A Blaze of Glory

Fluttershy looked around the large, empty practice grounds. Usually bustling with activity, the area was nearly deserted this close to nightfall. There wasn’t any kind of esoteric law that forbade the use of the practice grounds at night, it was the simple fact that by nightfall every pegasus in the school was ready to drop from sheer exhaustion. Fluttershy was no exception, she couldn’t remember her body every hurting as much as it did now.

By now, she was beyond simple exhaustion though. She had been at Flight School for almost three months, and she still couldn’t fly. She could flutter about and hover for a few moments, but actual sustained flight was beyond her. It was more than that though. She couldn’t let her family down.

“The Wonderbolts are in your blood girl. You just need to get over this hump, and you can be the next Wonderbolt. Look at your sister. She’s a Wonderbolt, and you can be one two.”

“I’m sorry Daddy.” Fluttershy whispered, tears filling her eyes. “I, I have to try.” She wiped the tears away with the back of one leg, and stretched her wings. Whimpering as the strained muscles made their protests known, burning from the strain of use they had been under all day. A fresh wave of tears threatened, but biting her lip, Fluttershy fought them off.
Rotating the wings in their sockets, the pain finally abated somewhat. The razor wire tension of the muscles finally relaxed, and the joint clicked into place. She sighed, and finished the stretches that had become almost reflexive in her time in this place. As she continued the joints eased more, and freer and freer movement came.

Finally, when every movement of the wings felt no more than a slight twinge, Fluttershy looked up. Before her was the basic track. It was long and smoothed down from centuries of pegasi students taking a break and landing on the cloud layer. Every time she had been near the track, Fluttershy had invariably been grounded, either by fear, the taunting jeers of her fellows, or simply because she couldn’t fly any more. But now would be different. It just had to be.

It had taken the little yellow filly only a week to go from the flattered, if embarrassed, center of attention and desire, to the laughing stock of the entire school. At first, she had been fine, she had flown only a little worse than the others. No pegasus was an expert flier when they came into Flight School, but Fluttershy was below even their lowest bar.

She knew how to fly, what pegasus didn’t? Her mind and spirit were willing; it was convincing her body that remained the challenge. She couldn’t help it; she had a paralyzing, crippling fear of heights. If she was in the air for more than a minute, her body froze, dropping from the air like a stone.

She just couldn’t stand being laughed at anymore. They would laugh and laugh, calling her names and jeering. When she burst into tears, it only seemed to encourage them, but no matter how hard she tried, the tears came. She didn’t like the ponies, but she couldn’t do anything. The only thing that would help would be to learn to fly. The only pony at the school who didn’t join in the laughing was Rainbow Dash. Rainbow was always there, telling the other ponies off, and helping her to her hooves.

“I can’t let Rainbow Dash down! She’s my friend, and the best flier here except for Spitfire. She can’t have some ‘loser friend who can’t even fly’. I have to do this.” Fluttershy said to herself. She continued to say the same things to herself for almost five minutes. Almost an hour later, the little mare finally took off, hovering a few inches above the ground.

Dash blinked warily in the dawn light. Yawning hugely, and rubbing the sleep from her eyes with a hoof, the mare rolled out of bed. She shock of landing on hardened stone, and not the fluffy clouds she had expected, jolted the pegasus fully awake.

“It wasn’t a dream.” She said, voice awed at the fact that she, Rainbow Dash, was finally a Wonderbolt.

“Ow. You better believe it isn’t a dream. I can’t feel my back legs Dash. You got a little carried away…”

Rainbow looked over her shoulder. Lying in bed Spitfire looked almost as bedraggled as Rainbow felt. The older mare winced as she moved her legs, and even from here Rainbow could smell dried sweat and the distinct smell of sex radiating from the fire colored mare.

“Hey, you said I could do anything since I made the Bolts.”

“Yeah, well. Try not to make it every day, I don’t think I could handle that. Where did you even get that idea?”

“Fluttershy, she is creative, I’ll give her that.”

“Huh?”

Rainbow looked over, giggling at the dumbfounded look on her lovers face. “What? You think a pro bono animal hospital makes money? Believe me, she wishes.”

“What? But, how…what? She does that?”

“Huh? Does what?”

“Does… um, that. For money.” Spitfire blushed, the heated skin reddening her already fire complexion.

“What? NO! Oh Celestia no. She writes. Umm. She writes dirty novels.” Spitfire’s hot blush was matched quickly by Rainbow’s. Blood rushed to her face with the admission that her friend not only wrote the books, but that Rainbow had read them. “She, um, writes really really good stuff.”

“That’s, pretty cool actually. I mean, I always just kind of assumed that she got money helping animals and stuff. Dirty novels huh?” Spitfire blanched a little, then she laughed. “What’s her pen name?”

“Magnetism. You know, cause ‘animal magnetism’.”

“Your joking. Fluttershy is Magnet? For real?” She broke down into another fit of giggles, tickled, well tickled orange. Spitfire had a small collection of books stashed away in her room, not hidden, just out of the way. There were some things you most certainly did not want an inquisitive pony from the papers seeing while she was out.

Among them were several of the slim volumes that ‘Magnetism’ published, including the full set of The Thief of Time. It was her personal favorite. The series centered around a young pegasus thief, but she usually wasn’t after the family jewels. Spitfire adored the adventures of the little thief. These mainly involved solving one political scheme or another, because unknown even to her lover and fellow thief. The Thief was the Countess Montessa, a well-bred pony of leisure. Of course the fact that it was one of the only series that revolved around the love two mares had for each other, not just the mindless rutting that other novels were composed of didn’t hurt her interest at all. What could she say, Spitfire liked plot. The literary kind you pervert.

“Yep, she sure is. Anyway, that’s where I got the umm, ideas. The third rope was my idea though.” There was a hint of pride in the mares voice.

“Hey, that one hurt.” Spitfire whined, rubbing at herself.

“Oh you liked it. Or else, why are you already trying to gear up for another round?”

“No, I’m trying to not remember where that rope you were so proud of went.”

“Yeah sure you are. Well come on Captain. Laziness is not tolerated in the Wonderbolts, and I would hate to be late to the first practice session.

“Bah all they’re going to do this early is work out a little. We already did that.”

“Well yeah, but we didn’t use our wings now did we?”

“Rainbow, is that a challenge?”

“Yes it is, but you have to wait until tonight to try it. Come on lazybones.” Rainbow walked over to Spitfire, drawing her out of bed with another gentle kiss. That was one aspect of Rainbow that Spitfire thought she would never get used to. In bed, Rainbow was ferocious. She was constantly battling for dominance, usually with her tongue and mouth. Spitfire usually gave in, loving the thrill of being controlled. But out of bed, in everyday life, Rainbow was like this. Soft, tender, gentle. A far cry from the mare who had left Spitfire tied up, and rope cutting into a few naughty places. She smiled, and walked with Rainbow out of the room.

Fluttershy was on her third lap of the track, and had gone almost one full length without landing. She was on cloud nine, metaphorically at least. In reality, she was above cloud six, the halfway mark around the track. It had taken the better part of thirty minutes, but the little filly was determined to make it one more hour. That would take her to a few minutes before lights out, but it was worth the risk. She needed the practice more than she needed dinner.

“Hey Fluttershy, whatcha doing?” Fluttershy squeaked, her wings shooting in and holding shut at her sides. In consequence, she plummeted to the ground. Her legs crumpled at the force of the impact, and her chest slammed into the path of hardened cloud. Tears filled her eyes as Rainbow laughed at her friend, only partially due to the pain radiating from the fall.

“Wow ‘Shy, you can’t fly when I come over can… you. Fluttershy? Hey, Fluttershy, what’s wrong?” Rainbow asked, worried by her friends discomfort. It wasn’t the first time that she had laughed at Fluttershy’s lack of aerial grace. It was however, the first time it had happened when Gilda wasn’t there with her, grabbing Rainbow’s attention once more before the young mare could notice the hurt on the yellow face.
Now though, Rainbow finally put two and two together, coming up with fish. “Hey Shy, you don’t have to cry. You’re doing great.”

“Huh?” The yellow pegasus looked up, puzzlement apparent to everypony.

“Yeah. You do the best comedy I’ve ever seen.” Fluttershy’s tears, which had momentarily abaited, came back in full force and then some.

“Hey, it’s not something to feel bad about. I mean, nopony does anything about actually flying. All they do is stupid tricks, but making fun about flying, acting like you can’t. That’s genius.”
“I- I can’t.”

“Sure you can, I mean I just watched you didn’t I? You were great. Could you imagine not being able to fly? That would be horrible.”

“I CAN’T FLY!” Fluttershy screamed, stunning Rainbow into instant silence. In the time she had been there, Fluttershy had spoken in public at most twice, and never above a quite conversational tone. To hear the almost silent mare scream in fury and pain was a shock. “GO AHEAD! LAUGH! LAUGH LIKE ALL OF THOSE, THOSE- ARGH!” Unable to find an epiphyte of sufficient strength to describe her feelings about the little monsters.

It was horrible for them to sit there and do nothing but to laugh at her suffering, and to create suffering in others. Fluttershy couldn’t, wouldn’t stand to see anypony in pain. She was always there with a kind word, a gentle smile. Whatever the pony needed, Fluttershy was happy to give it, whether it was an understanding ear or just the comfort of having company that wouldn’t judge anything.

Only a few days ago, she had done such a thing to Rainbow herself. One insult too many, and even the mighty Rainbow Dash had broken. Fluttershy had found the mare curled up in her room, wrapped in the bedclothes. The cyan pegasus had rocked back and forth, over and over, tears silently streaming down her face. That had been a long night, lasting far past lights out.

It wasn’t until almost midnight that Rainbow had seemed to notice that Fluttershy was there, murmuring soft nothings while she rubbed a warm hoof along Rainbow’s side. Slowly, haltingly rainbow had explained her problem.

It was the usual culprits. Hoops, Line Back and Pumped were once more using their words to hurt other ponies. Rainbow was their usual target, even if she shrugged it off. This time was different though. They had made fun of her, just as always. Rainbow Crash, Rainbow Dyke, Carpet Muncher, as many different insults about her supposed preference for mares or her flying skills as their limited wit could gather up and invent. That was nothing new, Rainbow could ignore those any day. What she couldn’t bare was their attacks on her parents, or rather, her lack of such.

And now Fluttershy stood in front of her, panting in suppressed emotion. Barely three days after the long night of comfort and warmth, and Rainbow had the gall to laugh at her. She was just like them.

“Wh-what? Ohmygosh, Fluttershy. I’m sorry, oh Celestia, I’m so so sorry.”

What had followed was another long night. The two of them stayed in the arena that night this time Rainbow comforting the broken Fluttershy. Rainbow promised that she would make sure that Fluttershy would be able to fly, even if Rainbow had to miss a Wonderbolts show to train her. Fluttershy had sobbed, thanking Rainbow, over and over again. Then, in the dark, Fluttershy had leaned in. She had kissed Rainbow there, a gentle touch of lips in appreciation and thanks for the kindness that somepony had finally shown her. Maybe, just maybe, she really did have a friend here. And maybe, she would finally be able to make her sister proud. At the very least, she would ensure that her family wouldn’t be ashamed of her any longer.

After a short pause, Rainbow returned the kiss, melting into the mare beside her. It was a long night yet, and most of it was spent in each other’s hooves. They would either talk, or kiss, or simply lie together in the warm darkness in the arena. Neither thought, nor cared what any would think in the morning, coming in and finding the mares curled together in the middle of the stands.