Scootaloo awoke wrapped in wonderfully soft blue warmth. She blinked away the sleep, trying to pick out where she could possibly be. For a moment she wondered briefly if her and Dash had ever come inside, and blushed in embarrassment as she also remembered that... Reflexively she looked up to make sure Dash's face was clean, and found her big sister staring at her.

"Morning." Dash nuzzled Scootaloo's nose.

Scootaloo froze, not sure if she was still dreaming as she stared in wide eyed shock, blushing furiously. Best morning ever? NO...awesomest moment of my life? I...I think I need a dictionary... Her mind raced chaotically jumping from one thing to say to another, all the while transfixed by Dash's adoring stare. So she said the most articulate thing she could muster. "Uuuhh..."

Dash giggled and rolled back and forth on the bed, Scootaloo flopping helplessly in her forelegs. "Most adorable filly EVER!"

"Uuhh..." Scootaloo's second attempt was about as articulate as the first sending Dash into further giggling fits. "Okay...this is a little weird."

"Wh-what?" Dash froze, and stared at Scootaloo in shock.

"No! I didn't mean that!" Scootaloo reached out as Dash let go, and rolled off the bed, pain in her eyes.

"Well then, what did you mean?" Dash took a deep breath, trying to control the blood rushing to her ears and wings from flushed embarrassment.

"It's just you are acting really weird." Scootaloo struggled to explain something beyond her understanding. "It's not like I don't like it." She held her breath, waiting for Dash's response.

Dash chewed her cheek for a moment in thought, using the pain to fight her emotions into a corner. "Yeah, I guess I feel a little different."

"You feel different? What happened?" Scootaloo innocently closed in on the mark.

"I just have a lot on my mind Squee-chi..." Dash dodged the subject as she turned, taking a deep cleansing breath, rebuilding her emotional walls and doubling the guard. She spun around wearing a massive winning grin. "Okay, kiddo! Here's how its gonna be. Today we train! I'ma make a flyer out of ya!"

Scootaloo almost fell on her face trying to crawl out of bed, her train of thought being derailed, and refocused into training mode. "Yeah! Let's do this!"

Dash breathed a deep sigh of relief.

Dash and Scootaloo stood on the ground below the cloudhome. The weather was clear, and Dash had asked for another sick day. Nopony complained, wing cramps being no laughing matter. "Here we go kiddo! Now listen up!"

Scootaloo stood at attention, her chest puffed out, her wings subconsciously raised slightly to make her look bigger. "Yes Mam!"

"Now, first things first, we need to measure your primaries." Dash pulled out a ruler.

"What?"

She trotted over and snagged one of Scootaloo's wings, eliciting a slight 'eep' out of the startled filly. "If they are too small you can't fly. Period. End of story. Bye, bye...see ya later."

A horrified Scootaloo held her breath, "I already knew that! But..." It hurts to hear it out loud.

"Hmmm..." Dash's brow furrowed in thought. These have been flight length for at least a year... The implications irritated Dash, planting a seed of anger in her gut.

"What!? Is it bad? They are too short aren't they?" She facehoofed. "I knew it!"

"Relaaax, Squee-chi..." Dash soothed.

"Shhh! Don't call me that out here!" Scootaloo hissed, searching for passers by who may of heard one of her most embarrassing secrets.

Dash snickered. "Look, you're fine, the problem isn't with how long they are. You have some good primaries in, but the ones you have are badly damaged. Probably from crashing all the time."

"What? I just..." Scootaloo's ears fell back as she lowered her voice, averted her eyes, and blushed profusely. She hesitated for a moment, but relaxed a little as Dash bent down so the filly could whisper in her ear. "I uh...j-just molted a couple weeks ago."

Dash giggled despite her best efforts to keep up a tough appearance. A piece of her within danced for joy that Scootaloo would share something so horribly embarrassing with her. She jumped quickly to assuage the filly's ego as Scootaloo recoiled indignantly. "No, I'm not laughing at you," Dash whispered into her ear. "You just made me happy...is all."

"Why would that make you happy?" Scootaloo raised an inquisitive brow giving Dash a 'mare you crazy' glare.

"No not that you...never mind. Look, you can't take off with those. You would end up face planting half the time, and it's hard enough taking off for the first time." Dash took a deep breath, rethinking a better plan of action.

Scootaloo head butted Dash in the chest. "I really want to fly Dash! I'll do anything!"

Dash vigorously ruffled Scootaloo's mane with a hoof as she smiled. "Good, because I have an idea, and don't expect me to go easy on you just because you're my little sister." Dash produced a rope and a small body harness, "Put your hooves and wings up." She tied the rope around Scootaloo's mid. "This rope is stretchy so it will have enough give and not tear you in half."

"Dash?" Scootaloo sounded her mentors name with a nervous edge.

"Hmm?"

"You can't fly still right?" Scootaloo eyed the harness and rope inquisitively as Dash finished off the last knot.

"Right, and I'm not going to." Dash flapped up to her cloudhome, stopped, and looked down. "Well, you get what I mean. I'm not going to fly any further than this." She tied the other end of the rope to a pillar. Then she turned, hauled her, "dope-on-a-rope," up as she called down. "That's what we call this when we are luring rocs away from the weather teams around the Everfree. Two good flyers drop a pegasis tied to a rope, and fish for the roc. The dope has to focus on looking injured and spinning out of control since the stupid roc's will go after anything that looks like an easy kill first. The other two then haul the dope to safety until she regains her bearings, letting the workers who are in real danger escape." I love giving this class to new weather recruits! She grinned, and winked at Scootaloo. "We will go into details later, but for now, my little dope, welcome to suicide training class!"

Scootaloo rotated slowly around as Dash dangled her at eye level. Her head jerked side to side to keep eye contact as she stared dubiously at her mentor. "What are you going to do to me? I don't like that look in your eyiieeee!!"

Dash tossed Scootaloo off the ledge, the filly's wings flapping furiously to slow her descent. The ground came up menacingly fast, and the wind was slammed out of her as she came to a sudden jerking halt at the end of the rope two feet from the ground, and shot back up. She bounced a couple times, and leveled out into a flat spin, the world dizzyingly mocking the sudden queasy sick in her stomach. Then, she bounced in little jerks as Dash hauled her back up.

Scootaloo growled dangerously, a vicious tongue lashing forming on her lips. Dash hauled her up a little too swiftly, flailing wildly the filly arched upwards above Dash's head and arced down into her outstretched forelegs. She grasped at her little sister, and hugged her tight. The anger in Scootaloo boiled, but held in check, giving way to shocked confusion as Dash hid her eyes in the orange fur of her stomach.

"Dash?" Scootaloo ventured forth, perplexed by sudden soft sobbing, and the wetness spreading around her coat.

"Hmm?" Dash followed the question with a sniffle, struggling to hold back tears.

Scootaloo ran a hesitant hoof through Dash's mane. "What's wrong? I don't...why are you...did I do something?"

Dash gritted her teeth, straining to get her emotions under control. I can't do this! "Squee-chi, I'm so sorry. I just...I don't know why. Something's wrong with me." She burst into a round of sobs and sniffles intermittent with frustrated growls and silent moments where Dash held her breath so hard, Scootaloo was sure she'd pass out.

Scootaloo lay wrapped in a shivering blue cradle, running a soothing hoof through Dash's mane, and hugging her with the other. "Dash, you're scaring me..." Dash burst out into lamenting wails.

Below the cloudhome...

Fluttershy's eyes dilated impossibly wide in wavering glistening pain as she listened to her oldest, and dearest friend breaking down above. She bit her lip as she stared up at the cloudhome, willing herself to fly up, but her jittery outstretched wings empathically forbid it. Now's the wrong time. Two little tears ran down her cheeks as she closed her eyes, and bit into the wicker of the basket she had so gingerly weaved with purpose. Her tears fell upon the herbs, and lotions she had lovingly prepared to sooth Dash's wings. She can't know I was here! She turned, and sped off adding a few flapping leaps to ensure her departure was swift, and her presence kept secret. I have to be patient. Oh, Dashie, please come visit soon. I hate it when you hide your feelings...then this happens...

Meanwhile...at the library, Applejack was having issues of her own...

Applejack's ears fell flat to the sides, and folded back as she backpedaled towards the door. Her hooves shakily inched away from the scene before her. A scene she couldn't tear her eyes away from.

Twilight danced giddily around, staring fixedly at, and circling a central point. Black waves of magic roiled around her horn and spilled out, sucking the light from the air around her disheveled mane. Her eyes wide with madness as she giggled maniacally through a clenched grin. Little bits of foam dripped down her quivering jaw, her teeth chattering in deranged excitement.

Applejack attempted to understand the words coming out of Twilight's mouth, but the color from her face drained as the sounds fell upon her. Multiple voices, whispers dark and forbidding, emanated from Twilight's lips, and reverberated in menacing poetic pros throughout the library. Wisps of airy white streaked through the room, some encircling the purple mage in a twisting dance of glittery flashes not meant for the uninitiated pony's eyes, emitting childish ethereal giggles not meant for simple pony ears.

Ghosts! Twilight's surrounded by the dead! Applejack's mind whirled. Shivers ran up and down Applejack's spine as her knees quaked, refusing her commands. Through sheer luck her flank skirted the wall to find the open door. She backed out, reared up, turned on her hind legs, and bolted in a random direction. She dashed through the streets dodging pony's going about their business.

"I'm gonna need help with this one!"

Blinded by terror, she ran feverishly, striking through entire crowds unlucky enough to stand in her path. She turned instinctively to dodge a building, slamming into the wall, cracking the siding, and thundered past Sugarcube Corner eliciting the concern of a certain pink pony.

Pinkie ducked under a rock, and popped out of a cart two blocks away, "Apple..." Applejack flew past. "...jack?" Pinkie ducked back into the cart and popped out of a hole in a tree three blocks down deciding to give it a bit more effort. "Applejack!!" She waved at the thundering crazed pony, whose mind was too full of the whispers of the dead to hear her friend as she charged by. Pinkie ducked back in, concern on her brow. "She can't ignore this!" Pinkie focused, naturally conjuring images of the inside of Applejack's hat. She projected the picture in her mind, her genius centered on photographic memory and imagination. Then, projecting the image into the darkness around her she simply accepted it as reality. So it was no surprise to Pinkie when the smell of old hat, and sweat permeated the air, and the feel of Applejack's hard jouncing noggin came into being under her hooves.

Pinkie, prepared with a jaunty 'hello, what's got you spooked,' went to pop out of Applejack's hat. However, the word that left her mouth was more along the lines of 'hyuurrk!'

Rarity eyed her newest creation with disdain. "Uhf, I can't believe they rejected my designs! Somepony's just have no fashion sense what-so-ever! Not, modern enough they said! Too backwater, hick town, redneck they said. OOOHH, one even called me a, what was that again Sweetie Belle?"

Sweetie Belle winced, taking in her sisters tirade as best she could. The recent fashion expo in Canterlot had been a disaster, bringing the two sisters home early. "Uhm...a cornfed bumpkin yokel?" She grinned nervously.

"UUHHH!" Rarity's hoof shot dramatically to her brow as she reared up just so she could faint backwards.

Sweetie Bell sighed, and produced a paper fan she kept just for such occasions. "I love your designs! Sis."

"You are so...Sweetie, but you are my sister, it's your job to love my designs." Rarity batted her eyes at Sweetie Belle's deadpan gaze, and basked in the flow of air from the fan. "Honey, I need to be adored by everypony else, but I can bounce back from any criticism no matter how uneducated and misplaced it may be. However, you are the one pony whose opinion does actually matter. If you didn't like my art I would simply just die! Life would lose all meaning, and my world would end!"

Sweetie Belle giggled, dropping the fan as Rarity pulled her into a hug, and nuzzled her cheek. "Alright Sweetie Belle. We have a long night ahead of us. I need to rethink some of these design's, or else I fear I shall never get to sleep tonight. I am going to need your help."

Sweetie belle bounced around excitedly, "YAY!"

SLAM! A wild Applejack appeared! Rarity's door exploded in a shower of splinters, and dangerously sharp pieces that bounced across the room. She used Pinkie Splash Attack! Applejack's hat flew across the room to land at Rarity's hooves while Pinkie spilled over the brim, dropped on the deck, and flopped like a fish. But nothing happened!

Rarity took it all in stride used to things exploding around her, and handling incredibly awkward friend moments as she enjoyed the distraction. "Well at least there is one pony bursting through my doors just dying to try on my fashions! Applejack, darling, I admire your spirit but..." Half of Pinkies body was inexplicably still stuck in the hat as she twitched in dizzy shock on the floor. "Oh my...you really shouldn't wear your friends as hats. That's just not the kind of impression you want to make, and I fear you may never, as they say, live it down."