"Should we tell her?"  Courage asks with a deadpan tone, letting her eyes droop a little  as she stares down at Fluttershy.

"She knows."  Numbers sits and watches the pegasus intently as she climbs with all her might up the cliff face.  Needless to say that's not very much, but the poor pony still gives it her all.

"She sure doesn't seem like she knows..."

"Trust me, she does.  We know what she knows, and we know, therefore she knows."

"What are you two... nngh... t-talking about?"  Fluttershy stretches her exhausted body up and presses her hoof into a small wedge in the rock, pulling herself up inch by inch until she can take another moment of rest.

"I'm tellin' her..."  Courage stands up and steps over to the cliff, looking down on the struggling pegasus.  She takes a deep breath and yells as loudly as she can, "You have wings!"

The noise frightens the physically strained Fluttershy and causes her to let go of the wall, falling backwards with a loud, shrill squeal as she descends toward the ground.  

"Now why would you go and do a thing like that?"  Numbers asks as she performs some recreational calculation in the dirt, never looking up to make any eye contact.

"Ah she'll be fine." Courage states with utmost certainty, even keeping the cliche of brushing dust off of her foreleg. Then, almost as if on cue, Fluttershy crests the ridge, flapping her wings softly and easily keeping herself aloft.  She keeps her head tilted down in embarrassment as she lands and kicks at the dirt.

"Would'a been a whole lot faster if you had just done that in the first place you know."

Fluttershy just grumbles and avoids eye contact, looking up to their eventual goal and trying to change the subject.  "How much further do we have to go?"

"That depends on you, Fluttershy.  You're the one who made this place, you control how big it gets."  Numbers just casually trots along side the other two ponies, humming the all too familiar "my little pony" tune that nopony ever seems to  be able to name, but everypony seems to know by heart.

Fluttershy stops and feels her eyes open wide in a mix of frustration and confusion, "You mean we didn't have to climb any of this from the start?"  

"Well... technically no, but your fears and apprehensions about this memory have driven it into a place that you thought you'd never go to.  Now that you're actually going to it you can make a decision: either to have the memory be unreachable which would only complicate matters more..."

"And that seems to be what you're doing right now."  Courage interrupts with her trademark nonchalant razzing of the poor pegasus.

"... Or you can make it as simple as it needs to be.  You've already overcome the fear of accessing it, so there's really nothing holding you back from doing so other than your own lack of want to do so."

"How would I make it less difficult?"

"Well... the same way you made it more difficult...  Just close your eyes and think about the task, only try and think about it for what it is: as simple as just remembering something."

The timid pony tries her best to do exactly what Numbers had told her.  She shuts her eyes tight and takes a deep breath, holding it in and focusing her concentration.  In her mind she imagines the mountain shrinking to nothing more than a very short walkway into a small overhang.  She just wants to get to the end without having to climb forever, and she acknowledges that she can do it, and must do it.  

Fluttershy opens her eyes and, to her chagrin, nothing has changed.  The other two ponies can almost hear her heart shatter at the still daunting sight of the obstacle that lays before them.

"Well... I guess that didn't work...  Onward then!"  Courage thrusts her hoof toward the ultimate goal of the expedition: the cave nestled into the mountain peak.  Somewhere in the time that Fluttershy had closed her eyes and then reopened them, Courage obtained a pirate hat.  Fluttershy decides not to question it and simply accepts the event.

"Instead of trying to make the goal closer to you, why not try making yourself closer to the goal, Fluttershy?"  Numbers doesn't even bother to stand, instead choosing to read what seems to be another memory tome from Fluttershy's mind; where she got that is a mystery.

"O-okay..."  Fluttershy sits on the ground with her legs folded beneath her, closing her eyes tight and trying her best to force herself toward the cave.  She can feel a slight shift in the gravelly surface beneath her and so opens her eyes in excitement.  As of now, the pegasus has managed to move about six feet closer to the goal.  She groans from a deep-set frustration and stands up with conviction.  "Alright, forget it... let's just get walking."

Outside the confines of Fluttershy's mind, Twilight sleeps somewhat soundly right behind her.  The gentle whir of the machinery in the basement actually helps the unicorn find peaceful rest at night; this on top of the natural warmth radiating off of her love interest pressed against her.  She dreams of spending a lovely day outside with the pegasus: picking flowers, running around like goofy school-fillies, even visiting cloudsdale (the impossibility of which doesn't occur to Twilight's dreaming mind).  However, just as soon as the scenes jump around in her mind do they vanish, sending the unicorn right back to her desk, muzzle deep in her studies.  She seems aware that it's all just a dream, though still goes through the motions of doing her homework.  She's her adult self, yet for some reason is busy filling out math worksheets from school days long past.  

At the turn of a page Twilight realizes that this is no dream; it's a nightmare.  The worst possible thing that could ever torment the obsessive unicorn's mind lies mocking at her from the parchment: a math problem that she can't solve.  She grabs quill after quill, pulling copies of the equation off of the parchment and laying them out all over her desk.  Magically levitating somewhere around 10 different pens, Twilight tries desperately to use all of her knowledge of mathematics, but each time comes out incorrect.  She grinds her teeth, thinks to herself that 'this can't possibly be happening', but the mental torture is unmistakable.  As if in unison her quills snap, bleeding their ink in torrents out onto the papers.  Twilight can only watch in horror as the gore-like black fluid seems to gain a life of its own, forming one very large character on the desk: an "F".

"This isn't happening!  This can't possibly be happening!"  Twilight falls backwards out of her chair, thudding on the ground and then using her legs to skitter back into a corner.  It seems that no matter how far away she gets, she can still see the massive, black "F" following her wheresoever she hides.  The burden of the ink seems too much for even the desk to handle; the legs nearest to Twilight snap and send it tilting toward her, thus exposing the massive black mark and placing it in full view.

Twilight closes her eyes and curls up in the fetal position, trying to look away, ignore, do anything to get the brand to leave her alone.  The image is burned into the back of her eyes: even closing them can't make it go away.  It's taunting her, just in its very existence.  Twilight Sparkle, personal protege to Princess Celestia actually received an "F" on her homework.  The pony releases a very distressed, very pained "Nooooo!"  Into the thick air of the stifling dream.  She curls up and tries to convince herself that everything's going to be okay, but her words are just hollow husks of false sincerity.  Back in the waking world, still holding around Fluttershy's waist, the unicorn tightens her grip and pulls the mare closer to her, reacting in a small physiological manner to the 'worst possible thing' in her dreams.

Back at the Apple Family home, Rainbow Dash and Applejack had gleefully fallen asleep after their less-than-innocent romp.  Rainbow keeps her head nuzzled against Applejack's neck, chin resting calmly on her shoulder and snoring into her mane.  The orange earth pony has forgotten to replace a pillow behind her head, and so lays completely prostrate, head tilted back and breathing heavily from the awkward position.  

Rainbow Dash naturally dreams of flying through the clouds, though oddly with Applejack by her side.  The orange earth pony had sprouted wings overnight, and this doesn't bother Rainbow in the slightest (or give her cause to ask any questions as a matter of fact) but only prompts her to just go with it.  The dream state takes away her true recollection of AJ and simply replaces her with a shade of Dash's ideal vision.  The orange pony keeps her rustic hairstyle but lets it flow free, having it whip in the wind behind her as she flaps her strong wings next to Rainbow in mid-flight.  Her already toned, athletic body has undergone some other augmentations as well: Rainbow has always had a secret attraction to Clydesdale horses, only overlooking Big Macintosh due to his gender, and so has attributed a few of the "better" qualities of the breed to the mare, specifically the 'feathering' around her hooves.

Rainbow has dreamt up a challenge for herself, and keeps neck and neck with the construct, following as close as she can, going as quickly as she can, but completely unable to pass her.  The pale orange mare seems to effortlessly speed up, rocketing through the sky at a pace that Rainbow just can't quite reach until she's a few yards ahead.  Applejack turns her head and sticks her tongue out at the cyan mare, who struggles just to keep pace with the speedy pony.

Rainbow closes her eyes and flaps with all her might, being brought out of the trance by a familiar feeling brushing against her face.  She opens her eyes to see a pale orange feather dangling from her windswept mane.  She realizes the implications and watches almost helplessly as Applejack falls out of the sky.  She doesn't hesitate any longer, acting on pure love for the pony and diving toward her with all her might.  The figure that Dash had constructed for Applejack seems to have slowly dissolved in a trail of feathers behind her; the closer Rainbow gets to her target, the more like the real Applejack she begins to look.  

Rainbow zeroes in on the falling pony, stretching her arms out and inching closer and closer to her.  Applejack reaches her hooves out and grasps Dashes with them, pulling herself closer and happily being accepted into her arms.  Dash fights against gravity as the ground rapidly approaches, flapping her wings as hard as she can and straining every muscle in her body to prevent the g-forces from tearing Applejack away from her.  To her surprise, her hooves touch ground as gently as if she had given a little hop.  The pegasus opens her eyes to see all of her friends in a circle somewhere in the middle of a field, with Applejack standing right in front of her.

"Mah hero!"  The hilariously cliche interpretation of Applejack's rustic accent reaches Rainbow's ears only seconds before their lips meet.  Their union is greeted with a flourish of cheers from everypony out of Ponyville, (they all show up just in time for the big, public kiss) and the spotlight sits trained directly on Rainbow's shoulders; as is usual for her dreams.

Applejack finds herself alone, sitting inside of an unusually large barn that, despite having not a single candle, is absolutely aglow with a heavenly light from all directions.  In the center sits a dragon's horde of bits, surrounded by apple trees that appear to be made of solid gold, yet grow the biggest, shiniest, most delicious looking apples that she has ever seen.  The orange pony climbs up one the massive piles of gold coins and nabs an apple off of the branch of a nearby golden apple tree.  She looks it over and regards it almost as a work of art, nearly unable to bring herself to eat it.  Remembrance of who she is sets in almost as quickly as this first thought does, and she takes a hearty chomp out of the thing.  The taste is absolutely divine: the perfect balance of sweet and tart, the perfect texture: not too crisp, not too soft.  The juiciness is so much that every bite is like drinking a sip of apple juice, yet it doesn't run down her hoof or make her coat sticky.  

Applejack crunches back the last of the apple, not having to eat around the core since none seems to exist: only the flesh of the fruit in its absolute perfection.  She eats another, then another, then one more until she can't even find any on the low lying branches of the tree.  She hops down off of her gold bit pile and stands in front of the marvelous tree, giving it as hard of a buck as she can.  The tree doesn't even move, but Applejack feels the resonance of her kick pushed right back into her body, making her shake, teeth chatter and ache in every single pore of her body.  Shaking her head and trying to recover from the impact, she looks up into the tree again, just to see if there are any apples at all.  From what she can tell there aren't, but she only managed to get a small portion of the tree to pull apples from, so she rears up for another kick.  Her hooves impact the tree with the exact same result, only this time giving the golden tree a ring to it as if she just kicked a tuning fork.  To her surprise something falls out of the tree, only it's no apple.

"Rainbow?  What in the hay are you doin' here?"  Applejack asks a very confused and obviously rudely awoken Rainbow Dash as she offers a hoof to help her up.  

"Wha?  I could very well ask you the same thing."  The cyan pegasus responds.  She stands up and shakes her head, looking up into the tree as shiny, golden leaves slowly flutter down and embed themselves in the soft soil beneath them.

"What do you mean?  This is my barn... I have every right to be here."

"Hey I was just taking a nap... I dunno why it was in a tree, I could have sworn it was in a river instead..."  The nonsensical remark flies right past Applejack's area of attention.

"Wull I reckon you came in here to eat all o' these apples, didn't ya?"

"What apples?"

"The ones that were in that tree you were sleepin' in!"

"I was sleeping in a tree?"

"Of course you were... how d'ya think you got in here in the first place?"  

"I thought it was what you wanted..."  This statement makes Applejack blink a few times.  She doesn't quite know what to say to that: it does hold some truth, and she hasn't been particularly hospitable to somepony so important to her, but she just doesn't quite know what's going on anymore.  She looks out of the corner of her eye and sees one more of the perfect, red apples lying on the ground right next to the tree.

"Oh look, there's another one..."  Applejack slowly approaches it and picks it up by the stem in her mouth, motioning to Rainbow to come look at it.  "Did you want this one?"  

"No thanks, you can have it, AJ."

"Arright then...  If'n you insist."  She tosses the apple up in the air and catches it in her teeth, quickly munching down the entire fruit and spitting the stem against the ground.  "Gawh... dang those're good... you sure you don't want whu--"  Applejack is interrupted by Rainbow Dash forcefully, but sensually, placing her hoof on the inside of her thigh, running it up and meeting it between her legs.  The pony turns to see a tinge of blush in Dash's cheeks as well as a mischievous grin.  The pegasus doesn't give Applejack time to say a thing before she pushes her back up against the tree and kisses her very, very deeply.  The second the kiss breaks Applejack is forced to ask: "What in the hay are you doin'?" With a little extra emphasis on the faux-curse-word

"The Apples, AJ...  They give you exactly what you want."  A voice that seems to come from Rainbow Dash speaks, but it sounds nothing like her.  This one seems a little bit more regal and ringing, almost like Celestia's but with a slightly more ethereal tone.  "They don't grow back, but when you eat them you'll get your heart's desire...  Wealth, power, free time...  Rainbow Dash...  It's all yours, just don't waste your wishes."  With this final statement, Rainbow seems to be herself again.  She continues her treatment of the pony and keeps her pinned to the tree, kissing her deep once more and holding every single movement just the way the earth pony likes it.  She resolves that she won't fight back too much, only sitting back to enjoy what she's been given while she has it.  

Rarity sleeps soundly, undisturbed by any single little quibble or issue.  Her extremely comfortable bed and warm blankets support the perfect environment for a relaxed, perfect snooze.  She dreams of being surrounded in the relaxing steam of the spa that she and Fluttershy frequent, only this time she's alone.  As a matter of fact, none of her friends appear in the dream, and she even begins to worry about their well being.  Though not enough to exit the sauna, oh of course not.  

Lotus and Aloe gleefully tend to their star client's every whim: delicately washing her hair, manicuring her hooves, brushing her coat with only the finest of imported brushes... she's treated like a queen.  Every single movement she makes seems to be enough to shift the entire world around her, bringing with it only the most perfect of current fashion trends, lifestyles, important ponies, and of course, studs.  

Out of the steam (that once was inside the spa but now appears to be from a story-book style misty countryside) stands the silhouette  of a strong stallion with his mane blowing in the wind.  She gallantly steps forward to meet this mysterious stallion, only to be taken aback by exactly to whom she is running.  

Prince Blueblood stands before her, eyes soft and mane just as perfect and flowing as always.  Everything about him seems to have stayed exactly the same, all except his demeanor of course.  The regal unicorn bows his head to Rarity, who curtsies back in a moment of reflexive shock.  

"Good evening m'lady.  I wish to extend my sincerest apologies for our only other encounter."  His voice flows from his mouth like only the softest music from an artisan-craft violin.

"A-Apology accepted...  May I ask what prompted this?"  Rarity, fearing this is some sort of prank, shies away and tries her best to analyze his body language, to no avail of course.  She can only see perfection, especially when she catches herself eying his extremely shapely figure.

"I realized the error of my ways when I meditated on my actions that night after the Grand Galloping Gala.  Each day it haunted me, tormented my very soul, even, that I should treat such an utterly wonderful mare such as you with that level of... disrespect.  It was hardly becoming of a gentleman such as myself, and I swore in the Princess' name that, should I ever see your lovely face once more, I would take it upon myself and myself alone to shower you with attention, love, and of course, riches until I could hold your forgiveness within my heart and use it to set ablaze a burning, passionate love for you!"  Ever so shamelessly does the prince take hold of his soap box and rant on about Rarity's importance to him.  He punctuates his every single statement with an interpretive movement and heart-wrenchingly dramatic bodily display of his passion.

"Oh Blueblood!  I don't care that you were such a royal jackass to me at that party!  I... I love you!"  

"And It doesn't bother me in the slightest that you were so uncouth to me that night as well, I deserved every second of it."

"Yes... yes you did."  Rarity takes every single ounce of sincerity from his royal voice and embraces him.  His wavy mane blowing in the wind past her and blocking off the entire world.  His strong body holding her tight against it, perfectly dressed in the most sophisticated tuxedo ever.  His shapely face taking to hers with the most perfect kiss the night had ever known.  It would seem an eternity wasn't long enough to give Rarity enough time to truly enjoy the moment.  

Naturally she is roused back to the waking world, amidst a generous smooching of her pillow.  

"Phooey!"

One of the oddest sets of things in Equestria has to be Pinkie Pie's sleeping habits.  The abnormally energetic pony spends all day on a massive rush, only to sleep like a baby at night.  She often lays down and wakes up without having moved a single muscle through the entire course of the night, only to have been perfectly relaxed and storing every single ounce of energy for the following day.

The unusually calm pink earth pony dreams of everything that she couldn't possibly do in the waking world, a frightening concept indeed.  In her mind she hops around a field of flowers, (though the flowers are made entirely of folded paper) and glances up into the sky.  The clouds, naturally, are actually sheep, standing upside-down on a bright blue pasture and grazing away to their hearts' content.  Gummy rides along Pinkie's back, giving his usual emotionless expression and munching on an extra-sticky piece of bubblegum.  

"This is so much fun!" Pinkie yells, hopping up in the air and wiggling her legs to emphasize her final word.  The mindless alligator just blinks out of synch and looks over to the pony.  "I can't wait to tell everypony else.  Are you having a good time, Gummy?"

"Jolly good time M'lady."  To no surprise at all for Pinkie Pie, Gummy articulates his opinion in the most wonderful english accent that ever there was in Equestria.  

"Aww you just love frolicking in the flowers with me don't ya?"

"Couldn't possibly think of anyplace I'd rather be, Pinkie, dear."

"Oohh! How about that place!"  Pinkie points her hoof over to a small hill in the distance.  They seem to be in a valley anyway because the horizon is obscenely close.

"Shouldn't we take a rest?  Perhaps have a spot of tea..."  The unamused reptile glances side to side, following Pinkie's hoof to the small incline.

"Nonsense!  I don't know the meaning of the word 'rest', Gummy."

"With this I have no argument..."  

Pinkie Pie and her pet bounce off toward the hill with a gleam in their eyes, well, Pinkie's eyes at least.  Gummy grips onto her mane to keep from flying off with all the spring-loaded movement that Pinkie is so well known for.  

As the pony begins to walk nearly vertically up the steep hill, she and Gummy begin to see the twinkle of the sun start to reflect off of a very bright object behind it.  Gravity doesn't seem to have much of a constraint within this dream, so Pinkie softly steps up the ninety-degree incline and onto a rounded hilltop, gazing out onto a glorious sight.  Pinkie Pie and Gummy behold a small mountain of a white, crystalline substance.  Pinkie Pie immediately sees sugar (though the many passed-out animals at its base seem to suggest otherwise) and without any kind of warning or forethought, the Pink pony dives toward the treasure and lands muzzle-first in the pile.  

She rolls in the hill, picking up the substance in her coat and giggling wildly.  It feels remarkably soft, almost like warm sand at the beach, so she rolls over and over, circling the small mountain until she hears a loud grunt escape from the powder below her.

"Oops!  I'm sorry, who was that?"  Pinkie asks as she glances around, sitting up and trying to get a good view of the whole mountain.  A white unicorn horn pokes its way out of the mountain very close to her left arm, so she tugs on it and, in a cartooney fashion, pulls the entire entity out with it.  She sets the very confused unicorn back down onto the hillside, brushing his shoulders off for him and then tilting her head as she inspects him.

" Oh!  Uhm... Hello there...  My name is Charlie."  The white unicorn states very plainly.  He shakes his head to get some of the 'sugar' out of his straight, black mane.  Pinkie Pie tilts her head in the other direction and glances him over, not really sure what to think.  His mane is cut short, and his cutie mark seems to be of a small stone, polished until it holds a lustrous sheen.  

"Nice to meet you, Charlie!  I'm Pinkie Pie!"  She holds her foreleg out and viciously shakes the unicorn's hoof.  He coughs a few times, presumably to clear his lungs of some of this 'sugar', and looks back toward his hill, seeming as if he really really wants to bury himself in it again.  

"So... Pinkie Pie... what brings you all the way out here?"  He scratches his hoof up and down his adjacent foreleg quickly, and returns to the same compulsive action every few seconds.

"Oh I was just out exploring with Gummy here,"  She states and points to where her pet used to be.  "Oh... uhm... I guess he's gone.  I wonder where he went?"

"Is this him?"  Charlie asks as a very familiar alligator nibbles on his foreleg and casts Pinkie Pie a smiling glance.  

"Yep!  Don't worry, he doesn't have any teeth."  

"Ah... that's, uhm, fortunate for me."  The unicorn waves his arm and tries to shake Gummy off.  After a few failed attempts, he is flung outward toward Pinkie, who expertly catches him with a baseball glove that she seems to have materialized out of thin air.

"So what brings you all the way out here?  And where exactly is here anyway?"  Pinkie asks as she places Gummy into her lap and tosses the glove off over her shoulder.

"Oh it's a little place I like to call 'Sugar Hill'.  It's kinda like... my home away from home.  I like to stay here whenever I'm feeling down.  

"Sugar Hill?  Is that anything like Candy Mountain?"  Pinkie giggles into her hoof and tosses a handful of the granular substance at one very unamused unicorn.

"Please don't mention that place again, Pinkie...  May I call you Pinkie?"

"Sure!  Everypony calls me Pinkie.  And why don't you like the name Candy Mountain?  Should I call it something different?"

"I just have some bad memories from that place is all..."  

"It doesn't scare you does it?"  The earth pony lifts her hooves up and wiggles them toward the unicorn who has already begun to bury himself in the mountain once more.

"Ehm... not really... I just have these two friends and..."

"Say no more!  Come with me, we're going to Candy Mountain, Charlie!"

"Son of a bit--"  Charlie is interrupted mid-word by the surprisingly strong earth pony's tug at his foreleg.  She drags him away from his precious hill of 'sugar' and takes him in the general direction (or so she assumes) of Candy Mountain.  Pinkie doesn't really know what she's doing, but her dreams rarely make any sense whatsoever; she prefers it that way.