Chapter Three

A sudden dramatic gasp from Rarity startled most of the girls, save for Rainbow who immediately rolled her eyes and took to the air. Twilight looked to Rarity and followed her gaze to the pink cape the princess had on her back. When she quickly looked back, she saw Rarity looking indignant rather than pleased; Twilight shook her head in warning as inconspicuously as possible.

"What? Why did you gasp?" The princess commanded.

Twilight stepped behind Luna so she could mime to Rarity a variety of gestures indicating she should not say what she was about to say.

"Oh? Well, no reason really…" Rarity unconvincingly tried.

"I was aware that friends share everything with one another and have no secrets?" Luna questioned in genuine curiosity.

"It really isn't my place…" Rarity said, though it was clear she truly did think it was her place.

"I insist."

"Well, since you asked…oh darling the color of that cape is just absolutely wrong for you. All wrong." Rarity exclaimed in her usual dramatic flair.

Twilight Sparkle smacked a hoof to her forehead. Pinkie Pie scrutinized the casual cape from many angles looking for what was "wrong" with it. She was unable to fathom what could be wrong with such a fantastic specimen of pink. It was pink after all!

"I see." Said Luna calmly. "I understand from my sister that you know quite a bit about fashion. I myself have been kept away for so long I'm very behind the times. As I understand it, friends also help each other with such things as clothes and…hair?" Luna pondered unsure, almost a if she were trying to remember something she read in a book; this, Twilight could sympathize with.

Rarity brightened. "They certainly do!" She cried happily. "You can take me to the royal closet and I can put something marvelous together for you!" Said Rarity

So they went off to another part of the vast palace, some more a bit reluctantly than others.

It did not take long for Rarity to find something that was, as all of the girls with varying levels of interest could see, perfectly suited for Luna in both color and style. Luna was struck by the talent she hadn't expected in Rarity, and felt her hopes growing, however sparingly, about the night to come.

After gushing about how marvelous Luna looked in the color red, Rarity took to admiring herself in one of the many large mirrors in Luna's vast wardrobe. She was sporting one of Luna's own fluffy pink robes and exclaiming admiringly over it, despite Luna's insistence that her sister had given her that "fluffy monstrosity" as a joke to lighten up her coming back from imprisonment.

Across the room, Apple Jack and Rainbow giggled as Pinkie Pie hyperactively danced around the room wearing large smudges of eye shadow around her eyes and uneven flares of heavily applied eyeliner. When she inevitably smacked into a wall, she left behind an almost perfect copy of her made up eyes. Rainbow Dash laughed so hard she fell right out of the sky and nearly collided with an equally hysterical Applejack.

Twilight was also tickled when she saw this from where she and Fluttershy were giggling over and wearing the silliest hats. The hats, or more accurately diverse types of headwear, were from almost every decade of pony history. As she balanced a fascinating orange wizard hat on her head, Twilight decided that having a friend over a thousand years old was quite fun indeed.

Rainbow Dash came over and instantly accosted a sixth century general's helmet which was in pristine condition, unsurprisingly since ponies never went to war under the rule of Celestia and Luna, and was clearly more for show and pomp than anything else . She admired herself posing in tough stances and battle poses for a disturbingly narcissistic length of time.

Rainbow then decided she was bored of that and tossed the helmet aside where it was magically caught by a scolding Twilight Sparkle. She lazily flew around the others for a bit. This whole dress up things was fun for a few minutes but now it was getting boring. She glanced at Luna's wings and suddenly had a perfect idea.

Rainbow Dash flew toward the royal until her eyes were mere inches from Luna's. "Want to have race?"

"A race for what?" Luna asked as if her authority had been challenged, her voice surprisingly sharp and clipped given her sweet appearance.

"Um…just for fun?" Rainbow Dash had to hold back her 'duh'; she thought that would not go over to well.

"In my time races were used to settle matters of honor and to achieve great glory and recognition. It was the game of heroes!" Luna proudly declared with her head high and chest puffed out.

"Cool." Rainbow replied, clearly not impressed. "But, nowadays we race just for the heck of it all the time."

"Very well. I have not used my wings to their true potential in a long time, so this racing for 'fun' should be very enjoyable. Though I should warn you, being a powerful royal, my speed and agility might far surpass that of such a young pony."

Rainbow Dash smirked and winked at her friends. "Oh, I think I'll manage to keep up."

When they stood at the designated start mark, Luna looked over in question to Fluttershy. "Are you not going to race as well?"

Fluttershy slightly flinched at being the sole object of the Princess's attention. "Oh, no. I'm terribly afraid of heights." She quietly admitted, not seeming to realize the absurdity of her words.

"I see," Luna said in a way that suggested she did not.

Applejack stood between the two racers; she looked into their eyes challengingly to get their adrenalin pumping. "Get set. …Go!"

With that the two ponies took off into the air; at first Rainbow avoided using her top speed in order to assess Luna's racing ability. Luna surprised her with how fast she could fly, though it should have been expected, as she was powerful enough to have once defeated chaos incarnate and could control the moon itself. Rainbow was delighted to realize that she would actually have to try her best and reach her fastest speeds to win this race.

She aggressively flapped her wings, almost instantly burning every muscle holding them to her back, but without a wince or a stumble, she raced on. She may have been born fast, but she would not have the rep she did not if it weren't for years of hard work. Holding her front legs straight for the best aerodynamic position possible, she narrowed her eyes to slits as the air hit them mercilessly.

She wanted to look to her side, or perhaps back, to see where Princess Luna was in relation to herself, but after years of racing knew that just one peek back, even an instantaneous redirection of the eyes, could lose her potentially valuable seconds.

Besides, that mysterious Racer's Sense, something she had been born with, allowed to her feel that the Princess was close, perhaps just a bit behind, probably only just out of her periphery vision.

Though she felt like she'd been flying for minutes, the race's length was a matter of seconds. She saw the line Applejack had drawn as both start and finish and knew when she had crossed it. She landed and, pretending she couldn't be less relaxed and energetic, panted a bit less dramatically than her body was asking for. She also pretended her legs and wings weren't shaking from the sudden loss of adrenaline.

She looked to the Princess standing close to her, also trying to quill the gasping and quivering that her body was surely asking to succumb to. She supposed this was out of some long-learned habit of decorum more than anything else.

She didn't know who won and the tired but otherwise neutral face of Luna held no clues.

Twilight came trotting up to the racers from where she and Fluttershy had been keeping well clear of the line, knowing Rainbow Dash's notoriety for rough landings.

"Wow," she said amazed, "Rainbow, I've never seen someone keep up so well with you before!"

"Ahem," Applejack interjected.

"In flight I mean." Said Twilight, correcting herself.

"Yes, I am quite astounded myself," Said Luna, her breathlessness making her voice sound shockingly softer and higher, as if another pony altogether was speaking. "It was before my time as the Mare in the Moon since I've had to work so hard in race, you are most gifted Rainbow Dash."

Rainbow Dash was often one for self-praise and to expect gushing, but such a sincere and respectful delivery of admiration was something altogether knew. She felt words escape her and hoped that no one could see the flush she so clearly felt upon her face.

Suddenly she was tackled by a blur of pink and her speechless revere was interrupted. "Yes, isn't she amazing; everyone in Ponyville knows she's the best flyer in Equestria, but hopefully soon everyone in Equestria will know she's the best flyer in Equestria!" Rainbow rolled her eyes at Pinkie's newest ramblings, but appreciated the idea nonetheless. "Maybe now they will once they know that she can beat even the princess in a race." Well that answered that, Rainbow thought.

Twilight felt a small spark of panic when Pinkie Pie's blunt declaration cut through the quiet night, but quelled it almost at once. She was beginning to see that Luna was just as kindhearted and free-spirited as her sister, if only in a more subtle and awkward way. She needn't be so worried of her friends offending her.

And her musings were proven true as Luna whole-heartedly agreed with Pinkie's sentiment and gave Rainbow a solid and congratulatory hoofshake.

A/n

This story is especially difficult for me to write. I don't think I've ever even met a girl who had 'slumber parties' let alone partook in any myself. I feel like Twilight, only I don't even have a book on the matter.