What You Deserve

"Anyone who dares to be, can never be weak."

Today was a Tuesday, which mean all of Rainbow's other responsibilities for the day took a back seat to spending lunch with her quasi-adoptive little sister Scootaloo.

She'd sacrificed her afternoon nap for such an endeavor, after getting all of her work for the morning done in record time. As she rode the thermals over Sweet Apple Acres, watchful of the budding storm system gaining power over the orchard, she smiled at a task well completed and a promise to a friend fulfilled. She tilted, graceful wings flaring and cupping the air, as she banked towards Ponyville proper.

In the time since she'd migrated here, nearly five years ago, she'd seen the small hamlet grow to a township in its own right, met few enough fast friends to suit the solitary-minded pegasus, and had maybe an adventure or three. And aside from the occasional dragon, Parasprite infestation, or troubles caused by one or another of those same friends pushing themselves too hard in the wrong direction, life was sweet in Ponyville. She enjoyed her job, lived a life with meaning, and took joy in every passing second. Sometimes, the sun breaking over the hills to the West almost brought her to tears when viewed through the opaque cloud-stuff that made up her home.

Shaking thoughts nopony would ever think the sporty pegasus of being capable of from her mind, she turned her lips into an almost feral grin as she angled towards the schoolhouse and tilted her wings in to a diving position with practiced ease. Something twinged at the back of her mind with the motion, the sight of a turquoise pegasus a few ponylengths ahead of her flashing unbidden across her imagination. A pony she hadn't thought of in some time now.

Lightning Dust, her lead pony during her training weeks at the Wonderbolts Academy. The only pegasus- no, pony- that Rainbow knew to push herself harder than she herself did. One of a hoofful of ponies she knew to be able to keep up with her, sitting comfortably this side of the Mach line.

To Rainbow, the spirits of the air currently holding her aloft were an old friend, a comfortable lover. They bore her up joyfully, loving to flow through her mane and under her wings. To Lightning, they were a force to be conquered. A limit to push. Something to grab ahold of and drag kicking and screaming down the finish line.

Things between them had grown tense. It became clear, especially after confronted about her recklessness, that the other did not consider her a friend. Even for a pegasus, Lightning was bull-headed and standoffish. When demoted by Spitfire to Rainbow's Wing pony, she'd preferred to keep her own counsel for the rest of the session. Conversations with a bright, electric pony as like to her as a twin over meals had given way to that same pony sitting by herself with a buffer zone of empty space and quiet air she didn't seem to notice. She'd thought they'd parted on good terms on the final day, when Lightning finally spoke again to her and conceded that she'd been out of control and Dash had been right to tell someone about it. Something about her expression had worried her, but a good last flight had quelled her thoughts.

And then Dust had left in the middle of the night, telling nopony but her direct superiors where she was going. After that... she'd disappeared, and Dash hadn't seen or heard from her since. Later she realized they'd never spoken of anything of direct importance. No family matters, no childhood anecdotes, nothing about where she was born or grew up.

Realizing she'd come to a full stop, she shook bad memories from her mind and pointed her nose downward. She had a sister to see. She flashed that Warden-may-care grin again as her introspective mood passed, angling her whole body into the dive. She often made a game of these visits, racing Scootaloo to the outdoor lunch area. By unspoken agreement she limited herself to the same timeframe that Scootaloo had- she didn't start until the first roiling notes of the bell had faded. They usually met just as the last notes of the final twelfth bell rang out.

Today, however, when she snapped to a glide to bleed off speed and lit onto the soft grass near one of the picnic tables, Scootaloo was waiting for her with a wide grin on her face and a buzz to her wings. Rainbow knew, in that sixth-sense way of all sisters, that her behavior meant I Have Something To Show You. To show she wasn't a sore loser, she ruffled the filly's mane with a soft chuckle, before tugging their lunch out of her saddlebag.

"Hey Squirt, you finally beat me!"

The filly nodded with well-earned pride, seeming nearly to burst with her secret as Dash laid out a mixed green salad with almonds and cranberries complimented with slices of Granny Smith's chicken still hot from the fryer. The elder took her seat and took a few bites, before gesturing with her fork and giving the younger a pointed look spoiled by her mouthful of food.

"Alright. Spit it out. You look like you're gonna pop," her mock-stern voice muffled by her mouthful, and curtailed by the fact she couldn't even pretend to be stern with this filly.

"Liza brought in a signed Wonderbolts rookie card, CN-160 Lightning Dust. She wouldn't let anypony touch it, she said it's really old but I don't believe that much, the edges are all straight." She thought for a moment. "And I got an A on a math test, a B in history, and..." She grinned even more widely than before, if such a thing could be believed. "And I flew! All the way from Miss Cheerilee's classroom to the front door! Then i got tired and ran the rest of the way, but still."

Rainbow beamed with shared glory, holding her hoof out for a bump before the rest of the sentence fully kicked in. Amid coughing and nearly choking on her mouthful of food, she managed to cry out a single question. "WHO!?"

Lightning Dust's day was not going so well. Ever since leaving the house with the afternoon mail, she felt like she was being watched. This feeling didn't go away until long into the afternoon, as she sat with a hastily-gotten lunch of hayburgers and fries and stared at skies growing as dark as her mood. Despite her earlier cheer, she'd slumped quite a bit, and it was only the constant motion that kept her from reflecting on her nightmare of the previous night, or how she'd been shipped halfway across the country on a whim.

She sighed as she cleared her trash, regarding a few small fillies and colts who dashed off when she took notice of them. Well there was that mystery solved. Gathering up her saddlebags, she adjusted her cap over her increasingly flat and mussed mane, and took off into the graying skies.

"Neither wind nor rain nor... hell." She muttered, really hoping to get her run done before the shower scheduled for the evening.

A few hours later, she found her stomach grumbling, and herself racing the storm. Lightning flashed overhead and thunder crashed, but the rain had not yet begun to fall, but each pony she met on her route had a package or letter that absolutely had to get clear across town this instant. Before long she found herself hopelessly lost and wildly off schedule. She yelped as the skies opened up, drenching her within seconds, and dove sharply to the right, ducking under the awning of a large building to get out of the storm and try to save the letters in her bags.

Her hooves struck something placed on the planking, and instead of a neat landing, she skidded through the doors and into the darkened building itself as she rolled and tangled herself up in the object. When she arose, she was suddenly confronted with all the lights being tossed on at once, and a loud shout of "SURPRISE!" welling up from altogether too many throats.

Her hindlegs knocked together, her expression froze, as she stared at the biggest banner she'd ever seen. Upon it was inscribed her cutie mark, and "WELCOME TO PONYVILLE / HAPPY BIRTHDAY LIGHTNING DUST!"