Courageous
Story 1
Chapter 2: Like Research
By: SleeplessScribe
After about an hour, the treats were all gone and general impressions-well, mine at least- of Rainbow’s brother had been formed. I, for one, thought he was going to be a fun addition to Ponyville during his visit, but there was still a lot about him I didn’t know.
When it finally seemed like there were no more questions for him, Nova let out a yawn. “Well, it was nice meeting you all, but if you don’t mind, I’d like to get some one on one time with my sis.”
Everyone nodded to him, giving their different responses all meaning the same thing. Once everyone was done, he smiled to all of us and poked his sister’s stomach. “Thanks again for having me! Catch you later!” With that, he was off, leaving his sister holding her stomach.
“Hey, you did that on purpose so you could get a head start!” Before Rainbow took off after him, she turned to us with a nervous giggle. “Thanks for being so nice, you guys, I know he can be a little too laid back sometimes. But trust me, get to know him better, and he can be a great friend! See you tomorrow!” Just like her brother, she was off, and as she flew we could hear a loud “Get back here!” echoing through the sky.
As soon as she was gone, Applejack shot Rarity a rather mean glare. “What was that all about, Rarity? Ya jump on the guy’s head, and then act like he killed your cat!”
The well-groomed pony scoffed at her friend, turning away. “He blatantly insulted me with no regard for tact or manners! Why should I be forced to put up with such a rude, uncouth ruffian?”
Pinkie began to pounce around the unicorn, seemingly oblivious to the argument going on. “I don’t see what the problem is, he’s funny! I like him!”
She let out a sigh, turning her attention to the hyperactive pony. Pinkie Pie, you like everypony.”
At Rarity’s words, she stopped bouncing for a moment, only to resume again after she had finished speaking. “Oh yeah, you’re right! I do like everypony!” Did that mare ever run out of energy?
Applejack took a step forward, a somewhat frightening look in her eyes. “He wasn’t insulting you, he was just being honest! If you would just pull your face away from the mirror for two seconds, you’d realize that!”
I’d had enough already. As I stepped between them, I alternated between facing Applejack and facing Rarity, pushing the two of them apart. “Girls, knock it off! Look, to be fair, Nova could’ve worded his opinion a little better, but that still doesn’t make your behavior any less right.”
Both mares lowered their ears, slinking back a bit. Applejack lowered her hat a bit, looking back at me. “I guess you have a point, Twi. He did kinda sound like he was being rude.”
Rarity began circling the ground with her hoof, keeping her head down. “And I suppose I could’ve at least talked to him and not just ignored him. It was rather unladylike of me, and I apologize.”
I shook my head, look over towards where Nova and Rainbow sped off. “It’s not me you need to apologize to. Granted, we don’t actually know much about him beyond what he’s told us, but I’m sure he’s not as bad as you’ve made him out to be. What do you think, Fluttershy?” I turned around to where the Pegasus had been sitting, but she was gone.
Upon further investigation, I spotted her trotting towards the exit of Sweet Apple Acres, so I said my good nights to the others and made my way to catch up with her. “Fluttershy, wait!”
She stopped as I called out to her, waiting until I caught up to resume walking. “Oh, yes, Twilight?”
“I was just wondering what you thought of Nova. Applejack and Pinkie seem to like him, but Rarity’s convinced he’s a jerk. What do you think?”
Fluttershy lowered her head a bit, stuttering as she spoke. “I don’t know. There’s no way to tell if he’s nice or not until we actually spend time with him.”
I gave her a nod; what she said was absolutely right. “I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”
-------
My sister knew I was never a fan of sleeping indoors unless it was raining out. Normally, I slept on the roof of our place in Cloudsdale, and the only exception tonight is that she decided to join me. Neither of us could really get to sleep, so we took turns kicking clouds that rolled by and keeping score.
I had three as opposed to her one, but the conversation was kind of distracting me, too. “So, what’d you think of your first day in Ponyville?”
Blowing a raspberry, I turned my head towards the sky and kicked another cloud. “Four. Not, much, sis. To be honest, I didn’t really get to see much, considering most of the day was spent talking to your friends in one place.”
Two came her way, and she got rid of both. “Three. I guess you have a point. How about I show you around tomorrow?”
Ever since the return of Princess Luna, the change in the night sky was obvious. It was much more vibrant, and the stars shined like lights on a race track. “Sounds great! Five.”
“Five! Ha, we’re even! So what’d you think of my friends?”
I let out a long, audible “mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm” at her question. One of my biggest hopes is that she wasn’t going to ask me that. “You want my honest answers?” After a nod from Rainbow, I sighed and told her what I thought. “Applejack is alright, and Pinkie Pie is awesome! But, is Rarity always like that? No offense, but she was kind of a rude… female dog.” Dad had brought the both of us up never to swear, and I always made an effort to find some alternative, even in an instance where I thought such a word was actually appropriate.
“Six. Well, to be honest, you could have been a little nicer. I mean, Rarity is a little conceded, but you were a little mean.”
Not even turning over on my side could keep me from kicking apart those three clouds with one hoof. “Eight. What was so mean about it?” I will openly admit this: I am not the smartest pony to come out of Cloudsdale. I know, shocking isn’t it? Acting, or in this case speaking, before thinking was a bad habit of mine.
My sister rolled her eyes at me, narrowly missed a cloud that rolled past her head. “Ah crap. Well, Nova, what you said wasn’t exactly rude, but you said it in a way that made it sound like you just didn’t care. Not to mention the face you were making; that didn’t help at all.”
“Huh, I never even thought of that. Do you think I should apologize tomorrow?”
She made up for her miss by hitting two at once. “Eight, we’re tied again. That wouldn’t be a bad idea, Rarity has a tendency to overreact, and she probably things you’re some kind of evil menace right now.”
I responded with a soft chuckle, throwing all four of my hooves in the air. “Boom, combo! Twelve!”
“What, no way! You never get that lucky.” She rolled her eyes again after seeing my grin, lying back again. “What do you think of Fluttershy?”
The more I thought of her, the more I realized something. “Isn’t she the one that others used to make fun of for her weak flying?” She gave me a nod, and I turned my head back to the sky. “It’s nice to see that she turned out alright, but I still regret not being around to help her like I was for you. Seeing ponies get bullied for any reason just really burns me up.”
“You don’t need to be sorry, it’s not your fault. Besides, I took care of ‘em for you.”
I chuckled again, patting her shoulder. “Atta girl.”
“So, what about Twilight? You didn’t mention her.”
That one took some thought. After a few minutes and two more, clouds, I finally thought of a decent answer. “I’m not really sure. Twilight’s the only one I couldn’t really read all that well, so all I know is what you told me. Though I’m sure she’s cooler than an egghead who stays in a library all day.”
It was her turn to laugh now. “Well, she’s really good with magic and knows a lot of neat tricks, but that’s the gist of it. She’s had times where’s she’s done some pretty awesome stuff, but all she really does in her spare time is sit in that tree and read books.”
Letting out a loud “pffffft”, I now had a new goal. My sister and I were always looking for different ways to compete against each other, and I just thought of the perfect way. “Tell you what, I’ll make you a bet. If I can prove Twilight is cooler than you think in a week, I win. If you’re not convinced, then you win. Loser has to go the rest of that day with their wings tied up!”
She jumped up, letting out a loud laugh. “You’re on! You’d have to spy on Twilight all day to catch her doing anything, and you can’t stay in one place for more than five minutes.”
That settled it. We both spit on our hooves and shook. “I can’t wait to see you freak at not being able fly.”
Rainbow grinned at me, giving me one of those friendly-but-not glares. “You can’t handle getting your wings wet, so I’m going to be rolling on the ground seeing you struggle with them tied up.”
* * *
I got Rainbow up early, much to her displeasure, so she could show me around the town. With our speed, we went around Ponyville three times in under ten minutes. We went around one more time and she had me name places to make sure I knew what was what, and the only two things I mixed up were the hardware store and the post office, mainly because I couldn’t see the signs.
As we touched down, my sister looked up at the sky and then back to me. “Well, since you got me up this early, I guess I’ll go ahead and clear out the clouds. Feel free to do whatever you want. Good luck with your spying!” She started laughing, and continued even after she was in the sky.
Rainbow told me Rarity lived in the upper floor of her boutique, so my only hope was that she was up at this hour. It wasn’t that early, but still early enough for most ponies not to consider still being in bed sleeping in. The fashion shop was a little out of the way, and definitely not somewhere I actually wanted to be seen going to, but giving Rarity an apology was only right, even if I didn’t like her that much.
I heard an audible “One moment!” as I knocked on the door, but the expression I was met with was a lot less cheerful than the vocal response just a second ago. “Oh, it’s you.”
Holding up both my front hooves, I tried to put on as nice of a face as I could. “Look, I realize that you and I didn’t really get along yesterday, and I’m sorry. We may not agree on certain things, but that doesn’t mean we should be angry at each other. I’ve come to extend an olive branch of sorts.”
Her angry glare began to ease into a more… accepting expression. “Very well, Nova. It must have taken quite a bit of pride swallowing to do this.”
“Oh believe me, it did. No offense, but I wouldn’t normally get within ten miles of a place like this.”
Rarity’s expression now changed to one similar to what I was giving her yesterday. “Ponyville isn’t even half a mile from here.”
I gave her a nervous chuckle, scratching the back of my head. “Right… so, no hard feelings?”
She smiled at me. Now that I looked at her, she actually was really pretty. “No hard feelings.” As soon as she saw me raise my hoof to my mouth, she slammed her own down on top of it. “Please, don’t. Applejack and Rainbow Dash both do that, and it’s absolutely disgusting.”
Rolling my eyes was too strong of a desire to resist, despite the fact that I just apologized for being rude. “Sorry, again.”
“It’s fine, just… don’t spit. I like to keep my personal space clean, and saliva is most definitely not clean. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a bit of work to do before noon rolls around. Good day, Nova.” The prissy pony didn’t even give me a chance to say “bye” as she closed the door on me.
Well, it wasn’t the smoothest apology ever, but it worked. Now my goal was to, for lack of a better word, spy on Twilight. The mere fact that my sister didn’t think there was much to that unicorn convinced me that she was either hiding something or was just more interesting than Rainbow realized. Besides, I didn’t really have anything better to do; Applejack worked on a farm, which was definitely not my kind of work, Pinkie Pie made sweets and acted silly all day, and while I wouldn’t have a problem with the latter, I really didn’t like cooking, my sister was busy busting clouds and doing whatever else she did around her-probably napping- and Fluttershy, well… all Rainbow actually told me was that she worked with small animals.
I made my way over to the massive tree the unicorn called home, and luckily for me, she had a balcony just perfect for landing on. It gave me a clear view into the upstairs, and an empty bed made it obvious she was already awake. In fact, as I heard the door below me close, I spotted the mare walking out with saddlebags and a checklist. Following her without being spotted wasn’t going to be easy, especially considering my body’s color scheme. Bright orange with a fiery mane and tail didn’t make for the best camouflage.
Fortunately, I was a Pegasus, and pegasi can not only fly, but can also stand and sit on clouds. After I found one big enough for me, I nestled myself onto it and began my slow pursuit. The unicorn hummed a little tune-a catchy one, I might add, sounded like an opening to a cartoon- as she walked along the road to the unlikeliest of places: the Everfree Forest.
I dropped my cloud immediately, hiding in the bushes. If Twilight was going in there, the trees would make a bird’s eye view useless. As she walked along, she stopped and looked at the plants at the forest’s edge, picking some and marking stuff off her list.
“Um, Nova?”
The sudden voice behind me, regardless of how soft it was, did make me jump a little, but my smile returned immediately as I saw the timid Pegasus behind me. “Oh, hi Fluttershy.”
“W-What are you doing so close to the Everfree Forest?”
I tilted my head, cocking an eyebrow. “I could ask you the same thing.”
She gave me a soft smile, opening her wings to reveal two ferrets underneath them. “The poor things were sick, so I brought them to my cottage to help them get better. Now that they are, I’m taking them back home.”
It took a little effort not to let out an “aww” at the sight. The ferrets themselves were cute, but Fluttershy was made even cuter by holding them like that. “So, what are you doing here?”
Turning back, I saw that Twilight was still examining plants. “I’ve got a bet with my sister going. I’m following Twilight around so I can get some proof that her life is more exciting than Rainbow says it is.”
The shy pony’s eyes widened a bit. “Oh, that sounds fun. But, isn’t that like, stalking?”
“Pffft, no! Fluttershy, this isn’t stalking. Stalking is creepy, this is… this is….” I had to think about this. Lifting a hoof to my chin, I had to really think about this. “Okay, it’s stalking, but not a creepy stalking. It’s like research, I’m trying to learn.”
Her smile returned; how could Rarity not see why I thought Fluttershy was better looking than her? “That makes sense. Oh! You’d better hurry, she’s going into the forest. Knowing her, she’s going to see Zecora.”
I raised my brow again. “Zecora? Is that like, some kind of horrific forest worm that steals little filly’s lunchboxes?”
Fluttershy shook her head quickly. “Oh no, she’s a zebra.”
Clapping my hooves together, I threw them in the air like I was the guy who discovered gravity. “Aha! A zebra!” I then lowered them, raising one to my chin again. “What’s a zebra? Oh, never mind, I don’t have time. See you later, Flutters!”
Flutters. I liked that nickname. It just sort of came out, but it sounded really good. Anywho, I managed to catch up to Twilight just as she entered into some creepy looking voodoo hut. Sneakily making my way up to it, I peeked into the window. My eyes widened as I saw Twilight talking to this… thing. She, he, it, whatever that thing was looked like a pony, but it was clad in gold rings and sported stripes all over its body. Man, Rarity would have a field day pointing out all the flaws in whatever this was.
I couldn’t actually hear what they were saying, but after talking for a bit, what I assumed to be the zebra handed Twilight a bag of… stuff. What? It was a dark brown bag, how was I supposed to know what was in it?
Anyway, I’m getting off track here. Twilight checked another item off her list, trotting out of the hut. She was still humming that catchy tune, but I wasn’t the only creature here who apparently liked the humming. As she walked by my clever hiding spot consisting of a bunch of bushes with tree branches on top, I saw two pairs of red eyes following her in the actual woods. Now I was more concerned about what was following her, as nothing good ever came out of this forest. In fact, why the heck was Twilight even here?
As she neared the edge of the woods, we all froze and took a whiff of the air, and boy, did it smell worse than my dad after a Wonderbolts show. I knew exactly what is was the minute that wooden claw poked out from the underbrush. “Twilight, look out!”
With no regard for subtlety, I jumped out and kicked one of the wolves right in the mouth to get their attention, causing it to let out a loud roar. “Twilight, run!”
The mare seemed not to care that there were two timber wolves that had been stalking her for the past five minutes. “Nova? What are you doing here?”
“I said run!” Okay, so apparently she was just too surprised at my sudden entrance to notice the wolves, because she took off immediately at the sight of them. Both of them tried to give chase, but I kept kicking them until they were angry enough at me to leave the unicorn alone.
I was way too fast for them to keep up with, so I had to stay slow if I wanted to lead them anywhere. That proved to be more difficult than initially planned, as slowing down gave them the chance to continuously bite at me, narrowly missing my hind legs. After a little bit, I spotted a low tree branch and grabbed hold of it. I continued to move forward until both wolves were in the right spot, then let go of it and had it slam them both in the face, shattering their bodies.
Twilight was standing at the edge of the forest when I touched down, just staring at me. “Woohoo! Twilight, did you see that? That was so awesome!”
Her blank stare turned into a glare as she started towards me. “That wasn’t ‘awesome’! Reckless is what it was, Nova, you could’ve gotten hurt!”
Rolling my eyes at her, I backed away some just to keep her from hitting me or something. “Well gee, what a wonderful way to say ‘Thanks for saving my life.’!”
The mare shook her head, taking a deep breath and extending her hoof as she did so. “Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful, but how do you think I would’ve felt if you got hurt trying to save me?”
I blew a raspberry, away from her, and patted her shoulder. “Pfft, I’m not afraid of some stupid timber wolves, I can handle myself.”
Twilight didn’t seem convinced at all, nudging my hoof off of her. “That wasn’t bravery, Nova, that was recklessness. Did you even know what you were going to do once you had their attention? No, even before that, what were you doing in the Everfree Forest anyway?”
That was a question I had really hoped wouldn’t come up. “Do you really want to know?” After a nod from the unicorn, I let out a sigh. “Alright, here it goes: Last night my sister asked what I thought of all of you, and you were the only one I couldn’t give a definite answer for. However, I told Rainbow that you had to be more than an egghead who stays in her library reading all day, and since we both love competition, I made a bet with her. If I could prove by the end of the week that your life is more interesting than she thinks, she has to tie her wings up for the whole day. If I lose, I’m the one that has to tie my wings up. So, in order to find out more about you, I started following you around.”
Her ears fell flat and her brow lowered. “You do realize that that story is so ridiculous that the only reason I believe it is because that’s definitely something Rainbow Dash would say, right?”
All I could do was give her a dopey nod. “Uh-huh.”
“Did it ever cross your mind to just come and talk to me instead of stalking me like some weirdo?”
“Well, at the time, it didn’t. But now that you say that, that seems like a much better option.”
The purple hoof met her forehead with sort of a “thunk” sound. “This is the same thing as this business with those timber wolves. Nova, you don’t think before you-“
“Help! Somepony, anypony, help!” After two days of quiet whispers, hearing the pretty Pegasus shout was incredibly strange. Fluttershy ran over to us, out of breath and panting.
Her timing couldn’t have been better, I was really not looking forward to listening to a lecture from Twilight. “Flutters! What’s wrong?”
She spoke between pants, pointing down the river that was nearby her cottage. “I was taking Rodney and Darlene back home, when I heard this loud, scary roar. Before I knew what had happened, Rodney had fallen into the river, and the current’s too strong for me to go get him.”
“Say no more!” I hadn’t gone too far away as I heard Twilight shout to me.
“Nova, wait!”
There was no time. I could see the little ferret in the water, squirming as he tried to swim back up. The girls were running along the bank as I flew, so I turned to them to let them know. “I see him, Fluttershy, don’t worry, I-“
Looking where I was going should’ve been my highest priority. Now I knew how those timber wolves felt as I the spot the branch had hit stung. I was dazed just enough to fall out of the air, landing in the water and becoming just as helpless as the ferret. Never a strong swimmer, I flailed around in the rushing water. My sister was right; I hated getting my wings wet, as it made them too heavy for takeoff, and I despised being unable to fly. Luckily, I did land right beside… Rodney, was it? Eh, it didn’t matter. What did matter was the fact that we were about to go over a waterfall, and the water was moving too fast for one of the girls to jump in.
“Oh man, this is bad, bad, bad!”