A newcomer lurks

by FelixVerricht

A day with some colour

It’d been a week now since Snow had arrived in Ponyville. Things had gone without a hitch. Except for a minor incident involving a surprise party and confetti cannon. Snow was still pulling the occasional confetti square out of his mane two days after the party. Snow was again lying in his bed this morning he’d decided to ignore the cawing of the rooster and sleep in a little. The comfort of his blankets and mattress were very convincing to make him stay in bed but his dreaming and comfort was disturbed by a knock on the door. “Uh who could that be” Snow said through a yawn. He managed to get his footing after rolling out of bed and stumbled to the door bumping several things on his way. He quickly reached down and opened the door, bad idea, the combination of a head spin and looking at the sun after being in darkness for hours disoriented him to the point where he lost his balance and fell backwards nearly hitting the table. As Snow lay there rubbing his head he could hear laughter coming from the door way, he recognised the voice, Rainbowdash.
“Gee you sure are clumsy” Rainbow said hovering over him still giggling
“Haha very funny” Snow said with a less than pleased look on his face combined with a sort of half smile. “And what are you doing knocking on my door at this early hour?” He said slowly regaining his footing.
“Oh you being a sporty sort of Pegasus and all I thought you’d like to help me clear the skies this morning?”
“Sure, but just so you know I don’t fly much.” Snow said giving Rainbow a sort of half smile.
“That’s okay I’ll teach you.” Rainbow said wrapping a hoof around his shoulder.
“It’s not that I’m a bad or weak flyer I just don’t fly much. My dad taught me everything he knew about flying from when I was a little kid until I got into ice skating.”
“Oh okay well then you should be alright. “ Rainbow said bolting out the door. “Are you coming?” Rainbow said peeking her head back in the door.
“Alrighty then let’s go.” Snow said following her out the door and taking to the skies

As they reached a decent altitude Rainbowdash gave Snow some instructions.
“Okay Snow you go and get those cumuli out of the way and I’ll take care of the stratocumulus.” Snow gave a mock salute which was returned by Rainbow as they went off in opposite directions to take out the clouds that were cluttering the sky.
They both returned to the small cloud they had been sitting on maybe an hour later. Rainbow was the first to arrive, “Feew that was a good exercise got all the clouds in record time.” Rainbowdash said wiping a couple of beads of sweat of her forehead with her hoof. “Hmm wonder where Snow is?” She said gazing out into the now clear sky. Her answer was quickly answered as Snow came rocketing through the sky next to Rainbow smashing through one last stray cloud that was slowly floating past.
“Got the last one.” Snow said with a smile and a nod. He turned around to see Rainbow sitting on a cloud with a smug smile on her face
“you’re quite the flyer Snow.” She said flying over to him and putting a hoof on his shoulder
“I haven’t flown that hard in a while I’m glad I haven’t lost my touch.” He said with a smile
“Why don’t you fly more often then?” Rainbowdash said with a quizzical look as they sat back down on the cloud.
Snow gave a shrug “not sure, I like going fast and everything but, I really just don’t know I just never did. Much to the dismay of my father he wanted me to be the best but instead I took to other things that kept my hooves on the ground.”
“So that’s really it you just didn’t, there must be something else?” Rainbow said pushing the subject
“Well..” Snow said rubbing a hoof across the back of his head.
‘I’m surprised that pony hasn’t scratched a divot into the back of his head’ Rainbow thought to herself. “Come on spit it out” Rainbowdash said slight irritation in her voice.
“My dad didn’t teach me from the beginning the first people I was taught by were the pegasi at the Cloudsdale flight school. In my early years I flew heaps until an accident occurred. I was flying at full pelt like usual weaving between clouds and other ponies but I didn’t see a large brute of a pony, I ran into him and knocked him out of the sky and he really didn’t appreciate it. He beat me, and broke one of my wings. He was never seen again and I left Cloudsdale my parents encouraged me to go back but I was afraid of flying for years I only regained my nerve about 6 years ago. My dad put me through intense training flying every day so I sort of lost my love for it at that stage as he forced me. I was forced to do that for four years then I found ice skating and found my cutie mark there.” Snow winced as if he was feeling what he was put through again. “I’d been going to school the whole time I was doing this training. But I was the only Pegasus in my class at Canterlot I passed all my classes with flying colours and tried blending in with group never being myself hence why I only earned my cutie mark last year. So I left I wasn’t enjoying Canterlot one bit so I wanted a fresh start.”

Rainbow has a look on her face as she mulled over the information Snow had given her. “Well no wonder you never liked flying I was always teaching myself most stuff I wanted to know and I didn’t break anything till this year. So I suppose I’m lucky compared to you.” Everything went pretty silent after that Snow had opened himself to a mare he barely knew but he felt closer to her all the same. ‘This must be what real friends are like I can tell them anything and never be ashamed’
“Let’s get something to eat” Snow said

“Definitely I’m starving” Rainbowdash said her stomach rumbling
“I got some food back at mine. Let’s go grab some then I don’t know just hang out I suppose.” Snow said shrugging.
“Sure sounds like a plan to me” Rainbow said jumping off the cloud.
“Follow me.” Said Snow
They reached snows house relatively fast they landed Snow turned the knob and they entered the house. Not watching her footing Rainbowdash stepped on a dustpan and brush losing her footing and careening into a pile of boxes sending another stack of thingy flying. Rainbow had a less than pleased look on her face as she blew a tea towel out of her face, she looked down to see four shoes sprawled across the floor in front of her with wheels attached to the bottom.
“Hey what are these Snow?” Rainbowdash asked as Snow walked around the corner with some assorted bit of food on his back.
“Hmm. Oh you found them. Those are my rollerblades I’ve been looking everywhere for them.” As he said this he placed the food down onto the table and walked over cleaning up some of the spilled items.
“What do you do with them?” Rainbow said standing up and shaking herself off
“You’ve never seen rollerblades before?” Snows question was met with a blank look from Rainbow. “They’re pretty much just ice skates but with wheels here let me show you.”
Snow fiddled with the skates for a while sliding them onto his feet, tightening the laces and doing up the clips. He walked to the front door and started rolling around on the small paved area out the front of his house. “See like ice skates”
“Ah I getcha now.” Rainbowdash said watching him roll back and forth on the pavement.
“Good but nothing compared to flying.” Rainbow said leaping into the sky
“Hmm” Snow said observing his surroundings he noticed several miscellaneous object making a sketchy ramp sort of aiming at Rainbow. Snow began picking up speed he came around in a sharp turn and went full pelt at the ramp. He hit the ramp at amazing speed and did a horizontal spin over the mare who could only gape now as Snow landed gracefully on the other side of her.
“Okay that’s pretty cool” Rainbowdash said shaking her head in disbelief
“Well not according to my dad he despises them, I had to scrounge money by doing odd jobs for neighbours to buy these.” Snow said looking down at his skates. “Same with my ice skates. My ice skates and my roller blades are getting too small. These are beginner’s roller blades and same with my ice skates. But I don’t have any money to buy them so I kind of need a job.”
“Wow so you’re that good on roller blades and they’re only beginner ones” Rainbow said incredulously.
“Yeah but that was probably the only aerial trick I can pull off. And I’m a lot better on my ice skates than I am on rollerblades.”
“Well I’ll have to come see you ice skate some time” Rainbow said her jaw hitting the ground
“Well then we’ll just have to see if you’re any good at skating as you’re extremely good at flying.”
“Thank you Snow you’re not so bad yourself. But let’s just hope I’m not as bad as Twilight with ice skating.” Rainbow said suppressing a snigger.
“Twilight doesn’t strike me as the skating type?” Snow said sitting down and undoing the laces on his skates.
“She’s not during the winter wrap up she tried helping Pinkie who was scoring the lake and Twilight tried helping her and she failed hard.” Rainbow Dash started laughing again as she recalled the skating incident.
“So Pinkie is a good skater?”
“Yeah she is but she does all the frufruey twirling and what not.” Rainbow said sticking her tongue out.
“Ah a figure skater. I do hockey skating which mostly just speed, turns and cool stopping.”
“Definitely got to see that” Rainbow said keenly

“Alright next time a session is on I’ll get you in. And you won’t have to pay a bit I’ve done some favours for some people there and they felt it appropriate after all the times I’ve gone that me and any friends I have get in for free.” Snow said smugly. “Never gotten a chance to get a friend in for free until now.” Snow said looking down sadly.
“Better get used to it.” Rainbow said punching one of his front legs.

A big grin spread across Snows face as he sat there talking with Rainbowdash. They were both rather athletic ponies. They started talking about other sports aswell apart from skating and flying. Rainbowdash was quite the ball player she is very adept at any sport that involves a ball like soccer.

“So Rainbow you ever played Volleyball?” Snow said waving away a fly
“Yeah I have that’s why I’m so good at juggling a ball.” Rainbow said standing up on her back hooves.
“Well then how about we get us a game together just a little 1v1 between friends.”
“alright you’re on” Rainbow said with pride.

After an hour of searching around Ponyville for a ball and getting themselves a net the two ponies set up in town square which drew the attention of several other ponies. Snow wasn’t very comfortable with every one watching but he just tried to ignore them he hadn’t played a game of volleyball in ages. Even though Rainbowdash may have experience on him he still liked his chances against the mare.

The first to serve was snow he walked to the back corner of the roughly drawn court and stood on his back hooves. “Here comes the serve” He said trying to intimidate Rainbow. He threw the ball into the air and hit it as hard as he much to Rainbows surprise it went rocketing into her side of the court and he scored the first point of the match. A smile spread across snows face but displeasure spread across Rainbows. As Snow served again it was quickly hit back by Rainbow since they only had one person on each team they were allowed three hits each when it was on their side. A rally went on for a while them constantly returning the ball to each other’s side until finally Rainbow spiked the ball and scored a point now it was her serve.

They were playing for about ten minutes before Snow realised they had drawn a rather large crowd with their little competition. The match went on for hours several hard out rallies Rainbow had amazing spiking but Snows defence could hold it off. After about an hour the match came to a close with Rainbowdash winning by one point.
“That was a great game Dash you gave me a real run for my money.” Snow said panting
“Same here Snow I didn’t think you’d be that good. You didn’t look that athletic to me but hey looks like I was wrong.” Dash said likewise panting.

“Oh and I’m going skating on Friday if you want to come but if you have another appointment I won’t mind.”

“Hey Snow I’ll come I never leave another pony hanging. Never have never will." Dash said slapping Snow on the back.

'Hmm Snow thought I've never really had a friend I could entirely trust. They'd always tell me it was alright to come over or something along those lines then tell me I couldn't. A friend I can really trust for the first time' A wide genuine smile spread across Snows face as the two began disassembling the volleyball kit.