“First order of business…” Rainbow Dash said to herself as she gained altitude. She steadily approached a freelancing cloud and looked at the wispy puff of water vapor. Something about it bothered her (aside from the whole moving-on-its-own thing) but she couldn’t put a hoof on it. Then she found out she literally could not put a hoof on it. Dash leaned in to stop its movement out of impulse and watched her hooves go straight through it. The cloud blissfully ignored her being, consuming and then spitting her out the other side as it moved with the wind. And now she was freshly dampened with water again. In bitter confusion and refusing to give up, she flew above it and tried to land on the cloud only to phase right through it. She tried to do something about it again for the process to only repeat itself.

“What kind of freak joke is this?” She looked at the light reflecting off the droplets of water vapor that slowly evaporated from her hooves. Quizzically looking back to the cloud as it slowly drifted away, she deliberately flew inside it. The white fog made looking outside nearly impossible and she cautiously prodded every bit of the cloud’s surface area. The beating of her wings to keep herself aloft with the cloud began to disperse it, splitting it into several chunks. Dash looked up between splits in her wet mane at the light blaring down, shining her body in the midday sun.

Hey, I could use a bath. Dash smiled, almost forgetting about the odd mechanics of the cloud altogether. She started flying in and out of the puffs drenching her body in more water all the while destroying the cloud in the process. By the time she was satisfied with the result, the cloud was fading into countless loose strands that zigzagged through the air. Dash shook her coat in a single uniform motion to dry herself off, and started flying with the remains of the cloud. Although upset that she couldn’t manipulate it like in Ponyville, she was intrigued by the idea she couldn’t. It was interesting the way a cloud moved like this, even it’s strange and alien state. Maybe she wasn’t in Equestria anymore. Or perhaps it was just the Poison Joke playing a prank on her by disabling that part of her magic. Maybe it was both.

A low buzz soon drew her attention away from the cloud’s remains. It sounded oddly like a bumble bee, but as whatever it was got closer the sound got louder. Unless a bumble bee could fly at twelve thousand feet (which in all likelihood they don’t) and was currently inside her eardrum, she had no clue whatever the noise could have been, or even where it was coming from. But whatever in Celestia’s name it was, it was getting closer and the sound was becoming more of a drone than a buzz. Dash looked around and couldn’t find the source so she looked up to see a cloudbank hovering above. She flew up and emerged on top of the clouds to try to find where the noise was coming from. Torn between fear and fascination, Dash twisted around in every direction trying to get a bearing on the unidentified source.

But by the time she noticed where it was coming from, its wings almost took her head off.

Dash dogged out of the way just in time to avoid a midair collision with what was emitting the noise. White as the cloud she just popped up from, an oblong object flew at her like Pinkie Pie does when she gives someone a surprise party. And whatever it was, it was fast. In the few seconds Dash wasted in blistering confusion at her near death experience, she was already losing sight of the thing. But it couldn’t out pace her.

She quickly caught up to it with ease. The entire object that bewildered her had no rough edges and enough curves to make the object one entire piece of metal. The best way it could be described was like a giant metal bird or some sort of flying machine, yet its wings didn’t flap up or down and there didn’t seem to be any sort of way to pilot it. The droning noise it produced seemed to be coming from the back where a spinning blade that propelled the craft forward. Dash carefully flew around the spinning deathtrap and over the object to get a view of the enormous wingspan; almost seven times that as her own. The object was also maybe eight meters long. She noticed two fins hanging off the rear end of the metal machine and flew down to inspect them. They must be stabilizers, much like how she uses her legs to help her in flight. On the stabilizers were the letters “USAF 157” and “MQ-1A.”

So this is called a USAF?  Rainbow Dash scoffed at the silly name. It’s probably short for something like Unknown Super Awkward Flying-thingy...

She flew up and alongside it now to get a closer look at the USAF and saw an odd emblem on its midsection: A single white star layered over a blue circle. Two white stripes ran horizontally underneath the circle, and stretched a couple inches out on either side. The whole design was outlined in red. Dash hadn’t seen anything like it. A cutie mark for a mechanical being? Come think of it, this was probably the first metallic flying machine she’s encountered. That is, if chariots don’t count. And there was that flying thing Pinkie Pie had, but that could be piloted. Dash had no clue as to how a pony could even fit inside the thing. Was it even controlled by anything?

As if the whole craft wasn’t freaky already, the weirdest part was that it had a giant ball hanging down from underneath the nose. It couldn’t be any bigger than that of a beach ball and it too was made of metal. Dash cautiously flew under the belly of the craft and went in to inspect it, the ball that hanging ominously in front of her.

And then the ball rotated.

Dash squeaked and covered her mouth only to suddenly burst into laughter. Whatever a USAF was it had to be the dumbest thing around. She had already flown with it for at least a full two minutes and it still hadn’t noticed her. Was it even sentient? Dash tapped a hoof against the underbelly and felt the hollowness of a cavity inside. She looked around from underneath and behind the metal ball that occasionally rotated, and noticed there were two out of shape canisters hanging on either wing. They were both brown and less than two meters long, but something about them disturbed her (as if the whole thing wasn’t doing that well enough). A dark black eye looked out from inside a glass bubble that made up the nose of the object stared back at her. Was this the thing’s eyes?

Dash suddenly realized her close proximity to the spinning blades of probable death and dropped a safe distance beneath the craft, ready to leave it alone. But now something else was of the matter: the metal ball seemed to have fixated itself on her. A similar black eye hidden behind a sheet of glass looked down watching her every move. Dash did a small circle around the bottom of the USAF and the eye rotated, following wherever she went. She rolled onto her back and drifted away to the left, and the craft turned above to follow her. She drifted to the right and the craft yawed to the right in synch.

“This is starting to get scary,” Dash rolled back over and banked hard to the left to leave the thing behind. She had to get to the oasis to get food and such for Fluttershy and Scootaloo after all. Dash looked over her shoulder to see the USAF change directions. It was now following, no, it was now pursing her. Adrenaline decided to finally kick in as fear over being hunted down rushed into her mind. Dash immediately put her wings into overdrive and tripled her speed, leaving the USAF behind in a figurative cloud of dust. She could practically go this speed forever but the USAF seemed to be going as fast as it could, it simply couldn’t keep up with her. Nothing could. Rainbow Dash is the fastest flier in Equestria after all.

A glimmer of light in the corner of her eye diverted her attention down to the ground. Dash could see a small sandy, rural village built below her. It wasn’t that big, but it was close to the oasis. Somepony had to be living there, so the good news is she found somewhere to get help from. Her gaze returned to the light as it progressively got bigger, and it seemed to be trailing smoke. Dash stopped in midflight and hovered in place, watching the light become more defined. The light actually was coming from behind something, trailing a large gray contrail of smoke behind it. The object looked pretty much like the canisters under the USAF’s wings, except it was much bigger. This canister was probably twelve feet long, painted a dark green, and had several stabilizing fins surrounding it. Rainbow Dash turned around to see the USAF was still following her, but maybe ten or so seconds behind. Then she watched as the canister flew up towards the USAF, all too eager to greet it. Rainbow Dash floated in horrific silence.

There was a deafening explosion as the USAF and the canister collided. The canister’s suicide run was all too effective at obliterating itself, but not so at destroying the USAF. Stunned and speechless, Dash watched as one of the USAF’s wings ripped off and the whole thing plummet out of the sky towards the sandy ground below. It corkscrewed through the air desperately trying to regain control of flight but it was no use. Dash watched the USAF die, hitting the ground with a dull thud before erupting into an enormous ball of fire. Overcome with guilt, she couldn’t help but yell at herself. The poor thing was probably just as curious about her as she was towards it, and now the USAF lay in a smoldering heap of twisted metal. It was her fault it died! It followed her over…

Dash went limp, all color draining from her face. She was over the same area where the USAF was! She looked down expecting to see another light trace its way out of the village up to meet her, and thankfully none came. But that didn’t mean another one wouldn’t. Dash shot off faster than she had ever before in her life. No, that was a lie. She would have done a Sonic Rainboom had she been going fast enough and she probably would have done so any second now. Rainbow Dash retreated towards the cave and flew at breakneck speed.

No, she couldn’t return. Not yet.

Dash stopped on the spot, halfway between the village and the mountains. She promised to get food and water from the oasis, and she intended to do so. Maybe the village that launched the canister was trying to protect her? Thinking back, the USAF had similar canisters too. Maybe it was the hostile and the village was friendly? The wave of guilt that subdued her lifted away. She’d really have to thank the ponies there for saving her life, but that would have to wait. Friends come first. That’s the bottom line.

It probably wouldn’t hurt to fly low to the ground though.

~~~~~~~~~

Rainbow Dash touched down in the boggy marsh of the oasis. Surrounding her in every direction was green grass taller than she was. She couldn’t see anything except for the blades that stood in front of her. She had to get to the watering hole she saw from the air and find a way to take some of it back. The grass would be easy enough though; it was so long she could tie up bales of the stuff and carry it back to the cave. The grass…

Dash slowly stuck her head out to the nearest towering blade of grass and nibbled at it. It wasn’t as sweet as the grass back in Ponyville, but it still rattled her taste buds. Glutinously she devoured the patch in front of her, eating to her heart’s content. A few minutes and two square meters of wild grass later, she was stuffed.  Dash collapsed onto the ground in a heap, smiling the whole way down. The encounter with the USAF wore her down and she needed to rest. The memory of the incident made her winch, snapping her back to her feet. All she wanted to do was forget about the USAF but more than likely the memory would be scarred into the back of her head for the rest of her life. She had to find its family and tell them what happened to it. But, then again she didn’t know if it was trying to kill her or not.

“Ugh…” Dash groaned, making randomly walking through the grass. The ponies in that village likely had answers, and hopefully they’d be able to help her figure out where she was.

“I seriously doubt this is Equestria. Don’t care what Fluttershy says, not all the Poison Joke in the Everfree Forest could make this sort of hallucin… hallucy… thing,” Dash talked to herself in her search for water. “I mean, the USAF was real. It died. I watched it die. This grass is real. I’m digesting it. This ground is real. I’m walking on it. The clouds… okay, I don’t know if those are real. I’ve never seen any cloud act the way these ones are, and besides-“

*Splash*

She looked down and saw she had absentmindedly walked into the watering hole. It wasn’t that big though, maybe a hundred feet across. But the water seemed fresh. Dash slowly bent to her knees and took a small sip of the water. Her sips quickly became glutinous gulps as she almost drowned herself.

“Oh sweet Celestia…” she panted, bringing her head back up. “I have never been so thirsty in my life!”

The grass behind her rustled in the slow breeze. Dash shrugged it off at being just that and returned to pool of water. She needed to find a way to get water back to the Fluttershy and Scootaloo. She had no way of carrying it, so hopefully she could find something like a sea shell. She’d need a lot of sea shells. Dash decided to begin her search for any sort of container by flying around the pond. The winds died down, the water was fresh and surprisingly clear, and the sun brightly illuminated the surface making it very easy to see underwater. However even with the natural elements on her side she still couldn’t find anything of use. Defeated, she returned to the shoreline to ponder what to do. Fluttershy could probably fly here, and she could easily carry Scootaloo. But the sun was starting to go down and she had to get back to the cave soon. The last thing she needed was to make them worried about her. They’d probably just have to make the trek back to the oasis in the morning. Dash’s ears perked up with the sound of more grass rustling, but it wasn’t the wind this time. The snapping of twigs and odd sounds confirmed that. The noises got closer and closer until they suddenly stopped. Scared stiff, she hesitated to turn around, but that sandy village was nearby. The ponies that lived there likely went to the oasis for water like she was, so she turned around to greet them.

The two beings before her weren’t ponies. She didn’t know what they were. Where a full grown mare like Rainbow Dash would be just less than four feet tall, these two creatures were almost as tall as Princess Celestia herself! And the weird part about them was that they stood on two legs much like a Diamond Dog would, but they weren’t those either. Their paws were too small, their bodies too thin and completely devoid of hair except for small tuffs of black that rested atop their heads. The creatures’ faces had no snouts and instead scrunched up, almost completely flat except for their noses. Their eyes were nowhere near as large as a pony’s and their skin was a dark tan. She didn’t even know if they were female or not.

That’s about as much detail as she could get from their structure. The rest of the creatures’ bodies were covered in thick layers of shrouded clothing, dusty and well-worn from repeated use. One of them wore a dark blue cloth tunic, with similarly matching pants. A red checkerboard scarf wrapped its way around its head and protected it from the unrelenting sun. The creature had its arms wrapped around a big stick that it rested across its broad shoulders. On either side of the stick hung two metallic buckets, assumingly to be held with water if they weren’t already.

The other one wore a light green shirt and dark brown pants. A scarf similar to the other’s wrapped its way around its neck and the creature had opted for a small white hat on its head instead of the scarf like its friend did. Instead of carrying buckets this one instead held out a long black object. The main part of the object looked like it was made of metal, but there was also wood too. A large piece of wood stuck out one side of the object and was pressed into the creature’s shoulder. Another piece of metal stuck out from underneath between the points where the creature held it. It had wrapped a paw around a grip near the back of it and supported the object with the other, pointing its long front end at a scared cyan pegasus with a rainbow colored mane.

The two stared at Rainbow Dash and she stared back.

“Um, hello?” Dash cautioned, slowly backing away into the water.

The two creatures’ eyes widened, facing each other and then back to her. Then the two started arguing in some unknown language. She couldn’t understand what they were saying, but the one carrying the buckets seemed to be winning. The other protested, but eventually complied with what it was being told. It lowered the object it held in its hand (she hadn’t noticed the object had a strap on it) and the creature slung the object over its shoulder.

“Hello?” It spoke. The one with the buckets looked satisfied, much to the other’s frustration. “You speak English, yes?”

Dash took a step further back into the water. Even though she was the first to start up the conversation, she hadn’t really been expecting a reply. “Y-You mean Equine? Of co-course I do!”

“Yes! Good!” It said in a nervous laugh. “Do you have a name?”

“T-The name’s Rainbow Dash! I’m the fastest flyer in Equestria!” She eased up, relieving tension by showing off her wings. The two creatures stood back in confusion; the one who could talk put a hand over his shoulder ready to grab the object but hesitated. Rainbow Dash smirked and lifted out of the water and into the air, boasting her capabilities with a small back flip before landing back down on the ground in front of them. Dumbfounded, the two creatures looked blankly at each other and back to her in disbelief.

“Now what are your names?” Dash asked.

“Ah, yes! Sorry,” the one who could speak Equine apologized after a pause. “My name is Abdul, and here is my brother, Muhammad. It is very nice to meet you Rainbow Rash.”

“Rainbow Dash!” She said, brushing aside the possible insult as simple miscommunication.

“Ah! S-Sorry Rainbow Dash,” Abdul corrected. “I am the only English speaker in my village, so forgive me if I do something wrong.”

“Oh, that village has more of… your kind in it huh? No ponies? Say, what are you? I haven’t seen any creature like you before,” Dash pondered. Muhammad looked down to her smiling, and Dash couldn’t help to smile back.

“I was going to ask you the same question Miss Dash. We are humans, you see.” He extended his arms and straightened his back in emphasis at the statement. Dash had never even heard of the word ‘human’ before. It sounded like ‘humane’ though. Maybe this species was really nice.

“Okay, human. Well I’m a pegasus pony!”

Abdul turned and spoke to Muhammad in their native tongue. The two brothers shared an awkward shrug and a few words, doing double takes to Dash and more specifically her wings. Muhammad whispered something into his brother’s ear, getting Abdul to snicker at whatever he had proposed. Abdul raised a paw and waved his brother’s idea away before turning back to Dash. He slowly bent down to where he was eye level with her and extended and arm, getting Dash to flinch backwards into the water again.

“I’m not going to hurt you.” He reassured Dash, who twitched as Abdul reached out and put a paw on her cheek. His palm was rough and dry, yet warm and comforting at the same time. Smiling, he stood back up and patted her on the top of her head, running the digits of his paw through her mane. After a few seconds of absentminded blushing, Dash shook her head getting him to stop his antics. Muhammad said something and the two shared another laugh. Nervously, Rainbow Dash joined in.

“Are there more of you?” Abdul asked her.

“Uh yeah, but my friends are waiting for me in a cave. I need to bring them back food and water but I’m not entirely sure how.” Dash frowned and sat on her haunches, watching over the pond. The sun was starting to go down, and in only a few hours it would finally set. Her forlorn eyes passed over the surface, uselessly scanning for anything of use. She could here whispers coming from the two humans and turned to see them deep in conversation. Muhammad nodded and Abdul took down one of the buckets that hanged from the stick. Dash watched him curiously as he walked over and bent down and filled the bucket with water, setting it down on the shore between the two of them. He took out a sheet of plastic out of his pocket and wrapped it around the top of the bucket creating an airtight seal that should prevent it from spilling over.

“Here, take this to your friends. Meet us back here soon and we can give you some food to take to them. Nobody survives out in the desert for long.” Abdul happily lifted up the bucket, motioning for her to take it. Dash lifted her head up to the human, his warm smile infecting her own. She did everything she could to choke back a small tear at his generosity.

“T-thank you…” she sniffled, getting another pat on the head from Abdul as she slowly stood back up and grasped the bucket handle in her teeth. “Really, thank you! You’re very kind… I can be back here in less than an hour!” the pegasus added, slowly floating into the air.

“As-salamu Alaykum,” Muhammad said, giving her a polite and formal bow. Dash returned a small wave to the humans and, with a smile bleeding through the cold metal of the bucket’s handle, sped off towards the mountains in the distance.

~~~~~~~~~

“When will Rainbow Dash get back?”

“Oh Scootaloo, I told you before. I don’t know but I trust she will get back by nightfall,” Fluttershy spoke, lying down next to the orange filly. Scootaloo exhaled dully and buried her muzzle deep into her legs, wrapping up into a ball. Fluttershy smiled warmly and watched the small pegasi’s body move with every breath she made.

“It’s so dark. Can we go outside where there’s light?” Scootaloo mumbled the question, bringing her head up to see Fluttershy’s shocked face.

“Oh no no no no no,” Fluttershy shook her head. “There’s no telling what could be out there! And this illusion the Poison Joke is-“

“Miss Fluttershy, I really don’t think this is an illusion.” Scootaloo frowned, tapping her hooves on the stone floor and the echoes rang dully through the small room. “I mean, come on! This doesn’t make any friggin’ sense! I’m breathing this air, I’m touching this ground, I can see you and you can see me. How could any of this be fake?”

“Very logical observation Scootaloo,” Fluttershy mused. “However magic reigns supreme over logic. In our world, magic exists in everything and everypony. Logically a pegasus shouldn’t be able to walk on a cloud, but they can. Logically a unicorn should not be able to cast spells, but they can. Logically a pony should not be able to pick up anything in a single hoof without-“

“Yeah yeah, I get it.” Scootaloo grumbled and curled back up into a ball. Fluttershy ignored the interruption, and demonstrated what she was saying by picking up a small rock with a single hoof.

“-paws or something similar, but ponies can. Ponies are some of the most magically capable beings on Earth and we can use manipulate it to our discretion. That is why Celestia is able to raise the sun and a pegasus can move clouds; magic connects ponies to the world. Take any one of them out of the equation, and the two are no longer in synch so they can’t interact. Poison Joke is capable of interfering with these connections, and henceforth causes these harmless pranks. The more Poison Joke that gets into your system however, the more drastic the effect might be. And w-we came into contact with a lot of Po-Poison Joke…” Fluttershy trailed off, swallowing the last of the unfinished sentence.

There’s no way to tell what is real. A chill ran up her spine, her eyes lazily drifting around the cave that passed off as a shelter. Trying to get her mind off the subject the yellow pegasus scratched her hoof along the ground, drawing random lines in the dust.

“Scootaloo, what do you think defines what is real?” Fluttershy asked. The filly didn’t budge and tried to ignore the yellow mare all together. After a lengthy period of silence she sighed and set her head down on the cold stone floor. She’d start a fire if she could to keep them warm, but there wasn’t anything combustible outside that she had seen. Also there’d be no easy way to vent the smoke, so they could easily get starved of oxygen down here.

Scootaloo suddenly shot up to onto all fours, freaking Fluttershy out in the process.

“Did you hear that?” She mumbled in a low growl. The filly extended her young wings in an intimidating fashion and ran out of the cavern down the dark tunnel to the outside world.

“Wait, Scootaloo! Come back! Oh dear…” Fluttershy’s wails fell on deaf ears. Trembling from what just happened; she hesitantly stood up and chased after her.

Up ahead, Scootaloo rounded the corner and emerged outside. The blinding sunlight forced her to stop in her tracks and cover her eyes. After dully readjusting to the light, she noticed she was precariously close to the edge of the embankment.

“That would have been ugly,” Scootaloo mumbled to herself, kicking a stone off the side of the cliff. The dusty rock exploded onto the ground below spreading its remains amongst the several others before it. She brought her head up and scanned the desert landscape. What was that noise she heard? It was something like a hard thud like the sound of pounding oneself on the chest with a hoof. To make her point, Scootaloo thumped her chest. Fluttershy appeared from behind, shutting her eyes in the glare of the afternoon sun. She turned to face the yellow pegasus but something diverted her attention. Fluttershy was frozen in place, a hoof raised to her mouth and her eyes narrowed. Scootaloo cocked a brow at her, but she didn’t move. She followed the mare’s gaze to the horizon, where a billowing column of black smoke snaked towards the atmosphere.

“Uhm, th-that isn’t Rainbow Dash, right? Ponies don’t ca-catch fire, right Fluttersh-shy?” Scootaloo stuttered, staring out to the trail of smoke. Fluttershy was speechless, but did her best to comfort her.

“Um… y-yes. Ponies d-don’t catch f-fire. Let’s go ba-back inside, Scootaloo.” Fluttershy motioned for her to follow into the cave, but Scootaloo didn’t budge. The filly gave her underdeveloped wings a useless flap, and fell back onto her haunches.

“N-no. No. It’s warm out here. I’m go-going to wait until Rainbow Dash gets back.” Scootaloo fell onto the rocky ground with a whimper, watching out over the horizon. The ominous plume of smoke traced itself into the sky in a single strand, dissipating into the air a few miles above the surface. Fluttershy let out a heavy sigh, shaking her head in discontent.

“B-but the smoke is so… scary,” she whined.

“Yeah, well it’s going to leave us alone. Look, the wind is carrying it west away from us. I’m not budging until Rainbow Dash gets back!” Scootaloo protested, digging her muzzle into the ground. Fluttershy eyed her suspiciously, and trotted up to the embankment next to her.

“You know I’m just trying to keep you safe Scootaloo,” Fluttershy calmly nudged the filly who didn’t respond to the comment. “Rainbow Dash is the element of Loyalty. She’d never fail anypony. We just need to find a way to snap out of this hallucination and get back home.”

Scootaloo’s heart skipped and her breathing paused.

“Home is where the heart is,” Scootaloo said weakly, curling back up into a ball. Fluttershy didn’t hear those words and tried to budge her again, but Scootaloo stood firm and didn’t move. Defeated, the yellow pegasus laid down beside the orange pegasus and watched the sun cast a shadow upon them from behind the pillar of smoke.

~~~~~~~~~

“Rainbow Dash!” Scootaloo jumped up at the first sight of the cyan pegasus. Dash touched down in front of the cave entrance behind the two other pegasi, dropping a bucket on the ground. Scootaloo ran up to her, nuzzling her face into Dash’s side. Rainbow Dash pulled in her wings save one, which used to cover the little filly.

“Hey kid.” Dash rubbed Scootaloo on the head with a hoof.

“Oh thank Celestia you’re all right!” Fluttershy came up and wrapped her forelegs around Dash’s neck in an embracing hug. “We saw the cloud of smoke and thought something bad happened to you!” Fluttershy released her grip on Dash and Scootaloo looked at the bucket.

“Hey! You found water!” Scootaloo cheered and immediately went to try and tear apart the plastic covering.

“Hehehe, about all that…” Dash said while rubbing the back of her neck. “That smoke was from some sort of flying machine that got… knocked out of the sky and crashed. Some sort of canister hit it and made it crash.”

“Oh no! Was anypony hurt?” Fluttershy asked.

“Uh, no. No,” Dash reassured. “In fact, I think the USAF was trying to get me. There was a village below me and they flew the canister up to it and took it down. If it wasn’t for them, I might have been… hurt. By the USAF, the USAF probably would have hurt me.”

“You sat on what?” Scootaloo looked up from the mangled plastic that still tightly bound the bucket from spilling its contents. Her feeble attempts weren’t working so she started pounding on the barrier with a rock.

“No, a USAF. It had the letters U, S, A, and F written on the side of it.”

“Well we’ll need to be sure to thank the ponies in that village for saving you Rainbow,” Fluttershy smiled warmly through the artificial shade the smoke cloud provided.

“Yeah, about that…” Dash trailed off and cleared her throat.

“They weren’t ponies. The village is inhabited by some things called humans. They’re really tall, walk on two legs, they have no tail, and they can talk!” Dash did all she could not to stumble through those words for she could hardly believe them herself. Fluttershy’s jaw slacked at the description of an unheard of species and Scootaloo had resorted to bouncing on top of the plastic to try to get it to break open. She was still failing.

“Y-You mean, there’s an ENTIRE species that speaks Equine, and n-nopony knew about it before now?” Fluttershy gawked.

“Actually only one of them speaks Equine, and his name is Abdul. I don’t know how many humans live in the village though. He said he had some food to give me, so I’m going to go back to oasis and pick it up and-“ Dash got interrupted by a rock bouncing off the back of her head. Turning, she could see Scootaloo throwing sizeable stones at the plastic covering, each one bouncing off in a random direction.

“OW!” She cried after one of the stones ricocheted back and hit her on the nose. Dash casually walked over to the bucket, grabbed the plastic in her teeth, and tore it open. Scootaloo looked into the bucket dumbfounded, trying to hide back a blush. Fluttershy couldn’t help by snicker.

“Anyway, I’m going to go back to the oasis. I’ll be back by dark!” Dash spread her wings again and made a bee-line for the oasis far off in the distance.

“Be careful!” Fluttershy shouted after her. Scootaloo brought her water-soaked head out of the now half-filled bucket and looked to see Rainbow Dash flying away. She shrugged and returned to her previous business of practically drowning herself.

"Save some for me Scootaloo. That is... um, if you don't mind."