"I don't hate her. I just..." Lightning Dust rambled as she walked beside Zecora through town. She had been trying to vent her feelings to the one soul she felt she could trust to listen but not judge her. The healer had been listening intently as they walked from stop to stop, checking in on the different ponies that she had treated recently.
Mrs. Cake met Zecora at the door of sugar cube corner and received a package of powder from her. "Thanks for bringing the formula, Zecora. Now I need to start mixing this batch with their normal milk like you told me, right?" Zecora nodded and pointed to the directions tied down to the package.
"I don't hate her. I just..." Lightning Dust repeated as they began to walk down the street again.
Zecora's ears twitched and perked up slightly higher from their already upright position. She turned to the pegasus in a deliberate manner.
"I just-" Lightning Dust was cut off when Zecora placed a hoof firmly against her nose. Though she could still speak through her unhindered mouth, she was too distracted to continue. Their eyes met and Zecora began to press harder and harder as time passed. The zebra's eyes showed no expression of what she was doing, but Lightning Dust's eyes began to wince in discomfort, more so as more pressure was added.
The odd moment lasted about ten seconds before Lightning Dust finally struggled away from the zebra's hoof. "What was that about?" She nursed her sore muzzle for a moment.
Zecora dropped her hoof. "Though my actions have made you irate, for me, do you bear hate?"
Lightning Dust processed this for a moment. Her frustrated face lost a small amount of its confusion. "...No... No I don't." The corner of her mouth perked up ever so slightly as she finally managed to say in example what she couldn't in words. "So can you help?" Lightning Dust asked in hope as they continued walking.
Zecora raised her head to look up at the sky as she gave a bitter smile. "All I can do is give insight. This wound cannot mend overnight." Her eyes returned to the road as the hospital entrance rolled into view. "Though time is what can heal the sore. To let it begin, you must do more."
They walk towards the hospital entrance as the shaman continued. "Your heart has forgotten the root of your pain. Dig deep and hard to remember again. Search for the cause of your heart's divide. Face the demons you have kept inside."
She gave Lightning Dust a courteous bid good day. "In this task lean on the ones you love and trust. I pray you find closure with your mother Chocolate Dust." With this Zecora entered the hospital and left Lighting Dust to her thoughts.
"Ones I love and trust." Lightning Dust pondered as she walked away from the hospital in no particular direction. 'I can't just call Aunt Spitfire up and she's already tried to help. Wayside's a good listener and I don't think he's too angry about me storming out. I'll start there.'
Lightning Dust reversed direction and started towards town hall to catch her boss when he left work. It had been a while since lunch and he was probably about to pick up Keen Wit.
Once she had left the hospital grounds an odd thought caught up with her. "Wait." She paused there a moment, trying to think but drew a blank. "When did I tell Zecora my mom's name?"
* * *
"So you can't talk to your aunt, but you can talk to me?" Wayside asked Lightning Dust as they walked from town hall to the school yard.
"I can't get her involved any further. Mom would have her head. You knew who my aunt was and you didn't say anything. I feel I can trust you."
Wayside raised both of his eyebrows and glanced at her. "Alright then. If Zecora thinks you need a few ponies to listen then I'm all ears."
"Well..."
"You seem to have some tension with your daughter." Serra said to her guest as she drained the dirty dish water from the sink.
Chocolate Dust was a mess, sitting there at the kitchen table. "What made her hate me? That's the question I've been asking myself for the last five months. I want her to be happy, but everything I've done to that end seems to backfire." Months of worry had left its toll on her and she had no strength for composure left.
"Chocolate Dust. I might not be as sharp as my husband, but I can still see things. What I'm about to say, I say as a mare that is both a mother as well as a business owner like yourself." Serra came over with a hot tea pot filled with a different kind of tea than before. She set it on down on the table then looked her guest right in the eyes.
"You. Are. Not. A. Bad. Mother," she told her then poured a mug. She placed a mug in front of her guest and sat down. "Now drink up. It will help get your strength back."
Getting the hint, Chocolate Dust sipped the tea and found it filled her with a tiny bit of energy, while at the same time calming her ever so slightly. She greedily drank the rest of her tea until it was gone. When she lightly slammed her mug on the table, she found that she had regained some composure.
"I don't know where it started to go wrong. I tried to make sure she had everything she needed."
~~~~
"She wasn't a bad mother. She always made sure I didn't go without."
~~~~
"I tried my best to teach her to work hard."
~~~~
"As much as I hate to admit it, some of the skills that have gotten me by I learned from her."
~~~~
"I helped her stay safe while learning to fly by paying for a gym membership. That way she could practice in peace." Serra looked at her funny for a moment. Chocolate Dust turned away from her slightly. "I hate to admit it, but the streets of Manehattan aren't exactly the best place for a young pegasus to learn to fly."
~~~~
"She always held that Gym membership over my head. If I didn't put everything I had at work she threatened to suspend it."
~~~~
"It might have been that one time I spoke rashly. I just wanted her to take her job seriously."
~~~~
"She forced... OK it wasn't so bad at first, but she forced me to try to learn how every dish was made. Now unless it's bland-" She stopped for a brief second and smiled at Wayside. "Or something Serra makes, I can't eat anything without analyzing it. She killed my taste for sweets with all those desserts."
~~~~
"I tried my best to get her into the kitchen. She wouldn't let go of the tips that being a waitress gave. I tried to explain if she took a better job I could pay her better and she would be away from the crowds but she wouldn't listen."
~~~~
"She never even paid me for working. She always put every last bit of my wages into some 'account' so I could buy the restaurant from her someday. Like I'd ever want it. My tips were my only spending money for all the trouble."
~~~~
"Maybe I should have let her have some of her wages instead of putting it all in the nest egg I was saving for to her. I was saving it back so she could use it to get her started on whatever she wanted to do. I was so afraid of there being so little in there by then that she wouldn't have been able to do anything with it. I wanted her to feel like she had earned it herself.
"I was about to say I could send the allowance from her nest egg. It's her money really. All I was doing was holding it for her."
~~~~
"I don't want one red cent from her. If I let her send an allowance she'll pull some trick. She's gonna use it to snare me and drag me back to the restaurant. I just know it."
Wayside had been listening politely, but had to interject when she said that, "Lightning Dust. That was the most unrealistic thing I have ever heard you say."
Lightning Dust became defensive when he said this. "What? You're not siding with her, are you?" They reached the school yard fence slightly before the final bell rang.
"Hardly!" he said with a huff. "You know I want you to stay-" He extended his wings as if he were in flight and moved one of his front hooves as if he were holding a foal in midair. "For more than one reason."
"Ah!" Lightning Dust exclaimed as her already sore wings stiffen in pain. "Sweet Celestia! Don't remind me of that right now!"
He waited for her to recover from the phantom pain before continuing. "But you need to realize something. You're old enough to live on your own and be called an adult in Equestira, but you are still young enough for your parents to step in and take the reins if need be." He turned from her to look towards the school house again. "She doesn't need to snare you with some allowance to drag you home. She could just do it."
Lightning Dust had nothing to respond with as this dawned on her. The school bell rang and the school foals started coming out.
"I think she's genuinely going to let you stay," Wayside said before his son came into hearing range. Still in his glum mood, Keen Wit practically went through the motions of a hug when he reached his dad. "I have-" Wayside gestured down to his son with his eyes. "Other things I need to take care of, but if you still need an ear I think Applejack can help you out."
Wayside and Keen Wit headed home and Lightning Dust stood there for a moment, thinking, 'Applejack... Maybe, but not while she's anywhere near Pinkie. Somepony else.'
"Keen Wit," Wayside called to his son as they approach the inn.
"Ya dad?" Keen Wit responded with a little sadness in his voice.
"Your teacher called me at the office. She said you had a bit of an outburst after I left. Is this true?"
Keen Wit lowered his head but kept eye contact. "Yes."
Wayside stopped himself and his son before they entered the front door. "I want you to know that I'm not mad." He turned around to his son and knelt down to him. "But you haven't opened up to me about whatever this is and now it's starting to make you lash out at others. You know what I have to do, right?"
Keen Wit broke eye contact to look at the ground, pawing the ground with a hoof while he did so. A second later he nodded his head while still looking down. "You have to pull the 'stern dad card.'" He inhaled sharply and let it out in a huff. "I understand."
"Good," Wayside responded as he stood up. His face was as solemn as his son's. "Now go do what you need to, pick out an after school snack and meet me in your room in ten minutes." With this Wayside went inside ahead of him.
Keen Wit looked at the door for a moment. "How do I say it to him?" His ears went limp then he went inside as well.
"Thanks for coming down Sunny Rays," Lightning Dust said with a blush as her old weather team trainer came down from her cloud house—one of two that had a permit to be placed around Ponyville.
"Not a problem. I needed to get out anyway. You look-" Sunny Rays stopped to look Lightning Dust over. The blanket covered the wings that she knew were injured and the face told her the rest. "Well you look terrible, but still it's good to see you, and Candy Jar told me you'd be back on the team in a few months. What did you need?"
"Can we talk? I need to talk to somepony."
"I'm back from the repair shop. Your chair is as good as new Serra," Rainbow Dash shouted from the back door to the kitchen.
"Put it back at the table Rainbow Dash. I have to get to cleaning," Serra called from the reception area.
Rainbow Dash put the chair back. She was about to leave when Chocolate Dust called out to her from the table, "Wait." Rainbow Dash turned back to her rival's mother. "Can we talk? You're her friend right?"
"No, not really." Rainbow Dash could see a look on her face that she couldn't bear. "But what did you need?"
"Well Serra told me th-" Chocolate Dust began to say before being interrupted by a colt in the doorway.
"Gran-Gran?" Keen Wit asked as he weakly stared at the unicorn at the table. He lightly shook his head for a moment and rubbed his eyes with a fore-ankle then looked back at her once again with better focused eyes. "No. You're not Gran-Gran. Who are you?"
Both the mares looked at the colt oddly. A question formed on Chocolate Dust's face as they look back at each other. "He's Serra's son," Rainbow Dash answered.
"Well nice to meet you 'Serra's son'," Chocolate Dust said as she stood up and came over to greet the colt. "My name is Chocolate Dust. What's yours?"
Keen Wit stared at her with the same bewildered face as before. "...Keen Wi..." he began to answer before his face changed expression dramatically as he staggered back a step, wide eyed. "Dust? As in Lightning Dust?"
"Oh?" Chocolate Dust looked at him inquisitively. "You know my daughter?"
"Daughter!?" His eyes shifted from looking at her face to looking at her horn. "You're her mom?"
"Yes..." she answered with a raised eyebrow. "That's generally what daughter means."
Keen Wit's breathing quickened as he looked back and forth from her horn to her face. "Her... Her b-birth mom?"
Chocolate Dust looked at him confused. Silence filled the kitchen save for the colt's near frantic breathing. He leaned in slowly. All other things in the world were oblivious to him as he waited for her response.
"Not that a young colt should be asking something like that, but-" He leaned forward so hard he barely kept from toppling over. She glanced back at Rainbow Dash, who was looking at the colt with complete confusion, then glanced back at the doorway to the reception area. She looked back down at the colt for a long, baffled moment then finally answered him, "Yes."
He dropped his rump to the floor and his jaw went slack. "So Lightning Dust is a half breed?"
Chocolate Dust pulled her head back and wrinkled her nose. "Excuse me!?" She gave the colt a mean look. "Why in Equestria does that matter?"
For a few seconds, he did nothing but sit there, soaking in her response. His eyes closed slowly but tightly as his body began to shake. Laughter came in the form of wheezing as he tilted his head back and his face went flush. Once he gained control over himself again, he breathed deeply and answered, "It doesn't matter!" His eyes opened and his face had lost all signs of his old mood, replaced with an open smile as wide as his the restrictions of his face would let him have. "It really doesn't! It-" His smile is dropped as he realized something. He turned and ran out of the kitchen, screaming, "Dad! Dad!" with just as much enthusiasm as a moment before.
A bewildered Chocolate Dust stood there in the wake of the odd colt's response. Coming out of her daze, she turned to an equally bewildered Rainbow Dash. "What was that about?"
Not even turning her cocked head away from the doorway, Rainbow Dash responded, "I have no idea."
Lightning Dust and Sunny Rays were sitting on a bench in the park, trying to sort out her thoughts.
"She always hated the idea of me joining the Wonderbolts! She-" Lightning Dust suddenly found her head being jerked away from the ground that she was staring at while ranting.
"Calm down! Breathe!" Sunny Rays told her with as stern a voice as she could muster, looking her coworker right in the eyes.
Lightning Dust scrunched up her face and inhaled deeply. Her ears returned from being pinned back against her neck as she held it for a moment, then finally exhaled. "She would always disapprove of anything new I tried to do if she hadn't thought of it herself.
"When I said I wanted to try out for the Manehattan weather team, she said I wouldn't make it. She said I didn't have the drive to study and that I'd hate all the paperwork." She looked at Sunny Ray's with a smile, gratitude mixing with her frustration. "We sure proved her wrong, didn't we?"
"Actually," Sunny Ray's responded with a small shake of her head, "We are a little different from the rest of the weather teams. Because we pay for our supplies directly from our own taxes without any aid from the capital and have followed the rules of the Fair Mutual Aid Clause, we don't have as many regulations or paperwork forced on us." She gave a short, uneasy laugh. "The paperwork is a real nightmare in the cities, or so I'm told."
Lightning Dust cocked her head in thought for a moment, then became flustered again and shook her head. "Still, she would always point out how I could fail when I brought an idea to her. She hated the idea of me doing anything dangerous." She took a pause to breathe again to temper the anger building in her eyes.
A moment passed as Lightning Dust calmed down. Sunny Rays looked at her with concern then closed her eyes. "I'm not saying she was right, but it sounds like she was worried about you."
Lighting Dust rolled her eyes and turned away from her with a bitter huff.
A long silence came as they chewed on each other's words. This was not the only silence they had done like this as they watched the ponies in the park play and enjoy the first autumn leaves fall from the breeze. The minutes rolled by and they finally continued again.
"I'm sure there's something else to it, but would you agree with me when I say it's a mother's right to worry about her child?"
Lightning Dust said nothing for a moment as she watched a few colts play. They laughed and ran as they chased around a ball in the open. She could imagine a unicorn colt that hid his horn under a hat playing alongside them. The idea almost put a smile on her face. "I guess so, but if that's the case-"
Any smile that may or may not have been creeping along the edges of her face vanished abruptly as her eyebrows furl into a scowl. "Why didn't she?" Her scowl deepened as she closed her eyes and breathed again a few times to keep herself calm. "I mean she did, but she didn't."
Lightning Dust's hoof loudly struck the bench they were sitting on. "She worried about keeping 'her daughter' fed and sheltered, sure." Her head shook violently for a moment. "But why didn't she ever worry about the filly named Lightning Dust. She never tried to support me when I tried to do something."
She began to pant and the scowl started to break, tears beading in her eyes. "She never supported my dream to be a Wonderbolt. Not once."
Her panting broke down into a full blown sob. Her wobbly front legs were barely strong enough to keep her from falling off the bench. "Why couldn't she accept me for the flyer I was?"
Her strength finally failed and she laid down with all four hooves, leaning towards her companion for comfort. "Why wasn't she there for me?" She sniffled. "Why didn't she ever support my dreams?"
Sunny Rays blushed. She stroked the mane of her blubbering coworker in the effort to support her as the minutes passed.
When she felt she had cried enough, she pushed Lightning Dust back up to her front hooves. She looked into her eyes and waited a little longer for her to sober up enough. "I don't know why. I wasn't there, but isn't that what she's trying to do now?"
Lightning Dust looked down in thought. Her breathing was still a little uneven, but her focus was coming back. "I..." Her face held the slightest glimmer of a smile before it disappeared into a sigh of frustration. She looked up at Sunny Rays again with a sour look on her face. "I guess so, but that doesn't mean it's all OK." Her ears were still down and her eyebrows started to scowl again.
"Maybe not, but it is a start."
Lightning Dust thought on this for another few seconds. She inhaled and gave another bitter huff before getting off the bench. "...Ya, I guess so." Not even bothering to say goodbye, she started walking out of the park.
Chocolate Dust stood there at the train station. Though it wasn't nearly as crowded as the city, it was still busy enough to not see the other end of the platform clearly. She stood near the ticket booth, not quite close enough to have the vendor's full attention. Her ears were limp but not laid back as she looked back and forth from the boarding platform and the stairs that led back to town.
"Hey lady. Are you gonna buy a ticket or not?" the vendor asked once he was finished with the last pony in line.
She craned her neck around to face him for a moment without saying anything. She tried to answer him but couldn't find the words.
"Oh, I see," he said after a moment of looking into her eyes. He gave a bittersweet smile to her. "I'll wait 'till you're ready."
She briefly gave a weak half smile back then went back to her pondering. She once again looked back and forth between the boarding platform and the stairs leading back to town for a few seconds.
She hung her head and activated her horn to pull out her bit bag. Just as her bit bag left her saddle bag she felt a hoof being gently placed just past her flank.
She turned around to see her daughter looking back at her with just as glum a face. "Hi mom..." Her telekinetic grasp on her bit bag failed and it dropped to the floor. Lightning Dust broke eye contact and returned her gaze to the ground.
"Lightning Dust? How did you sneak by me?"
"I came the back way," her daughter answered her as she swung her head back towards the stairs on the far end of the platform.
"But Ponyville is that way," she responded with a gesture back to the first set of stairs.
"It was faster coming this way. I learned a few things from being here so long. Besides, I had to make a stop on the way."
With the small talk out of the way, the air became thick as both of them went silent and broke eye contact. Lightning Dust rubbed her foreleg with her other forehoof while her mother waited for her to say something else. The long moment finally passed and Chocolate Dust spoke up.
"So did you come to see me off?"
"Actually." Her daughter gently threw her head side to side for a brief moment in hesitation. "Actually I was wondering-" She returned her eyes back to her mother, only to have them scrunch up as she continued. "If you wanted to see where I'll be staying."
Chocolate Dust's ears shot upright, her mouth went slightly slack and she stared at her daughter for a second. "I'd love to." In her peripheral vision, she saw the ticket vendor give a warm nod to her then put up his closed sign.
"This place. It's definitely..." Chocolate Dust tried to find the words as she looked around the farmhouse of Sweet Apple Acres, after being given the short tour. "Definitely not what I expected." She saw her daughter shrink away slightly out of the corner of her eye. "Don't get me wrong. It's perfectly fine. I just wasn't expecting you to be a farm hoof."
"Only part time to pay for the room." Lightning Dust looked over at Applejack with a look of gratitude. "My main job is still gonna be the weather team after..." She paused and glanced back at the blanket still draped over her back. Her ears drooped slightly lower as she returned to facing her mother. "Well, you know."
Chocolate Dust looked at her with a face that had many conflicting features. Her eyes were looking at her daughter fondly. Her eyebrows showed a little confusion. Half of her mouth was curled up in a smile while the other was turned down. "You've done so much growing up these past months. You've found a job on your own and managed your own bills." Her eyes lost their luster and her half smile turned to a full but mild frown.
She tried to say something else, but once again had trouble saying the words. Instead, she turned around and walked out the door. Lightning Dust took a step towards her then stopped herself. She turned to Applejack, who had been kind enough to give her permission to show her mom around the place.
Applejack could read the question on her face as the pegasus tried to form words. "Ya best get to sayn' and listinin' what needs said and listened while she's still here. Might be a long time before ya get another chance."
Lightning Dust gave a furled brow of frustration and a smile in thanks then went outside after her mother.
Out in the yard the sky was starting to turn orange and red as the sun crept closer to the edge of the horizon, getting ready for Princess Celestia to nudge it under to give way to the moon. "Hey mom!" Lighting Dust called out.
Her mother stopped and turned around again, her face still filled with subtle pain. "Yes?"
Lightning Dust trotted up to her and looked her straight in the eyes. Her face had no particular joy to it, but it wasn't resentful either. "You looked like you wanted to say something back there."
"..." Her mother smiled weakly, but failed to get the courage to say what she wanted to say.
Lightning Dust looked at her expectantly for several seconds. "Would it help if I promised not to get mad? At least until the end?" Her ears went limp again as she shied away from her mother's surprised look. "You did it for me," she stated in embarrassment.
Her mother looked at her with an unsure face. She fixed the saddle blanket that was threatening to fall off her daughter's back with her levitation then finally started talking, "I can't help but worry about you Lightning Dust. I'm your mother. I want to help, but I'm afraid you'll pull away again. It's nice of these farmers to let you stay for a little help, but how are you going to feed yourself?"
Lightning Dust drooped her ears and looked at the ground at this. "I had a little saved back before the accident. I was planning on living off that until the doctor lets me do the heavier stuff around here and go full time."
"You know how reckless that is, right?" her mother asked skeptically.
Lightning Dust lowered her already lowered head down almost to the ground and gave a feeble nod in response.
Her mother tilted her head down and to the side to catch her daughter's gaze again. Her tone softened. "That's why I wanted to send you some of your nest egg as an allowance."
Lightning Dust Shot her head straight up at this. "The nest egg? But what about the Restaurant? Didn't you wan-"
"To Tartarus with the restaurant!" Chocolate Dust screamed in anger, though not at her daughter. "My baby's injured and doesn't have a way to feed herself."
Her daughter pulled her head back as her mouth went slack from hearing this.
Chocolate Dust slowly walked up to her daughter and lit up her horn. Pressing gently against the back of her daughter's head telekinetically, she pulled her forward and planted a kiss in the center of her forehead. Lightning Dust's eyes closed and her ears winced back flat on her neck as she did so.
Chocolate Dust's voice had become soft and calm. "I wasn't being greedy with it." She let go and backed away a step. "If you need it, I'll send it. The money I saved back in it is yours. It always was."
They looked at each other for a moment. Their eyes portrayed the emotions they were feeling quite clearly as they did so. Chocolate Dust's eyes were warm and full of acceptance while her daughter's were filled with uncertainty. "Besides, the restaurant isn't doing so hot anymore," Chocolate Dust added. "I'll probably have to shut it down or sell it soon."
"Mom?" Lightning Dust cocked her head. Her voice was unsteady as she asked, "What's wrong with the restaurant?"
Chocolate Dust took her turn to look at the ground again. "It's not the restaurant. It's the competition. Our old rival, Mr. Flambe, monopolized on a new supplier from some town down south about a month back. The stuff is surprisingly good."
"So why not buy from them too?"
She shook her head wildly for a few seconds. "No other restaurant can buy from them. I tried. Something about them having to limit the food they sell and keeping to a deal. He's been able to raise his prices due to the demand being so high. He's making twice as much profit off any dish made with that produce than he should. If he wasn't trying to drive me out of business, he'd raise them even higher."
Chocolate Dust hung her head silently for a second or two. "But the worst thing is the dishes he makes with their apples. The Appaloosa Flambe Cobbler is crazy. He sells it for nearly triple what he should and ponies still buy it left and right."
Lightning Dust perked her ears up at this. "Appaloosa apples?"
"Yes," her mother answered, almost in tears. "That's the name of the town he's buying from."
Lightning Dust grinned an almost evil grin as she glanced back at the farmhouse for a brief moment. "Mom, don't sell. I can help you with that."
"How?" her mother asked in doubt.
Her grin changed to a smirk. "Trust me. I'll tell you before you leave."
"OK... So where was I before?"
"Oh!" Lightning Dust's smirk faded and her ears lowered again. "Nest egg."
"Right." Her mother did her best to clean up her face with her fore-ankle. "I want to send you some of it a little at a time if you will let me. Please?"
"I..." The uncertainty in Lightning Dust's eyes returned. "I want to say yes, but I'm afraid."
Chocolate Dust cocked her head. "Afraid of what?"
Lightning Dust looked into the face of the pony she had been shying away from for so many years. "Face the demons you have kept inside."
She lowered her head again to match her lowered ears. Her voice is cracked at first as she began to answer, "I-I'm a-afraid of what unsaid strings might be attached to it. You always pushed me to do things your way, but it didn't always work out and you never really realized how much it dragged me down."
She bit her lip and inhaled deeply. "I couldn't argue with the pony putting a roof over my head and feeding me, even if my hunches ended up being right in the end. So I had to bite my tongue and take it. I don't want to go back to that."
Chocolate Dust stared blankly at her daughter for a long moment when she heard this. Finally coming out of it she spoke in a near whisper, "Sweet Celestia, I've become my mother." She stood back and almost had to sit down on the ground. Having lost focus, she pondered for a good time.
She managed to get her thoughts together and looked back at her daughter. "OK then. How about one tangible string instead? Agree to it and you can rest easy knowing I can't pull any others. You can even call me out on this if I try to pull something else."
Lightning Dust's raised her ears for a moment at this, then lowered them down again. "I don't know."
"At least hear me out?"
Lightning Dust raised her head again but turned her face away. "I guess I can do that much."
Chocolate Dust composed herself for a moment then looked her daughter straight in the still exposed eye, waiting. Lightning Dust forced her face forward to give her mom her full attention. "Promise me that when you go back to the academy-"
* * *
Lightning Dust was looking at her mother with shock at what she just asked of her. She slowly smiled. "I think... I think I can actually promise that."
Her mother smiled at her and tried to embrace her in a hug, only to have her daughter shrink away. "I'm sorry mom. Not yet. Give it time. But I promise."
Two and a half years later at the Wonderbolt Academy's remedial course, Number Twenty Six was standing in the delivery crate that would act as her personal barracks for the next two months. She was waiting for the door to be unlocked from the outside.
Her coat had been dyed black from her wings to her nose to the tip of her tail. The enchantment in the dye was particularly potent and would keep it from being washed out for the two months she would be here. Her flight jacket was also carrying a potent enchantment that made her face and most all of her figure to appear universal.
The few glimmers of features of a second round cadet's figure that still shown through the enchantment would only be able to show the general frame of a mare or a stallion. Otherwise, the cadets could only be told apart by the numbers on their uniforms. As a part of the course, a pony had to give up even their identity for the duration. Twenty Six was her name for the next two months and she wasn't even supposed to think her old one.
The crate door finally unlocked and opened and Twenty Six went forth into the training grounds. She fell in line between Twenty Five and Twenty Seven as was expected of her.
'I made a promise,' Twenty Six thought to herself.
"Alright fillies!" Lieutenant Colonel Cloud Pepper 'spoke' to them in the volume of what would otherwise be a scream. "For the next two months, I have been obligated to foalsit your worthless flanks as you make the pathetic attempt to fly as a member of the Wondebolts one last time!"
Twenty Six looked ever so slightly higher than eyes front to look at the night sky. 'I made a promise to her back then.'
"Let me make this perfectly clear! There will be no pleasing me! The only thing you could possibly do to please me is have every last one of you turn around and walk back in your crates to go home! That way you would save me from having to fail you sorry excuses for pegasi and get another two months added to my next vacation!"
Twenty Six resisted the urge to raise an eyebrow at that comment. 'One two-month training session a year as her only duty and the rest of it off with full pay and benefits-' This was the unique perk that only the 'honored instructor' was given out of the entire military branch that was the Wonderbolts. '-and it still isn't enough for her? Besides, isn't she retiring this year?'
"And here is a good example of what you will be facing! Imagine performing a Child's Flight with half your feathers pulled out!"
Twenty Six's wings stiffened in pain from this comment as she did her best to control their quivering.
"That will be the general feel of your morning warmups! Never mind the actual training!"
Twenty Six looked back up at the particularly bright star she saw a few moments before. 'I made a promise to her, and by Luna's star speckled mane I'm going to keep it.'