The prompt: Duck!
"A duck."
"Yes Ma'am."
Captain Spitfire looked over the rim of her glasses at Rainbow Dash. Dash was sweating from the training she'd already finished, and reeked of... Spitfire didn't want to think what.
"You were late to your reserve training because of a duck."
"... Yes Ma'am."
"Care to explain that?"
Rainbow Dash swallowed, and then nodded. "Well..."
"It's a duck."
Rainbow flew a few feet above the streets of Manehatten, watching her yellow, animal-loving friend as she looked into the little storm drain. She had training in ten minutes. Everything that could have gone wrong had already gone wrong, and even after that they still just about had time to make it. If they were flying right now, instead of looking into a drain at a duck.
"Um, yes. It's a little duckling, and she's fallen. Oh! She must be so scared!"
Rainbow pressed her hoof to her muzzle, and sighed. Fluttershy was standing there, on the side of a street, in Manehatten, with her hindquarters up in the air and her nuzzle against the bars of the storm drain, cooing and talking to a duckling that was way out of reach. "Come ON, Fluttershy! I'm going to be late! For the Wonderbolts! Just leave it, it's just a duck!"
Fluttershy turned toward her with a glare that made even Rainbow Dash shrink back. "If it was a foal you wouldn't leave her there! Just look at her mother, she's so upset!"
Rainbow turned to look at the duck standing nearby, with all but one of her... litter? The duck looked blankly at her, and quacked. Rainbow gave it a flat look in return.
"Don't worry! Just flap your wings, like that! Come on, a little harder!" Fluttershy smiled down at the little duckling in the drain, though her smile faltered at the results. "Oh my, you're too young, aren't you?"
The mother duck quacked again, and Fluttershy's ear perked toward her as though listening. Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. She caught sight of a nearby clock on a building, and folded her ears back. "Fluttershy, come on! It's a duck, it can swim down there, it'll be fine. We gotta go!"
Fluttershy seemed content to ignore Rainbow at this point, as she tried to use her teeth to pull the heavy iron grating out of the way. Rainbow looked at her friend, and then up to the sky, at the gathering rain clouds. Yeah. Yeah, okay. She stepped over and did her best to help, and between them they managed to haul the grate out of the way.
Just in time to see the little duckling slip into a pipe and out of sight.
Fluttershy leaped down immediately, her hooves splashing in the grimy water of the storm drain as she looked into the pipe. "Oh my goodness oh my goodness! Come back! Oh, don't go that way! That's a pipe to the sewer!"
"Come on, we can't get it now. It'll swim fine." If she left right now, like right now right now, and didn't mind breaking half the windows in town with a sonic rainboom...
Fluttershy's hooves clattered at the pipe fitting as she tried to get the duckling to listen to her. After a moment she flapped her wings, and flew back up to the street level. Fluttershy rushed over to the nearest ponyhole cover, and pulled it open. A black, yawning darkness stared up at her. Fluttershy froze, staring down into the blackness of the sewers.
Rainbow Dash could still make it to training. Probably. At top speed. But she looked at Fluttershy, and then the mother duck and all but one of the ducklings, and then back to Fluttershy. Fluttershy's chest was heaving in panic breaths, as she stepped toward the dark hole, and then skittered back, and then repeated the motions.
Rainbow frowned, bolted up into the air, and then dove straight downwards.
Captain Spitfire rubbed between her eyes with a hoof. At least she knew why Rainbow Dash smelled like that. "... you're late because you wanted to save a duckling."
"Yes Ma'am. Well, no ma'am. It wasn't the duckling, okay?"
Spitfire stared daggers at the cadet, waiting for an explanation.
Rainbow Dash looked aside, before looking back to her Captain. "It wasn't the duck. I mean, okay, I didn't want it to get hurt or anything. But, you know, Fluttershy uh... really cares about stuff like that."
At Spitfire's look, Rainbow continued. "So I helped her. She's my best friend, okay? We've been friends forever. I'm not going to leave her behind."
Captain Spitfire looked down at Rainbow Dash's file. She had more awards, at this stage in her career, than any other Wonderbolt cadet had ever managed. By about four times. But the reserve cadets were kept under strict rules. "You were half an hour late. That's a mark on your record as a reserve, and if you do it again, you'll be kicked out."
Rainbow's ears folded back at Spitfire's tone, but she nodded. "Yes, ma'am."
Spitfire looked the reserve cadet in the eye. "Would you do it again?"
"Ma'am?"
"Would you let her make you late again? If it meant you'd get kicked out of the Reserves?"
Rainbow's eyes went to the floor, and then she looked back to Captain's Spitfire's eyes, with her jaw set defiantly. "Yes, Ma'am."
Captain Spitfire closed Rainbow's file, without marking the late arrival down. Rainbow's eyes widened, but she knew better than to say anything. Spitfire set her glasses back on her muzzle. "The next class starts its training in ten minutes. You did most of your training, and now you'll do all of theirs, too. Dismissed."
"Yes, Ma'am!" Rainbow saluted, before bolting out of the office, already in the air, the soreness and exhaustion from her hours already spent working seeming to disappear in an instant.
Spitfire smiled, and set the file back in the cabinet.