The waves rocked back and forth, slowly rising and falling and the foot of a short cliff perched over the ocean. Its steep, rocky walls were decorated and speckled with bubbling foam, left in the wake of the sloshing seawater. At the top of the inclined wall, a peaceful plain, flat and level, rested nonchalantly above the water below. Serene was such a plain, covered in luscious flowers and grasses, and speckled with tiny ponds of pure, blue water. The waves' movement conjured a soothing song of crashing and retreating incessantly, and a warm maritime wind blew a soft whistle in from the sea.

Straight above the highest part of this beautiful, quiet land, a flat cloud, rounded at the edges, floated with grace. The cloud, burdened with the weight of a heavy object, did not move or flow with the wind; rather, it simply remained in its current position over the land.

The object that was causing this cloud to do so was none other than a lighthouse.

This particular lighthouse, a proud cylinder of cement jetting upward into the stars and warm glow of moonlight above, displayed a color pattern of alternation between a snow white and sleek black. A long, wide, and circular flowerpot wrapped around the base of the structure, adorned with roses and gardenias of all kinds. Small insects bustled about the plants in the warm summer air, their soft wings creating a relaxing tune of buzzing and wind. The shaft of the lighthouse itself floated against the gleaming ocean water that sparkled from the light of the moon in the sky. Its pinnacle cut the nighttime skyline, the very tip appearing to rest on the surface of Luna's moon. It was bound with a powerful, permanent cloud walking spell in order to ensure that it would remain on the belly of the cloud for an eternity.

Back on the land, to the right of the area above which the cloud was, there was a rectangular sort of a house. Inside, the sweet hum of a sweet song filled each room as a young pegasus filly in her childhood pressed the keys of the instrument. Her younger brother stood beside her, waiting his turn on the piano.

A decent distance away, at the foot of where this beautiful patch of land started, a small flash sparked in the air and a purple mare and dragon appeared out of nowhere.

Twilight Sparkle fell to the ground, dazed from her long distance teleportation spell. She looked to her left, then to her right, then in all directions around her. The purple little dragon was nowhere to be found.

"Spike? Spike? Where are you?" Twilight began to shout frantically.

From below her, a slow, long moan gave her an answer.Twilight giggled sheepishly, blushing a bit.

"Oh. Heh, there you are, Spike."

"Yeah," Spike replied, a hint of annoyance in his voice. "Mind getting off me?"

"Oh. Sorry."

Twilight quickly shuffled to her hooves, hearing Spike continue to groan as she slowly pulled herself off of him.

"You've really gotta consider where we're gonna land when you use that spell, Twilight..." Spike muttered through his half open mouth.

As he stood up, Twilight's expression turned from embarrassment to horror. Spike wasn't the only thing that was crushed. On Spike's belly, there were bits of crushed plastic and other pieces of technology. She looked on the ground where he had lain a few seconds ago. Her fears had been confirmed; Spike had fallen on and broken the machine to bits.

"Spike! What did you do?" she exclaimed.

"What are you talking..." he managed to get out before he saw the busted machinery in pieces laying in the dirt.

"Oh, horseapples..." Spike said. "Sorry."

Twilight let out a sigh, then shook her head.

"It's fine... it was my fault anyway," she said. Suddenly, she began to panic. "What are we gonna tell the boss?"

Spike scratched his chin and thought.

"Meh," he started, "just tell him that we tried to use it on the patient and it broke."

"That doesn't explain why it's shattered to a billion pieces!" she shouted back.

"Jeez, fine," he replied. He thought again, this time with a little more focus. Still, he could think of nothing.

"I dunno, Twilight. Can't help ya here."

Twilight let out a frustrated grunt, and then teleported away. It took Spike by surprise, and he fell back onto his rear.

By the time Spike regained awareness and began to wonder where Twilight went, another spark shot out in the air and there she was again, another machine in hand. She took caution to levitate herself to the ground, tightly grasping the machine as she did so. At last she reached the dirt.

"Got a new one," she said with an evil giggle.

Spike didn't like the sound of it. "So uh... what did you tell him?" he inquired.

Twilight shot him a sly grin with a tint of mischief.

"I told him that we were walking to the destination, you were carrying the machine, and you tripped and dropped it," she said, then burst out in a giggle fit when she saw Spike's expression on his face.

"Twilight! What the hay?" he shouted. "The boss is gonna be pissed at me!" he snorted.

Twilight calmed down from her laughter and reassured Spike.

"Don't worry, it'll be fine. The boss didn't even care, strangely enough. I guess it's just that we have so many of these darn things that when one gets broken, it's 'no big deal' to him."

Spike still looked ticked off.

"Whatever... he muttered under his breath, walking over to her. Twilight laid the machine into his arms, and he huffed a bit from the weight as he took it.

"Let's go," she said.

And so the two began their walk to the house that was their destination.

*****

After a walk of little conversation along several winding paths to the house (in which Spike's annoyance had cooled down), they at last arrived at the front door. The two of them could hear piano music emitting from the inside.

Twilight put up a hoof to the door and knocked a few times. Then they waited. Spike began to tap his foot impatiently.

"So, what's the deal with this guy?" Spike said, trying to strike up a quick conversation to pass the waiting time of one of his least favorite activities: waiting for somepony to answer the door.

"Hm?" Twilight asked.

"Our patient, I mean. What's his deal?"

"Her," Twilight corrected. "It's a mare."

"Oh," Spike simply replied.

Before the conversation could go any further, an middle-aged orange Pegasus mare answered the door. She had a ruffled violet mane, and her wings were tucked at her sides. When she took note of the two, she started speaking.

"Please, come in," she said.

Spike grabbed the machine, and the two of them entered the house.

When inside, the mare began to speak once again.

"Dr Sparkle and Spike, I presume?" she said.

"That's us," Spike said.

"The name's Scootaloo," the mare said quietly, looking back at them.

"Ah," Twilight responded. "And what relationship do you have to Ms..."

Twilight trailed off. She hadn't known the name of the client, she realized.

"Ms. Rainbow Dash. She prefers to be called Dashie, though. And I'm her caretaker... though I was close to her back in my childhood. We kind of live here as well."

"So, this Dash... what does she want before she kicks the bucket?" Spike said quickly.

"Spike!" Twilight shouted at him.

Twilight shot him an annoyed glance for being so bold and upfront. In their line of work, they'd seen ponies crying when they arrived at their house; the fact that a loved one was going to die sometimes was still a sore spot for friends and family of their clients. And he had the nerve to say something like that out of the blue? Spike should know better, Twilight thought. Still, this Scootaloo pony didn't seem offended.

"Please, it's okay," Scootaloo responded. "Why don't you come upstairs? The doc will explain everything to you."

"Okay," Twilight said. "Also, I remember you said that 'we live here' a few seconds ago... do you have any-"

Is if on cue to answer Twilight's question, out of nowhere, a young pegasus colt and filly darted through the room, rushing past the three of them and nearly knocking Spike onto his rear for the second time that night.

Scootaloo's face contorted to a frown, and she yelled:

"Dawn! Blade! No running in the house!"

Her shout was in vain, though; the two kids had already run past them and into another room, giggling rapidly as they did so. Scootaloo bowed her head and sighed.

"Are they...?" Twilight began.

"Those... that's my daughter, Dawn, and my son, blade. They're a handful, as you can see..." Scootaloo said.

"That's an understatement..." Spike uttered, receiving a smack in the back of the head from Twilight for being rude once again.

"Come on," Scootaloo said, gesturing with a hoof to the stairs. "Let's go."

And so the three of them made their way up the stairs. Once they had done so, the filly and the colt came back into the room. After fighting over the piano, they decided to both play at once, and sat on the seat together, playing the song they had been playing earlier that night.

After walking up the flight of stairs and trotting through a hallway and past a regal grandfather clock, they arrived into the room of the patient, Ms Rainbow Dash. She lay on a queen-size bed, apparently unconscious but breathing.

Twilight noticed a familiar face as she and nurse Redheart met eye to eye.

"Redheart!" Twilight exclaimed. "Long time no see, huh? Good to see you!" Twilight extended out a hoof.

Redheart accepted and shook Twilight's hoof.

"Twilight...? Is that really you? Long time no see indeed!" she said happily. "It's been years! I didn't know you were in the Sigmund memory business these days. Good for you!"

Twilight replied with a happy nod.

"So..." Twilight began. What's the deal? How's she doing?"

"Not... particularly well," Redheart replied. Her kidney's already started to fail, and her appendix isn't doing so hot either. It's only from old age, but her body's shutting down nonetheless."

"So, how long we got?" Twilight asked, levitating the box that held the machine out of Spike's hands and onto the floor.

"At most... probably a day or two, give or take," Redheart said.

"That's sufficient," Twilight stated.

"So," said Spike, interrupting the slow pace of talking, "what does she wanna do? Become a millionaire? Own a fancy restaurant? Become a world famous athlete?"

"Actually..." started Redheart. "...she said she wanted to go the moon.

"The moon?" Twilight inquired curiously. "How come?"

"Beats me," said Redheart. She didn't tell me."

"The moon, eh?" Spike said. "Crazy old Geezers. Get crazier every time, I tell ya."

Twilight facehoofed, and Redheart rolled her eyes with a gentle grin.

"Spike, shut up and get the machine going," Twilight retorted.

"Fine, fine, don't get in a hissy fit..." Spike replied.

Spike pulled a large piece of equipment out of the box. It was a tall computer of sorts, with various buttons and mechanisms. Spike pulled up a chair to the machine and plugged it in. When he did so, a folded glass panel shot up from the back of the top of the machine, and began to unfold into 3 glass panels, serving as the screen. Text shot onto the screen, and Spike leaned back as he waited for the system to boot up.

"So... can you tell us some things about our patient, here, Scootaloo?" Spike asked.

"Well..." She began.

"I can tell you what's important. She liked to fly a lot in her younger years, did a lot of work for Cloudsdale's weather team. She was married to a mare name Fluttershy since she was young, and her wife passed away two years ago. That's all that you'll really find helpful, I think."

"What do you mean, 'you think?' Are you sure?" Spiked pressed on.

"Don't mind him," Twilight said. "That's more than enough."

"Alright," Spike said. "The machine's calibrated and ready to go."

Spike reached into the box that held the machine and pulled out 3 plastic, odd looking helmets.

"Here, put this on Dashie's head," he said to Scootaloo.

Scootaloo complied and put it on Dash's head, looking slightly confused.

"So, uh..." Scootaloo started, as Twilight and Spike both put their own strange helmets on, "how does this whole thing even work?"

"Oh," Twilight chirped, "it's simple. You see, once we know the wish of our patient, in this case, going to the moon, we can travel through the patient's memories and transfer the desire of the wish into the mind of the patient. The transfer is permanent, so they never lose sight of the ambition related to the wish they had wanted to fulfill."

"And so," Spike finished, "once we transfer that desire, the patient'll have the ambition to fulfill the wish throughout their whole life, and since it's so strongly stuck to their willpower, they eventually reach it, assuming it's a somewhat plausible wish."

"Huh," Scootaloo replied, contemplating what the two of them had said.

"Well," Spike said, "I guess it's time to get this show on the road. Ready, Twi?"

"Yup."

"Alright then, Let's do this."

Spike remained in the chair at the computer, and Twilight pulled a chair to her to sit in. Both had their helmets on. They both closed their eyes.

"Good luck," Scootaloo said.

"Please, grant her wish, whatever it takes," she pleaded.

Eyes still closed, Twilight replied:

"We'll certainly try our be-"

"Of course we will," Spike interrupted. "It's what we do."

And with that, the minds of the two were swept into Dashie's Most recent memory.

*****

In a matter of seconds, both Twilight and Spike regained vision.

Twilight looked around; they were in the same room they were a few seconds ago, the bedroom of Dash's house, but things were different; no one was in the bed anymore, or in the room, for that matter. The dull colors of the room were now but a grayish brown, as was everything else everywhere. After all, brains can't remember all the detail of color and other specifics of memories, so seeing everything in a black and white and brown kind of fashion didn't surprise Twilight.

She looked over her shoulder to her left; Spike was beside her.

"Well, looks like we've made it to her last accessible memory," Spike said.

"So it seems," replied Twilight. "Disable speech except Dash's,  and then let's get a move on."

"Way ahead of you," said Spike. "We're ready to go."

With that, the duo began to walk.

They walked out of the bedroom, back into the hallway, and down the stairs. They passed through the main room, past the grand piano. They looked elsewhere around the house, but Dash was nowhere to be found.

"She's gotta be outside," Spike suggested.

They went out the front door and looked around. Still, they found no sign of Dash.

"Where is she?" Twilight pondered aloud.

Spike looked around once again, and this time, he looked up.

"Hey, Twi, look up there!"

Twilight looked where Spike was pointing his finger: the cloud with the large lighthouse.

"Maybe she's up there," said Spike.

"Hm. Maybe so, but if we wanna get up there, we're going to need cloud walking spells," Twilight responded.

A glowing veil emanated from Twilight's horn, and a flash bolted out from the tip and struck both of them.

"There," she said. "That'll do it. Hold on Spike, we're going up."

"No, wa-"

Spike's plead was ignored as Twilight teleported both of them to the cloud's surface. Spike landed on the cloud next to Twilight, and they both stood up.

"Okay, seriously Twi, give me a warning next time when you're about to teleport! Jeez!"

Twilight shook her head and looked forward. Beside the lighthouse, a bench made of cloud held two ponies. One was Scootaloo, and the other appeared to be Rainbow Dash.

"Alright, Spike," said Twilight. "Activate our speech. Don't say anything, though. Let me start."

Spike nodded his head and activated their speech ability to be heard by others in the memory, and then they walked toward the two ponies sitting on the bench. Twilight spoke first.

"Ms. Dash?"

Rainbow Dash, still as old as she appeared when they first saw her, turned her head over her shoulder and looked at them from behind. She smiled gently, and rose to her shaky hooves. Once on the cloud floor, she walked towards them. She began to speak.

"Oh, hello," she said in a fragile, soft voice. "How are you? It's not too often we see other ponies around here."

A short silence ensued.

"I'm fine, thank you. We're with Sigmund Memory corporation. I'm Doctor Twilight Sparkle, and this is my assistant, Doctor-"

"Doctor Jean-Martin Charcot!" exclaimed Spike.

Twilight facehoofed.

"This is Doctor Spike," she said.

Spike, flustered that Twilight had just made him look like an idiot, blushed with embarrassment.

"Ah, you're with the agency? Oh, the irony," Dash chortled. "I was just thinking of calling you people."

She turned to Scootaloo, who had now stood up as well.

"This is my caretaker and friend, Scootaloo," Dash said. "Say hello, Scoot."

"Alright," Twilight said to Spike only, using the helmet to filter her words so that they would only be heard by her assistant. "Take Scootaloo out of this memory for now. That way, we can talk to Dash alone."

"On it," Spike replied.

Spike pressed a button on his helmet and aimed it at Scootaloo. Scootaloo froze for a few seconds, not doing anything and staring outward at nothing.

"Scootaloo...?" Dash inquired.

Suddenly, Scootaloo disappeared.

Dash gasped and recoiled backwards a bit.

"You've already called us, Ms. Dash," Twilight spoke.

"What...? I..." Dash stuttered.

"This is your most recent memory. The actuality of the matter is that, well, you've already called us and gave us permission to perform the procedure on you in the relative future."

Dash said nothing.

A long silence followed, neither of them quite knowing what to say.

Finally, Dash broke the silence.

"So... you're here to fulfill my wish, no?"

"That's correct," replied Twilight.

"And I assume you already are aware of my wish?"

"Yes, to go the moon."

Rainbow Dash sighed to herself.

"Well, I guess this is just about it, then," she said. "In real time, how long do I have left?"

"Not all that long," Twilight said sympathetically.

Dash sighed again.

"Well... can you do it? Can you send me to the moon?"

"Well..." Spike started. "We can, but we're going to need your help."

Dash cocked her head. "How so?"

"Well, in order to make you go to the moon, we need to make you have a desire to go the moon from childhood," Twilight explained. "Unfortunately, transferring that desire isn't so simple. We can't go directly back to your childhood; we need to slowly take gradual steps back through your mind, using parts of each memory to get to the next. Eventually, we'll reach your childhood, and we'll have a direct link to you as a young filly. Thereafter, we can transfer the desire to go to the moon, and you'll work at it your whole life and, one day, fly to the moon. At least, that's what you will remember doing once we've rearranged your memories."

Dash said nothing.

"Now, to start, we need to know- why do you want to go to the moon?"

Dash thought for a moment, and then began to paw at the ground.

"Well?" Spike pressed.

"I... I don't know, to be honest," said Dash.

"Dash, you can't hide anything from us, otherwise we can't help you," said Twilight.

"No, really. I... I just don't know. All that I know is that I want to go there- I'm sorry, I truly am."

Dash didn't look at all like she was lying.

Spike rolled his eyes and sighed.

"This is gonna be a long night," he filtered to Twilight.

Twilight ignored Spike and spoke to Dash once more.

"Well, that's alright. We can still plant the desire into your childhood. In order to get started, though, we need something- something that reminds of you of a time in the past, favorably a recent one. A memento, if you will. Do you have anything like that for us?"

Dash appeared to be thinking intensely. When she realized that Twilight had spoken to her a few seconds later, she shook her head and refocused.

"Sorry," she muttered. "I'm still trying to get my head wrapped around all this... you said you needed a... a memento?"

Twilight nodded her head firmly.

Dash walked back over to the bench and grabbed something off of it into her hooves. She brought it to Twilight. Upon closer inspection, Twilight could make out what it was.

It appeared to be a yellow and blue paper rabbit.

"Here..." Dash said, holding the object out on a hoof. "Take this."

Twilight took the rabbit into her hands. "Thank you," she said.

"Alright, Spike, just give me a moment to prepare the memento..."

Twilight aimed the helmet at the rabbit and pressed a button. The rabbit glowed for a minute, and a low hum was heard. At last, the glow and noise from the memento stopped. It was ready for traverse.

"And... good," said Twilight. "We're good to go. Anything else you'd like to tell us, Dash?"

"I... I don't think so," Dash said.

"Alright, good. We'll try our best," said Twilight.

Twilight then set her voice filter so that only Spike could hear her.

"Well, that went surprisingly well," Twilight remarked.

"Yeah. Still, even if it hadn't, we could of always just rebooted the memory."

"Yeah, but we can't really afford to waste time."

"True."

"Ready?"

"Yup."

Twilight pointed her helmet towards the memento once more, as did Spike. The two of them were enveloped by a warm aura, and they were teleported through Dash's mind to the recent memory that this paper rabbit had some sort of relation to.