, love, it’s

a stick, a stone, it’s the end of the road, it is days spent alone and nights with nowhere to go, a bump, a scratch, a long time ago, the feeling you once knew but now don’t know, it’s work, it’s wet, it’s pay once a week, a fight with a beast, a taste of defeat, it’s out there somewhere teasing with you, a sense of adventure, you don’t have a clue, it’s the sun on your back and your wings in the air, and the thought’s filling you and your heart with despair, it’s out of this world, it’s out of this berg, it’s not like you’ve ever seen the rest of the world, the bow, the draw, the horizon, it croons, but the weekend is over and work starts soon

Rainbow Dash leaned back in her chair and stared off into the distance. Her vision was 20/20. She could see the distant shapes of cloud formation moving over the horizon. If she tried, she could reach them just in time to take her pre-bedtime nap.

Yet she was still sitting here outside this little coffee shop, drinking coffee that could never win any awards if it tried, while Rarity sat across from her and talked about her day. The sun felt good, but Dash was in no mood to bask. No, she burned.

Rarity tapped her hoof against the table.

Dash looked around. “What’s up?”

“Were you listening?” Rarity asked, her face neutral but knowing.

“You were just saying how Coco Pommel stopped by last week with new specialty orders from Canterlot, it was nice to see her again, you loved her mane, you always love her mane, and then there were some technical things about how certain seam patterns flatter her outfits.” She sat back like a foal who had just schooled her teacher.

“Would it hurt so much to engage with me? Make a little eye contact?”

“I just zoned out.”

Rarity put her hoof on the table. This only meant she would soon be taking Dash’s hoof and squeezing it a little, and then there would be no hope of Dash paying attention at all.

“Are you okay?” Rarity asked.

“Mm’fine.” Dash looked away again. The town was quiet this time of day. Not silent, but quiet. It made talking harder somehow. “I met a couple long-range weatherponies today at work. They were making a pitstop at our office and staying the night. They’re working on stabilizing the jetstream north of here.”

“That sounds exciting.”

“Yeah, it does.” Was that loud? Dash wasn’t sure. “They travel all across Equestria. See those clouds up there?” She pointed to the wispy line marking the jetstream high above them.

“Erm--not really. That one there?”

“No. Look, second to the Wonderbolts they’re the coolest flyers in Equestria. They rode the jetstream into town and they’re just hanging out in the weather office.”

“Impressive,” Rarity said, though it almost sounded like she didn’t mean it.

“Yeah, it is.” Okay, so now she was definitely being loud. Why shouldn’t she? This was compelling stuff. Rarity needed to understand. “One of the northwest currents was getting out of control and dragging all the west coast clouds inland. These ponies just flew right up there and, and, I don’t even know how they did it, but they must have kicked it really hard or something because the clouds are all fixed.” Rainbow Dash sat back down and stared into her coffee. “They’re really cool.”

Dash felt Rarity take her hoof as she asked, “Are you okay, really? You can’t fool me.”

It was all over now. If anypony else had asked her that same question, Dash would have brushed it off. But Rarity had bought her coffee, and it wasn’t a date but it was just the two of them, and she was staring, not intensely but intently. So Dash just had to make an exception here.

She thought about how to open up without opening up all at once, which from her years of experience with her neurotic friends tended to look pretty bad. If she weren't so terrible at it herself, maybe it would be easier. She finally settled on a question. “Have you ever had a moment where you’re in a train, and you’re flying by some pit stop you’ve never heard of before, and you think, wow, I’m never going to go there, never gonna lay eyes on that place again, never gonna touch it or experience it, and it makes you kinda sad even though you don’t know why? You just--” She stopped short. Not all at once. “Do you ever think that?”

“I suppose. I guess I don’t think about it too often.”

“Well, I don’t think that anymore.”

“Oh. And that’s... good?”

“No!” Too loud. Who cares? The other patrons seemed pretty interested in what she was saying too. They stared at her with confused faces. One sipped wine with a straw at the next table over. Wasn’t that supposed to be better on your teeth? It looked almost as bad as opening up in the middle of the lunch rush. Where was she? “It’s not good. I don’t know, maybe that was a bad example. I’ve seen everything there is to see in the Ponyville box, and the box around Canterlot too for that matter. I can’t just fly away even though my job stinks and fighting monsters is like another job now. I almost let the wyrm that attacked us last week eat me just to spice things up.”

“You did what?”

“I can’t even fly too high most days cuz Ponyville’s right under the jetstream. Do you know where those weather ponies were when they started their day? Vanhoover. They started their day on the other side of the continent and they’re breaking here for lunch. I could barely cover that kind of distance at rainboom speeds, and I’m just sitting here drinking coffee while everyone else is so happy to be stuck here.” Dash looked up. “I didn’t mean that in a bad way.”

Rarity nodded. “I think I know what you’re getting at.”

“You do?”

“Yes, and I know just the solution--”

“You do?” Too loud! Too late at this point. The waiters were already huddling together by the door trying to come up with a polite way to kick the town heroes out without hurting business. Dash was certain they’d do just fine.

Rarity continued, “My dear, you’re simply getting cabin fever. You need a vacation.”

“I don’t get vacation days. I’m the manager. I have to tell everyone what to do.”

“You hardly ever take vacations longer than a siesta, anyway. I’ll bet you have plenty of days saved up. Your next-in-line would take over in your place, and you could fly all across the continent and do whatever you’d like.”

The wheels turned in Dash’s mind. Slowly, but surely. “I never thought about not showing up because I didn’t feel like it,” she said.

“Of course not,” Rarity replied, her smile as heavy as a cartful of bricks.

Dash soon had a smile on her face, too. “You can just tell everypony you’re not gonna do your job for a weekend,” she marvelled, “and they’ll let you. And you’re the boss, so they have to listen to you.”

“Well, I wouldn’t word it exactly like that--”

Dash had already stood up, her eyes bright again. She slammed the rest of her coffee, hardly noticing the burning tingling of her tongue, then took off towards the weather office.

She zipped back to the table a moment later, panting. “Um,” she said. “Rarity?”

“Yes?”

“Where do you go when you want to get away?”

Rarity smiled. “I have a few leads.”

As it turned out, roaming the continent without a plan was a pretty horrible idea for a novice traveler. Lucky for Dash, it just so happened that Rarity also needed a vacation. At the time, this didn’t surprise Dash in the slightest. Looking back on it, she would consider this a miracle.

The evening before their weekend began found them inside Carousel Boutique preparing. As Rarity packed, Dash laid on her friend’s plush bed and tossed a pillow in the air. Sometimes she caught it. Mostly she let it fall on her face.

“How about this one?” Rarity asked, levitating a bright green piece of swimwear.

Dash peeled the pillow off her face and gave it a slow look before letting her head fall back to the bed. “I don’t know. It looks fine.”

“Yes, but would it look good in tropical water?”

“What? It’ll be underwater. Who cares what it looks like if it’s underwater?”

“My dear, tropical water has different color properties than lake water or ocean water. It’s important to find something that works with the environment. Darker colors work well for lakes. Patterns work well in the ocean.” She pursed her lips and brought the swimsuit closer. “This color, I think, would work for tropical water.”

Dash groaned and covered her face with the pillow again. “Just hold it up to the sky or something,” she muttered, her voice muffled. “Tropical water’s about the same color.”

“Yes, the color is similar, but you must try to envision the properties of the water shimmering across the garment.”

The pillow flew across the room and slumped uselessly in the corner. “It looks perfect, okay? Everything you wear is perfect.”

Rarity narrowed her eyes and returned to her wardrobe. “You’re just anxious to leave.”

Dash put her hoof in her mouth and looked for another pillow.

It had been decided the day before that the two of them would visit San Diamingo, an island off the east coast of Equestria that had once been the site of a great diamond dog mine. Once the gems dried up a hundred or so years ago, they sold the island and headed inland. Now, the island was a haven for travelers like them, too remote for the average tourist and not remote enough for the hardcore adventurer. The brochures from Ponyville’s travel office showed isolated cabins on the beach, hiking trails snaking through a tropical jungle up to the summit of the island’s single mountain, a small town full of cheap restaurants and clubs, and enough thermals of rising warm air for a world-weary pegasi to glide on for hours.

Dash was most interested in the restaurants.

Using the old “elements of harmony” discount, Rarity and Dash were able to secure a cabin on the east side of the island for next to nothing. As with so many things in life though, the real fun came in the journey.

The jetstream had an inherently magical quality to it. Pegasi could feel it instinctively, though few had the arcane knowledge and strength to control it. All the weather in the entire continent gathered its power from this single source. Most ponies didn’t dare ride the current--the winds were just as liable to dislocate your wings as they were to carry you hundreds of miles off-course. Invisible bands of fierce wind and magical energy. Untamed, unconquerable, stationary yet ever-changing. Up there was pure uncontrollable magic ripping across the sky at incredible speeds Some ponies who navigated the channels claimed to see things while they were in the midst of it, premonitions of future events or magical-induced hallucinations of higher dimensions.

And one branch of it just happened to run from Ponyville to San Diamingo, approximately.

So before Rarity had a chance to decide which swimsuit went best with tropical water, before the long-range weather team had a chance to rest up and resume their work, before the staff at San Diamingo even had time to realize what chaos was about to befall their little resort, Rainbow Dash made her travel plans.

Rarity would take the train to the coast. She would hop on a boat at the coast and sail right up to their cabin and stick a flag with her cutie mark in the sand for all it mattered.

Dash would fly.