//------------------------------//
// Little Apple Pippin 
// Story: Winning 
// by Botched Lobotomy 
//------------------------------//

Rainbow Dash gave her a long, hard look. “You want to know how we got together, huh?”
Pippin nodded. “Course I do, granny!”
“Hmph.” Rainbow Dash seemed unimpressed. “Just last week you were trying to sneak your granny’s sweet apple fritters, and now you wanna know about that? You foals sure move quick.” The plate of them sat just at her hoof, safe from prying noses.
“Mm-hmm!” Pippin arranged herself neatly upon the floor, tail curled around her hooves like a cat. Ready to listen. “I, uh, know bits here an there, but other granny always said I’d get the full story when I was older.”
“Yeah? And how old’s that, then?”
“Almost twelve!”
“So you are.” Rainbow settled back in her armchair. Applejack would be a while back yet, and this seemed as good a way as any to keep the kids quiet. She only had so many games of hide and seek left in her, after all. Besides, Pip was old enough now. Old enough for some of it, anyway; the other parts, well... And the important bit, that was something she could do with knowing. She had a competitive streak in her, that one. “Lil Mac and the Gremlin still playing in the other room?”
Pippin nodded eagerly.
“All right,” said Rainbow, getting comfortable, “I’ll tell you. Not a word of this to your mother, you hear?”
“I promise.”
“Hmph. Well then. You know I was a Wonderbolt, right?”
“No, granny, I hadn’t heard that.”
“I’ll have none of that cheek.” Pippin giggled, and Rainbow tried not to smile. “Anyway. Back when I was just starting out, barely a year into the team, there was this big competition. End of year thing, sort of a ‘fastest pony in Equestria’ type deal. No big thing.”
“You won, of course.”
“Who’s telling the story here, filly?”
“Sorry, I just assumed you’d win.”
“You’d find out, if you’re quiet.”
“But you did win, right?”
Rainbow grinned, despite herself. “Well, yeah. Course I won. More importantly, though, was where the competition was being held. Big stadium in Manehattan, a hundred miles across. Your parents ever take you to Manehattan?”
Pippin shook her head.
“Sensible people, those ponies. Can’t think where they got it from. In any case, if you ever get the chance, don’t go. Horrible place. You can ask aunt Rarity about it, if you like. But this was after that, and Rarity was over in Ponyville. Nopony was around, as it happened, not even any of the other Bolts. They had some other show on, that night. Like I said, this was no big thing.
“So there I was, in Manehattan, just after the competition. I’d won. And I was completely alone.”