Blaze
Spitfire kicked a stone away and winced at the sharp pain as it came back to hit the bruised spot of hoof. She cursed, and glanced behind her in fear to see if anypony was watching. That invoked another stream of cursing, upon seeing her tiny filly wings, stripped of their primaries and robbed of their flying forever.
It wasn't fair that filly wings had so little feathers! It could have been any of the feathers picked...it was totally random! Totally not on purpose at all...he wouldn't do that.
Who cared. Math was stupid. Flying was stupid. Daddy was stupid. The whole stupid world was stupid!
Spitfire passed Vinyl Scratch and a few other foals.
Stupid Vinyl. Always so popular in school. It wasn't her fault she couldn't be as smart, or pretty, or horn-headed as the white unicorn.
Yes it is. You little piece of mule crap, if only you'd been a unicorn.
Spitfire scowled deeply. "Hhph! I'll show her... I'll go get the Princess to fix my wings, then I'll show her I'm not worthless! I'll go wham! Wham! Whamwhamwham!
Spitfire punched the air over and over, bucked and kicked, till the imaginary Vinyl probably would have been a pile of blue and white dust.
"Wham! Enough you say? Well I'm not through yet! I'll make you sorry you ever-"
No you won't. You can't do anything. I can't believe you're my daughter, what a disgrace.
Spitfire gasped, and clunked her head a good ten times to clear it. She had walked herself into a rather gloomy alley, with rats running around and fighting each other ruthlessly.
Spitfire sighed and sat down on a nearby box.
"He's right. I can't do anything. Maybe...maybe his earth pony idea isn't so bad after all. There are plenty of high-society earth pony jobs here, Manehatten's a big city. I could drop out of school...wouldn't lose feathers anymore. Maybe I could be one of those cloned singers..."
Spitfire broke down. She sobbed and sobbed, and when it seemed like the faucet was empty she would see a yellow feather on the ground and it would start again.
Suddenly, a thump on the wall across from Spitfire jolted her back to the world. A fully grown phoenix stood on a rung of a wall mounted ladder, flapping it's wings to release the dust. Spitfire swiped away the tears blurring her vision and squinted at the orange-red falcon.
Phoenixes were not common in Equestria, and in fact the only one in captivity that she knew of was the Princess's very own Philomena. As she peered closer, Spitfire noticed a few oddities. Spots around the neck, the stripes down her chest, and of course the famous zig-zag down her leg. Philomena's markings! This was Philomena!
Spitfire cocked her head. "Philomena? What are you doing here?"
The bird just stared at her.
"Right. You're a bird. You can't talk. I knew that. Um...wait a minute! Did you escape from uptown, where the Princess is staying?"
Philomena nodded.
"Oh, you silly bird! Come, on let's get back home."
Spitfire held out her hoof as a perch, and gently set the bird onto the yellow pegasus's back. It must have been quite a sight, to see a tiny filly trotting along with a huge flaming bird on her back.
"Hey girl. Can I talk to you? I can talk to you, right? I'm just going to talk...
"So, I have a problem. My daddy really wanted me to be a horn-head, and he's kinda mean. Like, sometimes, he hits me. A lot. That's why I've got all these bruises. And he says a lot of bad words, but he get's really mad when I try to say them.
"He also has this drink, too. I tried it once, when he was away. I think it must be medicine because it's really bitter and gross. I mean, who drinks that stuff voluntarily? Plus it's called vodka, that sounds like a medicine. But he drinks it a lot. Sometimes when he drinks a lot of it he gets in a bad mood, and that's when he hits me hardest. I call them his "moods". When he gets like that his magic gets all weird, like the little bubble around it has lots of static electricity of something. It's even weirder when he picks me up with it then."
She shuddered.
" He also does this thing where when he's mad, he hits me. Or sad. Or happy. Or anytime, really. Sometimes he bucks, though. I'm just glad he doesn't do that all the time. He should be a soccer player or something, you wouldn't believe how hard a few broken legs are to hide at school."
Spitfire chuckled, remembering. Looking back on it, that one incident was almost funny.
"While we're on the topic of school, did I mention how bad I am at math. My god, I suck. It started getting bad after this once time when Daddy bucked me really hard up here." She tapped her head and winced at the ever-hurting spot. "I mean, I'm barely passing! I don't suppose you could teach me math?" she said with a smirk.
Philomena cawed and flapped her wings.
"Exactly! Ha ha ha!"
Spitfire stopped and thought about something. When she started up again, she said, "What does it feel like to fly?"
Philomena cocked her head in confusion.
"Yeah, see, I lost my primaries before I learned to fly. I mean, I don't have any pegasus relatives, who's gonna teach me? Basicly, there was this one time when Daddy had a lot of his medicine. He was all weird, and he got mad, and, well...he kinda ripped out my primaries. I'm sure it was an accident! He has this one idea, to go make me an Earth pony. He doesn't like that I'm a pegasus, 'cuz there like no pegasi in high-society. Plus it would stop me from shedding feathers everywhere. I thought maybe I could go get a job as one of those weird singers, you know, with the yellow manes and white coats and stuff. I heard they get to vote on the appearance, sometimes. I don't really like my coat color, anyways."
Spitfire realized she had nothing more to talk about, and they traveled in silence.
Spitfire's heart skipped a beat when she realized she was nearing the festival. She had grown fond of Philomena's weight on her back, and she didn't want to give her back.
Spitfire gulped and kept moving. The princess was standing on the side, talking to some griffins.
"Um. Excuse me? Princess? Excuse me! I, uh..."
Princess Celestia turned around and faced Spitfire.
"Yes? Oh, I see you found Philomena! Thank you ever so much, she such a silly bird. Goes running off the first chance she gets."
Spitfire laughed nervously. "Haha. Yeah. Well...I'm glad she's back. I'll...just be going now, I guess."
Philomena took off from Spitfire's back and drifted toward the Princess. She sat on her shoulder and seemed to whisper something in her ear. Celestia nodded.
"Thanks so much for bringing my pet back. She wanted to give you these, as a thank you gift."
Celestia enveloped the bundle of feathers in the phoenix's mouth in her magic. She floated them towards Spitfire and stored them amongst her wings.
Philomena glided to Spitfire's shoulder.
"You going to go through some things, one way or another. Choose to blaze through them."
Spitfire gasped, and jerked her head up.
Celestia smiled at her and turned to meet with some celebrity.
Spitfire walked through her door to see her father standing in the doorway.
"Come on, Spitfire. We're doing my idea."
Spitfire's eyes widened.
"Come on, Spitfire!"
She didn't want to go. She had prepared herself for this, but now that it was really happening...
Maybe she should just go with it. She didn't have any choice, after all. She was going to go through it, one way or another.
She laid on the ground, her muzzle hidden under her hooves, she could feel her father above her, his hoof was about to come down on her-
"You going to go through some things, one way or another. Choose to blaze through them.
Spitfire winced, waiting for the pain to come. Her wings ached with a dull pain she hadn't had before...was it from her father? She didn't care. She was waiting...waiting...
"Choose to blaze through them.
To blaze through them.
"To blaze through."
"Blaze through.
BLAZE
No!
Spitfire shot forward, her tiny wings propelling her through the thick smoke filled air, leaving a trail of fiery lightning bolts behind her. She spun around to face her slack-jawed father, and flew at him full speed. THe impact of the blast knocked him out, and his eyes rolled to the back of his head. Spitfire sat on the ground in shocked awe.
What she saw on her wings nearly made her faint. The large primary feathers, previously absent, were replaced with larger than normal yellow-orange feathers, with a touch of red on the top that flamed like torches.
Like phoenix feathers.
The gift, the Princess storing them on her wings with magic, the weird throb.
They all made sense now.
Spitfire's trail of fire was dissipating, and at the same time the feathers were flickering out.
Spitfire could think of only one thing to do.
Spitfire stepped off the train to Cloudsdale. It was bigger than she had imagined, so much bigger. Spitfire sat huddled by the side of a building when she saw him. A blue-maned pegasus, years older than her, must have been in early high school. He sat on a park bench holding a faded poster.
"Wonderbolts," it read on the top.
"Wonderbolts? What are the Wonderbolts?" Spitfire inquired, all thoughts of homesickness lost.
The teenager spun around in fright.
"Gah! Where did you come from, shouldn't you be in fourth grade right now or something?"
Spitfire crossed her arms and rose her muzzle in the air.
"Maybe. Really though, what are the Wonderbolts?"
The pegasus sighed. "Well, get off my back and I'll tell you."
Spitfire compiled and floated to the bench next to him. "The Wonderbolts are this flying team. Like nobody knows about them, but they're super cool and I really, really want to be one someday!" He hugged the poster.
Spitfire thought about this. "A flying team, huh? Can...can I be in it with you?"
The pegasus looked at her curiously. "Kid, you don't even know my name. Why do you like me so much?"
Spitfire ducked her head low. "Um, it's okay. You don't have to. I'll just...go..."
"No, wait! I didn't mean it like that. Look, my name's Soarin. I'm not in school because I'm pursuing my Wonderbolts dream....What's your story?"
Spitfire looked back at him. "You...you really want me around?" He nodded. "Can I...stay with you?" He nodded again. Spitfire beamed and hopped down to the sidewalk.
"Well then, we've got a long way to go if we're going to make the Wonderbolts famous! My name's Spitfire, and this is my story. So my dad..."
Spitfire smiled at her brother/stallionfriend. He smiled back and flexed his wings. "We've only got a few more hours of daylight left to practice. Let's make it count!"
Spitfire started to nod, but held up a hoof to stop.
"Look-down there. No, not there, there. At that colorful filly."
Soarin obeyed. There was indeed a small filly on the ground, with a messy rainbow mane and tail. She was showing off to a crowd of fillies and colts, and came to rest smugly on a low flying cloud.
Spitfire waved him off to continue practicing. "Soar, I'm cutting practice short. You guys can stop half an hour early. You lead for the rest it."
She made to fly to the ground.
"Spitfire? What are you doing?"
She smiled. "Repaying old debts."
The End
