Skyblaze

by Darkest Night

First published 8th of March, 2016

Skyblaze, an energetic and mischievously notorious Canterlot pegasus known more for his crashing than his flying, enters the Young Flyer's Competition to advance his dream of becoming a Wonderbolt...and finds himself in competition against Scootaloo.

Skyblaze Stardust hails from a long and accomplished family of the best unicorn jewelry makers in Canterlot. For Skyblaze, however, there’s just one little problem.
Skyblaze is a pegasus, and he’s filled to overflowing with high energy and high expectations.
Even if his family doesn’t entirely understand what it's like to be the odd pony out, they do understand that he wants to be one of the best flyers in Equestria. But being a competitive flyer in a city where image is everything can be challenging, nearly as challenging as being as good as his hero and idol, Rainbow Dash.
With the Young Flyer’s Competition coming up, Skyblaze is determined to prove that a pegasus born to a family of Canterlot unicorns can fly with the best Equestria has to offer. But the competition is stacking up, and when Skyblaze finds out that Rainbow Dash’s personal protégé and longtime friend, Scootaloo, is going to be in the competition, the event’s importance takes on an entirely new dimension. With an automatic invitation to the Wonderbolts’ Academy on the line, Skyblaze must prove that he can beat the best in order to become the best.

The Terror of Canterlot!

Author's Notes:

This story is set years in the future of current MLP canon (which is S5 with S6 weeks away), but the story itself was written nearly three years ago, just after the end of S3. Luckily, since the story avoids the Mane 6 and is set mostly in Canterlot, I didn't have to do any heavy editing to bring it in line with current canon.

The story does, however, contain my personal concept of the culture and customs of the other "races" of Equestria, such as the griffons and the buffalo, whom you will see in later chapters. It also assumes that eventually, Scootaloo does fly.

Daybreak.

At that very moment, over in the castle, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna were conducting the ceremony where day replaces the night, as the moon was replaced with the sun. It was always one of Skyblaze’s favorite times of day, because it meant the start of a new day, and all the possibilities that the day might contain. There was no telling what could happen today, what new and exciting thing might be discovered, what mysteries might be solved. Daybreak was the time of limitless potential, of unlimited opportunity, and the promise of a day filled with excitement and adventure.

And as usual, Skyblaze Stardust was up with the sun. All but jumping out of bed, the red-coated pegasus went from sleep to full speed in half a second, his wings carrying him across his room in the attic of his family’s jewelry shop, with his parents, brother, and sister in their rooms on the second floor. They’d converted the attic to be his bedroom after his wings finally got strong enough to carry his weight, changing him from a landbound pegasus that ran at full speed all over the place to an airborne pegasus that flew at full speed all over the place. The attic was large and had lots of room, and while his siblings were a tiny bit jealous that their younger brother got the largest room in the building that wasn’t part of the shop, they understood that since he almost never put his hooves on the floor, he needed a lot of room if only to not crash into walls.

A cursory look in the mirror ensured that he wasn’t a victim of bedhead. His coat was a dusky red, like the sky just at sunset or sunrise, but his mane was a much brighter fiery red, long and unkempt, with two yellow streaks just between and to each sides of his ears, worn in a swept-back style mainly caused by his constant flying around. Constantly being blown backwards had made it stay that way. On his flanks was his cutie mark, which was a burst of flame made up of orange, red, white, and yellow, which made his cutie mark extreme. He put on his ever-present goggles, resting them over his eyes and ready to pulled down at a moment’s notice, and nodded to his reflection. He zipped out of his open window, leaving a trail of red the same color as his mane and tail behind him, erupting from the window of the Stardust Jewelry Shop, a shop that had been in his family for generations and was known as the place to go for the most fashionable and elegant jewelry for the pony looking to make an impression. He raced down the street, leaving a trail of bright red behind him, lancing past Donut Joe’s Pastries, past the Taste of Equestria diner, past the Frilly Finery Boutique, past Quillierie’s Finest Books and Supplies, his air wake pulling at the few ponies on the street below and causing a couple to hold down their hats. The regulars along Gem Street were more than used to the morning flash of red and gust of wind that happened right around sunrise every morning, as Skyblaze Stardust started his day with his morning exercise flight.

And Skyblaze Stardust believed in flying to the extreme.

He flew to the corner and turned sharp, hard, taking advantage of his main talent in flight, and that was his agility. He could fly fairly fast, he trained every day to go faster and faster, but his strength had always been the ability to turn hard and turn fast, and coupled to the fact that he never got dizzy, even in a full blown spinout, it allowed him to make sharp turns along the streets of Canterlot at high speed, screaming by ponies starting their days, racing by slower pegasus ponies, leaving a series of straight lines and sharp turns in a red streak behind him, like the angled corners of the buildings between which he flew. He was in the zone today, taking the corners he knew so well with perfect precision, doing every route he used for his morning exercise along the twisting streets of Canterlot. He did so well that he veered off his usual track, off his normally run streets, and dared to fly the narrowest, most crooked streets of Old Town, zigging and zagging, his body turning and rocking and banking with each curve, pushing his reflexes to the limit to identify the next turn and prepare for it even as he hurtled around the last corner. He streaked down a narrow alley and nearly lost the feathers on the end of his left wing to a corner as he blasted out into the huge courtyard beside the palace, and the very slight contact with the wall doing just enough to upset his flight. He gritted his teeth with an expression of both surprise and determination as he felt himself losing control, then he windmilled his front legs when he officially went past kilter, losing it. He cartwheeled through the air, the ground and sky trading places in a wild motion, like pinwheels were put in front of his eyes and spun rapidly, but this wasn’t unusual for him. He’d always had a weird knack for knowing where he was in the air in relation to the ground and able to recover from those spinouts, but it took time. And usually, it was that time that always doomed him.

There probably wasn’t a wall anywhere in Canterlot that Skyblaze hadn’t crashed into at least once in his life. He had earned his ability to recover from spinouts not from natural talent—not entirely—but because he’d spun out so many times that he was used to it by now. Skyblaze was a pegasus that flew at the edge of control at all times, so it was very easy for him to go that one hair past control and end up entertaining the city of Canterlot with yet another Skyblaze crash. Walls, roofs, towers, fences, windows, flower boxes, signs, lamp posts, the mountainside, you name it, Skyblaze had crashed into at all of them at some time in his life. His parents didn’t particularly enjoy paying to replace broken windows and signs and flower boxes, though, so he tried to avoid those and crash into things that weren’t going to break when he hit them. Better he get a few bruises and some lost feathers than have to pay to replace a window.

Getting a lock on his spin, he expertly worked his way out of it, first correcting his spinning tumble, then trying to arrest his fall…and just a tiny bit too late. He bounced off the top of a wall and crashed into a grassy lawn by a large bank of flowers with a long voiced “wwwhhhaaaaaoooooo!!!!,” skidding to a stop on his back with his eyes closed tight and his teeth gritted. When he came to a stop, he took a cleansing breath and opened his eyes…and found himself staring up into the amused eyes of Princess Celestia herself.

“Getting an early start today, are we, Skyblaze?” she asked lightly.

He gave an embarrassed little chuckle. “A little more to the right and I’d have got it that time, your Highness,” he replied with a grin.

She gave a titter of laughter, smiling down at him, her multicolored mane flowing as if pulled by a gentle breeze. “I heard that you entered the Young Flyer’s Competition this year. Practicing?”

“Yes ma’am,” he replied without rolling over, just laying there on his back and looking up at her. “I’m going to do my signature move, the Tornado Twist!”

“I haven’t heard of that one.”

“I invented it, your Highness,” he said proudly. “I hope you’re impressed.”

“Well, it certainly gives me a reason to look forward to attending the show,” she smiled. “It’s been years since a Canterlot pegasus participated.”

“Skyblaze!” came a mortified gasp. He looked to the side, through a wrought iron fence, and saw his father, Silverchain, giving a shocked look at him. His father had a glossy white coat and ice blue mane cut short, with his three interlocked silver chain links on his flank, his cutie mark. A small box was hovering beside him, carried by his magic, for his horn was glowing with a soft silvery radiance. “What in the world are you doing on the Royal grounds!”

“Crashing, Dad,” he replied honestly, which made Celestia laugh. “At least I didn’t take out the pennant pole on the tower this time.”

“Yes, that’s a good thing for both of us, young one,” Celestia said with a sly smile at him. “My tower and your wing.”

“Just a minor setback, your Highness. Three weeks for my wing to heal and I was back in the air.”

“The bravado of youth is a wonder to behold,” Silverchain drawled, which made Skyblaze grin at his father. “Now apologize to the Princess and get out of there before you get in trouble!”

“Sorry, your Highness. I know it was a terribly boring crash, nowhere near my usual standards. I promise to do better next time.”

She gave him a surprised look, then burst into helpless laughter. It always made him feel good that he could make some important pony like Celestia laugh. She looked to his father. “Is that my order, Silverchain?”

“Yes, your Highness, finished just last night,” he replied, stepping up to the fence. “I was bringing it to you for your inspection.”

“Excellent. Come around to the gate, my friend. I’m sure it’ll be as breathtaking as all of your other work.” She looked down at him and gave him an impish little smile. “And you, my little pony, should be more careful.”

“But that just wouldn’t be me, your Highness,” he protested.

“Well, since your father is here, you may as well come with me,” she ordered with a playful wink, then turned and trotted regally towards the main gate. Two of her guards helped him get back on his hooves, their expressions stern yet neutral, but it wasn’t the first time they’d had him crash into the Royal grounds. Actually, that happened fairly often, every week or so. He’d gotten into trouble the first time, crashing into the bigger gardens behind the palace and nearly taking out a thousand year old statue, but after the tenth time, they simply accepted it as the natural order of things in Canterlot since he’d started training. Usually his crashes were the result of trying to find someplace open, so he didn’t break any windows, and, well, there was an awful lot of empty space around the palace. The one time it was much more serious, however, was that time he crashed into one of the flagpoles that held the pennants, when he lost it coming out of Doom Gulley, high up on the mountain over the city and from which the waterfall originated. He’d broken his wing in that one, breaking the pole and crashing onto the large balcony just off the throne room, and nearly hitting Princess Luna, who was standing there to get a breath of fresh air. He probably would have gotten into major trouble if he hadn’t broken his wing. That proved to everyone that it wasn’t even close to intentional. But like most residents of Canterlot, the princesses and the guards in the palace were sort of numb to his daily crashes by now. Skyblaze crashing into something was just part of the morning routine.

If a day went by that Skyblaze Stardust didn’t crash into something, the whole city of Canterlot would think something was wrong. Some Canterlot pegasi teasingly called him the Canterlot Crasher or Skydaze, and quite a few thought that he was a very bad flyer because he was constantly ending up at the bases of walls or ending up laid out on some street or garden or courtyard. They only saw the failures, though. They didn’t see the successes, so he didn’t put much water on their opinions. They could laugh at him all they wanted, because he knew that he was a good flyer. And when he won the Young Flyer’s Competition, he’d show every pony that he was a great flyer.

Skyblaze almost never walked anywhere, so his wings started up and he rose off the ground, and he caught up to the Princess, hovering just beside her and putting his head at a level with hers. He didn’t hang out with Princess Celestia, but his many crashes onto the Royal grounds had given her a passing familiarity with him, and they did talk from time to time. She did know his father fairly well, since Silverchain Stardust did a lot of work for her and Princess Luna, making jewelry for them that they wore during special occasions. Silverchain had made the golden torc around Celestia’s neck, with a large purple amethyst inset into it, but he’d made that for her a long time ago. He wasn’t the official Royal Jewelry Maker, but when Celestia wanted something special or something really intricate or hard to make, she made sure to bring it to his family’s shop. They weren’t the only the jewelry makers in Canterlot, but they were the best. The two of them met his father at the gate, opened by two unicorn guards, and he bowed to her and offered up the box. The silvery nimbus of magic was replaced by the golden aura of Celestia’s magic, and she turned and walked towards the palace with the two Stardust family members with her. “You finished it nearly a week early, Silverchain,” she noted.

“I always put priority on your orders, your Highness,” he replied simply, giving Skyblaze a slightly angry look. Skyblaze knew what was in the box, but he didn’t say anything, because it wasn’t his business. After all, he’d seen his parents working on them for the last three weeks.

They entered the palace through an antechamber, went up the stairs, and entered the large throne room. It wasn’t the first time he’d been there. He’d been in attendance when Princess Twilight Sparkle was introduced to Canterlot, just a little colt then, standing on his father’s back and staring in awe as the Princess walked by with her procession. That was also the first day he’d seen Rainbow Dash. She was his role model now, his hero, because she was the newest and youngest member of the Wonderbolts, and she could do a move that no other pegasus pony could do, the amazing Sonic Rainboom. It had utterly enthralled him when he saw it for the very first time during Princess Cadence’s wedding, though he’d never seen exactly who had done it, as they’d all been down in the courtyard and he never saw Rainbow Dash take off. That made her one of the best flyers in all of Equestria, and that was exactly what he wanted to be. Since the day he’d seen Rainbow Dash standing up there with all four Princesses, he vowed that he wanted to be just like her. His dream was to prove to all of Equestria that a Canterlot pegasus pony born to a family of unicorns could make it to the very top of the flying ladder, to become a Wonderbolt, and have his own signature move that no other pony could do. For Rainbow Dash, it was the Sonic Rainboom. For him, it was the Tornado Twist.

Not that he didn’t try and try and try and try to perform the Sonic Rainboom himself, but he just wasn’t fast enough, not even now after all of his speed training. Rainbow Dash was just plain-out faster than him, and she always would be. So, he’d opted to invent a move of his own that played to his natural strength, which was his ability to turn sharply.

Celestia opened the box and pulled out an intricate head ornament, two golden loops of chain that went around the ears with a chain connecting them, and a from that hung a chain with a glittering diamond at the end that would hang just over and between the eyes. They had no idea for whom the piece was meant, and it wasn’t their business. His father made it to the exacting specifications of her Highness, and it was clear from its size that it wasn’t for her. It was far too small. “Beautiful,” she said as she studied the piece. “You prove again and again the excellence of your shop, Silverchain.”

“I’m happy you like it, your Highness,” he replied with a bow of his head. “I take it you find it acceptable?”

“Oh yes quite,” she replied with a nod. “I’m sure the queen of Saddle Arabia will find it as lovely as I do. This is her birthday gift. I’ll have the rest of your payment delivered to your shop by the end of the day.”

He nodded again. “If you have nothing else for me, your Highness, might I be allowed to return to my shop? I have much to do.”

“Of course. Thank you for your excellent work, Silverchain.”

“You are most welcome, your Highness. Come along, Skyblaze.”

“Yes, Dad. Until I crash into your garden again, your Highness,” he said lightly.

She laughed. “Do be careful, Skyblaze,” she told him.

Once they were off the Royal grounds, Silverchain swatted Skyblaze half-heartedly on the rump with his tail. “Really, Skyblaze? You crash into the Royal grounds again? That’s the third time this month!”

“It’s so big, it’s just hard to miss it sometimes,” he replied, which made his father first give him a look, then laugh ruefully.

“And what adventure ended up with you laying in the gardens this time?”

“I was two inches too far to the left,” he said dryly, hovering just beside his father as they went back to the shop. “I clipped the corner of a building and sorta ended up in the garden.”

He sighed forlornly. “Whatever am I going to do with you, Skyblaze?” he lamented.

“Hey, at least I didn’t break anything this time,” he protested, which made his father laugh. “Do you need me today?”

“Actually yes. I have a delivery for you,” he replied. Since Skyblaze was an utter failure when it came to making jewelry, he pitched in at the shop by delivering finished pieces or picking up raw materials. “I need you to deliver some merchandise to the Glitter Shop in Manehattan.”

“No problem, Dad,” he replied immediately. He knew exactly where that shop was, as he’d made trips there many times over the months since graduating from weather school. It was five hours there and five hours back, turning it into an all day trip. As long as the shop owner there in Manehattan, Diamond Links, didn’t talk him to death, he could be home by late afternoon, and maybe get a little practice in before sunset. His deliveries both got finished goods out to their buyers quickly and saved his father money by not having to ship it by train, or using one of the pegasus delivery services. His father had his own personal pegasus delivery pony, his son. “That gives me this afternoon to practice.”

Silverchain nodded. “You will be careful?”

Skyblaze laughed. “Why does every pony always ask me that?”

“Because we have quite a long history to look back on to know that it’s the right thing to ask,” he replied lightly.

When they got back to the shop, he saw that his family was already hard at work. His mother Shimmergem was working on a bracelet over at her bench, and his brother Gold Ring and sister Prism were making intricate and elegant gold chains for use in necklaces and other jewelry, shaping each link with their magic, one by one. His brother and sister were Stardusts to the roots of their tails. They were unicorns, like every other member of his family, and just like their parents, they had talent in the art of jewelry making. They would inherit the shop from their parents when they decided to retire, where Skyblaze…well, he’d make his own way in the world. He wasn’t going to be the Stardust Shop delivery pegasus all his life. He had plans. His mother glanced up, looking around her magnifying spectacles. “I see you found him,” she said.

“He crashed into the Royal gardens again,” Silverchain noted as he picked up a wrapped package on a bench.

“Again? Skyblaze,” she admonished.

“It’s not like I aim at the Royal gardens,” he protested. “It’s just so open, and I like to finish my street runs in the big courtyard by the palace, that’s all.”

She gave an exasperated sigh, and went back to her work as his siblings tried hard not to laugh. Skyblaze got his travel saddlebags from the peg by the counter and buckled them on, then took the package and put it in and closed and locked the flap. “The Glitter Shop, right?”

“Right.”

“Am I bringing back a payment?”

“Yes you are, son, two hundred and fifty bits,” he replied. “You can use some of it to buy lunch in Manehattan, just don’t get exotic.”

Skyblaze chuckled. “Five bits max,” he promised. “Lemme grab a quick breakfast at the diner, then I’ll be on my way. Be back this afternoon.”

“Fly carefully, son,” his mother called.

“That’s the boring way to fly,” he replied lightly as his wings picked him up, and he darted out of the shop in a streak of fiery red.

Skyblaze never minded the long flights to the distant cities of Equestria. He’d been to every town in the kingdom except Ponyville, from the small villages like Dodge Junction to the huge cities like Manehattan and Las Pegasus. He’d even been to the furthest-flung parts of the kingdom, all the way out to Appleloosa to the south and the Crystal Empire to the north, from Las Pegasus to the west to Baltimare to the east. His family’s shop did a lot of business with the Crystal Empire, now that it had returned. The crystal ponies loved jewelry, and his parents’ shop was selling them jewelry and buying the many crystals and gems that were common in their empire, to use in their pieces. The flights were just training to him, and he approached them as such, trying to put on as much speed as possible and hold it throughout the entire flight, finding his pace and holding it, then finishing in a burst of speed, just like if he was racing. He flew high out over Equestria as he turned away from the mountain on which Canterlot was built, flying with Cloudsdale in the distance behind him to the west, then making the more northerly turn to avoid the Foal Mountains on the way to the large coastal city of Manehattan. It was a five hour trip from Canterlot to Manehattan by wing, when it would be over a day by train, and that was why his father trusted him with the deliveries. And every time he flew the route, he tried to shave five minutes off his time. He first found the fastest route to Manehattan, and once he had that down, he started working on his time. The long distance flights were a chance to work on his endurance, making him not just a fast flyer, but a sturdy flyer, able to hold a fast pace for a long time.

And just as he flew into Manehattan a good hour before noon, he checked his stopwatch and saw that he’d shaved exactly five minutes off his prior best time…perfect. He landed on a busy street in front of the Glitter Shop, the largest jewelry shop in the city, and the owner’s eyes brightened when Skyblaze came in the open doors. “Skyblaze, am I glad to see you!” the large earth pony stallion declared, almost galloping around his display case. His coat was a creamy brown, his mane and tail black, and he had a pair of diamond-tipped cufflinks emblazoned upon his flank, his cutie mark, from which he got his name, Diamond Links. “Madam, if I’m not mistaken, this young pegasus is carrying your order,” he remarked to a smartly dressed earth pony mare with a fur stole and a large, almost garish pearl necklace, her pale pink mane expertly styled.

“I don’t know exactly what I’m carrying, Mister Links,” he said as he unbuckled his saddle bag flap. “Just that I’m bringing it here.”

“I’m positive it’s Madam Rosemane’s order,” he said as he accepted the box and opened it. He smiled beatifically. “Yes it is. Madam,” he said, bringing it over and setting it on the counter. Inside was a large necklace made of rubies and sapphires.

She gasped, her eyes widening. “Why, it’s just the loveliest!” she declared, holding it up to her neck.

“Isn’t it everything I told you it would be?” he asked.

“Yes it is,” she answered as she admired it in the mirror.

“You sold it before you even got it?” Skyblaze asked lightly to Diamond Links when he came back over.

“She saw the drawing of it I sent to your parents and decided she wanted it,” he replied with a chuckle. “I have your payment right here,” he added putting a small sack on the counter. “Thank your parents for them getting it here so fast.”

“Hey, I get to really stretch my wings when I deliver for the shop, so I never mind,” he grinned as he put the sack in his bag and locked it. He never had to count it when it came to Diamond Links. There was always exactly what was agreed upon in that bag. Their family had been doing business with Diamond Links’ shop for years, so there was a great deal of trust between them, and it was well-deserved trust.

“And since I know you must be hungry after that long flight, here,” he said, pushing a dozen or so bits towards him. “Have a good lunch and a safe trip back.”

“Aww, thanks, Mister Links,” he said with honest gratitude, collecting them up.

He enjoyed a hearty meal in his favorite diner in Manehattan, and then headed back to Canterlot. Usually, on a trip to the east side of Equestria, he’d detour to see his friends Gedwin and Gwendi, but today he didn’t have the time. Gedwin and Gwendi were griffons, brother and sister who were hatched from the same clutch of eggs, who lived in a small griffon village in the Foal Mountains east of Canterlot. He’d known them for about a year, but despite only that short time, Gedwin and Gwendi were two of his very best friends. He didn’t get to see them as often as he wanted, and any time he stopped to see them, he usually ended up flying back to Canterlot in the dark. He always lost track of time when he was with his griffon friends, and today, he couldn’t afford to lose track of time. He had business to attend.

His wings were a tiny bit tired when he landed in front of his family’s shop, and was almost knocked down when some pony crashed into him. The silvery laughter betrayed his attacker, and he pushed her away. “Rainsong!” he protested.

Rainsong was another Canterlot pegasus pony, and another of his best friends. They were the same age, so they’d gone to flight camp in Cloudsdale together, and had also attended regular school and weather school together. Weather ponies in Canterlot were hoof-picked by the weather manager, and no other pegasus was allowed to meddle with the weather, so they didn’t go to weather school to work on the weather in Canterlot. But all pegasus ponies had to attend weather school, had to have the basic knowledge of how to work with clouds, even if they lived in a town where they weren’t allowed to use that knowledge. Rainsong had a dusky yellow coat and a long white mane, always windblown and tousled, with a very, very long, almost ridiculously thick tail. Her tail dragged the ground when her hoofs were on the ground. Her cutie mark was a light gray rain cloud with a series of blue raindrops falling from it. That cutie mark was a visible indication of her talent, and that was a weird affinity for rain clouds and rain. She was playful and maybe a little mischievous, but only safely mischievous. Her mischief was usually aimed at him, where his mischief often got her in trouble. But she didn’t mind all that much, since the trouble he got her into was always the kind of fun worth having. He was always more than happy to go get in trouble with his best friend. She draped her front legs over his back and shoulders and pushed her head up even with his. “Where did you go today?”

“Manehattan,” he replied. “So, how did it go today?”

“Bleh,” she sounded as she put her hooves back on the ground, and they went into the shop. Rainsong and her family were the ones that more or less taught him what it really meant to be a pegasus. Her whole family were pegasi, where he was the only pegasus in a family of unicorns, thanks to his great-great-great-great grandfather, who was a pegasus. It finally showed up in the family tree with him, and for one, he was glad it did. If he’d been born a unicorn and still had the same personality, he’d have been absolutely miserable as a unicorn. He was all pegasus, in mind, body, and soul, and it was his friendship with Rainsong and her family that showed him what it was like to be a pegasus.

His rather unique heritage had certainly caused some trouble. Often, foals would tease others based on a perceived difference, and the fact that he was a pegasus born to unicorns made him really different. Some of the pegasus foals in Canterlot didn’t think he was a real pegasus, and in a way, it was their teasing that made him what he was today. Skyblaze had dealt with the double drawback of not having pegasus parents, of living in a house where everyone walked and nobody could teach him what it meant to be a pegasus, and also being a very late bloomer. He had been landbound for nearly two years longer than normal, still walking when foals younger than him were able to fly, and it had been enough of a concern for his parents to take him to a doctor to make sure that he was healthy. He’d only just been able to get off the ground when it was time to go to flight camp, a three month dedicated training camp in Cloudsdale where pegasus foals were taught the basics of flying in a structured environment, which was usually after they’d had time to learn the basics of flying on their own. Him being such a late bloomer made him a very weak and clumsy flyer when he went to flight camp with his friends Rainsong and Windrunner…and that was again a reason for the others to tease him. He struggled and struggled to do the simplest of flight maneuvers, things that others in his class had been doing for years. But Skyblaze didn’t get frustrated easily, nor did he give up. He worked hard, pushing himself to exhaustion every day, dragging himself back to the dorm past sunset every day when the others had all been done hours before, getting better day by day as his natural talent for flying began to bloom as his wings strengthened and he gained experience using them. And much to the shock of everyone in flight camp, even his own teachers, he won the final week field day competition and took home the gold wings as top flyer in his class.

His late blooming and the teasing he suffered at the hooves of other pegasi had instilled a burning need in him to prove to the other pegasi that just because he was born into a family of unicorns, it didn’t make him any less of a pegasus than they were. And he’d done just that over his colthood. He won the gold wings during flight camp field day, that still decorated a silk bunting in his room. He’d graduated second in his class in weather school, beating out pegasus ponies who had parents who were weather managers in Canterlot, only losing the top spot to Rainsong due to her natural affinity and talent for the weather. He’d managed to get into the Young Flyer’s Competition the first year he applied to compete, and if he won, he’d receive an automatic invitation to attend the weeklong training course at the Wonderbolts’ academy. In every aspect that a pegasus was supposed to be a pegasus, Skyblaze had always been either first in his class or right there with them, and he got there because he worked, and he worked hard. He crashed on a daily basis in Canterlot, but that was because he never stopped pushing himself, he never stopped trying to get better, to be better, because he absolutely never gave up. Ever. Once he decided he was going to something, that was exactly what he did, no matter how much work it took.

And after seeing the Wonderbolts perform in Canterlot when he was just a foal, he had decided that he was going to be a Wonderbolt, to be the equal of his hero and idol Rainbow Dash, the only pony in Equestria who could pull off the Sonic Rainboom. And no matter how much work it took, no matter how hard it was, no matter how the odds were stacked against him, he would do exactly that.

Rainsong’s goal in life wasn’t as competitive as his, but it didn’t mean it was any easier. She loved the weather, it was her natural talent, and she wanted to be a weather manager in Canterlot. That was a very prestigious position, since it was the weather that the Princesses saw every day, so they were very, very picky over which pegasi were allowed to work on the Canterlot weather team. Rainsong had to earn her way in by proving herself in another posting, and currently that position was as the sole pony in charge of the weather northeast of Canterlot, in an uninhabited area that had a large forest. It was her job to make sure that forest thrived, even if no pony lived there.

“It’s really boring right now,” she told him as they came in, went past the counter. “Hello, Mister and Misses Stardust,” she called.

“Why hello Rainsong!” his mother Shimmergem called. “Did you finish your work today?”

“I finished a while ago, but I lingered a bit as I practiced making thunderclouds. I almost had one get away from me,” she admitted, which made Skyblaze chuckle, and earned him a swat from her yellow wing. “How are you today?”

“Just fine, dear, just fine,” Silverchain called from his bench. “What are you two about to get into?”

“Well, I have to go practice for the competition,” he said. “Or at least as much as I can. Those trips to Manehattan take a while.”

“And I’m going to help,” she added. “I move around the rings he’s going to use for the first part of his routine. Are you going to try to be there?”

“We’ve already arranged a balloon to get us there, and I have a friend who knows a spell that will let us walk on clouds,” Silverchain replied. His talents focused on making jewelry, and that spell was beyond the ability of all the unicorns in his family. “So we’re going to be there to watch him compete.”

“Great! We can sit together!” Rainsong smiled.

“As long as you don’t mind being seen with a group of unicorns,” Prism said from her bench.

“And a couple of griffons,” Skyblaze added. “I’m inviting Gedwin and Gwendi too.”

“Whyever would I not?” she asked lightly. “Ready to go, friend?”

“Hold on,” he said as he opened his bag and dropped the sack on his father’s bench, then hung up his saddlebags by the counter. “All there, Diamond Links treated me to lunch,” he said.

His father nodded. “Have a good practice, son.”

“And be careful!” his entire family said in unison, which made Rainsong almost fall over laughing.

They flew out over the wide, beautiful valley beside and under Canterlot, then descended down to the ground, in a large open field that was about halfway between Canterlot and Ponyville, the closest town to Canterlot. The clouds of Rainbow Falls were visible at the top of a low mountain to the west, and to the southeast was the Everfree Forest. They started by gathering up some clouds, then they shaped them into rings, exactly 30 of them. He landed and kept his eyes on the ground as Rainsong moved the rings around, so he wouldn’t be able to see them until the last second, which was what he was going to do during his performance. He’d be blindfolded as the show organizers set up 30 rings over the stadium, and he’d take off on their signal and go through each ring once and once only, and do it as fast as possible. It wasn’t as easy as it sounded, since the rings wouldn’t be in a simple circle, they’d be placed randomly, facing random directions, and they were all numbered to force him to fly the rings in a specific order. That would allow him to show off his greatest strength, his agility, his ability to turn hard at high speed. That agility had been honed by countless crashes in, around, above, and below Canterlot, and his daily crashes just made him that much better. Not because he constantly crashed, but because he constantly pushed himself to the very edges of his limits, and often beyond them. He crashed because he went too fast, tried to turn too hard, tried to weave through obstacles no sane pegasus would attempt, but just one month ago, he was crashing on turns that he could now navigate with practiced ease. That was improvement, that was progress, and he’d keep right on pushing himself beyond his limits until he never crashed again…one way or another.

“Ready?” Rainsong called.

“Ready!” he called back, putting his goggles over his eyes without looking up.

“In five. Four. Three. Two. One. Go!!!”

He looked up even as he took off, his eyes quickly scanning the sky. The rings were all over the place, and Rainsong placed the first ring almost behind another ring to make it harder for him to find it, just the edge of it with the number visible, and he shifted in mid-zoom right at it, doing a tight barrel roll around ring number twelve to reach the first ring. He passed through and went straight up to the next one, then turned well past a right angle and hit the next. Each ring forced him to turn hard at high speed, displaying his natural agility, a red blaze of light that streaked back and forth over the ring course as he twisted and turned, raced as fast as he could to each ring, and slowed down only enough to keep from wiping out on the turn to the next one before accelerating again. She’d placed the final ring almost on the ground, and he dove on it in a screaming fire-red trail of fearless acceleration, the ground racing up at him as his eyes focused on the cloud ring’s circumference, getting ready for the final point. He passed through the ring even as he pulled out of his dive, streaking with his hooves and belly brushing the taller blades of grass before his trajectory curled upwards.

“Forty-three seconds, not bad at all!” Rainsong called.

“Better than my first run yesterday. Okay, friend, move them, and make it really hard,” he said as he landed and pushed his goggles up, then put his head down to look at the grass.

“You want hard, you got it!” she said. “You’ll be lucky to break two minutes!”

“Now you just went and made this a challenge,” he retorted, which made her laugh.

It had to be hard, since it took her nearly ten minutes to set the rings. “Ready?” she called.

“Ready,” he said as he put his goggles back down. She counted down, and when he looked up and took off, he almost froze in midair. She’d lined all the rings up in a row so that he could have flown right through all of them in a straight line, but they were in a random order, and they were so close together that he could barely make it between them. It was exactly what he asked for, however, a real challenge. He picked up speed as he searched for the first ring, flying parallel to the line, then he veered between them and snaked his way through the first ring. He’d also been watching for the second ring, and since he didn’t pass by it, he knew it was forward, so he kept going and found it at the very end. He darted into the row to get each ring one by one, having to almost constant U-turns as the rings were placed in a staggered order that made him double back most of the time. His tail bumped against rings more than once, nudging them a little, but he managed to get all thirty rings without crashing into any of them.

“Well?” he demanded as he slowed to a hover just above the last ring.

She gave him an adorably annoyed look. “A minute and forty-four seconds,” she admitted.

“Ha! In your face, Rainsong!” he teased.

“Just for that, I’ll make the next set impossible,” she taunted with a grin.

She helped him run the rings for nearly an hour, making every run really work him, and not every run was successful. Three times he crashed into a ring rather than get through it, trying to turn too tightly, but he just picked himself up, repaired the ring, and tried again until he got it right. After the ring practice, Rainsong backed well off so he could practice the Tornado Twist. It was slightly dangerous, so she could only watch from a distance, as well as help him if he ended up with his face planted in the ground below.

The Tornado Twist was a move that he invented himself. He came up with it in weather school when they studied tornadoes, how to make them and control them, and it took him nearly a year to finally pull it off. The concept behind it was to form a tornado, narrow it down to a column of high-speed rotating wind, then twist it, bend it back on itself until it formed a ring of cyclonic wind. The finale would be him getting right in the center of the ring, turning it sideways, and then making it burst with a powerful stroke of his wings, and the air shockwave would send a halo of wind and cloud out over the stadium. It was the closest visible effect he could produce to a Sonic Rainboom, which was the inspiration for the trick.

He ascended fairly high up so an out of control tornado didn’t become a danger to the ground, then he flew in long, lazy circles as he warmed up, getting his mind focused to try his most dangerous—and awesome—stunt. He took in a couple of deep breaths, then he started. He angled down sharply and built up speed, then he turned in on himself and flew in tight circles, so fast that he created a cone of fiery red contrails, and within that conical trail a tornado formed. He was good at tornadoes because he was so good and flying at high speed in tight turns, got his highest marks in weather school for them, so he had no trouble forming a fairly good-sized cyclone. Once he had it going fast enough that it’d sustain itself for a few minutes without him, he erupted straight out of the middle of it and went straight up, leaving a fiery red trail behind him, going higher and higher and higher. He then turned back down so fast that it almost looked like he bounced off a wall, gritting his teeth as the wind raced over his goggled eyes, pulled at his lips, the tiny spot of light in the center of his tornado the target he fixated upon. He flashed straight through the exact center of the tornado, and his air wake caused the tornado to shudder, and then in a rumbling gust of wind, he came out of it near the base and started going around and around and around his creation He inched up just a tiny bit and met the tornado right at its wide upper edge, then he ascended and descended in a spiral around his tornado, tightening his turns gradually to push the wide mouth of it tighter, narrower as he loosened the bottom, ascending in a spiral twist to the top and then spiraling back to the bottom, shaping the tornado. He felt the burn in his wings, the roar of air in his ears as he turned the cone into a column of twisting wind. Once he had it that way, he started working the end of it, making it turn and curve. It started to bend, then the base followed him as he spun in tight laps around it, drawing it up with him as he subtly changed his trajectory—

And the whole thing shuddered, started to writhe like an angry snake, and then burst apart in a powerful blast of wind. Skyblaze was hurled upwards and at an angle, his body spinning and cartwheeling wildly, but he recovered with practiced ease and banked around. Him spinning wildly out of control was a nearly daily occurrence, so his ability to recover from it was something with which he had a lot of practice. He circled over his practice area a few times, going over what happened and trying to identify exactly where it went wrong. He realized that he hadn’t corrected enough when the vortex began to twist and allowed the cyclonic winds inside to get too loose. He had to keep a tighter grip on it.

Circling wide a few times to get ready, he then did it again. He got the tornado formed, did a perfect dive-through, and this time he kept a much tighter grip on the base of the column as he started to turn it…too tight. The base of it petered out, and the whole thing blew itself out, sending him cartwheeling almost level to the ground. He again recovered and did lazy circles to get some altitude, and then tried once more. Again, the formation, climb, and dive were perfect, but this time he managed to get the column of wind to turn. He coaxed it up with him as he lifted the base, turned it into a circle, then darted to the open top and pulled it to meet the bottom. He joined them together at the very top, forming a tornado ring, and he let it spin for a moment, the show it off part of the routine. Once he figured every pony had time to appreciate his work, he turned it sideways, got in the exact center, then snapped his wings, which shattered the ring and sent a powerful gust of wind flying outwards.

And that was a properly executed Tornado Twist. In the performance, the wind gust would be over the stadium, and it would blow away the rings placed for him, a suitably dramatic visual effect. There would only be 20 rings in the performance, since the stadium wasn’t as large as the field, but it should still be enough to make it look really cool.

He tried the move 13 more times before the sun started to hang low in the sky, and he managed to do it right 11 of those times, finishing with five successful executions in a row. That was a better success ratio than yesterday, where he went 14 successes out of 20 attempts, so it made him hopeful that he was improving. He’d take 12 of 16 over 14 of 20 any day. That was a 75% success rate for the day…not too shabby, and every day he did his best to increase that percentage. He had three more weeks to master his trick, to get to where he was confident he could pull it off in front of an entire stadium of pegasi, Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, Princess Twilight, the Wonderbolts, and his family. The only one that really counted was the one he did at the competition. He had to be 100% on that day, or he’d look pretty silly.

He just hoped they gave bonus points for difficulty. The Tornado Twist was the hardest move he knew, a move he invented himself, and it was not for the meek.

Rainsong flew back over when he landed in the field under where he’d been practicing, a little out of breath and his wings feeling like he’d flown halfway to the moon and back. “Not bad,” she complemented as he stretched his wings out one at a time. “Tired?”

“You know I am, but not so tired I can’t fly home,” he answered.

“Darn, and I was hoping to rub your face in the fact I had to carry you for years,” she grinned. She then laughed when he swatted her with his weary wing.

After he rested a bit, they made the long ascent from the base of the mountain back up to Canterlot. Rainsong went home for dinner as he returned to the shop, flying in through his window in the attic since the front door was locked, the CLOSED sign hanging in the window, and managed to get downstairs to the living quarters just in time for dinner. His family was already at the table, and he made himself a plate of stewed carrots and beets as the others ate. “So, any broken bones today?” Prism asked playfully. She teased him a lot in private, but she didn’t tolerate any pony else teasing him in public. That privilege was reserved for friends and family.

“Nope. In fact, things went pretty well,” he replied. “I think I’ll have my trick down and be ready to do it for the competition.”

“I’d hope so,” Shimmergem chuckled. “But it’s good that things went well.”

“Pretty well,” he nodded. “You need me tomorrow, Dad?”

He nodded. “But it’s an easy one. I need you to pick up some gems from Dodge Junction, from Rockhound.”

“Short trip, loooong visit,” he sighed, which made his father laugh. “Getting out of there without hearing the hour long tale about the time he escaped from the diamond dogs is almost impossible.”

“Why do you think I send you, son?” he asked lightly.

“My revenge will be terrible to behold, Dad,” he warned, which made his father grin.

Entering the Competition

He was up with the dawn, and outside before the sun was fully over the horizon.

And as usual, he was careening around Canterlot as fast as he possibly could, getting his exercise in during the earliest morning hours, where he disturbed the fewest number of ponies…and most of them were used to him doing it by now.

He ran his usual route twice, twisting and turning through the streets of Canterlot, and almost as if he couldn’t leave it alone, he again tried the treacherous alley that had thwarted him the day before. He wove through sharp corners at high speed, leaving a red trail behind him that turned and twisted, zigged and zagged as he slalomed through the narrow, crooked streets of that old part of town, and then he approached the alley. He gritted his teeth and took on a look of pure concentration as he remembered his mistake the day before, but he also went even faster because he had an idea of what the alley was like…and that cancelled out his familiarity with the alley. He managed the entry easily, spinning a few times as he avoided flower boxes, and then made that final turn, making sure not to drift too far to the right…and ended up overcorrecting and going to far to the left. He scraped the edge of the building just as he came out into the courtyard, which sent him spinning wildly out of control. The ground and sky spun wildly before his eyes but he didn’t panic, quickly sorting out his rotation and countering it, pulling out of his spin, then trying to pull out of his descent…and again, not quite making it in time. The fence and wall of the Royal palace was right in his face, making him pull up in a frenzy, and he almost made it, clipping his back legs on the top of the wall. That sent him flying again, cartwheeling in the air, and slamming into the side of the palace upside-down. He stayed right there for several seconds with a few dusky red feathers drifting down to the grass under his head, as if he’d hit the wall so hard that he’d stuck to it, but then he slowly slid down the pristine white wall to the ground, his back legs and tail hanging over his head and his wings twitching as he tried to clear the cobwebs out of his mind, trying to see more than a big blur of green and white and red in front of him. Something grabbed hold of him and pulled, sliding him away from the wall, his tail and back legs resting against the wall, and he looked up blearily as he got his senses back.

“Again, Skyblaze?” Princess Celestia asked with an amused sigh.

“Did I make it?” he asked in a woozy voice, his eyes not exactly wanting to work.

“If you were trying to crash into my garden again, my daring little pegasus, yes, you made it,” she replied with a smile down at him.

He looked up at her as his eyes focused, then he blew out his breath. “Nuts,” he complained. “Please don’t tell my Dad, your Highness.”

She chuckled softly. “Today will be our little secret,” she winked. “Now off with you. I have some important business today.”

“Yes ma’am,” he replied as he shakily got to his hooves, fanned his wings a few times to make sure they were in proper working order, then took off and got back over the fence, Celestia’s gentle gaze following him as he flew back home.

After returning to the shop and eating breakfast, he picked up his saddlebags and headed out for Dodge Junction. It only took about an hour to get there from Canterlot, a very easy flight, but getting around Rockhound wasn’t easy. He was an old slate gray earth pony with a wild gray mane, a pick on his flank for his cutie mark, and his passion was prospecting for gems. He didn’t use magic like unicorns did, he found gems using years of skill, able to find the kinds of gems he wanted, whatever the ponies who bought them from him needed. It was almost uncanny how he could out-perform unicorns using magic to find gems, but he did just that.

It only took him about half an hour to extract himself from one of Rockhound’s yarns about times gone by, all but flying away as he tried to remember where he was in the story with a hasty apology about having to be back in Canterlot by lunchtime, and he raced his best time back to Canterlot with his saddlebags loaded down with emeralds. He managed to beat his best time by just under a minute, streaking in the door to the shop in a gust of wind. “Made it!” he declared, seeing that his mother was alone in the shop, working at her bench behind the counter. “A minute off my time!”

“Welcome home, son,” Shimmergem called. “Did you get the emeralds?”

“Yes, Mom,” he said, using his wings to hop over the counter, trotting over to her. Due to the wind his wings created, he wasn’t allowed to fly near the benches in the shop. She used her magic to open his saddlebag, a gentle pink radiance covering the emeralds that floated up out of his bag.

“Very nice,” she said. “Nice. Oh, that’s a good one,” she continued, inspecting each one before setting it in a basket by her bench. "I must say, this shipment was worth every bit,” she finally declared as she emptied out his other bag. They’d already paid Rockhound for the gems, and Skyblaze just had to go pick them up. “I can get right to work on the piece they’re for.”

“I’m gonna go eat lunch and go practice,” he told her.

“Be careful,” she warned.

Lunch was always “fend for yourself” in the Stardust shop, the family going to eat by turns so some pony was always there to wait on customers. His father and siblings were probably down at the diner at the corner, their favorite place to eat lunch, a place called Taste of Equestria. He flew by while checking the tables, and sure enough, they were at the far table by Gold Street, which was wide and had quite a bit of traffic moving up and down. He landed by the table as his three family members used their magic to eat, floating the food up to their mouths. Skyblaze had to use his hooves for that, doing it the old fashioned way, at least where they could see. He tended to eat right off the bushes and trees when he detoured from his deliveries to snack on apples and berries he spotted, when he was hungry. He was familiar with the locations of most of the wild apple and pear trees and the berry bushes along the routes he took to get to every town in Equestria. “Back already?” Silverchain asked.

“I managed to take advantage of Rockhound taking a breath to run,” he replied, which made Gold Ring and Prism laugh.

“He’s not that bad. I think some of his stories are interesting,” Prism said.

“Yeah, but after you’ve heard them all ten times over, it gets old,” he answered as he raised a hoof to attract the waiter.

“Are they good emeralds?” Gold Ring asked.

“Mom thinks so,” he answered. “She said she was going to start work on whatever they’re for.”

“It’s a new line of clasps and broaches. The Grand Galloping Gala is right around the corner,” Silverchain said. “We need to get our new pieces ready for the gala attendees.”

“Speaking of important events, you received a letter from Cloudsdale this morning, brother,” Gold Ring said. “I put it on your table in your room.”

“Really? Alright!” he said, and just as the waiter got there, he turned and raced off, ascending to the level of his attic window after making the turn up Gem Street and all but diving through. He skidded to a stop in front of his side table, where a gold-sealed letter was resting. He tore it open and opened it, and saw that it was the official notification of the date and time of the Young Flyer’s Competition. It gave him his number, and a list of the other competitors and the town which they represented. There were 14 other competitors this year, chosen from towns all over Equestria, and it listed their names and town of origin. Skyblaze was the only pegasus representing Canterlot, where Manehattan had four different pegasus ponies competing. The only part of Equestria not represented was the Crystal Empire, but that was because they had no pegasus ponies that lived there full time, just the weather pegasus ponies that managed the weather. Skyblaze was given the number 4, meaning he’d be fourth in line, and his eyes widened as he recognized another name on the list.

Scootaloo. Number 9.

Scootaloo! He knew of her! She was from Ponyville, and from what he’d heard, she was Rainbow Dash’s good friend. She’d grown up around Rainbow Dash, and there was no doubt that Rainbow Dash had taught Scootaloo some of her skills as a flyer.

If he could win the competition, if he could beat Scootaloo, then it would really get the attention of the Wonderbolts! After all, he’d have beaten the personal protégé of one of their own!

She would be going after him, she was 9th and he was 4th, which meant that he had no idea how good she was. That meant that had to completely blow the judges away with his routine, impress them so much that they would give him the cup. It did mean that Rainbow Dash wouldn’t be judging since her personal friend would be competing, but the other Wonderbolts would be, and there was no doubt that she’d be there to watch Scootaloo compete.

The chance to get the attention of the Wonderbolts, and the chance to meet the Rainbow Dash, all in one day? How much better could it get?

Suddenly, his routine wasn’t good enough. The rings, yeah, that was okay. Doing his signature Tornado Twist, that was good too, but he needed more. He needed a second phase of his routine to go in the middle, make it a little longer, show off a different aspect of his skills as a flyer. The rings would demonstrate his agility, his precision flying, where the Tornado Twist would show off his ability to do something unique. He needed something to show off his speed—

Cloudbusting! They always had small clouds high over the stadium for the performers to use in their routines, in case they needed them. He could do some cloudbusting, showing his speed in being able to go from cloud to cloud without doing really tight turns, just pure, flat-out speed. He could do the rings to display his agility, go up and bust some clouds to show off his speed, and that would put him in position to go straight into the Tornado Twist, since he always did that move from a high position, diving down to where he started the tornado so he could have lots of momentum built up. He pulled down his routine diagram and looked at it, looked at a picture of the stadium, and saw that it’d work.

A knock at his window got his attention. He turned and saw Rainsong there, hovering in the window, her yellow wings flapping almost casually to keep her in place. “Your family said you were in here,” she told him. “What’s up?”

“I got my official notice from the competition committee,” he said, holding it up. “And guess what?”

“What?”

“Scootaloo is in the competition!”

“Who’s that?”

“She’s from Ponyville, Rainsong! She’s one of Rainbow Dash’s friends! If I can beat her, I’ll really get the attention of the Wonderbolts! After all, I’ll have beaten a pegasus one of the Wonderbolts trained herself!”

“If that doesn’t make her mad at you,” she winked. “But you’d better be on your game. If this Scootaloo was trained by Rainbow Dash, then she has to be good. Really good.”

“I know, that’s why I’m changing my routine,” he told her immediately, turning back to his table. She flitted into his room and landed beside him, looking at his diagram. “I’ll do the rings first, then I’ll go up and do some cloudbusting, show them how fast I can go when I’m not turning. That also puts me up high, so I can dive straight into the Tornado Twist without a lull in my routine,” he told her.

She nodded. “That’s a pretty good plan,” she agreed. “You are pretty good at cloudbusting.”

“I know it’s a basic move, but the key of it’ll be how fast I can go from cloud to cloud,” he said.

“Sometimes the basics are the best,” she nodded. “And it’ll throw off the other competitors. When they hear you’re going to fly through rings and then bust clouds, they won’t think you’re very good. Then you do the Tornado Twist, and totally blow every pony away.”

“Just hope that that doesn’t happen literally,” he said, which made her laugh.

With Rainsong’s help, he redesigned his routine to add the cloudbusting phase, then he went out with her and got in some practice at it over her forest, since they’d pushed some excess clouds into her region along with the regular cloud shipment for a scheduled rain shower and she needed to get rid of some of them. Goggles down, Skyblaze rocketed from cloud to cloud that she’d marked for busting, all but making them explode as he punched through them, zigzagging through the sky to get all the clouds. When he finished, he zipped up and landed on a rain cloud that Rainsong was moving over the forest. “That was a lot of clouds,” he noted.

“Yeah, they always dump them on me, cause no pony lives out here,” she replied, her tongue between her teeth as she urged the cloud into position with several others, creating a nice large shower that she then set to drift slowly over the forest.

“You should just push them so they’ll drift back,” he grinned.

“And start a turf war with the Ponyville and Cloudsdale pegasi? No way,” she protested. “There’s a ton of them and only one of me.”

“Well, that does make a difference,” he chuckled as he crossed his front hooves on the cloud. Rain clouds were always cool and relaxing. “Looks like you’re gonna be busy for a while.”

“Yeah, sorry, but work calls, ya know,” she grinned. “I’m not a slacker like you.”

He stuck his tongue out at her, which made her laugh. “Eh, I need to go take the form back to Cloudsdale anyway. I have to turn in the last of the paperwork for the competition.”

“Oooh, I always love to go to Cloudsdale,” she said. “Now I wish I didn’t have all this work to do.”

“And you’re stuck here. Guess it pays to be a slacker,” he grinned, then he took off and raced for home before she could swat him.

He returned home and got the last piece of paperwork for the competition, then flew to Cloudsdale. It was almost due west of Canterlot and it only took about half an hour to fly there from home. Cloudsdale was the main pegasus city in Equestria, and it was made entirely of permanent clouds. He’d dreamed of living there when he was a colt, of moving to Cloudsdale, but then he came to the town for flight camp and found out that some dreams were best left as dreams. He’d suffered a whole lot of teasing when word got out that he was a Canterlot pegasus born to unicorns, who could just barely fly, which made his three months at flight camp to be not everything that he dreamed it would be. Rainsong and Windrunner made it tolerable, there for moral support, and there was a measure of sweet revenge in it when he won the field day competition, standing proudly in front of their instructor and receiving his gold wings. It was even better because all those pegasi that teased him for his family and his weak flying skills had to watch the pegacorn as they called him get an award that proved that he was a better flyer than the lot of them.

But they hadn’t eased up on him much since then. In fact, that only seemed to make the Cloudsdale colts and fillies even madder, that some pegasus from Canterlot beat them out for the top flyer award. He was probably the only pegasus that didn’t live in Cloudsdale that had a reputation there. They called Skydaze now, because word had gotten out over his almost daily crashes back home. They didn’t know that he was crashing because he was pushing himself to the limit every day, getting better and better. They simply latched onto the fact that he did crash with daily regularity.

He landed in front of the large columns of the main hall of Cloudsdale, where the competition office was located, surrounded by nothing but pegasi no matter which direction he looked. That was very odd to him, since Canterlot was almost completely dominated by unicorns. But, he didn’t feel out of place. He knew enough about pegasi that he didn’t feel out of place when surrounded by them, thanks to Windrunner, Rainsong, and her family, one of the few pegasus families that lived in Canterlot. But, it was a little weird, he could admit. He really knew more about unicorns than he did about pegasi.

It also turned out that he wasn’t the only one in the competition office. Like him, several other competitors had arrived to turn in the final form that came with the letter. He didn’t know any of them, since they were all from different towns and he was the only pegasus from Canterlot in the competition. A few of them were talking among themselves as they waited near the counter, but they weren’t waiting, probably just getting to know each other. He put his form on the counter—like everything pegasi dealt with, it was treated so it wouldn’t fall through the cloud that made up the counter—and the older mare pegasus with a shocking pink mane picked it up. “Skyblaze Stardust, right?”

“Yes ma’am,” he replied, as he heard some snickering behind him.

“Looks like everything’s in order. So, you need twenty numbered rings and some small clouds for your routine?”

“Yes ma’am,” he nodded.

“We’ll make sure that everything’s there for you,” she told him as she put the form behind the counter. “And you’re all ready. Be at the stadium three hours early on competition day.”

“I will ma’am, thank you,” he said, then he turned and saw two young stallions from flight camp, grinning at him malevolently. Three young mares and two stallions he didn’t know stood off to the side.

“If it isn’t Skydaze!” one of them said swaggeringly. “I can’t believe you actually got into the competition!”

“Guess they need some comic relief,” the other said.

“Rings? Clouds? That’s foal stuff!” the first taunted.

“Then I guess you don’t have anything to worry about, do you Cloudjumper?” he replied calmly as he moved to go around, but the larger of the two deliberately blocked his way. “Besides, who was the one that left flight camp with the gold wings?”

“You cheated for those, and everyone knows it!” he said angrily. “You had your unicorn parents pull strings to get the teacher on your side!”

“I never had to cheat to beat you two,” he said flatly. “Rainsong beat both of you in flight camp, and she’s a Canterlot pegasus too.”

The two of them got really angry about then. “That’s enough of that, all of you,” the mare behind the counter called sternly. “Cloudjumper, Thunderhoof, move. You are blocking the door.”

The two young stallions glared at him, but they did move aside. “We are so gonna kick your butt in the competition,” Cloudjumper promised.

“Guess you’re gonna lose another competition to me,” Skyblaze said as he almost pranced past. “You should be used to it by now. And to lose to the pegacorn, that’s what’s really embarrassing,” he added tauntingly as he left the office.

He didn’t pay the two another thought as he trotted back outside, but someone else did follow him. “Hey, wait up!” one of the young mares that had been watching called just as he opened his wings, getting ready to take off. She had a ruddy orange coat and a short-cropped, thick mane and long tail the color of magenta. “I just wanted to tell you that those guys weren’t speaking for all of us,” she told him.

“Like I care what they think,” he replied immediately as he looked back at her. “They lost the gold wings to me in flight camp, and they’ve never lived it down.”

“What do you mean?”

“They spent the entire camp teasing me because my parents are unicorns, then they lost to me in the field day competition,” he replied honestly.

“Wow, your parents are unicorns?”

He nodded. “My whole family is. My like six times great grandfather was a pegasus, though, so here you go,” he said, wiggling the tips of his wings ostentatiously.

She laughed. “You’re not the first I’ve met. Pound Cake is a pegasus, but his parents are earth ponies. You going home?”

He nodded. “I had to totally redo my routine because of who’s in the competition, so I need to go practice.”

“What do you mean?”

He turned and looked at her. “Scootaloo is in the competition,” he said seriously. “She’s from Ponyville, and she’s totally the pony to beat. So I have to completely rethink my routine, make it so awesome that I have a chance against a pony that was trained by a Wonderbolt.”

The young mare gave him a surprised look. “How did you know that?”

“The letter had all the competitors on it and their home towns, so it doesn’t take a genius to piece it together.”

“No, how did you know that I know Rainbow Dash?”

He gave her a startled look. “You’re Scootaloo?”

She laughed ruefully. “Yup, that’s me,” she grinned. “Nice to meet ya.”

“Well I feel totally stupid now,” he complained, which made her laugh again.

“Don’t sweat it. But it’s nice to know that someone’s so afraid of me that he’s gonna redo his entire routine,” she winked.

“Guess that means you’re the main competition. Good to know,” he told her, looking down at her with a challenging smile.

“Yeah, like you’re any competition,” Cloudjumper taunted as he came out of the building.

“I’m certainly not worried about you two,” he said dismissively. “I’ve already seen what you’ve got, and it doesn’t scare me.”

“Flight camp was a long time ago, Skydaze,” Thunderhoof said with a dark scowl. “And you don’t have your mommy and daddy unicorn here to buy your win, do you?”

“Anywhere, anytime, you wimps,” he retorted. “I can fly both of you dizzy.”

“That sounds like a challenge to me,” Cloudjumper declared. “I bet you couldn’t beat us in a race.”

“If I actually thought you were worth racing, I’d race you from here to Ponyville and back. And I’d give you a ten second head start,” he said tauntingly.

“Loser has to quit the competition,” Thunderhoof said in a pugnacious tone.

“And you have to beat both of us,” Cloudjumper declared.

“That’s not fair!” Scootaloo protested.

Skyblaze made a snort of indifference. “I guess I would give you a twenty second head start, just to make it fair,” he said.

“So the pegacorn thinks he’s all that, does he?” Cloudjumper scoffed, flexing his wings as Skyblaze landed.

He folded his wings, then laid down on the cloud. “Well?” he said, tapping his hoof absently on the cloud.

The two of them gave him a suspicious look, then turned and took off, flying at pretty impressive speed towards Ponyville. He watched them go as Scootaloo and a few others watched him, then he yawned and stretched lazily. “Welp, guess I’d better get home,” he said finally as he stood up.

“Are you crazy?” Scootaloo protested as he opened his wings. “If you lose—“

“Did you hear me take the bet?” he asked pointedly. “They just assumed that I agreed to the race. I just said I would give them a twenty second head start…and I would have, if I was going to race them,” he said lightly. “I never said I agreed to it. And now they’re off flying to Ponyville, which gets them out of my mane and keeps them busy for a little while. Celestia knows, they need it,” he remarked as his wings pulled him up into a hover just over the clouds.

Scootaloo gave him a strange look, her brow furrowing a couple of times, then she burst out into helpless laughter. “You tricked them! Awesome!”

“I have nothing to prove to them,” he replied simply. “See you later, Scootaloo. You better bring your best game at the competition, cause I’m gonna win,” he declared with a bright smile.

“In your dreams! I’m gonna win!” she replied with a grin.

So, it was with a little foalish satisfaction that Skyblaze took off and headed back to Canterlot, musing at how mad Cloudjumper and Thunderhoof would be when they got back, thinking they’d won, only to find out that Skyblaze had never bothered to race them in the first place. Cloudjumper and Thunderhoof had been the two main antagonists when it came to teasing him, never giving it a rest, and no matter how well he did or how badly they did, they always blamed anything and everything they could think of for their shortcomings, completely unable to accept the idea that he could beat them fairly. So, sending them off to Ponyville thinking that they’d beaten him in some bet that would take him out of the competition was eminently satisfying.

And meeting Scootaloo face to face, that was just an added bonus. He knew what she looked like now, so he’d know if it was her if he saw some pegasus doing some pretty amazing tricks out in the open sky between Canterlot and Ponyville.

He couldn’t deny one thing, though. Scootaloo was cute.

Practice, practice, practice

With a look of total determination, Skyblaze was not about to let that alley beat him three days in a row.

He entered it exactly where he wanted to be, making the first turn, doing a spin to avoid clipping his wing on a flower box, made the second turn and did another spin to avoid a window sill, then made the third turn, the tips of his wingfeathers brushing against the far wall as he careened around the corner at nearly full speed. This time he was dead center in the middle of the narrow alley, his wingtips brushing both sides as he rocketed through the narrow passage, then burst out into the courtyard with a red streak behind him and completely in control of himself. He gave a hoofpump of celebration as he made a looping circle around the palace, seeing Princess Celestia down in the garden for her morning walk, and she looked up at him with a light expression as he curled around her palace, staying outside the perimeter of the fence. The Royal airspace was out of bounds for just about every pegasus in Canterlot, with only a few rare exceptions…like Princess Celestia’s pegasus guards and an overly zealous young pegasus that tended to crash in her garden quite a bit. He made a complete circle of the palace and lined up to go right back down the alley, intending to try it from the other side. But he veered off suddenly when his father Silverchain appeared in the courtyard, trotting at a fair clip towards the palace, pulling out of his steep descent and doing a tight curving turn in the wide courtyard, coming all the way around as he slowed down and pulling up beside his father. “Good morning, Dad,” he said as he slowed to a matching pace, his wings keeping him aloft. “Out for a walk?”

“I received a summons to the palace,” he said with a shake of his head. “And what were you doing?”

“Oh, just looking for a good place to crash, you know me,” he replied lightly, which made his father laugh despite himself. “Sounds like you’re going to get another commission.”

“Her Highness does bring us challenges we enjoy,” he said in reply as they crossed the courtyard, approaching the side gate. Princess Celestia decided to come to the gate herself, opening it as the two of them got close, her two unicorn guards standing to each side. “Your Highness, good morning,” he said, both of them bowing to her.

“Good morning, Silverchain. Skyblaze,” she smiled. “Please, come in.”

“If you don’t mind, your Highness, I’ll leave the business to Dad,” he said. “I have a lot of practice I have to get to.”

“Of course,” she smiled.

“Go back to the shop first, son, you have a delivery to make before you can go practice.”

“Sure thing, Dad. See you this afternoon.”

“Be careful,” he said, which made Skyblaze laugh as he turned and flew back to the shop.

The delivery was actually fun, because Skyblaze got to go to the Crystal Empire. That was the most distant part of Equestria, over six hours of flight just to get there, and it gave him time to go over his routine over and over in his mind, working out every little detail. By the time the towering spire of the Crystal Palace came into view, he had everything all worked out in his mind. The delivery was to the palace itself, so he landed in front of it and was brought inside. Skyblaze was fairly lucky that he’d met and talked to three of the four princesses of Equestria face to face, since the work his parents’ shop did was sort of along the lines of royalty. The only princess he’d never spoken to was Princess Twilight. So, when he was brought into a large office holding Princess Cadence and her husband, Shining Armor, he wasn’t nervous at all. He found that the princesses weren’t as regal as many thought them to be. All three of them that he’d talked to were very approachable, as long as he minded his manners, and he certainly wasn’t shy or nervous talking to them. Cadence was the most informal of the three, however, and he attributed that to the fact that she was very young, not much older than him. “Why, Skyblaze,” she called, coming over. “It’s good to see you again.”

“You too, Princess Cadence. I have a delivery for you, from our shop,” he said, unlocking his saddlebags. “I was told to bring it directly to you.”

“Ah, yes,” she said as he pulled out a fairly tall box. “Thank your parents for me for finishing it quickly.”

“I will,” he said as she opened it. Inside was her crown. He gaped a little, and she laughed as she picked it up with her magic.

“A certain some pony broke it last week,” she said, glancing over at the large unicorn stallion.

“And whose fault was that?” he challenged, which made her laugh as she settled it back on her head, just behind her horn.

“I heard you entered the Young Flyer’s Competition,” Cadence said as she fidgeted with her golden tiara a bit before settling on a position.

“Yes ma’am, but it’s gonna be a rough go,” he replied. “I’m not sure I’m going to win.”

“You’re a great flyer,” she said. “I’ve seen you fly around Canterlot. You’re very talented.”

“More like notorious,” Shining Armor said lightly. “I remember once scraping you off the north wall of the palace.”

Skyblaze laughed. “Well, yeah, maybe, but Scootaloo is in the contest,” he said.

“Really? Scootaloo?”

He nodded. “I’m up against a pony trained by a Wonderbolt,” he said, fretting a bit.

“That seems a little unfair,” Shining Armor noted. “Especially since the Wonderbolts are the judges.”

“I don’t think they’d cheat in the judging,” Skyblaze protested. “It just means I really have to be on top of my game, and that’s just the way I like it. I’m really looking forward to it now,” he told them. “If it’s not a challenge, then it’s not fun.”

Cadence smiled at him. “I’m sure you’ll do great,” she told him. “How are your parents? I haven’t seen them since I moved here.”

“They’re doing fine, and I’ll tell them you think of them, your Highness,” he answered as he closed and locked his saddlebag. “I hope you don’t mind if I head back to Canterlot. I have to get some practice time in before sunset.”

“I’m sure you’re hungry after that long flight. Why don’t you have lunch with us? I know you know everything going on in Canterlot that Princess Celestia doesn’t think is important enough to tell me,” she winked.

He laughed. “Well, I guess so, your Highness. I’d hate to be thrown in the dungeon for saying no.”

She whacked him lightly with her wing. “Don’t give me any ideas, now,” she warned.

So, after a completely unexpected lunch with Princess Cadence and Prince Shining Armor, Skyblaze got a later start back to Canterlot than he expected. He’d actually enjoyed himself at lunch, getting to know Cadence and her husband pretty well, and finding that, like Princess Celestia, they weren’t afraid to let their hair down a little bit…at least in private. His interactions with Princess Celestia while behind the walls of her palace, usually involving him recovering from a crash in her gardens, had shown him that much about their ruler, and it actually just endeared her to him that much more. It made her seem less like an aloof, distant icon and more like a pony.

Because of the distance and his late start, it was late afternoon by the time he got back to Canterlot, too late to really get any practice in. He returned to the shop and saw that his siblings were out, only his parents there, and they were about to close. “Did you just get back?” Shimmergem asked.

He nodded as he hung his saddlebags up on the peg by the counter. “I got a little sidetracked at the Crystal Empire.”

“What happened? Were you checking out the jewelry shops?” He did that for them from time to time, to get a look at the competition. Truth be told, he did a lot of exploring and looking around in the towns he visited, and not just jewelry shops. He knew quite a bit about every town in Equestria except Ponyville, even the tiny villages that weren’t even on the train lines, like the tiny, secluded village of Twoshoes. Ponyville…well, the fact that it was so close was why he’d never really gone there. For one, his parents hadn’t ever had a delivery for him to Ponyville, it cost almost nothing to ship things on the train from Canterlot, and for another, it was right there. If he wanted to go to Ponyville, it was all of fifteen minutes away. The fact that it was so accessible actually made him never go there.

He shook his head. “I got invited to lunch,” he replied. “And if I said no to Princess Cadence, you’d skin me.”

Shimmergem laughed. “Yes I would, the palace is our most important customer,” she declared. “So, she invited you to lunch?”

“Her and her husband did, yeah,” he replied as he stretched his wings, then lifted back off the floor, hovering in place as was his habit, but staying well away from the work benches. “I’ve talked to her before, so I think she wanted to get to know me. I really like her husband,” he chuckled. “He may be a captain of the guard, but he’s pretty down to earth.”

“Princess Cadence is a sweetheart,” Shimmergem smiled. “I’ve had quite a few conversations with her.”

“She remembers you two, she asked how you’re doing.”

“That’s so nice of her,” Shimmergem smiled.

“You going to go practice?” Silverchain asked.

“It’s too late,” he replied. “I think I’ll just do a little work on my routine on paper tonight, and get a jump on it tomorrow.”

“You’ll have time, we don’t have anything for you to deliver tomorrow,” Shimmergem told him.

“Sounds like a plan. I’ll be upstairs if you need me,” he said as he turned and flew towards the stairs in the back of the main room of the shop.

He actually spent some time on the floor, sitting in front of his desk without flying as he took everything he thought about along his trip to the Crystal Empire and put it to paper, drawing several diagrams of his planned routine, which helped him visualize everything for when he did it for real. Using a quill plucked from his own wing between his teeth, he drew diagram after diagram, working out how best to maximize the visual effect of what would start as a deceptively simple routine, but then end with his signature move, something no pony except Rainsong had ever seen before, the Tornado Twist. That was the lynchpin of his routine, and something he hoped would so wow the Wonderbolts that would be judging the contest that he’d beat what would no doubt be a really strong performance by Scootaloo and take the victory. He had no doubt that Scootaloo was so good that she had her own signature trick, and there was no telling how the other contestants would up their games to compete against Scootaloo, so he expected this competition to be fearsome.

It would be the best Young Flyer’s Competition ever, and he was determined to win it.

He had a lot of work to do today.

He was up with the sun, doing his usual warm-up by streaking back and forth through Canterlot, zigging and zagging along streets he knew, lancing between the buildings but high enough over the street so that he was no danger to any pony on the ground, going so fast that a gust of wind proceeded his passing by. After doing five laps through his usual courses, more than usual, he then veered off his known routes and raced blindly though the narrower, more crooked streets, relying on his reflexes to take the corners. He navigated the unknown streets with just a few scraped wing feathers, bursting out into the main courtyard, doing a barrel roll in celebration of not crashing for two days in a row, two days short of his record. He looped around the palace and waved to Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, who were walking along the gardens, then ascended over the buildings to fly directly back to the shop. He went downstairs from his room and ate a quick breakfast just as his family started to wake up, and he headed out to his favorite practice area, a large open field in the valley below Canterlot, a little ways south of the area that Rainsong was tasked to manage the weather.

He got the preparations done first. He went out and gathered up all the loose clouds, from big ones to small ones, then set the ones he needed later in a row to the side. He made rings out some of them, then set others out in a very wide, spacious pattern. Since Rainsong was busy with her weather today, he randomized things as best he could by placing the rings by whim without looking at their numbers except for the first ring, which he placed at the very far end of the ring area and behind four other rings, which would force him to weave through them to reach it. He placed the clouds he’d bust over them, much higher up, which would give him the altitude he needed to go straight into the Tornado Twist.

He’d added a few flourishes to his routine. Doing the rings in a specific order but randomly placed was a twist to a basic staple, so that was good enough. He was going to bust the clouds by taking each one out differently, and he was also going to toy with a few of the clouds, flying around them to shave them, do a cloud toss to make two clouds collide and then bust them both right in that second of impact, spice things up a bit. He was also going to delay starting the Tornado Twist by circling around the stadium to build some speed and heighten the tension a little after busting the last cloud, the objective to be to fly so fast that the red streak that followed behind him whenever he got going really fast joined to itself and formed a red ring above the stadium, from which he would lance into a dive to begin the Tornado Twist. After all, his first two phases were relatively basic as flying stunts went, things any pegasus learned in flight camp or weather school, and while they would show off his natural strengths, his agility mainly, it would make his finale that much more surprising. To go from simple things like flying through rings and busting clouds straight into an extremely different and difficult trick like the Tornado Twist, it was his hope that it would make his personal trick even more awe-inspiring, and he was going to need it given that he had no doubt that Scootaloo had her own tricks hidden in her mane. After all, since she’d been trained by Rainbow Dash, she had to have her own unique stunts.

All morning, he worked on the first two phases of his routine, saving working on the Tornado Twist for later. After all, that he knew how to do, so he needed to work on transitioning from the rings to cloudbusting smoothly, then transition again from cloudbusting into the Tornado Twist. He got the rhythm of it as the sun climbed high into the sky, able to shift immediately from the rings and straight into cloudbusting, running out of clouds and pretending to bust them, then moving from that into the circle that would be his staging maneuver to get into the Tornado Twist.

He took a break for lunch, flying back up to Canterlot and joining his brother and sister at the diner down at the corner called Taste of Equestria, their favorite lunch destination, a surprisingly simple affair in the usual pomp and circumstance of Canterlot, nextdoor to Donut Joe’s, another deceptively simple shop that concealed the best donuts in Equestria. Though they didn’t talk as much as they used to, since he spent his time out flying deliveries and they were devoted to the family business, he nevertheless loved his siblings and enjoyed spending time with them. There was the usual good-natured teasing that went on between them, mainly between him and Prism, while Gold Ring had been the voice of reason in an overly energetic pegasus colt’s occasionally mischievous youth. Gold Ring had often turned him away from his wildest notions, and saved him from getting in a whole lot of trouble. He was calm, steady, wiser than his years, and had the patience to deal with a colt that couldn’t sit still longer than a moment before he started getting antsy. Prism did often lament that Skyblaze got to travel all over Equestria, and enjoyed the stories he told of the many cities he got to visit. She particularly grilled him over eating lunch with the Princess of the Crystal Empire, since like any young Canterlot unicorn mare, Prism had an interest in high society. Their parents and Gold Ring weren’t quite as interested in being among the social movers, but every young filly had daydreams of attending the parties and events in Canterlot and rubbing shoulders with the cream of the social class. Prism was no different, but she had actually attended a few of those social events. Prism was just starting to work her way up the social ladder.

“I wish I could have lunch with Princess Cadence,” she sighed, pushing her thick mane of dark blue hair back over her horn, which had a very large streak of red through it. She wore it in a loosely curled, tumbled style, and a poof of it hooked behind her horn that often drifted down to cover her eye. Her tail was very full and thick, curly and a touch poofy at the end, and it was her one true vanity. Her coat was a smooth, rich pink and always meticulously groomed, as neat and spotless as the triangular spectrum of the seven colors of the rainbow cutie mark on her flank. “I met her once at a restaurant and she talked to me. She was very nice.”

“Yeah, she is,” Skyblaze agreed as he took a big bite out of his salad. Where his siblings could use their magic to eat in the civilized Canterlot manner, Skyblaze only had his hooves, so he wasn’t quite so cultured as they were. “I guess I could ask her if she’d stop by for tea the next time she’s in Canterlot, at least the next time I’m in the Crystal Empire. Who knows when that’ll be.”

“If I have my way, tomorrow,” she winked. “I think I can talk Mother into buying some more of those crystals they have. They do make some spectacular jewelry.”

“I have to practice, don’t send me off the to Crystal Empire,” he protested. “That’s an all-day trip!”

Gold Ring chuckled. His coat was a burnished bronze color, but his mane was raven black and kept short and easy to manage. His cutie mark was one of the more interesting ones that Skyblaze had ever seen, because it was trio of interlocking gold circles in a triangular pattern on his flank. Because his coat was bronze in color, it made his cutie mark a little difficult to see at certain angles, and much like Skyblaze’s unicorn parentage, it had been the object of a little teasing when Gold Ring went through magic school. It was easy to mistake him as a blank flank when seen from a distance, or when it was really bright outside where the bronze of his coat merged with the gold of the rings. “How did the practice go?”

“I’m working the last kinks out of my routine,” he replied. “I made some changes because Scootaloo’s in the competition, so I have to seriously wow the judges if I want to win. She’s the pony to beat, hooves down.”

“And your special trick?”

“I’m gonna practice it after lunch,” he replied. “I still can’t do it perfect every time yet, but I have a couple of weeks to get it down.”

“I hope it’s really special,” Prism said.

“I hope so too,” he said ruefully. “If I can’t pull it off, I at least hope I can fail so spectacularly that it gets me some bonus points for difficulty.”

They both laughed. “You certainly have that reputation in Canterlot,” Prism winked.

“They only notice the failures, they don’t see the successes,” he grinned back.

After lunch, he went back down to the meadow, cleared all the clouds out of the way, then got down to business. He practiced his move all afternoon, over and over and over again, from full run-throughs to partial attempts to work on specific aspects of it. He spent nearly an hour just making the tornado to get it just right, the right height, the right width across the top of the cone, the right windspeed inside that made it the easiest to shape. He then went on to the shaping part, spending quite a while just holding it in the column form before trying to twist it, getting a feel for how the wind inside changed once it was taken out of its conical shape, getting completely in tune with his creation, to where he could feel the slightest shift of the winds inside on the wingfeathers that ghosted across the surface. He then worked on the twist, not forming a ring every time, just turning it, twisting it, curving it, feeling how the winds changed when the straight column was curved, how it got more and more difficult to control it as it was bent more and more. It was at that point where he lost control most often, when he twisted it into a circle, and while he didn’t get it right every time over the afternoon, ending up being hurled either up into the sky or down towards the ground a dozen times, he learned a little more with every attempt.

By sunset, Skyblaze was completely exhausted, so tired he had to sit down in the meadow for a bit and rest his wings, which drooped a bit at his sides from all the hard work Rainsong descended down and landed beside him. “Hey Skyblaze. How did it go?”

“Pretty well,” he replied. “You’re still working?”

She sighed. “Just finished up. They missed a rain shower over by Fillydelphia when some genius sent their clouds to Baltimare, so every pony’s been trying to get everything back on schedule,” she replied. “I’ve been hauling clouds over there so they can do a storm to make up for the lost rainfall all afternoon. I was about to go home and saw a tornado, figured it was you,” she winked.

“Who sent the clouds the wrong way?”

“No idea, but it wasn’t me,” she chuckled. “Sooooo, wanna grab something to eat?”

“Why don’t you come eat dinner with us?”

“Sure, I never say no to your mother’s cooking. She’s better at it than mine,” she admitted, which made Skyblaze chuckle.

“Your mother makes great pies.”

“It’s just everything else she can’t cook very well,” she retorted, which made him laugh. “Ready to go? I’m starving.”

“Yeah, I’m rested enough to get back up to Canterlot,” he said, his wings starting up and pulling him off the ground.

Rainsong was often enough of a dinner guest to have no problems fitting in at their table. She sat beside him at the table and enjoyed some carrot and sweetgrass cassarole, one of his mother’s favorites, and caught up with everyone. She wasn’t just his friend, which was why she was so accepted at the table. She often went out to the parties with Prism, not that she enjoyed high society, but she did enjoy being with Prism and wearing fancy dresses. Rainsong was a bit of a tomcolt in some ways, but she did love frilly filly things. She and Prism planned their next party, an art luncheon and suarè hosted by one of the high society unicorns, while Skyblaze pondered the day’s practice, particularly his work on the Tornado Twist. He felt like he’d made real progress today, even if his success rate for a full attempt dropped to 71%, but that was mainly because he was experimenting a little to try to find the best way to do the trick, trying out different approaches rather than sticking with the way he knew worked…just didn’t work every time.

It was his thoughtful expression that probably prompted his father to speak. “Don’t make too many plans for tomorrow, Skyblaze,” he warned. “I need you tomorrow.”

“Where am I going?” he asked.

“Manehattan, there’s a shipment of rather rare star amethysts ready for us. I got a Pegasus Express letter about it just before the shop closed. I’d rather something like that be carried by you rather than shipped by train.”

“No problem, Dad. Where am I going to pick them up?”

“At the Blue Diamond Brokerage,” he answered. “You’ll be taking some fire rubies and some diamonds, we’re executing a trade.”

“No problem, Dad,” he replied. It wasn’t the first time he’d carried something expensive, rare, or valuable…and in the air, there weren’t many things with wings that could catch him if they had thievery on their minds.

“Star amethysts? What are those?” Rainsong asked.

“They’re a very rare gem. They’re like regular amethysts, but they have a white starburst pattern in them. Princess Celestia sent a new commission, I think we’re making something for Princess Twilight. Amethysts are her color.”

“I think it’s so exciting, you do so much work for the palace,” Rainsong grinned.

“It wasn’t always that way, Rainsong,” Shimmergem chuckled. “We worked very hard to make the shop worthy of doing commissions for the Princesses.”

“And when are you going to introduce me to Princess Celestia?” she asked Skyblaze.

“Just do it the way I do it, Rainsong, crash into the gardens not long after sunrise, when she does her morning walk,” he replied, which made Rainsong laugh. “I think the constant threat of pegasi crashing in her garden makes her daily walk exciting.”

“I don’t see why she puts up with your shenanigans,” Shimmergem said with an amused look.

“Speaking of shenanigans, I haven’t crashed for two days. Surely Canterlot thinks that something is wrong. I think I have to do something about that,” he replied absently, which made them all laugh.

“Don’t you dare, Skyblaze!” Silverchain warned, though his expression made his words completely insincere.

“And what kind of shenanigans did you have in mind, friend?” Rainsong asked lightly.

“Oh, make sure you’re awake around sunrise tomorrow and you’ll see,” he replied.

Summer Snow and Sassy Griffons

He had plans for today. Lots and lots of plans.

Bursting out of his window even as he put his goggles on, he started his usual morning flight, careening along the wide avenues of Canterlot like a pegasus possessed, the regulars on the streets below simply holding their hats down as he streaked by and waited out the gust of wind that always followed him. After doing ten laps along his usual routes, he turned up the wide thoroughfare that led to the main courtyard by the palace, turned as soon as he came out, and ascended at an angle until he was up against the steep mountainside. He raced up the side of the mountain—more like a cliff than anything else, given how steep it was—weaving and spinning to avoid ledges and rocky outcroppings that broke up the smooth slope, flying all the way up to the permanent snowpack at the top of the mountain. The air that high up was cold, thin, forcing his wings to work harder to maintain his speed. He turned in a slow curve once he reached the featureless snow, knowing where he was going because he was one of the few pegasi that ever came up here, to the top of Canterlot Mountain.

The mountaintop wasn’t as featureless as most ponies believed. It had quite a few really interesting things to see, from the Old Stallion In the Stone, a rock formation that looked remarkably like a curmudgeony old stallion’s disapproving scowl, to the treacherous Icicle Pass, a ravine gouged into the mountain on the south side that went halfway down to Canterlot that held the mountain stream that supplied the town with water, the water gushing out of a deep furrow just over the city and forming a waterfall that drained into a wide pool at the base of the mountain. That pool then formed a canal that ran through the city, and then formed another waterfall when it reached the edge of the city and dropped into the abyss below. There were several other feeder gulleys that were narrow, twisting, and treacherous, which Skyblaze figured were once other ways the stream flowed before it changed to where it was now. It was his attempt to race one of those gulleys that got him a broken wing last year, losing control as he tried the most dangerous one, the one that had the stream, and crashing into one of the towers of the palace. Because it was the most narrow, twisting, and treacherous of all the gulleys branching off the ravine, Skyblaze had named it Doom Gulley. There was also the Ice Cave, a large tunnel through the ice and snow near the top. How it was formed he had no idea, but it was smooth and rounded inside, the tunnel circular in circumference and with gradual, gentle turns and twists, almost looking as if it had been melted out of the ice by hot water.

He’d never tried anything like this before, but he knew he could do it. And he also had to work fast. If any pegasus on the weather team saw him once he got started, they’d try to stop him. He made a wide, looping turn over a flat area of the mountaintop, merging with his own red trail as he flew a perfect circle, then he sped up, going faster and faster and faster. The wind started to follow him, whipping in a tight spiral inside his flight path. If he was higher up, it would form a tornado, but when he did it right next to the ground, what it did was form a dust devil…or in this case a snow devil, or what he called a snow-nado, a tornado of snow. Snow started to pull up from the pack under him, swirling around inside his creation, more and more and more, until there was a column of swirling, shimmering white spinning merrily inside his path. He banked out really far to the east, his wingtips cutting a line in the snow under him as he swung around in a banking turn, then he created a shockwave of snow behind him as he accelerated with incredible speed, dragging snow behind him in his air wake. He started to spin in a corkscrew as he picked up more and more speed, grinning with anticipation and excitement, feeling the adrenalin, the cold wind whipping and biting at his ears and mane, the goggles over his eyes shimmering as the sun reflected off of them for a split second before it went behind his snow-nado. He drove straight into the heart of his snow-nado in a corkscrew spin, piercing it with his body, and the snow within his snow-nado was sucked out by the spinning air wake behind him, the white of the snow mixing with the fiery red trail of light that proceeded him. He kept his corkscrew spin going as he veered over the flat edge of the plateau near the mountaintop and rocketed down the side of the mountain, more and more snow dragged into the wide fan of swirling white behind him. He raced below the snow line, avoiding the ledges and the outcroppings, then just as he reached Doom Gulley, he changed course so abruptly that the light behind him looked like a sharp corner rather than a tight curve. He leveled out and slowed down, ascending over his air wake as it rushed under him, dragging a huge, long column of glittering snow off the mountain and over the city of Canterlot.

The snow slowed down once he disengaged from his creation, and when it slowed, it started to fall down on the city, sparkling and shimmering and scillinting in rainbow colors in the bright sunlight, staying frozen because of the cold air dragged down with it that would let the snow make it all the way to the ground before it melted. He circled high over the city as he saw his unseasonable little snowstorm fall slowly and gently towards the towers and buildings below, circling lazily down and down, into his snow, spiraling down to all but frolic in the snowflakes, lost in the simple joy of it all.

There was no reason to try to hide. Every pony knew who did it. There was only one pony in all of Canterlot that had the nerve to do something like that. He landed in the courtyard by the palace and spread his wings out to let snowflakes land on them, feeling the tiny little pricks of cold on his feathers, and looked up to watch them drift down.

Of course, there was a price for doing something like that. The weather managers in Canterlot did not like some young firebrand going and upsetting their meticulous work, even if it wasn’t a real snowstorm, just snow pulled down from the mountaintop and allowed to fall over the city. Besides, the snow falling out of a clear sky made it far more beautiful with the sunlight refracting off the snowflakes, like a million little rainbows drifting in the morning sky.

A shadow fell over him, and he looked up and to the side to see Princess Celestia. She had her large wings out just like his, one of them right over his back, her face turned up to the sky as snowflakes drifted and danced around her white coat, over her beautiful wings, into her flowing multicolored mane. He said nothing, just reveled a bit in the fact that he made her happy, until she leaned her head down beside his, her expression light and playful. “Run,” she whispered, glancing her eyes to the side. He looked that way himself, and saw a half-dozen pegasi from the weather team racing towards him, and they were not amused.

He vanished from the courtyard in a fiery trail of bright red without even a word, leaving an amused Princess Celestia in his wake.

It was a good thing he had to go all the way to Manehattan today. He returned home and enjoyed the bright laughter of his siblings and the helpless chuckles of his parents as he got his saddlebags and loaded them with the gems they were trading for the rare star amethysts. Rainsong burst into the shop and threw her forelegs over his back, laughing excitedly. “Now that’s shenanigans!” she blurted, which made his family laugh again.

“The weather team is looking for me, so I better get my tail outta Canterlot,” he grinned.

“But that wasn’t a real snowstorm,” Rainsong protested. “There weren’t any clouds! How did you do that?”

“They don’t care. I made it snow in summer, and they’re hopping mad,” he replied as his father locked his saddlebag for him. “And that’s just snow from the mountaintop, I pulled it down and spread it over the city to let it fall. Just use a tornado to get it up off the ground, the drag it down the mountainside.”

“It was beautiful!” Prism gushed.

“I never thought of doing that,” Rainsong said thoughtfully.

“It’s not hard, I’m sure you could pull it off,” he grinned. “And if there’s two of us doing it, they’ll never stop us,” he added, which made her laugh. “I’ll make my escape now, Mom, Dad. I’ll stop in Ponyville for breakfast. I don’t think the weather team will give me the chance to eat in peace,” he winked, then he turned and zipped out of the front door.

Ponyville was the closest town to Canterlot, and he had actually never stopped there…well, outside of overflying the town to see if he might spot Rainbow Dash. She still lived in Ponyville, since a pegasus could live in any town near Cloudsdale if that pegasus was a Wonderbolt; the Wonderbolt training grounds and their young flyer’s academy were on the mountain directly underneath Cloudsdale. It was only about half an hour away from Canterlot by wing, about the same distance as Canterlot was from Cloudsdale, with Cloudsdale being about fifteen or twenty minutes north of Ponyville, and that was if he was dawdling. He could probably get there in ten minutes if he was serious about it. He circled down once he spotted a diner and landed, a nice little place with mushroom-like tables outside, and was happy to see that it was open. They really seemed to have a lot of apple dishes on their menu, so he ordered some apple fritters.

“So, you trying to spy on the competition?”

Skyblaze looked over and saw Scootaloo landing right by him. She was giving him an amused look.

“Breakfast,” he said, pointing at the waiter. “I couldn’t get anything to eat before I left home this morning, and I have to go all the way to Manehattan today. Ponyville’s the closet place that’s not far out of the way, and I’m hungry.”

“Manehattan? I’ve always wanted to go there.” He looked just to her sides, one after the other. “What?”

“Your wings look like they work to me,” he said lightly as the waiter trotted off. “If you wanna go to Manehattan, go to Manehattan.”

“Well, I don’t know anyone there, or where anything is.”

“Exploring is half the fun,” he replied as she trotted up to his table.

“What’cha going to Manehattan for?”

“Delivering for my parents’ shop,” he said, shrugging his shoulders to make his saddlebags move. “I do it all the time. Saves them money shipping things on the train. And since I get to go all over Equestria, I love to do it.”

She chuckled. “And you get lots of exercise,” she noted.

“I look it as flying endurance training,” he smiled in reply. “How goes your routine?”

“I have it set, just practicing it. You?”

“Same.”

“So, why couldn’t you eat breakfast in Canterlot?”

He chuckled. “Oh, just being me. I’d gone two whole days without crashing into anything, so I had to keep the city entertained.”

She laughed. “So you really do crash a lot.”

“On a daily basis,” he admitted. “But you don’t get better if you play it safe.”

“That sounds familiar,” she laughed.

The waiter brought back his breakfast far faster than he expected, and it smelled pretty good. Scootaloo sat on the other side of the table as he started to eat, watching him a second, pushing her magenta mane out of her eyes. “So what’s it like to deliver things?”

“It’s not as bad as ponies think,” he replied. “I’ve been to every town in Equestria, except this one. Ponyville is so close that it’s cheap to ship things on the train, so they don’t need me to deliver here. Anyway, my parents don’t mind if I’m a little late getting back, well, unless I went out to pick something up they need, so sometimes after I deliver something I look around, check out the town, and if I go there a lot, I’ll see what’s changed since the last time I was there.”

“You’ve been to every town in Equestria?”

He nodded. “I was in the Crystal Empire a couple of days ago, and Dodge Junction the day before that, and Manehattan the day before that. Mom and Dad do business with ponies all over the kingdom, and I’m the lucky pegasus that gets to carry everything around.”

“What do they do?”

“They make jewelry,” he replied. “I deliver the pieces they finish, and pick up the supplies they need to make it, if it’s something unusual. You know, something they can’t get in Canterlot.”

“That does sound interesting. Way more than I do around here,” she complained. “I work on the weather team, just like most of pegasus ponies here.”

“You don’t have to, you know,” he told her as he wolfed down another apple fritter. “Nothing says you have to work on the weather team. My best friend’s parents own in a spa in Canterlot. It’s really popular too, since they use wingpower to dry their customer’s manes and tails, and that makes them extra, I dunno, poofy.”

She laughed. “Poofy?”

“The Canterlot ponies have this idea that a pegasus-dried mane looks better, and there aren’t all that many pegasi in Canterlot. So Rainsong’s parents’ salon does a lot of business.”

“They use their wings to dry hair?”

“It may not be flashy, but they do good business,” he shrugged. “They had me try doing it once, filling in for Rainsong’s mother when she was sick with the feather flu. Bad idea,” he noted.

She burst out laughing. “Too much wind?”

“Oh yeah,” he nodded. “The poor unicorn looked like she’d been run over by a tornado.”

Scootaloo laughed even louder, pounding her hoof on the table. Skyblaze wolfed down the last of his apple fritters, then pulled a few coins from his saddlebag and set them on the table. “Gotta go, was nice to see you again, Scootaloo.”

“You too, Skyblaze,” she replied as his wings picked him up into the air. “I’m looking forward to kickin’ your butt at the competition,” she grinned.

“Promises, promises,” he retorted, then he turned and ascended, getting back on the path to Manehattan.

He was a little too preoccupied with practicing his routine while on the wing to Manehattan to worry about his time, going out of his way to practice cloudbusting on any poor innocent cloud that happened to be close enough to detour to it, and getting him a lecturing from a couple of pegasi who were herding one of the clouds he busted to join to others to form a rain shower. He reached Manehatten just after noon, and flew directly to the Blue Diamond Exchange, which was on the docks. The Blue Diamond Exchange did a lot of business outside Equestria, with the griffons and the horses of Saddle Arabia across the sea, and even more mysterious and exotic citizens of the world. Gemstones were plentiful in Equestria, so the ponies of the exchange traded those gems for items of value and quality from other lands, since gems were not plentiful in those other lands. It was also why Equestria often had dragon problems, them coming from the wild, unexplored lands south of the Badlands, since they would come to Equestria to eat the gems that were often just buried below the surface of the ground. Many of the goods that came through the exchange ended up in Canterlot, like the popular and expensive rugs and carpets made by the Saddle Arabian master weavers, or silk from Pony-Ya used in fashions.

If it was rare, hard to find, or very valuable, odds were the ponies of the exchange could find it.

Skyblaze walked along a large room filled with ponies who sat behind desks, either writing in ledgers or inspecting goods, heading for the desk at the end of the room, where the earth pony Fair Bargain sat, a bunch of gemstones and bits spread across his desk. Fair Bargain was a fairly well aged earth pony, coming up on being old, but he was still spry and active, with lucid brown eyes, a healthy beige coat, and a dark mane with just a few strands of white in it here and there. He looked up as Skyblaze flitted up to him, his wings keeping his hooves off the floor—usual for him—and smiled expectantly. “You’re a little late, at least for you, Skyblaze.”

“Yeah, I got a little delayed. Do you have the amethysts?”

He nodded, opening a drawer and pulling out a small leather satchel. He opened it and spread its contents on a clear place on his desk, showing Skyblaze a couple dozen light purple gemstones with white starbursts in the center. Star amethysts. He scooped them back in the satchel and closed it as Skyblaze landed in front of the desk, then unlocked his saddlebag and pulled out the canvas bag. Fair Bargain opened it and spread that across the desk, inspecting the diamonds and emeralds one by one. “Exactly as Silverchain described,” he nodded, then pushed the satchel of amethysts to him. “You be careful, Skyblaze. There were dragon sightings in the mountains near Manehattan, and you know they can smell gems from miles away.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve had to contend with a hungry dragon, Mister Bargain,” he said easily as he locked his saddlebag. “But I’ll swing a little wide and give myself some distance from the mountains, just to be safe.”

“Good thinking, young stallion,” he nodded. “Have a safe flight home.”

“I will,” he replied as he picked himself back up off the floor, turned, and flew out.

On the way back, he decided it was time to stop neglecting some of his far-flung friends out in Equestria. He really had to get out to Twoshoes to see Gedwin and Gwendi. They lived in a griffon village called Twintalon, which was just on the other side of the mountain where Twoshoes was located, nestled on the southern side of the Foal Mountains, which was a east of Canterlot. The two of them were friends with several Twoshoes pegasi, so they weren’t uncommon sights in Twoshoes. Twintalon was one of the few griffon settlements in Equestrian territory, home to about 60 griffons, a small enclave that had moved from their homeland a couple of generations ago, and Princess Celestia had allowed them to settle in the Foal Mountains. Twoshoes had literally sprung up because of Twintalon, the griffons trading with enterprising pony merchants who set up shop close to them, so there was a lot of interaction between ponies and griffons there. Gedwin and Gwendi were pretty okay as griffons went, maybe a little arrogant and boorish, but otherwise alright. When he took trips to Twoshoes to pick up gems his parents bought from the prospectors there, he went up into the mountains to see them. He was somewhat lucky that he was one of the few pegasi that the griffons of Twintalon didn’t mind hanging around.

Skyblaze intended to invite them to Cloudsdale for the competition, since they were two of his best friends. He hadn’t seen them for a couple of weeks, his parents hadn’t done any business with any of the eastern Equestrian cities lately that required Skyblaze to fly there, then he was too busy preparing for the competition to drop by. They didn’t know that he’d got into the competition, and he’d been so busy preparing for it that he hadn’t had time to get up there.

He landed on the single street in the tiny village of Twoshoes, situated on a plateau at the southern edge of the base of the Foal Mountains about halfway between Canterlot and Fillydelphia, the street milling with ponies who had moved there and four or five griffons who were visiting from Twintalon. He wasn’t surprised at all when Gedwin landed in the street just beside him, and then Gwendi landed just beside her brother. “Guys!” he said happily, bumping his hoof with Gedwin’s closed forepaw, then Gwendi’s. Gedwin was a little larger than his sister, Gwendi’s beak was a little narrower and her eyes were a little more almond-shaped, but outside of that, the two of them looked very similar. That was somewhat normal for griffons, he’d learned. Though they looked the same to ponies, they looked very different to each other, and he’d been around griffons enough to see those differences. Gedwin put a clawed forepaw on his shoulder, he put his hoof on Gwendi’s shoulder, and the three of them grinned at each other. “What’s up?”

“Not much, hoofhead,” Gwendi grinned. “You on an errand for your parents?”

“What do you think?” he retorted, shivering a little to draw attention to his saddlebags. “How are you guys?”

“Fine. We flew out to Canterlot yesterday to find you, but you weren’t there.”

“Why didn’t you just land and ask my parents? They knew where I was.”

“We don’t know where your shop is, kadoink,” she added playfully.

“You coulda asked, you know,” he protested.

“Us? Ask? Who do you think we are, ponies?” Gedwin said arrogantly, then laughed. “We heard the news, Skyblaze, major grats!”

“The competition? Yeah, thanks,” he replied. “That’s why I’m here, to tell you guys. Guess it’s a moot point,” he grinned. “I could also use something to eat. I left Manehattan without lunch. I figured we could all grab a bite and catch up.”

“So, you gonna feed a couple of hungry griffons or what?” Gwendi asked.

He laughed. “Always mooching a free meal off me,” he teased, and they all walked over to the little café in Twoshoes and took a seat at one of the outdoor tables. Twoshoes only had four pegasi living there, the rest were all earth ponies, but the café catered to the griffons, who preferred to eat outdoors. “How did you find out?”

“We heard from Stormbuck. He’s in the competition too, he said your name was on the letter they sent.”

“Oh yeah, he was on the list,” he recalled. Stormbuck was one of the four pegasi from Twoshoes, and the pegasi in Twoshoes knew the griffons of Twintalon Village, so that wasn’t much of a surprise. “I was glad to see it. That means that Twoshoes is finally gonna get on the map. I think most of Equestria doesn’t even know it’s here,” he chuckled.

“Yeah, so we flew down there yesterday to find out why you didn’t come tell us,” Gwendi accused with a grin. “I’ll have apples. Lots of apples,” she told the waiter.

“Same. Apples,” Gedwin added.

“Just bring a basket,” Skyblaze chuckled. “I’ve been seriously busy the last week or so, between doing work for the shop and getting ready for the competition,” he said honestly. “I’m amazed you’d brave coming to Canterlot, though.”

“Pshaw, griffons are fearless,” Gedwin said airily, which made Skyblaze laugh.

“Oh really? you know, my parents want to meet you, so why don’t you put that griffon fearlessness on the table and fly back to Canterlot with me.”

“Sure!” Gwendi said immediately, before Gedwin could reply. “I wanna see your shop and meet those friends of yours, Rainsong and Windrunner!”

“This’ll work out, I can introduce you to Rainsong, and you can meet my parents. Rainsong has always been curious about you two. I’m afraid Windrunner’s still in weather school, so he won’t be there.”

“We can go no sweat, but we can’t take too long. We do have to fly back before it gets dark,” Gedwin warned. “Mom and Dad’ll kill us if we’re gone all night.”

“No problem. You guys are great flyers, we can get there in two hours tops. I guess I can slow down for you,” he teased.

“Oh, it’s on now, pegasus,” Gedwin grinned.

“Soooo, what’s been going on in pony land beyond Twoshoes?” Gwendi asked.

“For me, same old same old,” he replied. “Well, outside of getting into the competition. I’ve been practicing for it almost every minute that I’m not doing deliveries for the shop. That’s why I haven’t come down to see you guys lately.”

“We can understand that,” Gwendi said as the dusky brown pony waiter brought a large basket of apples and set it on the table, then took the bits Skyblaze offered. He didn’t think much of it as the two griffons started wolfing the apples down without much in the way of manners…but they were griffons, their concept of manners was very different from the refined Canterlot unicorn. He probably wouldn’t be taking his griffon friends to the fancier eateries in Canterlot, they’d cause a social scandal Griffons were the rough and tumble sort, and the ponies of Twoshoes were familiar with them. Their lack of manners just made them more fun to be around, in Skyblaze’s opinion. “So, nothing major?” she asked, sending a few pieces of apple flying from her beak as she talked with her mouth full.

“Nope. How about you two?”

“Same old for us,” Gedwin replied. “Still doing our challenge trials.”

“You’re still not done?”

“Nope,” he replied. “There’s six of us doing them at the same time, so we have to wait for our turn.”

“How many have you finished?”

“Five for me, six for mister overachiever here,” Gwendi replied, nudging her brother.

“Cool, you just have two to go,” Skyblaze said to Gedwin.

“Yeah, the two hard ones,” he replied. Griffons had eight challenges they had to pass before they were considered adults in griffon society. The eight challenges revolved around aspects of village society and a griffon’s daily life, and they weren’t all physical in scope. One of the trials was growing a garden and harvesting enough food to feed all the griffons on the village council for a week, and another was a demonstration of hunting skills. Unlike ponies, griffons didn’t only eat plants, but they never hunted in Equestrian territory, for they understood the special relationship between the ponies of Equestria and the animals that lived there. They restricted their hunting to outside Equestria, flying down to the wild area known as the Badlands for their hunting expeditions. For their last challenge, a young griffon had to build his own lair, which he would then occupy as his home, moving out of his parents’ lair. A griffon had to prove that they were educated enough in all aspects of village life to not be a burden on the village, able to live on their own and contribute to griffon society. Griffons were very no-nonsense, and Skyblaze could appreciate some of their customs.

“So, the hunt and the lair building?” Skyblaze asked.

Gedwin nodded. “I begin the challenge of the hunt next week,” he replied. “Gwendi is still doing the challenge of the recital.”

“I botched it,” she admitted. The challenge of the recital was an oral history test, for a griffon had to prove that she knew the history of the griffon race and the village in which she lived to be considered adults. “I totally blew the entire Post-Stoneclaw Era.”

“Ouch. At least that’s the only part you have to do over,” he said compassionately.

“Thank Ironfeather,” she said with an explosive sigh, sending more bits of apple across the table. “So, I get another chance in four days. I’ve been studying for it. I should pass it this time, then I get in line for the challenge of the hunt.”

“Well, I know both of you won’t have any trouble with the challenge of the lair. I mean, your parents are professional builders.”

They both laughed. “Yeah, Mom and Dad taught us the family business. We just have to pass the challenge of the hunt,” Gedwin nodded. “We don’t hunt all that much, since we spend so much time learning how to build.”

“I’d rather eat apples anyway,” Gwendi said, and she proved it by shoving another apple into her beak. “So, you brave enough to invite us to the competition?”

“You know I am,” he replied. “I’ll need all the support I can get.”

“What, why?”

“Because Scootaloo’s in the competition,” he replied. “She was trained by a Wonderbolt, so she’s the pegasus to beat.”

“Well that seems unfair,” Gedwin noted, eating another apple. “What’s a pegasus trained by the Wonderbolts doing in a competition where the winner gets to train with the Wonderbolts?”

“It’s not like that,” Skyblaze said. “The winner gets an automatic invitation to the Wonderbolt Academy for their one week training course. You can still get in and take the one week course without winning the competition, it’s just that winning is an automatic invite. They don’t just take whoever wins the competition and train them as a Wonderbolt. And Scootaloo wasn’t trained by all the Wonderbolts. She’s a friend of one of them, Rainbow Dash. She grew up around her, so Rainbow Dash taught her.”

“Oh, okay,” Gwendi nodded, reaching for another apple. “So, want us to find this Scootaloo and break her wings for ya?”

He laughed. “I can win on my own, thank you very much,” he replied. “You guys should have applied for the competition. I’d love to see a couple of griffons out there showing what they can do.”

“We’d embarrass the entire pegasus race,” Gedwin said loftily, which earned him a grin from Skyblaze.

“I’ve seen you fly, you’re not that impressive,” he teased.

“Did you hear something, sis? It sounded like a mosquito,” he said to Gwendi.

“More like a gnat,” she replied teasingly.

“Gnats can bite very hard,” he warned, which made both of them laugh. “But seriously, you gonna be there?”

“Yup, we’ll be there,” Gedwin promised. “We’ll be rooting for both you and Stormbuck.”

“We’ll both need it,” he chuckled.

The three of them went through the entire basket of apples in short order, and since his friends didn’t have all day, they flew straight on to Canterlot. Both of them were very, very strong flyers, with as much stamina as him, but also a lot of agility and grace, and they passed the two hours flying to Canterlot talking about their challenge trials, the upcoming competitions, and the scuttlebutt of what was going on both in Twoshoes and in Twintalon. As soon as they flew over the edge of Canterlot, he descended and landed on Gem Street, quite a few unicorns looking in surprise as two griffons landed with him, then he took them into the shop. His parents and siblings were a little surprised to see two griffons filing into the shop behind him. “Mom, Dad, guys, this is Gedwin and Gwendi,” he introduced. “They flew home with me to meet you.”

“Well, the griffons in the flesh, it’s good to meet you,” Silverchain said, advancing to the counter and offering his hoof. The two of them shook it as they looked around.

“Wow, you weren’t kidding. Your whole family are unicorns,” Gwendi noted.

“Would I kid about that?” he chuckled.

“We don’t hold it against him,” Prism grinned as she walked up to them.

“He may be the son of unicorns, but he’s all pegasus in here,” Shimmergem said, touching his chest with her hoof.

“Yeah, he’s definitely a good flyer,” Gedwin agreed, nudging him a little. “For a pony, anyway.”

“Yeah, keep convincing yourself that you won that last race, Gedwin.”

“Gwendi helped you win,” he replied airily. “She wanted you to feel good about yourself.”

“So, you’re off racing when you’re supposed to be making deliveries, are you?” Silverchain asked lightly.

“Buuu-steeed,” Gwendi teased.

“I do the racing after I drop off the packages, Dad,” he replied smoothly. “Then again, it’s so easy to beat these two, the races never last long.”

Gwendi swatted him with her wing, which made his family laugh.

Skyblaze was quite impressed at how easily his family accepted his two rather rough-mannered friends. He’d told them about them, though, warned them that griffons weren’t as socially cultured as Canterlot unicorns, so his mother especially was able to roll with the punches as Gedwin and Gwendi said a few borderline rude things and made some pretty direct and not entirely complementary observations about being griffons living in Equestria. They stayed and chatted for nearly an hour, going upstairs to drink tea and eat some cake that his mother had bought earlier that day.

“We can’t stay any longer, we have to head back home before it gets dark. It’s a good two hours back to Twintalon from here, and we have to be back by sunset,” Gedwin said. “It was nice to meet you all.”

“It was our pleasure. You can sit with us during the competition, we’d be honored to have you there with us, watching Skyblaze mop the floor with the other pegasi,” Prism said with a grin.

“Now you sound like a pegasus,” Gwendi grinned, which made Prism laugh.

“They do have some swagger, we’ve noticed,” Silverchain said, giving Skyblaze a sly look.

“We call it being too full of himself,” Gedwin replied.

“Flying isn’t for the timid. It’s why griffons suck at it,” Skyblaze taunted, which earned him another swat from Gwendi’s wing.

They left the shop, and just when he figured Rainsong was going to miss the chance, she landed in front of the shop. She gave the two griffons a surprised look, then smiled brightly. “These must be Gedwin and Gwendi!” she said without even as much as a hello.

“Rainsong! We were afraid we’d miss you,” Skyblaze smiled. “Yes, these are them. Guys, this is Rainsong, my best friend in Canterlot.”

“She looks just like you said she does,” Gwendi noted.

“She’s cute for a pegasus,” Gedwin agreed.

Rainsong grinned. “Well, if Skyblaze told you I’m cute, then I guess I should be flattered,” she winked. “He’s told me so much about you two! I’ve always wanted to meet you, but sometimes it’s hard to get away.”

“He said you work in the weather department?”

She nodded. “And since I never know when he’s going to Twoshoes, I never get the chance to get the time off to go with him.”

“I don’t even know when I’m going to Twoshoes or Manehattan or Fillydelphia or Baltimare half the time,” he chuckled, mentioning all three larger towns since Twoshoes wasn’t far out of the way when he went to the three coastal cities. “Mom and Dad tell me where I’m going while they’re giving me what I’m delivering most of the time.”

“We don’t have much time, so why don’t you guys fly out with us? We can talk on the wing, then you can turn around and head back before it gets dark,” Gwendi offered.

“Good idea,” Rainsong nodded, opening her wings.

The four of them rose up over Canterlot and then headed just north of east, along the mountain line, as his griffon friends got to know Rainsong. He’d told them about her, so they had a familiarity with her, and it wasn’t long before her bubbly, charismatic personality had done its work. Both griffons were laughing and carrying on with her as if they’d known each other for years.

“It’s getting pretty late, you two had better turn back,” Gwendi said as she looked at the sun, which was now very low on the horizon.

“Yeah. You two will get back with time to spare,” Skyblaze said. “So will we.”

“Okay then, we’ll see you in Cloudsdale at the competition if you don’t wander by before then,” Gedwin said. Skyblaze drifted over and bumped his hoof with Gedwin’s clenched forepaw, then did the same with Gwendi.

“You better not embarrass us out there or we’ll pretend we don’t know you,” Gwendi threatened, a grin on her beak.

He laughed. “Stormbuck would love that,” he replied with a wink. “Tell him I said hi, will ya? He’s a pretty cool pony.”

“We will,” they promised in unison. “Was nice to meet ya, Rainsong,” Gwendi added. “You’re even cooler than Skyblaze said you were.”

“So are you two. I’m definitely gonna find the time to come over to Twoshoes real soon.”

“Lookin’ forward to it,” Gedwin said with a nod. The two of them continued on, and he and Rainsong banked around and headed back to the west, back to Canterlot.

“So, what do you think?” Skyblaze asked.

“That what I’ve heard about griffons is all wrong,” she replied.

“For most of them, no it’s not. But Gedwin and Gwendi are two of the coolest griffons you’ll ever meet. They’re not as conceited as most griffons. That’s why they’re so well liked in Twoshoes.”

“No doubt,” she nodded. “So, what are other griffons like?”

“Way more arrogant,” he answered. “Particularly with the unicorns and earth ponies. They see anything that can’t fly as lower than them.”

“Ahhh, they’re like that.”

“Yup,” he agreed. “But Gedwin and Gwendi aren’t like that. They’re pretty cool. Their parents are the griffons that build and repair the public buildings in their village, and they went down to Twoshoes to talk to the earth ponies, you know, compare building techniques, learn a few new tricks. So they don’t see earth ponies quite the same way. They appreciate what they can do instead of looking down on them because they can’t fly.”

“Okay, they’re getting cooler and cooler every minute,” Rainsong chuckled.

“I’ve only known them a few months, but I like them a lot,” he added. “I met them the first time I went to Twoshoes to pick up gems for the shop.” She gave him a long look. “What?”

“I just realized something,” she replied. “You know a lot more than I thought.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re the only pony I know that knows like every town in Equestria, and knows Princess Celestia, and knows all about the griffons, and knows all about flying. When did you get so smart?”

He laughed. “When Dad started letting me make deliveries,” he grinned in reply. “Most ponies don’t think I’m very smart. All they ever see is me laying at the base of some wall somewhere.”

She laughed raucously. “That’s your fault,” she winked.

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” he admitted. “Guess my unicorn heritage is showing a little.”

She laughed even louder. “I guess something rubbed off on you,” she grinned.

“My folks will be glad for that much.”

They got back just at sunset, because they flew slowly so they could talk, landing just before it got too dark to see. They landed in a safe place, the large courtyard by the palace, and walked along the street that led to both their houses. They said their goodbyes at the corner of Gem and Moon Streets, Rainsong heading down Moon street to her house while Skyblaze turned onto Gem street, passing by street lamps being lit by themselves at sunset and extinguished themselves at sunrise, part of the old magic that infused many parts of Canterlot. Then again, given so many unicorns lived in Canterlot, it was no surprise that there was magic hidden here and there in plain sight.

He’d lost the entire day to work and seeing his friends, but that was the best way to lose practice time. He hadn’t seen his griffon friends in a while, and he was happier to see them than he expected. Though he was friendly enough, he didn’t have very many good friends. There were a lot of ponies that he knew, and some he knew better, but there were only four ponies and griffons outside of his family that he would call a good friend. Rainsong was his best friend, had been since they were both foals. Windrunner was also a very good friend, but he was younger than him and Rainsong, and he was currently in the last semester of weather school over in Cloudsdale, so Skyblaze hadn’t seen him for a couple of months. Weather school was pretty demanding, and Windrunner devoted his every waking moment to studying, to the point where he lived in Cloudsdale so he didn’t lose time flying back and forth to Canterlot to attend school. He’d get to see Windrunner at the competition, they’d have the day off to attend it. Gedwin and Gwendi were very new friends, since he’d only known them for a few months, but they were very good friends. He and the griffons had just clicked the very first time he’d met them.

It wasn’t that he wasn’t friendly, it was just that he was different. Since he didn’t go to magic school like most Canterlot foals his age, he didn’t know very many unicorns his age very well, and those that did know him could never get past his high-energy and mischievous personality, which was not how they were raised to behave in proper Canterlot society. It only got worse because he and Rainsong were more or less segregated from the unicorns and few earth ponies in Canterlot by their school. They left Canterlot completely for flight camp, and they stayed in the dorms in Cloudsdale for weather school until they were strong enough flyers to fly back and forth from Canterlot to Cloudsdale, something Windrunner preferred not to do. Weather school was demanding, far more demanding than most of the unicorns in magic school realized, so he and Rainsong spent most of their time not in school studying.

It took far more skill than the unicorns understood to make the weather work so smoothly, and the concept that weather was easy was aggravated by the fact that the weather in Canterlot was almost always sunny, always beautiful, with only very light rain showers to keep the plants in town thriving and the occasional blanket of light snow in the winter purely for aesthetics. They had no idea how hard it was to manage the weather everywhere else, where they couldn’t see it, and every pegasus had to have the basic skills to manage the weather anywhere else but Canterlot, where only the appointed pegasi on the weather team were allowed to do so.

So, the combination of the unicorns of Canterlot not really knowing that much about pegasi compounded with Skyblaze’s reputation in Canterlot for being out of control and a little bit crazy didn’t make it very worthwhile from a social sense to get to know him. Prism avoided being pinned to him due to the fact that she was so amiable and sweet-natured. They didn’t hold Skyblaze against her, but to her credit, she didn’t tolerate her friends making fun of him. She thought he was a little too hyper herself, that he could seriously tone down his mischief, but he was her brother. She knew why he crashed into things on a daily basis, where the other unicorns didn’t care to understand the full story.

Skyblaze didn’t mind all that much. Rainsong was his best friend, Windrunner and the griffons Gedwin and Gwendi were very good friends, and as long as he had them, he could do without most of the rest of them. He’d take three friends that truly understood him over twenty that only pretended to.

So, while he only had a few friends, the ones he had were good friends. And that was the best kind of friend to have.

Author's Notes:

This was written nearly three years ago, I just never got around to posting it here. I'm quite pleased that my decision to name the griffons Gedwin and Gwendi was the proper choice. And since I set their home in a village not part of past or future canon, it allowed me to take some liberties with griffon society.

Run Proudly with the Buffalo

It had been three days since he’d crashed into anything, and he wasn’t about to set a new record for Canterlot tranquility.

For the record, it should be said that Skyblaze never intentionally crashed. Crashing wasn’t very fun—at least usually it wasn’t—and he’d broken a few bones and sprained a few limbs over his year or so illustrious career as the most dangerous pegasus in Canterlot to windows, flower pots, window boxes, shutters, signs, lamp posts, stacked boxes and crates, carts, stands, wooden gates, fences, and walls. He’d even lost teeth, necessitating multiple visits to a dentist to have them magically regrafted back into his mouth. The worst crash he’d ever suffered was the broken wing, when he lost it coming out of Doom Gulley and crashed into the pennant pole atop one of the palace towers, then faceplanted himself on one of the balconies, very nearly hitting Princess Luna.

As crashes went, today’s crash was tame, nearly boring, but the upside of it was that he once again managed to crash on the palace grounds. He never minded crashing on the grounds. For one, he never broke anything…except for the wooden poles atop the towers. There wasn’t much to hit on the grounds except for a really big building, a wall, fence, some trees and bushes, flower beds, and the statues and fountains in the big garden behind the palace. For another, it never failed to seem to amuse Princess Celestia, and if he could make his beloved ruler happy, then so much the better. So, when Skyblaze cartwheeled over the wall of the palace grounds with a loud “whhhaaaaooooo,” bounced off the grass, then rolled to a painful and jarring stop against the wall of the palace, he felt that his reputation had been upheld in a satisfactory manner, and Canterlot could sigh in relief. Skyblaze had crashed into something, and that meant that all was well and normal in the city.

And he got to say hello to Princess Celestia. She looked down at him with that amused expression as he sorted himself out, since his back hooves were in his face and his tail was making him sneeze, managing to flop over on his side against the pristine white wall of the palace, get his legs under him, then shake his head a little as he got back on his hooves. Princess Celestia even gave a little giggle when he gave her a rueful look. “Sorry, your Highness. New route,” he told her.

“So I see,” she said in a light, gentle voice. “And how go your preparations for the competition?” she asked as he started his wings up and picked his hooves up off the ground.

“I redid my routine, ma’am, because Scootaloo’s competing. It’s more flashy now,” he said, which made her smile. She started walking, and he hovered along beside her. “It’s gonna have to be spectacular to beat her.”

“I’m sure you’ll do just fine, Skyblaze. You’ll uphold the honor of Canterlot in the competition.”

“I sure hope so. Then again, if anyone from Canterlot goes, they’ll expect to see me crash into something.”

“It is what you’re known for,” she said with a twinkle in her eyes as she looked over at him.

“A pegasus does have to uphold the honor of his reputation, your Highness,” he said haughtily, which made her laugh. Princess Luna landed in front of them, and he landed and bowed to her. “Your Highness,” he said. He didn’t talk to Princess Luna very often, so he made sure to mind his manners.

“And are the statues and trees safe for another day, sister?” she asked. Skyblaze gave her a surprised look, then laughed ruefully.

“They are safe for another day, sister,” she nodded. “He crashed into the wall today.”

“Well, I was aiming at the lawn just on the other side of the fence, but I came in too high,” he said, which made both of them give him amused looks. “Crashing into walls isn’t as fun as it looks.”

“Practice makes perfect, Skyblaze,” Luna said lightly, making him laugh again.

He again picked himself up into the air. “With your permission, I’d better go, your Highnesses. I think my parents will send me out today. They got in those star amethysts yesterday, and I think they’ll have other important materials they’ll need. I don’t know much about making jewelry, but given how rare those amethysts are, they must be working on something pretty awesome. That means I’ll be running around half of Equestria gathering up materials..”

“Ah, yes, I hope that means they’ve started on my commission.”

“They always do yours first, your Highness,” he told her.

“I would ask that you keep what you gather to yourself, Skyblaze. I want those pieces to be a surprise.”

“I never talk about that kind of stuff with anyone that doesn’t need to know, Princess Celestia,” he assured her. “But you and Princess Luna always need to know. You’re the Princesses, after all.”

They both gave him a smile. “I’ll make sure they don’t keep you so busy that you can’t practice.”

“I appreciate that, ma’am,” he said honestly. “I lost all of yesterday to a long trip and Gedwin and Gwendi coming to visit.”

“The griffons?” Princess Luna asked him.

He nodded.

“Did you invite them to come to the competition, Skyblaze?” Princess Celestia asked.

“Yes ma’am, they’re going to sit with my family.”

“Well, I look forward to meeting them, then,” she said with a gentle smile. “Now, we have some things to do ourselves, my daring little pegasus, so we should all get started on the day’s business. Be careful out there today.”

“Yes ma’am. Nice seeing you again, Princess Luna,” he said with a little bob in the air, then he turned and flew out over the wall, heading home.

He was right about having another delivery, and it was a long one. “I need you to go to Appleloosa,” his father said as he picked up his saddlebags from the peg by the counter. “We need some turquoise, so we need to make a bargain with the roaming buffalo. So, son, I want you to go out and find them and make a deal.”

“You want me to make the deal?”

He nodded. “I couldn’t find turquoise anywhere using the usual channels, so we can only get it from the source. Buffalo are very polite and fair, Skyblaze. Just be honest and you should do fine.”

“How much do I need to get?”

“Enough to fill one of your saddlebags,” he replied. “We’ll give you some other gems and some cash to offer in trade.”

“Okay, but I’ve never done anything like this before.”

“We know, but we’re positive you’ll do just fine, dear,” Shimmergem said from her bench.

“Well, I’ll give it a shot,” he said as he buckled his saddlebags on. His father filled one bag with a pouch of assorted gems and the other with a bag of bit coins, weighing him down a little bit. That would make the five hour flight to Appleloosa even longer, not counting the time he’d have to invest in finding the nomadic buffalo and striking the deal. He might not even get back to Canterlot by nightfall. He said as much to his father, which made him nod.

“We know. If you have to stay somewhere overnight, you stay in a town, Skyblaze. No sleeping on clouds overnight. That’s too close to dragon territory, and they’ll smell the gems you’ll be carrying if they come within twenty miles of you. Unlike anything else, the dragons can get to you if you’re sleeping on a cloud.”

He nodded in understanding as his father locked his saddlebags. “I’ll be careful, so you don’t have to tell me.”

His father laughed. “I’m going to say it anyway. Be careful, Skyblaze.”

After eating a hearty breakfast, he started out. Appleloosa was south-southwest of Canterlot, a five and a half hour flight if he was unburdened, but with his load slowing him down he was looking at maybe six, six and a half hours to get to the small frontier town. It and Dodge Junction were symbols of Equestrian expansion into the unclaimed lands to the south, pushing the boundaries of Equestria and bringing the ponies of his homeland closer and closer to the wild dragon lands even further south of the deserts and rocky badlands down there. He flew out over the beautiful green of central Equestria, and watched the terrain under him slowly change, becoming drier, more rocky, more expansive and grand. The dangerous Ghastly Gulch went by under him, a signpost of sorts for him to adjust his course a little more westerly, and he flew out over the dry prairies, grasslands, and deserts of southern Equestria. There weren’t many pegasi down here because dry climates didn’t take much in the way of overseeing. They just pushed an occasional shower down into the region to replenish the arid plantlife, which actually wouldn’t do as well if they got a lot of water. It was a little past noon when he landed on the dusty main street of Appleloosa, a town completely dominated by earth ponies. He stopped the nearest one, an overly friendly young stallion who introduced himself as Braeburn, enduring the most energetic hoofshake he’d ever experienced. He actually pulled himself into the air to get a tiny bit of distance from the fellow. “I’m looking for the roaming buffalo. Have you seen them lately?”

“Why sure!” he replied. “Last I saw of ‘em, they were out that way,” he said, pointing to the west.

“Thanks,” he said, then he beat a hasty retreat.

He had a good lunch before heading out, flying high over the western prairies, searching for the nomadic buffalo. It took him three hours of scanning the land below, flying in ever-widening circles around Appleloosa to finally spot them, a large herd galloping to the north, moving towards a distant small river that snaked down from the rugged hills southeast of Las Pegasus. He descended and matched speed with the herd, lowering down until his head was level with one of the buffalo running at the edge of the herd. “Excuse me!” he shouted over the thunder of their hooves. “Could I talk to you for a minute?”

“Buffalo don’t stop,” he replied firmly. “You want to talk, you talk.”

“Okay,” he called loudly, coughing a little from the dust. “I was sent here to trade with you for some turquoise. Do you have any to spare?”

The buffalo looked at him. “That’s Chief Stronghorn’s business,” he said. “Chief leads us in our great run. Go talk to him.”

“Thank you kindly,” he said with a nod, then he rose up and slowly advanced over the galloping herd of buffalo. He spotted their chief, resplendent with his tassled feather headdress, then again slowly descended down until he was just over and beside him. “Excuse me, Mister Chief Stronghorn sir,” he shouted. “One of your herd said I needed to speak to you.”

“Speak, flying one,” he said without breaking stride.

“I was sent here by my family to trade with your herd for some turquoise. Do you have any to spare?”

“We can trade, but only when we stop,” he replied. “We run until sundown, ancient buffalo tradition. If you keep up, we trade.”

“I can—“

“You run,” he said adamantly.

“Then I’ll run,” he said, swooping down and churning his legs, and executing a fairly tricky running landing. He folded his wings and lowered his head, and he matched strides with the huge, proud buffalo chieftain…for maybe two minutes.

Running, he discovered, was nowhere near the same as flying. His legs were actually a little weak since he flew almost all the time, and it was barely an hour before he had fallen through the large herd and was coughing and choking on the dust they churned up in front of him. He tried his hardest to match their pace, but he just couldn’t do it. They were used to running long distances every day, where he was used to flying long distances every day. His heart and his lungs had the endurance thanks to his flying, but his legs just weren’t used to that kind of extended activity. He found himself well behind the herd, among the herd’s foals, with a dozen or so of the largest buffalo running behind them to keep them all gathered in. But Skyblaze was not a pony that backed down from a challenge, so he gritted his teeth and matched strides with a lanky young buffalo, a young bull that grinned at him as they ran together.

“You don’t run much, but you have a strong heart,” he noted.

“I fly almost all the time, and that’s just as hard as running,” he panted. “My legs aren’t used to this, but my family’s counting on me.”

“If you run for your family, then your legs will carry you,” he said confidently.

He had no idea how, but he somehow kept up with the slower foals the rest of the afternoon. They finally came to a stop in a camp of teepees erected by a small river, and Skyblaze literally collapsed when the younglings galloped into the campsite, his legs feeling like he’d carried a boulder on his back all day. He slid to a stop with his chin on the ground, tufts of dust blowing away with his breaths, then he struggled on trembling legs to his hooves and started up his wings, picking himself up off the ground. His legs hung limply under him, so tired that he couldn’t even pull them up, which earned him a grin from the young bull buffalo that had been running with him, his presence actually bolstering Skyblaze and giving him the determination to keep going.

“I told you, your legs would carry you if you run for your family,” he said. “What brings you to our lands, winged one?”

He felt much better when he had his weight off his legs. “I’m here to trade for turquoise,” he answered. “Your chief said if I could keep up, he’d trade with me.”

“I did,” Chief Stronghorn announced, trotting up to him. “You have weak legs, but a strong heart, Redfeather,” he declared.

“I think this proved to me that I shouldn’t spend all my time flying,” he panted. “I need to start running too.”

The chief smiled slightly and nodded. “You want to trade for turquoise?”

He nodded and landed again, his legs wobbling dangerously. “I have pony money and some other gems to offer in trade,” he replied, unlocking one of his saddlebags.

They were kind enough to give him dinner, bowls of strange mashed plants, juices, and foraged cactus flesh, and it was both very delicious and surprisingly spicy as he and the chief, Stronghorn, bartered over a large bowl of turquoise that he’d had brought to the fire. After they reached a bargain, he had Skyblaze draw pictures of the jewelry that his family made in the dirt by the fire, drawing necklaces and bracelets, earchains and brooches. “My family takes quality metals like silver and gold and uses them with the gems to create things like this,” he explained as he drew a necklace his mother had made recently. Though he was poor at making jewelry, he wasn’t bad when it came to drawing. “I’m terrible at it, so I work in the shop as the delivery pony, going out and bringing back what my family needs to do their work. The more time they have to do their work, the better they can make things. I do the wingwork so they can focus on the jewelry making.”

Stronghorn nodded as another bowl of that spicy brown stuff was put in front of him. “It is good that you honor your family by doing what you can for them,” he said as a buffalo poured the turquoise he’d bartered into a beaded pouch, then offered it to him, as well as wincingly offered up the one thing the chief wouldn’t budge on, two of Skyblaze’s dusky red feathers, and not two of his small ones. He had to surrender two of his secondary flight feathers, the smaller layer just under the primary feathers, which were the big ones that Skyblaze could move and control. Those feathers filled the gaps at the bases of his primary feathers, helping provide lift and control, and while they weren’t critical to his ability to fly, they were still fairly important. The buffalo were a little surprised when he flinched and gave a yipe when the buffalo took the feather in his teeth and plucked it. “Are you well?”

“Yeah, that just stings a whole lot,” he said, rubbing his wing vigorously to get the sharp bite out of it. “Those feathers are really deeply set. They don’t come out easy.”

“We didn’t know this,” Stronghorn said in concern. “You should have said something. I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“I’ve had worse in practice,” he replied with a brave grin as he turned the other way and presented his other wing. “And don’t worry, they’ll grow back in a week tops. Okay, go ahead, just make sure you get this particular one so I have some symmetry in my wings,” he said, spreading the two primary feathers between the corresponding feather on that side. After another stinging feather extraction, he shivered his wing as he put the beaded satchel in his saddlebag, and the chief’s aide took the bits, gems, and two large red feathers he’d given in trade into a teepee. Skyblaze got the turquoise his family needed, and they got some bits to use to buy supplies from Appleloosa, feathers to add to Stronghorn’s headdress, and gems that weren’t common in their range to be made into their own jewelry. “Well, that’ll throw off my flying for a while, but they’ll grow back. I need to work on my running anyway,” he said absently, flexing his wings as he looked back at the gap between his top two primary flight feathers and the ones below.

“You are a brave pony to offer something so valuable,” Stronghorn said with a nod of respect.

“Like I said, I’ve had worse just in flying practice, Chief Stronghorn,” he grinned. “And they’ll grow back in a week, those feathers regrow really fast.”

“Let it never be said that the roaming buffalo of the great plains do not honor the worth of that which is willingly given,” he said strongly. “For giving up something so dear to you, you deserve two pouches of turquoise to honor your sacrifice.”

“You don’t have to go that far,” Skyblaze protested.

“And neither did you,” he replied simply. “You gave much of yourself for the needs of your family. Such devotion to the sacred bonds of family must be honored.”

“Well, if you insist, I guess I can’t say no,” he said as another beaded bag was brought out, and it was filled with pieces of turquoise. The buffalo then put it straight into his other saddlebag. “Anyway, I should get going, Chief. It’s a good clip back to Appleloosa, and I need to find a hotel to stay the night. Thank you so very much for the dinner, it was nothing like anything I’ve ever had before, and it was fantastic. I never knew spicy could taste so good,” he said earnestly, which made quite a few buffalo smile in his direction. “I don’t want to impose on you anymore.”

“A friend never imposes,” he said grandly. “You mentioned that you will stay overnight and return home in the morning. We welcome you to our fire this night, Redfeather.”

“I accept,” he said immediately.

Hanging out with the buffalo all night was awesome. After they got the business out of the way, he found out that a tribe of buffalo loved to party. They played drums and horns, singing and dancing well into the night, and Skyblaze learned a few buffalo dance steps. He found that while they looked a little imposing, they were all warm, friendly, generous, and enjoyed life with the kind of zest that a pegasus could appreciate. He also found that in a way, the buffalo were a kindred spirit to him. He loved to fly, fly fast, fly far, to roam the skyways seeking the simple of joy of the wind in his mane and the land spread out before him like a vast blanket of beauty. He loved to fly not to visit other places—not entirely, but to enjoy the journey of it, to fly to those destination. Seeing what was behind the next mountain was as much fun for him as it was to fly over the mountain to see what was there. The buffalo loved to run for many of the same reasons, the wind in their faces, the grand panoramas, the joy of traveling for the sake of traveling, an eternal journey with no destination. There was a great deal of poetry in the outlook of the buffalo, and a pegasus could appreciate what it meant to enjoy the journey, to live the journey.

Skyblaze’s legs got even more exhausted as he danced with the tribe around the campfire, then he told stories of living in Canterlot and his rather unique life as a pegasus in a world of unicorns, who flew to the far corners of Equestria in his work for his family business. He heard stories of the proud past and traditions of the buffalo in return, listening to their old tales and legends, each with a moral that taught a young buffalo the values of their tribe. He made several new friends among the roaming tribe, mainly among the young, bandy-legged adolescents close to his own age.

After falling asleep some time after midnight, he woke up with several other buffalo around the main campfire of the encampment. When the night was beautiful, the buffalo liked to sleep outside, under the stars, so he was surrounded by dozing buffalo as a few wisps of smoke rose up from the ashes of the campfire. His legs were achy, sore, and a little rubbery as he got up and stretched, then he went and got his saddlebags from the teepee where they’d allowed him to store them as the others started to stir, including the chief. He landed beside the huge leader as he yawned and got up onto his hooves, stretching a little. “I’d better get started back for Canterlot, Chief Stronghorn. Thank you for a wonderful night. I learned a whole lot.”

“Then it was a good night, for both of us,” he said with a craggy smile, displaying his headdress proudly, which now sported Skyblaze’s two dusky red wingfeathers in it, each one just over the chief’s eyes. “When you need turqoise again, Redfeather, come to us.”

“When I can find you, Chief, I certainly will,” he said as his wings picked him up off the ground. “And I promise to add running to my training regimen from now on,” he said. “I will keep up with you the next time I visit. I will run proudly with the buffalo.”

He grinned. “Then I look forward to your next appearance, Redfeather. Travel well and enjoy your journey,” he replied with a nod of farewell.

“Travel well, Chief Stronghorn,” he replied, learning what to say the night before, then he turned and ascended into the morning sky.

Missing two secondary flight feathers really screwed up his flying. He almost lost control just doing basic turns a few times, until he worked out how it was different, then he adjusted and marshaled himself for his flight back. The loss of the two primary feathers had been worth it to get the turquoise his family needed, and he was honest about how fast they’d grow back. Since those feathers were so important to a pegasus’ ability to fly, they grew back almost ridiculously fast when they were plucked or clipped. In a week, they’d be fully grown and his wings would be back to normal. It would put a dent in his practice and preparation for the competition, but he could practice in other ways while they grew back, and that would help when the competition arrived. For that matter, losing them would help teach him how to control his flight while at a disadvantage.

It wasn’t a disadvantage, it was a challenge.

His father noticed immediately when he got back to the shop just after lunch. “There’s something…I don’t know. Off,” he said, looking critically at Skyblaze’s wing.

He opened his wings and displayed them, making the gap where his missing feathers had been obvious. “Chief Stronghorn demanded two feathers from my wings for his headdress as part of the trade,” he answered. “Don’t worry, Dad, they grow back fast.”

“He made you give up your feathers?” Shimmergem gasped. “That’s…cruel!”

“He didn’t know how much it hurts to pluck those feathers,” he shrugged. “And they do grow back, Mom. So I was willing to part with a couple of them, cause I got this,” he said, unbuckling and offering his saddlebags. “Double what you asked for, Dad. They filled my saddlebags when they realized that losing the feathers they wanted wasn’t like plucking a down feather off the top.”

They gave him startled looks. “But, but your practice, without your—“

“I’ll be fine, Dad,” he said easily. “Really. A week and they’ll be back, and that still gives me ten days to get ready for the competition. I’ve done worse to myself just crashing into stuff around town,” he added lightly. “Besides, I have something else to work on while they grow back,” he said as Gold Ring opened the bags and pulled out the two beaded bags, then poured a large amount of turquoise out over the counter.

“What’s that, son?” Shimmergem asked, reaching out with a hoof and tentatively touching his dusky red wing.

“Keeping up with a herd of buffalo on the ground,” he chuckled, then told them the story of how he had to earn the right to bargain with the herd for the gems, by running with them. “I have the endurance from my flights, but it’s my wings that are used to that kind of distance, not my legs,” he laughed. “I fell over when they finally let me stop.”

“Son, you didn’t have to go that far, not just for a bag of gems,” Silverchain said seriously. “I could have found some somewhere, it would have just taken a little longer.”

“You said we needed them, and I wasn’t going to let you down, Dad. And I told you, I didn’t do anything or give anything that I wasn’t willing to. I saw the run as a challenge, something new I’ve never done before, and the feathers do grow back.”

“But with the competition coming up, you’re going to lose practice time!” Silverchain protested. He knew enough about pegasi to know that losing two of those feathers would make flying more difficult, affecting his ability to control himself in the air.

“A competition is just that, Dad, a sporting event. This is about the shop,” he said simply but strongly. “I may be the world’s worst jewelry maker, but I’m proud of my family’s business and I’ll do what I can where I can to help.”

Both his parents gave him a fierce hug, almost embarrassing him a little. “You go straight upstairs and I’ll come up and make you anything you want for lunch,” Shimmergem said, sniffling a little.

“Woah…you’re going to cook lunch? For me? Quick, Dad, pull out a couple more, I might get lunch for a whole week!”

Griffons Have Bad Table Manners.

He’d told his family it would take a week for his feathers to grow back, and he was dead on with his prediction.

One week later, the gap in his wing feathers was gone, and he was back at full strength and full speed. He hadn’t lost much time to the lost feathers, either. He could still fly, he went out two other times over the week to make deliveries or pick up materials, it just affected his ability to control himself in extreme maneuvers. Once he practiced enough with the gap in his wings to get used to those feathers not being there, he got back some of his aerial agility and learned even more about how to recognize those tiny little telltale signals that he was about to go out of control and correct himself before it happened. So, in a way, losing those feathers had been a good thing. Granted, he didn’t do any practice on his routine for the week, not until his feathers had grown enough by yesterday afternoon to give him back his control, but he actually learned more about flying over that week for being impaired by his missing feathers, and that meant that it was not a week that was wasted. It was far from wasted.

He also spent that week working on his other endurance. He would fly down to the large open field at the base of the mountain and run, galloping in circles along the edge of the woods, and in a strange sort of way, he really enjoyed it. He just liked going fast, be it on his hooves or on his wings, and there was a similar feeling to flying as he ran around and around, the wind in his mane, the pounding of his hooves on the grassy earth…it rekindled feelings from his foalhood, before he could fly, when he would run almost everywhere he went because he would imagine that that might be what it felt like to fly, to go really fast and watch the streets of Canterlot race by under his muzzle. His legs rebuilt some of that lost endurance over the week, and he even practiced taking off from a run and landing into a run, much as he had when he landed to run with the buffalo.

But he now had ten days until the competition, and things were getting serious, both for him and for his family. Silverchain had told him the night before that he had the next ten days completely to himself, that he would have no deliveries, giving him time to dedicate himself to his dream. His entire family appreciated the sacrifice he’d made for the shop, and they returned the favor by arranging things so the time he needed the most, the days leading up to the competition, was time that he could devote completely to getting ready.

And he was going to do just that. He woke up and jumped out of bed eagerly, ready to tackle another day, checking himself in the mirror out of habit as he put his goggles on, then he was out and warming up. He raced along the familiar routes just over the heads of the ponies on the streets below, tugging at dresses and clothes and forcing them to hold their hats down as he streaked by over them as he worked a night of sleep’s inactivity out of his wings, then he landed in the large courtyard by the palace and galloped around the periphery, doing ten laps to get some burn in his legs before taking off again. The buffalo had taught him that ignoring one part of being an athlete had been dumb, and since the day he returned, he vowed that his legs would get a workout every day as well as his wings. He wouldn’t be running any long distance races anytime soon, but after a few months of adding in running to his usual training, he would be. He fully intended to match the buffalo stride for stride the next time he visited their range, and that was going to take some training. He picked himself up off the ground and flew in those same laps around the courtyard, taking sharp turns at each corner and going faster and faster, and he almost crashed when he saw Princess Celestia come out onto the balcony that overlooked the courtyard, very close to the gates and the double stairs that led up to the entry doors. She watched him fly ten more laps, then he tightened his turns and smoothed them into a circle, flying so fast that his red trail merged with itself and formed a shimmering red ring over the courtyard. Tight turns were his specialty, and now that he had his wing feathers fully regrown and properly preened, in top shape, he felt every bit of the control he’d had before giving them up for the turquoise. He spun ever tighter, starting to cause a rotating wind in the courtyard, until he stopped suddenly in the exact center of where his circle had been, wings outstretched and head up, then he gave a single powerful downstroke of his wings, as if he were bursting the cyclonic ring of the Tornado Twist, sending a strong gust down to the ground to shimmer across the courtyard. That wingstroke shot him up over the level of the balcony, spinning almost lazily in the air as he slowed to a stop and caught himself into a hover, then looked to Princess Celestia to see if she approved of his progress thus far. She gave him an encouraging smile, and he dared to fly over to her without invitation, coming up to the edge of the wall; he wouldn’t go past that without explicit permission…well, at least intentionally. He unintentionally crossed that line quite a bit. “Good morning, your Highness,” he called over the short distance between his position and her balcony.

She gave him a smile and waved him over, and he wasted no time obeying. He landed on the edge of the balcony, then bowed to her. “I see your wing feathers are back,” she said, looking down at him. “I heard how you lost them. That was very noble of you, Skyblaze.”

“They grew back, your Highness,” he shrugged his wings modestly. “And I’ll be ready for the competition. My parents have given me the rest of the time off until the competition so I can focus on my practice. I won’t let Canterlot down, I promise.”

She patted him fondly on the shoulder. “I never had any doubt that you would, my young pegasus,” she told him encouragingly. “I’ll root for you as much as I can. But I can’t show any favoritism, you know,” she smiled.

“I don’t expect any, your Highness. If I can’t win fair and square, then I don’t deserve to win.”

“Well said,” she agreed with a nod.

After a big breakfast to really fuel himself up, he flew down the mountainside and to the large clearing at the base of Mount Canterlot, his preferred practice area. He started by collecting up all the loose clouds, making his rings, then cutting the clouds that remained down so they were very small, which made a whole lot of them for him to use. Once he had all that ready, he randomly threw the rings out, letting them drift to a stop, then he landed, stretched his wings in preparation, then began. Through the morning, he practiced his entire routine from start to finish, from his starting point on the ground—which would be the stage of the arena, through the ring, up into the clouds, then back down to the do the Tornado Twist. Any time he screwed up, he continued on through the run so he could practice the other parts. He managed a successful Tornado Twist 12 out of 15 attempts over the morning, improving his success percentage by a tiny amount, then he flew back up to Canterlot to eat a big lunch. All that hard flying had burned through his entire breakfast. He wolfed down half a basket of apples, guzzled down an entire pitcher of fruit juice, then went straight back down to the base of the mountain. He was about to start another run when Rainsong descended down from the east, landing beside him with a smiled. “Hey Skyblaze, how goes practice?”

“Pretty well so far. You done?”

“I was done hours ago. I decided to go on a little trip,” she said, looking up meaningfully. He laughed when Gedwin and Gwendi descended along the mountainside and landed with them.

“Guys!” he said happily, bumping his hoof with Gedwin’s forepaw, then Gwendi. “What brings you by?”

“We’re gonna see if you’re worth our time, being our friend and all,” Gedwin said haughtily, though he had a grin on his beak. “So, show us this routine you’re gonna do for the competition.”

“Well, if you’re here, you can help,” he said.

“How?”

“We’ll put the rings up so he can’t see what order they’re in,” Rainsong told them. “And the harder we set them, the more he likes it. He’s a glutton for punishment,” she winked.

“Doing something that’s hard makes you better, win or lose,” he said easily, hunkering down on his front legs and wiggling his rump a little, almost like as if he were about to pounce. “So if you don’t mind, go ahead and rearrange the rings, make it as hard as possible for me to run them in numerical order. The only rule is you have to set the next ring so I can see the number from the last one,” he explained. “That way I know which way to go. Outside of that, knock yourself out.”

“Make things hard for Skyblaze, the most annoying pegasus this side of Manehattan? I’m in!” Gwendi grinned.

He kept his head down as his three friends rearranged the rings, and when Rainsong called out the countdown, he jerked his head up as his wings fanned, then as soon as he found the first ring, he rocketed off the grass, leaving a fiery red streak of light behind him. He saw the second ring as he raced for the first, then cut a turn so sharp through the first ring that it looked like he ricocheted off a wall. Blazing at full speed, he spied the third ring just as he went through the second, having to do a barrel roll around two other rings to reach it, and worked his way through the course. Every ring was either far away or partially hidden behind another ring, with lots of vertical distance between them, forcing him to ascend and descend, turn sharply, spending as much time with his back to the ground as his belly as he was forced to roll and spin and weave. It was indeed an extremely hard ring placement they’d worked out, and he loved every second of it. After he passed through ring 30, he shot high into the air, gaining speed his climb, feeling the wind blast against his face, whip through his mane and tail, feeling the absolute joy that came with flying, and flying fast. He pingponged through the ten clouds he’d put up for the run, always going to the most distant cloud with each move, busting the clouds in ten unique ways. After the last cloud, he descended in a spiral and then started his fast circling, preparing for the Tornado Twist.

A brief glance as he came around showed him that his friends were at minimum safe distance, so he abruptly dove out of his circle and began. He hit the desired altitude and immediately turned as tightly as he possibly could, the world wheeling and spinning and swirling before his eyes as he began to form the tornado, watching it from the corner of his eyes and feeling the winds play along the tips of the feathers of his left wing, the one facing the tornado, as it beat frantically to keep him up to speed and in that endless tight turn, rotating counterclockwise. The tornado spun to life, shivering and undulating as it stabilized under his careful ministration, and once it had enough juice to sustain itself without him for a few moments, he allowed his creation to swallow him when he reached the base of it. He turned upwards and allowed the winds to catapult him, which shot him out of the wide mouth of the tornado as if it were a cannon, his body spinning nearly as fast as the tornado was. But his vast experience in recovering from spinouts let him orient himself in the air as he ascended, and he pulled out of it and dove back on his creation so fast it was as if he’d been tied to it with a rubber band. He angled in and intercepted his tornado along its upper rim, and then he began the next phase, spiraling up and down around it, pushing in the top, relaxing the bottom to allow it to expand, causing the column of whipping, rotating winds to take shape. He held it in that shape for several long seconds, allowing his friends to appreciate what he’d done, then he spiraled down to the bottom and started phase three. He started to turn the tornado’s base by pulling at it with his air wake, spiraling up to push the middle of it back into place, forcing the tornado to bend. It followed his air wake upwards, upwards, upwards, then he lanced up to the top and started pulling it towards the curling base of the column. Once he got the top angled so its mouth was horizontal in relation to the ground, he returned to the bottom and stabilized it when it started to unravel, got it back into rotation, then pulled it up, up, up, pulling it until it joined to the top at the very top, creating a continuous ring, a circle of tightly spiraling, spinning, cyclonic wind. He orbited his creation’s arcing lines a few times and then swung up and around to hover inside of it, the showy presentation, then he used his wings to turn the circle horizontal. He let it stay like that for just a moment, then he caused it to explode with a powerful blast of air from his wings. The visible shockwave of air rushed away at high speed and a roar of wind. The wingbeat drove him upward, above the rushing blast of wind, dust, and cloud, then he descended down to the ground quickly, in a controlled fall that he arrested just before his hooves hit the ground.

Gedwin and Gwendi soared over and landed with big grins on their beaks, Rainsong right behind. “Okay, that wasn’t too pathetic,” Gedwin told him.

“Thanks. The problem is, I can’t do it every time,” he admitted.

“You pull that off, you have the competition in the bag, Skyblaze,” Gwendi told him approvingly.

“It’s gonna take that to beat Scootaloo,” he said honestly as he opened and closed his wings a few times. “But that’s what’s gonna make it all worth it,” he grinned eagerly. “I want to face the best. It’s the only way you ever get better.”

“You should just go challenge the Wonderbolts,” Gedwin grinned.

“Someday I will,” Skyblaze said lightly in return. “Okay, let’s set up the rings and clouds again. Lemme do another full run.”

With the help of three of his four best friends, Skyblaze had a really good day of practice. When he wasn’t flying at breakneck speed, he was resting, trading stories with the griffons and Rainsong, as the three of them got to know each other better. After 16 more runs, in which 12 were successful Tornado Twists, they flew back up to Canterlot and Skyblaze treated his friends to dinner at their favorite diner down at the corner. His parents were still working in the shop, so he didn’t want to make his friends wait after going so long without a meal. As he expected, the less than cultured nature of the griffons caused a few turned heads and some whispers, but he honestly didn’t care. Gedwin and Gwendi were his friends, and that meant taking the fact that both were a little loud and obnoxious in stride with the fact that they were smart, funny, brave, adventurous, kind under the gruff griffon veneer, and dependable. He knew that if he ever had a problem, Gedwin and Gwendi would have his back.

“So, you have the rest of the time til the competition to get your trick down,” Gwendi said as she devoured a large green apple, then licked her beak and gave Gedwin’s larger pile of apples a cunning little look. Gedwin wrapped his wing around his meal and stared her down.

“I have to say, when it goes bad, it goes bad spectacularly,:” Gedwin chuckled. “I’ve never seen you spin so far before, at least without recovering.”

“Yeah, but when it works, it works well,” he replied with a grin.

“Stormbuck explained the way the competition works yesterday,” Gwendi said as she lobbed an apple into the air, then snapped her beak shut on it, sending a few pieces of apple flying. “He said he’s a little nervous about going first.”

“Yeah, I don’t blame him for that,” Skyblaze agreed. Stormbuck had drawn the first slot, so he had to go first. While it meant he didn’t have to wait long, it also meant that by the time the other competitors had their turn, his performance was buried under all the other performances. It would be easy to forget if he didn’t wow the judges. Skyblaze was of the opinion that it was best to go close to last in a competition like that…and he’d drawn number four. That was close to the beginning. Scootaloo had one of the best placements, number nine out of 15, close to the end without being the last couple of performances, when the crowd and the judges would be getting a bit antsy.

“What are you lookin’ at?” Gwendi challenged to a pair of well-dressed unicorns that were staring at her. Both of them put their noses in the air and marched on down the street. “Darn groundbounders,” Gwendi snorted. “You’d think they’d never seen a griffon before.”

“It’s not who you are, it’s what you’re doing,” Skyblaze winked. “I told you, Canterlot unicorns don’t cotton much to being a messy eater,” he said, pointedly brushing some bits of apple off the table.

“I can’t believe you two grew up here and managed to stay cool,” Gedwin grunted, which made both of the pegasi laugh.

“It wasn’t easy,” Rainsong grinned. “We sure got into enough trouble when we were foals,” she added with a laugh.

“This place is all about appearances,” Skyblaze told them. “It’s not who you are, it’s who you pretend to be that counts. That’s why I’ll take you two over most of the unicorns in Canterlot any day. You know who you are, and you show the world who you are. Around here, you never know what the real unicorn is like under all the manners and civility.”

“Just more proof that griffons are far more awesome than ponies,” Gwendi said lightly.

“Only unicorns. Pegasus ponies are clearly superior,” Skyblaze taunted with a grin.

“That sounds like a challenge to me, brother,” Gwendi said, glancing at him.

“It does indeed, sis,” Gedwin said with a look at Skyblaze.

“It is so on. At least after dinner,” he said.

After eating, they gathered at Overlook Park, which was built on the very edge of the supporting arc of stone that formed the plateau clinging to the mountainside on which Canterlot was built. Shaped and supported by powerful unicorn magic long ago, the low wall dropped to a vast abyss that went down thousands of feet before the steep slope of the mountain came into view. Skyblaze stood on the edge of that wall as several unicorns watched on in curiosity. “Alright, it’s time to fly back to Twintalon in style,” Skyblaze said eagerly, almost prancing on the wall as he lowered his goggles, a clear sign that he intended to go very, very fast. “Think you can keep up?”

“Pshaw, bring it,” Gedwin said, jumping up on the wall himself.

“Then let’s rock,” Skyblaze said, then he intentionally turned and stepped back off the wall, and tumbled down out of sight. Gedwin jumped after him, the girls right on their tails, but Skyblaze didn’t open his wings, he simply fell in a spiraling tumble for a moment before orienting himself with his legs back and to his sides, a sleek missile that rocketed towards the deadly rocks below. Gedwin inched up beside him in a similar diving pose, the two of the grinning at each other as they fearlessly plummeted towards the rocky slope. At the last possible instant, both of them opened their wings and pulled up just enough, their hooves and paws just barely missing the steep rocky slope, the two of them weaving and rocking to avoid boulders and outcroppings that threatened to totally ruin their day. They pulled level just over the treetops, their air wakes pulling at the tree limbs and leaves, then they dropped down so low when they reached the large field at the base of the mountain that their wingtips brushed the grass with each downstroke. They ascended up over the trees on the far side of the field and turned easterly, his wings flapping so hard and so fast that it almost felt like they were slapping on water, but both his griffon friends and Rainsong were right with him, turning with him, the four of them in a two by two formation. Gwendi and Rainsong inched up until they were all abreast, flying in formation, and they looked at each other with eager grins. He wasn’t surprised that Gedwin and Gwendi could keep up, but he was honestly surprised that Rainsong was holding her own. She was a good flyer, but she wasn’t a competitive flyer. Clearly she’d been holding out a little bit, he had no idea she could fly so fast.

It was one of the best afternoons he’d ever had. With the sun behind them, the four of them streaked through the warm summer air just over the treetops, flying so fast, so fast, so fast that the trees were a blur of green and breaks in them whizzed by so fast that it was a blink of the eyes. The mountains rose to their left when they reached the edge of the range, and the ground below them started to roll like gigantic tree-covered waves frozen in time. Rainsong began to falter after a while, proving that she didn’t have the endurance to hold her speed, so the others slowed down to match her rather than leave her behind, sharing the simple, unbridled joy that came with the honor and privilege of having wings. None of them talked. None of them needed to, and to do so would have ruined the perfection of that golden afternoon where the four of them reveled in the great joy that was their unmatched luck and honor to receive, the gift of flight.

He was almost disappointed when the tiny village of Twoshoes came into view at the foot of the mountains. The four of them landed on its single street and said nothing, just stood there for a moment, then he and Rainsong turned towards Gedwin and Gwendi, and they offered out their hooves, touching them together. Two griffon forepaws laid over them, and the four of them spent a brief moment to enjoy the bonds of friendship, smiling at each other. Finally, though, the moment had to end, and his griffon friends backed up a step. “Awesome day, Skyblaze,” Gedwin said.

“Thanks for the help today, guys. I’ll be busy til the competition, so if you wanna see me, come to Canterlot. Or that field where I was practicing.”

“Sure thing,” Gwendi said.

“It was great to hang out with you guys. Afraid you’re stuck with another pegasus that’s gonna call you a friend,” Rainsong grinned.

“That’s no problem, Rainsong, you’re not a complete dweeb,” Gedwin said airily, which made her laugh.

“I hang out with him, it does stain my reputation,” she said, pointing her wing at Skyblaze.

“Your life would be boring without me,” he said blandly, which made the griffons grin impishly.

They split up, the griffons heading back to Twintalon—they weren’t about to take Rainsong there until both she and the griffons were ready for it—while Skyblaze and Rainsong started back for Canterlot. “You little sneak,” Skyblaze said lightly as they started climbing, aiming for an altitude that would give them an easy flight back home.

“What?”

“I had no idea you could fly that fast.”

She laughed. “I don’t just manage the weather over the woods,” she winked. “I do practice a little. I can’t fly that fast for that long, though. I don’t fly all over Equestria the way you do.”

“Just fly in circles around the forest.”

“And look like I’ve lost my mind? That’ll make the other pegasi talk.”

“None of their business, and besides, why worry about what they think? And anyway, it’s too late. You lost your mind a long time ago,” he teased.

She laughed. “Yeah, the day I met you,” she retorted.

“Corrupting innocent pegasi isn’t all that hard when they’re you,” he said grandly, which made her laugh helplessly.

“Speaking of losing our minds, tomorrow you’re gonna show me how you made it snow. I wanna see how you did it.”

“You’re getting in trouble with me,” he warned, which made her grin eagerly.

“That’s half the fun.”

A Message from Cloudsdale

It was barely past dawn when Skyblaze knocked carefully on Rainsong’s window, her room in the apartment her family had over their spa. Their spa was fairly large and successful, so they had a very large apartment over it with spacious rooms and large windows. Like Skyblaze, Rainsong used her window far more than she did the door to get in and out of her room, at least now that she could open it. When she was a younger filly she had a habit of sneaking out, and as a result her parents had her window nailed shut. When she came back from weather school, they felt she was mature and responsible enough to come and go as she pleased…which was their mistake.

Rainsong gave him an eager grin as she opened her curtains, a pair of goggles already resting above her eyes, ready to be pulled down, and then she opened her window. “Ready?”

Skyblaze nodded. “We’ll go to Ponyville and get something to eat after we work our mischief,” he said, which made her laugh.

“You’re buying.”

“Such a moocher,” he complained as she flitted out of the window and closed it.

“Let’s go, O teacher of bad things,” she said extravagantly, sweeping a hoof towards the snow-capped peak high above.

He explained the mechanics of fake snow to her up on the flat area near the pinnacle of the mountain, a tiny plateau of sorts that was perfect for what they had to do. “So, you have to corkscrew through it? Why not just fly straight?”

“You need the circular air currents to drag the a lot of cold air with the snow, else it just melts,” he explained. “You’re not just dragging snow down, you’re dragging enough cold to make sure the snow makes it to the ground.”

“Ohhh, okay,” she nodded as they hovered over the snowpack, the air still and crystal clear, without even a hint of wind. Their breath misted in the cold air around them as Skyblaze deliberately lowered his goggles. “It’s been a while since you did a tornado. Think you’re up for it?”

“Of course I am, you dink,” she retorted with a grin. “I’ll just follow you once we get it formed, so I can see what you do.”

“Simple enough. Let’s get this going.”

With two of them, they could make a really big tornado and still be able to control it. They’d been partners in tornado drills back in weather school, so the two of them easily circled each other and formed a fairly large tornado that quickly sucked up the loose snow on the small plateau . Once the snow-nado was fully matured and carrying a whole lot of snow, Skyblaze disengaged himself from the funnel and rocketed to the far side of the snowy field, his wingtip cutting into the snowpack as he looped around to come back at his creation. Rainsong was turning above and behind him so she could get a good vantage point. Skyblaze lifted just high enough off the gently sloping snow so he could start his corkscrew, spinning as he ascended and descended , his wingtip brushing the snow over and over as he picked up speed. Snow was pulled into the air behind him as he formed the vortex, a much weaker horizontal tornado of sorts formed by his corkscrew, and then he accelerated in a lurch once he had it going. He pierced the tornado in a blaze of red, exploding form the other side as the tornado behind him shuddered and then shattered, but the snow it held was drawn into his wake. Rainsong hurried after him as he screamed across the plateau and then over the edge, coming out of the corkscrew when the air wake behind him was fully formed and turned downwards, using his agility to avoid the rocky outcropping and ledges along the steep mountainside once he was below the snow line, dragging a massive amount of snow and cold air behind him. The adrenalin surged as he saw rocky ledges and shelves lance by, saw the rocky face blur into a single color without feature as he went too fast for his eyes to make out the details, felt the icy air bite at his nose and ears and pull his mane, making him feel alive. He again bounced into the open air just before reaching the mouth of Doom Gulley, streaking in a tight barrel roll high over the city of Canterlot to alter the path of the snow behind him, then he lifted up and over the vortex and allowed it to peter out directly over the city. The snow slowed down and began to fall, spreading in a cascade over Canterlot and starting to drift down as Rainsong reached him. The two of them descended down into the snow, orbiting one another in a graceful dance of circles, then they landed in the huge courtyard beside the palace just ahead of the first of the snowflakes.

“And that, my friend, is how we get in big trouble,” Skyblaze declared, which made Rainsong laugh as she looked up. Skyblaze opened his wings and caught the first snowflake to reach them right at the very tip of his longest feather, then the gentle drifting flakes surrounded them as they ghosted lazily to the ground.

“I doubt many pegasi around here could pull it off, they’d get dizzy trying to do the corkscrew for that long,” she winked over at him, then she caught a flake on her nose.

A shadow ghosted over them, and Princess Celestia landed just behind. Rainsong gawked a little and bowed, quickly and a bit awkwardly, while Skyblaze did so with a little more grace. “Good morning, your Highness,” he said urbanely as she walked up to stand between them, towering over them. Rainsong looked up at her with both anxiety and adoration—she loved the princesses—while Skyblaze gave her a mischievous smile.

“I see you had to try again, my young pegasus,” she said lightly, looking down at him with an amused expression. “And now you’re teaching others your bad habits.”

“She doesn’t need my help to get in trouble, ma’am. I just make her better at it,” he said, which made Rainsong gasp and Celestia laugh.

“And you would be Rainsong, right, my dear?” she asked, looking over.

“Uhh, y-yes, your Highness,” she quavered a bit.

Several pegasi appeared in the air behind the palace, wheeling and careening around, then they seemed to stop and converge. “And now we run,” Skyblaze declared. “Nice seeing you again, Princess.”

“You too, my incorrigible young pegasus,” she winked, then looked to Rainsong. “And you have a large mountain to climb if you want to be as notorious as he is,” she noted, then she trotted in a carefree manner towards the gate of her palace.

They watched her maybe a second too long. “SKYBLAZE!” a furious shout boomed through the courtyard. It was Silver Stratus, the pegasus in charge of the Canterlot weather team, diving on Skyblaze with fury in his eyes.

“Eep!” Rainsong squeaked, lifting a hoof off the cobblestones, then the two of them turned and took off with the older stallion in hot pursuit.

Silver Stratus was a good flyer, but he wasn’t half as crazy as Skyblaze was, who flew the streets of Canterlot below the rooftops on a daily basis. Skyblaze led Rainsong at street level through Canterlot along paths he knew well, turning and twisting along the narrow streets, their air wake pulling at banners and hats and dresses worn by the unicorns and earth ponies below, working them towards the edge of the city. Rainsong stayed right behind him as she depended on his ability to navigate, then they surged ahead when they entered Overlook Park. Skyblaze’s hooves clattered on the low wall as he landed on it for the briefest of instants, just long enough to dive off the edge, to push off of it at a downward angle to help alter his trajectory. Rainsong was right behind him, their wings tucked in as they hurtled towards the rocks below. Silver Stratus had the sense not to try to chase them beyond the boundary of Canterlot, mainly because he realized quickly that there was no way he was catching Skyblaze out in the open when he had that much of a lead and was in a power dive.

Laughing, they pulled out of the dive and leveled off, angling for the small village of Ponyville in the distance, nestled in a gentle valley. “I’m gonna be in sooo much trouble when Silver Stratus tells the weather managers in Cloudsdale!” Rainsong said, then she laughed again. “But it was worth it!”

“Welcome to every day of my life,” he replied cheekily.

They landed in the center of Ponyville, bounding a bit as they folded their wings, then Skyblaze led Rainsong to the little café where he’d eaten the first time he was there. He had just enough money on him to buy breakfast for them, the bits tucked into slots along the inside of the strap of his goggles, which was often the only place he had to carry them when he wasn’t delivering for the family shop. They talked about the upcoming competition and his practice, since Rainsong had a lot of work to do over the next couple of days getting ready for a series of strong showers so the trees could get in their growth before summer started winding down. She wouldn’t be able to help him move rings, but she was saving a bunch of small clouds for him over her territory for him to have plenty of clouds for busting in his practice. Since they often dumped extra clouds over her area since no pony lived out there, she always had plenty she could give him.

Their breakfast wasn’t without its issues, and it had nothing to do with Silver Stratus. Just as they started working through the excellent apple fritters the café served, a mature pegasus stallion landed beside the café and immediately trotted over towards them. “Uh oh, I think they followed us,” Skyblaze said under his breath as the stern-looking yellow-coated stallion presented himself before them, his orange mane cut very short and in a mohawk style

“Skyblaze Stardust?” he asked.

He wouldn’t be asking if he sent by Silver Stratus, so Skyblaze nodded.

“You need to report to the competition office in Cloudsdale immediately. It concerns the competition,” he declared.

“For what?”

“I wasn’t told, only to find you and relay the message,” he answered. “Your parents sent me here, they suspected you might be in Ponyville.”

Message delivered, the stallion turned and took off, leaving Skyblaze and Rainsong looking at each other speculatively. “Maybe they’re changing the order. Some pony might have dropped out.”

“They wouldn’t need me to go there just for that,” he said as he finished his apple fritter. “No use worrying about it,” he added with a shrug. “I’ll go see what they want after we finish breakfast.”

They split up after finishing, Rainsong going to get her work done while Skyblaze flew nearly due north, ascending towards the flowing, handsome town of Cloudsdale. He entered the competition office and was directed past the reception desk, to a large office with a view of the stadium behind it. There were five pegasi sitting at a long table made of cloud there, their backs to that panoramic window, and they all looked at him when he trotted in. “You wanted to see me?” he asked.

“Yes,” the one in the middle said, an older stallion with a dusky off-white coat and short cropped black mane. “It has come to our attention that you intend to use a tornado in your performance.”

He gave a start of surprise. How did they know that? “Well, yeah,” he replied. “It’s for my last trick, a move I invented. I call it the Tornado Twist.”

The five of them, three stallions and two mares, gave him penetrating stares. “A tornado being formed within the stadium presents an exceptional danger not just to you, the performer, but also to the spectators and the stadium itself. If that tornado gets out of control, it could cause a great deal of damage,” he stated in a strong voice. “For that reason, we cannot allow you to perform this, Tornado Twist.”

“What?” Skyblaze gasped. “Why not?”

“For just the reason I gave,” he replied flintily. “It’s too dangerous, especially when being used by a young stallion with your…reputation,” he added.

“This committee feels that using a tornado in the competition is simply too much of a risk,” the mare beside him said in a gentler voice. “I’m sure you feel that you can keep it under control, but we can’t take that chance, not with the safety of every pony watching hanging in the balance. I’m sorry, mister Stardust, but we can’t allow it.”

He was absolutely speechless, staring at the five of them with an expression approaching horror.

“Compounding that is the fact that you have a very notorious reputation in Canterlot for sheer recklessness,” the stallion sitting at the end said in a haughty voice. “There isn’t a day that passes by that there aren’t reports of you crashing into something. We cannot allow a young pegasus with a documented history of barely being in control of his own flight to use something as dangerous as a tornado in his performance.”

“I’m not reckless!” he protested. “I crash because I’m trying to make myself a better flyer! If you don’t push the envelope, you don’t get better!”

The stallion gave him a cold smile then produced a scroll. “The pennant pole atop the Royal Palace in Canterlot. Sixteen different lamp posts. Thirty-one windows. Nineteen flower boxes. Four carts. And what I think must be a record, fifty-one different hanging signs. Do you deny that you’ve destroyed all of those items?”

“Well, yeah, I can’t deny that, but I paid for them.”

“Your parents did,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “But this list just demonstrates how reckless you are, mister Stardust. A pony with such blatant disregard for his own safety and the safety of others cannot be allowed to use something as dangerous as a tornado in his act. Some ponies on this committee are against you performing at all,” he added, leaving no doubt just where he stood on the matter with his expression.

“Be that as it may,” the stallion in the center interrupted, “you will be allowed to compete, young mister Stardust, but you are not allowed to use a tornado in your routine. You will simply have to rework your routine to take that part of it out.”

“But—but I can’t win if I don’t use the Tornado Twist!” he protested vehemently. “I’ll never beat Scootaloo without it!”

“Then perhaps you should bow out of the competition?” the stallion at the end asked with a slightly malicious smile.

“A true competitor rolls with the punches and perseveres in the face of adversity,” the other mare said calmly. “If you believe that you can’t win without using this trick of yours, then you’ve already lost. And that is the wrong attitude, young stallion. If you believe that only some kind of impressive stunt will help you beat your rival, then you have a full week to come up with one that doesn’t involve a tornado.”

“But—but this isn’t fair!” he protested, stomping a hoof. “Let me show you I can control the tornado! I almost have the trick mastered!”

“Almost is not good enough when the safety of others hangs in the balance, Mister Stardust,” the stallion in the middle declared.

“Well—well, let me do the trick high above the stadium!” he nearly pleaded. “That should be far enough away!”

“The matter is settled, Mister Stardust,” the stallion stated flatly. “And there will be no further discussion. Now, we have a great deal of work to do to prepare of the competition, so you may take your leave.”

Skyblaze gawked at them, disbelief sweeping through his expression. He then turned and stormed out with a snort of anger. He couldn’t believe it…he just couldn’t believe it! They were banning him from using the Tornado Twist, the one move that was going to win him the competition! And with the competition only a week away, now he was beyond being back at square one! His entire routine was based on using the Tornado Twist…without it, he had no routine. They’d just all but crippled him! No other competitor had to draw up a completely new routine with only a week left, and given just how good the competition was, who had all those amazing skills and all that time to get their routines just so, it put him so far behind that it was going to be almost impossible to win.

No. That was not the way to think about it, like the mare said. If he started thinking that he was going to lose, then he would lose. He had a week. He could draw up his new routine today, and that would still give him five or six days to practice it. It was going to be really, really hard, because he still had to make a routine so awesome that it would let him beat Scootaloo, but it was possible. He had to look at it like it was a challenge, because he loved a challenge.

Skyblaze stormed out of the competition building and down the steps, opening his wings and preparing to take off, when a voice stopped him. “Hey, Skydaze,” Cloudjumper said in a smug voice. He stopped and looked behind himself, seeing Cloudjumper and Thunderhoof approaching, both looking almost gleeful. “Everyone’s heard about it. Heard you were trying to use a tornado in the competition, and they smacked you down like the jerk you are. I guess it’s a good thing we saw you practicing the other day and saw what you were doing, and we warned the committee before you blew up the whole stadium.”

“You told them? You were spying on me?”

“That’s right, we told them,” he said with a malicious grin. “Not so big now that you can’t use your fancy move, are ya?”

It clicked in his mind. They’d seen him do the Tornado Twist, knew they’d have no chance of beating him in the competition if he used it, so they whined to the committee and somehow got them to ban him from using it. A surge of anger and disbelief welled up in him, that they’d resort to trickery and cheating to get an advantage in the competition, but instead of reduce himself to their level or do something crazy, he instead fixed them with a nearly unholy stare, his ears pinned back, which made both of them flinch a little. “Now it’s personal,” he hissed. “I’ll win the competition without the Tornado Twist, if only to show both of you who the best really is. Go home and practice, little foals. Practice every minute you’re awake. Come to the competition at your absolute best, so when you get beaten down like the cowards you are, you’ll have no excuses. You’ll have tried your absolute best, and I’ll still beat you,” he declared in a voice of doom. He yanked down his goggles with a snap of his forehoof, then he turned and launched himself into the air, going from standing to nearly full speed within two wingbeats, such a sudden and violent acceleration that it whipped up an air wake that pulled at their manes and warped the clouds briefly

He made it back to Canterlot in what would have been record time had he bothered to clock it, and instead of going home, he landed on the wall at Overlook Park and jumped down, furious and disgusted and insulted and worried all at the same time. Without the Tornado Twist, how was he going to impress the judges so mightily that he’d beat Scootaloo, whom he had no doubt was the favorite? She’d been trained by Rainbow Dash, and that made her one of the best. She had to have tricks just as impressive as the Tornado Twist she could do.

He kicked at a leaf that had blown from a nearby tree. Some of this was his fault, he could admit that. He did have a reputation for crashing into things, but he’d never once believed that it would ever be held against him. He didn’t crash because he was clumsy. He didn’t crash because he was reckless. He didn’t crash because he didn’t care. He crashed because he pushed himself to the absolute limit when he flew competitively, and when he did that, it wasn’t that hard to go over the limit and lose control. His parents understood it, and so did those who knew him—even Princess Celestia understood it. But that reputation for being a dangerous flyer had reared up and smacked him on the rump, for the committee had used it as their reason for banning him using the Tornado Twist in the competition. But still, it burned him up that they didn’t even give him a chance. He could have shown them the Tornado Twist, let them see what it was and how he did it, that the tornado he formed would have been no danger to any pony.

He couldn’t dwell on that. Thanks to those jerks Cloudjumper and Thunderhoof, he was banned from using his signature move in the competition. And he was going to beat them. Even if he didn’t win the competition, it would be a moral victory for him to place higher than those two jackwagons, to show them just which pegasus was the better flyer.

But…what was he going to do now? The rings and cloudbusting were literally a setup for the Tornado Twist, something that looked easy to make the Tornado Twist look that much more awesome by comparison. To do that without his finishing move would make his routine look dull, simple, even if he performed it well. He began to pace around the edge of the park, trotting in circles as he furiously considered the problem. He only had a week to design a new routine, refine it, and then practice it, while everyone else had been working on their routines for months in preparation for the competition. But without the Tornado Twist…what was he going to do?

For nearly an hour, he worked on that problem. He knew a lot of flying tricks, learned or invented by him in his practice in Canterlot, but none of them were awesome enough to win him the competition. He considered each and then discounted it, over and over, until he’d gone through his entire arsenal of moves and deemed not one to be awesome enough to replace the Tornado Twist. He eventually had to stop and consider the problem from another approach, one less concerned about awesome and more concerned about skill.

Simply put, what was he good at? What made him a good flyer?

That was an easy answer for him. It was his agility, his ability to turn tightly even at high speed, and turn with a great deal of precision. Slightly below that was his resilience in the air, for Skyblaze literally did not get dizzy, even in a full-out spin, having learned how to handle spins in his many crashes. And just below that was his speed. He was the fastest pegasus in Canterlot by a country mile, and there was no dispute about that from any pegasus in town.

His original routine had highlighted his agility both with the Tornado Twist and the rings. The rings were supposed to showcase his agility, his ability to turn at high speed, to demonstrate his ability in precision flying, where cloudbusting was going to demonstrate his speed. While he was a very fast flyer, he didn’t consider it his greatest strength, because it wasn’t natural talent that made him so fast, like it did with other pegasi like the incredible Rainbow Dash. He’d developed his speed through hard work, constant practice, turning virtually everything into a training exercise to get there as fast as he possibly could…and thus why he crashed so much. He’d taken so many tumbles trying to control his flight at those speeds as he learned that he couldn’t count them all, but all those crashes had taught him, each failure helping to make him a better flyer.

So, knowing that Scootaloo was going to have an amazing routine that showed off the amazing skills taught to her by Rainbow Dash, how was he going to use his skills to top what he knew would be her incredible performance?

He looked over his shoulder back towards the city, at the breathtaking panoramic view of the buildings and towers of Canterlot, whose ways he knew—

Canterlot.

Now that was a crazy idea. They thought he was reckless. They thought he was a dangerous flyer. Well, what if he used those very traits they thought were bad and showed them how wrong they were, that they didn’t understand him at all?

It had potential. Everything he needed would already be there, mainly the stadium itself, plus a little something he knew his father could make for him. He’d need no rings, no clouds, nothing extra. All he’d need to do is study the stadium carefully, make a few drawings of it to take back home with him, then with Rainsong’s help, build a crude replica of it out of her extra clouds, with only the main features represented in rough fashion.

They thought he was reckless, maybe a little crazy…well, he would show them that there was a method to his madness, that sometimes crazy works.

He rushed home and into the shop, bounding over the counter. “Dad,” he said quickly. “Dad, I need your help.”

“What’s the matter?”

He gave him a grim look. “The competition committee won’t let me use the Tornado Twist in the competition. They say it’s too dangerous,” he relayed.

Everyone in the shop stopped what they were doing and rushed over. “Now? They tell you now?” Shimmergem demanded. “That’s unfair!”

“I know, and I tried to make them change their minds, but they won’t hear of it,” he said. “It means that my entire routine is in the trash. So I came up with a new routine, but I’ll need you to make something for me,” he said, giving them an earnest, brave look.

“What, son? You name it, we’ll make it.”

“No, we can’t just leave it like this,” Shimmergem said, and she looked mad. “It’s ridiculously unfair that they waited until just a week before the competition, after he’d worked so hard on his performance, to make him change it! They either let him do his trick or they make everyone else change their routines too!”

“Just leave it, Mom,” he said in a very sober voice, without the usual amusement in it…and much more mature voice. “We’re not changing their minds. You weren’t there to hear them talk. They made it clear that they’re only letting me compete at all out of the goodness of their hearts,” he growled. “It seems that my reputation for crashing into things in Canterlot got back to Cloudsdale. A couple of the committee members don’t want me competing at all because they think I’ll just crash into the stadium.”

“They have no idea what they’re talking about,” Shimmergem fumed. “Sure, you crash sometimes, but they don’t see what you do when you don’t crash! You have no idea how many unicorns in Canterlot love to watch you fly the streets! They think it’s amazing what you do! No other pegasus in Canterlot can do what you do!”

“And that’s why I need your help,” he said. “If they’re going to punish me because they think I’m reckless, I’m going to show them reckless,” he said in a grim voice that made Prism and Gold Ring burst out laughing. “Dad, I’m going to need a whole lot of crushed quartz crystal, and something I can wear on my back legs that spreads it, you know, like the Wonderbolts and their smoke devices,” he said. “I can get the crystal for you, I know where there’s a whole bunch of it just laying in a talus slope in the Foal Mountains.”

“I can make something like that easily, son,” he said with a fierce nod. “You bring me the crystal, we can set it up for you.”

“Gold Ring, brother, I need your help,” he said. “You draw way better than I do. I need a very detailed picture of the stadium. Where everything is, how big it is, the distances, so I can build up a practice area that mimics its dimensions.”

“Is right now too soon?” he asked. “I’ll go talk to Misty Morning, she can cast the spell that lets us walk on clouds. She was going to do it for us for the competition.”

“Go, son,” Silverchain declared. “Skyblaze has to go get that quartz, so you should be ready to make those drawings when he gets back.”

“I know exactly what we need for his dust spreader,” Shimmergem said. “Let me go talk to Roseglass.” She opened the counter with her magic and almost galloped out of the shop, just in front of Gold Ring.

“We don’t have much time, you only have a week,” Silverchain stated. “Prism, I want you to go around to all the ponies waiting for a commission and warn them we’ll be a few days behind. When you come back, finish making the settings and filigree for Princess Celestia’s order. That’s the only one we’re not going to shelve.”

“Yes, Father, I’ll take care of it,” she nodded, turning and hurrying after the others.

“How long will it take you to get that quartz?”

“Maybe an hour, it’s only about twenty minutes from here by wing,” he replied. “Twenty over, twenty to gather up the quartz, twenty back.”

“Then do so,” he said. “Gold Ring should be ready when you get back. Bring as much as you can carry, son,” he said as he picked up Skyblaze’s saddlebags off the peg on the wall and floated them over to settle on his shoulders, just in front of his wings. “We’re going to need a lot of it.”

“I’ll bring as much as I can carry, Dad,” he said, gratitude all over his face as Silverchain buckled the bags for him. “Thank you. And thank the others.”

“You may not be a unicorn, but you are my son,” he said proudly. “Now go get what you need to show up those idiots on the committee.”

Skyblaze gave him a short, fierce hug, then snatched up some old burlap sacks they kept behind the counter and put them in his saddlebag before bounding out of the shop and immediately taking wing. He turned towards the edge of town as he rose over the rooftops and then accelerated, but he didn’t go fast enough. Rainsong fell into formation beside him just as he passed over the edge of town, over the railroad tracks, looking over at him soberly.

“Word’s gotten out, it’s all over Cloudsdale, and Blossomforth told me when she flew by earlier,” she said. “It’s totally unfair!”

“I know, but they’ve made up their minds,” he said. “And we can thank those jerks Cloudjumper and Thunderhoof for it. They were spying on me while I was practicing and told the committee. Then they decided that it was too dangerous for me to make a tornado during the competition,” he snorted.

“They should have let you prove that you could control it, not just make you throw away your entire routine!” she flared.

“You weren’t there, Rainsong. They think I’m too reckless, some of them don’t even want me to compete. They don’t want Skydaze doing anything they think is dangerous,” he fumed.

“Seriously?”

“Yup. But that’s okay, I have a new routine now,” he said. “I know exactly what to do.”

“What?”

“First, I’m going to scare the manes off the committee by showing them what I learned flying the streets of Canterlot,” he said, which made her laugh despite herself. “Then I’m going to make it snow in Cloudsdale, but it’s going to snow crystal dust, not snowflakes. I’m on my way out to get the crystals for the dust right now.”

She gave him a look, then made a little squealing sounds, clopping her forehooves together. “Your summer snow trick! That’s gonna be awesome!” she said. “I’ll help you get the crystals, Skyblaze! I know where there’s some just laying on the mountainside!”

“I think we both know the same place, that’s where I’m going,” he grinned in reply. “But I’m going to need your help later. We’re going to build a rough replica of the stadium out of the extra clouds in your territory, so I can practice with the right dimensions and heights. Half the reason I can go so fast in Canterlot is because I know the streets. I need to know the stadium to pull this off, and I don’t want to practice in the stadium.”

“We can do that. It may take a day or so.”

“I know. Gold Ring’s gonna help us. He’s gonna make drawings of the stadium so we build it with the right dimensions. I don’t want us making it the wrong size and having me plow into a wall or a column because I think it’s further away,” he said, which made her laugh brightly.

“I can see that. He’s gonna be up there to help us build it?”

“I hope so. He’s going to talk to that unicorn that can cast the spell to let him walk on clouds right now, so he can go to Cloudsdale and make the drawings. You’ve seen him draw jewelry designs, and he can tell how far away something is just by looking at it. He’ll be able to make drawings with almost perfect dimensions. And if he helps us build it, he’ll be there to make sure we get it exactly right. He may be a jewelry maker, but my brother could have been one heck of a good engineer.”

“And who says having unicorns in your family is a bad thing,” Rainsong laughed brightly. “That unicorn education is gonna come in handy.”

With Rainsong’s help, it only took them about ten minutes to fill both his saddlebags and every extra burlap sack he’d brought with him. She helped him carry them back, sacks hanging off both of them, hauling them back to the shop. “I need to go out and gather up every spare cloud I can find, Skyblaze, I might not have enough extras,” she said as they came through the door. “I might even have to steal a few of them,” she added with a wink.

“Alright, we’ll meet you over there as soon as Gold Ring finishes the drawings, so we can get an idea of what we’ll need to do,” he replied as Gold Ring came down from upstairs, a saddlebag holding his best drawing materials strapped to his side..

“I have the spell cast on me, brother, Misty said it’ll last until sunrise tomorrow morning,” he replied. “And she said she’d be happy to cast it again tomorrow. You’re going to need us up on the clouds to help you set up your practice stadium. All of us,” he said, to which his parents and sister puffed out their chests a little. “With all of us up there, we can get it finished quicker.”

He gave them a look of profound gratitude. “You guys are so awesome,” he said earnestly.

“How are you going to get Gold Ring to Cloudsdale?” Rainsong asked.

“With this,” Shimmergem said, holding up a knot of ropes and leather with her magic.

“I totally forgot you had that!” she said with a laugh. “I haven’t seen that since we went to weather school!” It was a sling that Gold Ring had invented, which allowed Skyblaze to carry a pony with him. Skyblaze was a strong flyer, strong enough to carry a passenger, and the sling let him do it comfortably for both him and his passenger.

“It’s been a while since we used it,” Gold Ring noted, taking it from Shimmergem. “Skyblaze, you remember how to put it on?”

“Yeah,” he nodded. “Lemme help you.”

The two of them got the slings on, which would carry Gold Ring in a seated position while Skyblaze supported him with sturdy ropes and leather straps buckled to his shoulders and hips. Gold Ring hooked on the connecting ropes, tying them together. “We’ll be back as soon as we have the stadium drawn out,” he said to his parents.

“Alright, we’ll get to work on the dust spreader while Prism continues working on the Princess’ order,” Silverchain nodded.

Gold Ring tried not to be nervous when Skyblaze picked him up once they were outside, his forehooves wrapped around the leather straps that went up to the front of the harness. Gold Ring was carried in a seated position, and Skyblaze felt the ropes shudder a bit when they went over the wall of Overlook Park and the ground dropped out from under them. “Quite a different view than I’m used to,” he said nervously.

“We haven’t used this thing for almost a year, brother,” Skyblaze said, his wings working hard to carry both of them.

“Don’t worry, Gold Ring, he won’t drop you. See you over at the forest,” she said to him, then she banked away and turned north.

“I’m not worried about you dropping me, I’m worried about the straps breaking,” Gold Ring admitted.

“Then you should stop spending most of your time at Donut Joe’s,” Skyblaze replied, which earned him a dirty look up at him from his brother.

It slowed him down carrying more than his own weight in addition to himself, but he still made good time to Cloudsdale. Quite a few pegasi gave them surprised looks as he flew into the city, going straight to the stadium just beside the committee building. He had no doubt some of them would see him and Gold Ring descend into the empty stadium, but he honestly didn’t care. He tentatively set Gold Ring down on the highest point so he could get a good look, right by a flagpole, and Gold Ring’s hooves settled onto the cloud as if it were solid ground. When Skyblaze saw that, he set him fully down and let him unhook himself from the harness, then landed beside him. “I’ll need you to move me to a few different places, and we’ll have to pace off some of it,” he said as he opened his saddlebag and produced a quill, an ink pot, and a large rolled piece of parchment. “But this is a good place to start.”

“I sorta figured you’d need to see the whole thing from a good vantage point,” he nodded. The stadium was designed for pegasus ponies, so it was very open and had tiers for seating that had no stairs or connecting hallways, each tier wider than the one above it so they didn’t stack entirely vertically, but there were areas where the tier above overhung the tier below, what would be the back row. There were elegant columns made of clouds running from the tiers down to the one below to give them stability. The whole place was designed for ponies to fly in and take a seat, with the top tier being the one for the important ponies, like the judges and Princesses Celestia and Luna. It was very large, more than big enough for flying contestants to show off their skills and still give all the spectators a good view, oval-shaped, and the very center had no floor, open to the sky below. There was a landing deck of sorts along the east edge at the base of the stadium that opened to the dressing room, and that was where he’d be coming out to do his routine.

It took Gold Ring nearly two hours to draw the stadium to his satisfaction. Skyblaze had to move him from tier to tier several times, and then they carefully measured off the distances within the stadium, with some precision. They measured the distances between the columns, the width in the center between the tiers at each level, the height of each tier and the overall height of the stadium from the bottom to the top, even the width of the seating boxes and the width of the open arches that led to the outside that were on the upper tiers. Gold Ring even carefully measured the size of the Royal box, where Celestia and Luna would watch the competition. Quite a few residents of Cloudsdale hovered over the stadium watching the pair, as Gold Ring had Skyblaze move him around, fly around the stadium very slowly with him to get a good, close-up look at its main features, and hold a gem so Gold Ring could use a magic spell to get an exact distance between his horn and that gem; Gold Ring was actually very good with magic, he knew more magic spells than any other pony in the family. Once they were done, he carried Gold Ring back out of Cloudsdale, with about ten pegasus ponies following behind for a little bit. “What’s that all about?” Gold Ring asked, looking behind him.

“They don’t see unicorns in Cloudsdale very often, they’re probably wondering what we were doing.”

“Nothing that’s their business,” he declared.

“Exactly,” Skyblaze agreed, glancing behind himself. “Want to go back to the shop?”

“No, take me over to where you’re going to build the practice stadium,” he replied, looking up. “Let’s see what we’ve got to work with.”

“We won’t have everything there, Rainsong’s out gathering more clouds,” Skyblaze warned.

“I know, but we’ll see what we’ve got to start with,” he replied. “We can work out how we’re going to do it with what’s there while Rainsong’s out gathering clouds.”

Rainsong had been busy, he saw when they reached the forest north of Canterlot. She’d parked dozens of clouds over the woods, of various sizes, and Skyblaze picked the smallest one and set Gold Ring on it. “I’d just lay down if I were you, brother, you don’t have much extra room,” Skyblaze warned. “And I can’t hover over you in case you fall if I have to move clouds.”

“I can move the cloud myself, brother, don’t worry,” he smiled, and proved it. He laid down on the cloud and his horn glowed, which made the cloud start to rise. Skyblaze gave him a startled look, then laughed brightly.

“When did you learn to do that, brother?” he asked curiously.

“Clouds are solid enough for me to move with magic,” he replied mildly as he took his drawings out of his saddlebag. “Can you change the shape of the clouds without making them vanish?”

“Up to a point,” he replied with a nod. “Rainsong’s much better at it than me,” he added honestly. “She’s the weather expert here.”

“Hmm, I might be able to change their shape with magic, but I’ll wait til Rainsong gets back before I start trying,” he said professionally. “Alright, brother, let’s set some clouds out to serve as landmarks, so we can get an idea of distance.”

“Sure thing, brother. Just tell me where they go,” he said, zipping away and landing on the nearest cloud.

Rainsong was gone for nearly two hours, as Skyblaze set clouds in specific places to serve as landmarks under Gold Ring’s supervision, letting his unicorn brother build the stadium in his mind’s eye before they started trying to set up a mock-up of it for Skyblaze to practice. Rainsong did come back, and to Skyblaze’s surprise, she wasn’t alone. Gedwin and Gwendi soared in behind her as she returned, landing on the largest cloud as Skyblaze moved one of the smaller ones just over and behind another to simulate the edge of the tiers. “Guys! What are you doing here?” he asked in surprise.

“Rainsong told us how those stupid ponies that run the competition are trying to cheese you, Skyblaze,” Gedwin said with some heat. “Well, we’re not about to let them get away with it!”

“No way!” Gwendi agreed. “Rainsong told us what you’re doing, and griffons can move clouds, too! You’re gonna need more paws helping you set up this fake stadium you can use to perfect your new routine, and what do ya know, here’s four of ‘em right here,” she grinned as both she and Gedwin reared up and held out their taloned forepaws.

“Guys, you’re just too awesome,” he said with honest gratitude, smiling at them.

“With them and our parents all helping, we could get this done by noon tomorrow,” Gold Ring said, smiling at the two young griffons. “They can help with this, brother. You need to go get Mom and Dad.”

“We stopped in Canterlot on the way here, they’re on their way in a balloon,” Rainsong said. “I’ll go pull it here so they can get here faster.” She turned and zipped away.

Skyblaze landed between the griffon siblings and put a foreleg around each of them, then dragged them into a rough hug. Both of them gave a little wheeze, Gedwin’s beak opening in protest, then he laughed and jabbed Skyblaze gently with his elbow. “It’s no big deal, Skyblaze,” he said. “You’re one of the few ponies in Equestria that’s not a total embarrassment. We gotta make sure you don’t turn completely lame on us,” he grinned.

“I almost like you too, Gedwin,” he replied, which made Gwendi laugh.

Silverchain and Shimmergem arrived in a balloon pulled by Rainsong a moment later, Rainsong tying it to the largest cloud. The two of them tentatively stepped out of it, looking down with a look of slight surprise on their faces, then they smiled at each other and then at Skyblaze and the griffons. “Alright, everyone’s here but poor Prism,” Silverchain said. “But someone had to stay in the shop and work on Princess Celestia’s order. Gold Ring, you have your drawings ready?”

“We’re laying the foundations now, Dad, we’ve been setting marker clouds so we know where the others go,” he replied from his small cloud across the imaginary void of the stadium. “We can move the clouds with magic, so that’s what we’re going to be doing, Mom, Dad. Rainsong, we’re going to need you to shape some clouds into columns, and flatten some out to shape into the floors of the tiers.”

“No problem, Gold Ring,” she replied.

“Me and Gedwin can help her shape clouds, no sweat, Gold Ring,” Gwendi announced. “And Skyblaze and Mister and Misses Stardust can put them in place.”

“Alright, it sounds like we have a plan,” Silverchain declared, nodding his head. “Gold Ring, tell us what goes where.”

With that many there, things started moving quickly. Rainsong, Gedwin, and Gwendi shaped the clouds they had into rough estimations of what was in the stadium—those were much more elaborate—and when they ran out of clouds, Gedwin and Gwendi flew off to steal some from other places. They wouldn’t get in trouble the way Rainsong would, and besides, they’d enjoy annoying pegasi working on the weather elsewhere. It satisfied their need to be jerks for the day. The pieces that Rainsong shaped while the griffons were out terrorizing the weather pegasi were carefully put into position by Skyblaze and his parents as Gold Ring looked on, referring constantly to his map of the stadium, often having them move this fake pillar or that flattened cloud that mimicked a seating area by just a few inches, getting them as precise as possible and satisfying Gold Ring’s need for perfection. Gold Ring never did anything that he didn’t do to the absolute best of his ability. Gedwin and Gwendi joined Rainsong to shape clouds when they came back with one giant cloud, which they’d formed by stealing smaller ones and packing them together, which they then cut back into pieces and started to shape.

By dinnertime, as the sun started to sink low on the horizon, the cloud-skeleton of the stadium had definite shape. Skyblaze could recognize the layout from what he remembered of the stadium, for they’d placed most of the main columns and the floors for the first six tiers, with only two tiers remaining to form. Skyblaze and Rainsong anchored the clouds using a pegasus trick so any stray wind wouldn’t move them, then Skyblaze and Rainsong pulled the balloon back to Canterlot as Gedwin and Gwendi flew slowly on each side of it. “We absolutely must treat you two to dinner before you go home,” Shimmergem told Gedwin. “It’s the least we can do for all your help.”

“It wasn’t a big deal, Miss Stardust,” Gedwin shrugged. “Griffons are always there for each other, and Skyblaze is almost an honorary griffon.”

“Almost,” Gwendi agreed lightly. “And we’ll be back as soon as it’s light enough for us to start back for Canterlot. So, about two hours after sunrise or so, we’ll be here.”

“We’d stay the night, but we didn’t tell our parents we’d be gone, and they will kill us if we’re gone all night,” Gedwin grunted.

“Sounds like you speak from experience there, Gedwin,” Gold Ring noted.

Both griffons laughed. “Yeah, we did that once. Once,” he nodded.

“Ain’t never gonna do that again,” Gwendi agreed with a shudder.

Prism wasn’t too jealous that she’d been stuck at the shop, but her mood brightened considerably when Silverchain told her that she’d be going with them tomorrow to finish the stadium while he remained in the shop to do more work on the Princess’ order. Shimmergem went all out for dinner, making apple and cherry cassarole and lots of it, then feeding Gedwin and Gwendi so much they almost couldn’t get off the ground when it was time for them to head back. They talked about the stadium during dinner, how much they’d done, how much was left to do, and all of them were maybe just a tiny bit vindictive over having to build it in the first place. Gedwin and Gwendi especially were still somewhat torqued off that the committee had forced Skyblaze to redo his routine; griffons had a big sense of fairness, and what they’d done to Skyblaze was completely unfair in their opinion. Rainsong had to go almost before dinner was done when her parents came looking for her, and not just a few moments later, Gedwin and Gwendi had to get started so they’d get home before it got dark.

Outside, Skyblaze crushed his griffon friends in another hug, making both of them a bit embarrassed since several unicorns looked onward as they walked the streets. “I can’t thank you guys enough,” Skyblaze said honestly. “If not for you, it might have taken us three or four days to finish, and now we’ll be done by tomorrow.”

“No prob, Skyblaze. We gotta look out for the only pegasus in Equestria almost cool enough to be a griffon,” Gwendi told him playfully.

“We’ll be on the way as soon as it’s light enough for us not to crash into a mountain,” Gedwin promised.

“Just come straight to the forest, we’ll be there working,” he replied. “And we’ll make sure we have a lot of apples there for lunch this time.”

“Awesome,” Gedwin grinned. “We’ll tell our folks that we might be staying overnight with you in Canterlot tomorrow, just in case we don’t finish. That way we can be here first thing in the morning to get things done. You need all the time we can manage to practice.”

“You can stay in my room if you do, my parents won’t mind,” he assured them. He bumped his hoof with Gedwin’s closed forepaw, then with Gwendi, and the two of them opened their wings. “See you guys tomorrow.”

“We’ll be here,” Gwendi promised, then the two of them took off.

Skyblaze watched until they vanished behind a building, and he’d never been more glad that he had friends like them. Others may think they were crude and rude, and maybe they were, but they were two of the most awesome friends a pegasus could have.

The Young Flyer's Competition

There was no run through Canterlot that morning, because Skyblaze had something far more important to do. So did his family.

At sunrise, Prism was almost prancing in the gondola of the balloon as Skyblaze started pulling it away from Canterlot after his family received the spell from Misty Morning that let them walk on clouds, Shimmergem and Gold Ring with her and them carrying quite a bit of food for the family and for their friends as they headed back for the forest. Rainsong fell in beside him just as he cleared Overlook Park, giving him a sleepy smile. She landed in the gondola when Shimmergem held out an apple fritter enticingly, devouring it without much care for manners. When she was done, she put her hooves up on the side of the gondola beside Prism and grinned at Skyblaze, who had a rope in his teeth that was tied to both sides of the basket. “Mush, Skyblaze, mush!” she called teasingly.

“I know where you live,” he warned through the rope, which made both young mares laugh.

All the clouds they’d set up were right where they left them when they got there, and Gold Ring again assumed command, stepping up on his small cloud that had been parked by their gondola anchor the day before and using his magic to make it move, carrying him out where he could get back to work. Prism mirrored his trick, getting on the cloud that Silverchain had used the day before, laying down, and moving it, following Shimmergem. “Alright, we need to start on the seventh tier,” Gold Ring called. “We’ll set the columns first while Rainsong and Skyblaze make the floor clouds. Sister, you ready?”

“Just tell me what goes where,” she replied with a confident nod.

“Ready, Mother?”

“Let’s get to work, son,” she replied as she turned her cloud around to face him, looking down from her higher vantage point.

“Alright. Sister, get that column right there, it’s the first one,” he said, pointing with his forehoof.

Gedwin and Gwendi joined them almost exactly two hours after sunrise, and once they were there, things picked up considerably. By lunchtime, they’d finished all but the top tier, which would be the easiest, as the pegasi and griffons shaped the clouds and the two unicorns put them into position under Gold Ring’s exacting blueprint. When they set the last narrow pole of cloud at the top about two hours after lunch, they all pulled back to regard their creation. It had no walls, no aesthetics, just a series of columns and flat platforms shaped from cloud and placed at the same distances as the stadium. Skyblaze and Rainsong sat with the griffons on their main platform cloud to which the balloon was tethered, which now looked down on their piecemeal creation. It didn’t look like much, but the distances within were very precise recreations of the dimensions of the actual stadium. With that mock-up of the stadium, Skyblaze could practice what he was going to do with confidence.

“And well before dinner, we’re so awesome,” Gedwin said with a grin.

“You still owe us dinner, Skyblaze,” Gwendi called.

“I owe you way more than that, Gwendi,” he replied as his unicorn family moved their clouds over to them, then stepped down onto the main cloud. “We wouldn’t even be halfway done if you didn’t help. I can’t thank you enough.”

“You can thank us by beating the snot out of everyone else in the competition,” Gedwin told him, which made Rainsong laugh. “I’d better have my feathers blown off by the sheer awesomeness of your routine.”

“I’ll do my best,” Skyblaze grinned.

“It may not look like much, but it’s correct,” Gold Ring noted as he trotted up to them and looked down over the edge of the cloud.

“It’ll do the job, brother,” Skyblaze assured him.

“I’m just glad I got to come finish it,” Prism said.

“Me too, sister,” Skyblaze smiled over at her.

“Let’s pack everything up and head back to the shop,” Shimmergem declared. “Gedwin, Gwendi, you are staying for dinner,” she told them.

“We never say no to free food, Misses Stardust,” Gedwin said with a light smile on his beak.

Skyblaze was a little too busy to hang out with his friends, however. They stayed down in the family’s common room talking with Gold Ring and Prism, getting to know them better, as Skyblaze sat up in his room with a quill between his teeth and Gold Ring’s exact drawings of the stadium, designing his routine. He knew what he wanted to do, so he quickly started working out his route, the best way to demonstrate his greatest flying talent while also sticking it to the committee for making him change his routine. He had the box where they’d be sitting circled three times, and he’d already designed some of his fastest and closest passes to the audience to go right over—and in one case through—their box. He plotted out every single turn, every roll, every change in altitude, every cross of the open space inside the stadium, while making it look like he was just flying around randomly, to further tweak the noses of the committee for thinking he was a reckless flyer.

He was going to show them reckless, but the twist of it was, that recklessness was being carefully planned and plotted on his map.

Word had even reached Canterlot. Prism told them about it when she came back just before dinner, that rumor in town was that the committee had almost banned Skyblaze from the competition because he was going to try some kind of dangerous stunt involving a tornado. There was, naturally, quite a bit of laughter behind hooves at the news, that the town’s most notorious pegasus had finally had his reins pulled, but those were the ones that had no idea what they were talking about. They were the ones that only saw Skyblaze’s crashes, not everything else he did, and how those crashes made him a better flyer by teaching him what not to do.

Gedwin and Gwendi came up to his room as he finished up the last bit of his routine on paper, looking over his shoulders. “That’s a whole lot of scribbling,” Gedwin noted.

“I hope you can make that out, Skyblaze,” Gwendi added.

“There’s a system to it,” he nodded. “Something my parents taught me when they tried to teach me how to make jewelry. I may suck at making jewelry, but what they taught me about planning to make jewelry stuck with me. It’s been useful.”

“Your folks are pretty smart,” Gwendi observed. “And your brother’s like a genius.”

“Yeah, you won’t find them much smarter than Gold Ring,” Skyblaze agreed with a nod, his face still quite serious and intense as he studied his flight chart.

“Who knew a jewelry maker could build a stadium. Our folks would be impressed,” Gedwin said seriously. Their parents built and maintained public buildings for their village.

“You guys staying the night?” Skyblaze asked. “I know we’re done, but you already told your parents you may stay. Why not go ahead and do it?”

“Sure, we can stay over, but we’re not sleeping on the floor,” Gwendi declared.

Skyblaze laughed. “We can find something,” he promised. “After dinner, we can go out and mortally offend the entire city.”

They both burst out laughing. “Sounds like fun to me,” Gedwin grinned.

Shimmergem put out a truly huge feast for them for dinner, and afterwards, Skyblaze, Rainsong, and the griffons went out and toured Canterlot more formally. Skyblaze showed them all his favorite parts of town, mainly from the air, and took them on a flight around the palace, making sure to warn them to stay outside the perimeter of the fence. They landed in the courtyard as he told them about his many crashes on the grounds. By far, he was the most frequent unintended visitor there. He told them about his visit to the buffalo and how it had changed his training regimen as they walked across the courtyard, but they all stopped suddenly when Princess Celestia herself landed right in front of them. Gedwin and Gwendi gawked a little bit at the regal alicorn, who was as tall as she was beautiful, her expression warm and curious. “And these must be Gedwin and Gwendi,” she said without a greeting, looking to each side of Skyblaze. The two griffons bowed awkwardly with Skyblaze and Rainsong.

“Yes ma’am,” Skyblaze said confidently. “Gedwin, Gwendi, this is Princess Celestia.”

“You never said you hung out with the Princess,” Gedwin accused.

Celestia chuckled. “As often as he crashes in my garden, you’d think that he does,” she asked playfully. “Luna thinks he does it on purpose just to say hello to me.”

“I’d never thought of doing that,” Skyblaze mused, which made Celestia smile.

“I’ve heard that you had a little bit of a problem with the competition committee,” she said as she quite easily injected herself into the group, walking with them beside Skyblaze, supplanting Gwendi as they headed for the fountain at the far end. Two of her pegasus guards landed behind her and followed at a discreet distance.

“If by problem you mean they totally destroyed my original routine, yes, your Highness,” he replied. “I tried to get them to let me show them the Tornado Twist, but they wouldn’t do it. They said it was too dangerous for me to use a tornado in my routine, and they were pretty mean-spirited about it because of my reputation in Canterlot for crashing into things,” he added with a grunt. “They said I’m too reckless, and one of them went so far as to say that if he had his way, I wouldn’t even be allowed to compete. So now I have a new routine that they’ll find much more entertaining,” he said in a dark kind of voice that made Rainsong laugh.

“And how is that?” Celestia asked, looking down at him.

“Let’s just say that I’m going to show them just how reckless I can be,” he replied. “I should warn you in advance, your Highness, you and Princess Luna. I won’t actually hit you. I might come close, but I won’t.”

Celestia laughed. “Yes, that’s probably a good thing to warn me about,” she said with a light smile. “Well, I’m glad to hear that you’ll be ready for the competition.”

“I should be, your Highness. I finished up my routine on paper just a little bit ago, and my family, Rainsong, Gedwin, and Gwendi helped me build a mock-up of the stadium I’ll need to perfect my routine. I’ll have the rest of the time to practice it.”

“And will you two be there?” she asked, looking at Gwendi.

Gwendi swallowed a little bit, looking up at her with big eyes. “Uh, y-yes your Highness,” she replied nervously. “We’re going to sit with Mister and Misses Stardust.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” she replied in her mellow voice. “I really must come visit Twintalon soon. I’ve heard that both it and Twoshoes have grown quite a bit in the last few years.”

Skyblaze looked at a pair of rather startled unicorns who were standing at the edge of the large courtyard, then back up to Celestia. “You realize, your Highness, this is the first time you’ve ever talked to me outside the palace?”

“It is? I guess it is,” she chuckled, looking down at him. “Are we upsetting Canterlot society, Skyblaze?”

“Probably just a little bit, ma’am,” he replied, which made Rainsong giggle. “A pegasus as notorious as me talking rationally with Princess Celestia? They must think that you’re lecturing me on how careful I have to be during the competition.”

“I should,” she smiled playfully down at him. “I have a collection of your lost feathers that is quite impressive.”

Skyblaze burst out laughing. “Well, I’m glad they’re being put to good use. I had no idea any pony was keeping them.”

“They are quite handsome,” Celestia said lightly. “And what are you four up to?”

“Showing Gedwin and Gwendi around, your Highness,” Rainsong replied, a little more confidently than the last time she talked to her.

“And what do you think of Canterlot?” Celestia asked, looking at Gedwin.

“It’s, uh, big, your Highness,” he replied uncertainly. “And it’s kinda pretty-looking. Nothing like Twintalon.”

“Griffon architecture is very bold and handsome, Gedwin, I’ve always appreciated it. Just give Twintalon time and it’ll start to show,” she replied. “Once your village grows a little more.”

Princess Luna landed in front of them, folding back her wings. The four of them bowed to her as Celestia trotted forward a little bit. “What is it, sister?”

“Nothing of great importance, sister,” she replied. “I thought you might be giving Skyblaze your be careful speech, that’s all.”

Skyblaze burst out into helpless laughter. “See?” he managed to wheeze.

Celestia chuckled, then turned a little to look at the four of them. “Luna does remind me that I do have a few duties to attend to,” she noted, glancing at her sister. “And it’s nearly time for Luna to raise the moon for the evening, so I’ll leave you to finish your tour, my young ones. Have a good evening,” she said. She and Luna spread their wings, then they and the two pegasus guards took the very short flight back to a balcony of the palace and disappeared within.

“Well, that was different,” Gwendi grunted as they looked back to the palace.

“She’s never done that before,” Skyblaze mused. “Sure, I talk to her a lot, but that’s because I’m usually laying somewhere in her garden,” he added with a laugh. “That and the palace does a lot of business with my family’s shop.”

“You really do know the Princess, we thought you were just blowing hot air,” Gedwin grunted.

“Not about that,” Skyblaze said seriously. “Now, you guys like donuts? You can get the best donuts in Equestria just down the street from our shop.”

“As long as you pay for them,” Gwendi grinned.

He had nearly a week to get his routine down, and it took very nearly the entire week.

Day after day, Skyblaze did only three things: eat, sleep, and practice. If he wasn’t sleeping, he was eating. If he wasn’t eating, he was practicing, and all the practicing made him eat a lot more than usual. Rainsong helped him keep the practice stadium in proper shape by helping him repair the damage he did to it when he wiped out during practice, very nearly neglecting her own duties, which gave him even more time to practice.

She also helped him by shaping a thin layer of cloud over the stadium on his first day of practice to hide what they were doing from prying eyes, to keep those jerks Cloudjumper and Thunderhoof from spying on him and trying to get his new routine banned.

But the stadium served him well. Over the days of practice, his routine slowly took shape, and then became more and more refined. He started slow, the basic fly-through to learn his moves, then he sped up more and more until he was flying his planned course at full, break-wing speed. He made several changes to it when the reality of the stadium didn’t match his ambitious route design, having to smooth out a few really rough patches when he found out that the maneuvers were simply too hard to do somewhere other than on paper, but he kept the multiple near-miss passes over and through the committee’s box. Those route changes were measured in fake columns and supports that he repeatedly wiped out in his practice.

When his family finished his dust spreader, he wore it during his practices to adjust to the weight and how it would alter his flight. And he used it, spreading the dust in his routines, because that made the weight of the spreader change during the routine, and he had to take that into account. That was why they needed so much dust, so he could use it for practice. The design of the spreader was ingenious, clearly a result of his family’s shop. It was made of a very light metal and had three pieces, a holding tank for the dust that strapped on Skyblaze’s back that was built low and wide to be aerodynamic, behind his wings, with two separate nozzles that dispensed the dust. Flexible tubes connected the spreaders to the tank, which he strapped to his back legs to keep them from flying around, and he could turn it off and on by hitting a button on his flank, which was very easy to do with his front hoof without having to think about it. They’d ground the quartz down to where it looked like fine sand, and it shimmered and glittered and refracted light when it was spread in the air, which made it perfect for what Skyblaze wanted it to do.

On the day of the competition, Skyblaze woke up before dawn feeling both excited and strangely angry. He sat in front of his window and realized that he’d been angry since they banned him from using his move, and it had not faded. Half of his routine was just to rub it in their faces in the fact that he was competing, as well as somewhat petulantly going right after them in his routine…but he couldn’t help it. He’d never been so insulted in all his life, and he meant to show them just how wrong they were. He didn’t care that they thought he was reckless, he cared that they never gave him a chance to prove their opinion of him was wrong. They were too judgmental, and he intended to ram those arrogant smirks right down their throats. As the sun came up, he flew out his window and out into the streets of Canterlot, but for the first time ever in his life, he didn’t fly them at high speed, didn’t try to push himself, try to make himself better. He flew very slowly, almost stately, along his favorite route, his expression sober and intense as he pondered the upcoming competition.

It wasn’t about winning anymore. It was about proving to the committee that they were wrong. And if he happened to win during the course of it, then so much the better.

Instead of galloping his laps around the large courtyard to work on his legs, he instead landed and walked briskly, almost cantered a bit as he went over the routine over and over in his mind, making sure that the week of practice was firm in his mind. There was only one part of it that was still a bit tricky, when he did a modified barrel roll that moved him from the second to the third tier due to how narrow the window was between the two columns he had to avoid. If he could get past that part of the routine without ramming one of the columns, he wouldn’t have much trouble with the rest of it. He trotted by the fence of the royal grounds, and was almost startled when he heard someone call his name. He stopped and looked back, and saw Princess Celestia standing on the little balcony that led to the throne hall. She beckoned to him with a hoof, and he obediently took off and flew over, landing on the railing. He bowed to her with practiced ease, the elevated rail almost putting him eye to eye with his ruler. “Good morning, your Highness,” he said in a calm, measured tone.

“My, it sounds as if you’re ready for today’s competition,” she noted as she stepped up a little bit.

“Yes I am,” he replied in a nearly grim tone.

She regarded him a moment, then startled him by putting her wing over his back and patting it. “I know you have a reason to be angry, my daring little pegasus, but don’t let it cloud your judgment,” she told him seriously. “Remember first and foremost why you’re in the competition. Why are you in the competition, Skyblaze?”

He looked over at her, a bit surprised, then blew out his breath. “To win the invitation to the Wonderbolt Academy,” he answered.

“And do you think you’ll get that invitation if you show the Wonderbolts how spiteful and angry you are?”

He blinked, then realized that she was right. No matter how good he did, if he looked like he was angry out there, they might not offer him an invitation if he didn’t win…and that was a distinct possibility because of Scootaloo.

“Tweaking the noses of the committee is fine, but not if you do it looking the way you do right now,” she told him gently. “It contaminates the entire reason behind it. To see such an angry face on the one pegasus in Canterlot that can always make me laugh looks very, very wrong. Remember that when you step out to start your routine, and don’t let your anger with the committee taint the reason you’re going to be there today.”

He gave her a long look, then blew out his breath and nodded. “I understand, your Highness.”

“I’m glad that you do,” she said, patting him on the back gently. “Now, I have to get ready for the trip to Cloudsdale, and so do you. So go home, get a good breakfast, and try to relax and have a little fun before you leave,” she told him. “And Skyblaze?”

“Yes, your Highness?”

“Good luck,” she smiled, the tapped him on the rump with the leading edge of her wing, a clear dismissal.

She was right, of course. She was completely right. The Skyblaze that Skyblaze knew wouldn’t show up the committee the way he planned to do it out of anger or spite. He would do it with humor, that was Skyblaze’s way, for he was a pegasus that almost never got angry and was as quick to laugh at himself as he was to laugh at others. The committee had struck him to the quick of his hooves with their rebuke, and while his response was typical for him, the festering anger he’d felt growing over the last few days was not. Skyblaze was not a spiteful pony. He was not mean-spirited, and he couldn’t let the mean-spirited actions of others change him.

Celestia was right. He would still do his routine, he would still scare the manes off the committee, but he’d do it with a smile on his face, not an angry scowl. He could show them how wrong they were without being as petty as they were. He’d simply be as petty as he was. He would go out there and have fun, not fly with a chip on his shoulder…after all, that was what flying all about to him.

He relaxed quite a bit by the time he got back home and ate breakfast with his family and Rainsong and her family, whom his parents had invited over. They were all going to leave together, Rainsong’s family pulling the balloon to get them there, and they were going to sit with them as well. Gedwin and Gwendi were going to meet them in Cloudsdale, since they had to fly there from Twintalon. Skyblaze had to leave as soon as breakfast was over, since he had to be there three hours early. The competition was scheduled to start at noon.

He headed out after breakfast, which was spent in much more relaxed conversation with Frost and Summer Breeze, Rainsong’s parents, flying the short distance from Canterlot to Cloudsdale feeling…better. He was still pretty mad at the committee, but he wasn’t angry like he’d been before Celestia took him aside and talked him down. He also felt more relaxed, and was looking forward to the competition for more than just the chance to stick it to the committee for what they did to him. He was looking forward to it for what it was, the chance to show what he could do, and win that automatic invitation to the Wonderbolt Academy.

Oh, and beat Cloudjumper and Thunderhoof.

There was more than a little grinning and snickering when he reported to the staging area in the stadium as the letter instructed. He was the last one to arrive, and the others were more or less just sitting around waiting for him. “It’s about time, Mister Stardust, you’re almost late,” the black-maned mare said in a strong, nearly disapproving tone.

“Three hours means three hours, ma’am,” he replied easily as he trotted up to them.

She cleared her throat. “Very well, let’s go over what’s going to happen, then you’ll be released to prepare for your performances.”

They spent an hour and a half going over the performance as a whole, from the opening ceremonies to the award presentation, so every pegasus knew what was going on and where they had to be both before and after the competition. The organizer handed out their numbers are a brief fly-through of the stadium, then interviewed each contestant to make sure that the props they requested were actually there and waiting for them. Skyblaze was fairly easy, since he’d asked for no props since changing his routine. He did have to go out to pick up his dust spreader from his parents, who had brought it with them on the balloon—also so no other pony saw it until he got ready for the competition, but came back and strapped on the pieces as the others put on their costumes or prepared themselves. Cloudjumper and Thunderhoof glared at him almost constantly as he put on his device and then sat in the waiting room and waited, much more relaxed, a little nervous, and very excited. He was still number four, so he didn’t have to wait long once the competition began.

And then the competition started. It began with the opening ceremony, when Celestia and Luna made their arrival to the thundering applause of the crowd, then the three Wonderbolts that were judging the competition zoomed into the stadium in a tight formation, which got Skyblaze’s attention. There she was…Rainbow Dash. She was at the left end of the three pony formation, wearing her Wonderbolt uniform with goggles, but her rainbow-colored mane and tail made her very distinct from the others, whom Skyblaze could identify with ease. Soarin and Spitire were the other two, the dark-maned stallion and fiery-maned mare landing with Rainbow Dash in the judges’ box.

That was why he was here, to take another step down the road to becoming a Wonderbolt himself. He’d almost lost sight of that, but thanks to Princess Celestia, it was back in the forefront of his mind. He would do his best to impress those three ponies so much that even if he didn’t win, he might get an invitation to the academy anyway.

After the opening ceremony, the contestants returned to the staging area and could do nothing but wait. Stormbuck had drawn the short straw and had to go first, and the music he’d chosen for his routine played in the stadium as Skyblaze simply sat near the main door, much more relaxed, thinking through his routine as he waited his turn. But he didn’t wait alone. Scootaloo came over and sat down beside him, looking over at him with a slight smile. “Hey.”

“Hey,” he replied. “You ready?”

“As I’ll ever be,” she replied. “Listen, for one, I think it sucks that they made you change your routine. I wanted to see what this trick is you do with the tornado. I think it sounds pretty awesome.”

“Thanks,” he replied. “But it was just a minor setback. I have a new routine now. It may not be good enough to beat you, but it should be good enough to prove to the committee that they were wrong.”

She gave him a look at his even, deadpan voice, then gave a bright laugh. “Long as you place higher than those two, you win in my book,” she said, turning a sly gaze back towards Cloudjumper and Thunderhoof. “Every pony knows that they ratted you out just to try to keep you from winning the competition, and quite a few other pegasi won’t even talk to them now. What they did was beyond lame.”

“That explains why they’re not over here trying to make fun of me,” he mused. “And I knew you’d see things the right way,” he added with a slight smile.

“So, after the competition, maybe you can show me this tornado trick of yours?”

“Not today, but some other time, sure,” he replied. “I can’t pull it off every single time, but I can most of the time.”

She gave him a look, then laughed. “You were going to use a trick you can’t do every time in the competition?”

“Hey, I can do it right most of the time,” he protested with a grin, which made her laugh harder.

“You’re pretty cool, Skyblaze. We gotta hang out,” she told him, nudging him a bit.

“Long as you can handle a couple of loud-mouthed, obnoxious griffons, sure,” he chuckled.

“Oh yeah, I saw them arrive. Every pony says you invited them.”

“Yup. Gedwin and Gwendi are two of my best friends. No way would I not invite them,” he replied.

“I saw your family in the stands too. They’re not hard to miss,” she chuckled.

“I love them despite them being unicorns,” he replied lightly, which made her laugh.

“Number four! Number four, you’re up!” the organizer boomed.

“That’s me,” he said, standing up. “Good luck out there, Scootaloo.”

“You too, Skyblaze. Knock ‘em dead,” she said with an honest smile.

He came out onto the platform to quite a bit of applause, as well as a certain amount of eager anticipation. Because of his reputation, he knew that half of the stadium expected to see him with his head stuck in a pillar within the first minute of starting his routine…and that was just fine with him. After today, they’d finally see why he crashed so much. He looked up and around at all the pegasi, saw his family, his griffon friends, and Rainsong’s family cheering for him, then saw Celestia and Luna in their box, both of them looking down at him with smiles of anticipation. He took a breath, shivered his wings a little bit, then lifted up off the platform to begin.

At first, he slowly flew around the bottom edge of the platform, producing a few chuckles and whispers, because he flew very slowly and carefully around the edge. It wasn’t to make them think he was being funny, it was to make sure that he had his dimensions right. The base of the stadium was the foundation of the distances he’d find above, and once he was sure of the distance around the bottom of it, he’d know if his practice area was right or wrong. But that lap came down to the exact number of flaps it took him to go around his practice field, and that told him that Gold Ring’s practice stadium had been a perfect replica of this stadium. It meant that he wouldn’t have to change anything about his routine to make it fit into this stadium.

Just as the laughter started getting a bit mean-spirited, Skyblaze turned to the side and put his hooves on the wall, lifted his wings, and then absolutely rocketed off the wall, using it as a platform. He was at full speed within four wingbeats, screaming across the stadium, and screaming directly at the committee box which was on the top tier. He screamed right over them, his hooves nearly hitting the edge of the box, then turned so sharply that the red streak behind him almost looked like a corner. He buzzed the top tier of the stadium with his hooves just barely over the dividing walls between the boxes at the top, and Luna and Celestia ducked their heads with bright smiles as he whizzed directly over them, the air wake from his wings and body pulling at their flowing manes. He came all the way back around to the committee, and then nearly smacked the stallion that hated him on the head with a back hoof as he turned suddenly and dove over the side, going down at a sharp angle and across the void in the middle of the stadium. Pegasus ponies ducked frantically as he seemed to divebomb them, but at the last possible instant, he turned under the second tier, flying just over the heads of the spectators and under the roof formed by the tier above, weaving back and forth with exacting precision between the columns and supports. He came out after two laps around and into the open, streaking back across the open area, and entered the second tier. It had a much higher roof than the first tier, so he flew at high speed around the front edge, performing a constant corkscrewing barrel roll that spun him around and around the columns along the front edge, his hooves and wings just barely missing the lower wall, showing off just how precisely he could fly. The sky and stadium spun to his eyes, but his constant spinouts and rolls had taught him about knowing where he was in the air in relation to the ground, able to navigate the constant roll with practiced skill as he did two laps around the second tier, then he turned hard after passing a column and streaked directly across the stadium towards the third tier. That tier had columns much closer together, and for them he almost looked to gallop from column to column, turned sideways in his flight and landing all four hooves on each one, then almost seeming to jump to the next one as he went around the stadium. He jumped off the final column and went directly across the stadium to the fourth tier and turned inside the tier, which had sections divided by walls with large holes in them for ventilation. Skyblaze lined up with the first of them and tucked in his wings, and just barely managed to squeeze through the hole. Each hole was in a different location, and he went through every single one at high speed, grazing his hooves on a few, grazing the tank on his back on a few others, but he didn’t miss any of the holes. When he came back to where he began, he turned so sharply it looked like he bounced off a wall and flew directly across the stadium, rising up to the fifth tier. This tier had empty walls behind it in the form of arches that supported the top two tiers, and he went directly over the heads of the seated pegasi and out the arch behind them, then turned on his dust spreader as he came around. He went back in through the next arch, spreading a line of glittering dust behind him, screaming across the stadium and through the arch on the other side. He turned off the spreader as he came out and around and turned it back on when he came through the arches, and he went through the 16 arches so quickly that the line formed by his first pass had only drifted down to the next tier by the time he made the final pass. He rose up to the sixth tier, where his family was sitting, then once again did a series of barrel rolls around the columns supporting the final tier. He finished that up and streaked across the stadium again, this time hurtling directly at Celestia and Luna, but neither of them flinched as he pulled up almost at the last second and did a looping turn over them, again doing a series of much wider corkscrewing barrel rolls over the top tier, this time spreading dust in a spiral pattern behind him. He came all the way around until his dust trail met the beginning, then he flew directly in the center of it, spreading a trail of dust through the exact center of his spiraling creation over the heads of the ponies in the top tier. He then lanced ahead in a sudden burst of speed, dragging the dust he’d spread behind him in his air wake, coming all the way around and collecting it all, then careening almost straight up as he reached the committee members.

And this was the part that was going to get him in trouble.

He flew high up over the stadium dragging the dust, then turned and dove back through it, feeling the dust pepper off his goggles, yanking it back down with him with his air wake. He divebombed directly at the committee members, and they looked about to scramble for cover as he pulled out just enough to streak just inside the dividing wall…and then all that dust hit them, making them cough and creating a swirling cloud of shimmering, glittering rainbow refractions. He flew all the way down to the base of the stadium and put his hooves on the wall, galloping along it with his body sideways as his wings pushed him against the wall, and when he did a full lap, he turned on the spreader and started his finale. He flew in ovals around the base of the stadium, following the wall, then started to rotate, then turned it into the corkscrew spin he used to pull snow off the ground. He turned on the spreader again and let it empty out, the dust caught up in the swirling vortex formed behind his body, nearly a sideways tornado as the dust rotated rapidly around the column of air he formed. He ascended in his passes around the stadium, lifting the dust higher and higher, up each tier, and when he rose over the very top, he pulled the dust into a tight circle with him just inside it, his tighter and tighter turns drawing it in, very nearly forming a tornado of crystal dust. And just as he got to the point where he couldn’t possible turn any sharper, he gave a powerful sweep of his wings and jerked upwards, the move that made the tornado explode when he did the Tornado Twist. That move didn’t blow up his tornado ring, but it did make the dust shudder, then explode outwards, sending an expanding halo of glittering rainbow light flying over the stadium as the quartz dust caught the sun and refracted the light, with Skyblaze directly in front of the sun to those in the stadium below, his wings spread and his hooves out in a grand pose. He allowed himself to simply fall, fall down the very center of the stadium, then flared his wings out, pulled out of his descent, and landed lightly on the starting platform.

There was a moment of almost shocked silence, then the stadium roared into applause. Gedwin and Gwendi were jumping up and down in their box on the fifth tier, and the three Wonderbolts looked really surprised. But on the other side of the top tier, the five committee members looked down at him with very angry expressions…but he didn’t care. He showed them, he showed all of them, that his reputation in Canterlot was completely misunderstood. Yes, he crashed a lot, but if any of them ever bothered to watch more than just the crashes, they’d know that he crashed because he was always pushing himself to get better.

Skyblaze flew up to the box holding friends and family, and he got quite a few hugs and hoofbumps. “That was so awesome, Skyblaze!” Gwendi gushed as she gave him a rough hug, a very un-griffonlike thing to do.

“Yes it was, but I think dust-bombing the committee members might have been a mistake,” Silverchain chuckled, looking over and up at them. They were all giving Skyblaze a murderous look. They were all absolutely covered in glittering crystal dust, and one of them was sneezing uncontrollably. Skyblaze had managed to get almost all of it onto them.

“I couldn’t go without showing them how much I disapproved of their decision, it wouldn’t be me, Dad,” Skyblaze said lightly, which made both griffons and Rainsong laugh brightly.

“If that doesn’t win you the competition, then we’ll know that someone’s cheating,” Gedwin declared.

“It’s not over yet, Gedwin,” he said. “Scootaloo hasn’t gone yet.”

Those fears were justified. The next four participants were good, but nowhere near as good as Skyblaze’s performance had been. Then Scootaloo came up, and she awed the stadium with a demonstration of aerial agility and skill, doing all kinds of different and amazing tricks that showed off her ability, including an absolutely awesome trick where she made two clouds fire lightning back and forth between them while she all but danced between the lightning bolts. She made it clear that she was trained by a Wonderbolt in that performance, and Skyblaze wasn’t sure if he’d done enough to beat her by the time she landed and bowed while the crowd roared in approval.

And what Skyblaze felt was complete vindication, neither Cloudjumper nor Thunderhoof’s performance was even close to as good as his or Scootaloo’s.

After the last performance, all the competitors assembled on the landing platform for the award presentation. Celestia and Luna flew down with two of their guards, one of them holding the winner’s wreath, and the announcer pegasus landed on a small cloud near the top of the stadium. “We have a decision!” he called. “The winner of this year’s Young Flier’s competition, with the closest margin of victory ever in the history of the event, is…” he trailed off to heighten the tension, then he pointed down. “Scootaloo!”

There was loud cheering, of course. Skyblaze felt a little crestfallen, but not too crestfallen. He had done his best, and while it wasn’t good enough to beat Scootaloo, it was good enough to make him feel proud of his performance. He was standing next to Scootaloo, so he gave her a hoofbump of congratulations, then wheezed a bit when she gave him a sudden crushing hug, almost jumping up and down, then bowed her head when Princess Celestia approached. She placed the wreath on Scootaloo’s head, and congratulated her in a loud voice on her victory and her routine.

After the ceremony, the spectators started to depart. Skyblaze flew up to the box and landed beside his family, who gave him reassuring smiles. His parents and siblings patted him on the back in consolation, Rainsong and Gwendi hugged him, but Gedwin looked a bit annoyed, and Rainsong’s parents looked similarly troubled. “I’m not sure I agree with that,” Frost said soberly, looking up at the three Wonderbolts as they took off from their judges’ box and flew down to congratulate the winner. “I think there was a tiny bit of favoritism going on up there in that box.”

“I saw her perform, Frost. I can live with it,” Skyblaze said calmly. “I don’t think they cheated.”

“You were amazing, sweetie, and I’m proud of you,” Shimmergem told him, hugging him again.

“If anything, you got to stick it to the committee. They’ll be getting that dust out of their coats for days,” Rainsong said slyly, which made them all laugh.

He walked with his family and friends back towards the balloon, listening to them talk about the competition. He felt…weirdly okay with it. He didn’t win, and that was a blow, but he had done a good routine, he hadn’t crashed into anything, and he showed the committee and every pony who doubted him that he was not what they believed him to be. And he had flown the manes off Cloudjumper and Thunderhoof, and they knew it. That was a moral victory right there. He skidded to a stop when the three Wonderbolts landed in front of him and his family, names and faces he knew oh so well from the posters in his room. Spitfire, captain of the Wonderbolts. Soarin, second in command. And Rainbow Dash, his colthood hero and their newest member. “That was a pretty awesome routine you did, Skyblaze,” Spitfire told him. “You only lost by two points out of one hundred on our score sheets. I just wanted you to know that.”

“And that I didn’t judge any performers,” Rainbow Dash said. “I couldn’t judge Scootaloo because I’m friends with her, and it wouldn’t have been fair for any other pony if I did any judging. I was just watching like every pony else.”

“I’m glad to hear that, Miss Dash,” Silverchain said seriously, giving her a nod. “I can’t deny that there wasn’t a little bit of doubt over the results of the scoring.”

“Where did you learn to fly like that, kid?” Soarin asked.

“A week of practice in an exact replica of the stadium, built by my family and friends,” he replied, rearing up and putting a hoof over the necks of his mother and father. “I wasn’t just flying around randomly in there, sir. I knew exactly where I was going and how much room I had to do those tricks, thanks to my brother Gold Ring, who was the one that helped us build our practice stadium.”

“Still, that was majorly impressive,” he said with an approving nod. “And it was more than just practice in that stadium, kid. You had to learn how to fly like that to do what you did. I’ve only seen two other ponies that could fly like that at your age, and there’s one of them right there,” he said, pointing a hoof at Rainbow Dash. That made Skyblaze absolutely beam, being compared to his hero. “The other one won the competition.”

“So, we were talking, and since you virtually tied with Scootaloo in the competition, it wouldn’t really be fair to only give Scootaloo an invite to our next Academy class,” Spitfire said, giving Skyblaze a smile. “So, what do ya say, Skyblaze? How’d you like to attend next month’s training course?”

“Would I!” he said with sudden excitement.

“Then you’re on the roster,” she said with a nod. “We’ll send you a letter telling you exactly when and where you’re going. And don’t expect us to go easy on ya!” she warned. “We’ve seen what you can do, kid, so you’d better not disappoint us!”

The three Wonderbolts flew off, leaving a nearly ecstatic Skyblaze to celebrate his little victory with his family. He may not have won the competition, but he did just get himself an invitation to the Wonderbolt Academy…which had been what it had all been about in the first place. He traded hoofbumps with his griffon friends, hugged his family and Rainsong, and almost pranced with them towards their balloon, feeling like he’d just finished the first and biggest step towards his dream of becoming a Wonderbolt. He’d earned a coveted invitation to their academy, and if he did well there, they’d know who he was. And with time and lots of hard work, he might someday find himself wearing a Wonderbolt uniform.

He felt like he was well on his way to accomplishing his dream.

“Well, that just made all this worth it,” Gedwin said with a chuckle as they started back for the balloon. “And now I’m kinda interested. Maybe we’ll try out this competition next year, sis.”

“Yeah, we need to show these pegasi what real flying is,” she agreed haughtily, then she wheezed a bit when Rainsong whacked her on the rump with her wing.

The Wonderbolts weren’t the only surprise visitors. Princess Celestia and Princess Luna landed in front of them just before they reached the balloon, and they all bowed to them as the tall, regal sisters folded back their wings and stepped up to Skyblaze. “You did Canterlot proud, Skyblaze,” Celestia said in a warm voice. “I’m very proud of you.”

“I tried my best, your Highness,” he told her, looking up at her. “It just wasn’t good enough today. Maybe next time it will be.”

“I have little doubt,” she smiled.

“I’ll work twice as hard,” he declared. “So that means I’ll be laying out on the castle grounds at least twice a week from now on.”

The two sisters gave him a look, then both laughed helplessly. “Are you trying to add to my collection?” Celestia asked.

“Not intentionally, ma’am,” he replied, a bit playfully. “It gives your collection more value if you earn all the feathers.”

“Collection?” Shimmergem asked, looking at Skyblaze.

“She keeps all the feathers I lose when I crash on the palace grounds,” he replied with a smile. That made his family and friends laugh.

“That goes without saying,” she murmured, then Luna stepped up.

“Skyblaze, you will report to the palace tomorrow just after sunrise,” she told him. “There is something we wish you to do.”

“Your skills as a delivery pony are quite well known, and we know that you can fly long distances and not get lost or drift off course, which will serve you well in this task,” Celestia smiled.

“Of course, your Highness!” he replied eagerly.

“Then come see us just after sunrise tomorrow. We’ll tell you more about it then.”

“I’ll be there right after breakfast,” he nodded.

“Just to warn you, come ready to spend two or three days on your trip. You will be going a long way, my young pegasus.”

“I will, ma’am,” he nodded.

“Then report to the palace in the morning,” Luna told him, then she looked to Celestia. They nodded to each other knowingly, then they both opened their wings. “We need to go congratulate Scootaloo on her victory. Until tomorrow, Skyblaze.” They all bowed again as the two royal sisters took flight, heading back for the stadium.

“Ooooohhh, working for the palace now,” Prism grinned at him. “You’re moving up in the world, brother!”

“I just hope I don’t mess it up,” he said nervously. “Sure, I talk to Princess Celestia sometimes, but I’ve never worked for her before. That makes it way different. I don’t want to disappoint her.”

“I’m sure you won’t,” Silverchain said with a proud look on his face. “You’ve never disappointed us, so you’ll never disappoint the Princess.”

Skyblaze gave his father a look of gratittude, overjoyed to hear that despite how different he was from his family, they had never felt that he was a disappointment to them. “Thanks, Dad.”

“Any time, Skyblaze. Now let’s head home and have a big dinner to celebrate you getting that invitation to the academy,” he said grandly. “Gedwin, Gwendi, we’d love to have you join us.”

“Free food? We never say no to free food!” Gedwin declared with a grin on his beak.

“You’re earning it this time, Gedwin,” Shimmergem said playfully. “You abnd Gwendi are pulling the balloon back to Canterlot.”

“No sweat, Misses Stardust,” he said swaggeringly. “But if we’re pulling, then you’d better tie yourself to the gondola. It’s gonna be an exciting trip.”

That made his parents laugh “The sicker we get on the way back, the smaller your dinner,” Silverchain warned.

“Nuts. I guess we’d better behave, sis,” Gedwin said, prancing a tiny bit.

“Yeah, free food is way more important than having a little fun,” she agreed.

His family climbed into the balloon, and the griffons took the rope in their taloned forepaws and started pulling it back to Canterlot with Rainsong, Skyblaze, and Rainsong’s parents flying alongside the gondola. Skyblaze looked back at Cloudsdale as they flew away, feeling…well, feeling eager. He may have lost the competition, but he had done his best, and if any pony was going to beat him, he was glad it was Scootaloo. He liked her, and he was happy to see a pony he liked win something important to her. Besides, he got his own invitation to the academy, so he hadn’t really lost much more than the wreath. He had shown every pony that he really could fly, and now he was going to work for the Princesses. From the sound of it, they wanted him to deliver something for them and take it a long way and it just might be pretty valuable. It was what he did for his parents, carry really valuable things a long way, and while he was a little nervous about not wanting to disappoint them, he was pretty sure he could do it for Princess Celestia and Princess Luna.

It hadn’t gone as he’d hoped it would, but he couldn’t be disappointed with the result. With a job for the Princesses and that training course for the Wonderbolts in his future, he really had something to look forward to now that the immediate focus of his life, the competition, was in the books. He had new challenges to prepare for, and that always made Skyblaze happy.

He has the feeling that the next month or so was going to be very interesting.

Author's Notes:

Someday I'll write the next story about Skyblaze's adventures working as a Royal delivery pony, but it will have to wait. I'm currently heavily backlogged with my other work (in other genres), and simply don't have the time right now.