Rainbow Dash and Aileron
The sky above Ponyville was clear and blue, bird song filled the air, and the only groups of clouds were of Rainbow Dash’s cloud house. The sky around the area was relatively quiet until the sound of whooshing air increased in volume. Suddenly a streak of a full rainbow followed closely by one of blue and orange zipped by.
Rainbow Dash flew with great speed against her opponent, flying around trees, clouds, and flew in loops, trying to lose the other. However, her opponent, a tall dark tan-ish stallion pony with blue and orange streaked mane and tail, and a cutie mark of a red and white bar band with a blue-indigo circle in the middle of a band with a white star within it, he caught up with her with every turn she threw at him. He kept up alongside her as they flew over the town. Dash smirked at him.
“Drag slowing you down at all, dad?”
“Nope, but I bet those cloud cling-on’s must be slowing you.”
She shook off the cloud pieces and tried to lose him in an aerial loop but he had a better idea and tackled her instead, they tumbled onto the clouds of her house and laughed together on their backs.
“Ha, ha! Awe, that was fun, but I won.”
“No way, you cheated at that last loop and besides I was holding back for your sake.”
“You implying I’m slow for my age?”
“Maybe…” Rainbow lay next to her father as they caught their breath and relaxed. It was always like this when her dad,
Aileron, came to visit her from Cirrus Heights, the cloud city over Fillydephia after they moved from Cloudsdale and she to Ponyville. Aileron would get time off from his busy schedule as the city’s cloud foundation specialist to visit Rainbow; he inspects the clouds that keep the city up in the sky. But today was special, it was Father’s Day, the day everypony celebrates for their dads.
Save for missing her at the Young Flyers Competition, he never missed time to see her. Secretly she was glad he got sick that day and did miss it, if for seeing her blowing her first stages of her routine.
But he was always there to support her for anything she was down about.
She frowned at the sky, “So… you got my last letter?”
He looked to her, “…About the gala?” At her nod he replied. “Yep, sorry about missing another chance with the Wonderbolts. Sometimes that happens with celebrities, especially when publicity is involved.”
“But I was so close to my dream!” she groaned, reaching her hooves to the sky.
He smiled at her, remembering when she made that dream.
--
Pegasus ponies gathered at the coliseum, waiting for an air show of the Wonderbolts. Aileron stood at a spot seeing the bottomless coliseum floor and the opening above, with a tiny cutie mark-less Rainbow Dash sitting on his head, looking at the strange sights with curiosity. Then a rumbling thunder sound she quickly looked up and her eyes widen at the sights of the blue uniformed pegasi perform aerial loops, dives and synchronized formations with their lightning and dark contrails behind them with patterns of the sun, stars and even the moon.
“Whoa! Daddy, who’re they?” Rainbow leveled herself to her dad’s eyes by holding to his ears.
“They’re the Wonderbolts, Dashy. They’re the best flyers in all of Equestria.”
She looked back up with shining eyes. “Cool…I wanna fy wi’t them!” She took tried to hop off her father’s head toward the stadium floor. However she barely left her dad’s head when he grabbed her tail by his teeth.
“Whoa there!” he put her to the cloud seat and trapped her tail under his hoof. “You can’t go out there, you can’t even fly yet. Besides your mother would kill me if I let you out of my sight.”
“Awwww!”
He smiled as he lowered his head down to nuzzle her slouched head, “Don’t worry, once you can fly and with plenty of practice I bet someday you’ll fly higher and faster than any pony.”
She looked up to him. “Weally daddy?”
“Really.”
She smiled at him, climbed back on top of his head and they both cheered with the crowd at the next aerial maneuver.
--
Aileron smiled at his grown up daughter as she tried to shape something in the air with her hoof. “You’re still young, Dashy, there will be other chances. Besides, from what I read, that night did end on a high note.”
Rainbow smiled. “Yeah, it did, hee hee, since everypony else had a bad night too.”
“You’re must feel really lucky with your friends.”
“Yeah…” she frowned. “Considering past ones.”
He looked at her with an apologetic smile, “I’m sorry your friendship with Gilda ended like it did.”
Rainbow looked at him incredulously. “I thought you would be happy with that. I mean… You didn’t really like it that I was friends with her. You basically told me not to hang out with her when I first introduced Gilda to you.”
Aileron sighed. “Well… I’ve actually seen her before you brought her home after school.”
Her eyes widen and she turned on her belly to face him. “You did?! When?!”
Her dad turned on his belly to look at her. “It wasn’t a personal meeting. It was the very day you met her, but this was just
after I dropped you off at flight school that morning.”
--
Aileron flew around the cloud shops with his saddlebag of groceries. Suddenly a flash of brown flew by him; the air from it caused him to go unbalanced.
“Whoa!” He got himself stable then frowned as he watched the brown mass fly behind a produce cart. He blinked in surprise as the mass turned out to be a small brown and white griffon with purple highlights.
‘A griffin? That’s rare.’
He watched she looked to the sides then stalked up to the cart. With a silent cackle, she used her tail to release the wheel block from the cart, and the cart slowly rolled away from the unsuspecting merchant until a customer pointed him to its sudden departure.
“Gasp! My cabbages!”
The merchant chased the cart, leaving his unprotected pears and oranges to being pilfered by the little griffin.
Aileron frowned. ‘That little…’ He could have caught her, but she disappeared from his sight. ‘I hope Dashy never becomes like that.’
--
“Imagine my surprise at seeing her again so soon.”
Rainbow just gaped at him. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
“Three reasons. One, you didn’t really what to listen to me; you thought I was being ‘a big downer at being cool’. Remember our little squabble later that night.”
“Oh.”
“Two…Well you were passing your classes, only skipped a couple of days, because you were sick, and hardly caused real trouble.”
Her eyes widened at him, “Whoa, you certainly kept track of me. Talk about protective.”
He smiled at her, “You never know what would happen with you at that age. And Three… I had faith that despite whoever you meet, I knew you would continue to be the pony I know you would be. And that no matter what, your happiness is more important to me, so I’ll be there when ever you need me.”
She blushed at him. “Dad, that’s so mushy.”
“But I am happy you have great friends today, and hope they help you with all that comes your way.”
Rainbow smiled then shot up to her feet. “You know I still haven’t shown you the Sonic Rainboom.”
“…Yeah,” he was glad for the change in subject. “I was surprised that you were able to recreate it. That was the second time I missed it.”
She started to hover. “Well you won’t miss this one and you know what use? I modified it a bit just for today.”
Aileron raised an eyebrow. “Why just for today?”
“You’ll see!” She called as she took off to the sky.
He followed her as she started to gain a higher altitude. She was more than a little dot when she started to dive. He followed her dive as she went faster and faster. His eyes widen as he started to hear the pressuring air surrounding her keen and start to form like a triangular barrier around her body.
Suddenly…
BOOM!
He cringed at the sudden explosion but he kept his eyes on his little pony, and gasped at the speeding contrail rainbow following her flight path and the rainbow shockwave spreading the sky. He smiled in awe at the display, and then suddenly Aileron saw her change direction and start to form a big shape in the sky. He followed her as she seemed to create something with the rainbow.
The end result left him breathless.
He continued to stare at it, even as Rainbow Dash landed next to him, with a sheepish blushing look.
“I couldn’t really come up with a good present this year, but my friend Twilight came up with this, considering all that that happened this year.”
She waited anxiously as he turned to her.
She continued, “I know it’s a bit girly, but when I think about it, it’s my way of saying how much I appreciate you really trusting me and believing in me and being here.” She looked at him with moist eyes. “…I love you, Dad.”
He stared at her then smiled, and they hugged with all their strength.
“And I you Dashy.”
They both looked back up at the shape of a giant rainbow heart with ‘I LOVE YOU DAD’ within it.
Aileron chuckled after a bit, “I bet all of Equestria is seeing this.”
Rainbow chuckled back, “That’s the idea.”