"Haha! I knew you could do it!"
The pegasus barely heard Rainbow Dash's congratulations. Instead, he stared in disbelief at the new adornment on his flank, previously invisible against the midday sky save for his white mane and tail, but now also sporting a canvas and palette shaped to suggest clouds.
"Congratulations, Sky Render. That is one nice cutie mark. Not as good as mine, but-"
"HOW COULD YOU?!?"
Rainbow Dash blinked at her trainee's anger out of nowhere. Her mind whirred as she took in the anguished look on his face, trying to equate a compliment on a cutie mark to - oh. "Hey hey! Okay, okay, fine, your cutie mark's as-"
"AAARGH!" The younger pegasus stormed off - literally, side-swiping three clouds as he left so as to compress them from white fluffy rain carriers to small black thunderheads that threatened to go off. It was but the work of a minute for Rainbow Dash to expertly discharge them before they could hurt anypony, but by then Sky Render was gone.
"...and that's what happened." Rainbow sighed as she gazed into her near-empty cup.
Applejack frowned as she mulled her friend's story over. "You did go talk to him, right?"
"That's just it! I went to his place, but the door was locked. I could tell he was inside, but he wouldn't open up or say anything. I've never SEEN anypony get so worked up over comparing cutie marks."
"Neither have I." Uncorking another bottle of cider, she refilled the pegasus's cup, and gave silent thanks that her farm's kitchen was as empty as it usually was on a mid-afternoon. Applejack knew Rainbow was unsafe to fly after half a bottle of hard cider, but her friend needed comfort and pain relief right now - easier done without another lecture about letting her friends abuse the juice.
Besides, Rainbow's breath was testament enough. "I mean, yeah, okay maybe I could've just gone on about his, but come on, this is ME we're talking about."
"Rainbow, ah'm trying to say, I don't think it was the cutie marks."
"Then WHAT? What else could it've been?"
"I dunno. Did you see anything else up there?"
"Just some clouds."
Applejack gave Rainbow a look.
"What?"
"That's like sayin', 'just some stuff'. Clouds are the only thin' up there. You know that!"
"Nuh-uh! There's rain and wind and lightning and..."
"Point is, if all you saw was clouds, was there anything special about the clouds?"
"..."
"I mean, we all agreed to take on a young'un to train for a month..." She suddenly glanced out the window and frowned. "USE BOTH LEGS TO BUCK!" Sighing to return to an indoor voice, she continued, "...and you've been telling me yours keeps cloud-sculpting. Don't you think he might've been practicing, on something a certain overeager pegasus's wake might blow away if she zipped up too fast?"
"...zzz," came Rainbow's reply, drool from her head on the table mixing with cider from her overturned cup.
Rainbow tried to focus. She had gone to ask Applejack for advice, and then...nothing. Just a headache when she tried to remember anything from then until she woke up in the earth pony's room. What kind of advice included putting her in bed? It was hard to focus, too; her wings kept skipping a beat, threatening to drop her out of the sky. But it was sunset, and she had promised to meet Sky Render to put him through drills.
Rainbow Dash always kept her promises. Always.
Finally, she arrived. The sky over a field just outside of town, where any pegasus could practice moves without wrecking houses, along one of the main routes by which clouds were floated to Ponyville. Sure enough, a large cumulonimbus was serenely drifting by, to be redistributed by the local pegasi to water fields and forest alike. Sky Render was waiting, having torn off five small clouds and lined them up.
Making a mental note to examine afterward why her wings weren't quite working, Rainbow settled on an outcropping of the large cloud. "Alright! You've been makin' good progresh-" She blinked. And now speaking was hard too?
But it did not take her long to notice Sky Render glaring at her in cold fury.
"What? I'm not late, am I?" She brought out a pocket watch. "...FIVE MINUTESH? Shorry, shorry! Err - sooo, anyway, wash there anything you wanted to practice?"
"You know what you did," he nearly spat.
"Huh? A-anyway. If there'sh nothing special, shtandard drill?"
In a blink he was on the move, precisely pouncing on parallel pinatas of rain, then ducked behind them to blow them across the field, evenly distributing their cargo. Just as they finished, he bucked a third cloud four times in rapid succession, each time peeling off, turning, and accelerating to hit it hard from a different direction; this cloud squeezed into a small thunderhead, discharging its sole bolt right at a bullseye dug into the field. The fourth cloud he punched through, tearing it into smaller pieces than could sustain themselves; they quickly sublimated into invisible water vapor.
Rainbow nodded to herself as Sky looked at the final cloud. Rain, rain, lightning, clearance - and then the fifth "standard drill" was something she had cooked up to encourage his artistic ambitions: quickly sculpt a cloud into something. She never could tell what he would come up with, but was always surprised and amazed at the result.
Except for this time. His letting out a cry of frustration and kicking the final cloud at her, knocking her into and burying her in the large cloud, did take her by surprise, but she was unconscious before amazement could set in.
Sky was practically his own storm cloud of anger, unnoticing of and uncaring about the world around him. This was easy to do when flying above it all. Trees and buildings below you, any clouds in your way you could just punch right through, the occasional other flying object was dodged with the slightest of course corrections, the sudden lasso around his midsection he noticed only after ten seconds of wondering why the ground had stopped moving.
"Nice one," Applejack called over her shoulder, before grabbing the rope and helping her apprentice pull the wayward pegasus to the ground.
"HEY! Lemme go lemme go!"
"Nuh-uh." Once the orange mare had Sky close enough, she tied his temporary leash to a tree, grabbed his jaw, and pulled his face around so she was looking him in the eyes. "You have got a lot of explainin' to do."
"For what?"
"How you've been treatin' Rainbow Dash."
"That? Tch - she knows what she did."
"No she doesn't."
"Yes she does."
"No. She doesn't." Taking in a breath to calm herself, Applejack continued, "An' even if SHE does I sure don't. So how 'bout you tell me?"
Sky Render glared at the earth pony for a moment, then jerked his muzzle out of her grip. "Fine. She mssdupmynt."
"Say again?"
Pink blush crept over cyan snout. "I said, she messed up my note."
"Your...note."
"Y-yeah. I was just skywriting, trying to catch some pony's attention, then Rainbow Dash blew in and blew it all away."
"Uh huh. This any pony I know?"
"Just Sweet Spice." Though he tried to keep his voice neutral, Sky's blush crept toward his neck.
"That baker that Pinkie's trainin'? Y'askin' her on a date?"
His eyes dilated as fast as his neck whipped around to point them back at Applejack. "How'd you know?!?"
"Heh, well. I've heard it called 'readin' the air'. Y'might wanna look into it. Anyway. Sounds t' me like you've got two things to do."
Sky's surprise faded into a frown. "Since when do you get to tell me what to do?"
"Well, fer one, since I'm one of the trainERs and yer one of the trainEEs. Fer two...c'mon, you know what you gotta do."
"No I don't."
Applejack grinned.
"...okay, okay, fine, I'll apologize to Miss Dash. What's the other thing?"
"Just a little mission."
"Hey Sweet Spice!" Sky drifted down from the evening sky just outside of Sugar Cube, heart beating like a drum as he began walking alongside the young mare.
"Hey."
He blinked as the beige earth pony looked away, hiding her face under her long cinnamon - colored and scented - mane. A curt greeting, not even using his name - had he already stumbled? "Soo, uh, how's it going?"
"...fine. Erm. Y-you've been training hard?"
"Huh? Oh, yeah. Miss Dash is all, 'Even artists have duties.'"
"Hehe. You've certainly got her voice down."
"Thanks." He plodded along in silence as he pondered. "So. Uh. I w-was wondering, thinking about maybe making a statue. Would you mind if I used you as the model?"
She looked away abruptly.
"...err. If you'd rather I not..."
"...nnn, no, i-it's fine."
"Is something bothering you?"
"You are."
"Oh." Drooping his wings, he turned away.
"I mean, here's the hunk of my dreams, right next to me TALKING to me?"
"...what?"
She finally looked at him, revealing the brightest blush he had ever seen. "Of COURSE I'm going to be bothered and distracted. Worth it~!"
"You...I..." He blinked. "What?"
She nuzzled him. "I mean, I hope you're not just leading me on. I've had the biggest crush on you since I first saw you. I could just stare all day at you working. Yesterday I saw you at sunrise, and I thought of taking a picture but then I'd be jealous of my camera."
"...okay, getting a little creepy now."
"I've been whipping up cake after cake inspired by you. Pinkie Pie's getting a little tired of it, and she never gets tired of anything!"
"Huh. I...err. I thought you didn't like me."
"Whaaat? Why'd you think that?"
"Well, just now. You didn't use my name."
"Oh, that! I'm terrible with names. I try not to use 'em when I'm probably just going to screw them up. Like yours."
"What's so hard about my name? Sky Render."
She nodded, took in a breath, and closed her eyes. "Sky. Render. Sky Render, Sky Render, Sky Renter...AAGH!" She bopped her mare with one hoof. "I did it AGAIN! Stupid brain!"
"That's not so bad. Just a lisp."
"It's NOT just a lisp." Sweet looked Sky in the eyes. "My brain keeps saying you do such incredible work that of COURSE it must all belong to you and everypony else is just borrowing the sky from you. So: Sky Renter."
"..."
"You're...not mad at me, I hope?"
"Of course not. It's...a little weird. I mean, the sky is Celestia's, if any pony's..."
"But she's not as handsome as you." She leaned in close, her scent filling his nostrils...
Just after dawn, Sky woke in his room in a cold sweat, vivid but disconnected images flashing through his mind. Fishing back to one of his mentor's lessons, he took deep breaths, focusing on the endless empty sky above - no troubles, no turbulence, just calming nothing - then his eye spied the clock. Moments later he burst out the door.
"Hey."
"SorrynotimetotalkMissDashI'mlatetomeetyou-" He skidded to a halt midair. "Miss Dash?"
"For the thousandth time, call me Rainbow!" The multicolored pegasus was up on her rear hooves, leaning against the wall next to his apartment's front door. She pushed off and flew up to him. "Anyway, you failed."
"Huh?"
"That mission Applejack gave you. You were supposed to talk to Sweet Spice for five minutes. You lasted four minutes 36 seconds, then she smooched you good and you fainted, so we took you back here. You'll get another chance soon; try not to blow this one."
"I...err...I fainted?"
"Yeah." She affectionately mussed his hair. "You were REALLY out of it. Sooomeone's got a cru-ush!"
He blushed. "You don't need to rub it in, Miss Da-err, Rainbow."
"Oh, I think I do. You see, Sweet's been driving Pinkie CRAZY with all her talk about you. And believe me, that takes some doing. You and Sweet need to go on a date, soon."
"What?"
"Yeah. I mean, you like her too, right?"
"W-well...yeah."
"Good!" She began descending, motioning for him to follow. "Now unless I miss my mark, she's going to get her cutie mark soon. A perfect time to ask her out."
He drifted in line behind her. "So...you're not mad?"
"A little, but Applejack told me what was up. And...hey, you're here to learn how not to mess up. That tends to involve messing up." Rainbow shot an irritated look over her shoulder. "Just promise me, next time somepony does something like that to you, TELL THEM and at least TRY to straighten it out, alright?"
"A...alright." Sky blinked. "So, uuuh, how do you know Sweet's about to get her mark?"
Rainbow smiled and returned her attention to her flying. "Call it an educated guess. She's been working hard on a complicated project. Right about when she finishes would make sense for it to show up. I could be wrong-"
"EEEE," interrupted Pinkie's squeal, echoing over half of Ponyville. "I KNEW YOU COULD DO IT!"
Her smile exploded into a grin. "...but I'm not. C'mon." She picked up the pace toward Sugar Cube.
Upon arrival, they were greeted with two sights: a mandala that looked like it was made of frosting on Sweet's flank, and an intricately shaped and decorated cake sculpture showing Sky sculpting clouds into words: "PLEASE GO OUT WITH ME S".
Sky's jaw dropped. "You saw that?!?"
Sweet broke from examining her cutie mark to smile at him. "Yep! Too bad you didn't get to finish it, buuut...yes, yes I will go out with you, Sky Renter." She blinked, then winced. "Ack, I did it again! Sorry?"
"Aww, it's okay." He trotted up and hugged her.
A short distance away, Rainbow sidled up to Pinkie Pie and offered up a hoof for a high-five. "Just like you wanted."
Pinkie accepted, clapping hoof to hoof on all five flexible parts. "Thanks, Rainbow! It was getting a biiit much."
"Don't thank me yet. Now that they're dating, she'll find out all sorts of new things about him to fuss over. I thought you knew?"
Pinkie's put-upon whimper was a rare sound.
