//------------------------------// // 14: Too Close. // Story: I Dreamt to Fly // by MrDynasty //------------------------------// A loud knock echoed through the Friendship Castle, prompting Spike to get up and walk over to the large front doors. When he opened the doors a gloomy post-pony was standing there and looked to have a decently large package for Twilight. “Delivery to Twilight Sparkle from Canterlot, I’ll need your signature please.” He said as he handed over a small clipboard with a pen attached to it. Spike obliged, signing where he needed to sign. He gave the pony a small smile, handing it back over to him. After getting back the clipboard, the post-pony began to trot away from the castle. Spike waved as he spoke to him. “Thank you! Have a good day!” “Don’t tell me what to do,” the post-pony replied with a hint of annoyance in his tone. Spike took a second to process the reply before shrugging it off and pushing the package inside. It was around his size and entirely filled with books, or so he assumed since it was the only thing that would logically be delivered here. He expended most of his energy trying to push the package harder, almost slipping off his feet in the process. However he landed face first into the ground when Twilight magically levitated the box up and over to her, beginning to open it with her magic. “Whoops, sorry Spike! I couldn’t see you pushing it from this angle,” she said with a nervous grin. Spike got up on his feet again, rolling his eyes in response. “The fact that it was moving didn’t give you a hint I was behind it?” He said, dusting himself off. “I’m guessing that’s the last set of books you wanted from Celestia? We’ve been getting a new batch every day for the past week!” He said as he held his arms up to his sides. Twilight gave him a small nod as she had finished opening up the package, pulling out a couple dozen books from its packing-peanut filled interior. “It should be. There shouldn’t have been that many books left to be delivered since we had nearly all of them by yesterday,” she said, skimming over the covers of the books as they were levitated past her face. A decent amount of the books were about injuries and diseases, the type of books she had initially asked for. There seemed to be a couple bonus books as well though, most of them being more up to date versions of books Twilight had previously owned. “Oooh, there are even books that I forgot I originally had! I think they got destroyed when Tirek blew through the Golden Oak Library. Still, it’s nice to see Celestia remembers some of my collection.” She said with a grin across her face as she trotted over to the room she kept all of her books in, carrying most of the new ones along with her. Spike followed shortly behind, picking up the books that she didn’t take with her and walking them over to the room as well. When he got there, the books were quickly taken out of his hands and placed in the bookcase the rest were put in. “And there we go; all of the new books have replaced the old ones!” Twilight said as she put all of the outdated books into a pile on the floor. Spike smiled and placed his hands together as he spoke. “So can we now go do something exciting? Maybe we could visit Rarity or Applejack; since I’m sure they’d appreciate our company!” Twilight nodded again, fitting the books tighter into place with her magic. “Sure; we’ve been cooked up in this castle for a while and I can read these new books sometime later,” she said as she trotted out of the room with Spike following close behind. Twilight looked back to Spike as they went towards the front entrance. “Did you hear that Scootaloo got into the Wonderbolts League? From what I heard, she apparently passed the first course yesterday,” she said. Spike shook his head as a happy smile came over his face. “She did? That’s great news! She must be such a quick learner if she’s beating ponies that have already been flying for years. When does the next course take place?” Spike asked, continuing to walk alongside Twilight. Twilight used her magic to open the front doors, trotting outside of the castle and into the morning sunlight. “I’m pretty sure the first five courses are back to back this week, just like they were the last two times. One for every week day,” she said, raising a hoof as she glanced to Spike. He gained an idea as he walked in-front of her and turned around. “What time does it start? Would we be allowed to go watch it?” He said as he seemed more than excited. Twilight placed a hoof on her chin, trying to remember if ponies were allowed to watch. “It starts in a couple hours but… I’m not sure if we can watch. If my memory serves me well, they don’t usually allow ponies to watch because they might distract the contestants,” she said, putting her hoof back down onto the ground. Spike glanced away, his arms drooping to his sides. “That’s a load of horse hockey! It seems more like an excuse than a reason to me, but there would be no harm in just asking the Wonderbolts, right?” He asked as his he regained his posture. Twilight gave a small nod to Spike. “I suppose there isn’t a reason we can’t just ask them; not like we have much else to do that’s on the list,” she said as her wings unfurled and gave a small flap. Spike’s tone quickly changed into that of sarcastic, but also with a hint of being seriousness. “Please don’t tell me you actually brought a list with you, since I don’t want to end up sitting in a cloud while you file off reports or something.” Twilight giggled as she lifted a hoof. “Don’t worry; I didn’t bring a list with me. We’ll just head over to the Wonderbolts training ground and ask the Wonderbolts if we can watch, no lists involved,” she said as she lowered her wings down to allow Spike to climb up onto her back. When he was on, she began to fly in the direction of Cloudsdale. After a previous day of almost non-stop resting, Scootaloo felt more energized than Iron Will. She was standing near the starting line of the next track as she examined the course itself. It looked to have three different types of obstacles they had to go through; almost like what she envisioned the final course would have looked like. It seemed pretty terrifying to say the least. However the other 22 fillies that had passed the first course didn’t seem to be breaking much of a sweat, which made Scootaloo feel left out but also reassured her a bit. Maybe the course looked much worse than it actually was? They were about to find out as Spitfire flew over and landed in-front of most of them. “Nice to see all 23 of you that passed the first course chose to come back for the second, but trust me when I say that this one isn’t going to be a simple dash to the finish. This one is about precision flying, manoeuvring around and in objects while maintaining a decent amount of speed. However speed should be the secondary objective when it comes to this course, as the main thing that’s going to send you out will be imprecise flying,” she said as two pegasi brought over a small cloud to her. A lot of the fillies looked confused from the random cloud she was given, while some seem to already know what it was for. Spitfire placed her hoof onto the cloud and then took it off, showing her hoof to the fillies. It was suddenly coloured a bright drippy white. “These clouds are coated in white paint, meaning if you scape against them, you’ll have quite a visible mark on your coat. I bet a lot of you white coloured fillies suddenly gained the same idea, but let me tell you it isn’t going to work,” she said as a pegasi brought over a bucket of water, allowing Spitfire to clean off her hoof as she spoke again. “You can’t cheat the system as the paint is a quick drying paint, meaning your fur will visibly be dried out. Meaning you can’t take as many bumps and scrapes as you want.” Scootaloo wondered who would be stupid enough to try and cheat the system, but no doubt it would have crossed her mind if she was coloured white. She still seemed quite nervous about the course, knowing she was going to end up choking at one point or another. Spitfire trotted over to the starting line of the course, wanting them all to line up in preparation as she spoke. “Passing will be determined by two things. If you come in 19th place or higher, you’re out. However if you are covered in more than three patches of paint, you automatically get disqualified,” she said with a serious tone. All of the fillies got in a line at the starting line, waiting for Spitfire to tell them when to start. Scootaloo took a glance at the lined up fillies as she got into the line herself, trying to see if anyone she knew made it through. Surprisingly enough, both Rumble and Cotton Cloudy beat the first course by the looks of it. Her attention suddenly sprung back into place as Spitfire gave the first signals. “Ready… set…” Like last time, a large draft blew across the starting line from the amount of wings that had opened at once, eagerly awaiting Spitfire’s signal to start. “Go!” Spitfire suddenly shouted without much of a delay, making the entire group of fillies boost ahead and into the start of the course. Like last time, Scootaloo was around the middle of the pack as they all encountered the first set of obstacles fairly quickly. All they had to do was pass through hoops that got smaller and smaller as they went along, but it was made a little bit harder by how they lead in the shape of a loop-de-loop. Scootaloo handled this with no problem what so ever, in-fact the only part that hitched her was how she had to fly upside down for a couple seconds, but even then she seemed to do alright. She came out of the last hoop with no scratches of paint what so ever, gaining a bit of confidence in the process. There were seemingly large breaks between the obstacles, probably meant to act as a means to easily get past the other fliers without the danger of being covered in paint. Scootaloo was going to try and capitalize on the situation, using some of her energy to fly faster than some of the other fillies, but it seemed like the others had the same idea as not only did she pass some fliers, but she was also passed by ones faster than her. She probably didn’t gain much in terms of her position in the race, but at least she didn’t lose much either. The next set of obstacles approached at quite an alarming speed for Scootaloo as she began to pass around them. These obstacles were just vertical lines of clouds that they had to weave in and out of continuously. They were quite close together, causing Scootaloo to brush up against one because of her speed. She ignored the mistake and continued on with the obstacles, not stopping to examine the wet patch of paint she felt on her side. She made another mistake when she neared the end of the obstacles, brushing against one of the clouds with one of her wings as she weaved through them. It was quickly crushing her confidence to succeed. She let out a breath of relief as she had passed the last of those obstacles, still having the opportunity to make one more mistake. She increased her speed, trying to push ahead of some of the other fillies before they reached the next challenge they’d face. She managed to push ahead of around four fillies, sliding herself into place again once she overtook them, but whatever confidence she gained from that was quickly lost as she saw what was coming up next. It was a large tunnel made of clouds and it did all sorts of devilishly sharp turns by the looks of it. She had no choice but to slow down as she entered the tunnel, not wanting to brush up against any of the inside walls. Luckily she wasn’t the only one who slowed down more than they had liked to, as a lot of the fillies behind her did the same. Each change in direction was a huge risk in such a tight space; any mistake could cost her ticket to the next course, so she flew as carefully as possible while going through the tunnel. The more she progressed through the tunnel, the bigger the lump in her throat grew. On one of the turns, she accidentally brushed the side of her back leg against the clouds, placing a patch of paint on it as the third mistake she was able to make now was used up. She tried to concentrate as best she could on getting out of the tunnel, hoping to make it out with no more patches of paint on her. Her chances had already dwindled to nearly nothing; that was until she saw the exit of the tunnel. She booked it as fast as she could out of the tunnel, using all of her speed to try and race to the finish line. There was still a chance she could get in if she placed 18th place or lower, so that was her new objective. She burst ahead of some of the other fliers as she expended as much energy as she could on reaching the end, and luckily for her it wasn’t that far off. With a final flap of her wings, she passed the finish line at a decent speed. She was still able to slow herself down and land on the ground with ease as a large smile grew over her face. She knew she was 18th place at the very least, there was no way she couldn’t be, but a quick analysis of her body revealed that that wasn’t the part she was going to fail at. One blotch of paint on her side, one on her wing, one on her back leg… and one on her tail. She couldn’t believe it! Her heart sunk as she saw her tail, realizing that she had scraped the obstacles more than she was allowed. She had a small pause, not knowing what to think as loads of questions drifted through her head at once. What would Rainbow Dash think? Will she be disappointed? Did she try for nothing? It was quickly upsetting her to the point she just wanted to hide, so she sat down and covered her eyes, trying her best to hold back the tears she felt like releasing. Suddenly it felt really quiet to her, but she wasn’t sure if it actually was. Maybe she was just drowning out everything else at the moment as she sat in dismay. She seemed to come back to reality as her shoulder was pressed, making her pull her hooves away from her tear covered eyes and look forward. Spitfire was standing in-front of her, confused on what she was upset about. “What’s wrong? You came in 16th place with three strikes,” she said, having a look of concern on her face. Scootaloo didn’t want to answer, she couldn’t. Her throat was too choked up to respond as she hiccuped in place. Spitfire was still confused on why she was upset, wondering if she just didn’t see any other paint covered spots on her body. She examined Scootaloo harder, looking all around her body before noticing the bit of paint on her tail. She realized why she was upset, but for some reason gained a soft smile. “Tails don’t count, you know?” She said, lifting her hoof up. Scootaloo looked suddenly surprised, not knowing if she was being serious or not. Spitfire decided to sit down front of her and clarify. “You don’t have much control over your tail when you’re flying, so we decided that it would be unfair if it counted. So if you’re wondering, yes, you get through to the next course.” While she still had the feeling of being upset in her stomach, Scootaloo’s mood was lifted tremendously from the good news as she rubbed her eyes. “Really?! I still pass?” She said excitedly. Spitfire nodded with a happy grin. “Yes, of course you do! There’s no need to be upset, trust me,” she said as she stood up. Suddenly Twilight flew down to the side of Scootaloo with Spike on her back. He quickly got off with a large smile. “That was amazing! We’ve never seen you fly like that before!” Spitfire raised an eyebrow at Twilight’s sudden entrance. “I thought I told you two to stay in the clouds if you were going to watch.” Twilight grinned nervously, looking over to Spitfire. “We know, but we just figured since the course was over we could come over and talk with Scootaloo.” She said, raising a hoof. Spitfire’s view zipped between the two for a second before shrugging. “I suppose; at least you won’t be distracting them during the course, so I guess its fine,” she said as she trotted away and to the other fillies to tell them how they did. Twilight let out a sigh of relief, thinking she was going to be kicked out. “Anyway, why were you crying Scootaloo?” She asked, tilting her head slightly. Scootaloo looked away, feeling embarrassed. “…I thought I didn’t get through, since I had too much paint on me. Luckily for me, any paint on my tail doesn’t count!” She said with a big smile all of a sudden. Twilight grinned and trotted over closer to her. “That’s great! That’ll be some good news to tell Rainbow Dash when you get back!” Scootaloo nods, rubbing her eyes again. “I hope she’ll be proud of me!” Twilight ruffles up her mane. “I know she’ll be, Scoots.”