So after giving Rainbow Dash a brief pep talk http://www.furaffinity.net/view/7533259 I faced my review from the abrasive Captain Firewing of Royal Equestrian Guard in my Equestria dreamscape. As much as I did not like Captain Firewing I kept reminding myself of one thing as the morning progressed. Captain Firewing was here because Princess Celestia and Princess Luna felt he was the most qualified to evaluate how well my flying skills were advancing. They even went so far as to provide some of my background to him under oath of secrecy. Therefore as much as I did not like him, he was under orders from the Princesses. Also Captain Firewing is the Chief Flight Evaluation Officer for the Wonderbolts. If I screwed this up I could also mess up Rainbow Dash's chances of joining them some day. So I bit my tongue and tried to do my best for Dash and I.

So the evaluation began. It became very clear why Rainbow Dash had gone over all that pre-flight stuff with me a day or so ago when the Captain started quizzing my knowledge of flight. Surprisingly the young foals book "Flappy, the Fearless Flyer!" actually provided me one of the answers to Firewing's questions. In general the Captain stayed focus on the topic of flight and dialed back the abusive language and comments quite a bit. He was hardly the most charming fellow but at least he kept to the topic at hand. In particular he made no further disparaging comments about Petina and Carousel. Especially after I made the pointed observation that it seem rather inappropriate for a officer and a gentle-stallion to make such crass comments about a mare. Especially a unicorn mare who had the ear of Princess Celestia and was the student of Celestia's protege. He grinned and replied. "Well you can think on your hooves sometimes. That's something." Whee! Victory point for me.

After the morning oral exam it was on to the actual flight part of the exam. Firewing appeared to be sincere when he said "Still for a pony who is less than one year old I guess you are salvageable." Needless to say he found numerous small, nagging things I could improve upon. Thank goodness I had really hit the books in the evening because at least I was able to parse half of what the Captain was saying without having to ask him for further explanation as we flew around Ponyville and the immediately outlying areas. By early afternoon I had put quite a few miles under my wings. After a short break on a cloud we got to the one part of the evaluation I was somewhat concerned about. Spin recovery. I had gotten good at but it is still very disconcerting to go through. Still I did okay in both inverted and rolling spin. At least it was a beautiful day to be flying.

Having just recovered from my latest spin, Firewing gesture for me to start climbing with him. Taking advantage of the rising thermals from the warming land we slowly flapped our way higher and higher into the now brilliant ultramarine blue sky. Eventually we leveled off at what I guess was over 5,000 feet. Continuing to take advantage of what thermal lift we could still find Firewing put us into a large, slow, lazy orbit over the fields and farms of Ponyville. Instinctively I pulled into formation as Firewing's wing-pony. The air flowing around and through his armor caused it to rattle, moan and growl in a rather ominous fashion. The deep crimson bristles of his helmet crest hissed in the slipstream. Glancing over his wing back at me Captain Firewing shouted over the sound of the slipstream. "So Sky Brush tell me what are the main reasons a pegasus goes into a stall?" For several seconds I pondered his question before replying. "Well a stall is result of losing sufficient lift over one's wings while in flight. So for that to a occur a pegasus would have to unaware and fail to notice that they were entering stall conditions." Firewing grunted at my reply. "Fair enough answer, but what would cause a pegasus to not notice they were entering a stall?" "Well Captain, the pegasus would have to be disoriented or distracted to fail and notice the danger signs. I guess if one was flying while drunk, ill, exhausted, or injured the pegasus would be in more danger of losing track of their flight speed." The Captain looked back at me again. "What about bird strikes on a pegasus?" "Hmmm." I ponder. "I guess if the pegasus was traveling fast enough and the bird was large enough and caught the pegasus off guard I guess……" Suddenly Firewing kicked in me in the head with his hind hooves.

The kick didn't knock me out but it still rang my bell really good! I had pretty stars in front of me and for a moment. The first thought I had was. "That hurt! Damn it that jerk kicked! Ugh, he got me pretty good. The whole world is spinning." Then I realized it was not that whole world was spinning but I was. I was in a spin. A bad one. I was tumbling out of the sky end over end. My view was of the ground then the sky with Captain Firewing about six feet above me in a dive then the ground, the sky and clouds, more ground.Through the ringing in my ears and the wind whipping around me I could hear Firewing yelling at me. "Bird strike Sky Brush! You've been hit in the head and are falling out of control! You're losing altitude quick. What do you do?" Besides resisting the urge to punch Captain Smart ass in the face, the first thing I needed to do was stop tumbling. I took several tries, and more lost altitude, before I was at least falling face down. Ignoring the ground coming up I nosed forward and picked up speed. Then I initiated a pull out. I don't know how long I was falling but I had less than a thousand feet beneath when I finally level off. Not giving a damn if he approved or not I turned into the wind set up for a landing. Firewing made no comment of this and followed me down for a landing to.

Successful at getting my four hooves on the ground I just stood there with eyes closed for a second panting as the full effect of the adrenaline surge wore off. I was shaking quite a bit from the ordeal. Captain Firewing just stood there stoically watching me saying nothing. Finally after a couple more seconds of getting myself under control I looked up and yelled at him. "You Ass! You could've killed me up there!" I stomped over and leaned forward into his face. "If that was half-assed attempt to kill me it just failed! I don't care if you don't like me or my friends, and I know you are member of Royal Court! But I am pretty certain the Royal Sisters did not give you the authority to kill ponies on a whim! Give me one good reason I should have you brought on charges of attempted murder!" Through my entire rant Firewing just stood there with that same stoic look on his face staring me in the eyes. Finally after I was finished he said in a bland tone voice. "You can write the sisters if you want, but I didn't just attempt to murder you." "Then what and the hay was that you did up there at 5,000 feet off the ground!?" I roared. "Sure looked and felt like an assault to me!" Firewing just sighed and closed eyes for a second then slowly replied. "Son, if I had wanted to murder you I would have would've kicked you a lot harder or would've had ample opportunity to finish the job as you fell out of the sky like a brick." He nodded his head to the right. "There is stream that is still runs strong even in the fall. Go over and get a drink and splash some water on your head. It'll help. He then gestured with his left front hoof. When you're done join me under that tree. We need to talk." I just glared at him for a moment then grudgingly went and got a drink.

Dunking my head in cool stream did help, and I actually was rather parched from the mornings flying so the water tasted cool and sweet on the tongue. Shaking the excess water off my head I tried to make sense of what had just happened. Firewing said he was not trying to kill me up there just a few minutes ago, but the bump on my head and roaring headache I now had from his well placed kick sure said something else. Never mind the near fatal fall out of the sky. I had half a thought to just fly off and leave old iron butt sitting there under the tree, but grudgingly I found myself slowly walking across the field toward him. I found Firewing resting under a large oak tree calmly admiring the mid autumn afternoon. He was chewing on a some small leaves that he had obviously recently collected and had piled beside himself. Still trying to keep my emotions in check I came to a stop in front of him. "Okay, care to explain what you did up there?" Still chewing on mouthful of the leaves Firewing looked up at me. "Sit." He mumbled his mouth full of leaves. Warily I sat down next to him. "Try these." He said pointing with his muzzle at the pile of gathered leaves. "There called Foalsmane. They are good at relieving muscle pains and headaches. They don't taste great but they work fast." Gingerly I picked up several of the leaves with my lips and cautiously began chewing them. He was not kidding about the taste. My tongue was quickly coated with a bitter metallic taste. With a great deal of effort I forced myself to not spit them out and swallow them instead. Great, now I really wanted another drink of the water.

Having finished his mouthful of Foalsmane, Firewing looked up at the glorious afternoon sky. From across the valley you could see the weather ponies slowly assembling the clouds for the scheduled early evening showers. After a minute or so he spoke. His eyes still fixated on the cumulus clouds that floated overhead. "So Sky Brush, why do you think I did what I did up there?" I just stared up the same beautiful sky, there was an afternoon breeze that was growing in strength. It felt good blowing through my mane. Finding no answers in the heavens I sighed. "I have no idea why you did it. You're right about being able to finish me off if you had wanted to so either you had some other reason for it or you suddenly got cold hooves and decided you couldn't finish the deed." Firewing threw back his head and laughed. His scale armor on his neck tinkled like raindrops on stone. "Oh that is great! No one has accused me of getting cold hooves for quite awhile. Usually it's the very opposite."

He stopped for a moment and regained his composure. "No I did that because I wanted to test you in a real emergency spin situation." "Well what were all those other maneuvers you put me through!" I growled. " Flat spin, roll spin, inverted spin, they sure weren't dance steps for the Gala!" Firewing just gave me a long suffering stare. "Yes all those maneuvers were neat, clinical, and completely artificial. Except for acrobatics flying, which you are no where ready for yet, pegasus usually don't entering into a stall unless it is an unexpected and uncontrolled situation. You did very good when I told you to stall, but you were prepared and ready for it. When presented with a sudden, dramatic and unplanned situation it took you far longer to respond and recover from it." I rolled my eyes. "Well yeah! Only because you kicked me in the head! I felt like had just gotten my bell rung." Firewing started to get an annoying smirk on his face. "Yes that is just what a bird strike feels like. Trust I've had a few in my time, and no this helmet doesn't do much to help blunt the blow if you get hit in the head. So you were suddenly and violently presented with a real world situation. If you had been flying lower you might not had enough time to recover from that tumble and you'd be a crater in some farmers field. That is why took you up so high to give as much time as i could for you to recovery." He looked back at the sky again before continuing. " I wasn't certain you'd recovered so I held formation with you as you tumbled. If you hadn't recovered in another second or so I would've had to intervened and rescued you. " I stared incredulously at him. "Could you have saved me?" The captain of the Royal Guard just shrugged causing his armor to shift and clang a bit. "Yes I believe I could've under the circumstances." I leaned forward. "And what if you had not been able stop my fall and yours?" He sighed. "Then I would've joined you in that crater out in some farmers field, and this time tomorrow the Royal Sister would have been interviewing a new pony for my position in the palace."

That kind of took me back. This stallion who until recently had never known of me, much less actually met me, had been willing to put himself in position where he might have to throw his life away to save effectively a complete stranger in a test. "So Captain Firewing, how did I do today during my evaluation?" The Captain stared at me for a moment. "For someone who has never flown until just a few weeks ago not bad. Not great, and you have a long way to go. But not bad. If you stick to your practice and follow your instructor's advice you'll probably end up an okay flyer.

Having found a tiny chink in his armor I decided to ask the other nagging question in my mind. "Does my performance today reflect poorly on Rainbow Dash?" That appear to catch Firewing off guard. "What is that suppose to mean?" I looked at the ground and scuffed my right front hoof at it. "It is pretty well known that Dash dreams of joining the Wonderbolts some day, and that getting into the team is very difficult due to the nature of what they do and all the applicants that try to join. She is concerned, and so am I, that if I performed poorly today that my actions would reflect poorly on her character and leadership abilities. I was worried that it might be enough to tip the scales against her and result in her being rejected. After all you are the Chief Flight Evaluation Officer for them. "

Firewing rolled his tongue around in his mouth before replying. "Rainbow Dash's flight instruction of you does not reflect poorly on her. In fact she has done fairly good at getting someone who wasn't even walking on four hooves a year ago up in the air." Okay that answered one question I had been wondering about. How much had the Sisters told him about my other forms. He continued. "Rainbow Dash's biggest problem is not her flying ability. She has plenty of raw potential, or her capability to motivate others. And loyalty is not in question. After all she is the Element of Loyalty." He stopped to collect his thoughts before continuing. "Her biggest liability is her own rash, irresponsible behavior, lack of foresight and the ability to assess risk. She counts too much on her vast pool of raw talent to get her out of bad situations. That kind of behavior can work for awhile with an individual but in a team it can lead to disaster in our line of work." I sighed. "So she doesn't stand a chance getting on the team?" Firewing glared at me. "That is not what I said. If she develops the discipline and learns to apply herself in more focused fashion then I believe she could be a fine member of the team!" Then he lean over and stared me in the eye. "And you never heard that from me. Understood. I know a secret about you, and now you know one about me. I expect you to respect mine as much as I respect yours. I don't like you because what you and your two mare friends represent as a possible sources of instability to Equestria. An sources of instability that even the Royal Sisters have a limited number of options in dealing with. I don't know everything the Sisters know about you but what I do know is that you are being of far more potential than what you are showing, and that white unicorn mare friend of yours is even more alarming than you in many ways. You should make more of an effort to keep her reined in."

At that Captain Firewing got to his hooves. "We should get back to Sweet Apple Acres. Your instructor is probably starting to get worried about you. Is the Foalsmane helping?" I paused and realized that worse of headache had abated. It was still there but I could ignore it. "Yeah, I can fly." "Good!" Grunted the Captain. "Lets get you home before sunset. Since you have no experience in low light flying yet." With that we took off into the now late afternoon sun.