I fly through the air, my wings propelling me past cloud after cloud, in a race against the wind itself.
The wind's losing.
It always does.

I chuckle softly as the now-familiar silence of the pre-Rainboom mach cone forms around me, signalling that I'm moving much, much too fast for even sound to keep up with me.

After a few seconds, the cone shatters, and my speed doubles as I pull off another flawless Sonic Rainboom for the Wonderbolts.
As expected, their mouths are agape and their eyes are wide in shock.

"That's nothin'!" I say, landing in front of them. "At Cadance and Shining Armor's wedding, I did one straight up from takeoff!"

As the Wonderbolts overcome their shock, a strange sound floats in on the wind.
Sobbing.

Sobbing? I knew my stunts were good, but I didn't know they'd bring ponies to tears...

I look around for the source, only to find there's none. Just the Wonderbolts, whom I turn to in confusio-
They're gone.

Where'd the Wonderbolts go!?

Suddenly, the cloud I'm standing on grows thick and black - a storm cloud. I start to sink into it, trying desperately to free myself. The cloud's up to my knees now.
My chest.
My neck.

I jolt upright, breathing heavily. I look around me.
Nothing but sky.

A dream.

I sigh in relief and settle back into my cloud, ready to drift off again.
A sound cuts through my sleep, interrupting any thoughts I had of taking another nap.
Sobbing.

Looking down from my cloud, I see that I've let myself drift a tad too far; I'm close to the border of the Everfree.
I also see a stallion sitting on a cloud, his sobs coloring the thing grey.

"Hey!" I call. "You okay down there?"

The stallion looks up, startled. I give a small wave, and he looks down at the cloud he's standing on.

"No." he says dejectedly. "Please leave me alone."

I float down to him and sit down next to him.

"Come on, bro." I say. "It isn't so bad that talking through it won't help you out."

The stallion, dark purple with a black mane, gets up and starts flying away, over Ponyville. I roll my eyes.

Now to get back to my nap...

But it's no use, and I know it. I won't be able to sleep until I at least find out what's wrong with the guy.
Flying after him, I catch up easily and slow down so that I'm flying right next to him. It kinda reminds me of when Twilight was trying to comfort me while I was studying for that Wonderbolts History Exam...

"What's eating you?" I ask, nudging him with a hoof. "Is it mare trouble?"

The stallion gives a wry chuckle.

"You could say that." he says.

"You can tell me." I say. "I promise I won't tell."

The stallion stops and looks at me.

"Oh, what's the use of keeping quiet?" he says angrily. "It's not like she'd even care..."

"That's the spirit!" I say, grabbing a nearby cloud and shaping it into a psychiatrist's chair. "Now have a sit and tell me what's bothering you."

The stallion sits down, and I notice a horn sticking out of his mane. I frown.

"You're an alicorn?" I ask.

The stallion looks at his horn and wings as if really noticing them for the first time.

"Yeah." he says. "For what it's worth."

With a sigh, he begins talking again, and I sit on a nearby rooftop to listen.

"So this mare..." The stallion begins. "She saved my life."

"Wow!" I interrupt. "Sounds like a catch."

"She isn't." the stallion says. "Because when I pledged my life to her service, she refused!"

I stop at that.

"She said she didn't need a servant, and that she wanted me to live my own life! After she saved it!"

Now the stallion's angry.

"What am I supposed to do with myself now that I've got nothing and nopony to live for!?"

At this, I start laughing.
The stallion looks at me angrily, but I hold up a hoof to stop him.

"I'm not laughing at you." I say. "I'm laughing at a memory."

"What memory would that be?"

"I remember when my friend Applejack saved the life of another one of my friends. Poor dude kept following Applejack around, trying to help her, until they both realized something."

I look him in the eye and move closer to him.

"Life debts are stupid."

The stallion flinches back as if I'd just smacked him across the face.

"I'm serious." I say. "Life debts are stupid. Nopony here wants a servant - they can do everything themselves - and nopony here would accept a servant without feeling insanely guilty."

"But how can I show respect to-"

"Listen." I say, cutting the stallion off. "Live for you. not someone else. If you want to respect someone who's saved your life, don't be their servant."

I smile at the stallion and put a hoof on his shoulder.

"Be their friend instead."

There's a long silence. The stallion sniffs once.

"Welp." I say, getting up from the roof. "I've said my piece; now I'm going to go back to my nap. Have a nice day..."

I turn to the stallion.

"What's your name?" I ask.

"It's Dusk." the stallion says.

"Have a nice day, Dusk." I say, flying back to my cloud.

After a few minutes, I'm back in the air.

Where'd that come from? I ask myself. I've never given advice like that. Ever.

I shrug, lading on my cloud and lying down, preparing to doze.

Maybe I need to lay off the Neighnia books...

"Rainbow Dash!" Twilight's voice cuts through the quickly-gathering haze of sleep like a hot knife through, well, a quickly gathering haze.

"Yeah?" I call, putting extra grogginess into my voice in the hopes that it'll convince Twilight to leave me be.

"I need you and the rest of the girls to come here!" Twilight yells. "I have important news I need to share!"

"All right, all right." I say, sitting up on the cloud. "Where are the others?"

"Spike's getting them." Twilight says.

I sigh, and settle down to wait.

Soon, Spike arrives, along with Pinkie, Applejack, Rarity, and Fluttershy.
As they all sit down, Twilight clears her throat.

"First thing you should know:" she begins. "I'm marked for death."

At that, I fall off of the cloud, my wings instinctively saving me from falling.

I fly back up to the fluffy white seat and look down at Twilight incredulously.

"Maybe I should've put that better." Twilight says, a sheepish look on her face. "Remember a few weeks ago, when I tried that time spell from Starswirl's journal?"

We nod. Twilight had come back from Canterlot exhausted; the only thing she'd said when we'd asked her what was wrong was that she was trying out a new spell.

"Well, apparently it wasn't a spell. It was a curse."

A curse?

"What do you mean?" I ask.

"Whoever reads the spell out loud starts leaving - afterimages, let's call them - behind them. These afterimages recreate every action taken by the original until one hundred of them have appeared."

Twilight stops and shudders.

"When number 100 shows up, all of the clones become real, and immediately try to kill the original. Once the target is dead, the clones disappear, and everything goes back to normal."

Twilight sighs.

"Apparently, Starswirl was trying to adapt the curse into a positive spell, but he wasn't able to complete the changes before he disappeared over 100 years ago. He left in something about another way for the clones to gain sentience, and a code of honor that they abide by, and it turns out that it worked.

"Today, Spike and I discovered a clone and named it, which apparently bound it into a lifetime of servitude to me."

There's a long silence, during which my mind floats back to earlier, when I'd been way too sage for my own good.

"Um, Twi?" I say, rubbing the back of my neck with a hoof and putting what I hope is my best sheepish face on. "About that..."

Author's Notes:

Sorry for the long wait.
Life happened, and resolutely continues to happen despite my increasingly indignant assertions that yes, it can hold on while I finish this dang chapter already.
I'll update when I get the chance, but they're gonna be pretty few and far between for a while. Sorry.