Ascension

by BlazzingInferno

Good Morning, Princess

“Help me! Please, somepony help me!”

Cloud Walker could barely hear her own voice anymore. She’d shouted those words for what felt like hours. Now her dry throat could barely manage a whisper.

She was floating in an endless blue void with only stars for light. There was no ground, no familiar constellations, and nopony else. Moving was impossible. Her wings were on fire from her attempts to fly. Her legs were numb from trying to gain purchase on the ground that just wasn’t there.

“I just want to go home… just want to go home…”

Something moved on the periphery of her vision, a glistening black thing. Was it another pony? A monster? She didn’t care. Being eaten or sent home held equal appeal.

“Over here… come… come and get me… do something.”

“My little pony, how did you get here?”

Her bloodshot eyes slowly traveled up the figure in front of her. She saw silver shoes, a deep blue coat, and a black chest plate adorned with a white moon. The pony’s name was already forming on her lips by the time she saw her face.

“Princess Luna?”

A great wing wrapped around her trembling body and the princess’s horn began to glow. Luna was carrying her through the endless expanse.

“Come, we must find my sister. There is much to discuss.”

“I just want to go home, please just send me back.”

Luna stared into her eyes. “Once you’ve ascended, there is no going back.”

---

Cloud Walker rolled over in bed. It felt too early for the sun to be up. How many petitions had she signed to get daybreak push back an hour on weekends? She’d lost count. Oh well, no time to rest. Not in this town, at least.

She didn’t want to open her eyes. If she did she wouldn’t see her comfortable one-room apartment. She wouldn’t even see the snug little cot she’d slept in her entire adult life. All of that was gone, perhaps forever.

Reluctantly, she opened one eye. This room was a mansion. Crossing from one side to the other took thirty seconds, a good twenty five more than it needed to. Why waste all this space on a single bedroom? Nopony needed this, especially not her.

Then there was the furniture.

That dresser was simply too big. All her old clothes fit in the lower left drawer with room to spare. The rest were reserved for her new wardrobe, most of it picked by somepony else, and all of it completely unnecessary. A few outfits were enough for all her old day-to-day activities: one to wear, one to wash, and one for emergencies.

The gargantuan bed was even worse; it felt bigger than the whole of her old apartment and far too soft. Four pillars stood at its corners and held up a colorful tapestry of a forest scene. It was by no means an unpleasant picture, but it did nothing to help her sleep. When she couldn’t reach either edge of the mattress in the middle of the night the last thing she wanted to do was look up and wonder why she was sleeping in the woods.

“Curtains, that’s what I need. Where’s my notebook? Ugh.”

The notebook was just where she’d left it, atop that giant dresser on the other side of the world. She rolled one, two, three times and finally reached the edge of the bed. After kicking her hooves free of the sheets and she started her sojourn across the room.

She held her wings open as she walked. That did more to wake her up than an alarm clock or steaming cup of tea ever could. The wind in her feathers, however soft, was all she needed to get her blood moving.

“There has to be a nice little broom closet that I could sleep in… enough room for few blankets, a bathroom down the hall…”

She stopped, as she always did, at the full length mirror. Her white mane spilled over her yellow coat in a mess of tangles. Slowly, with a trembling hoof, she reached up above her forehead and touched the thing sprouting out of her head. Her horn felt cold and hard, a foreign and unwelcome addition to her lanky frame.

“What if I sawed you off? Would I still be an alicorn? Would I die? Would I just get to go back home?”

Better not write that in the notebook. If somepony else read it she’d never be left to her own devices again, or be allowed to handle a knife at the dinner table for that matter.

Her gaze moved from her new appendage to the reflection of the window on the opposite wall. At last she’d found something familiar. She turned and started the half-minute walk from mirror to window. When she finally reached it she set her hooves on the sill and gazed into the sky. From here should could just barely see it; a large blob of clouds surrounded by free-flowing rainbows.

She leaned forward until her horn touched the glass.

“Good morning Cloudsdale, I miss you.”

Knocking echoed across her cavernous bedroom, followed by her assistant’s voice. “Princess Cloud Walker, are you decent?”

“Decent enough, Feather Quill, come on in.”

One of the room’s double doors opened just wide enough for her assistant, a young and overeager unicorn, to slip through. Feather Quill had a big stack of paperwork floating next to her, just as she always did. Her jog from door to window ended in the deepest bow the floor would permit.

“Good morning, Princess.”

“Feather Quill, please. Call me Cloud Walker.”

“Sorry Prin… I mean Cloud… actually I can’t do that, I’m sorry. Princess Celestia was very explicit that I always use your title when addressing you.”

Cloud Walker rolled her eyes. “Of course she was. What am I late for, anyway?”

“Late? Oh nothing at all. Your first appointment doesn’t start for another ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes, great. Time enough to run a comb through my mane, maybe grab a snack… Oh, get my notebook off the dresser over there, will you?”

“At once, Princess!”

As expected, Feather Quill enveloped the requested notebook in an aura of blue magic and levitated it across the room. Cloud Walker held out a hoof to receive it.

“I’ve got to get better with magic.”

“I believe that’s your third appointment today, Princess.”

“Magic lessons?”

“Yes, with Princess Twilight Sparkle.”

“Excellent. What comes before that?”

“Let’s see…”

While Feather Quill dove into her paperwork stack, Cloud Walker quickly perused her notebook. She slid the miniature quill out of the ring binding and jotted a fresh idea or two.

“Curtains around bed… request smaller room or, barring that, bedside table with ink and quills.”

Feather Quill resorted her papers and looked at her with a bright smile. “Would you like me to take notes for you?”

“That won’t be necessary, I’ve been doing this for years. It’s turned into a comfort more than anything else. Did you you find my schedule?”

A paper slid out of the stack and floated in front of her eyes. Even if she was serious about sawing off her horn she’d never find the time. The day was booked solid from daybreak to sunset.

“Let’s start with this morning’s list: transition meeting with the new mayor of Cloudsdale, brunch with fellow princesses, magic lessons with Twilight… ‘How to be a Princess’?”

Feather Quill’s smile faltered. “That’s uh… a tentative title. P-Princess Celestia said it would be appropriate enough.”

“The lessons or their title?”

“B-both, I think.”

She returned to her notebook. “Commend Celestia on her sense of humor (sarcastic).”

Her quill darted back at forth across the paper. Simply writing out a few notes, regardless of how absurd, felt wonderful. If she could just keep this up, keep up a few of her old routines like jotting things down as they came to her, she’d master her new place in the world in no time.

“Princess?”

“Just a minute, Feather Quill.”

“That’s just it, you only have four minutes until your first appointment.”

The notebook snapped closed. Cloud Walker looked at herself in the distant mirror. “Get me a comb, a brush, and something to eat!”

Comments

[MatTheBook]

hmmm