Return of the Red Hawks

Chapters

Cloud Racing is Dangerous
Convenience of Unicorn Doctors
Home Sweet Oversized Home
You Can't be Serious?
Unfriendly Meetings
Finding Forward Momentum
Best Lines in All of Equestria
Do you have the Flight Factor?
Wonderbolts and Dragons don't Mix
Working Nine ‘til Five feels like Prison
What could possibly go wrong?
The Red Hawks fly again
Epilogue: Loose ends

Cloud Racing is Dangerous

"Good afternoon Cloud Race fans!” Shouted the commentator, Maffett, through a magically enhanced megaphone in the balloon that floated over the Windy Valley Raceway in north east of Equestria. “We’ve had a thrilling day of racing but that’s just been a pre-cursor to this, the final race of today’s Windy Valley Amateur Cloud Racing Club meeting!”

The small crowd that gathered in the grand stands and on clouds around the hilly circuit cheered as the competing Pegasi finished talking among themselves on the grid and stretching and moved to their positions. Concorde had earned himself pole position for this race and took a moment to hammer the cloud flat with his hind hooves. The circuit was constructed entirely from clouds, floating no more than a meter off the ground. As with every meeting, the circuit had been pushed into shape that morning and was starting to show some wear and tear. The sighting lap he had completed barely a minute ago revealed some of the cloud barriers around the track could use some repair, but should hold up.

“With two race victories so far today, stood on the pole position is the local favourite: Concorde!” Maffett announced over the commentary. Concorde gave the small crowd a quick salute before getting back to carefully arranging the cloud to give himself a better kick off, as well as stretching out his hind legs. He was a tall and thin stallion, his windswept scarlet mane hidden under an open face white helmet with scarlet lightning bolts running across the top. His brilliant white body was also hidden under an equally white, tight fitting suit that had a scarlet streak running down his sides and hind legs, the number fifty two on his flank. His short, windswept scarlet tail poking out of a hole in the back of his suit. A good start was always important and Concorde wanted to make sure he got off the line as quickly as possible so he could escape his rival.

“In second position, the Bavarian Bullet himself: Wolke!”

Concorde looked over his shoulder to see the sand coloured Wolke in the second position of the first row. The small, sandy coloured stallion was wearing blue overalls with the number fifteen on his flank and was going through the same preparations Concorde was. They had been fierce rivals for the last four years, frequently coming to blows on track that had left them both in various cloud barriers around Windy Valley Raceway.

Why exactly Wolke made the long train journey to Windy Valley every month was still beyond Concorde, especially as Wolke could easily go to the Oldenburgring which was practically next door to Wolke’s hometown of Rottaler. Perhaps there was no other Cloud Racing Pegasi that could match Wolke on his day anywhere else. Concorde hadn’t bothered asking yet.

Happy with his preparations and ignoring Maffett’s continued run down of the twenty four Pegasi grid, with four ponies per row, Concorde pulled down his goggles and arranging them so they were comfortable and lined up perfectly in his helmet. He personally preferred to have the wind whistling through his ears as he raced flew, but the safety conscious had long ago won the argument that racing at any organised level required helmets and goggles.

He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. The world around him seemingly melting away as sound became nothing more than a distant echo and the unimportant scenery around him went out of focus.

There was only the track ahead of him and the enemy behind.

His mind was calm as he visualised the track. The downhill right hoof first corner, the climb up to the right hoof hairpin before going downhill again into a left hoof turn and flying along the edge of the Windy Valley.

Then, the track veered left and he’d be heading steeply down into the valley, keeping his eyes peeled for the wooden markers the track owners set up to show where the track was meant to go.

Concorde had gotten the series of sweeping right hoof bends down to an art, barely glancing each marker with the tip of his wing and keeping more than enough momentum to make the climb back up out of the valley and into one more right hoof turn, between the old stone grandstands and back onto the start/finish line.

One lap.

Fifty four seconds.

Only one other pony had been able to match Concorde’s time around Windy Valley, and that was the pony stood on the second position.

His nerves faded away, replaced by an almost insane level of confidence. He could do anything.

One of the officials showed a board which, so far as Concorde could see, had random marks scribbled on it but he knew what it meant.

Ten seconds until the race would start.

Concorde instinctively snapped his gaze to the starter, an old unicorn who levitated a green flag. Concorde brought both his hind legs forwards a bit and lowered himself, looking like a lioness ready to pounce on her prey. He also pushed his hind hooves into the cloud and angled them, giving himself the best possible position to push off, all the time not taking his unblinking eyes off the green flag.

His heart beat slowed to a deep, echoing crawl as all other noises faded away into nothing. That flag was everything and as it started its descent downwards, Concorde was off.

**********************************************************************************

“The Flag drops and Concorde and Wolke dive ahead, they have almost 3 lengths on the next pony already!” Shouted Maffett’s co-commentator, an old Earth Pony called Brundle who had worked as a commentator for the main Equestrian Cloud Racing series. “And as they head towards the hairpin for the first time Concorde has the lead!”

“I’m looking forwards to this, Brundle.” Maffett interjected as the leaders started to skirt along the edge of the valley having turned left after the hairpin. “Both of these ponies have been looking strong all day and this is our first chance to see them go for it for potentially the whole race.”

“I hope you’ll enjoy the noise as they head down into the valley for the first time. These two can and will hit supersonic speeds down there!” Brundle continued, his commentary confirmed as two sonic booms cracked one after another from inside the valley. From their vantage point, they could just about see down into the valley and they could see Concorde and Wolke leaving their scarlet and sandy yellow trails in their respective wakes.

Maffett noticed one of the younger Pegasi towards the back miss the apex of the first valley turn and tumbled into the cloud barrier below.

“Oh and we have our first crasher.” Maffett said, jabbing Brundle in the shoulder to stop his commentary about how Concorde and Wolke were fighting for the club championship “I think that was number seventy four Nimbus, tumbling through the cloud barrier at the bottom of the valley. Looks like she’s recovered already, but she’s got some work to do to catch back up with the pack.”

“That’s disappointing,” Brundle continued. “Nimbus has been showing so much improvement today and it’s a real shame she may not get a good result now.”

“And as the leaders come over the top of the valley and across the line to finish their first of twenty laps, Concorde leads Wolke by only half a second. Cloud Glider is almost three seconds behind after only one lap!” Maffett continued, internally cheering on her long time friend as he led down the hill for the second lap.

**********************************************************************************

Seven laps ticked by and now Concorde was getting slightly paranoid. Wolke had followed in his wing tracks for the whole race so far and not made any attempt to pass. The crafty Bavarian was clearly watching his lines, biding his time and using Concorde’s slipstream to make flying easier. Concorde would have preferred it if Wolke just made a move.

As they turned down into the valley for the eighth time, Concorde instinctively pressed his front hooves together in front of his face and angled his wings back to provide as little drag as possible while still retaining some form of control. Within moments, he hit the sound barrier, leaving an expanding ring and a trail of scarlet in his wake, but something was different this time.

So far as he could tell, there wasn’t a second boom.

As the corner approached, Concorde realized one of two things could have happened. One, Wolke could have crashed after he had looked last, which was when they went through the hairpin, or two, Wolke was close enough that his own boom had muffled Wolke’s and he was going to try and make the pass Concorde had been anticipating.

With the corner approaching fast, Concorde went for the second option and moved early towards the corner to block any attempt for Wolke to pass. As soon as he turned into the first right, he realized his mistake as he missed the apex of the next corner and practically opened the door for Wolke to sail past as they went back up the valley.

Concorde beat his wings as hard as he could to make sure he was still within a second of Wolke as they reached the top. Having gone wide, Concorde had somehow managed to keep slightly more momentum then Wolke and attempted to pass around the outside of the last corner, slightly outside the limits of the track. His wing cut through the cloud barrier in front of the stone grandstand as they drew level across the line, to the cheers of those in the grandstand.

Concorde held Wolke as tight to the next corner as he could, the Bavarian pony seemingly determined not to yield the place but as the pair angled their wings to scrub off enough speed to make the turn, Wolke drifted wide and gave Concorde more than enough room to cut back up the inside as they went down the first corner hill and back up into the hairpin, regaining the lead.

As they turned left to race alongside the valley again, Concorde looked beyond the apex of the corner and back up the track, catching a glimpse of Wolke within what he guess was a half second of him before he focused his gaze forwards again. Concorde was prepared for another passing attempt in the valley, but as he started to turn, he noticed something out of the corner of his eye.

Wolke had already dived into the space he was about to occupy for the next corner. Concorde re-angled his wings to avoid flying into Wolke and slotted directly in behind him, furious he had allowed the Bavarian pony through so easily.

Concorde ignored the loud cheers from the crowd as they enjoyed the close battle while he followed the Bavarian pony down into the valley, Wolke’s sonic boom muffling his own as he was so close.

Concorde stuck in Wolke’s slipstream through the valley’s turns and back up towards the last corner.

He had the momentum, but Wolke had already taken the inside line, so Concorde dived around the outside.

The only other detail he remembered was, as they approached the grand stand, he felt Wolke’s flank bump into his shoulder.

Concorde was lying on a cloud, unsure exactly how he got there. All he knew was the aching pain, the taste of blood and the desire to carry on.

He tried to spread his wings, but one was trapped under his body.

He tried to release it, but every muscle protested in unison and refused to move as his vision darkened.

Before his vision faded entirely to black, he faintly recognised something red waving in the distance through his cracked goggles.

Convenience of Unicorn Doctors

It was warm.

So nice and warm and comfortable.

But there was something bothering him.

Something throbbing at the side of his face.

He wasn’t sure what it was, but it was ruining the pleasure of this wonderful location, wherever it was.

The echoes weren’t helping either and he felt an urge to ask them to be quite so he could enjoy this place, but that only made whatever was at the side of his face hurt more.

The haze that seemed to linger in this comfortable place started to lift and memories started to return.

He was Concorde Cayley.

He was one of the best Cloud Racers in Equestria and he’d just had a crash.

The haze lifted completely as Concorde regained consciousness. His whole body ached and his face throbbed, but he was at least glad he was definitely somewhere warm and comfortable.

He tried to muster the strength to open his eyes lids, which were being assaulted by light from an unknown source but they refused to budge. He let out an involuntary groan and became annoyed as what sounded like dull, sharp thuds assaulted his sensitive ears.

“Welcome back, Concorde.” Came what sounded like a friendly, reassuring voice from the side which echoed in his mind.

Concorde again attempted to muster the strength to open his eye lids and this time slowly forced them to open.

His eyes were assault by sunlight, but he could at least make out the silhouette of a unicorn, levitating some form of board in front of what he assumed was a mare, judging by the voice.

His mind was still slow, though it at least recognised the room he was in. The familiar, old fashion architecture of a private room in Whitbay General Hospital.

The place was more familiar then he’d like to admit, but he still had a single question. He tried to open his mouth to start saying the word ‘what’, but the right side of his face flared in searing pain. Pain he was vaguely familiar with.

“Don’t try and speak.” Said the mare, who he assumed was a doctor. “Your jaw was dislocated and fractured in your accident, though you’ve been out long enough for us to fix it.”

Accident!?

Concorde’s eyes opened wide as he searched his mind for details. What did he hit? How had he ended up hitting it? He looked at the doctor for answers and instantly recognised her.

She was his friend Maffett’s mother. Slim with a blue coat and white mane and tail, she wore orange framed glasses, a white doctor’s coat and a friendly, reassuring smile, something he always figured doctors learnt first in medical school.

Concorde tried to smile in return, but his face just flared in pain again, though now he was aware of the bandage around his jaw and the top of his head, he felt a need to itch his throat. While his body was sore, he was at least aware he didn’t have any other recently repaired bones and managed to raise his front right hoof to scratch at the bandages.

“You should consider yourself lucky, Concorde.” Mrs Maffett’s carried on “You flew head on into a stone wall. We were worried you had finally broken your neck this time.”

Concorde wanted to imply that was what he’d always wanted, but thought better of it so he could avoid more jaw pain. It always seemed strange to him that even after a bone was repaired with unicorn magic that it continued hurt like it was still broken.

At that moment the door to the room opened and Maffett herself came in. Like her mother, she had a blue body, but her long, curly mane and tail were almost bright orange. She also wore glasses, but with blue frames.

“Corde!” She almost squeaked before running over to the bed “How’d you feel?”

Again, Concorde wanted to drop a daft remark, but settled for giving her an expression that roughly translated as ‘what do you think?’

“I almost forgot you can’t talk right now. I think my dreams have come true.” Maffett smiled evilly, jabbing Concorde in the stomach. Concorde decided he wasn’t bothered by the pain and loosened the bandage around his head.

“You know I’m you’re very worst nightmare, Maff.” He smiled, being careful not to move his jaw too much, though it still hurt a lot.

“Not quite. My worst nightmare featured you and a legion of beavers who don’t seem to be here.”

“They’re on their way.” Concorde smiled before raising his hoof to the side of his face as it shot with pain again.

Mrs Maffett ignored them as she scanned her notes, largely used to their bizarre conversations and knowing Concorde’s jaw could take the rigor of conversation.

“What happened, anyway?” Concorde asked.

“Do you want a long or short answer?” Maffett smiled.

“Let’s start short so you don’t get distracted midway through.”

“Well simply put, Wolke pushed you into the grand stand.”

Concorde looked at her, the memory of something nudging his shoulder reappearing in his mind. Concorde knew Wolke wasn’t exactly against the idea of racing dirty, which was a moderate way of putting it, but he never would have thought Wolke would try and actually push a rival into a potentially dangerous crash.

“What did he have to say for himself?” Concorde asked, wondering if he’d left an indent on the grandstand.

“He was called to the clerk of the course after the race and said he didn’t realize you were alongside. He was given a formal warning but kept the win.” Maffett frowned, seemingly not believing Wolke’s explanation.

Concorde lay back for a moment. Even as a seasoned commentator, Concorde didn’t expect somepony watching to understand exactly what went through a racer’s head. Everything happened so fast it was difficult to judge what was going on sometimes.

While Concorde sympathised with Wolke’s situation, especially as he had run into Wolke a couple times before having not realized exactly where he was (heck, the only reason Wolke was ahead of him in the first place was because Concorde hadn’t realized exactly where Wolke was), but one single detail was still making him angry: Wolke had pushed him into a bucking stone wall.

“Any idea what happened to the cloud barrier around that grand stand?” He asked, the thought now crossing his mind.

“Mr Whiting was furious it hadn’t been fixed properly before the race. He called all the marshals into a meeting after the race and gave them hell from what I heard.”

Again, Concorde descended into thought. Admittedly, he wasn’t completely absolved from blame in the issue. He’d noticed the barriers were looking a little flimsy but he hadn’t made the officials aware.

He also shouldn’t really have been so close to the grand stand as officially it was outside the track limits. Most racing ponies, however, considered the outside edge of a corner’s limits to be quite flexible in most cases. There was only a pony width between the track and that grandstand, so the officials didn’t penalize racers for going outside the track limits at that point of the track.

“Still, it’s good to know you’re ok.” Maffett smiled.

“I knew you wouldn’t be able to go on without me.” Concorde grinned in response, waving his hoof dismissively.

“Of course! What would I do without my favourite punching bag?” Maffett said, jabbing Concorde in the stomach again.

“Celia, dear, stop that.” Mrs Maffett suddenly injected. Maffett’s expression was neutral as she simply said ‘yes mother’, but Concorde knew it always irritated her whenever someone called her by her first name, hence why he always knew her as ‘Maffett’.

“So you’re finally awake?” Came a new voice from the door.

Concorde looked up to see an older Earth pony who he knew was called Bristol walk in. His body was brown, his mane and tail were silver and he was wearing a green knitted vest over a white shirt with a red tie.

“Hi Dad.” Concorde said brightly.

“You really don’t like your bones, do you?” Bristol smiled as he walked over to the bed. He was covered in oil which even partially obscured his spanner and cog cutie mark, suggesting he was busy with another one of his ‘projects’.

“What gave it away?”

“Just a hunch. How are you feeling?”

“Well my face hurts, my body’s sore and Maffett’s annoying me,” He added, looking at Maffett innocently who just stuck her tongue out at him “But otherwise fine.” He finished, looking around, noting the suspicious lack of somepony shouting at him.

“I’d have thought you’d be driving him mad by this stage, Maffett?” Bristol asked the young mare.

“I’m working on it, sir!” She said cheerily before jabbing Concorde in the stomach again.

“Where’s mum?” Concorde asked, noticing his dad and Maffett’s mother exchanging quick glances “She busy writing a new lecture to give me on not trying to kill myself?”

“I think she’s busy being angry at how badly the Hydraulic Drinks Server went.” His dad said, rubbing his neck.

Bristol’s inventions were known for being overly complex and not particularly reliable. Thankfully, the Powered Gliders he made for a living didn’t share that trait.

Concorde was still occasionally surprised his mother put up with all these inventions going haywire, but the fact she wasn’t here still bothered him for a reason he couldn’t put his hoof on.

Home Sweet Oversized Home

Concorde was discharged from hospital he next morning, having been through another lengthy, angry lecture courtesy of his mother. Every time he had an accident that landed him in hospital, she’d gone on and on about how he’d given her a heart attack and how he shouldn’t keep putting himself in danger.

He just let her blow off steam, mainly because she wouldn’t accept his reasoning for doing it in the first place.

His jaw was mostly healed thanks to the unicorn doctors, though he knew it would be a while before it was completely healed. Fusing bones together with magic was a delicate art and even the best couldn't fully repair the bone in one go, so they always fused the bones together in a state where they could take the strain of everyday life and finish healing on their own. Because of this, his jaw was still a bit delicate and the doctors had added that if he wasn't careful his jaw could lock open, which sounded more like a challenge to him.

He trotted up the old, cobble stone street at the top of the cliffs that surrounded the harbour town of Whitbay, giving him the perfect view of the entire town as well as a clear view of the old Chaos age abbey that dominated the far side of the town. It may not be the biggest place in Equestria, but it could rival Manehatton for activity. The town’s harbour mostly saw ponies from Sleipnir and beyond to the East, Griffons from the north and the occasional Zebra from the south, visiting Equestria for trade and/or adventure.

The first thing that would strike them, especially the Zebras, was the weather. Whitbay was almost always overcast, mainly as the army of Weather Controllers that worked there were less concerned about rain and more concerned about the wind. Keeping the wind going just right to bring ships in and out of the harbour, but also to avoid knocking the various air ships and powered gliders that dotted the skies out of the air was extremely difficult, making Whitbay’s weather controllers likely the highest paid in Equestria.

Concorde had experienced a slip up from the Weather Controllers before when he’d been knocked out of one of his dad’s gliders as a colt. Though he was able to land himself, which was impressive considering it was his first attempt at flying. The accident also gave him his cutie mark, a red circle with a red dart flying through, leaving a trail in its wake.

The Aviation and shipping businesses in Whitbay were booming, but very little of its produce stayed in the town. Concorde’s father’s company Bristol Cayley Aviation built gliders for the rich, famous and powerful further in land, mostly in Canterlot, and that had netted his family a lot of money.

Concorde opened the gate to the garden of his family’s manor house, a two story building that stood out on top of the cliff as one of the town’s main land marks. The front garden alone was big enough for a 5 a side hoofball game while the back garden could stage a full size hoofball game with enough space for a reasonable crowd.

The house itself shared the same old fashion architecture as most of Whitbay with a tall, pointed roof and balconies running around most of the first floor. Most of the east wing of the building was Bristol’s workshop which had been heavily renovated and expanded to make space for up to 4 gliders. The central part of the house contained the entrance hall, dining room and kitchen while the west wing contained the lounge, bedrooms and Concorde’s unofficial entrance. He jumped up and flew to the first floor balcony nearest him, opened the door and entered his bedroom.

His bedroom was as untidy as ever with various old text books and models of gliders and racing Pegasi dotted around the floor. The walls were covered in posters from different Cloud Grand Prix events as well as action shots of some of the best Cloud Racers ever. The only tidy thing in his room was the white and red racing overalls that were sat neatly folded on his bed, which he assumed his mother had put there before he got back. A thought crossed his mind and he went over to the full length dress mirror that sat in the corner of his room next to the desk, which currently had his old school uniform thrown across it for no other reason other than the fact it just happened to land there.

After pulling the uniform off the mirror he studied his reflection. Most mares would describe his face as handsome though Concorde always felt it was more pointy, making it perfectly aerodynamic. So far as he could see there were no external marks to show he’d broken his jaw, especially now the fur over where the doctors had operated had been magically grown back. Satisfied, he threw his old uniform back over the mirror and turned his attention to the desk.

It was covered in sheets of paper with race results, championship standings and forthcoming meetings from Windy Valley Raceway. The latest results sat at the top of the pile which Concorde quickly read, the only outstanding information being that Wolke had won while he hadn’t finished though Wolke’s warning was noted at the bottom.

He cast the sheet aside and had a look at the current championship standings. Wolke now led the championship by fifteen points, one third place finish ahead of Concorde. Everypony else in the standings was so far down on points that something outlandish had to happen like himself and Wolke not turning up for the remaining 2 meetings for them to have a chance of even catching up.

With that in mind Concorde took a quick look at the time table for when the next meeting was. It was exactly a month away, coinciding with the Running of the Leaves so some ponies may not turn up, but that hardly bothered Concorde. What did was the rumour that some important pony was apparently going to make an appearance at that meeting, possibly a potential sponsor.

Concorde had wanted to meet a decent sponsor for a while so he could move further up the Cloud Racing ladder and into the Equestria Cloud Racing Championship. He’d dreamed of doing since he went to his first Cloud GP as a colt and he had tried talking various businesses in the town into sponsoring him, but they either didn’t have the money or interest to do so (though if he was a hoofball player, he suspected the latter would jump at the chance).

Concorde leaned back in his chair and gazed at the pictures sat on his desk. One was a unique picture he had taken at the Maneaco Grand Prix shortly after he’d learnt to fly. It showed four of the best Cloud Racers ever, Velocidade, Spoed, Käsittely and Aperto, sat on one of the cloud barriers with the back drop of the Maneaco harbour.

He suspected such a picture would be worth a lot to somepony, but for him it was his inspiration. One day, he was going to sit alongside these ponies as a fellow racer and the dream drove him forwards.

The second picture was of his parents, taken when they attended the Grand Galloping Gala together. Why exactly Concorde had been invited was a mystery he had yet to solve, but he remembered the night mostly for when he and his father had gotten bored and snuck off to explore the castle. The picture was taken after they had been caught and the guard in the background was keeping an eye on Bristol.

His dad could have easily financed him several times over, but whenever Concorde brought the subject up his dad would start a speech about how he got to his own position through his own initiative and hard work and how he wanted Concorde to do the same. While the speech bored Concorde to tears, he at least saw his point.

“Concorde?” Came a voice from behind him.

Concorde decided to reminisce over the third picture, which was when he and Maffett had met comedian Bailey and turned the chair to face the pony who had just entered the room.

“Hi mum.” Concorde said.

His mother Paris was a Pegasus like him and sported the same brilliant white body, mostly hidden under the purple dress she was wearing. Her mane and tail were violet, though Concorde knew she dyed it regularly.

“I would much prefer you not to enter the house through your window.” She said, walking in with a large novelty mug of tea for her son. Despite living in Whitbay for most of her life she still had her Maneaco accent. Concorde figured she insisted they holidayed down there in the summer so she could top her accent back up. “And are you ever going to clean this room?” She added, glancing around.

“Well, Princess Luna may go mad and reverse the moon’s orbit so it crashes into the sun, so you never know.” Concorde grinned “Thanks.” He added, taking the mug of tea off her.

“Let me have a look at you.” She carried on, grabbing Concorde’s head so she could see if there was any lasting damage for herself and nearly caused him to throw the mug across the desk as he protested.

“Hey! Mum, I’m fi-AGH! Don’t jab it!”

“There is another dent there now. How do you expect to find a good mare if your face looks like the Neighscar Lines?”

“I’m sure I’ll find somepony who digs that sort of geograPHY! Stop that!” Concorde exclaimed, pulling his head out of her grasp. Paris just looked at him thoughtfully.

“Concorde, dear, I don’t want you to keep doing this.”

“Do we need to go through this again? Me ears are still ringing from yesterday.”

“I am serious, Concorde. I do not want to see you either seriously injure or kill yourself.”

“Mum that’s the biggest crash I’ve had and I’m sat here talking to you within a couple days.”

His mother simply glared at him, standing up on her hind legs, putting her forehooves on her hips and starting her usual post-crash speech again.

“You are not going back to that place, Concorde.”

Concorde rolled his eyes and muttered ‘dear Celestia, here we go again’ to himself.

“I will not have my only son throw away his life like that. You have a lot to make up for after those poor results you received from school.”

“Straight Cs mum, that’s not quite poor.” Concorde automatically said. Why exactly he’d bother protesting he’d long forgotten.

“It is not good enough! I want you to find a real job and stop working on a mere farm and attempting to kill yourself on weekends. Oh, before I forget there was a letter from Octavia for you this morning.” She finished, giving him a letter. Concorde quickly inspected the back, wondering if his mother had opened it or not. After a moment, Concorde looked up at her.

“Anything else?” He asked. She shook her head.

“No, only that. Are you considering going to visit her in Canterlot?” She asked, almost hopeful.

“That’s private, mother. And if I was you’d have probably found out by now.”

“Very well.” She said, heading for the door. “I will be down stairs if you need me.”

“Righto!” He called after her as she shut the door behind her.

‘Everytime’ Concorde thought to himself, taking a hearty gulp from the mug and letting off a satisfied sigh. It may be stereotypical of Yorkshire region of Equestria, but he really did enjoy a good mug of sweet tea.

He put the mug down and opened the letter. Contrary to his mother’s suspicions, Concorde wasn’t Octavia’s pen pal because he fancied her. Simply put, out of all the ‘eligible, high class’ mares his mother had introduced to him during various parties she held or dragged him to, Octavia was the only one he ever got on with. They were both annoyed by their respective mothers dragging them to ‘fancy’ parties and introducing them to as many eligible partners as possible and while that was probably the only thing they had in common, besides the fact they could play instruments, it had still led them to start gloating and trading light hearted insults both in pony and through the mail.

Her latest letter went on in length about how she’d been chosen to play music at the Grand Galloping Gala for the third year in a row, something he had to admit was pretty impressive especially for an Earth pony playing an instrument that was as big as she was.

Again however, he sensed that there was something she wasn’t telling him, almost as if there was something else in her life she wasn’t quite comfortable writing about yet. She wrote about new pieces of music she’d written that didn’t really fit the sombre, single minded, classical cello player he’d met and been exchanging letters with for several years and it suggested to him there was somepony in her life, finally. It was something he’d suspected for the last year and the only thought that crossed his mind was ‘Celestia, help the poor sod’.

Concorde threw the letter on the desk and quickly gulped down the rest of his mug of tea. He was off work for the rest of the day, so he figured he may as well go outside and enjoy himself for a bit.

He pushed himself away from the desk, lifted himself into the air with a couple beats of his wings which caused his desk to fall over backwards and flew out of the window.

You Can't be Serious?

A month past harmlessly enough, Concorde re-telling the story of his latest crash to the farm hooves when he was working at Caramel Apple’s orchid, the usual joking response being that he’d look better if he flew into a few more walls. Octavia had written back with the same remark and after Concorde had responded saying she had no imagination, they’d started another game of postal bizarre insult slinging.

On the day of the next race meeting at Windy Valley and rumoured visit of a possible sponsor, Concorde had got up early to get ready.

He’d packed his overalls, a new pair of goggles and a new, currently pure white helmet into his bag, along with a lengthy list of racing achievements and photos in case the rumoured sponsor did make an appearance.

The helmet he had worn last month which now had a massive crack running down the centre, was sat on top of his cupboard next to two other cracked helmets, plus another that had survived long enough to become too small for him. It had been the helmet he wore when he first won the Windy Valley Club Championship and stood as a trophy in his room, seeing as the rest were in the entrance hall.

As he made his way towards the front door, he heard an unusual noise coming from behind the door that led to his father’s workshop.

He automatically moved away from the door and just in time as the door was blasted off its hinges and flew across the hall, bouncing off the far wall.

Black smoke poured out of the workshop door, followed by Concorde’s dad stumbling into the hall covered in sot and coughing.

“Success?” Concorde asked, barely fighting back a grin and chuckle when he realized his father was defiantly unhurt.

“Y-yes” Bristol coughed in response “If I was making a-a smoke bomb, anyway.”

“Well, at least mum’ll have something to keep her occupied while I’m racing.”

“That’s one way of looking at it. I’d wish you luck, but I think I’ll need it when she gets down here.”

“I think you will. Good luck and see you later!” Concorde waved before heading out of the door. Almost as soon as he was outside and airborne, he heard his mother’s fury descending on his father.

**********************************************************************************

As usual, Concorde met Maffett just outside town and the pair of them headed for Windy Valley, which was a thirty minutes walk away. He told her about his dad’s latest invention exploding, not that he knew exactly what it was and Maffett told him she wouldn’t mind it for whenever she wanted to escape work.

She worked at the Weather Control offices, taking notes on when ships were scheduled to leave or enter the harbour and didn’t particularly enjoy it. She was at least glad Concorde had dragged her along to a race weekend when they were younger. She had snuck into the commentator’s balloon and found she had a natural talent for commentating, hence her cutie mark of a microphone. Since then, she’d been commentating on every race.

As they approached Windy Valley Raceway they became aware of a lot of commotion within the fenced off perimeter of the circuit. An airship had landed within the grounds and by the looks of things it was an expensive ship. Concorde’s face lit up as he ran for the entrance gates. That sponsor, whoever they were, was going to be his.

He went to run through the gate but one of the security guards, a big Earth pony called Hank stepped in front of him, forcing Concorde to come to a stop.

“Er, morning Hank.... excuse me, please?” Concorde tried, not entirely sure why he’d just stepped in front of him. Concorde was well known to Windy Valley, well known enough that they usually just waved him through.

Hank looked around awkwardly, almost as if he knew something he expected Concorde to know.

“Oh man, I was hoping I wasn’t going to be the one to tell you this...” Hank said, rubbing the back of his head and searching for the words.

“Tell me what?” Concorde asked, angling his face down slightly in a manner that had become an odd habit and raising an eyebrow as Maffett finally caught up.

“Well, erm... You see, your- Oh, Mr Whiting!” Hank suddenly said to an approaching unicorn, carrying what looked like important papers.

“What’s going on?” Concorde asked Mr Whiting, who owned the circuit. He looked very disappointed and angry about something.

“Concorde lad, we’d best talk in private. Come with me.” He said simply before leading the young Pegasus away from the gate towards a rubbish skip, followed by a curious Maffett. Once satisfied they were far enough away, Mr Whiting turned and looked at Concorde with pity in his eyes.

“I really hate to be the bearer of bad news, Concorde...” He started, pausing to search for the words to explain the bizarre situation.

“What is it?” Concorde pressed, starting to get annoyed.

“Well, a restraining order was filed against you.” Mr Whiting said carefully, looking like he was preparing himself for something. Concorde and Maffett looked equally confused, so Mr Whiting carried on. “An order restraining you from entering Windy Valley Raceway.”

Concorde looked at Mr Whiting with a mix of disbelief and confusion.

“Prank Day’s not for another 5 months.” He suddenly said, not believing a word but something about Mr Whiting’s expression told him he wasn’t lying. The old unicorn levitated a sheet of paper towards Concorde, holding it out in front of him to read out loud.

“The Police Chief of the town of Whitbay hereby issues this order of restraint to the pony Concorde Cayley, preventing him from entering the premises of Windy Val....ley..... race.........way...........” Concorde’s face dropped and the words exited his mouth slower and slower as several facts slotted into place. It was an official document, signed by the Police chief. But worst of all was the note saying who requested the order.

It was requested by Paris Cayley.

His own mother.

Maffett snatched the order out of the air and read it through several times.

“She can’t do that!” She protested to Mr Whiting, who looked as angry as she did.

“There’s no point in complaining about it to me, Ms Maffett. I think it’s as ridiculous as you do especially as it’s on land I own. But it’s official; I can’t let you in Concorde, as much as I want to. I should have mentioned this to your father as she’d been pestering me for months to have you banned from the premises, but when she stopped pestering me during the summer I thought she’d given up. Seems she went straight to the Police Chief instead.”

Concorde sat in a state of bemused confusion, most of Mr Whiting’s words washing over his head as he slowly turning to look through the fence and into the paddock beyond. He noticed the unicorn stood by the airship who had a white body, blue flowing hair and moustache and wearing a black tail suit and a monocle was discussing something with Wolke.

“It’s not helped by the fact he decided to show up today.” Mr Whiting continued, following Concorde’s gaze. “I always had faith you’d go to the top Concorde, but it looks like Mr Fancypants over there will be taking Wolke instead.”

Concorde’s eyes shot open as he realized what he had just missed out on. His mother, who went to plenty of high class functions, had mentioned a unicorn called Fancypants before as one of the most influential ponies in Canterlot and now the chance to be sponsored by him was going to slip clean out of his hooves.

Concorde practically leapt at Mr Whiting, grabbing his head to make sure he had his attention.

“There’s gotta be something you can do?!” Concorde practically screamed into Mr Whiting’s face. “PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE!!” He continued to beg before Mr Whiting pulled his head out of Concorde’s grasp.

The old unicorn looked down at Concorde, the young pegasus’ open mouthed look of shock reminding him of the day his own daughter found out Santa Hooves didn’t exist and Mr Whiting started to hate himself for being the one who had to tell Concorde.

“If there was anything I could do,” Mr Whiting said calmly “I would have done it. I’m sorry, Concorde.”

Concorde’s expression dropped as his head slowly sunk to the ground, pressing his face into the damp grass. Mr Whiting left him and Maffett alone, Maffett not sure what to do or say. She put her hoof on his shoulder as her friend seemed to start crying.

“Just go.” Came Concorde’s muffled voice “You have something to do.”

He was right, she did have something to do but she didn’t want to leave her friend on his own right now. A few moments passed before Concorde looked up and glared at Maffett, a look of pure rage in his eyes that actually terrified her.

“JUST GO!” He shouted at her. Maffett did as he asked and ran, not wanting to see her friend would do while that angry. As soon as she was gone, Concorde pressed his head back into the ground, hoping it would swallow him up.

When the ground refused to take the offering after five minutes, Concorde looked up at the skip and something caught his eye. It was full of brown tins of paint and one of them looked like it still had plenty of paint still in it.

His ears tweaked up.

He had an idea.

**********************************************************************************

Maffett tried to distract herself from her friend’s plight by meandering through the paddock, talking to the competing ponies so she had things to talk about during her commentary. The air was tense and every pony she spoke to asked about one thing alone: Concorde.

She’d told them he wasn’t able to be here, opting to avoid discussing the restraining order, something she still wasn’t sure how to explain even to herself. How could his mother do such a thing to Concorde, though a better question would be how exactly she managed to get such an order in the first place? Maffett had noticed some police ponies around the paddock, possibly here to ensure Concorde doesn’t sneak in.

She continued through the paddock, quickly consulting the list of competitors to see if anyone in particular stood out to talk to. With her mind elsewhere, she couldn’t really pick anyone in particular out, so she resorted to just looking around.

She immediately noticed a pony she hadn’t seen before at the far end of the paddock. He was a wooden brown colour with a slicked back mane. He was carrying a bag and a white helmet with brown smudges on it so she assumed he was a late entrant.

She quickly walked towards him, pasting the expensive airship. She saw Wolke talking with the unicorn called Fancypants which actually made her feel angry. She’d heard a few rumours passed around as she wandered the paddock and several suggested Wolke had deliberately pushed Concorde into the grand stand so he could speak with the rumoured sponsor alone. She decided to ignore them for now as she made her way past.

“Excuse me!” Wolke called after Maffett. She stopped and looked at him as he trotted over. “You are Concorde’s friend, correct?”

Maffett glared at him before answering:

“Yes.”

“Erm,” Wolke hesitated “I was wondering if he was here?”

“He isn’t.”

“Is he still injured?”

“What do you think?!” Maffett spat back at Wolke, angry at his ignorance. Wolke’s expression, however, changed from awkwardness to annoyance.

“I am simply concerned; I did not intend to push Concorde into that grandstand.”

“What makes you think I’ll believe that?”

“I did not know he was there until I bumped into him. I am aware of how it looks now that Mr Fancypants is here but I did not push him on purpose.”

Maffett really didn’t care for his explanation of events and arguing about it wasn’t going to change her opinion. Luckily, she noticed the brown pony was coming towards her, so she took the opportunity to end the conversation.

“If you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.” Maffett said simply before walking past Wolke and chasing after the new pony. He was roughly the same age as herself and, surprising, didn’t have a cutiemark. The new pony seemed to be looking around a lot, almost as if he was looking out for something.

“Excuse me!” Maffett called when close enough, causing him to jump. “Are you racing here today?” She asked as she came to a stop next to him.

“Er, yes!” He said in what was probably the worst attempt at a western accent she had ever heard and now she was close enough, she couldn’t mistake his eyes.

“Over here.” Maffett sighed, nodding towards a doorway in the freshly painted paddock buildings. The pair walked inside and Maffett closed the door behind them.

“Concorde, are you crazy?!” She exclaimed at him. Concorde didn’t look impressed that he’d been rumbled so quickly.

“I’m here to race, Maff, not sulk next to a fence.” He said in his normal voice.

“You’ll get arrested! You’ve seen all the police ponies around!”

“What do you think this is in aid of?” He asked, indicating to his badly painted body, several strands of his fur clumped together by blobs of the now dried paint.

“Corde, it’s the worst disguise I’ve ever seen. You also stink of paint.”

“That’s just the aftershave.” He bluffed, causing Maffett to put her face in her hoof in frustration.

“Concorde Cayley?” Came a voice from behind them, causing both young ponies to freeze. They looked slowly around to find the room they’d entered was also occupied by the Police Chief of Whitbay. The old, grey, moustached Earth pony, wearing a tall black helmet with a silver badge on it, looked disappointed. “You’re under arrest. Do you have anything to say?”

There was an awkward moment of silence before Concorde did.

“Ah, f***.”

Unfriendly Meetings

Concorde lay across a wooden bench in one of the holding cell of Whitbay Police Station, feeling both embarrassed and extremely angry. He’d been escorted from Windy Valley Raceway through the paddock and everyone saw him, though he wasn’t sure if they recognised him through the paint which had since been washed off with a hose. There were still clumps of paint stuck in his fur, mane and tail, which he’d have to get out individually with a comb when he got the chance.

Outside the cell was a single police pony sat at a desk. He hadn’t spoken to Concorde since he’d been put in the cell and seemed to be busy reading and old issue of Playcolt and frankly Concorde didn’t want to talk to him anyway.

He hadn’t thought about what may happen to him now he’d broken a restraining order, bull**** as it was. His mind, instead, wondered why his mother had gone to such a length. She had never approved of his racing, that he knew, but he’d always hoped she’d lighten up eventually.

She’d always tried to mould Concorde, trying to make him into some form of ‘high class’ stallion of some description. Going to Whitbay Private School was probably the first big thing he could think of. A stuffy, arrogant but well regarded school, divided into a colt and a filly schools with over 4 acres between them so they never did interact and Concorde seemed to be the only ‘normal’ pony in attendance, so normal that some pupils were convinced he was somepony’s whipping colt. Every other pupil he met either looked like they were attempting to eat their lower lips, had no chin and seemed as if they were attempting to swallow tennis balls or were built like bulls and usually played rugby.

They would spend hours taunting Concorde, accusing him of being ‘lower class’, which was apparently a grave insult in their world. He was never bothered about his ‘lower class’ roots, they were certainly better than being tied to a collection of morons with triple barrelled names, but what always made him angry was the implication that the lower classes were lazy and stupid. Even the irony of the fact his fellow pupils ‘studied’ for about a third of the time as normal schools and couldn’t tell a ship mast from a tree if one had fallen on their heads didn’t temper the level of disgust he felt for them when he had to spend any length of time in their company.

Most of the teachers were actually worse. Stuffy, uptight and likely had some serious anger problems judging from how eager they were to use their canes. They would walk around the school as if they were some sort of gods, looking down their noses at their pupils, especially Concorde. He occasionally thought they moonlit as roofing and guttering inspectors as their noses always pointed up.

Concorde didn’t really learn much in that place, which caused his mother to send him to private tutors to try and drill some more knowledge into him. That actually did work as they at least spoke to him as if he hadn’t been recently scrapped off their hooves. She also made sure he learnt French, seeing as they would holiday in her home town of Maneaco almost every year, where French was the most commonly used language and to her credit she did succeed in making her son fully fluent in the language.

Outside learning, his mother would drag him to various high class functions, dinners and parties. She never admitted it, but Concorde knew her aim was to get him to fall in love with some high class mare. He found that with a single exception of Octavia, they were all brattish, ignorant, arrogant and couldn’t win a battle of wits with the remains of the buffet table. They were more concerned with criticising the ‘lower classes’ of being stupid and lazy, like his school mates, than anything else and didn’t understand the irony either.

Being surrounded by the ‘upper classes’ always left Concorde filled with a level of anger that he’d so far managed to suppress by simply making fun of them or confusing them with clever word play and by looking forwards to his next race. Now, however, there was no next race, nothing to look forwards to, nothing to keep the anger he’d felt towards these ponies at bay and he did really want to kick somepony in the face.

“Concorde Cayley,” Came a voice from outside the cell, distracting Concorde from his thoughts. He looked over to see another police pony unlocking the door. “You’re bail’s been paid.”

Concorde rolled off the bench as the door was slid open and exited, followed by the police pony. Unsurprisingly as he reached the lobby, he found his parents waiting there, both looking furious.

Concorde came to a stop in front of them, his angry gaze focused on his mother.

“What do you have to say for yourself, then?” Bristol asked, his voice surprisingly calm.

“Why don’t you ask her?” Concorde replied, not taking his gaze of his mother.

“Ask her what?” Bristol’s expression changed to confusion.

“She’s not told you?” Concorde said, his gaze turning to his father.

“Told me what?”

“It’s not important, Bristol.” Paris replied.

“Is it not, mare?” Concorde snarled at her “Are restraining orders so meaningless these days?”

“I don’t know what you do when you’re training, Corde, but how did you get a restraining order put on you.” Bristol cut in, surprised at his son’s reaction.

“I didn’t. Windy Valley’s got no reason to keep me out.”

“The track? Why?”

“Like I said, ask her.”

“This is for your own good, Concorde.” Paris suddenly injected.

“Is it now? What next, mare? Are you going to tie me to me bed and keep the f***ing door locked?”

“Wait...” Bristol cut in again, pushing Concorde away from his mother a bit in case he did something before focusing on her “Let me get this straight in my head. You’ve somehow gotten a restraining order placed on Concorde to keep him away from the track?”

Paris didn’t answer, but Bristol could tell he was right from the look in her eyes. The police chief at the desk busily tried to look like he wasn’t paying attention while the other police ponies just looked at each other, an expression of unease on their faces.

Bristol sat down and thought for a moment. Barely a few minutes ago as he paid to bail his son he’d been thinking about what to say or do with him. He’d always wanted Concorde to do what he wanted to do and find his own way in life, so long as it didn’t land him in jail, but now it seemed he’d ended up in jail because of Paris’ over protectiveness.

“We should go.” Bristol said simply after a moment.

Concorde nodded in agreement and walked out of the open door, down the steps and onto the cobble street outside, Bristol and Paris following him. Lost in thought, Bristol turned left to head home before realising Concorde was going in the opposite direction.

“Where are you going, young stallion?” Paris asked, walking after her son.

“None of your business.” Concorde replied without turning.

“It is my business, you’re my son.”

Concorde turned and fixed his mother with a livid glare that Bristol actually found scary.

“Well I don’t give a s*** if I am, mare.” Concorde snarled, his eyes full of pure venom “Don’t follow me!”

Concorde turned and took off at speed, disappearing across the town within moments. Paris jumped into the air to give chase before she was suddenly dragged back to the ground by her tail. She fell to the cobbled street, flat on her stomach and remained still, Bristol dropping her tail. He wasn’t really sure what to say, he’d always suspected her over protectiveness would get the better of her one day.

“Let him be, Paris.” He said, uncertain of what else to say. She just stayed where she was, quietly starting to sob.

“Bristol, I don’t want to lose him.” She eventually said. Bristol felt he could only say one thing in response as he looked up in the direction Concorde had flown.

“I think you might have done.”

Finding Forward Momentum

Maffett sat at the kitchen table a next morning feeling disappointed in herself. She’d returned home early on the Sunday as she hadn’t been able to commentate properly with her concerns for Concorde. Later that night, he’d turned up on her door step in such a depressed state he could barely talk and had spent the night in the spare room.

The two had been friends for as long as either could remember, what with their respective fathers being friends and Maffett had never seen Concorde in such a state. Sure, there were times they met after school and he was extremely irritated, but she’d never seen him depressed before. She had knocked on the door and tried to talk to him, but he’d simply ignored her.

“You alright there, Cee?” Came her father’s voice from behind her. She’d been lost so much in thought she hadn’t realized he’d walked into the room.

She regarded her father Astrolabe for a moment. She didn’t get to see her Unicorn father very often as he worked as a navigator onboard various ships. His dark body was covered in a criss cross of recently healed scars from an accident during his last voyage when a mast broke and showered him with splinters, an accident which also cost him one of his hind legs. In its place was a darkly vanished wooden leg that made a distinctive noise on the kitchen floor.

“I’m just worried.” Maffett admitted, turning back to the table. She could hear her father’s wooden leg on the floor as he walked around the table, setting out a couple bowls, a bottle of milk and a box of cereal before sitting down. Looking at her father reminded her why she was disappointed she hadn’t been able to help her friend yet as, when her father returned, he had been horribly depressed at the loss of his leg and it had taken him a week before he smiled again and his normally, cheery demeanour returned.

“You shouldn’t be. Jus’ give ‘im some time and ‘e’ll be fine.” Astrolabe said in his thick accent, pouring some cereal and milk into a bowl and pushing it towards her. “Though we’ll ‘ave to get ‘im home before yer mam gets annoyed.”

“I suppose so.” Maffett sighed, levitating a couple spoons over from the sink. “I’ll go and see his dad when I get the chance.”

At that moment, there was a knock on the door. Astrolabe got up and went to answer it.

“’Ello mate, how goes it?” He said cheerily as Bristol entered.

“I think you already know the answer to that, Astro.” Bristol sighed. He was carrying bag which he put down and opened after Astrolabe closed the door. “I’ve just been to the police station and they gave me a copy of the order against Concorde.” He added, taking a scroll out of the bag and putting it on the table.

Maffett used her magic to unroll it, held it up and scanned through it, the title stated it was a ‘Police Legal Order Tenement’, though she wasn’t sure why the first sentence described it as a device. Having not seen any other examples of such orders, she wasn’t entirely sure what to make of it.

“Really though,” Bristol continued. “I’m just ‘ear to take him off your hooves.”

“How did you know he was here?” Maffett asked, rolling the order back up.

“Where else would he go?” Bristol shrugged “You’re like a sister to his, Celia, I doubt he’d trust anyone else.”

“Well if you want her, you can keep her for 10 bits.” Astrolabe injected with a sly smile. Bristol returned a small smile while Maffett scowled at her father.

“So where is he?”

“Spare room. Do you ‘ave a plan?”

“Not really, but I figure that all he needs is something to look forwards to and he should be ok. Seeing as it’s Monday, I’ll take him down the pier for a while and discuss something with him.”

“Ok, we’ll be in the lounge.” Astrolabe said while Maffett quickly moved to the lounge. They both had the same idea that any distraction would be a problem while Bristol tried to talk to his son.

He went up the stairs and quickly found the spare room, a few cups of cold tea placed outside. The fact they were neatly stacked either side of the door frame at least gave Bristol hope that Concorde had gone to the bathroom once or twice.

He knocked on the door and waited for a response. After a few seconds, Bristol reached for the handle and pushed the door open, finding a small room containing a wardrobe, desk and a bed, upon which Concorde lay on his front with the pillow on his head.

“Are you awake?” Bristol tentatively asked. Concorde raised his head slightly and looked over his shoulder to see who it was for a moment before turning back to stare into the wall.

“Go away.” He muffled into pillow.

“Considering this isn’t our house I don’t think you can give me any orders, lad.” Bristol said before stepping into the room and closing the door behind him.

“I want to be left alone.” Concorde muffled again as Bristol sat by the desk.

“And how will being on your own in a featureless room like this help?”

Concorde didn’t respond, so Bristol carried on after a moment.

“It’s Monday, Corde. What do we normally do on a Monday?”

“I’m not in the mood, Dad.” Concorde sighed.

“You might not be, but some Kelp, chips and mushy peas and a bit of sea air can do wonders.”

“Fine.” Concorde said, shuffling off the bed. He fixed his dad with an annoyed look before heading for the door. “You’re paying.”

“Of course.” Bristol smiled before following him.

**********************************************************************************

10 minutes later, the pair were walking down the pier, each carrying a tray of fried kelp, chunky chips and mushy peas on their backs. If anything confused non-Yorkshire ponies when they arrived in the region, it was the strange pea soup. No one really had a good explanation for what it was but pretty much all the locals enjoyed it, including Concorde. Still, the delicious smell wasn’t brightening his mood when they came to a stop mid-way up the northern pier where they’d usually stop.
Concorde sat down and rested his head on one of the metal rails and gazed across at the other pier.

Both piers were constructed of stone walls with wooden walk ways, the northern pier leading to an old light house that signalled to incoming ships where the harbour entrance was, the south pier mainly in place to hold back some of the raging sea.

“Feeling any better?” Bristol asked his son, knowing the answer.

“No.” Concorde responded.

“If it helps I had no idea either.”

“That was crystal clear at the Police Station. And no, it doesn’t.”

“Well, I went to see the Police Chief this morning to see if the order can be revoked. The order stands for a year and frankly it would take about as long to go through the process of revoking the thing.”

“That doesn’t help either.”

“It does mean one thing, though.”

Concorde lifted his head off the railing and looked at his dad, still irritated but now wondering what he was going to say.

“What does it mean, dad?” He asked while his dad ate.

“It means...” Bristol started, pausing for a moment to swallow “Sorry. It means you’ll have to get a real job.”

Concorde regarded his father for a moment, not convinced by his methods of trying to cheer him up.

“You spend too much time in that workshop.” He remarked.

“I’m serious, Concorde. This could be a good chance to find something else you’re good at.”

“Dad, the day I fell out of your glider was the day I realized I loved going fast. There’s nothing else I’d want to do without mum doing something to try and stop me.”

“Well maybe you should try something more technical.”

“You’re saying I should start working for you?”

“That wasn’t what I had in mind.” Bristol said, unfolding a newspaper. “But I’m sure we can find something.”

Bristol leafed through the paper to the jobs section as Concorde looked at the tray of food he had, wondering if he could really be bothered to eat it or not.

“Excuse me?” Came the voice of a young filly Pegasus as she trotted over. Concorde looked up at her and recognised her as one of the newer racers at Windy Valley. “Sorry to bother you, Mr Concorde, but I just wanted to ask if you were ok.”

Concorde was actually slightly surprised. He rarely spoke to anyone he raced against outside meetings.

“I’m fine, thanks.” He lied, though the filly looking relieved. He thought for a moment, trying to think what her name was. “Nimbus, right?”

“That’s right, sir. I was just wondering because you weren’t at the last meeting and someone said you’d really badly hurt yourself.”

“No, I wasn’t badly hurt but no offense, lass, I’d rather not go into why I wasn’t there now.”

“That’s ok.” Nimbus smiled “I’m just glad you’re ok.”

“Did I miss anything on Sunday?” Concorde found himself asking, hoping she didn’t bring up his not so ingenious disguise.

“Wolke won, no surprise there, but I managed to come fifth in the second race. That’s my best finish ever.” Nimbus said excitedly, clearly pleased with herself. Concorde smiled in response.

“Not bad. You’ve not been racing long, have you?”

“No sir, I only started last year.”

“Then fifth is pretty impressive. Well done.”

“Thank you! I won’t take up any more of your time, sir. Bye!” She said cheerily before trotting off.

“Well that was unexpected.” Bristol commented, casting his tray towards a nearby bin and picking his newspaper back up.

“Yep. Go away!” Concorde said to a nearby sea gull, waving his hoof at it as it stalked his food. He then caught a glimpse of something on the front page.

“Display team auditions tomorrow, eh?” he mused. Bristol closed the paper and had a look at the front.

“That sounds more like your sort of thing. Display flying is pretty challenging from what I understand.” Bristol said before his face was suddenly taken over by a look of surprise.

“What?” Concorde asked, reaching for his tray of food, only to find it had vanished. “Oh, f***ing seagulls!”

“You should have eaten it faster.” Bristol smiled. “Look at the team name!”

Concorde looked at the bottom of the advert. The team that was auditioning was called the Red Hawks, a name Concorde wasn’t really familiar with.

“Never heard of ‘em.”

“What!? Ack, I really didn’t teach you anything.” Bristol said, disappointed with himself. “The Red Hawks were the best flight team ever when I was your age.”

“Better then the Wonderbolts?”

“Much better than them. Ponies used to say the best Wonderbolt was the worst Red Hawk.”

“Seriously?” Concorde raised his eyebrow, sceptical there ever was a flight team better then the Wonderbolts.

“Yes! I’m not sure why but they disbanded years ago.”

“Was there anything in the jobs page?”

“Well, other than port hooves and office jobs, no.”

“Seeing as I'd rather jab my eyes out with an ice pick then work in an office and that damned mare would be after me if I went anywhere near somewhere as dangerous as a port, guess I’ll go to this audition, then.”

Best Lines in All of Equestria

Concorde returned home with his father later that afternoon. He had been reluctant to at first, but he didn’t want to abuse the Maffett family’s hospitality. He decided he’d avoid his mother for the time being, which turned out to be easy as she was currently exclusively inhabiting the kitchen for some reason.

Before getting back however, his father had told him never to refer to his mother as ‘that damned mare’ ever again. Apparently there were plenty of things he didn’t know about his mother but he frankly didn’t care at the moment, though he agreed not to call her that again.

He pushed his bedroom door open, contemplating exactly what to do at the audition the next day before something caught his eye as he entered. He looked up, surprised to be looking straight at his reflection in the mirror. He looked around and for a moment thought he’d walked into the wrong room.

The entire room was tidy for probably the first time in years. Clothes that had been casually discarded had been put away, books and LPs were stacked orderly on shelves and the smell of cleaning chemicals still hung in the air. The bed had been carefully made too, but the item currently on top of it made Concorde’s eyes widen with surprise.

To most ponies it was a brand new crimson guitar. However, Concorde knew it was a Flanker Classic, a six string guitar as used by some of his favourite performers. As much as he loved his first guitar, he’d always wanted a Flanker Classic though he suspected his old guitar was still hidden under the mess that existed under his bed (though a quick check revealed even that beast had been tamed and organized).

He regarded the shining new guitar for a moment, a feeling of anger starting to worm its way back into his mind brought on by the feeling somepony was attempting to buy him. He knew his dad hadn’t bought it as he usually gave gifts in pony and he doubted he was currently in a gifting mood.

Between this and the cleaning, it was obvious who had.

Concorde considered what to do, the idea of simply throwing it out of the window at the back of his mind like an aspiring young actor with a background roll in a play trying to garner attention. Maybe he should just play it, see if it did sound as good as it had in the hooves of the likes of Flank Zappa and Eric Clopton. But then if he played it, surely he was giving in to some faceless force that was attempting to bribe him.

He cast aside that ridiculous thought, picked up the guitar and sat on the edge of the bed. Once comfortable in the slightly awkward position he ran his hoof across the strings. The sound was every bit as good as he expected it to be, even if it wasn’t tuned. Excitedly, he jumped off the bed and went in search of an old book that he had learnt how to play the guitar from, finding it after about twenty minutes of searching through the newly organized shelves and throwing it open to one of the few pieces he could actually play.

His aspirations when it came to playing the guitar far outstretched his actual abilities and looking through the simple tunes gave him a better idea. He started searching through his record collection, piling up LPs on the desk where they’d previously lived as he looked for one particular record by one of his favourite bands.

He found it eventually. A limited edition copy of Rutherford and the Dockers greatest song: Word of Mouth. Few songs started with such an awesome guitar riff and he’d always wanted to play it on a Flanker Classic and now was his chance. He slipped the music sheet included in the limited edition out of the sleeve and put it on top of the pile of records on his desk before retrieving the guitar and started playing.

Concorde lost himself in the music, bad as it was. Any passing observer would comment that the noise was roughly akin to somepony attempting to floss a Hydra’s teeth with the strings and Bristol said as much when he decided that his son’s terrible guitar playing after 1am was too much.

Concorde placed the Flanker Classic on the stand that he had originally been given for his first guitar by his grandmother, probably the only pony who liked listening to him play. It reminded Concorde of his old guitar, which he pulled out from under the bed.

His father’s parents were the next closed family he had, what with his mother’s parents living over 1,000 miles away in Maneaco and he hadn’t felt so heartbroken as when they died.

They were a stubborn pair who, the sort who sword instead of using punctuation and were more ‘characters’ then rude. His Grandfather and grandmother had worked as a docker and a bar maid respectively and didn’t have a whole lot of money. They also always resisted their son’s attempts to give them any. However, they had insisted on buying their only grandchild an instrument of some description and eventually settled on a basic wooden guitar. It was dented, grimy and missing a string, but in the traditional hunt for a foal’s special talents their effort felt all the more powerful.

Concorde stood the old guitar against the new one and gazed at them for a while. Was something testing him, putting something he’d always wanted next to something that meant something to him?

Did this new guitar really say what his mother wanted to say but couldn’t bring herself to say it to his face?

Did these two guitars really represent a change in the wind?

Was there really such a f***ing complicated explanation for it all?!

Annoyed and confused as to where this train of thought was going, Concorde turned to and flopped down on the bed before wriggling into a more comfortable position. He regarded the ceiling for a while, mulling over his thoughts.

It didn’t seem to matter. Even with his anger he knew one thing as a concrete fact: despite his mother’s actions, he couldn’t bring himself to hate her.

**********************************************************************************

Complicated thought and attempting to sleep never went hoof in hoof and Concorde left the house the next morning after only four hours of sleep and another four dozing. According to the advert the audition started an hour ago, so Concorde decided not to rush as he’d still be at the end of a long queue.

He walked down the familiar cobbled streets of the main residential area of the northern side of the town. The terrace houses that flanked either side of the narrow street hung over him with their upper floors bigger than their ground floors. The stone houses with their wooden frames that could be seen under the paint had an old fashion charm to them, along with a claustrophobic feel and were quite familiar to him as his grandparents had lived in such a house. When he was younger and went to visit them with his father, Bristol would point out recently repaired roofs and claim they were as a result of his early glider attempts and less then successful landings.

He was soon distracted from his thoughts when he noticed the end of a line of ponies ahead. He was at least 10 minutes walk from the Town Hall where the audition was taking place, so this must be for something else. What exactly he didn’t know.

“What’s going on?” He asked the Pegasus at the end of the line.

“I’m surprised you don’t know.” The mare replied, her accent suggesting she had recently arrived from Cloudsdale.

“Oh I know I’m just randomly quizzing you on local events.” Concorde replied with the first thing that came to mind, smiling cheekily to let her know he was joking. “So what is going on?”

“Red Hawks audition.”

“Seriously?!” Concorde exclaimed, leaning around the Pegasus to see the queue stretching down the street. “I didn’t think this many ponies would turn up.”

“Neither did I. Guess we’ll be here for a while. I’m April Showers, by the way.” She added with a smile, offering her hoof.

“Concorde.” He replied, shaking her hoof. “You here as a Weather Controller?”

“Yeah. I only started 2 weeks ago.”

“Well in that case, welcome to Whitbay. How you finding it here?”

“Windy and cramped.” April Showers smiled as the whole line squeezed up against the houses to let a cart full of imported goods through. This particular street was frequently used to transport goods from the docks to the train station and the cobbles were well worn from the cart wheels.

“Do you do Weather Control too?” April asked.

“Actually no. I just do part time work for the local orchard.” Concorde said with a meek smile, realizing how much he didn’t like the sound of it.

“You thought you’d try your luck with this?”

“I don’t need luck.” Concorde grinned, a grin that became fairly awkward when he realized he’d sounded a lot cockier then he’d intended. April seemed to realize and just giggled.

“Hi Corde!” Came the voice of a familiar unicorn as she trotted up the lane towards them, levitating several cups of steaming tea. She looked pleased to see him.

“Maff! You’ve finally escaped the clutches of the Weather Control Offices?” Concorde grinned at her.

“Actually, I agreed to show a few fresh faces around town.” She smiled, giving the cups out to April Showers and two other Pegasi in front of her in the queue, whom Concorde hadn’t realized were listening to his and April’s conversation.

“You poor souls.” Concorde smiled at them. Seeing as they smiled at his remark as well, Concorde guessed they were from Cloudsdale as well. However, seeing Maffett reminded him of something. “Maff, could I have a quick word in private?”

Maffett looked surprised for a moment before smiling.

“Sure.” She said before Concorde led her away from the queue, April calling after them that she’d save their space. Once they were out of ear shot, Concorde turned and spoke.

“Maffett, ‘bout the last couple days. I just wanted to say I’m really sorry.”

Maffett leaned her head to the side a bit. “It’s ok Corde. I wouldn’t be much of a friend if I left you outside.”

“Thanks, but I know I was a hassle and I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it, mate.” She smiled. “Did your mum say anything when you got back?”

“Nah, she hid in the kitchen, though I found a guitar she bought on my bed.”

“She bought you a new guitar?”

“Yep. Flanker Classic 6 string.”

“Has it magically made you able to play?” Maffett smirked, to which Concorde frowned.

“I can make that lump of wood and metal sing, lass!”

“Yeah, like a drunk teenager at karaoke.”

“Well I’ve improved at least.” Concorde grinned. “Last time you said me on guitar was like having a rusty razor scrapped along your ear drum.”

“That’s true. Come on, I need to keep an eye on the others.”

**********************************************************************************

Bristol tightened the last bolt holding the newly rebuilt Magic Engine to the back of a Powered Glider. At a glance, it looked like a rowing boat with wings and wheels attached as well as the engine with a large propeller attached to it, but it was a competent machine once airborne and always surprised ponies.

The original design was thrown together when he was a colt and foolishly chasing the heart of a Maneaco Pegasus who attended a nearby private school. Since then, he’d married said Pegasus and he’d been building these gliders for the rich and famous of Equestria.

Thankfully, unlike the charred mess of the Hydraulic Drinks Server that sat a workbench near the door into the rest of the house, these Powered Gliders were functionally perfect and almost never broke down.

Admittedly, he was bored of the design. However seeing as so many ponies were willing to pay for them he kept building them.

He put his weight against the engine and gave it a push to make sure the bolts were secure and the whole glider rocked, taking one of his new apprentices by surprise.

“Sorry ‘Foil.” He smiled at the filly, Aerofoil. As the engine was secure, he gave Aerofoil a quick job. “Could you open the main doors please, then could you help finish polishing the Chocolate Sun order?”

“Yes sir!” She nodded and quickly trotted to the ropes that operated the main door that pointed out over the back garden.

“Thank you ‘Foil. Géne?” Bristol turned and called across the workshop to his faithful test pilot.

The Neighvarre born unicorn trotted over from where he’d been filling in a short report on a test flight he’d just finished. As most of the Powered Gliders controls were designed to be directly manipulated by unicorn magic (though Bristol did have a solution for Earth Ponies), hiring a unicorn test pilot had been his best choice.

“Does this one need testing too?” He asked, his original accent long gone.

“It does. Fly it out to the Manx Isle and back. Should be enough to determine if the engine modifications work.”

“Ok, I’ll just finish this report on the Mach 5 and get to it.”

“Good. Foil’s getting the main doors open so you can get out. I need to go and have a talk with the wife.”

“Is she ok?”

Bristol paused for a moment. He trusted Géne enough to tell him a lot of things he didn’t tell any other pony and had already filled him in on the situation between Paris and Concorde.

“I knew this day would come eventually, Géne. I just hope she finally sees reason and stops trying to make Concorde something he isn’t.”

Géne just nodded, understanding what he meant before returning to his report. Bristol looked over at Foil as she finished pulling the main doors open and tied the rope so it would stay open. He nodded at her as she trotted past to help finish preparing the latest finished order, which was going to be delivered the next day.

Bristol went through the side door and into the house, accidently knocking the workshop door over. He’d neglected to replace it since he’d blown it off on Sunday and had left it leaning against the door frame. He quickly stood it back up before heading to the kitchen.

Paris spent most of her time in the kitchen, experimenting with ingredients and writing recipe books. However, since arguing with Concorde at the police station, she’d hardly left the kitchen or dining room since she’d bought him that guitar.

She seemed aware of her husband approaching as she tried to pretend to be busy.

“Unlike you Pudding, I’m not known for my prowess in the kitchen,” Bristol remarked after a moment, leaning against the kitchen door frame “but I’m pretty certain you can’t make tea with a sieve.”

Paris froze for a moment before dropping the sieve which contained several slightly charred teabags and slumped to the floor. Bristol was more familiar with his wife being depressed then he liked.

He walked over to her, turning off the hob before sitting down next to her, put his fore leg around her and pulling her into a hug.

“I’m losing him.” She quietly blubbered into her husband’s shoulder.

“Pudding, I did warn you this was going to happen eventually.”

“You did not know this would happen.”

“No. I just expected something to happen.”

Paris pushed herself out of his embrace, got up and walked over to the window, not in the mood to go through this again.

“I am sometimes surprised you take such a... a....” She stopped, searching for the right word “urgh, what’s the word?”

“Not much point asking me.” Bristol shrugged once he had stood up.

“Urgh, you don’t take much interest, even after you almost bankrupted yourself for him.”

“Oh course I do, I’d just rather he did something he wanted to do.”

“But if he keeps going the way he is he’ll end up killing himself.”

“Now that’s something you don’t know for certain. We went through a lot in order to have him in the first place; you really should let him be who he is.”

“But from the way he is going, he will and I won’t let that happen!”

“So you’d rather see him in jail?”

“No, of course I don’t.”

“Then why did you get that restraining order put on him?” Bristol’s asked angrily. He was just as angry as Concorde about the order, but he knew the answer already. Paris didn’t respond, instead dropping her head again.

Bristol sighed and walked over to her, lifting her face up with his hoof and gazing into her eyes as a single tear made its way down her face.

“He’s our only son, Pudding.” He said softly “You should love him for who he is.”

She gazed back into his eyes for a moment before leaned forwards and resting her head against Bristol’s shoulder. He pulled her in and hugged her tightly, vaguely aware of the engine noise from outside as Géne took off.

“Out of curiosity though,” Bristol asked after a long moment “How did you get that order?”

“The Police Chief was having trouble with his marriage and he agreed to make the order if I helped him.”

Do you have the Flight Factor?

The morning wore on and the audition line slowly moved forwards. So far as any of the Pegasi and the Unicorn who were at the back of the line could tell, each audition seemed to take about 10 minutes. No other Pegasus had joined the queue since Concorde and Maffett had returned, so it seemed they would be the last to audition.

“So why does this town have an abbey?” asked Spectrum, one of the Pegasus Maffett was accompanying around the town.

“I haven’t the foggiest idea.” Concorde shrugged. “’Far as any pony here knows it was built during the Chaotic Age and it’s just been used as a grave yard since.”

“Sounds like the perfect place for Nightmare Night.” Gusty, the other Cloudsdale stallion in their group injected.

“Well yeah, usually do short trips around there in the dead of night. Last time when it was really misty I hid behind a grave stone and jumped out at Maffett.”

“I turned him into a frog.” Maffett smiled. “He’s not turned back yet.”

“So that’s why I get these cravings for flies.” Concorde remarked, watching a fly go by as the Cloudsdale ponies laughed.

They were now in front of the town hall and trying to distract themselves from the sheer number of ponies, a fair few of them foals, who came out disappointed, upset and even crying. Whatever the audition process was it must have been serious or maybe even harsh, so the Pegasi at the back were trying to distract themselves from their nerves by talking about their respective towns.

The town hall itself was a grand building, standing slightly taller than the houses around it next to the town square. The freshly cleaned bricks made the building look like it had only recently been built, as did the large oak doors as the line moved inside. The freshly re-furbished lobby was made of stone with a deep red carpet, posters from future and past shows dominating the walls.

The atmosphere was tense and nervous as they approached the doors to the main hall, where one disappointed Pegasus would come out before a new, nervous Pegasus would venture in. In the moments the door was open, they caught a glimpse of a grey Pegasus inside, though they couldn’t make out any details besides that.

Spectrum was now at the front of the line, starting to get extremely nervous and almost turning green.

“You know, I really don’t feel like doing this.” He suddenly said.

“Me neither.” Gusty responded, a similar look of nervous panic on his face

“Oh come on,” April Showers said, looking disappointed “You guys can’t be chickening out now you’re at the front. You wanted to come here in the first place!”

“No!” Spectrum replied, defensively “I just really like the sound of the abbey! I’d like to see it, you know, up close.”

Gusty nodded to the idea and the two looked straight at Maffett. She and Concorde looked fairly amused.

“Oh alright, I’ll take you.” Maffett said as patronizingly as she could, April rolling her eyes in disappointment.

“Great!” The two stallions said in unison and bolted for the door, followed by a giggling Maffett at a slow canter.

“Looks like it’s you and me, April.” Concorde managed after he stopped laughing.

“Yeah.” April said, starting to get more nervous. “You’ll stay and wait, won’t you?”

“Of course.” Concorde smiled before the latest audition ended and a Pegasus foal came out. The little foal seemed to be holding back a wave of tears as he walked, head hanging, over to his parents by the main door.

“Next!” Came a voice through the open doors, his accent suggesting he was from the Highlands that separated Equestria from the Griffon Kingdom to the north. April Showers swallowed her nerves and looked at Concorde.

“Good luck.” He smiled reassuringly. April managed to return a small smile before going into the main hall and closing the door behind her.

Concorde now sat on his own in the lobby, looking around at the posters on the walls. One that caught his eye was that comedian Bill Bailey was making a return in the next couple of months, so he mentally noted down the date.

“Concorde?” Came a familiar voice that caused Concorde to freeze mid way through looking at posters. He looked around and saw his mother walking through the main doors.

“What are you doing here?” He asked, standing up ready to flee if he had to. She looked hag-ridden, as if she hadn’t slept for days. She came to a stop in front of him before looking around to make sure they were alone and looking him in the eye.

“I have come to support you.” She said simply with a smile. For a moment Concorde was surprised, before suspicion got the better of him.

“No seriously, why are you here?” He asked again.

“I am here to support you. Your father told me you were here after.... erm.... we had a talk.”

Concorde straightened up, looking his mother up and down to try and distinguish if she was lying or not. She looked almost frail and exhausted and he felt a wave of pity for her.

“Fine.” He said, turning to face the door. “Just don’t say anything.”

An awkward moment passed before he felt he should say something.

“Thanks for the guitar, by the way.” He added. Paris just smiled.

**********************************************************************************

Ten minutes passed in silence, Concorde simply watching the door. Eventually, he heard what sounded like Pegasi landing inside the hall followed by muffled voices which he couldn’t exactly make out. Eventually, there was the sound of hoof steps towards the door and April Showers came out. She looked extremely disappointed.

“How’d it go?” Concorde asked, knowing the answer.

“I failed.” She replied, sounding disheartened. “I flew into him on one of the turns and I lost confidence.”

“What did he have you do?”

“Well, we started with-”

“I said ‘next!’” The voice of the Highland pony cut off April Showers, who’d just poked his head around her, causing her to jump in surprise.

“Sorry, sorry!” April panicked, jumping aside so Concorde could fully see the grey Pegasus who was leading the auditions. He had a short, dark green mane and tail as well as a short goatee beard in the same colour. His eyes were a piercing, steely green and he fixed Concorde with a look that seemed to cut clean through him, though Concorde didn’t look away.

“Come on, I haven’t got all day.” He said before turning and disappearing into the hall, giving Concorde an opportunity to see his cutie mark which looked like a green tornado.

He looked at April Showers, who meekly nodded at him before Concorde followed the grey Pegasus in, followed by his mother.

The large hall was usually used for plays and other such performances. Concorde had been here plenty of times before, sometimes forced to see high brow plays with his mother, other times to see comedians with Maffett. At the moment, with the exception of the permanent stage at the far end and the chairs stacked up on racks at the side of the hall, the room was empty save for the grey Pegasus who had picked up a clip board and was quickly scribbling notes, looking disappointed.

Eventually, he turned to Concorde.

“Name?” He asked, fixing the younger Pegasus with another piercing look.

“Concorde.” He replied, the older Pegasus quickly writing his name down.

“Right.” He said, throwing the board towards a pile of bags in the corner, followed by spitting the pencil in his mouth in the same direction “I’m Hurricane and I lead in Red Hawks. I’ve been looking up and down the east coast for the best flyers. Do you think you’re good enough?”

“I could be.” Concorde responded, his nerves having turned to confidence that clearly came across in his voice. He knew if he kept talking he’d say something stupid, so resorted to trying to look innocent, an expression that was difficult to hold under Hurricane’s hard gaze.

“Well, we’ll see if you are or not. What we’re going to do is a bit of close quarters flying around the bay before you show me exactly what you can do. Is that ok with you?”

Concorde nodded.

“Good.” Hurricane replied, walking over to a large open window that faced out over the harbour. “Follow me and make sure you keep your head within a meter and in line with my left flank.”

Concorde leapt into the air and flew out of the window after Hurricane. The old Pegasus was quick and Concorde had to take a moment to see exactly where Hurricane had gone. Once spotted, flying across the harbour towards the sea, Concorde picked up his pace and caught up with Hurricane, coming into line as the old Pegasus had instructed.

**********************************************************************************

Hurricane watched Concorde closely out of the corner of his eye. Most of the other aspiring flyers he’d seen that day hadn’t even seen him fly towards to sea, so the colt had at least past that first test. The big test was about to come up.

“On my mark,” Hurricane shouted to Concorde to make sure he was heard “We’re going to turn 90 degrees left and fly along the sea front. Do you understand?” He finished, glancing back at Concorde. While the colt didn’t nod or say anything, the look in his eyes suggested he understood and as they approached the mouth of the river, Hurricane started to count down.

“Three. Two. One. Mark!”

Hurricane turned sharply left, bracing for an impact that never came. Throughout the morning, he’d either been run into by young flyers, or they’d dodge around him and would now be busy catching back up. He glanced back at Concorde again and saw he was still there, an inch or so out of position maybe but still there. He had to admit, he was impressed, if slightly disappointed it had taken all morning for him to find somepony who could turn when prompted.

“On my mark,” Hurricane shouted again “We’re going to head up through the clouds.”

Hurricane didn’t bother to look and see if Concorde was nodding this time before counting down.

“Three. Two. One. Mark!”

Hurricane turned sharply upwards. He hadn’t told Concorde exactly how steep they were going to climb as an impromptu test and while flying directly upwards he glanced back, moderately pleased to see Concorde was still roughly in position. Could it be that he’d actually found someone with some ability for a change?

Once through the clouds, Hurricane came to a halt.

“Right, now’s your moment colt. I want you to show me your best move.” He said simply, landing on a cloud and folding his front legs. “Do whatever you like.” He added, internally praying to Celestia the colt’s best wasn’t a series of loops any Pegasus foal would do the moment they learnt to fly to show off.

He watched as Concorde looped round and head back towards the sea, wondering for a moment if his best trick was to crash. The thought was rapidly pushed from his mind as the colt hit supersonic speed, leaving a small scarlet shockwave behind him as a trail of scarlet followed in his wake.

Concorde slowly looped around so he was pointing back up into the air, missing the waves by barely an inch. Hurricane rubbed his chin as Concorde started flying at full speed towards him, but Hurricane didn’t so much as flinch as the young colt hurtled past within a few inches again.

His decision made, he put his hoof in the air to signal Concorde to stop. It took about 30 seconds for Concorde to get the message and the young Pegasus came to a complete stop in front of him so quickly that his sonic wake carried on and knocked the cloud clean out from underneath Hurricane.

**********************************************************************************

Concorde tried not to give away the fact he was repeating a single curse word over and over again in his head as Hurricane recomposed himself and flew back up to be face to face with Concorde.

“We’re heading back to the town hall now. Form back up on my flank until we get there.” Hurricane said simply, not hinting at any possible annoyance. Concorde suspected he might have been angry for a moment but managed to keep his expression neutral.

Hurricane flew down towards the hall with Concorde flying into formation as instructed. He had to admit, close quarters flying was less difficult then he had expected. He figured having raced for so long; he was used to moving within tight confines when overtaking somepony so he probably had a natural ability for it.

As they approached the open window to the hall, Concorde realized it wasn’t wide enough for them to fly through in formation so he backed off slightly, allowing Hurricane to go through first. The pair landed at speed and slide to a halt, taking Concorde’s mother by surprise.

“How did it go?” She asked, trotting over to Concorde.

“Alright, I suppose.” Concorde shrugged, not sure exactly how to rate himself.

“If that’s just ‘alright’, I’m looking forwards to seeing what you’d consider good.” Hurricane said, walking over. Concorde and Paris just looked at him in surprise so he got to the point. “Concorde, how would you like to join the Red Hawks?”

A moment passed before Concorde answered.

“Seriously?” He exclaimed excitedly.

“Aye.”

Concorde wasn’t sure what to say. He glanced at his mother for a moment, expecting her to start a protest that never came and she instead just smiled.

Concorde cleared his throat before responding.

“I’d love to.”

Wonderbolts and Dragons don't Mix

The morning rain was extremely refreshing as Concorde flew over the town towards the apartment Hurricane was renting while he was in Whitbay, following a night of celebratory drinks. Hurricane had said he was only planning on staying in Whitbay for a few days while running auditions, but seeing as he now had Concorde to train he was planning on staying longer.

Besides being told where and when to meet him, Concorde hadn’t heard from the older Pegasus since. Upon returning home, his father and Maffett’s father Astrolabe had thrown an impromptu party though between the drinking they rarely shut up about how awesome the Red Hawks used to be.

Every time somepony mentioned the Red Hawks, the matter of why they disbanded raised its hooded head. It seemed nopony knew why they disbanded so Maffett offered to look into it once she’d sobered up.

The apartments were part of a recent development on the outskirts of the town, built to support the ever expanding Weather Control workforce which usually came to town from Cloudsdale. Weather Control was a massive industry in a port town and Cloudsdale, being the heart of all Equestria’s weather, always produced the best Pegasi for the job.

Once Concorde got inside the apartment block and shook himself dry (to the annoyance of the cleaner), he made his way up to the right apartment and knocked.

“Come in.” Came Hurricane’s almost disinterested voice through the door, so Concorde pushed it open.

Hurricane looked up from the opposite side of a table where he was sat shuffling a deck of cards.

“You’re late.” He said casually as Concorde entered, pulling a card and laying it down next to three others in a line.

“It’s only 3 minutes past.” Concorde pointed out, looking at the clock on the wall as he knocked the door shut with his hind hoof.

“That’s still late. I would’ve tried to arrive 3 minutes early if it was my first day.”

“Looks like you were already expecting me to be late, seeing as you’re playing solitaire.”

“These aren’t playing cards.” Hurricane said, holding up the deck so Concorde could see that the image was actually a formation of 4 ponies.

“What are they?” He asked, sitting opposite Hurricane.

“They’re cards with different manoeuvres and stunts drawn on them. I’ve been trying to work out a potential routine for two ponies and thought I’d start with something random.” Hurricane replied as he reshuffled the deck, pulled a new card and put it aside after a moment’s thought as it was a stunt for 3 ponies.

Concorde looked at the upside down cards laid out before Hurricane. The first showed two ponies in formation, one of which had an ‘L’ on their flank, which he assumed meant ‘leader’ and the words ‘Duo Entrance’ written at the bottom. The next showed what the caption stated was a slow formation roll, followed by a formation loop and a ‘Duo Split’. Not exactly the calibre of performance Concorde was expecting to see after listening to his dad the night before.

“Struggling a bit?” Concorde asked, looking up at Hurricane.

“There arn’t many of these cards for 2 and let’s not forget I still have to train you.”

“That’s true. When are we going to get started?”

“Not until this weather clears up a bit. For now, we may as well see what you may be able to do.”

“Last I heard that’s not for another 3 days.”

Hurricane paused and looked up from the table at Concorde, looking sceptical.

“Doesn’t this wee town employ an army of Weather Controllers?” He asked.

“It does but they’re more wind controllers as supposed to weather controllers. Drop of rain doesn’t bother many ponies ‘round here.”

Hurricane sighed, pulling another card from the deck and laying it down. This one showing two ponies reforming with an arrow pointing up next to them. The caption stated it was a ‘Vertical Duo Reform’.

After a lengthy silence, Concorde figured he may as well ask:

“What’s all this about the Red Hawks disbanding, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Hurricane froze for a moment. He did anticipate the question cropping up at some stage, though he was at least hoping it wouldn’t.

He lay down the deck of cards and regarded Concorde, contemplating what exactly to tell him. He didn’t think Concorde had been born when it happened, but it wasn’t a subject he liked discussing.

“It’s exactly as it sounds.” Hurricane stated “The Red Hawks disbanded a long time ago. I was about half your age at the time, I think.”

“They just disbanded for the sake of it?” Concorde pressed with a raised eyebrow. Hurricane hoped he wasn’t going to question every answer he gave.

“No. There was a personal spat between” Hurricane paused for a moment, searching for a reasonable term “two members of the team. The others took sides, it got messy and the team just split up.”

“A personal spat? What about?”

“Well it didn’t start as a spat. It started more as placing blame and it got out of hoof. We were a close knit group, so if one bad thing suddenly surfaces, plenty more quickly follow. Afterwards, no pony could stand each other so we just fell apart.”

Concorde opened his mouth, likely about to ask more that Hurricane didn’t feel like answering before somepony knocked at the door and spared the older Pegasus.

“Would you mind getting the door?” Hurricane asked, picking the deck back up.

“Sure thing, boss.” Concorde smiled, saluting before doing as he asked.

Concorde opened the door to find himself looking at the town mayor, who was somewhere way down the list of ponies he was expecting to see. The mayor was an old, weathered Earth pony with his body, mane and tail long since having turned silver. His well built body still held up well after many years working aboard various ships, though.

“Mornin’, Concorde.” He said simply. “I understand Hurricane of the Red Hawks is here.”

“He is, sir.” Concorde smiled, stepping aside so the mayor and Hurricane could see each other.

“Can I help you?” Hurricane asked before noticing the gold chain with medallion around the Earth pony’s neck, signifying his position as mayor.

“There is.” The mayor said, entering the room and looking around for a moment. “Is there only two of you?”

“Aye.” Hurricane replied with a straight face.

“Seriously?”

“Aye.”

Concorde looked surprised as well. He had thought earlier Hurricane was looking at displays for two for training purposes, not because there literally were only two of them.

The mayor sighed. “Well, regardless, I have a proposition for you.”

He looked at Concorde for a moment. The young stallion was known to him, if mainly as he was the son of one of the town’s most famous current figures. He’d been made aware of the restraining order keeping him from entering Windy Valley Raceway the day before and had spent the rest of the afternoon demanding why the police chief had signed the order. The police were there to make sure the goods that made their way through Whitbay weren’t stolen, not to assist in family disputes.

The mayor looked back at Hurricane, figuring he may as well get to the point.

“It’s the anniversary of the birth of this town’s most famous figure in two weeks time. The Wonderbolts were scheduled to perform during the festivities but they’ve cancelled after they were apparently injured fighting a dragon in some place called Ponyville and I need a replacement.”

Hurricane shrugged.

“Sounds like quite the pickle.” He remarked.

The Mayor scowled at him. He wanted a yes or no now as he had other business to attend to.

“Who’s birth are you celebrating?” Hurricane asked after a moment. Such celebrations weren’t uncommon in Equestria though they were more commonly in honour of the town’s founder on the date of the town’s founding.

“Captain Trotter.” The Mayor answered, indicating to a picture on the wall that Hurricane hadn’t taken a blind bit of notice of while he’d been there. It showed a blue Earth pony, wearing a navy blue jacket, white ruffle shirt and what looked like a white wig, sat studying what appeared to be a map.

The caption stated the name; while Hurricane noticed the dates stating when Captain Trotter had lived were 500 years ago “He charted most of Equestria, the Griffon and Reindeer lands to the north as well as the southern seas, discovering Marsupia in the process. He pretty much put this town on the map in the first place.”

“Well he did write them.” Concorde pointed out.

“Have to admit, I’ve not heard of him.” Hurricane said, reshuffling the deck again. “How much are you offering?”

“500 bits.” The Mayor said simply.

“Is that what you offered the Wonderbolts too?” Hurricane enquired. The Mayor seemed to visibly bristle, not in the mood for haggling.

“A thousand, then.” The mayor almost spat. Hurricane leaned back in his chair, seemingly considering the offer for a moment before replying:

“Deal.”

“I’ll have my aids send you a schedule, you just make sure you can fly as well as you used to.” The Mayor said simply before leaving, slamming the door behind him.

Concorde looked at Hurricane.

“Two weeks.” He stated, starting to get slightly worried already.

“Then we’d better get started with your training.” Hurricane replied.

Working Nine ‘til Five feels like Prison

Maffett regarded the pile of papers on her desk as she contemplated her existence. After spending a weekend watching Cloud racing, doing an office job always left her feeling hugely dissatisfied in a sluggish world.

With so many ships coming in and out of the harbour, the Weather Controllers needed a well documented schedule so they knew what was where and when. Shortly after finishing school, Maffett had signed up to work in the Weather Control offices as a clerk and she could never shake the thought that it was the worst thing she had ever done.

Maffett had never enjoyed her school days. While her parents could have afforded to send her to the same school Concorde attended, they felt the local High School would be a better fit for their daughter.

While she did do well there, always scoring the highest marks in the class, she never felt welcome. The other students considered her an interloper and they would frequently bully her.

To that end, she had taken to staying in the library during breaks or staying near a teacher if she was forced to go outside. All she had to look forwards to was escaping the confines of the place and finding Concorde.

While she would never admit it to him, Concorde probably was the only thing that kept her from breaking down entirely. He had the same love of ludicrous comedy she did and they spent a lot of time together coming up with their own jokes. He’d even joined her for her school talent show when they performed as a comedic duo after they’d coaxed her teacher to let him.

He would also always stand up for her if they ever ran into her school bullies. One memorable occasion had been when they were in the town square and the bullies had come over to and started taunting her. Concorde had asked them several times to leave them alone and, after one of them spat in his face, he punched one of them in the face in return. A police pony had taken the pair aside afterwards and thanked Concorde for driving them off as the bullies had been causing trouble around the square.

Maffett’s thoughts wondered as she wrote down the details of the Dølehest’s arrival. If Concorde did well with the Red Hawks, it seemed likely that he’d leave Whitbay.

She was pleased for him. He’d found something that made him almost as happy as racing, but it reminded her of her own situation.

She didn’t want to sit in this office for the rest of her life. Reading the destinations and departures of the various ships that came to Whitbay made her want to see more of the world.

She had mentioned this to her father, who told her about how he started in the office as well before becoming a navigator. All it made her think was that her father had a much higher tolerance for menial tasks then she did.

Besides that, it was simply the thought that she could be trapped her while her best friend, her brother almost, would be leaving her behind to progress while she was caged here in this old office. She really didn’t want to think of the empty seat that could be beside her when she went to see a comedy show to brighten her bleak existence, an empty seat that would remind her of how alone and vulnerable she felt without Concorde around.

“Celia? Have you finished the forms for next week’s arrivals?” Came the voice of her supervisor, snapping Maffett out of her thoughts at the mention of her hated first name.

“I haven’t, no.” She said, having realized she wasn’t even half done.

“I’ll need them before the end of the day.” Her supervisor said, indicating to the clock on the wall that read two o’clock.

Maffett just nodded before she started writing out the details for each ship quicker.

Her mind was made up. This would be the last lot of work she’d do for this hole in the ground.

What could possibly go wrong?

Concorde couldn’t remember the last time a week had past so quickly. His school days had always dragged mercilessly while working at Caramel Apple Aches, a job he had now officially quit, had largely been mentally edited down to kicking the occasional tree and laughing a lot with the other farm hooves.

Display flying was turning out to not only be one of the few things he’d picked up almost effortlessly but among the most fun he’d had outside racing. Performing tricky manoeuvres in such close proximity to another Pegasus required full concentration and filled him with the kind of adrenaline that he usually only got when battling for position in a race.

The thing Concorde enjoyed the most, however, was winding up Hurricane. The older Pegasus favoured getting to the point and usually only said what needed to be said and Concorde’s somewhat light hearted, unserious attitude did seem to keep rubbing him up the wrong way and his desperate efforts to keep a straight face just encouraged Concorde more.

Hurricane had started simple, making sure Concorde could break and reform formation and perform some simple manoeuvres. Between lessons they had been trying to work out a decent performance and after a late night they had come up with a reasonably entertaining routine that ended with a card Hurricane had labelled ‘unique’.

This was causing the biggest sticking point as they needed to come up with a stunt to fit the space.

Besides winding Hurricane up, Concorde had been trying to learn more about the original Red Hawks. For whatever reason, Hurricane didn’t willingly talk about them, insisting it wasn’t important and only increasing Concorde’s curiosity.

**********************************************************************************

Concorde paced up and down the tarmac street in front of the apartment block Hurricane was living in. Hurricane had stated they wouldn’t start until ten AM so Concorde was just considering what to do fill the ‘unique’ space.

The day before, Hurricane had shown Concorde his own signature move, which involved creating a green hurricane that could blow away any loosely held down items if they were close enough.

Concorde only really had his sonic boom as a signature move, which wasn’t particularly impressive from a spectator’s point of view. The scarlet shockwave and consequent trail didn’t last long and certainly wasn’t even an eighth as exciting or dazzling as the fabled Sonic Rainboom his Grandmother had told him about when he was younger in her overly sweary manner.

“Corde!” called an unmistakable voice from behind him. He turned to see Maffett trotting towards him wearing a saddle bag.

“Maffett!” Concorde said cheerfully. “Where have you been hiding? Not seen you all week.”

“I’ve been researching, actually.”

“Ingenious ways of leaving hated jobs?” Concorde remarked with the first thing that came to mind.

“No. But I did quit.”

Concorde was quiet for a moment, surprised his remark had actually been true.

“Really?” He asked, though he knew how much she hated her day job and the fact she’d finally quit it didn’t really come as a surprise.

“Yeah, but enough of that. I’ve got something to show you.”

“Not more slash fiction, I hope.”

“No. I hid those in my dad’s study.” She grinned, levitating a book out of her bag, opening it and fanning through the pages. “Check this.” She added, holding the book up for Concorde to see.

It was a lengthy article regarding the original Red Hawks, quite an old one judging from the pictures.

Quickly scanning the pages, Concorde noticed they were regarded as the best team of the time and the pictures that dotted the article showed various stunts and tricks, including a 6 pony formation roll and a Synchro Pair, a move that caught his interest.

“What do you think?” Maffett asked after a moment.

“I like the look of this Synchro Pair.” Concorde responded, the image showing two ponies flying past each other at speed having apparently narrowly missed flying into each other.

“I meant the picture.”

“I just said I like the look of it.”

“The second picture from the bottom.”

Concorde looked at the picture Maffett meant which showed 2 adult pegasi and a young colt stood between them. The caption said they were the team’s headline flyers Hanriot and Sopwith Hawker with their son Hurricane. Glancing quickly at the caption for the Synchro Pair, he noticed it was performed by Hanriot and Sopwith too.

“Well?” Maffett asked again.

“I didn’t know his parents were original Red Hawks.” Concorde shrugged, not 100% sure what she expected him to say. “He did tell me they fell apart after a personal spat. Hmm.”

“What?”

“I wonder, would said ‘personal spat’ involve these two?” Concorde thought aloud, taking a closer look at the picture. Nothing in particular stood out; besides the idea Hurricane could smile broadly. “Is that what you wanted me to see?” Concorde asked after a moment.

“Well, that and I was wondering if you needed anyone else.” Maffett shrugged.

“How’d you mean?”

“Well,” Maffett trailed off, thinking about how to phrase the question. “I’m not really feeling the commentary at Windy Valley any more now you’re not there and I did notice in that article that the Red Hawks used to have a commentator.”

“You want to be the new Red Hawks commentator, eh?” Concorde guessed at her question.

“Yeah.”

“And you want to escape that office you currently work in?”

“That too.”

“And you can’t bear to be without me?”

“That’s debatable.” Maffett said, trying to hide the idea that it was one of the reasons. Concorde just grinned.

“Well, I’ll see what the boss says.”

“Concorde, you’re early.” Came Hurricane’s voice from behind them. Concorde turned to see the older Pegasus closing the door to the apartment building behind him as Maffett quickly put the book away.

“Thought I’d try setting a better example for you.” Concorde smiled. Hurricane still didn’t look like he knew how to react to Concorde’s jabs so he just ignored it and looked at Maffett.

“Who’s this?” He asked.

“Oh, this is my friend Maffett. Maff, this is the boss pony Hurricane.”

“Hi!” Maffett smiled, Hurricane nodding in response before returning his attention to Concorde.

“We’ve got a lot of work to do, come on.” He said, ready to jump into the sky.

“Wait just a minute. I had a thought last night.” Concorde started, quickly thinking about how to make Maffett’s request sound like his own idea “A commentator could be useful.”

“Why do you think we need a Commentator?” Hurricane asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Well, not everypony knows what we’re doing and I thought a good commentator could make the performance more, er, interesting, you know. Building up a bit of, erm, suspense while we sort ourselves out between manoeuvres, right?”

“And I assume your friend here fulfils that purpose?”

“Well, she’s not bad at the whole commentating thing.” Concorde continued, knowing they’d been rumbled. “But she could do an okay-ish job.”

Maffett gave Concorde a look that translated roughly as ‘only an okay-ish job?!’ while Hurricane thought for a moment.

“What commentary have you done?” Hurricane asked Maffett after a while.

“I did commentate at the local race track.” She said simply.

“Okay. Come with me a moment, I’ll give you a list of the manoeuvres we’re going to perform next week and I want to see what you can do with them. How are you with light spells?”

“Erm... you mean light bolts and the like?”

“Yes. I could use a unicorn to cast spells to change the colour of our trails, maybe cause flashes of light if we come into contact which could be useful for training purposes.” Hurricane added, glancing at Concorde.

“You keep flying into me, not vice versa.” Concorde injected, but Hurricane ignored him and waited for Maffett’s answer.

“I’ve not tried them before, but I can probably do it.”

“Good. I’ll give you the appropriate spell book and you can try them on the colt.”

“He is a good genie pig” Maffett smiled at Concorde, who just rolled his eyes.

**********************************************************************************

Now Maffett was with them, Hurricane had opted to walk to their training ground. He’d been using an open area of sea next to a cliff about a mile outside of the town to teach Concorde and they’d been rehearsing their performance there as well. They were far enough away from the town for ponies not to see them yet close enough for them to return quickly.

In the distance, further up the coast line they could see the start of the hills that made up the Highlands, where Hurricane had originally come from. Beyond those were the mountains that separated Equestria from Griffin lands to the north.

Maffett had been reading and re-reading the list of manoeuvres Hurricane had given her as they walked and made the occasional note that she could make into a fully fledged script. She’d insisted the two Pegasus didn’t talk to her while she was thinking and remained under a tree while the two Pegasus flew over the sea, continuing to practice their routine while she took notes on how long it took the pair to recover after manoeuvres so she knew how long she could talk for.

The morning wore on as Hurricane and Concorde perfected their routine, but the question of what the finale should be still loomed over them, even as they walked back to town for some lunch. Another question, however, came to Hurricane’s mind first.

“What exactly are mushy peas?”

“Erm...” Concorde thought for a moment. He’d suggested they got kelp, chips and mushy peas for lunch “Sort of a semi-solidified pea soup.”

“That doesn’t sound very appealing.”

“They taste better then they sound or look.”

“That doesn’t make me feel any more inclined to try them.”

“What are you, a wimp?”

“No, I just don’t think they sound even vaguely appetizing.”

“Oh Hurricane, I don’t think I can take you seriously as a leader if you start chickening out like this.”

“I’m surprised you don’t know what they are. You’re only from up the road.” Maffett injected.

“Edinbridle’s over 2 days walk away.”

“Far enough away for mushy peas to be foreign and strange, but close enough for haggis to be perfectly acceptable?” Concorde remarked.

“We’re just getting sandwiches and going back.” Hurricane said simply, getting sick of the subject. “I can’t stand the stench of vinegar from those shops anyway. We still need to think of something to finish our routine with.”

“Well, Concorde can go supersonic. You’re not making any use of that at the moment.” Maffett commented.

“The shockwave isn’t dramatic enough to have much of an effect.” Hurricane responded. Concorde pretended he didn’t hear him and looked around at the houses as they entered the town.

“What can you do?” She asked, half sticking up for her friend.

“I can make controllable hurricanes.”

“Then why not combine the two?”

“How exactly?” Concorde asked, not sure how flying at high speed and whirling vortexes of wind could work together. Hurricane seemed to be mulling the an idea over in his head.

“Maybe my hurricane could be used to emphasize your sonic boom?” Hurricane wondered out loud as the three entered a cafe.

“How’d you mean?” Maffett asked as they sat down. A waitress quickly came over and took their orders before Hurricane continued.

“Well, if you fly through the eye of my hurricane and hit the speed of sound inside, the hurricane should increase the sound of the boom and the dark wind could make what light the boom creates brighter.”

“An interesting plan but you’re basically saying I should fly into a whirling cone of death.” Concorde remarked.

“I am. You’re not afraid are you?”

Concorde leaned back in the chair and folded his fore legs.

“That sounds like a challenge, Mr Hawker.”

“If you think so. Worth trying at the very least.”

The Red Hawks fly again

The sun shone through the gaps of Concorde’s curtains on the morning of the display. He rolled over, part of his mind telling him it was pointless to try and sleep now while the other screamed for rest.

Nerves had kept him awake all night and his mind was racing with their planned routine and potential ways it could go hideously wrong.

So far, potential disasters had ranged from knocking a few chimney pots off roofs and onto onlookers right up to somehow burning the entire town down, the exact details of which had vanished randomly from his mind since. That had led him to thinking about why the brain did that, usually when trying to think of an obscure word.

So ten hours of attempted sleep had turned into ten hours of on and off panicking about only having two weeks of experience before his first performance, for which the stakes were fairly high.

Captain Trotter was a legend in this part of the world and messing up during an annual celebration of this major figure wouldn’t do his own reputation much good and that was before wondering about how much of a laughing stock the name of the Red Hawks would become.

“Oh f***ing hay!” Concorde mumbled to himself, rolling off his bed and casting both the sheets and the line of thought aside.

Quickly glancing at the clock, he realized he had about an hour before he had to meet Hurricane and Maffett to prepare for their routine, so went over to the balcony window and threw the curtains open.

From his window, he could see the town getting ready for the celebration. A Ferris wheel was being tested on the other side of the harbour and the mighty Victorious Endeavour, the last ship Captain Trotter had captained and which it was said he had died on, was sailing up the river into position for the day.

There had been a time as a colt, before he’d learnt to fly, when Concorde had dreamt of captaining that famous ship. These days, however, he doubted he’d be able to put up with climbing the chain of command to get to such a position, especially as he rarely could take authority figures seriously.

Besides which, if he had gone sailing around the world it seemed likely his mother would be stood waiting for him on some far away shore, waiting to drag him home by the ear.

Glancing back at the clock he noticed about 2 minutes had elapsed. He could probably keep this up for an hour, though he suspected he’d likely go insane well before then.

After wasting the time by scribbling out a letter to Octavia, something he hadn’t done in a while, Concorde flew to Hurricane’s place. The old Pegasus was busy searching through a suitcase when he got in, several red costumes dotted around the room.

“Put this on.” Hurricane said after a while, throwing a costume at Concorde. The tight fitting suit was almost the same scarlet as his own mane and tail with a blood red belly. A golden ring with a red, hawk like bird in flight in the middle adorning the flank.

Concorde looked at Hurricane.

“Is this really time for your fantasies?” Concorde asked, smirking at Hurricane’s irritated expression.

“Just put the damn thing on, Concorde.”

“I didn’t know you had these with you. How many have you got?”

“They’re the costumes from the original team. Seeing as I couldn’t get one made for you, I guessed Spitfire’s old costume would fit you.”

“Spitfire? Isn’t she the captain of the Wonderbolts?”

“She is now. She was in the Red Hawks before then.”

“How long for?”

“Four months.”

“That it?”

“Aye. Are you going to put that on or not?”

“Not with you looking at me like that.”

Hurricane rolled his eyes and left the room. Concorde smiled to himself, enjoying winding the older Pegasus up.

It took about 10 minutes to wiggle into the costume, the stomach being too tight for Concorde’s tastes. Spitfire was either extremely thin or she was younger then he was at the time. Regardless, he found he couldn’t quite breathe properly.

Hurricane came in a moment later, wearing his own Red Hawk costume which looked a little worse for wears, carrying a pair of retro goggles in his mouth.

“Does it fit?” He asked after putting the goggles on the table.

“Just a say.” Concorde replied, trying to push the material into position so he could breathe more easily. At that moment, Maffett entered the apartment with a clipboard hovering in a blue glow before her.

She regarded Concorde in the tight costume for a moment.

“You’re getting fat.” She commented with a smile.

“Mornin’ to you too, gingersnaps.” Concorde replied sarcastically, standing up on his hind hooves and stretching towards the ceiling in an attempt to make the suit fit a bit better.

“Do you have a time for us, Maffett?” Hurricane asked.

“I do, boss. You’re on at one o’clock.”

“Why’d we only just find this out now?” Concorde enquired, stretching out his hind legs as the suit material creaked.

“Celestia only knows.” Maffett remarked before checking the rest of her notes “Speaking of which, Prince Blueblood won’t be attending this year.”

“No great loss. What’s his excuse this time?”

“Likely something to do with not wanting to be surrounded by commoners or the smell of seaweed ruins his hair or some such rubbish.”

“Never ceases to amaze me that Governor Percy puts up with him.”

“Considering Governor Percy lives in Alnwick on the other side of York, I doubt he cares.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Hurricane interrupted. “Concorde, we need to get to our starting position up river.”

“But it’s only ten.” Concorde pointed out.

“We’ll do a quick run through of the maneouvers while we’re there.” He said before turning to Maffett. “Signal us when they’re ready.”

“Will do, boss! I’ll just put these spells on you and you’re good to go.”

**********************************************************************************

Hurricane and Concorde stood at the top of a cliff about a mile up the valley. Hurricane was stood perfectly still, his eyes fixed on the town in the distance as he waited for Maffett’s signal to start.

Concorde was stiff with nerves and hadn’t moved or said anything for about ten minutes. He wanted to break the tension with some form of witticism, but he knew Hurricane probably wouldn’t react even if he could think of anything.

Instead, he continued visualising exactly what they were going to do. Maffett had cast various spells on the pair to improve the spectacle of some of their moves, though Concorde did half think she’d cast the wrong spell on him for a laugh.

“Concorde.” Hurricane suddenly said, snapping the younger Pegasus out of another visual run-down of how the display could go wrong. “They’re ready.”

Concorde had never been more terrified by those words before and his legs felt physically incapable of holding him up. He looked towards the town, where he could see the remnants of blue magic firework that Maffett had told them she’d use to signal them with when it was time for them to perform.

“Let’s go.” Hurricane said calmly. His voice seemed to pierce the mass of nerves that Concorde was becoming and reminded him that if he stuck to the routine they’d be fine. “Good luck.” Hurricane added before jumping off the cliff, followed by Concorde.

The air rushed past Concorde as he flew downwards, picking up speed as he went. The cool air took away his nerves, replacing them with the confidence he always felt when he flew at speed and, as the pair curved upwards onto a level flight towards the town, Concorde knew one thing: They could do this.

The pair flew in formation towards the town, picking up speed as they flapped their wings. As they flew over the out lining houses, they spread their wings and allowed themselves to glide into what they had dubbed the ‘Performance zone’, which stretched over the main section of the harbour where the most ponies could see them. As they approached they could hear Maffett’s commentary:

“...Flying in from the west, makes some noise for Hurricane and Concorde of the REEEEED HAAAAAAWKS!!”

Right on cue, the pair flew over the top of the performance zone, Concorde’s mind mentally editing out the noise of the crowd, which was somewhere between excitement and bemusement.

Once over the sea, the pair split up, turning in a wide circle before reforming and flying back up the way they’d come. Concorde positioned himself over Hurricane and turned upside down.

“This formation roll may look simple,” Maffett started as Hurricane and Concorde rolled around a point between them so Concorde was right way up below and Hurricane was upside down above, holding in position for a moment before rolling again “But keeping co-ordinated is a heck of a feat! Is that not impressive enough, then watch as the boys perform the ever popular Firework Pinball.”

Maffett had made the name up on the spot as, after a fifth roll, the two Pegasus got back into their side by side formation and split again, doing the same wide turns they had done over the sea.

However, when they continued around in their turning circles until they faced each other before they started to loop up.

Several ponies watching gasped loudly enough for Maffett to hear them from her small commentary booth on the dock side. As they got a quarter of the way through their loops, Hurricane and Concorde brushed off each other, leaving a bright firework like explosion where they’d touched, which was the main spell Maffett had cast on the pair.

They carried on around, both competing full loops before launching into a second loop, brushing off each other again, leaving another fire work, before they flew straight up, flying towards and away from each other and brushing against each other as they went, leaving four fire work explosions behind them before they spun around, aimed for a spot just above the sea at the mouth of the harbour, continuing to fly towards and away from each other and leaving more collision fireworks behind them.

For Concorde, everything seemed to blur together into one seemless, perfectly executed series of rolls, flips and gentle collisions with fireworks going off almost constantly. Even when he had to screw his eyes shut as they performed the Fly Wheel, he knew instinctively where he had to go and where Hurricane was as the fireworks generated by flying through the other Pegasus’ trail went off around him. With the adrenaline coursing through his veins, everything made sense, though his total focus was preventing him from hearing the ohs, ahs and cheers of the crowd watching them.

Maffett smiled; happy the crowd was enjoy the show. She watched as Hurricane and Concorde spiralled away from each other after they’d finished the Fly Wheel, leaving a slowly fading disc of light in the air that left it’s imprint on her eyes. As the two Pegasus swopped over the river, kicking spray up at the walls and onto the docks at the feet of the crowd, Maffett continued her commentary.

“If you thought that Fly Wheel was spectacular, then the Hawks have just the thing to blow you away. If you’ll look towards the sea, you’ll see team leader Hurricane as he sets up our local lad Concorde for what I like to call the Sonic Bloom.”

Concorde spotted a cloud that he could sit behind while he waited for Hurricane to get ready. With little time to practice this move and three failed attempts, Concorde wasn’t sure about performing it before the town. As there wasn’t much else they could do besides ricochet off each other and spinning in circles until the crowd got bored, however, Concorde agreed to do it.

He landed on the cloud and watched Hurricane quickly fly around in circles, quickening his pace as he went. The air inside the circle he was creating started to turn dark, almost a deep green and started to swirl, quickly becoming an ever expanding vortex of wind.

Hurricane was doing his best to keep the top as wide as possible so Concorde would have a clean run into the eye of the storm, but he was still slightly worried he’d get caught up powerful wind and end the show with a spectacular crash.

After a minute of Hurricane making the vortex bigger and bigger, he started to angle the cone so it pointed into the harbour at a 45 degree angle. Concorde jumped off his cloud and lined himself up to fly straight into the mouth of the storm, making sure he’d hit the eye at full speed. Hurricane’s idea was for him to create a sonic boom inside the vortex, so Concorde kept his wings wide open so he didn’t hit the sound barrier too early.

The raging, swirling winds was all he could see as he hurtled into the vortex. His nerves and any sane thought had long since vanished and all he focused on was the right point to accelerate.

As soon as he did, he folded his wings back to get rid of all drag and accelerated in a manner no other Pegasus could and hit the sound barrier.

The colossal boom bounced off the inside of the vortex and caused it to rip open, revealing the sea before him, almost as if he was flying out of a flower as it blossomed.

As he quickly pulled up to avoid flying into the sea he could see the town in front of him lit up with a scarlet light. It didn’t fade until after Hurricane rejoined Concorde as he flew through the harbour, which was when the stunned crowd roared, cheering at the spectacle they’d just seen.

“Mares and Gentlecolts, we are the Red Hawks and we hope you enjoyed our show!” Maffett shouted over the commentary, waving to the two Pegasus as they flew by. Concorde smiled before waving back at the crowd below.

Epilogue: Loose ends

“That wasn’t a bad display.” The Mayor commented in Hurricane’s apartment that evening. “It was a bit short, though.”

“There wasn’t really much we could do.” Concorde shrugged as he meandered around the room, still feeling the adrenaline.

“Regardless, you went down well enough with the crowd so that’ll do. Are you done yet, lad?” The Mayor added to his unicorn aid, who’d spent the last fifteen minutes dividing the one thousand bit payment equally into 3 bags at Hurricane’s request.

“Nearly done, sir.” He replied, checking he’d defiantly counted the payment out right.

“How’d the rest of the day go?” Maffett asked, having not had time to explore the festivities for herself.

“The Ferris wheel broke but besides that nothing really happened.” He said as his aid levitated the three bags onto the table, dropping the solitary spare coin in the middle.

“Say, you were in the original Red Hawks, right?” The aid asked Hurricane, who just nodded. “Is it true Hanriot put Vickers in hospital?”

The almost innocent question seemed to send Hurricane into a state of shock, though the Aid didn’t seem to notice as he continued talking.

“My dad always told me Hanriot was his favourite of the Red Hawks but he just seemed to stop all of a sudden and he always wondered why. Was it to do with Vickers’ accident or was it a personal matter, he always thought it was the thing that led to the Red Hawks disbanding.”

Concorde and Maffett listened to the Aid as he spoke, but neither could help but notice that Hurricane’s look of shock was gradually turning to anger. The Mayor seemed uncertain what to do, so Maffett decided to step in.

“Look, mate, we need to do a, y’know, debrief on today’s performance.” She said, stepping between Hurricane and the Aid before the older Pegasus did anything rash. “It’s something we’d prefer to do in private.”

“Very well.” The Mayor injected, glad to find a way to get his aid to be quiet. “Come on, colt.” He added before heading to the door.

“I couldn’t get an autograph first, could I?” The aid quickly asked, before the Mayor grabbed his tail and pulled him out of the door.

“Maybe later!” Concorde called after the pair as they left, Maffett pushing the door closed with her magic before the pair turned to Hurricane. The older Pegasus looked unsure of himself and couldn’t bring himself to look at either of them, instead looking at a spot on the floor in front of his hooves. He did eventually look up at them.

“You don’t have to tell us if you don’t want to.” Concorde said simply, suspecting Hurricane was still harbouring some pain deep down.

“I might as well.” Hurricane sighed. “You’ll likely find out eventually anyway. Just wait here.” He added before heading into the bed room. Concorde and Maffett looked at each other as they heard him hustling through a bag and a few moments later Hurricane returned, carrying a large book which he put on the desk before opening it.

Inside was an album of old black and white photographs, showing a group of Pegasus in matching uniforms, as well as two unicorns and an Earth pony. Some showed the entire group stood together, others of the Pegasus performing various death defying stunts and some were small family occasions, including two Pegasus with a new born foal.

“The Red Hawks has been my entire life. My parents were the head line fliers, Hanriot and Sopwith Hawker. No other Pegasus was willing to do the things they did.” He said, showing Concorde and Maffett a picture of the Syncro Pair that had been in the book Maffett had found. “I always wanted to fly with my parents, be as good as they were, even if my own talents were elsewhere. So many ponies told me I should just go into weather control, but I never wanted to and my parents and friends happily invited me to join the team.” He added with a smile, remembering the day he officially became a member of the team.

“Sadly, tragedy eventually came” Hurricane continued, indicating to a picture of two smiling Pegasus, one in uniform which the younger ponies recognised as Hanriot while the other wore a leather helmet with goggles, his coat appearing to be fairly light, judging from the old photo.

“Vickers was my dad’s best friend and my god father.” Hurricane said, leaning back. Maffett quickly lifted up the page and noticed there weren’t any more photos. “Together, they would work out some of the more complicated stunts and practice them together. One such move was the Double Twister, where two Pegasus would fly in a helical circle at ever increasing speeds, almost like a Fly Wheel. During a practice run, my dad was caught by a strong gust of wind and thrown into Vickers, causing them both to crash heavily. Vickers broke his neck on landing.”

Concorde and Maffett looked at him in shock as the events ran through Hurricane’s head. He remembered seeing them both crash and being concerned for them. He remembered the relief of seeing his dad getting back up, before his heart dropped as Vickers didn’t move. What he remembered most was his dad’s reactions, first thinking Vickers was joking before concern entered his voice, which eventually turned to pledging and begging for his friend to wake up.

Hurricane shuck the thought from his head, his small audience silently encouraging him to carry on.

“My dad was inconsolable and blamed himself for the accident. It’s sad to see someone who was so bold and fearless suddenly change after being involved in an accident that killed a friend. Nothing my mum, myself or my team mates said could convince him otherwise and things went downhill pretty quickly.”

“So the team split up?” Concorde found himself asking.

“Aye.” Hurricane nodded. “Spit was the first to go. I remember she was in floods of tears when she told me she was leaving, but she never told my why she decided to leave. After that, everypony just went their separate ways. My mum couldn’t bear to be with my dad in his depressed state and they eventually divorced. I stayed with my dad until two years ago when he died.”

“So you thought you’d revive the team?” Maffett asked after a moment.

“Of course.” Hurricane said, his voice returning to its stronger pitch. “The Red Hawks were the best fliers Equestria had ever seen and I’ll be damned if I let that name go out with a wimpier. Speaking of which,” Hurricane continued, closing the album with a thump. “I need to send some letters around, see if I can get us some more performances or even some more team members. You two can decide who gets the last coin.”

With that, Hurricane went back into his bedroom, returning almost immediately with several letters and flying straight out the window towards the town’s post office.

Concorde and Maffett regarded each other for a moment, digesting what they’d been told.

“Satisfied?” Concorde asked, which took Maffett by surprise.

“In what way?”

“That you now know?”

“Well, like he said, we’d have found out eventually. But at least now we know what we’re up against.”

“How’d you mean?”

“We’re the new Red Hawks, we have a hay of a reputation to live up to now. You up for it?” Concorde said excitedly, as if they were about the take their first steps on a big adventure.

“Well, I’m here, so sure.” Maffett smiled.

“Awesome!” Concorde smiled. “Also, dibs on the extra bit.”

“No way! I want it!”

“How ‘bout we flip it, then?”

“Oh alright.” Maffett smiled. “Heads or tails?”

“Tails, tails, never fails!”

Maffett rolled her eyes, knowing Concorde would always pick tails. She levitated the coin and threw it into the air with enough spin to blur the image. It landed on the table and the pair leaned forwards to see which way up it landed.

“Ah, f***.”