Salvaged from the Cutting Room Floor

by wishcometrue

Fire in Her Soul [Drama]

Author's Note:

Additional Tags: [Spitfire]

Description: Spitfire knows she tied for fourth today, no matter what anypony else says.

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Written for a Quills and Sofas Panic Fiction with the prompt "Fourth Best". Ironically, it tied for fourth.

Spitfire walked dejectedly into her room. It was plastered with Wonderbolts posters, there was a whiteboard with a detailed workout plan, and a calendar. On today's date, in big capital letters, was the word ‘RACE’, circled three times, with stars drawn around it. Spitfire growled and threw her bronze medal against it.

“How stupid do they think we are, giving two foals silver and two foals bronze?” she ranted as she paced around her room. “And then they claim I tied for third with Soarin? No! We tied for fourth!”

She began to see red as her breathing sped up and her anger gained heat. With a roar she flew to her nearest Wonderbolts poster and ripped it off her wall. She crumpled it up and threw it to the floor; one poster down, nineteen to go. She flew around the room, leaving a yellow and orange trail as she destroyed her most prized possessions.

After all, what point was there in dreams if some rainbow-maned filly four years younger than anyone else in their racing class could come in and nearly beat them all?

The red faded from her vision and finally reality set in again. Her posters, things she saved up her allowance for, things she had received as gifts, things she had waited in long lines through heat and cold and rain and snow to get autographed, all torn down. Tears welled up in her eyes and she circled down to her bed. Shoving her face into a pillow, she cried her eyes out.

She rolled over some time later, body drained of tears, and stared at the ceiling. This wasn’t like her, giving up like this. Her gaze drifted to the whiteboard with its workout plan. She flew over to it and began adding to it, making her workouts longer, more intense, more often. Her determination came back as the fire inside her reignited.

Maybe she was fourth best now, but that just meant she’d have to work harder to get back to the top.