speed machine

"Zipp!" Pipp called out from the streets.

Zipp perked up from the cloud she was reading on. It was an old diary style romance novel about an awesome pegasus who dreams of being part of a group called the wonderbolts while secretly being in love with her friend, a country earth pony with a talent for apples. It was actually quite an enjoyable read, with all the feelings written down, some of the 'entries' didn't even mention the earth pony. Like it was an actual diary.

"Yeah?" Zipp called back, leaning over the edge of the cloud.

"Did you seriously have to choose a raining cloud to read on? It just ruined my mane!" Pipp yelled. Zipp peered down underneath the cloud, only to realize it had shrunk to half its original size while she read, rain spilling out from the bottom.

She gave the cloud a hard slap on the side and it stopped.

Zipp then opened the book back up and continued reading.

"That. Was. Awesome!" Izzy cheered as the movie credits rolled. It was movie night at the bright-house, as was every Friday night.

"Heh." Zipp gave a small laugh, thinking how much the purple unicorn seemed to fit the description of the pink pony from the novel.

"Welp, that was fun. I'm gonna go out flying." Zipp announced to the room as she stood up.

"Again? That's the fifth time this week! And it's friday!" Pipp complained.

Zipp rolled her eyes at her sister as she headed to the door.

"Have fun girls!" Zipp told the four ponies as she opened the front door.

She shut the door behind her as she came down the front steps of the bright-house, the sky dark above her.

"Now lets see how fast I can go." she muttered as she stretched her wings and flapped them twice before taking off into the sky at a relatively normal speed.

She slowly sped up until a faint trail of magic the color of her mane and tail followed behind.

"Fast, but I could go faster." she told herself before speeding off at twice the speed, the trail becoming visible enough to spot from the ground below her, which was now just wilderness.

Half an hour later she was a third of the way to bridlewood. If she was running at this speed it would've taken at least a few hours, but without any terrain or obstacles in her way like on the ground, it would only take about an hour and a half, at least according to her rough math.

She was so focused on her math however, she almost flew into a cloud.

Zipp easily dodged it, sighing with frustration as she flew past another one. Clouds were the most annoying thing to her when it came to flying. For unicorns and earth ponies they were just floating water, sure they'd get a little damp if they went through them but nothing else. For pegasi though, they were totally solid if they weren't focusing any magic on the things. The first time she had ever tried flying at cloud level she had flown right into one and would've fallen to the ground if she hadn't caught herself mid-fall.

She then proceeded to do the same thing, hitting a cloud face first and almost falling out of the sky if it hadn't been for her instinct to fly when spooked. Most pegasi didn't have the instinct anymore but Zipp was one of the lucky ones who had unlocked it from doing so much parkour and other things that exercised her wings before hoof.

She sighed again as she pushed the cloud aside with one hoof and continued flying towards bridlewood, her first destination in her little flyby of Equestria.

"oi up there!" she froze when she heard the familiar voice down below.

She stopped mid-air and looked down, seeing a familiar earth pony sitting on a hoof-crafted bench on their porch.

Zipp flew down in between the cozy cottage and the large farm. The earth pony on the porch was a pale yellow stallion in his early fifties with a light orange mane, a few gray hairs sprinkled in. Their cutie mark was of a carrot and a bread stick positioned like two overlapping swords. She'd met him after he almost shot her a few weeks after magic came back, due to him thinking she was a bird at first glance. The guy was one of the few ponies who had never had any racist grudges against the other tribes, living almost halfway to bridlewood was one factor but there was also the fact he was raised in basically the middle of nowhere by a ton of farmers who had been delivering crops to every tribe since before the crystals.

"hey Apple-pie." Zipp replied to his earlier call.

"another' nighttime fly again?" he asked, to which she nodded.

"ya know, if ah didn' know better ah'd say you're a bat pony!" he remarked, to which she rolled her eyes.

"I'm not a bat pony mister pie. I just prefer practicing my speed at night rather than at day." Zipp replied.

"sounds like a bat pony to me." he retorted with a frown.

"oh yeah? how do I know you're not a bat pony either? staying up every night just looking out into the distance, seemingly nothing in your mind?" Zipp asked, clearly joking.

"varmints." he replied before shooting near a rat trying to dig a carrot out of the ground, spooking it off.

"they're always the most active at night. that's why ma daughter Apple-crust always goes out into the fields to get rid of any darn varmints wandering about. always the most annoyin' things they are." he explained.

"you know, I've never actually met Apple-crust. is that because she's always out in the fields at night?" Zipp asked.

"probably." Apple-pie replied.

"okay, I'm gonna go." Zipp announced to him before taking off into the sky and returning to the speed she was at before.

with a puff of breath, she blew her mane out of her face. by now it was completely in its natural shape due to the wind floating the clouds along, draped down the side of her face and half blinding her in her right eye.

"this is my least favorite part of flying." she muttered to herself as she blew her mane out of her face again.

"maybe I should get a mane cut." she told herself, only to shake the thought away. if she went to get a mane cut all she'd get was some crazy mane style.

"maybe I should cut it myself." she spoke aloud, shaking that thought away too. last time she did that it ended up so bad she shaved it all off and got grounded for a month.

"maybe one of my friends...Izzy? no, that wouldn't end well. Misty? probably never cut anything before. Hitch? no, probably not. Sunny? maybe, she's the nicest and would probably be fine with it." Zipp thought aloud. she'd often think aloud at night after being sure no pony was around, which was always between bridlewood and the farm.

she looked up at the sky, seeing the moon was almost at its peak.

"I should get going, Pipp never sleeps until I get home." she told herself, remembering something before she began zooming home. she had gone to a sleepover once as a teenager and had forgotten to tell Pipp, who proceeded to stay awake the whole night expecting her to come home before morning.

at top speed she was back in maretime bay in a minute, crashing into a cloud with a thud.

"I should really stop flying at cloud level." she muttered to herself as she processed the headache she got from that, still flying in the air with her front hooves pushing the cloud away from her face.