Slowly, the clock was ticking, announcing that the flow of time was inexorable. The light of the sun began to enter in the dusty office, crowded by papers, mom form and dad complaint letter were having fun on the desk with their children, despite the snoring of the pink mane mare sleeping there, slowly dripping her saliva on some other papers.
Suddenly, she opened her eyes and gasped in fear, how long has she been sleeping? She needed to fill and send so many forms and –
“My hair!” Screamed the pony in horror.
She saw herself in one of the mirrors of the room – cheap trick to virtually enlarge it – and understood that she had to be cautious. It was the start of a new day, a lot of ponies would be out soon and she needed to go back to her home without getting caught. The pink of her mane started to prevail on its gray counterpart.
Yes, the Mayor dyed her mane.
Gathering the most important scrolls, she nearly jumped out the window after having attached her saddlebags. Her home was on the other side of Ponyville. She needed to be fast, really fast or her secret would vanish into oblivion. Why didn't she took a hat? It would have made the trip so much easier... The article in the Foal Free Press had already been a close shot. Being seen in public with her pink mane would put an end to her most intimate secret.
While running, she mentally slapped her face, she REALLY should have taken a hat of some sort.
Dark alleys, empty streets, shutters beginning to be opened one by one. Cats and dogs mewling and barking. The Mayor was running out of time. Thankfully, there seemed to be no pegasi in sight. The sky was clear, Celestia had risen the sun high enough to reveal the blue of the –
“No no no no no no!” Repeated the Mayor in a low tone while getting some cover in a nearby haystack.
The sky was blue, but it wasn't the only blue thing above her. A rainbow left there proved it. Rainbow Dash was still close, but nowhere to be seen.
With extreme caution, the Mayor walked the last half mile to her home, hoping that a moving haystack would be – at worst – considered as Pinkie Pie playing some spy game.
Putting on her glasses, the mare looked at herself in the mirror of her bathroom: her hair was gray again, the dye being as effective as ever. She took a moment to sit calmly, remembering the first day she had to do it.
“Mom, why do I have to do that?” Asked the young future mayor.
“I must go out of town for a while, important business with the Griffin Kingdom.” Answered her mother.
“You couldn't simply warn the ponies?” A look of incomprehension was on her face. “It's not honest to do that.”
“I know sweetie. It's just a matter of days and Ponyville wouldn't be secure anymore if the news spread. Be nice, follow the procedure and dye your hair gray when you impersonate me.” The mother considered putting her favorite hat on, but preferred to leave it there.
“What if somepony find out?”
“Nopony will. You're my reflection in a mirror. Even your cutie mark is.”
“Except that the scroll is reversed.”
“That's what I meant.”
This was the last day the filly saw her mother. The former never came back, ambushed by rogues soon after crossing the border. The story has been muffled and nopony in Ponyville – outside of the Mayor's family – knew about the case. Since then, the daughter faked her own death to impersonate her mother at full time. She was ought to lead the city sooner or later, but she would had preferred to do it the classic way.
“Mom...”
The not-so-old mare wiped a tear away before sighing with melancholy, ending sobbing at the memories of her father. At the memories of the stallion seeking an ersatz of his wife in his daughter. At the memories of the night everything has been put to an end. She looked at her hooves, remembering how he suffocated and how she had not lifted one of those same hooves to help him. Her own father. Which had became her husband too. Memories she tried to suppress... To no avail.
On the way to her office, the Mayor smiled. Her glass mask was there again. The ponies who crossed her path were waving back, asking if she was doing fine, sometimes asking question more related to her work, like Carrot Top wondering if the Tax on food-related benefits during the Summer Sun Celebrations would increase again this year.
The mayor was dead inside. She merely did have a youth. Now that she was fully a mare, she was still an old mare for the others, doing her best, which was quite often insufficient. Days or nights like the Nightmare Night were the sole moments were she could fully escape. Nopony would suspect anything as acting quite different than usual became perfectly normal on such occasions.
She did not know who she was herself, because she didn't took the time to become what the Time made of her. These inner turmoils were becoming more and more difficult to live with and she knew she needed someone to talk to. She would have become insane otherwise.
The density of these thoughts made her glass mask darken a second, which was sufficient to made her bump into the pony standing in front of her. After standard excuses and polite bow, she ended her travel, entering the city hall, targeting her office while saluting her colleagues, doing the usual little chit-chat in order to take some news about the new baby, the future vacations or the recovery of the ill aunt.
She stopped once in her office. In one of the seats in front of her desk was sitting a blue pony with rainbow mane. This vision made the Mayor freeze, as she couldn't think of any other reason for her to be there than what happened earlier. If she had been discovered, it would be the end for her soon. The end and the beginning. Would that really be an horrible situation for the Mayor, for the pony who lived way ahead of her own time?
“Rainbow Dash. What a surprise!” Exclaimed the dyed pony, walking to her fate.
“Mayor! You’re finally- Wait. A surprise? What are you talking about?” The statement of the mayor visibly startled her.
“Well… Do we have something scheduled?”
“I don’t know if you scheduled it or not, but I told you yesterday that I was gonna come back there again today to discuss about tornado duty training.”
“Oh. This.” With the events of the day, this tornado duty story totally slipped out of the mayor’s mind. “My answer is still no.”
“Ow, come on! If we had pegasi able to make a tornado, we totally could wipe out unscheduled weather coming from the everfree forest in no time!” Her exasperation was audible.
“Again, don’t you already do it?” Asked the mayor, while making herself comfortable, sitting and adjusting her seat, organising her desk, etc.
“Yes. But it can take a full day! With a tornado, it would take a few minutes!”
“And concerning the potential casualties?” She turned a machine on. “Coffee?”
“Yes, thanks. But there wouldn’t be any casualties. Ponies aren’t supposed to be in the everfree during storms. The worst would be harming wild critters.”
“Even if there was nopony inside the forest, I can’t allow cruelty against animals, miss Dash.” She took a box out. “Sugar?”
“Come on! They’re not mere animals! They are rampaging monsters! Remember the parasprites and the Ursa Minor? Would it be THAT bad to reduce their number? The forest is really close to the town, you know. And four sugars. … Pinkie Pie’s influence. ”
The mayor sighed. “I know it too well. That’s why we can’t risk angering them, or worse, having them lifted by the wind and delivered directly to Ponyville.” She finished making coffee, with two sugar for her, four for Rainbow Dash, and served it.
“Thank you.” She sipped. “But your argument is invalid. Only small creatures would be lifted and if there was bigger ones, we would have a tornado squad to deal with them.”
The mayor drank her cup in one. Single. Gulp. “Parasprites.”
Rainbow Dash didn’t believe her eyes and was taken aback for a second. “Uh?”
“Parasprites. They’re small. Could be lifted. Nearly ate our whole town.”
“Well… That’s a good point...” She scratched her mane while drinking some more.
“Now, do you still think that clearing some bad clouds in a few minutes instead of a few days is worth risking our whole town?”
Rainbow finished her cup and put it back on the desk before answering.“No.”
“Glad we worked that out then. I don’t understand why I didn’t bring the parasprite point sooner though...” She thought for a second. “Doesn’t matter. I hope the answer doesn’t deceive you too much.”
“No. Not as long as Ponyville can be safe. I wished we came to this conclusion yesterday though. I would have been able to sleep longer.”
Before realising it, the mayor started to sweat a bit. “Oh. How early did you get up this morning?”
“Dunno. Not long after Celestia raised the sun. Speaking of which, I think I saw you while coming here.”
Now the mayor’s right hind leg started to shake softly. “It’s… Possible. I kind of… You know… Slept here and needed to go back home... Cleaning myself and all before starting a new day.”
“No offense, but don’t you have a life outside of your work?”
“A life? What do you mean?” She calmed down a bit. The pegasi didn’t seem to have noticed the pink mane during the morning.
“I know you lost your husband and daughter, it’s not a secret to anypony, but… You shouldn’t use your job to compensate. You’re not old enough to not have friends or even a coltfriend. ...Or even a marefriend, if you like mares too.”
Now she was laughing. “Ah ah ah! You’re seriously concerned that I’m doing too much work? ME? Ah aha ha!”
The weather manager was now confused. “Well… Yeah. I don’t know why you’re laughing. I rarely saw you enjoying yourself. Or having fun with friends.”
Before answering, the city manager wiped out some tear of joy. Or deep sadness she masked with joy. Even she couldn’t tell the difference. She wore her mask for so long, some of its fake expressions engraved themselves into the flesh beyond the artifice.
“Trust me, I’m having some fun.”
“When was the last time you ate out with a friend?”
“Erm… It’s...”
“Did you even try to date someone since you’re a widow?”
“No… But…” The mayor’s smile faded away.
“What do you do for fun that involves somepony else?”
“When did this discussion turned from a grant request to a psychoanalysis session?”
“I’m not here as the weather manager anymore. I’m now here as the element of harmony, helping with friendship problems.”
“Aren’t you the element of loyalty?”
“Yes. That’s why I’m gonna help you find someone to be loyal to.”
“I’m already married to the town, thank you.”
Rainbow sighed. Hard. “That’s the saddest thing you could have said. Is that’s why you dye your hair pink? So the town will think you’re younger? That won’t work if you keep hiding it from the inhabitants.”
“What, what are you talking about?!” Now the mayor was nervous again and unable to hide it anymore.
“I saw you running, with your mane a bit pink. Because you slept there, I think you dyed temporarily your mane pink for whatever reason and went home quickly to remove it. … No. It was dyed near the root, as if it was the real color, but that is not possible...”
“R...Ridiculous. Ah. Ahah. Why would I? Ahahah. Ah.”
“Are you like… Younger or something?”
That was it. A new beginning.
“Rainbow Dash. Can you keep a secret?”
“Yes, of course!”
“Well, then…”
“Wow. I did not expect that. You’re… My age. And you went through all of this.” Rainbow Dash’s expression was rather blank.
“Yes.” A bittersweet smile was now on the mayor’s face, who was fixing her empty cup of coffee for the last ten minutes, dry tears on her cheeks.
The next minutes, albeit slow, seemed to flow really fast for the two of them. Rainbow Dash stood up, the mayor followed. The former opened her wings and the latter accepted to refugee herself in the warm pegasi embrace. After so many years of lies, being able to tell the truth to a mare so kind and accepting, despite her direct demeanor and habitually mischievous behavior, was like heaven.
“Mayor?”
“Y...Yes?”
“What is your real name?”
“It’s… Pink Justice.”
“Can I call you Pinku?”
“Yes…. Yes Rainbow, you can...”
And thus started a friendly relation between the two of them. A relation with ups and downs. With fun moments, with sad moments. A relation where the two stick together anyway. A relation where they are, maybe, more than mere friends.
Author's Note
That's all folks! I know it looks more like a prologue than anything, but there's little chance I will continue this story in the future. Feel free to write more of these two getting along together if you want!