The crisp mid-morning feel enveloped Rainbow Dash as she didn’t fly. No, Rainbow Dash waited. Celestia’s sun warmed her back like a gentle fireplace. She waited. The smell of the sky was around her from above and the soft push of cloud from below stabilized her. She waited.
Finally she saw the pink and blue she was looking for.
“You know, I could’ve flown over to your house instead of having to watch my mom come all this way.”
She landed. “Danger is my life!” Firefly declared, but then settled back. “Besides, aren’t you recovering from a broken wing?”
“Well, Danger is my middle name.”
“Who do you think put it on your birth certificate?”
Rainbow Dash very aggressively invited her mother inside.
“Check it out, ma; wall clock. Can’t break it.”
“Does it come with an alarm?”
“Pinkie Pie hops down on Mondays with a flugelhorn and that pretty much does the trick.”
Usually they just exchanged letters, but Dash wanted to meet Firefly pony-to-pony this time. She wasn’t regretting it. Someday Derpy Hooves is going to get bribed by a muffin and spill the beans that RD is a big momma’s girl, and she’d rather not have it be today.
Then she tried to cook.
Rainbow Dash’s sole talents in the kitchen are washing dishes and burning things.
She frantically ran around to find water. Shouldn’t there be water in a house? That seems important somehow. Then she remembered she had wings and grabbed a stormcloud, which quieted the flames immediately before smiting the hayburgers with lightning. Then she threw the dish out the window. Firefly swore loudly, caught the plate with her hooves, and flew it to a nearby lake, where they gratefully sunk, fizzling into ash beneath the wobbling depths.
“That was a class 2 threat, what the flying fu-” She made a quick adjustment. “-feather were you thinking?”
Rainbow Dash looked down sorrowfully. “I knew I should’ve just made cereal…”
She had a feeling that this meeting wasn’t showing her capacity as a mature adult mare as well as she had hoped. Rainbow Dash retrieved her famous home style…. cereal, and they began to eat.
Suddenly, a thought hit her and she briefly flittered between her room and the kitchen. As she continued to stack the items, Firefly’s eyebrow raised higher and higher.
“What’s this?”
“Books!”
Rainbow Dash hoisted Daring Do and the Sapphire Statue into a sweeping arc and grinned like only the biggest of nerds could.
“I’m reading books! Without being forced too! What do you think?”
In fact, Dash had plotted out the explanation already, she was going to-
“It’s about time.”
Pardon?
Dash laughed awkwardly. “What do you mean by ‘it’s about time’?”
“It’s about time you got over your grudge against reading, is what I mean.”
Oh. So it was exactly what RD thought she meant. The smile slided off her mouth.
“What do you mean by ‘grudge’?”
“You hated the class at school and so you decided that reading was for losers forever? Or not, I suppose?” Firefly shoveled some cereal into her muzzle and swallowed slowly.
Rainbow Dash had to pick words carefully, which was time consuming. These words didn’t make sense from her mom. Her mom never said anything stupid.
“So it’s a phase then, like when I gelled my hair.”
Firefly swallowed again.
“A bit more than that-”
“But it was. It was a phase, just like when I hung out with Gilda because I didn’t know what good friends looked like.”
Firefly seemed relieved. “Yes.”
“Did I get it all, or did I miss out on something?”
“No, that’s what I was saying. I’m not sure what you’re getting at here, Dashie.”
“Okay.”
She stayed the movement of her tail.
“All this time you encouraged me and told me I didn’t have to read good - read well - whatever - was a phase. One day, I was going to change, and you spent the years hoping. You told me that I don’t have to be like the other fillies in my grade. And you were waiting.”
Her voice caught a little, but she was undaunted, and searched straight into purple eyes.
“You told me to follow my dreams and you were waiting. You stood up for me and you were waiting. You encouraged me to stake it out in Ponyville, but I was never going to make it until that one day where I would understand that I was wrong.”
Then she detonated.
“What the HAY? Sure, I did end up liking reading in the end, but I thought that you had my back always. No matter what, you’d stick with me! Most ponies betray each other every once in a while, but I always looked up to you because I thought you were different! When did it start? First grade, second? Or was it earlier that you were grooming over my little speedbump with hugs?”
Firefly abandoned her bowl. “Rainbow Dash, I didn’t mean…”
“Exactly, it’s a confession.”
Rainbow Dash checked the clock as it ticked a minute away.
“So it is,” Firefly said.
“I did think that you were just going to bloom late. I mean, you loved stories!”
They both had a tendency of cracking their voices when they were emotional. It was a family thing.
“I was trying to convince you to read the whole time, because I thought you should.”
Rainbow Dash offered, “You just wanted what was best for me, huh?”
She doesn’t really like doing the touchy stuff, but she wrapped an arm around Firefly. “No, no, I totally get that. You never told me that’s what it was all about, though.”
“I figured you wouldn’t listen.”
Maybe she wouldn’t have.
“Why’d you stick to it so much, Mom?”
Firefly glanced around. “I saw you having a hard time with it and I wanted to make your life easier and-I wanted you to get to enjoy a book like me. Except… I just made school a whole lot more complicated, didn’t I?”
Dash rolled her eyes. “You could say that.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you can’t expect deep thought from a little kid who thought a turtle was a type of fish.”
Firefly laughed and mumbled something about tiny turtle gills. “You win.”
“No, you do. Dang it all, I’m gonna bet you’re the reason why I ended up reading.”
Rainbow Dash straightened. “Which pony encouraged me to come to this town? Which pony convinced me to be a better mare? Which pony taught me how to to be devoted and loyal to others in the first place? Don’t answer that, it’s you.. Guess which Element of Harmony picked me?”
“Loyalty, and if it went to any pony but my daughter, I’d kill them.”
“Right on, and that’s how I made my friends, who got me to start with these books. It’s a big ol’ round cycle.”
Rainbow Dash wondered why parents weren’t the collective bearers of the Elements.
Firefly inspected the stack of novels. “Rainbow, thanks for that, but, can you explain to me what Daring does?”
Then she laughed her head off.
“No, really… It was on my mind this whole time…”
Nopony’s perfect.