Twilight Sparkle was going to kill Rainbow Dash.

Okay. Not really. But she sure felt like wanting to kill Rainbow Dash.

The rain-laden wind ran through her mane as she banked high among the clouds over Ponyville like the stroke of a lover’s hoof, climbing the surface of a towering cumulonimbus thunderhead as if it were a cliff face. Her wings, as velvety black as Princess Luna’s lovely night sky above her, beat a steady cadence, with the subtle magic of the pegasi lifting her in defiance of all physical law.

By some miracle, she had managed to contain the storm to this one cell, but it was a cell that was dramatically out-of-control. Even as she climbed, a thunderous cascade of lightning shot up the towering mountain of cloud, white lightning that seemed strangely cold for all that it was hotter than the surface of her master’s sun. The shapes of other pegasi winged about through the twisting tendrils of cloud-forms, including one that shone a brilliant pink in the reflected light from within, corralling the intensity of the storm.

It was up to Twilight Sparkle now to do the final deed and prevent this unscheduled disaster from affecting weather patterns all across Equestria, overloading the already overworked Royal Weather Service to the breaking point. The Element of Magic, the favorite student of Celestia, and, presently, the weatherpony of the Ponyville Air Municipal District. It all came down to her.

And it was all Rainbow Dash’s fault.

Some time ago...

Rainbow Dash was a pony of many colors, and a pony of many faces. Some of those faces were rude, others were silly, and others still were angry and confrontational. At this particular moment, her face was a sort of self-satisfied smirk, a radiant expression of enlightened self-interest as she, for lack of a better word, danced in the sky. In the manner of pegasi, she was seemingly walking on solid ground while, in fact, being suspended some ten feet up in the air, while giving a family of bunnies something of a heart attack when her shadow passed overhead across the dew-beaded morning grass. The world around her was almost alarmingly green, with the deep growth of a spring day that had seen a good rainstorm every night for three weeks and sunny days for about as long. This alone would have been enough to make her swell with pride in her weather-working skills, were it not for the envelope open on the ground below.

“...awesome, so awesome, I’m too awesome for my shirt, too awesome...” she could be heard singing to herself in a horribly off-key manner quite unlike her normally pleasant singing voice while she did a hoof-shuffle in the air, jerking her head and body back and forward to an unheard beat.

The fence-lined lane cut between several cottages, and ponies heading to and from town with their foals or carts of product or saddlebags looked up at the disgustingly satisfied young pegasus with baffled and confused looks, their steps quickening as they trotted along the muddy road.

“...can’t settle for less... I’m the best... too awesome for the catwalk...”

Springing along, with both of her hooves landing together and then bouncing her forth again, Pinkie Pie could keep up a remarkably ground-eating pace as she carried a basket of muffins and balloons between her teeth. Rarity trotted not far behind her, the stylish white unicorn showing off her latest in spring fashions as she trotted daintily towards Fluttershy’s cottage. Despite the muddy condition of the road, she was somehow able to keep both herself and her outfit from getting splattered by either her bouncing friend or her own hoof steps, through what might only be described as the deep magic of a fashionista.

“...Can’t touch this, naaa na na na, waah waah...”

Rarity, of course, had spotted Rainbow Dash some distance away, and was affecting not to notice her grotesque little dance as beneath her dignity when her eye caught sight of the envelope lying on the road. Quickly, she summoned her magical gifts and snatched it from the path before Pinkie Pie could mash it firmly and irrevocably into the foul mud. Pausing for a moment in mid-air, the pink Earth pony looked down at where the letter had been, protesting, “Aww, Rarity, I was going to step on that!”

“...nopony as awesome as me, no touchin’ this flank...”

Patently ignoring this blatant violation of all things natural - as one had to do now and then in the other girl’s company - Rarity slid the letter out of the splattered envelope with a shimmer of magic. The potential to learn something at least mildly juicy, even literally under the nose of the pony involved, was simply too good and opportunity to pass up. Fluttershy could wait a few minutes while I satisfy a little curiosity, Rarity thought to herself, reaching down the page rapidly, her eyes narrowing in disappointment, Folly. It seems she’s due for a promotion, nothing scandalous about that at all.

The unicorn sighed, for apparently congratulations were in order, and she steeled herself to be gracious. It wasn’t really that difficult, for she genuinely did want to see her friend do well, but Rainbow Dash was being positively disgusting. “Oh Rainbow Da-aaash!” she called up, in a sing-song voice, waving a pedicured hoof, “Congratulations! Let me be the first to wish you many felicitations over your marvelous good fortune!”

“...99 problems but a-” Rainbow Dash jerked to a halt, startled out of her reverie, but only so that she might beam down on Rarity like sunlight through a prism, bursting into a rainbow of colors, “I know, isn’t it so totally awesome?”

Rarity winced, for that final register was reminiscent of her little sister Sweetie Belle’s voice, rising into a piercing squeak. “Yes, yes it is fairly... awesome,” she looked at the paper again, fluttering it in front of her face, “Oh, this is simply wonderful. I am not terribly familiar with the weather working profession, but isn’t a Regional Meteorologist a rather large responsibility?”

“Heck yeah it is,” Rainbow answered, laying back and swimming around in circles, “It means I’m in charge of making sure the micro climate meshes with the national and even global climate scale!”

Normally, Rarity would have been surprised that Rainbow Dash knew a word with as many complexities as ‘micro climate,’ but she supposed her brash, often arrogant friend had to know a thing or two about the ins-and-outs of weather in order to perform her job, or qualify for a promotion, for that matter. Reading further, her eyes widened, and she beamed up at the other pony, “Oh, my, Rainbow Dash, this is quite a raise, too!”

“And even more free time than before,” the pegasus added, as if that were the more important part, “I get to push all the small junk I have to do off to other, less awesome ponies, leaving me with even more time to practice. And nap, can’t forget the napping.”

“Oh,” Rarity paused, coming to near the bottom of the scroll, “Rainbow, did you read the whole thing? It says you need to pass a test first.” The unicorn lowered the letter and placed it back into the envelope, raising it up towards the pegasus to reveal the offending statement.

“The practical and the written? Pft, I can do it in my sleep. I have passed these tests before, Rarity!” the cyan-coated mare said dismissively, diving down in a multi-hued blur to snatch the paper out of the air. At the other’s skeptical look, she rolled her eyes, “Seriously, Rare, I do know what I’m doin’ up here. The tests are just to make sure you have basic understanding and skills - okay, maybe a little advanced - but most of the work was already done. I had, like, recommendations for being so awesome.”

Another wince at the squeal. “Well! I am proud, Rainbow Dash, this is an excellent step up for you and your career, not to mention your prospects for the Wonderbolts. Perhaps Pinkie Pie would like to throw... a...” she glanced around, uncertain where the pink pony had packed herself off to.

“-shouldn’t have to come back to him, you need a change of pace, a new outlook on life!” Pinkie’s voice came from down the way, the Earth pony making tiny little bounces to keep up with a curly, blue-maned unicorn who was wiping her eyes with a tissue. “Sometimes you just need to remove yourself from a bad situation,” she reassured cheerfully, pulling the other pony close with a foreleg and giving her a squeeze, her basket balanced effortlessly on her head, “There’s lots of ponies in the sea! Or is that rhinos? Tigers?”

That elicited a small smile from the unicorn, who gave Pinkie a brief nuzzle in gratitude. “Thanks a lot for listening, Pinkie, it means a lot. And I will take that advice, I think,” she said, before trotting off. Apparently ecstatic to have helped a pony in need, Pinkie Pie sprung up to the others, her curly tail waving like a brush frothed with pink soap.

“What was that about?” Rainbow asked, dry, looking after the retreating unicorn.

“Just gettin’ a smile! Sup girls?”

“Oh, Pinkie, darling,” Rarity called to the Earth pony, rather unnecessarily at this range, “You won’t believe what I’ve just found out. It seems Rainbow here is getting a promotion! We ought to-”

“-Have a kung fu battle to see who is the real fighting champ of Ponyville?” Pinkie asked excitedly, lifting her limbs in a decent parody of a Crane stance, two forelegs up high and a hind leg lifted threateningly.

Rarity’s half-lidded eyes conveyed all the information she needed regarding that non sequitur. “Heavens no. Besides, I’m fairly sure Rainbow Dash already won at least one such championship. Anyway,” she said, firmly, to head off that segue before it could germinate further, “I was actually thinking that a party would be quite apropos, don’t you think?”

“Think? Not always!” the other girl answered, “But this time I think you’re totally right! Ooh, I’ve never held a business party before, probably!”

“Agh,” Rainbow Dash grimaced, “No business theme, please, that sounds about as fun and totally miserable as rock farming-” The pegasus darted back a pace or so in surprise at Pinkie Pie’s abrupt change in character, the Earth pony’s blue eyes suddenly narrowed and hard. “Okay, okay, business party it is, then! Sheesh, what bit your cutie mark?” she backpedaled, muttering the last.

“No, no, it’s okay! We’ll have a regular not-at-all-a-business-party party,” Pinkie Pie said, cheering again. She turned a level gaze on Rainbow again, her mood shifting at breakneck pace, “You. Me. Zen garden.”

“O-o-okay?” Rainbow Dash asked uncertainly, backing off again, feeling vaguely threatened.

Rarity, reaching into one of her stylish aquamarine-bejeweled bags, lifted out a small bag of bits, and, quite without reservation, delivered them up to Rainbow Dash. “Here, darling. I shan’t be able to get you a gift between now and the party, what with our appointment at Fluttershy’s and all, but why don’t you pick yourself up something nice on me?” she offered.

Snagging it, the pegasus’ face broke into a broad, if slightly silly grin. “Oh Celestia! Or Rarity, rather! Eeehee!” she squealed, girlishly, “Oh there’s a bottle of black apple cider with your name on it!” In the next instant she was off like a shot, leaving a blur of rainbow colors in the air. Screeching audibly to a halt a quarter of a mile down the road in the air, she shot back, catching the envelope as it fluttered in the air back to the ground before looping around in a complicated somersaulting figure. With that, she flashed to the horizon in a blur of color and roar of sound.

“Lead a pony to water,” Rarity chuckled, continuing back towards Fluttershy’s cottage over the way.

“And she’ll eat dirt soaked in cider?”

Across the length of Ponyville the canvases of market stalls, balls of ice cream perched in cones held by unsuspecting colts and fillies, ladders erected to aid in painting second stories, and a clown on long stilts found themselves suddenly and tragically toppled as a burst of sound and energy shot through the streets, making sharp right turns at corners that launched shock waves down the town’s streets. In truth, Rainbow Dash probably could have simplified her path of travel and avoided all the mess if she had simply elevated herself above the level of the houses in Ponyville, but, really, where was the fun in that? Making her way to the outskirts on the opposite side of town, she broke across the park, where a pegasus filly running back was so distracted by the passage she took a hoofball to the head and went down in a pile of feathers.

Heedless of any such disasters in her wake, Rainbow stuck her tongue between her teeth and looped through the half-pipe of the canyon south of town, giving her just the momentum she needed to crack like a whip at her destination - a crossroad, cutting through the gently sloping hills between the Ponyville township and its neighboring settlements. The wave of air blasted through the hastily erected bazaar there.

“Boom!” she declared in the still aftermath, her wings erect and a broad grin plastered on her face.

All around, wagons with hastily erected stalls flapped in the artificial gale created by her entrance, papers fluttering like petals and ponies staring uncertainly at the sky-blue pegasus who had just arrived so dramatically on the scene. A plop of ice cream on the dirt signaled that yet another young filly had just lost her treat, unnoticed with her attention rapt.

“It’s okay, everypony, no need to be in complete and utter awe. Just your friendly neighborhood Rainbow Dash!” she assured everyone, tossing her colorful mane and trotting proudly through the bazaar. She tossed a shiny yellow bit to the little pegasus filly, winking, “Everypony gets one.”

Doing a quick back-strut, she grinned broader still if that was possible, her face split as every eye was on her. She was particularly pleased that some rather good-looking stallions from the neighboring town, who looked like they might be part of an athletic team if the profusion of Hoofball stamps was any indication, were eying her. Adding a pronounced sway to her strut, she let her wings flutter open a bit and almost beamed when she saw three of the young stallions, in unison, crack their heads on a low-hanging branch over the turf field on the side of the road. Still got it, she thought to herself, smug, As if there were any doubt. Perfect mane, sleek body, amazing hooves. Totally awesome.

Strictly speaking, nothing in this bazaar was illegal. At the least, nothing here was so illegal that it would have attracted serious attention from anypony with any authority to prosecute such infractions of royal commerce regulation. Still, there was a perfectly valid reason why the ever-shifting collection of wagons had chosen a place between the scattered municipalities of the Equestrian Basin that lay in the shadow of Canterlot, its mountain faintly visible as a purple cone in the distance. What wasn’t clearly in sight of the easily frightened or offended noses of citizens in town could safely be ignored.

All manner of interesting things were sold here that could not be found in the streets of Ponyville or other respectable townships. Rainbow Dash, still strutting magnificently even though much of the attention had waned, perhaps aside from interested stallions and increasingly jealous mares, passed by caged lions and stacks of rare magical books in carts. Have to remember to pick something up for Twilight - if I can get reimbursed, anyway, she thought to herself, glancing around with increasing curiosity as she made her way through.

Bolts of silk and other foreign goods were sold at prices so low they must have been smuggled to avoid tariffs, hanging boldly from enormous open-sided wagons drawn by teams of poorly paid and poorly washed laborers, and, most importantly, the most varied collection of alcoholic beverages known to ponykind.

It’s not that alcoholic beverages were thought poorly of, of course, nor even necessarily frowned on, How would Applejack make a killing every autumn off the sweet apple cider stock otherwise? Still, it always did feel a bit uncomfortable to buy a stock under the gaze of her peers. Though no salt-sucking fanatic, for her athletic career would plummet straight into the toilet otherwise, Rainbow Dash did enjoy a little exotic flavoring now and again, and maybe it did add a little zest when she did her own cooking, something she couldn’t really get at Sweet Apple Acres or the Sugar Cube Corner when she dove in, unannounced and unasked, for a bite.

Giving the proprietor, a mare with a little too much in the way of makeup for Rainbow’s comfort - and a bit too roaming an eye - a quick grin, she started nosing through the offered bottles, sniffing thoughtfully. Any bottle that wasn’t properly corked or capped was no good, naturally, so she started looking curiously at some of the nicer bottles, as a pair of oddly familiar voices spoke up nearby.

“Well, look at what we’ve got here, brother of mine.”

“It looks like a particularly fine filly in need of a fix of a particularly pernicious nature.”

Bonking her head on the cabinet she had been sticking her head in, Rainbow Dash swore under her breath as she turned to look at the speakers, rubbing the top of her head. A pair of slender, quite tall unicorn stallions were next to a wagon she had not quite noticed before, with a somewhat dilapidated steam engine mounted up front instead of the traditional pony-hitches. Giving a flap of her wings, she launched herself closer to the pair, looking past them at the back of their wagon briefly, while they stood just slightly apart, standing tall and proud. “Hey, aren’t you two those cider-pushers...?” she asked, her voice trailing off uncertainly as she racked her brain.

“Why, I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re referring to, my cerulean friend,” the clean-shaven one answered her, with more good spirits than any pony besides Pinkie Pie had a right to.

“Perhaps you mean to indicate the world famous Flim Flam Brothers, traveling salesponies nonpareil? Why we are no such esteemed and inestimable stallions ourselves. Indeed, you’ll find it simply impossible for I, unlike the incomparable Flim, have a very fine mustache where he lacked it,” the other added, his tones deeper, “While Flam, who had a most handsome and enviable soup-strainer himself, is clearly not this brother of mine, who lacks any such accoutrement.”

There was a pause to consider that, a few steady blinks as the blue pegasus ran that through her head. In her mind, this process resembled nothing so much as a cloud-bound racetrack. After giving it the fullest consideration it deserved, Rainbow Dash said, slowly, “Okay, I suppose that makes sense.”

“Indeed it does, my fine friend of a filly.”

“I can see that a well-set up young dame such as yourself is of a discerning eye, with only the finest in fashionable and felicitous of fabrications,” the one who was obviously not Flim informed her, tilting his boater hat to her in a respectful gesture.

“Gesundheit.”

The other, who was probably not at all Flam, passed right over that, “With such a delicately discerning eye for the most delectable of details, you definitely do not want to pass up our deluge of dependable delicacies and delights.”

“I heard delights in there somewhere, keep talking.”

As one, they stepped aside, sweeping their flat-topped hats in a flourish. With a burst of green magic the canvas flipped up and neatly hooked itself high above, blocking out the rays of the sun so that the electric lamps within could illuminate the neatly arrayed contents therein. Rainbow Dash, who had been around the block enough to recognize such things, saw that most of what was there were in the nature of imports, probably duty-free, and certainly nothing a pony could find in most legitimate shops this side of New Colt City. Her eyes widened and sparkled, ideas far more interesting than a mere bottle of hard liquor could conjure igniting in her mind. Mentally, she added a few tracks to the course, and a couple of loop-d-loops for good measure. Ideas sprouted wings and shot around the course as her options were unveiled.

“Why, I see that our fine friend of a filly has cottoned to the benefits of perusing our inventory.”

“A most astute observation, brother of mine!” the mustachioed one declared, stepping up to pull a hanging cord, making the glittering displays rotate to reveal more questionable merchandise.

“A dragon’s fang, you might say, but I can get this anywhere.”

“Ah, but no dragon’s fang was ever found written with ancient ponytongue with a spell to wallop a whale, if I don’t say so myself!”

“But maybe this jeweled anklet of passing detection is more in your speed, a swift and sleek young flyer such as yourself.”

“Perfectly apt for a Sunday stroll through the castle without being interrupted, wouldn’t you say? Ah, but no gallivanting is complete without a taste of this rare bottle of Salamander tears.”

“You’ll be impressing foals and friends alike with amazing tricks of death-defying dives through ferocious flames flying fifty feet into the air!”

At each verse, they uncovered another treasure, Rainbow’s eyes starting to glisten reflectively as ideas zoomed about her head, bumping against each other as they competed to throw the others off the track and claim the coveted prize at the end: Execution into action.

“But if we’re talking flames, you’ll want to look no further than this veil from the furthest reaches, where the desert nomads incite passion so fierce they-”

“Oh, oh, what about that?” Rainbow Dash sprung in step, pattering each of her hooves against the ground and fluttering her wings excitedly in an almost embarrassingly foalish manner.

“Ah, an excellent choice,” the unicorn said, twirling his mustache as he picked up the beaded and jeweled silk veil, suitable for adorning the face of a pony mare, “Have a very special somepony you need to impress, eh? I-”

“What?” Rainbow Dash asked, insulted, flaring her wings in a threatening display of feathers and powerful wing muscles, “Are you saying I can’t have any stallion I set my eyes on?”

Taken aback at this sudden reversal, the stallion held the veil protectively close, his diction thrown off for a moment. Though both unicorns were taller than Rainbow Dash, they had had experience with troublesome customers before. Even with magic to defend themselves, the powerfully built pegasus could probably feed them their own horns before they could so much as shout if she wanted to, and such circumstances demanded caution, “Well, no, a saucy sultana such as yourself could surely have any suitable stallion, but-”

“I didn’t mean that,” she rolled her eyes, irritably, tiring of the brothers’ nattering and alliteration both, and pointed a blue hoof at the wagon, “I meant that.”

The other brother, acting to restore the proper cadence, picked up the display case the weatherpony had been pointing at. “Ah, a most excellent choice,” he declared, glancing quickly at the placard on the side and improvising on the spot. Within the glass case, placed on velvet, were a set of horseshoes made in what appeared to be a form of black steel, shot through with white streaks, as if it were stone or ceramic rather than metal. It was the words lettered on the glass that had caught Rainbow Dash’s attention:

“Do they work?”

“Do they work?” the clean-shaven brother repeated in a wounded tone, “Would we sell anything that wasn’t included in our money-backed, 100% satisfaction-guaranteed, World-Famous Warranty?”

“No returns or exchanges,” his brother added under his breath in a rush of syllables, just under Rainbow’s hearing.

“So done!” she said, and spilled bits out onto the back of the wagon. She haggled, and dearly, for she was no Fluttershy, smacking away their reaching hooves until she was satisfied. Purchase made, she walked away with her new acquisition tucked under one wing. Rather than bother carrying the box, she popped it open a few yards away from the wagon, took the horseshoes out, stuck them in her saddlebag, and, without another delay, launched off into the sky, leaving the box to clatter to the ground sadly among the dust of the bazaar road.

----

As the box bounced and spun on the earth, the Flim Flam Brothers approached it, their identical hooves striking in perfect unison as they glanced around. It wasn’t really all that necessary, for their various competitors could find very little advantage in noticing them pick up discarded merchandise, but old habits died hard in a pair of ponies who had had long experience dodging unwanted attention. Deciding, in their scavenger mentality, that they could make something out of the lost box, Flim stepped daintily up and picked it up with his magic, looking it over. “I say, brother of mine, it seems our fine friend of a filly forgot to actually examine the plainly printed warnings on the product.”

“What does it say, if I may be so bold?” Flam asked, in idle curiosity, tilting his boater up to block a bit of the sun’s glare so that he could have a better look.

“‘Do not use repeatedly! Allow at least thirty to sixty minutes between activations.’”

“Caveat Emptor, brother of mine!”

Underneath a sky that was turning from a deep, pleasing azure to an absolutely lovely cyan, within the living wood of a tree that happened to be both house and library at once, a very important mare was starting her day. The weather put the present occupant and operator of the Branches and Books of Ponyville in mind of the party that was scheduled for this afternoon, owing to the coincidental similarity in coloration between that expansive sky and a certain brash pegasus. This was something of a problem because she, Twilight Sparkle, Celestia’s personal protege and the twice-run hero of the planet, was agonizing over the mess she had made of her tail.

On the mirror were stained marks in the steam from her shower, calculations as she painstakingly checked, rechecked, and triple-checked the measurements.

“Ooh,” she whined, frustrated, “Why didn’t I listen to Applejack? Measure twice, cut once.”

In front of her, her body carefully held to allow her to shift slightly without yanking on her rear end, lay her tail, which was clamped on the counter of her modest little bathroom. Located in a tiled room of the tree which proper drainage and ventilation to ensure mold didn’t start springing up like wild fire in the rest of her very wooden house. She had been so distracted in her studies this morning that she hadn’t attended to her daily ritual until Pinkie Pie had burst in - from a storage room in her laboratory, where she had been up early working on a new magical item, with no other exits or windows, only a large mirror she used for one of her larger, disassembled telescopes, come to think of it - and announced that they were having a party for Rainbow Dash. Mortified at being caught so unkempt, she had immediately rushed to bathe and groom herself while Spike made the place ready, but she had been in such a rush that she had apparently allowed herself to grow sloppy.

The lavender unicorn shuddered as she remembered how it had happened. She remembered how distracted she had been in thinking about the party, and, more importantly, thinking about how much work she still had to do in her laboratory downstairs, where she had just left that imported crystal from Stable Arabia. She could recall the way her attention drifted, right before she made her her inattentive snip.

And just like that, the perfect cut of her tail had been ruined.

Normally, this ritual was so routine, so basic, that she didn’t even pay attention to it any more. She had had the perfect system set up. A cheap paper cutter from the general store had been all she needed; with a little daily sharpening it was as keen as any barber’s razor. Clamping her tail into one end, she did a few basic calculations in her head to make sure it would fall exactly the same way it had fallen for well over a decade since she had first begun this daily ritual as a filly, pulled the lever down, disposed of the shavings, brushed it out until it shone, and then she was done. No more tragic hair incidents, like the disaster that had prompted her to take such precautions and scarred several impressionable young colts for life, should have befallen her.

Now, however, her failure to pre-calculate the distribution of fibers in her tail with the added bulk from water had left a ragged, uneven cut. If she were to let it fall, it would seem to cleave in two different directions entirely, with uneven and jagged protrusions every which way. The offending cut was, to her eye, painfully obvious, as much as if the moon had somehow drifted out of its prescribed course by so much as the tiniest fraction.

With part of her wondering if a melodramatic declaration in the manner of Rarity in the midst of a fashion crisis was appropriate, she carefully arranged her hairs one-by-one according to the mathematical distribution she had set up, double-checked her figures and adjusting with respect to the damage already done. The unicorn even made sure to check her figures twice, as Applejack had always insisted so annoyingly when talking about the carpentry she had to do around the farm. Slowly, ever-so-gently, she lowered the newly-sharpened scissor down on her precious tail. The long, low snip made her spine shiver, and she winced in terror at the thought that the quiver of her nerves might have disturbed the end result.

With trembling hooves, she disposed of the severed hairs in the waste bin, unclamped her tail, and carefully spread it behind her. Twilight then turned, looking in the mirror, and breathed a heavy sigh of relief. Giving her bottom a pleased stir, she swished her tail once, admiring how the razor-edged cut fell at just the perfect angle, so mathematically precise and beautiful it just about made her cry. By the end of the process, she had forgotten all about the rare crystal in the basement; it could keep, and she would be back down there this afternoon at the latest, ready to crack its mysteries.

Outside, passing with stacked trays balanced in his scaly claws from the pantry, Spike shook his head, grumbling as he went, just loud enough for Twilight to hear, “Girls.”

Fluttershy shimmied a little as she listened to the music in the background. The butter-yellow pegasus would die rather than admit it, of course, but she was practicing her moves ahead of time in as subtle a fashion as she could manage before the actual party started. The next-to-last-thing she wanted was to embarrass herself in front of the others on the dance floor, which was even now being cleared by Applejack and Pinkie Pie in the middle of the library floor. Giving her long pink tail a flick, the gentle pegasus bobbed in rhythm. She even dared to shuffle her hooves a little. The very last thing she wanted, naturally, was for someone to actually catch her doing this.

“Fluttershy, dear, could you be a darling and-”

“Hi Rarity! I was just checking out the music collection!” she squealed, “I-I’ll move out of your way now, I didn’t mean to intrude, I-”

Rarity, who was familiar enough by now with Fluttershy’s moods, simply walked up and put a hoof on her neck. With a squeak, the lovely pink-maned pegasus shuddered to a halt, as if she were a cat whose scruff had just been pinched.

“S-sorry,” she murmured quietly, giving the white unicorn a shy, graceful smile.

“I swear, darling, you would apologize if someone you didn’t know broke into a house you’d never been to.”

“Those poor home invad-”

“Anyway, dear,” Rarity said, overriding this before it got even worse, “I was wondering if you might consider coming by over the weekend and helping me out with some of my latest designs.”

“Oh!” Fluttershy said, excited, “The Spring Shower Ensemble? With the rare green silks?” Like many things in her life, she would have hated to admit outright her desires, but her hooves were clicking rapidly on the wood between them with pleased little clops.

“Yes, yes!” Rarity gave a pleasant shudder, “Oh, it is almost scandalously luxurious to handle.”

“What do you need me for? I’d be happy to help with a-anything there,” Fluttershy said, stuttering a tad as she felt she was coming on too boldly, “I-I mean, if you wanted. I shouldn’t push-”

“Modeling, Fluttershy, modeling! I have the forms, of course, but they don’t really capture the fall of fabric, the subtle rustle of coat-and-seam, the way the turn of a body warps the frame...” she trailed off, breathy.

“Oh, I’d love to. In private, I mean, I wouldn’t want people to see me modeling again. I still get letters. It’s really, um... couldihavesomeofthegreensilk?” she spilled out in a rush, jamming her words together into a gooey slurry.

“Beg pardon?” Rarity asked, drawn out of her reverie.

“The... the green silk,” she murmured, almost backing into a stack behind her, rattling the books in their shelves. Not difficult to do, since they circled the entire chamber, “I’d like to have some of the green silk, i-if you have enough and... if it isn’t too much trouble.”

“Of course, of course! I’m happy to help, especially if you’d be so kind as to help me model. I wonder if Rainbow Dash would be interested?” Rarity thought, then shook her head, “No, probably not. I think I could make her something quite acceptable, very light and flashy, but she seems determined to wander about in her skin, so to speak, at all times.”

“It’s kind of a pegasus thing,” Fluttershy said, apologetic by proxy for her kind, though she was becoming more confident as the topics were ones she was comfortable with, “Clothing drags in the air. Rainbow Dash likes to go zooming off at a moment’s notice, too, so she wouldn’t like having something that interferes with that on her if she could avoid it.”

“Yes, I suppose she does, but would it kill her to try? I can make outfits for dashing, dashing outfits, even. I’ve designed for pegasi before. Did my personally designed and hoof-stitched Gala gown not permit her to dive about, regardless of how extended rapid flight would have damaged it?” Rarity complained. The unicorn was in something of a middling dudgeon, now, and Fluttershy perceived that she was speaking rhetorically and to an unseen audience, as the high-strung designer often seemed to do, a suspicion confirmed by the unicorn shifting slightly to make sure she was framed dramatically by one of the library’s windows.

Before she could get really into a good and proper tirade, however, the door to the library was thrown open, and everyone turned to look, with Pinkie Pie springing up from behind the table with a broad smile. “It’s time to par-tay Rainbow Da-aaaah!” she sang out, expecting the mare of the hour, but her voice warbled with this latest in unexpected developments

At first they thought it really was Rainbow Dash, but the thud of horseshoes on the wooden entryway made that unlikely. They could see that they were clamp-ons, for nailed-in horseshoes were rare for anypony except for the most hard-working of Earth ponies, such as Big Macintosh or Applejack herself, but even the removable sort were almost unheard of among pegasi, who liked to have every spare ounce that they could free up for better flying. What made it even more improbable was that, instead of a powerfully sleek pegasus, the young mare walking blithely into the library was a slender and pretty unicorn, with tall, fine legs, a slender, graceful neck, and her horn poking through her forelock boldly and coming to a somewhat pointed tip.

The part that may be responsible for the admittedly quite reasonable stunned silences and Pinkie Pie’s unprecedented flabbergasting was almost certainly the fact that, regardless of the impossibility of such a thing, she had the same cyan-blue coat and radiantly multicolored mane and tail of Rainbow Dash, right down to the wild, unkempt, matted nature of it.

Right when everypony in the library was wracking their brains for any mention of Rainbow Dash having had a unicorn sibling, let alone any close relatives at all, the new entrant introduced herself with what can only be described as a rehearsed flair. “Oh, excuse me, daaaahlings,” she said, in the most parodical version of Rarity’s characteristic, acquired upper-class mannerisms that could be conceived by any being on Luna and Celestia’s good green Earth, “I seem to have become utterly lost. I fear I chipped a hoof and I became so delirious with shock that I fainted all the way here, and now my whole life is ruined!”

While all the other ponies stared, stock still, she collapsed onto a nearby chair, wailing piteously and kicking her hind legs, “Oh woe, oh foul and cruel world! I shall have to pass into exile forever!” That she was putting the emphasis on the wrong words did not appear to occur to the strange and apparently insane unicorn.

“Wait just one cotton-pickin’ minute,” Applejack said, cottoning on at last, as the blue-coated charlatan’s features cracked into a smile, “No, it can’t be.” Trotting up, she grabbed the unicorn by the shoulders, holding her up and staring into her eyes. With a sharp intake of breath, she back-pedaled rapidly, and then threw her hat into the ground and stomped with her two front hooves. “Sweet heavens to Betsy, Rainbow Dash, it is you!” she cried out, in shock and amazement, “How in tarnation did you pull that one off?”

Cackling now in her normal voice, the unicorn sucked in breath between gales of laughter, kicking her heels in the air, “Oh, you shoulda... seen your faces! Buwahahaha!”

“Rainbow Dash?” Twilight Sparkle gasped, her eyes bugging out, taking in the horn, the wingless back, “How, what, how what what how?”

“BUWAHAHAHAHAHA!”

Fluttershy’s mouth worked up and down a few times, and she realized that all she could do was squeak in mouse-like surprise. Trotting forward, she looked over her long-time friend. It was truly astounding; not only had she somehow managed to hide her wings and gain a horn, but there was no sign of the classical pegasus traits. Though her specialty was in animal medicine, Fluttershy did have some grasp of basic anatomy, and she could identify features present independently in the pony races. Most prominently among the differences she could spot was that the entire muscle structure that defined a pegasus’ wing support throughout the torso was gone. Everything from vastly strengthened chest muscles to the secondary locomotors in the back and through the loin were gone, as if her friend had indeed been born a unicorn. Curiously, other things were changed, too, which made little sense to Fluttershy, such as how her calves and thighs were no longer as prominent, nor was her neck as strong as it used to be, muscle development everypony had but were regions unicorns tended to neglect. “Wow,” she concluded, succinctly.

“Oh wow is right!” Pinkie Pie declared, excited, bouncing around the seated and laughing Rainbow Dash, “You totally had me, that’s, like, the best disguise-that-still-looks-like-you ever!”

Now that, finally, attention was able to be paid to her, Rarity put in her say. She gasped, once, of course, but that didn’t seem dramatic enough, so she gasped again, and then again for good measure. Then she tossed her mane, letting the curls bounce in a suitably offended fashion, and stuck her nose in the air, assuming a truly offended stance, with one hoof raised disdainfully, as if the floor were dirty. “Well! I never. Rainbow Dash, I cannot believe you thought that was a remotely accurate impersonation. Even if it wasn’t your voice, darling, it’s that rat’s nest of a mane and tail, I would sooner take poison than be seen so.”

Still giggling triumphantly, Dash batted at her rainbow mane with a hoof, decrying, “Oh, I know, I simply cannot believe it. I would think a fellow fashionista would have more sympathy for it! I shall simply have to be drawn and quartered at once!”

Released from their earlier paralysis, the other girls all collapsed into paroxysms of laughter, with Applejack slapping Rainbow on the back and Pinkie rolling on the ground next to a giggly Fluttershy, who held a hoof modestly in front of her nose to hide the smile. Only Rarity, who managed to stick her nose so far up in the air that it threatened to topple her, and Twilight, who was still frozen in shock, refrained from joining in. Even Twilight, after coming out of her daze, managed to chortle a bit. Finally, unable to resist all of her friends joining in the joke, Rarity patted at her mane and harrumphed, conceding, “I suppose it was a little funny.”

Twilight stepped forward, clearly excited now at the prospect of examining a magical effect she had no apparent familiarity with. “I really am impressed, Rainbow, how did you do it? Is it those horseshoes? It has to be superficial, nopony can just become another race like that,” she rationalized, lowering her horn, which flared with purple light as she did a quick probe. One cannot, strictly speaking, detect magic, Fluttershy knew, but she knew her friend was experienced enough to recognize certain tell-tale signs of long-term enchanted objects like her library’s lightning rod. More importantly, she touched the other unicorn on the horn and found no tingle of instinctive reaction, as any horn would on a foreign object threatening to come near. “Oh yes! It feels real, but it’s just for show,” Twilight declared, satisfied.

“Yeah, kinda lame, but I don’t think I’d want some freaky magic horn poking out of my head anyway,” Rainbow Dash scoffed, managing to offend both unicorns in the room with a single wave of her hoof. She lifted her feet, all four displaying the black metallic shoes. “See? These babies let me change into any race I want - obserify,” she said, making up a word on the spot.

Scrunching her eyes in concentration, the faux-unicorn was abruptly surrounded in pearly white light, and, with a flicker and sparkle, a much heavier blue mare sat in her place. They could all see that it was Rainbow Dash, of course, but as she came clopping to her feet, it seemed to them that a fraternal triplet stood in her place - a rainbow-maned, sky-blue Earth pony. Still possessing the slenderness all mares had naturally, she seemed somehow bulkier than before. Rather than select parts of her torso, her general body frame had gained a little extra girth, and her legs especially were beefed up. Pony eyes flicked from her to Applejack, the only other athlete in the room, and the comparisons were obvious, with their deep lungs and their powerful thighs. The main difference seemed to be that Rainbow Dash looked like a runner, possessing some of her pegasus sleekness with clean lines and a long body, whereas Applejack had the iron-hard muscles of a lifelong applebucker and a somewhat overdeveloped back end, to put it bluntly.

“Well, color me red and stick me on a tree for Hearth’s Warmin’ Eve- not literally, Pinkie!” she hissed to the pink Earth pony, who had managed to find a squeeze bottle of red food dye, turning back to Rainbow Dash, “I reckon you could probably scorch me in a hoofrace now, Rainbow, not that ah wouldn’t give you the soundest thrashin’ ah could in any case. You almost look proper respectable.”

“Shucks, pardner,” Rainbow Dash drawled thickly, eliciting a startled look and then a guffaw from Applejack, followed by the other ponies. The blue Earth pony stood on her two left legs, letting the other two cross them, in the way Applejack often stood, “Ah don’ rightly know that ah a-pre-ci-a-nate yer tone-a-lot there. Fry me in a biscuit with some gravy an’ call it an eight-legged derp-dragon, ah oughta wipe that thar plumdinger grin offa yer face.”

“Okay, Rainbow Dash,” Applejack chuckled, “That’s about enough of that, it ain’ that funny.” There was a pause, and she said, more seriously, “Really, knock it off.”

“Oh, oh, I know!” the cyan-blue pegasus said, bouncing on all four hooves now, “Let’s throw a party to celebrate having a party!” Starting to bounce around the room now, she sang, off-key, “La-la-la-la-la, I love candies and cakes and colorful things, and pink posies and red rosies!”

“Eee, you too?” Pinkie, who could take a joke with the best of them, asked gleefully, though whether she had actually comprehended that it was a joke or not was up for debate, “I love all of those things!”

Together, they began to spring around the others, to the increasing laughter of all involved. When she landed for the last time, Rainbow Dash concentrated, and became the slim, graceful unicorn version of herself again. “C’mon, guys,” she said, in a slightly nasally tone, “This is a library, and we ought to be quiet! Don’t hurt the feelings of the books!”

While Twilight blinked, Rainbow Dash managed to find the box she used for returns and flipped it so that she could stand on it, striking a heroic pose as she stood framed by the looming book stacks, which seemed to flank her like attentive soldiers in her latest role. “Pay attention, girls, this is important! Any minute now, Nightmare Moon and Discord are going to come dancing through that door riding an evil dragon, all of whom are threatening to destroy Ponyville!” she snorted in her nasally impression, sounding not at all like Twilight. She stamped a hoof petulantly and the others started to roll about, rendered helpless.

“My sides!” Rarity cried, trying to support herself on Twilight, who was blushing furiously, “Oh, Twilight, she’s... you...”

Twilight gave an unwilling giggle, her thoughts plainly whirling, probably wondering in some dark corner of her nervous mind if she did, indeed, sound anything like that.

“If we don’t gather up the Elements of Harmony at once and have a campfire song about friendship, truth, justice, and the Equestrian way, we’ll all be sucking chaos out of Nightmare-brand curly straws! It’ll be freaky shadow-dragon-bear-pony cross breeds as far as the eye can see. And brush your teeth!”

Inspired by this unexpected outpouring of her personal element, Pinkie Pie, in the background, clicked the music player back on. Twilight, for one, felt like she was going to collapse if a guffawing Applejack kept slapping her on the back so hard, her knees buckling even as laughter bubbled up inside her.

While the other ponies moved onto the dance floor, Fluttershy, coming up to Rainbow Dash’s side as the temporary unicorn managed to rise up on her hooves, made a fateful decision, while the opportunity was still fresh. Lowering her voice to the most minuscule registers she could find and still be heard over the sound of dancing ponies and party music, she murmured, “Can I try those on?”

In the dark of Twilight Sparkle’s lab, freshly sealed and locked against any too-curious ponies or dragons who might get into something more dangerous than they ought to, a faint glimmer arose, casting pink shadows across scattered instruments and tomes.

In truth, there was really no physical reason why it should have worked so effectively. Twilight knew that, as surely as Rainbow Dash’s horn had been a lump of useless keratin, with no special connection to her brain as the horns of true unicorns were, so Fluttershy could not as an Earth pony have any special vigor or strength she lacked before. The student rather suspected that Fluttershy knew that as well. Psychology, it seemed, could be a very powerful motivator.

“Woohoo!” the butter-yellow Earth pony called out, dancing as she had rarely danced before, springing from hoof to hoof and swinging her pink mane, her seemingly powerful new legs beating in time. That fiery spirit that sometimes showed itself within her was in full force, throwing caution to the wind, no matter how much she may be embarrassed about it later. The horseshoes, clamped onto her feet, rang out with every step.

“You go, Fluttershy!” Rainbow Dash called from above, her pegasus form, wings and all, having been restored in a flash of pearly sparks the moment she took the enchanted shoes off. Aerial dancing was just as good in her opinion, and she could do moves no ground-pounder could dream of, darting back and forth around the chandelier over the dancing ponies.

Outside, the windows of the library beat like drums within their living wooden frames while ponies paused to stick their heads up to look in with envy at the sight. They would have been welcomed in at once, of course, for Pinkie Pie had nothing but a smile and a laugh in her heart for all and, as Twilight herself would say, a library is a public place, but they passed on anyway, knowing that the six were all old friends and deserved their time together. There would always be other parties.

As it would turn out, this avoidance would be for their own good.

“C’mon, Fluttershy, do an impression!” Rainbow Dash goaded, grinning down from above as she held her hind knees, flapping to keep her balance as she slowly somersaulted, “It’s the whole reason I picked those up!” Swooping about the warm room, filled with laughter and music and dancing, Rainbow demonstrated for all and sundry exactly why she was one of the best athletes alive in this world, and how a good set of wings could let you move like nopony’s business.

“I was meaning to ask about that, actually, where did you get them from?” Twilight asked as Fluttershy seized up in surprise at Rainbow’s suggestion, the lavender pony looking up at the ceiling, “Those don’t look like local work at all, I don’t think they’re even from this part of the kingdom.”

Pushing off the chandelier to bounce about the ceiling like a blue pinball, Rainbow decided, at the last minute, that telling the effective deputy of the national regnant about a bazaar filled with illegal goods could have dramatically unintended consequences. It demonstrated remarkable foresight on her part, though that wasn’t saying much, as it might have saved everypony a great deal of headache in the time to come. “Oh, you know, someplace,” she said, vaguely, waving a hoof dismissively. This proved somewhat awkward, given her corkscrew trajectory made waving a rather haphazard prospect.

Twilight started to press, buying Rainbow’s lamest excuse yet not at all, but then Fluttershy pounced on her, “Ghak!”

Giving her a noogie in a headlock, Fluttershy announced in her very country best, “Shoo-ee! Gosh darn good t’see ya, Twailaight!” This behavior alone startled everypony, not least Twilight, who found herself being squashed to the former pegasus’ chest. “Ah cain’t say how glad ah ahm t’have all y’all here t’getha.”

“All y’all are terrible at mah ack-cent,” Applejack muttered, facehoofing. She grabbed a cup of punch to commiserate with as her ears flattened against the assault.

Shining through the shadows, the pinkish glow intensified, blue and yellow joining it. The light was steadier now, like a very faint lantern on its lowest setting. The colors swirled within, like a burning gas, and more of the laboratory was revealed, with Twilight’s notes left unfinished, her magnifying lens on its articulated stand left facing the gem. If an eye had been pressed to the right depth and angle, it could have seen tiny movement of the crystalline structure on the surface.

“I’m Fluttershy!” Pinkie Pie announced cheerfully. Bubblegum pink wings were spread as wide as they could go, the energetic equine bouncing on her heels. Sunlight flooding down from the open windows dappled across her flanks and outspread wings, making her look rather like someone had set a taffy factory on fire with her fur and feathers aglow as they were.

“...really, that’s your impression?” Twilight asked, skeptically.

“No, silly!” the other girl giggled, settling into a hunched stance with her wings folded up tight at her sides, speaking in a quiet, unassuming tone, “Oh, hi everyone... I hope I’m not interrupting... if it’s okay, I’ll just go curl up in a corner, it’s all right, I don’t mind.”

Twilight, for one, was rather surprised, for Pinkie Pie’s voice sounded almost exactly like Fluttershy’s when she spoke in that fashion. Nearby, Applejack grabbed the real Fluttershy’s tail before she could do just as Pinkie had said in her stead, hauling her back from one of the corners.

“Oh, hi Fluttershy,” she said, sad-eyed, more like a puppy than Fluttershy ever managed. Somehow, she was able to pull enough locks of her cloud-like mane in front of her face to hide her eyes, resulting in total blindness as she slunk lower into a pitiable ball. “It’s a shame there are no animals here, I would have liked to cuddle one ever so much.”

“Oh, fine,” Rarity snorted, though no one had looked to her or even suggested the idea. She had, apparently, while in the process of examining her pony pedicure, talked herself into an idea. “Give those over here, I had best show the rest of you ruffians how it is done. The theater,” she said, emphasizing the last syllable, and finishing in a dramatic flourish, “Awaits!”

Subtle cracks were forming on the surface of the crystal. The increasing luminance, with a clean white flame added to the mixture of colorful burning gas-like lights, filtered through the crazed surface to paint the laboratory in a myriad of differing colors, dancing like the reflections off a rippling pond.

A common mistake was to think of Rarity as an actress. Certainly, melodrama was her stock in trade and, if so she cared to, she could craft the most delectable and incomparable of disguises - if her sense of style didn’t get in the way, in any case. Eight-legged mutant dragons aside. In Rarity’s mind, there was no barrier between herself and the melodramatic persona which she had spent her entire life building, erected as a bulwark against the crass and uncultured world of Ponyville and her parents, elevating her into the refined and sophisticated ranks of the cultural elite.

Even in a mere party game, she would not stoop to something as low, fake, and vulgar as impressions of her beloved peers. She would show them that beauty transcended race, that even a solid Earth pony or a flighty pegasus could achieve such lofty heights of fashionable perfection as she.

“Ooo,” Pinkie Pie said, crouched on the table as she watched, “Fancy.” All eyes were drawn to the wings Rarity spread, at just the right angle so that the marble white primaries could catch the rays of the afternoon sun and cast them back at her fellow ponies. She stood in her most regal countenance, evoking the elegant statues of Equestria’s unaging Princess Celestia, with one hoof raised in what can only be described as benefaction. Spike, at the stairs, collapsed with a sigh into a vaguely dragon-shaped puddle.

“No, no, it’s quite all right. Your worship is, however understandable and appropriate, unneeded,” she said graciously, tilting the wings this way and that as she thrust out her chest, strutting forward, as if she were on a model’s runway in Manehattan instead of a somewhat haphazardly arranged small town library. Not a single feather or tuft was out of place, and it all flowed into smooth, graceful lines.

“Pffft,” Rainbow Dash said, landing with a toss of her matted polychromatic mane. If she showed any sign of inadequacy next to the former unicorn, it wasn’t visible to the others. So what if it would take her hours of preening and a pair of industrial-grade bolt cutters to get her wings, coat, and mane in that good a shape? “Try flapping those like a real pegasus and see how long they stay like that.”

Rarity scoffed, reflexively tightening the magnificent wings that sprouted now from her back, with the snowy-white primaries partially covering the even brighter secondaries, “I would not even dream of ruining such splendor! Unlike ruffians such as yourself, if I could fly, I would do so in adroit fashion, a balletic display of aerial poetry, as in my - very nearly victorious - entry into the Young Flyers’ Competition at Cloudsdale.”

“Fly like a wuss, I think you mean,” Rainbow tossed back, and stretched substantially, as if she were some wild cat, with her spine bending at angles none of the other girls in the room would dream of attempting, “That’s all right, though. A body this sleek and perfect is something you gotta be born with to start and keep in world-class shape with death-defying, totally awesome stunts that nopony too much less cool could even dream of attempting. If a pony as uncool as you even so much as tried, your wings would shrivel up on the spot!”

Tossing her head, permitting her mane to bounce with just the right amount of disdain, Rarity turned her nose up at the sky-blue pegasus. “I should have expected you to be jealous of such beauty, Rainbow Dash,” she said haughtily, “No matter, your comments only solidify the undeniable fact that I make the most fabulous pegasus of them all.” Rarity flared her wings just so, to demonstrate a standoffish attitude.

“Hey, hey,” Pinkie said, prodding Applejack while the two pegasi began to get into their argument, “You should totally go next.”

Looking away from Rarity and Rainbow Dash, who were even now flaring their wings to their fullest extent, hissing like a pair of territorial cats, Applejack gave Pinkie Pie a long, disbelieving look. “Beg pardon?” the countryfilly asked, almost scandalized, “Me, put on those weird magic shoes? I don’ rightly fancy that notion, Pinkie, and even if ah did, my hooves are already plenty occupied.” In answer, the orange Earth pony tilted a hoof up, revealing the nailed-in horseshoe stamped there, with the originating smith’s hammer-and-forge mark cut into the underside.

“Don’t you dare touch those!” Rarity could be heard shouting, “Back, at once! I will not have those dirty claws you refer to as hooves soiling my perfection!”

“I’ll show you claws, get back here!”

“Aw c’mon, Applejack, you can pull those old shoes out,” Pinkie Pie pleaded, widening her eyes into beseeching pools, spreading her forelegs imploringly, “I bet you’d make an awesome looking pegasus! And/or a unicorn!” Exactly how Pinkie Pie was able to say the words “and” and “or” simultaneously would forever remain a mystery.

“Ah’m perfectly happy just the way ah ahm, thank-ee, ah never asked to be anythin’ else and ah never wanted to be none, neither,” she said, tapping her shoe against the table with a ringing report, “And ah ain’ pullin’ these shoes out, neither! Don’ ya have the slightest idea how long it takes to break in a new pair?”

“I dunno,” Fluttershy said, thoughtfully, as she looked at one of the hind toes, the horny keratin looking a bit overgrown to her eye, “Those are looking a bit old, Applejack, don’t you get re-shod now and then? You could do with a clip.”

“What do ah look like, Rarity?” Applejack protested, snatching her rear hoof back from the butter-colored pegasus and casting a glance over at the fancy pony in question, who was being cornered by a grinning Rainbow Dash. “Ah’m just tryin’ to save a bit of money, that’s all, I shoe Big Macintosh and Apple Bloom but I can’t well shoe m’self. They’re both all left-hooves when it comes to work like that, and Granny’s eye ain’ been steady since I was a filly.”

“It’s not that expensive,” Pinkie Pie pointed out, “I bet you’re just worried about looking like you care too much about appearances.” Rather as with Rarity, it was sometimes easy to blow off Pinkie Pie due to her wild moods, but, from time to time, she could be quite as perceptive as any other pony, and willing to show it. She grinned, to show what she thought of that idea, and teased, “Dunno how anyone would think that.” Nor, apparently, was she above a little reverse psychology; a pony needed a lot of tricks up her metaphorical sleeves if she was going to give everypony in town lives filled with fun and excitement, no matter how they objected.

“And just what in the hay is that supposed to mean?” Applejack asked, her eyes narrowing suspiciously. The mare took a firm bite out of one of the apples on the table, one of her own naturally, looking askance at her friends.

“Oh, you know,” Fluttershy commented, cluing in to Pinkie’s idea, “It’s perfectly all right that you’re not worried about your appearance, Applejack. I mean, I like going to the spa and making sure my mane looks nice and everything, but you’re more practical than I am.”

The pegasus’ too-wide smile threatened to throw the gig, and Pinkie Pie tore in to make sure the effect wasn’t spoiled, distracting Applejack. “Sure!” she said, hopping off the table and rising up dramatically, “Everypony knows you’re the most dependable, most hard-nosed, most get-to-itness pony out there! Other mares can worry about how they look, but Applejack, she’s got more important things!”

It was probably a good thing that being the Element of Honesty didn’t necessarily mean she could identify a bald-faced lie any better than most ponies. Adjusting her hat firmly, she nudged Pinkie’s body out of the way, the pink Earth pony sliding along the floor in a fashion inexplicable for a creature that normally obeys friction, going over to a chair and, with four well-practiced jerks, neatly pulled the old horseshoes free with a clatter of nails. Examining them critically, noting the patina of corrosion adorning the shoe and nails, she decided that maybe it had been a bit too long since she was last shod. Perhaps, it wouldn’t be so bad just to give the magical shoes a try. Just this once. Ain’ like ah’m gonna be stuck lookin’ like whatever.

The last color to join the now visibly pulsating crystal below was a solid lavender, the shade the eastern sky took on in the late twilight. Unlike alabaster white, dark orange, bright blue, dull yellow, and even nauseous pink, the gaseous-like color did not burn, but instead shot through and interwove with the others, forming a pattern that was at once immediately clear and completely undefinable. Resolutely liminal, it stood as an immanent sensation, a teasing puzzle for the mind to test the edges of. The laboratory was now lit bright as day, and papers rustled in an unseen breeze, the air pregnant with possibility.

Applejack neither kept the enchanted hooves long nor did she perform any impressions. Like Rarity, she didn’t see herself as an actor and carried the additional baggage of being relentlessly straightforward and utterly incapable of telling the simplest lies without completely botching both the delivery and the content. Indeed, after breaking up Rarity and Rainbow Dash and claiming the horseshoes for herself, she was clearly, to Twilight’s eye, content simply to curiously test their power in peace while other ponies moved on to other party games, the allure of the strange devices a bit dimmed after four straight rounds of it.

Though interested to see how the other pony had changed, and how very powerful she looked even as a unicorn mare, Twilight turned away from Applejack, who even now was pondering the logistics of wearing a Stetson hat with a very prominent orange horn jutting from her blond forelock. Twilight Sparkle made her way over to Rainbow Dash, who was busy looking at herself in the reflection of one of the windows, hovering high enough to get a good view, and muttering under her breath. If Twilight didn’t know the brash pegasus better, she might have thought that the other mare was reassuring herself of her good looks, but, clearly, that was absurd on the face of it. Dismissing the thought out of hoof, she called up, asking, “So where did you say you bought those shoes again?”

“The inter-county market meet,” Rainbow Dash answered at once, inattentive. Pinkie Pie wasn’t the only pony who knew how to play on someone’s psychology.

“Uh huh. Rainbow Dash, were you buying off-market enchantments? You should know how dangerous that can be!” Twilight said, about to lift her hoof in admonishment when she realized, embarrassed, how close she was sounding to Rainbow’s own impression of the student when she was at her most preachy. Sobering thought, that, and one that almost made Twilight pause to reconsider it, but if being worried over her preachiness never stopped her before, why now?

“Aw, c’mon, Twilight,” Rainbow said, rustling the other pony’s mane, “Don’t be such a downer, I just got it for some laughs. And maybe to throw people in town for a loop. Annnd maybe a few other tricks, haven’t thought of them yet.” The pegasus tapped her chin with a hoof. Following her gaze, Twilight noticed Applejack trying on feathers, the former Earth pony looking almost annoyed with them, as if she couldn’t figure out where they belonged.

“I know you did, but-”

“Am I sexy?” Rainbow Dash demanded, overriding Twilight’s question, all four legs on the ground and spread in an aggressive, irritated fashion, her wings half-open with frustration.

“Well- wait what?!” Twilight demanded, shocked out of her wits.

Growling, the pegasus stamped a hoof, “I knew it.”

“Wait, wait, you look good, Rainbow!” Twilight said, quickly, able to tell that the pegasus was upset without quite knowing why. Normally, she’d give a quick pat or even a brief nuzzle to show her she cared and try to calm her down, but that idea was strangely uncomfortable at the moment. Continuing, she qualified, always a little too pedantic for her own good, “I mean, sure, your mane is a bit matted, and some feathers are out of place.”

“Oh yeah, like you’re one to talk about manes,” she grumbled, eying Twilight’s razor-edged hair and tail. While the librarian was trying to shift gears into being at least a little offended, she launched her surprise attack, “So what’re you gonna try first, when you put them on?”

“Pegasus, but- that’s not the point!” Twilight objected, stamping a hoof.

“Oh, so you’re gonna try them, even after telling me how dangerous it was?” Rainbow asked, grinning now as she darted and caught a glass of punch from the table, lounging back in mid air, “I see how it is, everypony but you has to watch out.” Her wings flapped lazily, letting her hover just about effortlessly. Let other ponies march about in the mud Rainbow had better things to do with her hooves.

“That is not-” the lavender unicorn bit off, “Ugggh!”

Flashing, she teleported across the room, just as Applejack, restored to normal, was taking the last of the horseshoes off. Yelping, the farmer dropped it with a metallic clatter, fixing her hat. “Landsakes, Twi, you wanna watch it where you do that? I half jumped outta my skin,” she complained, rubbing at her coat with a hoof to reassure the flesh underneath it.

“Sorry, just- Uggggh! Rainbow Dash!” she complained, as if that explained everything.

Apparently it did, as Applejack nodded with an understanding grin, “Shore thing, sugahcube. Your turn now, huh?”

“Might as well,” Twilight said, moving to set her hooves into each and lighting her horn up, clicking the clamps securely into place, “I guess since everypony else has, and had fun with them, I can’t well be the stand out and grump in place, can I?”

“Hey, I didn’t say nothin’ about nothin’,” Applejack grinned wider, if anything, at the other pony’s reluctance, as if her own had been lost to history.

Twilight gave her a level look, exasperation writ large against her features.

Somewhere in the back, Rarity was loudly bemoaning the loss of her beautiful wings, “Again, I have lost them again! First my gorgeous gossamer set, and now my very own flesh and blood and feather! Why, why did such beauty have to be lost? Is this the curse of all things perfect and beautiful, that they must wither away into star dust and morning dew? Why would a good universe permit such things?”

“Uhm, Rarity,” Pinkie Pie, of all ponies, tried to interject, sounding a touch skeptical, “Maybe you’re taking this a bit-”

“Can you not see, Pinkie? The forces which created this universe are cruel and empty of all meaning!” the unicorn wailed, her horn dragging Twilight’s stand mirror before her with a flash of magic so that Rarity could stare longingly into it, “It is just you and I, now, my flawless reflection. We are all that remains of a just world worth abiding in.”

With a firm facehoof, Twilight concentrated on the magic horseshoes, willing to try anything to change the pace around her library. The sensation of the change overcoming her was more involved than she had previously imagined from the reactions of her friends, which she had studied quite closely. The graduate student wondered, idly, if her face had that same, slightly slack look of uncertainty that had touched so briefly on the others, when their flesh had, all under the pearly glow of magic, changed from one instant to the next.

It was, indeed, a flesh-change, and superficial at that, Twilight knew. Stretching forth midnight wings, she could feel the reality of the muscles not only in the wings, but also underlying her back, hooked to a more prominent collar bone than had previously existed. Her chest could draw in far more air than before, her lungs having increased in their capacity. Without having to flap her wings, which she did anyway, she knew that it was all for naught, of course. Maybe she could have slowed her descent from a great height with the physical wings and air resistance alone, but without the unspoken magic of the pegasi backing her up, there wasn’t a chance in the world she could fly. She wondered if she could walk on clouds, however, for just about any winged animal could, but she doubted it.

The most mysterious and powerful change, however, was that the loss of her horn did indeed remove, or at least dampen, her unicorn’s magic; without the focusing implement, it was somewhat akin to trying to spray a leaky hose without a nozzle and a ragged end, all diffuse and vaporous. Even as a pony with the very concept of magic on her flank and the Element itself in her soul, she couldn’t even focus enough to lift a pencil off a nearby desk, though she could see a lavender haze for a moment when she concentrated on the patterns of energy.

Prancing around a bit with her unshod hooves clicking on her wooden floor, getting a feel for how her muscles were connected now, Twilight marveled at the subtle precision of it all. It really was as if she had been born a pegasus, complete with the sort of muscles she would have developed, though even that had a decidedly well-fed, chair-bound, book-read existence. The faux-pegasus was a touch plumper than either Fluttershy or Rainbow Dash. Not that there was anything wrong with that, of course, sometimes stallions liked a little plush. There isn’t a chance I’m going to get fat with my activity levels! I gallop practically daily with the disasters that hit Ponyville!

Twilight Sparkle hastily made a mental note to skip on the party’s chocolate cake.

Turning to Applejack, she smiled broadly, spreading her wings again and striking a pose. “What do you think?” she asked, a hoof to her mane to fluff it a little, making the pink stripe stand out a bit more.

“I think you look ravishing, darling, you really should let me-” Rarity began, but was cut off by Rainbow Dash.

“No way, no how, Rarity! A true pegasus always looks a little mussed, it’s part of our, um - what was that word, cull, cult... culture!”

“Oh yes. A matted and tangled mane that hasn’t seen a brush in Celestia knows however long, possibly not since the Grand Galloping Gala, and a tail that rats could use as a very flashy nest-”

“A prim, prissy, ultra-boring-”

“Your coat would shriek and skin itself off if you even saw a bottle of shampoo-”

“-sooner drop dead than actually contribute to the world by working-”

“-absolute brute of a mare with a stallion’s sense of the feminine-”

Shocking what a little disharmony can do, really, under the right circumstances. When the white and the blue flames began to shiver and destabilize, they very quickly took the others with them. Colors began to jangle and bleed together into unseemly wholes, with a jigsaw pattern of potential states that cast the room a quiver with uncertain light. And through it all, the purple radiance tightened, and quivered, and then, quite suddenly-

“ENOUGH!”

Huh.

Twilight hadn’t expected her voice to do that.

There was still ringing in her ears when she started to collapse. It seemed to her that her voice had released some unseen, hitherto unnoticed tension. She could imagine having seen colors bursting out of the air, lightning flashes of forked power that shot through every part of her library and her own flesh. Her voice continued to echo, drawn by unknown carriers, and, most ridiculous of all, appeared to have blown out that entire wall in front of her, sending books bouncing off surprised ponies halfway down the street. A particularly large tome, meant for nearly life-sized diagrams of a large number of animal species, blew through a cart of flowers, sending three overly excitable mares fleeing and screaming into their homes.

Deciding, quite sensibly, that she would obey her body’s sudden lethargy and her mind’s obvious fantasies, Twilight Sparkle laid her head down on her legs and, with a pleasant, and not-at-all pained sigh of tense throat muscles, fell asleep.