Once Upon Five Dozen Mattresses

by Estee

Rating: everyone
Tags: Twilight Sparkle, Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Rainbow Dash
Length: 7791

You wouldn't think that being locked in the world's best mattress factory could lead to one of the worst nights of Rainbow's life...

The Cumulus. There's no finer mattress in the world. It's just like sleeping on a cloud, because that's exactly what you're doing. It just happens to be a cloud that's been saturated with pegasus magic, to the point where anypony (and anyone) can rest upon it. The support is perfect, the temperature ideal, and Rainbow would do a lot to own one -- except saving up for it, because that's clearly stupid.

But the company has a factory in Canterlot. One which just started offering tours to the public. So in theory, all she has to do is get in there, see how it's done, and then apply that to creating one herself. Getting locked in after hours wasn't part of that plan, but if you're going to be stuck anywhere at night...

A mare who loves sleep, and sixty of the world's best mattresses.

Welcome to one of the worst nights of Rainbow's life.

Cover art provided by Rambling Writer, with thanks.

(Now with author Patreon, SubscribeStar, and Ko-Fi pages. The current Ko-Fi drive is for a new mattress. That is why this story exists.)

(The author is not subtle.)

Published 2023-07-22 01:10:02 UTC
Last updated 2023-07-22 01:10:02 UTC

Product-Tested (Failed)

There were some things which you were better off doing with a friend by your side, especially when the planned activity was totally-not-illegal-but-you-never-know-what-some-idiot-pony-might-think. And so Rainbow had met Twilight at one of Ponyville's better outdoor cafes on a sunny spring day, where she was currently (and generously!) allowing the librarian to buy her lunch.

That part hadn't been in the original plan. But it was going to be a whole, near-eternal three days until Rainbow's next pay voucher came in, she was just a little short on bits...

"I'm gonna have the Zoysia."

Twilight's corona carefully set the menu down. Slightly-narrowed purple eyes stared across the table. Rainbow wasn't sure what the table had done to deserve that.

"They've got beet pulp."

"But," Rainbow reasoned, "they also have Zoysia. It's a limited-time offer. We should both have some, because it's sure not gonna be here the next time we eat out."

"It's a limited-time offer," Twilight cautiously said as the streaked tail began to swish, "because the cafe can't afford to carry that much of it. As it happens to be the fourth most expensive type of grass in the world."

"Yeah!" the pegasus happily agreed. "So promise me that if you ever drop by and spot Tifblair Centipede on the menu, you'll come get me? I've never had Number One! And it's gotta be something special if they charge that much for it!"

"There's no real nutrition in either --" the unicorn quickly offered.

'But it's the most expensive!" declared Rainbow's flawless logic. "So that means it's got to be the best."

Twilight sighed. She did that sometimes, and usually for no apparent reason.

"Come on, Twilight," Rainbow cajoled. "For both of us. Anyway, I'll pay you back. Right after I get my next voucher."

Another sigh. "I know. You always do."

The server came around. Twilight placed their mutual order, and did so on the third attempt. You had to get up some verbal speed before you could try to jump the upcoming bill's comma.

"So what's this about?" the librarian asked -- followed by, in a tone which was no more than half-mumble, "Because asking me for a loan just got kicked out of the stable until I can get home."

Twilight wanted to know what was going on: therefore, the plan's first stage was complete. Rainbow frequently liked to open the really big stunts with something fairly basic. After all, you couldn't reasonably hope to execute a 1080° midair spin without taking off first. And it didn't hurt to finish the spectacular with the fundamentals, either. Like 'land'. Or, if the stunt was still in the practice stage, 'remember where the hospital is'.

"So you're gonna be in Canterlot tomorrow, right?" Rainbow checked. "That's what Spike said."

The unicorn nodded. "Overnight, and then I'll be back in the morning. It's nothing major. The palace accountants just want to review some of our mission expenses." (Most ponies would have picked up on the followup note of suspicion. Rainbow, much to her ongoing pride, wasn't most ponies.) "Why?"

"Because I'm going to the capital tomorrow too," Rainbow quickly told her friend. "And I was kind of hoping we could do something together!" With decided acceleration of speech (because she was stuck on the cafe's outdoor bench and something was going to be moving quickly), "Now I've gotta tell you: I only thought of this last night, and I've only got the one timed pass for the late afternoon. But I'm sure they can squeeze you in."

Twilight now looked vaguely intrigued. (Stage 1.5.) "A timed pass? Is this for some kind of exhibit?" And now the purple eyes were beginning to light up from within. "New enchantments on display? Spell demonstrations? If it's the Horsehead Conference Room over on Pranceton Avenue, I'll need to bring some notebooks --"

"-- factory tour," Rainbow grinned.

Purple irises temporarily locked their lumen level.

Carefully, "Device factory."

"Sort of," Rainbow admitted. "More like a wonder production floor." If a unicorn enchanted an object, that was a device. Pegasi made wonders. The distinction could be important, especially if you were trying to bring it in for repair. Or, somewhat more frequently, if the emergency room triage specialist needed to know exactly what had done that to your fur.

"Wonders," Twilight slowly said. "Rainbow --"

The grin was beginning to widen, and wings flared with anticipation. "-- you know about the Cumulus, right?"

Her friend blinked. Sighed yet again. "Yes, Rainbow. You've brought them up enough times. They're --"

"-- only the most perfect mattress in the world!" announced that part of Rainbow's mind which knew that the only thing better than telling the story of the perfect stunt was telling it for the sixth time. "Because they're made of clouds, Twilight. But it's a cloud that's had so much pegasus magic put into it, anypony can sleep there. Anypony and anyone."

Both tones and volume were dropping. Reverence had its own vocal register.

"And the billows adjust to your body," Rainbow longingly half-whispered. "Customized support. And it's always the right temperature. They come with pillows, and you don't ever have to flip them. Lie down on one while you're still sweaty, and it'll just take in the moisture, then get rid of the salt. Same with dirt. No cleaning, ever. Some of them do more than that, and there's always experimental models being tested. I've looked through the catalogs hundreds of times, and I've never been able to pick one out. But I don't really have to, because there's one way where they're all the same. They're... perfect, Twilight."

Cyan wings momentarily stilled under the power of sheer respect.

"Perfect," Rainbow breathed, and a thousand waking daydreams moved before her eyes. None of them had actual waking involved.

And Twilight, the lone atheist in attendance at The Church Of The Truly Divine Nap -- shrugged.

"I was mostly interested in the solidity," the unicorn said.

Rainbow decided to forgive her. There was no point in losing a friend over differences in faith and besides, the unicorn was still talking.

"Because that says pegasi can create something which substitutes for a cloudwalking spell," Twilight continued. "Only through creating a cloud which other ponies can walk on. But I did a little research. And apparently they can't be any bigger than the Ultra-Deluxe Princess model, or the magic stops working."

"And they have to be a separate construct," Rainbow reluctantly agreed. "You can't really put one in the middle of other clouds -- well, a cloud house is fine. They can't be on the floor, not for more than a couple of days. There's gotta be a frame, or the magic sort of -- leaks out after a while. Spreads. And once it gets too thin..."

Twilight thought about that for a while, and then managed the nod. "So there's a factory in Canterlot?"

"A new one, yeah. With a sales floor at the far end."

"And they're offering tours. Which you already got one timed pass for."

Curiosity was rising. Stage 2 was well under way.

"Yeah!"

"Why?"

Flared wings developed a touch of spontaneous droop at the tips.

"I like to sleep," Rainbow said.

Twilight, frozen by the unexpected honor of being present at the moment of The World's Greatest Understatement, had no words at all.

"And I've never slept on a Cumulus," the pegasus mournfully continued. "Trees and clouds and the mayor should just let me set something up in the bell tower already! But never on the best mattress in the world. Not once."

The unicorn took a slow breath.

"So buy one."

"That's more than my whole pay voucher!" Rainbow immediately shot back. "What's left?"

"You could get one if you tried," declared the tones of poorly-suppressed futility. "It's about regulating your spending --"

"-- doing what?"

Another breath. Narrow ribs eventually decided to shift. Sun went behind a cloud, probably so it wouldn't have to witness what was coming.

"You're always buying Wonderbolts collectibles," Twilight observed. "You'll see one, and you'll just go for it. And then you're eating at the tree, and the farmhouse, and the attic, and everywhere else for nearly two weeks because that was supposed to be your food money --"

"-- there's been a lot of Wonderbolts," Rainbow reasonably pointed out. "So that means a lot of stuff to collect." Paused. "Except for Frontette Falsi."

"...who?" Twilight eventually errored.

"It's okay if you don't remember her," Rainbow reassured the total-non-fan-but-we-love-her-anyway. "She was only on the team for, like, two days before they finally figured out how she cheated on her practical test during the entrance exams. So there isn't exactly a lot of merchandise. Nopony knows what happened to the prototypes." Thoughtfully, "Come to think of it, she's probably got what, one, two official used uniforms? It could be one if she didn't hit the laundry. Plus whatever she was wearing at the Academy. I mean, her stuff wouldn't have a lot of popularity because she was totally a cheater, but if you're just going for the completionist shtick, then we're talking way rare --"

"-- the point I'm trying to make," Twilight continued to error, because some mistakes had to be followed through to their inevitable conclusion, "is that you could freeze all impulse buying. Save up. Take five percent of your salary every week. Divide the price of the Cumulus by that amount. After that, it's just a matter of time --"

"-- let's say," Rainbow cut off the building idiocy, "that I buy twenty pieces of 'impulse' stuff a year."

Twilight's rather complicated expression, if witnessed by a student of numerical formalism, would have suggested a mare who was trying to calculate backwards from what, in the best case, would have been an unexpectedly-presented cube root.

"I think," the little mare cautiously offered, "you may be doing some rounding down."

"Twenty things a year," Rainbow continued to flawlessly reason. "Which I just don't go and buy. I save up for all of them. At five percent of my salary per week."

There was an odd twitch starting to develop at the edge of the unicorn's eyes: the pegasus put it down to lack of lunch. "Rainbow --"

"Each."

"-- you're not following the right progression --"

Solidly, "So now I'm broke."

Silence.

"Saving for stuff," Rainbow's borrowed vocabulary announced, "is not mathematically feasible." The sleek head titled slightly to the right. "Why doesn't an egghead know that?"

Twilight visibly swallowed. Several times. Rainbow didn't know what was being choked back down. The unicorn hadn't even touched her flower appetizer.

"So why are you taking the tour? And... why did you want me to go with you?"

"Because I want to work out how it's done," Rainbow confidentially told her. "Up until now, that's been a secret. One of the big ones. They've never let ponies just come through before, Twilight. And if I can get close enough to get a good mouth grip on their techniques..."

The unicorn thought that over.

"They have free trial periods as promotions, don't they? Keep one for a week and then mail it back?"

"I keep missing them," said the mare who'd never made it to the front of a line on a Daring Do release day without incident or, just about as often, police intervention.

"Why not wait for the next, get one for a week, and look it over then?"

"Because," Rainbow carefully explained to the world's most brilliant idiot, "I keep missing them. And..." She hesitated. "Well... this is... kind of hard to explain, but..."

Slender ears perked. Waited.

Rainbow tried to figure out what to say. Then she borrowed a few terms which had been absorbed from a designer's babbling, and tried again. "Pegasus magic... it's sort of like a weave. That's the actual term: weave. So if you're inspecting it, you're sort of trying to look at the stitching. And the Cumulus ponies figured out how to put a trick panel on top of the threads. Like how Rarity hides seams. If you're looking at a finished Cumulus, all you see is the cover."

"Can you lift the cover?" Twilight asked.

"...yeah," Rainbow eventually admitted. "But they were ready for that. They tied the panel to the most important thread. The one which goes through all of the others, keeps the whole thing together. So when you lift the panel, it -- sort of... pulls. And when that happens..."

She stopped. Even a priestess of sleep needed to gather strength in the presence of desecration.

"There's a tag," the pegasus said. "Moisture-proof fabric with printing on it. It's the only part of a Cumulus which isn't vapor."

"The proof of purchase?" Twilight inquired.

"No. You get that separately. Plus a lifetime warranty for normal use. So if anything does go wrong, you send the Cumulus in for repairs. You have to. Because the tag is at the center of the cloud. And if a pegasus lifts the panel, and pulls on the key thread, then... you don't have a mattress any more."

"Oh?"

"Just a thin puddle and this piece of fabric on your floor which says Tag Only Removed Under Penalty Of Having To Buy Another Cumulus Because This Is Your Own Fault."

"..oh."

"So I wanted you at the factory with me," Rainbow admitted. "And I thought we could just sort of try to work out how it was done together. And then I could make my own!"

Twilight's horn silently ignited.

Rainbow looked at the steady glow for a few seconds.

"Was there something you wanted to pick up?"

"What am I going to do?" Twilight asked.

"You're Magic! If you just think about what you're seeing --"

"Not your magic," the little unicorn said, and then sighed again. "And if there's anything to see, then I can't. Not with a wonder." Slender features contorted with weary thought. "I'm... going to skip the tour, Rainbow. I'll take the train into the capital with you tomorrow. It'll be nice to ride together. But for the Cumulus... I'm afraid you're on your own." Rather prudently, "And if they're allowing tours, then they must have thought of a way to prevent --"

"I'm still going," Rainbow huffed.

The "I know," was on the weary side. "But I'll prepare."

"For what?"

In overtones of blunt exhaustion, "The usual."

"The --"

Their order arrived. The grass was dually criticized and singly paid for. Rainbow conscientiously got a copy of the bill and fixed the amount in her memory. Paying friends back immediately upon receipt of a fresh salary voucher was important. They needed that money back and besides, it was the best way to make sure they'd let her continue asking for short-term loans.

Any question about 'The usual' was taken away with the dessert plates.

They were both on the train, sitting across from each other as scant light fought to get through the windows. Twilight's slim body was burdened with what looked to be surprisingly-overloaded saddlebags, especially when it came to packing for an overnight stay. Then the car swayed slightly, and the contents jingled.

"Why are you carrying so many bits?" With open worry, "Is the palace gonna ask us for some of the money back?" Because Rainbow had ordered a lot of very good mission grass with royal money, and if anypony wanted a refund...

The unicorn muttered something indistinct.

"What?"

"Based on previous experience? It's for your upcoming bail."

"Didn't hear that --"

"-- nothing."

They split up shortly after leaving the Grand Gymkhana: Twilight had to angle towards the palace, while Rainbow's path from the capital's train station was directed towards the capital's outskirts. Something which meant passing through some of the secondary shopping districts, but she had plenty of time --

-- there were a lot of interesting stores in Canterlot.

Some of the adventure books had been waiting centuries for their next reader. And Twilight had told Rainbow about tropes, but if you were going this far back in time, then you were pretty much gonna be dealing with the writers who'd invented the stereotypes! So maybe first was best --

-- okay, that had taken a few minutes. More than a few. So once she took off again, it would just be a matter of flying faster --

-- had that collectibles shop always been there?

Well, it was just basic responsibility to go in and see if there was anything interesting hiding out in a dusty corner. That was clearly a job for Rainbow Responsibility Dash, because you couldn't leave a poor innocent piece of Wonderbolts history to fend for itself! It needed to be cherished.

...okay, nothing decent. Verified. And yeah, that had taken a while, but she was the mare who'd brought back the Rainboom and so if she just really put her wings into it --

-- oh, so that was what Tifblair Centipede looked like.
And smelled like.
Hey, do you guys do sample blades?
...okay. So, hypothetically, what if I already ate three?

"I'm sorry!" Rainbow gasped as she desperately pushed towards the factory's miraculously still-occupied reception desk, because she was about to try to acquire their secrets (for personal use only!) and when you were coming in to attempt that sort of stunt, you mostly wanted ponies to remember you as having been really polite. Even when their first glimpse was of a hard-sweating mare whose natural hues were being somewhat dimmed by the light of encroaching sunset through the front windows. "I know I missed my time slot, and I know you're gonna close right after this one! But I've got a pass, I paid for it, and if you could please just let me --"

The carmine pegasus, who'd been packing up, slowly opened her mouth. A saddlebag strap dropped out.

"You're late," she unnecessary said and in doing so, wasted time.

"I know! I'm sorry --"

The mare sighed. "Let me see the pass."

Rainbow's head went back. Her jaw fumbled within a now somewhat more crowded right saddlebag, and eventually found the paper being utilized as a bookmark. (Stories required tryouts.)

The pass was extracted. Rainbow tried to remember exactly where she'd left off in the last chapter, and deposited the slip on the desk for receptionist inspection. Butterscotch eyes looked it over.

"Just join the last group," the weary mare said. "They're in the first room, just down that hallway. Their tour's about to start."

"Thank you!" Rainbow gasped. "Thank you so much --"

"-- you're sweating," the receptionist noted. "And you look tired."

"I had to make up some speed..." And, after taking that one air path turn, she'd also had to escape from everypony who'd been scattered out of her way. They'd been oddly upset about that. It was as if they'd never commuted before.

"Make sure you drink something. There's two public water troughs along the way. And another one in the mare's restroom. You should use that: it's the cleanest."

"-- thank you, you're being so kind, and I'm saying that as somepony who actually knows Kindn --"

"-- go," said the carmine mare. "You go in. I'm going home."

Her jaw moved for the saddlebag strap again. Rainbow broke for the indicated hallway.

"-- fifteen," the tour guide counted off as she raced towards the sound of the stallion's voice. "And sixteen... all right: sixteen. We'll do one more head count before leaving the factory section. And remember, you'll want to stick around until the end!"

Tour Member #17 drastically cut her speed and pulled up, doing so just in time to avoid ramming into the tails of two very large earth pony stallions.

Gotta get a better line of sight when we reach the factory area. These guys are big. I can't be too obvious about what I'm doing, and it would take some serious flapping just to see over their backs --

"Because after we leave Packaging," the now-unseen guide continued, "that's when we enter the sales floor! And everypony here will get to lie down for ten minutes on the Cumulus model of their choice!"

Rainbow held back the derisive snort. Ten whole minutes. Big deal. Like that could ever be enough to get the full experience of a miracle. Even with a normal nap, there wasn't enough time to gain any benefits. (Rainbow could probably nap for ten minutes, but it wouldn't be flat.) It was like giving the tip of the world's best grass blade to a new consumer and hoping to create an addict.

(Also, the grass store owner had been totally unreasonable.)

An unseen tour guide, whose occupation would survive the events of the night, took one more head count, saw no need to peer over the earth pony blockage, and naturally came up with sixteen again.

"Let's get started!" the practiced speech began. "And we'll be trotting, because part of our goal at Cumulus is to tire you out a little along the way! It'll make your ten minutes that much better." The pause was almost artful. "Although not as wonderful as the seven hours you could get at home. Now, we're trotting -- and we're trotting -- no flying during the tour, please: some of the local weaves for keeping neutral air around our artifacts are delicate -- and we're moving into the first exhibit hall..."

Afterwards, Rainbow would make a serious attempt at blaming the tour itself. Most of them would come during the interrogation.

Okay, fine. So they started with the history of the company. And kept that going for three whole exhibit halls. Do you know who would have been interested in that? Twilight. Because it was the history of something and she's one of the only ponies in the world who cares. Besides, here's all these paintings of the founders, some of the documents are under glass, and you know what isn't being mentioned? How it's actually done! That's how you keep ponies awake!

...look, I was late, okay? There was stuff I had to do in the city. All kinds of stuff. Most of which came up at the last minute. And after that thing at the corner of Halifax and Stratford which was no way my fault, I was making speed and no, I don't have to tell you how fast I was going, there's this thing in the law which says I don't have to say anything if I don't want to and is Garda here? I usually get questioned by Garda. She's okay, right? Because police work is kinda dangerous and Garda knows me --

-- oh, good. Yeah. It's her day off. I get it. I'm just glad it wasn't anything worse. You know how it is. You see somepony over and over, under sort of the same conditions even when it totally isn't your fault and even if you're maybe not quite friends yet, you worry.

...is there any way you could nose over some overtime and bring her in anyway? Garda sort of gets me --

-- fine. The point I've been trying to make is that the first parts of the tour are boring. That is not my fault. Neither is being tired. Tired and bored. Plus maybe the guide couldn't count to seventeen. And nopony needed the pictures of those company owner summer homes. Not even Twilight. So by the time we finally got to where I could see the manufacturing area, and I could try to figure out how a Cumulus is actually made...

...what's 'corporate espionage'?

...oh.

I'm not a corporation! It was gonna be one! For me! Personal use! And then maybe six more. I've got friends. Can you imagine a little dragon sleeping on a cloud? Don't you just want a camera shot? Because I know a dragon and I'd sure want to have a permanent picture -- the homemade ones would be gifts. Not for sale. Gifts. Unless there's a really good profit margin in --

-- what's a 'patent'?

...oh.
Um.
It doesn't matter. Because when we finally got to what was supposed to be the good stuff...

They weren't allowed to go into the actual manufacturing area. It was simply watching from the bordering hallway and to normal sight, the view was perfect. There was only a partial wall on the right, with the huge gap allowing anypony to watch pegasi moving between half-molded horizontal slabs of vapor. Wings flapped. For those who were hovering, legs wove in strange patterns under their bodies. Contact was made with billows, here and there.

That was how it looked in the world of light, and it didn't tell Rainbow anything real.

She felt as if she was fighting to keep her eyes open at all, and that was completely the fault of the tour guide. But they'd finally reached the core of it, her chance, and she forced her vision to switch, to move into the realms of pegasus sight so she could get a look at the weave...

Oh.
Oh, you stupid, stinking, grounded pieces of --

Many more words went through her head after that. Most of them were in Griffonant, because Equestrian just didn't seem to contain anything foul enough.

The air circulation in the factory was excellent. It was a pegasus workplace: arranging for quality air circulation was basic. And in this case, there was air circulating around the borders of the manufacturing floor, with the constant flow stopping just short of the viewing area. The containment was just about ideal, to the point where it would have taken sticking a foreleg into the gap to actually feel fur rustle with the current.

And this minor act of oxygen distribution had been woven by roughly three dozen pegasi.

Their signatures wrapped around each other in dense layers. They came very close to clashing, and Rainbow sensed that a single extra weaver would have sent the entire construct into the nightmare of a tangle. But in pegasus sight... it meant that trying to perceive magic being worked on the factory floor was like trying to spot clear water through an oil slick. All she had was a swirling mass of color, blocking everything she needed to reach, and there was no way to change that without getting caught.

'A way to prevent.'
Right.

She was tired. She'd also been holding off on going for a drink because she didn't want to miss the most crucial part of the tour, and now the weariness had reached a whole new level...

Rainbow, still concealed from the forward view, silently broke off from the back of the pack, fully ignoring the tour guide's spiel along the way. He wasn't going to say anything important. Not words which anypony could use. And she was almost certain that she'd seen the employee restroom entrance one turn behind.

She moved back. The tour moved forward. The factory workers, who'd mostly stuck around long enough to be viewed by the final group, started to pack up for the day.

The drinking trough was exceptionally clean.

It was a really nice restroom. Admittedly, there was no light coming in from outside, but you didn't get many which simply understood that mares who were waiting for a stall and trench to clear would need a comfortable place to wait. And maybe talk a little while they were waiting, all without moving too much. Rainbow personally never would have gone for a floral print pattern on the couch, but it was the principle of the thing.

Maybe it felt better than it looked.

...yeah. It did. Nice, soft couch.

Curling up just made it better. Closing her eyes and not having to see the floral print any more further improved the experience.

Her whole plan had been a waste, and Rainbow hated failing. She wasn't going to be making her own Cumulus.

She was tired...

The tour guide counted off sixteen ponies.

Mattresses were tested. Two orders were placed, with fourteen dreams put on hold. Visitors departed. Exit doors were sealed. The lights went dim.

Rainbow slept.

She splashed a little water in her face after she got up. The fact that the lights were so dim was blamed on a cloudy sky, because Rainbow didn't always wake up well and had forgotten about most of the restroom's construction during what she presumed to have been about a ten-minute nap. Tops.

Another drink was fetched, because water was free. Then she left the restroom, with every intention of catching up with the tour. In the best case, she'd missed the last of the history stuff and could just take her place with the experience samplers --

-- the hallway lights were low.
Too low.
Cyan ears immediately went straight up. Rotated.
I can't hear anypony in the building. No wings, no hooves...

Her wings flared out, and Rainbow began to move.

They'd locked her in! (She'd tried the door leading back to the receptionist area, and it was through the glass panel that she'd finally gotten a glimpse of Moon.) They'd completely forgotten about her, somehow managed to utterly dismiss the presence of Rainbow Dash from their minds, and obviously nopony was going to show up for work until the next morning!

She was stuck in the Cumulus factory overnight and as she would soon be arguing during the interrogation, it was totally somepony else's fault.

...well, sure: she could probably get enough wind going to take down the door -- no, wait. It was her. Definitely. Plus there was enough natural moisture in the air to scavenge into a small cloud and after that, lightning became an option. It was just that doing that sort of thing tended to raise a fuss, and Rainbow didn't think a police officer would believe any claim that she'd been trying to break out. Unless she was lucky enough to get Garda, and that mare didn't always have the night shift.

It was a pity. Garda occasionally understood.

So all Rainbow had to do was kill some time until morning, and then somepony would let her out.

Hours in the Cumulus factory, with very little to do. She did have a new book to read, but the lights were dim and she wasn't sure where the controls were.

Hours in the factory...

Rainbow, hovering in the access hallway, considered her options.

There was no point in going into the manufacturing area. She'd needed to watch the enchantment as it was actually being performed. The readable residue of pegasus magic faded fast. There wouldn't be enough to work with.

Besides, she wasn't here legally any more. It was best to only go through doors which were already open. Touching as little as possible.

The door to the employee break room was open. She emptied the fridge, called it dinner, then wrote up her cost estimate for what she'd consumed and added a promissory note. That food had to be paid for, just as soon as her next salary voucher came in. Unless some of it had belonged to the boring tour guide or whoever had written the spiel: in that case, it was compensation for her pain.

She used the restroom again. It was gonna be a long night.

Some limited exploring was done. The exhibits didn't get any more fascinating under dim light, which was to say, they didn't suddenly start.

That's everything on the backtrack.
I didn't get to finish the tour.
(The guide was blamed again.)
Probably no chance that anypony left an exit door unlocked on the other end.
...I should check anyway.
So here's the view of the manufacturing area, here's the stupid weave privacy wall, here's the last thing I remember, and now we've got another hallway and I guess these are ancient sales charts or something and there's a cracked-open double door leading to --

On a very real level, Rainbow considered herself to be a priestess of sleep. She preached the gospel to anypony who would listen, along with most of those who'd desperately tried to deafen themselves ten minutes ago. The Holy Power Of Naps had tracts in progress, but any psalms tended to go lullaby.

However, it was a faith which really didn't do much of anything with the afterlife. The pegasus felt that the shadowlands existed, and had further concluded that if you had done stuff which was really impressive during your life, then clearly the first thing the dead were going to give you was a stomp of applause. Furthermore, not having to worry about physical endurance any more meant her sonic dues would keep coming for a very long time.

It was generally agreed that if you were good, you reached a place of reward.

Finding it while still alive was somewhat unexpected.

This is the sales floor.

There were ten rows. Ten ideal rows, with each containing six slowly-shifting clouds. Little signs next to each denoted the model. Tiny lightning bolts indicated the newest releases. Some were single occupancy, the Ultra-Deluxe had been made to accommodate the sheer size of a Princess, and every last one was...

...perfect.

The priestess of the Divine Nap beheld sixty ideal altars, and understood that the universe was benevolent

Yes, she had been (unfairly!) denied her chance to learn about the construction of a Cumulus, and trying to figure out how the completed ones had been enchanted would just leave her with a lot of thin puddles and drifting tags. But she'd never had the opportunity to rest upon that ideal billowing surface. And this wasn't going to be for a mere ten minutes. Rainbow had an entire night.

She prepared to worship.

She'd never been able to make a final choice from the catalog, not even in the dreams where she had enough bits to do it casually. How could you eliminate options from perfection?

But for this night, this now-blessed night...

There was just barely enough light to read by, at least for the signs: that printing was much larger than that in the new book. So she wandered the aisles, and eventually found the Ionic Ideal. It was a Cumulus which packed a little more internal energy than usual, and so generated ions throughout the night. Nowhere near the levels required to create the dangers of sleeping within ozone, of course: just enough to clear out some particulates from the air. Odors, dust, pet dander... none of it could exist in the vicinity of an Ionic.

Rainbow took a deep breath of the pure stuff. Flew up, centered her body over the billows, almost drifted down...

Each feather was given individual support. Her hooves, so often neglected, were caressed, and she finally appreciated the touch. A gentle curl of vapor gave her tail a place to rest, while chin and snout were welcomed by the wonderful wisp of a pillow.

Perfect.

What else had she expected?

She curled up. Closed her eyes. Began to drift and this time, when she once again dreamed of being upon a Cumulus, her body would actually be in the midst of the experience --

-- I've got a tortoise.

Her eyes nearly opened. The left hind leg twitched.

Who's dealing with pet dander? Fluttershy. Not me, because Tank has a shell. Okay, he sheds every so often and Fluttershy said that's natural, including when the shell does it. But those are big pieces. It's not dander.

Her wings flared out. Folded back in.

Maybe not an Ionic. That's not the one I'd need for my own house.

Eyelids slowly parted. A magenta gaze considered the rest of the sales floor.

Better try another one.

The Ultra-Deluxe lived up to its name. Of course, the part of the name it was really living up to was 'Princess', because it had enough space to allow the Diarchy to mutually bed down on it and still invite a few friends over. When it came to the 'Ultra-Deluxe' portion, they were all perfect.

Rainbow tried a spot in the center. It mostly made her feel like she was bedding down in the center of a white pool.

Yeah.
Yeah, this is the stuff.

Her breathing began to slow.

Just me. Just me in the center of all this. On the Princess.

Her tail gently swayed. Stilled.

There's so much space...
...why do I need this much space?
This thing is, like, my entire bedroom. And part of the closet. Even when I barely use the closet and half of what's in there is from Rarity. Plus all of the Wonderbolts uniforms I've collected.
I always need to look out for show-used uniforms. One day, I'm gonna find that one pony who doesn't know what they have, and then I'll...
...I could have everypony over at my place, if Twilight helped. We could all sleep on this. They'd finally understand. But there would still be acreage left over. Just not bedroom, because this would be all of it. And some closet.
Plus this isn't supposed to touch the walls anyway.

She could just remold her bedroom. But she liked her house as it was.

Rainbow slowly got up.

The Equiderma had a touch of extra moisture, and directed that at the sleeper's skin during the night. It was a great way to treat sweet itch, insect bites and, paradoxically, could offer a little aid to the dread pegasus foe of rain rot. It also left Rainbow feeling as if somepony was steadily spreading a light coating of spittle across her fur.

Then you had the Basic Single. It was, of course, perfect. It was also perfectly suited to one pony, who was sleeping alone (or giving a tortoise the chance to try things out), and nothing about that was ever going to change because you couldn't alter the dimensions of a Cumulus. You had to buy another one. Rainbow had to factor for the possibility of guests and there was some chance that one of them might eventually become permanent. The Basic was too basic, and came with the built-in assumption that Single was forever.

Realizing that put her off it with a wing flare and a four-kick, and she didn't land again until she reached the Poly.

The Polychromatic shifted colors. White, grey, black. That was fine. It also had a lot more room than the Single. Not as much as the Princess, but the Poly was sort of assuming that you were in a relationship. And had friends over. All the time. Also, some of the relationships would have friends. And sometimes Rainbow wanted a night alone, when even Tank had to stay in the terrarium because practicing stunts meant bruises and she didn't want anypony touching her until they'd healed.

Then she reached the Nest. That was a specialty molding, which was almost exclusively used by griffons. Of course, it wasn't as if she hadn't visited Gilda a few times when they were kids, and they'd shared a bedroom until the summer had ended. A bed, too. So using the Nest mostly made her think of Gilda, and then she thought about how long it had been since she'd seen Gilda or gotten a letter and then she had to seek out anything else.

The Bliss made her wonder if she would be happier with another model.

Most Cumulus models held a perfect temperature. The Alto was intended to be a little cooler, for those ponies whose blood ran that much hotter. And that had to be contrasted with the Nimbo, which was the thickest version, and then she was off that and on her hooves, moving with increasing speed from floor model to floor model while her eyes flicked from one piece of utter perfection to the next and she kept getting onto the surfaces and curling up while her body refused to do what it had managed with ease on a restroom couch, her eyes opened over and over and over and --

-- she was standing in the exact center of the sales floor. Surrounded by perfection. The priestess of sleep, in the place of transcendence.

Locked in a waking afterlife.
The one where she couldn't rest.
Because it was actually the other kind. The one she hadn't done anything to deserve, anything...
But the universe was no longer benevolent. It didn't care about her pain, or the torment which erupted from her throat in a single cry of purest soul-deep agony.

"I CAN'T SLEEP ON ALL OF THEM!"

The words echoed about the sales floor for a few seconds, and then the display pieces silently absorbed them.

Rainbow collapsed onto the too-cool ground tiles. Fought the urge to weep. And because it was the place of punishment, nobody came to save her.

She was still there when the morning shift finally arrived. Twitching occasionally, and little more.

They got her up. Tried to ask her what had happened, and received no coherent answer.

Then they guided her into the security office, got her onto the cold hard bench, briefly turned their collective tails while somepony was picked to head for the police station, and looked back to discover she'd fallen asleep.

There were some things which you were better off doing with a friend by your side. Like walking back to the train station after you'd been utterly humiliated. Especially when you were so tired as to actually be walking. And Rainbow hadn't really considered that said friend might potentially tell all of the other friends about the full events of the night, possibly while giggling. That was the sort of thing Rainbow did when somepony else was involved and when it came to (anti)social skills, she was almost entirely sure that Twilight hadn't come that far.

"So what have we learned?" Twilight smugly asked. In Rainbow's opinion, the streaked tail was being held a little too high. It was probably meant to counter the weight of overfull, still-jingling saddlebags.

"...learned?" Rainbow wearily repeated.

"If you're going to send in a scroll after this," Twilight clarified. "What did you learn? What's the lesson?"

The pegasus thought about it.

"Become Wonderbolts captain."

Immediately, "Rainbow --"

"Or maybe not," a semi-mobile bundle of exhaustion considered. "Spitfire might not even make enough money to get a Cumulus on one pay voucher. But if the number was close enough, I could just eat at the squad's homes for two weeks."

The next "Rainbow," was probably meant as an attempt to get through by sheer force of repetition. It didn't work.

"Or maybe it's 'Don't be afraid to get a part-time job if it helps your goals'," Rainbow decided. "Except that the Cumulus factory makes you sign a contract. Plus they took a picture. For if I ever come back."

"Um," mostly meant that the supply of direct addresses had temporarily run out.

"They'll still sell to me," the pegasus clarified. "Because my bits taste the same as everypony else's. But no more tours. Or overnight stays." And then she sighed, doing so at the exact moment when her tail drooped to dragging height and left a prism skidding across stone. "Not that it matters. I'm never gonna get a full night's sleep on my own Cumulus. Never..."

"Maybe if you found somepony who owned one," Twilight's innocence proposed. "And made friends. For more than the Cumulus, of course. But then you could have sleepovers."

"...yeah," Rainbow finally said, doing so as the mares began to enter a shopping district. "Sleepovers."

They trotted for a while.

"I checked the police station first thing this morning," Twilight eventually admitted. "Experience. But they were just processing your release papers. No charges?"

"No," Rainbow wearily admitted. "Ponies have fallen asleep before." She blamed the tour guide. "Or refused to get off the mattresses after the ten minutes was up. Since I didn't do any damage, the factory will just let it go. I don't even have to pay for the food."

"Really?"

"Somepony said that once they heard the story, they got it back in amusement value."

"...oh."

"I don't know what that means."

"...oh."

"Twilight? What does that --"

"-- later."

It wasn't the best district. Even Canterlot had sections which mostly dealt with fifthhoof items, and the mares were gradually approaching a thrift shop. Goods of varying quality were displayed in a half-dirty window, along with clothing which had been mounted on worn-down wooden models.

"There really is a lesson here," Twilight gently told her friend. "But it may not be the one you want. It's... just the one which gets you what you want."

Rainbow raised her head, very slightly. Cyan ears perked, and the little unicorn took a deep breath.

"I was thinking about it last night," the librarian continued. "And I wrote up a plan. If you put aside just so many bits per moon, every moon, for --"

Rainbow's head came up a little more.

She looked at Twilight.

Then she looked past Twilight. (It was easy to do, when her friend was so small.)

"Do you see that?"

"-- it'll be hard, but I'll keep an eye on your finances," the unaware speaker went on, because she didn't know about the miracle. "You only have to keep it up for --"

"Do you see that?" Rainbow urgently repeated. "Right there, in the shop window!"

"...the thrift shop?" asked the confused mare. "I don't --"

Rainbow nearly broke up into a gallop, remembered to fly at the last minute, and wound up hovering with her forehooves desperately pressed against the glass.

"That's Wonderbolts blue!"

Frantically, "Rainbow --"

"I think it's a uniform! Sweet Sun, why didn't anypony clean this glass..." Magenta eyes squinted. "I can see inside the collar. Just a little..."

"-- you can't just --"

"There's initials!"

"We were just talking about --"

"-- I think it might read FF!"

The beaming, extremely awake pegasus turned and favored her friend with the world's warmest smile.

Well... favored her friend's overfull, jingling saddlebags. Which was really close enough.

"The lesson is 'One bad night doesn't mean you can't have a great day!' Twilight, will you loan me some bits? I'll pay you back. I always do!"

Author's Note

This story exists for the following reasons: I have a boxspring where the pointy bits are coming through the shell while aiming for my spine, a Ko-Fi tip drive to try and change that, and I tend to turn any misery in my life into story inspiration.

The pointy bits are being fended off by duct tape.

For now.

(I am not subtle.)