//------------------------------//
// SUBTLETY 
// Story: Best of tubular's Flashfics 
// by tubular 
//------------------------------//

The branch snapped, a mighty, resounding crack echoing with a volume beyond normal.

Time slowed down. Every moment felt about the length of a minute. Minuscule details, like the gathered morning dew on a blade of grass below jumped out at me, embedding themselves into my memory during this state of hyperawareness.

The binoculars, cheap ones that had been produced in New Colt City—New Colt City, of all places!—slipped from my magical grasp, spinning slowly in mid-air as my hooves flailed around like wet socks.

The sudden disappearance of footing set me off balance, and I tilted even further forward, to the point where my head was beneath my hindlegs. A witness to event later claimed that my eyes had bulged out at this moment in an almost comical expression, and given the way I felt at the time, I had every reason to believe them.

I tumbled forward, and the contents of my saddlebags achieve temporary weightlessness due to the sudden downward acceleration. I would later note finding items as far as ten meters away, if this gives you any sense of the heights I’m talking about.

The sense of falling in mid-air, looking back, was both terrifying and somehow beautiful at the same time. It was a wonderfully terrifying—a terrifyingly wonderful— experience. I suppose this is what pegasi feel like, gliding about in the air, only more prolonged. The wind in their faces, the bits of clouds dispersing as you popped through one of them.

The panic as you tense up, just before hitting the ground. That last one I was no stranger to.

Managing to do half of a front-flip, I landed on my flank, in a very awkward pose. My ears were ringing right about now, so I couldn’t hear a snap, and I don’t think I felt one, but I couldn’t be sure. Since I had fallen a little forward as well as down, and onto a slanted hill, my top half proceeded to whip forwards and down, my neck making contact with the ground again. This ever-present momentum lifted my hindlegs, followed by the rest of my body, upwards and over my head, pressing my neck into an admittedly very awkward pose.

This continued for another one or two (I’m no longer sure of the number) “flips” before i settled into an awkward roll down the rest of the hill. Directed straight at the picnicking couple below. The one I was spying on.

A piece of cold toast, spread with jam, stuck to my face. My left hindhoof landed in the dressing, and the pile of hay got into my mane. Two shocked ponies leapt up, one yelling, the other gasping. When my momentum finally faded and I settled down with all four of my legs spread out, I heard the voice of the stallion, faded, as though distant. “...inoculars? Wha... ...s that all ab...”

Just before I lost consciousness, I heard the cynical voice in my head, crystal-clear.

Real subtle job, there, pal. Real subtle.

I gave into my aching body’s cry for relief, and blacked out.

[2011-07-20]