Rainbooms and Royalty

New Faces

Rainbow Dash zipped over to the approaching unicorns, eager to meet them as far away from the crowd as she could. She plastered her widest, toothiest smile on her face as she fluttered around him. “Hey Shining Armor! What’s up?”

Shining Armor gave her the famous neutral-guard glower.

Dash rubbed her legs together awkwardly. “So, ah, who’s your friend here?” She nodded to the purple unicorn who was busy hiding in his shadow.

Exhaling gently, Shining Armor unbent, a little. “Rainbow Dash, this is my sister Twilight Sparkle. Twilight, this is Rainbow Dash.”

“Hey. ‘Sup?” She held out a hoof only to have Twilight regard it like a fascinating new species.

Twilight looked from side to side as she smiled widely: the size of her smile reflected an indirect relationship to her actual confidence. Then something seemed to click as she turned to her brother. “Oh.” Twilight Sparkle looked at him. “This is the filly you were talking about? The one that has a cru-umph!” She found her muzzle being magically held shut.

Rolling his eyes heavenwards in a way that just seemed to declare ‘Mares!’ Shining looked back at Rainbow Dash. “What were you thinking? Princess Celestia had the royal guard search all of Canterlot for you!” He looked at her sternly. “You can tell she was really worried!”

“Really?” Rainbow gave a sort of shame-faced smile.

“Yes. Really.” The captain of the royal guard sighed. “Dash, what am I going to do with you?”

With a dramatic sigh, the blue pegasus held out her hooves. “Clap me in irons! Pluck out my feathers, to the dungeons with me! It’s the life of a prisoner for Rainbow Dash…”

Twilight looked horrified while Shining snorted in amusement. “Oh, cut that out, it takes all the fun out of being mad at you.” He looked at the celebration spread out before them. “You didn’t take long, did you?”

“Hey, they wanted to throw me a party!” Her sandy voice was a mix of indignant and smug. “I’m just that awesome!”

Twilight hesitantly looked around. “I guess it makes sense to make you feel welcome since you are the student of Prin—ooph!” She suddenly found an apple stuffed into her mouth, courtesy of a blue hoof.

Rainbow Dash shushed her. “Keep it down with that P-word stuff!”

“Pwah!” Twilight spat out the apple. “But why?” She asked incredulously, sounding much too loud for Rainbow Dash’s liking. “Why would you possibly be ashamed of Princess Cel—hng!” Another apple.

Rainbow Dash gave her a warning look. “We’re in an apple orchard. I can keep this up all night.” She looked at both of them. “I just came into Ponyville today and they’re already welcoming me into their homes, throwing parties for me and stuff and they *don’t* know that Princess Celestia’s my teacher! In Canterlot nopony would ever do stuff like that unless they knew that you were somepony ‘important.’” Her nostrils flared. “I like being appreciated for being me, for being Rainbow Dash instead of being appreciated for just being Celestia’s student.” Her rose colored eyes were imploring Shining Armor as she tilted her head up. “This is really important to me so please, please, pleeeease don’t mention anything about Celestia to them?” She clasped her hooves together, going for the most over the top, wide-eyed, puppy-dog, lower lip trembling expression she could muster (she made a mental note to thank Ditzy later for all the inspiration).

Shining Armor groaned and covered his face with his hoof. “Ugh. Fine. Look Dash, when Princess Celestia sent me out to find you it wasn’t to clap you in irons or make a big scene. In fact, once we found out where you were she thought it might work out if you stayed here for a while.”