Chapter 3: Gifts of Grandure
"So, what do you like to do when you're not... uh, you know... invading Equestria or trying to get your horn back... and stuff?" Spike asked from his seated position against the tree.
Tempest raised an eyebrow before rolling her eyes and shaking her head.
"Not much, Spike. Not much." She coolly responded, recasting her gaze to the lake at the edge of the park.
Spike groaned, "Aw come on, Tempest! There's gotta something you like doing!" He exclaimed.
"Spike, I know you're only asking because Twilight told you to." Tempest shot back.
Spike was taken aback at how quickly she figured him out, and stumbled over his words for a few moments, much to Tempest's amusement.
"W-well... Uh... I mean... Alright, fine. You got me. You can read me like a book." Spike admitted, causing a ghost of a grin to appear on Tempest's face.
"Some would say that that's endearing." She replied. Her gaze lingered on the lake for a few moments longer before falling down to the dragon seated beneath her.
"Well... Are you gonna tell me anything then? I mean, I don't want things to be heated between you and Twilight anymore." Spike said, keeping a careful eye on the mulberry unicorn.
Tempest did not reply for some time. She wistfully sighed and averted her gaze from Spike. When she finally did speak, her words came slow and deliberate.
"I'm not angry anymore, Spike. I'm just tired..." She relented.
"You're not? That's great!" Spike exclaimed, "I-I mean, I'm glad you're feeling better, but... it seems a little sudden."
"I just don't want to be angry anymore..." She said. Her voice was almost as quiet as a whisper, and Spike had to strain to hear her.
"Ugh... D-do you wanna talk about it?" He timidly asked.
"I... I don't know... There are some things I've done that I just don't think anypony is ready to know about yet... And I would never be able to forgive myself if Twilight found out and was repulsed by me because of it..."
Spike tilted his head to the side. He hesitantly looked away from her at the surrounding scenery and into the direction she was previously looking at. Upon seeing nothing worthy of note, he looked back up at her and frowned.
"T-Tempest... Whatever you did... Twilight would never hold that against you. You don't need to be ashamed of who you were. What matters now is who you are. I mean, what did you even do that was so bad?" Spike asked, after much consideration.
Tempest sighed and rose to her hooves. She jumped out of the tree and landed with a audible *thump* next to Spike. He nearly jumped at her sudden appearance next to him, but managed to calm his erratic heartbeat once she took a few steps away and stared out over the lake once more.
"I don't think I'm ready to talk about it yet, Spike... To anyone..." She admitted, keeping her eyes glued to the lake the whole time.
It was Spike's turn to sigh, and he pushed himself up until he was standing upright before walking over to Tempest's side.
"Well... If you really don't want to talk about it, I understand... But, could you at least let me try to make you feel a little better? Rainbow Dash thought a WonderBolts show might do the trick, but I don't feel like that's really your style.
Tempest chuckled, much to Spike's surprise, before fixing him with a slightly softer gaze than before.
"Well... To be honest... An air show might be a nice distraction from all this." She answered.
Spike immediately perked up, "Really!?"
"Yeah... I think it'd be nice to just go and enjoy something like that for a bit."
Spike grinned ear to ear, "Awesome! I'll go let Rainbow Dash and the rest of the group know!" He exclaimed before turning tail and running off toward the castle, "I'll see you later, Tempest!" He called back.
Tempest gave a friendly wave back to him before turning back toward the lake. She stared into it's depths for a few minutes before quietly whispering to herself, "Maybe one day..."
She turned around and headed back into town.
Spike barged into the castle at lighting speed. He sprinted so fast that he almost slammed into the wall. Scaly feet came to a screeching halt as he tried to slow himself down, and he just managed to stop precariously close to the wall. Breathing out a quick sigh, he turned on his heels and made his way over to the dining room at a much more modest, fast-walk. Within seconds, he arrived to find Twilight and the rest of their friends cleaning up and priming the party cannon. His arrival did not go unnoticed by the group, and they all turned their heads toward him as he entered the room.
"Spike, there you are," Twilight addressed, "You've been gone for hours! I tried to tell you that you didn't have to leave right away-" She tried to explain, only for Spike to cut her off.
"Forget about that! I can't believe I'm saying this, but Dash was right. Tempest actually does want to go to a WonderBolts show!" He exclaimed, much to every mare in the room's surprise.
"Ha! I knew it! Everypony loves the WonderBolts! Even Tempest!" Rainbow boasted, flaring her wings out in victory.
Twilight's jaw dropped slightly, "W-wow... I guess you really never know with that mare..." She admitted, shaking her head in disbelief.
AppleJack, Rarity, and Fluttershy all adorned winning smiles while Pinkie nearly exploded from the excitement building inside. She happily bounced around the room in joy while the rest of the group converged on Twilight and Rainbow Dash.
"So what're ya'll gonna do then? Just... give her a ticket and tell her to meet us there?" AppleJack questioned.
"That's easy! We'll just wait for her to come back, I'll give her the ticket, and then we all take the train on Wednesday. Easy as pie!" Rainbow Dash cheered.
"Spike, are you absolutely sure that she wants this? It wasn't just her agreeing to get you to leave her alone, was it?" Twilight inquired, much to the dragons chagrin.
"What? Of course not! I mean... She sounded like she really wanted to go. She said it'd be a nice way to get her mind off of things." He explained.
"And what better way to get your mind off things than the fastest, most daring, most awe-inspiring dare-deviling ever to hit the sky!?" Rainbow quickly interjected.
"Rainbow, darling, are you sure you're not exaggerating just a tincy, tiny bit?" Rarity deadpanned.
"What!? No way! As an official WonderBolt, I can say for complete, no, one hundred and twenty percent certainty that our show is by far the best in Equestria! Maybe even the whole world! Scratch that, definitely the whole world!" Dash defensively exclaimed.
"Riiiiiiiiiiiiight... No bias there at all..." Rarity muttered under her breath.
"Anyway-" Twilight interrupted, redirecting attention to her, "-now that we know she wants to go to the air show, we need to properly think about how to give her the ticket. I mean, I honestly feel like it should be me, but I also don't know if she even wants to talk to me right now, so it might not be the best idea..." She trailed off.
"So... should I give it to her?" Spike asked.
"Oh, OH, OH! I can totally give it to her at her 'First WonderBolt Show EVER' party!" Pinkie shouted, causing all eyes in the room to turn to her.
"Uh, Pinkie, you know Tempest isn't really the party type... Especially not when it comes to parties for every little thing." Twilight explained.
"Aw... But I already got the party cannon..." Pinkie whined, pointing at it with both hooves in the process.
"Um... what if we all just give it to her?" Fluttershy suggested, much to everypony's surprise.
"Well shoot, Fluttershy. That might be the best idea ah've heard all day." AppleJack complimented, causing the butterscotch pegasus to blush.
"I'm not too sure how she'll react, but I think that's the best option we can hope for right now." Twilight reasoned.
"Alright, so we just need Dash to get the ticket for Tempest and then we wait for her to get back here?" Spike asked.
"What'doya mean 'wait'?" Dash asked, pulling a ticket out from behind her back, "I never leave home without at least one of these babies with me."
Everypony in the room shared a glance before Twilight coughed and turned back to the rest of the group.
"Um... Alright then. So now we just wait for Tempest to get back. Spike did she say anything about when she was coming back?" Twilight asked.
"Uh, no. No she didn't say. I kinda headed off after she told me that she wanted to go to the show. Last I saw her was at the edge of the park." Spike recounted.
"What was she doing in the park?" Rainbow asked.
"Uh, she was kinda chilling in a tree? I mean, I think she was taking a nap until I got there. She looked really tired." Spike explained.
"Hold on a second! She told me she couldn't stay after breakfast because she was so busy today! You think she... lied to me!?" Pinkie exclaimed.
"Well... I don't think we can say for sure what Tempest defines as 'busy', so... no?" Twilight shrugged.
Pinkie was silent for a moment. The gears in her head slowly turned and she processed Twilight's explanation as the rest of the girls and Spike shared worried glances with each other. Finally, she seemed to reach a conclusion, and took a deep breath.
"Oh, okay!" She chirped.
Everypony else in the room shared another quick glance before a sound caught all of their attention. It was the sound of the front door opening once more, followed immediately by heavy, metallic hoofsteps. There was only one pony in Ponyville that those could belong to.
Rounding the corner, Tempest raised an eyebrow at the scene in front of her. AppleJack and Fluttershy were sitting at the table, trying as hard as they could to look interested in the wall across from them. Rainbow Dash was hovering in the middle of the room, her hooves behind her back and her wings disturbing everything on the table with every flap while she tried to whistle as inconspicuously as possible. Pinkie was pretending to be bored, but the the sheer excitement she clearly had made her entire body vibrate with energy. Lastly, Twilight and Spike simply stared back at her with wide eyes. They were, by far, the least conspicuous.
All of this hardly fazed Tempest so much as it seemed too drain her even more. She shook her head and cleared her throat, drawing all eyes in the room in the process.
"Tempest!" Rarity called.
"Well, there you are!" AppleJack enthusiastically exclaimed.
"Bout time!" Rainbow Dash said.
"Yay!" Fluttershy quietly cheered.
"OhmygoshTempestit'syouIthoughtyouwerebusybutIguessyouaren'tthatbusyI'mtotallynothurtatallthankyouforaskingbutanywaysI'mgladthatyou'rehere!" Pinkie shouted in one breath.
Tempest's face turned to one of confusion.
"Uh... What?" She asked.
"Nothing! Perfectly! Fine!" Pinkie again shouted.
"Right... Anyways... Spike said something about a WonderBolts show? I take it that you all wanted to invite me or something of the sort." Tempest recalled, hastily getting to the point.
"Oh, uh, yeah! Rainbow!" Twilight announced.
Rainbow immediately dropped to the floor and pulled the ticket out from behind her back. Twilight quickly enveloped the ticket in her magic while the rest of the group gathered around her and faced Tempest.
"Ahem, Tempest, I know that what happened the other night can't be fixed with a simple gift, but I, no, we all hope that you'll at least accept this ticket to the WonderBolts show on Wednesday." Twilight announced.
Twilight and her friends looked at Tempest expectantly for a few eerily silent moments before she finally spoke.
"Thanks."
With that, Tempest swiped the ticket out of Twilight's magic and walked out of the room. Everypony shared a confused look, particularly Rainbow, while Twilight simply blinked and stared straight ahead.
"Well... She sure isn't very good at showing gratitude, is she?" Rarity whispered, still unsure of whether or not Tempest could still hear her.
"You got that right. That's a ticket to the WonderBolts! And all she had to say was 'thanks'? I mean, Tank shows more gratitude than that and he's a tortoise for Celestia's sake!"
"Dash! Quiet! She can probably still hear you!" Spike whisper-shouted.
"Well... Maybe she's just still a little upset. Maybe... in her own way, she's showing her gratitude?" Twilight half-heartedly suggested.
"Ah think she's the type of pony that isn't very good at expressin' herself... Or maybe she's kinda like Maud, in a way." AppleJack replied, turning a thoughtful eye to Pinkie.
"What're you talking about, AppleJack? Maud shows waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more emotion than that!" Pinkie explained.
"Girls, I think we should just take what we've got and accept that that's all Tempest was willing to give us." Fluttershy interjected.
Twilight furrowed her brow in thought for a few seconds before sighing and readressing the group.
"I guess that's all I could ask of her after what I did. If she really wanted to, she could have slapped the ticket out of my magic and spit on it, and she still would have been justified." She reasoned.
"Uh, how about no? Like I said, that's a ticket to the WonderBolts! You don't just spit on a WonderBolts ticket!" Dash asserted, more than a little resentment boiling over in her voice.
"Well either way, she took the ticket, and she said 'thank you'. Knowing Tempest, that was probably all the thanks she was willing to give." Spike replied.
As the argument continued on in the dining room, a lone pair of ears flicked back against their owners skull, and she frowned as she turned away from the doorway to head back to her room. Tempest quietly sighed to herself while making her way up the staircase and into the long hallway that led to the first place she'd come to call home in over seventeen years. Each hoofstep seemed to echo endlessly in the long hallway, drowning out even the reverberating voices of the Elements of Harmony bearers and Spike as they bickered back and forth about her.
Even so, she could hardly keep her eyes off the floor. The crystal tiles lining each segment of floorboard was stunningly unique and majestic in its own way; yet as she saw her reflection in those crystalline panels, her stomach twisted into a knot, and her armor grew heavier with each step. When she finally arrived at her own door, Tempest slowly pulled the key out of her bodysuit and held it in her hoof for much longer than intended before unlocking the door and stepping inside.
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David used to be in the Army right? I don’t remember if he saw combat but maybe he and Tempest could relate?
9766918
David was indeed in the Army. As for if they'd get along? Who knows? It's a mystery
9766987
Hmmmmm