Rainbow Dash’s eyes snapped open to the pillar at the side of her bedroom. Oh no. I’m going to miss the Wonder Trial! In a flash, she was out from under the covers and staring at a plain white calendar pinned to her living room wall. She flipped the page to reveal the large red circled date and a hastily hooved “invite only” next to it. The Wonderbolt emblem was planted firmly on the day.
“Whew,” the pegasus sighed, tension flowing off her rigid posture. All of the – what did Rarity call it? – stage fright, the stress, the vivid dreams, and Rainbow Dash hadn’t even received the invitation for the tryout yet. On some level she was aware part of her worries were due to the fear there would not be an invitation this time, given she hadn’t shown up for the last two over the years.
Rainbow Dash shook herself. “No time for that now!” With a dash, she was out the front door.
Normally on this day of the week she would survey the weather and meet up with her team to plan the forecast for the week. She decided the sky looked clean enough, though, and there wouldn't be much to see if she spent the next few hours flying around and wasting time. There were way more productive things to do, like take a cloud nap or annoy Twilight Sparkle.
Rainbow Dash landed in front of the door to the library and knocked. She waited patiently for approximately one second before nudging the door open and peering inside the great tree. Twilight Sparkle was scribbling furiously on a long sheet of parchment suspended from the ceiling in a purple magical aura. The parchment draped all the way down to the floor.
“Ink,” Twilight said to Spike, who rushed from place to place with an armful of different colored quill inks. “Blue this time.”
“Aw, come on Twilight. Can we take a break yet? I’m getting hungry.”
“Not yet Spike. I’m almost done. This spell has to be absolutely, 100% perfect or something disastrous could happen.”
Rainbow Dash opened her mouth to say something to interrupt Twilight's workflow and cause one of the unicorn's infamous freakouts, but Spike saw it coming. He shook his head with wide green eyes.
She cut her comment short for Spike's sake. Well, Twilight is obviously busy. Maybe Rarity?
Rainbow Dash trotted over to her other friend’s luxurious home and soon found herself in a mess of fabrics and ribbons. For an instant the cyan pegasus thought the tornado-like effect going on in the room was her doing, but she was pretty sure she remembered helping clean up after crashing through the window last week.
Much like Twilight, Rarity seemed absorbed in her work. “Too red. Too much lace. Too frilly.”
“Hey Rarity,” Rainbow Dash said from underneath the discarded ribbons. She picked them out of her mane.
“Oh hello dear! Is there something I can do for you?” Rarity said without looking up from what she was doing. “Oh my, certainly not.” Another mismatched ribbon flew across the room, landing in a growing heap of rejects.
“I was–”
“Ah! This may just be it!”
“–wondering if–”
“Rainbow Dash, could you do a favor and hold these for me? Thank you.” Rainbow Dash had just enough time to close her mouth before a mass of flying fabric landed squarely on top of her. Oh, great. She stuck her head out from under the pile and looked swiftly from Rarity to the exit.
Now! She zipped out from the pile and escaped. Thirty minutes later, Rarity would wonder why Rainbow Dash had been so uncharacteristically quiet, gasp with fear that her friend had been smothered, and sigh with relief upon discovering nothing inside the pile.
Okay okay okay. Maybe Pinkie Pie? Why was everypony so busy today anyway?
But the story was the same with all of her friends. Pinkie was delivering treats to the school, Fluttershy was nursing a sick songbird back to good health, and AJ…
Rainbow Dash hovered next to the farmer and her brother. “You guys don’t need any rain for your crops or anything, do you?”
“Nope,” said Big Macintosh.
“We’ve got it covered. The rain last week really helped out.” Applejack finished her statement by pulling a weed out of the ground with her teeth.
“Okay, just checkin’.”
Rainbow Dash flew about halfway back to Ponyville before landing flat on her rump in the middle of the path. “Well now I am bored,” she said aloud to no pony in particular, although of course there wasn’t anyone in earshot. She pawed the ground aimlessly with her forehooves.
Without warning she snapped up to stand proudly on all four hooves. “I can always practice my routine!” The pegasus crouched down to the ground and then launched herself into the sky.
~~~
Soarin’ glided along the warm air current he had randomly chosen a while ago near Canterlot. In all honesty, he didn’t have a talent for lightning fast observation, and while normally he would have at least had some idea of where he was going, today he decided not to pay attention at all. He knew the skies well enough around this part of the world to find his way back. So on he floated.
The weather today was pristine and excellent for spring flying, but Soarin’s heart just wasn’t in it. This was unusual for him, a pegasus normally filled with wild bravado spirit and camaraderie. There were still rare days like these when he’d rather be alone and quiet instead of inventing new routines with his friends or parading around after a show looking for the best pastries. Today was a quiet day.
He wasn’t wearing his uniform, so hardly any pony would notice his pale blue coat up in the sky, which suited him just fine. He was bored. Nah, that probably wasn’t it. Soarin’ sighed and allowed himself to plop in a depressed manner on a cloud, head hanging and tail drooping. Heh. I’m even sure I feel those rings under my eyes from being tired. Soarin’ breathed deep for another melodramatic sigh, and then exhaled loudly and let his head droop another few inches. Hey, whatever helped.
The unobserved performance was interrupted by a strong breeze behind Soarin’ that pulled him toward the other end of the cloud. Only another flyer could make that kind of disturbance in the wind pattern. Surprised out of his melancholy mood, Soarin’ turned his gaze to the side. Sure enough, a cyan pegasus was blazing a trail in neat circles a ways away, without having noticed him. It would have been impossible to miss the other flier, not with that rainbow mane and tail.
Hey... Wait a minute! This was exactly the pony the Wonderbolts had been looking for the past few weeks, the one he had seen perform at the Best Young Flyer Competition. Soarin’ tapped his chin, remembering. Rainbow Dash was also the one who had rescued his apple pie from a horrible fate at the Grand Galloping Gala. He searched through the countless memories of ponies he’d met, but that seemed like all he could remember about this particular pegasus.
Every time Fleetfoot or Spitfire went out searching for her, no pony in Cloudsdale knew where she was. She hadn’t been spotted in the sky for days, they said. Ponies would nod and fret if a bystander mentioned how odd it was not to see her; maybe she went on a trip?
Soarin’ himself hadn’t been privy to any of these conversations. He’d been talent spotting another pegasus in Fillydelphia at the time. Watching Rainbow Dash now, he was not surprised Fleetfoot had no concerns about getting to spend much (or any) time assessing the colorful flying mare. She was a fine flyer. Soarin’ settled into his cloud and put any criticism out of his thoughts, ousting the talent spotting mindset and simply enjoying the solo performance.
Rainbow Dash zoomed past a large cloud, brushing the edges of it with her wing tips before resuming the steady beat necessary to gain altitude. Rising into the air, she arced down to the level of the cloud again at a flying trot. She used the speed from the maneuver to kick back into the sky and flare her wings just enough to catch the rays of the sun and generate a brief flash of light.
Nicely done, but Soarin’ suspected she was holding back. She careened straight up into the sky and pumped her wings, though it wasn’t fast enough to pull off the advanced move he had seen her do out of desperation once before. Sure enough, pressure waves bunched up in front of the flyer and recoiled, sending her packing through several clouds before she regained control and landed clumsily on a wisp of cirrus clouds far below.
Her concentration was broken. Time to go. If Rainbow Dash spotted him now, it’d be difficult to get away. Soarin’ grinned to himself, recalling the onslaught of excited questions the second the rainbowed winner of the Best Young Flyer competition had broken away from her friends. “Have you ever flown past lighting? What’s it like to fly on a team? Don’t you want to fly faster than everypony? Have you tried licking a tornado? What’s the biggest, coolest thing you ever fought?” She didn’t just fly fast. Her mind raced, too.
Rainbow Dash. What a fitting name.
But, Soarin’ wondered, if she wanted to be a Wonderbolt so badly, why didn’t she answer any of the invitations?