The Winning Failure

by marley

Chapter 60

Chapter 60

Rainbow Dash arrived at the Ponyville library in the mid afternoon. She hurriedly gathered her already sorted mail and went to her home. After dropping everything off there, she went in search of Fluttershy. She was at her home practicing on her own. Dash watched her for a while but then Fluttershy noticed her and stopped.

“You're really getting good at this, Fluttershy,” said Dash, as she flew up to her friend. “I can hardly wait for Firewing to see you next week.”

“Thanks, Rainbow Dash,” said Fluttershy, “I hope you'll have time to practice with me next week a little bit. But if you can't, I'll understand. Your other friends are much better fliers than me.”

“Actually I'd like you to join us as much as you can,” said Dash. “Windyday will be coming in on Wednesday and Thursday but Tuesday it will just be Firewing and Frost. We'll need you to fly with us on Tuesday so we can have two pairs. The other days we'll be working on some other things but we'll also be practicing sky dancing and we may need you to work with one of us while the rest are doing formation flying and stuff.”

“Really?” said Fluttershy, “I'm going to be flying with the Wonderbolts?”

“Fluttershy, you've been flying with a Wonderbolt,” said Dash. “And a Wonderbolt taught you to sky dance.”

Fluttershy giggled. “Yeah, I guess that's true. Sure, I'll be glad to help out. I guess you're still just Dashie to me and Firewing just seems like another friend.”

“I hope you feel that way about Frost and Windyday too,” said Dash. “They're not like Firewing though. Frost is sort of like me but different. I don't know how to describe her exactly. Windyday isn't like Frost or Firewing. She's kind of a mix of ponies that you know. She's smart like Twilight, pretty like Rarity, honest like Applejack, almost as good a flier as me and has a way of carrying herself that reminds me of the Princesses. She can be kind of quiet and sad sometimes too; sort of like Luna. She can be kind of scary too. Before she changed she was just impossible to touch, cold. She could look at you and it was like she could just look right through you. She can still do that but she only does it when she really wants to concentrate or if some pony is giving her a hard time. I think it will be good for her to meet you. She can use some kindness.”

“You didn't mention Pinkie Pie,” said Fluttershy. “I guess she doesn't laugh much either.”

Dash thought for a second. “She does, but her sense of humor is different from Pinkie Pie. She does laugh more now and is fun to be around.”

“She sounds interesting,” said Fluttershy. It was plain that she was intimidated just by Rainbow Dash's description of Windyday.

Rainbow Dash picked up on Fluttershy's unease. “Relax,” said Dash, “she's cool. She has a strong sense of honor. That's only changed a little bit. Even before she changed she warned me about Twister. She really regrets being the way she was before she changed. Maybe that's why she reminds me of Luna.”

“I'll try my best to be nice to your friends,” said Fluttershy. “I just hope they aren't too disappointed in the way I fly.”

“Well lets practice some more,” said Dash. “That's one way to make sure they aren't.”

Fluttershy smiled, went to the record player and restarted the music. Rainbow Dash took off and the pair spent the rest of the afternoon sky dancing. At last it was time for Fluttershy to feed her menagerie. As before, Rainbow Dash put away Fluttershy's record player and records. While Dash liked animals to an extent, she didn't really know much about them and preferred to let Fluttershy do the feeding. Dash felt this was a very wise decision after watching Fluttershy feed worms to baby birds.

After the animals were taken care of, Dash suggested going into town for some dinner but Fluttershy insisted on cooking instead. It was her way, she said, of repaying Dash for taking the time to practice with her. Though Dash thought that she was the one who should be grateful, if it made Fluttershy feel better then it was alright with her. They spent a quiet dinner together and talked about the various doings in Ponyville and Cloudsdale. It took Rainbow Dash's mind off her troubles and she felt for a while as if she were back in the (comparatively) carefree days before she became a Wonderbolt. She was even grateful enough to help Fluttershy to clean up and wash the dishes.

Reluctantly, Rainbow Dash said goodnight to Fluttershy and made her way home as there were still some things to do before bed. When she arrived at her home, Rainbow Dash penned some letters to what she felt were the best offers she had received. She then reviewed her routine and made a few notes. Feeling restless, she went to practice her routine in the moonlight.

After going through the routine three times, with short rest breaks in between, Dash felt better about her routine than she had before. The time had been extended to nearly the proper length thanks to the slower sky dancing moves and Dash had not tired as quickly. After another break she went back to flying. This time it was what she liked best; just doing one move after another as she desired. At last exhausted, Dash returned to her home. She was terribly thirsty and downed mug after mug of water. She cleaned up and after making a few more notes, went to bed.

Author's Note:

Sixty freaking Chapters. That is way longer than I thought this would be. A ton of stuff got added in over the writing of which would be a short story when I started. Originally it was to end after Dash made the team as the featured soloist and a short epilogue. Other things grew as I wrote it and I couldn't drop them easily. RD's relationship with Immelmane, her friendship growing with Firewing were both expanded. Windyday's character changed the most. At first she was a ruthless rival, somewhat allied with Twister (I dropped this line because the two characters were too different.) and she became much more relevant to the story than I had intended. She is probably my favorite character even though she may not be the most likeable. It's a terrible temptation to write this on a day to day story line. There is too much mundane stuff going on right now and I want to get the action going again.