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// Prologue: Spitfire's Lament 
// Story: A Compass for a Lost Dreamer 
// by reflective vagrant 
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	Spitfire slammed down the phone at her secretary's desk, having gotten off the phone with her brother's wife.  She had once again called to ask where Lightning Dust was and this was starting to frustrate her.
"Let me make this very clear," Spitfire said to her secretary with barely restrained fury in her eyes.  "Unless it's somepony that outranks me or an emergency, I do not want to be disturbed tonight, especially by her."
"Y-yes ma'am," her secretary responded in a shaky voice; however, she wasn't worried for herself.  Spitfire was one of the most composed ponies in all of the Wonderbolts.   In fact, she was normally so well composed that she had become a public face for them a long time ago, yet she was anything but composed at that moment.
Spitfire went into her office and sat down at her desk.  The moment she touched the seat she went limp with worry.  Her face was full of inner turmoil.  She opened a drawer and pulled out a personal possession, an old photo album.  The album was made out of hardy material, but it clearly showed signs of being well used, like an age-worn blanket carried around everywhere by its owner.
When the album opened, the first pictures she saw were of her family.  Some of the pictures were of birthday parties, family outings, special events and holiday visits, but one section was special.  Spitfire turned to the section that was dedicated specifically to her niece.  It was easily the most worn section in the whole album.
Spitfire ran her hoof down the photos and nostalgia of times where she foal sat her niece flooded her mind.  The memories of her niece's smiling face, energetic spirit and considerate heart had forever left their mark on Spitfire.  She stopped on a particularly cherished photo of the day she had been on a camping trip and was teaching her niece to fly outside the constraints of Manehattan's busy streets.  It was taken the day of their Child's Flight.  The day after Lightning Dust got her cutie mark.  Spitfire's wings stiffened as they flared with phantom pain from the experience.  She took a pause to relive the memories in her mind.

"Auntie?" Lightning Dust asked her aunt as they flew through the night sky in the effort to ease the pain.  "Why do you have to leave?"
Trying to comfort her, Spitfire explained, "I was drafted out of the part time Wonderbolts to go full time."
That was only half true.  The draft was a request and a recognition of her skills.  Because there was no shortage of willing part-timers, they didn't have to use the draft's full power.  They would have just asked others if she refused.  She didn't have to go except she had already agreed and couldn't back out.
"There has to be at least so many full time Wonderbolts at the ready or Equestria could be in danger if something went wrong."
"Like when the big, sneaky monster got out of Tartarus?"  Lightning Dust asked as she twisted around in her aunt's grip to look at her.  She looked into her aunt's eyes wishfully.
Spitfire retold the tale from the campfire earlier that evening with a grin, "A great beast had escaped from Tartarus.  No fighter, save the princess, had the power to quell its might.  Due to its sneaky nature, the beast would slip away into the shadows of every village it attacked before Princess Celestia could arrive to fight it.  The villages were always distraught.  Few survivors were left in its wake, if any.
"But then, a team of athletes from the beast's next targeted village stood up to it.  By working together they were able to split the creature's attention, distracting it away from the village for a while.  The time they bought the villagers had given them the chance to flee.  Though the beast managed to destroy the village, it had not harmed a single pony that day.
"The beast was also so distracted by the acrobats that Princess Celestia was finally able to catch up with the beast.  She rendered the beast powerless again and sent it back to the pits of Tartarus.  Seeing the bravery of those acrobats and the lives their quick action saved, she created a new faction of military from them which is now known as the Wonderbolts."
Her niece listened intently, probably daydreaming about becoming a Wonderbolt like her.  A sad look formed on the filly's face after the story was over.  "You really have to go then..."  Spitfire could see a look of abandonment in Lightning Dust's face.  She had just gotten her cutie mark the night before and Spitfire could see that her niece still felt like didn't quite care anymore.  Like it was mission accomplished and now there was no more reason for her to stay or to care about her.
The night before, Spitfire had told her to push her limits, to aim past what she thought she could do.  She told her to not feel bad that she failed, but to feel good with the fact she got as far as she could.  Lightning Dust, as the filly she was back then, aimed for the first thing that came to her mind, the stars.  She jumped as high as she could, flapping her wings as hard and fast as possible.  Reaching out with her forehoof she tried to grasp a star.  With a flash of light there her cutie mark was.  The next second, her concentration broke from the flash and she was falling to the mud below, just to be caught by her aunt right before crashing.
"Yes," Spitfire said to her niece as she carried her through the sky. "But you will always be my niece."  Spitfire nuzzled her affectionately. "With Celestia and Luna as my witnesses," she started, taking a gander up at the full moon, "You will always be my precious Lightning Dust—my little limit pusher."
She could see the mare in the moon, Luna, as if she was staring down at her.  She knew that Lightning Dust wasn't afraid of the whole Nightmare Moon myth, nor shared the fear most ponies had of her.  She saw Luna just as she did Celestia: A princess.
Spitfire gave Lightning Dust only the slightest of warning, then threw her excited niece up in the air.  Her niece flapped her wings as hard as she could and tried to reach the star she had reached for the night before.  She once again fell short but stayed up far longer this time.  Spitfire caught her again as she fell then nuzzled her affectionately.  "My special star chaser."

She had no regrets about that camping trip and never would; however, that was where the memories of innocence ended.  It was just after that Spitfire went off to be a full time Wonderbolt.
Moving further along in the album, she happened along the pictures that her niece sent her about the school play.  She campaigned so passionately to have the play be about how the Wonderbolts were first formed that the school picked her suggestion out of all of the ones the students gave.  The photos were clearly taken by an amateur.  Her niece borrowed her father's camera then took the pictures herself and sent them to Spitfire.
One was showing how her idea was chosen.  Others were about how the play was being set up.  One was taken by a fellow student at the dress rehearsal while Lightning Dust played one of the extras.  Spitfire still giggled about it after all this time.  Lightning Dust certainly wasn't the best actress in her class but she still played her part so passionately.  Spitfire was glad the photo was there.  She never got to see a photo of the actual performance.  It was the last photo Lightning Dust took wholeheartedly.
The night of the play was where it all started to go downhill.  Lightning Dust was so late getting to the play from her mother being preoccupied with business that the play had already progressed past her parts by the time they got there.  It was then Lightning Dust started feeling bitter towards her mother.  Her mother knew the play was important but put her business first regardless.  It was also when Spitfire wished she could have been there to take her to the play on time.
Ever since that day, Lightning Dust had trouble trusting her mom to be there for her.  With the trouble she got from her schoolmates for botching up her part of the play, her distrust grew to where she couldn't trust anypony any farther than she could throw them.  She grew withdrawn and the wound never healed right.
The next photo Spitfire stopped at was one her sister in law had sent.  She had a strong feeling that it was to spite her.  She had never really gotten along with her after the camping trip.  It was about a year later and Lightning Dust was now working under her mother at the restaurant.  Her mother tried to get her to follow in her hoofsteps and stop worrying about flying.
It might have been well intended, but it had disastrous results.  Gossip about Lightning Dust's job got out at school and she was mocked.  Her humbled nature gave way to a temper and a bad tongue.  Some of the kids even went out of their way to throw parties at the restaurant, just to be mean to her by being wild and forcing her to clean up the mess.
Pausing for a moment, Spitfire tilted her head back and closed her eyes.  "Chocolate Dust, why couldn't you accept your daughter was a flyer?"  She held her head there for a long while.  If she had been there, she could have helped in so many ways.
Spitfire continued on with the photos as they became more spaced apart over the years.  Spitfire saw a little more of the niece she knew slip away with each photo she skimmed over.  With more and more friends abandoning her to bigger and better things, Lightning Dust started to not even care for anypony but herself, even becoming bitter towards Spitfire in later years.  Being considerate of others feelings for anything other than self-preservation was an alien concept to her by the time she was a full-sized mare.
In the place of the earnest, humbled and considerate filly now stood a young mare full of distrust, pride and selfishness.
Shifting back to the earlier, happier photos, Spitfire repeated the same feelings she had experienced every night since she kicked her niece out of the Wonderbolts.  While moving her hoof back across the photo of the camping trip affectionately, she softly cried out, "What I wouldn't give to have that sweet, little filly of a niece back."  Her hoof started shaking as she reached up to her jacket to grab the symbol of her rank.  Forcing the tears of grief back to keep the page from getting stained any further she cried out again, "Oh sweet Celestia, what I wouldn't give."