Courageous
Story 1
Chapter 4: The Race
By: SleeplessScribe
With nothing left to do but wait for Twilight to finish doing… whatever she was doing, all the girls went their separate ways to continue their own work. My brother, however, immediately began gathering clouds so he could shape the track for tomorrow’s race. Of course, I helped, but my goal was still trying to talk him out of it.
“Nova, what’s gotten into you? You even told me yourself that you’d gotten over this issue.” Packing clouds isn’t as easy of a job as it sounds, and Nova had to finish stuffing together a few before he could respond.
“You know, sis, I thought I was too. I was even happy for you when you wrote to me about getting into the Wonderbolt Academy. It’s just… seeing Spitfire in that costume, knowing what she did to gain the privilege to wear it, it just makes me so mad. Look, I know you look up to her, and that’s one reason I’m going through with this. All I want is one race so I can either prove to myself that I’m better than she is or that she can at least win a race cleanly.”
As of now, the cloud walls of the makeshift track stretched from Twilight’s balcony to just a little ways away from Cloudsdale, but a typical professional-grade race track was about twice this size. “You know, there’s no guarantee you would have won, even if she hadn’t bumped you, and what makes you think she did it on purpose? You said it yourself; you and she used to be best friends, and why would she do something like that to her best friend?”
He let out a low sigh, kicking one of the clouds into the wall. “I don’t know! Maybe she did, maybe she didn’t, but until I hear a better story, I’m sticking to my own.”
“Come on, Nova. Isn’t there anything I can say or do to convince you not to do this?”
My brother slowly shook his head, not even bothering to look at me as he responded. “No.”
The rest of our work continued in silence. By the time we were finished, the track started at Twilight’s balcony, stretched up to Cloudsdale, turned right and over the mountain Canterlot was built into, then looped back to Ponyville. It was very late, and as the last cloud was stuffed into the makeshift wall, both of us were yawning. As we made our way back home, Nova drifted beside me, patting my back.
“Rainbow… I’m sorry if I embarrassed you.”
I closed my eyes for a moment, debating on whether or not to hold myself back. “I’m gonna be honest, here, you did. You embarrassed me a lot. Did you see my friends’ faces when you came back? Not only that, but Spitfire too! You know I pretty much idolize her, and yet you still let your own anger get in the way of that. Honestly, I’m surprised I’m still able to talk to you!”
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My sister’s words cut pretty deep. However, I’m no longer afraid to admit that I was still a complete hardhead, and no matter what, I was going to win that race. Rainbow decided to sleep indoors tonight, and I didn’t blame her; after what she said, I was starting to feel like a real jerk. When morning finally came, it felt like I hadn’t gotten but maybe three hours of sleep.
I decided it was probably for the best to avoid my sister and her friends, at least until the end of the race. Then, maybe they’d at least give me a chance to apologize for being such a… butt. Despite how much I was dwelling on how brash I had been, it was hard to focus on anything with an empty stomach. From what I remembered during my sister’s tour of the town, there was a little restaurant not too far from where I currently was, and lucky for me, it was open.
What wasn’t so lucky was the fact that just a few tables over from me, my new favorite unicorn had seated herself, and the first thing she did was turn to me. Honestly, it felt kind of ridiculous that she had this kind of power over me, but the authority she projected was also something to be respected as she held her hoof out to me, then pointed to the seat across from her. “You. Here. Now.”
After gulping down a lump in my throat, I made my way to her. I sat down, but for the life of me, I couldn’t look her in the eyes. “We need to talk. Rainbow Dash has made it quite clear that we can’t change your mind. So, because you’re going to go through with this, I want you to at least do something for me. Do something for all of us.”
My response was interrupted by the waiter, but we both made our orders as quickly as possible so we could continue. “What is it?”
She closed her eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath. “Don’t think about why you actually challenged Spitfire. If you go into this race just looking to take her down, nothing good is going to come out of it. Treat this like you would any other race, and when it’s all over, don’t treat her like the bad guy. You don’t know all the details, so instead of rushing headlong into everything you do, for once, take my advice and think. There may have been more to that situation than you realize, and you just assumed that she crashed you on purpose.”
I let out a long sigh, finally managing to actually look up at my friend. “I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks Twilight, looks like I have a leash to grab me when I get out of line now.”
Twilight giggled a little at my joke. “If you think I’m bad, you should see Fluttershy when she gets to scolding.”
Rolling my eyes, a chuckle of my own let itself out. “Fluttershy? Twilight, unless there was a little animal in danger, she couldn’t raise her voice to save her life.”
A sly grin formed on the unicorn’s face as our sandwiches arrived. “Did you know she saved Ponyville from a dragon? Did you know that, by herself, she reformed an evil draconequus bent on chaos and destruction? Would you believe me if I told you she was the deciding factor when Ponyville was chosen to bring water up to Cloudsdale this year?”
Again, she started to giggle at my wide-eyed, open-mouthed face. The two of us spent almost all morning talking in between bites of our meals, and while what I learned was probably already stuff my sister already knew or wouldn’t care about, I found it pretty interesting. My conversation sealed the deal; one day I absolutely had to prove to Rainbow that knowledge can be helpful even to ponies as athletic as she and I.
Before we knew it, it was almost time for lunch, and we were still in the same place we had been since breakfast. “Twilight, I have to thank you again. I’m feeling a whole lot better than I did yesterday, and I feel like I can go into this race doing as you asked, now.”
She raised her hoof into the air, looking past me and into the sky. “Well, we’re about to find out.”
It was obvious it was still her, but Spitfire looked completely different with her mane down and without her costume. Her eyes shifted between Twilight and I before finally resting on me. “We gonna do this or what? I don’t have all day, sorry to say.”
Rising from my seat, I held my hoof out to her. “Spitfire, I want to apologize before we even start. I don’t want to hear anything about anything until the race is over, but I have something I need to ask afterward.”
The Wonderbolt looked down at my hoof for a moment before slowly shaking it, though she still wasn’t smiling. “You know, that hurt me yesterday. I see a foalhood friend for the first time in two years, and what does he do? Gets an attitude with me for no good reason. You’d better have an explanation ready.”
“Save it for after the race. I tell you all about what my problem is after you’re finished eating my dust.” I gave her a smug grin, and after a moment, she finally responded with one of her own.
“I hope you still like me as much as you used to, because all you’re going to be seeing is my rear end!” After a moment of awkward stares from both Twilight and I, she cleared her throat. “Um… that came out wrong. Where do we start?” I led her towards Twilight’s library and up onto the balcony, where a bunch of the townsfolk, including my sister and her friends, were gathered underneath to watch.
I pointed up towards Cloudsdale, tracing the path of the “track” with my hoof. “We’re doing three laps along these clouds. First one back here at the end of the third lap wins, and try to keep it clean.”
Spitfire drew back, her mouth agape as if I had just insulted her mother. “Excuse me? I would never dream of cheating!”
I rolled my eyes as I took my starting position. “Right, whatever.” She did the same, and my sister herself was on a cloud in the middle of the track with a flag. After a nod from both of us, she swung it down, and we were off.
Spitfire used the same tricks I did with body positioning, so there was no margin whatsoever for error. While Cloudsdale wasn’t that far of a horizontal distance from Ponyville, one had to go considerably higher up to get to the actual city. The Wonderbolt managed to stay ahead of me for a good part of the section that went through our home, but by the time we were turning to fly over the mountain, we were even.
“Gotta admit, Spits, the view back there isn’t bad, but I’d much rather be up here!”
“Quit doing that, you’re leaving me with nothing but dirty jokes to make!”
It was all I could do to keep from laughing as we passed over the mountain. Twilight was right, since I wasn’t dwelling on the accident that ruined me, I was remembering how much fun racing against this mare had been. As we made the return trip back to the library for the first lap, I began to pull ahead, but since Spits was on the inside, she managed to even it out again on the turn. The second lap was the same as the first; Spitfire was always better at pure ascension than I was, so going up to Cloudsdale allowed her to pull again, but I caught up again once we went through the city.
We always joked about how the two of us filled in each other’s gaps, and it was kind of true; the Wonderbolt was better with ascension, but going down helped me to accelerate a lot faster than her. I also had the inside of the lane this time, so I widened the gap a bit more as we turned to begin the third and final lap. This time around, Spitfire’s ascension only managed to bring her muzzle up to my neck, and it stayed that way through the city in the clouds and all the way to the mountain. Spitfire managed to get the inside again, so the turn from the mountain to Twilight’s evened us out, but now it was all downhill.
Before I knew it, the line of clouds above the balcony was broken, and both of us landed, panting and out of breath. My sister flew over to us as fast as she could, her hooves on her cheeks and her lips pursed like she was making a kissy face. “I take it back, I’m glad you went through with it. That was so awesome!”
I had to speak in between pants, looking up at her from my current sitting position. “Who won?”
The quiet Pegasus approached us, trying to push the words out. “You, um, tied.”
“We tied?” It was kind of funny hearing us shout at the same time; this was the first time in our history together that we never had an actual winner after a race. Turning to her with a grin, I nudged her shoulder. “Well, at least you raced fair this time.”
Spitfire jumped up, giving me a sort off irritated-but-not-angry glare. “Yeah, what was that about? You know I would never cheat at a race!”
Now I was on my hooves, giving her the same agitated gaze. “Which is why you pushed me into the wall to win our first Haytona 500, isn’t it?”
The mare backed away some, her eyes wide. She raised a hoof to her chest, lowering her head a little as she looked back at me. “Nova… I didn’t do that to take you out.”
Rolling my eyes again, I scoffed at her response. “Really? What other reason could you possibly have for dragging my numbers down so far and putting me in a cast for a month?”
Her surprised expression faded as she sighed, replaced by a more mellow look. “If I hadn’t done anything, you probably would’ve crashed head-first into the wall and snapped your neck!” She saw my open my mouth, but pressed her hoof against it. “Do you remember Stormcloud? That Pegasus that apparently had some kind of vendetta against us? He was there too, and he wasn’t very happy. Stormcloud started near the back, and it took him most of the race to get up close to us. I caught him pushing other racers around left and right, knocking them into each other and kicking them, and then he headed straight for you. Nova, I didn’t nudge you, he tried to push both of us into the wall, and I was just trying to move you out of the way. I’m sorry that my trying to help caused you to crash, I truly am, but it would have been much worse had Stormcloud gotten a hold of you. I hate to say it, but if you had been paying more attention to what was going on around you, you would have seen him coming too.”
I fell to my knees after she was finished, my head hanging. At this point, I couldn’t speak now. Luckily, she wasn’t actually done. “Not only that, but even if you didn’t crash, there was no guarantee you were going to win, anyway. Let me see if I understand: You have been holding a grudge against your best friend for the past two years because you thought she purposely made you wreck and kept you from becoming captain of the Wonderbolts?” After a slow nod from me, she shook her head. “I hate to say this, Nova, but with an attitude like that, you could never join our lowest of ranks. You’ve always had an issue with jumping to conclusions and acting without thinking, and you never even bothered to ask me what actually happened! Had I not been so busy, I would’ve come to see you, but after not hearing from you in so long, even after my schedule emptied up some, I just thought you didn’t want to see me.”
Even looking at her was impossible right now, looking anywhere but down was impossible. All of my sister’s friends were now gathered, watching me experience more shame in a few minutes than I’ve felt in all my life. “I’m sorry, Spitfire. Please, please tell me you can forgive me?”
She set her hoof on my shoulder, softly patting it. “We’ve been together since we were young. Of course I can forgive you.” After a sigh, she turned her back to me. “Unfortunately, because of this, I’m afraid come next racing season, you will be barred from acceptance regardless of how well you do.”
Jumping up, my eyes widened and my jaw dropped; I guess that was today’s facial trend. “I- You- Say what?”
The mare slowly shook her head as she spread her wings. “I’m sorry, Nova, but even if, as a friend, I see you once again as the colt I used to love, as leader of the Wonderbolts, I can’t allow a pony so cocky to join, nor a pony that speaks and acts before they think. When you can learn to fix those two issues, then we’ll start paying attention to your racing performance again.” With that, she flew off, leaving my once again with my ears flat and my head down.
As I began to wallow in self-pity, I realized two things. One: that would give me a similarity to Rarity, and two: she just said something that I was just now picking up on. “Wait… did she say ‘love’?” Letting out a loud groan, I fell on my back with my hooves on my forehead. “What is that mare trying to do to my head?”
Apparently Applejack and Rarity had other things to attend to, as only my sister, Fluttershy, and Twilight were still there when I picked myself up. The unicorn’s hoof pressed lightly against my shoulder as she looked at me. “This may not be the best time, but do you finally see what I’ve been trying to tell you? Your recklessness and rashness have resulted in a big consequence.”
“Yes, Twilight, I get it. So what do I do now?”
All three of them gave me a shrug. “Well, I’ve seen you starting to change already, but this isn’t something we can actually help you with.”
I rubbed my chin for a moment before turning to the pegasi. “Hey, sis, would you and Fluttershy mind breaking up the track for me? I know I was the one who wanted it, but there’s something I need to do as soon as possible.”
They both gave me nods and made their way to the clouds. All things considered, I probably shouldn’t have asked Flutters because of her weak flying, but I had enough faith in my sister to keep anything bad from happening to her.
Twilight tilted her head at me. “What exactly is it that you need to do?”
With a smile on my face I turned to her. “I need to check through your library, if you don’t mind.”