//------------------------------//
// Endurance 
// Story: Readings on Dashing, Literature, Mom 
// by Stellafera 
//------------------------------//

Rainbow Dash didn't really walk these days – more like hover. This was both good and bad. It was good because she was flying, and it was awesome, but also bad because she knocked over her new clock on accident and Mom was going to suspect something sooner or later.

"There's a great place to practice flying, you know. It's called 'outside'."

Firefly was clearly trying to convince her of something. This must be stopped.

"Mommm," Dash said, attempting to make her mouth look really adorable. Her jaw vibrated and twitched  as she gave the soft sell, "If I don't learn how to fly inside, how will I ever be an adult pegasus?"

Firefly lifted her hoof to her face dramatically. "You'll just have to... endure!"

"Did you just try to teach me a new word by making fun of me?"

"Yeah, and it means to deal with something hard without giving up. Like me and your 'cute face'."

Rainbow Dash stopped chattering her teeth ever so sweetly back and forth. She doesn't like the cute face? That's good, Rainbow thought, after being half-heartedly offended. If I'm not good at being cute, I must be the opposite. Which is being rad. She could picture it all. All the kids on the cloud, coming home to their parents and terrifying them with the 'cute face'. They wouldn't even see it coming. All of their little pixie puffs or whatever word they use would now all too radical for them to handle. Rainbow Dash, inventor of it all; the most popular filly in Cloudsdale. Then, the world.

"But really, can't you go play outside with some of the other fillies? It's a nice weekend and I bet they'd all be impressed by your flying."

Rainbow Dash winced.

"I... can't. They wouldn't like it."

They probably wouldn't like the 'cute face' thing, either, she silently admitted. The fillies and colts at school'd treat it as a funny joke to tell to their friends about Rainbow Dash.

Firefly narrowed her eyes, and that was enough.

"They don't like me," Rainbow Dash explained. "I don't go to the same classes as them, so I don't know them, and none of them want to sit next to me at lunch because they all have other friends."

It was kind of old hat, and Rainbow Dash went over to go do some of the dishes. She started that last year after getting the sense that doing the dishes, laundry, food, job, and all that other stuff was a lot of work for Mom and Dad and a lot of lying around for her. 

"Have you tried talking to them?" Firefly said, starting to fly a bit in her direction.

"Uh, yeah, I said I did," Dash spat, her little hooves sweeping wildly around the plate. "They don't want to be my friend because I have to go to 'special school' and spend all my time during the week doing homework." She continued circling the rim with the sponge. 

Why did her Mom look so hurt, anyways? Some things suck and you have to buck up and deal with them and that's what enduring is, isn't? This dish had to endure her scrubbing and she had to endure ponies not liking her. It's the way it goes. 

Rainbow Dash started on a new one. It's not like life was all that bad; her dad brought her to the Wonderbolts game last week! That was great. The Wonderbolts were always awesome no matter what, just like her parents. The best part was after the game when she followed one of them out. There was this huge stallion that yelled at her a lot of things that she couldn't remember, the ponies in the crowd kept shifting, and she was about to scream until the youngest Wonderbolt, who had the coolest orange and yellow mane and didn't even look like she was out of high school, picked her up and brought her to Dad.

That's the kind of pony she wants to be. Rainbow doesn't care how many dishes she'll have to do alone on a Saturday if she can be a Wonderbolt.

"That's not okay, you know that, right?" 

Why not? Everypony says that getting anything you believe in is painful. She'll be hated by all the other ponies and she'll sit and hate her class and it'll all work out in the end.

She just has to keep it up for... years.