Rainbow Dash hated babysitting duty. It made her wish she could just spend the off-season, say, locked in a tiny box full of rusty spikes. But that’s life, when you’ve been a Wonderbolt less than a year.
It might have been fun if it meant what you’d guess: supervising the cadets in the Academy. They were generally still completely in awe of the Wonderbolts. They had some respect. Or maybe they were just scared of Spitfire’s drill sergeant act. And their perpetual wide-eyed amazement was kind of cute.
But tradition dictated that the Academy be supervised by the captain alone, so while Spitfire was having fun ordering cadets around, Dash was stuck watching over the so-called “Wonderbolts-in-training.” And they were completely insufferable. Tell somepony that she passed the first round of tests, and suddenly she thinks she knows everything and might as well be a Wonderbolt now. It was like herding manticores. Except the manticores were suicidal.
Seriously, it was like they wanted to crash into each other. They kept breaking formation to pull idiotic tricks, and Dash would swear they took any non-formation exercise as an excuse to fly with their eyes closed. It was only by her quick reflexes that she hadn’t needed to carry any to the infirmary yet, and she was starting to wonder if she’d need to allow a midair collision (followed of course by her saving the stunned morons from plummeting to their deaths) to show them why they should listen to her. It might even get her off babysitting for safety, if she was lucky . . . or it might get her assigned to it every day as punishment. Probably best not to risk it.
Thus why she was watching them clear clouds instead of taking a nap. Sure, they were busting wild clouds over the Everfree, but they were far too high for any monsters to reach, and a little uncontrolled weather ought to be well within the abilities of even the most pitiful trainee. The only possible threat was whatever stunt one of them was going to pull next.
Ah, and there one went now. A vague blue shape diving straight past the clouds, Celestia only knows why. So Dash followed. Somepony had to make sure nopony flew into a tree or got eaten by a hydra or whatever was going to happen here, and just watching wasn’t going to do the trick.
But as she drew near today’s idiot, something both familiar and strange drew her attention: the faint shimmer of the sound barrier, only barely visible since it wasn’t in front of her nose. There was no time to dodge before the trainee hit her limit and was thrown back. Dash’s vision filled briefly with Wonderbolt blue, and then with black.
Dash awoke in a tree. Cocooned in the partially-broken branches of a gnarled Everfree tree, to be more precise. On the plus side, the sky still looked somewhere around midday, so she couldn’t have been out for too long, and her flight resilience (Twilight had told her once why a pegasus on the wing was so tough, but after a few minutes she had completely lost track of the lecture) had probably kept her alive. On the minus side, she was pretty sure that the searing pain while she was untangling herself meant that her left wing was broken, not to mention how her left foreleg seemed to be sprained.
Still, this was hardly her first crash, or her first broken bone, so she pushed through the pain to get out of the tree. One nice thing about the Everfree: everything grew too crooked to get very tall. The inevitable fall didn’t leave her in any worse state than she was already.
Near the base of the tree, she saw hoofprints. Figuring they were probably left by the trainee who had hit her, she followed them, and when her suspicions were confirmed by a yellow tail poking out of a blue uniform, she let loose.
“What were you thinking? Were you trying to get us all killed, or just yourself? I know you know—oh. It’s you.”
At the sound of Dash’s voice, Lightning Dust had turned around to give an embarrassed look. The sort of look you use when you call somepony by the wrong name, for example. Not the sort you use for crashing into somepony. When Dash stopped talking, she took the chance to defend herself.
“But I made sure that everypony was away from the clouds I was going after! And clearing normally is—”
“I don’t want to hear it.” Dash had known that one of her charges was Lightning Dust, of course. She had seen Lightning when she returned for a second try at the academy, supposedly having learned her lesson. She had tried to use what paltry influence she had to try to convince Spitfire not to admit Lightning as a Wonderbolt-in-training. And she had brushed off Lightning’s apology on her first day of babysitting duty. Since then, their interactions had mostly consisted of Dash giving instructions to the entire group of trainees, Lightning following them just well enough to not be a danger to anypony, and them otherwise ignoring each other. Just the way Dash liked it. Sadly, they were probably going to have to talk to each other today. “How long was I out?”
“Fifteen, twenty minutes maybe? I was dazed too for—”
“Can you fly for help?” Dash cut her off.
“I think I sprained my wings. I can’t get very far off the ground before the pain forces me to land. That’s why—”
“Then we’ll have to walk.”
“Shouldn’t we wait for somepony to find us? Everypony up there must have seen us.”
“If any of them were going to be useful, we’d have seen them by now. Now follow me and shut up.”
So they walked. Not very quickly, of course, with Dash limping on three legs, but when Lightning gestured for Dash to lean on her, Dash pretended not to see until Lightning gave up. Still, they made slow progress, winding their way around thicker patches of vegetation and climbing over the occasional hill. Fortunately, most of the denizens of the Everfree were nocturnal, so they at least didn’t need to worry about chasing off any monsters as long as they didn’t wander into any bogs. After most of an hour of still not seeing any end to the forest, Lightning finally asked if Dash had any idea where they were going.
“And I suppose you know your way around here?” Dash snapped back. Neither of them had the slightest idea where they were going, of course, but sooner or later they would have to find somewhere Dash had been before. That was the theory, anyway.
And it turned out to be true. At long last, they spotted the refurbished Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters. The fact that it represented not being lost anymore made it even more striking than usual, particularly with the now-setting sun silhouetting it from behind. The only problem was that they were standing at the top of a sheer cliff, and they’d need to get to the bottom to reach the castle. Dash hated not being able to fly.
“See? I told you I knew where we’re going. Even if nopony’s there right now, we can spend the night and walk to Ponyville in the morning.” She started to limp along the top of the cliff, looking for a way down.
“Wait, are you planning to walk down? It’ll be dark by the time we find anything! We’ll probably—”
“Would you rather stay up here?”
“Actually, I think we should glide down.”
Dash turned to give Lightning an incredulous stare. “What did you just say?”
“I’m sure I can glide down from here carrying you.”
“Like you were sure you could break the sound barrier?”
“Okay, that was a mistake. I admit it. I was overconfident. But I made sure everypony was far from where I could hurt them, no matter how the trick went. I’ve changed, Rainbow. I don’t put my ambition ahead of other ponies’ safety. I wouldn’t say I could carry you safely if I didn’t know for sure.”
“And you think that will make me trust you? I still see the same mare who almost killed my friends and brushed it off like it was nothing. Why should I believe you?”
“Because you’re being overconfident too. You think you can walk down this cliff at night. But you’re not an earth pony. You’ll fall. And without working wings, the ground will hit you hard. Trusting me is your safest option.”
After a long silence, Dash finally agreed.
And was their relationship repaired that day? Did Dash finally forgive Lightning? Of course not. But it was a small step. And small steps are where everything begins.