I.

It was a dark and stormy night, but mostly because Rainbow Dash had made it so. 

Not that those dumb ponyvillians would get it anyway. Noooo, we want a nice Seeking Night, they said. Noooo, storm clouds are scary, they said. 

Well, DUH! That was the entire frickin’ point of Seeking Night! It was a scary event! Some messed up spirit locked three ponies away FOREVER! It’s not supposed to be a cute kiddie hide-and-seek event. It’s supposed to teach foals lessons of life like ‘Don’t go pissing off angry chaos spirits’ and ‘don’t be enough of a dweeb to get locked in a library for literally ever’. 

Real-life stuff, y’know? 

Standing under the pouring rain, Rainbow grumpily surveyed the mostly deserted town, save for a few ponies here and there who weren’t cowards. She shook her head, frustrated. One day, she’d move out of this lame town and go somewhere cool like… well, she didn’t know of any place cool enough for her at the moment, but the point was there had to be one, and that’s where she’d go. 

“Aw, man, Rainbow Dash,” a disappointed voice said. “This isn’t cool…”

Rainbow spun around to face her little minions—namely, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo, the two taking shelter from the rain underneath Carousel Boutique’s door overhang. 

“What’d ya’ mean ‘this isn’t cool’?!” Rainbow asked Scootaloo. She stomped a puddle, ignoring Sweetie’s yelp at being splashed, and then gestured to the great wet outdoors. “Rain is awesome!”

Sweetie harrumphed. “But we can’t go out in the rain! If we do, Rarity will kill us!” To emphasize this, she pointed towards a nearby window from which Rarity was peering out, her narrowed eyes focused on the fillies. 

“Rarity, stop being a buzzkill!” Rainbow called out, rolling her eyes when Rarity disappeared with a muffled exclamation of bringing mud into her house over her dead body. 

“Our plan is ruined,” Scootaloo added, the two fillies slumping against each other. 

“Oh, come on! Seeking Night sucks, anyway,” Rainbow protested, trying to ignore the guilt sweeping over her. “Literally last year, you both told me you thought it was lame!”

“We weren’t gonna do Seeking Night!” Sweetie exclaimed. 

Scootaloo nodded. “Yeah! We were going to find Princess Booky in the Everfree Forest, and get our cutie marks in princess finding!”

Rainbow Dash blinked. “Wait, what?”

Scootaloo got up excitedly. “Yeah, yeah! It makes sense! The Everfree Forest is, like, dangerous and stuff because it’s trying to keep Princess Booky’s library hidden! And we don’t have a library so, like, her library must have been ours.”

Rainbow’s eyes widened. Shocked. To her core. “Holy crap.”

“We told Rarity yesterday,” Sweetie added, still sullen and glum. “But she didn’t believe us.”

That drew out another loud snort from Rainbow Dash. “Well, duh, of course she wouldn’t believe that. She’s like Queen Lame. All she does is make clothes and read, like, romance books and stuff.”

Rainbow Dash couldn’t even imagine Rarity being a cool adventurer. Even if Rarity believed fairytales were real, she wouldn’t go near the forest because it has bugs, mud, and other similar things. Either that, or she would go and help but be a super loser about it. Yeeesh. 

But Rainbow Dash wasn’t Rarity. 

Rainbow Dash believed in fairytales. 

“We thought we could sneak off while Rarity was busy with Seeking Night,” Scootaloo continued, now falling to the floor and resuming her dejected slumping. She gestured to the rain. “But then that happened.”

Rainbow Dash furrowed her brow. If… If Princess Booky really was in the forest, then… Rainbow could find her and become, literally, the coolest pony in the history of Equestria. People would celebrate her everywhere. She’d be a hero. 

“I’ll go, then,” she blurted out. 

The two fillies gawked at her. “You will?”

“Yeah, yeah!” Rainbow exclaimed, flying up into the air. “I can do it! I can look through the forest super fast! I’ll find her in no time!”

By this point, the fillies were jumping up and down, sharing in the excitement.

“Ohmigosh! And you’ll take us to her when you find her?!” Sweetie asked. 

Rainbow made a show out of crossing her forelegs and frowning. “Mmmm, I dunno. Could be dangerous.”

“Pleeeeease!” they begged. 

Rainbow’s eyes flitted towards Rarity “Lame Queen”’s house, and she decided she would not be like Rarity. 

“Okay, fine,” she relented, unable to help a smile at the fillies’ cheers. That said, she flew up higher into the air. “‘Kay! I’m gonna go find her. I’ll be back soon!”

The fillies waved her off. “Good luck!”

Rainbow soared up high over Ponyville until she had a clear sight of the entire Everfree Forest. Her eyes narrowed. The Everfree Forest was huge and had over a dozen trees, and…and there was a massive oak tree, larger than the rest, poking out right in the middle, so that’s probably where the princess was. Sweet. 

She flew straight for the large oak tree and ‘whooped victoriously at seeing an oval window near the top of the trunk. 

Man, she thought, kicking the window open and crawling in, I’m so good at this. 

She squeezed through the tunnel all the way down until she found herself inside a dark tunnel. After a quick game of eeny-meenie-miny-moe, she decided to head left, walking for about five minutes before finally exiting the tunnel and finding herself inside a large, dark library. 

“Oh my Gosh,” she said, awed. She’d found it. She’d actually found it, and in less than, like, what? Ten minutes? An incredible thought occurred to her. Life-changing, like this very moment. “I’m better at this than Daring Do! Heck yeah!” 

She walked further in, looking around for any kind of light source or something to illuminate the place. 

“Princess! Where are you?” She grabbed a book from a table, squinted at it, and flipped through the pages. “How do you even read like this?! I can’t see squat!” She gasped. “Do you have, like, night vision or somethin’?!”

“Night vision?”

Rainbow Dash yelped at the voice behind her, immediately followed by her turning around and flinging the large book through Princess Booky. 

“Hey!” exclaimed Princess Booky, irate. Her horn crackled with raspberry magic, and a chandelier lit itself, filling the room with light. Next, she quickly levitated her book back to its place on the table.  “Don’t treat my books like that!”

“Holy CRAP!” Rainbow gasped, taking in the sight of the pale, translucent mulberry alicorn. “You’re Princess Booky!”

The Princess frowned. Heavily. “Princess what?”

Rainbow ignored her, instead trotting up to examine her like a trophy.  “Oh man, I’m going to be SO famous. Are you, like, dead and stuff?”

Princess Booky followed Rainbow with her eyes, indignant. “No, I’m disp—Hey!” She jumped away, horrified by Rainbow sticking her hoof through her body. “What is wrong with you?!”

“Huh,” said Rainbow, again ignoring the Princess in favor of examining her hoof. “No slime.”

“Slime?!”

“So,” Rainbow asked, “why are you still here? Can’t you just leave?”

The Princess frowned again. “…No? I was trapped here.”

Rainbow looked at her.

The Princess looked back.

Rainbow gestured to the very visible, clear, tunnel exit. 

The Princess groaned, rolling her eyes. “Are you deaf? I said I was trapped here.” She marched straight up to the tunnel entrance, and upon reaching out towards it, a magical raspberry barrier appeared and deflected her. She turned back to Rainbow. “See?” 

“Wait.” Rainbow trotted towards her. “Do that again!”

Irritated, but intrigued, the Princess reached her hoof out again, activating the barrier. Which she did again at Rainbow’s second request. 

“Coooooool!” Rainbow exclaimed, momentarily fascinated by the fading barrier before turning to Princess Booky. “So, why’d you trap yourself here?”

The Princess’ wings flared. “What?! I didn’t trap myself! It was the Spirit!”

Rainbow’s eyebrow arched. “Uhhhh, no? It was you. The barrier-thingy is the same color as your magic.”

“What? No, it isn’t. Wait. No.” The Princess activated the barrier, and how shocked she looked at the realization that the barrier was, in fact, being powered by her magic. “What the f—” She stepped back, tripping over her swear words. “What? What? But—What?”

Rainbow snorted. “Man, I thought you were supposed to be the nerd princess! Can’t believe you didn’t even notice that!”

Even more proof that Rainbow Dash was the best at rescuing princesses, instead of just reading about it like Rarity did. Eat your heart out, Rares. 

“Come on!” She nodded towards the exit. “Let’s go! I need to take you to Princess Denza so she can give me a ton of reward money!”

The Princess was flabbergasted. “But—I— I can’t just leave!”

Rainbow rolled her eyes. “Sure, you can. You just gotta, y’know, do it.” Once more, she gestured to the tunnel. “Come on! Just do it!”

“But—! But what about—!”

Rainbow stomped her hoof on the floor. “No buts! Just do’s! This is why eggheads never get anything done!” She gestured to the exit for the third and final time and raised her voice. “DO IT!”

Startled, the Princess rushed forward and, lo and behold, she crossed through the barrier, turned into a real non-dead pony, tumbling onto the ground. Rainbow trotted out after her, stoked. 

“See! Easy peasy!”

“What?” the Princess gasped, mind-boggled. She stood up, observing her physical form. “What?! But this doesn’t make sense! It can’t have been that easy! Something must be wro—”

Rainbow had placed her hoof on Booky’s mouth. “Shhhh,” she said, coolly. “The word you’re looking for is, ‘Thank you, Rainbow Dash’.”

The Princess frowned. “That not a word. That’s multiple words.”

“You’re welcome, Princess!” Rainbow exclaimed, patting the alicorn on the shoulder. “And, boy, you sure must be glad it was me that came to find you, and not somepony like Rarity. I bet it would have taken her, like, ten years, and she still wouldn’t be finished! And she’d want romance and lame stuff like that!”

The princess blinked. “Rarity? Rarity who? Who even is that?”

“Exactly, Princess. Exactly.”