Chapter 1- Rise and Shine!
You were going fast, faster than you had ever gone before. You can feel the wind whipping through your mane. You couldn’t open your eyes properly because of the tiny droplets of water that assaulted your face like fine grains of sand. Picking up speed you decided to push yourself to your absolute limits. As you whiz through the cool air the ringing in your ears becomes almost unbearable.
“Time to try something crazy” you think to yourself.
Taking a 90 degree turn to the ground you hurtle towards it full pelt. All too soon the green, rolling landscape become more clear and in sharper focus. It was exhilarating, the feel of gliding through the sky like a bullet, like a Wonderbolt, like her.
You were getting close to the ground now, dangerously close.
Before you could complete your manoeuvre a series of resounding crashes cause you to jump in fright.
You open your eyes.
“Another dream” you mutter to yourself, slowly returning to reality.
You in were not flying through the sky above Ponyville but in fact in your house, curled up in your bed with your right wing sticking out from underneath you. Before you can even make note of the bizarre position you awoke in there was another series of knocks from somewhere below you. There was someone at your door.
Heaving yourself out of your comfortable bed you make your way downstairs to face the pony that had torn you out of your blissful dream.
Usually, flying isn’t just a mere dream for most Pegasus ponies, but a birthright. Yes, you had been able to fly at first but shortly after you had graduated flight school there was an... incident.
You were always the best in your class, a role model that others looked up to. Knowing this you were always eager to give a helping hoof to others and show them how to push themselves. That was why there was such a pressure on you to compete in the best flyer competition in Cloudsdale. Your special move was the one you were practising in your dream, a move that had earned you fame in flight school and caused you to be the heart throb of many young fillies. You wanted to push yourself, to make sure you won that competition. Unfortunately other ponies’ confidence in you instilled a sense of cockiness in yourself, like you could do no wrong.
Sadly that cockiness was your downfall, wanting to make sure you did your best in the competition you practice like it was the big finale itself.
Big mistake.
It went wrong, you left it too late to pull up into the air and collided into the ground with an earthshaking crash, completely shattering your left wing meaning not only could you not fly in the competition but you were grounded for the rest of your life. Other Pegasi had no idea of what it was like being robbed of the one thing in your life that you could do better than others, the one thing you lived for.
As you reached the mirror by your stairs you caught site of yourself and took note, looking back at you was a stormy grey stallion with a single, icy blue streak running through your mane, though you very much considered yourself to be a shadow of the former you, the old you inspired your friends was admired as the best flier in the class, despite it had only been 2 years since the accident you viewed yourself as... a joke. You shed a single tear before moving.
As you reached your door the room shook again with the sheer force of those knocks, like the pony on the other side wanted nothing more than know your door down and charge into your home. The knocks were not aggressive in anyway, it seemed it was excitement that was the force behind the bangs. You had a shrewd idea who could be calling.
As you swung open the door to relieve yourself of the obtrusive noise your suspicions were indeed confirmed. Standing there was the happy, excited and permanently happy pink mare. Pinkie Pie.
“Rise and shine Mr. Sleepy beepy!” was her usual was of greeting you in the mornings.
Unfortunately for Pinkie, you were still lost in the dream that had just taken away from you, meaning the only reply to this that you could muster was a grunt.
“Busy day ahead of us!” she told you practically bouncing on the stop with that unshakeable energy she always had.
You inwardly groaned to yourself at the prospect of having to face that at this hour.
Pinkie had been the first pony you met when you had arrived in Ponyville a couple of weeks ago. When you first arrived at your new home she had been waiting in there for you, in fact what seemed like the WHOLE of Ponyville had been there for your surprise house warming party. Never the less, it was her who organised it and her who made most effort with you when you first started living there. Not that the other ignored you but Pinkie seemed to stick to you.
You were grateful of this since it was her that gave you your current job, delivering orders from Sugar Cube Corner.
Heaving a mighty sigh, you follow her out of the door and into the cool morning air, it was still pretty early, the dull glow of the morning light from Celestias sun was just beginning to peak over the rolling hills toward Canterlot.
Much of Ponyville was just starting to wake and begin their day’s labours, setting up stalls to pedal their goods. But of course, you were still lost in your dream world. Not that you could be blamed for that of course, in your dreams you could actually fly.
Willing yourself back to reality, you found Pinkie in one of her full blown ramblings
“...so she never did tell me which name she liked better!”
It goes without saying that you had absolutely no idea what she was going on about so you decided to reply with a non-committal grunt.
You didn’t much like these morning walks with Pinkie Pie, yes, she was fun to be around but there was a time and a place for her ramblings and her, well, randomness. Your thoughts often drifted off in an attempt to escape her for as long as you could.
All too quickly you were enveloped by the familiar honey-scented warmth of Sugar Cube Corner that usually did a good job of waking you up.
Instead of Mrs. Cake greeting you as she usually did, there was somepony completely different there to meet you. The cyan blue, chromatic haired Pegasus that you admired so much, Rainbow Dash.
Chapter 2- A Chance Meeting.
At first you didn’t dare believe it, the winner of the best young flyer competition standing in your presence! It seemed almost too good to be true. The fact that you have already met her once at your house warming party didn’t make you any less over-awed at her.
You had always admired Rainbow Dash, even before you moved to Ponyville you had a bit of a thing for her. The first time you saw her was at the summer sun festival, of course back then there was very little chance to actually speak to her given that Nightmare Moon had just returned but she had certainly caught your eye none the less.
“Think of something to say dammit!” you thought desperately
Your throat seemed to have constricted so the only thing that came out was a very awkward gurgling sound which left both Pinkie and Dash giving you a very funny look.
“Freaking smooth...” you muttered to yourself
The longer Rainbow stared at you the longer you felt compelled to stare into her eyes. This was the first time you had actually met her while you were sober so you were trying to take in every detail about her.
Those deep amethyst eyes were almost calling to you; they were truly the most beautiful sight you had seen in a long time. The gleam of her cyan coat in the early morning light was so... inviting.
Eventually it was Pinkie that broke the beyond awkward silence and brought you out of your deep reverie.
“Uhhhh, aren’t you going to say anything?” Pinkie asked you
You realised how much you were staring at Dash and only hoped that she hadn’t noticed as well. You felt the heat rising in your cheeks, and sure enough, as you caught site of your reflection, your face had gone a brilliant red colour.
“Haha, oh, you’re so funny!” Pinkie suddenly burst out after tense seconds past.
You decided to act, you thought of something to say to her to try to regain some control.
“Hey Rainbow, It’s been a while since I last spoke to you, how have you been?” you asked.
“Well, better than nothing” you thought to yourself
“I’m doing pretty awesome actually!” Rainbow told you
“I’ve just learned a new move to put into my routine; It should make it 20% cooler” she went on.
When she said this, you felt a daft smile creep across your face.
“Thanks Celestia she knows how to pick up a conversation”
Before you could reply, (more accurately, before you got another chance to embarrass yourself) Pinkie interrupted (rather rudely mind you)
“Is there something you needed Rainbow?” Pinkie said
“I’m just coming by to pick something up for the party later. You should know that anyway! You organised it Pinks” Rainbow replied in a slightly hurt tone.
“Well, I will see you later then. It was nice talking to you again” She told you
“Easy for you to say”
Rainbow made her exit pretty quickly; her abrupt departure left you staring at the door which she exited out of for several seconds before Mrs. Cake came into the room carrying the one of the biggest cakes you had ever seen.
“I hope you’re up to it today dear” Mrs. Cake told you
“This is just the first order of the day!” she went on.
You sighed inwardly to yourself; Mondays were never a fun day for you and today seemed to be no exception.
You set out of the door, laden down with the mammoth cake with Pinkie at your hoofs.
“Pinkie” You said “Did I hear what Dash said correctly, another party tonight? Your previous one was only last weekend”
“You can NEVER have too many parties silly!” Pinkie replied “Oh, I meant to ask you, do you want to come along?”
The idea of another party so soon was almost soul grinding for you, mixed gatherings have rarely been a strong point for you, even when you were in your prime you were a bit of a recluse despite the begging’s of fellow pegasi to come to some drunken party of theirs. Although you couldn’t deny, the prospect of being in the company of Rainbow Dash, the cyan beauty, was more than enough to take Pinkie up on her offer.
“Sure, why not?” you told her with a convincing smile
“Yippeeeeeee” she squealed.
Without saying another word to you, she bounced off in the complete opposite direction to which you were heading, leaving you completely flustered.
Despite the toil of the day with seemed to be more busy than usual, your mind kept wandering back to the encounter you had with Rainbow, her deep eyes, her gleaming blue coat, and above all, the fact that she actually spoke to you. The latter kept bringing back a shadow of a smile to your face, you kept wishing for her to forget the initial awkwardness of your conversation and if not, would it affect your chances with her later tonight.
The day seemed to melt away, before you knew it, it was lunch time. You never really did do anything with yourself in your free time, although you were not a complete loner, you had never really forced yourself to interact with your neighbours.
This time something felt different, be it the euphoric feeling you got when you thought about Dash, or just the simple fact that you were tired of being forever alone. You felt you might as well make the effort with some of the other ponies, and where better to start that with the ponies that were closest to Rainbow Dash?
A/N: Sorry for the slightly shorter chapter today folks, I have had quite alot to do lately so I haven't had much time for writing. I promise I will make it up to you in the next chapter though!
Chapter 3- The Madness of Twilight Sparkle
Twilight Sparkle
Apart from Pinkie Pie, Twilight Sparkle seemed almost as eager to meet you and welcome you into your new home. According to Twilight, it was her that moved to Ponyville last and her that reassured you that Pinkie Pie was not preying on you and she did this for every newcomer in the Town. You had been very quick to take to Twilight since she was once in a very familiar position to you so she could sympathise with you on what it was like to be the newbie in town. So for this reason you decided it would be prudent as well as enjoyable to spend a little more time with her and not, for example, Fluttershy, who still to this day can’t look you in the eye without copious amounts of ‘eeping’ and blushing.
After spending a few moments dithering as to the location of the Ponyville library where Twilight resided you set off on a steady trot, ruminating on how much easier things would be if you still had full flight capabilities, willing yourself not to dwell on it you pick up the pace so you have as much time with twilight as possible before you need to start work again. Usually you spend your free lunch hour with Pinkie Pie but today she seems to have just... vanished although, with Pinkie, that sort of thing is considered a regular occurrence, or so you’re told. Before too long you see the overgrown tree that doubles up as both a library and Twilight’s house, you deem it necessary to think of how you’re going to greet her and say how you want to spend time with her beforehand so to avoid any more embarrassing incidents this morning.
Doing your best to push the memories of this morning out of your head you close the distance between yourself and the tree-home.
Upon arriving, you couldn’t help but overhear the frantic voices coming from within, or to be more accurate, a single frantic voice accompanied by a more relaxed male voice. Taking a second to wonder if you should just come back later and wait until whatever was happening inside has subsided, and just find another one of Rainbow’s friends to spend time with, you take stock of your choices of who to go for next. You can’t go to Applejacks, since it’s a 40 minute round trip and that would only leave you 15 minutes to talk with her, Rainbows was out of the question for obvious reasons, as was Pinkie Pie. Fluttershy perhaps? But she never seems too eager to talk to you for extended period of time; you make a mental note to set aside a couple of days to work on the particular friendship. You consider going to Rarity’s but from what you heard, she considers it rude on her part NOT to spend 4 hours at a time talking about and reviewing strangers fashion, and let’s face it, that was the last thing you wanted to do with your time. Steeling yourself to face whatever is happening inside; you knock on the library door.
A few seconds pass and the commotion inside doesn’t let up, you were about to knock again when the door opens up, only, there was nopony standing in the doorway, thinking that Twilight used magic to open the door, you take a step forward when a male voice and green spines catch your attention. Looking down you’re met with something that robs you of your speech for the 2nd time this morning. It was a... Dragon?! Only a very small, very cute baby dragon with no wings that could actually talk in a language you can understand. This must be Twilights assistant she mentioned. When Twilight first said to you than she runs the library with her assistant you envisioned this mysterious ‘assistant’ to be her brother or a friend, definitely not a small, purple dragon.
Doing your best to regain your composure, you ask the only question that seems to be on your mind (apart from the ‘What the heck are you?’ question)
“What in the hay is happening here” You ask the Dragon.
He chuckles in response before replying “Oh, Twilight is just having another one of her freak-out’s, no biggie”
It didn’t look like no biggie to you, but then again, that response had just come from a fire breathing reptile. You decided to voice your concerns to him after catching site of the contents of the libraries book shelves scattered across the room.
“This doesn’t exactly look like ‘no biggie’ to me, in fact, this looks like a rather large biggie, on the grand scale of biggies!”
“Trust me, she does this a lot, the first couple of times it is worrying but after you get to see that it’s just Twilight being Twilight” the small Dragon chortled.
You decided to take his word for it, it hit you then that you never asked his name.
“I never did catch your name” you said to him.
“Oh, I’m Spike, Twilight’s number one assistant!” The Dragon told you proudly, with his chest puffed out a little.
“Well, she could certainly use your assistance here” You told Spike.
“Nah, Take my word for this one, you cannot help, you cannot calm her down. Just wait it out”
This didn’t sit well with you, the thought of watching Twilight struggle while you just put your hooves up and relaxed seemed like a douchey move on your part. Determined to help her in some small way you stepped your way past the small dragon and call out to Twilight.
“Er, Hello Twilight. What’s wrong?” you tentatively ask her.
She whips her head up and fixes you with a manic gaze; safe to say that this wasn’t the Twilight you met at Pinkie Pie’s party.
“Oh OH, Thank Celestia you’re here! I need somepony to help me! Spike it being less than helpful right now and I need to find this for the princess because I’m her star pupil and if I don’t do this for her I will no longer be her star pupil and I will go back to magic kindergarten and I will be laughed at and the Princess will be mad at me and th-“
Before she could continue this furious tirade of verbal diarreah you cut her off,
“Slow down Twilight! You’re going a mile a minute!” You tell her.
From the doorway Spike gives you a look that quite plainly says ‘I told you so’
Twilight takes a deep breath and seems to become a little less frantic, she starts again
“I am Princess Celestia’s star pupil as you know and I need to send her bi-weekly reports on my finding of the magic of friendship only this week I made one and spike was about to send it but Pinkie came bursting in and distracted us all. After she had gone I was going to get Spike here to send it but I lost it!”
Two thoughts crossed your mind, first of all, how can somepony get so worked up over such a trivial matter, and second of all, why didn’t she just re-write her report? You decided against asking the first question but ventured with the second one. You almost immediately regret it since she regains the manic look in her eyes and snaps at you.
“But that wouldn’t be the same! It would be... wrong!”
You didn’t really want to argue with Twilight in her frenzied state so at the very least, you decided you would at least offer to help out, and after all, you would be getting to know her better (albeit a warped version of her.)
“Would you like me to help you out at all Twilight?” You asked her.
“Oh, would you please?” She asks you in genuine surprise.
“Sure! I would be glad you give you a hand, it’s really the least I can do to repay you for being so nice to me when we first met” You replied with a smile.
“Well, last time I saw the letter, it was on the table in the kitchen. I’ve looked all through there so I’m trying in here.” Twilight informed you.
Setting to work looking for the lost letter you couldn’t help but think that this really wasn’t what you had in mind when you envisioned you and Twilight hanging out together, you were hoping for a picnic, or at the very least, a cup of tea and some small talk. But searching through the ruins of a once tidy library wasn’t what you were expecting. Sighing to yourself for the 4th time that morning you began digging through the strewn books, thinking how much more difficult she had probably made this by dragging each book out, the letter could be anywhere! Inside a book, under the pile, upstairs, but the sooner it was found the sooner Twilight would be able to relax, or so you hoped. You were hit with a sudden and rather obvious solution to this.
“Twilight, why don’t you just use your magic to find it?” You ask her.
She glares daggers at you; you immediately guessed that this was the wrong thing to ask her.
“Because it doesn’t work like that!” She snapped “For me to be able to retrieve it I need direct line of site of it or I need to be able to picture its location clearly, AND I CAN’T DO EITHER!”
She was really starting to freak you out now, not much can faze you, but this was something else. You could see in her eyes she was on the verge of a full metal breakdown.
Getting as much distance between her, the books and you as you could, encase she starting hurling things, you decide to search upstairs when you notice the look on Spikes face. Like he was holding back a torrent of laughter. Figuring that Spike was up to something you weave around Twilight and the book pile and confront him.
“Spike, I know that look, that’s the sort of look that suggests that you have had something to do with this...” You say flatly.
Spike snorts in laughter and motions you to lean in so he can whisper something to you.
“Ok, well the truth is, is that I have actually already sent the letter!” Spike whispered
You facehoofed.
“Don’t you think it would have been a good idea to tell Twilight this in the first place?” You whisper back hurriedly, lest Twilight catch you two whispering and decide to interrogate you both.
“Well, I was going to you see, but Twilight gets worked up really quickly, and by the time I realised what the problem was it had already escalated much faster than I would have guessed!” Spike told you.
The look on Spikes face changed in an instant, from glee to terror just like that. You could only think that Twilight had somehow heard all of that, and sure enough, floating above you, encase in a purple sheath of light, was Twilight looking like she could skin you both.
“When I heard you two whispering, little old me thought that it was something important, and Spike seemed to be having too much of a good time!” She almost cackled at you.
Oh buck.
You ran out of there, leaving poor Spike to his fate, whatever that may be.
Needless to say that this afternoon really hadn’t gone as you planned or expected it to. Instead of tea and cupcakes you had insanity and a near-death experience. You shivered when you considered the party tonight. Something told you that Twilight hadn’t quite finished with you.
Walking back down the path you came you glanced up into the cool afternoon sky, the day was mainly cloudy with a few shafts of sunlight breaking through the cloud cover, and of course, as fate would have it, you spied Rainbow Dash hovering somewhere near the rooftops of a group of houses talking very fast to another Pegasus, this one was grey with a bubble cutie mark. Taking a second to gawk in Dash’s direction you kept looking at her lips, at first you were wondering what sort of conversation had her speaking so animatedly, sure enough though, your free-wandering thoughts drifted to more private areas. You wondered what it would be like to run your hooves over her body and kiss her supple lips an- You again tore your thoughts away from such areas, standing in middle of Ponyville wasn’t exactly the classiest place to have those thoughts, and, if the party later went anything like you imagined (or indeed hoped) it to be, those thoughts would indeed be a reality.
So, once again setting off back to Sugar Cube Corner, you thought you could hear the sounds of poor Spike, being given one heck of a verbal lashing. The small smile on your face fell off as quickly as it appeared when you remembered that you too would have to face the wrath of Twilight Sparkle that evening.
