I Dreamt to Fly

by MrDynasty

9: Practice Makes Perfect.

A couple days had passed since Scootaloo’s first flight, where nothing really interesting had happened in those days asides from more learning. Scootaloo had never been more determined on getting herself in the air than she did now; knowing that she was more than half way there helped motivate that desire. She trained hard, trying to use her wings everywhere she went to get accustomed to them as best she could.

While their previous learning sessions had lasted roughly around an hour to two hours, Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo were now spending three hours a day just trying to fine tune her new-found flying capabilities. While Rainbow Dash thought that Scootaloo was pushing herself too hard, her excitement and enthusiasm was inspiring. It reminded her of when she was a young filly just learning to fly, where she was so focused on being the best that taking second place was never an option.

Rainbow Dash assumed that this new day would be their final day of hard-core training, since everything Scootaloo needed to learn she had learnt. While her flying was still very stiff and unpractised, Rainbow Dash felt that it was a good time to see what Scootaloo was able to do.

With a small yawn, Scootaloo began to wake up from another long sleep. She opened her eyes to look around her brightly lit room, trying to look for a clock before remembering that she didn’t have one on her wall. Instead she had a small alarm clock on a desk that was to the side of her bed. She tugged and inched herself closer to the desk before getting close enough to pick up the clock, only to notice that the time was nearly nine in the morning!

This made Scootaloo jolt up from her bed and look slightly alarmed, thinking that she must have overslept. Usually she was woken up around six, so either Rainbow Dash forgot or she slept through her callings. Upon dropping the clock, she quickly jumped out of her bed and went into the living room.

Despite sitting on the couch and being in the process of reading a book, Rainbow Dash had noticed Scootaloo coming out from her room and gave a small smile to her. “Did you have a good sleep? I’ve just been sitting here reading some books Twilight brought over, most of it seems like junk but at least it’s something to do,” she said, putting the book down and trotting over to Scootaloo.

Concerned about the time she woke up, Scootaloo decided to question about it. “Don’t you normally wake me up at six? Or is it actually six and my alarm clock is just broken or something?” She said, lifting up a hoof.

Rainbow Dash shook her head and sat down in-front of her. “Your clock isn’t broken, don’t worry. The reason I didn’t wake you up so early this time is because you’ve been working yourself to exhaustion, which isn’t too good for a small filly like you. So I just let you sleep until you woke up yourself,” She said as Scootaloo trotted back inside of her room and over to desk, picking up a brush that was on it.

She spoke over to Rainbow Dash from inside her room as she was cleaning up her mane with the brush. “What about the training stuff though? Weren’t we going to do that like we did for the past week?” She asked.

Rainbow Dash trotted insider he room as well, hanging by the door and watching Scootaloo brush her mane. “We still are going to do that training junk, but I think it’s time we laid off it for a bit. Take it a little easier so that your wings won’t end up getting overused. You can do pretty much everything you needed to learn to do; the rest is just practice and getting comfortable flying around!” She said with a happy smile on her face.

Scootaloo turned to face Rainbow Dash and nodded in agreement, knowing not to stress herself out too much. “I suppose you’re right, so no training today I’m guessing?” She asked as she started to trot over to her room’s entrance.

Rainbow Dash shook her head again, leaning to the side to let Scootaloo pass through the doorway. “We are doing some training, but it’s more of a test if I’ll be honest. I want to see you take what you’ve learned and actually try flying around things like they were a course,” she said as she followed her shortly behind, speaking again. “I know it might be a bit scary, but if you do make a mistake, the best thing to do is get back up and keep going! “

Scootaloo still seemed nervous at the thought of doing some complex flying, complex for her skill level anyway. “You sure I’m up for that? What if I just make so many mistakes to the point that you get disappointed with me; I don’t want to disappoint you,” she said, looking away from Rainbow Dash.

As she flew in-front of Scootaloo’s view, Rainbow Dash just pulled her chin up and grinned confidently. “Trust me; I will never be disappointed in you. I’m already really proud of you, Squirt. A couple missteps in something you need to practice with won’t bum me out, I promise,” She said.

Scootaloo couldn’t help but smile, knowing that she’d always have Rainbow Dash’s support. She quickly leaned over and hugged her neck while she was still flying. “Thanks again; I’m so happy to have someone so awesome and supportive by me all the time.”

Pulling the filly up, Rainbow Dash returned the hug and gave a small chuckle. “I am pretty awesome, but thanks. It means a lot coming from you though,” She said as she put Scootaloo back down on the ground, hovering over to the entrance of her house as she said. “So how about you show me how much of an awesome flier you can be?”

Scootaloo nodded, quickly trotting over to the entrance as Rainbow Dash opened the door and flew out. Like all of the other times they left the house, Scootaloo had to be carried down from the sky high cloud house, even though she now had the capabilities to fly herself down.

As they wandered around the top of Ponyville, they both looked for areas that would make a good temporal training course. Seems Rainbow Dash already had a place in mind, going over to a specific area instead of just exploring like Scootaloo expected. However, her interest had peaked when they approached the Apple Farm of all places.

The abundance of trees and small structures at the Apple Farm would make a perfect spot to manoeuvring around tight spaces, Rainbow Dash had thought; with the buildings providing a wider approach to turning as well. It seemed like the perfect place to start at that wasn’t an official filly flying course.

Scootaloo still seemed nervous despite Rainbow Dash saying she could make as many mistakes as she liked. She felt like she had some sort of reputation to keep and that making a lot of mistakes would tamper it. It’s obvious her self-confidence was nowhere near as good as Rainbow Dash’s, but at least she had a reason to feel confident.

It didn’t take them long to reach the Apple Farm, with Scootaloo being dropped off as Rainbow Dash hovered to her side. “Okay; what I want you to try and do is make your way through this batch of orchards. You can take it as slow as you feel comfortable with; don’t worry about getting through fast, just try to manoeuvre around the trees as best you can,” Rainbow Dash said as she flew to the other end of the long clump of orchards.

Scootaloo laughed nervously once Rainbow Dash had left, not feeling confident with her flying just yet. She did say that she could take it as slow as she wanted, but she assumed she had to at least be going fast enough to be considered flying.

Collecting herself and taking a deep breath; she galloped towards the orchards before jumping into a flying position, using her wings to keep herself in the air as she began to intrude the batch of orchards. It took no time before she started to have a struggle going through the trees, clipping some as she weaved around them as best she could. It was very tough for her to judge just how much she was going to shift from side to side every time she leaned, most of the time either over tilting or under tilting and only occasionally meeting the sweet spot.

She met her first speed-bump as she slammed too hard into one of the trees, spinning out and losing control of her flight all of a sudden. Luckily she sustained no big injury, just a small scrape on her arm and a butt covered in grass. She felt like she was doing decently well until then, at least for a near first time flier. She immediately got back up again and continued on with her flight through the thick population of trees, knowing that she was able to make a couple mistakes.

She kept as focused as she could; scraping less and less trees as she progressed through the large batch of orchards. It wasn’t long before she began to see the near endless amount of trees start to thin out, allowing her to take wider turns. She managed to stop scraping trees all together as she drew closer to finishing, getting a feel for simple dodging.

To her surprise, she had suddenly exited the clump of orchards at a high speed, making herself come to a halt shortly after and turning around mid-air to take a second look at the trees. Oddly enough she didn’t see Rainbow Dash when she exited; at least not until she was picked up by her and pulled up higher into the air. “I was watching you the entire time, since the leaves aren’t that hard to see through. But still, look what you just passed through!” She said, showing Scootaloo the mass of trees she had just flew through with relatively minor hitches. “You seriously don’t know how surprised I am by how well you did! I saw you take that one fall and I knew it must have demotivated you. But I’m so proud that you got back up again; I wouldn’t expect anything else from you, Squirt.” She said with a wide smile as she let Scootaloo go in-front of her.

Scootaloo practically had stars in her eyes as she widely grinned from the praise. It was her true first flight, and even though it may not have been that exciting, it was a good enough starting point. She turned around to face Rainbow Dash, who had her hoof up in-front of her for a hoof bump. Of course Scootaloo obliged, smacking her hoof harder than she intended in her excitement.

She hoped it would just be the beginning of what she would be able to do, finally having her dream to fly come true.