Daring Do was victorious again; she’d defeated the clowns of despair, rescued her assistant and retrieved the mystical orb of fate—

“Rainbow Dash! You awake in there?” the question was followed by a muffled knocking sound from downstairs.

Rainbow slowly dragged her eyes open, looking out the window. The sun was still low in the morning sky and she wondered to herself what in the name of Luna she was doing awake so early in the morning.

There was another knock from downstairs to remind her.

Ah the door, she thought to herself as she rolled herself out of bed onto the floor. This had better be good, waking me up from a Daring Do dream.

Groggily Rainbow Dash began to trudge out of her bedroom toward the centre of her cloud house, only to walk into the side of the archway out of her room. The bump on the head woke Rainbow out of her stupor with a burst of pain.

Not daring to take the stairs she opened her wings to glide down to the lower floor. “Raaaaiiiiinnnnboooow,” the voice called out again, followed by more muffled knocks on the cloud door.

How can somepony knock on a cloud?’Rainbow asked herself, no, it’s too early in the morning to think about that.

Rainbow opened the door and found a familiar purple blur.

”Good Morning, Rainbow Dash.”

“Who… Twilight? What a—”

“I teleported up here,” answered the unicorn as she stood outside, on a cloud, in the middle of the sky.

“But… how a—”

“Cloud walking spell,” she answered.

“Why?”

“I couldn’t wait to tell you,” a giddy note filled Twilight’s voice. “The new Daring Do book is coming out!”

“When?” Rainbow’s eyes widened, all thought of sleep gone.

“Next month, but I got the pre-print edition they sent out to all the libraries!”

“Where?” a manic desire took hold in Rainbow’s heart.

“Right here,” Twilight Sparkle proclaimed as she took a bundle of paper out of her saddle bags. It wasn’t properly bound, nor did it have a proper cover, but it was undoubtedly, undeniably, unbelievably, the next Daring Do book.

“I took a little convincing but—,” Rainbow interrupted Twilight’s speech as she shot forward and attempted to pull the paper out of the magic field. “Rainbow, stop that!”

A few minutes later the pair had calmly moved to Rainbow’s lounge room, like most of the cloud house it was rarely used despite the effort Rainbow had put into its construction. Twilight was impressed with how Rainbow Dash had used her talent at flying to construct her home and decided to ask for a proper tour later.

Twilight made herself comfortable on a cloud sofa while she manipulated a set of enchanted tea cups that Rainbow used whenever Fluttershy visited. The rainwater in the teapot was boiled with a burst of magic as Twilight prepared for a long reading session.

“So, do we have to read it together?” Rainbow asked.

“I only just received it this morning, Rainbow,” Twilight replied as she added tea leaves to the pot. “I haven’t even read it yet, so it will be quicker to read it together and we’ll be able to share opinions as we go,” Twilight clapped her hooves together in excitement.

Rainbow rolled her eyes, “So how are we going to do this?”

“Just sit on the couch next to me, I’ll just read over your shoulder.” Rainbow sat down next to Twilight and took hold of the first stack of paper.

“Daring Do and the Long Journey Home, Preprint edition, do not distribute out—”

“Just skip over the cover page, Rainbow. Nopony cares about those warnings.” Taking Twilight’s advice Rainbow turned to the first page.

“Chapter 1: The Tomb of the Zebra King’, so awesome!”

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