Vincit qui se vincit.
He who conquers, conquers himself.
"Ah!" Dawn Leaper yelped, jumping and pulling the covers further over her head as another vicious tremble of thunder racked the sky outside her window.
"Stupid storm- eeeeeieie-" she growled, squealing as another bout of thunder shook her window frame.
She was better than this. Nothing scared her. Sunny was petrified of a bunch of things, and even Prism was terrified of spiders, but Dawn was never really scared by anything.
But there was just something about storms, the unforgiving ferocity of them, the feeling that they were powerful and destructive and in the end, there was nothing you could do about it. When she had nightmares, they were always about being trapped in storms.
Always dark voice, trapped in her back of her conscience, saying you can't do this. You're not strong enough. It will always get you, in the end, no matter how fast you fly, how strong you are- the storm is faster, the storm is stronger.
Her mother had always told her that any opponent, no matter how strong, could always been taken down. But... what about forces of nature? Beasts that cannot be conquered?
Damn it. She was better than this. She was twelve, for Celestia's sake. Apparently Prism had been spooked by the thunder as well when he was a child- but that was because their house had been broken into when he was a baby. That was understandable- the fear had a root. But for her, it was totally random, her irrational fear of these storms. How everyone at school would laugh if they knew she was scared of a little thunder cloud-
CRACK!
"AHHHH!" Dawn shrieked, diving under her blankets as another large crackle of lightning lit the sky up, pure, unadulterated power.
She shivered, peeking out from under the covers as she heard hoofsteps coming down the hall. The door creaked open, the light filtering in banishing the shadows lurking in the corners.
"Dawn?" her mother asked, standing at the door with a quizzical and slightly concerned expression on her face. "Was that you?"
"Oh.... ahaha... did I wake you?"
"No." Dash, coming into her room and sitting on the bed. "But what was all that about?"
"Uh... the what now?" Dawn tried to play it off.
Dash raised an eyebrow.
"Ugh, fine. There was a... a spider. Yeah. That's right."
"Come on now, kiddo. I know you're not scared of spiders."
Dawn opened her mouth, and then closed is again, blushing abashedly. Suddenly, a boom of thunder, the loudest and scariest one yet, roared outside, her room flashing as it lit up with lightning. Dawn flinched, before stuffing a hoof in her mouth to muffle her scream.
Her bedside lamp flickered on as Dash looked at her with an amused smirk.
"Dawn... are you scared of the storm?"
"Pffff... who, me? What- I- no-"
Dash laughed. "Dawn, don't try me. You used to cry like anything when you were a baby if there was a single storm cloud outside. Not to mention as a toddler. I guess I just thought you'd grown out of it."
Dawn glared at her. "Well it's alright for you, you're scared of like, basically nothing."
Her mother chuckled. "Oh, if only I wish that were true."
"Wait... so what are you scared of then?"
"Oh, a lot of things, actually." Dash said, tilting her head thoughtfully. "Mostly I'm scared of losing any of you. And I get really nervous before shows."
"But... but you all seem so calm?! How?"
"Well it's alright to be afraid of things. What matters is how you face them. Do you let yourself be intimidated, and run away with your tail between your legs... or do you stand up to it, conquer it, own it. Do you control it so that you no longer fears it, but it fears you?"
"Like how Dad always says the spiders are more scared of Prism then they are of him," Dawn nodded. "But to be fair, if I was a spider, I would be rather horrified by Prism too."
"Naughty," her mother reprimanded her, but there was a chuckle bubbling on her lips she couldn't hide.
"What else you scared of, mom?" Dawn asked. She was genuinely curious- her mother was one of the bravest people she knew.
"The Kool-Aid guy." Dash said, with a dead serious face.
Dawn snorted. "Oh, come on. He isn't even that bad."
"He haunts my dreams," Dash said, cracking a smile. "Just ask Princess Luna."
"No, seriously mom!" Dawn said, pulling her mother's hoof exasperatedly.
"Alright, alright." Dash replied, chuckling. "Shall I let you in on a secret?"
"What?" Dawn asked, curiously.
"I used to be a little skittish around storm clouds myself."
Dawn's eyes grew large. "But... but how? How do you defeat it? I've seen you in shows, and the ones with the storm clouds and the lightning? How do you beat it?"
Dash lifted an eyebrow. "Do ya really wanna know how?"
"Yes!" Dawn asked, wondering if she was going to hear another one of her mom's many adventure stories.
"Well... alright then," Dash's face twinged slightly with embarrassment, and Dawn frowned. Maybe this story wouldn't be as heroic as the rest of them.
"I was young, and rash, and reckless, and... selfish." Her mom admitted, a sheepishly smile creeping across her face at the memory.
Dawn fell silent, her attention totally on Dash as the familiar 'impactful storytime' tone crept into her mother's voice. Dash sat down on the end of Dawn's bed, her gaze turning absentmindedly to the crashing thunder outside.
"It was my first ever performance as a fully-fledged Wonderbolt. I should have been excited. Heck, I should have been thrilled, if a little nervous. But instead I was just... sour. And afraid."
Dawn blinked. She would never thought she'd hear her mom describe herself as 'sour'.
"You see... I hadn't had the best week beforehand. I was a newbie there, I didn't really know how things worked. But God, I was so happy. Elated. Everything I'd ever worked hard for, everything I'd cried and sweat and bled for- it was finally coming true. My dream had become a reality." Her mother's face was pleasant in her reverie. Then it twinged.
"Of course, that all came crashing down when I failed to follow one of the most basic rules in the entire guidebook. 'Always check both ways before crossing the runway.' Yeah... I might've forgotten about that one."
Dawn giggled at her mom's surprisingly accurate impression of Spitfire.
Dash sighed. "Long story short, I screwed up, nearly crashed into a bunch of ponies, made a complete fool of myself and ended up with my arse stuck in a bin."
"Oooh... mom, that's cold." Dawn winced.
"Yeah. It was really, excruciatingly, painfully embarrassing. That's where I got my nickname from, ya'know. Rainbow Crash. Anyway, I spent the entire week trying to get them to change their impression of me, letting myself be affected by a petty, vain little thing. I pretended to have all sorts of different personalities, just so they'd see me as something else. But in the end, I probably just looked like a massive weirdo. I really creeped your dad out, once, by pretending to be like Aunt Rarity."
Dawn giggled, as Dash pressed a hoof to her hot cheeks.
"So, the part of me- the proud, hurt part of me- that wanted to fix things decided to do the stupidest thing I've ever done..." Dash blushed.
"And that was..." Dawn prompted.
"Gahh... it's really dumb. Okay. I basically decided to add in an extra stunt at the end of the routine, I didn't tell any of the Bolts about it, nor did I think it through properly. I screwed up, got shocked by lightning, made myself look even stupider, if that was possible at that point. So, uh, you can kinda see why lighting freaks me out a little, heh."
Dawn pressed both her hooves over her mouth. "Mommm," she gasped while chuckling, "I can't believe you'd do that."
"Trust me honey, there's a lot of thing I've done that you'd be surprised at."
"What did the rest of the Bolts say?"
"Oh, Spitfire was pissed beyond belief. I had to clean up the whole yard after. But they forgave me. They understood my struggle, and in the end, it brought us closer. It was a real wake-up call, Dawn. That's when I learnt what it meant to really be a team."
"Aw, mom. You really have to make it into a lesson about friendship and understanding each other-"
"Oi," Dash chuckled, "shut it, you. Who was the one too proud to admit they were scared of thunder just a few moments ago?"
"...touché."
They watched the rain through the window a few moments longer. It scratched the dark night sky like icy fingers clawing the shadows, the moon illuminating the thin layer of noctilucent clouds that created a shimmering sheen of vapour over the dark atmosphere.
"So how did you get over the fear?" Dawn asked.
"By realising that incident helped me to grow. It helped me learn. And although it was a horrific feeling at the time, in hindsight... I'm almost glad it happened. Dealing with lightning doesn't scare me anymore because I know the mistake I made, and I know it's not going to happen again, because this time, I'm in control."
"But it's not like that for me, mom. I'm not scared of any past mistake I made- I'm just- I don't know. Sometimes I have the feeling that I'm not big enough to stop it, to stop a storm from tearing the roof off this room, or to stop the walls from falling down. Its just- sometimes nature scares me, mom," Dawn confessed, then pulled a face. "Woah. That sounded way less cringe inside my head."
Dash chuckled, before scooping her daughter up in a soft wing. "We're all nature, Dawn. Everything we are and will be is stardust. We came from the stars and we'll return to them, eventually. You can't defeat a storm, kiddo. But you can tame it. You can ride it, like riding the breeze or riding the air. You know how to fly in a storm- but you gotta know how to dance in the storm, because when the time comes, you just have to be able to glide."
"Wow mom. That was... weirdly deep."
Dash chuckled. "Ask your dad. He's way more philosophical than I am."
Dawn rolled her eyes. "Wondering if vegetables can feel pain isn't exactly what I'd call deep. That's just... science. And dumb."
Her mom laughed, shaking her head. Another bout of thunder reverberated around the room, and Dawn shivered, as if somewhat had poured a trickle of cold water down her spine.
Her mother sighed, rubbing an eye wearily as she rose from the bed. "I'm going to bed, kiddo." She walked across the room, switching off the light as she went. Just before Dash left the room, she paused, a dark silhouette in the doorframe. "You know, if you wanted to..."
"What?" Dawn asked.
"You could come sleep with us for the night if you really wanted to."
Dawn snorted. "Mom, I'm not a baby. The last time I slept in your bed I was eight."
Dash shrugged. "Suit yourself, babe."
The hallway light turned off, the door was shut quietly, and the house was plunged into darkness as she heard her mother's hoofsteps trot down the hall and into the bedroom on the right, and the creak of her parents' door was the last noise the house made.
CRASH!
Dawn bit her lip as she jumped. Control it, Dawn. Conquer it.
And yet, no matter how hard she tried, her heart still raced against the chaos outside. She lay in her bed, trembling, for another hour until she had finally had enough.
Well, okay. Maybe just this once.
She shuffled out of bed and padded softly down the hall, peeking into her parents' room hesitantly.
Two soft blue figures were silhouetted in the silvery moonlight, both rising and falling gently as her father's wing wrapped gently around her mother's. Dawn pulled a face. Ew.
She crept across the room and hopped softly onto the bed, squirming underneath the blankets until she was snuggled between both of them. She felt her mother's smile in the lips that were pressed to her forehead, and sighed contentedly. Beneath their parents wings was the place pegasi foals felt safest, and the instinctual comfort she felt brought back waves of nostalgia from countless other stormy nights when she was a teeny weeny foal. Just this once, Dawn thought. Just this once.
The last thing she felt as she drifted into the warm darkness was her father's wing tightening around the both of them.
Six years later.
"Alright, you little scumbags, listen up," the drill instructor barked from in front of the line of pegasi. "Tough conditions this morning, made tougher by the fact that I have to wake up at six o'fucking clock in the morning to look at all your disgusting faces, but that ain't no excuse for sloppy flying. We don't make Wonderbolts out of milk-toast. Now get your asses up in the sky!"
One by one, Dawn watched the trainees launch up into the airfield outside the Wonderbolt Academy, flapping her wings and pushing off the ground when it came to her turn in the line.
Sergeant Steel Wings was often referred to amongst trainees of all ages as 'Nails', simply because he was, well... as tough as nails. He wasn't cruel, really, just rather... impatient and foul-mouthed. Dawn didn't mind, though. According to her mother, old Nails wasn't nearly as bad as the legendary Silver Lining, Dash's own drill instructor.
Thunder crackled across the ominously dark sky, and droplets began pelting down, slowly first, then in rapid succession. Some of the trainees shivered, and Nails glared at them. "Wusses," he shouted, "if I see one more of you goose turds quiver like a newborn foal, it's twenty laps for everyone. Understood?!"
"Sir, yes, sir," they chanted back.
According to Prism, Nails wasn't that bad of an instructor when he had trained briefly at the Academy (a year, just as their parents insisted they all try), but that had only been because he had been Nails' favourite student- how could he not be, with talent so like their mother's? Sunny, on the other hand, turned pissy as soon as someone mentioned the Sarg, muttering sardonically about laps and lunacy and, for some absurd reason, an old, mildewy broom.
Anyway, Dawn had neither the spectacular talents of Prism, nor the reluctance of Sunny, and therefore hovered probably around the median in Nails' 'trainees-I-love-and-hate' list.
It wasn't that she couldn't fly- in fact, it was quite the opposite. Only the most technically skilled could qualify for advanced junior classes at the Academy, and being the offspring of two Aerial legends, flying was in her blood. Heck, even Sunny had managed to get in, and he hated anything to do with sport.
Despite her impressive lineage, Nails, nor any of the other trainees, seemed to pay any attention to the fact her parents were the Commanders Rainbow Dash and Soarin. Sure, there had been a few hushed whispers at first, when she had walked into the primary training session her mother's rainbow mane, and her father's green eyes and fur, but the novelty wore off as soon as they realised for the daughter of a saviour of Equestria and the second-in-command of the 'Bolts, Dawn didn't actually have any superhero strengths.
The sky darkened, soaking the trainees even more, all of them clenching their muscles tightly as not to shiver. The air seemed to laugh at the attempt, sending another cavernous roll of thunder across the dark plane. Pathetic fallacy, Dawn could almost hear her Aunt Twilight saying.
"Right, once you fanny-packs have stopped dawdling," Nails screeched from the ground, wrapped up in a huge puffer jacket, "we- and by we, I mean you-are going to kick our plots into gear and run this high-altitude training course one by one. Oh, by the way, this is an ASSESSMENT!" He barked, and all the trainees stifled their groans. Nails liked to spring random 'assessments' on them. Failure to pass the assessment after two weeks of training meant thirty laps of the field.
They had been working on the course- not-so-fondly nicknamed the 'Fainter', due to its low level of oxygen- for two weeks, but Dawn thought it was rather unfair that they should have to do the assessment in such horrendous conditions. She kept her mouth shut though. Last time someone had complained during an assessment, old Nails had made them stick post-it notes on every bunk bed in the dorms saying 'I will not be such a hindrance to society'.
Pumping their wings to gain height, the trainees lined up one by one. Dawn strategically placed herself towards the middle of the line- not so close to the front that she wouldn't be able to see how others approached the task first, but not so close to the back that Nails would hound her for being a coward.
She watched, unashamedly anxious, as pegasus after pegasus either sank or swam as they tackled the course, composed of hoops, pistols, and manoeuvrability obstacles. Although made of cloud, they were compact enough to withstand the harsh conditions, and Dawn cringed as most trainees flinched at the sound of lightning, or slipped in the rain, and fell to the soft safety cloud catching net that was beneath them.
Quickly, much too quickly, it was her turn.
The course loomed ahead of her, seeming to stretch on and on into the dark distance. She could hear the gentle nudges of the trainee behind her, but she could bring her wings to flap any further forward.
But there was just something about storms, the unforgiving ferocity of them, the feeling that they were powerful and destructive and in the end, there was nothing you could do about it. When she had nightmares, they were always about being trapped in storms.
She could feel the eyes everywhere, watching her- the product of two legends. Surely a Skies child wasn't afraid of a little lightning?
The world seemed to shrink a little, the sky broken with the creaks and joints of spluttering lightning, sharp with seething hisses and crackles as their bright limbs floundered in angular attitudes. The streaks of pure, white-hot power were jerking and awkward, savage and destructive in their wake as they cleaved clouds apart with heedless hunger. Beyond the fiery arrows of lightning lay a clapping, roaring curtain of rain and thunder and darkness, weeping as if hailing some bloodthirsty, angered God, consuming the bleakness of the background with a smoky, ill-starred malice.
"Dawn, you have to go, Nails is getting pissed," somepony muttered behind her, but she felt numb. She couldn't rip her gaze away from the scene in front of her. Couldn't take her eyes off the very picture of her nightmares.
Sometimes I have the feeling that I'm not big enough to stop it, to stop a storm from tearing the roof off this room, or to stop the walls from falling down. Its just- sometimes nature scares me.
She couldn't take it any more, her vision was beginning to go blurry, and bright patches were beginning to appear in her vision, shaped like the lightning bolts her eyes had been fixated on earlier, everything was crashing and burning and she was a little filly again-
Storms are the poetry of the Earth, Dawn.
A breath of air, amidst the smoke. 'Mom?', Dawn wanted to call out.
'Does it not excite you, Dawn? '
Who had said that. Prism?
'Heck no. Why would I be excited to be blasted to death by a bolt of lightning?'
"But the intensity, the emotion, the danger, the rage, the music!' Prism had closed his eyes. 'It's a language of black and white, of light and dark. It's not complicated, like a lot of things in this world are. It's just me, and the sky, and its anger. It's me against the wind, and the rain, and the thunder, and when I'm flying in the storm, racing against it, I feel like I could take the weight of the world on my shoulders.'
Dawn had scoffed, but Prism was- for once in his life- being genuine. He never joked about flying. It reminded Dawn so much of their mom.
The storm still raged on behind her eyelids. Ponies were getting frustrated now. She took a deep breath, savouring the tangy flavour of the air.
You can't defeat a storm, kiddo. But you can tame it. You can ride it, like riding the breeze or riding the air. You know how to fly in a storm- but you gotta know how to dance in the storm, because when the time comes...
You have to be able to...
Glide.
Dawn lept out of a standstill, trying to drown out the sounds of clapping thunder by focusing on her own heartbeat, racing with adrenaline.
It was time to put this stupid fear to bed.
Feeling a strong gust of wind incoming, Dawn banked slightly to the right in order to adjust for her trajectory into the first obstacle. To her surprise, it worked. Her sensitive wing tips could feel the wind oncoming. The trick was, you had to worry less about the obstacle, and more about the air you were going through to reach it.
She did the same again for the next two, getting further than most ponies had. Beneath her, Nails tilted his sunglasses down thoughtfully. (Who knows why he was wearing sunglasses in the middle of a thunderstorm. Dawn certainly didn't.)
The lightning flashing in front of her should have startled her, but it didn't. It was almost as if she had made peace with the sky, allowed the storm to chase her, as long as she always knew she would win. She felt as if she could outfly the wind if she wanted to.
Something was wrong, though. Nails was shouting from below, and the trainees were teetering anxiously behind her. Dawn was so swept up in the zone, so focused on her movement and body and position within the wind that she hadn't realised until too late that the last obstacle- tightly packed wooden agility poles, the only non-cloud part of the course- had caught on fire.
There was no time to pull up, or veer away. It was do or die.
For a moment, her resolve shattered. It was every worst dream come true.
The fire and darkness and thunder seemed to whisper it will always get you, in the end, no matter how fast you fly, how strong you are- the storm is faster, the storm is stronger.
"Bitch," Dawn breathed back, caught in a strange moment cocooned from time, lit but the aureate glow of the fire-seized poles. "I am the storm."
Time seemed to slow down as the approached the obstacle, and the world seemed to hold its breath as she twisted and turned and used the hollering assaults of wind to her advantage to weave directly through the heart of the poles, with less than a split second of time to process each new movement.
She could barely believe herself as she suddenly emerged into cool air once more, at the end of the course- completely unscathed.
There were trainees rushing with rainclouds to put the fire out, and other members of her class patting her on the back and telling her how awesome that was, but she couldn't properly focus on anything else other than what she had just done.
As they sunk slowly to the ground, Nails was in front of her. After a quick scan to ensure his trainee remained uninjured- nobody wanted to face Soarin with the injury of one of his kids (Dawn's mom Dash was usually more chill about it)- Nails smirked slowly.
"Well, Skies," he snorted, "it seems you've been holding back on us. Even remind me a little of Prism Dart."
"Sir, thank you, sir," she muttered, grinning slightly, but not too much, of course.
"Now get outta here while I clean up this mess. Can't wait to tell Spitfire that she has to replace yet another training course obstacle. Class dismissed," Nails barked, and they all scampered off before he could change their mind and make the ponies who hadn't done the course yet redo it with an even harder replacement for the poles.
It wasn't a huge deal, really. Compared to the feats Prism had pulled off during his time at the Academy, Dawn knew it wouldn't surmount to anything memorable.
Maybe she would wrong, though. Maybe Nails would remember her as the filly who flew through fire. She scoffed at the idea.
But it was a small win. A big win, actually. She knew her mom would be more proud of her because of her overcoming her fear than any reckless stunt she could have done.
Because now, storms didn't scare Dawn Leaper any more.
Because now, she knew how to glide.
Because now, it was not her who needed to be afraid of the storm, but the storm afraid of her.
And nothing- nothing- was going to hold her back.
Author's Note
This story was based on the quote: 'They whispered in her ear, 'you are not strong enough to withstand the storm'. She whispered back, 'I am the storm.' - Unknown
Originally, I was going to put this in my Legacies collection, but I thought it was a bit too long, and deserved its own story. I'm having fun creating all these characters!
Hope you enjoyed!
Dawn
