Rainbow Dash loved nothing more than flying.

In fact, flying was the one thing that seemed to keep her going these days. Her friends were busy, and that meant that she had a lot more free time than she thought she did. Life seemed to become pretty monotonous for her: wake up, go to work from 8-4, and sleep. Eating was necessary every now and again, but she managed to squeeze it in to her "busy" schedule. She felt like lately she was in a rut, that nothing exciting was happening in her life. Something was missing, and that's all she knew.

She often would be visited by her number one fan Scootaloo, but even she has managed to find other things to occupy her time with. She was doing well in school now, and after Rainbow Dash agreed to be her honorary sister, she took that role seriously. Many nights she would invite Scoots over, only to make sure that she did her homework and had someone to help her with general things in life that no one seemed to help her with. Lately, however, Scoots has been over at Apple Jack's more often than not, crusading and helping out Apple Bloom with the farm chores. She was proud of her little sister, but she still missed her every now and again.

So, there she was, lounging on the cloud that she dubbed her nap cloud for the day. She stretched her limbs, fluttered her wings, adjusted her tail to act as a secondary pillow for her lower body, and was about to settle down for a good two hour nap. Then, suddenly, she heard something peculiar. She heard humming coming down from underneath her cloud. Normally hearing humming wasn't so weird, since everyone in Ponyville seemed to keep in good spirits more than half the time, but this humming sounded different; it wasn't from a pony. No, it sounded much deeper, much more foreign to her. Not even Big Mac could compare to how deep, yet soothing this humming was.

She peaked over the edge of her napping cloud, and what she saw next she would never forget for her whole life. There, below where she was, was a human being walking through the meadow. She had to rub her eyes and close her mouth for it hung agape; only to fall slack again as she followed this pon...person through the tall grass. Well, it was tall to the ponies; on a human, it went only up to the knees.

He was not what she had expected him to look like. He had long, dark hair reaching down to his upper back. He was a dark man, with his skin looking as tan as the saddle Granny Smith had in her broom closet. He was not as tall as she had imagined a human to be. See, in Equestria, humans are studied as if they were nothing more than other animals, but of a different race. Humans were usually thought to be somewhat of a myth, seeing as how sightings were so rare. The last human encounter happened over 500 years ago according to pony time, and none had occurred since. This particular human appeared to be almost 6 feet tall, but lacking just one or two inches. He was strong, but had a kind face to him; looking nothing like the horror stories Rainbow had heard in urban legends. Ponies had been taught to fear humans, because they were known for enslaving ponies to agricultural purposes, (a position Rainbow knew A.J. would not mind). Other rumors circulated about how the humans would remove the unicorn horn off of the unicorn ponies, and clip the wings of the pegasi. However, contrary to all of the rumors, this particular human was different. He wore no shining impenetrable armor, drew no sword of desolation, and had no scowl of horror across his face. No, what he did have was a smile stretching from ear to ear, robes made of what looked like to be the whitest sheet of linen she had ever seen held together by a simple rope belt, and oddly enough no shoes on his feet. She couldn't get close enough for a good look, but she could have sworn there was something odd about his hands and feet, but she figured she would blow it off for now. Her next objective: get in closer without being noticed.

She jumped from cloud to cloud, trying as hard as she could to not be noticed by this oddly peaceful human. She was looking at him with such a studious face, that Twilight probably would have awarded her a PhD just for trying. Never has she seen someone walk with such eloquence and grace, she almost felt ashamed of herself for jumping sloppily from cloud to cloud. She noticed he stopped to study a flower, so she figured she would try to stop too."Tried" was the key word here; for she tried to stop, but the velocity that she had built up from jumping so fast to kept her going longer than she wanted to, and she lost her footing on the cloud she was on. She toppled head-first onto the ground, slowly getting up and lightly shaking her head and yet again trying to recover. However, her moment of painful bliss was interrupted whenever a large shadow cast over the sun that was gracing her, and she looked up;

It was him.

She sat frozen in place, not knowing what to do. Words tried to escape her, but to no avail - she simply sat there, eyes bulging from terror and shock, waiting for what could have very well been her death for all she knew. However, what she happened next would burn in her memory for the rest of her life-

He laughed.

In fact, he had such a genuine laugh, that after about ten seconds of listening to it, she started to grin. Then, sheepishly, she began a few light chuckles of her own. Something about this man had captivated her. However, she returned slightly to her paranoid state when he extended a hand out to her, and she quickly retracted in instinctive fear. However, he never even flinched, only awaiting her hoof into his hand. She cautiously extended her hoof into his hand, and he pulled her back onto all fours. She finally saw what she had thought was off about his hands - they had holes in them. Perfect round circles in the wrists just below the palms. She stared curiously at them, but she was distracted by the feeling of hands brushing her coat, getting all of the loose dirt off. He even brushed his fingers through her mane, getting rid of the clumps of dirt that littered her gorgeous rainbow. He smiled warmly at her, and she smiled shyly back.

"Um...uh...thank..you. I..I wasn't uh...yeah...I uh...", was all she could manage to say to him. He chuckled briefly as she continued to stammer on for another two minutes or so, before he finally spoke in that deep, but soothing voice:

"You needn't say anything. I've been expecting you, Rainbow Dash."