Rainbow Dash felt the air around her shift as she banked into a turn. Hitting the wind correctly and knowing the temperature of the air precisely. Or as precise as you could be with air- the air could always be a fickle thing as she often hit patches of air that made her crash into the earth at Mach 1 or higher.

Flying was a hazardous thing that even the most veteran pegasi had to contend with. Ponies on the ground though that Pegasi were these kind of weather wizards that just told the weather what they wanted. Rainbow Dash couldn't remember how many times Applejack came barging in on her free time and waking her up yelling about how Ponyville was in a drought and that those Cloudsdale ponies needed to fix their water rations.

Weather wasn't like that- you didn't have an infinite amount of water. It was tightly scheduled and there were always consequences- Ponyville could have all the water it needed, but what about Manehattan or Appleloosa? They'd have droughts too and the cycle would continue.

Rainbow frowned. She looked at the position of the sun on the ground and realized that she needed to quicken her pace and get the clouds all figured out or else Fluttershy would be mad that she was late to their girl time.

Well the yellow pegasus would try to be mad. She would end up more cute than angry. Quickly blushing at that though Rainbow sped up to a blur and quickly arced across the sky, her rainbow colors quickly adding a rainbow above Ponyville.

Fluttershy quietly ran through the checklist in her head. Party supplies, check. Cleaned dishes, check. Gave food to each and every one of her animals according to medical needs and correct times for both diurnal and nocturnal animals, check. Made sure her letters were all postmarked and ready for Derpy to pick up, check. Wrote a bit, check. Maybe cleaned up for Dash, check.

She blushed at that thought running quickly across her mind.

She glanced at the clock and noticed that her chores- of course minus the chores that had to be on a schedule- she was all caught up for the day and it only took her five hours. Glancing at the clock, she winced.

Ten am. Most of her friends would dislike her schedule. But Pinkie and Applejack might be okay with it- they both came from farms and Pinkie was a baker. They might not care all that much. But Dash? Fluttershy thought of her waking up at four am. She couldn't. It seemed too alien for her little pegasus snuggle partner.

She glanced outside to see the day unfolding in Ponyville and smiled. Looking up into the sky, she could track Rainbow Dash, as her rainbow trail lit up the sky. She hummed to herself as she turned away to tidy up the rest of her abode and get her get together with Dash all good and ready.

She felt happy.

Dash glided across Sweet Apple Acres as she finished her rounds and glided across fields and hills as she saw the town of Ponyville Seeing the bustling business at Rarity's now after she got that new place up and running took some getting used to. Pinkie didn't care, she saw it as a way to introduce ponies to the Cakes' baked goods. Rainbow just thought Ponyville lost some of its charm. The quiet, little town got a bit louder and harder to sleep in.

Of course she would never tell Rarity that.

Then there was Twilight's castle. Rainbow Dash didn't like its look all that much. It screamed look how huge and important I am while Twilight was the nerdiest, eggheaded, weirdo. Not some princess. She like loved pancakes and Daring Do. Rainbow Dash couldn't imagine the other Princesses loving that stuff.

Gliding further to the edge of Ponyville, she saw the edge give way to forest and she knew that she was just that much closer to Fluttershy's. It was rather nice out here. The trees stretched lazily through the air and there was always some kind of calming noises that made her feel welcomed in this place. Now having Fluttershy out here didn't hurt either, but she liked being out and surrounded by nature in some way. Rainbow thought maybe that was the reason why she liked her job so much.

Freedom.

Gliding on down, she touched the grass and walked through the yard dodging rabbits and the borrowing holes of amny different animals that Fluttershy cared for. She would have went faster if she didn't feel an angry paw yanking on her polychromatic tail.

"Ow, come on. Is that you Angel? I got to get going to see Shy."

Rainbow felt the rabbit bound up her back and bounce right on her head. His foot beating 5/4 time on her skull as her peered over and stared at her.

"What?"

He started working in some weird charades and pointing at his wrist. Time? Rainbow Dash was terrible at charades. Well her friends would also say she could also be a bit oblivious. She just liked being direct sometimes.

"What? Am I late or something?"

Angel frowned and nodded.

Rainbow sighed and walked slowly to the door. She felt the little rabbit laying on her back. Somehow she knew he was grinning in some weird joke he had against her.

Before she could knock, the door to Fluttershy's cottage opened and Rainbow Dash looked up and smiled. Fluttershy was one of her tallest friends- though Rainbow did tend to be on the small pegasus side. That or Fluttershy's parents were giant pegasi. That always had the strange effect of ponies expecting the yellow pegasi to be a commanding model or some kind of sex symbol.

Rainbow Dash laughed at that idea. She was just a big, sweet pony.

"Hi, Dash." Fluttershy's voice was like a crystal clear bell. It rang out and caught Dash's attention, yet it was quiet and warm. There was a little bit of a joking manner. Rainbow wondered why. She was only going to get tea with her closest friend.

"Hey. Sorry for being late. There was a lot of turbulence around the Everfree so it took me a little bit longer."

Fluttershy raised an eyebrow at this. "Really? I wouldn't think you'd be slowed down that much. I mean you do tend to break the sound barrier all the time."

"Well there was a totally radical super wall of wind and so I totally had to fight it off to save the town."

Fluttershy laughed at that. "Well that had to be a really hard thing to do. I really thought I felt some blast of wind a few minutes ago. It must have been you."

"Oh yeah. Well let's get this party started."

Fluttershy slowly brough the tea over her cup and poured as Dash continued to talk about her day.

"-well that was when Cloudchaser and Thunderlane really got mad at each other."

It was hard to concentrate completely on her task of pouring her tea and Rainbow's since Discord told her that the best way to pour gilded lily tea was as slow and carefully as possible so as to not break the golden aura. He gave it to her as a gift for their friendiversary. She wanted to put her best hoof forward to make her date with Dash the best she could.

She was right in the middle of pouring the next cup of tea when a quick rapping at her door startled her enough to almost drop the tea. Fluttershy winced, waiting for the sound of shattering glass, but there was nothing. Opening her eyes, she saw Rainbow's magenta orbs staring back at her blue eyes, inches apart. Quickly turning beet red, Fluttershy felt her wings want to show her feelings, but thinking fast she flexed her wings just enough to make them stay down.

"Oh I-I'll be right back." Fluttershy blushed and walked as fast as she could.

She fumbled for the door and as she opened it, she was blinded for a second by her eyes adjusting to the sun. Blinking quickly, she was greeted by a big mass of pink hair.

"Hi, Fluttershy, how are you doing today? Cause I'm doing fantastic but y'know, like maybe I am not doing so great cause Twilight told me to get two friends that would work super well for an experiment and I tried to ask Rarity and Applejack. But I went to the Boutique and Rarity's helper, Coco, said she was out. And I asked the Apples where Applejack was and they said the barn, but when I went to the barn it sure sounded like Applejack and somepony else were super duper busy so I went here. I would have asked Twily if we could do the experiment, but after the last time, where she accidentally turned me into a guy, I guessed that would totally be a bad idea."

Fluttershy just imagined Pinkie Pie as a stallion and only came up with a pink Big Mac in her head and she wished that hadn't been the case.

"Uh, that sounds like you two had fun."

"Oh yeah, Twilight sure had a good time. We totally hung out and she got all wet from swimming in a lake and all."

"Oh, well if you don't need me, I'm going to go see if Rainbow needs anything cause you sure surprised us."

Pinkie smiled. "Oh so that's where Dash was. I was looking for her and everypony saw her go this way."

"Yes." Fluttershy tried to keep her smile up but she really wanted to go show Rainbow Dash her bedroom and accidentally make the date more awesome. First idea, start with tea, then go from there. That's what her confidence books all told her to do. Pinkie sure was making her date a bit more awkward than she had hoped for. "Um, so what do you want Pinkie?"

Pinkie put a hoof up to her chin and thought. After a few seconds her face lit up with a perfectly okay idea. "Aha, I got it. See Twilight only needs you two for a little bit and not for all day, so you can put your date on hold and help Twilight and go back to your date. No problemo."

Fluttershy tilted her head at that. "How did you know it was a date?"

Pinkie laughed and hopped in place. "Well let's see Dash and you are in your house, and I can smell tea. You don't offer ponies tea all that often- at least you don't cause that's just you, like you're always so busy. But this is special. Like show somepony your room special. And running by your body language, you have been tapping your hoof impatiently, your wings are in full display. Which by the way, you totally have a great wingspan, totally equal to Twily's impressive pair, but no matter, and you have a fake smile at the corners of your mouth."

"What how did you- I didn't mean, Pinkie." Fluttershy felt her blood slowly draining from her face and wings.

Pinkie smiled. "Oh sorry, photographic memory. Pretty much impossible to turn off. Sorry, Twilight's been telling me to dial it back outside of our study sessions and you did ask. It's not like I'm Ponyville's premier party pony for nothing. And that includes all parties- though ponies do have to convince me to do non family friendly parties. It's always easier to let everypony in. Though you would be surprised what ponies do behind closed doors. It's just the most boggling thing ever."

"Oh, so does Twilight want us now or later?" Fluttershy thought to herself how much easier it would be to just get this over with and not keep thinking all these thoughts that Pinkie, in her infinite pseudo naivete, kept giving her.

"Probably now would be the best, see you soon, but not too soon. I really want to say hi again to Twily and tell her that I totally found two ponies that might be okay with her experimenting on them." Pinkie bounded away happily singing to herself.

Fluttershy turned to tell Dash the strange news, but realized that in all of Pinkie's wisdom, she didn't know what exactly Twilight had in store for them. Turning back to yell at Pinkie, she noticed that the pink pony had completely disappeared.

Rainbow flew as quick as she felt like it. She didn't want to ruin the moment of carrying Fluttershy cause the yellow pegasi was completely inadequate for Rainbow Dash speeds.

And maybe it felt nice having her hold onto her.

But mainly it was because Shy was so slow.

"So tell me again why I have to do this. Like do I have to?"

Fluttershy's voice came from below Dash in a slight echo because of the speed. "I mean we just have to see what's going on with Twilight and see if its safe or not."

Dash rolled her eyes. "Oh of course, not like she's caused the town to fall in love with dolls or become an alicorn by messing with our destiny. Or any of the other weird friendship experiments she gets up to on a daily basis. I'll be hopefully optimistic she's not going to cause us complete harm. Just painful, friendship lesson harm."

Dash looked down and saw Fluttershy using a low level form of the Stare on her.

Well okay, more like angry, not the Stare, but totally painful disappointment eyes. Totally 110 percent fatal to all comers. Though it could just be that Dash had a thing with a cute face. Or guilt. Or just Fluttershy was totally heavy and her arms were getting tired and the ground near Twilight's Eyesore Castle was super close.

Totally option three.

Folding her wings up, she slowed her descent enough for Fluttershy to land softly on the ground. Score one for good landings.

"Well I hope this won't take too long. You kind of had some radical tea."

"What was that, Dash?"

"Uh, this I hope this won't be boring me."

"Probably not."

Fluttershy heard what Dash had said. She cheered quietly in her head. She felt Dash slowly creep up beside her. The thing about Twilight's castle was that it was ridiculously huge. And echoed like crazy. Which normally would be a good thing if you needed to know exactly where Twilight was. Which coming from the noises coming from the air and the male voice that accompanied it, the pair definitely didn't want to find them.

"Arr, Princess Twilight I'll be coming for that booty."

"Please, I have given you my ransom and that means you have to give me a boat or at least keep me pure."

"Yarr, with how you be acting I believe you would prefer walking my plank, I made it extra wide for you."

Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy quickly shared a look, both blushing profusely.

"Pinkie stay in character please. This is important."

The male voice chuckled deeply. "Oh of course Twily, though didn't you something super important like I don't know like an experiment you had to plan for?"

"Later. Come back to bed just for a little bit. You know how hard being a Princess can be."

Fluttershy and Dash turned into Twilight's quarters as Pinkie and Twilight came out of Twilight's room. The two pairs stopped and stared. Twilight said nothing as her home made princess outfit felt oddly wrong in this case. And nopony said anything about Pinkie. A period accurate pirate costume hung tightly across Pinkie. A decidedly male Pinkie. Dash looked down and then up at the perfect specimen of maleness that had the color scheme of her pranking buddy. Fluttershy noted to herself how similar Big Mac and Pinkie looked in this case and chalked it up to recessive Apple Family genes on the Pie side. Pinkie just blushed, his mizzen mast in full display. Pinkie talked first, a deep baritone echoing through the halls.

"I told you guys to give me a few moments to say hi to Twilight."

"The less said about the last five minutes the better." Twilight had a slightly crazed look in her eye as she whisked around the room, readying the experiment."

Rainbow chuckled. "I mean it would be hard to forget."

Twilight glared at Dash.

Pinkie chimed in, now completely female. "Twilight does this mean no more Party Cannon?"

Rainbow laughed harder. "Wait, Pinkie, you call your dick that? Isn't that your name for your actual cannon?"

"Yeah, but it works the exact same way. Pull it out and ponies get a good time."

"Pinkie! Can we please stop the innuendo and get on with this? I mean Fluttershy's here and I bet she doesn't want to hear this." Twilight groaned as she finished the setting up of her machine, waiting for the jokes and 'witty banter' to die down before firing up her newest test.

"Don't worry Twilight, I am okay with your completely natural responses to pheromones. I do work with animals.Nature's kind of a completely natural thing." Fluttershy offered weakly, trying not to smile.

"And come on Twilight, you just keep coming up with perfect jokes. Innuendo? What is that a sex position?" Dash and Pinkie both fell on the floor giggling.

"I am surrounded by ponyfeathering idiots. Well now that we have all got our little laughs for the day at my expense, here's what I actually called you for."

Twilight quickly lit up the machine to get everypony's attention. It was a large machine with two helmets at two separate ends with two comfy chairs. The wires of the helmets met in the middle and tied around a large crystal.

"Ooh, shiny." Pinkie oohed and aahed at the machine for dramatic effect.

"Yes, well. I came up with this idea after re-purposing my little Pinkie experiment. I gave up trying to figure out Pinkie Sense and thought if I could use the basic mainframe of that and figure out how ponies could get closer together if they share their memories, it could be interesting."

Dash quickly raised her hand.

"Yes, Dash?"

"So if I'm getting this right, you made a relationship machine? Isn't that like Cadance's whole deal?"

Fluttershy twitched in her seat. That sounded rather exciting, if true. She could finally tell Dash exactly how she felt and didn't have to worry about being unheard by Dash's patented powers of completely missing the point.

"Uh, well I hope not. Though I mean friendship could be seen as a possible way to love. Pinkie Pie remember to tell me that later."

Pinkie saluted. "I always do."

"But back to the machine, you two sit on both sides and share memories. There is literally not a chance there could be anything wrong there. I planned for every possible eventuality."

Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy shared a quick look.

Twilight frowned. "Okay every eventuality that was most statistically likely in regards to a test that will last a few minutes."

"Fine. Not like we have much to lose anyway. I mean your tea has to be getting cold by now and I'm totally getting bored by Egghead's talking." Rainbow Dash quickly took a seat and Fluttershy slowly walked to hers.

Twilight facehoofed. "Oh of course, Dash, I'll speed up my highly unsafe test that needs to be properly calibrated to work." Twilight shook her head and ran through the safety checks. Finally, after minutes of tightening straps and making sure the crystal was properly placed, she gave the go ahead and Pinkie pressed the button.

Fluttershy blinked. She felt woozy as the machine started working.

"Honey we need to drop you off at camp, cause you need to learn how to fly. I love you and your dad loves you but you need to learn. I can't have ponies wondering if I somehow got a weird hybrid kid. Oh don't worry. You'll get that when you are older. Love you..

Haha, if it isn't the freak. What did your parents leave you here?

She swam in her memories. Each one coming faster and faster.

Come on Rainbow Dash, can we leave the poser behind? She's just going to slow us down.

And faster

One moment Fluttershy was on the safety of a cloud. The next, she was hurtling down towards the earth a resounding cheer in her ears and a giant rainbow. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. She felt happy and as the smile stayed on her face, her descent slowed to a stop. Opening her eyes, she was greeted by Ponyville. That was the beginning of her new life. She hadn't seen her family since. They forgot to look for her.

So she holed up in Ponyville, Rarity's family helping her learn her gift and providing her money to buy a house that was just on the edge of the Everfree Forest. All she wanted was acceptance.

Dash's head hurt as the memories flooded her.

Miss, your kid is a flying prodigy. But there's some tests we need to do. Just in case.

Hey, my name's Gilda. What's yours?"

Come on Rainbow Dash, can we leave the poser behind? She's just going to slow us down. Rainbow Dash hesitated. But she left.

Dash felt sadness deep in her chest. She forgot that happened. How could she forget that happened it wasn't like Flight Camp wasn't the most important moment in her life before becoming an Element of Harmony.

Rainbow Dash felt pure joy as she felt her purpose in life. The trail of rainbow arced across the sky as the first recorded Sonic Rainboom was felt across Equestria. In the corner of her eye, she could see a falling yellow blur.

Dash, honey, we need your talent. We have all the possible talent scouts knocking down our door. They want you, you can be a prodigy. You can be special. We need you.

Please honey, just one more time. See, we have so much riding on this. Don't mess this up for us.

She wanted to curl up into a ball.

Where are you going, Dash? Look at me. You can't just leave. We are your parents. Ponies love you, they love watching you be above them, performing your little Rainboom act. Ponies will pay for that. You'll be their nice little hero.

She had said no and ran. Ran to the furthest place she could think of being raised as a circus sideshow, barely seeing the world outside of a circus. Someplace quiet and calm and where ponies didn't know her. Ponyville.

She felt calm. Entirely calm. Reliving memories that she pushed back in her head, and having them pop back up like little skeletons in her closet. Everything was simple flashes. Memories condensing into basic sentences, those sentences blurring the actual memory into sound bites, each bite hurting a little more. That was all that memories were, things that could be either good or bad and just popped up quietly reminding Dash of what she wanted. Freedom.

There was a quick feeling of pain and the machine stopped.

Rainbow Dash blinked and felt horribly groggy. Brushing her hair gently, she felt weird. Where there should be spiky, awesomeness, she only felt flowing locks. And shaking her head, she started to notice everything looked smaller.

Oh and that she was hayfeathering yellow.

She spoke aloud and only heard Fluttershy's voice- and thinking to herself she felt both her own memories and Shy's.

She heard her tomboyish, leather treated voice. Smooth, yet grainy, and Dash thought to herself, maybe affected by multiple seasons of cider. It was weird hearing her own voice when she knew it wasn't actually her. Also hearing her own voice felt wrong, like it didn't sound like she remembered- it felt higher pitched and almost empty of feeling.

"Twilight, I think we have a problem. Cause I'm Fluttershy and this isn't my body."

Twilight swore.