Prologue - Kicked Out
“Aaaargh! They kicked me out! They kicked me out?! How could they?!”
The door to the quiet cottage swung open, and slammed shut in a matter of seconds. At the doorstep, stood a fuming teal pegasus, still wearing a familiar looking aerodynamic suit. It was only a matter of moments before she dropped her hastily packed belongings onto the ground, and attempted to remove the suit. Nearly tearing it, she tugged it over her head with some difficulty, and tossed it over a chair.
“They wanted to kick out me, the greatest flier in Equestria?!” She roared, knocking over a small night-stand in her rage. “All just because some stupid ponies flying a balloon near restricted territory! ...What the hay were they even doing here anyways? I thought Wonderbolt Academy was supposed to be pegasus only! What were the security guards doing?!”
The mare kicked a book across the room, and her eyes fell back on the suit she had just taken off a few moments ago. Clearly visible on the inside of the navy material, now that the suit was turned inside out, was the name ‘Lightning Dust’ carefully, and neatly embroidered into it. The seamstress was actually quite proud of being able to do that by herself when she did so, as she was pretty bad with her mouth when it came to small things like that. She’d never admit her pride of the simple accomplishment though, since it was embarrassing to admit being bad at something so simple. She had put a lot of time and care into putting her name on that suit, but now she just looked at it with pure disdain.
In a quick movement, the pegasus picked up the suit and gathered it into a ball, then chucked it as hard as she could into the wastebasket. She then sat down in the nearest, unturned chair and glared angrily at the wall opposite to her.
“...Stupid Wonderbolts...” She muttered bitterly. “...Just did what they asked... Got it done... Not my fault...”
The young pony fell silent, as the clock on the wall ticked on. She sat there for a while, her anger taking a long time to subside. By the time she was calm enough to get out of her seat, and not kick something across the room, Celestia had already lowered the sun a while ago, and the moon was already well across the sky. The mare looked over to a calendar that hung near the door that had been marked up with ink all over it. Lots of times and hours were written all over the dates, some of the dates had specific things written, like ‘Covering Nimbus’s Route, take his packages as well’ or ‘Mail from Ponyville arrives, make sure that wall-eyed pegasus didn’t mess up too badly’. Consistently marked throughout the calendar however, were little notes here and there that had the word ‘Training’ marked next to a time. In fact, almost every weekend that didn’t have anything related to covering somepony’s route, had ‘Training Day’ written on it.
However, what really stuck out on the calendar was a pretty conspicuous mark on yesterday’s date. It was circled furiously with red, and in big letters, it read ‘WONDERBOLT ACADEMY, FIRST DAY! ASK BOSS FOR DAYS OFF.”. After that, for about three weeks, there was absolutely nothing written on any of the dates, at all. Not a single drop of ink had touched any of them. Compared to the neat, orderly handwriting that the other notes were written in, this note was written in such a hasty fashion, that the only pony that could probably read it was the young mare herself.
The teal pegasus stared at that date for a while, before sighing sadly to herself. “...Well, I guess I should go to bed. ...There isn’t really any point for those days off anymore, so I’ll just go back to work tomorrow...”
She yawned, and slowly picked herself up, and dragged herself towards the stairs leading to her bedroom. After what had transpired earlier in the day, she really wanted to end it as soon as possible and forget about it. The moment the pony got into bed, and her head hit the pillow, her exhaustion finally reared its ugly head, and she immediately fell asleep.
***
“Mmph... No...” The mare mumbled in her sleep, tossing over in her bed. “That’s not... It wasn’t me, I-... No... No!”
With a shout, the mare suddenly sat up, breathing heavily and sweating. She sat there, trying to calm herself down after the nightmare she had just had.“I’m… I’m not a failure…” She mumbled to herself, wiping her eyes. However, it was a bit half-hearted, as if she were trying to convince herself rather than asserting herself. Looking up, she noticed a bit of dim light streaming from behind the curtains, signaling the rise of the sun on another day. The pegasus just sat there blankly, and then got up out of bed suddenly. She didn’t feel sleepy at all, and quickly packed a few things.
“…I’ve still got days off.” She thought to herself, stuffing various things in her saddlebags. A brush, flying goggles, pencil, paper and envelopes were included. “…Nopony knows that I even came home yet. …I’ll just keep my head down, and go travel. I can make up some stuff later.”
After packing everything she thought she needed, she quickly galloped down the stairs, and out the door. Without hesitation, she took off like a flash, the door to her house slamming behind her. The pony didn’t notice the little paper that was attached to the door fall off, and flutter to the ground…
Hey there, sorry I’m out. I finally got into Wonderbolt Academy after all my practice! I’m not going to be back for a while, so if you need to find me, just send me a letter! I’m sure one of my colleagues will get it to me at the academy.
-Lightning Dust