“Wait here for me, I’ll be right back!” Rainbow Dash said to Twilight Sparkle as she took off, zipping towards some mystery destination. Probably for some sort of last minute preparations, Twilight assumed.
The two of them were in Cloudsdale. Rainbow had opted in to fly in a minor race and had invited her friends to come watch. Ironically, only the new princess had an open schedule. None of their other friends had the time to spare for a trip to Cloudsdale on a one day notice.
And so she sat on the cloud, wrapped her tail around her right side and waited. I hope she gets back soon. We only have twenty minutes before she is disqualified for tardiness! She got antsy and fidgeted in place until she heard somepony clear their throat.
“Mmmhm!” Came the proud announcement of phlegm removal. Twilight turned her head to look behind her.
There stood a rather large black pegasus with a mohawk style mane with broad stripes of white and sky-blue. He had a short tail and a cutiemark with a thunder cloud and a yellow lightning bolt. He looked quite nervous and a little bit familiar.
He did nothing for a moment before he stood up straight, puffed his chest out and stared out at infinity. Then he began to strut around in a rather goofy manner.
What…? Twilight was rather shocked at the strange display as the mystery pegasus awkwardly maneuvered himself in front of her. For some unknown reason, she felt the beginnings of a blush and her wings filled with tension trying to push them open.
He took his time as he walked around her right side in a manner that displayed his well developed muscles. Twilight, in spite of her confusion, found herself enjoying the sight of the pegasus parading around her. She realized how loudly her heart was beating and absentmindedly raised her left hoof to her chest.
When he had arrived at a point directly in front of her, he spun to face her and lowered his head to the cloud they were on and stuck his rump into the air and spread his wings. She bit her lower lip as her eyes were greeted with a pair of big, strong, firm, and well preened wings.
Twilight belated realized that her own rather oversized wings were spread in a similar manner but the discovery slipped out of her mind as she stared at the display.
After a beat he spoke, “Art thou wooed yet, milady?”
All she could do was emit an un-princess-like squeak.
Just then, Rainbow Dash flew out of nowhere and put her forelegs around the shoulders of both them, all the while shining a world class devious grin. She hovered as she pushed them towards the stadium. “Hey you two, we have a race to go to. Twilight, why don’t you sit with Thunderlane here while you watch, okay? Okay. See ya!”
At that, she flew off to wherever she had to go as Thunderlane and the mentally impaired princess found their way to a cloud platform to watch the race. Only then did she manage to escape the daze she had been floating in.
As her senses came back to her, she realized that she was sitting rather close to Thunderlane.
“Um, so…” She trailed off as she realized that she could feel his heartbeat which was hammering away faster than hers was. Twilight, being as completely unprepared as she was, said the first thing that came to her mind, “I, uh, I like your wings!”
She blushed again as the words came out completely differently from the way she wanted. In other words, she practically yelled them. She immediately tried to find something else to talk about to deal with the awkwardness.
“Don’t I know you from somewhere?” She asked in a slightly shrill tone.
“Um,” he responded, “I was around when we were practicing for tornado day, and… I went to the Wonderbolts Academy at the same time that Dash did.” He paused. “I-I like your wings too.” His voiced cracked with embarrassment.
Twilight giggled behind a hoof as the beginning of the race was announced. Before long the racers were off and Rainbow Dash was in an ever growing lead.
Twilight watched the race, but her attention was on Thunderlane whom she kept sneaking glances at for the duration. Before she knew it, the race was over and Rainbow had first place. She hardly noticed.
The two of them had exited the stadium and both of them were trying to find ways to pick up their conversation when Rainbow suddenly returned and began directing them the same way that she had before. “Hey you two, how’s it going? Did you like the race? I’m starved, let’s get something to eat!” She took a few heavy breaths. She noticed that Twilight had a distant, concentrated look on her face. “Twilight.”
“What?”
“Stop thinking about books.”
“How did you-”
Rainbow cut her off, “Your name is Twilight Sparkle. Isn't that evidence enough?”
Twilight fell silent. She mentally admitted that she had been thinking about books. She was regretting the fact that she hadn’t read anything on dating or romance. She also wondered how she became so predictable.
They arrived at some restaurant when suddenly Rainbow chimed in again, “Oh, a contrived distraction just came up. I’ll have to have the two of you go on without me.”
Rainbow’s use of the word contrived threw Twilight off balance as she and Thunderlane were directed to a table. They sat down and looked at the menus. Twilight had a hard time reading the blurry words. She was instead focusing on trying to cope with the situation. She also realized that again she was alone with Thunderlane.
They each managed to order something. Twilight suddenly missed having a menu to hide behind.
Thunderlane was the first to break the ice. “So, what’s it like to be a princess?”
“Well, it’s a lot of work and it can be exhausting but it’s worth it.”
Rainbow Dash watched the two ponies through a window from a distance. She smiled as they began to talk more actively after Thunderlane finally got over his nerves.
She laughed to herself. All according to plan. Planning the trip around Twilight’s schedule, having her other friends make up excuses to not go, everything.
Satisfied, she flew off to get something to eat. Racing is a lot of work.
At the last moment, she heard Twilight’s laugh.
HAHAHAHA
This is really good!
4959565
Me too...
More dancing, please.
4959411
4959468
you guys make me so happy inside.
4959565
4959736
I don't even know what's meant here.
you brought me in with that cover picture, a picture a friend shared with me a while back, and i stayed because of the hilarity. bravo, my fine writer. bravo.
i agree with this person: 4959745
we need more awkward mating ritual dancing. after all, this was the first step in his courting.
LOL +1 just for that PIC. I'll read it later though.
4960066
oh heheheh. right there in the first page of comments you see someone with the same username being urged by the artist to write this.
4959781
I can sort of imagine seeing this continue. I would have to develop Thunderlanes character more I suppose. But I don't know how I would fit more dancing in. Maybe we could have Twilight being a nerd and asking him to do it again in order to study the psychological effects on herself after reading about it. Then maybe she gets distracted. idk.
had to read for that picture.
4960093
well, it's a mating ritual dance right? i doubt that a lot of "modern" pegasi would do it. thunderlane probably did it since he was convinced into doing it by rainbow dash, possibly since they knew of the dance prior, for whatever reason, since, it being twilight, it would possibly work on her effectively. i dunno, just typing words at this point.
4960194 aren't we all?
you'd think that it'd be archaic. But it works. Also, twilight would probably not know anything about it and has never spent enough time near large numbers of pegasi to learn of it by accident.
Interesting story. So because of that Dance, Twi developed a crush on Thunder. That is awesome.
....CREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED!!!!!.....
....Wait,Wrong fandom.
4960243
you have a point there. though, think of it this way: since she witnessed the dance first-hand, it might have gotten her curious as to why she reacted the way you wrote. she might ask thunderlane about it, with him not budging an inch, which could send her on one of her usual "over research" things trying to figure out more about it.
4960422 right. well if I decided to add more to this story then I think I can finagle it together and include another dance that would be only slightly contrived.
4960437
true true. in a way, aren't all dance-based courtships that.
Ah, I remeber that picture. Nice to see someone wrote a story about it.
4960312
CRRRRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
wait we're not doing that?!?!
4960532
Heheheh....All according to plan...
4960541 granted, that phrase is probably used in ten thousand places but I don't actually know what you're referencing.
4960550 It's a Warhammer 40k joke
adowable.
Having Thunderlane do a mating dance for Twilight is one thing, but having him succeed really drives the funny home. I had myself a hearty chuckle.
This was a cute little story! I think Sparklane is a great ship! Good job
Cute....
4960683 i suppose if I get much more attention I'll have to do something like that.
I think the mating dance could use more detail.
"Art thou wooed yet, milady?" seems like an odd thing to say, unless this takes place around the time of Luna's banishment.
4961078 I added that because that was the artist's alternate title to the cover art. I saw that and I decided to run with it.
This makes me giggle. I'm not seeing much for continuation purposes and it's certainly isn't high literature, but it's cute and funny and that's all it needs to be
The only real nitpick I can find is that there's no indication that Twilight is thinking about books before Dash makes a comment about it and by then her comment comes across as jarring.
4961194 ya that occurred to me. I think I'll just learn from it. I'm not up to swooping in and adjusting things at the moment. I might consider it though.
Holy mother of god, someone made a story with that picture.
[reading intensifies]
so... a highly intellectual pony like twilights falls to her baser instincts...
whaaa? it should be a rule for twilight to go into an internal logic train sililoquoy
When the book thing came up I was thinking of Twilight reading the Karma Sutra while in the middle of coitus.
Aw. Very cute display of body language. Any chances that this thing may become the story?
4960550
Lord Castellan Ursakar E. Creed of Cadia. One of the heroes of the Imperium of Man in service to the God-Emperor of Mankind. Creed isn't some fantastic super-combatant like most, even though he's a manly cigar-chomping motherfucker who knows how to use his dual pistols. Instead, he's smart. Too smart. Batman wets his pants and hopes Creed's not already behind him smart.
In the tabletop game, Creed has a rule called "Tactical Genius" which lets him sneak units onto the board... anything but calvary. That means from two hundred soldiers in one big platoon, to a squad of Titans (gigantic mecha ranging from the size of a house to about that of a small city). When translating that from game-terms, that means that he can hide something the size of a town right next to the enemy army and they'll never notice until it strikes.
Thus giving rise to the joke "CREEEED!" as his enemies would likely shout upon seeing a massive engine of destruction appear out of the most unlikely of places imaginable (some not), and know it just had to be Creed - meanwhile Creed hears his name being screamed in rage and anguish and takes a puff of his cigar with a grin: "Just as planned." It's a Warhammer 40,000 fandom thing.
ip.bitcointalk.org/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fmemecollection.net%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2013%2F12%2Fwat-wat-wat-wat.jpg&t=543&c=ycJ1HXI-hSLRiQ
4961496 What the hell is that lady?!
4961502
Wat
I didn't even need to put on my shipping goggles to read this, it caught my interest just for the prospect of thunderlane trying to dance.
4961525 I don't know the reference...
Little bland. Could have done much more with the courting ritual. Now it's just a very short shipfic with a a few unique lines.
Disappointed, sorry.
Was meh.
All according to keiku.
To be honest, I think you could have done a lot more with this. Your writing is good(if a little rushed, though I feel like that's because of the plot being rushed and not the actual writing), and the idea is a very interesting one, which leads me to believe you just didn't feel like putting too much effort into this, which is disappointing. Faving in case you decide to expand on this
Mating dance.
This is a very cute and amusing scene. And, well... That's it.
Don't get me wrong, I think it's really good for what it is, but I don't think it has enough to stand on it's own.
Well, according to the mythology, Pegasi have portions of the brain developed in an identical way to birds.
Although, given Twilight's lack of skill in flying, I'd say the pegasus parts of her brain are hopelessly recessive and primitive.
Although although, that could be an explanation as to why it worked so well: the instincts come from a part of the brain so markedly different from the systems she's used to that she simply is incapable of controlling the actions it causes.
God, we need more stories with pegasai acting based off of avian behaviors. It works.
That was really cute, good work! Greenthumbed!