//------------------------------//
// Education (Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash) 
// Story: Flashes Of Eventide 
// by SilverNotes 
//------------------------------//

"Hey, Pinkie Pie, whatcha doing?"

It's a reasonable question, Rainbow Dash feels, when she's been flying above and looked down to see the perpetual motion pony sitting still. In fact, even as she's swooped down and landed next to Pinkie, the only initial response to the question is a flicked ear and the bouncing curls the motion displaces. Then she leans down, takes a page of the thin book in front of her between her teeth, and carefully turns it.

"Just catching up on some reading," Pinkie says serenely, as other ponies merrily trot through the park around her, beneath the midday sun, and as Rainbow steps closer, she catches familiar splashes of colour on the page.

"Are you reading All Things With Wings?" comes the incredulous question.

"Yup."

"But that's--"

The head loaded with curls turns, and one bright blue eye looks her. Below, a simplistic drawing of a griffon, half lion and half eagle, sits there innocently, surrounded by print with large, foal-friendly letters. "It's what?"

The rest of the sentence dies in Rainbow's throat, replaced with a memory.

"Pinkie, this is my griffon friend, Gilda."

"What's a griffon?"

She walks over, and lowers herself to the grass, staring at the book from her foalhood. "You... really never saw a griffon before I introduced you to Gilda?"

"Nope."

"Or heard of one?"

"Not the slightest, slimmest, ittiest bittiest time, ever."

Like most of the things Rainbow has ever said, the words are out before thoughts can catch up. "That's so weird."

"Is it?" Pinkie leans down, turns the page again, and now several other griffons are on the pages, different kinds of birds and cats mashed together in unique combinations. "There's lots and lots of creatures in the world, and we're meeting new ones all the time. If they tried to teach us about every single one, we'd be in school forever. There's barely any pegasi where I used to live, let alone anyone else who flies. They taught me about the creatures they thought I'd meet."

Barely any pegasi. The thought is even more mind-boggling than no griffons. "Like what?"

"Cows, sheep, pigs, and goats," Pinkie counts off with taps of her hoof. "Donkeys and mules... a bit about dragons, even if it was mostly just saying that nopony knows much about them, and to run if they come for your rocks..." She smiles. "I met a diamond dog once."

Several blinks break out. "A what?"

Smiling turns to giggling. "You've never heard of diamond dogs, Dashie?"

Rainbow huffs, her chest puffing out. "You're making that up. There's no way there's dogs made of diamond and I wouldn't know."

Giggles become laughter. "Diamond dogs aren't made of diamond, silly. They just like them a lot."

Another huff. "I still think you're making it up."

"I'll show you a picture later." Another page turns, and now something new is on display, and Pinkie's eyes widen in delight upon seeing the image of a small flock of hippogriffs.

Rainbow knows the book by heart. Every foal from Cloudsdale does. She knows that the next section will be about the ornithians, then gargoyles, then rocs...

Rainbow's wing opens, and settles across Pinkie's back. If she's bothered by the foreign sensation, she doesn't show it, just looking at the colourful pictures in the book with wonder. Rainbow looks over her shoulder, and smiles too.

It isn't every day you get to watch another pony learn about the awesomeness of the skies.