//------------------------------// // Chapter 5 // Story: Children of Harmony // by Flora Spectrum //------------------------------// A young lavender filly landed on a cloud panting and completely out of breath. She flopped down and didn’t even bother trying to move her light blue and green mane out of her eyes. She and her twin brother had been practicing for nearly an hour, causing her usual calm temperament to fade and her irritation grow with her brother’s pushiness. “Come on Icy!” Fire Streak called as he landed on the cloud in front of her. Most ponies only knew they were twins due to their publicity when they were born, other wise nopony could really tell they were twins, let alone related. Her brother, who was older by mere seconds, had a fiery red and orange mane and a golden coat. His soft green eyes were identical to their father’s, while her magenta ones were exact replicas of their mother’s. “I need a break,” Ice Winds said slowly while keeping calm. Past fights had taught her that when push came to shove, her brother always had the quicker temper. “This is no time for breaks! We’ve got training to do!” He urged impatiently. “Training can wait for five minutes,” she answered calmly. “If we keep taking breaks, we are never going to make it into the wonderbolts! Our mom, dad, and aunt are all wonderbolts! Racing is in our blood we have to be able to show it!” “Technically, our Aunt is adopted-“ “It doesn’t matter! You know what the headlines read when we were born! Future Wonderbolts! If that’s not enough, we have plenty of other expectations to live up to! We’re kids of an Element of Harmony!” “We’re not the only ones! What about Indy Pop! He is perfectly content planning parties and putting smiles on ponies’ faces with his mother.” She retorted. “Yeah, but is always breaking physics and not to mention, he’s recently been developing what he’s calling his Indy Senses!” “What about Dusk Shield and Winter Song?” She asked rhetorically. “Their mother can tame a manticore, stare down a cockatrice, not to mention she reformed Discord, the Lord of Chaos, on top of all that their father is a member of the Royal Guard! Don’t tell me there aren’t high expectations there.” “But whose expectations do we have to live up to?” she asked finally standing up and approaching her brother. “Everyone’s!” he yelled exasperated. “I don’t care about everyone!” she shouted finally matching his tone. “I don’t care about everyone! I only care about impressing myself! How far I’ve come and how far I’ll go!” Fire Streak paused and looked away as if to consider what she said. After a moment, Ice Winds continued, “Mom did this when she was our age, and we can too. Let’s do this, but for ourselves. And mom whose been trying to secretly watch from the living room window this entire time.” Fire Streak smirked and nodded. “Okay let’s do this.” The two flew up and into opposite directions. They paused only when the other was barely visible and centered with themselves. The two race towards each other in unison only to barrel towards the ground side by side a split second before collision. At the last moment, they grabbed a hold of each other with their inner front hooves, and accelerated with a burst of speed fast enough to break the sound barrier. A circular rainbow flowed across the sky while casting its colorful colors down onto the ground below. The laughter of a colt and filly could be heard all around as together they created a perfect loop. Moments later, they broke apart as he colored their new canvas with tricolored loops consisting of red, orange and yellow while her corkscrews left a trail of green, blue and purple. What felt like seconds later, but had actually been several minutes, the two siblings crashed into their mother on the front steps of their cloud mansion where she had come out to get a better view. “We did it mom!” Fire Streak cried as they two hugged their mother. She simply tightened her embrace as she squealed, “You guys. Are so. Awesome!”