Twilight departed sugarcube corner with mixed feelings; on one side she was let down that Pinkie Pie couldn't help her, but on the other she was happy that she might be able to get an answer on how to solve her emotional turmoil by the end of the day.
With her visit to Pinkie over, Twilight decided to go to the next item on the agenda: picking up her weekly supplies. Twilight made her way towards the center of Ponyville where the market was held.
Unfortunately for her she was arriving at a bad time, since the mid-morning rush had already began; the mid-morning rush was the time that everypony usually got up to do their shopping for the day.
Making her way through the bustling center of the market, Twilight browsed through some stalls in hope to find the items she required. The first stall she came to was owned by an old farm stallion, an earth pony who had a pale brown coat and a dirty yellow mane.
“Hello there sir, nice day today isn't it?”
“Morning young lady, why yes it is”
Twilight grabbed a small paper bag and filled it with some carrots, potatoes, lettuce and other various vegetables. Twilight hoofed over the bag of vegetables to the old stallion using her magic, the stallion grabbed the bag using his mouth, and proceeded to place the bag on the scales.
“That’ll be eight bits dear”
Twilight searched her saddle bag for the correct amount and hoofed it over to the clerk. “Thank you sir, Have a nice day”
The stall owner said goodbye as Twilight turned and headed towards her next destination. She spotted the store she needed to visit through the crowd, the store she was heading to went by the name ‘Quills and sofas’. The reason being because it sold quills, sofas and other assorted stationery. Twilight always thought this was an odd combination of items to sell but didn’t complain.
She entered the store and picked up her weekly order of Quills and parchment. She payed the stall clerk said her goodbyes and left.
‘Vegetables - check, stationery - check. All I need to get now is a card and some fruit’. Twilight made her way to the card stand first, since buying the card first would take less time, she flipped through the cards until she found the perfect one, “Ah-ha, I’ll take this card sir”
“That will be two bits, mam”
Twilight levitated two bits out of her bag, took the card said her thanks and left. ‘Card - check, now all that is left is to buy some fruit, I think apples would be nice this week’
Twilight quickly remembered that she wanted to pick up a ruby for Spike as a gift for being so helpful recently. Twilight approached a stall where a mare was selling some jewelry and gemstones.
“Hey there, I was wondering how much that ruby over there will cost me?”
“Oh this one?” The mare pointed here hoof towards a ruby about half the size of her hoof
“Yes that one will do nicely”
“That particular ruby costs fifteen bits”
“Mmm that is rather a lot to be paying for one gem, but i guess Spike does deserve it.” Twilight grabbed the amount she needed and slid it over the stall with a little hesitation.
“Thank you, have a nice day” the stalls owner said with a smile
Twilight spotted Applejack’s stall a short distance away and decided that she would continue her shopping and collect some apples.
“Howdy there Twilight!” Applejack beamed to the lavender unicorn with her usual cheer.
“Oh, hi Applejack, how is business today?”
“Doin’ great as usual, how’s the library?”
“Just fine thank you, may I have a bag of red delicious apples please?” Twilight pointed to the bag she wanted and levitated it towards her saddlebag.
“‘Course ya can sugarcube, that’ll be five bits. It’s been a while we since hung out Twilight”
“Well you are awfully busy out on the farm, and I have to keep up my studies for the princess. I tell you what, we will get together sometime next week if that is alright with you?” Twilight hoofed Applejack the remainder of her bits and turned to leave.
“Sounds Great Twilight, see ya later!”
“I will pop by soon and give you the details, bye”. With all her shopping done Twilight decided it was best to head back home and drop it off.
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Twilight entered the library and let out a sigh, she was glad to be inside and out of the busy streets of Ponyville. “Spike can you put the shopping away please?”
Twilight heard Spike groan in response. “Fine Twilight, I was just about to take a nap though”
“Sorry Spike, I just need to relax for a bit, it has been a long morning”
“Don’t worry, but you owe me one y’know?”
Twilight chose this moment to pull out the ruby from her saddle bag. “Spike, catch”
Spike caught the gem in his claws, he was already drooling from just the sight of the gemstone. “Wow thanks Twilight”. Spike ran over to Twilight and gave her leg the tightest squeeze he could before running into the kitchen to put away the groceries.
Twilight approached her sofa and collapsed onto her back. She levitated a book from the top of her ‘read later’ pile and looked over the cover. The lavender unicorn read aloud “Teleportation: A study on modern theories and applications”. A smile broke out on Twilight's face. “This is going to be good”.
‘When trying to work out the equations for long distance teleportation you have to be extremely accurate unlike what you have to deal with when working out the equations for short distance teleportation, since you do not want to be teleported inside a wall or to teleport too high and fall to your death. This is mathematically speaking of course, you only really need to use the math when teleporting to an unknown location, make sure to take in account the distance you will be teleporting, the height plus your mass and surface area...’
~CRASH~
Twilight shot up in surprise from the sound of splintering wood and heavy objects tumbling to the floor. The lavender unicorn got off of her sofa, placed her book on the reading stand and walked to where the wreckage of one of her book cases was, where she could see a certain cyan flank sticking out from the debris.
She stopped abruptly suddenly lost in thought at the sight of her crushes flank. ‘Wow she has a great plot, it’s so perfectly toned...’ The lavender mare suddenly had the feeling of butterflies fluttering around in her stomach, her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of Spike entering the room to investigate what had happened.
“Rainbow Dash, are you alright?” Spike took note on how often he used this sentence when Rainbow Dash popped by.
Twilights cheeks flushed red at the realisation that she was staring at her friends flank, she shook her head to rid her of anymore stray thoughts. She used her magic to levitate Rainbow out of the mess and gently dropped her onto the ground, before speaking she coughed to regain her composure. “I would say, ‘How nice of you to drop by Rainbow’, but I feel like I have overused that joke these last couple weeks”
“Heh-heh” Rainbow nervously chuckled while rubbing the back of her neck with her hoof, “Sorry about that Twi, I can pay for a new book case if you want”
“No, no it’s fine, I have learnt to keep a few spare considering how many times you decide to use one as a crash mat” Twilight used her magic to open her basement door and levitated up another book case from the stack in the basement while simultaneously sweeping and separating the books from the debris.
“Hey! I do not crash that often” Rainbow dash closed her eyes, crossed her hooves and pouted. she cracked one eyelid open to see Twilight giving her an unamused look.
“Are you kidding me, you do this nearly every week! I mean seriously, it’s like you purposely aim for my library”
All Rainbow could do to respond was sheepishly grin towards her.
“So Rainbow, what was it this time did you lose control while doing some trick or did another bug fly into your eye?”
“I was just practicing more some tricks, got to keep up my daily routine for when I show it off to the wonderbolts!”
“I hope your routine doesn’t involve crashing into my house each time” Twilight levitated all the debris outside and into her bin. and then began to re shelve all the books that had fallen.
“So Twi what have you been up to today?”
“Well I just got back from the market, I popped into see Pinkie Pie when I went to sugarcube corner and I also bumped into Applejack. But before you crashed I was just reading this book about advanced teleportation, it’s rather interesting”
“So you aren’t busy?”
“Well not really, other than my book and wanting to visit Rarity later I have nothing to do”
“Well do you want to come and watch me fly?!” Rainbow said a little too eagerly. She suddenly found herself nervous and was shifting her weight from one side to the other. “I mean...eugh... cos I don’t know why I keep messing up this trick and er... I think if you came to watch then you could... umm help solve my problem. You know since you’ve probably read a bunch of books on this.” Rainbow quickly added onto the end of her last sentence.
“Yeah I have read a few books on flight. I will come and watch, my book can wait until later I guess. Ooh this will be so fun I can take notes on pegasus flight maneuverability and aerodynamics. I can bring my anemometer as well so I can see if we can improve your speed as well.”
“Awesome” Rainbow turned and headed towards the door, “Come on egghead it’s time for you spend some time outside of the library, forget the notes and anem...anemo anemoma-thingy and just come.”
“Hang on let me just grab a quill and parchment so that I can take notes” Twilight frantically looked around the library for her supplies.
“Twi...”
“I’m sure I put them somewhere, Spike where did you put the new batch of quills”
“Twilight...”
“Spike where in Equestria did you put everything?”
“TWILIGHT!” Rainbow raised her voice enough to break the unicorn out of her trance.
Twilight came to an abrupt stop and looked over to Rainbow.
“Yes Rainbow?”
“Twi, forget the quills and parchment and lets just go, I don’t need a full report on what i’m doing wrong I just need some advice on how to get it right and what i was doing wrong”
“Oh heh, sorry about that. I sometimes get a little carried away”. Putting on apologetic smile, she headed towards the door.
“Ya don’t say, now come on we’re wasting time that I could be flying” Rainbow was at the point where she couldn’t stand still, trotting on the spot.
‘Rainbow kind of looks cute when she’s antsy’ . “Spike i’m going out all right, make sure you keep an eye on the library!”. She rushed out of the door to avoid any objections and hide the blush she was nursing.
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Twilight sat outside on the top of a hill on the outskirts of Ponyville. She thought it would be best to move away from the town center since there would be less obstacles and in case Rainbow did crash, she would have a softer landing, rather than smashing into a wall or crashing through windows.
As Twilight watched Rainbow fly she couldn't help but think of how majestic her friend looked when she was flying in the sky, this was the place where Rainbow was most at home and in her element.
What Twilight didn't notice was the small smile that gradually began to grow as she watched Rainbow fly or the warm feeling that glowed in her heart. What she did notice was the spiraling form of Rainbow flying towards the ground in a corkscrew maneuver at an incorrect angle. ‘She’s approaching the ground too fast and at too steep of an angle, if my calculations are correct then i’m going to say that she will land face first into the ground.’
As Twilight came to this realization it was too late to stop Rainbow from crashing into the ground. Twilight watched as her friend slid on her face for about ten hooves, as she watched her she cringed. ‘Ouch that must of hurt’.
“Hey Rainbow dash, are you okay?!”
Rainbow Dash raised her hoof to signal that she was fine, to a certain extent anyway. The Pegasus picked herself up off of the ground, spat some dirt that got lodged into her mouth out and walked over to where her friend was sitting. Twilight ran over to inspect Rainbow to see if she had any severe injuries.
“Don’t worry Twi, i’m used to having the occasional crash, nothing to worry about. Anyway it was certainly a softer landing than your library.”
“Oh, good. Well good news I think I can see where you were going wrong with that maneuver.”
“And?”
“Your approach vector is all wrong, you are coming in at too steep an angle and at too high speed. All you need to do is come in at a shallower angle and you should get enough lift to stop you from crashing. It would also help if you angle your wings so that the front of them is higher than the back, that way you can get maximum lift if you don’t want to compromise your speed. Got that?”
“Uh sure, shallower approach vector and angle my wings differently to gather more lift” Rainbow recited the key points back to show that she understood what Twilight was talking about.
“Wow, you understood that, I completely expected you to ask me to explain it in more ‘simpler’ terms” Twilight stated with an eyebrow raised.
“Twi you forget that I went to flight school in cloudsdale. I may not be as smart as you but I know flying like the back of my hoof.” Rainbow put on a cocky grin and held her head high.
“Well I wasn't sure of how many advanced flight classes they taught you”
“Okay i’m going to try this again with the adjustments.” Rainbow Dash shot into the air leaving her trademark rainbow trail leaving Twilight on the hill.
Twilight giggled at Rainbow’s enthusiasm to get back into the air and perfect her trick.
A small shiver went down Twilight’s back caused by a gust of cold wind. She watched Rainbow as she approached the maneuver she was struggling with, Rainbow pulled up into a loop followed by series of barrel rolls at high speed.
She watched Rainbow as she approached the ground still barrel rolling and showing no chance of pulling up, until at the very last moment Rainbow unfurled her wings and pulled up, Rainbow’s stomach was so close to the ground a few stray strands of grass were actually brushing against her coat.
“Awesome! I knew I could do it” Rainbow screamed with clear joy in her voice.
“Trust you to leave pulling up till the very end!”
Rainbow could sense a touch of concern in Twilight's voice.
“Twi it’s a lot more fun if you wait until last second. If I pulled up earlier then it would take out a lot of the fun and danger. There’s no need to worry about me, i’m the best flyer in Equestria!“
Twilight rolled her eyes at that. “Anyway I better be getting back, I can’t leave Spike in control of the library for too long. It has been nice spending time with you Rainbow.” Twilight turned to face the direction of her house.
Rainbow flew up until she was hovering next to Twilight, making sure she stayed at the same pace as her. “Oh, okay then, we should do this more Twi! I only really get to see you when I pop by the library” Rainbow said feeling a little dejected.
‘Is that a hint of disappointment in her voice?. No it can’t be’. “Well I can’t exactly come visit your cloud house, can I”. She pointed a hoof to her back to indicate the lack of wings. “and I don’t really feel like spending an hour prepping the hot air balloon”
“Oh yeah, well i’ll be sure to call in or you more then. Somepony needs to get you out of that stuffy old library.”
“Hey, I do get out, well sometimes. And at least i’m studying in my spare time. Unlike you who only does four things; eat, fly, work and nap”. She turned her head so that she was facing Rainbow and stuck her tongue out at her.
“Hey! I do more than that” Rainbow crossed her front legs and pouted in mock offence “now I have to go and na... I mean do stuff, cool stuff.”
“See you later Rainbow” the lavender unicorn called off to Rainbow who had started making her way towards her cloud house.
“Later Twi”
Twilight continued walking towards her home, happy with how the day has gone so far.