//------------------------------// // Chapter 1 - Throwing Stones // Story: Walking on Clouds // by Kapuchu //------------------------------// “What’re you doing, Twilight? You’ve been sitting there for the past three hours and not moved an inch.” “I’m trying to finish this letter for the Princess. Problem is, I don’t know what to write.” Twilight replied with a weary sigh. “It’s been quite some time since I sent the last friendship report, and I want to sent her a new one soon.” “Didn’t the Princess tell you to only send a report when you learned something new about friendship?” asked Spike, taking a few steps closer to look at the paper adorned only with ‘Dear Princess Celestia’. “I know, Spike.” The Librarian grunted, resting her forehead on the stand upon which the paper lied. “But when it’s been over a month since the last letter, I feel like I owe it to her. What if she thinks that I’ve forgotten about it, or doesn’t care about my studies anymore?” Spike couldn’t hold back a facepalm, this was so Twilight. Twilight just ignored her assistant’s exasperated gesture and lifted her head up from the stand to continue her rant. “What if she decides to send me back to magic kindergarten, or what if she doesn’t want me to be her student anymore because she thinks I don’t take my studies seriou-” *Slap* Spike stood with his right claw lifted, a small red mirror image of it plastered on Twilight’s cheek. Said unicorn shot him a venomous glare, to which he chuckled sheepishly and rubbed the back of his head with the already raised claw. “Hehe... Sorry. Anyway, Twi, she’s not going to send you to back to magic kindergarten or stop being your mentor. You should know, you’ve lived with her by your side for the better part of your life. She’s like a surrogate mother to you, and a grandmother to me.” Twilight chewed a bit on this piece of information. It was true. Princess Celestia was very much like a second mother to her, and as a direct result of that, a grandmother to Spike. Eventually, she perked up and turned to her green and purple assistant. “You’re right.” She said at length. “I’m sure she’ll forgive me if I’m a few days late. It’s only a little more than what she’s already waited for, so.” She returned her gaze to focus fully on the dragon beside her, boring her lilac gaze into his. “Spike, if we want to avoid me being sent to the moon or worse, we need to have a friendship report done within four days. Any ideas?” Spike groaned audibly. How had he put up with this mare for the past fourteen or so years? His entire life in fact? He could’ve sworn that she’s freaked out more times than she’d ever made assignments or other reports for Celestia. There was that one time when she literally begged Celestia not to punish her for emptying the stash of coffee she had been given two days before she got a new stash of it. Twilight had stared up at the monarch in disbelief when she had said that finishing your supply of coffee before you got a new one wasn’t a sin. It took her, believe it or not, a whole quarter of an hour before she actually believed that she hadn’t sinned or disappointed her mentor in some way. That is the price of being so obsessed with schedules. Even the most minor side-step from the schedule was enough to bring the unicorn librarian over the edge and beeline for the crazy train, Spike silently commented to himself. "Twilight..." He muttered exasperatedly as his right claw rubbed its way down his entire face. “Don’t you think you’re overreacting just a little bit?” “Overreacting? I’m not overreacting!” The few hairs standing on end, and the pupils that were ever so slowly starting to shrink said otherwise. Everypony aboard! The Crazy Train is about to depart. “So, Spike. Any ideas?” asked the mare who was slowly succumbing to insanity. Okay... There is one way out of this, and that is to actually give her an answer. That would both prevent her from getting a one-way ticket to the Equestrian Asylum, and make sure that neither of her friends had to deal with her when she was like this again. “How about going to see Rainbow Dash? She and Fluttershy has been friends for years, ever since their flight camp days. I’m sure she’d be able to tell you a few things about friendship. Out of the six of you, she and Flutters are the ones we know of to have had the longest standing friendship.” Twilight's mane returned to a state that had a semblance of normalcy. It did, however, not return completely to normal, a few errant strands of hair was still sticking out from her mane. It was a step forward at the very least. Her brows creased a few moments later, an stray thought had made its way to the surface of her mind. "Spike, why Rainbow Dash and not Fluttershy? Fluttershy lives on the ground after all." "You know Fluttershy, right?" He asked, "I don't think you're going to get her to tell you anything about her past, not even her friendship with Rainbow. She did have a hard time back when the two of them were in Flight School after all, being bullied, being a very weak flier and all that. "That makes sense -wait!" She turned to look at Spike with a mask of confusion strapped onto her face. "How do you know about Fluttershy's time in Flight School? I don't think you were there when we all told each other our Cutie Mark stories after the CMC had tracked us all down to hear it." "Remember last week when you asked me to deliver that book about rare birds to Fluttershy and I came back an hour late?" Twilight nodded, remembering that day. "Well, I delivered the book and I was invited for tea. I accepted and we got talking. We eventually reached the subject of my early life and I ended up asking how her childhood was, and... yeah. It was a sad tale." It made sense, Twilight had to agree on that. Fluttershy was far too shy and timid to get anything out of without plenty of coaxing and a lot of patience, and Twilight just didn't have the time for it. "So, Rainbow Dash!" The Unicorn exclaimed, finding joy i the one fact that she know had something that looked like a plan. "I'm looking forward to the lecture about hers and Fluttershy's friendship she's going to give me!" “Uuh... Twilight?” Spike asked. He was looking at her with a slightly puzzled expression, as if he wasn’t quite certain how to formulate what he was about to say. “I don’t think you’re going to get a lecture out of her... It’s Rainbow, remember?” Twilight’s ears laid down along her skull. That was a detail she had not remembered. Rainbow Dash was a speedster and tomboy. She was about as likely to give a lecture as Rarity and Applejack to make a switch-a-roo when it came to their jobs. Thinking about it, Applejack in a dress and Rarity in galoshes was quite the humorous thought. Twilight couldn’t quite hold back a soft chuckle. “You’re right,” She said, still fighting the small fit of giggles that had overcome her. “But what should I do then? I can’t very well just walk up and knock on her door. She lives in a cloud home.” “Well...” Spike drawled, scratching his chin in thought. “You could...” “What the hay is that noise?” Rainbow complained. She had been in the middle of a very interesting thing. She had been doing it for the past three hours and she wasn’t tired of it yet. It wasn’t a book she was reading, and it totally wasn’t a custom made Daring Doo safari hat that hung on the bed’s poster. “Rainbow!” Okay... Now the noise was accompanied by phantom voices calling her name, great. Or, wait. However faint it was, even for a pegasus, the voice sounded familiar. And that noise sounded very much like- *Crash* Yep. Rocks hitting a window, and the said window was now broken. Rainbow put down the not-Daring-Doo-book on the night table, beside the totally-not-custom made-Daring-Doo-Safari Hat, and trotted out her bedroom and towards the front door to her home. She opened it, went out, and closed it behind her with a kick of one of her hind legs. A few steps further and she had her head stuck over the edge of the cloud platform. Only to receive a small rock right between her eyes. “Hey! What the buck is the big idea!? First my window, and now my face too! Why, I should- Oh, hey Twilight.” The cyan pegasus took of and lazily glided to the ground where she landed in front of Twilight and gave her a very confused look. “Umm, Twi. Why did you just throw a rock in my face and another one through my window?” “Heh, sorry about that.” Twilight said. Her face was adorned with a sheepish grin. A purple glow surrounded her horn, and a similar glow covered the small bruising area where her rock had impacted with Rainbow’s forehead. The glow slowly diminished and the resulting pain of the stone reduced in tandem. “There,” she said after a few moments when the pain had more or less disappeared. “That should do it. Again, sorry! I just wanted your attention.” “Ookay...” Rainbow muttered, dragging the word out a little as she pressed a hoof against her forehead, testing to see if there was any pain. Surprisingly, or not so surprisingly since it was Twilight who had cast the spell, the pain was gone. Her forehead felt like it had before it became a crash test site for rocks. “So why did you want my attention? You’ve got it now, all 120% of Rainbow ‘Awesome ‘ Dash!” Choosing to ignore Dash’s typical boasting, the librarian jumped right into the fray and forgot everything Spike had told her. “I need you to give me a lecture on friendship! I haven’t sent a report to the princess for over a month, and since you and Fluttershy have been friends for longer than any of the other girls have been, I figured you’d be able to tell me something!” Twilight sat down on her haunches with an expectant look on her face. Her ears were perked up and turned towards the pegasus. Twilight couldn’t quite help but notice how pretty the rosy eyed pegasus actually was. …Well of course they were pretty. From a solely scientific standpoint, of course. “Umm... Twi,” Rainbow started. “I don’t give lectures, y’know. I’m not an egghead.” An apologetic smile flashed across her muzzle. Sure, she’d love to help her friends whenever they were in a pinch, but nopony would ever catch her giving a lecture. That was just too un-cool. Twilight, on the other hoof, chose to deliver a deadpan stare instead. One that spoke a simple, very simple, message. ‘Are you kidding me?’ The lavender mare’s horn lit up and an ethereal screen materialized beside her, hovering one and a half feet above the ground. A certain scene played on the screen, a very short one that didn’t stretch more than a few seconds. It was a scene of Rainbow Dash, dressed in a black catsuit, the hood hanging limply. The on-screen Rainbow Dash drew in a deep breath and let it out in a defeated sigh. “I’m an egghead.” It said in a sad voice. The real Rainbow Dash could easily feel her cheeks heat up in an embarrassed blush. It didn’t help when a small glint of light appeared and revealed a certain book hovering in Twilight’s magical aura. It was a book whose cover showed a dark taupe coloured pegasus with a multi toned grey mane and cerise eyes. Not to mention the ever present jungle green jacket and safari helmet. The header said ‘Daring Doo and Quest for the Sun and Moon stones’. “I-is that the n-new Daring Doo novel?” Rainbow gasped, her ruby eyes drawn to the cover of the book like a bug to a lamp. “The one that’s sold out from Canterlot to Fillydelphia?” Twilight nodded and started floating the book around. Up and down, left to right. Even 360 degrees around the cyan Pegasus. The librarian couldn’t quite hold back a chuckle as she watched her friend turn around herself, constantly keeping her eyes glued to the cover of her fictional idol. There was nopony cooler than Daring Doo. Well, apart from the pegasus herself if she had her way. “It is.” Twilight said, nodding. “I managed to get a single copy. So... You weren’t an egghead?” Twilight may normally be a sweet and kind pony, somepony that you could come to if you needed any help, and she’d help you, or just one that would be the ear to listen to your trouble. She was a friend of friends, even if she had only had actual friends for a good two years now. “That’s so not cool, Twi. Using Daring Doo against me? C’mon! Play fair!” Rainbow whined after she finally tore her eyes from the cover of the hovering book and directed her cerise gaze at her nerdy friend. “You know it’s the only book I ever read! And I only admitted to being an egghead because I-ugh-Gaah! Okay, what do you want Twilight? I’ll do anything! Just please, let me read that book!” She gestured towards the book that was now hovering beside Twilight’s head. “I want you to teach me something new about friendship,” Twilight started explaining. She let the book blink out of existence for now. She may have need it of later. “I know you and Fluttershy have been friends for longer than any of the rest of us. I figured you’d know something about friendship that I don’t.” Rainbow was listening attentively, though one of her eyebrows was raised slightly in confusion. Twilight continued. “It’s been a month since I last sent a report to the Princess, and I know that she said only to send a report when we found out something new, but it’s been so long... I’ve decided to give myself four more days to write and send the report. I’m sure Princess Celestia won’t mind waiting four more days for the report, or sending me back to magic kindergarten.” Ugh, this again? I swear, Twilight, someday you’re going to level the entirety of Ponyville with one of your crazy fits. Rainbow shook her head, trying to get rid of the disturbing thoughts. “Okay... Sure, whatcha wanna know?” “Anything! Anything I don’t know or could learn something from!” The lavender Unicorn exclaimed. She was in too much of a hurry for her own good. “Okay, Let’s see... Well, Fluttershy and I met in flight camp, as you know. We kinda just hit it off then and there. There weren’t many ponies that bothered to talk with her since it was about as easy to get more than a few squeaks out of her as it would be to make Discord good.” She made a few strange gestures with her front legs, trying to emphasize just how impossible it would be to make Discord a good pony. “Point being, barely anypony bothered to talk to her. That’s when I came by. I just started chatting. Sure it was more like a monologue than anything, but after awhile she started to warm up and came up with a few stories of her own. Most of them were a few stories from her childhood that she found funny, such as the one where she played vet with her dolls, or “plushies” as she called them. We just kinda... became friends after that, y’know? Like back when I crashed into you and all that.” Twilight’s eyes rolled, almost on their own accord. “Yeah, I remember that.” She then mumbled something about hurting more than her bookfort collapsing. “Yeah so... After that, we just started hanging out. I’d talk, she’d occasionally add a little thing of her own, and we’d just be together without any real reason. Sometimes we’d even find stupid excuses just to be together!” Find excuses just to be together? That’s new... Hmm, I can probably use that somehow! Twilight smiled and gave an appreciative nod in her cyan friend’s direction.”Thanks Rainbow! I think you helped me. I’ll see you later!” She then turned around and broke into a light canter towards the library. “See ya, Twi!” Rainbow called back and took off, heading for the cloud castle she called home.