Like Sisters, Probably

I was so excited or nervous or just anxious to see Dash after work, I ended up being a bit too awesome and finished up everything I had to do for the day almost a half an hour before my shift was over. I was cloud-wrangling out by the Everfree, so I didn’t think I was done so early that I needed to go all the way back to the office to see if there was anything else for me to do just for a half-hour. So I really didn’t have anything to do except wait.

Sitting around on a cloud got boring after all of fifteen seconds, so I started running through a few tricks I was trying to learn. I had thought they were starting to look pretty good when I ran them a few days ago, but after being sharply reminded of how Dash flew, I felt like I was just muddling through basics as I ran them now. She was on a completely different level from ponies like me.

I felt totally self-conscious as I did my little routine I had put together, and found myself checking to make sure nopony was watching my ridiculous efforts. My open-air tricks were pretty mediocre, though, if I was being honest with myself. Maybe I just didn’t have the imagination for it. There was only so much I could think to do with loops and barrel rolls. Anything else I could possibly think of were just Dash’s moves, which I couldn’t pull off. I’d tried.

I darted over above the Everfree, and plucked out a few of the clouds I had pushed over there earlier in the day. I let them go back into the sky I had just finished clearing, spacing them out only a little bit intentionally. The edge of the Everfree was a good spot—there were a few wild gusts and air currents that would swirl around and give me a pretty good, fairly randomly-generated obstacle course.

I only gave the clouds a once-over before diving in. I was seriously doubting my abilities as a stunt flier with Dash’s awesomeness so fresh in my mind, so I was eager to do something even Dash had said I was pretty good at.

I picked up some pretty good speed before getting to the thick of it, and went right in without a second’s pause. I darted around the first cloud, skirting so close to the edge of it as I circled around that I could feel the g’s pulling on me as I did. When I came around on the other side of it, I shot away from it with a quick flick of my wings, blindly—and now disoriented from circling the cloud so fast—flying into the real gauntlet.

That was the part where my mind could properly shut off. I didn’t need to think about any clever combination of tricks or anything. I just needed to respond to the obstacles in front of me, and do it in the coolest way I could. There was no time for planning—just reaction.

A cloud was coming up quickly to my right, so I let my wing clip it on a downstroke, using the cloud to push myself into a twirl, and I shot into a different clump of clouds. I had to flare my wings just at the right point so I’d stop spinning, and glide through the almost perfectly Scootaloo-shaped gap that I spotted. I had about point-three of a twirling, disoriented second to pull it off, and of course I shot through at full speed without so much as brushing any of the clouds around the space. I came out just beneath a fair-sized cumulus cloud, so I looped around it and went through the gap a second time, going the other way.

As I began nearing the edge of the cloud cluster, there was a bit of an empty stretch in front of me, and then a few clouds before I’d be clear. Coming down at a sharp angle like I was, I jerked my wings once, kicked off from a cloud beneath me, then tucked my wings in as I launched up into an arch. I let myself arch over to the last few clouds, trusting my trajectory was on the mark. Right as I came up on them, I saw an opening and flapped one wing hard, bringing my legs close to my body, and shot though the last cluster while doing a tight barrel roll.

“Nice one, kid!” I heard as I flared out my wings to stop spinning, and glided down for an easy landing.

“How’d you know I’d be way out here?” I asked as I touched down, a cocky grin on my face from having Dash catch me at my best.

“Yeah, I didn’t. Just flew around all of Ponyville. It only took a minute.”

I glanced back up at the clouds, and my grin turned a bit sheepish. “Before we go I, uh... got to put away these clouds. I mean, I totally already had, but then I was done too early and pulled them out again so I could...”

Dash laughed. “Yeah, I know that one. Want some help?”

I was going to say no, but I caught a look in her eye as she landed that I didn’t expect. It seemed almost wistful or something. I realized that it might be nostalgic for her, in a way, pushing clouds.

“Yeah, alright,” I said. She gave me a wide grin and we both took off. Of course I hadn’t thought for a second that it’d be anything short of a contest, and soon we were both ripping through the air, clearing clouds with the kind of speed and efficiency that would’ve made my weather manager weep for joy if he’d been watching as Dash and I tried to outdo each other.

Once my obstacle course had been fully taken apart and the pieces were floating back out over the Everfree, we landed because I needed to catch my breath. Dash wasn’t breathing even a bit faster than normal, and actually looked quite relaxed. I don’t think either of us had been keeping score, but it was pretty safe to say Dash would’ve wiped the floor with me if we had.

Dash watched the clouds sailing back over the Everfree, spinning and clumping together as they hit the rampant weather above the forest while I caught my breath.

“You know,” she said, turning to look at me critically, “that trial you had set up wasn’t bad, but you’d get way more out of something like that if you set it up over the Everfree instead of on the edge of it.”

I blinked, and still panted a bit, and looked at her. The thing my parents, the weather team, and Sweetie Belle had made me swear to never do, and Dash was suggesting it like it wasn’t even a big deal. There was something totally refreshing and awesome about that.

“Actually,” she continued, her gaze lingering on the clouds over the forest, “that looks like it’d make a pretty good trail right as it is, now.” She gave an angled grin. “Want to try it?”

“Yes!” I replied instantly. “But some other time. I’m totally tired and hungry right now.” And I was, too. I wasn’t even chickening out. Though, I will say, if I was chickening out it was because I was scared Sweetie Belle would find out about it—honestly, that thought scared me way more than the deathtrap that was the air above the Everfree.

Instead, we went to The Salt and Apple because it was nearby. I was planning out how I was going to get Dash telling me why she didn’t show me her new tricks the day before, and so I started off by easing her into a false sense of security with my totally excellent conversational skills—well, I just started talking about the tricks I had been doing and stuff, but it almost worked: right as we got done talking about how I was way better at obstacle-course-type things than open air tricks, I was all, “hey, speaking of tricks”—which was a totally smooth transition into—”what other tricks were you thinking of doing for your routine? Because, you know, you haven’t shown them to me yet.”

A bit of a shadow passed across her face. She wasn’t falling into my cleverly laid conversational trap.

“Is this about me bailing out on you yesterday?” she asked. At least she wasn’t brushing it off completely.

“Yeah,” I admitted. “Come on, what was up with that? You always show me your works-in-progress.”

“Okay, look: I just don’t want to show them to you right now. I know that you really want to see them, so sorry about that, okay? You can see them later.”

“It’s not about the tricks, Dash!” I paused. “Well, it is—I’m totally dying to see what you’ve worked up for the second most important flying test of your career—but I don’t get why you’re being like this. You’re being weird!”

She sighed patiently and gave me this totally condescending look, with a patronizing little half-smile and everything. I knew what she was about to say, so I cut her off before she could.

“Hey, don’t even start with some kind of ‘Scoots is just being a kid’-slash-‘fangirl’ thing! I know I’m actually right, this time! Is this about something Lightning Dust said, or something like that?” Dash would never admit it, but I knew Lightning Dust could get to her sometimes. I’m pretty sure Lightning Dust knew it, too, and I wouldn’t put it past that pony to sink so low if it meant taking out her number-one competitor for the Alpha Squadron trial.

“What? No,” said Dash, angling a scowl at me. She hated when I talked about Dust. “Do we have to go ever this again? LD isn’t like that—we only push each other to get better. I get how it looks to other ponies sometimes, but I know her better than anyone. It’s not like that.”

“So she did say something about the trial, didn’t she?”

“Well yeah, this is a big deal for both of us. It’s like all we talk about. Yeah, we talk smack and stuff, but I know in the end she’d be happy for me if I got in, same as I’d be for her.”

“Dash! Are you listening to yourself? She’s trying to psyche you out! And it’s working! Why else did you come all the way to Ponyville right before the trial, like this?” Dash never thought rationally when it came to that pony. It’d been quite a while since Dust and Rainbow had broken up, but they’d been dating for like a bazillion years before that. I knew Dash still had feelings for her, and that drove me crazy. I couldn’t stand Lighting Dust.

“I came to Ponyville to see you guys! Don’t even pretend you weren’t stoked to see me. Seriously, Scootaloo, you’re starting to really bug me. Just drop—”

“ ‘Came to Ponyville just to see us’? Why won’t you show me the tricks you’re working on, then?”

Her face darkened and she turned away. “Whatever,” she said. I was losing her. Dash was going to take off at any moment, and then pretend like nothing was up the next time I saw her.

“It’s almost like you’re too scared to even try these tricks,” I said. It was a long-shot, but I had to say something crazy to get her to keep talking, or she would shut me out completely. What I didn’t expect was for her to turn and stare at me with this oddly neutral expression on her face. It threw me off, and I wondered if I had crossed some kind of line.

“Yeah,” I continued right away, “but that’s just crazy, right? There’s no way the Rainbow Dash would be nervous about doing a few tricks or anything.” She was really throwing me off with that look, and I was almost panicking as I back-pedaled like crazy. “You’re way too awesome for that, obviously. I guess I’m just still a little sore about you snubbing me like that yesterday. Sorry?”

She kept looking at me for a second, then got up. “No. Yeah, snubbing you,” she said. “Sorry about that. Anyway, I got a thing. Like, now. Catch ya’ later.” And she took off.

“Wait, Dash!” She was already gone. “What the heck! I said ‘sorry’!” I called after her. I thought about chasing her, but there was still the bill. And it’s not like I could’ve caught her, anyway.

I slumped in my chair, trying to figure out what the buck had just happened, and trying to ignore the stares from the other ponies in the restaurant. Was Dash getting temperamental in her old age? She was almost thirty, already. Or maybe it was that Dash had just always been like that. If I was being honest, I’d have to admit that it was tough separating what I actually knew about Dash from what I had just stuck on to her in my head because I idolized her so much. I had grown up with her always being around, but sometimes I wondered how many times I’d seen the Dash that wasn’t up on a pedestal.

By the time I got home, I had worked myself into a state. I would just have finished convincing myself that I had been a total ass to Dash, somehow, and would start feeling all depressed—and then a minute later Dash was the jerk, had gone off over nothing, and I’d be full of righteous indignation. I was flopping over again when I walked through the door to my place, and was feeling pretty moody as Sweetie greeted me from the couch where she was reading.

“Don’t you ever go home?” I snapped at her.

“Not if I can help it.” She looked up as I tossed myself onto the far side of the couch from her. I have no doubt I was totally scowling. “Especially not when there’s such great company here,” Sweetie said, her brow straight. I shot her a glance, and then sighed.

“Right. Sorry. Not your fault—didn’t mean to take it out on you.”

She looked at me for a minute. “Something with Dash? Do you want to—?”

“No. I don’t know. Maybe I’ll want to talk about it later. What’re you reading?”

She held a bit of a frown for a second, and then brightened up. “The new issue of Stables is out!” That was her favourite comic. “I couldn’t believe it! You know Big B.’s children? Well—”

“Ah, no!” I cut her off. “I haven’t even read the one before it yet!”

“Well, get on that!” she said, and gave an exasperated sigh. It killed her not to be able to gush about stuff like that.

“Alright! Alright! I’ll read it now! Where is it?”

She dug it out for me. I used to be so excited when the new issues of something came out, I’d almost have it read before I got home. Maybe I was getting lame about stuff like that as I got older. I felt kind of old and kind of lame. I mean, I was only twenty-one, but it still kind of weirded me out that I couldn’t say I was a teenager anymore. Though, I did kind of feel like I was done being a teenager—I had a job and was living on my own and stuff. That felt a bit adult-like, and that was awesome, but I guess sometimes it wasn’t.

Like, ponies were suddenly going to expect me to act like an adult. In school, everypony treats you like you’re a stupid kid who can’t make any decisions for yourself, then bam! now you’re an adult, you have to live an adult life, and you’re expected to be totally perfect at it or everyone goes, “jeez, kids these days can’t even something-or-other.” Celestia buck it, I hated when ponies said anything with “kids these days” in it.

And then, of course, half the time ponies still treat you like a stupid kid, anyway.

I looked up at Sweetie. “Do you feel like an adult?” I asked her.

She started at me for a moment. “Really? You ask me this as we’re sitting around reading comic books?” She looked back down to her book. “I live at my sister’s and sleep in past noon every day. What do you think?”

“Right. Point,” I said.

“Does this have to do with Rainbow Dash, somehow?”

I didn’t really have an answer. Maybe it did. I was just in a pretty bad mood.

“Oh hey, how was your gig today?” I asked suddenly. For some reason I had just remembered that she’d had a gig earlier that day, and honestly wanted to know how it went. I actually kind of felt like a jerk for not asking her about it earlier. She let the Dash thing drop, and told me about her gig—it had been awesome. After that we just hung out and had supper and things were great, and then we stayed up late and got a bit drunk because Sweets had been through Rarity’s liquor cabinet again before she came over.

I thought about Dash one more time after Sweetie had left, before I went to bed. I decided that Dash really had acted like a complete foal, bailing on me twice in a row to avoid telling me what her issues were. I felt better about the whole thing once I had gotten that straight in my head. I figured I could track her down the next day and call her out on it. She still owed me for picking up her half of the bill, anyway. At the very least, she wouldn’t be able to just act like nothing had happened.

I flopped down into bed and picked up the latest issue of Stables. I figured I still had a good ten years ahead of me I could get away with acting like a kid—Dash seemed to be managing it well enough so far.