Rainbow Dash flapped her wings and mentally prepared for the first step of her routine. One last deep breath and she jumped into the air. As gravity took her she angled her wings, feeling the wind tuck at her mane and tail. She felt that familiar tickle in her belly, like the sudden, but secure knowledge that another pony was watching her with interest.
The first part of her performance: a slalom through a few trees that stood at exactly the right distance. The first step was easy, just like a conversation. She had to find the right angle in and, this was important: no touching. She had learned that one the hard way. Her legs still smarted with the bruises she had gotten in a previous run. Trees were quite unforgiving if you ventured to close at high speeds. “But not today,” she thought as she passed the eighth tree without a problem and allowed herself a little, confident smirk.
The next part was more complicated and Rainbow bit her lip as she ascended to catch some momentum. Again, it was all about the right angle. But with this trick, she wanted to be just close enough to coax a reaction from the cloud. She inched closer and closer until she felt the cloud react to her. Unlike the trees in the slalom before these clouds were soft and wouldn’t hurt her if she snuggled to close. A ruffled primary perhaps, but that was a price she was prepared to pay. And there it had happened: she felt the slightly painful tuck on the tip of her wings. Just a friendly warning not to go any further, but a warning nevertheless. But Rainbow had already achieved her goal: The cloud was spinning with her. She grinned and jumped to the next cloud to repeat the trick.
After the third cloud she ascended again to get a little breather. She dared to look at her wings and for just a moment insecurity showed in her eyes. Her primaries were ruffled pretty bad after the last trick. Would she come even close the the completion of her routine? Maybe it was better to stop here, preen, and start over? She clenched her teeth. No, she was not going to quit here. She was an all-or-nothing mare! She wouldn’t stop while she hadn’t at least tried.
She tucked her wings close to her body to get a bit of help from gravity, then she started to flap, and flapped hard. She felt the pressure, the resistance of air building. She pushed a bit more, her wings flapped harder and harder, her muscles strained and her lungs burned. Little prismatic sparks played in her field of vision as she felt her wings give out. The primaries had come back to haunt her. Aerodynamics didn’t smile on a pegasus pony with ruffled wings, and she felt the vortex behind her grasping at her. It sounded like the laugh of a crowd of ponies as the wind and air dumped her.
The spin-out had shaken her good. Rainbow Dash was used to it; it was far from the first time this particular stunt had failed. And yet, it stung so much. Not in her wings, not in her muscles, but in her heart. She had fallen in love on that day, years ago. For just a moment she had felt the kiss of that fickle mistress, that tender touch nopony before had felt. And now she was barred from that sweet embrace, the love of her life flat out refused her. It stung deep, deep in her very soul.
Rainbow Dash looked around and sighed, she was still alone in the little field she had selected for practice. Fluttershy had promised to watch and cheer for her in the Best Young Flyer Competition, but she probably had to take care of her animals first. That left Rainbow with another, perhaps two tries before she had company. She shook her wings out to dislodge some leaves that had stuck there when she crashed and took a moment to fix her ruffled feathers. Then she flapped her way back to the little cloud she had started her routine from.
“Hey sky, it’s me, Rainbow Dash. Let’s try this again, you and me. Because, even if you hurt me, you know, I’ll always come back,” she said and jumped again. “I just love flying!”