Groundingby MasterThiefChaptersAfterThoughtsDreamsAboveBasesDaysStoriesAfterBow made his way up the stairs of the hotel, slowly and unsteadily on his hooves. He dared not try to fly in his condition, after so many drinks consumed with his squadronmates at the hotel bar, always with the toast To Absent Friends. Out of breath, he made it to the 18th floor, then checked every sign looking for his room, only to realize that he had left his room key with her. He knocked on the door with his hoof, three times. He didn’t know if it was too soft or too loud, if it would wake her or scare her. He waited, and knocked again, a million fears and doubts racing through his mind. The door opened, and she appeared. “Bow.” she said, noncommittally. She hated when he was like this after “nights out” with his RFF squadron mates. And he hated coming back to her like this. But this time, something had changed. Whatever composure he had failed him in this moment, and he fell, gently, into her forehooves, his wings open and falling down limp and useless beside him. “I… I can’t do this anymore,” Bow said, his voice shuddering. “I can’t. I won’t. I won’t let that happen to you. I won’t… I won’t let you mourn me. I won’t leave you a widow. I…” Windy embraced her husband. He felt the soft satin of her robe, her hot breath on his neck. Her familiar, comforting smell. He needed only these things in this moment. He needed only her. “I want out. I’m leaving the RFF. If I have to make a choice, I choose you,” he said. Windy held him tightly, as if she was carrying a wounded flier down to the ground, never letting go. She stroked his mane, as he stifled a sob in her neck. “Are you okay, Bow?” she asked. Bow could only shake his head. “I’ll… I’ll be fine. Just… stay with me. Please.” She led him over to the bed, the door closing behind them. They laid there, in a silent embrace, for a very long time. Finally, Windy spoke. “Don’t be sad. Though… I know you will.” Bow looked over at her, the mare he loved so much, the mare whose happiness had become more important than air or water or life itself. He squeezed her hoof tighter. “I was thinking about Dash… what he would think… if…” he trailed off. “Dash was a good stallion. And he was your best friend. It’s all right to mourn him,” Windy said, softly. “The best thing I can do for you is make sure I learn from his mistake. That I value what’s important,” Bow said, not realizing the depth of anger in his voice, hoping that she would not be scared away, seeing him in this moment. “I married you. I chose you. I love you. I want you. I… I need you. Nothing else matters.” Bow was speaking from the pain in his heart, a profound sadness and fear. The memory of Mount Haynier growing closer and closer as he tried desperately to turn towards the logging road in the howling windstorm. And yet, Windy Whistles held on to him. ThoughtsBow walked home, slowly, next to Windy, their tails entwined, from the doctor’s office along cloudy paths under a clear sky. “A filly,” Bow said, for probably the tenth time (or was it hundredth time? he thought). “We’re gonna have a filly.” Each time he said that, the smile came back to his face. It felt good to smile. There had been precious little to smile about. “Holy horses,” Bow said, the smile staying, seeming permanently etched on his face. “I have no idea what I’m doing and I couldn't be happier.” Windy put a wing around her husband. “Relax, flyboy. You’ll do fine.” Bow chuckled, deeply and happily. “You know I had only brothers. No sisters. I’m literally going to be flying blind here. I am in so much trouble… and I do not care.” Bow felt Windy’s wing grip his barrel chest. “So… I was thinking about names for a filly…” That was enough to scramble him. “Uh… I… was… I mean, whatever you’re happy with. I mean, no frame of reference here…” Then Bow saw the smile come to Windy’s face, as wide as the sky. “I was thinking… Rainbow… Dash.” Bow stopped dead in his tracks, and he looked at his wife, a hundred billion thoughts racing. “I… I couldn’t… I wasn’t… I mean… if you’re sure. You’d… you’d be fine with it?” Windy nodded. “I would. I am.” She kissed Bow on the cheek. “I can’t think of a better tribute. She’s gonna have the best dad. And the best guardian, watching out for her from above–” It was all Bow could do to embrace his wife, holding her and never letting her go. “Thank you,” Bow whispered, over and over and over again. DreamsThat night, the nightmare did not return. Instead, there was a dream. Rainbow Dash was flying. And she heard voices from down below, calling to her. Spitfire. Twilight. Soarin. Applejack. Beside her flew another pegasus in a blue and white flight suit with red lightning bolts on the hooves. Dash thought she saw a streak of blue and gold mane. The pegasus signaled. Two chops of his hoof. You are Lead now. Course and speed at your discretion. She looked back at him, and queried with a signal of her own, hoof upturned. Please identify? The pegasus smiled, rendered a quick salute, and broke skyward into the heavens. “It’s not gonna work, Dashie. You can’t stay up forever,” Bow said, a gentle smile on his face. Bow enfolded his tiny Rainbow Dash in his forehooves, and his wings. Rainbow was only a month old and constantly resisted her rest, her grumbly cries letting everyone around know that she was not tired. But Bow could see that his daughter was indeed getting sleepier and sleepier, one eye firmly closed, the flapping of her tiny wings slowing, Bow slowly stroking her many-colored mane with constant care. He’d remembered his own mother doing that for him, and to his surprise and joy, it worked on his little Dashie too. “Goodnight, Dashie,” he said in a near whisper. “It’s okay. Go dream. I’m still gonna be here when you wake up.” Bow heard the click of a camera shutter, and looked over at Windy, who was standing there in the doorway. “Huh,” he said. “I guess you were right.” He looked back down at his daughter, whose remaining eye drooped lower, and lower, until her grumbly cries stopped, and she fell into sleep at long last. “I told you,” Windy said, approaching them with gentle flaps of her wings. “I told you she listens to you.” She reached over, and they kissed. “You want to go put her in her crib?” “In a while,” Bow said, feeling his daughter asleep on his chest. “I want to make sure she’s dreaming first.” AboveThe clouds were out to get Rainbow Dash, and she did not feel all right. Simple cloudbusting mission, my sparkling flanks, she thought. Instead, she was #3 in the command lead flight of a bunch of Wonderbolts who were somehow flying into the most vicious windstorm Dash had ever felt. She could barely see Spitfire’s wings in the #1 position, flapping just in her peripheral vision, all else was clouds and raindrops flying horizontally, coating her entire body. The shifting winds seemed to fight Dash’s wings, threatening to knock her off course with every gust, and forcing her to use her hind legs like rudders. “Where the hay is the center mass of this thing?” Dash heard Spitfire yelling. “It shouldn’t be like thith!” Fleetfoot called out from behind her, in the #4 slot. Dash’s heart sank, as she remembered that Fleetfoot, the best meteorologist in the Bolts, only now lisped when she was scared. “It wath a thimple—” Just then, Dash felt a violent updraft under her wings, forcing her higher and almost blowing her forward and leftward into Spitfire. Her wing bones flexed hard, almost to the breaking point, and Dash barely suppressed a scream of pain, but she heard both Spitfire and Fleetfoot cry out. “What was that?” Spitfire yelled out. “This shouldn’t be…” “Ith a derecho!” Dash heard Fleetfoot shouting. “The cell mutht have changed shape! We’re in a bookend vortexth!” “Can’t be!” Soarin called out from across the formation in the #2 slot. “Derechos are summer storms!” “They can form anytime with enough moithture and the righth fronths! Ith the only thing thath maketh thence!” Another updraft, this one even more sudden, jolted the flight. This time, Dash could control her vector, but not the pain. “We can’t stay in here! We’ll be torn apart!” “Soarin!” Spitfire yelled, slowly but clearly. “Pull up and reverse, get back to the rest of the squadron! Tell them we’re in a derecho and they need to look for a bow echo pattern and break the other vortex! We’ll just have to do what we can on this one!” Dash’s heart pounded in her chest, and she fought back the fear. Soarin’s the strongest flier here, but if even he pulls an Immelponn while an updraft hits…I don't know what I'd do if... “Yes ma’am!” Soarin called out, no hesitation in his voice. “3…2…1… BREAK!” Dash heard a loud snap coming from her left. Out of the corner of her goggles, she saw a blur of a Wonderbolt flight suit shooting upwards into the sky. Then he was out of sight and sound. Now they were down to three. “Dash, I’m slotting back to your left, danger close! You are now #1!” Dash heard the Wonderbolt captain’s call and immediately understood. Dash was now going to be the lead pony of the flight, Spitfire and Fleetfoot an echelon behind. It’s all on you, Dash, she told herself as she saw Spitfire flare her golden wings for a split second to slow down. Watch out for updrafths and downdrafths!” Fleetfoot yelled. “If iths thrait up or down, thatth thenter math and we can thtart buthtin!” “Affirmative!” Dash called out, now as the Flyer In Command. She concentrated on the flight path ahead, searching for the center of the vortex so they could start tearing it apart from the inside out. “On my mark, left rudder fifteen degrees with legs for two seconds, in three…two…one… MARK!” The three pegasi turned as if one, keeping perfect formation. Their vector changed and the turn completed. Then Dash felt an equally violent downdraft pressing upon her whole body. The raindrops flew at her with furious speed, each one on impact feeling like a grain of sand abrading them down to bone, the leading edge of her wings searing, her feathers being pulled and stretched at once… Now or never. “STORM CENTER, STORM CENTER!” Dash called out. “BUST! BUST! BUST!” Dash lowered her front and back hooves. She felt her innate pegasi magic flowing through them, tearing giant gashes through the vortex, slicing through the heart of the storm. She felt the storm destabilizing. “ITH WORKING! CLOUDTH BREAKING!” Fleetfoot jubilantly replied. “KEEP GOING! KEEP GOING!” Dash fought a wave of pain. Not today! Not to us! “ON MY MARK, LEFT RUDDER FIVE DEGREES WITH LEGS, AND LOCK!” Dash called a vector that would keep the formation in a circle, cutting out the heart of the vortex, breaking it before the storm could do any more damage to the lands and ponies below. “THREE…TWO…ONE…MARK!” She flexed every muscle in her back legs and her core, shifting her legs off-axis. She felt herself turning, turning, in what she knew would be a perfect circular course. The turning movement made the gashes in the storm clouds she was cutting with her hooves bigger and wider. They were unstoppable now. Then, just as suddenly as they had flown into the vortex, the storm fell away and they were out of it. Thick clouds and violent rain gave way to clear and cool skies. It was over. Dash, Spitfire, and Fleetfoot had broken through. But it was not over. As the wind died down, Dash took stock of how her body felt, and it was not good at all. “Storm clear!” Dash called out. “Status reports! I am compromised!” “Compromised!” Spitfire replied. “Compromithed!” Fleetfoot replied in turn. Dash’s heart rose in her throat. A compromised pegasus could not fold in their wings, or had lost feathers, or both. Their movements had to be slow and careful, or they could stall or spin out. An entire flight compromised required immediate emergency landing. Dash swore silently. “Understood! Mayday, mayday, mayday, smoke out and lights on!” With practiced reflexes, Dash reached back with a forehoof and yanked the ripcord that ran down from her chest to her back legs. She felt the red smoke canisters on her back legs hissing and fizzing. Her peripheral vision was filled with the slow flashes of magic-powered red lights snugly looped around her rear pasterns. Between the smoke and the lights, everypony in the sky or ground for miles around who could see them would know they were in trouble. “Deployed,” Dash announced. “Deployed,” Spitfire called out. “I see a road, right ahead of us. Long and straight. Recommend you line us up for a tandem landing.” “Deployed,” Fleetfoot called in response. “We’re faithing into the wind on course three-one-five, altitude fourteen hundred. Windthpeed 40 and thteady,” she said. Dash vowed she would never say another word about Fleetfoot always flying with her instrumented goggles ever again. “Acknowledged,” Dash replied as she spied the road ahead of her, locked her eyes onto it, and called a vector that would put them on the ground with all deliberate speed, then briefed an emergency approach. “No flaps. Flare upward and drift down slowly. If you’re gonna miss the approach, pull up gently and recenter. Looks like plenty of road. Begin descent now.” Dash kept her wings flared open and level despite the searing pain. She feared a sudden crosswind from the storm behind them, but none came. Dash drifted down, down, down, onto the road below, her hooves touching the rough dirt road at a gallop, then a trot, then a walk. Then she stopped, and looked behind her. Through a haze of red smoke and lights, she saw Spitfire and Fleetfoot standing there. Their wings were held out, their hooves were wobbly, but they were safely on the ground. As the adrenaline faded, the pain started. None of them said anything, but as Dash took off her flight goggles, she could tell the others were suffering. Their wings, though still extended, drooped to the ground, their feathers bent, broken, disheveled. Tears filled their eyes. All of them simply laid down on the ground, according to standard procedure, and waited. It was not long before they heard the clip of hooves and the noise of cart wheels. Bases“... their actions reflect great credit upon themselves, the Wonderbolts, and the Royal Flying Forces. For gallantry in weather service at great personal risk and wounds, I am pleased to award Group Captain Spitfire, Wing Commander Soarin, Flight Lieutenant Rainbow Dash, and Flight Lieutenant Fleetfoot, of Command Flight, No.1 Squadron, Royal Flying Forces, the Distinguished Flying Star, Second Class, and the Air Commendation Medal with Heart Device. Congratulations.” Rainbow Dash watched as the assembled Wonderbolts, all in crisp uniforms, stamped their hooves on the floor at Princess Twilight Sparkle’s announcement. Most of them were wearing wing braces, pinning their wings to their sides. Soarin had found the rest of the squadron, though he had two badly sprained wings and a greenstick fracture of his right ulna from the force of the Immelponn turn he pulled; he’d had to make an emergency landing himself after he located the rest of the squadron. The remaining Wonderbolts had found the other bookend vortex of the derecho and tore it apart, breaking the storm before it could do any more damage to the fields and small towns below. But it had come at a heavy price. Nearly all the Wonderbolts were out of action, receiving commendation medals for sustaining injuries while in flight. Dash stood, with a slight smile of relief on her face, as one of her oldest friends pinned two medals onto her dress uniform. She snapped a smart salute with her hoof. “Thank you, Your Highness.” Twilight closed her eyes, bowed her head, and mouthed the words, “Thank you.” Dash stood during the rest of the short ceremony. Her wings throbbed and ached from the ripped feathers, strained muscles, and battered tendons, and she desperately wanted to stretch them. But her wings, too, were secured in thick, padded, wing braces, which the doctors told her only to remove while changing clothes, showering, or during her daily physical therapy, meant to keep her damaged wings motile and limber as they healed. “Now… there is one other matter,” she heard Twilight say, once the last of the applause had died down. “All of Equestria–North Appleloosa especially–is grateful for what the Wonderbolts did for them. And now, it’s time for us to take care of you… and for you to take care of yourselves.” Dash’s heart fell in her chest. No. You wouldn’t. Please don’t. “Accordingly, I am ordering all of No. 1 Squadron, Royal Flying Forces, off of flight status per order of RFF Medical, effective until the first day of Spring.” The angry grumbles, and a few louder shouts of protest, came swiftly. Twilight had just grounded all the Wonderbolts for the next four months. “That’s ENOUGH!” Dash heard Spitfire bark. “If the Princess says we’re grounded, we’re grounded. We’ll just have to make the most of it.” Dash saw Spitfire turn to Princess Twilight. “Apologies for their outburst, your Highness. That’s on me.” She rendered a sharp salute. “Think nothing of it,” Twilight said. “I understand completely. Tell your flyers to rest, Captain. They’ve certainly earned it. And so have you.” “Yes, Ma’am,” Spitfire replied, and turned to the assembled squadron. “WONDERBOLTS! DIIIIIS-MISSED!” The squadron, including Dash, Soarin, and Fleetfoot, snapped to attention, saluted, and broke formation. Most of them simply hung their heads. A few exchanged whispers. Dash could see a few desperately holding back tears. I gotta try. Dash summoned her courage and walked up to Twilight, who greeted her one-time flying teacher, Royal Friendship Councilor, and above all friend, warmly. “Rainbow Dash! How are you feeling?” “I’m… managing.” Dash said. “Twilight… er, ma’am, can we talk in private?” In the corner of her eye, she saw Spitfire tilt her head with an odd glance. But the two of them had an unspoken understanding about Dash’s unique position with respect to the Equestrian Crown. So Spitfire merely nodded once, said “Excuse me, your highness,” saluted, and stepped away. Twilight looked at Dash, exhaling, and pointed to a side room for guests. As soon as the door closed behind them, Dash immediately spoke. “Twilight, I appreciate what you’re trying to do. But–” “Rainbow. Please. I spoke with the doctors. They showed me the x-rays and the pictures. Believe me, I know how good you are at faking injuries. But this? No. It’s real. These are serious injuries! What kind of a princess would I be if I let the Wonderbolts go flying again so soon? And what kind of friend would I be to you if I did?” Dash felt her face flush and her lips twist. “It’s a pegasi thing. You don’t understand. We need to be able to fly. Look, a lot of the younger Bolts just had minor sprains, at best, they can be up and at it in two weeks, three tops. Won’t even miss spring training for the Wonderbolts Derby, on schedule!” “And what about the ones who didn’t? What am I supposed to do for them?” “Let them heal at their own pace! We may be brash, but we’re not stupid. We’re professionals. We do this for a living. We know our limits.” Dash saw Twilight's horn light up, and felt the straps of her wing braces being removed. The very act of slipping them off made Dash wince with pain. “If you can open your wings, full spread, right now, I will change my orders.” “Twilight?” “You heard me.” Dash could tell when Twilight was joking, or joking to cover her panicking, or joking to cover her twilighting, or joking for any reason. She’s serious. Dash made to extend her wings, slowly, carefully, She forced the bones open, willed them, drove them as wide as she could, but not enough. Dash could hide her clenched teeth, but she felt tears trickling down her cheeks from the pain. “I tried,” she heard herself say, softly, confessing failure. “I tried. I tried. Please tell Spitfire I tried...” Dash felt Twilight hug her, and she broke. “I know. I will,” the Princess said as Dash sniffled in her royal hooves. “You always do.” As Hearth’s Warming was only a few weeks away, Twilight graciously offered the use of the Royal Airship (which Dash knew Twilight hardly ever flew on anyway, save for the most stuffy and formal of state visits to other lands) to bring all the now flight-forbidden Wonderbolts who lived in Cloudsdale home for the holidays. Which happened to be just under half of them. When Twilight asked her where she would be staying, Dash had originally said she would be going back to her home in Ponyville, or perhaps at the School of Friendship in the old castle. But Twilight noted that Dash had a cloud home in Ponyville that she could not fly to under medical orders, and the School of Friendship would be closed for Hearth’s Warming Break. You need somepony to take care of you, Twilight said. Applejack was a no-go, straight out; words had been said between them that Dash regretted and wished she could take back. And Dash didn’t want to trouble any of the others back in Ponyville to put her up for a few months, not even Fluttershy. And that left Rainbow Dash with only one option. When she stepped off the gangplank of HMAS Amicitia at the Cloudsdale docks, Windy Whistles and Bow Hothoof were there to greet her. Dash hadn’t even had time to take off her uniform, and she didn’t know which was worse: the pain in her wings, or the cringe she felt in her chest as she waited for her mother and father to start gushing over their Little Dashie once again. Her father was a cloud engineer at the Weather factory. He’d served, briefly, in the RFF. Her mother was a stay at home mom, who was, now that her only daughter was grown, teaching Flappercize aerobics classes. I’m going to be the only thing they want to talk about. It’s like I’m their entire life. Though neither of them said anything to her on the slow walk home over the clouds, Dash knew it was just a matter of time. DaysDash spent most of her first day of Hearth’s Warming vacation asleep in her old room, surrounded by all her old trophies and medals, from her first Honorable Mention at Junior Speedsters, to the most recent medals for valor, pinned to the dress uniform that hung crisply from the hanger over the door. She was too tired, and in too much pain to complain. So she took her assigned dose of painkillers, and dozed. She didn’t hardly talk to her parents. The RFF had medical clinics all over Cloudsdale to care for the thousands of pegasi serviceponies who lived there. Dash made the short walk to the closest one at Cirrustop Square for her physical therapy appointments, per her doctor’s orders, three days each week. The first day, Dash winced as her wing braces were removed. She felt her face flush with burning humiliation as the therapist had to help her open her own wings. She sucked in air as the therapist had her slowly flap her wings up and down, up and down, not even fast enough for lift, just lying prone on a padded table. She listened to her breath as the therapist preened her battered feathers with a fine tooth comb and wingbalm. And she yelped when the mare plucked unsalvageable feathers out. She felt sad and tired as she walked home afterwards, wings re-braced. Her mother had a potato and pasta sourdough sandwich waiting for her. One thing went right today, at least. She still didn’t talk to her parents much. But she was grateful nonetheless. On the third day of her break, Dash came home from therapy (she had risen with a single flap, an inch above the table) to find a courier had left a gigantic box for her. And her parents, mercifully, had not opened it. Inside, Dash found a note from Spitfire on Wonderbolts letterhead. Crash- Professional Development Reading for your next promotion cycle. This is all the stuff an O-4 has to know to be eligible for Command & Staff College. If we can’t flap our wings, we can pump our heads so full of hot air we’ll float up. Say hi to your folks for me. You’re lucky to have them, zero chill about their little filly and all. “S”F Dash chuckled at the note. Spitfire loved using every Bolt’s handle whenever the opportunity arose… but she absolutely balked at saying or writing out her own. Every. Single. Time. Even the initials involved strategically placed quotation marks. Dash had only heard it from the horse’s mouth once, herself, the day she got her own handle. And after that, never again. But she, and everyone else in the squadron, knew the story, and knew to avoid eating big dishes of Mexipon food. Because Wonderbolts never knew when the next mission would be called. She still didn’t talk to her parents much. On the eighth night, Dash had a nightmare. She was back over Appleoosa, fighting the storm, cutting it, tearing it apart. But this time it did not die. It had a mind of its own. It thought. It hated. The living storm took her and Spitfire and Soarin and Fleetfoot, wrapping them in icy wind. Dash felt her wings being pulled off of her. Then the storm cast them down to the ground in a mighty draft. Just before impact, she bolted upright, her heart racing and gasping for breath. I could have died. Spitfire. Soarin. Fleetfoot. All of us. The nightmare refused to leave her mind that night, and she slept no more. The following day, the kind mare at physical therapy noted that Dash seemed dead on her hooves. Dash declined her offer for a few night’s worth of sleeping pills. She didn’t talk to her parents much. And she certainly did not say anything about the nightmare to them. On the eleventh day, Dash was going stir crazy. So she helped her mother decorate the house for Hearth’s Warming. Well, at least all the stuff that was down low enough. And roughly half the ornaments on the tree. Elapsed time to set out every Hearth’s Warming decoration, trinket, and tchotchke Windy Whistles had ever collected: two hours, five minutes, twelve seconds. Approximately ten minutes of that, she spent talking with her mother. Not that her mother didn’t try. And Dash still appreciated that about her. On the fifteenth day, Dash’s physical therapist noted that Dash seemed unusually tense. While she practiced a simple hover, Dash just kept talking and talking to the extraordinarily patient mare, saying whatever came to her mind to distract herself from the ache of her recovering flight muscles. “I’m addicted to stress. That’s the only way I get things done. If I’m not under pressure, I sleep too long, I hang around like some kind of flightless bum, and… you know, that makes me all nervous inside. Like life is out to get me. But I know life’s not out to get me. But you know, it’s not that bad. It could be worse. It’s ‘aaight.” She spent thirty minutes talking to her parents, mostly about the upcoming Wonderbolts Derby season, and most of that helping her mother look for a better spot for her season tickets. The eighteenth day was Hearth’s Warming Eve. She went to a dinner at the house of her parents’ next door neighbors. Her mother had insisted that Dash put on her nice uniform and medals. It would make her feel better. Give her a chance to talk to people. Dash agreed. It was a mistake. As soon as the evening started, everyone wanted to talk to her. About what she did in the RFF. Then about the Wonderbolts. Then about flight training. Then about her injuries. Then about Wonderbolt history. Then about what the RFF was looking for in new recruits. Then about her funniest stories from recruit training. Then about her thoughts on Princess Twilight’s foreign policy. She finally balked at one guest who was convinced that the War of the Three Villains had been some kind of an inside job. She barely had time to eat anything, she was talking so much. Dash did not talk to her parents for most of the night, though she desperately wanted to. She finally asked her mother if it would be OK if she left early, because she was feeling tired and her wings were hurting. Her mother, concerned, said it was just fine, and gave her a hug. Dash sat alone, in bed, sleepless. My body is breaking down. My time as a Wonderbolt is ending. This is all I’ve ever wanted to do. This is all I know how to do. What next? What if this is it for me? She wanted to talk to someone, anyone. But it was Hearth’s Warming Eve, and she knew everybeing was asleep. Maybe not one pony. But she’s retired. StoriesDash could not sleep. It might have been the stress of the evening, it might have been the stepped-down dose of medicine, it might have just been her fear, but the pain in her wings was just too throbbing and too intense even for the painkillers. So she crept down the stairs, hoping to distract herself until Hearth’s Warming morning. She was heading for the couch in the living room and her stack of mind-numbing flight manuals and other “professional development” reading. But she noticed a single, solitary lamp on. It was her father, settled in his easy chair. As Dash crept up on her father, she could see he was just staring at the tree, lost in thought. “Hey, Dad,” she said. “Oh. Hi, Dashie,” he replied with a slight start. “Still couldn’t sleep?” “No.” “Wings still hurting?” “Yeah.” Dash sighed. “Figured I could try another binder of my reading, that might bore me to sleep.” “Ah,” Bow said. “Emergency procedures? Flight formations?” Dash took a thick binder off the top of the stack. “Essentials of Leadership.” They shared a knowing laugh. “Lemme guess. A bunch of Haybridge University business school case studies about widget manufacturing?” Dash opened the binder, and skimmed the table of contents. “Yep. How’d you know?” “Some things in the service never change. The reading. The paperwork. The long stretches of boredom with all those little moments of pure what the hay did I get myself into terror?” Dash could not help but laugh. “Yep. Had a few of…” and she trailed off without finishing the thought, as her mind began to go to places she did not want to go and to thoughts she did not want to think. She did not want to talk to her father. She desperately needed to talk to her father. Bow noticed. “You know you can tell me what’s wrong, Dashie.” “Even… even if it would make you less proud of your daughter?” The question left Dash’s mouth before she could take it back. “Hah. Impossible.” Bow’s fake laugh was obviously meant to comfort her, but it fell flat, and it took him a few seconds to realize it. “I can tell it’s a heavy load for you to fly, so I’m not going to say anything more if you don’t want to tell me. But, and I mean this, there isn’t anything you can do or have done that will make me love you any less, Dashie.” She looked at him. For most of his life, he’d been one of her two biggest cheerleaders. But there wasn’t any exaggerated pride now, no attagirl or you can do it or we believe in you. Maybe after all these years… She took a deep breath. “Dad… why did you quit flying? For the RFF, I mean. I know you told me you wanted to do something else with your life. And until now… well…” She swallowed hard. “I guess I understood that. But now, I… I need to know if there was anything more.” She looked up and saw Bow pressing his hooves together, a look of deep thought–sadness?--on his face. “You’re thinking of getting out?” Dash nodded. “Yep. I mean, I know ponies who’ve been medically retired from the Wonderbolts, or from other squadrons. Not because of any one big injury, but.. Y’know…” she tried to flap her wings, but the braces stopped her. “... a buncha little injuries. Muscle strains, stress fractures, just adding up over time. Until one day you just wake up, and you can barely make it to ten hooves up, let alone ten miles.” Bow shook his head. “No, it wasn’t that. Most of the medical retirees I knew were pegasi who just didn’t know when to stop and refused to follow medical orders. Why? Are you worried you’re going to end up like that?” “Not by choice.” Dash shook her head. “At first, I was angry at Twilight and the doctors for grounding all of us. Like we’re showponies, who need special handling. But Twilight dared me to extend my wings. And I couldn’t.” She sighed, “Now I’m starting to think they were too easy on us. Letting us run too hard and too hot. Letting us get our wings and muscles so tore up on the inside we’ll never be any good again… they’ll pull in a whole new group of reservists, and pack us off to wherever.” Bow got up from his chair, and Dash could hear a few of his joints popping. “You know what the best medicine is for a young pegasus?” He asked. Dash sighed. “Is it supposed to be love? Please don’t say love.” “Heh. Well, that’s always a good standby. But there’s a better one.” Dash gave a hoofshrug. “No idea.” “Time.” She could only look at him, puzzled. “I don’t get it.” Bow chuckled. “Neither did I, at first. But,” he said, motioning her to the couch, as he pulled two blankets down from its back. “I know that the hardest thing for anyone in the Forces to do is take time off. There’s always something to do, some priority mission, friends you need to hang out with. That wonderful high-speed, low-drag life.” Dash laid down prone on the couch, and Bow draped a blanket over her. She could see it was an old Wonderbolts blanket, the one her mother had knitted by hoof when she was about twelve, just for her, because she asked for one, and her mother wanted to make it special. But Dash said nothing. “Sometimes,” her father continued, “even though it goes against every instinct we pegasi have, we have to slow down and take time.” “Even when we’re hurting?” “Especially when we’re hurting.” Bow sat down on the couch, pulling his own blanket over himself. “So you’re grounded until spring. So what? If you think you have to get something done every second of every day… well, let me tell you, nothing good comes from that. Addictions to stress… that’s a bad life.” “So…” Dashie asked, “is that why you retired early? Too much?” “It’s the big reason, yes. But there were a lot of little reasons in that big reason. Little reasons all the way down.” “Such as?” “Such as, I was newly married. And I figured I could either be married to your mother, or married to the Forces.” “Yeah… Mom never seemed to be one for open relationships, if you know what I mean.” Dash saw her father roll his eyes. “You joke about it, but I saw a lot of wrecked marriages when I was in. More so than wrecked wings or busted legs. And your mom was too special to me to risk that.” Dash only snorted. “Funny, when I was a foal, I thought all that lovey-dovey stuff you did was an act.” “And now?” “Now I’m starting to wish there was more of it. In the ‘Bolts. In all the Flying Forces. Spitfire was saying that handling other squadmates’ breakups is the least fun part of being a commander.” “Did you believe her?” “I do now. Just handling Sonic Cupidbooms was making me reach for the painkillers. Even before, y’know, this.” “Sonic Cupidbooms?” Dash shrugged. “It’s what we call it when two ‘Bolts decide they’re in a relationship and going steady and come to us. Or if they’ve been seeing each other on the side without telling us and have a bad breakup. Or they get married. Or they got secretly married and had a bad breakup and were divorcing. Like a Sonic Rainboom, but for hearts. Big, colorful, and will absolutely wreck anything that isn’t braced for impact. When we get one, Command has to go in and make sure they’re not in the same flight, or same squadron if they’re high up or the relationship was all feathered up. The worst ones are the ones where they think being a two-Bolt couple can’t work, and one of them just has to get out. There was one couple, who asked me, ‘pick who’s the most valuable to the Bolts, and keep them.’ Like… how do I even do that? I can’t tell the truth and say what I really think. That’s just… wrong. Confidence wrecking. And I certainly won’t lie.” “Oh, I know that feeling. We just called them heart chits back when I was in... ‘Cupidbooms,’ huh? Guess my little Dashie had something to do with that.” He moved to tousle her hair. Dash shot her father a look of annoyance. “Dad. No.” Bow withdrew his hoof. “You’re right, you’re right, I said I would stop it.” He exhaled. “I mean, I hope you understand, it was always genuine. Loving you. Loving your mom. You two are the best things that ever happened to me. I knew that leaving the Forces would be a sacrifice… but, in hindsight, I am so very glad I did.” He sighed. “There was more… but…” Dash could have sworn she heard her father’s voice crack, just a little bit. But it was there. “So what was the more?” This time, it was Bow who only shrugged. “It’s not really important.” “Hey, I spilled my inner thoughts. Quid pro quo, Dad.” Bow raised a hoof to make a point, and stopped before saying a word, only shaking his head. “You’ve been hanging out with that Princess too much. All those unicorn words and bargaining tricks.” He paused. “But promise me you…” Dash had a flash of concern. “What is it, Dad?” Bow bit his lower lip. “I told myself I’d tell you this story someday. When I thought you would understand it instead of being scared off by it. I think you’ve been ready for far too long. Maybe I just still think of you as my little filly, and part of me still wants to protect you, to keep you confident, even though you’ve been able to do that yourself for a long time now.” “Dad…” Dash said, “you’re freakin’ out your daughter right now. Because if I have some long lost evil twin or something–” Dash could always make her father laugh, and that time he did. “Ahh…, no. Nothing so weird. But I hope it at least explains something about your old sire.” Bow got up, and with a few powerful flaps of his wings, flew up to the top shelf of a bookcase, where he and her mother kept all the old photo albums. Behind three volumes of her parent’s old photos, and the thirty or so devoted to Rainbow Dash, was an album that Dash had never seen before, not even in passing by at top speed flying at ceiling level when she was a filly, crammed in at the edge of the shelf behind the molding of the frame. “I knew you were never one for the past. And you certainly don’t like looking at old photo albums.” “Only just all the ones about me, dad.” “Well, that’s why I put this up with them all those years ago. So there,” he said, with a wink. Then he flew over to the couch, album in hand. It was a simple brown cover, with only one name in raised embossing tape. F.LT. DASH HIGHFEATHER R.F.F. “My namesake, huh? This going to be sappy?” Dash asked. She could see the photo album carried a weight for her father, and she tried to lighten the mood. “If only,” he sighed. “If only.” Bow opened the front cover. Dash could see her father swallow, hard. The first photo was an official military portrait. A young Royal Flying Forces officer in Class 1 dress uniform, wearing the same two-stripe epaulets of a Lieutenant that Dash herself wore, with weather officer’s wings, and an impressive set of ribbons. He had steel-gray fur, but with a striking blue and gold striped mane and tail. His wings were held tightly to his body, a pose Dash was familiar with from military portraits, and his mark was a feather, leaving a comet-like trail above a crescent moon. Behind him, the flags of the RFF and his squadron… No. 617 RFF, the Stormbusters. Dash suppressed some not-too-distant–and somewhat vexing–memories of the Stormbuster team trying to tell the Wonderbolts how to do things. Instead, she only asked, “You were in the Stormbusters?” “Yep. Apres Nous Le Deluge. Still the best all-weather squadron in the Forces. You know them?” “The Bolts…” Dash shook her head. “... yeah, I’ll be honest. We were on the same stormcell dispersion a few moons ago and they were jerks to us. Like we’re the best dang squadron of all, and they think we don’t know how to bust up a cloud line.” “Ah, inter-squadron turf wars. The RFF’s favorite pastime.” “Wait…” Dash said, “don’t tell me this whole time you flew for a rival squadron?” “Eh, not really a rival.” Bow said. “The joke was, you can always tell a Wonderbolt–” “--but you can’t tell’em anything. Yeah, even we tell that one among ourselves.” Bow laughed, and turned the page. “So there we were, Bow Hothoof and Dash Highfeather. We were bunkmates at Weather Control Academy, in the same four-pony flight. Of course, he was the leadpony. He was good. Always driving us up to the top of the rankings. We graduated as the best flight from WCA. There’s our flight,” he said, putting names to images, "Falconeye, Squall Heart, Big Dash, and me.” Big Dash, Rainbow Dash thought. “So me and Big Dash get posted to the Stormbusters. Made it through our FNP phase...” New Pegasus phase, with that not-for-foals descriptor in the lead. Dash hoped her father would not see her blush as she remembered her own days as the newbie of her squadron… and all the mistakes she made. Not least of which because she had never told him the full story. “...we got our weather wings, and then it was just boom, boom, boom, one mission after another. We were based out of Cloudsdale, over at RFF Arcus Mesa on the other side of town. I lived in the barracks, he lived off-post. We were basically the goalkeepers. Anything local weather control couldn’t handle, anywhere in Equestria, we got sent there. Maybe one or two weeks at a stretch, occasionally more. Those were good days…” There were more photos. Official squadron lineups, rows of stern-looking pegasi in dress uniforms on the edges of the Cloudsdale bank at Arcus Mesa. Candids from before and after missions (“you can tell these are the after ones, because none of us have shaved,” Bow commented). Pictures of pegasi in the Stormbusters’ blue-and-white flight suits, emblazoned with red lightning bolts on the helmet and hooves. And of course, many, many photos in bars, or in PT gear, in the barracks. And always in the same photo, inseparably, like a lead and a wingpony, her father, and the pegasus she had never known but whose name she–apparently–carried. Dash had never known this side of her father. It’d been a part of his life that she’d been led to believe was boring and tranquil. Yet each one of these photos felt oddly familiar, the cadences and excitements and struggles and accomplishments of life in the RFF that she knew so well. And yet all of them were of places and events and ponies that existed long before she did. “There we were, Big Bow and Big Dash,” her father said. “What was he like? I mean, not just as an officer, but as a pony?” She heard her father sigh. “He was a natural leader. Everypony liked him. The officers respected him, and so did the senior enlisted. He wasn’t a technical stallion, all the meteorology stuff. I think he left that to me because he knew I was good at that. But he was organized, sharp, intuitive. Always on. Always ready to go. And a great flier. Even in the worst weather. He had skills. You…” her father paused… “I think you would have liked him. And I know he would have liked you.” “Even if I was one of those snobby Wonderbolts?” Bow laughed, gently. “One of the reasons people liked Big Dash is that, yeah, he could play the inter-squadron rivalry game. Everyone in the Forces knows that game. But he also knew when to put it aside. Once it was mission time, to him, we were all on the same team. If the mission was accomplished, everypony won. That’s the kind of pony you really learn leadership from. I can only hope you’ve got ponies like that in the ‘Bolts…” Spitfire. All the intensity of a tornado, with the windspeed to match. Cocky, but anypony under her command needs anything, she’s there at the drop of a feather. Soarin. Half prancing playboy, half gentlecolt. A perfectionist who lets it rub off on you, who makes you want to be the best and keep up with him. Fleetfoot. Shy. Quiet. The finest technical and weather mind in the squadron. Who can give you a morale boost just by looking at you and saying you got this, who can and has talked panicking newbies back down to ground level. “Yeah. Yeah, I think I do.” Dash smiled, and her father saw, and he smiled too. Dash watched as her father flipped through more pages of photographs, explaining each one, while she rested on the couch. Her wings still ached, but something about this made it manageable. Then came a fun photograph of Bow Hothoof and Dash Highfeather, striking exaggerated flexing poses in their Class 1A Mess Dress Uniforms… next to a pair of two very attractive looking pegasus mares, one of whom had a bright orange mane, and was wearing a wedding dress. “Wait…” Dash said, a jolt of recognition. “Mom?” “Yep. That was the day your mom and I got married. Big Dash was my best stallion, and his wife was one of your mom’s bridesmaids. Skywriter. Cute mare. No guff from anyone. She was a freelance reporter for Sun & Moon. Very smart. Always had her ear to the clouds. Often she knew what was happening before we did. They had two foals, twin colts.” “Wait, so all that playboy nonsense…” Bow smiled. “Mares love a stallion in uniform, and I was serious. But Dash was acting. The whole time. He and Skywriter were high school sweethearts back in Whinneapolis. After we graduated WCA, Dash had taken his leave and eloped with her. Didn’t say a thing until I saw he’d updated his emergency contact list with a wife.” “Why not? Seems like something that, you know, you need to tell your squadmate about. Or your CO.” Her father visibly winced. “Back in those days, the thinking in the Forces was that if we were supposed to have wives or husbands, they’d be RFF-issued. It wasn’t a very good time for relationships in the service, let alone family life. The expectation was that mares who got married were on terminal leave and were about to be out. If you were a stallion with anything other than a housewife, you expected no end of trouble. And you remember those love chits I told you about? Yeah, there was constant bed-hopping in the barracks, at least if you were into that sort of thing and kept it discreet. That’s how a lotta marriages got broken up. But if two pegasi in the Forces fell hard for each other, wanted to get married, and both of ‘em wanted to stay in, they had to hide it until something forced the issue. Otherwise, command would pick the most “valuable” one–usually the stallion–and send the other one packing.” Dash struggled to find her words. “Wow… I… wow. I had no idea that they made it so hard. Why?” Her father sighed, shrugged, and shook his head. “And being stress junkies is just one of the bad habits of pegasi!” he said, his voice filled with all the exaggerated puffery of a salespony. “Don’t forget all the ways we’re wired to think about what stallions and mares should do and act, even 850 and some years after Celestia told us to knock it off! Oh, and all the ways we’re supposed to deal with foals who don’t measure up to expectations, grind ‘em up and make ‘em into rainbows or something…” Dash laughed. But she noticed the facing page of the album was blank. Bow continued. “Yeah, we’ve got all kinds of problems, us bird ponies. But at our best, we unite, we work hard, we pull together. We get stuff done. That’s how the good pegasi are. That’s what Dash was for me.” Was. Dash did not want to see her father continue the story. But she said nothing when he did. “So we got called over to the West Coast. Up by Seaddle. Something, or someone… was making a typhoon out there, one that was going against the prevailing winds. No way it was natural. If it hit, the city would have been flooded out. We never found out what or who made that storm. RFF Weather Command sent us, and every other weather control squadron, too. We were supposed to bust the thing while it was still over the North Luna Ocean. We’d done hurricanes before, so we figured, easy, right? And…” Dash saw her father’s face fall, pensive and sad. She had never noticed the lines on his face before. He looked… old. Older than she’d ever remembered him. “I don’t know what you saw in that storm of yours,” he said. “And I won’t ask you. I figure you’ll tell me when the time is right.” Dash immediately set any thought of telling her father what she saw or felt in that derecho, or in the nightmare that followed, aside. I need to hear this first. I need to make sure he’s… “Have… you told anyone else about this before?” Dash asked, worried. “Bits and pieces, for your mother. But not at once,” he replied. “We’d been flying missions against that monster storm for a week. Taking bare minimum time for rest, if that. But we were finally making progress. We’d cut the storm into a few big chunks, and we were reducing them, a little bit at the time. The ‘Busters were sent up towards one that had made landfall and was moving towards Mount Haynier. Problem was… it ran into a cold front just as we took off. By the time we got there, it was an ice storm. And…” Dash heard her father stifle a sob, “...and we were not prepared for it.” Oh no. Dash moved closer to her father. She knew. Every weather pony knew. Every pegasus knew. You avoided ice storms. Ice storms were death without a special flight suit and special training. And even those who had both knew to respect the danger of ice. Ice was the one thing every pegasus feared most. Ice froze wing joints in place, built up on feathers, covered goggles, encrusted hooves and manes and tails. Ice made pegasi fall from the sky. Oh no. She hugged her father close. “Oh, Dad.” Bow hugged his daughter back, and kissed her on the forehead. Then he took a deep, shuddering breath, and continued. “We did our best. We sliced that thing up like a Hearth’s Warming Squash. But every cut we made, all that supercooled water just spilled out in front of us. It added up. Too much weight. One by one, we dropped from the sky. The last time I saw Big Dash… he was headed right into Mount Haynier. I barely managed to dodge it. Made an emergency landing on a logging road. Took eight hours for the Pegarescue flight to find me. I didn’t hear anything about Big Dash for three more days. He hit with full force, head on. Died instantly.” Dash laid her head on her father’s shoulder, like she had so many times as a filly. Like she hadn’t in years. “The funeral was the worst part. The entire squadron went to Whinneapolis. Wives and husbands and significant others too. Skywriter was there. His boys were there. They were four years old. They cried the whole time. Skywriter didn’t. Neither did your mom. The rest of us…” he trailed off. Bow turned the page of the photo album. A front-page newspaper clipping about the storm. RFF BATTLES ICE-CANE NEAR MOUNT HAYNIER; ONE WEATHER CONTROL PEGASUS AMONG 30 DEAD. The official accident report. The obituary. The funeral announcement. The rest of the pages of the photo album—more than half of them–remained blank. “There’s nothing more,” Bow Hothoof finally said. “I keep it blank because he only lived half a life.” The two of them sat in silence for a very long time. “So what happened after?” Dash finally worked up the nerve to ask. “The night after the funeral, I had gone out with the squadron, down to the hotel bar. We just drank and drank and told sad stories. And we kept toasting and toasting, ‘To absent friends.’ And… finally I had enough. I went back upstairs. I just sat with your mom in our hotel room. I told her I was done with the RFF. I would put in my retirement papers, take terminal leave. I had enough to qualify for the E.I. Bill, so I could get a degree. Go into weather engineering. I would never put her through what Skywriter was going through. Never. She agreed. And she comforted me. We just… held each other, for the rest of the night. I got out the next spring. And the spring after that, you were born.” A few hours ago, this would have been too much information for Dash. “It’s…” she said. “It’s like…” She struggled her way to the words. “Now I know why you named me Rainbow Dash.” And why you were always calling me Your Little Dashie. “It was your mother’s idea,” Bow said. “I didn’t even bring it up. But when she did, I immediately said yes.” Dash felt her father gently stroking her mane. “I was in a very dark place for a time after what happened. But then I saw you… and… it was like everything made sense again. I learned how to see the world again. New and bright. I saw it through your eyes, Dashie.” He inhaled hard, and Dash felt her father’s wing around her. “And that’s why I was always cheering you on. No matter what. I wanted you to fly as far as those wings of yours could carry you.” “So… why did you never tell me about this?” Dash asked. Bow looked pensive for a moment. “You’d fallen in love with the idea of being a Wonderbolt. And I certainly didn’t want to scare you out of it. Knowing what could happen. I figured I would tell you when the time was right. I just… never got around to it.” He turned to face her. “I’m sorry I didn’t.” “No need to be,” she replied. “Now was the right time for me to hear it.” “Hm,” Bow said, flipping through the last blank pages. “Perhaps there was… well I’ll be. I wondered where that one ended up.” Stuck in the corner of the last page of the photo album, was one small photo. This one was of Bow Hothoof, cradling a very small, and very sleepy-looking, pegasus filly with a rainbow mane, close to his chest, her blue fur awash in a sea of her father’s gray, one of her eyes closed and the other eye looking grumpily around.. “I think you were about a month old in this one,” Bow said. “Your mom said that I could always calm you down, no matter how worked up you got.” Dash looked at the photograph, then at her father, then back at the photograph. A concerning thought came to Rainbow Dash. “Are… are you worried about what might happen if I keep flying? That I’ll end up–” “Crashing?” Bow said. “Not you. I mean, I did hear those stories about you at Flight Academy. How you got a reckless flier kicked off flight status. Which… Celestia, I wish someone had done for us whenever one of us flew recklessly.” Dash’s ears perked up at this. “You never got grounded?” Bow shook his head. “In my day, you took grounding only if you had no other choice, court-martial or medical. And even those, you fought. Laying down and taking a grounding… it was… it was almost like surrender to the enemy like we were back in the Draconic Wars. You flew no matter what.” Dash heard her father sigh, but with… pride? “You know how I know things have changed in the Forces? For better?” Dash shrugged. “When I heard you say that your Captain had told the Wonderbolts–the Wonderbolts!–that if the Princess said they were grounded, they were staying grounded. That would have been… unthinkable in my day with the Stormbusters.” Dash heard her father take a deep breath. “Your squadron is setting the example for the rest of the Forces. The right way. And… I couldn’t be more proud of you for accepting it.Even knowing how much it would make you feel lazy or a slacker or not worth your wings. That’s what I was talking about. Time. Knowing when to step back and think about your decisions. Good skill for a pegasus. Even more important for a leader.” Dash’s face fell. “I… I never told you this. But after Twilight… grounded us, I begged her to take it back. That we were still good to go, we just had to take it easy.” Bow said nothing. “And she told me that she’d take it back if I could open my wings… and… and I couldn’t.” Dash felt a tear come to her eyes. “And this whole time I thought I was weak.” Bow held his daughter close. “Just the opposite, Dashie. That takes being strong. And smart. And brave. And all the things I know you know how to do. That Princess friend of yours knows what she’s doing, I think. Maybe some of what you taught her in those flying lessons stuck.” This time, Dash did not shy away from the praise. She thought of Twilight’s concern for her, and for the Wonderbolts. She knew. Dash thought of Spitifire’s note on the box of reading, that she herself would be up for Command and Staff College in a few months when she pinned on Flight Commander’s bars. Then she remembered that only those with a Group Captain’s recommendation attended C&S. Taking the grounding… She was giving me an example. She wasn’t just making a show for Twilight. She knew too. She was passing on a lesson to me. A lesson that she thinks I’ll need… for when I make Group Captain. For when I’m a leader. In that moment, Dash began to feel better. Maybe, she thought, maybe I did need to talk to my father. She held him close, and made a note to give her mother a real embrace the following morning. To really talk with her, for the first time in years. Time and love, the cures for a wounded heart. Strange thoughts filled Dash’s mind. It was as if the storm she had seen in her dream had been blown aside, and now she could see clearly, possible futures before her. Continuing with the Wonderbolts. Setting the ‘Bolts aside. Going to work directly for Twilight, helping her with all those pesky Princess problems she was always twilighting about. It was the least I could do for her now. Dash looked at her father. His gaze was still fixed on the photo of her when she was a filly. Dash looked at the photo of her as a newborn foal, but not her own surly grumpiness, but the depths of the love in her father’s eyes. There would be family in her future, there would be love. How couldn’t it be? Two paths diverged in her mind. Two relationships left hanging in mid-air. Soarin was cute, in a total hunk kind of way. (What was that thing Twilight called him? Callypigeon or something?) And Soarin was confident and a great flier, and all the great little fliers– You never told him. You thought you had to keep it strictly professional. He almost died that day. If you’re serious you need to… Dash’s mind strayed again. Applejack was soft, and warm, and kind, and always smelled of sugar and grass. (Soarin called her stacked, whatever that meant.) Applejack made her feel content whenever she was around. And she, too, had family. And… maybe… just maybe… she would listen if you said you were sorry… Two paths diverged in her mind. Two possibilities among many. And Dash laughed. Her personal life had been a disaster for far too long. And now you’re about to be respectable, too, Crash. Gonna need to start acting like it. Aviate, Navigate, Communicate. Dash looked at the photo again. Dad was right. Time and love. Those can fix everything. If you know where to look. She made a mental note to thank Twilight for the grounding. She flexed her wings inside of her braces. Okay. Command lessons learned. One. A break every once in a while doesn’t hurt. Two. Why fly solo when you can fly together? She turned the story and the lessons over and over in her mind for a very long time. “Whatcha thinking about, Dashie?” Her father asked. He had closed the photo album and set it aside. “Oh… lots of things,” Rainbow Dash replied. “Guess… scratch that, no guess. I did get worked up. But… I think I’ll be OK.” She pulled up her Wonderbolts quilt, and gave her father the biggest hug she had ever remembered giving her biggest supporter in a very, very, very long while. It felt good. “Happy Hearth’s Warming, Dashie.” “Happy Hearth’s Warming, Dad.”
AfterBow made his way up the stairs of the hotel, slowly and unsteadily on his hooves. He dared not try to fly in his condition, after so many drinks consumed with his squadronmates at the hotel bar, always with the toast To Absent Friends. Out of breath, he made it to the 18th floor, then checked every sign looking for his room, only to realize that he had left his room key with her. He knocked on the door with his hoof, three times. He didn’t know if it was too soft or too loud, if it would wake her or scare her. He waited, and knocked again, a million fears and doubts racing through his mind. The door opened, and she appeared. “Bow.” she said, noncommittally. She hated when he was like this after “nights out” with his RFF squadron mates. And he hated coming back to her like this. But this time, something had changed. Whatever composure he had failed him in this moment, and he fell, gently, into her forehooves, his wings open and falling down limp and useless beside him. “I… I can’t do this anymore,” Bow said, his voice shuddering. “I can’t. I won’t. I won’t let that happen to you. I won’t… I won’t let you mourn me. I won’t leave you a widow. I…” Windy embraced her husband. He felt the soft satin of her robe, her hot breath on his neck. Her familiar, comforting smell. He needed only these things in this moment. He needed only her. “I want out. I’m leaving the RFF. If I have to make a choice, I choose you,” he said. Windy held him tightly, as if she was carrying a wounded flier down to the ground, never letting go. She stroked his mane, as he stifled a sob in her neck. “Are you okay, Bow?” she asked. Bow could only shake his head. “I’ll… I’ll be fine. Just… stay with me. Please.” She led him over to the bed, the door closing behind them. They laid there, in a silent embrace, for a very long time. Finally, Windy spoke. “Don’t be sad. Though… I know you will.” Bow looked over at her, the mare he loved so much, the mare whose happiness had become more important than air or water or life itself. He squeezed her hoof tighter. “I was thinking about Dash… what he would think… if…” he trailed off. “Dash was a good stallion. And he was your best friend. It’s all right to mourn him,” Windy said, softly. “The best thing I can do for you is make sure I learn from his mistake. That I value what’s important,” Bow said, not realizing the depth of anger in his voice, hoping that she would not be scared away, seeing him in this moment. “I married you. I chose you. I love you. I want you. I… I need you. Nothing else matters.” Bow was speaking from the pain in his heart, a profound sadness and fear. The memory of Mount Haynier growing closer and closer as he tried desperately to turn towards the logging road in the howling windstorm. And yet, Windy Whistles held on to him.
ThoughtsBow walked home, slowly, next to Windy, their tails entwined, from the doctor’s office along cloudy paths under a clear sky. “A filly,” Bow said, for probably the tenth time (or was it hundredth time? he thought). “We’re gonna have a filly.” Each time he said that, the smile came back to his face. It felt good to smile. There had been precious little to smile about. “Holy horses,” Bow said, the smile staying, seeming permanently etched on his face. “I have no idea what I’m doing and I couldn't be happier.” Windy put a wing around her husband. “Relax, flyboy. You’ll do fine.” Bow chuckled, deeply and happily. “You know I had only brothers. No sisters. I’m literally going to be flying blind here. I am in so much trouble… and I do not care.” Bow felt Windy’s wing grip his barrel chest. “So… I was thinking about names for a filly…” That was enough to scramble him. “Uh… I… was… I mean, whatever you’re happy with. I mean, no frame of reference here…” Then Bow saw the smile come to Windy’s face, as wide as the sky. “I was thinking… Rainbow… Dash.” Bow stopped dead in his tracks, and he looked at his wife, a hundred billion thoughts racing. “I… I couldn’t… I wasn’t… I mean… if you’re sure. You’d… you’d be fine with it?” Windy nodded. “I would. I am.” She kissed Bow on the cheek. “I can’t think of a better tribute. She’s gonna have the best dad. And the best guardian, watching out for her from above–” It was all Bow could do to embrace his wife, holding her and never letting her go. “Thank you,” Bow whispered, over and over and over again.
DreamsThat night, the nightmare did not return. Instead, there was a dream. Rainbow Dash was flying. And she heard voices from down below, calling to her. Spitfire. Twilight. Soarin. Applejack. Beside her flew another pegasus in a blue and white flight suit with red lightning bolts on the hooves. Dash thought she saw a streak of blue and gold mane. The pegasus signaled. Two chops of his hoof. You are Lead now. Course and speed at your discretion. She looked back at him, and queried with a signal of her own, hoof upturned. Please identify? The pegasus smiled, rendered a quick salute, and broke skyward into the heavens. “It’s not gonna work, Dashie. You can’t stay up forever,” Bow said, a gentle smile on his face. Bow enfolded his tiny Rainbow Dash in his forehooves, and his wings. Rainbow was only a month old and constantly resisted her rest, her grumbly cries letting everyone around know that she was not tired. But Bow could see that his daughter was indeed getting sleepier and sleepier, one eye firmly closed, the flapping of her tiny wings slowing, Bow slowly stroking her many-colored mane with constant care. He’d remembered his own mother doing that for him, and to his surprise and joy, it worked on his little Dashie too. “Goodnight, Dashie,” he said in a near whisper. “It’s okay. Go dream. I’m still gonna be here when you wake up.” Bow heard the click of a camera shutter, and looked over at Windy, who was standing there in the doorway. “Huh,” he said. “I guess you were right.” He looked back down at his daughter, whose remaining eye drooped lower, and lower, until her grumbly cries stopped, and she fell into sleep at long last. “I told you,” Windy said, approaching them with gentle flaps of her wings. “I told you she listens to you.” She reached over, and they kissed. “You want to go put her in her crib?” “In a while,” Bow said, feeling his daughter asleep on his chest. “I want to make sure she’s dreaming first.”
AboveThe clouds were out to get Rainbow Dash, and she did not feel all right. Simple cloudbusting mission, my sparkling flanks, she thought. Instead, she was #3 in the command lead flight of a bunch of Wonderbolts who were somehow flying into the most vicious windstorm Dash had ever felt. She could barely see Spitfire’s wings in the #1 position, flapping just in her peripheral vision, all else was clouds and raindrops flying horizontally, coating her entire body. The shifting winds seemed to fight Dash’s wings, threatening to knock her off course with every gust, and forcing her to use her hind legs like rudders. “Where the hay is the center mass of this thing?” Dash heard Spitfire yelling. “It shouldn’t be like thith!” Fleetfoot called out from behind her, in the #4 slot. Dash’s heart sank, as she remembered that Fleetfoot, the best meteorologist in the Bolts, only now lisped when she was scared. “It wath a thimple—” Just then, Dash felt a violent updraft under her wings, forcing her higher and almost blowing her forward and leftward into Spitfire. Her wing bones flexed hard, almost to the breaking point, and Dash barely suppressed a scream of pain, but she heard both Spitfire and Fleetfoot cry out. “What was that?” Spitfire yelled out. “This shouldn’t be…” “Ith a derecho!” Dash heard Fleetfoot shouting. “The cell mutht have changed shape! We’re in a bookend vortexth!” “Can’t be!” Soarin called out from across the formation in the #2 slot. “Derechos are summer storms!” “They can form anytime with enough moithture and the righth fronths! Ith the only thing thath maketh thence!” Another updraft, this one even more sudden, jolted the flight. This time, Dash could control her vector, but not the pain. “We can’t stay in here! We’ll be torn apart!” “Soarin!” Spitfire yelled, slowly but clearly. “Pull up and reverse, get back to the rest of the squadron! Tell them we’re in a derecho and they need to look for a bow echo pattern and break the other vortex! We’ll just have to do what we can on this one!” Dash’s heart pounded in her chest, and she fought back the fear. Soarin’s the strongest flier here, but if even he pulls an Immelponn while an updraft hits…I don't know what I'd do if... “Yes ma’am!” Soarin called out, no hesitation in his voice. “3…2…1… BREAK!” Dash heard a loud snap coming from her left. Out of the corner of her goggles, she saw a blur of a Wonderbolt flight suit shooting upwards into the sky. Then he was out of sight and sound. Now they were down to three. “Dash, I’m slotting back to your left, danger close! You are now #1!” Dash heard the Wonderbolt captain’s call and immediately understood. Dash was now going to be the lead pony of the flight, Spitfire and Fleetfoot an echelon behind. It’s all on you, Dash, she told herself as she saw Spitfire flare her golden wings for a split second to slow down. Watch out for updrafths and downdrafths!” Fleetfoot yelled. “If iths thrait up or down, thatth thenter math and we can thtart buthtin!” “Affirmative!” Dash called out, now as the Flyer In Command. She concentrated on the flight path ahead, searching for the center of the vortex so they could start tearing it apart from the inside out. “On my mark, left rudder fifteen degrees with legs for two seconds, in three…two…one… MARK!” The three pegasi turned as if one, keeping perfect formation. Their vector changed and the turn completed. Then Dash felt an equally violent downdraft pressing upon her whole body. The raindrops flew at her with furious speed, each one on impact feeling like a grain of sand abrading them down to bone, the leading edge of her wings searing, her feathers being pulled and stretched at once… Now or never. “STORM CENTER, STORM CENTER!” Dash called out. “BUST! BUST! BUST!” Dash lowered her front and back hooves. She felt her innate pegasi magic flowing through them, tearing giant gashes through the vortex, slicing through the heart of the storm. She felt the storm destabilizing. “ITH WORKING! CLOUDTH BREAKING!” Fleetfoot jubilantly replied. “KEEP GOING! KEEP GOING!” Dash fought a wave of pain. Not today! Not to us! “ON MY MARK, LEFT RUDDER FIVE DEGREES WITH LEGS, AND LOCK!” Dash called a vector that would keep the formation in a circle, cutting out the heart of the vortex, breaking it before the storm could do any more damage to the lands and ponies below. “THREE…TWO…ONE…MARK!” She flexed every muscle in her back legs and her core, shifting her legs off-axis. She felt herself turning, turning, in what she knew would be a perfect circular course. The turning movement made the gashes in the storm clouds she was cutting with her hooves bigger and wider. They were unstoppable now. Then, just as suddenly as they had flown into the vortex, the storm fell away and they were out of it. Thick clouds and violent rain gave way to clear and cool skies. It was over. Dash, Spitfire, and Fleetfoot had broken through. But it was not over. As the wind died down, Dash took stock of how her body felt, and it was not good at all. “Storm clear!” Dash called out. “Status reports! I am compromised!” “Compromised!” Spitfire replied. “Compromithed!” Fleetfoot replied in turn. Dash’s heart rose in her throat. A compromised pegasus could not fold in their wings, or had lost feathers, or both. Their movements had to be slow and careful, or they could stall or spin out. An entire flight compromised required immediate emergency landing. Dash swore silently. “Understood! Mayday, mayday, mayday, smoke out and lights on!” With practiced reflexes, Dash reached back with a forehoof and yanked the ripcord that ran down from her chest to her back legs. She felt the red smoke canisters on her back legs hissing and fizzing. Her peripheral vision was filled with the slow flashes of magic-powered red lights snugly looped around her rear pasterns. Between the smoke and the lights, everypony in the sky or ground for miles around who could see them would know they were in trouble. “Deployed,” Dash announced. “Deployed,” Spitfire called out. “I see a road, right ahead of us. Long and straight. Recommend you line us up for a tandem landing.” “Deployed,” Fleetfoot called in response. “We’re faithing into the wind on course three-one-five, altitude fourteen hundred. Windthpeed 40 and thteady,” she said. Dash vowed she would never say another word about Fleetfoot always flying with her instrumented goggles ever again. “Acknowledged,” Dash replied as she spied the road ahead of her, locked her eyes onto it, and called a vector that would put them on the ground with all deliberate speed, then briefed an emergency approach. “No flaps. Flare upward and drift down slowly. If you’re gonna miss the approach, pull up gently and recenter. Looks like plenty of road. Begin descent now.” Dash kept her wings flared open and level despite the searing pain. She feared a sudden crosswind from the storm behind them, but none came. Dash drifted down, down, down, onto the road below, her hooves touching the rough dirt road at a gallop, then a trot, then a walk. Then she stopped, and looked behind her. Through a haze of red smoke and lights, she saw Spitfire and Fleetfoot standing there. Their wings were held out, their hooves were wobbly, but they were safely on the ground. As the adrenaline faded, the pain started. None of them said anything, but as Dash took off her flight goggles, she could tell the others were suffering. Their wings, though still extended, drooped to the ground, their feathers bent, broken, disheveled. Tears filled their eyes. All of them simply laid down on the ground, according to standard procedure, and waited. It was not long before they heard the clip of hooves and the noise of cart wheels.
Bases“... their actions reflect great credit upon themselves, the Wonderbolts, and the Royal Flying Forces. For gallantry in weather service at great personal risk and wounds, I am pleased to award Group Captain Spitfire, Wing Commander Soarin, Flight Lieutenant Rainbow Dash, and Flight Lieutenant Fleetfoot, of Command Flight, No.1 Squadron, Royal Flying Forces, the Distinguished Flying Star, Second Class, and the Air Commendation Medal with Heart Device. Congratulations.” Rainbow Dash watched as the assembled Wonderbolts, all in crisp uniforms, stamped their hooves on the floor at Princess Twilight Sparkle’s announcement. Most of them were wearing wing braces, pinning their wings to their sides. Soarin had found the rest of the squadron, though he had two badly sprained wings and a greenstick fracture of his right ulna from the force of the Immelponn turn he pulled; he’d had to make an emergency landing himself after he located the rest of the squadron. The remaining Wonderbolts had found the other bookend vortex of the derecho and tore it apart, breaking the storm before it could do any more damage to the fields and small towns below. But it had come at a heavy price. Nearly all the Wonderbolts were out of action, receiving commendation medals for sustaining injuries while in flight. Dash stood, with a slight smile of relief on her face, as one of her oldest friends pinned two medals onto her dress uniform. She snapped a smart salute with her hoof. “Thank you, Your Highness.” Twilight closed her eyes, bowed her head, and mouthed the words, “Thank you.” Dash stood during the rest of the short ceremony. Her wings throbbed and ached from the ripped feathers, strained muscles, and battered tendons, and she desperately wanted to stretch them. But her wings, too, were secured in thick, padded, wing braces, which the doctors told her only to remove while changing clothes, showering, or during her daily physical therapy, meant to keep her damaged wings motile and limber as they healed. “Now… there is one other matter,” she heard Twilight say, once the last of the applause had died down. “All of Equestria–North Appleloosa especially–is grateful for what the Wonderbolts did for them. And now, it’s time for us to take care of you… and for you to take care of yourselves.” Dash’s heart fell in her chest. No. You wouldn’t. Please don’t. “Accordingly, I am ordering all of No. 1 Squadron, Royal Flying Forces, off of flight status per order of RFF Medical, effective until the first day of Spring.” The angry grumbles, and a few louder shouts of protest, came swiftly. Twilight had just grounded all the Wonderbolts for the next four months. “That’s ENOUGH!” Dash heard Spitfire bark. “If the Princess says we’re grounded, we’re grounded. We’ll just have to make the most of it.” Dash saw Spitfire turn to Princess Twilight. “Apologies for their outburst, your Highness. That’s on me.” She rendered a sharp salute. “Think nothing of it,” Twilight said. “I understand completely. Tell your flyers to rest, Captain. They’ve certainly earned it. And so have you.” “Yes, Ma’am,” Spitfire replied, and turned to the assembled squadron. “WONDERBOLTS! DIIIIIS-MISSED!” The squadron, including Dash, Soarin, and Fleetfoot, snapped to attention, saluted, and broke formation. Most of them simply hung their heads. A few exchanged whispers. Dash could see a few desperately holding back tears. I gotta try. Dash summoned her courage and walked up to Twilight, who greeted her one-time flying teacher, Royal Friendship Councilor, and above all friend, warmly. “Rainbow Dash! How are you feeling?” “I’m… managing.” Dash said. “Twilight… er, ma’am, can we talk in private?” In the corner of her eye, she saw Spitfire tilt her head with an odd glance. But the two of them had an unspoken understanding about Dash’s unique position with respect to the Equestrian Crown. So Spitfire merely nodded once, said “Excuse me, your highness,” saluted, and stepped away. Twilight looked at Dash, exhaling, and pointed to a side room for guests. As soon as the door closed behind them, Dash immediately spoke. “Twilight, I appreciate what you’re trying to do. But–” “Rainbow. Please. I spoke with the doctors. They showed me the x-rays and the pictures. Believe me, I know how good you are at faking injuries. But this? No. It’s real. These are serious injuries! What kind of a princess would I be if I let the Wonderbolts go flying again so soon? And what kind of friend would I be to you if I did?” Dash felt her face flush and her lips twist. “It’s a pegasi thing. You don’t understand. We need to be able to fly. Look, a lot of the younger Bolts just had minor sprains, at best, they can be up and at it in two weeks, three tops. Won’t even miss spring training for the Wonderbolts Derby, on schedule!” “And what about the ones who didn’t? What am I supposed to do for them?” “Let them heal at their own pace! We may be brash, but we’re not stupid. We’re professionals. We do this for a living. We know our limits.” Dash saw Twilight's horn light up, and felt the straps of her wing braces being removed. The very act of slipping them off made Dash wince with pain. “If you can open your wings, full spread, right now, I will change my orders.” “Twilight?” “You heard me.” Dash could tell when Twilight was joking, or joking to cover her panicking, or joking to cover her twilighting, or joking for any reason. She’s serious. Dash made to extend her wings, slowly, carefully, She forced the bones open, willed them, drove them as wide as she could, but not enough. Dash could hide her clenched teeth, but she felt tears trickling down her cheeks from the pain. “I tried,” she heard herself say, softly, confessing failure. “I tried. I tried. Please tell Spitfire I tried...” Dash felt Twilight hug her, and she broke. “I know. I will,” the Princess said as Dash sniffled in her royal hooves. “You always do.” As Hearth’s Warming was only a few weeks away, Twilight graciously offered the use of the Royal Airship (which Dash knew Twilight hardly ever flew on anyway, save for the most stuffy and formal of state visits to other lands) to bring all the now flight-forbidden Wonderbolts who lived in Cloudsdale home for the holidays. Which happened to be just under half of them. When Twilight asked her where she would be staying, Dash had originally said she would be going back to her home in Ponyville, or perhaps at the School of Friendship in the old castle. But Twilight noted that Dash had a cloud home in Ponyville that she could not fly to under medical orders, and the School of Friendship would be closed for Hearth’s Warming Break. You need somepony to take care of you, Twilight said. Applejack was a no-go, straight out; words had been said between them that Dash regretted and wished she could take back. And Dash didn’t want to trouble any of the others back in Ponyville to put her up for a few months, not even Fluttershy. And that left Rainbow Dash with only one option. When she stepped off the gangplank of HMAS Amicitia at the Cloudsdale docks, Windy Whistles and Bow Hothoof were there to greet her. Dash hadn’t even had time to take off her uniform, and she didn’t know which was worse: the pain in her wings, or the cringe she felt in her chest as she waited for her mother and father to start gushing over their Little Dashie once again. Her father was a cloud engineer at the Weather factory. He’d served, briefly, in the RFF. Her mother was a stay at home mom, who was, now that her only daughter was grown, teaching Flappercize aerobics classes. I’m going to be the only thing they want to talk about. It’s like I’m their entire life. Though neither of them said anything to her on the slow walk home over the clouds, Dash knew it was just a matter of time.
DaysDash spent most of her first day of Hearth’s Warming vacation asleep in her old room, surrounded by all her old trophies and medals, from her first Honorable Mention at Junior Speedsters, to the most recent medals for valor, pinned to the dress uniform that hung crisply from the hanger over the door. She was too tired, and in too much pain to complain. So she took her assigned dose of painkillers, and dozed. She didn’t hardly talk to her parents. The RFF had medical clinics all over Cloudsdale to care for the thousands of pegasi serviceponies who lived there. Dash made the short walk to the closest one at Cirrustop Square for her physical therapy appointments, per her doctor’s orders, three days each week. The first day, Dash winced as her wing braces were removed. She felt her face flush with burning humiliation as the therapist had to help her open her own wings. She sucked in air as the therapist had her slowly flap her wings up and down, up and down, not even fast enough for lift, just lying prone on a padded table. She listened to her breath as the therapist preened her battered feathers with a fine tooth comb and wingbalm. And she yelped when the mare plucked unsalvageable feathers out. She felt sad and tired as she walked home afterwards, wings re-braced. Her mother had a potato and pasta sourdough sandwich waiting for her. One thing went right today, at least. She still didn’t talk to her parents much. But she was grateful nonetheless. On the third day of her break, Dash came home from therapy (she had risen with a single flap, an inch above the table) to find a courier had left a gigantic box for her. And her parents, mercifully, had not opened it. Inside, Dash found a note from Spitfire on Wonderbolts letterhead. Crash- Professional Development Reading for your next promotion cycle. This is all the stuff an O-4 has to know to be eligible for Command & Staff College. If we can’t flap our wings, we can pump our heads so full of hot air we’ll float up. Say hi to your folks for me. You’re lucky to have them, zero chill about their little filly and all. “S”F Dash chuckled at the note. Spitfire loved using every Bolt’s handle whenever the opportunity arose… but she absolutely balked at saying or writing out her own. Every. Single. Time. Even the initials involved strategically placed quotation marks. Dash had only heard it from the horse’s mouth once, herself, the day she got her own handle. And after that, never again. But she, and everyone else in the squadron, knew the story, and knew to avoid eating big dishes of Mexipon food. Because Wonderbolts never knew when the next mission would be called. She still didn’t talk to her parents much. On the eighth night, Dash had a nightmare. She was back over Appleoosa, fighting the storm, cutting it, tearing it apart. But this time it did not die. It had a mind of its own. It thought. It hated. The living storm took her and Spitfire and Soarin and Fleetfoot, wrapping them in icy wind. Dash felt her wings being pulled off of her. Then the storm cast them down to the ground in a mighty draft. Just before impact, she bolted upright, her heart racing and gasping for breath. I could have died. Spitfire. Soarin. Fleetfoot. All of us. The nightmare refused to leave her mind that night, and she slept no more. The following day, the kind mare at physical therapy noted that Dash seemed dead on her hooves. Dash declined her offer for a few night’s worth of sleeping pills. She didn’t talk to her parents much. And she certainly did not say anything about the nightmare to them. On the eleventh day, Dash was going stir crazy. So she helped her mother decorate the house for Hearth’s Warming. Well, at least all the stuff that was down low enough. And roughly half the ornaments on the tree. Elapsed time to set out every Hearth’s Warming decoration, trinket, and tchotchke Windy Whistles had ever collected: two hours, five minutes, twelve seconds. Approximately ten minutes of that, she spent talking with her mother. Not that her mother didn’t try. And Dash still appreciated that about her. On the fifteenth day, Dash’s physical therapist noted that Dash seemed unusually tense. While she practiced a simple hover, Dash just kept talking and talking to the extraordinarily patient mare, saying whatever came to her mind to distract herself from the ache of her recovering flight muscles. “I’m addicted to stress. That’s the only way I get things done. If I’m not under pressure, I sleep too long, I hang around like some kind of flightless bum, and… you know, that makes me all nervous inside. Like life is out to get me. But I know life’s not out to get me. But you know, it’s not that bad. It could be worse. It’s ‘aaight.” She spent thirty minutes talking to her parents, mostly about the upcoming Wonderbolts Derby season, and most of that helping her mother look for a better spot for her season tickets. The eighteenth day was Hearth’s Warming Eve. She went to a dinner at the house of her parents’ next door neighbors. Her mother had insisted that Dash put on her nice uniform and medals. It would make her feel better. Give her a chance to talk to people. Dash agreed. It was a mistake. As soon as the evening started, everyone wanted to talk to her. About what she did in the RFF. Then about the Wonderbolts. Then about flight training. Then about her injuries. Then about Wonderbolt history. Then about what the RFF was looking for in new recruits. Then about her funniest stories from recruit training. Then about her thoughts on Princess Twilight’s foreign policy. She finally balked at one guest who was convinced that the War of the Three Villains had been some kind of an inside job. She barely had time to eat anything, she was talking so much. Dash did not talk to her parents for most of the night, though she desperately wanted to. She finally asked her mother if it would be OK if she left early, because she was feeling tired and her wings were hurting. Her mother, concerned, said it was just fine, and gave her a hug. Dash sat alone, in bed, sleepless. My body is breaking down. My time as a Wonderbolt is ending. This is all I’ve ever wanted to do. This is all I know how to do. What next? What if this is it for me? She wanted to talk to someone, anyone. But it was Hearth’s Warming Eve, and she knew everybeing was asleep. Maybe not one pony. But she’s retired.
StoriesDash could not sleep. It might have been the stress of the evening, it might have been the stepped-down dose of medicine, it might have just been her fear, but the pain in her wings was just too throbbing and too intense even for the painkillers. So she crept down the stairs, hoping to distract herself until Hearth’s Warming morning. She was heading for the couch in the living room and her stack of mind-numbing flight manuals and other “professional development” reading. But she noticed a single, solitary lamp on. It was her father, settled in his easy chair. As Dash crept up on her father, she could see he was just staring at the tree, lost in thought. “Hey, Dad,” she said. “Oh. Hi, Dashie,” he replied with a slight start. “Still couldn’t sleep?” “No.” “Wings still hurting?” “Yeah.” Dash sighed. “Figured I could try another binder of my reading, that might bore me to sleep.” “Ah,” Bow said. “Emergency procedures? Flight formations?” Dash took a thick binder off the top of the stack. “Essentials of Leadership.” They shared a knowing laugh. “Lemme guess. A bunch of Haybridge University business school case studies about widget manufacturing?” Dash opened the binder, and skimmed the table of contents. “Yep. How’d you know?” “Some things in the service never change. The reading. The paperwork. The long stretches of boredom with all those little moments of pure what the hay did I get myself into terror?” Dash could not help but laugh. “Yep. Had a few of…” and she trailed off without finishing the thought, as her mind began to go to places she did not want to go and to thoughts she did not want to think. She did not want to talk to her father. She desperately needed to talk to her father. Bow noticed. “You know you can tell me what’s wrong, Dashie.” “Even… even if it would make you less proud of your daughter?” The question left Dash’s mouth before she could take it back. “Hah. Impossible.” Bow’s fake laugh was obviously meant to comfort her, but it fell flat, and it took him a few seconds to realize it. “I can tell it’s a heavy load for you to fly, so I’m not going to say anything more if you don’t want to tell me. But, and I mean this, there isn’t anything you can do or have done that will make me love you any less, Dashie.” She looked at him. For most of his life, he’d been one of her two biggest cheerleaders. But there wasn’t any exaggerated pride now, no attagirl or you can do it or we believe in you. Maybe after all these years… She took a deep breath. “Dad… why did you quit flying? For the RFF, I mean. I know you told me you wanted to do something else with your life. And until now… well…” She swallowed hard. “I guess I understood that. But now, I… I need to know if there was anything more.” She looked up and saw Bow pressing his hooves together, a look of deep thought–sadness?--on his face. “You’re thinking of getting out?” Dash nodded. “Yep. I mean, I know ponies who’ve been medically retired from the Wonderbolts, or from other squadrons. Not because of any one big injury, but.. Y’know…” she tried to flap her wings, but the braces stopped her. “... a buncha little injuries. Muscle strains, stress fractures, just adding up over time. Until one day you just wake up, and you can barely make it to ten hooves up, let alone ten miles.” Bow shook his head. “No, it wasn’t that. Most of the medical retirees I knew were pegasi who just didn’t know when to stop and refused to follow medical orders. Why? Are you worried you’re going to end up like that?” “Not by choice.” Dash shook her head. “At first, I was angry at Twilight and the doctors for grounding all of us. Like we’re showponies, who need special handling. But Twilight dared me to extend my wings. And I couldn’t.” She sighed, “Now I’m starting to think they were too easy on us. Letting us run too hard and too hot. Letting us get our wings and muscles so tore up on the inside we’ll never be any good again… they’ll pull in a whole new group of reservists, and pack us off to wherever.” Bow got up from his chair, and Dash could hear a few of his joints popping. “You know what the best medicine is for a young pegasus?” He asked. Dash sighed. “Is it supposed to be love? Please don’t say love.” “Heh. Well, that’s always a good standby. But there’s a better one.” Dash gave a hoofshrug. “No idea.” “Time.” She could only look at him, puzzled. “I don’t get it.” Bow chuckled. “Neither did I, at first. But,” he said, motioning her to the couch, as he pulled two blankets down from its back. “I know that the hardest thing for anyone in the Forces to do is take time off. There’s always something to do, some priority mission, friends you need to hang out with. That wonderful high-speed, low-drag life.” Dash laid down prone on the couch, and Bow draped a blanket over her. She could see it was an old Wonderbolts blanket, the one her mother had knitted by hoof when she was about twelve, just for her, because she asked for one, and her mother wanted to make it special. But Dash said nothing. “Sometimes,” her father continued, “even though it goes against every instinct we pegasi have, we have to slow down and take time.” “Even when we’re hurting?” “Especially when we’re hurting.” Bow sat down on the couch, pulling his own blanket over himself. “So you’re grounded until spring. So what? If you think you have to get something done every second of every day… well, let me tell you, nothing good comes from that. Addictions to stress… that’s a bad life.” “So…” Dashie asked, “is that why you retired early? Too much?” “It’s the big reason, yes. But there were a lot of little reasons in that big reason. Little reasons all the way down.” “Such as?” “Such as, I was newly married. And I figured I could either be married to your mother, or married to the Forces.” “Yeah… Mom never seemed to be one for open relationships, if you know what I mean.” Dash saw her father roll his eyes. “You joke about it, but I saw a lot of wrecked marriages when I was in. More so than wrecked wings or busted legs. And your mom was too special to me to risk that.” Dash only snorted. “Funny, when I was a foal, I thought all that lovey-dovey stuff you did was an act.” “And now?” “Now I’m starting to wish there was more of it. In the ‘Bolts. In all the Flying Forces. Spitfire was saying that handling other squadmates’ breakups is the least fun part of being a commander.” “Did you believe her?” “I do now. Just handling Sonic Cupidbooms was making me reach for the painkillers. Even before, y’know, this.” “Sonic Cupidbooms?” Dash shrugged. “It’s what we call it when two ‘Bolts decide they’re in a relationship and going steady and come to us. Or if they’ve been seeing each other on the side without telling us and have a bad breakup. Or they get married. Or they got secretly married and had a bad breakup and were divorcing. Like a Sonic Rainboom, but for hearts. Big, colorful, and will absolutely wreck anything that isn’t braced for impact. When we get one, Command has to go in and make sure they’re not in the same flight, or same squadron if they’re high up or the relationship was all feathered up. The worst ones are the ones where they think being a two-Bolt couple can’t work, and one of them just has to get out. There was one couple, who asked me, ‘pick who’s the most valuable to the Bolts, and keep them.’ Like… how do I even do that? I can’t tell the truth and say what I really think. That’s just… wrong. Confidence wrecking. And I certainly won’t lie.” “Oh, I know that feeling. We just called them heart chits back when I was in... ‘Cupidbooms,’ huh? Guess my little Dashie had something to do with that.” He moved to tousle her hair. Dash shot her father a look of annoyance. “Dad. No.” Bow withdrew his hoof. “You’re right, you’re right, I said I would stop it.” He exhaled. “I mean, I hope you understand, it was always genuine. Loving you. Loving your mom. You two are the best things that ever happened to me. I knew that leaving the Forces would be a sacrifice… but, in hindsight, I am so very glad I did.” He sighed. “There was more… but…” Dash could have sworn she heard her father’s voice crack, just a little bit. But it was there. “So what was the more?” This time, it was Bow who only shrugged. “It’s not really important.” “Hey, I spilled my inner thoughts. Quid pro quo, Dad.” Bow raised a hoof to make a point, and stopped before saying a word, only shaking his head. “You’ve been hanging out with that Princess too much. All those unicorn words and bargaining tricks.” He paused. “But promise me you…” Dash had a flash of concern. “What is it, Dad?” Bow bit his lower lip. “I told myself I’d tell you this story someday. When I thought you would understand it instead of being scared off by it. I think you’ve been ready for far too long. Maybe I just still think of you as my little filly, and part of me still wants to protect you, to keep you confident, even though you’ve been able to do that yourself for a long time now.” “Dad…” Dash said, “you’re freakin’ out your daughter right now. Because if I have some long lost evil twin or something–” Dash could always make her father laugh, and that time he did. “Ahh…, no. Nothing so weird. But I hope it at least explains something about your old sire.” Bow got up, and with a few powerful flaps of his wings, flew up to the top shelf of a bookcase, where he and her mother kept all the old photo albums. Behind three volumes of her parent’s old photos, and the thirty or so devoted to Rainbow Dash, was an album that Dash had never seen before, not even in passing by at top speed flying at ceiling level when she was a filly, crammed in at the edge of the shelf behind the molding of the frame. “I knew you were never one for the past. And you certainly don’t like looking at old photo albums.” “Only just all the ones about me, dad.” “Well, that’s why I put this up with them all those years ago. So there,” he said, with a wink. Then he flew over to the couch, album in hand. It was a simple brown cover, with only one name in raised embossing tape. F.LT. DASH HIGHFEATHER R.F.F. “My namesake, huh? This going to be sappy?” Dash asked. She could see the photo album carried a weight for her father, and she tried to lighten the mood. “If only,” he sighed. “If only.” Bow opened the front cover. Dash could see her father swallow, hard. The first photo was an official military portrait. A young Royal Flying Forces officer in Class 1 dress uniform, wearing the same two-stripe epaulets of a Lieutenant that Dash herself wore, with weather officer’s wings, and an impressive set of ribbons. He had steel-gray fur, but with a striking blue and gold striped mane and tail. His wings were held tightly to his body, a pose Dash was familiar with from military portraits, and his mark was a feather, leaving a comet-like trail above a crescent moon. Behind him, the flags of the RFF and his squadron… No. 617 RFF, the Stormbusters. Dash suppressed some not-too-distant–and somewhat vexing–memories of the Stormbuster team trying to tell the Wonderbolts how to do things. Instead, she only asked, “You were in the Stormbusters?” “Yep. Apres Nous Le Deluge. Still the best all-weather squadron in the Forces. You know them?” “The Bolts…” Dash shook her head. “... yeah, I’ll be honest. We were on the same stormcell dispersion a few moons ago and they were jerks to us. Like we’re the best dang squadron of all, and they think we don’t know how to bust up a cloud line.” “Ah, inter-squadron turf wars. The RFF’s favorite pastime.” “Wait…” Dash said, “don’t tell me this whole time you flew for a rival squadron?” “Eh, not really a rival.” Bow said. “The joke was, you can always tell a Wonderbolt–” “--but you can’t tell’em anything. Yeah, even we tell that one among ourselves.” Bow laughed, and turned the page. “So there we were, Bow Hothoof and Dash Highfeather. We were bunkmates at Weather Control Academy, in the same four-pony flight. Of course, he was the leadpony. He was good. Always driving us up to the top of the rankings. We graduated as the best flight from WCA. There’s our flight,” he said, putting names to images, "Falconeye, Squall Heart, Big Dash, and me.” Big Dash, Rainbow Dash thought. “So me and Big Dash get posted to the Stormbusters. Made it through our FNP phase...” New Pegasus phase, with that not-for-foals descriptor in the lead. Dash hoped her father would not see her blush as she remembered her own days as the newbie of her squadron… and all the mistakes she made. Not least of which because she had never told him the full story. “...we got our weather wings, and then it was just boom, boom, boom, one mission after another. We were based out of Cloudsdale, over at RFF Arcus Mesa on the other side of town. I lived in the barracks, he lived off-post. We were basically the goalkeepers. Anything local weather control couldn’t handle, anywhere in Equestria, we got sent there. Maybe one or two weeks at a stretch, occasionally more. Those were good days…” There were more photos. Official squadron lineups, rows of stern-looking pegasi in dress uniforms on the edges of the Cloudsdale bank at Arcus Mesa. Candids from before and after missions (“you can tell these are the after ones, because none of us have shaved,” Bow commented). Pictures of pegasi in the Stormbusters’ blue-and-white flight suits, emblazoned with red lightning bolts on the helmet and hooves. And of course, many, many photos in bars, or in PT gear, in the barracks. And always in the same photo, inseparably, like a lead and a wingpony, her father, and the pegasus she had never known but whose name she–apparently–carried. Dash had never known this side of her father. It’d been a part of his life that she’d been led to believe was boring and tranquil. Yet each one of these photos felt oddly familiar, the cadences and excitements and struggles and accomplishments of life in the RFF that she knew so well. And yet all of them were of places and events and ponies that existed long before she did. “There we were, Big Bow and Big Dash,” her father said. “What was he like? I mean, not just as an officer, but as a pony?” She heard her father sigh. “He was a natural leader. Everypony liked him. The officers respected him, and so did the senior enlisted. He wasn’t a technical stallion, all the meteorology stuff. I think he left that to me because he knew I was good at that. But he was organized, sharp, intuitive. Always on. Always ready to go. And a great flier. Even in the worst weather. He had skills. You…” her father paused… “I think you would have liked him. And I know he would have liked you.” “Even if I was one of those snobby Wonderbolts?” Bow laughed, gently. “One of the reasons people liked Big Dash is that, yeah, he could play the inter-squadron rivalry game. Everyone in the Forces knows that game. But he also knew when to put it aside. Once it was mission time, to him, we were all on the same team. If the mission was accomplished, everypony won. That’s the kind of pony you really learn leadership from. I can only hope you’ve got ponies like that in the ‘Bolts…” Spitfire. All the intensity of a tornado, with the windspeed to match. Cocky, but anypony under her command needs anything, she’s there at the drop of a feather. Soarin. Half prancing playboy, half gentlecolt. A perfectionist who lets it rub off on you, who makes you want to be the best and keep up with him. Fleetfoot. Shy. Quiet. The finest technical and weather mind in the squadron. Who can give you a morale boost just by looking at you and saying you got this, who can and has talked panicking newbies back down to ground level. “Yeah. Yeah, I think I do.” Dash smiled, and her father saw, and he smiled too. Dash watched as her father flipped through more pages of photographs, explaining each one, while she rested on the couch. Her wings still ached, but something about this made it manageable. Then came a fun photograph of Bow Hothoof and Dash Highfeather, striking exaggerated flexing poses in their Class 1A Mess Dress Uniforms… next to a pair of two very attractive looking pegasus mares, one of whom had a bright orange mane, and was wearing a wedding dress. “Wait…” Dash said, a jolt of recognition. “Mom?” “Yep. That was the day your mom and I got married. Big Dash was my best stallion, and his wife was one of your mom’s bridesmaids. Skywriter. Cute mare. No guff from anyone. She was a freelance reporter for Sun & Moon. Very smart. Always had her ear to the clouds. Often she knew what was happening before we did. They had two foals, twin colts.” “Wait, so all that playboy nonsense…” Bow smiled. “Mares love a stallion in uniform, and I was serious. But Dash was acting. The whole time. He and Skywriter were high school sweethearts back in Whinneapolis. After we graduated WCA, Dash had taken his leave and eloped with her. Didn’t say a thing until I saw he’d updated his emergency contact list with a wife.” “Why not? Seems like something that, you know, you need to tell your squadmate about. Or your CO.” Her father visibly winced. “Back in those days, the thinking in the Forces was that if we were supposed to have wives or husbands, they’d be RFF-issued. It wasn’t a very good time for relationships in the service, let alone family life. The expectation was that mares who got married were on terminal leave and were about to be out. If you were a stallion with anything other than a housewife, you expected no end of trouble. And you remember those love chits I told you about? Yeah, there was constant bed-hopping in the barracks, at least if you were into that sort of thing and kept it discreet. That’s how a lotta marriages got broken up. But if two pegasi in the Forces fell hard for each other, wanted to get married, and both of ‘em wanted to stay in, they had to hide it until something forced the issue. Otherwise, command would pick the most “valuable” one–usually the stallion–and send the other one packing.” Dash struggled to find her words. “Wow… I… wow. I had no idea that they made it so hard. Why?” Her father sighed, shrugged, and shook his head. “And being stress junkies is just one of the bad habits of pegasi!” he said, his voice filled with all the exaggerated puffery of a salespony. “Don’t forget all the ways we’re wired to think about what stallions and mares should do and act, even 850 and some years after Celestia told us to knock it off! Oh, and all the ways we’re supposed to deal with foals who don’t measure up to expectations, grind ‘em up and make ‘em into rainbows or something…” Dash laughed. But she noticed the facing page of the album was blank. Bow continued. “Yeah, we’ve got all kinds of problems, us bird ponies. But at our best, we unite, we work hard, we pull together. We get stuff done. That’s how the good pegasi are. That’s what Dash was for me.” Was. Dash did not want to see her father continue the story. But she said nothing when he did. “So we got called over to the West Coast. Up by Seaddle. Something, or someone… was making a typhoon out there, one that was going against the prevailing winds. No way it was natural. If it hit, the city would have been flooded out. We never found out what or who made that storm. RFF Weather Command sent us, and every other weather control squadron, too. We were supposed to bust the thing while it was still over the North Luna Ocean. We’d done hurricanes before, so we figured, easy, right? And…” Dash saw her father’s face fall, pensive and sad. She had never noticed the lines on his face before. He looked… old. Older than she’d ever remembered him. “I don’t know what you saw in that storm of yours,” he said. “And I won’t ask you. I figure you’ll tell me when the time is right.” Dash immediately set any thought of telling her father what she saw or felt in that derecho, or in the nightmare that followed, aside. I need to hear this first. I need to make sure he’s… “Have… you told anyone else about this before?” Dash asked, worried. “Bits and pieces, for your mother. But not at once,” he replied. “We’d been flying missions against that monster storm for a week. Taking bare minimum time for rest, if that. But we were finally making progress. We’d cut the storm into a few big chunks, and we were reducing them, a little bit at the time. The ‘Busters were sent up towards one that had made landfall and was moving towards Mount Haynier. Problem was… it ran into a cold front just as we took off. By the time we got there, it was an ice storm. And…” Dash heard her father stifle a sob, “...and we were not prepared for it.” Oh no. Dash moved closer to her father. She knew. Every weather pony knew. Every pegasus knew. You avoided ice storms. Ice storms were death without a special flight suit and special training. And even those who had both knew to respect the danger of ice. Ice was the one thing every pegasus feared most. Ice froze wing joints in place, built up on feathers, covered goggles, encrusted hooves and manes and tails. Ice made pegasi fall from the sky. Oh no. She hugged her father close. “Oh, Dad.” Bow hugged his daughter back, and kissed her on the forehead. Then he took a deep, shuddering breath, and continued. “We did our best. We sliced that thing up like a Hearth’s Warming Squash. But every cut we made, all that supercooled water just spilled out in front of us. It added up. Too much weight. One by one, we dropped from the sky. The last time I saw Big Dash… he was headed right into Mount Haynier. I barely managed to dodge it. Made an emergency landing on a logging road. Took eight hours for the Pegarescue flight to find me. I didn’t hear anything about Big Dash for three more days. He hit with full force, head on. Died instantly.” Dash laid her head on her father’s shoulder, like she had so many times as a filly. Like she hadn’t in years. “The funeral was the worst part. The entire squadron went to Whinneapolis. Wives and husbands and significant others too. Skywriter was there. His boys were there. They were four years old. They cried the whole time. Skywriter didn’t. Neither did your mom. The rest of us…” he trailed off. Bow turned the page of the photo album. A front-page newspaper clipping about the storm. RFF BATTLES ICE-CANE NEAR MOUNT HAYNIER; ONE WEATHER CONTROL PEGASUS AMONG 30 DEAD. The official accident report. The obituary. The funeral announcement. The rest of the pages of the photo album—more than half of them–remained blank. “There’s nothing more,” Bow Hothoof finally said. “I keep it blank because he only lived half a life.” The two of them sat in silence for a very long time. “So what happened after?” Dash finally worked up the nerve to ask. “The night after the funeral, I had gone out with the squadron, down to the hotel bar. We just drank and drank and told sad stories. And we kept toasting and toasting, ‘To absent friends.’ And… finally I had enough. I went back upstairs. I just sat with your mom in our hotel room. I told her I was done with the RFF. I would put in my retirement papers, take terminal leave. I had enough to qualify for the E.I. Bill, so I could get a degree. Go into weather engineering. I would never put her through what Skywriter was going through. Never. She agreed. And she comforted me. We just… held each other, for the rest of the night. I got out the next spring. And the spring after that, you were born.” A few hours ago, this would have been too much information for Dash. “It’s…” she said. “It’s like…” She struggled her way to the words. “Now I know why you named me Rainbow Dash.” And why you were always calling me Your Little Dashie. “It was your mother’s idea,” Bow said. “I didn’t even bring it up. But when she did, I immediately said yes.” Dash felt her father gently stroking her mane. “I was in a very dark place for a time after what happened. But then I saw you… and… it was like everything made sense again. I learned how to see the world again. New and bright. I saw it through your eyes, Dashie.” He inhaled hard, and Dash felt her father’s wing around her. “And that’s why I was always cheering you on. No matter what. I wanted you to fly as far as those wings of yours could carry you.” “So… why did you never tell me about this?” Dash asked. Bow looked pensive for a moment. “You’d fallen in love with the idea of being a Wonderbolt. And I certainly didn’t want to scare you out of it. Knowing what could happen. I figured I would tell you when the time was right. I just… never got around to it.” He turned to face her. “I’m sorry I didn’t.” “No need to be,” she replied. “Now was the right time for me to hear it.” “Hm,” Bow said, flipping through the last blank pages. “Perhaps there was… well I’ll be. I wondered where that one ended up.” Stuck in the corner of the last page of the photo album, was one small photo. This one was of Bow Hothoof, cradling a very small, and very sleepy-looking, pegasus filly with a rainbow mane, close to his chest, her blue fur awash in a sea of her father’s gray, one of her eyes closed and the other eye looking grumpily around.. “I think you were about a month old in this one,” Bow said. “Your mom said that I could always calm you down, no matter how worked up you got.” Dash looked at the photograph, then at her father, then back at the photograph. A concerning thought came to Rainbow Dash. “Are… are you worried about what might happen if I keep flying? That I’ll end up–” “Crashing?” Bow said. “Not you. I mean, I did hear those stories about you at Flight Academy. How you got a reckless flier kicked off flight status. Which… Celestia, I wish someone had done for us whenever one of us flew recklessly.” Dash’s ears perked up at this. “You never got grounded?” Bow shook his head. “In my day, you took grounding only if you had no other choice, court-martial or medical. And even those, you fought. Laying down and taking a grounding… it was… it was almost like surrender to the enemy like we were back in the Draconic Wars. You flew no matter what.” Dash heard her father sigh, but with… pride? “You know how I know things have changed in the Forces? For better?” Dash shrugged. “When I heard you say that your Captain had told the Wonderbolts–the Wonderbolts!–that if the Princess said they were grounded, they were staying grounded. That would have been… unthinkable in my day with the Stormbusters.” Dash heard her father take a deep breath. “Your squadron is setting the example for the rest of the Forces. The right way. And… I couldn’t be more proud of you for accepting it.Even knowing how much it would make you feel lazy or a slacker or not worth your wings. That’s what I was talking about. Time. Knowing when to step back and think about your decisions. Good skill for a pegasus. Even more important for a leader.” Dash’s face fell. “I… I never told you this. But after Twilight… grounded us, I begged her to take it back. That we were still good to go, we just had to take it easy.” Bow said nothing. “And she told me that she’d take it back if I could open my wings… and… and I couldn’t.” Dash felt a tear come to her eyes. “And this whole time I thought I was weak.” Bow held his daughter close. “Just the opposite, Dashie. That takes being strong. And smart. And brave. And all the things I know you know how to do. That Princess friend of yours knows what she’s doing, I think. Maybe some of what you taught her in those flying lessons stuck.” This time, Dash did not shy away from the praise. She thought of Twilight’s concern for her, and for the Wonderbolts. She knew. Dash thought of Spitifire’s note on the box of reading, that she herself would be up for Command and Staff College in a few months when she pinned on Flight Commander’s bars. Then she remembered that only those with a Group Captain’s recommendation attended C&S. Taking the grounding… She was giving me an example. She wasn’t just making a show for Twilight. She knew too. She was passing on a lesson to me. A lesson that she thinks I’ll need… for when I make Group Captain. For when I’m a leader. In that moment, Dash began to feel better. Maybe, she thought, maybe I did need to talk to my father. She held him close, and made a note to give her mother a real embrace the following morning. To really talk with her, for the first time in years. Time and love, the cures for a wounded heart. Strange thoughts filled Dash’s mind. It was as if the storm she had seen in her dream had been blown aside, and now she could see clearly, possible futures before her. Continuing with the Wonderbolts. Setting the ‘Bolts aside. Going to work directly for Twilight, helping her with all those pesky Princess problems she was always twilighting about. It was the least I could do for her now. Dash looked at her father. His gaze was still fixed on the photo of her when she was a filly. Dash looked at the photo of her as a newborn foal, but not her own surly grumpiness, but the depths of the love in her father’s eyes. There would be family in her future, there would be love. How couldn’t it be? Two paths diverged in her mind. Two relationships left hanging in mid-air. Soarin was cute, in a total hunk kind of way. (What was that thing Twilight called him? Callypigeon or something?) And Soarin was confident and a great flier, and all the great little fliers– You never told him. You thought you had to keep it strictly professional. He almost died that day. If you’re serious you need to… Dash’s mind strayed again. Applejack was soft, and warm, and kind, and always smelled of sugar and grass. (Soarin called her stacked, whatever that meant.) Applejack made her feel content whenever she was around. And she, too, had family. And… maybe… just maybe… she would listen if you said you were sorry… Two paths diverged in her mind. Two possibilities among many. And Dash laughed. Her personal life had been a disaster for far too long. And now you’re about to be respectable, too, Crash. Gonna need to start acting like it. Aviate, Navigate, Communicate. Dash looked at the photo again. Dad was right. Time and love. Those can fix everything. If you know where to look. She made a mental note to thank Twilight for the grounding. She flexed her wings inside of her braces. Okay. Command lessons learned. One. A break every once in a while doesn’t hurt. Two. Why fly solo when you can fly together? She turned the story and the lessons over and over in her mind for a very long time. “Whatcha thinking about, Dashie?” Her father asked. He had closed the photo album and set it aside. “Oh… lots of things,” Rainbow Dash replied. “Guess… scratch that, no guess. I did get worked up. But… I think I’ll be OK.” She pulled up her Wonderbolts quilt, and gave her father the biggest hug she had ever remembered giving her biggest supporter in a very, very, very long while. It felt good. “Happy Hearth’s Warming, Dashie.” “Happy Hearth’s Warming, Dad.”
