Rainbow Dash, Rainbow Dash, and Rainbow Dash watched Rainbow Dash from a distance. Dash and Dash still hadn’t gotten a clear explanation from Dash about what they needed Dash for, and any time either of them tried asking a question, they were quickly shushed. They didn’t understand, and they didn’t like it.

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Although she hadn’t liked the interruption, Twilight Sparkle had to admit that she was stuck in place with her studies and had hardly made any progress recently. Maybe this interruption could be useful and Rainbow Dash could remember a few details about how the process worked. Actually, that was a great idea. Twilight was ashamed she hadn’t thought to ask earlier and tried to stubbornly figure it out all on her own. Dash had already been through the procedure, and surely any details she could remember would be helpful.

“Hey Dash? What do you know about how this all works?”

“ME? You’re the egghead, I thought you were supposed to figure this all out!”

“Well you’ve done it already. Don’t you remember anything? Did I cast a spell on you, did I use any magical artifacts, was teleportation involved? You have to know SOMETHING.”

“Oh, um… well let’s see… I’m pretty sure you cast some kind of spell on me, and then you told me to do a Sonic Rainboom. You also warned me to get somewhere out of the way so I wouldn’t hit anything when I landed, but we both know what happened to Applejack’s farm. I swear I was somewhere over the Everfree forest when I did it though, so I don’t know how I landed there!”

Slowly but surely, the gears in Twilight’s head began to turn once more. A spell that affected an entity, not a location. That was a useful start. And then requiring a Sonic Rainboom, or at least a great deal of speed and/or energy in addition to the spell… And for some reason, the process could displace a pony by a fairly large distance… But how to combine the energies of the spell with something she knew so little about?

New ideas in mind and fresh theories to work on, Twilight Sparkle resumed her work with an intense vigor. She didn’t say another word to Dash, and didn’t notice her leave. She probably wouldn’t have noticed much outside of the library collapsing around her.

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Rainbow Dash, you are one clever pony. Dash thought to herself. Arriving back in the future, where everything made a LOT more sense, she had the most awesome idea for how to fix everything. Forget Twilight’s stupid charts! She would just go ASK Applejack what happened. Sure, in the past she had to be careful not to screw up timelines or whatever, but back here all that was already dealt with. She could just head right over to Sweet Apple Acres and ask her lovely marefriend what exactly she had been up to during the rather… chaotic… period leading up to the big talk. Being the element of Honesty, Dash knew she’d get the truth. It might make AJ a little angry to know Dash had been keeping the whole situation a secret, but she was sure that “not destroying all of space and time” would be a fine excuse.

Landing just in front of the farmhouse, the cyan pegasus knocked on the door. As the seconds rolled by, she became increasingly anxious. When the door finally opened, a great relief washed over Rainbow Dash. Here, after a very long and crazy series of events, she was finally in front of her marefriend. The one that knew how she felt, and returned those feelings. Unfortunately, it wasn’t time to rest just yet.

One horribly stapled together and incredibly inaccurate summary of the situation later, Applejack let out a long whistle. “I really wish I could help ya’ Dash, honest I do. But that whole mess I was such a trainwreck mahself I doubt I properly remember half o’ whut I was feeling when. All I know fer sure is when I first realized how ah felt about ya’ and how happy I was when we finally talked everything out.”

Dash nuzzled the earth pony gently. “I’m still pretty confused myself. My head is kinda spinning from all this crazy stuff. But I’m pretty sure I’ll never forget when I first realized how I felt about YOU, or how happy I’m going to be when I’m done with this and we can finally spend some time together.”

“We’ve both been waiting a long time, sugarcube. We’ll be okay waiting a little more. It’ll be nothin’ compared to tha months I was too afraid ta talk ta ya.”

“So hey, uh… when did you…?”

“Just a lil’ while after Pinkie’s hotsauce party.”

Dash shuddered remembering that particular event. “Huh. I think for me it was when I helped you go pick up that special fertilizer from Hoofington. I just remember that night when we set up camp on the way back I couldn’t get to sleep. I just couldn’t stop staring at you and I was having a hard time figuring out why.”

Applejack’s face twisted into a confused glare. “What trip ta Hoofington? Ah’ve never needed to go nowhere ta get no special fertilizer.”

There was a long silence, during which Dash thought much harder than she could remember thinking before. Finally breaking the silence as the pieces started to fall into place, Dash groaned. “Oh no... Applejack, I think we’ve got a long way to go before this is over.”

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Twilight Sparkle stared hard at her charts, muttering quietly to herself. “This can’t be right. It’s not making any sense at all! It’s like her feelings just... fell out of the sky! ..............”

Twilight facehoofed and grudgingly went to go start another pot of coffee. It was going to be a long night.