Ponywatching

by ThunderTempest

Prompt #344-A Trail of Awesome

Rainbow Dash flew as fast and as hard as her little wings would let her, and even at this young age, it was plain to see that the filly had a talent for flight, though her cutie mark had yet to make itself known to the world. All her concentration was on the race. The older pegasus she was racing against knocked the filly off course, and narrowing her eyes, she adjusted course, heading down for the cloud gate nearest to the ground. It would look better if she beat the jerk by racing on a longer course anyway-it just meant that she had to go faster. As she flew for the cloud ring, she felt something beginning to rub against her front hooves, and her eyes closed reflexively from the sharp wind. She just had to beat Hoops, and show him that she wasn’t Rainbow Crash anymore, that she was Rainbow Dash, and Rainbow Dash did. Not. Lose. She gritted her teeth, and prepared to show that bully what real speed looked like.

She made the turn.

Boom.

Adrenaline coursed through Rainbow Dash as she dived vertically down, her wings flapping as fast as she could make them. The stadium passed in less than a second, and the world blurred past her. Her heart was racing a million miles a minute, and soon enough her wings weren’t doing anything to speed her up again, so they folded up against her sides, and she streamlined her body as much as possible, throwing her hooves out in front of her. She didn’t want to think about what would happen if she failed to pull this off, she wasn’t going to think about the thousand other times she had failed to do this. The barrier began to scrape at her front hooves as her eyes narrowed against the onrushing air. Something inside the pegasus shifted, and the barrier changed from a dome into a cone that wrapped ever tighter around her body as she sped up, and her eyes wrenched closed and moisture fell backwards, driven out by the stinging wind, not because she was crying because she might not make it through the barrier in time. She gave one last push, one last all or nothing attempt from deep inside her.

Boom.

Rainbow Dash shot off the platform at Canterlot Castle at Celestia’s whisper, leaving the ground far behind. All in all, invasion attempt aside, today had been a good day, and it was about to get better for the pegasus. She reached the barrier in record time, and all that practice had paid off, as she no longer needed to be going down to do this, but this was for royalty. It had to be extra special. A wide smile spread across her face, as the stinging, biting wind once again forced her eyes shut, the now familiar barrier rasping over her hooves as it tightened and resisted her attempt to shatter it once more. The smile only got wider as she thought of how this wedding would be remembered in the future, and Rainbow Dash would not let the ending down by failing to lend the unique brand of awesome she could provide.

Boom.

Author's Note:

Written for Prompt #344-'I Second That Emotion'
The Prompt: A character is feeling a very strong, nearly overwhelming emotion. Write a story about this character and the emotion being felt without mentioning the name of the emotion or any of its synonyms.