//------------------------------// // Second Year (14) // Story: Bloodlines // by SleepIsforTheWeak //------------------------------// He is fourteen and home for Heartswarming break, which lasts for a week. He is surrounded by ponies and tries to give every one of them equal attention and be patient, but Dash sees that all the attention is getting on his nerves. He is moody and snappy but tries to hide it. He finally untangles himself from his siblings and comes into the kitchen, where she is. "Hey." he says. "Hi." she replies. She knows he wants to talk about something, but is hesitating, which automatically sends warning bells in her brain. She waits for him to speak, but he doesn't. "How's school?" she asks, finally deciding to be the one to take initiative. He runs a hoof through his rainbow mane. "Bad." his voice cracks on the word and she looks at him, but finds him not crying. "Oh? What's the problem?" she asks. She tries not to sound too worried. "I just... I haven't figured it out. The other ponies, they've already formed cliques and everything. But... I don't have any friends. I'm basically a nopony, even though everypony knows I'm your son. I want to have friends, and I know it sounds selfish, but, I want to be popular. But I don't know how to do it." his voice grows and grows until he is very nearly shouting. There is a whiny undertone to his words and Dash smiles because he is a lot like her when he doesn't get what he want. "If you want to get popular, you have to make ponies notice you." she says patiently, and she knows she probably should be saying something along the lines of, 'it's not about popularity, just find your true friends and stick with them', but she understands the feelings he is feeling because she felt them when she was his age, too. "And how do I do that?" he whines. "Prove yourself as a flier." she says simply. "Race the ponies in your grade, or, if you want popularity faster, race upperclassponies. That is, if you think you have the talent, which I know you do." He thinks about this for a moment, and then nods slowly in that way he does when he takes something to heart. "Is that really all there is to it?" he asks after a while, deep in thought. Dash nods. "Yep. But Lightning?" she calls out to him, bringing him back from his thoughts. He looks at her with those blue eyes of his, and she suppresses the urge to smile at him, because she loves the fact that he inherited Pinkie's eyes. "Make sure you get the race approved by a professor." she says seriously. "Unapproved races are against the rules, and if you get caught having one, it's an automatic one-way to getting expelled." She closes her eyes, taking a deep breath. "I would know." she mutters. He is fourteen and back in school and he decides to put his mother's advice to the test. He feels kind of bad for yelling at a pony and challenging him to a race just for bumping into him in the hall, when it was actually his own fault that they collided in the first place. Regardless, he swallows his guilt and finds a professor. His favorite professor, Blackjack Thunder, happily approves the race. He likes Professor Thunder. Professor Thunder is the only professor he has had so far that did not completely hate him. All his other professors are honest-to-Celestia out to get him. More than once he hears them mutter, 'just like his mother' with cynic contempt. He steps out into the afternoon sun and looks upon the outside obstacle course for the second years. Every year has their own obstacle course, naturally, and seventh years have two because the seventh years are separated into two groups called Books and Talents. The other colt is already at the start line, and Lightning joins him there. There is a crowd, not a large one, maybe two dozen ponies that just happened to have been using the obstacle course before it had to be cleared off for their race. Professor Thunder stands on a small cloud and waves a flag for them to get ready. Lightning and the other colt come to the starting line. He looks to the other colt briefly and is met with blazing eyes full of hate. He has apparently made an enemy, and it sucks, but it’s nothing compared to the friends he will make after this race. Professor Thunder waves the flag again and Lightning raises his wings, getting in a squatting position. Out of the corner of his eye he sees the other colt doing the same. Professor Thunder waves the flag once more and then he raises it up into the air. "Ready. Set..." This is it. He can feel the adrenaline kick in and he smiles. He will win this race. "GO!"