• Published 8th May 2012
  • 7,955 Views, 1,390 Comments

Antecedent - Anonymous Pegasus



Raindrop needs to reunite the Elements of Harmony to cure herself of her affliction. But the journey will become so much than the destination.

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Medical Aid

Raindrop pushed it all out of her mind. Shine. Sentinel. The L word. She just pushed it all aside to deal with it later. Instead, she focused on her next goal. The bearer of the Element of Honesty.

The Seeker Stone glowed faintly as she stuffed it into a saddlebag, checking the bearing on it before closing the flap and setting off into the morning sky. As far as she could tell, the stone was pointing to Cloudsdale. So it was in that direction that Raindrop flew, deciding to check the bearing when she got closer to the floating city.


Sentinel, however, could think of nothing but. The conversation played in his mind over and over again, taunting him with his foolishness and youthful impatience. Like a colt proudly declaring that he was the best flier in all of Equestria, he had just gone and blurted out such a stupid thing to say.

It was frustrating. Infuriating. He was angry at himself, and angry at Raindrop. It was a transient anger, that came and went, undirected but intense in its purpose. He would just be recovering and coming to terms with what he had said, rationalized it in his mind, when it hit him exactly how stupid he had been, and how stupid he still was, and the anger returned.

And he angry at Raindrop for denying him. They had faced down a hydra together, and all she could say was that she needed more time?

He tried to believe her. He wanted so badly to believe what she said. But there was a niggling little doubt that kept snowballing into an almost paranoid state of mind. He tried to tell himself that she was telling nothing but the truth. But his mind was a fickle beast, and his insecurities grew. He had soon convinced himself that what she had said was all a lie.

Raindrop had just broke up with her boyfriend, and now, this love-struck colt she barely even liked, a one-night-stand at best, had come at her throwing around the ‘L’ word like a cheap drunk trying to get a quick lay. Of course she had lied to get rid of him!

Anger welled up in Sentinel. Frustration mingled with self-pity and self-disgust, and he soon found himself mindlessly attacking the training dummies in the yard. They were built to be rough-and-tumble objects, but Sentinel was breaking them with apparent ease. Anger hardened his blows, but it also blocked pain from his mind.

By the time the captain came to order him to cease his ‘training’, his hooves were bloody and bruised. He was a mess, covered in dirt from tumbles on the ground, blood from his hooves, and bits of wood chips where the dummies had snapped under the combined weight of his angered blows and his own body weight.

Sentinel was ordered to the hospital, to have his wounds tended to, as the Royal Guard’s healers were busy instructing the new recruits.


Raindrop alighted on a cloud near Cloudsdale, popping her saddlebag open and peering back at the seeker stone. It pointed straight ahead, and the glow was getting stronger. She was close.

Following the line in the orb, Raindrop set off from the cloud, coasting in a smooth arc towards the white city. It had been many months since she had last been in Cloudsdale, but she remembered the lay of the skystreets well.

After only a few minutes of flying, she had already determined exactly where the stone was sending her: the Cloudsdale Coliseum.

Usually host to major events, the coliseum was, on its off-duty time, a training ground for the Wonderbolts. It had always been a goal of Raindrop’s to try out for the Wonderbolts; A dream many pegasi shared.

There was the echo of movement and voices behind the walls of the coliseum, and Raindrop backwinged to a pause in front of the main entrance, frowning. Checking the seeker stone again, she found it had gone a solid colour. She was close.

Wrinkling her nose, she stepped through the entrance, walking down a long hallway until she emerged onto the field proper. Ponies flitted this way and that, casting flickering shadows across the ground with their passage. Each and every one of them wore the standard Wonderbolt uniform, a blue and yellow covering that hadn’t changed in design in two generations.

Three Wonderbolts, seniors by the looks of them, hovered in the air, watching the others fly in circles around the arena, occasionally barking orders at the junior members: Instructions to fly closer to their partner, or straighten their wings in their strokes.

Raindrop watched this for several long moment, wondering exactly how to attract the attention of the Wonderbolts, or if she even wanted to. Any single one of the ponies could be the bearer for the Element of Honesty. Just how would that conversation go, anyhow? ‘Oh hi, do you think you’d be a good bearer for an Element of Harmony?’

“Hey, Rookie. Uniforms are down there,” a pony called to Raindrop, pointing with a hoof towards the locker rooms.

Raindrop gave a faint shiver, and then turned around, heading down towards the locker rooms, pushing the door open and stepping inside. A series of uniforms had been set up, waiting for recruits to use them. Raindrop stepped over to one of them, lifting a hoof to touch the fabric.

As she pulled the suit down off the hanger, she reflected that this was not how she had envisioned her first flight with the Wonderbolts. But at least, in the air with them, she’d be able to better gauge which of them were honest. Or at least she hoped she would be able to. She couldn’t exactly walk out there, stop them all one-by-one and question their personal values.


Sentinel winced as he limped into the hospital, wings fluttering slightly to try and avoid putting too much weight on his forehooves. A quick dip through a raincloud on the way to the hospital to clean his hooves had cooled both his body and his mind, and without the blind anger of self-disgust and rejection, the pain in his hooves had really hit him.

“I seem to find you wherever I go,” the nurse stated flatly as she came down a hallway and into the main foyer. She sighed, putting down a box of supplies she had been intending on transporting back to Ponyville. “Come on, this way.”

Sentinel grit his teeth, and then followed after the nurse, leaving a trail of small droplets of blood.

Very soon, Sentinel was seated on his rump, forehooves in the air as the nurse cleaned off his wounds, inspecting them. “There’s wood splinters in here. I’m going to have to remove them unless you want them to become a permanent part of your biology. Oh, and it’s going to hurt.”

Sentinel grit his teeth, ears splaying backwards, watching as the nurse produced a pair of tweezers and a splinter probe, beginning to excise the splinters. “Can’t you give me something for the pain?”

“Blunt force trauma?” the nurse offered, ears perking up at him. “Quit being a foal and hold still. What did you do to yourself? You look like you kicked in every door in Canterlot to get here.”

Sentinel snorted, and then looked away. “It was nothing.”

“This isn’t nothing,” The nurse said, and then gave a light press on a certain point of his hoof. Sentinel hissed and tugged his hoof back.

The nurse gave a smug smile. “You’ve bruised the bone. That takes a certain amount of force. And you’ve done it in a lot of places. What was it, did you get in a fight?”

As she spoke, the nurse began to clean his wound with a cleaning solution, inspecting them for extra splinters.

“Training dummies,” Sentinel admitted after a long moment.

“Those training dummies sure do hit hard,” the nurse commented, twisting his hoof over. Sentinel bared his teeth, blanching. “And you’ve managed to strain half the muscles in your upper hooves, as well.”

The nurse leaned closer, and then pressed on his chest, between his forelegs. Sentinel winced.

“Yep, done a real number on yourself. Now, what possessed you to beat on the training dummies until you wrecked half your muscles and tore your hooves up?” the nurse asked flatly, looking up at him accusingly.

Sentinel snorted again, looking down at his hooves, feeling like a colt again, mumbling “Just got angry.”

“This is a rage, Sentinel. And if you’re going about causing damage like this to yourself because you just got ‘angry’, then I’m going to be having words with your captain,” the nurse said immediately, sternly.

The guard growled faintly, his tail giving an irritated flick. “Fine. It was Raindrop.”

“I understand that she can be an annoyance, but this amount of damage...” the nurse trailed off, looking up at the pegasus for several long moments, the cogs working in her mind. “And not even last night, I was forcing you to clean up the mess you two left.”

A thoughtful hum left the nurse, and she went back to cleaning Sentinel’s hooves, tugging more splinters out of them.

“You told her you love her, didn’t you?” the nurse asked after a time.

Sentinel didn’t respond, but the nurse got her answer from his expression of surprise and chagrin.

“You’re not the first, males seem to fall in love with anything they take to bed. Pretty simple biological fact there. But this damage...” the nurses tone turned sympathetic, “She said she didn’t want to see you anymore, didn’t she?”

Sentinel shook his head, looking down at his hooves again. “Said she needed time.”

“And you’re angry about that? Lordy. If a guy did that to me, I’d turf him out of my life so fast his head would spin,” the nurse said with a shake of her head, beginning to apply the healing ointment to Sentinel’s hooves.

“She didn’t say it back,” Sentinel said petulantly.

The nurse stared up at him for a long moment, chewing her bottom lip. “...Were you expecting her to?”

Sentinel gave a soft sigh, and then shook his head. “...No. No I guess I didn’t.”

“Then you’re angry... At yourself?” the nurse concluded, ears perking at him.

“I feel stupid. I feel like a stupid colt bouncing around telling every filly he thinks looks cute ‘I looove you!’,” Sentinel scowled, grinding his teeth. “I wish I never said it.”

The nurse snorted a moment, and then shook her head. “Better to say the truth and regret it than never say it at all.”

“Raindrop said almost the exact opposite. Something about ‘better to wait a week and be certain, because regret lasts a lifetime’ or some nonsense,” Sentinel remembered, snorting and chewing his tongue in annoyance.

“But of course. She isn’t sure if she loves you. That’s a pretty simple concept. You, however, don’t have the same array of problems Raindrop does, therefore, different obscure ancient philosophies apply to you than to her,” The nurse said with a smile, beginning to bind Sentinel’s hooves in bandages.

“Still wish I didn’t say it,” Sentinel said with a shake of his head. “I feel stupid.”

“You sound stupid. You think you’re the first couple to have these problems? You’re not. And you sure as hell won’t be the last. Buck up, and act like a stallion, not a colt. Give her space if she needs it, or go galloping after her and drag her to a hotel room, or however it is you kids show affection these days. The fact that she hasn’t turfed you out on your ass speaks volumes. You can at least be certain she’s thinking about it. But pressuring her will just push her away. And being angry about it is putting you back here, annoying me!” the nurse scowled up at him, tightening his bandages and then deeming her work done. “If I have to give you two couples advice again, I’m going to start running a metre and charging.”

Sentinel snorted at that, and shook his head, looking down at his hooves. He took a deep breath, and then looked back up at her. “Thanks, I guess.”

“Don’t thank me. Thank Raindrop. She’s the one who’s even considering spending more time with you. She must have the patience of a saint,” the nurse said with a shake of her head.

“You two have to be related,” Sentinel stated after a moment.

The nurse snorted at that, and then pushed him with her hooves, urging him to leave the room. “You must just have this effect on females. Now get out! And next time you injure yourself, try to hurt your tongue as well, so I don’t have to listen to your whining!”