Raindrops considered herself a normal pony.
She also previously considered her friend, White Lightning, to be a normal pony as well. This was, of course, before crossing her path at Cloudsdale-level altitudes holding a live fish. As live as a fish could be, considering its situation.
Raindrops blinked. Slowly. Her brain was having trouble catching up with her eyes right now, looking at her friend giggling while staring at the poor fish.
The fish really deserved better.
Poor fish.
“Okay, Whitey,” Raindrops said as she buried her face into her hoof, “just get whatever it is out of your system so we can both forget that this happened.”
White Lightning snapped her head towards Raindrops, and blinked. Just as slowly.
Raindrops nodded exactly as slowly.
“Um,” White Lighting said as she looked between the very-nearly-dead fish and her exasperated friend, “hi.”
“Hello.”
A wind flowed, jostling their manes.
“Um.” White Lightning’s cheeks turned a bright shade as she gently shook the fish at Raindrops. “How are you?”
Raindrops grunted. “Never mind me.” She waved at the fish, who probably should be extremely dead right now if it weren’t the only thing holding up this very shaky narrative to begin with. “Do you mind explaining… that?”
“Not really, no.” White Lightning exhaled. “I was just planning on dropping it to see what would happen.”
Raindrops rubbed her face. “Dropping it to see what would—you know exactly what’s going to happen Whitey it’s going to hit the ground and die!”
“Well, yeah.” Whitey shrugged. “But I figured there’s a difference between ‘knowing’ it’ll happen and knowing it’ll happen, and I kind of want to know what happens, y’know?”
I’m almost positive this poor defenseless fish would be dead in any other narrative right now. Like you should see this fish. It’s pathetic.
Raindrops could see that too.
“So,” Raindrops asked, grimacing at her friend, “you’re going to drop this fish and watch it die just so you can say you’ve seen something die.”
White Lighting sneered and looked away. “Well, when you put it like that you make it sound weird.”
“Weird?” Raindrops asked as she circled White Lightning, feathering her wings as punctuation, “I’m making it weird for you to drop a fish from this height?”
“I mean—”
Raindrops moved in and tapped Whitey on the forehead. “You couldn’t figure out for yourself how weird this is?”
“Well, uh, not really, no.” Whitey took a breath, then let go of the poor fish so that its suffering could finally end. “I guess I just got so caught up in the idea,” she said with a thrust of her wings, “the majesty of the quest for empirical data that I—”
“Decided to grab a fish from the water and fly it up here just to drop it.”
White Lightning glared at Raindrops. Raindrops crossed her forelegs.
Whitey snorted and scratched the back of her head. “You know I asked Fluttershy to catch the fish for me?”
Raindrops face contorted slightly. “You’re kidding me.”
“No, really,” White Lightning said while gesticulating with a hoof, “I asked Fluttershy to catch a fish for me and when she asked why I told her literally everything I just told you now and she just, y’know.” She let out a nervous giggle. “Did her whole ‘how do you do’ and was like ‘oh no Miss Lighting that sounds like a great idea I mean anything for the pursuit of’ anyway you know the whole stringing me along thing so I could get out of her hair quicker.”
“Yeah, I know when they get like that.” Raindrops blew a tuft of seafoam green mane out of her face and flapped her wings a bit. “You know like ‘oh I’m so sorry for having the huge inconvenience of being asked to do a favor’ like who even are they to be that way?”
Whitey snorted. “Yeah, you’d think I was asking them to get me something to kill—”
White Lightning composed herself.
She then blinked. Heavily.
“Oh, Celestia that’s exactly what I was doing wasn’t it?”
Raindrops nodded.
“Oh, no. That poor fish.”
Raindrops shook her head. “Yes, the poor fish—what about Fluttershy having to deal with your weird nonsense?”
“That poor fish…”
“Look it’s not about the fish.”
White Lightning took a breath. “That poor fish had to lose its life today.” She flitted her wings. “It could have lost its life in any myriad ways, whether it be to ferret or eagle—”
“—oh, Celestia, you don’t have to be so dramatic about it—”
“—perhaps it might have even lived long enough to spawn fish… lings, are they called fishlings? I’m going to call them fishlings… fishlings of their own—”
“—look, Whitey, just get to the point here—”
“—but no, it lost its life today solely for the purpose of us being able to tell this story later?”
White Lightning smirked at Raindrops. Raindrops glared at White Lightning in return.
“You did not just drag this fish all the way up here to tick me off, did you?” Raindrops said as she swooped in and stared Whitey in the eye, their gazes interlocking until White Lighting broke out into laughter.
“No, of course not,” Whitey said as she drifted in laughter, “I just wanted to drop a fish and then you came up here and caught me.”
Raindrops flapped her wings. “So you did do it to tick me off.” She shook her head. “Sometimes I don’t know why I put up with your stupidity.”
“What?” White Lighting asked as she patted Raindrops on the back. “It’s not like you’re squeaky clean, Miss Oh Miss Yearling here is a five hundred page essay on why—”
Raindrops slapped her hoof over White Lightning’s mouth. “Okay, we don’t need to bring up the incident.”
“What?” Whitey said as she softly moved Raindrops’ hoof away. “You’re no fun.”
“Says the person who just dropped a fish.”
“Only in the interest of science.” Whitey batted her eyelashes.
“More like in the interest of being a weirdo, but whatever.” Raindrops shook the wind out of her mane. “Anyway, we’re having a poker night at Derpy’s place. You in?”
“Is that why you came all the way up here?” Whitey shoved Raindrops. “It wasn’t just to catch me dropping a fish?” She clenched her jaw. “Oh yeah, I’m totally in.”
Raindrops punched Whitey in the shoulder. “Yeah, you gotta win those bits she ripped out you from last poker night.”
“Damn right I do. You can count me in.”
Raindrops took a breath.
If only the damn fish didn’t have to die.
