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Chapter 11,631 words
Chapter 21,526 words

Chapter 1

"You can't just kick me out! I'm the best flyer you have!" Two uniformed stallions escorted her through the inner workings of the Academy Plateau. She pleaded, on the verge of screaming hoping they might listen.

These stallions were used to such reactions, and ignored her. They came to the tourist entrance, and Lightning begged for another chance.

They gave her a shove out the gate, and she found her knees weak. She toppled over just outside the door, and watched from her side as the two pegasi shut the gate.

"They call it the tourist entrance, but it's really the earth pony entrance."

She remembered her father joking to her about the use of the tourist gate as an entrance for earth ponies. She thought of his voice again, and tears escaped her eyes. She shouldn't be crying, he hated it when she cried.

She got to her hooves as the cloud cover began to trickle drops of rain. A small drop hit her muzzle as she composed herself. She flapped her wings, but as she felt herself lift off the ground her wings locked up.

She hit the ground, thinking about her wings. She looked back to the gate, the open sign swiveled to the closed position. Then she just stared at her wings in the rain, and there she stood. Just watching rain run over her expertly preened wings, how she always kept them.

She thought of her "wing pony", someone who she was told to trust. She couldn't put how she felt into words. Pangs of betrayal and defeat consumed her mind, only able to focus on how cheated she was. Rainbow Dash was her friend, and her only real competition.

Lightning scoffed, after all this time a worrywort of a pegasus would be her end. Removed from the Academy because a group of earthbound ponies flew into restricted air space. If Rainbow had helped stablize the tornado, it would never had careened into the hot air balloon in the first place.

This wasn't her fault, she knew it. She wouldn't be knocked down because she was seen as reckless.

"I'll show 'em reckless, I'll show 'em all. Ecpecially that two-timer Dash." Lightning swore at the clouds above.

Then she heard the gate open.

"Lightning Dust?" His voice sounded familiar.

Lightning, try as she might, couldn't conceal the anger in her voice. "What, Thunderlane?"

Thunderlane came up beside her and looked her over. "Why are you out here in the rain? All the recruits are supposed to be in the bunkhouses."

Lightning Dust just looked at the ground in front of her, and didn't respond. Thunderlane slowly pieced it together. "Do...Do you need a place to stay tonight Lightning?"

She nodded, not wanting to return home a failure.

Thunderlane put his wing over Lightnings back to guide her and protect her form the rain. Lightning swatted the wing away with her own. "OK then, lets get you someplace warm."

Thunderlane and his house-guest stood outside a small home just outside of Ponyville.

Thunderlane bucked the door, "Rumble! Open the door!"

The two waited a moment, and soon a little pegasus opened the door for both of them. The second the little colt saw her, he turned and yelled into the house.

"Mom! Thunder has a mare-friend!" Thunderlane blushed, an chuckled a little bit. Thunderlane entered first, swatting his brothers face with one wing while guiding Lightning with the other.

"Welcome to the Thunder household, the loudest house in all of Ponyville." Rumble rubbed his face with his hoof as Thunderlane gestured around the room with his.

"Whats all that racket!? It sounds like someone let Discord himself wander through our front door!" A homely looking mare stuck her head out what Lightning could infer from the smell of food being prepared, the kitchen. Rumble ran to her side and stuck his tongue out at Thunderlane.

"Mom, this is Lightning Dust. She needs a place to stay tonight."

"Well of course! She can stay as long as she needs to. Now Rumble, come help me in the kitchen. Thunderlane, can she stay in your room? You can grab some some spare sheets from the storage closet and sleep in the guest room." Thunderlane's mother turned and ran her hoof through Rumble's mane as she returned to the kitchen.

"Yes Ma," Thunderlane directed her up a flight of stairs and into his room. Lightning viewed the room as Thunderlane quickly cleaned his room.

"The bed isn't made, but it's more comfortable this way I think." Thunderlane examined his speedy handiwork. Looking around the room for any last second details.

"Thunderlane?" His mother called from downstairs.

"Yeah, Ma?" Lightning sat on the firm mattress as Thunderlane poked his head out the door.

"Would you come down here and finish making supper? I want to see if I have any spare PJ's around for her."

"Why?"

"Because. Did she have any when she came in?"

"We don't normally wear clothes, Mom." Lightning could almost imagine the glare he was receiving, and couldn't help but smirk.

"All right, I'm coming." Thunderlane looked back into the room,"Be right back."

Lightning examined her soaked rookie uniform, slightly torn and blown around by the storm outside.

"OK, time to get you some warm, dry clothes!" Thunderlane's Mom slipped in the door and shut it behind her.

Lightning was surprised by two things. The first, Thunderlane's mother sported the hospitality of a noble. And Second, she was a earth pony.

Without warning, the earth mare snatched her collar with her teeth and yanked as hard as she could. Lightning put her wings to her sides in protest, and Thunderlane's mom stopped pulling.

"What are you trying to do?! Pull my wings off?" Lightning snapped at her.

The mother paid no mind, "You need to keep your wings out so I can slip this off over your head."

Lightning flapped her wigs out in frustration, "Why don't you just unzip-"

Thunderlane's mother bit the collar and pulled hard, and Lightning didn't have the time to react. In a flash, the uniform slipped off over wings and head. Lightning just stared in disbelief.

"How did you-"

Thunderlane's mother interupted again, "I was running a bath for Rumble to take, but you should take one first. I'm sure he'll be just estatic when I say he won't have to take one tonight." She sighed, "I'm sure Thuderlane will be done with supper by he time you're done."

Lightning watched as she exited the room. She stopped on the threshhold and looked back. "The bathroom is the second to the left down the hallway. I'll have found some suitable clothes for you before you finish."

She started out, but stopped again. "And my name is Spring Breeze, you can call me Breezy. Everypony does."

Breezy left the room, and Lightning looked around the room again. This wasn't her family's appartment in Cloudsdale, but she really didn't want to go back there. At least, not as a failure.

She edged herself off the bed, and made her way toward the bathroom. It was smaller, with a tub and toiletries. The tub was beginning to fill with warm water, and Lightning closed the bathroom door and ran her hoof across the top of the water.

Lightning, slowly and carefully, slipped into the tub.

Lightning felt her muscles relax as the water inched up around her. Cloudsdale pegasi such as herself took showers from birth, with clouds absorbing water and all.

She was broken from her relaxation when she noticed she never turned the faucet off. She burst out of the tub, tripping and slamming to the floor. She stopped the flow from the faucet and grabbed all the towels she coud find and mopped up as much water as she could.

As she folded up the last wet towel, a hoof knocked on the bathroom door.

"I couldn't find any mare's clothes with wing holes so I grabed some of Thunderlane's old PJ's. I think they might fit!" Breezy said through the door.

Lightning opened the door and recieved the matching blue pajama top and bottoms.

"Thanks ma'am."

"Oh, no worries. They're to small for Thunder and to big for Rumble. At least you can get use out of 'em."

Thunder voice trailed up from down in the kitchen, "Mom! Lightning! Food's ready!"

Lightning put on the hoof-me-downs and accompanied Mrs. Spring Breeze down into the kitchen, where Rumble was still heckling Thinderlane for brining his "mare-friend" home.

"How's my cooking?" Thunderlane joked.

"Your mother's cooking was great, I've never felt so full after vegetable soup before." Lightning Dust joked back.

'OK, Lightning. I'll be across the hall if you need anything, don't be afraid to ask."

"Thanks, I'll be fine. Night."

"Yeah, you too."

Lightning entered her room, and slipped under the covers of the bed. She folded in her wings, and hoped her dreams may be a bit brighter than what happened today.

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