//------------------------------// // Chapter 6 - Engagement // Story: Steady as She Flies // by Witching Hour //------------------------------// Monkey is glad for one thing; the weather station’s bunk room. After only telling her supervisor, Merryweather, that she’d had a fight with her roommate, she had eagerly let Monkey take one of the cots. She sighs, flopping down on her cloud. The weather team was getting ready for a rainshower so the Grand Galloping Gala in a week would have clear skies, and Monkey had quickly finished hauling her allotment of clouds into place. Her shift would be done soon, and she had every intention of getting real food afterwards. In the interim, however, she has far too much time to contemplate the last five days. Trying to keep calm, Monkey focuses her thoughts on Tricks - how she’d been secretly following him after school, watching him trudge behind a burgundy-maned white earth pony until they reached a high-end tea room and pub. Monkey knows it was guilt driving her to do this, her heart heavy in her chest. Yesterday, she’d watched as all their things were put in carts and moved into a swanky guest house in the high-class end of town. If her thoughts hadn’t immediately bled red with rage at Witch every time, Monkey would’ve gone down to Tricks to let him know she still cared, that she hadn’t abandoned him. How could Witch betray her confidence, and go behind her back and tell the Wonderbolts of all ponies!? She feels someone land on the cloud next to her and she looks up, seeing Merryweather. On a clear and cloudless day, Monkey would have a hard time spotting the light blue mare. Her mane and tail were only a few shades darker than her coat, perfectly blending in with the sky. “Hey Monks,” she says in greeting, laying down at the other edge of the small cloud. “Something bugging you?” Merryweather’s tone is polite but pointed enough that Monkey knows she isn’t getting away without a full explanation. “I feel bad about leaving Tricks…” Monkey replies with a heavy sigh. Merryweather simply gives her a look that prompts Monkey to continue. “Princess Luna named my roommate his guardian after his parents abandoned him… It’s not his fault his horn was bent… He was born like that…” she adds. “I met him while I was doing physical therapy… He’s such a sweet colt, and all he wants is to be loved…” “And you feel like you know what he’s going through…” Merryweather states knowingly. Monkey nods with a sigh. “His parents abandoned him because his doctors determined he’d need to have his horn reconstructed… Something about the elite of Canterlot finding the situation scandalous,” she explains, waving her hoof dismissively and rolling her eyes. “They do that… But that’s cold even for them…” Merryweather comments. “So yeah… That’s on top of still being angry at my roommate… She’s a good guardian to him… But I really want to be there for him… A reconstructed horn isn’t as bad…” she trails off, unwilling to voice her feelings about her wings. “Isn’t as bad as what, Monkey Wrench?” Merryweather asks, her tone now sharply pointed. “Nevermind…” Monkey says, averting her eyes. Her eyes catch on her watch and she leaps up. “Time to clock out! Bye!” she calls quickly over her shoulder as she makes a hasty escape, ignoring Merryweather’s insistent calls. Monkey cringes, knowing she’ll get a talking to before her next shift, but this thought doesn’t deter her from making her way to the station, clocking out, grabbing her cloak, and making her way by hoof through Canterlot. She tucks her wings under the the fabric, content to be mistaken for an earth pony if it meant sparing herself the looks her wings gained her. Her destination wasn’t far from the weather station, nestled between the castle and the Wonderbolts compound. Witch had introduced her to Rusty’s… The unwelcome thought of her erstwhile friend makes her scowl but she shakes her head, her short red mane tossing about. With a sigh, she easily finds the diner and slips into a table further from the windows. Rusty soon makes his appearance at her table. “Usual Miss Wrench?” he asks, wheeling past on his skateboard. “Thanks Rusty!” she calls as she sets her cloak beside her on the booth bench. Across the diner, a pair of brown eyes watch Monkey with a raised eyebrow, noting the crystalline edges even from a distance. “Hey Spitty, wha’cha lookin’ at?” Fleetfoot asks, making Spitfire return her attention to her squadmates. “Just someone I’m curious about,” Spitfire replies in a vain attempt to deflect Fleet’s attention from the topic. “Oh? Has someone actually managed to catch your eye now?” asks her other companion. “Soarin…” Spitfire hisses warningly, only causing Fleetfoot to start making squealing noises. “Oh this I gotta hear about!” Fleet says, grinning like a maniac. Spitfire groans. “Sweet gods preserve me… Not like that!” she snaps in irritation. “Bliss was telling me about a pegasus who had her wings restored with magic and crystal iron after a weather factory accident and now, she doesn’t need as much strength to do simple tasks because of it…” Soarin starts to look distinctly uncomfortable, shifting in his seat awkwardly. “If they could’ve done that, why didn’t they -” he starts but Spitfire cuts him off quickly, raising her hoof to stop him. “One, you and your wings were too far gone. Even if they’d managed to fix your wings, you wouldn’t have lived very long without Celestia’s intervention. Two, the spell was only created after the twister incident,” Spitfire counters Soarin’s thoughts. “Apparently, your situation was an inspiration to one of your doctors, and now that doctor is working for us.” Spitfire adds the last with a smug grin. “Oh yeah! That new girl working mornings in the Trainer room!” Fleet responds enthusiastically. “She’s good!” “So… Why’d Bliss tell you about this?” Soarin asks, looking confused and concerned. Spitfire sighs. “That’s where it gets complicated… According to Bliss, there was an altercation at a local fly-meet around two months ago… She placed first in one of the events but one of the other flyers was a sore loser and called her a cheater, as the crystal iron is rather clearly visible on her wings… Since then, she’s refused to have anything to do with competitions…” Soarin cringes and Fleet looks near to outraged so Spitfire quickly continues on. “Bliss suggested inviting her back to the Flight Academy, and I added an invitation to tour the compound… But apparently, when she got the invitations, she thought our new doctor was pulling strings with her influence…” “Wait… What influence does she have? She’s just a doctor, right?” Fleet queries, suddenly lost. “Right?” “Actually, she’s also Princess Luna’s student,” Spitfire says quietly. Fleet’s jaw drops to the table while Soarin lets out a low whistle. “Those are some strings she could pull…” he comments dryly. Spitfire sighs in resignation. “Princess Luna wanted her student to branch out more from just medical practice, but she prefers to be known for what she does, rather than who she knows, so I agreed with her highness to keep it under wraps unless asked directly for confirmation… Given that Twilight Sparkle was Celestia’s student and she ascended, I can’t blame the girl for wanting to dodge speculation.” “Anyway, this girl has some serious talent…” Spitfire continues, waving the previous topic away. “I talked to Squad 7, since they’d gone to the meet for scouting, and she took first in the obstacle run… Sure it was an amateur event, but she finished practically miles ahead of everypony else, on top of turning on a bit to avoid the obstacles…” “Ah-ha… Ulterior motive for you dragging us out today!” Soarin smirks. “Spitty, is it physically impossible for you to turn off on rest days?” Fleet asks dryly, making Spitfire scowl. “Look… This is not only talent going to waste on the weather team, but also affecting one of our support staff. You think I’m really going to ignore it?” Spitfire asks, mostly rhetorically, with a skeptically raised eyebrow. Soarin and Fleetfoot share a look of exasperation tempered with curiosity about this mystery pegasus. Soarin follows where Spitfire had been looking, and easily spots her. The glittering edges of her wings are certainly hard to miss, even as far away from the windows as she is. “She really thinks it’s cheating?” he asks, not looking away from the yellow pegasus. “Bliss thought she might need a better perspective than a unicorn doctor’s and a sore sport of a pegasus’... I can’t say I disagree with her,” Spitfire replies thoughtfully. Fleet’s chair almost immediately scrapes against the floor as she pushes it back and gets to her hooves immediately starting over to the relative stranger. Soarin opens his mouth to say something but Spitfire silences him quickly with a look. “I thought Fleet might want this one… Give it a minute… If it starts going sour, feel free to jump in… As someone who wouldn’t be flying if not for magic, your perspective can come in handy if Fleet can’t get through to her…” Soarin only smirks at Spitfire. “Manipulative… I didn’t know you had it in you…” Spitfire rolls her eyes at her lifelong friend. “Shut up and watch…” Monkey looks up as a shadow falls across her bowl of oatmeal with raisins, eying the aqua-colored pegasus skeptically with a raised eyebrow. “Can I help you?” she asks, a touch irritated at the interruption. “Hey… You’re the pegasus that took first in the obstacle course at the fly-meet few weeks back, right? Sorry… I’m really bad with names…” Fleet says, smiling and taking the seat opposite Monkey, almost gleefully ignoring the aggravation starting to radiate off the yellow mare. “Monkey Wrench,” she states shortly. “And yes, I am… But I’d rather not talk about it…” she continues, looking back to her food. If she had hopes of ending the conversation, Fleet was about to disappoint her… A lot. “That’s a shame! Those were some slick moves you pulled… Your reaction time was unreal!” Fleet replies cheerfully. “Tell me… Do you think you could turn or stop on a bit?” “Probably… But I don’t compete anymore,” Monkey responds, her words clipped as she glares daggers across the table at the interloper on her meal. ‘Either she’s too dumb to catch the hint, or too stubborn to take it,’ she thinks as her eyes narrow. “What?!” Fleet exclaims, feigning affrontement. “If that’s not a crime, it should be!” Monkey scoffs openly at Fleet’s comment. “It’s cheating if I compete,” she retorts sourly. “So I guess damned if I do, damned if I don’t,” she adds, morosely stirring her oatmeal with a spoon. “Geez girl… Does the Weather Team call you instead of Cloudsdale for their rainclouds?” Fleet asks, leaning her forelegs against the table as though asking a genuine question, but the question itself and her tone are mocking. “It’s none of your gods-” Monkey’s nearly-shouted reply is cut off as a loud clang rings out and she is abruptly face-first in her oatmeal. Rusty appears out of no where, wielding a frying pan. Fleet laughs outright, clutching her sides and practically sprawling across the bench as Monkey pulls her face out of her bowl. “None of that language, Miss Wrench!” Rusty says sternly, even as he drops a towel on the table and zips away again. Monkey sullenly grabs the towel and wipes the oatmeal off her face, and turns her back to the rest of the diner. “Just leave me alone…” she mutters, sulking. “Hey Fleet… Quit laughing and move over…” a new voice says, accompanied by her annoyance shifting down the booth to allow this newcomer to join them. Monkey looks over her shoulder at the sky blue mare to see a pegasus stallion with a dark mane and a darker blue coat than the mare. Monkey’s eyes widen a fraction and she quickly turns away again, cheeks burning crimson as she realises who exactly she’d been about to tell off. “So… Monkey Wrench, wasn’t it?” Soarin starts, trying to coax the yellow mare back to the conversation. He sighs as she remains turned from them, feigning being occupied with cleaning her food from her mane. “Look… There was this pegasus I know… Really strong flyer, and there was nothing he loved more… but he got beaten to a pulp and if not for magic, he wouldn’t be alive, let alone flying…” Fleet opens her mouth, but Soarin quickly kicks her under the table, making her squeak in protest, and gives Fleet a warning look. She subsides when he shakes his head slightly. “Is it cheating if he’s one of the top flyers of the Wonderbolts?” he asks, almost innocently. Monkey looks at him sharply, eyes narrowing almost to slits as she peers at him. Something about his tone… “And if this pegasus’ situation inspired a unicorn to create a spell that would save other pegasi from losing their wings… Is it right to hate her for doing her job?” he continues querying, driving the point home. Her shoulders slump and Monkey turns away again, eyes downcast and dark. She realises now, the pieces of the puzzle all laid out before her. She steals a brief, sidelong glance at the two Wonderbolts sitting across from her, but at Soarin in particular. “You look… normal…” she says softly, but her words are heavy with defeat. Soarin thinks he hears something else mingled in, but he isn’t sure he wants to believe he actually hears resentment. “Not like these…” she adds as her wings twitch and she spares the appendages a brief glance. Soarin doesn’t like the emotion he sees flickering in Monkey’s eyes. “You can’t honestly be telling us you hate your wings now?” Fleet asks, beating her squadmate to the question by a breath. “No!” Monkey replies without hesitation, looking up at Fleet and Soarin quickly with a sudden fire in her green eyes that dims almost immediately as her brain catches up with the conversation. Her shoulders slump. “But I hate the attention… Everyone thinks that they’re fake, or I chose to cheat this way… I love flying, and pushing myself to see what I can do… That fly-meet was the best time I’d had since before the accident…” “So you let one sore loser ruin that?!” Fleet demands, indignant on the mare’s behalf. “One sour p-,” Rusty zooms by, frying pan in hoof, making her stumble over her words briefly. “Sour sport, and you just give up?” “He wasn’t the only one that thought that…” she persists, but the confidence she has in that perception wavers in the face of two Wonderbolts equally insistent that Monkey is mistaken. “LINE UP!” Monkey’s bowl goes flying as she nearly flips the table onto Fleet and Soarin to get out of her seat and stand at attention. As Monkey blinks, remembering that Flight Academy had been more than 9 months ago and why is she leaping into formation for - Her jaw goes slack as she finds herself suddenly staring into Spitfire’s eyes. “Listen here, Monkey Wrench,” Spitfire starts as Fleet rights the table and starts laughing hysterically. Spitfire’s eyes flick over to the table, and there’s a glimmer of amusement in them. Monkey resists the urge to look back, her gaze suddenly locking with the Captain of the Wonderbolts again. “Squad 7 was at that fly-meet… And they said you were amazing. Whoever it was that said you were cheating? Hasn’t even gotten into the Flight Academy. You have, before your accident… So what does that tell you?” she asks. Monkey continues blinking rapidly, her brain trying to process the information lain on her. Spitfire merely raises an eyebrow at her, and answers her own question after the pause gets too long for her liking. “It says… That you were better to start with… and that dunderhead would’ve lost to you no matter what. Now relax before Rusty starts using you as a table.” As if on cue, Rusty zips by again, playfully grumbling while carrying a tablecloth back into the kitchen. Monkey sighs and turns back to her table and nearly chokes as she spots Soarin trying to clean up the remains of her oatmeal, which had apparently landed on his head. She snorts and snickers before desperately attempting to school her expression and not laugh hysterically at the sight of The Power-Flyer of the Wonderbolts’ First Squad cleaning oatmeal and raisins from his wild mane with the towel Monkey had used earlier. “Hey Rusty!” Spitfire calls, and the cook appears with the bills for both Monkey and the First Squad. “Thank you,” she adds, though the earth pony is already off entertaining a table with two young foals. Without a word, Spitfire puts the tabs on Monkey’s table, and Fleet, still giggling occasionally, puts the required bits atop them. Turning back to Monkey, Spitfire smiles slightly at the stunned expression on the yellow pegasus’ face. “Now, I believe I offered you a tour of the compound… You’re not doing anything today, right?” Monkey’s jaw snaps shut with an audible click of teeth as she hastily shakes her head. “AWESOME!” Fleet gleefully exclaims, suddenly draping an arm across Monkey’s shoulders and ushering (almost pushing) her towards the door. “You’re gonna love it! C’mon!” Monkey squirms and shoots a panicked look over her shoulder as Soarin grabs Monkey’s forgotten cloak and Spitfire just shakes her head while smiling. They quickly catch up to her, Soarin taking Monkey’s other side. “It’s easier to just go along with Fleet when she gets like this…” he says in a stage-whisper that Fleet could easily hear. “Besides, it will be pretty awesome…” he adds, before Fleet could get indignant. The excitement of seeing the Wonderbolts headquarters, guided by the top squad, catches up with Monkey finally, breaking her free from her stunned state. Grinning like a school-filly, Fleet no longer has to force Monkey to keep up. Trailing behind the pair, Soarin nudges his shoulder against Spitfire with a knowing look in his eyes. Spitfire just smirks at him. Silently, their thoughts are in agreement; it’s nice when things go well.