Firefly watches her daughter, Rainbow Dash waiting for her teammate to tag her. Her forelegs rigid with anticipation as her eyes fix on a yellow pegasi, Fluttershy. Fluttershy makes a turn proceeding another set of hoops, gripping on the horseshoe. Rainbow hovers around as Fluttershy soaring toward her making a relay tag. The clock winds down as the hand passes the twenty second mark and Fluttershy holds up the horseshoe as Rainbow responds with her hoof. Firefly holds her breath in tense as the two teammates pass the baton.
Firefly nearly lost the sight of her daughter taking off the second the baton passed on. She rolls around her eyes until she spots a trail of rainbow. The arrow on the clock is running fifteen seconds. Firefly scratches the grass as blazes of color darted through the rainbow hoops. Ten seconds, Dash made a turn, shooting another set of hoops. Firefly exhales her breath then inhales as seven second ticks. Her excitement aroused as her Rainbow Dash hits every mark then rockets up toward the finish-line.
She frequently breathes, her eyes are careful not to lose sight and her trap is shut tight. The clock is ticking three seconds and her rainbow dart is aiming at the black and white on a blob. Dash is near her target; Firefly stills her breath as Dash made true contact and left a mark hole on a cloud.
Her ears jerks open as marks-colt stops the clock, then marks-colt looks at the clock and said these words, “Ponyville qualifies!”
She leaps high in the air, shouts in cheer, “WOO-HOO!!!”
However her daughter can't hear her cheer as the other ponies applauds and screams in good nature. Nevertheless, she couldn’t be more proud as a mother of an athlete of Equestrian Games. Maybe even more proud for she once been like her when she’s her age, fearless, reckless and cooler.
She stays for the ceremony as Equestrian Game athletes both ponies and griffons lined up as award-pony gives medals on the podium. Cameras flashes on the competitors, smiling for the picture and then it was over.
Firefly can’t help but only smile the whole entire time. But her eyes sadden as the crowd diminishes and her daughter flies away with her friends. A stone embeds within her chest weighing her down as she does want to speak with her daughter. But how much of a time that she may sit down or fly along with her.
She wanders around the resort for a while, eating some muffins at the bakery that is until every colored palette of ponies retires in their condos. With a few violet and gray ponies roaming on the greens, Firefly, the electric pink and blue mane blur, breathes in and stretches her wings. She places her forehoof forward, charging up her excitement, then break loose in gallop and then pump her wings.
The feeling was refreshing. All the cares and guilt have blown right off her chest by force as she climbs high. The white blob is in sight, but she doesn’t care as angles herself and passes the cloud.
She soars higher and higher until she at the pinnacle point. The little green island on a rocky ledge is small enough. She inhales the nippy atmosphere before angles herself toward the green spot with rainbow stripe. She folds in her wings letting the wind blows underneath wings. Her intensity grew as powerhouse of air plows through her face and mane.
The patch of grass comes straight toward her then she spreads her wings allowing her torso near the grass. She shot straight across the lawn towards to one of the condos. She then turns on her side going in between building. The tense crams in her mind but she ignores them as she enters the narrow passage. She zips by the allyway. Her heart leapt up glazing at her accomplishment, the stone walls near both her back and belly is so close that it could scrape her badly by one false movement.
She flips around and rolls over the roof of the condo and climbs up high again. As she pumps her wings, a rocky ledge sticks out with a perfect flat top, so perfect that it seems calling her. The call is so unresisting to ignore. She angles herself towards the flattop and gracefully land by her front hooves.
She relaxes her wing muscles, soothing her burning energy. She allows the mountain breeze caressing her wing joints and her legs. She eyes on the flowing rainbow falls. Rainbows are known to every-pegasi to be spicy when tasted. But this is a nature made flowing rainbow. Her daring do nature began to fill her bosoms. Her burned wing joints are neutralized packing to go again.
She once again put her forehoof forward, building up her intensity and unleashed her hooves clapping on the rocky terrain. She spread her wings and the breeze lifts her off the ledge. Then she angles herself downward folding her wings then she spreads it and flaps them, climbing up into an intense speed. The falls of many colors are coming towards her. She then aligns with fall, while flapping her wings. Surprisingly the rainbows are cool as the cascades breezing through her underbelly. She inhales the air and then her eyes bulged as the zest kicks in.
She then flips out as she diverges away from the falls. She then quickly brings herself to land. Her nostrils are on fire. Either by a steaming horseradish or burned by stove fire. She breathes in and out rapidly as she tries to snort the fire out.
Then suddenly somepony has a nerve to chortle at her predicament. She turns around fast and saw a cyan and rainbow mane pony falling to the ground in a heart bursting laughter. Firefly suddenly puckered up her cheeks. Then her daughter tries to breathe again then wipes her tears.
“Mother, what are you doing here snorting like a horse?” Rainbow Dash asked while she's still giggling.
Firefly turns to her daughter, putting on her best scowling face, “Rainbow Dash!”
Rainbow suddenly takes aback as she had heard these words in a harsh tone, “Is that the way you talk to your mother!?”
It was a still moment between, Rainbow is wearing guilt in her face until Firefly trotting towards Rainbow, “While she makes a foal of herself.”
Both Firefly and Rainbow snorted, smiled brightly and burst out laughing. Then without hesitation, Rainbow leaps up and embrace her mother. Tears were streaming from Firefly’s eyes for after many years of not talking with her daughter.
Rainbow lets go of her mother and faced her, “Seriously, what are you doing here?”
Firefly responds, “I had to come and cheer for you? Isn’t what we mothers do?”
Although it wasn’t entirely true, she came to Rainbow Fall for a vacation after a long grinding work as a weather patrol in Las Pegasus. That is until when it turned into a training ground for the Equestrian Games and Rainbow is in Ponyville team. She had not seen Rainbow Dash for years after her daughter moved to Ponyville. She didn’t want to be in the way of her daughter training.
But Rainbow smiled, “You really don’t have to come. But I’m glad you came.”
Firefly’s throat welled up into a lump as she smiles. There is so much things to talk about. Rainbow was the first to speak.
Firefly’s eyes and ears fixes intently on her daughter as she talks about her experiences in the academy and the camp before she moved to Ponyville. Firefly’s eye bulges with fascination when she heard the battle with Nightmare Moon and made an honorary bearer of the Element of Loyalty. It goes on and on with the battle of Discord and how she made into the Wonderbolts Academy.
After Rainbow made an end of her speaking, Firefly’s mind suddenly sparks an idea.
“Dash, How about you and me race around the resort?”
Rainbow’s head perked up and faced her mother, “Really?!”
Firefly smiles and nods her head.
The force between them suddenly began to tense as Rainbow smiled, “I bet, I’ll beat you in a flash before you even take off.”
Firefly chuckles with a smug, “We’ll see about that, but there is still a chance, I might leave you in the dust.”
Firefly knew that she hits her there. Ever since Rainbow started flying, she always raced with her mother. Firefly first started to go easy with her, letting her win every time but Rainbow caught on pretty quick after awhile. She asked her mother to race for real, Firefly then agreed to race her in her best. Then when it was over, Firefly left her in the dust. But surprisingly it didn’t discouraged her but she became more competitive. Whenever Firefly returned from work, she usually saw Rainbow train hard on herself and whenever Rainbow see her, she asked for a rematch. But usually managed left in the dust. Funny it seems right now, Firefly is now the one who’s asking not for only a rematch but an eventual race.
Despite the blow, Rainbow smiles in a smug and said, “We will see about this.”
The race is on, Firefly get to set up the course, “Okay Rainbow, Here’s what we’ll do. We’ll start here on this spot and we’ll fly to the cliff and we grab a pinecone from the tree. You see those pair of clouds on the right? We fly to them with our pinecone in our hooves then we spin them into circles. Then we head toward the nearest fall then we spiral around three times. Finally we dive to that bridge as our finish spot. Whoever made to that spot with a pinecone in her hoof, wins. Are you ready for this?”
Rainbow nodded, “I’m ready when you are. This is gonna be one awesome race.”
Firefly smiled for she knew this is going to be the awesome race. Her chest builds with anxiety. This is the first time in a long time to race with her daughter. In truth whether she win or lose, she does want to see how her Rainbow grows as a flyer. But straight from her young horse’s mouth, it seems she has grown ever since she left Cloudsdale. Let see how she does beat an old mare herself.
Firefly stretches her wing, bends her forelegs and raises her legs, stretching her muscle. Rainbow does the same thing as they both marked on the very spot. A tense fire burns within their eyes as they look at each other then spun their heads fixed on the ledge with a lone pine tree standing.
Firefly calls out, “On our mark,” They both put their forehoof forward, “Get set,” They spread out their wings... “GO!!!”
Like a flash, Firefly pumps her wings, with a puff of dusty cloud, the wind is blows her face and mane. The air pumping from the side tells her Rainbow is at neck with her mother.
Then she revs up, focusing on the pine tree. She lifts her hoof as she draws near the tree. The branches are thick made very difficult to see any pinecones. Until there’s one stick out near the bottom. She angles downward, fixes her focus on the cone, her hoof is clasping onto it.
That is until a trail of rainbow snatches it from the branch. Firefly takes aback as Rainbow is now soaring towards the pair of clouds already. She searches on the pine branch for another cone. Another needles and needles, branch and branch, Firefly was beginning to tense up until another pinecone dangles on the branch. Without a second to lose, she snags the cone and get her wings into rapid movement towards the cloud where Rainbow is spinning one of them.
She flies at one of the pair and she began to encircle the cloud as the white blob start to work with her. She turns at her daughter spinning around and around the cloud as it began to spin. Then suddenly a thought peirced into her mind. She placed her forehooves on the cloud and then began to push. The fluff of the cloud began to mold into a wall. Then she stops in midair and began to flap her wings rapidly, then the cloud begins to spin, faster and faster. Rainbow’s cloud is already spinning and the pony is already off towards the falls.
The intensity has reached to a boiling point. Firefly shot away from the cloud hoping to catch up with her daughter. Her wings are at the limits and the rainbow mane comes closer and closer, as the nearest fall ahead draws near.
Firefly eyes her daughter already diving at the falls. She then follows her at her best angle. She inhales her breath, wised up with her experience with wild flowing rainbow, and then she draws near them and sharply encircling around the fall. The rush refreshes her mind, she never had the feeling like this before. Her head and her heart screams in excitement.
Rainbow head jerks around to the source of humming sound at her side. Her stomach lurches as her mother catches up to her.
Already at one lap, they are humming their wings; Rainbow soars closer to the falls making a sharp turn. At lap two, the two eyed at each other with an intense electric competition sparks between. At lap three, they both departs away from the falls, dives towards a small bridge, the finish spot.
Firefly’s chest begins to burn hot and she breaths through her mouth heavily. The humming of Rainbow is at the side of hers. She rolls her eyes to the side and a mane of rainbow is neck to neck with her electric-blue mane. The bridge is up ahead, she smiled as her soon victory draws nigh with her pinecone in her hoof.
Then it at the moment, she hears that she haven’t heard before. It was the sound of electricity and it comes from her side where her daughter is at. Before she touches the bridge there was a harsh sound explosion. Firefly turns around with heavy breathing cooling her burning fire in her bosoms, then her jaws dropped of what she saw is astonishing to behold. A circle of rainbows expands in all directions. She knew what it was. Years ago, she had seen something like this back at Cloudsdale when Rainbow was at camp but never this up-close.
She turns to Rainbow Dash with her eyes popped out. Rainbow wasn’t sure what to make of what her mother was surprised at. She turns around then it hit her.
“Dash, you never tell me you could do a Sonic Rainboom,” Firefly stood still for a minute.
Rainbow chuckles proudly, “Oh, yeah… I forgot this. Well, it just started with…”
But Firefly opens her lips, “That was… AWESOME!!!”
Then with no reason, after all the racing and the unexpected move from Rainbow, they both laugh with each other. This is without a doubt the most fun they ever had together.
As their laughter die down, the sun starts to set. The light of the sun began to dim to orange as Celestia lowers the sun, Firefly does wish that they would make their time together everlasting. However after a long and burning day of flying, it is time to retire to their motel rooms.
Firefly turns her eyes to Rainbow and said softly, “Rainbow, please have the time to write to me.”
Then Rainbow responds, “I will, mother, every week.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
Firefly and Rainbow Dash, mother and daughter, leap up to each other and folded their forehooves and wings in embrace as Luna raises the moon, blanketing the sky with her beautiful night.