Flitter lay down on the edge of the ice rink, and then gazed at the fresco of stars.
The full moon swallowed the sky above her, and the islands of cumulus were as bright as day under its silver glow. Around her, a small archipelago of curly white platforms floated over the abyss. The land below was indistinguishable from the sky, and only the twinkle of the stars showed where the horizons were. Far behind the mare, Cloudsdale gleamed like an elaborate mountain.
She watched the small band of pegasi overhead, all of whom were building strips of icy cirrus cloud. High above the already-made feathery ones, naked barbs of crystal floated in row after row, waiting for their turn to be given plumes. Winged figures drifted back and forth, laying down filament after filament as though piecing together a silver feather the size of a hang glider.
Every second or so, a pegasus dived for a platform where the silver filaments were piled up. They seized one between their hooves and then shot back to the cooler heights, where the temperature was cold enough for them to stick the icy crystals together. It was a tricky task requiring speed and the right conditions, which was why the coolest midnight was the best time.
The ice rink Flitter had laid herself down on was atop a discus-shaped cloud, one of the smaller ones that floated around Cloudsdale. During the evening, throngs of pegasus couples slid and skated around the centre of the rink. Even now she saw faint scratches and spirals all over it. The last of the skaters had left half an hour ago to complete their dates: they called this late time the Romantic Hour.
Flitter felt a flutter inside her at the name. Cloudchaser would tease her if she knew, but under a starlit sky like this, it was easy to see why the time had been so called.
A small box of a building stood off to the left of the rink. From behind a nearby veil, since pegasi rarely used doors, she could hear the shuffle of a janitor putting some equipment away.
Flitter ignored the sounds and yawned. She had volunteered for the cirrus night shift, along with other members of the team. It wasn't often they got a request from the Snowflake division, and some of her friends had been curious. Weather ponies worked with cumulus and stratus so often that any break from the monotony was welcome.
Moreover, it was an odd assignment. Nopony knew what the cirrus clouds were for. They didn't give rain or snow, and their reflective surfaces made it painful to look at them when the sun rose high in the sky.
The pegasi put them up all the same.
They were on a schedule from the court of Canterlot; somepony over there must know what they were for. That was all the weather team needed to know.
Flitter wished her curiosity hadn't gotten the better of her tonight. Her wings ached all along the pinions. Unsurprisingly, she had finished only two clouds, despite the added efforts of seniors like Rainbow Dash and Thunderlane. But Flitter was too tired to fly the extra mile.
If only the others had joined her for a rest. Nopony else wanted to stop. They were too close to setting a new record for most cirrus clouds manufactured in one night. They were also teaming up and racing against each other, something pegasi always did on a job sooner or later. Small though the achievement would be, pegasi turned everything into a contest, and the competitive bug had been spread by Rainbow Dash's cheerful shouting taunts against an equally loud and taunting Thunderlane.
If only it wasn't tonight of all nights. Against the dark sky and the glowing silver clouds, everything seemed so peaceful. She was going to rest here for hours, just admiring it.
Actually, she wasn't.
Sadly, she wasn't.
Her treacherous eyelids demanded a proper bed and threatened to drop there and then if she didn't get one. She ached for the folds of her quilt, for her soft pegasus-feather pillows, and for a snuggle of her Sir Shares-a-lot doll.
Merely thinking about it made her fur warm and cosy, as though she was already tucked in. Yet she wanted to stay here too. Well, not here here, but up there with her friends and her sister.
Perhaps she could help out a little bit? She didn't want to, though, which was troubling her.
Whenever Flitter asked them if they wanted to take a brief stop with her, they simply gazed enviously at each other's clouds and muttered, "You snooze, you lose." Some even cracked jokes about her backing out of work she'd volunteered for, things like "I always knew she was a flighty type" and "Flitter's done a flit.”
Well, as much as Flitter wanted to help out, her limbs and wings cried out for relief! What was she supposed to do about that?
Cloudchaser blocked the taunts like a living shield and threw back some words of her own.
They struck like javelins, and an argument briefly flared. Flitter blushed at the thought. I wish Cloudy didn't jump in for me so much. It's not like being four minutes younger suddenly makes me a runt.
Hurricane season was never easy, and the pegasi had strained quite a few muscles to make it possible this year. They hadn't been helped by the likes of Thunderlane, who just had to get sick before a big event, didn't he? He'd even been sick for the Best Young Flyer Competition, and that was perfect for him. The remaining pegasus population had tackled Hurricane season by themselves, and it was still taking its toll on them days afterwards.
Flitter and Cloudchaser hadn't escaped punishment, but Flitter felt it more strongly than her sister. She'd always been slightly less durable than Cloudchaser. Unfortunately, the bigger sister was more representative of the average pegasus.
Why was she so different?
Flitter snapped back to the here and now. Despite her still-haunting aches and pains, she traced a hoof moodily along one of the scratches in the ice, flicking tiny pieces across the frictionless surface. Flitter could never do the night shift as a regular. She hated nights.
Oh stars, she loved. The halo around the moon when a sheet of fog glided across the surface: the endless black hole below her, with the eerie cries of unseen owls and the howls of invisible wolves: the way the breeze would slide over her feathers and fur. Once in a while, when she felt she could fend off the sandmare for hours, she would set some time out to admire the eleventh hour. She knew beauty when she saw it. She wanted to give the night its due.
Yet she always fought to stay awake in the end. That was why she hated nights. They always betrayed her.
Cloudchaser added her sixth cirrus feather to her set, not far behind Thunderlane, who flew less swiftly now.
Now, how many do we have to do before sunrise? Thirty two? One for each strip over the countryside, laid out in a row? Flitter counted quickly. They were on eighteen now, which was fantastic for time. Rainbow alone had managed to build nine of them. Of course. If anything, every new construction only made her work faster, as though every time she finished one, she caught sight of the finishing line and found new reserves of willpower.
It wasn't hard to see why Rainbow was the one in charge of their team. She'd been a shoe-in for team captain for as long as Flitter could remember, ever since that incident in Flight Camp. A filly -- a mere filly -- who could produce a Sonic Rainboom was like a pony walking on water as far as pegasus foals were concerned.
Flitter and Cloudchaser had been witnesses to the whole event. Cloudchaser remembered the three-foal race as the most epic thing she'd ever seen. Flitter, of course, remembered the pretty colours of the rainbow.
Here and now, Flitter grimaced at her own foalishness and tried beating the memory out of her head.
"Flitter flutters after glitter, even glitter in the gutter." No! They were hypocrites. They'd gaped and clapped their hooves at the sight of that rainboom, just like she had. Everypony said how pretty that rainbow had been. Flitter was just the one most likely to say so. Flitter was the one they remembered. No one else.
And to think, Rainbow was doing all that for Klutzershy.
Flitter grimaced. She avoided looking at her own reflection in the ice.
No! How could she still use that name even now? Yet there it was, zipping forwards with the momentum of her own deeply ingrained habits, stuck in her mind even after the rest of her personality had changed. Klutzershy -- Fluttershy -- could really fly now, they said. She had the official Rainbow Dash seal of approval to her name, especially after how she'd pulled through for the team. During Hurricane season! The hardest season of all!
Old habits didn't just die hard. They deliberately thrived and multiplied when she tried to change them.
Flitter still had to catch herself thinking Klutzershy long after she'd started calling her Fluttershy, and once or twice it had slipped out in conversation. Some other ponies did it too, though any who unwisely did it before Rainbow quickly learned never to do it again.
Still more unbidden memories of flight camp came back to her, reflected in the ice rink. Harsher ones this time. She saw, as though peering into a witch's brew, images of a gangly filly, one eye hidden behind pink locks and the other wide with terror, waving her stick legs and flapping her shrunken wings with all the grace of a drunken hummingbird on stilts.
Flitter suddenly felt uncomfortable. She stifled her giggle. She had to stifle that giggle, so vivid was the memory before her. The fact that it was quite funny to watch only made her own amusement much much worse.
"Fluttershy, Fluttershy, Fluttershy can hardly fly!" sneered the crowd. Flitter loved it. It was like a sing-song!
She skipped over to Cloudchaser, who glanced up from her track and shielded her eyes with a hoof. Even back then, her sister's hair was impossibly spiky and suggested long impossible hours with a tub of gel and a mirror.
"Look! What's going on over there, sis?" Flitter said with glee.
Flitter stood in the lane next to her sister, watching her look up. An evil sneer played along her own face as she imagined how much dark fun they could get away with. When she spoke, she sounded as gleeful as a filly on Hearts and Hooves Day who'd caught her best friends kissing behind the sports shed.
"Look, it's Klutzershy! Guess what's she done now?"
This was met with puzzled looks. Other ponies along the starting line were listening in. "Klutzershy?" said Cloudchaser.
"Yeah. You know? Fluttershy. The goofy one with the sticky legs."
Cloudchaser glanced at the yelling crowd with interest, and surprisingly with some reservation. "Did she do something wrong?"
"Of course! Duh! She does everything wrong. Come on!" Flitter galloped over to the crowd. "Let's look! Maybe she's knocked over the flagpole again!"
But Cloudchaser shook her head. Weakly, yes, but she still shook it.
Frowning, Flitter shrugged and flapped her wings to urge her to follow. Eventually and with much dragging of her hooves, Cloudchaser did. Good. She sure would enjoy it if only she tried!
Flitter leaped into the crowd first, and Cloudchaser, apparently interested in her sister's sudden glee, just followed suit. They both laughed, but Cloudchaser laughed out of a kind of sisterly duty. Flitter had laughed the hardest. It was a way to brighten up the dull routine of the day. And it had been fun!
At the time, it had been fun. It wasn't so much now.
It wasn't like anypony else was free of accidents either, Flitter thought. Once, Thunderlane and Cloudchaser managed to destroy a freezer full of rare snowflakes, while fighting over who was going to lead whom for Winter Wrap Up. Quite a few others were guilty of the infamous depression one Hurricane season, simply because they spun around the wrong way. Even Rainbow Dash once managed to break several columns in the Cloudiseum shortly after the Sonic Rainboom incident. After all, nopony was perfect, right?
Those had been one-offs, though. Flitter used to break things all the time when she was at Flight Camp. That made her a hypocrite.
She remembered the extra power she'd put into her laughter, and shuddered at a nearby howl from the Everfree. Why had she laughed so hard? It wasn't like her own ditzy mind had been much better. She tried to make clouds look "prettier" by giving them twirls and ribbons. Rainbows fell over when she erected them. Even today, she had difficulty telling thunderclouds apart from lightning clouds, which was why she'd long since been absolved of storm duty.
I wasn't that clumsy, was I? Flitter rubbed the ice with a hoof and realized she'd been staring at a triangle of stars for the last few minutes. The reflections of the sky in the rink were almost as crisp and clear as a mirror, except for the scratches and lines where ponies had skated over the ice. Her forelegs slid across it as she gently lowered her chest to the ground. Her eyelids drooped.
Something smashed into the ground next to her. Flitter jumped to her hooves, the noise doing the work of a shrieking alarm clock and a pillow hitting her head.
"Excuse me," somepony asked. Raindrops landed just before her. "Did you see a piece of cirrite drop down here?"
It took Flitter a while to realize that her friend must have dropped a filament. Of course she'd been surprised; she'd been staring at the ground for several minutes. Zoning out, her sister called it.
"Er..." she said.
"Never mind. I see it." Raindrops gripped it between her teeth and gave her a pitying look. "'Oo weewee shuh go hoh nau."
Flitter blinked at her. "Sorry?"
Raindrops rolled her eyes and took off.
Once again, Flitter sighed at her own reflection. She stared up at the shifting moon as it inched for the western horizon.
"All right, we're alone. What did you do this time?" Cloudchaser's tired voice echoed up to the top of the little bathroom. Nopony else was coming in; she was standing right in front of the door, with one hoof not-so-accidentally stopping it.
"I didn't do anything!" Flitter shouted, backing into the opposite wall. Her hair was dishevelled, and her face blushed with the lie. "Honest, I didn't."
There was a bump as Flitter backed into the sinks. Flitter gave a squeak of alarm as a bottle of somepony's hair lotion fell onto the floor with a crack. Blue liquid oozed out onto the tiles next to her. She felt her cheeks blaze with embarrassment.
Cloudchaser glared at her, and Flitter glared at the ground. "Flitter, why don't you pay attention and stop gazing off into space? Get your hooves on the clouds! You always zone out. You're nearly as bad as Klutzershy."
"I'm better than Klutzershy," she said moodily. That particular comment had stung. "Don't you say stuff like that."
"I'm sorry, Flits, but you gotta stop this. Do you think I like hearing what the others say about you? We'll be graduating Flight Camp soon, and you're acting like you'll be here forever."
For the first time, Flitter met her sister's gaze. Or rather, she rammed into it and told it to watch where it was going. "Sis, I'm not an idiot. I work hard at the tracks, don't I? I know what's going to happen."
Cloudchaser rubbed her eyes with her hooves. "Do you even know what's going on around you right now?"
What was going on around her? Flitter tried to rally her thoughts. Zoning out was a bad habit, but what else was there to do when your job was to ferry clouds all day? Jobs like that made marshmallow out of her brain within hours. Then, with a kind of magnetic force, her neck would crane upwards and she'd let her bored mind talk itself back to life, because her bored mouth rarely said a word.
Cloudchaser does all the talking. Cloudchaser always did the talking.
Without thinking, Flitter glanced up to find her sister's colours among the battalion overhead and spotted her.
They'd long since made their quota -- thirty two -- and another three cirrus clouds were under construction. True to form, Cloudchaser was at Blossomforth's side, and though not a word could be heard over such a great distance, Flitter could imagine all the chatter. Stallions, forthcoming athletic events, records recently broken, Derpy's latest blunder...
Flitter and her sister were always together like that, back at Flight Camp. Gliding on thermals, circling the towers of Cloudsdale side by side with the wind rushing over their bellies and the feathers twitching wildly on their wingtips, over the howl of the wind, they talked. Well, Cloudchaser would talk about the latest obstacle course she'd nailed, and Flitter would gape and gasp and go "ooh" and "aah" in all the right places.
They could talk and listen for hours together. In a way, it was what kept them close. They would soar through the windows and land in whosever's bedroom it was. Hers or Cloudy's.
Sometimes, Cloudchaser even got Flitter to say a few words after her monologues. Then it would be as if a dam had been gently opened, and Flitter's words would rush out in an excited torrent. That was only at home, though. Outside, Flitter never spoke a word unless Cloudchaser had already said it for her.
How IS Cloudy doing?
Flitter checked the team's progress.
As predicted, Rainbow Dash was leading with eleven cirrus streaks to her name, though Blossomforth and Cloudchaser, who had formed a tag team, were a respectable three streaks behind her, and Thunderlane had just completed his sixth. None of the others were even close. She could hear taunts being shouted from cloud to cloud, and giggled as they played verbal badminton.
"Cloudchaser," she muttered to herself. The familiar blue flash of her sister's wings caught the edge of the moonlight, and Flitter's gaze kept up with the moving figure. She wondered vaguely if Cloudchaser had claimed her sister's previous efforts as part of her own. Was she playing on Flitter's behalf? It wouldn't be the first time.
Cloudchaser was the reason Flitter hadn't gone the same way Fluttershy had. Nopony missed the fact that Flitter made almost as many mistakes during the ring challenge as the yellow filly had made, nor that she knocked over more cones while barrel-rolling. It was only Cloudchaser's hard eye and even harder hooves that stopped any taunts from being made. At least, stopped them being made twice.
None of this helped Fluttershy -- if anything, all the fillies simply switched to teasing her instead -- but it was one thing for Cloudchaser to see a stranger get the occasional prod. It was quite another to see her sister get the same punishment.
"I had to knock out Thunderlane's front teeth this morning," she said. "What's wrong with you, Flitter?"
"Nothing, I swear! It's just tricky, that's all. And you know I get tired faster than you do! You know that!" Flitter's voice broke as she said this, standing defiantly on top of her bunk bed. Cloudchaser flew up to meet her.
"Calm down, kiddo. I'm not being a meanie," she said, and looked her in the eye. "But I'm sticking my neck out for you here, you know. When you look silly, I look silly. When they can pick on you, they think they can pick on me. Nopony's gonna be a meanie to me, and they're so not going to be a meanie to you, OK? You just tell me if you have any more trouble, OK?"
Flitter sniffed. "OK."
"Good. Now come here, you." And that was it. A hug and a tussle of the mane, which Flitter always squealed at because it took her ages to get the bow right, and they restored peace in the household.
At the time, Flitter's heart had gone warm and fuzzy at these words. Now, they just sounded harsh. Sisterhood had been all that stood between being Flitter and being Fluttershy. What if Cloudchaser hadn't been her sister? What if Flitter and Fluttershy had swapped places? Would her big sister still have stood up for the clumsy foal with the oversized pink bow and the lank hair? Flitter would never know. She was too afraid even to ask herself.
Not that this lasted long. Flitter had caught up with everypony else before camp was over, thank goodness. Perhaps it was Cloudchaser's guiding wing that had helped her, or perhaps she was just due a growth spurt. The final challenge had gone surprisingly well.
To her surprise, and everypony else's for that matter, her cutie mark came to her at roughly the same time one came to her sister. That was what Flitter would remember. They came at the same time, not a minute over or under.
After Flight Camp, which she passed reasonably well despite the accidents, the weather factory had enrolled them for separate jobs. Flitter shuddered at the memory. It was the first time she'd been separated from her sister. Well, OK, she might have gone her own way once or twice before, but this was a separation enforced. She'd seen it coming. Moreover, it had lasted hours. Cloudchaser had been assigned cumulus duty for the summer team, while Flitter worked at the factory, mixing steam lotions for the mists and fogs.
A gust of wind slid over Flitter's reclining form. Her stomach twisted at the memory. From the moment her manager had given her the instructions and left, she'd clung to the stirring ladle like a lifeline. For hours, she stared at everything and nothing, and she spoke only when spoken to. Even then, the most any approaching pony could get out of her were one-word answers, leaving the otherwise baffled pony to let the chat wilt and die an awkward death.
Although her supervisor gave her concerned looks, and outright asked her if something was wrong, nothing changed her mood until she met Cloudchaser at the double doors, and then she'd rubbed so close to her sister's wing that she seemed to be diving under a safety blanket. Only a few days later, she asked her sister to get her a transfer, and was pushing clouds across the sky within a week.
There it was. Flitter covered her eyes with a hoof, not daring to look at her own reflection in the ice. Her sister bailing her out again, leading the way with the cloud on her hooves. I'm a shadow, she thought bitterly. Why?
No, said a stern voice in her head. To her surprise, it was Cloudchaser's. For a moment, Flitter even looked up to see if her sister was there. Shadows follow. They always follow because they can't help it. You might have done that when you were a filly and didn't know any better, but what about now?
What about now? Flitter saw the Cloudiseum loom up before her. She was sitting in the stands with her sister, gazing in awe at the Wonderbolt's firework display.
She'd refused to audition for the Best Young Flyer Competition last year. Not that she hadn't been tempted to try. Vividly, she recalled the mounting excitement of all the ponies she'd passed during the lead-up. For days, it seemed every pegasus could talk of nothing else. She heard snippets of gossip about who'd win the top spot, which Wonderbolt would perform which tricks, and who they were personally rooting for. To her, it was like Hearth's Warming Eve coming early. Everypony, without a signal, quickly homed in on the most likely candidates even before the auditions had come through.
To many ponies' surprise, Cloudchaser had declined an audition. If her sister wasn't going to do it, she'd said, then neither was she. They were both going to root for the newcomer, because Flitter had chosen her and Flitter liked the new mare's pretty wings.
Flitter felt dizzy just remembering the moment. Her sister had stood before a trio of her friends outside the Cloudiseum's main entrance, smiled at Flitter, and delivered the news. It was like stepping off a cloud without seeing the gap. Cloudy doing something after Flitter had done it -- because Flitter had done it -- seemed topsy-turvy. A foalish part of her insisted it went against the natural order of things.
For the rest of the day, she could barely contain her glee. She'd become the big sister overnight!
CLANK!
The clank from the little box building suddenly caught her by the ear.
The pony working behind it must have knocked over some metal tools. She'd almost forgotten he was still there.
Cautiously, Flitter glanced up at the working pegasi.
Then rose to her hooves.
"Hello?" she said, as loudly as she could without actually shouting. "Are you OK in there?"
Another crash, followed by a muffled curse. Flitter flapped her wings and arced over to the veil, pulling it back.
A tangle of blue pipes lay creaking and groaning in the midst of several cleaning tools. The dark stallion caught under the stuff gritted his teeth. Even in the dim room, the grey of his overgrown mane was visible, barely covering his eyes.
He frowned when a mop fell onto his head with a thwack! Flitter winced. She rushed forwards and pushed the worst of the mess off his shoulders and wings. When she tried to sweep aside the pipes, though, he stood up sharply.
"Watch it! I've just put that on, you dope! You want to take my wings off?"
Flitter frowned. That gruff voice sounded familiar. "I was just trying to help. Are you hurt?"
"Course I'm not hurt! It'd take more than that to knock me out!"
He strode towards her, making her back off, and the mass of pipes stuck to his back. When he pushed the veil aside and stepped out, in the brief flash of light, his brown flank lit up and Flitter's eyes widened at the sight of his cutie mark.
"Dumb-Bell?" she said.
The stallion stopped and turned to face her. "Hey, you're that mare from Flight Camp. Flitter, right? Well, well. Long time no see!" He gave a short, deep laugh. "How you doing these days, kid?"
"What are you doing here?" she said happily, ignoring the 'kid' remark.
"I asked first," he said.
"I'm on cloud duty. The usual pegasus lifestyle. You still go to the gym?"
"Mostly," he said, the smugness worming into his voice. The machine on his back shuddered as his one foreleg lifted up the recumbent mop like a weight, flexing his muscles. "I'm on thirty kilos a wing, now. How's that for an achievement?"
"You should have been on cloud duty," she said, and then smirked, "if you hadn't been wiped out during a race by a certain somepony."
"That was a fluke!" Dumb-Bell dropped the mop and leaned forwards for emphasis. "Everypony wipes out when they hit a slipstream. Besides, us big stallions don't do cloud duty. We're destined for proper stallion work, like sports. We're athletes." He flipped her bow idly, making her seize her head in irritation.
"So, if you're a weightlifter," she said, brushing her mane with a hoof, "what are you doing here?"
"What are you doing here?"
"I asked first."
Dumb-Bell snorted. Suddenly, his good humour had vanished. "I'm working. What does it look like?"
He gestured towards the contraption on his back. A pair of long arms slid around and over his head, jutting out just before his hooves at the end of their arc. A long blade was stretched between them like a taut ribbon of steel. On his back rested a large bucket supported by the pipes, sloshing as he moved, and at the rear were two exhaust pipes pointed at the ground.
Flitter glanced from the machine to the ice rink. "Oh. You're doing janitor work, huh?"
Dumb-Bell glared at her. "Yeah. I've had to do this stupid job every night for the last five nights." He strode past her, pointedly not making eye contact. "Now, if you don't mind, I want to get this over with."
Flitter watched, mostly out of curiosity. She hadn't expected company. Indeed, she'd been wondering if it was about time she rejoined the others when the interruption came.
He bucked the machine like a bronco with an irate passenger, and at once a motor hidden in the pipes chugged to life. Every pipe vibrated with the machine's work. Satisfied -- or at least less moody than usual -- he began ambling lazily along one edge of the rink.
As he did so, the blade at the front scraped off a thin layer of ice. Tiny icicles shattered and piled up before the blade as more ice was sliced off. When the pile reached the top, tiny pipes along the arms sucked the topmost shards into the innards of the machine. Above that, the bucket sloshed. A wide spray fired from the twin exhausts, layering the ice behind it with a new coat of water. Even as Flitter watched, the water froze into place, leaving behind a perfect mirror sheen.
Flitter smiled at the result. She could peer into that rink and see herself smiling back. Aches and stiffness struck her wings as she looked, and she glanced up guiltily at the volunteers overhead. Her co-volunteers.
She realized how stupid it had been to sign up. Her sore wings were barely strong enough for the usual cloud duties at midday, and they were rushing from cold to colder and back to make even more fiddly clouds in near-darkness. Besides, she felt as though her head was being slowly dissolved by the fragrant night air. Her daydreams grabbed her attention too easily. She needed rest.
Or an easy job to do.
"Hey, that looks kind of easy," Flitter said to Dumb-Bell, who was some way along the rink and about to turn around. "Is that an ice resurfacer?"
"Yeah. And yeah to the first. Even an earth filly could do this job." He glared at her then, as though daring her to call him such.
A few seconds passed. Flitter chewed her lip.
"Can..." she said, then paused. It hadn't sounded that silly in her head, but now... "Can I have a turn?"
He turned around, partly to do another strip of ice, partly to glare at her from under his grey locks. "You what?"
"Or if you've got a spare ice resurfacer, I'd like to try it out," she added hastily.
A shout from up above caught their attention. Thunderlane had accidentally collided with Medley, snapping her filament clean into two. Both silver slices tumbled towards the ground. A flash of rainbow shot past the shouting pair of ponies and then arced upwards, snatching the pieces before they were lost to the blackness. Flitter checked, but Blossomforth and Cloudchaser merely watched the scene for a moment before they went back to adjusting a filament.
Dumb-Bell gestured at the commotion. "Aren't you supposed to be with those guys?"
"I was, but I'm taking a break." Flitter shrugged. "I don't think the night shift's really for me. But I could do a little work before I go," she insisted. "I'm not totally tired."
"You want to do the most boring job ever invented? Dude, you're weird," he said, but without much malice. His eyelids were drooping just from the tedium of his walk; she could tell as he came ambling back.
"Even if it's not what I volunteered for, I'd be making myself useful. And you'd only have to do half the work."
Dumb-Bell sized her up. It didn't take long, but she could see bags under his eyes and knew he was just delaying to save face. Eventually, he nodded at the veil. "There should be a spare one on the left as you look in. Beats me why you'd want to do it."
"Well, if you'd rather stay up all night doing it by yourself...?"
He glanced at the machine on his back. "Fine. Just don't break anything, or I'll get the rap for it."
"OK," she said, already hurrying over to the veil.
It didn't take long to fix the machine onto her back. To her surprise, her knees sagged under the weight. For a moment, she wondered if this was such a good idea. In for a cent, in for a bit, she thought.
She clanked and creaked when she stepped out to rejoin him. He hadn't moved since she'd vanished.
"Er, thanks," he said.
Flitter fell into line next to him, and they chugged on. They strolled across the ice, ear flaps flicking slightly with each scrape of the blades. Neither of them spoke for a while. It seemed to take ages to reach the other end of the rink. Flitter did a double-take when she glanced back at the sheen left behind and saw the reflection of the sky. The moon's that low already? she thought, seeing its silvery reflection.
"So," she said, realizing how false that sounded, "when did you go into weight-lifting?"
"When I flunked Flight Camp. Don't look so surprised," he added. "You think Rainbow Crash -- I mean, Rainbow Dash -- was the only one, did you? She just got all the credit."
"You get credit for flunking Flight Camp?"
"When you can pull off a Sonic Rainboom whenever you feel like it? You can get credit for dropping apple cores on the ground."
"I thought you said the first one was an old mare's tale? That's what you and Hoops kept telling us two."
"I changed my tune after she pulled off a new one, didn't I? Hey, I didn't think she pulled off the first boom. I didn't think she'd pull off the second one, either."
"How did you not see it? You were in the race with her."
"You try looking at a rainboom when you've just whacked a column with your head."
"Oh. I thought you were just in denial. But I told you. We all told you. There was a cloud full of witnesses you could've asked."
"Yeah, and I'm supposed to believe a cloud full of hero worshippers? I said she won the race, and now I say she did the boom. There you go. I said I was sorry, too. I had to eat my pride, you know."
They continued in silence.
"I still can't believe you flunked Flight Camp," she said tentatively. "I mean, you kept rubbing it in Rainbow's face."
Dumb-Bell's face flickered for a moment, so quickly that she couldn't tell if it was a frown or a grimace before a stoic face replaced it. "So what? I was a jerk back then. I knew she hated it. I couldn't care less whether I passed or not," he said, not entirely convincingly. He must have noticed, because he added, "I already knew what I wanted to do! And I don't regret it neither." His face dared her to make a joke about it.
"But Hoops and Quarterback went into sports, and they didn't --"
"Yeah, well, I've known the guys since way back," said Dumb-Bell angrily. "We're like brothers. They sure weren't gonna laugh at me."
"They teased her about it too," replied Flitter persistently. "Doesn't that make you..."
"Make me what?"
"Well, a bit of a..." She had an eerie feeling when she thought up her next word, but pressed on with it... "a hypocrite?"
"Maybe it does," he said. Dumb-Bell glanced up at the Rainbow streak. "Well, yeah, it does. But like I said, I was a jerk. I've turned over a new feather, seen the error of my ways, all that stuff."
"So what did you want to do?"
"I went into the weightlifting championships," he said casually. "Hoops went into basketcloud, and Quarterback..." He frowned. "Actually, I have no idea what Quarterback did. I never asked him. Come to that, he never said anything about it either."
"He doesn't talk much anyway."
"Well, neither did you." He stopped her, and turned around for the walk back.
Flitter pretended not to hear him.
"I'm heading for the championships next week."
"Wow," she said. "you must pack some decent wingpower. How come you weren't at Hurricane season?"
"I bust a wing. Those weights can kill, you know. I had to take the week off in hospital."
"What did the coach say about that?"
"He said 'YEAH!'"
"Why?"
"I dunno. He always says that, even when he means 'no'."
Another long pause followed.
Flitter glanced around. "So why are you doing janitor work?"
"Let's just say I made a dumb comment to the wrong colt at the wrong moment. His brother started a scene, and before you know it I'm doing janitor duty. The coach makes you clean up when you do stuff like that." When Flitter gave him a raised eyebrow, he added, "Well, you should have seen the squirt! He was trying to be a big shot, lifting weights bigger than his head. It was hilarious."
"You had to open your big mouth, didn't you? Again."
"Er... I didn't think?" he said.
"So I shouldn't be doing this. It's a punishment, isn't it?"
"No! I volunteered. Well, OK, yeah, it's a punishment, but coach can be kinda soft about that stuff, so he let me pick what I wanted to do."
"Turned over a new feather, huh?"
"You're not leaving, are you?"
He stopped and glanced at her. Was that apprehension?
"No. But I'm just helping for the one night. Only because I've got nothing better to do."
Relief rose off his forehead. They continued.
"Thanks. I gotta say, if I'd known I'd be working late night shifts on my own, I wouldn't have bothered. I sure wish Hoops was here," he muttered. "It feels weird not having him around. You know, I get used to having the guy nearby, somepony to talk to, and now he's not here, it's like everything's too quiet. It's like when he went into basketcloud after Flight Camp. I hated the gym first time I was there, and I already had my cutie mark and everything. You ever had that with Clouds?"
"Huh?"
"You know. You and Cloudchaser? When you left Flight Camp to do your own stuff?"
"Oh. Yeah. Yeah I have."
"He showed me the ropes at Flight Camp. Hoops, I mean. Honestly, it's like the guy was the brother I never had. Better flier, better wingpower, better hair."
"Better hair?"
"Have you seen the size of his bangs? That's babe magnet material."
Flitter glanced at his hair. This explains so much, she thought.
"Do you still see him?"
"Once or twice. Sometimes, he comes visit the gym, or I go with Quarterback to watch one of Hoops' games."
A pause. She noticed he had a far-off look in his eyes. He's distracted, she thought. "Something on your mind, Dumb-Bell?"
He looked startled. "No," he said, a little too quickly.
"When you stared off like that, you looked like Cloudchaser always does when she's bothered."
"Nah, it's nothing." He waved a wing dismissively. "Just stuff. You'd laugh."
"No, I wouldn't. Did I ever laugh at you back at Camp? You remember all that stuff when you and Hoops used to hang out with me and Cloudy after training."
He gave this a lot of chewing over. He sighed.
"OK. You know like with cutie marks and stuff, they don't change once they poof onto your flank?"
She nodded.
"You think everything else about a pony doesn't change, either? Like once he's passed a certain age, there, he's stuck with whatever he's got?"
"I don't know. I don't think so. A bit."
"I mean, when he's a colt, and he's the sort who likes to race, and there's this other colt who hates racing? Or maybe they're fillies, just fillies, one who likes racing and the other... you know, all that stuff with the races. And then they both grow up into stallions -- I mean, into mares -- get their cutie marks, their jobs, and all that, and they still like races or not?"
He took a deep breath before continuing.
"But, but say there's this colt who's a jerk -- I mean, he finds something fun when he's a kid, and he grows up, and he still finds it fun, and then it turns out one of the fillies or mares -- the one who likes racing -- shows him up, and then he grows up and she shows him up twice, and it isn't so fun either way for him. And he thinks then that maybe his kind of fun isn't so fun, not for that filly or any other filly -- mares! I mean, mares -- or something like that, and he wants to change so that he doesn't find it fun, but he still finds it fun, even though he kinda knows it isn't fun for the other ponies..."
They turned around again, and the brief flash of concentration needed to get his body to move seemed to kill what little enthusiasm he had for continuing. Flitter felt like there were butterflies in her stomach.
"You mean can a pony change from being a jerk to not being a jerk?" she said.
"Yeah."
A pause. It was a question she wanted answered herself.
"I guess so," she said. "I mean, if they really want to."
"Is that all? It can't be that easy. Just wanting something doesn't make it happen."
"Who said it had to be easy?" She fished her memory for the most unlikely example. "Klu -- Fluttershy was a lousy flyer, and nopony would have guessed she'd ace Tornado day. Sure, she was barely doing anything in the training, but you should have seen her on the day! She was the one who tipped the balance for us in that tornado."
"No way. Klutzershy? That gangly-legged filly who couldn't fly?"
"Where have you been the last few weeks?"
"Ahem, janitor duty? And this is Klutz -- I mean, this is Fluttershy we're talking about. Remember her from Flight Camp? Actually, I'm asking the wrong filly..."
Flitter blushed at the memory.
A new thought seemed to strike Dumb-Bell. "Seriously," he said, a little more fascinated this time, "Fluttershy?"
"Yeah, just ask anypony. So if she can do that, who can say what's possible?"
Dumb-Bell stopped. He seemed to perk up at this news. "Yeah. When you put it like that, I guess." He stamped his hoof in the manner of one slapping his thigh with surprise. "You know what? If she can do that, maybe there's still some hope left."
They stopped at the last stretch. Dumb-Bell failed to notice that they'd reached the side for the last time, and he almost lurched when the blade bumped into the edge of the rink. Flitter had seen it coming and stood cheerfully by his side. Dumb-Bell glanced behind him at the shiny surface of the ice rink with genuine surprise.
"Whoa, that was quick!" he said.
"There, you see? Teamwork forever."
"That's great! Now I can get some decent shut eye."
They beamed at each other, proud of their joint handiwork. A whooshing sound from overhead made them look up. Rainbow Dash spiralled and looped before she was right over their heads, hovering in place with perfect precision. The other pegasi dived down around her, slapping each other's wings and hooves in triumph.
"Hey, Flits," she said. "Chilling out on the rink? We're all done here."
"You're done already?" said Flitter.
"You sound so surprised," said Cloudchaser landing beside her. She noticed Dumb-Bell for the first time, and gave a cool smile. "Hey, Dumb-Bell. How's it going?"
"Meh. Could be worse." He looked up at Rainbow Dash. Both their faces were carefully blank. Flitter remembered there was currently a truce between them ever since the Best Young Flyers Competition. Around them, the other pegasi were saying their goodbyes and heading back for Cloudsdale.
"Hey, Dumb-Bell," said Rainbow carelessly.
"Hey, Rainbow... Dash," replied Dumb-Bell with equal lack of interest.
Flitter looked up at their handiwork, and gaped in astonishment. "Thirty five cirrus clouds in one night? That's an amazing achievement."
"Sure is," said Cloudchaser, putting a hoof onto her shoulder. "We were never going to beat Rainbow Dash, but Blossomforth and I got second place."
Dumb-Bell glanced from Flitter to the clouds behind Rainbow. He looked back at the mare hovering over his head. "Uh... Nice cloud work," he said. There was the faintest flicker tugging at the corner of his mouth, but only a pony with a magnifying glass would have spotted it.
To Flitter's surprise, Rainbow simply nodded. She'd been expecting a boast or a brag, or for Rainbow to rub it in, but all she did was acknowledge the praise without comment. Rainbow gave the ice rink a passing look. It sparkled and gleamed as if on cue.
"Thanks," she said, and then added as an afterthought, "You're not so bad with the ice yourself."
"Thanks," he said. After a pause and another glance at Flitter, he said, "I hear Klutz -- I mean, I hear Fluttershy did good at Tornado day."
Rainbow suddenly looked defensive. "Yeah? What of it?"
"Whoa, take it easy. I don't mean nothing by it." He struggled to reclaim his thread. "I'm just saying she did good. Sonic Rainboom good, you see?"
Rainbow visibly relaxed. "You know," she said, in a vaguely thoughtful voice that was put on, "I don't think you ever really apologized to her."
"Haven't seen her since the competition. She doesn't live in Cloudsdale." Dumb-Bell glanced at Flitter, who smiled encouragingly. "But if I see her again. You know, if we could hang out or something?"
"Maybe," said Rainbow, but the smile was reassuring this time. "I'll have to check my plans."
"Right." Then his smile widened. "So you won this race, huh?"
"Sure did," said Rainbow. Now there was the bravado Flitter was used to hearing.
"Bet you couldn't beat me at ice slider, though," he said.
"That so, huh?" Rainbow looked interested. "You making a challenge?"
"You wanna take it up?"
"Cirrodrome Skaters, tomorrow evening?"
"It is on." He raised his hoof. Rainbow spat into hers, and Dumb-Bell spat too before they hit hooves and sealed the deal.
Rainbow turned to the twins, who were watching with a mixture of surprise and friendly interest. "Well, I'm gonna" -- she yawned exaggeratedly -- "I don't know about you, but I'm gonna hit the hay. Night Cloudchaser, night Flitter."
"Goodnight, Rainbow Dash," said the twins. The wind whipped their manes as Rainbow zoomed off and out of sight.
Cloudchaser turned to Dumb-Bell and Flitter. "You coming then, Flits?"
"Er, is it OK if I stop and help put the stuff away?"
"Sure. I can wait a little while. I'll just be over there." She flapped her wings, and took off.
Dumb-Bell and Flitter walked around the ice and back to the box-shaped building.
"Thanks for helping out, Flitter," he said. "You have no idea how bored I would have been if I'd had another night to myself. I really appreciate it."
"Hey, that's what friends are for," she said.
"I mean, I'll be honest, when I saw you, I thought you were going to laugh at me."
"Come on, why would I do that?"
"Well, look at this thing." He jerked his head towards the ice resurfacer, which he carefully lifted off his back with his wings and forehooves. "I look stupid."
"Do I look stupid?" she said. The machine was still on her back.
They looked, and then grinned at each other. They both allowed themselves a shared chuckle.
"Ah," he said, as she removed the device from her back. "I guess it can't be that bad, then. I did think you were going to laugh."
Flitter fell silent. "But I did laugh."
"Yeah, but only a little. And it didn't stop you helping me. You're all right, Flits."
Once, I was supposed to laugh at him. Now, not so much. Have I really changed that much already?
"Here, I'll help you put this away." She moved towards the building.
"Nah, I got this covered," he said, taking the device off her. "You look like you're about to drop down dead."
She smiled at him. "Hey, thanks. See you around, Dumb-Bell!"
He waved her off as she flew away to rejoin her sister.
"Well, that was a surprise," said Cloudchaser. They both began flying home. "Pretty interesting night tonight. You wouldn't believe what Blossomforth told me about the Triathlon."
Flitter hung her head in shame. She remembered Blossomforth had effectively taken her place.
"Sorry I wasn't much help, Cloudy." She sighed.
"You don't need to be sorry," said Cloudchaser cheerfully. "It was your first time at volunteering, and you had a cramp at the wrong moment. At least you volunteered, and at least you did contribute something."
"It wasn't much, though."
"But it was a start, Flits, a start. You'll get another chance to help."
"And I can get some training before then."
"Exactly."
Flitter smiled in agreement. "You're the best, sis."
"You're the best sis, too," said Cloudchaser.
They flew towards the horizon, where the moon was at its lowest, and the towers of Cloudsdale shone like opal mountains. Behind them and to the east, the sky began to brighten.
