Ambition and Curiosity

by PinkamenaPictures

Chapter III

The first thing that Rainbow Dash noticed when she woke up was that she was braced on a bed in such a way that her wings did not touch the bed. Her immediate fear over that was calmed when she realised that her right wing was in a fair amount of pain. While that would not comfort most ponies, to Rainbow Dash pain meant that she could still feel her wing, and that meant that it could heal.

Upon opening her eyes, Rainbow was greeted by a room in the medical bay of the Wonderbolt Academy. She was in a small room with a bed, an end table, and a couple chairs. There was a window on the wall above the bed that provided a soft light in the room. The second thing that Rainbow noticed after opening her eyes was that her muzzle was covered in bandages. With a quick test, she found that she could still open and close her mouth with little issue, and that the injury was mostly her nose.

Having recognised two injuries, Rainbow Dash began her process of determining how badly she had crashed. First she attempted to move her front right hoof, then her left. Both moved with no issue and seemed to be no worse than scratches and bruises, maybe a cracked hoof, and she found her back hooves to be much the same. Rainbow already knew that her right wing was damaged, but she could now notice that it was in a splint rather than a full cast. When she tried moving her left wing, she was quickly made aware of a wound on the joint, probably a cut or tear.

Knowing that her injuries did not seem that bad, Rainbow Dash turned her focus to trying to remember what had happened. She remembered falling, but not landing or what made her fall in the first place. She remembered that during the fall she could not take control because her left wing had been hurt, but what had struck it she could only guess. With focus she could vaguely remember hitting the ground, but not much else.

It did not take Rainbow long to decide that it would be easier to just wait for somepony to tell her the specifics, and so she laid back and took the chance to catch up on the naps she had been losing to training.

The door into her room opened, and Rainbow woke up from her nap. A greyish-gold stallion with a brown mane and a cutie mark of a partial moon entered the room. Rainbow recognised him as Crescent Moon, the Wonderbolts’ caretaker. She did not know exactly what that meant, but did know that Crescent Moon filled the role of medic.

“I see you're up, how are you feeling?” Crescent asked while walking over to Rainbow’s bed.

“Not great, not terrible. I've been worse,” Rainbow Dash said. “How bad is my wing?”

Crescent Moon chuckled and picked up a clipboard from the end of her bed. “Your wing will be fine. You just need to rest it for a few weeks, and you'll need some physical therapy after that. You'll have a scar on your left wing, but it should heal without issue. Still, you got off lucky, from what I hear that fall would have killed most ponies.”

Although she was relieved that her injuries were minimal, Rainbow then realised the consequences of a few weeks of recovery.

“What will happen with the Applewood show?”

“There is nothing to say; you will not be near well enough to fly by then. I believe Fleetfoot will fill your role.” Crescent Moon softened his expression when he remembered that Rainbow Dash was still quite new to the Wonderbolts. “It will be the first show you miss, won’t it?”

When Rainbow offered no response, Crescent put the clipboard back onto the bed and walked towards the door. “The other Element bearers and your family have been informed of your crash, I would expect visitors soon. In the meantime, I’ll get a meal brought to you.”

The door closed behind Crescent Moon and Rainbow was left alone. Rainbow stared at the ceiling, not sure what to think. She was disappointed, that much she knew, but it was not the first time she had crashed and had to miss out on something because of the damage caused. Maybe it bothered her because it was the first time she would be unable to fly in a Wonderbolt show, or maybe it was because she was not at fault for the crash that injured her.

Normally when Rainbow crashes it is her fault and hers alone. No matter how irresponsible ponies thought she was, Rainbow Dash had always accepted that if she crashed, even if it was into another pony, then she was to blame. But there was nothing for Rainbow to say about her crash, she had no control over whether or not she fell. So Rainbow Dash was left feeling powerless and weak, with nothing to distract her from her thoughts.

After a few minutes, the door opened and somepony entered Rainbow’s room. Rainbow had been expecting Crescent Moon to return with a meal, and was surprised to see Midnight Strike in front of her when she opened her eyes.

“Hey, Dash,” Midnight said with a smile. “How are you doing?”

“Not terrible, but I’ve been better,” Rainbow Dash said dryly.

“Maybe this will help,” Midnight said with a smile as she slid a tray off her back onto her hooves. “Dinner call. We have for you… a nice lettuce and tomato salad, a couple slices of lovely wheat bread, untoasted, and a glass of cool water. It's not all bad though, Blaze made you some of her cheesecake topped with strawberries.” Midnight pointed to each item with her wingtip as she listed them.

Midnight set the tray down on the end table and pulled a chair next to the bed, while Rainbow sat up to eat. She was not particularly hungry, but knew that it was important to keep her strength up to help with her recovery.

The meal went slowly, but Midnight kept Rainbow engaged in conversation throughout. She did not want to upset Rainbow or otherwise ruin her appetite, so she kept their talk fairly casual. However, once Rainbow had finished the main meal and turned to the desert, she raised a topic of her own.

“So, what happened to me? Why did I fall, what hit me?” Rainbow Dash asked, looking straight at Midnight.

“Are you sure you want to know, Dash?” When Rainbow nodded, Midnight took a deep breath. “I can’t say for sure, but looks like a cadet -I don’t know which -crashed into one of the training obstacles and broke it. And a piece of it flew off and caught your wing. Crescent Moon wasn't available, but luckily there was a medical kit to help you with.”

It was somepony else’s mistake. It was somepony else’s crash, and she was just in the wrong place. “How is the cadet?”

“Nopony else has been checked into the med-bay, but they were found. So they can’t be that bad if Spitfire was comfortable chewing them out like she did. We heard her in her office from the locker room,” Midnight said. She had not been expecting that question, but supposed that an Element of Harmony would worry about others first.

“Good. I’m glad they’re alright,” Rainbow Dash said before leaning back as much as her brace would allow, leaving her desert untouched.

The two Wonderbolts stayed like that for sometime, Rainbow Dash laying back in thought and Midnight Strike sitting next to her trying to find something to say. As she thought about what Midnight said, Rainbow noticed something strange.

“You called me Dash,” Rainbow said, turning to look at Midnight. “You have not used my real name since we met.”

“Yeah, well your callsign seemed like it would be in poor taste.” Midnight rubbed at her neck with a hoof. “Like I would be mocking you for what happened.”

“Don't worry about it, I know you're not trying to bully me. It honestly felt a little weird to hear you call me Dash. But this does remind me: what's your callsign?”

“Shrike, like the owlbear from the foal’s stories,” Midnight responded easily and with a smile.

Hearing that made Rainbow immediately curious. She had heard some of the stories about the shrike as a filly -what pegasus hadn't? -but she couldn’t put together how Midnight Strike could be given its name beyond the similarity of the words. And, although it would not be strictly a compliment, calling somepony a shrike had an implication of strength and power. Not exactly what Wonderbolt callsigns usually referenced.

Before Rainbow could ask about Midnight’s callsign however, Crescent Moon entered the room.

“Sorry to interrupt, but the other Element bearers are here. Seems they dropped everything to meet you,” Crescent said. “I just have to get your permission to let them in.”

“Then I'll leave you to it,” Midnight stood up and started towards the door.

Once Midnight left the room, Rainbow turned to Crescent. “They already know what happened?”

“Mostly,” Crescent Moon answered. “They don't know what injuries you have, I can only tell your family that without explicit permission from you.”

I'm kind of surprised they got here so fast, wasn't Twilight supposed to be in the Crystal Empire? Rainbow thought before responding to Crescent Moon. “Bring them in.”

---

It was still a little strange to Rainbow Dash that reading could be anything but uncool, but it had become one of her favourite non-flight related pastimes. She wouldn't read just anything, she wasn't that much of an egghead, but she enjoyed adventures and fantasy.

Reading had also proven to be more than just entertainment for Rainbow. While she mostly read modern stories, she had also come across a collection of ancient pegasus myths. Although she would never admit it, after reading them she felt closer to her tribe than ever before, like she better understood what it meant to be a pegasus.

With her hobby of reading came a tradition: whenever she was grounded by a crash, she would read at least one Daring Do book. There were plenty to choose from, but since she was away from Ponyville she only had the one Pinkie Pie brought her; Daring Do and the Razor of Dreams. It was the forth in the series and was written in a much darker style than the rest, less of an adventure and almost a horror. A.K. Yearling had expressed in interviews that she had wanted to try something new after the original trilogy and quite enjoyed writing it, despite its highly critical reception.

Honestly, Rainbow was surprised that Pinkie had chosen Razor of Dreams out of all the options, and was even more surprised to find that the book belonged to Pinkie.

Normally, reading Daring Do would have been Rainbow’s first order of business when grounded, but she had decided to wait. She had been grounded -in a manner of speaking, she was still in the Wonderbolt Academy in the sky -for two weeks, and had only started the book the day before. Her reason was simple: she wanted to distract herself from the flight show in Applewood.

Spitfire and the other performers had left the Academy the day before, and Rainbow had been reading since then. The book served as a very effective distraction, drawing her in and fully engaging her in its story. She was so focused on it that she didn't notice the door open.

“Hey, Dash,”

Rainbow Dash jolted up with a cry of surprise, aggravating her wing and dropping Daring Do and the Razor of Dreams to the floor in the process. She carefully laid back into the bed with a soft groan of pain before turning her head to the open doorway.

Surprise walked over and picked up Razor of Dreams, offering it to Rainbow with an amused smile. “Now I almost wish that I had been trying to startle you.”

“Surprise,” Rainbow said once her heart calmed down.

“That should have been my line,” Surprise said with a laugh. “But anyway, I’m here to check in on you. How are you doing?”

Rainbow took Razor of Dreams and set it onto the table next to a picture of herself flying with the Wonderbolts taken from a magazine that Rarity had clipped and brought her when they visited the Academy. Rainbow knew that Surprise was asking about her missing the flight show, and was not sure how to respond.

“I’ve been worse, and I’m healing well,” Rainbow said without meeting Surprise’s eyes.

“Is that so?” Surprise asked after a moment, clearly knowing that there was more to the story. “Well then, how is Daring Do?”

“What?” Rainbow asked before remembering that she had been reading not more than a minute ago. “Oh, she’s having a nightmare.”

“You don’t need to worry about spoilers, I’ve read it before,” Surprise flipped the book into her hooves and opened it to roughly where Rainbow was reading.

“You like Daring Do?” Rainbow asked, having not thought that it would be the sort of series Surprise would like. Although she had already accepted that she really knew very little of the mare.

“Eh,” Surprise tossed the book back onto the table. “I stopped reading halfway through Stone Garden, giant snakes-creatures with manes of snakes that turn ponies to stone by looking into their eyes really broke my immersion. If A.K. wanted to use cockatrices, just write cockatrices!” Surprise paused. “Cockatrices? Cockatri?”

It was a common complaint with the Daring Do series that many of the books were far too fantastical and unrealistic, an opinion that Rainbow had recently seen for herself at a convention. But Rainbow Dash knew that Daring Do was not only A.K. Yearling’s real identity, but also that all of her books were accounts of her actual adventures. However, she did not want Rainbow telling ponies that she was real, which left Rainbow unsure of how to respond.

“Fluttershy would know,” Rainbow Dash eventually said. “She’s supposed to visit here tomorrow, you can ask her about it then.”

“I may just do that,” Surprise nodded to herself.

They stayed like that for a couple minutes, Rainbow laying in bed and Surprise sitting in one of the chairs, both lost in their own thoughts. Rainbow Dash ended up being the one to break the silence, deciding that it was a good chance to ask her questions about Surprise.

“I was wondering,” Rainbow asked, waiting to continue until Surprise turned to her. “Why is callsign Slowpoke? It is about the last thing that I would expect for you to be called.”

“Tsk, I lost the bet,” Surprise said, although she was still smiling.

“What bet?”

Her response was a quick laugh. “Blaze said that you would ask me about my callsign if I talked to you alone. I didn’t think you cared,” Surprise shrugged. “Guess I was wrong.”

It was slightly disconcerting to Rainbow that her thoughts had evidently been so clear to Blaze. She put it from her head to focus on Surprise, who had started talking while Rainbow was thinking.

“Like with every Wonderbolt’s callsign, mine is not a compliment. It’s also not a secret, which is why I didn’t think you would bother asking. So what happened is pretty simple: when I joined the Wonderbolts I was younger than most cadets, so I thought that I should try to learn everything I could. I’m sure most Wonderbolts feel the same when they join, but I didn’t know what to do about it,” Surprise spoke with animated hoof gestures despite the story not really needing them. “What I decided to do was as simple as it was stupid. When we did the obstacle course I flew slower than everypony else so that I could study their techniques and styles, and hopefully, learn how to imitate them.

“But the problem was, none of the Wonderbolts or other cadets knew who I was, or that I was -for my age -quite fast. Still, I didn’t see anything wrong with what I was doing, I was learning after all. After a few days like that, Flame Rose came to see my progress in the program-”

“Why would Flame Rose visit you as a cadet?” Rainbow interrupted.

Surprise raised an eyebrow at Rainbow, who quietly apologised. “Like I was about to explain, Flame Rose is the one who suggested that I try out for the Wonderbolts. And is the reason that I was allowed in the training program despite being too young. She wasn’t Captain yet, but she was friends with the Wonderbolt Captain then. Flame Rose knew that I could do better, and was upset that I had earned the nickname Slowpoke with the other cadets.

“Even then, it still wasn’t until she told me that her reputation was on the line that I realised why what I was doing was wrong. The point of the tests is to see what a cadet can do, and I was treating them like study material. I wised up, and put the other cadets to shame the next day. But by then, everypony already knew me as Slowpoke.”

“So, you’re Slowpoke because you didn’t think training needed to be taken seriously?” Rainbow asked.

“Yeah, more or less,” Surprise agreed. “But I gotta say, the only part of my story that is not well known is that I’m a little young to be a Wonderbolt. So why have you been trying to talk to me without anypony around?”

Rainbow Dash knew that she was a terrible liar and that Surprise was clearly quite perceptive, so she decided to tell the truth.

“When we went to Flame Rose’s retirement party, Blaze and Midnight told me that you wanted to be the Captain of the Wonderbolts and that you had connections in the EUP.”

“And those ideas just didn’t fit into your view of me?” Surprise guessed, and Rainbow nodded. “Well, I am happy to help you figure out who I am. Whatever you want to know, ask away.”

“I guess my first question is, why do you always wear your flight suit outside the Academy?” Rainbow asked, trying not to let on how much she wanted to know the answer.

“For some reason, I didn’t think you would ask that,” Surprise said. “I expected something about Flame Rose, or maybe my reasons for being a Wonderbolt. But not that.” Surprise went quiet, and Rainbow wondered if she shouldn’t have asked about it.

“I don't like how I look,” Surprise said after a moment, breaking the silence. “I'm not ugly, some ponies have even said that I'm pretty. But I don't think that. I like how my flight suit makes me look, and more than that I like how it makes me feel.” Surprise turned her head to look at the photo on Rainbow’s table. “If my picture is going to be taken, and thousands of ponies are going to see it, then that's the me I want them to see.”

“I think I understand that,” Rainbow said. “I try to present the Rainbow Dash that I want other ponies to see, even if I don’t always feel like her.”

They both fell silent, but it was much more comfortable this time. They had both shared a secret and understood each other a little better. They spent a few minutes just thinking about their conversation, until Surprise broke the silence again.

“Right!” Surprise said with a clap of her hooves. “We don’t have forever, I need to be going soon; it's my turn to make dinner. But we have time for another question, if you have one?”

“I think that I already know the answer, but do you really intend to become Captain after Spitfire?” Rainbow asked, mostly just to hear it from the mare herself.

“That’s the plan. Why, you don’t think I can do it?” Surprise’s smile made it clear enough that she did not actually think that Rainbow was trying to insult her.

“Oh, I’m sure you could,” Rainbow said confidently. “If I wasn’t aiming for the same target.”

Surprise laughed good-naturedly as she stood. “I look forward to competing with you, Rainbow Crash.”

“Just watch and learn as I become Captain, Slowpoke,” Rainbow Dash responded with a smirk.

Author's Note:

Surprise's callsign origin is inspired by Slowpoke Surprise by Metool Bard. A story that made me want to write about Surprise, the contest just gave me an excuse.