Spike set his quill down, and was about to roll the letter up into a cylinder, but Lero stopped him with an upturned hand.

“I have a P.S.,” he explained.

So Spike grabbed a new sheet of blank paper and took up his quill again.

P.S. — I'm worried about Twilight. I cannot say this with absolute certainty, but I almost think that Twilight might be going through some sort of self-imposed penitence over this. It’s gotten especially worse during the timeframe I began helping Pinkie farm. We all know that she reads books voraciously. But usually, if you watch her as she reads, you’ll see keen attentiveness and critical thinking in her eyes. She genuinely enjoys every minute of it.

But now... she reads like a judge had sentenced her to stay put until she’s counted each individual grain of sand in a desert. No enjoyment, no Levity. At best determination, at worst, misery. Like she isn’t so much working as wearing herself out. Grinding away, hour after hour, not letting herself quit even when her eyes burn. It worries me that she NEVER leaves the house anymore.

Left alone, all she does is eat, sleep, read, and bathe every now and then, and sometimes we have to remind her to do the things beside read. Thankfully me and Rarity can always get her out of it for a bit... but only for so long, and never by her own initiative. But I hope this is just my imagination running away with me. For all I know, she IS making solid progress with all that reading.

Nonetheless, penitence or no, there’s no denying the fact that she feels personally responsible for her friends’ condition, and suffers from survivor’s guilt over the Swap passing her by. We need to figure out what, if anything, we can do to help her with it.

“I... I really think you’re making a mountain out of a molehill on this, Lero,” the dragon contented, in a troubled little voice. “I mean... yeah, she’s... she’s REALLY gotten into her studies these past few days, I won’t deny, but... Is it really that big a deal? I mean, I've seen her when she really goes around the bend... compared that time she’d created a riot because she was afraid to be tardy, this ain't nothin'.”

“As I already said, this COULD just be my imagination running away with me. Believe me, I’m NOT afraid of being wrong on this!”

Spike set the pages of Lero’s letter neatly in a stack. “Do you want me to send it?”

Lero thought about it. “Actually, give me all the pages of that letter except the last one, with the P.S. on it... there’s something I want to do before we send it.”

Spike passed them over, and Lero walked into a different wing of the library.

* * *

Twilight Sparkle had barricaded herself in a dusty corner of this room. Although he couldn’t even see her, he knew she was there because of the tight wall of books she’d erected around herself.

Books on psychology, cutie marks, magic, history, guides to fixing the effects of faulty spells... all these books were from other libraries, she having poured through all relevant tomes in this one some time ago. They stretched up halfway towards the ceiling. She had literally bricked herself into this corner with all these books. He recalled stories of her making book forts as a filly, but this was clearly not a structure of amusement and comfort... he half-felt like she was sealing herself inside, as much as the rest of the world out.

He hesitated. From behind the book, he could hear the dim chime of magic, as pages were turned, and a quill scribbled notes upon paper.

“Hey, Twilight?” Lero called. “Twilight!”

There came a exceedingly peevish noise from within her enclosure of literature. “You know, I’d be able to get a lot more reading done, if I wasn’t being interrupted by you guys every two minutes!”

Every two minutes? Lero remembered it a little differently. Yesterday and the day before, they’d only intruded on her studies a total of four times... mostly for meals. However, he let the comment pass.

“Twilight, listen... while you’re busy reading anyway, you really might want to read THIS.” He stretched his arm out over the top of the book-wall, and dropped his letter down, where Twilight was.

“Huh?” For a couple seconds, he could only hear Twilight reading the letter to herself in a rushed mutter. Then several columns of books lifted up towards the ceiling, like a castle’s portcullis.

She stepped out, her eyes still skimming over sentences, turning pages as she read the story of Pinkie Pie’s equilibrium. Up until halfway through the story, he could see hope and excitement in her eyes, but from three-quarters of the way through, it dropped into flat disappointment.

“This isn’t going to help me at all,” she told Lero, at the end of the last page.

Lero was incredulous. “Didn’t you read it?”

Twilight Sparkle snorted. “Of course I read it! But from where I’m standing, this story of yours amounts to nothing more than another meaningless dead end.”

“Meaningless,” Lero said flatly, his elation draining away, replaced with disappointment and resentment. “I helped Pinkie! Helping them has been the whole point of this, hasn't it!? She’s able to function as a farmer now. She’s NICE to ponies again, especially the Apple family. She’s not destroying Applejack’s life anymore... or her own! She’s YOUR friend, Twilight... and mine, too! Are you really telling me that’s all MEANINGLESS to you?!”

The purple unicorn let out an irritated exhale, as though he were raising a giant stink over a misplaced comma.

“Look... Lero... love of my life...” her hoof reaching up to her forehead, her tone bordering on condescension. “I’m not saying your heart’s in the wrong place. You’re trying to think up ways to help me and all our other friends, just like with that clever but unusable slot machine theory of yours. That’s commendable of you. What you went and did for Pinkie... yeah, it was nice of you to do.”

“But...?” prompted Lero.

“But there’s a huge difference between treating the symptoms and treating the actual malady!” she stamped her hoof. “Any FOAL knows that!”

"Yes, and any FOAL knows that if untreated, it's the symptom that kills!" He glared back. "I'm sorry if I expected at least a ‘thank you,’ or maybe ‘Huh, well, now we understand how this works a bit better, maybe this is useful,’ rather than ‘This is useless.’"

Twilight snorted in response; a sound somewhere between annoyance and dismissal. The human blinked, and for just a second, it wasn’t his sweet Twilight Sparkle standing in front of him, but Pinkamena Diane Pie, the agricultural CEO of Scowls and Growls, Incorporated.

“My job is to find a CURE for this Swap. A CURE. So I have no interest in any sort of ‘equilibrium’ for Pinkie, or any of the others. We’re trying to bring the old Pinkie BACK, not get her to settle comfortably into a new role!”

She floated the letter back to him. “So go ahead and have Spike mail this to Lyra. I’m sure she’ll pat you on the back just like I did. In the meantime, I have to come up with an ACTUAL solution, so feel free to keep on doing whatever it is you’re doing!”

Lero paused, staring at her. Part of him was angry enough to want to start a shouting match. Honestly, if he stoked the indignation in his stomach, he was sure he could make it last for hours. Instead, he just clenched a fist, letting the hurt of her dismissal staunch the anger, both draining from him, and just leaving him numb. He didn't have time to mope or argue, he had the whole day planned out. So he simply took his letter to Lyra from her.

“Very sorry for intruding on your time, Miss Sparkle,” he said, with the same polite, formal, yet impersonal tone he’d have used to ask a stranger to dance with him at a ballroom. “Good luck with your research.” She nodded, and marched back into her miniature book fortress, shutting its ‘portcullis’ behind her, and he turned around, heading back towards where Spike was.

After a few steps he suddenly heard her cry out: “Lero! Wait! Stop! Come back!”

He ignored her, his pace unchanged, continuing to leave... until he physically couldn’t. He looked down to see that a magical glow kept both his feet felt glued to the floor. And then came a crash of scattered hardbacks and paperbacks as Twilight burst through her wall of books like a child through a sandcastle. She galloped to him, rearing up to hug him.

“I’m sorry!” she said, shakily. “I’m really, really, sorry! I didn't mean to hurt you. I've just been... stretched to my limit. I feel like a rubber band pulled taut... and just a touch, and I snap!” She shivered. He turned himself around, so he could properly hug her back. She looked up into his eyes, her expression pleading. “I really DO think what you did to Pinkie Pie was incredible, even if you didn’t cure her! I’d love to see her truly happy again, even if she’s still a farmer and not a party girl!”

He tightened his hug on her. “Then come with me, Twilight. Let’s visit Sweet Apple Acres... you can see Pinkie for yourself! Or, better yet, let’s you and I go out to eat breakfast together at a restaurant first.” He helped lower her back to the floor. “You’ve been cooped up in this library for quite a while, it’s time you got some fresh air!”

She smiled at him, and for a moment, it looked as though she were going to agree. But then... she looked back. From this angle, he couldn't tell if it was at her pile of books... or at her cutie mark.

“I’m sorry, Lero...” She was retreating from him slowly, back towards the clutter of books she’d burst out from. He had an eerie déjà vu feeling of Pinkie backing away from Big Mac. “But w...what if I’m on the cusp of discovering the Cure? Or if I lose my place and miss something important? For all I know, it could be in the very next paragraph!"

She looked apologetically at him. "I can’t let up now... maybe the Swap is a time-sensitive condition, and it becomes permanent and incurable if you’re not fast enough! What if one of them hurts themselves somehow because I wasn't fast enough? I can't let up looking for a cure! One of these scholars HAS to have found some sort of answer to our predicament! I can almost sense it... it’s somewhere in the book I’m reading. And if not there, then maybe the next book I pick up. Or the next book. Or the next..."

Lero stomach felt like a cold pit, but he swallowed hard, and managed to smile. “S-sure, Twilight. Of course. After all, you gotta do what you gotta do..."

"Thank you..." The wall of books closed up back around her, and he continued walking away.

When he was out of the room, he let out the breath he was holding in. Was she being compelled by her own cutie mark... or was it just her own neurotic nature that was making her obsessive to the point of hermitage? Or was such distinction meaningless? He hoped he'd not have to add another name to his list of ponies needing help... four more was a handful as it was. She was better off than any of the swapped... So far.

He went back to Spike, had him send the full letter to Lyra, and went to leave the house, firmly putting Twilight out of his mind for now, opening the front door.

“Howdy, Lero!” He stopped short, barely keeping himself from walking into Pinkie Pie, who had let herself in from outside. She smiled at his start of surprise. “How’s mah two-legged farmhoo... sorry, farm-hand doin’?”

“I’m doing well!” Lero told her. “Good to see you! What brings you out here?”

“Nothin’ TOO big. Won’t stay long. Ah’m actually here ta borrow a book!”

“A book?” Lero asked.

“Eeeyup! Ah’m givin’ mahself time ta read! Ah shocker there, Ah know.” She looked at him. “Mebbe yew could help me find it?”

“Well... as much as I live in this library, I’m really not much of a librarian,” Lero admitted.

“Then mebbe Twilight could...”

“I think I’ll go fetch Spike for you, Twilight’s kind of...”

“No,” Twilight Sparkle said, poking her head in from around the corner, silencing their talking over each other. “I can help you, Pinkie. I’d be glad to help you. Whatever you need.”

Pinkie blithely stepped inside, as Lero stepped out.

“Pinkie,” he heard Twilight start, “I’ve been meaning to ask... how HAVE things been going down on the farm?”

“We’re gettin’ back on track!” Pinkie told her. “Lero’s been really nice... helpin‘ me out round the farm for an hour or two each day! Seein’ ‘im at it takes me back to the good ol‘ days, when he was jest startin‘ out in Ponyville!”

He shut the door, letting the friends talk, giving a small smile. He then focused his mind on what he had ahead of him. Busy, busy day today.

* * *

It took some searching and asking around, but Lero was able to find Fluttershy in the marketplace the next morning. She was impossible to miss.

She was dressed as a piñata. There was no getting around it: her outfit was a full-body costume of a green-colored donkey piñata. How Applejack had achieved the papier-mâché look without using actual papier-mâché was beyond Lero. As though this wasn’t ridiculous enough, she wore a large galosh for a hat, (not a pair of galoshes, just a single galosh.)

...Somehow, he had the impression that the galosh was Fluttershy’s own personal touch. Even Applejack had to know which part of the body a shoe went.

“Oh, hello, Lero!” she greeted cheerfully.

“Hi, Fluttershy!” he greeted her back. “I see you’ve been shopping at Applejack’s! You really DO look silly!”

“Thanks!” said Fluttershy, pulling a goofy face. The eyes on her donkey head were really googly; bouncing around whenever she moved her head. “Everypony else thinks so too! Applejack’s the best fashionista ever; her selection is just INCREDIBLE! This won’t be the last time I’m visiting the Carousel Boutique, I can promise you that!”

“Wonderful!” Lero said, wondering what Pinkie Pie would do with all the outfits Fluttershy bought, after they found the Cure. Or would they belong to Fluttershy, still? “Just keep an eye out for hungry children armed with baseball bats!”

“Ha ha ha! Will do!” She turned as if to leave, but Lero stopped her with a hand on her back.

“Actually, Fluttershy... I was wondering if you and I could hang out together sometime today?”

“Hang out?” She took a step back from him, suddenly a little uncertain. “Well... I’m sorry, Lero, but today’s kind of a bad day. I still haven’t begun any of the shopping that Mr. and Mrs. Cake need me to do, and then there’ll be so much baking and selling to do when I get back, so it’s going to be a big, busy day for me at Sugar Cube Corner.”

Lero shook his head sadly. “Aw, that’s too bad. The thing was, I woke up this morning and... I just had this powerful craving to have lots and lots of jokes told to me.”

Her ears perked up. “Jokes?!” she repeated, surprised bordering on incredulous.

Lero nodded. “It was the oddest thing, but I just... got this hunger about it. You know how that is? Like I could spend an entire hour, just listening to joke after joke!”

“An entire HOUR?” It was as if she’d unearthed pirate treasure. “Seriously?!”

He nodded. “Life’s just gotten so dreadfully, dreadfully serious for me, lately! I’m FAMISHED for some comic relief! But... if you’re busy with other things, Fluttershy, I certainly wouldn’t want to impose, so...”

He might as well have dangled raw bacon over a dog’s nose.

“Well, now, let’s not be hasty!” Fluttershy cut in. “Y-yeah, I got shopping to do, but you could always tag along, couldn’t you?”

“Certainly I could!” Lero agreed. Really, the ‘where’ didn't matter much at all, just as long as it got her talking.

“Great! Follow me!” And he followed the yellow pegasus to a merchant’s booth. “How much for a single box of confectioner’s sugar, miss?”

“Eight bits,” the merchant told her.

Fluttershy tilted herself so her right saddlebag pressed against Lero’s hand. “Lero, can you please reach inside my saddlebag? You’ll find my coin pouch there.”

He pulled it out: it bulged with bits.

“I’d like you to completely fill my bags with boxes of confectioner’s sugar. Please pay this nice mare eight bits for each individual box, then put it in my bag. And while you’re doing all that, I’ll tell you all my best jokes! Does that sound good?”

“Perfectly good!” Huh, no 'if that's alright with you.' Honestly, Lero did like her being a bit more assertive like this. She wasn’t even being over-the-top about it, either! There were some nice aspects of the swap! Well, once the horrific flaws were dealt with.

He heard the merchant groan lowly through her teeth; for this would be a tediously long purchase.

“Now,” said Fluttershy, brimming with excitement. “What’s the different between a mosquito and a fly?”

Lero shook his head while counting out the first set of eight bits from the bag. "I give."

“A mosquito can fly, but a fly can’t mosquito!”

He laughed along with that as he put the first box in her bag, and shook out more money.

“What kind of flower grows on your face?”

He thought about that. Irises, he was tempted to say, but chose to shrug.

“Tulips.”

“Tulips?” His look was blank.

She pointed at her own mouth. “Two lips.”

“Ohhhh!” he said. “Got it!”

“What sort of...?”

“GOSH, Fluttershy!” he cut in brightly, turning to her. “You just know so many jokes... it’s like you’ve been telling them since the day you were born! I bet that’s how you got your cutie mark, right?”

“My cutie mark?” The interruption startled her a bit. “Um, no, that isn’t the case at all.”

“It’s not?” asked Lero, wide-eyed. Acting! “Well, now I’m super-curious! You HAVE to tell me how it was you GOT that mark of yours!” He gave her his eagerest smile.

“Well... uh... okay, I suppose I could do that for you...”

* * *

Today would mark one of the most pivotal turning points in Fluttershy’s life, but she had no way of knowing that when she woke up that morning. For today showed every appearance of being like any other day.

...Like EVERY other day.

She rose up from bed later than her sisters, so she knew Pa would have his stoniest frown for her, when he saw her...

* * *

“Wait, wait,” Lero interrupted. “So you had sisters?”

“Oh, yes!” said Fluttershy, “I was the youngest of four daughters. My third-oldest sister’s full name was Blinquesa Limestone Pie, but we all called her ‘Blinkie.' My second-oldest sister’s was Incandesce Marble Pie, but we all called her Inkie. Then there was Susan Cloudy Quartz Pie, my Ma, and finally, Clyde Igneous Rock Pie, my Pa.”

"...So what’s YOUR full name, then?”

“Fluttershy.”

Lero let that hang for a beat, before dropping eight bits in front of the merchant and looking back to her. “Not... ‘Fluttershy Samantha Pie,’ or anything like that?”

Fluttershy shifted her weight a bit as he put in the next box. “Why would it be?”

The merchant rolled her eyes a bit as Lero laughed. “To think there’s actually a part of Equestria where they have Susans and Clydes!”

She actually smiled shyly, the way she used to. “My family were all Manenonites, so they used Manenonites names.”

“It’s just that... those are the sort of names that HUMANS would name THEIR kids!”

“Really?” She looked downright stunned. “Humans are Manenonites?”

He almost stopped short at that. “Do I look like a Manenonite to you?”

“Not at all!” said Flutershy, with a merry flutter of wings. “Your smile is too well-practiced for that!”

"I think it's just a weird coincidence... Manenonite names just happen to be similar to most human names." He thought up another question. “Are Manenonites monogamous, Fluttershy? You mentioned just ONE mother and father...”

“Oh, no, no, NO!” she was quick to assure him. “Our customs are a bit different from most ponies, but we’re not WEIRD.” She paused. “Inkie and Blinkie always said there used to be two other Mas in our family, but they both... passed away, long before I was born.”

“From what?”

“Ennui,” Fluttershy told him. “It’s a very dangerous, contagious affliction in the part of the world where I grew up.”

Lero waited for her to laugh at her own punchline, waited for her to say ‘Gotcha!’ But that didn't happen.

"Hold on, Fluttershy," said the human, "Didn't you say that you were the youngest of four daughters? I only counted three, including yourself."

Fluttershy blinked several times. "Oh yeah! I'm forgetting my oldest sister, Maud... but we hadn't brought her into the family yet at that point in time."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I mean," Fluttershy explained, "That Maud had lived alone with her mother in a smaller rock farm just two miles from our own. We were next-door neighbors! Pa and Maud's mother had been good friends for many years, long before I was even born, and he'd often go and pay visits to her house! Usually, late at night. When Maud's Ma finally succumbed to her own ennui, Pa brought Maud into our family and made her a Pie, and Maud and I've been bestest sisters ever since!"

"When did this happen?" Lero asked.

"About a week after the day I got my cutie mark," Fluttershy told her human friend. "But as I said, Maud wasn't my sister back then, so she wasn't part of the story I'm trying to tell you..."

* * *

Ma had gone all-out with the breakfast she’d prepared that morning: gruel, porridge, curds AND whey! Pa wasn’t there. He must’ve eaten already, and Fluttershy thanked her lucky stars for that! After quickly brushing her teeth, the little yellow pegasus filly stepped outside, for it was time for her to get down to work at her family’s rock farm...

* * *

“I apologize, but... another question, if you don’t mind. When you say ‘rock farm,’ do you mean a quarry?”

“No,” said Fluttershy. “Quarries are pretty much mines where miners dig out precious rocks. Nothing like rock farms at all.”

“But rocks are inorganic!” Lero stated. “You can’t grow them on a farm like fruits and vegetables!”

“Not unless they’re specially ENCHANTED plots of magical soil!” She smiled. “It takes a while, but there’s actually good money to be had in growing certain stones to enormous sizes. Especially those whose minerals are ores that contain metals... including aluminum and iron, but also rubies, gold, and diamonds! Sometimes you get really unusual rocks, like the ones that contain Rock Molasses! It’s all a matter of proper cultivation and the right seed rocks, just like on any other farm!”

"Rock... Molasses."

"Yup! Sweetest kind there is!"

He shook his head, then shook more money into his hand. “How much money did your family make at that rock farm of yours, then?”

“Just enough to provide for our family. We weren't lucky with molasses or anything of the truly valuable ores, the ones where the real money is. That's why I'm not that good a flier.”

"Huh?"

"Oh, they couldn't afford to send me to flight school, so I had to teach myself to fly, or practice with Granny Pie when she visited. I never really got very good, so I mostly had to collect low-lying clouds."

"...Right."

* * *

When the door to her family’s home shut behind her, Fluttershy stepped out directly onto the Pie farm’s south field. It was another grey day. The land was grey. All the rocks out in the field was gray. The dead ash trees had a nice ashen hue, (to think, actual plants had tried growing in this dry, barren soil!) The skies above were gloomy with grey clouds. Clouds which Fluttershy personally collected for the farm on a weekly basis, as part of her chores... for Ma’d given birth to a pegasus, and Pa’d be a mudstone’s uncle before he let that go to waste.

It wasn’t as though their crops were thirsty for rainwater... this wasn’t that kind of farm, after all! Nonetheless, Pa still insisted that the grayness, itself, led to a better ore yield, as it reminded the rocks of being underground. It pleased Fluttershy’s father — as much as a soul as flinty as Pa’s could be pleased — that two of his daughters should be born with such properly gray manes and coats. At the very least, Pa found it within himself to overlook his youngest girl’s ‘improper coloration,’ when she had wings to make up for it.

Blinkie and Inkie were already hard at work rolling rotating the south field’s crop of rocks to the east field. Fluttershy fluttered over to a piece of limestone, and flipped it over with the tip of her snout, working in the same silence as her sisters.

There was no talking on the Pie farm.

Pa always denounced chatter as the stuff of listless, idle minds. Sometimes he actually rewarded whichever daughter of his managed to speak least on a given day. His favorite prize was allowing the winner to skip Ma’s desserts.

The five of them made for such a tight-lipped quintet, Fluttershy often wondered why Ma and Pa had even bothered teaching her and her sisters spoken language, when they often got along splendidly with stern looks alone.

There was no smiling on the Pie farm.

Smiles — as far as Pa and Ma were concerned — betrayed thoughts unrelated to the farming of rocks. Thus, they were rigidly frowned upon in this family.

Fluttershy knew of Pony Heaven; the place where ponies who’d died were brought to be rewarded with eternal happiness if they’d lived good lives.

Fluttershy knew of Pony Hell; the place where ponies who’d died were brought to be tormented if they’d been evil.

But Ma had also spoken of Pony Purgatory. In Ma’s own words, Pony Purgatory was a place of perfect... nothingness, where ponies were sent if they’d either done literally nothing with their lives, or else all their good deeds and their bad deeds balanced out to a perfect zero value. In Pony Purgatory, there was nothing. Nothing ever occurred. Nothing was thought about, nothing was felt, and nothing was achieved, except more emptiness. You felt that nothingness pervading your heart and ruling your soul, each and every day, for all the rest of eternity.

Fluttershy had asked Ma, “Are we all in Pony Purgatory right now?”

“Yes,” Ma had answered, without a second’s hesitation.

There were moments of disruption in the family, for example when Granny Pie or Nana Pinkie visited. Granny was a traveling baker that taught Fluttershy such things as how to sing and not be afraid of the dark, and Nana was a storyteller who told tall tales she heard in her travels, such as a magical pond that duplicated those who entered its waters.

However, their parents didn't approve of them; they prompted far too many thoughts not involving rock farming. And while they honored them, as mothers should always be honored, they didn't exactly welcome their visits, and so they never stayed long. Ma and Pa had also forbad discussing them when they were gone. In the long run, all her grandmothers’ visits did for Fluttershy was emphasize how dreary the time between them was.

On the Pie farm, there were only rocks.

Little rocks you had to nudge along with your snout, until your nose was all dried, dirty, and scraped, and the back of your neck hurt like you’d slept on it wrong. Big rocks you had to hitch to your back and drag. Huge boulders that needed to be split apart with pickaxes. Anything colorful or beautiful they discovered within the rocks had to be sold away, as soon as possible.

On they worked, until Pa rang the metal triangle by the front porch, signaling the end of the work day. So Inkie and Blinkie and Pa and Ma had trundled back inside the house, mute and stoic. Fluttershy’s legs were aching, so she lingered behind. Pa just cast her one of his flat looks.

Come on in or stay out, daughter of mine. Pa’s look said, as he shut the door. Suits me either way.

Within the next minute came the boom.

Like somepony working in that quarry five miles west had set off one of their larger explosions. Later in life, Fluttershy would wonder why her family hadn’t been drawn out by the noise. But right here and now, young Fluttershy was far too bowled over; speechless beyond the Pie family’s traditional miserliness with words.

First there came a gleaming brightness with a multicolored crest, which swept across the whole of the sky the way ocean waves were said to sweep across beach sand. Then came the shockwave, following like thunder follows lightning, the melodic sound like a thousand bells chiming following the shockwave. Fluttershy felt a tremendous rush of wind blast in her face, along with dead leaves and grit. All the grayness she had so painstakingly collected for her family’s farm had been blown clean away.

Colors arced across the clear blue sky.

Red like ripe strawberries and apples and tomatoes.

Orange like the fruit of the same name.

Yellow like daffodils and the rays of the sun.

Green like lettuce and fresh spring grass.

Blue like bluebells and bluebonnets.

And the purple of a gorgeous twilight.

As a cloud-collecting farm girl, Fluttershy was no stranger to rain, and thus, no stranger to rainbows. But she’d never seen one that glittered and sparkled in the bright daylight like the sun upon newly fallen snow. Never had she seen one that, instead of a single arc of color across the sky, exploded with a multitude of colorful blooms racing each other across the sky. Never seen one that brought birds and butterflies — actual BIRDS and actual BUTTERFLIES — twittering and fluttering around a place like her parents’ farm! It was like the sky and all who lived in it were celebrating some glorious occasion!

Never, NEVER had the young pegasus felt joy like this before! The ends of the farm girl’s mouth lifted higher and higher upon her face, until she was sure her smile had reached the top of her eyes. Lovelier than any ore cracked out from this farm’s rocks. She felt she could gaze at it until she was old as Granny Pie, and still be happy for it.

But the rainbow didn’t give her the chance for that. It vanished, dissipating into the clear blue sky!

...

...

...

...No, that wasn’t quite right. The rainbow hadn’t vanished, not completely. It still shone from within Fluttershy’s heart. She still felt the joy of it inside her. She never wanted it to ever go away.

In fact, when Fluttershy stopped to consider it all, not only did she never want it to go away, she knew she wanted nothing more than to share and spread this joy all around, to everypony she knew... and everypony she didn’t, too! But how? Rainbows didn’t come along that often, especially not in this part of the world!

Then suddenly, Fluttershy remembered something she’d seen a few days earlier. She’d been collecting clouds by the quarry, and seeing that the miners were outside, and had taken a break from there work. There’d been singing. Fluttershy had descended down for a closer look at all these bizarre proceedings.

And then the miners had brought out a large dessert, with candles on it, for their foremare. They had sang a song, the foremare had blown out the candles to applause, then divided the dessert up between them into slices, and they’d all been happy.

Fluttershy remembered all this, and quickly sped back into the farmhouse, up into her bedroom, opening a drawer where she kept her entire life savings.

The part of the world where Fluttershy lived with her parents and sisters was a lonely one, make no mistake. There was the quarry, five miles west. Their nearest neighbor lived on her own farm, ten miles south, and that was Granny Pie. Normally, Granny would’ve been ideal to help with her idea, but she wouldn't be around this time of year; it was carnival season. The closest store was Gneiss’ Dry Goods Shoppe & More twenty miles south.

Flying up to the highest altitude she dared, Fluttershy sped off towards Gneiss’. She HAD to hurry! She didn’t think she could bear it if the shop closed! The little pegasus didn’t even feel weary, flying forty miles there and back again.

She brought her purchases into the silo, and got busy.

* * *

Inkie Pie slipped into the large bed that she shared with her other two sisters... except she counted only one sister there. While unusual, it wasn’t a fact worth breaking the silence over. She simply lay against the pillow and her eyes shut.

Blinkie Pie’s eyes opened before Inkie’s did, the next morning. Upon waking, the first thing the eldest sister noticed was that Fluttershy was missing entirely from her usual spot on their mattress, even though she was the heaviest sleeper in the family. Her second — and far more important — thought was that her teeth hadn’t been brushed.

Sue Pie, while preparing that morning’s breakfast, observed that Fluttershy was absent from the house, and recalled she hadn’t joined them for supper the previous night. Her reaction was to remove the unneeded plate from the breakfast table and return it to her cupboard.

Clyde Pie, while sitting down at the table to eat with his kin, discerned the absence of a certain winged, yellow-coated, pink-maned body. Thoughts of bloodthirsty foal killers, pony traffickers, pedophiles, packs of starving wild dogs, and Fluttershy lying in a ditch somewhere, shivering in the cold with broken legs and wings briefly entered Clyde’s head. Then he inwardly chastised himself for allowing his mind to wander to such superfluous flapdoodle, so completely unrelated to rock farming! After all, she hadn't actually missed her chores yet. Such thoughts were best saved when they actually were relevant to rock farming.

The entire Pie family dug into their breakfast of wilted alfalfa and stale bread crusts, washing it all down with tall glasses of lukewarm vinegar. When that was done, and the dirty dishes had been washed, the family stepped out of their house.

“We’d better harvest the rocks from the south field,” Clyde told the others, his eyes scanning about for his absent family member... she was getting perilously close to missing her chores! Then, unusual sounds stopped him in his tracks. It was originating from the direction of the silo; clangs, tooting, and other such strangeness! At first, Clyde took it to be mere noise, but as he and his family listened he realized that it was more of... more of a... uh... more of a rhythmic combination of organized sounds, arranged in a harmonious order that was undeniably pleasing to the ear. It reminded him of that singing his mother kept trying to distract his children with, except it was made with unusual sounds instead of voices. Strangely, Clyde felt he ought to know what the name of this marvel was... he had a hunch it began with the letter M. Meeee---you... something.

“Fluttershy, is that you?” his wife called out.

The silo door opened, and their youngest foal popped her head out.

“Ma! Pa! I need you and Inkie and Blinkie to come inside, quick!”

They followed her inside the silo to find it had been... rearranged. Bunches of floating, colorful, rubbery-looking things hung on strings. They were shaped like horseshoes, hearts, zucchini, and especially upside-down teardrops. Large ribbon-things festooned the place; tied into bows and arcing across the walls like some manner of banner.

Food had been laid out on several tables; all of it sweet-smelling. A large bowl of icy liquid in which a ladle was sitting... it smelled of such juices as apples, cranberries, and... Clyde SWORE he could smell ginger ale mixed in there as well! Plastic cups surrounded this bowl. Nearby was some form of baked bread, (or at least a bread-like food,) only it there were several layers of it. It smelled of sugar and pure deliciousness, and thick glaze of some sort caked the sides of...

...CAKE! Sweet Celestia, CAKE! It came back to Clyde: the name of this thing was cake! He hadn't even seen any since he'd left his mother's herd! Rediscovering that word was like finding his old teddy bear up in the attic! On different tables, there were fruits, and also smaller cakes, just big enough to fit within a cup.

“Surprise!” called Fluttershy. She pulled on a cord, and a thousand colorful shreds of paper rained down on him and his other three family members.

“Do you like it? I hear it’s called a ‘pahr—tee!‘ Mr. Gneiss suggested all sorts of fun things while I was shopping at his store!”

The long stem of dry wheat that Clyde Pie had kept lodged between his teeth since the day of his third marriage simply fell out. The happy hope in Fluttershy’s eyes started to dwindle.

Her sisters and parents were looking around the silo she’d redecorated, their eyes darting about wildly at the decorations and food. Their teeth chattered as though they were out in a blizzard. Odd noises issued from their throats; moans of uncertainty and fear... even a little bit of pain.

The young pegasus hung her head in defeat, her hair sliding down to obscure her eyes. “Oh... I see. I...it’s okay that you don’t like it.” More than anything, Fluttershy wanted to go away someplace where there were no pony faces to look at her and stay in that place forever.

As one, all the rest of her family broke through the shock and uncertainty, and moved their facial muscles in a direction that rock farmers’ were never actually meant to go.

Upwards.

“You... you DO like it?!" The pegasus lifted her head up, tossing back her hair to smile. With a cheer, her family raced into the silo. "You DO like it!”

Fluttershy turned her record player’s volume up higher, and the happy family danced. They danced with abandon, danced as though they’d waited ten lifetimes for each individual note of this peppy polka tune. And as they danced, the mark of three balloons appeared on Fluttershy’s flanks, but it wouldn’t be until her fourth slice of cake that she even noticed.

* * *

The yellow pegasus gave him an adorable smile when her story was finished.

“So... what happened to your mother and father, then? I don’t believe I’ve seen them around here ever.”

The two of them were now walking back towards Sugar Cube Corner. Fluttershy’s bags were loaded with sugar.

“They’re still at their rock farm. They don’t visit Ponyville all that often. Mostly, I come to them.” She smiled. "You know, to remind them how to have a good time now and again."

He nodded. Hmmm, nothing immediately sprung to mind on how to solve the cutie mark situation. Ah, well, he’d come up with something eventually. “Well, thank you for that story!”

“And thank you for listening!" She beamed. "Are you ready to listen to more jokes?”

He almost thought to make up some excuse... but that would not only be rude, but unfair as well. “Absolutely! Fire away, Fluttershy.”

“Okay! Here’s one: Why didn’t the teddy bear eat its dessert?”

“I don’t know. Why?”

“Because it was stuffed!” she chuckled. “What’s green and tastes like brown paint?”

“Artichokes?”

“No... green paint! And speaking of paint, did you hear the one about what happened when one boat carrying red paint and another boat carrying blue paint crashed into each other out at sea? Both crews were marooned!”

Lero laughed.

“Do you know how to catch a rabbit?”

“Believe it or not, that’d be a very useful thing for me to know.”

“Well then, you might want to try... hiding behind a tree and making a noise like a carrot!”

He checked his wristwatch; specially custom-built for his human arms. It was 9:31 A.M.

“Two pigs were sitting in their sty. The first pig said ‘Oink!’ And the second pig turned to him and said, ‘Hey! I was gonna say that...!”

* * *

“...Well, Ah’m jest saying, it’s mighty out-of-the-blue a’yew ta take an interest in how Ah got mah cutie mark, Lero!”

Lero had listened through Fluttershy’s parade of jokes for his promised hour, and then as a courtesy, an extra hour afterwards. An exact one hundred and twenty minutes. He’d helped Fluttershy unload her confectioner’s sugar into Sugar Cube Corner’s kitchen, then gone with her for two more trips to the market, first to buy yeast and then boxes of graham crackers.

Through it all, Lero had the distinct impression that had he let her, Fluttershy would happily continued to crank out joke after joke after joke after joke after joke after joke until she’d worn her larynx out for the day. When he checked his wristwatch and seen that two hours had passed, Lero politely excusing himself, made a quick pit stop back home at Golden Oaks Library to put something in his backpack, and then come over here, to the Carousel Boutique.

Since there was very little risk of being interrupted by customers walking in, Applejack had allowed Lero to come upstairs with her to her sewing room, especially since, (to use her own words) the sewing machine was ‘calling to her again.‘ The garment she was working on was a green sleeping bag — like the kind Lero slept in at his old boyhood summer camp tents — being refashioned into a full-body suit. It looked guaranteed to make its wearer look like an insect pushing her head out of a cocoon.

For a moment, Lero had to wonder whether Applejack were simply running out of fabric, and had been reduced to throwing ANYTHING vaguely cloth-like onto her sewing machine to appease the demands of her Diamond Mark. But all he had to do was look around the room to see over a hundred of rolls of fabric in every color on the shelves. All he had left was to simply wonder: Why? Was it some trace of Applejack’s old self, obsessively incorporating the practical in her designs?

“Lero?”

He shook himself out of his distraction.

“A few days ago, Pinkie Pie had told me the story of how her cutie mark appeared,” Lero explained to Applejack. “It was really interesting, and it made me realize I hadn't heard the rest of yours... and what kind of friend would I be if I didn't ask about something so important to the people close to me? I mean, there has to be a great story behind how the charming and generous girl who makes all my clothes for me chose to take up such a profession! A girl with your brains and your work ethic could’ve done anything she wanted with her life... so why dressmaking in particular, out of all possible careers out there?”

She flashed him a dry grin. “Yer quite good at butterin’ gals up. Anypony ever tell yew that?”

He gave her a roguish ladykiller’s smile. “They have, from time to time. Especially the three of them that bought it.”

Chuckling and rolling her eyes, she said, “And Ah thank Ah’ll stop yew there, before ya start talkin’ ‘bout real butter.”

She stopped in her sewing and turned around to face Lero.

* * *

“I am a hen’s egg and I tell no lies,

Bakers use me to bake cakes, tarts, and pies!

I’m also for breakfast! I don’t like to boast,

But some ponies serve me with juice, jam, and toast!”

The small colt in the egg costume turned towards the backstage, at the Earth Pony mare who was directing this production. “How was that, Mrs. Understudy?”

Mrs. Understudy gave a strained smile. “Very good, Grape Crush! You finally, finally, finally memorized your line! But let’s not get so overexcited about it that we bring the play to a screeching halt, please? We only have...”

She checked the clock.

“...around thirty-four hours until we have to perform this in front of all your parents! So take it from the top, please, everypony?”

Applejack, standing next to Mrs. Understudy behind , shook her head at it all. Since she wasn’t one of the actors or the stagehoofs, this was actually her first time to watch a rehearsal all the way through.

The play was called Hello, We’re Your Food! It was basically a dramatic showcasing of all the categories on the food pyramid: Fruits, Vegetables, Flowers, Grains, Hay, Grass, Dairy Products, Eggs, Fish, and Sweets, which each actor played an individual food group.

Applejack had known going into it, signing on as costume designer, that this would be no Gandrew Gloyd Gwebber production, (how she loved that griffin’s musicals! All her family did!) And boy, did it show!

Applejack knew she and all her classmates were young, but the script was insultingly babyish. Half the actors might as well have been replaced by scarecrows; they would at least be more convincing in their roles. The music for this musical was provided by a single, crummy old piano, which she was certain had never even been close to a tuner in decades.

But worst of all... worst of all...

“Thank you for helping out with the costumes, Applejack!” Mrs. Understudy congratulated her in an undertone, while the actors were put through their paces.

...Worst of all was that the costumes she, herself, had designed... the very first outfits she’d made to be seen by an unbiased public, ponies who WEREN’T her family... matched the same cheesy quality as everything else in Hello, We’re Your Food!

And Applejack knew she had only herself to blame. Mrs. Understudy had told her: Nothing elaborate. Just make them like Nightmare Night costumes. And she’d not been creative enough to figure out how to make those limitations work for her.

“They’re all very nice.”

“Nice?!” Applejack cried back, feeling wounded.

‘Nice’ wasn’t a word any fashion designer wanted attached to her work.

‘Nice’ meant passable.

‘Nice’ meant wearable.

‘Nice’ meant ‘nice as any other piece of fabric on the racks.’

‘Nice’ meant ‘not worth a second glance.’

'Nice' meant 'Three out of Five Stars', not even worth noticing.

“They need ta be SPECTACULAR!”

* * *

When the dress rehearsal had finished, Applejack hid herself until everypony else had gone home. Then she went into the backstage area, into the theater’s wardrobe department, and stole every one of the costumes she’d made, sneaking them out of the school and returning home with them.

Up in her bedroom, bent over her sewing machine that’d been last year’s birthday present from her grandparents, Applejack tried every trick she could think of to make her costumes SHINE. But nothing seemed to work! Something was missing! She even considered starting over from scratch and working all through the night, maybe even skipping the first part of school!

But in the end, even if she really put her nose to the grindstone on this... she understood that she wasn’t feeling any strokes of artistic genius in her head worth that kind of trouble.

“Maybe Ah ain’t meant ta be a fashionista after all!”

* * *

“Mraow!”

Applejack gave a small start as a white Persian cat with a purple bow tied into her head fur leapt onto her back, eyeing the former farmer like an unamused queen.

“Uh... beggin’ yer pardon, Lero, buddy, but Ah’m thinkin’ mah li’l lady Opal here’s gotta hankerin’ ta be fed ‘bout now.”

So Lero kept where he sat, waiting as the palomino pony left and came back with a bowl of moist cat food and water. Opalescence calmly hopped down from Applejack’s back, landing on her feet, and took her first mouthful of gourmet tuna. Lero was surprised how tense all his muscles were and the way he was gripping the cushion of his chair, as though ready to push himself off from it.

Then he realized what it was: Lero had been expecting Opal to attack her mistress. He’d been fully prepared to leap off his seat and wrest a snarling, clawing feline off Applejack’s back and shove it in a cage the way he’d had to do with every one of Dash’s cats... and with every one of Dash’s EVERYTHING.

Lero remembered Spike once complaining that Opal was one of the nastiest animals for a pet-sitter to deal with... but from where he stood, you couldn’t ask for a better-behaved pet that this kitty.

“Hey, AJ? A question popped into my head. It doesn’t really have anything to do with your story, but... where’d you get your accent from?”

“Mah accent?” she asked, after tossing the empty cat food can out.

“Yeah. I know that you’re the only one with that accent in your family. How’d you get it?”

She took her hat off, with a bashful sort of laugh. “Well, thang was... Ah taught mehself how ta speak this way. Back when Ah was jest a filly, Ah read in a magazine somewhere that ponies like fashionistas speakin’ with an accent. So for an entire year, Ah hung out with Pinkie Pie ev’ry chance Ah got, ta pick up on her accent. Drove mah Mom up a wall! Ah practiced ‘n’ practiced ‘n’ practiced that accent ‘til it was as much part ‘a me as lemon juice in lemonade!”

She snorted.

“Turns out that Ah shoulda been more selective ‘bout which accent Ah wanted. Ah’d picked the worst one possible fer makin’ mahself sound smart ‘n’ so-fister-kated to all the fashion ah-fishy-ah-nod-doughs! Bah that time, mah dumb hick accent was so deeply ingrained in me, Ah couldn’t unlearn it! Yew can imagine how mighty furious Ah was at poor Pinkie! We plumb stopped bein’ friends at all, ‘til the day good ol’ Twilight came ta Ponyville!”

Lero blinked. “Whoa. That was...”

“Mean ‘n‘ wrong ‘n‘ small-minded ‘n‘ prissy ‘n‘ elitist ‘n’ unfair of me,” Applejack admitted with deep self-disgust. “Ah was young and stupid. Thankfully, though, Ah managed ta make a good name for mahself in spite a’ mah accent, and grew outta that way of thinkin’. 'Sides, better tah be judged by mah work than mah voice, raight?”

“And you and Pinkie got back together as friends,” Lero said. “Really, that’s the best thing of all.”

Applejack smiled approvingly at him. “Yeah. Yeah... Ah completely agree! That IS the best thang of all!”

The orange Earth pony turned her head; looking at a picture on the wall. It showed all six of the Element Bearers all together, all happy. The poofy-maned Pinkie was even hugging Applejack in her usual exuberant way.

“This may sound weird, considerin’ Ah’m a fashion gal and she’s a farmer, but the truth is... whenever Ah look at Pinkie Pie.... Ah see a lotta mahself in her!”

“Absolutely!” Lero agreed. “I see a lot of you in Pinkie too.”

Sometimes, it was hard keeping a straight face.

* * *

But at that moment, young Applejack was struck by an sudden powerful... certainty. An intuition.

A hunch.

This hunch told her that she should not give up on fixing these costumes.

The costumes needed something that was not in this room.

That was nowhere in this house.

She would need to step outside.

This hunch frankly scared Applejack. She was leaving her house, she was not letting her parents know where she was going, she herself didn’t know where she was going, but she’d never felt such a POWERFUL impulse before... like some kind of magical, psychic thingy you’d expect a unicorn to have! But it was nearly impossible to deny; like suddenly being in pitch darkness and choosing NOT moving towards a faraway light.

Better to see what her intuition was making such a fuss over and accept punishment later, when Mom and Dad realized she was gone, and had to go call the Missing Foals ponies to find her.

At first, Applejack thought this hunch would surely take her to the marketplace and she’d need to buy something from there, (but she hadn’t even grabbed her money!) But no, the hunch took across dirt roads, where few ponies lived...

...And across flat plains where there was nothing but tall grass...

...And through the famous Half-A-Mile Desert, just outside of Ponyville, with all its cacti, tumbleweeds, and cow skulls...

...And up and down several high hills...

The funny thing was; even though she had no idea where she was going, Applejack had no sense of being lost. It was as though she were obediently following directions to some unnamed new destination.

Finally the hunch brought her to the edge of a grey and craggy cliff. The whole strange trip had only lasted forty-five minutes. A humongous object occupied the whole of the precipice’s edge.

“Oh mah sun, moon and stars!” the little filly cried. “A giant rock!”

It was certain a big ol’ hunk of stone, but Applejack wasn’t entirely sure whether it should be called a ‘boulder’ when it was so triangular, like a spearhead. “Ah can’t believe mah own eyes!” she exclaimed. “A giant rock! It’s a rock and it’s giant! Hooo-doggie! Think Ah’ll call ‘im Tom! ...Wait, a rock!?"

A second hunch followed up on the first one: this had something to do with her cutie mark. But what? Was it telling her that fashionista-ing was the wrong path for her? That she ought to be a geologist instead? Or a stonemason? No, she refused to believe that!

"A rock’s mah destiny?!" She groaned in disbelief. "What’s wrong with me? Ah followed a hunch all the way out here for a rock!?"

But then came a great thunderous noise, and Applejack backed away from the edge of the cliff. She looked up for the source of the noise, seeing great whiteness and rainbow colors...

And the giant rock split in two before the young filly’s eyes.

At this early point in her life, it would be many years still before Applejack learned what the word ‘geode’ meant. All she knew was that the insides of the split rock halves were lined with a dragon’s banquet of crystals and rubies and sapphires and emeralds, and amethysts and even diamonds!

All hers for the taking. Finders keepers. Applejack grinned with sudden inspiration. Now if only her hunch had let her know she’d be needing to bring her saddlebags. And a pickaxe.

* * *

Twenty years down the line, none of the ponies who’d performed in that rendition of Hello, We’re Your Food! would remember the plinkety-plink of that pathetic old piano. They wouldn’t remember the inane lyrics from the script. They wouldn’t remember the one-two-three-turn-kick-steps Mrs. Understudy had made them memorize for the play’s meager dances. They’d barely remember Mrs. Understudy. They wouldn’t remember the play’s title was Hello, We’re Your Food! Twenty years down the line, it’d just be ‘that play about the food groups.’

Well, not quite JUST that. Because of what they WOULD always remember — the one precious detail captured by the clicking cameras of their loving parents in the audience — was how gloriously they looked inside those incomparable costumes, how radiantly they shone in the glow of the spotlight... all thanks to the gems sown in at the last minute by one committed, hardworking, and intuitive little filly who generously chose to go the extra mile, instead of calling it quits. It was thanks to her that every one of them looked there best on that special, fateful night.

Midway through that performance, Mrs. Understudy reluctantly turned her head away from the dazzling gleam of the sapphires sown into the fish costume’s eyes, to give Applejack a smile of tremendous pride.

And Applejack felt a sparkle of her own upon her body...

* * *

“And THAT’S how Ah earned mah diamonds!” Applejack finished, looking back proudly at her Diamond Mark.

“That’s quite an incredible story!” Lero told her. Inside, he was wondering how often, (if at all) the original pre-Swap Rarity had hung out with Applejack in their girlhood, the way AJ described.

“Shucks,” AJ said, “T’weren’t the most excitin’ tale, but it’s mine and Ah’m proud of it!”

“Frankly, I’m surprised you weren’t part of the cast! Or do you not like being onstage?”

Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Opal curl up into a ball next to the orange Earth pony.

“Well, half of it was that Ah was more concerned with provin’ Ah could make impressive outfits. The other half... well, Mr. Handy, Ah’m a proud girl. Too proud, even back then, ta get on a stage dressed as a hay bale or a fish.”

Then she gave him a cocky smile. “But believe me, Ah CAN act. Gimme a role worth mah time... especially one where the costume’s super-pretty, and Ah’m as good as an A-lister! Remember that one Hearth’s Warmin’ Eve pageant Twilight and the rest of us performed in? Yew were there! Wasn’t Ah a great Princess Platinum?”

Then Applejack’s eyes widened dramatically, and she let out an affronted gasp. “How DARE yew!” she exclaimed, slipping into Princess Platinum’s character. “Unlike yew pegasi ruffians, we unicorns would NEVER stoop ta such a thang!”

Lero grinned and clapped, for she made a PERFECT Texan princess. For all her Deep South accent, there was an undeniable elegance and refinement in her tone. It was mind-boggling to listen to. But then he thought over what Applejack had just said: 'we unicorns.'

“I kinda remember,” he waffled, though in actuality, Lero remembered that pageant VERY well. “But it’s been a while. You, Applejack, played the unicorn Princess, Platinum, right? And Rarity played the pegasus Commander Hurricane? And Fluttershy played the Earth pony, Chancellor Puddinghead?”

“And Pinkie Pie played Smart Cookie and Rainbow Dash played Private Pansy, and Twilight was terrific as Clover the Clever!” Applejack finished.

Lero let out a weak laugh. “Those... those were some WEIRD casting decisions.”

“How so?” Applejack asked.

“Well, if I were director, I’d’ve cast an Earth pony to play an Earth pony, a pegasus to play a pegasus and a unicorn to be a unicorn. Especially in a play where the three pony tribes are on the brink of war with each other!”

“Well, ya gotta admit, we pulled it off well enough in our play!” She smiled. “Ah give great credit to the costumin’ department. How they hid Fluttershy’s wings under that dress, that fake horn they attached to mah head... and how they were able ta hide Rarity’s own horn inside that specially-designed helmet... genius.”

“How did the costuming department give Rarity pegasus wings?” Lero asked, genuinely curious on that one.

“One of tha' unicorns jest magicked her up a temporary pair! Rarity LOVED every moment of it! Refused ta let them magic it off after tha' play wuz ovah; wanted ‘em ta fade on their own!” She looked at Lero. “Usually, that pageant IS cast with unicorn playing unicorn, ‘n’ so on... but Ah respect our director’s choices. HE focused on which pony could capture each CHARACTER best! And really, ain’t that what Hearth’s Warmin’ Eve is really all about? Not letting what tribe a pony is set up walls?”

“I guess so! Huh, maybe the casting decisions were more appropriate, in their own way.” Lero agreed, and moved onto a different subject. “Applejack, so far, I’ve listened to your story, Pinkie’s and Fluttershy’s... and I’ve noticed that rainbows seem to play a pivotal role in all of them...”

“And when ya hear Rarity, Twilight’s and Dash’s... you’ll notice those same rainbows appearin‘ in all a‘ them, too!” Applejack assured him. "Heh. Kinda surprised... ain't Rarity ever tell ya her story before?"

"It's... never really come up before. Now that I think on it, I don't know Lyra or Twilight's either!" That... actually bothered him, a bit, now that he thought about it. He knew Dash's... or at least, her original one. She’d told him it when she explained cutie marks to him, but it'd never occurred to ask the other two about theirs. When things were better, he'd make sure to ask them about it.

She nodded, took a deep breath of air in and let it out. “Celestia bless Rarity. Ah honestly shudder ta thank what woulda become a’ all six of us, if not fer her. If she hadn’t done what she did at exactly the time she did it. Who else coulda POSSIBLY taken her place? Cast her rainbows?”

“Rainbow Dash, maybe?” suggested Lero, his memory of her tale fresh in his mind.

Silence passed. And then Applejack burst out into peals of merry laughter, Lero snapping out of his remembrance and joining in a second later.

“Ha ha ha ha! Rainbow Dash?! Oh, Mr. Handy, Ah love it when yer funny!” she said.

“It just comes natural to me!” he replied wanly. When his laughter died down, he told the orange pony, “Applejack... I hope you don’t mind, but I brought a little something for you from home. My little way of saying thank you for putting up with me and my questions for this long.”

“Aw, yew didn’t need ta go do that!” Applejack told him.

But Lero was already unzipping his backpack. With great care, he took out a white cardboard box and opened it for Applejack to see. Applejack’s eyes widened as large as Pinkie’s had, the day he told her that smiles were the best gift she’d given him.

“That apple pie’s from the Apple family, ain’t it?” she whispered breathlessly.

“Yes. Yesterday, Pinkie Pie made this pie for me because I helped her out with her farm work a little.” He held it out towards her. “Thought I’d share it with you. Interested?”

She stared at the pie for several seconds more before wrenching her eyes away. “Yer not hittin’ on me, are ya?”

Lero nearly dropped the pie box. “Huh? Oh no, no, no! It’s nothing like that at all!”

She frowned. “Then why ya butterin' me up, askin' me about myself, then givin' me a gift of pie?”

Because I want to see if a pie made from your old family’s recipe provokes a reaction.

“Just because we’re friends! No more, no less. Trust me; I got enough girls to be getting along with, so this pie is the Pie of Platonic Friendship!”

“In that case, sure!” she grinned. "'Sides, Ah think ya know well enuff to not go scoutin' a girl without Rarity knowin'." Lero chuckled at that, as she trotted out to get the flatware.

The orange palomino returned with plates and a knife. Let set the pie on the table and cut two slices for them both. Deliciousness filled Lero’s mouth: the only way this wonderful pastry could’ve possibly tasted greater is if he’d eaten it fresh out of the oven. Pinkie had encouraged him to do just that, when she’d first given him this pie.

Applejack’s first bite was a great big chomp. “This pie... it tastes...”

Her chewing slowed.

“It... tastes lahk...”

She swallowed.

“...Home...”

Lero’s heart stopped at the look of tragic clarity on her face. “Home?” he repeated.

“...Home cooking!” She finished, sunnily. It was like watching a switch being flipped. “Good ol’ fashioned home-cooking!”

Her next bite was not a big mouthful, but a tiny little mouse-nibble, savoring each moment of the apple taste sitting in her mouth.

“Why... Ah don’t believe it, this pie’s so yummy, Ah’m CRYING.” She wiped at her eyes. More tears fell as she took her next bite.

Watching her lips was like watching a busy elevator in a transparent elevator shaft. Up and down, down and up, up and down, down and up, smile to frown, frown to smile, unable to decide what it should be, while chewing that tiny bite of pie. All while crying. It made Lero feel slimy inside. As though he’d shown a widower a video of his dearly deceased wife... just to see what kind of rise it’d get out of him.

And yet... it was all still so damnably fascinating to behold.

The Swapped Five’s rewritten memories were such curious things. Crucial matters such as their families, their childhood, their ambitions... major turning points in their old lives... that was where the Swap had been most thorough. Try to make them recall any of that, and it bounced off them like rubber.

But innocuous little nothings... the smell on a toothbrush... an offhanded comment about parties... an innocent question about where a skill was learned... the taste of an apple pie...

Somehow, THAT was what rocked the boat for them. It touched the core of who they were, the elements that allowed him to even recognize themselves as themselves-with-swapped-marks, rather than that ‘it had always been this way’ attitude. The cores of who they were, were still intact, and trying to shine through the artificial lives awkwardly strapped atop. Their true selves took every chance they could to peek out and be seen... but all too often were battered back down before you could blink.

“...Yeah,” said Lero. He finished off his own slice of pie as quick as he could, though he’d rather lost the stomach for it. “Pinkie Pie always was the best baker in all Ponyville!”

Yeah, keep up the cheerful tone.

Applejack laughed. “That may be, but don’t yew be tellin‘ Fluttershy that!” She swallowed through her tears. “Hurt her feelings, yew will!”

* * *

For the past few days, Spike had been refusing point-blank to come along with Lero to help him help Rainbow Dash.

“We had a deal, remember?” he reminded the human.

"Sure. I'm not the forgetful one." He glared at the recalcitrant dragon.

"What?"

"What I told you about family."

"Whatever, man, I'm not the one two-timing here."

After visiting Applejack at her Boutique, Lero had stopped by the library to once again beseech for his help. But the dragon just kept sweeping the floors busily.

“‘The more you keep your distance from Rarity, the more I’m willing to help you watch over Rainbow Dash’s pets,’” said Spike, emptying dust into the trash bin. “But you haven’t been living up to your end of the bargain, have you, big bro? If anything, it looks to me like you’ve grown CLOSER to her.”

And the dragon moved into the next room to sweep it out.

“Besides, I’ve got too much I need to do for Twilight already. So give my best regards to Jabbers and to Angel Bunny. You and Dash are on your own.”

It was moments like these that rather sharply reminded him that Spike, for all his hard work and articulate way of speaking, was still a child.

* * *

When he’d gotten to Rainbow Dash’s cottage, Lero was surprised to find that none of the animals were being outright violent today. It was feeding time for the critters. And for a change of pace, Angel Bunny had apparently decided to eschew open warfare in favor of a particularly spiteful form of passive aggression.

“Here!” Lero snapped, handing Angel his next carrot.

Odiously smug, the white rabbit accepted the carrot from Lero, taking a single bite out of the center of the orange vegetable. He chewed with relish, savoring its freshness. Then the rabbit placed the carrot upon the floor and kicked it back at the human.

Lero picked the carrot back up. “You full now?”

With a wicked grin, Angel shook his head, rubbing at his tummy with a forepaw, indicating he was still hungry.

Lero thrust five whole carrots at the rabbit’s face, clutching them all by their green stems in his fist. Each one of them had just a single bite bitten out of them.

“Here, Angel!” he said. “Have as much as you want! There’s PLENTY of carrot to go around! Why don’t you try finishing what you started?!”

The rabbit sneered at the bunch of carrots, turned around and kicked floor dust at them with his hind legs.

Rainbow Dash regarded the bunny with weary disgust. “Why did you turn into such a bad, bad bunny, Angel? You make it impossible for me to love you.”

“Impossible for me to love you!” cackled Jabbers the parrot, who took a single peck of birdseed and kicked the rest of his full bowl to the floor.

The worst of it was; every one of the other animals were following Angel’s lead. Even now, Lero watched one of the cats eat one mouthful of their cat food, and then flip her bowl upside-down. What voodoo powers did Angel possess which managed to get a cat to refuse food?

Lero had already tried collecting the spilled pet food back into its bowl, but when he did this, the animal would either knock it over again, or refuse to look at it. But THEN, they’d whine or keen or just stare at you, expecting to be fed.

You’d refill their bowls up with new food; they took one bite and repeated the whole process all over again.

“What are we going to do with all this food?!” Dash asked, sweeping kibble into a dustpan. “Throw it out?”

Lero thought about it. “I think we should put the food they rejected in different bags, and serve it to them again, tomorrow. This IS the first day they’ve pulled this on us. Maybe we should be optimistic, and assume they’ll take it then.”

“Yeah,” said Dash, will dull emptiness. “Optimistic.”

The bulldog that Lero was serving kibble to waited patiently until he had filled the entire bowl. He took one bite, licked his jowled chops, and overturned the rest of it with his snout.

Then he whined at Lero hungrily.

“You know what, Dash? Let’s... not dwell on it all,” he said, as the flamingo overturned his own bowl of shrimp. “Hey! I know! How about we tell each other stories while we work?”

“Stories?”

“Yeah! Like... how’d you get your cutie mark?”

Dash actually laughed. “Wow. It’s been a while since I told that story to anyone. Alright, sure.” She took in a breath. “This may come as a surprise to you, Lero, but when I was young, I was a bit of a... how to put it...”

“A wallflower?” Lero suggested.

“A speedster,” said Dash.

“Huh?!”

* * *

The young pegasus filly named Rainbow Dash was inside the Cloudsdale Weather Academy. It would soon be her first class of the day. By nature, Rainbow Dash was a shy and timid sort of girl, but she was also the sort of girl who frequently had lots and lots on her mind. From one thought to the next, her thoughts would often race along as she went... and her body would race along with it. Without even really meaning to. It was her curse — she was naturally fast, but had no confidence in her ability to control herself at high speeds!

Like most fillies her age, Rainbow Dash was thinking about a lot of things. For starters, all the parts along her left foreleg where it still ached from her crash into the floor. It hurt all down the lower portion of it; in her gaskin, her cannon, all the way down to her pastern! Ooh! She’d needed to put so much ice on them, when she’d gotten home last night!

Her body picked up speed as she flew down the school hallway.

Her next thought was what kind of cutie mark she’d end up getting. What sort of one would be the best one to have? One for studying science? Baking cookies? Selling jewelry? Snapping photos? Critiquing movies? Becoming an astrologer? An astronomer? She always confused the two! Any sort of thing would be good, really, as long as she didn’t have to fly fast.

Rainbow Dash unthinkingly accelerated again, and her fellow students let out gasps of surprise and indignation that she didn’t hear, as they were forced to duck or dodge. It was just that going down these hallways helped her to sort out her thoughts. Class wouldn’t even start for another fifteen minutes, so it wasn’t even like she’d be running late or anything...!

CRASH!

“Ow!” cried Rainbow Dash, holding her arms against her aching muzzle. One more part of her body that was hurting!

“OW!” cried the pony she’d rammed into. She looked up in dismay to see that it was Mr. Egret, the meteorology teacher! Her first teacher of the day! And boy, did he look sore at her!

“Rainbow Dash!” he growled. “Speeding down the hallways like a maniac! This is a weather school, not summer flight camp!”

She shrank away from Mr. Egret, shutting her eyes against him. "I'm sorry!" She squeaked in fear.

“Well, don’t just stand there like a clod of dirt! Explain yourself! Is some madmare chasing you with a hatchet or something?”

“No, sir... I was just... trying to clear my head, Mr. Egret, sir...”

“You want to clear your head? Go sit out in the playground and meditate! You KNOW racing indoors is against school rules! I’m going to have to report you! But I’ll deal with that later. For now, go see the nurse. Your nose is bleeding!”

She touched her nostrils, and it came away with red drops on it. Then she took another look at her teacher. “Um... er... so’s yours, Mr. Egret, sir.”

The meteorology teacher watched his own blood spatter to the puffy cloud floor under their hooves, soaking into it like a tuft of white cotton.

“You...!” he stopped himself there, before he said anything that would look bad on an official file. “...Fine! Fine. Then we’re both going to see the nurse together!”

As they walked unhappily side-by-side, a mocking chant started up among the students they were passing... not a loud, proud song, but muttered under their breath. Each singer the student and teacher passed overlapped the one before.

“Rainbow Dash, Rainbow Dash, Rainbow Dash can only crash...”

The worst of it was, Mr. Egret sang along too, out of the corner of his mouth, where he thought Rainbow Dash was too stupid to see.

* * *

The bell rang, signifying the end of the school day, and the first thing Rainbow Dash did was zip out the classroom. She rocketed down the halls, out the school’s front doors, beating every pony outside. And then promptly crashed face-first into the ground. She got back up and dug herself a hole to hide in. This wasn’t in any way figurative, either: she literally dug her hooves into one of the softer patches of cloud, like a... what did they call it? Like a vole or mole or some other kind of ole. Rainbow wasn’t sure. She’d never set hoof on the surface world ever, so all she knew of its bir... of its animals was what she read in books.

She just dug herself a nice filly-sized burrow to stash herself in, before they could come. She felt like a peanut snug in its shell. She felt like she should stay here an hour, just to be sure.

“Hey! Hoops! Score! Lookie here!” guffawed the last voice she wanted to be hearing. “Looks like somepony planted a carrot down in this here cloud, and it actually took root!”

And she felt the underside of a hoof stamp down upon the tail she’d so foolishly left exposed. She groaned internally, staying stock still, hoping they'd get bored and go away.

“Yeah, looks like it, Dumbbell!” chuckled the voice of Score. “Funny thing about carrots? They actually come in all sorts of different colors! Orange, yeah, but also red, yellow, and even purple!”

“Betcha ain’t never seen one that was all those colors at once!”

“Aw, Hoops, ya stole my punchline!” Score groused. “Anyway, a miracle cloud-grown rainbow-carrot like this don’t come around every day! I think we should split it between the three of us!”

“Sounds like a plan!” Dumbbell decided, and Rainbow Dash felt herself yanked out into the open air, facing the three biggest bullies of the school.

"Ow!"

“Sheesh!” said Hoops. “Ain’t that the ugliest carrot you ever seen?”

Rainbow Dash stared up at them miserably. “How’d you guys find me?”

Hoops laughed. “Why, you were in such a great big HURRY, Rainbow Crash, you left a nice bright rainbow-trail for us to follow! Like smoke from a fire! Led us right to ya!”

Ugh. Those rotten rainbow trails of hers! They always brought so much attention down on herself! It was just horrible!

“So what do ya think we should do with this carrot?” Score asked the other two. “Boil it? Eat it raw?”

“Nah,” said Dumbbell. “I mean, look at it! It’s all KINDS of disgusting colors! Clearly that means it’s gone bad. Let’s throw this carrot in a trash bag and toss it over the side!”

“Good idea!” said Hoops, flying into the air. “Hey, you two keep her pinned, I’ll go fly and get the bag!”

"Nnngh, no! Let me go!"

However, just as Hoops moved to leave, another pony galloped up, butting Dumbbell off of Rainbow Dash’s tail, planting herself protectively between her and the bullies.

“Hey, Hoops! If you’re planning on getting trash bags anyway, then you might as well get a few extra for you three colts!” yelled Cloudsdale Weather Academy’s sole unicorn student.

* * *

“So Rarity went to the same school as you?” Lero asked, remembering everything Flitter and Cloudchaser had told him about the unicorn being an ‘honorary pegasus,’ and Rarity, herself, saying she’d been ‘raised among the clouds’ and ‘born of pegasus parents.’

“Yeah,” said Dash.

Angel Bunny was pointing at a new, untouched carrot, drumming his foot upon the floor expectantly.

“I imagine she must’ve either been completely friendless for being a unicorn... or the MOST popular kid because of her personality,” said Lero, snapping off just the bottom end of one of the already-bitten carrots — no bigger than a pencil’s eraser — and offering it to Angel in his hand.

The rabbit scowled at Lero. Lero ate the carrot bit for himself.

“Actually, Rarity managed to carve out a good middle ground for herself,” Dash told him. “Yeah, the bullies, tribalists, or other jerks gave her a LOT of guff cause she’s a unicorn. But Rarity, well... her being a unicorn was the ONLY thing she had going against her! Even as a filly, Rarity was smart, pretty, fun, sophisticated, very outgoing...”

...Everything I’ll never be... Lero could read in Dash’s regretful eyes.

“...Once you got to know her, there was NOTHING not to like! She made friends with pretty much anyone who didn't have a stupid reason to hate her.” Dash finished. “I should know. I was the very first friend she made. Because both of us were total outcasts, at first.”

Lero said nothing to this.

“In spite of everything the bullies did to harass her... all the scuttlebutt they spread... she was still able to form a pretty solid clique of friends! A brave girl like Rarity wasn’t going to let those meanies keep her at the bottom of the food chain!”

“That must’ve felt nice, being part of a group of friends!” He snapped off another pea-sized bit of carrot and offered it to Angel, dropping it on the floor. When the rabbit refused to touch it, Lero just tossed it over to the bulldog, who instinctively caught it in midair, and gulped it down.

“Uh... well... while I WAS her friend, I never was part of her little clique,” Dash confessed.

“Why? Were the rest of her friends mean to you?” Lero asked, while Angel made angry rabbit noises at the bulldog.

“No, no, no, it’s just... I was... shy,” She hung her head. “There was so MANY of them, and I felt... like I was an embarrassment. A guaranteed embarrassment. Bad enough being ‘Rainbow Dash who could only crash.’ I felt like as soon as they got to know me, they’d know I was even a bigger loser than the whole school thought I was. I was never part of any ‘clique.’ Not until Twilight came to town, and the six of us became the Elements of Harmony.” Her head lifted with a smile. “One of the best days of my life.”

Lero gave her side a single, reassuring rub, and his heart lifted as she leaned into the touch. “Aw, heck, big guy, I know YOU’RE my friend!”

* * *

Dumbbell sneered at the pesky, obnoxious, (and totally NOT cute) unicorn filly. She had thwarted dozens of his attempts to make sport of other students, which had made her as hated as homework.

“Why? She your FILLYFRIEND? Gonna start a HERD with her or somethin’?”

“Oh, it’ll be a match made in Heaven!” Score chimed in. “Cloudsdale’s biggest misfit with Cloudsdale’s biggest loser!”

“You’re just hilarious, Hilarity!” Hoops added.

“Yeah! Hilarious as that stupid parachute of yours!” said Score, sneered at the large yellow pack strapped to the young unicorn’s back. “I think you should make use of that ‘chute, and jump on down to where all the other ground-bound ponies live!”

* * *

“A parachute?” Lero balked. “An... actual parachute? As in... you fall hundreds of feet from the sky, but then the big balloony cloth thing comes out and it slows your fall down so you have a safe landing? That kind of parachute?”

Following Lero’s example, Dash inserted a single birdseed into Jabbers’ bowl. The parrot’s beak snapped down angrily upon it. “Yep! Everyone at school knew that her father made her wear that parachute; it was ALWAYS strapped to Rarity’s back, back then. Used to be a joke going around school that she showered with it on, and slept with it in bed,” Despite herself, Dash chuckled. “Foals can be cruel, but most any one of us would’ve shot down to save her if she fell, but... you know... extra safety precaution. Cost Rarity’s dad a bundle, from what I heard.”

“...Well it’s certainly understandable he’d do something like that,” Lero stated.

It always surprised him what sort of technology they did and didn’t have in Equestria.

* * *

"Starting a comedy act, I see?" Rarity dryly observed. "Let me offer you a suggestion; don't quit your day job as dullards. You're much more talented at it."

Dumbbell glared angrily at her through his bangs for several seconds before another, nasty idea finally bubbled up in his mind. “Hey, remember that old song we all used to sing about you, Hilarity?” He said, turning to his chums.

“I sure do!” said Hoops.

And then all three bullies began singing:

“Unicorn! Unicorn!

Got no wings; she has a horn!

What’s she doin’ in the sky?

Don’t she know that she can’t fly?!”

Rainbow’s heart went out to her unicorn friend as she saw her lip tremble... but then it curled upward into a smirk.

“Look at yourselves! Singing songs. Rhyming names. You think you’re big shots, but in the end, you’re nothing but a pathetic pack of pitiful poets!”

“You take that back!” Dumbbell demanded. “Or I swear I’ll make you sorry!”

She looked down her nose at him. “What are you going to do? Write a limerick at me? A haiku? Tell me, do you even know what a poet is? Or has that eluded you as much as basic manners and decency?”

Dumbbell kicked some cloud up with his hoof. “Grrrrr! I swear, you’d better shut your mouth now, or I’m REALLY gonna make you sorry!”

Rarity found that hilarious. “Dumbbell — and please, thank your mom for me for giving you such a GREAT name! — I’d ask you to look me in the eye when you say that, but I wouldn’t want you to strain yourself trying to see past that mop that’s halfway over your eyes! Here! Let me help, Dumb-Dumb.”

All three of the bullies had great, shaggy bangs curtaining their eyes. But Rainbow Dash watched Rarity’s horn glow, and then she saw a pinkish haze form by the top of Dumbbell’s forehead. The haze cut across Dumbbell’s hair like a tiny katana cutting through grass, and presto! The colt was un-banged.

The next second, Dumbbell flew up and shot down at Rarity, pinning her to the ground. He barked an order, and his two accomplices wrenched the parachute off Rarity’s back. Catching one of the parachute’s straps in his arm, Dumbbell flew high out over the long drop to nothingness, to the surface far below, just a few yards away.

“I’m gonna drop your stupid parachute, Hilarity!” he snarled, dangling the parachute over the empty air. “Whatcha gonna do now?!”

“Give it back!” she demanded, trying to grab it with her telekinesis.

But Hoops and Score came to their friend’s aid, joining in the tug-of-war!

“Heh heh! You’re gonna have to fly down after it, if you want it that badly!” Dumbbell said.

For half a minute they all just pulled at the parachute, back and forth. For all Rarity’s magic, it was still three colts against one filly. Rarity strained just to hold on. Then she appeared to have a new thought.

“...You know something, Dumbbell?” They were all surprised, Rainbow Dash included, when her telekinesis faded off the pack. She had let go. “I just realized, I DON’T want it that badly. Go ahead. Drop it.”

“I really will let go of this!” Dumbbell swore, dangling it as low as it would do. “I’m serious!”

And then Rarity fired a small ball of energy at the arm which held the parachute strap. It hit Dumbbell with the force of a well-thrown golf ball, and he dropped the parachute with a shriek. They all watched it plummet down, down, down to where the surface-dwelling ponies all looked to be the size of ants. Whatever ‘ants’ were.

“So was I,” said Rarity, dimming her horn with a calming breath. “I just realized... I don't need it anymore. I feel... liberated. Like I’ve grown a little. Thank you, Dumbbell.”

Then she turned to the filly she’d done all this for. “Hey, Rainbow? Would you like to come over to my place and let me give you a makeover? I’ll have you know I’m a certified natural-born prodigy at all forms of beautification! I'd like to work with a mane as artistic as yours! Far preferable to overgrown bangs.”

“Sure, Rarity!” said Rainbow. “That sounds great!”

“And THEN we can discuss which of the Wonderbolts you think is cutest!”

The unicorn formed a cloud platform, and tapped her hoof at an empty spot on the platform where Rainbow Dash could hop on with her. But just as they were about to take off, Dumbbell and his cronies planted themselves in front of the fillies.

“You think you’re better than me, don’t ya?” Rainbow Dash felt herself wanting to hide in her hole again at the sound of Dumbbell’s voice. “Just because you have a horn and I don’t!”

“Swap the word ‘horn’ for ‘brain,’ and yes, you’re right on the money!” Rarity replied.

“Whaddaya say to us having a little lightning duel, then?” Dumbbell glanced warily at Rarity’s horn. “With storm clouds.”

Rarity looked conflicted at that. “Well, by the rules of polite society, a lady simply does not attack a stallion...”

“...C’mon, Hilarity,” Dumbbell sneered, “we all know girls made up that rule because boys ALWAYS HIT HARDER...!”

“On the other hoof, the rules are a great deal less specific about giving a stupid colt a well-deserved thrashing!" She finished, angrily getting nose-to-nose with the colt. “Just name where and when!”

“One hour,” said Dumbbell. “The airspace over the Everfree Forest.”

Rarity turned her back on the colts. “Then I’ll see you in an hour.”

* * *

It was amazing how fast word could travel in a single hour.

As they had promised, they were all gathered at the site which was to serve as their dueling arena. Rarity, Dumbbell, Score, Hoops, Rainbow Dash, plus about twenty other classmates of their who had come as spectators.

“You can do it, Rarity!” called out Valley Breeze; one of the unicorn’s friends.

“Zap his tail off!” cheered Winter Wren, next to her.

“Show her who’s boss, Dumbbell!” shouted Gnatcatcher.

“Burn her stupid mane!” yelled Yellowhammer.

The spectators were all on their own cloud, a fair distance away from the combatants. Dumbbell and Rarity were each on their own cloud platform.

“Everyone quiet!” yelled Hoops, and the audience all went semi-quiet. “Good. Now I’ll go over the main rules. Each fighter only gets one storm cloud: the cloud they’re each right now standing on. Go out of bounds, you’re disqualified. Fighters must be within ten feet of their cloud at all times in any direction, any more and it’s another DQ! You win by either A) knocking out your opponent to the count of ten, or B) If your opponent’s cloud is judged to be completely busted or out of lightning.”

Hoops smiled at Rarity.

“‘Cuz she’s a unicorn, Rarity gets one break; she can use weather magic... but that's IT. No horn lightning, no grabbing Dumbbell or his cloud with her tele-ka-whatsit, no nothing but fighting with clouds like a PEGASUS! Fighters! Is this understood?”

“Yeah, sure!” said Dumbbell.

“Yes!” said Rarity.

“Great! Let’s get it on!”

Dumbbell stomped his hoof down upon his cloud. Aiming lightning bolts from a storm cloud so they’d go whichever direction you wanted was foal’s play; everypony knew that! It was all a matter of being familiar enough with clouds to know which part to stamp your hoof on.

A surge shot out at at Rarity’s head, but it was met by Rarity’s own blast, and they canceled each other out.

Rarity was tapping out a rhythmic quickstep beat on her cloud with both her forelegs, almost like a foal throwing a silent tantrum; except that it was shooting out rapid-fire lightning blast at Dumbbell. But Dumbbell threw himself to the floor of his cloud, hugging it with all hooves, then using his wings to propel him away, before springing back to a stand, and returning fire.

Rarity’s horn glowed, and her cloud lifted straight up, almost to an out-of-bounds height, before she gave a great hop and brought all four hooves solidly on her cloud, sending an extra-large bolt zigzagging down at Dumbbell. He dodged, and the bolt bit off quite a chunk of Dumbbell’s cloud, which then dissipated into the air.

So the colt flew to the underside of his cloud, hugging its bottom, using his hooves to thump out retaliatory blasts through the top of the cloud at Rarity; perforating her cloud and actually giving her a painful shock! She glared at him, her horn glowing- Gusts of cold wind whipped aroudn the arena, buffeting Dumbbell's cloud, and driving him back, she causing several more strikes of lightning lance out at him. She was utilizing her advantage; weather magic.

Dumbbell, in response, used his own; flapping his wings hard to drive his cloud rapidly around the arena. Finding herself being attacked in directions she wasn't expecting, Rarity bobbed and weaved, and received a few more shocks before she got a moment to concentrate, and with a glow of her horn, Dumbbell found him blinded by an impenetrable fog bank.

When Rarity sent her next bolt; Dumbbell had to jump to dodge it, since he could only hear it coming. But before he could flap back down and set his hooves back on his cloud, Rarity shot another bolt, and Dumbbell was forced to fly further back from his cloud! Another! Another! Everypony in the audience could see that at this rate, Dumbbell was being forced to an out-of-bounds range from his cloud! They’d have to disqualify him!

The unicorn’s muscles spasmed and jittered as she was struck by an electrical double whammy. She looked to see Hoops and Score had entered the arena, riding their own clouds.

“Never said it was against the rules for others to join the fight!” Hoops crowed.

“Hey! That’s cheating!” Rainbow Dash shouted out from the crowd, but a sharp look from Hoops quailed her. “W...well, i...it is...”

From where they were sitting, Glittershine and, of all ponies, Derpy Hooves were standing up from their cloud bleachers, grabbing their own thunderclouds to come to Rarity’s aid, but the unicorn just let out a snort. "Fine, then! Stay back, girls. I can take on all three of these cowards just as easily as I can take on one!"

But it turned out she couldn’t. Under the onslaught of the three colts’ electric barrage, it was all Rarity could do to keep dodging frantically, as near-misses kept tearing away bits of her cloud. By the end of it, she was down to balancing on four separate tiny clouds under each of her four hooves. Each cloud was only as big and wide as a cheerleader’s pompom. There was now so much electricity charged in the air, that every one their manes stood straight upward like they were a gang of mad cartoon scientists.

Glittershine and Valley Breeze and a number of Rarity’s other dear friends stood poised to dive down and catch Rarity when the bullies made her fall.

“Wanna know what your biggest mistake was, Hilarity?” Dumbbell jeered. “You let yourself be born without wings.”

Rarity's eyes flashed with fury that practically blazed. "OH! IT! IS! ON!" Her horn blinded the bullies; blinded ALL of them, stopping anyone from thinking. The clouds throughout the entire arena responded with a blinding, cold gale, the seats were torn out from underneath the spectators, as they were battered with freezing wind. Rainbow found her support torn out from underneath her. Battered by strong winds, she was unable to find her wings, she spun about wildly in a tailspin until she slammed into another pegasus, who righted herself while Rainbow plummeted!

* * *

She hurtled toward the earth below, while facing upwards towards the sky. Too stunned to think to open her wings, too stunned to even scream, Rainbow Dash just fell and fell and fell, watching cloud after cloud whiz by her head as though this were all happening to somepony else, not her... until, miraculously, instead of crashing, like she always crashed, everywhere... she felt something break her fall.

Thousands upon thousands of fluttery, paper-thin little something. Rainbow Dash looked left and right, seeing little things that weren’t birds... oh, but their fragile-looking wings were so preciously beautiful! Thousands of the pretty things, all fluttering by in a swarm! They had broken her fall. They delicately settled her against the ground.

What was this place? There were so many wonders to behold! So much filling her eyes! The colors alone, here, were like stepping into a particularly glorious dream! Up in Cloudsdale, eveything was, well, clouds. Countless shades of white and grey... and the blue of the sky.

Sure, the rainbows were colorful. The occasional bird, or flock of birds, could be colorful. Pegasi, themselves, were colorful. But her fellow pegasi were just so difficult for Rainbow Dash to deal with! Here, there was greens on the leaves, green on the grass, green on the bushes... and the flowers stems. And the flowers themselves: orange and pink and red and white and yellow and violet and more...! Wild berries, growing on bushes!

Back on Cloudsdale, they DID have flowers and berries and grass and such... for sale in the marketplace. Imported from down below. Cost a pretty bit to buy and bring home with you. But here? Here, in this lovely little forest? It was all hers for the taking. For ANYONE’S taking!

Rainbow Dash looked on, willingly falling under the spell this place was casting on her, struggled to remember everything she’d read about the surface world, the unique vocabulary of it all, every bit as novel and exotic as reading about undersea life.

Up in the trees, she saw... they were called ‘squirrels,‘ their bushy tails were so distinct... clambering up the side of a tree, into a hole. She’d never even SEEN a tree from this angle before now! Always it’d been from the top-down view! A family of bunnies, (or were they actually rabbits? What was the distinction?) The birds weren’t anything new to her... but the bees made the cutest little buzzing noises as they set about collecting pollen for their honey.

Oh, what a truly magical place the surface was! And to think she owed it all to that stupid, silly duel taking place above all there heads! She looked up. A massive thundercloud was forming, jags of lightning proving the continued battle. The storm, oddly, was taking a geometric shape. She shook her head, and turned her attention back to the wonders around her.

Her grin kept widening. Why had all the adults kept her from going to this place for so long? Why, for that matter, would anypony, wings or no wings, willing live in such a barren, colorless place as Cloudsdale? What were clouds compared to all the riches of the earth?

All these animals! She just... she just wanted to cuddle with them all! She wanted to bring them all home with her! These little earthbound creatures were so unbelievably cute, and she just wanted to take them home with her and be friends with them forever and ever! Unlike ponies, critters didn’t mock you or snub you. They’d never judge her for being klutzy, for being too fast for her own good!

If she knew the ground had THIS much up its sleeve, she’d have packed her bags and come down here years ago, and never looked back!

Then, there was a sudden explosion of noise, a thunderous echo of noise as the now diamond-shaped raincloud exploded with perfectly-geometrically shaped hail, the perfect geometric diamond shapes scattering rainbows all across the sky for miles and miles around. A beautifully intricate webwork of colors.

However, all the loud uproar taking place back in her old home, up above was spooking all the poor woodland critters. Eagerly, she set off after them, to kindly reassure them they had nothing to fear. Especially with a girl like her willing to be their friend!

...And the next time she looked at her flank, Rainbow Dash would see three new additions there...

* * *

“And... one thing led to another, and here we both are,” Rainbow Dash finished.

“It’s a good story, but still... BUTTERFLIES?!” Lero balked. “Butterflies stopped your fall?!”

“It wasn’t just ANY old butterflies, buddy! This was Herculoid Pinkwings we’re talking about!” She showed off her flank as though showing off a trio of the live Pinkwing butterflies. “Plus some Herculoid Bluewings and Yellowwings, as I recall...”

“So what’s so special about them?”

Rainbow Dash took on a cocky look. “Well, have you ever heard about how ants are capable of lifting fifty times their own weight?”

“Yeah.” Lero said.

“Well, Herculoid Pinkwings are capable of lifting six thousand times their own weight. And I fell into a flock of them big enough to kidnap a buffalo!”

Lero laughed, not even feeling Angel Bunny kicking at his ankle with hateful frustration.

“Yeah, I know, crazy but true!” said Dash, laughing along. “Believe me, I was there!”

“It’s not really that!” Lero said. “It’s just... Rarity gets a parachute, you get these butterflies, and I get to fall through a bramble tower,” He sighed with a wry smile. “Ah well, c’est la vie, as the French say in my old world.”

“I should’ve been there to save you.”

His eyes snapped over to the pegasus.

“...Dash?”

She shook herself lightly from what seemed to be a mild daze. “Huh? Oh, I’m sorry, dude, spaced out a bit there! What I meant to say was: I wish I could’ve been there to save you.”

Lero watched her look away for a second. Then she looked back. “Lero? Could I tell you something?”

“Sure,” he said. “Anything.”

“Sometimes, when you’re over the house like this, helping me... I suddenly find myself thinking about everything that happened to you in Bramblewood. The fall. All those thorns. And that spider.”

Rainbow’s eyes were filled with deep emotion. “You really suffered, didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” Lero simply said. He didn’t want to elaborate. "But don't worry about it. I've had worse." Though right now, he couldn't remember when he'd had worse... not without reawakening happily buried memories of the World-Before-Equestria.

“Well, I think about what it must’ve been like living through that and... this is REALLY silly of me, I know, but I find myself feeling incredibly sorry that I wasn’t there, myself, to swoop down and save you! I'd have done it in a heartbeat! I just... it’s just...”

She took a long breath out, and let it out with a regretful smile. “...crazy of me, huh? I mean, you were on that private date with Rarity... so it’s not like I could’ve been there anyway, right?”

“I suppose not,” Lero agreed.

She sat on the couch. “...Wanna know something else I think about when you come by here?”

“Sure.”

“That welcome home party we threw for you. I remember... when you hugged me.”

“And...?” Anxiety built within him as he sat on the couch next to her. The last time he touched on anything remotely like this, she'd called him sick and locked herself in her bedroom to get away from him. He knew she didn't remember, thanks to Discord, but...

“And at the time, I was just shocked and surprised. A little scared too; I didn’t know what to make of it! But looking back on it where I am now... having gotten to know you better, Lero... I think I understand why you hugged me the way you hugged me. You could see that I was going through a rough spot, right?”

“Well, yeah. That was painfully obvious. I mean it: PAINFULLY obvious. You were dead to the world when I got there, barely functional, and the second you came awake, you were terrified of what was going on back home without you... and afraid of going back there at the same time.”

Even if it was over a heartfelt moment, Lero felt the bizarre cognitive dissonance of legitimately remembering the same memory as one of the Swapped!

“From right off the bat, you were trying to reach out to me,” she murmured. Rainbow licked her lips. “One more thing I remember from that party: Applejack having to tell me to tell you glad-you’re-not-dead. And what I said was just... blah. No, worse than blah, it was uncool. No, WORSE than uncool... it was fake. I gave you a FAKE glad-you’re-not-dead spiel!”

She reached over and gave him a REAL hug. “Lero, I’m so happy you survived! I hate to think what my life would be like today if you weren’t here.”

He hugged her back. “Anytime, Rainbow.”

It felt like home.

Author's Note

Well, we’ve reached the end of this chapter. And doubtless, most all of you are curious why a certain special unicorn who lives in the same house as Lero has not gotten to tell HER cutie mark story.

Well, I figured since Twilight Sparkle hasn’t been swapped at all, there’s no need to retell her story!

...
...

Okay... let me explain myself. My original intention for this chapter had been to tell the cutie origin stories of ALL FOUR of the remaining Swapped. So what happened? I did a word count, and it turned my chapter was running QUITE a bit long.

Plus, I knew that for me to do full justice to all of Rarity’s backstory would pretty much require me to make this chapter twice as long. So I just went and split this chapter up in two.

But rest assured, the tale of Rarity The Weathermare’s personal history is coming next. We shall be delving back into the depths of Swapped Equestria.

Rarity was a HANDFUL for The Swap. It had to BEND ITSELF OVER BACKWARDS, in terms of creativity, just to invent plausible alibis for...

...how a unicorn spent almost her entire childhood up in the clouds of Cloudsdale...

...how Rarity managed to obtain her cutie mark...

...how Rarity came to meet, grow enamored of, and enter a romantic relationship with our boy Lero.

So stay tuned!

And if you haven’t already, I invite you to check out my newly made TV Tropes page...

And “Ask The Swapped Ponies.”