Twilight Sparkle trotted out of the front gates of Golden Oaks Library, her hooves clopping against the cobbled streets of Ponyville. She hummed a tune to herself, her saddlebag bouncing up and down at her side along with her movements.
“Twilight!”
“Huh?” Twilight turned around. She yelped as she teleported, moving out of the way just in time for a cyan blur to slam face-first into the ground.
Rainbow skidded across the ground with her face before rocketing back up into the skies, performing a perfect loop and landing right next to Twilight. She grinned at her with a trail of mud running down the middle of her face. “Thank Celestia I found you! I need your help!”
“What’s wrong, Rainbow? Is there another evil being trying to end the world? Did Discord break out of his stone prison? Did Princess Celestia stuff herself with cake again and is about to go supernova?”
“…Twi, Discord’s Fluttershy's friend now. And what do you mean Princess Celestia’s going to supernova?”
“…nevermind. What do you need my help for?”
Rainbow smiled again, showing her teeth… and the trail of mud stuck in her incisors. “For studying!”
Twilight raised an eyebrow. “Studying? Studying what?”
“You know how the Wonderbolts give out tests to ensure every member is qualified enough to stay on their team, right?”
“You never told me that, so, no.”
“Right, now you know. Well, the Wonderbolts are making me take a test this Friday, only two days from now! And—”
“And let me guess, you didn’t study.”
“Yup! Well, no, I did study a bit, but I don’t know how much of it stuck in my head.”
Twilight sighed. “Alright, what’s the test on?”
“It’s on feathers and their roles for flight.”
“Well, it shouldn’t be too hard for me to teach you that, since—”
“Actually, I had something else in mind.”
“Yeah? What’s that?”
“Alright, so…”
…
“…and so here’s the primary feather, which channels the overall airflow that streams through your wings. They’re essential to maintaining flight stability, as they are the biggest feathers and therefore the ones that affect the stream of the air most,” Rainbow Dash explained, holding a stick as she pointed to a diagram on the blackboard before her.
“Ooooh… fascinating,” Twilight Sparkle answered in a bored manner, her eyelid twitching.
“Yup! Even the slightest twitch in your primaries can result in your flight path being totally different! Isn’t that awesome? Like, a fraction of a degree’s change, and the next moment you’re pulling aerobatic stunts!”
“Uh huh….”
“Now, let’s look at the carpal joints that connect the primaries together.” Dash tapped the stick against the diagram on the board, pointing to an outer point in the wing where the curvature bent downwards. “The carpal joint is also crucial in that it brings the primaries together. It controls… uh… what was the word?”
“Micromotor movements,” Twilight said, a flat look on her face.
“Uh, yeah! Micromotor… whatever that is! It’s what allows you to control your primaries whenever you need to! And not just moving them, it’s moving them by the tiniest fraction of an angle! Isn’t that cool?”
“Ooooh… I didn’t know that,” Twilight Sparkle slowly replied, her head bobbing up and down without much weight behind it.
“Heh, see? Now, let’s take a look at the secondary feathers. While they’re not as important as the primary feathers, they’re still quite important because they help the primary feathers in creating lift and helping a pony adjust their direction mid-flight…,” Dash droned on and on, oblivious to the drooping eyelids of Twilight Sparkle sitting in front of her. Through her heavy eyelids, Twilight could vaguely feel her head drop forward before springing back up. Her head nodded up and down a few more times before dropping down for the last time.
“So, any questions?” Dash asked as she turned away from the chalkboard to face Twilight Sparkle, only to be met with a resounding crash.
“Ow….” It was all Dash could do to look down at Twilight in disbelief as the alicorn lay on the ground along with the stool she had been sitting on, groggily rubbing her chin as she looked up at Rainbow from behind her eyelids.
“Uh… Twilight? Did you listen to what I was saying?”
“Well, frankly, no!” Twilight shot back as she put the stool back on its legs and climbed back onto it. “Tell me, Dash, why do I have to be the one who is listening to your lectures on primaries and secondaries? I know all these facts already!”
“Wait, you know all these?” Upon seeing Twilight nod, Dash scratched her head with a sheepish expression on her face. “Ooooh… I thought you didn’t know that, what with originally being a unicorn and all.”
“I read a lot of books, Rainbow, and that’s not even the point. Why do I have to be the one who’s listening to your boring lecture on feathers? They aren’t even your style of learning!”
“Because, Twilight,” Rainbow said as she straightened up into a proud posture, “‘It has been proven through research that reviewing material by lecturing it to others is the most efficient way of retaining information’, according to a certain egghead princess. So I decided to try it out, and what better honor would it be for the princess who suggested it than to listen to my first attempt at learning through the method?”
“Ooooh…,” Twilight Sparkle replied as she deadpanned, her tone severely condescending. “Well gee, thanks Rainbow for letting me have the honor of being the first audience to your boring lecture!”
“Always a pleasure, Twilight,” Rainbow smirked as she bowed midair, only to hear the sound of someone teleporting away. When she looked up, her friend was nowhere to be seen in the library. “Uh, Twilight?”
…
“Well, I guess I’ll have to continue on my own, then,” Rainbow muttered as she picked up the pointing stick again and turned back to the blackboard. She tapped the diagram several times as she began talking to no one in particular, “And now we will be talking about coverts, which cover up the other feathers so the air flows smoother….”
Author's Note
I let this sit around for a year and a half, then added 300 words in 10 minutes. Took me long enough to publish it.
I am not sorry for this mess.
