Skylight Blue
Chapter 01: Falling from a roof
Today is the day. Today is the day I must chose it. This is quite the long story, one which I am not particularly inclined to tell, but let’s just say not ALL ponies simply ‘receive’ their cutie-marks and go on to live a happy life with them. Some are forced to choose between their cutie-marks and their obligations…
Most ponies are born with their talent apparent; it just takes them some time to realize what it is. It is a magical moment in a young filly’s life when they finally figure out what their special talent is and receive the mark of that talent. I always knew what my talent was, even if I never admitted it. It consumed my mind. I do not know how, or when, but it simply latched on to my heart without me even noticing it and before I knew it, I could no longer live without it.
In my world however, things are not so simple. Even if I know what my talent is, I am still forced to make innumerous decisions regarding that talent. And today was the day. You see, where I come from, everypony must go to school to perfect their talents, I’ll be it, not all ponies do… It just so happens that I am one of the ones who will, and today is the day I must choose. My father declared it, the deadline is today, chose four of these schools, take charge of your own life. (But only in this aspect of course, I would not want you to take charge of your whole life since that would be stupid, you’re only seventeen, you don’t know anything…).
The decision I’m making is not actually as big as I make it out to seem. I still have an entire year to change my mind, but it’s a huge step for me since, you know, symbolically this is a decision that will shape my entire future. My talent is a little unorthodox for this world I suppose. It makes me happy beyond anything I could ever imagine, it allows me to be free, and flying in a beautiful ‘red’ sky is something my heart cannot possibly stop longing for. That eternal blue, the sun, the rain, anything… anything as long as I can stretch my wings and fly for a change. I hate being stuck in this stupid room. I hate being here. I hate being alone.
Being, err… me, is not always as easy as it seems. Everything, even something as simple as a rock (I will now resist the urge to debate the simplicity of a rock, let’s just not go there ok?). As I was saying, everything gains multiple facets when you are blessed with contradictory talents. A heart and a mind possessing completely opposite views on life. A mind which only possesses logic. A heart that wants nothing more than absurdity. A mind which forces me to think ahead, to think of my family, to think of supporting a family of my own, to think of being a so called ‘useful’ or ‘successful’ element of society. Not that that has any value whatsoever for happiness and success are not the same thing. That’s just it, all my heart wants is happiness, the joy to be free, the joy to follow my hopes, my dreams. My heart just wants to fly. A heart and a mind that simply cannot agree with each other.
But none of this matters, since today is the day I must choose. I do not think I have ever felt so caged in my life, the desire to run, to just go somewhere, anywhere, is so large my heart physically hurts. The sun looks so beautiful, and it’s just outside the window. I suppose that is one of the beauties of having a skylight, there is always light shining through, even in the dead of night. The rays of sun feel so warm, I just wanted to get a little closer to them, so I opened the skylight, something I had never done before. I could feel the warmth of the sun on my hands, tickling my skin. I just wanted to get a little closer, just a little bit closer… so I pulled myself up and out of the skylight. I have never been a particularly strong person; in fact, I was born little and weak but I managed to climb up onto the roof anyways. I never noticed exactly how slanted the roof of my house was, but with it being wet from last night’s rain and all, I probably should have been more careful… The sky was so beautiful; I didn’t even remember to scream as I slipped and fell right off the roof.
I knew I would not die from the fall, as I hit the ground I remembered that I would have needed to fall from at least six stories for death to be certain, but even if I had died I would not have minded. I didn’t feel any pain, I just wanted to see the sky, I just wanted to watch that sky a little longer. My eyes started to droop shut as the sun felt hot on my face. I wished I could just disappear. I did not want to be the cause of anyone’s pain, I just happened to slip, that’s all that happened really…
I saw a shift in the light behind my eyes lids as if a large shadow had just walked right over me, the air instantly went cold. My mouth was dry, but I still found the slightest bit of voice to ask whatever was now looming over me “Can’t you move just a little; I just want to see the sun?” My mind was perfectly fine with the effort to speak, my body on the other hand shuddered with the effort, it was far past its limits. My mind had always pushed my body past its limits, it is not the best habit to have, but sometimes things just need to be said and done. I passed out with the effort, the world becoming a swirling mass of blinking lights. Needless to say, I never thought I would wake up again.
And then I woke up. There were colors everywhere and they prevented my eyes from being able to decipher anything other than amorphous shapes. Blinking repeatedly only seemed to make things worse. I could hear voices, but everything just blended together in some form of colorful noisy mess, much like my brain for the most part. My brain tends to be quite abstract for the most part. I had always had difficulty in conveying my emotions because of it, thoughts and ideas were simple, but when it came to the things I loved, I immediately became choked up. I could feel something cool on my head now, a light pressure. I then realized just how heavy my head felt. I had no desire to try and figure out what was going on, so I just let myself drift off to sleep once more. My sleep was restless as I dreamed of dark basements, uncountable amounts of floors below the earth, and inhuman beasts who all spoke my name. They called for me just as they have always done, their voices soft, almost musical while their eyes bored into me like knifes.
Suddenly I felt my mind being jerked from the dream and my eyes snapped open. The first thing I saw that registered in my mind was the fact that the sun was nowhere to be seen. Great, had I just slept outside after falling off the roof for an entire day? That’s a wonderful way to get a good rest I suppose, how come no one found me? My dad surly must have come looking for me in my room; he wanted me to make those four decisions did he not? Come to think of it, why was I laying in the dirt if my yard is covered in grass? And what was that awfully high pitched sound? I turned my ears around trying to figure out where the sound was coming from, but it felt like it was bouncing around everywhere. Wait a second; did I just say I moved my ear? Voluntarily? I have never been able to move my ears. This was… strange to say the least. I tried to move my hand to touch my ears and see if they really were mine (because you never know when you might wake up with someone else’s ears) and found that I couldn’t figure out which muscles led to my hand. Was a lying with my body so contorted I simply could not tell my limbs apart? Maybe the ear I just moved was in fact my hand and I simply got the two confused? I tried moving another limb, which I thought might be my hand, or something attached to my hand at least and felt something soft slap me across the face. Maybe I wasn’t as coordinated as I thought I was…
Third time is a charm I was once told, or was it the fourth time? Either way I was going to find out where that noise was coming from even if just to figure out how to get rid of it. Falling off roofs tends to make one quite grumpy and I was certainly in no mood to talk, that decision still loomed over my head, like one of those huge air balloons they have at parades, but made of rock and silently hoping for the chance to crush me into little pieces. I don’t like things that think they can crush me into little pieces. Lost in my own thoughts, I felt a soft touch on… well, it had to be part of my body since I could feel it, even if I had no clue where that was and the thing that slapped me in the fact was lifted off it. Why had it felt so feathery? My mind races as I tried to figure out exactly what of mine was feathery, being as my body was more like bony. The only feathery thing in my life had been the wings of Pegasus I so admired when I watched My Little Pony. I may have hated it at first, but the show has a way of growing on you and I could not even imagine my life without those cute little characters now.
Focus brain damnit! I needed to figure out where my hand was and thinking about ponies was not going to help me at all. I tried moving something else and felt myself shift on the ground. The happiness at my success was short lived when I felt a jolt of pain surge through my entire body. ‘You fell of a roof remember you freaking idiot?’ That didn’t stop me from trying again, although at this point my mind was practically screaming at me. Needless to say I was forced to stop when I felt a soft touch on my forehead. I just noticed that the high pitched noise had stopped and someone was speaking to me. I tried to get my mind to focus for once in my life, but I was not entirely successful. They had an accent and it made things a little difficult to understand. I finally made out the words ‘Apple Bloom, go run an’ get Granny Smith’ and the high pitched noise, which I suddenly realized was the voice of a child replied ‘yes mam’ before scampering off. Interesting name, calling someone Apple was not unheard of, but ‘Apple Bloom’, that certainly was different…wait. Wait just one tiny little second here, did someone called apple Bloom just run off looking for Granny Smith? As in, little filly Apple Bloom? The little-yellow-blank-flank-cutie-mark-crusader-who-always-had-a-large-pink-bow-in-her-hair Apple Bloom? The one who lives at Apple Orchard? With her sister Apple Jack?
Well at least I now know for certain I fell off the roof… I probably had a pretty bad concussion as well for me to be imagining ponies calling other ponies in a colorful land filled with ponies and more ponies and just… well, PONIES! Before I could panic any more than I already was, I head the person I was now imagining to be Apple Jack ask me something.
‘oy, open yer eyes will ya? I recon yall fell from quite a height to look like this…’
My eyes were open weren’t they?
And what was with that accent? No one I knew spoke like that, or at least not all the time. Was I imagining that as well? Just how delusional could I possibly be? (Don’t answer that) I tried to squeeze a couple words out to reply to… whoever I was speaking to, but they got caught in my through and all I managed to say was some sort of cross between a hiccup and a grown, which came out unusually high pitched for me. I would have been embarrassed if not for the fact that my ribs felt as if they had just been hit with a hammer due to the strain of trying to speak. My through had gone numb with the pain and I could feel some invisible force pulling my mind back into a sea of unknown, but the person, I’ll just call him/her Apple Jack for now, was lightly taping my face preventing me from drifting off to sleep again.
‘yall can’t sleep now! I recon Apple Bloom will be back with help soon, ohh please let her hurry’
Was I in such a state what Apple Bloom needed to hurry? A flurry of movements suddenly registered in my mind and I saw a swill of yellow and orange right in front of me. The sky was lighter than before and I realized the sun must be starting to rise. That would make sense since the Apple family was always up before dawn to begin their morning chores. Wait, I’m confusing myself here, ponies don’t exist in real life… I blinked and tried to get my eyes to focus on something. First thing I saw were a straw hat and a pair of bright green eyes staring down at me. I blinked again. Apple Jacks worried face came into focus. I was seeing ponies. I was seeing ponies, more specifically, Ponyvile ponies, like Apple Jack, whom I saw, right there, in front of me.
I tried to reach out and touch her to see if she were real, but I only succeeded in slapping myself in the face again with some sort of a dark feathery thing. What was this thing? Feathers? Is this a wing? And then it finally hit me, I moved one of my limbs again, the feathery thing moved. I had a wing.
‘yall should stop moving if ya don’t wanna get hurt’
I was indeed in a lot of pain, but I had a wing and to any sensible person, randomly discovering you have a wing attached to some part of your body tops pretty much anything else you could be thinking about. My eyes focused on the mess of very dark colored limbs that lay before me, intertwined with what looked like flaming red hair, were those mine or did I land on some unfortunate pony? I feel like I’m missing something big here… I forced my muddled brain just a little further. Apple Jack, limbs, my wing, wait, my wing? (…) I’m a pony?