Six o’clock in the morning.
A time where most ponies still slept soundly in their beds, save for only very few ponies that had duties to attend to at this time. The hospital staff for example would now be changing shifts.
One pony in particular now stirred and stretched her limbs out while waking up.
Cyan colored limbs popped at full stretch. Wings unfurled as far as possible while lying in her bed. With a wide yawn Rainbow Dash sat up and rubbed her eyes with a hoof.
It would be surprising to some ponies that the rainbow maned weatherpony voluntarily woke up at this hour. Rainbow Dash had a reputation of sometimes being lazy and napping in the afternoons. What they didn’t know was that she took her job seriously. She was also in charge of coordinating the other ponies on her weather team. Thus she was always the first to be on duty and to take care of any sudden changes or emergencies. Be it taking care of the problem herself or dividing it up amongst the team.
Rainbow Dash was also very good at her job. Usually she was the first to clear up her sector of sky above Ponyville. With not much else to do she would then practice her moves or more often find a nice place to nap, catching up on the sleep she missed out on in the morning.
Getting up at this time did not sit well with Rainbow Dash’s current guest. On the other side of the princess-size bed a small purple tail could be seen sticking out from underneath the blanket. The rest was curled up into a ball and could not be seen, save for a small orange muzzle poking though. A cyan hoof carefully poked it.
“Come on, Squirt. Rise and shine.”
The muzzle retreated into the folds of blanket with a groan.
“You know the drill. Sleepovers at my place mean you also have to stick to my schedule.” Rainbow Dash began randomly poking the ball under the blanket, causing it to groan louder.
“Ten more minutes.” came a sleepy but annoyed reply.
“Fine, but as soon as I am out of the shower it’s your turn.” Rainbow Dash left her bedroom and made her way into the bathroom. She stood in her shower and gave the wall behind her a solid kick. Immediately a downpour of icy cold water washed over her. With a few smaller kicks she adjusted the temperature and thought about her current guest.
It had been the fourth sleepover over the weekend for Scootaloo at Rainbow Dash’s cloud-home. At first the mare had been unsure about letting anypony into her house, especially a high energy filly that had a knack for destruction. Her doubts of how to entertain the filly or how to deal with her soon evaporated into nothing.
It turned out that they had way more in common than Rainbow Dash had thought. Scootaloo shared the love for movies that her idol had an extensive collection of. Even the more obscure foreign ones with ponies dressed up in rubber costumes pretending to be huge monsters that destroyed entire towns. Mecha-Luna vs The Space Griffons was her favorite thus far.
After a movie they would then play a few games if they felt like it. Scootaloo picked up on Battlecloud rather quickly and was becoming a serious opponent. While playing they would talk about anything that came to their minds. Rainbow Dash learned a lot about the little pegasus and enjoyed their time together. She was even looking forward to spending time with her, something that a year ago would have caused her to laugh at the pony who would have suggested such a thing.
Now she actually felt like a sister to the mare and she was beginning to love her role in Scootaloo’s life. She even had managed to get the filly to enjoy books thanks to a reading of Daring Do one evening. That was something she gleefully rubbed in Twilight’s face the next day, for managing something the librarian had thus far not achieved.
Rainbow Dash stepped out of the shower and shook the water from her mane, tail and fur. Advantages of a home built of clouds were no puddles. She ran a hoof through her mane and left it at that. Anything else was a waste of time as it would just get messed up again at first flight. She brushed her teeth and made her way back to the bedroom. The ball was still under the blanket.
“Come on, Scoots. It’s your turn in the bathroom.” she said with another poke at the unmoving filly.
“Yeah, yeah.” the ball groaned and stirred to reveal a tired looking orange pegasus after a brief fight with the blanket. Still half asleep she trudged towards the bathroom. Rainbow Dash took the opportunity to finish her morning routine by preening her feathers. She had just finished one wing when the filly came back into the bedroom. After the shower she was now back to her usual cheerful self.
“Good morning Rainbow Dash!”
“Morning, Squirt. Ready for a fun filled Monday?” Rainbow Dash asked already guessing what the answer would be.
As predicted the filly rolled her eyes and groaned once more. “Yay…. Monday…”
The mare chuckled at the response, remembering her own intense dislike of Mondays when she was Scoots age. These days they didn’t seem so bad, but that was in large part due to her having a job she loved doing.
“Well, finish up with your wings and then we can have breakfast.” The filly nodded in response and walked over to her saddlebags in the corner of the room.
Rainbow Dash checked her preened wing once more by carefully running a hoof over the feathers.
“Ok, I’m finished. What’s for breakfast?” Scootaloo asked after what could have been at most a minute. Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow in confusion.
“What? Already?”
“Yeah. I brushed them just now.” The filly replied holding up her brush that pegasi used for their feathers.
“Uhm… but you surely didn’t preen them properly.” Rainbow Dash folded her still extended wing back and turned around to face the filly. Scootaloo gave her an inquisitive look.
“What’s that?” she asked. The question surprised Rainbow Dash. Surely every pegasus knew what preening was.
“Proper wingcare, Scoot. Nopony ever teach you that?”
“Nettie gave me this brush for my wings, but she didn’t mention anything else.” Scootaloo answered and held up her brush again.
Rainbow Dash sighed. The caretaker at the orphanage was a kind mare, but it seemed as if she did not know how to deal with the finer points of pegasus wings. She couldn’t blame her. Pegasi orphans were extremely rare outside of Cloudsdale and it was somewhat of a surprise that she even knew about the specialized brushes. Better late than never, Rainbow thought and decided to give Scootaloo a lesson in wingcare.
“The brush is good. That’s for removing loose feathers and straightening the others. Preening also involves you coating your feathers to make sure you don’t let any air escape between them.”
“Huh, well how do you do that?”
“Well you… lick them.”
Scootaloo looked at Rainbow Dash for a few seconds with a blank expression. Then she broke into laughter.
“You are just being silly.”
“No, seriously. Here let me show you something.” Rainbow Dash walked over to where the filly was sitting.
She inspected her own unpreened wing for a moment and that found a feather that was about to fall out. Years of experience gave her a sharp eye for anything involving wings. With a small tug she plucked the feather out and loosely placed it amongst the already preened feathers of her other wing. Then she extended the wing towards the puzzled looking filly.
“See if you can feel a diffence.”
Shrugging the filly carefully ran a hoof over the outstretched wing. After only a few seconds she found the feather and knew what Rainbow Dash wanted her to find.
“It’s softer than the others.”
“That’s right. By preening them the barbs, that’s the fluffy outside, get hard and let less air get through. Like that we can push down harder on the air and get lift.”
“And you do that by licking them?”
“Well… it has more to do with our spit. Pegasus saliva is different than that of other ponies. The is some special oil mixed in with it that lets us take care of our wings in that way.”
“You are telling me that all pegasi are walking around with wings covered in spit?”
“Sounds kinda gross if you put it like that, but essentially… yeah you’re right.” Scootaloo looked at the still outstretched wing of Rainbow Dash and then at hers.
“Even Fluttershy?” she asked still not quite buying the idea of spit covered wings.
“Yeah, even Fluttershy. There are products you can buy that is very similar to the oil in our saliva, but it’s not the same thing. Trust me on this. As the best flyer in Equestria I’m telling you that you can’t beat that what nature gave us from the start. None of the Wonderbolts use any of them products either. It’s just for pegasi who don’t like the taste and feel of feathers in their mouth. Same goes for your brush. When preening you pull out any loose feathers and straighten the remaining ones at the same time.”
Scootaloo remained motionless for a while still staring at her wings.
“Ok. So how do I do it? Just lick them?” she finally asked having decided to try it herself.
“Well no, you just coat your lips with saliva and run the feather through your mouth. With your teeth you gently push down on it to straighten it and pull it out if it’s loose. Here let me show you.” Rainbow Dash carefully and deliberately slowly preened one of her larger feathers to show Scootaloo the movements. She had to bend her neck at an odd angle to make sure the filly saw what she was doing. After she had reached the tip the feather glistened with a fine shine.
“Did you see that?” The filly nodded. “Then give it a try.”
Scootaloo concentrated for a moment gathering saliva. Then she picked out a large feather on one of her wings and clamped her lips over it. She used too much force and had too much saliva in her mouth. With a squelching sound she spat some of it out to the floor. Rainbow Dash couldn’t help but laugh.
“Hehe, guess me calling you squirt was more fitting than I expected.” She earned a flat look from the filly who released her now soaked feather from her grip.
“That wasn’t funny.”
“Sorry. You’ll get the hang of it after some practice. Every pegasus has to learn how to do it properly. They called me Rainbow Drool before I got the hang of it. Err… don’t tell anypony about that.”
Scootaloo giggled at Rainbow Dash’s old nickname and tried it once again. After a few more tips from her mentor she slowly got the hang of it and was increasing the speed. The older Pegasus watched her for a while and then preened her own wing. They finished at about the same time.
“So… notice any difference?” she asked. Scootaloo moved her wings about a bit.
“They feel stiff.” she commented.
“You’ll get used to it. Oh and don’t preen in public, it kinda weirds other ponies out. Especially Rarity.” she said with a laugh. ”Come on let’s get some breakfast.” Rainbow Dash declared and led the way towards the kitchen.
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Once in the kitchen Rainbow Dash took a brief look at the clock. The lesson in wingcare had taken up more time than she had expected. Not enough time for cooking a large breakfast they had to make to with something quick and fast to make.
“Sooo… you have the choice. Dandelion Pop-Tarts, Dandelion Pop-Tarts or Dandelion Pop-Tarts. If you are feeling very adventurous maybe some Dandelion Pop-Tarts.” Rainbow Dash offered while Scootaloo hopped up onto a chair at the table. She then tapped her chin with a hoof in quiet contemplation at the plethora of choices before her.
“I think I’ll have a Dandelion Pop-Tart.”
“Good choice.” Rainbow Dash had already inserted the Pop-Tarts into the toaster and waited for them to finish.
“What else can you teach me about pegasi?” Scootaloo asked while waiting for food. Rainbow Dash suddenly found herself in the very unfamiliar position of being asked for knowledge on a subject. Luckily she knew a fair deal about pegasi.
“Well, what do you want to know?”
“Why can we fly? What’s the difference between a pegasus and an earth-pony? Apart from the wings I mean. Is there a difference?” Scootaloo asked eagerly awaiting both food and knowledge.
“Hmm. The wings are the most obvious difference of course, but there are more. We have more muscles than the other ponies for example, mainly because of our wings of course. But at the same time we are lighter than the others, because of our bones.” Scootaloo hung onto every word that left Rainbow’s lips.
“They are lighter than the bones of other ponies thanks to being partially hollow. But that doesn’t make them brittle, far from it in fact. Our bones are a lot tougher than those of earthponies and unicorns alike. They need to be.”
“Why?”
“Because of all the crashing we do of course. Flying ain’t easy, Squirt. Sometimes you crash, but thanks to our bones we rarely get seriously hurt unless we do something really dangerous. And you have to be careful when using your wings around other ponies. They are really powerful and you could easily brake other ponies bones with them if you are not careful.”
The Pop-Tarts popped up in the toaster and Rainbow Dash carefully put two each on a plate. She handed one plate to the hungry filly and sat down on the opposite side of the table. They waited for them to cool down a bit and Rainbow Dash continued her story.
“There is one thing that really annoys the other ponies that pegasi do.” she said while smirking.
“What is it? Flying?”
“No that’s not it. We use up a LOT of energy by flying. More muscles need more energy. The side-effect being that we can eat way more stuff than the others and not put on any weight. The unicorns in particular really dislike that about us.” Rainbow Dash explained and couldn’t help but grin at the memory of stuffing her face with as much cake as possible at one of Pinkie Pie’s parties during which Rarity kept glaring daggers at her while daintily nibbling on a carrot.
“You’ll never see a fat Pegasus.”
“The earth-ponies don’t mind?” Scootaloo asked and took a Pop-Tart into her hooves. She bit into it and immediately flinched as the burning hot filling made contact with her tongue. Her sudden movement made her lose the grip on the Pop-Tart. She watched as it simply fell through the floor made of clouds without any resistance.
“Guess that one is for the birds.” Rainbow Dash casually remarked while breaking one of her Pop-Tarts in half and sharing it with Scootaloo.
The filly looked back down to the floor and then around the kitchen.
“How come all the furniture stays up on the clouds?” she asked while carefully blowing on her half of the Pop-Tart to cool it down.
“They are enchanted with a permanent cloud-walking spell.” Rainbow Dash explained while taking a bite from her food and enjoying the sickly sweet aroma.
“Like the one Twilight used? So anypony could walk on clouds all the time?”
“Nah. It’s only permanent on objects. Living things can’t be permanently enchanted cause of their magic field or something like that. Twilight explained it to me, but I kinda forgot the details. Anyway about your question from before.” she shifted in her seat and took another bite of food.
“Earth-ponies don’t really mind, because they are almost always moving around. Think of AJ or Pinkie, those two are always active so they don’t put on any weight either. Unicorns are the lazy ones relying on doing things with their magic.”
Scootaloo thought about what Rainbow Dash had told her. It made sense to her in a way.
“Anything else about pegasi I should know?”
Rainbow Dash thought about it while chewing her food. She did not feel that Scootaloo should know about the average lifespan of pegasi, unicorns and earth-ponies yet.
Of the three races pegasi had the shortest lifespan due to their high energy life. Their magic burned out quicker was the common phrase. On average it was ten years shorter than that of unicorns. Earth-ponies who were in constant contact with earth and only used their magic passively had the longest lifespan of the three races. Unicorns ranged wildly between the other two. Sometimes even surpassing that of earth-ponies and other times tragically not even reaching that of pegasi. Rainbow Dash swallowed her food and along with it the unpleasant thoughts about lifespans.
“Our fur is thicker to keep the cold at bay when we fly high or during the colder seasons. We have better hearing and eyesight than the others. Anything that somehow has to do with weather, you can bet that we have some kind of ability to deal with it. Even stuff like lightning can’t really hurt us much. The worst that will happen is a bit of singed fur. You can even take naps on storm clouds as you should know yourself.” Rainbow Dash looked over to the filly and raised an eyebrow. The filly sheepishly laughed at the memory of events from a few months ago. The older mare saw that the filly still seemed to be sorry about it and decided she should continue with her explanations.
“Pegasi used to be the warrior race in history.” She could not help herself and just had to strike a dramatic pose as she said it. “Earth-ponies are stronger than us and unicorns have their magic, but we are faster and more agile. Plus the fact that we can fly of course, made pagasi the first line of defense in the old times. Commander Hurricane, the great Stormrider or Three-Legged Lightning to name a few.” She stopped when a thought occurred to her.
“You have never been to Cloudsdale right?”
Scootaloo shook her head in response while eating up her last piece of food.
“Remind me to take you there some time. They have a really cool section in the museum about all those great ponies.”
“Wow, that would be really cool!” the filly jumped a bit at the thought of visiting Cloudsdale, with Rainbow Dash no less.
Finishing off her own last piece of sweet Pop-Tart, Rainbow Dash glanced at the clock. There was still enough time left to get Scootaloo to the orphanage to pick up her stuff for school, before she had to take care of Ponyvilles weather. Scootaloo grabbed her saddlebag from the bedroom and met Rainbow Dash in the living room. The mare had decided not to do the dishes for now and used the time instead to feed Tank. The tortoise smiled up at its owner while very slowly eating a lettuce leaf.
After a quick flight they were on the ground and now walking towards the orphanage. Rainbow Dash found herself more and more earthbound while doing stuff with her little sister. She didn’t even mind trotting along the hard ground, which was something else that had changed considerably in her life. Before she would hover around any chance she had and only reluctantly set hoof to the ground.
Scootaloo meanwhile was in deep thought about the stuff she had learned this morning. Then something occurred to her.
“Can I ask you something?”
“You just did, Squirt.”
“Ha, ha. No it’s about the preening.”
“Sure. What do you want to know?”
“We preen. What do the others do?” she asked and looked up at the mare trotting beside her.
“Uh, what do you mean?” Rainbow Dash asked unsure about the question.
“We do that to take care of our wings, right? Then what do unicorns and earth-ponies do? Or don’t they do anything?” Rainbow Dash had to mull the question over in her mind. The kid had a point.
“I don’t know. I guess unicorns do something with their horns. No idea what earth-ponies do. Sorry, Scoots.” The filly seemed to be a bit disappointed and that somehow did not sit well with Rainbow Dash.
She had enjoyed being able to share her knowledge with the little filly and felt bad to let her down now. Before she could say anything further she noticed that they had arrived at their destination. Scootaloo turned to Dash and gave her a big hug that she gladly returned.
“Thanks for the awesome weekend Rainbow Dash! And for all the things you taught me this morning.” she said with another hug and skipped up into the orphanage.
“No problem, Squirt. Glad you had fun! See you later!” she waved as the filly disappeared into the house with a smile.
With a powerful thrust of her wings she took to the sky and began her duties as weatherpony.
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It would be only a short workday she figured as she looked over Ponyville. The schedule called for clear skied until middle of the week, so all that was to do was to clear any clouds away that had flown in from the Everyfree Forest. She bucked the first few clouds into nothingness all the while thinking about Scootaloo’s last question. What exactly DID the other ponies do? The best pony to ask would be Twilight, so she decided to ask her as soon as she had finished up with the weather.
Her last cloud had been taken care of and Rainbow Dash took a moment to look around. Some distance away she could see Cloud Kicker do her name justice on a bank of clouds in her sector. Other than that the skies were clear for the day. She cast her eyes down to Ponyville. The first pony she saw was Derpy going about her rounds for the day. The mailmare slowly flew along the still rather empty streets, stopping every once in a while to put letters into the respective mailboxes.
A familiar orange purplish blur caught her eye speeding along at an alarming speed. Rainbow Dash decided to intervene before Scootaloo would crash into something or somepony. It took more effort than usual to catch up to the filly riding her scooter.
“Slow down, Squirt!” she yelled when she was close enough. Using the brakes on her scooter the filly skidded to a halt just as Rainbow Dash caught up with her.
“Did you see, did you see? That was awesome!!” the filly bounced excitedly up and down in front of the puzzled mare.
“What do you mean?”
“Did you see how fast I was going? That preening totally gave me at least twice the speed I normally have!” she exclaimed while buzzing her wings. Rainbow Dash looked on in surprise at the height the filly had managed to hover. While not a great height it was considerably more than before.
“Huh, that was impressive Scoot. You got some good height just then.”
“Height? I was just speeding along on the ground.” it took a while for the filly to understand what Rainbow Dash had meant. Her eyes widened at a sudden thought.
“Do you… do you think I can fly?”
Rainbow Dash shrugged. “Why not give it a try? Remember the things I told you about flying?”
The filly eagerly nodded and took up her flying position after taking off her helmet and saddlebags. After taking a few deep breaths she jumped up while trying to do the movements Rainbow Dash had taught her. It only took a few seconds before she slumped back onto the ground.
“Ow. That was really hard.” Did I do any better? Rainbow Dash felt she had to be honest.
“Not really, Scoots. Actually it looked worse than when we tried before.” She tried to cheer the suddenly crestfallen filly up by giving her a friendly smile.
“It felt as if my wings were too heavy.”
“Hmmm, maybe it’s because you are not used to having so much resistance. Perhaps you need to build up your muscles first.”
Hope gleamed in the eyes of the filly before her.
“You really think that could be it?” she asked standing back up.
“Could be. How about I pick you up after school and we go and check it out?” she offered the filly.
“Really? Wow, thank you Rainbow Dash!” Scootaloo’s spirits were raised once more. After having her mane tussled by the larger mare she happily sped off towards school, but not before promising to keep the speed reasonable.
Rainbow Dash turned her attention back to another task for this morning. She decided she would follow up on Scootaloo’s question from this morning and surprise her this afternoon with an answer.
And for that she had to pay a visit to Twilight.