Breaking Cute

by GoldenState3

Rainbows and Unicorns

Rainbow Dash was lounging on a cloud parked over Sweet Apple Acres. She'd spent the morning setting up the clouds for the afternoon thunderstorm, and she'd of course done an awesome job of it. In fact, this thunderstorm was going to be 20% cooler than the last one that she'd done.

Actually, she said that about every thunderstorm. But, saying it helped a lot. It kept the bad thoughts away, it stopped her from thinking that she might not be the coolest pony in Ponyville. The more she focused on just how awesome she was, the less time that she had to think about how cool other ponies were.

Take for instance Scootaloo. Even though the Pegasus filly couldn't fly, she could do incredible things with her scooter. Rainbow Dash was certain that she could never do anything nearly as awesome on a scooter. If Scotaloo didn't idolize her, she would probably consider the filly as a threat to her coolness.

The bad thoughts were there, always ready to bubble up. Normally, she was able to keep them at bay, because she didn't like what happened when they got out. If she wasn't being 100% awesome, she couldn't be happy.

There was a noise above, and Dash checked to see what it was. Derpy was above her, a long blue ribbon dangling from along her neck. There was writing on it, but Dash couldn't make it out. What Dash could make out was the large package that was falling towards her. Dash rolled over, and the package crashed through the clouds inches from where she'd been lounging.

"What did you do that for!" Rainbow Dash said.

"I didn't do anything, it just fell is all. I promise! Don't be mad at me!" Derpy begged.

Derpy dove after the package. Rainbow Dash followed her. There was no way Derpy was going to be able to catch a package that size, and even if she did, she was well, Derpy. The two Pegasi flew after the package.

Twilight Sparkle was thankful that Star Swirl the Bearded had created a spell for removing cobwebs from a pony's mind, but that didn't answer the question of how those cobwebs had gotten there in the first place. Princess Luna hadn't told her, instead making up a story about some evil spiders in some pony's dreams. Oh well, maybe it was a story too terrible for a mere unicorn like herself. Or just maybe, it was another one of Celestia's tests. That had to be it.

"Spike!" Twilight shouted. "Get me a sandwich!"

Twilight ran around the room, pulling books off the shelf, in a desperate search for any book on magic spiders. There wasn't much, while there were plenty of books on spiders, most of those spiders couldn't do any magic. A few minutes later, Spike arrived with a daffodil sandwich, and a glass of milk.

She consumed the sandwich in between turning pages. Twilight had long since learned the secrets to eating without getting crumbs in books, but her excitement at having a super special test from the princesses had caused her to forget this. Unfortunately, this little lapse caused Twilight to waste an hour searching for crumbs in every book that she'd read that day. What if the princess's test was time limited? What would she do? She had no idea.

There were a few notes in her books about various types of spiders that could do magic, but not much. Most spider magic was simple stuff, no where near complex enough to seriously cloud an Alicorn's mind. She wasn't getting anywhere. She was going to have to go to Canterlot, and do some research in the Royal Canterlot Archives.

That made sense. If Star Swirl the Bearded had a spell to reverse the spiders, maybe he'd included the information about the spiders themselves in another one of his books. That was the answer.

"Spike! Pack me a suitcase! Now!" Twilight shouted.

An hour later, Twilight Sparkle was heading towards the train station. She was stopped by a disturbance in the middle of town square. Rainbow Dash and Derpy were standing near an open crate, while Silver Zephyr yelled at them loudly.

"This crate had a shipment of glass in it from the Griffon Empire! It took a week to get here, and you broke it all." Silver Zephyr shouted.

"I shook it once on accident and it tinkled like glass. That's why I shook it a few more times just to make sure it had glass in it. You have to be very careful with glass you know, it can break." Derpy said.

"Let me get this straight, you thought the package contained glass, so you shook it to make sure. Still, just shaking it a few time wouldn't do this much damage. How many times did you shake it?" Silver Horizon asked.

"Three times, but on the third time, it kind of got away from me, so I had to dive after it. Rainbow Dash helped me, so it's all good." Derpy replied.

"It's not all good! You broke thousands of bits of special glass from the best glass blowers in the Griffon Empire. It took them nearly a week to prepare all of this stuff. I have customers lined up to buy these items!" Silver Zephyr said.

"Hey, if this was so fragile, why isn't there a fragile label on it?" Rainbow Dash asked.

Twilight moved closer. Her friend looked like she needed help, and Twilight would be a poor friend indeed if she didn't give it. Besides, she'd left extra early for her train just to allow for a situation just like this. Spike had laughed at her decision to head to the station two hours early, but she'd have the last laugh now.

"We didn't put a fragile label on it, because that would attract extra attention from bandits!" She said. "When you have one of a kind works of art like this, you have to be careful."

"So I did the right thing by trying to see if it was glass?" Derpy asked.

Rainbow shot her a glare that screamed shut up, and the Pegasus hid behind the crate. Twilight moved closer. She looked inside the crate, and it was filled with all kinds of funny shaped pieces of glass. The surviving bits and pieces didn't look very artistic to Twilight, but art wasn't her thing. Besides, it was Griffon art

She levitated a large surviving piece out. It looked like it had been the top bit of a large flask of some kind, the kind of thing that it would make more sense to cook up a magic potion in then to put on one's mantle. But, Griffon art was the in thing. Rarity had been in Silver Zephyr's shop just the other day, looking at a Griffon sofa. She hadn't bought it, but if Rarity was interested, that meant Griffon things had to be fashionable, even if they looked funny.

"Hey, that's not yours! Don't touch." Sliver Horizon shouted at her.

She fell back, chastised. She'd just been looking. She didn't want to do anymore damage. She was curious. That was all. Meanwhile, Rainbow Dash and Silver Zephye were still arguing about the need to put fragile warnings on packages. Twilight wanted to help, but she wasn't a Pegasus, and she didn't know about flying large packages around.

With the shouting over, ponies were starting to go back to their business. Twilight felt the desire to get to the train station. What if the train was ninety minutes early, and they left without her. Besides, Rainbow Dash had the situation well under control. That meant that everything was going to be okay. Eventually Silver Zephyr would see reason, and accept part of the blame for not having a fragile label on the package, and everyone would come to an agreement. That's how ponies were. They'd always come to an agreement on their own if you explained things well enough.

Author's Note:

Did Derpy's incompetence save Ponyville, or will Silver Zephyr try again with his nefarious schemes? Tune in next week for more "Breaking Cute!"

Comments

[ferret]

If Scotaloo didn't idolize her,