"OH! SHE'S TIGHT THROUGH CORNER THREE! AND SHE'S UP INTO THE WALL!"
Two mares stood at the starting line of a tri-oval track in the clouds.
“Alright, look, Twi.” Rainbow Dash pointed out the first corner. “You’re here because you wanted to go fast, right?”
“Yep!” Twilight nodded, a pair of wind goggles strapped firmly to her face. “Once I figured out this whole ‘flying’ thing, I just can’t seem to stop wanting to, y’know–” she drew an outstretched foreleg across her vision, adding onomatopoeic “whooshing” noises as her hoof moved through the air. “–fly. And I mean, like, really fly.” She chuckled. “Listen to me. It’s got an egghead like me talking like a foal.”
Rainbow returned her smile. “Nah, it’s just your inner pegasus coming out. Ya can’t really explain it most of the time.” She rubbed a comforting hoof across Twilight’s shoulders. “And honestly? It sounds like whatever pegasus you got in you now is pretty friggin’ awesome.”
“Oh, you bet she was! I once did some research on the Elements with Celestia, you know, and by our best guesses it’s probably Commander–”
“Yeah, whatever you say, Twi.” Rainbow turned back to the track, already terminally bored with Twilight’s history lesson. “Alright, now, listen up, Twi, because this is important. You see how the clouds underneath the turns bank up?”
Twilight nodded, apparently unoffended by Rainbow’s dismissal of her lecture.
Rainbow flapped a few times and took into the air, hovering just above the fluffy clouds beneath her. “They bank ‘em like so you can stay in ground effect throughout the whole track. You know about ground effect, right?”
“Theoretically, yes. Most of the books I’ve read are a little hazy on the specifics, but we think it has to do with obstruction of airflow around the wings when just above the ground, resulting in reduced aerodynamic drag.”
Rainbow shrugged. “That’s probably right, yeah. I was going to say it’s that feeling of push-back from the ground, but, I mean, we’re probably talking about the same thing.” She started doing lazy circles around Twilight in the air, dipping a forehoof into the clouds and pulling up wisps of water vapor. “Anyway, the important part is that it pushes you back a little bit, which lets you do tighter circles around the track ‘cause you’re getting a boost from the clouds. You can even touch a hoof tip into the clouds too if you need a little extra drag, but that’s pretty advanced and it’s pretty easy to over do it and hurt your arm, so I’d stick with just your wings right now.”
Twilight had acquired a notebook and quill, which, judging by Twilight’s complete lack of hiding places in her borrowed skin-tight flight suit, she had apparently summoned from the magical aether. Rainbow had learned not to question such things, lest she be subjected to a painfully dull lecture. Twilight was taking notes fastidiously. “Okay, that seems simple enough. Stay low, use the clouds for perpendicular forces to boost cornering speeds. Seems pretty easy, honestly.”
“It’s harder than it looks, Twi.” Rainbow stopped circling, landing at the starting line. “There’s a reason I don’t really do oval track stuff like this, because it’s not about how fast you can go, it’s about how fast you can keep going, corner after corner. One little slip and you’re up in the wall or down in the inclouds, and even if it looks super easy just flying around in circles, it way harder than you might think.”
“Like?”
“Okay, uh, you know what a racing line is, right? Start high, drift down in the corner, go back up against the wall?”
“Yeah, it’s the preferred path for an air-racer for follow.” Twilight looked up from her notebook, resting a quill against her cheek. “I never really understood it, though. Geometrically, every racer should be seeking to take the shortest path and hence reduce their overall travel time.”
“Uh, not quite, Twilight,” said Rainbow, now feeling a little less sure about her acquiescence to Twilight’s demands to take Equestria’s newest princess out to the nearest speedway. “You can’t just fly as close in as you want, there’s not enough resistance on your wings to hold you that tight while you’re going fast. Ya' can't be cutting all around the track either. It’s all about being smooth, y’know? You gotta keep the forces on your body down through the whole turn so you can keep your speed up, and you definitely don’t want any sharp jerks or your day is about to be a, uh, lot less awesome.”
“Uh-huh.” Twilight didn’t sound convinced. ”But, I mean, my wings are a lot bigger than yours.” She flared out her wings for effect, revealing that they were, indeed, at least one and one half the size of Rainbow’s comparatively puny flappers. “If my calculations are right, I should be able to handle a lot more force than you can.”
Rainbow shook her head emphatically. “No, Twi, it, ugh, it doesn’t work like that. You can get going a little faster out of the turns, yeah, but the bigger the wings, the harder it is to do small adjustments if you mess up your entry. You’ve got to be more careful than me, Twilight, not less, because if you get it wrong you’re going to get launched into that wall by centerfig, uh, centray, um–”
“Centrifugal force?” offered Twilight. “Of course, even that’s just an aspect of our frame of reference, and really, since we’re not a tethered body, it’s a not quite the correct phrase. I suppose you could apply a certain level of centripetal force here, as the work exerted by ground effect…”
Rainbow tuned out Twilight, who was now clearly deep into an epic lecture, and pulled her goggles down from her forehead, dropping into a crouch at the line. “Look, Twi, that’s great and all, but I need you to understand that I’m not just saying, uh, ‘Rainbow-isms’ here. This is serious stuff, and if you don’t get it right you’re gonna hurt yourself pretty bad.” She sighed. “Come on, why don’t you follow me around once or twice? I know it’s pretty hard to get what I mean from just me talking, since I'm, uh, not the lecturer that you are, but once you get out there and really feel it in your wings you’re gonna get what I mean.”
Twilight rose into the air with a powerful flap, once again summoning something into her field with a ‘fwoop,’ this time a pair of binoculars. “I think I’ll probably learn best from observation first. Why don’t you do a couple of laps while I watch from the tower up there?”
“If that’s what you want, I guess I can do that.” Rainbow looked up at the rickety tower, where Twilight had already parked herself at the top. “But you really should let me take you on a lap first!”
Twilight gestured dismissively with a forehoof, notebook already open for more notes.
“Yeah. Whatever, right? What does lil’ ol’ Rainbow Crash know about not putting face to wall anyway?” Rainbow Dash muttered. After a final stretch, she flared her wings, taking flight and starting down the front straight at a measured pace. She eased into the first corner at a speed barely above the residential speed limit in Ponyville, pulling in tight to the apron at the bottom of the corner before, with a few powerful flaps, blasting out of the turn, blazing along the speedway at a speed still well below her maximum in straight flight but more than high enough to make the surrounding trees into a fine green blur.
She stopped her flaps about a two thirds of the way down the back straight, sliding down from just above the top of the track to about halfway down the corner before flaring out her wings to a nearly vertical position. Her wings caught the back-blast from the edge of the banking and the catch fence, and, after feeling that extra lift push her wingtips firmly up, used that extra grip to put the power back on, sliding her back up the banking on corner exit and allowing her to slot in onto the very rim of the track. She repeated the strategy for the final turn, the half-sized kink on the front straight, once again going in high, gliding through the center, and pushing back up the impossibly steep banking on corner exit.
Risking a glance up to the tower while rocketing out of the turn, Rainbow caught only the barest glimpse of Twilight, who, judging by her yawn and lazy scribbles in her notebook, didn’t look particularly impressed.
That was fair enough, Rainbow supposed. It was just the run up to the first real lap. She sped up her flaps, reaching an eye-watering pace surely well into the triple digits down the second half of the front straight before before pulling her wings into a firmly extended pose straight out at her sides, held level to cut drag. She rolled her body into the first corner at a frightening clip of speed, passing so close to the wall at the top that she could see every accumulated piece of detritus pass a mere hoof-width from her left wing tip before pushing off hard enough to squeeze a fine mist from the clouds in the wall with the air pressure, sliding back down the banking.
While still quite a lot under what she could do in a straight line, Rainbow was still going at a speed most pegasi would never even dream of, and she was emanating a faint blue trail in her wake; not quite to the level she would get approaching the sound barrier, but still more than impressive. The trail tapered off as she slowed for the next corner, but even at a glide the clouds under her hooves still rippled in her considerable wake as she once again executed a textbook corner; up at the start, descending for the apex, back up against the wall for the exit.
The final turn was the trickiest. Sure, it was the widest in radius, but that also meant it was the fastest, and at these speeds even a minor over-correction would send a wayward pegasus on a one-way trip to the fence. Feeling she was slightly over speed, she dug a hoof into the track’s surface, using the extra bite to drag her away from the wall and towards the proper line, leaving her cruising comfortably across the finish line. Satisfied with her performance, Rainbow pitched her wings upwards, riding the momentum from her lap into a lazy loop that she terminated by settling onto the tower.
“Well?” she panted, pulling her goggles away from her eyes. “Did you get what I’m saying about –huff – being smooth?”
“What? Oh, yeah, definitely.” Twilight nodded, placing her notebook on the broad railing on the tower’s edge. “But, I still don’t really understand why you kept moving up and down the course. If you just stayed in the middle, you would have cut total distance traveled by almost five percent!”
Rainbow smacked a hoof into her face. “No, that’s, how did you even–” she sighed, shoulders slumping in defeat. “Look, clearly you aren’t getting this. I know it’s hard to understand – heck, even I can’t do it like the really good racers can – but I’m not sure I want you going out there if you still can’t tell what I was talking about. It’s way too easy to get yourself hurt by being reckless, and, trust me, I’m something of an expert on that. A wing fracture isn’t a fun way to spend a month, Twi.”
“Oh, come on, Dash. Where’s your spirit of adventure?” Twilight dropped out of the tower, placing herself back at the starting line. “Besides, we’re already out here. I might as well give it a try, right?”
“If you say so, Twi” Rainbow followed her down to the track. “I guess I can lead you on a couple of laps. We’ll start slow, okay?”
“Oh, come on Rainbow Dash, slow?” Twilight pulled down her goggles. “That doesn’t seem very ‘Dash’ of you.” She pulled her wings back and forth in a stretch. “Besides, I’d rather give it a few tries alone first. I’ve got a hypothesis I want to try out.”
“Are you sure? You haven’t even tried walking around it, much less flying it, Twi.”
“Definitely.” Twilight shrugged. “I stared down the Spirit of Chaos. How hard could this be?”
Rainbow lifted off, figuring that Twilight was obviously in one of of her moods where nothing could convince her otherwise. “Okay. Just, uh–” she rubbed her hooves together nervously “–be super careful, okay?” She ran a hoof along Twilight’s unfurled wings. “I know you’ve got these big ol’ wings, but there’s a reason most of the short track ponies have wings like me. It’s way too easy to get going way too fast out there with wings like yours, and it’s a lot harder to get yourself back on the right line if you start slipping off.”
Twilight rolled her eyes. “I told you, Rainbow. I’ve got a lot more lift than you do. I don’t think I’m going to have any problems maintaining cornering speeds.” She jokingly raised an accusing hoof. “I got it! You’re just trying to keep me slow so I’m not faster than you at something!”
Rainbow weakly chuckled. “Sure, whatever you say, Twi. Just take it easy, okay? It’s not a race, after all.”
Twilight waved her off, smiling broadly. “Of course, Dash. When am I not careful?”
Rainbow could name at least four separate laboratory experiments that caused direct, if minor, bodily harm in the last month, but she decided not to press the issue.
Twilight pulled herself into a crouch, wings tensing up in preparation. “Now get up there in the tower. I want to watch your face as I kick your flank around here.”
Rainbow fluttered up to the tower, shouting back a final warning. “Remember, Twi, stay high, slide low, then go back – aaand she’s gone.” She watched as Twilight screamed out of view, a few wisps of cloud floating up from where she had been standing moments before.
While Rainbow climbed back up to the tower, Twilight had already started down the track, hugging the apron at the very bottom of the track at a far higher clip of speed than Rainbow had started out at.
“Great listening skills there, princess.” Rainbow grumbled, turning her attention to the notebook left on the railing. She opened it to the first page, finding a diagram of the track with two lines drawn around the surface. One, a solid line, tracked Rainbow’s preferred strategy. The other, a dashed line, went around the very interior of the circuit. Twilight had labeled it with a single note. ‘FASTER’
Rainbow looked back up. Twilight had successfully navigated the first corner, albeit sliding all the way up the banking during transit, and was now screaming down the back straight towards the second turn, hugging the very bottom of the track.
Rainbow glanced back down to the notebook, finding a set of equations; one with an arrow connected to Rainbow’s line, the other to Twilight’s imagined one. She may not have quite understood exactly what the equations were doing, exactly, but she knew what the answers meant, because they had units of speed. The one for Twilight’s equation was far, far too high.
She dragged her eyes back up from the notebook in horror. Twilight was now almost all the way down the straight, trailing a thick purple line behind her and leaving rippling shock waves in the clouds beneath her. She approached the corner at top speed.
“TWI! SLOW IT–”
It was too late. Twilight stuck out her wings to turn, but, instead of hugging the inside corner, she slid directly up the banking with almost no change of angle, wings pulled uselessly into maximum attack.
Without so much as a scream, Twilight plowed directly into the years old rock-hard cloud wall.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Nobody in Equestria had ever really imagined what a royal funeral would look like. After all, alicorns were ageless beings, and, barring a single changeling invasion, there had been virtually no serious threats to the lives of any of the royals.
However, had one imagined it, very few would have imagined it would have been a distinctly closed-casket affair. It wasn’t exactly clear to those not intimately aware of the circumstances of Twilight’s early demise exactly what had proven so formidable to silence a nigh-immortal alicorn, and the press offered guesses as wild as hyper-lethal venom from a snake to a political assassination from the griffons. As a result, the wings of the room were packed full of reporters and flashing cameras, which rather unfortunately put something of a damper on the intended majesty of the event.
Still, there was much to marvel at for an intrepid cameramare or stallion. Rarity, even in her despondency, had put together a truly stunning set of mourning clothes together for the Bearers, who all certainty looked the part of grieving, weeping friends, even if on closer inspection one of them seemed to be doing nothing but muttering “I told her.”
But it was Celestia, her perfect white coat nearly completely covered in a simple dress of rich black velvet, who left the largest impression. Few had ever seen her out of her royal duds, and fewer still had seen her face break her usual impassive soft smile, so to see the most powerful mare in the world not only dressed in a distinctly simple, if very elegant, gown but openly weeping for her favorite student and, many suspected, daughter in all but blood was almost unnatural.
Even in such occasions as these the crown rested heavy, and, whether she felt like it or not, Celestia knew it was yet another responsibility of the office to be a pillar of stability for her grieving people, even if was a somewhat more unsteady pillar than usual. Today, that meant a speech, both to honor her finest pupil in the eyes of the public and, more personally, provide desperately needed closure.
A simple start. “Dearest subjects.” It was a request, but not one somepony would ever consider refusing.
The room full stock-still. Even with such gentle tones, Celestia spoke with such gravitas the world itself seemed to ripple, rendering all such petty squabbles of the press over position and view, which had seemed of preeminent importance merely a moment ago, seemingly infantile.
Satisfied with the reaction, Celestia started the speech proper. “It is truly under the most miserable of circumstances that we must gather here. For, unlike the passing of a treasured elder who goes to the Shadowlands forever not as an unexpected arrival but as the natural progression of all things, Twilight Sparkle went to the lands beyond before her time.” Celestia paused, wiping her eyes with a tissue held in her field before continuing. “Yet, it is perhaps even more tragic than a normal unnatural passing, for Twilight had been given a gift beyond all other gifts, the potential to change this world until the very end via a life everlasting.” She shook her head. “Perhaps it is a warning, then, to all present and future princesses, that even we should treasure each day like our last, and that even us, in all our seemingly-unlimited power, cannot surmount every challenge–”
“Yeah,” muttered Rainbow Dash. “Like understeer.”
Author's Note
Inspired by the time I put a Z3 in the wall at Barber. Luckily, Bimmers are made of sterner stuff than princesses, it would seem.
If you read through 3,260 words of terminally dull stock-car jawing for a single word punchline, you da real MVP.
