Skyblaze

by Darkest Night

The Terror of Canterlot!

Author's Note:

This story is set years in the future of current MLP canon (which is S5 with S6 weeks away), but the story itself was written nearly three years ago, just after the end of S3. Luckily, since the story avoids the Mane 6 and is set mostly in Canterlot, I didn't have to do any heavy editing to bring it in line with current canon.

The story does, however, contain my personal concept of the culture and customs of the other "races" of Equestria, such as the griffons and the buffalo, whom you will see in later chapters. It also assumes that eventually, Scootaloo does fly.

Daybreak.

At that very moment, over in the castle, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna were conducting the ceremony where day replaces the night, as the moon was replaced with the sun. It was always one of Skyblaze’s favorite times of day, because it meant the start of a new day, and all the possibilities that the day might contain. There was no telling what could happen today, what new and exciting thing might be discovered, what mysteries might be solved. Daybreak was the time of limitless potential, of unlimited opportunity, and the promise of a day filled with excitement and adventure.

And as usual, Skyblaze Stardust was up with the sun. All but jumping out of bed, the red-coated pegasus went from sleep to full speed in half a second, his wings carrying him across his room in the attic of his family’s jewelry shop, with his parents, brother, and sister in their rooms on the second floor. They’d converted the attic to be his bedroom after his wings finally got strong enough to carry his weight, changing him from a landbound pegasus that ran at full speed all over the place to an airborne pegasus that flew at full speed all over the place. The attic was large and had lots of room, and while his siblings were a tiny bit jealous that their younger brother got the largest room in the building that wasn’t part of the shop, they understood that since he almost never put his hooves on the floor, he needed a lot of room if only to not crash into walls.

A cursory look in the mirror ensured that he wasn’t a victim of bedhead. His coat was a dusky red, like the sky just at sunset or sunrise, but his mane was a much brighter fiery red, long and unkempt, with two yellow streaks just between and to each sides of his ears, worn in a swept-back style mainly caused by his constant flying around. Constantly being blown backwards had made it stay that way. On his flanks was his cutie mark, which was a burst of flame made up of orange, red, white, and yellow, which made his cutie mark extreme. He put on his ever-present goggles, resting them over his eyes and ready to pulled down at a moment’s notice, and nodded to his reflection. He zipped out of his open window, leaving a trail of red the same color as his mane and tail behind him, erupting from the window of the Stardust Jewelry Shop, a shop that had been in his family for generations and was known as the place to go for the most fashionable and elegant jewelry for the pony looking to make an impression. He raced down the street, leaving a trail of bright red behind him, lancing past Donut Joe’s Pastries, past the Taste of Equestria diner, past the Frilly Finery Boutique, past Quillierie’s Finest Books and Supplies, his air wake pulling at the few ponies on the street below and causing a couple to hold down their hats. The regulars along Gem Street were more than used to the morning flash of red and gust of wind that happened right around sunrise every morning, as Skyblaze Stardust started his day with his morning exercise flight.

And Skyblaze Stardust believed in flying to the extreme.

He flew to the corner and turned sharp, hard, taking advantage of his main talent in flight, and that was his agility. He could fly fairly fast, he trained every day to go faster and faster, but his strength had always been the ability to turn hard and turn fast, and coupled to the fact that he never got dizzy, even in a full blown spinout, it allowed him to make sharp turns along the streets of Canterlot at high speed, screaming by ponies starting their days, racing by slower pegasus ponies, leaving a series of straight lines and sharp turns in a red streak behind him, like the angled corners of the buildings between which he flew. He was in the zone today, taking the corners he knew so well with perfect precision, doing every route he used for his morning exercise along the twisting streets of Canterlot. He did so well that he veered off his usual track, off his normally run streets, and dared to fly the narrowest, most crooked streets of Old Town, zigging and zagging, his body turning and rocking and banking with each curve, pushing his reflexes to the limit to identify the next turn and prepare for it even as he hurtled around the last corner. He streaked down a narrow alley and nearly lost the feathers on the end of his left wing to a corner as he blasted out into the huge courtyard beside the palace, and the very slight contact with the wall doing just enough to upset his flight. He gritted his teeth with an expression of both surprise and determination as he felt himself losing control, then he windmilled his front legs when he officially went past kilter, losing it. He cartwheeled through the air, the ground and sky trading places in a wild motion, like pinwheels were put in front of his eyes and spun rapidly, but this wasn’t unusual for him. He’d always had a weird knack for knowing where he was in the air in relation to the ground and able to recover from those spinouts, but it took time. And usually, it was that time that always doomed him.

There probably wasn’t a wall anywhere in Canterlot that Skyblaze hadn’t crashed into at least once in his life. He had earned his ability to recover from spinouts not from natural talent—not entirely—but because he’d spun out so many times that he was used to it by now. Skyblaze was a pegasus that flew at the edge of control at all times, so it was very easy for him to go that one hair past control and end up entertaining the city of Canterlot with yet another Skyblaze crash. Walls, roofs, towers, fences, windows, flower boxes, signs, lamp posts, the mountainside, you name it, Skyblaze had crashed into at all of them at some time in his life. His parents didn’t particularly enjoy paying to replace broken windows and signs and flower boxes, though, so he tried to avoid those and crash into things that weren’t going to break when he hit them. Better he get a few bruises and some lost feathers than have to pay to replace a window.

Getting a lock on his spin, he expertly worked his way out of it, first correcting his spinning tumble, then trying to arrest his fall…and just a tiny bit too late. He bounced off the top of a wall and crashed into a grassy lawn by a large bank of flowers with a long voiced “wwwhhhaaaaaoooooo!!!!,” skidding to a stop on his back with his eyes closed tight and his teeth gritted. When he came to a stop, he took a cleansing breath and opened his eyes…and found himself staring up into the amused eyes of Princess Celestia herself.

“Getting an early start today, are we, Skyblaze?” she asked lightly.

He gave an embarrassed little chuckle. “A little more to the right and I’d have got it that time, your Highness,” he replied with a grin.

She gave a titter of laughter, smiling down at him, her multicolored mane flowing as if pulled by a gentle breeze. “I heard that you entered the Young Flyer’s Competition this year. Practicing?”

“Yes ma’am,” he replied without rolling over, just laying there on his back and looking up at her. “I’m going to do my signature move, the Tornado Twist!”

“I haven’t heard of that one.”

“I invented it, your Highness,” he said proudly. “I hope you’re impressed.”

“Well, it certainly gives me a reason to look forward to attending the show,” she smiled. “It’s been years since a Canterlot pegasus participated.”

“Skyblaze!” came a mortified gasp. He looked to the side, through a wrought iron fence, and saw his father, Silverchain, giving a shocked look at him. His father had a glossy white coat and ice blue mane cut short, with his three interlocked silver chain links on his flank, his cutie mark. A small box was hovering beside him, carried by his magic, for his horn was glowing with a soft silvery radiance. “What in the world are you doing on the Royal grounds!”

“Crashing, Dad,” he replied honestly, which made Celestia laugh. “At least I didn’t take out the pennant pole on the tower this time.”

“Yes, that’s a good thing for both of us, young one,” Celestia said with a sly smile at him. “My tower and your wing.”

“Just a minor setback, your Highness. Three weeks for my wing to heal and I was back in the air.”

“The bravado of youth is a wonder to behold,” Silverchain drawled, which made Skyblaze grin at his father. “Now apologize to the Princess and get out of there before you get in trouble!”

“Sorry, your Highness. I know it was a terribly boring crash, nowhere near my usual standards. I promise to do better next time.”

She gave him a surprised look, then burst into helpless laughter. It always made him feel good that he could make some important pony like Celestia laugh. She looked to his father. “Is that my order, Silverchain?”

“Yes, your Highness, finished just last night,” he replied, stepping up to the fence. “I was bringing it to you for your inspection.”

“Excellent. Come around to the gate, my friend. I’m sure it’ll be as breathtaking as all of your other work.” She looked down at him and gave him an impish little smile. “And you, my little pony, should be more careful.”

“But that just wouldn’t be me, your Highness,” he protested.

“Well, since your father is here, you may as well come with me,” she ordered with a playful wink, then turned and trotted regally towards the main gate. Two of her guards helped him get back on his hooves, their expressions stern yet neutral, but it wasn’t the first time they’d had him crash into the Royal grounds. Actually, that happened fairly often, every week or so. He’d gotten into trouble the first time, crashing into the bigger gardens behind the palace and nearly taking out a thousand year old statue, but after the tenth time, they simply accepted it as the natural order of things in Canterlot since he’d started training. Usually his crashes were the result of trying to find someplace open, so he didn’t break any windows, and, well, there was an awful lot of empty space around the palace. The one time it was much more serious, however, was that time he crashed into one of the flagpoles that held the pennants, when he lost it coming out of Doom Gulley, high up on the mountain over the city and from which the waterfall originated. He’d broken his wing in that one, breaking the pole and crashing onto the large balcony just off the throne room, and nearly hitting Princess Luna, who was standing there to get a breath of fresh air. He probably would have gotten into major trouble if he hadn’t broken his wing. That proved to everyone that it wasn’t even close to intentional. But like most residents of Canterlot, the princesses and the guards in the palace were sort of numb to his daily crashes by now. Skyblaze crashing into something was just part of the morning routine.

If a day went by that Skyblaze Stardust didn’t crash into something, the whole city of Canterlot would think something was wrong. Some Canterlot pegasi teasingly called him the Canterlot Crasher or Skydaze, and quite a few thought that he was a very bad flyer because he was constantly ending up at the bases of walls or ending up laid out on some street or garden or courtyard. They only saw the failures, though. They didn’t see the successes, so he didn’t put much water on their opinions. They could laugh at him all they wanted, because he knew that he was a good flyer. And when he won the Young Flyer’s Competition, he’d show every pony that he was a great flyer.

Skyblaze almost never walked anywhere, so his wings started up and he rose off the ground, and he caught up to the Princess, hovering just beside her and putting his head at a level with hers. He didn’t hang out with Princess Celestia, but his many crashes onto the Royal grounds had given her a passing familiarity with him, and they did talk from time to time. She did know his father fairly well, since Silverchain Stardust did a lot of work for her and Princess Luna, making jewelry for them that they wore during special occasions. Silverchain had made the golden torc around Celestia’s neck, with a large purple amethyst inset into it, but he’d made that for her a long time ago. He wasn’t the official Royal Jewelry Maker, but when Celestia wanted something special or something really intricate or hard to make, she made sure to bring it to his family’s shop. They weren’t the only the jewelry makers in Canterlot, but they were the best. The two of them met his father at the gate, opened by two unicorn guards, and he bowed to her and offered up the box. The silvery nimbus of magic was replaced by the golden aura of Celestia’s magic, and she turned and walked towards the palace with the two Stardust family members with her. “You finished it nearly a week early, Silverchain,” she noted.

“I always put priority on your orders, your Highness,” he replied simply, giving Skyblaze a slightly angry look. Skyblaze knew what was in the box, but he didn’t say anything, because it wasn’t his business. After all, he’d seen his parents working on them for the last three weeks.

They entered the palace through an antechamber, went up the stairs, and entered the large throne room. It wasn’t the first time he’d been there. He’d been in attendance when Princess Twilight Sparkle was introduced to Canterlot, just a little colt then, standing on his father’s back and staring in awe as the Princess walked by with her procession. That was also the first day he’d seen Rainbow Dash. She was his role model now, his hero, because she was the newest and youngest member of the Wonderbolts, and she could do a move that no other pegasus pony could do, the amazing Sonic Rainboom. It had utterly enthralled him when he saw it for the very first time during Princess Cadence’s wedding, though he’d never seen exactly who had done it, as they’d all been down in the courtyard and he never saw Rainbow Dash take off. That made her one of the best flyers in all of Equestria, and that was exactly what he wanted to be. Since the day he’d seen Rainbow Dash standing up there with all four Princesses, he vowed that he wanted to be just like her. His dream was to prove to all of Equestria that a Canterlot pegasus pony born to a family of unicorns could make it to the very top of the flying ladder, to become a Wonderbolt, and have his own signature move that no other pony could do. For Rainbow Dash, it was the Sonic Rainboom. For him, it was the Tornado Twist.

Not that he didn’t try and try and try and try to perform the Sonic Rainboom himself, but he just wasn’t fast enough, not even now after all of his speed training. Rainbow Dash was just plain-out faster than him, and she always would be. So, he’d opted to invent a move of his own that played to his natural strength, which was his ability to turn sharply.

Celestia opened the box and pulled out an intricate head ornament, two golden loops of chain that went around the ears with a chain connecting them, and a from that hung a chain with a glittering diamond at the end that would hang just over and between the eyes. They had no idea for whom the piece was meant, and it wasn’t their business. His father made it to the exacting specifications of her Highness, and it was clear from its size that it wasn’t for her. It was far too small. “Beautiful,” she said as she studied the piece. “You prove again and again the excellence of your shop, Silverchain.”

“I’m happy you like it, your Highness,” he replied with a bow of his head. “I take it you find it acceptable?”

“Oh yes quite,” she replied with a nod. “I’m sure the queen of Saddle Arabia will find it as lovely as I do. This is her birthday gift. I’ll have the rest of your payment delivered to your shop by the end of the day.”

He nodded again. “If you have nothing else for me, your Highness, might I be allowed to return to my shop? I have much to do.”

“Of course. Thank you for your excellent work, Silverchain.”

“You are most welcome, your Highness. Come along, Skyblaze.”

“Yes, Dad. Until I crash into your garden again, your Highness,” he said lightly.

She laughed. “Do be careful, Skyblaze,” she told him.

Once they were off the Royal grounds, Silverchain swatted Skyblaze half-heartedly on the rump with his tail. “Really, Skyblaze? You crash into the Royal grounds again? That’s the third time this month!”

“It’s so big, it’s just hard to miss it sometimes,” he replied, which made his father first give him a look, then laugh ruefully.

“And what adventure ended up with you laying in the gardens this time?”

“I was two inches too far to the left,” he said dryly, hovering just beside his father as they went back to the shop. “I clipped the corner of a building and sorta ended up in the garden.”

He sighed forlornly. “Whatever am I going to do with you, Skyblaze?” he lamented.

“Hey, at least I didn’t break anything this time,” he protested, which made his father laugh. “Do you need me today?”

“Actually yes. I have a delivery for you,” he replied. Since Skyblaze was an utter failure when it came to making jewelry, he pitched in at the shop by delivering finished pieces or picking up raw materials. “I need you to deliver some merchandise to the Glitter Shop in Manehattan.”

“No problem, Dad,” he replied immediately. He knew exactly where that shop was, as he’d made trips there many times over the months since graduating from weather school. It was five hours there and five hours back, turning it into an all day trip. As long as the shop owner there in Manehattan, Diamond Links, didn’t talk him to death, he could be home by late afternoon, and maybe get a little practice in before sunset. His deliveries both got finished goods out to their buyers quickly and saved his father money by not having to ship it by train, or using one of the pegasus delivery services. His father had his own personal pegasus delivery pony, his son. “That gives me this afternoon to practice.”

Silverchain nodded. “You will be careful?”

Skyblaze laughed. “Why does every pony always ask me that?”

“Because we have quite a long history to look back on to know that it’s the right thing to ask,” he replied lightly.

When they got back to the shop, he saw that his family was already hard at work. His mother Shimmergem was working on a bracelet over at her bench, and his brother Gold Ring and sister Prism were making intricate and elegant gold chains for use in necklaces and other jewelry, shaping each link with their magic, one by one. His brother and sister were Stardusts to the roots of their tails. They were unicorns, like every other member of his family, and just like their parents, they had talent in the art of jewelry making. They would inherit the shop from their parents when they decided to retire, where Skyblaze…well, he’d make his own way in the world. He wasn’t going to be the Stardust Shop delivery pegasus all his life. He had plans. His mother glanced up, looking around her magnifying spectacles. “I see you found him,” she said.

“He crashed into the Royal gardens again,” Silverchain noted as he picked up a wrapped package on a bench.

“Again? Skyblaze,” she admonished.

“It’s not like I aim at the Royal gardens,” he protested. “It’s just so open, and I like to finish my street runs in the big courtyard by the palace, that’s all.”

She gave an exasperated sigh, and went back to her work as his siblings tried hard not to laugh. Skyblaze got his travel saddlebags from the peg by the counter and buckled them on, then took the package and put it in and closed and locked the flap. “The Glitter Shop, right?”

“Right.”

“Am I bringing back a payment?”

“Yes you are, son, two hundred and fifty bits,” he replied. “You can use some of it to buy lunch in Manehattan, just don’t get exotic.”

Skyblaze chuckled. “Five bits max,” he promised. “Lemme grab a quick breakfast at the diner, then I’ll be on my way. Be back this afternoon.”

“Fly carefully, son,” his mother called.

“That’s the boring way to fly,” he replied lightly as his wings picked him up, and he darted out of the shop in a streak of fiery red.

Skyblaze never minded the long flights to the distant cities of Equestria. He’d been to every town in the kingdom except Ponyville, from the small villages like Dodge Junction to the huge cities like Manehattan and Las Pegasus. He’d even been to the furthest-flung parts of the kingdom, all the way out to Appleloosa to the south and the Crystal Empire to the north, from Las Pegasus to the west to Baltimare to the east. His family’s shop did a lot of business with the Crystal Empire, now that it had returned. The crystal ponies loved jewelry, and his parents’ shop was selling them jewelry and buying the many crystals and gems that were common in their empire, to use in their pieces. The flights were just training to him, and he approached them as such, trying to put on as much speed as possible and hold it throughout the entire flight, finding his pace and holding it, then finishing in a burst of speed, just like if he was racing. He flew high out over Equestria as he turned away from the mountain on which Canterlot was built, flying with Cloudsdale in the distance behind him to the west, then making the more northerly turn to avoid the Foal Mountains on the way to the large coastal city of Manehattan. It was a five hour trip from Canterlot to Manehattan by wing, when it would be over a day by train, and that was why his father trusted him with the deliveries. And every time he flew the route, he tried to shave five minutes off his time. He first found the fastest route to Manehattan, and once he had that down, he started working on his time. The long distance flights were a chance to work on his endurance, making him not just a fast flyer, but a sturdy flyer, able to hold a fast pace for a long time.

And just as he flew into Manehattan a good hour before noon, he checked his stopwatch and saw that he’d shaved exactly five minutes off his prior best time…perfect. He landed on a busy street in front of the Glitter Shop, the largest jewelry shop in the city, and the owner’s eyes brightened when Skyblaze came in the open doors. “Skyblaze, am I glad to see you!” the large earth pony stallion declared, almost galloping around his display case. His coat was a creamy brown, his mane and tail black, and he had a pair of diamond-tipped cufflinks emblazoned upon his flank, his cutie mark, from which he got his name, Diamond Links. “Madam, if I’m not mistaken, this young pegasus is carrying your order,” he remarked to a smartly dressed earth pony mare with a fur stole and a large, almost garish pearl necklace, her pale pink mane expertly styled.

“I don’t know exactly what I’m carrying, Mister Links,” he said as he unbuckled his saddle bag flap. “Just that I’m bringing it here.”

“I’m positive it’s Madam Rosemane’s order,” he said as he accepted the box and opened it. He smiled beatifically. “Yes it is. Madam,” he said, bringing it over and setting it on the counter. Inside was a large necklace made of rubies and sapphires.

She gasped, her eyes widening. “Why, it’s just the loveliest!” she declared, holding it up to her neck.

“Isn’t it everything I told you it would be?” he asked.

“Yes it is,” she answered as she admired it in the mirror.

“You sold it before you even got it?” Skyblaze asked lightly to Diamond Links when he came back over.

“She saw the drawing of it I sent to your parents and decided she wanted it,” he replied with a chuckle. “I have your payment right here,” he added putting a small sack on the counter. “Thank your parents for them getting it here so fast.”

“Hey, I get to really stretch my wings when I deliver for the shop, so I never mind,” he grinned as he put the sack in his bag and locked it. He never had to count it when it came to Diamond Links. There was always exactly what was agreed upon in that bag. Their family had been doing business with Diamond Links’ shop for years, so there was a great deal of trust between them, and it was well-deserved trust.

“And since I know you must be hungry after that long flight, here,” he said, pushing a dozen or so bits towards him. “Have a good lunch and a safe trip back.”

“Aww, thanks, Mister Links,” he said with honest gratitude, collecting them up.

He enjoyed a hearty meal in his favorite diner in Manehattan, and then headed back to Canterlot. Usually, on a trip to the east side of Equestria, he’d detour to see his friends Gedwin and Gwendi, but today he didn’t have the time. Gedwin and Gwendi were griffons, brother and sister who were hatched from the same clutch of eggs, who lived in a small griffon village in the Foal Mountains east of Canterlot. He’d known them for about a year, but despite only that short time, Gedwin and Gwendi were two of his very best friends. He didn’t get to see them as often as he wanted, and any time he stopped to see them, he usually ended up flying back to Canterlot in the dark. He always lost track of time when he was with his griffon friends, and today, he couldn’t afford to lose track of time. He had business to attend.

His wings were a tiny bit tired when he landed in front of his family’s shop, and was almost knocked down when some pony crashed into him. The silvery laughter betrayed his attacker, and he pushed her away. “Rainsong!” he protested.

Rainsong was another Canterlot pegasus pony, and another of his best friends. They were the same age, so they’d gone to flight camp in Cloudsdale together, and had also attended regular school and weather school together. Weather ponies in Canterlot were hoof-picked by the weather manager, and no other pegasus was allowed to meddle with the weather, so they didn’t go to weather school to work on the weather in Canterlot. But all pegasus ponies had to attend weather school, had to have the basic knowledge of how to work with clouds, even if they lived in a town where they weren’t allowed to use that knowledge. Rainsong had a dusky yellow coat and a long white mane, always windblown and tousled, with a very, very long, almost ridiculously thick tail. Her tail dragged the ground when her hoofs were on the ground. Her cutie mark was a light gray rain cloud with a series of blue raindrops falling from it. That cutie mark was a visible indication of her talent, and that was a weird affinity for rain clouds and rain. She was playful and maybe a little mischievous, but only safely mischievous. Her mischief was usually aimed at him, where his mischief often got her in trouble. But she didn’t mind all that much, since the trouble he got her into was always the kind of fun worth having. He was always more than happy to go get in trouble with his best friend. She draped her front legs over his back and shoulders and pushed her head up even with his. “Where did you go today?”

“Manehattan,” he replied. “So, how did it go today?”

“Bleh,” she sounded as she put her hooves back on the ground, and they went into the shop. Rainsong and her family were the ones that more or less taught him what it really meant to be a pegasus. Her whole family were pegasi, where he was the only pegasus in a family of unicorns, thanks to his great-great-great-great grandfather, who was a pegasus. It finally showed up in the family tree with him, and for one, he was glad it did. If he’d been born a unicorn and still had the same personality, he’d have been absolutely miserable as a unicorn. He was all pegasus, in mind, body, and soul, and it was his friendship with Rainsong and her family that showed him what it was like to be a pegasus.

His rather unique heritage had certainly caused some trouble. Often, foals would tease others based on a perceived difference, and the fact that he was a pegasus born to unicorns made him really different. Some of the pegasus foals in Canterlot didn’t think he was a real pegasus, and in a way, it was their teasing that made him what he was today. Skyblaze had dealt with the double drawback of not having pegasus parents, of living in a house where everyone walked and nobody could teach him what it meant to be a pegasus, and also being a very late bloomer. He had been landbound for nearly two years longer than normal, still walking when foals younger than him were able to fly, and it had been enough of a concern for his parents to take him to a doctor to make sure that he was healthy. He’d only just been able to get off the ground when it was time to go to flight camp, a three month dedicated training camp in Cloudsdale where pegasus foals were taught the basics of flying in a structured environment, which was usually after they’d had time to learn the basics of flying on their own. Him being such a late bloomer made him a very weak and clumsy flyer when he went to flight camp with his friends Rainsong and Windrunner…and that was again a reason for the others to tease him. He struggled and struggled to do the simplest of flight maneuvers, things that others in his class had been doing for years. But Skyblaze didn’t get frustrated easily, nor did he give up. He worked hard, pushing himself to exhaustion every day, dragging himself back to the dorm past sunset every day when the others had all been done hours before, getting better day by day as his natural talent for flying began to bloom as his wings strengthened and he gained experience using them. And much to the shock of everyone in flight camp, even his own teachers, he won the final week field day competition and took home the gold wings as top flyer in his class.

His late blooming and the teasing he suffered at the hooves of other pegasi had instilled a burning need in him to prove to the other pegasi that just because he was born into a family of unicorns, it didn’t make him any less of a pegasus than they were. And he’d done just that over his colthood. He won the gold wings during flight camp field day, that still decorated a silk bunting in his room. He’d graduated second in his class in weather school, beating out pegasus ponies who had parents who were weather managers in Canterlot, only losing the top spot to Rainsong due to her natural affinity and talent for the weather. He’d managed to get into the Young Flyer’s Competition the first year he applied to compete, and if he won, he’d receive an automatic invitation to attend the weeklong training course at the Wonderbolts’ academy. In every aspect that a pegasus was supposed to be a pegasus, Skyblaze had always been either first in his class or right there with them, and he got there because he worked, and he worked hard. He crashed on a daily basis in Canterlot, but that was because he never stopped pushing himself, he never stopped trying to get better, to be better, because he absolutely never gave up. Ever. Once he decided he was going to something, that was exactly what he did, no matter how much work it took.

And after seeing the Wonderbolts perform in Canterlot when he was just a foal, he had decided that he was going to be a Wonderbolt, to be the equal of his hero and idol Rainbow Dash, the only pony in Equestria who could pull off the Sonic Rainboom. And no matter how much work it took, no matter how hard it was, no matter how the odds were stacked against him, he would do exactly that.

Rainsong’s goal in life wasn’t as competitive as his, but it didn’t mean it was any easier. She loved the weather, it was her natural talent, and she wanted to be a weather manager in Canterlot. That was a very prestigious position, since it was the weather that the Princesses saw every day, so they were very, very picky over which pegasi were allowed to work on the Canterlot weather team. Rainsong had to earn her way in by proving herself in another posting, and currently that position was as the sole pony in charge of the weather northeast of Canterlot, in an uninhabited area that had a large forest. It was her job to make sure that forest thrived, even if no pony lived there.

“It’s really boring right now,” she told him as they came in, went past the counter. “Hello, Mister and Misses Stardust,” she called.

“Why hello Rainsong!” his mother Shimmergem called. “Did you finish your work today?”

“I finished a while ago, but I lingered a bit as I practiced making thunderclouds. I almost had one get away from me,” she admitted, which made Skyblaze chuckle, and earned him a swat from her yellow wing. “How are you today?”

“Just fine, dear, just fine,” Silverchain called from his bench. “What are you two about to get into?”

“Well, I have to go practice for the competition,” he said. “Or at least as much as I can. Those trips to Manehattan take a while.”

“And I’m going to help,” she added. “I move around the rings he’s going to use for the first part of his routine. Are you going to try to be there?”

“We’ve already arranged a balloon to get us there, and I have a friend who knows a spell that will let us walk on clouds,” Silverchain replied. His talents focused on making jewelry, and that spell was beyond the ability of all the unicorns in his family. “So we’re going to be there to watch him compete.”

“Great! We can sit together!” Rainsong smiled.

“As long as you don’t mind being seen with a group of unicorns,” Prism said from her bench.

“And a couple of griffons,” Skyblaze added. “I’m inviting Gedwin and Gwendi too.”

“Whyever would I not?” she asked lightly. “Ready to go, friend?”

“Hold on,” he said as he opened his bag and dropped the sack on his father’s bench, then hung up his saddlebags by the counter. “All there, Diamond Links treated me to lunch,” he said.

His father nodded. “Have a good practice, son.”

“And be careful!” his entire family said in unison, which made Rainsong almost fall over laughing.

They flew out over the wide, beautiful valley beside and under Canterlot, then descended down to the ground, in a large open field that was about halfway between Canterlot and Ponyville, the closest town to Canterlot. The clouds of Rainbow Falls were visible at the top of a low mountain to the west, and to the southeast was the Everfree Forest. They started by gathering up some clouds, then they shaped them into rings, exactly 30 of them. He landed and kept his eyes on the ground as Rainsong moved the rings around, so he wouldn’t be able to see them until the last second, which was what he was going to do during his performance. He’d be blindfolded as the show organizers set up 30 rings over the stadium, and he’d take off on their signal and go through each ring once and once only, and do it as fast as possible. It wasn’t as easy as it sounded, since the rings wouldn’t be in a simple circle, they’d be placed randomly, facing random directions, and they were all numbered to force him to fly the rings in a specific order. That would allow him to show off his greatest strength, his agility, his ability to turn hard at high speed. That agility had been honed by countless crashes in, around, above, and below Canterlot, and his daily crashes just made him that much better. Not because he constantly crashed, but because he constantly pushed himself to the very edges of his limits, and often beyond them. He crashed because he went too fast, tried to turn too hard, tried to weave through obstacles no sane pegasus would attempt, but just one month ago, he was crashing on turns that he could now navigate with practiced ease. That was improvement, that was progress, and he’d keep right on pushing himself beyond his limits until he never crashed again…one way or another.

“Ready?” Rainsong called.

“Ready!” he called back, putting his goggles over his eyes without looking up.

“In five. Four. Three. Two. One. Go!!!”

He looked up even as he took off, his eyes quickly scanning the sky. The rings were all over the place, and Rainsong placed the first ring almost behind another ring to make it harder for him to find it, just the edge of it with the number visible, and he shifted in mid-zoom right at it, doing a tight barrel roll around ring number twelve to reach the first ring. He passed through and went straight up to the next one, then turned well past a right angle and hit the next. Each ring forced him to turn hard at high speed, displaying his natural agility, a red blaze of light that streaked back and forth over the ring course as he twisted and turned, raced as fast as he could to each ring, and slowed down only enough to keep from wiping out on the turn to the next one before accelerating again. She’d placed the final ring almost on the ground, and he dove on it in a screaming fire-red trail of fearless acceleration, the ground racing up at him as his eyes focused on the cloud ring’s circumference, getting ready for the final point. He passed through the ring even as he pulled out of his dive, streaking with his hooves and belly brushing the taller blades of grass before his trajectory curled upwards.

“Forty-three seconds, not bad at all!” Rainsong called.

“Better than my first run yesterday. Okay, friend, move them, and make it really hard,” he said as he landed and pushed his goggles up, then put his head down to look at the grass.

“You want hard, you got it!” she said. “You’ll be lucky to break two minutes!”

“Now you just went and made this a challenge,” he retorted, which made her laugh.

It had to be hard, since it took her nearly ten minutes to set the rings. “Ready?” she called.

“Ready,” he said as he put his goggles back down. She counted down, and when he looked up and took off, he almost froze in midair. She’d lined all the rings up in a row so that he could have flown right through all of them in a straight line, but they were in a random order, and they were so close together that he could barely make it between them. It was exactly what he asked for, however, a real challenge. He picked up speed as he searched for the first ring, flying parallel to the line, then he veered between them and snaked his way through the first ring. He’d also been watching for the second ring, and since he didn’t pass by it, he knew it was forward, so he kept going and found it at the very end. He darted into the row to get each ring one by one, having to almost constant U-turns as the rings were placed in a staggered order that made him double back most of the time. His tail bumped against rings more than once, nudging them a little, but he managed to get all thirty rings without crashing into any of them.

“Well?” he demanded as he slowed to a hover just above the last ring.

She gave him an adorably annoyed look. “A minute and forty-four seconds,” she admitted.

“Ha! In your face, Rainsong!” he teased.

“Just for that, I’ll make the next set impossible,” she taunted with a grin.

She helped him run the rings for nearly an hour, making every run really work him, and not every run was successful. Three times he crashed into a ring rather than get through it, trying to turn too tightly, but he just picked himself up, repaired the ring, and tried again until he got it right. After the ring practice, Rainsong backed well off so he could practice the Tornado Twist. It was slightly dangerous, so she could only watch from a distance, as well as help him if he ended up with his face planted in the ground below.

The Tornado Twist was a move that he invented himself. He came up with it in weather school when they studied tornadoes, how to make them and control them, and it took him nearly a year to finally pull it off. The concept behind it was to form a tornado, narrow it down to a column of high-speed rotating wind, then twist it, bend it back on itself until it formed a ring of cyclonic wind. The finale would be him getting right in the center of the ring, turning it sideways, and then making it burst with a powerful stroke of his wings, and the air shockwave would send a halo of wind and cloud out over the stadium. It was the closest visible effect he could produce to a Sonic Rainboom, which was the inspiration for the trick.

He ascended fairly high up so an out of control tornado didn’t become a danger to the ground, then he flew in long, lazy circles as he warmed up, getting his mind focused to try his most dangerous—and awesome—stunt. He took in a couple of deep breaths, then he started. He angled down sharply and built up speed, then he turned in on himself and flew in tight circles, so fast that he created a cone of fiery red contrails, and within that conical trail a tornado formed. He was good at tornadoes because he was so good and flying at high speed in tight turns, got his highest marks in weather school for them, so he had no trouble forming a fairly good-sized cyclone. Once he had it going fast enough that it’d sustain itself for a few minutes without him, he erupted straight out of the middle of it and went straight up, leaving a fiery red trail behind him, going higher and higher and higher. He then turned back down so fast that it almost looked like he bounced off a wall, gritting his teeth as the wind raced over his goggled eyes, pulled at his lips, the tiny spot of light in the center of his tornado the target he fixated upon. He flashed straight through the exact center of the tornado, and his air wake caused the tornado to shudder, and then in a rumbling gust of wind, he came out of it near the base and started going around and around and around his creation He inched up just a tiny bit and met the tornado right at its wide upper edge, then he ascended and descended in a spiral around his tornado, tightening his turns gradually to push the wide mouth of it tighter, narrower as he loosened the bottom, ascending in a spiral twist to the top and then spiraling back to the bottom, shaping the tornado. He felt the burn in his wings, the roar of air in his ears as he turned the cone into a column of twisting wind. Once he had it that way, he started working the end of it, making it turn and curve. It started to bend, then the base followed him as he spun in tight laps around it, drawing it up with him as he subtly changed his trajectory—

And the whole thing shuddered, started to writhe like an angry snake, and then burst apart in a powerful blast of wind. Skyblaze was hurled upwards and at an angle, his body spinning and cartwheeling wildly, but he recovered with practiced ease and banked around. Him spinning wildly out of control was a nearly daily occurrence, so his ability to recover from it was something with which he had a lot of practice. He circled over his practice area a few times, going over what happened and trying to identify exactly where it went wrong. He realized that he hadn’t corrected enough when the vortex began to twist and allowed the cyclonic winds inside to get too loose. He had to keep a tighter grip on it.

Circling wide a few times to get ready, he then did it again. He got the tornado formed, did a perfect dive-through, and this time he kept a much tighter grip on the base of the column as he started to turn it…too tight. The base of it petered out, and the whole thing blew itself out, sending him cartwheeling almost level to the ground. He again recovered and did lazy circles to get some altitude, and then tried once more. Again, the formation, climb, and dive were perfect, but this time he managed to get the column of wind to turn. He coaxed it up with him as he lifted the base, turned it into a circle, then darted to the open top and pulled it to meet the bottom. He joined them together at the very top, forming a tornado ring, and he let it spin for a moment, the show it off part of the routine. Once he figured every pony had time to appreciate his work, he turned it sideways, got in the exact center, then snapped his wings, which shattered the ring and sent a powerful gust of wind flying outwards.

And that was a properly executed Tornado Twist. In the performance, the wind gust would be over the stadium, and it would blow away the rings placed for him, a suitably dramatic visual effect. There would only be 20 rings in the performance, since the stadium wasn’t as large as the field, but it should still be enough to make it look really cool.

He tried the move 13 more times before the sun started to hang low in the sky, and he managed to do it right 11 of those times, finishing with five successful executions in a row. That was a better success ratio than yesterday, where he went 14 successes out of 20 attempts, so it made him hopeful that he was improving. He’d take 12 of 16 over 14 of 20 any day. That was a 75% success rate for the day…not too shabby, and every day he did his best to increase that percentage. He had three more weeks to master his trick, to get to where he was confident he could pull it off in front of an entire stadium of pegasi, Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, Princess Twilight, the Wonderbolts, and his family. The only one that really counted was the one he did at the competition. He had to be 100% on that day, or he’d look pretty silly.

He just hoped they gave bonus points for difficulty. The Tornado Twist was the hardest move he knew, a move he invented himself, and it was not for the meek.

Rainsong flew back over when he landed in the field under where he’d been practicing, a little out of breath and his wings feeling like he’d flown halfway to the moon and back. “Not bad,” she complemented as he stretched his wings out one at a time. “Tired?”

“You know I am, but not so tired I can’t fly home,” he answered.

“Darn, and I was hoping to rub your face in the fact I had to carry you for years,” she grinned. She then laughed when he swatted her with his weary wing.

After he rested a bit, they made the long ascent from the base of the mountain back up to Canterlot. Rainsong went home for dinner as he returned to the shop, flying in through his window in the attic since the front door was locked, the CLOSED sign hanging in the window, and managed to get downstairs to the living quarters just in time for dinner. His family was already at the table, and he made himself a plate of stewed carrots and beets as the others ate. “So, any broken bones today?” Prism asked playfully. She teased him a lot in private, but she didn’t tolerate any pony else teasing him in public. That privilege was reserved for friends and family.

“Nope. In fact, things went pretty well,” he replied. “I think I’ll have my trick down and be ready to do it for the competition.”

“I’d hope so,” Shimmergem chuckled. “But it’s good that things went well.”

“Pretty well,” he nodded. “You need me tomorrow, Dad?”

He nodded. “But it’s an easy one. I need you to pick up some gems from Dodge Junction, from Rockhound.”

“Short trip, loooong visit,” he sighed, which made his father laugh. “Getting out of there without hearing the hour long tale about the time he escaped from the diamond dogs is almost impossible.”

“Why do you think I send you, son?” he asked lightly.

“My revenge will be terrible to behold, Dad,” he warned, which made his father grin.