Blue Thunder and White Lightning had been friends for almost a month now. Since their initial meeting, they had begun to hang out on a regular basis. White Lightning would never admit it, but she liked having Blue Thunder around. He was funny and kind, and she had to concede that he had been right about taking her to the hospital earlier.

He also was a good listener. Blue Thunder could be relied upon to lend an ear whenever she needed to vent about something; often it was about how it was unfair that the Wonderbolts had banned her for life. He never told her to move on, or to give up. Talking to him, Lightning was sure that someday, she would wow them enough to make them overlook their own rules and sign her up, because she was just that awesome.

In the month since her crash, Lightning’s wing had healed up almost perfectly and she was back to flying nearly as fast as she had been before her unfortunate wipe out. She was still a few seconds off her fastest pace and her wing burned if she flew for more than a few hours at a time, but she was confident that she could make it back to her old self with a little more training.

Thunder had taken White Lightning to all of his favourite spots to hang out around Cloudsdale and even out on a few longer trips to some of the more distant locations of Equestria. He had even agreed to work as her flying partner while she focused on getting her wing back up to speed, spotting her whenever she overdid it.

Right now, she was having a ball of a time; teasing Blue Thunder with a little friendly race through the skies around Cloudsdale.

Blue Thunder wasn’t anywhere near as fast as she was, but he was a determined pegasus and didn’t give up. Where Lightning could blast through a track in a matter of seconds, he would take minutes but he never gave up and kept putting along until he reached the finish line.

Right now, she was lounging on a cloud while Thunder covered the last few hundred meters of the course. Her wing twitched a little as she watched him; a clear sign that she had strained herself a little bit already. While it wasn’t anything that she couldn’t work through, Thunder had been teaching her that overlooking the pain would only cripple her in the long run and potentially dash any remaining hopes she had for getting into the Wonderbolts. She would have to do the rest of today at slightly faster than his best speed.

"You still can't keep up with me?" she called down to the advancing blue blob that was Thunder. She was resting on a cloud, slowly stretching out her wings and occasionally taking a moment to preen a feather or two. Wings as good as hers took a lot of care to maintain.

"Oh come on, give me a break... we've been practicing like this for days!" Blue muttered up to her, out of breath, “I’m never going to be as fast as you.”

“Slow poke,” Lightning stuck out her tongue at him before flapping away from her cloud lazily; taking care not to stress her weakened wing any more. She could handle cruising easily enough; it was only when she pushed herself now that it began to act up again.

“You should watch what you say,” Blue called up at her, still trying to close the distance between them.

“Or what?” Lightning called back down, “You’ll come up here and make me eat my words? I’d like to see you try.”

“Watch this,” Blue Thunder called out, putting all of his remaining energy into one final flap of his wings. He surged forward with an unexpected burst of speed and closed the distance between them rapidly.

Lightning watched him come and reacted instantly, flapping her wings a little harder and rising up higher into the air. Right into the base of a hard-packed cloud highway, as Blue Thunder had been hoping.

Hard clouds were a special product of Cloudsdale, able to hold light objects in place as if they were on the ground. Mostly used in housing construction, they were also used to create skyroads for transporting goods between cities in the clouds and White Lightning had just flown smack into the bottom of one.

“Oww,” she called out, bringing a hoof up to rub the back of her head where she had impacted the skyway. Her moment of distraction was all the Blue Thunder needed, and with a second burst of speed, he caught up to Lightning and dashed right past her, letting his prismatic tail swish past her nose.

“Who’s the slowpoke now?” he called from above her, dancing a little jig in the air before landing on the skyroad.

“No fair,” Lightning said from her spot below him. “You made me slam into this. You cheated.”

“Said the mare who didn’t look where she was going,” came Thunder’s retort. Lightning had to grudgingly admit that he was right; she hadn’t looked at where she was going.

Lightning flapped up a few times and came in to land next to Blue Thunder. The pair of them sat down on the edge of the skyroad and basked in the golden sunshine radiating down from the sun. Neither of them spoke, and they just looked down over Equestria far below. Tiny brightly colored blobs that were ponies working in the fields appeared as ants.

After a few moments, White Lightning began twitching her wings again. She didn’t like sitting still for long periods and her wing had started twitching again. Blue Thunder turned over to face her and saw her wing twitching on its own.

“Your wing acting up again? You know you shouldn’t push yourself just yet,” he said, moving up around Lightning. With soft movements, he pushed his hooves under her wings and began massaging the sensitive muscles and nerves close to the wings’ joints. Lightning flinched a few times when he pushed down harder than he should, but his hooves felt good and soon her wing began to relax on its own.

“Oh, where have you been all my life, Thunder?” she said, relaxing fully, melting into a pony shaped puddle. Blue Thunder’s hooves felt like magic on her sore muscles and she lifted her wings up to give him easier access.

With a sudden gasp, she felt Blue Thunder’s teeth clamp down on her feather tips. A series of sharp tugs and pulls followed as Thunder began preening her wings in addition to rubbing the joints. Lightning knew that she should put a stop to it. Preening another’s wings was something normally reserved only for couples; it was a very intimate thing to do. Part of her didn’t want to push him off though; his hooves and teeth felt too good.

After a thorough preening Thunder helped Lightning to her hooves and took off flying casually and aimlessly. “Um... White?” she quickly disappeared from Thunder’s view as soon as they crested a cloud. “Where’d you-” Lightning pounced over Blue, knocking him flat onto his back. In a moment, she had both his forelegs pinned to the cloud and she was looking right down into his eyes. “Um... what are you going?”

She batted her eyes at him, a coy smile forming on her face. “Oh, I don’t know. We are both adults here; how about some ‘other’ physical pursuits.

Thunder stared blankly at her for a moment; his mind trying to process her meaning. A second later, he finished and realised exactly what she was suggesting.

‘POMF.’ Thunder’s wings shot upright in an instant. Lightning smiled at him; he was reacting exactly as she had hoped, evidenced by how his wings were now standing at their full attention.

“Looks like somepony is happy to see me,” she cooed before reaching down and planting her lips on his.

Thunder slowly relaxed into her kiss, returning it and bringing up his hooves to caress her face. It had been a long time coming, but he had known from the moment that he saw her careening directly towards him that he was in love. Now here she was, wrapped up in his legs.

Blue Thunder broke the kiss and pushed White Lightning off of him. She whimpered slightly but quickly silenced herself when she felt his hoof lightly press against her lips. Smiling, he leaned in and gave her a second kiss on her forehead. “Your place or mine?” he asked.

“Yours,” she replied, throwing herself on top of him again.

Blue Thunder could only silently agree as he felt Lightning’s hooves all over him.

Author's Note

Co-authored by: Fimbulvinter