Close the Curtains, There's a Breeze.

by All Art Is Quite Useless

The One Where Rainbow Thinks Too Much

Practice was slow and tedious. While Wave Chill and Surprise were both capable fliers, neither of them were well acquainted with the demands of flying in a trio. The necessary formations and procedures were taking the pair quite a long time to get used to.

Every time that it seemed as if they were beginning to make some progress, Wave Chill would move to overtake Rainbow, breaking formation, or Surprise would struggle to keep level during a simultaneous position swap. Surprise almost spanned completely out of control at one point.

When Rainbow had to catch Surprise in her hooves midair for the second time in a half hour, Wave Chill was gliding past performing unnecessary tricks instead of helping, and she ended up struggling to realign Surprise in midair alone. Rainbow decided then that she had had enough of his attitude for one morning.

Rainbow plummeted towards the ground with her wings folded, her descent mirroring that of a cannonball, and straightened up at the last moment before impact. Wings outstretched, she landed hard on all four hooves, with barely any of the fall's momentum mitigated by her wings.

The pain pulsated throughout each of her legs, and her rear hooves instinctively threatened to buckle under the intensity of the impact, but Rainbow held steady, for the sake of her image alone. If two of her colleagues hadn't been watching her at that moment, she might have screamed out in pain.

Sheer determination was the only thing preventing her from falling back on her haunches.

"That's it, break for lunch, now." Rainbow snarled, her legs planted firmly on the floor, tail waving, her eyes planted on the approaching pegasi just as firmly.

While Surprise appeared embarrassed by her failure as she approached, Wave Chill looked disgruntled. "It's half past ten," He blankly stated, gesturing towards the watch that hung on his chest-piece, an optional addition to the standard flight suit.

"Well, you clearly need some fuel in you, or something!" Rainbow's legs were tremulous, she wasn't sure how long she could maintain this position while she seared with pain as she did. "That performance was completely substandard, and the two of you know it!"

"Hey, cut us some slack!" Wave shot back, flying closer to Rainbow than she was comfortable with, staring her down. "If you had actually been directing us with any competence, we might have got it all down by now!"

Is he really going to sit there and accuse me of being a bad team player? "Horseapples! You're freakin' wonderbolts
for pete's sake, and you can't get this basic of a routine down? Maybe if you were actually putting some effort into your synchronised aerial maneuvers rather than trying to showboat, we might have been able to function a little better!" Rainbow pointed her hoof directly at Wave, punctuating her vigorous speech.

Wave laughed at this, slowly shaking his head at Rainbow, maintaining his position above her. "And you'd know all about showboating, wouldn't you? Face it, Rainbow, even if I had been flying like a robot up there, Surprise still would have screwed everything up with her flailing around!"

Rainbow took a step forwards; pain exploded from Rainbow's outstretched hoof and flowed up her body, accumulating in her throat, where it burst as a fresh influx of anger. "Don't bring Surprise into this! First off, she couldn't help her mistake, and you definitely could, and second, she probably wouldn't have even made a mess of things in the first place if it wasn't for you distracting her! Face it, you were so obsessed with stealing the limelight that you put the whole team in jeopardy!" Rainbow panted when she had finished, briefly taking her heated gaze away from Wave and glancing towards her feet. The ground around her had cracked.

Rainbow blamed Wave Chill. Wave had driven her to distraction, he had made her angry, had made her act impulsively.

"Uhh... Rainbow?"

"What is it, Surprise?" Rainbow barked. It had been more instinctive than anything, she didn't mean to speak to Surprise so harshly.

Surprise flinched, tucking her ears. "Look, I don't wanna sound like a bitch or anything, but..." She hesitated. "Even though Wave Chill is being really unfair here," she paused to glare at him with no hesitation whatsoever, "he does kind of make a point."

Rainbow's face darkened, and she gave Surprise a look of disappointment. Of all the crap I've heard today...

"N-Not like that!" Surprise stammered, "I meant, he's right that you've not really been directing us so far, this morning. It's just, I think Spitfire put you with us in this group because you've had the most practice with three pony flying, and me and Wave are still pretty new to it. When we make mistakes, we kind of need pointing in the right direction, not just being told to do the same thing over and over."

Rainbow blinked suddenly, the words Surprise said making connections in her brain that linked to notions which made actual sense to her. She hadn't been very helpful at all.

"Sorry to say it like that Rainbow, only, you've helped me with practice before, and you were always patient and insightful, and I don't really get why you've not been that way today." When Rainbow didn't respond, Surprise pressed on. "Is there something the matter today, Rainbow? Uh, also, don't you think you should sit down?"

Suddenly Surprise looked worried, and when Rainbow glanced at her hooves again, which were now shaking tremendously in comparison to just a minute ago, she understood why. Oh, yeah, I am in a shed load of pain. Forgot about that.

Rainbow allowed herself to fall to the floor, taking a couple of seconds to breathe in relief before opening her eyes in search of Surprise, instead finding the domineering look on Wave as he hovered over her still. "Seriously, Wave, I dunno what your problem is, but I swear to Luna, if you don't take that look off your face I'm gonna have you doing laps around this place until sunset, is that clear?"

"You're not the boss of me, Crash! I mean seriously, we're the same rank! How in hell you think you're gonna have me doing laps is beyond me, but it'd be cute to see you try, honestly--"

In an instant, Rainbow was back on her feet, and then taking to the air, her muzzle inches from Wave Chill's stupid grin. "I'll chase you around the place with a freakin' stick if I have to, you got that, buddy?! Just because I can't pull rank on you does not mean I'm gonna let you disrespect me like that, and if you think you can speak to me like crap then you've got another thing coming!"

A calming breath, a moment reveling in the fear that flashed in Wave's eyes.

"Now, I'm willing to admit that I might not have been up to scratch with the instructing this morning, and I'm sorry about that, but you've got no reason to take it out on me like this, when you were doing much less to help the team than I was!" Rainbow paused, another breath, and her tone was more upbeat, but just as commanding. "From now on, I want no more arguments, and total synergy on this team! We have to merge with another group in less than a week, and I want us knowing this routine backwards by then."

"What if I don't wanna be a part of this team anymore?" Wave Chill grumbled.

"Then I'll speak to Spitfire regarding it and suggest your transfer, after going over the events that led up to this proposal, of course. I mean, do you really want that?" Wave's silence confirmed Rainbow's thoughts. "Good. There aren't gonna be any more issues in this team now, are there?"

"No, ma'am." Wave responded, his pride swallowed.

"Seriously? Just 'Rainbow' is fine." Rainbow smirked, feeling strangely victorious.

"Rainbow then, sorry." Wave awkwardly mumbled. Rainbow wasn't sure if she enjoyed her newfound power, but her faux-authority would definitely help her to control Wave's tantrums, however she had come about it.

Ignoring Wave's response, Rainbow turned to Surprise, smiling pleasantly. "I dunno about you, but I'm pretty peckish right now, are you sure you don't still wanna get lunch early?"

"Y-Yeah, we could do, sure," Surprise looked over Rainbow briefly. "Are you sure you're alright to get around and stuff?"

"Yeah, definitely, pain's already fading to be honest," Rainbow trivialised, fully aware that she wouldn't stop hurting for hours after an impact like that.

As she said this, she landed, stepping over to join Surprise, proving her point.

As they turned to leave for the mess hall, Wave weakly called out: "I think I'm gonna go eat with another team."

Rainbow merely glanced at him, before turning back to Surprise and walking on with her.

Right: When I get back, I need to start getting him to come around, I can't have him pissed at me for the rest of eternity. A few seconds passed, and she had another thought. As much of a prick as he is, he makes a point. What was distracting me so much? I mean really, all that's happened today is me having that dream again, and finding out Zephyr's going to be working with us.

A couple seconds later, she had resigned herself to full mental debate. He's gonna hit on me in front of everyone, isn't he? He's gonna tell embarrassing stories from my foalhood and mortify me in front of everypony. But then, I could always do the same back. The embarrassing story part, I mean. A second passed as Rainbow considered her thought. Ew. Anyways, how often am I even going to see him? Apparently the company he works for helps with shows and conferences, so probably not that much? I'd rather know when he's gonna be here so I've got a chance to prepare, honestly.

A moment passed, and that thought struck her as strange also. Hold on, why do I need to prepare? He's just a scruffy pegasus, how badly is he really gonna embarrass me? I mean seriously, why do I even care about this?

Rainbow had already had that thought a handful of times today.

This realisation was encouragement to brush the whole thing off, and also served to notify her that Surprise had been talking the entire time. Alarmed by this, Rainbow quickly attempted to zone back in.

Surprise spoke with passion as she walked, the issue was clearly important to her, "--and that's why I don't see where he gets off speaking like that!"

Rainbow sighed a breath of relief, she hadn't missed anything she couldn't come back from. "Yeah..." she laughed, "That Wave Chill can be really out of order sometimes, right?" Her eyes sparkled as she smiled, signing an unwritten apology to Surprise for unwittingly ignoring her.

Surprise, however, didn't seem satisfied. "Uh... Rainbow? I wasn't talking about Wave Chill. I was talking about my step-brother, who I had an argument with last night?" Rainbow paled instantly, her eyes widening and her mouth hanging open.

Surprise stopped and looked straight at her, taking in her wordless response. "I've been talking about it for the last five minutes, Rainbow. I was gonna say, I've never known you to be able to stay quiet for so long, but I guess you weren't really listening." Surprise sounded downhearted, but her smile didn't falter especially.

Rainbow, however, panicked. "Oh, crud, I'm sorry, Surprise, I'm really not with it today. I feel terrible for letting you keep on talking like that, honestly. Tell me again, and I promise to listen this time?"

"Not until you tell me what's on your mind," Surprise declared, "You've been acting strangely all day now, and I wanna know what's up!"

"W-What? Nothing, honest!" You sound so guilty right now. "I-I, just, uhhhh... Got a headache right now!"

Rainbow realised how excited she sounded about her headache and decided to tone it down a little.

"Uh... Yeah. Headache, nasty stuff," she pathetically offered.

Either Surprise was born yesterday, or she didn't feel like pressing Rainbow on the matter, much like this morning, as she settled for her ridiculous answer, suggesting she take a couple of painkillers and then saying nothing more.

Their walk continued in relative silence, which Rainbow was fairly thankful for. Hopefully, the silence would give her time to work out just why she didn't tell Surprise what she was really thinking about just then.

Maybe she could also make sense of why she was so distracted today.

Comments

[All Art Is Quite Useless]

8196975 Glad to hear so, it's nice to see people stick around, especially with a story that's as controversial as this one!

8197248 Thank you very much, and you're right, it was overdue!

AAIQU