"This is where the make the rainbows," explained Rainbow Dash. We were in Cloudsdale to see Rainbow Dash compete in the Best Young Fliers competition. She was letting us have a tour of the weather factory; we just left the snowflake production line and entered the final rainbow room. Rainbows poured down from above into huge vats.

Pinkie walked up to the biggest vat and stuck a hoof in, coating it in the strange multicoloured liquid. She took a lick and her face whizzed through different colour emotions before leaving her breathing heavily.

"Ah! Spicy!" Pinkie gasped out before running to get water.

"Well that happened," Cloud muttered before turning to Rainbow Dash. "I thought rainbows were made of light, why do these vats have physical property?" That's a good question, why is that?

"It'd be hard to store them if we left them as light so we make them in physical form first," explained Rainbow Dash.

"How are rainbows made, anyway?"

"It's a secret."

"What, do you grind up children in a big machine?" Rainbow Dash looked shocked.

"What?! No! That's horrible!" Cloud laughed, probably at how shocked she was.

"I was only joking! You shouldn't take everything so seriously!"

"Screw you!"

"Jeez, calm down!"

"This is why I hate you, you're always such a dick!"

"I've been everything but dickish today!"

"Oh, sure, that's why you were implying that unicorns are better than pegasi back there, right?"

"I wasn't implying that, they were legitimate questions! I just didn't know how strong I was!"

"Guys," I interjected, "you shouldn't fight-"

"Shut up, Twilight," Rainbow and Cloud said in usion.

"Why are you always such a plot hole?!" Shouted Rainbow, attracting the views of nearby workers. "What have I ever done to you?!"

"You mean other than letting me fall to my almost certain death twice, attacking me in the street for helping Fluttershy with a bully, breaking my collar bone, causing me to waste so many bits on hospital bills and repair costs and ruining my entire day on twelve different occasions?"

"When did I ever let you fall to your 'almost certain death'?!"

"Really?! You just suddenly forgot?!" Cloud cast some sort of thought-projection spell next to himself, showing (from a third-pony perspective) him falling off of the cliff in the Everfree Forrest and casting a spell to protect himself. What did he call it? Force Barrier? "Oh look, Cloud's falling to his death," Cloud said in a mocking voice, "maybe I should help... Nah, I'm sure he'll be fine. It's probably his dream to be a bloodstain on the ground!"

"You cast the spell before I could get to you so I went to Twilight instead!"

"Oh sure, that's totally what happened!"

"When was the second time then!?" Cloud deactivated the thought-projection spell.

"After I beat Nightmare and I fell, remember? When I shattered my skull and went blind?" He went blind from that?!

"I-"

"Just decided not to catch me?"

"No! I just wasn't expecting you to fall and I didn't have time to-"

"Don't you bucking dare use that excuse! You declared earlier that day that you were fast enough to clear the sky in ten seconds flat! Catching a pony a few meters away would have been nothing compared to that!"

"You've been worse to me than I have to you!"

"Oh really?! Let's do a quick recap of the things I've done! I saved all of Magi from a raging goddess, I stopped a dick from bullying Fluttershy, I weakened a dragon until it could be negotiated with, I ripped a hole in the universe to protect everypony from myself, I saved Twilight, Applejack, Pinkie and Fluttershy from a hydra, I let Twilight experiment on me to try and find a spell to get her and the others here to support you and when we found the right spell I flew all of us here by risking my mental health! Oh yeah, I so deserved it!" Rainbow Dash looked surprised.

"Wait, you-"

"Buck you! This is why I call you Rainbitch, no matter what I do you're always an annoying bitch!" Cloud teleported away, leaving the room awkwardly silent.

"I think we should move on now..." I muttered to Rainbow Dash, who surprisingly didn't look angry anymore. In fact, she looked... Sad? What? She sighed.

"Okay, girls," called Rainbow Dash, "we should move onto the next room." Rainbow Dash led us out of the rainbow room.

"...And that's it," explained Rainbow Dash as we exited the weather factory. We had just finished the tour. "What did you think?"

"Tha wus grea', Rainbow," replied Applejack.

"I really liked it, too," Fluttershy quietly added.

"My tongue still burns," Pinkie stated.

"Thank you so much for the tour, darling," thanked Rarity. "We should probably go and find Cloud and see if he can help Pinkie with his healing magic."

"You girls go," I said, "I need to talk to Rainbow Dash about something."

"Alrigh'y then," Applejack replied, "we'll see ya la'er, Twi." Applejack, Pinkie, Fluttershy and Rarity went off to look for Cloud.

"What did you need to talk to me about, Twi?" Asked Rainbow Dash. I need to get Cloud and Rainbow to stop hating each other.

"I need to talk to you about Cloud." Rainbow sighed sadly. "Why do you hate each other so much?"

"You already heard him yelling the reasons earlier."

"I heard his reasons, but you never said anything."

"I just- It doesn't matter."

"It does matter!"

"Just let it go, Twi. We'll never like each other."

"You two have hated each other for too long and I'm going to put an end to it! Tell me why you hate Cloud!"

"You're really not gonna let this go, are you?" I shook my head and Rainbow let out another sad sigh. "Fine. I... I don't hate him. I just pretend to."

"What? Why?"

"It's less painful than facing the guilt... I honestly did try to catch him the first time! I just went to catch Pinkie first and by the time I went to get him he'd already cast the spell... I didn't wanna talk to him about it since we'd been at each other's throats earlier about whether magic was faster than I was and it would have been so awkward..."

"What happened the second time?"

"Nightmare Moon had always scared me, and I'd just seen her up close locked in a death battle with Cloud. And Cloud won! When he fell, I was in shock; he'd just saved the world from my worst nightmare! By the time I realized he was falling it was too late. I was too slow. Again... I just didn't know how to talk to him after that and before I had worked up the courage to apologize Applejack launched me into him and I broke his collar bone. Then he started to really hate me."

"Why do you pretend to hate him?"

"I though it would just be best if I pretended to hate him back, and for a while it helped. But then I invited Gilda to Ponyville. She lied to me about what happened between her and Cloud, but I chose to believe her story instead. I went to Cloud and... I attacked him. I thought he had mugged Gilda in an alleyway! I had no idea what she had done to Fluttershy! I suppose 'tried' would be a better word." Rainbow laughed bitterly. "You saw what happened at the party..."

This is your idea of a good time? I've never met a lamer bunch of dweebs in all my life! And Pinkie Pie, you! You are queen lame-o with your weak little party pranks! Did you really think you could make me lose my cool? Well, Dash and I have ten times as much cool as the rest of you put together. Come on Dash, we're bailing on this pathetic scene. Come on Rainbow Dash. I said, we're leaving.

You know, Gilda, I was the one who set up all those 'weak pranks' at this party.

W-What?!

So I guess I'm queen lame-o!

Come on, Dash, you're joshing me!

...What did you do to Fluttershy today?

I-I didn't do anything!

Cloud wouldn't attack anypony for no reason, so what did you do to Fluttershy?!

I didn't do anything! I told you already; that stick-head just attacked me for no reason!

Tell me what you did!

"...I knew that I had to talk to him as soon as I could to apologize, but the closer I got to the library the more courage escaped me. I didn't know what I would say or how I would even talk to him after all the things that happened but... I eventually reached the library with enough courage to knock on the door. I waited for ages, I tried knocking again and I even tried entering from the wreckage of the balcony, but he wasn't inside. After that I lost the little courage I had left and just went home." Rainbow was sitting now, staring sadly to the ground.

"Why haven't you ever talked with me or the others about this? We would have tried to help you."

"I know, but... How do you even start a conversation like that? Anyway, I gave up trying to build up the courage to apologize and went back to pretending to hate him. And then I find out that he was the reason that any of you could be here to support me even though he hates me and... I can't do this anymore, Twilight. Just..." Rainbow teared up slightly as regained eye contact. "Please. Help me apologize to Cloud. I can't deal with all this guilt anymore..."

"Rainbow Dash, I would be more than happy to help you." I pulled her into a hug. "Let's go and find Cloud."

Author's Notes:

I've made myself sad writing this...
Past 50k words!