Daring Do and Rainbow Dash and the Trials of Temptation
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Chapter 6
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Purple. Fields of lavender, a light breeze on a summer's day. The smell of a new book, or the sound rain makes as it splatters against the side of a dense cloud. Rainbow Dash had never known such perfection as now, her wings standing on end and her tongue wrapped around Twilight's. Her eyes were closed, and her body was savouring every moment. Every hair on her body seemed to glow with warmth just from being locked in intimacy with the pony she both ridiculed and idolised. It felt magical.

It was magical - while Twilight took that one, perfect, moment to react, she did so with force and determination, pulling Dash away from her and staring back with shock in her eyes. "Nuh-uh, Dash, you're not getting out of criticism that easily!" announced the ever-oblivious Twilight. Dash sat there dumbstruck - Twilight was messing with her, right? She could forgive missing the hints, even forgive misinterpreting the multiple offers of dinner, but this?

Rainbow Dash was not often speechless, but on this occasion, she sat quietly and listened.

"Your writing, while enthusiastic, is amateurish, your tenses keep switching, your abuse of a dictionary is only made more amusing by your limited and repetitive vocabulary, your idea, while not completely devoid of merit, is ruined by execution, and your understanding of ancient cultures is foalish at best." monologued Twilight, deep into the "I'm right, you're wrong" spiral brought on by Dash's apparent attempt to avoid criticism.

Twilight turned, looking away for a moment, "We can probably fix this, Dash, but you're going to have to promise me to take it seriously. Deal?"

Twilight paused, waiting for Dash's answer. Nothing came. As she turned back around, she noticed the window was open, and Rainbow Dash was nowhere to be seen. Her precious manuscript lay abandoned on Twilight's floor.

With nobody to be a know-it-all to, Twilight slowly calmed down, and the adrenaline rush from the unexpected, albeit not unwanted, kiss left her body, and she began to think about what happened. "Oh Celestia" she swore loudly as she realised exactly what she had just done.

Rainbow Dash wasn't crying. Rainbow Dash didn't cry. It was a side-effect of flying into the wind, it dried out her eyes and they needed to re-moisturise. There was nothing more to it. She just needed to be away from that stupid brainless heartbreakingly oblivious devastatingly gorgeous mare. Not like she cared. It was fine, really.

She'd planned to spend the rest of the day with... her, so now Dash found herself without plans. She may as well just go home. Stay there. She had a shift later that night, but they could get by without her.

Dash impacted her house at a quarter the speed of sound, puncturing the outer wall and smashing into the thicker internal walls she'd designed to be able to stop herself. That was fine, she didn't really want to go anywhere else anyway.

When she eventually realised that Twilight still had her fiction, Dash's resolve finally broke, and her head found its way between two clouds. Clouds are very good at absorbing liquids, and the denser ones even muffle sounds. Dash had some very dense clouds.

The following morning, the sun rose up over the distant mountains, like it did every day. Unlike every other day, Rainbow Dash only awoke momentarily, merely rolling over and falling back to sleep, not seeing much point in doing otherwise. She only really kept to a sane sleeping schedule so she could see her friends, she could practice any time, day or night, watched or alone. Alone sounded good to her.

Taking Dash's place as the town early bird, Twilight shuffled across town, slowly heading in Rainbow Dash's general direction. Twilight liked mornings, and was normally more than happy to wake early. Well, before noon. Most days. Most nights, however, she managed to catch a good few hours of sleep. Most nights didn't find her fretting over what would become of one of her oldest friendships. Spike had told her not to worry, that Dash was probably just messing around like usual. Spike also told her that an "oldest friendship" when she had met all of her friends within the space of a few hours was silly, but Twilight knew the benefit of accuracy.

Her mane was frizzy and untamed, with tufts sticking out at unnatural angles, and generally being in a condition that would cause Rarity to kidnap her for forced makeovers. Her back was covered by the strap of her pack - it contained two things. Dash's notebook, and hers. She knew which was more embarrassing. The enchantments were lifted, and anypony could take a look. If anybody other than Rainbow Dash tried, however, Twilight would defend it with her life - her reputation would be ruined forever were even a single sentence to escape.

Dash's house had seen better days, Twilight decided as she got close enough to make out the details. One entire wall had caved in, from some huge impact it looked like. Walking along, Twilight idly did the calculations to try and figure out what could do that. A small meteorite at a few times the speed of sound could have managed it, but that angle was all wrong, and Luna would have warned her if she was bringing down another rock.

That left option b. The scary one - a high velocity Rainbow Dash. A twinge of worry ran through Twilight's head before she dismissed it, knowing Dash would probably be fine if she flew straight into the ground, never mind into clouds. Knowing that didn't make her any less concerned.

"Rainbow?", she called, her horn aglow as she projected her voice upwards in her best impression of the royal Canterlot voice. There was a time in history where the act would have been considered treasonous, but Twilight wasn't sure she would have cared even if these weren't more liberal times.

"Rainbow Dash!", she continued shouting, her voice loud enough to shake the foundations of Dash's opulent home. It being floating in mid-air and made entirely of clouds, this was not a difficult task, but it was enough to awaken Twilight's target.

Dash skulked over to the gaping hole in her wall and considered poking her head out. She decided against it - she didn't want Twilight to see her. "What do you want, Twi?" she called, trying her best to sound as carefree and happy as normal.

"Can I come up?" called Twilight, shaking the house further and knocking over a large pile of empty pizza boxes.

"I uh, I'm not feeling too good. I have a cold. Achoo. You'd better come back much later, bye."

Twilight frowned. Dash had seemed fine yesterday, she must have come down with that cold very quickly, she should probably see a doctor about that. Still, Twilight wasn't about to leave without doing what she came here to do. "While you're recovering, you should read this. Read the note."

The two paper pads vanished from her pack, and appeared in the middle of Dash's room, landing on the floor with a small pomf. Dash's head poked out long enough to spot Twilight walking away, looking slightly dejected. That was fine, she should look a little sad. Not that Dash was bitter or anything.

Against her better judgement, Dash took a look at the first notebook - it was purple and adorned with little drawings of pencils. It reminded her of Her. Ignoring the note for now, she took a peek inside, reading the first line out loud, under her breath.

"Daring Do and Twinkle Sparkler and the Several Snakes, by Twilight Sparkle {My Eyes Only}"

To the right of the title was a date, written in her too-perfect hornwriting. It was dated earlier that year. Her curiosity overwhelming her, Dash pressed a hoof against the page, and turned.

"Chapter One"