Breaking The Norm

Chapters

You Start It
You Hate It
You Know It
You Explain It
You Mean It
You Love Her

You Start It

You wake up as a beam of light travels across your face. You squint, annoyed, and roll over in your bed. The covers around you fall off, letting the chill of the morning air crawl over your coat. A groan of disappointment leaves your lips. A sigh of defeat follows soon afterwards.

You roll again onto your stomach, letting a blurred vision of your pillow fill your half-lidded gaze. Your legs behind you extend to their fullest, stretching out the muscles that were forced to remain still for so long. The sigh you let out this time is more of relief.

Your forelegs push against the springy material of your bed, letting your back bend backwards. A few cracks echo in your room, followed by a soft cheer of success.

Your wings flutter, your mane shakes, then you stand to your tallest and jump from the bed.

Your hoofs are silent as you trot across the floor of your home, no sound to make over the surface of clouds. The path to your bathroom is obvious, and the door shuts behind you quietly. Standing on your rear hooves, you balance yourself on the sink, letting the image of your morning features reflect off the smooth glass.

A grin, confident and proud pulls itself across your face, complete with your hoof tracing the smooth lines of your features. Your bright pink eyes, your sky blue coat, and your messy rainbow mane. There isn’t a thing about you that looks off, and you know it. Satisfied, you lift a toothbrush to your teeth, setting to work on preparing for the day.

It’s not long before you’re downstairs, heating up some bread and pouring a glass of milk. There’s no work for you today, so you have every hour of sunlight left to practice your flying. The earlier you start the better. Toast and milk is all you need.

You chug the milk with a few full swallows, munching on the toast in between bites. It took you longer to brush your teeth than it did to earn your breakfast. As the thought passes through your mind, you let out a soft snicker.

Your wings twitch at your sides, ready to feel the wind beneath their feathers. You’re only too happy to comply. You let them beat against the air, preparing them. Your mind fills with a hundred ideas of what to do now.

One part of you wants to charge the door, blowing the cloudy surface into oblivion as you race to greet the day. Another wants you to dive through a nearby window, testing your agility. But the side of you that you listen to the most tells you to fly straight up, as fast as you can. They are all overridden by the solely logical side within you, reminding you in a tone full of wisdom and pride, that any of those methods would mean an extra hour or two of repair. That was time you couldn’t spend flying.

A dejected sigh passes your lips, and a small grumble of disappointment as you trot to your door. It was almost agonizing, having to wait even a few more seconds before you could fly, but that nearly venal side of you has a point. Patience now prevents work later.

Your hoof pulls the door open, letting a small gust of wind rush past you. The sensation is riveting, immediately putting the smile from earlier back on your face. Your eyes flutter shut for a moment as you let the cool sensation of the air surround you.

You knew from years of experience that this was a feeling you lived for. Staying in the sky, feeling the cool air that was reserved for the highest of heights, it reminded you of home, of your dream, of everything you enjoyed, and ever everything you wanted to be. It was something you couldn’t live without.

Another pleasured sigh leaves your lips, letting your eyes open. They hold a fire in them that you’re prepared to kindle. Your wings are flared, their muscles tense, and your legs crouching for the inevitable.

With a single strong flexion of your wings, you take off into the air, faster than most eyes can see.

The wind rushes past you, deafening your ears and tunneling your vision. The mountains in the distance turn to peaks, the blue sky just a horizon, and the homes below nothing but thatched roofs. The wings at your sides beat and push through the air as fast as they can, loving every second of the burning sensation of fatigue they feel.

The smile across your face grows wider with every little bit further you move, growing until it splits your face from one side to the other. You’ve done a lot in your life, from travel, to adventure, to even saving the world, but nothing has ever made you feel so alive as flying.

You spin through a cloud, embracing the feeling of the fluffy surface surrounding you before it poofs into oblivion. You perform a deft spin in the air, twirling through the misty remnants of the aerial obstacle. It cools your already worked muscles, letting you feel the oddest mixture of pain and relief.

Your smile turns inwards, knowing that you can only feel this way when you are flying.

You turn your flight into an ascent, moving higher and higher into the morning sky. The chill of the wind high above wakes faster than any shower, drawing a slow breath across your muzzle.

You stop your wings, letting the momentum of your ascent carry you upwards. It’s not nearly as fast as if you were flying yourself, obviously, but sometimes, moving without effort is just as exciting as pushing yourself to your peak.

For just a second, a split second, a fraction so small you couldn’t even name it, you catch a sight that isn’t meant to belong in the morning sky. You're drifting slows as gravity takes a hold of you, your momentum reaching its limit.

But for that moment of a second, you see the stars above the blue sky.

Then gravity starts to pull you again.

You feel the greedy grasp of the ground trying to pull you in, moving you fast, almost as fast, as you could fly. The wind roars in your ears as you rush by it, the mountains and tree lines around Ponyville growing larger and larger as the ground comes closer and closer. Your smile had yet to leave.

You twist your body until you're facing the ground, nose-diving towards the unforgiving surface. You push a hoof outwards, curling the other closer to your chest. The wind forces you to squint your eyes, but you don’t let them close.

Then you start to beat your wings again, letting your already terminal velocity go even further. You want to laugh, but the pressure and vacuum you create makes it impossible. You settle for continuing to smile.

You feel the pressure around you growing stronger, pushing against you like you’ve felt only a few times before. The ground is getting even closer, and you know you still have time to stop, but stopping would be giving up. You never give up.

It’s always a game of chance for pulling it off. The drag force, the angle of impact, the constant acceleration, but most importantly time. You have to remember so much.

But what you’ve done before, you can do again.

The cone around you tightens, and you ready yourself for the inevitable. If you had breath to give, you would scream with excitement. Then an explosion rips through the air behind you, shattering the sky and sending you to speeds you never want to leave.

A Sonic Rainboom.

You wish for a moment that you could cheer, but the vacuum you created stops you.

You’re flight path levels with the ground, sending you soaring parallel to the town beneath you watching it vanish beneath you faster than you could blink.

Then you’re above the forest, pushing the trees and straining the barks with the wind you pull behind you.

Then you’re at the mountains and the colossal pillars of earth seem thin and gaunt as you zoom past them.

You never drop your smile.

But you know it has to end, before you travel further than you can travel back. You want to sigh out of disappointment, but like the cheer before, you can’t produce a sound. Your wings twist at your sides, turning your rainbow trail into a bow, turning you back towards the town far behind you.

You’re speed is incredible, beyond even the most unimaginable limits of awesome and insane. But you aren’t invincible, no matter what you want to believe. Your lungs beg for oxygen, your wings fighting themselves. The fatigue is quickly catching up to you, and you have to stop before you regret it.

The mountains are far behind you, the forest nearly past you, the town is just in sight. Regrettably, you let yourself slow, allowing the friction of the air to return you to the simplicity of the ground.

You’re still moving fast as you come to land; hooves outwards towards the ground, but you’ve landed at faster speeds. Your hooves scratch at the dirt as you touch down, sliding and scraping at the hard surface as you try and slow yourself. Your body twists with the uneven forces. You grit your teeth and shut your eyes, hoping you won’t hit anything.

You’re speed finally reaches zero, and you come to a dissatisfying halt.

Breath enters you in eager gasps, filling your lungs to their fullest. The coolness instantly fills you, shaking your already trembling legs. Your pink eyes open, seeing the small path of destruction in your wake. A few bricks from the Ponyville path are torn from the ground, the dirt patches barren of any vegetation, but no stall is knocked over and no ponies are running scared.

You do see a few wide-eyed ponies looking towards you, caught between marveled and terrified. Your body is shaking, close to collapsing. But you still manage to give your cheeky grin to the wall-eyed ponies. Your satisfaction only increases as they smile in return.

It’s too early for there to be a crowd, let alone a small orange filly to fawn over you, but seeing the appreciating grins on the other ponies seems more than worth it.

Your muscles still burn, as angry at you as you are happy towards them. They beg you to let them lie on the ground, even if for just a few minutes, but you know that it wouldn’t be a good idea. Sleeping in the streets, right before ponies started going to work, would be beyond awkward to explain.

You also know that your Rainboom isn’t something to be taken lightly. There wasn’t a chance that any pony was still asleep after it.

“Rainbow Dash!”

The sudden shout knocks you off your carefully built balance. You hit the ground in a slump, more embarrassed than pained. Your muscles aren’t happy, but you push yourself to stand back up. Your perked ears search with your eyes for the pony that called for you, looking over the still sparsely populated streets.

Your pink eyes land on a lavender unicorn. Her equally purple eyes are glaring at you with a furrowed brow, a scowl already churning beneath her frowning lips. For a moment, you’re confused, honestly curious as to why she’s so angry with you.

Then you see the door behind her is still open, and you see the state of her home.

Your eyes widen further as your ears flatten. This time, your smile is far more nervous than confident.

“H-Hey Twi.” You can’t help the shake in your voice. It isn’t the first time that you’ve made a mess of your friend’s homes, but then, that just makes it a bit worse. “What’s going on?”

“I was preparing my list of activities for the day, but somepony decided to shake my home so bad that every book had to fall off the shelves!” You cringe every time she raises her voice, already knowing that there isn’t a way out of it. Still, you can’t admit you're wrong, not that fast.

“You… think it was me?” You remind yourself to thank Pinkie later. Pulling pranks with her forced her attitude to rub off on you. Playing ignorant was almost as easy as flying to you, almost. Unfortunately, ignorance doesn't do you much when you're talking to the protégé of the Princess.

“There is no other pony in existence that can do a Sonic Rainboom, let alone one that lives within trotting distance of me.” Your hoof scratches at the ground idly at the words.

“How do you know it was a Sonic Rainboom?” You try and put on your confident grin again, but all it falls into is another guilty smile.

“Because nothing makes a boom by flying at very fast speeds, except that. I don’t need a rainbow cloud to know that it was you, Dash.” You see an opportunity in her words. You jump at them as fast as you can. You can jump fast.

“Hey, you can’t be sure about that.” You answer the best you can. “I mean, I could have been a dragon. Those guys are blowing all kinds of smoke.” Twilight, however, is already one hoof ahead of you.

“There aren’t any dragon dens or migration patterns within forty miles of my home this time of the year.” She states with all of the confidence you have in your flying. Twilight trots towards you with every word, making the gap between you smaller and smaller. You bit your lip as you try for another excuse.

“O-or Luna in a bad mood.”

“The princess hasn’t used the Royal Canterlot Voice since her visit to Ponyville on Nightmare Night two years ago.” You raise a hoof to the back of your head, scratching at a heavy sensation that’s settled there. No matter how much you rub, the weight on your shoulders doesn’t seem to lessen. Taking a breath, you try once more.

“Hay, it could have been one of your crazy experiments going haywire again. You always do seem to mess things up.” You regret those words the second they leave your muzzle. Your body tenses at the realization of what you said. Your gaze focuses on Twilight, hoping that she might have missed what you said.

The shocked expression you see tells you everything you need to know.

She hasn’t moved any closer, but her furrowed eyes are now broad, pupils shrunk into dots. You tell yourself to leave now, probably planning to come back later and apologize, but you don’t. Instead, you stand just as still as she is waiting for what you know will be a lecture on how rude you are.

Slowly, the muscles in Twilight begin to move. You watch her form give a small shake as her eyes relax as her lips are tightened into a straight line. The look reminds you of being scolded at flight camp by some of the instructors, after you ignored the flight path and tried to have fun instead.

Your head lowers as you wait for the harsh words, some words that mean the same thing as “rude,” or “inconsiderate,” maybe even “thoughtless.”

“It was good to see you Rainbow.”

You look at her with your own wide eyes. She still there, still wearing that mask of indifference. You blink once, but nothing changes. Twice, and you realize she’s already turning away.

“Whoa, Twilight, wait!” You call to her before you realize you want her to stay. It only takes two beats of your wings until you’re by her side, but she keeps trotting forwards regardless. “What do you mean ‘It was good to see you’?”

“It means that I enjoyed seeing you, but I have work to do.” Her eyes never once look at you. Somehow, that’s worse than anything she could have said. “So please, leave me alone.” No, that hurt the most.

“No way.” You say back to her. You want to flare your wings, but your muscles still burn. However, it will take much more than that to keep you from your friend. “I’m not leaving.”

But Twilight didn’t stop for you. She moved past you again as she walked into her disheveled home. Your mouth opens, ready to speak again, but then the door slams right in front of your muzzle.

You’re left shocked outside Twilight’s home.

You stare at the oak door, eyes never moving. You feel terrified, hurt, angry, even a little depressed. You want to fly away, but your muscles won’t let you. You want to trot home, but your legs are still as stone. More than anything else, you want to call to Twilight, but the coldness she gave you tells you that speaking to her now would only make things worse.

You know one thing now, more than ever before.

You don’t feel confident today.

Author's Note

Do you know what this is called? Spontaneous. It means I thought of this, on the fly, while thinking of other stories and homework to do. I'm busy. Very busy, but I still can't get ponies out of my head.

At least I'm controlling the volumetric flow...

You Hate It

You’re trotting, a lot. You hate to trot. You’d rather be flying, flapping your wings at high speeds, or even pushing them to move a cloud you're sitting on. The ground isn’t a close friend of yours, never has been.

But you’re finding it difficult to leave it now.

It’s not a feeling you’re familiar with, being grounded. It isn’t a broken wing, a fractured radius or ulna. That would be something physical stopping you. That you could get around. This is different. This is you telling yourself not to fly.

The sky is right above you, clear and free of any kind of blemish. No clouds to block the sun, no trees to get in your way, not even another pegasus in your possible airspace. You could fly your fastest straight up right now, rip through the sound barrier with as little difficulty as you had just hours prior.

But you don’t. Or more specifically, you can’t.

You can’t leave Twilight like this.

It’s a ball at the bottom of your gut, weighing down inside of you. Your memory had searched for something that felt as bad as this, but the closest you get is any other time you hurt your friends. Fluttershy with the pegasus tornado, Pinkie Pie and Gilda, but those were easy to fix.

You’ve known Fluttershy all your life, from foalhood to adulthood. You know how to help her. Pinkie is easy to please. Give her enough reasons to crack a grin and she’ll throw you a party in thanks. She’s just that kind of pony.

But you don’t know how to help Twilight.

You know she likes books. Everypony knows she likes books. You know she’s from Canterlot. Everypony knows she’s from Canterlot. Your eyes clench and relax as bouts of anger come and go through you.

You’ve known her for years, yet still, you can’t claim to know a single thing about her.

What kind of friend is that?

The dirt underneath your hooves has started to mat under your constant presence, a near perfect circle dug into the ground around the library. You’ve lost track of the number of passes you’ve made, not that you were keeping track in the first place.

Your eyes aren’t on the tree home itself, but on the ground around it. You’re thinking. You don’t like to think, at least not to plan, but you have to this time, and you know that.

The ideas of how to apologize to Twilight come and go like beats of your wings in the midst of a race. You snort at your own analogy. But it is true.

One moment, you’re thinking about buying her a new book for her collection, then the next, you’re thinking of places she might enjoy you taking her to. Cloudsdale is the perfect place to watch a sunset, or so you’ve been told. You were never a fan, but somehow, you know Twilight would appreciate it, though not as much as some of your other friends.

But there are a lot of books she might not have. You’ve been to the Crystal Empire, seen the library there. Twilight’s home isn’t even a comparison to the amount of books there. Yet, despite the idea, you realize that your luck today isn’t at your greatest.

You might get a book that she’s already read, doing nothing to help her mood, or you might take her somewhere she doesn’t want to be. For all you know, she might be afraid of heights, though that does strike you as unlikely.

Your lip is between your teeth, being gnawed back and forth as your brain begins to heat.

“Are you still out there Rainbow?”

That voice stops you dead.

Your mane whips as your head turns to look at the open door, cracked just enough to reveal the lavender unicorn inside. She doesn’t look pleased, not with her brow knit and mouth downturned into a frown.

But you’re smiling like an idiot and you’re not sure why. It’s not like you have a plan yet.

“Y-Yeah!” You reply, maybe a bit too eager, but you don’t want to sound passive. You immediately approach the door, walking up to it with a beaming smile.

“Stop.” The coldness of her voice catches you, stuns you. But you follow the unicorn’s demand. You’re already on thin ice for what you said earlier, and you can’t blame anypony but yourself.

Twilight takes a breath of air, slowly. You watch her chest expand outwards before slowly caving inwards. You hear the breath leave her with your perked ears, focusing on every little thing she says. Any word, any sound, could be important right now.

“Why are you still here?” She asks the question with the same ice as the past few times, and you’re left biting your lip again. You didn’t expect her to be friendly like Fluttershy, but you also didn’t think she’d be this… angry.

“Because…” You begin, venturing for an answer in any corner of your mind you can find. “Because I want to take you somewhere!” It was an option you had thought of, but not one you were sure of.

The annoyed glare Twilight gave you didn’t soften, but you watched one of her brows raise in curiosity. Curiosity was a good thing; that meant she was considering what you were saying. That’s really good.

“Take me where?” Her voice wasn’t any warmer, but you didn’t seem to mind.

“Anywhere you want!” You cheer happily, letting your smile chisel itself onto your face. “I know you’ve only been to Cloudsdale a hoofful of times and I know all the best spots! I’m sure we could even find a library for you to look through. It’ll be fun!”

Your smile does nothing to lift her frown. The sight of the curved lips make your own feel heavy, too heavy to keep pulled up in joy.

“I’ve got too much work to do now to be making a spontaneous trip to Cloudsdale.” The finality of her speech is absolutely impossible to miss. “And I looked over the library when I last went there. There’s nothing there I haven’t already read.”

You’re eyes glance furtively around you, thinking of any other ideas you may have. It doesn’t take long to remember one of them.

“Well, how about if I get you a new book?” You offer with a forced smile now, your lips pushing against themselves to be a straight line of neutrality. “I-I can get across Equestria in no time at all. Seriously. Give me a day and I’ll be to and back from Dodge Junction!” You sweep a forehoof in front of you as you speak, laying out the easiness of such a trip to you. There and back, no time at all, no effort at all. Just the way you like it.

Not the way Twilight likes it, apparently.

“I have no books on hold, or that I’m looking for.” The unicorn speaks harshly to you again. The blow it delivers is a two-fer. One to your pride. One to your hope.

“W-Well…” Your hoof digs at the ground, unable to think of a single comment to help you fix this. But there has to be something. There’s always something. Maybe not a way out, but definitely a way to fix this.

You’ve seen the impossible be done on a daily basis. You refuse to believe that there is no way to fix this, not when you battle demons and monsters on a monthly basis. There had to be something, anything that Twilight would jump at.

But nothing comes to mind.

“I-It’s a good day outside,” you begin down a path you’re unsure of. “We could have a picnic, o-or maybe having a reading day outside. I could even get a couple of clouds laid out and… and-“

“Rainbow, just… stop.”

Your nervous grin falls into a worried frown. You can feel the change in your features like water dripping from your coat.

Twilight has her face against one of her hooves, pulling on the thin layer of skin and fur between her eyes, rubbing it as she takes a calming breath. You find yourself repeating the gesture. You need to calm down too, but you never were an expert at that.

“Look, I understand you’re sorry.” She begins saying to you, letting her hoof fall back to the ground she stands on. “What you said… that’s definitely not something you would ever want to say to me, I know that.” Despite the words she’s saying, you know you shouldn’t be giving yourself any kind of hope. Things are never simple with Twilight.

“But I’ve always believed that what ponies say without thinking is what they actually believe.”

You feel your chest tighten, making your breaths shallow. Your hooves are shifting on the ground, your wings itching to fly away. But you don’t. You stop yourself. You have to hear this.

“W-What do ya mean?” The question sounds stupid to yourself, but you ask it anyway. You had to know, or at least be sure.

“If you have to think about how you feel, you’re just trying to justify why you feel that way. When you talk without thinking, there’s nothing to filter what you say. It’s… straight from the heart.” That strikes you as wrong in a hundred different ways.

“N-No way Twilight.” It was the difficulty of breathing that made you stutter, but you keep on regardless. You always did prefer to face your problems head on. “There’s no way I actually think that. You’re too awesome to be blamed for half the stuff that happens around this town.”

“Really?” You want that word to sound hopefully, like she normally sounds. Like she had just heard an interesting fact, not like you had accused her of being a source of chaos. Unfortunately, that’s not what you hear.

Instead you hear the same tired tone of a mare you had hurt, even if unintentionally. But you had hurt her, and it was your job to make it right.

“Then why would you say something like that?”

“I… I just didn’t want you to be mad at me. You know, for wrecking your morning… with the Rainboom.”

It’s pathetic, and you know it. You know as the words roll off your tongue just how pathetic you sound. You’re not just begging for something so little, you’re doing so because of a mistake so obvious.

You feel like a filly getting ready to be scolded by her parents. What’s worse, you know you deserve it, because you regret it.

“So… you’d rather… lie to me to avoid admitting a mistake then… to just tell me you’re sorry?”

You’re eyes couldn’t be wider at the words she says.

“Of course not!” You yell, and you regret it, again. Your throat bites back against you, forcing you head look down as chest refuses to rise. Your muscles aren’t just itching to move, they demand it, shaking like a caged pony. Slowly, so agonizingly slowly, you take in a breath of air, calming your nerves the little you can.

Looking back up, you see Twilight still watching you through the partially cracked door. But her brow isn’t knit in anger, or her lips frowning in disappointment. No, with the face she’s giving you now, you’d wish for that instead.

Twilight is looking at you with a face that looks ready to cry.

“Twilight-” She raises her hoof, cutting off anything else you had hoped to say.

“I… I just need some time away from you. Please, go away.” Twilight concludes, her eyes twisting away from yours. You don’t know which is worse. Losing contact with her, or her telling you to leave.

“No.” You say with all the strength you have. To yourself, you sound like Fluttershy addressing a crowd.

“Please Rainbow.” Her voice sounds nothing short of begging to you, and you hate yourself even more for it. You preferred anger; at least you deserved her being angry with you. This… you didn’t know a word to describe it.

You describe how you felt. You describe how Twilight must feel. But you have no idea how to describe what she feels for you, or what you feel for her.

You have no idea what is going on. You just know that you hate it.

“F… F-Fine.” You let out, slipping through grit teeth and clenched lips. Your wings are begging to fly anyway. Twilight wants you to leave, and you agreed. It’s all the excuse they need to extend.

Your eyes focus on Twilight one more time, looking at her with a look you hope is pathetic. Some part of your brain tells you that she might take pity on the side of you, offering you the chance to make it up to her.

But she won’t look at you, even as she hangs in the cracked doorway, eyes looking away from you, focusing on nothing. You feel invisible without her focus. You feel like nothing.

You hate feeling like that.

You beat your wings has hard as you can, sending you high into the brisk morning sky.

The library vanishes beneath you, becoming another speck among dozens of others littering the area around that now small patch of land called Ponyville.

You’re in the air again. You love the air. You love the openness. You can’t name a time you’ve been flying and regretted it. You’ve always flown, for everything. It’s helped you solve so many problems, help bring smiles to so many ponies.

It even brought together all your friends. They are your friends because you fly.

You should feel excited, elated, free!

But instead, you feel so tired, depressed, and trapped.

You hate it.

Author's Note

Well, like I said before, this is a spontaneous stories, and like all spontaneous things, minus the Big Bang, it's not going to last long.

I'd say two, maybe three, more chapters, depending on how long I pull out the make-o-UP! MAKE-UP!

You Know It

You trot back and forth across the cloud you’re on. It’s not your cloud, not your home at least. It’s just a cloud, just something you had to land on. It’s high above Ponyville, far away from Cloudsdale, and easily beyond the sight of Canterlot. It may not be your cloud, but it doesn’t belong to any other pony. That’s why it’s easy for you to use it.

You’ve been trotting circles along the cloud for hours. It began as a cirrus cloud, high above the normal working conditions of pegasi, but then you landed on it without trying to dampen your fall. That flattened the billowy cloud. You may have been still on it for a while, but thoughts of Twilight continued to plague you.

She asked you to leave.

She wanted you to leave.

It didn’t matter that you wanted to stay, that you wanted to help her. She wanted you gone and you couldn’t think of a reason to say no. It tears you up inside, knowing that there should be something you can do, but not being able to think of what to do.

That’s when you got up and started trotting across the cloud, moving your hooves back and forth across the puffy surface as you try and generate even the slimmest of ideas that could help you talk to Twilight. She doesn’t want any books. She doesn’t want to go anywhere with you. She doesn’t want to take anything from you. She doesn’t even want to see you.

That eliminates every possibility you can think of.

But you don’t give up, you never give up. That’s the one thing about you any pony can admire, that you hope everypony can see. Even after hours of walking across the cloud, of pushing down the surface with every step of your hooves, hours of generating nothing but steam in your head, you still don’t stop moving.

The cloud has moved down closer to the ground now. You know you’re no longer on a cirrus cloud, but an altostratus. It’s usually the type of cloud you have to break up in order to generate nimbostratus clouds closer to the ground. An altostratus is just cover, just a large thin sheet of condensed air and water molecules, ready to be split and reformed into proper condensation materials for the weather team.

Your hooves stop moving for a moment. The idea comes to mind that maybe you could talk to Twilight about this. She loves to learn about absolutely anything. You’ve seen her read up on ancient pony cultures that either don’t exist or don’t matter to the world anymore. She’d tell you otherwise, but it never stopped her from reading more about them.

Maybe she’d listen to you if you wanted to talk to her about something she didn’t know. She wasn’t a pegasus, and you’re rather sure she’s never had wings before. You’d remember if she had. There would be no reason for her to know about cloud formation in any of her classes.

But then you shake your head with a heavy grimace.

You know she knows all about clouds. Maybe better than you do. She organized the entire Winter Wrap-Up, telling every team exactly what they needed to do. She knew how the pegasi had to fly in order to collect the snow off the ground while simultaneously reducing the amount of condensed water within the clouds.

There’s no way Twilight would plan on something without knowing about it. That wasn’t like her. She needs to know exactly how something works before she can trust using it.

You know how she thinks, how she wants to act and learn. You know that she loves to learn and you even know what she has already learned. Not everything, of course. You don’t know everything about her life. But then, she also doesn’t know about yours.

The thought makes you smile.

Your legs give out beneath you as you have the sudden urge to lie down. You hate thinking for too long. It makes you feel like you’re wasting time, no matter what kind of time you have. You look down from your altostratus cloud, only to realize as you look to the ground beneath you that your cloud is now just a stratus cloud, as close to Ponyville as you can get without letting some pony know that you’re in the sky above them.

A sigh leaves your lips as you squirm backwards over the fluffy material, making sure you’re invisible to any pony on the ground below. No hanging mane or tail, no holes in the cloud, nothing but you, a few stray clouds, and the blue sky above. You are completely alone with your thoughts.

You scowl into the white material. You really hate this.

It feels like you’re hiding from every pony, trying to keep yourself invisible to him or her. But that’s not you. That was never you.

You are Rainbow Dash, the fastest pegasus in Equestria, famous for being the first mare to ever perform the legendary Sonic Rainboom as just a filly. Now… you’re able to pull it off almost on command, straight up from the ground! There isn’t a pony alive that can match your speed.

You’re supposed to be surrounded by ponies that adore you, fillies and colts who want to be like you, mares and stallions who want to fly like you… or with you. You aren’t supposed to be hiding from the world, cowering away like you’re fragile. You’re not.

You’re strong. You’re invincible. You’re Rainbow Dash, Element of Loyalty, Master of the Sonic Rainboom. There’s no reason for you to feel like you do now. You know you’re strong. You know it like Twilight knows magic. It’s innate to you.

It’s who you are.

It’s not in you to just stop something, no matter what any pony says. You never stop defending your friends. You never stop trying to fly faster. You never stop anything until you’ve done what you set out to do. That’s what makes you Rainbow Dash.

Even if you can’t see a way out, you fly until you find one.

A cocky grin spread across your features.

You welcome it with open hooves, because it comes with an idea. It’s not an idea that can help Twilight, but it’s the only one you have. Spreading your wings, flexing your legs, you look up into the blue sky. With a strong flap of your wings, you launch yourself into the endless blue.

You’re going to fly. You’re going to fly for as long as you can. You’re going to fly until you can think of an idea to help Twilight.

You collapse on the cloud beneath you without breath in your lungs.

Momentarily, you’re glad the cloud was there, because you know the ground wouldn’t have been nearly as kind to your harsh landing. At least the cloud is soft and forgiving to your fallen form.

You hold back a grimace as your wings slowly relax, stiff from the long endless flight you had pushed yourself through. You don’t bother to let them flex back to your sides. It’s much more comfortable to let them hang out and open over the cloud.

It’s dark out now.

You’ve known that for a while, but you didn’t pay attention to the sky. You were too busy thinking. You only have a faint memory of the sun setting, falling over the horizon in what you are sure was a brilliant display of blue, lavender, and gold.

All you really know, and all you care to remember, is that it’s nighttime now. There’s no other way to say it’s nighttime other than to show that the stars are out and the sky is black.

The cool night air is more than generous to your tired wings. You feel the perspiration on your coat and feathers chill under the air. It makes your muscles shiver with an odd sense of pleasure. Normally you’d be seeking the nearest water pool to cool yourself off after a flight like the one you just took, but Luna’s sky is taking care of that for you.

A groan leaves your lips as you flip yourself over, forcing yourself to lie on your back as you stare up into the sky. Your body may be enjoying the cold air, but you’re still as sore as Applejack’s rear legs after a day of apple bucking.

You’ve been tired and sore before. It’s nothing new to you. You’ve been flying for years, training for just as long to hone your skills as the fastest pegasus in Equestria. Resting is the first thing you do after a long workout, and that’s exactly what you’re going to do now.

But usually, when you stop flying to rest, it’s to fall asleep, to let yourself enjoy the soft material of a cloud while you let your body recover. But again, you’re not letting yourself sleep. You can’t. You still haven’t thought of a way to help Twilight.

It was easily hours, very possibly half a day, of non-stop flying. Flying from dawn to dusk in the blind hope of finding an idea somewhere in the sky. But, you found nothing. Nothing but tired limbs as the blue sky fell away for the stars above.

You grit your teeth, angry with yourself. This is your problem; you should be able to fix it. Just like everything else. You’ve screwed up before, tons, but you’ve always made good on correcting it. But now, you can’t even dream up an idea of how to make up with Twilight.

A sigh leaves you, slipping through your teeth. It’s hard to tell if it’s out of aggravation, fatigue, or annoyance. There is one thing it definitely is though. Your fault.

You look up, and you see the stars above you.

There’s nothing blocking your view of them. Every white dot in the sky is visible to your eyes. They all sit there across the black canvas, shining across your vision.

You were never a star gazer, no matter how much time you spent in the sky. It’s not that you never noticed them, it’s just that you never cared to study them. You don’t care about how many there are, or how far away they are, or what makes them so special. You’re not Twilight Sparkle.

You know as well as any pony in Ponyville the adoration the lavender unicorn has for the night sky. She had every single spark of light memorized by location and name, picking out patterns you wouldn’t be able to see. One side of you wants to laugh at the idea of memorizing details like that.

No pony is ever going to walk on the stars or be able to use them in some special way. They’re just there, simple as that. To you, they’re like the mountains to the north or the seas to the west and east. Maybe they can be a marker for remembering where you are, but they’re never going to move for you, or change for you. You’re not Princess Luna.

You raise your hoof over your head, watching as your tired forelimb blocks the faint light from each star.

It’s almost fun to you, watching as your hoof slowly blocks them out one by one, like an unseen force is controlling them. But like you know, like you told yourself, you’re not Princess Luna. You can’t control the stars, no more than you can control anything magical.

It’s fun to pretend though, make believe that you are some sort of alicorn princess. Like a fillyhood story of growing up and becoming something more than what you currently are. A sigh leaves your lips as you let your hoof fall back to the cloud you're on, feeling it bounce off the fluffy material.

You gave up those kinds of fantasies a long time ago. You stopped dreaming of being given things and started dreaming of earning things. You didn’t want to be given anything, not unless you proved yourself worthy of it.

Still though, you can’t help but think how much easier life would be if you could do anything you wanted. Change the weather with a flick of your head, teleport anywhere you wanted with just a thought, even moving the sun, moon, and stars above.

The idea hits you hard enough to earn a small gasp of air.

You twist on the cloud, standing to your tallest as you crane your neck to look at the night sky. Your pink eyes trace the stars like a map. You search for the brightest of them, connecting them with invisible lines. Your neck twists left, then right, and then your body spins to see the rest of the sky.

Just like the blue sky of the day, the dark skies of night are just as endless, just as large, if not larger. There are so many stars, so many possibilities.

The idea in your mind doesn’t just take root. It starts to grow.

You don’t wait to think about it; you don’t hesitate to spread your wings again. This is the idea you had spent all day searching for, the one possibility that you have, to make Twilight listen to you.

You don’t know that it will work, but there’s nothing telling you that it can’t.

Your wings carry you through the night air, letting you soar like a ghost below the stars, silent and unseen. You know where you are going, it’s impossible not to see you.

You ignore that faint reminder in the back of your mind, that shadow of a doubt that won’t leave you. It’s chasing you, haunting you, holding on to you. But you don’t stop. You’re faster than it. You can outfly it. And once you do, your idea will turn into a plan, and that plan will help fix your problems.

It’s going to work. It has to work.

You know it will.

You Explain It

You land on the stone path with your hooves already galloping, your wings having become too tired to carry you any further. Your legs haven’t done anything but hang beneath you the entire day, though. You could gallop for hours on them. Fortunately, though, you know where you have to go, and it isn’t further than a few minutes away.

However, flying in the air with only clouds as obstacles is a lot different than running over cobblestone streets. Now you have to worry about what street to turn down, what buildings to look out for, and of course, other ponies walking in your way. You prefer flying for that reason. No obstacles, nothing in your way, freedom.

If only you still felt free while flying.

But that’s why you’re here. You can fix that now. You have a plan, a good plan, maybe even a great plan. It took you all day to think of it, but now that you have it, there’s no way you won’t go through with it.

You turn a corner and start galloping down the new street, ignoring the curious eyes of the ponies around you. They won’t recognize you and you don’t know them, so it doesn’t matter, at least not to you. Your eyes look upwards, just enough to make sure you still are on the right path. You smile as you see your goal fast approaching.

You take another turn, then another, your legs starting to feel weak with fatigue. You may have flown most of the day, but that doesn’t mean you can run as far as your wings can take you. That doesn’t matter to you now though.

Your goal is so close. It’s been within eyesight since you’ve landed, and it’s only grown closer with every gait your legs complete. One part of you is excited that you’re so close to your goal, to being able to really begin your plan. Another part, however, feels just as nervous as you do excited. But you know how to ignore that part of you. It’s like the moment before the whistle at a race, that last hundred meters before you reach the finish line. You may be nervous, but your excitement usually wins out. Usually.

Your body comes to a halt as you stop galloping for a moment, letting your head hang beneath your legs as you work to catch your breath. The flying, the running, and the stress of thinking; it hasn’t been a relaxing day for you, no matter how you wanted it to start.

You raise your head as you see your goal in front of you, the destination you had flown and ran for. Even with the breath leaving your lungs in heavy gasps, you can’t help but let your confident smile take hold of your lips.

This is Canterlot Castle, home to Princess Luna, the one and only pony who can help you.

You swallow on a ball of saliva collecting in your throat, taking in a greedy breath of air just after you do. You may not be as shallow as Rarity when it comes to looks, but even you know that walking into Canterlot Castle after all of the running and flying you had done would earn more than just a twist from a pony's head.

But then… you don’t have time to wait. You definitely aren’t going back home to try and freshen up, and it doesn’t take a mind like Twilight’s to know that most of the stores around Canterlot are closed now, at least any stores that would help you look better. You let out a sigh as her name goes through your mind. Even as a passive comparison, her name still haunts you.

No, you have to do this. If looking less than your best in front of the princess is your punishment, then you can handle it.

Your hooves walk up the stone steps into the castle, already aware of the lunar guards giving you passing glances as your trot by. One part of you tells you that they are just doing their job, keeping track of every pony that walks by. The other is whispering into your ear that they are judging you like they would the cover of a book. You snort in the air, dismissing the idea.

Memories guide you towards the main hall, where you know Celestia and Luna both have their courts. You don’t know if she’s available; Luna that is, but you do know that it’s the best place to start. You can easily explain trying to see the princess during her court. You’d have a much harder time trying to tell a guard pony why you’re sneaking into private chambers for the same reason.

Awkward wouldn’t be able to describe the absurdity of that kind of situation.

Before you know it, you see the great doors for the grand hall just in front of you. They’re open all the way, or at least far enough for you to be able to see inside the further you approach. There are two more lunar guard ponies outside, each one easily towering over you and watching you with trained eyes. You ignore them as you keep moving, expecting to see a line soon.

The princess is a princess, and from what you has heard, gaining a lot of popularity among the ponies in Equestria. It makes sense that she would have a line of ponies waiting to speak to her, especially during her court. Who wouldn’t want to see the pony that could give them guaranteed good dreams?

That’s why you stop momentarily in shock when you walk in front of the doorway.

You have the clearest view of the hall, darkened with the night, but still lit just enough by the moon outside. It’s captivating, in a haunting sort of way, the way the moonlight is able to make the stained glance dance in a way you couldn’t see before. The colors shimmering with faded light, almost as if they were being reflected against a pool of water. You can see literally every window in the hall with the greatest of ease.

That’s because you’re one of only a few ponies in the hall. There’s no line in front of you, no line or throngs of waiting ponies. There’s just you, walking very slowly down the carpeted hall, the lunar guards watching you as you approach, and a very conspicuous alicorn sitting on the stone throne at the end of the hall.

Princess Luna, Guardian of the Night.

You can’t actually see her, at least not most of her, not with her nose hovering above some notes that are being held in front of her. Even from the impressive distance the hall stretches, you can see more than just a few parchments of paper hanging around her dark form, hung in the air with the familiar aura of magic. A quill is waving around her, presumably wet with ink as it moves across the papers.

It’s hard to tell how long you stand there, just watching her work. On one hoof, you know that this is what the princesses must do when they are beyond the public eye, working on things you would fall asleep trying to understand, working on them more efficiently than you even dare to comprehend. On the other hoof, it is literally impossible for you to look at her and not think of another talented mare who works to late hours on things that would fly even above your head.

It’s because your head was in the clouds that you fail to realize Princess Luna had looked up from her documents, diverting her attention to you.

“Rainbow Dash.” Princess Luna addresses you with something you recognize as controlled surprise. You give your own small, but genuine, jump of surprise as she says your name.

You only know what to call it because you’ve seen Twilight pull it off too many times before. Like when she first met you, or when the Elements were first used, or when you insulted her by admitting you’d rather lie than admit fault. The admission burns in your throat.

“Hello your highness.” You’re glad your voice doesn’t waver as you speak. That wouldn’t be the best way to start a conversation with the princess, especially not one you’re going to be asking a favor from. “How’re ya doin?” Your grin feels fake, but you only hope the princess doesn’t know you well enough to see that.

“I am… distracting myself,” she speaks to you as if it were a confession. Your smile rises from a façade to a genuine twist of your lips. It relieves some of the pressure on you as it does. “But with you here, I feel the better question would be to ask why you are here. May you tell me?”

That’s right, your idea, the idea to fix your mistake.

It’s hard for you not to laugh. You knew you would have to explain yourself to her when you got here. You knew that during the flight here, maybe even before your wings actually gave you flight. There’s no way the princess would even think to grant a request to you without reason. She would need to know what happened, why it happened, and then, maybe, how she could help. Now you have to answer two questions. How are you going to explain to Princess Luna, and how are you going to ask Princess Luna for help?

“Ms. Rainbow?” You hear the princess call again. You shake your head lightly, clearing your thoughts. You need to focus, to be focused. Just like Twilight.

“Yeah, sorry your highness,” you say as quickly as you can, making sure your eyes are on the dark alicorn above you. It’s impossible to miss the critical eye she uses to watch you with. “Sorry, just distracted myself.”

“You have flown into my court, without any warning or message of arrival, pass all of the current members of court awaiting a meeting with me, and then…” You watch one of Princess Luna’s brows raise as she continues to speak, “Distract yourself with stray thoughts while trying to address me?” You feel your throat clench in anxiety.

“No!” You shout, legs spreading as you do so, wings twitching with the sudden exclamation. Your pink eyes look frantically as the night guards mimic your sudden preparedness, their spears lowering slightly. Princess Luna’s gaze didn’t soften in the slightest.

“No,” you repeat again, relaxing your body as best you can. Your wings fold firmly into place as you stand to your tallest, no longer crouched close to the ground. The guards have yet to relax as well. “No, actually… I came to ask you for some help.”

“Help?” Luna repeats, her other brow rising to give another one of those faces of controlled shock. It must be a Canterlot thing, you surmise, because Rarity is proof enough that not all unicorns can hide their surprise.

“What kind of aid are you requesting?”

The question doesn’t so much catch you off guard as it does leave you searching for the right words. The problem and solution are as clear to you as the blue of the day’s sky. Or, to respect the princess you’re addressing, as clear as the stars on a cloudless night. However, you’ve also made it more than clear today that you don’t have the greatest of strengths with saying the right thing.

Maybe that’s where you can start.

“I… made a mistake with Twilight,” you begin, making sure you have the princess’s attention. She doesn’t look any more distracted than just a few seconds ago. “When I was flying this morning, like right at the end of your night, last night, I decided to try out a Sonic Rainboom over Ponyville. I thought it would be a great way to start the morning, you know, gets you active.”

“It is my understanding that you must be active in order to move.” The clarification of what you had said leaves you in a rut, wondering how to continue. Of the many problems you thought you would have talking to the Princess, clarifying your own words wasn’t one of them.

You should have listened to Twilight better when she told you about how Luna spoke. You should have listened to her better about a lot of things.

“Well, yeah, but I kinda meant more like… motivation, or getting ready for the day.” You can see the question churning in Luna’s mind, ready to slip past her lips. It’s not so much as you don’t have time for it to happen as you just don’t want it to. Explaining modern English to a millennia old pony was not high on your list of things to do. “Anyways, what’s important is what happened after I did it.”

“Then… what did occur?” Luna asks you the leading question. One part of you, enthralled with stories of Daring Do, realizes that you have the princess’s attention. Not just as some speaker in her court, but as another pony, speaking to her about something she wants to know.

The other side of you, however, the dominating one, realizes that even though you aren’t being timed, time is of the essence.

“You see, when I do a Rainboom, like I did during the wedding, it creates a really powerful shockwave, or that’s what Twilight calls it. Normally, it doesn’t really matter, doing it high up an all.” You feel one of your forelegs rubbing down the other, nervously scratching at the skin beneath your cyan fur. What comes next probably won’t make the princess jump to help you.

Still, if there is one lesson you get out of this, something to write back to Celestia for later, it’s to never lie to your friends.

“When I did this one, I did it right over Twilight’s library. I… kind of wrecked it.” You close your eyes for a bit longer than a blink, expecting a small gasp of surprise maybe a growl of disappointment. It wouldn’t have been that far off to hear a bark of laughter either. Instead though, all you hear is silence, a pregnant pause that had grown since you had admitted your mistake.

Your eyes open again, looking up at the princess, now thinking that you’d see a set of furrowed eyes glaring at you with tight lips. Again though, you are mistaken, as Luna just looks back at you, eyes no shorter than before and lip no tighter than when she had spoken. If anything, she appeared more relaxed.

“I’m confused.” Princess Luna admits to you as easily as you can admit you’re fast. “Are these not matters that can be settled with words of an apology? I was under the distinct impression that your circle of friends were the very embodiment of true friendship, complete with all of its difficulties.”

“Yeah, you’re right on about that.” You graciously agree. The hoof that was rubbing down your leg is now scratching at the back of your lowered head. The small ball of dread inside of you hasn’t left yet. You know it won’t until Luna realizes just how big of a mistake you made. You can only hope and pray to her sister that she’ll understand.

“See, I only found out that I… wrecked Twi’s place when she called me out on it. When she did… I…” The hoof on your head slowly moved over your face, pulling at the fur over your head. “I kind of insulted her.”

Now Luna is giving you a look of shock. You did know it was coming.

“Why in the name of my moon would you insult Twilight Sparkle?” At least she didn’t sound mad at you. Shocked, needless to say, but certainly not angry. That was a plus. “Did she begin this banter of accusations?”

“Not… really,” you begin, unsure of just what the princess means. “See, she called me out for doing my Sonic Rainboom too close to her home, but I made up a bunch of excuses for how it could have been something else that shook her home until every book on her shelves fell off.”

“I cannot fathom a long list.” You had to laugh at that.

“Yeah, but… one of the reasons I said was-“ You swallow on a ball in your throat. If it’s this hard to tell the princess what you did, how did you possibly think you’d be able to apologize to Twilight? “I said it could have been her messing up another experiment. I… oh Tartarus, I even said that she does that a lot.”

“Oh my.” Just hearing the princess speak about your own actions with a tone of surprise is enough to make you feel like you’re back there.

You’re not in Canterlot Castle, you’re in Ponyville, in front of the library, with a shocked Twilight Sparkle staring at you with a face of hardly concealed pain. Her lips quiver, eyes stray, and then she whispers those damning words.

“I… can understand the… difficulty this could bring.” You bit back the sudden urge to laugh at her comment. You’re not on the highest of terms with her right now, and mocking her statement wouldn’t help anything. Still, there was more to tell.

“Well it gets worse,” you begin, knowing full well just how bad it gets. “After I basically threw that insult at her, I basically spent the next few hours just walking around her house trying to think of what to say, cause believe me, just sorry wouldn’t have cut it.”

“I may be behind in knowledge that is deemed common for all ponies, but that speaks to me as proof of your devotion to fix your… mistake.” You don’t miss the way her voice wavers, just before she calls your accident a mistake. It’s hard for you to ignore it, but you do, mostly because you have something else to focus on.

How you made it worse.

“That’s because after she opened her door, I just about admitted right to her face that I would rather lie to her to save face than just admit I was wrong.” Your head is shaking as you speak. You don’t know why. “She told me to leave then. That she needed to be alone. I… I couldn’t tell her no.”

Princess Luna is quiet above you, and you instantly begin to believe it’s because she’s judging you. Judging your actions, your character, your loyalty to your friends, judging everything about you that makes you you.

“Rainbow Dash,” Princess Luna spoke in that commanding voice you hadn’t heard since Nightmare Night. Granted, you’re still standing, so you know she’s holding something back.

“Your concern for your friend is genuine and deep. Though you have wronged with your actions, you meant no malice by what you had done. The very fact that you seek aid from a princess in correcting your errors is proof enough that you feel remorse for what has been done.” You can’t miss the smile that spreads across the alicorn’s lips. You just can’t.

“Therefore, I would be more than happy to help you in any way I can.”

You release a cheer inside your head, flexing your legs as hard as you can to resist the urge to jump with joy. That wouldn’t be cool.

“Now, come with me.” Her words bring you back to reality in a moment.

“Huh?”

You Mean It

“I wish to invite you to speak about this in a more private setting.” Princess Luna speaks to you again, her voice carrying no tone of sarcasm or trepidation. She means what she’s saying, and she has no trouble in saying it.

You blink your eyes as you relax your muscles, unsure of what she had just said. Your eyes focus on her, making sure that what you had heard was real. The kind smile from the monarch as she steps off her throne is indication enough. However, you still need to ask, because you’ve learned to never assume anything.

“Uh, where to your highness?” Your question may be seen as rude to the ponies that frequent the hall, but the dark alicorn simply continues to smile pleasantly upon you.

“To my… private chambers,” she speaks honestly as she rises from her throne, elegantly walking down the short staircase in front of it. You would be more captivated if her words weren’t throwing you for loops you didn’t anticipate.

“Your… huh?” You think for a moment you’re going to ask why. It makes sense to ask why, but you end up asking what instead. Not even you are sure if you’re asking what the princess said, or what she means by her words.

“My private chambers, because private matters should be held in a private room,” she speaks to you in a voice you know she would never be able to use to other royal ponies. “I understand that this is not a discussion you wish to have surrounded by others.”

You have to admit, talking to the princess about Twilight surrounded by a dozen lunar guards, staring, would make your fur stand on end.

“Y-Yeah,” You stutter out in agreement. The princess walks by you, her tall form dwarfing your own short stature. Her head nods towards the guards around you, giving a command you don’t understand.

You watch them, the lunar guard ponies, stand erect and move off to the sides. The movements are all so precise and accurate; you can’t help but compare them to fliers for a moment, practicing the same moves in constant repetition. But you shake your head with a smirk. They’re unicorns, not pegasi. They aren’t trained together like the Wonderbolts are.

You follow Princess Luna as she walks from her hall, the other members of the guards bowing to her as she passes, the maids, too. You can’t help but raise a brow at the actions. It isn’t anything you haven’t seen before, at least from the sidelines. But walking next to the princess as it’s being done, you have to admit, at least only to yourself, it’s hard not getting used to. It makes you feel like you’re the captain of the Wonderbolts. Then again, even that would be beneath the title of princess, like the one you’re currently following.

“We are here.”

The interjection of the princess’s voice shatters your daydreaming like a hammer against a mirror. For a moment, you ask yourself if maybe it should be called just dreaming, because it is night, but you let it go as fast as it comes.

You’re standing in front of another doorway, much smaller than the grand halls you had come from, but still, they’re larger than any set you’d find in Ponyville. Luna looks at you with a smile different than what you had seen in her court. It doesn’t look like anything she’d give a pony asking for a law to be passed, but like something you’d get from one of your friends. You can’t help but smile in return.

Her horn flares with a hum of energy, something you’ve seen Twilight do a countless amount of times now. But the princess has blue magic, not Twilight’s majestic purple. The doors open as they start to glow blue, swinging aside with barely a sound, revealing the lavishly decorated interior.

It doesn’t take you long to realize the privilege the princess is offering you. Like Twilight with Princess Celestia, this was a rare gift you were being given. That knowledge alone makes you nervous. Princess Luna, one of the most powerful and proud ponies in all of Equestria, was inviting you into her private chambers to speak to you about your problem. Not about how you could help her, not for lessons for flying, like you would need those, but to help you.

Just before you bite your lip, you feel a hoof nudge at your side. You look back up to see the princess still smiling at you. Then she walks into the room, ethereal mane billowing behind her as she walks forward. You follow closely behind her.

Despite anything you might have thought about Luna and other dark things, her room is surprisingly well lit. You don’t see anything hidden by shadows, no dark mysterious shapes lurking around the corners of the room, and definitely no monsters waiting for you to let your guard down. It looks like a normal, albeit much larger, pony’s room.

You don’t have any difficulty finding a pillow placed on the floor, littered with white stitches on a dark background. Even a filly could see it was meant to look like a night’s sky. Momentarily, you wonder if you should wait for the princess to tell you what to do, or if you should invite yourself to rest on the soft cotton. You are tired, from your legs to your wings, and even your mind.

But it’s a good thing you remain stock still, as the dark alicorn rests her body on the soft material of the pillow. Her legs tucked themselves beneath her carriage, resting easily upon the cotton as the weight of her body left her legs. You could later swear on any grave that you heard you sigh in pleasure as she nestled into the pillow.

That’s when she turns back to you, still standing, rather uncomfortably, in the middle of the room.

“Please, have a seat.” She invites you with a nod of your head. You see another pillow not far from her, about half the size of the one she’s on. It’s decorated much the same, dots with white along a black soft material, but by size alone, you can tell it is not meant for the princess to rest on.

Your mind briefly wonders if everything is made larger for the princesses. You have the wisdom to throw away that thought before you even think of asking it.

However, you take the princess’s invitation, walking over to the soft cotton. As your hoof touches the pillow, you feel a shudder of relief run up your leg. It’s no cloud, that’s for sure, but it feels like it’s been sitting in front of a fire for hours, warm to the touch and soothing to your muscles.

It doesn’t take much more than a passive thought for the rest of your body to rest on the pillow, enjoying the heat it surrounds your aching muscles with. You let your coat greedily sap up the warmth, letting it cling to you like sweat after a long workout. It’s no wonder to you now why the princess sighed the way she did. You’re about ready to pass out on the material.

“So, Rainbow Dash,” the Luna speaks to you, quickly jostling your thoughts and reawakening your mind. “What do you think I can do to help you?”

You smile as the idea you had hours before flows through your mind.

“Princess-” you begin, but a raised hoof silences you.

“Luna, just Luna please.” The monarch tells you with a smile not far in size from your own. “I am well aware that my sister prefers to be called by her name, not title, when among friends. It would be a favor to me if you offer to me the same privilege.” You keep your smile firmly in place as her hoof falls back to the pillow she’s lying on. If that’s the only favor she asks of you, it would be perfect.

“Sure thing… Luna.” You test her name carefully. Seeing the calm smile grow a little more over her dark coat is more than enough. She must not get called it often, you realize. But she must enjoy it, you also realize.

“I must admit,” she begins to speak, “It is an odd feeling be called by my birth name without my title.” You can feel her eyes smiling towards you as they regain their focus. “I pray it would not be rude of me to request you refer to me just as Luna. That is, within private chambers.” That last part was rushed; even a foal would realize that. Something must have reminded her to add it onto the request, like a faint memory or small rule.

In the end though, it doesn’t really matter. Not to you at least. You don’t mind calling the princess by her name and just her name. It really does make it feel like you’re just good friends.

“You got it Luna.” You say her name without hesitance this time, and you can visibly see her relax again. A passing idea wanders through your head if this is sort of how Celestia speaks with Twilight, using only first names and not caring for where they stood among the rest of the ponies of Equestria.

You know just from a few meetings that Celestia doesn’t have a stuck-up bone in her body. You couldn’t have said the same thing about Luna, right after you met her during Nightmare Night for the first time. The way she addressed the crowd, demanded attention, and enforced rules like they were law… which they once were. Seeing that same princess relax on a pillow that was doubtlessly made just for her, enjoying your company like you would any of your friends, it was nice.

But you did have a favor to ask.

“Listen, Luna,” You add her name to earn her attention. “I had an… idea on how to get Twilight to forgive me, or at least get her to listen to me.”

“Really?” The princess asks you, intrigued by your words. Her hooves cross one another in front of her, listening to you intently. It’s one of the most obvious signs that you have her attention.

“Yeah,” you start again. “You see, Twilight doesn’t want me around her right now, and I can’t really blame her. I wouldn’t want me around if I said those words to myself.”

“I find it difficult to imagine being able to separate yourself… from yourself.” You find yourself caught by her words, then teased by her grin. “My apologies, I have merely been attempting this… friendly bantering, as my dear sister calls it. She explains it is meant to ease tension between ponies in conversation.”

“Yeeeaahh.” You slowly speak in hesitant agreement. Princess or not, even a sugar-rushed Pinkie Pie would be able to tell that the princess is new to this. “Look, the point is, I know you can help me get a message to her, or at least help me make it clear to her just how bad I feel. If I can get her to listen to me for just two seconds, I’m sure we can work something out. But you are the only pony who can help me do that.”

An uncomfortable silence falls between the two of you, resting still in the room as the air in a windless sky. You don’t like it, but you don’t try and speak. You’ve made it clear just what you want, but you have to be patient.

It was because you spoke too much that you ruined so much, so it would be better to stay quiet for now. Wait for the princess to ask you questions, that’s what you need to do. Patience may not be a virtue to you, but loyalty and friends are.

“Rainbow,” Luna addresses you by just your first name, and she does it so smoothly you wonder why she hasn’t done it before. “May I inquire as to why you are being so much more… invested into earning Twilight’s forgiveness?”

The question catches you off guard, like a turbulent wind in the sky.

“Huh?” You stupidly ask, but the princess still feels compelled to explain her question to you.

“Please do not take offense to my words.” She begins to say. “I merely have… some reserved doubts that you would venture this far for your other friends. I have read only a few of the many reports from Twilight Sparkle and your company of friends, but from I have read, it appears that arguments and misunderstandings are rather commonplace. Yet, here you are, requesting the aid of me, a princess, with a task that others would, rather ironically, call a dream.” Her head twists to the side as she finishes her thought to you.

“Why is that?”

You have no idea why.

Your thoughts turn inwards as you begin to wonder that same thing.

Twilight is different than the rest of your friends. But… that doesn’t make her more important. Pinkie’s different, too. And Rarity. And Applejack. And Fluttershy. They’re all different from one another, so of course you’d treat them differently. But… would you go to this kind of extreme to make things up with any one of them?

Let’s say, just as a worst case scenario, you destroyed all of the trees in Applejack’s Orchard. Would you go the Celestia and ask her to bring them all back? Maybe, but that wouldn’t be until you spoke to Twilight about how you could fix it.

Fluttershy would definitely be different from the rest of your friends. Even in the best of cases, you couldn’t be brash with her. If you did something horrid, like, break an animal’s leg, she wouldn’t be able to look at you without crying. There’s no way you’d have the courage to go near her, but you still wouldn’t give up on trying to fix the mistake. Twilight would have made sure of that. She would have helped you.

Then if something happened with Rarity, if… if your Sonic Rainboom had ruined all of the dresses in her store, destroyed everything she had spent months working on, you know that you would have volunteered yourself to model every outfit she made for the rest of your life. If it meant keeping your friendship alive, there’s no way you wouldn’t do it. But if she still hated you… if she still… didn’t want to be your friend, then you’d turn to Twilight for help.

Twilight… Twilight’s the friend you always turn to for help. You always have… and you always will.

“It’s because…” You begin, earning the attention of the dark alicorn. “It’s because Twilight is the pony I-we… we always ask for help. She’s been there for me and all of my friends whenever anything goes wrong.” Luna continues to watch you intently, eyes fixed on you as you continue to speak.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s a threat against the kingdom, or just a disagreement between ourselves, she’ll dedicate her entire day to making sure everything goes back to being fine. It doesn’t have to be the same, not to her, but she isn’t happy unless we’re happy, with each other.” Your hooves start to dance through the air, trying fruitlessly to illustrate what your words cannot convey.

“It’s like… each of us wants to make the others happy in some way. You know Fluttershy wants everypony to be relaxed and kind to one another, kind of like how Pinkie Pie wants us to smile, cause if you’re smiling, you aren’t exactly miserable.” You hear the monarch give a soft giggle of agreement, but you speak on regardless.

“Twilight’s different thought. The rest of us… we just think ‘How can I make it up to her?’ Just one at a time. Twilight thinks… bigger. She wants to know how all of us can be happy, how we can all get along together. It’s how she is able to solve so many problems.” You can’t stop the next thought that drifts through your head. Then again, you don’t exactly want it to stop.

“The rest of us, Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, and me, we all think of the small things. Twilight, she’s the mare who thinks about the big picture, and she knows how things can fit together.” You wet your lips with small suckle on them, drawing them between your teeth before swallowing on the ball of saliva you had collected.

“We were all friends before we met her, but with Twilight… it just feels… complete.”

Never before have you spoken something so corny, yet still feeling it was so true.

It’s hard to describe, impossible to describe, even to yourself. A part of you, a section of your very being knows just how childish it sounds. Calling something that was already working more complete, making something like friendship sound like a list of things. That’s not you, not at all.

But the other side, that side of you that is starting to become your better half, can’t deny the truth of your words.

Just like how you cannot deny Princess Luna giving you a look comparable to that of an amused parent.

“Rainbow Dash, have I not already made it clear I wish to aid you?” Her smile does nothing else but make you feel elated with joy. “It is by curiosity alone I asked the questions that I have. It does not alter nor change the very real fact that I will help you.”

You can’t stop yourself from doing what you do next.

“Really?!” You squeal like Pinkie Pie in the face of a brand new friend. “You’re the best! Thank you so much Luna!”

Your wings push you from the pillow and send you to the princess’s side.

Your hooves wrap around in a tight and thankful hug.

Your smile never falters even as you feel the alicorn beneath your hold tense.

It’s the tensing part that makes you realize you might have made a mistake.

“L-Luna?” You can’t help but stutter the name you speak. Your face is twisted against the coat of the alicorn, out of view and eyesight of the princess’s own features. You can’t tell if she is angry, shocked, joyed, or even apathetic to your grateful hug. There’s only one way to find out.

Slowly, hesitantly, you release your hug from her, backing up as you do so. You see the princess looking at you with her own set of wide eyes, matching yours in the level of shock.

You messed up. Big time. Again.

Your hooves push you away from her, putting a large distance between you two, limited only by the walls of the room you’re in. You know, or at least can sense, that she’s going to talk soon.

She’ll take away her promise to help you, degrade you for acting so impulsively, and pull the final string by saying something along the lines of you still not learning from your mistake with Twilight. It is the same mistake. Where with Twilight you spoke without thinking, now you act without thinking. And if actions do speak louder than words, then this is a whole other level of bad.

Way to go Rainbow Dash.

You watch the alicorn’s lips part slightly, ready for the damning words you are sure will follow.

“I-I apologize,” she says to you, stuttering.

The combination of the undue apology and nervous tone are almost too much for you to comprehend. But you pull through, just far enough to hear the rest of what she’s saying. ‘

“H-Huh?” You can’t help it.

“I am still… adapting to new customs. I was not prepared for… your embrace.” Her posture turns into that of a nervous foal, form twisted to the side and head bashfully turning away from your own. It’s difficult to tell in the darkness, but you could swear that she is blushing beneath that dark coat.

“Oh,” you respond sheepishly, rubbing a hoof over your shoulder, unsure of what to say or do next. “Did I… Should I have not…”

Her face turns from embarrassed to alarmed in a second flat.

“Oh, no!” Luna eagerly dismisses. “Please, do not think I have no appreciation for your openness. It is as I said before. Friends and company are things I have not enjoyed for a very long time, and even more so for dealing with another pony on common ground.” Even with her wide eyes, a genuine smile still is able to snake its way across her lips.

“I am thankful to you for having little hesitation in treating me no differently than your other friends.” A sigh of relief leaves you, taking with it what feels like ten tons of pressure and stress.

“It’s no problem Luna.” You speak easily as you had before. “You’re just another pony trying to do what you have to do. Wouldn’t really make a whole lot of sense treating you differently from other ponies if you are just another pony, am I right?”

You hear the princess laugh at your words, a soft gratifying sound that you can appreciate from almost any pony. Almost.

“That I am, Rainbow Dash, that I am.” She gives you a look that you know. You know that look very well because you’ve seen it on so many ponies before her. You’ve seen it on Fluttershy, on Rarity, on Applejack, but on yourself more than any other.

It’s the face of absolute peace.

She really does think of you as a friend. Princess Luna, Guardian of the Night, really does want to help you.

“So,” she begins again, earning more than your full attention. “What is your plan to speak with Twilight Sparkle?”

Your smile goes beyond confident and settles on assured. You don’t just trust yourself to succeed. You know it will succeed. The princess has promised to help you. You now know, more than ever before, why you need to do this.

It’s not that you can do it, it’s that you will do it.

Twisting your lips, you ask the all important question.

“Luna, can you take… another pony… into dreams?”

You Love Her

“Into dreams?” Luna repeats your request with a questioning tone. You cannot tell if she is merely clarifying your words or speaking in disbelief. You hope for the former, but you fear for the latter.

“Y-Yeah,” your voice stutters, again. “I told you how I thought of an idea to help Twilight, and I needed your help for it. Well… if you want to help me, that is.” You try your best to put on your most confident smile. But the mask you wear feels off centered and fake, like trying to walk on your rear legs. Possible, but horribly awkward.

“I see,” the princess speaks in response, turning her head as her crystal covered hoof is raised to her mouth. Her eyes are partially hidden beneath her billowing mane, but you can still catch glimpses of her sapphire orbs. Her lids are closed half way over them, as if just barely kept open as her mind meanders in thought.

You roll your tongue in your mouth, swallowing on a ball of saliva that has collected in the back of your throat. You swallow on it, trying to do so as quietly as possible. With the stillness of the air, however, it sounds as if you had performed a Sonic Rainboom in the face of the princess. Needless to say, you feel your face heat up.

But the princess still doesn’t pay you any mind, her thoughts focused more on the words you have already said than the sounds you are making. You’re grateful for that much, but still nervous as a filly. You’re out of metaphors to describe just how strong the butterflies in your gut are.

You hear the princess whisper your name, “Rainbow.” It causes you to stiffen, back straightening like a board. “Would it surprise you if I were to tell of the number of times I have received such a request?” You let the question sift through your head, carefully digesting what it means. You answer back with a carefully worded response.

“Only if you told me that it didn’t happen a lot.” She smiles at your words. That’s a good thing, at least right now it is. Smiles are almost always good things.

“An honest response,” she phrases through her lips. “I can count the number of times such a request has been given to me, through my rule both in this present and the far reaching past. I confess however, the reason for such a low occurrence could very well be due to its secrecy.”

“Yeah, that tends to stop ponies from asking about things.” You said that too fast; you didn’t think about it. However, at least this time, there was no threat or harmful barb to your words. Luna only nods in agreement.

“Indeed, for ponies are rightfully hesitant to venture into areas they know little of.” Her cerulean eyes look at your own pink ones, and you fight the urge to shrink your head into your shoulders. No matter how friendly you are with her, or she is with you, it’s impossible to ignore how intimidating her figure is.

“However, I will also offer another confession, if only for entertaining me this night.” You have no idea how to respond to that, so you chose to stay silent. Years later, you’re sure you’d still be able to swear it was the right move.

“I have often thought fondly of inviting another pony into the walking world of dreams, letting them experience the joy and wonder than can only be found in a world free of rules and law, yet still unaffected by the actions of others. No expectations of what to grow, no goals that must be met, only you, your imagination, and a canvas as endless as my night sky.” Listening to the princess speak, listening to her voice flow with an almost serendipity level of joy, you feel yourself further engrossed with every passing millisecond.

“Ponies often fall into sleep without the desire to dream. Those that do, the few who sleep for the joy to dream, know of what I speak. They know the thrill of moving mountains, of twisting the sky, of commanding seas, and forging reality. It is a rare and delicate treat to ever taste, and I would enjoy more than little else to take another pony into such a state.” She ends her speech, letting her lips pull into a soft and gentle smile as she continues to gaze upon you. You swallow something hollow in your throat before you ask your own question.

“So… that’s a yes?” You aren’t sure if the soft rumble of laughter she responds with is a good or bad sign. That is, until she speaks.

“Yes, Rainbow, I will aid you.” You just barely resist the urge to jump for joy. “However, there are warnings I must first give.” That stops you.

“Warnings? Like, something bad happening?” The dark alicorn nods towards your words, and you feel your coat stand on end. “Oh, don’t tell me that if something bad happens to me in my dreams, it happens to me in real life! That’d be stupid!” As soon as the words leave your lips, you bite your tongue. However, there isn’t scorn or laughter, but you do see Luna smile.

“I assure you that if any harm befalls you during your rest, you will merely awaken, as you would in any dream.” You hear the sigh pass through your lips. “The words of caution I have to speak deal more with how to command a dream, and prevent it from commanding you.”

“Commanding… me?” You ask the question back to the alicorn, to which you receive a nod. Her hooves adjust over her cushion, no doubt from the amount of time she’s spent laying down and speaking with you.

“It is not uncommon to have a dream overtake the dreamer. How often you would say you had, I believe the phrase today would, ‘the strangest dream ever?’” You stop yourself before say something you might regret. Instead you nod your head left, then right, then forwards.

“Yeah, I see your point.” You feel your cheeks pull upwards sheepishly. Luna mimics the gesture. “So, how do you stop that? Like, just keep thinking happy thoughts, or what?” The princess’s cheeks only rise further with your words.

“You are half correct, Rainbow Dash.” Her horn flares for a moment, shimmering with a blue aura that looks as soft as the pillow you’re resting on. You don’t have the courage to see if it’s as warm. “In order for ponies to work their best, or to accomplish the goals at hand, they often need to focus. I myself am no different.”

An object floats through the air, hanging by an unseen string between you and the princess. You can tell immediately that it’s just a piece of paper, probably with something important written across it. But from where you are, you just can’t tell.

“To focus one’s mind is to control one’s thoughts. Preventing distracting notions from swaying you from your current goal. A unicorn must focus to cast a spell, and a pegasus most focus to fly well.” You can’t tell if she’s directing that last part at you or some event that happened to her in the past. You listen on regardless.

“In the realm of dreams, focus is the key to preventing yourself from being swallowed by the dream. If you focus your thoughts, solidify your mind, you stop the dream from taking you over.” That sounded too simple.

“It’s not that easy, is it?” You can tell in an instant that the smile Luna is giving is nothing short of pleased.

“You are as swift as your name implies.” Again, it’s impossible to tell just how she means that, but again, you stay silent. “Focusing the mind often requires a subject of focus, something that you need to keep your mind thinking upon.”

“So, like Twilight, right?” You think it sounds simple, very simple. But then again, you’ve learned after being around Twilight and the rest of your friends that things are rarely that simple. The small frown from Luna is clue enough you’re wrong.

“That would not be a wise idea.” The princess gently cajoles your idea. “Dreams are the center of creation, the location where your thoughts are given form. To think of Twilight Sparkle would be to conjure your own creation of her. I suspect you wish to talk to the real pony, if I have heard your request correctly thus far.” You feel a bit sheepish as she finishes.

“Yeah, you’re right.” Your hoof lightly scratches at your fur, trying to smoothen out the fibers as you think of what to say next. “So, then I have to think of something that… isn’t alive, or normally wouldn’t be. Why?” From the smile she gives you, you can tell you’re on the right track. You’re a little more than hesitant to just say you’re right.

“Correct,” she congratulates you in a proud tone. “You need to think of something hard, tangible, usually a reminder that you are in a dream. It wouldn’t be something you would normally carry on you. Such things would not help you distinguish the realm of dreams from the waking world.” You keep yourself from showing your confusion as best as you can.

“Okay…” You slowly let out, making sure you really do understand what the princess is saying, even though you don’t. “So… I just gotta think of something I wouldn’t normally carry, but make sure that I keep it with me, because that will help stop the dreams from… overtaking me?”

“You make it sound a bit more complex than what it truly is, but yes, I would say you have the, how would I phrase it, general idea.” Luna’s words offer you some peace of mind. Your eyes are distracted, however, as you see a blue aura coming closer towards you. It takes only a moment for you to realize that it’s the paper Luna was holding moments before.

“Please, take this.” She gently commands, letting the parchment hover in front of your nose. Your hooves slip out from beneath your frame grabbing at the paper in the air. The magic surrounding it instantly begins to dissipate, the hum from the princess’s horn simultaneously vanishing.

“What is it?” You ask as your eyes scan over the paper. You thought originally it was some kind of reminder the princess had for herself, but no matter how many times you look it over, you don’t see anything written on it. There’s no ink, no paint, nothing to make it anything but a blank piece of parchment.

“That,” Luna begins, “Is going to aid me with my spell.” You don’t understand, and you’re sure you face is making that more than clear, as the princess continues to speak. “There exist some spells, developed long ago, that require catalysts in order to properly function. They often took the form of medallions, or crowns.” Something clicks in your head.

“Or an amulet?” Memories of Trixie and her escapade across Ponyville are more than just vivid in your mind. The nodding head of the dark alicorn is all the confirmation you need.

“Exactly,” she begins, “They allow spells to hold their function after they are cast. A spell to send you to slumber is not difficult, but one to keep you within a different realm will require a source of constant power.” You nod your head. You do understand. Still, paper didn’t make much sense. But then again, this was an alicorn that literally slept the day away and only worked at night. There was room for a few oddities.

“Okay, alright.” You speak more to yourself than to Luna. The paper in your hooves crumples slightly as your legs flex together.

“You are prepared then?” The question doesn’t raise a doubt in your mind. It just solidifies your conviction. This is how you’ll see Twilight, how you’ll get her to forgive you, and fix all the problems you started.

Yeah, you could do this.

“Yeah, let’s do it.” You feel a smile grow over your lips. It’s not too different than the one you see on Luna’s.

“Very well.” You hear the horn begin to hum as that blue magical aura begins to surround the bony protrusion. The princess’s eyes are shut, probably in concentration. You don’t need to focus on anything yet, but you still close your eyes. It’s not like you’re nervous, you just don’t what will happen.

“I am familiar with the energy and aura of the young Twilight Sparkle. It will be simple for me to locate and direct you to her dreams.” You understand her words, but the meaning behind them was probably the only thing you can admit you would never be able to catch, because you sure didn’t understand what it was.

“Rest well, Rainbow Dash.”

You never feel your head hit the pillow.

Falling, falling. What is it always falling?

You know you’re falling because you’ve fallen so many times before. The odd sensation of weightlessness, the lack of control in your movements, and the sudden sense of nausea in your tummy.

Yeah, you’re definitely falling.

You spread your wings as far as they can stretch, hoping to capture some of the air racing past you, but they don’t grab onto anything. Your legs flail as you feel yourself spin and tumble, but they don’t touch a thing, not even a cloud. You want to search for something, to grab onto anything.

But it’s hard to know where to go when you’re surrounded by darkness. That’s right, you’re falling into the black, surrounded by nothingness.

It’s just a vast empty space, nothing to hold onto and nothing to reach for. No air, no clouds, no nothing. Just nothing.

Your mind is screaming at you to make it stop, to wake up and just forget all about your plan to help Twilight. You’re terrified, and you have no idea how to stop it. Falling is part of flying, but endlessly falling is like endlessly failing. You can’t handle that.

But you’re not here for yourself. You’re not risking your health... mental health for kicks and giggles. You’re looking for Twilight, looking for the mare that you hurt, and it’s going to take more than just a little fall to make you lose confidence in yourself.

You are Rainbow Dash, fastest pegasus in all of Equestria, and you are not going to let yourself be swallowed by this dream.

You remember Luna telling you about focus, about control, about how you are in control and the dream needs you to be made. If there’s nothing to build, then it will swallow you whole. You have to think of something, anything to focus on. A single thought, a constant reminder, drifts through your head.

Twilight.

From the nothingness beneath you, you see a garden grow, an explosion of colors that all at once memorizes and dazzles you, drawing you out of the endless fall you had found yourself in. The colors pass you, surround you, capture you, and even whisk by you, all like they are made of air, like you are just falling through a colored sky.

Maybe now you can fly.

Your wings try to beat again, trying desperately to hold onto something in your descent. You feel a surge of joy as you feel the force of your wings pushing against the dense colors, slowing your free-fall into a mild descent. For every beat your wings make, you fall just that much slower; you’re just that much safer.

Finally, you find yourself still amongst the colors, surrounded by the endlessly mixed rainbow. It feels like you had just flown into your own mane and was lost in its fibers, searching for a way out. You look up and see green mixing with yellow, beneath your red swirling within grey, and all around you white, black, blue, violet, and even pink mix.

You swallow on nothing as you start to fly forward, gliding through the mix of violet and blue. The further you approach, the denser the colors appear, large and looming in size. You feel the blue swim beneath your hooves, tracing your fur like the water in an ocean.

The lavender purple isn’t so much surrounding you as it is embracing you. Like a cloud you would rest on, it takes in your shape, soft and forgiving. You can’t help the urge to fly a bit higher into the mass of color, hoping to find yourself lost in that touch. But as you ascend higher into it, you lose track of the blue beneath you.

Just like that, you’re lost again. Except this time, it’s in a cloud of endless purple, not a bottomless pit of darkness. Still, it got you no closer to finding solid ground.

You bite your lip in frustration, too angry to scream and too focused to even think of it. You have to focus this time, really think about Twilight, but not just that you have to find her. You have to think about what you’re going to say to her, about what you’re going to do when you meet her, about how the conversation is going to go.

She might still be angry at you, maybe a little frustrated that you’ve gone so far as to invade her privacy in sleep. It was possible she would be a little tart with you, maybe even ask you to leave again. But, you wouldn’t. You were sure of that. You had asked too big a favor to simply up and leave by her request.

When you see her-- yes when, not if-- you will do your surest to apologize for everything you did and said, every beat of your wings that caused that Rainboom and every word you let your lips speak without thought or filter.

You let out a silent gasp as the color around you begins to change again.

This time, however, it’s more than just color. There are shapes, figures, bends and angles to the colors that start to grow from the veil of lavender surrounding you. You can see trees, green and tall with strong brown trunks rising from some unseen ground. You follow their ascent with curious eyes, watching as the purple above you begins to split.

The dark shade begins to fade into an even darker color, the darkest of them all actually. You fear for a moment that you are being swallowed into the nothingness again, that you may not have ever really gained your focus. But when your head swings downward, determined to look away from the abyss, you see something else.

There’s green, so much green, a bountiful amount of it. It’s green like the grass outside Ponyville, like the meadow that Fluttershy raises her animal friends in. It looks so real, so detailed, so vivid and beautiful.

But more than anything else, it’s coming closer to you.

Your wings slow their beat as the land comes closer to you, lifting towards you gently. Your hooves touch down on the soft grass. You slowly fold your wings back into your sides as you take a real look at the land around you.

You’re in a meadow, of sorts, surrounded by trees. There isn’t anything immediately apparent or noticeable about them, only that they look real enough. But that was pretty much it. There wasn’t any noticeable landmark, no obvious sign as to where you were, and definitely no purple unicorn waiting for you with a shocked expression.

After everything you had just felt, everything from the second Luna cast her spell to the moment you were currently in, you could deftly conclude one detail. Dreams were, and always will be, one very obvious thing.

Weird!

But that didn’t matter right now, comfort that it was. This is where you needed to be; at least it felt like it.

It was hard to tell where exactly you were, with so many things shifting and changing, moving like they were made out of water. The trees were swaying back and forth like they were made of rubber, and the ground changes from lush and green to barren rock before turning back into an untouched field.

This may all have been formed quickly and easily, but it looks like it’s ready to fade away just as fast again.

You remember Luna’s words, her calm but serious warning to you. You need to focus, on more than just your goal. You need to know where you have to go, and to do that, you have calm yourself.

You blink once, trying to focus your mind. Nothing changes. You clench your eyes shut, trying again. But when you open them, the sky has changed from night to day and the trees are replaced by mountains.

It isn’t working.

You need to do more than just calming actions, you need to think calming thoughts, that’s what Luna told you. A totem, a pillar, something you know you can hold onto, something tangible that you can focus on. That shouldn’t be too hard, right?

But you have to be careful about this, Luna warned you. Trying to make a totem too big or too small would make it either too hard to keep solid or too easy to lose track of. It had to be something familiar, something you wouldn’t easily let go of.

The sky enters your mind, tempting you with its vast space and unending road, but you quickly push it away. You can’t hold onto the sky like that, that’s probably the biggest thing you could have ever thought of. Your head shakes once, then twice, but you can’t stop thinking about how much you love the sky.

But there are other things you care about. Smaller things, things you can carry. Feathers! You love the feathers in your wings. Their size, their shape, their ability to push and flow through the air. That’s what you love about them. Without them, you wouldn’t have wings to fly.

Something tickles your nose, causing you to scrunch up your muzzle in annoyance.

You open your eyes to see a feather hanging in the air.

Immediately, you know it’s not one of your feathers. Any pegasi can tell their feathers from another pegasi, like unicorns and their horns. Your feathers are shorter than most other pegasi, angled more towards the tip to have less drag. This feather was longer, a bit taller than yours, even without the pinion. There was no angle to it either.

Of course, the fact that it was purple was also a dead giveaway that it wasn’t your feather.

But still, there it sat, hovering in the air in front of you, neither falling to the ground nor swaying in the air. Like it was tied to a string, it twirled in front of you, carrying the focus of your gaze so easily, mesmerizing you with every small sway.

Hesitantly, you raise your hoof to touch it, careful as if it were to shatter into a million pieces. Given the absolute intangibility of everything else around you, such a thing wouldn’t be impossible, especially in a dream.

Yes, that’s right, this is a dream.

You had almost forgotten that, too focused on the feather and not enough as to why you are here. The feather is a totem, a thing to keep you grounded. The dream is your path, the road you have to take to reach your goal. You had to see Twilight, and she was waiting for you, sort of.

Your hoof reaches forward then, hesitance gone from its touch. The feather feels no different than any other feather. It has fibers running the thin skeletal frame, most likely made out of the same cartilaginous frame as your own feathery appendages. But then, of course it would.

It may not be your feather, but you did create it. You’re in a dream, so it’s whatever you want it to be.

You hold it in your hoof for a moment, thinking about how to carry it. You don’t have a bag on you, and there’s no way you’re walking with three hooves through a dreamscape looking for Twilight. It could fit into your wings, but just flexing the wrong way could cause it to tumble free and be lost into the realm.

You stop to think, really think. If you weren’t a pegasi, Luna and Celestia forbid, where would you keep something small? You don’t have a bag, you don’t have magic, and you don’t have anyplace immediately strong enough to hold. Your eyes close in annoyance, ears flicking above your head.

Ears…

The thought of them forces you to raise your other hoof up to them, feeling one of them as if it were the first time. They are strong, but not supportive. However, you have seen them used for other things before. Pinkie Pie holding a spatula between her head and one of her ears, Twilight holding a pencil in the same way, Applejack and a hammer when raising the barn, even Rarity with a few pins and needles.

Why not a feather?

You raise the hoof holding your dream-created part, biting your tongue as you slide the feather into place. The end of it pokes you briefly, earning a small grimace of discomfort, but another attempt you find it secured in place.

You can feel it sitting there, solid and strong, tangible. It’s proof that this is a dream, that this isn’t real, but that you are in control. It might feel wrong saying it later, but right now, in the moment, you can’t help but admit how good it feels. A part of you, a very persuasive and manipulative part of you, wants you to.

But you can’t, right now anyways. You came here for a reason, and that reason is what you have to focus on. Somewhere in this random free forming world is Twilight Sparkle, and you are going to find her.

It’s just then you realize you have no idea how to find her.

Even though Luna sent you to Twilight’s dream, even though she’s somewhere around here, you have no idea where. It’s like telling some pony that you’re up in the sky. It’s an awfully big sky to search through.

Your lips is twisted to and fro in between your teeth. There has to be something you can do, some sign or easy way to track the unicorn. This is her dream, or at least it’s supposed to be. It was hard to tell. Too hard. After all, it can’t be your dream. Luna told you she was going to send you to Twilight. You could trust her. She did trust you enough to invite you to her private chambers.

Yeah, you’re in Twilight’s dream. Now you just have to find her. It’s a good thing you know a foolproof way how to find some pony. You spread your wings, taking care to flex them in large circular gaits before crouching low the ground. Your eyes are looking upwards, ready to jump into the endless dark you see above you.

You flap your wings as you jump into the air.

You grimace as your body hits the ground again.

For a moment, you’re too shocked to move, sure that you must have just slipped on the ground before your wings had a chance to lift you. But, you beat your wings once, twice, then thrice, each one earning the same result as the next.

Nothing.

You have no idea why that would happen. That’s never happened before. You may not go into dreams that often, but when you dream, you can fly clear across Equestria in a couple of minutes, hay, maybe even a minute.

But here, apparently you can’t.

A disgruntled sigh leaves your lips, angered by the sudden discovery. But that’s all you do.You don’t curse, you don’t complain, and you don’t give up.

You came here to find Twilight, and you’re not going to leave until you do.

You stand to your hooves, sucking a deep breath of air through your nostrils, flaring your chest outwards. Like the proud and determined pegasi that you are, you march forward into the forest, ready for anything else Twilight’s dream might throw at you.

You know that you are in a dream, that all of what’s around you is only theoretically real. You know, like a filly knows when it’s hungry, that no matter what you do, nothing you do in here will have any physical impact on the world outside. You don’t have to be an egghead to know that.

But you swear to the princess that sent you here, you wish your body would stop feeling so tired.

It must have been hours within the dream, marching through the woods without a view of the sky above, searching fruitlessly for the unicorn you came here to find. You walk over the branches on the ground, feel the grumbled leaves beneath your hooves, and suck greedily on the cold air.

Your hoof rises to push aside another stubborn branch, eager to block your path through the woods. You push it out of the way with what was probably more force than necessary, but you can’t see it in yourself to care too much.

You walk two hoof lengths forwards to feel grass beneath your hooves, feeling an odd sense of joy at having something soft beneath your hooves again, instead of the harsh and unforgiving branches of the forest.

Your eyes glance over the open space in the forest, free of any trees or growth aside from the soft and, dare you think, inviting grass. There is, however, another figure in the open plain, something that wouldn’t belong in the forest, and something that wouldn’t belong in a glade either.

It’s the thing you have come all this way to find.

Twilight Sparkle.

You maintain just enough control of your brain to stop yourself from running forward and barreling into her. That would be the best way to ruin your journey, you’re sure about that. You crouch to the ground, hiding as much of yourself as you can from her, choosing instead to watch her from a distance.

She’s sitting alone in the meadow you’ve entered, resting in the open center free of any canopy the trees might create. Her eyes are skyward, away from you, but still showing enough for you to see her.

She doesn’t look any different now than what she does outside of her dreams. A lavender coat that is well cared for, a spiral horn pushing through the darker purple locks of her mane, that almost cute pink stripe that runs down her mane, and of course, her violet eyes.

It’s nothing special or significant to say it’s easy to see what a pony’s thinking when you look into their eyes. Even foals can tell when another pony is lying just by the look they give. The pupils dilate when they are curious or mesmerized, shrink when they’re scared or terrified, and glow when they’re happy.

That’s why you can tell how sad Twilight looks.

You still far away from her, too far to really say you’re near her at all, but even from here you know that she’s depressed. Her eyes are misted, lids closed to half-mast, and neck just barely holding her head up. Everything about her combined with everything you know about is screaming that she’s sad, morbidly so.

Her head lifts up then, looking around the sky above you. Your legs instinctively crouch, hiding you just a bit more in the dark thicket. A part of you wants to laugh, finding the situation of you hiding from a friend absolutely ludicrous, if not, hilarious. Not to mention that you, the pony with a rainbow for a mane and tail, is trying to hide at all. Just one good glance and she’d see you no problem.

But she doesn’t see you. She doesn’t even search the woods around her. Twilight’s gaze is stuck looking upwards, looking into a night sky that you know you both have seen more than a hundred times before.

Her horn is alight as her hooves dance in front of her, swaying back and forth. They gently mingle in a charade you can’t follow, twisting into odd shapes as they continue to move on some path your eyes can’t see. Her head tilts left, then right, then settles back to her center.

You watch her hooves continue to dance as her horn continues to shine, shimmering with that ever familiar lavender aura. You never were that curious about magic, but right now, watching her work, you can’t help but wonder why her horn glows purple. Why not pink? Why not blue? Why not any color that she wants? It’s always purple though, like Rarity’s white aura and Luna’s blue mist.

For a moment, you're curious what it is her magic is doing. You’ve seen Twilight do just about everything with her magic, but right now, you don’t see anything changing. There’s nothing moving around her, there’s nothing floating above her, and there’s nothing changing about her either.

She’s just there, perfect as she’ll ever be.

Slowly then, you watch her as she starts to fall backwards. You’re not worried or scared, you can’t be. She’s just falling back to lie back, like you do on picnics, or on clouds, or anywhere else you feel like just relaxing.

Her head hits the grass with an inaudible thud, her mane splayed around her and legs up in the air.

That’s when she sees you.

You freeze up. She freezes up. You both freeze like ice in the Crystal Mountains without love around the Crystal heart.

In a flash you could later admit to being impressed by, Twilight flipped herself over and onto her four hooves. She’s crouched low to the ground, staring at you with the same large teary eyes. Your wings have extended to their fullest length, sure for a moment that she’s going to run. But she doesn’t. Instead, she does the very thing you have been hoping the past day for.

She speaks to you.

“R-Ra-in-b-bow?” Twilight whispers your name like it’s spelt across broken glass. It only takes a glance to realize that her speaking your name must feel like walking across that same glass.

Her eyes are tearing up, the mist from before trailing down her cheeks in thick trails. Her lower lip has retracted into her mouth, stick between both of her teeth as she bites on it. Maybe it’s to keep herself from screaming, maybe it’s to keep herself from sobbing.

All you know is that she’s still in pain, regardless of the kind.

“H-Hi… Twilight…” Even in your most optimistic of moods, you know that response is cowardly. It sounds just as jaded and nervous as the unicorn is. Your tongue finds its way between your teeth, held in place by your clenched jaw.

“Ho-why-I don’t…” Twilight rambles incoherently the as she continues to gaze at you, eyes unmoving and no less pain filled with every passing moment. A moment of fear flashes through you that something bad will happen.

Maybe she’ll wake up, maybe she’ll run away, maybe she’ll just scream for you to leave again. So many maybes and you have no idea what you think would be worse.

“Is that… you?” Her question is spoken as if she’s doubtful of herself. “As in… really you, the real you?” You don’t miss the way her legs are shaking. You still can’t tell if that’s her getting ready to run, or being too weak to stand.

It honestly feels like you can’t tell anything about her.

“Y-Yeah,” You admit again, voice as unsure and jaded as the first time you had spoken. “I… I got myself to Canterlot, took me a good couple of hours to fly all the way there. It’s just… I had an idea of how to talk to you, since you didn’t want to see me, and I know you have the force field magic thing. So then, the only pony who could help me would be another pony who was good with magic. Another pony… like Princess Luna.”

The gasp that comes from Twilight is more audible to you than a clap of thunder.

“The princess?!” She asks without feigning her shock, the surprise of your admittance overtaking her appearance of pain, if only for a moment. Her wide eyes are almost all you can see when her hoof raises to hide her mouth, which you are more than sure is agape. A nervous chuckle flows through over your lips.

“Yeah,” you don’t stutter this time, but it’s of little consequence. “I… yeah, my… idea was that you didn’t want to see me, but I really wanted to apologize to you, so… I… I needed to think of someway to talk to you without seeing you. Like… did you know I spent the entire day after you told me to leave just thinking about you?” Even to your own ears, something about that question felt… implied.

“R-Really?” A hot blush over Twilight’s cheeks is all you need to see to know you had said something wrong.

“Well, not like… yeah, but…” A gruff sigh of annoyance is pushed through your lungs. Your hoof raises itself to your head, scratching at your mane as you avert your eyes from Twilight again. It’s hard to look at her right now. You're sitting in front of the mare you had literally called in a favor from the princess to see, and you’re too embarrassed to even look at her. Perfect.

You need to look at something else, even if for just a moment. The woods around you are plain, at least compared to the real forest back in Ponyville. The same can be said for the meadow you’re in. There’s nothing around you to look at, so you look in the next most logical place.

You look up.

You suck in a breath of air in shock.

You had thought before that the night sky Twilight was looking at was the same one in the waking world. Littered with stars and given the grand white moon. A dark canvas with empty space, free for anything to fly in.

That’s not what this sky is. The sky is alight with color.

You remember, like a passing dream, the cloud and cascade of colors you descended through in order to make it here. You were surrounded by them like you were caught in a net, lost and confused, trapped and uncertain. Now, now you were looking up at the display, watching the same colors in the same pattern making the same movements that they had before.

You have never seen anything so beautiful before.

The night sky is dancing with life, colors blending and twisting together in ways you are 100% sure would never happen in Equestria, even with the most powerful of magic. The colors are twisting into one another, mixing like streams before exploding into confetti and ending at marvelous displays of rainbow hues.

You can see so much in the colors as well.

Entire shapes taking form through the mirage of color, entire figures and beings rising and falling through the rainbow cloud. You can see a pony with a beard as long as your mane, running through the gray clouds with trails of lavender falling behind him. You can see a figure proud tall and white shining with a golden hue through the mass of white. The dark and smaller colors both cower in fear and adoration of the power.

But then, there’s the pink and gold jumping and hovering around the others, making sure that none of the colors are neglected from their touch, curly wisps of salmon color jumping around as soft elegant feathers of gold fall from the yellowish cloud.

You can’t miss the strength of the orange cloud either, as hidden as it was. You think for a moment that it might be too mixed or too buried to really shine, but every motion that it makes to break the surface conveys to you a power you can barely fathom and a level of dedication you can only respect.

But what those figures really are, who they really are, you aren’t ignorant to. You’re a bit thick at times, but you aren’t blind, never have been.

You see Pinkie Pie in the pink, Fluttershy in the yellow, Applejack in the orange, Rarity in the White, Celestia in gold, and even that old unicorn Starswirl in the gray.

Then there is you, and you’re sure it is you.

You’re flying through the colors, leading their path, and directing their flow. For all intents and purposes, Twilight made you, or a figure like you, the brush to paint this dream.

“It’s beautiful.”

The words leave your lips before you even realize you had thoughts them. Regardless, you don’t want to take them back. It’s hard to say you’ve ever spoken more honest words before.

“You… You mean that?” Twilight’s question from behind you catches you off guard. You make a small jump of surprise as you turn to see her. She still looks a little pained, eyes wet and mane a mess, but she looks far less mournful than before.

“Yeah,” you breathlessly reply, eyes glancing over Twilight once more before you let them gaze upon the sky high above. “It’s… it’s like watching an ocean in the sky.” You compare to the best of your literary abilities. You’re sure Twilight’s heard better.

But you mean what you say, even if you were able to describe what you see in words, the beauty that is falling over your eyes, you doubt that you’d be able to ever do it justice. You’d give up flying a day to stare at this, you’d miss a chance to go to a Wonderbolt show for this, you may even forget to pull a prank on Pinkie Pie just to watch this for one more hour.

It’s just that good.

“You know, I never really thought about art before.” Twilight’s words distract you, earning your gaze. She’s fidgeting. A lot. “I always used to think that stuff involving arts and was something left to ponies with more time on their hooves. I love books. I love to study. I used to think that all the time.”

You have no idea where she is going with this. At all. You wouldn’t consider yourself one for art either. Maybe the art of flying, but comparing that to what was currently moving in the sky was like comparing a stream to a waterfall. It just wasn’t justice.

“But then when I came to Ponyville, I started to learn so much more than just friendship.” Her smile is genuine, peaceful, and before all else, beautiful. “I learned how to care for other ponies, how find happiness in the simple things, how to take a lazy afternoon even.”

“That one’s on me, right?” You say the words with only a little bit of forethought, but they do justice, as Twilight giggles at your response. That makes you feel good as well.

“Yes, you did,” she admits, but she’s not done talking yet. “But you also taught me something else, something I’m not even sure you know.” Now she has you.

“What? What’s that?” Your two parts curious and one part worried. Instead of giving you a straight and easy answer, she does something different instead. You should have seen it coming, because you’ve always had a hard time understanding Twilight. Not as hard as Pinkie Pie, but much harder than Fluttershy or Applejack, or even Rarity.

She trots over to your side, settling beside you on her rear haunches. Her coat touches yours and mingles with the fur, twisting them together like knots in your mane. She’s warm against your side, like a pillow that’s been sitting in front of a fire for just the right amount of time. Not too hot to be annoying, and not so quick that you can hardly tell the difference. Just the right amount of warmth to make you feel comfortable.

You feel her head lower beneath yours, muzzle resting just below your chin. Your only further confused by her actions, sure that this is some kind of misunderstood gesture on her part. Then you feel a bit of force being supplied by her head, pushing against your weight. It takes a second for the action to kick in, but you allow your muscles to relax, letting the force Twilight is supplying to raise your head.

It forces your vision to return to the sky above, to watch the stars dance, the pictures move, and the colors to blend in an unending display. Even now, what has to be the third time you’ve seen it in the past short amount of time, it continues to take your breath away. You feel Twilight’s head move out from beneath yours, but your head is secure enough to continue to gaze at the dream filled sky.

“Even though this is a dream,” Twilight begins to talk to you, outside your eyesight but easily within earshot. “Even though this is something I don’t think I could ever be able to do in real life, I still made this with my magic. I made this with the very thing I have been working to perfect my entire life.” You don’t know where she’s going with what she’s saying, but you continue to listen as you also continue to stare.

“You’ve worked all your life for something as well.” That earns another turn of your gaze. “You’ve been flying since you were just a filly, working to make yourself stronger, faster, the best that you could ever possibly be. Every race is a challenge to yourself, every flight preparation for the one that comes next. You’re the absolute best pony I know when it comes to pushing past your limits.”

You try not to blush, you really do, but there are some things that are impossible even inside a dream.

“What you don’t realize is that when you are doing your best, when you’re doing what you love, it looks amazing to everypony else.” She has you there. Has you as in you didn’t understand a word of that.

“What… does that mean?” You phrase your words carefully. The last thing you need is for something to go wrong because you said something bad.

“What I mean is this Rainbow.” You see Twilight’s hoof raise by your side, swiping over the sky in a single stroke. The moving collage of wonder above ripples with the motion. You feel yourself suck in a breath of air at the sight. To you, it looked like the purple unicorn had just moved a mountain.

“That was easy for me, because this is my dream.” Twilight explains easily. “And because I did it so easily, I don’t feel anything because of it.” You feel her hoof press against your chest. Your eyes look down, seeing the foreign hoof push into your fur like a hug from behind you. Another roll of your eyes lets you see Twilight’s own, staring at you with a level of compassion that was almost alien to you.

“When you fly at your best, when you are breaking records, it’s just an everyday thing to you. It’s nothing you're overly impressed by, because you only want to do better. But when some pony else looks at you, when another pony is watching your work, they can’t even think about looking away.” Is she right about that?

“How… How would you know… something like that?” She smiles at you again, that peaceful alluring smile.

“Because that’s how I look at you Rainbow, ever since you first ‘showed off your stuff’ to me at our first meeting. What you did with such ease, I couldn’t even blink while watching. Yet, you just took wing and flew off, like it was just another day.” You feel her draw closer, her breath gently brushing against your muzzle. “Do you think I get to see a pegasus move like that everyday?”

You can’t stop yourself.

“I sure hope not, cause that would mean I’m not the fastest pegasus alive.” Your cocky grin takes its place across your lips. Twilight mirrors it with her own graceful smile. You calm yourself quickly though, knowing that you can’t play all of this off. Twilight meant everything she said, now you have to show her you understood. Otherwise, it’s right back to square one.

“Then do you understand why I was so mad?” The question is not one you are expecting, but in reality, you should have. It was such an obvious thing to ask. It’s a wonder in itself you weren’t more prepared for it. But you know better, now at least. Think, then speak.

“Yeah, I do understand,” you carefully explain, making sure every ounce of pain you felt was carried in your words. “What I said... it was stupid, beyond stupid. Even for me.” You look at her with the most heartfelt expression you can manage, short only a few tears to shed.

“Magic means so much to you, like flying to me.” You take a short breath of air before continuing. “It’s what you have worked on all your life. You’re not just good at it, you’re the best at it. But you don’t get to be the best without making a few mistakes along the way. I can speak from experience on that one.” You let out a small chuckle, trying to break the tension you created. It only makes the air feel thicker.

“Look, you said you like my flying, because it’s... like this,” your hoof stretches across the sky as you speak, making sure Twilight knows what you’re speaking of. “But, really, your magic back in real life is like that to me. No matter what you do, no matter how many mistakes you might make, you keep moving forward.” You swallow on something, unsure if it’s saliva in your mouth, or just butterflies tryings to escape your gut again.

“You’re the only pony I know who can always find a way to move forward, always.”

You’re blushing and you know it. You don’t need to raise a hoof to your cheeks to feel the heat surrounding your head. However, you do need to blink to assure yourself that the unicorn next to you is blushing all the same. It’s dull against her purple coat, a shade of red under a shade of purple, but you know it’s there. If not by what you see, then by how she reacts.

Twilight twists her head from you, hiding it in the crook of her leg and chest. You can’t help but smile at the sight.

This… you know how to work with this.

You lower your head to her, letting your muzzle tickle at her stretched neck. You feel her coat shiver at your touch, bristling at the sensation. You nuzzle her a bit closer, rubbing up and down her exposed coat. You can feel her body press further and further against you.

Slowly then, hesitantly, you feel Twilight’s head twist back, pushing against you as it does so. You raise your own as turns her head towards yours. You have only a moment to realize that she’s nestling herself under your head like before. This time, however, she’s there to stay, leaning against you and sighing in utter bliss.

With a pure genuine smile, you rest your head over hers, letting your wings unfurl from your back and surround both of you in their embrace. You hear Twilight give a contest sigh from beneath you, feeling the breath move across your coat as well.

That’s a good sign.

You know that there’s an amazing display of magic just above your head, an art form that you’ll never be able to see outside of this dream. It really is a once in a lifetime sight, and you’re missing out on it, but with Twilight tucked just beneath your head, settled peacefully into the crook of your neck, you could miss out on the chance to perform a Double Rainboom and still be happy.

Still, there is one question you have to ask, no matter how awkward it might be.

“So, all’s forgiven?” You venture nervously, unsure if everything is alright. But, the calm touch from Twilight, her gentle embrace, doesn’t change with your words. Instead, she just continues to speak.

“Of course, Rainbow. I probably would have apologized first if you didn’t beat me to it.” You can’t stop yourself from saying what you do next, mostly because you want to say it.

“Well, I am the fastest pegasus alive, even in your dreams egghead.” She laughs, a sound that you know you absolutely enjoy to hear. You hold her a bit tighter as she does so, and you can feel her gripping you just the same.

“Just promise me one thing Rainbow.” You’d promise her the sun if it meant she would keep holding you like this.

“What’s that?” With her face pressed to your underbelly, her coat hairs tickling your skin, you can feel the smile that works its way to her lips.

“Be there when I wake up.”

You feel your legs involuntarily hold her harder. Her warmth seeped into you even more, soaking into your coat like water into a sponge. You couldn’t get enough of it, and from the way she was holding you in return, Twilight couldn’t either. But that more than just okay.

“Do you promise?” You don’t need to think hard to know your answer.

“Yeah, I promise Twi, I promise.”

“Prmish,” you feel yourself mutter into some soft material. It’s warm, and fuzzy, but it has too much give to be Twilight’s coat. You twist your head, releasing a groan of discomfort as you do so. Your muscles are tight, like they’ve been sitting still for too long.

You stretch your legs, earning another disappointed sigh from your lips. They push out away from your body as far as they can, probably making you look like a cat waking from some mid-day nap.

Nap… dreams…

Your eyes open to their fullest as the realization of what happened hits you.

You’re not next to Twilight, or even in a meadow for that matter. You’re back in Luna’s room, in a chamber filled with a visible darkness, sitting on a pillow that was as soft as a cloud, but as warm as the sun’s glow.

You raise your hoof to your head. It doesn’t hurt, and you’re not dizzy, but you have to check for something. The end of your leg ruffles your rainbow mane, moving over your head and around your ear. Nothing. You twist your head, performing the same quick search for the other size. Again, nothing.

“Your totem is gone, Rainbow Dash.” You almost jump out of your skin as the voice rips through the stillness that once belonged to the air. It isn’t particularly deep or cold, it was just a complete surprise to hear.

A small twist of your head, in addition to a bend of your back, and you see Princess Luna sitting opposite of you again, head laying peacefully over her two forelegs. Her billowy mane is still flowing around her, gently cascading over her features, giving a look so peaceful that it almost makes you feel tired again. But there’s something else about her that keeps you wide-awake and alert.

The proud smile set over her lips.

“So… did I just wake up… or…” You don’t know why that’s your first question. But then again, this is the first time you’ve been able to walk into another pony’s dream. The princess’s smile doesn’t grow, but it doesn’t falter either. Instead, her head slowly rises from her hooves, stopping only when she is once again looking over you. You can’t say looking down on you, because that’s not something she would do.

“I chose to take you from the dream world, as you appeared to have finished your conversation with Twilight Sparkle.” You see something sparkle in one of her eyes. “You did come to an agreement.”

“Y-Yeah, we did.” You feel one of your legs nervously run up and down the back of your head, eyes averting themselves from the alicorn’s gaze. You remember with vivid clarity how you hugged Twilight, how she hugged you back, how good it felt for her to talk to you again, and how you promised her…

“Oh!” You let out a small cry as you jump to your hooves. Luna’s eyes open wide with your cry.

“Is something… amiss?” She questions to you, but you have a feeling that she knows all too well why you are in such an excited state.

“I-I’m sorry princ-LUNA!” You shout her name, earning another raise of the princess’s brow. “Luna, yeah, just Luna, sorry, but I gotta go. I made a promise. A big promise. Biggest one yet. Can’t mess this up, not this time.” Your wings flare as you prepare yourself for another marathon flight home, ready to beat the sun to Ponyville.

“Rainbow Dash.” The commanding tone of your name freezes you in place. Your eyes, still wide and excited, look backwards to see Luna watching you, slowly rising from her pillow with her wings drawn into her sides and mane billowing in the unfelt wind.

“Y-Yeah?”

“Be careful this time.” You can’t help but smile a bit wider at her words.

“I will, promise.” You watch her smile grow fonder as your words leave your lips. “And thank you so much Luna. Thank you.” Of the many things you are sure of in that moment, there is one thing you could swear by your grave on.

You know for a fact that the princess is blushing.

“Y-Yes, well…” Her voice stutters and drifts off, leaving you a bit confused and a bit more lost. Her hoof lightly waves at you as she speaks again. “You best begin your flight now if you wish to reach Ponyville before my night’s end.” Her words grip and throw you back into reality harder than any hedge wind ever could.

“Horsefeathers!” You curse aloud. “You’re right, again! Later Princess!”

Your wings send you over Luna’s balcony and into her night, leaving the princess alone in her room. Your muscles feel refreshed, your wings at ease. The air is cool, though the night is old, and you know that there isn’t much time for you to get back home.

But somehow, you know, you just know, that everything is going to be okay.

Author's Note

Thanks for the ride! Onwards to new boundaries!