Just One Day

by Moonshine34

Chapter Seven - The Cloud Watchers Club

“Just concentrate, Rainbow!”Starlight berated the former pegasus,”Oops, I mean Twilight.”

Dash only growled in response but still redoubled her efforts to lift a book with her recently acquired magic.

Rainbow had assumed after three gruelling hours of trying to tell the difference between an oyster fork and a strawberry spoon, having dozens of effusive bouquets thrust in her face, taste testing over fifty dishes and sorting out a feud between Vinyl and Octavia over which arrangement of music they would play, to list just a few, she would get a well deserved break. However, Starlight had other ideas. The second Dash had stopped to get a breather, the unicorn had whisked her away to the library. Starlight had insisted that learning to control Twilight’s magic would be vital if she were to continue this charade. Too exhausted to argue the former pegasus had complied. Although now she was beginning to regret it.

“Come on. Just think about channeling your energy into lifting up the object,”the unicorn instructed, a faint tinge of exasperation creeping into her voice,”Geez, I was better than you at this when I was a filly!”

“Pah! A lot of good all that magic did you. First, it enabled you to brainwash a whole village into giving you their cutie marks and becoming mindless zombies. Then, you almost destroyed Equestria with it!”Rainbow retorted. Her eyes widened in shock as she said the words, this was so unlike her!

“Touché,”the unicorn murmured, torn between offence and amusement. Starlight was more than used to being reminded of her past, both by herself and everypony else. Besides, it was way better than being locked up in Tartarus and served as a constant reminder of how far she’d come in just a few, short years.

“Oh gosh. I’m really sorry. I don’t know what happened to me just now. It was like I was a completely different pony!”the former pegasus apologised.

“Well, you are a completely different pony,”the unicorn reminded her,”But don’t worry, Twilight can actually be pretty savage when she wants to be. I mean, that mare’s got such an enormous amount of intellect she could probably roast us all for days. Of course she’s way to sweet to ever think of doing such a thing, but that in itself doesn’t reduce her ability to do so.”

“You had me at first, but I pretty much zoned after you mentioned Twi’s an egghead,”Dash confessed,”Everypony already knows that.”

“Just get back to practicing,”Starlight sighed.

Eventually, the former pegasus did manage to levitate the book. Grunting with effort she encased the volume in her dark pink aura and floated it a few inches into the air.

“YEEESSSSS! I DID IT!”Rainbow squealed in delight. The surge of power that had coursed through her veins felt electric. It was definitely one of the awesome things ever.

“Now I understand why unicorns and alicorns use their magic for everything. This is incredible!”the alicorn grinned.

“I know right. And you got that from just lifting up a book! Imagine what happens when we perform a complicated spell like teleportation or age reversal,”the unicorn beamed. It was wonderful watching her friend experience something that so many ponies just took for granted.

“Is there more basic stuff I can learn?”Dash asked eagerly, levitating five books of a shelf and making them spin in a circle above her head.

“Of course!”Starlight nodded,”I’m actually really impressed with how fast you managed to do that. Despite what I said earlier, magic, especially somepony’s as powerful as Twilight, is extremely tricky to control. I guess some of her has transferred into you so I shouldn’t be that surprised. Still, you seem to have quite a knack for this. How about we try some water manipulation next?”

“Sounds good to me,”the former pegasus said.

The next few hours passed in a blur and it wasn’t until they heard a knock on the door that Dash realised how quickly time had passed. Glancing out the window the alicorn saw it was late afternoon.

“Come in!”she called.

The door was pushed open and a tired looking Flash Sentry stumbled into the library. His orange coat looked slightly as did his mane and tail. However his eyes perked upas soon as he saw Rainbow as Twilight.

“Hey, Twi. Hi, Starlight. You should told me that’s what you’ve had to go through every day for the past fortnight! I’m surprised you’re still awake and functioning!”he exclaimed trotting up to Dash and giving her a quick nuzzle.

“Well, I guess you could say I’m pretty used to it. I’m sorry you had to experience firsthoof how stressful planning this wedding has been. We should take a break and go out somewhere,”the former pegasus suggested.

“Sure, I’d love that, Twi,”the orange stallion grinned at her.

“Okay, then what are we waiting for?”Rainbow asked,”See you later, Starlight. Thanks for the, um, talk.” Dash knew she couldn’t mention her magic lessons because it would lead to all sorts of questions she wasn’t prepared to answer. Her friend, however didn’t seem at all pleased with her quick thinking but instead seemed to be mouthing something that looked like ‘What in Celestia’s name to think you’re doing?!’ and ‘That’s a terrible idea!’, along with some desperate hoof waving. The former pegasus wasn’t sure though and pinned it down to her own terrible lip reading.

“She’s probably just cheering me on silently,”Rainbow concluded before trotting out of the library with Flash, leaving a frustrated Starlight to facehoof by herself.

“So, where do you wanna go?”the orange pegasus queried as the pair navigated their way around the castle, their hoofsteps reverberating throughout the crystal corridors.

Rainbow pondered on this silently. Twilight had often recounted her dates with Flash, albeit with much pestering from Rarity and Pinkie. She seemed to have taken him all over Ponyville already and Dash knew that her friend would always try to make each date as different and special as possible.

“Where could we go that they haven’t been before?”the former pegasus thought to herself,”I would say Sweet Apple Acres but if we run into AJ...” The alicorn shuddered, as much as she loved her cowgirl friend she knew the orange earth pony had an uncanny knack of wheedling the truth out of anypony who alluded her. And Dash couldn’t afford to come clean now.

“Sugar Cube Corner seems too obvious, not that I don’t love the food there. I doubt Flash likes shopping and I’m pretty sure Twi’s taken him to the Castle of the Two Sisters before,”the alicorn deliberated,”Gah, why did this have to be a long term relationship! They’ve already done all the cringey, mushy stuff couples do here. Celestia only knows how many romantic strolls they’ve been on. Wait! That’s it!”

“How about we go for a fly?”Rainbow asked, she was pretty sure that Twilight hadn’t mentioned anything about flying when she had talked about her and Flash’s dates. So although it might of seemed slightly out of character for Twilight her friend could easily just be being spontaneous, right?

“That would be great. I can’t actually remember the last time we flew together,”the stallion chuckled.

“Exactly!”Dash agreed, thankful her idea had been received well.

Once they stepped outside the former pegasus immediately took off, soaring upwards. She had been cooped up for far too long and her wings needed a stretch. For a moment Rainbow forgot that she was no longer in her own body, forgot that she wasn’t supposed to be the strongest flyer and just relished in the sense if freedom that swelled in her heart as she plummeted, dipped and loop-de-looped through the air. With the wind streaming through her mane and tail and the adrenaline shooting through her muscles Dash just got faster and faster was no more than a blur as she streaked across the sky. That was until she heard somepony yelling her name, or rather the name of the pony she was pretending to be. The former pegasus skidded to a halt mid-flight before guiltily turning to see a very put out Flash wheezing and hacking a few feet away from her.

“When, gasp, did you, puff, get, hack, so fast?!”the stallion snorted.

“Um, er, Rainbow’s been giving me lessons. And I’ve been taking a special potion to enhance my flying skills. But, erm, boy am I exhausted after all that. Pant, pant,”the alicorn lied unconvincingly.

Fortunately the orange pegasus was too drained to notice and simply gave her a reproachful stare.

“Anyway, now that we’ve done some exercise how about we rest for a bit,”Rainbow tried, pulling up a conveniently close fluffy cloud and lying down on it. After a moment Flash joined her.

“Sorry about the flying thing. I probably should have warned you before shooting off like that,”Dash sighed, feelimg like she had apologised more times today then she did in a year.

“It’s alright. I guess I’m just amazed at how speedy you’ve become,”the stallion chuckled.

“Um, yeah. I think it may be mostly down to the potion. It’s gonna wear off really soon though,”the former pegasus said uncomfortably, not wanting to make things hard for Twilight when they did eventually switch back,”Say, don’t you think that cloud looks a lot like a dragon eating a strawberry?” She pointed a hoof towards it, hurriedly changing the subject.

“Uh, I think it looks more like tree with the head of a pony actually,”the stallion smiled.

“It looks nothing like a tree, or a pony!”Dash protested,”Anypony can see it’s a dragon. Just look at the wings and tail.”

“I think you mean the roots and the mane,”Flash corrected her.

“Okay then. What about that one over there? Take a good look at that and tell me you don’t see a couple of intertwined flamingos.”

“Actually, that cloud does look like two flamingos,”the stallion admitted,”But the one closest to is definitely a quill and parchment.”

“Meh, it could just as easily be a rolling pin and flatttened dough,”the alicorn shrugged, then laughed,”This is so weird, I can’t believe we’re discussing the shapes of clouds!”

“Well, you started it,”the orange pegasus reminded her,”Besides, it’s kind of fun. We should do this more often.”

“Yeah, it could be like our own Cloud Watchers Club or something,”Rainbow snorted teasingly.

“That’s not a bad idea actually. Whadya say we make it our little tradition, eh?”Flash suggested.

“Oh, um, sure,”the former pegasus said haltingly, making a mental note to tell Twilight later so she it wouldn’t lead to any misunderstandings in the future. Still, it bothered her slightly that she could only do this with Flash because she was the alicorn princess. It would be cooler if she were in her own body and they could just chill together like normal friends. Suddenly she felt a warmth at her side and looked to see the stallion had snuggled in closer and put his wing over her back.

“Oh no! This is awful, what am I supposed to do? If I let this continue I’d a pretty poor Element of Loyalty, but if I pull away Flash might get offended and I could wreck his relationship with Twilight!”the alicorn screamed in her mind. Now her emotions had officially been sent into haywire. The Twilight in her wanted nothing more than to stay like this with him forever. The Rainbow in her wanted to take off and fly as far as as possible before things got out of hoof. Even though she didn’t have a special somepony Dash knew that the stallion she actually wanted wasn’t the one who was engaged to her best friend, that was for sure. Still she could do nothing to stop to unyielding thumping passion in her heart thanks to Twilight’s love for this pegasus. So, the war between these two personalities raged inside her until finally her salvation arrived in the form of a snore. Flash Sentry had fallen asleep beside her

“Flash, wake up!”the former pegasus hissed, though secretly she was jubilant because now she had to perfect excuse to scooch away from him.

“Wh-what?”the stallion murmured groggily, sitting up and opening his eyes.

“You fell asleep, doofus,”Dash grinned,”Come on, let’s go home. The sun’s going to set soon.”

“Okay,”he consented and followed the alicorn off the cloud and back to the castle.

A grey and pink butterfly watched their retreating figures disappear. A few minutes later it began to laugh, a soft tinkling sound that soon grew into a manical cackle. In a flash of light the insect vanished and in its place appeared the Lord of Chaos himself.

“Oh, this is going to be such fun,”Discord murmured, an grin of pure evil spreading across his face.

Comments

[LunaJack]

Wondered when Discord would show up. This is too good a set up for him to pass up!

[Scholarly-Cimmerian]

Oh no... Discord, what are you going to do?

[Yoshifan30]

So it looks like Starlight is teaching rainbow how to use her Alicorn Magic and so far she's doing pretty good job until Flash Sentry came in and rainbow in Twilight's body asking him to fly with her and despite the warning about her emotion she can't help it because that's Twilight's feeling and apparently rainbow is having really trouble try to keep her emotions in control and it looks like Discord knows what's going on oh boy