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// Prompt #111: Moulting 
// Story: Ponywatching 
// by ThunderTempest 
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Once Twilight Sparkle earned her wings, it took Rainbow Dash all of about ten seconds to start scheduling flight lessons for the young princess. But eventually, after many, many crashes, Twilight managed to achieve something close to what Rainbow Dash would call competence. At the very least, Twilight had stopped crashing every time she landed. Confidant that her job was done, Rainbow Dash called Twilight's flying lessons complete.

But it was a fairly common sight in Ponyville to see Princess Twilight on a morning flight over the no longer quite so small town. Princess Twilight often said that she could hardly understand her pegasi friends from the ground, and the morning flights had been devised by Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash as a way to get to know the airborne residents of Ponyville, as well as provide some much needed practice to the new alicorn, who was still getting used to the idea of having feathers. She leisurely flew along, calling out greetings to some of the members of the weather patrol that were setting up the minimal cloud cover for the day. Below, Twilight could see that Ponyville was well and truly up and about, and she swung about, beginning her flight back towards the centre of Ponyville, where she was due to meet with the mayor of the town, as Twilight much preffered to take a hooves-off approach to governance, though she technically was the sovereign ruler of Ponyville, but most ponies were a little unsettled when they discovered that the princess of the town could detach her head at will.

"What's up, Sparklebutt?" said a rainbow-maned pegasus, jabbing Twilight in the side with a hoof. 

"Dusty Trails!" said Twilight, as she pulled Dusty's hoof out of the hole that it had punched in her side. Dusty was the child of Speedy Stitch, who was the result of a rather magically adventurous night between the Rarity and Rainbow Dash, of all ponies, and much to Twilight's distress, had inherited the attitude of Rainbow Dash.

"I thought that you would be in the hospital for another week after that incident with the bell tower," said Twilight.

"Yeah, well, doctors said that there's nothing physically wrong with me and let me go," said Dusty, "guess I'm just that great."
Twilight rolled her eyes as she flew around a rising balloon.

"Still, I worry that you're going to hurt yourself if you keep trying to replicate Rainbow Dash's stunts," said Twilight.

"Pssh," said Dusty, "Like anything's ever kept me down for long."

"Just be a little more careful, okay?" asked Twilight, hovering in front of Dusty, "I don't like seeing my friends get hurt. At least get somepony to watch just in case you have another incident like with the bell tower."

"Okay, okay," said Dusty, winging off to talk to the weather manager. Twilight moved to wave goodbye to her.

And stopped dead, because her wings had fallen off.

"Horseapples," muttered Twilight, before she plummeted downwards.

****Time****

The mayor of Ponyville stared as Twilight pulled herself out of the crater that she had caused in the town square, magically reattching a leg as she did so.

"Are you alright, Princess Twilight?"

"I'm fine," said Twilight, "I just need to find my wings and put them back on. And then find something that stops them falling off again."