It was the day after the fourth Sunday in March. This was important because, from March to October, the fourth Sunday of every month was when the CEC Zone Race Flying Championship held its races. Like most fourth-tier race flying series, it had a characterless name indicating the area in which the races were held, but unique to fourth-tier race flying series, it had Rainbow Dash in it. And after two years of failure, never finishing a single race in the top ten in her rookie year and just managing it a few times the next, this seemed to be her breakthrough season, as she had come second in the major Equestrian city of Trottenham.

It was a hot, sunny, humid, absolutely miserable day out, and Applejack was sitting on her bed with a book and an apple when she heard someone knock the door. She rushed down, knowing that after the package, this one definitely had to be Rainbow Dash, and this time she was right.

“Rainbow!”

She went inside and Applejack closed the door. “Hi. Do you know what it’s like out there?”

“Sure do.”

“They drove me to the nearest point to here that the roads covered and I had to fly the rest.” She lied on her back directly under the ceiling fan that was in the room.

“So Ah guess you’re feelin’ pretty good about the race?”

“Ugh, I’ve answered that question enough times. Yeah, I’m feeling good. Being on the podium in an adult race for the first time felt preeetty good. And I’m only sixteen, so, you know, that’s looking good for my career if I can keep it up. So did you see it?”

“Yeah. You think Ah would miss it?”

“Sorry... that means a lot to me, by the way, that you watch a sport you don’t care about just because of me.”

“Well, it’s not so boring Ah’m just bored. Most sports are decent, Ah just have things Ah lahke more, that’s the kahnda pony Ah am. So... wanna do stuff?”

“You’re not having sex today. I did the race which was in horrible fucking conditions, then I had to do more flying at fifty fucking degrees because our road network barely exists, and now I just want to lie here all fucking day.”

“Ah never said that.”

“Well, it isn’t happening.” The conversation went silent. “So as I was saying, I’m awesome.”

“Ah know that already. Frankly, that’s so obvious raht now Ah fahnd it patronising that you said it.”

“Hey, did you say an I sound? In patronise?”

“What? No. You must be hallucinatin’ from the heat and exhaustion.”

“Okay... so you do whatever, but I’m staying here.”

Applejack lied down with her. “Ah’m stayin’ with you.”

“But I have nothing to talk about right now. I mean, obviously I could go into tons of detail about how my weekend was, but I know you don’t actually care.”

“We can still do what we usually do. Agree with each other about television, agree with each other about politics....”

“Yeah. Hey, did you see Murder Farm this week?”

“Yeah. Bluegrass was such a moron.”

“He was not.”

The afternoon was warm and slightly humid, but far from the oppression of yesterday, and it was Twilight’s turn as Rainbow flew directly into her bedroom.

“Hey, Rainbow Dash,” Spike said.

“Hi. Where’s Twilight?”

“Getting groceries. I saw the race a couple of days ago.”

“Oh, cool. I suppose you want to tell me how awesome I am?”

“Yeah. It wasn’t that great a race, honestly, but you did well so I didn’t really care. Anyway, you’re fucking amazing.”

“Thanks.”

“So you think you can beat Shooting Star into a disorganised pile of atoms next time?”

“I don’t know, it’s been one race. I might win next time or I might never get on the podium the rest of the season. It was a pretty convincing win, so I don’t know, but even if I can’t, she’s twenty-three so I won’t be too hard on myself about it.”

“Accepting you might not be the greatest? That’s not the Rainbow Dash I know.”

“Well, I was pretty disappointed a couple of years ago when I didn’t win, win, win, but that’s what taught me to have realistic expectations. After the last two seasons, I’m really happy to be as far up as I am.”

“I see what you’re saying. So how did it you feel when you won the U16 championship and then things just didn’t work?”

“Right. So when I beat a bunch of fifteen-year-olds at thirteen to be crowned the best youth flyer in the country, I felt even better about myself than before, but the truth is that Equestria isn’t really that great a country in race flying. I know we have Redshift in the RFC—you know, this’ll have a lot of stuff that doesn’t make sense to non-race flying ponies.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it. Let’s be honest, the editors are waiting for Twilight anyway.”

“Anyway, the point is that we aren’t well-represented in major series. So to beat a bunch of young Equestrians in a race doesn’t really mean that much. Still, I had nothing left to gain, so I entered the CEC Zone championship where I am now. I know I could’ve moved up from the U16 to the normal Equestrian championship so it looks like I skipped a level, but really, the adult Equestrian series is a bunch of hobbyists so it really wouldn’t’ve helped me.

“Anyway, I had this idea in my head that I was going to beat everypony. The previous year had made me used to winning, and I had already forgotten what it was like to be average like I was my first year in the U16, which was just because of my age, as I kept reminding myself.” She sighed. “Now I want to go back to my time in U12. Anyway, yeah, I expected to win most of the races, and then in my first race I came sixteenth. And then fifteenth. I got pretty disappointed, that’s for sure, but I think the shock was good for me. It reminded me that I flew because of flying, not because of winning, and being pretty far back I was able to relax and enjoy it. If I had come around fourth, fifth, sixth in the initial races, I think that would’ve kept me annoyed without teaching me a lesson.”

Eventually Twilight showed up. Rainbow came down to the kitchen to see her.

“Hi, Twilight.”

She turned around. “Rainbow Dash! Well, this is a nice surprise.”

“Did you see me be awesome a couple of days ago?”

“No, you know I’m not really into sports. Spike told me about it. I’m really happy for you, though.”

“That’s good. I guess.”

“Seriously.” She dropped a plastic bag and hugged her. “Who wouldn’t be happy about their girlfriend’s athletic success?”

“I don’t know. I thought I found out.”

“I’m really happy for you.” She stopped the hug. “You can bore me with how your week away from Ponyville was as much as you want.”

“Why bore you when Spike is here? He actually likes race flying.”

“You don’t want to tell me all about it?”

“Of course I do, but like you said, you’d be bored.”

“I’ll give it a chance.”

They went to the bedroom, and within fifteen minutes, Twilight was asleep. But with Spike being in the same room, Rainbow still got to talk about it for hours, and to someone who actually found it interesting.

Next on the list was Fluttershy.

“Hi, Rainbow Dash.”

“Hi. I don’t know exactly what it was, but being successful at sports made me want to visit everypony I know.”

“Well, come in.”

She seriously considered not doing it. “Anything new?”

“Not really. Besides, this is about you. So tell me how your week was.”

“You actually want to hear it?”

“Of course I do.”

“Where do I start?”

“At the very beginning.”

“All right... well, I met my team—which in a fourth-tier series you don’t typically have much of a team, like I just have a friend who owns a car, a unicorn who pays me to let her lug all my stuff around because she’s that happy to be part of the life of Rainbow Dash, and a single pony who works under my tent in the pits whose main job is righting water bottles that the wind might knock over, she doesn’t actually do much strategy stuff unless...” This went on hours into the night, Fluttershy being surprised at how interesting she found everything up to the actual racing. “...So I washed off all the residual caramel and we kept driving back. Then we got to the point where they dropped me off, I said goodbye, and that’s the end.”

“What a story.” She noticed the light level outside. “Will you be fine going to the next pony?”

“I mean, probably, but if I want to be safe I should just stay here. I don’t know if you’re okay with that....”

“Of course you can stay here. I want you to.”

“Great. I don’t really have anything to do, though....”

“I know something. Here.” She pulled out the attic ladder.

“Wait, you... how many rooms does your house actually have?”

“Even I’m not entirely sure of the number. Come on.”

They climbed up.

“I always thought you just slept in the living room.”

“No, this is it.”

“Is there only one bed or is there another one in another room?”

“There’s one bed. Is that a problem?”

“We aren’t quite that close....”

“You really think something’s going to happen?”

“No, but we can’t take the chance.”

“It’ll be fine.”

“I know it’ll be fine. I know I’m just paranoid. So were you going to show me something?”

“Oh, it’s just a game.” She went across the room and opened the wardrobe, the only thing in the room apart from the bed, its associated bedstand, and a lamp, and pushed a board game across the floor.

“The idea of you proposing to do something competitive is creeping me out.”

“I know what you mean, but it’s because it’s that good. I hope. I’ve been waiting for a mature pony to come over so I can find out.”

“What made you bring this box into your house?”

“It just looked that good. And then I read the rules and it made me feel even better about it. There isn’t a special reason.”

“Well, I see your point... I’ll try it once.”

The game was mostly about timed abstract puzzles, throwing darts, and reaction time tests of various types, but nothing especially amusing for an outside observer happened. Otherwise the transcriber would’ve transcribed it because she’s doing a very good job and probably deserves a raise, you know, not much, just enough that the mind-reading classes she took will make a profit before she reaches her life expectancy. She had certainly been doing a much better job than the other main transcriber who just wanted to make a bunch of jokes instead of just recording what happened in a way cameras with a narrow field of view or ponies who couldn’t read minds might not be able to offer. There were even rumours about getting rid of the transcribers and just novelising the video version, which would be ridiculous for the reasons previously stated, but they were ultimately just crazy rumours and she wasn’t that bothered by them. The point is that she was ridiculously underpaid for being an employee vital to a rich company’s success.

“For the match,” Fluttershy said. She gave Rainbow a card with three differently-coloured triangles and turned over an hourglass.

“Okay, purple, grey, and... and... orange. Those make orange. Now what? No, no, this is wrong. How much red do we have? One and a... no, zero. I mean one. One of everything except green. So that makes the answer... one red triangle.”

“That’s right!”

“Wow. That game is such a... you know, it’s a Twilight game. Twilight would fucking love this.”

“Did you love it?”

“It was okay. If I liked the puzzles, they must be good. Or bad because I have no taste in puzzles, who knows. What did you think?”

“I’m just panicking all the time. In a good way.”

“Yeah, that’s the kind of thing it is. Tell you what, I’m definitely ready to sleep after that.”

“I know what you mean. I’ll see you in an hour or so.”

“All right.”

They didn’t accidentally have sex, and the next one up was Pinkie Pie. Rainbow entered Sugarcube Corner, but the pony behind the counter was a pale green mare with a white mane with straight hair, and that definitely wasn’t what Pinkie Pie looked like.

“What have you done with Pinkie Pie?”

“She’s sick. I’m her replacement for today.”

“Well, I came here to tell her something.”

“Then you’ll have to come back tomorrow.”

“I will.”

Spitfire’s house in Cloudsdale, her final destination, didn’t stand out from the rest of the neighbourhood. It was a simple single-storey box, which was common in cloud cities, as they had no reason to be very creative with their buildings. The house was painted a pale turquoise or a vibrant sky blue, with a single door on the extreme left looking from the outside. A window with white curtains started next to the door and spanned most of the front side.

Spitfire answered the door. “Hi, Rainbow Dash!”

“Hey.”

“Come in.” It happened. “You’ve made every Cloudsdale resident who likes racing so proud. And this time you did it without saving the world.”

“I figured you might want to tell me how awesome I am in pony, but I didn’t think it would happen this quickly.”

“Well, it’s what you came for, isn’t it? And I’m happy to do it. Here, sit down.”

They took a seat on the couch. The house was more or less four quadrants, with the living room in the front, kitchen rear left, bedroom rear right, and a small bathroom front right, the kitchen with a white theme and the living room with everything the same asparagus.

“So I saw the race. You played it really well, and you finally seem to have the power too now that you’re a bit older.”

“Yeah, considering Star was... doing what she should be doing considering how long she’s been in this level, really, I did really well. I certainly didn’t expect to be so good, and honestly I don’t even know what happened to me.”

“Well, the important thing is that you don’t suck anymore. So tell me everything about the weekend, no matter how small a detail.”

It happened. “So I got in the car and... so ends the race weekend.”

“Well, that was really fascinating.” The instant the talking stopped, she noticed something. “Wow, I am hungry.”

“We could get something with my second place prize money.”

“And how much is that?”

“1,250 bits.”

“Oh. I expected it to be a hilariously small or large number.”

“Well, that’s what you get for that place in that series. Also, we can’t actually do that because I don’t have any money with me.”

“Well, if you don’t have something else to do, I am not losing my chance to go to a restaurant with you, Cloudsdale’s only two-time hero.” Someone knocked the front door. “Let me get that.”

She got it, and on her doorstep was a stallion with faintly blue but basically white fur. “Oh, and I suppose all the ponies I’ve saved from fire don’t make me, like—”

“Dude, stop stalking me.” She firmly shut and locked the door. “Sorry about that, the fire chief has a... thing for me, to say the least. So can we go?”

“I just said that to mention my awesomeness again, but sure, I got nothin’ to do.”

And thus ended Rainbow Dash’s 80% successful mission to collect congratulations. They went to a restaurant of middling fanciness, unknowingly followed by Saltwater Lake, and they enjoyed a wonderful meal without even the faintest, most ambiguous hint of romance, much to one party’s disappointment. Next Chapter: Chapter 57: Opposite Day Estimated time remaining: 13 Hours, 39 Minutes