The Love of a Family

by Asterid

Escalating Tensions

Chapter 16 – Escalating Tensions

Day 8 ATA, 6 days Until Deadline

The past four days had been rough for Ponyville’s Chromatic Pegasus. While she no longer had her Weather Team or Wonderbolt’s duties, the pressure to complete the test imposed by Princess Luna weighed heavily on her as the pages fell off her calendar. Each morning, Rainbow would push herself to near exhaustion, only taking occasional breaks for water, struggling to get her skills in Aeromancy to the point where she was able to crystalize liquid light. Each night, the setting sun would find her having dinner with Twilight and the kids before she would drag Scootaloo to the library where they would both study into the wee hours of the morning. Today would be her first attempt.

After having Twilight retrieve one of the vials of liquid moonbeam, Rainbow sequestered herself in one of the out of the way bedrooms on the ground floor. After bribing Spike with a large Opal she had been saving for a rainy day, she instructed the young dragon to stand outside the door and make sure no one came in unless it was an emergency.

Standing in the middle of the empty room, Dash took a test tube holder she had borrowed from Twilight and set it down on the floor before placing the vial in it. Sitting on her flank, Dash held her forehooves parallel to each other with the vial between them. Concentrating her magic as hard as she could, she imagined a small drop of liquid moonbeam rising from the container, held in place by her will alone. Flaring her wings, she began pouring every ounce of her being into condensing and hardening the ethereal silver liquid into a rough ball shaped pearl. As the sweat began to bead on her forehead, her left eye began twitching from the exertion. Letting out a frustrated shout, Dash felt her tenuous control of over the magic fade.

Flopping onto her back, Dash expected to hear the splash of the liquid hitting the crystalline floor of the palace. When a soft “ping” echoed through the air, an almost manic smile spread across her face. Looking at the ground in front of her, Dash found the small pearl, little bigger than a snow pea. Still, it was progress and from what she had read, would be something to build off of.

“YES!” She shrieked, zooming around the room like a crazed tornado.

Spike, hearing all of the commotion from behind him cracked the door and peaked inside, only to be blinded as a Sonic Rainboom detonated feet from him blasting the door off its hinges as Dash rocketed down the hallway, crashing through on of the large stained-glass windows as she headed skyward. Laughing like a mad mare, she wrapped the entire palace of friendship in the scintillating corona of her rainbow contrail. Heading in for a landing, she spied her favorite filly still practicing with the buckets and decided to share her excitement. Going in for a landing, Dash skidded across the lawn like it was an ice rink before coming to a stop in from of Scootaloo.

“Scoots, great news!” Dash shouted, startling the filly.

“Celestia, Mama Dash,” Scootaloo huffed, pouting as she glared at the bucket in front of her, “You ruined my concentration!”

“Sorry, squirt,” Dash said, “I’m just so excited, I cracked the lunar pearl test! Couple more days, maybe another trip to the weather factory, I’ve got this in the bag.”

“Whoop-di-doo,” Scootaloo groused, twirling her wing tip in the air, “Bully for you.”

“Scootaloo, this isn’t like you,” Dash asked, wrapping a wing around the younger mare, “Is something wrong?”

“Wrong? WRONG!” Scootaloo shouted, “Lets see, first, I’m still struggling with the basics here and I have less then 2 weeks before I have to give Rarity a rainbow gem. Two, she laid down the law yesterday and said that until I succeeded, Sweetie and I couldn’t hang out anymore which kicks coconuts because I really like spending time with her. Then you show up and it’s just….argh!”

Lashing out, Scootaloo kicked the large tub of water in front of her causing it to break apart. Leaping back, her tiny wings buzzing like a chainsaw, Scootaloo expected the water to come rushing out the sides. When a tub shaped cloud held its shape and bobbed above the ground, the young Pegasus began doing a happy dance in mid air.

Blinking several times, Rainbow stared first at Scootaloo as she hung effortlessly in the air before turning back to the cloud.

“Squirt,” Dash said carefully, “Don’t look down…”

“Huh, what?” Scootaloo said, immediately doing the opposite, “Wait, I’m in the air. I’M IN THE AIR!”

Little wings buzzing as fast as they could, she shot forward, her tiny hooves latching onto the cloud she had finally succeeded in making. Pushing the mound of fluffy goodness along the ground, her stamina finally gave out, sending her face first into it.

“Ok,” Dash said, stunned by this, “Ok, ok, ok. Catch your breath kiddo, once your ready, we’re gonna try to replicate this.”

********

Day 11 ATA, 3 days until Deadline

It was slow going, but Dash was eventually able to get Scootaloo to both fly and reliably create clouds. The combination of Dash’s workout routines, the nutritional supplements, and Twilight’s homemade Ambrosia had done wonders for the little daredevil. Her stamina was still something to be desired, but she continued pushing the little filly. Taking a chance, Dash was ready to gamble that Scoots was ready to try her hoof at making the gemstone.

“Are you sure I’m ready?” Said the Orange bundle of nervousness and energy, “I mean, even you are having troubles with this step. You’ve got a pearl the size of a cherry and it needs to be the size of an apple. AN APPLE!”

“It’s actually the size of a plum now,” Twilight said, looking up from a small journal held in the aura of her magic that she was furiously writing in, “Its really rather breathtaking.”

“Yeah, I’m gonna be cutting it close, but I should have it done either tomorrow night or the night after,” Dash said proudly, “Then, it’s off to Canterlot to present it to Her Royal Mooniness.”

“I don’t think Aunt Luna would like you calling her that,” Scootaloo giggled.

“Yeah, well Aunt Luna shouldn’t have picked such a hard test for your mom,” Dash scoffed, “Now, lets do this Scoots, what’s the first step?”

“Have a stable platform to safely store the liquid rainbow on while working,” Scootaloo recited from memory, pulling a small metal dish from her saddlebags, “Then, we carefully pour the liquid rainbow into the contained, making sure we don’t splash it around because this stuff is hotter than the deepest pits of Tartarus. At least that’s what Mama Dash said.”

“She’d be right,” Twilight said, making sure a fire extinguisher was on hand, “Now, what’s next.”

“Get comfortable,” Scootaloo said, sitting on her flank and flaring her wings, “And hold my hooves on either side of the either side of the container. Now, I concentrate my magic and force it into my hooves while willing the liquid to rise into the air.”

Squinting her eyes shut, Scootaloo reached for the greased rope in her mind that led to her control of her magic. No matter how much she had achieved lately, she was still a young mare with little training and very narrow connections to her magic. Mentally grasping the tenuous control, Scootaloo yanked hard, forcing a large portion of the liquid to rise out of the bowl. However, it was not what she had expected. Only the red portion of the polychromatic liquid was hovering between her outstretched hooves. Gritting her teeth, she began concentrating harder and harder, pushing more and more of her magic into the red blob of liquid. As a small jolt of electricity arced between the tips of her wings, the liquid solidified, forming a jagged, multifaceted gemstone which glowed a deep crimson. Letting her hold on her magic go, Scootaloo dropped the gem to the ground.

“You did it!” Dash shouted, scooping up the little filly into her forehooves and hugging her tightly, “That’s farther than I could ever have hoped to get when I was your age.”

“But, its just red,” Scootaloo whined, “Its supposed to be rainbow colored and its only red.”

“That’s because red is the longest wavelength of visible light,” Twilight said, not even bothering to look up form her book, “You may need to do the same thing Dashie is doing and layer your gemstone with each color. You have time Scootaloo, you don’t need to rush this.”

“But I miss my cuddly marshmallow,” Scootaloo said, her voice breaking as she pouted, “I haven’t seen Sweetie Belle in almost a week. How would it feel if you were separated form the pony you love-“

“Love?” Dash repeated, “Aren’t you a little young for that?”

“Says who,” Scootaloo said, wriggling out of Dash’s grip before crossing her forelegs over her barrel, “I’m thirteen years old. I’m old enough to know what love is. And I’m old enough to know that what Sweetie and I have is special. That’s why this is so important.”

“Well, you’ve got six more colors to layer on this beauty,” Dash said, picking up the cherry sized chunk of red crystal, “Even if you only add a color a day, you’ve got more than enough time. Why don’t you go work on you stamina exercises and we will come back to this tomorrow after breakfast?”

“Kay, Mama Dash,” Scootaloo said outloud before grumbling under her breath, “Stupid Rarity and her stupid rules. And her even stupider test.”

“Stupider is not a word, sweetheart,” Twilight scolded, earning a blown raspberry from the filly.

Waiting until the door was closed, Dash trotted over to her marefriend and wrapped a wing around her.

“Think we are doing a good job with her, Sparkles?” Dash asked, nuzzling the lavender mare.

“Yeah, she’s a good kid and she’s got great parents helping to guide her and an amazing brother to help her when she falls down.” Twilight said, leaning into Dash’s embrace, “You’re a great mom, Dashie, never doubt that.”