First Pony Plural

by AugieDog

First published 17th of September, 2016

When Rainbow comes to Fluttershy for help with her next big prank, Fluttershy actually finds herself enjoying it. Till the Cutie Map calls them to Cloudsdale and things start getting peculiar...

Rainbow Dash comes to Fluttershy for help with her next big prank. Fluttershy agrees reluctantly, but as their masquerade begins, she finds herself actually enjoying it. Then the Cutie Map calls the two of them to Cloudsdale, and things take a turn for the peculiar.

This story was inspired by a bit of discussion with my fellow curators at the Royal Canterlot Library and was the "runner-up" in The 3rd Flutterdash Group Story Contest. The cover features artwork from EmilyVans and RDbrony16.

1: Future Tense

"Fluttershy! Guess what?"

Rainbow's shout made Fluttershy leap straight into the air above her vegetable garden. The watering can spun from her mouth, every hair in her mane prickled like a thousand pins jabbing into her neck, and when the vision crashed over her—stomping, monstrous hooves will smash your cottage to kindling; grasping, horrible hands will bunch into fists bigger than your whole body; those eyes, that snout, that voice, those horns, they'll aim themselves right at you because—

"Tirek's back!" Fluttershy shrieked.

"What?" Multicolored strands whooshed into a cyclone surrounding her. "No way!" Rainbow's voice seemed to come from everywhere. "How'd he get outta Tartarus? Did you see him? Where—?"

"Eep!" Fluttershy slapped her front hooves over her mouth, folded her wings, and sank through the whirling tornado to land in the damp soil of her kale bed. "I'm sorry, Rainbow," she mumbled. "You said to guess, so I...I just...just..."

The wind froze, the colors all crashing into each other. Shattering and scattering and swirling away, they left Rainbow blinking there alone in the sky, her wings sticking out more like feather dusters than anything else. Fluttershy kept her mouth covered, and Rainbow dropped heavily to the ground beside her.

She'll start yelling that she was never your friend, that she's tired of your foolishness, and that she doesn't want anything more to do with you ever, ever, ever again!

But instead, Rainbow's mouth just went sideways a little. "Wait a minute. Your first guess is Tirek?"

Since she could never explain it—and doubly never to Rainbow—Fluttershy just forced a shrug.

The breath Rainbow blew through her nostrils was a little loud, but once again, she didn't start yelling. Instead, she asked, "And I s'pose your second guess has changelings in it?"

Her throat tightening, Fluttershy could barely squeak, "Should it?"

"No!" Rainbow jumped into a hover over the cabbages and waved her hooves. "It's nothing bad! Yeesh!"

She'll fly off now and never come back.

Rainbow landed. "It's just that you guys showed me with that whole zombie cookie thing that I was doing my pranks wrong, remember? That I was wasting everypony's time with the obvious stuff, messing things up pretty stupidly, and not grabbing hold of what makes a prank a real work of art, right?"

Fluttershy blinked. "Are you sure that's what we showed you?"

"Well, yeah!" Rainbow tapped her chest. "And I got the message loud and clear." She smiled, and the sparkly points of her teeth made Fluttershy want to sink straight into the ground. "Which is why I need your help for the best prank I've ever pulled!"

City Hall will be tipped over, smoke pouring from the inferno raging in the basement. Twilight will flap coughing from the sky, will demand to know who's responsible, and there you'll be, Rainbow nowhere in sight, all eyes focused on—

"Your part's simple." Rainbow was slipping her saddlebags off, her smile still much too broad and sharp. "You just stay home for the rest of the day. Sit inside and relax, and everything'll be perfect!"

Spitting the trowel from her mouth, Rainbow will laugh and laugh and laugh at the giant brick cube now encasing your cottage.

Instead of cement, though, Rainbow pulled two bottles from her pack and set them on the ground. "The problem was that I wasn't thinking about both ends of my pranks. Moving AJ's bed out into the pig sty without her or anypony else waking up? That was good, don't get me wrong. But a real prank gets as good as it gives, y'know? It gets you coming and going!" She patted the bottles, and Fluttershy saw that they were hair dye: one yellow, the other pink.

She'll be taking your place.

"So I'll be taking your place." Somehow, Rainbow's grin got even bigger. "I'll go into Ponyville with your saddlebags on, do your shopping, come back here, and I'll be you so perfectly, nopony'll ever know that I just pranked the whole town!" Laughter burst out of her, and she fell backwards among the purple and green cabbage flowers, her front legs wrapped around her chest and her hind legs kicking at the air. "It'll be classic! Better than classic!"

A herd of elephants will come stampeding through the market square. Everypony'll turn to you to help divert them, but it won't be you: it'll be Rainbow Dash!

"And don't worry." Rainbow sat up, her eyes still dancing but her smile gone. "Like I said, I learned my lesson. I won't do anything out there that you wouldn't do." The dancing of her eyes turned to a wavering, and she cringed back, the ragged cut of her bangs almost seeming to soften and stretch to cover part of her face. "I promise," she whispered, her voice so perfect that Fluttershy had to gasp. "I'll be exactly like you in every way."

A carriage will get loose, and Rainbow will rush to the rescue. And when the mayor wants to give her a medal, it'll be you up there in front of the whole town because Rainbow won't want to spoil the joke by telling them who really—

"No," Fluttershy said, the word popping out of her like air from a stuck balloon.

"No?" Rainbow's head drew back. "Whaddaya mean 'no'?"

"I mean—" Now Rainbow will start yelling that she was never your friend, et cetera, et cetera. Fluttershy winced, knowing that the terrible future she always imagined for every situation was actually going to happen this time unless— "I'll be coming with you!" she blurted out.

The silence that settled over the kitchen garden was almost worse than any yelling would've been. "Ummm," Rainbow said, and even though she didn't say it in Fluttershy's voice, Fluttershy could still hear Rainbow's wonderful impersonation of her in it. "If we're both there, that'll be one Fluttershy too many."

Fluttershy swallowed, and the only possible course of action presented itself to her. "Then," she said, standing up straight, "I'll just have to disguise myself as you."

Dash could only stare, parts of her brain spinning that she hadn't ever expected to spin. "Whoa, whoa, whoa," she finally got out. "You? Wanna do a prank? With me?"

"Ummm..." Fluttershy always had this shiver around her like Dash had seen on hot days when she'd walk with AJ down the road from Ponyville to Sweet Apple Acres. But right now, even Fluttershy's shiver was shivering. "It's not that I want to, Rainbow. I have to. Because what if there's an emergency? Or—"

"Yes!" Whatever Fluttershy's long, boring, sensible reason was, Dash totally didn't care. "You and me! Pulling a prank! This is gonna be so completely great, they'll need a brand-new word for it! Awestacular, maybe!" Flaring her wings, she wrapped Fluttershy in a hug, spun around with her five or six times, then let her go, Fluttershy wobbling away a few steps before sitting down. "Of course, we won't be able to do it today." She waved at the bottles of hair dye. "I only brought yellow and pink, and we'll need the whole rainbow. And you'll need to show me your stuff!" Dash clapped her hooves. "So c'mon! Gimme your impression of me!"

For a couple heartbeats, the only movement from Fluttershy was the wavering of her sides. "I..." she finally said, "I don't want to be mean...."

"Mean?" Dash leaned forward. "What's mean about walking around Ponyville disguised as each other?" She tapped a hoof against the dirt with each reason as she thought of it. "No whoopie cushions, no itching powder, no buckets of water, no cookie zombies, nothing! Ponies won't even know we did it!"

"Not mean to them..." Fluttershy's head pulled back so her mane partly covered her face. "Mean to you..."

Again, Dash wasn't quite sure what she was hearing. "Trust me, Eff, you couldn't be mean to anypony, and especially not to your oldest and best friend in the whole wide world!" She poked Fluttershy lightly in the chest. "So c'mon! Let's go! Show me!"

Another instant of nothing, then Fluttershy blew her bangs out of the way, wrinkled her snout, rolled her eyes, and said in a raspy voice, "Yeah, okay. Whatever."

Dash couldn't stop her wings from leaping her into a hover. "That was me, wasn't it? That was totally me!"

"Really?" Fluttershy cocked her head, her eyes half-closing, her voice getting rougher. "Y'think?"

"Hmmm." Dash landed. "You're kinda edging over into Gilda there." She rubbed her chin. "Keep the coolness, but add some spark to it, y'know?" She hopped into a quick barrel roll. "Some of that Rainbow Dash magic!"

Nodding, Fluttershy pulled back into her hair again, then sprang to her hooves, her wings spread and a big grin on her face. "This is gonna be awesome!" she announced, a little too much buzz behind the words, but still—

"Yes!" Dash started to jump up herself, but stopped. "I mean—" She thought back to the minutes before the Best Young Flier competition and let that feeling tighten her throat and widen her eyes. "That was very nice," she more muttered than said. "If...if you don't mind me saying so, I mean."

Fluttershy giggled, and for the first time all day, she gave what looked to Dash like one of her regular smiles. "My goodness! This might actually be fun," she said in her own voice.

"Y'see?" Dropping the act, Dash couldn't keep from hopping up and down a few times. "That's what pranking's like when you're doing it right!" Time to get to business, though: she settled down and frowned up at the fringe of her mane. "The biggest problem's gonna be our hair. When I'm being you, I can just comb mine and say I'm trying a shorter style or something, but you?" A chill rustling her feathers, she sat back and stared at her friend's flowing pink locks. "Fun's fun, sure, but no way I'm asking you to cut yours all raggedy like mine."

Stupid reality. Always putting trees and mountains and stuff in the way when she had these great ideas!

Weirdly, though, Fluttershy just giggled again. "If you promise not to tell anypony..." She looked from side to side, and Dash did, too, even though Fluttershy's garden was tucked behind her house with nothing but lumpy grass and the Everfree Forest beyond. A couple little clicks drew her attention back to Fluttershy, her hooves up underneath the front of her mane. And then—

She pulled a whole part of her hair off, her bangs suddenly maybe half as long as before. "Extensions," she whispered with a wink. "Just like with my tail."

For a second more, Dash could only keep staring, then she was spinning Fluttershy around again. "All right! Operation Twin Sisters is go!"

For the next week, every time Dash saw Fluttershy in town picking up her usual batches of animal feed or plant seed or whatever, she always got a grin and a wink before Fluttershy would lift the cover of her panniers to reveal a different bottle of hair dye among the rest of her groceries. And Saturday night when Dash headed over to Fluttershy's cottage with her bedroll and her pack, Fluttershy practically dragged her upstairs to show her all the colors lined up in her bathroom along with a bottle of white. "What's that one for?" Dash asked.

"Your cutie mark," Fluttershy answered. "Or, I guess, my cutie mark." She nodded toward Dash's flank. "Angel's very good with a fine-tipped brush, and I'm sure he can put your cloud and thunderbolt on me while putting my butterflies on you. Oh! And these, of course!" She rushed into her bedroom and came floating back with a small round box balanced in her front hooves. "Iris had them in stock at the optician's just like you said!" Opening the box, she held it up to show a pair of purple-tinted contact lenses.

"Nice." Dash flipped the lid from her pack, added her bottles to the dye collection, and flapped into the next room. "Then the countdown's started. We get some sleep, wake up plenty early, and it's go time." She set the case with her own light green contact lenses on Fluttershy's dresser. "Mine'll be easiest—throw me in a tub of yellow, then do my mane and tail in pink to match your extension—so I'll go first tomorrow. Then we dip you in sky blue, stripe up your hair, have Angel fix our marks, and we'll be ready to hit the town!"

In the bathroom doorway, Fluttershy did a quick little dance. "It'll be just like Nightmare Night! Only more fun because it won't be scary!"

Untying her bedroll, Dash had to laugh. "And who knows? Might be you'll like having some actual fun."

"Rainbow..." Fluttershy's voice had more of a waver in it even than usual; Dash looked over to see her friend frowning slightly. "I have fun all the time, you know."

Dash couldn't stop a wince. "I know, Eff, I know, but your sort of fun is always so—" She tried to find the word. "Safe, I guess. I mean, safe woulda been to stop after I'd replaced Rarity's sewing machine with a cake that looked exactly like it. But then risking the whole prank by sneaking a giant decoy cake into her showroom?"

Fluttershy's frown bent downward a little further, and Dash held up her hooves. "And yeah, I know, I went too far with all that. But the point is: having parties with our friends is great, and I wouldn't trade any of that for anything. But sometimes you've gotta do something silly and stupid and just a little dangerous, y'know?" She licked her lips and quoted a line from Daring Do and the Frozen Empire. "Skating on the knife's edge."

"Hmmmm..." At least Fluttershy's frown had straightened some. Turning, she pulled open the closet door and began taking out pillows and blankets. "Well, 'silly' is something I enjoy now and again, and 'stupid' seems to happen pretty often whether I want it to or not. But 'dangerous'?" She shook her head and brought the bedding over to Dash. "Are you sure you don't want to use the bed in the spare room? It's not a cloud, but it's very comfortable."

"Comfortable?" Shaking her own head, Dash grabbed the pillows from Fluttershy's back with her wings. "We're on a mission, Eff. Until we successfully complete this prank, I'll be going out of my way to avoid being comfortable."

"Oh." Fluttershy wilted a little. "Then you don't want the blankets?"

"Of course I want the blankets!" Dash made an exaggerated grab for them. "I mean, uncomfortable's one thing, but chilly? No way!" Rolling her eyes, she grinned.

That got Fluttershy giggling, and they settled in to sleep.

Dash's inner alarm woke her before dawn had even started glowing at the curtains. She yawned, sat up, and had to blink to see Fluttershy already awake and practically vibrating on the end of her bed. "I didn't want to disturb you," she whispered, and Dash would've sworn her eyes were sparkling in the dark, "but is it time to start getting ready yet?"

They had breakfast and did Fluttershy's chores first—no use getting crumbs and bird seed all stuck in their dye jobs—then they both headed back upstairs, most of Fluttershy's animal friends twittering and chittering and following them into the bathroom. Dash stood beside the bathtub and let Fluttershy handle getting the dye mixed up since she'd worked with it before, then she dove in.

And sure, the bottles said the stuff was so magic, it would lighten the darkest coat with just one dip, but rising from the tub after splashing yellow all over herself, Dash blinked to see that she'd turned moss green. The animals found this absolutely hilarious for some reason, but when she pretended she was going to flick drops all over them, most of the ones who were just hanging around watching scattered out into the hallway.

Four times rolling around in the dye finally got her hide looking right, and Dash pulled the chain of the bathtub's plug with her teeth while she stood there drip drying. Fluttershy had been mixing up the pink dye in the sink this whole time, and one treatment turned Dash's yellow mane and tail the proper color. Untying the towel from around her head, she watched in the mirror as Fluttershy clipped the extensions into place and had to laugh: with the contacts, she was gonna be perfect.

They still had to get Fluttershy done up, though. A bunch of raccoons had been scrubbing out the tub while Fluttershy was doing Dash's hair, and they poured the blue dye in, Dash watching and trying not to laugh at the tickle of Angel dabbing a brush at her flanks to give her Fluttershy's butterflies.

It only took two dips for Fluttershy to come out Dash's exact shade of blue, and doing her mane and tail didn't take nearly as long as Dash had thought it might. The squirrels were terrific at dividing her hair into plaits, and bluejays with little sponges in their claws flapped back and forth between the bottles and where Fluttershy sat on the floor.

"I'm telling you, Eff," Dash said from the doorway, the birds in a cloud around Fluttershy, their wings fanning her so she'd dry faster, "with these guys helping, you could pull any prank you ever wanted to! They're incredible!"

Fluttershy gave a tiny smile that looked completely out of place on a blue face under a multi-colored mane. "They're very happy to hear you say that, Rainbow, but that's not really the sort of thing I'd like to encourage."

Angel was just finishing the lightning bolt on Fluttershy's left thigh, and the nod he gave was so sharp, his ears flopped back and forth like a foal trying to fly for the first time. He glared over his shoulder at the raccoons cleaning out the tub for the second time, and Dash snorted a laugh. "Well, you guys ever wanna start a life of crime, you just let me know."

At the glare Angel turned toward her, Dash nearly threw herself over backwards laughing, but she remembered her dye job at the last instant. So instead, she stomped a front hoof, cocked her head so she could see around the long pink wave of her mane, took a breath, and slipped into character. "In the meantime, I'm ever so grateful to all of you." She batted her eyes—

And realized she hadn't put her contacts in yet.

Fluttershy was blinking at her, too. "Oh, my," she murmured. "Ummm, I mean—" She shook her head, flared her wings, and stood up with a stretch. "Yep, yep, yep," she said scratchily. "That's, you know, not the weirdest thing I've ever seen. But it's pretty close."

All the animals started hopping and flapping and cheering their squeaky little cheers. Fluttershy shook her head to mess her mane up a little more and bowed.

Dash had never been prouder of her friend than at that moment. "It's so wonderful," she said, trying to put just the right amount of air behind the words. "Once we get our eyes fixed up, we'll be ready to go!"

Standing in the bathroom, popping in the lenses, watching Fluttershy beside her do the same: weird just wasn't a weird enough word for it. She flicked her gaze back and forth between the Fluttershy in the mirror in front of her and the Rainbow Dash to her left and had to tamp down hard on the urge to jump into the air. "Yes, indeed," she said instead. "This might prove to be a little bit fun."

"Are you kidding?" Fluttershy hopped into a wobbly hover and kind of hooted. "This is gonna be awesome!"

And, yeah, the voice still wasn't quite right and her smile maybe had more cheesiness in it than coolness, but that this was happening at all made up for the greater chance that somepony was gonna figure the whole thing out. Besides, since it was Fluttershy, Dash would probably just hafta wink at other ponies and get them to play along...

Downstairs, Dash picked up Fluttershy's saddlebag more carefully than she'd ever picked up anything except her first edition Daring Do books and gently slid it over her back.

Fluttershy flashed her a grin, then rolled her eyes, tapped a hoof against the carpet, and said in her rough voice, "C'mon, Fluttershy! We haven't got all day, y'know!"

With her own grin, Dash pulled back behind her bangs. "I'm sorry, Rainbow Dash." She winced inside when she used too much whimper, but she kept going anyway. "I was just trying to remember where I put the shopping list."

That got Fluttershy's lips forming into a little "o" that made her look nothing at all like Dash, then she jumped into the kitchen and came back with a piece of paper in her teeth. "I'm sorry," she muttered.

"No." Forcing her ears to stay up, Dash took the list and tucked it into her bags. "You're Rainbow Dash. You're never sorry." Turning back to a blinking Fluttershy, she put on a smile so sweet, she could nearly taste it. "Now, how about if two best friends go out and have a lovely day at the Ponyville market?"

A little spark came into those purple eyes, and Fluttershy flapped over, pulled the door open, and gestured through it with a hoof. "After you, Fluttershy," she said.

It took some actual effort to walk the path from Fluttershy's cottage into town, but Dash was glad to see that Fluttershy remembered to stay airborne beside her so everypony would have to crane their necks to look up at her. What she wasn't doing, though, was taking up all the air in the area talking about her latest stunt, and that was something she definitely needed to be doing if ponies were gonna believe she was Rainbow Dash...

Dash cleared her throat. "So, Rainbow Dash, how are things with the Wonderbolts these days?"

"Huh?" Fluttershy blinked, then shook herself. "Oh! Yeah! Right! This is, like, way too early to be awake, y'know?" She then launched into a story that Dash recognized bits and pieces of from stories she'd told the girls over the past couple months, but Dash wasn't really paying attention. She was too focused on the ponies strolling along the streets between Fluttershy's place and the market: it was harder than she'd thought it would be, trying to watch them while also trying to make it look like she wasn't.

Most of them looked over and waved—Dash made sure to give them that little Fluttershy nod—but none of them gaped or pointed or shouted or anything. A few looked back after looking away, a few even wrinkling their foreheads for a second or two, but that was it: every one of them shrugged and went back to whatever they'd been doing.

Excitement tickled Dash's stomach with each step she took, and she even remembered to say "Uh-huh" and "Oh, my" like she was really listening to whatever Fluttershy was jabbering about above her.

This was gonna work! Trying her best not to strut, Dash couldn't help noticing the way the tickling seemed to be spreading across her belly and out to her flanks, but she wasn't really too surprised. This was, after all, totally gonna be the greatest prank anypony had ever pulled on—

"Hey!" Fluttershy said suddenly, startling Dash into looking up. Fluttershy's wings were beating pretty fast, and her gaze seemed fixed on Dash's back.

"Hmmm?" Dash asked, not breaking character. "Why, Rainbow Dash, whatever is the—?"

The words bunched up in her throat, though, as she saw the lightning bolt cutie mark on Fluttershy's flank glowing and wavering. Her throat tightening further, she glanced back to see the same thing happening to her own pink trio of butterflies.

"What—?" Fluttershy tried to clear her throat, but she didn't seem able to, her whole body ringing like she was a bell being clanged, something that made it very difficult to concentrate. "Is...is the map calling us?"

"I...I think so." Rainbow had been doing such a very good job impersonating her that Fluttershy had found it even easier to impersonate Rainbow. It was almost as if her mind and body had looked out, seen a Fluttershy already there, and so had decided they could safely be somepony else for a while. It didn't make sense, but then, well, neither did seeing her cutie mark shimmering from Rainbow's thighs.

"But doesn't it know—?" Fluttershy started to ask, the words, '—which one of us is which?' all ready to slip over her tongue and out her mouth.

Instead, though, her throat clenched, her tongue froze, and she found she couldn't speak.

Rainbow gave a nod that made her pink mane flow like liquid cotton candy. "Before we go," she said, her voice still breathy and quiet, "we really ought to—"

But that's all she said, her lips stopping partway open. Her eyes widened, and Fluttershy could see her neck clenching like she was trying to make something come out.

Those wide eyes focused on Fluttershy. "I can't—" Rainbow said, and then stopped. She took a breath, said, "Why can't I—?" and then stopped again.

Fluttershy dropped to the ground beside her, her wings feeling too heavy suddenly to flap. "I can't, either," she rasped out, unable to say what exactly she couldn't do. Ice wanted to form in her chest, wanted to wrap around her brain and make her useless, but she wouldn't let it. "Come on!" Shaking her wings, she jumped into the air. "We'll head back to—!" But for all that she wanted to say 'my place,' nothing at all emerged from her mouth.

"Well, now!" rang out a loud and familiar voice; Fluttershy whirled to see Applejack trotting up with her apple cart trailing along behind her from the harness around her shoulders. "Looks like you two got a date at the castle, don't it!"

"Applejack!" Fluttershy cried out at the same time as Rainbow did. Rainbow kept going, though, rushing to Applejack's side and practically whining, "We can't go! We're not—!" Her jaw worked some more, but that was it.

"Aw, now, Fluttershy." Applejack patted Rainbow's foreleg. "Don't you worry a single thing about it. Dash'll be with you the whole time." Applejack looked past Rainbow with a roll of her eyes, her gaze settling on Fluttershy. "Ain't that right, RD?"

"I'm—" Fluttershy said, but as hard as she tried, she couldn't force the words, 'not Rainbow!' to pass her lips.

"See?" Applejack gave a crisp nod and patted Rainbow's leg again. "Just head on up to the castle, and the sooner y'all get wherever you're going, the sooner you'll be back."

"The castle!" Rainbow more bleated than said, and she spun away from Applejack, the butterflies still fluttering along her flank. "Twilight'll know what to do!" And before Fluttershy could even blink, Rainbow took off running toward the other side of town.

Fluttershy tried to call out to her, but the same odd blockage closed her throat. Applejack gave one of her low chuckles. "Skittish as a bucket of squirrels, but she always comes through in the end, don't she?"

"I guess." Fluttershy's ears dipped at the scratchiness of her words, but when she swallowed to clear her throat, there wasn't anything there to clear. "I, uhh, I'd better catch up to her."

"Y'all have a good time, now!" Applejack called, and Fluttershy flapped like she'd never flapped before, her attention focused on the yellow and pink pegasus galloping down the road that led to Twilight's castle.

Over and over again, Fluttershy tried calling out, but she couldn't even manage to whisper Rainbow Dash's name; panting, she finally caught up with her just as Rainbow was leaping the castle's front steps two at a time. "Wait!" she tried to say, but Rainbow was already spinning, bucking the doors open, surging inside, and rushing for the throne room.

Fortunately, those doors were open. Gliding in in Rainbow's wake, Fluttershy saw Twilight slumped in her throne, her gaze on the lightning bolt and butterfly cutie marks swirling on the map, her mouth pretty much a straight line. A shiver ran through Fluttershy, wondering where in the wide, wide world of Equestria she and Rainbow would have to go, but the sight of their marks circling Cloudsdale made her drop to the floor in relief. Somewhere familiar, at least...

"Twilight!" Rainbow shouted—though 'shouted' was really the wrong word for a sound so soft and airy. "You've got to do something! I'm not—!" And again she stopped with her mouth open and her eyes widening.

"Oh, hello, Fluttershy." Twilight didn't look away from the map. "I assume you're here with Rainbow Dash?"

"I'm—!" Rainbow started, and Fluttershy could almost see her neck bulging as the word 'Rainbow' refused to come out.

But when every muscle on Rainbow's back began tensing, her eyes crossing, her mane practically standing on end with the effort of trying to say her own name, Fluttershy leaped forward and rested a foreleg across Rainbow's shoulders. "We're both here, Twilight," she said. "Though there might be a little problem."

"Problem?" Twilight snapped her head over, and Fluttershy almost wanted to jump away from the tight expression on her face. "You mean other than the map again forgetting that there are six of us available for these missions? Other than that, you mean?"

"Ummm," Fluttershy said at the same time Rainbow did.

Closing her eyes, Twilight rubbed her forehead. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't be grousing at you." She brought her hoof down onto the edge of the map with a smack. "The one I need to have a talk with is that stupid tree."

"Twilight, please," Rainbow whispered, her ears folding. "I can't— I'm not—" She gestured feebly at Fluttershy. "This isn't—"

"It's okay, Fluttershy." Twilight patted Rainbow's foreleg the same way Applejack had. "After all, when you and I went on our mission, you were the one who solved everything." Her mouth began tightening again. "I'm starting to think the map only sent me along so you wouldn't get too nervous..."

Fluttershy reached for Twilight's shoulder. "That's not true, Twilight, and you know it."

Twilight blinked at her. "That's nice of you to say, Rainbow, but you weren't there." She waved a hoof. "Anyway, I don't want to keep you. Just remember: the map chose the two of you as the best ponies to solve whatever friendship problem Cloudsdale's having. So go, be yourselves, and everything'll work out fine."

Rainbow's weird green eyes still seemed bigger than they should've been, and as much as Fluttershy wanted to just collapse right there, she knew it wouldn't do any good. What they needed to do was—

"Yes!" Fluttershy almost leaped into the air when the plan hit her, but she didn't want to tip either Rainbow or Twilight over. "Ummm, I mean, yeah, Fluttershy, let's...let's head back to your place and get your...your luggage together." She tried to wink, but that part of her face suddenly froze; swallowing, she went on anyway. "Maybe you can take a quick bath or something. To relax before we go."

"A bath?" Rainbow stared. "A bath? Why would I—?" Her hooves leaped to cover her mouth, and Fluttershy could almost hear bells going off in her head. "A bath! Yes! That...that'll be perfect!" She jumped away, sprinted for the door, stopped halfway there, and spun back, Fluttershy's saddlebags whapping against her sides. "Thank you, Twilight! Sorry I'm being so...so...so—"

"It's all right, Fluttershy." Twilight smiled. "We wouldn't have you any other way."

The giggle that Rainbow gave off then was so perfect, and the little spring she put in her step as she trotted out of the throne room so natural, Fluttershy couldn't stop her jaw from dropping.

Beside her, Twilight cleared her throat and elbowed her in the ribs. "You, too, Dash. Just...go easy on her, all right?"

"Me?" Fluttershy felt like she was falling over sideways, but her hooves, she couldn't help noticing, were planted firmly on the floor. "I'm not—" She stopped, not because of the strange choking but because she just didn't have any idea how she could possibly respond to that.

"You know what I mean." Twilight nodded toward the door. "I'll see you girls when you get back."

Hot and cold flooded back and forth through Fluttershy's whole body, and all she could think of suddenly was flying home and hiding under the bed. Still, she managed to return Twilight's nod before spreading her wings and taking off.

Forcing her smile to stay in place, Dash trotted through Ponyville with the phrase not gonna panic, not gonna panic, not gonna panic whirling around inside her head.

Even though you'll be Fluttershy for the rest of your life.

She ground her teeth, never letting her smile falter, and pushed the thought away. Her brain had been giving her nothing but worst-case scenarios ever since—

Wings whooshed beside her, and she jerked her head around to see herself landing there.

You'll never be able to pull another prank again, never anger your friends and alienate the town the way you used to all the time. You'll have to start wearing hats and nice dresses and being polite and pleasant and—

A hoof touched her shoulder, and she couldn't help jumping away. "Are you all right?" a voice very much like hers asked.

Everything that Dash wanted to shout and scream and hurl bursting into the sky jammed up inside her chest. "No," she finally got out in a horribly reasonable tone. "I'm not." She'd stopped walking at some point, she noticed, so she pushed her legs till they began moving again in the direction of Fluttershy's place.

"Yeah," came the reply, Fluttershy sliding into step with her. "Me, neither."

The silence between them went on, Dash not wanting to feel that weird blockage again, but as the town thinned and they reached the bridge across the stream, she couldn't keep quiet. "Do you really think a bath will—" The words 'wash this stuff off' wouldn't come out, so she finished with, "help?" instead.

"It has to." A little quiver behind the words let Dash hear Fluttershy in them, but when she said it again—"It has to!"—the steeliness made Dash's ears fold.

You'll be sitting in the stands sipping tea while she spins through a routine with the Wonderbolts. You'll see her on all the magazine covers, too, everypony saying how much better Rainbow Dash looks, rounder and curvier all of a sudden instead of jagged and sharp like usual. And when Discord comes to visit, you'll have to—

"Discord!" Dash spun on Fluttershy. "He could do something, couldn't he?"

"Of course I could," an all-too-familiar baritone sang out, and Dash spun again to see Discord stretched between two trees like a hammock. "If you'll recall, Fluttershy, I can do anything."

Dash's stomach tighened. He was looking at her when he said it.

"I'm—" Dash started, but 'not Fluttershy' wouldn't come out.

Discord nodded. "As pleased as pineapple to see me: yes, I know." He flashed and reappeared standing right in front of her. "And I must say, you ladies are smelling delightfully chaotic today." He clasped his lion paw and eagle talons together in front of his chest, bent down, and sniffed so deeply, Dash felt the updraft pulling at her feathers. "I don't know what you're up to, but I heartily approve."

"We're—" Fluttershy choked off immediately, too.

"On a mission." Discord straightened and grimaced. "Yes, I can smell that wretched Tree of Harmony on you as well." He shook his head. "Too bad." He snapped his claws, and a glowing orange cap appeared between his horns. "The Smooze and I are about to begin our semi-millennial bashball game, and I thought you might be interested. Especially you, Rainbow Dash: I doubt you've ever seen a real sport being played."

Dash's stomach tightened even further. He was looking at Fluttershy when he said that....

"I'm—" Fluttershy's rainbow mane bristled for a moment, but then she went slack, her head drooping.

"Alas, you'll have to somehow struggle through the disappointment." With a pop, Discord burst into nine smaller Discords, all of them wearing bright orange jerseys. "I'll be happy to give you the play-by-play in excrutiating detail when you get back," they said in chorus, "but I wouldn't want to keep you from your dendrally-appointed duties. So T.T.T.T.!" The whole group vanished in a cloud that reeked of rotten mustard, the words "Ta-ta till then!" echoing from it.

The silence that fell over them was quieter than anything Dash had ever heard. And as much as she wanted to say, 'He couldn't tell,' she didn't. She was pretty sure at this point that she wouldn't be able to.

Fluttershy sighed. "All right," she said scratchily. "We try the bath, then we head for Cloudsdale. If we finish the mission, maybe that'll— I mean, that makes our cutie marks glow again, right?"

"It does." Looking over into something that wasn't quite her own face, Dash felt the tiniest sprig of warmth flicker to life inside her. "And then—" She tried to find a way to say it. "Then maybe our lives can get back to normal."

"Yes!" Fluttershy leaped into the air and streaked toward her cottage. "C'mon, Eff! Last one in's a rotten egg!"

Dash stared after her, and the thought that squirmed through her—She'll make a better you than you ever did—pretty much doused every bit of her earlier warmth.

Author's Notes:

If anyone would like:

To read about the talk Twilight mentions she wants to have with the Tree of Harmony about who gets sent on these friendship missions and who doesn't, let me point you toward "Stupid Tree" over on my Baal Bunny account.

Mike

2: Past Imperfect

Flapping her still-not-yellow wings, Fluttershy closed her eyes and tried not to think, tried to just let the sweet mid-day breeze wash over her face.

Because standing in the bathroom earlier, following the directions on the bottle to wash off the dye, scrubbing and scrubbing and scrubbing while her fetlocks kept not changing back to their proper color, that had been more than a little bit scary. Worse had been standing nose to nose with Rainbow, peering close into her eyes while Rainbow peered into hers, and not finding any trace of the contact lenses. Rainbow's mane and tail extensions had apparently become permanent, too: Fluttershy had dug through them for what had felt like five minutes without finding anything except naturally silky pink hair.

A better you than you ever were, a ghost of a voice whispered, but Fluttershy shook it away.

Worse than that had been the reaction of her animal friends. They'd flocked toward Rainbow as soon as the two of them had entered Fluttershy's cottage, but then they'd stopped and blinked and sniffed—and started backing away. Fluttershy had still been able to understand them as they'd whimpered in confusion, but she hadn't been able to tell them who she was. "It'll be all right," she'd finally been able to say, and when Rainbow had started saying it, too, most of their raised hackles had begun smoothing.

They'd all kept their distance, though, even Angel sticking close to the far wall with his ears flat against his head.

But the worst thing of all? When they'd locked themselves alone in Fluttershy's bedroom and whispered, Fluttershy still hadn't been able to say anything that would've identified her as herself. Rainbow had kept trying and trying and trying till they'd both ended up huddled together on the floor in front of Fluttershy's dresser, neither of them crying but Fluttershy wrung-out and painfully aware that they didn't have time to try dyeing themselves again. They really had to be on their way to Cloudsdale.

"Stupid magic," Rainbow had murmured after a few minutes. "We'll...just have to see this through."

So they'd filled up Fluttershy's saddlebags with sweaters—she tended to find Cloudsdale a little chilly—and had taken to the sky.

"Hello?" Rainbow's weird, whispery voice called, startling Fluttershy from her thoughts. "You, ummm, you might want to, ummm..."

Opening her eyes, Fluttershy had to blink for a moment, not quite sure what she was seeing. Because the sky seemed to be below her, the ground above, and Rainbow was flying upside-down between her and the ground with sweaters draped all over her.

"You, ummm, closed your eyes," Rainbow was saying, "and started doing these slow barrel rolls. But the buckles on the saddlebags, they weren't quite fastened all the way, so every time you went upside-down, more sweaters fell out. I...I think I caught them all, though...." She shrugged underneath the sweaters.

Fluttershy stared. "Upside-down?" Flicking her wings, she rolled over, the cloudy blue and the grassy brown sliding back to where they were supposed to be. "I...I was flying upside-down?"

Rainbow's lips pursed. "And with your eyes closed. You could've run into a flock of birds or a swarm of bees or me or another pegasus or—"

"I—" And while she couldn't get the words 'have never flown upside-down before in my whole entire life!' to emerge from her lips, the very idea of it shook her from the blue tips of her ears to the multi-colored strands of her tail; without another thought, she flipped over onto her back again—

And no tornado engulfed her. No downdraft slammed her face first into the rolling hills. Her wings somehow managed to shift themselves so she kept heading upward, and none of the terrible things Rainbow had mentioned happened at all! For the first time in as long as she could remember, Fluttershy just flew, just let the wind stroke through her feathers, and just...just—

"Whoo-hoo!" Digging into the air, she shot forward and spun into a loop. She wobbled a bit at the top, wondering why she was right side up and heading back toward Ponyville, but of course she'd started upside-down and heading toward Cloudsdale, hadn't she? Which meant that if she folded her wings—

So she did. She tucked her wings to her sides and let herself drop, let gravity have its way, let her stomach yaw all around inside her, let her mane stream up from her neck in a wild flurry of hair. "Eep!" she heard somepony squeak below her, but as simply as if she were reaching for her gardening trowel, she stretched her wings out, caught the air, let it buoy her into a hover right in front of Rainbow Dash, peering wide-eyed from behind a couple sweater sleeves.

Fluttershy blinked, flashed a sheepish grin, then reached around to flip open the flaps of her saddlebags. "We should probably get those loaded back in here, huh?"

Rainbow's eyes narrowed the slightest bit, but all she said was a gentle "If that'd be okay..."

A few minutes got everything stowed properly, but Fluttershy couldn't keep herself from doing a few more moves, slipping and sashaying up, down, and to various sides while one of the towering cloud formations ahead began to take on a more sculpted look. Walls, colonnades, literal flying buttresses—that had been one of her father's favorite jokes when Fluttershy was growing up—and of course the weather factory puffing away right in the middle of it all: she'd always found it odd how coming back here usually got her both smiling and shaking. At least the Commodores of Cloudsdale were steering the city on a course right now that had it passing pretty close to Ponyville. All this flying was just so tiring.

Except...she wasn't tired, was she? She'd flown straight to Cloudsdale, had carried a saddlebag full of sweaters, too, had even done a few stunts, and now, settling to a perfect four-point landing on the broad western edge of the east-bound town, she felt like she could jump up and do another couple circuits around the place if she had to. A pleasant little breeze rustled her mane, and she—

"Brrr..." Rainbow shivered, alighting lightly beside Fluttershy. "Do you think maybe the Commodores have the city flying too high? It seems awfully cold..."

That raised a chill along Fluttershy's neck, but she found she couldn't say anything. All she could do was open her saddlebags and pull out her favorite green sweater.

Those turquoise eyes went wide in Rainbow's yellow face, but she just said, "Thank you," took the sweater with her wings, and began pulling it on.

Motion made Fluttershy glance to the right, but nothing was there: two big fluffy moisture warehouses sat along this side of the city with a flyway between them, the roofs and spires of downtown visible at the other end of the narrow corridor. Shaking herself, Fluttershy took a breath. "We need to find that friendship problem."

"We do." Rainbow stepped forward, her wings flexing through the slits in the sweater's sides. "Let's head downtown and see what everypony's talking about."

"Talking about?" a voice exclaimed behind Fluttershy. "I'll tell you what everypony's talking about!"

With a squeak, Rainbow leaped into a hover, and Fluttershy spun around to see a tan stallion wearing a fedora and a grin Pinkie Pie would've been proud of. A little card bearing the word "Press" stuck up from the fedora's hatband, and the stallion had one wing wrapped around a notepad, the other around a pencil. "Everypony's talking about Rainbow Dash, the newest, hottest, youngest member of the Wonderbolts, coming back to visit her old stomping grounds again!" The stallion stepped toward Fluttershy. "Etaoin Shrdlu, Ms. Dash, Cloudsdale Daily Sentinel. I saw your trademark rainbow streak on approach and wanted to see if I could get a comment from you about the big wedding now that it's likely it won't be happening?"

Fighting her surge of panic—this was a reporter, not some sort of pony-eating monster!—Dash pricked her ears and forced herself to land. "Wedding?" she asked.

Fluttershy, her tail snapping like a banner behind her, leaned forward. "Won't happen?"

The reporter's attention stayed on Fluttershy. "It was supposed to be the social event of the season! That's why you and your friend—" He shot a glance in Dash's direction. "Shutterfly, right? Y'oughtta be a photog with a moniker like that!" Then he focused back on Fluttershy. "Why you came up here from Ponyville, isn't it?"

"Ummm..." Dash thought she might be able to tell him she wasn't Shutterfly—

But then he'll ask you who you are, and you won't be able to tell him. You'll be standing here gasping and choking and a crowd will gather and they'll take you to the hospital and—

"Fluttershy!" Dash forced the word out, more of a sneeze than anything else. "The name's Fluttershy!"

Fluttershy stared at her, those violet eyes wide and her blue forehead wrinkled, but the reporter just gave half a shrug. "Doesn't change my question, folks: are you on the bride's side, the groom's side, or the side of those who were against the whole thing from the beginning?"

Dash had no idea what to say, but Fluttershy tossed her head. "It might be easier for us to answer if we knew what you were talking about."

That got the reporter blinking. "The wedding, of course! Misty Morning marrying as far below her station as the daughter of two Cloudsdale Commodores possibly can!"

"Misty?" Fluttershy's ears perked, but even though her mouth opened, no words came out. She shook her head, then turned to Dash. "You knew Misty Morning when you were kids, didn't you, Eff? She'd be at your house sometimes when I'd stop by to visit."

It took a heartbeat or two for Dash to figure out what Fluttershy was talking about, but then she remembered the bubbly little filly who'd always seemed almost as out-of-place in the quiet of Fluttershy's parents' house as Dash herself. "Of course!" Dash tried to put her memories in order. "She lived up the street from—" Dash couldn't say 'you,' so she switched quickly to follow Fluttershy's lead. "—from me!" She turned to the reporter. "Who's she marrying, Mr.—?" Stopping, she couldn't help breathing out a little laugh. "I'm sorry: I've forgotten your name."

"Etaoin Shrdlu, Miss Fluttershy, from the Sentinel." He waved his wings. "But that's why her family's been flapping around like moon moths! He's a complete and total nopony, just some joker on the hailstone assembly line at the weather factory named Hoops."

"Hoops!" Dash shouted it in unison with Fluttershy, and they both leaped into the air this time. But since the sweater she was wearing made her feel heavier than usual, Dash quickly landed.

Fluttershy, though, kept going, her wings beating faster and faster. "How could somepony like Misty Morning get involved with that...that—?"

"Big bully?" Dash suggested.

"Yeah!" Fluttershy's rough voice kept getting rougher, too: Dash found herself wishing she had a lozenge to offer her.

Mr. Shrdlu flipped the pencil from his wing, caught it in his teeth, jotted a few notes on his pad, then spat the pencil back to where he could snag it in his feathers again. "A common question, Miss Dash." He waggled his eyebrows. "I'll just put you down along with all the others who take Misty Morning's side in the argument?"

"Of course!" Fluttershy settled back onto the cloud. "I always stick by my friends!"

As much as Dash wanted to correct Fluttershy about who it was that always stuck by her friends, she knew this weird magic wouldn't let her. So instead she asked, "What argument exactly, Mr. Shrdlu?"

He barked a laugh. "Might be easier to tell you what they haven't been arguing about. 'Cause the only thing I've heard the happy couple agree on lately is that things get wet when it hails. And even then, it was part of an argument about what color awnings they should have outside the Commodores' Club to keep the onlookers dry during the traditional burst of hail as they're leaving the reception." He shook his head. "Their wedding date's still on the Club calendar, my sources tell me, but at this point, the smart money's on the thing not happening at all."

Fluttershy's nod was short and sharp. "Good."

"Ummm..." Dash jumped up to hover alongside Fluttershy. "Thank you for the information, Mr. Shrdlu, and we're glad we could help with your story." She leaned over, whispered, "Come on," into Fluttershy's ear, and began flapping toward the flyway that led downtown.

Fluttershy snorted—something Dash had never thought she would ever hear—but she fell in beside Dash. "I'm just glad Misty wised up before it was too late," Fluttershy muttered, the words barely coming out through her clenched teeth. "I mean, can you imagine her marrying Hoops?"

"I—" Dash began, but the stupid voice in her head started whispering, if you push this point, it'll be the biggest mistake you've ever made, and you've made some doozies! Taking a breath, she went on anyway: "I can't help wondering if this might be the friendship problem we're here to solve."

"What?" Fluttershy's wings stopped, and she dropped about a taillength toward the cloudy floor of the flyway before catching the air again and flipping herself up to hover nose to nose with Dash. "In the first place, this is a wedding we're talking about! What does getting married have to do with friendship?"

"Ummm," Dash said again, images filling her mind: her parents laughing together, Mr. and Mrs. Cake always helping each other out at Sugarcube Corner, Cranky and Matilda—

But Fluttershy was waving a hoof. "Okay, that's maybe not the best question. The best question is: why would we help Hoops? He made both our lives miserable when we were fillies! And not just then, either! I don't have to remind you about the Best Young Flier competition, do I?"

The memories hit Dash hard, then, the fear and the shame and the anger that had flooded her as she'd cowered backstage before the contest. But she swallowed against them. "You can't be like that, Rainbow Dash," she heard herself say in her Fluttershy voice. "You have to be better than that."

The snort Fluttershy gave this time wasn't nearly as loud as her first. And when she said, "Whatever," that was pretty quiet, too.

"Okay, then." Her heart pounding, Dash flew around Fluttershy and started toward the towers of downtown Cloudsdale again. "I guess the Commodore Club'll be our first stop."

Trailing after Rainbow, Fluttershy could barely keep her inner grumbling from getting loose. In fact, she wasn't sure she wanted to keep it from getting loose. Because, yes, maybe Rainbow had a point—if they were here to help Misty and Hoops, then of course they should help Misty and Hoops. But at the same time—

Misty? And Hoops? And sure, Misty had never really been a friend when they were fillies: it was more that she would turn up at the house two or three times a week after escaping from her nanny and settle in chattering while helping Fluttershy and her mother with the flowerbeds. Her nanny had always come around to collect her before suppertime, and thinking about it, Fluttershy couldn't recall speaking six words to Misty during all those years. She'd found her to be a little too exuberant, but then, Fluttershy had to admit that she found most ponies to be a little too exuberant...

But didn't Misty know who Hoops was? How much he seemed to enjoy making other ponies miserable? Hadn't she ever—?

"Dad!" a young-sounding voice rang out. "Look! It's Rainbow Dash!"

Startled, Fluttershy blinked to see that she and Rainbow had apparently come out of the flyway while she'd been brooding, the glistening towers of downtown Cloudsdale rising above the smaller buildings ahead of them. Below at one of the terraced food stands carved into the cloud face sat a stallion and colt—father and son, she thought, from their coloration—and the colt was pointing, a big smile on his face.

Surprised when Rainbow didn't give a shout and wave back to the colt, Fluttershy looked over and saw Rainbow looking back. "One of your fans, Rainbow Dash," she said, emphasizing the name and shaking her long pink hair.

Fluttershy gave another blink. "Oh. Yeah. Right." Putting on a smile she didn't even remotely feel, she waved to the father and son. "See you at the next show!" she called, surprised at how loud it sounded.

"Oh, boy!" The colt sprang into a hover. "You bet!"

Other ponies were pointing now, too, and Rainbow gave a quiet laugh beside her. "You should've worn a disguise."

Unable to say, 'I am,' Fluttershy kept smiling and waving. "As long as they don't ask for autographs, right?"

"Ummm..." Rainbow's eyes went wide. "Maybe we'd better hurry to the Club before somepony does ask."

The cloud buildings around them grew taller and fancier, but at least Rainbow was with her: Fluttershy hadn't spent a lot of time in downtown Cloudsdale and didn't think she knew exactly where the Commodores' Club was. And as long as she was thinking about things she didn't exactly know... "So what's the plan, then? We go into the Club, and if Misty and Hoops are there, you talk to Hoops and I talk to Misty?"

"Ummm," Rainbow said again. "Didn't you say that I knew Misty?"

Fluttershy couldn't keep from clenching her teeth. 'You're not really me!' she wanted to shout. 'And I don't say 'Ummm' that much, either!' But since she couldn't say those things— "All I know is that this was your idea! So you should be the one who has to talk to the guy we both know is a jerk!"

"Okay." With a little sigh, Rainbow pulled partway back into her mane. "If...if that's what you think is right."

Her jaw tightening, Fluttershy focused forward. "And don't do that."

For several wingbeats, she didn't hear anything but the rush of wind through feathers. Then that all-too-familiar wavering little voice asked, "Don't do what?"

"Don't play all 'passive-aggressive.'" She shot a glare at the yellow pegasus beside her. "You can't be like that, Fluttershy. You hafta be better'n that." Her face getting warm, she looked quickly away and saw a large, low building sculpted from a cloudy promenade, Commodores' Club carved in fancy letters along the fascia. Putting on a burst of speed, she did a couple quick loops and landed with a flourish on the big platform in front of the double doors.

Two stallions were standing there, but it took Fluttershy a few blinks before she was sure they were ponies instead of statues.

"Oh, dear," Rainbow said, settling onto the platform. "In all the...excitement, I...I forgot that only members and their invited guests are allowed in. Maybe...you could get word to Spitfire and ask her to—"

"Nah." Completely unsure what was going to happen, Fluttershy sauntered up the steps to the two stallions. "Afternoon, gents." She touched a wing to her forehead. "Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy here to see Misty Morning and Hoops." And she gave them a big, easy, Rainbow Dash sort of a smile.

For an instant, neither of the stallions moved. Then the one on the right asked, "Can you get them to stop yelling at each other?"

The one on the left gave a little nod. "And at everypony else, too?"

Fluttershy didn't know how to answer that, but Rainbow's quiet voice said beside her, "We'll try our very best, sirs."

The one on the right gave a nod then, and they pushed the doors open. "Good luck," he said.

"Yeah." The other one shivered. "We're just gonna stay out here if that's okay with you."

"Ummm..." Fluttershy looked over at Rainbow, but again, Rainbow was just looking back at her. "Sure. Whatever." With a swallow, Fluttershy took to the air and drifted through the doorway.

The last time Dash had flapped into the Commodores' Club had been after winning Best Young Flier, and the place had been quite literally jumping. At least, Dash had been: she'd bounced from walls to ceiling to floor with the biggest, stupidest grin on her face for most of the party that afternoon.

Now, though, the whole place seemed more like Twilight's library: quiet and empty.

Moving into the main hall, though, she could see a few ponies having lunch at the tables off to the left. And from one of the several arched doorways to the right came the muffled sounds of ponies shouting.

The image flashed through Dash's head—you'll flap right into the middle of it, and the two of them will aim all their shouting at you!—and she almost pulled into a hover.

But Fluttershy kept heading toward the doorway. "The sooner we get this over with," she said, "the sooner we'll—" The choking sound she made then showed that the magic was still being annoying.

Dash knew what she meant, though. Taking a breath, she followed that rainbow-striped tail into the low hallway.

"—should be simple!" were the first words she could make out clearly from the open door at the end of the hall ahead, Hoops' voice sending shivers all along her spine.

"Simple?" This was a young mare's voice, sharp and high-pitched. "Of course it's simple, coming from you!"

"Oh, yeah?"

They flew out of the hallway then and into a large room crammed with decorations that Dash was sure would've made Rarity pass out. The various bits and pieces themselves—wall hangings, flower arrangements, floor cushions and everything—weren't bad, but they filled the room, way too many for a space this size. And the more Dash ran her gaze around, the more she realized that they were in two styles that didn't go together at all.

In the middle of this jumble stood a pair of pegasi: Hoops, his mane as shaggy as ever and covering his eyes, and a slim, frowning mare who reminded Dash of the filly she'd run into now and then at Fluttershy's place back when they'd all been younger. That filly, though, had never been this pinched in the mouth and glaring around the eyes.

That glare was focused on Hoops, and he was leaning forward, his teeth showing as he said, "Not everything hasta be a big, giant thing, Misty!"

Misty jumped into a hover and waved both her front legs. "This is our wedding, you idiot! That's kind of the very definition of a big, giant thing!" She spun around, and that glare of hers hit Dash as hard as a boiling hot water balloon. "And I told you to take down—!" Her glare vanished when her eyes went wide, and her mouth unpinched when her jaw dropped. "Fluttershy?" she asked in a voice that suddenly didn't sound like it could strip paint.

Hoops' jaw dropped, too. "Rainbow Cr— I mean, Rainbow Dash? What...what're you guys doing here?"

Hovering above Dash, Fluttershy muttered, "I'm wondering that, too."

But Dash stepped forward. "We just—"

You'll say the wrong thing, you know, and they'll start screaming again.

Everything Dash had been about to say jammed in her throat, her whole train of thought snarled up by that stupid nagging little voice.

Fluttershy seemed to notice, though: she landed and gave a smile that wasn't nearly as phony as Dash figured it could've been. "Well, we were just...in the neighborhood, y'know? Heard you two were getting hitched and thought we'd stop by to say congrats and all."

"Oh, Fluttershy!" Misty shot forward and wrapped a huge hug around Dash's neck. "It's so wonderful to see you!" She glared over her shoulder at Hoops. "You can help me talk some sense into this brute!"

"Sense?" Hoops flapped his wings to stay upright while he folded his forelegs across his chest. "We're getting married, Misty, not putting on a Bridleway show! The Commodores' Club's, like, the fanciest place in Cloudsdale! We don't need to hang frou-frous from every joist and crossbeam!"

Trying to get her thoughts organized again, Dash had to smile when Fluttershy said, "That's a valid point. But, hey, there's nothing wrong with a few frou-frous, right?"

"Which is what I've been saying!" Hoops shook the hair from his eyes for a moment, and Dash saw that they were a surprisingly bright green color. "Something elegant and simple!"

Dash nodded vigorously. If they could just get them talking to each other instead of—

"Ha!" Misty pointed a shaking hoof at him. "That's always been your problem, Hoops! You settle for the easy, the quick, and the ephemeral when with a little effort, you could reach for the timeless, the noble, the ineffable! But no! You're making hailstones for a living when you could be constructing rainbows!" She brought her hoof down against the floor with a smack. "'Good enough' is neither 'good' nor 'enough' for a pony who's truly striving!"

"Huh." Fluttershy was nodding. "That's an even more valid point, actually."

"What?" The hair fell back over Hoops' eyes. "C'mon, Crash! You grew up on the wrong side of the pressure gradient, same as me! No way you can buy all her talk about titles and prestige and stuff that isn't even real!"

"Ummm..." Dash swallowed. "Let's keep things constructive."

But Fluttershy was already leaping into the air. "Maybe you don't follow the news, Hoops, but I've got the title of Wonderbolt now! That's as real as it gets, and I worked my tail off for it!"

"Exactly!" Misty stepped away from Dash, her eyes wavering. "I'm not asking you to be a Wonderbolt, Hoops, but would it truly be such a terrible thing for you to apply to the rainbow department? You've got the talent, and—"

"I like hailstones!" Hoops stuck his jaw out. "They're trickier to make than ponies think, and I'm really good at it!"

"Ummm..." But that was as far as Dash got this time before that smug little voice in her head piped up again: See? You're just making things worse.

It tangled her tongue, and she saw Fluttershy's ears prick. "Oh, sure," Fluttershy said, those lavender eyes flashing a glare at Dash. "That's great for those who wanna just get by their whole lives, just keep going with whatever dead-end job they first fell into." Fluttershy tossed her mane. "If you can even call babysitting forest animals a job."

Her throat squeezed closed, but Dash forced it open. "What...what's that supposed to mean?"

The look Fluttershy turned on her must've had some of The Stare in it, the way it seemed to stab a skewer straight into her heart. "If you're too slow to figure it out, then maybe that's for the best."

"Slow?" Dash could feel her mane bristling. "Well, at least I take the time to stop and think every once in a while! Not like some ponies who wouldn't know a thought if it came up and tapped them on the shoulder!"

Fluttershy's blue face stretched, her eyes and mouth going wide. "And what's that supposed to mean?"

Dash stomped the floor, the sound much mooshier than Misty's stomp earlier. "It means that if you'd use a little foresight, Rainbow Dash, maybe you wouldn't always be crashing into trees and mountains and making your friends stop whatever they're doing to pay attention to you!"

"That's it!" Fluttershy spun halfway to the ceiling. "I'm sick of your wimpiness, Fluttershy! Just plain sick of it!" And with her rainbow tail swirling behind her, she shot out of the room.

3: Passive Periphrastic

Author's Notes:

Let's get the chapter title:

Outta the way at the beginning.

In English, passive voice verbs regularly use a periphrastic construction—that means the idea needs more than one word to express it. In an active sentence like "Gabby hit the ball," the verb is the single word "hit." But the passive sentence "Gabby was hit by the ball" uses the periphrastic, two-word verb "was hit."

Of course, you can also do active periphrastics in English. "Gabby was hitting the ball" has a two word verb and yet still has Gabby as the subject doing the hitting. This is in fact the "past imperfect" that gave chapter two its title.

Ain't language grand?

And now on with our story!

With her eyes squinted to slits, Fluttershy whooshed across the main hall of the Commodores' Club, grabbed the knob of the big front door, wrenched it open, and threw herself into the afternoon sky outside.

The nerve of some ponies! Accusing her of not having foresight? Who did that Fluttershy think she was, saying such things about—!

Her?

Wait. Wasn't—?

Wasn't she Fluttershy?

Pulling up in mid-flap, she covered her mouth with her hooves. What was she doing? Where was she going? Why was she—?

"Look out!" a voice cried, and somepony crashed into her, legs tangling around her barrel and spinning her sideways.

"Whoa!" came another cry, and she caught a glimpse of a mare's startled face before a second collision knocked her tumbling ears over fetlocks.

"Yow!" rang out either a third voice or one of the first two—Fluttershy found she was quickly losing track of events—and then she was plunging into white fluffiness, cool and squishy and wrapping her in its slowing embrace.

Things stayed jumbled for a while after that, the shouts all mixed and muffled, till hooves grabbed her and pulled her out into sunlight again, her saddlebags getting tangled more than once in the gooey cloud stuff. "Are you crazy?" was the first thing she heard, a blurry pony face resolving into an angry pony face. "You can't just stop flying in the middle of the—!" The words broke off suddenly, and the angry pony face shifted to an astonished pony face. "Hey! You— You're Rainbow Dash!"

"I am?" Fluttershy asked. Shaking her head to clear it, she tried to say that she wasn't Rainbow Dash, but of course that didn't work. And as much as she wanted to say, 'Ummm,' she refused to let herself, forcing a big smile onto her snout and saying instead, "I mean, yeah, thanks for the—"

"Rainbow Dash?" A second pony face popped up grinning behind the first, and a third grinning face behind them both.

Blinking, Fluttershy saw a group of eight or nine ponies standing around on the lumpy cloud pavement between two big buildings right in the middle of downtown Cloudsdale. More ponies streamed by overhead, and she realized that, after leaving the Commodores' Club, she must've flown right out onto Central Avenue, the busiest flyway in the whole city. Freezing the way she did would've caused a multi-pony pileup, and the whole mess of them had evidently crashed down into the foundations of what she now recognized as the headquarters of the First Equestrian Bank of Cloudsdale. A quick glance around, though, didn't show her any injuries: all the pegasi were brushing themselves off with smiles instead of looking hurt or grouchy.

And in fact, more pegasi were dropping from the traffic above even as Fluttershy slowly got her bearings back, everypony among them smiling.

Smiling directly at her...

"Oh, Ms. Dash!" A matronly mare wearing a fur-lined coat shouldered through the growing crowd. "What a stroke of luck! My organization, the Daughters of Pegasopolis, is holding a charity ball this weekend, and your attendance would—"

"'Scuse me, ma'am," a thin, straw-colored pegasus said. "But I reckon I was in this line ahead of you."

"Line?" Fluttershy could barely get the word out.

The five or six ponies nearest Fluttershy all reached their wings into their saddlebags and came out with little notebooks. Fluttershy stared, and the grin on the face of the one who'd pulled her from the embankment seemed to inflate like a balloon. "Good thing I've got my autograph book with me, huh?" he asked.

"I'll say!" The pony next to him nodded. "You never know who you might run into in Cloudsdale." He elbowed the young mare beside him. "Get it? Run into!"

The mare snorted and giggled, and everything around Fluttershy seemed to go into slow-motion, the first pegasus stretching his notebook toward her. Her mind spinning, she tried to remember what Rainbow's signature looked like: all she could think was that she probably didn't use a little heart to dot the 'i'...

"Rainbow Dash!" a strangely familiar voice was calling. "Coming through, here, folks! Coming through!" A tan stallion with a fedora jumped over the crowd, and Fluttershy could hardly believe her luck. It was that reporter from earlier with the odd name! She could tell all these ponies that she had to go with him for an interview, and that would keep her from committing plagiarism or forgery or whatever crime she was about to become guilty of!

"Thank Celestia I caught up with you!" The reporter somehow managed to squeeze in for a landing between her and the surrounding ring of ponies. "Afternoon, folks!" he called to them, bobbing his head so the press pass in his hatband caught the sunlight. "Etaoin Shrdlu, Cloudsdale Sentinel!" Whirling on Fluttershy, he whipped open the notebook wrapped in the primary coverts of his left wing. "Just wanted to get your reaction, Ms. Dash, to the giant sky kraken that's attacking Cloudsdale even as we speak!"

Every pony fell silent, and traffic above reared to a halt, too, all the pegasi up and down the flyway pulling into a hover and staring wide-eyed.

Directly at her, of course...

"Ummm," she said, and the sound seemed to echo along the cloud walls of the buildings rising over Central Avenue. "A sky kraken? One of those massive, flying, bad-tempered squids, you mean? That kind of sky kraken?"

"Nearly as big as the whole town!" Mr. Shrdlu whisked his notebook closed. "But you'll want to assess the situation before committing yourself to what will undoubtedly be a daring and thrill-packed course of action!" He leaped back into the air. "This way, Ms. Dash! And the rest of you can read all about the encounter in tomorrow's edition of the Sentinel!"

Fluttershy hesitated for half a heartbeat, but one more look at all those ponies staring at her made the decision easy: she spread her wings and took off after the reporter in what she presumed was the direction of the giant sky squid.

Watching that rainbow tail vanish though the doorway of the Commodores' Club side room made her choke back a sob. How could Rainbow Dash say such things about her?

And yes, she had to admit that she'd said a few harsh things herself to...to—

Wait. She was Rainbow Dash!

Wasn't she?

Dash shook her head quickly. Of course she was Rainbow Dash!

But the things she'd been yelling at Fluttershy, she...she hadn't been yelling them at Fluttershy. And Fluttershy hadn't been yelling at her, either. They'd each been yelling at themselves...

"Whoa," a low voice said to her right, and Dash blinked to see Hoops blinking back at her, Misty Morning right beside him. "I...I thought you guys were, like, friends and stuff. I mean, isn't that kind of the basis for the new political movement rising to power in Equestria? You and Princess Twilight and all being friends?"

For a moment, Dash could only blink at him, and Misty turned wide eyes toward him, too.

He looked back at her. "What? I keep up with current events. I mean, we totally used to talk about that stuff all the time, Misty, back before..." He waved a wing at the competing stacks of decorations all over the room. "Before ev'rything got so complicated..."

Misty touched a hoof to his shoulder. "But that's just it, Hoops. Life is complicated. You're smart and you're insightful and you know how to solve problems, but you're also irresponsible and lazy and kind of a jerk."

Hoops' head drew back. "Are...are you complimenting me or insulting me?"

"Both, you knucklehead." She moved her hoof to touch her own chest. "'Cause I'm the same way. You like me, but you want to yell at me sometimes, too, don't you?"

"I don't like you." Hoops stepped toward her. "I love you. And I don't want to yell at you some of the time. I want to yell at you pretty much all of the time."

With a laugh, Misty leaned forward, and their lips met.

Staring, Dash found herself thinking of the feeling that would flood over her in the split second between making a mistake and spinning out into the crash that always seemed to follow her mistakes: a mix of joy and dread as well as the absolute certainty that, no matter how badly she was about to get messed up, she would be right back here doing this exact same thing again as quickly as she could manage it.

She didn't think that feeling had a name, but she knew it when she saw it. "It takes patience," she heard herself murmuring. "And practice. And deciding that what you're after is worth working for."

The two of them jumped away from each other, their heads snapping around in Dash's direction. "Fluttershy!" Misty blurted. "I'm sorry! I...I forgot you were there!"

"It's okay." For the first time, Dash was glad she couldn't manage to raise her voice. "I'm just happy you're talking instead of shouting."

The sound they both made then wasn't quite a laugh and wasn't quite a grunt. Misty looked back at Hoops, and even though her eyes narrowed, they didn't have the same hardness in them that they'd had earlier. "All right," she said. "Forget about rainbows. I mean, Ice Slicer isn't that far from retirement. If you let him know you're interested, as soon as he steps aside, you'll be ready to slide right into place as head of the hailstone department."

Hoops' jaw tightened, but then he cocked his head and gave a quick nod. "And all this?" He waved a wing again at the overwhelmed walls. "I mean, I know this is a big deal, Misty. I'm a nobody from a family of nobodies getting married to a Commodore inside the freaking Commodores' Club! I just...I wanna be able to see the place, y'know? See the building that drunken pegasi have been crashing around in all the way back to the days of Commander Hurricane." He flashed a smile. "History, right?"

For a moment, Misty just stood there, and Dash couldn't help cringing. See? that stupid little voice in her head started whispering. When will you learn that you can't do anything right?

But a slow smile was spreading across Misty's muzzle. "All right. And maybe we can make some history of our own." She stretched her neck to kiss him again.

Dash could barely keep herself from crowing. She craned her head around to grin at her cutie mark—

And not only wasn't it glowing, but it kept on not being her cutie mark.

"Ummm," she said, but Hoops and Misty were still kissing. And as much as she didn't want to interrupt— "Are...are you two gonna be okay, then?"

"Mmm-hmm," Misty sort of purred, and Dash felt her face heating up. They broke the kiss, and Misty bent down to push the top of her head into the crook of Hoops' neck. "You'll come to the wedding, of course, Fluttershy, you and—" Misty stopped, blinked, and looked back over her shoulder. "Oh! You and Rainbow Dash! Are you—?"

"We'll be fine." Dash took wing, the stupid sweater binding her as she flapped. "It was wonderful seeing you again, Misty, and...and you, too, Hoops. I guess."

Hoops coughed his laugh this time and rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah, well, sorry for all the times I've been a jerk, y'know? And tell Crash I said sorry, too...though maybe don't tell her I called her Crash." He gave a little whistle. "I'm really bad at this, aren't I?"

"Well..." Dash's smile came easily for a change. "'Crash' is actually her nickname in the Wonderbolts now." Turning for the door with a nod and a wave, though, her smile faded. Because it was starting to look like this wasn't the friendship problem she and Fluttershy had been sent here to solve...

The other obvious one popped quickly into her mind, but she and Fluttershy weren't having problems. Not with each other anyway. As near as Dash could remember, in fact, she'd only started yelling earlier when she'd looked up and seen herself behaving like a jerk the way she always did.

So...could a pony have a friendship problem with herself? Not that Dash did: she was Rainbow Dash, and she wouldn't trade her life for any other pony's in Equestria!

And yeah, sure, sometimes she came on a little strong. Sometimes she got a little carried away with her own awesomeness and maybe didn't think about how the things she did might crash into the lives of the ponies around her. And yeah, sure, maybe sitting back and letting Hoops and Misty sort through their feelings on their own had worked out, and maybe that kind of quiet helping could be useful once in a while. But—

Coming out into the main hall of the Commodores' Club, Dash couldn't think of anything to put after that 'but.' All she knew was that she had to find Fluttershy. If this whole thing was really about the two of them working on their own inner problems—

The Club's main doors burst open, and a pegasus zoomed in. "Commodores!" she shouted. "We've a sky kraken dead ahead! Commodore Galaxy's called for all hooves on deck! This is not a drill! I repeat: this is not a drill!"

The breath caught in Dash's throat. Sky kraken didn't usually come into Equestrian air space, but every time they did, she knew from Wonderbolt history, cloud cities dissolved and ponies got hurt.

And you think you'll be able to help? Or are you just interested in the glory?

"Shut up!" she hissed, and without another thought, she raced out the door.

"Understand, now," Mr. Shrdlu was saying as Fluttershy followed him east along Hurricane Way, all the traffic, she couldn't help but notice, heading rapidly in the other direction, "I'll be expecting an exclusive interview afterwards." He did a barrel roll. "Rainbow Dash defeating a sky kraken? Front page, here I come!"

Nodding absently, Fluttershy tried to review what she knew about sky kraken, but she was so rattled by everything that had happened so far today—the prank, the call from the Cutie Map, Misty and Hoops, the way she'd yelled at Rainbow Dash—

Not that she had been yelling at Rainbow Dash, of course. She hadn't even really been yelling at herself. She'd been yelling at the version of herself that cringed and whined and said 'Ummm' all the time, the version of herself that listened way too often to that awful little voice in her head.

The awful little voice, she realized with a start, that she hadn't been hearing since she and Rainbow had left Ponyville. And now here she was getting into arguments and traffic accidents and flying off to confront a gigantic sky squid!

And, yes, maybe some of those things weren't exactly what a reasonable pony would call good, and maybe she could've avoided those less good things if she'd had that inner voice warning her. But too much of the voice was even worse than not enough: her whole life so far had shown her that. What she really needed to do was find a way to balance her caution with—

"Ms. Dash?" Somepony was whispering directly into her ear; Fluttershy started back and saw that she and Mr. Shrdlu had arrived at the eastern edge of Cloudsdale. The sky ahead was full of big fluffy white cumulonimbuses—or was it cumulonimbi? She could never remember...

Not that it mattered. Because among the big towers of cloud sprawled a huge grayish white squid monster. And while Mr. Shrdlu had been exaggerating—the kraken wasn't as big as the whole of Cloudsdale—he hadn't been exaggerating much. The one eye that Fluttershy could see peering out from a break in the not-quite-thunderheads was easily the size of the Commodore's Club, and if the barbs on the ends of those tentacles started flailing around, they would have no trouble whatsoever shearing off large chunks of the town.

"Ms. Dash!" Mr. Shrdlu hissed again in her ear. "What are you waiting for? There's the beast: defend the city!"

Fluttershy blinked across the furlongs of air. "But...it's not attacking." She turned to give him a little bit of a glare. "You said it was attacking."

"Well?" He gestured with a hoof. "Have you ever known a sky kraken not to attack the city if given the chance?"

"Actually?" More of the information she'd read was coming back to her. "This is the first time in nearly a hundred years that a sky kraken has come anywhere near Equestria." Fluttershy ran her gaze along what she could see of the creature's skyscraper-sized head. "I think something might be wrong."

"Wrong?" His jaw dropped, and he gestured some more. "There's a sky kraken in Cloudsdale's flight path! It doesn't get any wronger than that!" Then his eyes narrowed. "Or could it be that the famous Rainbow Dash isn't quite the heroine she likes to pretend she is? Could it be that the famous Rainbow Dash is all talk and no action?"

You could do it, you know, came the voice in her head. But it wasn't the awful, whispery, sneaky little voice this time; it was a confident voice, a voice with a grin and a chuckle in it. You could fly right out there, give that squid a kick, and tell it to be on its way. And if it gave you any guff, you could Stare it right down and make it do whatever you wanted it to do. You could save Cloudsdale, be on the front page of the paper, and be a real heroine. That's what you could do. Isn't it?

"No," she whispered, her attention focused on the kraken; it was trying to hide, she realized suddenly, looking at the way it kept sliding around to put the thickest of the clouds between itself and the city. "That...that wouldn't be right."

"You better believe it wouldn't!" Again, Mr. Shrdlu's voice startled her out of her thoughts. "Now! You head out there, drive off that monster, then come back here and give me my scoop!"

Fluttershy shook her head. "Sorry, Mr. Shrdlu, but what this situation needs is my friend Fluttershy."

Mr. Shrdlu blinked. "Who?"

"Yay!" a little voice warbled behind her, and Fluttershy turned to see a wonderfully familiar green sweater fluttering toward her with one of her best friends in the whole wide world inside it.

"Oh, yeah." The reporter flipped open his notebook. "You sure that's her name? I've got it written down as—"

"Oh, Rainbow Dash!" Huffing and puffing, Dash settled onto the cloud beside Fluttershy. "I'm so, so sorry about what I said! Can you ever forgive me?"

Fluttershy had to blink to clear her vision. "If you can forgive me," she said. "Besides, it wasn't really you I was mad at."

"Me, too." Dash blew out a breath. "Now, what's all this about a sky kraken?"

"Exclusive!" the reporter called after them, but Dash just rolled her eyes: it was maybe the fifth time he'd used that word just in the minute and a half it had taken for Fluttershy to bring her up to speed and for the two of them to jump off Cloudsdale.

"Yeah, yeah!" Fluttershy yelled over her shoulder. "You just let the Commodores know that Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy have the situation under control!"

"You bet!" His voice was getting more distant and more echoing. "What a scoop!"

And then it was just the two of them flying toward the giant floating squid lurking behind the cumuliform cloudbanks ahead.

Hearing nothing but the whoosh of the wind in her mane and feathers got Dash pretty antsy pretty quickly. She tried to think of something to say, but Fluttershy spoke up first. "Misty and Hoops: did...did everything go all right with them?"

Dash had to grin. "They invited us to the wedding, so I'd guess so."

"Really?" Fluttershy turned those big lavender eyes toward her. "Then we're here for a different friendship problem?"

"I guess." Would the stupid magic even let her ask her next question? Dash shook her head and asked a different one instead. "So why did you wait for me? You could've dealt with this kraken thing by yourself easily enough."

Fluttershy shook her head. "We started this together, and we're going to finish it together." She ducked her head a little, and Dash could almost see the real her there behind everything. "And, well, when flying out to visit a giant, city-smashing monster, it's always nice to have a friend along."

"Then—" Holding up a hoof, Dash moved it back and forth between herself and Fluttershy. "We're okay? With each other? If you know what I mean?"

"I do." Fluttershy sighed. "And we are. It...it sounds like both of us get a little upset at ourselves sometimes, but when push comes to shove?" The smile she gave then was one hundred percent Fluttershy. "I wouldn't want to be any pony other than me."

"Yes!" Dash pulled into a hover, cranked her head around to stare past the hem of her sweater at her own flanks, and watched as they...as they—

Stayed yellow with pink butterflies.

"Oh, come on!" she shouted as well as she could with her soft little voice. "What the hay's going on around here, anyway?"

"What?" The air stirred beside her, Fluttershy backing her own wings and bobbing to a halt. "You...you thought the friendship problem was you and me? Or not you and me but you and you and me and me. Or—" Her throat tightened; she closed her eyes and swallowed. "Oh, this magic! It's almost as annoying as that awful voice I used to have in my head!"

Perking her ears, Dash spat out a laugh. "Yeah, that thing's the worst, isn't it?"

Fluttershy's eyes popped open. "You mean...you have one, too?"

Dash shrugged. "It's not usually as bad as it's been since this whole thing started, but yeah, it's always muttering away up here." She tapped her forehead.

Again, Fluttershy's throat wobbled, but she went on. "It tells me all the bad things that might happen if I do whatever I'm thinking about doing. I know it's not real, but I...I sometimes can't help listening..."

"Yeah." Dash found herself swallowing, too. "What gets me, though, is when it starts telling me the bad stuff that might happen if I don't do what I'm thinking..."

"Huh." Fluttershy cocked her head. "Maybe you should start thinking about the bad things that might happen if you do, and I should start thinking about the bad things that might happen if I don't."

"Huh." Dash cocked her head as well, and the sideways motion brought into clear focus the giant gray eyeball peering at them from between two masses of cloud not more than a couple flaps away. "Ummm..." she said.

Fluttershy gave a little snort, her mouth going sideways. "Seriously, though. Do you have to say 'ummm' so often? It's not—"

Raising a hoof and trying not to let it shake, she pointed. Fluttershy blinked, turned, and rasped out a sort of an "Eeep!" sound.

The eyeball—bigger, Dash was sure, than her whole cloud house—blinked once, and the air sort of rumbled. Not like a thunderclap and not like a rockslide and not like any other rumbling Dash had ever heard before, but the way it seemed to shake the sky all over, under, and around her, 'rumble' was pretty much the only word for it.

"Oh!" Fluttershy said. "Yes! Hello! Is...is there something we can do to help you?"

A little of the tightness in Dash's chest relaxed—if Fluttershy could talk to it, then maybe they'd all live through this—and she concentrated on keeping her wings flapping through the weird thrumming air: it moved almost like the wind was blowing, but all her weather senses kept telling her it was dead calm.

Okay, maybe 'dead' was the wrong word to use right here and now...

"Oh!" Fluttershy said again. "I'm so terribly sorry to hear that! If...if you'll hold on just a moment, I'll check to see what my friend thinks!" She spun around with another huge smile. "This is Krystal. She forgot her boyfriend Kraig's birthday yesterday, and he got awfully upset with her. She'd been having a rough week, though, and she yelled at him. That started an argument, and he flew off faster than she'd ever seen him move before. She got very, very worried about him, and she followed his trail all night right here to Cloudsdale."

It took some effort for Dash not to wonder out loud about giant squids named Krystal and Kraig, but fortunately, the more important question she could ask was: "You mean there's another sky kraken somewhere around here?"

"Oh. Ummm..." Fluttershy's blue cheeks blushed a dark purple. "You see, sky kraken exhibit extreme sexual dimorphism. The females are all, ummm..." She waved a hoof, and for the first time, Dash realized that most of what she'd taken for the gray clouds at the edge of a frontal boundary drifting toward her was in fact a thin layer of cloud with a humongous curving slab of squid stretching up, down, and away in both directions for just about as far as Dash cared to look right at that moment.

"While the males," Fluttershy was going on, "well, they're not much bigger than ponies, actually."

Of all the questions that popped into Dash's head this time, she decided to ask the safest one: "And she thinks he's hiding somewhere in Cloudsdale?"

"His scent makes her sure of it." Fluttershy waved to the city floating at station to the west and below them. "She wants to let him know she's sorry, but she remembers her grandma saying that the vibrations of a female kraken speaking can sometimes make clouds held together by pegasus magic liquefy into rain and fall to the ground."

Dash looked at Cloudsdale again, some of the tightness coming back into her chest. "Okay, yeah, that'd be a bad thing." Turning to Fluttershy—and the giant, cloud-framed eyeball behind her—Dash shrugged. "So what kind of things does Kraig like? What can we use to lure him out?"

"Ooo!" With a spin, Fluttershy spread her forelegs before the eye. "What would you have gotten him, Krystal, if you'd remembered his birthday? We can maybe get one of those, hold it up above the city, and announce that it's your apology present!"

Quickly holding up her own hoof, Dash added, "Make it two of them, whatever they are: one for his birthday, and the other for the apology."

Fluttershy nodded, but Krystal was already answering: at least, it was either that or some weird sort of inland hurricane was mixing up the local pressure gradients...

"Hmmm." Rubbing her chin, Fluttershy gave another nod. "She says he likes warm, soft things, and if they're colorful, that's even better. So all we have to do is find—" She stopped, her eyes going wide, and reached around to unfasten the flaps of her saddlebag.

"Perfect!" Dash sang out as loudly as she could, and she swooped over to grab a couple of the sweaters. "Does he like red or blue or green or what?"

It took several minutes to explain the plan to Krystal, but once she got it, her giant eye sort of squinted and she made a sound like machinery grinding that Dash hoped was a squeal of delight. After another several minutes of Dash holding all the sweaters up one after the other, Krystal picked a red one and a blue one that she thought would look good on her boyfriend.

Draping those two over her back, Dash packed the others into Fluttershy's panniers again while Fluttershy said, "Very good choices." A little shiver passed across her shoulders, and she looked at Dash. "I...I guess I'll have to be the one shouting and getting Kraig's attention. Can you be there holding the sweaters so he can see them?"

Dash couldn't help giving a little laugh. "You mean modeling them? 'Cause, y'know, one of us used to be a world-famous model. Just like one of us is currently a world-famous loudmouth."

"Now, now." Fluttershy raised a hoof. "You know as well as I do that some situations call for a loud mouth." She touched Dash's shoulder. "And we wouldn't have it any other way." With quick teeth, she refastened her pack. "Now. Shall we?"

They were already looking down on the city, so they headed straight across to a point above the tallest building in the center of town. Police ponies seemed to be hovering everywhere beneath them, and the muttering of thousands of confused pegasi drifted on the warm updrafts the city constantly generated. The sweaters clutched in her forehooves, Dash gave Fluttershy a smile and murmured, "Deep breath, now."

Fluttershy's nod was more a jerk of her head than anything else, but she did take a deep breath before shouting, "Kraig Kraken! Krystal wants you to know that she's very, very sorry she forgot your birthday and very, very sorry that she yelled at you when you got upset! She hopes you'll be able to forgive her, and she's gotten these two lovely sweaters for you to show you how sorry she is!"

The muttering had gone almost completely still, the police ponies staring at Fluttershy like she'd lost her mind. Dash didn't hesitate, though: with her left foreleg up inside the blue sweater and her right foreleg up into the red one, she held them out for all to see. She even did a slow turn, floating there beside Fluttershy, so this squid guy could get a good view no matter where in town he might be hiding.

She went all the way around once in the silence without anything happening and was just starting her second rotation when something gray and moving caught her attention. Rising quickly from the north end of Cloudsdale, it was the wrong shape and had way too many legs to be a pony, but as it got closer and closer, she could see it really wasn't all that much bigger than a good-sized stallion.

Of course, that was still way bigger than any squid had a right to be, but Dash somehow pulled a smile across her snout as the kraken jetted up and squeaked to a halt, some kind of gibbering sound squirting out of it.

"Yes," Fluttershy was saying, apparently in reply to the squid. "She asked us to come up here especially just to give them to you."

Not letting her smile waver, Dash held out the sweaters, and the squid guy did some more jabbering, flailing his legs around and sort of puckering parts of his head. He dove in close to Dash, and before she could flinch, he had squeezed himself up inside the red sweater, his head sliding through till his eyes popped out over the neck.

"Kraig says thank you very much," Fluttershy said behind her. "He'll just take the blue one in his tentacles, if that'll be all right."

Dash let go just as five or six legs came swarming up to snatch the other sweater, then with a few more burps and wiggles, Kraig shot away through the sky toward the massive shadowy shape of Krystal, still lurking around on the other side of the frontal ridge. One of those weird rumbling noises twitched across Dash, and the sky kraken began drifting away from the city.

"Krystal says thank you very much as well." The sudden whispery quality of Fluttershy's voice made Dash's ears leap straight up, and she twisted around, her haunches tingling. The butterflies on her flanks were twitching, glowing, cracking, and flaking, her own beautiful blue hide and flashing thunderhead showing through.

"Yes!" Spinning around, she watched part of the blue on Fluttershy's hind legs puff away like dust, pink butterflies seeming to dance and swirl there against a pale yellow background. "I'm Rainbow Dash!" she yelled, punching at the sky with a front hoof. "And you!" A quick barrel roll brought her to Fluttershy's side. "Say your name! Go on! Say it right out loud!"

Fluttershy giggled. "I'm Fluttershy." She wrapped her forelegs around herself and whispered it the second time: "I'm Fluttershy."

"And we are outta here!" Dash whirled, gave Cloudsdale a ragged salute, and—

"Oh, but we're not," Fluttershy said, her voice quiet but still hitting Dash right between the ears.

"What?" Dash waved her arms. "I mean, we just solved a friendship problem for a couple sky squids, Eff! I wanna get home, wash this dye off, get these contacts out, and do as close to nothing as I can for at least the next two or three days!"

Brushing at her forelegs, Fluttershy sighed. "I wouldn't mind getting cleaned up as well, but we did promise that nice Mr. Shrdlu a story for the Cloudsdale Sentinel."

It took a fair amount of effort for Dash not to just let herself drop all the way down to a loud and messy impact with the hills below. "You're kidding, right? Tell me you're kidding."

"We promised, Rainbow Dash."

"But— You— He— It—" Try as she might, though, Dash couldn't think of a way to finish any of those sentences. "Fine!" she finally got out through clenched teeth. "But not the whole story, right? I mean, saving Cloudsdale, yeah, but maybe we could leave out the part about the prank?"

"Rainbow! Are you suggesting that we lie?" Fluttershy's eyes went wide, but the twinkle in them told Dash all she needed to know. Groaning at the realization that every detail was going to be appearing in the Cloudsdale Sentinel the next day, Dash let herself sink toward the cheers that were starting to rise up to them from the city below.

Epilogue: Present Active Imperative

Twilight was blinking so much, Fluttershy almost wanted to offer her some eye drops. But then she already wasn't drinking the tea Fluttershy had poured for her, and, well, Fluttershy didn't want to impose.

"So now wait," Twilight said, her gaze moving back and forth between Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash, sitting at the end of Fluttershy's dining room table and taking a swig of the soda pop Fluttershy always kept in the refrigerator for her visits. "You...you're saying—"

Rainbow rolled her eyes and gave a pretty sizable belch. "I don't see what's so hard to get here, Twilight." She brushed at the medal Fluttershy was pretty sure she'd been wearing around her neck ever since the ceremony at the Commodores' Club two days ago. "Eff and me: we came, we saw, we conquered." She leaned forward and tapped the table, one of her great big grins stretching across her face. "Three friendship problems solved in one afternoon plus we saved the entire city of Cloudsdale from a couple sky kraken." She sat back. "Awestacular's the word I'm using for it."

"But—" Twilight was still blinking. "You did this all while disguised as each other?"

"Oh. Yeah." Rainbow gave half a shrug, and a blush darkened her face. "That."

The silence that followed seemed to beckon to Fluttershy even though that awful little voice was whispering, You'll just embarrass yourself...

"We had to be disguised, Twilight," she said, putting into words what she'd been thinking about ever since they'd gotten back. "If I'd been entirely me or if Rainbow had been entirely her, I don't think things would've worked out nearly as well."

"Huh?" Rainbow asked. "No way, Eff! I mean, c'mon! You still woulda taken care of those kraken pretty much the same way you did!"

Fluttershy raised a hoof. "But I wouldn't've been there to take care of the kraken. I would've been at the Commodores' Club with Misty and Hoops."

"So?" Her lips pursing, Rainbow poked at her can of pop. "I didn't do anything at the Club but sit there! You coulda done that easy!"

"I'm sorry to disagree with you again, Rainbow." Fluttershy reached across the table and touched her friend's hoof. "I spoke with Misty and Hoops at the reception after we got our medals, and they said you gave them exactly what they needed to hear exactly when they needed to hear it: something about patience and practice and working for what they wanted?"

"Oh. Yeah. I—" Rainbow's blush came back. "I guess I did, didn't I?"

"Yes, you did." Picking up her cup, Fluttershy took a sip of tea. "And while I very much enjoyed my time pretending to be you, I think you and Twilight should switch the next time."

"What?" Twilight's ears folded back.

But Rainbow's perked up. "Hey, yeah. Yeah! The dye job'd be a lot easier, and all I'd need would be some sorta hat-horn-thing to wear! You could probably magic up something like that, couldn't you, Twi?"

"Okay!" Twilight jumped to her hooves, her wings partially spread. "Well, it looks like you're both fine, and with the, uhh, odd circumstances here, I don't think we'll have to worry about this happening with the map again." Her horn started to glow. "I'll just file it under 'Anomalies,' and we'll call the matter closed. See you at Pinkie's Friday night!" And she vanished in a puff of purple light.

Rainbow laughed and sucked down the rest of her soda. "I kinda doubt that'd work, actually, me and Twilight switching. Can you imagine her remembering not to use magic the whole time?"

"That's true." Fluttershy sipped from her cup once more. "Which is why what I really think we should do next is pretend to be each other pretending to be each other."

Half a heartbeat went by, then Rainbow asked, "What?"

Glancing over, Fluttershy couldn't help giggling. "I'll pretend I'm you disguised as me, and you'll pretend you're me disguised as you. We won't have to bother with any dye, and all we'll have to do is tell the truth." She shook her head to muss up her hair just a little and put the tiniest bit of roughness behind her words. "No way! I'm totally Fluttershy! Why wouldja think I'm not?"

For a moment, the only thing Fluttershy could hear in the silence was the pounding of her heart and the voice in her head saying a lot of nonsense about how Rainbow was going to think that was the stupidest idea she'd ever heard. But Fluttershy was hardly even tempted to hide behind her bangs. She knew Rainbow better than that, and she knew—

"Eff?" Eyes wide, Rainbow had both her front hooves planted on the tablecloth. "Of all the awestacular things that anypony's every said to any other pony, that's the awestacularest!" She leaped into a hover, her chair tipping backwards onto the floor. "We'll do it for Pinkie's party Friday night! They'll all think we're trying to do the prank again, but we'll be doing a completely different prank! Uh, I mean—" She landed, set her chair back upright, and perched in it, her face and voice strangely bright and perky. "Oh, my, yes! As Rainbow Dash, I certainly agree that we should give it our very best try!"

Another second of silence, then Rainbow was pounding the table and laughing. Holding her teacup to keep it from spilling, Fluttershy giggled some more as well.