I can keep you safe, I can keep you happy.

by Phxntxm

Just a Normal Day

Chapter 1

The wind in Rainbow Dash's mane, the feeling of the world rushing by her faster than anypony else she knew could go, this was the best feeling in the world she figured. “This is the life, better than that dumb farm Applejack has to work at.” She smiled to herself as she closed her eyes and tried to perform a simple flip without looking. Her philosophy was to make things more challenging—doing things the simple way just wasn't fun.

Neither was crashing into a wall she found out the hard way. She'd managed to botch another trick by not paying attention, but instead of crashing into Twilight Sparkle's library, she ended up in the side of Applejack's barn.

“Ah swear ya manage ta mess up more tricks than ya actually pull off Rainbow.” Applejack smirked at her with that look she always used when Rainbow made a fool of herself, which, just like Applejack had stated, was quite a lot. She was the element of honesty for a reason. Rainbow just leered at her as she slid down the barn and landed upside-down on her head, but the leer didn't phase Applejack. “What are ya even doin' practicin' over here? Don't you normally practice flying in that field near Twilight's library?”

Rainbow began to right herself and said, “Well yeah, but the few times-”

“Few?” Applejack continued to smiled.

Rainbow glared at her, “Fine, the many times that I mess up, I kept crashing into her tree-library-house-thing. Apparently all her books kept getting knocked off the shelves, and her books are more important to her than me getting into the Wonderbolts.” She rolled her eyes, “Who even cares about books? They're so boring! All they do is try to teach you stuff that you could go out on your own and learn by DOING anyway!”

“Maybe they'd teach ya to stop your crash landings so much.” Applejack's smile was starting to get on Rainbow's nerves.

“Quit smiling! And why must you always be so sarcastic?”

“Now yer startin' ta sound like Rarity, ya didn't even answer my question." Applejack looked at her inquisitively "Why are ya practicin' here?”

“Oh yeah, well since her books kept getting knocked off the shelf or whatever, she said I was causing such a mess all the time that I had to either find a new place to practice, or help her clean. And there was no way I was going to clean if I didn't have to. So I looked for a new place, and the area around your farm is so open!”

“Just try not ta break anything. Ah work hard ta keep things lookin' spiffy 'round here, Ah'd like to keep it that way. Now get along, Ah'm about ta go eat”

Rainbow started to flap her wings and fly away. “Ugh, fine, now who's sounding like Rarity?”

Applejack just shook her head, the smile back on her face as walked back to her family’s house, just having finished the day's work on the farm with Big Macintosh; they were going back to eat a nice supper that had already been prepared by Granny Smith. Applejack's smile grew as she thought about the food she was going to eat. “Nothing is as good as Granny Smith's cookin' after a hard day’s work, right Big Macintosh?”

“Eeyup”

Applejack chuckled and continued trotting alongside her brother to supper. She looked up and saw Rainbow Dash practicing more of her tricks; Applejack knew that mare was going to end up causing more trouble sooner or later. She always did.

Rainbow mumbled to herself as she practiced more, a little sore from yet another crash landing. “Things would be so much easier if her place was made from a cloud, it wouldn't hurt so much to crash into. Just another reason why Pegasi are the best type of ponies” She always knew how to turn something around to make herself look better. She crashed into something? Their fault for not being a Pegasus. In her mind it made complete sense, if it were anypony else, they would have taken the blame for themselves. After another hour of practicing, she headed over to Twilight Sparkle's place and pounded on the door.

“HEY TWI!!” Twilight answered the door after a couple minutes and looked at her with a little irritation.

Rainbow just blinked and looked at her blankly. “What?”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “Never mind, just come in. What do you need?”

Rainbow started to glance around at the library, not finding anything interesting to look at as it was a library, all there were were books. “Nothing.” She stuck her tongue at some of the books, trying to show them just how lame they were. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Twilight watching her and she pulled her tongue back in and put on a big smile.

“Well no offense, but then why are you here?” Twilight went back to her desk to study from her notes more, as she was before she was interrupted for apparently no reason.

“I don't know, I'm bored and Applejack went to eat, Fluttershy's gone for the weekend, Rarity would dress me up or something like that, and Pinkie Pie is....well....Pinkie Pie, I have no idea what would happen if I went to see her. Whatever she would want to do would be a little much after my practice session for the Wonderbolts today. So I came here.”

“Well I'm studying right now Rainbow. If you want you can grab a snack and wait for Applejack to come by later today.”

“Oh cool! AJ's coming? What for?” Maybe Rainbow's boredom would go away with a mare that was almost as cool as she was.

“Just to hang out.”

Rainbow frowned, and flopped down on the couch, “But that's just so boring! Why don't we go do something!”

“Why don't you just try it?” Twilight rolled her eyes and continued to read her notes.

“Ugh, fine, I'll go get something to eat.”

It seemed like she was the only cool pony around, everypony else was just so boring. “Well, that happens when you're the best and coolest pony ever,” she thought to herself. “You can't compete with this, I've got the looks, the athleticism, the talent, the confidence, and everything else!” She stopped and frowned, trying to figure out what she was about to do anyway.

“You were going to get a snack.”

Rainbow spun around startled and sputtering, “What...how did you...but...I didn't say that out loud...did I?”

“No, it's a new spell I was practicing on today. Before you came barging in I was practicing a spell that lets me read anypony's thoughts within 20 feet, and I must say, it's nice to know that while you aren't talking about yourself, you're still thinking about yourself, Rainbow.” Twilight was smiling at her.

“That seems like a personal privacy issue to me.”

“Well I wasn't expecting anypony till later on, it should wear off within a few minutes, I had just finished and was writing down notes about the spell when you came pounding on the door. By the way Rainbow, you should stop thinking about yourself so much, I daresay that might be the reason you crash so much? Because you're distracted?”

Rainbow blushed. “No of course not!”

Twilight chuckled, “Your lips say no, but your brain is telling me otherwise.” She beamed at her rainbow-colored friend.

“Horsefeathers.”

Twilight chuckled again, “Go get something to eat, Applejack will be here shortly.”

She sulked into the kitchen, grumbling to herself, but soon came to realize it didn't really matter if Twilight had read her thoughts earlier, all she was doing was thinking the truth. She looked at Twilight over her shoulder and saw her glance up from her work, sigh, and shake her head before looking back down. “That's pretty creepy...this spell better wear off soon,” was now her only thought. After getting a snack she laid down on Twilight's couch and dozed off while waiting for Applejack to arrive.

When the knock finally came and woke Rainbow up, she shouted, “Finally! Somepony who's actually interesting!” Twilight just shook her head, being used to the self-centered attitude of her friend, and went to answer the door.

“Hey Applejack.”

“Howdy Twilight! And a howdy ta you too Ms. Rainbow Crash.” And the smirk was back.

Rainbow groaned, “Please don't start with that name again, I barely got rid of it after saving the Wonderbolts at the competition! And how come I keep getting that look? Both of you keep giving it to me.”

The other mares just chuckled. “It's all in good fun sugarcube, we don't mean nothin' by it.”

“Rainbow Crash? Did she crash into your place now? Why don't you go somewhere where there isn't somepony’s place to crash into?”

“Because then no one could get to watch how awesome I am! I'm just giving ponies the chance to watch the best in action!”

“Is that why ya keep crashin'?” Applejack and Twilight giggled.

“Hardee har har, whatever. So what are we gonna do? Pull pranks on somepony? Truth or Dare?” Rainbow asked with a wicked grin.

Twilight just rolled her eyes for about the billionth time that evening, “I already told you, we're just hanging out, probably just sit around and talk. You said you would try it so don't whine.”

Rainbow closed her mouth as she was just about to retort. “Fine.” And she laid down and just thought to herself, “This is gonna be the most boring night of my life.”

Comments

[zombie-kitty]

frist?

[zombie-kitty]

*gasp*
I WAS FRIST!!!!!!!!!!!
~yay

[aporath25]

Rainbow Dash hates books, Yeah no surprise here. We'll see if her perception changes when the episode "Read It and Weep" airs this Saturday. I'll be watching . As for this story, this is a great story so far! Keep the chapters coming.

[Appleloosa2011]

Five stars!

Few days before the episode!

[Dash Is Best Pony]

Howdy Phxntxm! I'm going to point out ANYTHING that I noticed, so unfortunately this is going to be long and belittling . Sorry, you asked me to.
I did read the note at the top though, so I know this has never been edited before. So I guess I'll give you some basic editing and a couple suggestions, but if you have any specific concerns with characterization or something please let me know so I can think about it.

"This was the exact reason she knew this was what made her argument with Applejack no contest at all." Right, except you never showed us the argument. I have no idea what that argument was about. It took me until after the Applejack scene to connect the dots and realize it was about which type of ponies are the best (or something along those lines). Also, the part I bolded is confusing, I think you have an extra 'was'.

"... but instead of into Twilight Sparkle's library" Putting 'crashing' between the bolded words.

I don't really feel like copy-pasting all of them, but if you go back and reread your dialogue there are lots of places where you forget to capitalize the first word.

“'Maybe they'd keep ya from crash landings so much.'” Oh noez! It's plural! (plural's a funny word... I mean, 'singular' comes from 'single', obviously, but where the hay did they get 'plural'?)

“'Well that happens when you're the best and coolest pony ever,'” I feel like there should be a comma after 'well', but that's a stylistic choice and totally up to you.

“'No, it's a new spell I was practicing on today, before you came barging in I was practicing a mind reading spell.'" You may as well start a new sentence in place of a second comma. You seem to like to put in a lot of commas (believe me, I LOVE to do that, I used to use way to many commas). Try to look through your sentences and think about which commas could be periods instead. Otherwise, you get a lot of long sentences that are a little awkward.

"The spell wore off shortly thereafter and her thoughts were her own again, although she shared them whenever she saw fit anyway, and after having something to eat, sat down near Twilight and watched her write notes and study the scroll that she got the spell from." This is a perfect example of the rampant comma usage, but that's coincidence. The real reason I saw fit to make note of this sentence is because all of a sudden you tell us that Rainbow can tell when Twilight is reading her thoughts (she knew that it wore off). Plus, you say Rainbow shared them whenever she saw fit. So they apparently still have linked minds? I think the mind-reading could've been explained a little better, then it wouldn't be surprising when you tell us these things.

OK, here's a couple of things I noticed that don't involve specific places in the text:
You stumbled upon a little pet peeve of mine, friend. There are parts where you have quick conversations between the characters with no description. I actually love it when there are fast paced conversations like that, they're great for comedy. You know, like two little fillies arguing and going "Nuh-uh!" "Yeah-huh!" "Nuh-uh!" "Yeah-huh!" "Nuh-uh!" "Yeah-huh!" "Nuh-uh!" "Yeah-huh!" "Nuh-uh!" "Yeah-huh!". When people are having a casual conversation though it's a good idea to at least describe their expressions. It's good to write in description during dialogue like that because it can give us a better idea of how the characters are reacting to what each other are saying and also HOW they're saying it. Obviously, there's a big difference between. "'HA!'" and "'HA!' Rainbow smirked in triumph."

In a way, this is similar to the dialogue thing in that it ends up feeling a little rushed. There are parts where nothing happens (which is perfectly fine, nothing happens all the time in real life. That's not the problem), and since nothing is happening you skip over it like it's not there. For example, after Rainbow grabs some food and sits down by Twilight, it felt like an instant before Applejack was there knocking at the door. Even though it was probably 10 minutes or something. It sounds stupid, but if you take the time to write out those points where nothing happen it makes the world you're creating that much more believable.

Not trying to make you feel like an idiot with these suggestions, just thought that you might benefit from those thoughts.

I know I tore this chapter apart, but honestly. It looks good. I enjoyed it a lot. I'd be happy to proof-read for you in the future if you'd like, by the way.

Anyway, onwards to the next chapters!!! I can't wait to read more!!!

[Dash Is Best Pony]

173190 Now you just gotta aim for the next level up: an Equestria Daily post.

And O GOD, WHAT HAVE I DONE LOOK AT THAT WALL OF TEXT

[Phxntxm]

>>Dash is Best Pony
It's no problem, I did ask for it I know about my comma problem, English teachers have told me about that as well. I'm going through it and fixing the errors so it should be good and btw, this chapter came out because basically I knew I wanted to write a story...but had no idea where I wanted to go with it. So the chapter felt forced to me, and I don't think I did it well the next chapter's are better imo

But by all means, tear it apart, that's what'll make the story better :D

[SolidFire]

Nice beginning to a story. I like how it is going so far. Keep it up.

[ABronyJohn]

Why i wont read this:
Tragedy Sad and Dark tags dont mix well for me

I try reading sad stories, but find myself crying after them, wich i dont really like.
But I MIGHT read this (MIGHT)
Just not now, im more in the mood for a heart warming story :3

[Rainbow sparkle1]

Dude, I hope the next chapter has something more interesting, though I have a feeling that when twilight and applejack said the reason why dash crashes too much is foreshadowing