out of the ground and straight into the hopper. "They asked you to herd with the two of them, you were interested but it sounds like you've somehow managed to talk yourself out of it for some reason. Does that sound about right?"

"It wasn't just a herd with them," Rainbow Dash awkwardly pointed out. "They wanted to herd with all of us. You, me, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie. All six of us."

"What?" Applejack turned back to look at Rainbow Dash with a raised eyebrow, before nodding to herself and returning her attention back to the harvester. "Okay, in hindsight that actually makes a lot of sense. Pinkie Pie has been hinting at that for the last week. I thought they were going to be going a bit slower than that, but I suppose one of them got a bit too impatient. I guess they surprised you with it and you didn't want to answer?"

"Pretty much, yeah," Rainbow Dash agreed though a small part of her seemed to not fully agree. Sure, she had been surprised by the offer, but that didn't explain why she still felt so distant from the idea in general. "Though I am not sure if I feel the right thing."

"That's the point of dating, sugar." Applejack chuckled. "You never really know if you're compatible without taking the chance and trying it out."

"I guess?"

"I didn't take you for being unwilling to take the risk." By this point, the harvester had reached the end of the row so Applejack had to stop talking while she turned it around and got ready for the next pass. A minute later it was lined up and she returned some of her attention back to Dash. "The way I see it, you really only have one question to answer."

"And what would that be? Do I want to make out with Pinkie?" Rainbow Dash responded, starting to feel annoyed by the whole thing.

"Nope," Applejack shot back with an eye roll. "The question is whether you want to try and date the five of us. It's not about whether you know already, or whether you have everything worked out. You just need to tell me if you are interested in trying, and it sounds to me like you've answered that question a few times already."

"I think I know what my answer needs to be," Rainbow Dash muttered, narrowing her eyes a little as she tried to mentally work her way through the confusing thoughts in her head. However, she knew what she needed to do next, though that didn't mean that it was going to be easy.

"Applejack?" Rainbow Dash began, swallowing nervously before continuing. She knew that it was time to stop thinking and make things happen. "Do you want to go out with me for dinner tonight? There is that new pegasi-friendly restaurant on the north side of Ponyville that we could check out together."

"I'll see you there, sugar cube," Applejack gave Rainbow Dash a quick nuzzle. "Now I've got to get back to my job, so you better dash off before I get some free labour out of you."

"Thanks, AJ" Rainbow Dash blurted out, quickly pulling away from Applejack and hovering in the air out of reach of her friend. There was an awkward pause as Rainbow Dash just hovered there, unsure what to say next.

"See you later Dash," Applejack chuckled at the pegasus.

"Yeah, see ya," Rainbow Dash quickly responded before throwing her wings down and rocketing herself into the sky and away from the increasingly awkward conversation.

Author's Note

There were a few parts of this chapter that didn't flow as well as I wanted, but I'm out of ideas on how to improve it.

Chapter 4

They say that the shortest period of time is the instant between when you make a mistake, and when you realise it. However that was for normal ponies, Rainbow Dash was cut from better cloth. She was so far ahead of the average pony that she knew that it was a bad idea to ask out Applejack before she did it. Of course, she still went ahead and did it anyway.

The second the words were out of her lips Rainbow Dash already knew that the evening was going to be an absolute disaster. Applejack wasn't looking for a night out with a friend, she was going to expect Rainbow Dash to court her. The problem was that Rainbow Dash didn't know the first thing about how to actually date anyone. Was there a list of rules she was meant to follow? Was she meant to kiss Applejack or something? This date had to go well, otherwise, she would make a mess of Twilight's herding plan, but she also knew that she had no idea what she was doing. Now she only had a few short hours before she was expected to be the perfect romantic partner.

"Sometimes it's a curse to be the fastest in every way possible. You don't have time to actually think." Rainbow Dash groaned as she landed back at her cloud home, shoving open the door with a well-placed shoulder charge. She stomped through the living room like an unhappy filly before throwing herself dramatically on the couch. "I should've done something else, anything else. This is going to be such a bad idea."

"What's a bad idea?" A voice suddenly asked quietly. Rainbow Dash would never admit that she let out an adorably loud squeal when she jumped out of the couch to see Twilight sitting in her living room already.

"Twilight, what are you doing here?" Rainbow Dash asked in a panic, hoping that she hadn't said anything too bad in front of her friend. "Aren't you meant to be dealing with royal stuff in Canterlot?

Twilight snorted, "Rarity wouldn't let me go back to the nobles without first talking with you. Do you have any idea how hard it is to read through a friendship balance sheet while your marefriend won't stop pacing and muttering to herself?"

"I've never had a marefriend, so I can't say I would know. Is she still stressing out about the herd stuff?" Rainbow Dash replied with an eye roll.

"Yeah, and I shared her concern. You ran off as soon as we asked you," Twilight sighed. "I really do want you to join, but I also don't want you to feel compelled to do so. If you're not comfortable with this, please tell us."

"You don't have to worry about this anyway. I had a talk with Fluttershy and Pinkie. Also, I might've accidentally blabbed to Applejack about the whole herd thing," Rainbow Dash admitted, rubbing the back of her neck nervously. "I hope that wasn't meant to be a secret or something."

"It's not meant to be a secret, though I think Rarity was hoping to try and dramatically ask her out. Trying to keep a secret from Applejack is harder than failing a history exam anyway." Twilight responded with a shrug before biting her lip nervously. "So, you said you talked with the others about it?"

"Flutters and Pinkie tried to be helpful about it all I guess," Rainbow Dash responded.

"So, what did you decide to do?" Twilight asked nervously.

"Well, I had a long talk with Applejack about it," Rainbow Dash continued, trying to ignore the fact that Twilight was almost bouncing on her hooves in anticipation. "And she convinced me to go for it."

"That's great" Twilight threw her forelegs around Rainbow Dash, pulling the smaller pegasus into a tight embrace that was near as constricting as a patented Pinkie Pie cuddle. Rainbow Dash made an attempt to free herself, before giving up. She was awesome but Twilight's alicorn strength was beyond her, and she actually didn't mind that much.

"I enjoy breathing," Rainbow Dash huffed as she managed to get a hoof free from Twilight, using the extra leverage to pry away one of her forelegs. "I'm not all in just yet, Applejack convinced me to go on a date with her first to see if I like it."

"Is that what you were worried about earlier"

"Pretty much, I don't exactly have that much experience with dating. I really don't want to mess it up, you know," Rainbow Dash admitted.

"Well, I could always help you prepare?" Twilight offered. "I made a lot of notes on how to approach all of you and what were good topics to discuss. Let me just go get my notes. Maybe Rarity can help as well."

"Wait, I don't think t-" Rainbow tried to protest.

"Don't worry. Rarity and I will make sure that you are prepared to properly date her" Twilight finally pulled away from her. "I'll see you back here in three minutes."

Twilight Sparkle disappeared in a flash of magical energy, leaving Rainbow Dash alone.

"I think I may have just made a bigger mess," Rainbow Dash muttered to herself.

It took a painful hour of lecturing for Rarity and Twilight to finally decide to allow Rainbow Dash to head off on her date. An hour of lecturing that Rainbow Dash utterly failed to absorb in any way. Rarity had also volunteered to handle Rainbow Dash's outfit for the evening and she naturally chose something that completely restricted Rainbow Dash's wings. Something that Rainbow Dash made sure to complain about in the hope that Rarity would finally learn to remember that she had wings.x`

So, it was a very grumpy Rainbow Dash who was currently trotting up the dirt road to Sweet Apple Acres. Of course, she did her best to put on a happy face by the time she reached the farmhouse and rapped her hoof against the door.

"Hey Dash," Applejack's smiling face quickly appeared as she gave Rainbow Dash a quick visual once over. "You're looking pretty snazzy in that outfit. I'm guessing Rarity found out about our date?"

"Of course, she did. Twilight told her instantly," Rainbow Dash huffed, noting that Applejack was wearing a much less constricting bit of formal wear. Rarity would probably have a fit if she saw the farm mare. "Now come on, this stupid dress is already making my neck itch."

"I'm surprised that she managed to get you into that cute little number." Applejack pointed out as she closed the door behind her and joined Dash in her slow trot back towards Ponyville.

"I'm not little," Rainbow Dash complained. "Normally I would've stopped her. I can't even properly flap my wings in this stupid thing. I don't think Rarity understands how much pegasi hate having their wings covered. Either that or she wanted to make sure I didn't fly ahead when I was on a date."

"Knowing her, it was probably that second reason," Applejack mused. "Sounds like that mare put you through the wringer preparing for this."

"You have no idea," Rainbow Dash muttered darkly. "Just be happy you didn't have to sit an hour while Twilight lectured you on century-old earth pony marriage rituals. Apparently, earth ponies use to literally tie rope knots. Literally!"

"Sounds fun," Applejack laughed, though she did try to not be too happy at Rainbow Dash's misfortune. "I'm guessing that Twilight and Rarity were less than helpful?"

"Are you planning on asking me to plant a flower to demonstrate my ability to make life bloom?"

"Nope."

"Then it was exactly as useful as you think," Rainbow Dash trailed off as they neared the restaurant. "Time to be all romantic and stuff, I guess."

Applejack just laughed.

Unfortunately, Rainbow Dash's brilliant plan hit its first roadblock, the restaurant's hostess. The mare was a green earth pony called Tealove, and she was not a fan of Rainbow Dash.

"Who is the booking under?" Tealove asked, looking straight at Applejack and refusing to even flick her eyes in the direction of Rainbow Dash.

"I didn't make a booking," Rainbow Dash admitted with no small amount of embarrassment. In all honesty, it was an early Wednesday night in Ponyville. She could see that there were empty tables. "Can we have a table for two?"

"We're full up," Tealove responded with a huff, flicking her hoof at Rainbow Dash. "Perhaps you could try someplace with more capacity for walk-ins. I presume that the Hay Burger will suit you."

"Be nice, Tealove" Applejack interrupted before Rainbow Dash could be impulsive. "We're just here to have dinner, and I know that you could find a table for me. It's not a busy night, after all."

There was an awkward silence as Tealove shot Rainbow Dash a venomous look, before rolling her eyes and gesturing for them to enter. Applejack and Rainbow Dash quickly settled into their seats, ordering their respective meals was also a painless affair. Rainbow Dash was relieved to see that they actually had what she wanted on the menu, and it wasn't even in the foal's section this time.

However, with their meals ordered, that meant that they had to begin the dreaded first date talk. Rainbow Dash didn't really have any idea where to begin, knowing that she probably would not care about the weather. Thankfully Applejack broke the silence.

"There's a chance that mare doesn't like you," Applejack pointed out, gesturing towards Tealove, the sarcasm dry on her lips. "What did you do, crash into her house?"

"I honestly couldn't tell you," Rainbow Dash responded with her own eye roll, "We used to get on well enough, but I apparently talked with her stallion too much or something?"

"You talked to her stallion? What did she mean by that?"

"She thought I was flirting with him."

"You hit on her partner without noticing? How in Equestria did you manage that?"

"I don't know. They were talking about the weather patterns with me for an hour and she kind of stormed over and told me off. It was super weird." Rainbow Dash tried to explain.

"You talked about the weather for an hour?" Applejack raised an eyebrow.

"They actually knew the difference between a cumulus and a cirrus cloud," Rainbow Dash exclaimed "Do you have any idea how few ponies actually care about that stuff? I work with weather pegasi who don't know the name of the cloud they are currently bucking."

"Yeah, but you talked about the weather for an hour!"

"Yeah! Tealove acted as if no pony would ever want to talk about the weather." Rainbow Dash fumed. "Apparently talking to somepony about something you do daily somehow means you want to get them on your back."

"Were you interested in him?"

"I don't know, I just liked talking to them. I also like talking to you. I don't see the big deal."

Their conversation was briefly interrupted by the waiter, however this time it was considerably easier for Dash to choose something to order. She didn't even have to resort to the foal's menu to get them to add fish fingers with her salmon.

"You know, this actually explains a lot," Applejack mused as they returned to their previous conversation. "The girls and I all used to think that your barn door didn't swing our way."

"Half of Equestria thinks that I'm into mares just because I have a rainbow mane," Rainbow Dash snorted. "What made you think I wasn't?"

"You seemed to never be interested," Applejack shrugged. "Fluttershy has been fluffing her tail at you for the past few months and you never even glanced in her direction. It seems that no matter how close you two got it never went further than that. You never even wanted to preen together."

"Preening with others is weird."

"Dash, I don't have wings but even I know that it's not uncommon for friends to preen together. Fluttershy showed Twilight how to do it."

"Can we drop this?" Rainbow Dash groaned, staring at the ceiling and wishing that she could end the date early and no longer have to deal with Applejack's questions. "I have not been able to eat a bite since this morning. I don't like arguing on an empty stomach."

"It's not like you to skip meals?"

"The place Rarity and Twi took me to didn't exactly have very good food," Rainbow Dash complained, "They managed to completely butcher a hay burger. Like, how do you manage to overcook the bun? It's a bun. You throw it in the pan to crisp it up and then you are done, even Ditzy could have done a better job."

"Was that the only reason you left?"

"Well, there was the whole herd thing as well. Do I want to deal with Rarity acting all swoony, and have a burnt lunch?" Rainbow Dash shrugged, "What do you think about this herd thing? I bet you never thought of dating all five of us before."

"My younger self might have been surprised by it. But that mare changed her mind a long time ago." Applejack admitted with a shrug.

"What do you mean by that?"

"I'm sure you felt it as well. The day when we all stood together with the Elements of Harmony powering themselves through the connection between us. I knew that instant that there was a bond between all of us that was special. I may not have entirely worked out how deep the connection was, but to form a herd isn't all that outlandish."

"So you went from never dating, to knowing you wanted to be with us?" Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow, wondering if Applejack was keeping something from her. "How do you know we just aren't really good friends and you just need to find the right one to date?"

"I'll be honest, I use to think that there was a pony out there that I would have the same spark with. A pony that I would settle down with and raise a family." Applejack sighed. "You know, there were quite a few ponies over the years that caught my eye. None of them worked out, and none of them even compared to the six of us."

"Wait, you've dated before?"

"Hasn't everypony our age?" Applejack rolled her eyes.

"Well yeah, of course." Dash lied, not willing to admit that the closest thing she had ever had to a relationship was a weird few days with Fluttershy back in flight school. "I just figured you were married to your farm or something."

"I've since learned a little bit more about sharing my time with those I care about," Applejack admitted.

"What about you, apart from us, has there been any other pony who caught your eye?"

"I get that question from Rarity, constantly," Rainbow Dash complained.

"Surely you are okay with answering it one more time."

"I think I'd prefer to talk about anything else."

As the night progressed, Rainbow Dash quickly discovered that going on a dinner date was not doing much to help her work out if she wanted to date Applejack. Rarity's romance books had mentioned feeling weird feelings whenever the main character fell in love, but Rainbow Dash felt nothing. Obviously, Rainbow Dash knew that she couldn't take a fictional story from Rarity as the most accurate source of information, Twilight would pluck her feathers if she did, but surely it was somewhat based on reality. Ultimately the date didn't feel much different to a normal meal with her friends, and that worried her. It wasn't the first time that she had eaten with only a few of her friends, and the awkwardness expected out of a first date never seemed to arrive. But the feeling of loving her friend also never seemed to happen.

It was just dinner.

She kept a close eye out for anything, but she did not see a single sign that Applejack was anything other than what she always been, a good friend. Unfortunately, the night drew to a close and Rainbow Dash was still seeing nothing. The two of them left the restaurant and Rainbow Dash still had no answers. Desperate to buy a few more minutes before giving up, Rainbow Dash offered to walk Applejack home. An offer that Applejack took with more enthusiasm than she expected.

Together with the two of them slowly trotted back to Applejack's farm, their attention only on each other and ignorant of any unwanted observers. Rainbow Dash nervously trailed behind Applejack, worried about whether she had done a good enough job for Applejack to want to continue dating. However, the thing that scared her the most was the small part of her that was hoping that Applejack would call this whole charade a sham. That slim chance that Applejack would be the one to call everything off so that Rainbow Dash didn't need to.

"Well, here we are sugar," Applejack paused at the gate that led into the far, reaching out a hoof around Rainbow Dash. She pulled the pegasi into a tight embrace and gave her a quick nuzzle.

"Yeah, here we are?" Rainbow Dash returned, mentally cursing how uncertain she sounded. Rainbow Dash didn't know what to do with her own hooves. She briefly considered wrapping them around Applejack as well, but it just didn't feel quite right to her. So instead, she just awkwardly stood next to Applejack as the farm pony hugged her. Applejack hadn't done much of the lovey-dovey stuff that Rarity's novels had said would happen apart from the hug. Rainbow Dash hadn't even seen a hint of the no magic spark thing either. She had even failed to get lost in Applejack's eyes, and Rarity had sworn that was basically compulsory. Rainbow Dash could only reach the conclusion that the date had been a complete failure.

So she was shocked when Applejack gave her a nuzzle and told her the exact opposite.

"I would say that this date has been quite the success," Applejack nudged Rainbow Dash before leaving her muzzle close to Rainbow Dash's own. "What do you say we properly end this date?"

"Oh?" Rainbow Dash froze as her mind went into overdrive, before realising that Applejack wanted to kiss her. She flicked her eyes at Applejack's lips, wondering if this was her chance to finally know for sure. Twilight and Rarity had been in agreement that kissing was a great way to show that you loved someone. So surely it would help Rainbow Dash work out her confused thoughts and know for sure that she loved her friends. "Of course!"

Rainbow Dash didn't exactly know what to do next, so she just waited as Applejack closed the gap between them. She waited in anticipation for the feeling of warmth or explosions, or whatever Rarity's novels said would happen next. However, nothing happened. Instead, Rainbow Dash became intensely aware of the fact that Applejack was pushing her lips against her own and Rainbow Dash's teeth were awkwardly pressing against the back of her lip. It wasn't the mind-blowing experience that she was promised. Instead, she just sat there awkwardly waiting for Applejack to finish. Thankfully she pulled away only a few seconds later, pausing to look into Rainbow Dash's own eyes with a weird feeling of closeness between them. Rainbow Dash suppressed a shiver.

"I love you," Applejack told her softly, one of her hooves rubbing against Rainbow Dash's arm.

"I, um, love you too?" Rainbow Dash stuttered out. As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she felt dirty like she had just sullied the entire experience. She did care deeply for her friends, but it still felt like she was lying. At best she had told a half-truth to the element of honesty, and Applejack had believed her.

"I told you that you just needed to try it out for yourself," Applejack leant in for another nuzzle, before pulling away. "It's almost like we've known each other for years."

Rainbow Dash was just relieved that it wasn't more kisses.

"I'll see you tomorrow, I guess." Rainbow Dash awkwardly responded as Applejack walked up to her door.

"I think you'll be seeing all of us a lot more."

Rainbow Dash didn't trust her voice to respond, instead just nodded.

"Goodnight Dashie," Applejack said with a smirk before heading inside.

The second Rainbow Dash was home she shoved her face into the nearest pillow and screamed. The date had been a complete disaster, and the issue was not with Applejack. There was only one proper conclusion that Rainbow Dash had reached after the evening's intensely awkward ending, there was something wrong with Rainbow Dash.

Rarity had told her endlessly that kissing somepony you care about is meant to be a feeling of impassioned expression or some rubbish like that. However, for Rainbow Dash, she could only think of one way to describe a kiss; boring.

Clearly, there was something very wrong with Rainbow Dash. Either that or she was just somehow not seeing the obvious thing that all of her friends had already figured out. Everypony else seemed to understand what they wanted, and yet here she was trying to work out why something so obvious to everypony else was a mystery to her. Even Twilight knew exactly what she wanted, and yet here was Dash screaming into her pillow without an answer.

Instead, she could feel herself getting angry at this stupid mess. Twilight and Rarity knew that they wanted to form a herd with their friends. Pinkie Pie wanted to kiss everyone. Applejack wanted to find a partner whom she could love and form an eternal bond with or something. Even Fluttershy knew that she wanted to date a mare. These were all things that they had known for years.

However, she had no idea what she wanted. It was as if she was some foalish filly who had failed to ever grow up after getting her mark, forever stuck waiting to become an adult. She had ruined Rarity and Twilight's date by acting like she was still markless. She had nearly ruined Applejack's date by not liking being kissed. It was all so absolutely ridiculous. There was a part of her that just did not know how to work out this stuff, and she couldn't believe that even Fluttershy had figured it all out before her.

She loved her friends; they were basically family after all of the adventures they had been on together. There was nothing that she wouldn't trust them with. If they all wanted to be together with her, then clearly they all understood something that she wasn't yet able to work out.

Right now, Rainbow Dash knew that she was falling behind them. She knew that it was going to be a difficult task to catch up, but she had to do it before they were forced to leave her behind. Right now she felt like a filly surrounded by mares, but she wasn't going to let herself lose this race. She was born for speed, so surely she just needed to figure out the first step or two and then she'll be winning the race.
She was going to make sure that she would be the Rainbow Dash that they already loved.

Chapter 5

The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, and Rainbow Dash was lying in bed wishing that she had been able to sleep. The previous night had not contained much actual sleeping. Instead Rainbow Dash spent most of the night tossing and turning as her mind repeatedly told her the many ways that her decisions could bring doom on her head.

Unfortunately, Rainbow Dash’s desire to try and at least lie in bed and pretend to sleep was ruined with the sound of somepony hitting her home’s thunder doorbell. She grumpily pulled herself out of the warm embrace of her comforter to go see who had disturbed her sleep. She was not surprised to see Twilight Sparkle sitting on her cloud porch, a checklist hovering in front of her muzzle. To Dash’s irritation, the princess didn’t even realise that Dash was waiting for her to notice her.

“Some of us are trying to sleep, Twi,” Rainbow Dash complained.

“Huh? Oh, there you are,” Twilight jolted and quickly turned to look at Rainbow Dash before returning her attention back to her checklist. “I left you to be the latest as I know you enjoy a good nap or seven, but it’s late morning you know.”

“Your point?” Rainbow Dash huffed, blowing her unruly rainbow fringe out of her eyes. “So, what’s up?”

“Right, give me a second.” Twilight quickly flipped through a few pages of her checklist before finally finding the entry, giving it a quick jab with her quill. “Applejack said yes to joining the herd as well, so we’re having a celebratory picnic for lunch today. Pinkie Pie was very eager to set it all up. She even refused to let the royal estate cover it.”

“So, lunch at SugarCube Corner?” Rainbow Dash asked, knowing that she had definitely missed a part of the conversation.

“Lunch at the field near Fluttershy’s, actually,” Twilight quickly corrected her. “Please try to be there promptly as I wanted to make sure that we have time to cover all of the paperwork.”

Rainbow Dash briefly considered asking about what Twilight meant by paperwork, but instead chose to let things be. Sometimes it was better to not know the mess before you made it. “Okay, midday at Fluttershy’s. I’ll be there.”

“Excellent!” Twilight beamed, before leaning over and giving Rainbow Dash a quick kiss on the cheek. Rainbow Dash fought the urge to wipe off the small amount of drool that she swore was now on her cheek. “I’ll see you there.”

And with that Twilight Sparkle flew off and Rainbow Dash took the opportunity to rub her cheek. Studying her forehoof she couldn’t see anything left on her cheek. Shrugging she headed back inside for a shower and to try and wake up.

As soon as Dash touched down, she knew that the picnic was going to be a painfully awkward experience. Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie were already there, and were already cuddling in each other's arms. Rainbow Dash was surprised that Fluttershy would be so brazen to kiss Pinkie Pie in public. At least they were mostly chaste. It wasn’t like Pinkie Pie was trying to taste Fluttershy’s tonsils at least.

“Hi Fluttershy, Pinks,” She barely got out a greeting before she was tackled to the ground by Pinkie Pie. Thankfully Pinkie Pie didn’t immediately start trying to kiss her.

“It’s good to see you join us,” Fluttershy quietly smiled, though she made no attempt to help Rainbow Dash escape the clingy arms of Pinkie Pie. “We were so worried that you didn’t want to join us.”

“Dashie was always going to join us,” Pinkie Pie chuckled, finally loosening her grip enough for Rainbow Dash to widdle free.

“It’s good to be here,” Rainbow Dash tried to respond as nonchalantly as possible, but even she had to admit that she didn’t pull it off. “Where are the others?”

“Rarity will be a tad late,” Fluttershy pointed out.

“She is painting her face again,” Pinkie amended, giving a little bounce as she gave Rainbow Dash a smirk.

“Twilight and Applejack are the ones bringing the food as someone entirely forgot to.” Fluttershy continued, giving a good natured eye roll at Pinkie Pie.

“You were too distracting,” Pinkie Pie mock complained, folding her forlegs for a second before jumping at Fluttershy and tackling her to the ground. Rainbow Dash didn’t fail to notice that Pinkie Pie was kissing Fluttershy as soon as the pegasus was on the ground, however she didn’t say anything. She didn’t want to know why Pinkie Pie chose Fluttershy for kisses instead of her.

Thankfully, Rainbow Dash’s bitter musings were interrupted by the arrival of their other three friends. Judging by the blue aura surrounding the floating Rarity, Twilight must have gotten sick of waiting for the fashionista to get ready.

“Sorry that we were late,” Twilight responded through gritted teeth, shooting Rarity a rather icy glare. “Somepony wanted to make sure that every single one of her mane hairs was perfect.”

“I wanted to make our first herd date perfect,” Rarity shot back, though she didn’t sound all that annoyed. Twilight lowered Rarity down before finally cancelling the levitation spell. “I think your telekinesis may have actually properly straightened my mane anyway.”

“Would you two knock it off!” Before Twilight and Rarity could continue their mock argument, Applejack shoved past them and put down the picnic basket that had been balancing on her back. “Anyway, here’s the spread from Sugar Cube Corner, delivered courtesy of not Pinkie Pie.”

“I totally could have run down there and gotten it,” Pinkie Pie complained, however her complaints were soon muffled by a nuzzle from Twilight.

“And yet here I am carrying it,” Applejack responded with a laugh.

Normally Rainbow Dash would describe the spread of food as excessive, but she knew all too well that Pinkie Pie was capable of consuming a frightening amount of food. So the spread of food was probably better described as almost adequate. Naturally this meant that Rainbow Dash had to dive for the food to grab a nice share of cupcakes and a full jug of cider before Pinkie Pie could vacuum it all away.

That was the plan at least, Rainbow Dash forgot that Twilight Sparkle was there with her million entry checklist. So as soon as she dived forwards she was captured in the telekinetic grasp of Twilight, though Rainbow Dash was relieved to see that Pinkie Pie was also stuck as well.

“Hold your ponies you two,” Applejack chuckled, stepping past the two floating ponies. Rainbow Dash was doubtful of the intelligence of standing between Pinkie Pie and food, it was almost as dangerous as standing between a muffin and Ditsy. “We planned out this Pinkie, there is no need to try and grab everything you can before the rest of us get something.”

“Dashie was gonna do it too,” Pinkie Pie pouted.

“Only because you were going to do it,” Rainbow Dash tried to defend herself, but gave up knowing that she wasn’t going to win this argument.

“Twilight is going to let you two free,” Applejack lectured them, “and then you are both going to act like proper ponies and only take a fair share. Does that sound fair?”

Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash nodded. Twilight rolled her eyes and finally released her grip on them. Rainbow Dash flapped her wings to hover back onto the ground. Pinkie Pie instantly face planted into the grass before jumping up with a smile on her face and probably a few less brain cells. “I wanna do that again!” Pinkie Pie begged.

The food was excellent, and barely half an hour had passed before they were all sprawled on the lawn with full bellies. The conversation slowly drifted between subjects and soon Rainbow Dash found herself lying on her back, staring up at the clouds, Fluttershy lying next to her. Rainbow Dash passively noticed that Fluttershy was lying so close that their folded wings were practically touching, but pushed it out of her mind.

Rainbow Dash felt at peace as she laid there. Listening to Applejack and Pinkie Pie arguing over recipes, Twilight and Rarity quietly chatting about a recent celebrity scandal, and Fluttershy’s soft breathing beside her. It was nice to just spend time with her friends, and she hadn’t had to do any of the awkward lip stuff yet.

“Rainbow?” Unfortunately Fluttershy took this quiet moment as her chance to roll closer, until her forehooves were practically on top of Rainbow’s own. Rainbow Dash did wish she could just keep lying there enjoying her almost nap, but wasn’t about to ignore her first best friend.

“What’s up Fluttershy?” She asked, trying to not sound sleepy.

“I was wondering if you wanted to try some things with me?” Fluttershy asked timidly, even more so than normal. “Only if you want to, of course.”

“What kind of things?” Rainbow Dash asked hesitantly, knowing that Fluttershy’s begging voice would make her do anything the shy pegasus wanted. Well, not anything, but almost anything. “You know I’m up for anything.”

“You know.” Fluttershy muttered, hiding her face behind her fringe.

“If I knew, I wouldn’t ask,” Rainbow Dash shot back with an eye roll, wincing as she saw Fluttershy recoil from the bluntness in her voice. She quickly lowered her voice in the hopes it would put Fluttershy at ease. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to put you off. It’s okay, you know I care for you.”

Fluttershy murmured something, forcing Rainbow Dash to lean in closer to try and hear what she was saying. However as soon as she got close, Fluttershy wrapped her fore hooves around Rainbow Dash, pulling her off balance, before Fluttershy’s lips mashed against her own. Rainbow Dash froze, feeling Fluttershy’s awkward attempts at a kiss.

Rainbow Dash had been friends with Fluttershy for years. Ever since they had met in flight school they had basically been inseparable. Over the years there had been a lot of jokes at Rainbow Dash’s expense about the nature of the connection between them. Jokes that she was now realising were very inaccurate. Rainbow Dash was not enjoying kissing her friend, it felt weirdly awkward.

Fluttershy’s lips were soft, but that was probably the only nice thing that really passed through Rainbow Dash’s mind as Fluttershy kissed her. Fluttershy’s breath, however, wasn’t so good to experience, and it was far from the only thing she didn’t like. Fluttershy’s hooves were wrapped around her, pulling her a lot closer than she liked. Her wings were squashed against her back beneath Fluttershy’s hug. Of course, she was more than strong enough to shove Fluttershy away if she didn’t like it, but that did little to make her comfortable with her wings getting so restricted.

The whole exchange had been painfully awkward for Rainbow Dash. She couldn’t stop herself constantly worrying that Fluttershy was expecting her to do something. She couldn’t work out if Fluttershy was expecting her to do something back. When they were kissing, did Fluttershy want her to poke out her tongue or something? She wasn’t so sheltered that she didn’t know what prench kissing was, but she wasn’t sure if that was what Fluttershy wanted. So she just sat there and waited for her closest friend to stop shoving their lips together.

Eventually Fluttershy pulled away, a soft smile on her face, and Rainbow Dash couldn’t help smiling a little at seeing Fluttershy happy. Sure she did not enjoy the weird kissing stuff, but she still liked to see her friends happy. If she had to do some kissy stuff to make them happy, then she could just mare up and do it for them.

“Oh, is it Dashie kissy time?” Pinkie Pie asked, not even waiting for a response before shoving her own lips against Rainbow Dash’s own. This time it was not nearly as tolerable for Dash. Pinkie Pie clearly had not wiped her lips off and Rainbow was now experiencing the feeling of a half eaten cupcake being smeared on her face.

“Pinkie!” Rainbow Dash didn’t hesitate before shoving Pinkie Pie off of her, wiping the cupcake residue from her mouth. “Seriously, ask next time.”

“You should also wipe your mouth,” Rarity chuckled, “just going in for a kiss with half eaten cake on your muzzle is rather unsanitary.”

“Sorry Dashie,” Pinkie Pie apologised before rubbing her face with Rarity’s tail, earning her a squeal and a flick in the face from the now cake encrusted tail. “Can we do it now?”

“I think you are being a bit much for Rainbow Dash, Pinkie.” Applejack told them with a shrug. Sitting down on the other side of Fluttershy and giving her a nuzzle, that was eagerly returned. Well, as eagerly as Fluttershy could manage while still hiding behind her fringe.

“Nothing is too much for me,” Rainbow Dash argued, but didn’t push it any further. Thankfully Pinkie Pie turned her attention to Fluttershy and the two were back to being on the edge of inappropriate. Applejack joined the pony pile, giving Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy the best hug that she could manage. Rainbow Dash quickly turned her attention away from them, doing her best to ignore any sounds she could hear as well. It was only a short visual search before she spotted Twilight Sparkle.

The princess was sitting next to Rarity, however she was so engrossed in the book in front of her that she had failed to notice anything that had happened. Rainbow Dash quickly slid up next to Twilight and looked over her shoulder at the book in her hooves, ignoring the raised eyebrow from Rarity. However it was the cover of the book that really grabbed Rainbow Dash’s attention.

“Are you seriously reading the trotter series?” Rainbow Dash pulled the book from Twilight’s hooves, ignoring the flaring magic as Twilight tried to catch it. “You know they ruined the series in the fourth book.”

“They did not, that was the best one,” Twilight countered, snatching the book back out of Rainbow’s hooves with a flash of magic. “Watching their romance blossom was the best part of the series, and the story had only evolved with it.”

“You mean that they took away the cool stuff and replaced it with namby kissy stuff,” Rainbow Dash complained, “The main character acts like a complete idiot whenever the romance comes up and it ruins the action scenes every time. Face it, Twi, the series is ruined.”

“It’s a coming of age story, it was inevitable that romance would play a part in it,” Twilight shot back, “That’s what a coming of age story is meant to have in it.”

“It’s about a teenage filly who fights off robots. It’s not a ‘coming of age story’, it’s an awesome story.”

“It’s literally about her growing up and learning about herself. The superpowers are meant to be metaphorical representations of her learning about herself.” Twilight lectured. “The third book was the transition point between when the story evolved from just being about robot and laser fights, into the real storyline.”

“Then explain why she starts to act uncool and get all stupid and googly eyes at a stallion,” Dash grabbed the book and quickly flicked through the pages before shoving the book into Twilight's face. “See, here she just suddenly starts smooching him for literally no reason. Because of that she is distracted so the bad mare was about to steal a bunch of stuff.”

It’s meant to be a metaphor.”

“They aren’t meta-whatevers. The story is just a load of rubbish,” Rainbow Dash groaned. “Ever since she lost her powers the series has been super boring. It’s all about asking out stallions or getting crushes. In the fifth book she even crushes on the evil stallion, it’s stupid.”

“Hey, no spoilers!”

“Would you two stop arguing already!” Rarity interrupted, wedging herself in between them before leaning in and giving Twilight a kiss. The argument instantly dissolved, Twilight distracted and Rainbow Dash unwilling to interrupt the two.

“I think that we are out of cupcakes!” Pinkie Pie called out before shoving seven into her gullet. Rainbow Dash wasn’t surprised to see that Pinkie Pie wasn’t lying and she had just eaten the entire plate of remaining cupcakes. She was still kind of annoyed that she hadn’t gotten a chance to have a third, but she expected nothing else from Pinkie Pie. The fact that Pinkie Pie had resisted eating the last few cupcakes for literal minutes was honestly an impressive show of self control.

“Guess it’s the end of the picnic,” Rainbow Dash declared, hoping that she could head off soon and get away from the awkwardness of the group date. She pulled herself back onto her hooves, planning to fly off before Applejack guilt tripped her into help clean up. She did have a good excuse to leave, the weather team had actually asked for her help on a storm for the evening.

“Wait, I forgot!” Twilight suddenly pushed off Rarity and quickly began nosing her way through her saddlebags, in search of something.

“It can wait for next week,” Rarity nuzzled Twilight in an effort to calm down the panicking mare, but it was not very effective. “Let’s not end our first wonderful picnic as a herd with paperwork.”

“It’s not just paperwork,” Twilight shot a glare at Rarity and returned to her saddlebags, before finally pulling out a bundled collection of scrolls. She smoothly separated them into six tightly wrapped scrolls, her magic depositing one in the lap of each member of the herd.

“What’s this?” Rainbow Dash asked, unrolling the scroll and feeling her eyes cross as she lost herself in the endless legalese. “I am like ninety percent sure that this is just gibberish.”

“I think it’s something about marriage,” Applejack mused.

“It’s legal protection for the six of us,” Twilight told them, unrolling her own scroll and signing it in one smooth motion. “Celestia warned me that there would be a bit of complexity with the princess parts of my life. This should mostly dodge it, I hope.”

“I followed none of that,” Rainbow Dash admitted, Fluttershy nodded in agreement.

“It’s just marking us as connected in a legal sense,” Rarity sighed, her voice becoming somewhat wistful.

“This looks like it took a while to work out,” Fluttershy mused as she studied the complex document. “You must have been working on this day and night to get done so quickly."

“Not exactly,” Rarity admitted with a blush, “Twilight and I have been discussing this for a while, and this particular agreement took the better part of a month to work out.”

Rainbow Dash frowned as she looked through the document, however she knew that it didn’t really matter what it said in it. She trusted Twilight with her life and the princess wanted Rainbow Dash to sign it. Rolling her eyes, Rainbow Dash snatched a quill from Fluttershy and scrawled her name on the dotted line, before throwing the quill back.

“I trust you, Twi.” Rainbow Dash told her quietly as she pushed the scroll into Twilight’s hooves. “I’ve got to head off, but it’s been fun.”

“You don’t have to sign it now. We can go over it next week, is that okay?” Twilight quickly asked. “We were planning on having a sleepover in Canterlot and I can properly run you through what it all means. I need to start using the other castle more often anyway.”

“I trust you, I don’t need to read it,” Rainbow Dash chuckled. “Anyway, I have a two week tour with the Wonderbolts, so I am going to be away next week. So I trust you to deal with it all, okay?”

“If you’re sure?” Twilight asked, hesitantly. "I would have preferred to at least walk you through it."

“With you five, I am always sure.” Rainbow Dash told her quietly, giving Twilight a quick nuzzle, before throwing her wings down and rocketing into the sky. Twilight frowned, but rolled up the scroll for safe keeping.

Chapter 6

Getting to be a Wonderbolt was the ultimate dream. To soar through the clouds alongside the absolute peak in performance was an amazing experience that Rainbow Dash cherished. Even the challenge of training was exhilarating when she was surrounded by the Wonderbolts. Just the knowledge that she was on the bleeding edge of flight was something that she could never explain.

However there was one little part of being a Wonderbolt that Rainbow Dash utterly hated. The press conferences that ran alongside the events, dragging them all away from training or flying to sit cooped up in a room with thirty annoying reporter ponies. In the air, Rainbow Dash loved the yells of her fans. On the ground she despised the argumentative yelling from the reporters.

So it was little surprise that Rainbow Dash was in an absolutely foul mood as she sat on the hard wooden chair as the team was thrown question after question. Well, not the entire team. Somehow only her, Soarin and Spitfire had been dragged into it. The rest of the team were probably already out partying, either that or stuffing their faces with room service and waiting.

It was equally infuriating to know that the questions were all a blatant facade intended to make them trip up on misleading questions and give the reporters something barely newsworthy for the next day's published newspaper. It was dragging on longer than normal, which wasn’t much of a surprise as they were in Manehattan and the room was stuffed full of reporters all wanting their own minute to annoy. However, it was just all part of being in the Wonderbolts, and Spitfire had promised to take the team out in the evening to make up for the extended session.

Her luck had been holding so far, with most of the questions directed towards Soarin and Spitfire. For some reason, the reporters were very insistent that the two had an open relationship or something, though Rainbow Dash didn’t see why anyone would care. They were awesome flyers, why would you ask anything other than the stats of the day’s show.

“Ms Dash, are the rumours true?”

“What?” Rainbow Dash jerked back awake and frowned at the reporter who was staring at her so insistently. Spitfire was rolling her eyes at Rainbow Dash, and she knew there was probably going to be a lecture later about paying attention. “Um, I wasn’t paying attention. You were really boring. What are we talking about?”

The reporter glared at her.“We wanted to know if the rumours about your relationship status change was true.”

Rainbow Dash returned the glare with an eye roll, it wasn’t her fault that she didn’t pay attention. The reporter ponies needed to learn to be more interesting.

“I don’t know, what are the rumours?” Rainbow Dash asked with a shrug. She could tell them that she was joining the herd, but with the mess of paperwork and the princess parts it was seemingly more a casual job offer than a relationship at this point. So if they wanted to know anything then they would need to badger Twilight.

“There are rumours that the Wonderbolts often have cases of infidelity,” The reporter tried to lead, but Rainbow Dash wasn’t really paying him any more attention.

“I wouldn’t know.” Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes, “If you’re not going to ask about how awesome I am at flying, then there probably isn’t much I can tell you. I can tell you that I did like a perfect Immelman loop in the show after the wave turn. If you want some controversy, my cobra manoeuvre was nowhere near as clean. It was still pretty awesome though.”

“So are you saying that you won’t comment on rumours that you are sleeping with other team members,” The reporter pushed.

"How cheap do you think we are? The Wonderbolts have enough bits to pay for separate hotel rooms. So every pony in the team gets their own bed." Rainbow Dash couldn't help the irritation with the dumb questions get to her. She knew perfectly well that the reporter had to rely on innuendo to even ask the questions, so she made sure to always answer them painfully literally.

"I meant do you have se-" the reporter tried again before being interrupted.

“Seriously?” Spitfire cut in, “You know the guidelines on what is and isn’t okay to ask at these junkets. Do we need to reconsider allowing you here?”

“It’s a fair question.” The reporter argued. “Wonderbolt fans deserve to know whether the mares and stallions that they idolise are actually as pure as they pretend to be, or if they are-”

“Just stop!” Spitfire spat back, waving away the reporter with a rather rude gesture. “We will be talking with your paper about appropriateness of questions. This is intended to be a family friendly event, and that includes this as well. You remember the media guidelines that you agreed to for access."

“It’s the free press, I can ask anything,” The reporter argued, seemingly oblivious of the reporters behind him that were shaking their heads as he continued to dig himself into an even deeper hole. “I think that my readers deserve to know if the Wonderbolts are actually all degenerates that sleep around.”

“This is a media junket designed to give you easy access to us,” Spitfire shot back, “that’s the agreement we have with your paper.”

“Okay, I think maybe we should call it a night,” Soarin interrupted, thankfully ending the conversation Spitfire could get too angry. “Let me handle the last few reporters and you get ready for tonight.”

“Fine,” Spitfire growled, nodding for Rainbow Dash to follow her as she trotted out of the room. Rainbow trailing after her. As soon as they were outside Spitfire jumped into the air, Rainbow Dash flying into the air after her. Spitfire slowed her flight and Rainbow Dash took the chance to fly alongside her.

“Sorry about the press,” Spitfire apologised as they flew over Manehattan. “I know you didn’t join the Wonderbolts to deal with that rubbish. You know that most of our press conferences aren’t that bad.”

“I have been to a few of them before, you know,” Rainbow Dash called back as she pulled off a heartline roll, her wings flicking to guide her smoothly through the rollover. “They always ask dumb questions. It doesn’t bother me.”

“I guess working with Princess Twilight also leads to a few of them?” Spitfire asked cautiously.

“Not really.” Rainbow Dash admitted, slowing down her flight a little to make sure she didn’t fly too far ahead of Spitfire. She was still having difficulty properly slowing down around the other Wonderbolts, though she was trying. “Princess Celestia used to try and keep reporters away from us as everything was either a state secret or we were on a mission. Also, pretty much every reporter has learnt to never ask Twilight an open ended question. She can lecture you about any topic for hours.”

“You speak from experience?” Spitfire queried.

“She can be very thorough with her explanations, let’s leave it at that.” Rainbow Dash sighed, switching to a gentle glide as they slowly began their turnaround back towards their hotel. "Though the real reason they never bother is that Pinkie Pie has a tendency to completely derail any question. So they generally become pointless."

“There was something else I was going to ask,” Spitfire hesitantly began, her own wings beating a little faster than was strictly necessary to maintain her height, “you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to. But, are you seeing anypony?”

“Funnily enough, I have no idea.” Rainbow Dash chuckled. “Maybe? I’ll have to ask Twilight to check the paperwork.”

“The paperwork?” Spitfire raised an eyebrow before shaking her head, “No, I meant if you had your eye on anypony in the team. No judgement, but it would be nice to know if I could help. You know, give you a chance to be with them off the record and play interference with the media if you need it.”

“Is this about what that reporter said?” Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes, flaring her wings and angling them vertically so she could shoot backwards beside Spitfire. “Look, I’m not here to shack up with any of the Wonderbolts. I am here to fly, and I am here to do it well. So don’t worry about stupid questions from stupid reporters.”

“Hmm,” Spitfire didn’t look entirely convinced but didn’t ask any more questions on the flight back to the hotel.

Spitfire had gone all out for the drinks that evening. Not only had she reserved a private room for the entire team to act like drunk idiots, she had even ordered them enough food to appease the entire team. The plates were piled high with pizza and other absolute trash food. There was so much food that Rainbow Dash knew that even Pinkie Pie would have almost been satisfied. Naturally with the food there was also plenty of drinks, all being charged to the Wonderbolts HQ as ‘entertainment’. Rainbow Dash was already four cocktails in, switching from cider as soon as she realised that she didn’t have to cover the costs.

With so much alcohol in everypony’s system, the conversation was quickly devolving into absolute nonsense as they all struggled to keep the conversation going. No pony was slurring their words too much yet, but Rainbow Dash knew that she was probably only a few drinks away from sleeping on the table. Soarin’s foreleg wrapped over her back was probably the only real reason she was still standing straight, though it was also clear that Soarin was using her to keep himself level as well.

“Thunderlane seems to think that he’s Celestia’s gift to mares,” Fire Streak laughed. As he hoofed over yet another beer to Soarin. “Check him out talking to Blaze like he has a chance. He said that he was rated the hottest Wonderbolt. She’s in the team, she already knows he’s talking out of his rear.”

“It’s not like he’s even the hottest stallion here,” Rainbow Dash responded with an eye roll, taking another drink of a particularly fruity cocktail.

“Oh, who would you say is the most,” Soarin cut in, wiggling his eyebrows at Rainbow Dash, a smirk plastered over his face.

“It’s me, clearly.” Fire Streak mock boasted, barely about to finish without laughing.

“I mean, Soarin’s rump is apparently one of the top ten stallion plots of the decade,” Rainbow Dash countered with a laugh, “Or at least that is what Mare’s Weekly tells everypony. I’m sure they are accurate.”

“Is this really a top ten ass,” Soarin laughed as he waved his rump at Rainbow. “What do you think Dash? The best you’ve seen, or do you need to study it a bit closer? Maybe it could make the top five."

“I think I’ve seen enough,” Rainbow Dash chuckled, shoving Soarin’s plot away. “You’d better put that away before you tempt somepony.”

“We’re talking about my ass, not being an ass, Dash” Soaring shot back with a smirk.

“You really shouldn’t use terms like that,” Spitfire nudged Soarin with her shoulder, “all it takes is one reporter mis-hearing and then we’re stuck in another hour long reporter rabble.”

“It’s fine Spits, we're in a private room,” Soarin complained, "you don’t have to ride me on it."

“I’ll ride you all I damn well want,” Spitfire shot back, pushing herself against him and narrowing her eyes.

“Great, mummy and daddy are fighting again,” Dash snickered as she watched the two mock glare at one another.

“Did you just call Soarin daddy?” Fleetfoot asked, a weird expression plastered across her face. Dash just waved her off as she finished off the last of her cocktail, letting out a belch as she slammed the glass down on the table.

“They are the ones that tell us what to do, so they are basically the parents of the team.” Dash shrugged, waving down a waiter pony so she could try the next cocktail in the list. After making her order, she turned back to meet Fleetfoot’s frown. “What?”

“You do understand how weird it is to call Soarin Daddy, right?”

Rainbow Dash just rolled her eyes. “You need another cocktail in you, maybe without the tail.”

“I’m serious Dash,” Fleetfoot stepped right up to Rainbow Dash, her muzzle only a hair away from her own. “Reel it in Dash before I make you. At least slow down on the drinks.”

“Whatever.” Dash waved her off, seeing that her next drink was ready for her.

“What did Fleety want?” Soarin had somehow managed to make it to the bar before Rainbow Dash, and was already necking back a glass of some amber liquid. “Or was our little Dashie trying to put the moves on her?”

“She just thought I had too much or something.” Dash managed to get a clumsy hoof around the new drink and take a sip. She twisted her mouth as she realised that the drink was a lot stronger than she expected. “Wow, this one has a kick.”

“What did you expect?” Soarin chuckled as he took another sip of his own drink. “It’s a Manehatten iced tea.”

“I expected it to taste like tea or something, not pure alcohol.” Rainbow Dash shrugged, before taking another careful sip, this time being careful to just have a smaller amount.

“Well, with that drink you’re probably going to hit your limit.”

“Please, I’m way too awesome to get taken down by just a drink.” Rainbow Dash paused, lifting the glass up and peering into it. “Wait, how much is in this?”

“Three of them will put me down for the night,” Soarin chuckled. “Apparently those from Manehatten need something strong to deal with the fact that they live in Manehatten instead of somewhere awesome like Cloudsdale.”

“You’d better hope no pony hears you say that. Spitfire told me they are big business for the Wonderbolts.”

“Please, you’d be surprised by the amount of nonsense ponies will let us get up to.” Soarin gestured to the rest of the team, nearly spilling his drink in the process. He quickly set it down on the bar, and threw a foreleg on Rainbow Dash, pulling her close. “I think you’re probably the only one of us without a horrible news story about their misguided youth or whatever.”

“I think Princess Luna kind of made a law banning anyone talking about “her saviours” in a bad light,” Dash muttered, shifting her weight to try and reduce how much Soarin was leaning on her. “Not sure if that is true though. Though it would explain why no one bugs me about Flight Camp.”

“There you two are!” Spitfire stumbled over to them, a blush on her cheeks as she struggled to keep her balance. She threw her foreleg over Rainbow Dash’s neck, mirroring Soarin. “I see that Soarin has already decided to ask.”

“Ixnay on that Spits,” Soarin yelped in a panic, gesturing for Spitfire to stop. He also pulled himself away from Rainbow Dash.

“Oh, right...” Spitfire nervously chuckled, gently lifting her arm off of Rainbow Dash’s back as well. “Um, I was also coming over to say that the others wanted to head out on the town soon. I only booked here for a few hours.”

“Oh sure, I’m game for a longer night.” Rainbow Dash agreed. “I assume you’re joining, Soarin?”

“I could be convinced,” Soarin chuckled. “I assume that they want to try out karaoke or something?”

“After this many drinks?” Spitfire laughed. “Definitely!”

Soarin quickly downed the rest of his drink before pulling himself back onto all four hooves, clearly ready to head out that second. Spitfire looked equally ready, though a lot less stable.

Rainbow Dash tried to down the rest of her drink, but Soarin nudged her. “Maybe skip drinking that much that quickly, you don’t want to be as drunk as Spitfire. I can promise you the next morning will not be fun.”

“Fair point.” Rainbow Dash breathed a sigh of relief as she put it back down, belatedly realising that she would have been utterly ruined if she had gone for it. She was awesome, but even awesomeness had its limits.

“Anyway, karaoke?” Soarin asked the group after finally freeing himself from Spitfire's hug. With a few nods of agreement the remainder of the Wonderbolts all quickly downed the last of their drinks and prepared to leave.

Rainbow Dash made to follow them. However Fleetfoot stepped in front of her, a frown on her face. Rainbow tried to step around her, but Fleetfoot just moved back in front of her. Rainbow Dash was not the queen of understanding social cues, but even she was smart enough to recognise that Fleetfoot was trying to stop her following.

“I think you’ve had a few too many drinks Rainbow, it’s time to call it a night,” Fleetfoot told her as she gestured to the numerous empty glasses sitting on the table behind Dash. Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes, knowing that more than half of them had been Soarin’s. “You do realise that he is currently dating Spitfire, correct?”

“And? I know that they are dating.” Rainbow Dash asked, having no idea what point Fleetfoot was trying to make. She didn’t know why either of them would care what Spitfire and Soarin were doing in their hotel room. “They asked me if I wanted to join in a karaoke session with the other half of the team. Same as you.”

“Rainbow, you were hitting on Soarin!” Fleetfoot told Rainbow Dash with a huff. “It kind of went beyond okay. So I think it would be a good idea if you called it a night and headed home before you do something that you’ll regret. Okay?”

“I wasn’t hitting on anyone,” Rainbow protested, but she could tell that Fleetfoot had made up her mind. It would have been fun to go to karaoke with the others, but it was clear that Fleetfoot would make sure that she never put a hoof into the place. Groaning, Rainbow Dash decided to cut her losses. “Fine, I guess it was getting late anyway. See ya tomorrow for training.”

Dash huffed as she left the bar, doing her best not to snap at Fleetfoot as she left. She flicked her tail in irritation as she angrily trotted back to the team’s hotel, once again annoyed that she couldn’t finish a night’s drinks with the team. This time she had managed to free up the next morning, and it still wasn’t enough to actually get through the night.

“Was I even flirting?” Rainbow Dash asked herself out loud with a huff. Sure, she had let him hug her and they had been pretty close the whole night, but that didn’t mean much. If that counted as flirting, then she had done it with all of her friends, and they clearly didn’t not see her that way. Right?

Rainbow Dash paused before tapping her face with her hoof, realising the blatantly obvious. Her friends had wanted to have a romantic relationship with her. Was just talking nicely to others enough to count as flirting? She was pretty sure that she was able to talk casually with other ponies without them all thinking that she was flirting with them, right?

“Why does this have to be so confusing?” She complained to herself as she continued her trot, her thoughts swirling as she tried to organise the confusing mess that was her life. “Think, Rainbow. Fleetfoot described your behaviour as flirting, but you only saw it as being friendly. You’ve only ever been friendly with your friends, but they all want to have a romantic relationship. Surely I have not been giving them signals that were that misleading.”

Rainbow Dash quickly recalled the many, many, times that she had dragged Fluttershy physically out of the mare’s bed. Fluttershy had been very embarrassed every time that Rainbow Dash had done it, maybe it was one of those flirty things that she wasn’t meant to be doing with her friends.

“Have I tricked my friends?” She asked herself quietly, frowning as she tried to focus on putting one hoof in front of the other, but the thoughts kept on returning. “I’ve hugged all of them, I’ve hugged them a lot actually. Am I meant to be hugging friends? Is that why they want me to join their herd?”

Rainbow Dash frowned, before shaking her head. She had also hugged Scootaloo a whole bunch as well and that hadn’t been an issue. So maybe she was fine, it was just an overreaction from Fleetfoot. It wouldn’t be the first time that Fleetfoot had been overly protective of Spitfire and Soarin. Nodding to herself, Rainbow Dash continued her walk. Glad that she had mostly worked through the confusing nonsense that Fleetfoot’s words had put in her head.

Mostly.

Chapter 7

Rainbow Dash woke up surprisingly early the next day, though her head did still pound a little from the many drinks from the previous evening. Still, it was more than manageable enough so she quickly found herself sitting at the training grounds, waiting for the others to arrive. She could already tell that the day was going to be a late start, with most of the Wonderbolts still in their hotel rooms sleeping off a massive hangover.

She impatiently waited only a few minutes before starting on her morning stretches. Her mind was already starting to make its worries known, and she hoped that a bit of physical exertion would drown it out. So she started on a proper canter around the field, her heart slowly beginning it’s ramp up as she got back into the groove.

However she had barely managed to complete a second lap before she spotted another team member make their appearance, though still arriving far later than Spitfire would ever normally allow. Rainbow Dash was dismayed to see that it was Fleetfoot. Judging by the shades on her face she had not fully handled the previous night. It filled Rainbow Dash with a small amount of mirth to know that Fleetfoot was suffering after sending her home. Though that feeling was quickly swallowed up in guilt that she had wished misery on a teammate.

“It’s about time you turned up,” Rainbow Dash good naturedly teased, as she slowed to a stop next to Fleetfoot, “I was starting to wonder if I was the only pony that would make it in today.”

“That’s what happens when you’re a grown up pony,” Fleetfoot responded, her voice still hoarse from the previous night. A sign that she had been yelling over club music for most of the evening. “We can handle our drink better in the moment, but can’t quite handle the next morning.”

Rainbow Dash was tempted to complain about Fleetfoot’s tone, but decided to let it be. Fleetfoot was already rather ticked off, and Rainbow didn’t want to make the mare’s bad mood any worse.

“So, you up for some laps?”

“Oh, joy,” Fleetfoot groaned back, making no effort to sound happy about it.

Together they began their trott around the track, switching to a proper canter by the first corner. Rainbow Dash made sure to match her speed to Fleetfoot as best as she could, but she could tell that the other mare was clearly not running at her peak that morning. It was almost impossible to keep her canter at a slow enough rate to keep back with Fleetfoot’s pace. Eventually she gave up and switched to a fast trot.

“So, how did the rest of the night go?” Rainbow Dash queried carefully.

“It went fine” Fleetfoot’s terse response wasn’t surprising.

“Did karaoke go well?”

“It went fine.” Fleetfoot didn’t even bother to look over at Rainbow Dash, instead focusing on her own hooves as she wobbled slightly around the curve.

Rainbow Dash was getting sick of the non-answers. “Come on, you can give me more than that!”

“Okay, fine!” Fleetfoot stopped with a huff, glaring at Rainbow Dash. “The night went great, Soarin got completely trashed, as did the rest of the team. However the good news was that a certain young pony wasn’t there to try and worm her blue rear into Soarin’s bed.”

“Wait, what?” Rainbow Dash couldn’t stop her mouth from dropping open at Fleetfoot’s accusation. “What in Celestia’s massive rear makes you think that I would do that?”

“I saw you with him last night, letting him hang off of you.” Fleetfoot was angry, and Rainbow Dash couldn’t help wincing as she felt specs of saliva hit her face. “You didn’t control yourself at all last night. Soarin should know better, but you shouldn’t be trying to get in between him and Spitfire anyway. It’s not okay, do you understand that at least?”

“I wasn’t doing anything!”

“Yes you were! Do you really think that I am so blind to not see what you are doing?” Fleetfoot has trotted straight up to Rainbow Dash again, rage was seething under the surface of her every word. “You’re the youngest on our team, and I know that we are meant to do our best to make sure that no pony tries to do anything inappropriate, but last night was pushing that.”

“All I did was talk to Soarin a bit?” Rainbow Dash tried to defend herself, but Fleetfoot cut her off.

“You spent an hour hitting on him. Every time I turned to look you had your hooves all over him. When you weren’t, you were making him put a foreleg on you, or letting him lean against you.”

“It’s just a hug?” Rainbow Dash complained, “I hug heaps of ponies.”

“Oh, you call it hugging, do you?”

“Yes, I didn’t expect the second degree for hugging a friend.”

“You wouldn’t get the second degree from me if you weren’t trying to ‘hug’ all of the hottest ponies in the Wonderbolts.” Fleetfoot poked Rainbow Dash in the chest with her hoof, pushing her off balance. “When you joined, Spitfire gave us all this stupid speech about making sure that there was no funny business with any of the stallions of mares hitting on you. We had to make sure we put our best hoof forward to make sure that you never felt pressured to do anything you didn’t want to do. She wanted you to not have to deal with any of the rubbish the rest of us had to deal with.”

“What do you mean?”

Fleetfoot ignored Rainbow Dash’s question. “You took Spitfire’s efforts and trampled all over there. You hit on her partner, you talk up Thunderlane despite knowing he is also taken, and then you tried to pull that same thing with me.”

“I... what?” Rainbow Dash was speechless. “I didn’t do any of that. I was just being friendly.”

“Seriously, we’re trying to protect you,” Fleetfoot growled, “and yet here you are doing your best to make it impossible by being ‘friendly’. Pull your head in before you do something we can’t protect yourself. If this keeps up, you’re going to ruin this opportunity for yourself.”

“Ruin this?” Rainbow Dash arched up, shoving Fleetfoot back from her. “I’m training my butt off to be good enough for this team by flying every second I can. I don’t know what all this other stupid stuff you are talking about is, but I am not trying to mess this up.”

“Then stop trying to sleep with Soarin!” Fleetfoot yelled at her.

“I’m not!” Rainbow Dash yelled back. “I’m joining you all for drinks because Spitfire asked me. I’m talking to Soarin because I like talking to ponies, and I am out here training because I want to keep up with you all. But that’s not enough is it!”

“Stop pretending. You know what you are doing!” Fleetfoot shot back, stepping closer to Rainbow Dash again.

“I’m not!” Rainbow Dash shoved Fleetfoot back onto her rump. “I joined the team because I wanted to prove that I could be the best Wonderbolt who had ever flown. I am here to prove myself with a team that would respect me and be loyal, but that is apparently not going to happen. I can’t exactly pull off a twin barrel roll with a team member that I can’t trust. Spitfire wanted me to fly with you in the next show, but I guess that is not happening now. It’s pretty clear however that one of us is not being all that trustworthy, and it isn’t me.”

“Dash!”

“Just zip it, Fleetfoot”

“Dash, I just wanted you to stop what you were doing.” Fleetfoot’s tone had become worried, but Rainbow Dash didn’t find it in herself to care. “I’m trying to help.”

“Well, I wanted to make it clear that I am not doing anything,” Dash shot back, angrily. “If you feel like you can force yourself to actually trust me in the air, then maybe I shouldn’t be here.”

There was a silence as they stared at each other, neither mare really wanting to be the next to say anything. Eventually Rainbow Dash broke the silence.

“Look, I need to clear my head.” Rainbow Dash groaned, her gaze turned away from Fleetfoot. “I’ll be back, just I need to think, okay?”

Fleetfoot just gave a weak smile, but Rainbow Dash gave her little attention. She trotted off, staying silent to avoid blowing up again at Fleetfoot. Leaving the field was not behaviour that Spitfire would normally allow, but seeing that no pony else of the team was there Rainbow Dash knew that there was little chance of Spitfire getting annoyed.

Still, Rainbow Dash didn’t like outright skipping practice. She knew that there were still a few manoeuvres that desperately needed to be worked out that Spitfire wanted to have ready for the show in a few days. So she couldn’t just storm off back to Ponyville for a day. Instead she needed to sort out herself and get back before the team woke up.

Rainbow Dash didn’t turn back. She knew that she couldn’t go back with her current headspace, but there was something else gnawing at her mind. Fleetfoot had been utterly convinced that Rainbow Dash had been sending signals to the others showing her apparent interest in them. However she had definitely been doing nothing of the sort, she hoped. Right?

She shoved her way into the locker rooms of the training facility that the Wonderbolts had hired out for the next few days. The locker room was empty, with not even the maintenance ponies in there, giving her a brief chance to privately calm herself. However her peace was short lived as her mind once again ran through Fleetfoot’s words. Rainbow Dash couldn’t hide the frown that seemed to have etched its way onto her muzzle. Groaning, she sat down on one of the rough wooden benches, resting her head on her forelegs as she tried to work herself mentally through Fleetfoot’s words.

“Just because I like being friendly doesn’t make me a flirty filly, '' Rainbow Dash muttered to herself bitterly. As soon as the words passed through her muzzle she knew that they were more than just idle complaints. She knew that there was likely some truth to them, “maybe if Fleetfoot thought that it was flirty, then she wasn’t the only one.”

That sour thought hit Rainbow Dash hard.

“If Fleetfoot saw it, then maybe the others saw it the same way,” She muttered to herself, every word feeling sour as soon as it was spoken, “maybe it wasn’t just the team.”

She thought back to the many strange conversations she had been having with her friends over the last week about forming the herd. The other five had all seemed to be on the same page with getting together, and a lot of the time it had seemed like they knew what she wanted better than she did.

“Maybe they think I’ve been flirting with them too when we hug,” The idea worried Rainbow Dash at a deep level. The idea that she had been misleading her friends was not one that she wanted to entertain. But Fleetfoot was also clearly telling the truth. “I guess it explains why they were so eager for me to join them.”

She pulled herself back onto her hooves and walked over to the nearest mirror, peering down at the tired mare reflected back. She wasn’t surprised with what she saw, a stunt pony who stood shoulder beneath all of her friends. She knew perfectly well that she was not as much of a catch as any of her friends. Fluttershy was always the peak, but her other four friends all trailed very close behind, leaving Rainbow Dash with her short twiggy build trailing far behind.

Rainbow Dash shook her head to try and clear away the negative thoughts, but her mind kept on repeating the same inescapable truth. Rainbow Dash was an ace of a flyer, but that did little to help with the rest of her. She was not what any sane pony would call a good catch, but she knew that she had to make herself one. Was she letting down her friends by being too lazy to try and be good enough?

She wasn’t as attractive as the others, she was stuck out of town a lot of the time due to the Wonderbolts, and she was pretty sure that the others found her annoying a lot of the time. If you needed somepony to be an awesome flyer, Rainbow Dash was your mare. If you needed a herd mate, then it was harder to believe that she was a good option. Yet, they still asked her.

There was really only one reason she could believe that would make them want her in the herd, and what was because they thought that she wanted to be in it as well. Either she had no idea why they wanted her in the herd, or she had been accidentally tricking them by flirting with them a whole lot and they asked her to join under some sort of false pretence that she wanted it. Were they just trying to be good friends, mistaking her social ineptitude as her trying to hit on them? Were they really just trying to be nice by including her?

Rainbow Dash sighed as she realised that she honestly did not want to even know the answer. Either way, it made it clear to her that she needed to seriously rethink whether joining the herd was really such a good idea. She wanted to be close to her best friends and herding would definitely accomplish that, but it felt dishonest to keep up the charade. If they wanted the fake flirty Rainbow Dash that didn’t actually exist then she was betraying their trust to not be what they wanted. She couldn’t let them down, if that was what they wanted then maybe she could do it.

“Hey Rainbow Dash!” A familiar voice crashed through her mental worries, throwing her back into the present.

Blinking, Rainbow Dash spun around, wincing as she saw Spitfire’s face hovering a foot away from her own.

“Oh, um, hey!” Rainbow Dash backed away from the mirror. “I didn’t expect you to be here so soon.”

“Soarin has an amazing hangover cure,” Spitfire shrugged, “but, seriously, you look a bit annoyed. You okay?”

“Oh, I’m fine. I’m always fine.” Rainbow Dash quickly defended herself. “Just checking myself out, you know?”

Spitfire raised an eyebrow, clearly not believing a word. “Okay, I won’t ask. Just know that the captain thing is more than a title. If you need to talk about anything, I am somepony that is here to listen. It is literally my job to listen and help.”

“I know, it’s just friendship stuff, with my friends, and stuff...” Rainbow Dash trailed off. “I’m going to go and train.”

Rainbow Dash quickly pushed past Spitfire and headed out to the field, nearly hitting a canter as she rushed out. In her rush to leave she nearly collided with Fleetfoot who was waiting outside, however Rainbow Dash stepped around her without a word.

“Wait, Dash!” Fleetfoot reached out a hoof towards Rainbow Dash, but it was pushed away.

“Look,” Rainbow Dash turned back to Fleetfoot, blowing some of her mane out of her eyes so she could properly stare into Fleetfoot’s eyes with her best leer. “Let’s just pretend that the entire conversation never happened. We both said some things that we probably shouldn’t have said, even if it was mostly you. So we’re going to drop it and just get back to training.”

“I was going to apologise, but okay.” Fleetfoot didn’t have the heart to admit how adorable Rainbow Dash looked with the pout on her face. “So.... what did you want to practice?“

“What do you think of a Sonic Rainboom to end the next show?” Rainbow Dash turned back to the field with a smirk, ignoring the loud groan from Fleetfoot.

“Do you think you can avoid property damage this time?” Fleetfoot jokingly asked.

Rainbow Dash shrugged, a few shattered windows was a fine price to pay to experience pure awesomeness.

Chapter 8

The train network that spanned Equestria was a miracle of planning, allowing the average pony to travel the width of the kingdom within a mere day’s travel. It was an extensive network that took hundreds of pony minds to devise and plan, and thousands to build. Naturally Rainbow Dash couldn't bring herself to care in the slightest about the supposedly amazing engineering. Instead she was sitting bitterly on the train wishing that she could have flown home to Ponyville the previous evening.

Unfortunately a mistimed roll and a bad recovery during the last show had given her a sprained wing. So she was instead sitting on the train with a bandaged wing, wishing that she had been better at her low altitude aileron rolls. The only good news was that she had been injured at the end of their last show and it had only looked like a rough landing to the crowd. So the show itself ended well.

The bad news was that the last show was in Baltimare, and the trip home by train was not a short one. However the crystal peak of the Castle of Friendship was peaking over the nearby hills, letting Rainbow Dash know that she was nearing the end of the incredibly boring journey. Gathering the few items she had brought to entertain herself on the train ride, she cast a venomous glare at the book that Twilight had recommended.

She was seriously contemplating leaving the book on the train seat in revenge for it boring her. Twilight had recommended that she finish the series, but the book had just done nothing but bore her. Surely Twilight understood that if the story didn’t contain awesomeness, then it was a waste of paper. She ended up shoving it into her saddlebag, not wanting to deal with an angry Twilight. Losing a library book was one of the few ways to genuinely anger the mare.

It was later afternoon when the train finally slowed to a stop in Ponyville’s small station. Rainbow Dash was already waiting at the train door and stumbled slightly from the rough breaking. She trotted off the train before it even stopped, her eyes peeled for any sign of Pinkie Pie. She knew that there was little chance of Pinkie Pie waiting for her as it was in the middle of her shift at Sugar Cube Corner. However that did little to stop her being wary of any tackle hugs that could come from anywhere. The last thing she needed was an over-exuberant Pinkie Pie glomping her and hurting her wing any more than it already was.

Out of the corner of her eye she spotted a flash of pink mane and dove behind a nearby park bench. She carefully lifted her head up, peering over the edge of the wooden bench as she scanned for any sign of Pinkie Pie. However all she saw was Lily Valley, and her pink fur coat, trotting along with a flower order on her back. A false alarm.

Rolling her eyes, Rainbow Dash stepped back out from behind the cover of the bench and resumed her walk home. It was only a short flight back from the station, but Rainbow Dash was quickly realising that it was a much longer journey on hoof. Of course, it wasn’t until she was standing beneath her floating cloud home that she realised that there was a flaw in her plan. Even with a wing that was only slightly sprained, she knew that she didn’t have a hope of flying up there.

She tried to tenderly move her sprained wing, wincing as she felt a flash of pain from the small movement. Her wing needed a week of rest before it would support her again. Shooting the wing a bitter glare, Rainbow Dash realised that she was going to have to bunk with one of her friends until she could fly again. Turning back towards Ponyville, she ran through the options before her. Normally she would bug Fluttershy, but she also knew that Pinkie Pie was spending a lot of time over there and she just didn’t want to have to deal with that on top of her wing. Pinkie Pie was good in small sprints, but Rainbow Dash didn’t want to combine a sprained wing and an overdose on Pinkie Pie.

Applejack was never an option. She never allowed Rainbow Dash to sleep in, even when it was a weekend. Twilight was also out as she was in Canterlot for the next few days. So that only left Rainbow Dash with one option. Knocking on the door to Carousel Boutique almost felt like crossing enemy lines to Rainbow Dash. The amount of times that Rarity had tried to drag her here to try on a dress was incalculable, but she also knew that Rarity would always be there to lend a hoof.

“Welcome to the c-” The door opened with Rarity beginning her normal customer spiel, before realising it was Rainbow Dash standing in her doorway.

“Hey Rares.” Rainbow Dash gave a wave, smiling weakly. “I kind of need to ask a favour, if you’re not busy. I can come back later if you are.”

“Oh, come on darling. I always have time for you. Besides, it’s near the end of the day.” Rarity smiled sweetly as she gestured for Rainbow Dash to enter. Rarity stepped past Rainbow Dash to flip the store's sign to closed with a smile. “I doubt I’ll have any more customers today.”

“I hope that you’re okay with tea today?” Rarity asked as she ushered Rainbow Dash upstairs to her living room pushing her towards a couch while she searched the small kitchen for an elusive teacup. "I have not had a chance to shop today with all of the work. So options are a tad limited.".

“That’s fine,” Rainbow Dash yelled back as she sat down on the couch, trying to avoid squashing too many of Rarity’s sketches that littered the room.

Rarity returned with a tray with two mugs levitating in front of her. She winced as she looked around the room, seemingly only now recognising the mess that she had left. “You’ll have to excuse the mess. I’ve been hit by inspiration and was a little too focused.”

“Don’t worry about it. If you think this is bad, you should see my place.” Rainbow Dash knew that Rarity would have a fit if she saw the unvacuumed mess in her cloud home.

“If you invite me, maybe one day I will,” Rarity sighed as she started gathering the many sketches that littered the room to clear space for the tea set. “I really need to start cleaning when I am in the zone.”

“What’s up with all of the sketches, anyway?” Rainbow Dash asked as the tea set was finally placed before her and she could begin the fun of trying to get a tea bag into the delicate mug with her hooves. “You have some new orders coming in?”

“I have six very high profile ones,” Rarity sighed as she leafed through the designs in front of her. “But enough about that, what did you want to talk about?”

“I need to stay over a few days,” Rainbow Dash admitted sheepishly, “I sprained my wing and I need to stay off it for at least the next week. Can’t fly to my place, so I was hoping you would be okay if I stayed here for a bit.”

“I was going to ask why you had bandages on your wing,” Rarity chuckled, sitting down close to Rainbow Dash until they were practically touching flanks. “Of course you can stay, in fact I would love for you to feel free to stay whenever you can.”

“Are you sure? I could owe you a favour or something if you want”

“Darling, I want you to spend time with me. You’re doing me a favour as well.” Rarity had put her foreleg around Rainbow Dash at some point, pulling them close together. Rainbow Dash let herself lean into the cuddle.

“If you’re sure?” Rainbow Dash asked hesitantly, her tail unconsciously wrapping itself around her torso. “I know I’m awesome, but I thought you would want the quiet or something.”

“I would love for you to stay over.” Rarity gave her a quick nuzzle before getting up, her magic gently taking the mug out of Rainbow Dash’s hooves. However she had barely taken two steps back towards the kitchen before she paused and turned back. “Actually, I do have one small favour.”

Rarity levitated over a few of the sketched out designs. “I recently got a rush order that had a rather narrow timeline. I would love it if you could help with the fit of one of the pegasus designs.”

“Sure, just nothing too fru-fru. Okay?”

After a quick dinner with Rarity, Rainbow Dash was only slightly regretting her decision to help. Rarity had actually stuck to her promise and the outfit she was currently wearing was actually nearly as awesome as she was. It was probably one of the better fitted outfits in recent times, and had even included gaps for her wings to fit through. Though it was still a fairly constricting outfit. Rarity still had her preference of style over usability, and Rainbow Dash had to admit that it was a good looking dress.

"So how did you end up hurting your wing?" Rarity asked as she adjusted the fall of the silk on the dress that Dash was wearing, taking care to not put any weight on her injury. “I do hope that it isn’t serious.”

“It’s just a sprain,” Rainbow Dash huffed.

“And how did you get a sprain?” Rarity asked again with an eye flutter. “I do hope that the Wonderbolts aren’t forcing you to be unsafe.”

“It was a minor accident. The Wonderbolts aren’t reckless. Spitfire misjudged a flat spin when I was in the middle of a roll and I had to use my wing to stop at a higher speed than I wanted. The doc figured that it’ll only need some rest for a week and I’ll be back up to full flap.” Rainbow Dash groaned, knowing that she was going to have to repeat the answer a lot to her friends.

“Hmm,” Rarity didn’t sound all that impressed but didn’t comment any further.

“So, who is this outfit for?” Rainbow Dash asked, doing her best to change the subject.

“Oh, just a pegasus who wanted to show off a bit,” Rarity shrugged as she fiddled with the hemline in an attempt to make it line up correctly.

Rainbow Dash looked down at the dress again, this time actually taking in the design properly. It was a very nice outfit, if she had to be honest. In fact it was suspiciously awesome.

“Rarity, who is this outfit for?” Rainbow Dash asked again, her suspicions growing too strong to be ignored. “If I didn’t know better, I would say that this is awesome enough to suit me. What gives?”

"Customers can have a lot of varied tastes," Rarity tried to explain, but Rainbow Dash was having none of it.

"This has a rainbow trim, references to the Wonderbolts in the barrel, and actually has proper holes for my wings." Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. “Either Scootaloo has just had a massive growth spurt, or you’re not telling me something.”

“Sometimes I design ahead of-”

“Rarity!” Rainbow Dash cut her off with a groan. “What’s going on?”

“Okay, I’ll admit it. The dress is for you.” Rarity at least had the courage to look suitably embarrassed.

“It’s not that I don’t appreciate you making it, but why?’ Rainbow asked as gently as she could, not wanting to make Rarity’s efforts feel unwelcome.

“Well, I admit that it might be a tad premature. I wanted to make sure that all of our outfits will be ready when we finally take that next step.” Rarity swooned as she leafed through the sketches eagerly, pulling out six very familiar designs.

“The next step?” Rainbow Dash asked, worry seeping into her voice as she once again felt like she had missed something that every pony else already knew.

“I know it’s too early to really be talking about it, but the romantic in me can’t wait for the day that the six of us finally properly unite in a union together. We would all stand together with perfectly themed bridal gowns.” She stepped up right next to her and threw a foreleg over Rainbow Dash’s flank, pulling her closer. “Just think of how wonderful it will be to finally be together as one truly connected herd. United as one against everypony else.”

“We kind of already did that with the Elements of Harmony.” Rainbow Dash couldn’t help pointing out.

“We’re bound under friendship, but don’t you want to finally make the connection between us to be something deeper than that. Something that touches your very soul and connects it right to ours in a bond that is far beyond mere friendship,” Rarity gushed, hugging Rainbow Dash.

Rainbow Dash felt the odd compulsion to internally scream, but she quickly pushed the feeling back down. “Our friendship already was the driving force of harmony itself. You’re not going to top that one easily.”

“Exactly! I’m glad you agree.” Rarity’s muzzle was pushing up against Rainbow’s own. “To know that the six of us alone can reach such an unimaginable zenith together through love. It’s like every fairy tale I’ve ever dreamed of, all rolled into one.”

“Yeah?” Rainbow Dash weakly agreed, trying to not grimace. She wasn’t entirely sure why Rarity was talking with such a ridiculous level of exaggeration.

“And do you know the best part?”

“Just tell me.” Rainbow Dash sighed, not eager to waste any more time playing word games.

“The best part is that it is real!”

“Okay?” Rainbow Dash just shrugged, not really sure why Rarity was working herself up so much. “We already agreed to herd weeks ago, a ceremony thing isn’t going to change that.”

“Dash, it’s more than just a ceremony.” Rarity tapped Rainbow Dash’s muzzle with her hoof. “It means that we can all be together in every way. Sure we can do a little experimentation here or there, but it would mean that we are finally together. In every way. Together in soul, mind, and even body.”

Rainbow Dash flinched at the mention of that last one. Rarity didn’t notice, lost in her dreams.

“Oh just think of the passion that we could show each other.” Rarity sighed, leaning heavily on her.

“I’d rather not.” Rainbow Dash huffed, trying to get Rarity’s foreleg off of her.

“Oh, stop it. I know you’re just as interested as the rest of us,” Rarity chuckled, though she did pull herself away.

“I’m not actually sure I am,” Rainbow Dash admitted tentatively, wondering if she should really be talking about this with Rarity.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I didn’t really think of all of the other stuff that being together would mean, “ Rainbow Dash faltered as she struggled to say what the issue was. “It’s all just a bit much, isn’t it?”

“I suppose you’ve not been able to spend these last two weeks with the rest of us,” Rarity mused, “so you probably feel like we’ve all dashed ahead of you. I can assure you that we are thinking of you.”

“I have not dated as much as the rest of you,” Rainbow Dash admitted, leaving out that her experience was almost non-existent. “So this is all new to me.”

“Well, I’m more than willing to help give you a guiding hoof,” Rarity stepped close to Rainbow Dash, their muzzles only a hoof width apart. Her hoof reached out and rested behind Rainbow’s neck, holding them close. “So just give me the word and I’ll show you everything.”

“Not now,” Rainbow Dash pulled away from Rarity, pushing down the irrational panic that had filled her.

“Oh, sorry dear.” Rarity stepped back to give Rainbow Dash space, looking rather apologetic. “I suppose this is all going a bit quick for you.”

“It’s more like it’s coming out of nowhere,” Dash tried to explain, not really sure what else there was to say. Obviously she knew that dating her friends would involve this, but knowing it and experiencing the reality of it were very different things.

“I think this is all I will be able to manage today,” Rarity sighed as she put back down the length of fabric that she had been trying to line up. Rarity busied herself ordering some of the sketches that littered the floor. “I’m sorry about being so forward, it’s just so difficult to remember that the rest of you have not been dreaming of this since they were fillies. Even Twilight needed time to get ready for all of it. So don’t worry.”

“I’m not sure if I am ready for any of this,” Rainbow Dash admitted as she started pulling the outfit off, trying her best to not tear the material. She was relieved to see that it was a durable fabric, but it was still an incomplete dress with some parts temporarily pinned together.

“It’s normal to get cold hooves at times in a relationship,” Rarity assured her, pausing her cleanup to help Rainbow Dash back out of the dress. “Maybe you just need some time with us. We barely got to talk to you before you ran off for those Wonderbolt shows.”

“I couldn’t exactly leave them hanging,” Rainbow Dash protested, but was quickly silenced by Rarity’s hoof against her muzzle.

“I’m not saying that it is bad,“ Rarity amended, “It’s normal for us all to want to move at different speeds. Though it has been difficult to see you even on tour. I know that Pinkie Pie asked if she could come for some of the closer events.”

“I needed to focus,” Rainbow Dash pouted as she slumped back onto Rarity’s couch, happy to finally escape from the constricting dress. Rarity settled back down beside her.

“Well, either way we now have all week to properly get close.” Rarity smiled before leaning in and giving Rainbow Dash’s cheek a quick peck. Rainbow Dash twitched at the contact but did her best to not wipe her cheek clean this time. “I promise that you can stay here for as long as you want.”

“Thanks for the offer, but hopefully I’ll be able to get some pegasi to fly my home to the ground for the next week.”

“Oh? Well I suppose we should make the most of the night? It’s getting late after all.”

“I’ve been on the train all today, so sleep does sound nice.” Rainbow Dash admitted, barely swallowing back a yawn. “I wish I knew how doing nothing could make me so exhausted.”

“I was thinking of a little bit more than just sleep, but if you’re tired I suppose that we can take a raincheck.” Rarity sounded disappointed. “I’ll go get my bedroom ready.”

“Nah, I’ll take the couch.” Rainbow Dash yawned, she didn’t want to kick Rarity out of her own bed.

“Are you sure, my bed is surely a lot more comfortable than the couch?” Rarity asked gently. “I’ll be there as well, keeping it warm for you.”

“Nah, your couch is f-” Rainbow Dash froze as she finally realised that Rarity was trying to get her to sleep in the same bed. “Wait, what?”

“We’re dating, Dashie.” Rarity reminded her with a tap on her muzzle. “Those who date often spend time being very close, and I was to have some one-on-one time with you. So, do you want to join me tonight?”

Rainbow Dash’s first panicked thought was to run away, but she quickly shoved that away.

“I appreciate the offer, but it’s a bit much so soon.” Rainbow Dash weakly tried to explain.

“I suppose it may be a tad fast, but don’t worry about that. We can wait until you’re ready.”

“Until I’m ready?” Rainbow Dash echoed to herself quietly. The words didn’t sit well with her, but she wasn’t sure why.

“It’s not a race after all,” Rarity chuckled, nudging Rainbow Dash with her hip. “We all go at our own rate. Don’t rush through it, just enjoy the journey of love. Now, are you sure you don’t want to sleep in an actual bed tonight?”

“Ah, thanks. The couch is fine for me.” Rainbow Dash really wanted to tell Rarity that she wasn’t sure if she would ever be ready, but she wasn’t sure how to really tell her that.

So she just didn’t.

Chapter 10

Rainbow Dash trotted angrily through Ponyville, wishing that she had waited until after she had eaten before trying a dramatic exit. Still, what was done was done and now she had a hunger to sate. So with a growling stomach, she headed to the town centre. It was lucky that she had slept in late enough for the market to already be open.

There were a lot of ponies mulling around the marketplace, and Rainbow Dash could already feel a migraine making itself known from the crowd of voices. Ponyville didn’t used to be busy, but it had been a holiday destination ever since Twilight’s ascension. To be fair it did mean that the council had a larger budget to look after the region, but Rainbow Dash still sometimes felt herself missing the more quiet past.

“Where is she?” Rainbow Dash muttered as she scanned around. Normally she would have just flown over everypony, but she knew it was going to be a week before that was an option. Through the mass of ponies she finally spotted Applejack’s stall and quickly shoved her way over.

“Heya sugarcube!” Applejack called out, before turning back to the pony in front of her as they negotiated on the price of a bushell or three of apples. Rainbow Dash mostly tuned it out, trotting behind the stall’s counter and swiping an apple fritter.

Applejack shot her a playful glare before she continued bartering with the long line of customers who all desperately wanted some of the highly coveted goods, but not for the full price. Rainbow Dash just leant on the counter as she slowly ate her way through the fritter, enjoying every mouthful.

“What’s up with the bandaged wing?” Applejack asked Rainbow Dash as she hoofed over another bag of apples to a customer, though another quickly took their place.

“I sprained it, I’m going to need some pegasi to fly my house down until I can put weight on it again.” Rainbow Dash responded between mouthfuls, eyeing up a baked apple pie that would certainly make a good second course.

“I doubt you’re going to be able to do that. The mayor has been a bit strict with having cloud homes groundside after that mess with Thunderlane’s storm cloud.” Applejack pointed out, though her attention was quickly drawn away by another customer.

“Is she still bitter about that?” Rainbow Dash couldn’t believe that the mayor would hold a grudge for so long, it had been nearly a month.

“It charred half of town hall, so I’d say she is going to deny any applications until they at least finish the repairs.” Applejack laughed, another bag of produce handed over.

“I could just not apply at all. You know, better to ask forgiveness than permission and all that.” Rainbow Dash suggested, before sighing. She knew that there was little hope that she would be able to convince any of the weather team to risk their necks on it. “Or maybe I’ll just stay groundside for another few days.”

Applejack didn’t respond, distracted by yet another customer. Rainbow Dash took the distraction as excuse enough to grab the apple pie. It tasted even better than it looked.

“You could’ve helped.” Applejack pointed out as she finally settled on a deal with the last pony in the line, giving her a short break before the next rush arrived.

“I could,” Rainbow Dash admitted as she finished the last mouthful. Applejack’s homemade food was great, though the forced apple theme did somewhat limit her. One of these days Dash was going to force her to eat an orange, or at least a banana.

“And yet we both know that you probably won’t.” Applejack chuckled, throwing a hoof around Rainbow Dash’s shoulders and pulling her into a quick hug before releasing her again.

“Probably? No. I definitely won’t help.” Rainbow Dash clarified with a laugh.

“I hope that attitude doesn’t mean that you won’t help with the wedding.”

“Wait, you know about that as well?” Rainbow Dash asked, wondering if she was the only one who had been left in the dark. “Twilight only told me last night, did you all already know?”

“Nah, I got the same panicking alicorn at my door at midnight that you got,” Applejack sighed. “I love her to bits, but that mare really needs to learn to not sweat the small stuff. She kept on muttering things about newspapers and other nonsense.”

“Oh, so you only just found out as well,” Rainbow Dash muttered.

“I would have preferred to find out after a good night's rest, but at least it was good news.” Applejack shrugged, smiling as she saw a few ponies heading over her way. Business was strong these last few days.

“Is it good news? Twilight didn’t seem to entirely think so.” Rainbow Dash frowned.

“Of course it is.” Applejack turned back and shot her a curious look. “Sure, the media stuff might be a little annoying. However it has given Twilight the drive to finally make this herd official. I’d say that the offer of getting to be officially together with those I deeply care about could only ever be seen as a good thing.”

“I guess, the news stuff didn’t sound so good.”

“It’s all good news to us, Dash. Besides, when have you ever worried about a few newspaper reporters?” Applejack pulled her into another quick hug, before releasing her and turning to the queue of ponies that had slowly gathered while they had been talking. “I’d love to talk more, but I’ve got customers.”

“All good, I’m probably going to see how Fluttershy is going with the news.” Rainbow Dash barely waited for a farewell nod from Applejack before heading out of the busy marketplace.

The journey to Fluttershy’s would have normally been only a few seconds for Rainbow Dash by wing, but by hoof it was a lot longer. Sure, she was no slouch on the hoof, but with the crowds in Ponyville that day it was unlikely that she was going to make a good pace. So it was a frustrated Rainbow Dash that finally made it to Fluttershy’s cottage.

However just before she knocked on Fluttershy’s door it was shoved open. Rainbow Dash barely managed to let out a yelp before Pinkie Pie dove at her, tackling her into a tight hug. The two of them collapsed onto the ground in a tangle of pony limbs. Somehow, her injured wing wasn’t jostled in the process. She looked up to see Pinkie Pie’s muzzle a hoof width away from her own, a wide smile plastered over it.

“Hey, watch the wing!” Rainbow Dash complained as she tried to wiggle out of the awkward cuddle.

“I would never hurt your little boo-boo,” Pinkie Pie chuckled, before leaning close and giving Rainbow Dash a quick nuzzle.

“Oh dear, what happened to your wing,” Flutershy quickly trotted out and leant down close to look over the injury. “Pinkie, could you please get off of her so I can have a look?”

“It’s just a sprain,” Rainbow Dash explained as she got back onto her hooves, thankful for Fluttershy providing a good excuse for Pinkie Pie to release her. Normally she didn’t mind hugs, but she just wasn’t in the mood today. Also Pinkie Pie had already managed to accidentally nudge it twice while nuzzling her. “It’s not that serious, the Wonderbolts doc said that I would be back in the air in a week.”

“You should still avoid any more roughhousing with Pinkie Pie,” Fluttershy sighed.

“Have fun looking at Dashie’s ouchy. My shift with the cakes starts soon so I gotta gallop,” Pinkie Pie cheered, giving Fluttershy a quick hug before turning to the town. “See you tonight, cuties.”

“Tonight?” Rainbow asked absently to herself as she watched Pinkie Pie scamper off. She turned back to Fluttershy and gestured towards the disappearing Pinkie Pie, but all she got was a shrug in response.

“I guess she thinks that you’re staying the night.” Fluttershy shrugged. “Now about that wing, can I have a quick look?”

Rainbow Dash wordlessly stepped closer and let her inspect it. Fluttershy gently moved the bandaged wing up, pulling back the material slightly to check how it was wrapped. Frowning slightly, she adjusted it as best she could before tenderly lowering the limb back down.

“So, are you happy? The Wonderbolts medic said it should heal within a week and I’ll be back in the air.” Rainbow Dash told her with an eye roll.

“It looks like you have not changed it today” Fluttershy pointed out with a frown.

“Wait, I’m meant to change it?”

“At least every day.” Fluttershy let out a long suffering sigh. “I’d love to help re-wrap it, but I’ve got a few chores to do. You’re welcome to join me and we can switch out your bandages afterwards. So long as you don’t strain yourself, of course.”

Helping Fluttershy feed a billion or so animals was normally something that Rainbow Dash would find any excuse to avoid. However with her cloud home still entirely inaccessible and nothing else to distract her, she decided that she may as well try and enjoy it. Also, she did not want to try and rewrap the bandages herself.

“Thank you for helping me carry this down. With Dr Fauna busy handling the recent influx of pets, it would’ve taken me at least a second trip.” Fluttershy cheerfully thanked Rainbow Dash as they walked to the new expansion of Fluttershy’s rehabilitation clinic. Recent changes in zoning laws had required the facility to be much closer to the woods, hence the considerable walk.

“These saddlebags feel like they weigh a tonne. What do you even have in here?” Rainbow Dash strained under the weight of a fully loaded pair of saddlebags that Fluttershy had given her.

“It’s just food for the animals,” Fluttershy sighed, an equally large pair of saddlebags on her back. “We’re here now.”

“Finally,” Rainbow Dash flopped onto the ground dramatically, letting herself rest in the soft grass.

“It was only a two minute walk,” Fluttershy chuckled as she set her own saddlebags on the ground and searched for her list of chores. List making was an invaluable tool, and one that she was thankful to have picked up on from Twilight. Sometimes she wondered how she ever managed to look after all of the animals before she learnt how to plan out her day.

The two soon fell into a quiet silence as they worked, Fluttershy only breaking the silence to give Rainbow Dash a small amount of guidance. However Rainbow Dash didn’t really say much in return apart from a muted nod or a half spoken word of agreement. It was somewhat like talking to a tree, it had a presence but there wasn’t really any communication.

Fluttershy tipped a bag of carrots out in front of Sandra the wolf. Naturally the wolf didn’t look all that happy to see that vegetables were still on the menu, but one glare from Fluttershy was enough to make Sandra eat her carrots. However it wasn’t Sandra’s picky diet that was distracting Fluttershy, instead it was the frowning on Dash’s face that caught her attention.

“So, how did you take the news from Twilight?” Fluttershy asked, hoping to pull Rainbow Dash back to talking, closing the carrot bag with her wing and pushing it back into her saddlebag. “It was a bit of a surprise to me that our union needed to happen so soon.”

“It was definitely a thing,” Rainbow Dash muttered as noncommitable as possible.

“I’m personally looking forward to us all being properly close together.” Fluttershy again tried to prod some sort of response out of Rainbow Dash, but all she got was a huff.

“Dash, is everything okay with us?” Fluttershy asked carefully, as she opened up a jar of cookies and offered it to some of the smaller reptiles.

“Why wouldn’t it be okay?” Rainbow Dash was quick on the defensive.

“Well, you just don’t seem to want to spend that much time with us. We barely got to spend time with you before you had to dash off for the Wonderbolt tour. You didn’t even ask if one of us wanted to join you.”

“The Wonderbolts take a lot of time, but I totally spend time with you and the others. I’m here now aren’t i? Hay, I spent all of last night at Rarity’s.”

“You spent the night at Rarity’s?” Fluttershy repeated with a shallow frown.

“Yeah...” Rainbow Dash paused, wondering why Fluttershy seemed so put out at such a minor revelation. “With my sprained wing I wasn’t able to get to my place, so I went to Rarity’s.”

“Why Raritys?”

“You mean, why there and not here?” Rainbow Dash looked at Fluttershy’s embarrassed expression. Fluttershy looked away, refusing to meet Rainbow Dash’s eyes.

“Look, I figured that you and Pinkie were probably having a night together so I decided to bug Rarity instead. I didn’t want to intrude or anything.” Rainbow Dash tried to explain, but she could tell that Fluttershy wasn’t happy with her answer.

“Pinkie Pie and I love you, Dashie.” Fluttershy turned, the hurt on her face so visible that even Rainbow Dash couldn’t miss it. “Why would you ever think that we wouldn’t want you to join us? Have we done something that makes you think that you aren’t welcome?”

“It’s not that, it’s just that Pinkie can be a bit much at times.” Rainbow Dash tried to explain, sitting down beside Fluttershy on the grass, watching the animals eat their lunch.

"Just Pinkie? I'm not too much, am I?" Fluttershy moved herself closer, her hoof resting right beside Rainbow Dash's own.

"You're never too much." Rainbow Dash responded in a panic, wanting to avoid Fluttershy getting into a mopey mood.

"So is it just Pinkie Pie that is stopping you from spending the night here? Or is there something else?" Fluttershy was now leaning right up against Rainbow Dash, their muzzles barely a shoulder width apart.

"It's not just Pinkie Pie being a bit overly energetic." Rainbow Dash admitted with a weak smile. “Sometimes things just put me off, so I stayed at Rarity’s instead.”

"Can I try something to make you feel a bit more at ease around us?" Fluttershy asked gently, resting her hoof against Dash's own and giving it a soft squeeze.

“Here?” Rainbow Dash gestured towards the nearby animals, not that willing to have an audience to something so private.

“We’re not going to go that far, silly.” Fluttershy smiled gently.

"Sure?" Rainbow Dash had no idea what Fluttershy meant, but she didn't want to just deny her. She would do anything to make her happy.

"Thank you." Fluttershy softly whispered before leaning into Rainbow Dash, her soft hooves wrapping around Rainbow Dash and pulling her into the immense softness of a Fluttershy cuddle. Dash leant in as well, letting Fluttershy bury her muzzle into her throat as they sat together, a comfortable warmth building between them.

However, as wonderful as it was to have a proper cuddle, Rainbow Dash couldn't stop a small frown from flickering on her face whenever Fluttershy's forelegs strayed too close to her wings. Sure she trusted Fluttershy entirely, but touching a pegasi's wings was a big deal and Rainbow Dash was struggling to be okay with it. Fluttershy was being gentle and soft, but it still wasn't enough.

The second she felt the soft frog of Fluttershy's hoof make contact with a primary feather, she couldn't stop herself from flicking her wing. Fluttershy yelped and pulled away, giving Rainbow Dash a rather curious look.

“Sorry, did I hurt your wing?” Fluttershy asked, a horrified expression on her face.

“You just caught me off guard,” Rainbow Dash tried to explain away her reaction.

"Are you sure you're okay with this?" Fluttershy asked, rubbing her hoof where Rainbow Dash’s wing had hit her. Feathers were soft, but a hit from the metacarpus could still definitely sting.

"Sorry about the hit, I didn’t mean to do that." Rainbow Dash promised, not actually answering the question. "My wings are just a little frosty at times."

"Okay, I'll be very gentle. Is that okay?" Fluttershy promised, slowly sliding her forehooves back towards Rainbow Dash's wings.

This time Rainbow Dash focused on her wings, willing the feathered limbs to stay immobile. It was difficult, but she managed to stop them from flapping even as she felt the edge of one of Fluttershy's hooves gently rested on them. However it did little to make the weird feeling of unpleasantness that also settled over Rainbow Dash in a thick fog of distaste. Her wing was tense as she struggled to stop herself from shoving Fluttershy away again.

“You’re too tense for this.” Fluttershy sighed as she pulled away, a frown on her face. “Dash, you need to tell me what you are okay with. I want to make you feel good, but you look as if you are very uncomfortable. I can stop if you want.”

“Don’t stop,” Dash blurted out, annoyed with herself for being once again unable to handle even the smallest part of dating. It was just a pit of petting, she knew that she should be able to take it.

“Dash, you’re clearly not liking this.” Fluttershy tried to pull away, but Rainbow Dash tightened her forelegs around her.

“Look, I’ve got to get used to this stuff. You’re the only one I really trust with this stuff.” Rainbow Dash explained, pulling Fluttershy back into a tight hug.

“Dash!” Fluttershy looked ready to shove her way out of Rainbow Dash’s hooves.

“At least a hug?” Dash pleaded.

“Sure, a hug.” Fluttershy relented, wrapping her forehooves back around Rainbow Dash, the two of them returning to their quiet cuddle. This time Fluttershy kept her hooves away from Rainbow Dash’s wings to her relief. “You don’t have to push yourself. You can take your time, particularly with things like this.”

“Rarity said the same thing, but with this whole wedding thing...” Rainbow Dash trailed off.

“It’s just a ceremony. Anything more than that can wait.” Fluttershy reminded her, reaching up to give Rainbow Dash’s nose a gentle boop. “So just relax.”

“I’m trying,” Rainbow Dash complained.

“I know you are.” Fluttershy pulled herself up to look Rainbow Dash in the face, raising an eyebrow.

“I am trying! Look, it’s this marriage thing that is throwing me for a loop,” Rainbow Dash told her, only partially lying. The marriage thing was definitely a part of the reason she was so unsure of herself, but she couldn’t shake off the feeling that there was more.

“You’re not the only one nervous about this marriage and what it means for us.” Fluttershy pointed out.

“You’re nervous as well?”

“Of course I am. To find out that I need to marry in front of so many other ponies is not something that I am looking forward to,” Fluttershy faltered, “Well, I am looking forward to being with you, but not with all of the other ponies there as well. It’s too much.”

“It’s not the crowd that worries me,” Rainbow Dash admitted.

“It’s all very sudden, and I am a bit unsure about us rushing into it.” Fluttershy agreed before smiling, “though if I needed to rush into a union with five other mares, you would all be the ones that I would want to do it with.”

Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow, realising that she couldn’t deny Fluttershy’s view. “It’s the same for me. You five are the only ponies I could ever go through this with.”

With that quiet promise, the two fell into silence and enjoyed the chance to have a peaceful cuddle.

Chapter 11

Rainbow Dash always believed that she was the ultimate napping champion in Ponyville, and there was a real chance that she was the best in all of Equestria. It wasn’t actually all that easy to fall asleep when on a drifting cloud where the smallest gust of wind could nudge you awake. Apple tree branches also required careful balance to make sure that a strong buck didn’t throw her to the ground. So napping was a skill that she had turned into an exact science.

However, as she laid down curled up next to Fluttershy, listening to the quiet sounds of the nearby reserve, she was yet again reminded that she still had a lot to learn. Dozing in a cloud gave you the serenity of the sky and a nice gentle rocking from the breeze, but cuddling up with a friend was clearly just another tier. The steady breathing of her partner, the inherent warmth, it was a whole package. They had only been here for a minute, but Rainbow Dash could already feel the edges of her vision start to fade out as the call of slumber reached out for her.

Of course, like all good things in life, it soon had to end. Rainbow Dash was awkwardly jolted back to wakefulness as Flutershy shifted beside her, pulling her muzzle away from under Rainbow Dash’s chin.

“I wish we could stay here longer, but I need to finish my chores before the animals get hungry.” Fluttershy sighed as she looked over at the checklist of tasks that had yet to get a tick next to them.

“Do you have to do it now?” Rainbow Dash pouted, annoyed that the nice warmth of her friend was being taken away so unfairly.

“You know I do. If I don’t, Antonie will try to swallow Muriel again.” Fluttershy shuddered at the mess that had been made last time that happened. Thankfully none of her animal friends had been hurt, but she was always worried that it could happen again.

“Fine, do you need me to carry any more food down?” Rainbow Dash eyed the half empty saddlebags, not looking forward to another trip.

“You brought all of it already,” Fluttershy reminded her, giving her a quick nuzzle. “Though you could do us both a favour?”

“Sure. What do you want?” Rainbow Dash silently cursed herself for agreeing before she even found out what Fluttershy wanted.

“It would be nice to have a late lunch together, but I don’t have anything at home. So would you be able to get us something to share from Sugarcube Corner?”

“Oh definitely! I thought you were going to ask me to sharpen Brunella’s claws or something.”

“Brunella is a hippo...” Fluttershy raised an eyebrow.

“She is?” Rainbow Dash looked back over to the reserve, trying to remember which one Brunella was, before giving up. “The crab dude’s claws, I meant.”

“June is a female crab...” Fluttershy sighed.

“...anyway I’m going to go get you some lunch. See ya!” And with that, Rainbow Dash made her aggressively abrupt exit, literally galloping away from the increasingly awkward conversation. It wasn’t her fault that she couldn’t remember all of the animal’s names.

The queue for SugarCube Corner was thankfully not overly long, the lunchtime rush practically over. Missing busy crowds was one of the main advantages with sleeping in, though her friends disagreed. Of course, there was also a chance that going after the lunch rush also meant that there was probably going to be less options available from the shop.

Most mares would see this as a problem, but Rainbow Dash figured that it probably didn’t matter, everything that they served was good enough. She had tried to eat nearly everything on the menu and she had not had a bad meal yet. Though, maybe that just meant that statistically she was due for an issue. Rainbow Dash frowned as she wondered how accurate that was, statistical stuff was a Twilight problem after all.

“Heya Dashie!” Pinkie Pie called out happily as she finished counting the last few bits from the previous pony customer.

“Hey Pinks. You got anything good for a late lunch for me and Fluts?” Rainbow Dash asked, bending down to look through the display to see what was left after the lunch rush. She wasn’t surprised to see that the cupcakes were completely gone, they always tended to sell out before even half the line was gone.

“I’ve got some vegetable quiche that I know that Fluttershy has wanted to try. Let me find a few slices for you two cuties!” Pinkie Pie cheered, diving behind the counter in search.There was an awkward silence as Rainbow Dash waited for Pinkie Pie to return from her epic journey to find the two slices of quiche.

“So.... it’s a busy day today?” Rainbow Dash asked in an attempt to break the silence. However she heard nothing back. Curious, she leant over the counter to try and see where Pinkie Pie had disappeared to.

“What are you doing?” Rainbow Dash span around to see Pinkie Pie standing behind her, a wrapped paper bag of food held out for her.

“Augh!” Rainbow Dash squealed, before realising that it was just Pinkie Pie. She quickly brushed her mane back out of her eyes and tenderly took the offered bag. “Do you have to do that every time I come here?”

“I’ll keep doing it until you stop jumping, it’s too cute to not do.” Pinkie Pie promised with a devious chuckle, knowing all too well that Rainbow Dash would never get used to her antics. “Anyway, it has been a bit busier than normal. I think with Twilight hanging out here so much has made a whole lotta ponies want to spend time here as well.”

“Probably hoping that they get to hang out with Twilight now that she is famous or something?” Rainbow Dash shrugged. “She is the most famous pony in all of Equestria by this point.”

“You’re pretty famous as well, being an awesome Wonderbolt,” Pinkie Pie protested.

“Sorta,” Rainbow Dash somewhat agreed, wiggling her hoof as it was on a seesaw. “I’m awesome, but as a Wonderbolt I have nothing on Spitfire or Soarin. If they have dinner, then it makes headlines. I could crash into a food stand and would probably not even make it into the local paper.”

“Are you sure?” Pinkie Pie jumped back over the counter and ducked down to search through the drawer under the crash register. “I think I saw a newspaper article about you this morning. I had it here somewhere.”

“Was it about how I sprained my wing or something,” Rainbow Dash asked, curious about whether anypony had noticed Spitfire’s flat spin screw up that had caused her sprained wing.

“Nope!” Pinkie Pie cheerfully slammed the newspaper onto the counter in front of Rainbow Dash. “See, you got to be on the front page.”

Rainbow Dash looked down at the newspaper with a smile that quickly twisted into a grimace as she realised what the news story was actually about. The title alone was not good. ‘Wonderbolt Rainbow Dash accused of being in a relationship with Spitfire and Soarin’.

“Oh come on, this picture of me leaning on them is from the Baltimare show where I messed up my wing.” Rainbow Dash complained.

She read through the first few paragraphs, her frown growing deeper. “The newest member of the Wonderbolts, the Element of Harmony’s Rainbow Dash, has been accused of being involved in a secret relationship with two prominent members of the team. Spitfire and Soarin were both approached for comment but refused to provide any clarity about what extent their relationship was with the youngster. We have reached out to Rainbow Dash, but have yet to get a response.”

“Wow, you get to be with Spitsy too?” Pinkie Pie asked, waggling her eyebrows.

“It’s a bunch of manure Pinks. I’m not dating any Wonderbolt.” Rainbow Dash huffed.

“I should hope not” Twilight called out cheerfully from behind then as she entered the small shop, the ever growing checklist extended out behind her. Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie both wisely did not point out the massive bags under Twilight’s eyes. They also didn’t mention the twitching from her left eye. They even managed to not mention that Twilight’s checklist was trapped in the shop door and that she’d just torn off the last few hoof lengths of it.

“Oh hey Twi. Here’s your muffins!” Pinkie Pie shoved a six pack of muffins onto the counter, on top of the newspaper that Rainbow Dash had been reading.

“Thanks Pinkie Pie,” Twilight grabbed the muffins off the counter in her magic, pausing as she saw the headline. Carefully she placed the muffins back onto the counter and pulled the newspaper over to her, frowning as she scanned through the entire article. She turned to Rainbow Dash, looking none too pleased.

“Rainbow Dash, what is this?” Twilight asked with a frown, her magic waving the newspaper in front of Rainbow Dash far too closely for her to actually read.

“It looks like a newspaper,” Rainbow Dash replied sarcastically.

“Dash! This is serious.” Twilight shot back.

“It’s a load of horse apples,” Rainbow Dash snorted, “Spitfire kicked out a reporter in Manehatten after they asked a bunch of dumb questions. So this is probably them being angry or something so they made a bunch of stuff up about us.”

“Dash, reporter ponies aren’t allowed to just make up stuff.”

“I’m pretty sure that a lot of them do exactly that. It is just a dumb article put out by a tabloid.” Rainbow Dash shoved the newspaper back onto the counter, but Twilight grabbed it back into her magic and shoved the newspaper back against Rainbow Dash

“It’s the Manehatten Marecury!”

“And?” Rainbow Dash huffed.

“You’ve always looked up to the Wonderbolts, and now a real newspaper is saying that there are rumours that you are pursuing them.” Twilight bit her lip. “I mean, I do believe you, but newspapers are meant to report the truth. Are you sure that nothing happened?”

“Look, Twilight. I promise you. I am not in a relationship with any of the Wonderbolts. I love y-” Rainbow Dash paused as her mind suddenly brought her argument with Fleetfoot back. Fleetfoot had been very insistent that Rainbow Dash had been acting improperly around Soarin. Maybe it was Rainbow Dash’s own fault for making this newspaper article appear. Maybe she had accidentally hit on Soarin somehow and a newspaper pony had seen her do it.

“Dash? You kind of stopped talking” Twilight’s words knocked her back into the present, where she had to face an amused Pinkie Pie and a confused Twilight Sparkle.

“Sorry, I was just thinking about something weird that they told me about the reporters.” Rainbow Dash half lied as she pondered what she should say. She wanted to be honest with Twilight, but she didn’t feel like she even knew what the truth was, so she decided to just say what should have been the truth if she could just think right. It was barely a lie, right? “I love you Twilight. I love our herd. I promise that I am not rushing out to be with any pony or any creature else.”

“Oh, sorry.” Twilight sighed, looking rather apologetic for her outburst. “I might’ve jumped to conclusions there. I just can’t believe that they would publish something false. ”

“They just stretched the truth a little you silly billys,” Pinkie Pie jumped over the couch and grabbed Twilight and Rainbow Dash into a hug. Thankfully she released them before they could begin to suffocate.

“Stretching the truth?” Twilight pulled the newspaper back over and scanned through the article again, looking rather annoyed. As soon as her eyes flicked over the last line, her magic flared and the newspaper was crushed into a ball. “I think I’m going to have to have a talk with a certain newspaper. They are reporting on their own rumours and using the fact that you didn’t respond as evidence that it was true.”

“So, are we cool?” Rainbow Dash asked, offering up a hoof. Pinkie Pie tried to hoof it, but Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes and lifted it away from the pink party pony.

“Of course.” Twilight reached out and tapped her hoof against Rainbow’s, still looking very apologetic. “I can’t believe that I didn’t read what they were saying and accused you of not loving us. I know that we all love each other, and I should have never questioned it. I hope you can forgive me.”

“Yeah,” Rainbow Dash awkwardly rubbed the back of her head with a hoof, unsure if she could truly say that Twilight was even right about that. “Look, you look like you’re running on zero sleep with nothing but coffee and desperation keeping you awake to plan this wedding. So it’s no issue, but maybe it would be a good idea for you to go have a nap at least. When was the last time you slept anyway.”

“I think it was Wednesday,,” Twilight yawned.

“It’s Friday!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed, folding her forehooves and looking at Twilight with a deep pout. “You need to go right home now missy and get a proper sleep.”

“I would if I could, but I have a lot to sort out today,” Twilight bit back another yawn, trying her best to not look like the smallest breeze would knock her over.

“Let us help then?” Rainbow Dash asked, rolling her eyes as soon as she realised that she had once again volunteered for work. “I’ve got to get lunch back to Fluttershy, but leave this checklist with Pinks. She will break it down and let us cover some of it so you can sleep, okay?”

Twilight looked like she was going to protest, but one glare from Pinkie Pie was enough to silence her. So she instead nodded and wordlessly hoofed over the checklist. Her magic did pause just before Pinkie Pie could grab it, but Twilight sighed and let her magic release it into Pinkie’s grasp.

“Hmm,” Pinkie Pie rubbed her chin as she studied it, before looking up with a smile. “I got this. Twily, go get some nap time.”

“Thanks,” Twilight yawned, her eyes beginning to droop down considerably further than before.

“Need me to do anything?” Dash asked.

“You keep Fluttershy happy while I take care of this. I’ll get this done faster than you can say ‘Cooks cook cupcakes quickly’ three times.” Pinkie nodded to herself.

“I might need to help her get home,” Rainbow Dash chuckled, looking over at the terribly tired Twilight. She ushered Twilight to the door, hoping to get her home before she fell asleep. Rainbow Dash did not want to find out how hard it was to carry a heavy sleeping alicorn.

“See you at the sleepover date!” Pinkie Pie called back as she shoved Twilight’s food order into Rainbow Dash’s hooves before disappearing back inside, not giving her a chance to even respond.

“Sleepover date? Sure?” Rainbow Dash muttered in bewilderment as she used her wing to carefully take hold of Twilight’s food. Taking care, she placed her own paper bag of lunch against her mane. It wasn’t the best place for it, but she would mostly be able to keep it in place for a short walk. Probably.

“A sleepover date? It’s good to see you trying to be a bit more intimate with the others. Rarity was worried that we were pushing you a bit fast.” Twilight yawned, rubbing one of her eyes to try and stay awake just a little longer.

“It’s not really a date, I’m just going to be staying over there the next few days as I sprained my wing. So my cloud house is a bit inaccessible at the moment. I guess Pinkie Pie is hoping to make it something more than that. I’m not really sure.” Rainbow Dash admitted with a shrug, pushing the intimate part of Twilight’s words out of her mind.

“I hope Pinkie Pie isn’t making you uncomfortable.” Twilight sighed, blinking a few times.

“Nah, she’s fine,” Rainbow Dash looked over at the sleepy alicorn and stepped closer, resting her good wing over Twilight’s back to keep her a bit more stable. Normally throwing a wing over another pegasi’s shoulders was a sign of intimacy, but Rainbow Dash knew that Twilight would take it as the friendly gesture that she meant it as.

“I could always fly you up to your home.” Twilight offered between yawns, stumbling slightly as Rainbow Dash had to push back or end up in a pile of pony limbs on the ground.

“You can barely keep your eyes open, so how about we focus on getting you back to this crystal eyesore?” Rainbow Dash pointed out as they finally reached the main door of the Castle of Friendship.

“I thought I told you all to stop calling it the crystal eyesore,” Twilight pouted.

“You ask the impossible!” Rainbow Dash jokingly protested.

“It wasn’t the only impossible thing that I may have asked of you recently.” Twilight sighed as they stepped inside and made their way along the long hallway towards Twilight’s chambers.

“Huh?”

“I’m sorry that I just dumped this wedding stuff on all five of you and just asked you all to be okay with it.” Twilight admitted, a frown working its way back onto her face.

“It’s fine. A lot of the others are pretty eager for it, Applejack only saw it as a good thing.” Rainbow Dash tried to placate Twilight, not wanting to see her stress out any more than she already was.

“They might be, but Rarity made it all too clear to me that you’re not yet,” Twilight stopped, turning to face Rainbow Dash. “I know that this is overwhelming, but I will do anything to help you get used to it.”

“It’s a bit much, but going too fast is kind of my thing,” Rainbow Dash lied, doing her best to give Twilight a smile. She was the element of loyalty, not honesty after all. It was better to give a little white lie rather than see her stress out any more.

“That’s a relief, Rarity was not all that happy with me when I met up for lunch today. She had a lot on her mind that she wanted me to know all about.” Twilight admitted.

“It’s fine, Twi. Now come on, we need to get you to bed.” Rainbow Dash told her, nudging forward.

“Only if you make me a promise,” Twilight asked with a smile.

“Sure, I’ll give you a kiss goodnight or whatever,” Rainbow Dash huffed.

“I was actually going to ask if you could get me a guest list tomorrow of who in your family needs to be at the wedding so we can get invites out.” Twilight laughed, though it was taken over by a yawn. “However I wouldn’t say no to a kiss.”

“Come on, sleep time for the princess,” Rainbow Dash pushed Twilight into the oversized bed.

Twilight tried to protest but her tiredness was catching up on her, a loud yawn hitting her as she laid down into the overly soft bed. Twilight fell asleep almost the second that her head hit her pillows, quiet snoring coming from her within mere seconds. Rainbow Dash groaned as she ponyhandled the alicorn princess the rest of the way into bed, setting down Twilight’s muffins on the nightstand. The oversized bed fit for an alicorn was very comfortable, but the large size made it rather cumbersome for Rainbow Dash as she pulled the heavy comforter over Twilight’s sleeping form with her teeth. Stepping back she was satisfied with a job well done.

“I’m not really sure if I’m okay with this, but I promise to not stress you out.” Rainbow Dash whispered quietly to the sleeping Twilight as she pulled off her crown and set it down on the nightstand beside her muffins. She knew that Twilight deserved the chance to actually get a good day’s sleep, so Rainbow Dash decided that she would just have to deal with her issues herself.

Besides, it’s not like she really knew what the problem was anyway.

Chapter 12

“It’s good to see you back,” Fluttershy greeted Rainbow Dash at the door to her cottage, looking a lot more relaxed than she had while trying to feed all of the animals at the reserve.

“Yep, I got us a nice lunch here,” Rainbow Dash told her, stepping into Fluttershy’s kitchen and pulling out the bag of food from behind her mane with her one good wing. With some careful wing manipulation she was able to flick the bag over onto the kitchen bench with one smooth movement. “Next time I really need to remember to bring a pair of saddlebags. I nearly dropped it twice while shepherding Twilight to bed.”

“Is the poor dear feeling under the weather?” Fluttershy asked, frowning at the prospect.

“Nah, she just is overworking herself again.” Rainbow Dash waved away Fluttershy’s concerns as she opened the box and presented the contents as dramatically as she could. Rainbow Dash wished she could make Fluttershy understand the importance of dramatic presentation.

“How did you know that I wanted a quiche?” Fluttershy smiled as she pulled out the first slice, taking a careful bite.

“Pinkie Pie personally picked ‘em out for us,” Rainbow Dash told her before grabbing her own slice and starting devouring the defenceless pastry.

“You really shouldn’t eat that quickly,” Fluttershy chided her, carefully taking another small nibble of her own piece.

“Pinkie Pie probably could have eaten this entire slice in a single bite,” Rainbow Dash joked as she took a second sizable mouthful.

“Pinkie Pie can also unhinge her jaw,” Fluttershy muttered to herself, before shaking her head and returning to her own meal.

A few bites later, Rainbow Dash was out of lunch and was instead poking around Fluttershy’s living room in the hopes to find something to do.

“I have a nice action book on the side table,” Fluttershy told Rainbow Dash, picking up on the boredom that she was suffering from.

“It doesn’t have any of the boring stuff, right? The last series Twilight got me into had a lot of boring stuff in it.” Rainbow Dash eyed the book, as if it was a spoonful of broccoli

“I promise, it’s an action story. There’s almost no romantic subplot at all.” Fluttershy chuckled.

“Awesome!” Rainbow Dash threw herself back onto the couch to begin the literary journey, propping herself up on her side as she read. A serene sense of silence fell throughout the room, only interrupted by the quiet sounds of pages turning.

Fluttershy finally finished her food and made her way over to Rainbow Dash, leaning over the back of the couch so that she could get a better look. However she was not interested in the book within Rainbow’s hooves, she was much more interested in the state of Rainbow Dash’s bandaged wing. She leant in close and studied it. Noticing, Rainbow Dash lifted it slightly with an eye roll to let her see it properly, shuffling over on the couch to give her easier access. Though she was also careful to make sure that she could keep reading her book.

“We really should change those bandages if they have been unchanged since yesterday,” Fluttershy mused as she used her own wings to gently manipulate the wrapped wing.

“Actually, it was done the day before that,” Rainbow Dash responded, barely paying attention to Fluttershy as she remained engrossed within the book.

“I’ll go get the bandages,” Fluttershy rolled her eyes, knowing better than to ask any more questions.

“Can’t it wait? I was just getting to a good part.” Rainbow Dash tried to protest, looking up at Fluttershy, but one glare back made her stop.

“This will only take a few minutes. You need to look after that wing. However you can keep reading if you want,” Fluttershy told her sternly, though the stern voice trailed out near the end. She picked up a small first aid kit in her mouth and brought it over, nodding for Rainbow Dash to lie prone on the couch.

Rainbow Dash did her best to roll onto her stomach, craning her head back and holding the book as best as she could in the awkward angle. However a few seconds later she just closed the book and laid her head on the couch. She knew that there was no point enjoying a nice read if you can’t be comfortable.

“Sorry, I’ll try to not take too long,” Fluttershy apologised as she noticed the issue, flicking open the first aid kit with her wing. She was used to patching up her animal friends, so she wasn’t too concerned with having to do the same for Rainbow Dash. It wasn’t even the first time that she’d had to render aid to her after all.

“It’s fine, I need to get it done.” Rainbow Dash muttered out with an eye roll, not wanting Fluttershy to feel bad about helping her.

Fluttershy softly smiled as she reached out for Rainbow’s wing, the soft tip of her hoof gently began the delicate task of pulling off the bandage. Thankfully this time around there was little response from Rainbow Dash as she unwrapped the wing.

“It’s good to feel air over it again,” Rainbow Dash sighed. Her eyes drooped as she let herself drift off a little as she felt Fluttershy’s hooves run along her wing, checking the alignment of her feathers now that the bandage was removed.

“I hope that touching your wings isn’t making you too uncomfortable. I promise not to take too long,” Fluttershy yet again apologised as she carefully moved two primaries.

“Nah, it’s fine,” Rainbow Dash responded with a shrug. A part of her was surprised that she didn’t feel uncomfortable with Fluttershy touching them, particularly after she had such an awkward response earlier that day. A much larger part of her was annoyed that she was fine with her friend messing with her wings when she had a new roll of bandages in her hoof, but doing it when they were hugging wasn’t okay. It was annoyingly frustrating to not be able to make herself be okay with it when Fluttershy wanted to do it.

“That’s good to hear, I didn’t want to make you feel bad.” Fluttershy worried.

“This morning was different.” Rainbow Dash explained, though she was somewhat interrupted by a yawn. Fluttershy’s couch was far too comfortable at times.

“I’m not sure what I changed? I tried to be gentler. Is it only your other wing that makes you uncomfortable?” Fluttershy frowned, beginning to wrap the fresh bandage on the wing. It was a delicate operation to get the correct amount of tension without causing any harm to the feathers.

“I don’t think it’s you, or my wings...” Rainbow Dash trailed off, realising that she didn’t have an answer either. Fluttershy just hummed a quiet agreement, unable to respond with her mouth filled with a roll of bandages.

“There we go, all done.” Fluttershy smiled as she finished off the final tug on the bandaged and nodded at a job well done. “You can go back to your book if you want?”

“Thanks Fluttershy.” Rainbow Dash reached over for a quick hoof bump before rolling back onto her side and propped open the book to resume from where she left off. Then flicking back a few pages to try and remember what she was reading. However her attention was dragged away as she felt a weight settle on the couch near her hooves. Sitting up she saw Fluttershy had sat down beside her looking at her expectantly. “What’s up?”

“Would it be okay if we cuddle?” Fluttershy asked hesitantly, staring down at her hooves as she nervously tapped them together.

“Sure,” Rainbow Dash used her good wing to reach out and pull Fluttershy over. There was an adorable squeak as Fluttershy wrapped her forelegs around Rainbow Dash’s torso, opting to snuggle up against her. Rainbow Dash shifted her weight a little to make sure that she could still read the book.

Fluttershy reached out a cautious hoof towards Rainbow Dash’s wing, raising her eyes in a silent question. Rainbow Dash just shook her head slightly in response, she knew that she didn’t want Fluttershy trying to touch it right now even if she was practically wrapping her in it like a feathery blanket. Glad that Fluttershy was keeping her hooves mostly to herself, Rainbow Dash returned to her book.

The earlier peaceful silence from before returned as the two relaxed, Fluttershy soon quietly snoring into the side of Rainbow Dash’s neck. Rainbow Dash didn’t mind it, well mostly. She could already feel the drool beginning to collect in her fur from Fluttershy’s snoring muzzle, but she was fine with a little drool if it meant that Fluttershy could have a peaceful nap. The mare deserved a decent rest.

Three chapters later Fluttershy’s front door was shoved open and Pinkie Pie bounded inside, screeching to a stop as she saw them cuddled up on the couch. Rainbow Dash looked up from her book, slightly irritated that she was going to need to stop reading again. Sometimes she wondered if everypony deliberately tried to interrupt her just as she started reading the good parts. They had suspiciously perfect timing.

“Hey Pinkie Pie,” Rainbow Dash greeted, keeping her scratchy voice low in a half-hearted attempt to not wake up the dozing Fluttershy. Somehow Fluttershy had managed to wrap both of her wings around Rainbow Dash, and was snuggled into a warm cocoon of wings and legs.

“So cute,” Pinkie Pie breathed as she looked at her two snuggly ponies.

“She had a long day dealing with a lot of animals,” Rainbow Dash explained, gently moving one of Fluttershy’s hooves further away from her wing. Apparently sleeping on a couch made Fluttershy a lot more grabby.

“Well, she needs to get up soon. You two sleepy snugglebugs slept through most of the afternoon and I’m going to make us all the best dinner.” Pinkie Pie told Rainbow Dash, leaning close and giving her a quick nuzzle before prancing off to the kitchen. A few seconds later she could hear the sound of Pinkie Pie gathering ingredients in the kitchen.

Rainbow Dash pulled her way out of Fluttershy’s constricting grip. She was forced to shove one of the couch cushions into Fluttershy’s grip. However with a solid minute of twisting and squirming she was finally free.

“So what are you making?” Rainbow Dash asked, curious to see Pinkie Pie cook something that wasn’t mostly sugar for a change. Sure she logically knew that Pinkie Pie probably made things that weren’t cake, but a part of her just didn’t accept that it actually happened. So she was surprised to see Pinkie Pie in the kitchen slicing up a red bell pepper into a neat pile, and a lot of other ingredients nearby.

“The most fun dinner to say. I’m making Quesadillas!” Pinkie Pie gave the knife a quick spin as she finished off cutting the last of the bell peppers, switching to slicing through a red onion with the smoothness of a trained chef.

“Do you need any help?”

“Nah, I’m nearly done with the prep.” The knife in Pinkie Pie’s grasp made short work on the onion. Soon she was warming up the skillet, and finely chopping a small chilli as soon as the heat was on.

“So, did you enjoy snuggle time with Flutters?” Pinkie Pie asked, carefully washing her hooves to ensure that she didn’t have any chilli residue. Rainbow Dash knew all too well what happened if one was careless with chilli, rubbing her eyes had not been a fun experience.

“It’s good to spend time with her,” Rainbow Dash sighed.

“Is everything okay? You look a tad mopey, just a tad though.” Pinkie Pie asked as she threw the first tortilla into the skillet.

“I know that I’ve been a bit off ever since Twilight pulled me into the herd, but you don’t need to worry about it. I’m working on it.” Rainbow Dash huffed, crossing her forelegs.

“I think it’s only fair that I get to worry about you if something is up.” Pinkie Pie pointed out, starting on grating the cheese.

“What if I just don’t want to talk about it?” Rainbow Dash challenged.

“Is it because we’re all a few years older than you?” Pinkie Pie paused the food prep to turn and raise an eyebrow.

“Nah, it’s not that. Though thanks for pointing that out yet again,” Rainbow Dash huffed.

“So what is the issue?” Pinkie Pie asked.

“I don’t even know what the issue is,” Rainbow Dash admitted, looking over her shoulder back at the sleeping Fluttershy before lowering her voice. “I’m just feeling like I need to rethink some of this stuff, I guess. It’s like there is a problem, but I don’t really know what it is.”

“Can you tell me anything? I promise to keep it to myself if you need me to.”

“I just feel like I’m not feeling the right stuff I guess. I like being around you all, but this wedding stuff just feels off?” Rainbow Dash tried to explain, nibbling on the inside of her cheek to push away the weird feelings.

“When we talk about being together, how do you actually feel?” Pinkie Pie asked, her voice a lot more serious than before.

“Happy, of course I like being with you five.” Rainbow Dash laughed, how else would she feel being close with her five closest friends.

“How do you feel when we talk about the wedding?”

“The same way, I guess.” Rainbow Dash lied, she didn’t want to just blurt out to Pinkie Pie that she hadn’t quite gotten herself into the right headspace for it all. Surely if she just guessed the right answers then it would turn out fine. It shouldn’t be this difficult to want to be with them. “I just need to get my head around what’s happening, that’s all.”

“Hmm” Pinkie Pie didn’t look convinced, but she was distracted by preparing their dinner. So while Pinkie Pie had to return her focus to flipping over a tortilla and scattering cheese on it, Rainbow Dash left the kitchen to wake Fluttershy.

Ten minutes and Rainbow Dash’s brilliant plan to distract Pinkie Pie with a cuddly Fluttershy was working perfectly. The last quesadilla was just being thrown onto a plate and Pinkie Pie had not brought up Rainbow Dash’s weird mood at all. Sure, she did shoot a few curious glances Rainbow Dash’s way between tortilla flips, but that was all.

Even their dinner went well, with nary a reference said between them at all. So it was an overconfident Rainbow Dash who was completely caught off guard when Fluttershy asked if she wanted to join them for the night.

“I was kind of planning on just crashing on your couch,. Rainbow Dash blurted out, doing her best to keep the panic out of her voice.

“It’s really not that comfortable,” Fluttershy frowned.

“You go off ahead, Dashie and I need to have a quick chat and then we’ll join you.” Pinkie Pie quickly stepped in between them. She leant over and gave Fluttershy a quick kiss before pushing her towards the stairs to her room.

Pinkie Pie watched Fluttershy head up with a gentle smile. As soon as Fluttershy was out of sight she turned back to Rainbow Dash with a soft sigh. “Dashie, I know that I am not the best with this, but I think that you should tell Twilight what you actually think of this wedding.”

“Are you saying that I don’t love you five?” Rainbow Dash hissed, worried that Pinkie Pie somehow knew what Rainbow Dash’s feelings were before even she worked them out, before she could fix them.

“You do love us, but maybe not in a wedding day way? And that’s okay, we all love each other however we want to love each other.” Pinkie Pie ventured, frowning a little. “But I don’t think that you want to admit what you actually want.”

“I don’t know what I want,” Rainbow Dash admitted, staring up at Fluttershy’s ceiling as she wished that the awkward conversation would just end.

“You know what you don’t want,” Pinkie Pie pointed out carefully, her voice squeaking a little as she tried to avoid talking too loudly. Fluttershy would no doubt do her best to avoid overhearing them, but it still was a good idea to be quiet.

“How does that help anypony?” Rainbow Dash huffed.

“It means that we know what to avoid, and what we have not tried yet. If there is something that feels wrong to you, or makes you uncomfortable, just tell us. We all super duper want to make sure that you’re happy as well.” Pinkie Pie gave her a quick nuzzle. “Twilight deserves to know. We all do.”

“It’ll just stress her out.” Rainbow Dash argued.

“Finding out that you didn’t tell her will stress her out even more when she does inevitably find out. She’s a super smart cookie, you know.” Pinkie Pie frowned, “Well she’s not actually a cookie. Sure, she might taste yummy like a cookie, and she is starting to get a little round in the tummy...”

“I was hoping to fix it before she found out,” Rainbow Dash pointed out with an eye roll.

“This isn’t something that you just fix. It’s just what it is. That’s like asking Fluttershy to be mean. It’s not going to happen, and pretending isn’t going to last long either.”

“I need to fix it.” Rainbow Dash protested.

“You need to be honest with yourself first. What do you actually want?” Pinkie Pie told her, a serious pout on her face. “Now, be honest with me. Do you want to snuggle with us tonight? Fluttershy’s bed is super big.”

“Don’t you two want to spend some time with each other?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“We’re just going to go to sleep in the same bed, I promise that we won’t do anything else. We wouldn’t want you to feel uncomfortable or anything.” Pinkie Pie told her sweetly, putting a leg around the back of Rainbow Dash’s neck.

“That’s the problem though. I don’t want to stop you two from doing what you want.” Rainbow Dash tried to shrug off Pinkie Pie’s leg, but Pinkie just tightened her hold.

“You’re not stopping us from doing what we want. We want to have the mare we love to have some snuggle time with us for the night. We want to have a happy Dashie snuggled up being all cute next to us.” Pinkie Pie told Rainbow Dash, pressing their cheeks together.

“But what if you want to do that other stuff?” Rainbow Dash protested.

“Then we will wait for a better time to do it.” Pinkie Pie pointed out dryly. “I know this might be a surprise to you, but I do have some self control. Especially when it comes to making my friends uncomfortable like this.”

“Are you okay if we just snuggle?”

“That is literally the plan!” Pinkie Pie solemnly told her, before smiling and pulling Rainbow Dash into a tight hug. “Now come on, Fluttershy is probably waiting for us and I don’t want to miss out on any more primo snuggle time!”

Chapter 13

Rainbow Dash yawned as she awoke, trying to sleepily push away the warmth that was on top of her. However as soon as she tried to push it away, she felt it shift and wrap itself around her. She opened her eyes and was unsurprised to see Pinkie Pie snuggled up close to her, resting the bottom of her jaw on Rainbow’s shoulder blade as she stared back at her.

“Good morning, Dashie!” Pinkie Pie sang as she sat up, noticing that Rainbow Dash was now awake and uncurling her legs from around her.

“I thought you normally got up with the sun so you could get all your parting in?” Rainbow Dash groaned, letting herself flop back onto the mattress now that she no longer had a hyperactive pink blanket trying to smother her.

“I wanted to make sure you didn’t wake up alone,” Pinkie Pie told her, moving close and giving her cheek a quick nuzzle. “You sleep in super late.”

“I would’ve slept in later but it got too hot for some reason,” Rainbow Dash complained, peeling Pinkie’s legs away from her. Thankfully Fluttershy’s cottage was still cool enough that, even with a Pinkie Pie blanket, she at least hadn’t sweated too much.

“So, did you enjoy sleeping with us?” Pinkie Pie asked with a smirk.

“It was a bit too warm this morning,” Rainbow Dash muttered, staring out the window as she remembered it. The entire previous evening Pinkie Pie had demonstrated that she seemed to know Rainbow Dash’s own hang ups better than she did. Fluttershy seemed to try and follow Pinkie Pie’s lead, but her hooves had strayed a few times, though she had been very quick to stop whenever Rainbow Dash told her to.

As for Pinkie Pie, she always kept the nuzzles quick. Rainbow Dash did appreciate that Pinkie Pie kept her hooves to herself during their cuddles, she just seemed to get it right. Though it did make Rainbow Dash worry that her problems were beginning to annoy them. Especially with Pinkie Pie having to temper her every action, though she admittedly hadn’t really seen any signs of irritation.

“Is that a yes or no? Did you like our snuggly sleepover?” Pinkie Pie leant on her shoulder, rubbing her cheek against Rainbow's own before pulling away again.

“It was good to snuggle with you two, I guess. Thanks for being okay not doing any of that other stuff. I know you two wanted to kiss and stuff.” Rainbow Dash smiled, turning back to Pinkie Pie.

“We wanted to spend time with you, the kissing stuff Fluttershy and I can do any time.” Pinkie Pie told her with a smile, “It was good to see you push your barriers and try new things with us.”

“All I did was give you a hug,” Rainbow Dash complained, wishing that she had been able to make herself want to go further.

“Yeah, but this time we were in bed together. That’s totally different, right?” Pinkie Pie pointed out, pulling Rainbow Dash back into a hug herself.

“It shouldn’t be though,” Rainbow Dash muttered to herself, wondering if she could just keep pushing herself so she could be a proper marefriend. Rainbow Dash hesitantly leaning close to Pinkie Pie. She paused for a second before giving Pinkie Pie a quick rub with her cheek, before pulling back with a frown. “Yeah, still a no on that one. Sorry.”

“It’s fine Dashie. If you don’t want to do something, then we don’t do it. It’s simple.” Pinkie Pie gave her a nuzzle back, for some reason Rainbow Dash never seemed to mind if the others initiated a nuzzle of hug. It was just weird when Rainbow Dash herself tried to do it.

“Does that even still make us together if I can’t do any of the stuff?” Rainbow Dash asked quietly, looking away from Pinkie Pie. A part of her needed to know the answer, but most of her wanted to just keep pretending that everything is okay.

“We love you, but that’s kind of a question you need to answer. We have a place in the herd that you can have, but you can totally have a different place if you want.” Pinkie Pie shrugged, leaning onto Rainbow Dash’s shoulder again. “However I am definitely going to make sure that I get plenty of snuggle time with you, and I know that Fluttershy likes your hugs a whole bunch.”

“Yeah, I do like those I guess.” Rainbow Dash sighed. “Thanks for keeping this between us and Fluttershy. I don’t really want to ruin things by letting Twilight know.”

“I don’t think that you should keep this from the others. Especially Twilight, I think that you should tell her.” Pinkie Pie told her, her smile slightly slipping from her face.

“It’ll just stress her out more,” Rainbow Dash tried to counter, but Pinkie Pie quickly shot down that argument.

“Twilight deserves to know, she loves you. If you’re not happy being in a herd, then the herd should know. Twilight is doing the guest lists today, so you need to tell her pronto.” Pinkie Pie pointed out, doing her best to give adorable puppy dog eyes at Rainbow Dash. Rainbow Dash just shoved her back onto the bed, cuteness was nothing against the awesomeness of Rainbow Dash.

“If I do that then that means that I have to tell Rarity that she wasted her time on making a dress for me.” Rainbow Dash muttered.

“I think she would prefer to know before the wedding, rather than the day after.” Pinkie Pie whispered into Rainbow Dash’s ear, making the pegasus leap off of the bed in surprise from the sudden sound. Rainbow Dash shot Pinkie Pie a glare, but she was laughing too much to even notice the glare.

“Pinkie, I told you to stop sneaking up on me,” Rainbow Dash grinned, before jumping at Pinkie Pie and tackling her into the bed. Of course three seconds later Pinkie Pie had already managed to escape from Rainbow Dash’s grasp. The pillow fight was brutal and Rainbow Dash knew that she was probably going to have to remake Fluttershy’s bed sheets and likely replace a few pillows when this was all over. Eventually the two reached their limit and the mock battle was over.

“Do you really think that it’s a good idea to tell the others?” Rainbow Dash asked Pinkie Pie as they laid on the bed beside each other trying to regain their breath.

“I think you should. However you don’t need to worry. No matter what happens, things aren’t going to change between us six, silly.” Pinkie Pie told Rainbow Dash, poking Rainbow Dash in the nose.

“I hope you’re right,” Rainbow Dash muttered before resolving to at least try. It was going to be a painfully awkward conversation to walk Twilight through this mess, but Pinkie Pie was right. She couldn’t keep lying to her friends, even if she was no longer sure of what she even wanted anymore.

The Castle of Friendship’s library was a treasure trove of ancient bookcases that stretched up to the vaulted ceilings, far beyond the reach of the average pony. For Twilight, the library was a blissful oasis filled with the sweet smell of vanilla from the verifiable sea of books that sat upon her shelves. Smiling to herself, Twilight pulled down yet another aged book, leafing through it as she settled down for a proper read.

In Canterlot she lived a demanding life controlling the direction of Equestrian society with political and magical pressures coming at her from all directions. Ponyville was a wonderful barrier to the stress, even allowing her a chance to settle down for a proper read.

However, fate was not welcoming. Her peace and quiet was interrupted by a knock at her door. Huffing at the interruption ruining her flow, she took a mental note of the page she was up to before closing the book and trotting over to the door to see who had interrupted her evening.

“Sorry, the castle’s library is not currently open to the public. Please continue to enjoy the other public sections of the castle.” Twilight said as she swung open the door, before raising an eyebrow as she realised that it was Rainbow Dash who had knocked. It took little more than a glance to see the panic and discomfort that was flowing through Rainbow Dash as she awkwardly shifted her weight between her hooves. Twilight quickly realised that the evening was likely going to be an awkward one. “Oh, hello?”

“Hi Twi,” Dash began, looking more nervous than Twilight had ever seen before. “Do you have a few minutes to talk?”

“I always make time for my friends. Also, I am literally doing nothing as Pinkie Pie refuses to return my checklist. I wanted to start sending out invitations, but I can’t without it. I can’t even try to get anything extra done without knowing what she has already done. She even took both of my backup checklists, so I can’t even pre-plan.” Twilight greeting had devolved into a small rant, but she paused as she noticed the raised eyebrow from Rainbow Dash.

“Anyway, why don’t you come in so we can talk?” Twilight stepped back, gesturing for Dash to join her inside. To be honest, Twilight was surprised that Rainbow hadn’t just shoved open her door and announced her presence. It wasn’t like she minded all that much when one of her herd mates turned up unannounced and Rainbow Dash had never really cared about decorum.

Dash trotted in quietly and headed over to one of the comfortable couches that dotted the walls of the library. She sat with barely a word, her tail flicking nervously behind her. Twilight sighed, knowing that whatever was bothering Dash was likely to be something more serious than she thought. This was not going to take just a few minutes, even if Dash wanted to rush through it.

“Would you like some tea or something?” Twilight asked quietly as she sat down beside Rainbow Dash. There was a slightly uncomfortable silence that settled down between them. Thankfully after only a few seconds Rainbow Dash finally gathered up enough courage to say what she needed to say.

“I don’t fit into this herd,” Rainbow Dash blurted out, wincing at the surprise that flashed over Twilight’s features before the alicorn could school her expression. She hated how timid her voice was as she struggled to push out every work. “I’m not the right kind of mare for it, like at all.”

“You don’t want to join us?” Twilight asked, doing her best to keep her voice level. “Did we do something wrong, or is there anything we can do to help?”

“It’s not about what you all did, or even what I want. It’s kind of the opposite of that,” Dash huffed, still refusing to look Twilight in the eye. “You are all awesome at letting me do everything at my own pace. The problem is that at some point I stopped trotting forward but you’re still all patiently waiting for me at the finish line. It’s not that I don’t want to do what you all want, it’s more that I feel like I am not even trying to get there or something.”

Rainbow Dash paused and frowned, running through what she had just said. “I am not doing a good job explaining this.”

“I’m assuming this is about our more clandestine late night activities,” Twilight asked with a smirk, “you can be assured that we are all fine waiting for you to become comfortable. If you want I could spend some time helping you ease yourself into this. I know it can be a lot to take in at once.”

“It’s not just when we do that stuff!” Rainbow huffed, blowing her mane out of her eyes. “It is all of it. The kissing, the hugging, the stupid sleepy eye thing that Fluttershy keeps doing whenever she thinks I’m not looking her way. It’s the dinners together. It’s the herd stuff. I can’t do any of that stuff properly, it’s like that part of me that is meant to do that stuff just isn’t there.”

“If this is about experience, I can show you how to kiss. If it’s about dates, I have a lot of reference notes on what to do if you ever get stuck,” Twilight tried to placate Rainbow. “I’m very willing to teach you. I’m pretty sure we all are.”

“I know how to kiss, you just shove your muzzles together and try to avoid bashing teeth,” Dash groaned, rubbing her head with a hoof nervously. “I know what to do. I know how to do it. I just can’t actually do it. Like, the ‘want to do it part’ that doesn’t seem to happen.”

Dash actually waved her hooves in an attempt to make the inverted commas clear. Twilight just ignored her gestures, only partially surprised that they weren’t vulgar gestures for once. Dash tried to continue. “I’m not sure if I want to do it, and I’m not sure if I feel the right way in return to do it. I’m not sure how any of you are sure of any of this stuff. So it feels like I’m just pretending or something.”

“Do you feel like you don’t love us?” Twilight asked, hesitancy burning deep in her voice. “We don’t want to force you to do this, or make you feel obligated. I can deal with the contract if that’s a problem.”

“Augh, that’s not the problem!” Dash exclaimed. “The problem is that I don’t even know anything about this stuff. I don’t know if I want to do any of this stuff, but I also don’t know if I don’t want to do any of it. I literally could not tell you my opinion on it, because I can’t work it out.”

“Do you know if you want to spend time with us?” Twilight asked carefully.

“I like spending time with you all,” Dash sighed, “It’s just that I can’t tell you if I do...you know. Pinkie Pie seems to already know all of this junk, but I can’t explain any of it.”

“Dash, just say what you can. We can work from there if you want.” Twilight sighed, shuffling closer.

“I don’t know if I love any of you.” Dash swallowed nervously, really not liking where this was going. “I mean, I do love you guys. I want to spend time with you. But I have no idea if that is love. How can I do stuff with another pony, if I am not sure that I want to be more than friends? It’s like I’m just using them while they are trying to actually get something out of it.”

“Not everypony knows that they love someone at first sight. Rarity is rather unique in how quickly she seems to jump that first hurdle,” Twilight chuckled, “It can take time for a proper bond to form, or evolve from a friendship. However when you see that perfect mare or stallion sometimes you’ll just know. It’ll just be like a fillyhood crush, but potentially stronger.”

“I never had one of those,” Rainbow Dash huffed out, wondering why she ever thought that Twilight was the right person to go to for stuff like this. She doubted not feeling the right thing was a topic in a textbook. “I just feel like whenever we do anything together that I am lying to you all. You say that we’re all in a herd together and that we’re in love, but I just feel like we are just the awesome friends that we have always been.”

“You’re worried that you don’t love us? Surely we’re not the only ones you’ve felt this way before. Have you ever felt as close to any pony other than our herd?” Twilight asked, a soft smile on her muzzle.

“Well, my parents?” Rainbow Dash shrugged, “I think that’s what you mean, right?”

“Parents that you love I presume?” Twilight leant in to give Dash a nuzzle, but stopped as she saw Dash move to lean away.

“I guess it is kind of the same as with them, though also a little different” Rainbow Dash frowned, wishing she knew how to say this all properly.

“So if you love your parents and you care about the herd in a similar manner...“ Twilight trailed off as she waited for Dash to join the same dots.

“I knew that you would be the one to use logic stuff for this,” Rainbow Dash huffed with a smirk, before it faded. “Look, I kind of get what you mean. I just feel like I am not feeling it enough I guess. You all act like us being together is the best thing ever, but sometimes I like flying more. So it’s like what you are all feeling, is very different to what I feel. So I feel like I’m lying to you all and just pretending to be the same. Does anything I’m saying even make sense?”

“Probably more sense that you realise,” Twilight replied, a curious expression sneaking its way out. “What about when you’ve been physical with us? Surely then you got a sign of your feelings. Surrounded by the limbs of a lover as they kiss you surely gave you a hint or two.”

“It does not help at all!” Rainbow Dash shot back angrily.

“Okay, what if we tried going a little slower and ease you in?” Twilight asked gently, her hoof resting on Rainbow Dash’s, her other hoof slowly rubbing her back. “Are you willing to try? We can find out if you like it, and I am definitely okay being the one you learn with.”

“Even if the answer is that I don’t.” Rainbow Dash struggled to talk any more as Twilight put her hoof to Dash’s muzzle. Rainbow Dash knew that the last few times with the others had shown her that she wasn’t ready, but maybe Twilight knew how to make her okay with it all. She was a very smart pony after all. So she didn’t push Twilight away, and instead just waited to see what she felt.

“I’m here to let you learn what you want. I read a lot of books about the different types of archetypes that often form in a herd. So just let me lead and be honest with what you feel.” Rainbow Dash nervously watched as Twilight leant over, her muzzle getting closer and closer to Rainbow’s own. Rainbow swallowed nervously and leant in as well, letting Twilight close the gap.

The hairs on the back of Rainbow Dash’s neck rose as she felt Twilight’s forelegs wrapped around her. She nearly shoved her away as soon as Twilight tried to pull them closer, but she quickly pushed away her discomfort to let the experiment run its course. Twilight’s lips slowly parted against Rainbow Dash’s.

The experiment ended as soon as Dash felt something unpleasantly warm against her own lips. She shoved away Twilight in a panic. She rubbed her mouth with the back of her hoof, before pausing as she realised what she had done. Rainbow awkwardly looked back at Twilight, though she didn’t appear to be all that annoyed about being so unceremoniously shoved away. Worry was probably the more prevalent emotion, but even that was tempered by something Rainbow Dash couldn’t quite place.

“Sorry about that,” Rainbow tried to begin, before stopping as Twilight shook her head.

“There’s nothing to say sorry about,” Twilight told her, settling back down on her rump next to Dash.

“I didn’t mean to shove you,” Rainbow Dash admitted, rubbing the back of her neck with her hoof.

“I’ll admit that I might have slightly misread you. I wanted to see what you were okay with, and while I would have preferred a different reaction, it’s good to at least know what track I should have been on.” Twilight shrugged, not looking all that put out by being literally almost shoved to the floor.

“How did that tell you anything? All you know is that I don’t like it then you lick me. Next time you should’ve just stuck to the nuzzling stuff and not made it weird.” Rainbow Dash complained with a huff.

“Lick you? That was a...” Twilight trailed off, cutting her losses on explaining this to Rainbow Dash. “Okay. I think it is clear that you are not a fan of the more physical parts of our herd, which is fine. That doesn’t mean you don’t have a part in it.”

“It just means that there is something wrong with me,” Rainbow Dash scooted herself away from Twilight, feeling uncomfortable sitting so close to her after what had happened.

“That is not what it means,” Twilight wriggled back closer.

“It’s not just the kissing stuff,” Rainbow Dash admitted.

“So what is it?”

“I can’t do any of the relationship stuff that you all can, and I really can’t do the physical stuff either. I’d say it’s pretty clear that this isn’t working!” Rainbow Dash complained, annoyed that Twilight would just dismiss the disaster unfolding before her. “I’m not meant to be in the herd.”

There was a long silence as Twilight frowned, unsure how to respond to what Rainbow Dash had just told her, and Rainbow Dash wasn’t exactly in the mood to talk either. She knew that Twilight was the type of mare who loved to solve problems, but she just didn’t see how Twilight could fix her.

“Okay,” Twilight sighed with a soft smile.

“What do you mean, okay?” Rainbow Dash huffed.

“I mean, it’s okay. If you don’t want to be in the herd, then that is okay.” Twilight told her quietly.

“No, I want to be in the herd. I just can’t make myself want to be in it. So I can’t be in it.” Rainbow Dash groaned, wishing that she had a better way to explain it.

“Rainbow, It’s okay. I think I understand what you mean,” Twilight told her softly, resting a hoof on Rainbow’s shoulder. “You want to be with us, we’re your closest friends and you’re our closest friend. That is not something that is going to change any time soon. However, you also don’t want to be in the herd, and that is also okay.”

“How is that okay?” Rainbow Dash shot back, glaring at Twilight. “How can I be with you all, but not be with you all?”

“I think you’re getting stuck on the idea that this herd is an all or nothing deal, I want you to forget everything you think is what herding had in it.” Twilight told her softly, pulling Rainbow Dash up against her. “Just think about all of the things you want to do with the five of us. Think about all of the things you want to do with each of us on our own. Think about what you want to do.”

Rainbow Dash closed her eyes as she tried to picture what she wanted out of the herd, but it just kept swirling away from her before she could properly form a coherent thought. As soon as she thought of anything, be it cuddling or pranking with them, the idea seemed to get twisted with the rest of the herd surrounding her. “I can’t.”

“Yes you can! Stop thinking about the herd, understand yourself first. What does Rainbow Dash want? ” Twilight gently moved closer, wrapping her own wing around Rainbow Dash. “Don’t think about what you believe you would need to do to be part of a herd. Don’t think about anything like that. Just picture what you want to see happen, hold that thought in your mind. ”

“I don’t get what you mean! How am I meant to not think about the herd while trying to think about how I fit into it.” Rainbow Dash yelled back, beyond frustrated by how the conversation just seemed to endlessly spiral.

“Forget the herd. I don’t want you to use it to shape how you define yourself and what you want. Forget what you think being in a herd means. I want you to understand who you are just within the context of yourself. Don’t worry about trying to find some way to define yourself to match some perceived role. Just think about you in the context of you and nothing else.” Twilight explained, her wing slowly rubbing Rainbow Dash’s shoulder to gently comfort her. “Then, picture just what you want.”

“I want to cuddle with Fluttershy?” Rainbow Dash muttered hesitantly, her frown lessening a little.

“What else?” Twilight asked, her voice almost inaudible to the distracted pegasus she was snuggling.

“I want to spend time with all of you. I want to be an important mare in your lives.” Rainbow Dash’s nose wrinkled at that last part. She didn’t normally mind being a little self-focused, but that last part felt strange to say out loud. “Why are you asking this?”

“Think about what we had a month ago, what we did together before the herd.” Twilight told her gently. “Then think about now. What has changed? What did you like, and what did you not? You don’t have to tell me, but just hold those thoughts in your mind.”

“What’s your point?” Rainbow Dash asked, irritation seeping into her tone.

“Is there a difference to what you do now, and what you did back then?”

“Yes there is a difference. I just feel like I am lying to you all whenever I want to spend time with you.” Rainbow Dash tried to explain. “Like you are all expecting some sort of relationship thing, but here I am just liking the idea of having a sleepover or racing Applejack. I just feel like a fraud.”

“You’re not a fraud,” Twilight tried to interject, but Rainbow Dash just interrupted her.

“I still feel like one. Like what if I want to go out for dinner with you five, but that’s all I want to do. How can I do that and still pretend that I should be in the herd? Shouldn’t I just let you all do that as a herd, instead of having your other friend join.”

“You shouldn’t let us?” Twilight narrowed her eyes. “You should at least let me decide how I want to spend time with my closest friend. If I want to invite you to join our date nights, even as ‘just a friend’, then I should be able to at least offer that option to you.”

“But isn’t that, like, awkward?” Rainbow Dash floundered, losing the thread of her own argument.

“Why would it be awkward? We’re having dinner with our closest friend. You can’t tell me that you wouldn’t want to join us.” Twilight pointed out. “We’ve been together through everything that Equestria can throw at us. What makes you think that a herd is something that would ever be able to come between us?”

“I still want to be with you all, just not in the same way.” Rainbow Dash frowned, turning away from Twilight as she ran through it all in her mind. However she was pulled back as Twilight wrapped her foreleg over Rainbow Dash’s shoulders, pulling her into a hug.

“You are already with us, we’ve been best friends for years!” Twilight explained.

“Yeah, but you are all taking an extra step forward while I’m stuck,” Rainbow Dash protested.

“We’re not taking a step away from you!” Twilight pulled Rainbow Dash hard up against her, resting her hoof against Rainbow Dash’s cheek to stop her from turning away again. “We’re just changing our relationship between us, but it will still be just as deep as what we already have with you. We’re not about the prance off into the sunset and leave you behind. We love you, you love us.”

“I can stay even if I leave the herd?” Rainbow Dash quietly asked, her voice barely a whisper.

“You’re not leaving us, you’re just being what you want to be with us. It doesn’t matter what any other pony thinks, just what you do.” Twilight told her, lowering her hoof from her cheek.

“The nobles will probably care,” Rainbow Dash pointed out, though even she couldn’t explain why she was still arguing. It just felt too simple to just be what she wanted to be.

“I don’t care about what they think, and I don’t think you need to either.” Twilight smiled as she pressed her own cheek against Dash’s. “Sure, it would be easier to make deals with them to make them leave us alone. I’m not going to pretend that there aren’t things that I need to deal with, but there are always going to be things for me to handle for this union.”

“Don’t we need to do something to prove the contract stuff though? I can fake stuff if it makes it easier.” Rainbow Dash nervously pointed out, grimacing a little at the prospect.

“The contract?” Twilight paused, having entirely forgotten about it. Leaning back, she tapped her hoof against her muzzle as she pondered it. A few seconds later she gave a divisive nod, before flaring her horn. A scroll appeared beside her in a flash of magic, floating in a magenta hue down into Twilight’s hooves.

“Doesn’t it say that I need to do stuff,” Rainbow asked nervously, wishing that she had bothered to actually read it before signing it.

“Technically, yes.” Twilight began, frowning as she spotted the worried expression on Rainbow Dash’s face. “However, there is nothing stopping either of us from just ending this contract. It’s only binding so long as you want it to stay active, but I made sure that it is very easy to walk away from it. I would’ve preferred to go over it with you before you signed it, but I guess we can go through it now.”

“It’s a billion pages long!” Rainbow Dash complained.

“It’s fourteen pages long. But I can just go over the important part if you want.” Twilight sighed, unrolling the contract and holding up the last few paragraphs for Rainbow Dash to read.

“Yeah, so I literally understand none of that,” Rainbow Dash huffed, pushing away the paperwork before crossing her front forelegs across her stomach.

Twilight looked up at the ceiling and let out a groan. “It’s basically saying that your only responsibility is to do anything that will assist in fulfilling my physical and emotional needs. However I made sure to leave out any actual definition of what either of those are. So if I decide that just having you as my friend is fulfilling my needs, then the nobles can shut their muzzles.”

Twilight rolled up the contract and pushed it into Rainbow Dash’s hooves. “However, I think we would both prefer it if we just tore up this contract right now.”

“Won’t that mean that you need to deal with the nobles?” Rainbow Dash took the contract in her hooves, eyeing up the document as she pondered what to do.

“I would prefer to deal with a few nobles that force you to be uncomfortable.” Twilight told her with a smile.

“Thanks for letting my choose,” Rainbow Dash gripped the contact between her hooves and twisted, neatly tearing it in two. “So, what now? Do I just not turn up to the ceremony?”

“Oh you are going to be there,” Twilight grinned, “and you’re going to love it.”

Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow in curiosity, but she wasn’t worried.

She trusted her friends.

She loved her friends.

Chapter 14

Canterlot Castle had stood strong for centuries perched on the side of the largest mountain range in all of Equestria; it had the perfect view of the entire kingdom from Ponyville to the Undiscovered West. Today it was dressed to the nines with flowers artistically arranged in nearly every single corner of the castle. The wedding preparations had truly produced an amazing result and any pony that glanced in its direction would declare that it was a beautiful sign of exquisite design.

However Rainbow Dash was not looking at the pretty flowers that lined the hallways. Instead she was stuck in one of the guest rooms listening to Rarity hurriedly trying to finish her wedding preparations.

“I can’t believe that we’re getting married in Canterlot Castle,” Rarity swooned as she pranced around the room, checking over her dress in the mirror from every angle she could. “Just another few more minutes, I can not wait.”

“You’re going to have to, Twilight has you as third down the aisle, so don’t jump ahead. Today is not the day to mess with her plans, I already found that one out the hard way.” Rainbow Dash pointed out with an eye roll.

“Oh, why did she ever prefer order of age instead of order of pure elegance,” Rarity mock complained as she rearranged the bodice to make sure that her silhouette properly sat over her rump. “I do wish I had convinced everypony to go for the ball gown, but I suppose that these trumpet styles will work well enough.”

“Well you did want everypony to match in dress styles, so you only have yourself to blame.” Rainbow Dash groaned, hoping that Rarity wasn’t about to go into another extended monologue about the qualities of each style of wedding dress. “I still can’t believe that it took you an hour to get into that thing. I managed mine in ten seconds flat.”

“Your dress is a lot simpler than any of the others,” Rarity pointed out.

“Whatever, you still take way too long. Anyway, it looks like you’re finally ready, so I’m going to go check on AJ and make sure she isn’t trying to take longer than you or something.”

“Hang on!” Rarity stepped over to Rainbow Dash and gave her a quick nuzzle before stepping back. “I just thought that you deserved that.”

“Thanks Rares, I’d better check on the others.” Rainbow Dash waved Rarity a quick goodbye before dashing out of the room.

Stepping into the next guest room, she wasn’t surprised to see Applejack standing stoically with her dress half on. She was surprised to see Fluttershy behind Applejack valiantly trying to awkwardly tie one of the dress’ straps around Applejack’s barrel. Fluttershy herself already had her own dress properly settled on her, and it seemed that the extra material was making it difficult to reach Applejack’s dress properly. Rainbow Dash quickly trotted over and helped get the strap properly passed back, where Fluttershy was able to finally finish securing it.

“I swear that they make these things impossible to put on yourself,” Applejack complained, shifting her position as Fluttershy pulled the back of the dress up to the back of her neck.

“It is part of the tradition to show that you spent effort on preparing,” Fluttershy mused as she finished up the last strap, “Though I suspect that Rarity may have gone just a tad over the top with these designs.”

“Don’t worry, Rarity is still struggling to finish getting on her own dress. She has magic and it still looks impossible to me.” Rainbow Dash pointed out, as she tilted her head and checked the alignment of the dress on Applejack’s back.

“She did design each dress to compliment who we are in the herd, and she spent a very long time on getting them all perfect.” Fluttershy reminded them.

“I’m not saying that I don’t appreciate them. I just wish that they were easier to put on.” Applejack pointed out, but knew that it was an argument that she was destined to lose.

“Well it’s good to see that both of you are ready at least, Twilight would probably be panicking if you weren’t ready.” Rainbow Dash reached over and straightened one of the sleeves on Fluttershy’s dress.

“Oh, is the poor dear still stressed out?” Fluttershy asked as she looked over her shoulder to make sure that her hemline was sitting properly.

“She says that it’s ‘good stress’ or something.” Rainbow Dash shrugged. “I’ll probably have to be the one to see how she is going after I check on Pinkie.”

“Pinkie Pie is fine, somehow her party cannon can also blast her dress straight onto her,” Applejack told her.

“It’d probably be smart to not tell Rarity that Pinkie Pie shoved her wedding dress into a cannon.” Rainbow Dash mused.

“It would be fun to see her reaction though,” Applejack pointed out, furrowing her brow as if she was seriously considering it.

“I’d better go check out Twilight before you make Rarity murder us,” Rainbow Dash chuckled, heading back to the door. However Fluttershy quickly stepped in her way.

“Before you go, can I do one little thing?” Fluttershy asked, holding her wings out.

“Yes we can cuddle,” Rainbow Dash laughed, wrapping her forelegs around Fluttershy and pulling the mare against her. Fluttershy responded by wrapping her own wings around Rainbow Dash and burying her muzzle into the underside of Rainbow Dash’s neck, letting out a soft squeak as she settled. Rainbow Dash looked up to see Applejack raising an eyebrow at her. “Well, don’t just stand there. Join the hug.”

“Don’t mind if I do!” Applejack threw one leg around them both, giving Rainbow Dash’s mane a tussle as she did so. Rainbow Dash didn’t even bother protesting, knowing that Twilight already had a stylist who would forcibly restyle her rainbow mane before she could even enter the great hall.

“Sorry to cut this short but I do need to help Twilight get ready.” Rainbow Dash pointed out after a few seconds, carefully unwrapping her hooves from around Fluttershy. They called out their goodbyes as Rainbow Dash hurried out of the room.

She stopped by her room to retrieve a small white cardboard box, balancing it on her back as she headed back out. She paused as she heard a yell of her name, before realising that it was just Rarity again. Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes as she strode past Rarity’s room, listening to the fashionista stress about which direction to curl her mane.

Getting Rarity to the wedding on time was a problem that Dash would need to deal with later. Instead, she had somepony much more important that needed her help, Twilight. She didn’t even pause at the door to Twilight’s royal chambers, shoving the door open with her shoulder as she tried to make sure that she didn’t drop the box on her back.

“Don’t come in yet. I’ve got the dress on and you can’t see it yet” Twilight yelled out, making a mad dash for the study before stopping as she noticed who was at the door. “Oh, hey Rainbow Dash.”

“Are you still hung up on that tradition?”

“Every book I read said it was ceremonial to ensure that the lead mare and stallion didn’t see each other until they were travelling down the aisle.” Twilight lectured. Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes, this was the fifth time that Twilight had told her after all.

“Well it’s a good thing that I’m not your stallion, besides I’m pretty sure that it’s okay for your bridesmare to see you. It would be a bit difficult to help any other way.” Rainbow Dash teased.

“It’s okay for you to see me,” Twilight relented before pausing and turning back to Rainbow Dash. “This wedding isn’t causing any issues for you, is it?”

“Nah. The only issue was that my folks got a front row seat so that they are properly going to cheer me on for being the best bridesmare ever or something.” Rainbow Dash laughed as she put the white box carefully down on the bed.

“You really need to have a talk to them about reasonable limits,” Twilight muttered, stepping over to look at what Rainbow Dash had brought.

“So I’ve got all of five rings. The top one is yours. Also Spike has already called dibs on carrying them down the aisle” Rainbow Dash pulled out a small wooden box with a hinged top, using a wing to open the delicate lid and reveal the golden rings sitting on a cushion of satin.

“They look perfect,” Twilight muttered as she looked closely at the magically enchanted union rings that would magically bond her to four of her closest friends. Though the fact that all six of them were already bound by the Elements of Harmony did somewhat mute the importance. Still tradition was tradition. “I would’ve preferred you didn’t use dibs for something like this”

“Hey, you’ve got to respect the dibs.” Rainbow Dash lowered her voice and leaned in close to Twilight. “But just between you and me, I already called dibs on it. However I couldn’t let the little guy feel left out.”

“Of course you did.” Twilight just rolled her eyes at Rainbow’s antics as she levitated each of the five wedding rings out and checked over the resizing charm that sat ready within each. As soon as it was worn, each ring was set to resize to perfectly match the pony wearing it, and Twilight had personally designed the charms that sat hidden behind the golden exterior.

“I know I shouldn’t ask again, but are you okay with how this all turned out?” Twilight Sparkle asked hesitantly, her eyes staring at the rings held in her magical grip.

“Today is an awesome day for all six of us. It really is an honour that you chose me as your bridesmare. So, believe me when I say that I’m happy about being there to see you five form a herd.” Rainbow Dash gave Twilight a quick hug before using her wing to push the floating rings back into the wooden box.

“There is no pony else I would ever have standing beside me on my wedding day.” Twilight sighed. “I don’t know if I could have gone through this without all of you. The wedding is going to be wonderful, and I can’t wait for the honeymoon after.”

“Yeah, that’s gonna be fun. Sorry I’m missing the first night, but I know that night is not going to be my scene.” Rainbow Dash told her. “I’ll be sure to see you all in the morning. There is no way I am turning down a free holiday.”

“You’d better join us on the honeymoon! I have sooooo much stuff I want to do!” Pinkie Pie suddenly appeared beside Rainbow Dash, leaning on her with one hoof while her other hoof was strategically covering her own eyes.

“Pinkie, I told you that you couldn’t see me before the wedding!” Twilight called out, turning away from Pinkie Pie.

“That’s why I’ve got my eyes closed,” Pinkie Pie laughed.

“I’m also not meant to see you,” Twilight flatly pointed out.

“Oh, sorry.” Pinkie Pie grimaced, realising her mistake.

“It’s fine, but I think it’s time you finished getting ready,” Twilight told her with a sigh.

“Fiiine,” Pinkie Pie backed out of the room, pouting like a scolded child. “I’ll see you at the wedding!”

With Pinkie Pie gone, Twilight returned her attention back to Rainbow Dash. “I’m happy that you are comfortable joining us for the honeymoon.”

“Why wouldn’t I come?” Rainbow Dash shrugged as she carefully closed the ring box up, after checking to make sure that all five were still in there.

“I was worried that you wouldn’t want to be around us when we are enjoying each other’s company. Some of the books I read implied that it could be a bit of a complication?” Twilight tried to delicately explain.

“If something is wrong, I promise to tell you.” Rainbow Dash told her solemnly, putting a hoof to her chest. “Besides, it isn’t like I don’t like seeing you all be happy.”

“I love all five of you, you all love me. That’s it. It doesn’t matter how we define what we have, all that matters is that we have it.” Rainbow Dash pulled Twilight into a deep hug, knowing that today was going to be perfect.

She was right.

Author's Note

“Understand yourself within the context of you and your surroundings, as opposed to some definition in a textbook or whatever.”

This quote was such a nice pearl of wisdom that I felt that I just had to try and write a story around it.

Chapter 9

Rarity’s couch was one of exquisite taste and styling. Every contour of the hoof-made creation was set out to provide a refreshed take on the peak of designer furniture. It was more than just a couch, it was a statement about what it meant to be living room furniture. It was also incredibly uncomfortable and Rainbow Dash’s back was making that last part all too well known. Sleep had not come all that easy for her the previous night, but in truth the couch’s uncomfortable design wasn’t the only reason. She had spent most of the night tossing and turning as her mind got caught in a loop of Rarity’s words.

Her five closest friends were all galloping ahead of her, while she still felt like she hadn’t even taken her first step in the relationship. A first step that she just couldn’t seem to work out how to take, leaving her stranded on the starting line of a race she would never finish. The feeling was an infuriating one. She couldn’t stop herself worrying about what her friends would think when they realised that she wasn’t able to be a proper marefriend to them.

Eventually she felt her eyelids grow heavy, and with the darkness she finally slipped into a shallow sleep. Unfortunately her sleep was ruined only a few minutes later as Rarity’s front door downstairs slammed open. Groaning, Rainbow Dash opened her eyes to see Twilight running past her and towards the stairwell that led to Rarity's bedroom, a checklist held in a magical aura trailing behind.

Rainbow Dash had barely managed to sit up before she heard a shriek from Rarity. She looked over with a smirk, even Rainbow Dash knew better than to interrupt Rarity’s sleep. Twilight was shoved out of the bedroom stairwell in a flash of magic from Rarity, and Rainbow couldn’t help laughing at the alicorn sprawled on the floor.

“Rarity, this is important!” Twilight groaned as she pulled herself back onto her hooves, rubbing her flank that had hit the floor first. There were entirely unintelligible complaints from the bedroom. The grumbling from Rarity upstairs was far too muffled for Rainbow Dash to make out anything she was trying to say.

“You know as well as I do that Rarity does not like to interrupt her beauty sleep,” Rainbow Dash chuckled from the couch, leaning on the hoof-rest with her hoof holding up her head.

“Oh, Hi! I didn’t see you there,” Twilight spluttered out in embarrassment, caught off guard at Rainbow Dash’s presence.

“Clearly.” Rainbow Dash didn’t even bother suppressing the eyeroll. “Aren’t you meant to be in Canterlot until the weekend?”

“I’d like to know that as well” Rarity growled as she left her bedroom, a nightgown hastily wrapped around her. She shot Twilight a glare with all of the fury of a thousand scorned lovers. Rarity tried to give off an air of professionalism, but even Rainbow Dash could see the bags under her eyes. Midnight was not Rarity’s favourite social hour and it showed.

“Firstly, sorry for bothering you. I know that it is very late, but I teleported here as soon as I found out.” Twilight began.

“It’s going to get later if you don’t get to the point,” Rainbow Dash groaned, flopping back onto the couch and staring at the ceiling.

“Please, Twilight. What is wrong?” Rarity asked gently, stepping over to Twilight as the fury in her dropped to a mild level of irritation.

“So, do you remember how we had a sleepover in Canterlot last week where we-”

“I think we all agreed to never bring up what happened!” Rarity interrupted, shoving a hoof over Twilight’s mouth. A glare from Twilight made Rarity quickly remove her hoof.

“Okay, now I have to know what happened.” Rainbow Dash sat up on the couch, finding herself very interested. “Did you get a little frisky in public or something?”

“Define, public?” Twilight weakly asked, a blush very visible on her face.

“We had a sleepover in the throne room and forgot to wake up before court was scheduled the next morning. So some of the palace guards may have gotten an eyeful of the five of us in rather inappropriate attire,” Rarity huffed, though there was a red tinge appearing in the edges of her cheeks as well.

“Wish I’d been there to see that,” Rainbow Dash chuckled. “So you have a few guards get to see you in a way that’s not entirely foal-friendly. What’s the big deal?”

“Well it wasn’t meant to be a problem, but I guess somepony decided to talk. So I just found out that the Canterlot Gazette is running a story about us tomorrow. So now I need to deal with this,” Twilight complained.

“Why does it matter if some newspaper runs some story about you hooking up with some friends?”

“It matters because my royal position isn’t exactly as perfect as we are all pretending. I do actually need to care about my public image, even if it is incredibly annoying and the news should learn to mind their own behinds.” Twilight shot back, panic seeping out of her.

“Twilight, be calm.” Rarity gently told her, nudging her with a hoof.

Twilight paused and took a deep breath before letting it out slowly, Rainbow Dash recognised the breathing technique from Princess Cadence. She also knew that if Twilight was resorting to breathing techniques then she was stressing out a lot more than normal, which was saying something for the slightly neurotic princess.

“What do you mean?” Rainbow Dash asked Twilight, making sure to keep her tone as even as she could. It wouldn’t be smart to stress Twilight out any more than she already was.

“What she means is that the nobles have been putting pressure on Twilight to offload a lot of the day to day problems onto them, and some of them have been trying to use her apparent inexperience to get support from the other nobles to get her position changed to a purely ceremonial one.” Rarity responded, giving Twilight a little longer to regain her composure.

“So, just tell them no. You raise the sun, it’s not like they can do it. You could probably just get rid of them so they stop bugging you.” Rainbow Dash didn’t see what they were making such a big deal about the nobles.

“I’m not trying to make enemies with them,” Twilight explained, much calmer than she had been earlier. “I also actually do want them to deal with some of the daily tasks, Rainbow. There is far too much for just me to handle on my own. Also, the nobles are still part of the system that Princess Celestia set up to manage how laws are handled in our kingdom. Their house is formed to review and amend laws from the common house. I can’t just ignore them, they are meant to be a representative counter to the peers of the pony population.”

“I still think that you could tell them to go jump in a lake,” Rainbow Dash huffed, “but sure. I get that they are a problem for you.”

“It’s not just a problem for me,” Twilight bit her lip nervously. “Do you remember what I had you sign?”

“Yeah?” Rainbow Dash did not like where this was going.

“It was for a conjoint marriage with some elements of a concubinatus. That way we would all be joined, but it also ensures that I don’t need to renounce my position. Otherwise my position would become untenable.” Twilight explained as clearly as she could.

“Even I didn’t understand that and I worked on it with you,” Rarity sighed.

“Rarity, just tell me what's going on, please?” Rainbow Dash asked with an eye roll.

“The current laws that govern Equestria restrict the leading monarch, in this case that would be our dear Twilight, from entering into a marriage. If she does marry then she will be forced to pass the role back to a suitable ruler.” Rarity explained.

“What, give the crown to Blueblood?”

“NO!” Rarity was aghast at the very prospect of Prince Blueblood running anything more complex than a tea cup. “The nobles might be fools, but they are not idiots. If Twilight had to step down, then it would force Luna or Celestia to take back the throne until a replacement can be found. The nobles aren’t exactly happy with Twilight, so they have been looking for any way to drag the sisters back. Obviously none of us want to take away their first chance to have a holiday in a millenia.”

“They seem to be under the impression that dragging the sisters back will let them go back to the way that things used to be.” Twilight groaned. “It doesn’t matter how many times I explained that they didn’t want to return, the nobles are stuck on the fantasy that the Princesses will return to rule. So Rarity and I wrote up a document that would allow us all to be together, but also specifically exclude us from actually marrying.”

“Which is very disappointing to me” Rarity cut in.

“Which is disappointing to all of us even if it is a restriction that is only on paper,” Twilight huffed before continuing. “It meant that we would be together, but would also appease the nobles who would reject the wedding in fear that I would transfer the power over to one of you or your descendants. However it did mean that we couldn’t exactly be complete equals in our union. So I had to fuzz the definitions a bit.”

“What did you do?” Rainbow Dash was sick of Twilight talking around the issue, she did not care what the nobles wanted. She just wanted to know what Twilight’s plan was.

“Well, this is why I wanted to go over it before you signed anything. I made it so you five are...well...subservient to me.” Twilight admitted, the blush returning to her cheeks.

“You what?” Rainbow Dash’s mouth was agape as her mind finally realised what Twilight’s plan actually meant. “I know you are a princess, but I was hoping that this union thing was going to be something a fair bit more equal between us.”

“Well, it wasn’t meant to actually matter.”

“How?” Rainbow Dash asked, incredulous that Twilight would even think to go through with such an asinine plan.

“I made sure to add a lot of qualifiers to make it clear that you wouldn’t actually be required to do anything if you didn’t want it. It was just legal protection that would stop the nobles from messing with your lives. If I didn’t do this then you would’ve all been in line for the throne and the nobles would not have let us be together without it becoming an even bigger headache. The idea was to have it all be basically defined the same way, but with some awkward wording to have it be a proper union in all but name. There were nearly no actual compulsory duties in it at all.” Twilight explained.

“Which means that we are all beneath you?” Rainbow Dash asked. “Is that really how you want this union to happen? And what is this compulsory nonsense?”

“Of course that isn’t what she wants, and it’s not what is going to happen.” Rarity shot back.

“It’s all mostly unenforceable nonsense to get the nobles off of my back.” Twilight huffed. “None of this actually requires any of us to do anything that we wouldn’t want to do anyway. We made it so that being your normal affectionate selves is your, um, duty.”

“I’ve signed enough legal stuff with the Wonderbolts to know that stuff like this can bite you on the rump,” Rainbow Dash pointed out, doing her best to put the affection part out of her mind. That was a problem for future Dash to figure out, she needed to focus on one apparent disaster at a time.

“Then you should’ve actually read it before signing,” Rarity muttered just loud enough for Rainbow Dash to hear.

“I understand your concern, but I did think this through.” Twilight pointed out. “If it wasn’t for the Canterlot Gazette claiming in tomorrow’s front page that I am trying to set you all up to be future princesses of Equestria, then this wouldn’t have even mattered.”

“Wait, they said what?” Rarity’s eyebrows were raised so high they were in danger of disappearing into her mane never to be seen again.

“I’m handling it! I just need to push some of our plans to happen earlier. Otherwise the nobles would use this as a pretty convincing argument that I am unsuited for the throne. If they convince enough of the commons, they could actually achieve that.” Twilight explained.

“So, how are you going to fix this?” Rainbow Dash asked, a faint feeling of discomfort settling on her at what this could mean for her.

“It’s not that much of an issue, really. We just need to ‘accidentally’ let slip the fact that we are herding and the media won’t even be able to run the story without looking like fools. I’ve already asked a pony from the Canterlot Times to run a story against it.”

“Why would they agree to that?” Rainbow Dash frowned.

“Why would they agree to run a story tarnishing the reputation of another newspaper by giving the true story alongside actual evidence?” Twilight asked, the hint of a devious smile slipping through her innocent grin.

“Clever mare, they must’ve jumped at the chance” Rarity chuckled.

“They tried to offer me bits for it,” Twilight rolled her eyes, “I swear every pony is incapable of remembering that I am the ruling princess.”

“You still could’ve taken the bits,” Rainbow Dash offered, Rarity and Twilight shot her with glares of disappointment. “What? It’s impolite to reject a gift.”

“Anyway...” Twilight dragged the conversation back on track, ”if we just reveal that we are all actually in a union together then this all works out fine. I get to be more open with all of you, the media gets to run a story about that instead of what they were going to run, and the nobles aren’t able to complain about it as I already sorted out what they would complain about. Win, win, win, right?”

“I guess?” Rainbow Dash wasn’t fully convinced, but she didn’t really feel like she could disagree.

“So now I just need to plan an entire royal wedding in a few short weeks, and the first question is to see how far along Rarity is with the bridal gowns.” Twilight admitted, magically pulling her checklist in front of her face and jumping between sections. A quill appeared next to her before being magically shoved into the parchment as she started making additional notes.

“Wait a few weeks?” Rainbow Dash asked, but Twilight didn’t even look up from the floating checklist before disappearing in a flash of teleportation.

In the silence, Rarity and Rainbow Dash looked at each other, before both silently agreeing that one in the morning was not the best time for a chat. Rarity quickly wished her a good night before returning to her bedroom, hoping to return to the world of slumber.

Rainbow Dash curled up back on the uncomfortable couch and settled into a restless night.

“I hope you had a good night’s sleep” Rarity called out as she entered the boutique’s living room, giving the couch a kick to jolt Rainbow Dash awake. “I’ve already prepared breakfast, though it is almost late enough to count as lunch.”

“Your couch is super uncomfortable” Rainbow Dash complained as she sat up, stretching to try and get the knots out of her back. She didn’t have much success and she could already tell that her back was going to be sore for the rest of the day.

“I did offer you my bed,” Rarity sighed as she headed over to the kitchen.

“...fair point,” Rainbow Dash sighed as she dragged herself over to the dining table, yawning with every sleepy step.

“You still managed to sleep away half of the morning, so I’m guessing that the couch wasn’t the only reason that you’re a bit grumpy today,” Rarity pointed out as she levitated a plate of hay strips down in front of Rainbow Dash.

“I’m just wondering what this union thing actually is now.” Rainbow Dash frowned, picking through the food in front of her but not yet taking a bite. She was feeling too bitter to actually enjoy the well produced breakfast in front of her. “Like, are we still her friends? Do we need to do things? What even is it?”

“Ah, well the answer to that is a tad awkward,” Rarity admitted, levitating a second plate over to the table that was soon joined by a teapot and matching tea cups. “The history of the law is controversial to some ponies.”

“Rarity, just tell me.” Rainbow Dash wasn’t in the mood to listen to Rarity waffle on for half the morning.

“Celestia and Luna weren’t allowed to marry as the council feared that it would allow their partners to claim ownership of the throne.” Rarity explained as she settled down beside Rainbow Dash, pausing to pour herself some tea. “I’m sure you can see the issue with that.”

“I’m not in the mood for guessing,” Rainbow Dash said with a groan.

“It meant that they could have close friends, but anything beyond that was seen as improper. So they were forced to hold back and keep themselves remote from those that they cared about.” Rarity sighed, a wistful look fading from her face. ”This didn’t work out well. Like all ponies, they had urges just the same as you or I.”

“Hmm,” Rainbow Dash wasn’t sure that she entirely agreed with that last part.

“So they added a law that the ruling princesses would be allowed to have a herd of courtesans who would fulfil their physical and emotional needs. However, to get it passed by the council, they needed to make it clear that their courtesans wouldn’t be able to assume the rule of the country. So the law was amended to mark them as lessers.” Rarity explained, though she was frowning as she finished.

“So, we’re lessers to Twilight?” Rainbow Dash really did not like the sound of that idea. “I was under the impression that this was going to be something a fair bit more equal between us.”

“It’s just an on paper thing, it mostly doesn’t change anything. She is a princess already, so I’m not sure we could really be considered equals regardless.” Rarity did her best to placate Rainbow Dash.

“Mostly?” Rainbow Dash asked bluntly.

“We can worry about that later,” Rarity waved away Rainbow Dash’s concerns, “Honestly as soon as we have a proper wedding then this all matters a whole lot less. Oh just think of the romantic possabilities of it all. The five of us walking down the aisle, Twilight waiting to receive us. It’s a dream that will soon come true for us.”

“Sure,” Rainbow Dash returned to her meal, but paused before taking another bite as a thought occurred to her. “When did you say that you started working on the wedding dresses?”

“Last week, as soon as we were back from Canterlot,” Rarity swooned. “I just had so many ideas swirling in my mind that I just had to get out before they vanished.”

“Last week?” Rainbow Dash frowned as she realised what was going on.

“And now you look more annoyed than before,” Rarity sighed. “What’s the problem now?”

“You already knew, didn’t you?” Rainbow Dash asked acidically.

“Already knew what?” Rarity asked, raising an eyebrow as she daintily levitated a small morsel of food on a fork up to her mouth.

“You’ve already got the dress designs ready, you’re dreaming on it, admit it. You already knew about the wedding stuff,” Rainbow Dash shot back bitterly. “You knew that you got caught being inappropriate, and that Twilight would need us to rush through a wedding, didn’t you?”

Rarity slowly finished the mouthful of food before settling the utensils back down on her plate with a sigh. “I didn’t exactly know, I just put two and two together and figured out the inevitable.”

“So you did know!” Rainbow Dash accused her.

“Well, I didn’t fully know. I just heard a rumour here or there.”

“You lied to me. You told me that it wasn’t a race.” Rainbow Dash spat out her words angrily, realising that Rarity had lied the previous night about them waiting for Rainbow to work out what she wanted. She narrowed her eyes, angry that Rarity hadn’t just told her what she needed to know from the beginning. “Yet now apparently we have basically less than a week to get properly hitched.”

“I didn’t realise that it was this soon?” Rarity tried to explain, but Rainbow Dash didn’t want to hear it. She was sick and tired of her friends trying to keep things from her just because it was easier. It seemed like every day there was just a bigger and bigger gap between her and the others.

“I don’t believe that you just guessed. You knew!” Rainbow Dash shot straight back, ignoring Rarity trying to defend herself. “You lied to me yesterday, didn’t you?”

“When did I lie?”

“You told me that I could take my time, but that clearly isn’t an option.”

“Dashie,” Rarity sighed, sliding closer to Dash, putting a hoof on Rainbow’s. “This may not be exactly optimal, but it isn’t the end of the world. It’s just a ceremony where we all get to show that we love each other. You don’t have to worry about being ready for anything else. I promise that we won’t push you into that.”

“I guess,” Rainbow Dash looked at the cooling hay strips in front of her, unsure how to respond. Sure, it was good to know that Rarity at least kind of understood her worries, but it felt like there was a bigger problem. She just didn’t know what it even was. How was she supposed to tell Rarity that she had not yet worked out if she loved her friends properly, or if she was stuck thinking of them as friends. Heck, she hadn’t even worked out if marrying them as friends was even a problem.

It did feel like one though.

“Dash?” Rarity asked gently, giving her a gentle nudge.

“I need to think,” Rainbow Dash pushed away the food and got up before making her way back down to the ground floor. Rarity trailed behind her.

“You can stay and think.” Rarity asked carefully.

“I just need to not be here,” Rainbow Dash sighed as she reached Rarity’s front door, shoving it open and stomping out the open door. She heard Rarity call out something to, likely about her foul mood, but she didn’t stick around to listen. She just wanted to be on her own.

Though she was kicking herself for not finishing the haystrips. Rarity had cooked them to perfection and it felt like such a waste to leave them to go to waste.