Readings on Dashing, Literature, Mom

by Stellafera

Rating: everyone
Tags: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Rainbow Dash, Other, Slice of Life
Length: 5485

Rainbow Dash likes to think that she has the coolest mom ever. She doesn't, however, always listen to her, and some lessons take a while to sink in. Years, even.

Rainbow Dash likes to think that she has the coolest mom ever. She doesn't, however, always listen to her, and some lessons take a while to sink in. Years, even.

Thanks MLP Vector Club and others for the vectors of books, clouds, Rainbow Dash, and Firefly. I just mash it together in Photoshop, people.

Published 2014-06-06 22:10:04 UTC
Last updated 2014-06-24 17:08:41 UTC

Dot and Spot

Rainbow Dash hated that door. She also hated the ground. Additionally, she hated her backpack, the temperature, air in general, breathing in general, and to top it off, she had a very strong opposition against the welcome mat grinding against the her hooves.

Dash's slow, laborious walk to her bedroom was disrupted with the volley of Firefly's drawled out voice. "Don't take your anger out on our doorway, Dashie."

It was the most terrifying noise she knew, but also one that she could combat.

"I'm not angry."

"Also, the rug is stupid, mom."

Following the silence, Rainbow Dash determinedly completed the route to her bed, which was full of blankets at least. She was far too angry to do homework. In fact, just to prove to herself that she could try, she brought out the book again. There were words. No, go back to the sentence. Sound it out.

This takes too long.

The clock keeps ticking at her when she's not working, though. Shut up clock.

Fine, clock, whatever.

Rainbow Dash tried again.

And Dot said to Spot-

She looked back at the clock. No. Back to the sentence. One step at a time.

And Dot said to Spot-

And Dot said to Spot-

And Dot said to Spot that-

Like she said, homework was too hard. Yet- sitting here was also pretty hard, so Rainbow Dash had to admit defeat and return to the outside world. She slinked over to mom's big cloud chair and batted her hooves around the general vicinity.

The strategy succeeded, and Firefly turned to Rainbow Dash after her eyes finished scanning stuff in the newspaper. "I get the sense that you're trying to inform me of something?"

"What the hay does 'inform' mean?"

"It means to tell somepony about something you know or an idea you have. So, what are you informing me of?"

Rainbow Dash giggled and figured she better spill the beans with this funny new word. "I'm informing you that my homework sucks!"

"Rainbow Dash!"

"Don't lie mommy, you use way worse words all the time."

It was always fun to win arguments. If she didn't have to go to school, she'd spend all day facing off against her mom and it'd be so much better. Schools should do that instead of give us books, Dash reflected, and made a mental note to inform the teacher to bring in her mom so that she could argue with her and learn lots more words.

After that moment of invention, her mom returned to the conversation. "Yes, I guess I do. But why are you so mad at your homework?"

Time to unleash the bomb.

"Because I hate reading and it's dumb."

"What about this newspaper?"

"You can do that 'cuz you're smart. I hate reading because it's hard and dumb and I can't do it."

Firefly seemed to have to think about this one. "Do you think it would help if I read with you?"

Now that was a good comeback. Rainbow had to think about that one too. It probably couldn't cause anything bad to happen other than wasting her time, which already happened. It also could make the story easier. Alright.

"Maybe," she said, flicking her tail to follow. Rainbow Dash beat her way back to the bedroom quickly and pushed the clock behind a dresser so that it'd stop making noise. Hopefully mom wouldn't notice.

Turning around quickly with the book spread out, she began,

And Dot said to Spot-

"That's the beginning?" Firefly asked, her face looking lopsided with confusion. Dash saw Firefly's eyes dance across the page, probably reading it. Right in front of her own daughter!

Rainbow Dash rolled her own eyes and groaned pointedly towards the ceiling.

"Then why aren't you starting at the beginning?"

She had to be incredibly patient now. If Dad saw this, Rainbow bets she would've gotten ice cream. "Mom, it took forever to get here. I don't want to start again."

"Did it make sense to you?"

Patience is really difficult. No wonder why grownups give you stuff for it. Nopony gives you anything for reading, though. Funny how that works.

"No, it didn't. That's why I wanted you here."

"I promise it'll be easi-"

"I don'twanttoSTARTAGAIN!"

Silence. Rainbow Dash scudded her foot against the cloud, making it feel cold and wet. She also felt kinda cold and sad herself, so she stopped swinging her hoof into the floor and moved her eyes up.

"...I'll start again if you help me."

"And I'm sorry."

Firefly looked even more happy than before. Rainbow wasn't sure why that was if she just said something mean to her, but okay.

Dot was a pony who had a lot.

She said the words slowly, but her mom was way better at motivating her than the clock was. Stupid clock. It deserved its fate.

Spot was a pony who did not.

"Just to keep track here, what did Dot have a lot of?" Firefly asked.

"Oh! Dot had a lot of..." Huh, that was a pretty important question.

"I bet Dot had a lot of stuff that she owned. Like in that picture over there", she said, gesturing at the top of the page, "she had a piano and stuff."

This was some good stuff. Rainbow continued, "But Spot didn't get any of those cool things. Her parents probably don't have a job like you and Daddy."

She wanted to find out more.

Dot, who had a lot, thought that Spot was worse,

because Spot did not and had no money in her purse.

"See Mom, Dot thinks Spot is lame. And... because... Dot... Spot... And... because... And because..."

Rainbow Dash frantically looked up and down the words. She was doing so well. What went wrong?

"Because Spot what?"

"Because Spot had no money in her purse." A pause. "What's a purse?"

"A purse is-"

But by this point she was a step ahead. Looking breathlessly into her mom's round purple eyes, Rainbow Dash shouted "Wait! It's that bag the money's going in! You have one, don't you?"

"Mm-hmm. I put the money in there so I don't lose it."

Rainbow Dash was feeling pretty proud of herself. She could do this.

And Dot said to Spot-

Her ears flopped down. She recognized that sentence. It was the one she was supposed to start on. And she was doing all of her hard work with the ones before it.

"Is that the one you're stuck on?" Firefly's voice was annoying. Rainbow didn't want her help.

"I'm so slow..." she muttered. She swore she heard that clock again, ticking at her. It was supposed to be destroyed for good.

Her mom's eyes widened, and when Firefly spoke, Rainbow Dash snapped at attention. It was the Big voice and you had to listen to it. "Rainbow Dash, you have to listen to me right now. If some ponies in your class are faster than you, that doesn't make them better than you."

She heard this before. All of her teachers said that. It just made her feel worse because they always said it to her.

"Listen to me, Rainbow Dash. I can prove that. Reading wasn't easy for you, but you did it anyways. Because you have guts, Rainbow Dash, and guts are what make you an awesome pony. "

That part's different.

"Never forget that you are an awesome pony."

Then Firefly tried to nuzzle her face, but Rainbow isn't really into the touchy stuff and pulled towards the book. The speech was nice but it didn't help much. The fact was that she still wasn't done reading, and she should be done, and she wasn't.

"I still hate reading." Rainbow Dash added. It was the truth, and nopony ever got in trouble for the truth.

Firefly looked sad. "How about we finish this page, and I can talk to the teacher? It is getting late, anyhow. What time is it-"

please don't look at the clock please don't look at the clock

Firefly checked her watch. "Ah, yep, that's definitely past prime time for homework."

Rainbow Dash glared intently. Now she was eying some pillows on her bed for punching purposes, but that wasn't going to help much. After all, it just used up more time and she didn't have much of that after spending it all doing nothing.

"You know, a lot of it was just talking, though. It's not your fault."

This made her feel a bit better, so she started again.

-And Dot said to Spot that "You must be sad,

since not having much must feel so bad.

Yes, it really must be gloomy,

for you to not be as lucky as me."

It was getting late, though, and Firefly said that she'd talk to the teacher after that one, so Rainbow Dash stopped.

Spot shook her head and laughed a big laugh,

"You think you have half the luck that I have?"

"My mom and my dad and my brothers and friends,

they are all with me to the very end."

"If you only like ponies for the gifts that they keep,

then you are the one who should truly weep."

Endurance

Rainbow Dash didn't really walk these days – more like hover. This was both good and bad. It was good because she was flying, and it was awesome, but also bad because she knocked over her new clock on accident and Mom was going to suspect something sooner or later.

"There's a great place to practice flying, you know. It's called 'outside'."

Firefly was clearly trying to convince her of something. This must be stopped.

"Mommm," Dash said, attempting to make her mouth look really adorable. Her jaw vibrated and twitched as she gave the soft sell, "If I don't learn how to fly inside, how will I ever be an adult pegasus?"

Firefly lifted her hoof to her face dramatically. "You'll just have to... endure!"

"Did you just try to teach me a new word by making fun of me?"

"Yeah, and it means to deal with something hard without giving up. Like me and your 'cute face'."

Rainbow Dash stopped chattering her teeth ever so sweetly back and forth. She doesn't like the cute face? That's good, Rainbow thought, after being half-heartedly offended. If I'm not good at being cute, I must be the opposite. Which is being rad. She could picture it all. All the kids on the cloud, coming home to their parents and terrifying them with the 'cute face'. They wouldn't even see it coming. All of their little pixie puffs or whatever word they use would now all too radical for them to handle. Rainbow Dash, inventor of it all; the most popular filly in Cloudsdale. Then, the world.

"But really, can't you go play outside with some of the other fillies? It's a nice weekend and I bet they'd all be impressed by your flying."

Rainbow Dash winced.

"I... can't. They wouldn't like it."

They probably wouldn't like the 'cute face' thing, either, she silently admitted. The fillies and colts at school'd treat it as a funny joke to tell to their friends about Rainbow Dash.

Firefly narrowed her eyes, and that was enough.

"They don't like me," Rainbow Dash explained. "I don't go to the same classes as them, so I don't know them, and none of them want to sit next to me at lunch because they all have other friends."

It was kind of old hat, and Rainbow Dash went over to go do some of the dishes. She started that last year after getting the sense that doing the dishes, laundry, food, job, and all that other stuff was a lot of work for Mom and Dad and a lot of lying around for her.

"Have you tried talking to them?" Firefly said, starting to fly a bit in her direction.

"Uh, yeah, I said I did," Dash spat, her little hooves sweeping wildly around the plate. "They don't want to be my friend because I have to go to 'special school' and spend all my time during the week doing homework." She continued circling the rim with the sponge.

Why did her Mom look so hurt, anyways? Some things suck and you have to buck up and deal with them and that's what enduring is, isn't? This dish had to endure her scrubbing and she had to endure ponies not liking her. It's the way it goes.

Rainbow Dash started on a new one. It's not like life was all that bad; her dad brought her to the Wonderbolts game last week! That was great. The Wonderbolts were always awesome no matter what, just like her parents. The best part was after the game when she followed one of them out. There was this huge stallion that yelled at her a lot of things that she couldn't remember, the ponies in the crowd kept shifting, and she was about to scream until the youngest Wonderbolt, who had the coolest orange and yellow mane and didn't even look like she was out of high school, picked her up and brought her to Dad.

That's the kind of pony she wants to be. Rainbow doesn't care how many dishes she'll have to do alone on a Saturday if she can be a Wonderbolt.

"That's not okay, you know that, right?"

Why not? Everypony says that getting anything you believe in is painful. She'll be hated by all the other ponies and she'll sit and hate her class and it'll all work out in the end.

She just has to keep it up for... years.

Theme For Equestrian B

"And Mom, you won't even believe it, Gilda and I are totally going to the biggest airshow ever, there'll be flying and shooting and whizzing and-"

"Your assignment for Equestrian?" Firefly asked gingerly.

"Urgh, I can finish it later. You know that!"

Rainbow Dash's eyes shifted somewhere away from this sentence and back again.

Gilda was her chance. She was cool, tough, and best of all, new to Cloudsdale. She didn't have to know about how Rainbow Dash is the best flyer in her grade but never participated in a single sport. She didn't have to know about that time when her bud RD defended gangly Fluttershy from a bully and nearly got expelled. Take it or leave it.

"I can't drop out. I made a commitment", Dash said, hoping that the heavy word would help her case, "and I have to stay loyal to my friend."

That part was true enough, but Firefly shook her head. "You sure do make a lot of commitments. It's sounding like the clocks all over again."

"I swear the second one was an accident! You've got to believe me!" Rainbow Dash pleaded half-jokingly.

"The third was hit with a sledgehammer."

"The alarm was loud!"

This was probably a losing argument. Rainbow Dash lashed her tail and stalked off. They could talk while they were flying to the stadium.

"I thought you'd be all over the sports."

Firefly was keeping good pace. "Sports are great when you have time for them."

"I'm doing my other homework. What more do you want from me?"

"It's just, I'm worried about how well you're doing at school. I'm a mother. It's my job."

Rainbow Dash strove to fly faster. "You want me to be perfect?"

The wind whipping around her required her to raise her voice to shouting level. The entrance loomed before her eyes. "Great! It worked so well for preschool, kindergarten, elementary, and middle school! Don't change a thing. Like what you taught me; I can endure. I can endure right into Tartarus!"

Firefly slowed down, letting Rainbow Dash rush ahead of her. Dash saw her turn back in the corner of her eye, and looked down at the clouds. They seemed to run the air in patterns like lines on a road. It was a good center when she wasn't sure what she was actually thinking.

Gilda didn't have to know.

It's hard coming back from the world where everything is cool in Rainbow Dash's life to the world where she said some pretty awful things to her mom and has no idea what she's supposed to be doing.

No. There is something she can do.

Rainbow Dash bit down on a pencil and pulled out a roll of paper. She skipped the title; that was always a trap. Titles suck in your time like a tornado and spit it out into the air.

Marenheit 451. All she got out of it was that it was a book that told you to read, which sounds totally stuck up. The rest of it made no sense. There was this mare at the beginning who died probably, some magic dog tried to kill the main dude, and Canterlot blew up at the end.

She's going to explain how great reading is if it kills her.

I think

^Readings good you learn stuff create a new world you can escape you can read ponies long ago and more

That is definitely wrong.

I think reading's good. You learn stuff, create a new world, can escape, can read ponies from long ago and more.

Rainbow Dash wonders if writing what other ponies say about reading counts as cheating.

You learn from books because they have information.

It's not like that's false.

Information is important so that you know about equestria. When you know about Equestria then you can apply that to your life. Like if somebody asks you about history, you know the answer.

What did they learn in history today, anyhow?

When you know more it brings you better life opportunities. When you have books you have power.

That part's probably the most truthful one here. In fact...

When your good at reading, you don't have to disappoint anypony. You can do whatever you want.You can create new worlds and escape because of that. When you are not good at reading, you can't. You don't have time to understand the words and so you can't. If you can read you can explore books but there is no exploring when you are bad at reading. You can read ponies from long ago when you are good at reading. You dont have to think about how bad you are at reading when you are good at reading. When you read it is fun and it makes you feel better. That's what escaping is thro books. Theres no such thing as escaping through books when you are bad at reading. You can't get anything from reading when you are bad at it.None of it makes sense to you. Everypony else can do something easy that you can't and you are left behind.

After that, she was pretty sure that she just reiterated the whole spiel until her eyelids were being held open by sheer will. But she made it.

In conclusion that is why it is good when you can read, because it makes your life better.

She also somehow made it into bed, but that part was a mystery.

Rainbow Dash slumped her way through the front door.

"Hiya..."

Blink.

"I got a D on my essay. It's not better than an F because the teacher doesn't believe in Fs."

Firefly moved. "You wrote the essay?"

Blink.

"Yeah, last night."

"I'm tired," she added.

Suddenly Rainbow Dash felt like she was getting hugged and her mom was looking guilty. What.

"I'm sorry."

What.

"Rainbow... you don't have to get good grades to make me happy and I'm sorry that I ever made you think that you did."

This confused Dash. Mom said before that she was worried about the grades. Now she's not?

Rainbow Dash looked in her head for a response. "I'm tired," she produced.

She smiled, though, in a small, sleepy way.

"I Wasn't Kicked Out"

He weaved through the clouds, invisible yet deadly as they were. The blue giant had him in its grasp now, but Silent Knight knew how to escape, his open lock cutie mark gleaming in the hot sun. The option was going to be a tough one, but also the only one.

Straight into the trashcan.

“I’m gonna miss that,” Rainbow Dash remarked to herself. Silent Knight fell on a pile of his fallen companions and the crunch echoed around the empty walls.

Junior Speedsters, MVP. The year she got that was her favorite. It was a nice, solid trophy, made of real metal rather than compressed cloud like most things on the cheap in Cloudsdale. On the ground, not so valuable, though, and what kind of weirdo keeps around awards from high school? Rainbow Dash made repeated motions to the bin, but, but, but… that was a good story, wasn’t it, the crazy metal mania in Cloudsdale? ‘‘Oh, that thing? Yeah, back in Cloudsdale it was expensive! Can you believe that? If I brought this to Cloudsdale right now, I’d make a million bits, easy…’

Oh, she could just picture it! No wonder why she couldn’t seem to let the darn thing go.. Rainbow Dash knew it definitely had to stay -- for the story. Not like she was keeping more than one, or that she had more than one. Only one trophy and the most valuable member of her team. Dash rested on her haunches.

“What a productive cutie mark,” she snarked.

Maybe it wouldn’t have had to turn out like this if everything didn’t happen at once. It was ridiculous how Dad worked almost all day and they weren’t raking in bits. Her mom went back to working full time in storm control now that Rainbow Dash could technically be left alone at the house. She saw her mom coming in every day with her gear on and a wild look in her eyes; she knew that this sort of thing was Firefly’s dream, that she loved the thrill and thunder and missed it a little, that they were running low on money and it was a great job. Rainbow Dash was very keenly aware of how much it made her mother happy, and whenever Firefly gushed about the lightning bolt she barely missed, the happiness was contagious.

--Dash knew how it felt to walk into the house after your teacher told you that you’re failing so badly that you can’t be in the Junior Speedsters anymore. The ponies on the team tried to encourage her, of course, but they’re all terrible liars.

--Dash knew how it felt to have the teacher pull you aside and ask you about taking summer school. And of course she said yes, because that’s what they mean when they ask you.

--Dash knew what that day was like when she was told she’d probably have to repeat the grade. Her thoughts just kept swimming when she came into Equestrian with no homework and Swift Story shook her head at her like she expected something. The principal, somehow the principal cared after Dash fed her a piece of her mind, like somehow the threat of not passing was an issue anymore. Gilda never asked her about it because what kinds of friends blab about their problems to each other? Cool ponies aren’t desperate. They never are.

It could’ve been different if Firefly was at the house, but nopony was, and there was so much pointless work. Lonely chairs, gaping rooms, and an abyss of homework entranced her. It was time where Rainbow Dash went home and collapsed in her room, unable to think or do anything but watch the vacant ceiling towering about her because anything else was impossible, that a question presented itself.

“You’re going through with dropping out of flight school?”

Rainbow Dash’s mind jumped back into today and she reflexively kicked the Junior Speedsters award aside. “You’re HOME, Mom?”

“Yep, but the tale’s a lot less interesting than you’d expect.”

Rainbow Dash tilted her head patiently.

“Fine, fine, I got promoted to manager and so I can work regular hours instead of emergency clinic shifts.”

“Promote you? That’s terrible! Those higher ups have no idea what they’re doing and I’ll go to town right now with you and-”

Firefly had to push her daughter of of her. “Relax dear, I’ll still be seeing some action, just from a longer distance.” She switched gears with her eyes on the boxes. “Have you found a place?”

Nod nod. Instead of doing her work for school, she’d been working out her living situation. “I’ve got it alll figured out. There’s this small town called Ponyville that needs ponies on their weather team and isn’t too far from a real city. Even a flight school dropout like me could land a job there. Ah, no pun intended.”

Firefly tried to figure out whether it was a well-hidden joke or just a flat out terrible one and came up at a loss. “Why is this clock in the ‘throw away’ bin?”

“Don’t try to make me into a hoarder like you.”

“Whatever, I’ll keep it. You’re not taking your Junior Speedsters MVP award? Lots of ponies like to keep stuff from when they were younger for good luck.”

“Woah woah woah,” Dash shouted, blue wings flourishing around the object, “Who said I wasn’t taking it?”

Firefly chuckled. They quietly sorted through the rest of her room while Rainbow Dash chewed some words around her mouth.

Despite everything...

“Thanks,” she said. “For helping.”

It was going to be better. It was all going to be better. Maybe even for real this time.

Daring Do And The Element of Loyalty

The crisp mid-morning feel enveloped Rainbow Dash as she didn’t fly. No, Rainbow Dash waited. Celestia’s sun warmed her back like a gentle fireplace. She waited. The smell of the sky was around her from above and the soft push of cloud from below stabilized her. She waited.

Finally she saw the pink and blue she was looking for.

“You know, I could’ve flown over to your house instead of having to watch my mom come all this way.”

She landed. “Danger is my life!” Firefly declared, but then settled back. “Besides, aren’t you recovering from a broken wing?”

“Well, Danger is my middle name.”

“Who do you think put it on your birth certificate?”

Rainbow Dash very aggressively invited her mother inside.

“Check it out, ma; wall clock. Can’t break it.”

“Does it come with an alarm?”

“Pinkie Pie hops down on Mondays with a flugelhorn and that pretty much does the trick.”

Usually they just exchanged letters, but Dash wanted to meet Firefly pony-to-pony this time. She wasn’t regretting it. Someday Derpy Hooves is going to get bribed by a muffin and spill the beans that RD is a big momma’s girl, and she’d rather not have it be today.

Then she tried to cook.

Rainbow Dash’s sole talents in the kitchen are washing dishes and burning things.

She frantically ran around to find water. Shouldn’t there be water in a house? That seems important somehow. Then she remembered she had wings and grabbed a stormcloud, which quieted the flames immediately before smiting the hayburgers with lightning. Then she threw the dish out the window. Firefly swore loudly, caught the plate with her hooves, and flew it to a nearby lake, where they gratefully sunk, fizzling into ash beneath the wobbling depths.

“That was a class 2 threat, what the flying fu-” She made a quick adjustment. “-feather were you thinking?”

Rainbow Dash looked down sorrowfully. “I knew I should’ve just made cereal…”

She had a feeling that this meeting wasn’t showing her capacity as a mature adult mare as well as she had hoped. Rainbow Dash retrieved her famous home style…. cereal, and they began to eat.

Suddenly, a thought hit her and she briefly flittered between her room and the kitchen. As she continued to stack the items, Firefly’s eyebrow raised higher and higher.

“What’s this?”

“Books!”

Rainbow Dash hoisted Daring Do and the Sapphire Statue into a sweeping arc and grinned like only the biggest of nerds could.

“I’m reading books! Without being forced too! What do you think?”

In fact, Dash had plotted out the explanation already, she was going to-

“It’s about time.”

Pardon?

Dash laughed awkwardly. “What do you mean by ‘it’s about time’?”

“It’s about time you got over your grudge against reading, is what I mean.”

Oh. So it was exactly what RD thought she meant. The smile slided off her mouth.

“What do you mean by ‘grudge’?”

“You hated the class at school and so you decided that reading was for losers forever? Or not, I suppose?” Firefly shoveled some cereal into her muzzle and swallowed slowly.

Rainbow Dash had to pick words carefully, which was time consuming. These words didn’t make sense from her mom. Her mom never said anything stupid.

“So it’s a phase then, like when I gelled my hair.”

Firefly swallowed again.

“A bit more than that-”

“But it was. It was a phase, just like when I hung out with Gilda because I didn’t know what good friends looked like.”

Firefly seemed relieved. “Yes.”

“Did I get it all, or did I miss out on something?”

“No, that’s what I was saying. I’m not sure what you’re getting at here, Dashie.”

“Okay.”

She stayed the movement of her tail.

“All this time you encouraged me and told me I didn’t have to read good - read well - whatever - was a phase. One day, I was going to change, and you spent the years hoping. You told me that I don’t have to be like the other fillies in my grade. And you were waiting.”

Her voice caught a little, but she was undaunted, and searched straight into purple eyes.

“You told me to follow my dreams and you were waiting. You stood up for me and you were waiting. You encouraged me to stake it out in Ponyville, but I was never going to make it until that one day where I would understand that I was wrong.”

Then she detonated.

“What the HAY? Sure, I did end up liking reading in the end, but I thought that you had my back always. No matter what, you’d stick with me! Most ponies betray each other every once in a while, but I always looked up to you because I thought you were different! When did it start? First grade, second? Or was it earlier that you were grooming over my little speedbump with hugs?”

Firefly abandoned her bowl. “Rainbow Dash, I didn’t mean…”

“Exactly, it’s a confession.”

Rainbow Dash checked the clock as it ticked a minute away.

“So it is,” Firefly said.

“I did think that you were just going to bloom late. I mean, you loved stories!”

They both had a tendency of cracking their voices when they were emotional. It was a family thing.

“I was trying to convince you to read the whole time, because I thought you should.”

Rainbow Dash offered, “You just wanted what was best for me, huh?”

She doesn’t really like doing the touchy stuff, but she wrapped an arm around Firefly. “No, no, I totally get that. You never told me that’s what it was all about, though.”

“I figured you wouldn’t listen.”

Maybe she wouldn’t have.

“Why’d you stick to it so much, Mom?”

Firefly glanced around. “I saw you having a hard time with it and I wanted to make your life easier and-I wanted you to get to enjoy a book like me. Except… I just made school a whole lot more complicated, didn’t I?”

Dash rolled her eyes. “You could say that.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because you can’t expect deep thought from a little kid who thought a turtle was a type of fish.”

Firefly laughed and mumbled something about tiny turtle gills. “You win.”

“No, you do. Dang it all, I’m gonna bet you’re the reason why I ended up reading.”

Rainbow Dash straightened. “Which pony encouraged me to come to this town? Which pony convinced me to be a better mare? Which pony taught me how to to be devoted and loyal to others in the first place? Don’t answer that, it’s you.. Guess which Element of Harmony picked me?”

“Loyalty, and if it went to any pony but my daughter, I’d kill them.”

“Right on, and that’s how I made my friends, who got me to start with these books. It’s a big ol’ round cycle.”

Rainbow Dash wondered why parents weren’t the collective bearers of the Elements.

Firefly inspected the stack of novels. “Rainbow, thanks for that, but, can you explain to me what Daring does?”

Then she laughed her head off.

“No, really… It was on my mind this whole time…”

Nopony’s perfect.