Echos of Foalhoodby reflective vagrantChaptersHead Held High in ShameOf Idols and DreamsThe Little Cleaning CartHead Held High in ShameLightning Dust walked uneasily away from the train station with an earth pony pulling a wagon behind her. While on the train, she had briefly talked to the mare that was making the trip to deliver to a regular client. As comforting as the mare's word were intended, they did little to ease the tension that had built on the train to Manehattan. The friendly mare walked a ways together with her in supportive silence. The blocks went by until the earth pony finally turned a corner towards her own destination, bidding her good day and good luck. 'Just do it Lightning Dust,' her mind screamed at her as she stood at the corner of the earth mare's departure. 'It's just up ahead. Walk half a block, turn, take six steps up then knock. It's not that hard. Just do it. That's what she knew she needed to do. But her hooves felt like they had lead in them when she tried to move them forward. Her wings weren't an option either. Even if she could bring herself to use them here, she knew they would only fly her away, not towards her goal. So she had to keep them tucked tightly to her sides. 'Don't,' her gut told her. 'There's nothing good for you there. They want to-' Lightning Dust shook off the feeling with a brief bout of stubborn rage and a mildly violent shake of her head. "No!" She finally spoke out loud to nopony in particular. 'And even if that's true... If it comes down to it, you can run if they try that." Her breathing became a deep and mildly unsteady panting. 'but they won't. She hasn't since... Well you know.' She wasn't really sure whether it was her mind or her gut slightly giving in that said that just now, but either way it gave her what she needed to force the lead in her hooves to move forward. The lead was heavy the entire way and did not ease up even when she raised her hoof to knock on the door. 'Are you sure you want to do this? You can still run away right now without them knowing you were here, but if you knock then there's no going back. You can always run even after they see you, but you know what that will do.' Her mind and gut said together, agreeing on something completely for the first time in days. "Yeah, I know." she said as she knocked loudly. She breathed deeply for a moment to accept her fate. "It will hurt-" The door opened sooner than she expected and found herself looking into her father's eyes. Her father stared back for several seconds, not moving. Lightning Dust tried to form words but she couldn't get them out. He came up to her and pulled her into the tightest hug she had experienced in years. Though her fears did not dissipate in the slightest, they were momentarily shoved to the back of her mind. 'It will hurt them, badly.' She did her best to bury herself into the down feathers that grew exposed down the entire length of her father's right wing. They were as soft and fluffy as she remembered them. 'But not as badly as avoiding them altogether like I've been doing.' Her head then shifted to the other side to rest in the normal position for a hug and moved her hoof around him to return the gesture. After another second or two she felt something wet dripping on her shoulders. She could hear him speak in a weak whisper. "Are you hungry Lightning Dust?" A few hours later Lightning Dust and her father were sitting in the kitchen. They went through some of her dad's photos while they waited for her mother to get home. He pointed to another photo with a smile. "And this one had three different newspapers bidding on it to keep it from the others. Managed to get a new camera with that one." With a hearty smile, she nudged her dad. "You've gotten better at this. Your little hobby has really blossomed. You're actually getting out enough to make a profit on it now? I'm amazed mom still let you out of the apartment building after..." Her smile dropped as quickly as her voice. Her eyes closed and she turned her head away from him beside her to face absently forward. Her dad gave her a questioning look. "What?" She sat there under her father's gaze. It wasn't an accusative gaze and she knew it. But it still burned at her the longer he kept staring at her silence. The front door rattled, distracting them both. 'Saved by the bell.' They could hear the apartment door open and somepony called out, "Plasma Wave, honey, I'm home. Sorry I'm late." Hoofsteps could be heard coming from the front door. "I had to drive old Flambe off again. I swear, how many times will he keep pestering me about merging before he finally takes no for..." The new pony's voice trailed off as her eyes landed on the unexpected guest. 'Out of the frying pan and into the fire,' Lightning Dust thought as she forced a smile, ears falling back in a reflexive fear. "Hey mom." Her mother's face beamed with joy. "Sweet Celestia! Lightning Dust!" Dropping the few things she had, her mother quickly zoomed around the counter. As Lightning Dust backed up a few paces at her zealous advance, she slowed to a walk and stopped an extra pace away. The look of joy on her face shifted to an uneasy but accepting smile. Her mom got a good look at her, tilting her head this way and that. "You're here. You look healthy. Still preening like-" "Mom!" Lightning Dust interjected with furled eyebrows. The anger from her face melted after a few seconds of seeing her mother stand there, taken back slightly but still happy. Her eyes went down to the floor and her ears drooped in sadness. Her head subtly dipped ever so slightly but she brought it right back up subtly, as to not be noticed as anymore than a part of her gaze moving downward. She took a slow breath, stepped towards her mother and gave her an uneasy hug. "It's good to see you too." Of Idols and DreamsLightning Dust lay in the bed of her old bedroom turned guest room. She looked around to try to distract herself from her thoughts. Most of the little things she had left behind had been put in the closet for storage if she ever wanted them. The walls had the posters removed and the bed had a different set of sheets. Otherwise, the room was left about the same save the scuff marks on the walls and door that her little cousins had made in her absence. It was like they had touched it just enough to keep her things safe and make it useable. Like they changed no more than they needed to. Her stomach growled from not eating much at dinner, in spite of her dad barely holding back the desire to put the food on her plate himself. She laid back and closed her eyes as her efforts to distract herself began to fail. 'You know you insulted them by not eating much. They know you have more of an appetite than that,' her mind told her. 'Let them be insulted. You shouldn't have eaten anything,' her gut snapped at her like an angry brat. 'You know that-' Lightning Dust interrupted her argument with herself with a quiet huff. With her eyes still shut, her expression turned skeptical. 'Really?' she thought to herself. 'OK, OK. So they wouldn't do it with a few bites, but you still were right to not get too comfortable.' She opened her eyes a little to look up at the head of her bed, furrowing her brows more in confusion than frustration. "...For now at least." She inhaled sharply and held her breath just long enough for the stress from that moment's inner argument to gather in it. With the gut feeling finally going back to its place in the back of her mind, being settled for the moment, she exhaled. Opening her eyes more fully as the stress relieved itself, her gaze wandered towards the ceiling above the bed only to be drawn directly to an old object. There, inconspicuously placed at a corner of the ceiling where it was expertly hidden from the entrance but in full view of the bed's occupant, was an old poster of hers left untouched. Memories flooded her mind. Little filly Lightning Dust looked onward in anticipation from her perch on her father's back. Her mom was stuck at work, again, but she didn't really like flying anyway. With Lightning Dust's little brother on the way, her mom was trying to get the restaurant adjusted to have some extra help when her tummy started growing and became too big to handle the restaurant. "Fillies and gentle colts of Manehattan! I am proud to present to you, for your spectating pleasure, the Wonderbolts aerial show!" With that, Lightning Dust forgot her troubles and cheered the evening away. Lightning Dust's Aunt zipped across the sky. Towards the end of the performance, Lightning Dust wiggled in excitement, knowing what the finale was going to be. With the moon moving upwards into the sky right as the sun was setting, The Wonderbolts coordinated with the fireworks experts and moved to the far end of the field where none of the stands were. The Wonderbolts twirled around as if raising the moon in an invisible vortex and fighting the flux of fireworks that looked as if they were set to move the moon off course, ending in a final false strike of the fireworks being "deflected" by the up and coming rookies, into the clouds above. The barely held together clouds burst open in a shower of sparkles, revealing the night sky of the eastern edge of the city in an awe inspiring shower of sparkles and real starlight. Starlight painstakingly enhanced by Princess Celestia's magics, despite her lack of natural attunement to night, just for this occasion. The moment burned into the back of Lightning Dust's mind. 'I want to be up there someday. Following her up there as her wingpony and making her proud.' "I still think it would be cooler if they could do that at the Summer Sun Celebration," A pegasus colt callously commented nearby. Lightning Dust's cheeks puffed out as she held her retort back over it being Princess Luna's birthday that so few knew about that they generally didn't even care. But she cared. Her aunt cared too. Her aunt also made her promise to not start a fight over it and just be happy the show happened. Getting off her dad's back, her dad looked at her looking out at the crowd with a concerned face. He then grew a quick smirk. "Come on, they have custom posters of the athletes that performed tonight. And I'm pretty sure they are saving a glow in the dark one of Spitfire for a special filly." With a simple smile, Lightning Dust forgot about the colt and trotted up to his side. "Why didn't you join up back when you had both wings, daddy? Mom says you were a good flyer back then too." He gave a pained smile, then responded as they walked off. "I'd have been happy to join if I thought it was right. I'd want to put my life on the line to protect others. But I had other skills that were needed elsewhere. So I became an engineer in the technology development branch instead. By the time my initial contract was up, my wing was gone." Lightning Dust was looking at the different merchandise booths coming up, showing acrobatics for the rookies and acts of bravery in danger that different Wonderbolt veterans had performed in their careers. "But you'd still go if they wanted you, right?" He gave a pained laugh then looked at her with admiration. "Once I knew my family would be OK without me, in a heartbeat, Lightning Dust. In a heartbeat." * * * Years later, Lightning Dust was lying on her bed in a huff of anger, having suffered another argument with her mom. This time she had refused to sign her papers to join the Wonderbolt academy. With a knock on her door, she yelled out, "Just go away and stop controlling my life, mom!" The door opened and Lightning Dust threw her pillow at it. "Easy there, slugger. It's me," her dad responded after ducking under the thrown pillow. Lightning Dust sat up on her bed away from the door, and her dad. "So what if it's you instead of mom? You're just here because she asked you to get me to see things her way. It wouldn't be the first time." Plasma Wave went around the bed and sat next to the young mare. "Well you're half right. She did ask me to do that, but that's not what I'm here for." Lightning Dust jumped off her bed and started hovering in front of her father, steadily rising upward more and more as she got off into a rant. "Then what are you here for? To get me to go to work in mom's kitchen? To have me improve my grades in school instead of going to the gym? A little late for that one, dad. Already graduated. Maybe you want to go to the park where I can watch everypony else fly because you're afraid the South Wings will try to recruit me if they see me in the air? Why can't you guys understand!? I! Am! A! Flyer! Just like-!" Lightning Dust bumped into the ceiling, bumping one of the corners of her poster, crinkling the edge and tearing the tape holding it up along one corner. When she landed and looked up, she saw one of the corners slightly crumpled and dangling from busted tape. Plasma Wave gave her a stern glare and said, "If you will let me get a word in, I'll tell you." Lightning Dust got back on the bed and sat there, suddenly mute. Plasma Wave brought out a piece of paper. "This is the application you wanted us to sign, right? The one that would let you go to the academy and bypass going to the normal air force just to have a chance of getting referred into the Wonderbolts?" When she tried to look away, he gestured to the line at the bottom. "Well I have done some thinking, and I've decided to support you on this." Turning her head back to the paper, Lightning Dust looked down and saw her father's signature on the line. Her eyebrows went up for a moment, but shot right back down with a deeper scowl. "Doesn't matter. I still need Mom's signature too, and there's no way she's going to give it." Plasma Wave smirked as his daughter said this. "Again, you're half right. There is no way she'd sign it." He folded the application back up and put it in the envelope it came in. "But I said I was going to support you on this and that doesn't stop at just a signature. So I called your aunt from the building's office and found out that you actually don't have to have both of us sign it. Just one signature meets minimum requirement." Lightning Dust looked at her dad in shock. He brought her in to a hug, which she resisted for a moment, but thought better than angering the pony that just found her a loophole and sat there with a desire for the mushy feel good hug to be over. "My dreams of serving were dashed away before you were born. I can see that you take after me and your aunt in your desire to be out there, doing your best. But your mom is so worried about your safety that she has practically imprisoned you in chains of silk since..." Tears rolled down both of their eyes as they hugged again, this time both participating in the hug earnestly. "Since your little brother died," he finished. Sobering up a good minute later, he continued. "My dreams were taken from me, but the streets here in Manehattan aren't really that much safer for a pegasus than being in the service. Your mother might not get that, not for real, but I'll be dammed to Tartarus if I just sit idly by and watch my daughter's dreams be dashed away too." With this, he scooted the envelope containing the signed application to her. "So if you can finish filling it out and sign at the bottom, I'll sneak it out to-" He winked, "-Aunt Campfire and she'll do her best to make sure the Wonderbolts accept it without your mom's signature." Even the special tape Lightning Dust had to hold the poster up without damaging it was left unmoved, save one corner that had a little bit more tape added for reinforcement. A part of her wanted to smile but the rest of her could only turn over in her bed, chewing on this until sleep finally took her. The Little Cleaning Cart"But don't you need to get to the restaurant?" Lightning Dust asked her mother the next morning. Her mother gave a small giggle as she moved towards the door, gesturing Lightning Dust to follow. "No. I was finally able to get somepony else to run it a few days a week." Lightning Dust's face grew puzzled as she walked out the door behind her mom. "I thought you said Gold Bond expected it to be you running it full time." They waved goodbye to her dad. "Have fun you two," he called out, waving his good wing. Her mom smiled and called back, "Don't work too hard." "All these years and he still gets a kick out of being the maintenance pony," Lightning Dust said idly after her father pulled himself back into a second floor window. "It gave him new purpose after his tour with the military was over. It wasn't easy for somepony like him to find work." "Yea. I suppose not." Lightning Dust responded while she started to stretch her wings idly while they waited at the curb. She stopped herself and snapped her wings back to her side. 'Not here. It's not safe.' Her mom waved down a taxi cart on the road as it came by. "As for the restaurant, I got lucky enough to refinance at a bank that didn't fear him. So now I don't have to worry about Gold Bond sticking his nose into the restaurant's affairs anymore." "That's good I guess." "Oh yes, it is. A little less money and a bit more headache, but more time where I need it." Her mom stepped up into the taxi and adjusted the seats, settling in for the ride. "Like spending the day at the mall with my daughter for once," she called more to the pony pulling the taxi than to Lightning Dust. 'About ten or so years late, but good,' Lightning Dust thought bitterly to herself then stepped into the taxi beside her mom. Lightning Dust had a few things in tow with her saddlebag. One side was filled with sweets and pastries to take back home carefully packed away and some little odds and ends that weren't easy to get out in the little town she'd been living in... and her old shopping saddle bag to be demoted to dirty chore bag when she got back from her visit. The other side was filled with her mom's things. What they were currently arguing about was whether Lightning Dust needed a dress. "Mom, I'm an athlete-" Lightning Dust said with a bland voice, staring at her mother skeptically, "-and have a steady job in the air. I don't need to clog up my small closet with a dozen dresses that I would never use." "Athlete or not, a lady should have at least one nice thing to wear. What if..." Lightning Dust looked down at the dress as her mother pleaded with her, only paying half attention. She tested the material with a gentle tug and found it to 'delicate' for her taste. 'She's pushing you again,' her gut practically pulsated in warning. "She just wants to give me something to have for special occasions,' her mind objected weakly. 'She'll use it to rope you into something.' 'No. She won't.' 'Really? How can you be sure?' '...Like this.' "Mom, I get it, aliright? But if it's gonna be my dress then let me pick it out and pay for it." Her mom gave her an odd look. She shrank back bit as she spoke. "I don't want something this-" She paused and scanned the dress to find the right thing to say, ultimately looking at one of the tags. "Hard to wash." Her mother's disappointed eyes pierced at her. "But I wouldn't mind some advice on them." * * * Later on, with the dress they finally decided on and the other items stowed away in her old room until she departed, she sat at the table for lunch, waiting for her father to finish up the most recent odd job around the apartments and join them. While getting the last bits of the meal together, her mom paused for a moment to muster the courage to ask, "I know this is going to sound bad, but could I ask you to consider something?" Lightning Dust looked at her weird, then gave a flat face response. "No. I'm not moving back in." The two mares looked at each other with a tension in the air, but that tension quickly shattered when both of them burst into laughter. "I know better than to ask that," Chocolate Dust called out as she tried to regain composure. "But in all seriousness there is something else. You've probably already seen the posters, asking for volunteers by the royal sisters to help the army in some big thing happening in the Appleloosa area. They say that the volunteers won't be in any where near where the soldiers are needed, but they even have crystal ponies coming down from the Crystal Empire to supplement the normal guards to make sure they have enough troops down in Appleloosa." With the timer on the counter going off, Chocolate Dust levitated the main dish from its cooling spot over the oven to the table. As she set it down, she shook her head and continued. "The entire thing stinks of some conflict brewing. I don't like it. He's thinking about joining the volunteers, but he's not a young stallion anymore. He's going to get himself hurt, or worse." When she lifted her head and looked at her daughter, the silence and blank stare she was receiving made her swallow a lump in her throat. "I know you can empathize with him. And, as much as I hate it, I know it would be a waste to even try to ask you not to go." Lightning Dust waited for a moment but spoke up when her mom took too long to continue. "But..?" Chocolate Dust winced, sighed and made her request, "But I was hoping maybe you can help him see some reason for staying?" A moment of silence past before Lightning Dust looked down at the plates she had been setting out just a few minutes before. 'Do I have any right to ask dad to stay? But, at the same time, I've broken mom's heart too much already.' She adjusted the plate practically to the same spot, just to have something to focus her eyes on more intensely. "I'll try to think of something." In the time it took for Plasma Wave to get back, Lightning Dust had only the feeblest of reasons to get him to stay. 'If you leave, they will need a new maintenance pony for the apartments and you might not get your job back.' 'But I'll miss seeing your photos in the Manehattan Press. You're getting so good at it now. 'I was hoping to visit more often.' All of her reasons were feeble half truths at best, but she steeled herself to try anyway when she heard the tumbling of the doorknob, signaling he had come home. As she went to meet him at the front door, he called out, "Chocolate Dust? Honey? I'll be just a minute more, I have to put some stuff away but I'll be right back in maybe five minutes." He turned to her as she trotted up to him, giving her his attention. "What's up slugger?" She just about met his gaze, but found her eyes being drawn to a familiar object. With him not getting a response from her, he noticed her looking back at the cart in the hallway, unable to break her shocked eyes away. "Th-that cart." Lightning Dust called out weakly. There was the cart that had become such a symbol of Lightning Dust's torment. The work she did with it wasn't bad, save for one or two incidences. Nevertheless, it had been her constant companion throughout her troubled times working under her mother. She had thought she had made peace with that part of her life. With her mother getting her to learn to push through difficult times. Despite it not being a bad job, or an unfair one, with her mother hating the idea of her being a wonder bolt with a passion, having to work under her was harshly associated with those feelings and that old tension. Those years were key to her development as a hard worker and she looked back on them for the most part with a bittersweet taste of nostalgia. Yet, while those skills were a part of her she'd never want to give up, at this exact moment the sight of that cart was bringing more of the feelings of her dreams being suppressed back to the surface than anything else. "Oh this old thing?" Plasma Wave gave a weary but genuine laugh, turning his head to look at the cart in the hall. "Yea. It's up here now. Some biggets in the city counsel decided it was important enough for their reelections to pass a bill keeping any colt or filly from having proper work until they reach the age of a stallion or mare and 'focus on school' about two years back. Considering how much more they can learn from having a part time job vs a little more time to play and not do the homework it was intended for, it was one of the stupidest decisions I've ever seen them pull. But the end result was that we haven't had a use for the miniaturized cart in the restaurant. I needed a replacement maintenance cart for the apartments, so we just moved this one up here to make more room at the restaurant." By the time he had turned his head back, Lightning Dust was in tears. Her lip was quivering and her body was starting to get the slightest case of the shakes. Before Plasma Wave could react, he found his daughter flinging herself around him in a hug, sobbing and giving what sounded like incoherent apologies. When her sobbing had dried up enough to hear what she was saying, all he could get out of her was, "I'll be fine." Trying to comfort her in her embrace, he asked "What do you mean? You'll be fine?" "You want to join the volunteers and help the army in the Appleloosa troubles, right?" Plasma Wave pulled his daughter out of the embrace to look her in the eyes. "I..." He looked at his wife ducking back out from the walkway to the kitchen with a look like she had a headache. With a moment of thought, he put his head down and said, "I wanted to, yea. But I was still weighing some stuff." *Thud!* A somewhat loud sound came from the kitchen which both of them recognized and ignored. Lightning Dust shook her head for a moment then looked back at her dad. "Well I'll be fine, but you won't be if you let this last chance just slip by. You'll just end up asking yourself 'what if?' for the rest of your life. You once told me to follow my dreams because you could empathize from when yours had been taken away. You have a chance to do it over now... In a way. So go. Go help them. I'll be fine." A moment passed as Plasma Wave's eyes started to water slightly. With a nod, they went into the kitchen for dinner. Just as they entered, Chocolate Dust's bruised forehead came back up from the edge of the sink where it would accommodate her horn, only for her to slam it back down in the same spot again. With a huff, she let out an exasperated, "I should have just kept quiet over the whole thing..."
Head Held High in ShameLightning Dust walked uneasily away from the train station with an earth pony pulling a wagon behind her. While on the train, she had briefly talked to the mare that was making the trip to deliver to a regular client. As comforting as the mare's word were intended, they did little to ease the tension that had built on the train to Manehattan. The friendly mare walked a ways together with her in supportive silence. The blocks went by until the earth pony finally turned a corner towards her own destination, bidding her good day and good luck. 'Just do it Lightning Dust,' her mind screamed at her as she stood at the corner of the earth mare's departure. 'It's just up ahead. Walk half a block, turn, take six steps up then knock. It's not that hard. Just do it. That's what she knew she needed to do. But her hooves felt like they had lead in them when she tried to move them forward. Her wings weren't an option either. Even if she could bring herself to use them here, she knew they would only fly her away, not towards her goal. So she had to keep them tucked tightly to her sides. 'Don't,' her gut told her. 'There's nothing good for you there. They want to-' Lightning Dust shook off the feeling with a brief bout of stubborn rage and a mildly violent shake of her head. "No!" She finally spoke out loud to nopony in particular. 'And even if that's true... If it comes down to it, you can run if they try that." Her breathing became a deep and mildly unsteady panting. 'but they won't. She hasn't since... Well you know.' She wasn't really sure whether it was her mind or her gut slightly giving in that said that just now, but either way it gave her what she needed to force the lead in her hooves to move forward. The lead was heavy the entire way and did not ease up even when she raised her hoof to knock on the door. 'Are you sure you want to do this? You can still run away right now without them knowing you were here, but if you knock then there's no going back. You can always run even after they see you, but you know what that will do.' Her mind and gut said together, agreeing on something completely for the first time in days. "Yeah, I know." she said as she knocked loudly. She breathed deeply for a moment to accept her fate. "It will hurt-" The door opened sooner than she expected and found herself looking into her father's eyes. Her father stared back for several seconds, not moving. Lightning Dust tried to form words but she couldn't get them out. He came up to her and pulled her into the tightest hug she had experienced in years. Though her fears did not dissipate in the slightest, they were momentarily shoved to the back of her mind. 'It will hurt them, badly.' She did her best to bury herself into the down feathers that grew exposed down the entire length of her father's right wing. They were as soft and fluffy as she remembered them. 'But not as badly as avoiding them altogether like I've been doing.' Her head then shifted to the other side to rest in the normal position for a hug and moved her hoof around him to return the gesture. After another second or two she felt something wet dripping on her shoulders. She could hear him speak in a weak whisper. "Are you hungry Lightning Dust?" A few hours later Lightning Dust and her father were sitting in the kitchen. They went through some of her dad's photos while they waited for her mother to get home. He pointed to another photo with a smile. "And this one had three different newspapers bidding on it to keep it from the others. Managed to get a new camera with that one." With a hearty smile, she nudged her dad. "You've gotten better at this. Your little hobby has really blossomed. You're actually getting out enough to make a profit on it now? I'm amazed mom still let you out of the apartment building after..." Her smile dropped as quickly as her voice. Her eyes closed and she turned her head away from him beside her to face absently forward. Her dad gave her a questioning look. "What?" She sat there under her father's gaze. It wasn't an accusative gaze and she knew it. But it still burned at her the longer he kept staring at her silence. The front door rattled, distracting them both. 'Saved by the bell.' They could hear the apartment door open and somepony called out, "Plasma Wave, honey, I'm home. Sorry I'm late." Hoofsteps could be heard coming from the front door. "I had to drive old Flambe off again. I swear, how many times will he keep pestering me about merging before he finally takes no for..." The new pony's voice trailed off as her eyes landed on the unexpected guest. 'Out of the frying pan and into the fire,' Lightning Dust thought as she forced a smile, ears falling back in a reflexive fear. "Hey mom." Her mother's face beamed with joy. "Sweet Celestia! Lightning Dust!" Dropping the few things she had, her mother quickly zoomed around the counter. As Lightning Dust backed up a few paces at her zealous advance, she slowed to a walk and stopped an extra pace away. The look of joy on her face shifted to an uneasy but accepting smile. Her mom got a good look at her, tilting her head this way and that. "You're here. You look healthy. Still preening like-" "Mom!" Lightning Dust interjected with furled eyebrows. The anger from her face melted after a few seconds of seeing her mother stand there, taken back slightly but still happy. Her eyes went down to the floor and her ears drooped in sadness. Her head subtly dipped ever so slightly but she brought it right back up subtly, as to not be noticed as anymore than a part of her gaze moving downward. She took a slow breath, stepped towards her mother and gave her an uneasy hug. "It's good to see you too."
Of Idols and DreamsLightning Dust lay in the bed of her old bedroom turned guest room. She looked around to try to distract herself from her thoughts. Most of the little things she had left behind had been put in the closet for storage if she ever wanted them. The walls had the posters removed and the bed had a different set of sheets. Otherwise, the room was left about the same save the scuff marks on the walls and door that her little cousins had made in her absence. It was like they had touched it just enough to keep her things safe and make it useable. Like they changed no more than they needed to. Her stomach growled from not eating much at dinner, in spite of her dad barely holding back the desire to put the food on her plate himself. She laid back and closed her eyes as her efforts to distract herself began to fail. 'You know you insulted them by not eating much. They know you have more of an appetite than that,' her mind told her. 'Let them be insulted. You shouldn't have eaten anything,' her gut snapped at her like an angry brat. 'You know that-' Lightning Dust interrupted her argument with herself with a quiet huff. With her eyes still shut, her expression turned skeptical. 'Really?' she thought to herself. 'OK, OK. So they wouldn't do it with a few bites, but you still were right to not get too comfortable.' She opened her eyes a little to look up at the head of her bed, furrowing her brows more in confusion than frustration. "...For now at least." She inhaled sharply and held her breath just long enough for the stress from that moment's inner argument to gather in it. With the gut feeling finally going back to its place in the back of her mind, being settled for the moment, she exhaled. Opening her eyes more fully as the stress relieved itself, her gaze wandered towards the ceiling above the bed only to be drawn directly to an old object. There, inconspicuously placed at a corner of the ceiling where it was expertly hidden from the entrance but in full view of the bed's occupant, was an old poster of hers left untouched. Memories flooded her mind. Little filly Lightning Dust looked onward in anticipation from her perch on her father's back. Her mom was stuck at work, again, but she didn't really like flying anyway. With Lightning Dust's little brother on the way, her mom was trying to get the restaurant adjusted to have some extra help when her tummy started growing and became too big to handle the restaurant. "Fillies and gentle colts of Manehattan! I am proud to present to you, for your spectating pleasure, the Wonderbolts aerial show!" With that, Lightning Dust forgot her troubles and cheered the evening away. Lightning Dust's Aunt zipped across the sky. Towards the end of the performance, Lightning Dust wiggled in excitement, knowing what the finale was going to be. With the moon moving upwards into the sky right as the sun was setting, The Wonderbolts coordinated with the fireworks experts and moved to the far end of the field where none of the stands were. The Wonderbolts twirled around as if raising the moon in an invisible vortex and fighting the flux of fireworks that looked as if they were set to move the moon off course, ending in a final false strike of the fireworks being "deflected" by the up and coming rookies, into the clouds above. The barely held together clouds burst open in a shower of sparkles, revealing the night sky of the eastern edge of the city in an awe inspiring shower of sparkles and real starlight. Starlight painstakingly enhanced by Princess Celestia's magics, despite her lack of natural attunement to night, just for this occasion. The moment burned into the back of Lightning Dust's mind. 'I want to be up there someday. Following her up there as her wingpony and making her proud.' "I still think it would be cooler if they could do that at the Summer Sun Celebration," A pegasus colt callously commented nearby. Lightning Dust's cheeks puffed out as she held her retort back over it being Princess Luna's birthday that so few knew about that they generally didn't even care. But she cared. Her aunt cared too. Her aunt also made her promise to not start a fight over it and just be happy the show happened. Getting off her dad's back, her dad looked at her looking out at the crowd with a concerned face. He then grew a quick smirk. "Come on, they have custom posters of the athletes that performed tonight. And I'm pretty sure they are saving a glow in the dark one of Spitfire for a special filly." With a simple smile, Lightning Dust forgot about the colt and trotted up to his side. "Why didn't you join up back when you had both wings, daddy? Mom says you were a good flyer back then too." He gave a pained smile, then responded as they walked off. "I'd have been happy to join if I thought it was right. I'd want to put my life on the line to protect others. But I had other skills that were needed elsewhere. So I became an engineer in the technology development branch instead. By the time my initial contract was up, my wing was gone." Lightning Dust was looking at the different merchandise booths coming up, showing acrobatics for the rookies and acts of bravery in danger that different Wonderbolt veterans had performed in their careers. "But you'd still go if they wanted you, right?" He gave a pained laugh then looked at her with admiration. "Once I knew my family would be OK without me, in a heartbeat, Lightning Dust. In a heartbeat." * * * Years later, Lightning Dust was lying on her bed in a huff of anger, having suffered another argument with her mom. This time she had refused to sign her papers to join the Wonderbolt academy. With a knock on her door, she yelled out, "Just go away and stop controlling my life, mom!" The door opened and Lightning Dust threw her pillow at it. "Easy there, slugger. It's me," her dad responded after ducking under the thrown pillow. Lightning Dust sat up on her bed away from the door, and her dad. "So what if it's you instead of mom? You're just here because she asked you to get me to see things her way. It wouldn't be the first time." Plasma Wave went around the bed and sat next to the young mare. "Well you're half right. She did ask me to do that, but that's not what I'm here for." Lightning Dust jumped off her bed and started hovering in front of her father, steadily rising upward more and more as she got off into a rant. "Then what are you here for? To get me to go to work in mom's kitchen? To have me improve my grades in school instead of going to the gym? A little late for that one, dad. Already graduated. Maybe you want to go to the park where I can watch everypony else fly because you're afraid the South Wings will try to recruit me if they see me in the air? Why can't you guys understand!? I! Am! A! Flyer! Just like-!" Lightning Dust bumped into the ceiling, bumping one of the corners of her poster, crinkling the edge and tearing the tape holding it up along one corner. When she landed and looked up, she saw one of the corners slightly crumpled and dangling from busted tape. Plasma Wave gave her a stern glare and said, "If you will let me get a word in, I'll tell you." Lightning Dust got back on the bed and sat there, suddenly mute. Plasma Wave brought out a piece of paper. "This is the application you wanted us to sign, right? The one that would let you go to the academy and bypass going to the normal air force just to have a chance of getting referred into the Wonderbolts?" When she tried to look away, he gestured to the line at the bottom. "Well I have done some thinking, and I've decided to support you on this." Turning her head back to the paper, Lightning Dust looked down and saw her father's signature on the line. Her eyebrows went up for a moment, but shot right back down with a deeper scowl. "Doesn't matter. I still need Mom's signature too, and there's no way she's going to give it." Plasma Wave smirked as his daughter said this. "Again, you're half right. There is no way she'd sign it." He folded the application back up and put it in the envelope it came in. "But I said I was going to support you on this and that doesn't stop at just a signature. So I called your aunt from the building's office and found out that you actually don't have to have both of us sign it. Just one signature meets minimum requirement." Lightning Dust looked at her dad in shock. He brought her in to a hug, which she resisted for a moment, but thought better than angering the pony that just found her a loophole and sat there with a desire for the mushy feel good hug to be over. "My dreams of serving were dashed away before you were born. I can see that you take after me and your aunt in your desire to be out there, doing your best. But your mom is so worried about your safety that she has practically imprisoned you in chains of silk since..." Tears rolled down both of their eyes as they hugged again, this time both participating in the hug earnestly. "Since your little brother died," he finished. Sobering up a good minute later, he continued. "My dreams were taken from me, but the streets here in Manehattan aren't really that much safer for a pegasus than being in the service. Your mother might not get that, not for real, but I'll be dammed to Tartarus if I just sit idly by and watch my daughter's dreams be dashed away too." With this, he scooted the envelope containing the signed application to her. "So if you can finish filling it out and sign at the bottom, I'll sneak it out to-" He winked, "-Aunt Campfire and she'll do her best to make sure the Wonderbolts accept it without your mom's signature." Even the special tape Lightning Dust had to hold the poster up without damaging it was left unmoved, save one corner that had a little bit more tape added for reinforcement. A part of her wanted to smile but the rest of her could only turn over in her bed, chewing on this until sleep finally took her.
The Little Cleaning Cart"But don't you need to get to the restaurant?" Lightning Dust asked her mother the next morning. Her mother gave a small giggle as she moved towards the door, gesturing Lightning Dust to follow. "No. I was finally able to get somepony else to run it a few days a week." Lightning Dust's face grew puzzled as she walked out the door behind her mom. "I thought you said Gold Bond expected it to be you running it full time." They waved goodbye to her dad. "Have fun you two," he called out, waving his good wing. Her mom smiled and called back, "Don't work too hard." "All these years and he still gets a kick out of being the maintenance pony," Lightning Dust said idly after her father pulled himself back into a second floor window. "It gave him new purpose after his tour with the military was over. It wasn't easy for somepony like him to find work." "Yea. I suppose not." Lightning Dust responded while she started to stretch her wings idly while they waited at the curb. She stopped herself and snapped her wings back to her side. 'Not here. It's not safe.' Her mom waved down a taxi cart on the road as it came by. "As for the restaurant, I got lucky enough to refinance at a bank that didn't fear him. So now I don't have to worry about Gold Bond sticking his nose into the restaurant's affairs anymore." "That's good I guess." "Oh yes, it is. A little less money and a bit more headache, but more time where I need it." Her mom stepped up into the taxi and adjusted the seats, settling in for the ride. "Like spending the day at the mall with my daughter for once," she called more to the pony pulling the taxi than to Lightning Dust. 'About ten or so years late, but good,' Lightning Dust thought bitterly to herself then stepped into the taxi beside her mom. Lightning Dust had a few things in tow with her saddlebag. One side was filled with sweets and pastries to take back home carefully packed away and some little odds and ends that weren't easy to get out in the little town she'd been living in... and her old shopping saddle bag to be demoted to dirty chore bag when she got back from her visit. The other side was filled with her mom's things. What they were currently arguing about was whether Lightning Dust needed a dress. "Mom, I'm an athlete-" Lightning Dust said with a bland voice, staring at her mother skeptically, "-and have a steady job in the air. I don't need to clog up my small closet with a dozen dresses that I would never use." "Athlete or not, a lady should have at least one nice thing to wear. What if..." Lightning Dust looked down at the dress as her mother pleaded with her, only paying half attention. She tested the material with a gentle tug and found it to 'delicate' for her taste. 'She's pushing you again,' her gut practically pulsated in warning. "She just wants to give me something to have for special occasions,' her mind objected weakly. 'She'll use it to rope you into something.' 'No. She won't.' 'Really? How can you be sure?' '...Like this.' "Mom, I get it, aliright? But if it's gonna be my dress then let me pick it out and pay for it." Her mom gave her an odd look. She shrank back bit as she spoke. "I don't want something this-" She paused and scanned the dress to find the right thing to say, ultimately looking at one of the tags. "Hard to wash." Her mother's disappointed eyes pierced at her. "But I wouldn't mind some advice on them." * * * Later on, with the dress they finally decided on and the other items stowed away in her old room until she departed, she sat at the table for lunch, waiting for her father to finish up the most recent odd job around the apartments and join them. While getting the last bits of the meal together, her mom paused for a moment to muster the courage to ask, "I know this is going to sound bad, but could I ask you to consider something?" Lightning Dust looked at her weird, then gave a flat face response. "No. I'm not moving back in." The two mares looked at each other with a tension in the air, but that tension quickly shattered when both of them burst into laughter. "I know better than to ask that," Chocolate Dust called out as she tried to regain composure. "But in all seriousness there is something else. You've probably already seen the posters, asking for volunteers by the royal sisters to help the army in some big thing happening in the Appleloosa area. They say that the volunteers won't be in any where near where the soldiers are needed, but they even have crystal ponies coming down from the Crystal Empire to supplement the normal guards to make sure they have enough troops down in Appleloosa." With the timer on the counter going off, Chocolate Dust levitated the main dish from its cooling spot over the oven to the table. As she set it down, she shook her head and continued. "The entire thing stinks of some conflict brewing. I don't like it. He's thinking about joining the volunteers, but he's not a young stallion anymore. He's going to get himself hurt, or worse." When she lifted her head and looked at her daughter, the silence and blank stare she was receiving made her swallow a lump in her throat. "I know you can empathize with him. And, as much as I hate it, I know it would be a waste to even try to ask you not to go." Lightning Dust waited for a moment but spoke up when her mom took too long to continue. "But..?" Chocolate Dust winced, sighed and made her request, "But I was hoping maybe you can help him see some reason for staying?" A moment of silence past before Lightning Dust looked down at the plates she had been setting out just a few minutes before. 'Do I have any right to ask dad to stay? But, at the same time, I've broken mom's heart too much already.' She adjusted the plate practically to the same spot, just to have something to focus her eyes on more intensely. "I'll try to think of something." In the time it took for Plasma Wave to get back, Lightning Dust had only the feeblest of reasons to get him to stay. 'If you leave, they will need a new maintenance pony for the apartments and you might not get your job back.' 'But I'll miss seeing your photos in the Manehattan Press. You're getting so good at it now. 'I was hoping to visit more often.' All of her reasons were feeble half truths at best, but she steeled herself to try anyway when she heard the tumbling of the doorknob, signaling he had come home. As she went to meet him at the front door, he called out, "Chocolate Dust? Honey? I'll be just a minute more, I have to put some stuff away but I'll be right back in maybe five minutes." He turned to her as she trotted up to him, giving her his attention. "What's up slugger?" She just about met his gaze, but found her eyes being drawn to a familiar object. With him not getting a response from her, he noticed her looking back at the cart in the hallway, unable to break her shocked eyes away. "Th-that cart." Lightning Dust called out weakly. There was the cart that had become such a symbol of Lightning Dust's torment. The work she did with it wasn't bad, save for one or two incidences. Nevertheless, it had been her constant companion throughout her troubled times working under her mother. She had thought she had made peace with that part of her life. With her mother getting her to learn to push through difficult times. Despite it not being a bad job, or an unfair one, with her mother hating the idea of her being a wonder bolt with a passion, having to work under her was harshly associated with those feelings and that old tension. Those years were key to her development as a hard worker and she looked back on them for the most part with a bittersweet taste of nostalgia. Yet, while those skills were a part of her she'd never want to give up, at this exact moment the sight of that cart was bringing more of the feelings of her dreams being suppressed back to the surface than anything else. "Oh this old thing?" Plasma Wave gave a weary but genuine laugh, turning his head to look at the cart in the hall. "Yea. It's up here now. Some biggets in the city counsel decided it was important enough for their reelections to pass a bill keeping any colt or filly from having proper work until they reach the age of a stallion or mare and 'focus on school' about two years back. Considering how much more they can learn from having a part time job vs a little more time to play and not do the homework it was intended for, it was one of the stupidest decisions I've ever seen them pull. But the end result was that we haven't had a use for the miniaturized cart in the restaurant. I needed a replacement maintenance cart for the apartments, so we just moved this one up here to make more room at the restaurant." By the time he had turned his head back, Lightning Dust was in tears. Her lip was quivering and her body was starting to get the slightest case of the shakes. Before Plasma Wave could react, he found his daughter flinging herself around him in a hug, sobbing and giving what sounded like incoherent apologies. When her sobbing had dried up enough to hear what she was saying, all he could get out of her was, "I'll be fine." Trying to comfort her in her embrace, he asked "What do you mean? You'll be fine?" "You want to join the volunteers and help the army in the Appleloosa troubles, right?" Plasma Wave pulled his daughter out of the embrace to look her in the eyes. "I..." He looked at his wife ducking back out from the walkway to the kitchen with a look like she had a headache. With a moment of thought, he put his head down and said, "I wanted to, yea. But I was still weighing some stuff." *Thud!* A somewhat loud sound came from the kitchen which both of them recognized and ignored. Lightning Dust shook her head for a moment then looked back at her dad. "Well I'll be fine, but you won't be if you let this last chance just slip by. You'll just end up asking yourself 'what if?' for the rest of your life. You once told me to follow my dreams because you could empathize from when yours had been taken away. You have a chance to do it over now... In a way. So go. Go help them. I'll be fine." A moment passed as Plasma Wave's eyes started to water slightly. With a nod, they went into the kitchen for dinner. Just as they entered, Chocolate Dust's bruised forehead came back up from the edge of the sink where it would accommodate her horn, only for her to slam it back down in the same spot again. With a huff, she let out an exasperated, "I should have just kept quiet over the whole thing..."
