“Rainbow Dash?”
Someone was calling her… it was a voice she knew, yes, but she couldn’t quite remember where she’d heard it before. Maybe she’d realise who it was after another nap.
“Rainbow, are you alright?”
There was that voice again, trying to interrupt her nap further than it had already. She attempted to open her eyes, yet failed miserably… she’d get to it after her nap. But still… she felt like she should really recognise that voice. Meh, probably better to sleep on it.
“Rainbow Dash!”
The sudden change in volume startled her enough to raise her head groggily and look around sleepily, yawning, “Morning Twi’.”
That was who the voice belonged to, her friend, Twilight Sparkle. She looked around as Twilight started saying things to her… probably something she wouldn’t understand.
Speaking of things she wouldn’t understand… why was she currently sprawled on the floor of the library, one wing trapped under her, with Twilight standing over her…
“What… happened?” she asked, her brain sluggish as she tried to ask the question, cutting Twilight off from her rambling.
“That’s what I’ve been trying to ask you… you crashed in here a few minutes ago, at least, I assume you crashed… I was upstairs tending to Spike when I heard a crash and came down here to find you… what happened?”
Rainbow groaned, her eyes shutting against the bright light of the sun, pouring in through the broken window above her. ‘What had happened?’ She’d been practising a new stunt, she could remember that much, she’d been experimenting with water and cloud properties, trying to keep a sphere of water held up within her own whirlwind. It’d needed 800 wingpower to lift Ponyville reservoir, so it followed that 16.5 wingpower would be enough to lift a smaller amount.
Not that she’d ever admit to anyone she’d been using that physiky stuff for her flying… that sounded too much like an egghead’s thing to be doing. But… she could remember doing it, succeeding in lifting a sphere of water from a bucket, and holding it in mid-air. She’d not done anything overly amazing with it though… not yet anyway.
Then what… she’d flown back to Ponyville from where she’d been practising, in high spirits and her ego soaring higher.
And then… what?
She’d planned on coming back to Ponyville, maybe flying over to Twilight’s and celebrating with her… she deserved that at least. Then she’d maybe finally pick up the courage to…
Oh yeah, that was why she’d flown towards Twilights…
“Are you ok Rainbow? You’re looking a little flushed…”
Ah…
Maybe it would be better to contemplate that when she was alone and when she hadn’t just mucked up a landing through Twilight Sparkle’s home, destroying her window in the process.
She shot to her hooves, wincing as the wing beneath her flexed, a few feathers skewed out of place. Damn… she’d need to get rid of them later.
“No, no, I’m fine, just… fine, yeah.” She said, emphasizing her point by nodding furiously, hoping to dissuade the curious unicorn from asking any more questions, her blush slowly rising as she realised just how badly she’d mucked this one up.
“Well-it-was-nice-seeing-you, gotta-go, bye!” she said within the space of a breath, turning and preparing to take off, flapping her wings and hissing as the twisted feathers rotated uselessly.
“Are you alright Rainbow?” Twilight asked, probably hearing Rainbows hushed hiss and spotting some of the more noticeable gaps within her wings.
Screw letting the molting process take care of things, Rainbow leant her head into the damaged wing, yanking out a mouthful of feathers with a pained gasp, luckily for her, they were all concentrated in one spot, meaning she only had to do that once. It might mean that she’d have a hard time flying home… but she didn’t call herself Equestria’s greatest flier for nothing.
Dumping the feathery bundle from her mouth onto the floor, she stretched both wings and flew out the smashed window above, trying to hide her burning face from Twilight as she fled towards her house.
Leaving Twilight stood there, gazing after Rainbow with a worried expression on her face.
Twilight sighed, she tried to be a pillar of support for her friends, but that only helped if they were willing to seek said support. She looked around, her horn lighting up as the shattered glass gathered itself into a pile, on the floor. Lifting it carefully, she moved it over to a box next to her lab station. She’d been meaning to experiment on the properties of glass anyway.
Next to face the magic was the current absence of a window, it was still early noon but it was unlikely that she’d find time to go and order a replacement today, Spike had come down with the flu and she needed to take care of him. She sighed again; it looked like the wooden boards she’d bought after the last incident with Applejack, a tree and her window, would be used once again.
Next there was the bundle of sky blue feathers on her floor, picking them up in her magic, she separated each of them from one another, until she held four feathers in the air. Three of them were bent with one of them having snapped at the base completely. The fourth though, was intact.
Twilight placed the three broken feathers in a box next to the glass, twirling the fourth around in her magic carefully.
She’d wanted to study pegasus feathers for a long time, sadly pegasi were notorious for hiding and secreting away all their feathers.
But… here she had a perfect specimen, a feather, unbroken and fresh from a young pegasus…
But she didn’t want to experiment on the feather…
This feather was unique; a feather dropped from Rainbow Dash… how many ponies could say they had one of those?
No.
She’d keep this feather for herself, to facilitate her shameful secret.
She never knew, maybe Rainbow would actually give her a feather one day.