//------------------------------// // Home Away // Story: Velocity // by TheLastBrunnenG //------------------------------// Afternoon breezes whistled through the manes of two ponies gliding lazily in the sunny summer skies between Ponyville and Cloudsdale. The larger pegasus was so purely azure-blue that her feathers vanished against the cloudless dome, leaving the illusion of tiny fluttering rainbows fluttering through the sky. The other, much smaller and riding atop the larger, was a darker deep-sea blue, her mane striped evenly between midnight indigo and forest green. They flew in silence for long minutes stretching into hours, circling, soaring, gliding above the pastoral scenery below before one of them broke the silence. “Mom,” the little pegasus piped up over the rush of wind, “why can’t I live with you? Dad said you got a really great job, and you got your house back, and Miss Spitfire said she wouldn’t mind.” She felt a deep heave from the mare below her. “It’s… complicated, Vee.” Rainbow Dash made a slow, banking turn as she caught a rising thermal, letting it carry her higher while she rested her wings. “I’d love to have you, you know that, but I can’t. The job is great, yeah, but the house isn’t really mine. I’m - I’m sharing it with someone. It’s her house, and I know she loves you to death, but it’s kind of a small place. Maybe one day.” The filly buried her muzzle in her mother’s parti-colored mane. “Yeah, but Miss Spitfire says - “ “Vee, I only get to have you for one afternoon a week and one weekend a month.” Dash did a slow barrel roll before leveling out above a few patchy, low clouds. “Can we please, please, not spend it talking about Miss Spitfire?” “Okay, but she says she wouldn’t care if I came to live with you. She’s always off practicing with the other Wonderbolts, and even when she’s home all she does is study film, and read reports, and work stuff.” She lay her head against Rainbow’s muscular neck and continued, “All my friends say it’s supposed to be so cool, living with two Wonderbolts, but half the time I’m just sitting home by myself.” The older mare’s brow furrowed and she turned her head a little, her daughter’s whipping blue-green mane filling her peripheral vision. “What about your dad? Soarin’s always been good to you. If that’s changed, if he’s neglecting you, kiddo, then let me know and I’ll hand him his flank!” “No, he’s great, really. He’s just… he works a lot more now. Miss Sp… Uh, my other m.. you know, um, her.” The filly swallowed hard and paused a moment, biting her tongue before she went on. “She keeps him busier now. Makes him practice more, gives him stuff to do at home, like paperwork and junk. Sometimes I sit next to him at his desk and we pretend it’s his homework, so we can do our homework together. It’s about the only time I get to spend with Dad anymore.” The thermal faded and Dash swept powerful wings time and again against currents and eddies of air as she banked herself and her diminutive passenger through white cloudy drifts. “Kid, I’m sorry. I swear, if there were a way to change it, I would.” Rainbow heard sniffling and felt the shudders start from behind her. “Dad says nothing could stop the great Rainbow Dash when she puts her mind to it. He says you were a Wonderbolt too, for a little while, until… until I came along. Maybe that’s why you don’t love me anymore. Maybe that’s why you never found a way for me to live with you, ‘cause if I weren’t here, you’d still be a Wonderbolt.” In an instant Rainbow folded her wings and turned down, plummeting earthward in a breakneck stoop-dive. If her daughter yelped in panicked surprise, Dash heard nothing or didn’t acknowledge it. They hurtled down, down, down, until at the last moment Dash slammed into a tiny wisp of a cloud, her wings held wide as she waited to see if it would hold their weight. Having not fallen through, she lifted the dark filly off her back and dropped her roughly on the cloud. Taking the shaking, wide-eyed filly’s cheeks in her own trembling hooves, Dash knelt low, muzzle to muzzle with her daughter as tears choked her gravelly voice. “Velocity Diane Dash, don’t you ever, ever say that again. Never! If it meant I could stay with you, I’d tear my own wings off. Forget the Wonderbolts! Nothing, and I mean nothing at all, is more important to me than you. Do you understand?” The smaller pony stood on her hind legs and shoved her mother away, pushing a hoof into Dash’s panting chest. “Yeah? Well, Miss Spitfire says you even know the Princesses, and if you wanted me back, they’d make it happen ‘cause you’re some kinda hero. If that’s true then why do I only see you once a week?” Dash stood frozen, chest heaving and eyes watering for a few long moments before falling heavily hack on her haunches and hanging her head, streaks of multicolored mane covering half her face. “I tried, Vee. I tried. At the custody hearing, it was my dumb luck to get the one judge in all Equestria who thought having two moms would be an awful way to raise a foal. I asked Celestia herself, flew all the way to Canterlot and begged her in person to please, please, overrule that idiot horse’s decision. Told her I was just with your dad for one night, that I could raise you myself… I never thought I’d see the Princess cry, Vee. It was just one tear, but there it was. She told me she couldn’t change court decisions like that, just for one pony, or else there wouldn’t be laws at all. Even after I moved in with Twilight, Celestia still refused to change the ruling. I know I get another hearing in two years, but…” She swallowed amid wrenching sobs as tears fell like rain, boring tiny holes through the cloud. “I promise, Vee, I swear, if there was anything I could do…” “Mom?” With that one word, strength seemed to flow back into the Best Young Flier and one-time Wonderbolt. Her tears slowed and she lifted her chin to find a little indigo head nestled into the crook of her neck and small arms wrapped around her. “Mom, I’m... I'm sorry I said all that. I love you, please forgive me, I…” “I love you too, Velocity.” She held the embrace for long minutes, before reaching down to plant a kiss on the smiling filly's navy muzzle. “Now come on, let’s hop down to the Library before I have to take you back to Cloudsdale. Remember last time, when Twi levitated that ice cream cone and made you jump for it? Well, I brought some cupcakes for Twi and me this morning. If Spike didn’t scarf 'em all, I bet if you ask her nicely she’ll give them all wings and we can chase dessert for flying practice!”