018
An image of my bone structure was transferred to a screen. Looking over the whole thing, I heard Shining and Redcross gasp as they saw the only bone injury that I had sustained from Celestia’s beating: a spider web of fractures along my jaw bone. One more hit from Celestia, and it probably would have shattered into the tens or even the hundreds of pieces that the fractures outlined. I silently thanked Shining for stopping her when he did. The nurse cast a spell on me, numbing my jaw, as well as keeping it from moving.
“Don’t worry,” she said after casting the spell, “The spell is only temporary and will wear off in about a day. It does three things: numb the pain, keep you from moving the affected bone around, and speeds up the natural regeneration process.”
“Have any milk?” I asked, only to get a disgusted look from the nurse, “Or any dairy products. The calcium should also help my bones repair.” I don’t know if you have ever tried speaking without moving your jaw, but it makes the sound come out slightly muffled, so I had to repeat what I said a few times.
When she finally understood what I was saying (took about three tries), her look changed to that of a confused one. “Calcium?” she asked.
“Calcium,” I confirmed, not wanting to explain stuff right now, “Anyways, I need to talk to a few people, and retrieve some stuff. Shining, let’s go; Nurse Redcross, thank you.” I would have thought that the ponies would know about vitamins and minerals, but that didn’t seem to be the case.
I left with Shining right behind me, only to end up beside me. “You have no idea where you are going, do you?” Shining asked.
“Nope, not at all. Now, where can I find Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Red Wing? I need to talk to a few of them,” I admitted.
“Pinkie Pie is in the ceremonial room, Applejack is in the kitchen, Rarity is in one of the towers, Fluttershy is in the courtyard, Rainbow Dash I’m not sure where she is, Twilie is probably checking in on everypony. Red Wing is probably with Princess Luna.”
A nerve twitched under my eye upon hearing the last part, “Let’s see Red Wing first, may I know where they are?”
“They are probably within the library,” Shining replied.
“I think I know where that is. It’s by the stone garden, isn’t it?” With a confirmation, from Shining in the form of a nod, I decided to have a little fun.
Silently, and with not so much as the hint of a breeze, I thought about getting from here to the library without detection. This intent seemed to work as I sprinted down the hallway, covering about 17 feet a stride, and leaving Shining hard-pressed to catch up to me. I would have to remember this intent later.
Muscles sore, and skin feeling like it was about to spontaneously combust, I exited the building and took to the air. It took all of five seconds before I was nearly tackled by somepony, or rather, multiple ponies. Dodging them all, I saw that the guards had taken notice of my speed, and probably assumed that I was trying to escape. Well, I didn’t want what I was about to do to be wide spread information, so I lead them on a chase. Up, down, though, around, over, and under. Anything and everything to lead them places that exhausted them. They constantly through spears at me which I caught and discarded at safe locations. The chase worked, in sorts. I ended up leading them all around the castle, never once leaving the area, but whenever one fell away, another took their place.
“WHITE WIND, YOU DARE TRY TO ESCAPE?!” Ah, the Royal Canterlot Voice, never gets old. The guards all froze, while I turned to Celestia, stopped, and waved. Lazily flying up to her (and with a spear in my hoof that I had forgotten about), as I couldn’t project my voice, I saw her tense up, and felt her magic take hold of me.
“No,” I said, only to not be heard clearly and asked again, “No. I was not trying to escape.” This time I was able to say it a bit louder, but it was still muffled.
“Speak properly White Wind,” Celestia warned.
“I can’t,” I said. This situation was not in my favor currently as I couldn’t communicate properly.
Celestia came closer and said, right in my face, “Speak clearly.”
Despite her threatening tone, I was slightly relieved that my original parameters for this conversation. Responding, I felt like a broken record, and in part of that, I was, “I can’t. My jaw is magically frozen in place to let it heal.” I spoke with as much clarity as I could and luckily was understood.
“So why were you trying to escape? And don’t tell me that you weren’t.”
“But if I tell you that I was trying to escape, I would be lying.”
“Then what were you doing.”
I felt the magic holding me release partially release me, and I looked behind me to see at least 50 exhausted guards. I turned back to Celestia, “I would say that I was leading an exercise, and I would be telling the truth, lying. It turned into an exercise, but my original goal was not escape, but to see my son. I would have gone there, but these guards decided to try to tackle me, so I took them on a little exercise. Seems like most of them can’t handle a 300 kilometer fly going at 96 kilometers/hour,” said, smiling happily
Something tackled me from above with insane force, and held onto me without letting go. The spear went flying, and hopefully didn’t end up hitting anypony. It took my full wing-flare, and a heavy updraft, for me to regain balance and stay aloft. I looked to see who it was that tackled me, and caused me to lose a good 400 meters of altitude.
“Hello Dashie,” I said, my annoyance thinning slightly. I have been getting better at annunciating my words, despite the frozen jaw.
“Hello White. Dude, there is no good spin of your name,” said the aforementioned pony.
“Sorry, about that.”
“Why? It’s not like you chose your name,” she said.
I felt compelled to correct her on that, but then looked past her. I found that Celestia was nowhere to be seen, nor any of the guards who had chased me. I figured that she left, either knowing that she would stick with me, or having a deal with her to keep me here. I decided to trust Celestia, or Rainbow to be more accurate, and chose the first one. I made a suggestion, “Want to help me scare the shit out of somepony?”
“Who?” Rainbow asked, extremely curious, and still refusing to get off my back.
“A pony that is in the library,” I eluded her question, and got her even more curious.
“Who?”
“Promise you won’t ruin it if I tell you.”
I could swear that a little bar appeared her head labeled ‘Curiosity’ and a line within it went from half way to max, to about three times larger than the original bar. No? I exaggerated again? LIES! I CALL LIES! Still no? Fine, it was an exaggeration, but you didn’t hear that from me.
“WHO?!”
“What are you, an owl?” I asked pointlessly. After getting a frustrated look, I continued, “I will take that as a ‘No White Wind, I will not ruin the scare,” and tell you. It is the pony that is probably with my son right now.”
“You mean Princess Luna!” Rainbow cried, or at least tried to. You see, I quickly covered her mouth so she couldn’t get to yelling who the pony was.
When she settled down, I spoke, “Hey Dashie.”
“Hey what?”
I had decided to do something about the fact that Rainbow was laying on my back, all curled up and comfortable, while I was trying to stay in one place and gain some altitude, however ineffective. As soon as she responded, I grabbed her head and pulled it closer to mine. I moved my lips to her left ear and whispered, “If you are going to lay on me, I suggest it not in the air.” When I finished, I used her head as leverage to get her entire body off of mine.
This rather startled her, as she wasn’t expecting this, especially not after the innuendo I snuck in. It took her a few seconds of spinning through the air to realize what had just happened. When the initial shock faultier, she regained her balance and stopped her momentum. “What was that for?” she yelled at me.
“I will tell you if you can catch me,” I teased before racing off in the direction of the library.
“Oh, it’s on,” I could barely hear her as I was a good distance away.
I made sure to stay at a speed where she could catch up, and sure enough, she did.
She reached out to touch my back to show she had caught me. I pulled my wings into my body, however, and stalled, evading her reach, and dropped about ten feet before continuing on. I could hear her complaint from directly above me. Expecting a dive from her current position, I barrel-rolled to the right. As expected, she had dived right past me, missing be mere inches. “You will have to be less predictable my dear Rainbow,” I called out.
Responding to my call, she dove to the ground, going into a Sonic Rainboom, and pulled up right before hitting the ground. She weaved, with precise control, between the ponies crowding the street below before pulling up and ahead of me. “Oh, so this is how you want to play, huh?” I called out once more. She continued to pull ahead, showing no sign of slowing or turning, and I went into my own ‘Sonic Rainboom’.
The trail that I left, instead of a rainbow, was that of visible wind. I was trailing a line incredibly violent wind that didn’t leave its bounds. I was catching up to Rainbow, and drew near her. Our destination nearing, I was directly above her this time. She swooped up, nearly running into me at sonic speeds.
‘Not bad,’ I thought to myself as I stopped dead to avoid the pony. I dropped down to the parapet walkway, limiting Rainbow’s attack options, and continued to run towards the library. I was covered from below, and partly on my right. Due to the cover, attack was limited to only the front and from behind, that is, if Rainbow didn’t want the possibility to run into the stone.
I was close to my goal, and all that was left was to go across the open area to the tower. I paused, and looked around. I saw no Rainbow Dash in sight, nor did I see a rainbow trail, so I made my run. I got about 87 feet from the walkway when I was poked from behind. I will not lie as I did yelp.
“Got you,” Rainbow said, giggling slightly from my reaction, “Now tell me why you threw me.”
“Simple, because it was getting difficult to stay aloft,” I answered.
“You didn’t have to throw me.”
“But it was more fun that way. Besides, you learned a good tactic and show trick. Anyways, we are here, you ready to help me scare a certain pony?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think we should scare…” A warning glare from me caused her to shift her sentence from saying the pony’s name, “I don’t think we should scare this pony.”
“Rainbow, are you scared?” I asked in mock astonishment.
“I’m not scared of anything. I just don’t think that this is smart,” she defended.
“I knew it, you are scared. If you don’t want to help me, then you don’t have to help. I will say this, however, this pony is doing something that involves me, and without my consent. They will get my consent, but they still should ask. That is my true goal here. The scare is just a little fun mixed in.”
Rainbow thought a bit before speaking, “Fine, I’m in.”