//------------------------------// // I don't Dance (SoarinFire) // Story: Waxing Lyrical // by Imperator Chiashi Zane //------------------------------// Soarin looked at his new mare-friend. Spitfire was just as beautiful as the day he had met her. It had been a surprise to him, a complete reversal of everything he knew. __ __ Devoted to the art, Soarin had sworn to never give in to the baser instincts most colts were suffering through. He had sworn that the only place he could ever be happy was in the sky, flying his heart out. He never learned to dance. Never learned to sing. Never learned anything but flight. It just wasn’t his style. __ __ Spitfire had sworn that she would never let being a filly get in the way of flying as fast as the stallions, or as nimbly as the lighter ones. She flew every moment she could, training to be the best. Her parents said it was unhealthy to be so devoted to a single pursuit. They told her to get friends, a colt-friend, make some mistakes sometimes. They didn’t understand. __ __ His brother had gone off and given up on the Wonderbolts after he had found himself a mare. Soarin vowed to never give in to them. Looks be damned to Tartarus, he didn’t care. And for the most part, it worked. He made the Wonderbolts. He made it to tryouts. He met a filly there who had been his equal. Devoted to the art of flying. The perfect rival. __ __ Her parents had given up on trying to stop her when she came home with an application for Wonderbolts Training Camp. They let her go, on the condition that she came back with at least one friend. Well, Soarin wasn’t exactly a friend, a Rival sure. Stirred her emotions, and got her ready to fight. __ __ Spitfire made the perfect rival, despite being a filly. She was almost as fast as him, but could handle the tight turns better. Soarin knew this, and made every effort to reduce his own turn radius. He gave her tips to improve her speed, even loaned her some of his weights to help her build up the strength for those bursts. Still, she was a rival. Every Friday night, they raced. __ __ Soarin was a wonderful challenge. Spitfire almost thanked him when he let her use his weights. She almost let him win. Almost. She even gave him pointers on turning faster, and demonstrated how to tuck his feathers in to give him a shorter span with greater surface area to airbrake. Showing him was the closest she had been to anypony since her parents had let her leave for the Wonderbolts. Every Friday night, they crossed the threshold of that same bar at the same time, back to back. __ __ Soarin began to realize that it wasn’t just a rivalry when Spitfire woke him for an early morning race by smacking him with a pillow. Her pillow. He still almost won. It was worth being locked out of the stallions dorm and having to borrow Spitfire’s strawberry shampoo while she guarded the door. The pointed looks from his classmates went ignored. __ __ Spitfire knew it was more when Soarin let her win. Maybe she had whacked him too hard with that pillow. Maybe he was just hung-over from last night. Maybe he was too busy staring, like the rest of the colts. But that would mean he wasn’t a rival anymore. He denied letting her win, of course, being the modest stallion he was. He had then been locked out of his dorm, so she had let him use the shower in her dorm. Just a friendly act between rivals. No matter what the other colts acted like towards the strawberry scented colt. __ __ It was on graduation day that it happened. The two of them were Valedictorian and Salutatorian. They had been chosen to do a showcase to proe why they had made it that far. Before they took off, Soarin had given in to an impulse, and leaned his head close enough to Spitfire’s head that his muzzle was touching her ear as he whispered, “Remember that song.” She pressed her lips to his ear, “I know you still have two left wings.” Soarin leaned to one side, an upraised wing clipping the play button on the stereo, as Spitfire dropped the other direction, both diving off the cloud platform. The ‘Skyborne Waltz’ echoed between the blue and gold figures as they shot into the sky. Twirl left, tuck right wing. Press right side to partner. Lock hooves. Flap left wing. Spin. Vertical flap. Rise. Break apart. Backwards loop. Tuck wings. The thump, swoop towards each-other. Snap into spin. Hoof to hoof, barrel to barrel. Just an instant, lips connect. Twirl apart. This was where Soarin always screwed it up. This time, his hoof rose into position as his wings flared, stopping him in a flying bow, jaw below his rear-hooves. Spitfire mimicked his position, slightly above him, fore-hooves sweeping her gown in a curtsey. He refused to wipe his lips, leaving the tingly feeling of sweat and saliva as he started towards her again. He focused on her left fore-hoof. It was the key to the next part. Their hooves connected, and he rolled up, going perfectly horizontal as she spun underneath him, locking rear-hooves with him and forcing them into a sideways corkscrew. They released, spinning apart just a few meters as the music slowed again, and the moved into a side-to-side slow spin, Soarin’s powerful wing flapping just slightly slower, feathers tucked just slightly more to keep the power the same as Spitfire flapped in time. They began to slowly lower to the cloud, and Soarin made the mistake of looking into her eyes. Time stopped. He stopped. She stopped. They fell. The cloud caught them, and bounced them into the air, where both recovered. Soarin glanced at Spitfire, “All part of the show, Spits?” She nodded, barely noticeable, “Then we’ll give them a show.” They landed softly and Soarin bowed, beside a curtsying Spitfire, before he was roughly ripped to his hooves and his lips were mashed against hers. They broke just long enough for Spitfire to whisper, “You were off by three centimeters on that last corkscrew.” “Buck you.” “Not here,” Spitfire waved her hoof at the crowd.